summary: The 501st are loving meatballs and pranks in the mess and find themselves one laugh after another. Anakin slept on Ahsoka's head and is imprinted with her headdress. Set after 2.05 Landing at Point Rain.
word count: 1972 ∥ Part 1B of 3 in a fluff-angst-fluff series: just right.
“Mom, no— uh… Sergeant Kix, you want me to notify you when the General and Commander are asleep? What do we do now?”
“Yeah, now I can patch them up quiet alright.” Kix smirked wryly as he pulled out the biggest plaster from his medkit.
Jesse elbowed his friend, “Come on, don’t tell me you’re gonna pass up this perfect prank material. You can make the General take an injection without chasing him down.”
“Well, will you dare to?” Kix taunted.
“Hand me your holocamera,” Jesse held out a palm and a smug grin.
“Shiny, listen to Sergeant Jesse.”
Redeye glanced left and right under his helmet. No one could see him of course, then pulled out his not-so-secret hobby reluctantly.
“Off you go, they had meatballs in the mess hall today,” Jesse bid him off, his grin now a cipher of mischief. Redeye knew because he was supposed to be on mess hall duty today. And so he ran off to make sure his buddy was going to hear how unfair it was for him to lend anyone his most precious item because they were still juniors.
Kix and Jesse strolled towards the lone gunship in a quiet hangar. Everybody had collectively decided they should just leave the General and the Commander there in their peaceful pile. He is going to put that stealth surveillance course in use alright.
-
Echo was finishing his check-up rounds on the hangar. All the aircrafts are parked neatly in the dim light. It was as if stars dangled from the high ceiling. For all his time observing the night sky on Rishi, he didn’t know he would miss it this much living on a cruiser.
“Echo! Meatballs!” Fives’ cry shook him out of remembrance. Guess his sneaking away for “information retrieval” at the mess hall paid off. Echo jogged towards the last gunship in line to check if everything’s off. He was startled to find two shrouded figures instead.
“Echo!” Fives repeated passionately, “we’ve got to get there before Hardcase!”
“I know!” Echo poked his head out of the gunship. Returning inside, Echo almost regretted his shouting as the pair stirred. “General? Are you alright?”
Anakin woke from his slumber. No thoughts rushed into his head. Good. But his neck was so stiff from locked onto one side for the past hour. “Master? Are we there yet?” Ahsoka mumbled as she lifted her head off his shoulder.
“Good day, sir,” Echo straightened himself. “You are back on the Resolute. Welcome home.”
-
Anakin and Ahsoka kept flexing their arms as Echo escorted them to the hangar bay door. Ahsoka ran off to take a shower but he’d been starving all day. The General was heading straight to the mess hall.
Anakin had to mimic Echo’s march standing next to him. Even with his fatigued legs, the troops saluted him along the hallway. Strange how they saluted him silently, unlike the chatter not far away. He caught a cackle abruptly retreating back under its owner’s helmet as it was put on. Curious. The clones were doing that thing where they turn off the speaker for private jokes again. He left his men to their merry tales and cut the corner.
Anakin stepped inside the busy canteen and located Rex’s table right away. He nodded for Echo to go over first of how high Fives were raising his arms. Taking a tray, he went to scavenge whatever’s left on the line.
“Hello, Mixer, I know it’s gonna be good when you’re in charge,” Anakin quipped. “Any crispy crustaceans?”
“Sorry sir, we try not to serve something that resembles the campaign’s enemy too much,” Mixer beamed with pride. “It’s a victory special. We are having the boys’ favourite meatballs.”
Anakin raised an eyebrow.
“I could give you my secret stash of noodles.”
At Anakin’s nod, Mixer took his bet and motioned for his pouting buddy Redeye to fill the rest of his plate with meatballs. Anakin took the serving grudgingly. Well, at least it’s his third favourite food when live delicacies are banned.
-
“Oi Captain!” Jesse was running around the mess hall to find Rex with Kix right behind. Everyone knew he loves baby animals. And, he had to show him the pictures. If Kix could sometimes outrank Skywalker with his medic talk, the Captain needed leverage against the reckless general every day.
After Jesse’s presentation, Echo and Fives pulled their heads away from each other. “Do we look like that?”
“No, you drool,” Rex said in a definitive voice, sipping his cocoa after a long day on the ground.
