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

[oldmantiger]

 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. 

Comments

[oldmantiger]

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."

[darkerstripes]

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.

[oldmantiger]

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."

[darkerstripes]

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."

[oldmantiger]

"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."

[darkerstripes]

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.

[oldmantiger]

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."

[darkerstripes]

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?"

[oldmantiger]

...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?"

[darkerstripes]

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."

[oldmantiger]

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.

[darkerstripes]

If Toshi hadn't spent so much time at the castle, and around its other residents, he might have had trouble wrapping his mind around this. He wouldn't disbelieve Kotetsu- he would never- but he wouldn't have accepted it so quickly, and moved right on to comforting and being angry. He spent a long time talking with Mettaton about souls, once. He knows more about his own (including that it exists) then he ever expected to know. Of course Kotetsu has one, too. Toshi wonders if they're the same color.

He tries to smother his rage. If he wasn't bend on holding Kotetsu together both literally and figuratively, he would be going out looking for whoever did this and stopping them. Taking someone's soul... that's beyond wrong. And from what Toshi understands, is a way to a power trip.

It isn't fine. It won't be fine for a very long time. But Toshi is patient, and he wants to do right by Kotetsu, right now, So he holds the man tight and close, lifting his head finally so he can pull him in even tighter, leaning his cheek on Kotetsu's hair. He feels the tears falling to his shoulder and loosens the vicegrip enough to rub a soothing hand up and down Kotetsu's back.

As long as he needs to cry for, Toshi is here, and he will say nothing, but occasionally make a soft, soothing sound. Or simply say Kotetsu's name.

[oldmantiger]

Even after such a long and hellish month, Toshi proves to give really, really good hugs. Kotetsu will be impressed by that, once he recovers. For now, he takes the offered refuge from the storm of his own emotions and freshly rekindled self-loathing. It hurts to let himself cry - it's not something he allows often even during those moments when it's necessary - but he knows now that it's that or be left entirely unable to move forward at all. So Kotetsu allows himself this moment of weakness with no one but Toshi here to see it.

It's a good moment, a necessary moment, but Kotetsu does his best to make sure it's a brief one. He doesn't let him lose sight of what's really important about the matter at hand for too long. Just long enough to get his breath back. Just long enough to appreciate that Toshi is here and seems to have forgiven him for...before.

It will probably mean a longer fall and a harder crash later. But that can come later. For now, as soon as he can breathe without sobbing and as soon as he can see without tears, Kotetsu lifts his head from Toshi's shoulder, and makes - not without some reluctance - to step away from his friend's steadying embrace.

"...I need to find Bunny," he says, and speaking his purpose aloud helps straighten his spine once more. "Have you seen him yet, Toshi?"

[darkerstripes]

The secret to giving really good hugs is to desire really good hugs on a basically constant basis. Toshi craves affection and affirmation and positive physical interaction like most other beings crave the air they breathe. It only makes sense that he's able to put such genuine comfort into his own touches. It is at least his constant hope that his little signs of affection are good. He wants those he hugs, or touches in any way, to want to do it again. Especially Kotetsu.

He's being so vulnerable right now. It's not a side of Kotetsu Toshi has seen much. He can count the number of times on one hand. He feels honored to be so trusted, especially by this Kotetsu who hasn't been through hell and back with him, at least not that particular hell. He will cherish this trust that Kotetsu has placed into his care, and hope beyond all hopes that he won't break it this time.

His only comfort when Kotetsu steps away is that it means he isn't crying anymore. Though he could probably stand to let himself be a mess for a little while longer, and though Toshi is more than happy to be here to support him through that, he understands the sense of urgency that cuts Kotetsu off. So he doesn't try to pull him back in, as tempting as that is. He simply rubs a gentle hand on Kotetsu's upper arm. Letting him know in that way that Toshi is still here to support him.

He nods, and then looks away, frowning. "Right. You should. He surely needs you. But I... haven't seen a sign of him anywhere."

[oldmantiger]

And Kotetsu greatly appreciates the reassurance of continued support from Toshi, because his answer makes his stomach roil with dread. It's not an unexpected answer, of course. Logically, he knows that Toshi probably would have told him right away if he'd seen Barnaby. That doesn't make it a good answer to hear.

Okay. Okay focus, Kotetsu. Barnaby has to be around here somewhere. Unless he's not, unless he's gone from this place, but...no, Kotetsu won't let himself believe that. Not yet. He can't.

Barnaby has to be around here somewhere. Probably trying to cope alone like the idiot that he is. They need to find him. Better that they try to find him together.

He squeezes Toshi's hand in a gesture of appreciation, even as Kotetsu looks up and then back down the hallway. "Want to help me look for him?"

[darkerstripes]

If Toshi had seen Barnaby at all, the first thing out of his mouth would have been when, where, and go take care of him immediately please Kotetsu. It isn't a surprise that Toshi hasn't seen him, though. Bunny is a withdrawer- and avoider- when things get rough for him, and Toshi fully suspects that he's part of the problem. Again. It makes perfect sense to him that Barnaby doesn't want to see him, no matter how badly Toshi wants to help him and care for him the way he is for Kotetsu right now.

Toshi forms a small smile as his hand is squeezed. Of course Kotetsu is offering. Protests rise up, and he swallows them back. Kotetsu would argue, and they don't need that right now, none of them. "If you think that's a good idea. He might not be keen to see me, just yet, though. I'd rather you talk to him first, when we find him." There's only the slightest hint in there of the thought that maybe Toshi himself isn't quite ready to face Barnaby, either. Even if he wants to hug it better. It's confusing and complicated.