Work Text:
Somehow, shore leave for Cody never ends up being particularly restful. Usually it’s because of the amount of time he spends wrangling his own (and more often than not, Rex’s) men, or even his own Jedi when he’s taking a particularly stubborn stance on the prospect of any rest or downtime. It’s also often because the mountain of paperwork that comes with being a martial commander is only a feasible task to approach when he has a week set aside for doing so.
This time, however, the disruption to what should have been a quiet afternoon accompanying Kenobi to various meetings in the senate building comes in the form of a particularly irate senator.
He’s been ranting at Cody for some time, not making much sense overall, and has just moved on to the charming topic of how he has no respect for Cody or “his kind” at all. Cody is struggling to grasp the lack of sense the man has, and has not yet been given an opportunity to try and politely put a stop to their rambling. He’s slightly concerned for the senator’s health. He hasn’t paused for breath, yet.
Apparently this senator is not only incapable of telling different clone factions apart - he’s definitely under the impression that he’s talking to a member of the Coruscant Guard, who all wear very distinctive red armour - but he also has no idea what their jurisdiction covers. Cody might not be the resident expert on such matters, but he is pretty sure that it doesn’t extend to organising meetings on a senator’s behalf.
Luckily, his general leaves his own meeting and steps in before Cody can do something inadvisable. Like snap, and punch the man. The temptation to do so is very, very strong.
Cody doesn’t cave to it, of course. He lets Kenobi guide him away, the Jedi’s apologies (quickly turned down, it’s not his fault) and promises to follow the incident up (much more gladly accepted, the less flimsiwork Cody has to deal with, the better) acting as a balm to his frustration.
What it doesn’t help with, however, is the worry that is quickly taking its place. Cody has been meaning to visit his brother on Coruscant for a while now, but has always been forced to put it off due to one inconvenience or another. Only now does that seem like a mistake. If this sort of treatment is standard for troopers stationed on Coruscant, then Fox is well overdue a checkup.
Cody clears his schedule, and makes towards the Guard Headquarters.
—
The sight that greets Cody upon arrival to Fox’s office is not what he has been expecting. Fox seems… Well, Fox seems just fine. Other than being completely passed out snoring, and sporting a little stubble, he seems to be in good shape.
Cody’s in the process of trying and failing to clamp down on the brotherly instinct to wake him up with the most obnoxious alarm sound he has access to on his comm unit, when Fox does the job for him and snores himself back into consciousness with a particularly loud snort. Cody casually puts his comm away, and does a little wave at him instead.
Fox blinks. “Cody? Wha-?”
Cody, ever benevolent, lets Fox regain awareness in his own time. It doesn’t take long at all, after Fox shakes off the initial confusion of his brother turning up at random in his office, and then the subsequent realisation that he had fallen asleep in said office.
Cody reads all that on his face. And in the mutter of “for fuck’s sake” that follows.
“Right, Cody,” Fox gets out eventually. “Cody? Why are you here.”
Taking pity on his brother, Cody just pats him on the shoulder and sits down next on one of the few clear filing cabinets that sit next to Fox’s desk. The metal caves a little. He ignores it.
“Well, you see,” Cody feigns a regretful sigh, “one of the higher-ups caught you sleeping on the job, so they had to call in the big guns.”
For a second, Fox’s face falls in such a way that has Cody believe he’s taking his words completely seriously. Or perhaps he’s just debating if this is some kind of weirdly specific nightmare that he is yet to actually wake up from (like the ones he’d had when they were younger, with their trainer apparently turning up and telling him that he was late for a class that definitely hadn’t been scheduled).
Then, his expression morphs into a much more familiar glare. “Fuck off, Cody,” Fox bites back, and Cody’s laughing. There’s relief mixed in there as much as there is humour, and he claps Fox on the back.
“Come on, brother, I just got here,” Cody says in place of voicing his relief, “I can’t leave just yet - you owe me a few stories, and I owe you some too. What’ve you been up to on sunny Coruscant these past few months?”
With Fox now firmly in the waking world he is more than happy enough to start ranting, and soon the two of them are swapping tales of various stupid plans and misbehaving troopers.
One thing Cody does notice, however, is that none of these tales focus on Fox’s own life at all. That, and what it might be that has him falling asleep at his desk, surrounded by literal mountains of flimsiwork. He’s actually still occasionally picking at this work while they’re talking, picking up various flimsipads and sorting them into some kind of order that’s lost to Cody. Cody takes the hint, and picks up more of the conversational slack, all the while trying to figure out how to pose his more awkward questions.
Then, after a story that has the both of them reminiscing about their life on Kamino, Fox turns quiet. “Come on, Cody.” He sounds tired. “Why are you really here?”
“I…” Cody sighs. “I’m worried about you. You and all of the Corries-”
Fox finishes scrolling through his reports, and cuts him off with a “ha!” that has Cody startling slightly.
“This is about Senator Raals, isn’t it? Look, your general’s trying to file a complaint.” Fox points at some kind of form. “Good luck to him, he’s submitted it to CorSec, and they’re going to do fuck all about something like that.”
“Well, who do we need to report it to then?” Cody can’t help the bewilderment creeping into his voice.
Fox gives him a funny look, and shrugs. “You tell me. I’ve yet to find anyone who’ll action something like this. Your best bet is to try and find some actual dirt on the guy, and give them a reason to arrest him that they can’t deny. Not without at least a mildly inconveniencing bribe.”
The callousness of Fox’s words is jarring, especially with their more humorous stories still fresh in Cody’s mind.
“This isn’t right,” Cody mutters, and Fox makes a noise of agreement.
“It isn’t, but what can you do about it?”
That has Cody thinking. Perhaps they won’t listen to a clone, but he might know a guy who they can feed the Senate their ideas through. From the look of challenge on Fox’s face, he’s had the same thought.
It’s about time Cody got to interrupt Kenobi on his leave for once, rather than the other way round.
—
“So, how long did it honestly take you to figure out that this wasn’t another one of your weird stress dreams?”
“Oh, you set a new record for sure. For a while I was completely certain that I was awake, then you mentioned that story with your ARC troopers and those incendiaries at the gala, and all I could think was ‘well this BETTER be a nightmare’--”