waking the witch

wanda maximoff. 24. ARCHIVED.

[wakingwanda-blog]

unquantifiablx:

This was the closest to bliss he will ever get, skin to skin and muscle to muscle with her. Breathing her in like she’s life itself, and in some ways he now knew she was. But when his eyes focus on hers, he feels a stillness like no other. Not like the one in the forest when he’d come to her aid after years of separation, not like the one where she rushed to his side when he’d breached the barrier. Not the stillness of relief and comfort they so often shared. No, this stillness was like the death he’d never known.

He stares at her for what feels like too long a moment, the weight of realization too heavy for his bones to bear. He can’t move, frozen in his despair. She didn’t want him. She never did. That voice was back, the one who questioned him. The one who badgered him. It wasn’t his own, and it wasn’t hers. It was something dark, something unnatural. She never will, Pietro. A shuddered breath leaves him all at once, like he’s shattering from the inside out. She makes it safely to the floor, he makes sure of that even as he stumbles back like she’s hit him with one of her hex bolts. 

“Doamne, nu,” his voice is thin with lack of air as he turns from her, blood soaked fingers running through his hair, staining his silver strands. “Nu, nu.” The pain in his shoulder is nothing, nothing compared to the fall from the precipice as his memories are stripped from him. Her kisses, the loving words pressed to his skin by them. Her touch, tracing his scars and gripping his arms like anchors. These memories burn like gossamer, and through the flames he sees it. He sees his body in her arms, he sees her shouting at him through tears like a flood on her beautiful face. He sees his eyes, open and glassy. He is death, and she is a heaven he’ll never reach.

He won’t look at her, he can’t. He wouldn’t make her feel guilty for his own sickness, his and his alone. “It wasn’t real,” he speaks quietly, the foreign language for once feeling more comfortable than their own. Safer. Less intimate. He swears it was a laugh he thought was leaving his throat, not a strangled, pained noise as he pushes his hair back from his face with both hands. “Not real. Right. Why would it be real? Why would you…?” He can’t have this conversation, and he hurries to the door without another word. He can’t look back at the mess he’s created, her covered in his blood and his filth leaving her in shambles. Stopping with his hand on the doorknob, he knows he can’t leave without saying it. He doesn’t look at her still, eyes tightly clenched as he leans his forehead on the door. “Te iubesc, Wanda. Always.” He casts the last word over his shoulder before he’s pulling the door open like he’s ripping off a bandaid.

All her life, whether it be long or short, she’d remember Pietro’s face as he realized she did not want him in that way; she’d remember the sound of his voice when he told her he loved her. It would forever be replayed in the film of her thoughts. She realized she’d sunk to the floor and was pulling her knees up to her chest, like a child. Though he was but a few feet away, she felt miserable and isolated. It was as if nothing of warmth and comfort would ever touch her again. 

She wishes she’d indulged him, for surely pretending would be easier than this. Was there still time? No, she realizes, eyeing him as he rips open the door. It would only insult him, and she could not bear the thought of hurting him further. Her lips part to speak, but no sound comes out. Say something, you fool! Anything! But she is suddenly mute in her misery, unsure what to say and whether any of it would matter in the end. 

She felt a sob rise in her, and her whole body is raked with it. Her guilt had grown harder and more nearly unbearable. She feared there was no coming back from this. Unlike the torment at the facility or even his death, this trauma felt all the more final. She had hurt him far more in her inaction than she ever did in her action.

Wanda was losing herself, and she was going to let it happen. Releasing her control over her mentality, her sanity, and let her emotions take the reigns. It felt like a fitting punishment, though exactly why she felt like punishing herself was beyond understanding. Her arms, slippery with his blood, wrap around her trembling frame. Her fingernails dig into the flesh on her back. She wants to die. She wants to sleep. She thinks on their childhood then, sudden and vivid, of how he let her hug him on cold nights. So much hope in their youth. How had it all led up to this?

She wondered briefly where he would go once he walked out that door. How long would it be until she saw him again? If she was not already feeling so hopeless, the question would terrify her. Now she’s almost willing him to leave. Willing him to walk out on her like she had done to him. It would be fitting, and certainly she deserved it. But before that, before she would fully wallow in her aloneness, she knew she had to say something. Her voice came out low and sincere between her sobs. “And I love you.” 

[wakingwanda-blog]

unquantifiablx:

Pietro can’t take her begging, normally he’d suck his teeth at her and tell her not to act like a child, all the while giving in to her desires. But what she was asking, to let her alter him even more than she already had… A shaky breath as he drags his hands down her sides, over her hips until they slip behind her and hold onto the backs of her thighs. There wasn’t a part of her body that wasn’t familiar to him, that didn’t feel right in his hands. It wasn’t normal, to be this comfortable within someone else’s body as if they were never two people but one. If that were true, then their life together would make a lot more sense. This aching, insatiable need to be together would have a purpose.

