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Coruscant Guard headquarters, present day
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The breakroom was practically empty, as usual; not many of the Guard could afford to linger here longer than it took to make a cup of caf and maybe snarf down a ration bar. Hound was lucky that he had enough time to sit down to drink his caf, and Grizzer, from where he was napping at Hound’s feet, seemed to be enjoying this rare moment of leisure as much as his master.
Hound didn’t even bother saluting when Commander Fox walked in, visor buried in a datapad. Fox looked up and nodded distractedly, Hound nodded back over his caf cup, and that was that.
And then Fox caught sight of look at Grizzer and paused before apparently deciding to make a wide berth of it. Grizzer was lying perfectly still, the picture of a good and well-behaved massiff, and yet here was Fox practically hugging the wall as he made his way towards the caf machine. Hound watched, bemused. His caf cup remained halfway to his lips as he watched Fox brew his caf, collect his cup, and then repeat the same hugging-the-wall move as before to beat a hasty retreat.
“Weird,” Hound said out loud.
This wasn’t the first time he’d suspected Fox of having something against Grizzer. He’d never interacted with him when Grizzer was around and while many of the Guard stopped in the hallways to give Grizzer a pat, Fox never had. But this? This was beyond strange.
Hound drained his cup and went to find Thorn, Grizzer trotting behind him.
Thorn was poring over a holomap and marking what looked like patrol routes on it, but he greeted Hound with his signature cheery smile and cleared off a corner of his desk for him to sit on. Giving Grizzer’s head a quick scratch, he returned to his chair and picked up his stylus.
“What did you want to talk to me about?”
“Well,” Hound said, “it’s nothing important, but I think Fox has something out for either me or Grizzer, and I was wondering if you knew anything about it.”
Thorn looked at Hound for a moment, his expression unreadable, before switching off the holomap and scooting his chair to better face Hound.
“He hasn’t got anything against you or Grizzer in particular, and if you’ve got a minute I can help you understand why he acts so skittish. See, back on Kamino…”
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Kamino, 33 BBY
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Fox peeked around the corner and gasped. He couldn’t believe his luck! Sergeant Naris’ mastiff was sitting all by herself in the corridor and the sergeant was nowhere in sight.
Checking behind him to make sure no one was looking, Fox stepped around the corner and flattened his back to the wall immediately, staring intently at the massiff and hoping she would look at him. She always looked like she was smiling. She was just so cute.
Fox slid along the wall a few inches and gasped again when the sound made the massiff turn her head towards him.
“Hi,” Fox whispered. “Hi, massiff.”
He wished he knew her name. He didn’t like it when the Kaminoans called him “clone” like they usually did if they didn’t remember his number. It made him happy when his brother used his name. But he had no idea what the massiff’s name was; he’d never even seen her without glass between them.
For the last two months, every time Sergeant Naris had walked past the glass wall that separated the facility from the exercise area, Fox had stopped running back and forth or throwing a ball with Wolffe or whatever else had been required of him to run and put his hands against the wall so he could stare at the sergeant’s massiff. He’d begged their Kaminoan caretakers to let him out so he could pet her and had only ever been told “no”. He’d tried to wave at Sergeant Naris and had only ever gotten a confused scowl - if Naris even noticed him, which was rare.
He’d only wanted to sneak out because Neyo said he couldn’t, but now he was going to get bragging rights and a chance to pet the massiff! This was the best day ever.
“Hi!” Fox whispered again, daring to be a little louder. “Hi! Massiff, come here? Please come here?”
The massiff lumbered to her feet and turned her whole body towards him. Fox brought his hands together and gave a little jump of joy.
“I love you, massiff!” he squealed.
Forgetting in his eagerness that he was supposed to be being quiet and sneaky, Fox ran towards the massiff, both hands outstretched. She was taller than he was even though she had to crawl on four legs, but Fox didn’t mind how big she was. That just meant she was going to be the best thing ever to hug.
Her back went up and her spines stood straight into the air as her mouth twisted into a snarl; Fox didn’t notice. He had tried to run too fast and now he tripped and fell over himself, landing face-first with a sharp crack and sliding to a stop in front of the massiff’s feet.
It hurt. Fox scrunched up his face and tried not to burst into tears on the spot. He was a big boy now and he was not going to start crying just because he fell down, even if the floor was very hard and something very hot and wet and suspiciously metallic-smelling was dripping onto his lip. His knees and elbows hurt, too, where he’d tried to catch himself, and above the ringing in his ears he heard a truly vicious growl that set every hair of his head on end.
