castle_perrault | [Open Post, backdated to November 1st] The Rising

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tiger & bunny

[Open Post, backdated to November 1st] The Rising

Kotetsu wakes up.

...which is a little surprising, considering he hasn't actually slept in a month.

He wakes up, flat on his back in the gardens. The grass is warm beneath him, the breeze is crisp around him. For a moment, he just enjoys it. Even when memories of the past month start to filter back, he lets himself entertain the idea that it was all just a bad dream.

But then he remembers the monster. He remembers being...twisted and transformed. He remembers everything he heard, everything he did. And no, there's no way it was all a dream. He's never been that lucky.

Kotetsu lays a hand against his chest, but...no, there's no denying that whatever Asriel had taken is back where it belongs. Right now, it mostly feels like a heavy weight on his chest. A heavier weight, at least. All of him feels pretty heavy and clumsy now, after a solid month of being insubstantial and invisible.

There are people he needs to see. That knowledge forces its way through to the front of his mind. Kotetsu braces his hands on the ground to try and get up...and immediately gets distracted by the feel of the ground. Such a simple thing that he wants to never, never take for granted again. He laughs out loud to feel it, laughs just to be sure he's not going to sob.

It's been a long month. He kind of wants to get drunk until the next one. But...the grass just feels so nice right now. He's not ready to stand up.

So those of you who are out, about, and reacting to your newly normalized states might come across Kotetsu in the gardens, laying on the ground, pulling up blades of grass a few tufts at a time and watching them be carried away on the breeze. He's smiling like he doesn't have a care in the world.

He has plenty, though, and they eventually become impossible to ignore. So when Kotetsu does get to his feet, he immediately starts running. As he runs, he calls out: "Bunny? Toshi? Where are you?"

Though if he passes by anyone he encountered as a ghost - whether or not they knew he was there - he's definitely going to slow down and hesitate for a moment, wondering what to say. If he should say anything.

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Grune is a little later than usual coming to the garden today. Lots of her friends haven't been feeling very good, and so she's taken to visiting them whenever she remembers. But the castle's magic has gone away now, and so she's spent extra time with everyone this morning, both celebrating and comforting.

Eventually, though, she makes her way outside. She hasn't found everyone yet, but she will.

...And no sooner does she think this than she notices one of the friends she was most worried about, lying in the grass and smiling.

Immediately, she smiles as well and gives a little sigh. Oh, she's so glad he's feeling better.

"Good morning, Kotetsu!" she calls out as she steps closer.

Kotetsu's gaze snaps up when he hears his name called. Even now, his heart skips a beat when he sees someone looking at him again, even if that should no longer be a surprise where Grune is concerned. But, much like the feel of the grass beneath his fingers, it's not something he's about to take for granted again any time soon.

He sees her, and his smile only widens. "Grune, hey!" And Kotetsu is still a little unsteady when he gets up to his feet - he wobbles a bit, sways a bit. But then he heads right on over to wrap her in a tight, enthusiastic hug. It's only when his hand makes contact with the fabric of her clothes that he lets himself believe, really believe, that it's over.

Kotetsu is not the only one who likes playing in the grass. Satoru has been wandering around outside the castle, as he has most days this month. Too many bad things were happening inside, too many things that made him tense up, made him think about cold water and a stuck seatbelt and that he'd never really become a hero, had he? It was stupid for him to think that he could, that he could use Revival like the superpowers on TV.

He doesn't like seeing people suffer. He doesn't like the reminder that for every person he saves from being 'alone,' there are a hundred more that'll be isolated forever.

So he stays out here. It's happier here. It's peaceful and sunny and there's pieces of grass blowing away on the wind. He follows the source to a man sitting in the grass. For a moment, he raises an eyebrow, thinking that the man looks too old to be playing out here, before he remembers he's technically 29 and makes a face to himself, remembering how easy it is for him to fall into his childish ways.

He approaches and flops down in the grass, beaming at the stranger. "Hey! It's way more fun to do that with dandelions, you know."

