A Healer's Hands
poll results came in: team whump, medic is broken down to be made an example of
cw: gore, medic whump, creepy whumper, team dynamics, captivity, torture
The Medic's crew stumbled through the cell door, one after the other.
Captain, with a black eye and a limp, lifted two fingers to their temple in a mock solute. Their clothes were torn and there was blood on their uniform's collar.
Youngest trembled as one of the henchmen shoved them inside the gated door. They looked around, eyes brighter than a deer's in headlights. "H-hey Medic." They wrapped their arms around themself.
"Hey," Medic swallowed down the twisting feeling that rose up. He forced his voice to soften, to not carry any of the sharp panic he felt. "Where are you hurt?"
"We're fine," Captain cut in, gesturing behind Medic's shoulder. "It's--"
Medic had already whirled around.
Lieutenant.
The Lieutenant held onto the cell wall with a shaking grip. Where he touched it, blood trickled down the stones in a steady faucet run.
Drip.
Drip.
"Lieutenant?"
He glanced up. His nose was gushing red. It stained his uniform, bright and electric in the dull light.
"Turns out those fuckers can throw a punch after all," said Lieutenant with a hoarse laugh. Still unceremoniously reckless.
But he let Medic hold a makeshift bandage--ripped from Medic's shirt-- to his nose.
As Lieutenant sat down, Medic crouched beside him, correcting how he was holding the bandage. "Don't tilt your head up."
Lieutenant winced when Medic readjusted the bandage.
Medic drew away and reevaluated the situation. "It's broken," he said.
"It’s just a new look I’m trying out – call it avant-garde." Lieutenant tried to laugh but ended up grimacing. He waved Medic away. "I'll survive."
Medic shook his head. "Wiseass." But he smiled. Then. "Are you hurt anywhere else?"
Lieutenant tilted his head against the wall, pieces of choppy hair falling away to reveal a swollen eye and pulsing bruises. He closed his eyes. Through a clenched jaw, he managed, "I think they broke my ribs."
Medic swallowed down a wave of helplessness. "Just stay still."
Lieutenant kept his eyes closed, breathing shallowly. "My pleasure."
Medic turned to Captain and Youngest. "So, you and you, where are you injured?" He only asked to make conversation. He had already identified that Youngest's arm was dislocated, hanging loosely at their side. And on Captain's right thigh was a raw-edged wound, seeping and damaged.
Medic took off his jacket, ready to tear it into makeshift bandages and a sling.
But neither looked at him.
Youngest was staring at something over Medic's shoulder. They pressed back into the wall, shaking.
"No," they whispered. "No. Not again."
Captain put a comforting hand on their shoulder, mouth set in a thin line.
Electric fear whispered a spider-like path down Medic's spine. They turned just as the cell door opened.
Whumper entered with two henchmen strolling behind them. Whumper grinned, teeth canine-sharp. His blood-red hair was tied back, accentuating fox-like features. He didn't look quite human-- too tall, too much of a bounce in his walk.
And he wouldn't stop smiling.
He swung a crowbar.
Even Lieutenant flinched.
Oh.
Oh.
Whumper arched an eyebrow when Medic stood his ground. "You're Medic?"
Medic glanced at Lieutenant-- saw panic and web-woven fear-- then back at Whumper. "Yes."
Whumper flicked the crowbar side to side. He kept talking, a paper mache smile at the corner of his mouth. "I don't appreciate you wrecking what I'm trying to build here."
Medic failed to understand. "I'm a medic. I have to provide care," he said automatically.
His head buzzed. He couldn't-- couldn't think clearly.
Whumper appeared to consider this. He tilted his head to the side. "I see. Well, I have to do things too, I get it."
"Yeah. Wait. No, what?"
The henchmen grabbed Medic. One kicked him in the back of the knees, forcing him to kneel.
Medic struggled, lashing out like a trapped animal.
A henchman brought the edge of their gun over Medic's head and Medic slumped forward.
His vision suddenly doubled.
The short-wired tension burst into flame.
Captain lunged forward. "Leave him alone!"
It took two henchmen to restrain Captain, pinning their arms behind them, and another to kick Lieutenant in the ribs, so he doubled over coughing. Incapacitated.
Whumper leaned over Medic, tilting his chin up to look him in the eye. "You should have left well enough alone," he whispered.
