( in the end, he gave himself forty-eight hours to feel sorry for himself. two days to mope and be worthless and ignore Georgi when he calls. two days, and he knows he won't allow himself anymore, even if he has no energy to really get out of bed. he still drags himself up, looking like hell, and calls in to Georgi. asks what comes next.
he never retracts what he says about retiring. he makes no excuses for himself; the questions he's run through by the handful who interview him under the guiding hand of their lead psychologist. therapy isn't a suggestion; it's a requirement. which any qualified therapist knows will go poorly.
they make some headway. Victor's allowed, at that time, to visit the psychiatric hospital where the worst afflicted by his powers are being held. some of the other heroes have been able to make headway. most the cases are holding steady, but they're not getting better.
Victor's scared of trying; he's angry with himself, and so he tries anyway. uses powers he's never learned fine control over and wrestles with freeing compulsory emotions from people who are locked into cycles they can't break out of. spiraling patterns he has explained to him by his therapist; for him, he's told, it may tie into depression. for the rest, it's different, but the theories are the same.
two weeks, and he's able to help most of them. not to heal, but to break out of the compulsions; only five are so far gone there's nothing he can do but grit his teeth and change the compulsion to something pleasant. take the fear and the rage and the isolation and make it gentle, make it calm. make it pleasant. he has stolen the will of five minds, and it doesn't matter that they're criminals. some say it does. he understands their reaction; he doesn't support it.
the funerals are quiet and sparsely attended. families are protected, visiting their loved ones at the city provided graves. in truth, it's Victor's funding; he'd insisted, when the city had argued against using municipal funds for anything related to the criminal element. it would be hard to track any of it back to his funds as Silverstar, to either of his names. he prefers it that way.
two weeks, and the ruling comes in from the Hero's Coalition Council: his retirement will be announced as public, and he will give a formal statement. he will not conduct interviews. he will consent to being monitored. or, and they stress the or, he can reconsider.
or, he says, equally flat, they can test the experimental suppression drug on him. and at the end of it, they leave him alone. he walks. unmonitored, but for the necessary eyes on his back. he's given the wipe he's owed, and he's let free.
"free." a misnomer. he knows of no such thing; he feels his heart breaking all over again for this city he loves, this city he's hurt, this city that has hurt him in turn.
he asks after Yuri once, just once. a mention that follows a casual word from Georgi. it's a denial, a repression of his need to know; Victor's fingers curl into his palms at the offhand mention of Frostflower from his former handler's lips. Georgi watches him, smiles, looking sad.
"it's not loving that hurts us, Vitya. it's not knowing how to let ourselves love and be loved." )
Most crushes don't get people killed.
( he points out, laughing, but it's a hollow, biting sound. he's not ignorant. he's always known it was one way, whatever else he'd hoped, before this had all fallen into such spectacular disarray. the pain in his chest, the constriction around his lungs, the aching burn behind eyes that haven't shed tears since that night all tell a story. one Georgi reads, in his way. one that he reaches out, the first person to reach out willingly since Victor was found in the midst of his own chaos, and touches his shoulder.
Victor shudders. he swallows. he turns haunted eyes on Georgi. slowly, Georgi's hand falls away.
the trials aren't promising. at a low does, Victor finds most his powers respond to him, at a limited delay. higher doses and he starts feeling like he's living in a fog; his powers still respond, but the delay is noticeable. it takes more energy to use them. it takes more energy than he has to spare, on the days where his depression hits hardest. even walking Makkachin becomes a Herculean effort; Victor rises like Lazarus to resurrect himself, sallow skinned, thinning, losing muscle definition.
they take him off the trials after a month. it's a drug that would have worked to interfere, they determine, but not truly stop; he's given a gym membership and told they'll check in with him time to time. he already knows they'll watch. 20 years of relatively perfect behaviour, and the only thing they stop shy of doing is slapping a tracking bracelet around his ankle. "we can trust him," Yakov had argued.
he's not sure he agrees, but he also knows the game. he's safest still here in the city. here in the vacuum of power causing the criminal element to restructure: violently at times. there's an upswing in petty crime, in turf wars. there are more shootings, but more heroes responding. there is speculation about what kind of hero, or what kind of villain, Silverstar must be. there are pleas for his return.
it is slow, finding forgiveness from those who witnessed what happened. for his part, Victor goes searching for none.
he lets the gym membership sit, a car propped up on the counter of his old apartment. in a fit of energy that sapped him for two days following, he kitted out his place, setting up security systems and everything else that had never been necessary before. he doesn't admit to anyone that his powers are failing. sporadic, sometimes they're in control, sometimes they respond, but just as often they don't. he sits in his cramped tub and practices making the water warmer and cooler, warmer and cooler. Makkachin sits on the tiles and pants, simply keeping him company.
his illusions won't work at all. try as he may, even when his light responds, the only person it lights up is Victor Nikiforov. there is no long hair; there is no set of flawless, distant features. no perfect smile; just Victor. it's liberating. liberating and hidden, shown to his dog as he allows himself to live in the stuttered brightness of his own life. opting not to notice when the lights all fade and he's standing there in a cold he hadn't thought to make, shivering, eyes looking into a distance that only sees the past. when his knees lock up and he feels the licking of rage and the nausea tear through him. when he slams his barriers up so hard he stops feeling at all.
when he starts doing that to get through the day to day. conceal, don't feel. that hadn't worked well in the movie. turns out it works just fine in real life with no one mentioning otherwise.
