Summary: Doctor doesn't understand what love is, but somehow he knows that he loves you. This is him trying to encapsulate that messy, terrifying feeling in the bloody, visceral language that he knows so well. The one he's afraid of letting you hear.
Warnings for description of blood, gore and viscera — the reader isn't harmed and Doctor does not want to harm them, he's just learning a feeling he's not used to.
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You are so beautiful like this.
Not just beautiful either— handsome. Adorable. Ethereal even, though Doctor didn't like the idea of equating your visual appeal to something immaterial and metaphorical. He operated on the physical and the real, something he could hold and touch and observe to an almost obsessive degree. You aren't some fairytale or symbolic presence— you are real, a person that he can interact with in ways that his brain understood.
And yet, despite the physicality allowing him a constant excuse to observe and an object of fascination, Doctor is still so utterly confused by you. Confused by the way you make his heart race as though it would leap out of his chest anytime you so much as smiled at him. When you laughed at his jokes. When you listened to his theories. Entertained his questions. Joined in his dry, oftentimes dark humor even when the others didn't find it all that funny.
Those moments contained such serene joy that Doctor wondered if those feelings bubbling up inside of him are why humans could be so religious or spiritual— as if their bodies couldn't contain devotion so large and frightening towards a being outside of themselves that they had to place it elsewhere entirely.
A theory for another time, perhaps. One you might even allow him to ramble on about if the time was right and the evening late enough, with you unable to sleep against the ambiance of the circus— Doctor can never ignore the delight he feels knowing you trust him in such a vulnerable fashion. To sleep unguarded… it spoke volumes of affection that words couldn't do justice.
It isn't normal, after all, for a rabbit to slumber under a wolf's gaze.
While it's not the first time you had fallen asleep in his main tent while he worked, it's the first time you'd done so in his medical chair (which was amusing in itself). Something that was a source of terror for others, but a place of comfort for you— if Doctor was a reader of things beyond medical textbooks and botanical guides, he might have thought of something poetic about the situation, a certain beauty to be found in the layers of complete irony.
… he'd stopped working sometime ago. Though the pen was still gripped in his hand and the papers of notes and chemical results askew across his desk, all Doctor could do is stare at you sleeping so peacefully on the chair, body curled up with a blanket you had taken with you from elsewhere in the circus. Possibly Pierrot's tent, maybe from your own items that came with you when you moved out of that little apartment. Maybe somewhere else altogether.
It doesn't matter to Doctor precisely where the blanket came from— all the same, it's not his body wrapped around yours. Not his feathers caressing your skin, feeling your heartbeat thump low and rhythmic in the center of your chest. It isn't his hands on your chest, his teeth at your pulse—
Ah. Those feelings again. The ones that made his heart begin to ache. Not… painfully. Just… ache. Like a wound that has healed over but not fully knitted together. Like there was ice in his chest cavity, cold and numbing and sharp and seeping. Of course that wasn't the case; the chance of having any sort of cardiac issue was rather nonexistent, and Doctor knew he didn't literally have ice lodged inside of his ribcage.
That would be rather illogical.
But still, he ached merely watching you sleep and breathe and exist near him. So gentle, so fragile, so… lovely.
"Sometimes I wish I knew how to say these things I feel for you, sweetie," Doctor murmurs, voice filling the quiet space. "I don't have the words you do. You are so very good with your words— I have never wanted to hear someone speak as much as I do with you."
He pauses, listening to the dull, gentle, beautifully rhythmic beating of your heart. A heart he has heard quicken and skip and slow and thensome.
Such a beautiful, lovely thing it is.
For a moment he feels… jealous. Jealous? Yes, he supposes it is jealousy weaving through him, leaving the creature unable to concentrate on his work the longer you lay there vulnerable and unconscious. Jealousy is an… especially strange emotion— it isn't confusing by any stretch of the imagination, but Doctor is left powerless against its powerful weight all the same.
"I can't chase you like Pierrot, charm you like Harlequin," Doctor muses to himself, looking down at the scalpel in his hand and how it slices through the flesh of a specimen he probably won't be able to dissect properly. He's too distracted. So he continues, "I am not as diligent as Ticket Taker nor as confident as Jester— and I don't believe my words or hands could ever be as gentle as hers were."
He sighs, dropping the metal tool with a clatter against the metal tray, the scent of old blood making Doctor feel more agitated than relaxed. He allows himself a moment to change his gloves not for himself, but for you. You, the little human who needs to be treated gently in comparison to them. The human with a sweet smile. The human who is so stubborn. The human who, despite everything they had been through together and individually, seems to care about them all a great deal.
