Chapter Title: Pressure

Series Title: Unlikely Brothers

POV: Tanner

Ages in this chapter: Tanner (13) Dashen (19)

Chapter Summary: Tanner gets help from a stranger when Dashen takes a knife to the gut.


The wound bled. A lot. It wouldn't stop. I pressed on it. Hard. Just like the healers had taught in Basic Healing class that was required for all first year apprentices at the Jedi Temple. It was five years later though and I wasn't a Jedi anymore. They were all dead. And I couldn't remember everything the healers had taught me. But I could remember pressure. If a wound is bleeding and you are not near medical care, get a cloth or something absorbent - your own shirt even - cover the wound and press hard on it. Don't let up.

It was all so easy to say when you were in a sterile classroom in the safety of the Jedi Temple surrounded by the some of the best healing bodies in the galaxy. Here, I was in the middle of somewhere...I couldn't even remember where. And my brother was bleeding all over me. All over the ground. Someone must have heard the noises, right? The weird blaster sounds right before whatever it was threw a knife into Dashen's stomach?

I am yelling for help now. Someone has to help us. Someone has to care. I'm afraid to take my hand off the wound to get my comm but I finally have to reach for it, and see another hand taking the place of mine on my brother's body.

The strange creature said only "I have him" and pressed on the wound. He...she...was weirdly bald and blue and scaly with bizarre yellow eyes and a huge brown scar that ran down the right side of her face from her temple, over her eye and down her neck. But her action gave me a second to reach for my comm. Healer Quin would be on the way. She wasn't far.

I went to put my hands back on the cloth. The cloth had been replaced by a larger item. A jacket? The creature that was helping me...her jacket was off and pressed to my brother. I pressed my hands on top of hers. Together, maybe enough pressure to stop the bleeding. It was all over though. All over me.

"Thank you," I said the the creature. No, not creature. She was humanoid, but not human. She was helping me, she was more than just a creature. "Thank you" I said again.

"You are brother." She said in broken-basic as she looked across at me.

"Yes, Dashen is my brother."

"Good. I not kill him after all." A small laugh was under her breath with the comment.

What? "What?"

"Kidding. Sorry. Boss sent me to find Lesedi. Offer him job. I get here and I see this. Blood. You. Perhaps no job after all."

I didn't understand any of this or what she was even talking about. It was a confused mess until she said the next thing which that sent terror though my spine. Staring at me with her strange yellow eyes.

"I know what you are, brother. Not true brother."

She knew I was a Jedi, I gulped. She knew...she knew, she knew, she knew...and my brother was here, bleeding everywhere and I was alone and...she knew...

Then. "Not worry. We all have secrets. My own I have. Hidden away. Safe from Empire. You keep mine. I keep yours. Yes?"

I nodded, my head never moving so quickly. What she was or why she was hiding, I didn't know, but maybe...I heard familiar voices - shouts - in the distance. Healer Quin. Colton - how had he found out and come so quickly?

"Those are my friends coming," I told her as she flinched just enough for me to notice. "You can trust them. They don't care who...what you are, or who you are running from. Secrets are safe. They just want to help my brother."

She didn't flee as I had expected, but kept her hands pressed down on Dashen's wound. The bleeding wasn't over. It was everywhere.

"Trust you." She bore another stare at me and decided, "Will trust you. Only if you tell me name?"

Panic. I felt panic. Pressure of a different kind. Dashen always told me to not give my name to those I didn't know or trust. Could I trust her? I didn't know her. Had never seen her around before. But she was here with me, when no one else stopped to help. Trying to keep my brother's blood in his body.

Decision time.

I went with trust. "Tanner. My name is Tannerlin Vai."

"Tannerlin. Vai. Good name. I like. I am Nejaa Saril." She trusted back, glancing down at her hands covering the jacket, covering the wound. The blood had soaked through the thin fabric. "Still much blood."

Yes. So much. How could one person lose so much blood and still breath? My thoughts were running wild, but underneath, the responsible part of my brain told me it wasn't really as much as the worst part of me thought it was. He wasn't bleeding to death, but it was more than any person should bleed for any length of time.

Healer Quin arrived. Colton at her side. I reached out and touched Nejaa Saril's hand to indicate it was all right to remove the pressure. Quin moved in. She would work fast to get the wound to stop bleeding.

Nejaa stood. I stood. Colton stepped in next to me and knelt down to my height so he could see my eyes. "You're all right, Tannerlin?"

I nodded. "I am. This is Dashen's blood," My fingers pointed to my tunic and pants. "I was keeping pressure on the injury. It was a knife. The knife is there, over there on the ground. I pulled it out and tossed it. Not very safe, I know, but I panicked some, he was bleeding so badly."

"You did well, kid." Colton's ice blue eyes tiled upwards to met the yellow of the being next to me. Nejaa Saril slow blinked once and nodded towards him.

