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comfy-whumpee · 7 months

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Lab Rat

Whumptober 7. Lab whump with extra dehumanisation and gore, this time!

There’s a taste in his mouth that he can’t get out.

The first experiment is simple. The muzzle is removed, and the body is fed water for the first time in days. It is helped to drink until it can drink no more, turning its head away from the feeding tube. Then, for the next twenty minutes, some mild acid forces the body to produce saliva, which is collected in test tubes on ice.

The body endures this placidly. It is cooperative with the cotton swabs placed inside its mouth. It holds still with its jaw wide, not needing to be forced. Maybe it is grateful to have been given water. Maybe it hopes, as the doctors do, that saliva will substitute blood in their treatments.

But the testing is done quickly and the results are clear. If there is power in the saliva, it is so diluted as to be useless.

And there’s a taste in his mouth that he can’t get out.

The second experiment is nails and hair. The body is unresponsive when the hair is trimmed. It looks to be sleeping, though nobody is sure whether it truly sleeps like humans do. It wakes up, as best they can tell, with no idea of what was done. But later that day, they trim its nails. The clippings are stored in another sample container and taken away for testing.

This is equally unimpressive. There was already significant doubt that such expendable parts of the body would contain anything of value. But it was proof of the previous experiment. Only things integral would be useful to gather.

And there’s a taste in his mouth that he can’t get out.

By the end of the week, Caroline has allowed another experiment, more invasive now there have been no ill effects from the others. The body still bleeds through the needle in its arm, and nothing else matters. So Caroline authorises a tissue sample.

The first one is small, just a scraping of dead skin from under their trimmed fingernails. The body barely responds to the dull shear on their fingers. The flakes are taken away in a petri dish.

Next is a slice of fresh skin. One hand is taken into a bowl of water to be thoroughly cleaned. This, unlike the rest, gets a response, tears leaking down its cheeks as if touched by the gesture. But it is done by uncaring hands, who only want to make sure the site of their sample is sterile.

Gloved hands press the knuckles flat on a rolling steel side table. Caroline does the incision herself, peeling back mere millimetres of skin with her sharpest scalpel. The blood, which cannot be wasted, is allowed to flow openly until it clots on its own. Caroline takes the sample off herself for immediate testing, while one of the acolyte doctors is responsible for soaking up every drop of blood.

Lachlan doesn’t know if the skin sample works or not. All he knows is that, the very next day, Caroline returns for more. As the body heals, and does not scar, she grows less and less worried that she will do something irreversible.

Kurt used to speak up. He is supposed to, if she risks permanent damage to the body, but he doesn’t say a word. He’s barely present anymore. He’s here because he was told to be here, and outside of working hours, he is gone.

Caroline stays. Caroline sharpens and sterilises her scalpels. She gathers her two favourite students, the brightest and most loyal. They cleanse the site of her next incision. She has chosen the thigh, and they make sure every strand of hair and speck of dirt is gone from the area she designs. No contaminants. Why stop at blood when flesh could yield better results?

The body knows it is coming already. Even as Caroline only prepares, it has clearly worked out the pattern. It keens in pain at the first touch of metal and doesn’t stop when it comes in earnest. She presses the scalpel into flesh, barely needing to push with as sharp as she has the blade. Blood wells up around it, and she cuts with confidence.

The body – Northlight – cries out through the muzzle, legs jerking and arms pulling at the restraints. The pain is audible in their voice. The tears flow from their eyes again, backwards down their face as their head is thrown back. Caroline is immune, extracting the gouged flesh and having it conveyed to be chilled and preserved for testing. One of her students is already stifling the bleeding. The other conveys the sample away.

Lachlan tries not to look at the blob of flesh on the tray, nor at the bleeding hole in Northlight’s leg. He looks at the body’s tormented expression, and tries not to listen to the whimpers low in its throat. It’s a sensible thing to do with the experiments, to build up like this. It makes sense. It’s scientific. The body was always going to respond like this. Simulating feelings. Like how trees bleed sap.

