thisavrou_log | Suddenly I'm overcome

Entry tags:

Suddenly I'm overcome

Who: Toriel, Ratchet, Frisk, Sans- Open.
When: April 9th-12th
Where: The Aft, a hallway, library.
What: Toriel learns something that changes how she views a key moment of her past. The boss monster decides she needs time to process this. She decides to process it alone until her friends step in to help her.
Warnings: Depression, emotional breakdowns, talk of suicide. HUGE Undertale spoilers.

[A. Like the stars chase the sun - CLOSED to Ratchet]
After a short exchange on the MID, Toriel meets Ratchet near the mess hall. Uncertainty is settled in her chest though she manages a smile when she catches sight of the lombax waiting for her.

"Hello, Ratchet! I hope I didn't keep you waiting for too long." He had wanted to tell her something, now Toriel almost wondered if she should know.

But if it is about Chara, she needs to know. Hearsay is all she has left of her connection with her child.

[B. And my love is no good- OPEN]

The library is quiet enough Toriel finds herself drawn into it. The possibility of learning or being lost in some new world is far more enticing than what weighs on her mind. A relief from the possibilities she keeps falling into.

It's why she finds herself amongst the shelves and stacks. This is far more books than she has seen in years. She plucks books at random, building up a bit more than she can handle carrying all at once. Her haphazard stacking proves a bit dangerous as she stumbles and the books fly from her grip. Anyone passing by might be hit by a book or find one at their feet. Along with a very large goat monster fallen on the floor, looking aghast at herself.

A low swear escapes her as she fumbles to rise, "I'm so sorry-" She apologizes, an embarrassed flush settling under her fur. "I really didn't- Ah, forgive me."

Everything is coming out wrong and there is not much she can do about it. She plucks up what she can as she finds her footing once again. It is obvious enough in her body language and expression, she's taking a simple mistake much harder than she should.

[C. The damage is already done - CLOSED to close CR.]

Grief is a funny thing. Even when one thinks they know how they'll react to something, they can quickly realize how wrong they were. Toriel is no different on that.

Doing her job is easy enough, checking on her various wards and making sure they're well is comfortable enough to distract her. Kitchen duties offer the same distraction, the same busied work where her mind can't do much but focus on the task she was given. Losing herself in a task is a relief. A way to pretend nothing is wrong. She can fake being social well enough on the surface level, to hide what she's really thinking. No one needs to deal with this but her.

When she has nothing to do, her mind wanders. It makes sleeping nearly impossible. The boss monster's various attempts at sleeping in her quarters prove fruitless at best, frustrating at worst. Before long she finds herself at the aft. Pillow and blanket in hand as she settles down in the cold hallway. The chill against her back is calming, centering in its own way. Even if the floor is hardly comfortable, it is better than trying to rest in her bunk.

Not that the cold can stop her mind from running through everything. Staring out at the stars can only do so much for her.

Buttercup poisoning. Who could have poisoned her child? She monitored their food so stringently. No one but the royal family handled their own food. Toriel mentally rolled over those days, picking apart everything she could trying to find some sinister menace she somehow never noticed. Some terrible force that hurt her child. A warning sign she somehow missed.

The only warning sign that rises is Chara's own words. She remembered that soft voice, that gentle hand on her own. Their red eyes looking up at her as they spoke.

"It's okay, mom. It' okay... You're all going to be fine."

A chill made her stomach twist uncomfortably. Her hand tightened into a fist at her side. She must be remembering wrong...

"Of course I'm getting better. Everyone's depending on me. The future of humans and monsters..." Their thready voice firmed with determination. "I promise I won't let you down."

Tears rise before she can contain them, her breath catching in her throat as she covers her eyes with her hand. She rejects the thought soundly. Chara would never...

Chara knew better. Chara had to know better. Know they were important to their family. They would have poisoned themselves...?

But who else would? Was a sharp question that buried itself in her heart.

