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izzystizzys · 16 days

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“ - but have you ever considered, I don’t know, not sucking all the time? Just a thought.”

It takes the combined grips of Nuisance and Hound to keep the wriggling, snarling body beneath Fox from throwing him off its back. With three years’ practice of having to fix his own rickety desk chair over and over again, the movement merely ruffles the proverbial fringe on his helmet.

“And I don’t mean that as an insult, necessarily. Well, I do a little bit. But also I have some amount of empathy for the no doubt immense amounts of trauma that had to go into the creation of something so dysfunctional as you, on a very personal level, so have you considered going to the root of that in a way that’s like… useful? Instead of wasting it all on kriffing Kenobi, I mean. Look at the guy. All he does all day is drink tea and commit warcrimes. I bet he knits for fun. Bit of an embarrassing nemesis, don’t you think?”

“I”, says Kenobi, then pauses. The space between his eyebrows is creased with uncertainty, and he looks deeply torn between continuing rocking the shaking Duchess of Mandalore against his chest from his corner of the throne room and re-activating his lightsaber to continue losing his fight against the Darksider Fox is currently sitting on. “I feel like I should object to some part of that, but I’m not entirely clear on what. Or how this happened, again. Isn’t Mandalore a few star systems from your purview, Commander?”

“Probably the warcrimes”, mutters Nuisance underneath his strained breath.

“About as far from my supposed assignment as yours, General”, says Fox a little louder.

Kenobi twitches. Fox cannot claim to know which of them does it. Both, maybe. Probably.

“I will - taste - your - flesh!”, heaves out Darth Maul, snarling and hissing.

“Oooh, kinky!”, calls Grids, from the corner where she’s got her stun-setting aimed at the other Zabrak, currently passed out cold. Fox sighs deeply. He knew he shouldn’t have taken those three - any combination of Grids, Hound and Nuisance in a room together usually spelled chaos.

Unfortunately, it also spelled competence. The Basic alphabet can be funny that way.

The point being: as of some months into the war, one of Fox’s assigned tasks is the surveillance of all GAR-wide communication. All command-class staff theoretically got that memo, but no one seems to have read the fine print where that includes both professional and personal communication, as well as any and all comm devices registered or suspected to be registered to that person. Especially not one Anakin Skywalker and Padmé Amidala.

The point further being, if that sounds both immensely impractical and sort of terrifying in a democratic supposedly non-surveillance state, you’d be bang on the credits, and to Fox’ eternal chagrin the singular person in this whole useless army who’s spent the second of thinking necessary for that conclusion.

The final point being, when one frantic General’s mad dash across the Galaxy to rescue his teenage sweetheart from the spectre of his supposedly dead nemesis crosses his desk on its way to the Chancellor’s inbox, it doesn’t take much time for him to block any and all trace of it across the digital space of the GAR commboard and take matters into his own hands.

“ - which is why I told Thorn to suck it up and be in charge for a few days, and also why you’re still alive, your Highness, very welcome, was no trouble at all”, he concludes, drily. The Duchess stares the wide-eyed look of someone attempting to reconcile clones with ‘sentience’ or perhaps ‘personality’ in her head, but won’t say it outright.

Or the look of someone who’s just been violently overthrown and nearly murdered, perhaps, Fox allows.

“Um -“, Kenobi hedges, blinking rapidly.

“And the reason you’re still alive, probably. You’re welcome for that too, by the way”, Grids calls from the back of the throne room, cheekily.

“Alright”, says Kenobi, loudly. There’s color back in his deathly-pale cheeks, Fox notes, even if that color is a lot of red. It doesn’t fade very gracefully into his beard. “Opinions on whether or not I had everything under control notwithstanding -“

“You really didn’t”, Hound supplies helpfully.

“ - opinions notwithstanding, I am admittedly still lost on why you’re now sitting on Darth Maul and attempting to, to - jeer at him, Marshall Commander!”

“We’re not jeering, we’re trying to create a safe space and lay the groundwork for more open communication”, Fox says, primly.

Maul screams into the ground, attempting for the umpteenth time to rear up and visit great violence upon Fox, which admittedly has him rattling in his crosslegged seat atop his back.

Kenobi raises a perfectly plucked eyebrow. “Safe space?”

“He’s restrained and not stabbing anyone, I personally feel much safer than before”, Grids muses. “Watch the teeth though, Hound. Little biter.”

Indeed. Fox’s right greave will have to be replaced posthaste.

“And anyways, the point isn’t to jeer at him, it’s to make clear that he’s focusing his energy in the wrong places and could be doing much better things with his admittedly not-great life”, Fox adds, shifting to cast a pointed look down at Maul. The Sith is panting open-mouthed into the durasteel floor, sharp teeth gnashing wildly as his piercing yellow eyes shine with barely restrained rage. “I’m just saying - aim higher. You aren’t seeing the forest for the Kenobis, Maul. Can I call you Maul?”

“I will feed you your own entrails”, yowls Maul.

“See, that’s exactly what I’m talking about. Right now, I’m an easy target to focus all that built-up rage on, but is killing me really going to help you achieve any of your goals? No! Think about it - when it all comes down to it, who sent you on that mission to Naboo in the first place? Who made sure the Jedi and, by extension, Kenobi would be there to kill you? Who used you as a dejarik piece and then cast you aside the second you outlived your usefulness?”

Beneath him, Maul slowly stills in his struggle, still panting heavily. Hound and Nuisance don’t let it deter them in their vigilance, because they’re damn good vod’e and possess an ounce of common sense.

“And, look, I get it. I could spend the rest of my life punching every civilian who spits on me in the streets and it would even be satisfying. I could hit back the Senators who think of clones as easy targets. Or - I can aim my sights at who’s on top. And I think you know who I mean, because you know as well as I do the same damn man has ruined both our lives.”

Kenobi makes an alarmed noise, and Maul an interested one - not that Fox is going to let him walk out of this place awake. Still, he tilts his head in a way he hopes conveys his helmeted grin successfully to non-vod, as well as the bloodlust behind it. “You’re also welcome for the fact that the Chancellor won’t have heard of your spontaneous resurrection yet, by the way. You’ll retain your element of surprise instead of gambling it away on petty revenge on Kenobi.”

“He cut me in half!”

“He killed my master!”

Fox waves their protests away.

“Also, that’s treason!”, Kenobi adds, sputtering. Fox grins. Kenobi purses his lips, and continues. petulantly, “…do you have any proof?��

“So. Much. Proof”, says Nuisance, dreamily. “Like, do you want it alphabetically or by date?”

Which is when the Duchess, of all people, bursts out into barking, crazed laughter.

“You - you’ve certainly given yourself an edge in that fight, Marshall Commander”, she wheezes, brushing tears from her eyes. Fox raises his eyebrows at her, which she somehow seems to be able to tell, because she gestures at the clunky handle dangling from his belt.

“What, this old thing?” He unclasps the black rectangle from its hook, holding it up in the air. Maul stills strangely beneath him, and Kenobi goes ghostly pale again. Fox is starting to get a bad feeling.

“I took it off Viszla and beat him over the head with it. I figured he’d taken it off a Jedi cadet or something. What? Why are you looking at me like that?”