[It's out before she can stop it. That's another thing she almost-misses about her meds: they made her tongue slow, so she could, at least sometimes, stop those stupid little expressions of disbelief. Vanya ducks her head, and though her face says she wants to apologize, she bites her tongue for a moment instead.]
I mean, I'm - I'm glad I did, too. I'm just not usually very good at this kind of thing. I'm not better online, [She actually thinks she might be worse,] but. Thanks, for, um. Asking.
[Maybe it's because he's nice. Because he says things that mean he's glad for her presence and because even though her first instinct is to doubt she also kind of believes him - maybe it's that.]
Um--
[But it's also because he makes her think of Leonard in the worst ways, the ways that take her head right back to his house, to the journal, to every knife in the kitchen impaling his chest--
She looks down at her coffee again, sips at it to find her voice again.]
I don't want - I don't want you to think that I don't want to figure out how to control my powers. I'm just--
[Extremely fucked up over the fact that her first real boyfriend directly manipulated her into trying to kill her siblings. She still can't remember a lot of what happened after that night in the cabin - how they left, how she wound up at Leonard's house. It's like she was in a fugue for most of it, already mourning.]
I just don't know if I'm ready. Yet.
[Yet, because she'd like to be, some day. And she can't quite bring herself to say it, but she doesn't hate the idea of trying to learn with him.]
no subject
[It's out before she can stop it. That's another thing she almost-misses about her meds: they made her tongue slow, so she could, at least sometimes, stop those stupid little expressions of disbelief. Vanya ducks her head, and though her face says she wants to apologize, she bites her tongue for a moment instead.]
I mean, I'm - I'm glad I did, too. I'm just not usually very good at this kind of thing. I'm not better online, [She actually thinks she might be worse,] but. Thanks, for, um. Asking.
[Maybe it's because he's nice. Because he says things that mean he's glad for her presence and because even though her first instinct is to doubt she also kind of believes him - maybe it's that.]
Um--
[But it's also because he makes her think of Leonard in the worst ways, the ways that take her head right back to his house, to the journal, to every knife in the kitchen impaling his chest--
She looks down at her coffee again, sips at it to find her voice again.]
I don't want - I don't want you to think that I don't want to figure out how to control my powers. I'm just--
[Extremely fucked up over the fact that her first real boyfriend directly manipulated her into trying to kill her siblings. She still can't remember a lot of what happened after that night in the cabin - how they left, how she wound up at Leonard's house. It's like she was in a fugue for most of it, already mourning.]
I just don't know if I'm ready. Yet.
[Yet, because she'd like to be, some day. And she can't quite bring herself to say it, but she doesn't hate the idea of trying to learn with him.]