Violet Harmon likes the darkness. (takeeverything) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2013-04-27 16:55:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, cassandra cain (blackbat), violet harmon |
Who: Violet and Cass.
What: Hanging out, girltalking.
When: Before Violet and Tate reconciled, right after he disappeared.
Where: Vi and Tate's apartment.
Rating: PG-13 for chatting about Vi's dreams.
Trigger Warnings: Talk of self-mutilation, mass murder.
Status: Complete!
Tate was gone. Violet had bawled her eyes out, she’d thrown a pillow, and she’d cut her wrists in a fit of rage. Most of it hadn’t helped. She’d wrapped her wrist up in gauze and put on a long cardigan. The process of taking care of herself helped her calm herself.
The majority of Cass’ friends were in potential danger and all she could think about was this Creed guy getting the jump on Logan, Jubilee and Laura and then coming for her. She knew that if anyone could stop this guy it was the three of them, but that didn’t stop her from worrying, so it seemed that Cass and Violet were perfect for each other at the moment. They were both missing people and while it was in different contexts, they were still people they cared about. “Have I already said how much this sucks?” Cass asked from where she was sitting on the couch. They had been watching crappy movies and were currently waiting for the food that they’d ordered.
Sniffling, Violet shook her head. “Yeah, a couple of times. I seconded the notion. We should kick their asses when they get back.” Tate and Logan. One of those would be harder than the other.
Cass couldn’t help but laugh at the mental image of her and Violet trying to kick Logan’s ass, “Logan would just look as if a fly were buzzing around him.” If she had the crazy abilities from her dream then maybe she’d be able to take Logan, but right now with only one good arm and merely gymnastics skills, it didn’t look likely, “We need to do something to take our minds off all of them.”
“TV’s not really working. We could play something on the Wii. It only takes one hand.” Violet smiled, pulling her cardigan down over her injured arm. “Logan... he’s the guy you liked, but now he’s with someone else. How’re you handling that?”
“Wii sounds good to me.” Cass stretched a little, no longer feeling any pain in her right shoulder or collar bone. It could only mean one thing and that was that she would be able to stop wearing the sling soon. “It’s actually not too bad, because there’s this guy I’m kind of maybe seeing.” She hadn’t told many people about Gavroche yet; mainly just Jubilee and Laura, but Violet was her friend and she wanted her to know.
Oh, gossip. That would be the perfect thing. Violet fired up Wii Golf and handed Cass the controller. “Really. That’s a good thing, but how do you kind of maybe see a guy?” Even in times of great upset, even when blood was slowly trickling down her wrist, Violet couldn’t keep from teasing.
Cass took the remote from Violet, not having noticed the blood on her friend’s wrist just yet, “Well, he was seeing someone and they had a pretty bad breakup so we’re taking things slow.” Exactly what had happened and with who wasn’t Cass’ to tell and neither were the problems Gavroche was having handling things from his past, “He’s also having some family things going on, so we’re just seeing each other when we can. We went to the movies last week and held hands.” It probably sounded a little lame, especially to someone who was having sex with her boyfriend anytime she wanted, but to Cass, just holding hands with Gavroche was fine with her, because she understood his limits right now.
“That’s smart, easing into things. You’ve both got things, you know?” Vi smiled, tucking her hair behind her ears. “Don’t jump into things like I do. Then you’ll get a boyfriend who just runs off, you know?”
Not like Tate did that. All the time. Nope.
Cass nodded, realizing that she’d actually mentioned Gavroche, a little bit, to Violet before, “He’s actually the one who I texted you about a few weeks ago.” It had only been the beginning of the month, but after everything that had happened, including the impromptu trip to Las Vegas with Jubilee and Laura, it had slipped Cass’ mind. “I told him that I liked him and it turned out that he liked me too, but was worried about saying it. So we were both worrying about the same thing.”
That made Vi smile. “That’s really romantic, actually.” She curled up closer to her friend, leaning against her, worrying the gauze against her wrist. “I’m glad you have someone like him. It makes life easier, I think.”
Cass smiled, “Yeah, I guess it kind of is.” She really liked Gavroche a lot and hoped that she could help him in any ways that he needed it. “I know it’ll probably be difficult too, but it feels good to know that there is someone out there who likes me more than just as a friend, you know?”
