#* 𝄞 . softly‚ with hands as gentle as rain : ‟ arc : unapocalyptic . „

[violnc]

i also think that (in my main, non-apocalyptic, post-s1 verse) their birthday is the first time the hargreeves all get together again after the events of season one. they’ve all hung out separately or in smaller groups in between then, but given vanya’s whole deal she was too overwhelmed and frankly a bit afraid to be around all of them again for a while, and none of them wanted to risk overwhelming her while their relationships were all so shaky.

but on their birthday everyone piles into her apartment. klaus gets there first and they have the bright idea to try and bake a cake themselves; everyone else shows up to vanya and klaus with flour all over them, desperately fanning cushions around the oven so the smoke alarm doesn’t go off and set off vanya’s powers, and she... forgets to be as nervous as she would have been. they go out and buy a cake, instead, in the end. they all sing happy birthday to each other, and allison has her voice almost all the way back, which almost makes vanya cry with relief. she gets overwhelmed halfway through, as she’s prone to when around a lot of people, and ends up sitting on the roof for a bit, but it’s still nice. eventually one or two of the others comes and sits with her, quietly, and that’s nice, too. it’s the first birthday she can remember enjoying in a really long time.

[violnc]

@moonexile​.      this is a place i love, and hate myself for loving.

from vanya’s eyes,      the academy has always felt too vast;      inaccessible in some awful innate way,      like looking at a crowd through a soundproofed mirror-window with no doors in sight through which to join them.      it has always been far-away,      even as she stood in the heart of it and willed herself to hear the pumping of blood that must course through such a beast.      (      she never heard much of anything,      not here.      only the sounds which she made herself,      echoing painfully through the emptiness.      )

maybe the academy is something like the moon,      in that way.      in its distance;      the subjectiveness of beauty that might be in it;      its unshakable loneliness.      maybe it makes sense that luther loves it so much.

everything here feels too large for her to fit,      like a small child walking through a cartoonishly mammoth film set,      not a real place.      when she sits at the corner of the living room sofa,      she feels she might sink into it and be swallowed whole;      she adjusts to perch on the very edge of it instead.      she looks around herself as if she could see the place through luther’s point of view;      something worth keeping,      something with some buried happiness in it      —      something that wouldn’t be better burnt to ash.

she can’t quite make it stick in her mind,      that secondary viewpoint layered over her own.      maybe just listening is enough.

for all he’s come to her for some quiet form of comfort over the years,      she doesn’t think she’s very good at it;      especially now,      when the lot of them but especially the two of them in particular are just starting to learn a cautious trust that’s twenty-nine years in the making,      she doesn’t know the right words to reassure.      vanya doesn’t know if saying she doesn’t judge him for loving this dusty,      bloodstained mausoleum of a mansion could be the truth.      doesn’t want to lie,      either.

‘      what,      uh,      what do you love about it?      ’            her eyes flit from a near eye-contact to the space around him.      the walls are haunted by memories,      from her perspective;      ghosts of the children they’d been,      ghosts of ghosts of ghosts.      she wonders what he sees there.      there’s a dreadful honesty in her softness.            ‘      i’ve never been able to love this place.      i wish i could.      i want to understand.      ’

[violnc]

@moonexile​.            call.                   /      farewell wanderlust,   the amazing devil.

‘      ...      i promise you i’ll be better.      i promise you i’ll try.      ’            it’s the aftermath of the aftermath and she doesn’t know how to talk about the almost of it all.      how do you apologize for something you only nearly did?      (      there’s enough real wrongs to apologize for,      she supposes,      apocalypse notwithstanding.      allison’s bow-slit throat.      the academy in rubble.      the mess of the concert.      )      vanya's across the room from him,      doesn’t dare go closer:      the academy’s anechoic hell is reduced to ash,      and there is an unspoken truce hanging in the air,      but that doesn’t erase either of their mistakes.      she looks at her feet,      her crossed arms,      the ratty hem of the old sweater she’s drowning in.            ‘      though      ...��     like rubbing wine stains into rugs,      it’s my curse to try and make it right,      but by trying make it worse.      ’            there’s more than enough history to prove that.