Something sharp - or rather, a lot of somethings - dug deep into his upper arm and Fox screamed out loud in pain this time.
He scrabbled with his other hand to push whatever it was off of him, his movements totally uncoordinated and his only thought to make the horrible pain stop. Between his tears and his inability to draw breath Fox couldn’t see what it was that had caught hold of him. It took a moment for his brain to catch up and register that the leathery something he was currently hitting at was the massiff.
She was not letting go. Fox kept screaming, clawing at the floor now in a desperate effort to pull himself away from her. His whole arm was on fire and every time he moved even a tiny bit, fierce stabs of pain shot down all the way through his back and hand, but he couldn’t stop himself. Something in him whispered that if he stopped fighting she’d go for his throat instead, or maybe bite again and take his whole arm off. She seemed thrice as huge as before; Fox felt about as big as a sea-mouse and just as helpless.
“Wolffe! Cody! Bly! Please!” he screamed and kept screaming.
It struck him that no one would come for him. No one knew he was here, that was the problem with sneaking out by himself. The Kaminoan care takers were no doubt back with his brothers getting them ready for supper now, and all the sergeants were having their own suppers in their own quarters. No one was going to come for Fox, no one at all; he was going to get eaten up by a massiff in this cold, empty hallway.
Fox gave up and went limp. He was feeling very woozy and sluggish by now anyways, no doubt due to the pool of blood collecting on the usually pristine white floor.
“Red,” he whispered through a sob.
Red was usually his most favorite colour, but right now he did not like the look of it at all. He shut his eyes tight and put his hand over his head, grasping his hair and making himself as small as he could. Maybe the massiff would eat his hand first instead of his head and then he wouldn’t die.
The last thing he remembered was a familiar voice, usually removed and melodic, shouting something and a smooth, three fingered hand hauling him up by the back of his tunic as the pressure on his arm let up and more wet blood streamed down his arm.
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Fox’s eyelids felt very heavy, but he managed to force them open after a few minutes. Blinking against the bright white light above him, he turned his head and came face-to-face with a medical droid.
If it hadn’t been for the straps holding him down, he would have jumped. And speaking of straps, now that he was aware of them, Fox’s chest went tight and his breaths short all over again. He wiggled and kicked against the straps; he couldn’t help the whimper that escaped him when the movement jolted his arm.
“Stop moving, 1010,” a cool voice said.
Fox looked to his other side and saw a scientist he recognized all too well moving towards him with a syringe in hand.
“Don’t need that,” he said, stumbling over his words in his haste. “I am okay I don’t need that. I want Cody. Or Wolffe. I don’t want that please don’t - “
“Stop moving,” Nala Se said again, “and be quiet. You are fortunate, 1010, that I determined the cost of replacing you outweighed the cost of repairing you.”
She moved to stand over him and bent her neck towards him until her head was close to his face.
“What you did was extraordinarily stupid and next time I will not consider your repairs worth my efforts or the Republic’s coffers. Do you understand?”
Fox didn’t, not really; “coffers” was a new word to him and anyways, it was hard to focus with Nala Se’s enormous, pale eyes so close to him and her cold breath pricking his skin. He nodded, though, a fresh tear slipping down his cheek.
Apparently satisfied, Nala Se drew back and showed him the syringe.
“This will lessen the pain. You’ve had one dose already and I imagine it’s nearly worn off, so I will give you this one. But that is all.”
Fox nodded again. He sniffled and felt a fresh wave of pain from his nose - he’d forgotten he’d hurt that, too.
“I am going to take you back to the other units tonight,” Nala Se continued, “and I expect you will stay with them.”
Fox nodded as emphatically as he could.
As soon as Nala Se’s assistant opened the door to their barracks, Fox ran to his cot and climbed into it as quickly as was possible with one arm in a sling and throbbing hotly every time he bumped it. All he’d wanted until now was to climb into another clone’s bunk and cry, but now that he actually had the opportunity, he just wanted to cry by himself. His stomach hurt and his nose hurt and his arm hurt and his knees hurt and his head hurt and his heart hurt, too. Nala Se was right, he’d been so stupid. Neyo was going to laugh at him, for sure.
Fox was trying to tug his boots off with his one good hand when Wolffe sat up in bed and rubbed his eyes.
“Fox? You’re okay!”
He sounded sleepy but he sounded joyful, too. For some reason that made Fox want to cry again. He stared harder at his boots.
“We thought Nala Se took you away!” Cody said, and now it would seem he was awake, too. “We were scared!”
Fox sniffled and abandoned his boots. Cody noticed, of course, and began shoving his own covers off.
