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levi-venn · 10 months

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Tech and Crow

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 (Final) Available also on AO3)

On Eriadu, statistically speaking, humanoids died more often from unnatural causes than old age.

Seventy percent perished from animal attacks.

Ten from disease.

Eighteen percent from venomous plants.

One-point-ninety nine percent from the Empire.

The remaining zero-point-zero-one percent were given to those flinging themselves from a moving monorail car to save their siblings from death.

Eriadu is not an ideal place to die, Tech thought, midfall. But it’s preferable to dying on a fool’s mission for Sid.

For a few treasured seconds he seemed to be floating rather than falling, the cloud cover making it near impossible to orient himself in any direction, though his stomach was telling him his back would meet the ground first. It would be a painful, but hopefully quick death.

The trees, however, had other ideas, both on how Tech would land, and whether he would survive or not.

The first branch shattered against Tech’s pauldron sending him spinning. Another branch broke against his shin guard. There was a nest of twigs, cotton, and unfertilized eggs that slammed into his helmet essentially blinding him.

As he continued in this downward spiral he attempted to quantify how many branches were needed to slow his fall and increase his survival rate. The fact he was hitting branches once every half second told him the odds were in his favor. Evidently, the Eriadian redwood forest was an ideal place to free fall from a considerable height.

Good to know.

While he couldn't control the rate in which he was falling, nor the amount of branches he was shattering, he did manage to land on his back. And in doing so, he jettisoned the remaining breath from his lungs.

He lay there, very still, unfortunately awake, and gasping for air that wouldn't come. Darkness crept around the edge of his vision. He struggled to stay awake. Struggled to breathe. Panic was rising within him.

There is no need to panic, he tried to remind himself. This is just a reaction to present trauma. There is no immediate danger. Breathe...breathe...

Even as the breath returned to him, a new problem arose. He couldn't slow his breathing down, nor calm his heart rate, and the anxiety frayed his nerves as if he were still falling.

He tried a different tactic: He recalculated the unnatural death toll on Eriadu:

Seventy percent perished from animal attack.

Ten from disease.

Eighteen percent from venomous plants.

And now two percent from the Empire.

As a youngling, Tech's exceptional mind had mastered every intellectual acuity test presented to him. However, no amount of brilliance would help him when it came to combat training. All altered clones had a defect in one form or another. His came in the shape of bowed and twisted legs, not suitable for a soldier.

It was logical that the Kaminoans broke his legs to reset them. Logical and agonizing. Tech was bed-ridden for weeks.

They gave him a datapad filled with as much reading material as he could absorb, but even then there was no distracting him from the pain nor the panicked episodes that came with it.

He didn’t want visitors. Didn’t want to appear weak to his brothers. Soldiers weren’t bed-ridden. Soldiers didn’t cry from fear of an uncertain future.

Crosshair ignored Tech’s request for isolation. He appeared every day, three times a day, always for meals. He claimed he was just there to steal Tech’s bread roll, but he only ever took a bite and stayed long after Tech ate the rest of the meal.

Crosshair wasn’t much of a conversationalist, but he would sit on the edge of Tech’s bed, cleaning his beloved DC-15A cadet blaster rifle, and casually ask Tech questions.

“Why do Kaminoans have such long necks?”

“Who would win in a fight? A Jedi with a vibroblade or a Mandalorian with a lightsaber?”

“How many B1s would it take to equal the power of Jango Fett?”

Tech stared up at the Eriadian sky, mostly obscured by broken branches and his cracked and smudged lens.

He’d give anything for one of Crosshair’s thinly veiled questions to distract him from the pain and panic.

And truly...he’d give anything to see Crosshair again, regardless.

***

It took fourteen days and seventeen hours to find Mount Tantiss on the planet, Weyland. It would have taken half that time if Tech had his goggles, a working datapad, and (admittedly) his siblings. Fourteen days was plenty of time to heal his body from its fall, but even at peak condition the climb up the mountain was arduous. Tedious even. Slower as he had to make camp and find food and disarm Imperial sensors the whole way up.

Seventy-eight hours later, he found himself at the base of the Imperial science facility.

He also found himself exhausted.

“Come on, Tech! You can do it!” Hunter had cheered all those years ago as young Tech clung to the middle rung of the monkey-lizard bars high over the training grounds. The platform might as well be located on another planet.

Tech’s legs had been reset the previous year. He was fully healed. There was no excuse for this fragility. Yet his muscles shook with effort, sweat poured down his face, stinging his eyes.

“I’m gonna get him,” Wrecker said.

“No!” Hunter pulled his brother back. “He can do it!”

“No, he can’t! Look at him!” Wrecker whined, face full of worry.

“C’mon, Tech! A little further!” Hunter looked worried too, even as he cheered his brother on.

Even as Tech’s grip began to slip.

To this day, Tech didn't remember Crosshair's reaction to his failure that day. What was the point of recalling it, anyway?

Utterly meaningless, he always told himself when he'd try to recall. And he would attempt this often.

***

A carrion crow visited Tech the morning after he collapsed from fatigue a kilometer from the science facility.

The corvid landed on his back, then proceeded to hop in little circle as if Tech was his own personal, albeit ineffective, trampoline.

