#trigger tw major injury

@whumpay2022 Day Eleven: Trope: Empathetic Healer

Trope: A person who can heal other people’s wounds by taking them onto themselves. Oftentimes when they heal someone else, they get the exact same injuries or ailments. Sometimes, though, they just get really sick or feel great pain. The point is healing others causes them to feel pain or sickness themselves, making it a real sacrifice every time they heal.

Warnings: Major accident, Self-Sacrifice

There had always been healers in their family. It was something Sally had been so proud of when she was one, and watching over her grandsons as they grew, she had not been surprised when Virgil looked set to follow in her tracks.

From about the age of six he’d always been fascinated by medicine and would try to practice on his long-suffering brothers. Scott was more than happy to oblige him, and even Gordon and Alan were more than happy to let him wrap them up in bandages or ‘play doctor’ in other ways. John was the only one who flatly refused to let Virgil practice on him, but he was quite happy to spend hours researching even the most obscure medical knowledge.

As time passed and the boys grew into men, that passion became a vital part of the role he was to play in his father’s dreams.

But Virgil had no idea just what kind of skill he had inherited until it almost killed him.

Sally had kept a close eye on him, but not once did her favourite grandson look like he was going to be the next one. Didn’t stop her from teaching him everything she knew, herbal and alternative medicines included. Homely Remedies her grandmother had called them. Virgil was a quick study, and he helped his brothers when they were injured.

And Sally began to suspect he was tapping into that sacred part of himself without even realising it.

Healing hands. Gordon called them his healing hands. Virgil could and did work magic with them. A touch here soothed, a kneading here eased, a pressure to this point there and ahhhhh…magic.

Virgil laughed at him every time, citing training and expertise, and continued to soothe and ease his brothers’ aches and pains from their life as International Rescue. If he appeared to be a little achy after such sessions, well, no one ever asked about it because Virgil threw his all into everything he did.

Then there was a rescue that went south very quickly.

Scott had been on the top floor. He’d evacuated everyone but one victim, and he’d just managed to get the woman’s leg free, scooped her up and jetted up to fly out of the window when the building decided that it had stood long enough.

Virgil was just making his way to the entrance when the building rumbled. He looked up at Scott’s shout in time to see the window shatter as the roof caved in.

‘I’m not gonna make it out!’

The comms resounded with all four brothers yelling for Scott, and Virgil charged towards the building.

‘Virgil – Stop!’

‘John, Scott’s in there…’

‘I know, I know. You need to wait for the building to stop falling, otherwise we could lose you too.’

Virgil knew that – he was the engineer, but the overwhelming need to get to his brother had overridden that knowledge. Putting himself at risk just as Scott would do for them was second nature (even if he grumbled about Scott’s self-sacrificing idiocy), but he would wait. It wouldn’t be long.

Sure enough, less than 30 seconds later the ground stabilised and Virgil was in, exosuit being put to its’ fullest use as he cleared a path to where John indicated their brother was buried along with his rescuee.

As expected, Scott was lying on top of the woman, shielding her from the rubble. She was absolutely fine, if very shaken, but Scott was a different matter entirely.

Both Gordon and Alan appeared to help, Alan using a hover stretcher to take the woman away while Gordon helped Virgil with Scott.

They worked in silence. The Medscanner flagged up red after red after red. The scans went straight to John and then straight to Grandma. By the time they had a backboard and neck brace fitted Sally had already decided what they needed to do, what they could do. What they could onlydo.

‘Bring Scotty home, boys.’

No one commented at her tone of voice, and the journey was made in silence. Nor the fact that John was down and Kayo was home.

Virgil and Gordon brought Scott to the infirmary and transferred him to the waiting bed, then Grandma and Virgil set about doing what little they could.

They left Virgil keeping watch.

It was a quiet, desolated family that barely touched the meal before them and trouped off to bed.

Sally checked on them all in the middle of the night, unsurprised to find the three boys asleep together on Scott’s bed. Even Kayo was there, sleeping in the chair at the foot of the bed, although she cracked open an eye and smiled at her.

Her next stop was the infirmary. Sally firmly expected Virgil to be asleep with his head on the bed, holding Scott’s hand. She wasn’t prepared for what she did find.

Virgil wasn’t asleep. He was standing beside Scott’s bed. One hand on Scott’s forehead, the other on his chest.

Virgil was glowing.

That glow was spreading slowly over Scott’s body. She stood in the doorway and watched.

Virgil was starting to shake, but the glow remained steady. Sally didn’t need to see the machines to know that the medic was healing his eldest brother from the inside out.

She’s hoped so much that Virgil would be the one, but he’d shown no indications at all. Perhaps he just needed to have the right incentive. And while she’d never wish for the level of injuries Scott had sustained – virtually killing the eldest or at the very least leaving him severely and permanently disabled – it was also the only hope Scott had.

He was buckling even more, pain spreading though his body. Sally watched with both hope and dismay as Virgil began bleeding in places she’d only a couple of hours earlier stitched up on Scott.

Empathic healer.

Not something that surprised her at all, but she’d hoped Virgil would be just a healer. Empaths draw the hurt into themselves to heal, and her grandson was going to kill himself if he was healing Scott completely that way.

‘Virgil, honey, you need to slow down and limit the scope of your healing.’

But Virgil was too far gone in his healing trance to hear her. Her grandson would end up sacrificing himself to save his brother, so very like Scott it hurt.  So Sally did what she – and grandmothers all around the world – did best. She stepped up to help, to take the strain, to support him as only she could.

Sally’s own powers had dimmed with age, but with that age came experience. Positioning herself beside Virgil, she placed both hands on his left bicep, and immediately she was engulfed in the golden glow. If anything, she made it brighter.

While Virgil healed his brother, literally taking each injury into himself, Sally healed him.  

When Scott woke up the next morning the first thing that registered was that he wasn’t in his room. Then he frowned as awareness spread to realise not only was he in the infirmary, but both Virgil – not a surprise – and Grandma – total surprise – were asleep on chairs beside him.

He couldn’t remember why he was here at all, but as he moved a little the hand clutching his tightened and Virgil murmured in his sleep, and Scott broke out into a fond smile.

The crashing of broken pottery made him jolt upright, in turn waking both sleepers.

Gordon was in the doorway, eyes wide in shock, shattered remains of the cereal bowl at his feet. Before Scott could ask his brother bolted from the room and returned quickly pulling a yawning John along behind him.

When John had the same reaction Scott decided something serious had obviously happened, although he felt absolutely fine so he couldn’t work out what.

John cleared his throat.

‘So. I guess we need to talk.’

‘That’s probably a good idea, John. Gordon, close your mouth and be a dear. Go fetch your brother and sister.’

Impromptu meeting convened, everyone listened with increasing awe as Sally explained and demonstrated just what kind of medics she and Virgil were.

The best kind of medics.