Sid

[pall0r-mortis]

'Thus strangely are our souls constructed, and by slight ligaments are we bound to prosperity and ruin.' ~ Mary Shelley

Sidney Lawrence Phillips

Nicknames: Sid

Pronouns: He/Him/They/Them (gender neutral)

Magick Status: Magick - Sorcerer (Out as an abomination sorcerer, actually an alchemy sorcerer)

Nationality: American/Boiling Isles

Ethnicity: White

Accent: Mix of American Midwestern and Boiling Isles English

Height: 6"1'

Build: Skinny, sharp edges, but stronger than he looks.

Complexion: Pale with visible scars.

Eye Color: Icy blue

Hair Color/Length/Style: Black, naturally straight, worn short and rarely styled but when it is it's usually slicked back.

Tattoos: (CW: skulls, medical imagery) Has a multitude covering his upper arms, ribs, part of his chest and shoulders, primarily in a minimalist or geometric style centering on medical illustration. He designed all himself, did most of them himself as well; his casting scars from spellwork are part of the designs. Full tattoo post link can be found below.

Piercings: Ears, left nostril but rarely wears it.

Daily Jewelry: Always has some collection of metal rings on both hands, it varies from day to day, as he uses them as conduits for his magic, and most are variations of poison rings that he stores Humors in small powdered amounts in. Typically has at least one silver, gold, copper and steel on each hand, but the amount changes depending.

Occupation: Delivery and general staff at Pizza Planet, and tattoo artist at Sunburst.

What would you find if you Googled them? 

(TW: Illness)

Nothing about him, but his father Paul Phillips is a well known plastic surgeon who catered to high end and rich clientele for the past twenty-something years, predominantly working in the US. There was a small scandal mentioned in some tabloids about his wife having an affair, and their divorce in the years after.

Most recently the Phillips name was known due to Paul's sudden decline in health that forced him to mostly retire and relocate to an unknown small town. The circumstances of the sudden illness are still considered a mystery to the public.

What natives would know about them:

Very little. Sid doesn't make a habit of being too friendly. He, his father, and his father's live-in caretaker Lavenza moved to town recently, to the Southern Isles neighborhood. The family wealth is obvious, the house had remodeling going on for several months before they arrived, but overall they all seem fairly secretive.

Boiling Isles transplants might, however, know the Phillips family as one of the wealthier families with Jeanette and Sid being known as sorcerers, but not Paul.

Recently Paul was moved to London after severe injuries sustained in the MAFIA attack and Sid has remained in town alone.

He's also apparently dating Jesse of 4Town, stirring up the town rumor mill and the band's fansite with speculation about their relationship.

Other:

Sid's dog Scud, a white and black bull terrier, is often spotted around him or sometimes roaming around the neighborhood. He's friendly but becomes very aggressive at hostility towards Sid. Otherwise he may roam up to strangers for attention, but is notably uncomfortable around older men and shies away from them due to his fear of Paul.

Sid always wears some variation of black, fingerless gloves to cover his crafting circle scars. If they are seen he just lets people think they're scarification tattoos. As an OOC note though alchemy has become so forgotten over the years that they wouldn't be recognizable for what they actually are to most. Some very old sorcerers or those who study magic history/magic overall intensively might though. (just ask me ooc and we can discuss who would know)

Sid rarely walks around town, sometimes around the neighborhood but otherwise he drives. Mostly because he likes his cars and working on them; the entire reason the house has a garage. He owns a sleek black Lotus Evora and, more recently, bought a Fiat Panda destined to be scrapped at Gadget's Garage when he was working there. The car doesn't actually work well at the moment and is his ongoing restoration project to get running and repainted.

[Full Bio] [Tattoo Post] [Self Para Index] [Alchemy] [Coven of Divine Exchange]

[pall0r-mortis]

Biohazard || Siri

[pall0r-mortis]

Sid never figured out what she was about to say; one moment she was speaking and the next some furry little demon darted past her and tried to scale his jeans with sharp claws and blur of motion that was almost too fast to track. His immediate reflex was to put the box between himself and the creature but it didn't move like a cat, it scurried on eight swift little legs.

Not surprising when he dropped the box as it climbed over the side of it, recoiling sharply when the feline suddenly wrapped around his arm instead. "What the fuck is-"

Sid was too caught off guard by the jolt of pain in his forearm like someone had just plugged an electrical cord into his nerves to react at first because he hadn't expected the thing to bite him. He didn't know it wasn't a malicious gesture, just playful, but those little fangs were sharp and made to play a little too rough.

Reflexively he grabbed the feline with his other hand while it was attached to his arm but stopped short of flinging it away because all those legs were pawing at the air and it registered for a split second that it was just an animal, a small, potentially very breakable animal. Something that looked more like what he might have seen on the Boiling Isles than around there.

He shoved the squirming kitten back at Mim so he could step back, the throbbing in his forearm spiking as he wrapped his other hand around the twin puncture marks. He could feel the heat in his skin at that spot, the sting working its way through his muscles with an unpleasant chill in contrast.

It really fucking hurt, for the record.

@madmagicmim

[madmagicmim]

The pizza hit the ground and she had a small moment to think 'Damn, not the pizza!' before she was fully distracted by the rest of the problem that had been created.

After Sorrel had given her Blaze, she'd thought for about two seconds about trying to keep her hidden the way they did some of the other Unseelie creatures that had found their way to the Ambrosius house over the years. As soon as Blaze had escaped her bedroom for the second time in an hour, she gave up on that idea. She'd just have to sort of explain she was a cat and give everyone a long stare if they asked questions. It was fine.

Much less fine was the way her cat had apparently decided that Sid was a more interesting and delicious snack than the food he'd been carrying. (She could understand - but also not the point!)

