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“Well, Carol’s been busying herself with Asgore…” Rudy said, laughing, but his smile strained when he looked at her.
“And… What does ‘busying herself’ mean?” Toriel asked slowly.
She had not been happy with Carol for a while. She had not been happy with Carol’s involvement with her ex-husband specifically for a while, but for this to have been remarkable enough to mention…
“Sorry, was trying to make a joke… It doesn’t, uh, bother me, but I guess for you…” He winced. “Sorry.”
“Rudy…” She sighed. “I am not upset with you. What did you mean?”
“Well, I hardly know the details, Tori… Just, uh, involved. He told me himself.”
And everything froze as if Carol herself were here. As if she would ever draw herself away from her obsessions to be here anymore than Asgore himself. She did not do that anymore. She’d always been reclusive, but then poor December had… And Toriel had practically stopped seeing her at all. She spent her time indulging Asgore, neglecting her other daughter.
Toriel would not tell her how to act. She would not try to advise a woman she knew would not listen. But something about this latest act felt deeply personal. Because it was alright for Carol to fool around with Asgore despite the current state of her actual husband, but years ago, when it had been them? When it had been her and Carol, when they had been Tori and C beneath those sheets and the pleasure has been because none of it mattered, yes, but it had all been very real. That did not matter, if Carol’s current behaviour was anything to go off of, because she had avoided Toriel like their was some responsibility for the terrible tragedy of what happened to be found there. Within Toriel’s own home.
And poor Rudy! They surely both knew that he was suffering in here. Toriel had always thought Carol many things, but still not truly callous until this. After all the fuss she had made about the perfect safe relationship, this was when she decided to do something reckless?
It was not jealousy. That would be equally wrong. But there was some sort of justified anger. Asgore could do whatever he liked, and she knew better than anyone else that he always would, and perhaps it was good that maybe it meant he was even moving on, but this was the way he was going about it? She was angry at him too, but what was new there.
“Whilst you are in here?” she frowned. “Rudy, truly? That is horrible! Listen, I will give them both a piece of my mind for you.”
Even if she really, truly did not want to. But she would interact with Asgore if it was to protect someone else who needed it. And Carol… She would break through yet if she needed to. Hah, she had always been able to in the past, hadn’t she? Certainly before when Carol had insisted that she hated her. And Toriel had not even been motivated by anger before!
“No, no, Toriel, you don’t… need to do that,” Rudy said, a little sheepishly. “I told C she could do what she liked. I didn’t realise it would be so soon, but… I told her she was free to involve herself with whoever she wished.”
Did that make it better?
“But it is still cruel,” Toriel insisted.
“Nah, it’s just… Just life, right? Good for her, I say. Maybe it’ll help them both out a little.”
Well, perhaps this was not a betrayal to Rudy. But it was to Toriel, because she had never been best friends with Carol as she might have once envisioned, but they had been friends, and she had bared out insecurities to Carol before. Was Carol not taking such advantage of them now, fooling around with Toriel’s ex-husband?
Carol had agreed with the criticisms she had of Asgore, back when they’d still been together! She had always agreed, and yet as soon as everything had started to fall apart, where had she been? Where had she been when it had all become too much, and divorce had been the only sane course of action, no matter how much Toriel knew it would hurt her children? Well, Carol had been with Asgore. Encouraging his delusions. Trying to ‘fix’ things. Was that still what she was doing now?
Toriel would not consider herself a cruel person. She did not like to see the worst in people. Especially Carol, even after everything that had occurred over the past few years. But was this not still one step too far? Was this not the sort of betrayal that one should not ignore?
“I will speak to her anyway. Perhaps it might even give her back some sense in general.”
“Tori, you know how she gets… I wouldn’t make things harder for yourself…”
Toriel chuckled, more bitterly than she’d have liked. “Yes, Rudy, I am aware. She was my friend once, too. That is why it is my duty to talk to her again.”
“Well, I know you get too…” he joked, weakly. “Uh… Good luck, I guess. Don’t take it… too harshly, if C’s not too open to advice right about now?”
“When has she ever been?”
Perhaps once tragedy had arrived, this sort of situation had always been inevitable.
It was New Year’s Eve, and after a few days of planning, Toriel had decided what she was going to say. Once upon a time, dating all the way back to college, Carol had always hosted a party at this time of year. All of the Christmas decorations would be up, and Carol would not-so-secretly be very pleased that no one would be able to say anything about them, given the time of year. Perhaps she had never been one for parties herself, but Carol had always been rather skilled at hosting them.
