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“So Tallulah told me something interesting.”
Fit has known Phil for a long time. Longer than maybe anyone else on the Island, by now, ‘cept the immortals. And Phil’s a nice guy, usually; he’s reliably more likely to be amused than annoyed by any given thing, really. He’s seen Phil get a little ornery over BM tactics or certain exploit patches—preaching to the choir there, in Fit’s case—but he’s made himself pretty comfortable in the expectation that Phil will be laughing along when they’re together.
Well, he’s not laughing now.
There’s a suspicious downturn to his lip that Fit’s not sure he likes the look of. It only gets deeper as Fit tries to explain himself.
“Stay there,” Phil interrupts him, and Fit does, for a second, caught off guard. Phil’s moving away through the trees with purpose; there’s a hunch to those shoulders, now criss-crossed with purple irritation.
“Tallullah,” Fit can hear him calling, short and clipped, before he’s even broken the treeline. He swipes low-hanging branches out of his way with overt irritation, and—
—And, well, Phil’s not exactly in a laughing mood, and Tallulah’s just a little thing, not even hatched, and Fit can’t quite explain it, but suddenly he’s got his lasso in his hands, it whooshes in an arc through the air, and then it’s looping around Phil’s midsection.
“Easy there, Phil!” He says. He barks out a laugh even though it isn’t funny, what’s been done to Phil, because he can’t scramble for anything better to come off casual. “Whoa there! We’re havin’ a conversation, aren’t we?”
It’s a brittle facade, a crutch in the form of a joke they’ve told before, but nonetheless a joke Fit once had perfectly good faith in. But there’s no banter back this time, no wheezing laugh, no friendly teasing. Phil has gone completely still, frozen in the grasp of the lasso.
When Phil turns, there’s a birdlike quality to the rapt attention he fixes on Fit’s face. Whatever hope Fit had of fooling him is gone immediately. Phil is incredibly perceptive even on his worst days, and Fit’s never seen him look quite so intent, quite so searching.
Fit watches his eyes flit subtly left to right, left to right, cataloging everything. The jig is up, but Fit keeps on trying anyhow; that wasteland didn’t raise a quitter, and this new island didn’t either.
“Easy,” he says again, in lieu of any promises.
(“You don’t have to tell me anything, I’ll let it go,” he might’ve said, a different day, in a different place, without two children, four including Em and his own beloved son, ten yards away on the shore. If letting Phil be wouldn’t mean condemning at least two children to harm.)
Fit knows Phil, loves him like a brother, and would love to spare him some privacy, but today Fit isn’t sure he quite deserves the courtesy.
He tugs on the slack, trying to reel him in by the length of rope, but Phil’s stuck his heels into the mud.
“What are you doing?” And he already knows, of course. Phil is a lot of things, especially now, but stupid isn’t one of them. But he’s playing along for now and Fit’s not one to check a horse’s teeth, and he doesn’t plan on starting here.
“Just come over here and finish our conversation,” Fit insists. “Leave Tallulah be for a second, she’s catching up with her siblings.”
Something flashes in Phil’s eyes. Fit catches his talons flexing into the soil and knows he won’t be budging, no matter how Fit tries to move him. He doesn’t love that, good things never come from losing control of the playing field, but Fit can adapt.
Fit closes the gap instead, looping the slack of the lasso around the palm of his hand as he goes to keep the line taut between them. Fit expects some attempt of retaliation, but Phil stays put, watching through unblinking eyes. He reaches out when he’s close enough, gripping Phil’s forearm in what he hopes feels comforting and not confining.. Of course, he does mean to confine. But he’d rather Phil not feel that from him.
“I didn’t mean to offend, Phil,” Fit says honestly, though he absolutely did mean to pry. “I’m just trying to understand.”
He spots Bagi and Pac, probably having heard Phil calling for his daughter, poking their heads from behind the redwood supports of the Death Family home. Fit watches the furrow in Bagi’s brow as her eyes track the hunch of Phil’s shoulders and travel along the lasso to the length of rope looped in Fit’s palm.
She, smart as a whip per usual and stubborn as anything, immediately approaches, but she has the good sense to be slow and calm about it. Pac, a little more nervously, follows at her heels. “Phil? Is everything okay?”
Phil finally moves, rounding with the ghost of a snarl on his lips. He’s annoyed now. Fit readjusts his hold. “Just trying to speak to my daughter,” he says coldly, tugging at Fit’s hold on him. “If you’d kindly call off your attack dog.”
Indignancy flashes across Pac’s face, but Bagi beats him to it. “We didn’t ask him to do that,” she reassures him, which, good. They’ll need a Good Cop and Fit’s already lost the title, unfortunately. “But I’m sure there’s a perfectly good explanation.” And she’s sticking up for Fit. Not for the first time, Fit’s grateful she’s here.
“We’re just having a conversation,” Fit says boisterously, keeping up the facade even as everyone has seen through it. Can’t hurt. “Couldn’t have him walkin’ away from me mid-sentence, could I?”
“Yeah, Phil, that’s a little rude, right?” Pac chimes in, following Fit’s lead. His eyes are shifting nervously between Fit and Bagi, looking for reassurance that he’s saying the right thing, maybe. Bless him.
“Tallulah is fine, Phil,” Bagi says. She’s close enough now to rest her own palm against Phil’s free arm. Hawklike eyes lock on her fingers as they close just slightly around his shoulder. “Empanada is keeping an eye on her and Chayanne. Ramón too. You can talk to us, they can handle themselves for a bit.”
“We’re just worried,” Fit says, knowing how independent Phil likes to be, and knowing it’s probably not the right call, but wanting to reassure him anyhow. “You’re…you’re not well.”
