The Rage

by Roy

•

Phineas' fingers flew over the keypad so fast; he wasn't even sure he'd hit all the buttons, but the phone was already dialling. As the speaker rang, Phineas held his hand up to his nose. It was bleeding. Why didn't he notice that until now? He walked over to where the coffee table normally was and plucked a few tissues from the box that lay on its side.

Pressing the phone between his ear and shoulder, the redhead tried to tear the first tissue in half.

…Well, that went over like a lead balloon. Phineas took the quarter-tissue he ended up with and twisted it around until it formed something of a cylinder and pushed it up his right nostril. Nyeyeh; that never got any more comfortable. He ripped another quarter off and repeated the drill for his left nostril.

"Yeah."

With his entire face now suitably irritated, but less messy, Phineas walked into the kitchen. Stepping around the glass, he fetched a clean, damp cloth from the sink and began wiping up the blood that had dripped onto his skin. Not that looking good really did anything to benefit the situation, but he knew he'd forget about it if he hadn't done so.

"Yeah! Hello? Phineas!"

"Oh!" Phineas only just realised the phone had been answered on the other end. "Yea-Ferb? Yeah — ah, jeez — hey, hey, uh, heheh, hi."

"Phineas," Uh-oh. From Ferb's tone of voice, Phineas' tone of voice must've given him away. Crap. "Phineas what'd you do?"

"Well," He began, in the sort of tone that absolutely no one on the face of Earth, Jupiter, Bob or Qualoz would believe, "it's nothing, y'know, serious, or anything, it's jus-"

"Great; I'm hanging up then. Doot, doot, doot…" Ferb interrupted, making his own fake tone as he finished.

"No! I-*sigh*" His tone changed into one of shame. As, he guessed, he really should be feeling right now. Actually…yeah, he felt pretty crummy right about now.

"Look, can you, uh, call…Isabella?" He asked, a lot more meekly than anyone would ever expect of Phineas Flynn.

"What did you do, Phineas?" Yep; he just knew his brother'd be mad at him. Knew it.

"I didn-" He reflexively shot back, before catching himself. "W- Um, well would you believe me if I said 'I don't know'?"

"No. No I wouldn't." Ferb's reply came in monotone. Despite it being true, to some degree, Phineas couldn't blame him.

"Okay, well, I really don't. I mean, it just — y'know, it — happened again. That's it." As soon as he'd mentioned that 'it' happened, he swore that he could hear his brother's sigh sigh.

"You…are…" Ferb began, but it sounded like he didn't even know where to go with the sentence.

"Yeah, I know." Phineas said.

"What's with your voice, by the way¿" Ferb asked him. Phineas was half-registering what he meant.

"Huh? Oh; aaaaaaa, aaaaa, aaaaa, yeah." Phineas said, testing to hear the slight nasally quality that the tissues blocking his nose provided. "I got a nosebleed. Don't think it's broken."

"Well good for her if she did it, then." Ferb replied, with a slightly perverse glee in his voice. "You can't keep do- we, can't keep doing this, you know."

He so did not want to be having this conversation right now. He had made his way to one of the intact dining room chairs and righted it, before sitting down.

"Can…please just call her for me?"

"One of these days, I'm gonna get tired of saving your relationship, y'know that?" Phineas sighed; as long as today wasn't that day…

"*sigh* …But I'll talk to her. But Phineas? While I'm doing it, you gotta do something about this too."

Phineas started to tune out slightly. Not that he didn't love Ferb, but he had just heard the same bit over and over. He glanced around the mess he was sitting in.

"…really not the healthiest thing…"

Then he saw it. The ring! Out of everything else that lay on the carpeted floor near it, he didn't know — or care, frankly — how he managed to zero in on it, but there it was, among the wood, glass and torn paper that littered the living room as well.

"…getting worse-" "No…" Phineas murmured.

"What?" Ferb asked, but Phineas ignored him. She didn't really leave him for good, did she? Please no, please no, please no.

Phineas seemed to just float towards the ring, his knees miraculously landing without injury on the carpet. He reached for the object, the light dancing around it and the fragments of glass near it.

"It's the ring." He said quietly to Ferb, as he held at eye level.

"Oh. Oh. Oooooh." Ferb softly responded. Phineas' legs were getting uncomfortable in the dojo-style kneeling position. He shifted to be sitting down normally. Sighing, he brought both hands to rest on his knees; his head fell down, along with his eyelids.

Dammit…

"…" He could hear Ferb's voice coming through the speaker; all nonsense while the phone was down with his hands. He glanced up at his ha-what?

Wait a sec…

He didn't have his ring on.

He didn't have his ring on!

"I don't have…" He tried sliding the ring on his-IT FIT!

Apparently he had been holding his breath; he let the air burst out, laughing in relief for a few seconds.

"Vvnss?" went the phone. Oh, right; this was one of those old fashioned audio phone-things. He brought the device back to his ear.

"Ferb, it's my ring. It's-it…" He was still trying to still himself from his grateful laughing fit. "It must've just come off or something, I don't know."

"Well thank God for that." Ferb said. A good, accurate sentiment. "I guess, forget everything I just said, then." Should he tell him that… nah.

"No problem, bro. Um…yeah. So, can you give her a call?" Again, it was like millions of souls were screaming in pity, wrapped up in the one sigh. He kinda preferred them both being happy that he wasn't going to have to start finding unbroken china to start sorting for the two of them.

"Like I said: I will, but you've got to not let this happen again, man. I'll let you know when I'm done. Or maybe I won't have to, who knows. See ya." Phineas closed his phone as the actual dial tone began its monotonous chant.

He took another look around the room. Yeesh… This would take some work to clean up. Not just the physical mess, either.

How did this happen? How? How could he let this happen, was a better question. Always the same thing: He would be doing…something, but he always forgot. Just ending up in a trashed room, pretty much always on his own. He really preferred when he was younger. Sure, the same thing occurred, but they were always over in a flash; and he never seemed to have done any real damage to anyone or himself. Longer and more destructive was the exact opposite of what a person would generally want to be happening.

He was Phineas Flynn! He just didn't act like this; and yet, he did. It wasn't his fault.

Really!

How could he not remember anything that happened? Every single time, it just happened. He'd barely remember what was going on in the few minutes preceding it, then…just, it. Blind fury; a rage that he couldn't see, hear or understand anything during. Nothing that happened while he was like that he ever remembered.

What the hell had he done this time? Roughly half of the room that wasn't bolted down was in a different place, upended, slightly broken or just completely obliterated altogether! Easily his worst 'episode' yet, to say the least.

He sighed, running his hands through his hair. Picking himself up, he moved into the kitchen. He pulled the garbage back out of the dustbin and set it agains the corner, as open as possible. He located their dustpan — why was it next to the fridge? — and started sweeping up the loose debris.

Worst part was that he fully knew that, on some level, it was all necessary.

It was a part of him; simple as that. He was no idiot. Hell, he was a freakin' genius, if he were to ever be smug enough to admit it outside of his head, anyway. Even though a lot of what he knew was practical skills, he had a pretty good understanding of the human psyche. He knew that it was necessary.

He knew that, no matter how much he'd hate it and himself for it, his moments of rage were something that he had to live with. No person is flawless. Ferb had his thing about being a ladykiller — and being very, very aware of it — and becoming narcissistic as he got older; Candace had her thing about being 73% crazy… everyone had something.

He had this.

It sucked that his thing could get dangerous at times — and could possibly see him in a padded room or behind bars one day — but that's the way the cookie crumbles. Everyone has to accept that everything you are — your character, your actions, your positive traits and the negative — defines you.

His rage defined him.