[maidstone] objects in space { phillip }

APRIL 2004
10:47 pm

thread cw: underage drunkenness, impaired decision making, descriptions of intense anxiety, mentions of SA

Billie could hear her heartbeat thudding, and the uneven sound of her own panicked breathing. She could hear the sounds, but both felt a bit too far away, like the beats were in someone else’s chest, the breaths inhaled and expelled from someone else’s lungs. Was it tunnel vision, she wondered? Was that what it was called? She felt the world around her shrinking — her perception shrinking — to a point not very far away from where she was sitting, on the edge of her old bed.

But there he was, in front of her.

“Phillip,” she whispered.

It was dark in here, but the silhouette she could see contrasted against the large window at his back would always, always be familiar to her. Even when her vision was blurry from tears, like now. Even when the moon was barely a thin white line, curving somewhere up high against the dark sky, and barely gave off any light at all. It was dark in here, but she’d reached out to him and he’d come. She might have cried at the thought if she wasn’t already crying.

She needed to be out of here, now. Billie unclenched her hands from where they were clasped too tightly in her lap, bringing her fingers up to wipe away some tears. She tried not to drag her makeup as she wiped under her eyes, but assumed the glitter was already all over her face. It really didn’t matter. She was having trouble breathing for Merlin’s sake — makeup didn’t matter! But.

But, it did.

She couldn’t quite look directly at him. The sentences spilled from her lips in pieces, her words confused and overlapping until they distilled into a single, important point at the end of it all. “I’m so — I’m so sorry, I just — I couldn’t think.” A small gasp. “I’m sorry, I didn’t want — I know I must have worried you— ” Another breath, then a distinctly desperate, pleading tone. “Can you get me out of here, Phillip? Just — take me somewhere?”

“Just — take me somewhere” Phillip had no idea what was going on or who was in her house, but from the moment he landed in her bedroom and heard the music downstairs, all he wanted to do was leave. That was expected, but the unexpected part was that Billie asked to go with him and that he wanted her to. Apparating into her bedroom was like riding a broom, he had not been to Maidstone in months, but he’d been here enough to remember precisely which corner didn’t have any furniture in it. Old sneakers firmly on creaky floorboards, Phillip looked for her in the dark room, and his heart dropped when she called out to him. Like something pulled straight from his dreams, the ones when he forgot what had happened, and it was just the two of them in their perfect world again.

They had not spoken in a month, and right now, that felt like both a lifetime and a heartbeat all at once. It was easier to avoid her in the halls every day, and eventually, even Winifred stopped asking questions about what happened. Time passed, things got easier, finally. Phillip had gotten to a point where not every thought circled back to Billie; he still thought about her a lot, but not in the same way he had in the days directly following the breakup. He remembered the best parts of the summer, eating Mint Chocolate Chip ice cream (letting it melt, more accurately), and going to the movies.

“Okay,” he said softly, once he was sure she’d stopped talking. He could barely make out the outlines of her face, the room was so dark, but he could hear the difference in her voice. Something was off, and he was immediately on high alert. Something glass crashed and broke downstairs, followed by some more loud voices, and Phillip moved across the room silently. Whatever it was, he would ask about it when they were gone. Phillip found her hand in the near-darkness and brought them to the very first place he thought of. It was also probably one of the last places he should have brought her.

In the middle of a clearing, surrounded by trees older than their grandparents, grandparents, there was an old picnic table. Weathered and worn down, with names and notes carved into the wood, it was a place they had had lunch a few times before. In the middle of nowhere, and found by accident, they had only ever been there by apparition. Phillip set them down beside the giant willow tree that spilled leaves into the river in the winter.

“Billie,” He wanted to ask why she messaged him or what was going on at Maidstone, but instead, Phillip said, “Are you okay?”

He moved over to her in the dark and, somehow, she got to her feet. She should be nervous, standing so close to him. Should be nervous about what he might think of her, or if he could smell the alcohol, or if he’d be able to feel her pulse through her skin if he touched her. She should be concerned about the fact that she was making demands when she really had no right. But she wasn’t.

She processed some of those things mechanically, like distantly remembered exam notes learned only by rote, but she didn’t have space to feel guilty or overly self aware about any of it right now. Their hands found each other, interlinking in the dark, and she managed to take a sharp breath before the familiar discomfort of apparation folded her up and repositioned her someplace entirely new. He wasted no time, and she was grateful for that.

