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dangraccoon · 2 months ago

Text

Foolish

Day 22 ~ bleeding through bandages ~ "oh, that's not good" ~

Cody

Word Count: 2418 Content: blood, mild gore, injury, blood loss, coughing up blood, ignoring medical advice, cody is oblivious to obi-wan's very obvious feelings, description of removing shrapnel from one's own wounds

A harsh cough clawed its way through his lungs and up his throat. He covered his mouth with his arm as he hacked. Pulling it away–once he felt as though he could actually breathe again–he saw the little red flecks.

Clone Marshal Commander Cody, Commander of the 7th Sky Corps and the renowned 212th Attack Battalion was not a fool. He wasn’t stupid enough not to notice when he was injured, nor was he unaware of the extent of his injuries. He was a big believer in getting help–especially of the medical variety–when needed.

But that did not stop Cody from having a to-do list that would span from Kamino to Mandalore to get through with relative speed. It did not stop his need to ensure that the medics had enough help and could save the brothers who were worse off.

No, he would seek their medics out soon–the pain in his side would force him onto an exam table whether he liked it or not–but right now there were more pressing things for him to worry about.

“Patch, do you have enough hands for triage?” he asked, tapping away at his datapad.

“Yes, sir,” his chief medical officer nodded. “And we’ve got shinies earning their first aid stripes as we speak.”

“Good. Send the status list as soon as you’ve got it. How are our supplies?”

“They’re holding for now. Probably going to need a restock next run ashore.”

“Understood. Have those shinies keep a running inventory if they’ve got nothing else to do.”

“Are you injured, sir?” Patch said, eyeing the commander.

His CMO knew him a bit too well. “Nothing that can’t wait or I can’t wrap on my own, Patch,” he said with a well-practiced ease.

Patch’s eyes narrowed skeptically. “Your personal kit stocked, or did you need an extra roll of bandages?”

“I’ve got my own,” he waved him off, starting to head off to his next task. “You’d need them more anyway.”

After he’d checked in with a few other officers–hiding his grimace behind his helmet–he finally found himself in his office, blessedly alone.

He groaned as he went through the practiced motions of removing his armor, biting the inside of his cheek as he pulled away the soaked fabric of his undersuit. Trying to position himself in a good way to see how those few minuscule fragments worked their way into his skin punched the air out of his lungs. His hand pressed against his side as he fought until his breath returned.

“Kriff,” he hissed as he opened his desk drawer. He found the small jar he’d been looking for, scowling as he opened it. He was running shorter on bacta than he realized.

He angled the lid of the canister to get a better look at his wounds. He would say that most of his good ideas were executed on the battlefield, but he was decently impressed with himself about affixing a small mirror to the bacta container.

He pulled at his aching flesh near the wound. He could just see the sharp, twisted bits of metal that were making themselves at home in the scarred skin of his abdomen.

Leaning back across the desk, he huffed out a quiet “damn it” as he strained to reach into the bottom drawer. His hand finally found purchase on the handle, sliding it open to reveal the contraband he sought.

Half a smirk pulled at his lips as he grabbed the neck of the bottle of ship-made moonshine.

He’d known about the still some of Ghost Company had set up in their quarters and while it was obviously against regulations, Cody couldn’t care less about it. He’d told them as much once they found out he knew. As long as they didn’t report for duty drunk and the still itself didn’t explode, how much harm could it reasonably do?

Right now, however, Cody was grateful for it as he pulled his knife from his belt. Boil and Waxer might’ve given him a share in a fancy bottle they’d swiped from the garbage at 79s, but the stuff still could burn the hair off a loth cat. He twisted off the cap, pouring it over his knife. It was going to sting like a bitch, but he could rationalize not taking up the medics’ time for something he could easily do himself.

He leaned back into the awkward position he needed to access those damned pieces of shrapnel. He pressed his finger against one fragment’s edge, pinching it between his fingernail and the side of his knife.

He breathed in deeply, then out and pulled, hissing at the slight tearing he inflicted on himself.

He pulled the other three pieces out with relative ease, then slathered the open wounds with bacta and wrapped his abdomen with bandages tight.