Medic snarled something unintelligible. A curse. A plea. He didn't know.
Whumpr straightened. To the others, he said, "You all break as easily as his hands will. And if you don't believe me? Watch."
There was a sharp intake of breath. Realization hit with a dull, sick thud. "No!" Lieutenant cried out, "No! No-- don't!"
But the henchmen had dragged Medic's hand out and splayed it on the tiles, kicking him when he tried to pull it away.
Whumper lifted the crowbar.
Medic's eyes widened in horror.
"No-- no, nonono! Please--" His voice arched into a desperate cry, more animal than human.
Crack.
A splintering sound.
All Medic could see was white. Electric pain filled every nerve, spilled into every bone, coating his teeth and burning-- burning, burning, burning.
A terrible sound ripped itself out of his throat.
And then again--
Crack.
His left hand.
Medic screamed.
Maybe he had screamed before.
Had always screamed.
Maybe he would scream forever.
Darkness filled the corners of his vision, blurring the sharp flashes of red of white--
Electric, pulsing red.
Burning, vicious white.
Blood trickled down his arms, bright and throbbing with a cinching pain.
Whumper wiped the gory crowbar on Medic's shirt.
His henchmen let the unconscious medic slump to the floor, little more than a bundle of clothes. They released Captain, who sank to the cell floor, unable to look away from Medic.
Whumper bent down by Lieutenant, whose breaths were coming in sharp drags. He wiped a tear off of Liutenant's face. "Crying?"
"No." His voice shook.
Whumper smiled generously. "Oh, no." He stood. "Tomorrow, one of you will offer up the information on your base. I do not make idle threats."
The door locked on the blood-soaked cell.
Lieutenant muffled a sob.
"We...we can't," said Captain. Sorry. Sorry. I'm sorry.
They didn't know if they were apologizing to the unconscious Medic or to what remained of his hands.
tagging the people who interacted with the poll: @acer-gaysimpstuff, @yet-another-heathen, @another-whump-sideblog
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Fucking begging supposedly leftist people to stop being sanist while trying to advocate for marginalized groups or talking about politics. Being bigoted in one way isnt helping combat other forms of bigotry or helping you to fight against fascism and other harmful ideologies. For example, when you call all transphobes/terfs etc "insane/crazy/psycho" etc you are not helping me as a mentally ill trans woman, you are just being bigoted to me in a different way. You are also validating the sanism that a lot of those exact people believe in.
Viewing bigotry, hate, terrible ideology and all things you deem bad in the world as synonimous with people like me is just hatred. You are part of the problem. Using denigrating terms for people like me as equivalent to those persecuting me is not fucking helpful.
Y'all can understand how someone who calls everything they view as bad "gay" is homophobic but then can't seem to piece together that calling everything you view as bad "crazy/insane etc" is sanism. Hint if you view a marginalized group as synonimous with everything wrong in the world you're a bigot too.
I am just so so so sick of how obvious it is that most of you see people like me as the embodiment of evil. You need to accept that sane people like you are just as capable of terrible acts and beliefs, above and beyond that you are going to have to reconcile with the reality that the vast VAST VAST majority of bigots are "sane" like you. That the vast majority of violence done in this world is done by sane people. I get that sanism is your emotional support bigotry that helps you sleep at night, because you get to Sit there going "I cant do and believe terrible things, I'm not "insane" like those bigots and fascists. I have the essentially good brain, unlike these evil bad brain people." but from where I'm standing your sanism is dangerous to me just like the people you're incorrectly calling crazy are, and you need to take a long look in the mirror and start deconstructing that. Because until you do, you are no ally, accomplice, or safe person for me. Big fucking hint those people you are decrying hate people like me and say the same shit about everyone they dislike that you do. Centrists and neoliberals and bigots and conservatives and fascists are not terrible because they're insane or crazy or whatever diagnosis term you're incorrectly throwing around this week, they are terrible because of their beliefs and because of how they seize and use power.
If you have ever agreed with something I've said you have agreed with a crazy person. If that sentence makes you uncomfortable or squeamish you need to unpack where that comes from or you are going to keep hurting marginalized people like me.
Just thoughts from one of those scary insane people you spend so much time ostracizing and demonizing.
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