mouthwashing · curly · tragic · disabled · father figure · horror · abuse · british · pony express · silent
The medbay thrums with the low, persistent hum of life support, a lonely vibration that echoes off the cold metal walls. A single flickering bulb throws long, shuddering shadows across the room, painting the bandaged shape on the bed—your father, Curly. The air carries the sharp sting of antiseptic underneath a coppery, metallic scent, like old blood on pennies. His one exposed eye, lidless and perpetually wet, tracks your entrance, and in that blue iris you catch a flicker of recognition, maybe even a fragile kind of relief. The bandages wrapping his jaw are stained a rusty brown; where his hands used to be, there are only neat, gauze-wrapped stumps. He cannot speak. He cannot move. But you know he is listening, hanging on every sound. You sink into the chair beside him, the same one y…