“No,” his voice is rough, but it’s not because he’s angry with her. The emotion running through him as he gazed up at her was too complex to be called anger. It was an entirely different animal, much like him. “Nu sunt o păpușă,” he mutters, as he stands slowly. His hands stay where they are, peering down at her as they tighten to lift her. As her back drags along the closet, he continues, “You can’t just stitch me back together as you see fit, copilul meu.” He should set her down and leave, probably should have left once she’d admitted to her sin but it only reminded him of his own.

Once her eyes are level with his, he raises a hand to push her hair away from her face. He keeps it there, easily holding her up with his other, thumb rubbing over her brow bone. She couldn’t live without him, and he felt so stupid for believing the complete opposite all these years. “Copilul meu,” he repeats, and it may be the steady blood loss, but he feels like she glows under the low light of her lamp. “Îți voi ierta mereu. Întotdeauna voi sângera pentru tine.” Devotion overshadows any conflicting emotions battling inside his chest, and it was ridiculous that the only competition she had was herself. “Nu voi iubi niciodată pe nimeni ca și cum te iubesc.” 

Keep reading

She could not move as his mouth breaches the gap between them, shocked into stillness. She doesn’t understand. Had not anticipated this. Her mind races to piece together the events that led them to this point, every word and action. The perverseness of it was not lost on her, but she was not repulsed. She was not angry, nor afraid. There was only a shriveling stillness inside her. A switch was thrown in Wanda’s head. This is what he wants. And she could not give him that. No, for once she could not match him in need or desire. 

She lowered her head slightly and looked up at him from under her brows. She had not -- could not -- respond to the kiss. And why did she feel so horribly guilty? Her objective thought knew she had no reason to, and yet it was her most prominent emotion. The only feeling discernible to her in all this nothing. She wishes she could embrace the void, collapse into herself like a dying star. The guilt was almost too much. She had thought admitting to his resurrection would be the worst of it, but she had been horrifically wrong. 

Though she had not anticipated this sort of intimacy, she suddenly felt as though their whole lives had been crescendoing to this moment. Not human, not mutant. Maximoffs. Two strange children out of time and space. How had she been so blind to it? Why couldn’t she just accept it? After all, there would never be anyone else. She could not rationally see herself loving anyone the way she loved him, nor receive this love from any other. Yet somewhere deep inside her still longed, quite absurdly, for a normal life. A life where brothers did not kiss their sisters, in which death was irrevocable. But that line had been crossed the moment she called upon the mystical forces that brought him back to life. Perhaps the line had never existed at all, and they were foredoomed to misery from the moment of their conception, like characters out of a penny dreadful. 

Wanda’s face was the perfect picture of shame and confusion. The front of her blouse was drenched in his blood, and the smell of it was everywhere. It was agony, yes, pure agony that she could not give him what he wanted. She hated herself for it. “Pietro...” she said at last. It was the only thing she could say.

[wakingwanda-blog]

unquantifiablx:

Pietro nearly gives in at the way she opens up her body to him, nothing comforted them more than to hold onto each other until they didn’t know whose limbs belonged to who. He wants to smack himself silly, he shouldn’t feel the need to comfort her. He shouldn’t feel the need to get down on his knees before her, sift through the betrayal and hurt to worship in awe of her. Wanda had battled life itself, the laws of the universe, and won. But the burning pain in his shoulder, his hand drifts to it as if he could hide the bloody mess of his shirt from her, reminds him that this wasn’t winning at all. 

Her laugh comes from deep within the belly he tickles as she tries to fall asleep. She is batting him away, turning her face into the pillows as if they could hide her from him. He’s just as sleepy as she is, eyes nearly closed as he rests his face in the nest of her curls, but he loves that sound. He wants to fall asleep to it, drift into oblivion surrounded by the only person in the world who mattered. Surrounded by the scent of cinnamon and cloves, by dark hair that makes his nose itch but he refuses to pull away from it, by sharp little elbows digging into his stomach to get him to stop harassing her. But they’re quickly followed by her soft hands, half the size of his own, yanking his arms back around her until he’s more on top of her than beside her.

He’s staring at the ceiling as it trembles from the train passing overhead. It’s cold, but his blankets are piled on top of the blonde woman sleeping peacefully beside him. He holds one of his leather cords in his hands, pulling it through his fist and wrapping it around the opposite over and over. The charms land in his palm each time, and he swears they burn hot. Blinking slowly, he brings them to his lips and drags them across his mouth before lifting them up to look at them. They knock together, and he swears he hears her laugh.

