IC INBOX ( SAIL )

[goodweather]

TEXT ‎‏‏‎ ☀ ‎‏‏‎ DELIVERY ‎‏‏‎ ❄ ‎‏‏‎ ACTION

cabin: 137

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[not_the_last]

I'm quite close to your cabin now, if you'd care to just step out?

[goodweather]

Sure I can do that

Startlingly nearby, but he can rock with that, yeah, yeah--he already did the hard part, peeling himself off of his desk and straightening out and all, so this is fine.

Phil slips out of his room, door clicking behind as he glances about for her.

[not_the_last]

She's coming down the hallway; her steps slow unconsciously as she sees him, then pick up again.

"Master Connors. I, I don't know how well this will work, I came across it in the infirmary ..."

Holding out, as she speaks, a little round red-and-gold tin with an image of a tiger on the lid.

[goodweather]

Phil blinks. He picks it up and turns it in his hand; takes out and puts on his reading glasses to squint at the itty bitty labels, shutting his blind eye.

"... Oh! O-oh, I know what this is. I've never used it myself, but all of my Asian friends swear by it. Er, that's, uh, Asia's a continent on Earth--although I'm referring to the Southern, Eastern, and Southeastern parts, mostly. Point is that it's very culturally different from where I'm f-from. You said this was in the infirmary? Huh."

He rolls the jar between his fingers. "Gonna be a hell of a thing to reach around and put it on when my back is hurting, but I think I'll manage."

[not_the_last]

His manner is so ... easy. As though there's been no trouble between them, or as though he's forgotten it.

For her part, she feels unhappily constrained, not knowing what to say or how.

"I -- is it something that someone could ... help you with, perhaps?"

[goodweather]

It may have something to do with the date. Or an upcoming one, rather.

“No, no… no. I don’t want anyone’s hands on me. I’ve, uh, had more than enough of that.” A chuckle like it got knocked loose and fell out on accident. “Um…”

He springs up a bit, looking at her square. “This is very sweet. Thank—you. For this.”

[not_the_last]

She doesn't flinch at the reminder of what he's been through, at least not outwardly.

(But oh, she understands the feeling of not wanting to hold still under anyone else's hands. Erin has helped with that, but not completely eliminated it.)

"I wish I could do more," she says. "Truly. If I should come across anything else that might be of use ..."

[goodweather]

"I understand. Yes, I... I don't--know how much can really be done, but this'll help, I'm sure. At least to take the edge off for a while. Anything's an improvement." A weak huff. "Anything to, to spite that bastard and what he said to me."

[not_the_last]

Something prickles down her spine, not so much dread as a foretaste of cold stale rage.

"... What did he say?"

[goodweather]

Renewed uneasiness flashes across his face as his focus shifts onto those memories, that long haze of pain. He skips across the surface, not wanting to sift and dwell on any details.

"Hah--what didn't he say. Plenty, he said plenty." Shakes his head. "The big one that he and all of his, like, hospital goons would tell me, though--wouldn't ever let me forget it, of course not. That man was extremely angry that I showed up to his window."

His fingers fidget, seeking purchase. They're brushing dangerously close to the fire, but Cassandra--she asked, and Phil makes a point of honesty. "You know what he told me? He said my w-wings, my flight, it was all a--privilege he was taking away. Especially because I was never supposed to have them in the first place."

[not_the_last]

The rage, when it comes, is cold but not stale; it blows through her like a blizzard wind, driving needles of ice before it.

"That vicious little vermin," she hears herself say, her voice shaking. "Oh, how dare he."

[goodweather]

Cassandra’s rage is cold, and Phil’s Mantle grows heavy with chill, but his blood begins to warm like the sparking of a stove. There’s a frantic edge to his expression, his voice.

“Ehn. Isn’t he. And—i-it’s not. Right? He tried. He’s still trying, I—”

Stops. Phil turns away, a hand at his jaw.

[not_the_last]

The chill of his Mantle almost feels good. Almost like home.

The way he breaks off, and the words he says right before it, feel like her heart has clenched like a fist in her chest.

Cassandra swallows hard, and works so fiercely to keep any wrong note out of her voice that there's almost none at all when she says it: "Still?"

[goodweather]

A long silence.

"I don't know if you want me to keep talking."

[not_the_last]

I wish --

"If you want to talk," she says, barely over a whisper, "then I want you to keep talking."

cw sideways suicidal ideation

[goodweather]

...

"T-the flares, they've... gotta be from him. What he did. It wasn't an issue before. I can't, I... I can't fly when it's bad. Or technically I guess I can, but it's s-still... you know, if they say you'll never die as long as your memory persists, you know, that works for people we don't like too--he's not dead, he'll never die, he l--he lives. In my skin. My mouth."

