Actually I know a place there. It's mostly tea but their coffee is okay
[And the only place she knows for coffee near her is the little bodega around the corner. The fact that she knows a bit of De Chima thanks to Jane is basically the only reason she considers leaving Maurtia Falls.]
It might take a little though. I haven't registered yet
I'm fine with tea, too. I'm not that picky, actually.
[ If he's honest, Derek prefers tea, but he'll never admit to that out loud. ]
I haven't either. I'm probably going to at the swear-in, but I'm still kind of mulling it over.
I just filled out a request to be able to use the Porters to visit a friend that lives in Heropa. You could do that, right? Just say you have a friend in De Chima. It wasn't all that difficult or time-consuming for me. Maybe you'll get lucky and it'll be just as quick.
[ Derek smiles to himself a little, huffing a soft laugh and nodding even though she can't see it. ]
Yeah. A friend named Derek.
[ He's in the process of texting her back to ask where, exactly, he's supposed to meet her when another message comes through that appears to be a GPS location. Well, Vanya is better at this than he is...he'll have to ask her how she did that, in case he might want to try it sometime in the future. ]
[Now commences the hour long panic, where she decides not to go, rethinks, decides again. It would be a lot easier to just...blow it off and then avoid him, right? They don't live in the same city. She could spend the rest of her time here never setting foot in De Chima again. That would probably be fine. She couldn't go there and hope to run into Jane, but - maybe Jane would come to her?
She is over thinking this way, way too much.
Eventually, she makes her way to the porter, and then to the tea shop. She's dressed in her usual oversized clothes, a green flannel shirt over a gray tee shirt and baggy jeans. As chic as Allison has always been, Vanya is forever the opposite. At least she's so used to it that how she looks is only a mild source of self-consciousness.
The porter takes her some time to get through, but eventually she makes it to the cafe, peeking through the windows to see if he beat her there.]
[ He waits a little while before venturing out to find the tea shop Vanya sent him. He really should spend less time scouting the potential dangers to Stiles in Heropa and spend a little more time getting to know his own new hometown, but alas. Maybe this is a good start.
Derek is dressed in his usual jeans and Henley shirt that fits in all the right places. He's always found them to be more comfortable than the looser shirts of his youth, largely because the looser the material, the more he tends to feel it move against him and Derek doesn't actually like that very much.
He gets to his feet from the table inside when he sees her peeking through the window, a small smile on his face. If there's a hesitation or she doesn't see him right away, he'll make a waving motion to beckon her in, so that she'll catch the movement and join him. It doesn't occur to him that she might change her mind because he's never really dealt with a person who has the level of anxiety that Vanya does. She's already come to the shop, the idea that she would feel inclined, for any reason, to turn around and leave again doesn't even occur to Derek at all. ]
[Oh no. He's seen her. There's no going back now, and when Vanya catches his eye she freezes for a second before nodding and shuffling for the door. Should she have waved? What if he didn't see the nod, did he think she ignored him? She presses her nails into her palms as a distraction, trying to breathe through the frustration of having to fight her own brain.]
Sorry I'm late.
[She says it reflexively, though she has no concept of how late she actually is. If she were twenty minutes early and he was twenty-five minutes early, she'd still apologize for keeping him waiting.]
Um - yeah, might as well. [She takes half a step toward the counter, waiting to make sure it was a suggestion he intends to follow up on. Was it like this before? This level of thinking and rethinking and overthinking feels so much sharper here, and she can't decide if it's some universal change that no one else has mentioned because they handle it so much better, or if she really should be on some kind of medication.
But that idea is literally nauseating, now, so she stuffs her hands into her pockets as she joins the line at the counter.]
Did you, um. [She is terrible at making small talk, but it seems preferable to silence - at least until she starts.] Did you find the cafe okay?
[ When she agrees to getting drinks first, Derek nods toward the counter and moves with her toward the line.
