A/N: Just a one shot that was inspired by my current mood. TW: touches on depressive thoughts/self-hate and also references sexual assault. Read at your own discretion. Set a couple of weeks before Phoebe returns to the manor in the pilot episode. Enjoy!
Side Effects May Vary
Silence.
It hurt Phoebe more than it had ever hurt her before. It hurt her more than she liked to admit, even to herself. It hurt her from the hollow entity that had once been a heart to the brain in her skull that she wished would just... empty itself out.
Not of noise, no. The young girl did not have any ounce of noise in her mind and maybe this was what hurt her the most. Because Phoebe had always been a loud girl, inside and out, and having no noise, not even on the inside, stripped her of everything she thought she knew about herself. She wished her mind would empty itself out of the lack of care she had for everything.
Phoebe had always hated being such an emotional person, such an empathetic person, but now that she couldn't seem to even begin to imagine what any sort of emotion was, she wished she had that part of herself back.
She wished she could remember how to feel.
The cause of this absence in Phoebe's head was hard to pinpoint. Could it have been because of her lack of parents? Her ever-crumbling relationship with her eldest sister? Her recent firing from the only job that had been willing to employ a talentless, worthless, unfulfilled 20-something who desperately needed money?
Phoebe closed her eyes and bit her tongue; she was trying to make her body feel something, even if it was pain. But nothing. Her brain was numb to everything and it made her want to scream. No. It made her want to cry. But she couldn't. She was tearless and emotionless and it was scaring her. This had never happened to her before. She had always been such an emotional person.
She made a noise – the sort of noise a person made when they were about to start crying, or had already started. It was a desperate attempt to trick her tear ducts into releasing a good few drops of salty water.
It didn't work.
Phoebe shuffled around on her filthy couch so she was lying down. "I can't feel anything," she told the mouldy ceiling above her. Her voice was barely a whisper, as if she were too afraid to admit what was happening to her. "My mind," she bit down on the inside of her cheek this time. "It's just empty,"
When had this happened? How long had she been feeling this way? Phoebe couldn't quite remember.
She closed her eyes again and saw the angry face of her eldest sister Prue. A sister that had always been more like a mom because of their own mother's premature death. Phoebe wasn't talking to her anymore: or rather, Prue had ignored Phoebe's attempts at an apology and an explanation so Phoebe had given up trying. I don't want to hear your excuses! That was what Prue had said when Phoebe had tried to explain exactly what Prue had walked in on.
You haven't changed a bit.
It was those five words that felt like a knife in Phoebe's heart. Like someone had stabbed her and twisted the blade. I don't know why I was ever surprised.
The inside of Phoebe's cheek had become painful now, and she could finally feel the comforting taste of blood. What exactly had Prue walked in on and why hadn't she been surprised at the scene?
Phoebe's hand unintentionally curled to a fist when she pictured Roger – Prue's fiancé, ex-fiancé, now, Phoebe corrected – creeping his hand up her forearm. What are you doing?
Oh, come on, Phoebe. Let's not pretend you don't want this as much as I do.
The pair of them had been alone in the kitchen when it had happened. Roger had come home earlier from work than Prue had, and Piper was busy doing the laundry upstairs. Phoebe, as always, had been doing nothing. Busy being worthless. Roger had pretended to be interested in the washing up she was doing and he had then snaked his hand up the sleeve of her sweater.
Stop that.
She had said stop – she had told him to stop. And then she had walked away from him. But Roger had edged closer. Don't pretend you didn't like that. His voice still made Phoebe feel sick. Still made her stomach form a tight knot.
She had gone to move her arm away again, but his fingers curled around her wrist tightly. Like a leech. Roger –
He had pressed his body against hers and his lips met hers. Phoebe instantly jolted her head away from his mouth. Stop! Her voice was raised now, with a slight hint of panic. She attempted to pull her wrist out of Roger's hold but he merely chuckled. The fingers on his other hand danced at her hip and Phoebe stepped backwards into the counter.
Come on, Phoebe. Let me have my fun.
Phoebe had become almost breathless at that point. Don't do that, Roger. Piper! Phoebe's immediate thought had been to call out for her other sister, who she knew was at home. But because she was upstairs, probably with the television on, Piper had heard nothing.
Before Roger could respond to Phoebe's cry for help, they had both heard Prue's key in the front door and Roger had switched places with Phoebe – so he looked like he had pinned against the counter – and pressed his lips onto the youngest Halliwell again. Phoebe managed to pull her head away again but not before Prue had walked in. Not before she had seen what she thought was her little sister, once again, trying to steal her boyfriend.
Finally, Phoebe's tears ducts had managed to start working, and without realising it, her cheeks had become sticky with the now drying tears that had fallen as she recollected what her sister's fiancé had tried to do to her.
What he had done to her already unsteady relationship with her sister.
Phoebe sat up, although she had now curled up so her head was resting in her arms and sitting on her knees. She felt dirty. She couldn't understand how everything had gone from Roger and Prue happily announcing their engagement to Prue assuming the worst from Phoebe and cutting off ties with both her and her fiancé.
