Race against the clock, but the clock is their own failing body.
Medic who catches the same disease their patients have, and knows its progression intimately, and is determined to continue caring for their patients as long as they possibly can.
In a similar vein, a spy or assassin who knows they've been poisoned (with a poison they've used before...?) but must complete the mission and get to safety without arousing suspicion.
SELF SURGERY this is the self surgery trope this is THEEE self surgery trope my friends. <3.
Adrenaline high, temporary pain relief, superpower that holds off injury... and Whumpee pushing themself as far as they possibly can, because they know once it wears off, they're not getting back up again. (may or may not be inspired by @tired-of-being-nice's Coren...)
And the core appeal, for me, is Whumpee planning for their deteriorating condition.
It's the acceptance! The inevitability! And the determination to keep going anyway - in the face of inevitability, still giving it their best shot.
Whumpee pushing themself harder once they realise they're ill, stacking the most demanding tasks back-to-back to get them out of the way while they still can.
Planning for specific symptoms, not just severity: "in a few hours my vision will go blurry, so I need to get all the paperwork done before then."
Last-minute instructing an ally - if they are lucky enough to have one - how to continue their mission, treat their patients, etc, and the ally's growing panic: "Just tell me how I can help you!" "Don't- [cough] - worry about me. Listen."
Pre-emptively putting water and meds in reach because they won't be getting up again; they'll be lucky to move at all. (This was definitely inspired by @chiswhumpcorner's Kev.)
!! this is something i've been wanting to write for ages but it just. took me ages cause amy is category 7 difficult to write. i can't even express why she's just an enigma to me. but! here we are :D
pre avo amethyst for you all <3 feat. the famous (?) emotional scurvy wound. this just kinda happened sometimes.
cw: field medicine?, self surgery (past), surgery without anaesthesia, immortal/magical whumpee, crying, multiple caretakers
---
Amethyst winced in pain. The sensation was sharp and unfamiliar. She was tense all over, biting the inside of her mouth as the needle pierced through her skin.
"Sorry, sweetheart," Amber whispered, working with her head down and hair tied back, completely focused. Amethyst kept her gaze fixed over her head, meeting Evan's eyes as he hovered a little away from them both. His eyebrows were creased with concern, a bloodied cloth in his hands. He was cleaning her mess.
"It's fine," Amethyst ground out. She was trying to switch off the pain, but it wasn't working, just like she couldn't figure out why her blood was still red. "I'm fine," she said again, a little hoarse this time.
"You're doing amazing," Evan murmured.
Amethyst hummed, turning her eyes to face the ceiling. The motion instantly reminded her of God, which vaguely disgusted her for a reason she couldn't quantify. She turned her eyes back down.
Back to Amber. Back to her careful hands stitching the flesh of her abdomen together. Back to the towel covering her legs, because she'd had to strip off her jeans when they got covered in blood. The bleeding had been uncontrollable before Amber and Evan got home, so she had been the centre of a crisis for a few awful minutes. But it slowed down before long, and she insisted that she did not want to go to the hospital. So Amber, well-accustomed to impromptu stitches, took out a kit and with no more than a sigh, sat down to work.
Evan floated in and out, turning on the tap periodically in the bathroom. It had not looked pretty. Both of them had screamed when they saw it. Their panic had cut through even Amethyst's half-conscious state, miraculously.
She whimpered again, the uncomfortable sensation of metal slicing flesh adding to the tyranny on her senses. She was half-lying on the couch, at Amber's insistence. She would've preferred the floor, but Amber laid out a towel and refused to let Amethyst get down.
She would've done the stitches herself, except - it hurt too much. It was bleeding too much. She was shaking. She was exhausted. She'd already tried to do it herself, three times in the past two weeks. The damn thing just kept opening up. Amber had needed to take out her festering stitches before cleaning it up and starting afresh. Amethyst burned with embarrassment the whole time, but once the new stitches started to go in, that feeling shifted to a kind of raw vulnerability.
Amber was so gentle with her. She was clean and precise and methodical, closing the wound with all her years of experience. It was the kindest thing anyone had ever done to her body.
A shuddering breath escaped her. Fuck, it hurt. Her hands flexed, one down by her side, the other thrown up by her head. She was squeezing one of the throw pillows, but she didn't know when she'd started doing it. Embarrassed, she let go. Evan was watching.
