Archive of Our Own

Crosshair let himself into the office, shutting the door behind him and hitting the switch that illuminated the PRESENT sign in the hallway. His therapy appointment, at the crack of dawn, was first of the day, so he never had to worry about walking in on anyone.

Slick looked up, briefly, and grunted his hello as he reset the chessboard. “I’m halfway through that strategy guide you recommended,” he said, as Crosshair sat down across from him, clunking a to-go cup of coffee down between them. 

“And?” Crosshair prompted, watching as his therapist grabbed the coffee cup and took a hefty swig. 

“And I have no idea why you put up with a plebian like me,” he said. 

That made Crosshair smirk. Truthfully, he put up with thrashing Slick at chess every other week because it was better than just sitting in the armchair in the office, playing uselessly with his hands, not sure where it was safe to rest his eyes. Granted, the chair was better than the couch, but when Crosshair had sneered at their first meeting, Is this the part where I lie back and think of the Republic? Slick had gamely rolled his eyes and told him that he could do handstands for all he cared, so long as he could listen and talk when he wanted. 

He always let Slick go first. He opened with an anonymous pawn, the prelude to a dozen different opening schemes. Crosshair decided to match him bland for bland. Slick usually let him have a few moves in complete silence, but surprised him by speaking up as he shifted another pawn. 

“How’d your week turn out?” he asked. 

Crosshair shrugged. “Fine.” 

“Just fine?”

“Just fine.” Crosshair moved his knight just to fuck with Slick’s head. That was a difficult thing to do, Crosshair had long since learned—some irrational part of him had anticipated a shrink getting an earful of his fucked-up past and declaring him a lost cause, but Slick had taken every unveiled fact in unruffled stride. 

It helped that he was a veteran, too—a frontline combat photographer. The first meeting, just a few months ago, Crosshair had been on torturous pins and needles, waiting for a barrage of questions that he couldn’t answer without spitting. Slick had surprised him, exchanging small talk about his time in the service, pulling out an album of his work. After they discharged him, he’d worked, briefly, for a nonprofit, then he’d lost it all when he unveiled some monetary corruption. Rolled back stateside and took up a degree and a new profession. 

While Crosshair didn’t delude himself that they were friends , it was almost shocking how comfortable he had gotten with him in such a short amount of time. Sure, there were dark depths they hadn’t plunged yet, but it was better than Crosshair had ever dared to hope. 

Scowling at the board, Slick moved into a bad position, opening up his defenses in front of his bishop, just to get some mass on the middle of the board. Rookie move. “What about the end-of-year review?” Slick asked, glancing towards Crosshair’s face. “How did that shake out?” 

Crosshair blew out a frustrated breath. “They bumped it, last minute. Two weeks out, again.” 

“That’s frustrating.” 

“Yeah,” Crosshair agreed, darkly. He’d been furious, at the time, snapping back and forth with Tina and Emilio for hours, all of their careful plans for the inspection now wasted and too-close at hand. 

“I remember you told me about the last time your job changed things on you last minute,” Slick said, grunting in disappointment as Crosshair nabbed a pawn, just to be petty. “Was this like that, or different?” 

“I dunno. Different. I guess.” Crosshair stared at the board, watching Slick’s hand try and cut off his advancement. Okay, so he was improving a little bit. Getting better at reacting, at least, though his acting could still use some work. “Nearly popped a fucking vein when they called.” 

“It’s rough, getting plans changed,” Slick commented, lightly. “How did your coworkers react?”

“The same.” Emilio had threatened to quit, twice. Crosshair had egged him on, a little, and that just made Tina angrier, calling him a son of a bitch and worse. They were lucky no one tried to rob the joint while they were all distracted. “None of us quit, though. So we’re all idiots.” 

“Well, quitting is a bit of an extreme reaction, isn’t it? You haven’t told me any other complaints about your job besides this end-of-year thing they can’t nail down.”

Crosshair only grunted his agreement. Slick had a way of pointing out such rational, simple facts about a situation; sometimes it made Crosshair mad. He jumped the front lines, gave up a hold on the queen-side of the board to grab Slick’s exposed bishop. 

“That book you gave me isn’t working,” was Slick’s only comment, closing up his defensive line of pawns with his rook. Fuck. Crosshair was either out the right-hand side of the board, or he was down a knight. This was the kind of brash shit that always had him losing to Ninety-nine in under twenty minutes. 

“So you still got mad,” Slick continued. “But you said it was different.” 

Crosshair tried to play dumb. The more he tried to play it, the more it felt like he was wasting Slick’s time; for the first few weeks of therapy, those statement-questions would leave him glaring at nothing, stubbornly silent. He wasn’t a schoolkid who would squirm when confronted with an expectant silence. Slick had surprised him with his patience. He should have been a sniper, the way he could wait for a target to get in range.

