"Do you think Philza's okay?"
Fit rolls over to look at Pac, his roommate staring up at the ceiling. He reaches over, cautiously offering his hand. Pac, of course, takes it just as hesitantly.
"Cell's back, maybe after you, and you're worried about Phil?" Okay, so Fit is worried too, but his point is well made. Pac had only told him some of the situation, in whispered tones and terrified whimpers a few hours ago, and he was worrying about someone who was at least safe?
Pac turns his head, and looks Fit dead in the eye. "You're with me. I know you won't let anyone hurt me. But who's with him?"
"He's safe enough," Fit says. "Physically at least."
"He just didn't seem, ah," Pac struggles with his words for a moment. "Well?"
"It's not really my place to say," he replies. "But he's Philza. He'll be fine."
"Will he?" Pac asks, fretting already. "If the Federation is inside his head, making him see things..."
It's a worry Fit has too, one he really doesn't want to think about. He wants to pretend that his old friend is fine, that going and murdering blazes and magma cubes will have fixed everything. He needs to believe it, because the alternative... The alternative is there's nothing he can do.
"Do you really believe him?" Pac asks. "That there was a book there."
"Yes."
"Why?"
Fit sighs, and sits up. He turns on the lamp and stretches, looking around his room of missing texture flooring and ugly walls - the safest place he could think to bring Pac when he heard the news.
"It's not the first time," Fit says. "Phil... He swears it was a dream, that he was just sleeping. He wasn't. Tubbo and me? We checked every corner of his house. He wasn't there. Then he takes us to where he thought he was taken and he swears there's nothing weird about it? But it's full of parrots - they shouldn't have spawned there. Tubbo even found an avocado sapling."
"Philza has a lot of avocados," Pac agrees. "You think the Federation took him?"
"I'm not sure, it's not their usual behaviour," Fit frowns. "But I don't know who else it would be?"
"The codes?"
"Maybe." Fit cracks his head to the side. "But I know Phil. Whatever he saw? It terrified him. And anything that scares Philza Minecraft is nothing you ever want to see."
"Should we ask him if we can visit?" Pac has a calculating look on his face. "I can cry scared all over again, I just need to remember why. And his bunker is very safe. They might look for me in your house, but they'd never think of his."
"Why? Is my company not good enough for you?" Fit is mostly teasing.
Mostly.
"No! No, no, no," Pac waves his hands in a desperate attempt to be understood. "I just... I'm worried, you know?"
"Yeah..." Fit sighs. "Yeah, I'm worried too... I'll ask him."
Pac nods, and Fit types.
You whisper to Ph1LzA: Can I bring Pac over? We might need to stay the night.
Ph1LzA whispers to you: sure mate
Ph1LzA whispers to you: is everything okay?
You whisper to Ph1LzA: We'll explain when we get there
That's the end of that; Fit shows his communicator to Pac, who agrees.
"I'm not really faking the tears," Pac promises, already tearing up. "I just don't think about it, and then it isn't real."
Pac's not the only one acting like that, Fit presumes; Philza's constant denials even with evidence in front of him... Whatever the fuck happened in that forest, it's nothing good. Something so terrible believing his memory is at fault is somehow better.
"To Phil and Missa," Fit reminds Pac, not really needing it.
They warp together, and at the same time.
---
Philza is waiting at the top of the hatch when the pair arrive. To most people he would look entirely normal, but Fit can see the way his eyes flitter as he waves. Pac waves back, while Fit gives his traditional "oi!!!"
Philza laughs, and leads them down into the basement.
"What's up?" he asks the two of them. "Need more toast or something? I thought you were both asleep."
"No, um," Fit looks to Pac, realising they didn't quite work out what to say.
"Bagi told me more about the murders," is what Pac says, his voice dropping very quiet as he does. "She thinks... We think someone from my past is on the island."
"Shit," Philza closes his eyes for a moment. "How bad is it?"
"Last time I saw him," Pac's pace picks up; Fit squeezes his shoulder as he sees panic come in. "Last time... He nearly killed me. And the messages..." Pac grabs the hand on his shoulder and squeezes it back. "Some of them might be addressed to me."
