ph_logs | April Catch All

April Catch All

Who: Number 6 & Open
Where: Around town and on the farm
What: Various prompts for April
When: Currently before Flood, might add some for After Flood
Warnings: [cw: Talk about spousal death, illness, grief, depictions of chronic impending fatal illness]

A. Around the farm

Number 6 is finally starting to look the part out here on the farm. He found a pair of dungarees and work boots stowed away in the attic of their home and he's donned them now along with a wide-brimmed sunhat to protect his pale complexion from the worst of the sun's rays. It can only do so much, and as a result, his face has broken out in an explosion of freckles. Despite that and the sunburns, he's happy. His hands are covered in dirt from plowing the soil and his shirt is soaked from the sweaty work of hauling logs and chopping wood. And he hasn't had to lie to a single person or keep a single secret to accomplish his tasks. It's all good, honest labor.

Unfortunately, the work is getting harder on him by the day. At the start of the month, all seems fine enough. But that ring in the shape of a skull jawbone on his finger is slowly but surely sapping that strength away from him. In the middle of pushing a wheelbarrow, he suddenly falls to his knees, out of breath and clammy with sweat so thick his hair is wet beneath his hat. It's fine, he tells himself. Get up. He has more work to do yet. But... maybe he should just rest for a moment, first.

...Just a moment.

B. Now I lay me down to sleep [cw: Be advised, this is directly following Ava's IC death]

He went out to lay beneath the stars with his wife. But now... now he's walking home alone. There's a bundle in his arms. The clothes she left behind. Still warm, but that warmth is fading. Like she faded.

Tears glisten in his eyes but he blinks them back. He has to stay strong. She will be a ghost. She might see. He doesn't want her to have to watch his anguish. Stiff upper lip. It will be all right. They knew the cost of freedom might be high. He let her pay it this time, but the next... and the next...

"I'll find a way," he says under his breath. "We'll stop this."

But, for now, there is nothing he can do but cross the short distance from field to the front door of their home, drift inside and... no, he doesn't think he can sleep tonight. Not alone. He resolves to go to the kettle instead, to brew something hot. He carries it back out to the front porch and sits heavily in one of the wooden rocking chairs. A matched set. Somehow that only makes him feel lonelier, watching the empty chair creak slightly in the breeze. On a night like this, he could use some company.

C. Wildcard Me
Can be next day, ghost shenanigans, etc. Just throw whatever at me, I'm game.

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There were some ideas to put plans in place, but... it happens so quickly that basically any of the ideas that Darcy had about rites or ceremony get shunted to the wayside. She was just coming over to check in, and Peter's out the front by himself with a look on his face. Even out at a distance, she knows. There's a weight to death, a feeling of silence in the air so thick that Darcy figures they used to stop all the clocks just to not hear them ticking so loud. It's a beautiful blue night and death resides even here.

Darcy makes the choice not to teleport the last stretch of the way, to put boots to dirt and arrive normally, doffing her hat just as soon as she reaches the porch.

"I'm too late," it's a statement, not a question, "I'm sorry."

Soothing will come in a moment, for the moment, there is only consolation.

"There will be... other times," he answers hollowly as he fidgets with a new ring on his finger. It's designed like no ring he's ever owned, in the shape of a skull's jawbone.

"I'm told she will become a spirit for a day. You will be able to hear her, yes?"

"Clear as day."

That's a very distinct and suspicious ring accompanying a very ominous statement.

Darcy sits beside him, a little slow and a little cautiously. It's been a very long time since she's had to do this.

"Is there anything I can do? Dishes? Or- I could make something so you have some leftovers?"

"Good." With just that one word, his expressions seems less heavy, his shoulders less hunched. At least Ava won't be unseen and unheard to all the world.

"I don't know if I much feel like eating," he admits. "But... perhaps something simple. Ava wouldn't like me to neglect myself."

Darcy reaches across to take his hand, pressing his knuckles between her cold thumb and first finger. Pressure for comfort.

"I was going to make something you could reheat for leftovers anyway. You should eat something, but God knows you're not the only person to lose his appetite. It'll come back."

And then she stands, offering-

"Come in with, stay out here, I don't mind. I'm here for you."

He doesn't know how to react at first when she takes his hand, but the pressure is soothing in a primal way that quiets any protest. His twitching fingers still.

"Thank you. I'm not well-practiced at being comforted." He stands to follow her inside, opening his mouth as if to add more to that statement, but all he can think to say is another, "Thank you."

Darcy breezes into the house and straightens out whatever's in arm's reach. How a pillow is sitting, shutting a curtain. In the kitchen, the first priority is cleaning up, so she gets the sink running, looking over and making a plan in her head of how to tackle it. This in itself is soothing- even if nothing else, Darcy can set this little corner of the world into order, for Peter's sake.

"It's alright. Not like there's a way to be comforted wrong."

While the sink is filling, Darcy looks through the cupboards for whatever they have on hand. Some dry beans- that's good, it won't be a proper casoulet or anything but starch is a good place to start.

"You have mirrors in your house, ehn?"

