If Only I Were Stronger Still

If only I were stronger still 

tw // blood

    There is a quiet, fleeting, moment, when the blade sinks itself into his ribcage and just below his heart, where the world whites out at the edges. He feels his lungs rattle in his chest, feels the metallic taste of blood well up from the back of his throat. He feels Phil’s shaking hands, tremors running down the metal and into his spine and his throat and the lips he so lightly twists into a smile. 

    “Hey, Phil.” Wilbur says, feeling his father slip further down, head bowed in grief. “It’s cold.”

    Phil keens low and quiet into his chest, singed wings draping over Wilbur, trying their best to block out the cold he knows comes from somewhere within him. He appreciates the gesture nonetheless. 

    He hears fireworks in the distance, and sees blue and red through the feathers. L’manburg colors. He silently thanks his brother for the last reminder of his symphony, his unfinished verse. He wonders if his death will be a finishing bar, or perhaps a catalyst for a new measure. He wonders if Tommy knows that the mantle has been passed, and that he’s sorry for the weight that ties a noose around his younger brother’s neck. It wasn’t supposed to be like this, he wants to plead, you’re not supposed to carry the weight of my failures on your shoulders. He hopes Tommy runs away, that he leaves this unfinished song and go write for himself a new one, a happier one. 

    “Are you proud of me?” Wilbur finds himself whispering, half hoping Phil doesn’t hear, and finding himself feeling too tired to care. He supposes death did that to a person. Leaves them tired and cold and strangely light. Phil’s hands don’t stop shaking, and red paints his palms and fingers and the hem of his cloak. Wilbur huffs a laugh at his father’s silence.

    “You don’t have to answer that, I think I know what you’re gonna say anyway.” Wilbur says, swallowing back a lungful of blood and air, bringing a hand up to card through the man’s blond hair. Phil shudders. “I wouldn’t be proud of me either.”

    Phil lets out a broken sound at this, and somewhere in Wil’s bleeding chest, he feels a twinge of shame. 

    “Forget about me, Phil.” Wilbur says into the air, feeling sweat and blood and tears drip down his chin. It stains the tips of Phil’s hair. “It’ll be easier that way, I think.”

    Phil brings a hand up to clutch at Wilbur’s arm, head still burrowed in his fast reddening shirt, and Wilbur stifles a gasp at where the movement jars his wound. The elder’s breathing is shallow, he opens and closes his mouth, words caught in his throat, like he’s choking on them.

    “Don’t cry, Phil.” Wilbur hums, voice thready and thin in the ash filled air, “I don’t want that to be the last thing I hear.”

    Phil sobs, and his back shakes with the weight of his grief and his loss. It must be agonizing, Wilbur thinks, to mourn your son while he still speaks. Then again, that won’t last for much longer.

    Wilbur strokes his father’s head, though his fading strength only allows him to curl his fingers, helpless as it falls wayside to the ground. 

    “You’ll be fine, dad.” Wilbur whispers, “You did the right thing. You got rid of the big bad, like the hero in the stories you used to tell.”

    Phil wails harder, and Wilbur thinks that maybe being a hero isn’t as appealing when it causes good men to cry. 

    “I’m tired.” He sighs, feeling his eyes slip shut, “I’ve been awake too long.”

    Phil reaches out with trembling fingers, bloodstained palms cradling his cheek.

    “I l-love yo u.” He chokes, the words broken and jilted, like a song through a broken speaker. 

    Wilbur feels his smile slip a bit, and bites back a strangled laugh, because Phil doesn’t deserve this, doesn’t deserve to have to paint the floor red with his own son’s blood. Another tally on his faults, he thinks, another red name for his ledger of wrongdoings. Even on his dying breath, he hurts the people he loves. 

    “I love you too.” He says, instead, because he refuses to leave without letting his father know that he loves him. That whatever happens, whatever consequences he’s left blazing at his wake, Wilbur soot does not hate his father.  That this isn’t some sort of cruel punishment or last hurrah. He thinks that maybe he just wants to be held, and that sleep comes so much easier when he’s safe in the arms of his childhood hero and protector. “I love you so much.”

