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The kid’s wings were a wreck since the moment she arrived here, and their condition hadn’t improved since.
Crosshair had watched them grow more unkempt with each passing day, feathers disheveled and lying at odd angles. He was honestly a bit surprised that their captors hadn’t done anything about it. They had already made her play dress-up in one of the drab grey science uniforms, making her look all the more like Dr. Karr. That was likely no accident. The kid didn’t say much about what she was led away to work on each day, but it was all too apparent how much the other female clone wanted her to trust and like her. Judging by the underlying misery that never left Omega’s face, it wasn’t working too well.
Crosshair’s own wings weren’t exactly a sight to behold either. There weren’t any mirrors here, so he didn’t know what condition his dark brown, almost black feathers were in. His lower feathers—the primaries and secondaries that looked as if a few of them had been dipped in a light taupe—were easy enough to reach by himself, but everything else was near impossible to manage alone.
Luckily for him, Hemlock hadn’t shown any interest in the delicate appendages he kept pressed close to his back whenever he was in the bastard’s presence. Only once had he touched them, reaching out and stroking his feathers condescendingly while his own dark wings loomed over him like a predator ready to strike. Crosshair had worked very hard not to show any reaction to that touch. He had already been fighting to maintain his composure at the time. Wings were sensitive. He had never been particularly fond of his own, but he didn’t want them leveraged against him.
By some saving grace—or, more likely, some manipulative effort on Hemlock’s part—he and the kid had been put in the same cell. It allowed him the benefit of keeping tabs on her, even if any kind of protection he could provide from their captors was a complete illusion. At the very least, she seemed to find some level of comfort in his presence, for some reason. He supposed he was the closest thing to his brothers she could get in this place, even if he was a far cry to begin with.
When they were returned to their cell every night, Crosshair would sit on his bunk and try to ride out whatever cocktail of drugs they’d tested on him, and the kid would pace until she wore herself out enough to fall into an exhausted sleep. It had annoyed him at first, but he was too tired to complain. He eventually got used to it, and now it was just part of the bleak routine their lives had become.
Omega’s unkempt wings shed feathers, which inevitably ended up strewn all around their cell when she did her nightly pacing. Crosshair picked up one of them during one of the times when she was removed from the cell but not him. He idly ran his thumb over the feather. It was round and soft, unlike his own sharp, streamlined feathers. A tuft of down still clung to its barb. When he heard the troopers coming back with the kid, he tossed it aside.
It wasn’t until the next evening (or at least, it was in whatever version of time this windowless prison kept) that he finally lost patience with the whole thing.
Today’s torture hadn’t been as bad as some others, so Crosshair was feeling strong enough to take a page out of the kid’s book and move around the cell some. It felt better than just going from being strapped to a table to laying right back down on his cot, where he could still feel the phantom restraints holding him down.
Tonight, Omega had gone straight to her bunk rather than pacing or prodding him for conversation. Crosshair glanced over at where the kid was curled up on her ‘bunk’ (more like a semi-soft slab), back turned to him. The angle allowed him to see the hundred-odd ways her feathers were sticking up. A few of them looked close to being damaged. It had to be hurting her.
So why wasn’t she at least trying to deal with them?
“Kid.”
She turned over, looking at him with bleary eyes.
Crosshair watched her for a moment before cutting to the chase. “Your wings are a mess.”
She blinked, features pinching. The silence was almost unnerving. Usually Crosshair had to work to get her to quiet down rather than speak.
“Why aren’t you preening them?” he asked, crossing his arms. His own wings pressed closer against his back with the movement.
“I don’t want to,” she rasped.
“Why not?”
Of all the reactions he expected, tears welling in her eyes was not one of them.
“They haven’t…the last time…” she fought with her words, face gripped by pain. “Tech was the last person to preen them.”
The older clone said nothing for a long few moments while Omega continued to fight back her tears. A few slid down her cheek anyway.
As reluctant as he would be to admit it, part of him…understood. He still remembered the first time he had to reach back and try to preen his own feathers alone, sitting in an unfamiliar barrack surrounded by strangers. His whole life, there had always been a familiar set of hands ready to deftly work across his wings when they grew unruly, whether he asked or not. Sometimes he would grouse at them for it, ‘accidentally’ bat them in the face with the wing that wasn’t being worked on, then smirk when he got an annoyed reaction in turn.
“It…won’t undo what he did,” he said stiffly.
Omega squeezed her eyes shut, wrapping an arm around herself. Crosshair watched her a moment longer before sighing quietly.