This place was:

Cold.

Quiet.

Familiar.

The grass was longer than she remembered, and a gentle breeze rippled through it. She could see little yellow patches in the green that must be buttercups (it was spring — everything was flowering).

Billie didn’t let go of his hand, her fingers clinging rather firmly in the exact spaces she’d spent the last four months imagining they would. Later, she might rue not fully appreciating the fact. She still didn’t look directly at him until he said her name (and then only briefly). Concern was clear in his voice, and somewhere a part of her melted.

“No,” she breathed, reaching up with her free hand to wipe more tears as they came. It felt like her lungs were fighting her, like she couldn’t get a full breath, like they were demanding more than she could give. She was shaky, tears were streaming. Later, she’d wonder if he hated seeing her crying, if it annoyed him. For now, she was only vaguely aware that she should try to be less messy, though her attempts to do so were feeble.

She felt dizzy, like the world in front of her was smaller and distorted somehow. “Thank you,” she said between short, sharp gasps for air, somehow still retaining at least a semblance of propriety. “I can’t breathe,” she added shakily. “It’s like — that time?” She looked at him then, her brow furrowed and eyes full of panicked tears, willing him to remember and understand without her having to explain.

A thousand questions rambled around in his head, but he'd already asked the most important thing, so Phillip was forced to wait for her to answer. He could feel her trembling, her hand still intertwined with his, but Phillip didn't think to let it go. For a second, just that one moment, he wanted to believe they were here for better reasons. It was late, and he was tired from the typical lack of sleep, and his heart just wanted this to be something it wasn't. The air was cold, but the sound of the river and the rustling of the trees brought him back to a warmer time. To when they were together, and some ripple of nostalgia ran over him.

And he heard her breath, sharp gasps, and he recognized those too. Like the time she'd panicked about her exams and the thousand other things that were weighing on her. And instinctively, he wanted to pull her closer. He could picture how perfectly her head fit under his, like two puzzle pieces, his chin just brushing against her hair. "It's okay," He said, but Phillip didn't know why she felt this way, so really, he didn't know if it was. He didn't know anything about what had happened tonight, and there was only a limited about of time before that started to irritate him. Phillip was more worried about whether or not she was okay to care about it now, but that wouldn't last forever. He would ask, eventually, and want answers.

It was dark here too, but different than it had been in her old attic bedroom. Phillip could see in front of him, he could see her face, and he could see the sliver of moonlight reflecting in the river and making everything a little bit brighter for it. The wind rustled the trees and the grasses, and he realized she was probably freezing. He had a jacket on, having just come from Marin's house, but she was dressed in a…. what was she wearing? Phillip blinked, moving a half step away to see her better, but not so far that he pulled their hands apart and then tilted his head to the side. This sort of dress was not something he'd have ever imagined her wearing. She cut her hair after the breakup, and now she was wearing new clothes and having what? A party at her dead aunt's house? Who was this person?

"Are you drunk?" He blurted out, just then realizing he could smell the alcohol wafting off of her.

She’d had too much to drink. She was — embarrassingly — not entirely steady on her feet, and when he pulled back from her, hands still linked, it took a little willpower not to stumble towards him in the direction he was lightly tugging.

He was looking her over.

Billie felt her cheeks redden, the warmth both surprising and a little jarring. She already felt a bit overheated, whether from her racing heartbeat, the panic, or the alcohol, but it was a lot cooler out here than it had been in her room, so she was cooling quickly. she felt his eyes slide down her body — or perhaps it was actually more of a flicker, just elongated by her own silly mind — and it felt like he was tracing the line with his fingertips rather than his gaze.

Her free hand moved immediately to her necklace, the necklace.

She pulled her other hand out of his and took a step back, reaching up to tuck her hair behind both ears. Stupid haircut. The wooden bench was behind her; she felt for it with her hand and then sat down, her back to the table section. She placed her hands in her lap, clasping them together a little too tightly. Apparation hadn’t helped her feel any less nauseous.

She nodded. “Yeah,” she answered, a little breathless. Were her eyes a little glassy? Did she smell like whiskey? “I think so.” She dug her nails into her palms, closing her eyes for a moment as she tried to gather herself. “I’m sorry,” she said again, oscillating back to what sometimes felt like a default state to the girl — apologetic. “I’m sorry, I was just — panicking,” she added. She was still panicking; she hadn’t caught her breath yet, her heart was absolutely racing and she could barely perceive anything that wasn’t a couple of feet away from her. And even then, her immediate surroundings felt like they were at the end of a long hallway. She desperately hoped she wasn’t slurring her words, though; she couldn’t really tell.

