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I
He sighs again, running a hand through his hair in frustration. His dark curls were getting way longer than regulation let him and he knew that, but he didn’t have time nor energy to cut them.
He decided, then, to give his hair a good use, so he started developing this nervous tic of running his hand through it when he was getting anxious with work.
He sighs once more when he realizes that he can’t finish the current report if Thorn doesn’t add his part. With more annoyance than usual, sends it to him with a message in bold letters so he can get the hidden urgent meaning, even if he is sure he isn’t because he still doesn’t know how that idiot is Commander.
Once the report is sent, he exhales tiredly and leans back in his chair. He looks at the ceiling of his closet-size office. He doesn’t know how many hours he has been in there trying to finish this stupid paperwork.
He closes his eyes for a moment, but when he realizes that it can be too dangerous because he will fall asleep, he decides to open them again and get himself more caf because every disposible cup on his desk is empty.
He groans but gets up and out of the office he goes. While he walks to his nearest and favorite caf machine in the Headquarters, he encounters some of his brothers, which salute him, and he salutes back because he is tired but not as rude as Wolffe.
When he finally arrives at the caf machine he is about to get a cup and push some buttons so his caf can finally bless him with its smell, when he feels danger approaching. And before he can react in some way, the danger is in front of him.
“Sup, Fox”, you say, with a smile way too bright for his taste.
He exhales, relaxing a little when his tired brain understands that it's just you. You who shouldn’t be here in the first place.
“Good evening, General”, he greets, taking a cup and pushing the few buttons that will give him his precious liquid.
When he turns to you again, you’re giving him a face, the one he has come to associate with you knowing something is wrong.
“Oh, I understand now”, you say after a second, “you’re at the paperwork again”.
“I’m always at the paperwork, General”, he answers, crossing his arms over his chest. You roll your eyes amused, smiling again. “What are you doing here?”
He doesn’t know when exactly was that it happened, but somewhere between a murder case he had to solve even if it wasn’t part of his job and Jedi business, you and he met and since then you had become the bane of his existence in a playful not so bad way he isn’t going to accept ever.
You clicked with his brothers almost immediately and since then you visit regularly to cause trouble with them because being a Jedi didn’t mean you could behave like a normal being.
“Well, what else? I came to visit”, you say, but he raises an eyebrow when he realizes you aren’t telling him everything. They say clones are awful liars, but some Jedi can’t lie either. “Okay, well I also came to play sabacc with the boys, but nothing bad happened I swear”.
He sighs, of course, it was something like that. His brothers lose even more brain cells than usual whenever you were a few clicks away. You were a bad influence, but nothing he will say will stop you from coming or them from liking you. (He had tried already).
“We were just passing the time, nothing serious happen. Except maybe Stone being a terrible loser, but I don’t regret destroying his ass”.
“I can’t believe you’re a Jedi, you’re a terrible influence”.
“Well, being a Jedi doesn’t mean I have to stop having fun with friends, Commander”, you say with a shit-eating grin that could be seen on the other side of the galaxy.
He rolls his eyes anyway and turns around to get his cup of caf.
“At least tell me you didn’t bet anything like the last time”.
“About that”, you chuckle nervously, and he thinks he needs to get paid for his job and extra for every time he has to deal with you, “I may or may not have left the Temple’s kitchen without rations so we could bet with them”.
“You bet with rations?!”, you laughed nervously again.
“Please, don’t be mad, no one will notice. Also, it was for a good cause, the rations in the Temple have taste, contrary to the ones that the GAR have, and the boys love them, you can’t deny them a flavored ration”.
He looks at you before sighing again. Maker, Force, Stars he is too exhausted to deal with you.
“Okay, whatever, I have to return to my paperwork”, he says, clearly in a sour mood. He takes a sip from his cup of caf and moves to make his way to his office again.
“Don’t scold the boys, it was all my doing”, you say following him.
“Even if it was all your doing, you shouldn’t bet with things that aren’t even yours or give them flavored rations. They will get used to them and then what are you going to do when there aren’t any of those available?"
“Well, I can always get more, that’s not the important thing, the important thing is that they look so happy to be available to taste something on those rations, Fox, you can’t get that from them”.
He stops suddenly and you stop too so you don’t crash with him.
“With all due respect, General. They are soldiers, not children. You shouldn’t spoil them”.
