#ibdnp

Likes and dislikes, a personality of any kind wasn’t conducive to the life they had lived up until now, and it felt like they were starting from scratch.

Whumpee feeling overwhelmed in some social situation? Caretaker is willing to be the buzzkill, they’ll make up some excuse as to why they wanna leave, letting Whumpee gracefully duck out unquestioned.

Uncomfortable questions? Caretaker will play the controlling friend or partner, whatever’s required, be the bad guy, because they’d rather look like an ass than leave Whumpee to flounder while they’re still learning to set boundaries.

Caretaker will say all the annoying, no fun, boring things, “no thank you” “we’ve got plans” “we’re staying in” “it’s none of your business” etc. because they can. It’s not as scary for them, and Whumpees getting there but it’s taking them some time and that’s okay.

Little pranks, pokes and annoyances, just generally being a nuisance. They don’t know why they’re doing it, they’re even annoying themselves, and every time Caretaker doesn’t immediately respond, they’re terrified they really did push them too far.

But Caretaker has done their research. It wasn’t Whumpee being mean, or even trying to get attention, it was what they’d started to think of as “testing the waters”. Seeing if Caretaker would snap, would lose their temper or push them away or whatever awful reaction they truly feared.

Every push was just the quiet question of “love me anyway?”