Erin‘s Corner

For The Spirits | New Gods AU

Type: fanfiction, lore, & art

Tags: #New Gods AU | #For The Spirits

Fic: AO3

Summary:

Zuko was a child when he met Agni. Then, the spirits started coming to him. Eyes hidden in the hallways, voices pleading for help, for recognition, for remembrance.

Zuko could see Agni. He could see the broken remains of a Great Spirit and the empty smiles of amnesiac ghosts.

And they could see him in return.

¦

Or: Being spirit-touched isn't everything it's cracked up to be.

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Spitfire

Type: fanfiction, lore, & art

Tags: #Spitfire | #Lu Ten II

Fic: AO3

Summary:

It begins with Ursa, with that sparkle of life she vanished to protect. When Zuko finds her, everything changes.

Hope is a tender, fearless thing. Zuko's hope has the shape of a child and the eyes of his mother, and it must be protected.

The Avatar can wait.

.

In which Lu Ten II, Zuko's little brother, takes the world by storm.

¦

Or: Raising his six-year-old brother throws Zuko into an early redemption arc triggered by parenthood. And stress. (And love.)

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Akai Kotou | Kyoshi Warriors AU

Type: fanfiction, lore, & art

Tags: #Akai Kotou | #Kyoshi Warriors AU | #Kyoshi Warrior Ursa AU

Fic: AO3

Summary:

"Akai Kotou," Jian Li says, "means Solitary Red Island. It's the name Rangi gave to her lover's home. It's the name given to Kyoshi Island by the children of Fire."

.

When Aang, Sokka, and Katara arrive at Kyoshi Island, they're only looking for a place to rest for the night. They don't expect to find new allies, soul-deep connections, and a myriad of secrets.

(Sometimes, Zuko forgets that Jian Li isn't his real name. But now it's time to start remembering.)

¦

Or: Ursa took her children and hid them—raised them—in Kyoshi Island. Years later, beautiful and scarred Jian Li joins the Gaang on their travels in hopes of finding his sister (and learning how to bend).

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Imperfect Canvass | Painted Red AU

Type: fanfiction & art

Tag: #Imperfect Canvass

Fic: AO3

Summary:

It's easy to forget, there, in Caldera. So they do everything in their power to remember.

.

The Blue Spirit and the Painted Ghost meet in the city each night, two souls in eternal search for repentance.

Katara tries to find a way to kill the war, whatever it takes. Zuko, the Perfect Prince, offers her the only pieces of him that remain.

¦

Or: Katara becomes the Blue Spirit in an attempt to move on from his death at Lake Laogai. Crown Prince Zuko, inspired by folktales of old, shows the citizens of Hari Bulkan what the Painted Ghost is capable of.

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To Hesitate | Lee & Kya AU

Type: fanfiction, lore, & art

Tags: #Lee & Kya AU | #Lee and Kya From The Tea Shop AU

Fic: AO3

Summary:

As she watches Lee and Kya avoid each other's eyes from across the room, the phrase comes back to her, swift and silent:

"To hesitate is to lose."

.

As Song treats the victim of an unfortunate interaction with a rare poisonous flower, her day takes an unexpected turn when it becomes apparent that the old man's nephew and her assistant have history.

A vivid history.

¦

Or: Traveling through the Earth Kingdom and settling down in Ba Sing Se wasn't in their plans, but destiny has a lovely sense of humor.

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Soundless (Uiscefhuaraithe)

Type: fanfiction & art

Tag: #Soundless AU

Fic: AO3

Summary:

Katara of the Southern Water Tribe has hands scarred by fire and great talent, though no teacher.

Zuko is a mute War Child, a herbalist and healer, and the Blue Spirit. He bears the mark of fire, and the scar of the blade that took away his voice.

The first time they met, the Blue Spirit had just saved her, though not before her hands got burned. The second time they met, his name was Lee, and he was healing her.

They live in war and they will fight, if not for the world, then for themselves.