Tech hadn’t noticed he had become an amusement ride for the crow until it cawed rather rudely and directly into his ear.

Jolting awake at the caustic alarm, Tech jumped to his feet, pulling his blaster and pointing it at...a few feathers that had been jostled from the startled bird. The crow landed on a nearly smooth boulder nearby, croaking as if flabbergasted by the audacity of Tech’s reaction, then flew off in a cackling rage.

The day was spent doing recon of the area. The sheer density of this side of the jungle kept troopers away, and by nightfall Tech had made a decent, albeit temporary, base.

That evening Tech dreamed.

“You remember ‘C’, don’t you?” Tech asked the small boy sitting beside him. It was a very real memory, but his subconscious twisted timelines, making him a fully grown adult sitting next to a small, gray-haired boy hunched over the datapad, stylus awkward in his little fingers.

“I remember,” Crosshair said, stubbornly, stylus making a vertical line.

“C is for curved,” Tech recited the pneumonic, smiling to himself as Crosshair quickly readjusted his stylus, making a shaky but clear C.

“Now an ‘R’.”

Crosshair hissed in frustration, stylus lifting and lowering onto the screen making little angry dots on the workbook page. “I don’t want to.”

“Shall we do it together?” Tech asked.

“No,” Crosshair insisted, even as he sat closer to Tech and leaned against him. Tech put his hand over his brother's to guide him. “Up, and around, and down to the ground.” Tech said.

“I can do ‘O’ by myself,” Crosshair said, pushing Tech’s hand off of his own, though he still leaned against Tech as he drew a mathematically perfect circle.

The dream had taken liberties, but the scene was more or less how Tech remembered Crosshair writing his name for the first time. The dream neglected to recall Crosshair asking Tech not to tell their brothers that he struggled to write his own name.

But Tech was allowed to know. Only Tech. And Tech kept his word to this day.

“Let’s see how you did,” Tech said, in this more or less accurate dream.

He picked up the datapad and read in perfectly block letters.

[H E L P M E]

Tech startled awake.

He told himself it was just a dream. Memories and information and out of context stimuli colliding together into something nonsensical.

Utterly meaningless, he told himself, even as he wiped the tears from his cheeks.

It was still night. The moonlight punched its way through the canopy of trees, offering illumination that only helped to remind Tech just how alone he was on this mountain.

Actually, Tech corrected, the moon doesn’t illuminate anything. The light I’m seeing is a reflection of the sun.

This factoid did little to alleviate the situation.

But he felt better acknowledging it.

***

The crow returned the next morning holding something in its beak: a small pinecone, young and green. The pinecone had no nutritional value to the corvid, nor was it proper nesting material.

Crows have been known to offer gifts as a sign of gratitude for an agreeable exchange or action.

The gift was obviously not for Tech considering he had pulled a blaster on the corvid upon their first meeting.

Who are you giving your gifts to? Tech wondered. A bored trooper? A sensitive officer? A desperate prisoner?

“A desperate prisoner wouldn’t sacrifice food for trinkets,” he concluded to the crow.

The crow hopped around the boulder once, twice, then flew directly at Tech, who ducked just as the crow smacked a wing against his head mid-flight. Even with the pinecone in his beak, Tech swore he could hear a throaty cackle.

Tech continued his recon of the science facility as best he could without being discovered. Getting close to the building wasn’t an issue, it was getting near anything resembling an entrance that was the issue. He had one blaster against an unknown amount of guards, which meant all he could do was recon. And then he would fill his siblings in when they arrived.

It never occurred to him his brothers and sister wouldn’t eventually come to the same conclusion as he. They would find this planet. They would find Tech and receive his very useful intel, and then they would save Crosshair. The squad would finally be reunited.

It would all work out. It had to.

He couldn’t afford to think of the alternative. Worrying about it was useless.

Utterly meaningless…

***

The next morning, he awoke before dawn. No crow was waiting for him.

Trying a different tactic, he broke off a bit of plastoid from his cracked pauldron and set it on the crow’s boulder.

He waited.

Just after dawn, the crow landed on the boulder, cawing immediately at Tech, feathers literally and proverbially ruffled at an unauthorized object occupying his boulder.

But then the corvid calmed, eyeing the object properly, pecking at it as if appraising its value.

“I assure you, it is of a high-quality material,” Tech told the crow. “The fact it is broken means it worked as intended. It did not survive the fall so that I could.”

The crow listened, or at least stared at Tech with intensely black eyes, and then decided - perhaps entirely on his own - to take the plastoid and fly off.

This time Tech ran after crow.

As he hypothesized, the crow flew directly towards the science facility.

Tech kept his goggleless eyes to the sky as he ran, thanking his imperfect genetics that he was far-sighted, allowing him to track the crow in his pursuit. So long as the crow didn't require him to read a datapad, he only needed to worry about the thick underbrush tearing his compromised under-armor, thorny vines scratching his cheeks, and the uneven ground threatening to trip and trap him.

“Come on, Tech! You can do it!” Hunter’s words echoed in his mind. He chose not to think of Wrecker’s face full of doubt. The crack in Hunter’s voice betraying his words.

Actually, Tech realized. I can do it.

A crow is capable of flying over ninety kilometers an hour. Tech, even at his healthiest, could reach thirty kilometers an hour.

