Homowingian

Part 5 - Amending

Hunter knew their struggles wouldn't be nearly over when he and his family finally settle down on Pabu. He just didn't think it would start from within – mostly, from his own still lingering struggles with Crosshair. Trying to be around him is hard. Living with him is even harder. He doesn't mean to be jittery. He just can't make it stop.

The first day on Pabu isn't so bad, no matter how Hunter's fully certain this is fake and everything's about to blow up. Crosshair left them once, and getting him back can't be this easy. Omega trusts him, and Wrecker's right aboard with it, but Hunter's still scared.

Omega takes Emerie out to teach her to fly, and they go from there. The twins sit side-by-side, their wings spread behind them, basking in the sunlight for the first time in months – on Crosshair's part, anyway. Hunter sits beside them, just watching.

It turns out, despite having had wings for years – presumedly – and being with Hemlock who definitely has wings, she has no idea how to fly.

Watching Emerie's flight attempts is hilarious. Their wings are big, and you can't take off from standing. Emerie's attempts to keep wing flapping just gives her enough momentum to go over on her face.

Omega's laughing too hard to breathe, and Crosshair keeps telling her to go at it again. He muffles his cackles into Wrecker's shoulder when she falls.

Hunter interrupts, finally taking pity on her after Emerie faceplants for the umpteenth time, because he knows exactly how that feels. He had the same struggles at first, until Omega finally suggested he jump off something to get him in the air. It worked, except that he cycled three full panic attacks after hitting the ground that only Echo was able to understand. No one else knew what was wrong, but Echo's seen them before, and apparently Hunter handles them differently than Crosshair.

It wasn't fun at all. His mind kept flashing back to Kamino. It was so hard to get it to stop.

All he could think about was Crosshair.

"Come," Hunter offers, pulling her up again, "Let's try something else. Are you afraid of heights?"

"Heights?"

"Falling?"

"I have never fallen before."

"You just fell twenty-five times," Crosshair interrupts.

He has no idea what he did to deserve getting Crosshair, but hey, if Emerie wants to stay with them, she'll hafta get used to it, too.

Hunter jumps them both off a cliff, the air catching his wings and he flips around, flying. Emerie flails a bit, but copies his moves, and for the first time in well over a year – since before the war's end and before Omega and Crosshair – he feels free. The wind whips across them, and tastes salty-humid from the ocean, but it's amazing. It whips through his hair and feathers and Omega jumps off to join them, laughing.

Hunter joins her. Can't believe it, but he is.

It lasts for minutes before they land, but as the first bit of fun Hunter's had in months, he thinks it's worth it.

Echo's on the way, promised he's only a few rotations out and was overwhelmingly happy to see them again, and Hunter really, genuinely thinks nothing's about to go wrong.

He was wrong.

Hunter wakes up a few hours after they finally go to sleep with a way-too-graphic nightmare of Crosshair slitting his throat.