#i only thought oh haha gay poppets and my brain decided to End My Whole Career with Angst

[randomwriteronline]

It was quiet.

So very quiet.

So very full of hidden dangers, waiting for the right moment to strike.

“Mr. Banker.”

The puppet jolted in his small booth. Not too far away, a spectacled figure was slightly turned to him, observing him with a hint of what he could only guess was some sort of curiosity. Kind of like a big feline evaluating its prey.

“Ah! H-hello there, Doc.” he greeted, trying to calm down his shaking body, “Uhm, s, slow day, ain’t it?”

“Quite.” the doctor agreed, his deep voice resonating almost frighteningly in the lack of sound around them. He took his eyes off the Banker to take his trusty utensils out of his dirty apron’s pocket and started to polish them slowly, with care. “Hours into the day, and still not a Bandit in sight.”

“M, maybe he’s having some, hm, some trouble, out there in the Wild.”

“With all those Stringless wandering around, I wouldn’t be surprised.”

The Banker nodded, unsure what else to do.

He fidgeted with his hands, scratching dark particles away.

Carver was a proper fellow, he was. Sane and kicking and willing to help other poor wooden souls who wanted to keep their mind and strings intact. But he couldn’t help but feel uneasy around him.

Maybe it was his voice. Maybe it was the stains on his clothes. Maybe it was how carefully he was tending to his scissors and needle. Maybe it was... Maybe it was... He couldn’t place what it maybe was. But looking at Doc Carver made him tremble and want to hide under his counter in fear.

It had to be fear.

It couldn’t be anything but fear.

“Say, Mr. Banker.”

Those sudden words made him jump again. Carver was analizing the tip of his needle, rotating it in his finger. The glint of his orange glasses sent shivers down the Banker’s spine.

It had to be fear.

“Do you need a bit of... Mending, perhaps?”

It couldn’t be anything but fear.

“Oh, n, no, you, you’re very kind, gettin’ worried for me, Doc, but uh, I, I can assure you, my strings are in p-perfect shape!”

The doctor returned his attention to the other puppet: “You seem excessively pale.” he noted.

The Banker stopped scratching at his hands as if realizing what he was doing: “Ah, that is, uh, it’s nothing, Doc. It’s just... Y-you know, age!”

Carver only hummed. To the anxious puppet’s surprise, he took off his apron, opened up his little booth, and began walking towards the Wild. In his hands he held his scissors.

“W-where are you going, Doc?” the Banker asked worriedly.

The other shrugged nonchalantly: “Business.” he simply replied, “Oughta see if there’s some poor folks in need. Take care.”

The poor four-eyed puppet couldn’t even answer ‘You too, Doc’ that the mustached figure had already left, and he was surrounded only by the silence.

He hated the silence.

Every little noise his ears would detect dug into his wooden skin like a termite, leaving him wondering what had made such a sound. He was never safe, in the silence. Awful things hid everywhere, looking hungrily at the scrawny, fearful, shaking little body all curled up inside the bank booth. He could hear them drooling in anticipation, already savouring the tasty feeling that would invade their mouths once they finally took a bite out of those defenseless wooden limbs. He could see their greedy hands clutching his strings and tearing them apart with ease, pulling and pulling without rest until he was just like them: a stringless, mindless corpse, left behind by whatever - or whoever - had once held him up through those silky seams.

The Banker laid his head on the counter and clutched it with his hands, trembling and sobbing quietly. Oh, how he wished someone else was there.

He waited hours or minutes, he couldn’t tell the difference: all he knew was that at one point he dozed off, exhausted by anxiety, and that he awoke to the sound of something metallic moving, maybe rolling, not too far away from the bank.

He lifted his wooden cranium and felt relief fill his chest when he recognized the familiar long shape of Carver’s jaw: “Doc!” he called out, standing up from his chair to take a better look at him, “You’re back!”

The doctor turned to him with a smile as he rolled something behind his counter.

