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“I’m going to be a horrible father,” moans Anakin.
Rex gags. Hacks a final, pathetic dribble of vomit over the mingling puddles of his and Anakin’s pink upchuck in the tiny claw-foot tub.
“Look at me,” continues Anakin.
Rex wants to die.
“Do I look like the type who can raise children? I am a children.”
He is never touching a drink ever again for as long as he shall live, which is hopefully only five more minutes before sweet, blissful death claims him and saves him from his impending horrible hangover and Cody’s fucking wedding in less than twenty-four hours.
“I think my growth stunted at. Like. I dunno. Fifteen, maybe. Younger. Whenever Ahsoka gained enough consciousness to start taking out the trash.”
On the windowsill above the tub is a lineup of bottles. Shampoo and body wash and conditioner, bright pinks and purples; a shimmery golden liquid that must be what makes Ahsoka’s skin taste sunlike and glitter under his fingers.
“Rex.”
Or maybe that’s just Ahsoka. Glittery, otherworldly. Breathtaking.
“Rex, look at me.”
Rex looks at Anakin. He is far less of a sight for sore eyes than his sister would be at this very moment.
“Dude,” says Rex.
“Dude,” echoes Anakin, weakly wild-eyed. “Impart your wisdom.”
“Uhhh. Never touch a drink that’s been within a foot of Bly’s girlfriend because she’s probably doused it with. Fucking. Liver-wrecking Ukranian vodka or some shit.”
The puke is probably radioactive. They will need hazmat suits and a containment unit to clean it up.
Or maybe Anakin and Ahsoka should just move out.
“No. I mean—fatherhood. I am about to Become A Father. In. Very soon. Sooner than soon. Do you know twin pregnancies are more likely to be delivered at thirty-six weeks? Thirty-seven. Premature. Not only am I going to be a father, but I am also going to be a premature one. I am getting teeny tiny preemie babies. Whom I already love so much I feel like I could. Swallow, like, the earth. And a bunch of other planets for good measure. How do you change a diaper?”
“That’s. What the fuck is wrong with you, Anakin.”
“I am full of love. For my wife and my unborn kids and Bruce Springsteen and my brother and your brother even though they gave me a stress angina this summer and my sister of course and you a little bit because she loves you so by proxy I do as well and Aayla although she tried to kill me tonight and the Turkish bodega guy who makes me shitty coffee every morning and the subway when it runs and Artooie duh and my bed and Tsabine sometimes when she’s not being mean and scary and Lady Liberty she’s my best friend you know I say hi to her every time I see her?” He coughs into the bathtub. “But sometimes I am full of hate. Like when the subway does not work and Tsabine is evil. Then I feel like I could commit cold-blooded murder with my bare hands.” He coughs again. “For like a minute then it goes away.”
Rex has only considered cold-blooded murder once in his life. It was the day he met Cody in his perfect well-pressed suit and five-thousand dollar watch and overinflated yuppie ego. Had it not been for Obi-Wan (witness), Rex would have committed fratricide by way of overpriced Pottery Barn lamp. “I get it.”
“Thanks ever so.” Anakin sighs. “I miss Padmé.”
Rex wonders what it’s like being married to a senator.
“It’s cool,” says Anakin. “Yesterday we had Wagyu steak for dinner and the president sent us these really nice bassinets as a baby shower present. For the babies to sleep in. The baaaabies. I can’t wait to meet the babies. What should we name the babies?”
Earlier today Rex had been watching a rerun of Beverly Hills, 90210 wit h Jesse, whose sexual awakening had been Dylan McKay. “Luke.”
“Luke! Luke. Luke Skywalker. Luke Naberrie Skywalker. Lucas Skywalker? No. Luke. Luke!”
“What’s a nah-berry? Like a strawberry? You can’t name your kids after fruit, Anakin.”
“No. Naberrie.” He pronounces it in an overexaggerated French accent, rolling the r so that it sounds guttural. “Padmé’s actual name. Amidala is a stage name.” He pauses. “Luke’s a good name. Thanks, Rex.”
Rex snorts. Yeah, as if that’s gonna be the poor kid’s name. “Anytime.”
Anakin clumsily pats his arm, then he goes, “Woooaaaah. Muscle. I can see why Ahsoka likes you.”
