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The gun went off with a loud BANG. And Vanya would like to say is echoed…
It didn’t.
Instead, it rang like a thousand little whistles, low pitched, grinding on her nerves, piercing like needles across her temples. Oatmeal, she remembers distantly.
And then there was nothing.
.
.
.
Vanya was not a stranger to the quiet. She had her fair share of silence; the 2 am ‘muffle your cries’ kind of silence so as not to wake up the neighbors on the opposite side of the thin walls. The 4 am numb silence, as she stared off into the distance. The 10 pm kind of silence on a Friday night as her neighbors partied. The silence that followed the call letting her know that she did not make the first chair again. So, no she was not a stranger to silence.
But what Vanya woke up to now was eerie. Absolute and disorienting. She caught sight of Five, pacing the small length of her bedroom. The distinct lack of the soft creaks she expected her floorboards to make as Five moved about, made her greatly uncomfortable. She knew which floorboard was the weakest, knew it had to groan as Five stepped over, expected the sound but only silence followed.
Wetting her lips, she mumbles “Wha-what happened?” Her own voice sounded foreign. Her ears felt ‘full’ like she just woke up with a bad cold, making her voice sound more stuffy than usual.
Five stopped and turned his attention towards her, immediately crouching down next to the bed. His mouth moved fervently as if he was running out of time. He hastily pushed her hair out of her eyes, allowing him better access to her face. And while his wild gesticulations would relay urgency, his eyes held a soft worried look to them.
His hand fell to her shoulder after a few seconds. His mouth now set in a grim line. ‘Van-ya!’ She saw his mouth move to form her name. The dizziness that lingered in the back of her head intensified. She fell back again into nothingness.
Vanya woke up to sharpness this time. The world was still felt underwater, her ears still rang, but she remembered. Painfully. Excruciatingly. Unforgivingly. She remembered. The raw blue energy that flowed through her veins, the red-hot anger of an unjust life, the white violin. She remembered. Pushing herself onto her elbows, she surveyed her empty room, her eyes immediately falling on the post-it note stuck on her mirror.
Out to the store, will return in 15 mins.
-V (signed 4.13 pm)
Drunk on the eerie quietness that enveloped her, Vanya stumbled on her feet, as she made her way to the living room and fell heavily on the couch.
There was blood on her hands! And even if it were largely metaphorical at this point, she could not bring it in her to care. The betrayal Pogo partook in for years far justified his cruel end. She knows deep within that he may not have deserved it, that had he come to her first, explained, apologized, stopped Father in some way, she would have forgiven him. But as such he didn’t. His loyalties lay elsewhere, and Vanya was learning that there was no one else to protect her but herself.
If Vanya thought herself to be sadistic (or masochistic) enough to imagine her being granted the opportunity to kill Reginald, she knows she would offer him a death far more kind than the one she granted Pogo. What Reginald did to her was predictable to his nature, what Pogo allowed to continue was unworthy of his character and therefore his existence. Vanya isn’t sorry for it.
The low ringing in her ears continued, causing a thumping pain by her temples. Cradling her head in her palms, she tried not to panic, knowing what most likeliness had happened. Her world felt askew, tilting extremely to the left as the room warped with the blue glow that preceded Five’s arrival.
“Hey” She distantly heard him say, dumping the several bags of grocery by her kitchen before dropping on his knees in front of her. “How are you feeling?”
“How bad is it?” She knew it was bad with how he emphasized his words. He must be yelling too if the strain on his cheeks was any indication.
Tracing his thumb over the back of her hands, he spoke, “It’s bad. 70% loss in one ear and complete loss in the other.”
Her breath hitched, forming an indescribable lump in the back of her throat. She was nearly, completely deaf.
“But we will through this Vanya. You don’t have to do it alone.” Alone. The irony was not lost on her. All her life she was alone, cast aside and forgotten.
There is anger simmering at her seams again. ‘You don’t have to do it alone’ She has been doing everything alone all her life. It was not out of love that they wanted to extend their support to her. Among the myriad subjects that the Umbrella Academy were groomed upon, loving your ordinary sibling was not one of them.
