goodweather: (29)
Phil Connors ([personal profile] goodweather) wrote in [community profile] come_sailaway2023-05-12 02:57 am

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! ))
saltwaterlungs: (Sargasso Sea)

[personal profile] saltwaterlungs 2023-05-13 04:10 am (UTC)(link)
[ 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.
]
saltwaterlungs: (Default)

[personal profile] saltwaterlungs 2023-05-13 05:37 am (UTC)(link)
[ 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. ]
saltwaterlungs: (Yearning)

[personal profile] saltwaterlungs 2023-05-13 06:15 am (UTC)(link)
[ 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. ]
saltwaterlungs: (Weddell Sea)

[personal profile] saltwaterlungs 2023-05-13 07:00 am (UTC)(link)
[ 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. ]
saltwaterlungs: (Default)

[personal profile] saltwaterlungs 2023-05-13 08:02 am (UTC)(link)
[ 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?
saltwaterlungs: (Coral Sea)

[personal profile] saltwaterlungs 2023-05-13 09:52 am (UTC)(link)
Well. Surprise. You are.

[ Said with a certainty that implies pretty strongly that he doesn't get a say in it. Darcy overcompensating confidence when feeling insecure about something, a combination that goes together like bread and butter. ]

I know you said like- that it's a different relationship and all. But you mean a lot to me.
saltwaterlungs: (Weddell Sea)

[personal profile] saltwaterlungs 2023-05-14 12:20 am (UTC)(link)
[ Sometimes a sentiment must be worn plainly. Darcy's too worn out for games or minced words.

On some level she knows that the 'angel' who visited her was Phil. Even in her addlement on that night, she knows. The rest of her life doesn't make sense if she'd received such kindness when she'd died, even now it feels strange trying to square the circle of her loathing of humanity with what he'd said.

Faith might require proof, but it's also a sort of absurdity in itself. That Phil might have been himself and also speaking for something greater unknowingly, that's not too far to stretch from her own beliefs. It's still meaningful, even if it's not true. It's something to hold onto, like old familiar words and beads worn smooth. And there is still nowhere she feels safer than wrapped up in his wings. Phil feels safe. Not just unthreatening, but actively protecting. Is this what it feels to feel certain? To have a soft place to land?

She shifts a little, reaching a hand to carefully stroke his feathers with the back of her fingers.
]

Did you have dinner? I was going to make something, like, for myself. In a bit. If you wanted, or anything.
saltwaterlungs: (Profile)

[personal profile] saltwaterlungs 2023-05-14 05:51 am (UTC)(link)
[ Darcy's sure not going anywhere. She heaves a sigh, settling in like a cat in a lap, continuing to lightly pet his wings. They're more powdery than she ever expected a bird's wings to be. But then, the shimmer of a magpie's wings always seemed to be more light than substance when she watched them on the roof of the basilica, and Phil's wings are solid as the rest of him.

What else is there to say? Speaking plainly wrings out all that needs to be said, leaving only a comfortable silence, still damp with meaning. She's not going anywhere. She's not going anywhere.
]
saltwaterlungs: (Chinhand)

[personal profile] saltwaterlungs 2023-05-15 08:19 am (UTC)(link)
I have to know how she got attacked by a seagull on the bottom of her shoe. Was she trying to kick a seagull?

[ Have you ever tried to punch a bird?

Darcy fidgets with one of the rings she's wearing- she's not bringing anything to the memorial this time, unwilling as she is to let go of any of the traces of her loved ones just yet. She presses the pad of her thumb into the teeth of one of the tiger-themed rings, knowing already that it's too blunt to draw blood.
]

They're nice boots. She has good taste.
saltwaterlungs: (Weddell Sea)

[personal profile] saltwaterlungs 2023-05-15 10:58 am (UTC)(link)
[ Huh. Rita Connors, the sort of woman who kicks a seagull. Badass. Darcy nods in clear approval, wishing once more that Rita... well, in the same way as many people, both that she was here and not here. Darcy would've loved to meet her. ]

What was it... feel free to tell me to fuck off, if this is too personal. But... what was it like falling for her in the loop? With her not remembering you and everything.
saltwaterlungs: (Maybe not)

[personal profile] saltwaterlungs 2023-05-16 05:57 am (UTC)(link)
[ Darcy smiles faintly at the story, remembering the tilt-a-whirl and her own encounter with shitheel Phil. There's something courtly about falling for someone and choosing to better yourself instead of just pursuing them, choosing to make them happy for the sake of it rather than any reward. ]

You know, even meeting you back then it's still like... hard for me to put together that he and you are the same person. Were. You know what I mean. Must've looked weird from the outside, ehn, one day you're like that and the next you're you now.

[ They're almost at the memorial by now, and Darcy knocks her wrist against her hip, shifting Undine's bracelet on her wrist. Oh, right, sometimes she even forgets she's still wearing it.

...
]

Are you meant to remember the bad parts, too, when you lose someone you were... [ She's meant to be the expert on death here, ] nevermind. Just thinking out loud.
saltwaterlungs: (Black Sea)

[personal profile] saltwaterlungs 2023-05-16 08:07 am (UTC)(link)
Yeah. Tell me about it.

[ It feels like a mess on her end, and she hasn't even been at it for decades yet.

It felt like a stupid question, but Phil has a way of making any question not seem stupid in how he answers it. She actually turns her head to look at him, both confused and curious, to ask-
]

You told her about it? And she like... stayed with you, after?

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