Wounds she considered mended and healed over were being ripped open, stitches torn asunder and exposed. What did she really know of that time?

Anyone who visits the Aft within the next few days will very likely find Toriel laying on her side staring out at the stars.

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The brief flash of frustration rolling through her dwindles as quickly as it comes. Guilt, a far too familiar feeling takes its place. Lashing out at Sans won't accomplish much of anything, not beyond making the situation worse.

"What I tell you that he hasn't?" She states quietly back, "What can I even say?"

"He didn't tell me much, y'know." Sans presses gently, trying to take on a companionable tone -- it does a poor job of masking his worry. "If he had, I probably wouldn't have hightailed it over here to ask you what's up. Don't think it's concern, T, I'm just a big gossip. Heh..."

It's a weak, obviously untrue joke and Sans delivers it poorly. His posture dips, slouch putting his skull a little closer to her.

"We don't have to talk about it if you don't want to."

Edited 2016-05-02 07:48 (UTC)

His weak joke earns a tired glance from the older monster, "You're hardly a gossip, you keep so much to yourself." That is as blunt as she can be in the moment, seeing his worry makes her hesitantly shift to reach out to touch his hand. The touch itself is shy, afraid to push some unspoken boundary and make things awkward again.

"I don't know what to say. My child poisoned themselves, I never noticed. I never saw it." Some mother I am is a sharp nettle that digs into her chest. A brittled reminder that maybe... she shouldn't be a mother.

If there's any risk of awkwardness at all, Sans kills it completely by taking her hand firmly. They were better than that, this Sans was sure of.

"It sounds like they didn't want you to." He assures, grin thinned out to a tense line. "Kids can be pretty sneaky, I'm sure I don't have to tell you that."

She gives a low laugh at that, not what Sans is accustomed to- a nervous uncomfortable laugh. Something she and Chara share. Her grip tightens on his hand, even with the emotional rush rolling through her she's careful.

"It does little to ease me, knowing my child prefered a horrible death to- to living? To what end?" She wishes she had no more tears to shed. No more feelings to wear so openly on her face. Wishes just don't come true for her.

"Humans are made of many things, Sans. Their bodies want to live so desperately even whilst their minds do not. Chara's body kept trying, rejecting the flowers, growing sores on bare skin, in their throat. They could not drink comfortable, could not breath comfortably, yet..." She scrubs at her face with her free hand, there is so much she has never said about any of this. So much she endured with Asgore in pitiful silence whilst one of their children wilted away in front of them. A decaying husk of gentle promises things would get better.

The descriptions hardens Sans' already set face, hand tightening around her considerably larger one as she speaks. It's not hard to picture. Sans remembers what it looked like, when Chara was skewered a few months prior on the observatory deck floor. Humans had so much in them, just like Toriel said. And all of it rushes out so fast if you puncture the right places.

It's not a happy memory. That it is the same human in both stories make his bones rattle.

"Maybe it was a mistake?" He suggest, despite his certainty that it was nothing of the sort. "Maybe by the time Chara got sick, they didn't realize what caused it."

She wants to believe that, she wants to so badly. Toriel can't hide now, not when she's opened this. "Sans... you cannot unintentionally ingest these flowers without realizing what it does. The flowers hurt skin on contact, agitate a throat when swallowed."

The laugh returns, a bit more hysterical than earlier. "The children... baked Asgore a pie one day. Instead of butter they used buttercups out of confusion. Asgore recovered quickly, but- he was ill." The memory has a sour edge to it now, it makes her lips twist into a pained grimace. "How could Chara not know after that?"

There's nothing much to say to that. It was hard enough to defend a position you didn't believe in the first place, doing so against overwhelming evidence was downright impossible. He brings another hand to hers, trying to comfort her or hold her together or both.

For not the first time in his life, Sans finds himself frustratingly small for the task at hand.

"I dunno, T. I really don't."

She squeezes his hands in turn, feeling useless. Feeling emptied. A wound thought healed is infected again.

