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Fox built the Guard from his flesh and bone.
From his mind he drafted the rules that brought him the fruits of his labour. From his heart he pulled the brothers he clung to so dearly when the galaxy seemed bleak and the stars stopped shining above Coruscant's duracrete and steel forest. Thorn came solely from Fox's right atrium, that part of him belonged there, grew, yearned. Stone made up Fox's aortic valve. Hound, the posterior vena cava, pumped life back into him. Horus and Bones' were his pulmonary arteries. Fox's ade came from his lungs, his bronchial arteries.
They breathed air into his lungs and gave him reason to breathe.
The shinies came from his skin, strips and strips being pulled off of him to form ade that he needed to protect. His staff officers were his muscles, his shock troopers were his bones. They were his body, they were him.
Fox protected his flesh and bone with a ferocity that transcended planes.
The Guard was Fox’s priority.
His vod’ike were his priority. Every vod younger than him on the city covered planet belonged to Fox, the weight of their safety was under Fox and Fox’s alone.
Hem clung onto Blaze who had almost lost each other on patrol the night before, they were tangled up in one another on Glass’ bunk while Smiles sat on the bunk above them with the former trooper watching over them carefully. Across the barracks Stag and Layton slipped out of the walls, glancing at each other to make sure all their limbs and bits and pieces returned to their rightful owners and they each stumbled to their own beds. On one of the beds to their left Bitzer’s form flickered, showing a crack in his forehead and a concave chest, a gaping hole where hands reached out and held him together, the illusion steadied when Hound reached out to touch his body and his face flickered back to normal.
Fox leaned back against Dogma’s shoulder and felt his son melt into his skin, he felt Dogma’s heart beating, he was grateful that Dogma was still alive, that he hadn’t witnessed the horror of one of his ade disappearing only to come back, hiding proof of their death under illusions and faces from different planes. .
A steady thump thump, thump thump, thump thump, that was lulling Fox into a sense of security. When he closed his eyes Fox could hear Thorn, Stasis and Happy in the training salles. He blinked and he saw datapads and blinking carets through Data and Spice’s eyes. He squeezed his eyes shut to see Yanni and Hemi clambering through a maintenance vent, his vode distant from their home, the tree that had taken root in Fox’s lungs.
“You’re alright.” Tenacity said to him as he walked into the barracks. He had the wrong arm on, the markings belonged to Blight’s hardshell. Fox didn’t want to know what had happened for Tenacity and Blight to fuse together, but he supposed if he dug deep into his bones he would find the root of it. He would find his vod’ika with Tenacity’s right arm fixed firmly to his armoured body.
“I’m alright.” Fox repeated as he closed his eyes again.
His ribs ached, having lost another piece of him when a shiny who hadn’t yet been taken under him, only just having arrived two days ago, had been caught in a riot on the corner of 9 and H. The kid was dying, Fox had stripped his lungs to give the kid a chance to breathe.
So the shiny, CT-9857, Ghosty, had Fox’s lungs breathing life back into him, Fox was ordered to bedrest by Carver and the medic had looked at him with stern eyes that held the unspoken promise of what he’d do to Fox if he caught Fox not resting. Leaving Ghosty in good hands, meant that Dogma could coax Fox into the barracks for a nap.
So there he was resting but not napping with his middle child being used as a pillow and his oldest stripping off armour. Tenacity knocked on the wall and an arm was passed through the space between them, Tenacity’s marked armoured arm was passed back and fixed securely to his own body. When his ad took of his helmet Fox was relieved to see he was looking well-rested.
“Ori’vod.” Dogma smiled from above Fox’s head laying in his lap. “Buir pile.”
“Hey! Buir pile!” Flock echoed from somewhere in the freshers through Tenacity’s vocal chords. There was a scuffle and a couple of angry and disgruntled shouts from the freshers, and Flock came stumbling out tugging on the lower half of a clean pair of blacks with his hair still water all over the duracrete floors of the barracks.
