Chapter Text
You glared at Crosshair like sheer hatred alone might finally make him disappear. Unfortunately, he remained leaning in the doorway completely unbothered.
“Hm.” The corner of his mouth twitched faintly around the toothpick. “There’s that temper again.”
Your eye twitched immediately. “I am begging you,” you said slowly, voice dangerously calm, “to leave me alone for five minutes.”
Crosshair tilted his head slightly. “You stormed off dramatically.”
“I stormed off because everyone in that cockpit was insufferable.”
“You included me in that?”
You stared at him blankly. “You were the main offender.”
That actually earned the faintest flicker of amusement from him.
Maker, he was annoying.
Crosshair’s gaze drifted briefly toward the way you were still holding your wrist close to your body.
“You should ice it.”
You blinked once in disbelief.
“…Did you seriously follow me into the cargo hold to continue giving me medical advice?”
“You’re still injured.”
“And you’re still irritating.”
“Hm.”
You narrowed your eyes harder. “You know what? I think you enjoy this.”
Crosshair looked at you for a long second before answering. “Maybe I enjoy watching you get annoyed.”
Your jaw dropped slightly. “That is psychotic behavior.”
“Says the person glaring at me like she wants to commit murder.”
“I do want to commit murder.”
“That’s fair.”
“You make me want to—”
Before you could stop yourself, you stepped forward and jabbed a finger directly into Crosshair’s chest.
With your injured hand.
The second your wrist made contact, pain shot violently up your arm.
“KRIFF—”
You jerked your hand back instantly, clutching it against your chest as you doubled over slightly with a sharp hiss of pain.
Crosshair’s expression immediately hardened. “…You’re an idiot,” he muttered automatically, though the insult lacked most of its usual bite.
“No kidding,” you groaned through clenched teeth. The throbbing in your wrist intensified almost instantly from the impact.
Maker, that was stupid.
You squeezed your eyes shut tightly, trying to breathe through the pain. For a second, the cargo hold went quiet.
Crosshair’s eyes stayed fixed on you, the usual smug amusement gone completely. His gaze flicked over the way you were holding your wrist, your breathing, and the way your shoulders had tensed.
Concern crossed his face so quickly it almost didn’t look real.
Then you inhaled sharply again and started straightening back up.
By the time your eyes opened, his expression had already flattened back into its usual irritation.
“You done?” he drawled.
You glared at him immediately. “I hate you.”
“Hm.”
You leaned heavily against the nearest crate, still cradling your wrist protectively against your chest.
Crosshair exhaled quietly through his nose before pushing himself off the doorway.
Your eyes narrowed instantly. “What are you doing?”
“Relax.”
“That is never reassuring when you say it.”
Ignoring you completely, Crosshair grabbed a small medkit off a nearby shelf and tossed it onto the crate beside you.
You blinked at it. Then at him. “…Did you just help me?”
Crosshair looked vaguely offended by the accusation. “Don’t make it weird.”
You stared at him for another second before muttering, “Too late for that.”
Ignoring the faint twitch at the corner of his mouth, you pulled the medkit closer with your good hand and carefully popped it open.
Crosshair turned away almost immediately after, presenting you with his back as he leaned against one of the cargo hold supports.
At first, you assumed he was giving you privacy. Then you noticed his eyes.
Not on you directly... But on your reflection in the polished side of the metal crate across from him. Watching.
Your eyes narrowed slightly.
“You know,” you muttered while digging through the medkit supplies, “staring indirectly is somehow worse.”
“Hm.” Crosshair didn’t turn around. “You noticed.”
“You are not subtle.”
“You’re loud.”
You scoffed softly under your breath before pulling out a fresh bacta pad. The second it touched your wrist, pain flared sharply again. A quiet hiss escaped your lips before you could stop it.
In the reflection, you saw Crosshair’s shoulders tense slightly. Just for a second.
Then his voice returned to its usual flat calm. “You’re supposed to clean it first.”
Your head immediately dropped back in annoyance.
“For Maker’s sake,” you groaned, glaring at the back of Crosshair’s head, “would you like to just do it yourself?”
A quiet pause followed.
