[He isn't expecting an answer, not really. Just as much for the late hour as for... why the fuck would she want to talk to him, anyway?
It isn't like he had some kind rapport with the other version of her that was here before. He'd barely spoken to her more than a couple of times before she disappeared. And it isn't like the simple fact of being here makes anything inherently different--
A part of him still hates her for her book. Another part of him is still terrified of her power.
But somewhere buried deep under the anger and the fear, inside a box hidden behind long-locked doors, a part of him just misses his sister. The sister she was when they were young, before she was shipped away to music boarding school. Before they had drifted too far apart to even recognize each other. Before Diego learned how to hate her.
He blinks when the phone makes a quiet chime and he picks it up, surprised to see Vanya had answered at all.
Right. Of course. This was stupid.]
Just thought we cou- Do you want to Is it weird to ask y-
[Really, really stupid. She'll say no. He knows she will.
But he should still ask. He should still try .]
You wanna grab lunch together tomorrow?
[He stares at the words for a long moment before finally pressing send. He hates how normal it sounds, like this is, or ever was, just a thing they did. It isn't, and never was. And he's sure it won't change now, either.
She types it up, ready to send, but she pulls her thumb away from the button. This feels - it feels like an absurd trap, and why would it be, that makes no sense, but her fight or flight instinct is making her heart hammer in her chest, and all she can think is that the jaws of the trap are closing around her and she can't even see them. She doesn't know why he would trick her, or what he could really want.
She starts to type, seriously? That would at least express some of her bewilderment, right?
But what if he gets angry because she says no? What if he just takes it as proof that she doesn't deserve them?
Vanya drops the phone onto her bed so that she can shove her head under a pillow for a while, hoping that eventually she'll just fall asleep and she can deal with it tomorrow.
She doesn't fall asleep, though. She can't. Whatever this insomnia is, it's not getting better.
It's a while - almost half an hour, before she picks up the phone again. Fuck it, she thinks, but even as she hits send, her stomach twists up.]
[He waits a long handful of minutes for her to say something back, but she doesn't, so he sets the phone aside and grabs his whetstone and focuses on sharpening his knives. It's something idle to do with his hands and to let himself focus on, instead of willing the phone to chime.
It's a good while before the phone finally makes another noise and Diego would probably be slightly embarrassed to admit just how quickly he abandoned the blade and scooped up the phone.
Why.
Three letters have never made him stumble harder than those, right now, right this second. Diego blinks and stares at the message, that word repeating over and over in his head.
Why?
Why? Why? Why?
Why? Why? Why? Why? Why?
He feels something twist in his stomach at the chorus of the word in his head. He doesn't have an answer for that. Not a good one. Not any answer at all, even. Not really. Just generic, bland bullshit that sounds nothing like him at all, but absolutely is.
He sits, thumbs frozen above the screen, not sure what to say to that at all.
Something is better than nothing, even if something is tiny and feels like it wouldn't-- shouldn't-- count.]
Honestly?
[Diego, no. No one ever wants your truly honest opinion.]
We both know this family has sucked as BEING a family for, basically always. I don't wanna be here, I hate being here, but I can't keep ignoring the fact that we are ALL here, too.
That sounds like a second chance doesn't it? Feels like a second We should use it as
I wanna try this time.
[Diego still isn't completely sure he even knows what that means. Try. Try what? Try to not be a dick? That probably won't happen, he's who he is. But still. Try to be here? Be better? Be a brother? He doesn't even know how any of that could work at all. But that confusion doesn't make the words mean any less. He does want to try. With Vanya. For Vanya. With all of them, really.]
[She almost sends the no again when that first message comes through: the time when she wanted his honest thoughts is long behind them. Now, his honesty just scares her more often than not. So she braces, tense in her bed, under her blankets, struggling to just make sense of the request.
And when the rest comes, she doesn't know what to do with it. She thinks about giving up again, just leaving her communicator and trying to sleep. It's more tempting than she cares to admit. Instead, she finds herself responding.]
try what? to NOT destroy everything? none of you even knows what being a family means
[Neither does she, but it's very easy, especially right now, to slip back into me versus them.]
["Oh, you mean, I'm the one that broke the world?"
It's the first thought that isn't even a thought but a reaction without any second's thought at all that comes to mind. But he doesn't type it. Instead, he lets it flash red across his mind and bites crecent-shapes into the palm of one hand to keep himself from typing it.
Lets it pass.
Tries again.
He hesitates and taps idly on the side of the phone, debating what to say. How to say it. Especially more to how to say it... without just sounding like a petulant brat. It's what Dad always said he was, right?]
None of us do, Vanya... But we can... I don't know, we can try, can't we?
