Chapter Text
Home. It should feel like something good, something safe. It doesn't. Not to him. To Crosshair, their island home feels like a prison. It's warm, it's mild, the ocean is beautiful, and the people are friendly and to Crosshair, it's suffocating.
His sergeant, his brother, Hunter, tries. He tries too hard to make him fit, to make him feel wanted; calls him hero, tells him every day how much he's changed, how much he's grown. Crosshair hears his brother's meaningless words and grows more inward every day. I'm anything but a hero, he tells himself. I'm a destroyer. A ruiner. I ruined our squad. My brother. I destroyed my brother.
He smiles without letting it reach his eyes when their child comes to him. She knows. She knows who he really is. She's been there too. She's seen him at his lowest, his most vulnerable. He goes willingly when she asks for his hand, following her to their sunset lit cliffs, hoping for some small relief. He finds it, temporarily when she helps him meditate. Their child, he thinks of her; his sister, his daughter.
Omega doesn't lie to him like Hunter does. She looks him in the eyes and tells him the truth. She doesn't need to speak. She knows he's a destroyer of lives. Somehow, when he looks back at her, he doesn't see judgment, but that's even worse. She should hate me. I took her brother from her. But all Omega does is sit next to him, instruct him, be with him.
It's not enough to keep him there, to make him stay, and when Echo comes next, with talk of a clone brother being held under Imperial control, Crosshair makes his escape.
The Remora, Echo's modified mining freighter is dark inside; dimly lit and cold.
"Thought you'd have this thing roasting with your skinny ass manning it," Crosshair teases, settling into the seat next to Echo in the cockpit. He's feeling good. Good to be leaving this too pleasant planet with its too pleasant citizens. Good to be doing something. Good to see Echo.
"Yeah, well, heat costs money," Echo adjusts the controls, fingers moving lightning fast over his touch screen. "And money ain't something we got." He grins at Crosshair. "I can get you a blanket if you're cold."
Crosshair chuckles, watching the ground and then the ocean disappear beneath them. He's glad it's just him and Echo for this. Glad Rex was busy with other things. He respects Rex, likes him even, but doesn't know if he can handle his hard eyes, his superiority. Rex is a born leader, a Captain, and Crosshair can feel his judgment a mile away.
"Where're we headed?" Crosshair narrows his eyes at the screen before him, feeling the familiar swoop as the ship picks up velocity. He hadn't asked, had been desperate to leave. He'd packed his rifle, his kit, his stripped helmet. Hunter had tried, half-hearted to stop him, to keep him there, but in the end, he seemed to see that it was needed. Hunter can stay and play Dad. It's what he's best at. He had wondered if the hurt he saw in Hunter's eyes was part jealousy. Jealous of this mission. Crosshair thinks of his older brother and his infuriating need to take care of everything. To control everything. He's glad to be free of Hunter’s care.
"Desix," Echo's voice startles Crosshair from his thoughts, heart leaping into his throat at the name. "It's in the Outer Rim. Should be about three rotations."
Crosshair shivers, rubbing at the gooseflesh on his arms and Echo snickers at him. "Cold already? You're the one with the scrawny ass."
"I'm fine," he spits. Crosshair's mood has soured and he's silent for hours, staring into the void of space. He pulls his helmet on, ignoring Echo's confused glance. Time passes slowly and Crosshair finds small comfort in the press of cold air surrounding him, in the quiet. No one is begging him to eat, no small voice nudging him to meditate.
Echo doesn't seem to mind the silence either and closes his eyes in the pilot's seat, leaving Crosshair to his thoughts.
The older clone had been good company during the war. After they'd taken him in and made him their own. Echo. Reg. Crosshair remembers when Echo had finally had enough of the nickname and had pinned him on his own bunk, dug his scomp arm harshly into Crosshair's ribs and spat at him. Those are my brothers you're referring to, degrading with that name. My brothers, he'd said, like they were more important than the Batch, or at least equals. After that, Crosshair had stopped using the word. Tech had...Crosshair's memories jump painfully at the name. He shifts in his seat, folding his arms tighter over his chest. He wonders what Echo thinks of him. What he really thinks of him. Destroyer of lives. Traitor. He wonders when he had started to care what Echo thought about him.
Deep space is silent, cold. The thrum of the ship is a part of the silence, a constant background hum. They pass close to an unnamed nebula and the interior lights flicker brightly before dimming again. Interference from the nebula makes the touch screen go dark and there's nothing to be done til they've passed it. The two clones watch the shifting colors in the cloud of gas and dust, the remnants of dying stars. Their faces lighten and darken, turning colors with the cosmic dust outside.