“With all due respect, Commander, you may look like twenty-something men but you’re twelve years old so don’t tell me to not spoil them like children”.
He stares at you, and you stare at him for a few seconds until you grin and break out laughing and he sighs once again (how many times he has sighed in the past few minutes?) before taking a sip from his caf.
“Don’t blame me when they start giving you trouble about it later”.
“They aren’t going to, don’t worry. Before I forget, I won some rations, but I gave them away because the idea was for the boys to try them, so I thought I’ll save one for you”, you say, getting something from your belt.
Suddenly you’re offering him a flavored ration. He looks at it with an excuse to not take it in his mouth when you pushed it to him anyway.
“If you don’t take it, I will make Thorn a real thorn on your side for the rest of your life”, and at that, he doesn’t lose time and takes the damn ration.
“Okay, look, I have it”.
“Promise you’re going to eat it”.
“It’s better if I don’t promise what I won’t do”.
“Fox”, you warn, and he sighs for the hundred time in this conversation.
“Okay, I’ll eat it”.
“Good boy”, he is about to say that he isn’t a massiff to be called that, when suddenly you’re in front of him, with no space between.
He wants to believe he is not panicking at your proximity, but he will be lying, ever so more when he feels your hand on the back of his neck and sees how your forehead ends up colliding softly with his.
You two stay frozen in that position for a moment or two. Fox’s mind is going places and having a breakdown and physically he is trying very hard not to let his caf fall.
He blinks and you separate. When he looks at you again, speechless, confused, and somehow embarrassed and still panicking, you’re smiling at him.
“I would know if you ate that, so don’t even try to break that promise. Anyway, I must go, before they notice I have been out far too long. See you later, Commander”, and just like that, you’re out of his view.
He stares at nothing in silence for a few seconds, processing the whole thing.
Was he too exhausted and imagined the whole thing or did you just give him a Keldabe Kiss?
Since when did you know what that was? Did you know what it meant or…?
A million questions suddenly coming to his head are suddenly interrupted when he hears his name coming from a voice like his own.
When he turns is to find Thorn and that makes him groan. He did promise to eat the ration.
“I received your message, and my part is in the – hey are you okay, Fox?”
Fox looks at Thorn and Thorn looks at him.
“Yes, I’m fine”, he answers. Thorn looks at him like he isn’t believing shit but decides to let it pass.
“Like I was saying, my part of the report is in there, I just left a few pages between them because….”
Thorn keeps talking but Fox isn’t listening. For the first time in his pathetic short existence, he feels more than awake and more confused than ever.
II
According to what he has learned about Jedis between what his batchmates have told him and what he has seen and heard and experienced, they were supposed to be masters at controlling their emotions because apparently, not doing it could lead to the dark side of the Force (whatever that means).
Yet, once again, you’re not exactly showing any Jedi behavior at this moment. He doesn’t need the Force to feel your anxiety and worry and uneasiness all over the place. Your body language is doing that for you, even if your face is trying to keep a frown away while you go down and down into the belly of Coruscant.
He also knows that you feel responsible and that nothing he says will stop you from feeling like that until you find the youngling that disappeared in the lower levels of the capital.
“General”, Hound says suddenly, and you look at him, “we will find them. Grizzer is the best tracker in the Guard”.
You look at him for a second and then at the massiff who opened his mouth and showed you his tongue.
You smiled weakly at the massiff before you went on one knee to be on his level.
“Can I pet him?”
“He is on the job so I don’t think he will –“, Hound’s words are interrupted by the massiff approaching your hand in a gesture for you to pet him. “Well, I guess he will let you”.
You smile more now, while you scratch the massiff in his side and the reptile makes a face that tells you he is enjoying it.
Hound looks at Fox and Fox looks at him.
When the speeder stops at the next level, you get to your feet, and Hound and Grizzer start doing their job.
You step into the level with Fox while other clones join Hound and Grizzer on their search.
Fox and you stay behind, standing, looking around how people stare at the two of you.
The lower levels of Coruscant were the worse and Fox was on high alert while the clones searched for the youngling.
“Hound is right, we will find them”, Fox suddenly says, when he sees your fingers starting to fidget again.
“I know”, you answer, starting to walk. “But I can’t stop thinking it’s my fault I lost them. This is no place to bring a youngling”.