One of Bagi’s fingers brushes a line of broken violet flesh, and Phil flinches violently and whole-bodily. “Sorry!” She cries, moving her hand down his arm away from the damage. “Sorry, sorry.”
Phil, patience breaking, yanks away from her, snarling, “I’m fine!”
She lets him go, but the move has him stumbling more concretely into Fit’s hold. He loops his other hand, the one wrapped in twine, around Phil’s front. “Easy,” he says again. “Calma, calma. I think we all need to simmer down. Let’s go inside for a bit, okay? Alright, Phil?”
“Let me talk to my daughter,” Phil snaps.
“She’s playing right now,” Fit says, dismissive. “We need to have a chat. Pac, be a dear and hold open the door, will you? Thanks, obrigado.”
They end up settled in Philza’s basement, in the room adjacent to his storage system. One of Tallulah’s projects, he thinks, still in-progress. It’s smaller than Fit would like, he doesn’t want Phil to feel cornered, but it’s cool and dark and the walls are all a muted shade of moss on three sides and smooth stone on the fourth, and Fit doesn’t want Phil too stimulated, either. He’s already stressed enough as is.
It’s been a long time since he’s thought so strategically about a neighbor on this island. He’s not sure he’s been this calculating since he left 2B2T. He’s finding it very much like riding a bike, so that’s something, at least.
Pac is hovering on Fit’s other side, just barely in reach of Phil’s talons, but Fit isn’t worried; he’s still lassoed, and Fit’s still got him in an awkward sort of half-hug, or at least what he’s trying to pass off as a half-hug.
Bagi, however, has gone. She went to update the kids and warn the rest of the island, if she can find them. Better safe than sorry.
“What the fuck, man?” Phil says, voice strained as he struggles to decide if he’s done with Fit’s bullshit or if it’ll benefit him to keep playing pretend. It won’t, but Fit isn’t keen to clue him in. “I can’t talk to my daughter anymore?”
“Sure you can,” Fit tells him. “Tell us what’s going on, and let me have a look at you to make sure you’re okay, and I’ll call her down myself.”
He pulls a spare bedroll from his backpack, setting it up on the floor with his free hand. If this continues on too long, he’ll send someone to fetch a proper bed for Phil, but this should do for now. “Sit,” he says.
Logically, Phil’s respawn point is just upstairs, almost directly above their heads, in his family’s bedroom, but Fit’s just a hair paranoid about things like knowing that shit for certain. With any luck, it won’t matter. But if this new…situation of his is affecting his health as well as his head, Fit wants his respawn point to be right here, where he can be kept and eye on, and where someone will be to watch over him.
Or, if he pulls some stupid stunt and Fit has to go after him, he won’t have to hold himself back. It’s far easier to be deadly than almost-deadly.
It shouldn’t come to that, he hopes. But it can’t hurt.
Phil seems to disagree. He’s frowning openly at Fit. His wings have all fluffed up from behind his new backpack, haloing the bag like a scraggly feathered mane, and Fit’s known Phil long enough to know that means nothing close to happy.
“What?” Fit pitches his voice up like Phil’s being the unreasonable one, even when they both know his game. Then he rolls his eyes, just to really sell it. “Your respawn is like, half a dozen blocks up. Just sit down. We’re not unreasonable Phil, I want you to be comfortable while we talk.”
Phil just stares, hawklike eyes searching. Fit keeps his face carefully blank.
After several long seconds of tense silence, he allows himself to be guided to the edge of the bedroll, sitting amongst the bedding. Fit hides his grin by turning to Pac, extending a hand to him as well. “See? Everything’s all good. Tudo bem.”
“Tudo bem,” Pac echos, purely out of habit, if Fit had to venture a guess. It makes him smile anyhow.
“Get a room,” Phil says, sounding even more miserable than he usually does.
“No,” Pac tells him point-blank. “I like your basement.”
They begin to argue, and Fit takes the distraction as an opportunity to inspect the ultraviolet wound tissue that criss-crosses Phil’s shoulders.
It’s unlike anything he’s ever seen before. Quesadilla Island has had a far more diverse collection of illnesses and injuries and status effects than 2B2T ever did, but there’s something especially… unique about whatever this is.
He doesn’t touch it yet, but it looks like it hurts. It’s like water, tiny rivulets of bright purple rash, slightly raised from the rest of Phil’s flesh, flowing in rivers and tributaries down his arms from his back. It pulses with bright inflammation, unnatural in hue, rippling faster and faster as his argument with Pac picks up speed.
“Pac,” Fit interrupts them, gently. “You have the warp to my scrap yard, right?”
“Of course,” Pac says, stopping mid-sentence to answer. Fit watches curiously as the rippling purple along Phil’s arms slows again to a slow, steady pulse as the argument ends. Interesting.
“I have a backpack there I need you to pick up.” Pac nods emphatically, so Fit directs him toward his emergency potion store. It’s pretty meager for now; everyone is still resource-gathering since the reset. He’s not too hopeful about the healing potions for something like this, but he’s got a few weakness potions in there that might come in handy if things get hairy. It’ll be a last resort: Phil hates weakness potions, he’s always been a little extra susceptible to the side-effects. They make him nauseous, poor thing, but better he be nauseous and under control than in a position to hurt himself or anyone else.
Pac disappears in a whoosh of purple teleportation particles, and Fit sits on the ground in front of the bedroll to level himself with Phil.
“Can I touch you?” he asks, half-reluctant to even ask, and full-wishing their old precedent (a high-five here, a manly half-hug there, contact where logical) felt still intact in this situation.