With a bubbling laugh that she tried to control, she said, "Sorry! Sorry, we're still working on the fact that biting isn't always a fun type of playing."

In her arms, Blaze squirmed more, legs flailing as Mim worked to wrap her arms around the energetic kitten.

"Here, come on, let me put something on that. The venom stings a bit."

@pall0r-mortis

[pall0r-mortis]

(TW: blood)

It burned. This was the first, and arguably most important, factor of the situation Sid recognized. A low stinging, electric sort of sensation that spread from the tiny teeth marks to the tips of his fingers and left him contemplating the feeling, brow furrowed. His body went into immediate defensive mode, the hyper-specific reaction to any toxic exposure.

Since it was directly to his bloodstream the pleasant warmth in his stomach like when he smoked weed or did most other drugs was replaced instead by a twinge of nausea. And the bite site's faint trickle of blood turned oily, darker and a steadier flow for a moment with the biological rejection of any foreign toxin by the ones that already existed under his skin.

Sid closed his hand around the wound less to stop the process, there was no stopping it, and more to just obscure it from Mim.

"You might want to warn people of your biohazard of a cat," he noted, and the oddity of the animal itself didn't really strike him too much. He'd seen plenty of strange creatures back home and one with eight legs wasn't as bizarre to him as it might have been to most people on the mainland, but it still wasn't what he had expected to find on the other side of that door.

He thought to argue the idea of the bandage, but then he would have to explain why it was better to just let those toxins slough off instead of trying to cover the wound, and he didn't want to. Although he was doing a poor job of hiding it considering by that point the oily sludge was dripping down his forearm. But what was he supposed to do about that?

"I'm fine," he opted for instead, relying on his usual guarded nature to dissuade Mim from being too curious.

Aside from being a little dizzy, which was unusual but he didn't really have a lot of exposure to organic toxins and his body was confused on that one.

@madmagicmim

[pall0r-mortis]

NAME: Sid Philips

OCCUPATION: Boyband babysitter Security for 4*Town

SECTION: Tail Section

SURVIVAL SKILL: Trained in self defense/physical de-escalation, first aid on a practical level so he knows CPR, how to stitch a laceration or stabilize a sprain or minor injury. Does having no issues committing murder if necessary count?

MAGICAL SKILL: None

REASON FOR BEING ON FLIGHT 2015: Traveling with 4*Town to the next stop on their tour

PERSONAL ITEM: Metal folding fidget cube. It actually belongs to Jesse but he forgets his stuff half the time so Sid carries it for him for when he's overstimulated.

PERSON OF SCIENCE/FAITH: Science - ranting about magic is just stopping people from actually addressing the problems.

BIOGRAPHY:

(TW: Organ trafficking (vague mentions))

Paul Phillips was a man with presence and power, but he built an empire on suffering, on selling bits and pieces of people, and his son wasn't spared just because he was expected to carry on the family name.

Arguably that expectation was why his son deserved to suffer more than anyone else.

Sid was raised to know exactly what his purpose was and to look the other way as he stood stoic by his father's side while he bartered his deals. He wasn't a person, he was simply a shield, a guard dog, and for the longest time that's all he knew how to be.

When Paul couldn't locate a specific request from an important client the solution wasn't difficult, for Sid it was confirmation of what he'd always known; he was nothing to his father beyond what use he might have.

He had to lose a kidney for that confirmation, knowing if he argued Paul would have decided he was a total loss and he wouldn't have walked away at all. The choice to leave meant looking over his shoulder for the rest of his life.

Sid was smart; he needed a high profile job quickly if he was going to outlast his father's anger.

The easy answer was what he already knew how to do but it was a world of difference between shouldering the dirty work of his father's business and being on security detail. He had to retrain himself to control those old reflexes, take them down.

When he took the job as part of security with 4*Town it felt laughable. Babysit a boyband and keep them from ending up in the tabloids? Keep their screaming fans at a distance? Easy. Maybe the easiest job Sid ever had, right?

And he should have hated it, it should have been miserable. But after a while…it wasn't.

He still got annoyed constantly when he had to go retrieve someone and toss them back in their hotel room after too much partying, or found himself picking up food at 3am because there was nothing on the room service menu they would eat, and he spent half his time at events telling most of them not to wander off, to stop climbing on things and looking for problems to start; but they annoyance always faded.

Sid didn't expect to give a damn about that job but the more he saw how stressed they all were, how much their manager put them through, he couldn't help stepping in more and more, picking up the slack and looking after the idiots. He let a little too much of that icy demeanor melt around them, even if he didn't mean to at first.

But it was fine, he still did his job with the same stoic, stern presence, that world required a person to have a mask in public and Sid knew where to draw the line.

Except with Jesse.

Somehow Jesse managed to dig right past his iron walls with those puppy eyes and endless demands.

Sid wasn't prepared for that.

Protective, sure, he'd been raised to protect in the same way a doberman was, trained to snap and bite to keep the worst at bay. He was protective over all the band boys.

But when he found himself spending hours after concerts sitting with him, listening to him ramble through the adrenaline and smiling? It was something new. When Jesse started subtly reaching for the edge of his jacket in crowds during fanmeets Sid felt like the world was shifting, and when he started grabbing his hand instead during rehearsals and moments fans couldn't see? Sid wasn't sure he knew how to handle something so fragile.

He didn't deserve it, he was too drenched in his father's sins to deserve anything that good. But he wanted it so badly, he wanted the way Jesse looked at him, trusted him, to mean he wasn't a lost cause.

He started learning new things; researched how to ground Jesse's anxiety and talk him through the anger that so often flared after bad days. He memorized tolerable foods and the colors and textures Jesse liked, made certain his favorite hoodies were clean after long, tiring shows, kept up with the multitude of little fidget toys that helped the other man's constantly shifting focus stay grounded.

