you keep asking why your work is not enough [open]

[goodweather]

Who: Phil & friends
What: Village aftermath. Oh Brother
When: dec 24th through the rest
Where: infirmary, john's, bobby b's, others
Warnings: for the first header, village-typical horror; namely forced amputation and medical abuse, drugging, blood, discussion of patricide



i. because it is enough to exist in the world [infirmary, closed to darcy] (cw: blood, probably discussion of patricide, drugging, forced amputation, medical abuses)

Phil heaves awake in a cot in a medical room. The pain is gone; a frantic grabbing reveals that his wings are back, heavy and solid, and he is in a medical room sitting in a cot, and there is still a badge on him, and he is in a medical room sitting in a cot with his wings still intact, and it doesn't matter that blood coats his neck and all the back of his head because all he can think is oh God not again, please not again, not again, not again, not again, not again.

When Darcy finds him, he's staring down at his lap, breath coming deep and fast and about two inches from outright dry heaving, gripping the sheets.

ii. and marvel at it [texts]

Texts go out to those he knows. Ava, Tayrey, Cass, Erin, Dimitri too; anyone close enough to him he can think of, on or off the excursion.

Alright?

iii. you don't need to justify that [atrium] (closed to venom)

He needs to find it. Needs to be with his friend again, needs to feel its comfort and its strength around him again, so bodily and intrinsic as it was, and he needs to feel a comfort deeper than kind words and a firm hug. He needs to know that he's safe. He isn't safe on his own.

As soon as there's time, he rushes into the atrium, the most open crossroads-point on the ship, and tries to listen for it.

iv. or earn it [john's]

For all that talk about the orchestra in the Village, he hasn't actually seen or touched a piano in a month. He's got to be so rusty by now.

He tries to slip back into it, but something in his head is all wrong; the notes are just fine, sure, if a little rough, but the colors, the musicality, it's gone. That's fine, he tells himself. Nothing a bit of practicing and relistening to his betters won't fix. Practice always fixes things. If you work at it long enough, mind the right techniques, it will happen. Has to happen.

He practices. Practices for hours. It's not pretty, but it's work, good work. He missed good work.

v. you are allowed to just live [around] (cw: compulsivity)

Phil and Darcy cannot be found without the other for all of Christmas Eve and into Christmas proper.

After that, though, he wanders, attempts to fall back into his routine. He reads, in the library or in a seat beneath the signposts; takes his coffee from Sand Dollars; eats decent food from the buffet like he hasn't had a full stomach in months; attempts to draw, sometimes. And preens.

... Preens a lot, actually. Too much. It borders on compulsive, how much and how aggressively he goes at it sometimes, leaving his feathers ragged and torn. Complete opposite of what he's supposed to be doing but he can't seem to stop. He can't stop touching his wings, always digging his fingers through the quills, feeling that they're there at all and there's no pain that wasn't his fault. Over and over. Real, there, real. Staying. Every mark he leaves, every barb he breaks, every quill he accidentally pulls out or snaps--his actions have consequences and they stay. Good. Good.

vi. that is all most animals do [bobby b's]

More than once, Phil drags himself into the cigar and whiskey bar. Heaves over to the counter to order a drink, slogs into a chair to cut a cigar, and just.

Sits. Stares at the same spot on the wall for the next hour until he's done.

vii. wildcard

(( got other ideas? lmk! ))

Comments

[goodweather]

Join the club. What do I have to show for the loop except a lousy million years between me and everybody I knew? I should be looking like I stood in front of a box grater.

It was real though. If you felt it, if you remember it, it was real. Or at least, it still matters, evidence or not. I didn't have any. Who's gonna tell me that a couple decades lost between seconds wasn't real?

[astrogator]

I'm sorry.

It wasn't real, though. Burned skin doesn't just go back to normal overnight without treatment. Where I'm from the technology exists to make people feel real pain during a simulation. Theoretically. We don't use it for all the obvious reasons. Looks like some people aren't so ethical.

But sure. It doesn't mean that it doesn't matter.

