#Archer Davan Ruuso

[a-lil-perspective]

How would the Batch react to Hunter's s/o having a miscarriage? (Coming from your recent post.)

OMG ANON.

This made me so sad and like I’ve admittedly thought about this before but having someone ask really got me deep in my feels and this is very sad, I cried writing this, I hope this is compelling to you. This is kind of more from Cyare’s point of view but it does briefly mention the Batchers.

Tw for talk of pregnancy and miscarriage and heavy emotional angst, please take care of yourselves.🤍

———

Surprisingly or not, she finds solace in Echo.

Maybe it’s because he knows loss, a bitter taste on his tongue but sweet and saccharine in a way that makes him soft, sympathetic to her plight.

He finds her after the dust settles, lying in a broken field of heartache, curled around herself in the co-pilot’s seat seeking respite from all those providing sympathy. She’s welcomed a thick shadow of mourn around her, a penitence to go with it.

It reminds him too much of grieving vode.

“I lost the baby,” she croaks finally, when Echo’s silence has tactfully paved the way for catharsis.

His face contorts in pain. “Damn Cyare, I am… so sorry.” He rubs the back of his neck, wishing to offer more than wormy sympathy she’s heard a hundred times up until this point. This is uncharted territory for the former ARC Trooper, who suddenly feels entirely out of his element even though Death is no stranger to him.

Cyare’s breathing is slow, dormant, her eyes somewhere far from the present.

“Me too,” she says finally, with a bitter tang.

“It’s not your fault.” The words are immediate, an echo in her ears meant to soothe but merely raucous all around her.

She quivers in it. “Please.” She doesn’t deserve the pardon. “I need time.”

Echo affords her that and more.

He gets up and exits then, leaving her presumably to her sorrow until he returns some minutes later with piping hot tea and a stiff smile. It’s not much to alleviate these stressors, but Echo thinks the potent steep of lavender is a start.

“Do you have anything stronger.” It’s almost wry, if Echo really examines it; whittled humor fit through the mug between her lips. It’s all she has in this trying time, a coping mechanism Echo knows all too well.

“Later; drinks on me,” he promises with only a distant regret. It isn’t his place to endorse unhealthy habits but if it eases some of the woman’s acute suffering then it’s his galactic-given duty.

Her shoulders slump then as a full, labored breath finds her, and she looks forward to the buzz that helps her forget.

She doesn’t want to forget.

Just the pain of not having him.

Her son.

It’s an all-consuming pain; strained and carried through every member of their family, weaving through the broken pieces that she’s at a loss for how to pick up.

Crosshair is too quiet, too unsure, gauging her with a trajectory he’s not sure how to plot this time.

And so he says nothing.

(He basks in his own grief elsewhere; on the shooting range.)

Tech speaks too fondly, with scientific prowess, and an unintentional flippancy that has her thin-lipped and silencing him with a clipped plea, “I need time.” She doesn’t want to hear about the percentages of nat-born miscarriages, vexing biological components that make her fold in on herself further.

Wrecker’s padded embrace is not her savior, it’s not what she seeks, when all she can imagine is the small being robbed of hers. Because of her.

It’s not your fault, she reminds herself, and the reassurance mixes like oil and water.

It doesn’t.

She doesn’t know about Hunter these days, how he fares in the wake of a devastating loss, or if his grief has turned into something accusatory, calloused.

Towards her, she’s convinced.

And it’s a juxtaposition to his comfort laid bare in the emergence of news - he was there with her, sunken to the bathroom floor after the words “I’m sorry for your loss,” reached them in tandem.

She hasn’t seen him since.

Or she has, his soothing presence whispering at her from afar, never too far in the condensed square inches of their home that seem ever-suffocating.

She refuses to look his way.

Even at night, whilst tucking in their other precious gems - of whom a newfound thankfulness for blooms - she is careful to keep her eyes trained on these beautiful home-spun versions of him. Their children are their only vessel of conversation, of which even then is scarce. The bed dips as he moves closer, their band of girls both a bridge and a chasm between. They inveigle him for a story, and he obliges without fail.

And Cyare’s only half-listening, admiring her husband’s dedication while she wishes to be anywhere but here. It’s times like this, as she aims to slip away undetected, she’s reminded that he is strong, and she is not.

“Mommy. Stay.”

