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

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

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

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"Do you still?" He speaks at a volume to match, knowing and fearing the point she's making, the spear she's sharpening. "Blame yourself? Hate--hate yourself for an, an impossible situation?"

She hopes, oh, she hopes he sees where she's going. A small cowardly part of herself hopes he'll say it first.

"I have been. Not ... not as much. Not all the time. But ... it comes back, on bad days. Came back."

She swallows.

"Only I think I may have to be done with it now."

His talons fidget very carefully in his lap.

“Done with it,” he repeats. “What made you think so?”

It takes her a long moment to answer.

"You." Bleakly simple. "And Crichton, and Steve. And Ava, at the other end of things. Because I can't look at you all despising yourselves and say yes, it's right and just that you should do that, pray continue. And I think that means I have to try to stop too."

"It's hard though. It's so hard."

Phil is a house for those he loves to live in, and the overgrown ivy, left so untamed it's choking out the garden and gone to crawl in through the kitchen windows, needs to be sheared.

It's so hard, though.

"Tell me about it. I've been in the business of-of it for... as long as I can remember." And Cass knows that that is very long. "I haven't been able to really shake it even once. It comes and goes. And y-you just keep finding new reasons once you let the old ones go."

... He should tell her.

"Cass--Lady Cassandra, I... the week I disappeared wasn't the first time they sent me to the hospital. They got me early. Day 3, or 4, or something, I just--" his hands grip themselves tightly, "--I don't--when I went to, to the Dome with Darcy, I wasn't just breaking in. I was already 'convinced.'"

Edited 2023-12-29 01:16 (UTC)

There's a look of realization -- not shock, barely even surprise -- that melts swiftly into grieving understanding. Oh. Oh, my dear one.

"You brought her there under orders."

He stares at her.

"My fault," he repeats.

"No," she says, not loudly but with great intensity. "Master Connors, no, it was not. It wasn't even an error in judgment. You were made to."

Made to. He felt so in his own head. He felt intact, that he was in control, aware of himself, no less absolute and present than he was any other day, and most of all his love for Darcy was all still there. Everything made sense. Maybe that's the issue, that it never even felt forced.

It wasn't even an error in judgment. You were made to.

Phil looks away. Add this to the ever-growing list of things he gets to say he's been: he was used.

He feels rotten. Not just bad, but like bits of him inside have gone sour and dead, leaking into everything that's still healthy. He hopes that's still just metaphor.

...

"Can I ask a favor of you?"

He's looking away; she can't just nod.

Softly: "Name it."

"Order me to remember what you just said."

Her indrawn breath catches on something, sounding like a dry hiccuping sob.

But her voice is clear and steady when she says "Master Connors, by the word you gave my father, I order you to remember what I said to you."

Phil exhales like he’d been holding his breath, and inhales like he might sob. His hands grip each other tight.

“Lady Cassandra de Rolo,” he says, voice unsteady, “I’ll make every effort to fulfill this task. It will be done.”

Over and over in his head he repeats it. Again, again, holding onto each word, because it’s an order, because he has to.

Later he will write and write it until water bleeds and runs the ink of his pen on the paper. For now, he sits in front of Cass and murmurs, “Thank you.”

She holds out a hand, silently asking him to take it.

"If you ever need me to remind you," she says. "Or if you ever think I need to be reminded of something similar. Please tell me."

He takes it in both. His hands feel cold.

"Well--" he coughs, then there's an airy sound that might be a laugh. "I'd like you to not blame yourself for--not finding me before the Dome. Just unlucky. I don't doubt someone would've eventually. It wouldn't have been pretty anyway." A breath. "Thank--thank you. For trying."

She adds her other hand to the clasp. Her fingers are cold too.

"I wish I had," she says softly. "Found you earlier. But I ... I know it isn't my fault I didn't. I do know that."

“Good,” he nods, “good.”

There’s something like a shudder that runs through him. Something nearly imperceptible has eased. The thin white light from his Mantle shifts; he looks just a little less ill than he did before.

He looks up. “And you, you… said you got sent to the hospital too—did they hurt you? Are…?”

"They didn't hurt me in the hospital. I'd injured my arm to get in there, and they gave me something to make me sleep while they fixed it."

(It's occurred to her to wonder just how they fixed it, so very thoroughly, without even scarring. Then again, she's familiar with magics that can do that, so ...)

"And then Number Two spoke to me, and ... I made my attempt at convincing him that I was there to sign on to his side. And he played along for a few sentences, and then dropped the pretense and told me he wasn't fooled."

Her hands tighten on Phil's, this time less to comfort him and more to steady herself.

"I'm very lucky, I suppose, that he didn't keep it up longer. Allow me to think I'd fooled him, and wait for me to show my hand."

Phil breathes out, a strained sort of sound. "I think so. He was probably just a little too prideful t-to let you leave that thinking you'd tricked him. That kind of man who can't--sort of--can't wait to prove you wrong and prove that he holds power. A petty sort of coward."

Cassandra knows perfectly well what kind of men Phil regards as cowards and what he thinks of them. He'd called Anders one, too.

"That kind of man," she sighs in agreement. "Petty, prideful, and no sense of patience."

It's not a pleasant thought, but it's one she's had more than once in the past: the Briarwoods would laugh this upstart to scorn.

(And even Anders died with more dignity than 2 managed, in the end.)

"Yeah," he mutters, nodding, gaze drifting. "Yeah."

...

"You, uh--you probably have a better--um. What. What day is it? Do you know?"

"They tell me it's December the 24th. I think that means we were gone for ... about three weeks."

Cassandra has, of course, no particular awareness of any significance with that date; she barely remembers the local names of the months, half the time.

Phil blinks. "Shit," he mutters, dragging a hand over his face, "that's it? It's still December?"

Beat.

"24th--that's--" the breeze of his Mantle suddenly flash-freezes, "--oh, no. Hey, uh... I don't--think I'll be available tonight or tomorrow, um--I'm gonna see about sticking close to Darcy then. And I know you guys don't really get along. So."

For just a flicker her eyes are wide and blank in startled dismay, barely visible before she pulls her expression into something more disciplined.

"Of course," she says at once, "pray don't give it another thought. Is it a, a significant day for them?"

"It's Christmas. Which is a major holiday for a lot of Earthers, but it's also--it's." Takes a breath. "That's when the trial was last year."

You know. The one where a bunch of them got murdered in the night, including Darcy, and they had to have a whole goddamn song and dance about it. (If Cassandra's memory is excellent enough, she might remember that it was Phil who reported on their body.)

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not_the_last - 2024-01-09 04:59 (UTC) - Expand

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