But he has to ask, and he… still won’t touch Phil if his friend says no; that’s not a boundary he’d ever push in any circumstance, that’s the kind of shit Fit takes seriously, but he’s not real happy about it. Phil’s not really in a state to advocate for his own best interest right now. “I need to take a closer look at this.”
Phil doesn’t say anything. His entire demeanor has shifted. He’s less angry, more frightened; his breath is quicker, and there’s an angle to his furrowed eyebrows that denotes not the fury from before, but stress.
Fit’s heart goes out to him—whatever’s left of his friend in there must be having a hell of a time, right now. Fit just wishes he knew exactly how much of that was here, at the forefront, and how much is…something else.
Gently, he loops his organic hand around Phil’s palm, then slowly starts to work that hand upward, toward the unnatural injuries. “I’ll be careful,” he promises. “I just want to see what I can figure out.”
Phil’s hand, the one Fit just left behind, tenses and untenses nervously. “I’m fine,” he insists.
“I want to hear you say it’s okay that I take a look.”
Phil doesn’t answer. He shakes his head to himself; a high-pitched sound of distress escapes his throat. “I don’t want you to.”
“I know. But I need to.”
“It’s just mosquito goop.” He sounds pleading, begging, imploring Fit to believe him and drop it.
“Okay,” Fit agrees easily. His hand is still inching up, pausing only centimeters now from the inflamed flesh. “That’s okay too. I just want to take a look at it.”
Fit can see the bob of Phil’s adam’s apple as he swallows, frightened. Blue eyes flicker back and forth over his face, from one eye to the other, searching. Fit keeps his gaze steady. Steady and reliable and calm.
Phil’s breath comes out in a shaky exhale. “Okay,” he finally says, the ghost of a whisper, more air than speech.
“Thank you.”
Fit is careful, true to his word. Phil is resolutely looking away, but Fit knows he’s paying rapt attention. There’s a constant whining sort of trill coming from his chest, quiet in and of itself, but deafeningly loud in the silent, moss-lined basement. Fit’s heart breaks for him all over again.
Phil’s not looking, so he’s careful to telegraph his movements before he touches anything actually inflamed. Careful fingertips brush unaffected skin before moving on to the rash itself, so Phil can track where he’s moving.
He should probably be wearing gloves, really, but Bagi had touched it directly and was still standing, so that would have to serve as reassurance enough for now.
The purple stretches of skin are blood-hot, and the flesh is smooth with swelling; he can feel the pulsing of the inflammation beneath his fingertips, like a heartbeat. “Easy,” he murmurs to Phil when the beat of it seems to speed up the longer he hovers. “I’m not hurting you. I’m just looking.”
There’s a discomfort to Phil’s posture, but Fit can’t detect anything that specifically denotes pain. At least, not intense pain. Not enough to warrant a physical reaction. “Doing okay?”
“Hurry up,” Phil says, probably trying for coldness but falling somewhere between pleading and a little pathetic.
Fair enough. Fit’s not learning enough to ask any more of Phil. “Okay.” He leans back on his hands, eyes tracking the purple marks as they cross over his shoulder toward his back.
“Happy?” Phil snaps, fire returning as soon as Fit leaves his bubble of personal space.
“No,” Fit answers honestly. He still has no idea what this thing is, or what to do. Maybe it presents itself differently on Phil’s wings? “Take off your backpack again?”
They’re interrupted by the sudden mechanical whooshing of the elevator. Fit twists around.
“Hi!” It’s Bagi. She’s got Cellbit in tow, looking weary and sort of like he’d rather be anywhere else, not investigating a mystery. He’s looked like that a lot lately, Fit’s heard, which he supposes is fair; if anyone deserves a break, it’s Cellbit. And Baghera.
Still, when they round the corner and Cellbit gets a look at Phil, some of that old spark stirs in his pale eyes. Whether that’s due to his old love of enigmas or some persisting Bolas loyalty to Phil, Fit isn’t sure.
The elevator sounds one more time. Pac, an extra backpack clutched close to his chest, pokes his head up from behind Cellbit.
“The kids are fine,” Bagi tells Phil. “Mouse took them to play at her house. I’m sure they’ll come visit you soon.”
“How’s he doing?” Cellbit asks Fit. He’s approaching slowly, sidestepping through the moss in a weird gait that makes Fit think of how someone might approach a stray dog, or a caged tiger.
“What do you make of it?” Fit counters, shuffling sideways on the moss to make room for Cellbit to kneel beside him. Phil’s eyes are shifting between the four of them now. Fit catches the bob of his adam’s apple again, and the tremble in his hands. He’s getting stressed again.
“You’re okay, Phil,” Cellbit says, sharp as ever, even when playing the reluctant detective. If Phil is hawklike in his attention, Cellbit is catlike, eyes tracking the movement of light that flickers beneath Phil’s broken skin. “It’s coming from his back?” He asks Fit.
Now that he mentions it, Fit can see it too, the way the light radiates out, over his shoulders, and down toward his forearms.
“Let’s get that backpack off,” Fit agrees.
But as soon as he reaches toward it, Phil, relatively docile even under the scrutiny, snaps on a dime. In the split second as Fit leans toward, he conjures something from his inventory, a shortsword of some kind with a broad blade, lashing out on instinct with a snarl.
It’s swiping over Fit’s face before he even clocks it’s there, breaking skin like butter, missing his eye by a hair. It’s so rapid that Fit doesn’t even feel it, no pain yet, but the warm, wet, sticky feeling of blood as it flows in an instant down his cheek.