Then—
“Hm.”
Crosshair glanced at your reflection in the crate again before pushing himself off the wall.
Your stomach dropped immediately.
“…Wait.”
Too late.
He crossed the cargo hold in a few slow steps before stopping directly in front of you.
You looked up at him suspiciously while still clutching the half-open medkit.
Crosshair held out his hand expectantly.
You blinked once. “You were supposed to say no.”
“You asked.”
“That was sarcasm.”
“Hm.” The toothpick shifted slightly against the corner of his mouth. “You should work on that.”
You stared at him another second before reluctantly handing over the medkit supplies.
Crosshair crouched slightly in front of you, one knee hitting the floor between the crates.
The sudden closeness immediately made your brain short-circuit for half a second...which was irritating.
His hands were surprisingly steady as he reached for your wrist.
You instinctively pulled back slightly.
Crosshair’s eyes flicked up to yours instantly. “If you keep doing that,” he said flatly, “this is going to take longer.”
You narrowed your eyes suspiciously. “You seem very confident for someone who isn’t a medic.”
“I know how to wrap an injury.”
“You know how to shoot things.”
“Hm.” His fingers carefully adjusted around your wrist. “That too.”
The second he started cleaning the cut properly, pain flared sharply again. You hissed quietly through your teeth.
Crosshair’s grip tightened just slightly, not enough to hurt, just enough to steady your arm.
For once, he didn’t make a sarcastic comment about it. Which somehow felt more dangerous than the insults.
Your brain felt like it was moving a million miles a second because Crosshair was rough about it, of course he was, but there was something else. His grip was firm, movements efficient and blunt as he cleaned the injury, like he was irritated the wound existed in the first place, but underneath all of that, there was something else.
Something careful.
Every time you flinched too hard, his grip adjusted automatically to steady your wrist before the pain could spike worse. When the bacta pad hit a particularly raw spot and your breathing caught, his movements slowed, just slightly, but enough for you to notice.
Which was somehow infinitely more confusing.
You stared down at him in disbelief while he focused on rewrapping your wrist with narrowed concentration. “This is weird,” you blurted out before you could stop yourself.
Crosshair didn’t look up. “You talk too much.”
“No, seriously.” Your eyes narrowed suspiciously. “You spent the last four months verbally assaulting me, and now you’re patching me up in the cargo hold at sunrise.”
“Hm.”
“That was not an explanation.”
Crosshair finally glanced up at you briefly, expression unreadable.
“You’re injured,” he said simply, like that somehow answered everything.
Your stomach twisted unpleasantly at how straightforward it sounded. Before you could figure out a response, Crosshair tightened the wrap around your wrist. Pain immediately shot through your arm.
You hissed sharply. “Maker! Warn me first!”
“You complained when you did it.”
“That’s because I’m allowed to complain when I do it.”
A faint twitch pulled at the corner of his mouth before he looked back down at your wrist again. “You were still wrapping it too tight,” he muttered.
You stared at him for a long second.
“…You fixed my bandaging out of spite, didn’t you?”
“Hm.” His fingers secured the wrap carefully. “Partially.”
Little did you know, Crosshair wasn’t just fixing the bandage because your wrapping technique irritated him.
Part of it was guilt. Not that he would ever admit that out loud.
He could still see the explosion perfectly in his head.
The collapsing structure, the falling debris, you shoving the civilian out of the way without hesitation.
And then the split-second calculation before he’d taken the shot.
Too early and the debris would’ve collapsed faster.
Too late and—
Crosshair’s jaw tightened faintly as he pushed the thought away immediately.
The injury wasn’t entirely his fault.
Objectively, you had ignored orders.
Objectively, the situation had been reckless.
Objectively, he had made the correct shot.
So why the hell did he still feel responsible every time he looked at your wrist?
Worse—
Why did seeing you in pain make something uncomfortable twist in his chest?
It was irritating.
Confusing.
And deeply inconvenient.
Especially because you kept looking at him with that suspicious expression every time he did something remotely decent.
Crosshair adjusted the wrap one final time before letting your wrist go carefully. “There,” he muttered flatly. “Try not to make it worse.”
