What is love then?
Apr. 7th, 2013 09:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
scorned_progenyWho: Vanya Hargreeves & Diego Hargreeves (cameo)
What: Some rather dark thinking and reminiscing about choices made.
When: Pre-Apocalypse Suite; pre-book publishing.
Warnings: Suicidal thoughts, post suicide recovery, depression.
She winced as the tape on her wrists pulled; painful, niggling reminders of yet another failure. There were instructions that went with the failure. How to keep wounds clean (as if she didn't know), a number to call daily so people knew she wasn't bleeding again.
An appointment with a therapist soon.
The hell were you thinking Vanya?!
He'd screamed at her when he found her. Diego was never very good with panic. She hadn't meant for him to find her, to see this. She could never tell when he was coming though. She saw Diego on his schedule. His rough nights. When he needed a safe place and someone who knew him to patch him up.
When he needed to know at least one person in his life was safe and alright.
She was suppose to be touched, she guessed. Grateful that one of her family cared. That someone still remembered her after she'd been sent away. Grateful that Diego...no...The Kraken...remembered her even after he betrayed her. Even after he left her alone to the mercy of their father.
And the terrible, horrible thing was that she was grateful.
Who knew better than she how their father could twist people? Who knew better how damaged they all were? So she'd always done her best to smile for him and tell him about a normal life; to not cry when he showed up at her window, dirty, bleeding, and staring like he didn't recognize anything and didn't know why he was at her apartment.
She smiled and didn't tell him abut the letters their father still wrote to her; the funding he'd pulled from her schooling and the college she'd been tossed out of on his word. She never whispered how she couldn't eat ice cream to this day and that she spent more money on first aid supplies in case he came by than on food.
That was love, she supposed.
Bandaging a hero that didn't know how to be anything else anymore and letting him think one of them had gotten out. One of them was safe, and sane, and going to be something special in the world.
He didn't see the bills, and she hoped he didn't know she worked as a clerk at a grocery store to pay for her apartment and the night courses she was taking at a different college. Knowing The Kraken though...he knew. He knew and he didn't bring it up because that was how he loved her, letting them both pretend.
And when she lost yet another young music student because her father found out and wrote a letter to the parents it hurt.
And when the next letter she got from the man, alongside her monthly pills, informed her that she would have to move because obviously she was interfering with The Kraken's focus...
...oh it hurt.
And she couldn't understand why she let the man continue to make her bleed even yet.
But that was love, she supposed. It was ever so close to hate when family was involved.
The violin she couldn't bear to touch as the months went by taunted from it's barren little corner and she made up stories to tell Diego about other music students. About auditions. Doing well. He always smiled when he heard those, even when he was bleeding, and broken, and exhausted. He smiled because it was such a pretty little future she painted as she stitched his wounds and gave him pills, and tucked him into her bed.
Such a pretty future she would never have because at every turn, when she did well, when she tried to be someone who wasn't useless her father tore that dream apart.
And she was a terrible distraction to one of his precious heroes.
It was funny, really, how she never hated Diego. She hated most of the others, off and on, for their power. Their standing in the family. For lots of little things. Not Diego, she couldn't...because like Pogo, he thought she was worthwhile. He didn't rub it in, he was always happy to do things that didn't involve powers when they were younger.
When he was allowed.
Funny how not hating him led to her bleeding a little more every time she saw him. In time she was only good for the support, the care she gave the wounded. And the lie she gave him as a bed time story.
That wasn't much to base a life on. No, nothing much at all she realized one of those long, sleepless nights when there was no tap at her window and her homework was long done. Perhaps they'd never really learned what Love was.
Or perhaps the sadder songs were right. Love didn't give wings, or if it did they were made of wax and feathers soon to fall. And sometimes...
...sometimes it was just too much and it was time to move on.
Time to leave her role of the 7th child far behind.
The blade didn't hurt nearly as much as the letters from her father did; the fear wasn't nearly as choking as each moment redoing her finances. Perhaps that made her weak; or perhaps that meant she'd made the right choice when slitting her wrists felt so damn peaceful.
Then, of course, had come the tap at her window. The tap tap tap that meant he wouldn't go away; then the breaking of the glass as something got his attention. She wasn't sure what; he shouldn't have been able to see her, but she remembered that sound far better than the panic and his hands on her wrists. She woke up worrying about her damn window with a nurse keeping a nervous eye on her.
When she got back to her apartment it was clean; the window was fixed, the blood had been scrubbed. That, more than anything, made her cry. Her home was too clean. The bills had been sorted, the laundry done.
Diego had looked at everything, unearthed the lie. He'd tried to understand, she knew that.
And she knew he'd never come back to her apartment when he was hurt, when he was injured, when he was afraid. After all...she'd hurt him far worse than any impartial villain could.
That was love; it always made you bleed in the end.
She traced the edges of the taped bandage on her wrist and grimaced; she was seriously considering tearing it away, undoing the stitches. There'd be no hero tonight. But after this? After the pain she caused? She didn't deserve that. No.
Time to face the music.
