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Fox walked from the Guard’s barracks side by side with Wolffe, his posture slightly straighter, his steps a little stiffer than his brother’s. He wondered when the patterns of their strides had diverged so completely, and he wondered if Wolffe was cataloging all the ways he’d changed since the last time they’d seen each other.
Wolffe’s attention was forward as he spoke, and even as Fox listened, he knew it would be too much to hope that Wolffe would entirely carry the conversation all night. Still, Fox tried to lie to himself, tried to make himself believe he could hide in the darkness of 79’s beneath the neon lights, and music with a deep, driving backbeat.
He stole a furtive glance at his brother’s cybernetic eye and his scar. He wished he could have been there for Wolffe after he’d lost his eye. After he’d lost his men to the Malevolence. Fox wished lots of things.
Nothing to be done about it now, Fox thought; lately, it had become equal parts grating mantra and lamentation. It might be worth it, though, letting that guilt devour him. Maybe it would be better than whatever else was eating away at him week after week, shift after shift, stim after stim.
“Commander?”
Both Fox and Wolffe turned to find Hound with his massif close at heel. Hound’s helmet moved from Fox, to Wolffe, then back to Fox. (Grizzer, for his part, was more interested in Wolffe as he sat obediently at Hound’s left.)
“Sirs,” Hound said as he straightened and soluted. It might have been Fox’s imagination, but he thought Hound puffed his chest even more than he usually would. Fox was unsure if he did so to be a credit to the Guard, or impress another commander. Whatever the case, Fox gave him a weary at ease.
—
The Chancellor’s smile didn’t fade through the duration of the meeting with the young senator; it became sharper and less pleasant. Something Fox, in his own mind, had labeled an amiable sneer. Most politicians he encountered seemed to be similarly disingenuously armed, but, in the pool of vapid, cruel, self-righteous, utterly useless beings in the senate, he had a hard time envisioning it on the youthful, forthright face in front of him. For one small, indulgent second, Fox reveled in the aggravation the senator was causing the Chancellor.
The impromptu meeting ended, and the senator turned to leave. He acknowledged Fox with a nod and a quiet “Commander,” on his way past. He walked away without a clue as to how hollow his victory would eventually be. Because somehow, no matter what, the Chancellor always got what he wanted. Fox doubted this would be any different.
You idiot, Fox thought as the door to the office slid closed behind the departing senator.
“Do you find his insolence amusing, Commander?”
“No, sir.”
The question caught Fox off guard, but he responded in the negative as he would have if he’d been asked something so mundane as whether or not he thought the temperature of the room was unpleasant.
At a gala the previous week, a human senator had been drunkenly leering at Fox and his fellow guardsmen and marveling at how something that had not been born of a womb could seem so human, so sentient. He’d smiled and lifted his eyebrows as he looked at fellow guests, gauging their response to what he thought was profundity. Fox was used to hearing natborns’ fictions about clones, but half truths were somehow worse than outright lies. The senator had asked Fox if he wished he’d had a mother. And Fox had replied with the same two words, in the same clear, obedient inflection. No, sir. He’d kept his roiling bitterness and ire from his voice then, just as he kept the cautiousness and fresh dread out of his voice now.
The Chancellor hummed as he moved smoothly, deliberately from behind his desk. Fox could see his reflection in the luster of the top of his desk gliding alongside him.
“The good senator has managed to miss what’s above and beneath him. What’s all around him.” The Chancellor let out a chuckle that would almost have been pleasant.
The little hairs on the back of Fox’s neck prickled upward and pain spiked, horrible but not unfamiliar, in Fox’s skull, His body went rigid. Ice filled his lungs. Oh, gods, he couldn't breathe! The agony was unrelenting. He heard Palpatine's voice, but his lips didn’t move. Did they?
—
“Huh-uh, Grizz,” Hound said.
Fox came back to himself as Hound gave Grizzer’s leash a tiny tug. The massif settled back at Hound’s side and Hound continued his conversation with Wolffe. They were talking about one of Hound’s batch mates who had been assigned to the 104th; Hound was recounting a story about his batchmate. Fox couldn’t see Hound’s face, but, but he knew he was grinning like an idiot beneath his helmet. Wolffe had a wan smile on his face as he listened, but Fox knew Wolffe was also quietly studying him. Or maybe he was imagining it.
This is getting worse.
