#Scotty Lyon | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

thegreatsylvando · 4 months

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another dotmunch fic, this time centered around munch's exploration of gender. available under the cut as well. mentions of sexual assault in the first section.

Munch is running for his life. His chest burns. The fog is thick and endless. His dress swishes furiously between his knees, both of which are skinned and bloody from some stumbles several yards back. And yet, he feels like he's making no progress. Roy is not far behind, singing lecherously in the indistinct language of nightmares. In what feels like perfect timing, a shed seems to manifest before his eyes. Think. Think. Maybe there's a basement. If I'm quick enough, I can disappear before he comes in behind me. Maybe some weapons? The shed houses a woodworking table, chisels, several kinds of saws, and an infant-sized doll in the same dress he's wearing, straw-pale hair hanging in her sad face. Munch lunges for a blade, any blade, but the nightmare responds to his defiance, and Roy is inches from him. He can feel his smile in the way he breathes down the back of his neck. Every bit of strength abandons Munch as Roy slams him down onto the table. His skirt is gathered up. A zipper hisses loose. The last thing Munch sees before the pain blinds him is the splatter of chunky red paint between the doll's legs.

The hair in Dot's ears bristles as the chants become a cacophony of jeers and profanities. She tries to focus on them to distract herself from the plate before her; on the chest of a dead man, a maggot-infested half-chicken with a hunk of bread practically crawling with mold. The priest is screaming at her to recite the rites, but her stomach is in her throat. Another man has started pushing her face into the plate. She tries keeping herself upright. Everything smells so bad; herself, the congregation, the corpse. Her hands seem to move of their own accord, reflexes protecting her from prolonging the inevitable, shoveling the rotten food into her mouth. She immediately begins to retch. All she can taste is pus. Someone yanks her hair back and a cup of fetid wine is forced to her lips. She splutters, gags. Some of it gets into her nose. Her insides swallow themselves and flex upward, and she is on her knees, vomiting acid and blood. The sight and smell of her own bile is a temporary reprieve from everything else. At least its familiar. Then its shadowed by someone's feet. The priest imploring her to continue the meal. He presses the sole of his boot to her head, and she is drowning in her own vomit. Her mouth is open.

They both wake at the same time, Dot roused by Wayne after hearing her sob in her sleep, and Munch with the kind of agonized scream only the violated can know. Scotty's feet patter out into the hallway, unsure which room she should head for first.

"Mom!? Uncle Munch!?"

"Hey, Dottie. Dottie, baby, look at me. Hon? Don't cry, don't cry. Its just a bad dream. You're home. You're alright."

Scotty ultimately decides on Munch's room. Munch's screaming dribbles into desperate sobs that shake her to her core, but she knows what its like to have nightmares. She's brave. The light from the hallway pours into his room. She flips the light switch on and the lamp meets it, melting the bad dreams away. Munch's knees are curled up to his chest, his eyes bulging from his head with every frantic breath. Scotty makes a beeline for the bed and throws her arms around him, just like Mama does with her.

"Just a bad dream, Uncle Munch."

The shock of her innocence seems to allow some oxygen into the room, and he can breathe again.

"Cenawon llew." His voice is barely audible. It takes him a moment to register his surroundings. He pats her head.

"Mommy had a bad dream, too. It's alright."

Dot's face is buried in Wayne's neck, tears soaking into the collar of his tee shirt. His cologne smells like applesauce.

"You wanna talk about it, hon? Or you wanna go back to sleep? Whatever you want."

"No, it was just...um--just really disturbing. It'd probably make you queasy."

"That don't matter."

His lack of argument cheers her up.

"It was just gross. Someone was forcing me to eat expired food and I got real sick, is all."

"Aw, jeez. Remember that time I was eatin' that yogurt and I didn't realize it was moldy till I got to the bottom?"

"Oh, yeah. Poor you."

"I'm just happy I puked. Anything's better than it comin' out the other end."

Dot giggles. "You and your tummy."

