Standing guard doesn’t exactly take much brain power, even in excruciating pain. Actually, Fox thinks it might take less brain power when the pain is this bad. He’s doing his best to dissociate and the blood loss and pain meds are helping, so he has plenty of space and time to devote to Quinlan Vos and Fox’s feelings about him. He thinks a lot about Quinlan these days. He’s not sure when it started, when Quinlan went from another figure in the background of Fox’s life to someone Fox thinks of every night before bed, first thing in the morning, when he’s on his meal break, alone in the washracks. Everywhere, all the time, even when Quinlan’s away. It’s stupid, wishful thinking, but Fox is in love with the way he wants Quinlan. And earlier today, just for a minute, he’d thought—
“Commander,” Palpatine calls. Fox jerks out of his reverie, all thoughts of Quinlan scattering as reality slams back into him. He barely manages to stifle a whimper as his whole abdomen throbs in time with his racing heart, recently-stitched blaster wounds burning and aching at the same time. His vision goes dark (darker?), then clears, and he remembers he’s standing in the Chancellor’s office. He’s on guard duty, has been for four hours and will be until the Chancellor decides he’s done, and even though he’s been awake and on his feet the whole time he feels groggy like he’s just woken up. He’s standing next to the door. Afternoon sunlight streams in the wide windows. At his desk, Palpatine is watching him with feigned concern. “Are you quite alright?”
Fox clears his throat. His mouth tastes like blood. “Yes, sir. Sorry, sir.” He straightens an impossible fraction of a degree further.
“No need to apologize, Commander, it’s—is that blood?”
Fox’s heart skips a beat. “Sorry?”
Palpatine’s gaze is fixed on Fox’s boots. “Right there, on the new carpet. I believe that’s your blood, Commander.”
There’s a sickeningly gleeful edge to his voice. As sympathetic as he makes himself out to be, he’s thrilled to see Fox fail. He’s been waiting for this, waiting for a reason to punish him, as if the regular training sessions weren’t enough. Fox didn’t even know “don’t bleed on the carpet” was a rule, but now it’s abundantly clear he’s broken it. Sick with dread and pain, he follows the Chancellor’s gaze.
There is, in fact, blood on the new carpet. Seeping out onto the bright white carpet in deep red outlines of his boots is Fox’s blood. Huh. He must have reopened something. Hemlock won’t be pleased. The Chancellor isn’t pleased.
Fuck, the Chancellor isn’t pleased.
Fox snaps his head back up to proper parade rest. “I’m so sorry, sir. I wasn’t aware, uh, I d-didn’t realize—”
Palpatine cuts him off with a disappointed sigh and a wave of his hand. “There’s nothing for it now, Commander. Guards, if you please?”
Fox does his best to breathe through the panic as five Red Guards file through the door. “Sir?”
Palpatine leans back in his enormous chair. It’s more of a throne, really, ornate despite its clean, harsh lines. “I fear a bit of training might be in order, Commander.”
“Yes, sir.” Fox doesn’t look at the Guards. They’ll have his attention soon enough; they don’t deserve it now.
The Chancellor smiles. “I’m glad you understand. It’s not that I want to do this, Fox, but some lessons need to be learned.”
Fox nods, though he’s not sure what lesson he’s supposed to be learning. He bled on the carpet. He can’t learn to control the flow of his blood. He prefers it when the Chancellor is honest with him and calls these sessions what they are: punishments. The denial almost always means Palpatine’s feeling more sadistic than usual.
“And, of course, it gives you a chance to get acquainted with the newest member of our Guard,” Palpatine continues. Ah, there it is. The motive. “Please, take your helmets off, gentlemen. No need to be so formal.”
He doesn’t mean Fox. He never means Fox. The Red Guard take their helmets off in rough synchronicity. Fox’s will stay on until one of the Guards sees fit to remove it from him, and by then he’ll be too busy fighting to care much. Sure enough, one of the faces is new. He’s younger, probably about the age Fox is biologically, if not chronologically, and his pale face is pockmarked with acne, but free of any real scarring. Fresh, or as fresh as anyone in the galaxy is these days.
