Test Subjects: Part 9
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Relationships: Crosshair & Echo & Hunter & Tech & Wrecker
Content Warnings: Blood and injury, Stitches, Abuse, Clone Trooper Dehumanization
Summary:
Hunter finally gets medical treatment, even if the doctor is far from careful as he tends to the Sargent.
Word count: 3’738
Read on Ao3
Despite the exhaustion, Hunter can barely sit still. His heart pounds in his chest, Hunter taps his fingers against the firm mattress. It's always cold in medbays, but it feels freezing in this one. Hunter can't stop the tremors that wrack his body. The shaking of course only serves to irritate his wounds further. It's starting to really annoy Hunter, how little control he has over his own body.
Being done with helping Echo, Ceta's moved to constantly be bustling around the room. After getting Echo a set of the white medical sleepwear medbay's stock and helping him put them on, he starts doing small clean up and restock tasks, switching out empty disinfectant bottles and restocking the medical supply boxes each medbay room has.
The clothes look large on Echo, still thin after his time as a prisoner of war. He's certainly gained weight since then, but his frame is still narrower than it should be. Ceta brought Hunter a change of clothes too, but those will have to wait until Hunter is treated.
Hunter pokes the bandages wrapping his thigh, hissing through his clenched teeth at the contact. Despite Ceta's best efforts, splotches of red already shine through the white fabric.
Falling asleep would be ideal. It's hard to worry when you're unconscious. But Hunter can't possible sleep, despite how worn out he is. He can't stop thinking about his brothers and wouldn't possibly want to miss any news they might get on them. Tech isn't back from his report either.
Hunter's blacks do little against the cold of medbay, not being the thermal ones used for extreme temperatures. The uncomfortable beds and his aching body do little to make Hunter's experience more comfortable either, neither does the fear clawing away behind his ribs like a rabid animal.
Silence hangs between him and Echo. Hunter would love to do something to break it, but can't think of anything good to say. He's not good at this kind of thing, not knowing what words are the right ones or what action would improve the situation. Hunter look over to Echo ever so often, hoping his ori'vod will speak.
He's so occupied with staring into space that he doesn't notice Ceta standing at his side until the medic clears his throat. When Hunter looks at him, Ceta smiles.
“You look cold,” he says, holding out a gray blanket.
Thanking him, Hunter accepts the item. Ceta helps spread it across Hunter's legs evenly, allowing the Sargent to avoid moving too much.
“Sorry I can't help more,” Ceta says, standing up straight beside the bed.
“You've done plenty,” Hunter responds, rubbing the fabric of the blanket between his fingers. It's rough, but doesn't catch on Hunter's skin like some of the thinner GAR blankets do. Hunter's still shaking, but the blanket is an instant relief against the cold air.
Ceta nods, quickly hurrying off to get Echo a blanket too.
“I want to contact Kix,” Echo says, not looking over at Hunter. “He should know if dangerous substances like these stims are in circulation.”
“Should be easy enough to do so through Tech's datapad once he's back,” Hunter replies. He'd certainly welcome the distraction.
Before Echo joined them, Hunter didn't know any members of the 501st well. Their squad has a tendency to get in trouble with regs, at least as soon as they're in larger groups.
Crosshair rubs everyone the wrong way, as can Tech, though he doesn't do so on purpose. And large groups of clones always have a few that have stuck to the idea that genetic variation among clones is bad that the Kaminoans drilled into them. Even among those not against defective clones, there was often avoidance when it came to Clone Force 99. Also doesn't help that their squad has a very particular way they like to do things that doesn't mix well with working with too many who aren't part of the dynamic.
Cody and a few troopers of the 212th were some of the only regs they could get along with for a long while. But Echo has brothers he cares for is the 501st, ones he wanted to talk to. Through that, the four original members of Clone Force 99 got to know them too.