°°°

Letters To Home | Leave The City AU

Type: fanfiction & art

Tags: #Letters To Home | #Leave The City AU

Fic: AO3

Summary:

"Live," she pleads. "I don't want you to sacrifice yourself for this war—for me. I just need you to come back. Please...please come back to me."

.

Zuko writes the letters whenever he can. During a break from a council meeting, late at night in his chambers, after another training session with Azula—all he does is write to her. Because he needs to let her know that he's alright and their plan is working. She needs to know that he'll come back.

°°°

Hunters AU

Type: lore & art

Tag: #Hunters AU

Summary:

Katara is desperate to end the war that killed her mother and called her father and brother to the battlefield. When Aang, that strange kid she found unconscious out in the snow, is revealed to be the Avatar and flees the South Pole, Katara turns to the Prince who helped the Tribe through the winter months.

The Fire Prince has a plan, and she wants in. For the war to end, he must be crowned, but the only way to reinstate his claim to the throne is by delivering the Avatar to the Fire Lord. Luckily for Aang, nobody said it had to be in chains.

¦

Or: Katara joins Zuko's crew of traitors and spies to destroy the Fire Nation from the inside (and capture the Avatar).

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Tales From The Couch

Type: lore & art

Tag: #Tales From The Couch

Summary:

They're young and stupid, but they're together.

The Gaang's shenanigans in a modern AU. Songs, teasing, bending, and a little bit of love.

°°°

Kintsugi AU

Type: lore & art

Tag: #Kintsugi AU

Summary:

Kintsugi is one of the few cultural practices all the remaining nations have in common. The Water Tribes seal their scars with silver. The Earth Kingdom with bronze. The Fire Nation with gold.

It is a sign of status in the Fire Nation. For one of noble blood to have a natural scar is paramount to disgrace. It's no surprise that Fire Lord Ozai prohibited Zuko's burn to be sealed with Kintsugi after the Agni Kai. Nor that the Prince tried to hide all of his golden scars afterwards.

(After all, it hurts less to pretend you were never worthy.)

°°°

Dandadan AU

Type: lore & art

Tag: #Dandadan AU

Summary:

Yokai, Zuko affirms, are real. Unlike spirits.

Spirits, Katara believes, do exist. Unlike yokai.

As it turns out, they're both right. (And they hate it.)

¦

Or: They make a bet, and it works out just fine. Zuko gets possessed by the Blue Spirit, and Katara is cursed by the Painted Lady, a (reformed) yokai. Oh, the irony.

°°°

Unwilling Hosts AU

Type: art (lore to be shared)

Tag: #Unwilling Hosts AU

Summary:

Sokka's strategy is to infiltrate Prince Jerkbender's ship, play the part of war prisoner, gather as much information on the Fire Nation navy as possible, and leave.

Instead of following the plan—or allowing her brother to ruin it—Katara stomps into the Wani, declares it her permanent-until-I-say-so residence, and proceeds to bully the Prince into an early redemption arc, because he's stupid. Iroh is enjoying the show, Zuko just wants her to go away, and somehow they forget all about the navy's plans. Oops.

¦

Or: A subversion of the Capture trope.

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Marked AU

Cycle in Reverse AU

Type: lore & art

Tag: #Cycle in Reverse AU

Summary:

Once a Prince, Zuko was taken by his Uncle to the Sun Warrior Tribe to heal from his burn and learn the true meaning of fire. Years later, he finds the treasure the Sun Warriors have kept hidden for over a century: a sleeping Avatar.

After waking up the Avatar and running away from the Tribe, Zuko swears to protect Aang, force him to learn all elements if he must, and end the war. Along the way, the Gaang grows to include a sassy sandbender (who's actually a runaway heiress), and two siblings raised in the Foggy Swamp Tribe.

It's all pretty straightforward—until they realize that Aang's century-long coma has greater consequences than they're prepared for.

