[the message comes abruptly. wanda isn't thinking clearly, she can't — but her thoughts connect immediately to someone familiar, someone whose emotions she had recently connected with.
this pain, it's swallowing her whole, about her sons, and she just can't—]
[ his mind has always been consumed with a sense of pain, with the overwhelming weight of hurt that never leaves. but it's always been his own. what he feels now is — different. like an invasion of something else, familiar but just as suffocating. ]
[ultimately, she had not realized her thoughts would bounce off into anyone else's mind, nor that it would all thrum back at her. blinking, she thinks she's imagining her name in her field of vision.
wanda also doesn't need to be able to read minds in order to know who the reply comes from.]
Frank.
[—so much noise— she can't parse her own thoughts—]
[ he's still not used to it, the way thoughts and words can intrude like this. she's mentioned it before, everyone's minds being connected in a way, but it feels almost too intrusive.
but it's those words in his sights — i can't breathe — that set the discomfort aside with a shift in priority as concern surfaces.
what she tells him in turn, though, isn't what he expects. ]
[she has to find it in herself to be able to explain better. there are so many connections that frank is unaware of—of the mystical and magical type—and it's not his fault he doesn't know. but wanda is working on the supposition that everyone does already.
as much as she needs to clear her mind, his words being here, answering her, they— help. give her a sense of where she stands.]
[ that doesn't make things any clearer for him, but he doubts there'd be much of an explanation that would be capable of that. with the way so many things work in this world, he knows there's little chance of him ever fully grasping it and, most days, he'd hardly care to.
but she told him her son was gone. so how could he be here?
if he came back, would that mean—? would it be possible ... ?
no, he won't go down that road of thinking. not now. maybe not ever, if he can help it. he'd lose his mind if he did.
right now, wanda's the one who needs looking after. ]
You said you couldn't breathe.
[ it's not his intent to repeat that back. more a passing thought that resurfaces his concern. ]
[imagine how wanda feels—deprived of what she wanted the most, of being so harshly pulled back into the sanctum of reality where she, personally, would not be able to have her kids. to have a young man show up, her son from another universe, and to call her mom?
it's so goddamn unfair.]
No.
[she is not okay.
over two weeks she had spent, reflecting on these thousands of life times that were not hers to have, splintered between who she is and who she couldn't be; of the scarlet witch—the darkhold's corruption—tainting every life that ever mattered to her; those she had scared, those she had hurt, those she had killed.
she was doing better now, and it's as if none of that mattered.
[ of course she isn't alright. he knows she wouldn't be. what if lisa was suddenly there right in front of him? what if frank jr was? he'd crumble, become a thousand vulnerable pieces, shaken and scared and relieved and angry at once. he wouldn't know how to feel, because when someone's dead, they're dead. when a parent loses a child, there's no coming back from that.
if it were him, he'd probably hide himself away to suffocate alone in the cataclysmic collision of those emotions. but she'd reached out somehow.
whether on purpose or not, her words had found him. ]
How do I get to you?
[ he still doesn't know much about how the horizon works, how he'd be able to navigate it. but if she needed someone right now, he'd figure something out. ]
[the question stops her from being through into a tumultuous spiral of her own undoing. he owes her nothing, as far as she is concerned, no matter that he may think otherwise, but there it is—
an offer amidst the storm.]
It's all red.
[her horizon, she means, if he comes looking.
should he step foot in it, the only real sense of life being here would be, in fact, the weak call of crows from the distance. the sky is a haze of red, the sun subsumed by it. there used to be a lake here before, as well as snowy mountains, lush green and wildflowers growing in myriads. now, it is pretty much a wasteland, with freezing air from a raging storm in the distance feeding into it. nothing grows here anymore, and wanda has not had it in her to return, to find herself with the reminders of a life destroyed.
wanda is not trying to stay here—no. in fact, she follows the path she knows will take her away from her own space, somewhere quieter, with more color, with less nightmares tied into it; to run into frank, perhaps, should he find his way back into the horizon.
