"Blast it, Corso, would you hold still?" Silver groused, instinctively tightening her grip on his shoulder as he flinched. She tried to avoid digging her fingers into the blaster wound she'd been in the process of cleaning out, with limited success.
"Sorry, Captain," Corso muttered, wincing and fighting the urge to flinch again. "Can't help it. That really hurt."
"I know. I'm bein' as careful as I can," she promised. "But plasteel splinters aren't going to come out by themselves, and you can't reach it, so just bear with me."
Normally, they each took care of their own injuries when necessary, patching themselves up well enough with kolto and synthskin. But their last run-in with the bandits camping out on the Tarisian settlement had involved a much more drawn out fight than usual, and Corso had caught a nasty graze from a blaster bolt across the back of his shoulder. It had seared through his armor, decorating the burn it left in his shoulder with splinters from the plasteel and fragments of leather from the jacket underneath. The awkward angle made it impossible for him to patch himself up, so they'd comandeered one of the empty tents that dotted the colonized area in order for Silver to take care of it.
She didn't mind the delay, despite everything they had to get done, and made sure to tell him that when Corso started muttering about not wanting to slow them down. She was just happy he hadn't gotten killed. "'Sides, that gets infected, it'll slow us down a lot more than me takin' the time to clean it out now," she'd pointed out.
"True..." he'd admitted, following with less reluctance as she all but dragged him toward the tent. She had to help him get his armor off as the angry wound finally started hurting as much as it looked like it should.
"See, I'm a bit fuzzy as to how leavin' this alone would be in any way a good thing," Silver commented wryly, pushing Corso toward the cot that stood in the middle of the tent. "Sit."
She was pretty sure he rolled his eyes as he obeyed. "Yes, ma'am."
Silver shook her head and chuckled as she nudged his good shoulder to get him to lean forward so she could get a better look. "Hold still. This is probably gonna sting a little..."
That, of course, had proven to be an understatement. The blaster burn was deep enough even the softest brush from her fingers really hurt. Try as he might, Corso couldn't help but flinch, which was why Silver was grousing and as frustrated as he's seen her since they left Ord Mantell.
"Y'know, I hear it helps if you talk," she suggested. "Focus on something else, distract yourself from the fact it hurts."
"I'm not exactly in the frame of mind to-Ow!-come up with a topic right now, Captain," Corso retorted, flinching again as she pulled out one of the splinters. "You got any ideas?"
"Where'dja get Sparkles? I mean, you told me you'd been workin' on her for years-did a really good job by the way-but where'd you even find her?" Silver huffed a loose wisp of hair out of her eyes and tried to ignore the way her wrist was cramping as she went after a particularly deep splinter.
Corso shrugged, biting back another wince as he immediately regretted it. "A trader who stopped off on Ord Mantell for some deal with Viidu. He saw me-ow-lookin' at her and told me I could just have her 'cause she was a piece of junk no one would pay good money for-Owww!"
"Sorry, that was the worst one, I promise," Silver muttered remorsefully, hiding a wince of her own at the size of the splinter. Force, no wonder that one hurt... "Is that it?"
"Yeah. Not much of a story there, Captain."
"Well, then, since I'm not done yet..." She hesitated for a second, trying to think up something good to get him to talk about. Just because the worst of the splinters was out didn't mean the rest weren't going to hurt almost as much. "If I recall correctly, you still owe me the story behind one of your scars," she suggestecd.
Corso let out a wry chuckle. "Which one?"
Silver had to smirk. "I guess you do have more to choose from than I do," she conceded, taking a break from cleaning out the wound to lean over his good shoulder so she could get a better look. "Since they look suspiciously like they go together... these." She brushed her thumb over the short, parallel scars on the side of his nose before getting back to work.
Corso laughed, not even caring that it sort of hurt. "You would pick those..."
"Ooh, is this a good story, then?" Silver grinned.
"Define 'good' for me, Captain. If you mean 'good' as in 'as good as yours', then no. If you mean good as in interesting... probably. I've had those for a while."
"Why do you sound like you're stalling?" Silver teased as she gently tugged out one of the scraps of leather.
This time, Corso managed to grit his teeth and not flinch. "'Cause I kinda am."
"If it's something you'd rather not talk about, I can pick a different one," she offered.
"Nah, it's just... kind of embarassing is all," he admitted.
"Ah. One of those." Her grin widened as she worked out another splinter. "I promise not to tease you about it too much."
"Thanks, Captain. Really appreciate that," he shot back, unable to keep from grinning himself. "That's not a long story, either."
"Well, I'm closer to bein' done than I thought, so get talkin'."
"Alright, alright... They're from a dare," he admitted reluctantly. "Somethin' stupid Rona got me to do."
"Now this I gotta hear," Silver chuckled. "How long was this before the Peace Brigade?"
"Not long. Three or four months, maybe." He shifted position slightly, though whether it was the cot or the subject making him uncomfortable, Silver couldn't tell. "You remember how I said we'd have fun with the rontos?"
She giggled. "Runnin' 'em in circles an' seein' if they could charge you without fallin' over? Force, yes, I remember. One of the more... interesting ways I've heard of for curing boredom."
Corso decided not to comment on that, and settled for pushing on with his story. "Well, anyway, there was this one day when we'd been at it for a while, and Rona got one really turned around. I mean, the thing looked like it was drunk. She told me if I could stand on its back an' stay on for a whole loop around the yard where we kept 'em, she'd give me her whole next week's allowance."
"And you took her up on it? I'd never've figured you for the crazy type," Silver commented, snickering as she wiggled the last couple splinters of plasteel out.
"Captain, I was fourteen! And I was savin' for a gun and the extra money woulda helped," Corso protested.
"Ah. Well, if there was a gun involved, it makes perfect sense. I know how you are about your guns," she ribbed. "Didja make it?"
"Not by a long shot," he admitted with a laugh. "The blasted thing only took a couple steps before lurching in the exact opposite direction it had been going. Caught me off guard, so I lost my balance and fell off. Managed to bust my nose on what was probably the only rock for a couple of miles."
"Oh, nice."
"My folks didn't think so. I got a real lecture about doing stupid stuff the whole time my mother was patchin' me up."
"She must've been even better at this sawbones stuff than I am," Silver muttered. "Not many people can make a busted nose heal that straight." She finished cleaning out the wound and covered it with a bacta patch. "There. All done. That should do it."
"Thanks, Sawbones," Corso teased, rolling his shoulder.
Silver shot him a dirty look, but couldn't help snickering. "That's Captain Sawbones to you, thank you very much." She tossed him his shirt. "If you're lucky, that'll heal into a nice scar and you'll have another interesting story to tell people down the road."
"Captain, if things go the way I want, you're the only one who'll really see it, and you already know the story," Corso shot back, grinning when Silver didn't immediately think up a snappy comeback. "What fun would that be?"
"I... You... C'mon, let's get back to work," Silver muttered, making a beeline out of the tent before Corso could see the flush setting into her cheeks.
"Right behind you," Corso chuckled as they got back to work.
A/N: Such an original title... xD Couldn't think of anything better. I also noticed on about my third proofread that Silver kinda talks like Mal & Co. from Firefly. There is a very good reason for this: She's based off about half of Serenity's crew, mashed together with a touch of Han Solo for good measure(and maybe just a teensy little bit of Atton Rand). XD Oh, and it's a lot harder to come up with explanations behind scars of canon chars than original ones. Just in case anybody was wondering. =)