Work Text:
“Chug! Chug! Chug! Chug! Chug-“
Rex sighed as he looks at Fives determinedly downing a massive bottle of water, staring straight into the eyes of a Temple Guard, surrounded by the rest of the ‘Miscreants’ (as Cody calls them), inexplicably shouting drinking songs at the top of their voices. In front of Rex, his salad and the Force itself.
“We like to drink with Fives, because Fives is our mate! And when we drink with Fives, he gets it down in eight! Seven-“
“Why.” Rex brought his hand up to clasp the bridge of his nose, a move he may or may not have stolen off of Wolffe when he went into ‘Ori’vod’ mode - a rare sight to be sure, but a welcome one. Rex had it ranked 4th on his list of ‘Most Effective Expressions to Cow Di’kut Troopers’.
“Pretty sure that one is General Kenobi’s fault.” Cody piped up cheerfully behind him. “I walked in on him and Vos pre-drinking for a Senatorial dinner one time, and Vos was definitely singing that.”
Rex levelled a grumpy glare at him. No one should be that happy in the early hours of the morning. It wasn’t decent.
“Just because you’re looking forward to two days of uninterrupted pining-“
“Shut up.”
The last campaign the 501st and 212th had done, they’d pulled it off by the skin of their teeth. But clearly it had been suitably impressive to the Senate that it had earned them 20 hours rest on Coruscant.
Well, it had earned the boys 20 hours rest on Coruscant. Rex was likely to be doing the rest of General Skywalker’s paperwork, whilst Anakin trained Ahsoka and ran around after Senator Amidala. And even that would be cut short by mission briefings for the next slog of whatever planet.
“Stop being a grouchy pants.” Cody elbowed him, ignoring Rex’s hiss. “You’ve got your pessimistic face on, the one when your eyebrows get all flat-"
Annoyingly, Cody managed to dodge the swipe he aimed at him. Must have come with being the youngest in the batch.
“Besides,” Cody continued, “it could always be worse. You could be Longshot, right now.”
Longshot had been put on “Stop Waxer adopting any more Jedi’ka” duty. He had perfected his expression of long-suffering almost as well as Waxer had his tooka eyes.
“I thought Boil was on Waxer duty.”
“Boil can’t be trusted.”
Cody was evidently still reeling from the Ysalamiri underwear incident.
“Captain?”
They turned around to see the Generals, looking bewildered.
“Fives and the others do know they can take liquids into the Temple, right?”
Rex rubbed sheepishly at the back of his neck. “I think it’s habit, sir. After the last bomb incident, there’s been pretty strict rules put in place around the Senate.”
Thire was normally the Guard Commander who actually ran security, and after Fives’ last run-in with him at the drunk tanks, it was safe to say that Fives had a healthy amount of fear for the youngest Commander. Rex didn’t know how Fox had trained him, but he wanted to find out.
“Ah.” General Kenobi quirked a lip. “Well, at least he’ll be hydrated.”
“All due respect, sir, that’s the least of my worries.” Rex sighed. “Every time we have a stop-over, something happens. I’m just waiting for the other boot to drop.”
“What happened to your armour?”
At least Echo looked embarrassed - Fives, Jesse and Hardcase hadn’t done him that dignity. They stood there, at perfect attention, armour sparkling in the light of the Temple.
Unfortunately for Rex, literally sparkling. Somehow they’d bedazzled not only the designs, but actually the entire armour set. White and blue rhinestones glinted almost blindingly; Rex could even see them on the hilts of their blasters, although it seemed that they’d had the relative good sense not to bedazzle the shooting end. Cody had turned his helmet audio off so he could laugh in peace. Asshole.
“Well, last time we had a stopover, you said we should hang out with people our own age!” Hardcase responded cheerfully.
Ah, yes. Rex had almost popped a vein when he had to pick them up for being arrested for wrestling old Twi’lek ladies naked in a public fountain.
“So we went and played with the Jedi Cadets instead.”
“And… this happened.”
“They were very insistent, sir.”
Jesse waved his hand arbitrarily in the air. “There… might be a meme or two. A video here and there.”
It was possible Rex needed to investigate whether there was some vendetta between his boys and the PR department. He was not dealing with it. Not again. Blissful ignorance.
“Also…” No, please, Fives. Blissful ignorance. “Our armour might not be the only thing we bedazzled?”
