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viktor hargreeves

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Dani has never been very good at saying no to things. That's been the case ever since she was young, really, not wanting to be burdensome or to take up too much space. Growing up, as her sister's problems got bigger, she — on some barely conscious level — made herself smaller, any problems she had paling in comparison, any needs she had less important. She's aware of that tendency now, and the ramifications it's had on her adult life, but in a distant, hazy way, something part of her is afraid to examine too closely for what she might find if she did. It would call too much into question.

It's easier just not to go there, just like it's easier not to argue when she gets looped into other people's plans. She likes most of the other students in her psych classes, and it's nice to be included — to have people who consider her a friend, even if tangentially so, someone who gets invited on group outings but doesn't really spend time with any of them one-on-one or have deep personal conversations. It suits her just as well. She doesn't like to talk about herself or her life.

Another thing she's not very good at, though, is being social. She can fake it well enough, but it usually amounts to her standing or sitting off to the side, only halfway taking everything in. Such is the case tonight. The others are chatting boisterously, and Dani, meanwhile, sits at the far end of the table they've commandeered, idly twirling the glass of the drink she's barely had any of. It's fine. It's not ideal, but it's fine. She just wishes she'd brought some of her homework to try to get done.

A sudden gust of cool air signals the door to the bar opening. She doesn't think much of it until a few minutes later, when she happens to glance over at the bar and sees Vanya standing there, suit-clad and violin in tow. Excusing herself from the table, though she doesn't think anyone hears her, Dani heads over, angling her way in when there's an opening, smile lopsided and a touch awkward.

"Vanya? Hey," she says, gesturing to the violin. "Did you have a performance?"

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For as long as she's had an audience, Vanya's night ends when the concert does. Lots of people go out to have a drink or let off some performance steam. Not Vanya. She wasn't invited. Even if she wanted to be, who would she talk to? Better to keep to herself. It's how she's always survived.

Tonight, though, people won't let her say no, and she wouldn't anyway. Ever since Elio and she happened upon a piano in the park and played their impromptu duet about a week ago, she hasn't had a chance to slow down. The video an onlooker recorded is over 100,000 views on MeTube. In less than a week, Elio and Vanya are booked to play for Todd Chad's Brothers and Sisters, a charity with a yearly large, televised event. They're getting calls about TV spots, requests for sponsored Suddengram posts. Elio is used to the renown by now. Vanya's life, until now, was marked by the absolute lack of it. To have people following her around, trying to get her attention. It's almost too much. Worse still: she finds herself liking it.

This time, the night has just begun.

Three people intercept her on the way to the bar. One man in a loud sweatshirt offers her a drink, which she politely declines. Finally, she sees Dani, and is more than happy to excuse herself, polite as ever.

"Dani! Hey," Vanya greets back, the little curve stuck to her lips blooming into a full-blown smile. It's so nice to see a familiar face, especially hers. Dani doesn't expect anything, she's just kind and warm. To Vanya, at least.

Did she have a performance? Of a fucking lifetime. But she isn't going to say that because she wouldn't even know how. "Yeah, Elio and I," she says, nodding back to where he is. As she looks back to do so, the TV behind her (no volume because it's a bar after 9 pm) shows a clip of their performance with some superlative banner that she is too embarrassed and flustered to look at. She hopes Dani doesn't see.

"Do you want something to drink?" Maybe Vanya can direct her away from the TV's, if she hasn't already noticed.

Dani isn't sure why she feels a little relieved, and she rather determinedly tries not to. It isn't as if she dislikes the people she went out with in the first place, after all. It's just that, as has so often been the case for her, she feels like she doesn't quite fit. And that's on her, really. Navigating social gatherings isn't easy with people who are more acquaintances than full-blown friends when she isn't particularly interested in drawing attention to herself. She tends to wind up fading into the background instead, and though she doesn't mind the fact of that, it doesn't make for a particularly fun night out, either.

While she can't claim to know Vanya especially well, she still feels a little more at ease, a little more herself, than she does around her classmates. It's a relief, too, not to be interrupting, a possibility that occurs to her a moment too late. Vanya's smile puts any of those worries at ease, though, and after leaning to the side for just a moment to catch Elio's eyes across the room and give him a quick little wave, she nods in response to the question.

"I could use another, yeah," she says. She didn't actually finish her first, but it sat so long that the ice mostly melted anyway, and she isn't in a hurry to get back to her table and explain that she's met up with a friend. "What are you having?"

Instead of looking where Dani's waving, Vanya takes a (very brief) second to look at her. She really is quite beautiful. Vanya's thought it before and she shrugs it off like she does any unbidden thing. Tonight, though, feeling alive and like she belongs in a way she hasn't much before, she finds herself wanting things. Attention, even. Vanya makes sure she's looking at the bar when Dani looks at her again. She's not trying to trick anyone so much as keep herself from daydreaming too much. Wishing for things has only ever caused her pain.

Though the night is young, Vanya's had a few drinks. People keep handing them to her -- little tokens in exchange for her time or attention. It's probably time to slow down.

They reach the bar by the time Dani's asked the question. The bartender all but drops what he's doing to serve them. Vanya says, fighting down the fluster, "uh, any bottle of beer is fine. And," she turns to Dani, "whatever you want."

She waits for Dani to order, trying not to dwell too long on how quickly the guy produces their drinks. Is this what it was always like for her siblings on Earth? An endless flow of instant results and gratification?

No wonder they were such assholes.