“I’ll come help you,” he said, his voice full of worry. “Your arm is hurt.”
“I was scared, too. I would have missed you,” Bly added from across the room.
Bly’s voice was scratchy and thick; it sounded like he’d been crying for a long time.
“Bly cried himself to sleep,” Bacara said, confirming Fox’s suspicions. “So did Gree. Cody and Wolffe and Neyo and I all cried, too, but not as much as Bly.”
Normally something like that would have gotten Bly to at least stick his tongue out at Bacara, but tonight Bly just jumped out of bed and began pulling his blanket out from where it was tucked under the mattress. Fox perked up a little bit; was tonight a cuddle pile night? He could use a cuddle.
Cody sat on Fox’s cot and gingerly put his arm around Fox’s good shoulder.
“Wolffe drew you a picture. He knew you were going to come back.”
Fox looked up.
“Really?”
Beaming ear-to-ear, Wolffe bounced over to join his brothers. He was clutching a crumpled napkin.
“‘Course I knew!”
Leaning his head against Cody’s shoulder, Fox held out his hand for the napkin.
“Is it a wolf.”
“Better,” Wolffe said proudly. He handed the paper over. “It’s a massiff.”
Fox dropped the napkin like it had burned him. He did not want to see a massiff right now, even if it was just one of Wolffe’s ambiguously animal-shaped scribbles. He did not want to see a massiff ever again. He thought about Sergeant Naris’ massiff growling at him and he began to shiver, pulling away from Cody.
He would have liked to curl up into a little ball at the end of his cot, but Cody did not let him. Instead Cody grabbed Fox by the waist and held him still.
“What’s wrong?” Wolffe asked in a small voice. All of the bounce had gone out of him and he sat very still on the other side of Cody, looking at Fox with big, hurt eyes. “I drew it really good, and - and massiffs are your favorite. I worked really hard on it!”
The others had gotten out of their cots and gathered around Fox at this point, and he buried his face in Cody’s shoulder so he didn’t have to look at them. He felt someone pat his head; he thought it might be Bly.
“Maybe Fox doesn’t like massiffs anymore,” Gree said slowly.
Guilt twisted in Fox’s stomach as he heard Wolffe begin to sniff. He squeezed his eyes shut and yanked his head away from Cody’s shoulder long enough to blurt out “it bit me” before hiding his face again.
Bly patted his head again. All around him, he heard his brother make soft sympathetic sounds, except Neyo, who sounded more interested than anything. Fox scowled into Cody’s tunic. He did not want sympathy. Well, he did. Did he? His thoughts were all confused and he was feeling too many things at once and he still couldn’t stop thinking about the massiff looming over him.
He burst into tears.
“Okay,” Cody said, putting on his serious leader voice. “Wolffe, hold Fox. Everybody else get blankets and put them on the floor. I’m going to make a bed.”
“I’ll help!” Bly said and Fox heard him clap his hands. “I’m good at beds.”
Fox felt himself get shuffled into Wolffe’s arms instead and Cody moved away, the loss of contact barely noticeable before Wolffe wrapped him up in a tight, thankfully one-sided, hug.
“I’m sorry,” Wolffe whispered. “I’ll draw something new for you, okay? Something nicer than a massiff. Like a tooka.”
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Coruscant Guard headquarters, present day
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Hound stared at Thorn.
“You’re telling me Commander Fox is actually scared of massiffs?”
“Yup. He’s never gotten over it.”
Shaking his head, Hound bent down to give Grizzer an apologetic pat. This was ridiculous, really; what clone let himself be scared of a sweet animal like Grizzer just because of one bad experience as a kid? Hound had seen Fox chase after the Zillo Beast, for kriff’s sake.
…he’d seen Fox chase after the Zillo Beast. Hound chastised himself inwardly; Fox was fearless, for the most part, and it wasn’t fair to scoff at him for this, no matter how silly Hound thought it.
“If he’d just spend some time with Grizzer he’d get over it,” Hound said.
Thorn stiffened.
“Oh, no - “
“I won’t ask him to,” Hound clarified. “But I wish he would.”
Hound left Thorn’s office with a promise that he would not ask Commander Fox to pet Grizzer, ever, and he would not tell any other vod about Fox’s experiences, ever. He’d barely made it a hundred meters before he’d gotten an idea, though. Turning on his heel, he sprinted back to Thorn’s office and poked his head around the door.
“Hey, Thorn,” Hound said. “What’s the name of that second-hand shop that we busted for smuggling last month? I bet they have a massiff plushie or two lying around.”