Love and jealousy and hunger and ache— to Doctor they're all the same feelings, muddled and gray-toned inside of his colorblind heart. But he wants so badly to see the shades, the nuances. Some part of him desires nothing more than understanding. But when understanding fails, observation and study often make up for it. Maybe that's why Doctor enjoys his experiments— to try and understand all the parts of the world that make no sense in a way his brain.
He stalks towards your sleeping form, voice low and gentle, but dripping with something he couldn't describe. It tastes almost like blood.
"You know how hard it is to let you walk out of this tent? The restraint I have to enact so that I don't strap you down to this very share you seem to be oh-so-comfortable in?"
You don't answer, obviously unconcious and (given how you snuggle even deeper into the blanket) completely unaware of Doctor's own monologue.
He huffs. How can frustration and affection swirl so perfectly within him at such a sight? How can he make you understand all of these feelings threatening to burst from his chest and bleed down his torso?
"I want to love you, sweetie, but I do not know how. I don't know what love is like— I just know…" he sighs, mask suddenly feeling too tight across his face. It's an annoying sensation that reminds him of when he's molting, all itchy and uncomfortable. "… I want you near me. All the time. I want your smile. Your laughter. I want you to tell me about your day. I want to share space with you, to see you fall asleep on my chair and my bed—"
Doctor has to chuckle, breaking him off from his thoughts. He barely remembered to sleep in his own bed— but maybe with you waiting for him, he'd remember more often.
"It is a shame you are not a monster," he finally says, grief filling every syllable. "I cannot bite you. Cannot… mark you. My kind is… not intimate in the way humans are. Familiar, intimate even? You hold my hand without reason and ask me questions without needing the answer. So confusing of you, sweetie…"
He sighs, reaching a hand up to adjust the mask over his true face, wishing for a moment he could take it off and lean over you like a ravenous phantom just to indulge in the addictive taste of your flesh and blood.
Oh, the taste…
You can't wake up now. You can't open your eyes to see him like this, shamefully feral and on the edge of sanity. You're not supposed to see him like this, the terrifying creature that he is to most humans. You're not supposed to be afraid of him— not you. Never you.
"I want…." Doctor takes in a deep breath. It's amazing how big his hand is compared to yours, the size difference stark and stunning in how he holds the headrest of the chair in a hapless attempt to calm himself.
"I want to hold you. Tight. Tight enough that your body melds with mind. I want our ribs entwined and our hearts to beat together— every drop of blood, every scrap of viscera—
I want to be so entirely part of you and you of me that nobody could identify one from the other. I want to feel your pulse sing for me, I want our organs to dance together and our veins to knit into eachother like a mating veil so that we are always and forever complete, I want—"
He stops, words and noise ceasing entirely the moment you begin to stir. Doctor immediately as back and adjusts himself, even reaching a hand up to his leather mask to make sure it was still on tight and secure— you don't need to wake up to that yet. Maybe one day he'd let you see him. Maybe one day.
"Hmm…. Doct….tor?"
Your eyes flutter open, a soft and small motion that he notices instantly. His blood is still searing inside of him, choking him for a sense of decency he knows that humans feel most comfortable with. He has to force an answer across his tongue and pretend he doesn't want to grab you and secure you onto his table so that you could never ever leave him—
"You fell asleep," he says, the act sublime. "I was… about to clean up for the evening. Didn't mean to disturb you, my sleepy, oblivious little patient."
You're too groggy to pick up the odd wording. Doctor tilts his head after a moment.
"Are you well enough to go home?"
You blink, then let out a yawn. Doctor suddenly understands all of the things that Pierrot goes on about whenever he's being overly sentimental, all the things that he once pondered about. Oh, how suddenly Doctor begins to understand it all.
This wretched, terrifying, beautiful, obsessive feeling they call love.
Because there's nothing in the universe that could compare to the emotions inside of Doctor's body soul and heart when your soft lips part to answer him with such delicious honesty:
"…Could I stay with you tonight? I'm… really tired actually."
It's a good thing you can't hear their heartbeats, because otherwise Doctor wouldn't have been able to hide his utter elation. He wouldn't be able to hide the way his body tenses at the thought of you sleeping next to him— he'd probably end up wearing his uniform, and you'd probably ask him about it, but none of that mattered when he knew he'd spend the quiet hours of the early morning watching you slumber with his hands settled on your waist.
He could count your breathing rate. He could notate all the blemishes on your skin. He could attempt to calculate the rhythm of your pulse and how your body relaxed in unconscious.
"Of course you can, sweetie," he finally says, pretending to be feeling everything he isn't in that very moment. "I enjoy having you around me." I love you. "You are always welcome in my tent." I want you to stay forever.
Doctor doesn't know for sure what love is, but he thinks he's on the right track— perhaps some more experiments are in order.
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