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Wrecker got back from an early AM shift, trudging into the house on Hunter’s heels.
“Dibs on th’couch,” he managed, and Hunter grunted, letting him take it. Still in his work clothes, Wrecker let himself flop over onto the sofa, dozing longways as the afternoon wore on. Ugh, the AM shifts were good money, but he hated getting up early, and he never recovered in the afternoons after them—and with Crosshair asleep in their shared room upstairs, Wrecker knew better than to disturb him by crashing up there.
Two birds with one stone—or something—he didn’t bother Cross, and he was still on the couch when Omega got home from school.
Hunter must’ve told her he was in the living room, because she poked her little head in from the main hallway. “Hi,” she whispered.
“Hi, kid,” he rumbled back, waving a hand. He winced; hopefully she hadn’t been looking forward to doing anything too strenuous with him after school, because he was dragged out.
No, it didn’t look like it; she seemed kind of tired herself, trudging forward in her school clothes.
“Wha’s wrong?” Wrecker asked, frowning.
“I dunno,” Omega said, shrugging. “Just kinda tired, I guess. There were like, three big tests in school today.” She didn’t say it like she used to say stuff like that, when the bullying at school was really bad and she tried to spare them all her pain with little fibs—no, squinting at her face, he saw nothing but raw honesty. He could do something about that, at least.
“Well, I got yer solution right here,” Wrecker said, tapping his chest and then holding out his arms. Omega brightened immediately—and yeah, he would never not feel a thrill of affection in his chest when she did that. She bounded over and scrambled up and over him on the couch, snuggling up close to his side with her head pillowed on his chest.
Feeling nice and warm and sappy, Wrecker ducked down and kissed the top of Omega’s head. She wriggled, and picked her head up, grinning. That was the only warning before she leaned forward, tapping her forehead to his in keldabe.
Cody had taught her the gesture a few weeks ago, and she’d quickly become enamored with it. Wrecker’d never been too into repping his Mandalorian heritage—he’d only been told he was Mandalorian when they all moved out of their mother’s house and into Ninety-nine’s care. Echo and Fives had been raised with the knowledge of mando’a, keldabe, Dha Werda Verda, and so on. Wrecker’d been too busy learning how to take the bus to bother himself with another language and culture, but as he’d gotten older, he’d let Cody and Rex hand-feed him bits and bobs of information. He especially liked dancing the Verda, though he didn't always get the chants right, mumbling through his bits and hoping everyone else would cover for him.
He’d been considering learning more about that stuff so he could help them teach Omega. Making her happy was worth all the headache of trying to read some of the books Rex recommended. After holding the forehead touch for a moment, breathing, Omega dropped her head back down, cuddling up close and comfortable.
“Love ya,” Wrecker told her, because it was true.
“Love you, too,” she replied, and he could hear her smile.
The aches and hurts of the day faded away, and Wrecker let himself drift off to sleep.
“Hey!” Fives called out into the house as he let himself in, “I’m here for—”
“Shh!” Hunter popped into the hallway from the kitchen, scowling and holding a finger to his lips. Fives met him frown for frown, shouldering his way inside the house and letting the door swing shut behind him. He made a questioning hand gesture. Then a rude one, just because.
It diffused Hunter, if only a little—he rolled his eyes, relaxing his harsh stance, and cut his eyes towards the doorway to the living room. He then slipped back into the kitchen.
Stalling a little, Fives hesitated. He remembered to remove his shoes before walking further into the house. He paused and peeked into the living room, and understood Hunter’s shutdown of his loud entrance.
Wrecker was stretched out on the couch, still in his work clothes. Canvas trousers, stained with paint and debris, and a rough-cotton long-sleeved henley, similarly hard-used. The big man was, well, too big for the couch, really, one leg and arm left dangling, the back cushions of the couch removed and left to the floor to leave more room for his broad shoulders. It was clear that Wrecker was asleep, his head turned just so, the only half of his face visible netted with scar tissue.
