Chapter Text
The beast in the cargo hold’s stomping shook the entire freighter--and Corso--awake. He could faintly hear Risha cursing a blue streak at the toothy monster, but the immediacy of his headache took more painful priority.
“Kriff,” he muttered, slapping a hand to his forehead, regretting it, and dragging it down his face. His bunk was not precisely where he wanted to be at the moment. Well, awake was not exactly what he wanted to be, either. The base-brewed, probably illegal liquor the troopers called Rakghoul’s Blood was nasty the next day.
He rolled out of his bunk and hit the floor. “They don’t call y’Grace fer nothin’, Riggs,” he muttered to himself as he painfully got up, his head swimming. Fumbling more or less blindly, he made it to his locker and started pawing through the closest medkit for a pain hypo.
“Riggs!”
He jumped, smacked his head on the shelf above him, and sat down hard, seeing stars. “Captain?...”
The door swished open, letting in far too much light for this time of day and his hangover. He could faintly make out the shape of Captain Jaax’a Lannen in the doorway. “It’s a good thing I’m inclined to let your hangover remind you why I prefer my crew more or less sober when they make it back to the ship, hm?”
Corso grunted noncommittally and went back to looking for his hypo. His Captain came over and crouched down next to him, arm outstretched; it took a minute for his blurred vision to focus on the manna of the gods she held towards him. He abandoned his search to grip the steaming mug in both hands, then drained half of the scalding liquid in a gulp.
“Easy, Riggs. My own personal hangover remedy. Don’t go wasting it.”
He shook his head as he processed the taste of the sludge now coating his tongue. “Nasty! Guh!”
“Fresh from Hutta. Well, not the kaff. That’s Republic-issue. Not bad, really.” She plucked the pain hypo from the medkit that had spilled across the floor. “This, however, you might still need, given the whack you just gave yourself.” The hypo hissed against his shoulder and he felt cool relief seeping into his bones. She stood, graceful despite her own partaking in last night’s reveling, and started towards the door. “Up and at ‘em, Riggs.”
“Yes, Captain.”
“Oh, and--that’s twice this morning, hm?”
Corso sighed. “Sorry.”
“You save my ass, I save yours, we’re on a name basis of some degree. None of this captain-this and captain-that bullshit. Save that for sassing Imps.”
“Done.”
Jaax’a nodded and tossed the used hypo towards the trash recycler on her way out, the door swishing closed behind her. Corso sighed and stared at the mug in his hands, swirled the brown liquid around the cup, and upended the last of the mix down his throat. Shuddering, he stood, set the cup down on his workbench with a satisfying thud, and headed for the showers.
Thank the stars Taris has plenty of water, Corso thought as he stood under the hot spray, his mind clearing. He wasn’t sure what was in Jaax’a’s hangover remedy, but it worked. There was nothing like a water shower to wash a drunken night away, though.
Jaax’a. Suddenly the events of last night which he’d so far ignored rushed back; he groaned and rested his forehead against the durasteel wall. Had he really tried to make a pass at his captain?
Well, he hadn’t tried, precisely, he realized. He had.
Kriff.
Kriff, kriff, kriff.
Meditatively, he realized he’d soaked his dreads again. Were they ever going to dry? Probably not as long as they were on Taris, and Governor Saresh had just asked them to go out past any of the military bases to some remote outpost to hoof it around this forsaken place some more. Brejik’s Run, she’d called it. As if it were some cheerful place. Ha.
Maybe they’d start sprouting plants. Would be good camo here on Taris.
His mind swirled back to his captain. Well, maybe he hadn’t screwed himself over too badly in her book. She had come to his rescue this morning and hadn’t made mention of his nonsense last night.
Come to think of it, she hadn’t turned him down last night, either.
What had she said? If she ever needed a man to take care of her, she’d take up knitting?
Knitting. Corso snorted. The famed Republic-loving Captain Jaax’a Lannen, taking up knitting? Who thought of such a thing?
Well, it was his fool mouth that had brought it up. Kriffin’ idiot. Why did you have to go and say she deserved a man who could take care of her?
Well, she does, he mused.
Her earlier rebuke bubbled up. “You save my ass, I save yours.”
Well, maybe she did deserve someone who can take care of her. But that someone and Corso Riggs didn’t have to be mutually exclusive.
Now he just had to remember that the next time he was tipsy.
Captain Jaax’a Lannen strolled out of Governor Saresh’s office, official note which authorized their travel to Brejik’s Run loaded in her datapad and tucked in her breast pocket, scattergun and pistol hanging on her belt. She’d picked up a few things from the med-droid and was heading to the mess in the hopes of grabbing something better than a ration bar when she saw Corso coming out of the spaceport.
