Phil Connors (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
goodweather) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
come_sailaway2023-12-23 10:31 pm
goodweather) wrote in come_sailaway2023-12-23 10:31 pm
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)
ii. and marvel at it [texts]
iii. you don't need to justify that [atrium] (closed to venom)
iv. or earn it [john's]
v. you are allowed to just live [around] (cw: compulsivity)
vi. that is all most animals do [bobby b's]
vii. wildcard
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! ))
cw Everything village; imprisonment, medical abuse, forced amputation, drugging, patricide, etc.
All of it is there. Every memory of the Village. The breakfast, 2's stupid little entrance, the first time he was captured and the white padded room and Darcy screaming, and the thinning of his barrier between what's real and what isn't; being brainwashed, being released to spy on his friends; coaxing Darcy to the Dome, and both of them getting captured, and the endless endless endless endless looping re-amputating of his wings, and the months he spent lying in blood and stitches and pain pain pain pain. Struggling against the nurses and doctors who'd tie him down to the operating table, then fighting them in other loops, killing a few if he got lucky, screaming in fury and desperation and waiting for someone to find him somehow if he was just loud enough; a constant constant constant wish for the symbiote, the possibilities that open if he were just a little stronger. The needles, the hallucinations. So sick he couldn't eat. Giving up. The things they'd say to him--that flight was a privilege and his was revoked; he doesn't deserve his wings; that they'll only get him in more trouble; that he didn't want them annyway, so they're doing him a favor. They told him they'd give him painkillers if he behaved and then when he said he would they kept "forgetting" until he really could not fight anymore, until he stopped fighting at all from the start of the two-three-four-six day cycle until the end. Losing all track of time; every room was windowless. Brainwashed for the third time. And then the Dome. And Darcy having mercy on him. Making him whole again. The only thing missing is a giant void where his second brainwashing was supposed to be.
In the debris of the catastrophe, that white flash again. Willingness to kill.
CW: nonconsensual asexual reproduction(?)
A memory spills out of it in response, dropped when it sees the wings severed. The white lab, the glass container, the sample collectors. Alone, stolen. Chemically induced reproduction, five seeds, extracted from it. Artificial spawn, hostile.
It writhes in his mind, choking on his basement floor. It attempts to keep the its reaction contained to itself. If it lashed out, it would do it with Phil’s talons, Phil’s teeth. This outcome is inadvisable.
no subject
Alone. Stolen. Trapped in white labs and poked and prodded and—
2 never broke his ability of restraint, not really, could never bend what was stone, but he did break his desire to in certain places. Phil feels himself—themselves tense, their talons flex, and. And he doesn’t want to hold back anymore. He can’t always be toothless and approachable. Sometimes people need to feel like if they even touched them, they’ll get their necks snapped.
They’re not very far from it. A vision: the dummy on the sports deck will take anything they throw at it. Safe to lash out. Safe to breathe, together.
no subject
In a corner of its own mind, it thinks of web swinging. It missed web swinging, missed the thrill and freedom of moving through the skyline like that. But this flight, the sensation of wind under wing... it scratches an itch.
no subject
The only dissatisfaction is that nothing truly gives way under their onslaught. But that's just as well. This, this is safe. Nobody has to get hurt and nothing has to break. Venom grips the dummy's neck in between their seething fangs, digs their hands into the shoulders, and pulls as hard as they can, halfway between a roar and a growl. The shame of the world is that sometimes people die before they can receive all of the wrath they had coming to them.
The tide ebbs. The fire burns down. When, finally, the stress and adrenaline has burned into something manageable, they sit with its arm still in their mouth, teeth grinding back and forth over it. This is normal behavior. They're fine.
no subject
It sits in the kitchen of Phil's house, content, ready to help with the rest of the repairs.
no subject
... Although.
no subject