"Hold still-" You reached for Cracker's arm with a cotton pad when he swung it away from you.
"What are you doing?!" Cracker glared at you. He just came home to relax.
"I'm trying to clean your wounds," you said, attempting to grab his hand to bring his arm back to you, and he kept holding it out of your reach.
You don't understand why your husband must be so difficult when it comes to cleaning his wounds. If Cracker tended to his injuries better, he wouldn't be so vulnerable to pain. You swear he bruises worse than a banana.
"Leave me alone, woman!" Cracker got up from his seat to move away from you only to bump into a bookshelf behind him and have a few books fall on top of his head. "Ow, STUPID MOTHERFUCKER!"
He picked up the bookshelf and threw it across the living room. Books were now scattered across the floor. You sighed but you knew the servants would clean it up later. You moved over to Cracker who now sat on the floor, pouting and holding his sore head.
"Cracker, would you please let me take care of you now?" You gently laid your hand over his.
"Fine," he grumbled, rolling his eyes to look the other way as you took his arm. Lightly you pressed the cotton pad to his arm, and instantly, he flinched and yonked his arm away. "Ow! What is in that thing?"
"It's rubbing alcohol, it kills the germs on the surface to prevent an infection, which causes severe pain later," you stated trying to grab his arm again.
Reluctantly, he lowers it back in your gasp, wincing with each press to the wound. "Ow... ow..."
"Oh, you poor baby," you coo as you delicately clean his wounds. "Mind telling me why your pain tolerance is so low? I thought all Big Mom's sons had to go through rough training to be strong."
"No-" He winced again before continuing. "We didn't have to train if we didn't want to, we just had to find a way to help Mama out with her dream to find the One Piece. Perospero took to reading books, studying the art of warfare and navigation for example, he can fight but he didn't dedicate himself to training like Katakuri."
"Hmmm, so you trained because you wanted to. Is it because of your admiration for your brother Katakuri?" You guessed.
"No- well- that's not the real reason... I just wanted to get stronger so I couldn't feel pain anymore."
"How come?"
Cracker tilted his head back, debating whether to tell you or not. "You know how Mama discards our fathers once we're born?"
"Yeah."
"Well, she didn't always do that, but my father was the last one." His tone melted into a resenting growl as he brought up his father. "Since Mama was busy a lot of the time, she didn't watch the damage he did to me." Cracker bawled his fist, trying to contain the anger rising with the memories. "It wasn't until Katakuri saw the aftermath of one of the bastard's episodes did Mama find out." His rage died out as he opened his palm again, he then turned to you with a smug smile. "And then I never had to see him again."
You smiled at him, happy your husband is now being more open with you. Finishing the bandage over his arm, you patted his arm. "There, all better now."
"What?" Cracker held up his arm to see the wound was covered in white bandages. "When did you-"
"When you were talking," you giggled heading out of the library. "Don't go anywhere, I'm going to get you an ice packet."
Cracker watched you leave, dumbfounded. Glancing at his patched arm then at the exit again, a smile curled up his lips.
“You’re favoring your wrist,” Arthur points out as he watches Merlin prepare the hearth.
Merlin hums. “Fell earlier on the stairs. Used it to catch myself.”
Arthur shakes his head, only Merlin. He is injured regularly, clumsily doing daily tasks. It is a true miracle he hasn’t cut himself caring for Arthur’s sword. It is a mite alarming how often the man hurt himself, but Arthur has seen his clumsliness in action – dropping pieces of armor on the pitch, watching goblets slip between his hands, misjudging a corner and hitting his shoulder on the stone.
But for all that Merlin is constantly injured, it doesn’t seem to hamper his ability to do his work so Arthur doesn't press.
He watches from his desk as Merlin works, using his right hand to sweep the old ashes into a sheet. He keeps his left on his lap, out of the way. It's obviously a protective posture, but it is a bit odd that Merlin caught himself with his left hand. The man is right-handed. Maybe he’d been carrying something.
Ashes in the sheet, Merlin sets about tying the bundle for easy carrying. Prior to getting a good grip, Merlin pushes back his sleeves and Arthur’s pen freezes.
