lostcarnival | please eat

Foster is frustrated that the injuries he's sporting from Flowey are so small, and to some extent he's not even listening to Taako by the time Taako starts talking to him. He is thrown more or less unceremoniously onto his bed and he just sort of lies there where he lands, an unattractive pile of open sores and claws, bare skin, and bones. He can feel, somehow, the angles of his bones--the sting of a bleeding wound against the air is basically a pinprick that he loses quickly. This is what so disappoints him.

Instead he aches, in an indefinable way that doesn't feel like his muscles, but somehow has to be because it isn't his bones or his flesh. It's as though the spaces between his his muscles, the folds within them are filled with weight and something not quite but just shy of actual pain. He wants to lie down but he's already lying down--the sensation of voracious acid inside of him clocks in a close second.

He can still feel the room has tilted, or is spinning, or in any case he's better off closing his eyes than he is keeping them open, which only further shuts Taako out of his awareness.

And by the time he doesn't feel like he's about to turn inside out, he's forgotten Taako is even there.

Taako, in his defense, does give Foster a few moments to respond before he acts; when there's no response at all, he rolls his eyes, and pinches one of those little pellet-holes between his fingers, hoping to wake Foster up out of whatever state he's in.

"Stay with me, buddy."

That works--or it certainly reminds Foster that Taako exists, and his eyes open again. For his trouble, Taako's fingertips are not wet with Foster's blood; Foster stares at him, visibly unhappy, before managing speech.

"Why are you still here?"

He's so tired. Full-body tired, every limb, every bone five--no, ten pound heavier. And there are so many bones to weigh him down. He feels like if he could just... vomit it up, vomit the nothing up, then he could be fine. Fine enough to take more. Fine enough to worry about it. He's not supposed to be fine. He stares at Taako and waits for a response, his eyes bleary but focused.

"Hey, I asked a question first, okay. What's wrong with you? Did you end up poisoned too, or what?"

He knows that Foster had avoided the poison for a while, and certainly missed the big dose, but... he did disappear for a while on his own in the castle, as far as Taako could tell. Who knows what the hell happened then?

"Nnnnno," Foster says, slowly. He's thinking back. Tasks of memory are... not his favourite.

"No, I ate--I ate an onion. My reward--but only one. Only one." He repeats the number--one--with a kind of arrogant bitterness, a recognition of his servitude, a reflection of his failure. One onion, charred. But even the one--

Normally Foster cannot recover the experience of a feeling after its moment, but he does have half an echo--no, less, an echo's echo... an echo's echo's echo, even, of that moment. Lambert's award to him... it was almost like pride, though of course that was a bit more of a feeling than Foster was ever entitled to. Something growing and good, at any rate, a kind of.. unblemished sensation, the real form of his pleasure. He does not even begin to have the energy to remember how to say any of that. He's never known how.

But the fact that he was, by that point, beginning to be aware of his own literal starvation was only part of it.

Taako's impending scorn will be unable to mar that moment for him.

He knows that for a fact.

Eating. It's that which reminds him of how Foster avoided being poisoned in the first place, and he realizes all at once what's wrong with him.

"Shit. Uh. Starvation's not a great way to go, my man." Taako shifts where he's sitting beside Foster, for once really noticing just how skinny the man is save for what muscle he has. "Like, I know you're into the whole punishment and death thing and what have you, but, uh. There are better ways to go about it, homie. Or at least more efficient ones, anyway."

Edited 2017-11-15 10:25 (UTC)

Foster is poisoned now, but that's really not the issue. Or it isn't enough of the problem; he graces Taako with an entire second of tired stare before he closes his eyes. He knows what Taako is trying to say.

"I don't--I don't deserve, I don't deserve to eat," he rises halfway off the bed, immediately regrets it, and falls back. But in the same breath, he dismisses Taako's fake concern irritably. "I won't starve to death."

A pause.

"Not unless the Ringmaster commands it." In which case, well, that's not up to him. He hasn't yet spoken to her, but he means to. Soon.

Soon, that is, if she leaves it up to him--a test, maybe. Although she's already emerged victorious, so it's quite possible she's forgotten about his worthlessness.

As long as she leaves it up to him, he has already decided that he'll wait a few days and continue to punish himself first. Only then will he malign her space with his worthless presence--penitent, but ready to accept her choice of punishment.

"Yeeeah, I doubt it, since you kinda owe her a debt and all that-- you know, the whole reason we're here?"

