come_sailaway | last night i dreamed i met myself at a tango [open]

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last night i dreamed i met myself at a tango [open]

Who: Phil and Friends
When: The rest of May
Where: around
Summary: entering his mitski depression era
Warnings: self-neglect, self-harm, starving on some; see specific prompts

i. and i asked my younger self for a dance [meta] (cw: self neglect, accidental self harm, starving)
[ As soon as it's all over, Phil's carefully-curated schedule and structure finally collapses under the weight. This should have happened a while ago, if he's being honest. Like something had smashed on the floor behind him, leaking all over and into his shoes, and he's only now turning around to look at the mess. But there's no helping the deep-seated disappointment he feels in the utter collapse of his self-regulation, the one that took decades to find the ability to put together and maintain, and about a year's worth to tear apart. Yeah, yeah, that year has been full of some real devastation, but... still. Not all of it. He should be better than this, he should.

After the fallout of that whole insanity, he cancels all of his obligations. (They need a break too.) He sleeps for eighteen hours. And then he does the worst thing, and this is how he really knows he's lost it: he doesn't eat for two days. He stays in his room, talking to nobody and doing nothing. Every time he even thinks about approaching the door of his cabin he feels like his gut is full of wet sand, so he just... doesn't. It turns out that no amount of avoiding cutlery or railings is enough to really keep him safe from himself. (God, especially with these fucking talons. He keeps scratching himself by accident right now and it is really not helping things. He's already gone all the way and shredded a pillow and stuffed it into the trash can. He'll... take it out later.)

In Punx, he was never able to starve to death, but there'd be weeks of loops where he just wouldn't bother. It all reset the next morning anyway. Phil hits that familiar point of hunger, and then he hits the point where he isn't hungry anymore, and it doesn't matter enough for him to want to leave.

Not until he stands up and his whole body trembles with the effort, and he thinks, oh, I really need to eat something. ]

ii. but myself didn't have time for me (buffet, night) (cw: light injury)

[ At five in the morning he stumbles from his cabin. Shaky, hurried, sleep-deprived, and uncoordinated, when he kicks the door shut behind him, he's walking before he can notice that it's closed on his feathers and they're wrenched out of him. ]

Fuck, [ he hisses under his breath. ] Ow, fuck. Fuck. Shit.

[ He opens the door and stoops to pick up the broken feathers. Two primaries. They're huge. The neglect of his wings is an open secret by now, but this damage is more visible than anything he's done to himself so far. Even people who aren't familiar with feathers are going to notice. What does he do with these? If he carries them outside then he risks someone seeing him with his own ripped-out feathers in hand and he doesn't want to explain himself to anyone right now. If he just throws it back inside, then next time Darcy throws herself at him, she's going to see, and she's going to kick his ass.

He does eventually leave. He gets to the deck without issue, holding them under a cardigan, and drops them into the sea. (It takes them seven minutes to reach the water.) Then he turns back, wings tucked in tight, and picks blearily through Windjammer. So. That's where he is. ]

iii. didn't have time for anyone so used up (kitchens, any time)

[ If these had gotten here a month ago he probably would've been a lot more thrilled to see this. But half of cooking is cleaning. As it is right now, the idea of going through all the steps to put something together by his own hand is mind-numbingly exhausting, but he's still here to poke through the new oddity here and there. This will make a lot of people happy, he's sure. ]

iv. so she danced alone (deck, any time)

[ You know. Sometimes instead of staring at a wall for two hours, he's staring out over the sea and the sky, perched up on a roof where most people won't be able to get to him. He's up there with his clipboard and his weather instruments and a book, taking readings every half hour. It's something to do that feels even mildly productive without feeling like too much. ]

v. and i sat in a chair, by the wall (cabins, any time)

[ He's also spending a lot of aforementioned time lying about his cabin. You can knock, or send him a message, and he'll... maybe answer. Depends on who you are and how he's feeling on that particular hour. ]

vi. all alone... staring at my phone (wildcard)

(( ooc: got any other ideas? hmu! ))

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[ Now isn't this a familiar sight.

Darcy materializes out of the shadow of dappled moonlight, looking pale and tired and wraith-like as she always does. Hopefully he doesn't get deja vu from their previous conversations up here, as she settles in to sit beside him, her knees tucked up under her chin. ]

I haven't seen around you for a bit. I got worried.

Sorry. I'm not going anywhere, I'm just tired. [ He reaches over to ruffle her hair a bit. ] If you'd texted me, I'd've answered.

[ His voice has less volume; there's a slur to it, like it's swaying on its feet. His scrawl on the clipboard looks as neat as ever. ]

I know.

[ Her eyes shut involuntarily at the hand on her buzzed head, leaning into the contact. ]

Are you okay? Like- tired-tired or...?

[ She's depressed too, Phil, she knows that excuse. ]

[ Of course he knows she knows. He doesn’t have the energy to try and hide anything anymore, anyway. ]

Tired-tired-tired. I mean, always have been, but everything just caught up to me. Didn’t eat for a while, but I have now. I cancelled all my lessons. I think everybody could use the break.