“Flo’ika.” Fox scolded just as Cadaver threw a towel in Flock’s direction. The towel hit Fox’s youngest square in the face. Flock just grinned at Cadaver and began towelling his hair, catching the dripping water that fell across the floor and would've been a safety hazard if it wasn't for the fact that the floor opened up and swallowed the damp, replacing it with dry duracrete as Flock went.
“What, can’t miss out on Buir pile, that would be sacrilegious.” Flock answered.
Fox scoffed at the idea of being sacrilegious when their every existence was sacrilegious to both the Jedi that they supposedly had to trust, and to the vode on the frontlines that had abandoned them and left them vulnerable to the darkness that had slipped through cracks in space and time and had found a home in Fox’s shell.
As if he knew what Fox was talking about, the wall swirled next to Fox’s bunk and Carver’s very distinct arm squeezed through duracrete to flick Fox’s forehead painfully.
Fox swatted at the hand and barked something in an otherworldly tone that had Carver giving him the universal sign of ‘fuck you’. He heard Hem cackle from the other side of the barracks and Fox lifted his arm to mimic Carver showing the middle finger as the medic’s hands disappeared back into the walls.
Another swirl opened up next to Hem and Blaze and a firm hand smacked the back of his head. Corinth’s armoured hands disappeared before Hem could even whip his head around to mutter something at the Lieutenant. Fox heard Corinth chuckle from deep into the barracks.
“Respect your CO, otherwise he’ll borrow your legs and jump off three street levels.” Corinth called out from the depths of the barracks with a painfully obvious smile in his tone.
“I did that one time!” Fox shouted back, wondering when these fuckers stopped being intimidated by him and his reputation.
“That was before you outed that you cared with Rule 21!” Corinth shouted back as he appeared between Hotbox and Psyche’s empty bunks. Drawback was clinging to him, arms slung around Corinth’s shoulders with a a half asleep look on his face. Fox snorted, knowing damn well they were probably stuck together while Drawback was sleeping off another fifty hour shift in a row.
“I keep telling you that wasn’t me!" Fox protested loudly.
The rest of the barracks laughed in unison, their humour and fondness rolled into one ball of emotion that punched Fox in the chest and probably shouldn’t have hit that hard because Fox’s lungs strained and he wheezed. They all felt the unanimous displeasure from the medics when they had realized Fox had strained himself.
“Sorry.” Fox muttered to Carver, placing a palm on the wall, as Flock and Tenacity joined Dogma on Fox’s bunk. The bunk creaked underneath the weight of all four of them, but held as they settled. There was a disgruntled rumble and a begrudging acceptance, Fox leaned his head back down against Dogma’s thigh and exhaled slowly as a hand found its way into his hair.
“Be careful ori’vod.” Carver’s voice rumbled through Dogma’s chest.
There was a gaping wound in Fox’s chest that was slowly stitching back together with the help of hands that didn’t belong to him. Fox closed his eyes and nestled back against Dogma’s thigh, getting comfortable with his ade on either side of him. The hand in his hair began scratching and massaging his scalp, Fox melted into the bunk and felt their warmth growing closer, melting closer and closer to him until they were resting with their heads on his limbs and their hearts in his chest.
"Rest buir." More than one voice soothed him as he rested his eyes, taking steady and proper breath.
The Coruscant Guard was Fox’s flesh and blood.
They were his bones.
His organs and his intestines.
He could feel each and every vode under his colours, under his roster, every one of them who shared his flesh, literally, who was grown and nurtured from Fox’s cells and plasma. But they also took care of him, they held him close and knotted him back together so that he could be strong once more.
It was his grief, his love, his care, his weakness for them that allowed him to be strong. The Coruscant Guard was Fox's body, his mind and his soul, they were his strength and his guidance.
But the Coruscant Guard was also his heart, and the steady ache in his chest when he was required to rest.
And rest he would safe in their arms, with their hands knitting him back into their protector once more.