The Bad Batch: One Shot Collection

Soultwins

Hunter drops to the floor, exhaustion overcoming him, swallowing down a wave of nausea. A cry of pain is ripped from him when he hits the floor, and he closes his eyes to breathe through it. He hears Crosshair moving and opens his eyes to look up at him. He's pulled his helmet off and balanced it on the edge of the sink before crouching down next to Hunter – more like half on him. There's not room for both of them.

His eyes are intent, focused, narrow, and Hunter can see something that might be worry, but it's mingled with annoyance and anger. He looks away, not wanting to meet Crosshair's eyes, not right now. Crosshair looks different than he did when they were on Kamino. Hunter got a glimpse of him on Ryloth, and he looked different then, too. His hair is gone, and there's a burn on the side of his head. That must be what Hunter got a flash of when they last touched.

"I'll heal you," Crosshair tells him, "What you never did for me." It feels pointed, but Hunter's in too much pain to entertain a conversation with Crosshair right now. It's hard enough to keep his thoughts in order.

He jolts when he feels Crosshair's hands on his chest plate, undoing the clasps to take it off, and he knows it's necessary because skin-to-skin contact is the only way for soulmates to heal, but that doesn't stop the surge of raw terror that crawls up his throat. Crosshair sees it. He must see it, but he ignores it, dropping the chest plate onto the floor and starting on the rest of the armor on Hunter's upper body.

Hunter lets him do it. He needs to heal, and healing is more important than his own feelings. "How's this gonna work?" Hunter asks, pointedly looking at the tiny space they're squished in. Crosshair's half on top of him, pressed all the way against the door, and it doesn't look very comfortable. He can't feel much in his legs right now, and whatever pressure Crosshair's putting on them isn't enough to register, but if Crosshair will be reliving his fall, he'll need to not be in a position that requires focus to stay upright.

And Crosshair is not sitting in his lap. Once, Hunter wouldn't have thought twice about it, but after everything Crosshair's done to them, Hunter doesn't want him that close. Besides, he's not sure if he'll physically be able to take any weight on his body without screaming.

"Physical contact," Crosshair drawls, dropping the last of Hunter's upper armor into the corner. He shifts closer, lifting Hunter's legs enough for him to slide one of his own under them.

... This isn't really a whole lot better than Crosshair sitting in his lap, and Hunter resists the need to shudder and pull away from him.

Crosshair either doesn't notice or pretends not to as he makes quick work of his own upper armor, pilling it next to Hunter's. He's acting so cool and unaffected, but Hunter knows that's not true. He can feel the way Crosshair's heart is hammering way too fast, his energy fluxing and pulsing, his scent tinged with anxiety.

Wordlessly, he pulls off Hunter's gloves, helping him take off the upper part of his body glove, before he removes his own. Hunter can't take his eyes off the half-skull soulmark on Crosshair's arm, a million unspoken questions demanding to be asked, a million unspoken things demanding to be said. He wants to touch it, wants to watch it glow as the two halves of their soul are united. He can't bear to look at the crosshair on his own arm. He hasn't looked at it since Kamino, except once, when he couldn't bear the crushing, gnawing ache of missing a piece of himself. He'd touched it, tried to feel something, but it hadn't mattered.

Hunter hates how exposed he feels. This is Crosshair. They've been unclothed in each other's presences more times than he can count. On Kamino, all of them often shared the communal showers together after training sessions or missions. Before Echo joined them, they'd often goof off together. He has the vivid memory of Crosshair starting a fight by tossing a handful of water into Hunter's face, which led the four of them to wrestling across the shower floors until they were laughing too hard to breathe. Wrecker inhaled water, and his coughing and spluttering ended the scuffle quickly.