boxfullofzeroes | I heard you like suffering (for dustless)

boogerman posting in

The ordeal had started suddenly one night (as if it wasn't always 'night' for Pitch), while he was somewhere in Europe, amusing himself pacing around in an older home to make the floor creak while their children try to get to sleep. Funny how simple things like that--which should be dead boring by now--still make him feel good.

But the little game ends when he senses something odd about his network of shadows, his means of travel all over the world. Something cold and icky and bright that doesn't belong. He enters them, curious and wary, and--

He ends up being pulled, yanked along a path he didn't mean to take, full of panic.

From then on, it's a blur of madness, screaming, light and terror. He loses all sense of time. He starts to lose his Fearlings too, those old friends he didn't even know were there, poor lovely things. He's not alone, people are there, studying him. Scientists. Experiments. The scientific study of magic. He tries to hold on to the memories, but he's in too much pain most of the time. He's also blind as a bat while trapped in the light, with magical wards up that he doesn't have the strength to fight past without killing even more of his Fearlings... until there are only a few dozen left and he knows it's now or never.

He bursts out, more pieces of himself exhausting themselves and dying for their master, and flees to the nearest place that he knows is safe. His underground home is across the ocean, too far away. Frisk and Toriel's home is closer. They'll let him recover, won't they? That big plush couch in their living room has room for a Boogeyman.

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From:

dustless

Frisk is entirely asleep, though that changes when he shows.

They've been on a hair trigger over the past--they don't know how long. Weeks, at least, though it might've been even more than that before they noticed how scarce their boogeyman friend had been. Even at his worst, he at least showed up online sometimes.

Every time Toriel checked on them, every time the wind blew louder than usual, every time anything at all disturbed their room, they woke.

(They haven't been getting a lot of sleep lately.)

So they're sitting up before they're even fully awake.

From:

boogerman

He has no idea how bad he looks. But it'd be good for him to scare one or the other of the two that live here, so that's no worry.

(Hint: he looks very, very bad. Fortunately he's mostly covered up by his strange clothing.)

Frisk is awake before he hits the floor, falling out of their wardrobe. Ow. His eyes aren't focusing very well. Please, do be here, not in the other house you stay at, Frisk...

From:

dustless

Scare, definitely. The only time they've seen him fall before was--well, the closest thing they'd seen to Pitch falling was the Sandman flinging him around, and that's an extra shade of horror to seeing him collapse.

Frisk scrambles out of bed and then crash to the floor too, tangled in their blankets. That's fine, that's okay, they scramble the rest of the way on all fours.

"Pitch! Pitch, where--?" A trembling hand hovers around his face.

From:

boogerman

He sighs at that sweet touch of fear, feeling warm for a split second. Let him summon up the strength to get comfy on the floor, sprawl out so that he's not lying on his own bony arms, and then he can rest properly.

It takes him a moment or two after getting all his tallness arranged to notice Frisk over him. "I made it?" His voice is raspy, like he could use a drink.

From:

dustless

Well, it's not going away too soon. Looks awful, sounds awful, they have no idea what happened--

"Yeah. Y-you made it, Pitch." They try to smile.

It doesn't last.

"Where were--what happened t'you?" They'd imagined some bad stuff--losing fights to him getting sick of them--but this doesn't look like a normal loss, they don't think.

From:

boogerman

More fear, radiating off Frisk and being sucked up by the sad handfuls of Fearlings left resting with him. Mmmmm. He feels so awful, but surely he'll start feeling better in a few minutes with something to feed off of.

"Lights. Far too many lights." Inhale. "Hard to get out."

From:

dustless

"...did--was it--North, or Sandman?" Or any of those spritis? They don't know who else to think of, and they're going to lose their mind at whoever's responsible.

Frisk's hand lightly drifts to lie on his arm. He is there, right?

From:

boogerman

He's there. He's solid. He's still clothed in shadow. He's terribly cold, though, not his usual warm-summer-night feel.

"No. New thing. Some government... I think?" He's already starting to lose the details, which is somewhat disturbing. Generally, he has a good memory for everything, even battles.

From:

dustless

...they could actually see him? That's...that's new. And--another spike of nerves--they really hope monsters weren't involved.

But, trying to focus on what they can do, maybe, they glance over their shoulder at their bed and tangled sheets. "You're--d'you want a blanket?"

From:

boogerman

Nerves, yes, good, more more more. "Hungry." he sort of groans out, before the question is asked. "...pillows?"

From:

dustless

They pause, and then...actually try to focus on their worry. It sort of works. They're pretty used to setting that aside for more important things, and getting Pitch better is definitely an Important Thing.

They scramble to the bed and get their bigger pillow, carefully trying to tuck it under his head. And they have the blankets flung next to him anyway.

From:

boogerman

Soft. Soft and cozy. He's aware of the pillow under his head now, but not that there are blankets. His awareness has shrunk down to something very very small.

If only he knew how to sleep.

"More. Hungry."

From:

dustless

...It's late.

...

He's hurt.

...

They put the blankets over him anyway.

And then they get their other pillow and lie down next to him.

It's late. They're tired.

