Took an embarrassing amount of time to update this, feel bad cause this was a two parter kinda cliffhanger. Still getting used to writing again, and figuring out SkyWreck's dynamic, so bear with me if this turns out to be meh

- Ella


(TAKES PLACE BETWEEN CH's 21-22 OF PROJECT SAC-1)

With the 'Sad Batch' growing up on Kamino, 'regs' quickly learned that it was brain-bolted to try antagonizing the four enhanced clone unit when they were all together.

So, the first plan ever devised by the 💀Bad Batch💀 was this: ALWAYS stick together, and NEVER leave your own behind. As plain and simple as that.

It was this reminder from Tech, and how he wanted to add a cruel nuance to this simple plan in honor of 99... that made Wrecker angry this particular morning. A mere week and a half since 99's premature death, Tech was so logical and blunt about this outright crisis to the family, and it sadly caused the grieving giant to finally snap.

Funny thing was, that had always been their Tech. He simply could not read the room, or judged the problem was simply this when in actuality it was so much more emotionally complex than he perceived, but you loved him anyway because Tech always had good intentions.

Right now though, Wrecker didn't find his cluelessness funny, and mere seconds into this 'family meeting' he leapt up from his place on the couch. "How can ya even suggest somethin' like that, Tech?!" He roared down at the baffled brainiac, "There's no way in karking hells you're that stupid!" Wrecker literally shook the entire ship when he stormed out.

There was a few dents Talla buffed out later on, but meanwhile she busied herself with asking a fragile Tech for more details on this plan alteration of his called 'Plan 99' to ease the pain of Wrecker's harsh rejection. And Hunter on the opposite couch appreciated her intervention, feeling a bit strung out himself despite Tech's honorable, bittersweet idea making sense, in a strange kind of way.

And now here Wrecker was, at Skylar's door, unable to knock even though she would be expecting him. Wrecker raised and lowered his fist so many times, second guessing, third guessing, even tenth guessing. He wanted to spend every possible moment with Skylar now that she was on Day 3 of her period and a tad less miserable, it was even her who suggested going out to do something before her scheduled afternoon shift. Their first date was alright, and both had been excited to try making their second one much better. But what held Wrecker back and wasted that precious time was... 'Who wants to spend time with such a downer like me? I don't even wanna be around me.'

Eventually his hand dropped back against his side and Wrecker gave up, turned to leave, but the door whooshed open before making it too far.

There she was, a vision in a simple light blue turtleneck, black overalls, sturdy boots and headpiece. Her dazzling, coy smile outshone even the brightest colors and sparkles she enhanced her pretty face with. "You do know that we have security cams, right?" Skylar halfway chuckled, pointing to a small round of glass completely missed by Wrecker, and right over the door buzzer and blinking blue to indicate recording.

"Oh." He breathed at his stupidity, directing his lackluster eyes down at the helmet between his hands, "Sorry."

"No worries." Skylar reassured him with a softer smile that should've caused butterflies on his end, but it didn't. But he didn't have time to feel depressed about that, because she didn't give Wrecker a chance to try fumbling out various apologies and asking polite formalities about her health. Grabbing her coat off the hook, Sky exited the apartment, locking the door behind her with the key code. "C'mon, let's go." She beckoned, lightly brushing Wrecker's vambrace protected arm when passing him by.

He fumbled with his helmet but didn't budge. "Um..." Sky turned questionably, and saw the hollow shell of her boyfriend fighting tears. Wrecker was the most emotionally open of his brothers, she found that out early on into their friendship, and her heartstrings were tugged when it looked like it took everything in him to just speak. "Look, I - I don't feel like goin' out so much anymore." It looked so laborious for him to just point his thumb over his shoulder. "That's um... That's why I was gonna leave," The crushing weight on his chest, slumped shoulders, must've made it hard to just breathe. "I was gonna leave ya a message 'n everythin' - "

Wrecker was surprisingly relieved when he was gently shushed by Skylar, who stepped up to press two fingers on his lips, a gentle way to stop the Tech-like rambles. 'Tech. Why would he-' He tilted his head downwards to avert his misty eyes, so his new lady would hopefully be spared seeing him wanting to shatter completely under her affectionate touch Wrecker was craving so desperately, yet he was afraid to ask for. He'd known Sky for two years, but they were only just venturing into this relationship saga of their storyline. Boundaries and expectations had not been set, and he didn't wanna burden her.