The…

Northlight cries in hopeless pain as the wound is tightly bandaged. Northlight shakes their head in plea when the doctor leaves. Northlight endures without painkillers, without even food. Northlight turns their eyes to him.

There’s a taste in Lachlan’s mouth that he can’t get out. Metallic and sour. He knows it can’t be real, but he can taste it all the same. He drinks it in his dreams and it makes him ache and shiver.

Every morning he goes to wash his face in the laboratory toilets, and he bares his teeth the mirror, to check them for sharper edges.

#whumptober2023 #lab whump #lab whumpee #fantasy whump #magical healing #vampire whump #gouging #my fic #whump #northlight #lachlan #caroline #dehumanisation #rehumanisation?#lab rat #alt.14 #gore

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comfortingcatharsis · 3 months

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X smooths their hand rhythmically over Y's upper arm, touch sure and gentle. Spreading warmth follows it, like the heat of sinking into a hot bath, leeching deep into the limb. Tension also gradually leeches out of Y's frame and they uncurl slightly from their defensive stance. Their arm is still closely-guarded though, clamped tight to their side, and the tell-tale pinched corners of their eyes nevertheless belie their pain.

Their breath comes easier though as X finally lifts their hands away.

Emerging from their concentration, X gives a tired smile. 'There, I've stabilised it. It's not healed, mind; I'd say the equivalent of maybe a week's-worth of natural healing- the bone still needs another month at least to knit fully- but this should be just enough you can bear to walk out of here without it jarring too badly at every step.'

Y nods, keeping their good hand cupped protectively beneath the opposite elbow, and cautiously tests the arm's movement. They break off with a wince. 'Doesn't- ah- feel a whole lot better when I do that-'

'Don't let's get ahead of ourselves,' X stays Y with a hand on their chest. 'You're going to want that immobilised for a while yet- like I said, I can only give you a head-start; the rest of the slow and steady way is up to you now. Go rushing things too much with magic and they tend not to stay healed.'

Y leans tiredly back against the tunnel wall again. 'I know. Aches though, even just sitting here.'

X hums in sympathy and chances one last brief caress and pulse of warmth into the broken humerus before pulling the more mundane tools of their trade from their pack- curved length of bark for a splint, moss to pad it, broad fabric strips to use for sling and swathe, and a tincture for the pain.

#whumpy text post #original whump #magical healing #field medicine #broken bone #fantasy whump

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never-enough-whump · 1 year

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Magical "healing" that doesn't heal. Spells that only hide the look of wounds and scars and bruises. Whumpee walking down the street and no one can tell how badly they've just been beaten. Whumpee who also can't see their wounds after the spell's been cast confused that they're still in pain. Teammate whumper promising to heal whumpee only to use this spell and whumpee can't complain because the rest of the team trusts whumper. Whumpee using the spell on themself so they'll be allowed to go back to work before they're fully healed.

#whump #beaten up #abuse #magical healing #hidden injury #tropes #my writing

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random-fandom-whump · 2 years

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Stargate Atlantis S03E14 ↳ RFW's Favorite Stargate Whump Moments

#stargate atlantis #rodney mckay #ronon dex #emotional whump #magical healing #scars #ep: tao of rodney #sga 3x14 #david hewlett #jason momoa #you could open a coke bottle with those arm muscles #sga #stargate #favorite stargate moments

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thewhumperinwhite · 1 month

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WKW: Spine

Masterpost // Previous

@annablogsposts @whump-cravings @whumpitywhumpwhump @just-a-whumping-racoon-with-wifi @favwhumpstuff @the-monarch-whumperfly @iboopsstuff (also: i finally added a taglist to my main wkw doc, so please send me a message if you wanna be on that list)

TW for: back injury; burns; Magical Injury/painful healing; guilt; Injury To The Degree That It Is Kind Of Body Horror; potential/partial paralysis; referenced past abuse/murder; referenced noncon; nonsexual nudity (brief/implied).

----

Night has barely fallen when they bring the dying Prince to Feira’s salon. By the time she has stitched him together enough to leave him sleeping on her table, his face shadowed and aura flickering but death no longer crouching on his chest, the sun is streaming through the salon’s single window and directly into Feira’s eyes. She collapses back into the single chair that sits opposite her table, wiping sweat and stray strands of grey hair from her forehead with the least bloody part of her sleeve.

