Work Text:
“Hunter please,” you choked through gritted teeth, swallowing down the horrid bouts of pain that stemmed from the bleeding wound on your side. That wasn’t your priority. Not now. Not while Hunter was hanging by a thread in your arms, pale and drained of blood from the wound on his head.
You were tired. So, so tired. Lungs full of sand, hair tousled into knots. The fight on Scarif had been unforgiving, but the mission was completed. The task was done. But at what cost?
Was it worth Hunter dying in your arms? Broken bones and shattered lungs? He was awake but barely, eyelids fluttering shut every so often whenever you stumbled in the sand. His hair was damp with sweat and blood, left unruly by the bandana that had fallen sometime during your escape.
You were carrying him with desperation. Desperate eyes, desperate hands, clawing at his clothes to keep his towering body upright. Words blubbered from your lips but you knew they were empty promises, empty whispers that it would be okay when truthfully, it wasn’t.
The Death Star was right there, looming above the setting sun like a vengeful moon. A ghost in the sky. A behemoth of death, staring down at the doomed planet with its single, glowing red eye.
It was over. On the beaches of Scarif, holding Hunter in your arms, you knew that it was time to say goodbye.
Gelatin limbs collapsed in the sand, unable to hold Hunter’s dead weight anymore. He let out a low groan, knees digging into the golden grains, propping his weight on his arm to keep him up. You fell beside him, still cradling his side as his uneven breaths quickened.
“Hunter.” Your voice didn’t sound like your own. It was drowning with grief, thick with the same emotions written across your bloodied face. “Hunter.”
Palming his broken ribs, peering through the strands of hair that had fallen into his eyes, Hunter looked at you knowingly. His eyes traced your features, memorizing the curves of your nose and lips. Shaky fingers reached out, gently caressing your lips with the pad of his thumb, using it to wipe away the tears that slipped out the corners of your bloodshot eyes.
A sob ripped out of your throat as you cupped his face, thumbs wiping the streaks of blood on his cheeks.
This was it. The last time you’d get to touch him, to feel his skin in your palms. Even as the blast shook the planet, as the white-hot rage left the Death Star and struck Scarif’s core, you didn’t look away. You couldn’t. You needed to remember him. You needed to engrave his face in your mind so you could find him in the next life, and the next, and the next.
He knew what you were thinking. He promised you those exact words, “I’ll find you in every life, mesh'la. Be it this one or the next, I will always find you.”
Hunter struggled to raise his hand and cup the back of your head, drawing you in closer to touch your foreheads together. You shook with sobs, lips quivering as you held his jacket in an iron grip, knuckles white and aching.
You caught him clenching the beaded headwear that hung around his belt - Omega’s ancient jewelry from Kamino, given to him years ago when she was just a little girl.
“She’ll be okay,” you whispered, voice shaking far too badly to hide it. “She’ll be okay. Your brothers too. They’ll all be okay.”
He nodded halfheartedly, eyes flickering off to the horizon.
The flames were drawing nearer. A bright wave of light cascaded above the waters like an explosion of sunlight.
You met his eyes, full of love and adoration. Sadness and longing. Grief and hope. He knew he’d find you. You’d be waiting for him.
You promised.
“I love you,” he whispered through shaking lips, glistening eyes latched onto your own, drinking the warmth and adoration that trickled alongside the tears. “I love you, mesh'la. I’ll find you.”
You placed a kiss on his forehead, pressing into the sweaty skin of blood and sand. Underneath the iron, the dust, the blaster smoke, he was there. Hunter - the same smell that once glued to the blankets, the ship, your clothes.
Even as he slumped against your shoulder, as the sky turned white and the sun stretched its limbs of heat over the shoreline, you held him. Tight arms around his body, your hand curling into his blood-matted hair, sobbing into the crook of his neck as he rested his dead weight against your chest, arms falling loosely to his sides.
“I’ll find you,” he had whispered with his dying breath.
“I know,” you whispered back with your own, shutting your eyes as the heat swallowed you both.
--