The crow wants me to follow him, but to where?

As if to answer, the crow suddenly dove towards a hole in the fortress and Tech skidded to a stop just below it.

He gazed quietly at the barred window approximately seven meters above him, the crow’s tail feathers twitching and wiggling as it seemed to be eating something on the sill.

And then he saw it. Briefly. A flash of familiar fingers. Long and callused and always itching to pull a trigger.

Fingers that used to wrap around Tech’s hand when the lightning was too bright outside. Fingers that would hold soggy bread in the rain, hoping to conjure a bird that would never come. Fingers that could draw shaky C's and perfect circles.

I found you, Tech thought, his heartbeat growing irregular from this sudden turn of events. Now to get your attention.

***

“Where the hell are your goggles?”

It wasn’t not the first question Tech expected, but a fair one nonetheless.

Tech touched his temple reflexively, trying to adjust goggles that clearly weren’t there. “A long story that I can narrate at a later time. Are you hurt?”

Crosshair pressed his forehead against the bars. “What do you think?”

It wasn’t the answer Tech had hoped to hear.

“How did you know the crow was coming to my cell?” Crosshair asked.

“You used to birdwatch when we were children. That combined with the lack of incentive for anyone on this base to feed a carrion bird. It was obvious. So I gave the corvid a message to give to you.”

“His name is Egg.”

“Egg?” Tech frowned up at Crosshair. “Why is his name Egg?”

“He likes Eggs.”

“So, by that logic, if he enjoyed Colo Claw Fish-”

“Does it look like they feed me sushi here?”

Tech raised a finger…then lowered it. “Point taken.”

“How are you going to get me out of here?” Crosshair asked. His head disappeared from view a few times and Tech assumed it was to ensure they were speaking privately.

“We’re going to wait for our siblings to retrieve us,” Tech answered.

“Where are they?”

“I don’t know.”

“When are they coming?”

“I’m uncertain.”

“Then how do you know they are coming?” Crosshair asked and the crow - Egg - seemed to echo with an indignant craah.

“Because they were searching for you when we were separated, and I managed to find you on my own. Given that they are lacking my brilliant mind, it may take some time, but I am sure they will figure it out, find the path to Mount Tantiss and we will be reunited...eventually.”

“Eventually…fantastic,” Crosshair hissed.

It could have been Tech’s impaired vision, but it looked like both Crosshair and the crow rolled their eyes at the same time.

Tech had missed his brother’s sarcastic wit terribly.

Even if it was directed at him.

Part 3: Cross and Tech and Egg

#Bad Batch #Crosshair #Bad Batch Crosshair #Star Wars #After Season 2 Finale #Wrote this to cope #Crosshair is fine and we're fine and everything is fine #Tech is also fine and we're all fine here now thank you how are you?#bad batch tech #clone trooper tech #Egg the Crow #please dont egg any crows #Egg is his name #He likes eggs #This is longer than I anticipated #Part three is an excuse for Crosshair and Tech to interact more #get ready for brothers bonding is all I'm saying

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thecapitolprincess · 5 months

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Closed Starter | @fine-prints | The Capitol | Day 1

It took an awful lot to unsettle Lyah, but the eerie chill that had fallen over them all was like a thick blanket. The once lively city had been choked by grief and unease, and the victor was unfortunately not immune to it. Despite her efforts to keep her head high and move forward, the suffocating feeling trailed her, clawing at her ankles in an attempt to hold her back. With the overwhelming feeling of fear and vulnerability nearly too much to handle, the deserted sidewalks came as no surprise. The candy-colored streets looked unseasonably cold, the usual neon open signs that hung in store windows switched off and their doors locked. It would appear they were all seeking shelter then, hiding away from whatever looming threat had been responsible for such destruction. Well, everyone but Lyah, apparently.

She ascended the stairs leading to the President’s Mansion quickly, eager to get back inside. There would be another press conference soon, and they were all hoping for some more answers to what felt like impossible questions. Capitol media had been quick to blame the rebels, a thought that now caused her mouth to go dry. Hadn’t the rebellion been quelled years ago? School curriculum varied by district, but the history of Panem had been covered extensively particularly the Dark Days. They all knew the story of how the Capitol had successfully extinguished the district’s mutiny. How was it possible they were back?

Lyah had been too caught up in her own worry to notice the man until she was nearly tripping over her own feet to keep from running straight into him, heels desperately searching for traction against the fine marble floors in the foyer. “Corduroy,” the greeting came out as a pathetic little squeak, but she was quick to recover. A gentle hand found its way to his forearm in an attempt to steady herself, nails painted the softest of pinks. “How embarrassing, I’m so sorry.” She tries to laugh it off. “Are you alright? Are you here for the conference?”

#this is longer than i anticipated #thread ; corduroy #corduroy 01 #fine-prints #[threads]#eventidepast

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emily-lotus · 1 year

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@demonsofdevildom response to lucifer's grave warning

Strung up from the ceiling huh? That would knock her out cold at least considering she was human. How long has she been in the Devildom? Not more than a few months. And Lucifer grated her nerves every chance he got it felt like. Make a pact with all the brothers was going to be impossible, especially since Lucifer was one of them. No she refused to even consider it now.

