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sticks-and-souls · 2 years

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Off Duty

@foxiyoweek Day 5: Leadership. AO3 link here.

“And so then I said, ‘Actually, your account doesn’t supercede everyone’s here!’”

Riyo realized belatedly that Senator Drythe believed his comment to be some kind of punchline and she forced out a simpering laugh.

He was so in her personal space that it was taking a constant, conscious effort to not lean to the far side of her dinner chair. Worse still that her political strategy for the evening dictated that she now tilt her head towards him and ask a follow up question. She had serious reservations that if their faces got any closer the frustrated screaming in her head would verbalize itself.

The Chancellor’s dinner was a prime opportunity for her to make friends with the swing voters on the relief bill scheduled for next week. If Pantorans were forced to narrow their meager rations again, her people would begin to starve. She needed to convince more senators that the Republic funds were worth the resources to feed her people while the war blocked their supply routes on her outer rim planet. Didn’t Republic politicians understand that saving people from the Separatist control was actually pointless if they died of starvation during the process? Not enough of them did.

Which brought her to Senator Drythe. Wealthy, influential, tenured senator of cush, inner-rim Fenlaith. When she had discovered he would be her dinner partner at the beginning of the evening she had believed herself lucky. More than an hour into forced laughs and batted eyelashes as he monologued his favorite political exploits, inching ever closer to her, and she now wondered if suffering through this would fail to reward her with getting a word in at all.

To just royally top off the entire debacle, the Chancellor had taken precautions against the increased frequency of bounty hunter attacks and ordered that the safety of the dinner guests be overseen by the Coruscant Guard rather than just the Senate Guard. Her “lucky” seating arrangements had her positioned directly across and slightly to the right from where none other than Marshal Commander Fox was standing guard. He and his squad stood unmoving at textbook attention around the perimeter of the cozy dining room but she knew he was taking in every detail. And given that the last time they had both had a moment off at the same time—regrettably more than three weeks ago—they’d spent it entwined in a state of dishabille with one another, she felt relatively confident that at least a portion of his attention was on her and her dinner partner.

“You know, Riyo—can I call you Riyo?—,” Drythe angled his body towards hers, his knee finally making contact with her own under the table. “I bet there’s more to you than that quiet face suggests.”

She forced her expression from becoming wooden. This is hell, she thought. I have literally died and I am now in hell. Goddess, please forgive me my past transgressions.

“Please, Senator, I could—”

“—Call me Gerek,” he interrupted.

Do it for your people! She screamed internally. “...Gerek, ” she said aloud, fluttering her gaze at him, “I could hardly have been elected Senator of Pantora without the capacity to speak passionately on their behalf.” Like I literally did in front of you and the rest of the Senate just this afternoon. “Being the voice of—”

“Oh ho! Of course! That reminds me of my own election! It was against the leader of a very vocal extremist group and…”

-----

Riyo closed the door to her apartment gently with a soft click before leaning exhaustedly against it. Three hours, she thought, staring emptily at her ceiling. Three hours of self-debasement and political flattery and for what?

With a disgusted sigh, she pushed herself from her door and set her keys on the dining table.

Marris, her handservant, came swiftly around the corner. “Welcome home, Senator, did you have a nice evening?”

“It was...awful,” she responded. She felt exhausted with shame and humiliation. “I’m going to take a shower.” As if water could wash away what she was feeling. I can pretend.

“Oh dear, I’m so sorry to hear that.” Marris followed her into her bedroom and waited for her to sit at her vanity. “Was no one willing to listen?” she asked, as she began to remove Riyo’s hairpins.

Marris had been employed by Riyo’s family for years before Riyo had been elected senator and moved to Coruscant and, despite being younger than her own mother, she exuded maternal comfort. The loose outline of her suffocating evening in the presence of Drythe came tumbling out to Marris’s sympathetic tutting. “...and then we were two of the last people to leave because he literally would not stop talking.”

