𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐔𝐦𝐛𝐫𝐞𝐥𝐥𝐚 𝐀𝐜𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐦𝐲 𝐎𝐧𝐞 𝐒𝐡𝐨𝐭𝐬

𝗡𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿 𝗔𝗴𝗮𝗶𝗻

tw/cw: su*cide, su*cide notes, and mentions of dr*g ab*se and s3x; this focuses on diego and how he would react if vanya died. i don't want to necessarily say that this is a ship one-shot because that would be like romanticizing su*cide and the very thought makes me sick. although, he is in love with her during this, it isn't the main thing. it's more about how he feels about what happened, and his ultimate emotional downfall.

this is set in an au verse where vanya never published her book, instead she committed su*cide and this sort of alternates between then and 2019 on reginalds funeral date. i recommend listening to Cold by Aqualung while reading, even tho it's not a song-fic it's just something i listened to while writing this. anyway, enjoy, and again, trigger warning!!

The song ran through his head, and he knew it would haunt him years to come. He had finally gotten it out of his head when he got the call. It was her song. The one she would play when they were kids, and would grow up to play in the quiet theater as he sat in the back row and watched the tears fall down her face.

It was an eerie song that whispered in your ear, caressed your face, and then once it got you in its arms, it would lock you in a chokehold, forcing the air out of your lungs until your vision blurred and your unconscious took over. At least, that's what it did to him.

She had never gotten it recorded, but it was all her own. He would catch her playing it when she was supposed to be practicing the classics for the one person she hated with everything in her. He had no idea she was capable of such fury until then, her small body looking like it would break if she so much as sneezed too hard. But still she played it, and it nearly killed him when she did.

Yet, now she's the one who was being lowered into the grave, the rain getting trapped on the cherry colored wood, and suffocated under the weight of the dirt.

Diego clenched his teeth, his anger and desperation taking over him. He was the only one who visited Vanya's grave anymore, and he was still hurt that she did this to herself.

They didn't find a note, and he was too afraid to reach out to the police to see if it had really been a murder. He wouldn't even investigate it himself, the weight of the pain hurting too much that sometimes he couldn't even bring himself to get out of bed.

Diego was never an emotional person, but when he got the call something inside of him snapped.

Vanya Hargreeves had broken him, shattering his heart and bending his bones until they wouldn't bend anymore. She had completely destroyed him and he hated her for it.

Diego had always hated her in someway after their untimely break up. The words had never been spoken but they knew it was over when he didn't show up for the gig and she left off for college, her fear of confrontation being too much that she didn't even show up to say goodbye.

Today was Reginald's funeral, yet Diego couldn't make himself go. Instead he sat by Vanya's headstone, holding his knees up to his chest like she used to when they would sit in his room and listen to music together.

Their music. She would smile so wide and her eyes would light up, her happiness so overwhelming that she had to get it out. So she had spread it across the both of them as their kisses deepened and their clothes fell to the floor. They may have not made it anywhere, but they made each other.

And now she was just gone.

It hit him then, though it should have five years ago, that he would never see her smile again, though she never really did prior to her death.

He would never feel her skin against his again.

He would never smell her painfully familiar shampoo again, feel her silky hair in between his fingers.