Favourite H/C moments in Fic - no 3
H/C Button No 3. Stoic Hurt
This button comes in many forms and flavours and the core aspect remains in tact throughout. The hero endures the hurt - stoicly. Quitely. With restraint.
A good example of this is from big_pink's Fire in the Hole - and here is the example:
Background: Pre-series. Just after Sam left for Stanford, Dean and John are hurting and not communicating. Dean gets hurt on a hunt turned non-superatural. He falls off a building and John needs to tend to his wounds. There is plenty of inherent tension and angst (see previous buttons) but Dean is also being a 'good' son, right now and not freaking out or mouthy off at John, as it was essentially John's fault:
“Hey, kiddo,” he tried, but it came out scratchy. Now that the jacket was off, John noticed a big wet bloodstain on Dean’s left arm, and he removed Dean’s blood caked watch, and cut the shirt all the way off from arm and shoulder, could see the gaping wound right down to bone on the elbow. Shit. The chain link must have done that. Saved his life, yes, but at a price. Dean was lying very still, looking at him from beneath heavy lids, gaze swimming.
“Hey.” Slurred, almost sleepy. “Bad?”
John shrugged, scratched his unshaven face. “Well, I don’t think you’re gonna die, not tonight anyway. But I’m gonna need to put that shoulder right. And sew up your arm.”
“Uh-huh. Thought so. Couldn’t take a rain check, could I?” A little smile, but too forced. Not scared, but not looking forward to it, either.
John was rolling up the towel as Dean talked, placing it as gently as he could under Dean’s left armpit. “Here,” he said, retrieving a piece of leather that had once been a bookmark Dean had brought home in sixth grade. “You’ll need this.” A bookmark that now lived in the first aid kit. Such were their lives, but it didn’t really bear thinking about too much.
Dean took it into his mouth without complaint - shit, when had this kid ever complained about anything? - and John kicked off his shoes, brought one socked foot up and got a good grip on Dean’s left wrist. Shoulder first, then stitches. Dean’s back muscles would probably be locked tight from trying to support that arm, from moving around. Some muscle relaxers, more pain killers. Get that shoulder back into place, deal with the elbow, bind it all tight.
One moment, a break in a relentless rainstorm, sudden clarity, when it wasn’t just a set of injuries on an anonymous body, a puzzle, Friday night triage. This was his son. And most of the blood on him hadn’t come from the elbow, and John tried to stop the vivid memory of what had caused it, but couldn’t. he wanted a drink. Badly.
Thought that, braced his foot against the towel balled up under Dean’s armpit and pulled his son’s arm slowly, surely, waiting for things to fall back into place.
This fic also ticks off my smal comfort button - and while the fic is from John's POV, and not Dean's, I tend to like my stoic heroes viewed from another character's perspective. But here is another example of the stoicism that makes the womb all wobbly
The Jenny Code, by miss_porcupine
Background: Sheppard and some Marines were captured by non-Kolya Genii and Shep tortured for Atlantis's Iris Code. In this scene, Shep has already been rescued and is recounting what happened to him and the Marines.
"Did they interrogate any of the Marines?"
"Not right away," he said, taking a deep breath. "They wanted me to be the one who broke."
'Did you?' hung in the air like a blanket.
"The next time they brought me out, it was on to the hard sell," he went on, ignoring the unspoken question. "They wanted the address to our 'new home' so they could deliver a present. I asked if it glowed in the dark and they said it didn't even need a match. I made a crack about candles on a cake and they said that maybe they should have done that instead."
"Did you realize what it was?" Caldwell kept his tone even.
"Yeah. I told them I wasn't going to help them poison my people. They didn't like that, so they went back to asking for the gate address. I name-rank-serial numbered to the beat for a while."
He looked at his wrists, wrapped in gauze and covered in salve.
"They asked why I wasn't a major anymore. I told them I promoted myself. That's how I found out that they were watching us -- they wanted to know who'd promoted me and whether I'd gone back to Earth for it.
"They should have gone to SERE," he said. "I got more out of that interrogation than they did."
As a joke, it bombed. He looked away from Elizabeth, who was biting her lip, and Lorne, who had stilled. He focused instead on his blanket-covered feet.
"Eventually, they got to understanding that I wasn't in a talkative mood." He exhaled slowly, unaware that he'd been holding his breath. "So they went with less... personal inducements."
"They stopped the torture, you mean," Elizabeth said flatly.
"They started with it," he said before he could stop himself. "They brought out Sergeant Francis and held a gun to his head."
Caldwell shooed away a nurse.
Right. There isn't a lot of meta for me to ruminate on here - its a button, I love it. Perhaps the stoic route is not entirely realistic and maybe shows/movies/books make our heroes heroic for a reason. Either way, give me a good hurt - torture or injury, and let the one hurt be stoic, and reticent about the whole thing, and I'll be a happy happy reader. Heck, the less they talk about it the better. The minimal reaction, the quite silent endurance just --- oh, I'm getting all wobbly thinking about it --
Why? Why do I like it so much? No clue. Maybe its the inherent, implied strength of character, but personally I think it leads more to the inner flaws of the characters themselves. And by this I mean that sometimes the best characters to whump are the strong ones, but also the flawed ones. So that other characters see their strength. So that they endure and prove they are strong, even if not to themselves but to others. Granted, this trend does lead to a dislike of mine - the mutual appreciation or overboard appreciation/admiration of a character, but its the non-written, but inherent implication I like. I hope this makes sense (it does to me in my head).
Alas, it seems BigPink has taken down her fic (both on ff.net and lj). This is why I am glad that I had the habit of saving my fav fanfic as word files. So, I can still read it when internet tragedies occur. Thanks roque_clasique. Tragedy averted - caused by hyphen mishaps!!