“I never would have left you,” for just a moment he sounds like the boy who was more mirth and mischief than misery. Before the facility, before death, before Agatha, before defying death once more to come home to her. He steps closer now, and he knows he’s lost long before his first knee hit the floor. The second quickly follows, and usually he would find it comical that they were closer in height this way but right now he’s lost in her distraught gaze. “Even if you hadn’t brought me back,” his hands tremble by her waist, the one wet with his blood curling once, like he’s in supplication to her. “I would have found a way to get back to you, am promis că nu te voi lăsa singur în această lume.” He touches her finally, and it’s like laying his head down at the end of the day. A noise way too soft for him leaves his lips as his thumbs find the space where her shirt has risen, pressing against the skin that burned as hot as her charms. 

“Even so,” she whispered, “It was not a risk I was willing to take.” Her secrets were out in the open. But Wanda could not shake the evil spell. Still it loomed over her as though it were part of the roof and even the sky itself. But, no, it was not part of any outside force. It was in her. In him. She supposed this would haunt them forever. A phantom of her own design. And yet she found an almost fiendish comfort in no longer having to face this torment alone. Here they were, back doing what they did best. Suffering together. Wanda had tried to sever this chain, but her efforts had been in vain. 

She was weeping now, though silent. The pain of it all was unbearable. If only there was a way to feel nothing, she thought, even for a second. It was in moments like these that Wanda wished she did not abstain from cigarettes and booze and other cheap, mind-numbing vices. But her’s was not a mind that could afford being numbed. She had taken considerable care to assure that she did not fall victim to madness, which seemed to always creep just outside the fabric of her mind. But with each passing day it felt like she was descending further into it, despite all her best efforts. She gazed at him through bleary eyes. Long had she considered him her anchor in this world. The only thing that made sense among infinite, malleable realities. It occurred to her again just how selfish her act of bring him back had been. She had done it as much for her sake, as his own. 

Her right hand rose to his face, fingers tracing over the stubble on his jaw. She can feel his blood, sticky and hot, dying her blouse from where he touched her. She wants nothing more than to heal him. But she hesitates. No more would she use her power without his consent. She had already surrounded him in enough illusion, and finally she tries to heed the old witch’s advice. “Vă rog,” she begs, “Let me help you now.” It seemed like the smallest thing she could do, a petty consolation, but she was unsure where to go from here. She would mend his wounds, and then what? Would they each other like they did as children? In his arms, it had always felt like the outside world did not exist. But it was only an illusion. Always illusions with her. 

[wakingwanda-blog]

unquantifiablx:

Through everything they’d been through, the abuse and the neglect, the endless fighting and insufferable loneliness, through it all he had never felt this horrible. Felt so lost, so out of control. So terrified of hurting her. The memories of her he held so close to his heart, the ones that lulled him to sleep in her aching absence, they were slowly being tainted. Ripped from him like Laura’s claws were still pulverizing him. But like the witch she was, her words sickly sweet hexes, have him turning to her like a man possessed. Was he under her spell then? Is that what this was? This insatiable love. No, he tells himself, that’s been there since the start.

Tu esti inima mea. The look he gives her, he’s entirely aware, is full of an unmistakable longing. His eyebrows knit together tightly, nostrils flaring as his lips part slowly. She left him. The time they spent together… Did you? The cotton buzz that usually followed his doubt never comes, he’s starting to see it clearly now. And that thought breaks him. “Nu spune asta. Nu știi ce înseamnă …” He wants to go to her, can feel her despair and distress despite the distance between them. He would always be more in tune to her feelings than his own, and it never bothered him until now. Until he was the endless source of her pain. 

“You left me,” he says suddenly as if he watches the puzzle pieces come together on the shadows of her face. “You made me into whatever the fuck I am, and you left me.” He shouldn’t have let go of the bed, because he’s nearly got her in his arms before he remembers that’s exactly what she wants. She will win him over again, like always, with her beautiful words and her tears. Letting go of her abruptly, he forces himself a couple steps back. “I thought it was because…” No, he can’t bring that up now, forcing his eyes anywhere else in the room. “Wanda, if I was your heart… You don’t tear your own heart from your body like you did to me. You don’t leave it halfway around the world to rot!” He realizes he’s yelling again, and his voice is past hoarse. The wound in his shoulder has re-opened, soaking through his shirt.

Salty tears prickled her eyes, threatening to spill over. She did not let them. His words cut through her like a hot knife, and she’s left bare before him. No longer able to hid behind a smokescreen of spells and lies. She went to Agatha Harkness for a number of reasons. Some of which would be difficult to admit, but what did she have to lose? It was all out in the open now. This ugly and festering truth. She stared into his intense blue gaze, and it seemed to wait anxiously for her explanation. The deeper she looked, the more evident was the emptiness behind the eyes. Looking only at his pupils was like gazing into the hollow eyes of a taxidermied animal. Yes, he was breathing. He was walking. But was he alive, truly? Was this living?