You flexed your fingers carefully again, testing the new wrap.
It still hurt.
But not nearly as badly.
Your brows furrowed immediately as you looked down at your wrist, then back at Crosshair crouched in front of you.
“…So then why did you do it?”
Crosshair stilled slightly.
Just for a second.
The cargo hold suddenly felt quieter somehow, filled only by the low hum of the Marauder.
You watched his expression carefully, waiting for another sarcastic remark or some irritating deflection.
Instead, his eyes flicked briefly toward your wrist before away again.
“You were doing it wrong,” he muttered.
You stared at him flatly. “That is not a real answer.”
“Hm.”
“Crosshair.”
His jaw tightened faintly at the sound of his name.
For a second, he looked almost uncomfortable. Then his expression flattened back into something guarded. “If the wrap’s bad,” he said slowly, avoiding your eyes now, “you’ll just make the injury worse.”
You blinked once.
“…That still doesn’t explain why you care.”
That made him finally look at you again. The eye contact hit harder than it should’ve.
Crosshair’s expression remained unreadable, but something in his gaze shifted slightly, something quieter underneath all the irritation and sarcasm. “You’re part of the squad,” he said at last.
Simple. Matter-of-fact. Like it should’ve been obvious.
Your breath caught slightly before you could stop it. Because in four months, despite everything, Crosshair had never actually said something like that before.
Crosshair grabbed the toothpick off the crate and turned like he fully intended to leave before this conversation became any more uncomfortable.
“Hm.” His usual smug expression had mostly returned. “Don’t make a big deal out of it.”
Too late for that.
Before you could respond, the entire Marauder suddenly jerked violently to the side.
The cargo hold lurched hard enough to rattle every crate in the room.
“What the—”
Crosshair lost his footing instantly.
One second he was standing—
The next he stumbled forward directly into you.
Your eyes widened as his hand slammed against the crate beside your head to catch himself while his other arm instinctively caught around your waist to stop both of you from falling.
The impact knocked the breath from your lungs.
For one very confusing second, Crosshair was right there.
Too close.
One knee braced between your legs, body angled over you, his face only inches away as the ship steadied again beneath both of you.
The toothpick had disappeared somewhere in the chaos.
Neither of you moved.
Crosshair’s grip around your waist tightened automatically when the ship gave another smaller jolt.
Your brain immediately stopped functioning.
His eyes flicked down toward you, sharp and startled in a way you’d never seen before.
Close up, you could actually see the tiny scar near his temple. The faint rise and fall of his breathing within his chest.
The way his pupils had widened slightly.
And Maker—
His hand was still on your waist.
Crosshair seemed to realize that at the exact same moment you did.
His expression immediately hardened back into something defensive.
“…Move,” he muttered, voice noticeably rougher than before.
You blinked at him once.
“YOU fell on ME.”
Crosshair’s jaw tightened faintly, though whether from embarrassment or annoyance, you couldn’t tell.
Another beat passed where neither of you moved.
Which only made the situation worse.
Your heart was pounding hard enough to physically irritate you.
Crosshair was still braced over you, one arm planted against the crate beside your head, practically boxing it in. That alone sent a startling feeling through your body. But the other still remained around your waist like he hadn’t noticed it yet.
Or maybe he had.
Maker.
You cleared your throat awkwardly before carefully stepping sideways out from under his arm. The movement forced you to duck slightly beneath where his hand was still braced against the crate.
You could practically feel his eyes tracking the motion and not leaving your figure.
The second you slipped past him, Crosshair straightened immediately and pulled his arm back like the crate had personally offended him.
The cargo hold suddenly felt way too small. Neither of you looked directly at each other for a second.
Then—
“Well,” you said weakly, because apparently your brain had abandoned you completely, “that was deeply unfortunate.”
Crosshair grabbed onto the first thing resembling composure and held onto it for dear life.
“Hm.” Of course what he had grabbed was another toothpick from somewhere inside his armor. “For you, maybe.”
Your mouth fell open immediately. “Oh, absolutely not," you said before your brain could stop you.
A faint smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth again, but it looked thinner now. Less controlled.