"That is all we can say, Sans." The tears come unbidden. The burn her eyes and she clings to Sans hands. "There is nothing I can do. Not beyond mourn again. Pathetic, is it not?"

If she weren't lying on the ground, Sans would feel compelled to hug her. Out of comfort, of course, but also in some selfish, desperate desire to plant his jaw on her shoulder and avoid seeing her face scrunched in unhappiness.

It was bad enough, hearing that heavy sadness through several inches of door. Even then, a waver in the voice he'd come to know as one of his closest friends was enough to make Sans cast aside his misgivings and make a promise he would go on to break.

"No shame in mourning." Sans tried, voice even lower than usual as he searched for the right sequence of words to pull her out of this. He's got a hunch they don't exist. "You'd never call me pathetic for that, would you?"

Edited 2016-05-02 10:38 (UTC)

She makes the decision for both of them, his question drawing her up into a seated position. Sans will find himself gently tugged towards her, an unspoken invitation. Even now, even with the flashes of uncertainty, the unspoken topics between them Toriel will always reach out for him. Her best friend. "No- you know I would never. I-... I feel a fool, a blind old fool."

"The shame lay in the fact this child despises me. Yet I cannot stop myself from loving them. Loving a memory of someone who is... is not the same person any longer. Not the child I buried in a patch of flowers." Admitting it aloud only makes the tears worse. A trail wet fur likely to be left in the tears wake.

Relief floods through Sans' bones as she tugs him close, eagerly returning the gesture with a firm arm around her neck.

"You can't help who you love, Tori. They're your kid. It's how you're wired. Just think of all this as... I dunno, the teenager phase coming early, y'know?" It's such an understatement that it borders on comical. Luckily, comedy is something they both enjoy. Sans pulls back enough to see her face, briefly bonking his forehead against hers. "We just gotta give 'em time. I really think they're going to turn it around."

More lies, sure, but if it made Toriel smile for even a second then it would be worth it. To Sans' mind, at least.

The hug in itself is... a relief. A wash of comfort in the terribleness of this. It almost makes her want to believe. Believe in what Sans is saying. Fall into old promises and habits, let herself be lulled.

"Sans... can we even pretend anymore? Can we live a lie?" The truth is harder to deny when it sits so clearly before her like this.

She looks at him, for a long moment, tears fresh enough to leave him a white blob against the dark hall around them. Her lips quiver. Fang clacks against fang in the wobble.

A fool is she. A fool she will always be. She leans in kisses him, a kiss between monsters not made of matching parts. Forehead against forehead. It shifts into lips against skull after a moment.

She hates herself for it when she draws back. The rush of tears is worse and she cannot see him at all through the blur of it all.

Sans doesn't say anything in response, because there is no response. Could they live a lie? Maybe not, but they couldn't stand not having one, either. It's the nature of a monster to smile against all logic and reason, to joke when there's nothing to joke about, and to try and cling to whatever shred of hope they could.

Failing that meant falling down. Falling down meant dust. That couldn't happen to Toriel. Not again.

And so when she leans in to kiss him, Sans might not meet her halfway but he doesn't resist, either. Tilting his skull against her mouth, he does the best he can without lips. It's a woefully underpracticed kiss, bucking up against Toriel's experience like a Volkswagen with a bad transmission; all rattles and knocks.

Maybe that was more like a misaligned shaft belt? More importantly, why was his brain going to cars?

"Uh." He manages, when they finally pull away. It feels like an hour has passed, even if logic tells him it couldn't have been more than a few seconds. Does it count as a first kiss if it's not technically your first one, but it's with the first person you've had real feelings for?

How about if you're only letting it happen out of a sick, selfish desire to do what ever it takes to make them smile? Does that count?

"Feel better?" He finally asks, rubbing her shoulder with his usual smile. No sign that anything is different. No sign it happened.

That would be best for everyone, right? Right.