"I am going to bed. I finished my homework so I thought a walk around the halls would be good to tire me out." Half lie, half truth. Maybe since there was truth to it, the homework part, he'd just wave her off. "Besides, I noticed your light was on and I heard from Mammon how late you stay up. You should sleep." She folded her arms over her chest as she looked at him.

Here she was, a mere human trying to command a demon without a pact to go to sleep. Does she have a death wish? Yes. But anything is better than waking up in a cold sweat from nightmares again.

#this is longer than i anticipated #whoops #demonsofdevildom

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kamapon · 8 months

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Mersault break, behind the scenes 🤭

#bungou stray dogs #bsd #soukoku #bsd season five #nakahara chuuya #dazai osamu #mersault #comic #this actually took me longer than I anticipated #but it's ok

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eighttalestale · 4 months

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A totally not belated birthday gift for my amazing friend @achirding ❤️⚔️🖤

#This took me much longer than I anticipated #sonic and the black knight #satbk #knuckles the echidna #shadow the hedgehog #lancewain #knuxadow #shadknux #gawain x lancelot #lancelot x gawain #sonic #sth #Eighttalesart

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little-red-fool · 6 months

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Can you draw some doodles of true form haarlep? Maybe first meeting Raphael or smth if u want. XD

The real reason Raphael asks Haarlep to take his form.

#IM SORRY THIS TOOK ME A LOT LONGER THAN I ANTICIPATED AHFJSJHFJDD #it was meant to be a quick sketch but i got carried away lmao #for reference i headcanon Raphael’s cambion form as 6’10” and Haarlep’s true form as 7’8”#asks #my art #bg3 #bg3 raphael #haarlep

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personalshredder · 19 days

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the most canon accurate I've ever drawn them

#fanart #undertale yellow #uty #undertale #flowey undertale #clover uty #ceroba uty #chujin uty #feisty four #feisty five #ed uty #moray uty #ace uty #mooch uty #dalv uty #axis uty #starlo uty #martlet uty #this took so much longer than i anticipated

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wyllaztopia · 2 months

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youtube

done and dusted

#this took me longer than i anticipated #i planned to finish it 3 hours ago #but technical difficulties ragh #inktale #ink sans #animation #amv #writing on the wall #undertale au #utmv #my artwork #Youtube

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inaconstantstateofchange · 1 month

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binggeyuan modern!AU based on this prompt where shen yuan and luo binghe live in the same apartment building, but have never met each other. SY is more-or-less his regular shut-in self, and keeps very odd hours, which means that he happens to be wide awake the first time LBH gets back to the apartment building at 3 a.m. after some manner of illicit activity and realizes he doesn't have his fucking entrance key. LBH hits one apartment number after another into the intercom, fully prepared to dazzle his way into getting one of them to open the door for him, but the intercom is old, and people come and go from this building often enough that most people don't bother getting it set up, and he's having no luck.

finally, just as he's about to give up and bully his way onto mobei-jun or sha hualing's couch for the night, someone picks up. he doesn't even remember which specific apartment number it was, he was just entering them mechanically. immediately, LBH pulls on his smoothest affect (sure the intercom has no video, only shitty, garbled audio, but that's no reason to let the universe catch you slipping) and prepares to give the sob story performance of his life. before he can even get a single word out, however, there's a crackly, almost indiscernible "Open!" and he hears the click of the entrance door unlocking before the intercom call is ended. he stares at the intercom for a minute, somewhat wrong-footed, but then shakes himself out of it in time to catch the door before it locks again.

SY, for his part, was broken out of a binge-reading spiral by the intercom call, and fully did not realize how late it had gotten. he assumed he had ordered something that was arriving earlier than expected, and kept an ear out for a knock on his front door from the delivery person for a few minutes, but then got sucked back into the target of his current literary criticism.

the next time LBH gets locked out, he starts in the general number range he remembers striking on the last time, and pays closer attention to the numbers this time. he's curious if his little philanthropist will be so accommodating again. SY orders a lot of packages, okay! the one time he didn't pick up the intercom he had to wait an extra three days for his ultra-rare, limited edition merch, which he will not be going through again. this time, though, when the intercom picks up, LBH is prepared. he starts talking immediately, playing up his stress at being locked out, how sorry he is to be a bother, and how much he really, really appreciates it. SY fully blue screens at this unanticipated display of emotions, blurts something out about how it's not problem and of course he's happy to help out a neighbor in need, then hangs up (after unlocking the entrance, of course). it is perhaps fortunate that the intercom has no video, and thus he can not see the look on LBH's face.

LBH gets more and more consistent pushy with his calls, curious how far this little philanthropist will go for him. he knows his apartment number, of course, he could just knock and introduce himself, but he'd rather let him come to him. LBH starts interjecting little questions here and there, trying to glean any information about his mysterious benefactor. SY, meanwhile, is lighting a daily candle for this poor little bun somewhere in his building, who has truly the worst luck in the entire world! who ever heard of a gang of pickpockets stealing someone's keys not once, but twice in the same week!

