There is a scratch mark on the floor of the Council chambers that Mace has never noticed before. Not a deep one, mind, quite shallow. This matters because it’s making the white-hot pulse of agony stabbing through his eyeballs ebb momentarily. Then, he chances a glance upwards at the fidgeting Knight in front of them, and it returns in full force.
Huh, he’s never seen Oppo Rancisis’ face turn that colour before.
“Hmm”, Master Yoda hums, deep and scratchy. His expression is unreadable even to Mace beyond a baseline gremlinness, and the force with which he grips the edges of his seat is making his bones creak. Master of the Order you should become, they said. Follow the calling of the Force, you should. A fulfilling purpose, it will be. Mace is going to hunt the little goblin for sport when this is all over, and he’s going to laugh the whole time.
“Show us the livestream again, could you, Knight Parvo?” Yoda asks. Mace bursts a capillary, he’s pretty sure, and so does poor Knight Parvo, whose orange Mon Cala skin tips all the way into blood red with stress. “Most unusual, this is.”
“Absolutely not!”, Ki Adi intervenes before Mace has to, thank the Force for little mercies. Plo Koon’s tusks tremble slightly with either suppressed laughter or abject horror, maybe both, and Stass Allie has her head in her hands. “The holo stills should be enough”, Ki Adi proceeds to add, and Mace has to reconsider all feelings of grace he just felt towards his fellow Councillor.
He never wants to watch Yoda zoom in on someone’s abs again. Or Depa raise her eyebrows at the curve of thighs bent over the dripping front of a speeder.
“Speeder Wash For Our Troops”, his former padawan reads out loud from a still of what has to be hundreds of the things gathered in the public senate parking lot. “Fund Our Boys And Get A Wet Seeing-To!” The series of images features dozens of Coruscant Guard troopers in various stages of unkitted, gleaming and shining with soap suds and water. The fact that the whole thing is also massive shatterpoint after massive shatterpoint is, quite frankly, insulting.
“Well hello- oh dear”, Obi-Wan’s blue form crackles to life in his chair, followed by several sounds of choking that are definitely not him. Good, Mace thinks acidly. If he has to deal with this, then so does kriffing Skywalker. “I’m sorry, why am I looking at Commander Thorn using a washrag like a lasso on top of a speeder?”
“Oh, the Guard’s little fundraising project”, Bail Organa says, as he steps into the Council chambers. Normally, Mace likes the man well enough. Now, he just smiles and adds on, “I’ve already donated, in mine and Breha’s name. Remotely, of course.”
“The Guard’s fundraising speeder wash?”, Obi-Wan repeats, edges of his holo form flickering with what Mace suspects is Skywalker very unsubtly trying to edge in. Force, but the man really is horrible at any and all stealth, like kissing his secret wife in an open arena in front of his Master. “And they are fundraising for…?”
“GAR budget allocations have to come from somewhere”, Organa shrugs. “And with the tide of public opinion turning, they’ve been tending towards cuts. The Guard feels them more keenly than any other sector - they’ve been reduced from half to quarter rations, and medical supplies have not made more than a token appearance in the last draft. The Chancellor has cancelled three consecutive meetings on the matter, and thus it was agreed that a more hands-on approach was needed. Any surplus will go into the Army fund.”
“Surely it can’t be that dire”, Oppo protests, a slightly less concerning shade of purple now. Senator Organa shrugs again, jostling the smattering of cracks slowly building around his person in a way that makes Mace wince quietly. “It’s all publicly available data, Masters.”
It really can be that dire, as it turns out. And quarter rations is only scratching the surface of how dire, considering the Guard has apparently never had access to bacta in all their posting, and also includes requisitioning forms available to the Senate for reconditionings and decommissionings, two words Mace has only heard Ponds whispers amidst shuddering in the early days of the war before Shaak Ti went off and just about tore some throats out over it.
“Alright”, he concedes, rubbing at his temples. “Fair enough, we have failed to tackle a massive blind spot in the Guard’s well being. There is no Jedi assigned to Coruscant, and that’s an oversight on our behalf. But how in the everloving kriff did this get past the Chancellor and Commander Fox?!”