No way to be comforted wrong, she tells him, and yet his skin itches and crawls as he looks around, unsure what to do or where to go. If he sits, he will fidget. If he keeps on his feet, he will inevitably start pacing. So he stands at the center of the house as if frozen in place from indecision.

The question causes him to jerk his head as if coming out of a trance. "What? Yes. Yes, a vanity in the bedroom. And one over the sink in the washroom."

"Do me a favour and cover them. Just a sheet, nothing fancy."

It's superstition, but if there wasn't any human benefit to doing it, then people wouldn't keep doing it.

"You can also stop any clocks in here if you want, but that's probably a pain to fix when she gets back."

Something to keep his hands occupied.

"All right. I'll cover the mirrors but we have only one clock and I haven't been able to afford a watch yet." It would indeed be a pain to have to ask for the time a day later from a neighbor.

He goes to their bedroom and takes up a spare sheet from the linen chest. That should do to cover the vanity. In the bathroom, he uses a spare towel for it, since it's much smaller. As he's leaning in to drape the towel over the top, he catches a look at himself, pale despite the sunburns, with sunken eyes. Try as he might, he can't seem to make his face flex into something better. He hates the thought of Ava seeing him like this, but there's not much he can do. So, he hides the reflection away.

Then, in a sudden burst of inspiration, he goes to his workroom and picks up a block of wood and his carving knife. He'll take both of those things back to the kitchen with him, where he settles heavily into a chair and begins to whittle away small slivers of pine from the block. He doesn't quite know what he plans to make, yet, but he does need something to busy his hands.

Darcy keeps poking away at the kitchen while he does. She's been over a couple of times, knows roughly where everything is meant to go. Listens out the entire time for the thump of his footsteps upstairs, trying to keep an ear on if the sound of it stops. Then he returns with something to occupy himself, and Darcy gives him a nod of approval. Didn't even have to tell him to do it.

"I wish I could put on some music," Darcy remarks while peeling an onion, the skin crinkling in hand, "it's really quiet. Different kind of quiet to back there. Like a... deep quiet. It's weird."

He can't believe it, but Darcy is actually making him miss when they could go to that karaoke bar to drown out the silence with bad singing to music he's never heard.

"It's always much quieter in the countryside. Fewer neighbors." Fewer people waking up all at once to mass calamity here, too. So far.

"I might check the shop. See if they have a record player for sale." Considering this won't be the last night spent in lonesome silence, perhaps that would even count as a necessity.

"I don't think they have records- no, definitely don't. Ehn- one of the other people here warned me. Wax cylinders though, at least."

That's not nothing.

"Or you could learn to play something. I think there's like a music shop. Something to do, I guess."

It's what Phil did in the loop.

"Ah. Wax cylinders. There's something I haven't seen since I was a young man. It'll do." He will miss records, but at least he knows how to operate a phonograph without need of instruction.

"Do you know I play the piano? Not as well as Phil, of course. But I suppose that gives me something to aspire to."

There's just the smallest pause in her motion at his name.

"No, I didn't know that. I'd like to hear you play sometime."

The meal she's assembling is simple- she sets the beans to boiling so they'll cook faster, scrounges through for some dried herbs and anything else to add some flavour. Reminds her of cooking at her Aunt's farm, not knowing where anything was. Far less cramped and noisy though.

"Do you think you could teach me?" she asks. A way to spend time with Peter, and remember Phil.

He perks up at her question. "I think I could teach you the basics, at least." This could motivate him to take some lessons himself. The better he becomes the better teacher he would be.

"We would need someone willing to lend us time at their piano. One of the pubs, perhaps."

Darcy makes a noise of agreement, a little pleased that he seems cheered up by the idea. It's a common refrain in her relationships with adults, asking them to teach her something as a way to connect with them. Makes them feel... something, smart or competent maybe, and makes her feel a little more like she can handle the world.

"Empty Pockets has one, I think. That'd be good. Something to look forward to."

A pause.

"Is there a song Ava likes?"

"That will do just fine. I look forward to it." His spirits are lifted just anticipating it. So much so that he can actually bring himself to crack a joke.

"While it sometimes seems as if that song about... apple bottom jeans might be her favorite, I'm far more partial to the song she sings about the Honeybee. That would be better suited for a piano, I think."

Darcy snorts before she realises she has, a hand going to her mouth.

"Just maybe. But we'll learn both. It'll make her laugh, at least."

It feels a little like someone else was on the ground in Rainbow Renley's, feeling that intensity of despair that is just... gone now. Even with Ava dead for now, it's hard to feel that same hopelessness. Her return is awaited, and she'll come back to a house that welcomes her, one that remains full of life.

The camera pans out to a night that remains beautiful, even in tragedy. The world keeps turning on past insurmountable loss. Either you grieve with it to stay with it, or the world will turn still, and leave you behind. Darcy's glad to be here, keeping Peter company while he gets ready to return to the world.

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April Catch All

B

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Clearing out the inbox feel free to not respond I know it's been forever

<3

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Start to wrap?

yeah <3

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