Philza doesn't ask questions, he just glances around his children's bedroom, then looks at Fit. Fit meets his eyes.
Philza sighs, and caves.
"Alright," he says. "Do you want to sleep in Chayanne's room? I can adjust the door to just the three of us, Missa, and my eggs for now."
Fit knows it isn't for Pac's sake that Philza is changing the doors, he knows it for sure.
They get their beds set up, tucked behind the chests where a casual observer cannot see. Philza doesn't have a bed, but Fit makes them for him and Pac, placing them tucked away.
"Would you stay with us?" Fit asks, before his old friend can slip away.
Philza looks genuinely surprised by the request, "why, mate? I'll just be in the eggs' room."
"Safety in numbers, right?" Pac asks, glancing between the two. "I would... Feel safer if you were here too."
Fit knows its a manipulation tactic to convince Philza to stay, to make sure the old crow is not alone. It still rings so very true - and so very against everything ingrained within Fit's soul.
It's fine. For a few nights he can manage it, if its what his two closest friends need.
"Alright," Philza hesitates, but comes over and sits on the edge of Pac's bed. He takes off his backpack, and leans his scythe just in reach. Pac and Fit take the opportunity to remove their prosthetics, hastily reattached to travel over here, and stretch.
When Philza stands again, both of them can see how unstable he looks.
"Let's push our beds together," Fit says. "If we put Pac between us, there isn't an angle they can get him from."
Philza looks at Fit, and knows exactly what he's doing. Still, Philza crafts up a third bed, and squishes it between the two.
He nearly falls as he walks around to do it; Fit catches him, helps him steady, but is brushed off before he can say a word.
"Alright," Philza says. "Pac in the middle then. You won't get too warm, will you?"
"I'm Brazilian," Pac says. "It's always too cold here now Mike is gone."
They both see how heavily Philza drops to the bed, curling himself back to Pac and defensively ready. Fit, on his side, curls close to Pac - his one arm over him.
It's not really a surprise how quickly Pac falls asleep, with the sheer trauma and strain of the day on his back. He quickly falls into dreams, and Fit can only hope they are kind.
"Phil," he asks, once he knows Pac is asleep. "Won't you sleep?"
"You needed a guard," Philza says.
"You know we don't. You and I? We'll wake if anything so much as tests the hatch."
It's true, and they both know it.
Philza, however, doesn't speak.
At least, not for a long time; Fit considers conversation a lost cause and is about to give up and call this good enough when he hears Philza again, voice broken just like it was in the garden.
"If I sleep, will I wake?" is what Philza asks, whispered almost silently. "How will I know when the world is real again? What will I see this time?"
"I'll make sure you wake up," Fit promises, because he can. "And I'll do something to make you absolutely certain its really me."
"Promise?"
Philza sounds so weak, so small like this. Fit... Fit cannot stand it, not at all. He reaches a little further, and manages to put his hand on Phil's shoulder.
Philza's own hand reaches over, clinging to it.
"I promise," Fit says. "We'll wake you if we leave. We won't let anything weird happen, its just sleep."
Philza turns, and his eyes do not seem to trust Fit. But they are also exhausted, and desperate, and terrified.
"Go to sleep, Phil. I won't until you do."
"I'm sorry," Philza whispers, sounding absolutely broken. "Thank you. Both of you. I know... I'm sorry."
Fit squeezes his shoulder again.
"It'll be alright," Fit replies. "I've got you. I've got both of you. It's going to be okay."
Nothing else is said before they eventually fall asleep.
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Post Jeddah Strollonso Snippet
There are scars on Lance’s wrists, faint and hardly noticeable. Two even cuts along the bone where the metal pins were put in and taken back out that have healed into pale lines. Fernando catches Lance running his thumb along the scars sometimes, absentmindedly, like a twinge of phantom pain can be felt there anytime he fails. He clips the wall in Saudi, just brushes the corner at turn twenty-two and send it into the barriers on twenty-three. When Fernando gets him alone afterward, he’s running a fingernail along the line on his right wrist.
