Jan 13 2016, 10:49 PM
His son was there, again, and he sounded older, looked older, right, and Booker slowly let a relieved sigh blow from his nostrils, the sound whistling through the air. As soon as the tamarin stepped closer, he froze up again, gaze growing wild, flighty, terrified of more horrible images, all telling him that he'd become everything he despised - but the arm didn't phase through him, it looped around his shoulders, pulled him closer, and the numbat pressed his face into Diot's fur, shaking. A yelping bark of laughter escaped at his words, burrowing closer, both paws uncurling to cling to red-black fur. "I... I dunno what happened. Saw things. Clover, but wrong. Terrible things," Booker whispered, eye wide and unseeing. "She - it chase me here. It said you were dead, Diot," he finally choked out, voice breaking and tear-strangled. "She told me I killed you!" The lies - memories - tricks - trickled back. He could see himself laughing with Bee - laughing while they talked, leading him to the Eyes, laughing while he offered to carry him, laughing while he held him under the water until his body went lax, until hummingbird blood tainted the pool, until his claws dug into soft guts and pulled out intestines analytically, watching the miniscule heart slow to a stop. But Bones. He would never have hurt Bones. How could any of the rest be true, then? How? He shuddered. He'd lost time before. Minutes, hours, days, weeks. An entire cycle. He could've done it. He actually could have murdered his own children. "I didn't, I didn't, I promise, I tried so hard to protect you, all of you," and he was whimpering now, babbling nonsense, sobbing into his - dead? - son's fur. "I just, I just wanted a family, I - I d-didn't -" Bones. He needed Bones. Bones would know what to do. Because Bones was alive, safe, somewhere, not dumped somewhere like garbage, not a victim. He wasn't a monster. But the thought remained, like a tack between his eyes, piercing. He'd been bonded to one. |
@Diot @Belladonna