Tic Tock

Questions and less-than-satisfactory answers

Toby rubbed the sleep from his eyes and groggily sat up on the couch. At first, he thought he had fallen asleep in a victims house cause his living room didn't smell fucking awful and looked a ton nicer. when he looked around though, he realized it was the same house. He slowly got up, thoughts of the injured girl working their way into his head. She had to change out of her blood soaked clothes or she could get some kind of infection. with how little she trusted him, it'd be hard though... Maybe food would persuade her though. Unfortunately, Toby couldn't cook for shit. if it didn't go in a toaster or microwave odds were he'd fuck it up. he figured cereal would do.

Toby got everything around and slowly peeked in the door to his room. The mysterious woman with a clock in her eye was still fast asleep. Or was she? For some odd reason, it felt like even though her eyes were closed and body relaxed, she was fully aware. Maybe she just slept light? On the chance that she could be awake, Toby announced his present by clearing his throat and slowly walking in.

"Hey Clocky? Are you awake? I brought cereal if you were hungry... It's uh.. Honey Smacks. Dunno if you like that but there's no other kinds of cereal so..."

Toby set the bowl on the night stand and frowned. She still appeared  to be sleeping. 

"Hey uh.. you awake? Clocky... Clocckkyyyy... Clocky. Clock. Clockwork. WorkClock. Clock eye. CyClock. Clockworrrk. Clocktwerk. wake uuppp..."

Toby poked her frustrated with her not waking up. Clockwork's one eye flashed open startling him. he squeaked and jumped back.

"O-oh y-you're awake now! i uh... i brought you cereal... " Jesus she scared him. for a second he thought she might've taken a stab at him.

Clockwork sat up and yawned, wincing from the pain in her leg. She got a headrush, but it cleared out in a moment. She focused her good eye on Toby.

"You've yet to tell me how you know my name."

"And you've yet to tell me how a clock got in your eye." Toby countered, smiling obnoxiously. Clockwork groaned.

Clockwork reached for the bowl. it was embarrassing how she relied on him, but she was getting better at accepting his help at least. She slowly started to eat, while Toby took a seat in a chair in the room. An idea occurred to her, and Toby seemed like the exact type to fall for her trick.

"Okay how about this... you tell me how you know my name first, I'll tell you about my clock. "

Toby's eyes lit up. He nodded agreeably .

"Okay, so... this might come as shock or confuse you but, i am a proxy of Slenderman, meaning i kinda... stand in for him or represent him. Understand? when i found you he came and told me to just let you die.  He said your name was Clockwork, and that you had gotten in a fight with him. Okay, now tell me about your clock! "

Clockwork frowned. Slenderman? Proxy? That made sense. she thought she had seen his mark early on in the forest, but you tend to care less when you're being pursued.

"You're... not gonna turn me over to him are you?' Clockwork asked slowly, looking at Toby warily. Toby stared at her, then laughed.

"T-turn you in!? AHAHAHA! Clockwork!! He wanted you to bleed out! why would i save your life if i was just gonna give you to him in the end?? Come on, i wouldn't do that! Have a little faith in me sheesh!" Toby laughed again, and Clockwork realized he had his mouth guard off. And the bandage that was on his face. without anything covering his mouth, she could see the gash in his cheek.

"Okay, now tell me about your clock!" Toby sat forward eagerly, which almost made Clocky feel bad for lying to him.

"Actually.... I don't want to. BUT...." Clockwork did feel bad about lying to him now that she saw his eager expression fall from his face. He looked like a kicked puppy, furthering her shame.

"But... you can ask me any question that's not incredibly personal... " Clockwork offered. Toby's eager face returned, much less excited than before, but still eager.

"Alright! H-how about... favorite c-color?"  Toby asked, smiling impishly. Clockwork couldn't help but smile at the face he was making. His bedhead lent him a very disheveled childish appearance. She had just opened her mouth to answer when a loud knocking erupted from the front door of the small cabin. 

Toby's expression of eager anticipation fell to annoyed resignment. Clockwork couldn't help a smirk flitting to her lips. She tilted her head at him, speaking patiently. 
"Guess our little Q and A will have to wait a little longer."
Though she did regret less time getting to know her savior, she did admit relief in no longer needing to entertain questions, even silly arbitrary ones such as her favorite color. 

Toby slowly rose from his chair, his dull brown eyes rolling to the heavens as the knocking was repeated. He didn't have to ask to know precisely who it was. Looking bored and all previous excitement thoroughly taken out of him, he offered Clockwork a plaintive shrug. 
"D-duty calls early this m-m-mo-orning." He stuttered. 
If he was to keep his co-workers from discovering Clockwork, he knew he couldn't be making anymore excuses to Masky. 

"I'll b-be back b-before d-d-d-dusk. Try not to h-have too much f-fu-fun without me!" He joked, making for the doorway. He paused, looking like he wanted to say more. He just couldn't find the words though, and offered Clockwork a disapointed smile and a wave, before he left to see what the hell M-ass-ky wanted. 

As Clockwork heard the front door shut, she set aside the now empty bowl of cereal and leaned back in the bed. Toby's timely rescue, all this... It was more than she deserved. She found herself wishing he'd stay, but sometimes things tend to end before they'd hardly gotten started. It was frustrating, but a fact of life. He'd be back eventually, maybe. Until then, there wasn't much left for her to do but rest, and hope that bigger and better things eventually come to pass. 


*****

Authors Note: Thank you everybody for reading this dumb little story, This is a chapter i had started waaay back in 2015 and found saved in my drafts. After re-reading Tic Tock, i decided to leave it published because 2015 me actually wrote kinda halfway decent. Who knew? 

I added a little bit on to this just to wrap it up to a chapter, which is why the end is so choppy and sudden, but perhaps (hopefully) better worded with a noticeable difference with my change in wording and sentence structure preferences. 

I probably will not continue this, as i've dropped out of the fandom and theres no way i could pick this back up without going back to totally re-write it, which is something that i have no motivation to do, not to mention how long and arduous the task would be. The context set up in this story is no longer familiar or realistic to me, so i could not continue it with my current writing experience on top of my less experienced writing. That's like laying some fancy architecture on shitty groundwork. 

To anyone who actually cared, thank you so much for reading. I'm sorry i could not give this a proper ending, but my heart just isn't in it.  Stay strong Ticciwork shippers, you'll find more where this came from. Good luck.