[She's about to tell Allison okay, though hell if she can think of something she'd like. Do chocolate covered raisins count as a small dessert? But the rest comes through, makes her pause.]
Not really
Some years I'd just get one of those already made turkey breasts at the grocery store if I
I dunno, if I was in the mood
Just didn't see the point. No traditions, and it was just me, so
[ Allison, the one-night consumate chocolate cover raisin theif, would likely say yes if asked.
Even when the answer turns out to to be the one she expects, she doesn't regret asking. She thinks she can picture it. The sometimes. In that small white washed apartment. She thinks it's better to not actually avoid all those things they all sweep away. ]
Me neither, until my marraige. I used to work straight through it.
[Her marriage. That's the second time she's referenced Patrick. It weirds Vanya out - there's a part of her, the childish part, that thinks her nose is just being rubbed in what she never had, that Allison is just holding these things over her head. Her better judgement (or maybe her guilt) knows that isn't true, probably, so she wonders what it is.
For a while, she's silent, just trying to work up a reply. She could say that she had concerts around the holidays, sometimes, that she would just practice through it. She's trying to be more open with Allison about playing, since her unequivocal support of V playing more, but it still makes something in her gut twist dangerously close to nausea. She doesn't want to talk about that.
Texting is supposed to be easier than talking because you can stop yourself, but Vanya finds herself sending the next text almost as if she was blurting it out loud.]
Not sure Klaus agrees, and there's no reason he should.
[ She doesn't even know exactly what this feeling is. She definitely doesn't have the words for it now that she's looking at it. It's not about some stupid holiday she won't have her family for. The first one that was a real one. The one she broke. The one she wouldn't have even if she was home.
She not trying to make that here. She's not that dumb. But she wants, she doesn't know .... more. She wants more for the family she has here. More than they've ever gotten. Or had. ]
Sorry for what? You didn't do anything.
[ The last thing she wants to do is get her wires crossed wtih Vanya in her exhaustion and confusion, while just trying to start here. ]
[There seems to be a lot of certainty in that text for someone who put him in the hospital and said horrible things to him. She doesn't really know if that's what he needs, but she knows how it feels to be surrounded by the rest of them with glares aimed directly at you and just waiting for the shouting to start. She'd want space, too.]
I think this is the first time you've mentioned Patrick and
[She hits send before she can write Claire's name, and now it just feels far too emphatic to send another text with just the name of the niece she'll never meet. Thin ice, and frightening, when she's so carefully avoided this since that argument before the funeral.]
Yeah. Probably. It's definitely new, and never done before.
Maybe it'll go well and there'll be another next year. Or maybe it'll all end in fighting, and it'll never happen again. Who knows.
You can never tell with all of us in one place.
[ At a lack for any other context to Vanya's message, Allison misses entirely that there could have another one. But with Klaus gone from the house so much in the last month, there aren't any other assumptions for her to jump to it being about. ]
Oh. Yeah. Maybe so?
[ Beat. ]
Was that weird? Sorry. I didn't mean to make it weird.
[She doesn't know how to talk about this family, and she thinks maybe Allison will forgive her for that. So she doesn't try, because she doesn't want to be awkward, to make a bad joke that might be too mean, to say the wrong thing.
And for once, that means that Allison's the one wondering if she screwed something up. It's a deeply weird, but almost pleasant change.]
No no
I just didn't expect it and. I don't know. I don't know what's okay to say.
[She does not let herself say, this feels like a trap. She does not point out that she has no idea what mine field she's wandering, how to identify them, how to avoid them. It was going just fine, not talking about them at all.
Maybe not yet. But maybe not ... no The whole holiday thing makes it come up.
Christmas will probably be worse for that, and I'd rather not be a complete basket case during either.
[ It's the truth, and it's a lie. It's that, but it's, also, that she held Claire in her arms. Heard her voice. Her laugh. Felt her hands grip in. Made her cry. Chose something that wasn't her again, saving people, saving herself, but not Claire, not choosing Claire, not staying with Claire, which sticks even when she knows it wasn't really Claire either. Except the things Harry said last night, about what he was doing for Maggie here and now were still ringing in her head, and had pricked a need to do ... something.