Her dress came off next and Riyo caught a whiff of Drythe’s cologne as Marris helped lift it over her head. “Ugh,” she gagged. “Bag it for dry cleaning.”

Marris was clearly holding in a smile but her eyes remained full of compassion. “That he found you such a captive audience, I’m sure didn’t hurt your goals for the bill. Maybe it will look different in the morning.”

Riyo managed a weak smile before stepping into the bathroom and starting the hot water. She hadn’t mentioned Fox to Marris because she wasn’t sure Marris knew how serious their relationship had become, but having omitted him from her tale made the gnawing guilt when she thought about him that much more noticeable now. As if not even mentioning him meant his feelings really didn’t matter. She wanted to message him. She should message him. But what would she even say? Sorry I flirted with a powerful creep while you were forced to watch for hours? Sorry you must now think I’m a disgusting flake with horrible taste in men? Would he even respond?

If she had been the one forced to watch him flirt with someone else all night while she held her tongue, she would have been a mess. Every layer that she uncovered of Fox revealed a new reason that he kept distance from the people around him. Her heart physically ached at the notion that she might give him reasons to doubt her too. I’m so, so sorry.

She tried to force her thoughts away from him. Maybe Marris was right and this would all look better in the morning.

The real problem was that Marris was right about all of it and it was her own damn reaction that was what was wrong with the night. She should be thrilled about her evening with Drythe. Through the lens of her career, the evening was a resounding success! Acknowledging this only increased her frustration and she took a slow breath of the steamy shower air to try to ease the tightness in her chest. Building his ego was seventy-five percent of the battle and this was, technically, exactly where she should want him. Some politicians don’t like to talk about work during “social hours” and this wretched evening will hopefully have made him more receptive to her when she could—ugh—talk to him again tomorrow during working hours. Her whole body rejected the idea and she squeezed her eyes shut. I can’t. She wrapped her arms around herself as the hot water beat heavily down on her. Maybe she wasn’t as cut out for this as she thought.

She had been raised to be a politician nearly her whole life and few circumstances had penetrated the thick skin she had developed, but this felt different and she suspected it had everything to do with Fox. In fact, she’d never had a problem with the social maneuvering required of being a politician until she’d begun falling—really falling—for Fox. She just so strongly admired how he was so direct and steadfast and action-oriented that she couldn’t help but look at her own world of manipulation, subterfuge, and endless talking as shameful by comparison. She’d seen firsthand how the meandering crawl of Senate productivity directly disadvantaged the very soldiers that allowed them to maintain this body of government. For her to then participate in lavish dinners that encapsulated the entire wretched process in full display of said disadvantaged clones, who were her personal friends, made her entirely complicit. The shame she had been experiencing all evening piqued as she was finally able to name it.

She shut the water off, still undecided on whether to call him, and wrapped her massive, fluffy towel around herself. My duty is to my people, not to my heart, she reminded herself. She could hear her mother’s sternly practical voice echoing in her mind, “Love is a luxury, Riyo, and your actions always need to serve those you lead before they serve yourself.” The sigh that issued from her lips was lonesome, leached of the frustration that had dominated her evening. If betraying Fox and betraying my heart saves the life of even just one of my people, I must do it. Whether she felt good about it didn’t matter; her feelings, hanging in the balance of the lives she advocated for, couldn’t tip the scales.

From the bathroom counter, her comm blinked with a message waiting. The banner notification only informed her it was from Fox and she felt a nervous jolt pulse through her. Rip the band-aid off, Riyo, she steeled herself. Delaying the inevitable doesn’t change it.

It was a single line from him: “Are you ok?”

Riyo stared at the message, nonplussed.

Am I…ok?

For the umpteenth time in their new relationship, Riyo tried to interpret tone and intent from a Fox text and failed.

Like…ok with myself after being a slimy politician all night? Ok with the fact that a patriarchal creep high on his own power decided to make me his next acquisition? She could feel her pulse rising again. Totally going to sleep fine knowing I’ve betrayed your trust and proven myself a farce in front of your brothers?

