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hale-13 · 3 years

Text

En Pointe

By Hale13

For the Summer of Whump Day 24 Prompt - Stitches

No matter how much she hates the Red Room, ballet is still Natasha’s go to stress relief. Peter is just curious and eager to learn.

Words: 2311, Chapters: 1/1 (Complete), Language: English

Fandoms: Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)

Rating: Gen

Relationships: Peter Parker & Natasha Romanov, Peter Parker & Tony Stark

Characters: Peter Parker, Natasha Romanov, Tony Stark

TW: Broken Bones, Blood

Read on AO3 or below the line break.

“You do ballet?” Peter asks curiously as he watches Natasha tear the shank out of her new pointe shoes. Her old pair is still in pretty decent shape since she only dances on occasion now but its always been relaxing to sew and break in a new pair and it never hurts to have a few back ups.

“Sometimes,” she answers cryptically as she steps on the toe box with her bare heel to flatten it out, Peter watches her fascinated, venturing further into the room and sitting cross-legged a few feet from her. He’s careful not to touch any of her old shoes or the ribbons and other tools and materials spread out in a semi-circle around where she’s sitting. “Why?”

Peter’s fingers are twitching where he has them pressed into his thigh like he’s holding back from touching. “I did ballet as a kid. Just a few months of classes before my parents died and I was terrible but it was fun.”

Natasha hums as she reinforces the toe of the shoe with glue and fans it a little to dry it out. “You probably wouldn’t be so terrible now,” she tells him as she bends one shoe and then the other, enjoying the cracking noise they make as she works them in. She looks over to Peter to consider him for a moment. “Want to try?”

“With you?” He squeaks and its kinda adorable how nervous he is. Nat suppresses a smirk as she puts on her toe spacers and worn out toe pads – the lambs wool she modified these with is absolutely perfect and she won’t even consider using another pair until these designate around her feet.

“Of course,” she answers, standing up and bending first one shoe and then the other before going up en pointe and squatting to work in both shoes. She’ll need to dance on them for a few hours before they start feeling really good but they aren’t too bad right now. Sometimes new shoes just aren’t right no matter how well she prepares them but she has a good feeling about this pair. “You seem mostly coordinated as Spider-Man at least, I think you can handle a few basic positions.”

“Uh yeah,” Peter says, jumping to his feet like an over eager puppy and making Natasha smile a bit. “Yeah that sounds great!” She can almost see his tail wag.

She gestures to the barre running the length of the studio Tony had put in the compound just for her and has them face each other, correcting Peter’s posture as she goes. His sneakers are ratty and falling apart and she wrinkles her nose at them. She taps them with the hard side of the box of her shoe. “Lose those. I don’t have a pair of men’s shoes lying around so you can just go barefoot for now.” Peter hastens to do as she steps into some resin, crunching the small rocks into powder and rubbing it into the sole, box and sides of her shoes. By the time she’s done, Peter has positioned himself back at the barre, barefoot and with the hems of his pants cuffed up to mid calf.

He looks a little nervous and intimidated so Natasha give him a little smile as she hands the barre with her left hand and adjusts herself into first position as Peter stares intently. “We’re going to do some plié to start I’ll show you the positions; this is first.” Peter’s more graceful than she expected, his legs easily falling into place without shaking or him losing his balance like most new students was. She’s almost impressed.

Peter’s a surprisingly quiet student – she’s seen him in the lab with Tony and in the field where the kid is definitely what she would describe as a chatterbox. He asks a few questions here or there but, for the most part, he just observes and follows her lead. He picks up the positions quickly and Natasha puts on some music and instructs him through her usual warm up. By the end he’s sweating a little but he looks relaxed and a little pleased with herself.

“Can you teach me to spin?” He asks her a little shyly but with an undercurrent of excitement, shifting his weight from foot to foot like an overeager puppy and Nat gives him a soft smile.

“Sure,” she says, ditching her point shoes and slipping into some flats. “So you want to start off…”

He falls over the first few times but he nails a sloppy spin the fourth time. He stumbles a little once he stops, arms akimbo and legs spread for balance with a surprised look on his face. He looks at her for a second with a clear expression of ‘did I just do that?’ before letting out an excited laugh and fist pumping. “Holy shit!” He says under his breath and Natasha laughs with him – his good humor infectious. “That was so fun!”

“Try it again,” she says. “And this time keep your arms tucked in tighter and you head fixed on a point. Like this,” she demonstrates again, focusing on a dent in the wall to keep her head from spinning with her body and to keep her from getting dizzy. Peter tries again and cleans up his form a little.

“I think I’ve got it,” he says after another few turns and then he starts again, spinning once, twice, three times and, on the fourth rotation she sees his ankle twist as if in slow motion. Peter lets out a grunt as he loses his balance and, instead of falling, tries to stick to the floor with his abilities. His momentum continues to pull him though and she hears his leg crack in a sound that echos through the studio over the soft music and makes her hair stands on end.

“Fuck!” Peter exclaims and he drops, hitting the smooth wood floor hard and immediately dropping onto his back, face ghostly. His tibia has broken cleanly in two near his ankle and twisted to break through the skin in a grotesque fashion, leaking blood onto the previously pristine floors. Natasha immediately falls back into her extensive first aid training and drops to the floor next to Peter, tying one of her leftover ribbons around his upper calf in a crude tourniquet.

“Let’s get medical down here FRIDAY,” her voice is calm even though her heart rate is elevated. Peter looks about two seconds from passing out but pushes himself up with prodigious effort only to turn green when he sees his leg, turning away from her abruptly to gag and retch. “Get it all out,” she tells him, rubbing a hand across his clammy back.

“It’s…” Peter gags again. “The bone… I…”

“Don’t look at it,” Natasha says firmly, pushing him back to the floor. “Tony told me you were accident prone but I didn’t know you were this bad,” she tells him with humor, pulling off the shrug she had put over her leotard and leggings and mashing it firmly into the wound, making Peter moan and turn white.

“It’s Parker Luck,” he tells her, sounding out of it. He looks like he may pass out and that just won’t do – she needs to keep him awake.

“What’s that?” She asks, brushing the hair off his forehead in a tender gesture and massaging his scalp a little.

“Just my specific brand of bad luck,” Peter says a little sardonically, his voice wavering from the pain. She wants to ask more but the door at the opposite end of the studio flies open hard enough to hit the wall and bounce back as Tony – helicopter mentor extraordinaire – skids into the room and literally trips over his own feet to get to Peter’s side. Natasha would roll her eyes if she wasn’t so concerned herself.