She just didn't know if she wanted to be brave enough to do the thing she thought it was. The one she knew she didn't want to talk about. Not with Vanya. Not even with Luther. ]
[It's probably bad that she's relieved. Like, really relieved, because she doesn't know how to talk about families, especially not with her own. Allison was the only one who figured out how to have her own, and it had clearly gone to shit.
Vanya doesn't want to risk lapsing and saying that to her.]
I don't really know what to do. Is there something I should do?
[ It's a small enough thing for today. Maybe putting it out there. When it already feels like too much in some ways. Like peeling back her skin. Three who never liked to show weakness or assume any stance that required or admitted the acceptance of anything looking like comfort. Not while in competition withholding where she was, especially next to Diego and Luther.
That wasn't them. (And yet it was, wasn't it? Somehow so far down, none of them knew how to burn it out.)
Maybe it was enough to just acknowledge that it was a door, and it was there, and it was on her mind. But that she didn't know if she wanted to open that door. If she could. Knew how. Was ready. ]
It's not like I have a clue how that might go if I did feel ready. There's never been anyone I've ever talked to about all of that.
[ Not even Luther. There were some things Allison wasn't sure they'd ever really talk about. She knew what her family thought of her Hollywood life, and she knew none of them pictured her last many years as mostly alone even among millions of people who thought they knew and loved her, while she knew they knew nothing about her and would hate her if they did. And it was even more than that when came to discussing being married, and her daughter, with Luther. Which was basically never, or almost never, close enough to never to basically be never with like five total words on top of it.
Feelings were shit. This was why she liked scotch better when it came to talking about things.]
[The question's out before she can think better of it. It's not that she doesn't believe Allison, it's just...she knows that Luther is here, that Luther has always kind of been there, present or not, for Allison, and she just assumes...she just assumes that everything she says to Allison might eventually find its way to Luther.]
And how much easier -- how much harder does she have to fight herself not -- to make a joke, to blow it off, imply for her sister's sake what she has for her family, for the world. That she's unruffable and untouchable somehow, she's just kidding; and that in the places she isn't, they have no right to judge or speak. Especially since she got and made it big, and no one else managed that any more than the managed a marriage, and a kid.
How hard is one word. So hard. Even after she writes it. Just staring at it. There are so many feelings it tangles up. It feels too true. It feels too easily used against her. It feels like a betrayal of Luther. Of Patric. Of the lie of herself, even to herself. But eventually she takes a breath, and she presses it anyway, feeling stupid as hell about it and letting it go anyway.
If anyone was going to understand this, wasn't it, maybe, Vanya? ]
[And this time it feels clearer, at least to her: she's not apologizing to apologize, to fill a space she doesn't understand. Vanya has spent pretty much her whole life without anyone to confide in. Ironically - horribly - Leonard was the only one to give her that, to be a sounding board for the things she wanted, goals, things she needed to talk about.
Needed to, without ever knowing she did. If that is where Allison is at, then what else can she be but sorry?]
[ It's Allison's turn to stare at the two words uncertaintly. Uncertain what to do with them. Uncertain if Vanya means them. Uncertain what to say as she sheers off pieces of skin by inches and miles. She supposes if she wanted to be technical, she's actually talked about with that therapist. But she's not sure she'd call it talking.
It was like water boarding by noise, where she showed up by voluntary steps, but was required to go. She hadn't given up much more in that room than she had to for so long, and there had been any number of sullen silences and refusals to say anything first.
She stares at the blank space, and the flickering cursor forever. Not knowing . Trying words in her thoughts (It's fine. It is what is. It doesn't really matter. That's my fault. Thanks.) but none of them are right and all of them are the blade under her skin, slicing slowly, and her own persnickety fashion of how to handle feeling vulnerable. The best and the worst ones. She counts them out, trying to think, trying not to put down the phone and back away from this entirely. ]
So. Yeah.
I guess I'm figuring that out.
Or figuring out if I want to. Something between those.