As far as interpreting it as a breakup text went this was a bit of a stretch. She tried reading it with emphasis on different words and ended up with interpretations ranging from questioning her sanity to passive aggressive commiseration. Perhaps she just needed more information.

She drafted and then immediately deleted three incomplete responses on the grounds of being overly deflective, projecting her own insecurities, and finally for just being a paragraph that could be summarized as “inconclusive politician speak”.

She stared at the blank text box in frustration. Get a grip, Riyo. The answer to all of your questions is the same. Maybe instead of wishing you were as direct as him, you just do it.

“Not especially, no.” she typed. She stared at it for a moment before quickly hitting Send.

His reply came in less than 30 seconds later: “My paperwork can wait until morning if you want me to come up.”

Riyo felt a lump building in her throat. He hates leaving paperwork for the morning.

Because she was alone, she let herself feel the jumble of vulnerable emotions that swirled through her chest. Of hope: that maybe he cared enough to hear her out, that maybe he would think she was worth it. And also fear: that her hope was wrong and he would end it, or that it wouldn’t matter because this was her life and however repulsed either of them felt over her flirting with Drythe again tomorrow didn’t change the fact that she would do it because Pantora needed her to.

She sat on her bed and looked down at her comm without really seeing it. She closed her eyes. The nervousness at what their meeting would entail didn’t override the yearning to see him. Even if it all fell apart the minute after, she knew she would open the door and for just a second would feel a promise that nothing else mattered but them.

“Ok”, she sent him back.

“Be there in 15.”

Putting her comm aside, Riyo took a deep breath and sat up straight to clear her mind of the nerves and relief. The decision had been made and whatever happened now, happened. She marched to her closet with purpose. First she had to get dressed, and that was happily a problem that she had a lifetime of experience to help her prepare for.

-----

Riyo was waiting patiently at the breakfast bar, composing her statements in her head, when she heard Fox’s quiet knock. She had opted for comfort and worn soft, loose-fitting pants that still snugly fit her at the waist and ankles, and a similarly soft, sleeveless shirt, whose deep purple color was a pleasant accent against the blue and pink of her skin and hair. She swallowed down the swarm of bees that erupted in her stomach and internally repeated her just-before-a-Senate-presentation-You-can-do-it! pep talk.

She opened the door and was rewarded with the moment she had predicted for herself. She met his kind, serious eyes, and for a single breath, the whole world melted away.

She wordlessly invited him over the threshold and the moment broke. Her nerves flooded back in the void left behind.

“I ought to ask you how your evening was,” she said, softly as she closed the door behind him and followed him into her living room, “but all I can say is how completely and utterly sorry I am.”

He stopped abruptly and turned around to look at her. A slight crease in his forehead marred his soft expression.

Her nerves cranked up to eleven and she distantly wondered how this was somehow so much worse than the first time she had presented to the entire Republic Senate.

He took a breath to say something and—Oh, Goddess, anything to stave off this moment for longer! A spike in adrenaline made her cut him off.

“Please—I know we knew this might happen, but the reality of it, I can completely understand, is rather different from how we envisioned it might go.”

In the pause where she went to take a breath he looked like he might interject again, so she continued wildly on. “I can only imagine how awful this must be for you, to have to stand idly by while I subject you to the harsh realities of what my job must require of me—”

“—Riyo,” he finally interrupted. “Riyo!” He reached out as if he was going to hold her by her arms but changed his mind at the last second.

She closed her eyes so he wouldn’t see her hurt. He reserves the right to not touch me after all I’ve put him through.

“Riyo, what happened?” He looked so confused and concerned and she didn’t understand. “Are you ok?”

“Am…am I ok?! That is the lowest priority right now! Are you ok? You had to watch the whole thing!” How did he not understand what he had been forced to witness?!

Confusion lingered but his expression shifted and he reached out again. “Ok,” he said. “Ok. Come here. Can I hug you?”