“What happened?” Tony asks her, tone accusatory and Natasha gives him a sharp look.

“We were doing ballet and he spun just a little too hard,” Peter groans from the floor, this time from embarrassment and covers his face with his hands muttering ‘just let me die’ under his breath. Tony flicks him on the forehead.

“Don’t be a dramatic little shit,” he chastises, still looking more worried than anything. “Only you would manage to give yourself a compound fracture learning ballet of all things.”

“Don’t be mean to me,” Peter whines. “I’m injured!”

Natasha can’t hold back her snort at this, the situation would probably be a lot less humorous if she didn’t know Peter would likely be completely back to normal in a couple weeks or less with his healing factor. The kid was like rubber.

“What did you do this time?” Bruce calls from the doorway, pulling a gurney and followed by a small gaggle of nurses. Natasha steps back and away as one of them takes over putting pressure on the still bleeding puncture and pulls Tony with her. She knows that if he had his druthers he would glue himself to Peter’s side and aggravate Bruce and the other medical professionals to death.

The team is quick and efficient in stabilizing Peter’s leg with a temporary splint and loading him on the stretcher, bustling out of her studio with Tony following just as quickly as they came in. Nat isn’t a big fan of crowds so she stays behind, cleaning the tacky blood off the floor before it dries and sets. As it is, the fine grains of the wood are tainted and she knows she has no chance of cleaning all of it out and resigns herself to dealing with flaking blood on the toes of her pointe shoes for the foreseeable future.

Satisfied with her clean up job, she slinks back to her room and showers, washing the remnants of Peter’s blood off her hands and forearms and the sweat out of her hair. She changes into some loungewear and dries her hair and, figuring she’s probably stalled long enough, grabs a book at random from her bookshelf and makes her way to the medical floor.

The halls are silently when she arrives thankfully and the waiting room is empty bar Tony. He’s seated in one corner facing the hall that leads to the operating and recovery rooms and tapping something into his StarkPad, reading glasses perched onto the tip of his nose and in danger of slipping off the end. He looks relaxed which she takes to mean the Peter will be just fine – not that she expected any different.

Tony jumps when she settles into the chair next to him, glasses falling to the floor and nearly fumbling his tablet. He sends her a glare without heat – he’s always complaining about her sneaking up on him but its not her fault he isn’t observant – and sets the tablet aside.

“Well?” She asks, quirking one eyebrow in expectation.

“He’ll be fine,” Tony tells her, relief clear in his voice. “They’d normally have to put in a pin or two but, with his healing, they just want to flush it out really well to prevent infection and then reduce the fracture and throw in some stitches and a brace. He’ll be on bed rest and crutches for the next week or so until the stitches can come out and he can transfer to a boot but he’ll be back up in no time.”

Natasha nods, she expected all of this really and pulls her legs up to sit cross-legged in the small chair. She didn’t do a cool down after her work-out and she can already feel all of her ligaments tightening up – her hips and knees crack as she adjusts and make Tony wrinkle his nose in obvious disgust. “He was doing pretty good for a while,” she says breezily. Kid’s got natural talent.”

“He can’t walk across a flat surface without tripping,” Tony tells her. “Don’t let all of his Spider-Man acrobatics fool you – Peter’s as clumsy as they come. His aunt should have wrapped him and put him in a bubble years ago.”

She laughs, elbowing Tony in the side and dodging his returning nudge. “He’s good for you,” she tells him honestly and Peter really is. She’s known Tony for a long time, considers him one of her closest friends barring Clint and this is the happiest and most settled she’s ever seen him. It makes her happy.

Tony blushes and clears his throat, trying to hide it but she can see the satisfied little smile on his face. He can’t deny his happiness. “Anyway,” he tries, changing the subject swiftly – she lets him. “You’ll have to help keep him entertained since part of this was your fault after all.”

“Not my problem the kid’s an accident waiting to happen,” she says with no heat. She already plans to hang around during Peter’s recovery. She can teach him more about ballet if he wants, he could shape up to be a pretty decent partner with some practice and she thinks it might help him a little with his balance and enhancements. Control of your body is important for both after all.

Later when Bruce leads them to Peter’s recovery room he gives her a knowing look that she ignores in favor of perching on the edge of the bed and teasing Peter about his poor technique. He’s high as a kite from the enhanced pain meds and cackles at her good natured jokes. Tony threatens to put him in a cushioned room for the rest of his life and Peter rolls his eyes like this is all par for the course.

He falls asleep again pretty quickly, drooling onto the pillow and twitching a little as he dreams and Natasha feels her chest feel with warmth.

Yes, she thinks Peter will make an excellent student.

#summerofwhump #summerofwhump24 #Prompt: Stitches #irondad #spider man #Summer of Whump 2021

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set-phasers-to-whump · 3 years

Text

fine.

prompt: stitches (from day 24)

whumpee: nick burkhardt

fandom: grimm

hey! this fic took me longer than i thought to write but i had a really fun time with it and i’m super pleased with how it turned out! it’s a bit more medical than my usual stuff and there’s like, a good bit of descriptions of needles so be careful of that! hope you enjoy :)

Nick ducks the knife, and it slashes through the air where, just half a second ago, his face had been. He kicks at his opponent’s knee, and the man steps to the side to avoid it, then swings out with the knife again. It grazes Nick’s cheek, and then he’s pushing the man’s arm away, leaning into a punch, which is deflected.

The knife cuts through one of his sleeves and into his skin. He lands a hard punch to his opponent’s face, and follows it up with a fist to the stomach. In return, the knife digs into his face, just in front of his ear, and drags downward. Nick pulls away, tries to grab the man’s arm, and ends up with a cut across his right palm.

This cut is the first one he’s actually felt, over all of the adrenaline. It’s hard not to feel it, since it’s right across the hand that he needs to punch and block with. It burns and protests as he curls his hand into a fist, but he ignores it and decides to go for it.

It being the end of this fight. He launches forwards with everything he’s got, doing his best to protect himself but knowing he’s going to get a little more cut up in the process. He lashes out with hit after hit, until a particularly nasty punch to his opponent’s face has him spinning on his feet. He looks at Nick, the knife in his hand glistening red, his eyes unfocused, and apparently decides he’s had enough. He turns and runs.

Some part of Nick thinks he should follow this guy. But he highly doubts they’ll be meeting again, and he also doesn’t think either of them actually wants to kill the other. So he stays where he is, sitting down on the cool (and, if he looks hard enough in the dim light, blood-speckled) concrete, back pressed to an uncomfortable metal support beam.

