[ Number Five's eyebrows lift, practically disappearing beneath his bangs. Six Hargreeves siblings having a joint birthday party? He can't really wrap his head around that. Why? For what? How many people could they possibly have invited over? Are they all that much better at making friends than he will ever be? The only friends Five has ever had are Numbers Six and Seven when they were children, and as an adult, a mannequin and a fourteen-year-old girl. Neither of his adult friendships have been or are terribly healthy or appropriate, but maybe some part of him will always be trapped in that first year of the apocalypse; will always be a scared, lonely thirteen-year-old boy. Maybe that's why he's grown this stupid attachment to the little girl that lives with him.
But this isn't about him. It's about them; it's about Vanya, so he forces his line of thoughts to shift away from all of that and focus on her again. He nods a little and offers her an apologetic sort of smile. ]
I remember. I never understood it as a kid, but then I found your book in the rubble and I understood.
[ And after he'd finished it, he'd spent his energy completely every day for weeks trying to get back to her so that he could fix it before it happened. He'd only given up when he realized that there was no going back if he was too tired and too emotional to focus enough on the when he wanted to return to. In the end, it had taken too long and the damage had been done by the time he'd made it back. He blames himself more than he will ever let on for everything that happened to Ben and Vanya in his absence. ]
That sounds like a fucking disaster waiting to happen; a party. How did it go?
[Ah, her book. She knows she should regret it, but really, she only regrets how the others treated her about it. She needed those fifteen minutes in the light; needed a lot longer than that, but at least it was enough to give her a taste. Which made plummeting back into obscurity all the harder.
She doesn't say anything about it, just tries to hide the cringe with a nod. It's too bad he couldn't have brought that book home when they were all still thirteen.]
It was. A disaster, I mean. I'd been - things weren't really...going well, at that point. Just a lot of little things. They gave me a job in a music store there, and my ear, and - it was just really shitty, for a while.
[Couldn't work. No money. No violin, afraid to buy one, let alone be around one - not to mention the small overtures to friends just proving to her that people liked her siblings more. She was already on high alert when she showed up.]
I almost didn't go. I - I shouldn't have. I really shouldn't have.
[Bits of brown paper fall to the floor between her feet while she unconsciously tears at the bag.] But I did, and I just - this guy I met, he was really nice and I - he gave me a violin.
[God this is going to be harder than she thought. At least the others were there, she didn't have to explain so much. V reaches her hand out for the whiskey again.]
[ For his part, Number Five stays quiet, just watching the way she's shredding the bag in a nervous tick as she talks and listening to what she's saying, a skill which apparently took him 58 years to perfect. Some brother he is.
His eyebrows lift at the mention of the gifted violin. Five thinks maybe he views the instrument differently than the other six of them. He doesn't see it as her weapon; Five sees it as an unintentional tool for the power's manifestation. It could be a kazoo or a pack of playing cards being shuffled, he thinks, and have the same end result, it's just that the violin is such an extension of her that of course it was a natural selection to be the conduit.
The lift of his eyebrows is in interest, not wariness. ]
Okay... Have you played? Since the Icarus?
[ Just because she got it doesn't mean that she ever used it. For all he knows, it could've just been an emotional trigger. ]
[Her throat closes on the thought, and she takes a long drink. The burn forces her throat to focus on the immediate threat of choking over the subconscious, emotional pull behind her eyes. Vanya coughs as she shakes her head, wiping her mouth on the inside of her forearm. She goes back to shredding the bag almost immediately.]
I played just - a little bit, at the party. That was the first time.
[She sounds small, and she feels small, and it's a defensive, fearful move that she absolutely loathes on recognition. How could she not see it in herself? It would be like not noticing she's turning into a fucking mouse.]
And it was so - I missed it. I missed it a lot.
[But. But. Everything else started going wrong after that. V forces herself up off the couch, pacing in slow, uncertain lines around the living room.]
It's just - I don't know, I think I made a couple people I liked mad, or I hurt them, or - and then Klaus told me he just threw out Dad's journal, and I just, I lost it, he was the reason that Leonard even--
[She hasn't fully forgiven Klaus, but can't still be angry at him after the things she said to him.]
[ Five files all of the information away as she gives it, organizing it silently in his mind as he listens. Vanya has a friend. That friend gave her a violin for her birthday. Vanya missed playing it. That longing for her instrument of choice coupled with an emotionally stressful situation probably made her play and not in a musician sort of way.
He's watching her face, taking in everything. Part of the reason she's so fucking neurotic is that nobody ever had her back and he's just as much to blame as the rest of them, if not maybe more so. He owes her this much. So even though he begs to differ with her assertion that it was Klaus's fault that Harold Jenkins kick-started the apocalypse, he doesn't say so. Not yet. He will, but not yet. Number Five has the unique position of having missed out on a lot of their lives and, with that, the unique knowledge of what it feels like to be without them completely. Vanya knows how it feels emotionally, but Five knows how it feels completely. Needless to say, that loneliness afforded him the opportunity to see the bigger picture. It isn't Klaus's fault that Harold Jenkins came into their lives to ruin them. It's Reginald's fault for treating his children like science experiments and keeping that goddamned journal in the first fucking place.