Over the few years with the band he got better at keeping less brutal secrets, at feigning disinterest in the rumors that Jesse was dating someone, almost too good at redirecting those speculations at anyone by himself. It was tiresome but worth it when the stage lights went off and Jesse was just his again until the next venue.

Sid had big plans for that trip. Jesse had talked to him for a while about how he just couldn't be a part of the band anymore. Sid knew the breaking point was coming and for his part, even though he would miss the others, he really would, he had to think about Jesse first.

He'd wanted to solidify that support in a way that Jesse's mood swings and self-doubts couldn't argue, make certain he knew, band or not, he was the most important part of Sid's life.

He figured that little box and the ring inside it he'd been hiding for the brief lull before the next stop in the European tour would say the things he wasn't very good at finding the words for.

But then it had to all go to hell.

When the plane crashed and Sid found himself scrambling to find Jesse, to find everyone else in the aftermath, he was angry at the universe for ruining his plans. But he can't think about that now, he can't think about how he'll never find that ring in the wreckage.

He has to keep them out of danger until rescue arrives. Robaire and Aaron Z might be alive out there somewhere in the jungle but he can't risk looking for them and endangering the others.

It's a hard decision but Sid knows what the cost of making the wrong one might be.

[pall0r-mortis]

Body Mod || Chaos Gremlins

[nobody-like-jesse]

There really was no preparing himself for what lay ahead. He'd never once thought that this agreement with Sid would lead to something more. Something where it was very clear that both of them cared at least somewhat for the other. Enough to often make themselves uncomfortable in that strange land of in-between that they often found themselves in.

Jesse had stumbled head first into something that was out of his depth. But, again, he was stubborn and persistent and, despite all the reason that told him not to, he cared about Sid in a way that often made his chest tighten fiercely.

It was why he moved closer, made to slip his arm around Sid's waist. It was why he ignored the way his skin still sometimes crawled whenever in close proximity and focused instead on the task at hand. He wasn't sure how far Sid would be able to walk or how far he'd be able to carry him if his mile-long legs did give out.

"Alright... let's just-- get t'your room, yeah? It ain't that far," he mumbled, urging Sid in the same way that Sid often urged him when he was too tired to make it from the couch to the bed. His touch was gentle as he nudged Sid in the direction of the bedroom, nudging the door open before leading Sid inside. "Don't pass out on me."

@pall0r-mortis

[pall0r-mortis]

(TW: psychological manipulation and abuse)

Nothing Jesse did in that house went unnoticed, it was subtle but there were always eyes on him. Mechanical, unblinking and often silent because they had been made that way. In corners and rafters Sid's menagerie of crafted creatures kept watch over their creator, but Jesse was a familiarity rather than a threat anymore.

Someone who changed things but in the sense that the world had gotten larger and less dull at the edges.

Sid caught sight of Rust preening her feathers atop a doorway near the stairs, a clicking warble softly in the background as she observed them.

"I'm not going to pass out," he argued, but the words lacked much push behind them and Jesse was relentless. Sid raked his fingers through his hair, the frustrated gesture an attempt to force his nerves to shake off the numbness that had settled there alongside the heavy fog in his brain.

He was moving, the awareness of that existed, but he wasn't plugged back into what it actually felt like to know his muscles were carrying on without need of direction. It was a wonder the coordination to climb the stairs to the attic existed without his brain leading the way on that one but apparently it really was just muscle memory.

"It's too fucked up to explain," Sid left it at that, mostly.

The problem was as syrupy as his thoughts were right then and it was only Jesse, someone who came closer to actually hearing about his issues than other people, it was harder to keep it all under the restraint Sid forced himself to practice.

Once he'd sat down on the edge of the bed and pressed his heels firmly to the floor some sense of space trickled over him, the familiar weight of his body in a way he remembered rather than stepped away from, but he flexed his hands a few times anyway to break up the mental block that made them seem like something other than his own flesh and bone.

His own voice started to sound like something he knew and he watched the ground even as he reached to grab Jesse's hand because he knew, still, fog and all, that tension made the other even less comfortable with anyone too close, even himself, so he held the idea at a distance rather than reach beyond that.

"You did fine, it's not that," finally the thoughts in his head were stringing back together as he flexed his other hand, watching his fingers stretch and reminding himself they did in fact belong to him.

"It's just because my father is an asshole," he wasn't sure he was actually saying that to Jessie or just because it was true. "It's still just a reflex to disconnect, but it's harder to pull back from that without being shocked out of it. I don't know how long it's going to take to not do that."

And he did recognize the flaw in it, that it was by no means any kindness that his father had trained that reflex so effectively. It didn't exist to give him any distance from the discomfort, just to silence it while Paul fixed the problem at hand without annoying disruption.

@nobody-like-jesse

[pall0r-mortis]

Cause and Effect || Hid

[kouros-herc]

Hercules couldn't help the sly bitter thought that wondered how hard Sid had been trying to deal with it?

There was a part of the kid that seemed to love the pain, that seemed to enjoy keeping strong and silent, that enjoyed the suffering and the idea that nothing could truly help him. Hercules spent all day dealing with masochists; the ones who always lifted a little too heavy, or ran a little too hard for their cardio session to truly pay off, even the ones he loved best who never knew how to ask for the help he held out with open hand and open heart.

But immediately the bitterness made him recoil. What a horrible thing to think, he told himself off.

"No I'm not," Hercules said, gently but firmly in the phase of all Sid's snake-like attempts to writhe out from under the care of the soft brown eyes.