He sighed, moving around the couch to sit by her. "Sorry," she whispered. For making a mess. For not coming to them earlier. For scaring them. For being so inconvenient. She'd said it all already, so she didn't say it again. Out of the two, Evan's concern came out a lot like anger. And she didn't mind, could hold her own, especially because she knew she was tougher than he was and could hold out a lot longer. But she just didn't like it when he was angry with her.
"It's nothing," he said quietly, dabbing at her forehead with a tissue and pushing aside some stray hair in the same motion. Blood and sweat had stuck some of it to her face, and she hadn't had a chance to clean up. "I'm just glad you stayed at home. And that you called."
She'd forgotten she did that. She'd been… really dizzy. The reassurances went over her head. He said things like that all the time. But then he gave her one of his soft smiles, and she believed him in the same instant. The relief knocked her off her feet, or it would've if she wasn't already lying down.
Instead, to Amethyst's absolute dismay, tears sprang to her eyes. She closed them, but it was too late - one trickled out of her eye and down her face.
"Oh, Ames, hey, hey. You're okay, I got you." He was holding her hand now, doing the squeezing so she wouldn't have to. Not that she wanted to. Except she absolutely did, and she was. She couldn't stop the tears coming now that they'd started and she could tell it was making Amber's job harder so she had a practical reason to stop, not just a prideful one, but her body seemed to refuse to listen to her recently.
"I'm fine," she insisted, but her voice wobbled. Traitorously. "Sorry, I just - is it - "
"Done." Amber pulled away, and Amethyst pulled the towel up to cover herself almost immediately. She was no stranger to being exposed, but she just wanted to hide now.
"Woah, woah, careful - oh, Amethyst."
The sobs were completely silent, but ripped from her body in a way that was almost painful. It was all painful now, she thought. What if this was it? What if she just had to live like this forever?
Well. She wouldn't be alone. If she had to pick a place to spend the rest of her life, it'd be here, with these people who refused to let her remember what loneliness was.
She ended up crying onto Evan's shoulder, draping herself over him as if she was afraid he'd leave. Or disintegrate. People did that to her. More often the first one, but… she was just terrified of losing the first good thing she'd ever had. The first real good thing.
"You're so good to me," she said once she'd calmed down. She had made no attempt to extricate herself however, and could still feel his heartbeat against her chest. "How do you do it?"
He smoothed down her hair. "Sometimes I ask myself the same question."
She laughed. That was why she liked him: he told the truth.
"But… I don't know how. I just do. It feels like the right thing to do. And I like you, Amethyst. I care about you. Maybe that's how."
"What does that feel like?"
He pulled back a little to look at her, expression quizzical. "Caring about you? It's… crazy. It's the feeling I got every time I wanted to quit med school. When everything seemed hopeless, I just thought… if I can help one person. If one person in the world lives, or has a better life, because of me, then it's worth it. Maybe you're that person."
"And all the patients you see every day are just extra?"
God, it was sometimes physically overwhelming to see Evan lovesick. "Yeah, maybe."
Amethyst gave a wry smile. "That's sweet. I need to shower."
"And nap," he added, letting her lean on him to stand up.
"I hate those. I don't need to sleep."
"I know. And I know. I'm telling you to nap. Your body needs to rest."
"My body -" Amethyst didn't have a way to finish the retort. She didn't know what her body needed. And she really couldn't argue with the doctor. She was outnumbered in that regard. Amber would be on his side, she had a feeling.
"Fine."
"Need me to help you shower?"
She shot him a look. "Creep." And then she asked Amber.
"You know she's older!" He wasn't really protesting, and she wasn't actually disturbed. Her comfort came from the fact that she could bleed half her blood volume out onto the bathroom floor and demand to be stitched up on the sofa then cry harder than she'd ever cried in recent history, and they could still make stupid jokes with each other. Nothing changed.
—
She did take a nap. She hadn't been sleeping well, but the sleep after Amber helped her to shower and washed her hair was the deepest and calmest she'd ever had. Amethyst didn't often dream, and if she did, they made her wake up sweating and panicked. She never remembered them, and this one was no different. But it was different, in every way.