Fit rears back, the palm of his hand pressed to his face with a strangled grunt. Cellbit goes with him, an arm reached out in his direction, but those pale, wide eyes fixed firmly on Phil. In the same moment, Bagi and Pac spring forward on Phil’s other side, each gripping a shoulder and strong-arming him to lean away from Fit.
“Careful!” Fit calls to Pac, who’s grabbed on to the forearm bearing Phil’s blade.
The man in question is snarling, twisting furiously in their grip. Bagi and Pac are plenty strong on your average day, but this isn’t that. There’s something animalistic in the way he struggles, a fox caught in a snare, one more stressor away from ripping into its own leg. He’s desperate, and when the blade of the shortsword can’t seem to catch Pac’s flesh, he twists with teeth bared instead.
On the off-chance this is a rabies-type scenario, Fit steps in.
“Easy, Phil.” He’s as gentle as he can afford to be as he pries the blade from Phil’s taloned fingers. It goes easy; Phil is too frantic with trying to rip his forearms from Bagi and Pac’s grip to be paying attention to Fit.
He tosses the sword to the side; it comes to rest harmlessly against the far wall. Cellbit retrieves it, and it vanishes into his inventory somewhere. Good.
Fit brings his hands back to Phil, going as easy as he can, gripping each of his hands in one of his own to keep them harmlessly in his lap. He actually grips back, maybe desperate for some kind of anchor. The points of his talons dig a little into Fit’s organic hand, but Fit’s had worse.
His energy is clearly flagging; every few seconds he’ll jerk and thrash again, but each flurry of movement is becoming shorter, and the gasping breathing between them is becoming harsher and harsher. His hands are starting to feel clammy, grasped against Fit’s own
“I’m going to call Etoiles,” Cellbit whispers, eyes still wide as they track whatever mark Phil left, flicking up and down his face a few times.
“Good idea,” Fit tells him. “Then come help me empty his pockets? Who knows what else he’s got up his sleeves.”
That sets Phil off again. He whines, high and distressed, but doesn’t have the energy to do much more than tug feebly at Pac and Bagi’s hold on him. He’s shivering, white as a sheet in the face; they probably won’t need any weakness potions to make Phil nauseous. It looks like he’s already there. “Give him a minute. We’ll wait for Cellbit.”
“It’s okay, Phil,” Bagi says.
“It’s just for a little while,” Fit agrees, backing her up. “You’ll get your things back.” Some of them, anyway.
This has shaken her a little, Fit thinks. Bagi is tough as nails, but she’s not heartless. She cares as much as anybody about all of their neighbors. And even Fit has to admit that Phil’s really not looking well.
He’s able to catch his breath while Cellbit is in the other room, typing away at his communicator. By the time Cellbit steps back over to kneel beside Fit, Phil has gone completely tense again, eyes tracking the movement anxiously.
“Okay,” Fit says. “I’ll keep a hold of him. Pac, you keep your hold there, just in case, and I’ll hold his hands.” He takes a moment to wink at Phil, trying in futility to bring up the mood, “See, Phil? We’re just holding hands. How sweet, right?”
Phil’s not even paying attention to him, though. He’s watching Cellbit with sharp eyes, and then Bagi, as she releases him to join her brother. He’s wound tight like a spring, hunched over to protect himself; Fit readjusts his grip.
The high-pitched trilling makes a reappearance as Cellbit and Bagi approach. He rips at Fit’s grip, frantic once more. The whining surges to a snarl as they carefully begin to pat down his pockets.
“Should I take his food, too?” Bagi asks, uncertain.
“Just take everything,” Fit advises, in the same moment Phil snarls furiously, “Don’t you dare!”
The more Cellbit and Bagi pull from his robe, the more Phil shrieks and struggles. His talons claw at Fit’s hands, frantic to free themselves, but he can’t get good enough leverage to break skin.
Sword, axe, avocado toast, blocks, even a few gapples, all of it forms a growing pile at the far end of the basement. Phil thrashes back and forth, his head tossing like a spooked horse, wrenching at Fit and Pac’s grip to no avail. His cries have become physical, full-body shuddering things, wracking his entire frame with shaking sobs.
“They’re mine!” he wails, voice pitching higher than Fit has ever heard it. “They’re my things, that’s my stuff!”
It comes to a head when Cellbit finally reaches for his backpack. “Cellbit,” he gasps out, twisting in Pac’s grip to face his former comrade head-on. “Cellbit, please. Please. I’ll do whatever you want. Tell you whatever you need to hear, anything, anything, I–” whatever he aims to say is lost in another wail as Bagi’s hands loop more securely beneath the straps of the bag from his other side. He twists more fervently, a snarl on his lips. He’s sweating now, shaking from exertion and shivering in the cold of the basement.
“Easy, Phil,” Fit soothes. It falls on deaf ears. Phil’s gone completely pale again, swaying slightly and blinking rapidly. He’s making himself sick with this. “Be quick,” he tells Cellbit and Bagi.
They each nod firmly at him in tandem, reminding Fit all over again exactly how alike the two of them can be. Pac gets up to stand with them, just in case. Then they’re sliding the straps down his arms, and Phil is wailing, and Fit lets go of his hands just long enough to slip the straps off of his body—
Phil lashes out with his talons, scrabbling for a grip on the bag as Cellbit whisks it away from him. Fit intercepts him again, reaching for his hands and bodily shifting Phil to sit in front of him so he can cross Phil’s arms over his own chest and keep him contained until he tires himself out.