A particularly bad tangle with a nasty rakghoul coming out of a suicide mission to take out the notorious scavenger known only as the Locust (it was one of those times which had been both Jaax-saving-Corso and Corso-saving-Jaax) had more or less made mincemeat of his Mantellian armor. He was sad to see it go, but when Jaax appeared from the depths of her ship with a dusty duffel and pulled out a very nice set of synthweave robes with layers of lightweight plastisteel sewn in, he was more than mollified, despite looking rather like a Jedi with a rifle. A trip to the vendors with Jaax’a’s commendations chip secured a set of Trandoshan greaves and a set of boots a trooper would cry over. She’d spent a few commendations on her blaster, giving it a solid upgrade, for which Corso nodded approval.
So it was a robed Corso who came out of the spaceport, hood down to show his face, rifle slung over his back. His dreads were pulled back, as always, and he moved with the sleek grace that gave away the layers of muscle on his body. Jaax’a took advantage of her shaded spot next to the stairs to look at him as he approached, oblivious.
“Ah, so the flyboy did survive,” a trooper said, greeting Corso as he exited the mess. “Good ta see yer upright! Didn’ think yer would be!"
“Can’t let you guys get to any of the ladies, now, can I?” he replied, flashing a grin. Jaax’a’s stomach flip-flopped with more than one kind of hunger. Hush, she told it.
“I’d thought you’d be leavin by now, with the Locust gone an’ the rakghoul lab cleared out.”
“Nah. Governor’s got somethin’ for us to do. Sendin’ us to Brejik’s Run or something.”
“Brejik’s?” Several troopers looked up in alarm.
“No, man, you don’t wanna be goin’ out there,” one added.
“I follow my captain,” Corso said, and glanced over in Jaax’a’s direction as she emerged at the top of the stairs. He sketched a lazy bow in her direction.
“Betcha ‘e does more’an follow,” one muttered in the back.
His neighbor guffawed. “I would!”
“Not unless you like a blaster shot where your extra parts are,” Jaax’a replied sweetly, then nodded to Corso and disappeared into the mess. Corso shook his head, waved to the troopers, and followed her inside.
Stomachs settled, Jaax’a and Corso emerged into the thick soupy air that was typical of a late Tarisian morning.
“Need anything before we go, Riggs?”
“Stims, medpacks, ration bars, kaff?”
“No on the kaff, unfortunately, but yes on the rest.” She jerked a thumb towards the pack slung across her back.
“Want me to take that?”
“I got it.” She headed towards the taxi terminal and pulled out her datapad, handing it to the droid.
“Are you certain you wish to travel to Brejik’s Run, Captain Lannen, Master Riggs? It is a highly dangerous area.”
“Dangerous areas are our specialty.” She tossed a broad wink at Corso; he smirked.
“As you wish, Captain.” The droid turned to a pair of waiting speeders and punched in coordinates. “Your mode of travel is prepared."
“Thanks,” Jaax’a said, throwing a leg over the closer speeder. She set off. “C’mon, Riggs! Race ya!”
“Yeeha, Captain!”
Three quarters of an hour later, Corso jumped off his speeder, the contents of his stomach roiling. A couple of close calls with upset nexu, pissed-off pirates and a tree branch across the speeder path had turned their friendly match race into a race against injury.
“Why did we come here, again?” Jaax’a asked, voice almost plaintive.
“You’re the one who said we would,” he replied.
“Kriffin Saresh and her guilt trips,” she muttered. “It must be the lekku. Gotta be the lekku.”
“Weakness for Twi’lek, Captain?”
“Only sometimes.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
“Fancy wearing a pair for me, Riggs?” she teased. To both of their surprise, a faint flush crept up his cheeks.
They argued with the outpost commander, who was bound and determined to get out of Brejik’s Run with or without his squadron and their civilian charges. Jaax’a appealed to their contact, Vealo, to keep him around as long as possible and she and Corso set off to collect what they could.
Under the cover of Jaax’a’s stealth generator they crept into the pirate camp--not to kill pirates, but to free nexu cubs, of all things--and got themselves smack in the middle of a mutiny. They hid behind a nexu cage, attempting invisibility, but the nexu was no fool. Suddenly the pirates were spraying fire across their hiding place, mutiny forgotten, and Corso ran out to give Jaax’a enough room to get to work with her grenades and scattergun.
Well into the fight, Corso got hit hard and went down beneath a pirate’s vibroblade. Jaax’a squeezed off a charged blast, pitching the pirate to the ground, and Corso rolled to his feet, chest heaving. She relaxed, the fight over. Suddenly he glanced her way and his eyes went wide. “Jaax!”