The thing that pulled Fives up short was that Omega was there, too, cuddled up half across Wrecker’s chest, her head pillowed on the hollow of his shoulder, Wrecker’s other hand splayed across her back. Her eyes were gently closed, one cheek smushed, mouth a little open.
He stood there, numb and staring, as Omega and Wrecker breathed deeply, both seemingly sound asleep. A sense of calm was thick in the entire space; golden afternoon, warm light, soft sound of breathing. Fives was enthralled for all of three seconds, before it hit him that he was just standing there, staring, and forced himself to turn around and follow Hunter into the kitchen.
Hunter was at the kitchen table, nursing an afternoon cup of coffee—he gestured Fives forward, and he helped himself to a mug, taking a closer seat to Hunter than he usually would.
He pitched his voice down to a whisper. “What’s that about?” he asked, and hooked his thumb towards the doorway.
“Omega had a rough day at school.” Hunter shrugged. His own disaffection banked Fives’s momentary flash of panicked protectiveness. “Nothing too major. Wrecker was already half-asleep so she conked out with him.”
“Oh,” Fives said, for a lack of anything better to say. He fiddled with his cup of coffee.
Hunter frowned at him. “What?”
“What?”
“What’s that look for?”
“Nothing,” Fives said, in a completely suspicious way. He cleared his throat. He opened his mouth, closed it. “I dunno,” he finally said, feeling kind of weird and twisted up inside. He frowned at nothing, confused at his own reaction.
Hunter’s frown softened, just a little bit.
Okay, he could try to talk his way through this. “I know we definitely weren’t that… cuddly,” he decided on, “when we were her age.”
The frown was back. “Careful,” Hunter said. “She’s… gotten kind of sensitive about it, since she started at her new school.”
He winced. Yeah, he’d heard, mostly through Echo’s letters, that Omega had a rough time integrating into the public school. Something about the kids making fun of her for letting Wrecker carry her back to the car after her first day.
It’d been especially hard for Fives to read those letters—they’d been cached up, two whole months of them at once, while he was no-contact behind enemy lines. He hadn’t even paused to wash up or shave the way he usually did once back on-base, sitting there in his groady fatigues, just reading, his blood boiling as week after week of updates dropped through his hands. He’d made the decision to leave, but the process was so slow, it’d taken him an extra year after Hunter got custody to finally get drummed out and come home. By then, so much had changed, and he’d had a hard time adjusting.
Even now, some of that impotent rage came up at the mere implication that he might be grouped with the people who tried to kill his baby sister’s more tactile tendencies. It made her happy—so why was he feeling all weird and tender about it?
“I’m glad she’s happy,” he said, because that was true.
Fives didn’t know if he liked the way Hunter was looking at him.
“I’m glad,” Fives kept talking, “that you guys are taking care of her.” It felt weird and awkward to say outright, but it seemed a good place to let the train of thought take him. His lips twitched into a grin. “That Wreck’s still a big teddy bear.”
That made Hunter snort. “The sun would freeze over before that changed.”
Not that their own brand of middle-school bullies hadn’t tried. Boyish bullshit—most of it vaguely homophobic and just plain mean. Fives, admittedly, hadn’t always been on the right side of that line, for so many useless reasons. Kids could be cruel, was how Echo said it. Didn’t make it okay, especially when it was his brothers--they'd all come from their abusive mother's home where hugging and cuddling up with each other was their only solace against her glacial facade of motherhood, only for freedom to whither that away before Fives's eyes by the time they were Omega's age.
“I guess…” Fives started to say.
“Fives, spit it out,” Hunter said, bluntly, and that was just the thing to make Fives come to a conclusion.
“I’m just thinking, that I kinda wish that we’d gotten to be more like Omega at her age,” he said. “That it would’ve been nice, to be her age and still cuddly.” It was hard enough for Omega as a girl, and looking back, it’d seemed impossible as a boy, to be able to indulge in physical affection and not get torn to shreds by schoolmates and even some friends if they ever found out.
