Barnum stood outside the bar, looking in through the window. Phillip was there, exactly where he'd known he would be, even though he was really really hoping he wouldn't be. Judging by the difficulty he seemed to be having staying upright on the bar stool he'd had more than a skinful. He carried on watching, trying to decide what to do, as Phillip waved the bartender over and ordered himself another drink which he drained almost as quickly as it had been set in front of him.
Part of him wanted to just leave Phillip too it, he'd made his decision apparently and if he would rather drink himself into oblivion than let someone in then who was he to try and stop him? But even as the thought crossed his mind he couldn't get his feet to move to step away from the bar- no, there was no way he was going to leave him there. Besides, he'd promised Anne.
He'd been hopeful, as had Charity, at lunch time when Anne had gone to talk to Phillip. The relationship that had slowly formed between the two of them had been going from strength to strength. He'd genuinely thought if anyone was going to get through to Phillip it would be Anne. Then when he'd walked past Phillip's office and seen Anne sitting there alone, clutching Phillip's top hat and he'd seen the look of defeat on her face he realised things were even worse than he'd thought.
Anne, to her credit, had picked herself up off the office floor with some encouragement from Charity and soldiered through her performance as if nothing had happened. It was only afterwards when she'd walked off the stage and into Charity's arms that she's allowed herself to fall apart. Phineas had stood there awkwardly, not knowing what to do, until Charity had gently suggested that perhaps he ought to go and find Phillip before he had the chance to do himself too much damage.
He'd been unsure where to start. He'd been going to head for Phillip's apartment, but on the way there he'd passed the street and seen the sign of the bar he'd first met Phillip in. It was a dark and dingy place that only ever seemed to have the same five people in it- Phillip included. Maybe in hindsight finding himself a new business partner in a bar hadn't been the wisest move. Sitting at the bar was the old Phillip Carlyle, the one who'd drowned himself in copious amounts of whiskey to avoid having to feel anything, not the friend and business partner he'd grown so fond of.
It was quiet in the bar as he stepped inside, the rush of warm air hit his face and sent a shiver down his spine. The bartender met his eye as he cautiously approached Phillip, giving him a look that suggested he thought Phillip had had more than enough to drink for the night. Barnum nodded in agreement.
"Phillip." He greeted his friend as he slid on to the bar stool next to him.
"Barnum." Philip slurred, spinning on the stool to face him and then grabbing hold of the bar as he nearly lost his balance. "Lemme get ya a drink!" Phillip started waving frantically at the bartender who stoically ignored him to avoid having to refuse to serve him.
"I think you've had enough for both of us." Barnum answered dryly.
"C'mon…. live a little!" Phillip argued. He leant forward, reaching over the bar to try and grab a bottle that was on the other side. P.T. had to grab the back of his jumper to catch him as he wobbled precariously on the stool.
"How about you come back to mine and we'll have a drink there?" P.T. suggested, not because he'd got any desire to have a drink with Phillip, but because it was probably the only way he was going to convince him to come with him without a fight.
"'Kay." Phillip slid off the stool rather inelegantly, having three attempts at putting his coat on before P.T. eventually had to give in and help him into it. He would've been more than a little surprised if Phillip was still capable of feeling the cold after the skinful he'd had anyway.
It shouldn't have taken them that long to walk from the bar back to his house, but it was complicated by Phillip's complete inability to stay upright or walk in a straight line. He'd fallen over twice when P.T. hadn't been quite quick enough to catch him as he'd wobbled. Getting him up off the pavement once he'd fallen over had proven even more challenging than keeping him upright in the first place.
The front door swung open as they reached the bottom step and he was more than a little bit relieved to see Charity rushing out to help. Phillip had become a dead weight as he leant against him and he was trying to work out how he was actually going to get him up the steps without hurting him.
"Here, i'll get his legs." She suggested quietly, as though this was a completely normal situation they encountered on a regular basis.
"Charity!" Phillip grinned. "What are you doing here?"
