[for Sam]

[fifthbeatle]

"Hey there, beautiful."

The sound is coming from the left, but Vanya pays no attention. Even without sound-sensitive powers she would have heard it, but an entire life in New York City has taught her to neatly ignore this sort of attention. She's been told that the way she dresses discourages this behavior but, 1) that's an absurd and backward concept and 2) no, it doesn't. There are all kinds of lies that Vanya has been told about what will and won't subject her to this sort of attention. Books are, she has been assured, an absolute turn-off. Yet here she is, coming out of the library with a stack of them and this is still happening. She's annoyed, but at the people whose voices she can still hear telling her these things and at this dude that's trying to make his shit hers.

"Did you hear me??"

Of course she did, but she's also got the benefit of having her face firmly in a book. It's a book of music, an advanced book of violin exercises. After the first excited session where her fingers were finally reunited with bow and strings, she came away feeling complete and very, very rusty. Before coming to Darrow, not a single day passed where she didn't play, save for her time in Texas. With this little book of arpeggios and finger-stretching exercises, plus a few deconstructed pages of some classical favorites, she is feeling excited all over again, just like she did the day she saw found the new extension of her arm in that vintage shop. Nothing can bother her, she thinks. With her family and her music, she's finally starting to feel complete, again. Maybe for the first time.

"Hey! Don't ignore him!"

The voice is coming from the opposite side of the little alley she's found herself in. She lifts her eyes and sees that there are two men standing between her and the end of this stretch of space between buildings. At first, she's alarmed, disarmed and a little confused from the seismic shift of being inside the peaceful library brimming with potential knowledge and... this. There are few things that impress her less than displays of useless masculinity.

"I'm not interested," Vanya says curtly, though not entirely impolite. It's a stronger tone than she'd have used in the past, but she didn't know who she was then. What can the voices of these men do to harm her? Nothing. In fact, with her power, the sounds they make are more a danger to themselves than the are to her.

"Ohh, you think you're too good for us?" There's three of them now. Vanya swallows a little lump in her throat and tries to move between them. A hand stops her by the shoulder, just a little too close to her chest. When she looks all the way up at one of them, her eyes are burning. Two of them laugh.

Whatever is said next misses Vanya's understanding entirely. One hand shoves her back and another pulls from behind. She's focusing on her breathing, not the whine of the tuning fork that is threatening to piece her inside. She is stronger than them, but suddenly she can't remember that. It feels too much like something else. She doesn't want to remember what, but she does:

It's "Leonard." It's the men Leonard hired to touch and harass her so that she would blast out and fulfill what he believed was his destiny as the thing that un-ordinaried wayward Number Seven. The world is full of men like these that only want to manipulate and take. Their hands feel like others, like the tight, oppressive grip of her father's hand on her shoulder telling her no, you mustn't go because you are nothing.

The world is closing in - a feeling she used to associate with needed to take pills. All she wants is to close in with it, but the tone in her head is a shrill scream now. She can feel the energy bending around her as her hair is swept off of her shoulder in a nauseatingly tender gesture. At some point, the books have been knocked from her hands that are now in tight fists. They are trying to take control of her and it is working, just not in the way they think.

"STOP!" She bellows, and the world slows down. It's only when she can see three pairs of eyes open wide that she has any idea what is happening. Blue-white light shoots out from the center of her. One of the men is looking her dead in her blindingly white eyes as the blast comes tearing out of her in a devastating orb. Two of them are kicked back several hundred feet. One of them slams against a wall. The streetlight on the corner swings and shakes ominously. There is no satisfaction in her. They wanted to be the thing that scares her, but there's no terror like what Vanya fears for herself.

Before she knows it, she's tearing backward in a frantic half-run. She's almost at the edge of the alley, but something trips her and she goes down hard, skidding backward on her arm and ass so hard that the sleeve of her coat rips all the way through. She's tripped on the shoe of a felled fourth man. She crab-crawls backward, startled, as her fists clench in anticipation of another, more deliberate blast.

Comments

[greatest_sin]

Wow, he managed to think just as the blast struck him, sending him skidding across the pavement and into an inconveniently placed brick wall. The corner of it caught his shoulder first, pain shooting down to his elbow, his skull connecting next, teeth clattering as he landed in a heap.

He'd been in mid-stride, gathering up for a run, a warning shout dying in his throat. Stay away from her! But it turned out, she could take care of herself.

