Work Text:
Anakin woke with a scream perched on his lips.
He swallowed it back down right before it could escape, but his throat spasmed anyway, attempting to suck in air that wouldn't come. The sweat was pouring off him in waves, and his hair was sticking to his scalp like a second skin.
With a groan, Anakin pushed the tangled sheets off himself and sat up to perch on the edge of the cot's thin mattress. It creaked as he moved, but he couldn't care less. While the dream was rapidly fading, echoes of it kept playing over and over in front of his mind's eye.
The Jedi Temple on Coruscant aflame like a torch. Bodies piled so high on the entrance steps that there's no getting through, and yet Anakin somehow makes it. He wades through the blood, through the sea of still-warm limbs, until his gaze catches on-
No. It can't be.
Something in his guts curdled and heaved, and Anakin hunched over, elbows on his knees as he clamped his mouth shut. No. No, it couldn't have been-
Obi-Wan, the light of life gone from behind his eyes as he lies crumbled on top of a heap of his fellow Council members. There's a lightsaber burn slashed across his throat, splitting it neatly in two, making for a wound that gapes like a crimson eye. Anakin wants to reach out and close it, make his Master whole again, but he knows that such a thing cannot be done.
So, he turns - and stumbles over another body, this one much smaller… and still moving.
A noise like the whine of a wounded animal was working its way up Anakin's throat. He folded over further until he could press his face against his knees, watery eyes squeezing shut.
The darkness bursting with the occasional flare of color gave no relief.
"Save them," Ahsoka rasps, one small hand clamped over an open wound bisecting her belly.
Anakin's knees hit the floor hard as he falls down beside her, hands hovering without knowing where to put them. "Ahsoka-"
"Not me." Ahsoka leaves bloody stripes on Anakin's hands as she bats them away. Then, she points. "Them."
Anakin's too afraid to look at where she's directing him. He does it anyway.
"No."
The pressure against his eyes, against his mouth wasn't enough anymore. Panting, Anakin shifted his hand and bit, bit the flesh-and-blood fingers that remained to him. It stung, it smarted, but at least it made him forget for just a heartbeat what he'd seen, the-
The broken body of Padmé, cradled in the embrace of a man with a face Anakin knows only too well.
He feels like he's moving through clear, cold lava as he gets up, turns away from Ahsoka, and staggers toward Rex. His voice sounds very far away as he hears himself say, "She wasn't supposed to be here, and neither were you."
Rex looks up. Anakin wishes he wouldn't.
There's blank fear on his Captain's face, unlike anything Anakin's ever seen on him. And there are tears - so many of them, leaking from Rex's eyes, dripping from his chin onto Padmé's still face.
Anakin takes a few steps closer, reaches out a hand. "Shh, Rex. You're safe now. I've got-"
"You." The word is hardly a whisper, yet it rings through the still air of the temple like a gong. "You. You did this."
Anakin realized he was shaking his head, tears slowly wetting his cheeks. No. No, he had not done it. It had not been his hand that had cut down his Master, not his hand to wound his Padawan, not his hand to-
A blue glow snaps to life at Anakin’s side and lights up Rex's face, reflected tenfold in the dark brown pools of his eyes. They're wide, brimming with tears. But Rex doesn't move, just stays kneeling right there with Padmé's limp body slumped in his arms and stares as Anakin raises his hand with his lightsaber ignited and-
No!
"General!"
No. No, that couldn't be right. It had been just a dream, a-
"General?"
Anakin would never. He would not. Padmé, and Obi-Wan, and Ahsoka, and-
"General."
There was a hand on his elbow, shaking him gently.
"General, please, you have to breathe."
So, Anakin did. He uncurled and sucked in a breath, and then another one, just for good measure. He'd forgotten where he was - not in the Jedi temple on Coruscant, but in a tent on some arid, cool planet, bunking down with Obi-Wan and half their entire company to preserve warmth. His lungs were feeling so small. The fresh air was scorching them like poisonous fumes, burning the life right out of them.