"I live here Phillip." Charity laughed quietly, but she didn't smile. "I think I should be asking you that." She glances at her husband who mouthed an apology at her over Phillip's head.
"I couldn't just leave him there, god knows where he would've ended up." Phineas whispered. He didn't know why he was bothering, there was no way Phillip was going to remember anything the next day anyway. He was almost asleep as they hauled him up the last couple of steps and deposited him back on his feet at the front door. He grabbed one arm and Charity grabbed the other to keep him from going over backwards and falling down the steps.
"I know." She smiled. "It's okay, really. I wouldn't have wanted you to leave him in this state. We just need to get him in without waking the girls." The last thing either of them wanted to do was to have to try and explain what was wrong with their Uncle Phillip.
They both grimaced as Phillip smacked his head on the door frame as they struggled to get him inside. He didn't even flinch and in the end they managed to deposit him on the couch without further injury.
"What are we going to do with him?" Charity asked, glancing over her shoulder at Phillip who was snoring softly on the couch. She turned back to her husband who reached his arms out and pulled her into him.
"Let him sober up." He suggested.
"And then what?" She asked. "He's going to destroy himself if he carries on like this Phin and I can't sit here and watch it."
"I don't know what you want me to say". He sighed. "I've tried, you tried, so has Anne. If he doesn't want to talk then what are we supposed to do?"
"I don't think it's that he doesn't want to." Her words were muffled against her husband's chest. "He doesn't know how. I don't know a lot about his parents, but I'd put money on the fact this is the only way he knows how to deal with whatever it is he's feeling."
"We're not going to solve anything tonight." He said softly, squeezing her a little bit tighter. He knew that look on her face, she was thinking about her parents again. "He can stay here tonight and I'll talk to him again in the morning when he's at least mostly sober. We both can."
"Okay." Charity nodded, gently disentangling herself from her husbands arms. She walked back over to the sofa, gently pulling Phillip round so he was lying on his side, pulling his shoes off , propping his head up with a pillow and then covering him with the blanket that was slung across the back of the sofa. "Will you check the door is locked? Don't want him doing a disappearing act on us in the morning before you get the chance."
Her husband nodded and disappeared, she heard the noise of the bolts on the door clicking firmly into place. "Come on then." He was waiting for her at the bottom of the stairs, holding a hand out that she gratefully took. "We'd better at least try and get some sleep."
Somehow, he doubted that either of them would be getting any kind of peaceful sleep.
Charity had come home from dropping the girls of at school and was surprised to see her husband sitting exactly where she'd left him, staring at the sleeping form of Phillip Carlyle who was still snoring away on their sofa.
"Hey." Phineas greeted her with a weary smile, holding out a hand towards her and pulling her into him. "Did the girls get to school okay?"
She perched on his lap, resting her head against his shoulder. "Yeah." She sighed. "They'd got a lot of questions about why Uncle Phillip was asleep on the sofa though."
"I think we all have." He answered dryly. "Do you think maybe we ought to wake him up?"
Charity raised an eyebrow. "Do you really want to poke the bear?"
Phineas laughed. A bear with a sore head was probably the most accurate description for the state Phillip Carlyle was going to be in when he woke up. "No, but I also can't spend all day sitting here watching him either."
Charity kissed him gently, lingering for a moment before crossing the room and kneeling beside Phillip. "Phillip, it's time to get up." She put a hand on his shoulder. He didn't stir at all, so she shook a bit harder. "Phillip, wake up!"
His eyes flew open, looking at Charity with a mixture of surprise and confusion. "Charity?" He mumbled.
She patted him on the shoulder. "Up you get Phillip. I'll go and make some coffee." He groaned and she could see it in his face that coffee wasn't the kind of drink he wanted.
"What?" Phillip groaned, trying to get his bearings as he struggled to sit up. His head pounded and spun as he pushed himself into a sitting position. "What am I doing here?"
Barnum fought to keep himself from rolling his eyes. "You obviously don't remember the part where I had to carry you home from the bar. I didn't think you would."
