Work Text:
Vanya is in her room listening to Mary Lambert on Klaus’ recommendation when there’s a knock on the door and Allison steps in.
“Hey, can we talk?” says Allison, hovering in the doorway like she’s worried Vanya might say no (as if Vanya has that right anymore). Then, she frowns, brow furrowing, and says, “Is that Mary Lambert?”
Vanya freezes, one finger hovering over the pause button on the CD player. I cry when there is no end and I cry because there is an end and I cry because you love me so well, sings Mary Lambert. Vanya hits pause. “Um. Yes?” Then, realizing there were actually two questions asked of her, she adds, “Sorry. Yes, this is Mary Lambert. And uh. Yeah. We can talk.”
Allison smiles her blinding smile, all perfect white teeth and sparkling eyes and cheeks lifted just so for the flash of cameras, and then softens it to something a little less perfect and a little more private before sitting on the bed next to Vanya. She swings her feet up onto the bed to sit with her legs folded to the side and one knee propping her up. She’s not wearing shoes, Vanya notes. Her socks don’t match; one is pale yellow and one is soft pink, and the pink one has these are my Tuesday socks in white letters along the bottom. Today, Vanya knows, is Thursday, and there’s something oddly reassuring about the fact that perfect, supermodel Allison wears imperfect, mismatched, wrong-day socks.
“So,” says Allison. “Mary Lambert. Do you have a favorite song? I like Hang Out With You.”
There is still a scar on her neck from that night in the cabin, when Vanya had very nearly killed her. It’s healed completely over and Allison’s voice is back to normal, but the scar remains, a clean line across her throat. It moves as she speaks, like it’s taunting Vanya. “You listen to Mary Lambert?” asks Vanya before she can start breaking down and apologizing and begging for forgiveness again, and very, very carefully avoids looking at the scar.
“Yep,” says Allison, popping the “p”. “Not my top sapphic singer but definitely up there. I’ve never heard you listen to music before.”
“Oh,” says Vanya, and turns the word sapphic over in her mind a few times, waiting for whatever it is she’s missing here to click, because there is definitely something. “Um, I just started listening to her. Klaus’ recommendation.”
Allison nods. “Okay, then here’s my recommendation,” she says. “Janelle Monae. Specifically, see if you can find a DVD of Dirty Computer somewhere. Klaus has good taste in music but he’s more of a Troye Sivan, Sufjan Stevens, Orville Peck kind of person. Which is to say, not sapphic. Mary Lambert’s a good choice but you need a little more variety.”
“Um,” says Vanya.
“Actually, you’re probably more for indie stuff, right? Like, quieter, more emo stuff. Klaus probably recommended her already but you’ll probably like Girl In Red. Oh, and Dodie. Not all of her songs are explicitly sapphic but she’s bi so it all kind of has that energy and I think you’ll like it.”
Vanya...isn’t really sure what to do. Everything feels like it’s suddenly moving way too fast, which is something she’s discovered seems to happen with Allison. The two of them really are like night and day; Vanya is quiet, private, and thinks before speaking. She keeps to herself. She stamps down her emotions and releases them only in small increments and only when she is alone. Allison, on the contrary, is talkative and friendly, accustomed to the spotlight, and tends to let her emotions and words get the better of her before she has time to stop and think about them. Side effect of their childhoods, Vanya supposes, and god does it suck absolute ass that their father’s influence still lingers on them all, even now.
Allison is smiling at her expectantly so Vanya shoves all of that down with the practised ease of thirty years of repression. “Allison,” she says carefully, “are you...I mean, you know all these musicians. Um, lesbian musicians. Or, I guess...sapphic? Is that right?” She shakes her head, forcing herself to just say it, Vanya, stop choking yourself on the things you actually mean to say. “Are you…”
The ceiling fan is whirring with a faint hum and the room is filled with the sounds of two bodies breathing and somewhere else in the manor, Five and Diego are yelling at each other about who-knows-what, and Vanya is acutely and horribly aware of all of these sounds and exactly what she could do with them. Allison is staring at her, blinking long lashes over brown eyes, mouth slightly agape.
“I mean,” she says, taken aback, “I’ve never really hidden it, I thought everyone—holy shit, Vanya, did you think I was straight?”
Vanya shifts uncomfortably. A thread has come loose from her duvet and she worries it between her fingers. “I...yes? Allison, you married a man. Twice.”
“So?” says Allison, incredulous, and tucks her legs under her so she can sit up straighter and face Vanya head-on. “I’m bisexual? Vanya, I’ve dated girls. Like, several girls. Going all the way back to when we were teenagers . I’ve been in the news about it multiple times because every time I say it it’s like they forgot I’d said it before and suddenly every tabloid is talking about ‘superstar Allison Hargreeves comes out’ like it’s a new thing. You missed all that?”
“Um,” says Vanya. “I don’t really read tabloids.”