LBH gets comfortable with the state of things — as ever, too comfortable. nothing good can last forever. one night, after a long and utterly shitty day, for the first time in ages, he loses his key for real. he's tried to avoid reaching out to SY at any time when he's not 100% in control of himself, but there's nothing for it. he punches in the numbers for the unit he knows by heart at this point, and when it picks up, he sighs tiredly, and waits for SY to speak first. after a moment of silence, the call drops, and the door remains locked. LBH is almost shaken entirely out of his malaise. not even a word? he puts SY's apartment number in again, but this time it doesn't even pick up. he stares at the intercom in unpleasant shock for a few minutes, then punches the wall next to it and leaves. he spends the night on mobei-jun's uncomfortably small couch, staring unseeing at the ceiling above him. at least the other man doesn't ask him any questions.

their easy rapport broken, SY starts to worry when he hasn't heard from his unfortunate little neighbor — maybe he's moved out? hopefully to a place with a more accommodating security system... after a full week, his worry ramps up even higher. he wants to believe his neighbor just found a system to keep track of his keys that works for him, but statistically, it seems unlikely. feeling like the most awkward, overstepping idiot on the planet, he scribbles off a few short notes, and sticks one by the the intercom, one by the mailboxes, and one in the laundry room. his neighbor will have to go at least one of those places, certainly?

to my keyless neighbor - hope you're well! i was worried- if you ever need me, you know where to reach me. you weren't a bother- - XX4

the next time LBH stops by the apartment (he's been avoiding it by couch-hopping as much as possible, to the great aggravation of his friends) he carefully avoids looking at the intercom. as such, it's actually sha hualing who spots the note first. (she bullied her way into an invite to make LBH actually go home.) she crows out a harsh laugh, snatching the note off the wall and holding it up dramatically, cackling about "rom-com shit". LBH isn't really paying attention, until he catches a glimpse of the apartment number at the bottom. eyes flashing, he snatches the note out of her hand, and reads it over once, and then again. after a moment, he turns to sha hualing, and tells her to go home, that he's got plans, actually. she gapes at him for a moment, then scoffs and turns on her heel, flipping him off as she goes. whatever! she didn't want to babysit his mopey ass any longer anyway!

LBH spends a few frozen moments running over his options, torn between calling right now just to see if his philanthropist will pick up this time, and giving himself a chance to freshen up, and maybe make a good enough showing for himself that whatever it was that caused him to be ignored before will never happen again. ultimately, he decides on the latter, but rushes through all his preparations as much as he can while maintaining sufficient attention to detail. he wishes he had the materials to make something truly spectacular, but his apartment is showing his absence over the past week. he settles on a meal that just barely feels sufficient, and finds himself more anxious than he can remember being in years at this point, staring at his philanthropist's apartment door, two levels below his.

he raises his fist to knock, tentatively at first, too quiet to hear, and then once more, louder. a muffled voice comes through the door, and a few moments later, it cracks open to reveal a man just a bit shorter than him, with a rumpled shirt that looks like it has just been haphazardly thrown on and hair that might not have been brushed in days. he's... really cute.

LBH and SY just kind of stare at each other, frozen, for a bit, until LBH proffers the food he's brought, and SY's archaic etiquette subroutines kick in, and he invites LBH in before he can even think about. his immediate wince makes it clear he had not meant to do that, but LBH is not above making a situation work to his advantage, and graciously accepts, stepping into the somewhat cluttered apartment before SY can recover from his slip-up. they still have not exchanged names.

ultimately, they get themselves figured out. LBH introduces himself, and SY follows suit. there's a beat of silence as they both realize that this does not actually clear up anything about how they know each other. LBH finds the words to explain his own part in this are slow to come, so he finally just hands the note, neatly folded, to SY. SY's face colors, but he overcomes it to fussily poke at LBH about how worried he was, when the other just disappeared! LBH stops for a second, hearing that, then slowly responds that it was SY who cut him off first. SY gapes at him, then demands to know when he did a thing like that! he set his intercom call sound to caramelldansen and max volume so he'd be sure not to miss it!

LBH gives him the date, and SY flushes again, then looks away, muttering something unflattering about a "qingge". LBH feels a wash of jealousy, that he's misread the situation and SY is already spoken for, but SY goes on to explain that he had been stuck overnight at the hospital - for nothing major! pretty routine actually! - and the friend that was staying with him must have picked up, then hung up when he couldn't figure out who was calling.

LBH sits back, somewhat at a loss. so it... wasn't because SY was tired of him? SY sputters, waving his hands about. absolutely not! he might be slightly forgetful, but binghe is clearly a wonderful young man and it's not like SY has much else going on in his life!

LBH determines to himself then and there that the only way to ensure such a thing does not happen again is to make sure that he is the one staying with SY the next time he's in the hospital.

#gods this got SO MUCH LONGER THAN I ANTICIPATED #anyway i like this prompt a lot it has a lot of flexibility #and yes lbh starts very bingge but then gets passively bingmei-ified #svsss #bingyuan #binggeyuan #shen yuan #luo binghe #luo bingge #svsss au #svsss fic #my writing #writing prompt

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levi-venn · 10 months

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Cross and Tech and Egg

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 (Final) Available also on AO3

All Crosshair could do was roll his eyes and offer a snippy reply. Anything more real than that and he feared he’d crumble under the weight of false relief.

This wasn’t a rescue. He was still a prisoner, a lab rat, property of the Empire. Tech being here didn’t change that.