The kid’s eyes flew open when she felt the slight dip in the bed from him sitting at the foot. When she met his gaze, Crosshair gave a small twirling gesture with his finger.
“Let me see.”
She sniffled, gnawing on her lip. “I…I don’t know if I’m r-ready.”
“They hurt.” It was a statement, not a question.
She sat up, but remained facing him. Hesitantly, she nodded.
Crosshair bit back another sigh. “It will help.”
Her eyes stayed lowered. Just when he thought he’d have to reach over and manually swivel her himself, she slowly scooted closer before turning her back to him. Hugging her knees up to her chest, her wings wilted open.
Crosshair took a moment to assess the damage before him. He partly blamed himself for sitting by and letting it get this bad. Shaking the thought aside, he reached out to begin in the same spot he always did—well, used to—for his brothers. His fingers paused an inch away from the secondary feathers at the bottom of her left wing. This was the first time he’d touched anyone else’s wings in over a year. Not that that really meant anything.
Omega practically flinched at the first gentle brush of his fingers. Crosshair paused, waiting until she eased up a little before touching again.
Some of her feathers still had the soft, fluffy tufts of fledgling down. Smoothing through it only reminded him once more of how young this kid was. It made the dark walls caging them in feel all the more claustrophobic.
He fell into focusing on the methodical process of straightening her feathers. It was oddly soothing, in a way. Preening was always claimed to be a bonding event, bringing humans close together. It was considered to be relaxing primarily for the person on the receiving end, but although he never told anyone, Crosshair had always enjoyed this part, too. Even if, right now, he was doing it for someone he didn’t really know
The blankness of his thoughts was interrupted by another quiet sniffle. He glanced up from Omega’s wings as her shoulders gave a small shudder.
Crying again.
If he were Hunter, he would hum to her softly. If he were Wrecker, he would wrap her in a warm, near-crushing hug. If he were Echo, he would put a hand on her shoulder, calm her with a story. If he were Tech—
Crosshair swallowed.
He didn’t know what to do, because he wasn’t any of them.
So he just kept doing what he knew how to do.
Omega winced when he reached one of the particularly nasty bits of her wing. He tried to be as gentle as possible as he detangled it, setting aside two more feathers with the others that had already come loose from his ministrations. Omega’s quiet shudders slowly subsided as he continued. By the time he turned to her other wing, they had ceased entirely.
He finished the process with the soft coverts of her right wing. He didn’t immediately pull away, though. Crosshair’s eyes scanned across her wingspan, reaching to make a few last adjustments in spots he’s already finished. The light touches here and there somehow trickled into his fingertips brushing down the length of her wings, smoothing over her feathers in gentle strokes. Any remaining tension bled out of the kid’s shoulders, wings relaxing under his hands. Crosshair unconsciously began to trace a familiar path, remembering the brush of fingertips running along his wings in the same pattern.
When his hand finally came to a stop, it was easy to gather Omega’s lax wings and gently fold them. He stood from the bed, circling around to nudge the drowsy kid to lay on her side. She curled into a ball again, but this time it seemed more relaxed, wings resting half-folded behind her.
Crosshair spared a last glance at her peaceful face, her eyes slipping closed, then turned to take up his usual post on his own bunk.
“Thank you.” Her small voice made him glance up again, catching tired brown eyes peeking out at him from under heavy eyelids.
He gave a slight nod, before turning back to face the ray shield.
The next day was much worse than its predecessor.
Crosshair could barely keep himself upright as he was half dragged, half marched back to their cell. Omega was already inside, her eyes widening as she caught sight of him through the ray shield.
“Stand back,” one of the troopers barked.
Omega did as she was told. They’d learned early on that defying that type of order did not end well for them.
The rayshield deactivated, and the two troopers holding him shoved Crosshair inside without ceremony. He ended up awkwardly catching himself against the wall, gritting his teeth.
Omega glared out at the troopers, waiting until they had reactivated the shield and left before rushing over to him. Smart kid, not turning her back on the enemy.
“Are you ok?” she asked, reaching out an uncertain hand for him.
“Fine,” Crosshair grunted, summoning the strength to push off the wall and limp toward his bunk. The kid stayed close by his side as he did. She seemed to know by now that he needed a few minutes to himself when he returned from Hemlock’s studying. She went and sat on her bunk, mirroring him as Crosshair heavily sunk onto the edge of his own to try to catch his breath.
They sat in silence for a few moments. Crosshair closed his eyes, wondering if it was really as cold in here as it felt or if it was a side effect of whatever he’d been injected with. His body felt achy and far too heavy, but not in the way it normally did when he was tired. Right now, he just felt ill.