Wayne gives her three unbroken kisses on her forehead. Her hair smells like the warmth of sleep.

"Shoot. Munch." She gives Wayne a kiss on the lips before heading for the door. He follows. Dot feels her throat close up again when she enters his room; Scotty is holding Munch's hands, singing to him in her little voice. Munch's head is bowed as if in prayer. His cheeks are streaked with tears.

I'm on the top of the world, lookin' down on creation

and the only explanation I can find

is the love that I found ever since you've been around

Your love's put me at the top of the world

"Oh, that's her favorite song," Wayne pipes in.

"Munch? Sweetheart?"

He looks up slowly. "Dot."

"Guess its a bad night all around, huh?"

"A ma--I did not mean to frighten you."

"Oh, too late. Had a nightmare of my own." She sits on the edge of bed.

"Thank you, little one. Scotty."

She beams at the sound of her name. "One time, I had a nightmare about bees. The ones that sting you. Yellowjackets and wasps. They stung me all over. And I still had to go to school!"

"Yup," Wayne says. "And she's allergic. Insult to injury."

Munch takes a deep breath to ground himself. Scotty's hand is so small in his own.

"A man wi--I will be alright. Thank you. Everyone. Are you okay? Dot?"

They exchange knowing looks, fully aware of the fact that their minds seem to have melded in the realm of sleep.

"Yeah, hon. Just a dream." She adds her hand to his and Scotty's.

"Anyone want tea?"

The house is their own once more. Dot steps on the hem of the next shirt and pulls it up from the shoulders, doing the same thing horizontally. There isn't much to choose from; she's lucky she even found a suitcase when she ran away. But it was one of those small clamshell ones. There was only so much she could stuff it in before it couldn’t close, or got too heavy. She’s glad she had the foresight to pack shirts that stretched. Now they can be put to good use. As for the skirts, they were tailored to a much smaller waist, but Dot doesn't discount their worth right away. With some ingenuity, she can make shirts out of them in the future. She smells her damp hand. The fabric softener is floral, and smells like rain.

“Hey, Munch?”

He shuffles over to the doorway from his room.

“Hm.”

She can’t help but smile.

“I wanna show you something. A little gift.”

He scans the flowery clothes strewn across her bed. Pleats, ruffles, scalloped hems. He feels something pleasantly bubbly in his chest, like when he drinks Wayne’s beer.

“So, these...are some of the clothes I brought with me from when I ran away. From the ranch. I never had the heart to throw them out or donate them. Dunno why. So many bad memories.”

Munch watches her watch the clothes, as if the memories are playing in real time. Yearning gnaws at him from the inside like a tight fist. He stiffly circles an arm around Dot, copying what he’s seen Wayne do many times. A mechanical rub of her shoulder. Dot looks at him with the warmth of the sun. She’s almost too bright to look at, but he forces himself to keep still.

“...They are just that. Memories. As you have said to me. What is in the past, cannot hurt us unless we allow it.”

“Oh, I dunno about that.” She says it airily, vacantly looking back at the clothes like she’s not really there.

“...That was my memory. Last night.”

“I figured. Looked pretty medieval.”

He takes her hands, bringing them face to face.

“I...am sorry.”

The 'sorry' is hissed out, long and deliberate, as if he's trying to wring every drop of sincerity from it.

“...What are you apologizin' for, hon?”

Munch pauses. She always does this. Makes him reconsider the inherent paradoxes in what to him moments ago was clear common sense.

“I dreamed...of you. I was you. I--” He chokes on the words as the pain comes back to him. The humiliation. Focus. Focus. He catches Dot’s gaze again. Before he can succumb to his emotions, he wraps himself around her. Her breath catches from the sudden impact before she returns the favor. He sways gently, like a child.

“Hey, hon. Hey, its alright.”

“Fy chwaer fach.”

Her sinuses prickle.

“...Thank you, Munch.”

