[Smoke and Mirrors] Her Mirror Image

It was one of the rarer days that Toby had his store open when it wasn't nighttime, luckily enough for his unexpected guest. He was already speaking to a customer when he heard the little bell at the front door ring. While still talking, he checked the security feed from his phone, watching as a child scampered in. A flash of red. Familiarity. Eroshay. He felt an uncomfortable rush in his chest, a sick feeling going down his spine, sticking to the back of his throat like bile. He clamped his mouth shut for a minute that seemed like an eternity. Dealing with the customer seemed like it took even longer, even if he knew that wasn't the case.

After that, he went and turned the sign on his door to say 'Closed', though didn't lock it. As he made his way to the back of the store, all he could think was that he wanted to be anywhere, anywhere but here, didn't know why he couldn't just run the other way instead of walking into this, insides screaming at him. When he found where Shay had hidden away, his intrusive thoughts flared up to a mortifying extent for a split second-- before he mentally poured a bucket of ice water over his head.

A quiet pause. "Shay?" Toby said, softly, expression a little solemn, a lot sheepish. "What are you doing here? And what happened to you?" He gestured to the blood, biting at his lower lip. "I have a first aid kit in storage."

It always felt strange for Toby to see Eroshay act so small. Meek, awkward. But she was small, wasn't she? So, so small. Too small. A child. It wasn't something he wanted to let himself forget or ignore, but acknowledging it was even more distressing, at times. The look in her eyes was very adult, but she was a child, and he knew he'd been the same at her age.

His breath hitched. You shouldn't want to see me, he wanted to snap, scare her away. Stay the fuck away from me, where's your common sense, he wanted to say, to beg. "Oh," was what came out of his mouth, head fuzzy, soft, wrong. He licked his lips and shifted his weight. "Well, here I am."

He reached out to tip up her face, get a better look at it, take a step closer when she backed off. "At least let me get you some tissues for that nosebleed. I've closed up already, not typically open in the day anyway, so it isn't an issue." The thought of having her around for that long, just waiting for him patiently, made him uncomfortable. He'd be too distracted to work properly.

Toby took Shay's hand and dragged her out into the store again, around to the back of the counter, where he'd dig around for and finally offer her a tissue box before remembering to let go. Toby was decently slim, but her fingers were still a lot smaller than his. It was cute. He kinda felt like throwing up.

Toby's social awkwardness always got worse in situations like this. When he was making some attempt to actually be pleasant, or watered down. He wasn't meant for that. It was in his nature, his biology, to be the opposite. There was something else. A special sort of clumsiness that didn't appear outside of very specific types of relationships, for him. Toby stood against the counter and slowly slid down, until he was sitting on the ground with his back to it, and pulled his knees up a bit. Not up to his chest, as if he was curling into himself, not yet.

He nearly jumped when Shay said his name, peeking at her warily. He listened to what she said, the weakness in it blatantly clear. Easy to take advantage of. His cheeks warmed a little, something nasty twisting in his stomach like a knife. Then, he shook his head, and couldn't help but choke out a laugh. He pressed his hands to his face and scrubbed at it aggressively. "Fuck!"

He stilled, hands still hiding him away. "I can't. It'd take nothing, you know, to spit at you or chase you out of my goddamn store with a broom. To give you a good enough scare that you'd never want to see me again, 'cause you ain't seen nothing there yet. Not with me. People always underestimate it, or shrug me off as some typical fucker rather than a real threat, and I use that. But I can't, and I've tried."

"I've tried… pathetically. It's all like a big joke. Mailing you those stupid books, telling you off or trying to get other people to make you never touch me again? Half assed. I can't walk out on you, and thanks to that, I've been trying to make you walk out on me— but that's going even worse. You little fucking brat."

He looked at her again, sucking in a breath, lightheaded and bleary eyed. "You beautiful, sharp, stubborn little girl--"

He cuffed himself over the head. The laughter from before degraded into something that was starting to sound like a sob. "Lord. I'm just like her. Don't touch me, Shay. Don't touch me. You'll be filthy too. You can't wash it off. You can never wash it off."

Toby froze when she fell to her knees and tried to wrap her arms around him, his own heartbeat loud in his ears, not even hearing the faint music he had on in the store anymore. Muffled reality, hyperfocused on one point of interest. The two of them were close enough, right then, that'd they'd likely feel each other's breathing. His was shallow. He wanted an escape from this, an out, but they were possibly more alone here than they'd ever been. Another part of him was euphoric in the sickness, ready to drool, never wanting it to end, contributing to jittery, hazy, bad thoughts that he hated, hated, fucking hated and wanted to tear to shreds and gore up with a baseball bat full of nails.

"I'm not crying," Toby said quietly, voice a bit hoarse. He swallowed, after. Eroshay had grown far too attached to him. This wasn't good. He could already see this situation playing out like a movie reel in his head, history repeating itself. Disgusting.