Crosshair remembers when he was very small how the silence of space would frighten him, make him feel so alone. He remembers how his brother Tech explained it to him, gave him a name for his fear. How he said clones weren't made to be alone. We are social creatures, Tech had said. I need you and you need me...
Crosshair shivers again. The silence closes in on him, squeezes him, pulsing in his ears, and the noise it makes with each ebb and flow sounds something like his brother's name. A hammer, a judgment. Louder and louder it pulses til he has to remove his helmet, turning his head away from Echo's questioning eyes, chest heaving.
Echo waits til his breathing is under control. "Hunter said you were having some difficulty adjusting..."
"Hunter doesn't kriffing know anything," he interrupts harshly. He tugs his helmet back over his ears and Echo holds up his hands in surrender and Crosshair lets the bitter silence lull him into a half sleep.
Time has no meaning in deep space. Just darkness moving into more darkness. The Remora has a harder feel to it than the Marauder ever did, as if it's taken on bits of its cyborg owner's sharp edges, and Crosshair can't get comfortable enough to sleep for long.
He dozes off and on until Echo nudges him with his scomp arm. "Need to eat." He's holding a ration bar in his left hand.
Crosshair huffs. "You sound like Hunter."
"Yeah, well, Hunter isn't always wrong." Echo tosses the bar to him. It's labeled chocoberry. It smells like nothing. When he bites into it, it tastes like nothing. He eats half of it and folds the rest of it away in his jacket pocket.
"Too skinny," Echo nods at him.
"Don't start," Crosshair growls. "Desix is under Imperial control," he changes the subject. "How're you planning to get through?" He realizes that he hasn't been concerned with the details. He trusts Echo too much to be concerned. He questions him for information, leaving the logistics of it to the older clone. When Echo asks him if he knows the planet, he shrugs. "I was assigned a mission there," he says. "With the Empire." Echo doesn't probe for any more information and Crosshair doesn't offer. Echo gives him the breakdown of his plan, including false security codes, ship signature and identities when they land. They'll go in dressed as stormtroopers.
After three rotations, Crosshair's scalp is itching from the new growth that's come in. He hasn't shaved his head.
"You growing out your hair?" Echo rubs his knuckles over the fuzz when he notices.
"My disguise." Crosshair defends his head with his arms. "Get off me."
Echo chuckles. They ready themselves for descent.
Crosshair's kit of stormtrooper armor is too short, riding up his back, showing skin at his ankles, above his boots. Echo has allowed him to bring his own rifle and he lifts it to his shoulder, skin tingling in anticipation for what is to come.
"If you weren't such a beanpole..." Echo nudges him, waiting for the ramp to lower. Both men throw their arms up instinctively at the blast of hot wind that rushes them, but their white helmets protect their faces and they descend into a landscape of red. Low red hills are highlighted by an orange glow. Red dust coats their white armor immediately, thrown at them by the violent winds that blow. It's either a sand storm or just this planet's volatile temperament. Both men wipe at their visors with their gloves, dislodging the dust there only temporarily.
The city is a silhouette against the red hills, outline blurred in dust. Echo's voice in his helmet comm startles Crosshair as they walk. "What did you say your mission here was?"
"I didn't." Crosshair adjusts his firepuncher, fingers of his left hand gripping it tightly as they hike through pelting winds toward the city. His borrowed armor is tight, and feels foreign, reminding Crosshair of that other foreign kit he'd worn. For the Empire. He pulls at his chest plate where it threatens to choke him. He watches Echo from the rear, scanning the strange terrain for threat. "All clear," Echo checks in with him and now his voice sooths Crosshair's nerves. He keeps several paces behind, settling into the familiar position, glad to have his brother's back.
Crosshair remembers the last time he was on this planet. His companion had been another brother. CT-2224. Cody. He had felt a similar camaraderie. A real brotherhood. The first he'd felt of such a thing in a long, long time. He'd had Cody's back then, too, and Cody, his. He doesn't like to remember the rest. The way Cody had leveled him with critical eyes when the mission was finished. The way his heart had ached at the disappointment he saw there, and the knowledge that he'd gone AWOL after, as if he'd been what pushed Cody over the edge.
The two men hike through hot winds until city gates materialize out of the red. Figures appear to scan their documents, allowing them passage into the interior walls.
