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“You’re getting better. You might end up better than me one day.”
Omega’s nose crinkles playfully. “I’m not sure Tech would call that a good use of my skillset.”
“Well, Tech’s not here. Arts and crafts are way more fun than ship schematics anyway.”
“You’ve got that right,” she says, and you think she sounds just like her brothers.
She’s a smart kid, probably the smartest kid you’ve ever met, so she catches on to new things fast. Her fingers are agile and quick, and her mind is always running. How she hasn’t outsmarted the entire island by now is a mystery to you.
Today’s lesson, if you can call spending time with the sweetest and funniest soul in the galaxy a lesson, is learning how to string kukui nuts and shells into a necklace. There are plenty others who have mastered this art, who craft elegant strands of nuts and shells that look more like art than mere jewelry, and Omega is definitely better at it than you are, but it makes you smile, gives you something to do when your hands are restless and your mind is prone to wonder. And it helps that you can barter with your nicer pieces.
The waves roll gently up and down the shore, bubbling over the rocks and soaking the sand that’s crumpled up by your feet. There aren’t many seashells left, which means you’ll have to go hunting for more soon. You’re just about to suggest it when an embarrassingly loud grumble comes from deep in your belly. You freeze; Omega’s bright, attentive eyes flicker to you, and you both dissolve into a fit of giggles.
That’s how he finds you – lounging in the sand, your leggings rolled up to your knees, and cackling like a goblin.
“Having fun?”
Hunter’s shadow falls lengthwise over you. He’s placed his hands on his hips in a poor imitation of a scolding father, but his faux seriousness is entirely marred by the smile he doesn’t bother to hide.
Omega grins. “More fun than you are!”
“Now that I believe.” He steps around you so he can crouch in the space between you both and your heart very much doesn’t jump at the new proximity. Definitely not. “What’s all this?”
“We’re making necklaces. See?” Her latest creation is promptly displayed on her splayed fingers.
He takes a moment to study it. The shells are tiny already, but they’re even smaller in his hand, dwarfed by the length and breadth of his thumb and forefinger. You’re not sure why you notice that out of everything. It’s a silly thing to notice.
“You did this all on your own?” he marvels.
“Well...” Omega looks to you with a hint of shyness. “I had a little help.”
She's far too modest. “Very little,” you correct. “I just showed her how.” One of your baskets is quickly exchanged for Omega’s necklace, much to Hunter’s surprise. It is, after all, half full of stranded shells and nuts. “She’s a natural.”
Hunter’s brows shoot so high up his face until you’re half afraid they’ll jump right off. He looks to Omega, then you, then back to her. “You made all of these?”
For a moment it seems she’s not sure how to respond. She scratches awkwardly at the back of her neck for a bit, hesitant, even flustered, before finally nodding. “I might’ve gotten a little carried away.”
“Omega,” her brother sighs, and it’s all tender and proud, the way a father should be. Something warm alights in your heart at the sight. “These are wonderful.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
He smiles, and so does she, and that secret desire you pretend not to have, the one that delights at his nearness and the gentle affection he bestows so generously to his siblings, the softness hiding beneath his battle-hardened exterior, explodes inside your chest like a blossom finally unfurling.
“I hate to pull you away,” he continues after a moment, “but it’s time to eat.”
Omega groans but doesn’t protest beyond that. She’s quick on her feet, gathering up her things and haphazardly dropping them into the basket she then perches on her hip. You, on the other hand, are a bit slower than that. Pabu works many miracles, but it doesn’t make you any younger or faster, no matter how refreshing the sea air may be. Your own basket of seashells and kukui is organized and fastened shut, then your shoes gathered in your hand, and then – and then you find Hunter’s hand extended to you.
You brush off your shock as quickly as you can, hoping it doesn’t linger, that it isn’t noticeable, and take the offer with a smile that matches his own. The contact is brief, far too short for your liking, but it quickens your pulse enough that you fear your heart will catapult from the cavity of your chest all because he looked at you, touched you, and it’s all you ever dream of.
His fingerprints still burn into your skin long after his hands have withdrawn. You almost wish they would scar if only to have a physical reminder of him when he’s gone.
“Thanks.”