“Well, yeah, but that shouldn’t be the only reason. Does he make your heart flutter? Does he make ... I don’t know, everything feel safe? Like you’re the only one in the room?” Violet felt herself tearing up a little.
“Yeah. Yeah, he does. I just smile a lot more when I’m around him.” Cass was still smiling and she glanced down at the Wii remote in her good hand, the hand that had held Gavroche’s at the movies, “When I had feelings for Logan, part of me knew that it wouldn’t go anywhere, but with Gavroche...I have this feeling that there’s potential. It might take a little while, but I think this can be really good.” She lifted her head and smiled at Violet.
“That’s good.” Violet focused on the game for a few moments, choosing to focus on her friend and the video game. “Is he cute?” She couldn’t help but laugh at her own shallowness. “It matters.”
Talking about Gavroche caused Cass to completely lose track of the game and when it was her turn, she hit the ball into the water, “He is. He’s blond and it’s all long and shaggy.” When she was with him, she got the urge to run her fingers through his hair or muss it up, but his head was one place he’d asked her not to touch and she respected his boundaries. “He’s a tiny bit shorter than me, but that’s not a big deal. You can hardly tell.” At 5’8, Cass was tall for a gymnast and Gavroche was only an inch or so shorter, so it was barely noticeable.
“Yeah, that barely matters.” Violet happened to love the way Tate towered over her, but she was itty bitty and she knew it. “You’re a blond fan?” Violet grinned, liking how her own boyfriend was blond; that was her favorite as well.
“I’m not really too picky, but yeah, blonds are nice. Especially Gav.” She’d only seriously crushed on two guys, Logan and Gavroche and they were so completely different, but she liked that. She liked that Gavroche was more or less the complete opposite of Logan, because she felt equal to Gavroche when they were together and not like she was just some kid like she had with Logan.
Violet smiled and pulled her knees to her chest. “How’d you meet him, anyway?”
“Well, we talked on the Net when everyone was singing. He sang a song about himself.” Cass said, smirking a little, “And then one day I was at the mall, just wandering around, cause I was bored sitting around the condo and I was in the food court and I saw him and randomly decided to go say hi. I offered to buy him a smoothie and then he offered to braid my hair for me cause I’d left it down and it kept getting stuck under the strap of my sling.” Cass was still impressed by the fact that Gavroche knew how to do a braid.
“He knows how to do a braid?” Vi blinked. “Really?” She couldn’t help but think that was adorable. “Well, still, it’s good you’re taking things slow. If he just got cheated on and you’re getting over an older guy... want to make sure it’s for the right reasons.”
Cass nodded, “Yeah, apparently his sister taught him.” She had yet to meet Gavroche’s sister, but had seen her on Valarnet a few times. “Yeah and I’m fine with taking things slow. I’ve never had a real boyfriend before and I still don’t know exactly what I felt for Logan, so taking things slow with Gav is for the best.”
“He’s close with his sister? That’s a good sign.” It meant that he was okay with female closeness, that he was good with understanding women. “I hope things go well. I really do.” She bit her lip and took the controller so she could take her turn.
“Yeah, as far as I can tell, he seems to be really close to his sister.” There were many times, growing up, that Cass had wished she had a sibling, wondering if her father would have been a little easier on her as far as gymnastics went if there had been someone else to focus attention on. Knowing how lonely being an only child could be, Cass was glad that Gavroche had a sister he was close to, “I do too. If not for me then for him. He needs something stable and I hope I’m able to give him that.” She knew that he could trust her, now he just needed to realize that.
“Did he have a bad childhood or something?” Stability was a word that was being thrown around a bit.
Cass bit her bottom lip as she tried to think of what to tell Violet without actually telling her the few details of his childhood that Gavroche had told her. After all, if she did that then it would show that he couldn’t exactly trust her with things he didn’t want anyone else knowing, “He hasn’t told me much, but from what he has told me, it wasn’t the best childhood.”
Violet nodded. “You don’t have to go into it, but ... yeah, slow.” Violet smiled weakly, trying not to cry, to be happy on her friend’s behalf. “I’m sorry, just ... I - Tate dreamed that we broke up, and he left and I haven’t heard from him.”