...

"And I want to kill him."

His warm breath steams in the cold air.

[not_the_last]

For a horrible moment, when he begins talking, she thinks he means that Number 2 is still alive somewhere and sending these flares of pain, somehow. One kind of horrifying prospect if that isn't true; another kind if it is.

He continues, and the momentary horror collapses into one much more drearily familiar.

I don't know if I'll ever believe she's really gone.

"Are you ..." She swallows again, tastes that tang in the air that should mean snow on the way. "I don't know exactly how to ask this. Is it his memory you want to kill, or ... to somehow have him alive again so you could kill him? Or something else?"

[goodweather]

Phil shrinks in on himself then. He--should. Say something. Be honest. But God, look at Cassandra, both so young and so god damn weary already, but, but--silence like this never helped anyone. Not ever. But there has to be someone else he can talk to. Who? Who?

(Fucking look at him. It's pathetic. He's supposed to be the adult in the room and he can't even manage that with a century and change on her. What was the point of any of his "self-improvement" then?)

His breath seizes. Phil's expression collapses into some kind of horror; he turns away, banging his head into the wall and pressing his hands over his face.

[not_the_last]

"Master Connors --"

She reaches out with both hands but (I don’t want anyone’s hands on me) pulls back short of touching him.

"Please, you -- you don't have to answer anything you don't want to. My word on it."

[goodweather]

Who does he tell and who does he hide from? He doesn’t know anymore. Darcy would throttle him for keeping anything from her and yet it’s proven twice over that he can’t show the whole of his affairs even secondhand, even just in words. He sifts through his memory of people he knows and people who remain and nothing comes up.

… Except Fever. But what a terrible burden for a single person. No matter what she’s weathered from him already. (He can handle it on his own, he promises, he just needs to get it out and tell someone—bullshit, like hell he can, no one can. But what does he do? … Are you a fucking idiot, Connors? Talk to an adult like an adult. Not that Cassandra is a child, but decades make a difference.)

“… Maybe I shouldn’t,” his voice comes out weakly. What a mess. “Sorry. I’m sorry. F-forget it.”

[not_the_last]

Her throat hurts abominably.

"If you don't wish to," she manages to say, "I won't press you to. But ..."

(Gods, look at her. She's supposed to be his liege lady, and whatever made her or anyone else think that she could handle that responsibility? That anyone could ever rely on her? Too weak, too selfish, too young --)

"... but if it will help you. To say it. Then please."

Please let me help.

[goodweather]

(... He shouldn't. He has to. He has to. He has to. He has to. Please. Please, Phil. No one can do it alone. ... But her?

Any way that will get him to do it, even hiding his face like this--do it. At the very least, it will be one more scared and disappointed face to think about whenever he finds himself on the verge.)

He takes a breath.

"I've... told you about the loop, right? The... the things I did to myself."

...

"The problem is that it's so easy for me now. And I can't stop feeling like he's under my skin, or he's in me, and I need to, to dig out what he left inside of me or undo it with the revival reset or kill him or all of those, so, so there's--I see opportunities everywhere. Everywhere. I've had to keep my talons blunt for months now, but this, it's--exhausting."

[not_the_last]

She keeps a vise grip on her own hands to keep them from reaching out again, on her lungs and throat to keep her breath steady and silent, in and out and in. Her control almost fails her when she remembers -- easily, gently, like snow settling -- how she learned to do that, and why.

And I need to dig out what he left inside of me --

The words that would help him are nowhere in reach, nowhere in sight. She doesn't even know what they would look like.

"Oh," is what she says instead, barely more than a breath, because she can't say nothing at all; if she can't say anything that will help, at least she can say something that means I'm here.

[goodweather]

It’s better than dead silence, but—that all she is moved to do in the face of him is say oh, is reflexively humiliating. Is it better or worse than Darcy throwing up, he can’t tell. What he wants, he doesn’t know—maybe it doesn’t matter, maybe anything and everything would be absolutely mortifying because no matter what here he is spilling everything he’s got all over the floor and he wants to run and shut himself in his cabin, but didn’t she just talk him into not doing that, wasn’t there a point to this?

His Mantle goes colder and more humid, gaining a stinging edge. Phil sinks to the floor.

”Sorry,” he beats out again, voice thick, because it’s all he can do. All he’s good for.

[not_the_last]

There's a faint rustle and thud as she drops to the floor beside him, her skirts pooling around them both.

"No," she says, "Master Connors, no, this isn't -- you don't need to be sorry for this. Not for feeling it, not for telling me."