Hunter would really enjoy a conversation with Kix, even if he'd likely have to talk about what happened during the mission. It'd be better than just sitting there, alone with his thought, wondering if he'll ever see his youngest brothers again.
A beeping noise alerts Hunter, making his eyes flick to the source. Ceta has a commlink in his hand, reading a message off of it. He turns to look at Hunter.
“Someone will be here to treat you in a second along with your vod,” Ceta says, enunciate the Mando'a word slightly different than Hunter had learned it from 99. The young medic is radiating stress, Hunter can smell it from across the room. Ceta rushes to a closet in the wall, getting out a white overcoat. With the item of clothing in hand, Ceta hurries out of the medbay door.
With his improved hearing, Hunter can hear clearly what happens outside the door. Ceta greets someone, addressing them as “doctor” and announcing that he got him his coat. He then introduces himself, same as he did to Echo, most likely to Tech. With that, the three of them come through the sliding door.
Just in time for Hunter to catch the doctor, a blue twi'lek he recognizes, hitting Ceta across the back of the head. The doctor is a good head shorter than the clone medic, but he's determined enough to reach up to do so.
“This isn't a nail salon, stop introducing yourself to every kriffing clone,” the twi'lek hisses, pulling on the overcoat Ceta handed him.
“Sorry sir,” Ceta mumbles, immediately matching the doctors pace. Ceta leads Tech to an empty bed on Hunter's other side before joining the doctor at Hunter's bed.
This close, Hunter can read the name tag on the twi'lek's overcoat. According to it, the doctor is called Louis Pak. The name rings a bell, though Hunter is more accustomed with how he looks than his name. If Hunter isn't wrong, he remembers doctor Pak being quite a piece of work. Even without past experiences, Hunter can tell he's right by the way he acts towards Ceta, who looks nervous just standing next to him.
“What's this?” the doctor says, pinching a corner of the blanket covering Hunter's legs.
“A blanket, sir,” Ceta responds, sounding like he isn't quite sure about his answer.
The twi'lek glares at him. “I'm well aware of what it is. Why is it here?”
“He was cold, so I brought it to him, sir” Ceta answers, voice trailing off.
“Let me ask you something,” Pak says, laughing to himself. “Is CT-9901 your patient?”
Hunter can already see where this is going and he doesn't like it. Ceta's heart is racing, Hunter's positive he could hear it from two rooms over it's so loud.
“No, doctor Pak,” Ceta says, looking anywhere but at the doctor. His eyes lock briefly with Hunters. “He's your patient. I am not authorized to work with experimental clones.”
“Exactly,” Pak says with a self-satisfied smirk. He makes a beckoning motion with one hand and Ceta immediately complies, taking a step towards the doctor and leaning down. As soon as he does this, the doctor grabs a fistful of Ceta's hair and yanks downwards, forcing the medics face to almost touch his.
Hunter lurches forwards on instinct, ready to pull the natborn off Ceta. A quick hand gesture from Ceta, asking Hunter to stay away, stops him from doing so. Looking to his vode, Hunter realizes that Tech and Echo reacted in much the same way.
“You think you're better than me, clone?” the twi'lek hisses in an almost sweet tone. “Smarter? Better at the job?” Ceta pulls a face as the doctor tightens his grip, shaking his head vigorously.
“Never, sir,” Ceta says, voice calm despite his demeanour saying otherwise.
“Then why do you insist on messing with my patients?” Pak raises his voice enough to hurt Hunters ears.
“I just thought-” Ceta starts, interrupted by the doctor grabbing his face with his free hand.
“That's your problem. Despite that empty head of yours, you insist on trying to think for me.” The twi'lek lets go of Ceta's face to flick his forehead for emphasis. Letting go of Ceta's hair too, Pak shoves him backwards, making the medic stumble to stay upright.
“Sorry sir,” Ceta says, immediately going back to standing at attention at the doctor's side. Pak rolls his eyes, moving his leku over his shoulder before holding a hand out towards Ceta. Wordlessly, the medic deposits a pair of gloves in the doctors palm.
