#waugh this is OLD old i'm scream. like a whole year

[purgetrooperfox]

exhaustion

rating: T

summary: Fox has been running on fumes for days, counting down the time until he can drop onto the nearest horizontal surface and finally sleep.

characters: Commander Fox, Commander Thorn, Sheev Palpatine, Clone Medic Nocte, background characters

warnings: Palpatine being a bitch, mild language, referenced drug dependence

tags: sleep deprivation, canon-typical mistreatment of the clones, flawed coping mechanisms, way too much caffeine, slice of life (unfortunately)

edit: happy belated birthday to this fic apparently

Ten more hours.

Three more meetings.

One more shift.

Counting down the time remaining until he can collapse onto his bunk - or more realistically, onto his couch - doesn’t help Fox stay alert, but it does give him a light at the end of this tunnel of exhaustion. He’s in a security meeting with Thorn and a handful of the Senate Guard, and all he can think about is getting out and inhaling another thermos of caf. Nocte would have a fit.

Inhaling sharply, Fox narrowly manages to snap awake before he falls asleep on his feet. At his side, Thorn shifts just enough to brush their pauldrons against each other. It’s well-intended, but Fox’s balance isn’t what it should be.

He sways.

The Senate Guard captain notices. Finally. Fox had been concerned by his utter lack of situational awareness. “Are you well, Commander Fox?”

Still, he would rather not have to bullshit an answer. “Of course,” he says. “I’m waiting for the point of this conversation. We’re all aware of the potential ramifications of a leak in your division, and there are contingency plans in place for that very eventuality. My Guard is prepared to implement those plans. Is that what you’re asking of us? Is there some problem in the Senate Guard that would prevent your compliance with established security regulations?”

Thorn tenses. Fox doesn’t. He’s too tired, and he has enough of a reputation to talk down to lower ranking officers. Sometimes. As a treat. And he’s right. This entire meeting could have been dealt with via holo-message.

The captain doesn’t sputter, impressing Fox for the first time since this meeting began. “As I said, the Senate Guard is dealing with a staffing shortage—”

“And you want to supplement your ranks with my men?” Fox interrupts, well aware that he’s treading a fine line, but honestly. “Subcontracting is banned for clone troopers, per GAR Regulation 300.251.34.”

“Does this count as subcontracting?”

Fox’s eye flutters in the privacy of his bucket. “Yes. Per GAR Regulation 300.351.35, clone troopers are prohibited from seeking employment outside of their assigned battalions unless expressly reassigned by a commanding officer or the Supreme Chancellor. That includes unpaid employment and contract work.”

Now, the captain’s expression settles into a glare. Fox wishes he could remember this one’s name, but who can tell nat-born officers apart, anyway. “Then I can—”

“Before you attempt to give that order,” Fox says drily, careful not to yawn, “allow me to remind you that you are not part of my chain of command, and that as Rear Mashal Commander, I would outrank you if I was. Is there anything within the confines of the law that I can do for you, Captain?”

“Evidently not, Commander,” he snaps. Fortunately, this particular officer doesn’t have the pull to make a case to the Chancellor about this meeting. Nothing inspires like fear of ratting oneself out.

Rolling his shoulders, Fox shifts out of parade rest and swears he can hear his joints creak with the motion. “Then we can call this meeting adjourned. Best of luck populating your ranks, Captain. Don’t hesitate to contact me if your leak is not resolved within twelve hours.”

He should wait for the Senate Guards to leave before following suit, but he’s tired and irritated and under-caffeinated. So he goes first with Thorn on his heels.

Three more meetings.

Thorn is practically vibrating in his boots by the time they get to the mess. Fox makes a beeline for the caf machine and thanks all the gods that it’s working today, spitting unappealing sludge into his thermos.

“You’re going to either get yourself decommissioned or give yourself a heart attack,” Thorn informs him when he slides into the seat across from Fox at a table, all but slamming his tray down. “You look like shit. When was the last time you ate? How many of those have you had today?”

