Love With Your Molars

1.

The first website Marcy ever made an account on was furaffinity.net.

Marcy isn’t a furry herself, mind you. She doesn’t have any particular affection for fangs or long snouts (unlike Anne, who crushed hard on Maid Marian from that one Disney movie.) But Marcy loves furry culture. She loves how welcoming furries are, and more importantly, how willing they are to give feedback. She can’t even begin to count the amount of people who’d offered her praise and advice whenever she showed them her (honestly terrible) neon wolves. Here a I really like how you did the eyes, there a let me give you a trick to draw the paws better- Marcy has honestly never seen a community so supportive of each other. Fandoms fell to unspeakable discourse, fanfiction.net was rife with flames and angry comments, but furries always stood as a bastion of stability in her eyes.

That means two things: firstly, her art improved a lot. Having dozen of patient teachers do that to you. And secondly, she made fursonas for her whole group of friends, for funsies.

“I don’t remember what animal I assigned to who.” She explains, leaning back on her chair. “I lost the drawings long ago. But I remember Sasha and I were both carnivores of the same family. Cuz we’re pretty similar, you see? Well, were similar back then, at least.”

“How so?” That’s something Marcy appreciates, with this therapist. They let her talk. Most people don’t have the patience for that, even those who are literally paid to do so. “She’s a ruthless and assertive people person. You do not seem to be either of these things.”

“We both love through bites. When we hold something dear, we hold onto it with our whole mouth.” Marcy trails a finger over her own cheek. “The difference is in the teeth. Sasha held on with her canines. When she bit, she made it bleed. It was obvious from the beginning that she could only hurt. I held on with my molars. I don’t pierce the skin. But I increase the pressure, little by little, until you can’t escape my vice, until the bones start creaking and cracking. It takes longer to understand the depth of my toxicity.”

The therapist hums, jotting something down. Then they rise their head again, and ask: “what of Anne?”

“What of her?”

“What is her fursona? How does she love?” The newt tilts their head. “Is she a sheep? A follower and enabler to the end of the world? Is she a dog? Willing to hurt others at a snap of your fingers?”

“No.” Marcy replies harshly. “Anne is… Anne is… fuck, I don’t know. She’s outside of the metaphor. Anne’s a human being.”

She expects her therapist to call her out on her idealization of Anne. She’s fully aware she’s got a romanced image of the girl- but fuck, she hasn’t seen any Boonchuy in over five months. Let her fall to nostalgia for a bit.

But the newt does not do that. Instead they stare down at her, close their notebook shut, and ask: “Does that make you the animal?”

2.

Marcy isn’t… fond of visual novels.

Sue her, she likes doing stuff. She likes to plot! To scheme! To maximize her party’s efficiency! To find out ridiculous cheese strats that allow her to steamroll the boss in three turns! If she wanted to sit back and just watch a story unfold, she’s just pull out an anime. 

That being said, she can be convinced, should the story be good or the choices diverse enough.

Hustle Cat was okay. She enjoyed the worldbuilding a lot. Also, top ten pieces of media that made her question her gender (which is probably still “woman.” She thinks. So far. She’s kinda pushing this specific question under the rug until she moves out and can start exploring herself without her parents around. She/her will do until then.)

Hatoful Boyfriend emotionally destroyed her and launched her through a deep Wikipedia dive on pigeon trivia. All her love to Joe Sparrow (may he be happy, wherever she is) but pigeons are quickly crawling their way to Marcy’s Favorite Birds Of All Times. She bawled her eyes out over these little creatures.

Fate/Stay Night had a similar effect on her, though with less crying and more staring blankly at the wall for two hours.

“There’s this- meme, right? People die when they are killed. Direct quote from the guy. Everyone makes fun of it. I made fun of it. Cuz it’s such a fake-deep thing to say, of course people die when they are killed! That’s what killing means! But now that I have the full context for the quote, I’m just…” Marcy closes her eyes. “God damn. People do die when they are killed indeed.”

The therapist hums, tapping their pen to their notebook. “And what is the context for that quote, then?”

“There’s two layers.” Marcy responds. “First one is that the protagonist is, at this point of the story, essentially immortal. He says that quote when he gives up his immortality. He says that people die when they are killed because, until this point, he very much did not die even when cut in half or stabbed through the heart.”