Wincing, he pushed himself up with one hand, prodding at the back of his head with the other. No blood. Hopefully no concussion. His ears rang, but he guessed that had more to do with that blast of blue energy, aimed not at him but at the three other men scattered through the alley like broken mannequins.

Before he could manage to get himself more upright, the girl rushed at him blindly, landing hard on the pavement and looking at him like a frantic animal.

"Whoa, hey," he said, palms out, "It's okay. You're okay, I'm not going to hurt you."

[fifthbeatle]

There's a faint thunk that is still resonating in her head a bit - a metallic, tinny sound. It's not quite like the tuning fork. It's lower and it doesn't linger in her ears so much as in her head. The further away she is from the medication and the lies, the more she finds herself preoccupied with sound. Everything used to come to her in arias and the drag of bowstrings. Now, every rustle, every smack or tap is something she can feel.

However, for a moment, she doesn't hear this man's surrender. Under pale skin and white eyes, the deepest, harshest resonance is coming from her heart. For a moment, he is any of the other men in that alley. She remembers being in the Academy, the halls echoing with her family's repeated failure to acknowledge or protect her. With "Leonard's" gentle, bullshit touch and how it had a hand in getting her where she is right now.

Those pale eyes seem to consider him for as some reality and empathy settle back in. All she can do is stare at him where she is, half-sprawled and holding herself up by her arms behind her, waiting for him to either be true to his words that are finally sinking in, or to prove himself a liar and... she doesn't know what. It's the worst feeling, being terrified of others and of herself all at once.

[greatest_sin]

Okay. So, definitely not calming her down, yet.

There was no way he could get to his gun, even if he'd wanted to. She was dangerous, but she was also frightened, and not just of him. He could see it, that fear reflected in her eyes. Fear that he'd felt himself, countless times.

If she lashed out at him, he knew that it would hurt her, as much as it did him. Well, okay, maybe not physically.

"I heard you. I was coming down the street, on my way home, and I thought I could help, but it looks like I didn't need to," he said calmly, his hands still held where she could see them. "You told them to stop, but they didn't. It's okay, that wasn't your fault."

[fifthbeatle]

Several more seconds pass where Vanya is evaluating. Rebooting, maybe. She listens to what he's saying, even the mansplaining at the end. It's clear he wasn't involved and means well. The piercing sound in her ears is gone, the ambient street noise a normal whisper. The color in her irises fill back in.

"I didn't mean to..." A false start because she did sort of mean to, but not to him and not as hard. She pushes herself up to her feet. Regardless of her intentions, she's knocked over a bystander. He has a metal leg and, possibly, a head injury.

"I'm sorry. Are you alright?" She holds a hand out to help him up. This is the worst part, she's decided, of these unfortunate, inept encounters with her power: having to face the people that she's caught up in the awful disconnect between who Vanya is and the person she knows how to be.

[greatest_sin]

"I've had worse," he admitted with a rueful smile, getting his good leg under him before taking her hand and using the leverage to pull himself upright.

Down the alley, someone groaned.

"I, uh. I think there's a good chance somebody's called the cops," he told her, testing his weight on his prosthetic, just to make sure the socket hadn't shifted or come loose. Luckily, it was fine.

[fifthbeatle]

Wow, he's tall, is the only thing her dumb brain can kick up as a tangible thought. Anger, guilt and shame are clogging most of the airwaves.

"My books!" She realizes. She hates feeling (bitter and unhilariously) powerless. She doesn't want to talk to police. Also, she doesn't like the idea of these guys walking away.

It's the first time she's aware of this moral dilemma as it happens. She's angry because she deserves to be treated with common decency. They will keep treating people like this until they're stopped.

That's not her battle to fight. Not today, maybe not ever. The inside of her is so fucked up. She is in no place to judge even her own powers.

When she moves closer to gather the books, not one man moves a muscle. They are terrified. Vanya is stuck staring, transfixed. Horrified. Like she might be sick.

With a quick swoop of her arms, she gathers up the books and hurries back toward this other guy.

"I-I'd really like to go," Vanya rushes, breathless. "I-I'm not... I don't want to do the whole cop...thing." In her experience, 1960's cops and Feds had a way they felt about people who are different - in any number of ways. If she runs, she'll seem guilty and she doesn't want this person to think that of her. What she wants is for someone without a badge to help her, but she can't say that, either.