[ He flips the pen through his fingers. Show-off. ]

Did I tell you what I did at the end of March?

I'm glad you ate, [ because she's been there and berating him for it isn't going to help. But the end of March... the only thing she can think of happening then was her Birthday, which she didn't tell anyone about. ]

No, I don't think you did.

It was before the memory cracks closed. I went home, like you did.

[ February 2nd. First remote broadcast, GHD, in Punx, PA. ]

I meant to leave, but I froze, and it closed behind me. Anyway, it’s just like I remembered. Obviously. Still know everything that happens in that place every minute like the back of my hand. I saw all my old friends. I saw Rita. Before we were married. She didn’t know anything about me except that I was an unrepentant jackass, but, you know—I’m more used to that than I am with her remembering what we did the day before.

Other Phil was pretty cool about me being there. My wings and talons disappeared, so I took off my ring to blend in better, but I had to lie to everybody about my eye. I putzed around the whole day, but Other Phil went behind my back to get me to go to the Groundhog Ball with her that night. Slimy bastard. [ There’s no venom in his tone. He shuts his eyes for a second. ] So I did. I basically said goodbye to her and the whole town without saying that to her face, because what was I gonna do, right? Then I woke up back here. It’s really weird to have a memory from two different sides by the way.

Oh.

[ Unexpected, if only because Phil usually seems like he has his shit together enough that it wouldn't be a temptation. Nobody's above it, she supposes. Homesickness afflicts everyone, as the first symptom of having a home somewhere else to begin with. ]

From what you've said about Rita, you'd probably have done the same thing.

[ She scoots a little closer, looking out over the rest of the ship. ]

That's nice though, ehn, that you got to have that.

[ Well. He thinks he might have spent more years of his life inside that day than out, and he has 47 of those. Who could blame him, really. ]

Yeah. Had a bit of a breakdown in the bathroom coming back, but I—you know, I should have had that coming a while ago. I made… three—no, four lives before this one, and now I don’t get to see any of them again. I knew that in October, but I never stopped to think about it. There’s more— [ ~~important~~ ] —immediate things when it feels like someone here is getting murked with evil magic every week.

[ … ]

I saw her. In the crew quarters.

Oh, fuck, Phil- [ Darcy touches at his sleeve, her face creasing in concern. ]

I'm sorry, if I'd known- if you'd told me we could've talked about it. Are you- do you need anything from me?

We’re talking about it now, ehn?

[ When something terrible happened in the family—when you’re the first one to know, there’s a moment between that and when you have to make the calls to everybody else; until you do, there’s a part of you that still gets to live in that “before,” where it didn’t happen.

It’s over now.

His voice goes small. ]

I don’t know. I don’t…

[ Rita, there one moment and gone the next. An empty hourglass. ]

[ She scoots in closer to lean her head against his arm, despairing for Phil losing Rita of course, but reminded anew of how much she's been haunted by her own dead. When she speaks, her voice is quiet too, but sturdy. ]

I think... even if ghosts weren't real in my world... I think the dead would sort of haunt us anyway. Do haunt us anyway. Sometimes I still... I can hear them, not because there's an actual ghost speaking to me, but because I got so used to them that it's like they're still walking paths in my brain. Over and over. That's why we have to have rituals of mourning. Things to keep the dead happy. Or else they make you sick with how much you miss them. Here is worse, too, because sometimes they show up again, and it's like everything just... opens again.

[ Darcy exhales, looking up at him. ]

I haven't even known the people I cared about for that long. I can't imagine what it would be like with Rita. I'm sorry.

That’s what it is, [ he sighs, shaky, gaze still held resolutely towards the ocean. His wing slowly comes over to oull her into his side. ] The house I’ve built in me for everyone I’ve ever known to live in, I’ve set all their beds and their rooms, and they’re never gonna be there but I’ve still, I’ve still got all this empty room. I can’t take it down. I can’t sell their stuff, it’s not mine. I have to go back in and dust. I’ve got all their pictures and they’re not coming home. They all took the keys with them.

[ His hands tighten on the clipboard. ]

She wasn’t wearing a ring.

Fuck.

[ There's a number of reasons why that would be, but Darcy has enough tact around matters of death to not suggest 'maybe she was pulled in from the timeline before she knew you'. She can feel her eyes welling up with tears, briefly abeyed by a soft wing around her. ]

I wish there was anything that could be done.

She’s still out there. Some version somewhere, not here, with me, some version that never knew you. But that’s not here. I’m never… and her, here, in a place like this, in there, I…

[ It’s maybe the most roundabout way of becoming widowed, but he is. The long and short of it is that he is not married any more and it wasn’t their choice.