Jaax’a dropped and rolled to the next place she could take cover, her previous hiding spot exploding in a spray of rubble from the assault cannon held by the pirate captain who’d emerged from a moldy tent. Corso soared over the nexu cage to imprint the pirate’s face with the butt of his rifle, then dodged backwards, laying down fire. The pirate headed towards Jaax’a just as her pistol overheated. She pulled out her scattergun, spraying bolts and slowing the pirate, but only long enough for him to charge his cannon and fire.
Jaax rolled as far away as she could and waited to be hit--only to see Corso’s robes flying in front of her as he jumped in front of the shot, taking it square-on in the chest. Jaax’a ripped her last grenade off her belt and flung it, pummeling the pirate and leaving him permanently on the ground. The blast had sent Corso flying; she looked around wildly then spotted him, unmoving.
Jaax’a spared only a moment to fire at the mechanism holding the nexu cage shut before dashing to Corso’s side, pulling out her kolto packs. She yanked open the fastenings on his armor, pressed a pair of packs to his side, and began a diagnostic scan as the packs hissed and emptied into his body. The bruises softened, lacerations stopped oozing, and a cracked rib zipped; that one would take more than a couple of packs to knit. The scan told her what she already knew; critical damage, internal bleeding. Helpful.
“Dammit, Riggs, can you hear me?” She pulled out vials from her belt pouch and loaded them into an injector, opening his flak jacket to get better access to the worst damage. She pulled off the glove on her free hand to feel for the best skin, then pressed the injector down and watched it drain. He twitched.
“Corso!” She pressed her bare fingers to his throat, searching for his pulse. It was there, though erratic. Not that it wouldn’t be after a direct hit to the chest like that.
The realization that he’d taken that for her, knowing that she had less protection than he and would have fared worse, flitted across her brain as she worked, pulling out a medpack and opening it. There was only so much more she could load him with before needing more help than they could get in the middle of pirate-infested nowhere. Why? she thought. It was my fault I wasn’t watching my own damn back.
As she worked, fingers skimming his clammy skin and seeking out more places needing kolto patches, she felt her own heart thrumming faster in her chest. “C’mon, Corso,” she murmured, checking his pulse in his wrist as she rubbed kolto over a blaster burn on the back of his hand. “Come back to me, buddy. Please.”
Suddenly his skin felt warmer against her hands and his eyes fluttered. “Jaax?” Her name caught in his throat; he couldn’t draw breath fully and his lips were tinged with blue. More broken ribs, probably.
“Right here, Riggs,” she said quietly. She pulled a pain hypo out of the medpack and pressed it to his unmarked shoulder; he relaxed, if only fractionally.
“I got you,” he replied, the corner of his mouth lifting up in a painful smile. She noted the split lip and, quickly as possible, swiped at it with a fresh kolto patch before pressing it to his cheek to ease the swelling that was already starting. He grimaced as much as he was able; kolto was not the best tasting thing in the galaxy.
Voices--pirate, not Republic--came from the far end of the compound. “Damn. We gotta move, Corso. Sorry.”
“I’m good, Cap,” he said, trying to stand.
“No, you’re not.” She helped him up, then propped him against her body and activated her stealth generator, pushing it into overload and hoping her mods would hold. “Let’s get you back to the outpost.”
They crept through the bodies they’d left behind and away towards the Republic camp. “Now they’re dumb, ugly and dead,” Corso muttered as he limped, leaning more on Jaax’a than he’d care to admit.
“Always are after you’re done with ‘em,” she replied, glad his sense of humor was intact, worried by how much she had to hold him up.
Eventually, Republic lookouts came into view and she deactivated her stealth generator, putting her free hand in the air. The troops immediately aimed at them, then, recognizing injured allies, the nearest ones came towards them at a full sprint.
“Whadda we got, Captain?” one asked.
“Loose nexu and a lot of dead pirates,” she replied, then nodded at Corso. “He needs the med-droid, stat. I’ll cover us.” The troopers wordlessly got their arms under Corso’s and more or less carried him at a trot back to base; Jaax’a followed, moving backwards with her weapons out until they were behind Republic lines and into camp.
Corso slowly came to with a thudding headache for the third time that day. However, it was the first that he’d done so with a view of his dozing captain, which was a plus.
The med-droid assaulting his senses, however, was not.
“Master Riggs! You are awake!”
“Shut it, tin man,” he muttered.
“No kidding,” Jaax’a replied sleepily in agreement.
“I am not made of tin, Master Riggs, but of durasteel,” the droid replied. “Your biosigns are much improved!”
“I figured, since I’m alive and all.”
“Is there anything I can do for you, Master Riggs?”
“Shut up and give me a hypo.”
“‘Fraid you can’t have any more of those,” Jaax’a said, swinging her legs over the cot where she’d taken up residence. “How are you?”
Corso began testing various limbs, then began to draw a deep breath. Jaax’a reached out towards him. “Oh, that’s a bad idea...”
