#araknits

“I am at my wits end, Bandit!” Doc Carver muttered in a loss as he repaired the foolhardy puppet’s strings. “I have tried everything - letters, poems, offers to help him, repair him, even repainting his chipped coat! I cannot understand how a man can be so, so oblivious!”

Bandit did not say anything, merely sighing. He was used to the Doctor’s spiel at this point.

“And to add insult to injury...! After I repainted him, he hugged me, and I felt so overjoyed, but…” a noise of frustration broke out of the taller puppet’s mouth piece. “It was too short lived! And then he ran off, and I, like a coward, was too dumbfounded and startled to even try and go after him, so I didn’t follow. Ugh, that was just simply pathetic, wasn’t it, Bandit?”

“Dunno, doc,” he shrugged. “Never tried courtin’ someone, you know.”

“I know, I know,” Carver grumbled. “You know, you’re a great listener, Bandit.”

Looking into Bandit’s tired, cold, dead eyes, one could see that yes, he did in fact know he was a good listener, especially after having to hear these exact words being told to him a plethora of times. Far too many times, in his opinion. Doc had a bad habit of repeating himself, nearly as bad a habit as Banker’s natural stutter. But, honestly, Bandit did not really mind - it was comforting to have some sort of repetition, something natural and flowing, a familiar back and forth between the attempts at not dying any time he stepped outside of his few friends’ sight.

So he just stood, with the face of someone who was about to doze the hell off, as Carver grumbled away his woes and stitched his strings up. To the doctor's reminder to take care of himself, he replied with a firm thumbs up, and then he waddled awkwardly into what in an episode might have been the glorious sunset, but in this case was only another door through to the wild.

Leaving the good doctor alone. Wooden fingers drummed against the unpolished counter of his workstation, filling the deathly quiet world with a steady rhythm. An impatience filled his head, that constant nagging feeling to do something, anything. Instantly his thoughts turned to the Banker, the sweet, timid, scared Banker, and those thoughts curled around daring ideas and wishes like ivy growing steadily on an old house's wall; he shoved them away, just as the Banker had shoved him away. Yet they kept coming back, filling his mind over and over. Carver leaned against the wall heavily with the soft thud of wood on wood, rubbing at his face with a grumble. Another day, another lovesick time. He smiled wryly to himself, humoring his conundrum. A doctor's worst patient is themself, he concluded bitterly, and he could not heal his own aching heart, despite his biggest efforts. He slid down the wall, trying to quell his murmuring mind, so absolutely wanting, no, craving, no, needing another’s touch. Specifically, the gentle, shaky, newly restored touch of Banker. But it was not like he could just, just up and ask him! Oh, goodness, no! The gall, the audacity! Carver scowled, stuffing his hands into his pockets, then took out, picking up his saw to go out into the wild. He was running short on needle and thread anyways, especially with how often Bandit was getting himself de-stringed nowadays.

So he would return to his old place, murder decimate destroy harvest some aracknits, and pick up more thread.

On his way, he encountered a bank booth. He only got a glimpse of something - or rather, someone, a particular someone who wore a shirt of the same light blue as that of the sleeves he saw retreating into the dark right before leaving the place completely empty. Carver stared at the empty bank for a little, recalling the man that had been in it but moments before. Then, with a heavy, sorrowful sigh, he forced his legs to move past it. It would not have done much for either of them anyways, standing in front of each other, waiting for something to happen, and that yet, knowing their clashing natures, simply never would. Hefting his saw over his shoulder, he crept into Dead Man’s Gulch -- and then into the place he used to call home.

The sound of the spider-like creatures sent shivers up his wooden spine, the inebriating thrill of the hunt filling his chest. He forced himself to keep calm and still his nerves, knowing the adrenaline rushing in what he could consider veins would only give him shaky hands, like those of the Banker he so cherished. But he could not risk having them, not now. He silently stalked through the halls, a thin and lithe coyote between hazy sand stone creeping up to its prey.