He nods, and the sun shines golden on his face. There’s a wordless moment where he extends his hand to you again and you think he’ll take hold of you a second time, guide you off the beach like that, and you’re not even sure you’ll survive such a thing, but then you realize he’s asking for your basket. And you’re disappointed, but so, so relieved.
“That’s okay, I got i-”
His fingers curl around the basket handle, gentle but firm. There’s no room for discussion, not as he tugs it free and settles it under his own arm, not as he tells you in everything but words that he will carry this thing for you, he will carry anything you need, anything you want, and you never need to ask. You only wish that he would do it because he cares.
“You don’t have to do that, y’know.”
Hunter’s brow furrows, but you blink and it’s gone. “I know,” he says.
The walk from the beach to Shep’s house is relatively short, but it always flies by when you walk it with him. Perhaps because he makes you feel safe, secure, because he makes you smile when no one else can. Perhaps because you never want these moments to end. Perhaps because, if you’re really honest with yourself, you know that he fills the part of your heart that longs for more, no matter how uncertain you are if he would ever allow himself such a thing.
Dinner at Shep’s is never a simple affair, but it’s always happy. Good food, pleasant chatter, the sound of Omega, Wrecker, and Lyana’s laughter, Phee’s gently barbed remarks and Crosshair’s witty retorts, Batcher barking and huffing between gulps of food, and even the more serious conversations shared between Hunter and Shep tend to be more comforting than not. It’s home, plain and simple. It was never meant to be, not for you, but somehow… somehow that’s exactly what it’s become. He doesn’t know, at least you don’t think he does, but none of it would’ve happened without him, without that too-good heart of his beating fast and strong below his bones, that heart you wish you could call your own one day.
Funny how easy it is to be foolish, isn’t it?
“You’re quiet tonight.”
Shep’s followed you to the balcony where you’ve chosen to watch the last remnants of the sunset as the colors bleed into the clouds and the dark, stormy shroud of night begins to fall.
You tilt your head back, trying and failing to catch a glimpse of the starts through the clouds. “Sorry. Just had something on my mind, I guess.”
He nods, as if he understands, and you truly think he does. He’s a wise sort of man, kind and smart in a way that only experience can provide. “You know you can always speak your mind.” His forearms find the lip of the balcony the same way yours have. “If something’s bothering you-”
“It’s not you, Shep.” You don’t dare say what it is, but you almost wonder if he knows. “I have a little too much to think about sometimes, y’know?”
“I do,” he says, and he nods again. You think he’s about to say something else, but he’s stopped by the weight of a hand upon his elbow, the gentle intrusion of Hunter’s presence as he steps into the conversation.
“Sorry to interrupt.” He gestures to the expanse of clouds as if it were a perfectly normal thing to do. Though for him, you suppose it is. “We’ve got bad weather incoming. Probably best for everyone to head home now.”
Shep agrees, and the others are quick to hurry back to their own hovels or to the Marauder, but Hunter walks you home.
You both know he doesn’t need to. And, you think, you both know he’s only doing this because he feels duty-bound. It hurts, but you revel in his company all the same, just for these few moments.
“I should go,” he says once you’re both inside, dripping the beginnings of the storm onto the stone floor, but he seems loathe to admit it.
You both spare a glance out the window. The rain’s already coming down harder than it was just a minute ago. It’s pattering hard atop the roof and there’s enough force behind it that you’re almost afraid it’ll blow your windchimes clean off.
“Hunter, you’ll get soaked. At least stay until it’s eased up a bit.”
That’s the least you can do, isn’t it? After everything?
But rather than immediately accept the offer, Hunter grimaces. His entire body stills and starts to shift away from you, not a lot, not even in a way that might be noticeable to anyone else, but you know him, his tells, all the subtle ways his body responds to the world around him. You recognize immediately that he’s uncomfortable and that knowledge hits you right in the gut, sharper than a vibroblade.
He shakes his head, politely. “No, I, I should go. I’ll be fine.”
It’s the fact that he refuses to even look at you that does you in.
And you know you should let it pass. Really, you do. Take the blow and roll with the remaining punches the way he and his brothers do, but you’re not strong like they are, and your heart is so much more fragile than theirs.
You sigh. “Why d’you have to be like this?”
Impossibly dark eyes flicker in the muted lighting, landing somewhere near yours. “What?”