But something had changed. Egg was the first tilt in Crosshair’s resolve, pressing upon him with that shrill, incessant cawing that he wasn’t alone.

And now Tech was here, in the flesh, giving him that mildly smug smile and clear-eyed honesty that Crosshair desperately needed…

…and painfully missed.

He pressed his forehead against the bars, watching Tech climb the vines rooted in the wall. “You’re going to get caught,” Crosshair growled. His chest tightened as if to keep the following words in, but his stubbornness blurted. “Get out of here.”

“I have no intention of getting caught,” Tech said, hoisting himself onto the ledge in front of the window. He sat, cross-legged, eye-level to Crosshair. “And unless you decide to turn me in, I believe I am safe. I will leave before they give you your next meal.”

“Or when they take me away for the next round of experiments.”

“When will that be?”

“Day after tomorrow. It’s every three days.”

Tech lowered his gaze, almost as if there was a datapad in his hands. Reflexively, Crosshair looked too, but found his brother’s hands clenched into fists briefly, then relaxed. “I’m sorry, Crosshair.”

Crosshair frowned. “For what, exactly?”

“We…I knew your inhibitor chip kept you tethered to the Empire, yet after it’s removal, you still stayed with them. I can only conclude that you saw something in the Empire that we, your squad…your brothers…lacked. If I had any part in your decision…” Tech’s voice broke and he quickly cleared his throat and soldiered on. “…then I am sorry.”

Crosshair wanted to sink onto his bed, curl up, and hide from the fact the rift between him and his brothers was his own making. But leaving this window sill meant not being able to see Tech. And he needed this, more than he needed to hide from the pain in his brother’s face.

“It wasn’t you, Tech. It was never you.”

If Hunter was here, he would have demanded an answer. “Then why? Why would you choose the Empire over your own family?” Hunter had a way of making Crosshair feel small despite the fact he had towered over him for most of their lives.

But Tech wasn’t like that. “Whatever your reasons, it doesn’t matter. You may join us if you wish, and only if you wish.”

“You aren’t going to try to convince me to come back?” Crosshair asked, skeptical.

“You made your decision to leave us. If not for the Empire, perhaps there would have been another reason. I don’t want you to join us if it will make you unhappy..”

Crosshair looked away, but in doing so he faced Egg’s complete lack of personal space. The crow had pressed his head between the bars and now clicked his beak at Crosshair which he swore sounded more like a “tsk tsk tsk”.

“Egg agrees with me,” Tech said, with a small trace of a smile.

“Kraytspit,” Crosshair hissed. “You don’t know Egg like I do.”

“Regardless of what you choose, Crosshair,” Tech said, reaching up to adjust his non-existent goggles. “It’s good to see you. Not joining us doesn’t mean it has to be goodbye forever.”

Crosshair sighed. “You’re talking like I actually have a life outside of this cell.”

“Our siblings are coming.”

“They aren’t,” Crosshair snarled.

“As much as I’d love to get into a thrilling debate of ‘yes, they are’ versus ‘no, they aren’t’, it would be useless. In truth, both of us are operating on assumptions and only time will tell.”

“So, what are you going to do in the meantime?” Crosshair asked, and his stomach dropped. “You should leave.”

“No. I am not leaving you. Not again.” He raised his finger and added. “Also I crashed the ship I stole from Eriadu. I am essentially blind when attempting to ship readouts without my goggles. A trip off this planet would be disastrous.”

“So you aren’t leaving.”

“Absolutely not,” Tech said. “I will stay with you until our siblings arrive.”

“What, every day?”

“Every day.”

“You don’t have to.”

“You’re right,” Tech said, narrowing his eyes. “I want to. I’m confused why you won’t accept this.”

“Because it’s me,” Crosshair argued. “I tried to kill you all, more than once. I turned away from you on Kamino. I’m an Imperial Soldier.”

“Correction: You were an Imperial Soldier. Now, you’re an Imperial Prisoner. Whatever happened prior to this moment, as far as I’m concerned, doesn’t erase the countless memories I have with you as a brother and as a friend.”

Crosshair gritted his teeth, pressing his forehead hard against the bars. “Tech-”

His words were interrupted by a bright yellow biscuit waved in his face.

Egg perked up, cawing in sudden keen interest.

“What?” Crosshair perked up as well. “Is that a travel biscuit?”

“From the shuttle. I have a case of them.”

Crosshair took the biscuit and nibbled on it, breaking off a piece for Egg. Egg set the biscuit on the sill, broke it into four pieces, and ate each piece individually. It looked like he was savoring it as Crosshair was.

“Fuck the Empire, but I love these biscuits,” Crosshair sighed.

“I’ll bring some every day.”

“You don’t ha-”

Egg let out a shrill craah, drowning out the rest of Crosshair’s words.

Tech’s smug smile spread across his face. “I’ve decided I like Egg very much.”

Egg accepted the second helping of travel biscuit from Tech and the three of them ate together in comfortable silence.

***

Tech kept his word and returned the next day just after breakfast, using Egg as a signifier that it was safe to approach.

“I brought you something else today,” Tech said, procuring the gift from one of his many pockets.