The quiet pad of footsteps alerted him to the kid moving around. He thought she might be pacing again at first, but then they stopped in front of him. When he opened his eyes, it was to find a water bottle being proffered to him. They never finished the rations they were given for each meal, always saving a little bit in case their captors decided they weren’t worth the next one.
Crosshair accepted it, trying to ignore the way his hand shook as he unscrewed the lid. He downed the remaining contents, chucking the empty bottle over toward the corner where the guards collected their trays. It bounced off the ray shield with a crackle.
Omega watched it roll to a stop in the corner. Crosshair ran an assessing eye over her when she continued to hover at his side, not quite meeting his gaze. When he was finally about to tell the kid to spit out whatever was bothering her, she glanced up at him with unusual tentativeness.
“Can I…help with your wings?”
Crosshair blinked, brow furrowing. The immediate response that came to mind was why?
Her own wings nervously twitched behind her back while she waited for his reply. When his silence continued to drag on, they slowly began to wilt.
Maybe she was bored. Maybe she felt obligated to offer to help him after he took care of her wings the other night. Maybe she just wanted to feel like she could help at all.
Crosshair looked back to the ray shield. “Fine,” he muttered.
The kid perked up slightly at that. Crosshair sent her another wary glance, before stiffly turning to face the cell’s back wall. He almost hissed in pain as he pulled his legs up off the floor to sit in the middle of the bunk. Omega clambered up to sit behind him.
Habit made it take a moment for him to unfold his wings from where they were tucked close to his back. A prickle of discomfort that had nothing to do with the torture inflicted on him nudged at him as he felt Omega’s eyes burning into his back. He had only ever let his brothers do this for him before. He wasn’t even really sure why he was letting her do it.
“You do know what you’re doing, correct?” he asked before she could even think to reach for his wings.
“Yes. I got lots of practice from the others.” A tinge of sadness touched her voice.
There was a real possibility that they had told her she was doing a good job, when in reality, they were just trying to give her more practice. Crosshair supposed it didn’t matter too much one way or the other. His wings were already a mess in several areas. There wasn’t much the kid could do to kriff them up more.
When he didn’t protest again, she reached out and started on his right wing, in the same spot Hunter always did. Crosshair stared at the wall, keenly aware of every slight tug and nudge against his feathers.
“Your feathers are pretty,” Omega said softly.
He had to suppress a snort at that. If the others ever heard her say that, he’d probably never hear the end of it…
He didn’t know why he still thought of them like that. Maybe all those probe droid shocks were finally scrambling his brain.
“Funny. The regs used to say the same thing.” he murmured with a sarcastic flick of his primaries.
“They can be really mean.”
Not all of them. He blinked, and saw gray feathers haloing warm orange coverts, weighed down by snow. His right hand wrapped around his left wrist, squeezing.
“I like the shape of the feathers.” She reached under his wing to hand him one that had come loose as she said it. Crosshair accepted it with a raised brow. “Echo told me about how different kinds of wings are supposed to be for different things. I think yours are meant for soaring.”
Crosshair slowly tilted the feather, watching the subtle hints of brown buried in the black reveal themselves in the dim light. His thumb ran up along the feather’s edge, catching in the splitting edges that came from the microscopic barbules unhooking.
“What kind are yours?” he surprised himself by asking into the silence.
“Elliptical, ‘cause they’re kind of like ovals. If they worked, I’d have to flap them lots to keep moving.”
That did seem to fit her well. He had a feeling that if she wasn’t wasting away in this karking prison right now, she would be happily flitting about with a sort of effortless energy, flying circles around his brothers and both endearing and worrying them to no end.
Omega’s fingers paused, done with the first row of feathers. Crosshair had to suppress a jolt as her fingertips suddenly touched a specific spot near the top of his wing, right over one of the delicate bones that extended from his back.
“What’s this?”
His wing twitched, shoving her hand away from the uneven patch in the short covert feathers. Omega made a small, surprised sound in the back of her throat.
“Scar,” Crosshair grunted.
“I didn’t hurt you, right?”
“No. But don’t touch it.”
“Ok. Sorry.”
He counted 10 whole seconds before the inevitable came.
“How did you get it?”
“Blaster shot.”
“Did it hurt?”
“No, it felt like an angel’s kiss.” Crosshair rolled his eyes. “Of course it hurt. The impact broke the bone underneath.”
“That sounds awful.” A few beats of silence. “It looks kind of cool, though.”
Crosshair bit back a sigh. It was less irritated than it once might have been. Now, it was mostly just resigned.
