[The fall into unconsciousness was not a pleasant one. It was an experience beset by confusion, nausea, fear. A fear not even that he was dying (though that would've been a most reasonable assumption, and an expected thing to be afraid of), but only because it hadn't quite occurred to him that he might be. Not exactly. But instead a fear of madness, and of solitude, and of not being able to tell where he was, what was happening, and only scarcely who he was with. But was even that knowledge reliable? That was the worst of the fears, and it was the one that carried him into darkness.
He'd never been afraid of the dark before. He'd never thought to fear what could be lurking in the bottom of it.
And so he sank. And so he remained, for a long time.
Hours of passivity, unresponsive and relaxed in the comforting way a corpse would be. A similar level of warmth and color further deepens the facsimile, the only thing giving the game away was his continuance to breathe, for his heart to beat, however inefficiently. But it still worked, as though it didn't know how to do anything else, a shallow, fast pulse that did its feeble best to keep moving whatever blood that remained. An effort that meant he kept bleeding, more fluid lost from each pass, from each beat- but progressively less. And not only because there was less to lose, but with the pressure of something other than a sucking mouth on the wound, the barest hint of something like coagulation could start. With the pressure of fabric instead, blood was encouraged to stay on the inside of his body, despite its best attempt to find freedom elsewhere. To decorate the bed, or to trail down his throat, or into Mettaton's mouth- these were all normal places for his blood to be.
And how inconsiderate his body was to not realize this, to instead start shutting down because it didn't like suddenly having a dozen or more percentage points of its blood vanished, claimed by someone who had just as much right to it.
But slowly it regained some manner of stability, and while the Ascian wasn't in any manner of good or perhaps even safe condition, he wasn't getting any worse either. Cloth was pressed to him, and he had soaked so much of it without realizing. But even that began to dry, though the sticky scent of blood remained. As fragile as the movement was, his heart continued.
It wasn't quite the same as it had been during his periodic comatose states. This Bond was muted, but not completely dead- sluggish, with a stirring barely perceptible, but there. While his condition before had been a gradual erosion of energy, of magic, of self, with the times of unconsciousness dropping him into a flat featureless plain, blank and still- this had a different note to it. More clearly sickly, a faint pulsing of life that was strong enough to remain, but not yet strong enough to break the barrier of consciousness.
And so he survived, because what choice did he have?
Oblivious to the panic that surrounds him, to the efforts gone to for his sake, at least for the moment, he can do nothing but lie there quiet, and far too still. Removed entirely from the decisions that had led to this moment, from all of that desperation and love and despair, from his encouragement to this end, from Mettaton's glad embracing of it. They'd done this to each other, in their carelessness and adoration and need, a reckless building of violence that led to this inevitability. They needed too many things from one another, and in a willingness to provide... what else could be the result?
Hours pass, and Emet-Selch's condition continues to stabilize. He's weak- so very weak, and somehow both overheated and cold- but consciousness begins to emerge. Not flickering, not in twitches or starts, but slowly. A peeling back of layers, a draining of the waters that surround his suffocated form. And from the depths of that darkness he could hear a voice.
It wasn't always there, and his consciousness wasn't complete enough to think about why, or what it was. But a presence remained, and eventually the sound would continue, and all of this was terribly, terribly soothing. He could listen to that forever, he thought, and not get tired of it.
But thought itself encourages more of them, more rousing, and as consciousness coalesces, words do as well. Emet-Selch doesn't think about where he is or what had happened or why he felt so desperately weak: there was his lover's voice. There was his hand on his face with a gentleness that he could lose himself in, and he could feel that, and he doesn't know why both of those things felt so remarkable. Both to feel and to possess. He's not sure why he's near tears or why his head hurts, but he imagined love was the culprit of at least one of those things.
What had Mettaton been saying? With his meager consciousness devoted solely to his lover's words (and not put towards anything like 'recognizing location' or 'remembering what had happened'), he can almost comprehend them. He doesn't know why he can't remember the rest of the conversation, but....]
I would- like that. I think....