“Oh my god, Vanya,” says Allison, and then she throws her head back and laughs. Ombre curls spill over her shoulders, contrasting with the white blouse she’s wearing, and the bed shakes with her laughter. “Holy shit, you thought I was straight.”
Suddenly, Vanya is feeling indignant. “Well, it’s not like you ever talk to us,” she snaps, fully aware of how hypocritical that sounds coming from her and resolutely ignoring it. “How was I supposed to know?”
Allison shakes her head, eyes closed, still smiling. “No, you’re right,” she says. “Sorry, it’s just...surprising? I guess I never told you guys but for some reason I guess I just assumed you knew.”
Vanya doesn’t really want to get into what she does and doesn’t know about her sister, because the answer is that she knows jack-shit and she kind of hates it, so she changes the topic. “What did you want to talk to me about?”
Allison’s smile drops, and everything about her from the tone of her voice to the line of her shoulders suddenly gets far more somber. “Right,” she murmurs. “Right. Um. I guess I just wanted to check on you? We haven’t really had a chance to properly talk since…”
She doesn’t need to say it. They are both thinking about that night in the cabin.
“I just wanted you to know,” Allison continues, slowly and carefully, like she’s actually taking the time to think about her words before saying them for once, “that I don’t blame you. And I’m not angry. I mean, I am angry, but not with you. I’m angry at Leonard, and I’m angry at Dad, and I’m...I’m angry with myself, for not knowing better. For pushing you too hard. For not checking in on you sooner. I guess I just wanted to...to apologize.”
“Apologize?” asks Vanya numbly. Her soul feels like it’s floating somewhere outside of her body. Her hands don’t feel like they belong to her.
“Yes,” says Allison firmly. “Apologize. I’m sorry, Vanya. I’m so, so sorry for what I did to you when we were kids. For making you forget and for not caring enough to ask why and for not being there for you when we were growing up and for the way we all kept our distance and for leaving you alone and for overstepping after Dad died and for not listening and for not being a good sister and—”
And Vanya is hugging her, because Allison is crying, and with distant surprise Vanya realizes that she is crying too. “I’m sorry too,” sobs Vanya. “I’m sorry I kept pushing you away and I’m sorry I didn’t trust you and I’m sorry I hurt you and—”
Allison makes a sound somewhere between a sob and a hiccup and a gasp. “No,” she chokes out, “no, don’t apologize, I’m supposed to be apologizing—”
“Oh my god, just shut up,” says Vanya, and Allison’s mouth snaps closed. And then they just stay there, for a while, holding each other tight and sobbing into each other’s shoulders until both of them have damp shirts and dry throats and hollowed-out chests beating with the steady pulse of relief. They both needed this. They’ve both needed this for a long, long time.
Eventually, the tears stop and they both breathe again. “How about this,” says Allison. “I forgive you, and you forgive me, and we call that even.”
Vanya nods, face still buried in her sister’s shoulder. “Okay,” she hiccups.
And they breathe together for a while. Outside, the afternoon has started to turn to evening, and the sunset filters orange rays of light through Vanya’s window, and crickets start to chirp on the manor’s grounds, not quite drowned out by the muffled sounds of the city streets beyond. After a while, Allison releases her embrace and sits up, wiping at her face.
“So,” she says, smiling lopsidedly, the effect somewhat ruined by the redness of her eyes and the streaks of mascara down her cheeks. “You’re gay. Or bi?”
Vanya very nearly loses it right there because what is it with her siblings and just springing that on her out of nowhere? “Oh my god, Allison,” she says. Her voice is all crackly and slightly nasal from all the crying she just did. “Are you serious? After all that?”
“You thought I was straight, Vanya, I’m not getting over that any time soon.”
Siblings are a mistake, actually, Vanya decides, but she feels all warm inside despite herself. “Okay, fine,” she concedes. “I’m...I mean I guess I’m a...a lesbian? I think? I don’t know, it’s confusing.”
Allison nods sagely, and then ruins the effect by sniffling wetly and wiping at her nose with the inside of her shirt front. “It sure is. Did you only just figure it out? Was it Sissy?” She sniffs again and adds, “Also, do you have a tissue?”
Vanya’s cheeks are very warm suddenly, and she rushes to grab a tissue off of her nightstand, taking the excuse to turn her face away to hide what she is sure is a violent blush. “I. Yes? I guess it’s kinda silly that it took me so long to realize.”
“No!” exclaims Allison. “No, sorry, that’s not what I meant! Some people take a while, it’s fine. I just mean, I’m here if you want to talk about it? We never got to do the talk-about-relationships thing as teenagers so maybe we could do it now? I mean—ok, I know I got in trouble last time because I was too pushy about wanting to do the sister things but—” She takes a deep breath, visibly slowing herself down. “Sorry. I’m just saying I’m here if you need it. Talking about it might help if you’re confused. And...it doesn’t have to be me, either, if you want to talk to someone else. I won’t...I won’t be offended.”
