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Batcher was not here, which was incredibly strange. She always waited for him to get up so he could give her breakfast and take her on a walk, never bothering anyone else. Unfortunately. Crosshair hadn’t wanted the dog, but he was her favourite person now. It had been kinda annoying in the beginning; not that he minded anymore.
But back to the strange thing: She was not here, she was not outside of his door waiting for him and when he whistled for her, she didn’t come.
Confused, Crosshair padded down the stairs. He spotted Hunter standing in front of the big windows overlooking the garden.
“Have you seen Batcher?” Crosshair asked, stepping beside him. Instead of answering, Hunter nodded outside.
There, Batcher was lying in the grass, intently watching something. But she wasn’t alone. To her left and right, there were Tech and Wrecker, both lying on their stomach, watching the same thing, whatever it was.
“What are they doing?” Hunter only shrugged.
“I don’t know. Wrecker asked me the same, so I told him to ask Tech. Now all three of them are doing … this.”
“Hm.” He should go get some caf; or go back to sleep; or do anything else. But he really, really wanted to know what they were doing. Hunter seemed to read his thoughts.
“I wouldn’t go out there if I were you. At least not until you had breakfast.”
“Now I’m gonna do it just to spite you,” Crosshair decided and ducked out the door. Hunter only let out a deep sigh and muttered something along the lines of “It’s too early for this.”
Briskly, Crosshair walked up to them. When he got closer, he could see that Tech had a hand clamped firmly around Batcher’s snout and a concentrated look on his face. Wrecker just looked happy.
“What are you doing?” Crosshair asked once he was close enough. No one even had the grace to look at him.
“Sssh, you will scare it away,” Wrecker said.
“What?”
“We are watching a Greater Yellow Sulphur eclose from its chrysalis,” Tech explained. That’s when Crosshair spotted it. A butterfly. It had already e-whatevered and was now sitting on a small rock, drying in the sun.
“And why are you holding Batcher’s snout closed?”
“She tried to eat it.”
Ah, that explained a lot. Crosshair shuddered when he remembered the last time Batcher had managed to eat a beetle. It had been poisonous and she had thrown up the whole night and refused to stay outside alone. That night ranked up there in the worst ones of his life.
“It does look delicious, though,” Wrecker contemplated, earning a small glare from Tech.
“No one is going to eat the butterfly!”
Unfortunately, Crosshair wasn’t so sure about that. Wrecker had always happily tried every and any food offered to him, insects included.
“Alright, I’m gonna go back inside and leave you to … this.” Crosshair waved in the general direction of the butterfly. However, the movement cast a shadow on it and it didn’t seem to like that, fluttering up.
“Aww,” Wrecker said, watching the butterfly flutter through the air, while Tech had to use all his strength to keep Batcher from trying to eat it.
The butterfly didn’t feel like flying a lot, at least that’s what Crosshair suspected when it made a small lap and then - landed on the flower tattoo on his head, gently starting to poke him with its mouth.
“Excellent, we can keep watching it,” Tech said, promptly letting go of Batcher and settling down again. Crosshair huffed.
“I wanted to get some caf!”
“Not your lucky day then.” Wrecker grabbed his arm and tugged him down to the floor with them. “You’ll just have to stay here til Lemon decides to fly away!”
“You named it?”
“Of course I did.” Wrecker pouted a bit, finally managing to wrangle Crosshair to the floor without spooking the butterfly. “And she is the color of a lemon! It’s perfect.”
“I think it’s a male,” Tech corrected, but Wrecker ignored him, in favor of whispering: “I wonder if she tastes like a lemon too.”
In all the turmoil, Batcher had snuck up to him and was now getting dangerously close to the butterfly, tongue sticking out.
“Batcher, no! Bad girl!” Tech chided, trying to pull her back. “Stop it!”
Batcher whined in disappointment and began licking Crosshair’s face instead, trying to get permission to eat the butterfly. And he had half the mind of letting her, then this would at least be over and -
“What are you guys doing there?” Omega asked. Yeah, okay, no one was going to eat the butterfly.
Echo stopped beside Hunter, looking at him and then at the scene Hunter was currently observing.
“What are they doing?” he asked, confused. There were Tech, Wrecker, Omega and Batcher all sitting around Crosshair, likely way too close for the man’s comfort. Crosshair looked positively dead inside. The wind carried some words over, mainly Tech chiding Crosshair to stop looking like he wanted to murder them, it would look bad on the recording.
“Echo. I don’t know. I don’t care. I have warned Wrecker, Crosshair and Omega to not go out there and check it out. I’m gonna tell you the same.”
Echo chuckled a little and patted Hunter on the shoulder. “Alright. Want some more caf then and let them be? They look like they are having fun - well, most of them.” Hunter chuckled. “That’s the only sane thing I heard today.”