It should not have taken this long.

Spines are delicate things, and the care with which she knits one back together will mean the difference between a Prince who someday walks again and one who doesn’t; but she has studied the inner workings of the spine extensively, ever since she put the Prince’s back together from whole cloth after his botched execution. This was never going to be easy, but it should certainly be possible.

It takes her twenty long, harrowing minutes to identify the problem, as she has never encountered anything quite like it before. The iron manacle, clamped to the stump of the Prince’s wrist, is drinking in her magic. Sucking it up like a rag in a puddle. By the end of that first twenty minutes, she is sweating with effort, the Prince is still writhing with the effort of each breath, and when she happens to brush the manacle with the back of her hand, she draws back with a hiss. The metal is hot enough to burn her skin.

Feira is familiar with iron as an insulator against magical energy, of course. Magic-resistant armor is always made of iron; one of the earliest ways to recognize magical aptitude in a child is a rash-like reaction to the touch of iron. But she’s never seen anything like this before. She takes hold of the Prince’s wrist to examine the manacle—seeing, now, the way his skin is already reddening from the heat—and sees the unfamiliar rune welded into the metal. It can be no accident: it must be an intentional damper on the Prince’s magic.

There are—implications, there. About the fall of Fourshield House; about claims that the White Crane has made. None of which Feira has time to think about now, while the Prince is dying on her table, and she does not have the key to his cursed shackle.

It is—not an insurmountable obstacle. But it does mean that Feira must dig deeper into her Patron’s magical reserves than she ever has before, must strain her own aura to the point of pain and dig deeper into the Prince’s soul than she would ever have done given the choice—and must close her eyes to how the skin of his arm reddens and then blisters. The Prince slips in and out of awareness throughout the night; sometimes he is even awake enough to beg for mercy, though he never seems coherent enough to know who his torturer is, and Feira is shamefully grateful for that.

In the end, he still—has an arm, however useless it is without a hand attached. It is a horrible sun-scorched red up to the elbow; the place where the manacle once touched skin has burned down deep into the flesh beneath; in between the skin has bubbled and blistered in ways that make Feira have to stop in the middle and waste seconds she doesn't have gulping air and trying not to be sick. And even then—a spine is a finnicky thing. She may have twisted his arm beyond repair without even returning the use of his legs. She doesn’t know. Certainly he will be well within his rights to hate her to the end of his days, for these hours of torture if not for the years of neglect that preceded them.

But he does not die.

----

Thorne does not expect to fall asleep, not even when he gives up on pacing the hallway and sits down outside the Healer’s door with his forehead pressed to his knees and his eyes squeezed shut. Andry is not screaming as much, by then. Thorne doesn’t know if that means the pain has lessened, or the Prince’s throat has simply given out.

He doesn’t know how long he sleeps; he doesn’t even know it's happened until he hears his Master’s voice—he knows it immediately, even in sleep, and is halfway to his feet before he is fully awake or his Master has finished the sentence—say, “What are you doing here?”

Thorne snaps to attention, though he has to grab the wall to keep from falling over while his vision clears. Morden is looking at him with blank surprise but no anger, thank the gods. Morden looks like he hasn't slept, either, and for some reason there is a smudge of blood near one corner of his jaw, like he has tried to wipe it away and not quite succeeded.

“Master,” Thorne says, his mind blessedly blank with relief. “I was—” Part of him knows he is not being careful enough, that he is too tired and wrung out to pay attention to what he says, that he must no better, by now, than to speak to his Master without thinking first.“Someone—I wanted to—they almost killed him, Master,” he blurts out. He sounds like a child to his own ears; high pitched and near tears.

Morden blinks at Thorne. Thorne cannot read his Master's face. That sends an immediate spike of panic into Thorne's guts that brings him halfway back into his body, thankfully. He pulls himself together, with a mighty effort, and bows his head properly, like he is giving an ordinary report, and his voice is almost steady, this time.