“You were just following orders”.
“I should have stayed and looked for them”.
“You wouldn’t have found them alone. Coming back for our help was the best you could do”.
You sigh, stopping to turn around to face him.
He stops too and faces you. You look at him and he thinks that you should be wondering how different he sounds and looks with all his armor and helmet on.
But then suddenly, he is not remembering how to breathe because you’re approaching again, and your forehead is against his helmet in another Keldabe kiss.
He swears his heart has stopped beating and he is not sure why the whole thing makes him feel that uneasy.
Do you have an idea of what the hell this gesture means for him and clones or Mandalorians in general?
But then he blinks again and you’re at a normal distance again, looking around like you can sense something but he thanks the Force that he is wearing his helmet anyway.
After a few seconds, you look to a street at your left.
“They are in this level”, you say before you suddenly started running.
“General wait!”, Fox says but of course you don’t hear. He groans before he starts following you and comms Hound and the others the news.
He almost loses you since you were faster than you appeared, but he catch up to you when you stopped suddenly.
You looked around in silence and he did too, waiting.
“This way”, you say, before you start running to the right. Fox comms Hound again and starts running after you.
You stop a few more times, he updates his brothers and doesn’t lose you again.
After a few minutes of running around without a clear destination, you stop at the mouth of an alley.
There is silence, until…
“Master!”
And he didn’t have to be a Jedi to know that was the voice of the youngling they were looking for.
Before you could sprint headfirst into the dark alley, a second voice can be heard.
“Trandoshian”, Fox says, even if he is certain, you know that already. Still, you run into that alley, and he follows, calling Hound and the others.
When the trandoshian sees you and Fox arrive, they freeze. There is more than one and they are both manhandling the youngling.
“Master!”, they say, and you look at them, “I knew you come for me!”
“I wasn’t leaving you here alone any time soon, little one”.
“How niccccce”, one of the trandoshians says.
“Unhand them”, you warn.
“Give us a good reassssson”, the other says.
“How about I give you a permanent one”, Fox says, pointing at them with his pistols. The youngling groans when the trandoshians hold them harder than necessary.
“I just want the kid back”, you say trying to give them a chance to walk away.
“You’ll have to come for them then”, and they start shooting and you and Fox jump aside to avoid the blaster fire.
The trandoshians start running to get out of the alley but the youngling uses the Force to push them away, liberating themselves from their grip.
The trandoshians get up fast and try to shoot in the youngling's direction, but before they can do anything, you jump over them, landing gracefully on the floor and blocking their bolts with your lightsaber.
“Fox get the youngling out of here!”
“No, Master…!”
“Go now!”
“C’mon, ad’ika, the General has it”, Fox assures helping them get up.
The trandoshians shoot at you again, but you stop the bolts with your lightsaber once more.
Fox drags the youngling out of the alley and comms Hound and the others to hurry up. The youngling fights him saying something about not leaving them alone with the trandoshians, but Fox ignores them. When the clones finally arrive, he directs them to the alley.
“Hound, take the youngling to the speeder”.
“Yes sir”.
The youngling fights Fox's decision but he doesn’t give them time to argue. They go with Hound after a warning of not making things worse. Once that’s settled, he goes through the alley following the sounds he can hear until he finds the clones and more trandoshians in the street closest to the alley.
“Where is the youngling?”, you ask.
“How are you?”
“I’m fine”, you assure him, even if he can see some blood on your arm. “They called their friends, but it wasn’t anything I couldn’t handle with the clones”.
“The youngling is on their way to the speeder with Hound and Grizzer”.
“Good, thank you, to all of you”, you say, before patting his arm and passing him to run again.
He watches you until a clone approaches him to ask what they will do with the dead trandoshians.
He sighs.
That night when he actually slept in the barracks, he thought about you and the Keldabe kisses and he decides that the best is to forget it.
He fails.
III
Thorn was dead.
He knew that day would come, that his brothers were expandable, made to die for the Republic, to die in general, and that they could die at any moment, but he always hoped that that day never came because they were just the Courscant Guard, and they weren’t supposed to travel or see war with their own two eyes.
Yet it happened. Thorn is dead, his brother, his vod, is dead and he is the one who remains.
