#vaavio

Day Two: Unfamiliar

Hosted by @vaazel-vaalink-week

I had to take the chance to toss Vaati reborn into the mix.

Vio sees the car on his way home from work. It’s a nice car- too nice for the neighborhood- and it’s just sitting there, innocently, in the middle of the lot belonging to an abandoned bookstore. It draws his attention, his curiosity, like a moth to a flame.He stands there, staring at it, mentally warring with himself. If this is a trap, a ruse to get him jumped and mugged where nobody can see him nor care if they could, he’d be a damned fool to go investigate. What’s the saying- curiosity killed the cat? Even if satisfaction brought it back, you could never be too careful. There were all sorts of crazies in the world- he didn’t fancy getting kidnapped by any of them.Movement catches his eye- a silhouette looking at him through the glass of the bookstore door. It’s been chained and locked up since it was abandoned. Vio looks around warily, and when he looks back the silhouette is gone.Does he dare?…Against his better judgement, he does. Vio takes a cursory glance around the lot again, and when he’s sure no one is watching he quickly crosses the parking lot. He skirts around the car and then walks around the back of the store, not even bothering with the front door. He doesn’t fancy breaking a window to get in- he’s got a stable job and two cats at home to provide for, there’s no way he’s getting in trouble for breaking and entering. He finds the back door open.Not obviously broken into, just unlocked. Like somebody had a key…or picked the lock. It’s dark inside.He hears a crash, a loud exclamation. “Shit!” Somebody yelps, and Vio is hurrying inside before he can process it, concern furrowing his brow.He finds someone he hasn’t seen in years, extracting himself from a toppled pile of boxes. He takes the sight of him in- his hair has gotten longer, there are streaks of darker color in it now.“Vaati?” Vio breathes out his name before he can stop himself. Vaati looks up and their eyes lock. He’s no longer as baby-faced as he was back then- his cheekbones are sharp and his chin is angled and the hardness that was always in his eyes is gone now. He can’t tell what has replaced it.“Vio?” He asks, brushing dust off of his jeans and standing up. He’s taller now too, but still only comes up to Vio’s nose. He’s visibly healthier. No longer standing like a caged animal. They stand there, looking at each other.Vio thinks back to when he last saw him- it was middle school right? The details are fuzzy. He didn’t much pay attention to Vaati then- only when he came around to bother him or his friends, and he’d tell him off with some snarky quip that made him stomp off, fuming. Vaati did a lot of stomping and fuming in middle school.The day he remembers the most was the day Vaati ran away. He walked by this same bookstore on the way home to see Vaati run out of it. 

He was crying.

He looked devastated.Vio chased him all the way to central park, curious, concerned despite himself. It was there that Vaati turned around to yell at him.“Why are you following me? Go away!” People were staring at them now. Vaati didn’t seem to notice.

“Why are you crying?” Vio asked him, lifting his hands in a gesture of surrender. “Are you okay?”Vaatilaughed.And laughed and laughed and laughed and then his laughter turned to sobbing and for the first time, arguably too late, Vio saw him. He saw how he stood, hunched like a cornered animal. He saw the bags under Vaati’s eyes, eyes hardened with some emotion he couldn’t place. He saw the way his clothes didn’t quite fit, how they hung off his frame. He saw the backpack, stuffed full of clothes and odd items.He opened his mouth to say something, but nothing came out. He was normally so verbose that even his teachers had trouble understanding him. Now, he had no words.Vaati looked at him, his hands visibly trembling.“I’m running away.” He said. “I can’t take it anymore. Do you have any idea-” He stopped himself short, shaking his head sharply. Vio struggled to find a reply, and Vaati took a step back.“You shouldn’t run away. What will your parents think?” He was grasping at straws. Vaati glared at him.“I don’t have parents. I never have.” Vio didn’t know what to say to that- what could he say to that? Vaati didn’t give him a chance to find out.“Will you come with me?” He asked. There was something hesitant in his gaze. Vio frowned.“I can’t go with you. I have school and friends and a family-”“Forget it.” Vaati snapped, interrupting him. “Forget I asked.”“Why?”Vaati locked eyes with him in that moment, and Vio saw something in him crumble.“I’m terrified.” His voice was small, smaller than Vio had ever heard it. Vio stepped towards him.Vaati turned and ran.The bookstore closed not long after. It’s owner had died. Vio walked by it every day, looking for a sign that Vaati had come back. He never did.Until now.“Are you going to keep standing there, staring at me?” Vaati asks, bringing Vio back to the present. He leans his weight on his left side, a hand on his hip. Vio swallows nervously.“What- what are you doing here?” He asks, wincing when it comes out more accusatory than he meant. Vaati narrows his eyes.“Heard the old man kicked the bucket. Came back to see if I could salvage the store, maybe re-open it.” Vaati says. Amusement dances in his eyes as he adds: “Is that all? No ‘Hi Vaati, good to see you’?”He can’t help but crack a grin at that, surprised though he is. “Hi Vaati,” he says. “Good to see you.”Vaati smiles, and there’s something wistful about it. Vio’s never seen him smile before, not this genuinely, and he thinks that he’d like to keep making Vaati smile like that.