But the hand on his arm was a hand Anakin was well familiar with. Exhaling deeply, he reached out and took it, and squeezed it when its owner didn't pull away.
"Sir," Rex murmured by his side, one knee bumping against Anakin's as he sat down beside him. "Was that a nightmare?"
"Yes." Just a nightmare. Yet Anakin dreaded the idea of looking up, of meeting Rex's eyes. What if-?
"It sounded… horrible." Rex again, his voice even quieter now.
"Yeah. Yeah, it was." At last, staying curled over got too painful, and Anakin sat up. He hesitated only a fraction of a second before he looked at Rex's face in the gloom and smiled. "I'm sorry if I scared you. Just be glad you don't get them."
That did not have the desired reassuring effect on Rex, who just frowned and nodded. "Right, sir. Would you like to- Is there anything I can do for you?"
Anakin successfully didn't laugh. There was nothing anyone could ever do for him. Not Obi-Wan, not his mother, nor Padmé had ever been able to relieve the pain, the anguish-
"Just stay close," Anakin replied and gave Rex's hand one last squeeze before he let it slip from his grasp.
"How close?"
Anakin felt something in his guts tighten… with heat. Rex's eyes widened, realization about the many ways in which his question could be laid out obviously sinking in.
"Sir-"
"Shh."
Anakin held his flesh-and-blood fingertips to his Captain's lips, felt the warmth, the softness of them. Rougher than Padmé's - but hadn't she said that she'd understand should he ever…?
"As close as you want, Captain," Anakin murmured in the space between them – a space that seemed to have shrunk from one moment to the next.
Rex stayed still for only one second. Then, he shuffled closer, into Anakin's waiting arms.
Anakin took his Captain and pulled him in tight, simply glad that there were no tears and no fear in Rex's eyes – not in the waking world, at least.
Someone was elbowing him in the side.
Anakin was reaching out before he even felt himself coming fully awake. He caught a wrist in his hand, and then an elbow to his jaw. Grunting, he sat up and wrestled the offender down against the mattress.
"Rex," he hissed with a tongue that still felt half numb from sleep. "Rex, wake up."
Under his hands, his Captain squirmed. His head didn't even look like he was shaking it, more like it was being wrenched from side to side by invisible hands as he groaned.
"Nnnh-"
"Rex!" Anakin gripped Rex's shoulders tight and shook, shook until his Captain's teeth chattered like distant blaster fire.
"No!" The scream wrenched itself from Rex's throat in a screech that made Anakin wince. Rex's eyes shot open, their whites bright in the gloom of Anakin's Jedi temple quarters, their enlarged pupils zeroing in on Anakin's face like two black holes.
Then, they were brimming with tears and spilling over, a sudden flash flood among their sheets. Powerless, Anakin could only watch as Rex wrenched himself from his grasp and turned to bury his face against a pillow.
Slowly, so as to not startle his Captain, Anakin lowered himself onto the mattress and pressed himself up against Rex's back. Rex's shoulders shook silently, sobs muffled by the pillow.
He cried quietly. So very quietly.
An uncomfortable thought came to Anakin – one about how deep a sleeper he was when he himself wasn't dreaming, about how quiet Rex could be when he didn't want to be heard. About how Anakin had so far thought that this applied only to sneaking around on the battlefield and covert missions…
Carefully, he wrapped his arm with the flesh-and-blood hand around Rex's middle and pulled his lover in to kiss the nape of his neck.
Rex's heaving chest spasmed, then relaxed.
"Shh." Petting Rex's bare waist, Anakin propped himself up in his elbow and leaned over his Captain. "Rex. You never told me you get nightmares."
A sniffle, then Rex pulled his face away from the pillow, still without looking at Anakin. "I don't, sir, I-"
"Anakin," Anakin corrected and squeezed Rex's waist with his hand.
"Anakin." Rex breathed in deeply, breathed out, before he said in a voice that shook with determination, "It wasn't a nightmare."
An exasperated sigh tried to work its way past Anakin's lips. He bit it back just in time. "Oh, it wasn't? Then what do you call all that moaning and thrashing in your sleep, huh?"
