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Hunter and Crosshair were like a ticking time bomb now that he was back.
Crosshair had always expected it to be like that. Tension was not an entirely unfounded thing for Hunter or himself to be feeling at the moment. After the hell they’d both gone through over the past two years, the choices they made on Kamino, and how he’d so vitriolically attacked Hunter for choosing the path away from the Empire. He never expected it to be an easy transition to having him back.
Still, he didn’t expect it to be so quiet.
Screaming could get tedious. Yelling doubly so if it happens enough. He’d been preparing himself over the course of their flight to deal with both of these options. But now that he was on Pabu, there was nothing. Glares, yes. A few snide remarks or disparaging comments as well, but never enough for him to want to snap back. Nothing had been so egregious that he felt the need to fight back against it. He wanted to, but it just wasn’t there.
Wrecker was at least easier to be around. There were a few stary looks that Crosshair would catch here and there. It was a reasonable thing for his vod to do though. He’d proven himself to be an antagonist in their path. Being skeptical was only natural. Even if he told him that if Omega was okay with him, then he was okay with him.
He had asked Cross what it was like when the chip was activated for him. It was a strange discussion for the two of them to be having. Omega had told him that Wrecker had experienced technical difficulties with his chip at one point, but she didn’t give much detail after that. So he told his brother what he wanted to know. Though it felt like it was a conversation being had to avoid a far worse one that was looming between the three of them.
He hadn’t heard either of his vods mention Tech since he’d gotten back.
Omega had showed him the smashed goggles when they arrived on Pabu. She’d explained to him, while they were still on Tantiss, what had happened to his ori’vod when she’d first arrived. He’d heard the waver in her voice when she’d first said his name, and he felt the tightening in his throat as she described how he fell from the sky.
It was a whirl wind of aches, pains, and grief after that. There wasn’t any time for him to actually start grieving. But his body didn’t see him listen as he forced a hand over his face to hide from the guard the tears that wouldn’t stop rolling down his cheeks.
His ori’vod was dead.
He’d gotten himself killed trying to save him.
And, somehow, both Hunter and Wrecker were refusing to acknowledge that.
Their eyes were able to say so much more than their mouths were. The way they would look at him was twinged with the same grief that had flowed out of him on Tantiss. Their faces were haunted with a strange neutrality that looked like how people would appear when they’d been mourning the night before. They showed all the signs of two vods that were grappling with the same feelings he was. Yet, not even his name would leave their lips. It was infuriating.
Their aliit was broken. It had shattered beyond his purview. He wasn’t there to help, he wasn’t there to fix it, and he wasn’t there to fight for it.
He wasn’t there.
He’d tried to help keep it safe, and yet he was blatantly ignored by the most logical member of the group.
It didn’t make sense for Tech.
It didn’t make sense at all.
None of it made sense to him.
It never felt like it was going to make sense. It was too painful for him to think about most days. But it was also always laying at the back of his mind.
He couldn’t deal with it.
He wouldn’t deal with it.
Yet he still found himself crumbing to his knees on the floor of the house he’d been given to stay him. The Marauder was recognized, by the people of this planet, as being too hostile an environment to stay him. They could see the horrors in the eye bags and twitches they observed him doing through out the day. His persistence to continue practicing his shooting as well. They could tell he’d been through a lot. And he was thankful for that much.
Still, though, the loneliness of the hut was suffocating at points. Almost always reminding him how much he missed the stray clanking or thud that the Marauder would have in store for him. All this had to offer was the natural noises of the planet, and that wasn’t comforting to him. It only served to further aggravate the mournful thoughts he kept trying to keep away.
So his body forced him to mourn in private.
Time and time again he would find himself collapsing to the ground while rough sobs shook his whole body. His legs and arms would shake until he could barley support himself. All he could do was lay there and let the tears fall out of him, until he was able to get the energy to crawl into bed and meet the night time void eagerly.
This was a cycle he’d been able to get used to.
Then Hunter opened the door after him.
“We need to talk.”
Crosshair’s jaw could have easily fallen to the floor at that moment. He first felt himself experience being cornered. Hunter was blocking the door while he was trapped near the window. It was a way out if he needed it, but it wasn’t ideal by any means. It made him feel wound up before the conversation even had a chance to start. He’d gotten used to solitude. He wanted solitude. Yet now Hunter wanted to talk.
“About what? I already told you all that I could about Tantiss.”
“This isn’t about Tantiss.”
Crosshair cocked his head in anticipation of what would come out of Hunter’s mouth next. To his disappointment though, Hunter just seemed to stand there. His eyes pointedly fixed on the window behind his brother. He was already faltering in what ever plans he’d had.
“Then what else could you want to say, Hunter? I haven’t exactly been the most chatty since I’ve gotten back.”