Pulling them on, the twi'lek orders Ceta to run a scanner over Hunter and show him the result.
Pak clicks his tongue as he waits, looking at Hunter. “No need to look at me like that, CT-9901. You might want to stop giving the man responsible for your health such dirty looks.” he huffs.
Hunter hadn't been aware of the displeased expression that crossed his face. Whilst he gives the doctor a court fake smile, he doesn't waste any energy managing his expression. The twi'lek shakes his head.
Ceta holds the screen of the scanner up for doctor Pak to look at. He hums in thought as he reeds the screen.
“The blaster wound in his thigh needs stitches, but his shoulder's just been grazed. He'll need fluids too and a blood transfusion would be a good idea. Other than that, mainly bruising.” Ceta nods along as the doctor speaks, clearly having figured all this out from the scan he did of Hunter long before Pak even got there.
When he's done speaking, the doctor takes a moment to stare at Ceta.
“Well what are you waiting for? Get moving!” Pak snaps, throwing his hands in the air. Ceta flinches at the motion, going very stiff. Almost like he's bracing. Hunter had seen the same reaction from his brothers many times, had reacted the same way to trainers raising their voices at him. A nasty reflex you pick up when trainers get a free pass to hit you when ever they like.
Ceta nods, quickly distancing himself from Pack. He moves to another room, though the door remains open so Hunter can clearly hear him looking through shelves and cupboards as well as ask for a bag of blood to be prepared for them over his comlink.
In the meantime, the doctor moves to examining Hunter's leg closer. Without a warning, he roughly moves the limb closer to the edge of the bed, making Hunter inhale sharply at the spike of pain.
“Hold still,” the doctor hisses like he's talking to a misbehaving child. Hunter still squirms at the hands on his leg. Through the bandages, the twi'lek feels about the area of the wound, really making Hunter want to push him off. “Turn onto your side,” he orders, insistently patting Hunter's knee just below the injury.
Reluctantly, Hunter does as told. Stiffly, he shifts on the bed to expose his wound to the doctor. Holding his head up hurts, so Hunter lets it rest on the bed. Laying the way he is now, Hunter's looking over at Echo's bed.
The ARC trooper is sitting upright, swaying slightly, but staring directly at Hunter and the doctor without looking away for a second. His brows are knitted together tightly, lip curled upwards on the right into something close to a snarl. He's gripping the edge of the mattress with his hand, scarred knuckles pale from the force of his grip.
Even with all his prosthetics removed, clothed in plain clothes that hang off his body a little too loosely, Echo still has a dangerous quality to him. If Hunter didn't know the sentiment was reserved for the doctor, he'd be a little worried himself.
Ceta comes back with a tray and places it on an adjustable table on Pak's right. Hunter can't see what's on it, but heard Ceta place a variety of items on it, ranging from metallic, to sounding like flimsi and plastic.
“Who cut his blacks?” the twi'lek asks, narrowing his eyes in Ceta's direction.
“I did,” Echo speaks up before anyone else can, a relived look crossing Ceta's expression as he does. Despite the concussion, Echo's words come out strong and clear. “I disinfected the blaster wound and covered it in bacta too.”
A huffed laugh escapes the doctor. “I take it you bandaged it as well?” he mocks.
“Yes,” Echo responds. Whilst he didn't this time, the job he'd done on the Marauder wasn't any worse than what Ceta did.
“With one hand?” Pak asks, clearly amused. Hunter doesn't share the sentiment. Echo could likely kill the doctor without any of his prosthetics on, wrapping a wound is nothing in comparison. The twi'lek's lack of faith in Echo is disgusting.
“Yes,” Echo says, voice neutral.
“Sure,” the doctor says, rolling his eyes. Echo lets it go without any comment, but his stare fixed on the twi'lek seems to only intensify.