He shifted his rook, wasting a turn, but his brain was too knotty to do any real work. “Last time I was pissed the whole next day. Ended up blowing up at the house a few times.”

“And this time?” Slick prompted. 

“This time,” Crosshair said slowly, “I texted Tech.” 

Slick made an interested noise. “Why Tech?” 

“I dunno.” 

“You seem to trust him with your emotions a little more than your other brothers.” 

“It’s not that I don’t trust them,” Crosshair bit out, because he did , it was just— Tech was different. More clinical. Though Crosshair figured the man himself wouldn’t appreciate that being the reason, but there it was. 

“I didn’t say that,” Slick soothed, “just that before, you’ve mentioned talking to Tech about some of the things that are bothering you.” 

“Yeah,” Crosshair allowed, “well. He’s in therapy, too, so I think he gets what I’m trying to do.” 

Slick chuckled at that. Tech’s therapist was right down the hall. “Makes sense. So you texted him?”

“Yeah, and we chatted for a bit before I drove home. And he was already up and we went out for breakfast.” It’d been weird, but nice, kind of like a dream, to be sitting opposite Tech in a diner booth, Tech all dressed up for work in his collared shirt and tie, frowning at the table’s laminated menu and scoffing about why so many people insisted on eating dessert for breakfast. Crosshair had ordered the cupcake pancakes just to mess with him. They’d given him a sugar headache, but that’d been worth it. 

“And when you got home?”

Crosshair shrugged, moved his bishop. “Everyone was already gone. I showered and went to sleep. Woke up and,” he shrugged. “Things were fine.” 

“Hey, fine is good,” Slick said, a common phrase that was getting less and less annoying the more time Crosshair spent in this office. “Sometimes it’s even great.”

“Yeah,” Crosshair rolled his eyes. “Check.” 

Slick frowned at the chessboard. “The hell?”

Crosshair dragged his finger, pointing out how his bishop was in position to chew up Slick’s king. An easy dodge, which Slick completed better than he would have done a few weeks prior, for which Crosshair semi-mockingly applauded him. Slick scratched his nose with his middle finger, which made Crosshair scoff. 

“So,” Slick said, a verbal clearing of the air. “What are the plans for this weekend?”

Although he knew that Slick knew his tells, Crosshair averted his eyes and grunted something dismissive. He didn’t have plans , not really, not like that. He had an idea , maybe, but hadn’t let himself fully embrace it, not yet, not when it was still so fresh and raw. 

After years of forcibly forgetting about the very existence of Mother’s Day, turning a blind eye on advertisements, the holiday had unknowingly crept up on him when he’d come home earlier that week to find everyone listless around the kitchen table. 

“Someone die while I was gone?” Crosshair’d huffed, then squeezed Omega’s shoulder as he slipped past her chair, just because. 

Hunter had shot him a warning look above his cup of coffee. 

“Omega will be staying with us next Saturday,” Tech told Crosshair. Those were, usually, Nala Se’s court-ordered day of visitation, from nine in the morning to nine at night. Awful days. Crosshair tried to sleep like normal during them, but his body refused to cooperate. 

“What a shame,” Crosshair’d drawled, waiting for the other shoe to drop—it sounded like Nala Se was forgoing her Saturday, which waived the court order—only when they had to hold back on handing Omega over, for trips or soccer practice, could Nala Se cash in on a whole weekend to make up for her lost time. What Crosshair wouldn’t give to burn the whole damn agreement into ash. 

“She, uh, wants me with her on Sunday instead,” Omega muttered into her breakfast. “Since it’s Mother’s Day.” Her eyes had glanced up at Crosshair, then quickly back down before he could read her expression. “Even though she never cared about it before,” she muttered bitterly. 

Crosshair, remembering that conversation, winced, and he knew that Slick caught it by the way he deliberated over his next move, carefully choosing a specific pawn to sacrifice. 

“I know,” Slick said, “that you mentioned that you haven’t seen your mother since you were a kid.” 

“Yeah,” Crosshair croaked. He moved his rook. “Checkmate.”

Without hesitation or questioning it, Slick tipped over his king with a wooden clatter. 

“Is that still something you were thinking about doing?” Slick tried, not giving him the out. 

Crosshair listlessly re-arranged all of his pieces on his side of the board, Slick going at it more slowly. Waiting for him. Crosshair sighed. 

“I don’t think I have anything to say to her,” he said, which was the truth. Besides, even if there were accusations and insults and all manner of other things he might be satisfied to sling at Nala Se, he was old enough now not to delude himself that she would be affected by any of it. 

“Alright,” Slick said, nodding. He leaned back and let Crosshair swivel the board around so their sides were reversed. Crosshair opened with his knight, which made Slick’s mouth twitch a little. The first time he’d tried that, Slick had tried to call him out on bullshitting him, and the rest of the session was Crosshair walking Slick through the finer points of chess etiquette. 