“If you don’t like me, Hunter, just say it. You don’t have to pretend, okay? That just makes it worse.”
His tattoo crinkles as his face shifts, each line of inkwork rippling until he’s frowning at you so intently that the weight of it feels enough to crush you. Then his head tilts and the coils of his hair fall over his eyes, and he’s so beautiful that you think you might cry.
“What are you talking about?”
Maker, is he really gonna make you say it?
A brief turn of your shoulder gives you the spare moments you need to compose yourself, and as you survey the tiny hovel you’ve turned into a home, you find yourself thinking again of that last night on Ord Mantell. The night you realized Tech was dead and Omega was gone, and you knew your life would never be the same again…
It’s a goddamn Imperial fleet. You’ve never seen so many ships at once before. They crowd the sky, faintly and briefly illuminated by streaks of lightning and the few pricks of light coming from the city as they descend. You don’t know why they’re here, but you don’t really need to. You know there’s only one thing on Ord Mantell precious enough to draw the Empire out here and it’s not any one of the petty criminals or their shady deals passed under the table and off the books.
If you had any of their comm channels, you’d be satisfied with asking if everything’s alright, if they need a place to stay. But you don’t. Instead, you run. It was a boring night off anyway.
The bar is trashed when you get there. Tables overturned, blaster marks scorched into the walls. Cid’s nowhere to be found and neither are the clones, and it leaves a terrible, sinking feeling in your gut. None of this is right.
Stumbling back outside, you see a handful of Imperial ships lifting off, one already shooting for the outer reaches of the atmosphere. Whatever they’d come for, they’d clearly found it, and Maker, you prayed it wasn’t any of them. Anyone, anything but them.
You come stumbling into the landing zone just as the boys come through the far end, already approaching their ship. Your throat is raw and your entire body hurts from being pushed far beyond its usual limit.
“What, what happened?” you gasp between desperate mouthfuls of air, hands clutching your knees as you double over. “The Empire-”
It’s then that Hunter comes swooping into your personal space, so close that he takes up every inch of it, totally filling your vision until the shadow of his tattoo and the dark glinting of his eyes is all you can see. There’s no time for your stomach to flip or your face to flush hot. There’s only time enough for him to grab you and push until your back hits solid durasteel. It’s cold, sharp, violent where it digs into your back, but no colder than the quiet rage you see carved into Hunter’s face now.
“You sold us out.”
You’re too confused to be offended. “What?”
His forearm finds your throat and presses until you’re properly pinned between him and whatever unyielding thing he’s backed you into, and when you look up at him, you find that you’re afraid of him for the first time in your life. He looks murderous.
“Hunt- Hunter! What are you talking abo-?”
“They took her.” He's clearly furious, but there’s a deceptive calm about him that rattles you to your bones. It’s not the calm and quiet demeanor of a battle-hardened soldier, but the cool and distant resolve of a man on the edge of desperation. “Because of your boss. Care t’ tell me why?”
You struggle to look over his shoulder to the others behind him. None of them have come to your aid, though Echo looks like he’s about to. And Wrecker... What the hell happened to put him in a neck brace? You look back to Hunter, seeking his face for something you’re not even sure you know how to name, only to find his body wrapped in bandages and his face bruised. Something’s not right, something more than just the Empire.
They took her. Took… who?
You glance at the others again. Wait. Where’s Tech? Where’s Omega?
His words pierce through your heart when they cycle round your head again.
They took her.
No.
Your boss.
She wouldn’t. She... she couldn’t. To them, maybe, but to Omega?
“Hunter,” you croak with a voice that cracks under the weight of your horror, “where’s Omega?”
Nostrils flaring, he presses harder into you until you actually choke, his teeth bared and gritted, flashing white against his skin. It’s the most monstrous you’ve ever seen him. “You tell me.”
You’ll kill her. If he lets you live, you’ll march yourself down to the parlor and kill Cid yourself. Doesn’t matter that you’ve never flared beyond the supernova of a rookie punch, you’ll level a blaster at her head. That is, if Hunter permits you to live past the next few minutes. You’re honestly not sure if he will. But then, if you’d kill for Omega, you don’t think you want to know what kinds of atrocities her brother would commit. Perhaps you’ll learn firsthand.
