Touch; Ticci Toby X Reader

C. 26

She turns her head to his neck and takes shaky breaths as she tries to ignore the warm clasping feeling of blood trailing down her arms.

The fog and mist disappeared, leaving her to fend on her own without the barricade that she despised and loved at the same time.

***

Y/N felt ashamed of herself. In only four days she has had two attacks. She let herself slip off the edge again, even after several attempts to hold on, just a little tighter, she still fell.

She tastes stomach bile in the back of her throat. Not from catching the flu or whatever it was, but from feeling sick of herself. Being disgusted and terrified.

Y/N feels ready to throw up but the feeling disappeared when she heard Toby speaking to her.

"Sunshine--..."

He pauses when he sees BEN walking down the hallway towards them. Then continued speaking when he saw him disappear into the kitchen.

"Sunshine, you can't keep doing this--"She cuts him off with a sharp reply and steps up from the floor not thinking clearly, "What, freaking out? Sorry, but I can't control myself! I can't help it that I'm crazy!" She shouts, her mind is still clouded and she can't keep herself from speaking.

"Y/N, I didn't mean it like that," Toby stands up and stands in front of her, "Calm down, please--"

She tries to stop herself from speaking but she can't stop the words from flowing. The filter on her mouth has disappeared. "Calm down? Of all people you should understand--"She suddenly stops, feeling confused. Her hands are on her arms again with fingernails digging and puncturing her skin."I-I can't...I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry..."

Toby, now aware, steps forward and grabs her hands away from her arms. His touch is fire to her cold skin."I do understand."He tells her softly, "I just need you to fight it, okay? You need to try to overcome it. I know you can"He is sincere and she immediately feels guilty for yelling at him.

She nods her head, her fingers twitching wanting to return to where they previously were.

They stand there for a while, her eyes hold a gentle, softer gaze now and the pain in her arms becomes relevant to her.

Y/N hesitantly steps forward and hugs him tightly around his waist. He doesn't waste a second, welcoming her by returning the simple yet intimate gesture. Her heart feels too big for her chest as she melts in his comfort once again. The feeling of having contact with him never failed to make her weak to the knees and utterly speechless.

She knew she should have realized it before, but she was falling for him. Every second of the day spent with him, every minute and hour, was making her more and more vulnerable to her emotions.

When she was about to say something, she feels fingers tickling her sides making her jolt away from his grip in surprise just to look up and see his smug grin."Toby--!"

"Cheer up. Let's go make you something to eat."

***

A few hours after Y/N ate and wrapped her new injuries up, Toby suddenly turned cold and silent. He avoided her when she tried to approach him and then he went and hid in his room.

Now over her sickness, which she assumed she caught a virus due to her weak immune system, Y/N sighs as she flops down on the couch beside BEN, who was eating a bowl of Frosted Flakes with a fork, for some reason. She wasn't going to even ask why.

He glances at her, setting his fork in the bowl, "What's up, princess?"

She glares at him from underneath her eyelashes, her head thrown back against a cushion. "Nothing much, princess."

Ignoring her, he questions her further, "Something bothering you?"He grabs his fork and lifts up cereal, watching the milk drip down into the bowl before shoving it in his mouth.

Before she knows it, she is ranting, "Toby is having major mood swings--"

"Must be on his man period or some shit--"

"--and he won't talk to me for some reason. Just a few hours ago we were getting along completely fine. I know for sure that I didn't do anything wrong to upset him."

BEN sets his bowl down on the table in front of them and thinks it over for a short moment. "Every once and a while Toby gets kinda upset? Aggressive? Whatever it is, it's best to leave him alone until he gets over it himself."A pause. "He just has these sudden episodes of this bizarre behavior of anger or sadness. Like I said before, best to give him some space so he can figure it out himself. I guess you could say he's bipolar."

She looks at BEN even more concerned."Wouldn't he need help with that sort of thing? Even if he can't feel pain, he could accidentally harm himself--"

Just then, there was a loud noise from his room, a fist to a wall, followed by grunting.

Y/N is about to rush to him, but BEN simply pushes her back down by her shoulder. "Trust me, don't interfere. It will be the death of you, princess...and I would know."He seems to relive a memory and slightly cringes to himself.

"But--"

"No buts."BEN says plainly, picking his cereal back up."Leave him be, he could hurt you. Don't tell me he hasn't before."She sees him look at the now somewhat faint purple marks on her neck from almost a week ago. She tenses up, knowing it was now hopeless to argue about it.

"Why do you think he locked himself up in his room? He probably wants to avoid harming you."BEN stated, peeling a frosted flake off his cheek."The stress of everything going on is probably finally catching up to him. There's Slender trying to find him and then he is also trying to take care of you. And he has to deal with my ass, which was sudden without any warning. He's dealing with a lot of shit right now, you know."

Y/N hesitates at first, but eventually listens to him once seeing his point and decides to leave him alone as BEN said. If BEN thought so, she guesses it's best to trust someone who has known him longer than herself. Even if she disagrees with his way of handling these situations.

Even if all she wanted to do was comfort him just as he had for her the two times she wasn't in control of herself. She really did feel helpless.

Thank you for making this drawing, it looks so amazing :) ((comment so I can credit you))