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

[goodweather]

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! ))

Comments

[saltwaterlungs]

[ When Phil returns from that liminal place between the living and the dead, Darcy eases her guard a little. Now it's her turn, she supposes; it feels like bad luck to visit the memorial and not leave something, her mind turns to superstition to soothe herself just as surely as her peasant ancestors did. Storm clouds into the wild hunt, a bed implying someone sleeping in it.

It takes her a few good long moments to undo the string around her wrist; it stings psychically, to remove the weight that has rested there for so long now. The last time Undine had tied it on was with her teeth, spit cementing it in place, that undercurrent of viciousness the girl always used to have somewhere buried. She knows it'll break the dam on everything she's been putting off. But when the bracelet sits in her hand... the other shoe doesn't fall. The light turning on the cave robs it of its sacred mystery. The terror of opening the box outweighed anything that could be found inside. There is nothing magnificent here, no great romantic wound she has to salt with her tears. It's a few pieces of string tied together by someone who loved her for a while, long ago. And the pain, still omnipresent, is dull as a toothache.

She places the bracelet onto the memorial, next to a couple of other pieces of jewellery, and steps back into line with Phil, surveilling the memorial for any sign of the dead rising back to life again. ]

I wasn't ready.

[ It's all she can think to say. ]

[goodweather]

[ Phil watches her do what she has to do. He thinks a little about about how many of them are left since the last year. How many of them are still here, still leaving reminders in a place where they can see them, leaving them in this place, orderly and untouched, without communication to each other; solemn and understood.

Everyone is just a person. Everyone is in some kind of pain. Everyone, at the bottom of it, wants the same thing.

He thoughtlessly reaches to pull her into his side, a hand rubbing her shoulder. ] We usually aren't.

[saltwaterlungs]

[ She leans into him in turn, resting her head against his arm. She'd shut down entirely when Ruby had told her, had been forced to mourn when they broke up and when she found out about Undine giving her powers up and when they weren't speaking anymore. It was just all pain, all of it, all unending and incomprehensible, insurmountable, inescapable. It was drowning again.

But from this distance, it's... just pain. Like anything. Just grief. She'll shoulder it. She'll survive this. She will keep on living, as she always does, as she's always had to. They'll both lose more people before this is over. Nobody's getting out of life alive.

A silent glance up to Phil's face, and then she rests her hand on his, on her shoulder, wrapping her fingers around it. Holding on. ]