Charity came back through the door with three steaming mugs of coffee. Handing one to Phillip she then sat down next to her husband and handed him his. Phillip sniffed his mug, pulling a face. "Any chance of a whiskey instead?" He muttered.
"Absolutely none." Charity shook her head. "How's your head? You smacked it pretty hard last night."
Phillip's hand moved automatically to the back of his head where a lump was forming. He hadn't even noticed how sore it was, he'd been distracted by the pounding headache he'd woken up with once again. "Sorry." He mumbled. "You should've just left me there."
"I don't know how many times I need to say it Phillip." Charity sighed. "We care about you, none of us would've slept not knowing if you'd made it home in one piece."
"I would've been fine." He sighed. It probably wasn't a good idea to mention the amount of times he'd somehow found his way home while blind drunk. "I am fine."
"You're full of shit and you know it." Barnum snorted, sipping at his coffee.
Charity glared at her husband. "I think what Phin is trying to say is you're clearly not okay Phillip and whatever it is we want to help."
"So what is this- some kind of intervention?" Phillip sipped at his coffee and fidgeted uncomfortably under the weight of his friends gaze. "What's next, you're going to tell me I'm not allowed to leave?"
"It's not an intervention, it's two people who care about you telling you that we want to help you." Charity said softly. "I did think though that maybe you might like to stay here for a bit until you get yourself sorted."
"What are you going to do if I say no?" Phillip shot back. He drained the last of his coffee, the burning hot liquid scalding his throat as he forced it down, he set the mug down on the table in front of him noisily.
"Phillip we're doing this because we care." Charity soothed, he didn't miss the way she was talking to him like a caged animal.
He needed a drink. More than one actually, the coffee had done nothing to quench his thirst. He wanted to drink until he couldn't think straight anymore, until his mind finally went quiet and allowed him a rare few minutes peace from the thoughts terrorised him every conscious second. Now he was what, trapped at the Barnum's like some kind of prisoner because they thought he'd got some kind of drinking problem?
"Phillip, sit down. You're going to wear a hole in the floor." Barnum sighed.
Phillip looked at him in confusion. He didn't even know he'd got up off the sofa, he could've sworn he was still sitting there. Barnum was right though, somewhere along the line he'd got up and started pacing back and forth across the room like a caged animal. He forced himself to sit back down opposite Charity, his knee bouncing slightly as he forced himself to at least try and sit still.
"Phillip." Charity called his name softly to get his attention, she could see himself disappearing into his own head again and she was fairly certain it wasn't a safe place for him to be in his current state. He looked up at her, bewildered and confused. "Phillip, why don't you just tell us what happened? We can help you fix it. Whatever it is."
He snorted with laughter. What a ridiculous statement. They weren't going to be able to help him fix anything, especially not himself. He somehow doubted they would even want to, not once they realise that this was the real Phillip Carlyle. No, he'd go back home, like his father had suggested. At least they understood him there and wouldn't feel the need to try and fix him. "Do you not think I'm more than a little bit past saving by now?" He sighed. He looked around, spotting his shoes sitting on the floor at the end of the sofa. He hurriedly grabbed them and started putting them on.
"I wouldn't bother Carlyle because you're not going anywhere." Barnum said sternly.
"You can't make me stay here." Phillip shot back.
"No." Barnum nodded in agreement. "But I promised Anne and everyone else I'd make sure you were safe, so if you're not going to stay here then I'm taking you to stay with someone else because despite what you say you're clearly not okay and I'm not going to leave you on your own to drink yourself to death. I don't need that on my conscience."
Phillip stood there for a moment, wearing just one shoe, Phin and Charity watching as his brain processed what had been said and they could physically see it on his face as he tried to work out what to say or do next. Then much to both of their surprise he sunk back down on the sofa without a word, tears appearing from nowhere and flowing down his cheeks.
"Oh Phillip." Charity was across the room and on the sofa next to him with her arms around him in seconds. "It'll be okay. It's all going to be fine." She repeated over and over again, it was that same soothing tone she used when the girls had nightmares. Phillip almost wanted to let himself believe her.