Of course, Phoebe could have told Prue what had really happened, but with no evidence, no Piper present, and her word against the word of Roger – a man Prue respected enough to want to marry – Phoebe had known it would have been useless.
It would have just been an excuse to Prue. A poor attempt from her littlest sister to avoid taking responsibility for her actions, like she always liked to do.
No. Phoebe couldn't have explained what had really happened.
Phoebe cursed her past-self for ever trying (and often achieving) to take her sisters' boyfriends from them. She never knew why she did it, she just always had and it had now led to the demise of her relationship with them. If she had never acted that way in the past, Prue never would have believed Roger when he insisted that Phoebe had been the one to kiss him; to pin him against the counter. Prue would have believed her sister because that's what family meant and that's what family did: they trusted each other.
She knew, somewhere in her mind, that blaming herself would never help her get out of the situation she was currently in. She knew, deep down, that what had happened between her and Roger might not have actually been her fault, but it would take a few more years and a level of maturity she didn't yet have for Phoebe to come to that realisation.
For now, Phoebe had to struggle with the knowledge that she was to blame for Roger kissing her against her will in the kitchen 6-months ago.
That night, back in April, after a long argument with Prue, Phoebe had eventually given in and let Prue shout at her about how disgusting and shameful and selfish she was. About how disappointed Prue was with her. About how Prue could never look at her the same now that she knew Phoebe was still a slut, even at the age of 22. Phoebe had let her yell, had let her swear, had let Prue throw Phoebe's very few belongings at the wall. She hadn't even cried or argued back when her big sister broke the beloved china doll she had gotten from their father before he had left when they were kids.
Phoebe had just stood there and taken it. Because it was what she deserved for leading Roger on like that; for giving him a reason to think that she wanted him to kiss her and touch her.
Piper, always the mediator between her older and younger sister, had crept into Phoebe's room later that night and tried talking to her. Tried to understand exactly why Phoebe had done what she had done. She had even given Phoebe the perfect opportunity to tell the truth about what had happened, because Phoebe knew that if she ever wanted there to be a chance for Prue to understand, Piper explaining it would always be the way.
But no. Phoebe had opened her mouth to say the words: he touched me, Piper. He forced himself onto me, but instead, had come out with a measly: I don't know, I just felt like it.
Piper had stared sadly at her then, because she had had an inkling that Roger had been lying about it. It had been based on how Phoebe had reacted to Prue screaming at her: usually, Phoebe would have fought back. But that evening, she had seemed to shaken by what had happened to even bother fighting.
In years to come, when Phoebe finally confessed to what had truly happened that day, Piper would wish she had interrogated her sister harder, rather than also accepting that this was just who Phoebe was: someone who stole her sister's boyfriends.
Prue had broken off her engagement with Roger, despite believing that the kiss had been entirely Phoebe's fault. Her reasoning was that she didn't want to be married to a man who her sister seemed to desire.
Oh, how wrong she was, Phoebe thought bitterly.
The Halliwell Manor had felt airless to Piper for the next few days, until she came home from work one Tuesday afternoon to find all of Phoebe's belongings gone and a note on her pillow:
It's for the best. Sorry.
Piper had cried herself to sleep that night, wishing she had said something more to Phoebe, or had forced Prue to forgive her because that's what family did. But it wasn't what the Halliwell sisters did. It had never been what they did.
Phoebe sat up straight and cracked her back slightly. She wiped the tears from her face and stood up. What was she doing? Sighing, she glanced at the phone on the small, slightly uneven coffee table by the couch. Maybe she should call someone? Someone to help her feel something more than emptiness.
Call who, though?
She had spent the last six months attempting to find her father in New York to no avail, so that wasn't an option, and her mother had died when she was too young to even remember what it felt like to be hugged by her. Prue wasn't speaking to her, and it was likely that Piper would be hostile too, because she almost always took Prue's side of the argument. She had lost contact with friends after her move to a new state, and hadn't had a much of a chance to build up any meaningful friendships with her colleagues. She had had one boyfriend since her move – Clay – but they had broken up after only a couple of months.
The more Phoebe thought about her ruined relationships with everyone that had ever been important in her life, the more it dawned on her that she was completely alone.
And that couldn't have been healthy.
Phoebe sighed again, desperately not wanting to succumb to the ever-growing sadness in her heart. She was going to call Piper. She was going to call her and cry and beg her to let her come home.
Almost shaking with anxiety, Phoebe picked up the cordless phone and dialled the number to the Manor – a number she had started to dial numerous times since moving to New York but never feeling confident enough to follow through. It rang a few times, and with each ring, Phoebe could hear her heart thumping louder and louder in her chest.
Phoebe almost let out an audible gasp when the familiar sound of a short click let her know that someone had answered the phone.
"Hello?" Piper's voice said on the other end.
A/N: Thanks for reading. I'd love to hear your comments on my story, so please review if you have a spare minute or two.