It doesn’t take long. Phil’s mental distress is a powerful force on him, but his body has been through a lot these past hours. Soon he’s collapsed against Fit’s chest, panting heavily, slow-blinking in exhaustion. Fit cautiously releases his hands, but Phil barely even reacts save for letting them drop limply into his lap. His eyes roll sluggishly to look at Fit, but Fit can’t discern what emotion he’s meant to glean from it. More than anything he just looks miserable.
The backpack, along with everything else, disappears into some corner of Cellbit’s inventory. Fit would put money on him having made a new investigation backpack for this, retired as he claims to be. As it goes, Phil’s expression turns anguished. When he speaks, his voice is hoarse and broken.
“Please. Those are my things. I need them.” His taloned hands jerk at his sides, breathing picking up once more. He’s getting worked up again; Fit wants to nip that in the bud.
“Easy,” he says, slipping a hand over Phil’s eyes. An old myth about avains, and one Fit isn’t sure would apply to Phil in this state anyhow, but it’s the only thing he can think to do. He must have a splitting headache, exhausted as he is; the dark, at least, might help with that.
He tries to ignore how he can feel tears and the shuddering of Phil’s breath against his palm.
To Fit’s credit, Phil does settle again, as much as he can settle, given the circumstances.
“How does his back look?” Cellbit asks, looking up from rearranging his inventory.
Fit winces; he hadn’t really realized, but he can feel the heat radiating from where Phil is collapsed against him. He hopes he isn’t hurting him. Nothing in his expression communicates pain, though. Just exhaustion, maybe nausea, definitely discomfort of some form. But not pain. Small mercies.
When he leans back to survey the damage, keeping one hand loosely cupping the upper half of Phil’s face, it looks about how he expected. Which is to say, not very good.
Cellbit comes around to stand at Fit’s shoulder, getting a look for himself. “Do you know what it is?”
Fit shakes his head. “It’s not anything I’ve ever seen before.”
“No,” Cellbit agrees. “Nor me.”
Phil’s swallows; his jaw moves as he unsticks his tongue from the roof of his mouth. “Where are my things?” The words are more broken syllables than not, scratchy and hoarse.
“They’re safe,” Bagi tells him from the corner, where she’d been exchanging concerned glances with Pac.
“I have them,” Cellbit reassures. “Safe and sound.”
“Please,” he begs brokenly. “Please, I need them back. I need them with me.” He snarls suddenly, tries to jerk his face away from Fit’s hand, but doesn’t manage more than one sharp movement before he’s collapsing again. “I need them.”
“Soon,” Fit promises, even as he shakes his head to everyone else in the room. “In just a minute, Phil.”
The elevator sounds. Once, twice, three times.
“Just Etoiles,” Fit reassures. “Oh, how sweet, he’s brought Chayanne and Tallulah with him to say hello.” Which means the kids must know, by now. Probably all of them.
“Pac,” he adds, gesturing his boyfriend over. “Go check on Ramón and Em for me?” He’d really rather not have all of the children following them down here while Phil’s so unstable, and he trusts Pac’s discretion when it comes to updating them.
Pac nods, probably eager for a new task that isn't to sit in a basement and be helpless like the rest of them, and squeezes by Etoiles through the doorway. The elevator sounds his departure a moment later.
“Hello, my bros!” Etoiles greets them. Tallulah also lifts a paw, flapping it in nervous greeting from where she leans around Etoiles’ leg. “Felipe, I have kidnapped your children and brought them with me.”
Phil stirs at the mention of his eggs; Fit can feel eyelashes against his palm as he tries to blink himself to greater awareness. Reluctantly, Fit moves his hand away to let him see them. He’s reasonably sure he could overpower Phil in this state, but he doesn’t want to scare the children if their father gets himself worked up again.
It seems he’s past that point. It seems all he can muster up the energy to do is blink sluggishly at them.
Chayanne bomps down a sign. ‘Is he okay?’
“We think he’ll be okay,” Bagi reassures, reaching down to stroke the top of his shell. Fit’s not sure if she’s lying or if she truly believes that. “We’re going to help him, don’t worry.” That much, at least, is true.
Bomp. ‘What’s wrong with him?’ Chayanne asks.
‘Is he sick?’ Tallulah asks at the same time.
Etoiles has ambled over, pupil-less eyes roving over the expanse of Phil’s shoulders. He’s got his thinking face on, one that Fit knows he’d really rather not wear (Etoiles generally prefers problems he can hit into submission), but for Phil, it seems he’s willing to put up with some puzzle-solving.
“What’s your take?” Fit asks. Etoiles just shakes his head. No dice, then.
“When did this start?” Bagi asks the eggs.
Bomp. ‘This morning, he was really strange,’ reads the magenta sign. ’Possessive over his things and leaving us alone for hours.’
‘I didn’t see any of the purple stuff until today,’ Chayanne’s yellow sign adds. ‘But I don’t know where it came from.’
“Where did he get the backpack?” Cellbit asks suddenly, looking up once more from where he’s been pawing through his inventory again.
Tallulah and Chayanne are silent for a moment, exchanging a glance somehow through their shells. Tallulah’s brought her paws up to where her chest would be, clutching them together anxiously. They make chittering noises at each other, that nervous egg-chatter that all the eggs can do, then Chayanne bomps down another sign. ‘It just sort of showed up.’
“Phil said it was from the Federation,” Bagi tells her brother. “But it seems a little strange, doesn’t it?”
Cellbit reaches into his inventory and pulls Phil’s backpack from its depths. Phil’s eyes lock onto it immediately, laser-focused, even as he lacks the energy to pursue it. Cellbit flips it around, and–
It pulses purple, the same shade as Phil’s back, tendrils of light that slither in Philza’s direction but unable to reach him.
…That seems pretty conclusive.