“Glad to see you too, Mr. Banker. Has any Bandit shown up?”

He seemed mostly unharmed, the Banker noticed, the sinking feeling in his stomach becoming much lighter: “No, nobody came while you were gone.”

“Ah, well, all the better. Wouldn’t want to disappoint a client by not being there.”

“How, how did your errands go? Found someone?”

“No one, sadly. Or maybe not so much. It would mean everybody’s safe and sound somewhere else - far away from the Wild.”

“Y-yes, that sounds rather good.”

He was so glad not to be alone anymore.

Carver stared intently at the Banker’s face. That same sensation, that fear (for fear it had to be), came back to churn the other’s wooden insides.

“You are so strikingly pale.” the doctor muttered.

He sounded almost... Almost worried. He had to be worried. He couldn’t be... He couldn’t be... Well, he didn't know what he couldn't be, but he had to not be it.

The four-eyed puppet waved his hand in what he hoped was a dismissive way: “I, I told you Doc, it’s j-just age-”

“Age, you say.” the other interrupted him.

“I, I do say, yes-”

“Then perhaps you could use a fresh hand.”

The Banker stopped. Without knowing, he’d been fidgeting with his fingers.

“A... A fresh hand?” he repeated, confused.

Carver put on his apron and rummaged in its pocket. Finally, he took out a paintbrush and began running his fingers through its bristles to see if they were stuck to one another. They flowed wonderfully.

“While in the Wild, I happened to find just the treatment for this... ‘Age’ of yours.” the doctor said, subtly eyeing his anxious companion’s hands, which had certainly seen better days, “If you’d be so kind to come over here, I could see what I can do about it. I’m afraid painting you through those bars would be quite the herculean feat even for a doctor as capable as I.”

The Banker waited a little. Carver simply looked as the timid puppet came out of his little bank and walked up to him, a tad anxious. He opened his booth with a smile, pulling out a little chair made from scraps of what he could find for the other to make himself comfortable on. He then moved to the small paint bucket he’d gone through countless troubles to find; he removed the lid and started mixing the brown liquid in the hopes it hadn’t been waiting around long enough to become solid.

“You might want to take off your vest and bow.” he advised, hoping the Banker wouldn’t notice the barely masked tremble in his voice, “Wouldn’t want to get them dirty, would we, now.”

The other just murmured something, perhaps agreeing. There was a bit of rustling, and when Carver turned, bow and vest laid neatly folded on his table: the Banker looked up at him expectantly, one of his legs bouncing rapidly in slight discomfort.

"I'd start from the back, if you don't mind." the doctor said as he filled a soda cap-turned-container with light brown paint. The timid puppet only nodded, lowering his head to make the job easier.

The bristles went up and down the Banker's nape gently, like a soft and wet caress. They seemed so relaxing, as if inviting him to lean into their touch. The more he thought about them, the more his mind drifted to the one holding the brush, moving it so kindly and sweetly on his wooden surface. There was an adjective that explained perfectly the feeling inside those careful movements...

"M- Must'a been a real trouble for you to find a whole, whole bucket of paint." he noted, trying to distract himself from the warm fear taking hold of his stomach.

A real trouble, the poor fellow said. Well, he wasn’t wrong. Not at all, in fact: first he'd thought he remembered the location where he first had seen the precious bucket, but it turned out his memory had been incredibly foggy, misleading him and dragging him into a labyrinth of his own making; then it just so happened that those blasted Stringless were everywhere, constantly, and had slowed him down considerably both before and after he'd realized he'd been walking in circles uselessly, wasting precious time; and it really wouldn't have been right to have an already terrible time without that Faceless Bandit showing up and nearly cutting all of his strings at once -

"It was nothing, really." the Doc merely shrugged, "Stumbled upon it as I was looking for patients."

"Well, I, I guess bringing it back here was... Well, I don't think it was a breeze."