Looking down at her when she asks if he found the place okay, Derek smirks a little. It's kind of endearing how...awkward she is. He's not used to that — most of the women he'd been surrounded by unwittingly and with whom he'd surrounded himself intentionally back home had been incredibly confident and comfortable in their own skin — but it's kind of cute. ]
Yeah, well, you sent the GPS so it just kind of led me here. That was convenient, so thanks for that.
[ Derek notes that the line is short and that's a good thing, because he'd really rather just sit and talk than be standing and trying to small talk to fill in the blank spaces. It's easier to just get into normal conversation when there isn't an inherent feeling of short-term nature. A line suggests slow, constant movement and then when one gets through it, they move on. What's the point in starting any meaningful conversation while standing in line? ]
What do you recommend?
[ He gestures with one hand weakly toward the menu. ]
[She is, quite frankly, relieved the pin worked: there isn't a lot of technology that Vanya knows well enough to use. Hell, she still has...had an old rotary phone in her apartment back home. So she smiles, inching up the line as it moves and more or less of the same mind as him - lines are only good for small talk, except she has no idea what kind of real conversation they'll have here, which makes her antsy.]
Oh - no, I've only been here once. But their coffee is good, and Jane seemed to like the tea...and they've got some good, like, cakes if you want--
[She cuts herself off as the cashier calls for the next in line, stepping up to play her order - coffee and cream and a piece of lemon poppy bread. Which is exactly what she had the last time she was here, because adventurous she is not.]
[ Derek nods a little, taking in what Vanya is offering up and his eyes move to the menu again when the cashier starts to take her order. He could eat. Derek can always eat with metabolism like his, actually. So when he gets up to the counter next, Derek orders a hibiscus tea and a sandwich. Then, he steps to the side to wait with Vanya so that the next person can put in their order. ]
I hope it's fine that I'm going to eat something. I'm hungry. I'm kind of always hungry, honestly. I metabolize food really fast...
[ Once they get their orders, Derek leads the way back to the still-empty table he'd been occupying before. ]
Thanks for coming out. Next time, I can come to you.
[Vanya nods a little while they wait, abruptly unable to remember if he mentioned being a werewolf in public on his post or if he said it after they'd filtered their conversation. She doesn't want to say anything with other people milling about, so once they have items in hand and make it to their table, she lowers her voice to ask.]
Is that because of, um, your power?
[This is much easier to talk about than the idea of having someone actually willing to visit her. Someone she didn't grow up with, that is: Diego and Allison are still the only ones to have come to her apartment.]
[She considers, for a moment, how different things might have been if she - maybe even if the others - had been werewolves instead of weirdos born to mothers who hadn't been pregnant when the day started. But that's probably a dumb thing to linger on: who can imagine an anxious werewolf?
She shrugs at the question, turning her mug between both hands and staring at it rather than him.]
I don't know. [Yes, she has thought about it a lot and come to absolutely zero useful conclusions.]
I mean...I guess music would be the easy thing but that's - that's also part of the problem. [Her mouth runs dry as she says it, and she takes the excuse to drink.]
[ Right, because sound is her thing. Derek pauses to consider that. His problem was keeping his bloodlust under control and he did that by connecting with his angry human side. Why can't she do something in that same vein? Using music as the focus to keep the sound manipulation at bay? ]
Can I ask you something? How does it work, exactly? Your power? What happens to you? What happens to the sound you're using?
[It comes out harder than she means it, and Vanya immediately looks apologetic, shaking her head.]
I just - it's - I've had this my whole life, and I only found out about it a few days before I was brought here. The only times I've used it, I destroyed a house, I hurt people, I--
[She can see Pogo, impaled on the wall of the den library she grew up in. Her hands are so tight around her coffee that her knuckles are white.]
I just - hear something, and then that's all I hear. It's the only thing. And it's like something else wants to take over.
[ He winces a little, not because she's hurt his feelings by being harsh, but because he's clearly poked a bear. One hand waves off the apologetic look and he keeps his eyes on her, wanting to let her know that she can keep talking, because he's definitely still listening.