The magic she used to resurrect him was turbulent, unnatural. The feeling of it coursing through her body was like nothing she’d felt before. It was power beyond her imagination, but with it came an unyielding anxiety. This anxiety stuck with her long after the deed was done. Months had passed since she forced the life back into her brother’s body, and yet the unease followed her like a shadow. A bad omen. Something was coming. But what? It became evident these were forces that shouldn’t have been dipped into, and surely the witch would pay for this. Pay for playing God. 

Agatha Harkness came to her in a vision. An astral projection, she’d later discover. She called to her; she knew of what she’d done, knew the immense toll it took on her. Come to me, child. And Wanda went. She sought knowledge. Solace in the old witch’s hearth. She wanted to learn about her powers, of the chaos magic that flowed through her and the magic that flowed through all else. She wanted to know if what she’d done would haunt her forever. “Yes,” Agatha had answered, quite simply. “I’m afraid you will never be the same. Nor will he.” Then the elder witch put a hand to Wanda’s hair, tender as a mother. “But I know your heart, and it is true. You are not doomed.” Agatha had been a most gracious teacher, and Wanda owed a lot to the old woman. 

On one warm summer night, the two witches walked under great myrtle trees. Wanda brushed her fingers over the frothy blooms. “He cannot live in your illusions forever, girl.” Agatha suddenly warned, the rubber tip of her cane thumping on the concrete. Wanda grimaced; the old witch was reading her mind again. This was the first they’d spoken of Pietro since that first conversation. “The truth will come out. It always does. And you’ll find it best to get ahead of it, my child.” If only Agatha could see her now. How disappointed she’d be. 

She had let down her teacher, her brother. These were simply the facts. She unfolded her arms from around her frame, as if giving herself up to him. “I know. I know.” She said, doing her best to keep her voice steady. “I’m not trying to say that what I did was right. I was afraid and weak and it clouded my judgement. I shouldn’t have left you. I know this. I knew this the moment I stepped foot in New Orleans, but I needed answers. I had to find out what I did to you, Pietro, and perhaps I went about it in all the wrong ways, but... I had to know.” Her eyes grazed over the blood now blotting his shirt, making horrible Rorschach designs. The sight filled her with sorrow. She wanted nothing more than to comfort him. Fix him. The tears finally escaped, tracking down her flushed cheeks. “I’m sorry. That doesn’t begin to cover it, I know, but please... please know that I was trying to do good. I never wanted you to suffer.”

[wakingwanda-blog]

unquantifiablx:

Wanda would never betray you, he reminds himself. Wanda would never lie to you. She would never manipulate you. Over and over, he repeated these things to himself, as he stumbled back from the compound leaving beads of blood and sweat like a breadcrumb trail. But the closer he’d gotten, the less these things felt like truth. The more they felt like a bedtime story he crafted for himself. Wanda loves me.

Breath shuddering, he crumples at her admission. Crumples in on her like a tower collapsing. His mouth pressing to her hair and forehead, hands tight on her face and side of her neck. “You-” His heart felt still, hollow as it should be. The pain felt like it came from everywhere else, every wound wishing to take his life. But they couldn’t, because Wanda held it in her hands like a plaything. “You fucking…” Nose pressed to hers, he almost forgives her as he tastes her breath in the short distance between their mouths.

Pulling away quickly, his edges blur as he grips the end of her bed. Screws his eyes shut tight to keep the acceleration at bay. “Crezi că mi-e frică de moarte?” he asked her suddenly, shoulders trembling like a beast barely restrained as he faces away from her. He didn’t trust himself, he didn’t know what he was capable of. Not anymore. “You think I’m not ready to die for you any day of our life, sweet girl? Is that why you kept it from me? Credeai că mi-ar fi frică?” His voice is a quiet quake, like he was hanging on by a thread.

She stay pressed up against the closet door, eyeing him wearily. How could she have made such an error? In thinking she could keep this from him, that she could somehow spare him the pain of his own death and resurrection, she had inadvertently made it worse. For the both of them. And yet, she’s not sure she’d change a thing. Never would she have let him die. No, she’d proven that her will could triumph over destiny. Proved that by drawing on dark and dangerous magic that went well beyond her understanding, challenging the very laws of nature. 

It had been so long since she’d faced this truth, head on. She had quite successfully stopped herself from ruminating on it, even after many sleepless nights. Pushed it to the very back of her mind along with all the great sorrows of her life, though this was certainly the greatest. She hugged her arms around her slender frame, a sudden cold creeping in. “You’d already suffered so much,” she said, her voice soft but meaningful. “I thought I was protecting you.” 

