He tried to sit up another time, even though his head swam and his vision fractured at the edges any time he got an eye open. But the thing across his chest was still there, and now he could feel one around his legs, too. Holding him down. Restraining him.

Tup wasn’t usually one to panic. Usually.

“Breathe.”

A hand came to rest atop his heaving chestplate. It pressed down, making him exhale, before it lightened again, directing the rhythm of the air rushing in and out of his lungs.

Tup still choked on the pounding of his own heartbeat in his throat. “Dogma?”

“Right here.” The hand caught his own. A warm palm wrapped around Tup’s. A strong thumb began to rub circles into the tender skin of his wrist.

Tup swallowed down the tightening of his throat. “Am I in trouble?”

Dogma didn’t answer immediately, as if he was taking a breath. When he did, however, he sounded so sure Tup could only believe him.

“No. You’re not in trouble.” His hand was squeezed. Tup would have preferred the touch of Dogma’s lips against his own, no matter how chapped and chaste, but his heart unwound in his chest, anyway. “Go back to sleep.”

Tup smiled, already feeling the effect Dogma’s deep, soothing tone was having on him. “Alright. Love you.”

He didn’t hear Dogma say it back before sleep overwhelmed him once more. He didn’t need to.

Dogma was here. They were both safe, and that was all that mattered.

Everything was going to be alright.

Dogma stared down at Tup’s fever-slick face. It blurred in his vision when hot, thick moisture suddenly beaded in the corners of his eyes. Confused, he wiped at his face, dampening his gloves.

Someone—Fives—took his elbow, pulled his hand from Tup’s grasp and began steering him toward the door. “You did well calming him down,” the ARC was saying, voice close and yet so far away. “Go get some rest now. We’ll call you if we need you again.”

Dogma twisted, trying to get one last look at Kix and Rex standing over Tup restrained on the hovercot. “Is he going to be alright? Can you tell me?”

Tup’s lips were moving, like he’d begun to murmur under his breath again. Like he’d started doing right before he’d pushed Dogma aside, leveled his blaster at General Tiplar and shot her, just like that.

Good soldiers follow orders.

“Sure,” Fives was saying without looking Dogma in the eye. “He’ll be fine.”

“Can I—?” Dogma began, but Fives led him the rest of the way out into the hallway and let go of his elbow like he’d been burned before he stepped back and toggled the control panel in the wall. The door to the medbay slid closed, shutting Dogma out.

Good soldiers follow orders.

You’re not in trouble. Go back to sleep.

Dogma didn’t return to his bunk in the barracks. He just stood there, in the empty hallway, hand that had been holding Tup’s only heartbeats before—just like Kix had told him to—clenched into a fist.