"Colton, this is Nejaa..."

"Nejaa Saril. Yes, I know."

So, I didn't know if that was a good thing or a bad, but they weren't immediately trying to kill each other, so that was promising?

"You...you know each other?" I asked, confused and worried for Dashen still.

"Know of." Colton corrected. "She runs for an arch nemesis of mine on west side of the planet. Always good to know your enemies and competitors."

My turn to correct Colton. "Nejaa isn't an enemy, Colton. I yelled for help and she was the only one to come."

Clearly Colton thought there was ulterior motive there, but I chose to believe in the good in people unless they showed me otherwise. I had no reason not to see the good in Nejaa Saril.

"For that, I am grateful. Thank you." Colton was grateful, but suspicious. In his line of work that seemed to be a daily thing. He continued. "However, Nejaa SariI, I question why you are here in Kaolin and within speaking distance of Dashen Lesedi. Certainly, Faxon did not send you to Kaolin for a job. One would hope he knows better than to intrude onto territory that either myself or Rosina control."

Colton stood now, he towered over Nejaa as he towered over me, but she stood to him, not giving a single inch. Compassionate and brave. I liked her.

"Truth? Faxon want to offer Lesedi job. Sent me to deliver message."

"Faxon knows that Lesedi runs for me as my primary. Hell, he's lifted a few things from right under Faxon's nose in the last year without the fool evening knowing about it."

"Is why. Impressed. Wants Lesedi work for him."

"Well, you can return home and tell Faxon that's not going to happen."

"Job offer to Lesedi. Free choice. You not decide for him."

I stepped in and stepped up. "But I can. Dashen has given me authority to make decisions for him when he cannot."

Nejaa gave me a curious look as I looked up at her. "You only a pup. Not old enough to make such decision."

"I am. And I just did. Thank you for your help with my brother, Nejaa. I will never forget you for helping him. I won't. But Dashen would never leave here to take a job with your boss. He would not leave me either. And me and you, we have reasons to...not attract too much unwanted attention. I trusted you. Remember?"

My voice broke a little at the end, not what I was shooting for, but whatever or however I said it, must have meant something. I would never reveal whatever secret she was hiding, but making waves in the wrong places was a bad idea. Colton could create huge waves of his own, which would be...well, not good for Nejaa Saril.

She backed down; stiff shoulders easing, along with the hard stare at the large blonde man in front of her.

"Tannerlin. Boy, is correct." She held out a holo chip. "Offer is on chip. Faxon cannot say I did not deliver."

Colton took the chip and nodded once. "I will see that Dashen gets this once he is well."

Speaking of...Healer Quin called my name to hurry over to my brother. I stole a quick look at Nejaa before. "I need to see my brother, Nejaa. Thank you again. Please get home safely. I want you to stay safe. Maybe we'll see each other again one day."

"Perhaps so. Take care of brother. Important, is family. I will return home."

She hurried off, large strides taking her leaping onto a nearby speeder-bike and blasting off into the distance. A trail of dust left in her wake. I ran over to Dashen who was awake - kind of - and asking for me.

"I have patched the wound." Quin said to me as I plopped down on my butt on the dirt. "The bleeding has stopped. We'll get him to the hospital and I'll be sure it's sterilized. Then he can go home and rest. He's a bit confused and groggy, but talk to him while Fen brings the trauma equipped land-speeder around.

I listened, but had eyes only for my brother. My pale ones met his shining green ones. My fingers wrapped around those on his left hand. "Hey, big brother. Don't worry. You're okay. I'm okay."

Eyes closed as did his fingers around mine. It was all he needed. To know I was there and to know we were both safe.

Right then, Healer Fen arrived with the land-speeder and Dashen was carefully lifted into the back. Fen directed me and Colton to sit in the two seats adjacent for the short ride to the hospital.

"What was all the nonsense, kid, with you and Nejaa," Colton eventually said over the engine noise. "Trust and unwanted attention? Strange discussion."

Could I tell him and trust that Nejaa would remain safe? Yes. Did I owe it to her to not say anything? Yes on that one too. Not that I knew all that much about whatever her secret was...but still.

"Nothing." I said steadily. "Just something I promised I wouldn't talk about."

Colton gave me a look. One that said he'd like to know, but that were was no real pressure to tell.

"It's not bad. I swear. She's an interesting person. I like her. I trust her."

"You tend to like just about everyone, Tannerlin. Unique in this galaxy, I think. Do me a favor and don't end up like the rest of of us. Cynical and untrusting. Stay as you are. It's better for both me and your brother."

I smiled at my fake uncle and then set my hand down on my fake brother's shoulder with comforting pressure as he lay on the stretcher between us. Today had been difficult and unnerving, but Dashen had stopped bleeding and I'd made a new friend...of sorts...one that I did hope to see again one day.


END