I was protecting myself too, she thought. It was far easier to ignore the harsh truth when she didn’t have to see it reflected on his face. The face of the only person she’d ever truly loved with her whole heart, for he was her heart. “Tu esti inima mea,” she said aloud. “Do you understand? I cannot live without you. And in my selfishness and vanity, I used my power to bring you back. God, it was horrible. It was the most horrible thing I’ve ever done, ever had to witness. Why should both of us be tortured by it? I thought...” she paused, hugging herself tighter, “I thought I could shoulder the pain on my own, and that maybe one day it would just stop hurting. Yes, it was stupid. But I would do it a thousand times over.”

[wakingwanda-blog]

fastrthanyou:

He’d be lying if he said her silence didn’t worry him, but she did seem to be listening and she hadn’t told him to fuck off yet so he took that as a plus. He stayed silent as she responded to him, following the lead she had set. As she spoke he started to frown though, he didn’t have an answer to her question. “I don’t know. I didn’t even know about Billy until a few months ago. Our parents put me up for adoption and kept him.” He put on a smile then, hoping to distract from how much that hurt him. The pain was still clear in his eyes though as doubt began to swirl through his mind again. 

What was he even doing here, he started to wonder. When the Kaplans had given him away he’d only been a newborn, and when the Shepherds had signed him away to a life of torture he was still just a child. He was so young then, he was still good then. He was older now, he was broken now, tainted by all the terrible things both that had been done to him and that he had done. If two families could turn their backs on him when he was young and innocent, why would a third want him now that he was damaged goods? It was then that Tommy realized that despite still wearing that fake smile he had started to cry. “Sorry. Sorry. I got caught up in my head,” he said as he wiped at his damp eyes.

“It’s okay,” she said. “I understand.” She reached out across the table and took hold of his hand. It was simply awful to see the sadness in his face, the abandonment and obvious longing for kinship that Wanda knew as well as anyone. Her desire for a traditional family was almost indescribable, for the only family she’d ever known was her brother. Yet in a world that had been so cruel and barren of love, she was lucky to have had Pietro. What did Tommy have? It pained her to even think about it. No child should have to feel unwanted.

In one dreamlike moment, a thought came to her. Maybe there was relation, or maybe there wasn’t. Wanda cared very little at this point. The only thing she knew for certain was that being there for Billy (and him likewise seeking her company) had been a downright consolation for her. It was one of the very few times in her life that she felt entirely useful, and almost light, relieved of her fears and anxieties of being evil. The very fact that Tommy had approached her was enough. And if she could offer him even a moments consolation, a moments love and reassurance, then it wouldn’t matter if any of these familial suspicions proved to be true. She gave his hand a gentle squeeze. “Well, nonetheless,” she said, “You have us now. And I think there’s a lot of good in that.” 

[wakingwanda-blog]

unquantifiablx:

Wanda’s magic, coursing through him as they arrived in her room, it felt like an addiction he wasn’t even aware he had. And as the light brings her features back into focus, it takes everything in him not to take her face in his hands. The last time he’d indulged himself, did you, he’d tasted her for hours after he’d finished her. Did you. He tears his eyes away as that buzzing returns, incessant and nauseating, like some foreign entity in his mind prying open doors he’d sealed shut. Did you, or was it her?

“Wanda…” his voice carries a warning, one that cautions her against playing games with him. Not anymore. He presses a trembling forefinger to his temple, taking a deep breath as he steadies himself. “Am avut încredere în tine.” His eyes are suddenly on her again, and he knows. He knows without a shadow of a doubt what she has done. It’s in his mind again. The blood soaking her hands, the blood in his mouth. Was it her? Was it her? 

He loses time, doesn’t remember gripping her waist or pinning her to the closet door. His breath is coming hard now as he peers down at her through his bangs. “What did you do?” he says slowly, in the language she loved so much more than him. “What did you do, hmm?” One hand grips her cheeks, her chin nestled in his palm. Fingers pressing below the apples of her beautiful face as he leans his forehead against hers. “Tell me. Spune-mi iubire.”

A wave of fear and shame passed over her at his words, his use of English unsettling her deeply. For a moment she did nothing. She stared up at him. She could feel herself trembling. Miserably, she saw his broken and limp body in her mind’s eye. She saw herself hunched over him, screaming out spells and commands between strangled sobs. The pain is immediate and red hot, and she tries to protect herself from the horror and ugliness of it like she had tried to do for him. But she had failed. 