He sits there and catches his breath and feels the adrenaline start to wear off, leaving him feeling slightly shaky and entirely too aware of the injuries he’d sustained during the fight. His face is wet and warm and stinging, and his palm of course is still hurting, worse now, for having been curled into a fist and used heavily for the past few minutes. There are a couple of spots on his torso where he can feel the fabric of his shirt getting damp with blood, and a few similar spots on his arms. The cuts sting and burn and bleed, but he’s reasonably sure that none of them are deep enough to be any immediate cause for concern. They just sort of hurt, and they’re making him feel like he doesn’t want to get up off of the floor.

But he can’t exactly stay here and wait for the pain to wear off (not that it will, necessarily, but at some point he’ll get used to it, which is good enough). It’s sunset now, and it’s November, and if he stays here too much longer he’s going to get really cold on top of being all cut up, and he’d prefer to not deal with that. He’s already shaking a little, though he’s loath to admit it.

So he reaches his unhurt left hand across his body and wrestles his phone out from his pocket. The brightness of the screen is startling in the low light of his surroundings, and he squints for a minute as he locates the right contact.

Which is Monroe. Monroe may not like it, but Nick knows he’s not going to push him, not going to make him disclose any information like who he’d fought with and why. He loves Hank, but the first thing his partner is going to do is insist on knowing the who, what, when, where, and why of the situation. And the first thing Juliette will do is insist that he tell Hank about it. Which then leads to the same problem. So Monroe it is.

“What’s up?”

“Monroe, hey,” Nick starts, and then realizes he’s got no idea what else to say. “Could...could you maybe come and get me?”

Monroe’s voice goes serious. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Nick replies quickly. “Nothing bad, anyway.”

“Nick.”

“There was...a fight, and I got a little cut up.”

“And that’s ‘nothing bad,’ huh?”

“It’s fine,” Nick insists. “None of the cuts are that deep. I’m fine. I could just use a ride.”

Monroe sighs. Nick pictures him pinching the bridge of his nose. “Okay, fine. Where exactly are you?”

Nick tells him, and Monroe promises he’ll be there as quickly as he can. “Try not to bleed too much before I get there, okay?” he asks, and Nick promises he’ll try.

Not that there’s much he can do to stop himself from bleeding. From what he can feel, none of the cuts are too deep (he hadn’t lied to Monroe), and he’s only got one useful hand, anyway, which means he can’t apply pressure to every single cut. And he can’t really tell which ones might be worse than the others - they all hurt, and they’re all bleeding, and it’s honestly kind of hard to tell where one cut ends and another begins.

So he just sits there, bleeding and trying to stop his body from trembling, because, as a rule, Nick doesn’t get shaky. He doesn’t want Monroe to worry about him, and anyway, it’s not like there’s a reason for him to be shaking. It’s just the adrenaline leaving his system after an intense fight. A normal reaction, sure, but not one he’d like to be having. So he focuses his attention on stopping it, so much so that he doesn’t notice Monroe arrive until he hears his voice.

“Nick? You in there?”

Nick looks up from where he’d been staring intently at the floor. Outside a cracked door, he sees the beam of a flashlight. “Over here!” he shouts to Monroe, and watches as the door opens. The beam of the flashlight moves around, and hits him. He closes his eyes against the sudden brightness, and when he opens them, Monroe is standing a few feet from him.

“‘A little cut up,’ Nick? Really?”

“What?”

“Dude, you look bad.”

“It’s fine, really. None of them are that deep. I told you.”

The flashlight goes directly into his face then, and Monroe crouches down next to him, looking him over intently. “Yeah, buddy, several of these are pretty deep. I’m pretty sure you’re gonna need stitches.”

“No, no, I’m -”

Monroe cuts him off sharply. “Hospital. Stitches. Now. Or I call Hank.”

“Fine,” Nick agrees, and reaches out his left hand to let Monroe pull him to his feet.

Once he’s standing, he sways for a second, slightly dizzy. Maybe he’s lost a little more blood than he’d thought. He doesn’t want to even think it, but Monroe is probably right - the hospital might just be a good idea.

The drive is silent but not tense. Monroe looks over at Nick every few seconds, like he’s worried Nick’s going to bleed to death right there in the passenger seat. Nick would remind him to keep his eyes on the road, but he’s kind of tired and he’d rather not speak unless he has to. He trusts that Monroe will get them there safely, anyway.

Luckily, the ER isn’t terribly busy. They both sink into uncomfortable plastic chairs, and Monroe holds a clipboard with a form on it and asks Nick questions while Nick presses a towel onto his cheek and holds loosely onto another one wrapped around his right hand.

A few minutes later, Nick is called back by a kind-looking nurse, and he stands and tries not to wince at the movement as he follows the nurse back to a room.

The nurse gestures for Nick to sit down on the table and types some information from Nick’s form into the computer. “The doctor should be here in just a minute,” he tells Nick, “but before she gets here, would you like to tell me what happened?”

Nick shakes his head slightly. “An accident,” he says. The nurse looks unconvinced, but doesn’t press the issue, which Nick is grateful for. He honestly has no idea how to explain this in a way that doesn’t involve the words “knife” and “fight,” which he thinks are probably words that the people in the ER would rather not hear.

The nurse leaves the room, then, and a second later, the doctor walks in. She pulls on a pair of gloves and has Nick remove his shirt - which takes him far longer than it ought to - and then looks him over.

“These cuts on your torso and arms won’t need stitches,” she says, beginning to wipe the blood off of him with a damp cloth, “but even under all this blood I can see that a few of the ones on your face, and definitely the one on your hand, are going to need to be sewn up.”

Nick had been expecting this, so he nods, trying not to wince when the cloth hits what must be a particularly deep cut on his face.

“Almost done,” the doctor says reassuringly, switching to another cloth and carefully taking his hand.

He definitely winces when the cloth hits the gash in his hand - in fact, he very nearly pulls his hand away, but stops himself. The doctor makes a noise of sympathy, and Nick tells himself that he better get it together. It’s not like he hasn’t had worse.

With his various cuts now cleaned up, the doctor moves on to closing them. Her gloved fingers rub a numbing cream around the cuts on his face, which feels strange but not painful. She waits a few moments, getting the needle and thread ready and explaining the stitches to Nick.

“The stitches that’ll be on your face are dissolvable. I won’t need to remove them - once your injuries have healed, they’ll just disappear. Now hold still,” the doctor says, and then there’s a needle pulling through his skin, and he freezes.

