#snap-p

(This probably isn’t what you had in mind, but I hope you enjoy it nonetheless!)

The Jedi Killer, this is how the mysterious assassin has begun to be named by those who are brave enough to speaki about him. Dogma doesn’t particularly care about it, but he’s got to admit that it has a nice ring to it. Jedi Killer…

 It all started with Krell.

At the time Dogma couldn’t know what life had in store for him: just when everything seemed to be over, he got an opportunity to begin a new life.

Sure, he’s working for a Sith Lord now, but what’s the difference? Sith, Jedi, they’re all the same to him now. Given how easy it can be for Jedi to fall to the Dark Side, he’s doing the galaxy a favor by terminating them; he’s gotten quite good at it, you know?

 A thing that he never expected he was going to enjoy as much as he does, is the thrill of the chase after a kill. The Coruscant Guard is good, very good; it makes things more fun with the way they always try to catch him.

They provide some amusement to Dogma’s otherwise bleak life, though that may have something to do with the fact that he’s taken a shine with two of the Guard Commanders.

Commander Fox is someone Dogma feels close to despite the fact that they’ve never met: he looks like a tormented soul too. Always on the job, he hates when he’s not in control of things; Dogma is beginning loving messing with him on purpose, leaving some misleading clues behind and sending him messages with his kills. He’s thought about what would happen if they were to cross paths, if they were able to physically meet. Would Fox put up a fight? He bets he would.

Commander Thorn is completely different from Fox, but Dogma still respects him. It’s obvious that he loves his brothers, even though he should’ve understood by now that nobody cares about the clones, that if he really loved them he should begin to kill the Jedi in order to end this war, which is exactly what he’s doing. Later, he’ll kill his Sith employer as well, so that nobody will have to fight anymore. If he weren’t so busy with his mission, he wonders if he and Thorn would’ve been friends; he seems cheerful and accepting, something Dogma would really enjoy. Oh, the Dogma from Umbara would’ve disagreed so much on this, but that Dogma is dead, buried under a renewed sense of duty, not towards the Jedi anymore, but towards peace.

Would he be able to convince Thorn to join him? He seems less duty-bound than Fox, so maybe if he twists his words right, he might be able to do it.

 As much as Dogma has come to love them separately, it can’t match the height of his love when the two of them are together. There’s something about the way they mesh so well that never fails to amaze Dogma.

He feels jealousy, possessiveness and some form of shame when he spies them through the lens of his sniper rifle - his only companion since he’s dedicated himself to his mission - but he’s not jealous of them in the sense that he wants one of the other. He wants both.

They’d be excellent allies and even more excellent lovers. If only they’d join him…

 Sometimes he loses himself in whichever fantasy his mind is able to concoct.

In this ideal world there are no Jedi, nor Sith Lord. The Force doesn’t exist at all.

In this ideal world, the three of them are together and, most importantly, free to be and do whatever they want.

In this ideal world, they’re happy.

 Other times, his scenarios are more true to reality, but with a few huge changes.

In this ideal world, the ship that was taking Dogma to Kamino isn’t intercepted by Count Dooku’s, but one of the Guard’s.

In this ideal world, Fox and Thorn would’ve taken him under their wings. They would’ve protected him.

In this ideal world, they would’ve loved him.

 These are only fantasies, unfortunately, which can only live in Dogma’s head. They can’t and won’t become true no matter how much he wants them too.

The only thing Dogma can do is to keep tainting his hands in blood, taking one life after another, getting one step closer to peace each time he does.

(Oooh hell yeah! We still aren’t entirely back in romantic territory but that’s just because I felt like they should restart as friends before things can properly evolve)

(Part of this AU)

The situation is becoming ridiculous; it’s driving the entirety of the 501st crazy.

“We have to do something!” Jesse exclaims, sitting at the cafeteria with Tup and Kix. “It can’t be that we have to do two separate debriefs because these two morons won’t talk to each other!”

“And what are we supposed to do?” Kix asks. It’s in moments like this that he misses having Fives around - he always knows what to do when it comes to emotional matters - but he’s been requested by another battalion so he’s not here at the moment, which happens quite often, with him being an ARC now and all that.

“Maybe we lock them up somewhere until they talk?” Tup replies. He’d never suggest anything this drastic, but he’s beginning to get annoyed by this situation as well, and he wants it to end.

“Nah, it wouldn’t work,” Kix replies immediately. No, that’s a bad idea: they’d be at each other’s throats immediately.

“Unless…” Jesse mutters. He, unlike Kix, looks very intrigued by the idea.

“You’re not seriously thinking about doing it, aren’t you?”