"You can't keep coming back here and making yourself unwell. So we need to find a way that that isn't going to happen." It was as simple as 1 plus 1 in Hercules' mind - he had no suspicion of how eagerly Sid's mind had leapt to being shut out. But his next comment had him shaking his head, frowning a little.

"Are you giving up on me, Sid?" Herc asked.

It sounded like he was, like Sid was gratefully taking the chance to bow out the second he had seen it.

"Because I'm not giving up on you. There's just some things that I can't be the one to help you with, and if you're not going to ask for the help - really ask for the help - then nobody else can do it for you."

@pall0r-mortis

[pall0r-mortis]

He didn't owe Hercules anything.

Or maybe that wasn't true, he did owe the man some degree of effort because he was taking up his time when someone else could have been doing that, he was making demands of that time when Hercules ran the gym. So Sid could admit he probably owed some attempt, sure, he was there so he might as well have been doing something and listening, to a point.

The frustrating part was that he was listening, he had been trying, but the things that Hercules expected him to resolve weren't ones that he could yet. It wasn't like he enjoyed the creeping realization that every time his magic flared up in a way that was damaging to himself it was just another reminder of how closely he was skirting to an ending that kept wanting to argue it was inevitable.

But Sid wasn't going to say that, he never said that, because somewhere in the back of his mind it felt like saying it made it too real, gave it too much strength and he needed his own to hold out longer than that possibility could.

He wished he was less uncomfortable with the words, because on some level he knew Hercules was trying to be encouraging. But Sid didn't know how to take things like that without weighing so heavily why someone would, especially in that case where it was obvious the other man had nothing to gain from it.

If anything Hercules stood to gain more if he wasn't around and causing problems.

"Ask for help? I don't know where you think I'm supposed to do that in the first place." He reasoned, doubting Hercules meant that singular situation. "I'm here trying to deal with it. This is just part of the problem I'm trying to deal with."

One of the unpleasant parts, unfortunately, which made it one of the parts other people didn't want to deal with and Sid didn't blame them for that. He wouldn't want to either if he had any choice in the matter.

"I can't fix the problem, that leaves me with trying to make the problem more livable."

It felt awkward trying to explain, an obvious sort of confusion over how Hercules kept insisting he wanted to help and Sid really couldn't figure out what the motive behind it was.

@kouros-herc

[pall0r-mortis]

Just Keep Swimming || Lucid

[lucathedreamer]

"Do you control dictating every aspect of if you survive?" Luca asked, genuinely curious in Sid's answer.

Partially because they were intimately aware that they didn't control everything. The weather could change suddenly, revealing them to the other towns people or potential poachers. A stray piece of iron could find them at the wrong moment. Demons could attack and they wouldn't be able to run away quickly enough. A fire could sweep through town.

They did what they could to balance the dangers. But to them, sometimes safety was as simple as having their needs taken care of for as long as they could.

Luca was a little bit surprised when Sid pulled out his wallet. But it was the joke that surprised a real laugh out of them, glancing over at Sid with a big smile.

"Maybe next time. We'll have to see what he thinks of this one first. He could be very picky."

"Well, I think any fish would feel like a celebrity in this set up." Even as she talked, she quickly scanned each of their purchases, the price slowly building up. "Do you two rescue fish a lot?"

"I wouldn't say a lot..." Luca mused, thinking back to rescuing the fish with Greg from the carnival game.

@pall0r-mortis

[pall0r-mortis]

"Every aspect I can." Sid replied without even blinking; maybe some people were more relaxed about the idea and took things from a more even pace but Sid simply would not allow himself to do that. Nobody was going to keep him alive but himself, he couldn't control everything, but he hated not keeping a grip on every aspect that he could.

The awareness that in a small mistake might be incredibly costly never strayed far from his mind.

"Of course he'll be picky," Sid shook his head, "I didn't know fish could be picky." But if one could be Sid had no doubt that would be the case, anything else would have been too sane for that otherwise bizarre situation.

The question deserved a resounding no as an answer because at no point in his life had Sid ever considered that he'd be putting so much time into righting the apparent wrongs the world had done to a fish.

But it wasn't the fish's fault someone had decided too much of its existence for it, made the choice it was expendable for very little reason beyond it being inconvenient, or a mistake, or...whatever.

Yeah, dictating as many aspects of your own survival was, in fact, important, wasn't it?

Sid said nothing instead, not trusting his thoughts to stay in his head instead of seething out past his lips. Luca was doing just fine talking anyway without his involvement. It was easier to jump on the absurdity than the heaviness in his thoughts.

"Patron Saint of Fish," Sid voiced, "clearly."

@lucathedreamer

[pall0r-mortis]

Monachopsis || Self Para

Sid's continued efforts to find a solution for Ava and Arthur require him to seek help, and some pointed advice, from January, while his own problems lead him to an uneasy bargain with Lavenza.

TW: mention of death

Monachopsis

[pall0r-mortis]

Biohazard || Siri

[madmagicmim]

Mim had spent all day translating which meant she was a little of a train wreck at the moment.

Hair shoved up into a messy bun, brain fuzzy across different languages, eyes aching from the way she'd been staring at the screen and trying to parse through the best observation, she was also in a messy oversized Bikini kill t-shirt and purple sweat shorts. Truly the picture of classy adulthood right here.

She also surfaced and realized that she was starving. Had she skipped lunch in there?

Feeling like she needed a reward after the day, she put in an order for Pizza Planet. It was just outside the rush time, so they said it wouldn't take too long. Perfect.

When the bell rang, Mim barely thought about her appearance.

When she opened the door, she thought, 'Well shit.' This wasn't exactly the kind of cute put together look she normally tried to show off to people she actually knew.

"Hey, Sid, Th - Blaze no!"

Before she could lean down and catch her, the purple spider cat leaped straight through the door and up towards Sid.