It doesn’t hurt, which is a relief. It feels extremely weird, though. He’s numb, but there’s a sort of distant pulling feeling in his skin as the needle passes through it, and if he focuses on that too much he starts to feel a little dizzy, so he stares at the wall and its poster of proper sharps disposal techniques and tries his best not to think about the needle and thread weaving their way through his skin.

“That part’s done,” announces the doctor, after what Nick thinks is a few minutes. “I’m going to put a special glue onto a few of the other cuts, bandage the rest, and then stitch up your hand. Speaking of your hand, I’m going to need to give you a shot of local anaesthetic now, so it’ll have time to start working before I stitch it up.”

She turns to the cabinet behind her and grabs a few items that Nick can’t quite see over her shoulder. When she turns back around, she’s holding a small needle and an alcohol pad.

“This is probably going to sting a bit,” she warns, and Nick assumes she means the alcohol pad, which does sting, but then the needle goes into his hand and stings way more, and suddenly he has to blink very hard to clear the tears from his eyes, but then the moment passes and the stinging subsides and he lets out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.

“Doing okay?” the doctor asks, and he nods. He’s fine. This is really not that bad, in the grand scheme of things, he reminds himself. Not that telling her that would be a good idea.

Assured that Nick is alright, the doctor begins applying the glue to some of the cuts on his torso, face, and arms. The ones on his face barely feel like anything when she glues them shut, owing to the numbing cream from before, but the ones on his torso and arms sting and burn where the glue touches them, and once again - which is now two times too many - he finds himself blinking back tears.

And then that’s over, and he’s fine, and the doctor puts small butterfly bandages on the rest of the smaller cuts (he doesn’t have the heart to tell her he’ll pull them off the second he’s out of here), and then she moves on to his last and worst cut.

“I’m not going to lie, even with the anaesthetic shot, this is probably going to be unpleasant,” she warns.

“It’s fine,” Nick replies, holding out his arm for her to get to work.

The needle pulls through his skin, and, just as the doctor had said, even with the anaesthetic, it hurts. He closes his eyes and tries to take deep breaths and the whole time he feels every prick of the needle, every stitch crossing his palm, and it feels terrible. He wonders if she hadn’t given him enough anaesthetic, or maybe she’d given him the wrong thing, and he thinks about asking her but he doesn’t want to move at all, and he thinks he might be shaking again, and his hand is burning, and then -

“All finished,” the doctor announces, and, in mild surprise, Nick looks at her, and then at his palm, which is now covered by a gauze pad.

“Thanks,” he says quietly, and carefully slides off of the table, holding his right hand out away from his body to make sure it doesn’t bump into anything. The doctor helps him pull his torn, bloody shirt back over his head and arms, and then he’s released into the waiting room, where Monroe stands to greet him.

He must look about as bad as he feels, because the first thing Monroe says is, “whoa, dude, you good?”

“Fine,” he replies, and his voice comes out more snappy than he’d meant. “Sorry,” he adds. “Just tired.”

“I bet,” Monroe says, as they step through the sliding doors and into the chilly night air. “Let’s get you home.”

Nick asks the question before he has the time to think about it. “Can I come to your house?” If he goes home, he’ll have to explain this to Juliette, and while there’s no escaping that, he’d rather not do it tonight. He’d rather not do anything tonight, except take a few painkillers and lie down and sleep.

“Yeah, of course,” Monroe says, and if he’s surprised that Nick asked, he doesn’t show it. “Anytime.”

“Thanks,” Nick replies. “For all of this. And - sorry. For kind of dragging you into my problems.”

Monroe turns and gives him a stern look as he parks in front of his house, but doesn’t say whatever words it is he’s thinking, which Nick is grateful for. He can only take so much kindness in one evening.

Monroe says something else instead, lighthearted but sincere, as they step through the front door. “What else are friends for, if not dragging each other into their problems?”

aaa thanks for reading this! the medical stuff is about as accurate as i could get it :) hope you enjoyed, love you!

#summerofwhump #summerofwhump24 #stitches #grimm #nick burkhardt #cut #hospital #i say things #my writing #oughh almost 11. how. gotta go to bed.#sorry if theres mistakes i cant reread this again lmao

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cyhyr · 3 years

Text

Summer of Whump Day 24: Stitches

Fandom: Naruto

Rating: T

Pairing: Hatake Kakashi & Umino Iruka; Uzumaki Naruto & Umino Iruka

WC: ~2530

Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply

Notes: Stitches, performed without anesthetic. Dissociation. PTSD. References to past non/dub-con between Mizuki and Iruka.

A/N: Heyyy I did a tiny bit of research, watched a video on how to perform these kinds of emergency stitches, and Have Never gotten stitches before in my life, anesthetic or no. I just wanna hurt the man, is that so bad lol

Two days after Mizuki puts a fūma shuriken in his back, showing his true colors and betraying the village, Iruka leaves the hospital because he is sick of laying on his stomach. The medinins refuse to heal him any further, saying that his body needs to help put itself back together without the use of chakra; still, though, they want him to stay for at least a week, so they can keep an eye on his stitches. Iruka knows how to care for stitches. And so, with minimal pain medication and Naruto’s begrudging assistance, Iruka signs his discharge forms and goes home.

The next day he goes back to work at the Mission Desk, as the Academy is on break for another two weeks before the next term starts. The work is physically simple, if stressful in other ways. There really should be refresher courses for shinobi with terrible handwriting.

The problem happens on his way home. And it’s really the dumbest thing.

A stray cat gets underfoot. Iruka stumbles. He twists just enough to catch himself before he falls, and feels some of the threads holding his back together rip.

He’s proud of the fact that he holds back any outward expression of pain. He’s also proud that he makes it the rest of the way home without attracting any attention or getting any odd looks.

Iruka heads straight to the bathroom once he’s home, and is able to shrug off his flak vest easily enough. There’s a spot of blood on the inside, soon to set into a stain. Iruka can’t be bothered. He tries pulling his shirt over his head and grits his teeth at the flash of pain—nope, that’s not happening. Instead, he pulls a pair of scissors from the vanity drawer, sighs for the hopelessness of needing to replace this shirt later, and cuts the fabric off of himself.

Once his shirt is in pieces on the floor, he turns around and looks over his shoulder as best he can to observe the damage. He’s bleeding sluggishly through the ripped threads, and the skin has split again. He should go to the hospital.

He really doesn’t want to go back to the hospital. It’s only been a day.

