Work Text:
When Figure wakes up, everything is different.
Phrygian doesn’t feel like they had when they’d finally fallen asleep. The apartment that is their friend’s body is dark and cold. All the warmth has leached out of the bedsheets. The pillows are clammy. Figure breathes out, and mist touches the air. Is it actually morning? They can’t tell.
“Phrygian?” he asks.
They don’t answer. For an absurd moment, he wonders if they’re still there – but they must be. He’s in them. This is the same bedroom, the same bookshelves, the same pillows, the same bed.
It doesn’t feel the same. The room feels cold and empty. The atmosphere is completely different, not welcome, not safe. The drape of the curtains feels listless. It feels like they’re in an hour far from morning, an unreal hour, one where sleep will never come for you, but dawn is impossible to reach.
“Phrygian,” Figure repeats, sitting up. The bedsprings beneath him creak in a way they normally never do.
It takes a moment, but something moves. They see a notebook on the bedside table flip itself open. Figure breathes a quiet sigh of relief. He bends over, squinting, trying to make out the words in the dark.
I’m here, it reads.
“Are you okay?” he asks.
Phrygian doesn’t answer immediately. Almost half a minute passes before he gets another word. And then the diary writes in itself: Yes.
“Is this normal?”
No answer.
“Do you need something?” they ask, worriedly. “Do you… can I help?”
Nothing.
“Or I can go get someone, if you’d rather. I can… do you need me to go find someone?”
Silence. Figure curses themself for rambling and waits. They can’t overwhelm them now. Talking clearly won’t help. They just need to wait, let Phrygian answer on their own time.
So they do. They let the minutes pass, and they don’t say another word about it.
Eventually, words write themselves out in front of them. I’m okay, says Phrygian’s journal.
“I don’t believe you.”
No response.
“Did something happen?” they ask.
Again, it takes another few minutes for Phrygian to answer. The floor creaks quietly. Figure glances around the room and realizes that the bookshelves are too sparse for comfort. All the books look worn and moth-eaten, and all the spines are blank.
Eventually, more words appear in the diary.
Can you just treat the room like a room for a while?
Figure pauses. “Yes,” he says slowly. “Will that help?”
There is no answer for a long moment. And then:
I don’t think I can talk right now.
“Okay,” Figure says.
Just treat the room like a room.
Figure slowly stands, looking around. Treat the room like a room. Right.
They make the bed.
Sheets straightened – he finds crumbs of concrete from his body on them, and takes them off to shake them out – and fitted properly to the bed, blankets smoothed over the surface. Pillows fluffed and nestled underneath the covers. Figure looks at his handiwork, feels proud. It’s good to put something in order.
That done, they look around for further inspiration. Nothing immediately jumps out at them. Feeling lost and trying not to show it, Figure opens the desk drawer.
There’s a box of matches inside. He pauses, picking it up and glancing at the fireplace. Would it be presumptuous to light it? Trying to make it comfortable for themself, instead of worrying about Phrygian? He is hesitant to touch anything. It feels fragile, like he could crush it by overstepping.
But they put the matches there on purpose. Right?
Doing nothing has never gotten anyone what they need, he thinks. Phrygian deserves better than shying away from a risk.
Figure takes both the matches and the diary Phrygian had used to talk before, and walks slowly over to the fireplace. There are some logs in there, slumped over each other. Figure tries not to see them as dead or defeated. Maybe they’re thinking too much.
They kneel, their legs creaking and cracking as they lower themself to the floor. The silent diary finds a seat beside them. Carefully, holding it between their large, concrete thumb and finger, they strike a match.
Light hisses into being. Figure can see the sudden appearance of shadows all throughout the room. Everything feels completely illusory, out of step with reality and time. He is the only thing moving. It feels like nothing else is alive in the room.
Which isn’t true, but maybe it means something. Maybe that’s how Phrygian feels right now. He doesn’t know.
The wood isn’t catching. They hum to themself, striking another match. It lights, and they try again, lowering the flame into the kindling. For a moment they think they have it, before again it sputters out. They try again, and then again.