I am not ordinary anymore, she reminds herself. There was raw power flowing through her veins. Pure chaos. A power beyond their contemplation and further beyond their imagination.
“You stole it from me” Her voice broke, eyes tearing up as she glanced at the tattoo on his forearm.
The pained expression that crossed his features went unnoticed, as she focused on his lips, “We had to, we had to do something…”
Some say there are worse things than death. And Vanya agreed. Had experienced it; her book hadn’t done her any favors in repairing the already strained relation she had with her siblings. And now… “You should have killed me.”
Little could be said after that. Five had accepted that his words would hold little meaning to her at the moment, not that his sweet affirmations and comfort would hold any weight against the sins they committed towards her.
Vanya was a musician. That’s the only thing that she had going on for her since their shitty childhood. And he knew what they took from her the night of the concert, was nothing short of a death-sentence.
She stumbled towards her bay window, falling gracelessly on the wooden chair, and stared out. The alley way that her window overlooked, had the usual movement of pedestrians taking the short cut. It was nearing five in the evening, and the little lady with her green fur cardigan was walking her dog; Vanya always looked forward to catching sight the dog the most among the others she people watched. Looking at little Beagle now, Vanya would only watch and remember the noise it made as it barked. There was also the general lack of the ‘New York City noise’. No cars honking, no screaming drunkards, no police sirens. Well, not that she could hear them anyway.
She noticed his shadow falling over her before she could hear the vibrations of the floorboards as he approached. He placed a bottle of generic paracetamol next to her, with a note that said, ‘for your headache’. Beside the bottle, he placed a bowl of noodles, and another note, ‘It’s advised you do not take the medicine on an empty stomach.’ She continued to stare out the window.
By the time the sun had set, and Five had switched on the lights in her living room, Vanya’s eyes were lined with tears bought on by the persistence thumping in her temples. She reached for the now cold bowl of noodles, and the pills.
From her peripheral she could see Five linger in the kitchen, his back hunched against the cabinets, and his gaze steadily fixed on her. What good was his presence now? She was as good as deaf; she couldn’t possibly use her powers anymore.
She passed him to reach her bedroom, handing him the note he had attached to the pill bottle. ‘Leave’.
She shut the door with a hollow thud and clicked the lock in place. It was a bitter parallel how just over a week ago she had begged him to stay, offered him her home. He left then; she hopes he leaves now too.
Vanya rose early that following day, when the sunlight entering through her thin curtains were still soft in its gleam. She tiptoed to her bathroom, unsure if Five was still waiting for her on the other side of her bedroom door. Getting ready for her day, she mentally mapped the fastest route to Dr. Walter’s clinic.
Waiting for a moment’s breath more, she contemplated exiting through her window. But this was her house! She shouldn’t have to go about, tiptoeing like a thief…Five can screw himself. Despite her rampant thoughts, she opened the door with a soft pull.
Dr. Walter, to put it mildly, did not have a strictly legal business. But this wasn’t to say he or his clinic was shady. Dr. Walter in his unconventional ways recognized that some people, due to various reasons could not attain medical attention without drawing the attention of the authorities. More importantly he did not ask questions that one did not want to answer. As long as he received his fee every visit to his clinic was kept strictly confidential and safe. Vanya found out about the doctor from a neighbor of hers after a bought of alcohol poisoning. At that time, going to a registered facility meant that Father would find out about it, and she really did not want to give him another reason to put her down. It didn’t hurt that his rates were competitive.
So, she found herself sitting in the tiny waiting room of Dr. Walters clinic, leg slightly bouncing in suppressed anxiety.
When her name was called upon, she nearly missed it. Until she caught the other patients looking about at each other. Taking cue, she walked into the examination room. It wasn’t heard for Dr. Walter to guess she was experiencing hearing loss. He quite simply, pulled a large yellow notepad from one of desk drawers and wrote.
“When did it start?”
Passing her the notepad, he allowed her a moment to respond, “Yesterday”.
“Are you okay telling me the cause?”
Vanya hesitated here, unsure about how much truth she could say and how much she would have to fabricate, lest he admit her in an institute. “A gun went off by my ear.” She relented.