Kotetsu doesn't realize Satoru has approached until the kid has flopped down next to him. He flinches, letting out a faint gasp of surprise. But that's nothing to the lurch of shock he still feels in the pit of his stomach when Satoru actually talks to him, looks at him. That's definitely going to take some getting used to.

That's not necessarily a bad thing, though. He sits up properly to better talk with the kid, and maybe drop a few stray grass stems in his hair. "Yeah, it is." He smiles fondly at the thought. This place could use some good wishes floating around. "You know where any dandelions are growing around here?"

When Yukio spots Kotetsu, he slows down too. In fact, he freezes up a little, resisting the urge to run the other way. There were very few things about his encounter with the ghost that were good, and after running into Croc, he knows that some monsters can't be trusted no matter what Frisk says.

Besides that... he's screwed up enough. If he can't help Kotetsu, he should just leave him alone.

But Kotetsu is human now, and running away will just make him look pathetic. Not that he isn't pathetic now, clutching the bottom of his sweater with one hand and offering a slight wave with the other. A greeting. A peace offering, sort of. At least until he knows if Kotetsu is dangerous when he's tangible as well.

Grune already was moving toward Kotetsu--but when she sees the way he's having trouble standing, she almost skims along the grass to catch him up in her arms.

As much as she wants to lean into him, she thinks that maybe they would both fall down if she did. And so she draws him against her where she stands firm and strong.

"I'm so glad you're better now!" she tells him, and presses her smiling cheek against his.

...oh. oh dear.

It takes Kotetsu a second to recognize Yukio. But when he does, he stops dead, feeling like his feet have been glued to the floor, that his heart is so heavy in his chest that it's weighing the rest of him down. He ducks his head a little, momentarily unable to meet Yukio's hesitant gaze, and runs a hand anxiously through his hair.

"H-Hey, um...kid?" He frowns a little more intently. He knows this kid's name. They did exchange names. Finally, hesitantly: "...Yukio, right? You okay?"

His memories of that last bad week are...still a little hazy. He recognizes Yukio. He remember's the boy's attempts to reach out to him and help him. He also remembers that they'd been largely unsuccessful, and...god, he can't be sure he hadn't hurt the poor kid for trying.

Somewhat belatedly, he returns that tiny wave.

If alcohol had any affect at all on Toshi, he would be seriously considering drinking himself into next month, too. This was all... too much. Barnaby as a... a literal puppet. Kotetsu being gone and then coming back and being not himself...

Toshi seeing himself bleed.

He could have done without October, thanks.

Even worse, he has no idea what to do now. Finally, whatever horrible (wonderful?) curse had hit him has faded, and the flesh he'd been so confused by was gone, replaced once more with his metal and his wires and his nonliving lab-grown flesh. He knows he'd wished, once or twice, to be human, but he didn't want it this way. Not at the cost of his hero's humanity.

And he doesn't know how to help them, right now. Kotetsu clearly didn't want them around, especially not Toshi, and Barnaby was... the ghost of nausea curls into his system, right along with guilt. He abandoned him. Bunny needed him and Toshi abandoned him.

He's basically a mess of emotions and blame and hurt, so much so he almost doesn't hear Kotetsu calling his name. Almost.

There's more desperation in his voice than he wanted, and it makes him flinch when he calls back, "Kotetsu?"

The memories of that last bad week are...hard to look at, directly. How angry he'd been. How easily he'd lashed out. He remembers not remembering some of the people who had become so important to him. Toshi had been one of them. Instead, when Kotetsu had looked at him, all his residual bitterness and anger and fear over his encounter with H-01 had come boiling back up to the surface. It hadn't mattered that Toshi was human when they'd met again that time. All that had mattered was seeing him standing there beside Barnaby where Kotetsu belonged. Just as H-01 had.

And, without his soul, he hadn't really been up for listening to reason, or letting himself be swayed by hesitant smiles or promises of friendship as he had before.

Now he remembers all of that as though he'd been the puppet, watching it all unfold from behind his own eyes...but no. It had been him. On some level, all of that had been him.