Eyes still shut, she tried to focus on breathing more evenly. She wanted him to come sit with her, to touch her again. Letting go of his hand had been a mistake, she decided. Everything felt a little surreal, like she was out of step with it all. That was the panic, she thought. Not the alcohol. She tried to take a deeper breath. Tried to slow her stupid thoughts. After a little while (or a long while, she couldn’t really tell), Phillip came and sat next to her. She couldn’t help it; she leaned slightly towards him, let their arms touch.

At least she wasn’t crying so much right now, she thought.

Billie pulled her hand from his, and Phillip's face pulled into a frown even though he had no right to be upset about it. He shouldn't have wanted to hold her hand in the first place, but feelings were messy like that, and nothing made sense anymore. She had called him, and he had come for her, and the rest of the math was skewed after that. The eighteen-year-old watched her move away from him toward the table, and he wasn't sure if he'd imagined it or not, but he saw her struggle to sit without stumbling. His eyes answered his question as she did, and Billie set her hands in her lap; some things never changed.

Hearing Billie's hesitation that she thought she might be drunk softened Phillips's frustration some. The girl he knew had never really been drunk before, so at least there was some part of her still there. Then again, what did he know? Phillip chastised himself for thinking he'd ever known her at all. The girl he knew had never really been the real her in the first place. "Panicking," He repeated slowly; it didn't matter if he was still mad, or felt lost, or any of the hundred other emotions that tugged him in different directions; he still cared. He couldn't stop caring; that was the problem.

Phillip followed her to the table, facing the same way as Billie, hunched over with his elbows on his knees. He looked at Billie as she leaned against him, but he didn't move away. "Panicking because you're drunk or because something happened?" Another bit of nostalgia caught hold of him, but it was far less kind than the last. This was how it always went; Phillip would ask a question, and Billie would barely answer, so he'd ask another. The wizard had never really noticed before, or maybe he had and had just never minded as much when they were together.

In hindsight now, he realized he'd been a willing participant in her lies. If he'd insisted on answers or had just been paying better attention, he would have probably started to suspect something a lot sooner. It wasn't like it had been hard to figure out once he pulled on the first thread, and that made it even worse.

“I feel like — I’m —” she put a hand on her chest, either trying to communicate something or just feeling her lungs expand and contract under her skin.

It was too much, right now; she wasn’t ready to actually talk, she was still trying to catch her breath. “Just,” she said quietly, touching his leg with her hand, leaving it there. If she were sober, if she weren’t on the tail end of what was probably a panic attack, she would have been so much more careful with the way she touched him, or the way she spoke. As it was, she needed another second. “— One moment.” Somehow, it was easier to ask for what she wanted when her world felt like it was folding in on itself.

She was quiet for a short while, focusing on him and the way it felt to sit so close, and trying hard not to get caught up in anything else. Her mind felt noisy and blank all at once, like there were a million things to be thinking about, but like it was impossible to catch and focus on any one of them. Her heart was still racing in her chest, her thoughts still drunk and blurred, but, with massive amounts of focus, she could feel her breathing calming a bit.

Out of the chaos of her house, she was less scared, but felt less sober, too. It was an awful mix, she thought. She’d made a mistake, tonight. She’d only be able to guess later how bad of a mess she’d made. Right now, she felt awful.

Her breaths were still uneven, but less gasping. She could hear the light wind in the leaves, feel it on her skin (her legs had goosebumps, but she wasn’t sure if she felt cold or not), could feel his thigh under her hand (she should move her hand — she didn’t move her hand), and when she opened her eyes, she could see the grass, the willow tree. To her side, if she looked, she could see him.

Billie should answer his question.

Billie didn’t want to answer his question.

“Both,” she answered, “I think.” The blonde blinked, then retracted her arm, reaching up to wipe under her eyes again. Hopefully she didn’t look like too much of a mess. She felt so childish and self-centred for thinking it, but even if he hated her, she still wanted to look pretty, to him. For him? “There were so many people,” she added, sitting a little straighter. “All these people I didn’t know. And, um.” Billie hesitated. “I don’t want to say,” she said, her thoughts slipping too easily from her lips. Then, mumbled, “I do but I don’t. It’s so easy to overthink…” The blonde put her face in her hands. She felt a little better than before, but she was still shaky, like she’d just had some kind of shock and was slowly coming down from the stress of it.