Fox shakes his head minutely and regrets it immediately when the motion sends the room around him into a tailspin. “I ate this morning.” He takes a gulp of his drink, ignoring the way it burns. “I need to stay awake and Nocte won’t give me stims anymore. So. Caf it is. Quit worrying.”

“Quit worrying,” Thorn mutters, clearly intending to keep worrying. “The crash will be as bad as the sleep-deprivation itself. Don’t say no one warned you.”

Unfortunately, Thorn isn’t wrong. Fortunately, Thorn’s shift is ending so he won’t be around to keep reminding him.

Nine hours and change.

Stone tentatively offers to trade his rotation in the Senate Dome for Fox’s next meeting. It’s clear that he doesn’t want to offer at all, but Fox can’t quite resist the temptation of being able to lean against a wall instead of standing upright. The CSF commanders aren't terrible, relatively speaking, so he doesn’t feel too guilty sending Stone in his place.

The Senate is debating pumping more money into the Republic war machine. Palpatine is in favor, so the debate itself is mostly about optics. Let the dissenters think they have a voice. Fox doesn’t know much about politics, but he’d figured that democracies would be less rigged than this.

(That’s not strictly true, he thinks, he probably knows more about politics than most civilians. And most of the GAR. And some politicians, for that matter. Proximity goes a long way.)

Crossing his arms and leaning into a back corner of the Dome, Fox lets his mind wander.

Nine more hours.

His vision swims if he’s not careful to blink the fog away. The caf both helped and hurt his situation. He’s more awake, but he’s jittery and anxious. It’s dampened by the heavy weight on his shoulders, in his bones, trying to drag him down to the floor, but his hands shake. His hands never shake.

Despite the churning of his stomach and the fine tremor in his fingers and the raucous shouting of Senators, Fox tilts his head sideways against the wall and drifts. It’s not sleep, but shutting his eyes helps slow the spinning of his head.

Every so often, the sensation of falling jerks his awareness back to his surroundings. It seems cruel. Like taunting. To edge so close to rest only to be yanked back to where he started. He wants to curl up on the floor and give up this fruitless battle against his body’s needs.

He drifts.

“Fox?” A hand wraps around his arm and squeezes, startling him. Fox jerks backwards, but there’s already a wall at his back. He blinks several times, trying to clear the blur from his vision. His eyelids are heavy. One of Thorn’s kids is hovering a hand over Fox’s shoulder. Gab. “You alright, boss?”

Fox grunts noncommittally and pushes fully upright. By some miracle, he doesn’t immediately collapse. The chrono in the corner of his HUD mocks him.

Seven more hours.

“Yeah, I’m fine.”

Two more meetings.

Palpatine’s voice melts into a droning monotone sometimes. Fox has picked up tensing and relaxing the muscles in his neck and shoulders to keep himself awake. Alert is a tall order at this point, but he’s really trying.

There’s an angsty electro-pop song that Thire’s been playing in the mess looping through his head.

Fortunately, this isn’t a one-on-one meeting. It’s more of an overblown security shift, since there are probably a dozen Senators lounging throughout Palpatine’s office. They're sipping on wine that’s worth more credits than Fox’s entire life and discussing how to best balance the budget for the new year.

All Fox can think about is the absurdity of this war entering its third year. These meetings never address the death toll, but why would they? It isn’t a death toll if the soldiers aren’t sentient. Just like the Seps, the Republic Senate talks about loss of units in terms of the financial risk of increasing or decreasing production.

Deliberately unclenching his jaw, Fox relaxes his shoulders.

Thorn keeps telling him that he should cut some of the ‘better’ Senators some slack. That it’s all relative. Still, even as Organa and Amidala and Chuchi sit in this meeting and argue against funnelling more credits into the GAR, they concede that the Republic can’t fall too far behind when the Separatists are building more battle droids every day. What good is publicly railing against the war when they fan the flames of conflict behind closed doors.

Something something, political pressure, blah blah, playing the long game.

