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Missa comes back to grab his backpack he left and finds Phil in the kitchen.
It’s an accident– he would’ve thought at this time of night the other would be asleep, but he’s wrong. The light hadn’t even been on. Phil had just been sitting in the dark, and Missa had shrieked long and loud when he’d flipped on the lanterns and found him perched on a stool staring at nothing in the dark.
Once he’s recovered from his heart attack, Missa has at least enough decorum to cough and ask: “Why are you awake?”
“Why are you here?” Phil immediately fires back, and that’s when Missa clocks into the fact something is very, very wrong.
Philza looks like a mess. His hair is loose and limp, framing a face that looks gaunter than Missa remembers it being. The eyebags he’s sporting are truly impressive. His wrists look strangely thin where they lie on the countertop, fingers clasped in a knot of knuckles. Phil looks like he hasn’t eaten or slept well in weeks. The tone of voice he uses with Missa is all wrong, edges and sharp angles and accusing words.
“I left– my bag,” Missa says. He shuffles to the side where he had dropped it earlier and forgotten it before dipping and getting distracted by the capybaras. “The last of my things.”
“The last?” Phil asks, and it’s like the last piece of twine holding him together snaps. “So you’re gone, then. For good.”
“Not from the island,” Missa says. “Just– I’m useless, I know you don’t want me here, it’s not like I’m doing anything for you.” Plus whenever I’m around you I go a little crazy stupid, he doesn’t say. He can only avoid Phil for so long– maybe this conversation was a while coming. “I haven’t lived here in a long time. And with Chayanne gone, I don’t see why–”
“Why you have to stay?” Phil asks, then laughs. It’s grating, abrasive. Missa winces.
“He’s not here anymore,” he says. The reminders of Chayanne hurt. They hurt like nothing Missa’s ever felt before. The memories come flooding in unbidden, of warm mornings making breakfast in this very kitchen, wandering around the top of the wall. Chayanne is written into the cracks and corners of this house and that’s fine, but Missa knows he can’t stay here with Phil in the same way they’ve been for the past few months. Not without something changing.
“And so you leave,” Phil says, nodding. “Okay, cool. I see– I get it. It’s fine.”
“I mean…” Missa slings on his backpack. “Are you sure? You don’t look–”
“It’s fine,” Phil repeats. Missa is about ready to run, but something makes him linger and slow down, stepping back towards the door. But Phil doesn’t say anything, just stares at the mess of his own hands. Missa takes another step back, and another.
“Bye,” he offers softly. Phil doesn’t answer, and so after another agonizing moment of waiting, Missa turns. In the same second, his heart shatters.
And then–
"No, stop," Phil says, and Missa pauses in the doorway. The pieces of his heart record-scratch on their way to the floor, and slowly– very slowly– start to rewind back upwards. "I don't–"
When Missa looks back at him, Phil is breathing hard, like he's just run a long way. Neither of them move. The words come out next ragged and scratchy, torn out in fits and bursts between teeth. "I don't want you to leave. The house is– so quiet, with them gone."
It's cruel, but Missa doesn't say anything for a moment. Just lets the silence sit between them.
"I think I'm going crazy," Phil says next, clearly nearing desperation. “I keep finding things. Seeing things. I take pictures, but they disappear. I try to show someone, it’s gone. I’m being fucking messed with, Missa, and I can’t– I can’t do this anymore. I can’t be alone.”
“What changed?” Missa asks. He still hasn’t crossed the threshold yet, caught inside. He feels a little bit like a fly trying to escape a glue trap. Like there might be an inevitable conclusion despite his efforts.
“I don’t know,” Phil says, burying his face into his hands and letting out one long whoosh of air. “I don’t– I just can’t do it anymore.”
The glue constricts. Missa feels his throat tighten, his eyes smart. The backpack that had felt so secure on his shoulders just a minute ago loosens, and then slips to the floor. He sets it down gently, taking a few short, quiet steps to where Phil sits on the stool. He hesitates, but only for a moment– Phil is clearly putting himself out there right now. Missa thinks this might be the first time he's seen his husband so honest, so distraught, and it’s that which gives him courage to do the same. He reaches out and catches Phil’s elbow in his hand, the other one reaching up to draw one of Phil’s hands away from his face. He’s surprised to see tears silently falling down Phil’s cheeks, but neither of them say anything for another long second. Missa just holds his arm and Phil looks back.
“I love you,” Missa says. He says it slowly, purposefully. The translator won’t miss a word this time. “Do you know that?”
“Yeah,” Phil says. His fingers grip Missa’s hand, firm and unyielding.
“No, no,” Missa says. He doesn’t think Phil gets it. He changes his grip, makes it so he’s the one holding Phil for a change. “I love you. Do you get it?”
Phil nods imperceptibly, just the briefest shake of his head. “I know.”
“Then why don’t you say anything?”
“I’m not–” Phil stutters, stops, and then starts again. “I’m bad at…”
“Nothing,” Missa interrupts. He feels strangely calm, weirdly in control. This is a situation he can handle and Phil can’t. It’s not something they’ve run into together before. “You’re bad at nothing and good at everything, Philza. You are strong. It’s part of why I love you.”
Slowly, Phil leans forward. He inches closer until he’s collapsed almost entirely against Missa, his head resting on Missa’s shoulder and staining his jacket with tears. Missa doesn’t let go of his hand or his elbow, cradling him and supporting him as he goes nearly limp. There’s a hot brush of air against his upper arm as Phil says, “I need you.”
It’s a strange feeling, to know you’re needed by the one man on the server who doesn’t need anything, ever. The man who forgave you for running, who treated you with kindness you probably didn’t deserve, the man who has saved your life a hundred times over. The same man who killed a code monster and raised two kids without so much as complaining once needs Missa, the sad sack of an absentee dad who can barely hold a sword right.
I need you is as close as you can get to love with a man like that, Missa thinks. He’ll take it. He tightens his grip on Phil’s arm and kisses the side of his head ever so softly, pressing his nose to the top of his hair and inhaling.
“I won’t go,” he says. He feels the sob more than he hears it, the shuddering that wracks Phil’s whole body, and moves one hand to rub his back in gentle circles. He breathes and makes a promise: “I’ll stay.”