Fives & Luke & Leia, Fives/Anakin/Padme, 700+ words
“Buir?”
Fives doesn’t react physically to the voice, he’s been trained since birth and then retrained as an ARC for such things. But internally, he jumps, blinking at the girl at the edge of the darkness in the ship’s main room.
“Leia?” He asks. The girl steps closer now, with confidence as usual, but the hesitation is the sign of something wrong. “What’s wrong, little one?”
“I had a dream,” she says. “Someone was burning, but I was far away, and there was a woman… she wouldn’t wake up.”
Fives tenses.
Intellectually, he knows. He’s raised the twins knowing he was Force Sensitive, impossibly, and so were the twins, knowing bonds could lead to shared nightmares. But nonetheless, he thinks…
I dare you to write an Ani5 fix-it fic. I will not be taking criticism and will die on the hill that this is the most powerful ship and could’ve saved the entire clone wars. Bonus points if it features the ship Mace Windu/headaches (bc anakin is a walking mess of shatterpoints and lives to annoy Mace). Codywan to help knock some sense into anakin would also be top tier. I LOVE YOU ZEPH’BUIR
(of course i can’t do a whole fix-it in a quick prompt answer, but i think i’ve set it up for a far happier ending than in canon! support communication and education in relationships (ღ˘⌣˘ღ) and also adhd clones.
fives might be the most i’ve ever struggled with a character (‘cept maybe ahsoka....) so it took a little while to figure out how to write this scene in a way i liked. also, had to go and watch fives clips to try and get my autism brain working, and BOY HOWDY do i actually hate dbb’s take on the clones, especially the accent but everything else too. their character designs make me want to cry. so i’m begging, for me, to imagine this fives like this especially because then we get Tol Anakin and a Smol Clone BF and i think that is a seriously underutilised dynamic.
thank you for the prompt, ad, and for cursing me with this ship in the first place. someday i’ll get around to actually writing them as the battle husbands they are 🧡)
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Echo's always been good with programming, but Fives is better with the actual building. He's not any good with inventing, maybe, but putting things together? Opening them up and knowing immediately what's wrong? Fives would even say he enjoys it — and being able to talk shop with Skywalker like they're nobody mechanics from the Outer Rim instead of General and Soldier makes the long hyperjumps between missions actually bearable.
How that led to him sitting in a rarely used hallway on the Resolute with Skywalker ("Anakin," he keeps insisting with a smile), both leant over a mouse droid in pieces on a drop cloth, Fives isn't really sure. It probably had something to do with Skywalker's excited bounce when he'd come to ask if Fives wanted to help him, the sparkle in his eye reminding Fives just how young the both of them are. How, technically, he's older than Anakin.
Because, yeah, he is Anakin, not Skywalker, when they're like this. With his growing knight cut a curly untamed cloud around his ears, grease smeared on the underside of his jaw, with Fives stripped down to his blacks from the waist up, with even his blasters set on the floor next to them.
With it quickly becoming clear that Anakin doesn't actually need help to rewire the mouse droid, but had asked for Fives to join him anyways.
They've been at it for a few hours now, their jokes winding down to companionable quiet as they both work on separate parts of the droid. It honestly might have been easier to start from a scrap droid than try to rewire this one correctly, but it's easy work Fives could do blindfolded, and sharing the mutually-focused silence is actually quite nice.
Anakin is elbow-deep in the outer casing when he finally asks, "Do the clones feel love?"
And Fives almost gets up and walks away. He knows not every battalion ended up with a good Jedi, that the 212th and the 501st had been so kriffing lucky to end up with "The Team", but sometimes he forgets. Maybe that's the worst part of it: slow, personal moments like this, Fives forgets he's not natborn and bearer of a face shared with millions. Being around his general makes him forget, and maybe he had taken that for granted until now.
Or maybe it's for that reason that he hesitates from storming off, because Anakin had been the one to name Alpha, to insist on giving them proper leave, to defend them from anyone who talks down at them even if they're a planetary leader. And Rex had said something, once, about Anakin’s brain working in either/ors, being hardwired in some way to only see in black and white and believing that if you're one thing, you can't be another. That what Anakin says isn't always what he means.
So instead, he asks, "What kind of love are we talkin'?"
Anakin refuses to raise his head, and Fives can almost see him stressing about how to phrase this. "Y'know, grand romance and stuff. One-and-onlys and holodrama romcom propaganda and imagining growing old together."
"'Not quite sure what you're asking, sir." He takes a deep breath. "The short answer is yes, we can and do feel that, but the long answer is I can't speak for every brother, and I would not want to. Some of us don't feel that." Shrugging, he passes Anakin a socket wrench before he can ask for it. "But it's not because we can't, not because of the longnecks. We're bred to be obedient, sir, not emotionless."
