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It started with a tickle in his throat. Fox thinks nothing of it, just downing extra water to keep the coughs at bay and forcing his body to lock when he can’t soothe the itch. It’s not like the vode don’t already stand stiff while on duty.
On duty , Fox thinks derisively. There’s nothing dutiful about babysitting a circus of Senators .
And if the tickle develops into his entire mouth feeling like the arid deserts of Tatooine he’s overheard General Skywalker talking about with the Chancellor, it’s fine. He rummages around his office later that night (or is it early morning?) and is victorious in finding a beaten up little cough drop. He has no clue where it came from or if it’s even still usable but he pops it into his mouth anyway.
The medics have enough to worry about with the new batch of shinies thinking they’re above the Corrie’s rules. Fox thinks he’d rather swallow a dozen more soured-from-age cough drops than go down to bother them about a karking sore throat.
He spends a few more hours filling out paperwork and sending them off to the ass cracks of the galaxy before heading to bed. Stone and Thire are already sprawled out, both of their snores joining together to rival the sound of a gunship. Fox finds that a bit funnier than he probably should so he just blames the cottony feeling that’s ballooning between his ears before falling into his own bunk, bucket barely off before his head hits the pillow.
“...ox? Fox ?”
Something is shaking him. He feels like he’s about to vibrate out of his skin, shivering away from the heated contact. Noises slip through his ears without making a connection in his brain. It’s probably something important. His body moves against what feels like the gravity of a star in an attempt to… do something . He thinks he’s lying down, maybe.
Thankfully, that line of questioning is taken out of his hands when he’s rolled over and, yep, he’s definitely lying on his back now, plastoid digging uncomfortably into his spine.
“Fox!” Finally, sound congeals into actual words. They sound panicked and he dimly thinks that that isn’t good.
“I’m fine,” Fox mumbles, not very successfully as his traitorous tongue sticks like glue to the roof of his mouth and all that comes out is a groan. It is somehow both dry and sticky. He doesn’t like the feeling. In fact, his entire body feels like osik .
“Fox, you karking idiot– yes Glia it’s Fox again , no he isn’t–”
A small burst of energy lets him open his eyes and sit up. “Not Glia!” he whines, blinking to clear his vision. His plea goes ignored as the now identified Thorn just glares at him and continues speaking into his vambrace comm.
“No, no, he just got up, he’s– haar’chak , Fox!”
Said Fox retches, the sudden movement of sitting up very much disagreeing with his gut. He chokes and coughs, vomiting into his own lap before Thorn can manage to wrench him sideways to keep throwing up onto the floor. Tears prick his eyes and snot begins to run from his nose as he gags on nothing, stomach empty. Thorn pulls back his damp curls and rubs his back even after he’s finished. Fox is too exhausted to do anything but close his eyes.
Time must pass because there’s a burst of noise and then there’s another hand, distinctly cooler than Thorn’s, pressed against his forehead. He cracks open an eye to see Glia, brows furrowed, in front of him.
“How do you feel?”
“Like banthashit,” Fox replies drily.
“If you’re still well enough to talk back, you’ll be coming to medbay,” Glia says, already waving Thorn over, who at some point had begun guarding the door for whatever reason. Must be something in the Coruscant air that made all the Corries go nuts.
“No-o-o…” Fox moans. He’s too weak to stop himself from being lifted to his feet, though he makes sure that Thorn and Glia know he’s not going because he has to but because he has decided to. He decides to say this out loud and just receives a snort from Thorn which, rude, Fox will have him . Uh, stoned to death . And then he gets a hypo in the arm in return for it. Kriffing medics and their hypos.
He’s deposited onto a medbay cot, the sheets blessedly cool against his suddenly superheated skin. Glia is already sticking nodes on him and frowning at the various screens that pop up before vanishing to gods know where. Fox doesn’t need a fancy machine to tell him that he is incredibly, completely, utterly sick. He drops his head against the pillow and tries to breathe through the headache that has now sprung up.
Thorn takes the opportunity to drop a box of tissues and a bucket on the floor beside him and produces a wet rag to wipe off the vomit that has crusted on Fox’s face. Gross. Maybe he won’t have him killed after all.
“Gee thanks, Fox,” Thorn says. Oops, he didn’t mean to say that out loud. At least the hypo Glia'd stuck him with earlier seems to have given him a boost and he no longer feels like he will spontaneously combust at any given moment. It’s still a pleasant few minutes of drifting in and out as Thorn finishes cleaning his face and combs his fingers through Fox’s hair. If he mentions the way Fox melts into his hands to anyone, though, Fox will have to return to his murderous plans.
Glia reappears after who knows how long in standard medic magic fashion with a datapad in one hand and yet another hypo in the other. “Well, Fox, the good news is that what you’ve got isn’t contagious.”
Fox breathes a sigh of relief. He doesn’t know what he’d do if he got Thorn and Glia sick too.
“The bad news is that I can’t give you anything to help kill off the virus so you’ll just have to get through it the old fashioned way.”
Fox sighs, mentally preparing himself for days of fever, snot, and coughing.
“...And that you should not have contracted this illness if you were healthy.”
The breath freezes in his lungs. Thorn’s hands stop halfway tangled in Fox’s hair.
“Wow, would you look at the time!” Thorn exclaims very much too brightly. “Looks like I need to be getting to mess so I can get something before my shift.”
Fox glances at the look in Glia’s eyes and back at Thorn’s averted ones. “I’ll go with you, I’m feeling a bit–”
“I’ll have Crash bring in lunch for you, Commander,” Glia interrupts, words sickly sweet. “We can’t have you straining yourself when you should be resting.”
“Right!” Thorn nods, already standing up.
“What about my shift?” Fox blurts out desperately.
“Not to worry, O great Marshal Commander,” Thorn says with a grin on his face that Fox unfortunately knows very well as his I’ve-got-an-idea-that-I-know-you-won’t-like face. “I’ve got you covered.” He puts Fox’s bucket on, salutes him, then turns on his heel and marches out before Fox can even throw him the finger.
“Now,” Glia says. They’re suddenly so much closer, the cot dipping as they sit at the foot all too casually. “Would you care to tell me about your sleeping and eating habits, Fox ?”
A bead of sweat rolls down the back of his neck.
“Not particularly,” he rasps, feeling brave. The feeling did not last long at the sight of Glia’s bared teeth in the excuse of a grin.