Phil’s hands scrabble feebly along the ground, but he just can’t muster the energy to get himself up off the ground. A high, frustrated noise peels out of his throat. Fit covers his eyes again, readjusting his grip with his other arm around Phil’s midsection. Better safe than sorry, and Fit doesn’t wanna torture the poor guy either, with the image of something he’s so convinced he needs but can’t have.
“Do you think it will stop, if we keep the backpack away from him?” Etoiles asks, directed at no one in particular.
“I think it’s the best idea we have for now,” Bagi admits. Her gaze flicks from Etoiles to Fit, then Cellbit, uncertain. All of them are uncertain. Cellbit is silent, eyebrows furrowed, pale eyes looking back and forth between Phil and the bag, tracking the tendrils of light stretching from the bag, and then the criss-crossing of purple down Philza’s arms.
There’s a broken syllable of speech from Phil, so raspy and faint Fit isn’t even sure what he’s trying to say. Cellbit scoops the bag back up, vanishing it into his inventory before Fit even has to ask.
“Hello, my goat,” Etoiles says, gentle as Fit as ever heard him, coming to sit on Phil’s other side. The bag is gone now, so Fit lets his hand drop. Phil’s eyes travel over to Etoiles with sluggish, jerky motions. It takes him several long seconds, but Etoiles waits patiently.
His eyes wander up and down from Etoiles’ face to the floor at his feet, and when he finally pieces together that Etoiles is not here to return his things, Phil lets his head fall back on Fit’s shoulder, eyes slipping shut again.
“Aw, Felipe Minecraft does not want to see my hideous face,” Etoiles bemoans. “Okay Phil, I see you, I understand.” His face falls just a little when Philza doesn’t even crack a smile. He’s like Fit, then: reliant on Phil’s usual ability to laugh in the midst of any situation. “That’s okay, Phil,” he continues, gentler. “I do not wish to see my face either. That’s why I’m lucky I am my face.”
Still no smile, but Phil’s head lolls to the other side, leaning on Etoiles’ shoulder now rather than Fit’s. That’s a good sign, right?
Across the room, Tallulah bomps down a hesitant sign. ‘Tio Fit? Can we come over?’ She and Chayanne have been keeping their distance, chittering nervously to each other from within their shells. Tallulah is still clasping her paws together, self-soothing. Chayanne’s got a sword gripped in one of his paws; the other is clutching onto Tallulah’s black-tufted tail.
Fit hesitates. “What do you think, Phil?” He asks, watching his face carefully. “You feeling better now? Feeling up to seeing your kids nice and calmly now, huh?”
Phil barely reacts. He’s still looking pale; there’s a sheen of sweat on his forehead. The entire underside of his eyes are dark and mottled like bruising. It, unfortunately, is a familiar sight, but not one he’s used to seeing on Phil.
There are few luxuries available to residents of 2B2T. Simple pleasures Fit’s come to know living on Quesadilla Island, things as simple as holding down a house, feeling secure in his store of items, trusting his neighbors not to steal them, having pets and pretty blocks and a reliably undisturbed respawn, all were nonexistent on 2B2T. Any normalcy anyone could cobble together for themself would be gone before long.
There was little genuine happiness to be found in that wasteland. So most people found their dopamine in the form of potions.
Fit’s seen withdrawal symptoms before. Resources are scarce and constantly stolen, fought over, killed for. Potion stores never lasted long, not for most survivors. It wasn’t uncommon to stumble across players in the throes of withdrawal, pale-faced and shivering on the side of the highways. He’s watched them suffer at its hands. He’s seen it kill them.
It doesn’t seem like it’s going to kill Phil just yet, whatever this is. It’s not potions, but magic withdrawal is magic withdrawal. It won’t kill him, but he’s definitely feeling it. Probably too much now to be the kind of threat he normally could be.
“Okay, kids,” he finally agrees. “Be gentle, okay?”
Chayanne and Tallulah patter forward on their little paws, stepping almost comically carefully through the moss. Chayanne hangs back a little bit, content to press the side of his shell against his father’s leg, but Tallulah nudges herself under Phil’s forearm, standing halfway in his lap. Her body language is all nerves, but there’s a timid, hopeful chirping sound from within her shell.
One of Phil’s eyes blinks open. He stares at Tallulah for several long seconds. Emotions war in the curve of his eyebrows, like he knows he is cross with her, but he can’t quite grasp why or how just now. Eventually, his face smooths over again; a taloned hand comes up, trembling violently but moving with purpose, to stroke shakily through her black curls where they grow up through her shell.
Fit finally allows himself to relax.
“Fit,” Bagi whispers. He looks up, and she’s gesturing him over. Fit looks to Etoiles, and the warrior nods, so Fit carefully extracts himself from their little sextet gathered there on the floor (Cellbit has taken a seat too, deep in thought, staring into his own backpack where his inventory, and now Phil’s, is stored, as if it will give him answers). Etoiles moves seamlessly to fill the space, taking on the role of keeping Phil upright while Fit steps his way through the tangle of limbs to make his way to Bagi.
“I’m going to go check on Empanada,” Bagi tells him once they’ve moved into the adjacent storage room. “I don’t want to leave Pac on his own.”
Fit nods. “Will you update him for me? And will you check on Ramón for me, too?”
Bagi, the godsend that she is, nods immediately. “Of course!” She pauses to lean around the wall, catching a glance at the group of five still huddled together on the moss. “Do you think he’s going to be okay?”
Fit scratches the back of his neck. He’s not fond of making promises, especially ones he has such little control over. “I’m sure he’ll be fine,” he says anyway. “Phil’s a tough cookie.”
