Notes: Written for the October 2016 BenPoe Prompathon Check out the great art and fic created for it. You can join in any time you like, no sign-up required!

The prompt is: "Stitches." After a battle, Ben surprises Poe by tending for their wounds. Who would've thought?

I hope this is what anon was looking for, and that they enjoy. I wasn't sure if they literally wanted stitches, so I included that along with more general medical aid

Chapter Summary: It's yet another desert world, and they meet as enemies.

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The First Time

"Did you see what they did?" Poe gasped for what had to be the fifth time, and stared at Kylo in open-mouthed outrage. "They shot at me!"

"I saw," Kylo replied in that long-suffering tone he had adopted after the third time. "And you hit your head."

The corpses of the Stormtroopers were scattered around the crash site, back where they had had what Poe melodramatically called their last stand.

Kylo turned around, and scowled at the murky wall of sand darkening the sky in the distance. The Stormtroopers were dead, but it didn't mean that Poe and him were saved. "The sandstorm is getting closer."

"Told you you should've let me walk."

"Right."

He shifted Poe in his arms slightly, getting a better grasp on him again after Poe's squirming had dislodged him, and the pilot's pained whimper told him everything he needed to know about Poe's walking abilities. Even being carried in his arms Poe's wounds were jostled with every step, he was all but screaming his pain into the Force.

Poe balled his hand into a sloppy fist and tried to punch his shoulder. He couldn't even get it up halfway. "I could have walked."

"Of course."

If he argued with Poe, Poe would argue back, and it would exhaust him even more.

They fell back into silence. The storm grew closer.

They reached the mountains just in time, a cave providing them with exactly the shelter Kylo had hoped for when he set out on this trek. There hadn't been enough left of either ship to provide shelter, and sandstorms could last for days on this world. He couldn't keep up a telekinetic forcefield that long.

He gently laid Poe down at the back of the cave, and tried to ignore that his hands came away red. There was unpacking to do, lights to set up before the sandstorm cut them off from what little sunlight filtered this far into the cave; but for a moment he just knelt at Poe's side, and looked down into Poe's wan, sweaty face.

"You're hurt, too." Poe's voice was slurred, but this time he managed to raise his hand enough to weakly grasp Kylo's cowl. "You got…" His face scrunched up, thinking coherently had to be hard when staying conscious took all he had out of him. "Blaster burn." He laughed shakily. "They got you with a blaster."

He couldn't help it, he had to chuckle, too. The irony of it was painful. The blaster wound in his side, near where the bowcaster had once hit him, was just as painful. "They did. This proves you were just too slow, pilot."

Kylo could read a thousand questions in Poe's beautiful brown eyes, but he placed a finger against his lips. Poe's breath hitched, but he ignored that, too. "Later."

He went through the motions with mechanical precision. Empty out the single backpack full of provisions he had been able to salvage, a pitiful loot from two ships. Set up the two emergency lights. Store away the food and water rations.

And last but not least, check the medpack.

He had left this for last since he knew what he would find.

There were two measly bacta patches left. They'd needed everything else to patch themselves up enough to make it to the cave.

"This is going to hurt," he whispered to Poe.

"It's okay." Poe chuckled weakly as he let Ben lift him upright so he could pull down his flight suit. Back at the battle site Poe had still been strong enough to do it himself. "I'm used to being hurt by you, Ben."

Kylo's hands trembled. They didn't halt.

Soon enough he had Poe's flight suit pushed down to his hips, and Poe sank back onto the ground with a sigh of relief. Kylo winced as he realized they had one of these foil blankets, but he'd forgotten to unfold it for Poe. Now he would be getting sand into his shoulder wound.

Blood was leaking out around the edges of the bacta patches on Poe's stomach.

"It's a miracle you didn't hit anything vital."

Poe gave him a weak shadow of his usual cocky grin. "Might have. But the blood's still on the inside, where it belongs."

Kylo looked down at his hands. Where the red had dried it was starting to flake. "You'll be fine. You've just got to hold on."

His hands still shook as he tore off the blood-soaked patches and replaced them with their last ones. "It's a drop in the ocean," he ground out, his voice tight from sheer frustration at his own uselessness, "you need a bacta tank or surgery, not band aids. But it's all we have left, and the antibacterial properties of the bacta should at least prevent infection."