[ it's not exactly something that could be typed into a gps, but maybe in a place like this, it's meant to be enough. maybe it's less about relying on what he knows and more about moving with instinct.
for someone like him, it's a bit of a frustration, not anything that's wanda's fault, but for the sole fact that he's the kind of person who likes to confide in guarantees, in skill, in facts, in information, in reality. everything about this place defies the part of him that pursues logic. for a man who's very much charged by the power of his emotions, he still needs something steady he could touch and see to move about through it.
with a sigh, he tries to close to his eyes, to think about both what murdock had told him about these places and what wanda's explained — but mostly he tries to focus on her, to think about how she'd reached him that first time, where something about his sadness had somehow pulled her in. maybe it might just work in the reverse now.
red, she says. his first thoughts on the color are blood and anger, even love, but there's a common factor through all of that — pain. that's what he latches onto trying to find. her pain.
when he eventually opens his eyes again, he mutters a quiet fuck to himself, to the wasteland that surrounds him, everything claiming some representation of death that seems more fueled for a nightmare than any sort of reality he'd expect to find himself in.
he has wars in his head, blood and bullets and rot and death, but even that does look like this.
i've never really known peace. and he can see the truth in that as he moves slowly, boots stepping over a dry branch, twig cracking loudly beneath his weight as he traces carefully. he doesn't know where he goes, but he can still feel the pull like something invisible guides him.
and then he sees her, his walk taking him slowly to her, with no words coming from him. he simply goes to her, quiet but there. ]
[it's good that frank continues walking towards her, because she finds her own steps faltering when she sees him. first—thinking it's someone unknown, wanting to look into the festering wound of her shame; and second—sometimes it's hard to tell reality from a dream (nightmares that they've all turned to as of late).
but as he approaches, wanda recognizes him.
a carrousel alight with blurring memories, a shared pain, and a connection drawn from a moment of quiet desperation not too many minutes ago. she bites down on her bottom lip, to keep herself from trembling and breaking so quickly, reassured by his approach.
no hellos, no thanks for coming at all—wanda all but lets herself crumble against him, shoulders shaking. the weight of things in her waking world a thorn too sharp to withstand.
he's quiet, but he's here, unlike the sobs that surface from all her pain.]
[ maybe he shouldn't be here, for a multitude of reasons (including the mystical crimson of the place which very visibly suggests there's plenty here that should be questionable), but mostly because he knows there's certain things he should keep himself out of.
he shouldn't get involved, especially in someone else's grief, but she'd quieted down some of the ache of his inner demons, even if only for a little while, and the beat of her pain resonates back towards him like a responding echo of his own that it's impossible to completely ignore. it might just be instinct too, the want to protect, even when he knows he can't, even he knows he's failed so much at it in the past — but maybe that's why.
when he sees her, sees the undeniable pain of a mother, he doesn't stop to think of the rest, feet moving him to her until she's suddenly against him and he stills himself entirely.
little else about him moves then, simply being something sturdy and firm for her to lean on, but eventually, he brings a hand up to the height of her back, resting it there with gentle ease and the silence of his support, surprising as it is to himself to offer it. ]
[when she was younger, wanda learned to still her tears. the sadness of losing her parents quickly turned into resentment and anger. still, she was a kid, even as time kept moving on by and she kept getting older. she cried very little, for—unlike the other orphans she shared a room with—she had pietro. and, the beauty of it, was that whenever her anger was so incredibly strong because it could barely contain the years and years of her blistering sadness, pietro would always pull her close—without a word—arms around her so she could hide away into him.
every day he grew taller. every day he grew bigger. wanda had felt so small next to him, and there was nowhere safer than in his arms.
it has been ten years since she last saw her brother; heard his annoying voice—made mountains out of the smallest arguments with him—held his hand in hers.
pietro never had to say anything when he put his arms around her.
her hands at her sides, wanda just waits for the wave of this incapacitating nothingness to ebb away before taking a deep breath. she doesn't want to have to think about it, but she also cannot run away from it forever.]
It never stops. [evidence of her surfacing from the depths, mumbled bitterly.] Just when I think — [she swallows,] nothing worse could happen, the universe couldn't possibly think of something more to drop on my lap—
[this happens. her son, from another universe, summoned into the small commune she had started to call home.]
Edited (i will edit 405044 times) 2022-08-13 04:50 (UTC)
[ it never stops. frank knows that curse, the ever drowning wave that carries on and on without a chance to breathe, suffocating in the grief, in the pain, in the ever pulsing ache that doesn't go away. eventually, he stopped trying to fight it, to simply let it fuel him, because getting rid of it was never an option.
but this isn't his pain now, it's wanda's, and he could feel it in the shake of her voice, in how it vibrates through her, commands her. he sees it in the surrounding world around him.
his own is a carnival, like a photograph sliced out of a memory, but hers — it's a visualization of what's likely to be her daily nightmare. devoid of life, crimson with that pulsating pain. ]
It won't stop. [ he responds quietly, nearly against her hair. it's not an answer that's wanted, he knows. but frank has never been one to try to pretty up the truth with sugar. he can only ever say what's real. ] Shit like that, it's always gonna slice through us. It's gonna find that hole where it hurts most and it's gonna rip at the edges to make it bigger.