Its different from being comforted by Wayne. She knows this kind of affection doesn’t come to Munch easily. Are you an angel? Do angels really just walk among us not knowing what they are? She remembers Munch’s power, his awareness of auras. She immediately feels sheepish. A bony hand strokes her hair, with the apprehension of a child doing it for the first time. His muscles tighten, as if he’s afraid she’ll disappear.

“You got a lot of love in you, ya know?”

“Mm.”

She smiles. “Can your little sister give you your gift?”

“Yes.” His arms snap apart. “Sorry.”

“Nah, you're good. I’m just excited. "The skirts...” She holds up a black maxi skirt, patterned with daisies that look like they were drawn with crayon. “...I got at the local thrift store. They might ride up on ya some, but no more than your kilt. Hopefully.”

“...The sweaters. You are smaller than me.”

“Yeah, I realized that once I actually found them, but I was able to stretch out pretty much everything to…” She glances at the width of his shoulders compared to his waist. “...Yep, that should be fine. And if its not, I’ll just re-sew some stuff. Don't take the ones over there, though. They're still damp.”

Munch takes the skirt, his eyes glittering.

“You like skirts, huh?”

He blushes. Gifts, family, happiness; these are all still fairly new, and so glee is equally unfamiliar territory. He seems to shiver with apprehensive excitement.

"Well, lets go! C'mon, c'mon!"

Dot watches, pleasantly surprised at this new milestone of intimacy, but still blinks at the reveal of his sallow, bruised skin. Whatever little body hair he has is too pale to identify right away. His ribs and hip bones are poking through. Once the sweater is over his head, Dot gets a full view of his back. A cartographer's dream of lashes and impact wounds. Some swell like hills, and others sink in like valleys, lacking the necessary flesh. She reaches out to touch them, then refrains. She has no right to infringe. But as she does so, her sleeve slips back to reveal her own ancient scars. She remembers the first time she and Wayne made love, how he kissed them and nuzzled them with tenderness she never knew a man had the emotional intelligence to possess. It gives her the little boost of courage she needs. Munch still flinches at her touch. He looks over his shoulder sheepishly.

"Do you want me to look away?"

He shakes his head.

The pajama shirt falls to the floor, and he cups his chest modestly like a woman. Some of the scars stretch in response like open mouths. Dot traces them with the delicacy of an archaeologist uncovering a never-before-seen language. She notices Munch's tension leaving his shoulders. She figures a kiss would be a little too intimate for their kind of relationship, so she settles on resting her cheek against him, wrapping her arms around his waist.

"You're my sister, too."

The intensity and quickness with which Munch's throat closes up shocks him. He curls his neck back to give it some reprieve, trying to swallow it back open.

"C'mon. Let's play dress-up."

"Dress. Up," he echoes. He slips his pajama pants down, revealing equally unhealthy looking, knobby-kneed legs that starkly contrast the black boxer-briefs donated by Wayne. The skirt is pooled at his feet. A portal into another world. Welcoming, but dark and winding nonetheless.

"I got a matching shirt for ya over here."

Munch buttons the skirt at his hip, reaching for a deep moss-green turtleneck. Its thick and warm without being constricting, moreso when he tucks it into the waistband. The sleeves bloom around the balls of his hands daintily. The collar folds over and hangs slightly around his neck. Dot is beaming, the apples of her cheeks round and bright.

"Oh, come over here, look at ya!"

Munch shuffles over to the mirror, another domestic impliment completely foreign to him. He's only ever caught his reflection in natural surfaces; water, ice, glass, shiny metal. He's never actually paused to consider the way he looks, and so the clarity of it shakes him to his core. He's not ashamed of his appearance, but surprised he has an appearance at all. He has a face, and eyes, and hair and a mouth. But all of it in tandem with the skirt, the way it falls around his lower half like a billow of smoke, and the way the turtleneck hugs the rest of him, leaves him speechless.

"Oh, hey. C'mere, real quick." Dot darts to her nighttable and returns with a tiny pot of rosy lip scrub. She motions for him to lean in, gingerly brushing it along his lips.