¦

Or: the title of this AU isn't subtle at all.

°°°

Type: lore & art

Tag: #Marked AU

Summary:

Katara tries to heal the wounds caused by Aang's firebending, but the scars remain. Zuko, who notices the waterbender's marked hands in the midst of battle, thinks he's the one who burned her.

°°°

Halfblood AU

Type: lore & art

Tag: #Halfblood AU

Summary:

Kanna never made it to the South Pole. Instead, she settled down somewhere in the Earth Kingdom.

Katara is a half-child who barely remembers her mother and never met her father. Zuko, an ashkid raised in the Earth Kingdom, is a lone traveler with a single mission in mind: to discover the identity of his father—the man responsible for his mother's death, responsible for Zuko's existence—and murder him.

¦

Or: The road to Ba Sing Se is long, but you're not really alone when the stranger walking besides you understands what it's like to have blood of different elements coursing through your veins.

.

(Inspired by Blue Eye Samurai.)

°°°

Arcane AU

Type: lore & art

Tag: #Arcane AU

Summary:

Enforcer Zuko Kasai has a very simple task: survive in the Undercity long enough to complete his mission, and do so without calling forth Councillor Ozai's wrath. Again. Sounds easy enough, but things get messy when he has zero information about the weapon of massive destruction he's supposed to find and bring back to his father. The things he does to go back home...

The people of Zaun aren't making his job any easier—always getting into trouble he can't sweep under the rug. He sympathizes with their cause, he truly does, but if that Katara girl blows up another factory, Zuko swears he'll jump off a bridge before Father's goons can get to him.

How is he supposed to protect both cities from an unknown danger and reclaim his status as the Kasai Heir in these conditions?

(The solution finds him when a strange kid with a weird connection to the Arcane itself drops almost dead on Katara and Sokka's doorstep.)

(Naturally, it all goes downhill from there.)

°°°

Bloodbound AU

Type: lore & art

Tag: #Blood AU

Summary:

The vampire isn't like others of his kind, she notices. He's strangely gentle, has the self-esteem of a squashed bug, and took care of her injury without succumbing to the temptation of her blood. Without caring that she's a Hunter. But in spite of all his frustrating goodness, the Prince is still a vampire, and he still needs to feast.

Luckily for Zuko, Katara knows of a criminal or two whose blood just begs to be bent (and consumed).

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Dema's AU Kisses

Type: art

Tag: #National Dema AU Kisses Day

Summary:

Sketch requests for kisses and tender moments. Askbox now CLOSED for this event.

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Lyric Comics Series

Type: art

Tag: #Lyric Comics Series

Summary:

A series of comics inspired by my favorite songs and sets of lyrics.

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Dema Answers

Type: askbox

Tag: #Dema Answers

Summary:

All of your questions, and all of my replies.

Hours ago, (Days? Weeks? Years? The time seemed to slip through his fingers like sand) Crosshair had watched the Havoc Marauder become smaller and smaller until it was nothing more than a single point of reflected light, far, far away, and he’d been certain that the Empire would come to retrieve him. He was important, after all. He was a commander. They needed him. Didn’t they need him? Wasn’t he important? Did he matter at all? Or was he nothing more than a dark stain on a pinprick of light, so small and insignificant that nothing in the great vacuum of space could hear his tiny cries for help?

After hours and hours and hours, the skies remained silent.

Yet Crosshair, ever the good soldiers, persisted. He had used his com to alert the Empire of his escape from the ruined Tipoca City; he’d given them his coordinates and tipped his head towards the sky, certain that, at any moment, Rampart’s star destroyer would emerge from hyperspace and appear at the zenith to take him home.

The skies, however, remained silent, and Crosshair’s requests for rescue remained unanswered. Crosshair, however, was steadfast and waited patiently. He had been loyal to the Empire. Surely, they would come for him. He had earned that right—the right to be rescued, the right to be needed. He had proven himself worthy.

