Pathos - A Duskwood Fanfiction

Chapter 35

"Phil, wait."

Her voice was breathless and ragged by the time that she had managed to catch up to the retreating figure ahead of her in the dark, almost having lost him twice in the dark streets that curved and twisted disorientingly throughout the downtown proper of Duskwood.

He whipped around sharply as her voice finally reached him, and he had looked about to resume his pace with speed when he faltered and finally stood still. She was unable to see his face as it was cloaked in the shadows that draped the street around them, but she could very clearly read the venom in his stance as he stood in an icy silence that practically dripped from his rigid and unwelcoming posture.

She slowed then, approaching carefully with her chest heaving hard as she fought for breath, and her broaching nearness granted her sight enough to finally get a glimpse of his face. His dark eyes were boring into her with with a ferocity bordering on the edge of rage, and the eerie expressionless cast to his features lent him a disconcerting juxtaposition that she realized that she had seen once before on another face entirely.

He lifted his arms to fold them in front of his chest as she came closer, an unspoken gesture of rebuke and rejection setting the tone before she could begin to think about what she was going to say. He stood his ground as she closed the distance, and when she was a few feet away, she stopped.

"Phil," she began, but he cut her off instantly.

"So when were you going to tell me about Dan, exactly?"

She fell silent then, and Phil stared at her as she allowed the silence to give the answer that she did not, in that moment, have the strength to give. The silence of her reply turned his question from one that was seeking an answer into one that they now both knew was rhetorical, and Phil clenched his jaw as the fact of that change became unavoidably clear.

When he spoke again, the words were another statement of fact, flat and cold as he stared at her.

"And you knew this entire time that Jake was their brother."

To this, she shook her head, taking another step closer.

"Not the entire time," she said quietly, and Phil exhaled sharply in a humourless laugh of derision at her reply. When he spoke again, eyes flaring angrily in the dark, his voice was hard and uncompromising and the content of his words so full of vitriol that it stopped her from trying to take another step towards him.

"And when did you find out about Richy, then? A week in? You let that psycho torture my sister with that raven shit - let him assault her - for what, exactly? So you and Jake could feel like heroes?"

She felt her mouth run dry at this, and she stared at him in reeling shock as he returned her stare with an accusatory gaze.

"No, Phil," she said faintly then, feeling her own contained rage starting to build as he took the step that she had not been able to take towards her.

"How am I supposed to believe anything that you and that freak have to say? You knew that it was Dan that tipped off the cops and got me locked up, could have stopped it, and did less than nothing? Why? So that you two could carry on some sick detective fantasy together while the rest of us suffered?"

It was her eyes that flared with anger this time, and she snapped her reply bitterly at him as he stared at her with overt malice.

"We didn't know that it was Dan until the very end, Phil. We didn't know until Dan told me himself on the night that Richy died. You really think that I would have let that slide if I had known? I was doing everything that was within my power to try and figure out who had done that to you. We both were."

At this, Phil issued another mirthless laugh and stepped closer, closing the remaining distance that had separated the two of them. He was close enough then that she could smell the ashen perfume of the cigarette that he had been hauling on as he had strode away from the Aurora, and she could feel the warmth of his body radiating into her in the cold October night as she began to shiver.

"We," he echoed then, and the previous anger in his voice receded, replaced with something that resembled a quiet sadness. She stared into his eyes mutely as he glanced away from her gaze and down, and it was only when he began unzipping his jacket and started to shrug out of it that she realized that she had forgotten to put on her coat as she had ran after him out of the loft.

She had been ready to take a step back in refusal of the gesture that he was about to offer, her anger at his words still sitting heavy in her chest, but then his jacket was draped on her shoulders and the warmth that it still contained from when it had been wrapped around him flooded her skin and she fell still.

He hesitated for a moment, and then lifted his hands to her shoulders and pulled her into him. He wrapped his arms around her then, and, lulled into inactivity as the heat from his body and the jacket washed over her, she allowed herself to rest her head on his shoulder in silence.

They stood together like this for a time, his hands gently rubbing her back as he held her, and his voice was gentle this time as he spoke quietly.

"I'm sorry."

She pressed her face into his chest then as a silent acknowledgement of the apology, and after a moment, he spoke again.

"You and Jake. Is he really who you want?"

She didn't reply to this, couldn't reply, and Phil remained quiet as she let her silence answer yet another question.

But, as his hand lifted to her chin and he tilted her face up towards his, she realized that it had spoken an answer that she had not intended to give.

"Phil," she whispered warningly in an attempt to stop what was happening, but his lips were on hers before she could do anything else.

She recoiled as this happened, tried to push away, but his arms were holding her tightly as he tried to deepen the kiss.

"I know you want this," he whispered into her mouth, and she wrenched her head away from his as she felt his tongue try to breach her lips.

She found her strength then, as he tried to kiss her again, and raised her hands to his chest and pushed hard. He stumbled backwards slightly from the force of it, and his arms released her as gravity assisted her in doing what she alone could not.

"No, I don't," she snapped, and he stared at her in mute shock as she wiped his saliva off of her lips with the back of her hand. "And yes, Jake is who I want. Whether you want to believe it or not, he did everything that he could to try and stop what Richy did. Including trying to find out who got you thrown in jail. He may not like you, but he's not your enemy."

Phil continued to watch her silently for a long moment, eyes unreadable, and then without a word, turned and started to walk in the direction that he had been heading in before she had stopped him.

She stared after him in empty silence, her heart seeming to churn in her chest as it thumped wildly, and then realized that she was still wearing his jacket around her shoulders. She pulled it off and held it outwards, calling after him.

"Your jacket," she said, and without him turning around or stopping, Phil's broken voice floated back to her as he disappeared into the dark.

"Keep it."