[ the truth. but even in truth, there's something of hope in there, even if it's not often something he offers to himself. ]
But it doesn't have to be all there is. You can face it, grab it with your bare hands, and you can take command of it. The hurt won't stop but you can use it to push back and steer it on your own terms.
he doesn't know that there is absolutely nothing else there for her, and when she had tried to face her pain, do something with it, she delved too deep into the darkness. it promised her everything, promised her that she could push back, steer, be the one in command—she could have had it all.
and where did that leave her? with this desolate wasteland of turmoil and the remnants of corruption that still corrals at her heart, relentless, unwanting in letting her forget—
that she is a monster.
it's too late for her; neither push or pull was the answer for her. wanda maximoff doesn't get to have options.
slowly, wanda pulls her hands up to reach and hold onto the fabric of his shirt, to keep herself steady. it's a feeble, weak grip, her shoulders shaking—her voice quiet and trembling.]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bestie
this pain, it's swallowing her whole, about her sons, and she just can't—]
no subject
— Wanda?
no subject
wanda also doesn't need to be able to read minds in order to know who the reply comes from.]
[—so much noise— she can't parse her own thoughts—]
no subject
but it's those words in his sights — i can't breathe — that set the discomfort aside with a shift in priority as concern surfaces.
what she tells him in turn, though, isn't what he expects. ]
How's that possible?
no subject
[she has to find it in herself to be able to explain better. there are so many connections that frank is unaware of—of the mystical and magical type—and it's not his fault he doesn't know. but wanda is working on the supposition that everyone does already.
as much as she needs to clear her mind, his words being here, answering her, they— help. give her a sense of where she stands.]
no subject
but she told him her son was gone. so how could he be here?
if he came back, would that mean—? would it be possible ... ?
no, he won't go down that road of thinking. not now. maybe not ever, if he can help it. he'd lose his mind if he did.
right now, wanda's the one who needs looking after. ]
You said you couldn't breathe.
[ it's not his intent to repeat that back. more a passing thought that resurfaces his concern. ]
You alright?
no subject
it's so goddamn unfair.]
[she is not okay.
over two weeks she had spent, reflecting on these thousands of life times that were not hers to have, splintered between who she is and who she couldn't be; of the scarlet witch—the darkhold's corruption—tainting every life that ever mattered to her; those she had scared, those she had hurt, those she had killed.
she was doing better now, and it's as if none of that mattered.
rushed, panicked, comes the scribble—]
no subject
if it were him, he'd probably hide himself away to suffocate alone in the cataclysmic collision of those emotions. but she'd reached out somehow.
whether on purpose or not, her words had found him. ]
How do I get to you?
[ he still doesn't know much about how the horizon works, how he'd be able to navigate it. but if she needed someone right now, he'd figure something out. ]
no subject
an offer amidst the storm.]
[her horizon, she means, if he comes looking.
should he step foot in it, the only real sense of life being here would be, in fact, the weak call of crows from the distance. the sky is a haze of red, the sun subsumed by it. there used to be a lake here before, as well as snowy mountains, lush green and wildflowers growing in myriads. now, it is pretty much a wasteland, with freezing air from a raging storm in the distance feeding into it. nothing grows here anymore, and wanda has not had it in her to return, to find herself with the reminders of a life destroyed.
wanda is not trying to stay here—no. in fact, she follows the path she knows will take her away from her own space, somewhere quieter, with more color, with less nightmares tied into it; to run into frank, perhaps, should he find his way back into the horizon.
no subject
for someone like him, it's a bit of a frustration, not anything that's wanda's fault, but for the sole fact that he's the kind of person who likes to confide in guarantees, in skill, in facts, in information, in reality. everything about this place defies the part of him that pursues logic. for a man who's very much charged by the power of his emotions, he still needs something steady he could touch and see to move about through it.
with a sigh, he tries to close to his eyes, to think about both what murdock had told him about these places and what wanda's explained — but mostly he tries to focus on her, to think about how she'd reached him that first time, where something about his sadness had somehow pulled her in. maybe it might just work in the reverse now.