This button comes in many forms and flavours and the core aspect remains in tact throughout. The hero endures the hurt - stoicly. Quitely. With restraint.
A good example of this is from big_pink's Fire in the Hole - and here is the example:
Background: Pre-series. Just after Sam left for Stanford, Dean and John are hurting and not communicating. Dean gets hurt on a hunt turned non-superatural. He falls off a building and John needs to tend to his wounds. There is plenty of inherent tension and angst (see previous buttons) but Dean is also being a 'good' son, right now and not freaking out or mouthy off at John, as it was essentially John's fault:
“Hey, kiddo,” he tried, but it came out scratchy. Now that the jacket was off, John noticed a big wet bloodstain on Dean’s left arm, and he removed Dean’s blood caked watch, and cut the shirt all the way off from arm and shoulder, could see the gaping wound right down to bone on the elbow. Shit. The chain link must have done that. Saved his life, yes, but at a price. Dean was lying very still, looking at him from beneath heavy lids, gaze swimming.
“Hey.” Slurred, almost sleepy. “Bad?”
John shrugged, scratched his unshaven face. “Well, I don’t think you’re gonna die, not tonight anyway. But I’m gonna need to put that shoulder right. And sew up your arm.”
“Uh-huh. Thought so. Couldn’t take a rain check, could I?” A little smile, but too forced. Not scared, but not looking forward to it, either.
John was rolling up the towel as Dean talked, placing it as gently as he could under Dean’s left armpit. “Here,” he said, retrieving a piece of leather that had once been a bookmark Dean had brought home in sixth grade. “You’ll need this.” A bookmark that now lived in the first aid kit. Such were their lives, but it didn’t really bear thinking about too much.
Dean took it into his mouth without complaint - shit, when had this kid ever complained about anything? - and John kicked off his shoes, brought one socked foot up and got a good grip on Dean’s left wrist. Shoulder first, then stitches. Dean’s back muscles would probably be locked tight from trying to support that arm, from moving around. Some muscle relaxers, more pain killers. Get that shoulder back into place, deal with the elbow, bind it all tight.
One moment, a break in a relentless rainstorm, sudden clarity, when it wasn’t just a set of injuries on an anonymous body, a puzzle, Friday night triage. This was his son. And most of the blood on him hadn’t come from the elbow, and John tried to stop the vivid memory of what had caused it, but couldn’t. he wanted a drink. Badly.
Thought that, braced his foot against the towel balled up under Dean’s armpit and pulled his son’s arm slowly, surely, waiting for things to fall back into place.
This fic also ticks off my smal comfort button - and while the fic is from John's POV, and not Dean's, I tend to like my stoic heroes viewed from another character's perspective. But here is another example of the stoicism that makes the womb all wobbly
The Jenny Code, by miss_porcupine
Background: Sheppard and some Marines were captured by non-Kolya Genii and Shep tortured for Atlantis's Iris Code. In this scene, Shep has already been rescued and is recounting what happened to him and the Marines.
"Did they interrogate any of the Marines?"
"Not right away," he said, taking a deep breath. "They wanted me to be the one who broke."
'Did you?' hung in the air like a blanket.
"The next time they brought me out, it was on to the hard sell," he went on, ignoring the unspoken question. "They wanted the address to our 'new home' so they could deliver a present. I asked if it glowed in the dark and they said it didn't even need a match. I made a crack about candles on a cake and they said that maybe they should have done that instead."
"Did you realize what it was?" Caldwell kept his tone even.
"Yeah. I told them I wasn't going to help them poison my people. They didn't like that, so they went back to asking for the gate address. I name-rank-serial numbered to the beat for a while."
He looked at his wrists, wrapped in gauze and covered in salve.
"They asked why I wasn't a major anymore. I told them I promoted myself. That's how I found out that they were watching us -- they wanted to know who'd promoted me and whether I'd gone back to Earth for it.
"They should have gone to SERE," he said. "I got more out of that interrogation than they did."
As a joke, it bombed. He looked away from Elizabeth, who was biting her lip, and Lorne, who had stilled. He focused instead on his blanket-covered feet.
"Eventually, they got to understanding that I wasn't in a talkative mood." He exhaled slowly, unaware that he'd been holding his breath. "So they went with less... personal inducements."
"They stopped the torture, you mean," Elizabeth said flatly.
"They started with it," he said before he could stop himself. "They brought out Sergeant Francis and held a gun to his head."
Caldwell shooed away a nurse.
Right. There isn't a lot of meta for me to ruminate on here - its a button, I love it. Perhaps the stoic route is not entirely realistic and maybe shows/movies/books make our heroes heroic for a reason. Either way, give me a good hurt - torture or injury, and let the one hurt be stoic, and reticent about the whole thing, and I'll be a happy happy reader. Heck, the less they talk about it the better. The minimal reaction, the quite silent endurance just --- oh, I'm getting all wobbly thinking about it --
Why? Why do I like it so much? No clue. Maybe its the inherent, implied strength of character, but personally I think it leads more to the inner flaws of the characters themselves. And by this I mean that sometimes the best characters to whump are the strong ones, but also the flawed ones. So that other characters see their strength. So that they endure and prove they are strong, even if not to themselves but to others. Granted, this trend does lead to a dislike of mine - the mutual appreciation or overboard appreciation/admiration of a character, but its the non-written, but inherent implication I like. I hope this makes sense (it does to me in my head).
Alas, it seems BigPink has taken down her fic (both on ff.net and lj). This is why I am glad that I had the habit of saving my fav fanfic as word files. So, I can still read it when internet tragedies occur. Thanks roque_clasique. Tragedy averted - caused by hyphen mishaps!!