Heavy-hearted Skylar kept her voice wispy and soothing. "You've been super helpful to me these last two days even after what happened on Kamino, and I wanna help you now." For not the first time in the last couple of days, his scarred cheek was caressed, and while he didn't flinch when she held his face, Wrecker still didn't look up either, and Sky tilted her head a little. "Do you think you can handle a trip to the lower levels, and if you see what I have planned and still wanna cancel, you can." At this generous promise on her part, Wrecker found the strength to gaze down at her, the abused and understandably mistrustful side of him searching to find any hints of a lie. So she offered a small, genuine smile. "I won't be mad, I promise, but I think this activity might help."

There was a part of Wrecker that was still curious about what Sky had cooked up, especially now that she said it could help with his grieving. Last night when he left the apartment, Wrecker was rather melancholy when leaving a little earlier, since he didn't have to do much today for Skylar, not giving him the distraction he wanted. As per the habit they'd formed the last couple of days, he commed Skylar when he got to the Marauder to let her know he'd arrived safely. Before she said the expected goodnight, Skylar said that they were going out tomorrow, and that before Wrecker asked the only thing she needed from him was to wear his armor.

Her soft, comforting hand drifted back down, to lay over one of his massive ones holding his helmet. Wrecker didn't fight her gently enfolding her hand with his, so tiny compared to his massive one!

But just as the giant so desperately desired, he felt safe and secure and steady while Skylar led the way. And he held fast to her the whole way down to the Coruscant Underworld.


Crosshair was what some might consider the opposite of Wrecker - his main symptom of grief was not gloom but white-hot anger, and he didn't bother hide it, and wanted someone to blame. When he wasn't holed up in his room, the Sniper chose to focus that anger on the reg Captain who promoted the two regs 99 fought with to the prestigious designation of ARC Trooper... when they literally got 99 killed in the process! By looking up their official files with Tech's datapad tapped into the Kaminoan database, Crosshair drew up three new targets to practice sharpshooting with inside the cargo hold. Admittedly, it took a great deal of restraint to not add one of their few comrades, Commander Cody, to the lineup.

In complete honesty, Wrecker just wanted someone to hug him, no words said because that anger wouldn't bring 99 back. Nothing would. It was ironic, he was so steadily built but right now he desired a steady person to help hold him together, so he wouldn't completely shatter beyond repair when breaking down and finally accepting that his older brother was gone. It was in the beginning stages, and Wrecker also wanted to yell and scream and punch and kick but that would cause more of a mess for Hunter to clean up, causing more for Talla to worry about, causing her to be unable to have any energy left for Tech and Crosshair.

If Wrecker sought Tech for comfort, there would be no physical affection but babbles about mental health mumbo jumbo which he could not sit through. Crosshair would simply hand Wrecker a blaster and tell him to join in on the blame game, and while highly tempting, it would do him no good. The only time acting out on his anger felt halfway good was when he through that heavy weight through the wall, when he and Talla were working out the other day. And Hunter was apparently hiding his immense grief, only able to handle taking over chores when needed. And spending time with Talla. So Wrecker didn't want to string them out more than they already were.

Somehow, Skylar had an inkling Wrecker was drowning his grief, and needed an outlet for all the big feelings he had no idea how to handle because he was not taught how to handle them in a healthy way. Her experience with grief was in a completely different parsec than Wrecker's loss of a loved one, so she couldn't begin to imagine how her abused, isolated, war-torn soldier for a boyfriend was faring with the loss of his oldest brother.

It was why Sky brought him here, to her old stomping grounds, specifically this rinky dink establishment with a large, brightly colored graffiti art for a front sign sprayed all over the front window:

"'Wild Wookie Rage Room?'" Wrecker read aloud with a brow curiously curved upward.

Sparkly eyed Skylar grinned up at him mischievously. "Yupperooney." For one weak moment she forgot the figurative cloud hanging over them and mentally swooned at how adorable Wrecker looked, scarred nose cutely scrunched up in confooslement and he was wearing his helmet atop his head like a hat. "This place is specifically designed to destroy things in a safe, controlled environment for fun, or stress relief."