Bagi smiles, but it’s strained. “Are you going to stay?”
“For a little while, at least.” Selfishly, he hopes someone else will be able to watch over Phil for at least part of the night. He and Pac had had plans, and Fit is hoping to at least spend some time with him tonight, even if the full plan is no longer in the cards. It’d be nice to sit down and have a meal or something, or maybe even go dungeoning, after all of this.
Of course, Pac would understand if Phil needs him. They’re old friends, after all. Fit isn’t about to leave him alone like this.
And if Fit’s lucky, neither are Etoiles or Cellbit; maybe at least they could do this shit in shifts.
“If you find anything out, you’ll tell me?” she asks, her eyes sharp as flint. It must run in the family, that look. “Or any way I can help?”
“Of course.”
“You’re a good friend,” Bagi tells him.
Fit grins lopsidedly. “After all of this shit? I better be.”
She laughs, and waves her goodbyes, and then she’s gone with a whoosh of the elevator.
“You should go home too,” comes Cellbit’s voice. He’s standing at the threshold of the storage room, his own backpack now slung over a shoulder. He seems hesitant to wear it properly, and Fit can’t really blame him, even though Phil’s backpack could never possibly make contact through it, vanished as it is in the depths of the inventory space. “Maybe take care of,” he gestures vaguely to the side of his own face, and, oh, right. It’s stopped bleeding, doesn’t hurt very much anymore; Fit had mostly forgotten about it. “That. We can take care of things here.”
Fit considers him for a long moment. “I thought you were retiring from the whole,” he gestures vaguely. “All of it.”
Cellbit shrugs. “I mean, this is not really investigating, though. We know as much as we can know already.” And if Cellbit is anything like Bagi, and Fit thinks he probably is, that fact just kills him. “We’re neighbors, I live right over there.” he gestures vaguely with his head. ”It makes sense for me to stay and watch him.”
Ah, Cellbit. Logical to a fault. Fit would have just as easily accepted “I’m worried about him” as an answer, but he doesn’t say that.
“What about Etoiles?” He asks instead.
“I think he’s staying, too.”
Fit nods. Between the two of them, he’s reasonably sure they can hold down the fort. “Oh, uh, I think Pac brought a backpack down,” he remembers. He leans over to peer back into the other room; he spots Etoiles still speaking quietly to Phil, a growing collection of egg signs beginning to obscure them from view, and sure enough, propped against the wall, is Fit’s potion backpack.
“There’s weakness potions in there, and some others.” He looks back to meet Cellbit’s eye. “If you need them, use them.”
“Of course,” Cellbit says. We won’t let him hurt himself, goes without saying.
“And if you need me, don’t hesitate. I’ll have my communicator on.” He feels a little like a fretting mother, leaving her toddler with a babysitter for the first time, but this is important, goddamnit.
Cellbit nods. “So will we.” Fit thinks he catches a hint of a smile at the corner of his lip. The fretting is obvious, then. “Don’t worry.”
“Never do!” he lies, stepping back onto the elevator. “Good luck here.”
Cellbit nods again, smiling just a little.
With the whooshing of the elevator, Fit leaves the basement. Looks like he might be able to salvage this date after all.
Fit’s already gone by the time Cellbit considers he probably should have asked more questions about how and when this all started, and what he thinks about Etoiles’ plan moving forward. Cellbit loves Phil, has considered him family since Bolas, and Etoiles is clearly fond of him too, but neither of them share the same extensive history with Phil like Fit does.
But Fit deserves his peace, deserves a break after almost single-handedly stabilizing Phil into something not normal but at least manageable, so it will be what it is. They’ll do their best and just hope Phil forgives them when he finally comes back to himself.
He rejoins Etoiles in the other room. The French Beast is still sat beside Phil, propping up his weight. They’re lost among a myriad of signs that must be for Etoiles, because Phil’s eyes are closed.
“Is he sleeping?”
Etoiles looks up. “No, I do not think so. Felipe?” He pokes Phil in the forearm, a good seven centimeters below any sign of the purple irritation. Sure enough, Phil’s eyes drag themselves open.
“I think maybe it’s better if he sleeps through this,” Cellbit whispers.
It’s the wrong thing to say. Phil redoubles his efforts to claw his way back to awareness. “What?” he demands, voice slurring, but it’s still the most coherent he’s been in several minutes.
“Nothing, Phil,” Etoiles lies.
“Just the withdrawals,” Cellbit says, covering for himself as smoothly as he can muster. “It doesn’t seem like you’re feeling too good.”
Smooth enough, as it turns out. Phil slumps back against Etoiles’ side, eyes slipping closed. One of his hands comes back up to cup the side of Tallulah’s shell; she makes a murmuring sound from within it. Chayanne, once he’s finished breaking all the signs, comes to sit on her other side, huddling up against his sister with a similar murmuring sound.
“Lay down, Phil,” Cellbit tells him.
“Give me back my things,” Phil counters hoarsely, an annoyed furrow appearing in his brow even as his eyes stay closed. Etoiles lifts a hand in a gesture that Cellbit takes to mean be careful.
Cellbit lets him run point for a minute; the French Beast loops his arms carefully around Phil, taking on more of his weight, and then holding his hands like Fit did, crossing over his own chest. Phil struggles on instinct, but it’s feeble at best, hands trembling too violently to pull away from Etoiles’ steady grip.
Once Phil is secure against him, those milky eyes flick to Cellbit. “I think we get this over with,” Etoiles admits quietly. “Tallulah and Chayanne explained more to me. We don’t think this will stop until it’s gone.”
