he gives his harness bells a shake [open]

[goodweather]

WHO: Phil, friends, and you
WHEN: Nov 2nd and onwards
WHERE: Around
WHAT: moping about like a loser (November catchall)
WARNINGS: Aftermath of Halloween, contains some references to the carnage



i. the only other sound's the sweep (tauva, night of nov 1st/morning of nov 2nd)

Besides speaking with Erin and Darcy, Phil doesn't leave his room on November 1st. He doesn't answer the door, except for those he knows well enough. Most texts are similarly ignored. He just wants to... sleep is the wrong word. Turn off, maybe. Thankfully there's piles of breakfast outside for him to filch, but even if there wasn't, he doesn't think that the hunger pangs would overpower the exhausting prospect of having to talk to someone.

(And they may well want to, if they see any of him in Photos at Sea. Bloodied and beaten, Maeve standing over his corpse.)

But then it's 2 AM. Normally he's down by midnight, and he's not lacking in fatigue, but sleeping doesn't feel right. Not after what's happened. What, just rest, after all that? Just sleep?

So it's in the night when the owl finally flies his nest, down to Tauva, and pours himself a drink.

ii. of easy wind and downy flake (around, early november)

He's not done sulking, but he's done with doing it in his cabin. After a while it starts getting cramped and stuffy, so instead he'll do it in places like the library or the lounge or the shadows of the pool deck, and hope that he looks dour enough for people to leave him alone. Yes, he wants to be around people, and no, he doesn't want them to talk to him. (Not that he'll turn them away if they do.)

He fills his time with hobbies. Where before he'd just done things for the sake of it, now they're distractions, filling time before he starts doing something stupid, keeping himself from getting too mired in misery. He shreds napkins to pieces as small as he can get them and scatters the bits into the sea like shitty snow. He sits on the deck with an empty stare at the sunset. Sometimes he just lays about.

And sometimes he steals ice cubes from the bars to make tiny ice sculptures, with his minimal ice powers and his newfound talons.

iii. the woods are lovely, dark, and deep (john's, mid november)

Phil had previously been a regular at John's; most evenings, the ship could hear him practicing on its piano for at least an hour, often more. This was unfailing routine for the past four months.

After Halloween, it goes silent. He isn't even at the bar. He isn't there at all.

It's two weeks before he even shows up there again, and he hardly plays when he does; he just dances a single hand around the keys for about a half hour. It takes a bit of adjusting to account for the talons, but he manages.

The second day, Phil seems to be gaining his momentum back. He puts a book on the music stand. It's a slow start, one hand at a time, running the parts slowly, so it goes for about an hour and a half... then he puts both of his hands on the keys and plays.

iv. but i have promises to keep (wildcard)

[ Other things to note: Phil will not be seen flying at all for most of November, not that he did much of that before.

but otherwise? you got something, just hit me! available for plotting here at this journal or you can find me on the discord @ dongpuncher#7741 :] ]

Comments

[millay]

Maeve hates this. With every fiber of her being. She wishes it was different, but it wasn’t. It was this.

Watching Phil, she knows it’s been…bad for him and she can only imagine what happened. The entirety of it. She wishes she did understand. Or that she’d been able to stop it.

“I…” She frowns. “I wish there was anything I could do to make it better. I know there’s…not. It’s just…a bad situation.”

What is there to say? “I…do you still need time? I can…I don’t need to be here.”

[goodweather]

He starts, stops, starts and stops again.

"I..." Fuck.

"I think I do. I'm. Sorry." He looks up, a little bit, but still not at her. "I don't... I still want to be friends. I do. Alright? I'm serious about that. I just..."



A hand covers his mouth, dragged downwards onto his neck. Everything he could think to say, none of it's enough. He can't do this.

[millay]

She can't help the way her gaze drops at that or the feeling like her stomach has plummeted to the ground. Her expression remains neutral only out of practice at this point.

"Of course, darling." She can't begrudge him time. As much time as he needs. Even if it's upsetting to her. It's not like he's doing it on purpose. Emotions are...complex creatures. Even she hasn't fully mastered them. Not the real ones.

"Don't feel poorly, darling. Emotions are...well, you can't help how you feel anymore than anyone else. I can't fault you for that." She doesn't move any closer even though she wants to. To convey how sorry she is. But no. The last time she touched him, she harmed him. Even if it wasn't her, it was still...her. In a way. Physically.

"If...if anything changes, you can text me. Of course. I'll...I'll be around." And I don't sleep at all these days, so it's no inconvenience. But she doesn't say that because she doesn't need to put her own things on him. Expression still carefully curated, Maeve turns around to walk out and it isn't till she gets far enough away that she lets the mask drop.

[goodweather]

Phil's jaw sets when Maeve refers to him as darling, so soft and so uniquely her that it hurts, the firm and inalienable reminder that this is not the person who killed him two weeks ago, but the one who calls him her teacher. It's not fair.

He wants to be able to do this again. He really, really does, but the fact remains that he just can't, and it's not her fault, and it's not fair, but... it is what it is. And it's not fair to Maeve for Phil to try and push himself either, to try and force things where he knows he'll just end up being uncomfortable in her presence and make things worse. There's no need to wedge that in there.

"I'll be around too. I'm... I'm sorry," he says again. What else can he do?

He lets her go.