Work Text:
Several days have passed since the last visit of his favorite little patient.
It was an unspoken promise — the Doctor would allow you to leave him, despite his immense urge to keep you locked up in his tent to run experiment after experiment after–
Well. You're given freedom to come and go, so long as you visit again. Five days without even a single word is far too much. His beak still burns with the memory of the kiss you planted there before you left, a raging inferno that burrows deep into his core. That you've made no move to quell it should be an insult to him, yet all he does is yearn for the fire of your touch.
A small part of him worries. Did the others scare you off? Do you finally feel the horror from the Circus of Horrors?
Has your love grown cold?
Pierrot tells him you've been around. He's seen you at his shows, watched as you lingered outside Doctor's tent. Always on the fringe of perception. Standing just outside it.
That simply won’t do.
“Little Kitten,” he speaks between guests on yet another night you don’t show, “you’re making me impatient.”
Any doctor lacking patience is a bad doctor. You will return. He just has to wait. And if, by the time the circus must pack up and leave town, your fire has not yet burned him through?
Humans are such weak, fragile things. Easy to manipulate through poison, power, or prose. It is the Doctor’s duty to know the human body, in and out, and he has many a method to control it. Forcing sleep, spilling secrets, succumbing to all the dark desires that lurk in their heart — Doctor has done it all. Should your denial of him run too long...
He is well versed in ways to make you experience every pain and every pleasure imaginable.
But he has not yet reached that point. The Doctor is a patient man — far too patient, according to the others. Two more days, he decides. He can wait two more days.
So when your scent sneaks through the thick canvas door the next morning, Doctor is able to ignore it — for a bit, at least. If he rushes his current patient’s exam, well. It's just a human. It will likely not remember what he’s done past its drugged haze. His exam must be thorough, even if your tantalizing presence distracts him — wraps round his body like lingering smoke, sends tremors along his spine that shake his otherwise steady hands. To be driven to such a state, to experience such withdrawal… he must study the effect you have on him.
Adrenaline spikes through your scent.
His scalpel cuts too deep.
Blood spurts from the neck of the human. Doctor frowns, gaze traveling from the doorway to his dying patient. He’ll have to clean before you're allowed into the exam room.
He walks to the entrance of his tent and peeks out. The fluttering of his heart gives him yet another thing to study — just the sight of you is enough to make him melt. More so as you struggle to pull your wrist away from the grip of his Fool.
“Kitten,” he breathes, and that is enough to still you.
“Birdie,” you reply with a strained grin, “care to tell your assistant to let me go?”
“What are you doing?” he asks his Fool.
“Master Harlequin asked me to keep your guest here,” it answers with the cadence of a metronome.
“Tell him I appreciate the thought.” Doctor takes your hand from the Fool with a nod before he turns his attention to you.
“Please,” he says, recalling one intricacy of human manners, “promise not to disappear again.” He presses your hand beneath the beak of his mask — the closest he can get to a kiss — then holds it to his chest. “An entire week without you is far too punishing.”
“I’ve been around,” you say, watching as blood from his glove spreads across your skin. Romancing a man-eating monster comes with drawbacks, you’ve learned, and yet you choose to stay.
“So I've heard. Do you no longer wish to see me?”
“No!” you object. “Of course I still want to see you! I just–” your free hand waves about as you find the words. “I waited outside your tent until the circus closed, but your Ticket Taker always kicked me out!”
His head tilts, eyes narrowed behind the glass of his mask. “You are more than welcome to enter at any time.” He has an area, far in the depths of his tent, accessible by a hidden tunnel near the entrance, prepared for you to wait should you visit mid-examination. You’ve made plenty use of that area before.
“I know, I know.” You pull your hand free of his to cross your arms, eyes darting to one of the supports that hold the tent up. A dense wooden beam, wrapped in black and cyan fabric, bears the weight of the doorway. Two layers of thick canvas hang on either side of it; darkness beckons from where they part around the beam. Doctor lifts one side, careful not to break a spider web, to peer inside.
Nothing within should frighten you. Dim lights line the ground, giving just enough glow to navigate the hidden hallway.
“My Dearest Patient,” Doctor offers a palm to you, “you'll have to wait as I clean my mess. You… excited me.” The smile in his voice sounds manic; the glass eyeholes of his mask flash red.
His eyes fade back to cyan as you shake your head and take two steps back. “Maybe we can go to your personal tent?” you offer instead.
“Sweetie,” Doctor starts, half-heartedly wiping his glove against his cloak, hoping you will take his hand again once it is clean, “you know Jester won't allow that. Now, please.” He holds out his hand, still smudged with blood. “I haven’t seen you in days.”
Your arms shake where they’re crossed, one hand traveling up to grab the opposite shoulder. Fear taints your scent as you stare into the hall–
No. Not the hallway. The entrance.
The spider web that stretches across it, and the spider resting in the middle.
She’s a gorgeous thing — her abdomen large and round, striped with black and brilliant yellow. Long legs spread in delicate arcs to balance on silver-white string, settled just above a thick zig-zag running from top to bottom. Two lumps of silk sit at the edges of the web: dinner, either remains from earlier or saved for later. Doctor has often found himself watching as she worked at the flies that gather round his tent, drawn by the smell of rot and decay.
“You're scared of her?” he asks.
You heart pounds louder in his ear.
“It’s not just… her.” You grimace. “I don’t deal with spiders very well.”
“This one is harmless.” Doctor reaches up to coax the spider into his palm, careful not to ruin her web. “Her venom only works on insects. You have nothing to fear from her.” He extends his arm, holding the spider out.
You jump backwards, balance held only by the Fool that grabs your shoulders.
“I see.” Doctor turns to walk into his examination room. You linger outside for a moment, staring at the empty web. Thoughts of eggs and baby spiders spur you into the tent. Your eyes scan the familiar dolls that decorate the dark until your gaze lands on the exam chai–
Doctor steps into your line of sight. The spider is now trapped in a clear jar that he cradles in one palm; the other he sets across your eyes. “I’ll escort you to your room,” he says. “Wait there while I clean. And also–”
He shoves the glass jar into your hands. You gasp and stretch your arms straight out, holding it away from your body.
“Get acquainted with her. She will not harm you.”
You feel the tip of his beak nuzzle your head as he pulls you forward.
“I can’t have you avoiding me because of a harmless spider.”
Not that he's decided to let you leave again.