But this is about Vanya and she's not in a place right now where she'll probably be terribly open to Five's counter on her upset with Klaus. That's hardly the important part right now, anyway. ]
So what happened?
[ He still sounds interested and gentle, like she's a child he's trying to coax the truth out of. To him, she is a child. To him, they all are. ]
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no subject
But this isn't about him. It's about them; it's about Vanya, so he forces his line of thoughts to shift away from all of that and focus on her again. He nods a little and offers her an apologetic sort of smile. ]
I remember. I never understood it as a kid, but then I found your book in the rubble and I understood.
[ And after he'd finished it, he'd spent his energy completely every day for weeks trying to get back to her so that he could fix it before it happened. He'd only given up when he realized that there was no going back if he was too tired and too emotional to focus enough on the when he wanted to return to. In the end, it had taken too long and the damage had been done by the time he'd made it back. He blames himself more than he will ever let on for everything that happened to Ben and Vanya in his absence. ]
That sounds like a fucking disaster waiting to happen; a party. How did it go?
no subject
She doesn't say anything about it, just tries to hide the cringe with a nod. It's too bad he couldn't have brought that book home when they were all still thirteen.]
It was. A disaster, I mean. I'd been - things weren't really...going well, at that point. Just a lot of little things. They gave me a job in a music store there, and my ear, and - it was just really shitty, for a while.
[Couldn't work. No money. No violin, afraid to buy one, let alone be around one - not to mention the small overtures to friends just proving to her that people liked her siblings more. She was already on high alert when she showed up.]
I almost didn't go. I - I shouldn't have. I really shouldn't have.
[Bits of brown paper fall to the floor between her feet while she unconsciously tears at the bag.] But I did, and I just - this guy I met, he was really nice and I - he gave me a violin.
[God this is going to be harder than she thought. At least the others were there, she didn't have to explain so much. V reaches her hand out for the whiskey again.]
no subject
His eyebrows lift at the mention of the gifted violin. Five thinks maybe he views the instrument differently than the other six of them. He doesn't see it as her weapon; Five sees it as an unintentional tool for the power's manifestation. It could be a kazoo or a pack of playing cards being shuffled, he thinks, and have the same end result, it's just that the violin is such an extension of her that of course it was a natural selection to be the conduit.
The lift of his eyebrows is in interest, not wariness. ]
Okay... Have you played? Since the Icarus?
[ Just because she got it doesn't mean that she ever used it. For all he knows, it could've just been an emotional trigger. ]
no subject
[Her throat closes on the thought, and she takes a long drink. The burn forces her throat to focus on the immediate threat of choking over the subconscious, emotional pull behind her eyes. Vanya coughs as she shakes her head, wiping her mouth on the inside of her forearm. She goes back to shredding the bag almost immediately.]
I played just - a little bit, at the party. That was the first time.
[She sounds small, and she feels small, and it's a defensive, fearful move that she absolutely loathes on recognition. How could she not see it in herself? It would be like not noticing she's turning into a fucking mouse.]
And it was so - I missed it. I missed it a lot.
[But. But. Everything else started going wrong after that. V forces herself up off the couch, pacing in slow, uncertain lines around the living room.]
It's just - I don't know, I think I made a couple people I liked mad, or I hurt them, or - and then Klaus told me he just threw out Dad's journal, and I just, I lost it, he was the reason that Leonard even--
[She hasn't fully forgiven Klaus, but can't still be angry at him after the things she said to him.]
no subject
He's watching her face, taking in everything. Part of the reason she's so fucking neurotic is that nobody ever had her back and he's just as much to blame as the rest of them, if not maybe more so. He owes her this much. So even though he begs to differ with her assertion that it was Klaus's fault that Harold Jenkins kick-started the apocalypse, he doesn't say so. Not yet. He will, but not yet. Number Five has the unique position of having missed out on a lot of their lives and, with that, the unique knowledge of what it feels like to be without them completely. Vanya knows how it feels emotionally, but Five knows how it feels completely. Needless to say, that loneliness afforded him the opportunity to see the bigger picture. It isn't Klaus's fault that Harold Jenkins came into their lives to ruin them. It's Reginald's fault for treating his children like science experiments and keeping that goddamned journal in the first fucking place.
But this is about Vanya and she's not in a place right now where she'll probably be terribly open to Five's counter on her upset with Klaus. That's hardly the important part right now, anyway. ]
So what happened?
[ He still sounds interested and gentle, like she's a child he's trying to coax the truth out of. To him, she is a child. To him, they all are. ]