Seeing the tenseness creeping into her, noting it in the way she's gripping the mug in front of her, Derek reaches a hand out to touch her arm. He doesn't linger, it's just enough to distract her with a tactile sensation before he moves his hand to his own mug.
His voice is low in the hopes of not being overheard. ]
I've killed people with mine. On purpose. We all fuck up, Vanya.
[ Then his voice goes back to its normal volume. ]
So...has that happened with music, yet, or just sounds? I'm sorry if I'm pushing buttons. I'm just trying to make sure I've got clear what you're experiencing so that I can see if I can help you channel it like I do.
[Her eyes shift from her mug to his hand when he touches her, and it serves as the distraction he means it to, pulling her away from memories that she is trying very hard to forget. They won't go quietly, though, and that touch reminds her of another coffee shop, another man. She really loved Leonard, before she knew what he was, what he wanted her to do, and it's hard not to think about the good moments, even now that she knows.]
I think my fuck up ended the world.
[She practically whispers it - with as much talk as she's heard of apocalypses here and on other worlds, that's nothing she wants overheard. Part of her hopes Derek doesn't hear it, either.]
It was - at a concert. My concert.
[She picks at the bread she bought, appetite gone entirely. But she needs something to do with her hands, so she crumbles it, slowly.]
[Yes. The obvious answer is yes, and Vanya doesn't know how to actually admit that out loud, so she waits to answer all his questions at once. None of it's clear, none of it makes sense, and she feels a spike of anger at her dad - for hiding it from her, for dying, for telling her nothing. He could have at least left her his fucking journal, rather than getting it stolen by some psycho who tried to get her to kill her family.
She lets go of her mug, afraid she'll tip it, and sits on her hands instead.]
It felt like - like I didn't have to worry anymore. Like consequences didn't matter.
[For the first time in her life, she didn't have to second guess, or triple guess. Things just were, and if she wanted to do something, she did it.
Vanya shakes her head slowly, then stops and shrugs, hunching down a little more to do it since she's trapped her hands.]
Once I felt that, it was all just - easy. I didn't have to concentrate. It was just a - a part of me.
[ Derek observes her quietly. It's hard not to with the way she's fidgeting. He can smell the anxiety coming off her in waves and he feels really bad about being the reason for it at the moment, but he can't help her if he doesn't know enough to try. This is a conversation he'd really rather be having somewhere private, but even Derek knows that he can't just ask a woman to come to his private residence or invite himself to hers when he towers over her, outweighs her by at least a hundred pounds, and is all but a stranger to her. This will have to do.
The more she talks, the more it sounds familiar. When he gives in to the wolf, all that matters is what's right in front of him and instincts take over where a human mind would normally be inhibited. ]
It's harder when you like how it feels. It's harder when it feels liberating to give in.
[ The statement is spoken as though it comes from experience because it does. ]
Have you ever lost control because you felt really happy?
[ If it's tied to her emotions, that means she can channel the good ones just as easily as she can channel the negative ones, once she gets the hang of it, so maybe practice should come from a positive place. Derek personally could think of a few things to pull from if he were in her shoes, but he doesn't know what her childhood was like. He doesn't know a whole lot about her at all, so he can't really guide that. All he can do is ask. ]
[This is more than she's admitted in her out loud voice to almost anyone: sometimes it's just easier to talk to a stranger. When he sounds like he knows exactly what she means, Vanya finally chances a glance up at him, monumentally unsure - of herself, and him. She wants, badly and often, for the kind of real connection that people who grew up with close family or best friends have. Never having experienced that, though, she doesn't even know how to go about explaining how her hopes elevate whenever someone shows any interest in what she says or thinks or does.
That was part of why she let Leonard in. She thought he saw her, and now she wonders if Derek sees her. It puts her on edge even while she hopes he does.]
I don't think so. [She has no idea that she did anything beyond normal at her audition for first chair: it isn't always destructive, but that's the only aspect she knows.]
But it's only been - I don't know, I guess a couple months now. Before that, I couldn't use it at all.