There was no party this year – for obvious reasons, that was. There had not been one for some matter of years, now. Toriel thought that Carol might have at first tried anyway, the first year after they had lost December, but that had been whilst Carol was still frantic, still stubbornly pragmatic in what, in hindsight, had perhaps simply been optimism on all of their parts.
A party was not being held, but Toriel invited herself to the Holiday house as if there was one all the same. She could call Carol a coward for much of her recent behaviour; she did not believe that to be the case in general, however. Carol was brave, in general, and Carol was so strong, in general, and that had been what Toriel had once admired about her. That confidence and competence were a powerful combination, and despite the anxieties that Toriel had always counted herself as lucky to have been privy to, Carol had moved through life with a cutting sort of efficiency. She’d had a plan. Everything had been falling apart these past few years because this sort of tragedy had never been in Carol’s plans.
Toriel understood all of that perfectly well, and perhaps that was why she was still willing to try to be civil. She understood Carol’s wants, because she did still feel them herself. She missed her son, and she wanted him to return home from university – which he would, when he was able. She wanted to be able to help Kris, but certainly felt unable to, when she could not understand what truly be right to achieve that goal. She had always wanted to keep her family together, even when it was painful to do so. But she would not go to the same excessive extremes as either Asgore or Carol for that. It was just that for all that it felt personal with Carol, especially with these recent developments, Toriel thought she knew her once friend well enough to say that they could not be. As ever, Carol was just doing what she thought she needed to.
She was wrong. She was hurting people because she was wrong, but she could never have intended to target Toriel… Despite the cold, that was not how Carol operated. It did not change the facts of her actions, of course, but until the day that Carol admitted the worse to her, she was obligated to offer still some grace. Despite any personal feelings on the matter.
Carol did not answer the door quickly. Likely, she had not been expecting company. Toriel would not begrudge her for this, either, even as she did begin to regret, just a little, dressing up nicely as if this were still one of Carol’s old New Year’s parties, now shivering slightly in the cold.
And then Carol was scowling already at the sight of Toriel. She was scowling as if they were back in college, and she was pretending to merely tolerate Toriel’s presence, as if there was not some genuine animosity, these days.
“What?” Carol snapped.
“It is New Year’s Eve,” Toriel said.
“And I do not remember inviting you over for that,” Carol continued to scowl. “This is a family affair, Toriel. Leave.”
“I thought you could use some company, and Kris did not want to accompany me,” Toriel explained. She was not certain that she would have brought Kris with here even if they had wanted to come. She did not want them to have to see her yell. “You were always so used to being around people on New Year”s Eve… What is one more visit for old time’s sake, I thought?”
“We haven’t talked in months,” Carol retorted. “I don’t understand what you intend to gain out of this.”
The anger pulsed, warm and firm, but Toriel fought to keep it down for a little longer yet. She was being fair. She was giving Carol a chance because she had never stopped wishing for a chance to be closer to her.
“No one should be alone on New Year’s,” she said. “And I know that you like it.”
“What I would like,” Carol said, eyes growing thinner and colder still yet, “is for you to let me spend my evening in peace.”
Oh, please. Like it was not obvious that Carol had not felt anything close to that in years. Despite the rudeness of it, Toriel pushed closer, right up to the doorway. It was cold outside still, in this dress, and though the Holiday house would not be much better, in that regard, Toriel had such warm memories of it that she did not care.
“This is about my ex-husband,” Toriel stated firmly.
That seemed to give Carol pause, and she shifted in the doorway. “…What about him? I cannot control his behaviour, if that is what you would have me do.”
“Can you not?” Toriel bit out.
“You look ridiculous out there,” Carol relented. “Fine. Come in, but do not touch anything, and do not be too loud. I sent Noelle to bed early.”
Toriel followed her in, through the lounge – decorated for Christmas just the same as ever, practically an exact mirror of whenever the last time Toriel had seen it had been – and into the kitchen, where Carol’s katana loomed ominously unused. There was no fruit cake to slice on ridiculous ways. And there could be no threat that Carol would allow into her own house, right? That was why she had first thought to keep Toriel out. She’d always loved doing that, if it would preserve her plans for her life.
“Happy New Year’s Eve, Carol,” Toriel said.
“Drop the pretences,” Carol scoffed. “You’re here about Asgore? Fine. I assume someone told you something, and you are here to have me clarify.”
“Rudy told me,” she agreed, “but I do not need your clarification, Carol. I am not here to ask you why. I am here to ask you to stop.”
“Then let me ask you why, Toriel. He’s easy. He needs it. I would rather kiss him than let myself feel empty.”