Cass had known that Violet was upset about something and she knew that Tate wasn’t around, but she hadn’t expected that, “Awww, Vi, I’m sorry.” She reached over with her good arm and pulled Violet into the best one armed hug she could manage, “Why would he leave over a dream? I mean, there was nothing that would cause you to break up here, right?”
“He thinks he might ... he thinks he might do what he did in the dreams, or something just as bad, and - he thinks I’m going to leave him over it.” Violet was trying hard to keep from crying.
“Well someone needs to tell him that just because we dream something doesn’t mean it’s going to happen.” Cass wished there was more she could do for her friend, “I mean, I dreamt that my father made me kill a man when I was eight. That doesn’t mean that I’m suddenly going to go kill a man.”
“Tate dreams that he’s a mass shooter. Killed fourteen kids at his school after he lit his mom’s boyfriend on fire.” Violet closed her eyes. “I dream that I find out he’s a ghost - in my dreams he’s dead, the SWAT team got him - and I kill myself. I can’t handle it.” That last sentence did apply to both her waking hours and her sleeping.
“Oh god.” And Cass had thought she’d had it bad it being trained from the time she could walk in all aspects of combat and weaponry and then being made to kill someone, but Violet and Tate...well their dreams were just awful. There didn’t seem to be any happiness at all, “I’m so sorry. I can’t even imagine what it must be like to know all of that.” Cass might have killed someone in her dreams, but she’d run away after that and in the last dream, she’d helped save people.
She didn’t tell Cass about how she stayed in the house as a ghost, how she couldn’t leave and how Tate couldn’t either. Instead she just burrowed close into her friend and nuzzled.
Cass kept her arm wrapped around Violet as the other girl burrowed against her, “I’m sure he’ll come back, Vi. Stuff like that...sometimes you just need a little time to process it by yourself. I know I did when I dreamt about killing that man.” Of course for her it had taken a little while longer to fully process that particular dream and it had lead to her accident, but now it didn’t affect her quite as much as it had before.
“I know. But the thing is - he’s upset about the idea of me leaving. The idea of being a murderer didn’t bother him nearly as much.” Sometimes - only sometimes, and usually when it was very quiet and she was already paranoid - Tate scared her.
Well that made a little more sense, now didn’t it? “Maybe once he’s calmed down or whatever, you could suggest he goes to talk to someone? Has he ever done that?” Cass had already decided that if her dreams got bad then the best thing to do was to go talk to someone about them instead of dwelling on them.
“He’s got a therapist,” Violet sighed. She wiped her cheeks and shook her head. “I’ll deal, no matter what happens - if he stays or if he leaves, I’ll deal.” She sighed to herself, taking her turn on the video game.
Cass wished there was more she could do and say to help Violet, but for now she just grabbed the other girl’s free hand and gave it a squeeze, “Just don’t think anything drastic okay? You can always call me and I’m sure my roomies wouldn’t mind if you came to stay, if you needed to.” That was, of course, when they were back from playing bodyguards.
“It’d just be a sleepover. I’m just going to play it day by day. He’s making his own choices, and that’s fine.” She didn’t have to like everything he did.
Cass nodded, “Okay. Just keep it in mind.” She took her turn next, making a face at the TV screen as the ball flew past the hole, “I suck at this.” Cass hadn’t really played video games much, so she didn’t really have the hang of it.
“Eh, it’s honestly pretty hard to be good at. I think boys are just because the controller’s basically a dick.” Vi couldn’t help but giggle at the obvious metaphor.
“Oh my god.” Cass snorted, dropping the controller, which only wound up hanging from her wrist, to cover her nose. That was slightly embarrassing. “Whoever thought this was a good design?” She laughed as she uncovered her mouth and got a hold of the remote again, “What other games do you have?”
“Um, games you can play one handed? Or can you use both now?” Violet couldn’t help but snicker, laughing and tickling her friend. The snort was cute.
Cass glanced over at her right arm, in the sling then moved her fingers and hand, “If I don’t have to move my arm a lot then I think I should be fine using my hand.” After all, it had been her shoulder and collarbone that she’d injured. Not her hand. She was glad that they had something to distract themselves from the not so great things that were going on outside. At least for a little while.