"Hm, yes, that is true. I'm glad it rolls, at least."

The Banker hummed. His insides felt like a wildfire had been started in them.

The brush suddenly licked the back of his neck and for a second, he thought he was going to faint due to the boiling feeling exploding in his guts. Instead he forced himself conscious, desperately clutching his knees in his hands - if he'd been made of bones and flesh, his knuckles would have turned white by how hard he was holding onto the fabric of his pants. The paintbrush's tip went further, tickling a spot close to where his Adam's apple would have been.

He swallowed, or at least he tried to: goodness, how terribly easy it was to turn him into shambles.

“I’d say we’re done here.” Carver’s deep voice reached him from behind what felt like walls of cotton.

“A, are we, Doc?” he weakly asked in response, allowing his whole body to hunch forward and shake almost violently to get everything he’d just felt out of his system, as if the experience had required all of his energy and left him exhausted. Both his legs bounced in asynchrony, playing a strange tip-tapping, click-clacking song as his heels hit the floor.

“With the back, for sure. Now,” the doctor hummed, patting his back in a comforting manner, and after he put the container on the counter he walked around the Banker to stand right in front of him. His finger’s gosted under the other’s jaw: “For the face.”

And it suddenly hit the Banker.

Carver had been behind him this whole time.

Now he would have to be face to face with him.

“Y-you know, Doc, there, there’s no need for that.”

Carver raised an eyebrow: “Excuse me?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m, I feel a, a lot better already, I...” the Banker added, struggling to get to his feet and leave that darn booth as fast as he could, “T-thank you, Doc, I’ll, I should, I should get going now, y’know, the, the bank and, uhm, the, the accounts, and the Bandit, and-”

A hand gently held his shoulder. He froze.

“Mr. Banker, please.” the doctor smiled kindly as he softly pushed him back onto the chair, “Don’t think of me as lowly as a snakeoil-selling charlatan.”

“I, I don’t, Doc-”

“Then you know that no doctor worth his salt leaves their patient only half cured.”

“But, but I can assure you I’m, I’m all better already! You, you did a wonderful job, Doc, I couldn’t be better, there’s n, no need to-”

“Please, Mr. Banker.”

The four-eyed puppet trembled harder for just a second: those simple three words made him feel as if he was melting like a lonely icicle under the hot midday sun.

“Just a little longer, and you’ll be free to go.” promised Carver. His hand wandered down the other’s arm comfortingly before he went to get some more paint from the bucket.

“But, but-” the Banker tried - though not as hurriedly as before - in an attempt to buy himself time. He reclined his head to escape the fingers attempting to catch his chin: “I, I need to- The bank- My, my part-”

“You’ll play your part again soon enough.” Carver nodded, resorting to gently putting his palm behind the other puppet’s nape to stop him from retroceeding further, “But before that, we oughta make sure you’re in perfect shape.”

“But, but, but- Doc, I-”

“Mr. Banker, I’d love to chat, I truly would. But I’m afraid for this procedure I’ll need you to, ah...” his index finger pressed tenderly against the Banker’s jaw, gently shutting it closed. “There.”

The four-eyed puppet felt a burning sensation expand from the tip of his chin all over his head. The paintbrush’s wet caresses came back slow, deliberate, only feeding the fire under his wooden shell. He couldn’t move, not even fidget or bounce or stim in any way, or he would have started trembling and the paint would have been smeared all over him; all he could focus on was either the doctor himself, fully dedicated to his meticulous work, or the doctor’s fingers, holding up his head as he painted him. He resigned himself to resting on the wooden phalanges, leaning only slightly into their touch - and before he knew it, his eyes were wandering across the other puppet’s elongated visage, voraciously taking in every detail in the dim light of the doctor’s booth while blessing chance for not giving him any irises or pupils to betray his interest.