Rex was silent for just a heartbeat too long before he muttered, "It wasn't a real nightmare. It's… something they gave us on Kamino."
Anakin felt the hairs on his back prickle as they stood on end. Few of the clones ever talked to him about Kamino. None ever did, actually.
He leaned in very, very close, lips to Rex's ear, and whispered, "Tell me what they gave you."
Under him, Rex's breath stuttered.
"The mission."
Anakin continued smoothing his hand up and down Rex's side, feeling the goosebumps that had sprung up there. "A mission?"
"No, the mission. It's… it's always different, for every one of us." Now, at last, Rex turned onto his back to look at Anakin. His eyes glinted wide and afraid in the dark. "I shouldn't be telling you this, but I keep- I keep dreaming of-"
The words were drowned by a choked-off something – a sob, laughter, a shout, a moan, Anakin couldn't tell. All he knew was that he had to hear the rest of what Rex had to say. It was important to him. To the Force. To the galaxy.
Very carefully, he slipped his hands between Rex’s shoulders and the mattress and cradled his head in his hands. Rex let him, chest heaving and lowering with flat, uneven breaths.
Once he had his Captain securely in his hold, Anakin bent, pressed his forehead against Rex's until their breaths were mingling, and murmured, "Tell me. You should tell me."
Rex heaved in a breath that sounded more like a sob. "They'll hurt-"
"Not on my watch." Anakin tightened his grip just enough for Rex to feel it. "Now tell me."
The words fell suddenly from Rex's lips, a downpour, a jumbled, heated deluge.
"I keep dreaming of killing my own soldiers, and of killing Jedi. I keep seeing myself shoot at Commander Tano, and- and sometimes there's General Kenobi, or Cody dying in my arms, and I- I keep dreaming of- of-"
Anakin slowly rubbed his forehead against Rex's, lowered his weight onto Rex's legs, effectively trapping him. "Of?"
"Of killing you,” Rex finished breathlessly before he went still and limp in Anakin's arms.
Anakin tried to feel guilt or compassion as he brought one hand up to pet Rex's cheek, murmuring assurances in his ear as his Captain tried to breathe.
He most certainly did not feel joy, or relief - relief that in at least one way, their dreams complemented each other.
"Tomorrow," he said, voice low as he lowered his entire weight on Rex and felt two shaking arms wrap around him and cling to him, "we're setting course for Kamino, and we're going to find out what they did to you and all your siblings."
Rex took a long time to answer as he relaxed under Anakin. He already sounded a lot sleepier when he muttered, "But sir, the mission-"
"Fuck the mission." Anakin leaned down and pressed his lips to Rex's forehead in a kiss so earnest it was almost bruising.
The murmur that answered him was almost inaudible, yet it made him smile against his lover's warm, tender skin.
"Yes. Fuck the mission."
When Anakin woke, he was suffocating.
“Phew.” Spitting long, brown hair out of his mouth, he reached up and gently pushed Leia’s head away from his face.
The five-year-old girl, starfishing in a prone position on his chest, didn’t give even the slightest sign of waking up - she just snored a little louder and clenched her tiny hands where she was holding onto the collar of Anakin’s pajama top. If she continued like that, the fabric would be loose beyond repair later on.
Anakin couldn’t have cared less. Smiling as he took a deep breath through the suffocating joy of the moment, he tried to shuffle up a little further on the couch so he could prop his head up on the side rest a little more comfortably.
He failed, courtesy of a heavy weight pinning down his hips and legs. When he reached down and groped around - Leia’s body, little but round, was blocking his view - his fingers sank past the knuckles into a bed of soft, curly locks.
Oh. Right. There was also a nose poking his tummy, and a pair of well-muscled arms locked around his waist. It could only be one person restraining him more effectively than any Force-blocking cuffs or chains ever could have.