At least the kid wasn’t poking through his feathers too harshly. It felt like she was doing things right. He might even go as far to say that it felt nice.
They both stayed quiet as she continued to work. Crosshair was surprised to find his eyes sliding shut at one point, taken back to other quiet moments when he’d been sat on his bunk in the Marauder or on Kamino, dozing off to the sensation of careful fingers combing through his feathers.
“Do you ever wish we could actually fly?” The quiet question broke him out of his reverie.
Crosshair considered. “I suppose.” It seemed like a freeing prospect, especially now.
“Me too.” He thought for a moment that she would leave it at that, but nothing could prepare him for what she said next.
“Sometimes…I think about Tech. And how it…it could have saved him.” Her hands faltered against his wings.
Crosshair stared at the wall, eyes wide. They slid shut a moment later, though this time not from weariness.
“I can still see him falling,” she whispered. “It…it feels so unfair. His wings were right there, but—he couldn’t—” Her voice wobbled as her hands stopped, still holding two of his feathers.
Crosshair opened his eyes again, staring into the lifeless gray before him. Before he could change his mind, he slowly turned, pulling his feathers free from her grip as he did.
The kid sat frozen, hands still lifted. Tears brimmed in her brown eyes as she stared at something only she could see.
Crosshair slowly lifted his own hand. Omega didn’t react until it settled lightly on her shoulder. She drew a soft, shaky inhale, blinking. The touch seemed to be taken as an invitation to press into his space. The last of her calm facade crumpled as she leaned into his side, wings drooping.
The sniper automatically stiffened at the contact. Everything about this felt so wildly, uncomfortably out of his depth. The kid was just asking to set herself up for disappointment by seeking comfort from him. He should really just push her away. He wasn’t like them.
And yet, even as he went to shy away from her…he couldn’t quite find it in himself to do it.
Instead, he hesitantly looped his arm around her. As if it had a mind of its own, his right wing shifted forward too, long, worn feathers fanning out to tuck around her. His left wing mirrored the gesture, wrapping the kid in a sort of feathery cloak.
Omega relaxed against him, even as she shuddered with a small, repressed sob. Her head lowered to rest against his shoulder, leaning heavily against him like every mental burden she carried was tangible in that moment. Crosshair’s wing gave a small flick, a few covert feathers lightly brushing her cheek.
“Sorry,” she whispered, voice small and hoarse.
“Shh.” He tried to soften the sound to be more soothing than his usual irritated calls for silence. More like his brothers.
It…was somehow less difficult than he thought it would be.
It also had the intended effect of hushing any more of the kid’s unnecessary apologies. She sat quiet beneath his wings, making no move to pull away. Crosshair did not either. He listened to the ever-present hum of the ray shield, staring at the way its red light reflected off the wall with unfocused eyes.
Eventually, Omega’s occasional sniffle gave way to even breathing, which then progressively grew deeper. Crosshair glanced down to find that she had dozed off sitting up against him. She somehow managed to look even younger when she was asleep, the only time when the worry and fatigue left her face.
He let a few more moments pass by before he moved her. Or tried to, at least. When he began to disentangle himself, he found a small hand grabbing his wrist, sleep-clouded eyes looking up to meet his.
“Can I stay?” the kid murmured, words slurring.
Crosshair hesitated. Did she know where she was? Who he was? Maybe she was still half asleep and had mistaken him for someone else.
“…Alright,” he muttered. “But lay down. You’ll get a crick in your neck.”
She did as he said without protest (a rarity indeed), climbing up over onto his other side to stretch her legs out and lay down with her upper half closer to him. Crosshair took the opportunity to shuffle to lean his back against the wall, now-tidied wings folding behind him. He already knew he wouldn’t be able to sleep. Not laying down, at least. Maybe he would slip off for a bit here and there while he was keeping watch.
The kid waited until he was settled to finish worming into place, curling up on her side and boldly resting her head against his thigh. Crosshair looked down at her with a brief flicker of something akin to indignation, before it vanished altogether at the sight of her drooping eyelids. His left hand crept over another few inches to run his fingertips across the coverts of one of her wings, making her eyes fall shut completely.
He left his hand there even long after she had fallen asleep, lost in his own thoughts. The exhaustion gnawing at his mind would eventually win out. He would awaken the next morning to a crick in his neck and the sound of the rayshield deactivating. Omega would go back to the labs with Dr. Karr, and he would go back to being Hemlock’s lab rat.
But right here, in this moment, they had quiet, and they had each other. And maybe—just maybe—that counted for something.