Stone is trying his gods-damned best not to fall asleep with his forehead on the ‘fresher wall. He’d had the sort of day only describable via vast understatement, and his muscles scream with it. That in mind, he’d made the wonderful decision to use his week’s hot water to ‘loosen himself up.’
Well. He’s loose now. He’s very loose. And sleepy. And hungry. And in pain.
It’s with no small effort that he pries his forehead free from the inexorable pull of the wall and the promise of sweet, sweet nothingness. He’s got to at least wash the soap off himself. Then dry. Then dress. Then find Thorn and drink until he passes out from whatever gets him first, Fox style.
Force, but Fox had been an ass today, barking at anyone within earshot and banging his way through the Senate with no regard for petty things like feelings or Stone’s last bit of sanity. ‘Work faster.’ Miserable bastard.
At long (not long enough) last, Stone rights himself and forces his body through the last motions of bathing. No one gives him a second look on his way to the officers’ barracks, too familiar with the look of abject despair to feel the need for questions.
Thorn’s got the good booze. Thorn’s got the good booze. Thorn’s got the good booze. This becomes his mantra, muttered to the time of his heavy footsteps as he goes down the East wing and through a security check and into the four-person dorm shared by Stone, Thorn, Thire, and, hypothetically, Fox.
Fox’s bed is practically growing cobwebs.
Thorn’s got the good booze Thorn’s got the good booze Thorn’s got the good booze Thorn’s
Standing in front of him, good booze hand. “Oya, vod. That’s a hell of a hairstyle.”
Stone scoffs. He’s sure it is. His mohawk is finally growing out: nice to see, but an extra step in personal hygiene that Stone couldn’t be assed to take today. “Ah, fuck a Gungan, Thorn. And pour me a glass while you’re at it.”
Thorn snorts a laugh and sits heavily on his bunk, dragging the cups on his little bedside table closer. “You’re lucky you’re cute.”
Thorn uncaps the bottle and gets as far as taking the cup in his off-hand before he’s interrupted by the door sliding open. Stone knows that these doors can’t open with any more or less speed than they always do, but the way Fox comes stumbling through, palm already slapping at the inside controls, makes him forget that for a moment.
Fox nearly falls in his haste to get to his bunk, tripping over nothing and scrabbling at the closure of his greys like he can’t seem to get them off. Before he can catch his balance again, his whole upper body convulses with a twitch like he’s been shocked. His head jerks to the side and his arm flies up to hit his chest. He keeps barreling forward like nothing happened.
“Fox,” Thorn starts, but the sound makes Fox startle so badly this time he does fall, right onto his unused cot. He looks at them with wild, hazy eyes, confused and scared.
What happened?
“Thorn,” Fox manages, just the one word, hoarse. “Stone—heh—Stone.” The catch in his voice was a little vocalization, sudden enough it must have been involuntary. Fox twitches again, and Stone can’t pinpoint where it starts or where it ends, but it moves him.
“Fox,” Thorn tries again, slower. “Are you alright?”
Fox is doing his best to put himself back together, stuff all his fraying edges back into the suit of Commander. It’s not working. “I’m fine,” he says over the fist that’s come up to hit him in the chest. “I’m—heh—I’m—heh, heh, I’m fine.” He scratches the back of his head. “I’m fine, I’ll be out of your hair, just give me a minute.” He convulses again, violently enough to bash his head off the wall. With every twitch, he grinds his teeth and squeezes his eyes closed.
“Fox, ori’vod, that’s not fine,” Stone says, going to kneel in front of Fox. He sets his hands on Fox’s knees and squeezes lightly, prompting Fox to look at him. His eyes are filmed over with tears. “What’s going on? Are you hurt?”
“No, I—heh—don’t know what’s happening. Heh. To me. I’m, I’m, I’m, something’s wrong,” he admits, and his right arm jerks violently. “I keep moving and I don’t mean to, I swear I don’t mean to, but I can’t make it—heh—make it stop.”