Did they know that he had disobeyed orders? That he had turned his gun on the TKs in order to protect his old squad? Did they understand the depth of his failure, as his brothers did?

Crosshair’s armor was thermo-regulated, designed to withstand any weather. He could spend hours in the sweltering heat, crouching on burning sand; he could endure sub-zero temperatures, buried in the snow and ice for as long and the mission required; he could brave hail the size of his fist and comfortably wait out torrential downpours, all without consequence—

But this black shell was not his armor.

As with every faulty simulacrum the Empire attempted to recreate in a more “perfect” form—like his squadron of conscripted soldiers; like the medical treatment he’d received after Bracca; perhaps even like Crosshair himself—Crosshair’s fancy new imperial armor was nothing more than a cheaper, poorly-designed, less functional recreation of something the Republic had done right.

As the hours ticked by, heat began creeping into his dark armor until his sweat-soaked blacks were plastered to his back. At some point, to wipe the sweat out of his eyes, he removed his helmet with trembling fingers, and it slipped from his weakening grasp, tumbling off of the platform and disappearing into the dark waters below. He cursed and dug the heels of his palms into his eyes to keep himself from screaming in frustration.

Where was the Empire? Weren’t they coming for him? Hadn’t he proved he was worth-while? He felt stupid and childish and jealous and afraid. What if the Empire never came for him? Would the Batch come to his rescue, if he cried out for help?

Tech and Echo and Wrecker had pointed their blasters at him. In the pods, when he had lifted his rifle to rescue the girl, they had pointed their blasters at him, as if they thought he had intended to slaughter Hunter or the child. Why would they think that? Hadn’t he proved, over and over and over again, that he was unwilling to kill them? Even under direct orders and the heavy influence of the chip, every shot he fired missed. In the end, he had picked his brothers over his sloppy TK squadron; he had murdered them to rescue his brothers. He had sided with them. His loyalty, as fierce as it was for the Empire, had always been to his brothers first. Hadn’t they seen that? Hadn’t he proven himself worthy of their trust?

They had turned their blasters on him.

Crosshair’s fingers dug into the side of his head, pain sparking across the length of scarred flesh. Their lack of trust was understandable, he supposed. Perhaps they hadn’t known about the inhibitor chip. Perhaps, when he shot Wrecker, they assumed he had done so of his own volition, and their trust in him had shattered in an instant. He hadn’t wanted to shoot Wrecker. He hadn’t wanted any of this. Did they know that? If he told them, would they believe him? Would they rescue him if the rains came and the violent waves threaten to swallow him whole? Had he earned that right?

The heat was becoming unbearable. The platform was small and there was not place to take shelter from the rare, sweltering sun. His legs hurt. His head began to swim. He began to pace to keep himself concentrated on his objective.

...what was his object, again?

Right. To be rescued.

So Crosshair waited. The Empire was coming for him. Somebody would come for him. Right?

Why would they? His traitors thoughts asked.

Crosshair’s chapped lips curled into a snarl. Because I am a commander. He answered. Because I am important.

You are expendable. His thoughts replied. You have always been expendable.

When he was a child, he had struggled in social situations. He lacked Wrecker’s sense of humor, compassion, and good nature; he lacked Tech’s inability to be effected by the cruelty of others; he lacked Hunter’s rationality and empathy. He didn’t consider himself an enjoyable person to be around and, for the most part, kept to himself for fear of further ostracization. Unfortunately, his lowered self-esteem began to effect his team-mates during training courses. It was easy to become so consumed by his fears that he was somehow a burden on his teammates, that he lost focus on his objective and his accuracy suffered. Like a self-fulfilling prophecy, his worst fears began to manifest: his team began to fail because he couldn’t keep up.