“Why not?” Jesse replies immediately.

“I think it would work,” Tup insists, sharing a gaze with Jesse.

Kix sighs, knowing that there’s nothing he’ll be able to do to stop them. Oh well, might as well see this through.

 “Vod, I’ve finally found it!”

“Wait, you mean…”

“Yes, the stories about the Captain’s secret stash of booze is true, ‘Case.”

“Jesse, you have to show me where it is!”

“Of course. Follow me!”

 “Dogma, I need your help!”

“What did you break this time?”

“Wow, thanks for the vote of confidence, vod.”

“Am I wrong though?”

“… Are you coming or not?”

“Ugh, fine.”

 Neither Hardcase nor Dogma suspect a thing, which explains their surprise when, once they come down the hallway, they see the other coming from the opposite way.

They both freeze on their spot, with Jesse and Tup that pretend not to know what’s going on, but this situation of stall doesn’t last long: the first one to move is Dogma, who’s about to turn around to leave, when Tup manages to get a hold of him.

“Oh no you don’t!” he exclaims, beginning to drag Dogma to the broom closet present in that hallway, the same way Jesse is doing it with Hardcase, despite the latter’s attempts at resisting.

Eventually they manage to throw them both inside, immediately closing the door, locking it - to unlock it they’d have to be as good slicers as Jesse, which seems highly unlikely.

No matter how hard Dogma bangs against the door, they don’t open it.

“Let us out!”

“Not a chance!” Jesse exclaims. He’s aware that they’re going to kill him after all this is said and done - Dogma surely will, maybe Hardcase will be more lenient - so he’s even more determined to see this through, cause at least it’ll be worth it in the end.

“Why don’t you have a chat? So we can all go back to living normally,” Tup intervenes. “We’ll come back for you in a bit, please don’t waste this opportunity.”

They both begin to walk away, ignoring the yells coming from the closet. Jesse only hopes that they won’t actually kill each other.

 Speaking of them, Dogma still keeps banging his fist against the door, but in vain. Nobody helps them out.

Damn it! Of all things, why this?!

 He hears a nervous cough. Right, he’s not alone.

He turns, and Hardcase’s awkwardly standing there, looking at everything else but Dogma.

This is going to suck so bad…

 They have no idea how much time passes in silence; it feels like centuries. Surely they’ll come back for them soon, right?

… Apparently not.

 With time, however, the rage Dogma feels begins to dissipate, making space for something that he isn’t even able to recognize.

Maybe they should talk, but what should they say? Where should they even begin? Oh well, they’ll never know if they don’t try it.

“Hardcase--”

“I’m sorry--”

They both stop, taken by surprise. Dogma is the first one to speak again.

“You first.”

“I…” Hardcase hesitates, just for a moment. “Dogma, I’m so sorry about what happened. I really shouldn’t have done that. You don’t have to forgive me or anything, I just wanted to say that I’m truly sorry, and that if I could, I’d go back in time to make things better.”

Ah. This is unexpected, definitely not what Dogma thought he’d hear.

 Not that he hasn’t tried to apologize already, but maybe it’s because some time has passed since “the accident” but Dogma isn’t as mad as he - maybe? - should be. It’s just that Hardcase sounds so sincere and earnest… Besides, he’d lie if he said that he misses having him close, even though, actually, they weren’t even that close before that night.

He still misses it, he’s not going to lie. Besides…

“Well, in the end you were right, so…” he manages to say. They were right about Krell, while Dogma was keeping being a fool, believing him instead of his vode. “And, huh…”

He can’t help but to be overwhelmed by Hardcase’s gaze; it’s so intense that it makes Dogma feel small despite the fact that they’re both the exact same size. Still, after faltering only once, Dogma continues with a renewed determination.

“But I would like to give it a try, again. Maybe we can start back as friends--”

 He doesn’t even get to finish the sentence that Hardcase extends a hand towards him. What?

“Hi, fellow trooper that I meet for the first time ever. The name’s Hardcase,” he says. “What about you?”

What is he trying to do… Oh, Dogma thinks he understands, now. Starting from scratch, huh? Once he wouldn’t have been able to do something like this - he was known to hold grudges to heart, and he held a lot of them - but now… Well, now things have changed.

A soft smile appears on his lips as Dogma goes to shake the hand that has been offered to him with his own. Turns out he’ll really have to thank Tup and Jesse for their crazy idea, huh?

“Nice to meet you, I’m Dogma.”

