Wash Away the Nightmare

For those who know about that spoiler leak, you know exactly want this nightmare is about.

This is a short little self-indulgent comfort fic I wrote for myself, but maybe y'all can find some comfort in it as well.

Also, keep watch on my ShadowsStoryStuff tumblr in the coming weeks! I'm working on finally getting the PDF of "Off to A Great Start" out! It's got some edits not seen in any posted chapter, including a new redesign I have for them. Undercut Crosshair anyone?
Also eyyy the anniversary of "Adventures of an Idiot" was yesterday!

But back to the main reason you're here.

Content Warning: Spoiler leak mention, nightmare aftermath

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"Sweetheart?"

An ear turned back at Crosshair's whisper. Usually that voice would cause any stress to melt away, leaving behind a feeling of comfort and security.

But not tonight.

Not after that nightmare.

Defector.

Turncoat.

Traitor.

How? How could he?

Crosshair was the dependable one. The reliable one! The one you could trust to have your back no matter how bad things got. The one who would always be by your side.

It made no sense.

Yet it was hardly the first time I had a nightmare like that. A nightmare about Crosshair turning against his brothers for the sake of the Empire.

It couldn't be him.

My only consolation was that nightmares had canon-Cross, not the one I lived with and loved, but the terror and gut wrenching betrayal haunted me nonetheless.

What if that cruel twist of fate happened to my sniper too?

"Sweetheart," Crosshair said again, voice bearing more urgency as he sat beside me on the cabin steps. A lean arm rested over my shoulders and pulled me to him. "You're shakin'. What happened?"

I just shook my head and shrank further into myself.

Silence stretched before he asked, voice soft, "Happened again, didn't it? The nightmares?"

He knew I had 'em. I broke the first time I woke up from one, that horrifying image of Purge Trooper Crosshair burned into my mind's eye. Horror, terror, confusion, panic. All swirling together in a nauseating cocktail and driving me out the bed and out the door to puke in the bushes.

It was the first time I told the men about their spin-off show. A rocky conversation, to put it bluntly. Explaining how the onset of the Empire tore their family apart and scattered the pieces in such a way that it would take a miracle to reassemble them.

One of the few times I'd seen true panic on Crosshair's face. To know that in another timeline, he turned evil. To know that a slight altering of events could turn him against the only family he'd ever known...

"Shadow?" Crosshair asked again, a hint of panic in his tone as he tugged at me. "Was it a nightmare?" A pause. "Or the nightmare?"

I whimpered and nodded.

"It's not me. That's not who I am here."

Words spoken then and now, they didn't hold the weight they should.