Chapter Text
Bacara’s only two months older but his shoulders are still wider than Neyo’s, and he’s just tall enough to hide behind. Neyo really shouldn’t be hiding, not at four years old - that was for tubies and tinies. Still, even the shame of being a coward can't pull Neyo out from Bacara’s shadow.
The edge of violence in Dred Priest’s tone does.
“CC-8826, here, now,” he commands, and Neyo creeps out and stands next to Bacara. He lifts his eyes to stare right at Priest because that’s what Priest always wants, but Neyo doesn’t see him, not really. Everything blurs at the edges, unfocused and fuzzy.
Neyo can hear Bacara’s voice, but it’s like he’s underwater, or very far away, even though he’s right there next to him.
“Please don’t do this. He’s already hurt from last time,” Bacara says.
“It’s just a sprain. Nothing that would stop a real soldier,” sneers Priest. “Besides. Maybe if he’s hurt, he’ll fight better.”
“But-”
Priest’s quick, for an old man. The slap rings out and Bacara grunts; Neyo doesn’t turn his head. He stares forward at nothing, nothing. He listens.
“I don’t have to explain myself to you, 1138,” Priest is snarling. “Get in the ring. You’re up against 8501, then it’s 8826 and 8823.”
Bacara and Trac, Neyo and Faie.
It had been Faie who’d sprained Neyo’s wrist, when they’d been scrabbling on the floor for a pin. Faie had grabbed Neyos’s wrist and wrenched, going for the pin even as Neyo screamed .
Neyo’s wrist aches with the ghost of Faie’s grip, and he watches Bacara step forward as if through sheeting rain, blurry and indistinct.
Neyo fights better when he’s not all the way there, when he can float above and watch his body break the bones of the other cadets. He’s not there. He won’t be there until it’s safe to be back, until he’s got Bacara’s arm around his shoulders or Faie’s slight weight across his legs.
For now. Until it’s too much trouble, too many sprained wrists and black eyes and broken ribs between them to be brothers anymore.