@pall0r-mortis

[pall0r-mortis]

Sid never figured out what she was about to say; one moment she was speaking and the next some furry little demon darted past her and tried to scale his jeans with sharp claws and blur of motion that was almost too fast to track. His immediate reflex was to put the box between himself and the creature but it didn't move like a cat, it scurried on eight swift little legs.

Not surprising when he dropped the box as it climbed over the side of it, recoiling sharply when the feline suddenly wrapped around his arm instead. "What the fuck is-"

Sid was too caught off guard by the jolt of pain in his forearm like someone had just plugged an electrical cord into his nerves to react at first because he hadn't expected the thing to bite him. He didn't know it wasn't a malicious gesture, just playful, but those little fangs were sharp and made to play a little too rough.

Reflexively he grabbed the feline with his other hand while it was attached to his arm but stopped short of flinging it away because all those legs were pawing at the air and it registered for a split second that it was just an animal, a small, potentially very breakable animal. Something that looked more like what he might have seen on the Boiling Isles than around there.

He shoved the squirming kitten back at Mim so he could step back, the throbbing in his forearm spiking as he wrapped his other hand around the twin puncture marks. He could feel the heat in his skin at that spot, the sting working its way through his muscles with an unpleasant chill in contrast.

It really fucking hurt, for the record.

@madmagicmim

[pall0r-mortis]

Body Mod || Chaos Gremlins

[nobody-like-jesse]

Not for the first time, Jesse found himself slightly worried about Sid. It wasn't in that all consuming way like he had been once he'd woken up from that weird dream but still in a way that took him somewhat by surprise. Sid had never struck him as someone that he needed to worry about. He was self-sufficient in a way that most people weren't. Jesse knew that Sid was capable of taking care of himself.

But on the other hand, he also knew that Sid was stubborn and wouldn't ask for help if he needed it. He had an even harder time accepting the help that was offered to him. Which was fine by Jesse. He was persistent enough to ignore the way Sid seemed to brush off his concern and offers of help. He had no problem just inserting himself wherever he thought he was needed.

It was much like what he was currently doing; not allowing Sid the chance to say no as he led him away from the bathroom. If he could just get Sid away from the sink, he had a feeling it'd be easier.

"Po-tay-to, po-tah-toe," he huffed with a roll of his eyes. He didn't know anything about the magic Sid did but he was certain that it didn't matter where the mess up was. The spell went wrong. Simple as that. Sid could get lost in his mind after Jesse had made sure that he wasn't going to continue trickling blood down his chest. "You'll figure it out eventually."

@pall0r-mortis

[pall0r-mortis]

Maybe he wouldn't figure it out.

A possibility that held such heavy consequences Sid refused to acknowledge it. He had to survive, there had never been any question about that. But at moments like right then he was also tired, even when it was something so insignificant as an easily fixed mistake.

He felt detached from the way his body simply went on doing what it had apparently decided without him, the autopilot that Sid had retreated to so many times he'd lost count. But it was different that time, the motions were confused because the pattern was broken as he was urged away from cleaning up, sorting out his wounds and patching them back together so he could retreat to the silent confines of his room.

It was difficult to process. There was nothing normal about it, normal people didn't think the way he did.

He wanted to argue that, no, actually none of what was happening was how things were supposed to happen, how none of it followed the correct pattern to these things, but that thought got lost somewhere in his head while Jesse was talking.

Sid blinked slowly, like his eyelids were too heavy, because he heard the words like they were little more than distortion at a distance. Confusion registered on his expression, cracking the trained lack of emotion and refusal there short seconds before.

"I need to sit down," Sid is finally mumbled and it sounded like a question, tiny fractures in his thoughts and he felt drained even though he shouldn't have. Pins and needles of discomfort lingered because he didn't know how to explain it.

@nobody-like-jesse

[ivynightshade]

fatima aamer bilal, from coffin heart? bury me.

[text id: my heart grew up to be far more starved than my stomach. / it's the things you learn in your childhood. from the words your mother. from the hands of your father.]

[scampcomehome]

Our DOUGHmain || Scam

[pall0r-mortis]

"She left, I don't give it much thought beyond that." He replied, because he disliked being the subject of people's pity and that was usually the direction they went when they happened to learn someone had an absent parent for whatever reason, be it death or divorce. Sid didn't concern himself about it much anymore; his mother had never really wanted him anyway after she had figured out he wasn't the version of the child she had hoped for.

New York didn't surprise him; he had never been there but there was a sort of stereotype that went with the idea and he could see parts of that stereotype fitting Scott very well. It wasn't like he didn't pay attention to people around him, he actually paid a lot of attention because that was the only way to ensure things didn't catch him by surprise too much; he just didn't ask a lot of questions because sooner or later most people would give answers without being asked.

People liked to talk about themselves and Sid used that to his advantage.

That question, however, was one he almost always heard when he mentioned where he came from and he understood why, it wasn't an area of the world that was necessarily very accessible to outsiders.

"About what you would think it would be like living on a giant corpse," he mused, "most people assume it's full of creepy magic and strange creatures, like living in Halloween all year round. And it pretty much is, only less festive and more just that the people with horns and wings have relatively mundane lives, and acid rain."

@scampcomehome

[scampcomehome]

She left. That was all Sid had to say about his mother. Scott made a mental note not to pry but just.. notice that. Be a bit kinder when things came up about parents. Scott sure knew that his own parents weren't perfect by any means either. He likely wouldn't have chosen to hide in Swynlake if they were.

"Well you seem to be doing pretty damn well anyway."

Just hearing the words acid rain was enough to convince Scott that he wasn't very interested in that travel destination. Swynlake had its fair share of quirks and disasters but at least the weather wasn't that much of a daily threat. 