Given that she was the one who asked first, Dani doesn't know why she nearly freezes when it's turned back on her, mouth moving wordlessly for a moment before she settles on, "Oh, uh, I'll just have one of the same." It's not like she needs anything stronger. Mostly, she thinks it's a social thing — she'd feel much weirder being in a bar, chatting with friends, without a drink in her hands, as if the lack of one would be rendering her all the more obviously out of place. She doesn't know why that's a feeling that so persistently follows her around. If she looked through a textbook or two, she might be able to come up with one, but she doesn't like the idea of that, anyway. It's easier to keep her studies and herself as separate as possible.

Once their drinks have come and the bartender gone off to serve someone else, she relaxes a little, taking a sip from her drink and giving Vanya a soft smile. "If you're busy or anything, feel free to tell me to fuck off, really," she says, all good-natured, self-deprecating humor. The last thing she wants is to intrude on someone else's evening out, even if Vanya really does make for better company than the classmates who talked her into going out tonight. "I know I just sort of worked my way in here."

It would be a very bad idea, Vanya knows, to be caught smiling right now. A twist of her lips means she manages not to. Such a fondness in her heart for people that understand what it's like to feel assaulted by what most consider standard social situations. The world as she knew it felt so big and wide and yet, she could never find space in it -- or feel anything about it but dull, gaping emptiness about it.

Here, there's space for anyone, it seems. Tonight, even Vanya in particular. Right isn't quite the word for the feeling, but it's closer than it's been before.

"What? No!" Vanya says with a little smile, "I don't want you to fuck off. I'm glad you're here."

She reaches into her coat pocket to pay for the drinks, but her money is refused. First one's on him, the bartender says. "Your music slaps." Vanya murmurs something like thank you, even though it's not her music. With no mature way of dealing with this, she drops her gaze. A table opens up near the group that Vanya doesn't know Dani came in with. "We could -- do you want to sit?"

It's not as if Dani had expected, exactly, to be told to fuck off, but she still relaxes a little at Vanya's response. As ridiculous as it probably is, it helps that small, anxious voice in the back of her head to be expressly told that her presence is wanted. The reasons for that, or at least some of them, aren't anything she wants to think too much about right now. Despite the awkwardness she felt upon first coming out tonight, she's in a reasonably good mood, and she doesn't want to bring herself or anyone else down.

"Sure, yeah," she says at the suggestion of sitting down, sparing a quizzical glance at the bartender for a moment. She feels sort of stupid for it, but she hadn't known Vanya was so, well, known. The newly open table is right near her classmates, but Dani doesn't really care all that much. She's not sure they'll notice, and if they do, she'll be close enough by that she won't seem to have ditched them entirely, even though she kind of did. "That was nice of him, covering the drinks."

The mix of pride and shame in her stomach follows Vanya all the way to the table. Over by the bar is a cacophony of noise: people shouting for drinks or singing along with the jukebox or yelling about sports. Over at the other end of the bar, the din is reduced to a faint roar. Vanya is grateful. She doesn't really know what her powers will do when she's happy.

And she is, right now, happy. If she examines it for too long, she fears she will warp it into something to be terrified about.

"People are generous tonight," she agrees. She doesn't mean to be aloof, she just doesn't know how to feel. The last time she garnered public attention, the gain was ill-gotten at best. Extra-Ordinary is, as it turns out, a work of fiction. To be recognized for something good is... unprocessable. It would probably be best if she talked about it. To Dani, though? Maybe not. Vanya cares what she thinks, and that's dangerous, too.

"It's nice to see you outside of work," Vanya says instead, since that's true and uncomplicated. "You had that big test, right? How did it go?"

"It went okay, I think," Dani says, her smile a touch self-deprecating, but pleased, too. It feels kind of stupid to think so, but it's nice that Vanya remembered, something Dani has long since gotten out of the habit of expecting. Maybe it's that feeling, or maybe it's the fact that she's already been drinking tonight, albeit not very much, but while she might otherwise have left it at that, now, she finds it easier to keep going. "Most of my classes this year have been... review, sort of? I started the first year of my doctorate back home, but didn't quite finish. So it was the one thing they didn't have on record here, and it had been so long that it seemed better just to start from scratch anyway."

Shrugging, aware that she's probably given way too much information, she stops to sip her drink. She's rambling, which isn't something she generally does a lot, but school has been her primary focus for a while now. Besides, she really is devoted to what she's studying. She forgot that for a while back home, after everything fell apart. "How've you been?"

"I didn't realize you started your doctorate in the real world," Vanya observes, kind and dry. Dani's passion for her studies are clear. Vanya wonders if Dani, during her sparse quiet hours when she was younger, would secretly study psychology while the watchful--

Right. Not everyone grew up like that. If experts are to be believed, most people didn't. It's a good thing. Maybe she had a loving family and her hard work and passion are simply genetic.

"I'm doing well," Vanya responds: a collection of words she's never said in that order before. It's a special feeling, and Vanya is grateful to be in easy enough company that she feels safe enough to take a second to appreciate that. "We -- uh Elio and I -- were asked to play a benefit."

"I wasn't very far into it," Dani replies, nose wrinkling a little. Sometimes she wonders if she should just tell the real story, explain why she didn't even finish that year, but it doesn't seem worth it. No one needs to be burdened with that, and she doesn't need to risk falling apart around any of the few people here she's actually cultivated some kind of friendship with. Certainly she has no interest in doing so now, in public — especially not when she hears what Vanya has to say next, a smile spreading across Dani's face.

"A benefit? That's awesome," she says. "You know, I don't think I've actually heard you play yet." It's not like there would be much of a chance to do so when she's at work. She likes her job, and the quiet of it, but that combined with classes and homework don't leave a whole lot of time for her to be social outside of that.

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