He shook his head a little, trying to clear the residual adrenaline from his mind, then went about cleaning up. He dropped his torn undersuit shirt down the recycling chute, put his supplies back in their spots, and pulled open another drawer in his desk to retrieve one of the shirts from the extra sets of blacks he had stashed.

Once he put his armor on and his blacks covered the arching wound, he finally felt as though he could go about his business as usual.

He was only able to check two more tasks from his list before he wandered into the one person he knew he couldn’t fool.

“Ah, there you are, Commander,” General Kenobi smiled warmly. “I’ve traversed half the ship looking for you.”

“Apologies, sir,” he said simply. He may not have been a fool, but Cody knew he was a terrible liar. He couldn’t lie badly if he didn’t say anything about it at all.

Anyone else wouldn’t have noticed the slight shift in the way Kenobi eyed him, but Cody knew better; he saw the minuscule falter in that charming smile, the way the curiosity in his eyes deepened with suspicion.

Cody didn’t drop the polite smile he’d affixed to his face, even as he could feel the nearly imperceptible whisper of his general’s inspection of him through the Force.

“Yes, well,” Kenobi continued. “I believe we have a debrief to go over and a strategy meeting to attend. Shall we?”

“Yes, sir,” Cody nodded, walking side by side with his general.

“Have the medics finished their headcount?” the general asked. Cody knew where he was going with this, but he supposed playing dumb was the only reasonable course of action.

“Yes, sir. Got the report a few minutes ago,” he said, pulling the list up on his datapad, and handing it over to him. “Two men were lost, and most others had minimal injuries. The worst cases have already been taken care of, and that new batch of shinies have patched up practically everyone else.”

“The worst cases have been taken care of,” Kenobi repeated, his countenance was soft and friendly, but made of durasteel. Here came the hit. “I suppose that explains why only the top half of your undersuit is clean, why you reek of bacta and that still Boil and Waxer think I don’t know about, and why you’re so protective of your left side, to the point where you’re walking on my left.”

“Observant as always, General,” Cody hummed.

“Yes, I seem to be getting better at reading your tells, haven’t I?” he deadpanned. “Why didn’t you see Patch?”

Cody almost sighed. “Patch isn’t hurting for patients, and as I said, it’s been taken care of.”

“And you think I’m concerned about our medic keeping busy in the middle of a war?” Kenobi nearly growled. The mask was slipping. “Cody–”

“There is nothing to be concerned about, sir.”

“Oh, I’d beg to differ,” Kenobi snarked with a glare.

“I’m a grown man, General Kenobi, I can take care of myse–”

Before he could finish the sentence, Kenobi grabbed his arm, dragging him behind the closing doors to his side. He pinned Cody between himself and the back wall of a storage closet.

Cody was not a fool, but he could admit where his statements may have been… ill-advised. And given the way Kenobi scowled at him, he was certain he was about to hear a list of all the ways he’d fucked up that conversation.

“I know you can take care of yourself, Cody,” Kenobi scolded. “But I am concerned about you, whether you feel I should be or not. I want to be concerned about you!”

Cody may have been a fool. He struggled to process what his general might actually be admitting to as he continued.

“It makes me crazy when you tend to your own wounds because it means that no one knows how hurt you actually are,” Kenobi huffed in a humorless laugh. “And then you pretend as though nothing even happened? I know you were too close to those grenades, I know you were hit, and I know you forgot to clean your vambrace.”

His vam–…oh. Oh, right. Damn.

“You preach to our men about accepting help when it is needed yet after every battle, the second you can hide away in that office of yours and ‘take care of it’ before anyone can call you on your hypocrisy! Maker, Cody, just– just let someone care about you.”

Cody was definitely a fool.

Kenobi’s shoulders rose and fell with the short huffs he breathed as he recovered from his outburst. He finally pushed himself upright and out of Cody’s space to turn away from him, and Cody missed the proximity immediately.

Kenobi’s eyes slid shut as he took a deep breath.

“Apologies, Commander,” he said after what felt like a small eternity, his voice still with the edges of his anger. “That was an… inappropriate outburst. Please, see the medics about your injuries before they get any worse. Don’t have me make it an order.”

