A/N: MORE PHIPHER MORE PHIPHER MORE PHIPHER! Can you see him now? Can ya, can ya, can ya!

-Fallon


Variation #1: "Fall Apart"

48. Childhood

"You never talk about your childhood."

The question caught her off guard, especially coming from the big, broodingly boyish Phipher Lockhart. Muscular, bronzed, broad-shouldered; golden-haired, blue-eyed, dimpled; hard-jawed, deep-voiced, rugged; eyes full of feeling, full lips, impossibly white teeth. The 25-year old who towered over her, perpetually leaving her in his shadow, both literally and figuratively, was the textbook example of the divine balance between innocence and masculinity.

He drove her fucking nuts.

"You've never asked."

"Skinny."

The way he said it cut her to the quick.

"What do you want to know?" She sighed. Why did everyone always want to know about her Arceus-damned childhood? It sucked. That's all there ever was to say.

"Well…" She could see his jaw tighten and flex with the grinding of his teeth. He could feel the tension in the air just as well as she. "What was your father like? Your mother?"

Silence sliced through the space between them, turning the air stale and cold.

"Fatherly. Motherly." She stood and stretched, a snarling glint in her eye. "Respectively." A smirk.

"Come on, Skinny," He groaned, lying back in the grass. "You never tell me anything."

"Oh, because I know so much about you," She stared at him in disbelief. His arrogance knew no bounds.

"Well, there's nothing to know," He shrugged, his enormously broad shoulders rising and falling in time with the sound of his resignation. "I never had a family. I grew up in an orphanage. Wasn't a whole hell of a lot to do there, so there isn't exactly much to tell."

"Oh, I'm so sorry," She cooed. "Your life is just so difficult; I can't even begin to imagine your pain."

"Skinny, why do you have to turn this into an argument?" His voice was hard and gravelly. She blinked back her surprise – he was always so calm and well spoken. It was rare to hear his voice rise above anything more than a smooth monotone. "I'm not trying to milk you for any sympathy, and I'm not trying to push you away. Is it so hard to believe someone could actually, honestly care?"

"Yes."

She stormed off, leaving him speechless at the base of the tree, clenching her fists and choking back tears she refused to let him see.