Work Text:
Paint/Earning Paint
or Mandalorian or Orgy/Group Sex
Aspen stared at his freshly cleaned armor and tried not to let the sickness he was feeling show on his face. He was supposed to paint it. The other no-longer-shines were excitedly talking designs, some who were more artistically inclined testing out patterns on a tablet screen. Aspen couldn’t find the same enthusiasm.
He was being stupid; it had been a near perfect engagement, with no deaths and only one serious injury. Lieutenant Waxer had said it was the best sort of fight to earn paint during, because one didn’t have to mix accomplishment with grief. Aspen knew he was right, but he still didn’t feel good.
Aspen hadn’t really earned his paint. He’d been stupid and he’d frozen, all his training leaving his mind in an instant, only coming back after Sergeant Juniper had shoved him to one side, startling him out of that buzzing, blank moment and back into reality. And now Juniper wasn’t in the room, watching his squad of shinies choose their paint, because he was still in the medbay.
The enemy insurgents, supporting their battle droid alias, had been using slug throwers and when he’d pushed Aspen, the sergeant had taken a round right between his spaulder and cuirass. Aspen couldn’t get the sound out of his head and the wound had been so much more… messy than a regular blaster bolt. There was also the way Juniper had screamed and screamed before the sergeant muted his own vocorder.
Aspen hadn’t known that a medic had gotten to Juniper in time until after the battle. The intervention had snapped him out of his first-battle terror and he’d gotten to work, pushing aside the knowledge that his ori’vod was hurt, possibly dead, because of him.
The relief he’d felt, seeing Juniper breathing on a stretcher on the LAAT/i back to a GAR base had made him weak at the knees. The rest of his squad had relaxed visibly as well. Aspen hoped he was imagining the looks they’d been shooting his way ever since the fighting stopped, but doubted it. He was defective and had gotten another vod badly injured.
Now they were all in a rec room, pots of the sunset-gold paint that marked 212th troopers open for them and Aspen couldn’t think of what to do. He didn’t even want the standard 212th paint pattern. It would be weird not to do anything, though. He blinked and, for a moment, saw his armor as it had been right after the battle; splattered with Juniper’s blood on the right side. It gave him an idea.
He couldn’t recreate the pattern exactly, of course. To others, it would probably just look like splatters of various sizes, as if he’d spilled paint and not bothered to clean it off or redo it. Aspen would know and maybe Sergeant Juniper and his squad would see it too. Aspen would wear his shame as part of the apology he owed his ori’vod. He’d almost finished when he was interrupted by a sharp voice.
“Oh absolutely not.” Aspen looked up from his vambrace. It was Juniper, looking a little pale, wearing fatigues and with one arm in a sling. He was also frowning at the still wet paint on the right half of Aspen’s armor.
“Sergeant?” He wasn’t surprised by the frown but had expected it to be directed at him once Juniper was out of the medbay.
“I do not want a reminder of getting shot every time I look at you. Talk about distracting.”
Aspen ducked his head, shame faced. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry, be better. I know you won’t freeze again.” Juniper said, sounding so sure of his statement that Aspen could believe it. His sergeant gingerly lowered himself to sit by the still wet armor that was spread around Aspen. Now that he was looking Juniper in the eye, Aspen could see that his ori’vod’s eyes were a little glazzy and his pupils too large in the rec room’s bright lights. Well enough to leave the medbay, but also on painkillers.
Juniper picked up one of the spaulders, squinting at it. “Dangerously close to polka dots, vod.”
“Should I wash it off?” If Juniper wanted him to paint something else, Aspen would.
“Nah. Waste of paint. Pass me a brush.” Aspen obeyed silently. Juniper balanced the piece of armor between his feet, since his left arm wasn’t moving any time soon. He quickly dragged the brush handle tip through one of the ‘splatters’ a few times, back and forth. He broke up the spot, leaving long, thin strips through a wider elliptical. He repeated the process with each spot that Aspen had already completed. Aspen used another brush to mimic it on the other pieces of armor. The end result was a little odd and lopsided, but pleasantly understated.
Juniper sat back, leaning on his good arm with a sleepy smile. “There. If you don’t like it after the next campaign you can repaint.”
“Okay.” Aspen didn’t think he’d change it. Sergeant Juniper didn’t seem particularly angry with him and had helped him paint his armor. Although, the drugs the other trooper was on might be the reason he hadn’t been given a full volume lecture about his screw up.
“It’s you.” Juniper told him, then chuckled to himself.
“Why?” Aspen’s open confusion got the drugged sergeant laughing louder.
“It’s like bark. Aspen bark.” He said, as if it were obvious. “Get me off my ass. I’m hungry and your squad looks done with their paint too.” Aspen obeyed, thinking whatever painkillers the sergeant had taken gave him a different visual perspective.