[She thinks, maybe, that she's crying - but it's hard to tell if her device looks blurry because she's angry and upset, and for once she has the words she wants to use right away. It almost never happens, and she's not questioning it right now.]
Why do you want to try? After everything [She makes herself add in a couple more words than she originally intended, struggling to hold onto her lie that she wishes was completely true,] you told me, what could possibly make you want to try?
[It comes too easily, for all that anything like that ever meant to any of them. They were only siblings by technicalities like papers that were signed and having the same last name and living in the same house for awhile, maybe. But. It still felt right to say.]
We weren't always like this, Vanya. Don't you remember?
[Her heart is pounding so hard, painfully, that she has to sit up just to get a decent breath in. One of her pillows falls on the ground, but she doesn't notice.]
You're the one who hates me, remember?
[It's definitely tears, she can tell now - angry, guilty tears, and the regret is starting to blossom in the pit of her stomach.]
Yeah, I hate that stupid fucking book. I hate everything behind closed doors being shoved in the spotlight to be scrutinized under a microscope. I hate you for printing all that shit about us.
[There's a brief pause until finally-- ]
But I also remember you being the one to encourage me when I decided I wanted to try play bass. And making plans to be in a band together one day.
[One day never came, and she was whisked away to musical boarding school and everything else that had happened, happened, and when he left the Academy, he hadn't exactly kept in anything like contact with any of them. But still.
Did she even remember? Or did she forget that, too?
[He starts in on the book, and she throws her phone down on the bed so she can hold her head in both hands. She wants to tell him it wasn't stupid, she didn't write shit, that even if she's not a master of the turn of phrase, it was one of the few things she was proud of, at least before they all made their stances known. Before she realized it had just made things worse.
It's a long moment before she can pick the phone back up, ready to apologize just to avoid whatever vitriol he wants to throw at her. She's been more afraid of that than any ability he has for years. What she skims pulls her up short, thumbs paused to type that I'm sorry.]
We were kids. That was YEARS ago, why does that mean anything now?
[He blinks and stares at the message when it finally comes in. Every ounce of anything shaped a little like hope disappeared instantly at that, sinking low, buried deep where it can't see the light of day, shoved back down where it belongs.
The next set of words are somehow knee-jerk and carefully measured all at once.]
Dad's abuse was years ago, too. We're all still affected by that, aren't we?
[Life as a Hargreeves has never been great, and apparently they were all so fucked up that the rare half-seconds of halfway okay-decent-good things had no hope of influencing anything for all the awful, rotten abuse's overshadow.]
[She starts to type he didn't abuse us out of some gut-response; she can't get past he before she backspaces it out of existence, feeling her anger and guilt gnaw into each other until they're one. Of course that's what it was - she's pretty sure one of the therapists she saw called it as much. But it, like so many other things that therapist had to say to her, was hard to swallow. She'd stopped going not long after that session.
So is this, though, so maybe it was less the therapist and more the subject matter.
An ache is building in the back of her skull, and she finds herself rubbing at her ear in a sub-conscious turned conscious gesture that just intensifies the headache. There's too much circling, and she clenches her jaw to keep from - what, what is she afraid of, what is she always afraid of?
(Being heard. Being a nuisance. Existing.)
The desire to just let go of it - to disengage from all these terrible, miserable feelings, is massive. Nearly irresistible, because she felt it. At the Academy, at her apartment, the Icarus. She was playing the best she ever had, and it was - not because she didn't care, but because she'd let go of everything holding her back. The guilt, the fear, anyone's judgement on her own worth.
Resisting the urge to do it again is almost impossible.
Leaving her phone behind, Vanya slips out of bed to stand in front of her window, leaning her forehead against cool panes and watching her breath fog the glass. He wants to try - Diego, of all people, wants to try. What does it say about her if she won't let him?
It's a long while before she gets back to her device, and once it's in hand the text at least comes fast.]
[He isn't expecting that. He isn't expecting that at all.
He stares at the screen for several, long minutes before he finds his words.]
I don't know. Wherever. I basically know Nonah and Jeopardy. I can come to you, if you want, though.
[He doesn't really have problems navigating unknown places, so it really wouldn't be a problem. Where... that sort of thing really might be problematic for Vanya.]
[There's another pause before her response comes - not nearly as long, but those three dots keep showing and vanishing while she tries to word it right.]
will you?
[He just said he would, and she has to roll her eyes at herself, fumbling to add something else quickly.]
No, it's fine no big deal. Around 1? Or... earlier? Doesn't have to be lunch. We could do breakfast. Whatever you want.
[He may not know her well, and especially not now, but it doesn't take a genius to know Vanya and anxiety are practically synonyms. Waiting around half the day for something might just drive her up a wall.]