(Yes, love me some good snuggles)

After what feels like forever, Fox has convinced Dogma to take a day of rest. He knows that it’s hypocritical of him to say so, given his own work ethic, but at least working tirelessly for days and days makes him so tired sometimes that he has to take a day off, if anything because he’s too tired to function, so in his opinion it’s still better.

Today there hasn’t been any alarm waking them up, any emergency that would requite their presence. They’ve started the day slowly, and they’re still going that way: they have left the bed only to eat, but as soon as they were done, they went back to its warmth immediately.

 There are some other things they could do: they could take care of some of the work they weren’t able to do these days, they could go out - maybe go to Dex’s - or even just go for a walk, but they don’t want to. At the moment, leaving the bed is the hardest thing they could ever do.

Besides, why should they leave? It feels so good staying here, under the covers, just the two of them: Dogma looks visibly more relaxed, and Fox’s willing to bet that even he must look less shitty that he usually does.

He leans closer when Dogma stretches a hand towards him, caressing his cheek, though that hand doesn’t rest there for long and instead moves up, caressing Fox’s hair.

“You’re growing it.”

It wasn’t an accusation or anything, but Fox still get pretty defensive about it.

“… Didn’t have enough time to cut it,” he replies. He has an interesting relationship with his hair to say the least: it being red has not only given him his name, but also many problems as he was raised on Kamino; he still doesn’t know how he managed to survive with such an evident mutation. Usually, he keeps it at regulation length or even shorter, especially now that it’s also beginning to grow white - none of his batchmates share this same fate yet - but lately he’s been so busy that he has completely forgotten about it, at least until now.

“It suits you…”

Fox doesn’t respond to that, not that Dogma was expecting him to. Still, it’s heartening to hear it from him, even though Dogma himself doesn’t know the importance of what he just said since Fox still hasn’t told him anything about this, but given that it’s an obvious mutation he must have some idea of how much of problem it’s been.

He barely needs to get any closer to find Dogma’s lips, kissing them softly. Dogma makes a noise of surprise, but except for that he doesn’t react much, responding to the gesture in kind, then kissing him again and again.

 Neither of them knows how much time they spend like this. Maybe it’s midday already, but they don’t care about it enough to check.

At some point Dogma rolled on his side, resting his head on Fox’s chest. They don’t talk about it between them, but in the Guard jokes about the “fatness” of his chest abound; Fox still hasn’t decided how he feels about them, though he doesn’t mind when Dogma uses it as a pillow because like this their bodies can be even closer.

Fox rests his arms around Dogma’s waist, happily sighing as he feels the other relax under his touch.

If this is how they’ll spend breaks from now on, Fox will make sure they both get them more often; just look at Dogma: he looks so peaceful now! He looks happy and radiant and Fox isn’t exaggerating when he says that he’d do anything for him.

(Yeeeeees!)

“I can’t believe it.”

As soon as they hear that voice, both Dogma and Fox turn towards the entrance of Fox’s office, more specifically towards a very surprised Thorn that is staring at them in return.

“What?” Fox is the first to ask.

“You’re both slacking off,” Thorn begins, finally stepping inside and allowing the door to close behind him, “And without me?”

At those words, Fox snickers, while Dogma rolls his eyes.

“Not everything revolves around you, you know?” he complains. “Besides, not my fault you took longer than usual to finish your duties.”

“Well, someone has to protect the Chancellor, and excuse me if it was my turn today,” he grumbles, suddenly way more somber than he was before. It almost makes Dogma regret having opened his mouth.

 Silence follows, at least until Fox sighs.

“Dogma, scoot over,” he says, so that they can make some space, then he turns to Thorn. “Come here.”

Thorn doesn’t let him repeat it twice, and in a moment he’s immediately joined them on Fox’s old couch, though not in the way Fox intended: he throws himself at the other to in fact, resting his body on their legs.

“Shabuir!” Dogma immediately exclaims, trying to push him off, but Thorn holds onto him and Dogma doesn’t manage to do it. He huffs then, frown on his face, but at least he doesn’t say anything, which considering how thorny he can be, is quite the miracle - and an indication that he doesn’t really mind it that much.

 “How did it go?”

“The same it always does, Fox,” Thorn replies immediately, without hiding the bitterness of his voice. “At least there hasn’t been any attack, though at that point I was actually looking forward to one.”

“Don’t say that…” Dogma intervenes, softly. In the end he’s not able to resist anymore and he reaches for Thorn’s hair, which he begins to pet with one hand.

Despite that, they all understand Thorn’s sentiments: there’s something weird going on with the Chancellor, everybody in the Guard who is unfortunate to be too much in his presence can tell you that, but hell if they know why exactly that is. Having to be in close proximity with him becomes unnerving pretty fast, so yes, even an attack would be good, because it would at least distract them.