[goodweather]

It's all ~* magic, *~ Lieutenant. The oh-so-mysterious force that does whatever the hell it wants. [ This is the first time he's ever typed like that. Call it a special occasion so that Tayrey knows exactly how he feels about it. ]

Resurrection in this place is almost always the same: the person returns to whatever state they were in when they arrived. I'm a lucky exception, but people have gotten scars and tattoos on this ship, and then had them vanish like they weren't there when they get killed and come back. Darcy's hair keeps going long like it was when they first got here whenever they revive. Besides, isn't your number badge somewhere? I still had mine.

If anyone ever tells me that this stuff didn't matter because it "wasn't real" I'm hitting them with a pool chair and you should too.

[ So much for Spring. ]

[astrogator]

[Well it's been a while since Ari Tayrey got angry over 'magic' but here we are]

I did not fucking die.

And I don't believe in magic.

Come hit me with a pool chair if you want. I won't even call initiation of aggression. At least it'd be real.

cw suicide reference and gore

[goodweather]

/I/ died. I've died a million times. Not just here.

[ Some angry, petty, bitter part of him almost wants to start laying what it's like out in detail, but he's not going to do that. But God is he tempted. He's tired. He's so, so tired. And no one gets to tell him that all of his pain, all of his hurt, all the times he took the short way down was fake. No one gets to say, "oh, you didn't actually do that." That's no comfort to him, it's a dismissal. Of his experiences, of Darcy's sacrifice, who took the plunge to take him out with his throat in their teeth. ]

I wasn't born with wings, Lieutenant. I woke up one morning three years ago and they were there. All the bones and all the feathers and all the muscles. I opened a box in Sundries and I blinked and got bird talons and scales growing out of my fingers. I don't know what the hell to call that, and I don't care. You can spend all your energy arguing, but I'm old and tired.

[ A pause to think. He's getting heated. He needs to say something else. The boon of texting is having time to write. ]

I'm sorry. Calling the things I've felt "not real" feels like I'm being dismissed. I have thirty, seventy years on me that can be either "not real" or just invisible to others. I don't want fake, I want invisible.

There's something we have called Clarke's Third Law. "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." Sure, the skeletons, the Mantles, the wings, the people going invisible and turning into shadows, people still standing up to chase someone down after getting a giant hole stabbed through their gut, maybe it's all tech. Just some damn illusion. I'm too old to give myself that kind of headache. Call the Village whatever you want. I'm just going to be thinking something different.

[astrogator]

[It might be an insurmountable difference. Arilanna Tayrey has never died, and the way she survives is by reminding herself that however strange or inexplicable or downright terrifying some of the people around her or the things that happen to her are, she's still herself. Still Tradeline Tayrey, a real living person with a real valuable life that she's going to go back to. Not her captor's toy.

The only way she had been able to even begin to process what happened to her outside the labyrinth was to remind herself that none of it really happened. That nobody actually rendered her completely helpless and stripped her of her uniform and trapped her in that room without her even being aware that something was wrong. Without even the most token ineffectual attempt to fight back. Utter powerlessness.

It wasn't real.
This wasn't real.
It helps.

She catches Phil's anger, but at least that's something familiar, something she knows what to do with. How to hold. All sorts of people have tried to defend the 'magic' label to her, some more successfully than others, and it's easy to tune out the objections. The rest? You don't pass for lieutenant at sixteen standard years and not learn how to be unfazed by someone stressing their advanced age at you. If that's all they have, nothing to worry about. She focuses on that, and doesn't let herself type until all the initial retorts have passed through her mind and been dismissed.

The actual response is a very considered:]

You wanted a status report and you have one. I think we'll both agree that I'm not in a fit state for productive messaging, and in the interest of peace and professionalism I should probably put my communicator away for now.

Talk again when we've got equilibrium back?

[goodweather]

[ Frankly, his age is less a point about any kind of authority (he took forty years to make a single friend, what kind of "authority" does he have) and more about the followup: I'm so tired. ]

Yes. You're right and I apologize. We're both not fit for much of anything right now. I'd be surprised if we were.

And yes, I'd still like to speak later. I want to do what I can to help out.