Echo stops him, but he cuts it concerningly close. Air rushes through your lungs so quickly that it hurts, and you find yourself wilting until your legs give out.
His voice wrapping around the syllables of your name is enough to bring you back to the present, to the cold, dismal reality of the disaster of a relationship your friendship has become. You look to the hand at your wrist, the long, calloused fingers and the scars that crisscross his knuckles, the swirling tattoos atop his bones that disappear beneath the cuff of his sleeve, then up to his shoulder, his chin, the flared base of his nose, and then to his eyes. You swear you dream of them every night.
“What is it?” he asks in that deep, rumbling timbre of his.
You’re so heartbroken that all you can do is smile. “What do you think?” Flashes of an offered hand, the lifting of a basket, the quirk of a smile when you crack a joke or the lifting of a brow when you manage to surprise him, the lingering of his gaze when the nights draw dark and your mind is dulled with sleep – they all filter through your thoughts in a single instant. “You don’t have to keep making it up to me. What happened on Ord Mantell is done, Hunter. I just…” You shouldn’t say it, you should keep it buried deep inside your heart and let the wound fester until you burst, but now that you’ve started you find you can’t stop. “I just wish you’d stop killing yourself trying to earn my forgiveness when I gave it to you a long time ago. Especially when I know you hate me.”
The storm rages on while you fall into silence. The wind whips and whistles against the windows, the rain pummels the ground, and all the while you wait for Hunter to finally admit what you’ve known to be true for the past year.
Instead, he loosens his grip until his hand falls away and you hear, rather than see, the dropping of his shoulders in the way he sounds utterly wrecked when he mutters, “Is that what you think?”
Your breath stalls in your chest. “Isn’t it true?”
“No,” he says too quickly. Like he’s lying, like he’s trying to cover his tracks.
“Hunter-”
“You really think that?”
“Fuck, of course I do!” You turn on him and gesture to the awkward, uncertain tilt of his body as if it were the most offensive sight you’d ever seen. “Look at you, you don’t even want to be near me! You act like I burn you half the time we touch. What the hell else am I supposed to think?”
If ever you’ve seen Hunter wish he could crawl into his skin and die, now would be it. All it does is further affirm what you’ve long suspected, and it kills you, the same way it’s been killing him to re-earn your favor. You can’t do this anymore. You can’t pretend like you’re not head over heels in love with him, despite how much he hates you, despite knowing he might have killed you once not so long ago. Despite everything, you love him. And he will never love you back.
You storm to the door and slap your hand against the controls. It hisses open as the sharp winds of the storm come bursting in. Half the house seems ready to blow away, but you don’t care.
“Get out.” Even though it’s the exact opposite of what you want. “Now.”
And because he hates you, he acquiesces. Head bowed low and his eyes cast to the floor, Hunter steps outside without so much as a farewell, and he takes your heart with him.
You’re not sure how much time passes between then and now. It could be a whole hour, or a few seconds of your heartbeat thundering inside your ears. Does it matter?
“I wish I’d never met you.” He’s almost certainly gone by now, but you find yourself wishing that he could hear you. You want him to hurt as much as you do now. “I wish I’d never fallen for your stupid face.” You rub the back of your hand over your eyes and nose, and it comes back wet with your grief. “Wish I’d never gone to Ord Mantell, and I wish I’d never fucking met you, and I wish, I wish…”
Say it, says the little voice in the back of your head. No reason to hide it now.
It’s to the empty room and the cold, tragic rain, you finally admit the secret that’s been eating you alive: “I wish I could’ve loved anyone but you.”
No one responds. There are no frantic confessions of mutual feelings, no gentle knocking at your door. Not that you’d expected there to be, but a part of you had hoped. No, Hunter’s gone and you’ve made a fool of yourself for no reason at all. You dread to think what tomorrow will bring in this storm’s wake, how the chaos will have torn your new home into tatters, how Hunter will watch you with the same distant, burning eyes that break your heart and stitch it back together all at once, how the island will feel as foreign as it did the night you first arrived. You’ve already started mourning the daily gathering’s at Shep’s, the way Wrecker makes you laugh and Phee tells her stories, and Hunter loves Omega like the daughter she almost is, and now it’s all gone, forever, and maybe, just maybe, you were lost to the depths of your heart that very first day that the Marauder touched down on Ord Mantell and the squad came into Cid’s. Maybe you were never meant for finer things like requited love and a place to belong to.
