[SIDESTORY] Morbit Oneshots

[skinstealer]

Unclassified Symptoms - 2020
Ringor Mortis, Vest Party (Pre-Sleepwalker)
CW: familial abuse, death, ableism 
Philly tries to block out the noise.

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Their voices are coming through the walls again. Bickering over god knows what again, possibly Nana, possibly money, probably both. They’ll keep pretending that his opinion on any of this didn’t matter, and that he was just their stupid kid.

Philly buries himself deeper in his book, flipping the page and pressing his ears back, trying to block out the sound. They’d be at it for hours, and likely wouldn’t even notice their son staying up later than allowed, reading about things they hated.  It’s ironic to him, that the only quiet time to himself he gets is when they’re too busy being at each other’s throats. It’s ironic that in a weird way, he’s grateful that something, anything, gives him these moments, even if it means he has to pretend that his parents don’t find every reason to argue. 

He’d say that as long as it wasn’t about him, he’s fine with it, but that’d be a lie- one he’s told himself many times over the course of his life. The petty squabbles over budget were something he could live with, but things like now, where it involves someone he loves just as much as they do, that’s when it really hits home just how little he matters to them. They’d been talking about Nana for weeks now, always after they assumed he was in bed and not even bothering to check if his light was on. He knew she was sick, but they’d never let him come with them to the hospital, with no explanation why. 

At this point, Philly knows why. Nana’s dying, he’s certain of it. He can only pick up so much through the walls, but what he can hear in their more heated moments is nothing good, no good news, always talking about plans of what to do, how this is going to impact their lives, who’s going to get the money, everything swirling around his head in a horrible blur. It’s never about how Nana is actually doing, how she feels, what she’s able to do and what she isn’t. It’s always so clinical and practical and he hates that, he wants to burst in and tell them to fuck logic and practicality and the numbers. He wants to scream and tell them to think with their hearts for once…

But he knows how that would go.

He’d be sent to his room and told off for being “volatile”, and shamed for not minding his own business, for eavesdropping, for being inappropriate, as always. They would threaten to take his books away and stop letting him go out into the woods on his own, just straight to his apprenticeship and straight back home. No detours, no adventures allowed. They’d call it another one of his “mood swings” and blame puberty or something, despite the fact that he’s old enough to know that the way his head works isn’t fucking that. He doesn’t know what it is, but he’s read enough about biology to know that going from crying into his pillow to being unable to sleep from too many thoughts filling his head isn’t just puberty.

He’s tried to show them books and pamphlets, asking to see a doctor, anything, just to see what’s up with him. He doesn’t even want to assume anything, but he wants answers more than anything, for himself and the world and what to do, for how to handle his Nana dying when he can’t even see her. It’s all too much and he tries to gather his thoughts up into a tidy pile, praying that he can get them untangled before he starts to slip. Crying would definitely let them know he’s awake past bedtime, and he can’t deal with the idea of them turning their anger on him right now.

Fuck this. He just wants to read his book.

Philly takes a deep breath and turns the page, not having even processed anything on the previous one. He’s already read this book a million times over, the pages worn around the edges- but it’s one of his favorites. ”Horrors and the Horrified”, one in his vast collection of books on the supernatural...at least, what his parents call that, anyway. Horrors seem just as natural as anything else on the planet to him, not that he’d ever seen one. Sure, mutation could be deadly, but...from what he’s read, it doesn’t seem like they’re in control of it at all. 

He glosses down the page before stumbling onto an illustration of a parody, and his breath hitches. Horrors in disguise, immortal mimics that took the form of children...how could anyone think the worst of horrors when hearing something like that? So many of the stories he reads talk about how it’s an act of trickery, a way to get in with mortals so they can reap all of their labor while contributing nothing but trouble, but he can’t believe that, he just can’t. All he can picture is someone lost and new to the world, hoping for someone to pick them up and take them somewhere safe-

He tries to ignore the tears prickling at the corners of his eyes, turning the page before he’s even finished reading. Common horror mutations are easier on his mind, and it’s almost soothing to read the familiar bullet points that he knows so well. Growth of teeth and claws, hunger, mood instability-

God damnit.

He closes the book and shoves it under his pillow, resisting the urge to clutch at his own head and scream. He knows he’s not mutated, he doesn’t have any of the symptoms, no history of it in the family, but part of him wishes so, so much that he is, and that someday a full transformation will come and make him stronger than this.

At least then, he’d have answers for something.