By the time the doctor had finished painting his face (passing under his chin in one swift, terribly tender movement as Carver gently held him by an ear), his breath had grown deeper, calmer, his body had stilled. The fire under his wooden skin had become a pleasant heat. The exhilarating feeling of paint on his neck made him bounce his leg a little, but it only took a hand put on top of it and a deep voice saying: “Please, be still, my friend. Wouldn’t want to get your shirt dirty.”, and any last remains of the anxious energy inside of him finally quieted down.

He felt perfectly at peace. He was warm clay in the hands of a gentle creator, moving and molding to their wishes without a single care in the world, only concentrated on Carver’s soft, small, wonderful smile. He could have just raised his hand and idly stroked the scar on his cheek.

No.

No, he couldn’t, he shouldn’t.

He crushed that thought and threw it away.

Why did he even think it?

But the thought sprung up again like a mischievous mole.

He couldn’t, he shouldn’t, he wasn’t going to.

He grabbed that thought and squeezed it in his hands.

The thought cried out in pain, and bargained. Wasn’t it good?, it cried out, Wasn’t it sweet and gentle and kind? Wasn’t it something to want?

It was good, so good, so sweet, so gentle, so kind, so soft, so tender, so very comforting and wonderful and perfect but it couldn’t, it couldn’t, it couldn’t, it just couldn’t really be like that, it couldn’t be a good thing to have his body overwhelmed by that burning, aching, panting, trembling fear (it was fear, it had to be fear, it couldn’t not be fear) that assaulted him whenever the doctor looked at him or talked to him or even just stood there in his field of vision ignoring him, and it couldn’t have been so good that he was craving it, wanting it, needing it every second of his lonely quiet life, it couldn’t be so good, the thought of the doctor staying with him, by him, near him, nearer, closer, so close, so close he could hear the noises inside the other and shield himself from that vicious silence, it couldn’t be so good that he would have thrown away his safety for it, for this yearning, for this cursed, damned, perversed, unnatural thought.

The stress inside of him began awaking, fast, turning the warmth under his skin into a boiling hell.

And right then, the doctor finished.

He gave the Banker a kind grin: “There. Now all that’s left to do is wait for the paint to dry. You could wait here, if you like.”

No, he wouldn’t have liked to wait there. Never, would he have liked to wait there, thank you very much. He was going to stand up and leave and never come back again, never even look at Carver again, never acknowledge him again. He would have just forgotten that he existed, that he had ever existed, and he would have waited quietly and patiently for Bandit to come over and, and, and that would have been it. Played his part and nothing more, as he was always supposed to do from the second he became part of this world.

But the thought took hold of his hand, and he grabbed Carver’s wrist just as he turned to close the lid on the paint bucket. The doctor seemed surprised, for a moment. Then he held it between his own, almost cradling it in his palms, a tender expression on his face. He was the image of adoration.

... No, he couldn’t have been. What a silly, stupid, dangerous assumption.

“I almost forgot.” Carver murmured. His voice was much less frightening at a low volume. Much more comforting. It made the thought burn loudly inside the Banker’s mind.

The Doc covered his hand with a piece of cloth and offered it to the four-eyed puppet. With the slightest hint of reluctancy, he placed his hand on the doctor’s, feeling his fingertips underneath the fabric. First the back of both appendages, then the palms. The bristles ran carefully between the fingers to fill all spaces, even the most hidden ones. When the hands were to be turned, Carver held him almost devotedly by the wrist to keep him steady, and diluted the paint to make its hue a lighter one. He waited with him, thumbs drawing circles on the other’s arms, until all the paint had dried up.

“There.” he concluded, “Now you’re all ready.”

He took a couple steps back to admire - no, he wouldn’t be admiring, he would be just looking at the whole thing - take a better look at him. His fingers played with his chin for a second, and he let out a hearty laugh: “My word, you look even better than back in the day!”

That chuckle, that wonderful sound.

The Banker began shaking.

