Work Text:
"Hold still–"
"You're pulling on it–"
"Because you're squirming– "
"Is this training?" Rex asked mildly as he stepped into the C Deck rec room.
Anakin twitched toward the door and Ashoka hissed at him, pulling him back around by his half-braided hair. "Stop moving you shabuir!"
Rex raised an eyebrow. Ahsoka flushed a little and hunched her shoulders.
"Sorry Rexter," she muttered.
"Oh you say sorry to Rex but not to me –"
"Shut up , Skyguy!" She tugged at the braid in her hands again and Anakin subsided with ill grace.
"If this isn't training–" a question which had not been answered, he noted, "–what is it?" Rex asked.
"It's sort of training?" Ahsoka offered, starting to fiddle with Anakin's hair again. "I mean, it's practice, that has to count for something, right, Skyguy?"
Anakin shrugged. "Sure, why not." For all his squirming he didn't seem very put out by playing hairstyling dummy. He was sitting on the floor in front of the couch, fiddling with mechanical bits and bobs, building something that it was probably better Rex didn't know about.
"Practice for what?" Rex asked patiently, crossing his arms and bracing his shoulder against the wall.
"Saving Tup from Domino." Ahsoka flashed a grin at him. "They've been trying to 'help' with his hair. It's my duty as a Jedi to help the less fortunate, but–" she turned back to Anakin and caught another piece of hair to add to the braid, "–it's been awhile since I braided someone's hair so I wanted to practice before I rescued him."
"You wanted to show up Domino, you mean," Rex said dryly.
"Not like it's hard," Ahsoka muttered, and Rex snorted. Domino Squad was well on their way to being ARCs, the elite of the elite, but they did have some gaps in their skill sets. Particularly when it came to hair care. He wouldn’t say it out loud, but Ahsoka may have had a point about needing to save Tup.
Ahsoka finished off the braid and tilted her head back and forth critically. “Rexter, what do you think?” she said, holding the end of the braid firm in one hand and tilting Anakin’s head toward the door with the other.
Rex stepped forward, leaning over and bracing his forearms on the back of the couch. “Very nice,” he said, not that he had any real idea what was going on with braids. Ahsoka grinned at him.
“Lemme see,” Anakin demanded, and then, for some reason, tried to twist around to look at the braid that was on his own head.
Ahsoka squawked as the motion pulled the end of the braid from her fingers and it promptly unraveled. “Skyguy!”
Anakin froze. “Woops.” Ahsoka shrieked like a teakettle and whapped him on the head with a couch pillow.
“Hey!” He squirmed ungracefully out of range. “Is that any way for a respectful Padawan to treat her revered master— “
“Come back here and I’ll show you how respectful I am!”
Rex snorted. “Do I need to send Jesse in here to supervise?”
Anakin twisted from where he was half sprawled on the floor out of Ahsoka’s reach to look up at Rex. “Why, what did he do to piss you off lately?”
“Nothing worth a commendation, unfortunately,” Rex said dryly, and both his adike snickered. He valiantly didn’t smile.
“Give it time,” Anakin said, attempting to sound wise and failing miserably.
Ahsoka choked on a giggle and Anakin turned to glare at her. She pretended not to see and resettled herself cross legged on the cushion. “Come back here, I need to redo the braid,” she said primly, patting the edge of the couch. He glared at her a moment longer before huffing and scooting back in front of her.
“I’m sure there are other people you could practice on,” Rex suggested, just for the affronted look Anakin turned on him.
Ahsoka flicked Anakin’s ear with one hand and reached for a comb with the other. “Settle down and hand me the datapad,” she ordered, and Anakin obeyed with a grumble.
Ahsoka scrolled through the datapad for a moment, then looked up at Rex. “Which one should I practice next?”
Rex stepped around the arm of the couch and settled beside her. Anakin slumped sideways, pressing his shoulder to Rex’s knee. Ahsoka placed the datapad on Rex’s lap and began splitting Anakin’s unruly curls into neat sections as Rex scrolled through the braid options. He raised an eyebrow. “Some of these are...extravagant.”
“Padme picked them out,” Anakin said absently, focused on his machine bits once again.
Rex and Ahsoka exchanged a dry look. How does he not know everyone knows? Ahsoka mouthed. Rex looked down quickly before he was tempted to say anything, and tapped on a picture of a braid that looked a little complicated but mostly functional.
“This one?”
“Oh, that one’s nice, good choice.”
Rex settled in to watch her work, content to spend a little peaceful time with his ade.
"Skyguy stop moving!"
Well. As peaceful as Torrent ever got.
*****
“Aaaaand...done!” Ahsoka tied off the braid with a flourish and handed Tup a mirror. “What do you think?”
Tup tilted the mirror back and forth, open delight on his face. “I love it,” he said honestly. “I hope it doesn’t get messed up by my bucket.”
“Don’t worry, I can redo it any time, no sweat,” Ahsoka said, reveling in the offended look from Echo. That’s right, boys, she was Tup’s favorite now.
“Thanks, Commander,” Tup smiled. Ahsoka beamed at him.
Tup looked back at the mirror, and she half-turned to sign a gleeful ‘suck it, vod!’ at the spectating Domino squad. Fives' outraged squawk was a delight.