“There was an attempt on the Summer Prince’s life, Master,” Thorne says, without lifting his head. “I was—absent from my quarters at the time. I apologize for not taking more care with your gift.”

He should say more. He should tell Morden about the guards. Even if... they were enlisted men, not officers, but Morden might still notice their absence. Thorne didn’t even think to look around the Healer’s room' their bodies might be right inside the door for all he knows. He should tell Morden.

(The word "gift" shouldn't make his mouth fill up with bile, like he's going to gag on what his Master has given him. He should be anticipating his Masters needs and striving to meet them. He shouldn't be thinking about his Master's needs and feeling—feeling—)

(Morden, for his part, is afflicted with a strong desire to laugh. Thorne, his head still bowed, does not see this. Morden schools his features carefully before Thorne meets his eyes.)

“…I see,” Morden says. “And was that attempt successful?”

Thorne shakes his head.

“No, Master,” he says. “No, he—he’s alive. But—I—they—” The words do not want to come. But his Master is watching, so he makes them. “His back is broken, I think,” he says, though it comes out thin and whispery and wrong.

Morden raises his eyebrows. Thorne looks at the blood on his Master’s jaw. His Masters next words are muffled by the sudden buzzing in Thorne’s ears.

“I imagine he'll be fine,” Morden says, and brushes past him to open the Healer’s door.

----

Andry knows the ceiling of the Healer’s room as soon as he opens his eyes. It is decorated with vines and fruit and beehives, sculpted out of white plaster, cracked a little with age.

He feels cracked that way himself. He doesn’t try to move his arm, but even in stillness it feels

(like it is filled with crawling insects who are eating it from the inside like old wood like it is in a sleeve of struck matches like it has swollen so far that the skin has split like rotten meat left in the sun)

bad.

The door of the Healer’s room opens. Andry does not see who has entered, at first; he only sees Lady Feira, the old Court Healer, leap to her feet, placing herself bodily between him and the intruder.

“No,” Lady Feira says, in thickly-accented Leisevan. “No visitors. Get out.”

“Now is a bad time to be in my way, Madam Healer,” the Winter King says in a soft, gentle voice. His Craetan is very good, as always.

Andry feels his heart stutter painfully in his chest, but it has been a long, long night, and he is too tired to feel properly afraid.

Lady Feira is shaking her head. “No. It is enough. You have done enough, you will do no more, I will not—”

Andry takes hold of the Healer’s wrist with his good hand. She stills, though he can feel that she is trembling slightly.

“It’s alright, Feira,” he rasps.

Lady Feira turns to look down at him, over her shoulder. She looks—stricken in a way he has never seen her look before, even when his fever came back a few weeks after his back had begun to heal. He might feel sorry for her, in a few hours. He is too tired for it, just at the moment.

Lady Feira removes her spectacles and rubs her eyes, letting her shoulders sag and not looking at either Andry or Morden.

“Fine,” she says, after a moment, in Craetan. “Fine. Speak, Winter King; but do no more or you will waste the hours I have just spent keeping the Prince alive.”

Andry can see just enough of Morden over the Healer’s shoulder to see him cross his arms and raise his eyebrows at her expectantly. The Healer swears under her breath. She turns back to Andry.

“Don’t try to move,” she says curtly. Her expression seems more under control, though her eyes are still tight with misery. “I won’t go far.”

It’s—kind enough, as a sentiment. Andry knows she can do less than nothing against Morden, any more than he can. It’s nice that she's—thinking of him, he supposes.

Morden watches her leave. When she has closed the door behind her, he turns to look down at Andry, narrowing his black eyes.

Morden pulls up the Healer’s chair and sits down beside the sickbed. The Healer has draped a blanket across Andry's chest; it is the only thing between him and the Winter King. Andry tucks his ruined arm underneath it.

“Alright, Summer Prince," Morden says. "You've got my attention. Tell me about your sister.”