Victor remembers to smile. as his neighbours check in with him, as he falls into a pattern, as he takes up jogging and pull ups and push ups and every kind of physical training that requires only himself. he regains his muscle mass. he forces himself to have an appetite, even when the food tastes like cardboard in his mouth. he shares chicken with Makkachin. he spends more time at the soup kitchen, helping at the shelter. he meets people, people who've always existed. people who now talk to him, who comment on sports teams, the weather, the stock exchange. people from all walks of life, with different jobs, different vices, different hobbies.
it's all echoing off him, something he categorizes and doesn't quite engage. he turns down social offer after social offer; is a man and his dog, friendly enough, somewhat sad, somewhat touched since he'd been kidnapped. he's a Survivor.
he finds that ironic, unable to see his own PTSD for what it is.
when Yuri goes looking for Victor, he's not quite in his usual places. the soup kitchen is his only constant. his patterns, his single man visual patrols of the city, watching it recover from a mess most only knew as the Incident, keeps him traveling erratically. on purpose. he's difficult to track.
but he still lives in his apartment. he still shows up to the soup kitchen, usually with Makkachin in tow. he ties on an apron and he moves boxes as he's told, moves everything as he's told. he's a little less vivacious, true, but who wouldn't be? living through all of That.
he knows this is a holding pattern. he needs to find something new, something different; needs to jar himself out of this cycle of thoughts consuming themselves like some personal, grotesque oroboros. he looks up as he steps outside the soup kitchen, Makkachin shaking himself off as he pulls at his lead. he expects to see no one, nothing more familiar than the usual. everything part of this madcap life he's stumbling through, finding meaning in making it through each day.
he does not expect to see Yuri, in whatever form. as he walks his dog home, bundling his coat more tightly around himself in spite of the sun beating down overhead, all Victor can think of is collapsing after feeding the dog. sleeping the next ten hours before he drags himself awake to shower, then eat, then sleep again.
massive efforts. he's not due back at the soup kitchen for another two days. )
no subject
he never retracts what he says about retiring. he makes no excuses for himself; the questions he's run through by the handful who interview him under the guiding hand of their lead psychologist. therapy isn't a suggestion; it's a requirement. which any qualified therapist knows will go poorly.
they make some headway. Victor's allowed, at that time, to visit the psychiatric hospital where the worst afflicted by his powers are being held. some of the other heroes have been able to make headway. most the cases are holding steady, but they're not getting better.
Victor's scared of trying; he's angry with himself, and so he tries anyway. uses powers he's never learned fine control over and wrestles with freeing compulsory emotions from people who are locked into cycles they can't break out of. spiraling patterns he has explained to him by his therapist; for him, he's told, it may tie into depression. for the rest, it's different, but the theories are the same.
two weeks, and he's able to help most of them. not to heal, but to break out of the compulsions; only five are so far gone there's nothing he can do but grit his teeth and change the compulsion to something pleasant. take the fear and the rage and the isolation and make it gentle, make it calm. make it pleasant. he has stolen the will of five minds, and it doesn't matter that they're criminals. some say it does. he understands their reaction; he doesn't support it.
the funerals are quiet and sparsely attended. families are protected, visiting their loved ones at the city provided graves. in truth, it's Victor's funding; he'd insisted, when the city had argued against using municipal funds for anything related to the criminal element. it would be hard to track any of it back to his funds as Silverstar, to either of his names. he prefers it that way.
two weeks, and the ruling comes in from the Hero's Coalition Council: his retirement will be announced as public, and he will give a formal statement. he will not conduct interviews. he will consent to being monitored. or, and they stress the or, he can reconsider.
or, he says, equally flat, they can test the experimental suppression drug on him. and at the end of it, they leave him alone. he walks. unmonitored, but for the necessary eyes on his back. he's given the wipe he's owed, and he's let free.
"free." a misnomer. he knows of no such thing; he feels his heart breaking all over again for this city he loves, this city he's hurt, this city that has hurt him in turn.
he asks after Yuri once, just once. a mention that follows a casual word from Georgi. it's a denial, a repression of his need to know; Victor's fingers curl into his palms at the offhand mention of Frostflower from his former handler's lips. Georgi watches him, smiles, looking sad.
"it's not loving that hurts us, Vitya. it's not knowing how to let ourselves love and be loved." )
Most crushes don't get people killed.