Taako sighs, and leans down to frown at him more directly, resting his chin in his palm.

"Well, if you're not set on dying, you may as well not fuckin' suffer so much, huh?" And then he sits up, rubbing his hands over his face. "What am I saying, of course you wanna suffer, that's kind of your shtick. That and, uh, fucking, I guess."

... he raises his eyebrows, shrugging.

"I mean, but you can't actually fuck in this state, which is gonna suck for you, given what I woke up with going on this morning."

Foster opens his eyes again, wearing something pretending to be a smile.

"So that's why you were looking for me!"

As far as Foster can tell, Taako's interest in him is almost entirely sexual. Which is perfectly normal, to him. It's not a use unique to Taako. Quite the opposite; sexual encounters are the only truly successful and rewarding forms of contact he has with other people; by and large, the only acceptable use most people find for him is as a warm place to put their dicks. Or, you know, something warm to put inside themselves. And the 'almost' means Foster would really rather direct Taako's less savoury interest in him towards more libidinous designs--designs which are easily turned into something that satisfies his own urges. The only downside is that Taako still forgets Foster's place in things.

Which is where his objections comes in.

And the appearance of epiphany is replaced with venom.

"My state is--is irrelevant."

Edited 2017-11-17 02:08 (UTC)

Taako opens his mouth, making a half-sound of offended shock; that is not the only reason he was seeking Foster out! Although, it is worth noting that his assessment of Taako's stance in their relationship is... honestly, not that far off the mark. Sure, it's not entirely moral to associate with someone else primarily to use them as a sex toy to pass the time, but neither is necromancy, so who's the real deviant here?

Besides, Foster digs it.

And, anyway, their relationship has begun to gain dimensions beyond that-- not necessarily affection, nothing so innocent, but a sort of attachment nonetheless, something that made Taako want to check in and see if Foster made it back with them in one piece, and something that is presently making him feel actually pretty upset that the man is starving himself. Maybe it's a feeling of responsibility, as he seems to be one of the few folks at the carnival who can in any way really understand Foster.

Whatever the case, Taako rolls his eyes at that, waving a hand.

"Yeah, uh, okay, sure, except that I'm not touching you unless it's to feed you a fuckin' sandwich or something. Final decision, my dude, I'm not gonna budge on this one."

"You didn't come off as the nanny type," Foster's tone carries a hint of venom.

Taako is right, of course; Foster loves the way Taako uses him, the way he takes Foster by the throat and sates those urges deep within him. He gets more out of the way Taako holds him down and does whatever he wants to Foster and his body than he does any feeble attempts at 'compromise.'

It's very... completing.

Taako had actually seemed to grasp what mattered and what didn't, when it came to that.

He's simply served best by any arrangement in which he fills a role of base gratifications, a biddable object. And sex is an arrangement anyone can understand.

Which is why Taako's resistance (pretense?) leaves him especially sour.

"Not a good look for you."

Then again, maybe he's just feeling particularly useless--and thereby particularly hungry for it.

Edited 2017-11-30 18:02 (UTC)

Taako grimaces, his face scrunching unattractively; but he wipes that look away with something much more typical of him, an expression in which the corner of his mouth turns up, yet the ultimate effect is much more akin to that of a frown.

"I don't think it makes me a nanny that I don't wanna bone down on somebody who's half-dead, my dude," is his vocal response, and his tone isn't kind. "I don't know about you, but I'm into the whole... partners who are responsive and alive thing?"

Foster doesn't even respond this time; he raises one paw feebly and smacks the bed a couple of times in a pathetic attempt to find a pillow or blanket or something--but he strikes the wall instead, gouging a chunk of paper off and making a noise loud enough to startle himself quite badly.

"Fuck--!!" The volume of his rage is entirely disproportionate to the event itself--and in further rage, he lashes out at the wall again, this time deliberately taking it out on the trailer with his claws.

"Fuck, fuck, FUCK!!"

"Whoa--" Taako leans back-- way back, as far as he can without falling off the bed entirely, startled. For a second, he's baffled, his hands held up in mid-air almost defensively--

-- and then he leans in again, grabbing one of Foster's soft ears and digging his fingernails into it.

"Hey, hey, hey, there, my dude, relax, you're gonna get us kicked out, or turned into potted plants, or something."