He definitely wouldn't blame Toshi for not wanting to see him. But if there's a chance to apologize, Kotetsu wants to take it. His heart feels like it jumps up into his throat when he hears Toshi call back to him, equal parts relief and dread bubbling in the space left behind. He falters, for a moment...then he takes a deep breath, clenches his fist, and orunds the corner towards the voice of his friend.

Even if he finds himself not entirely sure of what to do next, when he finally finds Toshi in front of him. Looking at him. Toshi might see some of himself in the way Kotetsu falters, anxiety visibly grabbing a hold of him. He ducks his head for a minute before he can bring himself to look into the android's face.

"Hey. Um..." For lack of anything better to do, he raps his knuckles against the wall beside him in demonstration. "...I'm back."

It's hard to look at Kotetsu, directly. Hope had reared up inside of him at the sound of his name in Kotetsu's voice, but the last time he'd seen the man, it had been a bad time. He's worried. The memories of that rage, that vicious jealousy, eating at his mind. Does he remember him now? Is he angry?

Angry isn't the right word, Toshi can see that much at first glance. There's something negative there, though, something that looks uncomfortably familiar on Kotetsu's features, if not on Kotetsu specifically. Anxiety. Guilt. Unsureness. Toshi stands frozen for moments that feel like years, taking all of that in. He doesn't know how to react, what is a good way to react. He doesn't even know what he wants. He's trembling, a little, but he hopes Kotetsu doesn't see.

Then Kotetsu breaks the silence, with his awkward doofy self, and relief and fondness sweep through Toshi like a wave. Enough that he's almost dizzy. Emotions are so powerful, he thinks to himself as he steps forward. Hesitantly, he touches Kotetsu's shoulder.

"You're back..." His eyes meet Kotetsu's, glowing bright, threatening tears, and full of fond relief. He wants so badly to crush Kotetsu into a hug but he isn't sure he should.

He's long past the point of being surprised at how much stronger Grune is than she looks. And, truth be told, Kotetsu isn't about to say no to someone strong and steady to lean against for a minute, while he deals with actually being on his feet.

Besides. Grune just gives some pretty great hugs.

"I'm so glad I am, too," he says. And if his voice is wavering and a little unsteady still, it's at least partly due to happiness.

But there are other things on his mind, other people he has to worry about that probably aren't holding up as well as Grune seems to be. "Is everyone back to normal? Have you seen anyone else today?" It certainly seems like it's late morning or so, maybe early afternoon, but he'd kind of lost a lot of sense of time.

Kotetsu actually flinches as Toshi steps nearer, braced for...what, he doesn't know. Anger would be understandable. Anger, hurt, some kind of blame. After saying and doing everything he had to reassure Toshi, after promising the android a safe place with Kotetsu, to have followed all of that up by reacting the way he had...Kotetsu can't necessarily say that he wouldn't be angry, in Toshi's place. He hadn't entirely been himself, of course. But...he's still not sure it can be said he entirely wasn't himself, either.

He holds his breath for a moment when he sees Toshi reach out, but...no, of course he never had a reason to worry. And he lets that held breath out in a shuddering sigh of relief and tension bleeding out when Toshi just rests a hand on his shoulder. It's so indescribably nice, to have even that small connection re-established between them.

"Yeah..." He lets out a shaky little laugh, blinking away the threat of tears, and is finally able to look back up at Toshi and smile. "I'm back." He's able to look at this android with this face that is so much like his own and yet already seems so much more distinct than it had a couple of months ago. Once more, now that he's been put back together, Kotetsu doesn't see a threat. He just sees a friend, and he wants things to be okay.

And Kotetsu hopes so much, as he always does, that this isn't overstepping some kind of boundaries. But with the other man standing right in front of him, it's a lot harder to resist the urge to close the distance left between them and hug Toshi tightly. So he doesn't.

"...I'm so sorry."

Barnaby isn't in the garden or in the hallways. Most of the places he was left behind when he was a puppet are bare now. Which is understandable, now that he can actually move, go where he wants to be.

And where he wants to be is definitely away from people. Too many people hurt him last month, took advantage of him, touched him and Barnaby can't blame them for that but he also can't trust himself to be comfortable. He's not good at being around people in the first place, and even less so when he isn't acting as the hero, Barnaby Brooks Jr.

