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fanfoolishness · 2 days

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Sick Day

Crosshair wakes up sick, and Omega proves herself the best big sister. Written for the @summer-of-bad-batch prompt Lula and inspired by the nagging sore throat I have today. (Edit: it’s Covid!!! Why!!!) ~1000 words of comfort fluff, set a year or two after the Batch settle on Pabu.

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Crosshair groaned, rolling over in his bed, the covers twisting around him. He shivered despite the layers of sheets and blankets. That didn’t seem right. He slowly blinked his eyes open and swallowed, grimacing when his throat felt like fire.

Oh. Great. He was sick.

There was a knock at the door. He propped himself up on his elbow and glared blearily at the sound. Omega stood in the open doorway, looking in on him with concern clear on her face. “You’re still not up?”

“I’m sick,” Crosshair said thickly. “Stay away if you don’t want the plague.”

“Sick? With what? Hunter and Wrecker and I are fine,” she said, taking a few steps into the bedroom.

He waved a hand at her in irritation, trying to warn her off. “How should I know? I’m not a medic.” He sighed, rubbing his face. His skin felt hot, even to his own touch.

“You don’t look good,” Omega said worriedly. She’d closed the distance to his bed and now leaned over him, smoothing his short sweaty hair back from his forehead. “You’re burning up!”

“Uh-huh,” he agreed. “Tell me something I don’t know.” He shivered again, pulling the blankets up to his nose and squinting up at her. “Just leave me to die. It’s the only way.”

“Oh come on now,” Omega said, but this time she wore a hint of a smile at his hyperbole. “Okay, if you’re still able to be snarky, I guess it can’t be too bad.” She squeezed his shoulder with her hand. “I’ll get some things for you, all right? You just sit tight.”

“Do I look like I’m going anywhere?” he mumbled.

“Very funny, Crosshair.”

It was a few minutes when she returned, arms piled high with various items. She pulled his bedside table out with her foot, leaning down and depositing everything she’d brought onto its surface beside where his prosthetic hand lay.

“Crosshair. Wake up.” She nudged him slightly, and he blinked hazily at her.

“I’m up.”

“All right, here’s what we’ve got.” She held out a metal flask, waving it in front of his face. “Cold water. I want you to drink all this before you go back to sleep. You have to stay hydrated.” She helped him sit up, and it was a measure of how crappy he felt that he didn’t even have it in him to make a face at her. He let her help him into a sitting position, and he took the bottle in his left hand after she opened it. “Do you want your other hand, or --”

He waved her away with his stump, and she left the prosthesis on the table in its case. He didn’t always use his hand; it was necessary for many tasks, but just as often he preferred to go without, as it took extra effort to use and control. Wouldn’t be much point when he was stuck here in bed. He took a drink of the cold water, flinching as he swallowed, his throat a bed of knives. But the water was deeply refreshing, and he forced himself to take a few more drinks.

“Good. Here, we’ve got some other things. Lozenges if your throat’s bothering you, medication for a fever, an extra blanket, toothpicks if you need them….” She looked up at him hopefully.

Crosshair nodded to the bottles of medication. “I’ll take some of that.” He traded her the bottle of water for pills tapped into the palm of his hand, tossed them into his mouth, then took back the bottle of water to take a swallow. Maybe that’d help him feel less like something that had been scraped off of somebody’s boot.

He leaned back against the wall, closing his eyes. “I was supposed to be down at the docks today. Let Beryx know I’ll be late --”

“Oh no you don’t,” said Omega sternly. “You stay in here and rest. I’ll let her know you’re sick, but don’t overdo it. I know what you’re like, little brother.”

He managed a chuckle, though his throat seared. “I guess you do.” He managed to finish the bottle of water. “Satisfied?”

“Very. If you didn’t let me help, I was going to go get AZI,” Omega said. “I still will, if you get worse.”

“Threats now, is it?”

Omega giggled. “Oh, there you are. Good. Give me a minute, I forgot something.”

“I can hardly wait.” He drowsed against the wall for a moment, waiting for her to return. She was such a good kid. There was a warm glow in his chest that had nothing to do with the fever.

“Here we go,” she said. He opened his eyes to see Omega holding Lula in his arms, offering her out to him.