He smiles meanly at Fox, showing too many too-perfect teeth. “I’ll be honest,” he drawls. “I’ve never done anything like this before.” He holds out a hand. “Name’s Devan.”
Fox blinks. Is he meant to…? A quick glance at the Chancellor confirms that yes, he is supposed to shake Devan’s hand. He’s not even sure why, but humiliation washes over him and pricks at the corner of his eyes. He takes Devan’s hand anyway, and Devan shakes firmly. He doesn’t ask Fox’s name and Fox is glad, because he’s not sure what he would say. Devan releases his hand, and before Fox has time to wonder what will happen next, Devan shoves his electrostaff into Fox’s stomach.
There’s a point after which degrees of pain don’t matter, when it all blurs together and it doesn’t particularly matter what hurts the most or where or for how long because it just hurts. Fox doubles over, clutching instinctually at his stomach and dragging the electrostaff down with him. His teeth snap together and he must catch his tongue, because blood floods his mouth. He’s paralyzed with pain and electric shock and perversely, it’s Devan who yanks the staff away.
When he’s cognizant enough to open his eyes again, Devan’s looming over him smiling that perfect smile and holding his electrostaff proudly. “Man,” he says. “No wonder they like hurting you so much. This is fun.”
He has a hard time staying conscious for the rest of the session.
Quinlan’s holding him. Quinlan’s so warm and comfortable to lean on and he’s Quinlan, which is so good all on its own that Fox is in real danger of crying or maybe passing out from disbelief. He is really dizzy. Passing out could happen right now. That would be embarrassing, except Quinlan’s holding him (holy shit) and if he passed out he would just end up leaning more on Quinlan, who’s holding him (holy shit), so everyone would probably just think he’d fallen asleep again.
He snuggles closer to Quinlan. It’s an experiment. He’s going to see how many Quinlan-related chest-crushing emotions he can feel before he passes out. He’s also going to see how many kisses he can get from Quinlan before this, like every other good thing in Fox’s life, evaporates. He tucks himself further under Quinlan’s arm and starts nuzzling his neck, mouthing at the sensitive spot under his ear and the little scar on his jaw until Quinlan gets the idea and cups the back of Fox’s neck in his hand. Fox feels so weak, tired and shaky despite the fact that he’s not actually doing anything, and the solid warmth of Quinlan’s hand is almost as comforting as his lips on Fox’s. Oh, it’s good. It’s the best thing he’s ever had, he’s pretty sure, and his whole body throbs with an impossibly content pleasure. Quinlan opens his mouth a bit and Fox seizes the opportunity, making an eager noise into his mouth and kissing him harder.
The kiss breaks when Quinlan smiles and pulls Fox gently back to rest their foreheads together. Fox whines and Quinlan laughs because he’s mean even though he’s wonderful. “We’re gonna get in trouble again,” he says.
“But—”
“But nothing. Hands to yourselves in the medbay,” Hemlock snaps. Fox had missed his approach, entirely too absorbed in Quinlan and his warm steady hands and soft lips and pretty hair. Now, he’s looming over them with a scanner and a scowl, eyes dark with exhaustion and hair sticking up on one side like he’d just woken up. He’d probably napped after Fox’s surgery. Fox had also napped after Fox’s surgery.
Hemlock checks Fox’s vitals and notes something on his ‘pad. “What are you laughing about?”
Fox opens his mouth to explain the naps, but Quinlan beats him to it. “He’s been giggly since he woke up.”
“Have not.” Fox wants to keep arguing this point, because he’s not giggly, but Quinlan pulls the blankets back up to Fox’s shoulders and wraps his arm around him and everything goes warm and fuzzy in that tired way again. Quinlan is very warm. What was he talking about? “Mm.”
Quinlan laughs some more. Quinlan’s the giggly one.
“Go back to sleep, sweetheart. I’ll be here when you wake up.”