Quiet settles over them again while Anakin processes this, his mouth twisted rather horribly. Fives starts to think he would do a whole awful lot to turn that frown back into a haughty smile.
"What do you really want to ask, General?"
"I'm married to Senator Amidala."
Now, everyone with eyes knows that. Maybe Torrent knows even better, when they've been covering for their general for over a year now, and clearly the Jedi just aren't doing anything about it — but Fives also knows Anakin has never actually told anyone about this, not even General Kenobi. Rex says Anakin still thinks they've been discreet.
"If I may be blunt, sir, this is not news."
And Anakin actually laughs at that, shaking his head as he tosses down his tools to stare at the opposite wall instead. Fives watches his gaze go distant, somewhere far away from the Resolute lost in the middle of space. “I’ve loved her since I was nine years old, Fives. I loved her through not seeing her for a decade, through her assassination attempts and the First Battle of Geonosis and becoming a knight, and I...”
Fives sighs once. “No one said you had to stay in love, sir.”
“But that’s just it,” he groans. “I’ve never known how to do anything else, how to be anything else. I don’t... know who I am without it.”
He has to look away from Anakin, then, because he’s seen brothers go stupid for people they meet on campaigns, or for their Jedi, and Fives isn’t nearly as young as some of the shinies out there, but he knows what it looks like, when they leap in without thinking. He lets out a long, slow breath, his eyes falling on the ‘saber at Anakin’s hip. “Permission to speak freely, sir?”
Anakin blinks at him, and nods.
“That’s too young to decide what you want to do for the rest of your life.” Fives raises a brow at his general’s startled expression, which is maybe more amusing (endearing) than it has any business being. “General, you’re barely an adult, just the same as the vode. If my mental timeline is right, you weren’t even twenty standard when you married Amidala, which, frankly, was reckless and unfair on her part.”
“Padmé would never–”
“I don’t mean intentionally, sir. The fact of the matter is, no wonder you don’t know who you are without her, because you’ve always had her.” That decade of no contact notwithstanding, considering Anakin didn’t not have her, either. “Senator Amidala knew who and what she was before you, and she’ll know who and what she is without you.”
“That’s not quite fair,” Anakin grumbles, but his throat is flushed in what Fives hopes is entirely appropriate guilt, or at the very least embarrassment. “It was my idea to get married after Geonosis.”
Fives snorts. “The idea of a child thrown into war, afraid to lose anything.”
“You’re being uncharacteristically candid, Fives.”
“Respectfully, sir, the last thing you need is to be coddled.” His general laughs again, this time good and bright in a way he hasn’t heard before; and then Fives can’t help what he admits next. “We weren’t allowed toys, or anything.”
Laughter cutting off abruptly, Anakin’s eyes grow haunted instead. There might not be anyone else in the galaxy with quite the same experience as the clones, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t those that understand.
“Hevy made me and Echo– Well, he said they were mythosaurs like Kal taught us about, but they looked more like sad loth cats. He cut up his own bedsheet to make ‘em, and couldn’t tell the longnecks what he’d done with it, so he just slept on the bare mattress.”
“Fives...”
But it’s clear Anakin doesn’t actually know what to say, so Fives pushes on. “Some of Fett’s instructors tried to teach us Mando’a, you know? I think Spar is the only brother that ever got fluent, the rest of us have been making up words and combining them with Basic and Kaminoan and whatever else the Cuy’val Dar spoke that sometimes we don’t even remember what language they are anymore.”
“I didn’t learn Basic until I was five.” Anakin thunks his head onto the wall behind him with a sigh, the mouse droid forgotten at his feet. “Other padawans always told me I was lucky Master Obi-Wan knew Huttese.” Ahh, kark, his general had been a Hutt salve; at least the spice runners made sure their slaves could communicate with their customers. “I couldn’t read a word of Aurebesh when I first came to the Temple, though to be fair, I couldn’t read anything else, either.”
“You grow up around other kids?”
“Yeah, my mom and I lived in the biggest slave slum on Tatooine.”
Fives doesn’t need to tell him how lucky he was just to have had their own quarters. “I think, sir, that the vode know better than you think, what it’s like always standing on the edge of losing everything.”
Squeezing his eyes closed, Anakin inhales sharply and clenches his fists over his knees. “What happened? To your mythosaur toys?”
“One of the longnecks found them while we were in training, ‘threw them out before we got back. I think Hevy was even more upset than we were.”
The leather glove over his prosthesis creaks as he tightens his grip on his own palms. “Was it easy? To just... forget about them?”