Fives was going to defend Echo but leaned back when the comment sank. It was probably just him. Echo gave a shy giggle, “Jesse, the manual said photographic field records should be kept for official eyes with security clearance only.”
Rex questioned his life again at how every time he wanted to have a quiet meal, mayhem gravitated towards him anyway. Tugging a mysterious turquoise box close, he took a closer look. “If I could sleep as sound without worrying about you boys,” Rex chuckled dryly.
Hardcase patted his chest, “We strive to make you life better, Captain.” He glanced at the circulating holopad, “Oooh, the Jedi finally go to sleep, huh?” A brown sphere caught his eye next to his own plate and he made a move.
“Hardcase, get you hands off it. I saved that last ball for Echo,” Fives said, pulling the tray closer to him.
“I’m a growing clone and needs all thirty of his meatballs today,” Hardcase retorted.
“Fives, you saved me 1 ball. You can have it now .” Echo sighed tiredly.
“Good evening, gentlemen,” Anakin walked over and ate it.
Fives and Hardcase found themselves wide-eyed and jaw hanging. Their stillborn fistfight melted into an embrace as they watched the general swallowed the meatball whole. Such disgrace without savouring!
Anakin sat himself between Hardcase and Fives. He is way past hungry to notice his pondering Captain or crafty medic on the opposite side of the table. He dug his fork in the red noodles.
-
Kix loved Jesse’s photos. He loved watching his brothers quiet and rested. Ahsoka counted too. But Jesse was more into a prank than he was, and Kix was willing to let him act thinking this was his glorious idea.
“So this one you see them this close to drool—” Jesse froze as Anakin sat down across.
But Kix was in a good mood. Reason one, the general didn’t even noticed big bacta patch on his right shoulder he stuck on. Or the bandages he wrapped around his left thigh. He finally had some hope to fix this one right. Reason two, oh no, Jesse is so ruined.
Looked like General Skywalker hadn’t heard him. Jesse’s taut rubber band of sanity snapped at Kix’s mocking laugh, “Well, wouldn’t we want that.”
Jesse glared at him as he closed his dropped jaw back together. The smile had faded from his face as quick as it had grown on Kix’s. He tactfully put away the holopad while Anakin was still distracted by the noise of his own slurping.
“Looking at tooka pictures again, Jesse?” Anakin looked up. “Any funny ones to share with us?”
Jesse resumed eye contact with his general. “Uh… no, sir. The Holonet failed us today.” He unfortunately looked a little closer at Anakin’s face—his right cheek. There was an arrow of little red squares. The letter resh lined up from small rounded marks on his skin.
“Is that…” Kix muttered to Jesse and they consulted his pictures. Anakin was sleeping on that valley between Ahsoka’s montrals. Right where her beaded headdress was.
Anakin shrugged at the absence of tooka jokes and continued with his own meal. These are some delicious meatballs and noodles. The table might had been a little quieter since he sat down, if he was able to hear his men through his own slurping thunder that was a respect to the chef.
Rex pulled his head away from the cocoa and scanned left and right from his two stunned brothers to the chewing general. He soon copied their look as he discovered the diamond marks on his general’s face. It was like a stamp on a frozen nuna.
Around the tables the clones were waiting for someone to make a move. The troopers centered their eyes on Rex and Rex centered his eyes on Anakin’s cheek. Anakin’s were on his noodles in red sauce.
Echo broke the non-existent silence. “General, um, you have…” Ignoring Five’s tug or his gritted teeth, Echo stuttered, “... something ... on your face.”
“Oh, is it sand,” Anakin dismissed him, jabbing at another meatball “I’ll get to it later.”
“General, maybe you should refresh yourself,” Rex added. He pushed down on Jesse’s holopad. Let’s hope they don’t have to show him the pictures to drive home the point.
Kix pulled out a thin mirror. He always carried the pocket two-fold for it helped with inspecting wounds, and sometimes his haircut. He flipped it open on the table. “General, for you well-being, maybe you really should slow down on the slurping.”
Air rushed in Anakin’s nostrils. He put down his fork and squinted at the mirror. His hair was a bit ruffled and dusted, but no bug slimes on him. He turned his head sideways and saw a squadron of pink dots in V formation on his right cheek.
Rex offered him a timely glass of water. Anakin dunked it in a go and stood up nervously. “I am… going to get Ahsoka,” He paced. “Someone has to make sure she eats all her vegetables.”
Anakin foxtroted out of the room with an anxious laugh.
