Confession- it's always the quiet ones....

I creep into Vaughan's room, his door isn't properly closed in case he wants to get out so I don't feel as much like I'm intruding. When I look in he's back to being human again just as I dreamt. That might make things more awkward but right now I just want to be close to someone...him? I don't want to lose anyone else and he's one of the few people from before who's still here. I shiver and consider putting more clothes on..this gets dismissed instantly- he's never minded nudity before. I'm asleep almost as soon as my head touches his chest.


I wake up slowly. The feeling of warmth and safety, body heat.. whose? It doesn't seem like something I need to worry about yet so I just enjoy it.  I lie like this probably for a few minutes until it comes back to me. I'm in Vaughan's room, am I in the way? I open my eyes and stop leaning, pushing myself up onto an elbow then stretching the kinks out where muscles have cooled.  I don't want to look straight at him this early in the morning, too vulnerable, so I look around. I can feel him shift a little though and when he speaks it sounds...friendly? concerned?
"Are you alright?" he asks. I don't feel alright, there's a vague feeling that I'm intruding creeping through the warm fuzz of sleep. But if he'd objected he would have moved me. In answer I shrug and ruffle my hair sleepily, "Could be better. you?"
"I... I don't know. I had a bad experience last night. I think I had a Seeking, and if I did.. I think I failed." He sounds worried, upset? And it's stirring memories... I blink. My dream. My dream had him in it.
I interupt him. "Did it have your wolf and a depressing building?"
He goes on for a second before registering what I've said "It had you as...wait. How do you know about that?"
"Either coincidence or we were in the same dream thing. I saw my dragon last night while I was asleep too."
"There's no such thing as coincidence" Vaughan says, wincing a little as he shifts and puts stress on one of his injuries. He stops for a moment, and looks down at his hand. "I'm.. human shaped again!"

I blink and get moved further out of sleepy haze and into the real world. Memories saunter back into my head. "Ah, yeah you were when I came in. Ummm ... sorry if I stopped you getting up."  I look at him as I sit further up but for some reason I don't get up. Instead I tug my t-shirt down slightly so that more of me is covered. Without his body heat my t-shirt is slightly chilly. I don't know whether he wants me here or not but if he wanted me to go I hope he'd have told me.
"No, I don't think getting up would have been a good idea." As he speaks I can't remember for a second what I'd said, "I needed some time to think about a few things, and you seemed like you needed.. somebody to be close" His words are a little hesitant, like he's treading on ground he's never been as he carries on. "I'm sorry."

I fidget slightly, I don't know if that was a bad thing or not... "Yeah, I'm hoping it'll wear off at least a little though. Hope you don't mind too much...I do try not to make you guys too uncomfortable"  I trail off realising I'm babbling and this is one of the most uncomfortable conversations we've had. I shrug the feeling away as his apology finishes waving to my brain and sets up the emergency flares. I frown slightly. "Sorry about what?"
"I don't know.. all the words I need, sometimes, or the things that I need to do. Too many things lost or forgotten.." He stops for a moment, then looks across to me and I feel my cheeks burning. Unfamiliar ground, danger signs are flashing up in my brain as he continues.. "Lucy, you need to understand that for my whole life, or at least the parts that I can remember of it, I've been treated as a monster, or as a weapon.. but never a human being. Somewhere back there I forgot how to be one, and now that I need to be again.. I'm trying to remember how, but it doesn't come easily to me."

I'm lost, someone might as well have dumped me in France with a map of a Germany. But I can tell when someone wants to just talk and get it off his chest and he seems to want to offload to me so I smile slightly. I assume it's about his addiction. For me addiction is understandable even if it's for something...unconventional.  
"Well I'd damn well hope I treat you like a human, you're probably one of the people I trust most. Anyway you do better at the human stuff than you probably realise. I mean you obviously get on well with Ian. Got on with..oh crap" I grimace as I see my blunder. I'm the reason he's dead and I can't ever begin to atone for that. I feel the world recede as I try to dig upwards, "sorry, I'm feeling much too sober, gonna lie down again for a bit."
He makes room for me as he speaks but despite the dizziness I sit silently, waiting to find out how badly I've messed up.

He starts speaking.  "Actually, that's something that I needed to talk to you about. Do you know what Vivian said to me, when she..." he stops for a moment.  "She said 'He deserved better'. I think I understand what she meant by that now, at least in a way."
I don't even think I just apologise "I'm sorry,  if there is a next time maybe you guys should just..oh I don't know..." I give up, It's futile, I lie back down curling up on one side so I can't see him. My next words are quiet. "Anyway, you were saying before I put my foot in it?" I want this to be over; I'd go back to the cell and take a bullet if it meant everyone was safe again.

I'm so caught up in self-hatred that I jump slightly when he speaks again, quietly but with that hint of emotion.. getting more vehement as he goes on.
"Do you know what the first thing I did when you were taken was? I lashed out, attacked everything around me. I used people like tools, and threw strangers and friends into mortal danger without thinking. Vivian had to take over the assault, because the only thing I could think of doing was destroying everything that was between me and you, regardless of who they were. I think I would have burned this city to the ground to get you back, broken every teaching the Euthanatos have given me, betrayed every principle that I was raised to believe in.. and I don't even know the words for this, and I can hear him laughing in my head because *he* knows and he won't tell me..." Vaughan's voice trails off.  I'm silent for a minute before I can reply.

"Ok that wasn't what I was expecting.." I uncurl slightly but I don't know what crazy universe I fell into. I wonder briefly if this is another dream. I look up for clues and see him turn away.

