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A stray tooka had started following Fox around, in the year since Sidious had died.
It was a mangy old thing, with matted fur and scars and torn ears. It bit anyone who tried to come too close, drawing blood even through many layers of clothing. Most people probably shooed it away. But Fox, who had probably received as many kicks and curses as any street tooka, never tried. If he’d been free to, he would’ve bitten every senator in the Republic, and he wouldn’t have gone for the ankles.
So, he let the creature follow him around Coruscant, usually twenty feet or so behind, and pretended not to notice it when it decided to be stealthy. For unclear reasons, his heavily armed and scarred presence seemed to deter people from going after the tooka after he started staring them down.
One day, Stone had given Fox a bag of tooka food and a bowl. Fox refused them. He didn’t want a- he didn’t want to have a tooka. Stone had shrugged. “So leave the bowl outdoors for it. It’s too late for me to return the food, you may as well use it.”
So Fox started leaving out bowls of food for the tooka every day. He’d gone hungry enough days in his own life, after all. One day, it rubbed against his legs, and didn’t claw him.
It was Thorn who suggested Fox give the tooka a name. Fox recoiled at the idea. “I told you, I don’t want a- I’m not going to name anything that can’t name itself.”
Thorn shrugged. “Don’t name it, then. But you’ve got to call it something. You’re the only one it lets within ten feet of it.”
Thorn had a point, but it still didn’t get rid of the instinctive distaste Fox felt at giving the tooka a name. So he settled for calling the creature Tooka, and left it at that.
Tooka, on the other hand, was not willing to leave it at that. After so long spent keeping its distance, it darted after him one day and slipped through the door into his shared living quarters. Fox objected on principle to shooing it away, so the thing ended up sitting under his chair while he did some assignments for his mind-healer.
Hound took a holopic, titling it “Fox and Tooka :)” and sending it the former Corrie command. Fox wasn’t sure if he laughed or cried when he saw it. A pet with its pet, how sweet.
Cody told him that he ought to take Tooka to the healers, so he could make sure the creature didn’t give him fleas. Fox wondered if Stone and Thorn had talked to him about the phrasing, to make it hard for Fox to object.
So Fox took Tooka to the healer. They washed some of the muck out of Tooka’s fur, which turned out to be a striped brown-orange color. They also got rid of a number of fleas, so Fox supposed he couldn’t get too mad at Cody.
Fox also learned that Tooka was male, and that he was sixteen years old. It was a shock to realize the little creature was older than Fox himself. Still, the healers said he was from a long-lived breed, and very healthy, and could expect to live a good few more years. Given that Fox had grown up never expecting to live past twelve, this struck him as the best he could ask for.
The healers also found an old broken microchip inside of Tooka. They told him they could take it out and replace it with a new one, and that they could even get data off the old. They asked him if he wanted a collar.
Fox told them to take the old chip out and destroy it, and do nothing else.
He watched Tooka, as they left the healer’s building. Wondered how much the little creature had understood about the encounter. Wondered how much he’d understood about Tooka.
“So that’s why you’ve taken to me,” he told the creature, as Tooka wound between his legs. “You knew we were alike. Both pets, without a master.”
Tooka rubbed his head against Fox’s boot, and gave a sound that Fox didn’t recognize, but identified from his research as ‘purring.’
Fox began letting Tooka into his personal rooms. He refused to close the door while Tooka was inside, not when that meant Tooka would be unable to leave at will. When combined with his refusal to shoo Tooka away, as well as his newfound inability to sleep without locked doors around to him, it caused problems.
Fox explained all this, when Thire noticed that he wasn’t sleeping well. Thire listened carefully, then explained the concept of tooka-flaps. Fox did his own research, got materials and tools, and carefully built tooka-flaps into all the rooms in his communal and private living spaces. After making sure Tooka could navigate them easily, he was able to begin closing his doors again.
With sleep, of course, came the return of nightmares. Not every night; some nights, he didn’t sleep well enough to dream. More often than not, though, sleep would bring him back to Sidious’s side, or kneeling at his feet. On good nights, he knew they were nightmares. On bad nights…
“You have displeased me, pet. I think you will come to regret that fact quite soon.”
Fox knelt, pressed to the floor, trying not shake. He had no excuse – not that Sidious ever cared, but there was no excuse at all. What had he done? How had he ever dared to believe that Sidious might be dead? That he could be free?
“Please, my Lord. Please, I’m yours, anything- ”
But Sidious was already speaking. Of course, he had no need to summon Fox for a punishment such as this one. A visit in his dreams would be more than sufficient. He would give his orders, and Fox would wake up with his blaster set to kill. There was nothing he could do, nothing at all-
Something soft was rubbing forcefully against Fox’s cheek. He blinked in the darkness, trying to put together the sensory signals. Weight on his chest, deep rumbling that got louder whenever whiskers tickled his ear-
“Tooka,” he whispered, relieved to find that his voice was still his to use. He reached up a careful hand, and began to pet the creature behind the ears. Tooka’s purrs increased. Nothing forced Fox to twist his grip and break his tiny neck.
Tooka tilted his head back, and Fox obliged and began stroking underneath his chin. He marveled at the thrumming beneath his fingers, the fragility of the life beneath his calloused hand.
His fingers found a place where the fur had grown irregularly. It must have matted itself around a collar, once upon a time. Fox scritched his fingertips over where the collar used to be, feeling its absence, as Tooka relaxed into the touch.
Slowly, with Tooka heavy on his chest, and purrs echoing around him, Fox’s breathing began to calm.
He fell asleep with his hand still on Tooka’s head, and did not wake until morning.