A distinctly recognizable sound caught his attention. Ah-ha!, he thought, crouching furtively out of sight. There it was: one of those awful little yarn devils, scuttling around in the shade of the doctor's old home with his needle tick-tick-ticking all over the wooden floor. A quick, painless bounty of thread for the blade of Carver's saw. The Doc slowly crept closer and closer, trying to hide the glint of his weapon from his eyeless prey, sneaking forward without letting himself make a single sound…

A fulminous zac!, and the aracknit dissolved into a bunch of strings with four needles attached.

Carver grinned, at least, the best he could with a solid mouth, satisfied. He still got it.

He stopped to gather the materials, keeping himself from humming and attracting too many of the little beasties. A skittering passed behind him.  He froze, readying his saw once more. He turned his head ever so slowly, his motions nearly unperceivable... An aracknit rushed by, and he swung, missing, his saw flying out of his nervous grip. He swore under his breath, chasting his own hastiness and going to retrieve it, but another spider ran by him and stole it from under his reaching hand. A hiss, long and slow, and so, so, so very many quiet, ticking aracknits. He tried to creep out of his corner, but found every stealthy pass blocked by yarny webs. Without a weapon, there was no way he could go through an open area. He would lose his strings in a matter of seconds if he even attempted to do so! Color slowly drained out of his vision, and he cursed his worsening luck. He could feel his wooden heart beat, faster and faster. More scampering. He demanded of himself to slow his breathing, and could not.

“Well, well, well, well, well,” the air turned cold. The supposed to be jolly and high voice creaked and rasped lowly, angrily, softly, dangerously.  “What, or rather, who, do we have here, caught in the webs of his own prey?”

Carver stayed silent, going at a crawl to the thinnest web, planning on breaking through it and making a mad dash to the exit. The sound of the Faceless Bandit’s three footsteps clacked loudly in the still, dusty air, the scampering aracknits now far too quiet in comparison to the terrifying approach. Perhaps because they too, as simpleminded as a bug of raw yarn can be, could not help but being afraid of the scarred danger slowly coming closer.

“I didn’t know you were Dr. Jekyll,” Faceless chuckled, making the wood of Carver’s back to ripple in disgust. “Seeing that you’re playing around with Mr. Hyde.”

Doc Carver scowled. Goodness, how much he despised the other’s use of terrible puns.

“Stop playing around, my dear Doctor,” his words turned the land foul. The dead shivered and rose, disturbed from what should have been their peaceful eternal rest. “You can’t avoid me forever, you know….”

‘Yeah, right’, Carver rolled his eyes, then refocused onto the web he planned on escaping through. He poised himself to run, breathing in, waiting for Faceless to turn around… and the moment he did, he bolted with a, “Ha !”

It was a mistake.

A grave one.

Of course it was all planned out, of course there would not be a weak spot. After all, wherever a bone breaks, it becomes stronger than before.

Dozens and dozens of aracknits surrounded him, wooly fangs bared. Some trembled, others ducked away, and Carver realized that--

“They listen to me,” Faceless droned behind him. He grew very still. “Out of fear, yes, but still… aren’t they so cute? So sweet? So helpful?”

The doctor ran into the crowd of the small eight legged monsters, the spiders parting like a sea, but also like a sea, instantly drove back.

An aracknit jumped at Carver, and he tried to bat it away with his open arm, but it just scampered onto him, leaving a woven strand over his wrist, and jumped away.

Another did the same to his other side, and he struggled even more, despite the fact that he was given less and less ability to do so.

He felt a string snap, and his left leg gave out, leaving him stumbling to the ground. Second came the right arm. He screamed, not to ask for help, knowing no one would hear him, but to try and bolster his own strength: he bashed an aracknit down and restringed him arm, then going back to fighting with every ounce of strength he could have found desperately still kicking in his wooden limbs.

The aracknits kept coming, the few dozens that were cornering him turning into a swarm that only grew bigger at every turn of his head, crawling out of every single nook and cranny. They bit down on his strings almost faster than he could sew them back up (but luckily, not quite as fast), all while stabbing his legs with their small damned needles as they attempted to climb him, possibly to feed off of him, maybe to try to escape their terrifying master by reaching the top of the doctor's head.

Carver felt their webs wrap around him, pulling him back, swirling around him tight, tighter than the knot of a noose, tying him to the ground and the walls, nearly forcing him on his knees. He screamed - not to be heard, not to gather strength: he screamed in pure terror, almost as though he hoped the sound of his voice would delay the inevitable.

