This is a pretty self indulgent ask of mine plus the other sick baddies (also fox), and could be a silly one depending on your thoughts. What are your headcanons for how it would go if MC was a sickly kind of person and had just several chronic issues or similar going on? I've got a couple things going on medically like diabetes and anemia (to at least name a few) and can picture him having a field day studying me.
A/n: Let me know if you want a part two! Obviously I canât cover all chronic conditions in one fic. Feel free to lmk if you want your condition represented next time. Also I have EDS, POTS, and MCAS, so if any ill besties need to talk, Iâm here and I understand. ~FoxđŠ
Headcanons: How TFC would react to MC being chronically ill
Pierrot â Chronic Fatigue
Pierrot would notice your chronic fatigue long before you ever found the words to explain it. He pays attention in a way that feels almost unfair sometimes, quietly collecting details about the people he cares for until he understands them better than they understand themselves.
At first, it would be little things: the way your smile occasionally looks tired around the edges even when youâre genuinely happy, the way you unconsciously search for somewhere to sit whenever you enter a room, or how some days you seem capable of anything while other days even standing upright appears exhausting. He would notice how often you push yourself past your limits, how frequently you promise youâll rest âlater,â and how often that later never actually comes.
More than anything, though, he would notice the guilt. The apologies when plans change. The embarrassment when you need a break. The frustration you direct at yourself whenever your body refuses to cooperate. That would be the part that truly breaks his heart.
Over time, Pierrot would begin quietly building your limitations into his expectations without ever making you feel defined by them. If you need to stop and rest, then stopping becomes part of the outing. If you need a day in bed, then thatâs simply where the two of you spend the day. He would never make you feel as though youâre inconveniencing him by existing exactly as you are. In fact, he would become increasingly upset whenever you apologized for symptoms you canât control.
The more he learns about chronic fatigue, the more he realizes how much energy you spend simply surviving each day, and the idea that youâre somehow blaming yourself for that genuinely hurts him. Eventually, after hearing you apologize for being tired one too many times, heâd take your hand and stop you before you could finish. His expression would be soft, but there would be a firmness beneath it that doesnât appear often. He would tell you that rest isnât a failure, that needing help isnât weakness, and that watching you treat yourself with kindness matters far more to him than whether you managed to accomplish everything on your to-do list.
To Pierrot, your worth was never tied to what you can produce, and he desperately wishes you could see yourself through his eyes for even a single day.
Harlequin would recognize your depression through absence rather than presence. He wouldnât focus on obvious moments of sadness because sadness isnât what catches his attention. Instead, he notices the things that quietly disappear. The hobbies you stop mentioning. The projects you never finish. The enthusiasm that slowly fades from your voice when discussing things you once loved.
He notices when your laughter becomes harder to earn, when your reactions become smaller, and when the spark that makes you you starts retreating somewhere he canât quite reach. At first, he responds exactly how youâd expect him to. He becomes louder, more annoying, more determined to drag reactions out of you through sheer force of personality. Heâll show up uninvited, start ridiculous conversations, make terrible jokes, and deliberately provoke you into rolling your eyes just so he can confirm youâre still engaging with the world around you.
The difficult part comes when he realizes there are days where none of that works. Days where you arenât sad so much as empty. Days where even things you genuinely enjoy feel distant and exhausting. That realization changes something in him. He stops trying to fix every bad day because he begins understanding that not every bad day can be fixed.
Instead, he learns how to stay. He learns how to sit beside you without demanding entertainment, how to fill silence without overwhelming it, and how to remain present without turning your struggles into a performance. The thing Harlequin never tells you is that depression frightens him. Not because he doesnât understand it, but because he can see how hard it works to convince you that youâre unlovable, boring, burdensome, or broken. He sees the lies it whispers and becomes fiercely protective of the parts of yourself it tries to erase.
Whenever you insist that youâve changed too much, that youâve lost the person you used to be, Harlequin always seems strangely certain that youâre wrong. He remembers your passions, your quirks, your excitement, and your dreams with stubborn persistence, even on days when you canât remember them yourself.
If depression convinces you that youâve disappeared, Harlequin becomes the person stubborn enough to stand in front of you and insist that he can still see you.
Doctor â Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome
Doctor discovering your Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome would begin as curiosity and rapidly evolve into obsession. The first time he watches a joint partially slip out of place, his reaction is not nearly as calm as you would expect. What unsettles him isnât the injury itselfâitâs how casually you respond to it. The fact that you can adjust a joint, wince briefly, and continue a conversation as though nothing happened is deeply alarming to him.
