Violet rarely speaks, so when you find yourself hearing her voice, you either cherish it or start running.
Being a selective mute who's power is to disappear, Violet Hargreeves hasn't aged ever since Five's powers kicked back at her for trying to st...
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REWRITTEN.
'The ties that bind you together make you stronger than you are alone.'
Violets legs were trembling along with her hands as she watched her siblings get the umbrella academy symbol tattood into the sensitive skin of their inner wrists.
Allison and Klaus cried softly and Diego wasn't faring much better as he sat in the chair in the centre of the dark room on the verge of passing out.
The constant buzz of the machine grated Violet to the core, making her feel sick to her stomach.
'They will make you impervious to the pain and hardship the world will thrust upon you.'
She couldn't stop the trembling in her hands as she watched the tattoo artist hold their arm down in order to draw the sharp lines, hunched over, too close in her own mind.
Then there was the touch of needle to skin.
It made her want to throw up. This man was a complete stranger. It was all too much.
'And believe me when I tell you: life will be hard. It will be painful.'
She hugged herself around her torso, nails digging through her sleeves and into skin.
Diego stood, albeit wobbly, and the man called for the next person.
All eyes flickered to her.
She shrank back.
Reginalds harsh stare bored into the side of her skull as he waited for her to move towards the chair and do as she was told.
She did not.
"Number eight," he warned. "Do as you are told."
Violet shook her head, holding herself even tighter.
The man made a step towards her and she flinched back, panic gripping her chest.
A body stepped in between them and turned to her protectively. Five met her eye, frowning a little. He glanced back at the others then gave her a weak reassuring smile, but she shook her head adamantly and flinched away from his outstretched hand.
She was concious of him being hurt by her reaction but she was just panicking.
Irritated, Reginald stormed forwards, hand clamping down around her arm as he attempted to pull her towards the middle of the room. His palm was icy against her skin, much too tight, and a flurry of terrifying thoughts sent her into a panic.
She shrieked before she could stop herself, kicking him hard in the shin and tearing herself away like he'd burnt her.
Reginald clenched his jaw, tightening his fist at his side.
Violet ducked behind Five, holding her sore arm.
"Your childish actions are forcing my hand, number eight." Reginald's voice was hard. "Number one, hold her down in the chair."
The girl paled considerably as her arms were grabbed before she could fight and she was forced into the chair, noises of protest escaping her throat as she kicked and cried like a little animal caught in a trap.
But Luther had always been stronger than all of them combined, and fighting was only hurting herself.
By the end of it, she was so caught up in the hands touching her and pressing on her arms and holding her in place that it became hard to breathe through her tears. The pain of the tattoo slipped her mind at first.
Violet knew pain like an old friend and greeted it without fear.
But as her skin began to heal itself and reject the ink, the man was forced to trace over the same lines again and again, pressing harsher against her skin, the vibrations of the needle shaking her right to the bone in a nauseating wave.
All Violet could focus on was the feeling of being trapped.
Trapped in her own home.
Trapped beneath the arms holding her down and the shooting pain in her wrist and the weight of the eyes watching her with sympathy.
With tears rolling down her cheeks, her mind detached from her trembling body and the pain and the fear. The sight, the sound, the feeling of it all.
Five Hargreeves tried so hard not to let his heart control his actions. All he wanted to do was take her away from it all and assure her that everything was going to be alright, but how could he when Reginald was keeping a watchful eye on him?
The artist muttered under his breath and worked going over the same parts, pressing deeper and deeper into her skin than he should have, just so the ink would stay.
Her glossy eyes were fixed on a blurred patch on the floor, her knee bounced up and down, her fists clenched and her breathing uneven.
Five watched Violet suffer, far longer than all of the others had, due to something she couldn't control, and his chest ached at the sight. Anger made him clench his fists by his sides before he did something he'd only be punished for later.
Finally, with a little trickle of blood dripping down her hand and the dark ink finally sticking in her skin, the artist sat back and let her go. The very second Luther released her, Violet sprung away from the chair and her appearance flickered, turning her into a ghost like apparition. She huddled behind Klaus and Ben who watched her with sad looks.
It took hours for her to stop pacing in her room and knocking the sides of her fists against her walls, and then her head when she couldn't catch her breath.
When it turned time to go to bed, she wordlessly slipped into Five's room and sat with him on his bed. She didn't let him hold her hand this time, too afraid, and it hurt him physically to not be able to comfort her.
She curled in on herself, lying with her back to him on the bed. As Five began to read from one of his books, she listened. Slowly, the tension eased from her body and she allowed herself to sink into the abyss of sleep. Next to Five, with bruises on her forearms and knuckles and scratched red lines raked over her fresh tattoo.
The tattoo they both had, reminding them both of how trapped they really were in a place that was meant to feel like home.