“Ah. That makes more sense, indeed.” The newt nods. “What about the second layer?”

“People focus on the wrong part of the quote. The point isn’t that people die when they are killed. The point is that people die when they are killed.” She rises a hand to her chest. To this line she knows by heart, marking her from collarbone to belly. “To be able to die is an integral part of being a person. If you do not die, you are not a person. You are a god, perhaps. A tool. Or a monster.”

The newt stares at her for a long time. 

“You need to stop doing that.” They say finally. “Referring to yourself like you’re something beneath human. Self-depreciation is a good coping mechanism on paper, but in practice, it only gets you more and more used to that idea until you start genuinely believing it.”

“I can stop talking about it, but that doesn’t make it any less true. I should have died back then. I should have died, but an eldritch god needed a new puppet, and they made me into a doll.”

“Your personhood was robbed by this false god. It is not an inherent trait you possess.” The therapist clicks their tongue. “I believe there is a difference between a little girl who grazed death but was saved just in time, and an amalgamation of fools so terrified they’d rather lose their individuality than face death.”

Marcy flinches at the sudden vitriol. She doesn’t recall her therapist ever sounding so emotionally involved (maybe? She doesn’t recall her previous sessions well. When did she start seeing them again-) “Do the circumstances matter? I died. I got stabbed, I bled out, and I should have died. It would have been better for everyone if I had. I fucked up so fucking hard, I hurt so many people- I well deserved it. This was my just dessert.”  

The therapist squints. “What of Anne?”

“What of her?”

“She died. Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten.” Of course not. Of course not. Marcy could be ninety-eight and plagued with dementia, she would still remember this scene. “Much more throughoutly than you, in fact. Crumbled in a thousand pieces for the wind to blow away. Yet she came back. Do you think she should have died, too? Do you think her less than a person for coming back?”

“Of course not.” Marcy frowns. “Anne didn’t deserve to die.”

“Didn’t she?” The newt tilts their head to the side. “You make it sound like she has never done a single mistake in her life.”

“There’s a difference between being a bit overprotective and kidnapping your friends to another world because you’re a fuck-up with codependency issues. ”

“You’re saying that as if she wasn’t directly responsible for making you like this.” The therapist quirks up an eyebrow. “You are not a special kind of evil, Marcy. You are not so important that you bear the sole blame for everything wrong in the world. Anne and Sasha both, they’re the ones who made you feel like the only way to keep them would be by holding them close. They’re the ones who never bothered to know you enough to know that you could do terrible things like this. They’re- ”

“Shut up! That’s not true!” Marcy bolts from her chair, fists clenched. “ I’m the biggest sinner here. It was all my responsibility. We were bad for each other, but not- they didn’t want this. They’re not monsters. They were thirteen. ”

Slowly, the therapist smiles.

“Yes. You are the biggest sinner here, Marcy, and it’s important to work on getting better from that.” They get up. They have a limp, Marcy realizes. She’d never noticed. “But you didn’t want this, either. You were thirteen, too. If you can understand that this treatment is unfairly harsh on your friends- why can’t you understand that it’s unfairly harsh on you, too?”

3.

Antigone is a story as old as times.

Or at the very least as old as 441 BC, when Sophocles published his play. The story goes like this: once upon a time, there were two brothers, who warred over which one of them should rule the city. Both die in the process. The following ruler, Creon, decides to bury one of the brothers as a hero, and leave the second one to rot as a traitor. Antigone, their sister, goes against that order and buries the second man herself, knowing fully well that she would be put to death the following day.

“Jean Anouilh gave his own spin to the tale in 1944.” Marcy continues. “The interesting thing is that this version humanizes Creon a lot. He’s not merely a tyrant; he’s a tired man who saw his entire family die in a meaningless conflict. He actually begs Antigone to reconsider, to leave her brother and save herself, because Creon really, really doesn’t want to kill her. He has to, as a king, he has to follow the law. It is his responsibility. And he has to be the king because all the people who qualified for the title are now dead.”