-
Anakin was burying his face under one hand. It’s better for others to mistake him for having a toothache then having nodded off absent-mindedly. He couldn’t tell if the troopers along were laughing as contently as they were when he comfortably marched into the mess hall. Missing a passing-by little girl, the young man stormed into the washroom between his and Ahsoka’s quarters.
“Master! Mas…” Ahsoka grimaced, “he never listens.” She retraced a few steps to catch her Master scowling at the mirror. “Master, are you alright?” she asked.
“Look what you did, Snips,” her Master chuckled dryly and patted her on the head. Anakin was squeezing and rubbing to soothe the soft scars from sleeping on Ahsoka's ivory headdress. He took off his glove to feel the creases on his cheek. Ahsoka pulled away his hand and looked up at her master with large curious eyes.
She noticed the usual semi-dried sauce spots around his mouth, and she almost laughed like she always had. But a bigger, freer laugh escaped as she found the squadron of diamond marks.
Ahsoka wiped a phantom tear off the corner of her eye. She reached between her montrals with both hands to feel the array of beads. Anakin slammed his ungloved palm on her head again and pressed it down softly.
“Now we got matching marks,” he joked with a smirk.
Ahsoka blinked him a tired eyeroll. How is she assigned such an impossible Master anyway? She retreated back by the sink, and waited while toying with her nails.
With a splash, Anakin stood straight in a bright smile. “Ahsoka, is it gone? Do I still have silly marks on my face?”
Now he looked like a monkey’s bottom. “It’s fine,” Ahsoka shook her head. Hiding her own embarrassment behind a big smile, “You have… a healthy blush,” she remarked.
The familiar cocky grin had returned to her Master’s face. So had the growl of their stomachs.
-
“You didn’t save me a plate?”
“Snips! I barely got one. And you think Rex didn’t left you a whole pot?”
Hardcase and Fives stared at their Captain in betrayed horror.
The root of this trainwreck that spiraled into a fic is "#then Anakin eats live bugs"
Work-specific Notes:
apparently noodles are canon (in tcw 2.11 nonetheless) while spaghetti isn’t. noodles are “a type of food which looked like an anemic grassworm.” (from wookieepedia)
in my Earthling mind of course it was a V / 7 that Ahsoka’s beads imprinted on Anakin’s cheek, but I remember the Star Wars universe uses Aurebesh. So the letter Resh does look like a 7 with an oblique edge instead of a perpendicular one
“Do we look like that?” I'm NOT going to specify who said that line. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) (it’s both)
Author's Notes:
It’s my first time writing clones! I hope they don’t come off ooc to long-time clone stans :p :) I love Redeye and Mixer and looove the opportunity to create a backstory for them. Jesse and Kix being co-sergeants are a purely indulgent made-up ranks and have no research whatsoever. I like the idea of them playfully bullying each other with official ranks. And Rex is kinda mean under me? XD
Because I have to juggle so many characters, it's a bit more like snippets stringed together, and thus less flowy?/smooth? than my last fic. It gets a little mushy in the middle because I hyped myself tense like [OMG WHO WILL SPEAK UP]. But I had a lot of fun writing them.
Penultimate snippet outtake: [Ahsoka brought a red-faced Anakin back to the mess hall and make him apologize to Redeye and Mixer for storming out and not finishing his meal] // I like the idea but I got too tired and was stalling too long to write LOL so it ends where it is now. and I actually wrote the ending quite early compared with everything.
Don’t know if this sounds narcissistic or what but I was giggling and smiling like an idiot through the whole thing. I don’t love the actual process of writing them but I love imagining them in fluff family tropes! I love the entire 501st, the General and the Commander for all their chaotic shenanigans! Let them be dorky heroes forever!
oooh If I ever get around after the seven fluff daydreams I have for Anakin & Ahsoka, I'm going to write so much more Echo, and maybe Hurt/Comfort featuring Echo & Fives, because I love that sweet boy so much ;_; I like writing him in a sad undertone, a subdued but overhanging torment.
Does my style feature a lot of plain "[Character] [verb] [object]" more than usual? We'll never know.
do you think Maul spared Jesse because he too, knows what losing a brother means
Savage was forced to turn but he finds solace in the brotherhood with Maul and so does Maul. The clones are engineered to lay down their lives for a pointless war, but can find meaning in carrying on if just to keep their brothers safe, for one more day.
