another trope inversion of GAR/Guard interactions:
the GAR is entirely aware that Coruscant is a shit posting.
they're not blind; they can see all the anti-clone sentiment when they're on leave. even when they're deployed, it's not like they're cut off from all news - they know how many times bills for clone rights have gone to the Senate floor and been ruthlessly voted down. they can see how even their Jedi are restrained by the Senate dragging its feet and making bad choices and handling the war like it's a game of dejarik since it will never affect them personally.
very few politicians have the respect of the clones.
but the Guard still have to work with the spoiled, self-centered bastards, and the GAR knows that they're not being treated well. but what can they do? they have no rights, the Jedi are as trapped under the Senate's thumb as they are, and it's not like they can get regular citizens to do anything.
so they offer their support as much as they can. any Guard, any Corrie who needs help, all they have to do is find one of their brothers and it will be offered without any questions.
you'd think that crime rate would go up when battle-traumatized soldiers are given leave on a city-planet like Coruscant, but it actually goes down.
the thing criminals come to realize is that if you are being chased by one of the Guard, if ANY other clone catches sight of you, it is ON SIGHT. clones in casual clothes carrying food and drinks have dropped everything to immediately join a Guard's hunt, throwing themselves into the pursuit with glee and an energy that the usually-exhausted Guards often lack. (some of them howl. those, the criminal underground agrees, are the worst.)
and with hundreds or thousands of clones wandering around during battalions' leave, it's possible to run into one of them anywhere. and they usually travel in packs.
best just to lay low for a while.
when it leaks that the Guard regularly run low on supplies, all sorts of things start to go missing on the venators. just a box or a crate here or there, ration packs or bacta patches or cold-weather gear. there are millions of clones and thousands of ships; it's not like every little thing can be tracked by the quartermasters.
(rex realizes that, for whatever reason, his battalion is always prioritized for resupply, and rarely any questions are asked about their requisitions. rex takes immediate and shameless advantage of this. rex manages, somehow, to lose two entire bacta tanks, along with the bacta to fill them.)
and ofc the idea that started this whole ramble - when a shiny Corrie stumbles somewhere where some of the 501st are shooting the shit, causing everything to immediately come to a halt. the kid is clutching his helmet and one of his pauldrons to his chest; his hair is mussed up and there are tears on his cheeks and bruises on his face and unadulterated panic in his eyes.
there's an angry call in the corridor.
fives grabs him, hears him squeak, snaps out orders. echo yanks off his bucket and his upper armor; jesse lunges for a blanket. they hustle the kid into a chair, drape the blanket over his lower body, hastily swap his upper armor and helmet for echo's. fives shoves the armor somewhere, doesn't matter, it's out of sight with the telltale red, and they all barely have enough time to drop themselves back into the chairs arranged around the table and pick up their cards before some natborn stomps into the room.
anything we can do for you, sir? sorry, no, the Guard didn't stop in here. we saw him head back down toward the rotunda, though. yes, sir. have a nice day, sir.
they close and lock the door. fives goes back to the shiny. fives was instantly prepared to help a fellow clone in need.
fives was not prepared for tears.
the kid gets snot all over the inside of echo's helmet. they take him back to Guard HQ. fox is painfully, desperately relieved to see him. fox looks too-thin and too-tired but there is a fresh GAR-issued bacta patch covering a slash across the side of his cheek. he thanks them for saving the shiny, like that's something that ever needs gratitude, but is swept away before any of them can say that.
fives doesn't think that misplaced bacta and pilfered rations are enough support for the Guard anymore.
thankfully, rex and the rest of the GAR agree.
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