Which meant he was affected too. That realization hit you like a stun blast.
Unfortunately, Crosshair noticed your expression shift.
His eyes narrowed slightly. “…Don’t start.”
You pointed at him immediately. “You looked panicked.”
“I did not.”
“You absolutely did.”
“Hm.” He shoved the toothpick between his teeth. “Hallucinations are apparently another symptom of sleep deprivation.”
You scoffed loudly. “Oh, please. You practically threw yourself into cardiac arrest.”
Crosshair stared at you for a long second.
Then, unexpectedly, he started walking toward you again.
Your breath caught immediately.
He didn’t say anything at first.
Didn’t smirk.
Didn’t make some irritating comment.
He just stopped directly in front of you, close enough that you had to tilt your head slightly to maintain eye contact.
And stared.
Your brain immediately short-circuited. “What?” you asked cautiously.
Crosshair’s gaze flicked briefly over your face, stopping at your lips before settling back on your eyes again.
For once, he looked strangely serious. “…You talk too much when you’re nervous,” he said quietly.
Your stomach dropped. “I am not nervous.”
“Hm.”
You opened your mouth immediately, ready to argue.
Before you could say a single word, Crosshair reached up calmly, pulled the toothpick from between his teeth—
And tucked it behind your ear.
Your entire brain stopped functioning.
Crosshair stepped back before you could recover enough to react.
Then he turned and started walking toward the cargo hold exit like he hadn’t just psychologically destabilized you before breakfast.
You stared after him in complete disbelief.
“What the hell does that even MEAN?!” you called after him.
Without looking back, Crosshair lifted one hand lazily in dismissal as the cargo hold doors hissed open.
“Hm.” A pause. “Figure it out.”
And then he was gone.
The first thing you realized after Crosshair left was that your heart was still pounding.
The second thing you realized was...
The kriffing toothpick was still behind your ear.
You stared blankly at the cargo hold wall for a full five seconds before slowly reaching up and pulling it free.
“…What the hell was that?” You muttered to yourself.
Unfortunately, the Marauder offered no answers, only the distant sound of Wrecker yelling about food somewhere down the hallway.
With an irritated groan, you shoved the toothpick into your pocket and pushed yourself off the crate.
You needed caf.
Immediately.
Preferably enough to erase the last fifteen minutes from your memory.
Unfortunately, the second you stepped back into the cockpit, every member of Clone Force 99 looked up.
And somehow—
Every single one of them immediately noticed something was off.
Hunter narrowed his eyes slightly.
Echo looked between you and the hallway behind you with growing suspicion.
Tech glanced up from his datapad. “Your heart rate appears elevated.”
You froze mid-step.
“Oh, come on.”
Tech blinked once. “Was I not supposed to say that aloud?”
“No.”
“That explains Echo’s reaction.”
Echo rubbed a hand down his face tiredly. “Tech, sometimes we keep observations to ourselves.”
“I see.”
“You do not.”
Before the conversation could continue, the cockpit doors slid open again.
And in walked Crosshair.
Completely calm.
Completely composed.
Like he hadn’t just completely derailed your ability to think coherently in the cargo hold less than 4 minutes ago.
Your eye twitched immediately.
Crosshair barely looked at you as he crossed toward the weapons rack.
“Hunter,” he said casually. “We landing soon?”
You stared at him in disbelief.
That was it?
That was the behavior of someone who absolutely did not just—
Nope.
You were not thinking about that.
Hunter looked slowly between both of you.
“…Did I miss something?”
“No,” Crosshair answered immediately.
Your mouth opened.
Crosshair’s eyes flicked toward you briefly.
A warning.
A challenge.
You narrowed your eyes slightly before forcing your expression flat. “…No,” you muttered reluctantly.
Echo immediately looked suspicious. “Okay, see, now I know something happened.”
“Nothing happened,” Crosshair repeated calmly.
“Hm.” You crossed your arms carefully. “Apparently.”
Crosshair leaned casually against the wall, looking entirely too relaxed.
You hated him.
Hunter’s eyes narrowed further. “Why do I feel like both of you are lying to me?”