Rex tries to pat him back but misses. “Thanks. I think.”
“I like you too,” says Anakin. “FYI. For your peace of mind. You have my stamp of approval.”
“Uh.”
“What? Do you not want my stamp of approval?”
“No, sure, want it, love it. It just never occurred to me that I was… seeking it?”
“Of course you were!” huffs Anakin. “I'm her favorite. And Ahsoka’s the baby of the family.”
Rex would beg to differ.
“Her romantic partners are thoroughly vetted by everyone—me, Obi, Cody. Barriss helps, sometimes. Wolffe, too! He took her under his wing when he found out she wanted to be in The Industry, whatever that means. Anyway we always discuss potential situational outcomes—we never act on our findings, of course, because Ahsoka’s a big girl and she would kill us if she knew about it, but, still, we worry, it’s a thing we do. But it’s very casual anyway, we just chat about that person’s shortcomings and whether or not we would want them at the dinner table, you know?”
Rex has been at the—sometimes deliriously boisterous and usually insanely theatrical—dinner table multiple times now. At breakfast last week he and Bly almost decked it out over Joe DiMaggio but Cody distracted them with cinnamon rolls fresh out the oven, averting yet another instance of Rex punching a new brother in the face.
“So you’ve won Obi’s favor because Cody vouches for you,” Anakin’s saying, “and anyway they practically share a brain it’s annoying so you had nothing to work for there, and when I asked Barriss she sent me a really long email that I had Padmé read and supposedly it says we like you, and of course she’s done a background check—”
“Padmé’s done a background check?” blurts Rex.
“Duh,” says Anakin. “She’s keeping a close eye on your father and your brother Echo.”
“My brother Echo’s a fucking saint!”
“Yeah, he’s got a brain she wants on her team for something or other. She wants to take over the world, whatever, back to me. I’ve been hesitant about you. All I know is you strung my baby sister along for a whole summer—”
“I did not string her along!”
“And besides that I felt that you and me have yet to bond, Rex!” Anakin sighs. “On a deeper level than, like, baseball. But now you’ve picked the name of my first-born son, so I think this has to be some sort of blood pact family tie, right?”
“We could’ve just gone out for a drink somewhere,” says Rex.
“This is better,” insists Anakin. “Way better.”
This fucking family. “I think you’re going to be a great dad,” says Rex, “but your kids will one hundred percent end up in therapy before taking their SATs.”
“Yeah, Padmé and I have discussed it and decided we’re okay with it.” He shrugs. “We want them interesting, to have stories to tell.”
Beyond fucked up. Rex says nothing. He doesn’t want to admit to himself that he finds Anakin’s right about that. Well-adjusted children never make for interesting dinner conversation.
“I heard the retching stop a few minutes ago,” says a lovely, familiar voice.
Rex mindlessly turns to it like a K-9 sniffing out a coke stash.
Ahsoka, beautiful brilliant beloved Ahsoka in smudged makeup and a huge Knicks tee, approaches them even though she looks utterly disgusted and reluctant to be within a five-foot radius of them and their radioactive puke. She grimaces, resting a hand on Rex’s skull to lean over and assess the damage. “Ew,” she says.
Behind her comes a very drunk and disheveled Obi-Wan, dazedly puttering into the cramped bathroom like a lost stray following the echo of a pss-pss-pss. He stands at the doorway, peering over his nose at the mess. Verdict: “I’m much too old for this.”
“It’s all your fault,” says Anakin, petulantly.
“I raised you to handle your liquor,” says Obi-Wan, mulish.
“Technically you raised me to indulge in habitual underage drinking and recreational substance abuse.”
“Big words for someone who did not make it to higher education.”
Ahsoka rakes her nails through Rex’s buzzcut. It feels like heroin shooting straight through his spinal cord, so he loses the unspooling thread that is the rest of Anakin and Obi-Wan’s argument. He closes his eyes and leans into Ahsoka’s touch, sweaty cheek on the cold porcelain tub. Tomorrow will be Cody and Obi-Wan’s wedding, in a few months Luke and his twin will come into the world; after that there will be more weddings and more kids and more petty arguments that Rex will tune in and out of like a radio station, and the outcome will always be this, maybe. Ahsoka and her warmth lulling him to sleep when all's said and done. Good odds.