Violet Sparks | Daisy Johnson (thescarecrow) wrote in dunhavenic, @ 2018-08-23 10:40:00 |
|
|||
Entry tags: | !log, r * chel, r * laura, r: quincy sparks, r: violet sparks |
WHO: Quincy and Violet
WHEN: The early hours of this morning.
WHERE: Their place.
SUMMARY: Quincy and Violet dream in a cadenced tragedy, then deal with it together.
WARNINGS: N/A
Quincy recognized the feeling immediately. It’d been a few years since he’d had a panic attack, but he knew racing heartbeat, the increased body temperature, the dizziness, the feeling that he was being suffocated. During his early twenties, he treated his anxiety with alcohol -- or, he should say, he tried to numb his feelings with it. Alcohol gave him a temporary reprieve. It gave him confidence when he felt he had none. Coming down was harder, though, and it was even worse after the accident. Therapy helped. Getting sober helped. But no matter how many years of preparation he had under his belt now, none of the coping mechanisms he’d learned could help him through seeing his own end. He threw the blankets off his legs and sat up, cross-legged, leaning slightly forward. Even though Lincoln was calm in the memory, as much at peace as he could possibly get in the circumstances, there was still fear laced through his thoughts and his actions. He’d chosen this end, but he hadn’t wanted it. He’d wanted so much more. It was the only choice. He was already dying. He knew that. He could feel it, deep in his bones. The wound he already had, there was nothing anyone could have done for that. They couldn’t buy him enough time. What he could do was save Daisy. Save everyone. He was the only one who could override the controls, and this way, she could live. It wasn’t what he’d wanted, but it felt -- “I don’t know. Saving the girl I love and the world at the same time? Feels pretty right to me.” The higher the jet got, the more unstable it felt, and the more broken their connection was. Her voice cracked across the line. “I can’t take it if you -- you can’t do this. I can’t just say goodbye. I have too much I wanna say.” He could hear in her voice that she was crying, and one stray tear slipped down his cheek. He was trying to hold it together as long as he could, but between the pain and sharp burn of what could have been, he couldn’t hold it back any longer. They could’ve had so much more, should have had so much more, but there was no more time. He wiped at his face, trying to scrub the errant tears away. Quincy hadn’t given much thought at all to what he would see as Lincoln, but this? An end to everything, all his hopes and dreams? It wouldn’t have registered. Daisy was awash in grief. She thrashed in the inside of Violet’s head, making space for the moment in which the very small world in which she had a happy ending went hurtling out into space. Because it was pre-ordained. Or something. The radio receiver, crackling in her hands, was her only lifeline. The only way she could now reach this boy who she … Oh, God. She loved him. She’d never said it. And when she opened her mouth, when she took a deep breath, the line went dead. Lincoln Campbell died a hero, saving Daisy Johnson and saving the world from a mad man who would have wiped out humanity by perverting the Inhuman way of life, the culture, the … but he, this good and quiet man, was gone and so was the miniscule amount of hope she’d ever possessed that she might belong somewhere. Violet’s eyes flew open and she turned, hands intending to gather up a sleeping Quincy in her arms. What she found was bedsheets instead. Her heart raced harder until she looked to her left and saw him there too. Something was seriously wrong. Getting control of her breath, she touched him tentatively. “Hey you.” He hadn’t noticed Violet was awake until he felt her hand on him, so it startled him out of his daze. He nearly jumped out of his skin, but once he realized it was her, it felt like her hand was a lifeline he didn’t know he’d always needed. “Hey,” he whispered, his voice hoarse. “I, uh.” Quincy typically told her everything, but this was something too enormous for him to put into words. “Bad dream,” he said instead, hoping she’d understand what he meant without having to go into detail yet. She reached up, raking her fingertips through the soft blonde tendrils curling at his nape. “Me too,” she admitted quietly, and then laid her cheek on his shoulder. “Daisy’s pretty, uh. Unmoored. I probably won’t be sleeping.” “I don’t think I will be either,” Quincy admitted, leaning into her slightly. All he could see in his head was those final moments, right before the explosion, where Lincoln sat next to the greatest evil he’d ever faced and looked down on the planet he was saving. The dark of the room felt too close to the darkness of space, so Quincy pulled away long enough to reach for his bedside table and flip on the light. He still felt a bit trapped, but the pressure was lighter now, and he reached out for Violet’s hand. “Wanna talk about it?” She met his hand and vined her fingers through it, before pulling their twined palms into her lap. It was real work to remind herself that they were warm and whole, here in the home they made. After a breath, she met his gaze. “I’m glad we didn’t wait to say how we feel. I’m glad that there’s nothing left unsaid,” was her preamble. “Like, um.” Her gaze went back down, focusing on the freckles which dotted his protruding knuckles. She didn’t just want to say it. Not if he didn’t know. “We should promise each other that we won’t ever hold back.” Like I love you, he thought. Daisy and Lincoln had never said those words to each other, not until their time was up, and even then it had only been Lincoln. He didn’t remember feeling distressed about it -- he’d known how she felt, even if neither of them had said it -- until that moment in the jet, when time was slipping away and he knew he’d missed his chance. Quincy nodded. “I think that’s… that’s a good idea.” He was glad, too, that they’d been so open with each other so quickly. What would his life look