[She is synonymous with anxiety, and part of her really misses having a very effective mute button. Fewer and fewer of her coping mechanisms have been working - and it doesn't help that she's without, maybe permanently without the most effective one.
Yeah, I'll meet you at your place and we'll go from there?
[Holyshit. He can't believe she agreed. Honestly, he thought she'd shoot him down, immediately, stop talking and ignore him. But she kept talking, wanting to understand why he would even try. Even if this goes horribly wrong, she agreed, and that feels like the biggest first win in the glacier-slow rebuild of their relationship.]
[She makes herself send him the address, though her shoulders might as well be made of tension rods.] it's number seven
[And she immediately regrets this and is burying her phone under two pillows so that she can curl up at the foot of her bed and not hear it ding again.]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
It isn't like he had some kind rapport with the other version of her that was here before. He'd barely spoken to her more than a couple of times before she disappeared. And it isn't like the simple fact of being here makes anything inherently different--
A part of him still hates her for her book.
Another part of him is still terrified of her power.
But somewhere buried deep under the anger and the fear, inside a box hidden behind long-locked doors, a part of him just misses his sister. The sister she was when they were young, before she was shipped away to music boarding school.
Before they had drifted too far apart to even recognize each other.
Before Diego learned how to hate her.
He blinks when the phone makes a quiet chime and he picks it up, surprised to see Vanya had answered at all.
Right.
Of course.
This was stupid.]
Just thought we cou-Do you want to
Is it weird to ask y-
[Really, really stupid.
She'll say no. He knows she will.
But he should still ask.
He should still try .]
You wanna grab lunch together tomorrow?
[He stares at the words for a long moment before finally pressing send. He hates how normal it sounds, like this is, or ever was, just a thing they did. It isn't, and never was. And he's sure it won't change now, either.
But at least he sent it.]
no subject
She types it up, ready to send, but she pulls her thumb away from the button. This feels - it feels like an absurd trap, and why would it be, that makes no sense, but her fight or flight instinct is making her heart hammer in her chest, and all she can think is that the jaws of the trap are closing around her and she can't even see them. She doesn't know why he would trick her, or what he could really want.
She starts to type, seriously? That would at least express some of her bewilderment, right?
But what if he gets angry because she says no? What if he just takes it as proof that she doesn't deserve them?
Vanya drops the phone onto her bed so that she can shove her head under a pillow for a while, hoping that eventually she'll just fall asleep and she can deal with it tomorrow.
She doesn't fall asleep, though. She can't. Whatever this insomnia is, it's not getting better.
It's a while - almost half an hour, before she picks up the phone again. Fuck it, she thinks, but even as she hits send, her stomach twists up.]
why?
no subject
It's a good while before the phone finally makes another noise and Diego would probably be slightly embarrassed to admit just how quickly he abandoned the blade and scooped up the phone.
Why.
Three letters have never made him stumble harder than those, right now, right this second. Diego blinks and stares at the message, that word repeating over and over in his head.
Why?
Why? Why? Why? Why? Why?
He feels something twist in his stomach at the chorus of the word in his head. He doesn't have an answer for that. Not a good one. Not any answer at all, even. Not really. Just generic, bland bullshit that sounds nothing like him at all, but absolutely is.
He sits, thumbs frozen above the screen, not sure what to say to that at all.
Something is better than nothing, even if something is tiny and feels like it wouldn't-- shouldn't-- count.]
Honestly?
[Diego, no. No one ever wants your truly honest opinion.]
We both know this family has sucked as BEING a family for, basically always.
I don't wanna be here, I hate being here, but I can't keep ignoring the fact that we are ALL here, too.
That sounds like a second chance doesn't it?Feels like a second
We should use it as
I wanna try this time.
[Diego still isn't completely sure he even knows what that means. Try. Try what? Try to not be a dick? That probably won't happen, he's who he is. But still. Try to be here? Be better? Be a brother? He doesn't even know how any of that could work at all. But that confusion doesn't make the words mean any less. He does want to try. With Vanya. For Vanya. With all of them, really.]
no subject
And when the rest comes, she doesn't know what to do with it. She thinks about giving up again, just leaving her communicator and trying to sleep. It's more tempting than she cares to admit. Instead, she finds herself responding.]
try what? to NOT destroy everything? none of you even knows what being a family means
[Neither does she, but it's very easy, especially right now, to slip back into me versus them.]
no subject
It's the first thought that isn't even a thought but a reaction without any second's thought at all that comes to mind. But he doesn't type it. Instead, he lets it flash red across his mind and bites crecent-shapes into the palm of one hand to keep himself from typing it.
Lets it pass.
Tries again.
