Touch; Ticci Toby X Reader

C. 10

Toby looks at her stunned, he seems to be taken by surprise before he quickly regains his original blank expression.

She hasn't smiled for 3 years.

She feels human again. But she knows for sure, that this will never last.

***

She tells herself she is hallucinating, over and over again. That none of this is real, but she can't believe her own words as they process through her mind as false, useless thoughts.

She is a victim of her own mind. She can't escape her mind playing images in front of her eyes that didn't even disappear when she closed them.

She is at home again. Something is different here. Something is off. It's quiet, very quiet.

She wanders upstairs, calling for her mother and brother. The stairs leading up to the hallway seemed so much higher, higher than she remembered.

She stops at the top step, only then did she feel shivers crawling up her spine. Only then does she feel the panic creeping in under her skin, nipping and clawing at her remaining insanity.

When Y/N opens the door to her mother's room, all is dark. Then it is suddenly no longer quiet, she hears a mix of giggles and sobbing. She was about to run the other way but before she could a force from behind pushes her in, making her fall over on her knees. The door slams shut and the gurgling of laughter only become louder.

Then the room was quiet, Y/N was still blind to the darkness. Her hands feel around, up the wall, to the light switch.

The light is flashed on.

She sees her mother curled up around Lucas, the same position they were in when they were murdered. They were in the rocking chair, her mother using her legs to push the chair back and forth. They stared at her, watching her with every ounce of their attention and minds. Their eyes were milky white, faces blank from every expression.

Her mother had a gunshot on her temple, and there was a hole in Lucas's abdominal area.

Y/N hesitated as she looks at them, her hand reaches behind her to the doorknob, but it doesn't budge open and she feels that sick panic again.

Her mother with a dead expression, spoke to her, "You're insane. "

"I'm not insane...I..."Y/N whispers, her eyes blink but the images are still there.  The back of her eyes are burning and she isn't sure what is real or not. 

"You're insane--"Her mother's voice grows deeper, skin turning paler. Too pale. She tells herself that this isn't real and that any moment now it will all end. That she will wake up in bed.

"I'm not insane." She says louder, stronger.

"You're in-"

"I am not insane!"She screams, her eyes cloud over and she snaps back to her senses. She snaps out of her mind playing tricks on her. She is now in the present, aware.

She is standing in the center of her room. Her chest is heaving, her eyes are peeled open with horror. Her arms are spurting blood all over her drenched gown, nails brimming with bloodied flesh. There are drops of blood all over the room, even on the wall. It makes her wonder what she looks like to others while experiencing hallucinations.

Her lips were split open from digging her teeth into them, blood pooling under her tongue and running down her chin.

Y/N falls to the floor, her body shaking. Her expression broken. So, so broken. She cries, each fraction of her well-being shakes with each sob.

Her cries were the kind of strangled cries that belonged to those who can't hold onto this world, who have grown too weak and frail. Holding onto the edge of the world has become impossible and now she was falling.

After a few attempts to calm down go in vain, she finally stops shaking--but still unable to stop tears from forming.

They are only hallucinations--she tells herself just to assure that they aren't real. It wasn't real, it wasn't real.

Y/N slowly rises from the floor with numb arms. She lays down on her bed and discovers the tears just won't stop.

She gazes out the window from her position, the sun was setting, splashing the sky with a dim orange because clouds still blocked most of the sky that still snowed lightly.

And she was left awake, staring aimlessly out the window. Hoping Toby would walk out if the forest to comfort her.

And she waits.

***

He shows up a few days later, he said he was busy. She doesn't ask him with what. It was just bright enough to talk to him, though she knew it wouldn't be long before the sun had set.

You need to sleep, he writes to her. It didn't take too much of a discussion for him to notice how tired she was. Even though it was obvious from her sunken in face and from the dark rings under her eyes.

She shakes her head, not wanting to ever experience something so horrid again. She fears if she did, she may not be able to handle it. She knows for sure that is would completely break her remaining state of mind.

I can't handle the nightmares anymore. The stupid hallucinations come back the moment I close my eyes. She writes back, willing herself to not cry again.

Insomnia haunts her nights while fatigue rules her days. When she needs to be lucid and clear her brain begs for unconsciousness, for sleep at any price.

But when the hours of darkness come and she is in the comfort of her bed, her mind lights up with new possibilities, new sources of disaster in dreams and hallucinations.

She wants to let them go, to count sheep and relax, but soon the sheep are telling her what can go wrong tomorrow because of the avoidable blunder of hallucinations from days ago.

Toby seems concerned by the way his shoulders sink down, his eyes briefly on her arms that were covered in deep scratches and dry blood. He wasn't happy about that, is what he had said to her. She couldn't control it, she told him.

Go to sleep, it's going to be okay. I will stay here all night if I have to. He tells her.

Warmth seeps into her chest and sleep comes like the falling of an axe. She knows it must come but she fights it with everything that she has to avoid those nightmares. Those defenseless hours of tossing and turning throughout the whole night.

When she looks at Toby who looked at her reassuringly, she felt safe, she stops fighting it knowing that Toby would be there to comfort her.

It could be sometime before she is with the world again.