He was easy. And that was likely all that she was telling herself it was. Probably in much the same way she must have thought and said similar about Toriel, all those years ago. She had thought Carol and Rudy would be good together – she always had done – but that did not mean that between that, she had wanted to feel like she could not be good for Carol in his place. They could have been something, she thought. But she had been with Asgore, not thinking about her own future – only Carol’s.
It would not be the same now. Toriel would not be ‘easy’ like her ex-husband, even if she knew very much could be – even if it would get her back her friend for just one night, and, as Carol had said, alleviate that feeling of emptiness. She wanted to make things right; she would not make things worse.
“You are asking why I think that you should stop?” Toriel affirmed.
She could ask, but would she even listen?
“Obviously,” Carol snapped, fishing around for something in her cupboards. “He and I are aligned in goal. It makes him less pathetically lonely, and it… It takes my mind off of things. I don’t see why you should even care. Frankly, it’s none of your business.”
“I am asking you to stop because having sex with my ex-husband whilst your own partner is in hospital is wrong, Carol.”
Carol paused, but only briefly. She brought out a bottle of wine and began to idly pour herself a glass shortly after.
“Do not bring Rudy into this,” she scolded, swirling the liquid around.
“Pour me some, would you?” Toriel asked, staring at the bottle.
“Why would I do that?” Carol laughed, coldly.
“It is New Year’s Eve,” Toriel answered.
And she was all dressed up for a party.
Carol passed her over an identical glass to what she herself was drinking fairly swiftly. Toriel swallowed about a third of it immediately.
“That is still not relevant,” Carol said. She was rather blatantly lying, now. “Stop saying that.”
“I have been upset with you for some time, Carol. You know this. But you must understand that this is where you have really crossed the line,” Toriel reprimanded, feeling emboldened now. “You indulge him over everything. Yet, I remember when you seemed just as frustrated at his behaviour as I was.”
“I never claimed to not find him frustrating,” Carol replied, flippantly. “But if you have such a problem with it, Toriel, where were you when it began? I told you. He is easy. He is easy because he is actually here, because unlike you, he is actually invested in doing something for my family. He has not just forgotten what has happened.”
It was instinct, a long leftover relic of a more carefree time, to reach out for Carol whilst such vitriol was being thrown around. Toriel caught her by the arm.
“I was always prepared to be there for you, Carol. You did not appear to want me.”
“When have I ever appeared to want you!?” Carol barked, something like hysteria settling upon her. She was shaking, under Toriel’s grip. “We were never good friends! We were never together! If you’re upset that I picked him over you, Toriel, then I all I have to say to you is that, sometimes, I suspect me and him are thinking of the same person in the middle of the act. Happy now? Jealous fit over?”
She stared at Carol’s wine glass. Had she been drinking before this? Was that what was making her so clearly looser than usual with her words? Toriel almost could not believe such a swift admission on Carol’s part.
In truth, she had been happy to think that Carol hadn’t ever thought much of their old little dalliances. No one had, really. They’d both had boyfriends, and they were both supposed to already be happy; what could have been beyond what they did was not to be acknowledged. These days, she still was not sure that it had been right, but compared to this… Compared to what Carol had now with Asgore…
It did not make her feel better to hear that Carol still thought of her, because that had never been the issue in the first place. Because despite, the accusation, she was not jealous… This was a matter of morality. This was… for her friend. For Rudy.
“I am not jealous, Carol. I do not…” Toriel took a long, shuddering breath. “I do not care who you are thinking of. If you truly did approve this with Rudy beforehand, then I do not care that it is not with him, even. But… indulging Asgore is too much. You need to let go. You… You had other options!”
“You cannot be serious. This town is filled with people with your mindset, Toriel. What other options?” And then her expression grew frigid with fury. “And how dare you suggest that I ‘let go’. Do you not want everything fixed? Is this not what you are complaining about here, really?”
“I want you to make things actually better! Not slip us right back to where we were!” Toriel argued. “You are just as bad as Asgore if you think the… the incident is what broke me and him apart – what broke us all apart. I fear that we would have always had to divorce, and then Kris would still be unhappy, and… where would returning us to that status quo leave us?”
“Hate him all you want! I have never claimed that you should not! But I do ask that you do not judge my choices here, because those that you are making yourself are hardly better.”
“That does not answer my question, Carol,” she frowned.
“It doesn’t need to,” Carol sniffed. “I don’t care what you think of me now. I told Asgore that I only cared about you because he still does.”
“But you invited me in, and you are still bothering to argue with me…”
Carol was not the sort of person to start needless fights. She was even less so the sort of person to be engaging in conversations that she did not wish to. Would she not have kicked Toriel out already if she was not also getting something out of this? If, despite what she claimed, she still did care about Toriel herself? They had always used to tell each other that neither of them cared. That what they did with each other did not matter. The way that familiar action shaped itself in the present day was obscuring each others’ faces in their minds and pretending that they had always known better about where the other’s life was heading.
