REWRITTEN.
She walked in tucked behind Klauses frame, spotting Vanya sitting on the small couch by her self.
They exchange tiny smiles as Violet sat herself on the floor next to the womans legs, leaving the spot on the couch open for Klaus when he inevitably returned from his tinkering at the drinks bar.
Violet ignored the eyes on her and crossed her legs beneath herself, cloaking so she didn't knock into Vanya accidentally. Her cloaked form made her translucent and unable to be touched, so it quickly became no wonder to the others why it made her feel the safest. She could phase through objects and they would pass through her as though she weren't even there, appearing as a ghostly grey figure instead of being made of solid matter.
Luther cleared his throat as Diego took a seat, and she didn't look up from where she began tracing the lines in the floorboards with her index finger.
Violet and Luther had left on bad terms and she didn't expect any of that to change now that Reginald was dead. Out of all of them, he had been her least favourite. They just didn't get along. They were far too different to ever really connect, and she supposed that was why she wasn't too keen on Allison either. It wasn't that Luther was intentionally a dick, it was just that he was a narrow minded idiot who desperately wanted the attention and approval of their father. He had his own issues, she knew that, but was still too blindly devoted to see the issue with how he treated people.
And Allison was just too stubborn.
The silence in the room grew tenfold as none of the siblings really wanted to talk to eachother or start the conversation first. She could hear the clinking of glasses in the background and the crackle of the fireplace that never could seem to warm up the icy walls of the home, and so really had no reason to be on.
She counted the scratches along the floorboards illuminating in the flickering glow from the fire.
Luther stood in front of it and made himself the attention of the room.
"I guess we should get this started," He began. "So I figured we should have a sort of memorial service in the courtyard at sundown. Say a few words, just at dads favourite spot."
Violet ran her fingers over the thread in her left sleeve, trying to keep her bitter thoughts away from the forefront of her mind.That was proving especially difficult today.
"Dad had a favourite spot?" Allison asked, confused.
"You know, under the oak tree," he informed her. "We used to sit out there all the time. None of you ever did that?"
Violet glared down at her sleeve, amazed at Luther's naivety. She brushed her fingers over the patterns in the threads.
"Will there be refreshments?" Klaus approached the group, a cigarette in one hand and a drink of somekind in the other. "Tea? Scones? Cucumber sandwiches are always a winner."
"What? No," Luther shot him down quickly. "And put that out. You know dad didnt allow smoking in here."
'He's not here to enforce that rule anymore,' she mouthed to herself, thinking about how many times she had sewed up that same sleeve.
"Mom?" Her quiet voice had surprised Grace, who was busy at her charging point, trying to finish her embroidery.
"What is it, dear?"
Her eyes stung with tears as she held up the jumper in her hands.
"Can you-" she took a deep breath, trying her best to form the words she wanted to ask. She had to ask. "Teach..." she pointed to herself, struggling. "- fix?" she showed the rip in the sleeve for her to see.
Grace smiled gently. "Of course I can. Here, I'll show you. It's easy, I'm sure you'll pick it up in no time..."
"Listen up," Luther snapped her out of her daze. "There's still some important things we need to discuss, alright?"
Violet went back to tracing the grooves in the floorboards as though it held the secrets of the universe, focussed on the feeling of the lines beneath her fingers.
Diego frowned. "Like what?"
"Like the way he died."
"I don't understand," Vanya spoke up softly. "I thought they said it was a heart attack."
"According to the coroner."
"Wouldn't they know?"
"Theoretically."
"Theoretically?" Allison questioned, dumbfounded.
"I'm just saying, at the very least, something happened," he looked around the room as though trying to get them to understand his point. "The last time I talked to dad he sounded strange."
Violet suppressed a smile while Klaus gurgled around a mouthful of whiskey, "Oh, quelle surprise!"
"Strange how?" Allison ignored him and folded her arms.
"He sounded on edge," he answered. "Told me I should be careful who to trust."
"Luther, he was a paranoid, bitter old man who was losing what was left of his marbles," Diego responded finally, standing.
Violet internally agreed with him. From what little she had seen of him during those years, he was exactly that.
"No, he must have known something was going to happen." Luther stated calmly before turning to face Klaus. "Look I know you don't like to do it but I need you to talk to dad."
He scoffed. "I can't just call dad in the afterlife and be like 'dad, could you stop playing tennis with Hitler for a minute and take a quick call?'"
"Since when? That's your thing."
"I'm not in the right frame of mind." He waved his cigarette around.
The smoke trickled Violets nose and she barely stifled a sneeze into the crook of her elbow.
"You're high?" Allison accused.
"Yeah! Yeah, I mean how are you not, listening to this?"
"Well, sober up, this is important," Luther instructed coldly, just like he always did when they were kids. Violet shifted at his tone, frowning down at her lap. "Then there's the issue of the missing monocle."
