travelerscurse: (Default)
[personal profile] travelerscurse
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..

Date: 2021-05-28 04:28 pm (UTC)
whatsina_name: (Phillip [Blushing])
From: [personal profile] whatsina_name
Phillip needs a moment to let the strength come back to his body, otherwise he's going to try to get up and just fall over again. He does at least manage to get his pants back up and shift around on his knees so he can look at the man again, to see that whatever it was that happened has passed.

He reaches out, brushing over his cheek and making a mostly futile attempt to get some of the blood and dirt off of him. "That bad?" he asks, a faint smile on his lips because sometimes Phillip is utterly incapable of asking a direct question. But then again, maybe after what just happened and the uncertainty around everything that is them, he can't really be blamed for retreating into old habits.

Date: 2021-05-28 05:07 pm (UTC)
whatsina_name: (Phillip [Smile])
From: [personal profile] whatsina_name
They do need to have it, Phillip as at least come to terms with that by now, though he hadn't expected this outing to be the thing that might actually push them to have it. It is tempting to run, he'll admit. But that part of him is slowly but surely ceding ground to the part that wants to stop running.

"Alright," he says with a slight nod as the kiss breaks, lingering in his space for a little longer than he needs to. He is trying communicate in his own way that he did mean it all, but those feelings are all the harder to put to words when he doesn't entirely know what they are. He is a little envious of that ability to communicate so much with so little, at the moment.

He does need a bit of help getting to his feeling, his legs not entirely steady beneath him and it may be a few steps before they remember how they work and he doesn't need Gustavain for support. "So," he says after a few moments of silence, to firmly place a boundary between what just happened and now, to be put aside for the moment until they're ready, "How do we make sure everyone doesn't just panic when we show up?"

Date: 2021-05-28 05:57 pm (UTC)
whatsina_name: (Phillip [Curious])
From: [personal profile] whatsina_name
Phillip more or less follows his lead, breaking from him only long enough to complete the task that sent him here in the first place. The bath is incredibly welcome and his hair is still wet by the time they finally sit and have a chance to be alone with no other outside pressing matters. (Which doesn't mean they're done.)

He sits next to Gustavain, gently petting the back of his head and giving him a moment of quiet. "How are you?" he asks after a few minutes, whether or not the man pulls himself back up. Even though what he saw back there was definitely still him, Phillip isn't sure how affected he was by it, and there was certainly plenty else that he's had to deal with on top of it.

Date: 2021-05-28 06:38 pm (UTC)
whatsina_name: (Phillip [Curious])
From: [personal profile] whatsina_name
Phillip doesn't stop his gentle petting motions, carefully combing through his hair and against his scalp but with no real goal, other than to give comfort and to keep touching him. He does want to get into the story of all of that eventually, and maybe that story would be an easier place to start, but it's also far from the most important thing they need to discuss.

"So sometimes it just... what? Brings our your 'darker instincts'? It was still you." He could tell that much, at least. And clarifying that it was still him is certainly more pressing than the why, if they're to move to discussing the rest of it.

Date: 2021-05-28 07:15 pm (UTC)
whatsina_name: (Phillip [Curious])
From: [personal profile] whatsina_name
Phillip doesn't interrupt him, lets him think and take his time. "I certainly hope that's the case," he says, voice a bit wry as Gustavain finishes. That is certainly a distinction he's thought about quite a bit, in the time since they're run into each other again.

"In case it's not clear," he says after another pause, and it's obvious that it is not easy for him to say it, "it doesn't really change how I feel about you."

Ah. 'Feel.' That's why it's hard for him to say.

Date: 2021-05-28 07:25 pm (UTC)
whatsina_name: (Phillip [Smile])
From: [personal profile] whatsina_name
That response actually gets a little laugh out of him, and a soft smile with it. Really, that shouldn't surprise him. He really hasn't been able to hide from Gustavain for quite a while now.

"Just making sure," he says, with a little shrug, "It seems like the kind of thing people like to know in these situations. ...Though admittedly I haven't heard of anything quite like this before." Not that this part really matters anymore.

Date: 2021-05-28 07:44 pm (UTC)
whatsina_name: (Phillip [Smile])
From: [personal profile] whatsina_name
"I mean, I am a little worried," Phillip admits, "More because of how divisive it seems to be. But if you don't know why it does that then I'm not sure much can be done about it."

He's quiet for a moment, but Gustavain can probably tell he's not done, instead trying to figure out how to say what he wants. "...And I admit there was a part of me that worried you'd regret the whole thing and avoid me for days." The last part is a bit of a joke, but saying what he means is progress.