The puppet he was last month was sort of a more extreme version of the Barnaby that met with the sponsors about two years ago. He needs to remember what it's like to not smile for the cameras.

And he needs to get that very bad taste out of his mouth from thinking about the sponsors and by extension thinking about that nightmare.

...That wasn't real, right? It couldn't have been. It was too much even for Maverick to do something like that. It felt too real, but it wasn't.

Nothing is real, is it? Everything is shattered and fake. Kotetsu had said as much to him.

Barnaby sighs and pulls the covers over his head, ignoring the way his mind offers the sound of Kotetsu calling for him. Not real, not real...

The flinch was almost enough to make Toshi run away entirely, and it certainly made something in his chassis clench hard in pain. But something stronger than that compels him to stay. Maybe it's selfish, maybe it's subliminal knowledge, who knows, but he holds onto his courage and doesn't run.

At least the hand on Kotetsu's shoulder doesn't make him throw Toshi off, or lash out. That's a good sign. He hopes his shaking isn't obvious, and he gives a little squeeze, to reassure himself that Kotetsu really is solid flesh. The skinny, dense, warm flesh he knows and loves. He really could cry from relief, and from the desire to cling to him.

He's searching for something less stupid to say, trying to keep his eyes on Kotetsu's face, and not entirely able to handle the expression he sees there, when Kotetsu does what Toshi wasn't brave enough to do. Arms around him, chests pressed close, the tears really do fall. Toshi heaves relief, holding back on tight, tight, fists clenched around Kotetsu's clothes.

"Me too. I'm sorry. I... " He almost said something he really, really shouldn't, and he swallows it back, gulping around his swollen voicebox. Stupid humanoid traits. "I was so worried."

Kotetsu's searching does eventually take him to perhaps the one place he should have checked first - the door bearing a neatly handpainted sign for Barnaby's name. But in the end, it's close to the last place he looks. Maybe only because right up until he realizes he's out of any other options, he'd wanted to believe that Barnaby would be okay enough to be anywhere else but hiding in his room.

So Barnaby will hear the calling of his name drawing closer and closer...until at last, it stops. Until at last, Kotetsu is standing right outside the door, trying to work up the nerve to go in.

He even considers using his Hundred Power, for a moment, if he has any of it left. Just to make sure Barnaby is really in there. He doesn't, in the end. He just trusts that his partner has to be around here somewhere. That his partner will answer him when he calls out.

He knocks on the door.

"Bunny?" He swallows, takes a deep breath, tries again. "Bunny, are you in there?" Already, that dark little voice in the back of his mind that is responsible for so many of his self-doubts is insisting that he should go, that he should leave, that Barnaby doesn't want to talk to him and why should he?

But if Kotetsu was willing to let his mistakes decide everything between them, to give up like this, then they never would have become friends in the first place. Friends and...maybe more.

She can hear the small tremble in Kotetsu's voice. For just a moment, she holds him a little tighter.

When he asks her that question, she pulls back a little to look at him, but not before she presses a kiss to his cheek.

"Yes, I've seen all kinds of friends. I think everyone is back to the way they usually are."

But then her smile slips just a little. At least, their bodies are. So many of her friends were sad this month. Sadness isn't so quick to leave.

"I know." He can say that, now. He can appreciate that everything Toshi said while trying to reach him wasn't a lie or an act, even if it had seemed that way at the time. Kotetsu squeezes his eyes shut against the memory of the look on his friend's face. He knows it will be back in his dreams soon enough. "I know, For what it's worth...I didn't want to worry you. Before...all of that." He sighs, long and tired, because Kotetsu isn't sure he'll ever have the words to explain "all of that". He's genuinely not sure if it matters. "I was around. Breaking stuff. It was the only way most everyone knew I was there." Even if that hadn't exactly happened too much when Toshi was around Barnaby.

"And I think I lost something important, in the middle of things." He's not entirely prepared to say out loud that it was his soul. He's not entirely ready to confront that idea. "It's back, now. All of me is back. I know that might not be an excuse...but maybe it can be a reason you don't have to worry anymore."