red, she says. his first thoughts on the color are blood and anger, even love, but there's a common factor through all of that — pain. that's what he latches onto trying to find. her pain.
when he eventually opens his eyes again, he mutters a quiet fuck to himself, to the wasteland that surrounds him, everything claiming some representation of death that seems more fueled for a nightmare than any sort of reality he'd expect to find himself in.
he has wars in his head, blood and bullets and rot and death, but even that does look like this.
i've never really known peace. and he can see the truth in that as he moves slowly, boots stepping over a dry branch, twig cracking loudly beneath his weight as he traces carefully. he doesn't know where he goes, but he can still feel the pull like something invisible guides him.
and then he sees her, his walk taking him slowly to her, with no words coming from him. he simply goes to her, quiet but there. ]
no subject
but as he approaches, wanda recognizes him.
a carrousel alight with blurring memories, a shared pain, and a connection drawn from a moment of quiet desperation not too many minutes ago. she bites down on her bottom lip, to keep herself from trembling and breaking so quickly, reassured by his approach.
no hellos, no thanks for coming at all—wanda all but lets herself crumble against him, shoulders shaking. the weight of things in her waking world a thorn too sharp to withstand.
he's quiet, but he's here, unlike the sobs that surface from all her pain.]
no subject
he shouldn't get involved, especially in someone else's grief, but she'd quieted down some of the ache of his inner demons, even if only for a little while, and the beat of her pain resonates back towards him like a responding echo of his own that it's impossible to completely ignore. it might just be instinct too, the want to protect, even when he knows he can't, even he knows he's failed so much at it in the past — but maybe that's why.
when he sees her, sees the undeniable pain of a mother, he doesn't stop to think of the rest, feet moving him to her until she's suddenly against him and he stills himself entirely.
little else about him moves then, simply being something sturdy and firm for her to lean on, but eventually, he brings a hand up to the height of her back, resting it there with gentle ease and the silence of his support, surprising as it is to himself to offer it. ]
no subject
every day he grew taller. every day he grew bigger. wanda had felt so small next to him, and there was nowhere safer than in his arms.
it has been ten years since she last saw her brother; heard his annoying voice—made mountains out of the smallest arguments with him—held his hand in hers.
pietro never had to say anything when he put his arms around her.
her hands at her sides, wanda just waits for the wave of this incapacitating nothingness to ebb away before taking a deep breath. she doesn't want to have to think about it, but she also cannot run away from it forever.]
It never stops. [evidence of her surfacing from the depths, mumbled bitterly.] Just when I think — [she swallows,] nothing worse could happen, the universe couldn't possibly think of something more to drop on my lap—
[this happens. her son, from another universe, summoned into the small commune she had started to call home.]
no subject
but this isn't his pain now, it's wanda's, and he could feel it in the shake of her voice, in how it vibrates through her, commands her. he sees it in the surrounding world around him.
his own is a carnival, like a photograph sliced out of a memory, but hers — it's a visualization of what's likely to be her daily nightmare. devoid of life, crimson with that pulsating pain. ]
It won't stop. [ he responds quietly, nearly against her hair. it's not an answer that's wanted, he knows. but frank has never been one to try to pretty up the truth with sugar. he can only ever say what's real. ] Shit like that, it's always gonna slice through us. It's gonna find that hole where it hurts most and it's gonna rip at the edges to make it bigger.
[ the truth. but even in truth, there's something of hope in there, even if it's not often something he offers to himself. ]
But it doesn't have to be all there is. You can face it, grab it with your bare hands, and you can take command of it. The hurt won't stop but you can use it to push back and steer it on your own terms.
no subject
he doesn't know that there is absolutely nothing else there for her, and when she had tried to face her pain, do something with it, she delved too deep into the darkness. it promised her everything, promised her that she could push back, steer, be the one in command—she could have had it all.
and where did that leave her? with this desolate wasteland of turmoil and the remnants of corruption that still corrals at her heart, relentless, unwanting in letting her forget—
that she is a monster.
it's too late for her; neither push or pull was the answer for her. wanda maximoff doesn't get to have options.
slowly, wanda pulls her hands up to reach and hold onto the fabric of his shirt, to keep herself steady. it's a feeble, weak grip, her shoulders shaking—her voice quiet and trembling.]
I'm just... so tired...