Date: 2021-06-01 12:17 pm (UTC)
whatsina_name: (Phillip [Listening])
From: [personal profile] whatsina_name
Phillip knows why Gustavain does that, leaves the paths of conversation open and plenty of 'outs' available. But in times like this, he really wishes he wouldn't. They do need to talk about it, sooner or later, and at this point later will be all the more difficult for all the chances they've had and chose to ignore. It's still tempting, every time it's offered, to just abandon this and go back to something lighter, back to their now customary dance where they admit nothing.

He keeps the gentle movement through Gustavain's hair, though there's a tension to him now, primed for that regret, for rejection. "What you said," he replies after a long moment, clearly have to push his way down the path, forge through unknown territory, "About wanting me."

Date: 2021-06-01 01:19 pm (UTC)
whatsina_name: (Phillip [Listening])
From: [personal profile] whatsina_name
Phillip reaches up with one of his hands to cover Gustavain's, leaning into the touch. "Obvious, hm?" he says with a little smile, clearly not thinking it was- but then again, they are coming at this from very different places. One who is all but fueled by want and connections, and one who has scarce ever seen it.

There is a moment of quiet between them as Phillip just soaks in the gentle warmth of the hand before he speaks again, a little uncertain. "What is next, then?" He's not trying to be clever, he genuinely does not know. In a way, to him the path forward is incredibly obvious, a devotion that comes with want and belonging and everything Gustavain is. But if it was so simple as that, he feels like Gustavain would have laid his claim before now.

Date: 2021-06-01 02:48 pm (UTC)
whatsina_name: (Phillip [Curious])
From: [personal profile] whatsina_name
Phillip is quiet for a long, long moment, still holding on to Gustavain's hand and still leaning into it. It is not quite that he has never thought of it in that manner, he has certainly wondered why Gustavain did not tell the Scions, why he keeps coming back even when he has every excuse to not. He has known that there has been trust between them, but had not known if that extended to anything more. He realizes, with hindsight, that without love the trust may not have been possible at all.

"I do not intend to be," he says, his eyes slightly averted from Gustavain's not in shame or avoidance but in thought, clearly trying to find the words as he speaks, "I suppose I may well not know how to be otherwise. Especially since I was so often sure you'd come to your senses and write me off sooner or later."

That is a tease, but also not, in the way these things so often are with Phillip. He tried not to feel anything because to do so was an invitation to get his heart broken, and he has never forgotten what Gustavain said to him that first night, that to be with him was at minimum a betrayal of everyone who fought for and with him. Even now, he struggles with how to put it into clear words and not just subtle, easy to obscure actions. "I was going to tell them myself, soon," he says, and perhaps that is a bit out of nowhere but he is trying, so much, "Though I'd prefer that be a conversation I only have once and I feel like Y'shtola would be very cross if it was something she had to find out second-hand."

Date: 2021-06-01 04:07 pm (UTC)
whatsina_name: (Phillip [Smile])
From: [personal profile] whatsina_name
Phillip lets out a short laugh, staying tucked against Gustavain's side as they turn the attention to the display in front of them. "Oh I'm quite sure I've already avoided it too long for her liking," he says, shaking his head as he too begins to help himself, "Though honestly the reprieve I'll get from Tataru's hassling may well be worth the lecture and ear boxing both."

Tataru has no idea he's an Ascian. She's had plenty idea of how he's felt and has been utterly impossible about it.

They likely don't talk much while they eat, the exhaustion from the day momentarily put aside for the hunger that came with it. But once they've had their fill the bed is not too far off, comfortable and warm and all but waiting to be fallen into.

Date: 2021-06-07 02:15 pm (UTC)
whatsina_name: (Phillip [Blushing])
From: [personal profile] whatsina_name
“Doesn’t she always?” Likewise, Phillip doesn’t take the conversation anywhere meaningful, a very gentle and fond ribbing of their friend being the most of it. He doesn’t eat much either, enough that he won’t starve through the night but the weight of both the exhaustion and the pending conversation (however cautiously optimistic he is about it) pull him to the bed before too long.

He allows himself to be pulled in with a smile, hand finding its familiar perch in Gustavain’s hair and smoothing gently through it. “Indeed,” he hums playfully, shifting the two of them close as he can get.

He’s quiet for a moment, looking over the man beside him and taking in the picture of him lounged on the bed, relaxed and impossible to resist despite everything. “I do love you,” he says softly, realizing now that that might not have been as painfully obvious as he’d thought it was.

Date: 2021-06-09 05:57 pm (UTC)
whatsina_name: (Phillip [Curious])
From: [personal profile] whatsina_name
“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.

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