Work Text:
When he was a child kept alive by little more than spite and sheer tenacity, CT-9904 had slipped from one of the platforms of Kamino and toppled like a ragdoll into the seething ocean below.
It had been a taunt at fate, as were so many of Crosshair’s escapades. He had always had a knack for keeping his balance, after all. Even up on the slim metal railings that girded the platform, still rain-slippery even on one of the planet’s precious dry days. Or so he thought.
You’re gonna break your neck, the others had warned him. Or they’ll kill you if they catch you. One of those.
Crosshair had laughed in their faces. And fate had laughed back.
He still remembers the sudden flare of alarm in Tech’s eyes. Tech, unflappable Tech, the only one standing close enough to lunge for his smallest brother when his foot skidded from his perch.
His fingers had just grazed at Tech’s wrists before he fell. Like the touch of a ghost, a split second too late to latch on. As if now it really is the galaxy’s turn to taunt him with the slightest brush of safety before his brother slipped right through his grasp.
“You fell eighty feet,” Hunter reminds him later, after he's insisted for the fourth time that he’s recovered enough to leave the medbay.
“Eighty-six,” Tech corrects, and looks a little pale around the edges.
Yet the fall itself is over almost before it’s begun, or at least, that’s what it feels like. The ground is gone from beneath him and split seconds later so is the sky above him. It’s not the fall that won’t leave his mind, or the crackle of pain that erupts through him as he crashes through the ocean’s surface. It’s the way the waves close above his head, sealing him in even as a frail hand half-lifts towards the last glimmer of light above him, as if it’s still reaching out for Tech. The burning, tearing sensation across his chest as if someone is ripping his lungs apart from within. The black nothingness gnawing away at the corners of his vision as the void swallows him up, white-hot pinpricks of light floating before glassy eyes that blink once, twice, and don’t open again.
He doesn’t remember the Mandalorian that had plucked him from the icy depths and brought him back to the lesser hell of Tipoca City before the water could fill his lungs for good.
Oh, but he wishes he could forget what came after. Crosshair can’t forget the pathetic, infuriating tightness in his throat every time he makes the mistake of staring into the watery void from one of the deeper viewing windows for a little too long. That gnawing feeling in his stomach won’t leave him, as if the sea might reach out and snatch him down to finish off what it had started. It ebbs and swells, rippling up and down like the very waves that had sown the seeds of fear in the first place. And just when he thinks it’s gone for good, when he can finally stare down from a platform’s edge without the all-too-familiar swooping in his gut, he’ll wake deep into the next night clawing at his throat, coughing on water that isn’t there. The smother of the ocean exchanged for drowning in his own sweat.
Hunter’s the only one who knows just how deep the roots of that terror run. Hunter, who can feel the skittish uptick of his heart each time they take the Marauder down a little too close to storm-wracked seas. They’ve never spoken about it, not directly , and the sniper intends to keep it that way come hell or high water. (And he’d rather take the hell.)
Crosshair isn’t scared of anyone or anything. That’s what he says, anyway, a mantra that’s boasted with less and less brazen, childish conviction as the years tick by. As if the delusion might one day sway reality, if he spoke it aloud enough. But reality digs its heels in until there’s no more he can do to deny it.
He’s a creature ruled by fear, and the water holds its own throne.
Time and time again, Crosshair had told himself there was nothing to dread. He would never be fool enough to let the waves claim him again.
And yet now he’s pushing an age he thought he would never live to see, and the man who doesn’t know who he’s meant to be anymore finds himself trapped underwater for a second time. But this time, there are hands to hold him down. Iron-firm hands, unrelenting, pinning him beneath the surface.
Terror spikes as his lungs burn. His hands rake in vain at whatever he can reach of the arms cutting off his oxygen, swiping in a wild frenzy to get him off. Yet the more he struggles, the tighter the assassin grips. And the tighter he grips, the more his panic rises. And the more he panics, the more his throat closes, until he almost doesn’t need the water to drown him. And now Crosshair is more clawing the man towards him than pushing him away. Almost as if he’s pleading, panic-addled mind desperate for the comfort of a handhold, any handhold as it screams for air. But he might have done better to plead with the river itself. The assassin is all but a statue, eyes hidden behind an expanse of emptiness. Not a trace of anything human Crosshair might have been able to get through to.
The impasse of that blank mask above him drifts in and out of focus. The darkness at the edge of his gaze is creeping in again as the crushing agony in his lungs flares, throat spasming as his mouth fills with icy water, his own blood deafening as it thunders through his ears, and the assassin won’t let go -
His hands slacken. Slacken, and slide helplessly down his assailant’s arms, and fall limp into the water.
Let go.
That’s all Crosshair has to do. Let go, and it’ll be over. No more pain.
It happens an instant before oblivion can seize him for good. The hands that form his prison are gone and Crosshair shoots bolt upright before he knows what’s happening, wild survival instinct kicking in, choking as he sucks in a frantic gasp of bitter-cold, glorious air. He barely gets a glimpse of the assassin’s body disappearing towards the edge of the waterfall before he’s kicking out, fighting his way towards the ridge jutting out of the water. Exhausted fingers scrabble for purchase at the smooth rock, but his efforts are futile. He’s already slipping as he flounders. The current is ready to drag him down, deliver him back to the clutches of the river and let the water swallow him whole.
The current doesn’t get a chance. There’s a figure above him, a hand grabbing for the one that the sniper desperately holds outstretched, and Crosshair has never, ever been so karking glad to see a reg’s armour.
It’s the second time that a brother’s hand has reached out to pull him back from the depths. And this time it doesn’t slip through his grasp. Howzer’s hand closes around his own, gloved hand firm and solid and safe , and doesn’t let go.
Crosshair casts a shaken glance over his shoulder through stinging eyes, looks away before the taste of acid can rise up in his throat again, and dips his head in a grim nod to the clone that’s currently holding his life in one hand.
Howzer nods back.
There’s nothing more that needs to be said.
His boot finds rock as Howzer hauls him up to safety and it takes every last frayed nerve Crosshair has left to keep his legs from buckling under him from sheer relief. He doesn’t get the luxury of breath before the fit of coughing overtakes him, wracked with it as if his throat’s being clawed apart from within, gasping helplessly for a snatch of air.
There’s another hand supporting him out of the water now, firm against his back, steadying him as a third grips at his arm, and Crosshair doesn’t have to look behind him to know who that pair of battle-battered hands belong to. Hunter. It’s always been Hunter, after all. Bracing him through the storm when he had nothing else left to lean on.
Wrecker’s there too, he realises, hovering to the side with rifle and helmet both outstretched in his hands. Finally Crosshair manages to get a breath in between coughs, just enough for a hoarsely whispered thanks as he reaches for his gear. It’s all that he can muster. He can’t stop shivering, and it’s not just from the freezing water soaking beneath his armour. He can still feel the acrid burn of water scorching his throat. And worse than that, he can feel the steel grip of the assassin’s hands, sinking into his flesh as if branding him. He can’t let go of the feeling. Something about it won’t leave his mind, tugging at him, like a tiny needle of dread straight through his thoughts.
The hand at his back gives a little nudge, prompting him forwards before it draws away and Hunter is off, sprinting ahead just as ever. And Crosshair falters before he can follow. Every instinct in his body screams at him not to look back at the spot where foaming water gives way to emptiness, but he does it anyway.
No. No, he’s safe now. Safe from the water. Hunter’s got him.
One final glance behind him at what had almost been his end before he jams his helmet back on and darts after his brothers.
And as he moves, Crosshair offers up a silent plea to gods he doesn’t believe in that they’re safe from the man with the familiar hands, too.