whumpee has sustained some sort of visible, permanent injury, β anything from severe facial scarring to limb loss, something unignorable β and it's an awful reminder of what they'd gone through under whumper, but they were, well, coping, sort of. the rest of the team was not.
maybe it was a team whump situation, or maybe it was just an awful journey rescuing them, but either way, whumpee's injury will simply not let them forget what had happened, every time their gazes fall on it. and the team love whumpee. they're so relieved whumpee is finally safe, no matter what that looks like now.
but they're uncomfortable. they feel guilty.
they don't know how to touch whumpee in a way that doesn't hurt, not anymore, so they don't. they don't know how to talk to someone who's been hurt so badly... so they try not to. it's not malicious, quite the opposite β it's because they care too much, and it hurts too much to see whumpee suffer.
but to whumpee, it's just confirmation that they're now broken. they see the way conversation halts around their pain, around every wince or shift. they see the way their teammates' gazes linger on their injury, or avoid looking at them altogether. they see the way everyone's walking on eggshells around them. so, they hide it. they grow quiet, withdrawn. they only allow themselves to feel the pain of it in the isolation of their room β and they stay in there, alone, more and more often. the increasingly unbearable emotional pain of it? forget about it, they're never broaching that subject. the team is better off not knowing. and perhaps, one day, the weight of having to manage everyone else's guilt and discomfort will make them snap, but for now...
well, if that nasty wound gets an infection, or the pain gets to be too much, or something complicates further...they don't have to tell the team right away, right? surely it will go away on its own! surely it could not get worse!