If nothing else: are you familiar with Earth teas? There's some in the cafe. Chamomile's good for stress.

[astrogator]

There's no need to apologize. You're allowed to think and write whatever you want, whether I agree or not. Back home we'd say the freedoms we protect include the freedom for people to say how much they hate the Tradelines. Honestly, no harm done.

I'm going to stay in my cabin until I'm ready for company again, which might be a while, but I'll look for that tea someday. For now I have enough provisions.

I know trying to talk you out of helping people is a lost cause but someone told me an Earther saying once. Put on your own oxygen tank first? Take care of yourself too.

[goodweather]

[ That’s very… no, generous is the wrong word to use. Kind? … Magnanimous?????? What’s gonna make sense to her… ]

That’s very fair of you. Thank you.

All right. Keep safe. You always know where to find me if you need me.

And believe it or not, helping others is part of how I help myself. I like knowing that the people around me are being supported.

[ It is very much a lost cause. Sorry, Tayrey. ]

[astrogator]

[Fair, yes. She'll accept that. Appreciate it. Of course what it really amounts to is an angry, sweary, hurt individual remembering herself and where she is and switching back to Proper Tradeliner mode. But this is Tayrey. That's a good sign.]

You're welcome. Same to you.

Make sure you've got support too is all I'm saying.

[goodweather]

You too.

Safe skies, Lieutenant.

several days later

[astrogator]

I'm going to apologize.
I told you I was angry and I should have stopped right there. Some of what I wrote wasn't too polite in Company Standard, so if it translated that way, I'm sorry.

[She's sorry for the anger and the swearing because someone in her position should do better - but not for what she believes, and not for the limits of the sympathy she has for people who volunteer for horrendous things to happen to them.]

I'm not angry now. I don't know if he benefits from anger the way he does from pure distress, but I shut it down anyway. Not taking that chance.

[goodweather]

I don't think you did any wrong by me, but forgiven anyway. I apologize too. I got frustrated and wordy. Which doesn't usually help.

[ ... Near as he can tell, any emotion is there for harvest, same as Erin and her Glamour, but that's not exactly a productive line of conversation when Ari just wants to starve out the Captain's resources. ]

I still don't think I'm in any good shape. I'll still be on patrol and I'm there if you need an extra pair of hands but otherwise I'm down for the count.

[astrogator]

[Ari suspects that too, which is why she's learned to detach and dissociate and not feel much at all, most of the time. She's so good at shutting down, in fact, that nobody can get a read on her. That she doesn't even give off any Glamour. Pride had made her want to hide her pain, hide how much being here hurt her every single day - and now that she can stop the pain by not feeling at all, she's lost interest in hiding it. In case her silence made people think any of this was somehow acceptable to her.]

Sometimes it helps, writing it down. Anyway, we're all patched up. No trouble.

I'm not going to be on patrol myself. I told Citizen Dimitri I'm not up to it any longer. I'll probably fill in when people volunteer for the next round of torture, but I'm not doing it routinely.

[goodweather]

Reasonable enough. We'll rearrange the shifts. I know next month I'm staying behind if there's anything off-ship.

[ He wonders if this is a branch of self-isolation, not just losing the willingness to do it, but. Honestly. The unfortunate circumstance is that he just does not have it in him right now to pry into that kind of thing with someone he cares for, but who requires more tact than he can afford at the moment to not accidentally blow something up in their relationship. More than he already has, anyway.

... ]

[astrogator]

[Of course it is, but self-isolation in rough times is normal for her and not even the most tactful people have been able to change it, so good call, Phil.]

I appreciate your understanding.
I'm glad you're staying back next time, too

[goodweather]

[ She left out a period there. ... (People keep showing how much they really care, and it's so much, and he really doesn't know how to feel about it. It's a good thing, but... he'll never get used to it.) ]

I've had enough. At least for a while.

[ He is so, so tired. ]

At least I signed up for it though. [ Even if they've never had something so exacting and so protracted before. So sheerly targeted. Before, any torment was done with all the grace and specificity of a shrapnel grenade. This was... ] You didn't. I'm sorry.