Just below Merlin’s wrist is a very obvious handprint.
There is no way he got that catching himself on the stairs.
Merlin hoists the sheet up into his arms, carrying the bundle in front of him. His sleeves fell, covering the bruise, but Arthur still sees the four purple imprints of fingers. For it to be that bruised, it couldn’t have happened in the past few hours. Last night maybe?
“I’ll be back soon with supper,” Merlin chirps. Then he is gone, out the door, leaving Arthur reevaluating every nursed hurt Merlin displayed in the past month.
----
A week later, there is a bruise on Merlin’s cheekbone. Not in itself an unusual thing, he has seen Merlin smacked in the face by everything from flying gloves to loose chickens. This one is caused by rolling out of bed and not catching himself.
“Woke Gaius up with my swearing,” Merlin chuckles and Arthur shakes his head.
“Only you.”
But he’s suspicious. Of course, he is. So he asks Gaius.
“Oh, that’s my fault, Sire. I opened his door this morning while he was preparing to do so himself. Caught him right in the face.”
All of which leads Arthur to decide that Merlin has been punched in the face.
-----
Arthur watches Merlin sweep his chambers. There are no visible bruises, no hand he’s using less or limp, but there is still something off about the way he moves. He’s twisting less to get into the corners, turning his head to look somewhere without his shoulders moving.
It takes Arthur a moment to recognize it. He’s seen that behavior on knights, who he then quickly gives a break to so they don’t overwork themselves.
Rib injuries.
Arthur marches up to Merlin and steals the broom.
“You’re injured.”
“I’m not.”
“You’re lying.”
Merlin snags the broom back, and there’s nothing on his face that hints at pain. No wince around the eyes or lines around his face. He's even standing straight. He’s good at hiding pain from his face, Arthur realizes, and that alarms him for so many reasons.
“You are. And this is not the first time. Someone is hurting you. Who is it, Merlin? I’ll see them punished.”
“There’s nothing to help with.”
Arthur grabs the broom again. “There is.”
Merlin tries to yank the broom back, but Arthur tightens his grip. If Merlin really wants it, he can’t rely on arm strength. He’ll have to put his torso to use, add a bit of shoulder strength. Maybe his abs. Merlin grimaces, tightens his grip, but he doesn’t pull.
It’s as good as an admittance.
“Your ribs. Someone hit you. Or kicked you? Who, Merlin?”
Merlin lets go of the broom and moves on to other chores. Arthur catches his jacket and Merlin freezes. Quickly, before his servant can brush Arthur off, he pushes Merlin’s jacket out of the way and lifts his shirt.
Bandages circle Merlin’s chest. Not Gaius's clean linen, but something with ragged edges as if they’d been ripped. And that’s what exactly they are – ripped sheets.
“Sit,” he barks, forcing Merlin to sit at the table.
Merlin bounces up as soon as Arthur releases him. “I don’t need you to help me. I can handle things myself.”
“What things, Merlin?”
Merlin presses his lips together. “Secret things.”
“I gathered that if you didn’t even let Gaius help you wrap your ribs. Tell me anyway.”
“No.”
“No?”
“No.” Merlin stands straight, and Arthur remembers the handprint on his wrist. The bruise on his cheekbone.
“Someone is hurting you, Merlin. I won’t have them escalate to breaking your arm,” Arthur growled.
“No one is hurting me.” Merlin looks straight at Arthur as he says it. Two months ago, Arthur would have fell for it.
“I don’t believe you,” he whispers. “Is a lord blackmailing you or Gaius? Is that why you can’t say anything?”
“No.”
“Do you not know who they are?”
“No.”
Arthur glares. He can’t think of any other reason why Merlin wouldn’t ask for help, other than sheer stubbornness. But he’s never thought of Merlin as that independent a person. He and Gwen help each other with chores regularly. Pride?
“There’s no honor in suffering, you know.”
Merlin looks away. “I know.”
“So there’s no reason for you to work through pain other than wanting me to not know you were hurt.”