He stared at he for a while, trying to gauge just how much he could help her out, before scribbling down an address to a Dr. Simon, an ENT specialist. “Tell him, Walter sent you.”
Her fingers shook, coming to terms with just how bad this sounded. Of course, she had to visit a specialist; that shouldn’t have been surprising, and it wasn’t. But in the sterile white room of Dr. Walter’s clinic, it finally struck home that this, her hearing wasn’t something that could be fixed with an aspirin or an icepack. This was serious.
It rained as she walked home.
Walking into her apartment, soaked to the bone, Vanya nearly missed Five’s hunched figure on her couch. She smothered in her initial squeal of surprise upon noticing him. Instead, she moved to grab her celebratory bottle of wine and plopped down on the couch next to him. 12 pm was a good time to drink, wasn’t it? Not like she had to go to work or anything such, anytime soon.
“Where were you?” He furiously wrote.
“Went to the doctor’s” she managed to reply, all the while gulping down generous sips of the wine. He softened at that, some of the fight dissipating.
“We fixed Mom. She said your hearing-“
“Don’t” She hissed; her eyes angrily boring in his’. She didn’t need their help. She will go to Dr. Simon alone, and she figure this shit out alone.
He went quiet after that, shoulders slumping in defeat. “The others are worried about you.”
Well, that is new, she bitterly thought to herself.
“I am worried about you”
This time she chose to verbally respond, hoping that the sharp acid she felt be reflected in her tone. “You all didn’t seem worried in the least about me during my concert, did you?”
“Vanya that was different” he scribbled quickly. Heatedly.
“How? How was it different, Five?”
“You were going to cause an Apocalypse! A God damn apocalypse in a fit!” He screamed. “The apocalypse that I WAS STUCK IN FOR 45 YEARS!” Red instantly colored in cheeks and neck, veins prominently thumping against his temple. “YOU DID THAT TO ME!”
The fight instantly left her, instead pain filled every crevice of her body, physically and emotionally. He blamed her. He blamed her. HE BLAMED HER!
That’s really it, isn’t it? Letting her live was favor… A ‘For ol’ times sake’, nothing more. And here she foolishly thought, despite pressing proof that Five was obsessed with nothing more than stopping the apocalypse, that he would like to continue what they had back before he left. That he would once again be her sole confidant. Instead, the only reason he was here in her apartment, was to prevent her from causing a second apocalypse. “Don’t worry I can’t cause another apocalypse. So, you can leave now, without any worry.” Vanya choked. “Really Five, leave, please.”
Five hesitated, evidently guilty for his outburst. It was uncalled for, truly. But the damage had been done. He decided that respecting her wishes was the least he would do. “Lock the door behind you.”
Over the next several days, Vanya found little strength to do anything else but lay in her bed. She ate from what little groceries Five had bought for her previously, and largely stared into space. Her cell phone occasionally brightened up, as her siblings checked up on her. Those messages were ignored in favor of Youtube. Her feed was currently filled with various audio tests and documents about hearing-impaired musicians. She kept her phone close to her left ear, volume pushed to the max, in futile attempts to hear better. But even then, she could hardly understand the words said.
Giving up for the night, Vanya fell into restless slumber.
She gasped awake, a little after an hour, with a vague sense of unease dancing in the pits of her stomach, and faint shadows moving across her living room. A loud thud vibrated across her floorboard, reverberating up her spine, raising gooseflesh across her skin. It wasn’t Five…
Although years of living alone, and horror stories replayed by neighbors had prepared her this very scenario, she wouldn’t help the crippling fear running through her body. It was only through sheer self-perseverance that she managed to snag her phone from the bedside table and climb out of her bedroom through the fire escape.
Fear forgotten. Hearing impairment forgotten. The moment her feet hit the ground, all conscious thoughts were forgotten, except one. Five. So, with trembling fingers, she typed in a quick text ad prayed he would answer.
She slid her body against the adjacent wall and down on the dirty ground, as she waited. The familiar zap of blue didn’t take long to appear. He wildly looked around for her, before stumbling and falling on his knees before her.
“Vanya” He breathed and though Vanya could not hear his voice, there was enough evidence on his face to know just how reverent his tone might have been. He gripped her shoulders tightly, eyes boring with frantic urgency in hers “Are you okay?”
