hey zip! for prompts, how about “You can lean on me.” for Cody? 👀
leo, thank you so much for the prompt! and i am so sorry this lived in my inbox for literal months but here it finally is!
tw: description of bad injury, description of blood, some casual self-hatred
All battles were gruesome. It was the first and most important lesson of war, and the one Cody would never forget as the gods averted their eyes from campaigns like these, condemning thousands of his vod’e to rot on backwater planets no one would ever visit again. Perhaps the gods only turned their gaze upon the survivors, blessing them with the chance to die in the clinical cold of medbay or sob into the warmth of their batch mates’ chests.
Cody almost always occupied a purgatory fit for one, and this battle was no exception. A deep gash in his left leg was steadily bleeding, soaking through his blacks as he limped to his quarters and away from medbay. He was hurt but the vod’e that had been carried away mid-battle were fighting for their lives and Cody wasn’t going to topple their odds just because the CC label the Kaminoans slapped onto his tube gave him undeserving priority.
He punched in the code and stumbled through the doorway, sending his armor rack tumbling to the ground as he collapsed. His breathing was labored and his bucket was sending him obnoxious alerts about his rapidly deteriorating health but none of that mattered. The only thing that mattered was he made it to his quarters and no one was going to die because he had been selfish and stupid enough to survive.
He ripped his bucket off and started dragging himself to his fresher where his med kit was kept, dutifully ignoring the way sweat stung his eyes and how salty his tears tasted.
The chime to his door went off suddenly and he stopped, panting heavily.
“Commander?”
Of course it was Obi-Wan. He was nothing if not the most annoying part of Cody’s personal purgatory.
“‘M fine. About to use the ‘fresher,” Cody shouted, hoping the door muffled the way his voice wavered.
The door slid open and Cody let his forehead fall to the ground with a thud. The godly powers that scorned him now would regret it as soon as he could find a quiet place to die and begin his journey to their thrones.
“Oh dear,” Obi-Wan mumbled as crouched in front of Cody and ran a gloved hand through his sweaty curls. “Let’s get you to med bay.”
Cody bit his lip, the tang of blood on his tongue a welcome distraction as Obi-Wan turned Cody onto his back and reached for his arms. Cody struggled out of his grasp, ignoring the shooting spikes of pain and the blood pooling below his leg.
“Cody. You need to get help.”
“No,” Cody sobbed. “I order them to die in battle. I won’t be the reason they die in medbay as well.”
Obi-Wan frowned and Cody turned away, unable to watch the concern chisel itself into his face. “If you don’t get to medbay now, a medic is going to have to come here and then they’ll be short staffed. You don’t want that though, right?”
Cody glared at him. “No.”
“Good,” Obi-Wan said as he hauled Cody up with ease.
Cody pushed off of Obi-Wan to stand on his own, refusing to cause him more trouble than he already had. It was a decision he regretted instantly as pain shot through his body and black spots clouded his vision. He wasn’t quite sure which way was up and if he was simply rocking or on a one way collision course with his bloody floor.
“You can lean on me,” Obi-Wan said as he pulled Cody’s arm over his shoulders and grabbed his waist.
The shift in weight brought an instantaneous relief as most of his pain fizzled away and his vision cleared. Their first step together brought nothing more than a dull ache and Cody was confident that some of his relief had to be from Obi-Wan’s force osik.
“Thank you,” Cody mumbled.
