How about both main characters being hurt, hiding it from each other and both stay to think the other one doesn't care anymore, because both keep their distance to hide the injury. Bonus points for the injury being trauma.
No | rather not | I dunno | I guess | Sure | Yes | FUCK yes | Oh god you don’t even know |
I like this one a lot less than when a single character is injured.
When they’re both injured and hiding it, you fall into the area of ‘we both don’t really have the energy or resources to help each other and so both of us are going to get half-assed care and attention and comfort for it to be remotely realistic if those injuries/traumas are revealed.
Also the whole ‘we’re keeping distance from each other because we’re both injured and doing it to be misleading’ I guess that can have a comfort payoff later on?
I have a strong preference as a writer and a reader for either one character to be going through the whump while the other can provide comfort, or alternatively, for both to take turns. The only time I’ve had it happen at the same time for characters in writing is usually when I want them to be disconnected and unable to help each other, to fracture the relationship. It can be useful, but it’s painful to do, and it’s not my preference (it’s usually just to remind me that two hurt people in a relationship are often shit at being there for each other, and that’s just how it goes sometimes) - it’s really handy for driving two protagonists towards their support network, so I might do it in Fae Tales where Augus goes to Fenwrel, and Gwyn has Mikkel etc.
I’ve seen Tumblr memes go around about how popular this is, but I don’t really understand why, and I’ve not really seen it that often in writing honestly? It does happen in media, but then the injury isn’t concealed for that long, and it’s normally not trauma, and it’s in that ‘I got beaten half to death and then you slide up your shirt or pull your jacket back and reveal you’ve taken a bullet’ and tbh it’s really not about hurt/comfort and it’s just about how they both got beaten to hell and back, lol.
But yeah it’s not my preference as much as single character injury/trauma.