She shook her head. She wasn’t okay.
“Oh, Vanya”
He shouldn’t have hugged her. Not when she was scared and hurt and emotional. He shouldn’t make he feel safe like this, not when he can leave her again, not when he can attempt to kill her again. But he came for her too, didn’t he? He came for her and he was embracing her, making her feel safer than she did in a long time, running his hands through her hair, and kissing her temple. He was here for her.
“I am sorry.” She admitted once she had calmed down enough.
Five shook his head, pushing back a few tendrils of her hair back. “Later.” He mouths. He stands up then and offers her a hand. “Let’s go.”
The apartment in wrecked. Her TV is missing, her little figurines and knick-knacks are shattered in pieces across the floor. The floor lamp is missing as well. The intruders had even overturned her couch over and displaced her rug in attempts to reach a hidden stash. Her fridge was ransacked, and the chairs flipped and dropped.
Vanya did not hear any of that happening. It was a scary thought, to know that she cluelessly slept through an invasion. The fact that her disability was now a threat to her safety did not sit well with her. It made her stomach turn, and she fell next to couch. “I need you”
Five sat down next to her, pulling her more to his side. “I am not going, anywhere.”
Eventually, they began setting her furniture right, taking into account all that was stolen, and checking over what remained. Five brewed them tea. For the first time since his return the silence was comforting. There were unsaid words of course, words that needed to be said but right at the moment, silence took precedence.
When the light blue hue of morning came, exhaustion had overwhelmed them both. “You should get some sleep.” Five said, as he caught her stifling yet another yawn. “I’ll stay here. You are safe.”
Vanya nodded. She stood up, glancing at her bedroom door with uncertainty. Knowing well that she needed sleep but fearful of being alone, Vanya tugged Five’s arm. He needed the sleep as well. “Okay.”
Straightening the duvet, a little, Vanya moved towards the left side of the bed, offering Five the other side. She watched as Five took of his shoes and blazer before laying down next to her. Her curtains did little to block the light of the rising sun, but her adrenaline had long since worn off and her bones felt heavy in its absence. Almost subconsciously she reached out to intertwine their hands together. The little flutter her heart did, doesn’t have to mean anything, she tells herself. His hands feel different now that he is in his adult body. The slight dusting of silver hair by his temple emphasizing the wisdom and intelligence shining through his eyes.
By the time they wake up its late afternoon, and Five offers to get them lunch. “I’ll come with you” She informs tightly, already grabbing her jacket, before he can deny. She reaches for his hand again.
Five’s brows rise in surprise, but he makes no attempt to pull away. If anything, she imagines he gripped her tighter. They walk a short distance to the local pizzeria. The hustle within the small shop is loud enough the Vanya has some background noise, although she could hardly decipher the source of the sounds, or what the sounds were, it was pleasant enough to be hearing any noise at all. Her eyes widely moved from one person to the next, from the cashier to the door. She was hearing sounds! Dimly. But still. She hadn’t realized how lost she was in her little bubble, until Five gently tapped on her hands. He pushed the menu closer to her, in question with a note “What do you want to have?”
She points at a medium sized option and a coke before she lets her eyes wander again. Five went away to place their order, passing her another note upon his return, “We really need to go see a doctor. See what kind of hearing aids we can get you.”
She remembers then the little piece of paper, still in her jacket pocket, with Dr. Simon’s address on it. She pulls it out and shows it to Five. “Today? You don’t have to go today, but it would be better the sooner we get this done.”
“Today” She agrees.
Dr. Simon’s office was located in one of the finer neighborhoods of New York. The white and blue sign in front of his clinic itself was a testament to the excellence of his service. Vanya, mentally calculated the money left in her bank account, wondering if she could afford it.
Turns out Dr. Walter’s name also served as a discount coupon, and Vanya was immediately led into the examination room. An audio-test, and several scans later, Dr. Simon helped her learn what it was that had happened to her, conductive hearing loss, due to an amplified sound. And while nothing could be done about her right-ear, a Behind-the-Ear hearing aid could alleviate the situation. It would not be a 100% solution, but it would help her hear conversations.