“Of course not,” Fives snorts and crosses his arms, “we were the equivalent of eight standard at the time, but we honestly didn’t have a choice. As we got a little older, we stopped trying to put meaning in things, because we weren’t allowed things. Our names are our only real possession, even our armor can be taken from us, but we will not, cannot, let anyone take our names.”
Groaning, Anakin scrubs his hands over his face before pushing himself up to finally look at Fives properly. He still doesn’t speak for a moment, just watching him, then teases flatly, “You’ve been spending too much time with Cody and Obi-Wan, you’re starting to speak in riddles.”
“They are riddles only to you, sir.” He offers a small smile, and is only slightly disappointed when Anakin doesn’t return it.
Instead, he lets out a winded breath. “So. You’re saying that it’s not easy to let go of even small things, but we must. And then there are things that we shouldn’t let go of?”
“Some things aren’t ours to keep.”
Anakin swallows. “Like Padmé,”
“Like any person, no matter what sort of love we have for them.”
Groaning, Anakin pulls his knees back up close and drops his face into his arms. “But I still love her.”
Knowing that this is not a new problem, that General Kenobi has been trying to teach his general this for as long as they’ve known each other, Fives takes a moment to consider. “You don’t really have to stop loving her.”
“But you said–”
“You think I stop loving my brothers when they die?”
Whether or not it’s healthy to hold onto affections for someone after a romantic relationship is a conversation for another time, Fives decides, and leans over to pick up where Anakin had left off with the droid.
“General, it sounds to me like you already know all this,” he says, twisting a wire into the grip of his glove to yank it from the motor. “And that you’re digging your feet in — which is the crux of the problem, isn’t it?”
“You sound like Obi-Wan,” he groans, but doesn’t deny it.
“Hmm, well, at least we’re still just kids.”
Anakin very slowly looks up from his arms, just enough for Fives to see his wide eyes. “What do you...?”
“Well, we’ve still got time to learn, don’t we?” Fives raises his eyebrow as he fits the new wire into the motor and starts to close all the panels back up. “I still think about Hevy and Droidbait and Cutup, and honestly, I still think about Echo’s and my mythosaurs. That’s not a bad thing, I don’t think, not even the Jedi would think that’s bad. I’m still angry when my vode don’t get funerals and I honestly hold that against the Chancellor and the Jedi both. But I don’t get to go back to Kamino and take my anger out on the longneck that took our toys, and I’m... working on it, not being so angry with the generals. I’m still angry. But I know the Jedi have about as much say in all of this as we do, and I know burying my brothers won’t bring them back. So I’m working on it.”
“I... don’t have to be good at it all at once.”
“Great Maker, General, just because you’re the Chosen One doesn’t mean you have to actually be good at absolutely everything from the start. You just have to try, and you still have time to.”
He looks up and finds Anakin already smiling back. “Fives, I could kiss you.”
“Considering it sounds like Senator Amidala just divorced you, I think that’s a very bad idea, sir.”
“Bah, you’re no fun.”
Fives feigns offense, “This mouse droid we’ve rigged to follow Captain Rex around and scream says differently.”
-
The night the 501st returns to the Resolute after finally (kriffing finally) leaving Umbara, Fives finds a hand-sewn stuffed mythosaur on his bunk, with a string collar and a dogtag etched with CT-782.
-
Mando’a:
Cuy’val Dar — “Those who no longer exist”, group of 75 Mando’ade and 25 others put together by Jango to train the clones
vod/e — “brother/s, comrade/s, sibling/s”, technically gender neutral but used most often in fandom as “brother/s” (*in this context, fives is using brothers as gender neutral as well, because you won’t take trans and nb clones even from my cold dead hands*)
I wish there was more Anakin and Fives content, especially post Order 66 (in an AU where it failed). There was so much potential. So much room for angst and apologies, and Anakin making up to Fives for not listening to him.
And even if Fives didn’t survive, and canon stayed the same, it would have been nice for there to be some reflection on Anakin’s part about just the role Fives played in trying to save everyone.
Maybe even if after death, as a Force Ghost, Anakin searches for Fives in the afterlife just to apologize.
“You brought a wanted criminal here?” Ahsoka asks.
“In my defense,” Anakin offers. “He does say he’s innocent.”
Said criminal, Finn “Fives” Fett, merely rolls his eyes.
“I am innocent,” he says. “Someone framed me for killing that Darth Vader guy. Hell, I don’t even know who he is!”
“Doesn’t matter,” Anakin says. “Look, he might be a lead to the Sith, since he managed to escape, like me.”
“Probably,” Ahsoka points out. Which… is actually a good point. Anakin has no idea how he ended up in that alley, just that Plo had found him and taken him in. Given him a name, and the powers of Build. He has no idea who he is in general, of course.
(Deep in his heart of hearts, he hopes it’s someone good.)