[greatest_sin]

"Whoa, hey," he called after her, a slight hitch in his step as he took a step in her direction as she ran over to reclaim her books. But it was fine, because those guys were all out for the count, except for one. He watched as their eyes met, their mutual terror this physical thing hanging heavily over all of them.

God, he knew that feeling.

"Yeah, I, uh. We should. We should go," he agreed, his hand hovering just behind her shoulder, but he didn't touch her. He knew better. Already making his way towards the mouth of the alley, he leaned out to peek both ways. So far, it didn't seem like anyone was coming.

"And if you're up for it, I think we should talk."

[fifthbeatle]

Relief crashes into Vanya. She nods gratefully. The books are guarded closely in her arms against her chest. There's a strange sensation of at her elbow where she doesn't know her hoodie has ripped.

This man leans out and so, too, does Vanya, looking both ways, as well. On the outside, it must look ridiculous: two disembodies heads with a foot and a half of vertical distance between them glancing paranoid out of an alley. Vanya takes one last glance behind at what she's done and all but launches herself out of the alley.

At some point, she notices they've fallen into stride side-by-side. Her heart is starting to slow its nauseating cadence. Now, she looks all the way up to get a good look at him, eyes shining appreciatively. Without someone there to talk her through it, she fears she may have stayed stuck in a terror-loop in that alley or much, much worse. He might have saved three people's lives tonight. Does he know that?

"Okay," she says, eyes snapping back down to the pavement. Her fingers are fraying at the edge of the already-worn edges of the bound folder of sheet music and practice books she's clinging to. There's still the aftershocks of that faint whine tickling at her ear, like the energy is still close to the surface. She shakes her head a little, but it doesn't seem to do much. It's a little hard to breathe. This is when she would have been reaching for her pills. Understanding that she misses the relief of safety doesn't lessen the vitriol she feels for the things. She's fucking shaking. How is she supposed to learn how to be now?

"I-I'm sorry, I don't know what to say..." she realizes, crestfallen. She hears a voice say, if you're going to make a mess, Number Seven, at least have the decency to explain yourself.

[greatest_sin]

"No! God, I'm not... You don't have to say anything, it's just. Okay, I'm kind of making a big assumption here, but it seems like, whatever this is? It's new. Or you're just figuring it out, and that freaks you out. Like, a lot. And the reason I'm kind of majorly overstepping to say this is because I, uh. I know what that's like."

Grimacing, he rubbed a hand across the back of his neck, his steps slowing as they approached the Impala.

"If I'm wrong, and you want me to shut up, I'll be more than happy to. We can just walk. Or I can give you a ride somewhere."

[fifthbeatle]

"No! No," Vanya says quickly after, because she does not want him to shut up. It takes her all that time think of a word and he kind of seems like he might be having some trouble with words the same way that she is. She has no idea how to talk about it and God, that's all she wants. The Hargreeves clan is made up of incredible, powerful, wonderful people who had each other to lean on as they learned how to cope with their powers and their father. It sucked, no doubt, and Vanya is so grateful for the lengths her family goes through to make her feel welcome and safe and loved. She'll always be different. Now, it's a different-different.

"I'm sorry. I-I'm a little..." There just aren't words for this, but she doesn't want to leave him hanging and she finds she's sort of desperate to talk to someone - anyone that might understand.

"We can talk," she says, a bit lighter. She's thinking there's no way she's getting into this guy's (admittedly sweet) car. She looks over her shoulder toward the sound of the approaching siren.

Kindness can be a weapon and so can she. It fills her with no warmth that he's seen what she can do, but does knowing he's seen it make her feel safer? More than she would like.

"Isn't there a coffee place around here?" By around here she means maybe a few blocks over and out of the path of the police and she hopes that he knows that. The idea of talking to the cops makes her want to be sick or explode or both. The sooner they're in the car the better.

[greatest_sin]

"There's an all-night dinner, about three blocks that way," he said, pointing in the opposite direction of the sound of those sirens. He was relieved that he wouldn't have to admit to her right away that the reason he knew about the place, and the reason he went so often, was that it reminded him of his brother.

"I'm Sam," he said, approaching the passenger side door of the Impala and unlocking it. After so many years, it still felt strange not to riding shotgun, but he left the door unlocked for her, instead walking around to the driver's side.

[fifthbeatle]

She nods quickly at the diner, grateful once again for a perceptive, efficient partner in fleeing the scene.

"Vanya," she responds, glancing over toward the alley again. What if the one that was down never gets back up? She didn't see any blood, but they got out of there pretty fast and she'd thrown him a good distance.

