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Fox didn’t fight as he was dragged into the Sith’s side room.
He never fought anymore.
His batchmates would probably think him weak for it, but it just wasn’t worth the cost of a fight, his vode’s lives.
Besides, the grip in his hair was not something he could shake off and with the blindfold as tight and efficient as it was, getting out of the grip would be the last of his problems.
He let himself be led over across the room and let himself be pushed back onto the bed and positioned and strapped in.
It wasn’t as though he had a choice, if he tried to resist or fight or make things difficult, Palpatine could use the chips, or the force, either to physically manipulate his body into the position he wanted or wash his mind in dark suggestion. And his punishment would only be worse.
He was going to comply, be the good pet Palpatine wanted him to be, and survive this. Get back to his vode and make it through another day.
The table was cold, bitter through his regulation underwear and hellish on his exposed back and legs. He fought the natural instinct to flinch away from the freezing surface as he lay back and let thick cuffs fasten to keep him down. These were not the usual cuffs attached to this table, these were longer, covering his wrists to his elbows and feet and ankles and half way to his knees. He couldn’t thrash as easily in these, and definitely couldn’t escape.
He didn’t see the knife being drawn, but he felt the first cut above his elbow, shallow and slow.
Three more followed above it, and then a fourth intersecting them. The pain was intense, but the actions slow and deliberate enough that he could feel each slice.
The knife traced up his arm, occasionally snagging on the skin and breaking it, leaving little warm flows of blood that joined the larger one in rolling down to the underside of his arm then dripping off below.
Then it lifted, the blade gone, and he tried not to tense in anticipation and...
It wasn't the knife that drove deep through the meat of his shoulder, no, it was too thin and too rounded and as it rung as it struck the metal below, Fox screamed.
It was yanked out about half way, but stayed in place as the knife continued on it’s journey, following Fox along his side and again scoring deep but not deadly slices.
The one in his leg was deeper still, and he couldn’t help the bucking and flinching.
His blood flowed and dripped onto the metal shelf below him, and he could feel it running towards his feet down the table.
The same score was left on his other leg, and up his side and the thing in his shoulder was yanked out of the left and driven deep into the right and Fox’s throat burned hoarse but it wouldn’t stop.
The blade traced back up his arm, this time not snagging or cutting, and settled at his collar bone, before digging in and tracing down, across his stomach, and back up to the other.
And then it was gone, and the cuffs were detaching and he was floating.
…literally floating.
He could feel his back leaving the warming table, feel himself twisting, and then his front was pressing into the table, cuffs clicking back into place.
And his blood ran.
Warm and sticky and into his cuffs and underwear and all he could hear was the drip drip dripping and his own raggedy gasps.
His own blood dripping away.
“Hmm,” Fox startled slightly at the voice, “this is going a little too slowly.”
He didn’t have time to react at the cold wet biting at his neck before he was gasping and choking.
The wet hot flow was impossible to miss and it flooded down his chest, down the table, and the drip drip drip became a dripdripdrip.
Oh kriff, oh kriff, his neck, Palpatine had cut his neck, his throat, he’d slit his throat.
Fox was now totally in his hands. Palpatine alone now chose if he lived or bled out here and every second he waited more of Fox’s life dripped away and...
A cold hand closed around his throat, and the flow fell away.
Fox felt his forehead drop against the table; no energy left to keep it up. Everything hurt, everything was heavy and cold and floating and distant and...
“Hmm, maybe that was too much. Can't risk bleeding you dry too soon. But this will do me good pet.”
He knew that voice meant something, the wet hand on his shoulder was important, then the other, the feeling of cold that spread, but he just couldn’t...
“CC-1010, execute Order 7.”
Order 7, armour (if accessible) and return to base.
For the first time, Fox’s bleary mind was thankful for the chip, for the ability to float away while his body moved, unconstrained by it’s own physical health short of missing a limb.
1010 would make it home, and then he’d be safe.
.
Fox woke warm, sandwiched between three heat sources.
Fox woke groggy, but aware enough to note the IV in his arm, and kriff Fix had been worried enough to use one of their IV’s.
Fox woke comfortable, with Thorn on his right and Stone on his left and Grizzer on his legs.
Fox woke with a new scar on his neck, and matching ones on his shoulders. Healed before he’d even fallen onto Fix’s floor, and every other cut healed with scars barely visible, thin silvery lines that wouldn’t be noticed unless they were searched for.
Fox woke safe, as safe as a clone in the Guard could be.
He let his vode snuggle tighter and the blankets be pulled higher and drifted off again.
His vode would have his back, until he was strong enough to have theirs again.
He was alive and in their arms and for once, tomorrow's problems were for tomorrow.
Just for once.