Rex looked at him, despair slowly creeping in. “What?”
“We… may have got into Kix’s supplies.”
“We were drunk on success!” Hardcase grinned.
Jesse nodded solemnly behind him. “And also five rounds of shots.”
Only Rex would have been able to feel the mocking nature of the hand Cody laid upon his shoulder. “Forcespeed, vod’ika.”
On hour 14 of their “rest”, Rex ran into Kix in the hallways of the Temple and immediately regretted it.
“Is that blood.”
“No.” Kix brushed his hand across his forehead. “That would be unsanitary. It’s paint Bones lent me from the Guard, but I think it gets the message across.”
“Message- what are you doing?”
“Hunting Fives, Jesse, Echo and Hardcase for sport. Obviously.”
Sometimes, Rex regretted the life-decisions that brought him to moments like these. Admittedly, the culture of feral insanity seemed to run in the CMOs anyway, judging by the sleep-paralysis-demon-esque stories he’s heard about the 212th’s CMO Terror, but frankly both Cody and Kenobi brought those antics upon themselves. The less said about the Guard CMO Bones, the better. The only normal one he’s ever heard of was Tooka of the 327th, and Bly’s battalion was just weird. But he’d never done anything or encourage this sort of behaviour from Kix.
“Is this because of-“
Kix brandished a sparkly syringe at him. “I will have my revenge, Rex. You can’t stop me.”
Rex saw the manic glint in Kix’s eyes and wisely chose the path of least resistance.
Luckily, when the comm rang, Padme wasn’t in any sort of meeting. In fact, she was alone in her office, which rarely ever happened. But it did give her the liberty to freely answer the comm instead of trying to make up an excuse.
“Ani, hi- is that glitter in your hair?”
“What?” Her husband raked his hand through his hair, dislodging a truly terrifying amount of glitter. “Oh, right. It’s no biggie, I’m just playing with the younglings.”
“Oh, that’s nice!”
“Mmm.” Anakin seemed rather preoccupied. “I think I’ll be able to get another evening with you tonight, if you’re free?”
“Yes, you know I’m not going to- what?”
Anakin held a finger to his lips. “They’re converging on my position. They already took out the rest of my squad.”
“Ani-“
“It’s a dire situation out here, Padme. They’ve armed themselves with glitter bombs. And worst of all,” he shuddered, “kinetic sand.”
She pressed her lips together in an effort not to giggle. “Well, Hero With No Fear, what are you going to do?”
He made to open his mouth, before the call lit up and a high voice shouted “Charge!” He immediately went down under a large swathe of younglings, all covered in blue glitter and various colours of paint.
She let herself indulge in the admittedly very cute sight of her husband faking a very dramatic death at the hands of 3-year old Jedi for a moment, before quietly closing the call. Ani would have to be heavily sanitised before he came in her apartment tonight though - she refused to be faced with a glitter epidemic.
Cody hadn’t quite expected to come back to the Generals’ quarters to see Rex splayed out on the floor, staring into the void.
“Rex, vod’ika. You okay?”
“What is the Temple?” His little brother groaned. “Why does it inflict upon me the things it does?”
Cody laughed. “It’s nothing to do with the Temple, and all to do with little brothers, I’m afraid. Come to the mess with me and get something to eat.”
“That!” Rex pointed at him. “Why is the mess open all hours? Why can I eat lunch at 3am? I saw some being having a full cocktail in there at 5 in the morning!”
“Just come on.” He grinned and reached a hand out. “You’ll be back on your beloved ship by tomorrow.”
“When is tomorrow, when you have the eternal day of the Temple?” Rex muttered, but grabbed his hand.
“Should we… I don’t know, tell them about the Temple being a liminal space?” Anakin asked his old Master, watching Ahsoka regale Cody and Rex with her adventures of the day. Rex at least was paying attention fully - Cody looked like he was ready to fall asleep in his mashed tubers.
“For shame, Anakin.” Obi-Wan teased lightly. “We’re Jedi - we should cultivate some air of mystery.”
They watched Waxer walk by with a big poncho on, and something wriggling suspiciously underneath. A massif’s head poked out the top, tongue lolling happily.
“Should we tell them about that?”
“Possibly.”
“Waxer, put Grizzer back! Waxer-“