#hellharpy

[phoebe-hewitt]

Forgotten Letter|| Self-Para

In response to this letter she found in Jagger's things.

Baby steps, Phoebe had told herself. She was going to take baby steps in getting back into the swing of her life, in getting back to who she was. The first step was going through the bag he'd taken to the godforsaken trip. She'd left it abandoned in her car, keeping the scent away from her nose for as long as she could. It would be the baby step that would eventually lead to her moving on to cleaning out the house.

Taking the bag out of the back of the car, Phoebe made her way to Angel's guest room. Dumping the contents on the bed, his scent spilled out and it still lingered strongly on his clothes. It hit her nose and made her lean back, trying to blink the tears that had welled up instantly. She knew it would happen, she knew anything holding his scent was going to catch her off guard. But she underestimated how hard it would affect her, how she wanted to run and hide somewhere away from his scent. Then again, she hadn't expected how…comforting it would be. 

It was then, when she leaned back taking in a deep breath, that she noticed the folded up piece of paper that had fallen out along with his belongings. Phoebe wasn't sure if she wanted to read it, she didn't know what that letter held but curiosity got the best of her. 

With a deep breath, she unfolded it and started reading. She could almost hear his deep voice, every enunciation, in the handwritten letter. Halfway through the first paragraph and she was crying her eyes out. It was one of the few times she allowed herself to actually let it all out since it happened. It was a fight, much like any time she had to face any kind of emotion, every time she felt the urge to cry and usually she won out. 

Phoebe's mind was a blur between the what if's, his words and, in some sense, anger as she finished reading the front and back. Love again? It was his crazy hopefulness that would always irritate her and in that moment, she could feel it building up like he was actually there. Like he had actually spoken the words to her and she want to scoff at him and scream out that it would never happen again. That she would never put herself in such a situation where she would hurt as much as she did then, at least not intentionally. Only she had no one to shout at, no one to call an idiot for having such a stupid thought. 

Shoving all except one of his shirts to the side of the bed, Phoebe lay down and curled up. Her sobs were mere hiccups by then as she held his shirt close to her no longer trying to avoid his scent. The words she'd read circled in her mind and in general what he'd written was right. She couldn't stay stuck in the lethargic state she was in but she sure as hell wasn't going take his letter as a how-to guide for her life. First thing she'd needed to do was reach out to her brother but that could be done in the next day.

But in that moment, she was content laying in bed and slipping his shirt over her clothes, still sniffling a bit. They still had the stream, at least in her dreams.

[phoebe-hewitt]

Wandering Thoughts//Self-Para

All Phoebe remembered clearly from that day was seeing Jagger fall, that one tear spilling out of his eye and his last words. She knew she killed Edmund, helped kill that damn little girl that had ended up being one of the thirteen and not a child at all. But everything was a blur, much like the way back home and the memorial and the first few days back. It seemed like she was simply moving, breathing, functioning on autopilot. A shell of the usual loud, virtually uncaring person was all that she was.

Instead, she put off the pain by looking herself up in Angel’s spare bedroom. Food that Angel brought her was, more often than not, spoiled as soon as she left the room. The times she did eat, she simply picked at the food before spoiling it. Angel came to find out that talking to her was a one-sided affair.  

The hounds’ dark home was a welcome feature to Phoebe where all she did was lay in bed, in and out of sleep. It had become her solace, a dreamland where he hadn’t gotten murdered. Made up days where things were as they were weeks before. There were no rose-tinted visions. No, the fights happened and the make-ups did too. Her perfect dream world was to just have him with her long enough for a lifetime – long enough to witness blue- and brown-eyed replicas run and grow. But dreams end and waking up hurt like a burning hot knife piercing her heart.

Alert hours were spent thinking about everything she did wrong in real life when it came to him as she breathed deeply, holding back tears she had yet to shed and clutching his ring in her hand. At times, she’d been so horrible to him and even then he professed his love to her. Not a moment went by that she wasn’t assured just how much and how deeply he loved her (not sixty years ago, not a week ago). And for the longest time, she was so guarded. While she knew just how much he meant to her, how he was the only person to come remotely close to her heart and capture it in his hands, how much she would actually do for him, he was left in the dark. Even if he had an inkling of her feelings, those three little words took so long to leave her lips. They did, however, come easier, become more constant, after they’d wed. Maybe it was because she had the guarantee, at least in her mind, that he wouldn’t leave her.

How foolish she’d been. Phoebe should have known that happy didn't last for her. A small family of her own, one she’d never truly had as a child, just wasn’t in the stars for her.

Sulking, thinking about the could-have-been’s wasn’t going to do her any good. This hollowed out version of herself wasn’t what he would’ve wanted to see. So, for what seemed like the first time in days, she got out of bed, showered and trekked out of Angel’s home – she’d pretend to be alright on the surface if only to keep her thoughts at bay. 

[phoebe-hewitt]

"Have you ever been in love? Horrible isn't it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens up your heart and it means that someone can get inside you and mess you up. You build up all these defenses, you build up a whole suit of armor, so that nothing can hurt you, then one stupid person, no different from any other stupid person, wanders into your stupid life...You give them a piece of you. They didn't ask for it. They did something dumb one day, like kiss you or smile at you, and then your life isn't your own anymore. Love takes hostages. It gets inside you. It eats you out and leaves you crying in the darkness, so simple a phrase like 'maybe we should be just friends' turns into a glass splinter working its way into your heart. It hurts. Not just in the imagination. Not just in the mind. It's a soul-hurt, a real gets-inside-you-and-rips-you-apart pain. I hate love."

~ Neil Gaiman