Merlin is quiet, which Arthur means he guessed right. Sighing, he pushes Merlin back into the chair. This time, Merlin stays put and Arthut sits in the chair across from him.
“Fine. If you won’t tell me who’s hurting you, at least let me know when you are hurt. I’ll lighten your workload.”
Merlin looks at him in disbelief. “You’ll let me handle this?”
“For now,” Arthur answers. “But if it gets worse, or doesn’t stop in the next few months, you’ll tell me.”
Merlin nods eagerly, and Arthur so, so wants to believe him. But the only thing Arthur believes in right now is Merlin's ability to lie.
“Since you were sweeping before, go back at it, but you can forget bringing up water for my bath. I’ll ask someone else.”
“Thanks, Arthur.”
Arthur gentles his voice. “Of course. And don't forget to get those ribs wrapped correctly before you finish sweeping the floor.”
He leaves Merlin in his chambers with free access to the broom and goes searching for Lancelot to ask him to follow Merlin around. Lancelot is too loyal and honest to hide what he finds.
Whumptober 2023 Prompt List | No. 15: “I don't need you to help me I can handle things myself.” | Suppressed Suffering | “I’m fine.”
It's suffocating to say the least. But her duty, Liyue, and every Adepti by her side, it all comes first. She couldn't let it overtake her.
It's all nothing but misery. Nothing but slaughter. Nothing, nothing, n o t h i n g-
People look up to her. Even as the fraying threads wrap around her heart, her soul, her very existence, all she could do is push on.
Prayers drift at the back of her mind, alight in hopes and dreams. It's beautiful-
Fragile.
Even with hands that have razed the battlefield, stained with such sins would hold that light ever so gently. She wants to see that kind of light, to bask in it one day.
Yingda knows it's a faraway dream, and the looming darkness consuming her might even keep that possibility away from her grasp. The despair wells in her, making her feel like drowning.
Still, they're all surrounded every day with the misery and pain they willingly, dutifully carry in this neverending dance. The least she could do is to make it feel like everything will be alright. It isn't. We are destined for tragedy...aren't we?
(Please...I don't want you to see your sister like this...)
rated: t | wc: 1129 | prompt: Makeshift Bandages | Suppressed Suffering | “I’m fine.”
Steve doesn't let any of the others know how much his injuries are bothering him
Steve knew that the bandages were far from ideal. A strip of fabric torn from a sweater that had been worn all day, including for trailing through the woods. Then getting soaked in dirty lake water before being used to wrap his wounds. But it was the only option that they had. If it hadn't been fabric torn from Nancy's sweater, it would have been from Robin's shirt which was in a similar state, or something of Eddie's that had been worn for several days on end, with even more time trailing through the woods and an extra dip in the lake, which would have been an even worse choice.
As they walked through the Upside Down, despite knowing that it was the best option available, Steve couldn't help his mind going into overdrive at all the problems with how his wounds had been wrapped. The first aid training he'd done when he first became a lifeguard kicking in and reminding him of everything that was done wrong. That it hadn't been cleaned and disinfected before bandaging. That the bandages used weren't sterile, hell they couldn't even be considered clean. Along with other dirt and debris, the piece of fabric could be leaving loose fibers in the wound. That the bandage was too thin, the wrong composition to effectively stem the bleeding. The saturated fabric keeping the wounds too wet, adding a further risk of complications. And all the different factors that could contribute to a potential infection, any diseases that the bats were carrying, being exposed to the toxic air of the Upside Down with the spores floating in the air, whatever dirt and bacteria from general wear and the lake that was on Nancy's sweater when she ripped it up. And that was just counting his bites, there was also any problems that could be coming from the road rash on his back and arms that was getting irritated with every step as the rough denim of Eddie's vest rubbed against his back. But he refused to bring it up, knowing that there were more important things to be worried about, like finding a way out of the Upside Down without attracting the attention of Vecna or any other demo-creatures.