He sighs again, running his fingers through his hair like he always does when he is anxious. His hair is still longer than it is supposed to, but he doesn’t care anymore. He lost another brother; he wasn’t ready for it, and he was holding himself so kriffing tight. He had to stay firm, he had to stay in place, for the sake of the others, for the sake of the entire Guard.
He couldn’t show weakness, even less to his brothers who saw him as someone strong as a leader.
He couldn’t break he had to keep it together.
And yet the tears roll down on their own and he can’t stop them, and he can’t stop himself from sobbing either, from feeling like his heart just lost something he secretly holds close.
But then, his crying suddenly stops when he hears a soft knock on the door. He stands up, straights his back as the soldier he is, dries his face, and clears his throat.
When he opens the door, his face and head are empty like he didn’t just cry for another fallen brother.
He shouldn’t be surprised when he finds you at the door, with emotion all over your face. You weren’t afraid of showing it, of showing that losing Thorn hurtled, that besides losing your pranking companion, you also lost a friend.
He lets you inside his office, he lets you sit down in the extra chair he keeps in the office, not like people came a lot to visit him, but Thorn complained once that he didn’t have a space to seat whenever he was going to give him company.
He tries not to think about Thorn while he sits, whilw you do the same at the other side in silence.
“I brought you these”, you say and when he looks up to you, you’re putting a flavored ration and a cup of caf in his desk full of datapads.
He stares at it, and no one says anything for what feels like an eternity.
“I’m sorry for your loss”, you say, and he has to look at you to remember that you’re there, that he is not alone in the room.
You stand up and he thinks that you'll leave him alone with his tears and his sorrow, but instead, you round the desk and stop beside him.
He looks up at you, with no emotion in his eyes, until you lean down enough to bring your forehead to his.
This time he closes his eyes and instead of a rush of emotions, he doesn’t feel anything.
The two of you stay in silence for another eternity, just there, holding onto each other’s foreheads.
But then your comm starts blipping and you separate from him with a frustrated sigh.
“It’s probably from the Temple. I have to go”, and you look at him again and he looks at you. “Take care, Fox”, and you push back a few of his curls before you turn around and exit his office.
Once he is alone, he is certain you know what you have been doing. Otherwise, why will you be doing it? He still doesn’t understand why but wants to believe he doesn’t care.
He is property, not a person and you are a Jedi, so in theory, you can do whatever you want with him.
He sighs, feeling a little less empty than before.
He turns and finds the ration and the caf, and he takes them before he returns to the datapads.
IV
For once, he seats at the mess hall in the Guard’s Headquarters to eat dinner. He hasn’t done this in like…he doesn’t remember the last time, but he is doing it because Stone and Thire scolded him already and he wasn’t in the mood to receive another scold.
The mess hall was empty, and he should have probably eaten this in his office, but he is tired of that place, so he sat down at a table and started eating his dull food at his own pace in silence.
Until he felt danger approaching again. He sighs instead, knowing pretty well who it is.
You appear in front of him and sit down in the opposite chair.
“Hello, Fox”, you greet with your usual bright grin that can light up the whole capital, lower levels included.
“Hello General”, he responds, before he takes a sip of his cup of caf.
“How have you been?”
He takes a moment to answer since you sounded a little bit…suspicious. Not that you never cared about his wellbeing, but you always asked those things in a different fashion.
“Good”, he simply says, returning to his food.
You nod, putting your hands on the table. He notices that they have something different. Maybe it was the fact that they were still for once or maybe it was the fact that they were linked together in a very Jedi gesture.
“How did you know I was going to be here?”
“I could sense your exhaustion from the other side of the galaxy”, you say smiling a little.
He rolls his eyes.
“And Stone told me you’ll be here”, he shakes his head, of course, Stone will tell you.
He was always threatening him with calling you if he didn’t take care of himself. At least since Thorn wasn’t here to fulfill the threats.
“Did he lose at sabacc again?”
“Yes, but that’s not a surprise”, you chuckle.
“What did you bet this time?”
“Where were you”, he stops to look at you.
“And why you wanted to know that?”
“Just wanted to make sure you were taking care of yourself”, you answer, stealing a piece of his cube-like food. You made a face while munching it and he bites the inside of his lip to not laugh. “Kriff this tastes worse than the ones in the Temple”.
“They don’t even taste”.