She repositioned her legs so they were drawn in to her chest and rested her chin on her knees, staring into the tiny flames flickering in the fireplace.
"Who gives a shit about a stupid monocle?" Diego shot back harshly.
"Exactly. It's worthless, so whoever took it, I think it was personal. Someone close to him, someone with a grudge," Luther revealed, meeting all of their eyes once.
Violet felt a pair of eyes remain on her and stiffened, her eyes boring into the centre of the flames until her eyes stung, arms tensing around her legs.
"Where are you going with this?" Klaus asked cluelessly.
"Isn't it obvious, Klaus?" Diego crossed his arms. "He thinks one of us killed dad."
The silence was thick. Then,
"Violet," Luther addressed her finally.
Her head snapped up, limbs locking tensely.
"You were here when he died."
"You're accusing Violet of-" Diego stood, outraged, before being cut off by Klauses cackling.
"I'm just saying," he defended himself. "You can heal Violet, that's your thing. What happened when he died?"
The room went eerily silent.
The only sound was Violets knee bouncing up and down as she stared into the fire, jaw tight.
He sounded uncertain. "I mean, if he was sick, you could have-"
Violet stood abruptly and headed for the door, trying to hide the bitter burning tears in her eyes.
"How could you think that?" Vanya exclaimed.
"That's not what I'm saying!"
His words were drowned out as she raced up the stairs, anger pulsing in her veins, for once too enraged to even disguise her heavy footfalls.
The door slammed behind her and her fists clenched so hard she broke the skin of her palms with her nails. She pressed her sharp knuckles into her temples, frustrated with her emotions and all the things she wished she was able to say back.
The frustration and rage built up until she sank to the floor and knocked her fist hard against the edge of her nightstand. The lamp ontop rattled in place and the pain made her grit her teeth, but she did it once more before clutching her forearm against her and tucking herself in against the wall between the night stand and the wardrobe.
The pain made her eyebrows draw in. She tucked her head down against her knees, trying to focus on it.
Luther's words cycled through her head at rapid speed, on repeat. She lifted her head and hit her head back against the wall, nails digging against her bruised hand.
Bad memories were brought to the forefront of her mind, making her eyes sting with more tears.
A small girl sobbed into her sleeve bundled over her hand, trying to stifle any sound and yet feeling as though she couldn't catch her breath between the tears blurring her vision.
She was sat in the same position now, tucked half hidden between her wardrobe and nightstand, her legs the only thing visible.
There was blood on her hands, clinging like a second skin that needed to be shed. Flashes of violence and bullets and screaming wracked her head. Her hair clung to the side of her face slick with blood.
Her own, but no one had cared about that.
"Violet!"
The girl sobbed harder and curled in on herself as her door was shoved open. The boy who entered had been enraged, upset, grieving - followed by the others who were trying to come themselves, trying to stop him from going too far - the force of the door handle hitting her wall dented it.
The dent was still there to this day. Hidden behind a botanical poster.
The loud noise made the girl want to die.
Her trembling hands clawed at the sides of her head to cover her ears, to stop the tirade of yelling Luther had begun matching all of the insecure and bitter voices inside her head berating her for not doing more.
She could barely see out of her blurry eyes. Her chest heaved with breaths she couldnt take.
Diego was crying too. Trying to drag Luther away by the arm, close to fighting him in his already emotional state.
"Stop, Luther!"
"Why couldn't you heal him?" Luther shouted, towering over her crouched form on the floor. Her hands gripped the sides ofher head viciously, trying to stop the words from tearing her apart from the inside out, nails digging into delicate, injured skin. "You let him die!"
"Stop it!" Allison was crying into Klauses shoulder. "This isn't helping!"
Violets heart shattered so violently it was impossible for no one to have heard it. She shook her head and half hid her face in her sleeve, her ears ringing.
She had tried. She had tried. She would never have let that happen -
But she did.
The blood trickling down the side of her face went unnoticed by everyone. Her room span.
The pain in her heart was worse.
Luther was so angry that he couldn't see the damage he was doing. Didn't know her well enough to truly care about his harsh words. His brother was dead. He was in pain and needed something to take it all out on.
The girl had stopped sobbing, and remained covering one ear, eyes glazed over as she stared down at her feet and the blood staining her floorboards. The tears didn't stop, her shaking even worse.
The others began to back away and pull Luther away, their mother coming to calm them all down.
She didn't hear any of it.
They had only seen her like that one other time - when she finally came to terms that Five wasn't coming back.
It had been her job to keep them all safe. She was supposed to pay attention, to keep them all moving, to keep them together. She was supposed to put them before herself and she did. So what had gone wrong?
Although she knew, years later, that she had simply been too late and there was nothing she could have done - a deeper part of her disagreed, and tore apart her resolve every time she attempted to reason with herself.
Because that was just how her mind worked.