But he can’t fix this himself; if it were on his arm, or leg, or hell even his chest or stomach, he could do it. In the middle of his back, however? That’s just—

“Iruka-sensei, I’m home! And I brought Kakashi-sensei! He said he was going to have soup for dinner so I invited him! Who has just soup for dinner???”

Oh, shit. He forgot about Naruto coming over. He forgot about giving Naruto a key and teaching him the wards. And of course, Naruto invited his jōnin-sensei—which normally wouldn’t be a problem! But he can’t go out there like this.

Fuck.

Naruto knocks on the door. “Iru-nii?” He’s quiet, which is how Iruka knows that Naruto is worried about him. “Is everything okay?”

His instinct is to say yes, of course I’ll be right there but he doesn’t want to lie to Naruto. He’s not okay, and he won’t be okay if he can’t get his back—

Wait.

Kakashi.

He’s not considering this. He barely knows the man! But then, wouldn’t that make it easier to ask for a clinical, clean, stitch me up please with no weird feelings?

Naruto knocks again. “Iru-nii?” The handle jiggles like he’s about to open it.

“I’m… I—Actually, could you. Um.” He braces his hands against the vanity. He can do this. He gets it all out in one large exhale: “Can you send Kakashi-sensei in here, please?”

Naruto seems to pause—maybe even thoughtfully—outside the door before he runs back to the living room. Iruka whines through his teeth as his back continues to bleed sluggishly. He can hear the two of them talking in the apartment, Naruto’s voice getting louder as he comes back to the bathroom.

“Please, can you just—?”

A soft knock. “Iruka-sensei?” Kakashi’s voice is just as soft.

“Come in, please,” Iruka groans. “Don’t let Naruto in,” he adds quickly.

Kakashi steps through the door and shuts it behind himself. He crosses the bathroom in two steps and stands behind Iruka, examining the wound. He lets out a low hum. “I thought you’d be on bedrest for at least another week, sensei,” Kakashi comments. “I heard this was serious.”

Iruka ignores him. “There’s a suture kit in the cabinet above the toilet,” he says instead. “Is there any chance I can have you—?”

“Why not just go back to the hospital?”

“I… Gods, Kakashi-sensei, I hate it there. It smells wrong and everyone looks at me with either distrust or pity and I. I can’t. Please.”

Kakashi doesn’t respond verbally, but does go to the cabinet and remove the suture kit. He pushes his hands around Iruka, into the sink, and washes up; then he finds a washcloth, wets it, and carefully drags it along the skin around the wound.

“You still may have lost a significant amount of blood, sensei. You should—”

“I’ll take an iron supplement,” Iruka shakes his head. “Just. Close it back up, please.”

“There’s no anesthetic in here.”

“I know,” Iruka says sheepishly. “I used it up last time Mizu—well, I never got around to replenishing it.”

“I don’t know the medical ninjutsu to numb the nerves,” Kakashi warns. “This is going to hurt.”

“I’m aware. Just. Do it.”

He can feel Kakashi prodding softly at his back with the forceps, the metal cool against his skin. He prepares himself for the worst.

It’s been at least a year and a half since Kakashi has had to give someone else stitches. He sets the forceps aside, back in the kit, and selects a pair of gloves.

“No latex allergy?” he asks, to confirm.

“I wouldn’t keep them in the house if I had one,” Iruka grumbles.

Kakashi hums and pulls his own gloves off, replacing them with the latex. “Five stitches in total, sensei,” he says, assessing the length of the exposed injury. “You popped four, but I learned a different method of stitching; I’ll need to make five to cover the same distance.”

Iruka nods. “Whatever you need to do.”

“Do you have something to bite?”

Iruka nods, reaches up and pulls his hitai-ate down his face, and back to his mouth. Kakashi notes that he doesn’t put the metal plate in his mouth—either he’s had this done before, or he’s not stupid.

Kakashi loads the needle, picks it up with the driver, and presses the tip of the needle against Iruka’s skin. “Last chance to go to the hospital,” he says.

Iruka groans through his makeshift gag and shakes his head. Once he’s still again, Kakashi drives the needle into his skin, turns his wrist, and pulls the first half of the stitch out of the right side of the wound. Iruka’s curse is muffled, but what Kakashi can determine sounds… creative?

He’s careful in pulling at the wound with the forceps, placing the needle precisely and piercing the flesh. Another turn of his wrist has the needle point rising up through the skin. He shifts the grip and pulls the needle through, letting the suture thread follow.

Iruka is statue-still, but whimpering behind his gag. It’s… gods it’s impressive, how still he holds himself through such biting pain. Then again, he is a shinobi—even if he’s a teacher now, Kakashi remembers pulling field work with Sandaime’s newest pet. Pain is just part of the job.

That doesn’t mean they can turn their nerves off.

Kakashi loops the thread and ties it off, settling the knot on the left. Twice more he knots the thread to keep it from coming loose again. He might not be a medic, but his stitches don’t pop. ANBU was good for something.

“That’s one,” he mutters and readies the driver again on the right. Iruka nods, and he continues the stitching.

As he’s tying off the second stitch, he notices that Iruka’s shoulders are, perhaps, too still. He glances around Iruka’s body (he thought the man would be slight and yes, he’s smaller than Kakashi, but they’re built similarly and that’s not important right now damnit) and notices that Iruka is barely breathing.

He sets his tools down and puts one hand on Iruka’s abdomen. “Breathe,” he orders. Iruka immediately sucks in a breath, pushing on Kakashi’s hand. He nods, saying, “Very good. Keep breathing through it. You’re doing very well.”

He picks back up the forceps and driver, not realizing the effect his words have on Iruka.

The needle bites into his back for the third stitch and Iruka breathes deeply through his nose. The pain is sharp and intense and combined with the ache of the rest of the shuriken wound and how recent Mizuki’s betrayal is on his mind… Iruka’s worried that he’s going to slip away like he used to in the last few months of his and Mizuki’s relationship. Before he had threatened Naruto one too many times and Iruka asked him to leave and not come back unless he can respect both of them.

(Mizuki hadn’t come back. He, instead, had gone and gotten engaged. Turns out Asuma-nii-san was right when he’d said that Mizuki was using him.)

(That was over a year ago. He doesn’t cry himself to sleep anymore.)

The needle comes up the other side and Iruka braces for the oddity of thread sliding through his flesh. Then the discomfort of the wound being pulled back together.

Kakashi is good at this, though. He uses even pressure the whole time, so Iruka can be sure exactly how much it’s going to hurt.

“Three done,” he says. “It’ll be over soon. You can take it.”

Mizuki used to say stuff like that.