It’s too heavy. That’s the only thought in his head, the only one making it past the bone-cracking pressure on his chest. Too heavy, it’s too heavy, sure, the Guardsman is big, but Fox shouldn’t be suffocating from a boot to the chest. He shouldn’t be, but he is, and no matter how hard he struggles, he can’t throw Devan off him. He can’t get enough air to soothe the screaming pain in his lungs and head. He can’t even scream.
Devan looms over him. Something about the perspective is off, but Fox can’t figure out what. He’s really feeling the oxygen deprivation, now, in lightheadedness and black creeping in at the edges of his vision. “And Commander?” he sneers. “You deserve this.” The kick to his stomach knocks him out and he
comes to in agony, bolt upright in a medical berth tangled in sweaty sheets and gasping for breath. The world takes a long, disorienting moment to come into focus. Right. Medbay. Right. He’s in the medbay, and that’s Quinlan sitting in the chair next to his bed. He’s fine. Everything’s fine, except for the hole in his stomach. There’s an alarm going off somewhere, probably related to his skyrocketing heart rate.
“Fox!” Quinlan drops his datapad and jumps to his feet, taking Fox by the shoulders and gently pushing him back down. “Hey, it was just a dream. You’re not supposed to be moving that much yet.”
It takes Fox another long moment to remember how to talk. “Huh?”
Quinlan straightens the blankets, drawing them back up over the bandages wrapping Fox’s torso. “You had a nightmare. You’re in the medbay. Hemlock’s probably on his way, considering the…” He gestures vaguely to the monitoring equipment, which is still beeping unhappily.
“Right.” And Quinlan is here, because he and Quinlan are… something, now. Quinlan likes him back. Quinlan called him ‘sweetheart’ and kissed him. Fox gets a bit lost in that and the way Quinlan takes his hand and rubs the back of it with his thumb and misses most of the checkup Hemlock gives him. It’s routine at this point. Wake up in the medbay, get bitched at, get prodded and scanned, get bitched at some more, be left alone to get as much sleep as he can before his next shift.
Well, not really alone, this time. Hemlock leaves him with Quinlan (who’s under strict orders not to distract or excite Fox until the bacta does a bit more work on his stomach wound) and a double dose of painkillers. Fox settles back down under his thin blanket with Quinlan perched on the chair at his bedside, still holding his hand, still rubbing little circles with his thumb.
“This is nice,” Fox murmurs. The painkillers have taken the edge off the worst of the pain and sure, he could do without the nightmares, but he always has those. Not so bad to wake up to Quinlan instead of an empty room for once. He takes what he can get. His eyes slip closed and he tries to fall into the feeling of Quinlan’s hand in his.
Quinlan laughs. “Yeah, for you, this must be like a vacation.” The laugh doesn’t sound right, though, and when Fox opens his eyes, he sees Quinlan’s pensive expression. “This isn’t right, Fox,” he continues. “What you told me… he can’t do that, Fox. That can’t go on.”
“He can’t, and yet he does. He has, for the whole war.” Quinlan makes a wounded noise, but Fox continues. “It’s not that easy to stop. Don’t you think I’ve tried already?”
“That’s—Fox, you know I didn’t mean—”
“I know. But what
I
mean is I have a shift in four hours that I have to show up to no matter how bad I feel, and I’m a lot more concerned with that than I am with pipe dreams about making it all better.” He sighs. “I’m sorry. I know that’s not what you want to hear.”
“Fox, you
can’t
go back on shift right now. I won’t let it happen.” His face is all steely determination and for just a moment, Fox lets himself believe him. Then, Quinlan’s communicator goes off. “Oh.” His face falls. “I… I have to go. It’s urgent.”
Fox closes his eyes. “Right.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay.” It really is. He shouldn’t have gotten his hopes up and now Quinlan feels bad. That’s Fox’s fault, not his. “I’ll see you later?”
“Yeah. Yeah, of course. See you later, Fox.”