How long before he got too worn down, too careless, and ended up on the wrong end of a blaster in Coruscant’s underbelly? Maybe that would happen before he was deemed unfit and returned to Kamino as defective product. The latter would be a relief, if for no other reason than Fox achingly did not want to die on Coruscant.
“I’ll leave you to it, sirs,” Hound said. Fox wondered if Hound, beneath his helmet, was watching him as studiously as Wolffe. Wolffe cleared his throat and nodded when Hound saluted them, and Fox gave him a quiet dismissal.
We've named ourselves for beasts.
The silence between Fox and Wolffe gnawed at Fox as they continued on their way to 79’s.
I shouldn’t be doing this.
He’d gotten the distinct impression Wolffe would have dragged him from his barracks if it had come to it, but now that they were together for the first time in how long, there seemed to be a void between them. Maybe they could fill it with empty small talk or apologies. But maybe silence was better until they both had a few drinks in them. And, indeed, even after. At least on Fox’s end. He knew Wolffe was watching him, trying to puzzle something out. Maybe they'd part company earlier than expected. Maybe Wolffe would go get himself laid.
“You gonna tell me what’s wrong?”
Fox spied a group of four kids he’d chased away from the monument they’d been defacing the previous week. They were gathered around the outside of a store. Fox frowned. As they grew older, they’d find work in the lower levels of Coruscant and their youthful mischief would develop a dangerous edge. (There was a similar, but opposite correlation to be found in the senate building; the worse senators became, the higher they managed to climb.) He remembered the way the kids had scattered when he and the shiny that had accompanied him on his patrol had given chase. There’d been a mix of fear and youthful exhilaration on all of them. Fox had had another episode that same night.
—
Tears glittered hotly down Fox’s face. He wanted to scream. Tried to scream. But his mouth fell open and all he could hear was the hideous croaking that escaped.
“The intricacies of my plans go unnoticed until it’s too late. I do not need to lower myself to backing animals like you into corners to make things the way I want them.”
The magnanimous patience on the Chancellor’s face was belied by the predatory gleam in his eyes.
“At any rate, you’re a dog that can’t help but be loyal.” That garnered another chuckle from Palpatine, but this one was a grotesque, clotted sound that made Fox’s skin crawl. “It would really be a shame if that senator fell to harm. Afterall, the galaxy can be such a dangerous place.”
Nonononono! Pleasepleaseplease! Please not that, his mind wailed. The subtext of Palpatine’s words was as inescapable as pain and bloodstained memories lanced into his head. The pain became something precise and hateful at the base of his skull.
He was keenly aware of the oily slide of blood from his nose, and the humiliating groan that escaped him when the crushing feeling in his chest eased ever so slightly.
“I imagine the senator would be grateful if you helped teach him and his children that lesson. Would he not, Commander?”
“Yes, my lord.”
My lord?!
Fox’s mind reeled. This was the cause of all the missing time, all the headaches. All the blood on his hands, both his and the victims he couldn’t remember, except for the fear in their eyes and their dying breaths. As he fought his rising gorge as he wondered how many times he had already come to this conclusion. But this time he would remember. This time he would…
“And you won’t disappoint me again, will you, Commander?”
—
“Fox?!”
Fox’s back was against a duracrete wall, and Wolffe’s hands were clenched around his biceps, keeping upright. Fox struck Wolffe’s chest with the heel of his hand. It was clumsier than it should have been, but hard enough that Wolffe grunted and released his grip. He stayed close, though, as if he was afraid Fox would topple over the second he was out of his reach.
“What’s wrong, Fox?” Wolffe’s voice was a low, stony calm. Seeing anger in him would have been understandable - it might have even been a relief - but instead Fox saw thoughtful worry as Wolffe scrutinized him.
What’s wrong? Fox’s mind echoed. I wish I knew! He wanted to laugh at that, but he felt certain it would peel off into a sob. Or maybe a horrible, unwavering scream that would leave his throat raw. Maybe Fox didn’t want to know, not really. Could he stand to face the truth behind his slips in memory? All the wounds on his own body he couldn’t account for, and all the bright crimson he’d ever found on his hands?
No matter how intently he looked, Wolffe would never come close to understanding. How could he? Fox took in air more greedily than was dignified as he tried to think of something to say that would deflect Wolffe’s attention from what just happened. But Wolffe pressed him.