Beside him, Billie moved her hand to her chest, and he watched her quietly. Her breathing was still unsteady, and it made him anxious, nervous even though he had done nothing wrong. It was like he was anticipating the worst possible scenarios even though she had given him extraordinarily little information. Phillip had never had trouble imagining horrible things before. It was shutting the paranoid thoughts off that had always been the challenge. He was still waiting for her to answer, waiting for her to explain. Billie's hand on his leg froze Phillip where he sat. hyper aware of the contact and the hundred different things it could mean (and that it could mean nothing) floated around his mind. He felt like he was not here, like he was watching from the grass, quiet breaths, heart-thumping, just waiting. And when she asked for a moment, Phillip, of course, granted her request.

While he would have loved just to bombard her with questions, and Merlin knew he had them, Phillip did not move. The silence surrounded them until the chirping of crickets in the grass overpowered everything else. Like a metronome, they chirped altogether, louder, and louder, and then the wind rustled the trees again, and Billie spoke. It was hard to understand what she was saying. The words made sense, but it was so fragmented. He needed more context and details, yet her last words made him wish he had not even been given the basics—so many things to unpack, so many dark thoughts creeping into his mind.

He sighed. Billie's hand on his thigh became more like an anchor weighing him down than a comfort. A reminder that everything was wrong now. That he was angry, and she was drunk, and Merlin knew what had happened back at the Maidstone house. Everything turned into a nightmare in his mind, and it was almost worse that she had not explained it. Phillip could, and would, fill in the details himself if she did not. And it would be immeasurably worse that way, for both. Phillip shook his head, another sigh hanging off the edge of his tongue; this was awful. "Just tell me, "He said, his words conveying the exhaustion he felt.

For longer than he should have allowed, Phillip had let himself think tonight might change things. That she had messaged him with some grand plan to fix everything, he hated how much he had wanted that to be true. He hated himself for falling for it, hated her even though she had not set out to trick him, and he was tired. Phillip was tired of being so angry he could not talk, despite how lonely he was, and so weary but unable to sleep. He was a mess, it was lucky she had called him from a dark room, or she might have been able to see it on his face. His hair was longer than usual, growing past his ears and sticking out unkempt on the sides. His face was paler, eyes dark, and his knuckles were torn up and bruised again.

cw: mentions of SA

Was she slurring a bit? As the adrenaline started to wear off, she was becoming a little more self aware. Not so much that she’d stopped touching him, or that she’d stop spilling her thoughts right out into the air between them, though. She was still having trouble focusing. She was still feeling very outside herself.

What had happened, really? There had been a lot of people, and she’d had too much to drink. There had been the dare, then shots, then she wasn’t sure where her friends were. She’d felt her anxiety humming gently in the background all night, but it had been manageable until — well, she didn’t want to tell Phillip that she’d had more drinks with a boy (a man?) she didn’t know, or that she’d kissed him. Or that he’d been a little too pushy, too encouraging, with both the drinking and the kissing. Just a little. Just enough. And then? She hadn’t felt comfortable. She’d been stressed and drunk, so she’d left, had looked fruitlessly for someone she felt safe with, had felt overwhelmed by the music and the crowd. There were a lot of people, and that was what had really done it; somehow, she’d ended up in her old bedroom, gasping for air.

But as much as she didn’t want to tell him about any of it — just as much, equal measure — she did. And he wanted to know. He sounded tired, but she only noted that fact very distantly.

“Felt so overwhelmed,” she said quietly, half speaking to him and half just babbling to the night. She wiped under her eyes again, then touched her hair, then adjusted the sleeves of her cardigan. “There were so many people and I drank too much and…” She tugged the hem of her dress, which sat above her knees when she was sitting like this. Billie sighed a shaky breath, her breathing still not quite settled.

“— I drank these shots with someone where you bite a lime? And I kissed someone.” She was fidgeting, and starting to realise that she was, perhaps, cold. Billie wrapped her arms around herself, frowning. “I mean, I suppose he kissed me,” she corrected, only breathing the words. It was an important distinction, to her, but she felt nervous to add it, like it wasn’t something she should do. Her discomfort had built from when he’d started speaking to her until she’d freaked out enough, felt pressured and stressed and uncomfortable enough that she’d had to leave.

