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A part of Obi-Wan could admit to himself how ridiculous this all was, him trying to hide from his own medics in his own capital ship. But at the same time, he knew that seeing them right now, when the battalion technically had a chance for some downtime after several back-to-back missions, would result in yet another tense conversation about his sleep schedule, or more the lack thereof. He knew that he hadn’t slept enough or restfully in a while at least, he could feel it like extra weight on his body, setting him more on the edge than he would preferably be. Between the war and the matters of the Order the Council tried to keep up with, he was constantly torn every which way, needing to be reachable at any time of day. It led to broken sleep, rest caught wherever it could be squeezed in. He knew that he was burning his candle from both ends, but right now he didn’t have the energy to discuss it with Bones.
He silenced the notifications he kept getting on his pad as rounded a corner, looking for a quiet spot in the ship, just somewhere where he could catch his breath, where he wouldn’t need to constantly prioritize. The area was starting to turn from the more official parts of the ship into one of the storage areas. It was as quiet as usual, only an occasional member of the support staff working among the pathways that winded around the boxes and crates. But among them was one presence that in its familiarity attracted his attention like the sun drew a flower. Out of curiosity, he wove his way among the shelves and stacks of crates to find his commander.
It wasn’t exactly what he expected to find, his commander muttering what sounded suspiciously like curses as he worked with something. Obi-Wan tried to hide his fond amusement at the more human side that the commander so meticulously during more public moments and cleared his throat to announce his presence. As Cody instinctively straightened and turned, he could see the medical supplies on the crate in front of him.
”Can I help you, sir?” Cody’s expression was as neutral as ever, even though he knew that Obi-Wan could easily deduce what he was doing.
”Not right now, no. Unless you can hide me.”
Cody’s brow rose to meet his and he glanced at the pad Obi-Wan had with him. ”From anyone specifically?”
A small smile tugged at Obi-wan’s lips as he gave a pointed look at the medical supplies spread out. ”I suspect that we have somewhat the same goal here.” He raised his hands calmingly at the immediate inspective once-over that that earned him. ”I’m not trying to avoid treatment, just to delay a repeat of a conversation that I know is coming. But meanwhile you, dear commander…” His eyes drifted meaningfully to the disinfectant, gauze and bacta patches on the crate.
Cody looked only mildly chastised. ”I’m not so much avoiding treatment, sir. Just… delaying it a bit. I’ll eventually go see Bones about it, but I cannot be bound to the med bay at the moment.”
Obi-Wan couldn’t help but chuckle at the swiftness with which the commander turned his own reasons against him to make sure he couldn’t push him on the matter without becoming a hypocrite.
”I trust your judgement on the matter,” he conceded. Cody was a reasonable and smart man; he could assess what level of medical care he needed. His eyes caught the slight flexing and curling the commander kept doing with his left hand, as if to get the blood flowing back to a limb that had fallen asleep. And from that, it wasn’t hard to locate the burn marks on his side, masking in the dark fabric of the blacks. ”Electricity?”
”Yes. One of the locals got lucky with their staff but didn’t manage to burn all the way through. So it’s just a local burn and some numbness that’s already easing.”
Obi-Wan nodded. The locals had been a bit more hostile than anticipated, resulting in more injuries in the company, but luckily few of them were life-threatening. That almost made the mission a success, even though they hadn’t managed to fulfil all their mission objectives.
”Would you like some help?” he offered. Numbness explained Cody’s earlier frustration. Obi-Wan himself had fought with the fiddly medical supplies in a rush or with limited mobility.
Cody considered it, glancing back at the supplies before nodding slightly. He stepped aside to let Obi-Wan by the crate.
”Can you remove your blacks?” he asked as he opened the disinfectant, but a small hiss of pain got him to turn and look.
”It’s okay. The fabric’s just a bit caught,” Cody reassured as he gingerly pulled the side of his blacks up. Indeed, the burned fabric and the bits of dried-up fluid from the injury clung together, pulling on the raw blistered skin underneath.
”Does it hurt?” Obi-Wan asked as he knelt to inspect the injury. Luckily it was just a contact burn in a relatively small area, even though the skin is raw and blistered.
”It’s not that bad. The numbness actually helps a bit.” Obi-Wan could hear the hint of amusement in the commander’s voice, even as he reflectively tensed at the sting of the disinfectant.
”You could always take some painkillers.” He knew that he had some because Bones had made sure that both of them had some in their quarters, ’just in case’. The CMO was likely at least suspecting that they weren’t showing all their mildest injuries and ailments to him.