So. Even with their worry...it'll only take them a couple minutes to fall asleep.

From:

boogerman

Desperate times call for desperate measures. He's perfectly okay with getting shouted at, perhaps, for breaking his promise not to give Frisk nightmares.

Not that he's in any condition to leave so they don't have them.

He'll lie there, awake and unable to sleep himself, all night. Toriel will certainly find him like this, if not during the night, the next day? He will be there in the morning, not much better off.

From:

dustless

They dream--

They dream of spears shoved through their body a hundred times over, able to feel every excruciating inch, but they don't die. They just bleed, and hurt, forever.

They dream of eight children, holding hands. They--they're one of them at the same time, and they all spin in a circle, collapsing one-by-one-by-one until they're dragging a train of corpses all on their own.

They dream of an empty apartment, a human woman's body drifting down a river that cuts through the mailroom. They can't catch her no matter how hard they try.

They dream of dying, thorns and fingers and muzzle-flash of guns and hurtling bombs and being ripped back. Die, wake, repeat. Over and over and over.

They dream of someone who looks like Toriel, a little goat boy, holding their hands and crying and smiling and withering like a plant without water. "Thank you, Frisk," he says, over and over, until there's only silence, and handfuls of dust.

They dream of Toriel herself, apologizing, pressing her white-hot hands into their chest, tearing out their beating hart to weep with it clutched against her chest. Their discarded body falls into red leaves, and they fall, and fall, and fall...

Before dawn, Toriel peers in and feels herself go cold.

"Pitch--Frisk--!"

Of course she rushes to her child first--they're weeping. They've been weeping for a while, silent, and she can see so many tear tracks down their face.

From:

boogerman

Sometimes during the night, too, he's drooled that sticky black 'blood', it looks like. Frisk would recognize the tarry substance, Toriel won't.

His eyes are closed, hands under his head, in a mockery of real sleep. He blinks silvergold eyes open, feeling new fear enter the room.

"Sorry." Hoarse, weak, not like his normal voice except for the accent. "This was closer than Italy. Couldn't go farther."

Did he just apologize??

From:

dustless

Frisk wakes with a start, lips clamping shut on a scream.

Toriel kneels, gently gathers them into her arms, and begins to rock them.

This doesn't help, even though they know she won't actually do anything. Her fire can really hurt.

...She was prepared to be angry. And she is. But it does not overwhelm her enough that she fails to notice the state he is in.

"What happened to you?"

From:

boogerman

"...don't know. Scientists, humans, tests. They caught me in my own shadows."

What's he supposed to do if she's angry, anyway? He can't leave under his own power. Hours later, and he hasn't improved. It's starting to scare him, the extreme weakness.

From:

dustless

Frisk presses their face against her arm. Sea Tea, they want to suggest, with how his voice sounds. But they need a little more time before they can talk.

"Hm." Even monster scientists are capable of great misdeeds. She is not as surprised as she could have been.

"Are--"

...Pitch Black looks so very fragile. Perhaps she should wait to ask if he is likely to be chased. She is fairly certain she will be able to hand it, with her power and status.

"--you comfortable on the floor? Or are you unable to move?"

From:

boogerman

Poor Frisk. A part of him regrets coming here, but it's better than making it halfway across the ocean and then ending up on the dark sea floor, all alone... if rather selfish, dumping himself on them. Some friend he's been.

"Can't." Can't, don't want to, won't. He'll be hurting anywhere he goes. "The pillow's fine."

From:

dustless

Frisk is rocked a few more times.

"...I know I could lift you, and place you onto a bed, or the couch."

Frisk kind of wants that, too. He looks so bad there, and they wiggle out of Toriel's arms to sit next to him again. They'd known what they were in for when they curled up next to him instead of going to sleep in the living room.

From:

boogerman

He's making a mess, though, with the blood... He has no idea of that little lovely fact, at least.

"Not the bed. Not where you sleep." It hardly helped at all. It's looking like only time while--surely he'll be better by nightfall. Surely.

From:

dustless

Toriel did not until she leaned forward to look more closely, her chest going tight.

(Monsters do not bleed. But children, human children do. Her first child did. And that is what she thinks of, even if the blood that spills from Pitch is not red.)

"That is fine. Frisk, get...get us some towels."

Mutely, they nod and dart off.

And Toriel very carefully shifts to kneel beside him. She has carried those harmed before. She will do her best not to jostle him too much.

From:

boogerman

He looks more worried when Toriel leans down, eyes meeting hers. It's so hard to trust--even now he's expecting rage, some sort of pain to follow for him intruding and corrupting Frisk's dreams.

He'd run, if he could. Instead, he tenses up, staring. "I can't even go."

From:

dustless

She is still not happy, but...she knows her child. Frisk could have left him, or condemned him, but they have not. And he is hurt. Toriel is many things, but she does her best not to have one of her descriptors be outright cruel.

"Do not worry."

She is unsure of what, exactly, he is speaking of. She allows him to continue to speak if he so wishes...or if he can.

Gentle, careful, she slides her arms under him and lifts. As soon as she ascertains how much that may have hurt him, she just-as-carefully gets to her feet.