The warm, dainty hand grasping her own orchestrates a thick lump in her throat she pointedly forces down. Her eyes sting, and it takes her a moment to finally look her youngest daughter’s way.

“Stay for Papa’s story, Mommy.”

She can feel his eyes on her, but she does not seek an audience. His plea for her attention, recognition, perspires zealous in the air. She refuses to look. To acknowledge the loss.

“Okay,” she whispers, and it’s so frail. “I’ll stay.”

So frail.

So she listens to Hunter’s story, and she doesn’t even have to look at him to detect the weight of his burden slowly creeping through, giving way to a pained lilt even through the “…and they lived happily ever after.”

Something she wonders if they’ll ever have.

His sturdy sonance of words usher the girls into a blissful remiss, unassuming and untroubled by their parent’s turmoil; their minds mellow with a peace she covets.

A chaste kiss to their heads, and Cyare’s fled the room with the hopes he doesn’t follow.

He does.

Because he can’t stay away, because their pain is a shared endeavor, and isn’t that what he promised in their marriage vows?

“I want to be left alone,” she says, at the sound of his lumbering steps into the bedroom.

“No you don’t,” he absolves, moving in a furtive manner. Cyare remains steadfast with her back to him, hoping if she ignores his very presence, like some fever dream the hurt will cancel itself out.

It doesn’t - it won’t.

Hunter’s presence is a conduit of the pain made apparent in finer details; in her threadbare, vulnerable state, she wonders how much their son would’ve resembled him.

She wonders, and she bursts into tears.

It’s alarming, to Hunter; not that he has never bear witness to his wife’s tears, but that they threaten to ricochet off his own. He moves to her swiftly.

“I had a name for him,” Cyare cries.

“…‘Him’?”

It’s the final thread of grief, lilted disbelief shattering the last remnants of composure; his and hers.

As he gathers her close, Hunter also wonders if his deceased namesake would’ve taken after him in appearance.

Hunter closes his eyes and an image slides into place: a boy, with luscious curls not unlike his sisters’. Hunter shuts his eyes tighter and his son has his smile, but Cyare’s kind eyes.

He misses those eyes.

He misses everything all at once.

“Cyare…” his voice is broken and displaced, but so is she, and it’s his job as her husband, her partner, to put her back together again. “We’ll get through this.”

Even if he doesn’t believe he can.

———

Edit: This ask was sent to me an embarrassing long time ago, I’ve had it written and queued for months but could never bring myself to post it (as with most things I write lol) but in light of the recent ask revolving around miscarriages I thought it might be appropriate to just share this little thingy. Enjoy.

[a-lil-perspective]

Me too.

I cannot help except to make it more sad. :’D

When Hunter and Cyare babysit Aunt Cyare is always sending Dee pictures and videos of her cute kiddo to make her feel better. :) (Dee has terrible separation anxiety and so the first time away from Asher is rough on her.)

Mostly the videos are of their clan sowing chaos, fighting doting over baby Ashow and trying to steal him away to rock him, play with him, feed him, and just generally be all up in his business. XD

Like baby Asher is chilling on a play mat and the youngest of the Hunter Junior horde crawl over all “LOoK uP bABY,” “LoOk At mE,” even though he is a literal infant and does not possess that range of motion.

And when he older, trying to pick him up and stop him from escaping crawling away. XD

They’re generally chaotic but also very wholesome. :) One video in particular that is Delana’s favorite is of Cyare’s oldest girl sweetly rocking Asher to sleep. :))

[a-lil-perspective]

Wellll whaddya knoww.

Yeah. Somewhere between Hunter Junior #2 and #3 Cyare got pregnant and it turns out Papa Hunter doesn’t just make girl babies. Know that this was a very rare (and only) exception. Her and Hunter were going to have a son, but she miscarried, and it was very devastating for them. I shared a fic about that a few months ago but it’s not required to read for context, I’ve made enough subtle hints about Hunter having a son throughout my posts.

Anyway I have a name for the little man and everything and he’s even got his own tag. His name is (would’ve been) Archer Davan Ruuso (all of the Batchers kids have two or three middle names lol that’s not unusual for them) and he goes by Archie. :)

It makes me sad sometimes because I think about Asher and Archie being the best pals. :’)

Hunter as a cadet must’ve been the cutest.