For a time, they played in silence.

Then Slick spoke up again. “How’s your sister doing?” Ugh. He’d found the vein.

Crosshair frowned at the board. He’d been scrutinizing her for days, mulling over his idea-that-wasn’t. Omega had been quiet, kind of, maybe—her surliness around the breakfast table had been quickly covered up, and when Crosshair had seen her in the few days between then and now, she had been her usual self. Chattering about her new BFF, the little girl who lived across the street. Seeing her make friends at school— the embarrassingly soft little twinges in his chest as he listened to her talk, saw her show off a friendship bracelet Numa had given her, had quickly overwritten any anxiety the upcoming holiday had planted in his system. 

“Seems like she’s doing okay,” he said evasively. 

Slick nodded. “And she’s with your mother for Mother’s Day, yeah?” 

“Yeah,” Crosshair grunted. 

“How do you feel about that?”

“Real creative, Slick.” 

“If it ain’t broke.” He made a rookie mistake, and Crosshair half suspected he made it on purpose. He lost a bishop for his care and kindness. “You told me that one of your anxiety roots is whenever Omega isn’t around you, or your brothers. Going to spend such a heavy holiday with her mother—seems like something that might be hanging on you. Or not?”

Crosshair juked his head from side to side, chewing on the inside of his cheek. “Haven’t really let myself think about it,” he grunted, which was not saying that it didn’t bother him. 

Slick, the bastard, waited. 

Crosshair blew out a breath. “I dunno. I just wish…” He bit back on any words that might come tumbling out, bouncing his leg in agitation. 

He could feel Slick’s eyes on him. “Remember what we talked about a month ago?”

“No,” Crosshair lied. 

“Well, I remember you saying something really nice about your little sister.”

“I don’t recall,” Crosshair grumbled. 

“Something about how you want to do nice things for her, but it’s difficult sometimes…” Slick prompted gently. 

“I say a lot of things.”

That made Slick laugh, shaking his head. “Alright, alright, this is your show, Crosshair, I’m just a facilitator.” They exchanged chess pieces in silence. 

Ugh. Crosshair hated folding.

“Feels… selfish,” he muttered. “Just doing stuff for her because it makes me feel like a better brother.” 

Slick hummed, nodded. “Here’s a question for you, then. If someone else did something nice for Omega—like Wrecker or Tech—would you think they were doing it for selfish reasons?”

It was far too easy an answer, and Crosshair immediately knew where it was going. “No.”

“Then why is it selfish when you do it?”

Crosshair shrugged, wordlessly, which was as close to an admittance of the point as Slick knew to expect at this point. 

“And,” Slick drew out, “even if it was—and I’m not saying it is—but even if it was … does that make Omega feel less cared for?” 

Crosshair cut him a glare. Slick smirked, tapped one temple. 

“I’m not in the business of making you do things you don’t want,” Slick said. “We’re all in charge of our own destinies, most of the time. What I want you to consider, is whether you're treating yourself the way you'd treat others.” 

Crosshair looked away. Worked his jaw. Considering. 

“You’re a dick,” he informed Slick, who barked a laugh. 

“If I’m such a dick, why can’t I beat you at chess?” he asked, gesturing at his disintegrating front lines. 

“Easy,” Crosshair replied, moving into checkmate, “you’re a dick, but I’m an even bigger one.” 

He managed to keep from joining in on Slick’s laughter, but couldn’t keep from grinning.

Two days later found Crosshair up and awake during daylight hours. Omega, once home from school, breezed through her homework and joined him on the couch, watching television. Well, half watching television, half talking. 

Omega tucked herself up under his arm, and when he left his arm stretched out over the back of the couch, she huffed in annoyance and grabbed his wrist, making him drape his arm over her shoulders. She kept talking, chattering about something that happened at school, playing with his fingers. Crosshair watched her, not fighting the bubble of affection that started up in his chest. 

It must have shown on his face, because at one point, loosely holding onto his wrist with both hands, Omega glanced at him and paused, a smug little grin tugging on her lips. Okay, time to shore up his reputation. 

Crosshair surged, opening the fingers of the hand in Omega’s possession into a claw, and reached for her face with forceful intent, putting his whole arm into it. Like he knew she would, she reacted by tightening her hold on his wrist, holding it back. 

“Crosshair!” she exclaimed, giggling, fighting to keep his wiggling fingers from her face. 

“What?” he asked, innocently. “I’m not doing anything.” 

“You’re—aha!” She kept giggling, trying to lock her elbows as he added more pressure. She wriggled, trying to escape, but there was nowhere for her to go, leaning over Crosshair’s lap as he tried to pull her in. “You—won’t—win—” Trying to stifle her giggles, she lifted up one socked foot to try and get some extra leverage against his elbow.