Cellbit hesitates only a moment before he’s pulling Phil’s corruptive backpack from the depths of his own. While the luminescent pulsing of Phil’s arms has dimmed ever since taking the bag away from him, the light from the backpack has only brightened, grown more furious, tendrils of light writhing and twisting over each other.
Cellbit catches Phil’s eyes screwing tighter shut, squinting against the sudden light.
Etoiles tosses him a flint and steel, and Phil opens his eyes just in time to catch it arc through the air and land in Cellbit’s palm. He startles to awareness, legs scrambling against the moss as he tries to get them under himself and sit up.
“What are you doing?” He demands. Each word comes out patchy, sounds missing as his strained throat struggles to make them. “Put that down.”
The kids scamper out of the way as Phil behinds to thrash and struggle again in earnest. He’s yelling, but not words; divine rage leaves his throat in hoarse, furious shrieks. Etoiles readjusts his grip and nods to Cellbit.
“Are you sure?” Cellbit double checks, against his better judgment but reluctant to destroy something that may have genuine importance to Phil.
Etoiles nods again, emphatically. “Do it,” he insists, at the same time that Chayanne bomps down a sign: ‘It’s just dungeon loot.’
All replaceable then, and certainly not worth this. Okay.
Cellbit strikes the flint. Sparks scatter from the metallic surface.
The backpack goes up, lit like turpentine, all at once and brilliantly. Philza scrabbles against Etoiles’ hold, shrieking in animalistic distress, somewhere far closer to beast than man. Etoiles holds fast, and soon the backpack fizzles out to ash.
Phil slumps like a puppet, all of his strings abruptly cut. He whines like a dog, the wounded note peeling into the air. Then he’s quiet, against the stone.
Cellbit stomps out the embers with the heel of his boot, inspecting the remains carefully. “Okay, Phil,” he can hear Etoiles murmuring. The kids are chittering quietly and bomping down signs, one after another. Cellbit, satisfied that there is no trace of purple infection left along the ground, finally looks back over at them.
Etoiles and him both are hardened men, at the end of the day. Cellbit has seen and lived and been horrible things. He’s killed, tasted his own cruelty on his tongue, turned his sword against good men, against friends, against loved ones. And he can only speculate of the past of the French Beast, the swiftest and most fatal sword he’s met in his many years of associating with people like them, no match for anyone except maybe Roier, on a good day.
He doesn’t see that hardness quite so clearly now. Etoiles has placed his own hand over Phil’s eyes like Fit had done. He’s rocking himself forward and back just a little, slowly, and rocking Phil with him. Wetness spills over the cusp of Etoiles’ palm, silent, uncontrollable tears rolling down the old crow’s face, like he’s lost something very precious indeed.
This is not Cellbit’s comfort zone. But it isn’t Etoiles’, either, and there he is, the French Beast, waiting patiently at his friend’s side, holding up his weight, offering what comfort he can.
And Fit was right about Cellbit. He’s tired. He’s not cut out to play the role on this island that he once did.
But he’s already here, and there’s an empty spot on the floor on Phil’s other side, and Etoiles doesn’t deserve to be handed this burden on his own.
He herds Chayanne and Tallulah along with him. It’s been a long day for them too. They seem hesitant at first, chittering at each other, shifting their weight nervously from paw to paw, but Etoiles moves the hand over Phil’s eyes to gesture them closer, and they finally settle, next to each other in Phil’s lap.
Tallulah bomps down a final sign: ‘thank you tio cellbit, thank you tio etoiles.’ Then she nuzzles closer to her brother and goes still, maybe dropping off into sleep.
It looks like Phil is headed that way too. He’s relatively calm now, blinking slowly in the dim of the basement. He still looks pale, and a little frazzled. He could be in shock. Cellbit makes a mental note to get him a blanket once he’s sure he can leave him alone with Etoiles and the kids.
For now, Cellbit takes the free spot on the floor on his other side. When Phil looks at him, his eyes are hazy, framed by dark circles beneath them, but more aware, more himself, than they’ve been since Cellbit first came to see him.
He clears his throat and winces, sore from all his distress. “It’s me,” he rasps. “I’m back.”
“For good?” Etoiles asks from his other side.
“..I don’t know.”
“That’s okay,” Cellbit tells him. “We’ll figure it out.”
Phil’s eyes find the meager remnants of his backpack, several paces away on the floor. “Bagi told me that you said that was from the Federation,” Cellbit says, the question implicit.
Phil shakes his head. There’s a smile on his lips, but not a happy one. “I have bigger enemies than the Federation.”
And that’s something an old part of Cellbit wants desperately to pry into. But it’s late, and Phil is tired, and Cellbit is tired, and the investigation can come later, when Phil’s expression isn’t quite so pained. He stays quiet.
“Thank you,” Phil says. “And, uh… Sorry.”
Cellbit shakes his head. “Don’t. Don’t worry.”
Phil nods, but they all know him well enough to know he absolutely will worry.
That’s okay, though. Cellbit wouldn’t expect anything else. One day, they’ll figure it out.
“Phil, look at your children,” Etoiles says. “Philza they are sleeping, like you should be. Go to sleep, Felipe.”
“We’ll keep an eye on things,” Cellbit promises.
“...Okay,” Phil agrees, quietly. Cellbit gets up to let Phil lie down on the bedroll. Chayanne and Tallulah stir just enough to tuck themselves against his sides, each under one arm. Tallulah’s little paw fists into his robe and doesn’t let go.
“He’ll be okay,” Etoiles says, several minutes later when Phil’s breathing has gone quiet and deep, just short of a snore.
Cellbit nods. They’ve done all they can, for now, and it will have to do. “Let’s go update Fit.”