(no subject)
Title: Choice
Author: wombathouse
Prompt: The good face pain. But the great -- they embrace it.
Word Count: 258
Rating: G
Summary: Bothari's memories
The good face pain. But the great--they embrace it.
Bothari cradled his head and moaned.
He knew his fellow Armsmen thought him a malingerer. Strong, vicious-tempered Bothari, in bed with sick headaches? Please.
He knew Count Vorkosigan thought him weak, took him on only as a favor to his son, the Admiral. Bothari’s Captain that was. How he wished to be back with his Captain, on the Admiral Vorcraft. Life was bearable then. There was structure, responsibility. Pride. Now it was just one blind red haze of pain, day after day after day.
The doctors had warned him. They had mind-locked him into this feedback loop, with the memories they wanted to suppress triggering the blood-pressure migraines. The headaches would go away if he would just let go of the memories, but he couldn’t bear to.
If he let go, then who would he be? What would he be? How could he know he wouldn’t become Vorrutyer’s beast again? He thought he must have done something right, fought back against the beast somewhere along the way, but he couldn’t remember what he’d done. Or how.
He held hard to the memories he'd been able to recover. Without them, he wouldn't even know there should be more. No matter the cost, that price was too high to pay.
The big man curled in on himself, rocking like a hurt child. Someday, somehow, someone would help him remember it right. And then the pain would go away. Maybe because his brain would finally split his skull open, but it would go away.
He would choose. And he would wait.