"I only travel to Australia when I am feeling like a thrill-seeker. Guess you're the real deal when it comes to being a risk-taker. Exciting." Acid rain was probably the worst sort of exciting possible but also not very surprising coming from Sid and his usual level of bizarre.

@pall0r-mortis

[pall0r-mortis]

He didn't have much to say. There were only so many memories attached to a person who existed briefly and never in a way that felt like willingly in his life.

Sometimes he found the idea of his parents relationship nauseating but not in the way people joked about how gross affection was between the people who raised them. Sid saw something uglier in how two people had given ego-stroking the title love and turned in each other the moment they no longer served each other's goals well enough.

He had very little idea what the word was supposed to mean but was certain it wasn't the poisonous endeavors of his parents.

"Most of it is probably out of spite." Sid speculated, even if there was very little speculation involved; part of his survival instinct was definitely grounded in proving people wrong.

"I grew up there," he replied, deadpan, to Scott's flat observation, "not any different than where anyone does."

Didn't people from massive cities find them comfortable? Exciting? And even at times boring? When they were loud, saturated with risks and Sid couldn't imagine any sort of peace in a place like that. Or people raised on the shore convinced themselves they understood the weather, they knew when to board up and brace for the storm, ignoring the fact that nature could, at a whim, destroy them.

Risk always had a different name from the other side of the equation.

@scampcomehome

[pall0r-mortis]

Cause and Effect || Hid

[pall0r-mortis]

"I'm never in much of a state to, but that doesn't negate the fact I have to." Move, he meant, continue, carry on regardless. His lips drew back to a thin line when the ice pack was shoved at him again. "This happens all the time, I just usually keep better track of it so it doesn't happen places like this."

He felt like he was repeating himself but maybe he wasn't, it could have just as easily been frustration and at that point his thoughts were so convoluted and exhausted that Sid wasn't actually sure what he had and hadn't said already.

"I come back to this adventure in masochistic effort, because it is...this place is exhausting and every muscle I have hates it," he still ended up with that damn ice pack but his knees felt like they were going to buckle and that would have sent Herc into another fit of fussing and harking like a mother hen so he had to sit back down, "but once all of that stops it feels less like everything is wrapped too tight for a while."

He shrugged, he could have explained in more technical terms, he had a very firm grasp of anatomy and biology actually and was well aware toxins built up in his muscles and made them sore when stagnant. Sid knew the reasons and he'd made sense of why working out gave him some relief in the microscopic muscle tears involved in stressing those tense points that, in turn, forced said toxins harmlessly back to his bloodstream.

But that unique biology wasn't something he could explain to Hercules.

"I'm not overdoing anything, this," he made a vague motion and snatched up the discarded towel to wipe his still stained hands again, "is magic, not physical strain. It's just more unpredictable right now."

Maybe if he was in better shape it would be less of a strain; he had no idea.

"So how do you fix the problem if you're physically not strong enough to be more resilient to the strain your own magic causes you?"

It was mostly a rhetorical question, in part to point out to Hercules why he didn't think the man could help him solve that problem. Not for lack of trying, he had no doubt Hercules would try, but did he really have answers like that? Sid doubted anyone did.

"Right now I feel like I could sleep for a week," he grumbled, but I can't sleep through an entire night in one spot or I sure as hell can't move the next morning without feeling like my bones are cracking."

@kouros-herc

[kouros-herc]

"Well you need to find a way to reduce the strain your magic causes you!" Hercules sighed, he was so frustrated he could feel his jaw tightening, as Sid acted as though everything was fine and Hercules could do nothing to help. Maybe he couldn't, but watching Sid refuse to help himself was more than he could bear.

"I'm not saying that's easy," he held his hands up before the kid could snap at him again and make the whole thing worse. "I wouldn't have the first clue how to do it, but I can't just.... let you come in here and make yourself unwell."

It was the very opposite of what they were supposed to be aiming for here!

"I get that it's not always going to be an easy process, but we have to find a way that it's less of an issue for you," Herc shook his head, half talking to himself. He couldn't shake the feeling that he was failing Sid. He had tried so hard to reduce the workload, to make it gradual and manageable and still the boy was in here on the edge of blacking out.

"Here," Herc said. "Have some water," he slid a bottle across the floor towards Sid.

"We'll stay here a little while longer. I want to see your body temp coming down and you getting some fluids in you," he explained. "And then I'm calling you a taxi to take you home."

@pall0r-mortis

[pall0r-mortis]

"Curse." There was a vague hand motion with the word, and it wasn't true, but it was about the closest to what he could get to the truth without actually talking about the problem, immediately incriminating his father, and then getting to suffer the end result of incriminating that psychopath later on.

Sid preferred not to test that theory; as much as his ego refused to acknowledge it he was still terrified of that man.

"I've been trying to deal with it." As tempted as he was to roll his eyes Sid managed not to, it just took more effort than he thought himself capable of at the time. "It takes a while."

He didn't feel like he was being the unreasonable one in this conversation. Although he very likely could have been wrong.

In some way he wanted Hercules to get fed up and kick him out because there was a distinct discomfort in his weaknesses being known, much less on display. It was almost a relief when the man reached the very edges of the idea in the conversation.

"You can't fix this problem, I don't even know if I can fix it." Sid eyed the bottle of water with some uncertainty over the state of his stomach before he picked it up. Inconvenient truth that it was, Sid had no guarantees that would be the case, just a lot of stubborn resolve because he did not like the idea of the alternative. He wouldn't even address the alternative because doing so made him feel too much like he was setting himself up for a failure he couldn't afford.

"You're contradicting yourself," Sid opened the bottle and the drastic difference in temperature was usually something he preferred but right then he found the water hard to swallow because of it. Uncomfortable, but not impossible. "Not sure which one you're trying to say between the...I can't be here and the...have to figure out a way to avoid this."