It was so presumptuous of her to assume that Phillip would still care about things like that any more than a stranger would. That her talking about kissing someone else (or being kissed!) would upset him in any sort of jealous or protective way. She didn’t want to presume to know his thoughts or feelings; it felt wrong to do that to someone she’d hurt, who probably hated her. Wrong to think it would still affect him. And yet — even given all of that —

Well, of course she still believed that it would.

( — She hoped that it would)

( — But didn’t)

( — But did)

“Just… Overwhelmed,” she added, in case that wasn’t absolutely clear.

As the moments passed, Phillip felt more and more inclined to fill in the blanks. It was more than evident that she was upset, panicking even, so he immediately assumed something terrible had happened. Billie was drunk, and it wasn't just the slurring of her words that gave it away, but the tiniest bits of some improper witch he didn't recognize. Her dress was above her knees, something Phillip never thought he'd see, and she had only apologized twice, so something was indeed off. She spoke, and he nodded, pulling at the scraps of information like a detective doing an investigation. So many people that she didn't know. He wondered how they had all come to be at Maidstone, if it was her idea or if it was Killian and the Gryffindor's. Were they the reason she had drank too much? It wouldn't matter; he'd blame them either way.

Shots. Shots were the sort of things rowdy gossipy annoying teenagers did, not witches like Billie. Or so Phillip had thought, but maybe he'd never known her at all. Every bit of information gave him more questions and more judgments, but nothing hit as hard as what she confessed to next. And just like that, Phillip was out of his body again, watching the scene unfold. "Are you fucking serious?" He asked, standing abruptly and moving away from her. His sneakers crunched loudly on the grass as he paced. Phillip was angry and jealous, but he was also confused and worried about her. It was too many things to feel all at once—somehow, he was equal parts angry that she'd done it and that she had told him. Pissed at whoever it was she had kissed and so worried that she hadn't wanted them to kiss her. He shouldn't have still been jealous, Billie was free to do whatever she wanted, but he was. How was it possible to hate someone and love them at the same time?

It should have hurt more than it did, and that wasn't saying it didn't hurt at all, but there was a time when that sort of news would have decimated him. The jealousy was still there, and it was rampant, but as much as he hated platitudes, time did help. It had been four months since they broke up, and while he was devastated that she'd kissed someone (or that they kissed her, why did it matter?!), there were parts of him that just wanted to leave. Phillip considered how he felt when she told him about Horus, on the night she'd been crying in the common room, and it only served to confuse him more. Some voice in the back of his mind screamed that she was doing this on purpose. That she wanted his attention, to hurt him, and that made him want to leave again. Phillip couldn't trust Billie any more than he could trust himself.

"Why do you keep telling me these things?" Turning to face her, Phillip kept the distance between him. He could tell she was sad and upset and in the eye of a panic attack that could roar up again at any second, and he wanted so desperately to be there for her, but he couldn't. It was impossible to separate his anger from worry now. As if someone had gone and tied the feelings together in a knot. A knot that was twisting and twisting inside of him, pulling everything else into the gnarled mess. Anger, worry, jealousy, confusion, exhaustion, like a pit in his stomach.

“I — You asked…?” She responded, her words trailing off, her expression genuinely confused and upset. What did he mean by that? It was the middle of April, and they hadn’t spoken since February! She knew just how long it had been, because even though she’d started feeling good again from time to time, even though she’d stopped skipping meals in the hall and staying in her dorm as much as possible, so many of her thoughts still revolved — so pathetically — around him.

He was still the first person she thought to share new discoveries or small, mundane successes with, the first person she thought of when she was scared, like tonight. It seemed so painfully typical of her to still be fretting about things like what he was going to do after school, but she couldn’t help it! She hadn’t even taken off the stupid necklace he’d gotten her over a year ago!

(Immediately, she felt a pang of something jarring because the necklace wasn’t stupid at all; it was beautiful)

(And then, guilt, of course)

Her gaze had slipped out of his, falling to some middle point on the ground between them. “You’re angry with me,” she said, but she said it to the grass. She didn’t really say it like a question, either, even though a part of her wanted an answer. Maybe because he felt so faraway now that he was over there instead of here, beside her. Billie’s heart ached, raced, hurt. She shook her head. Was it Horus, she thought? It must have been Horus he was referring to. She’d told Phillip (stupidly, she thought, with a painful twist of regret) that her yearmate had asked her out, but while it was a bit awful of her, hadn’t that been nearly two months ago now? —You keep telling me, he’d said. She didn’t think this should qualify. It felt unfair.