The clones have no long game to play. Not when their life expectancy is thirteen years and dropping as shinies get deployed younger and younger. Surviving two years after leaving Kamino is an accomplishment. It makes them old by comparison. The youngest of Fox’s new batch of shinies is nine and probably won’t live to see eleven. Amidala came by and met them, which is more effort than most Senators make, but it’s still superficial. It’s not enough.

Fox doesn’t have the emotional space to cut slack to politicians who only do the bare minimum.

He flexes his jaw and it pops loudly, thankfully silenced by his helmet. Simmering frustration and helplessness wring him out, leaving his head and limbs aching. He needs another caf. Or a nap.

Four more hours.

That’s manageable. He’ll see the other side of this shift, if not the other side of this war.

His mind wanders.

A delicate hand wraps around his upper arm, squeezing ineffectually against plastoid. Fox lets out a breath and opens his eyes to see Amidala watching him with naked concern. In front of Palpatine and his Red Guard.

He switches his vocoder back on and very carefully doesn’t snap, “Can I help you, Senator?”

Amidala blinks, and Fox isn’t sure what she expected. “I just wanted to make sure you’re well, Commander. I can’t imagine these meetings are particularly interesting or easy to listen to.”

Fox hadn’t been listening. That’s the trick to not going absolutely insane when in proximity to the Senate. “I’m fine, ma’am, it’s part of the job.”

“Still, I was hoping you would join me for a caf in my office. I wanted to get your thoughts on a few potential reforms to procedural treatment of GAR troopers, and the Coruscant Guard in particular.”

It feels like bait. If any other Senator invited him back to their office for a private meeting– Fox shoves that thought away. He starts to politely decline and nearly chokes on the words. Frigid cold spikes up his spine.

No, he neither can nor wants to hear this potential reform.

“To my knowledge, there's no need to address the treatment of the troopers. We’re happy to serve and are treated fairly by the Senate and our superior officers.”

There’s no reason for anything to change. The clones are treated as what they are, weapons to be aimed and fired at the discretion of the Republic.

For a half-second, Fox wonders where that chain of thoughts came from.

“I see,” Amidala says and retracts her hand. For reasons unknown, the loss of contact makes pressure build behind Fox’s eyes. Has any nat-born ever touched him without intent to harm? “Feel free to contact me if you change your mind.” She turns to Palpatine and ducks her head. “Good evening, Chancellor.” And then she’s gone.

Fox ignores the discomfort that always coils around him when he’s left alone with Palpatine.

“I’m pleased to hear that you and your men are being treated fairly,” he says with a smile.

“Yes, sir.”

“I hope you’ll take care to bring any concerns directly to me, Commander.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good. Dismissed.”

Fox snaps off a salute and lets his legs carry him from the office on autopilot.

Four more hours.

One more meeting.

He can do this.

“We can’t expect you clones to keep us safe!” some Core world Senator shouts, bare inches from Fox’s visor. Fox glances at the spittle flecked across his HUD with disaffected apathy. “If there is truly an information leak in the Senate Guard, the heart of the Republic is in jeopardy! We should issue a state of emergency!”

He’s been on this tirade for a while now and shows no signs of calming. This is really not in Fox’s purview. “I assure you, Senator, the Coruscant Guard is fully prepared for every eventuality. We're very thoroughly trained on the security protocols to be implemented if and when a leak is confirmed.”

That Senate Guard captain didn’t have the authority to complain to the Chancellor, but he did have enough to file one to the war council. Fox can acknowledge that he probably brought this on himself.

“Then why does Captain Braelig tell me that the Guard has been uncooperative with his attempts to bolster security?”

Thirty minutes. Then two hours on patrol.

He can do this. He has to do this.

“The captain’s request was in breach of GAR regulations, sir. I can’t legally rent my troops to the Senate Guard.”

The Senator scowls, rough and ugly. “And I’m to believe your word over his? Is it so incredible to worry that your programming has been tampered with?”

Another Senator, thankfully still seated, nods at that. “It’s not as if we know the details of the clones’ programming. For all his wisdom, the Chancellor is hardly an expert in these matters. Surely there's some risk of interference.”