She was healed. Not unblemished, but the wound had scarred over. And she had her wings. Four off-white downy things, two smaller ones wrapping around her torso and two larger ones spread out behind her. She was on top of a cloud. In it? No. She was pretty sure she was on top of it. Cirrus, but it was iridescent. Amethyst reached out and touched it, and where the rainbow met her skin, ice shards stuck to it like jewellery. She shone. It was bright, but she had the feeling that she was shining.
She wasn't alone.
"This is nice," she said without much feeling. "Can I go home now?"
She felt, as if music was being played with the muscle of her heart, the answer. And the laugh.
Of course. This is always here for you.
Amethyst hummed, spinning lightly in the air. The wings felt nice. But the ice was cold against her hand, and the smell of ozone was so different to Evan's eucalyptus and Amber's peony.
content: self-surgery, self-harm, medical whump, gore
sorry i fell off medwhump may right at the end there, gonna finish it for sure this week
-
Which was better, quick breaths or deep breaths? Which would help them get through it easier, faster? Right now, holding the razor blade in a hand that wouldn’t stop shaking, Whumpee could only manage the quick ones, so they’d just have to go with that.
A quick prayer that it’d work. A quick prayer that they wouldn’t get caught. A quick prayer that they wouldn’t bleed themself to death. A quick prayer that they wouldn’t fuck up their spinal cord. A quick prayer that they wouldn’t get an infection from the used razor they’d fished out of Whumper’s trash can and cleaned with hand soap. A quick prayer that they’d be a good enough actor to sell still having it in after they’d taken it out.
Whumpee squeezed their eyes shut, then forced them open again, look right into the bathroom mirror. They needed to see.
Not that they could really see the back of their head that well, even when turned to the side. If it weren’t for the shower on full blast right next to them, Whumpee was sure they’d hear their heart pounding right out of their chest.
“One, two, three,” they mouthed silently.
In went the razor blade. Whumpee grit their teeth around the washcloth in their mouth, holding back every sound as they sliced open the back of their scalp, right above the neck. Not a peep, Whumper had told them, time and time again. Her training was good for something after all.
They dropped the bloody blade into the sink, bringing their (clean, clean, gotta be clean by now) fingers back and digging into the wound. Whumpee couldn’t make the incision where the chip actually was. Too visible. They had to do it high up, so it could hide in their hair, and reach. Their teeth hurt even through the washcloth, their jaw locked all the way up with how hard they bit. Still, not a peep.
The eyes weren’t doing anything. Whumpee closed them, trying to focus on the feeling in their fingers instead of the agony of their split skin. It was the hardest thing they’d ever done, impossible. Every cell in their body screamed at them to stop, just stop, the way they wanted to scream at Whumper.
They didn’t. They felt around, bile working its way into their mouth and then back down, until they were sure they’d gotten it. A hard little box that certainly didn’t feel like a body part. The terrible thing that let Whumper flood their whole nervous system with pain at the touch of a button.
Whumpee yanked.
They buckled to their knees, only the luck of the breath being stolen from their lungs keeping them from succumbing to a giveaway shout. They hit the tile hard, seizing, more and more blood spilling from the wound each time their head hit the floor.
“Whumpee? Everything alright in there?” came Whumper’s muffled voice.
They couldn’t answer. They had to answer. Just as they heard Whumper start to turn the knob, they managed to choke out an, “I’m f-fine, I’m fine! Just fell!”
“I’ll need to check you over when you’re out,” she called back. “No more than five minutes. You’ve been in there long enough.”
“Sure!” The seizing was subsiding–only lasted a minute, probably the luckiest they’d ever get–and Whumpee pushed themself to their unsteady feet.
The chip laid on the tile floor in a scattered puddle of blood. They were still bleeding profusely out of the back of their head. They couldn’t see out of one eye. In fact, they couldn’t feel that whole side of their face. The bloody razor laid in the sink. They still hadn’t showered–the thing they’d been ostensibly doing the whole time they were in here.
Living Weapon stumbles into the small apartment, dropping his keys on the side table next to the door. He slams the door behind him and slides the deadbolt, then the chain, and finally the slide lock.
He leans against the door and slides down it, knees drawn up to his chest as his stomach heaves. He lurches forward, emptying his stomach of its few contents, and his head falls back against the door.
“Fuck,” he whispers, holding his head in his hands. “Fuck fuck fucking fuck.”