"You have pretty lips. This'll bring 'em out some."

Pretty. Another foreign concept. Something that brings with it the contrast of ugly. Munch knows ugly. He's seen the rotten underbelly of humanity. To attribute ugliness to physical traits is something he's never deemed necessary beyond that. But when Dot tells him he's pretty, after living thousands of lives of nothing, it becomes him. He's not ugly turned pretty. He's not being dressed up to look pretty. He's always had prettiness inside him, and Dot has brought it out.

"Do this. Then you can lick it off." She mashes her lips together. Munch does the same. It tastes like candied strawberry. He wipes the residual sugar with the back of his hand.

"Okay, now..." She tugs him back in front of the mirror. "Look at that, huh?"

The scrub brings out the natural flush of his lips. A few memories stir, in which he'd partaken of human flesh, the gore smeared around his mouth. This was nothing like that. Here, he looks delicate. Elfin. Like Dot. He glances at her in the mirror, then back at himself, cupping his own cheeks to try and mimic her heart-shaped face, but they're too hot to ignore. Now he's peering through his fingers.

"Aw, hon. You okay?"

He giggles into his curled knuckles. "Pretty."

Tears prick in Dot's eyes. She remembers what it was like to be trapped by pretty. Pretty enough to earn attention, but not pretty enough to warrant respect. She was never referred to as ugly, either. But she was cute enough to keep. Then made ugly when she didn't act cute enough. Then made to feel like it was her fault. An endless cycle. And everyone trapped her, even the women. Papa always looked at her in that way, and then got the courage to make his next move once she got her menses. Her brothers tried to follow, but Papa made it clear she was his. All Mama did was keep her nose in the kitchen. There was no way for her to have not heard what happened. The house was one floor with only a few rooms, the walls like tissue paper. After she escaped, she'd hacked off her hair with a blade she stole from Papa's shed, until she resembled a stalk of wheat. She stole a shirt and a pair of pants from her brothers, and a bag for essentials -- menses pads, water, Tylenol, some money. When she caught her reflection in the creeks, and later the ice, she was euphorically unrecognizable. It wasn't until she met Wayne that she felt at home in her own skin again. Not made to feel guilty for being a girl, or trapped by what appearances seemed to dictate.

Dot takes one of his hands, raising it above for a dancer's turn. He gasps when he sees the skirt unfurl around his feet, hugging himself upon the next giggle as if trying to protect himself from the euphoria, but maintaining his gaze, as if asking her permission. She cups his face, nodding. His smile falls, not out of sadness or lack of support, but from the weight in his heart, from being taken seriously.

"Do you feel like a girl, hon?"

His eyes dart around pensively. He idly caresses her wrists.

Maybe that was too much, she thinks. I shouldn't assume.

"...Munch...is...a man. Has been a man for all the centuries of his life.

But...he does not know...what that means. He does not know what it means...to be a woman either.

Dot...is a woman. She is...beautiful, and small. Her hair is long, her eyes...large, her hands soft...but strong. When Munch looks at her, he feels...envious, for he is tall...and short of hair...and his hands are long and hard. His body is flat and scarred. Less a body, more a mantelpiece. Beauty is beauty. Ugly is ugly. The sky is beauty, and the changing of the seasons, and meals, and sleep. Ugly is suffering. It is sin. The rending of flesh. The jeers of the rich. Gun metal. Blades in skin. The cold in our bones. The heat in our blisters. The emptiness in our stomach.

Dot...is beautiful. Munch is not.”

“No-no-no. Don’t. Don’t.”

She takes her hands from his face, hooking up one of her sleeves to reveal the scars. His eyes widen, as if witnessing an affront to God. He yanks her wrist before his eyes.