And also, really, it’s not like he knows anything about Fives yet. He’s just got a good feeling about this, though. Or maybe a terrible one.
When they kiss it feels like lightning and Anakin think that might be a problem. A warning or a promise or just a…
He pulls away. Fives blinks.
“Sir?”
Ah. There it is.
Here’s the thing: Anakin has a much closer bond with his men. He could recognize and does deeply care for each one of them, and of course he mourns every death. He can understand them on a level most Jedi simply can’t because, obviously, most Jedi hadn’t been born and immediately taken from their mother so a bomb could be placed under their skin, more trapping than any shackles, been slaves for nine years of their life.
The problem is that by that logic he is well aware he can never be one of them. So when he gets offers to simply spend time with his men he’s careful with his answers. They trust him, but he doesn’t want to consider how much.
Fives truly wished General Skywalker had waited until he finished drinking out of his canteen to say that, because now he was coughing and spluttering, and even the burning in the back of his throat couldn’t distract from the implications of those words.
“W-what?”
“I said, we should get married.” General Skywalker looked at Fives over the top of his datapad. “It would make our cover story more believable.”
Fives aggressively wiped at his mouth and took a few ragged breaths. “Sir, remind me why I’m going undercover with you and not Captain Rex?”
“Because Rex is a blonde, and you fit the profile of the man our contact thinks he’s meeting. Dark hair, muscular, has a goatee.” General Skywalker winked. “And he’s handsome.”
Fives didn’t even have time to process that General Skywalker had just called him handsome. His brain cells hadn’t moved past the word ‘married’. “Sir. You’re saying we have to act like a married couple?”
“That won’t be a problem, will it, darling?” General Skywalker asked, throwing his arm over Fives’ shoulder with a grin.
“Of course not, sir,” Fives said meekly, and if his face was hot and the tips of his ears were red, the general thankfully did not comment.
Heyyy, for rarepair day, AniFives? "It hurts, make it stop" with vulnerable/hurt Fives?
“Sir, wait.”
Rex’s hand on Anakin’s chest stopped him briefly, but not for long, if the determination written into his features was anything to go by.
“I want to see him, Rex.”
“He’s in bad shape, sir,” Rex warned. “He’s barely coherent. They’re still working on him.”
“I don’t care,” Anakin growled, pushing past Rex. “I’m going to see him.”
Despite his insistence, Anakin wasn’t prepared for the sight that greeted him behind the curtain. He knew Fives’ injuries had been sustained in an explosion, but he had no idea the burns were this severe. Fives’ entire torso was completely marred, and though they didn’t seem to be harsher than first or second degree burns, they were still excruciating.
“Dammit, increase the morphine,” Kix growled to another medic as he held Fives down. Fives was thrashing and yelling, tears streaming freely down his cheeks.
“It hurts! Make it stop, make it stop, make it stop! It hurts!”
Over and over again, Fives’ screams reverberated off the walls. Two other medics were bent over him, washing his wounds and carefully cleaning out the debris. His torso had to be entirely wrapped up, but it was slow going. The reverberations of Fives’ suffering through the Force were so intense that Anakin could hardly stand it, but he had to be there. If Fives had to agonize through it, so would he, even if he couldn’t take away Fives’ pain like he wished he could.
Fives was in no condition to do anything but rest after the initial treatment. Anakin sat next to him and held his hand as tenderly as he could, mindful of the patches of burned skin dotting his arms. Though Fives was quiet now, his terrified screams were still seared into Anakin’s memory. In the silence of his hospital room, they replayed over and over again, torturing Anakin even in Fives’ blissful slumber.
Hello it’s been forever but thinking about a Fives Lives AU where he raises the twins and also gets to punch Vader in the face. Haven’t decided if it’s early Anakin redemption or not tho.
Look, I don’t even ship Rex/Anakin, but (famous last words I always say before falling headfirst into yet more bizarre rarepairs…)
when Fives meets Kix at 79s and asks him to contact Rex and Skywalker, and Kix says “I can’t guarantee he’ll bring the General”
I thought, what if Anakin/Rex/Fives, which Kix doesn’t know about, but Fives himself is sure Rex will get Anakin to come along and talk to him, and that is also why Anakin is so sure Fives will trust him and Rex if they go alone?
(please, O Deity Of Shipping, do not let me Actually Fall into this ot3 because I do not need yet more improbable pool-noodle ships to add to my flotilla, please and thank you)
Just want to say I love your blog! Ani5 deserves so much attention and I wish there was more Ani5 stuff out there.
Oh my god thank you??? I’m not that active anymore but Ani5 is my Forever OTP. As for more content, well, we’ve at least made it to over 20 fics on AO3, so I’m happy with that!!!
Still, I agree. That’s why this blog has about 500 prompts!!!
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