So he trained. He trained and he trained and he trained. He spent hours on the shooting range, forgoing sleep and food to refine his craft. He wasn’t created to be somebody’s brother or friend, he was created to be a sniper. It was in his DNA. It was, in his head, the only reason that people kept him around. During those long, sleepless night, as he set into the routine and his mind began to wander, anxiety festering like an abscess, it was easy to imagine his three older brother barring the door of their barracks and refusing to let him enter unless he proved his worth.

Hunter was an incredible leader, wise and dedicated, and his senses were incredibly sharp; Wrecker was strong and kind and gave good hugs; Tech was intelligent and witty and he could fix anything;

And Crosshair was angry and rude and he could shoot good.

A drone could do his job.

So he practiced. He practiced and practiced and practiced until he was better than everybody, and he was certain that he had proven his worth and secured a place in Clone Force 99-

And they abandoned him.

The taught the girl to shoot. They gave her his com. They replaced him.

They turned their blasters on him.

Crosshair’s face began to hurt. The skin that stretched across his cheeks and forehead began to burn, as if they had been pulled too tight. He knelt at the edge of the platform, hoping the spray of salty water would cool his sunburnt face, and his legs gave out from under him, nearly sending him plummeting into the water, where he would be swallowed up and forgotten.

“Expendable. Adjective. First definition: describing an object of little significance when compared to an overall purpose, and therefore able to be abandoned. Second definition: describing an object designed to be used only once, and then abandoned or destroyed,” Tech recited. His voice came rolling in on the waves, and Crosshair propelled himself to his feet, twisting around frantically in search of his brother, but nobody was there.

“That’s why we never came back for you!” Wrecker’s disembodied voice boomed over the nothingness. “Because you don’t matter at all!”

“Actually, we were pretty happy to get rid of your sorry ass. Things are better now that you’re gone,” Echo’s voice made Crosshair stamp his foot and clamp his hand over his ears.

His head was pounding. His heart was racing. Suddenly, he pitched forward and vomited into the ocean. With such desperation that his fingers dug into the sharp edges of plastoid and bled, he pried off his armor and stripped off the top half of his blacks, practically throwing it into water with the hope that the wet material would cool down his sweltering skin. But the water-logged cloth was too heavy for his heat-weakened grasp and was eventually tugged away by the current.

Crosshair laid there, on his stomach, for a long time. The sun kissed his back until it blistered. The skies remained silent. Nobody was coming for him. His lips cracked and oozed blood. His mouth hung open and his dry tongue felt too heavy and made swallowing painful. At some point, he stopped sweating, and his skin dried in the sun like leather.

He wanted to go home. He wanted his brothers. He didn’t care if they never trusted him again. And... of course they wouldn’t- they held him at blaster-point. They came back for Hunter, but not for him. Never for him.

They abandoned him.

He was expendable.

Crosshair laughed, almost hysterically. He wanted to cry, but there wasn’t enough liquid in his body to produce tears. Would they forgive him if he apologized? Would they rescue him if he begged them to come back?

Forcing himself up onto his hands and knees, he vomited again. There was nothing left in his stomach, so the convulsions brought up only bile until his stomach was empty of that substance as well. It was liquid he couldn’t afford to lose. Unfortunately, the spasm didn’t stop. He heaved and heaved until his sides ached and his throat burned. When, at last, the cramping stopped, he collapsed onto his side and gasped for air.

He was frightened. He was dying.

Moving as if on auto pilot, he retrieved his com and inputted the Marauder’s frequency—he knew it by heart.

He said something into the com, but he wasn’t sure what. He couldn’t hear himself speaking anymore. He felt like he was standing above himself, watching his body bake in the sun.

Slowly, slowly, he once again tried to push himself onto his hands and knees, but the effort proved to great, and he lost consciousness.

- - -

When Crosshair woke, he was laying on his bunk in the Marauder. He didn’t even need to open his eyes to know where he was—the smell was pungent and familiar. Slowly, he cracked his eyes open. The room was dim. Pain coursed through his head—he could feel his pulse pounding behind his eyes—but the bed beneath him was soft and cool, and he felt so relieved he wanted to cry.

