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The Sun That Rises to a Darker Day...

A technical 'As You Wish~' universe sequel in which the Doctor ends up falling into a fairly bad 'low.'

Warnings: Genderfluid character using it/its pronouns, Use of military time, Mental-Health Centric, Bipolar, Undiagnosed Severe Seasonal Depression, Undiagnosed PTSD, mid-story pronoun change

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...Still can not clear the clouds away.

Dýo didn't know what happened. Its bird had been well for so long... SO long. Why was he doing this now?

It had been such a subtle change, but it had known him well enough - long enough to know that something was wrong. He hadn't woken up till early afternoon which, while the Doctor's sleep schedule was never consistent even when he WAS taking his agreed upon once-a-week rest, he was NEVER sleeping past ten-hundred. Eleven-hundred was pushing it. Twelve-hundred was a sickness denied and redenied until he managed to get rid of it, but... fourteen? Fourteen-hundred was almost unheard of.

Almost, of course, being the key word.

It was really just happy he'd woken up at all. The fear of his immunity to the mask's corrosive suddenly vanishing and his melting alive by Dýo's hand wasn't exactly RATIONAL but it was a genuine, occasionally gripping fear nonetheless. It wasn't quite comfortable with such a powerful emotion being aimed towards anyone but itself, even after centuries of harassing the surgeon. It used to be unsettled by it, but now at least somewhat embraced the rationality of it all. It had a mind, too. It needed to preserve it's version of sanity, too.

The Mask hadn't been in the most agreeable mood that morning. That much it could admit, but it didn't think it had done anything that upsetting. It drank some milk (which had been classified as irksome by the Doctor before for some reason), broke a plate out of spite, but nothing all that unusual. Nothing that could have possibly made its ever-patient, ever-understanding dove look so deeply, genuinely resigned and exhausted in spite of his recent sleep.

It had reached for his mind. Just to feel the reassuring, constant swell-and-sink of that impenetrable, wave-like exterior. The mysterious, intoxicatingly shifting sands that covered untold thoughts. Yet there was something wrong with that too. It seemed subconsciously acidic. Not hostile, simply... Dangerous. Wrong. Harmful. It recognized it then. At least, it had narrowed the possibilities down and yearned hard enough for the tamer one to convince itself of a 'diagnosis' that the surgeon likely would have sighed at.

The Doctor must have been upset. Surely he just needed space, so it left him there, taking a good, long walk through the surrounding woods as had become somewhat of a habit since the procurement of its cured body. If it happened to find any lavender-scented bribes, then that was no one's business but its own. 

Night was coming fast by the time it finally returned home. Which, considering the time the Mask had left, wasn't exactly saying much. The house was dark when it entered. That in itself was confusing. Was he going back to bed already? he'd awoken only hours before! It didn't move to turn it on, not exactly needing light to navigate.

Dýo went to the kitchen, its body's persistent yearn for food growing immensely irksome. Then the sudden crunch of porcelain beneath its shoes made their gut lurch. It looked down. The plate was still there. That concerned them. The Doctor was just short of dysfunctionally cleanly. Constantly fixated on keeping the small home to near surgical-ward levels of pristine. Leaving something out wasn't only out of character, it was just plain offputting in the worst way possible. 

The paranoia set in quickly after that. Foundation vans had been crawling the town for weeks now. What if they'd gotten into the house and hurt him, or taken him back into custody? The mask began its wild, somewhat tactless search, the lights clicking on if only because it knew that the necessary movement of furniture would throw it off.