Withdrawal
Summary: – Crosshair runs out of toothpicks on a mission and the rest of the Batch must feel his wrath.
Read on AO3
“Hunter, we’ve got a problem?” Tech said as he approached Hunter, sat at the communications array or the Marauder.
Hunter sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. This was not what he wanted to hear after the last mission went awry, causing delays.
“Is there something wrong with the ship?” he asked, not taking his eyes off the screen.
“No,”
“Are they fighting again? Just tell Wrecker to stop hitting him with Lula,” Hunter said as his hands prodded the keys on the console.
“No, it’s not that,” Tech said, shooting a worried glance behind him.
“Tech,” Hunter said, spinning his chair to face his brother, “I am good at many things, but mind reading isn’t one of them.”
“It’s Crosshair,” Tech whispered, “he’s on his last two toothpicks,”
Hunter stood up, shoving his brother into the cockpit, looking around for his severe brother. He lowered his voice, “how is that possible? What about the backup pack?”
“He lost it on Felicia” Tech said matter-of-factly.
“What about the one in the med kit?”
“He used it when Wrecker was piloting the Marauder.”
“Kriff it,” Hunter said under his breath. “Well, you said he had two left, right? Maybe he can make those last.”
“I suppose so,” Tech said, “we’re heading home soon, correct? maybe we won’t have to worry about it.”
Hunter looked shifty, “Actually we just got new orders. We’ll be gone another few rotations.”
A loud argument sounded from the steps of the ship.
“Wrecker, you made me break my toothpick.”
“Karabast!” Tech said.
**
“All I’m saying is, if we hadn’t dropped the explosives, we would have had a cleaner exit, and I wouldn’t currently be fixing blaster holes in the side of my ship.” Tech spat.
The fire crackled in from of them, the embers drifting steadily up into the dark night sky. Hunter heard strange noises emanating from the woods and was only partially paying attention to the argument in front of him.
“If we hadn’t dropped the explosives, you wouldn’t have a ship at all,” Wrecker growled, waving his ration stick threateningly at his brother.
“That is wholly inaccurate,”
“The Kriff it is,” Crosshair said, taking his toothpick out of his mouth and prodding the air between them with it.
Hunter and Tech exchanged a glance, “It doesn’t matter how we did it. It was another win. No matter how messy. The next one will be better,” Hunter said confidently, trying to cool the tempers. He took a bite of his ration stick and gave Tech a pointed look.
“I…I will yield in this particular case,” Tech said reluctantly.
“What?” Wrecker said dumbfounded, “that’s never happened before, has it Cross?” He hugged his stern brother before beating him in the face with his favorite tooka doll.
“Dank ferric, Wrecker. You made me drop my toothpick again,”
Tech caught Hunter’s eyes and shook his head slightly. The Sergeant ran his hands over his face and took a deep breath. It was going to be a long couple of days.
Crosshair had developed a fixation on his toothpicks thanks to a particularly surly bounty hunter during training. Frustrated with his penchant for sticking his tongue out as he took a shot, he gave him a toothpick to chew on and the rest was history. Hunter couldn’t remember a time when the floor of the barracks wasn’t littered with Crosshair’s discarded wooden shards, usually flicked in a moment of anger or for emphasis.
He had run out a couple of times over the years. Once when they were still cadets, and he’d only recently started using them. The somber mood that followed still gave Wrecker the occasional nightmare.
The next time was during one of their early missions as they were stuck behind enemy lines, unable to get to his backup on the Marauder. He had done his personal best during that mission. Taking out more droids than the rest of them combined. Hunter thought if he could have stabbed each droid in the eye with a toothpick he would have.
They were only a few hours into a toothpickless Crosshair, and the strain was already starting to show. He had pulled off his right glove and was gnawing on his fingernails. His thumbnail was already down to the quick.
“We have to do something, or he won’t have any nails left,” Hunter said to Tech quietly.
“Perhaps we could distract him. A game of Sabaac or some combat training?”
Hunter was already exhausted from the mission and had no desire to enter into hand to hand combat with a cranky Crosshair. He may lose a hand.
“What if we try to teach him other things? Maybe you can show him your datapad…”
“Crosshair had shown no interest in procurement of information or the datapad itself,” Tech said
“Kriff it, Wrecker, could you breathe any louder?” Cross snapped as Wrecker looked up alarmed.
Tech sighed, adjusting his goggles and walking to the back of the ship. “Crosshair, would you be interested in learning more about my datapad. It had the most up to date…”
“No…” Crosshair said sulkily, arms crossed over his chest.
Tech turned around immediately, “I tried,” he said to Hunter, nose buried in the datapad as he sank into the pilot’s seat.
Wrecker was bench pressing Gonky in the middle of the ship.
“Hey, Wreck. Maybe see if Cross wants to join you?” Hunter said encouragingly. Wrecker’s eyes lit up.
“Hey Cross, you wanna…”
“No,” The sniper said, feet dangling off the stairs to the gunner’s mount.
**
The next few days were tedious and long. Crosshair couldn’t interact with his brother’s without snarling but refused to admit to the reason. The mission was a success, almost an afterthought. Hunter wasn’t worried about surviving the Separatists and much as surviving his brother. A cloud followed Crosshair around wherever he went, and he was desperate to share the rain with the rest of them.
The night before they were set to leave, Hunter had had enough. Wrecker had made the fire three times larger than necessary. Flamed shot high over their heads into the starry night. He again heard rumblings in the forest at the edge of the clearing, but this time wasn’t able to tune out the bickering occurring around him.
“No cheating, Wrecker,” Cross hissed at his brother.
“I wasn’t,” Wrecker cried sounding wounded.
“You were trying to look at my cards,”
“I was not, Hunter was…”
Hunter took a deep breath and stood up, "enough of this. Crosshair, cover me. I’ll be right back,”
Crosshair looked questioningly as Hunner strode towards the tree line.
“What exactly are you…” Tech started but Hunter strode right past him, unsheathing his vibrokife as he did so.
Once at the trees he examined the bark, running his gloved hands over a couple before pausing. The bark on the tree in front of him was loose and peeling away. He pulled it off carefully revealing virgin wood underneath.
Hunter carefully cut a small section of the tree with his knife before barrel rolling out of the way of an unsee assailant, knife raised.
Pew! A single shot rang out from Crosshair’s firepuncher, scaring the creature away. Hunter nodded his thanks to his brother and continued to work before finally returning to the campfire.
“Thanks Cross,” he said as he sat down.
“Are you going to tell us what you were doing?”
“In a minute,” he said, still working his knife through the wood. “Did he stick his tongue out?” Hunter asked his brothers with a smile.
Tech and Wrecker laughed as they nodded their heads.
Crosshair growled but stopped as Hunter sat up straight and passed something to him.
“What’s this?” he asked, clearly already knowing the answer.
“Toothpicks. At least, makeshift ones until we get back to Kamino,”
Crosshair glanced down at the pile of misshapen wooden shards in his hand and nodded his thanks to his brother. He picked one up, tentatively placing one between his lips.
“I’m probably going to get a splinter,” he said, with a slight smile.
“You’re welcome, Crosshair.” Hunter said.
