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“How are you faring, Miss Omega?”
Omega looked from her task—piling her and her brothers’ laundry from the past week or so into the washing machine that happened to sit almost too tall for her to reach—up into her brother’s kind, curious face. She fought herself strenuously, loathing the thought of Tech seeing her pout. She’d just…she’d been at this for a while, and it felt like she wasn’t getting her anywhere. She hadn’t asked Tech for help, either, since she should be able to do this simple job. She was just too darn short, it seemed. Or the men in her family were too darn tall. “Not too bad. You guys dirty up your clothes pretty quickly.”
Tech didn’t laugh (Tech rarely laughed, unless he found something particularly amusing), but a slight smile curved across his lips. He folded another of Crosshair’s shirts, dropping it onto the pile he’d designated for the former sniper. “Ah, well. That is what happens when your brothers work, my dear.”
Omega snickered, reaching for another grubby shower towel from the plastic basket by her feet, tossing it up into the washer’s silver pit amongst its fellow sullied brethren. “I wish I could work.”
“No, you do not,” said Tech, matter-of-factly. “Rest assured, Miss Omega, there is nothing pleasurable about the current state of the workforce.”
Omega didn’t quite comprehend his meaning, but she didn’t have to. If Tech said it wasn’t something she should want, it probably wasn’t. He never lied to her. None of her brothers did. “It’d be better than school.”
“Better than learning about the history of the Old Republic?” he asked, a little smugly. “I seem to recall you finding great fascination in the background studies we did regarding Bastila Shan.”
Omega ducked her head, conceding his point. “Yeah, okay. She’s cool.”
His amber-brown eyes sparkled as he paired two of Wrecker’s enormous socks together. “She is, indeed.”
They worked together in companionable silence, Omega manning the washer and its contents while Tech dealt with the first load from the dryer, together waiting for the second load, sheets and blankets, to finish its cycle. Omega wasn’t sure how she ended up here, or how Tech had gotten stuck with laundry duty since that was typically Echo’s self-appointed occupation in the household, but she didn’t mind the busy-work. It kept her mind off its constant worries, and it allowed her to spend time with Tech that wasn’t related to schoolwork. Whiling away an hour with her smartest big brother was practically bliss compared to what she’d had to do at home.
Mother never let her help at home. Mother assigned her a list of chores, and she had to do them on her own. If she asked for help, she’d have five more minutes added to her work time. Mother and Omega had never folded laundry together, talking amiably as they went. The change was drastic and wonderful; Omega hoped she never had to go back to the way things used to be. The cold, the dark, the lonely…
She didn’t realize she’d stopped working, caught up in her dreadful memories, until Tech asked, “Are you well, my dear?”
She jolted, throwing in a dirty pair of pants into the washer’s metallic trench. “What? Y-Yeah, no, I’m okay. Sorry, Tech, just.” She sighed, briefly resting her head against the washing machine. “Lost in thought, I guess.”
Tech hummed thoughtfully, doubtless unconvinced with her poor explanation. Nevertheless, he continued to fold bits and pieces of the clean load, piling them back into another basket they’d take back upstairs and distribute amongst their siblings. “Very well. But please, do not refrain from speaking to me if you are unsettled by something.”
“I’m not—“ She huffed, started over. An icy chill rolled down her spine, rivaling the water that used to lap over her head, the glass surrounding the tanks... “I’m not unsettled. Just.” She met his eyes, then, hiding nothing. “Have you ever wanted to just… sit in a dryer?”
Tech halted his folding altogether, gaping at her in sheer perplexion. She supposed that made sense; her question had been weird. “I—well. I don’t believe I’ve ever considered it.” He continued his tidying, grabbing up Echo’s stack of garments and setting them in the basket. “Tell me what you are referring to.”
She shrugged, threw the last of the stained laundry into the washer. “I don’t know. It was just…always cold in Mother's house. She kept the windows open when it rained. Even in winter time.”
Tech pursed his lips. “Yes, I remember as much.” The discomfort faded quickly, leaving behind faint affection. “Wrecker used to bundle us all up in his bed, with each and every blanket in the house wrapped around the four of us.” He frowned, back to confusion. “I fail to see what that has to do with sitting in a dryer, however.”
“The dryer was the warmest spot in the house for me,” said Omega. “I only had a couple blankets and they never kept me warm enough. Sometimes I had to help with the laundry, and the dryer was always the hottest place.” She laughed, perhaps too self-deprecating, recollecting the incident as if it’d been yesterday. “When I was little, I tried to sit in it like a cubby-hole to keep warm. Mother chewed me up and spit me back out because of how ‘reckless’ and ‘irresponsible’ it’d been.”
A long pause stretched between them, so long that Omega became afraid she’d said something wrong. Talking about Mother was…well, it wasn’t easy, and sometimes it made her brothers nervous, due to their own pasts pertaining to their unkind maternal figure. Maybe she shouldn’t have brought it up. Maybe… maybe.
The dryer buzzed, alerting its two handlers that the load within it was completely finished. Paralyzed by her sudden onslaught of anxiety, she barely heard the noise, barely moved from the position she was stuck in. All she could do was wonder what in the world had possessed her to be so forthright with her brother, a brother she was still getting to know—
All of her escalating fears froze—or, rather, thawed—as heat, soft and gentle, engulfed her on all sides, brushing up against her cheeks, folding around her arms and legs and torso. She snuggled into it, eyes falling closed, the warmth slowing her better reasoning for a moment. Then surprise burst inside her and her eyes popped back open, surveying what it was that had trapped her in such silken warmth.
The sheets, from the dryer. Fresh, clean, and as toasty as a marshmallow straight off the fire. The shivers she’d seemed to chronically suffer from subsided, little by little, until all she was aware of was the summer and sunlight cradling her tight.
“How’s that, my love?” Tech murmured over her head, and his voice, more tender than she’d ever heard it, helped her realize it was not summer or sunlight cradling her, but Tech himself. Better than either one. “It surpasses the drying machine, does it not?”
“Mm,” she agreed, resting her head against Tech’s proffered shoulder. “It does.”
He chuckled, so very lightly, carding his fingers across her mop of blonde hair. “Do not fall asleep, little one. We haven’t finished our chores yet.”
She exhaled through her nose, tugging the blankets tighter around herself to soak up as much heat as they had left. “I won’t. Just a little longer?”
Not even a moment’s hesitation. “Very well.” He hugged her closer, repeating his ministrations with her curls, humming a pleasant little melody she didn’t recognize under his breath. She very nearly did fall asleep beneath the loveliness of it all, the peace that had, out of nowhere, fallen over the cramped laundry room. Peace like nothing she’d ever known. But Tech’s words, warmer than even the sheets, brought her back to the land of the living. “As long as you are with us, Miss Omega,” he said, “you shall never be cold. Nor shall you ever need to reside within dryers.”
She snorted, pulling back just enough to look her brother in the eye. “That’s a comfort.”
He took her shoulder, gave it a squeeze that set her heart soaring. “We strive to accommodate. Now, if you’re ready to continue—”
“Not yet!” she cried, flinging her arms around his neck, throwing as much of the thin sheet around him, too. He deserved it just as much as she did, after all. “Just a little longer, please.”
The grin in Tech’s response was audible and bright as he enveloped her in his arms once again, as close as she could possibly get. “If you insist, my dear. I suppose the laundry can wait.”