[Which is probably the most obviousstatement she's ever made, so she tries to elaborate, even though explaining herself is her least developed skill.]
I mean if you want to, I'll listen. I want to listen
But I don't know how to ask about this and if you need someone to prompt you, I get that [Because god does she need that, most of the time,] but I don't know how to tell when that's okay
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
Not really
Some years I'd just get one of those already made turkey breasts at the grocery store if I
I dunno, if I was in the mood
Just didn't see the point. No traditions, and it was just me, so
no subject
Even when the answer turns out to to be the one she expects, she doesn't regret asking.
She thinks she can picture it. The sometimes. In that small white washed apartment.
She thinks it's better to not actually avoid all those things they all sweep away. ]
Me neither, until my marraige.
I used to work straight through it.
Through all the holidays.
no subject
For a while, she's silent, just trying to work up a reply. She could say that she had concerts around the holidays, sometimes, that she would just practice through it. She's trying to be more open with Allison about playing, since her unequivocal support of V playing more, but it still makes something in her gut twist dangerously close to nausea. She doesn't want to talk about that.
Texting is supposed to be easier than talking because you can stop yourself, but Vanya finds herself sending the next text almost as if she was blurting it out loud.]
Is something going on?
no subject
Aside from my wondering if this whole thing is overreaching -- no?
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sorry
[Well shit, it's out there now. Time to employ her extraordinarily terrible diversion tactics.] I don't think it's overreaching?
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[ She doesn't even know exactly what this feeling is. She definitely doesn't have the words for it now that she's looking at it. It's not about some stupid holiday she won't have her family for. The first one that was a real one. The one she broke. The one she wouldn't have even if she was home.
She not trying to make that here. She's not that dumb. But she wants, she doesn't know .... more.
She wants more for the family she has here. More than they've ever gotten. Or had. ]
Sorry for what? You didn't do anything.
[ The last thing she wants to do is get her wires crossed wtih Vanya in her exhaustion and confusion, while just trying to start here. ]
no subject
[There seems to be a lot of certainty in that text for someone who put him in the hospital and said horrible things to him. She doesn't really know if that's what he needs, but she knows how it feels to be surrounded by the rest of them with glares aimed directly at you and just waiting for the shouting to start. She'd want space, too.]
I think this is the first time you've mentioned Patrick and
[She hits send before she can write Claire's name, and now it just feels far too emphatic to send another text with just the name of the niece she'll never meet. Thin ice, and frightening, when she's so carefully avoided this since that argument before the funeral.]
no subject
Maybe it'll go well and there'll be another next year.
Or maybe it'll all end in fighting, and it'll never happen again.
Who knows.
You can never tell with all of us in one place.
[ At a lack for any other context to Vanya's message, Allison misses entirely that there could have another one.
But with Klaus gone from the house so much in the last month, there aren't any other assumptions for her to jump to it being about. ]
Oh. Yeah. Maybe so?
[ Beat. ]
Was that weird? Sorry.
I didn't mean to make it weird.
no subject
And for once, that means that Allison's the one wondering if she screwed something up. It's a deeply weird, but almost pleasant change.]
No no
I just didn't expect it and. I don't know. I don't know what's okay to say.
[What's safe.]
no subject
Not even about my own crap.
Maybe sometimes especially that.
But if we don't try, we don't ever figure it out, right?
no subject
[She does not let herself say, this feels like a trap. She does not point out that she has no idea what mine field she's wandering, how to identify them, how to avoid them. It was going just fine, not talking about them at all.
But.]
Do you want to talk about them?
no subject
Maybe not yet. But maybe not ... no
The whole holiday thing makes it come up.
Christmas will probably be worse for that, and I'd rather not be a complete basket case during either.
[ It's the truth, and it's a lie. It's that, but it's, also, that she held Claire in her arms. Heard her voice. Her laugh. Felt her hands grip in. Made her cry. Chose something that wasn't her again, saving people, saving herself, but not Claire, not choosing Claire, not staying with Claire, which sticks even when she knows it wasn't really Claire either. Except the things Harry said last night, about what he was doing for Maggie here and now were still ringing in her head, and had pricked a need to do ... something.