“What about you? What are you doing here?” Vio shakes himself out of his sappy, sappy train of thought at the question.“I was on my way home from work when I saw the car parked in the lot. I, uh… thought I’d investigate. Is it yours?“It is.” Vaati nods.“It’s… nice.” Vio grimaces. He doesn’t know why he hesitated. Maybe it’s the veritable elephant in the room. “So…”“So?” He looks at Vio expectantly. “You can ask. It’s not a big deal.”Vio winces, wondering when he had become so easy to read. He looks out the boarded up window at the waning light outside.“Maybe not here?” He says, looking back at Vaati. “I’ll pay for dinner if you don’t mind driving.”Vaati looks at him for a long moment, and Vio almost thinks he’s going to say no. Then, he smiles, and it takes Vio’s breath away, and he shrugs.“Fair enough.”Vaati locks up the store- he did actually have a key, to Vio’s surprise- and then the two of them get in his car. An Elton John song (”I’m Still Standing”) plays on the radio as they drive down the street to a buffet Vio knows of in relative quiet. It’s not an awkward quiet, for which Vio is thankful.When they’ve paid, and piled their plates high with food (Vaati sticks mostly to vegetables, Vio notes), the questions pour out of him.“What happened?” He starts, and then doesn’t stop. “Where did you go? Why did you leave in the first place? Why’d you come back?”Vaati laughs, a short, almost nervous sound. “In order?”“Uh-” Vio’s cheeks redden. “You don’t have to unless you want to. I think I already asked one of those already.”If he did, Vaati doesn’t acknowledge it. He picks at some rice with his chopsticks and Vio watches him curiously.“I uh…I was in a bad place.” He begins, eyes downcast. “Ezlo never…hit me or anything, but he yelled. When I was too loud, when I was too quiet, whenever I brought home anything less than A’s from school. He kept telling me to do better when I was already doing my best.”He says all of this factually. Like it’s a story he’s telling about somebody else, not himself.“I would…forgo food for studying and sleep for studying until I got sick from it, and then he would yell at me for not taking care of myself. As soon as I got better he’d go right back to being disappointed in me all the time and pushing me as hard as he’d been before. I got fed up, so I ran.” Vaati locks eyes with Vio and Vio can’t look away. “I lived on and off the streets, found a job in Ordon eventually. Got therapy, took dance classes, had a couple of flings. Couple years later I got a notice on the front door of my apartment saying that the old man was dead and he’d left me an inheritance in his will.”

Vio tilts his head at him. “Why come back to a place that holds such bad memories for you?”Vaati picks up a dumpling, pops it in his mouth. Chews and swallows, and then he says: “Because I loved the bookstore. I missed it.” His eyes are misty, staring off into the distance. “Didn’t love the old man so much as I loved the place he called home.”They eat in companionable silence for a bit while Vio mulls over his words. When they get dessert, he works up the nerve to ask: “Do you have a place to stay?”Vaati shrugs. “I was gonna rent a hotel room until I got everything sorted.”“Don’t bother. You’re not allergic to cats are you?” Vio grins at him, and Vaati snorts.“Not allergic, just never liked them. Are you offering your place?” He glances up at Vio over his ice cream. He seems surprised, and maybe nervous. Dammit, Vio should be better at reading people than this.“If you want it.”Vaati tilts his head, seems to think about it.“I’d appreciate it.” He says finally, and Vio smiles.They leave, and just before they get into Vaati’s car Vaati takes hold of Vio’s wrist. His eyes have some unreadable emotion in them- gratitude maybe? Vio is about to ask what’s wrong when Vaati wordlessly pulls him into a hug.It’s…nice. He smells like lavender and lemons. He’s just tall enough to tuck his chin over Vio’s shoulder and his grip is firm.  He’s also really warm.“Thanks.” Vaati murmurs into his ear.Vio smiles.