“Lance, stop,” he berates, sliding off his shoes and kicking them in the general direction of his suitcase that lies open on the hotel floor. They land beside Lance’s slides and a green Aston Martin hoodie that started in Lance’s ownership but has since been rehomed into Fernando’s growing collection of stolen loungewear.
Lance blinks, slow and lethargic, but doesn’t indicate he’s heard Fernando otherwise.
“Lance.”
Perched on the edge of their bed, leaning on one arm and looking at the man sprawled out across the mattress behind him, he waits. Lance’s hands are resting on his stomach, rising and falling with each of his breaths in a steady rhythm. He’s still wearing his shoes, and jacket and the blank expression he’s worn since they left the circuit and wound up back here.
“Lance,” Fernando presses, not surprised when he doesn’t receive a coherent answer. Instead, Lance hums in something that is maybe meant to be acknowledgement but could easily be dismissed for the sound of the air conditioning kicking on.
Not for the first time, Fernando finds himself wishing he could follow Lance wherever it is he goes when he’s like this. Back in the car, trying to figure out how he could have salvaged the broken Aston, or back in front of the cameras where he wonders what he could have said to make them see him any differently. Usually, Fernando knows he thinks about the damage, the toll that it’s taking to his father’s credit. It is one of the rare times where Lance thinks about money, the true cost of it, and how much it’s piling up each time he ends up buried in the tires.
Sometimes it’s good to give Lance his space, let him come back on his own terms. Other times the silence scares Fernando, makes him wonder if there will ever be a point where the man won’t come back at all.
It scares him more to realize that he actually cares – that at some point the bosses son had become something more than an obstacle in his way.
Lance breaths, presses his fingernail harder against the scar. Fernando watches as the skin turns white with the pressure before leaning over and pulling the assaulting hand away from where it’s injuring it’s twin. Lance lets him, limp and pliable.
“It was small,” Fernando tries, “an easy fix. You will come back stronger next time.”
Keeping Lance’s wrist in his grasp, he shifts until he’s lying beside the man, his head resting on Lance’s chest.
“It will be okay,” He soothes, bringing Lance’s wrist to his lips and kissing the scar there, warm breath ghosting over marred skin.
“I crashed,” Lance states, empty. “Again.”
Fernando is not good with feelings, not good with lingering in his mistakes. His motto has always been to keep the past in the past. Lance, no matter how much he tries to make the public think otherwise, does not share this belief. He internalizes, he stews, he lashes out at the cameras, the team, Fernando and then he gets quiet. It is like a cycle, dependable but self-destructive, nonetheless.
Fernando thinks he should try partying, or maybe alcohol, but that probably wouldn’t solve much either, even if it would be more fun.
The quiet is oppressive, broken only by the chatter of passerby in the hall and Lance sighing intermittently. Fernando listens to the beat of his heart from where his ear is pressed against the Canadian’s chest, if only to give himself something to focus on. He keeps Lance’s wrist against his lips. They both smell of sweat and rubber, the stench of the track sticking to them along with Lance’s fog of disappointment.
“One-hundred twenty-six,” Lance mumbles, seemingly to himself.
Fernando yawns, “What?”
“A front wing.”
“The cost?”
“Yeah. Thousand."
“Small. Cheaper than the whole car.”
What he wants to say is ‘cheaper than a hospital bill’ but he’s not ready for the argument those flood gates would open. Because it’s not about the car, not really, and it’s not about the bruises that Fernando knows he will find forming when he finally gets Lance to remove his clothes and step under the warm spray of a shower. It’s not about Lance at all, but the man who always seems to find a way into their relationship – Lawrence and his checkbook and the expectation that Lance has taken from the man and placed onto his own shoulders.
Fernando is tired, too tired for a fight, so he stays quiet.
Lance loves his father, and Fernando loves Lance and so there’s no use in fighting over the boulder that has planted itself firmly between them. They work around it, or they sometimes kick against it when they’re feeling particularly bold, but it’s too heavy to move and so neither of them tries.
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