“You’re forgetting the other half of the play.” The therapist responds. “Antigone. You’re forgetting her complete rejection of Creon. Antigone knows perfectly well that she has nothing to gain from burying her brother. Her brother is dead, and were he still alive, he would still not thank her for it. Antigone knows perfectly well that her brother will be dug up the very next day, that she will die from actions that will not have any long-lasting impact on this world. Antigone listens to Creon pleading her to give up, listens to Creon explaining why he had to do it, why this law was put into place, and Antigone says no. She refuses to entertain Creon’s position as one even worth having. Creon made his choice in accepting to be king. She will not be sorry for him. Antigone will die, because this law was unfair and someone had to rise against it. Antigone will die, because Creon said yes, and someone had to say no.”

Marcy hums. “Isn’t it cruel of her? He’s suffering too. He doesn’t want to do this either.”

A pause. “Did you know that Jean Anouilh was a French man?”

The sudden change of subject startles her. “What does it have to do with anything?”

“You're smart, Marcy. What could possibly motivate a man living in France to write a play about defying authorities in the year 1944 specifically?” The therapist spins their pen between their fingers. They’re quite good at it. Marcy would know. She does this exact gesture often enough. “With this context, I think I can safely say Antigone is not a play about Creon’s pain. It’s a play about how sometimes, you have to rise against authorities, even if it might get you killed, even it’s for nothing. It’s a play about how people in power might have dramatic sob stories with a whole laundry list of reasons to comply, and you still shouldn’t give them your sympathy. This is why the play is called Antigone. Not Creon. ”

Marcy shifts uncomfortably. “I mean, a text should be able to stand on its own divorced of its context, right? Death of the author and all that. Besides, it’s kind of tasteless to bring up-”

“Marcy.” This is the first time the therapist has ever interrupted her. “Andrias stabbed you. You do not owe him your forgiveness.”

Marcy looks down.

“He did not want to do that.”

“But he still did it.”

“He was my friend.”

“He was a coward and a traitor who took advantage of a child. Besides, you of all people should know that love is not enough.”  

“… I’m not sure a therapist should say that.” Marcy says with a weak laugh-

And suddenly, the following dawns on her:

1) The person in front of her is not her therapist. Her therapist is a human woman with red hair she sees every Monday night.

2) The person in front of her is not a therapist at all.

3) The person in front of her is a newt. Marcy has not seen any newt since Amphibia, which she last visited over a year ago.

4) This office is not real.

5) None of this world is real.

Marcy jumps out of her chair, eyes going wild. She needs to get out of here. She needs to get out of here.

“Marcy?” The therapist- the newt - asks with a confused tone. “Are you-”

“ Don’t use my name.” She hisses back. God, how could she be so stupid. This office doesn’t even have any window. Or door. It’s so obvious. 

“Marcy,” the newt gets up, limping towards her, “I need you to calm-”

“Don’t touch me!” She bares her teeth at them. She’ll kill them. She’ll fucking kill them. If they lay a hand on her she’s wrapping a finger around that throat and she’s wringing it-

The newt’s eyes widen, they curse under their breath, then yell: “Marcy, wake up! ” and-

Marcy’s eyes snap open.

+1

The problem with dreams is that- there’s no real way to avoid them. Marcy tries, she really does- she drink coffee upon coffee during the day, forces her eyes open with cloth pins (terrible idea) but at 5am her body betrays her and she falls asleep anyways- leading her right back to this office from her dreams.

This time, at least, the office has a clear exit.

Marcy doesn’t look at anything else. She sprints right for the door. She half expects the handle to jam, or the lock to be on- but no. She pulls and the door opens, a thin light ray seeping through.

“Are you sure you want to leave? It’s not pretty, out there.”

Marcy stills.

“This is the inside of my head.” She hisses back. “I think I can handle its ruins.”

Silence. Marcy waits a second, two, five, then turns around. “Aren’t you going to stop me?”

The newt is sitting on one of the chairs. They look- Marcy doesn’t know what they look like. She knows it’s a newt in the way anyone knows anything while inside a dream, but she couldn’t describe them in any more specific way.

“I do not have the power to stop you.” They reply. “I do not have the power to make you do anything, Marcy.”

“Right.” She makes a vague gesture at the entire office. “You can only make it appear like I have no other choice.”

