#theo asks

When George gets home and walks through the door, Dream expects a hug from his favorite person. What he doesn't expect is to be ignored in favor of a cat.

"George," Dream whines, and when his best friend doesn't turn around, Dream puts his hands on his hips and pouts. "George."

"Where's my pretty girl?" George coos as he walks into the living room. He gets down on his hands and knees, scoops her up from where she was hiding under the coffee table and cradles her in his arms. "Daddy missed you so much, yes he did!"

Even though he's upset about being ignored in her favor, George does seem happy so Dream lets it slide.

At least until George opens his suitcase in the middle of the floor and removes a mountain of cat toys.

"George!" He exclaims, kneeling on the floor beside George and picking up one of them, a mouse on a stick. "You know Patches already has a ton of toys."

"I missed her birthday, idiot. I needed to make up for it." George counters, then lunges for the toy when Dream shakes it, like the cat he is.

Dream laughs and shakes it again, "I just think it's funny that you got all this stuff for someone you used to call a 'ball of fucking allergies'."

George snatches the toy away and sticks out his tongue. "She's my daughter, Dream. I'm allowed to spoil my daughter."

"Your daughter?" Dream grabs another toy, one that must be laced with catnip based on the way Patches Immediately lunges for it. "She's my cat, George."

"Our cat." George corrects him. "Which makes us both parents. And makes me her other Dad."

Dream opens his mouth to argue some more but the words die on his lips at how happy George is.

But also because he's looking at George's open suitcase and not seeing anything but clothes and cat toys.

"So," he begins, "Did you bring home everything for your favorite co-parent?"

George continues playing with her, trying to lure her away from one catnip toy with another. When she doesn't budge, George looks up at Dream and smiles. "What I have for you wouldn't fit in the suitcase."

Dream raises one brow. "Oh?"

"Yeah, it's kind of a hands on gift," he says. "Very hands on."

Dream looks at patches, then back up at George and gestures to his bedroom door behind him. "I think patches will be good with that catnip mouse for a while, if you want to show me."

He loses control of his tears with Manny all the time, especially during "fun" times. But mainly when Manny is actually tender with him and it feels like love for half a moment. Theo just wants life to be soft and kind and full of something he can pretend is real love. He cries when Manny is finished and curls up around Theo to sleep. Holding him all warm and strong and Theo can pretend for just little longer. But he knows it's not what he pretends it to be. He knows he's owned, not loved. Not truly.

If he cries with Lou, he tries to hide it or to just not react to it and let the tears stream down his face as if he isn't crying at all.

Lou LOVES to see him cry and Theo does not like it when she notices. She'll always figure out exactly what it was to make him feel so vulnerable and just make it so much worse!

He hates the feigned comfort from her the most.

Like, if she knows he's crying because he's feeling exposed and vulnerable and trying to hide the lash marks under his clothes from the greedy eyes of his master's friends, she'll gently shush him and wipe away his tears, guiding his head to rest on her lap while so gently slipping the hem of his shirt up his back to expose the bruises and scratch at the marks left there from the night before. He hates it so much and hates her sometimes. But not really, he loves Lou, he really does 🥺

She'll definitely let him cry, they both will!

So, for example, there was this one time, it was really early on, before Theo realized that he was only allowed to do anything when given permission. He wasn't to dress without permission, go get himself cleaned up without permission, eat without permission, etc. He was to do what he was told, and only that.

So while he was preparing breakfast one morning, he took a little bite of food. Manny caught him and calmly asked who gave him permission to do so. When no answer came, Manny pulled out a roll of duct tape and wrapped it tight around Theo's mouth and simply carried on with their day.

Theo still did his chores, he prepared meals, he laid on the couch with his head on Lou's lap while they watched a movie, Manny even fucked him and let him sleep in the bed like usual.

It was never talked about, it was simply endured. And Theo was mortified. Every single time he was spoken to but couldn't answer or kissed on the lips over the duct tape, he would blush a deep red and want to crawl into a hole and die just a little bit more than the previous day.

For four days they did this, Manny only cutting off the duct tape for breakfast, lunch and dinner and hand feeding Theo himself, every single bite, the exact amount be was allowed, no more, no less, before wrapping him up in duct tape again. He did this until Lou finally convinced him that Theo could be trusted again and she missed his pretty face too much for him to be covered in duct tape all day long.

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