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

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.

From:

boogerman

"I'd love to leave--" he says with a bit of his normal manner, "But I can't." A very small spark of life. He's cold to the touch through that strange clothing that seems part of his skin. And light, for someone her own height.

There's no way to lift someone with arms and legs which want to get everywhere that isn't awkward as hell, sorry, Toriel. He grits his teeth, silent now. Funny taste in his mouth...

From:

dustless

"I do not think that would be advisable, even if you could."

The walk to the living room is incredibly slow. Toriel has no worries about dropping him, but knocking his limbs into the walls is another story.

But they do, eventually. Frisk is sitting on the couch arm, anxiously tapping their fingers on their knees, elbows shoved into the handful of towels they'd gathered up.

"Frisk, please put the couch pillow beneath his head," she says as he's lowered. The pillow itself is just a little less comfortable than Frisk's, but surely the couch itself is much better than the floor.

Toriel plucks up a light blue towel in her claws and begins examining his face.

From:

boogerman

No wounds on his face. He's been bleeding out the mouth, perhaps he bit his tongue... but sticking fingers into his mouth is probably not the best idea. Sharp teeth lurk in there.

Relief shows on his face once he's on the couch, without being harmed on purpose. No flames consuming him, Toriel was... quite nice about it, in fact. How strange. Is it safe for him to relax yet...?

"Tonight. I can try to go home tonight." Please let him be closer to 'well' by sunset, please.

From:

dustless

No wound on his face, but that spirit blood very much is. Toriel carefully dabs at the skin stained with it.

"Only if you are feeling well enough. Do not push yourself."

Frisk...tentatively reaches down to stroke his hair.

From:

boogerman

It's like tar. Pitch is another word for tar. How punny.

Not.

"Oh." he says, at both the sight of the not-blood and Frisk petting him. Strange role reversal. "I'm bleeding?"

From:

dustless

Frisk won't stop unless it clearly hurts him, or he asks.

"Yes." That is all Toriel says.

Perhaps, if he can focus enough, he can sense the nuances of her fear--yes, he was bleeding. Enough that Frisk's pillow case is likely entirely ruined, she noticed once she had lifted him.

From:

boogerman

He's sucking all their fears down, however this is down, and yet still feels so empty and cold inside... cold outside, each time he's touched. He can't get warm.

"Ah." No, it doesn't hurt him. No, he doesn't ask. It's... nice. Not adding to the pain.

From:

dustless

Their fears will not dissipate, not as long as he's there. Even if there was some miraculous recovery they'd still be worried for him.

Pet, pet.

Toriel quietly settles down on the edge of the couch herself.

Frisk finally finds their words. "...d'you...want...me to get you some tea?" they ask meekly.

From:

boogerman

If only he could get himself to a crowd of sleepers, a dozen nightmares all playing at once... why does he keep wishing for things? Stupid thing to do, he's no child. He lives in reality.

"Healing tea?" Hm. That's going to require sitting up. He makes an attempt, and aborts that fairly quickly, feeling dizzy.

From:

dustless

Toriel presses her hand over his chest. "Do not push yourself," she repeats.

Healing, though.

"Yes, Frisk. Go make some." The both of them can make sure he does not choke.

They nod and disappear.

She looks at him, through him. "I know for a fact that you have a SOUL. If the tea does not help, I will attempt to heal you as well."

From:

boogerman

He swallows whatever nastiness is in his throat, licking his lips, disturbed. "Something isn't right. You should try." He should have either recovered or not, and woken up in his lair in better shape than this. He's never felt so hollow.

From:

dustless

No. Something is not right. Pitch does not ask for assistance easily.

"...Would you like me to try now?"

From:

boogerman

It's not that he trusts her not to harm him, it's just that she could do it whether or not he asks for healing.

"Tea first. Give me some energy." He coughs, but fortunately on the towel. It's not nice. "Nightmares should have helped."

From:

dustless

"No doubt. Frisk would not have stayed if they had suspected differently." To her grief, she knows they have nightmares on their own, Though they never speak of them.

Frisk is only a few minutes, though there's a small puddle on the counter now that they'll need to clean up later, hands a bit unsteady from nerves.

The speed into the room as fast as they can without spilling more. "Here." They hold it out to him.