     The static in his head grow louder, and he feels his heart give a shudder, and a beat, and the dark encroaches quickly, and through the gauze he hears a broken scream. Then, nothing.

AU concept I came up with when I missed the OSMP

(old draft i wrote back in like july or august) Phil is an assassin/bounty hunter known as “The Angel of Death” who does contract killing to earn some extra cash to take care of his three sons.

Phil isn’t ashamed of what he does, but it isn’t glamorous so he’d rather no one know about it, and works very hard to hide his identity and his hero persona in general from the public. The Angel of Death is just a rumor around the region and no one that’s seen him has lived to tell the tale (or been sober enough to be believed.)

However, his kids suddenly become OBSESSED with the Angel of death, and Phil has to scramble to keep them from idolizing him and being a bad influence. But they just think he’s sooo cool and don’t wanna let their cool new idol go.

So Phil instead embraces their obsession, crafting a more kid friendly version of The Angel of Death.

He confirms that the Angel is in fact real, but;

“His ACTUAL name is Crow Father, and, no, he doesn’t KILL people. He just watches over the city and is a simple night watcher. In fact, he helps bad guys see the error of their ways by talking to them. All the dead criminals that show up are unrelated and why do you kids even know about that stop watching the news.”

So Tommy, Wilbur, and Techno grow up with a WILDLY different version of the Angel of Death legend, believing him to be just some positive role model for kids that spouts wholesome messages and encourages good habits like “Brush your teeth!” or “clean your room!”

Techno and Wilbur grew out of the Angel of Death obsession a year so after that, thinking he’s just for little kids, but Tommy held onto that phase until he was a teenager, then they all pretty much forgot about it. Phil had long since retired and the Angel of Death legend is all but completely dead, morphing into a tale about a monster, cryptid, or spirit that once roamed the countryside instead of a mysterious killer that targeted criminals.

Phil, thinking his secret is safe, foolishly relaxes for the next few years, positive NO ONE will ever know it was him.

Until his kids come home from being away for quite some time, and start talking about their old obsession. Some dots begin to connect, like the hero’s disappearance sometime when Phil came home with a mysterious stab wound, and why he was always tired like he’d stayed up the entire night…

Meanwhile Phil is chopping onions or something a few feet away listening in just thinking “don’t look at me, don’t look at me, don’t look at me-”

happy merlin anniversary! we are still waiting at the lake.

Tomo’s Theory of Happiness

There will always be those who dare to brave the lightning’s glow

catharsis

Will is a little nervous, coming in this room. Again. It’s always a different mix of emotions, but some key ingredients are the same: thrill, anticipation, sadness. This time the cocktail is a true masterpiece: thrill, anticipation, conviction, confidence, only a drop of sadness. The only really new ingredient in all of this is fear, and it kind of ties it all together, adds the needed spice to the mix. Will lingers for a bit, analyzing the taste of the imaginary cocktail. There’s something else. Just… a dash of uncertainty. It’s not about the act, but it’s in the air, ruining his experience. What a shame.

“Will. What are you doing?”

Phil’s voice sounds so, so familiar. Maybe decades ago he said this exact phrase in this exact tone, when Will was stealing something from the kitchen. Weird how some things don’t change. 

Will is glad to hear his voice. It means that it all goes according to plan. It means that he won’t leave this room. The uncertainty is gone. 

Will is deafened by the sound of the explosion, his breath is heavy and uneven, partially because of excitement, partially because the air is filled with dust, but right there, right then, he has a moment of absolute clarity. It all makes sense to him, all of his questions have answers, he comes up with a name for his cocktail — “catharsis”. It has a wonderful sweet aftertaste of satisfaction. 

There’s only one more thing to do. Will has done it a thousand times before, especially when Phil would catch him doing something he “shouldn’t be doing”. Ask nicely. Phil is surprisingly bad at saying “no”.

Weird how some things don’t change.