Who have both signed, black on white. Bail Organa smiles cryptically. “Well, if you scroll a bit past that one image, up to the industrial speeder in the back - Commander Fox is currently having credits stuffed into his codpiece in the back, I believe.”
“HE’S WHAT IN THE WHAT NOW”, Commander Cody screeches through the speaker of Obi-Wan’s holo image, and Mace has to summon every bit of Jedi-serenity he possesses in his body to keep from dropkicking a cackling Yoda through the chamber windows.
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"So, like", Bly starts. He is definitely drunk at this point. So is Fox, to be honest, but he is still judging.
"So like what?" Fox asks.
"So, like, what is it?" Bly asks. "The thing."
"Maybe we should have this talk when your brain is not made of 80 percent of alcohol", Fox says.
"No no, we are having this now", Bly says. "Like, the thing. With the Queen and the Senator. Like, you know, I like Aayla because-"
"He's asking you what it is about them that makes you like them that much", Wolffe explains, promptly interrupting Bly, before he can start rambling about General Secura.
Fox knows he shouldn't say anything.
But then he looks at everybody else around the table. They are all grinning.
Yes, his brothers have been teasing him about his choices. Oh, Fox has gotten fancy while on the Triple-Zero. He does not care for the same things as us common folk. No, Fox likes the finer things now, like all the rich people around him.
Fox knows that his brothers are not really taking Bail and Breha seriously. They all respect them, like they should. Bail is not constantly putting himself in the middle of battles to help them and the people out, nor is Breha constantly pushing more credits and aid and trying to handle diplomatics to get better things for the army, for them all to disrespect them.
But Fox knows that they don't take Bail and Breha seriously. They are still rich people, royalty, nobility, people who have gotten used to nice things and nice things only. People who are nice and aspire to do good, but are still soft and delicate in their eyes.
So Fox opens his mouth.
"They are nice", he starts, because that is the starting point.
"Yeah, yeah, we all know that", Rex says. Fox glares at Cody, who in turn, smacks Rex on the arm.
"They treat me well", Fox continues. "And they are fun to be around."
"I'm starting to think that we have a very different understanding of fun these days", Bly grins. "What do you even do for fun? Sit on fancy couches and talk poetry? Do they kiss your hand as a good-bye when you leave?"
"Sometimes", Fox says. Wolffe gags. Fox glares at Cody again, who, in turn, smacks Wolffe on the back of his head.
"Hey, you all have to admit, it's very romantic", Ponds says. "It's very nice."
"Yeah, if sappy romance is all you want", Bly says.
Fox should really keep his mouth shut.
But no. No, he has been listening to this enough. It's time to shut them all up for good.
"You know that they have been married for well over ten years now?" He asks.
"Yeah?" Bly says.
"Do you know how much sex people have on average in long-term relationships?" Fox asks. "According to several databases, at least once a week. That's sex on average every four days. Now, count in your little alcoholic head, how much that is in over ten years."
Bly squints his eyes. Ponds leans his head on his hand.
"It's a lot", Fox says. "And how does it go, Rex? In your book, experience outranks everything?"
Rex pulls a face for being included all of a sudden. Too bad, he opened his mouth first.
"Yeah, but", he says. "Isn't Senator Organa on Coruscant a lot, and not at home on Alderaan?"
"Yes?" Fox tilts his head.
"So like, the calculation is off, then", Rex tries.
Fox grins.
"It is not", he says. "I'm here, too."
Rex looks disgusted. Wolffe gags again.
Cody smacks Fox. Fox smacks him back.
---
"Is everything alright with your brothers?" Bail asks.
"Yes?" Fox asks back. "Why?"
"I met up with a few of the Masters at the Temple earlier today", Bail says. "Some of your brothers were there, too. They seemed a bit...strange, all of a sudden."
"They are all idiots", Fox says. "Don't mind them."
Bail shakes his head.
"If you say so", he says. "Oh, by the way, Breha is coming to Coruscant, to attend a couple of galas and session for educational aid budgeting. She'll be staying a little over a week."
