Viktor Hargreeves (
fifthbeatle) wrote2021-10-21 08:20 pm
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For the first time in Darrow, Vanya needs to get away.
In their very special, fucked up way, her family is perfect. Seven precious gems forged in pressure and darkness. Sorry - five. Diego's never been here and Ben is gone. She has no remaining brainpower to process the grief of missing Diego. There's too much that's happened without him and not enough pleasant history to hang onto. She loves him, she would be ecstatic to see him, but she can't seem to miss him the way she feels like she should. Not like she misses Ben. And now Allison.
Hargreeves House feels more like it is home to a ghost than when it was. They're down two bodies now, and the halls feel nauseatingly spacious, like the sprawling walls of the Academy - the ones Vanya brought down without a second thought. It's a dangerous association, but she's been lucky. So far the worst of her grief has manifested as nothing more than a day of unseasonable, pouring rain. That is not an accident. Vanya keeps herself firmly in check, sacrificing sleep and sometimes human contact altogether to reduce the risk of an Incident. She's bereft of both, but only because she can't bring herself to be without people right now, and she can't keep crawling into her siblings' beds in hopes of finding sleep and expecting them to tolerate it. Especially when she wakes up feeling like she is about to scream. Like tonight.
It's late when she decides to abandon pursuing sleep, but she knows someone who is usually around late. He may even be out and about - a thing that would lessen that pang of guilt from bothering someone so late. Not that she bothers him, he says. She even believes him.
Hey, where are you?, she texts him before layering up: hoodie first, then coat. If Sam isn't up and around, she'll just walk. She can't be here tonight. It feels too much like what they left behind.
In their very special, fucked up way, her family is perfect. Seven precious gems forged in pressure and darkness. Sorry - five. Diego's never been here and Ben is gone. She has no remaining brainpower to process the grief of missing Diego. There's too much that's happened without him and not enough pleasant history to hang onto. She loves him, she would be ecstatic to see him, but she can't seem to miss him the way she feels like she should. Not like she misses Ben. And now Allison.
Hargreeves House feels more like it is home to a ghost than when it was. They're down two bodies now, and the halls feel nauseatingly spacious, like the sprawling walls of the Academy - the ones Vanya brought down without a second thought. It's a dangerous association, but she's been lucky. So far the worst of her grief has manifested as nothing more than a day of unseasonable, pouring rain. That is not an accident. Vanya keeps herself firmly in check, sacrificing sleep and sometimes human contact altogether to reduce the risk of an Incident. She's bereft of both, but only because she can't bring herself to be without people right now, and she can't keep crawling into her siblings' beds in hopes of finding sleep and expecting them to tolerate it. Especially when she wakes up feeling like she is about to scream. Like tonight.
It's late when she decides to abandon pursuing sleep, but she knows someone who is usually around late. He may even be out and about - a thing that would lessen that pang of guilt from bothering someone so late. Not that she bothers him, he says. She even believes him.
Hey, where are you?, she texts him before layering up: hoodie first, then coat. If Sam isn't up and around, she'll just walk. She can't be here tonight. It feels too much like what they left behind.
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Still, she's grateful when Sam changes the subject. Kindness comes easy, but siting with the vulnerability of its acknowledgement is inexplicably harder to process. At least she can laugh in assent when he identifies himself and his wife as better suited for less ceremony.
"A love spell?" Vanya asks after a moment. What may come off as doubt is quiet disgust. That's mind control. Sometimes it's a rumor, or a lie -- other times, a spell. She couldn't see Lizbeth doing any of that shit. Even a white lie should be scared of Lizbeth.
"How did you break it?"
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He grimaced.
"It turns out she was kind of lashing out because, uh... God had just broken up with her. Or Chuck, as we all knew him then. It's... complicated, and as I'm saying it, I'm realizing how stupid it all was. But, uh. I think maybe it's turned me off of weddings, a little."
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"Sure," says Vanya. She aims for empathy and lands somewhere around wry acceptance. She knows he's not lying. What else is there to say? That was batshit even by Hargreeves standards. There's no way to unpack all of that.
"Weddings are overrated," she adds. The second time, she sticks the landing on empathy, lips crooking into a half-smile as her hands tuck into her pockets. "Most celebrations are. At least, I think that's what I think." How would she know? It's not like she was ever allowed to be seen enjoying herself, save for their collective birthday. Not quite the warm, big soirees the rest of the Hargreeves crew had to stun and smile through. She remembers the jealousy: a thing that hardens to resentment. A thing that got her to a pretty dark, apocalyptic place.
Sam gets more honesty than most about the gaps in her memory, the huge schism between who she is and who she was told she was. She knows he cares how she feels, that he sees her. For a man with occult tattoos, a bunker and a host of cameras, he's extremely trustworthy.
For a second, in a flash, Vanya wonders if Five had thought the same thing about Elliott in Dallas. Another casualty of hurricane Hargreeves; a storm that only blows because she summoned the wind to do it.
"Luckily, I don't think there's so much marriage in the Hargreeves future." She summons a smile for this, though she aims it at the floor in a guiltstorm.
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Watching her talk to the floor wasn't an entirely unfamiliar occurrence. He knew that look, had felt some of what she was feeling, and he smiled faintly, even if she wasn't looking at him to see it.
"I think life kind of has a way of surprising you."