The more he learns, the worse it gets. Every casual comment you make seems to reveal a new horror. You mention that your knees occasionally give out. He looks concerned. You explain that your shoulders sometimes partially dislocate. He looks alarmed. You casually reference chronic pain as though itâs an unavoidable fact of life, and suddenly Doctor appears personally offended by your connective tissue. The longer he spends around you, the more he realizes how many things youâve normalized simply because youâve had no choice.
What begins as professional interest becomes intensely personal far faster than heâd ever admit. Doctor starts memorizing every problematic joint, every recurring injury, every activity that increases your pain levels, and every bad habit youâve developed to compensate. Before long, he begins quietly modifying your environment without permission. Chairs with better support appear. Heavy objects mysteriously stop ending up in your hands. Braces, wraps, and supports seem to materialize whenever you need them.
The frustrating part is that heâs usually correct. More frustrating still is how quickly he learns to identify when youâre hurting. He notices changes in your posture, your gait, the way you hold your arms, and the subtle stiffness that appears after particularly bad days. Sometimes he seems to know your pain level before youâve consciously acknowledged it yourself. While Doctor would never infantilize you, he absolutely becomes invested in minimizing unnecessary suffering, and his tolerance for you ignoring injuries becomes nonexistent.
From his perspective, youâve spent your entire life adapting to a body that makes unreasonable demands, and he finds it deeply unfair that youâve had to become comfortable with pain simply because it never leaves.
Jester would discover your anemia in the most unsettling way possible: by noticing details that nobody else does. He wouldnât need you to explain it. Instead, heâd slowly piece it together from observation alone. The cold hands. The occasional dizziness. The way your energy fluctuates throughout the day. The subtle differences in your complexion when youâre having a particularly rough week.
Most people wouldnât catch these things because theyâre small, easy to miss, and often dismissed as quirks. Jester, unfortunately, notices everything. The truly unnerving part isnât that he figures it out. Itâs how quickly he starts predicting it. Before long, he seems capable of identifying a bad day before youâve even realized youâre having one. Blankets appear before youâve registered feeling cold. Warm drinks arrive exactly when you need them. Heâll suggest sitting down moments before dizziness hits, and somehow heâs always right.
Despite how observant he becomes, Jester never turns your anemia into a spectacle. He doesnât fuss over you, hover constantly, or make dramatic displays of concern. Instead, he quietly incorporates the information into his understanding of you and adjusts accordingly. The result feels strangely intimate because it isnât performative. He simply notices.
He remembers. He adapts. There are moments where youâll catch him studying you from across a room, and a few minutes later heâll casually ask whether youâve eaten recently or if youâre feeling alright. The frightening part is how often heâs correct. Over time, you begin realizing that Jester can tell the difference between your normal tired and your anemia tired. He can tell when youâre pushing through symptoms, when youâre pretending youâre fine, and when youâre about to hit a wall.
The fact that someone pays that much attention should probably be unsettling. Somehow, with him, it mostly just feels comforting.
Ticket Taker â Diabetes
Ticket Taker approaches your diabetes the same way he approaches every important responsibility in his life: by learning absolutely everything he can and then remembering it forever. The moment he understands that your condition relies heavily on consistency, routine, and awareness, he begins quietly integrating that knowledge into his mental map of the world. Not because he believes youâre incapable of managing yourself, but because paying attention is simply how he shows care.
He learns your habits, your schedule, your warning signs, and the subtle differences between you being tired, distracted, stressed, or symptomatic. What surprises you most is how discreet he is about it. Ticket Taker never treats you like youâre fragile. He never talks down to you, questions your intelligence, or acts as though your condition defines you. Instead, he becomes an incredibly reliable safety net operating quietly in the background.
The longer youâre together, the more impossible it becomes to hide things from him. If youâve skipped a meal because you got distracted, he notices. If your blood sugar is affecting your concentration, he notices. If youâre trying to push through symptoms because you donât want to inconvenience anyone, he notices that too.
The difference between Ticket Taker and the others is that he never makes these observations feel like criticism. Thereâs no judgment attached to them. Only concern. He doesnât lecture. He simply appears with solutions already in hand. Food shows up when youâve forgotten to eat. Water appears when youâve been neglecting it. Breaks somehow become part of your schedule before you realize you needed one.
The truly touching part is that he never treats these accommodations as extra work. To him, caring for someone means paying attention to the things that matter, and your health matters. The only time his patience genuinely wears thin is when you knowingly neglect yourself.
Watching someone he cares about suffer from a preventable problem is one of the few things capable of irritating him, and while heâll never raise his voice about it, the disappointed look he gives you when youâve been ignoring your needs is often far more effective than anger could ever be.
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