Chapter Text
Wake up. Work. Eat. Drink. Sleep.
- - - - -
The four things Fox knew how to follow. A cycle. A schedule.
Something he wrote up himself out of the millions of things thrown onto him. The one thing he's kept to himself since he was shipped here. Since he became part of the Corrie.
When he was a cadet. He had dreams. Ones of large worlds, trees, how beautiful the sun would look on a sunrise with no rain blocking his view - no metal. And yet as he looks out the window the planet of metal met his eyes.
He had dreams. And they laid buried within his gut. The same as his brothers that stayed here past leave.
The Coruscant Guard. The 'Corrie'. The weak. The non-fighters.
(He muted the CC group chat long ago, they started treating him as if he wasn't one of them.
And they were right. He wasn't.)
They were called many words. He was called more. The face of them.
CC-1010 (Fox. Fox. Fox. Fox. Fox. Fox. His name is Fox.) The..
Marshall Commander. Protector. Ori'Vod. Demon. Monster. Far from human.
The senators reminded him of that like it was stone. Ha.. Stone.
He should check on Stone.
The cup of caff in his hand had long since turned cold.
He despised cold caff. But he drank it anyway. He's long since learned to stomach things he hates and was forgetting how to stomach food instead.
(It quiets the ache in his head.)
- - - - -
Wake up. Work. Drink. Sleep.
- - - - -
Eat slipped away from the schedule. It wasn't his fault. (That's what he told the medics atleast. They didn't need to know how regret was easier to stomach than their food. The slop they ate.)
But it wasn't like he noticed past the small things.
How it was harder to blink. How exhaustion dragged, dragged, dragged him down. His knees buckled with each move. His hands were shaking now. But when were they not.
He was fine. He was fine. He was fine.
(His memories were getting worse. Past the missions that he kept tight lipped about. Past the broken memories of blood.)
The medics looked at him with worried glances.
The caff intake was increased. It replaced the blood within his veins.
It made him feel more alive.
Something he wasn't anymore.
He'd died on Kamino. And this was his punishment for that.
For taking the innocent life of a Cadet.
The little Fox.
- - - - -
Work. Drink.
- - - - -
Bags had grown deep within his skin, reached to his skull.
Stone was the one checking on him now. Thire and Thorn too. But they had no time, no right to say anything.
Their own schedule had no word of 'sleep' in it either, it was scratched off just like his.
Passing out replaced the sleeping.
Touch was forbidden within sight of Senators. After all, what droid seeks comfort through gentle embraces.
All he got was a gentle shoulder nudge, a hand on his back, all of each felt colder than the armor wrapped around his body.
The rules were strict. Foot before foot, paint perfect - not chipped, each breath the same.
Unless you want a decommission slip. The pile that was getting bigger each day on his desk, big words written in red.
Each reason similar to the next.
An accent (they all had the same one.) is reason enough for reconditioning. (Send them back to where they got the accent. Smart.)
Bad paint job (a sloppy hand work due to lack of sleep. Of food. The gar got the first shipments.) is even more reason for reconditioning. They clearly aren't fit to protect the Senators if their paint is chipped!
Sassiness.. snarkiness is reason enough for decommissioning in Senator eyes. (Wolffe would be dead if he was here. Wolffe would be dead. Is he dead? He hasn't heard from him recently.)
It goes on and on.
They're not the perfect droids if you can hear their heart beating, after all.
Gray hair was growing a long his temples, messing up the perfect black of his curls. He'd be decommissioned if anyone saw. Or praised. Decommissioning a Marshall Commander is a lot of paper work.
Curls made his head easier to grab.
Senators knew it. And so did he.
It made it easier to pull. To yank. To feel a sense of pain.
Black dots peppered around his vision. His body shivered with each heartbeat.
The ringing in his ears was deafened by the click of armor.
He paid no mind to the demands as he downed another cup of caff.
- - - - -
Work.