A fly. He was a fly, a careless naive fly, who had thought he could outrun the spiders only to fall in their mother's trap, the hunter becoming the hunted - and soon to be the slaughtered.

He gave one last weakened kick before his legs became a useless mermaid’s tail on land, only barely managing to hit an aracknit strong enough to shoo it away before the string wavered away, dropping onto ash. The little beastie tumbled over, legs frantically moving in a terrified attempt to scramble back onto them, and he pitied it, the shared pain of two prisoners trapped beyond their powers, and he wished that it could get to its feet, to give him a sign of hope that he too would rise, but alas.

It was crushed under the handle of an approaching scythe.

Its needles stiffened and twitched, fighting one last time against their lightning quick rigor mortis; then, it dissolved into a puddle of string under Carver's horrified eyes.

Silence. Accursed, blasphemous, terrifying silence. All the doctor could hear was his own panting breath. He had one string left, and a scythe tugged on it for a moment before sliding down his face, making his head tilt this way and that, as if inspecting a specimen most curiously.

The two puppets were still, and silent.

Not a spider crawled, not a soul moved, nothing breathed and it was all so strikingly obvious to Carver. Of course, of course, why should he have gone back here? He should have baited the aracknits out instead of going in like a fool, a cretin, a pup still unaware of the sly tactics of hunting, thinking it all as fun and games. How foolish he had been!

He wished that he was somewhere else.

Somewhere safe.

Somewhere to feel at home.

Hanging up his apron in the hall after a fulfilling day of making puppets feel better and smile, going into a cozy living room to join hands with a smiling Banker, to rest with tea in front of a warm fire and good book, simple domestic perfection and tranquility. That was all he wanted. Was it really too much to ask for…?

It seemed so.

A golden tear bubbled up in his eye, and he blinked rapidly to force it away.

It slid down his face, trailing down his scar.

His wooden skin crawled as a scarred and ripped hand came to rest on that mark, and he turned icy cold, shivering. God, how he wished a different, trembling, gentle hand were there! Even if he were in the same position, bound and inflexible and defenseless, he would have given anything for it. For that sweet intoxicating touch, the throne of which was instead being usurped by dirty, loathing, scratching fingers.

“Oh, my dearest Doctor Carver,” the mangled puppet laughed, his words airless. “You always were my least favorite. Always stealing from me those delightful strings of the weakened, of the broken and bent. And you, so resilient and resistant! Why so much of a fuss, hm?”

The doctor felt a knot tie in his throat. He forced himself to stare straight at the eyeless being looming cruelly before him in total defiance: if he was going to die there and then, he would have not given that piece of tumbleweed the satisfaction of seeing him bend his head to him.

“What is it, Doc?” the Faceless hissed, yanking him with annoyance at his silence, scratching at his face, gouging three sharp cuts under his scar that would have bled if the doctor had blood instead of sap, which oozed out of the crevices. “Cat got your tongue? Or did you ever have one? I doubt it, seeing as you’re quite dumb right now.”

Carver inhaled with a low growl.

“Go to hell.” he merely grumbled.

“Ooh, how raunchy,” Faceless snarked back, cutting into his own face with his scythe to display any kind of expression, the smirk he left in his own face jagged and twisted. Carver felt his stomach churn with frost at the sight, so crude and, and unnatural. The scythe returned to the bottom of his chin, sliding up to the top of his head to hook around the string that resided there. Carver shivered as he felt his singular string slowly sawed at.

The Faceless Bandit held his head firmly with one hand, pulled back his arm a little, swiftly, and-

Shhh.

Then there was nothing.

Death felt so weird, the doctor thought.

He had imagined it crueler, darker, colder, more painful. Lonelier.

Instead he felt only… suspended. As if in wait. For what, he could not tell. But it was a peaceful waiting, and he felt far from afraid.

He was enveloped into a gentle, vast hold. A warm, ginormous finger touched his face, tapping each of his eyes, and he felt air seep into his lungs once more.

Another hand carefully, gently, cautiously and lovingly placed strings onto his limbs.

The hands slowly vanished, and he found himself put into something enclosing and… safe?