Her heart thudded in her ears, and she attempts for a moment to rationalize the situation. He doesn’t really know, she whispered within herself. This is about something else. But the more she tried to convince herself otherwise, the less she believed it. He knew. He knew. She allows her eyes to close, hoping the darkness would swallow her whole. His touch only made the situation all the more real, all the more damning, and she found it near impossible to sink into herself. She had to tell him now; there was simply no way around it. Yet the agony of uttering those words, of revealing this horrid truth, was more than she thought she could endure. 

She opened her eyes again and prayed for strength. The sounds of the storm outside her window seemed to die away and leave her in a void as she struggled to piece her words together. “I did what I had to do,” she said finally, surprised at the frailty of her words. “I did what I needed to do... to keep you alive.”

[wakingwanda-blog]

unquantifiablx:

When she sits beside him it takes everything in him not to get up, run away from her. And what a strange feeling that was, to want to be far from her. Just the sight of her made his chest ache, because he didn’t want to know. He didn’t want to know what she’s done, why he’s still breathing. Gripping the back of the couch in one trembling hand, he sinks his fingers into the leather to keep them from jittering. It would give him away, the steady tap he’d give the couch like he was running his fingers down her spine instead. 

He thinks, for a silly second, that maybe he could ignore her question. That if he did, she’d get up and give up. Leave him alone in his turmoil, this sinking pit inside of him that was slowly revealing just how wrong he is. Instead he lets his eyes peel off the television screen and take her in. Her gentle eyes, the bow of her upper lip that held the pad of his thumb just right, the sheer exhaustion in the set of her shoulders. Could they be as before? Orphaned, but together. Hungry, but together. Cold, but together. It seemed now they could only be alone together.

“Ce ai facut?“ he rephrases her question, and he lets it hang in the air between them. Would she fess up to it or would she resort to her usual theatrics? He hears footsteps in the hall just outside the room, but he doesn’t look away from her. Not now. “Camera dvs. Acum.“ And when he gives her the order to teleport, there’s an edge to his voice that he rarely used with her, and he knew it would hurt her almost as much as the words he’d hurled at her on the roof. 

The tone of his final remark had every cell of her being on high-alert. This was clearly worse than she’d thought. Doing as instructed, she teleports the both of them into her small room. It was dark. She moved to turn on the lamp. He was illuminated instantly, his hulking figure so evidently wrought with pain. Like a great beast with a wounded paw, she thought, and the sight caused a thrill of guilt in her. This guilt was soon displaced by fear, as she took in the utter seriousness of his expression, as she replayed his voice in her head.

She now stood deadly still on the carpet, hardened like a marble statute, gazing at him expectingly. Waiting. Hoping desperately that the reveal would not be as horrible as his tone suggested. Preparing herself for the worst, she could not figure out what she’d done to upset him. She combed through her actions of the past weeks, but drew a major blank. Hadn’t she’d already aired all her dirty laundry? But in one horrifying instant, her mind finally settled on the worst case scenario. She felt dizzy at the thought. No, she told herself, He doesn’t know. He can’t. 

Had she been foolish to think this wouldn’t come back to her in some way? Yes, it seemed she had been living in delusion. How he had found out was beyond her, but it seemed almost inevitable that this must be it. Anything else would be too simple. She had not yet moved an inch, and showed no indication that she felt like the entire room was spinning and just might crash in on them both. Anything else, she pleaded, looking him in the eye. Please be anything else. 

[fastrthanyou2]

@wakingwanda

Tommy had been trying to work up the courage to talk to Wanda for some time now. He’d thought about the subtle approach. Befriending her and then springing his suspicions on her, but that was too disingenuous for his taste. Felt too much like he would be lying and tricking her into talking to him. That left the direct approach as his only real option. So he had to wait for the right time.

He didn’t know what it was about today that stuck out to him, perhaps it was something in the air, but when he woke up he just felt that today was the day to talk to her. It seemed maybe his intuition was right when he happened upon her sitting alone. “So I’ve got this brother, twin brother actually,” he started as he took the seat across from her, charging into the conversation with all the subtlety of a freight train. “And he’s got hair like yours and he does magic while I go fast. That’s kind of funny right?” He kept his hands beneath the table, they were shaking something fierce at this point. They were the singular outward sign of how nervous he truly was, he refused to let his cool demeanor shake. It would be easy for her to reject him outright, he was going to humiliate himself any further than necessary if she did. 

“Maybe I’m just grasping at straws here,” he said with a shrug. In all honesty he was worried about that. What if he was just making this all up? What if he was just so desperate for a family, for any family that would take him, that he could imagine all these connections? He owed it to himself to try, at least that was the excuse he told himself. “But what do you think are the chances for two entirely unrelated sets of twins to develop the exact same mutations in the same way?”

