Lucas No Good Very Bad Day - Tumblr Posts
YOU DID SUCCEED <3 TYSMMM!! Migraines AND arm pain AND nightmares is it Christmas?? Luca's self-sabotaging tendencies biting her in the ass (do not sleep with a prosthetic limb on) REAL. cannot wait to do this again!!
Whump trade with the wonderful @detective-luca-montoya!
This was super fun! Thanks for doing this with me!
Prompt: Chronic Pain
Takes place during current era(?)(she knows Koya and is a currently a detective)
TW: chronic pain, pain from old injury(lost arm), migraines, nightmares, mental health issues, generally a horrible night all around. I think I took this as a challenge to see how bad I could make Luca’s night and I think I did succeeded.
Luca’s night couldn’t get worse. If it did, she was probably going to commit some acts of violence she’d regret.
To start, her head was pounding. The fluorescent street lights lights made her eyes scream and the sounds of the city were like someone stabbing her ears. If this case wasn’t so important, the detective would have stayed home- but unfortunately, here she was, investigating a crime scene in the middle of the night, feeling like shit.
Not only that, but Luca’s arm hurt like hell too. She’d known she wasn’t supposed to leave her prosthetic on overnight, but last night the warrior had more desperate needs, and now next-day Luca was dealing with the consequences. The stump throbbed, and her shoulder wouldn’t stop cramping. It didn’t help that the mechanisms inside kept getting stuck and locking up, pinching her and just making her life increasingly more annoying.
In general, everything just hurt. When Luca closed her eyes for relief from the light, her attention went to the pain on her shoulder. When she tried to rest her arm by sitting, all she could think about was her head. When the detective went to sneak past the caution tape, she stubbed her toe on the sidewalk, sending her cursing and careening straight into the nearest officer, knocking them both down and getting her in plenty of trouble.
At least getting caught meant an annoyed looking Koya descending upon her like a vengeful spirit and angrily demanding for Luca to go home. For once, she actually agreed without a fight. The cop didn’t let her go without a scolding of course, one much too loud in her migraine-sensitive ears, but at least she was going home. All the warrior really wanted to do was collapse into bed and bury her head under a pillow.
The crime scene was only a short distance walk from her home, but even that felt like it took hours. At some point it started raining, which really just topped off how horrible the detective felt: soggy, pained, and exhausted.
When she finally got home, her mechanical hand even locked around the doorknob, and Luca nearly cried in frustration as she wrenched it off, nearly breaking the handle in the process. When she finally got through, the detective practically fell through the door into the dark apartment, exhaustion hitting her like a truck. She dragged her feet as she stumbled to her room, dizzy with pain.
Luca eventually managed to make it to her room, not even bothering to remove her clothes as she collapsed face first onto her bed. The detective was barely even able to pull off her prosthetic arm, only motivated by the knowledge of how much more she’d ache in the moment if she left it on for another night in a row. The warrior massaged her shoulder for a moment, failing to ignore the tightness in her chest when her fingers brushed against scar tissue. Then her hand cramped up and she had to stop, burrowing her throbbing head into her blankets in annoyance and pain.
When the cramp finally subsided, Luca reached blindly for the bottle of ibuprofen she kept near her bed, accidentally knocking it over and onto the floor, where it rolled under the bed. The unfairness mixed with the pain brought angry tears to her eyes. Then the warrior felt really stupid for crying over something so small, and that just made her feel even worse.
After nearly falling off the bed and vehemently brushing frustrated tears from her eyes, the detective finally managed to retrieve the bottle, only to find it was mostly empty and only had half her needed dose. Luca just shoved the pill into her mouth and tried not to cry again as she collapsed back into her blankets, curling up into a ball of pain and frustration.
The warrior’s only relief should have been finally falling asleep, but instead her night was riddled with nightmares, clowns and blood and screams melding in her sleep into a slog of fear and pain. Eventually Luca could do nothing but stare at the ceiling and wait for morning, finally falling back asleep as her exhaustion hit its limit and her brain was too tired to even dream.