Wrecker was colored intrigued. "Huh." They probably looked like creepos standing in front of the window and seemed to be staring in inside, but really they were observing the sign and small smatterings of info mixed in. Kinda like scouting before infiltrating or attacking, Wrecker couldn't help but compare. This was only his second time out without another member of his squadron and it would take some getting used to. He hoped the intense hypervigilance would die down some eventually.

Skylar squeezed Wrecker's hand she held the best she could, to literally grab hold of his attention again. "After graduation, a bunch of us went as a party here, reserved the big ol' hall filled with hundreds, probably thousands of breakables, and we destroyed every single piece and lemme tell ya, it really helped release all the pent up stress our school years left for lovely parting gifts," With a smug face, she waved a hand towards herself, hoping he'd be impressed with: "Me, myself and I even took a shovel to a big holo-projection table once, and completely demolished it singlehandedly." She left out the crucial fact this was from another trip here, after her ugly divorce. Or that he-who-should-not-be-mentioned's stupid face was spraypainted on the cover glass she chose as the first strike. But eh, details. "Quite therapeutic, I dare say it was." She only added, because that was what the focus of the conversation was.

Some of this real-world stuff still baffled Wrecker, like going to school as a STUDENT instead of a cadet to learn MATH or HISTORY and not graduating a full-fledged SOLDIER ready for bloody combat. Yet after processing this, Wrecker's aching heart swelled when the pieces of the puzzle clicked together - he liked destroying stuff, and Skylar took it upon herself, despite feeling icky, to find a way he could destroy something off the battlefield, in the hopes it'd help him feel better.

To have someone outside the family do such a tender action for him, someone he was fond of in this special and scary way, well, Wrecker was deeply touched. Those familiar butterflies made a reappearance, as did the new, overwhelming urge to kriffing sweep Skylar Tiima into his arms for a big ol' kiss. But holding her hand was nice too, kept him in the moment.

The inside of this place was not what Wrecker was expecting, though there wasn't really a chance for premeditation. A little dark and dingy with lively music blaring, creaky wooden floors and weathered walls were decorated with lots more pretty kriffing awesome colorful graffiti for paint jobs, light up signs adding the odd glow of color here or there. Work droids big and small were milling or flying about. A simple back counter is where you checked into, and the place was filled to the brim with shelves and tables displaying all these extra 'breakables' of all shapes and sizes available to purchase before your time slot, holoprojections included of bigger stuff they could get, junkyard salvaged speeder cars and such.

Approaching the counter, Skylar told Wrecker who wanted to wander to not worry about picking stuff out, that she'd taken care of everything, and checked them in with the Devaronian employee behind the counter... Once she got her attention. Girl was nosedeep in her datapad, and apparently an old classmate from their mutual art class. When Skylar finally pulled her from daydream land, Wrecker got to see this woman gave off the aura of an eccentric artist. Coveralls decorated with splots of paint, tears and outright burn marks (one half of a sleeve completely singed away) the bald woman of many visible scars (and part of a forehead horn missing) bore a glint of mischievousness behind her protective goggles. Wrecker had a gut feeling this artist was from a breed he didn't know existed, definitely not one who would be allowed to display their art in the prissy Coruscant Museum that Talla really wanted to check out one day.

Pulling them out of the lobby, the old classmate - Tae - talked a mile a minute about how excited she was to supervise 'the destruction of this glorious masterpiece, the most beautiful baby born of my genius!' She punched the button that opened then closed the entry to the lift behind them, locking the couple in with the big bag of artistic crazy that Wrecker was starting to wanna ask if they could be best friends because everywhere he looked she seemed to have awesome art he could totally support. Give him some class... Or sophistication... or whatever it was called. Add another layer to his personality that could make Skylar like him more!

Surprisingly, gloomy Wrecker felt excitement building. This outing wasn't turning out to feel so strenuous. He was kinda glad Skylar convinced him to humor her. Some destructive fun did sound appealing since Kamino and that rebellion they took out right after was a big disappointment.