“Lets get this over with,” the doctor mutters, fishing a bandage scissor from the tray Ceta prepared for him. Putting a firm hand on Hunter's leg below the end of the bandages, the doctor aligns the edge of the scissors with the fabric wrapped around Hunter's thigh.
When he begins to cut the bandages, he slides the scissors flush along Hunter's skin, dragging the lower blade through the blaster wound. Hunter gasp, sharp pain in his leg bringing tears to the Sargent's eyes as he tries to breath through it. He recoils away from the horrible sensation on instinct, jerking his leg out of the doctor's grip, turning halfway onto his front to shield the injury from further harm.
Hunter's only guess is that the doctor did so on purpose. Why else would he chose to cut through the area in the bandage that clearly had to most blood soaked into it.
The twi'lek isn't too pleased about Hunter squirming away from him. The doctor lacks strength, so trying to force Hunter to turn around through brute force doesn't work out very well. But Hunter should have guessed that he wouldn't give up that easily.
The next time Pak tries to flip Hunter, he brings his hand down hard on Hunter's half bandaged blaster wound.
Hunter's vision goes white for a moment, struggling to breath as he's forced to follow the doctors movement in a desperate effort to lessen the pain. He can't even tell if he cries out or not, ears ringing as a violent wave of nausea hits him. The Sargent is forced to bite into the side of his hand, both in an effort to prevent himself from gagging and to serve as a distraction from the blinding pain.
When Hunter's vision clears slightly and his breath comes a little easier, he hears his brothers voices, still seeming distant.
“What kind of medic acts like that?” That's Echo's voice, raised in anger. Hunter lets his head fall to the side Echo's on. His ori'vod is leaning forwards, gesturing furiously with his hand. Tech says something too, or at least tries to. His voice breaks and he starts to cough weakly somewhere to Hunter's other side.
“The way I treat my patients is none of your business, clone,” Pak hisses, tightening his grip over Hunter's wound. A pathetic pained whine manages to escape Hunter's lips despite his best efforts to hold it back, tears stinging his eyes.
Hunter tries to glare at the doctor, which is remarkably hard to do when he can barely lift his head off the bed to look at him. The doctor just stares back, increasing the pressure on Hunter's leg further. Hunter knows this isn't a battle he can win without making the situation worse.
Then Ceta suddenly steps into view, grabbing Pak's writs. “Sir, he is bleeding. You are risking the patients life with your actions.”
Heavy silence falls upon the medbay as the doctor slowly turns to look at Ceta. Hunter swears he could sense the tension in the room like electricity if he could only focus a little better. The foreboding energy is quickly and violently released as Pak brings the back of his gloves hand across Ceta's face hard. The loud snap of the impact seems to echo about the room as Ceta stumbles backwards but keeps upright.
The doctor swears at him in twi'lek, Hunter only knowing a small section of the words he uses. Predictably, none of them are nice. “Make yourself useful and go collect that blood for CT-9901,” Pak shouts. “The longer I have to look at you now, the worse things will get for you.”
Ceta nods. “Sorry sir, I'll get right on it.” He walks a little too fast when he makes his way out of the medbay, gone before Hunter can get a real look at him.
The doctor keeps muttering curses under his breath, letting go of Hunter's leg to change his gloves for a clean pair. Hunter can't see Tech, view blocked by Pak, but Echo's sitting in silence now, eyebrows drawn together as he stares down the doctor.
There's nothing any of them can say that would help the situation. People like this natborn are just best to be avoided, though none of them can do so right now.
Hunter's not stupid, he notices that Pak uses less numbing spray than he should on the Sargent's leg. In addition to that, he only does so after he's disinfect the wound again, leaving Hunter to experience the entire process of the twi'lek dragging disinfectant soaked gauze along his raw skin.
