Dooms

Doomsride

Hunter is not overly enthusiastic about Tech's racing excursion. Not when it can bring the Empire back on their tail, and he doesn't want to face that or his fears of being alone ever again.

"You wouldn't have won otherwise," Crosshair insists loftily, kicking his feet up on the table.

"That is entirely untrue," Tech argues, "I had been analyzing TAY-0's strategy from the beginning, and realized it to be flawed."

"Just face it," he crows, "You won out of spite. Just like I knew you would."

Hunter misses most of their conversation. He missed the majority of it from the start, actually. His mind is whirling and spiraling. He knows this doesn't guarantee anything will go wrong. They still have a place on Ord Mantel, still... Cid's still here. They can keep pulling jobs until they find someplace to go, though they still haven't settled on anything.

Hunter – very grudgingly, but still – agreed they could let Rex have a bit of what they found. He doesn't know what's happening yet, where they need to go, or what they'll need to do so, so they're holding onto what they have right now, but...

He's afraid.

Afraid of what drawing attention will mean. He thought it'd be fine, that he and Echo could maybe talk a little while they were on the mission. Or errand. Or whatever it's called. Echo was pretty grumpy about the whole thing, but the point was they got credits for it.

Hunter's still... uneasy about everything. He thinks they need to be focusing on settling down. He thinks they need to be avoiding entanglements with the Empire, but – but sometimes, he doesn't know if his unwillingness to fight them is from his fear of his family being hurt, or from some sort of lingering, uncharacteristic loyalty that he can't get rid of. He can't make this go away any more than he could stop hurting them before.

He can't even control his own mind.

He doesn't want to have to fight anymore. Doesn't want to be afraid. He's always scared now. Hardly even knows why.

Hunter had given Crosshair specific orders to keep an eye on Tech, but well – here they are. They went off without him, went on their own little mission that could've gotten someone killed or seriously injured. It could have been bad, even if it wasn't.

He trusts Tech to make accurate decisions, to know what he can and can't handle, but that was still risky.

It reminds him of before. Of when they left. Maybe it was Hunter's fault, not theirs, but he's still – still afraid. Of being left alone again, and that isn't what happened, but somehow, it still feels like it.

He's terrified of being left alone. If they leave, he'll – he'll have no one, and he'll have no idea what's happening to them, and –

There was so, so long that Hunter had no one. That he was alone, and he served the Empire because he had nothing else, or at least he didn't have... a reason to think he could choose anything else.

And then, after everything the Empire had him do, after everything he did and caused, after everyone he hurt – he fought his brothers for them, the only people who mattered – they just... left him. They left him on Kamino to die. They were trying to kill him there. Nothing he did for them had mattered, and he doesn't want it to, but he also...

He shouldn't be hurt by that, but he is. It hurts. Overwhelmingly. Force, he wants to just be done. He's so scared of his brothers leaving again, of not being able to find his way back, and it's insane, because they wouldn't do that. Hunter's terrified of failing them, of letting someone get hurt again, even of hurting them himself.