Crafty Zip

indulgent bloodloathing art because i miss them

What if,,,,

So while watching Legs’ pov for the first time and he claimed to be a vampire in front of the town, I was frankly astounded that nobody called his bluff, and thus this au (tentatively named ‘one question’) was born:

“Avid? …what are you wearing…?” Marm grabbed Avid’s arm, pulling him up off the ground.

“I don’t know!” Avid spun around, the new outfit twirling around him. A blood-red cape hung off his shoulders, pinned to his shirt collar with what seemed like gold buttons. The rest of his outfit was similarly gothic, all greys and whites, with a black, nearly knee-high boot on the living leg. And somehow, despite never seeing or wearing anything like this before…it fit like a glove. “I just kinda woke up in this. You like it?”

“Looks good on you.” Marm circled Avid, grabbing the cloak and feeling it between her fingers. “The things we’ve seen here…maybe they apply to clothing as well…I wonder if I’ll get a new outfit too. Were you doing anything before this?”

Avid looked up for a moment. “Had a weird dream about vampires, but that’s about it.”

“Hm.” She squinted for another moment, before shaking her head. “Never mind. You might want to get those pants tailored though, you got caught in them.”

“Yeah I know…There aren’t even any tailors on the server…”

~~~~~~

Legundo woke up covered in blood.

He was only about 75% awake when he realized, going to rub his eyes and getting the distinctive scent of iron in his nose.

“What-“ He pulled away his arm, staring at the sleeve. It may have once been clean white robes, but dried red marred it now. Legs ran through the scripts in his head. They didn’t have blood here, having blood meant something special, and… “Alright, who put me in a dead man’s clothes?”

He tugged off the Doc’s bloodstained scrubs, tossing them onto the floor. The underlayer was still clean, dark pants, dark shoes, a shirt buttoned all the way closed. It fit like a glove. He sat with them, for just a moment.

But soon those too were exchanged for his regular clothes. The underlayer went into the closet (Catmaidcon was coming up, maybe he could be a cat-butler or something?), but the robes stayed on the floor as Legs pulled a box from the closet. There wasn’t much inside, just the book with the journal he had mistakenly started writing here too. The scrubs were folded, and tossed into the box, which joined the bottom of the closet again. “Stay dead, Doc.”

“What?” M1g was at the door that Legs didn’t realize he had left open.

“Nothing. How long have you been standing there?”

Mig stared into the middle distance a second, then shrugged.

Good news for you, you've accidentally happened upon half the context for it anyway with the other ask, because it's Doc actually telling Owen about that town!

I like to think doc has to get creative eventually on getting a rise out of Owen in triple hell together

(one without words below the cut)

"They gave me a medal"

It explains why he doesn't believe anyone who tells him he's a good person, because he was told that before when he murdered thousands of people.

It's why beyond his passive suicidal nature he doesn't entertain the idea that he could do more good as a vampire than a human when Owen offers to turn him. He tried to do a good thing before, was told it was a good thing, and it resulted in the deaths of thousands of people.

It's also why Pearl saying "I'm disappointed in you" is what snaps Doc out of his level three rampage/PTSD trip/grief and horror spiral, because when he was hearing those boots marching the first time and had that medal pinned to his chest no one was telling him they were disappointed in him.

Yes, the reminders of his friends and the people who needed him helped him come back, but he needed to be reminded that someone else could reel him in and tell him he's not doing the right thing.

I think this core part of Doc is also why he has such an abiding trust in Cleo. Cleo noticeably knows what it's like to think terrible thoughts and have terrible ideas because she is the one who keeps telling him that he is a strategic target to kill both because of his medical expertise and his later ability to make holy water. They call this out constantly and are not afraid to say blunt things like "you're taking this too far."

Doc more than anything is a man who has had to rebuild his moral compass from the ground up surrounded by people who would have thought he was insane for thinking he did the wrong thing. In canon we have no evidence of anyone in his past helping him figure out how to never become that kind of person again. There must have always been a part of him in the back of his head that thought that since he was both the man who committed that atrocity and also the man who rebuilt himself there was always a chance what he thought was right was actually horrendous. So it must have been a relief to find someone else who could call him out if he went too far again, even if it was the smallest chance.

He would never put the burden of his moral compass on someone else intentionally. He is a fiercely independent man who believes that he is the only one responsible for himself (even though he considers himself responsible for everyone else around him). But it would have been nice to find someone who trusted him enough to tell him if he was going down the right path.

Thankfully Pearl was able to bring him back enough with her call-out that Cleo was later able to get through to him to talk about the plan to get everyone out of Oakhurst.