Crosshair snatched the toothpick from Tech's hand and popped it into his mouth. He took in a deep breath, then relaxed. "Where did you find toothpicks out here?"

"I didn't. I always carry extras with me in case you run low."

"I didn't know that."

"That's because you never seem to run out."

"There's a first time for everything," Crosshair said. "Thanks…"

Tech tilted his head. "Did you just thank me? I look forward to telling Hunter you’re capable of gratitude."

"He won't believe you.”

“Probably not, no.”

“How…” The question lodged in Crosshair’s throat.

“How what?” Tech asked.

He didn’t have a right to ask. It was useless to know.

“How…is he?”

“The last time I saw him was moments before I flew out of a monorail car. So, I assume he’s grieving over my apparent death.”

Crosshair grimaced. “They don’t know you’re alive?”

“I have no way of telling them.”

“I just meant…how is Hunter in general?”

Tech thought for a moment. “He is preoccupied. He has appointed himself as Omega’s guardian despite the fact Wrecker and I both look after her with equal care. He puts her well-being on his shoulders and his alone. If she is in even a modicum of danger, he throws himself at the problem rather than approach it with preferable logic. His worry is unwarranted. She is self-sufficient, resourceful, and has become an equal part of our squad. His worry over her distracts him and it’s concerning.”

“He used to do that with Wrecker,” Crosshair pointed out. “Like the time Wrecker had that ear infection and couldn’t walk without stumbling. Hunter hovered around him like a buzz droid to keep him from tripping over himself.”

“And when Wrecker slipped off of the AT-TE cannon,” Tech added. “Hunter broke his arm attempting to break his fall.”

“I forgot about that,” Crosshair snorted. “Even back then, Wrecker was larger than all of us. He wouldn’t have hurt himself all that bad, but there was Hunter, lunging towards him like he was a hutt ball.”

“And…” Tech hesitated for a moment as if caught in the memory himself. “When the accident happened…”

Accidents happened a lot with the rowdy experimental clone cadets, but “The Accident” was a single event that shook them all to the core. It was the first time Crosshair had felt an acute fear that he may lose one of his brothers.

It was their first day of grenade building, but Wrecker had been sneaking parts out of the munitions locker for weeks building his own explosives. He got cocky and careless and paid the price losing an eye and hearing in his left ear.

Crosshair flicked the toothpick against his tongue in irritation. “That wasn’t Hunter’s fault,” he growled. “Wrecker had been sneaking parts out of the munitions locker for weeks to build his own grenades. We all turned a blind eye to it. We were kids and he said he knew what he was doing. We believed him.”

“Hunter still says he should have reported Wrecker the moment he found the grenades," Tech said. "We hadn’t been formally trained. It was against the rules.”

“Hunter likes to follow the rules when it suits him,” Crosshair hissed. "He can’t just pick and choose and then decide he’ll be a martyr when an accident happens.”

“It’s who Hunter is,” Tech said. “He looks out for all of us, even to his own detriment.”

Crosshair’s nerves crackled with anger. “Wrecker was unconscious for days and Hunter was sobbing, and he wouldn’t let us help him. He wouldn’t let me help. But that’s his problem, he-”

Crosshair flinched. His words echoing back to that night on Kamino…it felt like a lifetime ago.

“That’s your problem, Hunter. You take things too personally.”

“Don’t fool yourself,” Hunter had said. “All you’ll ever be to them is a number.”

Crosshair leaned his head against the bars of his prison cell. “Forget it.”

“He didn’t want to leave you on Kamino," Tech said, his voice going quiet. "He truly believed you would change your mind and come with us. When you didn’t…” Tech looked pointedly at Crosshair. “He did take it personally.”

“Yeah? Well, you leaving me behind was personal,” Crosshair snapped.

Tech sat up straighter and his hand reached for his goggles again before remembering their absence. “Crosshair…”

“Don’t.”

“If we-“

“I said don’t, Tech.”

Tech pursed his lips, then sighed. “To answer your question then, Hunter is not doing well, and until he finds a way to exist without burdening himself with the galaxy’s problems, the sooner he will live a happier life.”

“Good to know,” Crosshair said.

“You don’t want to know how Wrecker and Omega are doing?”

“Wrecker is fine. He is always fine. After he lost his eye he was ridiculously excited at having a ‘cool scar like Commander Wolffe’. And Omega…” Crosshair frowned. “I’m sure she’s fine. A big ball of kriffin’ sunshine and optimism, how can she not be?”

“So, you don’t want to know then?”

Crosshair was quiet for a long moment. Tech remained silent as well.

“How is she?” He asked, finally.

Tech smiled. “She’s growing up quickly even without age acceleration. I’m teaching her how to fly the Marauder and she is on her way to becoming an exceptional pilot.”

Crosshair sneered. “And how many times did you mention Skywalker?”

Tech bristled, as Crosshair hoped he would. “Only when it was necessary.” His finger went up as if to emphasize his next point. “I was his best student after all.”

“You had one flight simulation with him.”

“It was all I needed,” Tech retorted. "He said to me and I quote: ‘Great job, Tech! You know your stuff!’” Tech mimicking an Outer Rim accent was the funniest thing Crosshair had ever heard, and the first time he heard it, he thought he would hiss himself to death with laughter.