Not wanting to stop her animated bragging, Tae wasn't shy about sliding next to distracted Wrecker. "Between you and me, I usually hafta hold back on my flair because most people that come in here are accident prone frag heads, or don't truly appreciate the beauty of my artistsic genuis," Pushing up her goggles made Tae kinda sway and clutch the flustered giants muscular arm for support, because blinking harshly, she had to get used to the unobscured elevator lights burning her retinas that hadn't seen the light of day for, well, days most likely, "And there's that whole waiver thing that requires me to say I take the utmost care to ensure everyone's safety and I am not liable for any injury or accidental death," She swiped a hand across her face with goggle printed indents, waving the other dismissevly, "Yada Yada Yada, all that bantha poodoo nonsense that sucks all the fun outta everything."

"I would still love to have him all in one piece by the end of this." Skylar made sure to interject, though if Wrecker leveled a skyscraper and lived, perhaps there was nothing to worry about. In fact, she hoped it wasn't her hopeful imagination playing tricks on her, seeing excitement start to seep onto his grim features at the promise for 💥chaos💥

With recovered, curious eyes Tae gave burly, off-put Wrecker a slow once over that made him want to blush. It didn't help when she stepped back into his space bubble again, and he was literally backed into the corner, holding his breath 'cause this felt so wrong. But Skylar didn't intervene, in fact she seemed to think this was FUNNY.

Raising her hand, Tae shamelessly gave the exposed part of Wrecker's massive bicep an experimental squeeze. He yelped in surprise, but she still followed with a light rap of his chest plate with her knuckles, for observation purposes. Tae made a satisfied hum, and waved that dismissive hand again at mildly amused Skylar. "Oh don't worry, you're himbo is gonna be just fine, he's a trained soldier with decent armor, and experience with destroying things, you tell me." She reached up to snap her goggles back on, then rubbed her hands together excitedly, the lift door sliding open with a creak. "This is gonna be so great - no sucky rules, no limits, I was even able to special order a few exclusive parts for this date o' yours."

Skylar wasn't calling this a date, not exactly, but was spared any uncomfortableness when they'd arrived to the main event: the very hall her school day friend group reserved for their graduation, sturdily constructed and completely transformed into a theme that Wrecker was taken aback with, in an almost bittersweet way. Skylar had to take his hand again and lead him out of the lift.

As promised, the hall was filled with stuff for him to break and... Wrecker squinted at some highly recognizable objects surrounding them. 'Three seppie gunships?' They looked pretty banged up but, 'How the kriff did she manage that?!' In fact, taking a slow turn, with closer inspection the whole place uncannily resembled a makeshift battlefield of sorts, a rather unconventional and boring one at first glance. But behind a near-transparent rayshield, the four walls and roof were studded with dozens of projectors and that built in holographic technology was controlled by a console in the corner.

Tae jogged to it and flicked a few switches and toggles. The room turned pitch black. Only for a whirring, clattering sound to fill their ears and the room to erupt in bright lights from moving holographics. Above displayed the simulated beginnings of an aerial battle, with amazingly similar, simulated surround sound and fully colored graphics. Smoke even seeped out in places. The ground vibrated when virtual bombs struck or canons fired.

Moving to surround them were moving holographic ground canons and battle droid squadrons over a simple grassland. With blocks and barrels and stacked crates to take cover behind in the physical part of this simulated battlefield, Tae stepped back over to reveal hidden compartments filled with smaller, shatterable breakables, like glass cups, liquor bottles, or ceramic dishes. Some barrels had a huge crowbar sticking out, or a long thin metal pipe, a large hammer, basically anything sturdy that could be used to pummel an object into oblivion, like say one of the ugly stone statues littering the area. And there was handpainted anti-separatist graffiti everywhere.

A lot of work and creativity went into creating this simulated battlefield, was the first thing Wrecker processed.

As anxious Skylar watched stunned Wrecker's reaction closely, Tae disappeared for a moment, then made her way back over with a big bundle in her arms. "Now, this might seem a little odd because from what I hear, on Kamino you get to use training blasters and droids but trust me," The bundle was dropped into Skylar's waiting arms, allowing Tae to empathize her statement with energetic hand movements, "When it comes to breaking stuff it can be just as satisfying taking out a target with magnificent shatter of a wine bottle, or getting real hands on and pounding it to an unrecognizable scrap heap. Reallyyyyyyy therapeutic."