As fast as she can, she wrenches the door open and tucks herself into the car, underneath the seatbelt. If she stays put, she's going to try and listen for breathing and she can't handle what will happen if she can only hear two heartbeats in that alley. He was a creep, but he didn't deserve to die. Pogo didn't deserve to die. There are seven and a half billion souls on her conscience and right now, it feels like they're all pressing down on her. In some kind of powered panic attack, it feels like the sirens are screaming in her head. Her legs curl into her chest. She clamps her arms over her head to block out the sound. She needs to get away from them. Now.

"Please," she says, soundless to herself. "Please, I-I can't be here."

[greatest_sin]

Without another word, Sam quickly got in behind the wheel, the Impala roaring to life with the turn of a key. With his eyes on the rearview, he carefully pulled out onto the road, driving as fast as he dared without drawing too much attention.

He really hated how conspicuous the Impala was, but there was no way he'd ever be able to bring himself to drive anything else.

Once they'd gone a few blocks, the sirens fading behind them, Sam pulled up to a red light.

Pulling out his phone, he quickly dialed a number and waited for the call to connect. "Hey, it's me," he said, pulling ahead as the light turned green. "Yeah, we're good. I, uh. I need you to take care of some footage for me. Yeah. And for the stores across the street. Uh huh. Yeah. Okay. See you, soon."

Ending the call, Sam put his phone down on the dash.

"Vanya," he said softly, pulling into a parallel space outside the diner. "Hey, we're here."

[fifthbeatle]

The man - Sam - takes silent pity on her. Even though her eyes are shut tight and she's dampening sound, she can feel the car jerk to life and dip out of the alley. Maybe it's her super-hearing or that the car is old, but she hear the engine, still and feel it in her heart. She breathes, just the way Obi-Wan taught her. Her thoughts are a gentle stream, passing her by without taking her under. The blast doors in her middle don't feel like they're about to burst anymore. When she opens an eye and lifts her arms from her head, sound doesn't feel so violent. She realizes she's got her shoes on the leather of the car seat. Her little legs unwind and she sets her feet on the floor. Little hands gently set themselves on the lip near the window so she can look behind her. There are no lights whizzing by. Sirens are a comfortable distance away.

Before she can relax, Sam is having a troubling phone conversation. Vanya's neck whips violently over. Impossibly wide eyes stare up at him from a small, angled face. What the actual fuck is happening.

When he speaks to her, it is so, so gentle and she finds that deeply unsettling. She feels half-feral and terrified and she wants to blast now and ask questions later, but she can't. Even when she means well, even when what she's doing is only to protect herself, she can't know what will come out of her. He's supposed to help her. He said he was going to help her. She wants so badly to believe he can help her.

"What the hell was that?" She demands. Somehow, she is more terrified by how angry she sounds than the idea that he might want to hurt her. She undoes the seatbelt and backs herself out of the car. It's how she knows her eyes are drained of color: regular old Vanya would have scrambled herself to the ground getting out of the car. Even in her frantic unstrapping, she steps out onto her feet with a grace she simply cannot consciously possess.

[greatest_sin]

Crap.

"Uh..."

Sam reached slowly for the ignition, cutting the engine and then going carefully for his own seatbelt while keeping his hands in her line of sight.

His hand on the door handle, he said, "The call? It was my girlfriend? Her name's Lisbeth. She's, uh. Well, she's sort of a hacker." He cringed. She hated calling it that. "I thought she might be able to take a look at the surveillance footage in the alley. Vanya, that's all."

Giving a slight nod to the phone resting on the dash of the Impala, he said, "You can call her, if you want. She just wants to help."

[fifthbeatle]

Silently, carefully, she inspects the situation. Cold, white-blue eyes float between the phone and Sam's unoffending hands. She looks at his face last and swallows. Once the engine is cut so, too, is her connection to its resonance. She makes no effort to refocus. Instead, she swallows thickly and looks at the ground.

"I'm sorry," she says quietly, re-leveling guilty hazel eyes on him. She doesn't know what to say, but she tries anyway. "I can't... I-it's like you said before. I'm still figuring it out. But I don't..." Fuck, she's going to cry. She can feel it. When she tries to protect herself, she blows up. When people try to help her, she hurts them. What if there is no helping her?

"I don't want to hurt you. Or anyone." She wants his help, but why would he give it? He got caught in her blast, then saw her swing back and forth between blind faith and suspicion. She's lucky that her family forgives her for all that she's done. This stranger has no reason to.

