As violent as Hunter is during sex is as damn sappy and clingy as he is after, especially when they’ve gone as hard and as long as they have tonight. Crosshair thinks it’s something to do with resettling his senses combined with the fact that Hunter is and always has been fucking soft at the core. They all have their own preferences: Wrecker is gentle, Tech is—was a control freak and a scientist, and Crosshair wants a fight (Tech and Wrecker have called him a brat—Hunter knows it isn’t a game). Hunter is more often than not more than content to give them what they want. But this, the cuddle after, is something he takes from all of them every time he gets the chance.

It’s muscle memory, force of habit that even the past year couldn’t break, that has him stroking Hunter’s hair. He realizes what he’s doing halfway through the first pass of his fingers through sweaty curls. He’s about to take his hand away, maybe grab a chunk and yank on the retreat to cover for this ridiculousness, but then Hunter makes a little satisfied sound and tips his head into the touch. So Crosshair keeps going. “You’re sweaty,” he says because if he doesn’t start talking, Hunter might make another noise like that.

“Mmhmm,” he hums against Crosshair’s neck. Figures. The bastard’s never done anything the way Crosshair wants him to.

“It’s disgusting.”

“Your fault.” His lips brush Crossshair’s pulse point and if he does that again, Crosshair’s going to do something humiliating like shiver or cry, so he doesn’t say anything else. For a while, Hunter stays mercifully quiet. Or, at least, he doesn’t talk. He squirms a little, makes progress on his goal to fuse with Crosshair or crawl inside his skin, and because Crosshair can’t seem to bring himself to stop petting his hair he keeps making soft contented sounds. They grow gradually hazier and more spaced out, and he’s pretty sure Hunter’s going to be out cold soon. Pretty sure he is, too, at least until Hunter nuzzles his neck and murmurs sleepily, “Love you, Cross.”

Crosshair freezes.

It… isn’t the first time since Kaller. The first time, the only other time, happened on Hunter’s bunk on the Marauder, just after Barton IV. Crosshair had found it somewhere in his rotten fucking soul to tell Hunter the barest sketch of his first trip to the planet. He’d gotten maybe two or three sentences in and—lost it. Cried like a tubie. Let Hunter hug him even though he was still so angry at him that he thought he’d die from it. Hunter had done what he always does when given a centimeter and taken a whole lightyear. He’d cradled Crosshair’s face in his hands and pressed their foreheads together and whispered I love you with such conviction Crosshair had almost believed him. Had almost forgiven him how badly it hurt.