“Exactly”, you say after swallowing. “I think I’ll have to sneak in the whole menu”.
“Or maybe convince the whole Senate to change it”.
“I’m sure Senator Amidala would like to hear about it. I’m sure a simple flavor to this will not harm the budget”.
“Unflavored rations are the cheapest rations in the market and we are just clones, after all, so yes, it will harm the budget”.
You roll your eyes, and he took another bite of his food. He knows you don’t like when he talks badly about himself because he is a clone.
“I’m going to pretend this conversation didn’t happen and I will proceed to plan and bring better food for you and the boys”.
He shakes his head and keeps eating while you stay in silence looking around at how different the mess hall looks now that it was empty.
When you finished looking around, you started talking again but this time about other things. He keeps talking to you, even after finishing his food and his caf, even after he is supposed to leave and return to his office to finish the paperwork and get ready for his shift.
The conversation is pleasant, playful, and easy, as it always is with you. Or at least, how he always feels when he talks with you. It's true that sometimes dealing with you feels like dealing with his brothers and that you have a certain way of making him feel annoyed, but he always let it pass with a roll of his eyes or a sigh and pretending that he didn’t hear you at certain moments.
But sometimes he thinks talking to you is nice, that it's like coming home after a long day and simply sitting on the sofa to see a holovid and forget everything for a moment.
But of course, he doesn’t have a home, he doesn’t have time to see holovids or sleep on a sofa. That doesn’t stop him though, from imagining you in that home, grinning at him with that bright smile of yours, hugging him so all his worries could go away.
When he realizes what he just thought in front of you, he freezes for a moment and shakes his head trying to get it out of his head.
But when he looks at you, you’re frozen too, looking at him with wide eyes.
His heart starts beating way too fast for his liking at that moment and he is fast to realize that he, for the first time in his life, is scared.
But then you start laughing and he wants to believe that your laugh is contagious and that’s the only reason he starts to laugh too.
But then you approach until your elbows are leaning in the table, you stretch your arm and before he can process the whole thing, his body knows what you want to do, and it practically runs to you. He leans ahead too until your hand is in the back of his neck and your foreheads are together.
His eyes are closed in a second and he lets a calm feeling wash over him like it’s the rain on a shift outside.
He doesn’t know how much time the two of you stay like that, he just knows that it makes him feel relaxed and calm and he has never felt like that so much that it kind of scares him for a few seconds.
But eventually you push back to smile at him and push back some of his curls too.
You talk a little bit more until Stone comes looking for him because his shift is on.
You say goodbye and disappear as fast as you always come.
“Whatever you two did in that mess hall, you need to do it more often,” Stone says when they are on their way to the shift. Fox rolls his eyes but knows why he said what he said.
Fox is in a good mood and Stone knows him well enough to know that it wasn’t for the food.
He tries to deny it, but it's no use, Stone knows he is lost to you.
Fox thinks the same.
V
You didn’t show up around the Headquarters for a few days and he didn’t want to accept it but that worried him. You usually came every day and if you couldn’t you send word of your next visit.
The fact that you didn’t do either made him think that maybe he said or did something to make you uncomfortable. He means, he was sure you saw what he was thinking about when you were talking in the mess hall. It was definitely something he shouldn’t think about you, but he did, and you laughed, and you even gave him a Keldabe kiss afterward.
The Keldabe kisses was something that confused him too. Where did you learn about them, did you even know what they mean and with who you’re supposed to have one? His initial guess was that you didn’t have an idea of what it meant and that maybe you thought it was some innocent way of greeting. But after you kept doing them, he thought that maybe you did know what they are and mean and that you were doing them anyway and he wanted to know why.
But he got caught up in paperwork and shifts and decided that he didn’t feel anything and that he was going to ignore everything because there was no way he could feel that way about you. You were a Jedi, he was a clone, love wasn’t made for either of you and he had better things to do than think about you.
(He also wanted to believe he found you annoying, but that was another lie he was trying to believe).
But then the days become weeks and you didn’t pop your head in the headquarters, you didn’t comm anyone. His brothers started asking about you, Stone, who was the closest to you after Thorn, didn’t know where you were and no one in the Guard had seen you around Coruscant since that day you played sabacc with them and then left to see Fox in the mess hall.