With a more understanding eye, scrunch-nosed and curious Wrecker put two and two together - these weren't real seppie ships, but Tae might as well have gotten these straight from the seppie factories. Skylar put in a special order for this 'date' to make this as awesome as possible, and Tae took such care to turn random bits of randomness and single-handedly created three semi-believable gunships. For him to destroy. With his bare hands. No limits. No rules. No repercussions or risk of being court martialed. Wrecker even caught sight of some big pieces of seppie-like technology, consoles, computers, etc, set out for him to break... He tilted his head... And got the feeling couldn't be so copy and paste. It looked way too authentic.

The responsible part of Wrecker made him turn and ask the crazy art lady who'd briefly returned to the console, "Is this all legal?"

Who stopped her sequencing, pursed her lips and casually shrugged, "Legal down here."

He took a gander at it all again, and at his girlfriend now all suited up in rather baggy protective gear the establishment provided, having a cute little helmet of her own that protected her lekku and she had a clear shield for her face. Wrecker could see fierce hope glowed in her blue orbs that her 'date' approved of this excursion. 'Still wanna leave?' He could basically hear her asking.

It wasn't just his want to not drag her down in the dumps with him that made Wrecker nod with a reassuring grin forming. In a way, this could end up being better than Kamino. There, you weren't allowed to break stuff during those simulations, just shut them down with a stun blast.

Here, Tae literally heaved a giant pipe of sturdy metal into his arms. "Go ahead!" She urged, hopping up to tap his helmet down into place, click a disc of some sorts over one of his auditory sensors, then scurried behind her protective barrier, slipping in an earpiece of her own. Hands flew over the keyboard, typing a particular sequence into the system.

With a pixelated flourish, a gold and glowy hologram of a B1 droid manifested within a circular console to his left, hiding in a crouch like the coward it was.

Wrecker flinched when static unexpectedly came from his helmets auditory sensors. "Whack the bantha crap outta him!" He heard Tae practically beg over his comm channel.

"R-really? Just like that?" He asked unsurely, side-eying her.

She eagerly nodded, and moved a switch while imputing another sequence.

There was no further egging needed. The droid snapped up with his holographic blaster and went in for the kill shot.

Years of pummeled instincts kicked in and in one swift motion the clone commando ran at him full speed, dodging that blast. He lept up with pipe drawn above his head and with a loud battle worthy cry came crashing down on that clanka.

Tae wasn't kidding about the dramatic flair. When his pipe made destructive contact the droid holo exploded into a bunch of pixalated sparks with more than awesome, accurate sound effects, down to the clankas pitiful 'Oh no-' before it's destruction. Not to mention the satisfying crunch and shattering of glass from the seppie console.

And it was like a switch went off in Wrecker. For the first time since Kamino's invasion, Wrecker felt alive. "This. Is. Awesome!" He cheered, whooping and hollering and he shot Tae a thumbs up to signal he wanted to go all the way.

With a wink and finger gun back, she whipped up the rayshield made to fully enclose her and the console, and Wrecker sprung into attack mode again when three more droid holograms appeared, including an aerial battle series one, right in front and above of the droid ship.

An evil grin formed under his helmet, because that was a droid ship he could destroy with his bare hands and no one would care cause he was awesome to the bystander and Skylar exuberantly cheered him on, jumping up and down even.

It was like he was the hero in a holoproduction. His own electrifying soundtrack and everything, because Tae had the capability to blast music even all the way down here.

Now, Skylar had never seen Wrecker in action till now. While she was incredibly impressed and felt all tingly, the distorted evil chuckle heard from her date made her dropped jaw snap back up into place and she swiftly jogged backwards, to request of the chick at the console: "Yeah, I'm gonna need that riot shield -"

Considering it took less than a minute for Wrecker to completely demolish that first ship, lots of carnage turned into deadly projectiles flung at breakneck speed, the shield was definitely the right call for Skylar.


Skylar didn't even flag down a cab for the way back to the apartment, they traveled by foot to see if that'd help hyper Wrecker settle down by shere physical exhaustion. Man was a bundle of energy even after the last of the fake post-battle scraps were given one more go round because he just needed to keep getting it out. Thank the maker for all the rayshields protecting the walls, though the duracrete floors would need some repairs. Not that Tae seemed to mind, in fact Skylar swore she saw her wipe away a few happy tears from time to time.

