Work Text:
“Hey, Anne, can I—”
Phillip froze in his tracks.
While this wasn’t the first time he had seen her without her top (they were together, come on, now), it was the first time he’d seen her back. Sure, he’d felt the skin there, but Phillip hadn’t ever seen it with his eyes.
“Phillip? Are you alright?”
Blinking back, he gave Anne a gentle smile.
“I’m alright,” he answered. “But what about you?”
Anne gave him a look of confusion before understanding dawned on her face.
“I am now.”
“You don’t have to tell me if you’re not ready to talk about it,” Phillip told her, “but know that I am here for when you are.”
“There isn’t much to say,” she admitted. “I’m dark-skinned. Wilbur and I had a master at one point, and he loved to use a whip.”
Phillip grimaced.
“I’m sorry,” Phillip said.
“It wasn’t your fault,” Anne replied. “You can’t help who you are.”
“Maybe not, but I know how painful whips are.”
At his confession, Anne and Phillip’s eyes widened.
“What do you mean, ‘you know how painful whips are’ ?”
Phillip flinched back. His eyes looked everywhere but her, and Anne couldn’t help but wonder what was going through his head. Silently, she put her top on and waited for Phillip to speak. Sure enough, he found the words he wanted to say.
“You remember my parents, right?”
“Vaguely.”
“Right. There’s a reason I’m so, what’s the word, weary of my father and mother.”
Anne raised an eyebrow. She sat on her chair while Phillip leaned against the trailer’s wall.
“I don’t want to go into too much detail,” he started, “but my father loved to use a whip, too.”
“When did it start?” she asked.
“The first time I remember him using it was when I was about four or five.”
“That’s horrible!”
“Horrible, yes, but not the worst thing, in my opinion.”
Anne’s eyes darkened. “And that is?”
She watched as Phillip’s eyes got distant and glassy.
“I’ll never forget the time he tried to drown me,” Phillip said, his voice monotoned. It almost sounded rehearsed. “I can’t recall what I did wrong. All I remember is going from my room to the cellar. It was dark and cold and damp. He put a rag over my face and tilted my head back, and then the water came. I don’t know how long I was there or how long it lasted. A few weeks later, I got ill.”
Phillip stopped. As much as he felt like sharing, he didn’t want to scare Anne away. She didn’t need to learn about the numbness of his cheeks ot the sharp pins and needles that came as his body warmed up from the near-death coldness. She didn’t have to know how his chest ached with every drag of breath, and every cough made dark spots appear in his vision.
She didn’t need to know he was this close to dying at the hands of his father, and Anne certainly didn’t need to know that his mother stood by and did nothing.
Phillip was ripped from his thoughts when gentle hands pulled him close.
“I am so sorry,” she whispered, her voice watery.
“It’s alright,” he murmured.
For the first time since the incident, Phillip allowed himself to cry.