After the third week, he tried to convince himself that you were a Jedi and of course, you’ll have your hands full, that maybe they send you to the war, to lead a battalion of his brothers and that maybe Wolffe, or Cody or someone else from his batch has seen you around.
But when he explained to them exactly that, they all said that they haven’t seen you or heard anything about you and before they could start with their awkward questions about why he was asking about a Jedi when he didn’t have any, he changed the topic and they didn’t mention it again.
Yet, his worry for you was starting to increase with time to the point that even Thire and Stone knew something was wrong with him.
“Sir, excuse me, but you look tense”, Stone said.
“Stone, he is always tense”, Thire said, but still looked at him worriedly.
“I’m fine”, Fox said, lying pretty terrible but not caring shit.
“Are you worried about our General?”
“Since when they became our General?”
“Well, battalions have Jedis, but we aren't a battalion and since Jedis usually have battalions and our General doesn't, they are our General”, Stone explains, like it was a fact.
“But if you want to, we can call them your General, since you’re the one who is about to lose his shebs”, Thire completes, smiling at him.
Fox sighs and rolls his eyes, not in the mood to stand their asses.
He decides to take his bucket, put it on and exit his office to start his shift.
Thire said bye and Stone keep up with him to the hangar.
“Ugh, it's raining again”, Stone observes from the hangar where they had all the speeders and the few vehicles they were allowed to have (for official purposes only of course).
Fox turns around, about to tell him to shut it because he wasn’t in the mood, but then he freezes because he sees a hooded figure approaching.
Stone looks in the same direction.
“Wait, is that the General?”
And Fox’s heart starts beating way too fast and he starts panicking.
Once you’re under the hangar, you get your hood off and some of the other clones working there rush to you to welcome you because they missed you. Stone is one of them and between all of them, Fox barely can see you from where he is standing.
“Okay, okay, troopers, let's give the General space”, Stone says, opening a path to you. Once he arrives in front of you, he grins and opens his arms for a hug. “General! Glad to see you have remembered us again!”
And without any more warning, he hugs you and Fox wants to believe he isn’t looking but he can’t stop looking and he would like to stop feeling like this because he was fine with you until the Keldabe kisses started and…
He stops thinking when he remembers you’re close.
“I’m very sorry for going MIA for almost a month, boys. I…had a mission and I’m afraid it's more complicated than I thought”.
“Oh, don’t worry about that, General. We get it. We did miss you though, especially a certain Commander around here”, Stone points at him with his head and suddenly all his brothers and you are looking at him.
He thanks the Force he has the helmet on.
He still gulps and you still grin at him, even if it's not as bright as before. That worries him and reminds him of himself when he is exhausted and wants to hide it from everyone.
After a few seconds of silence, Stone sends everyone back to what they were doing and says that he will wait for Fox at the end of the hangar while you and he talk.
Fox wanted to say that he didn’t have anything to say to you, but before he could even open his mouth, you were in front of him.
His heart skips a beat, and he wants to believe he is not clenching his fist super tight on his back.
“Hi there, Fox”, you greet.
“Hello, General”, he answers, in the most confident voice he can. It sounds far from that, so he clears his throat and tries to look away.
You give him a little smile.
“A birdy told me you missed me”.
“The whole Guard did”.
“You’re not denying it then?”
He doesn’t answer, he simply looks at you.
“Alright, I’ll take that as a yes”, you smile again, looking away for a second. “To be honest, the mission they gave me wasn’t supposed to take this long, but things went to shit pretty fast and…they did take long. It hasn’t finished actually…I came to say goodbye”.
“Goodbye?”, his heart starts skipping beats since your tone sounded like you were saying goodbye forever like Wolffe does in case he didn’t come back. “Why do you sound like you’re not coming back?”
You sigh, truly exhausted. He can see bags under your eyes, he can see how your fingers fidget on your sides.
“Because I may and, just in case, I would like to say goodbye to everyone I care about”.
He stays in silence, staring at you.
You don’t say anything either.
For the first time in his life and with this weather, Fox feels like the helmet is asphyxiating him. He thinks it's impossible since he was born to wear that helmet, to defend the capital with that helmet, yet…yet he felt like it was going to be the death of him.
“So, yes, if the Commander allows me, I would like to have a last game of sabacc with the boys, just in case I don’t come back”, you look at him and Fox doesn’t know what to say.
