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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Checking for danger or exits, Number 6 wonders to himself, noting the way his guest's gaze darts from place to place. A front and back door are both visible from where they sit in the kitchen. Number 6 puts the kettle on. Then, for good measure, he pulls down his bottle of whiskey intending to add a splash to his own drink, at least.

"What can you remember, if you don't mind me asking?"

He sighs.

"Too much. The fall of an age at the edge of a blade. A worm in a deep cave. The sun doing battle with the sun. A shining door, a swarm of butterflies. An eye that knows the truth. A shadow of myself, lying dead on the ground, feeding the tree. Being unseen. Being unseen. Being..."

He suddenly hunches over, digging his nails into his scalp and dragging them across his skin, as he draws a sharp, shuddering breath. When he comes back from this, he seems a little more focused, adjusting a mask of cool civility.

"I... I must apologize. I really do wish I could explain myself adequately, but my words seem to have temporarily taken leave of their senses."

"Stop that!" Number 6 cries out. He's seen this kind of response before, but he can't just let the man hurt himself.

"Let's leave aside words for now, then. You are safe for the time being. You can stay here tonight if you've nowhere else to go."

He nods, lips drawn, eyes fixed forward, trying for all the world to keep himself together, despite the fact that his insides are screaming and all of his thoughts are crashing together.

There is a small and bitter part of him that feels cheated in this. He's only just watched his wife dissolve into nothing before his eyes and now he instantly called on to comfort another lost soul. but, it might be better this way. He cannot fall apart when there is still work to be done.

"All right. I'm making tea. Mint." Ava's favorite. "Just sit there."

He goes to the sink and fills his kettle, preparing the wood stove and lighting the flame with remarkably steady hands. The work is good for him. Gives him something to focus on.

The elf sits, his focus slowly shifting, and his gaze falls on Number 6. There's a frown on his face, a troubled look in his eye. He doesn't say anything until his impromptu host returns with tea, at which point he sighs, and says, "I'm intruding." It's not a question, and barely an apology.

"A little," Number 6 confirms, but there's no bitterness to it. He arranges their cups on the table and pours two crisp servings of steaming mint tea. He sets a bowl with sugar in it on the table with a spoon before he takes his own seat.

He's silent a moment longer, savoring the smell of his tea as he takes a deep breath in through his nose, and lets it out as a sigh. "My wife...passed away tonight. I was just coming home. Due to the nature of this island, she will return. But not tonight."

"I see."

He also takes a deep breath, letting the fragrance of the tea wash over him. After a pause and a moment of thought, he asks,

"Is this her tea?"

"It is. She's growing it in the garden. Mint is her favorite." He smiles, melancholy but full of love. "I didn't care much for it before I met her." She changed his opinion about quite a few things.

"My... I mean... I knew someone's husband who would blend his own teas. He'd grow his flowers and herbs in a beautiful little garden. He would... he would make blends to help his husband with his night terrors."

He suppresses a tremble.

"It's nice, the little things that become important to us because of the ones we love."

Number 6 strongly suspects that the husband in this story is Sheogorath himself, but if he is afraid to admit it then Number 6 will refrain from pointing that out.

"It is. And yet, when they are gone, all those little things can become a stark reminder."

"I'd rather remember in agony than forget in bliss. I think... I think people pick the latter too often."

He thinks back to something that will happen to him later, to a grieving man begging to forget, and how that same grieving man will curse him for granting that wish.

"She visits you in the smell of mint."

"I've seen what happens when they pick the latter. It does not make them happier." Of course, he's seen people not be given the choice, too. That's far worse.

A grateful smile breaches his sorrow, "Yes. And in the gentle ruffle of air in my feathers, in the small touches she's already left on this home. I could never forget. I could never forgive myself if I did."

"And I would never ask you to."

He shakes his head, seeming to realize that that's a strange thing to say.

"She'll... she'll come back. You're lucky, for that. You can go back, to the way things were. Though that doesn't make it not hurt." He takes a deeeeeeeep breath, and doesn't say anything else after the fact.

"It's only the knowledge that I will get her back that keeps me from losing all sense and reason." That may sound like hyperbole but it very much is not. He can feel it deep inside his bones; the day he loses her for good is the day he loses himself as well.

"So, I can hardly judge you if you have lost your own."

"I don't know what I've lost," he admits. "I don't know if I've lost him... or myself. One of us. Both of us, maybe. It had to be done, though. If we hadn't done what we did, so many people would have died."

He doesn't say what else he's thinking- that perhaps he's here because of this other man's grief, that perhaps he is here to occupy the space where sense and reason have ebbed. That explains too much, and doesn't give life and feeling the room it needs to breathe.

"I admire anyone willing to make such a sacrifice." He and Ava have both been willing to make such a choice should it ever be necessary. It's no small thing.

"I'm sorry you had to do it."

"It... was for love. That should make it all worth it, right?"

"I tend to think it does, yes." For love, he's done a lot of things that he must believe was worth it. He must.

"Does it not feel as such to you?"

“I sacrificed love, for love. If I hadn’t made that sacrifice, I would have lost those I loved, but kept those I loved. It was worth it and it wasn’t. It isn’t one thing. It’s… frustrating.”

"Life is never one thing. I'm sorry I have no better answer for you than that."

"No need for an answer. It's not the sort of thing that can be answered, really. It just... is."

He takes another sip of the tea, letting the scent of mint fill his thoughts.

"And... maybe, frustrating as it is, that's for the best."

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April Catch All

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cw: self harm as a panic response

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okay to wrap this one up?

Absolutely fine!