I don't own Agents of SHIELD.

This series continues to be written for TYRider. I know I'm in New Zealand and you're in the USA. I also know you're still breaking into my house and feeding the plot bunnies when I'm not home. Don't try to deny it.

Set between 2.06 A Fractured House and 2.07 The Writing On The Wall. Second in the Nature series.

Freak of Nature: idiom; a person regarded as strange because of their unusual appearance or behaviour.

1. Rain

Phil never should have looked at the glass wall on the Bus.

If he hadn't looked, if he'd just strode up the ramp, taken in the devastation at a glance, and gone straight upstairs to the common room, this could have all been avoided.

But the wall had been right there, in front of him, in front of everyone coming onboard. He couldn't have avoided looking if his life depended on it.

And now, it seems, his life really might depend on it.

He hadn't noticed anything different in the minutes after seeing the weird symbols that John Garrett had carved into the wall. It looked more like an electronic circuit than anything, all dots and lines, wires and connection points. He'd wondered if the man had been designing some sort of bomb.

He hadn't even noticed anything different in the hours after seeing it. But in the warm dark of early morning he'd woken with an itching in his fingers and the patterns burning a hole in his mind.

They didn't make sense.

They would make sense.

He just had to write them down. Carve them out. Dig them deep.

That was months ago, now. The urge is getting stronger. It was once a month to start with. Then every three weeks. Two weeks. Once a week. May watches and discusses and documents, snapping photo after photo while he works, adding her comments to his written reports of the ongoing… whatever this is… in neat cursive. She doesn't pull her punches, but neither does she hide her concern. Her worry.

He's Director of SHIELD (thanks, Nick).

And he's slowly being driven insane by an alien compulsion, courtesy of the Kree blood Fury used to resurrect him (really, thanks).

He's also not stupid. He accedes to May's two rules, Phil, that's all I'm asking without a murmur of protest. No field work, even though he thrives on field work. And open communication, even though secrets are the Director's prerogative.

He's fighting the hypergraphia as much as he can, using every anti-interrogation technique he knows, seizing every opportunity for distraction. It's not enough.

The itching under his skin grows worse with each new mission; he hates being holed up in his office when his team is out there risking their lives, but he knows that it's for the best. May sticks to his side as much as she can. Maybe more than she should. He'd be worried about rumours, Director Coulson and Commander May, if not for the fact that that's not them, that never has been and never will be them while Andrew's in the picture, oh and has he mentioned he just doesn't care.

The apathy should worry him, he knows. On some level, remote and out-of-focus, it does. But between the patterns gouging lines and holes in his brain, looking after not just his team (Fitz with brain damage, Jemma in danger undercover, Skye increasingly distant and increasingly angry) but all teams (Nathanson wants self-defence training, Harlan is overdue for a routine psych eval, they'll need at least three more competent pilots before next month), and trying to mould a new SHIELD out of the pulverised clay of the old SHIELD… he doesn't have the energy to spare.

Surely apathy is better than the alternative? Nobody wants an emotionally compromised Director. It's better for everyone if he stands back, stands clear, tries to maintain some level of objectivity.

Agent Phil Coulson was never objective. Never pretended to be.

Director Phillip J. Coulson has to be.

He's been busy. Too busy not busy enough too busy. He hasn't talked to Clint or Natasha in ages. They try to touch base with more-or-less regularity: usually once a week but sometimes once a month, sometimes twice in one day; usually a phone call but sometimes face-to-face or, on the most chaotic days, via voicemail tag.

He's the director. They're still agents, albeit freelance and fairly off-grid agents. And with his new team slowly fracturing, he feels the need to hold his old team tight, to remind him that they're still here, to remind them that he's still here.

But he's been busy not busy enough too busy. Strike Team Delta haven't talked in weeks.

They'll understand.

Won't they?

Yeah. Of course they will.

The gaps between episodes steadily decrease. Six days… five days… four days, by which stage there's an ever-present lump in his gut that feels something between squirming worms and a solidified ball of vomit. He can see where this is going, and he really doesn't like it. Even when he's not thinking about carving, he's thinking about the fact that he's trying not to think about it, which amounts to the same thing. He hides the hand tremors as best he can, knows it's not enough, relies on May to distract and deflect on his behalf.

Three days.

He's long since changed the paperwork to officially name her his successor. Left detailed information about everything: a full list of agents, above-board and otherwise; projects, secret and not secret; plans for the next year, the next five years, the next ten if they can survive that long. Thought long and hard about his decline, about his continued capacity for doing the job, about the final inevitable step if things keep going the way they are.

Two days.

He refuses to go the way of John Garrett: psychotic, slavering, stripped of all reason, that mad light in his eyes. Even the thought of becoming something like that is enough to give him chills. He's lost himself before; he can't do it again.

He'll die first.

And still he doesn't call Delta.