[ He gives her a small smile, one which falls short of sympathetic eyes; understanding eyes. He never lost control when he was happy. He still to this day can't say that happiness ever drove him over the edge of anything. But for her...maybe it can. ]
What if we try to trigger it? Somewhere away from other people where it's just me and you and we try to trigger it with something you love. Music? You can't really do a whole lot of damage to me that I can't heal from in a few hours, so you wouldn't have to worry about that if anything happened to go wrong.
[ Leaning forward a little, Derek lowers his voice, a little bit more animated with the prospect of stumbling onto an idea as he'd been saying it. ]
What if we intentionally trigger it over and over with something that makes you happy so that you can practice controlling it when you're feeling positive emotions? Maybe that would help? Practice makes perfect and all?
[She thinks immediately of Leonard's cabin, and without moving much still seems to shrink. He wants her to practice. Use her powers, figure out how to use them, so he can use her--
Her chin has dropped, gaze vaguely between her coffee and her lap, but slowly she lifts her eyes to look at him from under her eye lashes. It's suspicious, slow and untrusting. What does he get out of helping her? What does he want?
A part of her thinks, who cares, and she knows that when she was thirteen, she'd have thought he was cute. When she was four, she didn't care about the damage her powers could do. A broken monocle flashes before her eyes, and she wishes there was a way to just turn off her guilt.
He's trying to help. But she still starts shaking her head.]
I don't - I--
[She stops abruptly, pressing her lips together. She's so sick of not being able to say what she wants. Why does she have to be afraid? Other people can just speak their mind. When she tries again, she only gets halfway there.]
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[And the only place she knows for coffee near her is the little bodega around the corner. The fact that she knows a bit of De Chima thanks to Jane is basically the only reason she considers leaving Maurtia Falls.]
It might take a little though. I haven't registered yet
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[ If he's honest, Derek prefers tea, but he'll never admit to that out loud. ]
I haven't either. I'm probably going to at the swear-in, but I'm still kind of mulling it over.
I just filled out a request to be able to use the Porters to visit a friend that lives in Heropa. You could do that, right? Just say you have a friend in De Chima. It wasn't all that difficult or time-consuming for me. Maybe you'll get lucky and it'll be just as quick.
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[Should she put a smile? Is a smile overkill? Shit she shouldn't have sent that this is dumb this is stupid she should bail.]
I can do that. Meet you there in an hour?
[And, realizing she hasn't actually told him where, she spends a minute racking her brain for the name of the place before dropping him a pin.]
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Yeah. A friend named Derek.
[ He's in the process of texting her back to ask where, exactly, he's supposed to meet her when another message comes through that appears to be a GPS location. Well, Vanya is better at this than he is...he'll have to ask her how she did that, in case he might want to try it sometime in the future. ]
Yeah, sounds good. I'll see you then.
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[Now commences the hour long panic, where she decides not to go, rethinks, decides again. It would be a lot easier to just...blow it off and then avoid him, right? They don't live in the same city. She could spend the rest of her time here never setting foot in De Chima again. That would probably be fine. She couldn't go there and hope to run into Jane, but - maybe Jane would come to her?
She is over thinking this way, way too much.
Eventually, she makes her way to the porter, and then to the tea shop. She's dressed in her usual oversized clothes, a green flannel shirt over a gray tee shirt and baggy jeans. As chic as Allison has always been, Vanya is forever the opposite. At least she's so used to it that how she looks is only a mild source of self-consciousness.
The porter takes her some time to get through, but eventually she makes it to the cafe, peeking through the windows to see if he beat her there.]
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Derek is dressed in his usual jeans and Henley shirt that fits in all the right places. He's always found them to be more comfortable than the looser shirts of his youth, largely because the looser the material, the more he tends to feel it move against him and Derek doesn't actually like that very much.
