SYSTEMS>GAR>CG>COMMAND.PERSONAL
USERID=CC-9420
CLEARANCE=4B.30
SYSFUNCT=CHAT
User Supreme Chancellor Palpatine has opened a chatlog with user CC-9420.
CC-9420 has set their nickname to “CDR Thorn.”
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CC-9420 has set their nickname to “CDR Thorn.”
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Supreme Chancellor Palpatine: My dear commander, it would appear as though Commander Fox has overexerted himself again. Would you come collect him? He’s, well, collapsed in the reception area of my offices.
CC-9420: Sir?
CC-9420: Of course I’ll come get him, sir, I’ll be there right away.
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“Well, Commander, it would appear as though your subordinate is on his way,” Sidius says to the limp body of CC-1010. The clone had dropped mid-meeting. No error on Sidius’s part, no, the control was working as it should be. CC-1010 was not able to feel pain, exhaustion, hunger, thirst, or any other limiting sensations. CC-1010 had simply reached the limit of the body’s energy reserves and passed out standing up.
He had become rather damaged in the last few days. Sidius would have to be more conservative in the future. He pulls back the miasma of energy surrounding the clone, relinquishing control. It’s no longer needed.
CC-1010 stirs and Chancellor Palpatine kneels to his level, smiling kindly and looking just to the left of where the clone’s eyes sat behind his visor. “Welcome back, Commander Fox,” he says, all paternal concern. “You gave us quite the scare.”
CC-1010 twitches. “What..?”
“I’ve called your partner Commander Thorn to come and pick you up,” Sidius continues, simpering.
“That’s not… I’m fully…”
“Nonsense, Commander. You obviously can’t be trusted to take care of yourself, so let me do it for you. Now, rest your eyes while the good Commander makes his way up to our level.”
Fox is maybe a quarter conscious when Thorn finds him. He’s in the Chancellor’s receiving room, all right, but the Chancellor is nowhere to be found. Just Fox, a pathetic pile of plastoid and stunned, glazed eyes slumped against the wall next to the door. Thorn drops to his knees and pulls his bucket off. Fox’s is already on the floor.
“Fox?” he begins, moving until Fox’s eyes manage to focus on Thorn’s general area. “Hey, ori’vod. Let’s get you to medical, yeah?”
Fox blinked. “Hmm?”
“Medical. I’m going to take you to medical.” Thorn puts a hand on Fox’s thigh and he jerks hard enough to make Thorn startle. “Sorry,” he says, retracting the hand. “Medical?”
Finally, Fox seems to catch up with the conversation. “No, no’no’no’m fine,” he slurs, moving like he’s trying to stand. He gets his feet under his shins a few times, but even that, it seems, is too much. “Fine, ‘m fine, lemme. Gonna. Stand.” He makes a particularly valiant try and nearly brains himself on the wall before Thorn can catch his head. Fox doesn’t flinch this time, just drops his head into Thorn’s hand, turning his cheek into his palm. His eyes flutter closed again, passive, exhausted tears dripping out from under the lids.
“Okay, Fox. I’m going to carry you. It’s okay. Let me put your bucket back on, yeah?”
He doesn’t respond. He’s gone again.
“He what?”
“Collapsed, Hemlock. He collapsed.”
“You’re fucking right he did. Dropped like a fucking stone. Do you know how exhausted you have to be to actually pass out?” Thorn opens his mouth, but Hemlock barrels right on through him both physically and verbally, pushing Thorn aside to grab another bag of intravenous fluids. “Really exhausted. So beyond exhausted. Your brain shouldn’t let you do… this.” He gestures to the entirety of Fox’s form, prone on the cot. “Make yourself useful and take his armor off,” he commands.
Fox doesn’t so much as twitch during the de-armoring process, just intermittently opens his eyes to blink confusedly at Thorn and frown a little.
“Hey, ori’vod,” Thorn says to him as he unfastens his front chestplate. “You still in there?”
“Mm.”
“Yeah, thought as much,” he chirps, tugging Fox’s gloves off and moving on to the lower part of his armor. “You scared the shit out of me, you know that?”
“S’rry.”