Today, he just wore a serpentine smile. “And you took that as a graduation, huh?”

“Just as you did that one instance Dengar was our guest instructor for sniper training.”

Crosshair took his toothpick out to point it at Tech. “He said I was a natural. I am a natural.”

Tech’s smile was less smug than Crosshair expected. “That you are.”

Egg suddenly ruffled his feathers, looking past Crosshair as they all heard the telltale footsteps of a service droid coming to deliver the prisoner's evening meal.

Tech took the cue and started to leave.

“Tech,” Crosshair called out, his stomach twisting in a knot. “Don’t come back tomorrow.”

Tech looked back, quizzically. “Why not?”

“Just don’t.” Crosshair snapped and disappeared out of view.

Outside, Crosshair could hear Egg fly away, but not Tech making his decent down the wall. Crosshair closed his eyes and drew his knees to his chest. He could still see the puzzled look on Tech's face. It's as close to "hurt" as he's seen him.

Just before the droid arrived, bringing with him some sort of meat stew, he heard Tech slowly climb down the wall.

It was for the better.

Tomorrow Crosshair would be in the labs all day.

Tomorrow would be a nightmare as it always was every third day.

I don’t need Tech seeing me like that. Crosshair thought, drawing his knees up to his chest. I don’t need him...

…or anyone.

#Bad Batch #Crosshair #Bad Batch Crosshair #Star Wars #After Season 2 Finale #bad batch tech #clone trooper tech #Egg the Crow #please dont egg any crows #Egg is his name #He likes eggs #This is longer than I anticipated #bb tech #bb crosshair #bb egg?#bb egg #this story has a happy ending I promise #next chapter will be the last chapter

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spiral-cut · 6 months

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DecembHyur 2023 Day XIII: Trust

I typically like to include other people's characters in these annual hyur prompts for an entry or two. It's become a tradition after doing it for three years so thank you for lending me your beautiful blorbos!

#|| Screenshots #decembhyur2023 #get in loser we're farming Seat of Sacrifice #man this took longer than I anticipated #Gyoku is Theralt's summon #I'm this close to giving him a fellow thieving accomplice #ffxiv #ff14 #final fantasy xiv #final fantasy 14 #xiv oc #ffxiv gpose #hyur midlander #trust

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deancaskiss · 6 days

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cas had texted and said he’d be back at the bunker that night, and dean had stayed up until almost 3am waiting for the angel. when cas hadn’t walked through the bunker door, dean had to drag himself to bed before he passed out on the war table.

he didn’t sleep for long though, waking up just after 6am to check his phone. no messages from cas. was it too soon to start worrying?

making his way to the kitchen for a very strong cup of black coffee, dean shuffled past the bag in hallway while he rubbed blearily at his eyes. it took several long seconds before dean realized he’d almost tripped over cas’ overnight bag and he quickly backtracked and made a beeline for cas’ room.

the room was empty, no sign of cas’ current trenchcoat or of the angel anywhere.

frowning, dean wandered the hallways, searching for any signs of cas. but there was nothing. the bunker was quiet. empty. not even sam was awake yet.

convincing himself that the overnight bag had always been there and he’d just forgotten because he was tired, dean trudged back towards the kitchen by cutting through the library.

and he froze, mid-step.

slumped, lying curled up between two of the chairs at the table, was a sleeping angel using his trenchcoat as a pillow against the hard wooden seats.

a sleeping angel who was bundled up under dean’s old hoodie; the clothing item which usually held a permanent place in the backseat of the impala. the same hoodie that had gone missing a week ago.

dean’s heart stuttered in his chest.

his feet carried him gently across the library and he found himself reaching out and brushing a lock of hair off of cas’ forehead. the hood of the jacket was tucked up under cas’ chin, almost as if the angel had been burying his face in the cotton material, but the rest of it was slipping off and threatening to fall onto the floor.

breath catching in his throat, dean softly readjusted the hoodie and wrapped it around cas’ shoulders. cas let out a content sigh in his sleep, and dean suddenly felt weak in the knees.

cas had taken dean’s jacket with him when he’d left the bunker last week. and now, cas was using his hoodie as a blanket. a concept that years ago dean would’ve sworn up and down that cas would never understand because angels didn’t have feelings. yet, here cas was, carrying around dean’s old clothes, wearing his heart on dean’s worn sleeves.

smiling to himself, dean quietly made his way back to the kitchen to make honey tea for cas and a pot of coffee. he was going to need the caffeine courage to show cas that this was mutual.

as the coffee brewed and the tea steeped, dean snuck back into cas’ room and collected the one thing he was missing. wrapping one of cas’ old trenchcoats around his shoulders, dean was finally ready to put his own heart onto cas’ sleeve.

#destiel #dean winchester #castiel #spn #supernatural #deancas #bex writing #this ended up being way longer than I anticipated #i just love this idea #dean finding cas with his old hoodie. piecing together that cas took it with him for comfort and reassurance #for cas to wear and have something that smelt like dean. something that felt like home #that sudden epiphany that dean realizes this is cas’ love language #and dean can reciprocate it #I’ve had this concept in my head for agesss and I’m so glad I could finally write it for yall #clothes sharing is just too good. especially when it comes to old hoodies and trenchcoats

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