Time to go for the kill. Crosshair darted out his other hand, poking Omega in the side where she was especially ticklish. She folded like a cheap table, pulling her knees up and loosening her hold, and then it was too late—Crosshair had her, both arms wrapped tight around hers, pinning them to her body, Omega half-dragged across his lap as he listed sideways on the couch. 

Still, she tried to fight it, wriggling and laughing as Crosshair shook her a little. Wrecker was really the best at roughhousing, letting Omega climb him like a jungle gym. It’d surprised them all, at first, that Omega loved being manhandled around, play-fighting and wrestling—she’d started out as such a delicate kid, healing from whatever the hell Nala Se had been doing to her behind closed doors.

Right. Nala Se. Crosshair relaxed, expecting Omega to escape his hold, but as soon as he slackened his arms she stopped struggling. She only wriggled, a little bit, into a more comfortable position leaning against him. And. And Crosshair had to take a second to really let that sink in. 

With him quiet and still, Omega spoke up. “You know,” she said, tone sly, “if you wanted to cuddle you could have just asked.”

He tightened his grip. “I’ll burn this house down first,” he growled.

She giggled, then went completely boneless, humming. 

Fuck. He almost lost his resolve, feeling how relaxed she was in his arms. He savored it for a few moments, then as his skin started to crawl in anticipation, he cleared his throat. 

“Uh,” he said, cleverly. “I wanted to ask you something.”

She hummed a questioning noise.

“I, uh, don’t have work Monday. So I don’t have to sleep. During the day. So, you know, if you wanted…” 

He could feel her confused frown against his collarbone. 

“I know you don’t like missing school,” he said. “But, uh, If you wanted to, I could sign you out or call out for you and we could go do something. And the others could come, too, if you wanted them to,” he added, keenly aware that just himself wasn’t much of a prize. 

“Next Monday?” Omega asked, by her tight tone evidently obvious that it was the day after Mother’s Day. 

“You don’t have to,” he muttered, face burning. “I was just… if you wanted… after, you know. To make you feel better.” 

Look at him. How pathetic, couldn’t even manage to force himself to say After you have to spend Mother’s Day with Nala Se . Sure, Slick was a professional but that didn’t mean he was a good judge of character—Omega pulled back from his chest, slowly, and he braced himself for an incredulous look, what was he thinking, she was getting better every day and didn’t need his pathetic—

And—and he understood the look on her face. Gratefully bruised, a thin veneer of bravery trying to keep itself up against a tide of fear. It looked like how Crosshair felt. Omega swallowed. “Thanks, Crosshair,” she rasped, and so gently tucked her face against his shoulder, arms looped loosely around his neck. 

How long he sat there, holding her like that, he couldn’t say. 

It took him a hot second to realize, shifting his weight, that Omega was dozing off, snuffling in protest as he jostled her too much. He couldn’t help it—he scoffed.

“Seriously?” he asked. He certainly never napped as much as Omega did at her age. Tech’s theory was that Omega’s immune system, so long too-protected, was still on the mend, even now, six months later. 

Omega made a petulant little noise, burrowing. “Comfy.” 

“You take that back.” 

She giggled, tightening her hold around his neck. “Super comfy,” she teased.

“Alright.” Crosshair got her wrists in his hands and pried her arms off of him. “If you’re gonna sleep, you can do it in a bed.” 

“I can’t hear you,” Omega dragged out at half-speed. “I’m… asleep…” She let herself hang, boneless, from his hands as he held her arms up. Her mouth kept twitching into a grin, her eyes opening a sliver to peek at him as she fake-snored. 

“You want your bed, or Hunter’s?” Crosshair asked. 

She thought about it. “Hunter’s!” 

“I thought you were asleep,” he said, and shouldered her deadweight—she laughed, belly rumbling against his shoulder. He started marching down the hallway towards Hunter's closet of a room. Probably if he played his cards right, chucked Omega onto his bed and booked it, she’d chase him, or he could sit down with her and watch videos on his phone…

Omega moved, scrambling, and he stopped in the hallway, barely biting back a curse as he struggled not to drop her weight. “Hey,” he cut out, “watch it—” 

Settled so he was holding her sitting in the loop of his arms, Omega beamed at him.

He tried to glare. “Watch it,” he growled, “I almost dropped you.”

“You wouldn’t do that,” she said, like it was nothing, and leaned forward to wrap her arms around his neck, head laying on his shoulder.

He stood there. For a moment. Just holding her.

Then he got a hold of himself with a little shake. “Don’t tempt me,” he said, getting moving again. 

She giggled. 

“One of these days,” he warned her. “Just you watch.”

She hummed, considering. “No,” she said again, with surety, “you wouldn’t do that.” 

At least for today, he let himself believe her.