"Ah--" Foster is startled enough to stop, and his back arches slightly, his claws scraping against the wall as if in protest.
The sharpness of Taako's fingernails as they dig past fur and into tender skin, the painful pressure of his fingers over cartilage and nerves--

He's tense and taut, leaning into the pain rather than trying to escape it: the epicentre alive with piercing pain, the edges burning hot like electricity, radiating along the perimetre of his ear--

"Aggh..." He breathes it aloud, but doesn't fight Taako at all.

".....fuck," he mumbles again.

It's a very different tone this time, though.

Okay, better not let him get too, uh, excited; Taako waits another beat before releasing him, just to make sure that he's good and distracted.

"You okay there, fella?" Well, stupid question; honestly, a more accurate one would have been to ask if he's done pitching a fit, but Taako really doesn't want to risk setting off his temper more than he already has.

No, he is not, and he doesn't pretend to be. He stiffens slightly when asked, then pulls away angrily.

Instead of answering, he very deliberately lets his head fall back onto the bed, turning away from the elf and bending his ear and pinning it to the mattress before pressing the side of his face against the point where Taako broke the skin. It's not as painful as when Taako was actually digging his nail in, but there's a sting and a slight ache, and he takes some comfort in it.

He's ignoring Taako, basically.

... okay, so it seems like he kind of needs a little bit of pain right now, right? It's not the healthiest thing in the world, but, well... if it helps, it helps. It's honestly one of the few things he's discovered that seems to give Foster any measure of chill, or of comfort.

He decides to indulge him, since he feels so bad already.

He reaches out to the other ear, curling his fingers around it; he presses the tips of his nails against the skin, a bit less pointedly than when he was trying to calm him down, but still enough to press half-moon shapes into it, the manicured tips just sharp enough.

While the ethics are probably questionable, it is, undeniably, the most helpful thing Taako could have done right then.

Foster makes a surprised sound, tensing out of instinct, but almost immediately relaxes into it--a peculiar combination of actions made all the stranger for the fact that there's an internal strain, invisibly held in equal measure to how much relief he visibly gets from Taako's small abuses.

He cracks one eye, but doesn't say anything--just stares at Taako for a moment as though blearily sizing him up.

Taako just gazes back evenly, though he does temporarily crack, giving him a weak smile; this is weird. Like, he's not the only one who would think so, right? But it's what Foster seems to need-- all signs indicate that this is, at least for the time being, the only thing he can really do for the guy to kind of... help him settle down. So he holds the pressure, dragging one nail lightly over the skin, a violent motion more akin to petting someone's hair in intention.

Somehow, this situation feels... far more intimate than even their most crazy sex. That had just been sating a craving, like scratching an itch; this is... well. This is Taako doing his best to actually give the man some relief-- true relief, not just physical. He can't really think of anyone else at the carnival who would do it if he doesn't, though, and Foster has pretty much zero comfort in his life besides this.

"... uh." Taako feels like he should say something, but he has no idea what.

In a way, it's like his entire consciousness lives in his ears, in the wet heat of blood against and under his cheekbone, in the sharp sting of each press and its immediate fade as Taako moves across the furry surface of his ear. If he could only live like this, could feel himself in pain--

Foster doesn't receive the smile as poorly as he often does; he doesn't quite return it, but he doesn't feel that quickness of rage, the horrible spark either. He just blinks back, once, then lets his eyes fall close, catching his breath at the hard scrape of a manicured nail dragged over the skin of his already-sensitive ear, his face stoic even as he finds both relish and relief in that sensation.

Taako lets a little while of this pass in silence-- him very lightly dragging, digging his nails against the thin, soft skin, letting Foster decompress for a moment before he attempts to have a conversation with him again. He does, however, finally break the silence, though he's careful not to interrupt what he's doing with his nails, lest Foster go right back into meltdown mode.

"So, uh... can I ask why you're so set on not eating?"

Foster was nowhere near falling asleep, obviously, but he had more or less stopped responding, save for the occasional sharp intake of breath or hiss of pain whenever Taako's fingers broke the skin or passed over a particularly sore bit of ear. Once Taako did something that sent a second, illusory vein of sensation down his side and back and he did writhe, like an obscene kind of shudder, on the bed, but--

He almost doesn't process the words, and when he does, he kind of doesn't grasp what's being asked of him at first. So when he opens his one eye and blearily asks "what?" it comes out a little dull. More like 'whut?'

Taako's almost laughing when he responds, an eyebrow quirked. Sure, he's well-aware that some people get off on pain, but to have someone who is just... calmed so much by it is actually almost kind of comical.