Edited 2016-05-02 11:44 (UTC)

Toriel just cries harder. Her grip loosens on Sans, one hand coming up to paw at her face as she quakes. Why did she try? Why did she do that? Of all the things she could do, she kisses him?

Every nasty thought strikes at her, making her want to mutually cling to Sans as much as she wants to push him away. SHe loves him in more ways than she knows how to handle now. More than she can deal with. Yet, she used him, so carelessly and for her own needs. The worst part is knowing, she would do it again. She would steal a kiss from him again. "Stop- just stop. Don't do this to me, or you." Her words come out slurred from crying.

She sobs openly, breath harsh and trying to wipe away tears so she can look at him. "Don't pretend on my account, please. Just be Sans, don't be what you think I want."

"I, uh." An intelligent start, and an unfortunate end.

He considers looking anywhere else but at her, straining his gaze against the featureless white walls of the Moira for anything to occupy his subconscious attention and make this easier. Imperfections in the siding, scuff marks, scrawled graffiti -- he would have taken anything in those few seconds before her words really sank in.

Be Sans. Well that, for better or worse, he could do.

"Knock knock."

Edited 2016-05-02 12:09 (UTC)

He isn't given much room to maneuver, her grip is still solid. Toriel would call it embarrassingly needy if she wasn't crying.

There are so many things she could say, so many rebukes and brittle words to offer. Instead she whimpers. It is easier to hide, easier to pretend, even if she doesn't want to. Even if she scolded him for it. Toriel wants to be selfish. She wants so much, but she cannot and does not deserve it as far as she is concerned.

"W-who is there?" Her words are slurred still, voice thick from tears.

It's an old one, probably a little too old, but it means something to them and it would have to do.

"Dishes."

She knows where this is going, laughing wetly as she responds. "Dishes who?"

"Dishes a really bad apology."

The hug that follows it up is warm in a new, fresh way. Gone is any awkwardness, replaced entirely with the warmth of a friendship Sans has counted on more times than he can say -- even if for nothing more than a dumb joke through a door, or a laugh in response.

Leaving it to fester and die over something so stupid and banal over confusing feelings? He gave up on a lot of things in life, but he couldn't give up on this.

"M'sorry, Tori."

She returns the hug, likely dripping tears atop the skeleton's head in the process. She laughs weakly, but it is a genuine laugh. The edges of hysteria and panic gone in the flow of tears.

"I'm sorry." She offers in turn, she doesn't state why but Toriel feels it should be obvious enough. Her fear for Chara is set aside for this, for this selfish moment where is isn't just a mother. She can be someone's friend.

Toriel lets herself be selfish, be it as Sans friend, the only friend she can be honest with. The only friend she has.

"Hi, sorry." Sans responds in time with tightening the embrace, his own voice a little gruffer than usual. "M'Sans."

It's a stupid, stupid joke, but stupid in such a way that Sans can't help but laugh. His bones rattle through his clothes at the motion, clinking together as a percussive backdrop to his laughter.

It might not be 'apology accepted,' but in Sans' mind it was one better.

Stupid or not, it still tickles the boss monster just as much. Toriel snorts, choking a little on a laugh. Crying and laughing do not go together.

"It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance." She shifts only slightly rest her chin atop his head, fur tickling at bared skull. It is a familiar enough position between them, the moment before a nap.

Either the position itself is enough to generate a Pavlovian response, or Sans is just that tired. But right on cue, his eye sockets begin to droop.

"We'll figure everything out, with Chara." He assures her, sounding much more certain than before. "It's not gonna be easy, but we'll get through it. You've always got me in your corner, T."

He holds up a fist, expectant. Much like with texting, Toriel was a little behind on the latest hip hand gestures -- this one, though, this one Sans felt important enough to make a special point of teaching her.

"Okay?"

Edited 2016-05-02 12:59 (UTC)

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inruins - 2016-05-02 13:00 (UTC) - Expand

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Suddenly I'm overcome

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CHILD DEATH DESCRIPTIOn??? im so sorry

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