They spend fifteen minutes there, silently, patiently trying to start the fire. They leave the matches burning to their fingertips without fear of hurting their own hands. Just once they reach in to adjust a log’s position. The sage they add burns easily, but it never spreads, never lasts. Over and over they try to light it with the matches. It catches, sometimes, but it always goes back out.
The curtains shudder. Figure pauses, looking up.
Are you okay? he wants to ask. He wants to check on them. But it’s a selfish impulse, they think – Phrygian shouldn’t have to answer. The unspoken question hangs in the air.
No answer. Nothing else moves.
Figure hesitates. After a moment, he returns to the task. Another match burns itself out on his fingers, with no effect on the wood. They reach into the box and pull out another.
The diary beside him flips and flips, pages fluttering, and then lands open. Figure leans over to look down at it. There is a single line of handwritten black ink inside.
You don't need to do this, reads the note.
Figure stares at it.
Then they pick up the notebook, fiddling with the corner of the page. “Can I burn this?” he asks, casually.
The room sighs. Another word writes itself before their eyes.
Yes, reads the paper.
Carefully, one inch at a time, he rips that sheet out. Figure tucks the paper under the wood, striking another match.
Phrygian says nothing as they light the fire again, the paper catching. They feed it tiny shavings of wood, scraps of kindling, sprigs of Russian sage. It flickers, faint but stubborn.
One of the logs begins to burn.
Figure stays on their knees, which have long since become sore, and nurses it into sprouting. It takes a while, but what does that matter? They’ve been around a long time. At least they want to be here.
Heat radiates against the stone of his face. The fire crackles audibly as it burns. Satisfied, Figure leans back and – with a grunt – picks himself off the floor.
What now?
They think they know what they have to do. Lighting the fireplace, making the bed – he can help here in Phrygian’s bedroom. Treat the room like a room, they’d said, so he will. He’ll treat the room like a room and he’ll look after it.
He can look after them. It’s always been the other way around, Phrygian looking after people. It’s about time he did something to change that pattern. They really seem like they need it.
The question, then, is what he should do next. Maybe…
They open the closet. There is a broom and mop inside.
Suppressing a smile, Figure retrieves the broom and sets to work.
It’s nice, cleaning the room up. Simple. They tend to the floors, sweeping up the layer of dust that had not been there when they went to sleep. A duster is resting on one of the shelves; they take the prompt to do the same to the other surfaces, the soft shhhh of the tufted microfabric brushing off the desk, the windowsill, the books. He does a second pass with the broom, gathering up everything he’d knocked to the floor. The garbage can lid creaks when he opens it.
The room is warming up. Figure rolls up his sleeves and takes up the mop and cloth, leaving briefly to fill the wheeled pail with warm water and soap to scrub the floors. When he comes back, there are small sprouts in the planters, and a half-full old watering can.
Slowly, they coax the room into something kinder, washing the walls and floors. He grunts as he carefully lifts the bed to clean beneath it. A bug scuttles out from the shadows and hides behind the bookshelf; they leave it be. They’re not going to kill anything here.
Sunlight is stirring behind the curtains. They cross the room and pull them back with both hands, letting the first rays stream into the room. The gold and blue catches on the motes of dust in the air, slowly drifting. He smiles to himself, tying the curtains open, and then goes back to work.
Figure waters the plants, thinking fondly of Thisbe, and then sets to work reorganizing the bookshelves. They carefully arrange the books in alphabetical order, sliding them in and out. Maybe it’s not strictly necessary to make the room neater, but they want to do it. Cleaning is meditative, feels soft and gentle. They don’t want to be done with this yet. They don’t want to talk.
It is quiet work. The room slowly fills with light as he tends to it. Eventually, the windows open without him touching them, and he hears birdsong, feels the touch of a summer breeze.
Figure finds himself humming as he works, changing the lamp’s lightbulb and pushing in the chairs. It’s an old song from home.
Then – finally – Phrygian speaks. It is very soft.
“Thank you,” they say.
“Yeah, of course,” Figure says.