gigue | (no subject)

[ This is delicate, careful territory. Luther isn't sure how to address this particular subject properly. Has never really been sure how to talk to her, period, even back when they lived under the same roof.

This is why he didn't fucking want to do this. ]

But you have powers.

[ Boy, does she. ]

Which is the only reason you're talking to me now. Can't be a superhero without powers, right?

[Ben said that to her, but now that she's not buried in her own id, she has to wonder if he came up with it on his own, or just regurgitated something Luther or Dad said.]

[ sIGH. He scrubs at his face. Already... not regretting this conversation, precisely, but. Already struggling. ]

Not the only reason. But you have to admit it does change the equation, just like dad's death did.

[She wants to say a lot of very mean things to him, and the only thing making her erase it all is knowing how awful she let herself be to Klaus.

But Luther isn't Klaus, and Vanya doesn't have it in her yet to forgive him for abandoning her in a hole. For picking Allison over her, when she even came back to find out if - to explain herself, to - this isn't helping.]

Then here's a different equation: if I'm not part of the team, then you're not my leader, so you don't have to pretend to care about me. Just say what you really want to say.

I don't really know what I want to say.

[ Entirely honest. ]

But I want to try to fix things, or at least make them a bit better. So we're not-- stuck like this forever. Talking around each other and trying to pretend the other one wasn't exist.

[Maybe if they were speaking in person, she'd believe him. Maybe she would just be afraid of getting too close, provoking him, because even if her ability is, in theory, stronger than his, she hasn't spent her whole life learning how to use it, and now he scares her.

He's the only one of them who actually, physically scares her now.]

I don't know what you want me to say Maybe you and Diego should figure out what actually trying looks like, cause I don't know anymore

[ And fancy that, because she's the only one of all the siblings who frightens Luther, too. ]

To be honest, I don't really think most of us know either. Except for maybe Allison and Ben.

I'm not good at this, Vanya, at all, and you don't even really have to say anything. But I just. Thanksgiving was nice, and it made me think, so I wanted to reach out. Say hello. Apologize.

That's all.

[ Just apologize for avoiding her, or for something bigger and far more deep-rooted, in what happened back home?
It's not exactly clear.

He really is terrible at this. ]

[She almost takes him up on it. She opens the message, sees the read timestamp pop up. She almost leaves it that way. It's the most passive aggressive fuck you she can think of, and it's tempting.

But.]

Apologize for avoiding me.

[That distinction is clear, because it's not the apology she's waiting for.]

[ It takes a few minutes for his next response. A deep breath, a walk around his room in the house. In circles. He had wanted to do this, simultaneously had not wanted to do this. Had sat on it for five months. Had decided not to do it, but then she'd blown up a Nonah neighbourhood, and part of him still firmly thought he was entirely in the right for what he'd done— Vanya remained a tangible threat, they hadn't known what they were dealing with at the time, she'd almost killed Allison, he'd just wanted to buy some time to figure out what to do—

But she had destroyed the world, and it had been partially his fault.

And when that Nonah neighbourhood went, she had turned away. Allison had made a point of telling him that. Vanya had turned away from her and from the house.

So.

It feels like pulling teeth — Number One was never built for this — but he makes himself do it. Tries to imagine Allison sitting in the corner watching him, as he'd spent so many years imagining her and talking to her and asking her advice, except that this time he can bring that accusing glare in full focus. ]

For avoiding you.

And for putting you in the cell. Back home.

[Each minute feels ten times as long, and it's not fair how impatient she is given how she can make...pretty much everyone wait on a text from her. There are so few people she can just comfortably talk to, and that always fades eventually. But when the words finally come, lighting up her phone, Vanya feels...nothing. Numb, almost like she's taking her pills again. Almost like her every reaction is buried under twelve layers of cotton. Again.

There's cotton in her ears, and then just an annoying, monotone noise in the right one, a whining that has gotten so much easier to ignore, mostly, but never fully goes away. It pops up here and there, usually when she's thinking about home. It's almost like she's keeping herself from thinking too hard about it - or else keeping herself from forgetting. Vanya couldn't begin to guess.

She drops her phone on her bed and goes to lean against her window for a while, watching the people on the street below her pass by. She never really cared for people watching: they didn't make sense, or felt somehow too far away. It still feels that way, but at least it's steady, and calm, and somehow watching people just go home, or to work, or whatever the fuck they're doing makes her feel calmer.

Sort of.

He stuck her in the cell. Every time she thinks about it, there's a terrifying moment where she's afraid she's gone deaf, or the world has gone silent; where she can hear her heartbeat, a steady reminder that there is something dangerous and yet infinitely easier lurking right below her skin. She could reach for it, and never know worry again.

Sliding down the wall, Vanya presses herself into the corner, ignoring the heat of the radiator and the cold seeping through her window. She spends a lot of time in this corner, like if she makes herself small enough she can just disappear into it.

He's sorry. He apologized. It only took five months.

And she wants to believe him, that is the worst part. She wants him to be sorry, and if she tries, she could convince herself. It's Luther, he's not going to fall over himself with unnecessary words. He said the straightforward part, the factual part, and that's all that matters. But she barely knows Luther, barely knows any of them but him most of all; he might as well be like the schoolmates she had in high school, constant presences day and night, but utter enigmas. When was the last time they talked, before here? An argument in the Academy? Christ, before that - when they were fourteen, maybe? She can't think of any time they've had an honest to go talk, and maybe she's just forgotten, but that would just prove the point.

She knows this brother least of all, and she doesn't believe him.

It's a long time before she replies.]

Now what?

[ There's so much else Luther could say but can't, won't. That he had seen that moment again when the Chalice had rewound the film of his life and paused over his greatest regrets. That he still thought some kind of mitigation was the right idea, but where he had gone wrong was the abject betrayal. Not tackling it together. Not talking to her about it first. That she had come to him looking for solace, for help, had collapsed into his arms with sobbing relief, thinking that her big brother was finally listening—

And he had betrayed her.

It's a line he can't uncross, a bridge he can't walk back over, but. He's trying, in some way. And it's almost a surprise when Vanya actually answers. He'd almost been expecting her to just read it and delete it. Skitter away. ]

I honestly don't know.

[Running is what she wants to do, always. It's what she's good at, might be her real talent. The therapist she saw years ago told her she did it a lot, to get out of frightening situations, to avoid dealing with things. Vanya cancelled her sessions not long after that and convinced herself it was because she didn't need it anymore. Real good job she did, huh.

She wants to try talking to him. She writes you scare me, and deletes it. She writes is that really all, and deletes it. Why didn't you talk to me and what was I supposed to do and some leader and you asshole. All of it gets deleted, silenced, erased completely. She can't think her way through this, except that it's not enough and that she doesn't trust herself to have any other kind of conversation with him.

This time, she doesn't answer. It makes her think too much of the conversations she's had with Diego, of talks of trying that just mean she will eventually fold in on herself to try and take up less space around them. If he doesn't know, why should she be trying so desperately to find an answer?]

[ The minutes wear on and on, with that typing indicator appearing then disappearing then appearing then disappearing. And then, in the end, it's just gone entirely.

The minutes wear on. When Luther finally decides that this time there really isn't anything else coming, he lets out a breath that he hadn't known he was holding. Tosses his communicator aside and collapses back on his bed, exhales. Forces his entire body to relax, loosen those muscles that had wound tighter and tighter like a spring. He tells himself that at least Maurtia Falls is (hopefully) still standing.

As first tries go, it could have gotten a lot worse.

Could've gone a lot better, too, but. It's a start. ]