He splays his legs out in front of himself and presses a hand over the quick-bleeding gash on his leg, trying to put enough pressure on it to stop the bleeding.
“That’s not gonna work,” He says, almost scolding himself.
He exhales in puffs and puts his hand up on the side table, using it to help him up. “Come on,” he mutters, gritting his teeth, “Come on!”
He pushes himself to his feet and limps to the kitchen. The lightbulb flickers for a few seconds before staying unlit and he stares up at it, wishing he had just changed it that morning when it flickered.
He opens the junk drawer and pulls out his lantern instead of the lightbulb sitting next to it. It takes a few clicks of the knob, but the lantern turns on and emits enough light for Living Weapon to work with.
He grabs the first-aid kit from under the sink and falls back on one of the chairs around the table.
With practiced movements, Living Weapon opens the kit and pulls out the gauze, suture kit, and iodine.
He uses the scissors from the kit to cut his pants a few inches above the gash and opens the bottle of iodine. He pours some into his palm and rubs it all over his hands, making sure to cover his fingers well. Then, he pours some on the gash, making sure it covers the entire area.
The light turns on in the hallway and Living Weapon looks up as he opens the suture kit.
“Living Weapon?” Handler yawns, walking into the kitchen, eyes closed. “I didn’t think you’d be home tonight.”
She lowers her arms and opens her eyes, then rushes to his side. She takes the suture kit from his hands and sets it on the table, “What the hell happened?”
He shrugs, “Had some business to attend to.”
“I told you to stop fucking fighting. You’re going to get killed one of these days.” She scolds, washing her hands in the sink. “Most people don’t make it out, I don’t know how you’ve made it this long.”
She pats her hands dry with a paper towel and sits down on the seat closest to him, scooting it just a little closer. She pulls his leg onto her lap and finishes peeling open the suture kit. She bends over to examine the gash and sucks a breath in through her teeth.
“This one’s going to take a long time to heal.” She holds the suturing needle in her hand and starts stitching him up.
He stares at the ceiling and tries to ignore the needle threading through his skin, but Handler snaps at him with her free hand, “Hey.”
“What?” He asks, looking down at her.
“Promise me you’ll stop fighting.”
He shakes his head, “I can’t.” he sighs and chews on his lip until he draws blood, “I know that…not everyone makes it out. Trust me, I fucking know. But…”
He trails off, watching as Handler ties off the remaining suture thread and cuts it close to the knot. She opens the cabinet under the sink and throws the needle in the sharps box and looks back at him.
She deflates, “One day…you won’t come back. And it’ll be your fault.”
With shaking hands, she opens the gauze pack and places it on top of the sutures, then she rips a few pieces of tape to put on the edges.
With trembling fingers, Living Weapon takes the tape from her and presses it on top of the gauze, making sure all corners are taped against his skin.
“Thank you for helping me,” He whispers, looking at her through lowered lashes. “I’ll take a break at least. Wait until this heals and then a little longer probably. I just…I’m not ready to give it up. That was such a big part of my life and now…it’s over.”
She scoffs and bunches all the trash up in her fist, “You want to be fighting for your life again?”
“No!” he blurts. “I just…”
She cuts him off, “You miss getting your teeth knocked in. Enjoy having broken limbs. Love having to stitch yourself up in the middle of the night?”
“I can’t explain it. It’s just like it’s part of me. I don’t know what else to do. It’s like there’s no me when I don’t…” his voice is barely above a whisper, like he’s scared to admit it to himself, let alone Handler.
She tosses the handful of trash away and turns her back on him, “You need to find a better way to cope. Because I can’t keep doing this, you’ll be on your own next time.”
Art fight attack for @primalspice of their character Bruno Jimenez. Absolutely loved doing this one I looooove an old man with something deeply wrong with him.
This is the third self-surgery piece I've done and I hope to do more!
mnhg, leon needing to tend to his own injuries, but imagine it's THIS serious and intense.
don't imagine leon would know how to perform surgery on himself, but maybe he's gotta do something more invasive than trying to stitch up a whole wound. (the arm fuckery idea)
maybe. maybe, leon's entirely out on his own. despite wearing a vest, he's taken a bullet through a weak spot. maybe in a rush, it wasn't properly put on, maybe he had already gone through the wringer with a bioweapon that tore part of it.