The words are a small comfort, and Toshi buries his face a little farther into the place Kotetsu's neck meets his shoulder. If he never lets go, maybe Kotetsu will never get hurt again. It's a desperate, stupid thought, but it comes anyway. His voice is muffled against Kotetsu, but he doesn't want to move to sound clear yet. "I know. It..." it isn't okay, "I'm not mad at you." He doesn't want to say he forgives, because he isn't sure Kotetsu needs forgiving, but that should get the point across, right?

He just nods against Kotetsu, slowly loosening his death grip to lean back and look at his face again. It makes his circuits jolt to see it. To see Kotetsu. Alive, whole, safe.

"Lost something...?" Kotetsu either doesn't know what, or doesn't want to say, so Toshi won't force it, but the fact that he could lose... something, something clearly important, scares him. One of his hands comes around from the hug to lay flat on Kotetsu's chest, near his heart. Symbolic.

"You're all here again?" He needs the extra reassurance, right now.

Kotetsu can't cling quite as tightly as Toshi can, but he's making a valiant effort to try. Toshi's voice is muffled, but he's close enough that there's no mistaking the words he says. And they make a lump rise in Kotetsu's throat to hear them. He needs forgiveness. He wants forgiveness. But he's still not sure he could stand to hear the words right about now. The assurance that Toshi isn't mad at him, therefore, actually helps in a way more than words of forgiveness might. Kotetsu's own guilt doesn't reflexively reject it out of hand. Toshi is still hurt, and understandably so, but...perhaps not so badly that Kotetsu can't help him again.

He's not sure he wants to let go, but neither does he stop Toshi from pulling away. Kotetsu is even working up towards mustering a reassuring smile, when the hand laid against his chest stops him cold.

He remembers. He remembers being on his knees and on fire, every nerve ending screaming, and even that being barely half of the pain he'd felt on some deeper level within. He'd felt something being dragged out of him, slipping through his fingertips like water no matter how tight he tried to hold on and he couldn't beg for screaming and what was worse was that the one who was doing it to him said that he was sorry, too...

Kotetsu gasps like he's just been stabbed. His eyes go wide and glassy for a moment as he flashes back, his hands come up to try and push Toshi away...

...and it's the feel of the android's hand that helps the moment pass. Losing his soul had happened at a distance, but Toshi is here, and sees him, and...it's a stupid, childish thought, but he holds his friend's hand to his chest himself, as though that could block his soul from being stolen again.

"Yeah." The memory has his voice choked to a whisper. There's no more pretending he's not shaken up. But at least what he says next is true enough: "I'm all here again."

Oh. Well then. Kotetsu actually feels himself blush a little, at the kiss. He ducks his head in embarrassment even as he tries to hide a smile. Every little bit of extra affection means the world right now, no matter how embarrassed it makes him.

Even so, his mind returns stubbornly to the matter at hand. If people are back to normal now...

"...have you seen Bunny? Or maybe Toshi?" Maybe they'll have stuck together, at least. Even if, judging by the look on Grune's face, it's not going to be that easy. Then again, it never is.

Toshi is hurt more by the circumstances, and by the fact that something horrible enough happened to Kotetsu to make him react the way he did, than he is hurt by Kotetsu himself. If he's angry, it's at whatever turned him and Barnaby into something they aren't. Or at himself for not being able to protect them... and for making it worse.

Kotetsu is already helping him, just by being here and whole, and not rejecting Toshi outright.

Though something does go horribly wrong for a moment. It's much like one of Barnaby's flashbacks.. but different. Toshi freezes at first, feeling his wires turn to ice in horror at Kotetsu's reaction. Did I do that? He wonders, with every ounce of concern he has.

He gasps like that and Toshi realizes he can move, probably should move, and he tries to pull away, "I'm sorry! Kotetsu-" But then Kotetsu is holding him there, pressing that hand into his chest, and his eyes are back in reality. Toshi is shaking a little with residual fear. His eyes search Kotetsu's face for an answer.

"Kotetsu you..." you left me for a minute there. "What did I do?"