“I can say the same for you.”
“I gave you the information you asked for. I don’t owe you anything else.”
“You know kriffing well that you do. After all the kark you said on Kamino, after everything you professed to believing during the months you were chasing us, you suddenly switch up? It doesn’t sound like you. It doesn’t make sense for you, Cross.”
“Things changed. I had to change in response as well.”
“What changed?”
“You don’t need to know that.”
“Things changed here too, and you don’t see us switching up that quickly.”
Crosshair felt his fists ball up before he knew what he was doing. “Say it.”
“What?” Hunter’s eyes traced down his vod. That inherent suspicious coming back in full force, and he wasn’t wrong to think it.
“I want to hear you say it.”
“Say what?” Hunter attempted to take a step back towards the door. His hand didn’t go towards the knob, but his brother could tell that he was thinking about it as his hand hovered in the air.
“His name.” Crosshair crossed the line that had formed at the start of the conversation. He grabbed a hold of the bits of fabric he could and slammed Hunter against the very door he’d just been blocking. “I want to hear you say his name.”
Hunter struggled against his grip. His face contorted as he seemed to flip through various things to say, but all he could get out was a gasped growl. His legs kicked against Crosshair’s, and they weren’t holding back. If it weren’t for their training he could easily imagine himself buckling down to the hits he was receiving, but he needed to hear his vod say this.
He felt owed it.
Omega wasn’t the only one being plagued with pain over Tech’s death, and he was tired of pretending the others were fine.
Hunter was able to shake himself out of Crosshair’s grip long enough to get a decent blow on his face. It was enough to make the sniper let him go, and then find himself pinned against the floor.
His vod’s hair slipped out from behind his bandana while a blade was now pressed close against his throat. There was a small part of him that was amused that he’d ended up on the floor despite the interruption. Still, this was not the outcome he was hoping for when he’d chosen to lunge at Hunter.
“Kriff off.” The blade grinded against Crosshair’s neck. He could feel it cutting deeper while Hunter continued to snarl in his face.
“Neither of you have mentioned him since I got here. Neither of you have bothered to try and talk about what happened or tried to talk about why you would do that, or why you didn’t look for you. You’ve both been acting like he never existed!”
Hunter’s face wavered then. His teeth disappeared while the knife slid away from the sniper’s throat. All the anger that had been built up in the span of a few minutes seemed to disappear just as quickly. “Of course we’ve talked about him.” His expressions ranged from frustration to confusion, “It’s hard not to.”
“You’ve never said it around me. He was my vod too, Hunter. I know I’ve missed a lot, I know I’ve done a lot, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t still notice things.”
Hunter pinched the bridge of his nose while Crosshair was still pinned under his legs. He tossed the knife to the other side of the room and lifted himself up. He freed his brother from his enclosure, and positioned himself against the wall just beneath the window. Shadows of dusk began playing along the floor as Cross joined his vod against the wall.
“Things are different, Crosshair. So much as happened. And you were on the other side of the galaxy.”
“I know that. I am keenly aware of that. I was still expecting more coming back. It’s hard not to notice that he’s not around. But you and Wrecker haven’t even brought him up.”
“We dealt with everything already. We had to find Omega, but we still had the down time to talk about Tech. It was like pulling teeth, but we still did it.”
“I wasn’t there. I didn’t have the time you did. Not on Tantiss. Not with Hemlock watching.”
Hunter sighed, he placed his hand on his vod’s shoulder while he nodded his head. “I know, I know, things are just so much more complicated now. Echo and Rex need our help more than ever. Omega is on the run again. And we can’t just ignore what happened in the past. We all made out choices, Crosshair, but yours are more difficult to set aside.”
“I’m not asking you to set them aside. I’m asking you to acknowledge him. I made my choices, I made my mistakes, I know that already. I just want to hear you two acknowledge that he was here. That he’s not just another lost soldier for us to move on from. He was our vod, Hunter. It hasn’t felt like you and Wrecker feel that.”
“We feel it, Cross. We’re just not able to talk about it right now. Theres so much happening in the galaxy. Feelings can’t always be the priority.”
“Just like during the war.” Crosshair mumbled.
Hunter squeezed his shoulder, “We’re still an aliit though. No Empire is ever going to change that. Not now, not ever.”
Crosshair grabbed onto Hunter’s shoulder as well. Both of them stared into the other’s eyes, and felt the connection that had been strained for years now.
As the two of them held onto the other, neither of them comment as water begins to cover their face. They crumble against each other and don’t stop themselves from gasping and choking for air. All the noises, all the pain, and all the aches that had been locked away force their way back out. And neither trooper was going to stop the other from allowing themselves to mourn now.