"I, uh, I was wondering why you're not eating? Not that you ever ate a whole lot or anything, but, uh... total starvation is a new look for you."

Foster's capable of hearing tone at least some of the time, but he's not very bright when it comes to deciphering people's motives, and so not entirely sure why Taako is so amused. He would have expected the elf to be angry, or repulsed, but this is... sort of disorienting, surreal maybe. He can only assume it's some sort of... humour at his expense? Which is fine, even if the joke is not wholly comprehensible to him.

His entire ear is, at this point, raw-feeling, comprised of nothing but one large, deep bruise just under the skin. It's... a good feeling. He is... so aware of it, not just the pain (though there is so much pain in it; it hurts, every throbbing pulse and the sharpness of air through the fur covering his over-sensitive skin) but the entire ear, its full shape and structure, up to where to joins to his head--by which point it quickly fades off and he doesn't feel much of anything except the much less intense ache where he's pinned part of his other ear under his face. He knows there's an ear there, at least.

His eyes open a little more, his tail jerking up off the bed before falling back against the sheet with a furry sort of smack.

"I can't," he says simply, his voice cracking slightly--not from emotion, but from the dryness and tension of misuse.

"Haven't... haven't earned my keep." There's a kind of coldness there, a rare unsatisfactory contempt.

Well, at least that explains... something. A little. Taako finally does actually look at that ear, and realizes he's drawn blood, and just what poor shape it's in; he grimaces and releases it, and then picks himself up, heading to their small bathroom for a moment.

When he returns, his nails have been washed clean, and he has a cloth he's soaked in hot water that he begins gingerly dabbing at the damaged ear with. He doesn't feel bad for inflicting that damage-- not as bad as he probaby should-- but Foster's in no shape to be dealing with whatever infection it could lead to.

"So... you're not eating because you haven't earned it." Taako hums thoughtfully; his tone when he continues is caught somewhere between mocking and concern. "I don't know what your bar you're trying to reach here is, but, uh, you're not gonna be able to even try in this shape. You know that, right?"

... ah, there it is. That look of disgust. Not being able to see the blood under Taako's nails, he is... relieved? Bitter? Gratified? Watching the elf leave, abandoning the mistake he's just made. He doesn't need to see blood to smell it, though. Or maybe he's imagining--hallucinating? Dreaming? But he can feel something wet about his ear, be it serrous fluids or actual blood.

It's more of a surprise when Taako comes back--and comes back with something in his hand, no less, a square of white terry that Foster initially assumes to be soaked in something like chloroform. When it touches his ear--and it stings, warm and damp in a different way, but not sharp enough to be an alcohol--he pulls away to look at Taako a little more directly.

"You know what my job is, right?" He manages to say this more or less coherently, which is impressive considering how much trouble he's having with the concentration required to focus on Taako's face.

"I take out the trash. I scrub and clean toilets."

Edited 2018-01-19 08:35 (UTC)

"Well, yeah, goodness knows we've spent enough time around one-another to at least know that." Taako's response is entirely mocking this time. Of course he knows what Foster's job is. They've likely spent more time around each other than anywhere else for the past... who even knows how long anymore, and at least some part of that time was spent clothed and chatting.

Well. It wasn't all spent actively boning down, anyway.

"What's that got to do with you eating anything? Custodians deserve to eat too, you know."

"There is no bar," Foster replies, suddenly heated--in the same way oil is heated in a lamp, by burning it, Taako has apparently reignited something volatile in him. "It doesn't matter what shape I'm in."

Not just the crackling of embers but the thick, black tar of disgust. "I'm not a custodian, I'm a fuckup. So it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter because I'm worthless anyway! I fucked up."

He's increasingly and angry and miserable as this conversation goes on; his ears are throbbing, hot, sharp and aching pain in equal measure--he could immerse himself, drown in it, if Taako would just let him.

"Hey-- hey!" Taako's tone isn't unlike someone scolding a child, or a pet, and he wraps his fingers around one of those raw ears, squeezing it against his palm. "Alright, I get it, you're the worst. I mean, I am not exactly a paragon of moral judgement here, myself, and you've for sure got me beat, Mr. Necromancer."

He releases the pressure against that wounded ear, just... holding it there in his fingers.

"Still, I mean, even serial killers get their last meal, you feel me?"

please eat

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

TW: This got NSFW because Taako's a horndog thanks Taako

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject