You know how I said the last chapter was a bit fangirly... This one is just blatant fangirl-service. You have been warned! :D


The Torture of Sergeant Coric

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Enough stalling. It was time. Distasteful as the whole experience might be, it had to be done.

Sergeant Coric, second in command of Torrent Company, sighed. He had to set a good example, even if right now he felt like shooting someone simply so he'd have an excuse to head to the med bay and stay there until this whole fracas was over. "Okay boys—off with the shirts."

The men hesitated, swapping puzzled looks amongst themselves. In the end, it was Denal who voiced what they were probably all thinking. "Uh… sir?"

Coric crossed his arms and fixed them all with his best no-nonsense stare. "You heard me. You lot are on chocolate duty and that means you'll be in your shorts for the majority of this event."

Denal persisted. "But sir, isn't this against regulations to be in a state of undress around civilians as per section twelve, sub-section four—" He blanched when he saw Coric's glare.

Coric felt instantly bad. Taking out his frustration on the younger clone wasn't going to help matters. It wasn't the poor lad's fault that some hair-brained senator conned the Grand Army's command into helping with the war fundraising efforts.

He sighed. "Sorry trooper, but this one has come down from the highest levels."

"Why are we doing this?" Jesse grumbled.

"For the Republic." Coric didn't believe it one bit, but he needed the men to cooperate. The gala would be starting in a few hours and they needed enough stock on hand to keep the civilians happy. "Always for the Republic. And if makes you feel any better, I'll be joining you in the booth."

That seemed to appease the naysayers. There was a rustling and patches of tan skin started to emerge as the men started reluctantly stripping off the top part of their body gloves. Coric folded his top neatly and added it to the stack.

Right. Coric reached for the spray gun and started coating everyone's freshly washed torsos with the disinfectant. He handed over the gun and tried hard not to yelp as Jesse squirted the cold mist over his abs. After a few seconds, the mist had evaporated and they were good to go.

He consulted his datapad, which contained instructions on how to carry out his… assignment. He beckoned Jesse over and picked up the brush and pot. "Everyone pay close attention. You'll need to know how to do this yourselves. Now, Jesse—hold still."

==o0o==

The gala was… something else. Coric groped for words to describe the chaos and failed miserably. He also failed miserably at not flinching as a tickly paintbrush crossed over his oblique muscles. This set the woman off in another round of high-pitched giggles.

"My apologies, ma'am," he said, trying hard not to add a blush to the list of embarrassments that had happened to him so far this morning. "It won't happen again."

She grinned wryly. "Uh huh. Sure. I think you said that less than a minute ago, soldier."

Coric felt his cheeks heat.

The paintbrush resumed its tortuous journey across his midriff. He felt tiny beads of sweat break out on his forehead as he fought the urge to flinch, to tense, to suck his stomach away from that evil brush, and to give in and laugh uncontrollably. He'd already lost six men so far to laughter, almost a quarter of his workforce; he couldn't afford to be the next casualty. Who knew that the abdominal region could be so… tickly. There was definitely no mention of this in his medic training.

Warm chocolate coated most of his chest and stomach, the brown goo glistening as it traced the ridges of his muscles. The torture wouldn't last much longer though. His latest customer was almost finished, adding the last few layers before she could peel off her edible treat. Coric was fairly sure that there were easier ways to get one's chocolate fix than going to all the trouble of coating someone in it, but judging from the throng at the table, efficiency wasn't one of the aspects that civilians factored in when looking for chocolate-based consumables.

Finally it was over. With a bit of help from Jesse, the woman managed to pry the chocolate mould of his abdominals off him and marched away into the crowds, clutching her prize. Coric breathed out a sigh of relief, slipping into the small tent that had been set up as a refuge from the chocolate-hungry crowd. Jesse, who had turned out to be incredibly ticklish and was now support crew rather than a participant, handed him a towelette and Coric started scrubbing the last traces of brown from his stomach.

"How's everything going?" Coric asked, trying to get a stray streak off his forearm.

"We've exceeded expected sales by sixteen percent and chewed through all our stock. No more chocolate abs," Jesse reported.

Good. They should finish up soon then. Coric was more than happy for life to return to normal. He never wanted to see a paintbrush or chocolate again. Ever. But his happy fantasies of retreating to his medbay office were rudely dispelled by Jesse.

"Demand hasn't dropped though, so we've just had to increase the number of 'make your own' stations. Sorry, sarge, but you're up again. You've been booked out for the next two hours."

Two hours. Two more hours of ticklish torture. Coric's groan was more than a little heartfelt as Jesse began coating him once more with icy, food-grade disinfectant spray. This was worse than Ryloth. Worse than Christophsis. At least the Seps were just trying to kill you, not tickle you to death.

"If we're all clones," Coric complained, "how come I get to be the less tickly one?"

Jesse just grinned and gave him a shove out the tent. "All done. Go get 'em, sarge."

"Sadist." Right then and there, Sergeant Coric decided that Jesse couldn't possibly be a brother of his.

Another woman approached him, paintbrush in hand. Coric tried to smile nicely, but couldn't keep from trying to flinch away from the brush. It was going to be long two hours. He'd take Christophsis any day of the week.


Big thanks to Jade Max, emjalen, and Amaryllis Complex (who came up with the "For the Republic" line) for all helping spawn the idea behind these ficlets.

Edit: It seems a number of people are wondering if this is the end of the story. My reply is, I don't know. I've got a number of ideas for more "Gala Day" snippets chewing at my brain, however I'm fairly short on time to work on them. So I can't make any promises for more chapters. I would like to, but sadly it's anyone's guess as to when they'll be written.