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

[be_seeing_you]

Number 6 doesn't hold it against Phil, either. How can he when he'd been used in much the same way? That Ava didn't know or suspect the difference very clearly says to him that Phil was still enough of himself not to hurt her.

"They might have overheard my request to you. It might be my fault they used you that way." His voice sounds like a creaking old tree limb groaning in the wind. "But this does us no good. This is what Number 2 wanted, to divide us and drive us from each other with guilt and fear. I refuse to let that be his legacy."

[decohere]

He requested...?

Of course he did. Because 6 was still thinking of her, wanting her taken care of in the case the worst happened to him. Ava swallows heavily, puts a gentle hand to Phil's knee, another on her husband's.

"You didn't hurt me. He tried to use our love for each other against us, tried to make us each other's downfall. But. He's wrong. He's wrong, and he's dead, and he can't take this from us."

[goodweather]

Phil's face is still hidden with how far he's bent over into his own lap, but all the same he drops the hair dryer (it's still going, all the better to cover the noise of his shattered gasping) and grasps for Ava's hand. He clutches hers between both of his, shaking, pressing the grasp into his forehead. And he hates. He hates, despises the way that even though there's no one he could have ever wanted dead more than 2, hearing that he is sends a cold jolt down his spine. That--that is an instinct--no, no, a reflex with a root that needs to be ripped up. That weed in the garden needs to be found and killed. (And yet, he is not dead. He lives if Phil lives.)

And he hates what kind of guest he is, that they should welcome him in and shelter him and comfort him when they both... but. They. They offered. Doesn't he trust them?

... He would be disrespecting them if he didn't. They offered. He has to trust them.

After a while, the weeping slows. His breath evens out.

Muttered under his breath: "Man, fuck that guy."

[be_seeing_you]

Number 6 turns to look at Ava, a small knowing smile on his face. Yes, of course, he did. As if she wouldn't have done the same for him? His hand rests over hers on his knee, fingers fidgeting lightly while he sits quietly, eyes closed, letting Phil's sobs of grief wash over him. It's almost as if some part of him is crying alongside, not physically, but in spirit. The catharsis is just as real.

For once, when Phil utters that curse, he doesn't balk at it, doesn't turn his nose up at the foul language. No, this time...

"Fuck Number 2. And fuck The Village."