"Oh, that's nice", Fox smiles. "Sorry, I need to send a quick message."
CC >>>>>>>>
Fox: Hey I have to cancel our next two nights out, Breha's coming over
Cody: Okay, say hi to her
Wolffe: Why next two
Fox: She'll be staying for over a week
Wolffe: And?
Fox: Remember, on average, once a week. gotta get that second week's average as well
Fox has been temporarily banned from CC >>>>>>>>
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Half the jobs Fox is sent on are not within his jurisdiction. This certainly isn’t.
Planetary protection unit, they said. Military police. Orbital security force.
And now Fox is being pointed at Count Dooku on some backwater planet and told to fetch. How the mighty have fallen.
He’s pretty sure Kenobi, Skywalker and their units could’ve karked this all up perfectly fine on their lonesome; they don’t need three Guardsmen there to watch them do it. But the Chancellor says jump and Fox surpressed the urge to bash his head in with a durasteel chair. So it goes.
Which is when things start going terribly, terribly wrong, of course.
“Is that Spinder?!”, Skywalker exclaims, arms wheeling out in the air wildly to try and catch his balance. “The Count fucks?!”
Across the room, Cody rips his helmet off, several shades redder than a baseline human should be. “The Count fucks my brother?!”
Two lightsticks hover uselessly in the air, Skywalker’s zig-zagging in a relentless hum with his gesturing. Fox stands stock-still, in the hope that maybe he’ll spontaneously turn invisible if he does. Around them, 501st and 212th troopers gape through helmets. Behind him, Nuisance gasps for air amidst screaming laughter.
Ping, went Fox’s comm unit, in that unmistakeable lascivious jingle sound. Ping, answered Count Dooku’s within a split second. Match found close by.
For a moment, Fox considers what it would be like to run at the Count’s lightsaber at full speed.
…not like that.
“Count”, Kenobi says, with a face like he’s bitten into a rotten fruit. Not that Fox knows what fruit tastes like. “This is a highly… unexpected development.” He fwoosh-es his lightsaber shut, obviously having given up on fighting. “I’d call it a conflict of interest, but I’m not sure that applies?”
“Oh, it’s gonna be a conflict of something, for sure”, Cody hisses, fists clenched at his sides. He looks about ready to boil over, with Crys and Waxer inching closer in preparation. “What have you done to my brother, you monster?!”
“I don’t think you want to know that, Commander”, Nuisance gasps out between barks of laughter, proving why he’s eternally Fox’s least favourite. Cody’s splotchy red complexion slowly fades into ghostly white as a sheen of horror settles over the room. “Thanks for the fancy chocolate bouquet last week, Count!”
Dooku, who has been thus far staring at the floor with an empty thousand-klick stare, looks up at that. Fox has seldom seen a man that defeated outside of the mirror, he has to admit - but shudders when he remembers exactly what the chocolates were for.
Oh Force, he’s sexted Count Dooku into buying him gifts. Does that make him a Seppie spy? Traitor by proxy?
“I feel”, says the Count, gravely, still holding his long red laserknife in a white-knuckled death-grip, “that I have been taken for a fool.”
“Uh”, says Fox, nervously. All eyes snap to him. Oh Force, oh Force, oh Force. They’re going to invent a whole new kind of decommissioning for this and name it after Fox.
“Is it really scamming if you actually get what you pay for?”, asks Grids, considering. Fox slowly pulls off his helmet just for the comforting feeling of burying his head in his gloved palms. The sounds of a struggle ensue, and Kenobi makes a choked-off noise. Maybe if he’s embarrassed enough he’ll give himself an aneurysm.
“Grandmaster, why are you paying people for naked pictures of themselves on the holonet?!” Kenobi asks, despairingly. “Aren’t you a little old for that?”
“Oi, no one said I was naked!”, Fox exclaims, head whipping up.
“So naked”, Nuisance laughs, palm thumping against the floor. He might be crying.
“I’m not decrepit”, the Count blusters, and Skywalker makes a gagging noise. “I have - there are needs, and they are perfectly natural!” It takes three troopers to restrain Cody from launching himself at the Count.
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