He still won’t look, but his ribs seize and he’s weeping now. Quiet and shattered and his expression all collapsed. His hand reaches for Darcy’s, searching, clutching, and he’s already gone, but at least… ]

[ Darcy's hand is there when he reaches for it, both of them- his hand dwarfs hers, even as blunt and strong as hers are. Terre Mére back home had described the duty of assisting people in their mourning as like midwifery; all you can do is keep them calm and doing the work on their own, but there's very little anyone on the outside can do. It doesn't feel so detached for her, all tangled up in her own grief and her own loss. Darcy presses his knuckles to her cold cheek, struggling to keep her own tears in. She can't speak to convey her similar feelings about knowing her loved ones had been here at some point. She can barely stop herself from sobbing as she leans into Phil. ]

[ He makes this keening noise, growing and growing into this long, drawn, animal-like wail, and then he takes another breath and does it again, and then it's all sobbing after that, making sounds like a loping thing, an ugly and slavering thing in pain. And it's not loud but it just doesn't stop, this is deep, deep, deep. This isn't just being wounded; it's ripping out the spine to kill, and he's dying.

He hunches over, knuckles to his forehead, hand still clutching hers. ]

[ In the ancient world, people used to hire mourners at funerals to shriek and tear their hair out. Easy to see why now, the howling coming out of him is both impossible to listen to and dislodges something stuck in her craw. It's the unbearable weight of reality, of human mortality, of desperately wanting someone to be there who isn't and can't be. Of a love that craves to overcome absence, that rewrites itself into your cells. She'll never be the same person she was before she lost her ever-increasing list of people, she can't be, she has to carry them with her and in her. One day she'll lose Phil too.

There's no use trying to fend off the sobbing now, clutching at him like they're two parts of the same wounded animal, and they struggle out of her frantic and wheezing, threatening to strangle her. ]

[ Phil clutches for Darcy like she could disappear--rather, knowing that she will, torn away like the last, gone in the wind like Rita. Her and all the rest of them. He doesn't know what will happen to him when he does. Night falls; the rest is all a test of endurance. How many times can he move aside his ribs, his lungs, his stomach, to hold everyone next to his heart?

They sob and they sob and they sob. ]

Edited 2023-05-13 05:27 (UTC)

[ Better to let love destroy them. Better to die a bloody heaving mess than to live forever as stone unyielding. Better to run out of room in one's chest than to close up early. She's never felt more pain in her life on a daily basis, never feared for her loved ones more, never despaired, never wept like this before. But oh, it's worth it, it's worth it for the brief moments sheltered beneath his wings, worth experiencing in more than the abstract desire to protect people, worth suffering all of it. All of it. Even losing him, inevitably. ]

Phil- [ She manages eventually, in a moment when the sobbing eases, saying his name just to know there's someone else there. Let the ghosts of those who want her to be stronger hate her for it. She needs him. Darcy can maintain no illusions around it anymore. She needs him here. ]

[ It's clarifying, the way she says his name, and slowly there's a change. He shifts so she's practically in his lap with the way their knees knock together, and he pulls back just enough to reach up a hand and a thumb to fleck the tears from her eyes. Hardly a useful gesture when there's only more coming, but still. And that hand moves to the back of her neck and he carefully presses their foreheads together. The other is at her back.

He can barely pull himself together, but there is still enough of him there for this. Still there. ]

[ Flayed open. It's the only thing that comes close to describing how it feels. Like she can only rationalize this feeling with her previous encounters with violence, despite how gentle it is beyond all reason. A weapon shouldn't be treated so softly. Darcy should be the one comforting here. The brush of his thumb is warm against cool tears, and as if spurred suddenly into action, Darcy mirrors the gesture, cold thumb to warm tears. The forehead of a corpse to the forehead of someone still impossibly alive. This will kill her where violence has failed. If she loses him, this will kill her. She sniffs, unwilling to separate to wipe at her face with her sleeve, forced to sit there in her mess without withdrawing. ]

[ He heaves shaking breaths, thin supports propped up against that big black weight, and the tears still run, and they're both still so wrecked, but there's a quietude that begins to pass over him as his focus shifts. Dust settling. He lets them both just sit there for a minute. When he's done with that, he scoots in closer, and pulls her in: her chest against his, arms and hands splayed over her back, heads in crooks. Less the desperate grabbing of people falling from a precipice, more those who already hit the ground. He rocks a little. ]

Edited 2023-05-13 06:47 (UTC)

[ Like this, she's pliable enough to just go with how she's moved. She tucks her hands in at her chest, leans her head against his neck, lets him gently rock the two of them, like how the ocean rocks a boat. ]

I love you, [ scarcely loud enough to be heard, said for the first time since he left her in the lobby. A small fact. Something to anchor himself onto. To keep them both afloat. ]

I love you too, [ he says at a volume to match, like it's the easiest thing in the world, and it is. It may be the death of them both.

He doesn't believe much in heaven, but he does believe in this. In them, in a moment that they split like a fruit, two halves for each of them while the juice of it spills over between their teeth. ]

[ Darcy sniffs again, tugging the end of her hoodie sleeve over her hand to wipe at her face with. There's no relief when he says it back, because of everything in her life, Phil is the most certain. There was never any doubt that he did. A shaky breath with the quiet bubbling from her lungs, like all the tears she's held onto pooled up, kept in a perpetual state of drowning in them. More difficult is what she has to say next, and she holds onto his shirt loosely while she says it. ]

You know you're family to me, right?

iv. so she danced alone (evening)

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cw blood, death in the 2nd hyperlink

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