Grune sighs again. It isn't the same sound of relief as before.

"Toshi and I spent a little while together this morning." She had tried so hard, but.... "He's still sad."

And.... "I can't find Bunny."

That worries her most of all. What had happened to Bunny was very wrong. She had done her best to look after him, but he had been hurt anyway. And she thinks he's still hurt now.

...he left for a minute there. He really did. Kotetsu feels a lick of ice race up his spine to realize as much. He's...slowly learning a little of what it feels like to be Barnaby, in moments like these. Flashbacks that drag him brutally out of reality for a moment, triggers that make him seize up for no predictable or logical reason. All stemming from relatively recent causes - his fight with Jake, H-01, nearly dying. But that was definitely the worst of them, enough to leave him feeling a little unsteady on his feet for a minute.

"S-Sorry," he stammers, shaking his head in a vain attempt to clear it of fogs and bad thoughts. "I..." He wants to tell Toshi but it also makes no sense but nothing about this place makes sense. He was still struggling to deal with the idea of a castle in the sky in another world, and now it's a castle in the sky in another world that can turn him into a ghost with people that can steal his soul...

"That's..." He stumbles, swallows, tries again. "...what it felt like. Something being ripped out of my chest." Damn it. Hell with it. "From all of me, honestly, but...m-mostly there. Ha..." His vision is blurring, but he doesn't have the strength to stop the tears this time. They've been too long delayed. He smiles at perhaps the least funny thing he will ever say: "I...think it might have been my soul?"

Toshi is still floundering. He knows how to deal with Barnaby's dissociations, but he doesn't know how to deal with this. He has no idea what Kotetsu needs. At first, his touch seemed to be the trigger, but now Kotetsu is holding his hand there, and he's clearly still not all here. He's shaking. Toshi wants to hold him up, protect him. He keeps the hand Kotetsu doesn't have a grip on firmly around the hero's waist. He will catch him if Kotetsu's knees betray him.

"Don't be sorry. I just... want to help, but..." Toshi shakes his head. Why are you apologizing, silly man. His fingers curl around Kotetsu's clothes, making a nervous, loose fist on his chest.

The description makes Toshi's wires feel like ice again, and he sucks in a nervous breath before he realizes he has no idea what to say. Kotetsu is slipping away again, and... and his soul?

All at once, Toshi remembers the way Mettaton described souls to him, from his world's understanding. How they reside in the heart, the colors they come in and what that means... how they have power. Horrible fear and anger tear at his insides, and the loose fist becomes a tight fist.

"Your soul? Someone... took your..." He can't finish the sentence, shaking. If Kotetsu will let his hand go, he will wrap both arms around him again for another hug, this time burying his face in Kotetsu's chest, pressing his forehead against his collarbone.

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

Even now, Kotetsu didn't entirely expect Toshi to believe him. After all, he's not entirely certain he believes himself. Souls aren't something so literal, right? They're not something you can take like you'd pick a pocket. They're just a metaphor. Just an idea.

Except apparently they're not. Someone took his soul, and left the rest of him behind. Left him to wander and rage and forget. And he still gets to remember all of it. Now he knows what he's like without any of the goodness or the limits. Now he knows what all the dark and broken parts of him look like when they're dragged into the light. And so does everyone else.

The very idea of it, the unfairness of it all, makes him feel like he's teetering on the edge of a very long fall. So Kotetsu doesn't so much let Toshi pull away as find himself unable to stop him doing so. But it also means he wouldn't protest the hug even if he could. He gasps aloud from surprise as much as anything to suddenly find himself enfolded again. He clings back with trembling fingers, burying his face in Toshi's shoulder.

"It's..." It's not okay. "...back now," he finishes instead, awkwardly. The stumbling attempt at a reassurance does nothing to stop the threat of tears. In fact, Toshi will probably be able to feel that they're something more than a threat, now. "It's over now, whatever it was, it's fine."

It's not, and if Toshi isn't showing himself inclined to move, Kotetsu is going to go ahead and take advantage of the chance to be held and the chance to sob. At least for a little bit.

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[Open Post, backdated to November 1st] The Rising

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