"I-um. I can leave. I should go." If he's smart, he'll let her. If she's smart, her feet will let her walk away, but as it is, she's still standing there. She wants help, she doesn't deserve it and that makes her feel like a scorned little kid all over again.

[greatest_sin]

"What? No. No, you shouldn't," Sam said, quickly climbing out of the car while still being mindful of not spooking her.

"Look, I can't know what you're going through, but." He drew in a breath, struggling to find the words to distill what amounted to centuries of Heaven and Hell's bullshit into something that would make sense. "Something happened to me when I was a kid that gave me these... these powers, that I didn't understand or even know about for twenty years. And it was like... it was like I was suddenly everything that I'd been taught to hate. I was this freak, who couldn't control himself, and my own family thought they might have to kill me to save the world. And the only reason I'm not showing you now? Is because they're dormant. Maybe forever. Or maybe not, but if I want to find out, I have drink a lot of demon blood. So..."

He spread his hands, lifting his shoulders in an awkward shrug.

[fifthbeatle]

Vanya watches him speak, motionless. At some point, she notices her arms have crossed themselves, hunching her into a convex little shield. At first, she wants to cry. Why are there so many people here that want to help her? She bumbled through life ignored by family, fortune and the whole world. She told herself all her life that things would be different if she had powers. At great cost, she was right.

Twenty-seven years of numbness and neglect formed itself a mask over Vanya's face. Expressions come as little twitches in shifting angles. Time and revelation have begun to erode the thing. Another piece cracks away as she listens to Sam. Empathy rushes through the opening, creasing her brow, pulling down the corners of her mouth. Why do people do this? What is the benefit of deciding a child's fate and torturing them when they can't fit themselves into the false mold? How many more people have stories like her own, like her siblings'?

There is one markedly different part, and Vanya asks in what might be a squak if her voice weren't so low, "demon blood?" The question is out before she can stop it. Sam gives the most relatable shrug - uncomfortable, yet resigned - and she feels the same as him all over again. Her arms drop to her sides.

She adds, so as not to raise questions that she might be judging him, mouth quirked at the sides in a very small smile she cannot explain, "your family thought about killing you, too, huh?"

Suddenly, she doesn't want to have this conversation outside, anymore. It's cold and she thinks she can still feel the far away ripples of the destructive energy she's converted. She jerks her head toward the place and says, "come on. I think I owe you at least a coffee."

[greatest_sin]

"It's a long story."

Too long, and he was relieved when she didn't immediately demand more answers. Huffing out a laugh, Sam nodded, reaching into the car to grab his phone and then shutting the driver's door.

"I'm sorry. About the call. I didn't mean to scare you," he said, offering her a sheepish smile as he followed her to the door of the diner.

At this time of night, it was nearly empty, and reminded him of every other diner he'd ever been in. The same booths. The same plastic menus. The same yellowed, fluorescent lights.

[fifthbeatle]

To be honest, she's not sure she can take a tale about drinking demon blood with a reliably calm demeanor even if she hadn't just ripped through no less than 6 intense emotions in the last 15 minutes. The relief as the topic is set aside flows both ways.

"Don't be," she reassures him as they reach the inside of the diner. There's something about the booths and the color scheme that reminds her of Griddy's with it's little four-tops and metal/vinyl chairs. A woman tells them to seat themselves and Vanya offers a little smile in return. She usually has more outward gratitude for a serviceperson. The evening's events have her off-balance. Perhaps this is why she selects a nearby booth without the fuss of consulting her new friend.

As she slides herself in, she places her music books down in the corner beside her and says, "maybe hold off making the crime call until after a person's out of earshot. For next time." Not that Vanya can really ever be totally out of earshot, but that's not important.

"You said your girlfriend is - um - a hacker?" She takes a menu from the corner of the table and passes it over to him.

[greatest_sin]

"That's, uh... kind of the simple version. I always thought I was pretty okay with computers. Need to break into a small town hall of records database or tap into some traffic cameras? I'm your guy. She's on another level. I, uh. I don't think there are many people in the world who can do what she can do."

He huffed out a laugh.

"Or, any world, I guess."

[fifthbeatle]

It is with the utmost fascination that Vanya asks, "I'm sorry, what is it that you do?"

A man whose days consist of stealing records and drinking demon blood is also one that rescues tiny, scared death machines from wrongdoers and from herself in what world? His answer stands, she supposes: any.