He, that always had something to say to you because you were always causing trouble and spoiling his brothers around, you who simply came and blown his mind with simple yet intimate gestures and frustrated him to no end because you weren’t clear on those gestures.
“I’m going on prison duty, so I’m not sure I will see a Jedi snicking into the Headquarters of the Guard to play sabacc with stolen rations from the Jedi Temple”.
You laugh and you laugh so hard and so naturally that he wants to laugh with you until his stomach hurts or he dies of a laugh attack.
But he doesn’t laugh, instead, he smiles under his bucket where you or anyone can see it.
“Wow, I haven’t laughed like that in a while, thanks, Commander”, you say, while you dry some of the happy tears you spilled.
“Glad to be of service, sir”.
And there is silence again until he can feel Stone stealing glances from the hangar exit, like he wants to know what is happening but also wants to hurry him up.
So, he is about to leave when you grab him by the arm like you knew he was going to run, like the fox he has always been. (Wolffe didn’t give him that name back in Kamino for nothing).
“Wait”, and he waits; he slightly turns to you.
And without caring that some of the clones were looking or that Stone was going to gossip about it later, you approach and unite your forehead to his helmet.
And he swears he can hear a tool falling somewhere in the hangar.
Yet, he doesn’t move, even when all his instincts and body are screaming for him to move because this is highly inappropriate in public, in front of his brothers.
The exchange lasts a few seconds, contrary to other times. And he wishes he could stay like that with you, feeling everything he isn’t supposed to feel.
You smile softly at him.
“Good hunting, Commander”, and with a pat on the side of his helmet, you’re gone.
He blinks and you’re gone and the only thing that remains is Stone calling his name and eyes identical to his looking wide at him.
He thinks he imagine it, but then, when he is in the prison and he is sitting, trying not to think but thinking about everything, he discovers a flavored ration in his belt, one he didn’t put there.
He looks at it in his hand and wants to believe he isn’t grinning with tears about to spill in his eyes.
+ I
He doesn’t miss you.
Wrong.
He misses you like he hasn’t missed anyone in his life.
When he is doing his paperwork, he thinks of you.
When he sleeps (which he started doing), he dreams of you.
When he goes on patrol, he looks for your face in the crowd.
When someone says Jedi, your face appears in his mind.
When his comm sounds, his heart wants to hear your voice.
When he drinks caf he remembers that time you brought him one after Thorn.
When he enters an alley, he remembers you defending that youngling.
When he eats rations, he thinks about those flavored ones you always brought and that his brothers don’t stop asking him to include in the budget even when he has said to them, that he can’t. (He told you you’ll spoil them).
When he sits in the mess hall, he sees you sitting in front of him smalling calmly at him.
When one of his brothers asks for you and he doesn’t know what to answer, he looks at the sky hoping you are safe and alive.
When Wolffe asks him what the hell is wrong with him, he tells him everything thinking the asshole will tell him something he wants to hear but instead, he ends up telling him that he is in love and pretty much fuck up.
He starts making harsh decisions.
He sleeps often.
He follows his schedule.
He answers back to rude civilians.
He gets drunk in 79’s.
He plays sabacc with his brothers in the barracks even when he is super bad at it.
All the kriffing Guard knows something is happening to him, and they have a vague idea of what is, but they didn’t want to ask because he has a short fuse now, and moving an inch in his presence was annoying enough for him sometimes.
Instead, they try to help him in what they can, so he doesn’t suspect what they have been planning.
However, Fox wants to believe that he doesn’t miss you, that he doesn’t feel something for you, he wants to believe that he isn’t going crazy or that he isn’t disappointed every time the door of his office opens and it's not you standing at the other side.
He wants to believe he is not going crazy, but he also knows he is going crazy.
Because if you die, he will never know why you shared Keldabe kisses with him, why you bewitched him with your mind tricks, why he was suddenly feeling for you what he wasn’t supposed to feel.
But then, one day, his brothers and the Force, give him a break and all the answers he was looking for.
One day, he was on his way to get more caf from his office because he still had damn paperwork (you didn’t take that from him) and he needed to stay awake a few more hours if he wanted to finish before his morning shift.
He walked to his usual favorite caf machine and waited for his caf until he felt it.