He was giving Hercules the easy out in that one; the man wasn't responsible for him, nobody else really was. And Sid didn't hold people to their good intentions; even the best of things like that buckled under too much strain.

"Since there's probably not a way to completely avoid things like this I guess that means it's the first one."

@kouros-herc

[pall0r-mortis]

Just Keep Swimming || Lucid

[pall0r-mortis]

Luca didn't seem to have any trouble just picking up that tank and moving it, and Sid thought they likely would have.

Maybe it was something similar to himself. Sid was much stronger than his narrow frame and slender build suggested but the muscle he did have was fortified with the oily traces of magic saturating his cells. Luca had something going on, they talked to fish so clearly something, but Sid didn't try to make sense of it.

Wasn't his business.

Filters, right.

Sid followed along while Luca listed off more things, more requirements to keeping a small creature alive and Sid, who had taken care of his mice for quite a while so he was aware there was very little simple just because a creature was small, was still caught off guard by the requirements of a fish.

He saw chemicals made to condition water, shelves with bottles to treat a wide range of illnesses apparently fish could be afflicted with via parasites or bad water conditions, which he definitely assumed was possible in the latter case given the state he had found the fish in, and so many other things.

Mostly he just tried to keep up while Luca went searching for the bits and pieces involved.

"Stuck in a box of water surrounded by a bunch of fake plants," he mused, "being a fish is starting to sound depressing."

@lucathedreamer

[lucathedreamer]

"Oh, it isn't so bad. It's safe which can mean a lot to a fish, especially if they're fed right. I've seen lots of humans that are happier around fake plants over real ones - they complain about how much work the real ones are to take care of."

Luca was a little amused, although they supposed they understood. Still, their own succulents were thriving and they wouldn't do anything else.

With all of the different pieces in their cart, Luca wheeled it back up towards the front and into line for the check out. There were very few other people int he store at this time, and Luca gave the check out girl a quick shy smile as they started to haul out each individual thing they needed for their purchases.

"Oh, did you need to get a fish?"

"No, no, its okay. We just rescued one but he's in a bad tank so we're getting him a better one."

Luca didn't realize the implication of the 'we' as the girl glanced between the two of them, Luca cheerfully in the front and Sid scowling behind. They were too busy carefully setting the tank itself on the counter.

"Oh! Well, I'm sure that's nice for the fish."

@pall0r-mortis

[pall0r-mortis]

"Is it safe to have something you can't control dictating every aspect of if you survive?" Sid mused, mostly to himself, because the idea felt like the farthest thing away from safety the way he saw it. But he wasn't a fish and maybe from the point of view that the biggest threats to your existence might have been something stronger devouring you or starvation catching up, security felt like a box and blind faith that the hands in charge of those variables would be kind.

Even if the past had already proven they were just as likely to leave you in a busted tank on the sidewalk, forgotten after the novelty or use had a worn off.

That was probably too much thinking for a fish though, he assumed, but he also hadn't expected to feel like it was that important that pathetic fish survived. Like it was something that he needed proven for reasons that had absolutely nothing to do with a fish.

Sid exhaled, brow furrowed and lips drawn in a thin line, expression flat as he walked along until they reached the front and he had to help Luca move things out of the cart.

Sid rarely didn't notice things though; wariness made a person attentive, even when it was something relatively absurd like the badly covered amusement of the woman at the register.

He'd saved that conversation for the car.

He tempered the urge to roll his eyes but just stepped past the register to retrieve his wallet by the chain it was attached to. The fish was his little crisis problem, logically he'd just deal with everything involved.

"Oh yeah, fish mansion," Sid noted, although that was admittedly his own doing because...again...tiny box of water sounded terrible, even if Luca had more insight than him, clearly. "We can get him another one as a vacation home."

@lucathedreamer

[pall0r-mortis]

Biohazard || Siri

[pall0r-mortis]

Sid had such a glamorous job.

Not Sunburst, he liked that one. But Pizza Planet?

That was a different sort of torture. One he was getting paid for, yes, so he couldn't exactly say he wasn't willing to suffer for things like monetary gain.

Usually by the end of the day he had stopped paying much attention to the orders beyond the addresses attached to them. Half the people in town had no grasp of the usefulness of a car, including a couple of his co-workers who ended up doing deliveries in the near, and walkable, vicinity of the restaurant while he was handed the ones further away.

Not that he cared; Sid would have rather have spent time in his car as much as possible during that job.

He'd gotten to the final delivery of the afternoon before his shift was over, grabbed the box that he hadn't actually opened himself to check but by the smell of it there was probably something truly atrocious within. Sid stopped trying to make sense of the potential health hazards people ordered in the circular form of those pizzas a while ago.

As he parked outside of the looming house and headed up the steps to the door, almost immediately getting the sense of something off about the place. But it was a town of Magicks and sorcerers usually warded their homes; he ran into that feeling in all sorts of spots around town and didn't think too much of it. He wasn't exactly there for a social visit.

He was impatient, ready to be done for the day, too warm, too eager to go home, so when the door opened and someone familiar appeared he did curse his luck a little, but at least he did it inwardly rather than out loud.

Mim greeted him, looking like she had so much to say, and a glimpse of some little furry creature he barely noticed slinking behind her legs.

Sid just held up the box, as though the horrendous red and white checkered, gold banded shirt and equally ugly matching ball cap smashing his still faintly green-streaked hair down that both proclaimed Pizza Planet on them didn't make it obvious enough why he was standing there.

