Chapter Text
The clink of the rook as it slams down firmly upon the void it had set sights on as a target since three rounds ago sounds through the small office. The dolls that have crowded around the table to watch the game have leaned forward eagerly, looking at their friend in anticipation as Angie squints her eyes and examines the board with a finger rubbing the wood of her chin slowly. Despite the intelligence that that position conveyed, you knew that Angie was simply stalling for time to think of the next move. She reaches for her deck of uno cards, placing one down in the growing card pile before retracting her hand and looking back to the board. That’s when she gasps and points a finger accusingly at your black knight, who was sitting on a white square.
“That’s against the rules!” She shouts, looking at the numbers that lined the bottom of the board in sideways orientation. “You can move it to 6D.”
You happily do so, drawing an uno card from the stack that was beside the ‘jailed’ pieces that were taken from diagonal hops. Angie finally does her move, hopping her white pawn over one of your bishops and taking it with a victorious giggle. Her pawn landed on a black square, which meant you had to give you one of your fake five dollar bills stolen from a monopoly board game. The doll happily snatches it from your grasps, adding it to her growing pile.
Now that it was your turn, you pick up one of your stolen pawns and discard three of the fake hundred monopoly dollar bills to add it back into the game. As per the crazy rules that were established randomly throughout the game, you placed the pawn in the corner of the board, 8H, as it’s ‘spawn location’. Then, quickly move it diagonally onto a white square. You hold out your hand for the doll to hand you a five dollar bill. She does, but unhappily so, lifting up her deck of uno cards to shift through before slapping down a ‘Draw Four’ card, making you groan and do just that. The dolls around you two giggle, some of them enjoying the chaos of the game, others were so deep in their confusion that they couldn’t enjoy the extent of insanity that oozed from the layers of the board.
“I get to move twice now,” You state, zipping your newly broken free pawn diagonally to the left, then picking up your knight and moving it to the nearest black square. Then you pull out an uno card and set it in the pile opposite of the jailed chess pieces. Your white king, surrounded by the black pieces, stands perfectly guarded against Angie’s misfit of a formation around her black king hiding behind white pieces. You lean back and cross your arms, smiling to yourself. You’re not even sad to give the doll one of the monopoly dollars as a punishment for landing on a white square.
As Angie is drawing uno cards to find a matching colour or number, the door clicks and the dolls disperse to greet their maker. You turn to bear witness to the one you called beloved, the dollmaker hoisting some of her porcelain children into her arms as they danced and celebrated her arrival. A smile dances across her lips, her gaze directing towards you as the dolls settle back down and dash back to your ridiculous game, your lips curling in a grin.
“What have you two been doing?” Donna asks with a quiet voice, sounding tired as her curled fingers play with the fabric of her dress. Despite having gotten used to not wearing her veil anymore, she still wore the mourning dress by default.
“Playing checker’s chess,” you reply, before Angie pipes up.
“With Monopoly and Uno!”
“And some other nonsense rules here and there we made up on the spot,” You add, watching the doll place an uno card into the pile before hopping a bishop over three of your pieces. Her cackles ring as she jails the three pieces, handing you two five dollars with no remorse.
Donna nods with a little chuckle as she searches the room briefly for her book and a chair. While she was doing that, you were paying five hundred monopoly dollars to gain the queen back, using the almighty piece to take four of Angie’s. You also say ‘Uno’ as you set down your card, making note of the two turns you have left to make use of the queen. If the queen didn’t die at the end of the third turn- you’d automatically lose.
Angie groans as she finds herself locked in a tight position, her next moves having to be thoroughly thought out and calculated if she has any hope of winning. Which is ironic, considering the two of you didn’t have a win condition.
As Donna settles in a pushed up chair up to the table, you lean over to give her cheek a peck, to which she coos softly at. Flushed slightly, she opens her book to the place she had marked and begins to read while you and Angie continue your game of chaos chess. Some of the dolls lose their consciousness and fall into a slumber, while others with more Cadou have the ability to continue watching.
One of the dolls motions to Angie, who leans over and listens behind a careful hand to her friend’s suggestion. You watch the doll’s mouth fall open, and she cackles, jumping off her specially made stool to scamper to the table drawer. Angie comes back with a thick binder, opening it up and flipping through it madly, your childish collection of Pokemon cards flashing like headlights pass your vision.
“Aha!” Angie shouts, pulling out one of your old Reshiram cards that was folded and dented around the corners. “Blue eyes white dragon!”
“That’s Reshiram-” You begin correcting her before she cuts you off again by slamming the card down on the chess board, making some of the pieces fall over.