He hesitated.

It’d been years. The last time he’d really had anything to do with the tooka doll had been after Kaller, after the Order, when Wrecker had pummeled him with her. It hadn’t done anything to help the ache in his head that he now knew had been the inhibitor chip, and it certainly hadn’t done anything to help his unsettled, paranoid mood.

But he also remembered being small, legs throbbing from growing pains, head aching after hours focusing on target practice, curling up with Lula in his bunk and jealously guarding her from his brothers. She’d belonged to all of them back then, a secret gift from 99, something all their own in a world where they knew they themselves were owned. She’d been the reason they’d picked those colors for their armor, even if they would rather die than admit it to the regs.

A reluctant smile creased his face. “Fine. She can stay.” He lowered himself back to the bed, burrowing back under the blankets, and Omega tucked Lula in snugly beside him. “But if anyone asks, you made me take her.”

“Of course I did,” Omega said with a conspiratorial wink. “Everyone knows I’m even more stubborn than you are.”

He snorted, closing his eyes, sleep calling once more to him. But there was one last thing he needed to do. “Hey. Omega,” he said softly.

“Yes, Crosshair?”

“Thank you.”

#the bad batch #the bad batch fanfiction #bad batch #bad batch crosshair #bad batch omega #the bad batch omega #the bad batch crosshair #omega the bad batch #crosshair the bad batch #crosshair bad batch #omega bad batch #lula bad batch #my batcher fic

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freesia-writes · 3 days

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Ch 26: Confrontation

Master List ~~ Previous Chapter ~~ WC: 2.2k

Song: “Already Gone” by Sleeping At Last (Cover)

The afternoon was beginning to lose its battle against evening as Hunter wove his way through the trees, his gut protesting each step along the familiar path. His mind was racing so quickly that he was utterly lost in it all, instead trying to simply focus on where he was going rather than what he would do when we got there. He pushed up the sleeves of his flannel shirt, then pulled them back down, then tugged at the waistband of his brown pants. As the sound of the sea grew louder, he emerged from the densely wooded forest into the meadows that sloped toward the cliffs above the ocean. The rickety white fence greeted him with its crooked posts grinning in a cruel smile, and he pulled the gate open with more force than he intended, stalking toward the cottage and trudging right up to the front door.

He knocked, three hard blows that sounded as angry as he felt.

No response.

He listened intently for any trace of motion or sound within.

Nothing.

He turned abruptly and walked around the side of the house, scanning the backyard and garden until his eyes settled on her form, bent over some vegetable plants as she pulled weeds without a care in the world.

Without a care in the world.

Hunter took a deep breath, setting his jaw with deliberation to avoid letting his emotions get the best of him. Strategy, he reminded himself. Everything came down to strategy. There was no point in abandoning reason, no matter how relentlessly the pain churned his stomach. He approached slowly, making a point to step on some dry twigs to announce his presence. Lyra stood up, shifting the basket on her arm as she glanced around the yard. Her brown hair was in a loose braid, her soft form covered by a rather shapeless cream-colored dress with a long brown cardigan on top.

Then she saw him.

The basket almost slipped from her elbow, but she caught it with a white-knuckled grip as she stared at him, mouth falling open slightly as a myriad of emotions flashed across her face. Hunter was surprised to see how they mimicked his own, and the sheer amount of thoughts and feelings attacking all at once created a sudden wave of nausea. He came within a few paces of her and stopped, keeping a healthy distance between them as his hands fidgeted at his side before he stopped them with tightly-crossed arms.

“What are you doing here?” he growled, a million critical thoughts besieging him immediately at his question.

“I live here,” Lyra pointed out, eyebrows drawing together. “But you’ve got a lot of nerve just tromping right into my backyard… after what you did.” Her anger felt brittle, a thin veil over the sadness that threatened to spill out along with the tears in her eyes.

“What I did?” Hunter echoed, dropping his arms to his side as he stared at her in disbelief. “What I did?! That’s rich. Why didn’t you just turn me in from the start? Why drag me to some other planet? Why just me, and not all of us?” The questions were flowing freely now, and his frustration at his own lack of control made it all feel that much worse. “You call it in and then disappear, like a coward… Couldn’t stand to watch the consequences of your own actions?”