He winced as his chest expanded, tenderly wrapping an arm around his torso. “Ribs?”
“Yeah. Several. Not gonna poke anything vital now, but they ain’t gonna feel good for a while, either.”
“Kriff.” He breathed slowly through his nose, then glanced around the clinic. “I hate the smell of kolto.”
“I’m breakin’ you outta here, then. C’mon.”
“Captain Lannen, Master Riggs is in no shape to be in the Tarisian jungle! There are rakghouls, and nexu, and pirates, and--”
“Enough!” Jaax’a’s good humor had waned and her eyes flashed; the droid fell silent. She grabbed Corso’s boots from the foot of the bed and steadied him while he pulled them on, then helped him out the open doorway. He was dizzy and felt halfway drunk, but was on the whole in much better shape than when he’d arrived.
Vealo jogged over as they emerged from the tent. “The commander is staying, for now, thanks to you clearing out the pirate base above us.”
“Great. We need a place to sleep.”
“I was able to find a couple of bunkrolls, but there’s no room.”
“We’ll find a corner.”
“May I suggest by the civilians’ barracks? It’s quieter that direction.”
“Will do. Thanks.” She took the tightly wrapped duffel bags from him and she and Corso set off; the civs they had helped gladly moved boxes of supplies out of the way and promised to leave them be. Jaax’a yanked the ready-bunks out of the bags; they unfolded on the ground, inches of foam and blankets looking like the best thing in years.
“No protection from the bugs, but I’ve slept in worse places,” she said as she plopped down on one and pulled off her boots. Corso groaned in reply and more or less fell on top of his. “Ration bar?”
Corso moaned. “Really? That’s all you have to say is ‘ration bar’?”
“Highly unappetizing, I know. But you’ll be worse than hungover tomorrow if you don’t eat something. You don’t want to know how much I had to load you with... just to...”
Corso waited for her to finish, but she busied herself fishing out ration bars. “To what?”
Jaax’a sighed and looked up. She met his gaze, her eyes sober, their laughing twinkle gone. “To keep you from dying on me, Corso. You jumped in front of a kriffing assault cannon at close range. Broken ribs, bleeding out internally--you shouldn’t be here still.”
He paused, musing. “Guess Lady Luck’s still shining on me.”
Jaax’a threw the ration bar at him. “Don’t you get it? You think you’re... immortal or something. Yeah, I can patch you up, I can heal a lot of damage, but I can’t save you every time! One of these days it’s gonna be too much for me to fix, more than kolto or medpacks or stimvials or even a med droid can repair, and...” She gritted her teeth and looked away.
Corso had never had her anger directed at him before. It was a highly unpleasant experience, to put it mildly. The silence stretched.
“I’m sorry,” he said, voice hoarse. “Not for what I did, but for scaring you.”
“Not--not scared.”
“Sure you weren’t, Captain.” He opened his ration bar.
She glanced up at him and he saw her eyes were swimming. “Don’t call me that.”
“Jaax’a.” His voice trembled slightly, her name gentle on his lips.
She was silent for a long moment. “Why aren’t you sorry, again?”
“Could never be sorry for saving you.” He took another bite of ration bar.
“Fek, Corso.” She rested her head on her arms, braced across her knees. “Still think I deserve someone who can take care of me? ‘Cause you’re not doing the greatest job of it.”
“Way I see it, I’m doing a fine one. You’re the one taking issue with it.” He pulled his boots off and stretched out on the mat, suppressing a groan of pain.
Jaax’a’s eyebrows knitted together in concern and she looked at her chrono. “You can have another hypo in a half hour,” she said. “More kolto in two. Just rest for now.”
He didn’t think he could, but in the end, he dozed fitfully, waking when Jaax’a gently felt his arm for a place not already bruised from hypos or crisp from blaster burns. The injector hissed and pulsed against his bicep. He glanced at his arm, then up at her.
“Still mad at me?” he asked, quietly.
“No, Corso,” she replied. “Wasn’t in the first place.” She paused, her throat working. “You were right. About me being scared.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. I... I need you not to be.”
“Why?”
“We’re in a dangerous business, Corso, and it’s not going to get any easier. My whole life I’ve lived not caring too much; you know that’s the only way you make it out alive.”
“And now you care too much.”
She didn’t reply, just let him meet her gaze squarely, letting her guard down just this once.
“Jaax.” He reached a hand out; she let it meet hers, their fingers brushing. The touch was electric; he felt the hair on his arms stand and saw a shiver run down her spine.
“Corso...” She closed her eyes and sighed. “Let’s... let’s get back to this when we’re safe on the Sunsoarer.”
“But we will get back to this.”
After a pause, she nodded and squeezed his fingers gently. Corso smiled, mindful of the barely-healed split in his lip, and returned the gesture.