Essentially, what that translated to was, that Vanya would have to say goodbye to her career in the orchestra. Of course, those were not Dr. Simon’s words, but Vanya knew how to read in between the lines.
The walk back home was silent if not for Vanya’s occasional hiccupping sobs.
Back in the comfort of her apartment, Vanya sat herself by the bay window, while Five moved about fixing them cups of tea. Unlike last time, where he was unsure about his place in her apartment, he situated himself next to Vanya. He hesitated only for a moment, before taking one of her hands in his.
She didn’t say much. Neither did he. If only just for a while, trying to absorb what was lost forever. Vanya shuddered; she couldn’t envision a future where she can’t hear music! A life where she cannot create music or play her violin again! Because “All I ever wanted was my concert” she brokenly mumbled as tears began to stream down her face again.
She pinned her gaze at Five, trying and failing at conveying all that she meant. And as shitty a time it was to come to divine revelation, she finally understood what she put Five through because she wanted the spotlight on her for a while… Her sole confidant, and she did that to him.
“I didn’t mean-“
He drops down to his knees before her, cupping her cheeks, “I know.”
“I am sorry.”
His eyes glisten with tears and forgiveness. “I am too, Vanya. I am so sorry”.
It wasn’t cathartic, that would be still a long time coming. But it was beginning to be okay.
There was a shift that had occurred after that night. It wasn’t monumental, and down the line, neither Vanya nor Five would remember when it all changed. But it did in small bits and pieces. Five’s meagre belongings from the mansion was shifted into her apartment. They were mainly books and childhood knick-knacks, he couldn’t himself to part from. Vanya cleared out half her closet for his newer clothes. He stocked her kitchen with more nutrient-dense food. And they shared the bed.
Her BTE hearing aids, took some getting used too. And more often than not, Five found Vanya yanking it off in a anger and frustration. She wouldn’t attempt conversing with him after, opting to sit by the bay window for the rest of the day. It worried him a lot. Of course, turning into recluse was expected according to the many books Five had read since living with Vanya. But being informed turned out to be vastly different than experiencing her withdrawal. He started learning ASL in between his worry.
“How did you survive being in that wasteland?” She asks him one evening. It was one of her bad days.
He doesn’t answer for a while; isn’t sure how he could lay himself bare when being guarded is all he knew. “I had to save you all. Had to save myself from that hellscape.”
“What do I have to do? There is literally no-one I can save by being alive, and nothing to look forward too.”
It causes his stomach to fall into a pit. Vanya reduced to think that her life meant nothing beyond her music. He knows for a long time, it didn’t. Music was the one thing that she had mastered as a child, that her siblings didn’t. She studied music theory, practiced until her fingers bled, and more or less had dedicated her life to the violin and the orchestra. Now to be unable to know if her violin was even tuned right or not, must be like loosing a limb. Heck! She did lose something akin.
But she was damn wrong to think that music is all she had to live for. He did not endue 45 years of solitude just to part so unceremoniously, so unlived. “You have to live for me.”
She scoffs at that, unbelieving. “You don’t need me, Five. You were stuck in the apocalypse because of me, you don’t have to be stuck with me here too.”
But she didn’t understand. Times had changed. And their feelings had too. But Five believed that whatever it was that they had between them at thirteen, are the same feelings he harbors for her now, albeit in a more evolved manner. What he felt for her now was more profound. More real. More more.
“I’ll take you back. Before we did this to you, before the concert. We will restart everything, Vanya. I will restart everything if that is what it takes to make you stay. To stay with me.”
Choking on a sob, she shakes her head in the negative. It’s not the same. It would giver he back what was lost, but it wouldn’t erase what was already lived.
Looking back at Five, at the tears twinkling in his eyes and the love that lived in there for her, she knew she couldn’t do that. She can’t erase the pain she had put him through, she won’t allow him to give her that peace either.
This, here, right now, is all that they have. “This is real.” This is where they will live. A little broken, jaded and with jagged edges. But this is them, in all their painful glory. This is where they will relearn each other all over again and love each other. “I’ll stay”
And she did. With him.