She bounced one foot nervously, but didn’t even notice she was doing it. “You asked me what happened,” she said, her arms still around her body, her gaze unfocussed and cast downward. “I’m sorry,” she breathed, feeling a rising sense of alarm, again. “I just. I Needed to get out of there.”

It didn't matter that he had asked, but it should have. When he'd told her to tell him whatever it was that she did (and did not) want to tell him, he thought he wanted the truth. Phillip always thought he wanted honesty, but most of the time, he wished he didn't. Life would have been so much easier if he could be blissfully unaware. To not be at the mercy of unchangeable facts and painful truths. If he had never found out who she was, would they still be together? Would they be happy?

Standing a million miles away from her now, Phillip's emotions stretched out toward her. Like waves of all the things he was feeling lapping across the grass. Billie looked away from him and onto the ground, but he couldn't pull his eyes off of her. He was so mad at her he could scream, but everything about her body language made him want to let it go. It wasn't easy, nor was he adequately equipped to do it, but Phillip wanted to calm down and listen. He hadn't listened before, on the night they had broken up, not that she had answered any of his questions, but he should have. Maybe things could have worked out differently. Time helped with that realization, too.

"I'm just confused," He corrected her, even though he was angry, but saying it out loud didn't help either one of them. Phillip's cheeks were still burning, the sensation reached to his ears, but she looked so nervous. They hadn't spoken for an entire month. It had been the longest he had gone without talking to her in years, and it had nearly broken him. Phillip thought he was getting better at the end of February, after the last time they sat together in the common room. It was painful, but being around her, even if he couldn't be with her, had been like a salve. It wasn't as good as a healing spell, but at least it soothed the pain a little. And then days went by, and then weeks, and Phillip didn't see her. He had stopped actively avoiding Billie; it wasn't that; she just wasn't there.

And after a while, Phillip thought maybe he might be able to be okay with that, too. He wasn't happy about it, it wasn't something he wanted, but the wizard was familiar with those feelings. And then, like whiplash, she sent for him, and he came running. As if one moment washed every bit of progress he'd thought he made away. Billie needed him, and he wanted her to need him. "I just. I Needed to get out of there." Little by little, her words pulled him back. It wasn't as if he forgot that he was upset, but instead, that feeling got pushed to the side a little while another took hold. And even though it shouldn't have been possible, there were far worse things to feel than anger.

"Did someone hurt you?" As he spoke, Phillip crossed the grass quickly, paused next to her, hesitant, and sat down slowly. Could he handle this truth?

cw: mentions of SA

He wasn’t just confused, and they both knew it. Are you fucking serious? It replayed in her head immediately, as if on cue.

Billie felt — felt what? — Felt something. It wasn’t frustration or irritation, and it certainly wasn’t anger, but there was an edge to it that she wasn’t used to. There was hurt there of course, but by now she’d come to expect to feel that wherever he spoke to her — this twisted her more than that.

“Confused?” she repeated, her voice tight and a little high-pitched. She almost wanted to laugh at the absurdity of this entire thing. She was feeling faraway again, nervousness shifting to anxiousness, shifting to something that made it difficult for her to be present. She unfolded her arms and clenched her hands into fists around the bottom hem of her dress, adjusting it again and feeling her nails digging into her palms. She was coming down from the panic, she thought firmly, trying not to let it build again.

A distant, detached part of her was marvelling a little at how her idiot brain could be wondering the most ridiculous inane things (did he like her dress? Did he think she looked nice?) in the most catastrophic way, at a time like this. She was too drunk, too upset, too anxious to handle the stress of crowds or strangers kissing her, or was happening right in front of her. And yet, it still felt like life-or-death level importance suddenly, that he thought she looked pretty. Ridiculous.

She glanced up when he came closer, frowning when he spoke. “No,” she said immediately, the question taking her by surprise. Then, understanding what he was asking, she shook her head and said it again more firmly, for emphasis. “No. Nothing like that.” Maybe a little like that, but not the way he meant it. Her eyes were wet again, but she wasn’t crying. Phillip was sitting beside her again; she should really make herself smaller, she thought. If she cared about him, she should really move away, do her best to compose and contain herself, for him. She should, she should.