“I did this. To myself. When I felt my ugliest. Not because I thought I wasn’t beautiful, but because I was sad. And angry all the time. There was so much suffering, so much ugliness done to me, that I lost faith. In myself. In people’s ability to be good. So I tried to die. Each time I tried, it hurt, and I was afraid of it all of a sudden. I figured that was a message. Someone, or something, reaching out to me to tell me I’m not done yet, that there was some hope somewhere. I remember I read in a book that pain is a signal. Lets you know when something is wrong so you can avoid it again. Except it kept happening, and I kept cutting. Just went around and around. Whenever I felt too bad to exist in my own body, I cut to let a little of it out. The pain reminded me I was still alive, and that life’d go on without me, so I might as well be in it. Roy would beat me, and starve me...and rape me—”

Munch’s eyes are bloodshot. He’s shaking with rage. She cups his face again.

“—But I reminded myself that the world is not his world. There’s so much beyond the ranch, and I’d get to see it, even if it’d be the last thing I do. I’d fight, like I fought to get away from my folks. Praying didn’t help me. Only I could help me.”

“...We should have killed him,” Munch growls through his tears. “We were cowardly, and cowardice is the worst sin of them all. We should have fed him to you, and we didn’t. We—”

“Hon, look at me. Roy’s suffering ten times what I did right now. That makes me happier than if we were to get him ourselves. It would be fun, though, but its over. Our suffering’s over, hon. We gotta carry the aftermath the rest of our lives, but it just reminds us how far we’ve come.”

She taps her wrist.

“This...will never happen to me again.”

She hooks her arms under Munch’s to touch the scars on his back.

“This will never happen to you again. We are not our suffering. Suffering is just something that happens when people want to make other people feel small. It doesn’t make you uglier or prettier. No bearing at all. You wanna know why you’re beautiful, hon? Because you’re kind, and sweet, and gentle. There’s so much love in you that you haven’t seen for yourself yet, and you gotta let it out. Feel all your feelings, even the ones that you think are ugly. It makes you human. Its hard to feel like a person when all you’ve been told is you’re not.”

Munch’s face crumples. Their foreheads bump.

“Can you say that for me, hon? ‘I am a person’.”

He swallows, bracing himself before looking directly into her eyes.

“...Rwy'n...berson dynol.”

“’I am human’.”

“Yr wyf yn ddynol.”

“’I am beautiful’.”

A pause. Uncharted territory. Its one thing to reclaim one’s humanity; another to assume one has been granted the privilege, the honor, of beauty.

“I know its hard. You don’t have to believe it now. Just know I believe it.”

“...Dw i'n hardd.”

Munch does not look to be in disbelief. He does, however, look as if he’s swallowed bitter medicine. Once it passes, his eyes soften, pooling with fresh tears, the way they did when he first helped with his dishes.

"...Rwy'n dy garu di."

Without understanding, she knows.

"I love you, too."

"Rwyf wrth fy modd i chi fel yr wyf unwaith yn caru Duw.

But...God...has never been there for me. Not like you."

He examines her hands as if they're made of gold.

"I have not believed in God...since the ones I first loved were taken from me.

...But I believe in you."

Munch kisses the backs of her hands, raises them to his eyes. Cupping her face, he gives her another on her forehead. The path between is long, Munch having never kissed anyone or anything before. Its different than her hands. Slow but hard pecks. The one on her head feels as if she's being anointed. There is awareness of his lips, their use as a vehicle for love. There is also hesitance. Fighting the final inkling of belief that he is unworthy. But the kiss is necessary. It is prayer, and made sweeter once the realization sinks in. He rests his cheek where he kissed her. They embrace. Dot's head comes up just below his chin. His heart knocks against her like a child's finger against a window. The music it makes along with his breathing lulls her eyes closed. Along comes a deep groan from the pit of someone's stomach. She can't tell if its her or him.

"...Hungry again. Sorry."

She snorts.

"You know what? I could eat, too. I have some leftover batter. Want anything with it? Eggs? Meat?"

"...No, just pancakes. Jam this time? Instead of syrup?"

"Anything you want."

#fargo fx #dot lyon #ole munch #i was going to write an epilogue with scotty polishing his nails in the colors of the nb flag but it felt eeegghh

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