And then he felt alive.

Which was not ideal, because it made him realize that he was in a claustrophobic and dark space, and with his most recent memories being those of his body tied up in yarn among an army of aracknits and every last one of his strings being cut by the cruel scythe of a criminal lacking a face, so he panicked and kicked the air in front of himself as hard as he could to escape his dark prison.

The Banker nearly had a heart attack when the coffin next to bank opened with a loud noise - only nearly, because he did not actually have a heart or circulatory system.

“B-Bandit? Is, is that you?” Banker’s sweet, timid, wonderful wonderful wonderful beautiful darling amazing incredible voice rang out in the empty room. The doctor pleaded in his heart, unable to find his voice, still gasping and panting, trembling and teary, ‘Oh, please, say more, speak more, keep talking, fill the void.’ There were quiet footsteps, the Banker creeping slowly out of his booth. “L-Lorelei? L-Lookout? Uh, um, Mr., Mr. West?”

And then he stood before him, looking down at the Doctor with four wide eyes.

Carver knew he was a mess, he knew he was shaking and sitting in the bottom of a coffin like container as his tears froze in his eyes, but the moment he saw the Banker looking down at him, silently, mouth open in a slight shock, he felt his frosted heart melt, finally filling his body with relieving warmth, color finally returning to his vision, and his shoulders finally untensed as he looked up at him with total and complete admiration.

The Banker stood, fidgeting with his hands nervously. He was about to start scratching them, but he stopped himself: the doctor had put a lot of time and… and care (wonderful, dutiful, devoted care, whispered the ghost of a thought in his mind) into that coat of paint. He couldn't just… he couldn't just ruin it like that. And, well, he couldn't, he couldn't just leave him there, hazy and frightened and in need of help, either.

He lent him his hand as that terrible fear gnawed at his stomach: “I, I didn't expect you to, to be here, D-Doc.”

Carver grabbed the appendix with both hands, pressing his fingers against its palms. He did not make any motion to stand up; completely honestly, he did not want to. He just wanted to hold it, to hold him, to feel the other puppet's arm curl against him, a soft, shy and gentle shield of blue and brown hues, of tremors and stutters, warming him endlessly. Oh, how he needed it! How he wished for it terribly, now and forever...

“D-Doc Carver?” the Banker felt that fire burn from his fingertips, spreading up his arm. He swallowed roughly to keep it from his face. “D-do you need to make a c-claim?”

“Yes,” he breathed, and pulled Banker’s hand down, close to his heart. Banker stared at him with wide eyes, big, terrified eyes. “Yes, I do, please, Banker, please… grant me this one claim.”

Banker trembled, and still, he asked; “What?”

“I've just been struck down with death,” Carver nearly whispered, eyes glazed with tears. “I have lost my confidence, please, Banker, dear, dear Banker of mine, please, kiss me with life, restore my confidence, please, that's the only claim I ask of you.”

Carver squeezed the hand tight, afraid it would escape his grip, knowing it could.

“K-kiss you?” Banker squeaked, eyes wide, the searing sensations spreading all over his face and neck, but, how enrapturing and captivating those burns were! And how loud the echo of the thought he'd been sure to have killed was! His fear tugged him away, or so it tried, for his body wouldn't move an inch.

Carver nodded, his eyes pleading, as he rubbed his face on the back of the hand, murmuring ‘please, please’ over and over, knowing rejection would have killed him on the spot, and yet not finding the will to care for it. Though he wouldn't beg for life from the Faceless Bandit that so hated him, he would beg and plead for death from the Banker he so adored.

The Banker breathed heavily, shivering. His head shook ever so slightly.

“N, no, no…” he whispered as he kneeled in front of the other puppet; “No, no…”, as he let the doctor cup his cheeks and rub his face on them; “No, no, no, no…”, as he returned the other's affection, kissing him in the way a puppet can kiss, wooden faces scratching ever so softly against each other, slowly, then faster; “No, no, no…”, as his fingers finally curled around the stitches of Carver's scar, stroking it idly, pushing away the tears that slowly dripped from the other’s face, finally seeing his fear as what it was: no fear at all, not even close to fear, even. It was something softer, something that he had selfishly denied himself through his own blindness. Oh, what good were four eyes when he could not use them to see what was right in front of him? What good was the blessing of sight without letting himself revel in the beautiful image in front of him? What good was living to play a part and nothing more if it did not allow him to have the gift of, the, no, his, his dear, dear, darling doctor to gaze upon?

