Work Text:
Okay, so maybe she shouldn’t have stopped taking her pills.
She’d noticed that after her father upped her dosage, it started making her feel sick, and it was starting to become almost impossible to really feel anything anymore. Not that she felt much before-- the pills were meant to dull her enough for the anxiety that plagued her to fade to a manageable level, but she knew something must have been wrong when Ben sought her out during free time and she felt nothing, even though it usually left her with a warm, kind of glow-y feeling in her chest when someone went out of their way to include her like that.
So she stopped taking the second pill. It was pretty easy to hide-- her father had finally decided she was old enough to remember to take the pills on her own, instead of Mom giving them to her with breakfast and dinner every day, and so instead of the two at a time she was supposed to take, she just took one. And she felt better after that. Not much, but closer to what she was used to, at least.
After a few weeks of that, she stopped taking her evening pill. Not on purpose, or anything. She just forgot one evening and when she woke up in the morning, she felt… lighter. Her violin playing that day, even after taking her morning pill, was better than it had ever been, and she felt more connected to the music she played. So when it came time that evening to take her pill again she… “forgot.”
People were starting to notice the difference now. She blurted out a sarcastic comment when Diego was complaining about the reading Mom had assigned, one that earned her startled looks and surprised laughs from Klaus, Allison, and Ben-- she barely remembered what she said, but she knew it felt right. She shot Luther a grin when he passed her the salt at dinner, and he looked pleasantly confused at the change-- she hadn’t ever smiled so genuinely before. She earned a scared look from her father when she lost control and challenged his decision to have Ben and Klaus train privately that day-- she hadn’t meant to, but the terrified looks on her brothers’ faces pushed her.
Father kept asking if she’d remembered to take her pills, and she kept insisting she had-- it wasn’t a lie, not technically, and she didn’t want him to take control of her pills back because he thought she couldn’t be trusted to take them on her own. Not now, not when she was feeling better than she had in her life.
After a few weeks of that, she woke up one morning and decided to just… not take them at all.
Her violin playing that day had gathered all of her siblings to come and watch, just by sheer force of talent. Ben, Klaus, and Diego actually burst into applause when she finally stopped, which was definitely a first.
She rode that high until dinner.
Weird things kept happening around her that day, though. Her glass shattered at lunch, and she could only stare at it, wide-eyed, as Mom bustled around busily, cleaning up the shards and tutting over the cuts on Vanya’s arm. Her father looked scared again, but she gave him a bland, confused look, and he shook his head, looking back at his plate in silence. The light bulb in her lamp exploded and actually caused a small fire while she was reading, sending Klaus running into the room to smother the flames and stare, uncomprehendingly at her. She sent back her most terrified face and he softened, making a joke about things randomly breaking in her presence today, and she laughed dully, scared to admit that she wasn’t sure how much of a joke that actually was.
By the time she sat down at dinner, she was ready to jump out of her skin, convinced the whole room was about to blow up around her.
As it turned it, she wasn’t all that wrong.
Herr Carlson’s lecture at that meal was even more mind-numbingly irritating than usual, and the clock was ticking louder than normal, and the scrape of forks and knives against plates was grating against her already pent-up nerves, and she must have looked tense because Ben placed a hand on her arm to ask her silently if she was okay. Except she wasn’t, because the gentle touch was to much for her over-sensitive skin, and she jumped up and away from the table, nails digging into her palms in an effort to keep from exploding.
Everything was far too loud, she thought. She brought her fists up to cover her ears.
Then her father barked for her to sit back down and she was screaming “SHUT UP!” at the top of her lungs.
The record player blew off of its perch, slamming and breaking against the wall. The clock shattered, stopping the infernal ticking in its tracks. Everyone was suddenly silent and staring at her, bewildered and scared, including her father, whose gaze was terrified as he wiped at blood from the cut his shattered monocle gauged into his cheek.
Ben tried to come close again, and she roared out indignantly, sending him flying back towards Luther, who caught him easily before he could hit the ground.
Her first thought was “Holy shit, I have powers.”
Her second thought was “Holy shit, I almost hurt Ben.”
Before anyone could make another move for her, she tore out of the room and out of the house.
She had powers. Her. Normal, ordinary Vanya had powers, and they were dangerous powers. Powers she couldn’t control.
All she could think was that she needed to make sure she didn’t hurt anyone else.
She stood alone on the deserted boardwalk. She couldn’t remember how she got there.
The water was looking choppy and unforgivingly cold. The wind bit into her face, and she pulled her uniform blazer closer around her to try and protect herself some from the chill. It started raining at some point, she wasn’t sure when, but staring down at her hands, she was convinced some of the water running off of them was red.
She blinked.
She was sitting on the topmost metal bar that bordered the boardwalk, feet dangling off over the water below. She wanted desperately to push herself into the icy depths, to drown and never be able to hurt anyone ever again. She kept seeing Ben, flying away from her, and was filled with a desperate need to take herself out of the equation.
If only she could pry her hands off of the bar.
“Vanya!”
She whipped her head around at the sound of her name. Ben and Klaus were huddled under an umbrella, looking beseechingly at her.
“Please come back inside, Vanya,” Klaus was begging.
“I can’t,” her voice was broken, which was odd, considering she hadn’t been aware she’d been crying. “I’m dangerous.”
“We’re all dangerous!” Ben insisted. “I can barely control the monster in my chest most days-- no one’s wanted me gone yet.”
“I almost killed you!”
“But you didn’t! I know you’re scared, Vanya, but please, come back inside. We can help you! You can control this, I know it!”
“Please, Vanya!” It was Klaus again, and he looked sadder than she’d ever seen him. “Don’t let yourself become another ghost I have to drown out.”
That gave her pause, just enough for her brothers to get closer and for Ben to reach out and grab hold of her arm. He pulled insistently. She couldn’t help but follow.
The second her feet were back on solid ground, she was sandwiched between Ben and Klaus, both of them hugging her and pressing kisses to her hair and face, and all three of them were crying but the rain was finally stopping and she knew she was going to be sick from this tomorrow but she still couldn’t bring herself to want to leave their embrace, even if only to dry off.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” she gasped out, and Klaus shook his head.
“Then you won’t. We’ll all be okay.”
“Even me?”
“Especially you,” Ben laughed, and it was such a nice sound, she couldn’t help but join him.
“Looks like I’m finally special,” she grinned.
“Oh, Vanya. You were always special,” Klaus insisted.
Ben nodded his agreement. “You never needed powers for that.”
And in that moment, feeling supported and protected and more loved than she’d ever felt before, she thought that maybe, going off her pills wasn’t so bad after all.