#the winter king's ward #original whump #fantasy whump #royalty whump #broken bones #magical healing #painful healing #guilt #manipulative whumper #brainwashing and manipulation #<-it's not like Being Done in this chapter but thorne is. Feeling Some Cognitive Dissonance and he Doesn't Like It #back injury tw #burns tw #referenced noncon

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whumpypepsigal · 9 months

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Nancy Drew s04e10: “Tristan needs a hospital.” — “A hospital can’t help. The wound is supernatural. Too many questions.”

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friendlylocalwhumper · 3 months

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continuation of this piece.

The car crashed into the house. Quinn figured out it was going to just a little too late.

It’s not as dark as they expected it to be, once they crack their eyes open. Light streams through gaps between chunks of wall. They aren’t pinned, exactly, but stuck in a space just big enough to breathe in.

They don’t know where Major is.

He was standing right before it happened, farther in the house than they were by ten feet. He could be dead. Their eyes widen and breaths catch as they picture Major dead, sprawled and crushed somewhere in here. Or worse, he might not be dead, but unfixable.

They passed out for a while, they think. But no one has found them. Outside it sounds quieter than before, like the riot is over, but no one has checked on the house renovated by a car driving into it, so it must be just as gory out there. Maybe no one will come at all.

It hurts. Everything. A general throbbing ache, and exhaustion that makes it difficult to care much about moving. It feels safer to just stay still and hope that this will somehow get better. Their neck could be broken and they might not know it. Their skull. Something could be wrong with their spine. Quinn can think of a hundred reasons to just lie still and keep breathing. When they dare to look hard at the cramped space around them, they can see all the instability. All the spots where a shift of debris could mean that it would all shift and suddenly Quinn would not be alive anymore.

Eventually, waiting doesn’t feel like the best option anymore. The air isn’t getting any easier to breathe, dust floating around lazily. It coats their throat and the ache of fighting down coughs is getting harder to ignore. Quinn bends bony limbs to test their joints and run crooked hands across their own body in search of blood. Oh, there, at their back - they whine when they first find the sore spot, then the sound erupts into a scream as they twist further to find that glass is sticking out of their back.

Then comes a miracle. A voice, his voice, muffled but close. “Shut up. Shut up I’m focusing.”

They need help. The glass, they don’t know how deep it goes, and they’re trapped and he’s a healer. Major sounds fine, he sounds more annoyed than anything. Quinn tries to get a grip on the shard of window in their back, but their fingers are slippery with blood and all they manage is to make themself whimper in pain.

It’s hard to find a decent angle for it, but they wedge their shoulder up against a bar of wood and shove upward. Push, push, push - the wood gives way, but then dust rains down and Quinn finds themself sprawling facedown, pinned worse. When they cry out this time, their voice is weaker, more airy, as their nails dig into the floor.

“I’m over here,” They whisper, breath stolen by how hopeless this is. Moving anything could mean the building collapses worse. Major has to come to them. Their back burns from the incision and they’re praying that the glass didn’t go any farther in.

“...Okay?” Major grumbles. “I’m not focusing on getting to you, bitch.”

He’s not… even trying to get to them? A soft upset sound escapes their throat before they can stop it. “Wha-at? Why?”

“I’m fucking close. Shut up. Shut up.” It sounds like he’s trying to move, but not managing to make it far at all. And then he starts choking, coughing, and Quinn holds very still as if distracting him would be enough to kill him. “Ha! Got it! There’s one more chip in there. It’s gonna be so fucking good.”

Something’s wrong. He’s a dumbass, but not that bad. He might think he’s trying to get at his bag of chips but Quinn doubts that that is still anywhere near him. And it definitely isn’t a priority right now. Does he even know what happened, that he’s trapped? He might not be as fine as he sounds.

“Are you, Major, are you… trying to find your chips?”

He doesn’t answer. There is a sound like a mouse sneaking through a cupboard. He’s actually reaching, trying to get at that bag. A new urgency settles over Quinn’s mind and they start delicately, slowly pushing against the debris pinning them, crawling forward at every possible opportunity. Sometimes the crevice they force their way into is too small, but they just keep pushing. Something is wrong with Major, they need to see.

“Major, are you looking for the bag of chips?” They repeat, closer to him now. They see his shoe. It’s not on him. He must’ve flown right out of them when he was knocked back.