He held Carver closer, nuzzling harder against him. The fire divamping inside him boiled and burned, it begged to be released, to be imprinted on the other puppet for all to see. He was kissing it into Doc, but it was not, it could not be enough. A single face was too restrictive, and he had to improvise, he had to figure out a way to make it more, to have more of the doctor pinned under him, to show him that yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, this was right and wanted and good.

His hand begrudgingly left the side of Carver's head and instead grabbed with all of its strength his arm. The good doctor nearly jumped up from his seat in the case, surprised, left breathless. His own fingers curled around the Banker's forearm, but the kiss they pressed against him was weak, not nearly as deep and passionate as the one pushing into his limb, far more shy and trembling, a near reverse of their usual attitudes. Carver’s whole being shivered with warmth. And oh, oh!, it was so good! So very good, so very delicious, the sensation spreading from that long, long kiss to the rest of his body… goodness, he was addicted to it already. That was it, his only wish, his reason to live. All he wanted was for that magnificent pressure to never soften and leave.

But the Banker had other plans. For him, it was too long, too time consuming; it didn't let him give Carver everything they both wanted desperately after letting so much time pass by. So instead he began to grab and release, grab and release, fast and hungry, pressing quick hasty kisses all over the doctor. On his arms, his chest, his neck, his shoulders, his sides - to hell with his part!, to hell with his fear! - even reaching further down, gripping Carver’s hips and legs in a frenzy, dominated by nothing but the burning embers inside of his wooden frame that pushed him to love and love and love again.

Carver was too slow to reply to those attentions, and he found himself overwhelmed. He was in an almost comatose bliss, jolting and shivering with little gasps and murmurs of, “Yes, yes, p-please, yes….”, only barely managing to nuzzle back his lover's face, goodness gracious, this was it, the moment he always dreamed of, his lover, they were lovers now. He did not feel like himself, not at all. He was out of his body, out of his mind, looking down on that scene from a warm cloud of ecstasy, the prickling of pleasure taking over him in waves.

It took what felt like ages, for the Banker's wild rush of claiming Carver as his to consume itself. It exhausted them both, to the point where they were moments away from collapsing entirely in the box Carver rested in, seconds from slipping into pure bliss and tranquility. They held each other close as they rested, panting softly, Banker’s hand finally finding its place on Carver’s cheek, gently trailing the scar there. Then he felt the ridges, his eyes widening, and he pulled away a bit to inspect the mark, and to his horror and sadness found the three fresh cuts under his hand.

“C-Carver, you, you’re hurt!” he exclaimed, his gentle shaky fingers turning the doctor’s head to inspect the cuts better. “O-Oh dear, why didn't, why didn’t you t-tell me?”

“It’s fine, it really is,” Carver reassured him, though he leaned into and reveled in his touch. “It’s nothing that I can’t mend.”

Banker frowned at that, and so Carver might have even said something more, had a not-so-freshly-painted-anymore visage not rubbed gently on his wounds, kissing away the sap seeping from the small gouges. The kiss threw him for an incredulous loop, stunning him. Had his wood been replaced by flesh, he would have been redder than a blooming hibiscus.

Perhaps it was seeing the doctor like that that slowly brought the four-eyed puppet to his senses. All those newly formed memories reverberated in his mind, slowly becoming clear, first their gentle, almost reluctant, kiss, then the frenzied adrenalinic boiling and burning and exploding cravings that had taken control of him, and finally, when he realized the spontaneous act of kissing those little scrapes, he finally got a grasp on his actions. He gradually began shaking, hands going to cover his mouth already muttering apologies, his legs trying to push him to his feet - oh, but Carver would not have any of it.

His gentle grip tightened around the other's waist, keeping him from escaping into the dark of his shame. Banker would have blushed furiously had he skin, feeling the rippling strength of Doc Carver’s arm around him, his breath hitching as those thoughts that he thought he killed earlier swarmed back into his mind. The doctor collected himself as well, slowly, naturally slipping back into his ordinarily calm and proper self, just like the Banker had returned to his anxieties and worries, their regular personalities bleeding back into their forms as if regaining consciousness after a long sleep.