It’s this endless spiral of illogical conclusions and shattered dreams that Hunter returns to. You never hear the door open, nor the worsening of the storm, but you do hear the soft squeak of his boots on stone, the gently trembling exhale of his breath as he squats beside you. You turn as he comes to you, your face damp and snotty, and it’s embarrassing, but he doesn’t care. How could he when he takes your face in his hand like he was made to do it? His headband is soaked and his hair is dripping wet, the tight coils of his bangs now plastered to his skin.
“Don’t cry.”
You only cry harder, but this time Hunter pulls you to him. You let him. He’s soaked, just like you said he would be.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers with your head tucked beneath his chin and your shoulders shaking under his fingers. “I’m sorry.”
“You left,” you sniffle.
One of his hands finds your neck. It’s cold, but the touch sparks tendrils of warmth down to your toes. This way, your head is tilted back and his is inclined toward you, almost as if…
“You asked me to.” His breath fans across your face, down your throat, dipping low like the path his eyes take as he assesses you. “I don’t hate you. I never have.”
You could fight him on it. You could, but you can’t find the words. You can’t find any words. You don’t know what to say. Kriff, you can barely think right now with the way he’s holding you, watching you, how completely he fills every one of your senses.
“I don’t… know how to do this. I’ve already hurt you before, I don’t- I can’t do that again.”
There’s a hesitancy there, though. You see it in his eyes, in the set of his bones, somehow managing to pull away from you while still staying so deeply entwined with you. He’s unsure all over again, perhaps even as unsure as you are.
“Hunter…” Your hand finds his face, unbidden but perfect all the same, and he leans into you. “I already forgave you. You don’t have to-”
“I heard you.”
He… Huh?
Frowning, you start to pull away as you blink through the confusion and the watery film along the bottom of your eyes. “What?”
He tightens his arms about you to draw you closer and while your pulse skyrockets, you’re not sure if it’s because you’re terrified that he’s so close or panicking because he’s just close enough. You can smell him, now – the faint tones of sweat and sea salt and the wine from dinner – and you swear it’s enough to capsize you. Hunter lowers his gaze, then his face, so, so close to yours that he’s the only thing you see. And you think, you hope, he’ll kiss you, but you’re afraid of what might happen if he does.
“I heard you,” he says again, softer this time. His brows have pressed together above his nose as he focuses upon the spot just below your own. “Cyare… All this time, I thought I didn’t deserve you. I didn’t know.” His nose bumps yours. “Cyare,” and you hope one day he tells you what it means, “can I?”
You don’t need to ask what he means. You only have to nod. “Yes,” you murmur, and that’s when he kisses you.
It’s a cautious thing, so hesitant and timid, but Maker it’s beautiful. Even if this is all he ever gives you, it would be enough to know that he tried, that you learned his taste and his touch when it felt like the world was crashing down around you.
“I’m sorry,” he says before trying again, more frantic, more eager as his mouth presses into yours.
“I forgive you,” you promise before burying your hands in his hair.
The next few moments are a flurry of adrenaline and kisses peppered on skin, the rustling of fabric and the creaking of the sofa when it takes your combined weight. Hunter seems to have found his confidence along the way, and you’ve found your courage, and it ends with his teeth at your lips, and your tongue at his throat, and confessions pouring from you the more he gives and the longer he takes.
“I couldn’t, couldn’t stop thinking about you.” He nips at your jaw. “It’s always been you, Hunter. Always.” He kisses your cheek, then your brow, then the corner of your mouth, hands trailing across your hips and arms as he goes. “I love you. I’m sorry for everything, I just love you so mu-”
His kisses steal the tail end of your confession, drawing into his mouth to mingle with his own until you swear the two of you become one.
“’s alright, mesh’la, ‘s alright. I know.” The bump in his nose is a caress against your cheek as he nuzzles into you. “I feel the same.”
It’s not perfect, this thing between you, and it isn’t easy, but it was always worth fighting for. You were always meant to fall for Hunter, and he was always meant to fall for you. You hope you never stop falling. And he swears never to stop catching you.