Anakin exhaled and expanded his awareness past his fingertips which were brushing through Rex’s soft hair, past Leia’s tiny heartbeat resonating through his chest, and to the rest of his body. His legs, slightly numb from supporting Rex’s weight for what had to have been a nap on the slightly longer side. Rex’s warmth seeping into his hip bones and belly. Leia’s weight on his chest, her little elbows and knees digging into his ribs. The crick in his neck.
The room, bathed in a soft glow from the muted holovid that must’ve been circling over and over for the past hour or so. And on a pillow beside the couch, Luke’s warm, sunny presence as he slept and dreamed under a comforter quilted by one of Padmé’s handmaidens.
Anakin let the moment flow through him, experienced it with all his senses, and watched it pass. Then, he reached out his free hand and, with a flick of the Force, shut off the holovid.
Darkness returned, broken by the occasional flare of speeder headlights cutting through the half-shuttered window. Anakin got back to carding his fingers through Rex’s hair, teasing out the single curly strands and picturing in his mind’s eye how they shone golden in the sunlight, one of the most precious things he’d ever seen.
Under his touch, Rex stirred.
With a prickle like sunlight, the feeling returned to Anakin's legs as Rex sat up and groaned. Anakin laughed and ruffled Rex's hair.
"Good morning, sunshine."
"Morning?" Rex's face, still slightly crumpled from sleep, appeared shocked in the passing headlights of a speeder. "How long did we-"
"I'm joking, baby." With a grunt, Anakin hoisted Leia into his arms so he could sit up straight, too. She didn't even blink an eye. "We must've nodded off after the movie ended. Can't be long past midnight."
"Oh." Still bleary-eyed, Rex cuddled up to Anakin's side and laid his head on Anakin’s shoulder. One of his hands came up and gently smoothed over Leia's hair. "I was so exhausted from looking after these two pains in the shebs that I wouldn't have been surprised if we'd slept 'til morning. Where's Luke?"
"Asleep on his favorite pillow." Heart soaring at the weight of one of his children in his arms and the warm press of his lover against his side, Anakin craned his neck until he could press the lightest of kisses against Rex's forehead.
Rex scrunched up his nose and hummed in agreement as his body went lax against Anakin's side.
"Hey." Anakin placed one last wet kiss on the tip of Rex's nose before he poked him in the ribs. "Don't fall asleep on me again. We still have to get these two to bed."
"Take m’too while you're at it," Rex muttered semi-intelligibly.
Anakin sighed. Then, holding onto Leia with one arm, he got up and let Rex gently slide back down to lie on the couch.
"Be right back," Anakin told him before he levitated Luke on his pillow in front of him and marched him and Leia off to the twins’ shared bedroom.
The Force seemed to have a good day because neither of the kids woke up, not even when Anakin pulled the covers over their little bodies and tucked them in tight. He each left them with a brush of his lips against their precious foreheads, tasting the dreams behind the curves of their skulls. None of their minds’ conjurations tasted sickly sweet or metallic like a nightmare.
When he returned to the living room, Rex had gotten up and was putting away the toys that were most dangerously placed on the floor.
Anakin walked up to his lover and slung his arms around his waist from behind. Resting his chin on Rex's shoulder, he asked, "Ready for bed?"
Rex kicked a pillow back toward the couch before he nodded. "Ready."
"No more nightmares?"
Rex shook his head. "No more nightmares. You?"
Anakin muttered a negation of his own before he hooked one arm under Rex's knees and, with a little help from the Force, picked him up and carried him off to their bedroom. And when Rex slung his arms around his neck and held on tight, Anakin felt his heart bloom.
No more nightmares. Rex's sleepy kisses no longer contained the bitter aftertaste of fear as Anakin tucked them both in and wrapped his body around Rex. No more waking up in the middle of the night shaking and sweating. In his arms, Anakin felt Rex fall asleep in a matter of minutes – so unlike all the ground campaigns during which the two of them would cling to each other for hours as they dreaded the arrival of sleep.
Feeling his breathing even out and his body relax into Rex's embrace, Anakin closed his eyes and let the kind darkness enfold him.
The nightmare was over.