"You, said that you were born with your powers? But they were dormant? What happened?" As much as she wants to ease into this conversation, he may have answers for her or some kind of clarity. He said he was okay to talk, and she has to trust him. Already the preemptive sting of rejection is working its way to the surface. All she can do is trust him - again - and hope that his word means something. Disappointment is something she can handle, if she needs to.

[greatest_sin]

"Uh, the short version? I hunt monsters," he said, offering the waitress a tired smile and ordering a coffee. If she'd heard what he'd just said, she seemed unfazed, which was pretty much par for the course, both with Darrow natives and waitresses in general.

"I wasn't. Born with them. Well, it's... complicated." He winced. "I was born with the potential. But when I was six months old, a demon fed me its blood, and that did the, uh. Triggering, I guess. Which, wow, sounds... insane, but that's pretty much just the tip of the Winchester iceberg, so." He grimaced.

"But they didn't manifest until I was... twenty-two? I started having these dreams, at first. Visions, sometimes when I was awake, and they started to come true."

[fifthbeatle]

Though it takes more effort than it did when she was on her bullshit pills, Vanya listens neutrally. It's interesting - fascinating, actually - and she may not have believed it before. Even as a person from a family with powers and discovering her own, it still somehow seems far-fetched. Maybe it's about the afterlife. Their father never really did the God thing, maybe because he was an evil man.

Yup, that makes sense: Reginald Hargreeves is a demon brings a kind of therapeutic clarity money can't buy.

"I'm... a little caught up in the demon part, to be honest," she admits, ducking her head a little. It's shameful because he's telling her about these parts of himself and she's stuck on what seems to be only a detail to him. This is a thing that shaped his life, that warped and recreated it, and she's in a selfish spot.

"We, uh, my family - adopted - we all have powers. We were born on the same day. Our Dad... this billionaire adopted us and raised us as superheroes, basically." Ooh boy, here's the fun part.

"Not me," she says with a dry, self-deprecating smile that would be sweet if it weren't born of a broken heart. "He couldn't control my powers, so he drugged me and made me forget. I found out I had powers about 6 months ago when I blasted these guys..." Kinda like Sam saw, so she guesses they're up to speed. Well, almost.

"I guess that's the tip of the Hargreeves iceberg. So." That little twist of the lips is back, like a smile that doesn't quite belong except that, maybe for the first time, she's talking to someone that knows almost exactly how she feels. It's strange, maybe even thrilling if it weren't so devastating.

[greatest_sin]

"No, it's fine. I would be, too."

And he had been, as a kid, first learning that monsters were real, and later, when demons and finally angels had come into play. Mostly, nothing surprised him anymore, but that hadn't always been the case.

"Your father drugged you?" He thought, not for the first time, that maybe he'd been a little too hard on John. "Oh, God. I'm sorry."

Folding his hands on the table, he said, "Finding out that I was the exact thing I'd been taught to hate? That I... had this thing inside of me that I had no idea how to control, let alone explain? It... it took a long time to even know who I was, anymore. And even longer to accept it." His lips twisted in a smile to match her own. "Definitely longer than six months."

[fifthbeatle]

Vanya finds herself in a bizarre shrug. Her own bodily suppression was somehow not the worst of the atrocities Reginald visited on his scrappy little band of misfits (and Vanya). Still, it means a lot to Vanya when she finds herself the recipient of non-pitiable sympathy. It's another product of their terrible upbringing: an inability to accept at face value the things she needs or craves. Like connection. Like family.

She settles for tea, which appears in front of her as soon as she starts to wonder where the waitress went. She drops Sam's coffee off, as well. Vanya uses the space to think for a second.

"Can I assume your family didn't take it well? When your powers were activated?" She's got her hands curled around her mug like maybe she ordered a security blanket more than a beverage. She wants to be bold and put a voice to the questions she has while she has this kind book of a man open so generously before her.

[greatest_sin]

"Yeah, no. My brother thought that I could just... ignore it, and it might go away, I think. At least, at first. We were young. Back then, everything was so... black and white, you know? Anything supernatural, anything different had to be evil. And that was before we even figured out the whole demon blood thing."

He shrugged.

"Family's... complicated. Trust me, I get it. It's... I couldn't be who I am without my family, and that doesn't just include blood, but there's also been a lot of damage done. To each other, and to the people around us. We're... pretty screwed up," he admitted, if only because he had a feeling she could relate.