She just didn't know if she wanted to be brave enough to do the thing she thought it was.
The one she knew she didn't want to talk about. Not with Vanya. Not even with Luther. ]
no subject
[It's probably bad that she's relieved. Like, really relieved, because she doesn't know how to talk about families, especially not with her own. Allison was the only one who figured out how to have her own, and it had clearly gone to shit.
Vanya doesn't want to risk lapsing and saying that to her.]
I don't really know what to do. Is there something I should do?
no subject
This is fine.
[ It's a small enough thing for today. Maybe putting it out there. When it already feels like too much in some ways. Like peeling back her skin. Three who never liked to show weakness or assume any stance that required or admitted the acceptance of anything looking like comfort. Not while in competition withholding where she was, especially next to Diego and Luther.
That wasn't them. (And yet it was, wasn't it? Somehow so far down, none of them knew how to burn it out.)
Maybe it was enough to just acknowledge that it was a door, and it was there, and it was on her mind.
But that she didn't know if she wanted to open that door. If she could. Knew how. Was ready. ]
It's not like I have a clue how that might go if I did feel ready.
There's never been anyone I've ever talked to about all of that.
[ Not even Luther. There were some things Allison wasn't sure they'd ever really talk about. She knew what her family thought of her Hollywood life, and she knew none of them pictured her last many years as mostly alone even among millions of people who thought they knew and loved her, while she knew they knew nothing about her and would hate her if they did. And it was even more than that when came to discussing being married, and her daughter, with Luther. Which was basically never, or almost never, close enough to never to basically be never with like five total words on top of it.
Feelings were shit. This was why she liked scotch better when it came to talking about things.]
no subject
[The question's out before she can think better of it. It's not that she doesn't believe Allison, it's just...she knows that Luther is here, that Luther has always kind of been there, present or not, for Allison, and she just assumes...she just assumes that everything she says to Allison might eventually find its way to Luther.]
no subject
And how much easier -- how much harder does she have to fight herself not -- to make a joke, to blow it off, imply for her sister's sake what she has for her family, for the world. That she's unruffable and untouchable somehow, she's just kidding; and that in the places she isn't, they have no right to judge or speak. Especially since she got and made it big, and no one else managed that any more than the managed a marriage, and a kid.
How hard is one word. So hard. Even after she writes it. Just staring at it. There are so many feelings it tangles up. It feels too true. It feels too easily used against her. It feels like a betrayal of Luther. Of Patric. Of the lie of herself, even to herself. But eventually she takes a breath, and she presses it anyway, feeling stupid as hell about it and letting it go anyway.
If anyone was going to understand this, wasn't it, maybe, Vanya? ]
No.
no subject
[And this time it feels clearer, at least to her: she's not apologizing to apologize, to fill a space she doesn't understand. Vanya has spent pretty much her whole life without anyone to confide in. Ironically - horribly - Leonard was the only one to give her that, to be a sounding board for the things she wanted, goals, things she needed to talk about.
Needed to, without ever knowing she did. If that is where Allison is at, then what else can she be but sorry?]
no subject
It was like water boarding by noise, where she showed up by voluntary steps, but was required to go. She hadn't given up much more in that room than she had to for so long, and there had been any number of sullen silences and refusals to say anything first.
She stares at the blank space, and the flickering cursor forever. Not knowing . Trying words in her thoughts (It's fine. It is what is. It doesn't really matter. That's my fault. Thanks.) but none of them are right and all of them are the blade under her skin, slicing slowly, and her own persnickety fashion of how to handle feeling vulnerable. The best and the worst ones. She counts them out, trying to think, trying not to put down the phone and back away from this entirely. ]
So. Yeah.
I guess I'm figuring that out.
Or figuring out if I want to.
Something between those.
no subject
[Which is probably the most obviousstatement she's ever made, so she tries to elaborate, even though explaining herself is her least developed skill.]
I mean if you want to, I'll listen. I want to listen
But I don't know how to ask about this and if you need someone to prompt you, I get that [Because god does she need that, most of the time,] but I don't know how to tell when that's okay