“Yeah. Trying.” His voice is so close. Quinn twists to try to protect the glass in their back and dips around a beam, strands of hair hanging in their eyes.

“Can you stop?” They try, analyzing the wall of shattered brick between them and him. Scraped fingers begin peeling away at the stone until they get a hole big enough to climb precariously through.

Major growls, and Quinn frowns in worry, finally close enough to see his shoulder. “I - fuck, I fucking can now, you made me lose it,” He complains, utterly distracted. The space that they carved out for themself changes shape just slightly, a wooden beam sinking. It’s about where Major’s face ought to be, and - yes, they can see his face now, if they squint just right against the headlight glaring at them. “The fuck?” Major croaks, and Quinn snaps a hand up to try to catch the wood, if it’s hurting him. “Fuck, FUCK!”

Both hands on the beam, then, they decide, their knees taking the weight painfully as they struggle to balance on the brick they’re kneeling on. The beam is heavy but they have to lift it, it’s pressing down on Major’s cheek. His skull could be crushed in an instant.

“Don’t move,” They instruct, certain that he already knows they’re here. His eyes are open, and their own face is just inches away, after all. But he flinches hard, and twists to claw at the wood on his face like he just figured out that it’s there. They have to wedge their bloody fingers between the beam and his cheek and pull up, their whole body trembling with the effort.

“Stop moving.” Quinn really needs him to just settle down and let them work the limited leverage they have. But he kicks and their eyes shoot to look at his leg, paranoid that he’ll knock out some kind of delicately balanced pile of debris. It takes a moment of squinting in that direction to recognize the blood spreading under bricks where his leg is supposed to be, where that kick just happened.

The broken windowsill in their fingers is trying to slip. Frustrated, they push up harder and ignore the leg thing for now. Finally they get the sill up off Major’s face and push their knee against him to try to make him tip his head away.

“I was just gonna get the chip,” He complains, and Quinn shakes their head, incredulous. He’s still talking about the chips. “And then fuckin’ find you. Weren’t you, aren’t you hurt?”

Finally, they can drop the sill. Frustration flashes across his face when they do, and as they pant and stare at him, they see how out of it he is. His face is swollen purple on the right, and he won’t look right at them. His left arm is at his side, crooked. His right arm is pinned to his chest under stone, so they’re pretty sure he never really did reach for the chip bag, he just imagined it. Or worse, he didn’t feel his broken arm as he tried to move it and reach. If his legs are still legs, Quinn can’t see them, and he isn’t twisting in pain so they think maybe he doesn’t feel anything at all. It reeks of blood in here, and Quinn is hurt, but not that hurt.

Dizzy with the sight of him, they bend forward and rest their arms on him a moment, head hanging. “Not as bad as you are,” They answer grimly.

Major laughs. They keep asking questions, and he does sound fine still, but he so obviously isn’t. He can’t see, he can’t feel things. Quinn tries to get him to heal himself and he just won’t - maybe his magic is hurt, maybe something in his head is so that there’s a disconnect. Either way, his condition won’t improve before they get out of here.

And then he starts crying. He doesn’t even know he is, flinching and complaining as they wipe the big tears from his eyes and cheeks. Quinn’s jaw wobbles, their determination wavering, as his chest hitches with little sobs that he isn’t aware of.

“It’s okay,” They promise gently, and he just says things like, “I fucking know,” and “Just start moving shit so I can get up.” He doesn’t know it’s still collapsing. And that he might not even be able to sit up. Quinn just keeps soothing him, even if he hates it, while he cries cluelessly.

When he finally asks, “Am I fucked up?” Quinn nearly giggles hysterically. They fold down instantly to press their cheek to his, holding him in a very cautious hug. He’s whimpering low in his throat, and they keep checking on the worst injuries, but he doesn’t make any awful sounds then Quinn touches them.

“Give me a few minutes to catch my breath and I’ll… start digging us out,” They promise. He seems bewildered as if they just invited him to a tea party. Hesitantly they run a hand down his face, and he flinches again, closing his eyes finally. They think the headlights are hurting his eyes, making him tear up more. Or maybe they just need him to look like he isn’t seeing by choice right now.