"I'm sorry" he says, he sounds..I don't know. Almost automatically I place a hand on his shoulder and after I've gathered my thoughts slightly  I ask; "What are you sorry for? It was just a bit unexpected is all and..I'm not used to..oh i don't know." I'm not used to anyone seeing me as a person either, hunny, I'm used to people viewing me as a heavy drinking, late night partying, never-there-when-you-need-her cultist.

Vaughan smiles at me. Have I ever seen him smile? Even smiling he looks sad and my heart bleeds just a little for him. He sounds sad as he says 'You're not used to this? I'm a fragment of rational thought in the body of a broken man who has never felt emotions before, but you treated me like a real person, for the first time in my existence."
That shocks me, the first person? Seriously?

"It's taken me a year to understand that I want to be one, that I'm not... content? Just being a sword to be aimed and stabbed into the heart of people that somebody else has decided would be better off dead. I'm on ground I never even thought myself capable of treading."
The thought of a Vaughan sword is just too funny to dismiss and I smile properly.
"That sounds both awesome and confusing at the same time. I'm just a bit at a loss for what to say because for the first time for as long as I can think someone is talking to me as though the way I am is more than something that's just.. normal..?" It comes out like a question.
"None of us are normal, and I think sometimes we lose sight of that"
As I reply I nod in agreement "If we were all normal I'm not sure we'd all still be a group. I have no illusions that we're normal..I'm probably the most normal person in the group though which is, in itself, scary."
Vaughan smiles at this. "I don't think there's anything scary about being the person best connected to the ordinary world, especially when you look at the people you associate with."
Can't help it, I grin for the first time in an age "Yeah... Weird bunch." A giggle even forces its way out.

Vaughan's face turns serious for a moment and my grin freezes. "When you were.. in my dream, my seeking, whatever it was... how much did you see?"
Grin is gone and I can't suppress a shudder. "I saw you looking like you were coming apart at the seams, I saw you being stabbed and falling.." I shiver and turn my face away as the dream comes back to me "umm... I saw quite a lot of bad stuff, nothing I would be sad to forget about."
"You saw me being stabbed?" he says. "Here?" He raises a hand, unbuttons his shirt, and opens it to reveal a large scar over his heart. A number of new scars I haven't seen dot his body, including several bullet wounds - they look old and worn but I haven't seen them and that's confusing.
I can feel the blood draining slightly but I manage to stutter out "That..that was real?" I'm back in my ball and I mutter to myself. "Shit."
"Xavier did this to me" he explains. "He stabbed me through the heart, and threw me from a cliff. There was a time, years back, when all Euthanatos would be sent on a journey to the realms of the dead before they were considered to have finished their apprenticeship. There are a lot of ways to do that, but the Avatar Storm ended most of them."
It sounds so matter-of-fact, like it was normal. He pauses then continues. "I was nearly trapped there, but I found a way back to my body. I pulled myself out of the water to find the wound in my chest already closed and scarred, and this clutched in my hand." I look up slightly, just enough to see him reach for the coin hanging in the cage around his neck.
"I knew the euthanatos had harsh entrance exams but I didn't realise... would you rather I hadn't seen it?"

He looks a little surprised. "Is that why you think I asked? If anybody here deserves to know my past, it's you."
I shrug "it felt like spying.  I wasn't sure if you were hoping I hadn't seen much...I dunno."
"Lucy, I asked you before to come into my mind, to help anchor me while I tried to repair myself. I knew when I asked that everything I am, everything I've done and everything that's been done to me would be opened to you. I was prepared months ago for you to see everything, and I haven't done anything since that I'd keep from you."
"Ok. You still want my help?"
"I don't think I could do it without you"
"Then I'll do what you need me to do, as long as I can" I find a smile from somewhere.
"Thank you." He falls silent so I shake myself out of my thoughts and change the subject.

"So..you hungry?"
He nods and I'm glad I can at least do something. I get up slightly regretfully and look myself up and down "Ok, I'll go start something then. Maybe get more dressed so I don't get lectured by Ray again."
Vaughan sits up and starts buttoning his shirt. As he does I feel a weird pang; at the same time regretful and relieved. I start slightly when he speaks. "I should probably find trousers that don't have a hole in the back, now that I don't have a tail"
"That mean a trip to a charity shop soon so you have spare clothes?"
"Probably" he says. "There's something about this line of work that isn't so healthy for my suits."

I nod. "I need to get new clothes. I don't really feel like going back to ask for my trousers and stuff." I'm going to miss most of my stuff. Luckily I didn't take my phone or anything valuable to the umbra. My laser pen may still be there, possibly a hipflask. I left most stuff in my car except the things I need as foci.
"They do that" he says. "It's part of the process. They take everything from you. When I woke up, when I'd been captured, I thought for a minute.. I thought I was back in the asylum. I thought I might have never left. That's why I.. went away, and why he had to bring us back."

I nod before I can start to dwell on that day, my experience wasn't so bad really so I start cheerfully enough. "I'm glad I wasn't really awake for too long before I got myself knocked out again. Saved me alot of moping there. When I realised I was trying to decide if people coming or not coming was worse.." I trail off, cheerfulness running out.
"It's probably best not to dwell on that sort of thing. You give them a way in, and they can use that against you."
I nod strongly and look down. "Anyway. Food. Can't be bothered to change, Ray probably wont be there. I dont really see why it bothers him anyway ." I really don't understand the taboo with nudity. You're either embarrassed for yourself or for them.  If it embarrasses you then... well you gotta think why.
"It's not something I ever understood" he agrees.

I shrug and turn to the door as he starts speaking. "Lucy..Thank you. From both of us. Thank you for everything."

I pause when I hear my name and look back. "You're welcome. Both of you."  Saying it seems silly but at the same time important that he knows.