Phil has a room downstairs. It doesn't hold much: clothes, a signed Peggy Carter print, a spartan bunk made to military standard. He hasn't used it in three weeks. May has a room as well, right next to his, but it's too far for her to travel when his compulsion hits — and she insists that he wake her, no matter the hour, no matter how late the team's gone to bed or how hectic the day has been. She needs to evaluate his condition, she says, and he needs to not be alone.

I'm the Director, Phil thinks idly; I'm always alone now. The words don't pass his lips.

So he's set up a couple of couches in his office. May naps while he works at his desk, feverishly trying to get the paperwork finished before the urge becomes too strong. Sometimes he holds out until one in the morning, two, even three, collapsing onto the second couch and falling into an uneasy doze until he's woken by the patterns dancing on the backs of his eyelids. Other times he kicks off his shoes as soon as the lights go out downstairs, drapes his jacket over the back of his chair, loosens his tie and moves to the wall.

He always carves barefoot. He couldn't say why. It just feels right. Pure. A grounding of sorts, calloused soles of his feet against grainy hardwood boards. A counterweight for the precarious teetering of his mind.

Today was a good day. Phil made it back from a recruitment mission — an actual recruitment mission, not just a cover trip for Theta Protocol — with another two assets for the books. A bright-eyed Skye burst in to the common room at five o'clock, fresh from a recon mission with her S.O. Under May's training, she's been improving in leaps and bounds. May herself arrived twenty minutes later, shoulders relaxed, carrying a box of donuts from their favourite joint. Fitz…

Fitz doesn't appear to be getting better. But for today, at least, he hasn't gotten worse. It's something. Not much, but something. Mack's friendship is a blessing there. He didn't know Fitz before. He's got nothing to compare him to.

The rest of the team did know Fitz before. Phil would be lying if he said it doesn't hurt. If he said he doesn't struggle to meet Fitz' eyes, doesn't struggle to know how to talk to this new, very much not improved Doctor Leopold Fitz. This Fitz who's only gone downhill since Simmons left.

But they've certainly had worse days. All in all, he'll take it as a win.

Outside his office windows, the simulated sky is black-dark. The stars that gleamed an hour ago have vanished behind a thick curtain of cloud. Phil sits at his desk, working his way through the bi-weekly stack of payslips, while May curls up with a book on the couch. Her couch, really. She tends to take the one directly under the window, tucked into the corner with her feet drawn up under her, body angled toward Phil's desk so she can watch him without really watching him.

He doesn't mind. It's nice, in a way, to have someone who so blatantly worries about him. After thirty years in the spy game, anyone doing anything blatantly is refreshing.

His couch lies empty, olive green army blanket folded across the back. It's at right angles to May's, back squarely to the video screen so if anyone calls in they won't get a front-row seat to a drooling Director Coulson. The cushions call to him, a siren song promising six hours of blissful rest.

A lie.

The chances of him getting a whole six hours are maybe 50/50. The chances of it being a proper rest are somewhat less than that.

But the thought is tempting.

He signs off on the last of the payslips, shuffles them together, and slaps the pile into his Out tray. Done. What time is it? Ten to eleven. He feels like it's far later. His body is heavy with fatigue, his thoughts edging toward blurred. Truthfully, he's always been an early bird; it was one of many reasons he and May gravitated to each other as recent Academy grads. As a veteran field agent, he's learned to function on any sleep schedule under the sun — which includes a no-sleep schedule in extreme cases — but his natural cycle will always be early.

These days, duty makes him not just a dawn lark but a night owl, too. And a noon hummingbird.

But even he can't go 24/7 without sleep.

He blinks and finds himself staring at the blank screen on the wall. Something curdles in his gut. Dread. Horror. Nervous anticipation. He isn't sure. A mixture, perhaps. He lets his eyes defocus as he stares into the middle distance. It's another thirty seconds before he can admit to himself what's going on.

He needs to sleep. Body and mind both ache with exhaustion.

But he doesn't want to sleep, at least not before he's…

No.

He can't let himself think it.

He doesn't need another episode. He carved just last night. He doesn't need another episode.

But he wants another episode. His fingers itch with it. The blood thrums in his veins. His stomach clenches. It's a problem. It's far beyond a problem, it's a habit. Addictive as heroin. Maybe that's what the tremors are. Withdrawal symptoms.

He can beat a drug habit. He's beaten them before; weaned himself off morphine and worse.

This is no drug habit. Or rather, it is, but it's all in his head. It's mind-drugs, hormones, dopamine and seratonin. Neuroplasticity. The more he gives into the compulsion, the more he'll want to give into it. Habit takes the path of least resistance. Every time he carves those lines, he's carving the trench in his brain a little deeper, that downhill slope for the chemical impulses to run along.

And like any habit, there are diminishing returns. He needs the hit more often but the rewards grow ever fewer. It's a vicious cycle.

A cycle he can't stop.

Outside, rain patters on the window.

"Phil."

He hums acknowledgement. His elbows are on the desk, head dropped, hands bracing his temples. Still staring at the far wall. And he's shaking, he realises numbly.

Soft footsteps come closer. May. "What's wrong?"

It takes an effort to speak. "I can't."