“Hey there, Cross. How’re you feeling?” That was Hunter’s voice. Crosshair squeezed his eyes shut, afraid that, if he turned his head, nobody would be there.

“Cross?” Hunter asked again, voice gentle, and the sniper felt a firm hand rest on his chest.

Crosshair cracked his eyes open. There he was, right beside him. There they all were, playing a round of sabaac on the floor beside his bed. He wanted to cry, but no tears came. He couldn’t help but think of all those hours he’d spent alone, on the shooting range, and he was happy. They’d come back for him, hadn’t they? Had he proven his worth?

“There he is! We thought you were never gonna wake up!” Wrecker boomed with a grin. There was no greater sight in the galaxy.

“You look like shit,” Echo said with an equally warm smile, and Crosshair allowed the corners of his mouth to twitch upwards.

“I feel like shit,” he agreed, his voice hoarse.

Wanting to be with his brothers, Crosshair rose from the bed slowly. His body was numb and his head felt hazy, like he was hungover, or waking up from sedation. It was hard to think straight. His skin hurt. Once upright, he paused for a moment as a wave of nausea rolled over him. His mouth suddenly tasted tangy and Echo, scowling, passed him a rag.

“Here. You’re getting blood everywhere and I just cleaned the floor,” he grumbled.

Blood?

Crosshair knit his brows together as confusion welled up into his throat and his stomach twisted with worry. He pressed the cloth against his nose and his eyes widened in surprise when it came back coated in blood. His nose was bleeding. Why was his nose bleeding? Should he be worried? Should the others be worried?

There was a heavy, uncomfortable pressure that suddenly swelled in his abdomen, and he groaned, doubling over and pressed a hand to his hip. A sharp, hot pain spiked across his lower back and, for a moment, he thought, with some panic, that he was dying. However, after a moment of labored breathing, the pain subsided (or grew distant and numb) and his fear eased.

“Acute renal failure,” Tech surmised, pushing up his goggles with one finger. “Your body is too hot, and it’s lost too much fluid. Your brain is swelling and your kidneys are shutting down,”

Too hot? No, no, no, that wasn’t right at all. He was on the Marauder, wasn’t? They’d rescued him, they’d cooled him off. He was home, he was forgiven, he was safe. Right?

Crosshair grit his teeth as panic flashed through him. As usual, he attempted to stuff the more vulnerable emotion away, hiding it behind a thick layer of anger. His brothers were watching him, but nobody moved towards him. They didn’t seem to care. Why weren’t they doing anything?

“Help me!” he snarled, stepping towards his brothers, and Tech merely quirked a brow.

“Crosshair, we can’t help you,” he said, as if the fact was obvious. “This isn’t real. You betrayed us. Surely we wouldn’t give you this much autonomy if you were actually on board the ship with us. Don’t you remember? You commed us for help, and nobody answered,”

“You’re lying,” Crosshair’s voice was tight and practically dripping with vitriol.

“Why would I lie? How would that benefit me? Or you, rather, as I’m not really here. Thiis,” Tech said, gesturing to the room around them. “Is just your brain, processing what it feels like it needs to,”

“What?” Crosshair cried, sharp and indignant. Blood continued to stream down his face. He tried, with great irritation, to wipe it away, but it always came back and the flow only grew heavier.

“You probably just wanted to pretend like you weren’t going to be alone when you died!” Wrecker exclaimed with a hearty laugh.

The panic, in that instant, was blinding. Something tugged on his leg and, when he looked down, he immediately wished he hadn’t: the room was filling, ever so slowly, with tar. Crosshair grasped, nearly choking on the breath as it caught in his throat, and tried, desperately, to pry his legs out of the muck.

“There’s no use fighting it, you know,” Echo said gently, moving forward and resting a comforting hand on the sniper’s shoulder, just as the sniper had done for him when they’d rescued him on Skako Minor. “It’s going to be okay,”

Echo’s words of comfort sparked a wildfire of furious, blind anger in Crosshair, who violently shoved the ARC trooper backwards.