He wondered for the first time, then, if his mother had simply been born the way she was-- or if someone had gotten just a little too close to her, too. He'd seen pictures of her as a kid, family photo albums with relatives he'd never met. Delicate blond children who looked like angels. They were the same, in that. Her parents, an uncle, cousin, family friend? Did they call her a good girl? Considering these possibilities amused him, in a cold sort of way, but didn't give him much. It didn't change or help anything.

Toby looked at Shay through dulled eyes when she pulled back his wrists. He stared at that soft smile, her attempts to comfort a fucked up adult, and marveled how much she seemed to believe in him. He wasn't filthy, she said, with a genuine confidence in her voice. A pushiness, even. Like the brat she was.

"You're not filthy... because you haven't been around me for that long. It always feels tempting at first. You want to be special. Have this older, safer, secret person you can talk to and touch differently. It's not safe. There are little things that start feeling wrong. Squirming in your stomach that you can't quite bring yourself to recoil from, because you're already dependent on it, you already thought it'd all be okay, and when you realize it isn't all going to be okay, it's far too late to back out."

He reached out, cupping Shay's face, caressing her cheek, tracing her lips. Proving a point. He leaned forward. "I am filth. It's in my blood. It doesn't need to be in yours. It doesn't need to happen again, like some kind of generationally passed on fucking next level unhealthy relationship curse. Leave me, and let it die with me. Please. You could still be okay. You're not broken, you told me you weren't. I don't want to break you just because I love you like my mother loved me, Eroshay."

A relief washed over Toby when he was pushed back, hands beginning to tremble, face burning with something near shame, maybe simple frustration. Screwy, confusing emotional state, as always. He ducked his head, watching Eroshay from the very corner of his eye, feeling more like an unaffected observer to the situation this way. This was just a pathetic scene he was seeing happen with someone else. Another sad, nasty man, a different little girl, and tomorrow this would never be a problem, it was all in his head.

It wasn't. When she asked him what happened, he wasn't sure where to start. From the beginning. That worked. "Nothing happened," he managed, at first, barely a whisper. He wrapped his arms around his knees fully now, curling into himself. "Not at first, not like you'd usually hear about. Clear cut horror stories about a parent fucking around with their kid like that, where everyone knows when to look shocked and outraged, that can be neatly tied up with a bow over how horrible it was, the trauma you know will come from it. Even I knew about that sort of thing when I was young. She didn't touch me like that... but she did touch me."

He reached up to run a hand through his hair, mussing it up. "Uh. I only ever had her, for a long time, you know? I was branded as a freak no other kid wanted to be friends with before I'd even hurt any of them. Children are little animals. I'm sure I wouldn't have gotten along with them anyway. My mom was my best friend, my favorite person, she loved me when nothing else would no matter what I did. She spoiled me, gushed to the other parents about me, and I was her best friend and favorite person too."

"When she felt down, she never talked to her adult friends in the neighborhood, it was always me. We'd talk and talk for hours on end, discussing topics I shouldn't have known, that were bigger than me. And I thought, because of that, I was more than a child. I was her confidant, her protector. It gave me this sense of superiority, and added distance with anyone other than her." He eyed Shay. Her life was more than his had ever been, beyond white picket fences and illusions of perfection that were blatant lies, but this still wasn't right.

He slid down further, laid down on the floor and crossed his arms behind his head, looking up at the ceiling. "We'd always touched each other too much. She liked to pet me, hold me, go in my bedroom and fall asleep all entwined with me when dad wasn't around. And he wasn't around more often than not. She told me she loved me every day, repeatedly, told me how special I was, how lucky we both were to have the relationship we did, how most parents weren't this close and caring, and would cling to me with all the expectancy in the world until I said it back." He was rambling now, slurring his words, but he couldn't care less. "When I was twelve, and had a girlfriend, she asked me what we did together. How we kissed, if I could demonstrate with her. The idea put this anxiety in me, something bolder than what had been quietly warning and jumbled in the back of my mind. It might've been like fear. I knew it was wrong."

Toby shuddered and grinned. "It was also exciting, and there was this part of me that wanted to do it, just to see what'd happen, how it would feel. She'd been all I had! There were dreams, thoughts, and needs of a curious, fucked up, starting to go through puberty kid. I didn't do it, though. I made up an excuse, subtly avoided her for a bit, and sobbed for what must've been hours without knowing why. I felt dirty, and I'd felt like that before, so I thought, but this was different. So nothing happened, but it was so close to happening that it hurt. Almost like something implied, between the lines, a living inside joke or metaphor. Never safe, and never alarming enough to be able to do something other than cry wolf. It wasn't a wolf I was dealing with, anyway. It was my mother. I couldn't doubt her, not really. I'd lose everything, if I did, so I couldn't let my pristine image of her be ruined."

That wasn't the end of the story by any means, but he figured he'd give Eroshay a minute to take it in, completely unsure how she'd react. He already had a queasiness over sharing this with her at all, and could use a moment as well.