Chapter Text
It doesn’t hit Poe for hours - not until after Finn has been soaked in bacta and wrapped in bandages and Doctor Kalonia has reassured Poe that Finn will recover and left him to sit beside the unconscious body of his friend, not until after the adrenaline has drained from his system and Poe is only keeping his eyes open by sheer stubbornness. Muran is dead.
The thought sends Poe bolt upright in his chair, fingers closing tightly around Finn’s limp hand. Muran is dead, which means Poe doesn’t have an Alpha anymore.
It’s not as though he and Muran had anything but a heat-partnership, and a fairly loose one at that - certainly they weren’t bonded or anything, they would have driven each other spare within days - but even in the Resistance, even under General Organa’s gimlet eye, an unmated Omega is considered fair game by far too many Alphas. Without Muran’s scent on him - without that thin layer of protection - well, Poe can think of a half-dozen Alphas just off the top of his head who would want to become Poe’s heat-partner, and none of them appeal to him at all. And even with BB-8 for backup and the General’s stern admonitions about consent, Poe’s not sure he can keep a half-dozen Alphas - or more, kriff, if they get new recruits there might easily be more than that - from making his life a misery.
And there’s not a one of the available Alphas on base who Poe would consider even having a heat-partnership with of his own free will. Back on Yavin, that might have been acceptable - back on Yavin, he could have retreated onto his family’s farm and not even the most ardent of suitors would have dared cross the property line and risk Kes Dameron’s wrath. But he’s not on Yavin, and his tiny private bunkroom is nowhere near as impregnable as the Bey-Dameron estate, nor is BB-8 so formidable a protector as Poe’s father. Not that Poe needs protecting, he’s defended himself before and almost certainly will again, but still. The last thing the Resistance needs is for Poe to have to start maiming Alphas because they can’t take no for an answer.
Poe leans down to rest his head on the bed beside Finn’s hand, exhausted and depressed. He does not need this bantha shit right now. He would prefer to never have to deal with it, but now? After Starkiller, after the Finalizer, after Jakku - Poe has never felt less competent to deal with pushy, overbearing, idiotic Alphas, and if and when any of them do give him trouble, he’s likely to do something he’ll later regret.
Poe inhales deeply, planning to empty his lungs in a sigh loud enough to fill the room, and instead gets a snootful of the most glorious Alpha scent he’s ever encountered. He’d be frankly embarrassed at the way he flails backwards, nearly falling out of his chair, except that he’s too busy being astonished.
Finn is an Alpha.
Intellectually, Poe did know that already - he got a good whiff of it while he was hugging Finn, took a little guilty pleasure in breathing in that glorious scent during those few frantic hours while they planned the Starkiller mission. But that had been nearly academic - Poe already had a heat-partner, after all, and enjoying Finn’s lovely scent was on roughly the same level as enjoying looking at a particularly attractive person, not lusting or even dreaming but just taking pleasure in the sheer beauty existent in the galaxy.
But now - now Poe needs an Alpha. And Finn is an Alpha. And Finn is - was - wearing Poe’s jacket, is already marked with Poe’s scent, and is unconscious, which means that this would give Poe a little - a little breathing space, some time to figure out what he really wants - and it’s not like it will affect Finn, after all, while he’s in a healing coma -
Poe knows it’s a bad idea, a kriffing terrible idea, even as he does it, but he raises Finn’s limp hand to press the scent-gland at his wrist to Poe’s own throat, and breathes in the heady scent of Alpha, and marks himself as Finn’s.
*
Poe is honestly a little surprised that everybody buys it. Surely there’s someone on base who realizes that he and Finn have only known each other for a total of about eight waking hours, and that there was no time for them to come to a proper agreement? But apparently the combination of Finn wearing Poe’s jacket and Poe wearing Finn’s scent - and, to be completely fair, the fact that Poe is willing to babble on about how utterly wonderful Finn is given any excuse at all - is enough to convince even the pushiest of the Resistance’s Alphas that Poe is well and truly spoken for.
It helps, Poe suspects, that Poe does spend hours every day sitting beside Finn’s bed, talking to him or singing softly or even just doing paperwork. He doesn’t want Finn to be alone when he wakes up, and Rey asked Poe specifically to look after her friend while she was away. Poe’s not stupid enough to disobey a baby Jedi, even if he hadn’t been inclined to watch over Finn anyway; but as he is inclined to keep an eye on the man who saved them all, well, he can just kill two birds with one stone.
And Finn’s sickroom is quiet and peaceful. Poe can even get some sleep there, sometimes, without nightmares waking him. Something about having Finn there, even unconscious - something about that glorious Alpha scent - makes Poe feel safe even in his dreams. Maybe the chair isn’t terribly comfortable, but Poe would rather deal with the crick in his neck than with waking every half an hour choking on his own screams. And after a few days of his vigil, Doctor Kalonia has a cot brought in for him, so Poe can sleep by Finn’s side, his fingers curled around Finn’s limp hand, and that’s even better. Poe actually manages to sleep the night through, and goes to his morning meeting with his pilots bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and - as Jess Pava points out with a cheerful leer - smelling of Finn.
This makes, by Poe’s count, a minimum of three times Finn has saved his ass. Once on the Finalizer. Once by bringing BB-8 home. And now, once again, by giving Poe his protection.
Of course, Finn doesn’t know he’s doing that, which is...awkward. And more than a little unethical on Poe’s part. But surely it won’t do any harm to let the charade stand until Finn at least wakes up? At this point, it would be pretty hard to call it off, in any case - no one is going to believe Poe Dameron dumped his Alpha while said Alpha is in a coma, for stars’ sake.
*
Finn wakes up.
Poe is, of course, ecstatic. He’s the first person Finn sees when his eyes finally open - is, in fact, sitting beside Finn with their fingers tangled together, singing a lullaby his mother used to sing to him - and the expression of utter joy on Finn’s face when he sees Poe there is one of the most beautiful things Poe has ever seen.
Finn asks about Rey, first of all, and Poe tells him that Rey is off convincing Luke Skywalker to come out of his hermitage, which makes Finn smile. And then they are interrupted by what seems like every doctor on the base, and Poe finds himself crammed back against the wall while they all fuss over Finn. It takes far too long before they’re alone again, just the two of them and BB-8 caroling its happiness by Poe’s feet, and Poe sits back down in the chair beside Finn’s bed, where Finn is propped up on pillows and looking a little dazed, and says, “So I need to apologize.”
“Why?” Finn asks, puzzled.
Poe takes a deep breath, braces himself for any response he can think of - frankly Finn would be well within his rights to be furious - and explains.
Finn blinks at him for a long moment after Poe is done, and then says, slowly, “So...that matters, here? Alpha and Beta and Omega and all that?”
Poe blinks back, and nods. “Yeah, that matters,” he says sadly.
“Huh,” says Finn, and reaches out to take Poe’s hand gently. “Well. If it makes your life easier - we could keep pretending. I don’t mind. You’re my friend.”
Poe slumps down in his chair, weak with shock and relief. “Really? I mean - it was pretty unethical, what I did. You don’t owe me anything, buddy.”
“You’re my friend,” Finn says again, shrugging. “And it’s stupid that people would give you shit for being an Omega without an Alpha, so if I can help, I want to.”
Poe takes a deep breath and curls his fingers more tightly around Finn’s. “If you’re sure, buddy, then that would - that would be wonderful. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” Finn says, smiling, and Poe looks at that glorious smile and realizes exactly how badly he has just screwed up.
How the kriff is he supposed to have a fake relationship with Finn and not fall in love?
But what other option does he have?