She stood frozen for a moment, while her ideas of what she wanted and what she deserved arm-wrestled at the forefront of her mind. Haltingly, she took a stuttering half-step towards him.

Fox did the rest and wrapped his arms fully around her. She took a deep shuddering breath into the chest of his soft shell uniform and closed her stinging eyes around his comforting scent. She could tell she was clinging to him but he held her back so tightly that she didn’t let up. She felt like he was keeping all of the pieces of her together in one place.

He took several deep breaths and rubbed his hand in soothing motions up and down her back. She felt him plant a soft kiss on the top of her head and the lump in her throat expanded until it was all she could do to still breathe around it. She focused on the cadence of his breath; on how rooted he felt in this room, in her life, in himself.

She didn’t know how long they stayed like that, with deep breaths and calming touches. When she finally felt like the lump in her throat was small enough that she could speak around it, she mumbled “I don’t deserve this much affection from you,” into the solid safety of his chest.

She felt his lungs huff out an infinitesimal chuckle that she may not have even detected were she not pressed so tightly to him.

“And why is that?” he responded. She could so clearly picture the fractional pull of the wry smile that she heard in his voice.

She took a small step back so she could see his face to have this conversation with him. So his embrace wouldn’t shelter her from her responsibility or respect for him.

“Because you had to watch my despicable behavior this evening,” she said, solemnly.

“At dinner tonight?” he asked, an eyebrow lifting.

“Yes, at dinner!” her shoulders lifted defensively. Her discomfort intensified now that they were addressing it head on.

“You were very uncomfortable,” he stated.

“Yes, but that’s not the point! You were the one who had to watch the entire debacle unfold before you while I flirted with some power-jacked, pompous asshole, as if I have no regard for you or myself or anything but my own political power!”

The temporary peace that she had achieved in his arms dissolved with the admission. Somehow he was still emanating calm—concern even! How was he still looking at her like she was worthy of this care?

He reached out to her again and brushed his hand ever so lightly through her hair, coming to rest behind her ear. His expression shifted and she struggled to discern his minute expressions. He looked vaguely amused, but that couldn’t be right. He...he looked like he knew a secret that she didn’t.

Abruptly, his proximity became distracting. His hand behind her ear was sending feathery tingles down her neck that were warring for her attention from not just her anxious emotions, but also the important rhetoric she had composed.

“Very well,” he murmured, patiently. “Explain it to me. Why…,” and he leaned down and planted a kiss on her neck, just below her other ear. “…did you feel the need…” here, he placed a kiss to the side of her throat, “…to flirt with the senator?” He pressed a third kiss in the hollow between her neck and her collarbone.

The feather light tingles had morphed into full butterflies that were cascading down, down, deep inside her and Riyo was certain he could feel her pulse jumping erratically. Unwilling to pull away but equally unwilling to abandon making her case, she took a breath that she was pleased only hitched once and mentally reorganized her tumbled thoughts again.

“The relief bill on the floor right now, I…I need it to get passed. Pantora is one of the planets that would receive aid and…and we need it. All of my people won’t survive another ration cut, some of them will starve.” She sounded like she was pleading but at least she didn’t sound anxious or defensive anymore. She also felt a stir of confidence. He was far less upset than she had feared he would be, maybe she could convince her arguments to him. I’m sorry. Please, please understand.

Fox was tracing his thumb ever so gently against the line of her jaw but he seemed to barely notice it. He was flooding her with the full force of his attention.

“He hasn’t decided his vote yet,” she persevered. She was not so immune to the jaw-tracing as he seemed to be. “And he has so much influence that, if I can convince him to vote for it, he may convince others to vote in favor as well. And maybe if I can’t convince him to vote for the bill itself I can convince him to vote for me.” She felt like she was starting to babble but she couldn’t seem to stop. “So if he sees me favorably he may vote for something that I’m in favor of either because he thinks it will make me like him, or because he’ll want me to vote for something that he wants, and so I…” she trailed off. Talking about any more details of the horror show he had witnessed first hand wasn’t going to make them any different.