The look on her face when she says that kind of indicates that yes, she will be hurt if Vanya doesn’t want to talk to her. Fortunately, Vanya finds that she does. “Yeah,” she says, and then repeats it more firmly. “Yeah. I’d like that. I already talked about it a bit with Klaus but...I think I’d like to talk to you, too.”
Allison beams and it’s like the sun has suddenly changed directions and is rising rather than setting. She throws her arms back around Vanya’s shoulders and squeezes her tight. Vanya inhales the scent of her—the vanilla of her lotion, the lavender of her laundry detergent, the coconut of her curl cream—and finds that while the combination is foreign it is also strangely familiar. Like with Klaus, Allison is both a stranger and a sibling, and also like with Klaus, Vanya finds herself realizing that she wants to spend the rest of her life side by side with this person who, despite their many differences, can understand her in ways no one else will. They grew up separate and together, but they all grew up in this house, alienated from the rest of the world, with strange and dangerous powers that they never asked to have and that had profound and damaging effects on their lives. Allison and Vanya are very, very different. They are polar opposites in almost every way. And, somehow, they are exactly the same.
Without warning, Allison gasps and drops the hug, sitting back with her eyes blown wide in horror. “Wait,” she says. “Holy shit, does Klaus think I’m straight too?”
Vanya blinks, starting to feel like she’s getting whiplash merely from being in Allison’s presence. She thinks back to her interactions with Klaus post-I-didn’t-know-you-were-gay. “Um,” she says, “he said something about the two of us—just the two of us, me and him—being the gay siblings club or something? So probably?”
Allison just about falls off the bed at that, tripping over her own feet as she clambers to stand. “Oh my god,” she says, horrified. “Okay, I’ll be right back and we can have our sister time then but first I gotta—holy fuck, okay, let me just—Klaus!”
And then she’s out the door, feet pounding down the hallway to find their sibling. Vanya stares at the space where she just was, at the door hanging ajar and the empty hallway beyond, shellshocked for a moment. That was...that was…
That was nice, actually. Vanya starts laughing. Not the hysterical, unhinged laughter she’d shared with Klaus in Sissy’s living room, but a quiet, fond chuckle at the sister she’s somehow only just realizing she has. Thirty years old and she realizes she’s gay. Thirty years old, and she’s only just figured out she has a family.
Well, better late than never. Now, if only she can get through a conversation with one of them without breaking down sobbing in the middle…
(Allison kicks down Klaus’ door without bothering to knock first. “You thought I was straight?” she exclaims. He blinks like a deer in headlights for a moment.
“You’re...not?”
“Klaus, I’ve known I was bisexual since high school!”
He gapes at her for a moment, mouth open, eyes wide. Then, “You could have said something sooner, Allison!”)
(Later, Vanya walks into the manor’s central hall and finds Allison in front of the fireplace, balanced precariously on a step stool. Vanya winces at the sight of the mantle, blinking afterimages of Pogo’s corpse from her vision—he’s alive now, she knows, they fixed it, they fixed her, but knowing that doesn’t stop the sickening waves of guilt she still feels whenever she sees him or the nightmares that wake her screaming in the night—and realizes that the morbid display of antlers is no longer on the wall. In its place, Allison appears to be trying to pin up the biggest pride flag Vanya has ever seen in her entire life.
“Uh,” says Vanya, not really sure what to do, and steps into Allison’s peripheral vision before speaking for fear of startling her sister into falling off of the ladder. “Hey, Allison? What, um. What’s going on here?”
Allison turns her head over her shoulder and grins. “Oh, hi, Vanya!” she calls. “Don’t worry about me, just brightening the decor!”
Well, Vanya supposes, Allison has always been one for spectacle. “What about our siblings who...aren’t queer?”
“They’ll deal with it,” smiles Allison. There is something dangerous in that smile. “They’re outnumbered anyway.”
Vanya does a quick headcount. “Outnumbered? Wouldn’t we be even?”
“Don’t forget Ben,” says Allison, leaning over to the other side of the mantle and starting to hammer another pin into place.
“Oh, right,” says Vanya, who’s honestly more concerned about the rather precarious position her sister is in at the moment. “Can’t forget about Ben.”
A shiver travels up her spine as the air around her gets suddenly colder. “Sorry, Ben,” she adds, and the air warms again. If air could change temperature in a manner that indicated self-satisfaction, this air did so.
“Besides,” says Allison, pausing her pounding at the wall to look at Vanya again, “I was sick of looking at those antlers, anyway.” She smiles a softer, sadder smile, and Vanya’s stomach pools with warmth. They haven’t talked much about that night, but Vanya knows the others have noticed the nightmares, and apparently Allison has noticed her haunted looks towards the mantle and has decided to do something about it. That’s nice, Vanya thinks. It’s nice having someone look out for you.
“Good riddance,” says Vanya. And then, because she’s apparently been spending way too much time around Klaus, she adds, “And gay rights.”
Allison cheers.)