Oh, that’s not good. That’s no good at all.
“Did you hit your head?” Thorn asks, stepping up next to Stone and putting his hand on Fox’s face, coaxing him to turn his head so Thorn can look in his eyes. As Thorn runs a hand through his hair, presumably checking for bumps, he continues talking, voice calm and level and never faltering around Fox’s little vocalizations. “When did this start? Have you felt sick at all? Did you go to medbay?”
Fox closes his eyes again, turning away from Thorn’s ministrations. When he ducks his head, Stone sees a tear streak down his face. “Started maybe twenty minutes ago? I was on shift. I feel… tingly. Haven’t seen a medic.”
“Okay,” Thorn says. “Okay. This is… not good, Fox. This is really not good.”
Fox looks up at him with liquid eyes and no one says what everyone’s thinking. No medics. Hemlock wouldn’t be able to keep this quiet, wouldn’t be able to deal with this and make it disappear. Fox would, though. Disappear, that is.
No medics.
“I’m sorry,” Fox murmurs. “I’m so sorry.”
Stone frowns. “For what?”
Fox laughs. “Funny.” He doesn’t elaborate, just looks Stone right in the eye and says, “Do you think I’m being punished?”
“This will pass,” Thorn tells Fox, swears to him over and over while he shakes and spasms and cries between them. “This will pass,” over and over again, “This will pass, this will pass, I promise, brother, this will pass.”
They wait it out for two hours. It does not pass. It gets worse. It gets worse and worse until Fox is crying silently and white-knuckling the sheets and pressing his heels so hard into the bedframe it creaks. They’ve stripped him down to his blacks in a vain attempt to make him more comfortable. They’ve forced water into him. They’ve rubbed his seizing shoulders and been silent and encouraging and silent again and nothing is working.
They can’t take him to the medbay.
They have to do something.
“Call Wolffe,” Stone finally says. “He’ll know what to do.” Wolffe and Fox have been joined at the hip since first growth cycle, going everywhere and doing everything in stony, breakneck harmony.
Thorn looks to Fox and Fox nods jerkily before breaking off into another fit of those spasms that make his jaw clench hard enough to make Stone’s teeth hurt. Stone rubs the back of his neck and shoulders while Thorn makes the call.
“Wolffe. What do you want?”
Thorn holds the comm high enough for Fox and Stone to come into the frame. In his little projection, Wolffe stiffens. He must be at some sort of meeting, because Stone sees bodies in the background when Wolffe turns and darts into the hallway.
“What happened to him?” Wolffe demands. “Fox, what the fuck happened?”
Fox opens his eyes long enough to give Wolffe a crooked, wry smile. “Finally losing it, I—heh—guess. Pity you, heh, heh, can’t be here to—heh—see it.” Then he’s gone again, leaning into Stone’s offered shoulder and trying to ride out a leg cramp that has him drawing one knee up to his chest and keeping it as close as he can.
“Hah, you’re hilarious, kih’vod,” Wolffe says, all curt worry. “What’s wrong with him?” he demands of Thorn.
Thorn shrugs. “Fuck if I know. That’s why we called you. It just… started happening and hasn’t stopped for,” he checks the time, “coming up on two hours.”
“Fuck,” Wolffe says.
Stone sighs, putting a hand on the back of Fox’s head and rubbing gently as he feels tears soak through his blacks. “Thanks, that’s very helpful.”
Wolffe opens his mouth like he might say more, but he’s cut off by Fox’s sudden jerk upright. He pushes away from Stone and is overtaken by a spasm so much stronger than the ones before it that at first Stone thinks he’s seizing. He jackknifes forward and nearly falls off the bed. Stone reaches for him, but he falls backwards before Stone can grab him. He’s lying on his back now, flat on the bed with his face contorted into an uncanny grimace and his closed fists punching the bed over and over again. He starts to bang his head and Stone reaches out to stop him.