The wounds is far from numb by the time Pax presses the torn edges of skin together and pushes a needle through. Hunter has to force himself not to squirm as he breathes in short, shallow gasps as the doctor sews his leg. One stitch after the other is put in his skin, each individually tied off to prevent Hunter from ripping them all out if one broke.
Pak wastes no more time than strictly necessary on the wound, hastily covering it in a bit of bacta and bandaging it when he's done. By then Ceta is back. The reg says nothing as he hooks the transfusion to Hunter's arm, barely daring to glance at him or the doctor. A bruise is blooming on his cheek.
The doctor spends even less time on Hunter's shoulder. He orders Hunter to get the top of his blacks off, then the wound is disinfected and wrapped. Pak glances at Hunter's bruises too, but doesn't offer up any bacta for those. When he moves on to Tech, Hunter is left feeling no better than he did before. The doctor didn't even give him anything against the pain.
With Pak's back turned, Ceta takes a moment to help Hunter lay down more comfortably. He whispers an apology before backing away.
The bandages on Hunter's leg and arm are driving him crazy. There's so little bacta between the fabric and the wounds that Hunter's left to feel every fibre of the material rubbing against it constantly. If he wasn't already stressed to his absolute limit by the fact Crosshair and Wrecker are dying, this would be enough for Hunter to be left on edge constantly.
Tech is treated no gentler than Hunter was, the doctor grabbing at Tech in ways Hunter know make his vod'ika uncomfortable the entire time. Pak even pins Tech's head to the bed whilst he examines Tech's neck. Tech's visibly fighting to not squirm at the touch the entire time.
The doctor is about to leave when Ceta calls after him. “Sir, you've forgotten to give CT-9901 and CT-9902 painkillers,” he states, voice firm despite the way his heart beats and his hands shake behind his back.
The doctor snaps around with fire in his eyes. “I haven't forgotten anything,” he spits. “I'm clearly not done yet, am I?”
Hunter almost laughs bitterly. The doctor was almost out of the medbay door and clearly had no intention of turning back if Ceta hadn't pointed out his likely purposeful oversight. Pak huffs as he trudges back to the beds with an irritated pout on his face. He doesn't warn either of them before sticking the hypo needle in their skin.
“We're discussion your behaviour later,” Pak snaps as he passes Ceta on his way out of medbay. The young medic sighs when the doctor is gone, rubbing at his face. Ceta brings Tech a blanket too, before disappearing without a word.
“How are you feeling?” Hunter asks Tech. Thick bandages cover his neck, exhaustion in Tech's expression as he looks over at Hunter.
Tech doesn't speak, he just uses the signs they developed over the years. He signs one word; Bad. Hunter can't help but laugh weakly.
“I can believe that,” he sighs, running his hand across the blanket covering his legs. Hunter feels cold and sore, wounds aggravated by the shiver that runs through his body. Tech seems to catch on, quickly hopping off his own bed. Hunter's about to tell his vod to stay put and rest when he notices what Tech's up to.
He undoes the breaks keeping the bed he was on in place and begins pushing it towards Hunter's. Once they're side to side, Tech fastens the breaks again. He does the same with Echo's, that time with Echo still on it.
“Don't overdo it,” Echo warns him. Hunter can see the way Tech's arms shake too, but Tech just waves off with one hand. He's relieved when Tech finally climbs into his bed again. Silently, he offers to let Hunter lean into his side. Not saying anything either, Hunter accepts. The warmth of his brother at his side does a lot to still the tremors tormenting Hunter.
“Can we use your datapad to call Kix?” Hunter asks Tech after a moment of silence. It's far too quiet for Hunter's liking, the silence only serving to make him worry about Cross and Wrecker more. Tech nods, carefully placing the device in Hunter's lap.
Moving to lean against Hunter's other side, Echo enters Kix's comm-code on the datapad.
Mando'a Translation:
Ori'vod - older sibling Vod/vode – sibling/siblings Vod'ika – little sibling (affectionate)