They have a small smile. “I’m told I love with my molars. Though I like to think I’m a bit less destructive than you used to be, if still ill-advised.”

“Who even are you?” Marcy squints. “Aldritch?”

“I have no name.” The newt shrugs. “These are only useful when you’ve got more than one person in a room at any given time.”

She rolls her eyes. “Okay Darcy.” The newt only has two eyes, but that’s her best guess as of right now. “Whatever you-”

The newt launches themselves out of the chair, teeth bared. “ Do not give me its name. ” It spits, roars, voice echoing with itself, and-

Under the pressure of their own rage, the dream coat falls, and Marcy sees.

They’re a newt. They’re multiple newts. They’re multiple newts, stitched together in some unholy Frankenstein amalgamation, body parts that have nothing to do together held on by threads and wires. Here; the jaw too long for the rest of their face. There; a massive tail on a slim body. Their legs are of different length. Their skin has patches of different colors at times. And their eyes-

They have human eyes.

They have Marcy’s eyes.

“Call me whatever you wish.” They grunt. “But not that name. I may be built off its corpse, but I refuse to be associated to this pathetic creature.”

For a few seconds, Marcy can do nothing but stare. There is nothing faked in this hatred. Its intensity is such that Marcy fears that she may drown.

“What… are you?” She tries this time.

The newt sighs, looking away. “You know how the Core was. So stupidly desperate to avoid death. When it was forcefully unplugged, some of it remained inside of you.” Gross. “But not enough to make a full person. Not enough to live. So they all blended together, one giving a liver so they could receive a heart, a dozen ghosts desperate to cobble themselves back together. But it still wasn’t enough. So they used part of you fill the missing parts.” They tap their temple. Their eyes. Their eyes. Their eyes. “You decide what that makes of me.”

Marcy wants to say that makes them the Core. She so, so badly wants to say that makes them the Core, and nothing else.

But…

( I’m told I love with my molars. )

“… You’re me.” She says, very quietly. “You’re the evil side of me.”

“I’m the side of you who is rightfully bitter and angry about what you had to go through.” They respond. “If that makes me evil, then so be it.”

“I don’t- we deserved all that. These were the direct consequences of our actions. You know this. If you truly are made of me, you know this.”

“Marcy Regina Wu, girl, you of the Wit,” the newt limps towards her, “I don’t give a shit about what is or isn’t deserved. I don’t care one fucking bit if it was fair or not. What I do know is that we went through a lot of pain. And we still do. And a lot of it is outside our control, but there’s still a fair bit of it that comes from you constantly self-sabotaging your recovery from some misplaced belief that you can only atone from your mistake through constant misery.”

“What am I supposed to do, then? Act as if none of this ever happened? As if I didn’t cost Sasha her back, Anne her life, Amphibia its peace?”

“And who exactly are you helping by denying yourself happiness? Do you think the people of LA sleep any easier because you can’t forgive yourself?” The newt throws their hand into the air. “If you break something, you repair it. If you hurt someone, you apologize to them. If you don’t want to fuck up ever again, you work on becoming a better person. These work! Do that!”

The newt stops right in front of Marcy. They’re the same height, Marcy dimly realizes. They really are, in some weird, twisted way, the exact same person.

“Why are you doing this?” She whispers at last. “And- the therapy sessions- why were you doing this? Why help me at all, if I frustrate you so much?”

“Someone has to take care of you, since you’re clearly not doing it yourself.” The newt huffs, crossing their arms. Then, after a pause: “I’m doing this because I love you.”

The sentence is enough to stun Marcy into silence.

“Is it so hard to believe? I was built from you. I have known your every pains and your every joys. Is it so hard to believe that I could be born loving you? That I could be born caring for you? I have seen you at your best and you at your worst. How could I wish for anything but your health? How could I wish for anything but your happiness?”

They reach out. Slowly. Softly. They take hold of Marcy’s hand. She does not pull away.

“I am weak, Marcy.” They say, quietly, almost as a confession. “I cannot fight the people who have hurt you. I cannot magically heal your wounds and trauma. I cannot offer you the miracles the Core was capable of.”

They slide their fingers between hers. Their pinkie is human, Marcy notices. An exact mirror of her own.

“But I can make sure that you will never, ever be alone again.”