“No,” Wolffe barks. “Do not restrain him.”
“But—”
“Don’t. I’m getting Plo.”
The holo shifts again and Stone tries to focus on Wolffe’s voice calling for his General rather than the sound of Fox’s breath catching in his throat, like he’s choking on the little whimpering sounds he’s still trying to make.
Stone has heard people die before. This is what dying sounds like.
“Commanders,” comes the smooth, soothing voice of General Koon. It’s enough to bring tears to Stone’s eyes, but Fox is already crying and Thorn is well on his way and he has to be the big brother here. He puts a hand on Fox’s twitching leg as General Koon considers the situation. “What precipitated this?” he asks.
“Um,” Thorn pauses to clear his throat and swipe anxiously at his eyes. “Ah, I don’t know. He said he didn’t feel sick, that he felt ‘tingly.’ He didn’t say much else before. This.” He gestures behind him to where Fox has relaxed marginally, trying to catch his breath before the next spasms started. He’s crying audibly now, clutching Stone’s offered hand and squeezing his eyes shut like he might be able to make this go away if he just tries hard enough.
Fox has always been like that, determined to stand alone and do things his own way. It’s some sort of horrible self-sacrificial inferiority complex that masquerades as infuriating superiority. Sometimes, on the bad days, Stone can almost see why so many of the vode don’t like him. Today was a bad day.
Wait.
“He was really stressed out today,” Stone says to General Koon. “Really stressed. He’s been getting worse all week.”
Wolffe frowns at the same time that the General sighs. “Ah,” Koon says. “Commanders, are any of you familiar with the concept of anxiety tics?”
Stone shakes his head, rubbing a soothing thumb over the back of Fox’s hand as the knee-jerks start again. Thorn also doesn’t know.
“Sometimes, when an individual faces prolonged, severe stress, either environmental or internal, the body reacts by developing tics and twitches. Those are the spasms you’re seeing.” Stone can’t see Koon’s eyes, actually, can’t see much of his face at all, but he imagines he can feel the soulful, sad look on his face as he watches Fox suffer. “Fortunately, the condition is usually short-term.”
“And un fortunately?” Wolffe growls.
“There is no way to help him. Moreover, this will likely not be the last attack Commander Fox suffers.”
Thorn finally gives up and chokes out a dry sob. “So what? We just watch him suffer?” He tacks a hasty, “sir,” on the end.
Plo sighs and Wolffe turns away from the camera, grimacing and balling his fists up nearly as tight as Fox’s. “All that can be done at the present time is to make him as comfortable as you can. You should get him a mouthguard and a pillow to put under his head. Make sure not to restrain him, as you could injure him.”
Fucking hell. Fucking core planet shithole killing all of them and breaking them into a thousand karking pieces and leaving Stone so far out of his body all he can think about is the exact patterns of ripples through the holo and the way Fox’s hand squeezes his while some deeper part of him panics. Fuck this. Fuck everything.
Fox makes it another half-hour before he passes out. Another half-hour of gut-wrenching whimpers and painful spasms and whispering, “Please, please stop, please, hurts, please,” and grinding the mouthguard to pieces between his teeth before he collapses against Stone, boneless and limp with exhaustion.
Stone gathers him up and moves him to his own bunk. It’s homier there, less crisp and more lived-in. He tucks Fox in while Thorn darts into the ‘fresher and runs the sink to cover the sound of his crying. Stone climbs in next to Fox, pulling him close and going back to massaging his shoulders and upper back while Thorn putters around the room collecting things. He leaves a water bottle and a little stack of pain relievers, muscle relaxers, and ration bars on the floor next to Stone’s bed and leans down to press a quick, hard keldabe to Stone’s forehead.
“I have a Senate shift,” he says, miserable. “Please make sure… Just…”
“I will,” Stone promises. “I will.”