The capital city of Desix is a wasteland compared to what Crosshair remembers. If it still has citizens, they're tucked away, hidden behind closed doors. The major street and square are patrolled by suits of white, their dark visors turning to acknowledge Echo and Crosshair as they pass.
"Giving me the ick," Echo's voice buzzes in his ear and Crosshair hums a reply, wishing he could scratch his head with the way it's tingling under his helmet.
Echo knows where he's going and Crosshair is content to follow his lead as they scout the side streets, but after an hour or so, when the strange red light of the city's skyline turns to a dark blood red, he clears his throat, speaking into his comm. "Losing daylight. Want to find somewhere to sleep?"
"That's fine. We should eat something, too," Echo consults his datapad. "Red City Inn. There," he points.
Three rotations worth of sweat, along with plenty of red dust that has infiltrated his armor wash down the drain of the shower and Crosshair ignores the ribs poking out when he scrubs himself. Hunter’s voice in his head chastises him. Too skinny. Need to eat.
Echo eyes him when he exits dressed in the spare set of black underclothes he'd brought, toweling the short crop of silver hair on his head. If he has any further thoughts about Crosshair's body condition, Echo doesn't speak them aloud. Echo takes his turn in the shower to do whatever it is he does in there with his cyber-parts, and Crosshair reads over a brief history of Desix on their datapad, skimming quickly over the parts he already knows. It seems the citizens of Desix have an early curfew. Heavy tariffs have limited the trade between nearby cities and near constant sandstorms have ravaged the already arid deserts that surround the capital. His empty stomach complains.
Crosshair searches his jacket for the other half ration bar he'd saved, biting off the hard dry end bits and spitting them into the garbage before eating the rest. The curtains are drawn shut but an eerie glow filters through, casting red onto the two twin beds in the room. He double checks the locks on their door before pulling the covers of the bed down, pushing his feet in till they knock against the end of the frame. The light is making him feel uneasy and he's grateful when Echo is finished in the refresher.
"This mission of yours here..." Echo sits on the other bed, pulling socks over his metal feet. "It was a success?" He finds his own bar and tears off pieces with his teeth.
"Yes," Crosshair answers quickly. But that depends on who's telling the story, he thinks, remembering the way the governor's body had looked, strung up for her people to see, after he'd shot her. Killer. The word is practically stamped onto his face, around his eye for all the galaxy to see. He shudders, scooting further under his blanket.
"Cold?" Echo is watching him closely and Crosshair turns to face away from his brother.
"I'm fine." Crosshair closes his eyes against the memories. The light moves across his bed and he dozes. He grinds his teeth and his jaw aches. If Echo sleeps, he doesn't know.
Crosshair can't tell what wakes him. The room is dark and he scratches roughly at the scarred side of his head before sitting up. I need you and you need me, Tech's words had been floating through his subconscious and he glances at his companion's bed. Echo stretches an arm above his head. "Can't sleep," Echo snorts through his nose.
"Me neither. Think I still have sand in my ass." This makes Echo chuckle and Crosshair laughs a little with him. The men are quiet for a while, both in their own thoughts. The night moves onward and Crosshair is stuck in a seemingly endless loop of memories of every poor choice he's ever made in his life. Every word he's spoken, every life he's taken. Every ruinous consequence he's lived with since the end of the war is magnified in the dark. It's suddenly too much to bear alone and he spits out the first thing that comes to his lips. "Were you with him?" He hadn't even known it was there til he says it out loud. "When he died?"
Echo inhales sharply, letting it out slowly before speaking. "You don't want to talk about that, do you Cross?" His voice is rough.
"Yes," Crosshair keeps his face carefully controlled, even if Echo can't see him in the dark. In his chest, his heart hammers, begging for answers.
It's a long time before Echo's bitter words break the silence again. "It was quick, if that's what you want to know."
Crosshair wants to hear it. Wants an explanation for the cutting pain he feels. The words hurt him and he holds tightly to it. He deserves every last bit of it. His face is contorted now, eyes squeezed shut and mouth twisted against the physical pain. His breath stutters.
"Cross..." now Echo's voice is gentle.
"Echo, tell me," Crosshair isn't exactly crying but he isn't exactly not, either and he hears himself beg, cringing at the unfamiliar emotion in his words.
"I was there. On Eriadu." Echo tells him every last detail.
Crosshair sleeps after, his heart aching and his toes sticking out the end of his blanket.