”It’s fine. I’ll rather save them for when I genuinely need them.”
Obi-Wan glanced up to give his commander a long look and was about to comment on how there was no need for him to be in pain when he met his steady, matter-of-fact look. He knew that Cody wasn’t a masochist in his undertreatment. In fact, it was unfortunately common among all his men for them to rather grit their teeth and carry on, rather than use supplies when it wasn’t absolutely necessary, reusing and repurposing whatever they could, even when there were no likely limitations for supplies in the near future. The certain austerity and frugality seemed to have been ingrained into them all, likely because they owned so very little and what they used would at worst of times be from one of their brothers in the future. It was something that despite his reassurances that he would always do his very best to make sure that they would have enough supplies, Obi-Wan hadn't yet managed to counter very well. And as much as he didn’t say it out loud, the uncertainty of war could easily flip their situation in a moment. So he just sighed and shook his head as he started to clean the burn.
”What specifically keeps you too busy for the med bay this time?” he asked instead, to fill out the silence.
”I can’t relinquish my comms right now.”
Obi-Wan gave him a curious glance. Bones had made the med bay a comm-free area for all the patients, after one time getting fed up with the fifth time someone had called Obi-Wan or Cody in barely two hours with something new for them to do and had had some chosen words with one unfortunate signal officer. It was a logical and reasonable thing to do from a medical standpoint since it forced them to detach from their responsibilities for at least a little while, and they wouldn’t be completely unreachable, since other officers on the Negotiator could still easily convey any time-sensitive messages and requests.
“Is it anything I can help with?”
Cody shook his head. “Hopefully I won’t really be needed. It’s just a promise I made.” Then after a moment of silence, he elaborated: “375 th is making landfall soon.”
Understanding dawned on Obi-wan’s face. 375 th was one of the battalions under them, one which had recently faced heavy casualties, all because of bad intel. They had had to batch the command structure of the unit back together by promoting the captain and getting them a new one from Kamino, who had barely finished his officer training, to aid in the areas where Sitrep hadn’t yet been able to finish his additional training. Combined with over a third of the unit being shinies or other recent transfers, they had a steep learning curve ahead. Obi-Wan would have wanted to give them a little time to recover and get to know each other, but the war didn’t stop for anyone and they were forced to send them to Los to get back one of their bases before any sensitive information could leak.
“Sitrep knows what he’s doing, and Nix is a smart kid, he just has the jitters all shinies do. So, I promised that if they run into any problems with this mission, they can run their plans by me,” Cody explained.
Obi-Wan couldn’t help the sudden wave of fondness towards his commander. It was one of the sides of Cody that he admired the most, how ready he was to be there to nudge and help others to find their potential, supporting them when need be. “I’m sure it’ll go fine,” he agreed and took the bacta patch, starting to peel off the protective wrapper. “It’s very nice of you to be there for your brothers that way. Even despite the threat of Bones’ ire.”
He could hear Cody’s amused huff above him. “In this instance, it couldn’t be avoided, but usually I rather let the brothers take the brunt of the medics’ wrath than me.”
Obi-Wan gave him a sceptical glance as he smoothed the patch over the burn, its coolness eliciting a faint shiver. He distinctively remembered at least a handful of times when Cody had done something or other against the medics’ advice, more often than not out of loyalty for his brothers. And Cody knew that he remembered.
“After the tunnel incident I tried to aim Bones attention at least a little off by throwing Rex under the speeder, but the bastard had evidently conspired with him and I got a lecture from even trying,” Cody muttered, eliciting soft laughter from Obi-Wan as he brushed his fingers over the edges of the patch to make sure the adhesive was sticking properly and then gently brushing at the older, jagged scars close to it.
“Are you still surprised that people who care about you do their best to make sure that you take good care of yourself, my dear?” he hummed and straightened back up.
“Oh, like people are conspiring to make sure that you eat regularly?” Cody quirked an amused brow at him.
“It’s not like Waxer and Longshot are exactly subtle with it,” Obi-Wan pointed out.
“True. Waxer has been our most obvious operative for a while now,” Cody admitted as he straightened his blacks, gathered his things and gave him a small salute before turning to leave. “Anyway, thank you, sir. But I’ve some paperwork I need to at least try to do.”
“Wait, our ?” Obi-Wan blinked before catching the smile that his commander was biting back as he slipped between the crates. “Cody, what do you mean our ?” he called after him.