“You barely answer my comms, or the rest of the batch’s. There’s always a reason you can’t see us when we’re on leave. Since I’ve been with you it seems like you’re somewhere else, and you look like-”
“Like what?” Fox scowled openly at Wolffe. His voice was a low, private warning. What did he look like? A kicked dog? A fathir that’s about to bolt for its life? Like absolute shit?
“Like you haven't slept in a month,” Wolffe said as the corners of his mouth pulled downward and looked at Fox as though to ask him if he didn’t think he’d notice. There was no sharp anger there, just focused worry, and Fox was reminded that Wolffe had his own kind of patience and his own kind of stubborn compassion.
“Well, I sleep just fine in my cushy Guard barracks.”
Fox had meant for his words to bite, to throw back in Wolffe’s face whatever disparagement the rest of the GAR generally leveled at the Guard, but there was no real conviction to them. Wolffe narrowed his eyes at Fox, but didn’t take the bait he was offering, didn’t let Fox pick a fight.
“You’re a better liar than that.”
“I’m…” Fox’s fingertips worried at an imperfection in the duracrete he was still bracing himself against, but he glared at Wolffe.
I’m defective.
Wolffe lifted a hand toward Fox’s shoulder. Fox batted Wolffe’s hand away and took a graceless step sideways. If Wolffe touched him in that moment, he’d break. He knew it, and it disgusted him.
“I’m fine, Wolffe.”
“You’re not.”
No judgment. Just a fact spoken with enough insistence to suggest Wolffe’s next move would be to threaten, jokingly or otherwise, to beat it out of him.
But Wolffe was right, and Fox did the only thing he could.
He laughed. It was stilted, weary and hollow, but it counted. For what, he didn’t know, but it had to be better than openly sobbing. It left him without whatever small amount of energy had animated him. He nodded, as if in acceptance of that fact, and leaned back against the wall and slid down until he was seated, one hand on the ground, the other rubbing his thumb over the scar that ran along the left side of his jawline and grimacing at the feel of his stubble.
Maybe he wouldn’t get back up.
Wolffe followed suit and shaped himself into a loose approximation of Fox’s posture. They sat there like that in silence, both staring at the wall opposite them. The alleyway remained empty save for the two of them as the slow, steady foot traffic beyond filtered past.
“You’ve changed.”
Fox didn’t respond. It was true and it wasn’t. From Wolffe’s point of view, he undoubtedly seemed different than the last time they’d seen each other when Wolffe was on leave, and certainly different from the person he was when they’d parted ways on Kamino. Fox had changed out of necessity, but he’d been changed too. And the distinction sat like a stone in his chest.
“Still living in your own head, though.”
Wolffe’s knee bumped Fox’s, and Fox blinked and dipped his head. He made a noise in the back of his throat, but whether it indicated Fox agreed, or whether it indicated he hadn’t heard, neither of them were very sure.
“I can’t tell you what’s wrong, Wolffe. I can’t tell you, because I don’t know. Not exactly. It’s when I, when…” Words were suddenly much harder to come by. He hadn’t told any of his own men what he’d been experiencing, and despite all the worried glances he got from Thorn, Stone, or Thire, they didn’t know anything. They couldn’t. And they wouldn’t. It wasn’t their problem to deal with. Surely, an outsider’s scrutiny would be even less forgiving. There was nothing he could say that wouldn’t get him shipped directly back to Kamino, was there?
“Well, you may as well tell me what you can, because I’m not going anywhere.”
Stubborn sonofabitch, Fox thought as he shifted his position to alleviate the ache growing in his left knee.
His silence stretched on and on until the futility of it sank in. Fuck it. He was losing his mind, or he wasn’t, and if he wasn’t, someone should probably know about it. And if Wolffe could be a brother to him, he could be a brother to Fox's men.
“Just promise me,” he began as he faced Wolffe, resigned and so damn tired. “Promise me you’ll do everything you can to keep my men safe. They’re good men.”
Wolffe nodded. It was as good as a promise, but Wolffe’s expression was one Fox had seen too many times. It was the closest thing to pity he’d ever seen in Wolffe’s eyes, and that made Fox want to run, or scream, or disappear.
“You’re a good man too, Fox.”
Wolffe’s tone dared him to disagree. Fox didn’t, at least not aloud. How could he enumerate all the ways in which that wasn’t true? Instead, he smiled a jagged, but winsome smile, and began to talk.