Hell, perhaps her father would be pleased that The Kraken wasn't distracted any more. She could do without his letters.
What: Some rather dark thinking and reminiscing about choices made.
When: Pre-Apocalypse Suite; pre-book publishing.
Warnings: Suicidal thoughts, post suicide recovery, depression.
She winced as the tape on her wrists pulled; painful, niggling reminders of yet another failure. There were instructions that went with the failure. How to keep wounds clean (as if she didn't know), a number to call daily so people knew she wasn't bleeding again.
An appointment with a therapist soon.
The hell were you thinking Vanya?!
He'd screamed at her when he found her. Diego was never very good with panic. She hadn't meant for him to find her, to see this. She could never tell when he was coming though. She saw Diego on his schedule. His rough nights. When he needed a safe place and someone who knew him to patch him up.
When he needed to know at least one person in his life was safe and alright.
She was suppose to be touched, she guessed. Grateful that one of her family cared. That someone still remembered her after she'd been sent away. Grateful that Diego...no...The Kraken...remembered her even after he betrayed her. Even after he left her alone to the mercy of their father.
And the terrible, horrible thing was that she was grateful.
Who knew better than she how their father could twist people? Who knew better how damaged they all were? So she'd always done her best to smile for him and tell him about a normal life; to not cry when he showed up at her window, dirty, bleeding, and staring like he didn't recognize anything and didn't know why he was at her apartment.
She smiled and didn't tell him abut the letters their father still wrote to her; the funding he'd pulled from her schooling and the college she'd been tossed out of on his word. She never whispered how she couldn't eat ice cream to this day and that she spent more money on first aid supplies in case he came by than on food.
That was love, she supposed.
Bandaging a hero that didn't know how to be anything else anymore and letting him think one of them had gotten out. One of them was safe, and sane, and going to be something special in the world.
He didn't see the bills, and she hoped he didn't know she worked as a clerk at a grocery store to pay for her apartment and the night courses she was taking at a different college. Knowing The Kraken though...he knew. He knew and he didn't bring it up because that was how he loved her, letting them both pretend.
And when she lost yet another young music student because her father found out and wrote a letter to the parents it hurt.
And when the next letter she got from the man, alongside her monthly pills, informed her that she would have to move because obviously she was interfering with The Kraken's focus...
...oh it hurt.
And she couldn't understand why she let the man continue to make her bleed even yet.
But that was love, she supposed. It was ever so close to hate when family was involved.
The violin she couldn't bear to touch as the months went by taunted from it's barren little corner and she made up stories to tell Diego about other music students. About auditions. Doing well. He always smiled when he heard those, even when he was bleeding, and broken, and exhausted. He smiled because it was such a pretty little future she painted as she stitched his wounds and gave him pills, and tucked him into her bed.
Such a pretty future she would never have because at every turn, when she did well, when she tried to be someone who wasn't useless her father tore that dream apart.
And she was a terrible distraction to one of his precious heroes.
It was funny, really, how she never hated Diego. She hated most of the others, off and on, for their power. Their standing in the family. For lots of little things. Not Diego, she couldn't...because like Pogo, he thought she was worthwhile. He didn't rub it in, he was always happy to do things that didn't involve powers when they were younger.
When he was allowed.
Funny how not hating him led to her bleeding a little more every time she saw him. In time she was only good for the support, the care she gave the wounded. And the lie she gave him as a bed time story.
That wasn't much to base a life on. No, nothing much at all she realized one of those long, sleepless nights when there was no tap at her window and her homework was long done. Perhaps they'd never really learned what Love was.
Or perhaps the sadder songs were right. Love didn't give wings, or if it did they were made of wax and feathers soon to fall. And sometimes...
...sometimes it was just too much and it was time to move on.
Time to leave her role of the 7th child far behind.
The blade didn't hurt nearly as much as the letters from her father did; the fear wasn't nearly as choking as each moment redoing her finances. Perhaps that made her weak; or perhaps that meant she'd made the right choice when slitting her wrists felt so damn peaceful.
Then, of course, had come the tap at her window. The tap tap tap that meant he wouldn't go away; then the breaking of the glass as something got his attention. She wasn't sure what; he shouldn't have been able to see her, but she remembered that sound far better than the panic and his hands on her wrists. She woke up worrying about her damn window with a nurse keeping a nervous eye on her.
When she got back to her apartment it was clean; the window was fixed, the blood had been scrubbed. That, more than anything, made her cry. Her home was too clean. The bills had been sorted, the laundry done.
Diego had looked at everything, unearthed the lie. He'd tried to understand, she knew that.
And she knew he'd never come back to her apartment when he was hurt, when he was injured, when he was afraid. After all...she'd hurt him far worse than any impartial villain could.
That was love; it always made you bleed in the end.
She traced the edges of the taped bandage on her wrist and grimaced; she was seriously considering tearing it away, undoing the stitches. There'd be no hero tonight. But after this? After the pain she caused? She didn't deserve that. No.
Time to face the music.
Hell, perhaps her father would be pleased that The Kraken wasn't distracted any more. She could do without his letters.
