#save me skizz whump. skizz whump save me

[thetomorrowshow]

Whumptober 10 - Blow to the Head

title: head explodes. ouch. gets up and acts normal.

fandom: hermitcraft smp

cw: blood, head injury

~

Skizz’s build is not stupid.

Ugly? Sure. He’ll call it ugly. It’s an ugly mess of deepslate.

But stupid? Not in a million years. He’s a Hermit, after all (and the name fills him with pride, makes his chest puff out). Nothing he works on is stupid, by nature of being a Hermit. The Hermits aren’t stupid.

Except Impulse. Impulse is pretty stupid.

Skizz’s build isn’t stupid.

That’s what Skizz tells himself, day after day as he lugs stone bricks up the ever-growing pyramid, his walk getting longer and longer the taller it gets.

“It’s not stupid, it’s not stupid, it’s not stupid,” Skizz grunts, pushing and heaving at a stubborn chunk of rock. It’s going to be beautiful! His beautiful hierarchy of needs pyramid. The other Hermits won’t know what hit ‘em.

Skizz doesn’t really know what hits him either, at first.

One moment he’s there, heaving with this stupid rock, and the next—

He’s on his back, the scaffolding bridge creaking under him.

He blinks, and his vision explodes into pain.

His head is—his head is rupturing, it feels like—like someone swung a baseball bat at him as hard as they could, like someone dropped a bowling ball on his head. It hurts, it hurts more than anything that he’s ever felt, hurts more than his aches from shifting stone, more than a creeper explosion, more than his appendix bursting when he was nine.

It hurts. A lot.

Skizz’s arms feel like jello when he lifts a hand to feel his head, gingerly brushing around the most painful parts. He’s crying, he realizes dumbly, tears streaming down his face at a rate unheard of.

His hand comes away dripping with blood.

What? Did his head actually burst?

That can’t be good.

Skizz doesn’t really know how he manages it, but after a couple of long moments of lying on the scaffolding, he finally manages to roll over, getting his shaky arms under him and pushing himself to his knees.

He feels terrible. Probably the worst he’s ever felt. He might puke from the pain, honestly.

Looking down gives him the dizzying sense of how high up he really is. How is he meant to get down from here without calling for help?

He really doesn’t want to call for help. The other Hermits would never just let their head explode. Rookie mistake.

He can’t see all that well. The ground far, far below is hazy and spinning, just enough that his eyes can’t focus on it. He can probably land on it though, right?

If he falls. If he lets himself slip off the edge, engage his elytra. Yeah. Yeah, elytra. Why was he thinking to try and climb down from here? That’s stupid.

Then, before Skizz can consciously think about it, he’s falling.

His stomach lurches to his throat as the world tilts even more, rapidly whirling around him, and the wind tears at his broken skull in ways that he can’t quite understand but can definitely feel.

This isn’t good. No, wait, he’s falling—

It’s instinct that saves him more than anything, his elytra flicking open at the last second to slow his descent, and Skizz lands on his knees on the ground and once again almost pukes.

Ohhhh man. That was not a good feeling. 

Skizz groans lowly, balls up his trembling fists. He’s got this. He can get to his bed without passing out or vomiting.

There’s a chunk of deepslate beside him, the size of a small dog. He stares at it as it pulses, one side of it splattered with red.

His fingers brush it briefly, its sharp edges rough under the pads of his fingertips.

Why is it here?

He ignores the rock for now, and just stumbles to his feet as best he can (which means to his knees, too unsteady to get all the way upright). He crawls, every breath coming in a gasp, his knees slipping out from under him.

There’s liquid dripping down his neck. He can’t lift his hand to see what it is, he just has to keep going. If he can get to his bed, he can take a little nap and be fine.

He can be fine. He just needs to rest. He has—he has the world’s worst migraine. That’s all it is. He needs to sleep it off.

His eyes are closed. He opens them.

It hurts. Everything is pulsing and too-bright and too-loud and—

His eyes are closed. He opens them.

He can see his bedroom door. He can smell blood. It’s right there, though, somehow he got here through all the pain and he can rest.

His eyes are closed. He opens them.

His bed is there.

-

“Oh, Skizz! Skizzleman! Come on, we have official permit business! Are you in here?”

Skizz’s mouth is dry. His mouth is dry and he can’t open his eyes, his head—

It feels like someone split open his head with an axe. It feels like he’s going to die.

“. . . Um, Skizz? Skizz, there’s . . . there’s a lot of blood. . . .”

Skizz licks his lips. He’s so tired. He could pass out right here, right now, wherever it is he is. He probably will.

“Oh! Oh my goodness, Skizz—”

Someone touches him, touches his head and it hurts it hurts it hurts—

“Oh no, okay, what happened? Can you hear me? Skizz? I’m calling for help, don’t worry, uh—”

Skizz pries open his eyes.

He can’t see.

He can kind of see. There’s wayyy too many black dots swimming across his vision, and he can kind of see a familiar face that he can’t quite put a name to. He moves his lips, tries to speak, but the words don’t surface.

He closes his eyes—just for a moment—and there’s another face there.

Impulse.

Impulse smiles at him, squeezes his hand. He’s holding his hand. That’s nice.

“You,” Impulse says, leaning in close, “are so stupid. You hear me, Skizz? Stupid.”

Skizz blinks.

His head really, really hurts.

-

“Drugs are great,” Skizz says, tugging at his hospital bracelet. “I love drugs. Do you love drugs?”

Impulse huffs out a laugh. “Dude. Shut up.”

“I can’t even feel my head explosion,” continues Skizz. “It feels so good.”

“Your head didn’t explode, idiot. Why weren’t you wearing a hardhat, huh? You know how dangerous brain damage can be in a respawn.”

Skizz doesn’t answer that. He hadn’t even realized there was a loose chunk of stone above him. He didn’t know he needed a hardhat.

“I was kind of scared,” he admits. It feels silly, now. “I didn’t know what happened. I was just—boom. You know?”

“That’s why you need a hardhat.”

The drugs really do feel good.

“Yeah, yeah,” he mumbles. “How many stitches?”

“Thirty-three.”

“Good number. Three-three.”

“Go back to sleep.”

“Jerk.”

“Stupid.”

“Love ya.”

“Love ya.”