- - - - -
His hands moved yet the datapad stayed still on his lap. His vision was swarming, head pounding. The empty blanks in his memory stared him in the eyes. The most steady thing in a sea of unsteady.
His communicator went off.
The Chancellor. Palpatine.. Palpatine. Chancellor Palpatine. Ha. What a great chancellor.
He hopes he dies, and not just himself in that.
He stared in the mirror as he pushed himself up. The datapad cracked as it fell to the floor and he stared in the mirror that sat across the way. The man that stared back was nothing like the Cadet in his dreams. (If he could even remember the last time he slept.)
Sunken in cheeks met his eyes before the cold dead brown eyes did. Black hair that grayed along his head slipped past his shoulders. He should get a haircut.
As if he'd have the time.
Fox (because his name was Fox. His name is Fox. Not was. Is. His name is Fox. Not CC-1010. His name is Fox. Right?) turned away from the dead man in the mirror and pulled on his helmet.
There's no point in looking at a dead man.
And the man that looked at him in the mirror was far past dead.
- - - - -
Shoot.
- - - - -
Fives was dead. He doesn't remember shooting him. Not one bit. He remembers the sound of armor hitting the floor. (Was it his or Fives'? He only remembers how his head lolled back. Good soldiers follow orders.)
There were people screaming. He remembers being shoved, either in defense or anger he can't tell. His helmet had been ripped off and a slap had rang in the air.
He didn't know it was him who had been slapped.
Rex was heaving in front of him. Cheeks red with rage.
He almost matched the look of the Guard despite screaming at one of them.
The guard had shoved him away, dragged Fox away even if he didn't kick or scream.
- - - - -
Heal.
- - - - -
He doesn't remember much following. He remembers Thorn's arms, a hand in his hair as patches laid across his skin.
"Will he live?"
"The damage is out of my control, Thorn."
When he sat up on the bed, Thorn had stared at him with Fox's communicator in his hand.
Every batchmate blocked. Wolffe sat at the top.
Fox threw up his own saliva for the day to come. There was only so much Bacta could do for mental wounds. (He ignores how most of it was wrapped around his chest. Covering the lightning wounds, when did he get hit by that?
There's no storms here.)
- - - - -
Breathe.
- - - - -
Thorn laid dead on the floor in front of him. No medal. The Senator he died for was married to that Golden Boy. To the Chancellor's golden boy.
To that bloody Skywalker.
And rage bubbled deep within his chest as he punched fist after fist into the wall.
It only dragged the pain into more parts of his body.
He stopped breathing with each panic attack that came. He stopped talking.
Stopped remembering what his own voice sounded like despite people who sounded just like him surrounded him.
The days went on and they left his rotting brain behind. (But it did CPR on his corpse.)
- - - - -
Move.
- - - - -
It was harder to move. He knows it's not right, how hard it is to push a body of a chair.
His body felt like it was filled with cement.
A meeting played in front of his eyes and he watched his own body from his eyes.
Hands trembling at his side.
The senators were talking. They were talking and talking and talking. (Did they ever stop talking? They should stop talking.)
His gut was empty. His eyes burnt. His head pounded with nausea or pain or whatever new thing he had.
One of them was staring at him so he straightened her back.
She was from Naboo. The Golden Boy's wife. (He wondered if she knew he kneeled in front of the man she was arguing with.)
The reason Thorn was dead.
A scream had rang out. It wasn't him, but her (he'd heard her scream the same way when Thorn died). He knew that because his lips felt like they were sewed tightly shut - they might as well had been. Barely spoken past 'yes sir'.
His armor had cracked as he fell harshly against the floor.
But he wasn't dead because God never knew when the end should be.
Only half of him wished he'd open his eyes again but it wasn't for an act of selfishness.
It was because of his Vod'ike. Because of his job. Because of what he was programmed to do.
He was more droid than human.
- - - - -
Sleep.
- - - - -
And yet his eyes slipped shut like a human's would.