Even if she did know that Carol would have arrived at this fine an edge, so very ready to sink, yet still unwilling to as she clawed her way back up onto the iceberg on a false promise of supporting Asgore for her daughter, Toriel would not have been able to stop it. It was simply unfair. There was nobody who could fight that – not even Carol herself.
So the argument, for all the Toriel felt compelled to act as if she knew better than she would have to admit that she did, was not pointless. And clearly, that held true for Carol as well.
“I am not stopping any of what I am doing just because you asked, Toriel, so what do you want? What are you still doing here?”
“I want you to admit that you care! That you do feel bad about doing this to me!” She downed the rest of your glass. “If you do not, then that is fine, and I will leave. You have not listen to me in years, so I will be the bigger person of us both and cut this off.”
“And what if I do?” Carol asked. “Will that ‘forgive’ everything? It won’t return anything to how it should be.”
Because they were not supposed to care for each other, or because that care would not have been enough to prevent the events of the past few years, even in an ideal world?
“It will make me understand. You fund his flower shop? That is fine, because I hardly want him destitute. You keep associating with him? I also do not mind, because I know that he is your friend as well. But enabling that… obsession? Partaking in it yourself? Using him because you are lonely and are keeping all those who would want to help you at arm’s length? Tell me it is because you are still scared.”
One thing Toriel knew was that Carol would not easily admit to being scared. But it was so close to the New Year now, and would that admittance not make for such a wonderful new resolution? Was this not the safest place that Carol could have to admit such a thing! She was within her own home, where she would refuse to be hurt… She was with Toriel, who, despite the anger that she could not deny, would never want to hurt Carol either.
“Don’t accuse me of that.”
“Carol,” she said, sharper than intended, but it cut exactly where it needed to.
Carol pulled out of her grip to deposit her glass on the counter. She stared at Toriel now with clenched fists.
“I am not scared of you.”
“C…” Toriel pleaded.
Carol’s eyes narrowed. “You have always annoyed me, you know that? Asgore too, of course, but you… Fine! I can admit it! It is obvious! I am scared for my daughter because she is missing, Toriel. I would have thought that you would understand that, perfect mother as you are…”
“I am not perfect…” she contended.
“Who cares, at this point? You’re doing the best of any of us.”
She could hardly argue for Carol’s own prowess these days, when she did not agree with her methods.
“I believe that you do care,” Toriel said instead. “Do you hate me for that?”
It was an easy explanation for Carol’s actions. She did not really believe it, but it was just as easy to clutch at as Carol claimed Asgore was to kiss. Toriel had struggled to have enough heart to put into that for years before the divorce.
“I don’t… hate you. I told you – sometimes, when I am especially pitiful… I think of you still. During… the act. It is disgusting, because it should not matter compared to everything else, and I do not especially care who my partner is, at this point, but it is true,” Carol confessed. “If you ask because you hate me, then it was awfully bold of you to dress up like that and come over here.”
“It is New Year’s Eve…” Toriel said again.
“Very soon to be New Year’s itself, actually.”
An awful though filled Toriel’s mind, one that should not have been born of a jealousy that she would still insist that she did not feel, but one that very likely was anyway.
“I doubt that we will be able to come to an agreement about such serious matters as what we have discussed, by then,” she said. “C, how about instead… you allow me to show you a better time than I believe Asgore ever could.”
Carol raised an eyebrow. “That’s what you’re asking now?”
“For the new year,” Toriel replied. “I do not want to have dressed up for nothing.”
“Why did you wear that?” Carol asked, after a stiff moment.
“You used to hold parties, on this night,” Toriel explained simply.
“…You do miss it,” Carol said, before laughing. “Of course you do. Good. It’ll be all the better for when I bring it all back. Now, show me whatever you want then, Toriel. As if this were still a party…”
Something in Toriel’s chest burned at that, because just like Asgore before her, Carol was so very wrong about what she truly wanted… She did not understand… Did that matter though, for just one night? Toriel did not truly understand Carol now, either. Perhaps it was a new fact of current life.
As long as they were both happy, for just this one night… As long as she could enjoy herself without thinking of Asgore, for just this one night, and as long as Carol would not need that pathetic man to do the same, for just this one night…
Toriel deposited her glass on the counter beside Carol’s.
“If that is what you need…” she murmured.
She had not been happy with Carol for a while. One night would not change that, once the new year had officially begun, but until then… Until then, it was not so difficult to pretend that pressed up against her bare body, Carol was not so different from the girl she had wanted to be best friends with.