Just a little more, baby. I know it hurts, but you can take it.

Iruka fights to stay present. The needle goes in, and in, and out and out; thread slides along the way it’s guided.

Aww, ‘Ruka, you gonna cry from a few stitches? I thought you were stronger than that.

He whimpers. He can’t have an episode in front of Naruto’s jōnin-sensei. But this was an unfortunate perfect storm of pain and soft words and harsh action but gentle hands and. And. And.

He breathes in. And out.

“There we go, that’s it,” Kakashi murmurs behind him.

His eyes lose focus. He needs to stay still because Mizu—Kaka—because… The pain is dull compared to the ringing in his head and the throbbing in his teeth. He can feel his heartbeat in his neck.

He tries to get out a warning. That he’s about to slip. He’s dissociating. He’s—

“One more knot,” he mutters. “You’ve done very well.”

Kakashi finishes the final knot and snips the thread to size. There are surgical dressings and tape in the box alongside the suture kit; he tapes a large dressing into place over the whole wound, not just the new stitches. The latex gloves come off and fall into the garbage beside the sink.

Iruka hasn’t moved.

He puts his hands on Iruka’s shoulders and turns him around; takes the hitai-ate out of his mouth and lets it rest around his neck. Iruka is… dazed? His breaths are shaky, uneven; what the hell…?

“Are you okay?”

Iruka nods slowly. Maybe the pain made him non-verbal. Kakashi’s known shinobi for whom it’s happened before.

“You took that well. I don’t know many shinobi who would get that many stitches without anesthetic outside of a field situation.”

“Thank you,” Iruka says drowsily.

That wasn’t exactly the answer he was hoping for. Umino Iruka is known for having a smart mouth and a quick wit; this is something else. “You should eat something.”

“Not hungry.”

“Something light, then.” Kakashi tugs him along by his elbows, says, “Your bedroom, out and to the right?” Iruka freezes, for less than a second. It’s enough for Kakashi to notice; he hastens to explain, “You need a fresh shirt, yes?”

Maybe a sense of normalcy will bring him back. Should he treat Iruka differently in this…

Fuck, the man’s not even looking at him. He’s looking at their feet. He’s trembling.

Trauma response, his ANBU training supplies. Fuck.

He takes Iruka’s hands, over-projecting his movements, and says, “Let’s get you dressed, and then you can sit with Naruto for a bit?”

Iruka’s like a doll as he follows along into his room, and sits primly on the edge of the bed. Like he’s ready to slip off at any moment—shit.

Kakashi ducks his head out of the room and yells down the hall. “Naruto? Come over here.”

The door next to his hand opens up and Naruto stands in the doorway, clearly stressed and worried. “Is Iruka-sensei okay? What happened? You guys were in the bathroom forever!”

Kakashi holds up a hand to stop the rambling. “He’s alright, I think. He’s—well, something unrelated to what I—”

Naruto pushes by him and into Iruka’s room. He clearly takes in Iruka’s shirtlessness and position on the bed to mean something else, because he crosses to Iruka and pulls the man into a hug. Then, he glares at Kakashi.

The Fox glares at Kakashi.

“You! I trusted you! How dare you touch him like that—!”

The fury is rising fast, and Kakashi needs to do damage control before real damage becomes a problem. He raises both hands and tries to placate Naruto, explaining, “Iruka asked me to fix his stitches. The trauma response is unrelated to me, I swear. Naruto, I didn’t touch him without his consent.”

The heat in the room settles a little, as it looks like Iruka leans into Naruto and maybe even mutters his name. Naruto looks away from Kakashi, his eyes still exposing the Fox, and he grits, “Second drawer down,” while pointing at a chest of drawers against the wall.

Kakashi moves carefully—he’s not sure yet how much of the Fox is out of the seal’s control and he doesn’t want to risk it. The second drawer has a selection of uniform shirts and also casual tees. Kakashi picks the topmost civvie tee and brings it to Naruto.

“That’s close enough,” Naruto growls when he gets to the end of the bed. He’s three paces away. He’s not positive that it’s far enough to make a clean retreat should Naruto determine him to be a threat. He tosses the shirt the rest of the way, and watches while Naruto helps Iruka into it.

“I’m going to go and find him something light to eat. Stay with him?”

“Of course,” Naruto growls. “You don’t need to ask.”

“Naruto…” he hesitates, not sure he wants to know, but is too curious to not try and ask. “What happened? Who—?”

“You can ask Iruka-sensei when he’s back,” Naruto says.

It’s telling enough that Naruto understands what’s going on, that Iruka is dissociated and not present. Kakashi heads out of the room with a nod. Someone who inspires this much rage from the Fox, and who Naruto is comfortable enough with to call “brother”?

Kakashi absolutely intends to find out everything he can about this man.

#summerofwhump #summerofwhump24 #stitches #fanfic #hatake kakashi #umino iruka #my writing

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fletcherwilbury · 3 years

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Summer of Whump Day 24: Scars

#summerofwhump #summerofwhump24 #scars #george harrison #ringo starr #starrison #georgexringo

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caspia-writes · 3 years

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Summer of Whump #24 — Scars

Summary: A battle-scarred war nurse struggles to come to terms with her future.

Content warnings: None

Ute didn’t have the right to cry. How could she? If she opened her eyes and looked around, she saw countless men around her who were crippled for life. The luckiest ones were only missing a few fingers, a toe or two. At least one that she could see only had an arm left. It wouldn’t have surprised her to hear there was someone here who didn’t even have that, or their eyes, or their hearing.

She had no right to cry about what had happened to her. Not here.

Yet the tears continued to flow down her cheeks, weaving and twisting along the tangled flesh of her cheek. Right now, she was lucky. But what of when she went home? When she needed to find someone to marry her? She wouldn’t be lucky then. It was bad enough she’d been pawned off to the Reichswehr like this at all, and now this had happened. Now she could never deny it.

“Don’t cry.”

The sudden whisper made Ute jump. She opened her eyes, or opened them as best she could, and saw that Meike was sitting at her bedside. At least she had one friend out still. One friend who didn’t recoil in visceral horror at what was left of her face.

“You looked awful when you came in. I’m surprised they operated on you. You look... a little better now.” Meike’s voice, a whisper as not to wake the other patients, had enough sunshine in it to burn the skin off Ute’s ears. Unfortunately it didn’t make the tears evaporate from Ute’s face. The closest to that came in the form of Meike dabbing them away with a rag. “Aren’t you happy to be here? To be alive?”

