Chapter Text
It was a strange and disorienting situation that he found himself in. One minute, he had been preparing his squad (that wasn’t his squad, something hazy in the back of his mind protested, his squad was gone, he left them—) for a mission (not a mission, said the same hazy sort of not-voice, a slaughter, this isn’t what he was made for, how could he—) to quell an insurrection (innocents, the hazy thought came, now near-hysterical in its attempts to break through, they ordered him to kill innocents—and Good Soldiers Follow Orders, came a much harsher and stronger not-voice, and there was no more the hazy not-voice could say). The next minute, he was waking in his bunk, his thoughts wholly his own for the first time in years.
He spent a click just staring at the wall before him, sharp gaze taking in familiar durasteel scored with blaster burns half-hidden behind used droid-shaped targets without truly seeing it. There was a moment where he wondered if he was dreaming an entirely different sort of dream, if he would turn over and see the empty sterile room stripped of personality that he had—grudgingly, even in his strange chip-dazed thoughts—become used to. There was no way to find out without checking. So, taking a deep breath, he forced himself to swing his body around so he was sitting up and could look over the room.
It was what he’d both hoped and feared to see: Clone Force 99’s bunkroom was back to the semi-controlled chaos of the time before the Empire. Dim lights instead of always-on florescent, clutter from various projects and general messiness scattered over the floor and central table, formulas scribbled on some walls and soft blankets pinned up over others, boxes of personal effects acting as extra furniture more than being used for their intended purpose, and…
And three other forms peacefully sleeping in their bunks, Tech and Hunter with their backs trustingly turned to the room and Wrecker so sprawled-out and tangled in his sheets that if he could get up without tripping it would have been a miracle.
Crosshair had never been the sort of clone who was prone to dramatics. When the others of the Batch were overcome with anxiety or rage or grief and screamed or cried or got violent, he instead tended to shut down and retreat into himself. But now it was himself that was the problem in the first place, so instead, as hysterics began to rise and twist through him, he was at a loss.
If he couldn’t trust himself, then who could he trust?
He was on his feet and moving in an instant, muscle memory working more than conscious thought to prevent him from tripping, barely processing anything but the bunk that had always been opposite his and the slumbering form in it. Crosshair still remembered the conversation when they had first gotten their assigned bunkroom, far away from the Regs because they had started so many fights with them (and now this thought set off a whole new wave of anxiety; he and the others had always comforted themselves with the knowledge that the other clones were just jealous of their inherent individuality and perhaps their abilities, but in the Empire, that hadn’t mattered; clones were all viewed with the same disdainful air, interchangeable as the others with the chips in effect no matter their previous abilities; and suddenly he had all these feelings of sympathy and solidarity with the Regs that he had no idea what he was going to do with), the decision between Leader and Second-in-Command that they would take the spots closest to the door to be the first line of defense for their other brothers.
They could have never imagined that Crosshair would be one of those threats, in the end.
Hunter was a light sleeper by nature. As soon as the sniper dropped to his knees next to his brother’s bunk, the Sergeant turned over and trained bleary eyes on him. Crosshair wasn’t quite sure what his own face was doing, but whatever it was, his elder brother portrayed a dozen confused and concerned micro-expressions that proceeded one of full alarm.
“Crosshair?” asked Hunter, voice sleep-rough but alert as he sat up. His face was cast in even further shadow as the angle changed and the eerie way the darkness played across his half-skull tattoo was paradoxically comforting in its haunting familiarity. “What’s wrong? What’s going on?”
Crosshair wasn’t quite sure how to respond to that. Oh, well, I just spent the last three years under partial mind control while thinking for two and a half of them that I wasn’t because the Kaminoans lied to me about removing the behavioral inhibitor chip that is in every one of us; committing genocide of various species and innocent sentients on behalf of an Empire led by our Chancellor-turned-Supreme Commander/Emperor; not knowing if you or our brothers (and sister, by the way, we have one of those) were dead or alive or captured or free or what-have-you; and now I just woke up at some unknown time like none of it ever happened?
For all he was internally screeching in panic and confusion and a tangle of other dark emotions, Crosshair wasn’t quite that far gone. “I don’t know,” was all he said instead, his voice even hoarser and more drawn than his usual sibilant drawl. He ducked his head so he was looking at Hunter’s knees instead of his too-expressive face, feeling unable to say anything more without screaming aloud instead of just in his head.
As always, Hunter somehow instinctively knew just what to do when one of the brothers was distressed. After only a beat, the elder slid off his bed to join Crosshair on the floor, and despite the fact that the sniper normally didn’t welcome touch he all but collapsed into Hunter’s arms when they were wrapped cautiously around him. His own hands rose to grip tightly at his brother’s ratty sleep blacks and he bowed his head to rest against the other’s shoulder, suddenly aware that his body was shaking like he was about to rattle apart at the seams.
There were hundreds of things to think about. How he had ended up in the past; when, precisely, he was, and thus whether he had to stage a rescue mission for their eldest Batcher on top of the one for their only sister; what to do about the power-hungry madman currently in charge of the Republic; how they were going to handle the control chips in their brains; how he was going to handle the memories of all the atrocities his control chip had made him compliant in…and so much more that his head was positively spinning…
But now wasn’t the time for all those what-ifs and how-coulds and would-bes. Now was the time for Crosshair to shake in his brother’s arms and trust that Hunter would hold him together, as he always had.
The rest would be handled as it came.