“We aren’t,” Crosshair replied smoothly.
You stared at him for a long second before abruptly turning away from the entire conversation. “There is no caf,” you declared solemnly, “so I will sleep.”
The cockpit went silent.
Echo blinked. “That answered literally none of the questions.”
“It answered mine,” Tech said thoughtfully. “She appears to be experiencing emotional exhaustion worsened by caffeine deprivation.”
You pointed at him immediately. “See? Tech gets me.”
“I do not think that is a positive sign.”
“Hurtful.”
Hunter still looked unconvinced. “You’re just going back to bed?”
“Yes.”
“You slept maybe two hours.”
“Exactly,” you replied like that was completely reasonable.
From the wall, Crosshair took another slow sip of caf.
Your eyes locked onto the cup immediately.
Crosshair noticed and a faint smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth.
You narrowed your eyes dangerously. “I hope your caf tastes terrible.”
“Hm.” He looked entirely unbothered. “It doesn’t.”
You stared at him another second before muttering, “I hate everyone here,” and heading back toward the hallway.
Wrecker pointed after you with his ration bar. “I think she’s cranky.”
“She’s sleep deprived, injured, and uncaffeinated,” Echo corrected. “Honestly, we should all be grateful she hasn’t killed anyone.”
Crosshair’s gaze flicked briefly toward the hallway you disappeared down before he muttered quietly into his caf, “Debatable.”
You walked back into the bunkroom in exhausted silence, the familiar dim lighting somehow calmer than the chaos you’d just left behind.
For once, nobody followed you. A miracle.
With a tired sigh, you climbed carefully into your bunk and leaned back against the wall, trying to ignore the dull ache still throbbing through your wrist.
Maker, you were exhausted, and yet somehow still fully awake.
Your head tipped back lightly against the wall for a second before you let out a frustrated groan and shoved your good hand into your pocket.
Your fingers brushed against wood.
Right.
The toothpick.
You pulled it out slowly and stared at it flatly in the dim light.
“…I’m going to kill him,” you muttered again, though the threat felt significantly less convincing this time because the more you thought about it, the weirder the whole interaction became.
Crosshair had helped bandage your wrist.
Crosshair had admitted you were part of the squad.
Crosshair had looked genuinely concerned when you hurt yourself again.
And then—
The toothpick thing.
You still didn’t understand that at all.
You turned it over once between your fingers suspiciously, like it might somehow provide answers.
It did not.
Unfortunately, your brain immediately decided to replay the cargo hold incident against your will.
Him stumbling into you.
His arm around your waist.
His hand caging in one side of your head.
His knee between your own.
That stupidly intense eye contact.
The way his voice had sounded when he told you to move.
Your face immediately heated.
“NOPE,” you whispered aggressively to yourself. “Absolutely not.”
You pointed accusingly at the toothpick.
“This is your fault somehow.”
The toothpick, unsurprisingly, offered no defense.
You stared at the toothpick for another long second. Then narrowed your eyes at it as your mind began to wander once again.
“No.”
Absolutely not.
You were not about to lie here staring at one of Crosshair’s stupid toothpicks like some emotionally compromised idiot.
With a dramatic sigh, you shoved yourself upright again and carefully climbed enough to reach the top bunk.
Nobody actually slept on their top bunks anymore.
At some point, the squad had collectively decided the upper bunks functioned better as storage. A space for extra gear, spare blankets, random tools Wrecker forgot existed, Tech’s datapads, and approximately six things Echo kept insisting he’d organize later. A glorified storage shelf above each of their bunks essentially.
You placed the toothpick firmly near the edge like it had personally offended you.
“There,” you muttered. “You live up there now.”
Like exile. A very deserved exile.
Satisfied for all of three seconds, you climbed back down and dropped heavily into your bunk again.
Your wrist throbbed immediately in protest.
“Fuck.”
You carefully shifted onto your side instead, tugging the blanket up with your right hand. Your good hand.
The bunkroom was quiet now. Just the distant hum of the Marauder engines and occasional muffled voices from the cockpit.
You squeezed your eyes shut.
Sleep.
You needed sleep.
Not overthinking.