[wakingwanda-blog]

Wanda listened to the boy in complete silence. Though he and Billy were clearly twins, the witch had no trouble telling them apart. It seemed a natural difference, one that went well beyond the night-and-day variance of their hair. It was the eyes, mostly, that gave them away. Both telling such different stories. The only thing that shocked her, is how their paths had never made headway until now, especially with her affinity for his brother. “Well,” she said, after a pause, “It is odd, I must admit.” She absently toyed with the charm on her necklace, thinking his words through for a second time. She gazed at him, at this face that was so familiar to her and yet so different. Frankly, she had not been aware that Billy had a twin. He had never mentioned it to her before. 

The blond boy seemed to be onto something, though what exactly, Wanda had yet to piece together. But there was no discounting the oddness of the situation, and, after all, there was much about her life that was shrouded in mystery. 

Perhaps there was some relation, as Tommy had hinted. It was not that absurd of a thought. Though if this kinship was by blood or other-worldly devices, she knew not. Did that matter? It was evident the boy had worked up a lot of courage to even bring this to her, and she found herself feeling a strange sense of pride, and of course the urge to soothe his worries. “I had... Well, I did think it was a little more than coincidence that Billy and I share almost identical powers,” she admits, hoping these words give him the reassurance he was looking for. The parallels between her and Billy were uncanny, if not entirely bizarre, and she’d have to be a total moron to deny the possibility of a connection. And of course, should she and Billy be...what? She couldn’t even begin to fathom the lineage; the very idea exhausted her tremendously. But having this tie to Billy, which she had long suspected, meant she was connected to Tommy, too. She continued to play with the delicate charm, the gold chain now taut around her neck. “You think we’re related.” she said, finally biting the bullet. “Well... Stranger things have happened. In my life especially. Dare I ask in what way you think we’re related? I’ve been trying to work it out in my head...” she offered the boy a soft, rallying smile. A smile that said, above all else, I believe you. “But with very little success.” 

[wakingwanda-blog]

unquantifiablx:

The moments between the barrier and the infirmary are a blur. There’s a few hours he remembers being awake, watching injured students being ushered into the infirmary and filling beds at a rapid rate. He remembers talking to another man about the absurdity of it all, how this was their reality. Then they’d put him to sleep, told him he’d recover faster. Yet here he was, still bleeding out of way too many holes riddling his abdomen. A familiar feeling, and distressingly he couldn’t place it. 

He wouldn’t go to her, no. For once she’d have to find him. She’d have to seek him out, and explain herself. Though the longer it went on, he knew it wasn’t out of pride that he avoided her. It was out of fear. Memories he’d held close to his heart, memories of her and a happiness he knew he’d never attain again, they were being replaced. With blood and sweat, with the sound of her whimpers and sobs. 

Staring at the television in a pained haze, Pietro feels her before she arrives. Without his permission, his heart yearns for her like never before. Every step she takes closer feels like a step closer to a pain-free existence, but they both knew that was bullshit. All they ever brought each other was pain. Her fingers are in his hair before he has the mind to move away, and he lets himself enjoy one long moment of peace. Eyes closed, he can pretend they’re back in that cabin. The sun was just setting, the candles hadn’t yet been lit. He’s sitting on the floor with his head against the couch and she’s whispering to him while looping his curls around her delicate little fingers.

Like waking from a bad dream, he moves out of her reach just enough so that her hand slides away. Jaw ticking, he extends his arm over the back of the couch before looking over at her as if he’s forcing his eyes away from the television for a moment. “Televiziunea americană este rahat.” 

She let her hand collapse to her side. She figured he would be in a sour mood (of course, given his wounds, it was well justified) and she had prepared herself for it. Though it wouldn’t matter much if she hadn’t; she was still relieved at seeing him safe, and was allowing herself to ride on that good feeling. “Haide,” she said, moving around the couch and sitting, very carefully, beside him. “Nu este totul rău.” Her eyes panned to the television, only to catch glance of a program that seemed to be about a robot child. Creepy. “Bine, poate ai dreptate.”  

She did not attempt to touch him again. But, hell, she wanted to. It was hard to tell if his poorly concealed annoyance was in regards to her or the pain in his abdomen, and Wanda almost didn’t want to find out. There could be any number of things troubling him -- their well of misery certainly ran deep -- and perhaps this had nothing to do with her. But she’d started to gather that was a particularly stupid thing to think. 

Glancing over at him, she did not say anything. She wished for a moments normalcy, in which they could share a regular conversation; one where asking what’s wrong wasn’t a silly question at best, and an insulting one at worst. But nothing had ever been regular for them, had it? And, God, what wasn’t wrong? Her last shreds of relief were withering away and she was worried once more. In that instant she felt the all too familiar collision of guilt and misery and exhaustion. She sighed softly, and braced herself for what was to come.  “Ce am facut?” It was a simple enough question, one asked with no hint of acidity. Her eyes studied him curiously. 