Crosshair twisted around, as if he could find somewhere else to escape. Behind him was a white, sterile hallway—like the ones in Tipoca City—so impossibly long that he couldn’t see the end of it. One by one, the lights began to switch off, and darkness began creeping up the hallway.

“A clever analogy,” Tech said, intrigued. “Your organs are shutting down,”

“Fuck off,” Crosshair spat and Tech merely shrugged.

“Hey! Leave ‘im alone! He’s only here ‘cause you want him here!” Wrecker bellowed. He was still sitting on the floor, unbothered as the tar swallowed up his legs and continued to climb.

Crosshair squeezed his eyes shut. “What’s going to happen to me?” he croaked, his voice hoarse from the dryness of his throat.

Hunter knit his brows together and put a heavy, comforting hand on Crosshair’s shoulder. “You’re going to die,”

“And when high-tide comes, you’re body will be swept away and eaten by the aquatic life. Eventually your armor and bones will sink to the bottom and falling sediment will collect on them until you’re buried. If you’re lucky, over millions of years, you might be fossilized,” Tech explained. “So, at least your life won’t be a total waste,”

The pressure in Crosshair’s abdomen was mounting. Behind him, the lights continued to flip off, one by one. “How pleasant,” he sneered. Then, suddenly, his shoulders slumped. “Will you remember me?” he asked his brothers.

Hunter smiled. “Of course we will,” he said.

Crosshair’s eyes narrowed and flickered over to Tech. “Will you really?”

Tech smiled. “Not likely,”

“What d’you want, Cross?” Wrecker asked.

The sniper’s eyes drifted shut and he swayed; one hand gripped his abdomen, and the other hand gripped his head. “I want... I want to go back home,” It was a horrible, frightening thing to admit, but he was so tired. He didn’t want to be angry anymore. He didn’t want to fight. He wanted to go home.

When he opened his eyes again, he was no longer on the Marauder. Instead, he was in their barracks on Tipoca City. His brothers were small and dressed in red and blue outfits they had worn as cadets.

Everything was so much easier back then.

Tech looked up from his workbench, his goggled a little too big for his head. Hunter, who sprawled out on his bunk reading a holo-novel on his datapad, sat up and grinned.

“Cross! You’re back! Where were you?” he asked.

Crosshair stepped closer on wobbly legs. “I... was at the shooting range,” he explained, and Tech frowned, sticking out his bottom lip.

“You spend too much time there. You’re not getting enough sleep,” he tutted.

“Yeah! And we miss you!” Wrecked exclaimed. His face was not marred by any blast scars. He had a full head of curly, dark hair and two big, brown eyes.

“You missed me?” Crosshair echoed, almost in disbelief.

“Of course we missed you. You’re our brother,” Echo protested. Echo... Echo wasn’t supposed to be there. He was small and healthy and whole, and Crosshair was glad he was there.

“What if I can’t shoot good enough?” Crosshair asked, and his bottom lip quivered.

“So what?” Hunter asked. “We don’t care how good you can shoot. We’re just happy you’re here,”

Crosshair took another wobbly step forward and rubbed his eyes. His vision was starting to blur around the edges. He looked to Tech, expecting the clever young clone to tell him not to fall asleep, but he merely smiled.

“It’s okay, Cross. We’ve got you,”

“Are you sleepy?” Wrecker asked. He wiped his sticky, jam-covered fingers on the bedspread and rose from his bunk. The gesture was disgusting and so, terribly familiar. Crosshair wanted to cry.

“Yes, Wrecker. I am extremely exhausted,” he croaked.

“Aww...! Come here!” His older brother exclaimed and outstretched his arms.

The sniper stumbled forward, desperate for the comfort and safety of his big brother’s embrace. He felt awful. Wrecker would make him feel better. Wrecker always knew how to make him feel better.