Poe smiled again. "Always knew you'd make a cute nurse."

This was too much. It was more than he could bear.

He inhaled shakily. Tried to calm his racing heart. Tried to ignore the pounding in his ears. "Poe…"

When Kylo looked at him, Poe was waiting. He caught and held his gaze. "Why did you save me, Ben?"

Kylo slammed a bloody fist into the ground. "Stop calling me Ben!" The pain felt good, he welcomed it. It ran through him, cleaned him, and it should have reminded him of his purpose. It didn't. The only purpose he could see anymore was the one in front of him.

Poe gave him another crooked little smile. It made something flutter and twist all at once in Kylo's belly. "I can call you whatever you want. Doesn't change the fact you came to kill me, and saved me instead."

He didn't say anything. He couldn't. He just wished Poe were still woozy and complaining about the Stormtroopers.

There were no words to describe the sheer panic that had overcome him in the moment he realized the Stormtroopers weren't there to capture the pilot, but to kill him. He hadn't thought. He had just acted.

"I…" He sucked in a breath. "Let me check your shoulder."

Poe was oddly compliant as Kylo forced him to sit up again, and belatedly realized he should have swapped the bacta patches once he was done with everything else. All this moving around would just make them bleed through sooner. But it was too late now to make a better choice.

It wasn't like this was an uncommon experience to Kylo Ren.

They hadn't wasted one of their precious bacta patches on the deep, but comparatively harmless cut where Poe had ended up with a sharp piece of ship hull jabbed into his shoulder. As a result, the wound was now peppered with the fine sand that covered their shelter.

Kylo washed away the grit with water, and carefully picked out tiny fragments of plasteel with telekinesis. They must have lost the tweezers while tearing apart the pack for bacta, back at the crash site. Sweat beaded on his forehead as he worked. On normal days he used his powers to hurt. He barely remembered how to use them so as to avoid causing pain.

His shoulders slumped when he dropped the last piece into Poe's hand. "That's it. But…" He couldn't help himself. His fingertips fluttered over Poe's good shoulder. He told himself it was only exhaustion which made his self-control falter. "We have no bacta left, but we have needle and thread."

Poe tried to twist around and look at him, and promptly reared back with a hiss of pain. Kylo's hands flew up to steady him. "Are you telling me you know how to do stitches?"

Kylo's lips thinned at the sheer incredulity in Poe's voice. "Are you telling me you don't?"

"Um… I don't?" He couldn't see Poe's face, but he sounded a little bit sheepish. "That's what we have bacta patches for. They tried to teach us in flight school, but I've never been any good with a needle. Dad used to say…"

"…he'd only let you patch up the scarecrows. I remember."

Poe made a broken little noise.

Kylo squeezed his eyes shut and refused to contemplate that it had been a sob.

Poe hissed the first time the needle pierced his skin. He groaned the second time.

"Do you want to hear why I learned to sew?" Kylo asked as he gently tugged on the thread. Once more he set the pointy tip of the needle to flesh.

There was the smallest of nods.

"I was seventeen." In went the needle. Poe flinched, but his pained noise was softer this time. All his attention was on Kylo's story. "This survival expert came to the praxeum and told us she could teach us how to last in the wilderness. She talked about surviving on nothing but the things you could find in a common forest, how to chart our location by the stars at night, and tell which way was north by the moss on trees. How to make a campfire that wouldn't trail smoke. How to fish and that bugs make good protein sources. How to last the night in ice and snow. I think… I think Lu… Skywalker wanted us to be prepared. If we ever had to run."

Silence reigned again, until Poe tentatively offered, "I bet you hated it."

Kylo felt himself relax minutely. "I did. But then she talked about sewing wounds, and I still didn't care, till she joked we would be able to mend our shirts, too." The needle dug in one last time and he pulled, closing the long gash. "That's when I remembered you're terrible with a needle, and one of us would need to mend our clothes."

Poe couldn't hide his sob this time.

"Just let me take care of you now. I know we can't… I know I can't just… I'm not expecting you to…" He leaned forward, forehead against Poe's good shoulder.

Poe reached back and fumbled around till his hand found Kylo's.

Outside their cave, the sandstorm raged.

In here, everything was quiet. They had no need for words.

to be continued…