like if he hadn’t? What might Lincoln’s life have been like if he had? “We won’t wait until the last possible moment to say how we feel about each other. Not like they did.” Her lips pursed into a thin line. “Is that … um. Is that the bad dream?” she asked him quickly. “Because it’s exactly what I just woke out of and if it’s what you did … babe. Q. God help me. I’m sorry.” “Yeah, it --” He found his throat still felt closed up and tight, and he wished he had a glass of water. He wasn’t hesitating because he was afraid to let her in. He hoped she knew that. It was just difficult to say, and saying it would make it real, and he didn’t want it to be real. “Saving the woman he loved and the world at the same time?” Quincy smiled weakly at her. “I think I’m supposed to… feel some sort of relief? Pride? He was so sure of himself there at the end, but I just -- I don’t know how he did it.” She sucked in a breath and gave him a vigorous nod, though the words from his lips were darts to her heart (and Daisy’s, too). “An extraordinary circumstance often calls for extraordinary measures of love,” she said quietly. “Lincoln was the one truly good man Daisy ever knew, I think. And I can definitely say the same of you.” Slowly, Quincy reached up to brush hair out of his wife’s face, his fingers trailing slowly down her face before he found her hand. “He loved her.” It was so clear, in his mind. “I’m sorry… I’m sorry she’s gotta deal with life alone.” He could only imagine the sorts of things Violet would remember, without Lincoln there. He shuddered at the thought. It was going to be one reminder after another. His wife deserved better. She squeezed his hand and shook her head. She didn’t want the goodbye Daisy never got. She had loved Lincoln … but that was Daisy’s miss. Her brow knit as she covered Quincy’s elbow with her own and pulled him closer within the circle of her arms. “I’m not alone though. You’re right here.” Grateful for her presence, Quincy leaned forward and buried his face against her neck, savoring her warmth and comfort. Violet was right. Neither of them were alone, he reminded himself. What had happened to Daisy and Lincoln didn’t have to repeat itself here. He wasn’t ready for that, not when they were just starting their lives together. “Was -- was anyone there with her?” “She --” Violet frowned over the back of his head, dropping a kiss onto his temple. “She wouldn’t let anyone. And just a minute.” Sitting back, she took his face in her hands and shook her head slowly. “You dream this and want to know how she is? Q, I’m calling baloney on that.” Of course she wouldn’t, he thought. Daisy was so damn independent -- just like Violet. And she was so closed-off to the world sometimes, so protective of herself. He could see her pushing everyone away and building her walls back up, keeping the world at bay. “He’d want to know,” Quincy insisted, turning his face to kiss her palm. “He’d want to know she was okay. Or that she was going to be. That she was safe. Because what else was he doing it for, you know?” Lincoln did it to save the world, but there was more to it than that. It was also about how he desperately wanted to give Daisy a chance to have a future, even if he wasn’t in it. “When I see it,” she said softly, “you’ll be the first to know. When I see her okay.” But Violet wasn’t sure if Daisy was ever going to be okay. Lincoln - and Quincy - were different; damaged, somehow stronger in the broken places, and capable of so much quiet fortitude, so much love. She knew that Daisy wanted to die, too. But she needed a way out. She also needed to consider Lincoln. “Hey, I’m not going to say anything else unless you want me to though. Because … like. I don’t know if that’d be weird for you? I know she doesn’t want to live beyond him. And I don’t want to live either of these beyond you.” Even though she didn’t think it was the last of Quincy’s memories, she was sure that it might only get worse from here. Because now they knew the endgame. “Is that okay?” Slowly, Quincy took in a deep breath. There was still so much left to unpack about how he felt and what he’d seen. He’d only touched the surface, and he was sure that one day it wouldn’t be easy to take. One day, he’d be overcome with agony that Lincoln had lost out on a future with the love of his life, and overcome with anger that they’d been forced into that situation. But at the moment, he was okay. It was okay. He nodded and leaned in to kiss her forehead. It would help to know what Daisy was doing, to know that she found a way to go on, to keep fighting. “All of this is weird for me,” he admitted, “but it’ll be reassuring to know it was worth it. I think… it’ll help you, too, to talk to me about it. Lincoln won’t be there, but I can be.” “You’re the one I want.” She kissed him gently, her hand lingering on his knee, and then nodded. “Okay. That works.” Then, she gave him a squeeze. “You hungry? I will make so much food.” Because there was no getting back to sleep tonight. And she’d have to be to the farm in a few hours for her shift, anyway. Quincy snorted lightly. “Babe, I am always hungry.” He pulled away from her and slipped off the bed, and then held his hand out. He didn’t feel a whole lot better, but being with her had been a salve ever since he’d met her. He hoped, with time, the knowledge of what had happened to them would be easier to face and easier to accept. For the moment, he wanted to try to forget. “Good. Because I have a need for bacon. And. For pancakes as high as sunflower stalks!” she promised, pushing up from the bed with one hand while she took his other hand. Once on both feet, she picked one of his button-downs and threw it round her shoulders to slide out the door and around him before he could start down the stairs. She knew they were doing their best to forget this loss. Or to save it for later processing, maybe. But Quincy deserved to feel loved. He deserved to feel the fullness of her affection. And at just that point, she could feed him and together, they could watch the sun rise. |