“Blue eyes white dragon! Now the board is on fire and we must move every piece in the same turn!” Angie exclaims with a maniacal laugh as she starts shuffling around her chess pieces in accordance with your previously established rules. You watch as she wrongly counts the amount of monopoly money she owes you, but you let it slide, this game was so nonsense as it is- why were you going to ruin that with small details?
“Unfortunate,” You click your tongue, reaching for your binder of Pokemon cards and flipping through it to the exact card you’re thinking of. “Cuz I’ve got an Inteleon that can snipe your king through your defenses!”
Angie lets out a horrified gasp as you slam the card down on the board and use your index finger to flick her king down onto its side.
“I still got more money than you,” The doll says, paying the five hundred to revive her king. As if it was useful anyways, none of the pieces were played like they were meant to be played, and Angie was just doing this to drag out the game. “And it’s still my turn! So-”
She grabs her knight, sliding it to the nearest white square, before grabbing her pawns and shuffling them into position, not even as much as giving you a glance as she gives you the necessary monopoly money and placing the uno card in the deck. She flips through the card collection pages, pulling out Rayquaza.
“Green snake thingy here can wipe out all your pawns.” Angie explains, to which you simply nod and set your pawns in jail. The other dolls that were previously watching with the last of their consciousness now left to comfortably slumber in the safety of the floor, making sure their position meant they couldn’t fall over and break themselves.
“Rayquaza.” You inform her, chuckling at her lack of memorization of Pokemon names despite you teaching her all 800+ Pokemon in existence.
“Yeah, whatever.” Angie rolls her eyes, slamming the card down dramatically.
With an amused huff, you play through your turn, another half an hour or so passing of the two of you playing nonsense with the made up rules. Donna has been able to relatively drown out the noise, considering she has been living with Angie basically her whole life, and the voices in her head ceased to chatter ill-notions. With your presence it’s easier to drown out the voices that whispered in her ear of the failures of her existence.
Looking up from her reading, she shuts the book with a soft thud as she looks at the nonsense that has been scattered over the table. Not only was the chess board oriented wrong, but stacks of fake monopoly money shrouded the edges and the uno pile was basically three decks merged into one. Random Pokemon cards laid strewn around randomly on the board, covering up the white and black squares with uneven symmetry, and she watches as you and Angie violently parry in an intense game of rock, paper, scissors for the lives of your queens- which were the last chess pieces standing. How the fuck did the queens become the last ones, no one knows.
As the dollmaker watches each of you slam bills and cards down around the table, brows furrowing as she tries to decipher the rules of the game, she can’t help but give a small smile at the amount of fun the two of you were clearly having. The pure look of excitement and the passion in Angie’s voice is something that Donna is grateful you can feed and nourish. She can’t remember a time where the doll has been so life-like when it was just her and the other dolls.
“Ha! I won!” Angie shouts victoriously as she slams your scissors with her rock and knocks down your queen, jumping onto the mess of a table with her arms in the air. You congratulate her with a smile, clapping your hands as the doll bows dramatically. Despite all the chaos, she has managed to out chaos you. Some of the other dolls had stirred from their slumber, taking a moment to register their situation before running up to their friend and congratulating her for the victory.
While Angie is drinking in all the attention from her friends, you have started cleaning up the mess that the two of you have created. Donna raises her hands in hesitant help, pausing frequently to give you a questioning glance where the item in her grasp was supposed to go.
“So… what were the rules of the game exactly?” She asked after a while, all the cards now put away as you shuffle through the monopoly money to place in their proper slots of the box.
“Uhm…” You hum, realizing that you didn’t know all of the rules, “Angie and I just make it up as we go so…”
“How do you keep up with them all then?” Donna retorts with an amused grin.
You offer a shrug, then a small chuckle, closing the monopoly lid over the box and setting it away while the dollmaker cleaned up the chess pieces and board. Turning around, you have to hold back a laugh upon seeing Angie fast asleep with her other doll friends, the chaos seemingly has drained the energy out of her.
“Well would you look at that, Angie’s asleep without a fight.” You state quietly, afraid to wake the doll up. Donna looks up from where she was sliding the box holding the chess equipment into, following your gaze to the doll. A soft giggle escapes her in a whisper, standing back up to slide to your side.
“Only you could tire her out like that,” Donna says quietly as her hand finds yours and gives it a reassuring squeeze. “It’s quite endearing.”
“Oh really, she doesn’t burn off all that energy enough by just destroying the house?” You joke, to which your fiance swats your arm gently.