Hunter took a long, slow sip of coffee. “Are you saying you want a hug, Fives,” he said, deadpan, and Fives barked out a laugh, cutting it short quickly and hoping the noise wasn’t loud enough to disturb Omega and Wrecker in the other room.
He nudged Hunters foot, hard, under the table. “You’re such a dick.”
Hunter flashed a grin and stood up. “It took a little bit of adjustment,” he said, taking his empty mug over to the sink. “Getting used to physical affection like that again.”
For a second, Fives mulled on that—then it hit him. His face split in a grin. “Aw,” he cooed, “you’re a teddy bear, now, too, huh?”
If Fives wasn’t wrong, a flush rose up on the back of Hunter’s neck.
“That’s so cute,” Fives insisted in a croon.
“Why are you here, again?” Hunter asked, but he was fighting back a little grin as he turned away from the sink and faced him.
“Oh—that package Tech and I went halfsies on got delivered. Tech texted that he took his share and the box is up in his room.”
Hunter nodded, but he didn’t leave or tell Fives to get out. It wasn’t a bad silence that landed, but, still, even though it’d been a year since he came home, Fives still felt a little out of his depth being just one-on-one with Hunter. Fives was older by a year, but his little brother was a homeowner and a dad and a good, solid man, taking care of himself and Omega. Better than Fives ever could have done in his place, fresh out of the service. It was an odd, unexpected dynamic, ceding his place as top of the brotherly hierarchy to someone else, even though he more than deserved it.
“We’re, um,” Hunter spoke up, frowning a little, kind of focused on the space between them. “We’re… okay, right?”
Fives blinked, surprised by the turn in the conversation. “Us?”
“Yeah.” Hunter shifted from foot to foot. “I don’t… I didn’t mean it like, ‘why are you here.’ You’re always welcome here. Any time. You don’t need a reason.” It had definitely been a wedge there, for a while, that Fives wasn't living with the rest of them, crowded as the house was. But now, Fives understood why. Had comes to terms with it.
That it still rankled Hunter was a surprise, but one with softness to it.
Fives looked at him, feeling an endless kind of affection come warming up in his heart. “I know that.”
Hunter rubbed the back of his neck. “Okay. Just making sure.”
Grinning, Fives stood up. “Come on,” he said, holding out his arms, walking closer, “bring it in, Hunt.”
Laughing, Hunter tried to dodge. “You’re so weird,” he said accusatively as Fives crowded him into a corner, dodging elbows.
“Hug time, you and me, little brother.”
Hunter folded, letting Fives circle arms seriously around his neck. Hunter was the shortest of all of them, and that was fun on a good day—and today was a very good day.
“My little brother,” Fives sing-songed, rocking them back and forth. Hunter laughed, and squeezed him around the ribs as hard as he could—and that was kind of nice, actually. He loosened up, getting kind of serious. “I do appreciate you,” he said into Hunter’s hair. “That you’re taking good care of Omega. Really. You and me—we’re okay.”
If he wasn’t mistaken, Hunter relaxed, just a tick, sighing a little. He pushed, and Fives backed up a few steps, so Hunter could see his expression.
“Love you,” he said, so seriously.
“Love you, too,” Hunter admitted, begrudgingly. They didn’t say the L word a lot, growing up, if at all—another adjustment they all made for Omega’s benefit that ended up benefiting them all. “Freak,” Hunter added, just because.
Grinning, Fives snapped into action, landing a big, exaggerated, smacking kiss on Hunter’s forehead before ruffling both hands quickly through his carefully managed curls. Like he knew it would, it made Hunter sputter, hopping around, cursing.
“Fives—”
“Quiet, Hunter,” Fives shushed him, slipping to the door with a devious smile, “Wrecker and Omega are napping.”
Hunter silently flipped him off.
Snickering to himself, Fives tiptoed upstairs to get his package and enjoy his victory.