[outfit, unfortunately]

@madmagicmim

[pall0r-mortis]

Biohazard || Siri

[pall0r-mortis]

Body Mod || Chaos Gremlins

[nobody-like-jesse]

Something had shifted. Jesse wasn't sure what it was but he knew that something was off. This wasn't the Sid that teased him about his height or threatened to make him sleep in the dog house. This wasn't even the Sid who gave him the most deadpan expressions when he did something mildly irritating.

Jesse didn't know how to handle this version of Sid.

He watched him as he scrubbed the same spot on the counter, the spot all but sparkling. He let him go at it, words mumbled more to himself than it seemed for Jesse's ears. Jesse let him continue as he moved closer slowly; almost as if he was approaching a scared animal that might attack at the slightest of movement.

Carefully, he covered Sid's hand with his own, trying to stop that obsessive scrubbing. "Hey. Think if yous wipe that spot down anymore, yous gonna wear a hole in the counter," he attempted at something lighthearted, slightly teasing. Just something to bring Sid back to the moment, to the fact that Jesse was there and he wasn't disgusted or upset with the slight turn of events.

"C'mon. Lemme clean up your shoulder some. Then yous can bitch at me for my reagents makin' yous sparkly."

@pall0r-mortis

[pall0r-mortis]

The flinch wasn't subtle, nor was the tension in his spine or the slide of his gaze with a blink that seemed too cloudy at first before he seemed to register what was actually going on. When he looked at the counter it was with something near to contemplation, debating if he should continue, weighing if things were still out of place. If everything was still too much of a mess, enough of one to be a problem.

But there wasn't really anyone to get angry about it, was there?

Sid wasn't sure if that was an ease to his nerves or just another frayed edge to them waiting, anticipating something that wasn't going to happen.

Finally he drew his hand away, left the towel where it was, dragging his attention to Jesse's voice.

He could deal with it, just shove a bandage on the spot and let it tend to itself; it took so little to patch the worn and broken parts of a person back together if it was just smoothing over the surface to make it look fixed.

Appearances were everything, his father had told him.

Jesse's voice wasn't a demand, it was a question, seeking permission. Sid couldn't help the rigid way he stood there, or the long pause required for him to pick apart the suggestion and search for any sign of something negative or accusing within it. He could imagine the revulsion on his own, even though it was absent in the other's tone.

It should have been an easy thing to agree with but, just like after the dream and in the grasp of illness, Sid had to make an effort to do so. It would never be easy for him.

"Okay," Sid finally nodded, eyes shifted back to the counter an instant like he was going to find some answer in that spot.

When the adrenaline wavered that sore ache would bleed into his muscles and he'd feel like they weighed too much with the way he held onto stress in every fiber of tissue.

He knew, he braced for it; that too was familiar.

"Not you," it might have been partly a lie but he didn't see how it could be when the parts to the whole of the spell only partially influenced it and clearly the broken link had to be his own failing to string the equation together properly, "it's me fucking things up."

@nobody-like-jesse

[pall0r-mortis]

Cause and Effect || Hid

[kouros-herc]

Hercules barely stopped himself from snorting at Sid's insistence that he was fine; nothing could be more obviously far from the truth. Herc had spent a decade learning to read the way that people moved, to read the things that spoke of what was wrong and what needed help. Sid's body was practically screaming at him.

He saw the shaky plant of the foot, saw the way Sid clung to the wall to keep himself steady, and for a moment, all Hercules could do was hang his own head.

Sid wasn't listening, and if he kept this up, Hercules would have to ban him from the gym for his own good.

"Sit back down, Sid," Hercules sighed.

"What do you think you're doing?" He pinched the bridge of his nose before he looked up. "You're in no fit state to go anywhere yet-"

He couldn't keep Sid there, no... but he could call the paramedics, if he had to and hand the situation over to them. He didn't want to though. "Put that back under your arm," he said, pushing the ice pack firmly back towards Sid.

@pall0r-mortis

[pall0r-mortis]

"I'm never in much of a state to, but that doesn't negate the fact I have to." Move, he meant, continue, carry on regardless. His lips drew back to a thin line when the ice pack was shoved at him again. "This happens all the time, I just usually keep better track of it so it doesn't happen places like this."

He felt like he was repeating himself but maybe he wasn't, it could have just as easily been frustration and at that point his thoughts were so convoluted and exhausted that Sid wasn't actually sure what he had and hadn't said already.

"I come back to this adventure in masochistic effort, because it is...this place is exhausting and every muscle I have hates it," he still ended up with that damn ice pack but his knees felt like they were going to buckle and that would have sent Herc into another fit of fussing and harking like a mother hen so he had to sit back down, "but once all of that stops it feels less like everything is wrapped too tight for a while."

He shrugged, he could have explained in more technical terms, he had a very firm grasp of anatomy and biology actually and was well aware toxins built up in his muscles and made them sore when stagnant. Sid knew the reasons and he'd made sense of why working out gave him some relief in the microscopic muscle tears involved in stressing those tense points that, in turn, forced said toxins harmlessly back to his bloodstream.

But that unique biology wasn't something he could explain to Hercules.

"I'm not overdoing anything, this," he made a vague motion and snatched up the discarded towel to wipe his still stained hands again, "is magic, not physical strain. It's just more unpredictable right now."

Maybe if he was in better shape it would be less of a strain; he had no idea.

"So how do you fix the problem if you're physically not strong enough to be more resilient to the strain your own magic causes you?"

It was mostly a rhetorical question, in part to point out to Hercules why he didn't think the man could help him solve that problem. Not for lack of trying, he had no doubt Hercules would try, but did he really have answers like that? Sid doubted anyone did.

"Right now I feel like I could sleep for a week," he grumbled, but I can't sleep through an entire night in one spot or I sure as hell can't move the next morning without feeling like my bones are cracking."

@kouros-herc