Chapter Text
“Do you need to be my baby?” Sayori asks, low and quiet and soft as silk, and Monika drops all the pieces of her thorny, tangled thoughts to the ground as she lets out a sob, falling into Sayori’s waiting arms like they were shaped to fit her in them.
That’s a yes. It always seems to be a yes, humphs the last holdout of Monika’s spiral, before Sayori kisses the sides of her face in the silliest mommiest way and bounces her slightly, playfully, and Monika doesn’t quite - forget - but there’s something else now, something else to think about, to focus on. Someone else to hold onto, to briskly brush away the shadowy bads and reveal the sticks holding them up, someone to help as Monika’s focus turns from fearful outwards monitoring to looking inwards, to being here, to being small.
She snuggles into Sayori’s shoulder, tears still leaking onto her face, but mostly now from relief.
“There’s my sweetie,” Sayori hums, holding Monika in such a safe way, a hug so warm and tight that Monika is no longer a varsity athlete but a child lovingly supported. “What’s my lil’ sprout need, hm? Besides a nice, big hug from Mama.”
Monika blinks, curling in closer to Sayori as her breath hitches on an errant tear. She needs to tell Sayori so much when she’s like this and at the same time nearly nothing at all; a few minutes ago she was nearly at a meltdown point over everything in the entire world but now, cradled by her Mama and looking at herself, just herself, she does need and it’s suddenly so simple, a primary color, building block.
“Mm, amama,” she mumbles, finding her voice half-buried in Sayori’s skin, “Mama ‘m... I’m,”
Little breath, catching shirt on fingers, mooning in the detail, the small, the first baby step.
“‘mwan’ ju’se,” Monika sniffles. “‘n uppy ‘n Mama ‘n, ‘n chee-yios, p... p, p’yease.”
Which means, which she realizes it means when she’s coming back up, that she hasn’t eaten or had a drink, she’s thirsty and her blood sugar is absolutely tanked and she’s isolated and needs to be touched and hugged and loved and needs Sayori to do it because she loves her girlfriend more than anyone else in the world, of course —
But she’s little, now, and all she needs to say are the little words, the easy ones. All she needs to think about are the simple things she needs, not the reason, not the justification, not the long explanations. She’s little and she wants juice and crunchy cereals she can num on with clumsy fingers, and she wants Mama to hold her and love her, and probably at the end of it all she’ll say she doesn’t, but secretly does, want a nap in a safe, quiet, little bed.
“Of course, sweetheart,” Sayori murmurs, nuzzling into Monika’s hair in the careful gentle adoring way that makes her feel treasured, “Of course.”
Monika is little, and safe, and loved - and later when she is done playing, drink and snack and snuggles and naps all sated, the feeling will remain curled up warm inside her chest, beating a comforting reminder.
“T’a... ‘anku,” Monika whispers - and Sayori holds her closer still.