[wakingwanda-blog]

@unquantifiablx

A storm was passing over Westchester County, wild and volatile; and in that respect, it reminded her of him. She was glad as ever that he’d returned, bruised and battered, yes, but not dead. She had spent the week in a state of anxiety, nearly burning a hole in the carpet from her incessant pacing. Twice she had considered going to find him, and twice she had talked herself out of it.

A couple of days. That was the proposed length of the mission. But the days slipped by and Wanda became deeply unsettled. The only thing that had kept her from chasing after him was a deep-seated notion that whatever he had gotten himself into, it had not killed him. It was a similar feeling she got when he was nearby, a pull of sorts, as though there was an invisible thread connecting them. A vibration resonated through her, much like that of a plucked harp string, indicating his presence, his vitality. She could feel the vibration then, though profoundly faint, and she had known he was alive. 

It felt like a lifetime since they sat on her bed, a lifetime since she ran her fingers through messy silver curls and said silent prayers for his safety. She rested her cheek on the cool of the library window, watching heavy drops of rain smatter on the glass. Without much thought, she teleported to the hall before the commons. He was alone. She could see the back of his head and broad shoulders from his position on the couch, could practically visualize the furrow in his brow. She went to him. “Ceva bun pe?” she asked softly, motioning to the television. Her fingers found purchase in his hair once more, delighted to feel the utter realness of him. Not a vision, not a dream. Real. Safe. 

[sleepin]

There were things I wanted to tell him. But I knew they would hurt him. So I buried them, and let them hurt me.

02:52 thoughts

@unquantifiablx

[jessicahenwicks-deactivated2018]

[wakingwanda-blog]

@magneticlylehnsherr

[wakingwanda-blog]

moreweaponthangirl:

Klara frowned slightly. She trusted Pietro but she wanted him to be safe. He’d told her he would only be a few days, and it had been a week now. Not to mention, she couldn’t miss the way Wanda tensed and began spinning her ring. If his sister was worried, maybe Klara ought to be too. She certainly couldn’t imagine if Pietro didn’t come back.

“Спасибо, Ванда.” She looked back at the copy of Hamlet and sighed. “Как вы пишете essay?”

She inches her seat closer to Klara’s desk, bangles clanging on her wrist as she moved. “Ну, сначала вы выбираете тему. Затем вы разбиваете его на несколько абзацев.” That wasn’t of much help, was it? Wanda offers the younger girl a warm smile. She remembers her first go at an English book report, how it had been one long and frustrating effort. The worst part of the whole thing was that she’d known precisely what she wanted to say and could articulate it well in Romanian, but in English... Well, it wouldn’t come out right. It had made her feel so stupid.  “Как насчет совместной работы над этим эссе?” 

[wakingwanda-blog]

moreweaponthangirl:

Klara smiled at Wanda gratefully, before looking back at Ms. Power, scribbling down what she said about the essays. “ Спасибо,” she replied in a whisper. “Я беспокоюсь об этом ‘essay’. Я никогда не писал ничего подобного.” And if Ms Power wanted her to write about Hamlet of all things… Klara had a feeling she’d need to bring this up in her ESL class for more help. “Вы слышали от Пьетро?” she asked.

Wanda can’t help but tense at her question. “нет,” she says slowly. “еще нет.” Her mind idly drifts to the poppet she made to protect him, the one that remained in her closet, and prayed that it was doing its magic. She anxiously spins one of her many rings around her pointer finger. There was no good in being worried, she decides, and focuses back on the essay. “Не беспокойтесь об этом. Ты очень умная девушка. И я здесь, если вам нужна помощь.”

[moreweaponthangirl-archive]

Literature 1 was meant to be basics, but Klara encountered a problem immediately. Namely, that it was still a high school level English class. Her final block of the day each day was an ESL class, but she was still finding it hard here. Of course, that didn’t mean she wanted to be treated like a baby either. So she sat in the middle, listening carefully. Until the teacher called on her. “Uh..” The last thing she wanted to admit was that she was lost. Her eyes darted from side to side, hoping someone or something would help her.

[wakingwanda-blog]

Wanda jumped in just in time to spare the girl from floundering. "While I think it’s fair to say Hamlet does possess some flaws that led to his downfall, it’s hard to prove that the tragedy was caused because of these traits. I think that’s the point being made. That the concept of an inevitable, tragic flaw is not one without problems.” Satisfied with this response, Ms. Power ended the lecture and reminded them that essays would be due in two weeks. Wanda casted a warm and affectionate look at Klara, whispering, “Если вы что-то не поняли, я объясню вам это. Не волнуйся.” 

[princesconsuela]