Doctor's Orders

Eulogy

The blood was thick. The water wasn't clear anymore, just filling up, threatening to spill over the edge. You had fallen off the edge.

You had dropped the blade with a clatter, watching with blurry vision at the red liquid running down your wrists into the white sink, staining it just like you.

"What are you doing?!" A hand had yanked you away, and pressed a towel to your wrists. You met the eyes, your vision and hearing fading in and out as you were dragged from the room and towards a lit room where you had spent the last two hours in.

You looked at the bandages, slowly pulling down the sleeves of your shirt. "You can't tell Father."

"I won't."

"Voras?"

"What?" He snapped, glaring at you.

"Why did you pull me out?" You tried to make sense of it. He hated you. Everyone knew that. He taunted you in your dreams, meeting you in the morning with gifts of bruises and screaming fests. He had pointed a blaster at you yesterday and turned it to live rounds. Most of your scars were from him.

Voras's hand slammed against your throat, slamming you back into the wall. He leaned down to your ear before whispering, "The only person who gets to kill you is me."

As soon as he had caused your vision to dot, he was gone, stalking the halls of this house that was too big with not enough hiding places.

You slid down the wall as the tears started to slide down your cheeks, shaking. You stared at the doorway, his words replaying in your head over and over again. Voras wanted to kill you. Father made sense, but Voras? After all this time, you had been holding out hope for your older brother, with every hit, every bloody nose, every insult driven into you.

You sobbed, curling into yourself. 'My older brother wants to kill me.' You couldn't unfeel the wetness of his breath on your ear, and the grin that had played on his face as he left the room. 'Voras wants to kill me.'

***

"Doc?" The gentle voice was the first thing you registered as your eyes flicked open. You were vaguely aware of the hand covering yours on your sternum, and you focused on the weight as you breathed.

You pushed it away, sitting up and rubbing your eyes. You shivered, raising your hands to run through your hair.

"Doc."

Hunter's voice was firm but calm. You looked at him in your peripheral. He was kneeling on the ground next to your bunk, hand hovering on the edge.

"Nightmare?"

You nodded, swinging your legs to the ground. "Memory."

Hunter gestured to the bunk and you nodded, and he slipped into it next to you. "We get them a lot too," He tried to reassure you, or warn you. "We may have different battlefields, but that doesn't mean we don't both see horrors."

You smiled sadly, about to ask him a question when a large clang came from the other side of the ship. Hunter sighed as Wrecker yelled an apology.

"Good timing," You said, your voice quiet. "You didn't have to let me sleep in."

"You need all the sleep you can get, you don't have accelerated healing like us," Hunter pulled on his sergeant's voice and you resisted the urge to roll your eyes.

"It's been three days, I'm fine."

Hunter rolled his eyes at you, and you felt a pang of regret for not doing it to him. "Tech wanted to wake you up around now anyway, wants to change your bandages." You nodded, brushing some hair out of your face. "Tech!"