travelerscurse: (Default)
travelerscurse ([personal profile] travelerscurse) wrote2021-04-09 03:10 pm

for whatsina_name

It's so strange, being back.

Ishgard hasn't changed in hundreds of years, strange to think it would have changed since he'd been here last, but then, everywhere else he'd been has changed just in the time he's been there. So it's strange to be walking streets he knows from his childhood but with eyes that are so different.

Beside him, Emmanelain chatters on about the different facets of city life. He had made sure Haurchefant knew to petition his former family with as much discretion as possible. They, of course, had simply said their son had died and they were certain some fugitive from Uldah couldn't be him anyway. He hadn't expected any differently. He feels like that person is dead and he breathes on as someone wholly different anyway, but it's strange, to be being shown around the place he grew up in by a member of one of the High Houses, someone his parents would have killed for him to be friends with just a few short years earlier, as though he were a stranger to this place.

He has always been a stranger to this place.

Dressed in Gridanian fashion and tanned lightly by the sun, he doesn't expect there's anyone here who would recognize him. He'd been barely more than a ghost when he left, hardly a warrior of anything. But as they pass through the Jeweled Croizer and Emmanelain gets caught up talking to some girl he's been trying to woo, there's a sudden, strange sensation at the back of his head, something like and unlike the Echo, and he turns, eyes scanning the busy street for... something. Someone.

(For some reason, unbidden, he remembers the night of the Calamity, giant pieces of some other part of Eorzea raining from the sky..
whatsina_name: (Phillip [Curious])

[personal profile] whatsina_name 2021-06-09 05:57 pm (UTC)(link)
“I know you care.” And maybe that’s why Phillip hasn’t bothered to be more clear about what that means for him, because he thought it would be as obvious as Gustavain thinks their feelings are. “So I’ll help make sure it doesn’t.”

He says it like it’s simple, because to him it is. Phillip never speaks about his fellows, and while it might be assumed to be part of their discretion, it is also in part because he doesn’t have the kind of connection to them that the two of them have to each other, or the Scions, or most anyone else in this realm. His feelings about the other Ascians are... complicated, to say the least, and he doesn’t believe in their goal enough to pursue it in the face of all this. Hells, he actively ran away from it. Making sure the people he loves are happy and safe truly seems like the natural choice.
whatsina_name: (Phillip [Curious])

[personal profile] whatsina_name 2021-06-09 06:30 pm (UTC)(link)
Phillip frowns, though it’s one of puzzlement more than anything else, a hand still stroking the other’s hair. He has always assumed he was the problem, needed to prove that he wouldn’t just turn tail and plot a Calamity. But...

“I don’t understand,” he finally says, because he doesn’t and turning it around in his head isn’t helping, “If I don’t need to say anything, then... what is the problem?” What else is holding this back?
whatsina_name: (Phillip [Listening])

[personal profile] whatsina_name 2021-06-09 07:04 pm (UTC)(link)
Phillip has, officially, lost the entire thread of this conversation. “You are worried about me,” he says, and part of it is a question because surely that can’t be right, but he can’t think of any other way to interpret that.

He raises his free hand to his face, and it’s likely not clear what emotion drives it, frustration or bafflement or annoyance. “Why do you think I am here?” he asks, and the tone of his voice does not clear up anything, “Do you think I did not know that you would die long, long, long before me? I have already made that choice, that being around those whose lives are so utterly fleeting as all of yours is preferable to being alone.”

He drops his hand, and while the curve of his face is closer to annoyed, his eyes are different, filled with depths of sadness. “I have watched those I care for die before,” he says, and there’s clearly more to that but he’s not getting into it now, “I don’t enjoy it, certainly, but having nothing is not better. I can only try to keep you with me as long as possible.”
whatsina_name: (Phillip [Smile])

[personal profile] whatsina_name 2021-06-09 07:19 pm (UTC)(link)
He does glance down to check his eyes, but even before then he’s got that little curve of a smile to his face. “I can confidently say I do,” he says dryly, letting his fingers slide over his jaw, “Quite frankly you’re entirely too bloody selfless the rest of the time, you’re entitled to it I think.”

And really, Phillip does want it. He wants to claim and be claimed, even if it’s temporary, even if it won’t last forever. It would be enough, for now.
whatsina_name: (Phillip [Blushing])

[personal profile] whatsina_name 2021-06-11 02:16 pm (UTC)(link)
It seems whatever issue needs to be settled has been, and Phillip is not inclined to drag conversation out for the sake of it. He returns the kisses but also doesn’t push them towards anything in particular, perfectly content to just curl them up together on the bed. When Gustavain drifts off he stays still where he is, gently petting his hair and watching his features until exhaustion finally takes him as well, resting their heads together as he falls into sleep.