Chapter Text
Phil had never seen the point of Christmas. Not even when he was young.
The gifts.
The cards.
The decorations.
Even the tree seemed like a waste of space. Just another thing that he would never have.
To Phil, December was a month of being cold as well as hungry, a time to frantically stuff newspaper into the bottom of his shoes and pray that the snow didn't get in through the holes. A time to press his nose against toy shop windows and stare as gleeful children dragged their parents after them, grabbing anything and everything that took their fancy. A time to stare at groups of people wrapped up in their winter's finest and sing their hearts out about joy and happiness, whilst Phil never understood any of it.
But most of all, Christmas was a time when families, lovers, complete strangers came together in celebration and joy.
Everybody had somebody.
Except Phil.
As a child he had been hurt by the idea. Why did Santa ignore him? Where were his presents? Clean clothes and full stomach? When he was only small, still bone-thin and hopeful, he had believed that he was a bad kid, and strived to be nicer, kinder... Better.
But it never worked.
Phil was always stuck in the gutter, a scrawny, dirty child in ripped clothes that people preferred not to think about.
It didn't help that he was blank.
Soulmarks were the very fabric of society, everything was shaped and built around the idea that each person would have at least one person that was their other half, the connecting puzzle piece to their soul. That person's first words were scrawled over your skin in the darkest of blacks that lit up in a fabulous gold when the words were uttered.
A person's one ultimate goal in life was to meet their other half.
He'd heard the stories, apparently you knew instantly when your words were spoken, a flush of heat sliding through your body followed by a rush of endorphins. Some people laughed. Some cried. Some fainted. Some ran away, never to be seen again.
He never believed it. The Soulmark was just another creation, fabricated by the big companies in order to sell more Valentine gifts. A myth, nothing more, nothing less. But the fact that he didn't have one still picked at the edge of his conciousness like an exposed nerve.
He was blank.
Blank; the foulest and most underhanded of insults, designed to tear somebody down to their knees with one violent spray of words that flew through the air like bullets. It was a deadly, taboo word. One that was whispered in secret in only the most private of places but was still uttered behind a hand just in case.
If you were a blank, you had no soulmate, you were soulless. You were the Devil or even worse.
Blanks were harassed, bullied, abused and murdered in the night. Sometimes even in broad daylight. But nobody would help a blank, to them, you weren't even a dog. To them, you were less than nothing.
Meaningless.
Insignificant.
Useless.
Even at Christmas, Blanks weren't cared for. Most charities exclusively ignored them, shelters denied them and kitchens turned them away with a fist, or a spray of vile words if you were lucky. Blanks were preyed upon by everybody else.
But they were rare. Only one in about a thousand were born without a soulmark, one in a million that didn't develop one in the next month. The soulmark appeared on the skin at the same time as the birth of your soulmate. Most were born at exactly the same time as their soulmate, fewer were born a few hours, sometimes days before their other half.
If one didn't develop within the month, you were branded as a blank.
In each main city there was at least one orphanage dedicated to blank children given up at birth. Phil was presented to the one exactly a month old, mouth opened wide in cry as he was handed over with a barely disguised shudder of disgust.
He grew up there until he was six, when he was woken with a jerk late in the night, in the final hours of Christmas Eve. One of the stern teachers had yanked him out of bed, along with all the other children. Most were bawling, distressed cries flying from their mouths and searing into his ear drums, partially deafening him. They were ushered out of the building, clinging to each other as they embraced the cold, damp street.
Phil still woke up from nightmares of six year old him clinging to his teddy bear, bare feet soaked from the damp street, shivering in the wind as he stared at the orphanage lighting up the night sky as flames slowly engulfed the building. The fire licked at the sky as it burned fiercely, destroying the one place he had to call home.
That night orphanages for Blank children all over the country were lit up in flame as political groups moved to have Blanks euthanized and started by destroying their homes, killing twenty children in the process and forcing hundreds more into a life on the streets. Including Phil.
The movement was branded as a terrorist attack, but no suspects were ever convicted. It was only when Phil was older that he had realized exactly how much had been covered up by the police, but he still couldn't do anything. Blanks didn't have many - if any - rights.
That was the first year that he bitterly wished himself a merry Christmas.