It wasn't until they'd gotten back and Wrecker reluctantly removed his helmet that Skylar found out he was crying in the process of getting it all out, his eyes red and puffy, cheeks moist with tears that left behind tracks and blotches of irritation on his weathered skin, the friction with his helmets lining not doing him any favors either.

Hungry, tired, emotionally spent, he was advised to sit down and he claimed the floor by the couch, arms perched on his bent knees, not wanting to dirty the fancy furniture and wanting to make himself as small as possible to not risk brushing against anything either. The big lug was advised to shed his upper armor so he could lean back comfortably (although unsurely too) between Skylar's knees while she was up on the couch, first aid kit to the side and currently being rummaged through. In the process of his demolition Wrecker ended up recieving a scratch on his neck, when a piece of shrapnel launched at just the right time and speed to nick him on the exposed skin between the body glove collar and his helmet. Obviously, she wanted to disinfect and apply a small bacta patch because who knows where that metal came from that Tae used.

"Woooowww..." Wide-eyed Wrecker allowed himself to breathe when that adrenaline was finally, finally wearing off after that mid-morning rush. It left behind slight tremors in his hands and a general weak sensation in his body, wait actually that was probably from low blood sugar. Now that Wrecker could think about it, he hadn't eaten breakfast! Man, was he out of it...

There was no real indication Wrecker wanted to talk about what was going through his muddled mind, but pausing, Skylar wanted to open the possibility just in case and did give him a light head pat in response to his self-reflection, which prompted a distracted half-smile from him. "Not a single piece of scrap left untouched." Skylar had to whistle impressively at the brief demolition flashback while flipping open the bandage container. "Think you got it all out?" She halfway joked, but with some gentle probing undertones, definitely wanting to see if Wrecker would be willing to let her in a little, to see how much worry was warranted on her part because to be perfectly honest it was a difficult, scary couple of days when he went incommunicado after the Battle for Kamino. And Skylar cared about Wrecker, so seeing him in pain naturally caused her pain too.

"... Think so." Wrecker only mumbled to her question, eyes glazed over and focused on nothing and nothing else verbally added.

It took a lot of back and forth mentally and physically (the bandage shifted between hand to hand) for Skylar to figure out how to build on this. Her lip was between her teeth unsurely when she finally peeled away the bandage's packaging, crinkling of plastic filling what herself perceived as awkward silence. He was actually just lost in his own mind and reemerging grief again.

Then Skylar all but blurted out, "I'm so sorry about your brother." Ripping off the bandage while... About to be applying one to him now. The irony.

"I'll live." Wrecker automatically said, then startled, thinking that sounded snippy, "But uh, thanks." And he did mean that. Glad he wasn't the one to have to tell her why he was so meh, though felt like a coward having Talla make the call. Despite crying he was glad for this excursion, felt bad Skylar probably spent a ton of money on this. Wrecker was kinda a hot mess.

And he seldom could hide his emotions, the distress was as plain as the nose on his face, so the lighthearted, safe route Skylar went. Shifting forward, she quietly murmured for him to tilt his head with a beckoning nudge of her knee against his shoulder. "I'm stunned," She continued, lightly smoothing the bandage over the left side his neck, and while Wrecker flinched at the foreign contact he sighed in relief from the cool healing gel. "I had no idea one person could cause that amount of destruction in less than a kriffin' hour." When Wrecker stole an unsure glance up at her, briefly thinking he'd put her off, relief was sweet when Skylar playfully waggled her eyebrows to show her vast impression instead, backed up by a shoulder squeeze, "You live up to your name, Mr. Demolitions Expert."

A switch went off in Wrecker again, because he liked talking about the awesome destruction he caused much more than his brother being gone, and he liked Skylar's touch. Which she didn't remove when he didn't tense or push her away. Heart palpitations returned for a whole different reason and was a lot better than feeling like it was being torn to shreds.

A toothy grin partially lit up Wrecker's blotched face. "Oh ho ho, that was nothin', ya should see me when I'm not holdin' back."

Actually, probably not a good idea to say that, here came a deadpanned look. "... You're just pullin' my lekku, right?"

But fond memories of, as you guessed it, DESTRUCTION caused a sincere evil chuckle from Wrecker. "Lemme put it this way, mesh'la - that was without a blaster. Or a cannon. Or explosives. Or a fully loaded gunship."