Fox sighs quietly and it makes his head spin. He doesn’t know how to say that it doesn’t work that way without offending someone, and he can’t offer the Kaminoans’ expertise without risking an impromptu trip back to Tipoca. It’s hard to think through the near-suffocating weight of exhaustion.

Evidently, he takes too long to formulate a response. The spit-spewing Senator snarls and jerks a hand up to take Fox by the brim of his helmet, and it takes every scrap of his self-control not to snap the man’s arm. Programming, his ass.

“Listen, clone. I’m going to need some kind of insurance if the Senate will be relying on you in the case of this security breach.”

Fox goes to offer some empty reassurance, but the Senator is out of patience. Very abruptly, the safety of Fox’s helmet disappears, yanked harshly off his head and flung to the floor. Gone is the chrono he’d been watching for three shifts in a row, and the pending message notification from Thorn, and the noise muffling filter over his ears, and the live update feed from his upper ranks. He watches it roll toward the door and wishes he could follow it.

Clearing his throat against a rising lump, he raises his gaze back to the Senator and pointedly ignores the disgust on his face. He knows he looks like banthashit, thanks. “I’m sure I can get ahold of the Kaminoans’ product quality guarantee and the ongoing quality control measures that have been in place since the beginning of the war. Sir.”

“See to it that you do,” the Senator spits. Fox squeezes his left wrist until he swears he feels his bones creaking, but he doesn’t wipe his face. “I’ll need that by end-of-day.”

Kindly, Fox doesn’t point out that it’s past end-of-day because this meeting was scheduled for karking 2000 hours.

“Gods, are you all so poorly composed under those helmets?” a third Senator asks, probably rhetorically, given that there’s no right answer.

“Unprofessional is what it is,” the one in his face says. “I’ll be informing the Chancellor.”

Fox can’t sigh or squeeze the growing blur from his vision without the privacy of his bucket. He also can’t quite follow the rest of the conversation, sinking down and back into a corner of his head. It’s just about all he can manage to keep his knees locked so he doesn’t drop.

An indeterminate period of time later, the Senators file out of the meeting room. Fox makes the mistake of closing his eyes and nearly topples when his balance is upended. Bending to pick up his bucket adds a swell of nausea to the beaten down ache in his joints. He slots it back on his head and steps out into the halls. The sun has long since set.

Two hours on patrol.

His HUD is out of focus.

He can—

No.

No, he can’t.

His knees buckle underneath him and he collapses, lost to the world before he even hits the ground.

Fox wakes up slowly, feeling like a brand new man.

Nocte notices immediately, which is to be expected.

“Fox,” he says, utterly deadpan, “you’re a fucking idiot.”

Which is fair, but also isn’t really. “I didn’t ask for that many shifts back-to-back,” he tries to defend himself.

“Yeah, but you also didn’t ask literally anyone to cover literally any of it, idiot.” Without preamble, Nocte stabs a hypo into Fox’s thigh harder than seems necessary. “Do I even want to know how much caf you drank? The point of not giving you stims wasn’t for you to try to make up the difference with caffeine. If you come in here with substance-induced heart palpitations again, I swear to the Force I’ll just leave you out in the hall.”

Fox almost laughs out loud at that, feeling lighter than he has in days. “No, you won’t.”

“No,” Nocte agrees with a scowl, “I won’t. What were you thinking?”

He never considered passing his work onto anyone else, but that’s the wrong answer here. “Well, I have a whole rotation off now.” Unless any of the other commanders need a shift covered.

Nocte sighs. He probably knows that unspoken caveat better than most, given how often he steals shifts from his patients. “Do you need the lecture about stimulant use in conjunction with high anxiety and the risk of long-term heart problems? Again?”

“Nope,” Fox says. “You’ve scared me straight. No more stims.”

“Sure. Of course.” He doesn’t sound convinced. Despite feeling more rested than he has in recent memory, Fox’s awareness starts sliding away again. “Are you falling asleep again? Great, I’m putting you on medical leave for an extra rotation. So. Suck on that, Commander.”