“Well, that seems very reasonable,” he responded.

What! Reasonable? She couldn’t understand why she had taken up both sides of the argument but she took a breath, ready to argue anyways.

“Riyo,” he beat her to it this time, but his tone was still reassuring and steady and his expression had returned to its usual seriousness. “Why do I let myself get pulled in every direction and run myself ragged with my workload?”

It was so impossible to think with his thumb still tracing lightly along her jawline, but the answer was obvious. “Because your brothers would pay the cost if you didn’t.”

A subtle softening in the seriousness of his expression indicated he was satisfied with her answer.

“So,” and he went back to slowly planting kisses down her neck, “we both do…what duty requires of us…to take care of the people we lead.”

She knew he was right, she knew that that’s why she’d stayed the course for the entire miserable dinner, but the gut-turning slimy feel of self-loathing was so rooted that not even his seduction was drowning it out completely.

“I hate that my duty feels like I have to betray a part of myself that I want to give only to you.” The confession bypassed all of her mental filters but as soon as she had whispered it into the silence of the room she felt the truth of it like an epiphany.

He stilled for a moment before straightening and meeting her eyes with the most curious expression. Somewhere between confusion and realization and on top of it all was a vulnerability in his eyes that she’d never seen on him before.

“Riyo, you don’t look at anyone else, the way you look at me.”

His words seemed to sift gently through her, untangling her anxiety and twisted emotions as they floated down to where the guilt and shame festered at the base of her stomach. Her brain felt fuzzy as it tried to catch up to the soft release of tension that was echoing through her. I don’t look at anyone else the same…? What does… that…

She reached out to him as if his face held the answer. Perhaps it did. Her thumb brushed against his cheekbone, wanting to ease the worry in him that didn’t seem to exist, wanting to promise him—promise his heart, which had been steadying her through his deep, beautiful eyes, that she would protect it. That she loved him as much as his eyes told her he loved her—…Oh.

Relief bloomed so quickly it tightened her throat and tears threatened. How did he do it? She had so many layers and masks that were wrapped so tightly around her. She’d spent her entire life learning how people interacted with whichever one she decided to present outwards, and yet he could somehow see her through all of them. Like they were nothing but one of her silk shawls and she was a bright light.

A small, pure laugh escaped her and she pulled him to her with both hands into a firm kiss.

Pulling back, she rested her forehead against his and smiled freely into the small space between them. The tears that she had been fighting all night finally squeezed out as relief, taking the last of her regret and shame with them.

“I love you,” she said. “Only you.”

Fox smiled one of his rare smiles, that was like the sun dawning across his whole face, and said, “You don’t have to worry that I don’t know that.”

And she felt so lit aglow that perhaps she was made of light after all.

-----

Later, she floated in the quiet space between sleep and awake, listening to the calming, steady cadence of his breathing in slumber.

Maybe she could do this. Maybe she could shmooze and flirt and even beg for her people, if it ever came to that. As long as her true self could live here, in this moment alone with him, then maybe she would be ok.

------------------------------------

Thanks for reading!! I actually started writing this one-shot for Foxiyoweek last year but then my ideas for them had morphed into a full on long-fic so I abandoned ship thinking this scene would make it into that story. That story, however, is not ready to start getting posted yet (soon though, I hope), and I really wanted to participate in @foxiyoweek this year (snuck it in riiiiiight under the buzzer). Tagging @ladysongmaster in case this applies to clonetober2022 as well!

I have to give a special shoutout to @amukmuk, @muguathepapaya, and @wixiany for (indirectly) introducing me to foxiyo as a ship last year and for doing a lot of good work for this fandom this year! Your content keeps me invested in this ship and I hope you guys like this :)

#foxiyo #riyo chuchi #commander fox #foxiyoweek2022 #foxiyo week #clonetober2022 #clonetober #star wars #the clone wars #sw the clone wars #tw:sexual harassment

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