It was half a lie, if not more, but Ute nodded. She had to say she was happy to be alive. Any other answer would be an insult to all the effort it had taken. Ute couldn’t insult the doctors here, nor her fellow nurses. So she was happy to be alive, even if she wasn’t sure she was.

“Then what’s wrong? Are you in pain?”

“It’s not that.” Ute heaved a shaking sigh and buried her face under her hands. “It’s... it’s just... how am I ever going to get married now? I’m tainted—and everyone can see it!”

“Shh, shh.” Ute didn’t hush. Couldn’t hush. She began to sob quietly. Meike returned to dabbing the tears that ran under Ute’s fingers. “Don’t worry about that now. Worry about that when you get home. There’s bound to be someone, or something, that can help you there. Be brave for now.”

“I can’t go home after this,” Ute whispered. “My family can’t afford another person. They can’t help me.”

“Oh.”

Oh. That’s all Meike had to say. She might’ve been all right, had it been her instead. Meike wasn’t like Ute. She had money, enough to be able to live at home for a few more years. Her parents had connections, ways to find someone who would marry any woman he could propose to, no matter how disfigured, just to have a woman by his side. Or she could try and be a writer, a painter, some artistic pursuit that didn’t require anyone to see her face, and let her parents keep her until it started paying. Meike had options.

But that was Meike. Ute didn’t have those options. Her parents had no connections and only enough money for rent and two meals a day. Which left Ute with hardly any options at all. Not after being left disfigured like this. Not with only knowing how to cook and bandage.

“Well,” Meike said, squeezing Ute’s arm. “I hope you figure something out.”

Ute hoped so too. But she didn’t think she would.

#writing #writeblr #summerofwhump #summerofwhump24 #scars

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sideblogformindtrash · 3 years

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SUMMER OF WHUMP - DAY 24 - SCARS

@whumpropaganda @whumpzone @lave-whump @freefallingup13 @fanmanga1357-blog @lightdrinker @as-a-matter-of-whump @tears-and-lilies @temporary-whump-sideblog, @pinkraindropsfell @summer-of-whump

Finally discussing Blue’s ear

CW: Infection; pus/blood; sick; cattle tag; cruel whumper; amputation; medical; hair pulling; cage;

“Stop complaining Blue. It will be done soon. And you’ll look great!” IF mocked, as he prepared the cattle tag. Blue whimpered behind the ball gag, most of the sound muffled, drool already running through it’s chin.

Blue shook its head violently as he approached holding the thing. It already had pierced ears, why did it need that? It was much larger and more menacing than an earring, a big bright yellow ugly square.

Master held it by the hair, pulling its head so much it’s neck hurt. It made a whimper, afraid it might snap, but Master ignored it, pulling the hair off it’s ear and closing in the cattle tag.

That pain was awful, but it ended soon. However, It left it’s ear throbbing for the rest of the day. The stupid tag kept getting stuck at everything, and it’s hair pulled at it, and every time it put Blue in agony for a couple of seconds.

It even had to change the side it usually slept on. That wasn’t a tragedy: It had to sleep in worse conditions before, but it was annoying. Blue just hoped the wound would heal soon.

But on the next morning, it seemed worse.

It wasn’t just blood Blue had to clean off of it, but also pus. It whimpered, the ear felt hot and it was all purple and swollen. It tried to talk to Master about it, but it told it to ‘quit complaining’.

It did the best it could with tap water, hating every second it had to touch it. It… It even considered throwing it out. Maybe it could get the scissors and cut it, but… Then the punishment would be worse. Maybe Master would cut off it’s ear!

...The morning after that, it’s head hurt and Blue felt sick. Master finally decided to pay attention.

“...It’s infected”

He whispered, holding Blue by the hair. Blue wasn’t sure what that meant, but Master returned home with medicine. He forced Blue to swallow pills, and cleaned the tag himself, with a stinging product.

After three days, big, swollen balls started to form all around the tag, and they hurt so much, even the feeling of strands of hair bumping on it was too much. The pain spread from his ear through his head, it all felt hot and dizzy. The entire ear had been taken over by that purple-ish color, and it didn’t help that Blue had gotten another punishment the night before. It felt very weak and only wanted to cry, laying down on his cage, careful not to let the lashes on its back touch the cage walls.

The day after that was when Master decided Blue had been bad - too bad - and decided to cut another piece out of it. This time… Blue was almost glad. It’s ear had turned into a swollen ball, all hurt, oozing and stinky.

It was different than the other times, too. Blue was taken away from home, to a doctor, and they gave it nice drugs that made it sleepy. It didn’t even feel when the ear was cut off. It only realized when it woke up, much later, with an ear missing and sleeping on the couch!

Blue stared around, blinking, still dizzy, and was shocked to see Master bringing it soup! Human soup! It didn’t make sense. Blue was bad, had been punished and lost a piece. Why was Master being nice, now?

...It was probably the best meal Blue had the entire year, as Master pulled a blanket over it and softly petted its hair.

“G-good...Blue?” it risk.

“Yeah” Master nodded “Good Blue”

It closed its eyes, and enjoyed the tenderness while it lasted. Despite the missing ear, it wasn’t in pain, Master was caring for it, and it was comfy. It was more than Blue could ever hope for.

#summerofwhump #summerofwhump24 #pet whump #whump #scars #cruel whumper #permanent injury tw #blue needs a tag #IF: Internet Fucker

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set-phasers-to-whump · 3 years

Text

scars and stories

prompt: scars

whumpee: nick burkhardt

fandom: grimm

hi! this fic is weirdly not very whumpy...it’s much more like...Thinking and Talking and not hardly any pain at all which is So not my brand but this is how it ended up. i hope that you like it despite the fact that, for a fic written for a whump event, it’s really not so whumpy at all lol. (title from champagne for my real friends, real pain for my sham friends by fall out boy)

Renard has been at the hospital for six hours now. At first, it had been stressful, but he’d had company. They’d all shared in the anxiety and the fear of Nick being in the hospital - again - with a very large, very bloody stab wound in his stomach. And then a nurse had come out and they’d all stood up in unison, and he’d given them one look and taken a step back like he was worried they were going to attack him, then delivered the good news. Nick was okay, stable, and sleeping. And then the bad news - visiting hours were up.

Renard had managed to talk his way into being allowed to stay until Nick woke up (one of the perks of being a police captain), and the rest of the group had insisted that he provide them with updates as they had made their way out the doors. They’d also half-bullied, half-begged the hospital staff to let them stop by an hour before the visiting hours resumed the following morning.