The tradition continued every year as he took every discrimination, mistreatment and abuse that was dished out to him. Every Christmas was spent the same.
Cold, hungry and alone.
At eleven, Phil hurt himself for the first time. All the harsh words, spitefulness and anger seemed to be embody itself in the sharp edge of an abandoned pencil sharpener. When it sliced across his skin, he felt all of his worries bleed away. It was a twisted sort of release, but it was all he had.
At twelve, his arms were completely covered, so he started on his left thigh.
At thirteen, it was his right thigh.
At fourteen, it was his stomach.
By the time he was fifteen, Phil had had enough.
His entire life he had been told that he wasn't as important as others, that he was a mistake, that he was the Devil.
When your told something enough, you begin to see it as truth. Which is what Phil did.
His figure was gaunt, bony, and heavy bags hung beneath his face, which only emphasized the way his bones protruded unnaturally from his cheeks. He was spiralling into deep depression, hating himself as well as the entire world.
So on Christmas eve, the same year that Phil had turned fifteen and had found a temporary home in an abandoned house with a dozen leaks that were rapidly freezing into icy puddles that littered the floor, he took a swig from a bottle of vodka, stolen from a local convenience store that knew him by sight now, and stared at the knife.
It was a Swiss army knife. Expensive. Phil had never run so hard in his life when he had pick pocketed it from the man that seemed impossibly tall and impossibly bulky. He idly scratched off some dried blood from the edge with his thumb, careful not to cut himself.
He cracked a wry smile at the thought. The pain of a cut wouldn't affect him any more, that much he was sure. More sure of that fact than of anything in his life.
He took another swig, wincing as the alcohol burned his throat, eyes watering as it settled in his stomach and lit it on fire.
Phil adjusted himself, back aching from leaning against the hard wall for so long. He was sat in the barren living room of the house, back against the wall and slouched on the floor. The house was sparse, empty of furniture and love. It was cold and frost had begun to form on the inside and outside of the windows, giving the house a strange, eerie light as the moonlight shone through, casting the room in an ethereal glow.
He wore a dirty pair of jeans, the amount of holes rival only to the amount in his shirt. A big duffle coat shrouded his lean frame and black fingerless gloves sheathed his hands. An old scarf was wrapped tightly around his neck and he lazily reached up and yanked it off. Gripping the knife tightly, he breathed in and raised it to his neck, flinching when the cold steel pressed into his skin.
He breathed in sharply. Once.
Twice.
Three times.
The knife fell from his grip, landing in his lap whilst his teeth clenched.
"Can't even do this right..." He growled, fingers curling into fists as he slammed them into the ground. Breathing in and out again, Phil picked up the knife.
This time he pressed it to his neck with no hesitation, restraining himself from flinching. He sighed deeply, glancing around him and taking in the final thing his eyes would ever see. He let out a slightly maniacal laugh when the cold, empty room stared back. If that wasn't a metaphor for his life, he didn't know what was.
He pressed the knife harder into his throat, slicing his skin shallowly. He felt blood trickle down his throat and into his coat, he throat flexed beneath the steel as he swallowed.
Taking a final deep breath, Phil was about to press harder when he suddenly felt an excruciating pain curl down his wrists. The knife hit the ground with a clatter as the pain flashed up and down his arms, searing into his flesh like a burn. Flailing his arms, he struggled to yank his arms out of the coat sleeves. He leapt to his feet with a cry, he tore at the coat, desperate to see what was happening to him.
The pain became agonising, the worse thing he had ever felt in his short, short life.
All of a sudden it stopped. The pain left as quickly as it had come and Phil was left standing in the middle of the room, half a bottle of vodka leaking over the floor and his arms half-caught in his coat. His shoulders sagged in relief, but he still quickly shucked his coat, too distracted to notice the cold.
When he saw his arms, he swayed on his feet, everything becoming blurry as darkness tinged his vision. The ground came rushing up to meet him and Phil surrendered to unconsciousness.
******
When he woke up, it was to dried blood on his neck and shirt, a bloodstained knife, a ripped coat, an icy puddle of vodka and a killer headache.
But what he noticed was the two neat scrawls of black sentences on the inner wrist of each arm.
"Merry Christmas." He murmured, tears pricking at his eyes as he gazed at his arms in wonder. "Merry Christmas."