The danger. He turned his head and saw nothing, so he went back to look at how his cup of caf filled.
He thought that his exhausted mind was probably playing tricks on him. Yeah, that was it, not that initial sensation he always felt when you were close.
But then he heard steps approaching and when he turns with his cup in hand, he freezes, and the cup falls to the floor.
“Sup, Fox”.
He blinks a few times, with his heart wanting to get out of his chest, with his ears ringing. He simply stares at you, thinking that maybe he fell asleep, and this was another dream.
That you weren’t in front of him, that you were alive.
“You”, he says, pointing at you.
“Me”, you grin, that bright grin you always gave him that could light the damn kriffing universe.
“You told me that you weren’t returning”.
“I told you that I may not return. But I’m stubborn, even with Death, so my mission is complete, and I’m here”, you say lifting your arms in a triumphant gesture. “By the way, Commander Wolffe from the 104th sends his regards. I didn’t know you two were batchmates. Knowing that was a surprising fact until I understood where you probably got that “I have to follow rules to the letter" attitude of yours”.
“I don’t –“, he starts, but stops suddenly, sighing frustratedly like you always made him feel. “I'm glad you’re back, General”.
“Are you sure that you’re just glad that I’m back? Some birdies told me interesting stuff, that for example, you have been missing me a big deal”, your shit-eating grin is back while you cross your arms over your chest.
He doesn’t have to think too much about who those birdies are. Wolffe, Stone, Thire…everyone was so kriffing dead. How could they be more loyal to you than him, their brother?! (Well technically their brother).
“The whole Guard missed you”.
“Yes, of course, I don’t question that, less when they all almost jumped on me when they saw me enter the barracks to play sabacc”.
“You were here already?”
“Yeah, I had to get them flavored rations and their Commander couldn’t know”, he sighs again.
He didn’t miss this.
“If they accused us of stealing those rations I’m saying it was you”.
“Like if the boys will let you”, he crosses his arms over his chest, pretending you weren’t right on that.
“Spoiled brats all of them”.
“Well, they are our brats”, you say winking at him, and he wants to believe his heart doesn’t almost get out of his chest.
“There are your spoiled brats. And that’s final”.
“Well, Wolffe said you didn’t know how to have fun, not like I didn’t know it already”.
He scoffs, and you imitate him, but then there is silence, and it becomes tense way too fast for his liking.
Before he can have the courage to ask a million questions he has for you, you are literally in front of him.
“Wait”, you stop, looking at him.
“What?”
“Do you even know what that means?”, he asks, holding you from your shoulders, because of course he knew you were just going to give him another Keldabe kiss.
“A Keldabe kiss?”
He nods several times, with his heart hammering in his chest.
This was it, this kriffing was it.
It feels like the last few seconds before he was deployed to Geonosis, to the sweet panic moments of having to survive that battle, face Death.
“Of course I know what a Keldabe kiss means”, and your smile at the end doesn’t help his heart or the situation. “I mean…I read about it and then asked a few people around”.
“So, you’re telling me you know that Keldabe kisses are a Mandalorian gesture reserved only for romantic partners or family members? Besides being a magnificent way to get out of sticky situations in combat”.
“Yes, I know that Fox. Why-?”
“Then you’re telling me all those times you gave me a Keldabe kiss you knew exactly what you were doing?”
You stare at him confused until you lock eyes with his and your face changes, you step back and stare at him offended.
“Of course I knew what I was doing. I-I was being selfish and acting not very Jedi-like, but I wanted to take the risk because…”
“Because what?”, he wants to believe that he isn’t sounding desperate like if you don’t say it, he’ll die.
“Force, because I like you, you kriffing idi –“
You don’t finish, because at that moment his lips crash with yours and everything goes still for a second before he separates from you.
“Wait, you like me romantically or-?”
“Force, you’re truly as dumb as Wolffe said”.
“Just answer my –“
“Yes, I like you romantically, now if you –“
And he doesn’t let you finish again because his lips are on yours again. This time the kiss lasted more, but not as much as both of you would have wanted.
When that second kiss ends, he looks at you in the eyes, holding your face in his calloused hands, with his chest full of feelings.
“We are in so much trouble”, he says, chuckling. (He doesn’t remember the last time he did that or something close).
“It’s worth it”.
And after a second, your foreheads are together again.