He hesitates and taps idly on the side of the phone, debating what to say. How to say it. Especially more to how to say it... without just sounding like a petulant brat. It's what Dad always said he was, right?]
None of us do, Vanya...
But we can... I don't know, we can try, can't we?
no subject
[She thinks, maybe, that she's crying - but it's hard to tell if her device looks blurry because she's angry and upset, and for once she has the words she wants to use right away. It almost never happens, and she's not questioning it right now.]
Why do you want to try? After everything [She makes herself add in a couple more words than she originally intended, struggling to hold onto her lie that she wishes was completely true,] you told me, what could possibly make you want to try?
no subject
[It comes too easily, for all that anything like that ever meant to any of them. They were only siblings by technicalities like papers that were signed and having the same last name and living in the same house for awhile, maybe. But. It still felt right to say.]
We weren't always like this, Vanya.
Don't you remember?
no subject
[Her heart is pounding so hard, painfully, that she has to sit up just to get a decent breath in. One of her pillows falls on the ground, but she doesn't notice.]
You're the one who hates me, remember?
[It's definitely tears, she can tell now - angry, guilty tears, and the regret is starting to blossom in the pit of her stomach.]
no subject
I hate everything behind closed doors being shoved in the spotlight to be scrutinized under a microscope.
I hate you for printing all that shit about us.
[There's a brief pause until finally-- ]
But I also remember you being the one to encourage me when I decided I wanted to try play bass.
And making plans to be in a band together one day.
[One day never came, and she was whisked away to musical boarding school and everything else that had happened, happened, and when he left the Academy, he hadn't exactly kept in anything like contact with any of them. But still.
Did she even remember? Or did she forget that, too?
When is the last time he even touched a guitar?]
no subject
It's a long moment before she can pick the phone back up, ready to apologize just to avoid whatever vitriol he wants to throw at her. She's been more afraid of that than any ability he has for years. What she skims pulls her up short, thumbs paused to type that I'm sorry.]
We were kids. That was YEARS ago, why does that mean anything now?
no subject
The next set of words are somehow knee-jerk and carefully measured all at once.]
Dad's abuse was years ago,
too.
We're all still affected by that, aren't we?
[Life as a Hargreeves has never been great, and apparently they were all so fucked up that the rare half-seconds of halfway okay-decent-good things had no hope of influencing anything for all the awful, rotten abuse's overshadow.]
no subject
So is this, though, so maybe it was less the therapist and more the subject matter.
An ache is building in the back of her skull, and she finds herself rubbing at her ear in a sub-conscious turned conscious gesture that just intensifies the headache. There's too much circling, and she clenches her jaw to keep from - what, what is she afraid of, what is she always afraid of?
(Being heard. Being a nuisance. Existing.)
The desire to just let go of it - to disengage from all these terrible, miserable feelings, is massive. Nearly irresistible, because she felt it. At the Academy, at her apartment, the Icarus. She was playing the best she ever had, and it was - not because she didn't care, but because she'd let go of everything holding her back. The guilt, the fear, anyone's judgement on her own worth.
Resisting the urge to do it again is almost impossible.
Leaving her phone behind, Vanya slips out of bed to stand in front of her window, leaning her forehead against cool panes and watching her breath fog the glass. He wants to try - Diego, of all people, wants to try. What does it say about her if she won't let him?
It's a long while before she gets back to her device, and once it's in hand the text at least comes fast.]
Okay. where do you wanna get lunch
no subject
He isn't expecting that at all.
He stares at the screen for several, long minutes before he finds his words.]
I don't know. Wherever.
I basically know Nonah and Jeopardy.
I can come to you, if you want, though.
[He doesn't really have problems navigating unknown places, so it really wouldn't be a problem. Where... that sort of thing really might be problematic for Vanya.]
no subject
will you?
[He just said he would, and she has to roll her eyes at herself, fumbling to add something else quickly.]
I mean you don't mind?
no subject
fineno big deal.Around 1?
Or... earlier?
Doesn't have to be lunch. We could do breakfast.
Whatever you want.
[He may not know her well, and especially not now, but it doesn't take a genius to know Vanya and anxiety are practically synonyms. Waiting around half the day for something might just drive her up a wall.]
no subject
Point is, he's right.]
11? is that okay
no subject
[Holyshit. He can't believe she agreed. Honestly, he thought she'd shoot him down, immediately, stop talking and ignore him. But she kept talking, wanting to understand why he would even try. Even if this goes horribly wrong, she agreed, and that feels like the biggest first win in the glacier-slow rebuild of their relationship.]
no subject
[She makes herself send him the address, though her shoulders might as well be made of tension rods.] it's number seven
[And she immediately regrets this and is burying her phone under two pillows so that she can curl up at the foot of her bed and not hear it ding again.]