( he points out, laughing, but it's a hollow, biting sound. he's not ignorant. he's always known it was one way, whatever else he'd hoped, before this had all fallen into such spectacular disarray. the pain in his chest, the constriction around his lungs, the aching burn behind eyes that haven't shed tears since that night all tell a story. one Georgi reads, in his way. one that he reaches out, the first person to reach out willingly since Victor was found in the midst of his own chaos, and touches his shoulder.
Victor shudders. he swallows. he turns haunted eyes on Georgi. slowly, Georgi's hand falls away.
the trials aren't promising. at a low does, Victor finds most his powers respond to him, at a limited delay. higher doses and he starts feeling like he's living in a fog; his powers still respond, but the delay is noticeable. it takes more energy to use them. it takes more energy than he has to spare, on the days where his depression hits hardest. even walking Makkachin becomes a Herculean effort; Victor rises like Lazarus to resurrect himself, sallow skinned, thinning, losing muscle definition.
they take him off the trials after a month. it's a drug that would have worked to interfere, they determine, but not truly stop; he's given a gym membership and told they'll check in with him time to time. he already knows they'll watch. 20 years of relatively perfect behaviour, and the only thing they stop shy of doing is slapping a tracking bracelet around his ankle. "we can trust him," Yakov had argued.
he's not sure he agrees, but he also knows the game. he's safest still here in the city. here in the vacuum of power causing the criminal element to restructure: violently at times. there's an upswing in petty crime, in turf wars. there are more shootings, but more heroes responding. there is speculation about what kind of hero, or what kind of villain, Silverstar must be. there are pleas for his return.
it is slow, finding forgiveness from those who witnessed what happened. for his part, Victor goes searching for none.
he lets the gym membership sit, a car propped up on the counter of his old apartment. in a fit of energy that sapped him for two days following, he kitted out his place, setting up security systems and everything else that had never been necessary before. he doesn't admit to anyone that his powers are failing. sporadic, sometimes they're in control, sometimes they respond, but just as often they don't. he sits in his cramped tub and practices making the water warmer and cooler, warmer and cooler. Makkachin sits on the tiles and pants, simply keeping him company.
his illusions won't work at all. try as he may, even when his light responds, the only person it lights up is Victor Nikiforov. there is no long hair; there is no set of flawless, distant features. no perfect smile; just Victor. it's liberating. liberating and hidden, shown to his dog as he allows himself to live in the stuttered brightness of his own life. opting not to notice when the lights all fade and he's standing there in a cold he hadn't thought to make, shivering, eyes looking into a distance that only sees the past. when his knees lock up and he feels the licking of rage and the nausea tear through him. when he slams his barriers up so hard he stops feeling at all.
when he starts doing that to get through the day to day. conceal, don't feel. that hadn't worked well in the movie. turns out it works just fine in real life with no one mentioning otherwise.
Victor remembers to smile. as his neighbours check in with him, as he falls into a pattern, as he takes up jogging and pull ups and push ups and every kind of physical training that requires only himself. he regains his muscle mass. he forces himself to have an appetite, even when the food tastes like cardboard in his mouth. he shares chicken with Makkachin. he spends more time at the soup kitchen, helping at the shelter. he meets people, people who've always existed. people who now talk to him, who comment on sports teams, the weather, the stock exchange. people from all walks of life, with different jobs, different vices, different hobbies.
it's all echoing off him, something he categorizes and doesn't quite engage. he turns down social offer after social offer; is a man and his dog, friendly enough, somewhat sad, somewhat touched since he'd been kidnapped. he's a Survivor.
he finds that ironic, unable to see his own PTSD for what it is.
when Yuri goes looking for Victor, he's not quite in his usual places. the soup kitchen is his only constant. his patterns, his single man visual patrols of the city, watching it recover from a mess most only knew as the Incident, keeps him traveling erratically. on purpose. he's difficult to track.
but he still lives in his apartment. he still shows up to the soup kitchen, usually with Makkachin in tow. he ties on an apron and he moves boxes as he's told, moves everything as he's told. he's a little less vivacious, true, but who wouldn't be? living through all of That.
he knows this is a holding pattern. he needs to find something new, something different; needs to jar himself out of this cycle of thoughts consuming themselves like some personal, grotesque oroboros. he looks up as he steps outside the soup kitchen, Makkachin shaking himself off as he pulls at his lead. he expects to see no one, nothing more familiar than the usual. everything part of this madcap life he's stumbling through, finding meaning in making it through each day.
he does not expect to see Yuri, in whatever form. as he walks his dog home, bundling his coat more tightly around himself in spite of the sun beating down overhead, all Victor can think of is collapsing after feeding the dog. sleeping the next ten hours before he drags himself awake to shower, then eat, then sleep again.
massive efforts. he's not due back at the soup kitchen for another two days. )