Trope: Unconventional Caretakers

Trope: Unconventional Caretakers

My favorite.  My raison d'être.  What I love in every media I get my hands on.  The vast majority of what I write.

I love unconventional caretakers.  I love people forced to help their enemies.  I love people dragging themselves to the first familiar doorstep they see, even if it isn’t friendly.  I love people becoming reluctant allies because of the situation.

Knocking on their enemy’s door and collapsing because even death is better than torture.  Staring at your enemy’s bruised and broken form and realizing that you feel…horrified.

You’re not helping them, not really.  It’s just a…ceasefire!  You’re totally taking advantage of their absence, not hovering in the doorway and wringing your hands.  

They don’t know why you’re helping them.  All they can do is lie miserably in bed and hope that this time you’ll slit their throat.  The waiting is killing them.  They refuse to beg but how long will that resolve last?

I love the ‘we aren’t friends in any way, shape, or form but I couldn’t leave you there’.  I love the ‘this threat is bigger than the both of us’.  I love people looking at those they normally despise in horror, because there are lines they don’t cross.  That no one crosses.  And they’re going to make sure everyone gets that lesson.