A few hours later, they finally have him most of the way out. It must be very bad for his injuries to have been dragged like he was, but there was no other choice. Their tremors are constant now, their strength pushed to its limits. Quinn plants their heels in the ground and heaves again, arms wrapped under his armpits and around his chest, his head tipped back at their shoulder.

He started screaming at some point, then abruptly stopped. He’s been quiet since. Quinn pulls harder, eyes shut so they don’t have to see his legs. It doesn’t matter how mangled he might be. Doesn’t even matter if he’s dead right this second. He has to get pulled out, and then they can see what’s what.

He’s free with one final lurch, and Quinn flops back, arms out at their sides, Major on top of them. It’s hard to breathe. They have no idea if the glass in their back fell out or went all the way in. They need a rest. They have to hold still and try to breathe.

Major jerks, and their eyes fly open. Is he awake? Is he alive, or was that his final twitch? He jerks again, and it’s a relief for one second before terror dawns. They can’t handle an awake Major right now.

He sucks in a big breath. They feel his ribcage expanding. And then he howls, twisting off of them to roll onto the sidewalk, hands flexing and grabbing onto the curb as he snaps his head down to bang it into the concrete.

“No,” Quinn croaks, flipping onto their side to stretch and throw their hand there before he can bang his head again. His face smashes into their palm and Quinn chokes back a cry of pain.

He is wailing, clawing, trying in stops and starts to crawl away and then to hold perfectly still. It seems the delirious, odd calm from earlier is over. Maybe now that he isn’t pinned anymore, now that the blood is flowing, he lost the miraculous numbness.

“It’s okay,” Quinn forces out uselessly, crawling closer and rolling him onto his back. Major’s face is striped with tears and his teeth are bared. He’d like to kill them, they think, but he can’t. He’s struggling just to keep sucking down breaths. “It’s okay, Major. You can heal it. Just heal it.” They snatch up his hand and show it to him, as if that’ll make him understand, before they grab at one of his legs, bend it up closer to his chest, and press his hand to it. They won’t look down, but it’s hot and sticky. “Heal it, Major. Your hand’s there.”

His mouth is wide, his eyes squeezed shut, his head thrown back. They can tell how loud each sob is going to be by how hard his chest rises for the breath he sucked in. Quinn squeezes his wrist harder. “Heal it. Major, your magic. Make it work.”

He feels like he’s dying. He probably is. The pain must be unbearable. As their eyes find every injury on him and all the signs that he cannot listen, the world grows colder. The color desaturates. This is easy, Quinn thinks, focusing hard. He has to use his magic. He has to listen.

Quinn lowers themself so that their forehead tips to his. He’s screaming right in their face but they don’t listen, don’t flinch from his roars. Mind magic spills out of them, invisible but strong coming from so close. All at once, Major’s screaming stops. The tears keep flowing, his lost eyes open now.

Magic pours from his hand almost immediately. His leg cracks, shifts, changes shape. Quinn ignores the movement and stares into his unseeing eyes. “You just have to listen,” They whisper, guiding him by twisting his emotions into the right shape and reminding him with words what he should be doing. “Keep healing. Cry to vent the pain and keep healing.”

His magic starts to run out right around when his legs look like legs again, and it’s hard to let him stop. Quinn wants him all better, all in one piece, seeing and able to walk and in no pain at all. But there is fresh bright blood under his nose, and his breathing is getting worse, not better. He would obey and use his magic to death if they forced him to, they think, so Quinn allows him to stop. They pull back, brushing his hair out of his face, and stop the mind magic.

He’s still in too much pain to tell what happened. Major’s teeth clench and he starts whining in agony again, clutching at their torn shirt.

“It’s okay,” They remind, pulling him up so carefully and tucking his head against their shoulder. “It’s okay. Take a break. We got out and it’s gonna be okay.”

#whump #drabble #mine #quinn #major #building collapse #blood #gore #it's all kind of vague but still somewhat crunchy #magical healing #mind magic #but not the creepy whumper kind of mind magic

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