#& you have a very vicious emotional feedback loop that twists everything you feel into something worse & then amplifies every single shred

[taughtdefense]

something something miyagi!ethan full-well knowing that he's genuinely happy, & so in love with, other versions of robby in alternate lives (verses), & robby loves him in those alternate existences, while s4!him is Absolutely Fucking Suffering

[inthisformiambadwolf]

The Doctor was one of the most complex people you had ever met. Sometimes he was a gruff old soldier, and sometimes he was just a big puppy. Sometimes he was closed-off and defensive, and at other times he seemed to wear his hearts on his sleeve. He was a genius, but sometimes he did the dumbest things. He was the poster child for sucking up and dealing with the issue, but he could also be so sensitive. He didn’t like people touching him, but he liked hugs.

Yes, the Doctor was all of these things, and you loved him for all of them, but you knew that there was one thing the Doctor was not, and that was cuddly.

Or, at least, you thought you knew.

Your mind was currently being blown by the fact that the Doctor had put in some movie he sang the praises of and then had gotten onto the couch and proceeded to snuggle. Hard-core, no personal-space-left-sacred, pajamas-rubbing-against-pajamas snuggling. And yes, he was in his jim-jams. You thought the whole thing with him taking his coat off had made him seem naked, but you had no idea. Since then, you had seen him with his boots and socks off, as well as his coat removed and jumper hiked up around his ribcage (you had never realized how skinny he was but holy cow, did that man have some fine abs). The coat thing was really starting to make you worry- it kept ending up on you instead of on him and you were wondering why that was becoming a repeating event. Not that you minded. Wearing the coat made you smell like him. Maybe that was a weird thing to enjoy, but he really smelled nice. Plus the coat was comfortable.

And now he was in his night clothes, while you were in yours, and he was cuddling with you on the couch like this was totally normal. You were wondering if he had been drugged. Was it possible that he was not sober? Sick? Bitten by some weird alien bug? Because if he were in his right mind, you were sure he would have cried, “DOMESTICS!” and run screaming from the whole situation, and then later pretended that it never happened.

You almost wanted to say something, to ask him if he was alright and maybe give him a good hard smack upside the head just to eliminate the possibility of alien mind-control, but you were enjoying this far too much. Maybe this was something he only did once every few hundred years (you would totally believe that), but at some point in his life, the Doctor had become a Master Snuggler.

Seriously. There was usually some level of discomfort in the snuggling process (a limb falls asleep, someone lays one the other person’s arm, an elbow ends up jabbing a ribcage) but the Doctor had actually positioned you in what had to be the optimal snuggling position. You were so comfortable that you almost couldn’t believe it. This was a myth from the movies- people couldn’t actually tangle up their bodies like this and not feel the pain after a while, right?

The movie was three hours long. An hour in, and you still didn’t want to move. Heck, they couldn’t pay you to move. Daleks couldn’t get you to move. You were immovable. You would not be conquered by the idea of moving. You ate moving for breakfast.

Which was why you could have just smacked the Doctor when he started to shift. You didn’t care if he was coming back to his right mind. Domestics or not, the only way you were moving was if he shoved you onto the floor.

His fingers brushed against yours, and you pretended to be completely focused on the movie (which was easy, because it was every bit as good as the Doctor had said it was).You audibly swallowed when you felt his palm press against your and his fingers locked with yours. It wasn’t like he didn’t hold your hand all the time, but that was when you were running. Not cuddling on the couch in your pajamas. This was like the Ascension of the Hand-Holding.

You willed yourself to numb yourself to it, to be casual, to be focused on this absolutely fantastic film. And you succeeded. His skin was a few degrees colder than yours, so you didn’t have to worry about getting sweaty palms. It was actually really… nice. You wouldn’t mind having this… a lot. Often. More often than not.

But then it happened.

Feelings.

Feelings, you had discovered, were dangerous things to have with the Doctor. Hate would ruin you. Compassion would put you directly in the line of fire. Curiosity could land you in a heap of trouble. Jealousy could corrupt just as thoroughly as greed. And love? Love was the worst. Love hurt like nothing else, like your ribs crushing in and your lungs being too full and a boulder sitting on your chest. Especially when you loved the Doctor. Because you knew -you knew- that you would be left unrequited. He was nine hundred years old; what would he want with you? No matter how wonderful you made yourself to be, he could still have whoever he wanted. He had the whole universe to choose from. You weren’t silly, and you weren’t going to romanticize the situation: it was a juvenile, teenage dream to believe that he would pick you when he had every option in all of space and time.

Your palm tingled and you felt a rush of loneliness, like an echo of your thoughts. It was an awful truth: If you ever wanted to rid yourself of that loneliness, to find love and that one person you could bind yourself to, you would have to leave the Doctor.

However, you knew that if you left him, you would always be alone, no matter who you met afterwards. It was a vicious cycle of pain that you couldn’t see an end to. Staying hurt. Leaving hurt worse. If you stayed, at least, you could help him. That would have to be good enough.

That tingling sensation again, and you felt something like… relief; like pouring cold water over a burn. And then a certain state of contentment, almost. That made sense, you supposed. There was a way of feeling nearly-perfect with the Doctor. You couldn’t have everything you wanted from him, no, not even close, but there was still so much you could have. He cared about you, you were sure. The was enough platonic love to gag on. You were his support- you were smart enough to know someone suffering from PTSD when you saw a case as extreme as his. And that daft alien might have been a genius, but he forgot to buy milk and bananas and the PULL TO OPEN that was written right on the TARDIS door, for heaven’s sake. So maybe he didn’t love you the way you wanted him to, but he did love you.

The Tingling, Part Three. Your gut twisted with a sudden overload of affection. Affection for him, the git. Ugh. You had just convinced yourself that you could handle this, and your heart decides to break the dam of feelings and make you feel sick to your stomach with love? Traitor. Your whole body shuddered with the sensation.

“You okay?” the Doctor whispered in your ear. His voice sounded a little odd, or maybe that was just you.

Yeah, sure, just going through the Five Stages of Heartbreak while cuddling with my unrequited love alien. No big deal. “Yeah, uh, it’s- um, just, sad movie.”

Lucky for you, that part of the movie actually was quite sad, and your lie panned out. You still didn’t risk wiping away a tear -or two or three- that had escaped, though, and you spent the rest of the movie with salty tearstains streaking across your cheeks.

The tingling and game of emotions-bingo eventually stopped. The Doctor didn’t let go of your hand or force you to move. When only five minutes of the movie were left, you let yourself fall asleep.

The Doctor stared at you. He had you sleeping in his arms, which was a bit of a fantasy of his, but he couldn’t be more disappointed in this moment. He had shared his emotions and you had barely twitched, as far as he could tell. Maybe he had done it wrong. This body wasn’t too strong at touch-telepathy, right? He could have just been giving himself a feedback-loop of sensations, which was what it felt like, considering the echoes he was getting from you. They had felt so sad, but that too made sense. He was sad. He had, once again, tried and failed in what should have been a very simple courting procedure.

Don’t look at it that way, the Doctor ordered himself. So you messed up on the emotion-sharing bit. Big deal! You spent a night cuddled on the couch, and she didn’t slap you for getting so close, and you held her hand, which she also did not slap you for. And she fell asleep with you. By human standards, this was completely successful.

With that in mind, the Doctor told the TARDIS to turn off the TV and go float in the vortex for a smooth ride while he nuzzled his nose against your neck and shut his eyes. This was too good of a position to give up, after all.

He slept better with you that night than he had since before the Time War.