“What?” came her dumbfounded retort, and the shock in her eyes gave him pause before the dragon in his chest rose again.

“Now you’re going to play dumb?” he challenged, relishing her flicker of hurt before charging onward. “Came back to finish the job and you’re still pretending like you don’t know what’s going on?”

“Hunter, you left me!” she exclaimed, eyes glistening. “I cared for you, let you in… And you turned around and sold me out without even knowing all the facts!”

“Sold you out…”

“Were you just waiting all along until you could get both of us? How long did you know?”

“About what?” he challenged, anger and hurt battling for center stage as he stared at her beneath hard brows.

“Never mind. I can’t believe you’re turning this around on me,” Lyra said, voice cracking with emotion. She turned away, shoulders hunched in despair as she quickly wiped her eyes.

“Are they coming here next?” Hunter continued, taking a step closer.

“Who?” she asked, whirling back to face him.

“Whoever you thought you could make a quick buck from,” he muttered, fighting back the lump rising in his throat, furious at its mere existence. “Is that why you came back? The Empire isn’t very forgiving when you don’t deliver. Must have been a real bummer that I got away, eh?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” she said, face contorted with despair. “I came back to the hotel to find it swarming with Imperials. They were looking for us. They knew I was there. Breslin, too. I heard one of them say ‘they’ll be back, he said so.’ What does that sound like to you?”

He took a breath, mouth open and mind racing, but the words didn’t come, so he snapped his jaw shut, pressing his lips together in a thin line as he stared at her. The complete impassivity on his face hurt her more than his sharp words ever could, and Lyra turned away again, throwing her basket on the ground nearby. Hunter’s brows furrowed more deeply, and he rubbed his face with a hand before starting again.

“You’re a traitor to the Republic,” he said quietly, every word laced with vitriol. “It’s not my fault they found you – you probably gave yourself away trying to turn me in.”

“Turn you in for what?!” she yelled, kicking the basket before whirling back to face him.

“Why are you still pretending to be innocent? That you don’t know?” Hunter said, voice rising to match hers. All sense of strategy had flown out the window, and he found himself wanting to hurt her, to exact revenge for every single moment she’d tricked him into thinking he could be happy. “That we’re clones, wanted by the Empire, harboring fugitives, on the run?” Each inflection was a verbal stab, but instead of any kind of dark revelation at being exposed, Lyra’s expression grew increasingly shocked with each admission.

“Clones…?” she repeated, face scrunched in disbelief. Her befuddlement seemed so authentic that Hunter was beginning to feel as though he were the crazy one. But what other explanation was there? He continued to glare, emanating rage and indignation as he watched her like a hawk, scrambling to make sense of the conflicting information from her words and the events that had transpired.

“Why else would the Empire have called an entire squadron on our hotel room, right after you conveniently disappeared? After you…” his voice broke, and he swallowed hard. “After you kissed me on the forehead and said you were sorry. Sorry for what?” The pain was threatening to overtake the anger, but he clenched his fists at his sides.

“Sorry for keeping things from you,” she whispered, tears spilling down her cheeks now. Her resolve was melting by the second, chipping away at his own fortified defenses. “About my past… About Breslin… The truth about all that had happened. I thought I could leave it behind.”

Hunter took a deep breath, glowering at her as though it could drive the answers out into the open. It didn’t. The two of them stood in the garden, each one rooted in angry confusion and insulting misunderstanding. Lyra was slowly wilting, unable to look at him. When the discomfort grew to an unbearable pressure, she began to speak, exhaling her story in miserable resignation.

“I thought I was working for a simple political office on Coruscant. But I found out they were doing some weird experiments. Totally unethical and downright cruel… something about cloning or DNA stripping… I tried to expose it; I gathered some evidence and took it above my boss’s head. I thought I was doing the right thing… But I went to the wrong people. They were in on it too.”

She stopped, grief overtaking her for a moment as she sniffed, looking to the sky and willing the tears to stop. Hunter waited, motionless.