"Can't what?"

He swallows. Fights to think through the fatigue, the clawing memory of the compulsion. "I can't," he says slowly, "differentiate. Between needing to carve and wanting to carve and the habit of carving. And the memory of carving. And the memory of needing to carve." He pushes back from the desk. Spins his chair to put his back to the wall. If he can't see the keypad, if he can't see the wall…

Out of sight, not exactly out of mind. But every little bit helps.

"My memory's screwed," he says, and lets his heavy eyelids slip closed. "My impulses are screwed. My judgement's well on its way to being screwed. Basically — "

"Don't."

"I'm screwed."

"You're not screwed," May says. The eye roll is implicit.

"No?" He barks a mirthless laugh. "Have you seen the wall lately? I'm only getting worse."

Hesitation. "I know."

"When it gets too bad — "

"Don't."

He's known for weeks that this is how it will end. "I need you to shoot me in the head, please."

"I'm not shooting you in the head."

"I said please."

"We've talked about this, Phil. I'm not shooting you in the head."

He opens his eyes. Turns his head just enough to meet her gaze. "Heart, then. It won't take much, it's had more than enough damage already."

Her lip quirks. "Was that figurative, or…?"

"No. Entirely literal." But he grins, too, just a little, and finds a gleam of hope in the fact that he still can.

May folds her arms. "How can I help? Without shooting you. Tonight, at least."

It's like trudging through foot-deep snow. Uphill. But he gets there eventually. "I need sleep."

"So?" She looks at him, looks at his couch, looks back at him. "Go sleep."

"Can you lock down the keypad?"

"Of course I can."

"Will you? Just for six hours. So I can't — "

She lifts an eyebrow. "Do you need to?"

"No," he says. "Yes. It's — complicated." Even the mention of carving makes his bones vibrate. He tilts his head. For a moment he swears he catches a whisper on the edge of hearing, a seductive susurration of possibility. "I need sleep," he repeats, more firmly.

The whispering fades away.

May steps past him to the keypad. He resolutely doesn't look while she inputs her Deputy Director's code and locks down the desk. It won't hurt anything. He'll still have access in case of an emergency. It just stops him from moving the screen and gaining access to The Wall.

There are other walls if he's desperate. But they're not the same.

And with May here, he won't get that desperate. He hopes. She won't judge, he knows that. But her presence is a deterrent nonetheless. The lines and dots scraping his neural pathways raw seem to quieten when she's around.

When anyone's around, really.

Distract, deflect, divert. The age-old story of an addict and a habit, a battle and a war.

"Done," she says.

"Thank you." He wants to carve doesn't want to carve wants to carve. The everlasting push-pull is wearing him thin. Taking away that choice is a way of settling the battle, however temporary a stopgap it might be. There's a kind of peace in knowing that, no matter how much he might want to, he can't.

Phil shuffles through to the bathroom, where he changes into sweatpants and a grey t-shirt before returning to his couch. Collapses onto the cushions with a groan. Tugs the blanket down to cover him.

Sleeps.

He dreams of carving lines in stone. The lines deepen, become channels and trenches. The trenches fill with blood, thick and dark and wet: first a trickle, then a stream, then a flood. He looks up and sees rock walls towering overhead, covered in never-ending lines and circles. Looks down and sees himself wading through a thigh-deep sea of red. His hands are covered in stone dust.

He wakes with a gasp, heart hammering in his chest.

"Coulson?" May murmurs from the darkness.

"Yeah," he rasps. He doesn't say I'm fine, because he's not.

The itch is back and it's strong, clawing behind his eyes, tingling in his fingertips. He can see the patterns that he needs to draw. They're clear and sharp and vivid — more vivid in some ways than the waking world — and he has to get them out get them out get them out before they're gone.

Something drips into his eye. He's already blinking it away when the familiar tang of iron and salt hits the roof of his mouth.

Blood.

Fresh blood.

Phil goes to lift a hand and finds he doesn't have to. His hands are already raised, nails raking at his temples like he can reach into his brain and scoop out the patterns that way — or, failing any other (safer, more sane) method, like he can gouge the burning lines into his own flesh.

Oh. Help.

The hiss of indrawn breath is all it takes for May to appear at his side. The lights come up. He doesn't resist as familiar hands wrap around his wrists and ease them to his sides.

Another drip of blood. He blinks and blinks again, trying to stay calm. A stray line from the Tahiti report floats through his head. …Patients 3 and 4 exhibit self-inflicted scratches to their faces, initially while asleep but more recently while awake…

May doesn't speak, but her concern is a palpable weight. His hand twitches when she releases it for a second to shift her grip. She folds one hand around his wrists and uses the other to check over his temples.

She's hardly started when his computer chimes an alert.

A visitor.

At the front door.

Weird time to be visiting.

"Go," he tells May.

She steps away to the desk while he shoves his hands under his knees as a precaution, and a second later the screen lights up with a black-and-white view of the front entrance.

What.

The.

Hell.

"Romanov?"