Work Text:
Art is finished. Paint is running out. It's late.
Butter Pretzel decides to sleep.
For ONCE in WEEKS, she decides to sleep. Her bed is made nicely, not being used for much- especially not for sleeping. But now, the end of her exhaustion has come, and she needs to rest.
For once. Can you die from lack of sleep? If so, Butter Pretzel is right on the cusp of death. Staring it in the face, most likely.
She unfolds the bed, lays down, curls up in a catlike manner that she for some reason has always found comfortable. Breathing in her own scent- of paint and butter, her own body and clean linen- it doesn't take long for her to fall into sleep.
It was the middle of the night, moon high overhead, when she heard the scratching at her door. She had moved around in the night, facing upwards towards the ceiling- chest rising and falling with calm breaths sometimes punctuated with a small cough due too the paint fumes she had inhaled for way too long. The scratching continued, door cracking open, before the apparition appeared in her room without even touching the entrance.
She only awoke once she felt a heavy weight on her chest, holding down her breath- and opened her eyes to a pair staring directly into hers.
Shhhhh. the creature said, looking rather like a Cookie with broken eyes and strange clothing she hadn't seen anywhere else. The darkness of the room obscured much of it, but the artist could tell it owned a sharp implement, long and terribly pointed. The base of it seemed to be what was holding her down.
She tried to move, to fight, but the creature had held her in place, tied her eyes open and kept her staring at the twin spirals in the beast's eyes-
Interesting. I don't think I've met you before. it mused. Or I have, such a long time-time ago!" It tended to repeat words, as if it had forgotten the last thing it said, and was that curiosity in its gaze? Did it want to know about her? Was it a fan of art? How did it get in- she always locked her doors, especially to deter thieves!
You seem... normal. I've seen your type before. Butter Pretzel did nothing. No words, no movement, nothing. She wasn't even sure if she would fight if she had the ability to.
And that makes you... not as interesting as my other focus. But family... all this time, torturing friends, and there was you this whole time!
No comment or movement from Butter Pretzel. What family member would even know a beast such as this? Did somebody else have to deal with it?
Maybe it was one of her parents- they always seemed disturbed in some manner. Maybe this was why.
Or one of the cousins she had never seen, somewhere far across the continent.
Or Croissant, the content engineer, dealing with something she called out of time.
Honestly, she had no clue and wasn't even sure if she wanted to know. Asking would probably make things worse.
She opened her mouth to check if she could speak, and found that she could. Better to keep quiet, then.
But she's never mentioned you...does she-she know you exist? Does she care about you?
...
Maybe I'll leave you for now, now. The weight on her chest lifted, she gasped in surprise and the rush of air into her lungs- scrambling at her sheets, movement coming back into her.
I'll be back sometime. it whispered, the word "time" repeated multiple times as if it was a broken record, before it was gone into the ether.
This was a great time to start crying. Exhaustion, all the time she had spent working, and now whatever that was at night- she fell out of the bed, wondering if she had been cursed, looking for any signs of it having been there. No footsteps- no marks from fingers or wounds made on her body. Nothing left behind.
It could just be her, but that made her feel even worse, even as her mind jumped to art and how the spirals would make a good painting and how maybe this was just her exhaustion-
She didn't even realize she had called Croissant- the only family member she had the contact for- until they had picked up.
"Hello?" a tired voice said from the other line- and this is about when Butter Pretzel realized it was absolutely late.
"I woke you up." she admitted, a bit of regret in her tone.
"No, I was up anyway...to admit, I don't sleep much anymore."
"I don't either. But uh- you're kind of the only family member I know, and..."
And what? I need to ask you something? She already knew the creature likely wasn't real. I want to talk to you? That was so unlike her that she wouldn't want to do it.
"Eh. Just tried to sleep. Had some bad dreams and called somebody. I should probably go back to-"
"Bad dreams? What kind?" She could hear how fast Croissant was speaking. They wanted to keep talking- stop her from going back to painting. She could tell.
"Eh. One of those strangely realistic ones. Weird spiral-eyed beastie, threatening me, that sort of stuff."
No answer for a few seconds.
"Did it have a pair of scissors?"
"You think I know? It had something sharp, that's all I pi-"
"I'm coming over." And that was it- Croissant hung up the phone, before any more words escaped the artist's mouth.
She sighed, got out of bed, and started to wait for her to show up.
She was there faster than expected. Maybe it was how clear the roads were, or that she found a quick way there, or engineered some super car with one mode: Bother Family Member.
She had only opened the door a crack when a flustered Croissant leapt in, breathing in her characteristic raspy way, looking around as if something was hiding right behind the two of them.
"It left, right?"
"Dude. It's a bad dream. Chill out-"
Croissant lunged, holding her in an embrace, panic on the both of their eyes.
"It's real, Pretzel- it's real. It comes to me every night. Days where it doesn't show up...those are the abnormal ones."
"So you're the family member it mentioned."
"It knows? It- it shouldn't know. I would hate to subject you to that, knowing that she found you because..."
"Ok, what the hell is going on." Butter Pretzel snapped, tired and done with this whole thing, still shaking over her whole body and never again wanting to loose feeling in her limbs.
"It's Timekeeper. A legendary creature. It's... from another time period. It found me, gained an interest..." She wouldn't dare admit why it did, "and has just been coming every night in dreams. At least it didn't do anything to you-"
"So this is a REAL THING that you are SOMEHOW CURSED WITH."
"Yes." It was a sheepish, defeated answer.
"Ok. I don't like it. How do I get it to leave?"
Croissant sighed before speaking, exhausted in every sense of the word. "Don't be interesting. Don't speak, don't move, don't do anything. Don't show it fear, it wants that. Don't comment on it. Don't-" She was crying more with every word, and Butter Pretzel had never seen her like that before. Croissant was always the one without issues- not the one dealing with this behind their backs.
"I've...seen some stuff. It comes at night, rips me open, leaves- does it again the next night. I don't- don't ever want that happening to you, okay?"
Butter Pretzel didn't know what she should be worrying about. The disastrous state of her cousin, broken down by a series of nightmares- or the fact that the thing would come back?
Croissant took a step back. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't get this way." she said, sitting down, her familiar breathing starting yet again.
"It's fine." Butter Pretzel said, hoping she wouldn't regret this. "Stay the night, will you? I don't think it'll come back, and the bed's big enough for the two of us."
"You sure? I can get back home-"
"Stick around. You're here anyway." She tried to seem nonchalant about it, but her concern probably outweighed that.
"Thank you."
That night the two of them stayed together, heads laying against one another, for once ignoring the smell of paint and how often Pretzel's knees were being kicked. A stack of loaves, trying not to think about much, exhausted as all can be.