 “He smells.”

Dogma chokes, Fox does too.

“He does!” Thorn insists, serious, like they were discussing military matters. “He does and you know it!”

“That’s not the point!” Fox exclaims. He can’t hold it in anymore, however, and he bursts into laughter at Thorn’s words. Of course he’s right, but they way he said it was so out of the blue that has taken everyone off guard.

Dogma still tries to resist, but eventually he breaks and begins to laugh too.

“What even is that smell?” he asks then, still laughing. Nobody knows, but it’s weird.

 “I’m not drunk enough for this conversation,” Fox suddenly says, tapping on Thorn’s legs so that he’ll let him get up.

“Where are you going?” Thorn asks however, before doing anything.

“To take some booze, of course,” Fox replies, like it’s the most obvious thing in the entire galaxy. At those words, Thorn immediately lets him go, knowing that if he’s good Fox will share.

“We shouldn’t-- We’re still on duty,” Dogma tries to protest, but their shift is almost over and no major accident has happened. Is it too presumptuous to think that nothing is going to happen?

 When Fox comes back with a bottle of corellian whiskey - the good shit - he doesn’t have it in his heart to say no.

Meanwhile, Thorn has gotten up, deciding that if he’s going to enjoy a drink with his lovers, he’s going to do it while sitting on the couch instead of leaning down over it. He welcomes Fox with a big smile, even though his eyes are tired - not that he says anything about that of course.

Still it doesn’t go unnoticed to Fox who, before handing him the bottle, says: “Just a little bit, then you’re getting some rest.”

At those words Thorn rolls his eyes.

“Suuure,” he replies, snatching the bottle from Fox’s hand and drinking directly from it like some kind of savage. And Fox had even brought the glasses…

 Despite Thorn unwillingness to obey Fox, in less than an hour he’s already passed out on the couch, almost entirely sprawled over Dogma, who doesn’t look happy about it, especially since Thorn has also begun snoring.

“Kriffing shabuir…” he mutters under his breath, but Fox can see the smile he’s trying to fight off his face.

“Watch your language, rookie,” he jokingly admonishes him though. Dogma hasn’t been a rookie for a long time, but Fox and Thorn still call him that sometimes, mostly when they’re trying to make him behave.

Dogma doesn’t say anything, but he narrows his eyes at the nickname. Fox shrugs and takes another chug of whiskey.

 “Thorn’s right…”

Fox raises his eyebrow at Dogma. “About what?”

“Palpatine does smell weird.”

A snort.

“Shut up, Dogma.”

“Make me,” Dogma replies immediately, smirking. Fox raises an eyebrow at him, but it doesn’t take him long to lean over Thorn to plant his kiss against him, effectively shutting him up.

What? He asked for it.

Oooh nice!

What I like about them:

I think that with Thorn in the equation, the three of them balance each other out very well. He brings some light-heartedness that both Fox and Dogma need.

Very cute with also angst potential, so it’s very nice.

What I don’t like about them:

A+: OTP A: I love it B: It’s really cute C: Not a bad ship D: I’m neutral on it E: I don’t really like it F: NOTP N/A: I don’t know the ship well enough

They’re not quite there to be an actual otp, but I still love this ship so much. Besides, I’m too invested in the Dogma and Hardcase live AU to say anything less

Nope I haven’t, or at least I don’t seem to recall.

What I like about them:

They fit well together, having complementary characters at all. They have a great potential for hurt/comfort which makes it a great ship in my eyes.

What I don’t like about them:

This is more about the way they’re written that them per se, but I’ve noticed a tendency of Thorn being written exclusively to be Fox’s support, with little to no weight on his own. This is something I too am guilty off and I’m trying to change it, since it’s not fair to his characters.

Fox angst is good and all but sometimes it’s a bit too much and it’s done just for the sake of having drama. If you add the fact that Thorn is usually put in a belligerent way towards Fox’s batchmates because they “treat him badly” you can easily understand why I wouldn’t be a big fan of it.

I like them a lot! Probably my favorite ship for both of them if I have to be honest.

They have a lot of potential though the only way I see them becoming a thing is in AUs where Dogma survives. He doesn’t have to necessarily become a Guard I think, but it’s fun when he does.

With how Dogma is when we first meet him, I don’t see them getting together before Umbara, also because I don’t think it’s ever specified, but given that Anakin didn’t even know who Dogma was and the way Rex tells him about it makes me thing that he must’ve been deployed from Kamino very recently, so unless Fox went to Kamino for something, I don’t think they would’ve even met.