After she blinked once, twice, Skylar honestly had no idea what to say to that other than: "Dayum." She huffed in amusement, not too much fear, thank the Force, "I almost feel sorry for those," Her brows furrowed curiously and stroked his shoulder, "What did you call 'em, not droids exactly -"

"'Clanka's.'"

"Right, 'clanka's,'" Skylar snickered affectionately at his slight accent she felt was nailed right on the head, "And what does 'mesh'la' mean, by the way?"

His eyes bugged out at the slip up consisting of calling her a pet name without proper clearance. Wrecker was the epitome of a mynock caught in the headlights and was glad he wasn't facing her head on, able to tuck his chin a bit to hide his sheepish state. "Oh, uh..." Dang it, he'd been calling her that more than her own name in his mind so long, it slipped from his lips as easily as he took out those gunship props.

*cue awkward throat clearing*

He swiped a hand down his mouth and stubbly chin, his admittance said so quietly as she'd never thought he was capable of. "It means, er, 'beautiful.'"

One Christophsis.

Two Christophsis.

Three Christophsis.

"Oh!" Skylar's heart soared, heat rushed to her face, and it was a struggle to maintain composure for dignities sake, and managed to smoothly reply, "Pretty easy on the eyes yourself, soldier." Her hand still lingering on his tense shoulder, she gave a light stroke again and to change the subject delicately asked of her guest, "Do you need anything else before I have to go?"

Who's immediate thought was to flat out say 'No.'

But then his tummy lowly rumbled. 'Wait, maybe I can ask for a lil' snack-'

'No, that'd be rude... Would it? Yes! Wait, no, 'cause we're together -'

'HOLY KRIFF, I HAVE A GIRLFRIEND-'

'Yeah and couples SHARE!'

'BUT I DON'T WANT HER TO THINK IMA MOOCHER!'

A light bulb went off in his head. It might be a jerk move to beg for food, but perhaps there was something she'd be okay with? And his body glove wasn't dirty since the fake battlefield wasn't...

"Maybe a -" Nerves kicked in, and the tips of his ears turning red he flexed his hands nervously, "Well a - a hug? Yeah, just a hug goodbye, I was thinking that might be... Nice, i-if your okay with that?"

If he'd braved a glance, he'd seen Skylar's also warm face nearly split from her wide smile. "Could definitely do that. Could give you one now too, if you want."

His eyes so obviously lit right back up, but his lips moved to say, "Nah, you don't -" In a flash her arms were around his shoulders, and his weak resolve faltered, "I mean, you don't hafta -" He mumbled, but Skylar nuzzling his neck caused all half-hearted, not even quarter-hearted protests to die on his tongue, and he leaned his head against hers with a happy sigh.

"I gotchu." Skylar made sure he knew.

A beautiful woman inside and out, whom he deeply adored, was hugging him. 'This is nice. This is really nice.'

Wrecker puzzled her with another lil' chuckle, but it didn't sound like an evil one, and she whispered close to his wonky ear with a little giggle of her own, "What're ya thinking about?"

And it was difficult to respond with the resulting dry mouth on his end. "We - we gotta go out when we aren't feelin' like what the tooka dragged in."

"I dunno." Skylar lilted, raising her head to glance down at his flustered self with a cheeky grin. "I kinda like this."

That grin was infectious, "Heh, me too," He reached up to touch the arms around his neck that made him feel all glowy and floaty (the only way he could describe it) "A-and I really wanna do more o' this 'cause it feels right, but not like - like this, 'cause I don't wanna burden ya with my problems, ya know -"

"Wrecker, you spent our second chunk of time together as an exclusive, official thing taking care of me on my period." Skylar deadpanned again, "You deserve a hundreds of hugs and I'd repay it all by staying like this until you have to leave me again, if I didn't have a shift in thirty minutes."

Mild scolding aside, Wrecker nodded once, showing he didn't mind helping her through unfortunate life events either... And was it wierd he kinda found it hot that she was all assertive? Huh, maybe this is what that term being 'whipped' means... Why did Crosshair make it seem like it was so bad?!

And it seemed like he was joking when saying, "Hey, keep holding me like this, wrap your legs around my waist, I'll carry ya to work. I get a hug, you get a lift to work - problem solved!" But in hindsight, the gentle giant was probably being dead serious.