And now, Renard is here, by himself, sitting in a chair while Nick sleeps in the hospital bed next to him. It’s odd seeing him so still, paler than normal with several small cuts and scrapes on his face and an IV in his arm and a pulse monitor on his finger.

“He’s alright. I know you’re well aware of that, but it’s worth repeating, anyway. He’s a real fighter,” says a voice from the doorway. Renard looks up in surprise, instinctively reaching for his weapon until he realizes it’s a doctor. In fact, it’s the doctor who is responsible for stitching Nick back up. He relaxes, slightly sheepish, and lets the man continue.

“He’ll have another new scar to add to the collection, though it’ll hardly be his worst. I have to say, I’m…well, impressed sure isn’t the right word, but…I’ve worked on plenty of cops before. Your detective here has more scars than any of the others, and I’ve operated on lifelong officers, thirty year veterans, the works. Detective Burkhardt has them all beat.”

Renard doesn’t know what to say in response to that. It’s not surprising that his young detective - young Grimm - has scars - he’s been shot and stabbed and in countless fights, and frankly he’d be more surprised if Nick didn’t have scars. It’s more the fact that he apparently has so many - enough to impress a doctor who creates scars for a living.

And what’s more, Renard realizes, he doesn’t think he’s ever seen any of these supposed scars. Nick is virtually always wearing long sleeves and pants, and his face and hands have somehow avoided being badly hurt.

Before he can do too much more thinking on the fact that he’s worked with Nick for years and never seen any of his scars that he can recall, the doctor says, “I’ll be on shift until four, if you need anything.” He leaves the room, giving Renard a wave goodbye, and then he’s alone again.

Renard gives Nick another once-over. He still looks as pale and vulnerable as before, and his right arm is poking out from under the blanket with an IV sticking into the skin. He doesn’t want to touch the arm and risk pulling the needle out, so he instead carefully untucks Nick’s left arm from the blankets. Just to see if the doctor had really been telling the truth (though there’s not any reason for him to have lied).

There are a couple of scrapes, clearly from this most recent fight, and a few small, faded scars. Most of them are short, thin. Grazes from knives, maybe. There’s one near the inside of his elbow that looks like a bite. He’s about to push up the sleeve of the hospital gown, where he can just see the edge of what looks like something jagged and deep and painful on Nick’s upper arm, when Nick moves and makes a soft noise, and he quickly pulls away before Nick can wake up and ask him what exactly he’s doing.

Nick wakes up slowly, blinking around and looking down at himself and the hospital bed, clearly completely confused. He winces softly as he sits up, putting a hand to the spot on his stomach where Renard knows several fresh stitches are holding him together.

“What…?” he asks, voice soft and scratchy, as his eyes finally land on Renard.

“You were stabbed,” Renard reminds him. He passes over a small cup of water that had been left for him by a nurse at some point. “You lost quite a bit of blood. You were in surgery for awhile, and you’ve been asleep for the past few hours.”

“Oh.” Nick looks at him with a kind of questioning expression, and Renard pretty easily works out what it means.

“It’s the middle of the night. The hospital staff allowed me to stay, as a police captain, but visiting hours are long over.”

There’s a look of…surprise, mixed with something like gratitude, on Nick’s face.

“Why?”

Renard shrugs. “It’s confusing enough waking up from surgery after being stabbed. And more confusing if you’re completely alone.”

Nick hums softly in response, his eyes starting to close. Renard doesn’t want to keep him awake, but he is also a bit curious, and his detective is…uninhibited, thanks to the pain medicine he’s currently on, and he may not get a chance to ask again. So he goes for it.

“The doctor who operated on you told me you have more scars than anyone he’s ever seen.”

That wakes Nick up. His eyes open fully, and make contact with Renard’s. “What?”

“I’ve just…never seen them. You’re always wearing long sleeves, and we’re not exactly the kind of people to talk about…anything like this.”

Nick shrugs like it doesn’t matter at all. “Yeah, I’ve got scars. Part of the job.”

“Which job?”

“Both, I guess. Mostly the Grimm stuff. Y’know, my Aunt Marie was covered in scars. I never knew until a doctor told me, when she was here, before she…”

Scars run in Nick’s family, Renard realizes. Physical, emotional…being a Grimm takes its toll over the course of a life. Has already taken its toll on the man in front of him, who has only been a Grimm for a few short years.

“How bad are they? The scars.”

Another shrug. “Some are big. Mostly they’re small. I don’t know, I don’t pay much attention to them.” Nick looks down when he says this, his left hand picking at the edge of the blanket. “Guess this will be one of the big ones.”

“It will,” Renard agrees, matter-of-fact. The injury itself had been bad, deep and long and jagged, and he’s sure the new scar, right across Nick’s stomach, will serve as a very prominent reminder of this particular event. (He’s also pretty sure it won’t be the only scar - getting stabbed tends to leave more than one kind of mark, but that’s a talk for another time).

“Do you have any scars?”

Renard shrugs, not entirely surprised that the conversation is now turning towards him. “A few. Mostly from my time serving as an officer. One or two from Wesen-related incidents. Nothing close to what you have, though.”

“It is kind of a lot, isn’t it?” Nick asks, and he sounds as though he’s never really thought about this before. As though he’s always accepted this - this pain, these scars - as something that is simply a part of his life. The thought makes Renard equal parts angry and sad, and he looks away from Nick for a moment and decides to change the topic of conversation to something a bit lighter. He’s hounded Nick with enough questions for now, he decides (though he also decides that they will be picking this topic up again at a later date).

“How’s your -” he starts, looking back at Nick. Who has fallen asleep again, still pale and not himself, but peaceful, now, too. “Never mind,” he finishes. Lighter topics of conversation can wait.

Renard stands from his seat by the bed, and before he can think the better of it, reaches out and pulls the blanket tightly around Nick, tucking his left arm back beneath it. He lightly touches the side of Nick’s face. “Sleep well,” he says softly, then sinks back into his chair and waits for the morning to arrive.

thanks for reading! hope you liked this despite it being not my usual sorta thing lmao. anyway i wanted to write this when i rewatched the first couple eps and a doctor asks nick if he knows about aunt marie’s scars. it got me thinking like, nick should have scars too what with all the shit he’s had happen to him. so i decided to write it and give him some :) may revisit this concept later...who knows.

#summerofwhump #summerofwhump24 #emotional whump #i guess #grimm #nick burkhardt #my writing #i say things #scars #another fic title i have been waiting to use forever lmao #tbh tho i am very very much out of my emo phase fob still goes Hard

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