Every part of his body Carver had touched, his nape, his chin, his ear, shoulders, arm, leg, hands, wrists, every last one of them burned as if scorching metal taken straight from the forge was being pressed against them deeper and deeper. That laugh burned into them harder, more terribly, tearing at his wood.

He stood up with an anxious harmony of clicks and clacks, grabbing his vest so hastily he struggled to put it on. The doctor reached for his bow, to help him, perhaps; he clawed at it immediately, terrified of the possibility. Doc Carver putting his bow on for him, adjusting it on his chest, tightening it ever so slightly... He shivered in fear (it had to be fear) just thinking about it.

The other puppet stared at his face in surprise: “Is something the matter?” he asked worriedly.

The Banker shook his head: “No. No, nothing’s the matter. Absolutely nothing.”

“You’re shaking like a leaf.” Carver noted, reaching for the other’s arm. The Banker yanked it away.

“I’m good! I’m good. Don’t worry. I’m good.”

“Banker-”

He raised his hands, interrupting him. He poorly attempted to take in some deep breaths that only came out ragged and scared.

“Thank you, Doc.” he finally said. “Really, truly, honestly, th-thank you. You were... You were, very kind, to do this for me, but, but now it’s over. I, I need to get to my booth. We all have a, we all have a part to play, and mine is, it’s in that booth. And nowhere else. Not here. Not...  We, we shouldn’t even have done this. We’re supposed to, to wait for Bandit. And, and to help him. Just him. Not... Not like what we... Not like what we did now.”

He was shivering terribly. The thought simply wouldn’t leave. It wouldn’t leave.

Carver wouldn’t leave, either. Or say something, or do something. His paintbrush needed to be cleaned, so why wasn’t he cleaning it? Why wasn’t he properly closing the paint bucket? Why wasn’t he washing the cap-turned-container? Why was he just standing there, looking at him, still as a rock, as if expecting something, anything?

They waited. They waited long and quietly, alone in their small oasis in the Wild, surrounded by Stringless and with the only company of each other.

Carver finally spoke: “Banker.”

He felt his insides twist.

“What’s wrong?”

And the thought pushed him violently, and the Banker flew against the doctor with all of his strength, clutching him in a desperate embrace, digging his newly painted fingers deep into the other puppet’s stained gilet and panting hard on his dirtied skin. He could hear the soft sounds from within the other, the hidden cricks and cracks of wood, and he felt safe, finally safe from that terrifying silence all around them. He felt another pair of arms wrap tenderly around him, keeping him closer, as close as he’d wished to be in his short lived daydreaming, and a forehead rubbing gently against his own. He felt the scratch of orange lensed glasses dig against him and rose his head, letting the spaces where their noses should have been meet. His hand reached for the scar on Carver’s cheek.

Suddenly, it all burned. His body was burning. His body was burning! Enveloped by flames! The flames he was holding so close to himself! Scorching, ruthless, murderous! And he was holding them!

With a scream, he shoved the doctor away, punting himself against the booth’s desk with a loud ‘bang’. He turned and ran straight back inside the bank, not allowing himself to percieve anything around him until he was curled underneath his own counter, hands clutching his head for dear life, face in his knees, shaking and breathing heavily.

He forced himself to stop making any noise, and waited.

He waited for the hurried clacking of shoes, for wooden hands to grab his desk, for a deep, gentle voice to ask for answers, worried, soothing, trying to understand what had he done, what had gone wrong, how he could make up for it. But there was no sound.

Only silence.

Full to the brim the hundreds of terrifying, hungry monstrosities hiding inside of its folds, waiting to turn him into supper.

He inhaled sharply, shivers growing stronger.

He was safe.

Safe from Doc Carver’s kind inviting arms and the sweet promises they held.

The thought laid next to him, a poor hummingbird with a broken neck.

The Banker kicked it as far back as he could into the darkness around him and sobbed loudly.

It had to be fear.

It couldn’t be anything but fear.