She didn’t.

“He just — we were drinking.” Her knee was still bouncing, and she had goosebumps all over now. She had an anxious, wired sort of energy about her as she turned to him, the words overflowing as she thought them. “And he kissed me. And I didn’t really want him to.” She hadn’t felt comfortable kissing that man, and hadn’t felt comfortable saying no. The latter had won out until the former had become too demanding, and the whole thing had reminded her of another time she’d felt caught between the two. She’d felt off, and hadn’t been able to find her friends. Then she’d panicked.

“I don’t want to kiss anyone else,” she said suddenly, her tone tinged with both disbelief (that he would ever think conversely) and pleading (for him to understand) as she swapped tenses to the present. It felt so off to her; her environment, his anger. He didn’t seem as angry asking if someone had hurt her. Why? Was he the only one allowed to do that? Billie shook her head, looking away from him. That was unfair, and she knew it. Later, she’d feel especially guilty for that thought. “I don’t want to be this drunk,” she added, closing her eyes again, squeezing her hands a little tighter.

Sitting next to Billie felt like the right place to be. Like instinctually, Phillip knew this was where he belonged, and somehow it was the only thing that had felt real all night. Everything else was wrong, every word, every movement, except for this. He wished the rest would fade away but knew that was impossible. Asking a question that terrified him, Phillip felt unbelievably anxious. Billie answered quickly, but it did little to assuage his fears. For once, she hadn't paused, hadn't hesitated or given him half-answers. Billie was direct and focussed, and Phillip believed her, but that the question had to be asked in the first place still made him feel sick.

He let go of a breath he'd been holding, like a sigh of relief and hunched over next to her. Billie turned to face him, and Phillip could see the updated glossiness in her eyes. He hoped she wouldn't cry again; he'd seen her cry too many times. When Billie spoke again, Phillip somehow managed to stay quiet. He didn't cut her off like the last time, nor did he let his anger bubble over the surface as it returned. He just listened when she mentioned kissing someone else, and his ears burned. And even when she confessed that she hadn't wanted to, and he felt the urge to punch something, Phillip was silent. He was desperate to ask why she did, then, but she spoke again, and her words were surprising.

"I don't want to kiss anyone else," It was such a heavy thing to say, and Phillip sat back up again, unable or unwilling to think about it too much. He didn't want her to kiss anyone else, but everything was so much more complicated than that. Phillip moved to speak, though he hadn't figured out what to say, Billie added a final thought, and he nodded instead. He couldn't tell her he didn't want her to kiss anyone else; that would be an unfair thing to say. And he didn't know if he wanted her to kiss him; that was too much to think about right now. So what was left? Her knee kept bouncing; he could feel it shaking the old wood of the table, so he put his hand on her leg instead of saying anything. 

Just —

Phillip’s hand on her knee.

There was a short moment that felt elongated in her mind, and then Billie stopped bouncing her leg, finding some unexpected mental relief in the decision to be compliant. Or, perhaps it was just the contact itself that was relieving.

Just — his hand, fingertips brushing the inside of her leg, thumb on the outside, palm on top of where her knee joined her thigh. He had big hands, she knew, much bigger than hers, which made a lot of sense; he was a whole head taller than her, after all. His hand felt very warm right now, and she wondered if her leg felt very cold to him in turn; that patch just above her knees was always a little colder than the rest of her. It matched the spot just above her elbows. She wondered if he could feel her goosebumps under his fingertips. She felt her mind fixate on all of these little details.

Just — take deeper breaths, smooth her brow, unclench her fists. Billie attempted all of this, with varying levels of success. Her own hands were sore and trembling, a little stingy from where her nails had bitten into her palms, and aching from clenching too tightly. Her thoughts kept circling back to his one on her leg, though, and how it felt to have him touch her like that. Gently, like he wanted to soothe her. She was glad her eyes were closed, so nothing could undermine her conviction that that was exactly what he was doing.

She didn’t want to date Horus. Didn’t want strangers at parties to kiss her. She didn’t want anyone to touch her but him. Her hands were at the hem of her dress; her left one was right near his hand. Ridiculous of her to be so focussed on this fact, and yet… Slowly, almost like she didn’t want him to notice — slowly, she uncurled her fingers.

Just enough that her pinky was a centimetre away from his.