[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.
[ 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. ]
[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. ]
no subject
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?
no subject
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.
no subject
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?]
no subject
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. ]