“So they threw me in prison to make sure I wouldn’t talk anymore, spun some story about how I was a traitor, and the Republic became the Empire overnight. I’d given Breslin the evidence and made escape plans for her with a friend before they took me away. I was in jail for weeks, and I started to see how other inmates would just vanish without a trial or anything… So when some shady pirate dressed as a guard came by and offered me a chance to get out and disappear, I took it.”

Now it was she who paused for a shuddering breath and wiped her eyes again, still unable to meet his gaze.

“I tried to find Breslin, but her transport had been attacked. Our friend was killed, and I had no idea where she ended up. The pirate conned me out of almost everything I had, talked me into some ‘deluxe package’ to keep me safe. Turns out it was a load of Bantha fodder – a pile of cheap weapons and explosives. What was I supposed to do with that? But he found a safe place for me to live, and I was able to get some long-range communications equipment so I could keep looking for her.”

“What, so you could get the evidence back?”

“No,” Lyra said, finally looking up at him in offense. “Because Breslin is my daughter.”

Hunter stared wordlessly.

“I had her when I was young and dumb. We almost grew up together. Then all of this happened. I felt horrible for dragging her into it. I never should have given it to her. I put her in danger too. And then I lost her… for years,” her voice cracked, and she clamped her mouth shut, turning away as her shoulders shook with irrepressible grief. “I would change a million things about it if I could. So many stupid decisions. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

Seconds ticked by.

“Apparently, Breslin settled down on Keytoll,” Lyra continued, lifting her chin to the horizon. “She changed her name to Neon, shaved her head… Made some friends, got a good job in data encryption. When she dug into the evidence I’d given her, she realized it was nothing she wanted to be caught up in, so she hid it and moved on. Claimed that her hobby was playing around with radios, technology, and communicators while she tried to reach me. But we hadn’t had time to set up any kind of code or whatnot. She was the smart one who broadcast a message with some childhood memories disguised as an audioholo that I picked up. Anyway… I found her… I thought we could come back here and be safe… just live simple lives without the constant fear of looking over our shoulders…”

Hunter hated how much that same yearning resonated deeply with him.

“I don’t know how they found us, if it wasn’t you,” she said softly, turning back to face him with a scrutinizing expression. “We hid on Keytoll for the last few months, came up with a plan. Well, Breslin did. She had some contact that turned out to be the same pirate who helped me escape from prison. He had quite a... bold... personality. Tried to con us again, but she was smart enough to catch it. So with his help, we faked our deaths, published it to the right sources… Then I came back here in the hopes of moving on once and for all.”

“And Breslin?”

“Somewhere safe.”

“More secrets?” His eyes narrowed.

“Why would I tell you?” Lyra retorted, her anger returning.

He remained silent, the deep hurt of betrayal and loss of trust muddied by the utter confusion and sheer overload of information.

“Besides,” she continued, advancing on him now. “What’s all this about you? You’re a clone? A fugitive?”

Hunter shifted on his feet, furious at himself for having revealed his hand in a moment of recklessness. He still wasn’t sure what to believe anymore. It sounded like a plausible story, but he’d been so shamefully fooled by her entire facade that it could be yet another cover-up, a ploy to let his guard down again for whatever else she needed. Perhaps she wanted to protect her own place of safety by taking him elsewhere for capture. He shook his head, rattling the thoughts out of the way, and met her gaze. Two pairs of brown eyes locked in hurt and outrage.

“There’s all kinds of stories out there. Same as you… Lies of the Empire to get rid of any opposition.”

“Oh, now you’re gonna be vague?”

“Yes.”

They stared at each other.

Lyra looked down at her basket, its contents strewn across the ground, then wrapped her arms around herself as though barely holding it together. She glanced back up to him with a single, profound look.

“Take care, Hunter.”

And with that, she turned toward the house, picking her way through the garden beds with slow, defeated steps. Hunter’s eyes darted back and forth across the ground in front of him, lips twitching, then he crossed his arms again.

“Just giving up and running away?” he called after her, despising every word as it came out.

Lyra stopped, head hanging low, and he watched her shoulders slump beneath the weight of his cruel accusation. She began to turn, but hesitated, tightened her arms around herself, and continued into the house, disappearing inside without a backward glance.

Song: A Great Big World & Christina Aguilera – Say Something Lyrics | Genius Lyrics

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