The general was about to open the door when Cody stepped toward him.

“General, I’m s–” he was interrupted by a harsh cough, worse than the one he’d forgotten to clean up after before, his arm coming up to break the expelled air once more.

“Cody?” Kenobi said, all the previous frustrated tone vanished.

Cody continued to fight his own lungs for the ability to breathe again. Something wasn’t right. His right arm wrapped around his side to put pressure on those jagged little cuts. Hints of the syllables he tried to pronounce came out in gasps. “Ca– can’t–” he stammered. The coughing subsided, but the breathlessness persisted.

As Kenobi began to come to his side to support him, Cody tried to grasp at one of the shelves, his right hand painting it with that rich red that he could feel leaking from his side.

“Oh, that’s not good,” Kenobi hissed, hauling Cody against his side. “You’re going to the medbay, now.”

As they moved, Cody’s feet stumbling below him, Kenobi barked orders into his comm. Patch and another medic met them partway with a gurney, Patch muttering some sarcastic remark about not needing a medic that Cody couldn’t quite parse out as the oxygen mask slipped over his face.

He should be focusing on the steady supply of that precious gas being pushed into his lungs, but all he could seem to notice was Kenobi.

His general moved with them of course, taking in all the information Patch rattled off, offering his own insights when Cody didn’t answer.

“He’s losing a lot of blood,” the other medic called as they arrived in the medbay. Fluke, his brain supplied his name.

Patch had run off for specific supplies as Fluke pulled away the armor in his way, throwing it carelessly behind him. He didn’t hesitate to cut away the flexible midsection of his kit, nor the black undersuit beneath it.

“Kriff,” he hissed as Patch came back with a scanner. “Patch he used bacta, he’s already knitting back up.”

“Damnit,” Patch snarled. “How far’s it gone?”

“Maybe 60, 70 percent.”

“Kriff. Cody, we’ll need to open your chest if this scan shows you missed one of the frags.”

Cody had just enough presence of mind to roll his eyes.

“And I thought 16-year-old Anakin was stubborn,” Kenobi snarked, but his voice held just a slight shake that should have rattled Cody. “He looks like he’s going to pass o–”

“–at’s fine. – have to kno– –yway.”

—

Then Cody opened his eyes. He knew he was in the medbay. He must not have gotten all of that shrapnel like he thought he had. He knew he must’ve been in a tank after they got it out if the way he smelled was any indication. He knew that he’d be berated by Patch–he supposed it was a slight comfort that Fluke was new enough that he didn’t quite have the nerves to growl at stubborn COs, though he was sure he’d find his way soon–and by the General.

“Welcome back,” the General said from his side, nearly startling him.

“General,” he croaked in greeting. He moved to sit up but hissed as his side ached. “Guess I… missed a piece?”

“Two, actually.” Kenobi watched his struggle with a slightly bemused smile. “I don’t suppose you’ve learned any lessons, have you?”

Cody huffed out what could generously be called a chuckle. “Me? Never, sir.”

Despite his exasperation, Kenobi smiled as he shook his head in disbelief. “Before the war, for a decade, I was sure it was raising Anakin that would send me to an early grave.”

“Bit of a handful, sir?”

“Cody, stop trying to talk,” Kenobi smirked. “Your throat’s probably killing you right about now and we don’t need you to make it worse.”

Cody would be lying if he said he hadn’t thought of sticking his tongue out in protest.

“I know better now,” the general continued. “No, what’s going to kill me is you. And your crazy brothers.”

The haze of anesthesia and bacta still clouded his mind, so Cody, very smartly said “What?”

Kenobi chuckled. “It won’t be the war that kills me, my dear,” he hummed. “It’ll be the stress of worrying over you, you foolish man.”

Cody felt his face and neck heat.

“I care for you, Cody,” the general whispered, gently taking Cody’s hand in his. “Quite deeply.”

Cody blinked as he struggled to put the words together. “You… about me?”

Kenobi smiled, warming Cody’s face even more. “Perhaps we’ll reopen this discussion once you’re not on pain meds.”

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