Getting through the Upside Down was massively uncomfortable. Having to bike seven miles, barefoot, and injured was not ideal. He fell behind the others, so he could hide the winces as the movement pulled at the bites. Not wanting them to see how much it was hurting. Then back at Eddie's trailer, it was getting back through to the real world. He let the others all go ahead of him so he could try to blame any reaction to the pain on falling through and hitting the mattress, rather than them seeing him up close if he struggled to keep his face neutral as he climbed up the rope of sheets. A slight upside to Nancy getting hit by Vecna as she was about to climb the rope, was that after she'd woken up and passed through, everyone was focused on her. What she'd seen, if she was okay. It meant no one paid any attention to the pained grunt Steve let out as his back hit the mattress, or that he took longer to recover enough to shakily get to his feet. He wanted, needed, to check how everything was. If the makeshift bandages had held up well enough against everything the Upside Down had to throw at them.
So, taking advantage of everyone being distracted with Nancy, he slipped along the hall to the bathroom. Thankful that Eddie's trailer was the exact same layout as the one he'd helped Max and her mom move into a few months earlier. He locked the door behind him, and started to remove the vest. It stuck a little in places from where he'd bled from the road rash, and pulling the vest away caused the small cuts to reopen and start sluggishly bleeding again. He couldn't see how bad his whole back was, between not being able to turn his head too far without it causing more discomfort from where the bat's tail had wrapped around his neck and there only being a fairly small mirror in the bathroom. But what he could see of it looked bad. It was all red and scraped up, small pieces of stone and dirt and debris embedded in the skin. He tried to reach around to brush away the debris, but couldn't move his arms in a way that would help.
But it was his sides that was the worst. He could see spots of blood seeping through the bandage, so didn't even risk taking it off, knowing how much it would tug at the already painful and damaged areas. And he didn't even know where- or if- Eddie kept a first aid kit, or if it would even be stocked well enough for him to bandage his bites anyway. And he wasn't about to ask for one, and also didn't want to rummage to find it. Still wanting to hold up the illusion that he was fine. He shrugged the vest back on, making sure it covered any of the bloody bandages, before heading back out to the others. He really wanted a shirt, something that would hide and cover the bandages so much better. But in the meantime, he had to make do with the vest.
Steve didn't quite understand how he'd gotten away with suppressing the pain, the extent of the injuries. By the time they were facing down Vecna, the adrenaline had taken over and he could barely feel the bites on his side that were surely infected by this point. And, if he was being honest, it felt a little like Robin and Nancy had forgotten that he'd been injured. They'd been too caught up in dealing with everything else to pay much attention to something Steve had tried his best to hide.
It wasn't until they were at the hospital, waiting for news on Max and Eddie that everyone else realized how much Steve had been suppressing since he'd been dragged into the Upside Down. Robin stumbled, and caught her elbow into Steve's side, right into the worst of the bites. The pain spiked so badly that he couldn't suppress the yell that forced out of him as he clutched his side. Robin was quick to apologize, pulling at Steve's shirt to see the damage. The makeshift bandage of Nancy's sweater being saturated with his blood from where the bites had been sluggishly bleeding for over a day. Steve couldn't quite make sense of the yells for help, finally losing himself in the pain that he'd been pushing down the entire time he'd been injured.
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Whumptober Day 15: “I don't need you to help me I can handle things myself.” | Makeshift Bandages | Suppressed Suffering | “I’m fine.”
Words: 1.8k
Summary: Theo's never taken anyone's pain before this, and it has consequences for his own post-battle wounds, a fact he keeps to himself when he decides it's what he deserves.
“Why are you not healing?”
Theo shrugs, regretting the gesture instantly when he winces. “I’ve never taken someone’s pain before, and no one’s taken
mine.”
Liam’s thumb taps on his elbow, smile curving his lips and lighting
his bright blue eyes. “And now you’ve done both.” He sits next to Theo on the bed, still holding his arm. “You can tell me things.
That’s what friends do.”
His brows furrow. “We’re… friends?”
“I’d like to be.”
Theo leans forward, head falling to the crook of Liam’s neck. The beta’s other hand braces against his neck softly, rubbing circles into the skin there. “I don’t deserve friends. Or anything else. Especially you.”