Thorn curses himself. “Don’t be. It’s not your fault.” Gently, he pulls Fox’s boots and greaves off. His blacks are soaked with sweat, enough to cake his shins and ankles in slimy, disgusting little smears of white. Thorn will have to get these off him. No way Fox will sleep well stewing in the sharp smell of his own overexertion. “Hells, big bro. When was the last time you showered?”
Fox doesn’t answer and, when Thorn looks up to check on him, he sees that he’s fallen unconscious again, head tipped back against the bedrail. “Fair,” Thorn says, taking off the last of his armor and turning back to Hemlock. “Hey, do you— Oh.”
“Yeah,” Hemlock says, holding a thin medical gown out to Thorn. “Get him changed. I’ll be right back.” Hemlock leaves without another word, and Thorn once again thanks ka’ra for understanding medics.
Thorn rouses Fox just enough to get him to cooperate with the change of clothes, sitting up and leaning against Thorn’s shoulder, lifting his legs, the whole nine yards. He’s still too gone to really register the undressing, which Thorn is guiltily glad for. Fox is thinner than the last time Thorn’s seen him undressed. He’s got more bruises, too. Some of them are nasty enough for Thorn to bring up to Hemlock, and Fox’s left ankle is so swollen and black with blood that Thorn knows it’s broken. Fox is just alert enough to object to Thorn taking his boxers off, so Thorn turns away and lets him handle that one on his own, turning back when a trembling, cool hand taps his shoulder twice.
He pulls the gown over Fox’s head, pausing to run his fingers through Fox’s matted hair and try to tease out some of the looser knots. He’s sure now that Fox hasn’t had time to take care of himself in days. Hell, Thorn hasn’t seen him in nearly a week.
Fox passes out again shortly after Thorn gets him redressed. This time, Thorn shifts him into a comfortable position and pulls the blanket over him before going back to work on his hair. Later, when Fox is awake and aware enough to help, he’ll try and get him cleaned up with a washcloth and some warm water. It’ll need to be warm to help work the dried blood loose. Some of it isn’t Fox’s, too dark or too light or too yellow to be human. Thorn will try and get rid of that first.
Hemlock comes back with an armful of bandages and a hot meal that he sets down in front of Thorn. “Eat,” he says. “I’ll take care of him.”
So Thorn eats, hunger winning out over nausea even as he watches Hemlock slip an IV into the crook of Fox’s elbow and wrap his ankle in enough bacta patches and compression bandages to keep him from doing anything more than wiggle his toes. Hemlock takes his temperature and measures his blood pressure and clucks his tongue with a disapproving frown when the numbers come out too low. “Fox,” he mutters to himself. “How do you do this? I’m going to kill you myself.” He injects a pain killer into Fox’s fluid line.
Fox comes around a few more times, blinking tearily when Hemlock shines a light in his eyes and mumbling something about protocol G-259.3 to Thorn. Thorn pacifies him with a hand on his arm and an indulgent, “Oh? I completely understand.”
After Hemlock’s done, though, Fox wakes up once more. This time is both more and less complete, and he’s crying before he can get a word out.
“Fox?” Thorn asks, leaning forward. “Hey, what’s wrong?”
For a moment, all Fox can do is sob. Then, he stammers out, “I miss you. I miss you all so much and you ha-ha -hate me and I miss you.”
“Woah, woah, hey, Fox,” Thorn says, acutely aware of Hemlock’s eyes on them. “Hey, no. I’m right here. I’m right here. No one hates you.”
Fox closes his eyes. “It’s okay,” he chokes. “He, he tells me why. I get it.”
“No, you don’t, ori’vod,” and fuck this, Thorn climbs into the bed with him. “I love you. I love you so much, you don’t even know.”
“I love you, too,” Fox whispers, tearful.
“I know. I love you. I’ve got you. I’m right here.”
“Please don’t leave.”
“I’m not going to.” Thorn wraps himself around Fox, back to chest. He holds him as close as he dares, wondering when his big brother had gotten so Force-damned fragile. “I’m not going to, Fox, I swear.”
Thorn finds him in the medbay again three weeks later.