Not replaying.
Definitely not replaying.
Unfortunately—
The second you closed your eyes, your brain supplied the image of Crosshair leaning over you in the cargo hold again.
Close enough to feel his breath.
The low roughness in his voice.
The stupid toothpick behind your ear.
Your eyes snapped back open immediately.
“…I hate him,” you whispered to the ceiling.
A beat.
“…Probably.”
Which somehow felt worse.
“UGHHHHH!”
You dragged your blanket over your face aggressively like you could physically smother your own thoughts.
Unfortunately, it did nothing.
Your brain kept replaying everything again and again anyway.
Crosshair’s hand on your waist.
Crosshair fixing your bandages.
Crosshair saying you were part of the squad.
Crosshair looking at you like—
“Nope.” You sat straight back up immediately. “Absolutely kriffing not.”
The blanket slid dramatically into your lap.
From somewhere above you, a datapad shifted slightly on Tech's 'storage' bunk.
You glared upward suspiciously.
“This is your fault too somehow,” you informed the not-so-innocent datapad.
The datapad remained unsupportive.
With an exhausted groan, you flopped backward again and pressed the heel of your right hand against your right eye and your left forearm against your left eye.
Maker.
This was bad.
Not because Crosshair was irritating. He’d always been irritating.
Not because the tension existed. That had been there for weeks, actually months, whether either of you admitted it or not.
No.
This was bad because now you knew there was apparently an actual functioning person underneath all the sarcasm and emotional repression.
Which was deeply inconvenient.
And annoyingly attractive.
You let out another strangled groan into the blanket. “UGHHHHH.”
After a few minutes the bunkroom door suddenly hissed open.
You froze instantly.
“…Why does it sound like you’re dying in here?” Echo asked cautiously from the doorway.
Without moving the blanket from your face, you answered immediately:
“I’m experiencing psychological warfare.”
A pause.
Then you added miserably, “So essentially, yes, I am dying.”
Echo stared at the blanket-covered lump that was apparently you. “…You have been gone maybe ten minutes.”
“Long enough for tragedy.”
Echo stepped fully into the bunkroom, arms crossing as he leaned lightly against the doorway. “Should I even ask?”
“No.”
“That means yes.”
You groaned loudly into the blanket.
Echo’s eyes narrowed slightly. “This has something to do with Crosshair, doesn’t it?”
You went completely still.
Echo immediately pointed at you. “HA.”
“This is a violation of my privacy.”
“You announced you were dying.”
“I was being dramatic.”
“You’re always dramatic.”
From beneath the blanket came an offended gasp. “Unbelievable betrayal.”
Echo snorted quietly before his expression shifted into suspicion again. “…What did he do?”
You slowly lowered the blanket just enough for one eye to glare at him. “That implies he did something.”
“The fact you answered like that means he absolutely did.”
You dropped the blanket back over your face immediately.
Echo sighed. “Should I be concerned?”
A long pause.
“…Potentially.”
“That is not reassuring.”
“It’s not reassuring for me either!” you complained from beneath the blanket. “My brain is fighting for its life right now.”
Echo blinked once.
Then slowly, “…Oh no.”
You pointed weakly at him from under the blanket. “Exactly.”
Echo walked farther into the bunkroom slowly, now looking at you with the cautious concern of someone approaching an active thermal detonator.
“…What did he say to you?”
You made a strangled noise into the blanket. “I refuse to answer on the grounds that I’ll sound insane.”
“That bad?”
“You have no idea.”
Echo sighed and rubbed a hand over his face before glancing upward absently and froze.
His eyes locked onto the top bunk storage shelf.
Specifically...
The toothpick sitting near the edge.
There was a long pause, then Echo looked back at you very slowly.
“…Why,” he asked carefully, “is Crosshair’s toothpick in your bunk?”
Your soul left your body instantly.
You bolted upright so fast the blanket tangled around your legs. “That is not—”
Echo pointed upward immediately. “That is literally his toothpick.”
“You can’t prove that!”
“He literally has them in his mouth. Little bite marks.”
Your eyes flicked upward automatically.
Tiny teeth marks.
Maker damn it.