He gets to his feet from the table inside when he sees her peeking through the window, a small smile on his face. If there's a hesitation or she doesn't see him right away, he'll make a waving motion to beckon her in, so that she'll catch the movement and join him. It doesn't occur to him that she might change her mind because he's never really dealt with a person who has the level of anxiety that Vanya does. She's already come to the shop, the idea that she would feel inclined, for any reason, to turn around and leave again doesn't even occur to Derek at all. ]
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Sorry I'm late.
[She says it reflexively, though she has no concept of how late she actually is. If she were twenty minutes early and he was twenty-five minutes early, she'd still apologize for keeping him waiting.]
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[ He smiles a little and gestures for her to have a seat. ]
Unless you want to go get our drinks first?
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But that idea is literally nauseating, now, so she stuffs her hands into her pockets as she joins the line at the counter.]
Did you, um. [She is terrible at making small talk, but it seems preferable to silence - at least until she starts.] Did you find the cafe okay?
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Looking down at her when she asks if he found the place okay, Derek smirks a little. It's kind of endearing how...awkward she is. He's not used to that — most of the women he'd been surrounded by unwittingly and with whom he'd surrounded himself intentionally back home had been incredibly confident and comfortable in their own skin — but it's kind of cute. ]
Yeah, well, you sent the GPS so it just kind of led me here. That was convenient, so thanks for that.
[ Derek notes that the line is short and that's a good thing, because he'd really rather just sit and talk than be standing and trying to small talk to fill in the blank spaces. It's easier to just get into normal conversation when there isn't an inherent feeling of short-term nature. A line suggests slow, constant movement and then when one gets through it, they move on. What's the point in starting any meaningful conversation while standing in line? ]
What do you recommend?
[ He gestures with one hand weakly toward the menu. ]
What's good?
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Oh - no, I've only been here once. But their coffee is good, and Jane seemed to like the tea...and they've got some good, like, cakes if you want--
[She cuts herself off as the cashier calls for the next in line, stepping up to play her order - coffee and cream and a piece of lemon poppy bread. Which is exactly what she had the last time she was here, because adventurous she is not.]
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I hope it's fine that I'm going to eat something. I'm hungry. I'm kind of always hungry, honestly. I metabolize food really fast...
[ Once they get their orders, Derek leads the way back to the still-empty table he'd been occupying before. ]
Thanks for coming out. Next time, I can come to you.
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Is that because of, um, your power?
[This is much easier to talk about than the idea of having someone actually willing to visit her. Someone she didn't grow up with, that is: Diego and Allison are still the only ones to have come to her apartment.]
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Yeah, something like that. I think it has to do with the healing thing, but I don't know for sure.
[ He pauses for a second before picking up their previous conversation from a week or so ago. ]
Have you put any more thought into the anchor thing? What yours might be if we were to talk about it in my terminology?
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She shrugs at the question, turning her mug between both hands and staring at it rather than him.]
I don't know. [Yes, she has thought about it a lot and come to absolutely zero useful conclusions.]
I mean...I guess music would be the easy thing but that's - that's also part of the problem. [Her mouth runs dry as she says it, and she takes the excuse to drink.]
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Can I ask you something? How does it work, exactly? Your power? What happens to you? What happens to the sound you're using?
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[It comes out harder than she means it, and Vanya immediately looks apologetic, shaking her head.]
I just - it's - I've had this my whole life, and I only found out about it a few days before I was brought here. The only times I've used it, I destroyed a house, I hurt people, I--
[She can see Pogo, impaled on the wall of the den library she grew up in. Her hands are so tight around her coffee that her knuckles are white.]
I just - hear something, and then that's all I hear. It's the only thing. And it's like something else wants to take over.
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Seeing the tenseness creeping into her, noting it in the way she's gripping the mug in front of her, Derek reaches a hand out to touch her arm. He doesn't linger, it's just enough to distract her with a tactile sensation before he moves his hand to his own mug.
His voice is low in the hopes of not being overheard. ]
I've killed people with mine. On purpose. We all fuck up, Vanya.