[He doesn't know why his voice is so hoarse either, or why he could barely move, apart from a pained shudder, as though instinctively attempting to curl closer to Mettaton, to shield himself from all these discomforts with his body. A body uncooperative and sore and still very tired. His eyes open, but only slightly, and seem to struggle to focus on anything.]
no subject
He'd never been afraid of the dark before. He'd never thought to fear what could be lurking in the bottom of it.
And so he sank. And so he remained, for a long time.
Hours of passivity, unresponsive and relaxed in the comforting way a corpse would be. A similar level of warmth and color further deepens the facsimile, the only thing giving the game away was his continuance to breathe, for his heart to beat, however inefficiently. But it still worked, as though it didn't know how to do anything else, a shallow, fast pulse that did its feeble best to keep moving whatever blood that remained. An effort that meant he kept bleeding, more fluid lost from each pass, from each beat- but progressively less. And not only because there was less to lose, but with the pressure of something other than a sucking mouth on the wound, the barest hint of something like coagulation could start. With the pressure of fabric instead, blood was encouraged to stay on the inside of his body, despite its best attempt to find freedom elsewhere. To decorate the bed, or to trail down his throat, or into Mettaton's mouth- these were all normal places for his blood to be.
And how inconsiderate his body was to not realize this, to instead start shutting down because it didn't like suddenly having a dozen or more percentage points of its blood vanished, claimed by someone who had just as much right to it.
But slowly it regained some manner of stability, and while the Ascian wasn't in any manner of good or perhaps even safe condition, he wasn't getting any worse either. Cloth was pressed to him, and he had soaked so much of it without realizing. But even that began to dry, though the sticky scent of blood remained. As fragile as the movement was, his heart continued.
It wasn't quite the same as it had been during his periodic comatose states. This Bond was muted, but not completely dead- sluggish, with a stirring barely perceptible, but there. While his condition before had been a gradual erosion of energy, of magic, of self, with the times of unconsciousness dropping him into a flat featureless plain, blank and still- this had a different note to it. More clearly sickly, a faint pulsing of life that was strong enough to remain, but not yet strong enough to break the barrier of consciousness.
And so he survived, because what choice did he have?
Oblivious to the panic that surrounds him, to the efforts gone to for his sake, at least for the moment, he can do nothing but lie there quiet, and far too still. Removed entirely from the decisions that had led to this moment, from all of that desperation and love and despair, from his encouragement to this end, from Mettaton's glad embracing of it. They'd done this to each other, in their carelessness and adoration and need, a reckless building of violence that led to this inevitability. They needed too many things from one another, and in a willingness to provide... what else could be the result?
Hours pass, and Emet-Selch's condition continues to stabilize. He's weak- so very weak, and somehow both overheated and cold- but consciousness begins to emerge. Not flickering, not in twitches or starts, but slowly. A peeling back of layers, a draining of the waters that surround his suffocated form. And from the depths of that darkness he could hear a voice.
It wasn't always there, and his consciousness wasn't complete enough to think about why, or what it was. But a presence remained, and eventually the sound would continue, and all of this was terribly, terribly soothing. He could listen to that forever, he thought, and not get tired of it.
But thought itself encourages more of them, more rousing, and as consciousness coalesces, words do as well. Emet-Selch doesn't think about where he is or what had happened or why he felt so desperately weak: there was his lover's voice. There was his hand on his face with a gentleness that he could lose himself in, and he could feel that, and he doesn't know why both of those things felt so remarkable. Both to feel and to possess. He's not sure why he's near tears or why his head hurts, but he imagined love was the culprit of at least one of those things.
What had Mettaton been saying? With his meager consciousness devoted solely to his lover's words (and not put towards anything like 'recognizing location' or 'remembering what had happened'), he can almost comprehend them. He doesn't know why he can't remember the rest of the conversation, but....]
I would- like that. I think....
[He doesn't know why his voice is so hoarse either, or why he could barely move, apart from a pained shudder, as though instinctively attempting to curl closer to Mettaton, to shield himself from all these discomforts with his body. A body uncooperative and sore and still very tired. His eyes open, but only slightly, and seem to struggle to focus on anything.]