“Dear,” goodness, how wonderful it felt to say that, “Dear, darling, love, what's troubling you?”

“I- I, I… Doc, I-”

“Carver, dear, please. Carver is just fine.”

“I, I… Car, Carver, I didn't - oh, oh god, I'm, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean-”

“Oh, you did!” the doctor adamantly insisted, his eyes widening, but in complete confidence. “We’re… us now. It’s okay, we’re okay… I’m here, you’re here, it’s okay. We… we are good.”

The Banker tried shrinking himself in the other's arms without much success. Carver merely huffed, an adoring look in his eyes, and brought him closer. His gentle nuzzles onto his recently repainted cheek were a balm for the Banker's nerves.

“There's nothing to fear, my darling.” he murmured into the puppet’s ears, feeling him relax from his smooth accent, melting against him in a pleasant warmth, “Hm, but your booth… it seems quite comfortable, wouldn't you say?”

The other nodded, humming absentmindedly, one of his hands trailing up Carver’s arm, twirling around his neck to run over his hair. He had always wondered how it felt, and now found that it was not only wood, but covered in felt to give it a soft velvety texture, and the same went for his handlebar moustache. Come to think of it, nearly everything about the doctor was just so soft and warmly inviting.

“Should we head over to it, then?” Carver's voice caught up to him, pulling him back to reality, yet sending him from one pleasant distraction to another. He barely had to answer, the slightest sigh and the smallest nod, and the doctor slid a firm and strong hand under his knees, and rose him up, carrying him into the bank much like a newly wed groom carries his beloved man into their just made house.

There was some cloth folded in a corner, arranged as if to simulate what could have once seemed like a bed which clearly had been abandoned for the anxious Banker’s many sleepless nights, him preferring instead to pass out in fear on his counter.

The doctor laid him on top of the covers gently before positioning himself on top of him. One of his hands tenderly stroked his cheek, his legs straddling the Banker, looking down at him, eyes shielded by his glasses, though behind those lenses, his eyes were full of pure admiration.

The four-eyed puppet adjusted himself under his weight almost sleepily: “Carver, love…” oh, to be called like that forever and always, what shivers did it send down his spine!, “What…”

“Please, my dearest.” Carver leaned down to press kisses to his throat, and purred against his neck, hands pressing light kisses with thumbs swirling on wooden skin so gently, “You don't truly think I am sated of your kisses? I waited so long for you…”

The Banker sighed blissfully, body melting and becoming as soft as warm clay. He wrapped his arms around his dear, dear lover and let his head fall back on the bed that hadn't seen him in weeks, basking in the wonderful burn enveloping him.

How curious, he thought to himself. He could hear a hummingbird sing in the back of his mind.

For some odd reason, he heard Bandit clear his throat in the back of his mind too.

Then Doc Carver let out a small grumbling shriek, rolling over and tumbling off of a Banker too hazy to notice anything.

“H-Hello Bandit!” Carver stumbled over his words as the cowboy looked at them from the counter where his elbow was leaning on. The four-eyed puppet called for him needily, drawling out the last part of the doctor’s name, his grasp on reality basically non-existent. Carver turned bright red. “F-fancy seeing you here….”

“Sure is, Doc, sure is.” Showdown smiled, cheek resting in his hand, giving him a quick wink. “Mind if I make a deposit?”

“Um, sure,” the doctor stuttered, rushing to the desk to swipe the cash, hastily dumping it in a vault labeled ‘SHOWDOWN BANDIT’.

The cowboy tipped his hat politely: “Thanks, Doc.”

“N-no problem,” he mumbled, staring at the ground.

“Now I suggest ya go back to yer other business. He sounds pretty… um… critical.” Showdown nodded in the direction of the lovestruck Banker. The doctor tried to swallow, and failed. “Y’know what I mean, Doc?”

“Carveeeer, love, please… please, where did you go?” the poor soul lamented, turning on the bed. “You're so cruel, so cruel… ! Oh, love, please… please, I need you… !”