[ Then his voice goes back to its normal volume. ]
So...has that happened with music, yet, or just sounds? I'm sorry if I'm pushing buttons. I'm just trying to make sure I've got clear what you're experiencing so that I can see if I can help you channel it like I do.
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I think my fuck up ended the world.
[She practically whispers it - with as much talk as she's heard of apocalypses here and on other worlds, that's nothing she wants overheard. Part of her hopes Derek doesn't hear it, either.]
It was - at a concert. My concert.
[She picks at the bread she bought, appetite gone entirely. But she needs something to do with her hands, so she crumbles it, slowly.]
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Did it feel good? In the moment, I mean? It obviously doesn't in retrospect, I can see that all over your face and body language.
[ Hearing that it happened at her concert does sort of complicate things, he'll give her that. But that doesn't necessarily mean all is lost. ]
So was the sound you could hear your music? Their music? The audience clapping? Something else?
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[Yes. The obvious answer is yes, and Vanya doesn't know how to actually admit that out loud, so she waits to answer all his questions at once. None of it's clear, none of it makes sense, and she feels a spike of anger at her dad - for hiding it from her, for dying, for telling her nothing. He could have at least left her his fucking journal, rather than getting it stolen by some psycho who tried to get her to kill her family.
She lets go of her mug, afraid she'll tip it, and sits on her hands instead.]
It felt like - like I didn't have to worry anymore. Like consequences didn't matter.
[For the first time in her life, she didn't have to second guess, or triple guess. Things just were, and if she wanted to do something, she did it.
Vanya shakes her head slowly, then stops and shrugs, hunching down a little more to do it since she's trapped her hands.]
Once I felt that, it was all just - easy. I didn't have to concentrate. It was just a - a part of me.
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The more she talks, the more it sounds familiar. When he gives in to the wolf, all that matters is what's right in front of him and instincts take over where a human mind would normally be inhibited. ]
It's harder when you like how it feels. It's harder when it feels liberating to give in.
[ The statement is spoken as though it comes from experience because it does. ]
Have you ever lost control because you felt really happy?
[ If it's tied to her emotions, that means she can channel the good ones just as easily as she can channel the negative ones, once she gets the hang of it, so maybe practice should come from a positive place. Derek personally could think of a few things to pull from if he were in her shoes, but he doesn't know what her childhood was like. He doesn't know a whole lot about her at all, so he can't really guide that. All he can do is ask. ]
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That was part of why she let Leonard in. She thought he saw her, and now she wonders if Derek sees her. It puts her on edge even while she hopes he does.]
I don't think so. [She has no idea that she did anything beyond normal at her audition for first chair: it isn't always destructive, but that's the only aspect she knows.]
But it's only been - I don't know, I guess a couple months now. Before that, I couldn't use it at all.
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What if we try to trigger it? Somewhere away from other people where it's just me and you and we try to trigger it with something you love. Music? You can't really do a whole lot of damage to me that I can't heal from in a few hours, so you wouldn't have to worry about that if anything happened to go wrong.
[ Leaning forward a little, Derek lowers his voice, a little bit more animated with the prospect of stumbling onto an idea as he'd been saying it. ]
What if we intentionally trigger it over and over with something that makes you happy so that you can practice controlling it when you're feeling positive emotions? Maybe that would help? Practice makes perfect and all?
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Her chin has dropped, gaze vaguely between her coffee and her lap, but slowly she lifts her eyes to look at him from under her eye lashes. It's suspicious, slow and untrusting. What does he get out of helping her? What does he want?
A part of her thinks, who cares, and she knows that when she was thirteen, she'd have thought he was cute. When she was four, she didn't care about the damage her powers could do. A broken monocle flashes before her eyes, and she wishes there was a way to just turn off her guilt.
He's trying to help. But she still starts shaking her head.]
I don't - I--
[She stops abruptly, pressing her lips together. She's so sick of not being able to say what she wants. Why does she have to be afraid? Other people can just speak their mind. When she tries again, she only gets halfway there.]
I don't want you to be afraid of me.
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