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“Swear it.”
“Fuck you.”
The words are spit against the pavement, just as his brother is hunched over it. His one arm is braced below his head, keeping him poised just above the concrete, and the other supports his torso. It’s a painfully vulnerable position.
Cody lets his words float in the air, not deigning Fox’s brittle reply with a response. He will not strike forward and take advantage of Fox’s clear openings, the way he is practically lying fetal on the ground.
Not like this.
They have fought long enough, for far too long—in Cody’s opinion. Both their knuckles were bruised and dripping with the other's blood, and he knew soon his little brother would start to spit the crimson too.
Cody would have demonstrated it any other way, if Fox would have accepted it any other way.
“I won’t—“ Fox gasps, voice wet. “I won’t do it.”
“Fox.” His words are iron—authoritative and irrefusable. It sounds like an order, but they both know it’s not. Somewhere beneath the steel, it is a plead. It’s a promise.
He doesn’t condemn his brother’s refusal. He knows exactly why they are where they are now, running themselves ragged in a fight that’s ending was already ordained.
Each and every one of his brothers had already sworn to him. For most, he didn’t even have to ask. For Rex, he said he already had a long time ago.
It wasn’t a question for any of the Vode, and Cody knew, even now, it wasn’t a question for Fox either.
It was simply a matter of when Fox would finally let himself let go.
The monster had long since been slain, struck down in his own office by the Vode and Jedi alike, but it had already sunk its claws deep enough into the Guard Commander’s head. They were wounds that would take time and care to heal, gouges that needed Cody in order to heal.
Fox was never good at letting wounds heal. He would pick and prod at them, outright ignore them, and on days he was feeling particularly vicious and contemptuous, antagonize and rip them open with his own shaking hands.
He knew what he needed to do. He knew what Cody needed to do.
And yet—
“Why,” his vod’ika grits. “Why do you care? Why does it matter?”
Why did it matter? Why did it matter if Fox vocally concede and entrust Cody, just as all the other Vode had?
The words come to Cody with ease, ready on his tongue as if he had been waiting for the question. “Vode An.”
Fox chokes on a cough that sounds suspiciously like a sob, and with shaky arms, hoists himself off the ground once more.
Cody watches him rise with disappointment. He thought they might finally be over this.
“Well?” Fox says expectantly, swinging its arms out wide as if to say ‘i’m ready’. “Fight me.”
And Cody does. Cody surges forward, targeting his vod’ika’s unbalanced stance—his clear openings that would have earned him an ear bleeding scolding from Seventeen if he had seen them.
The way Fox is faltering is a testament to how long this has gone on and how tired the commander is. Usually, Fox could match him blow for blow for hours. The man rivaled him in nearly everything, and of all his brothers, was easily the closest to Cody in both skill and stubbornness.
They’ve been at this for hours now.
Cody thinks this has gone on long enough.
He himself isn’t faring much better, but something more resolute than desperation and more loyal than simple brotherhood pushes him forward, forcing Fox on the defensive quickly and having him back on the concrete just as fast.
His brother hits the ground hard. Cody does not let him get up.
He doesn’t plant a foot on his chest—no, such a gesture would be vindictive and vulgar, even for a scenario such as this. This is not a power play. Instead, he crouches down and wraps a bleeding hand around Fox’s chin, tilting his face to look at Cody’s own.
His grip is not painful, but it is unyielding. Fox will face this. There is no other option.
Cody won’t force Fox into submission, but Fox cannot submit without force. In the privacy of his mind, Cody allows himself one last venomous curse against the man responsible for this.
“I am here now,” he says, and he means it. “You don’t have to bear it alone any longer. You’ve done well, now let yourself rest.”
“No,” Fox chokes. “I can’t.”
“You can.”
“Cody—”
“Fox.” The iron is back, and it is not just the thick blood Cody can taste in his mouth. “Swear it.”
His eyes finally drag up to meet Cody’s, and in his gaze, something finally breaks.
Fox swears.
Fox swears to him, and unspoken in the midnight air, Cody swears to him right back. That what has happened to the Guard, and the Vode as a whole, will never happen again. Not while Cody draws breath. Not while Cody bears the title of Vod’alor.
It’s more than just swearing loyalty to Cody. It’s surrendering himself and handing his heart over to Cody with the trust that he will not crush it.
Fox fought alone for so many years. He was the leader, the eldest, the one who bore all the responsibility and weight alone. He defended his men with nothing but the grit of his teeth and the scrapes of his knees, fighting underhanded and dirty, all in the pursuit of his men’s survival.
He could not give that weight to another—or more accurate to say, could not trust another. It was one thing for Fox to trust Cody with his life, it was another to trust him with all of the Guard’s lives.
If Cody was to lead the Vode, he would need to lead all the Vode. That included the Coruscant Guard.
The Guard will not go anywhere without Fox leading them, and Fox will not go anywhere he can’t trust to lead his Guard. Cody wanted the Coruscant Guard, and to have the Guard, he needed Fox.
Cody needed Fox, and Fox needed the Guard.
The only language Fox could trust now was physical demonstration. Years of serving under Palpatine and self-serving, silver tongued politicians had devastated and wiped clean any trust in spoken words Fox once had. The Guard could only trust one language anymore, and that was what they were being shown.
Fox could not hand his Guard over to just anyone, he had to be shown he could. He had to lose the fight. He had to submit.
When they are finished, Cody lets his tight grip on his little brother’s chin go slack, and instead wraps the clone in an even tighter embrace.
Fox practically melts in his arms, his own coming up to wrap around and cling on with just as much desperation. He finally breaks, years of suffering and exhaustion crashing down on him at once and tearing sobs that sound so anguished, it is like they came straight from the depths of his soul. Cody’s heart wrench’s in his chest in a way that can only be sated by holding him through it and not letting go.
The future was a fickle thing. Kenobi would have made some eloquent remark about how the Force works in mysterious ways, but there was one thing Cody knew for sure. The Vode would never endure this again, not while he was there.
Vode An.