#this was a sneaky efficient way on your behalf in trying to flush out the contents of The Vault

[thefangirlofhp]

One scene from apaixonar that lives rent free in my mind is the lunch scene between Graysen, Azriel, and Winnnie. The heartbreaking dynamic between Graysen and Winnie plus the really beautiful relationship blossoming between Azriel and Winnie chokes me the f up. I came across this pic on Pinterest and I gave me manly Azinnie vibes — Winnie needing some type of comfort from being neglected from her father so she goes to Azriel for a hug because he’s big and strong and makes the bad feelings go away.

Anyway, somehow my Pinterest page is slowly turning into an Azinnie stan page.

Hun if this was your way of bringing out the contents of The Vault, you’re succeeding. Also I have that same exact picture pinned to the board lmao— love how we think alike. Also, I didn’t mean to put out some Winnie feels, but here they are anyway:

“Her first lessons in loneliness began in the quiet company of Graysen’s home. Winnie was a delightful extroverted child who could chat up a storm with whatever caught her fancy, and her father openly expressed his joy on the days she was particularly playful and funny. But she was only a child, two years, who had needs an adult had to see to- not just feeding and cleaning and occasionally giving her a tickle. Sometimes, parenthood was about the quieter parts, the less glamorous aspects where she had no smiles to give and none to take back, where Winnie was just a child who needed companionship and a parent who constantly reached out, teaching her the ways to express herself and helping her do so when she couldn’t.

Graysen, naturally, was not that father.

He loved her, and maybe that was the problem. That he loved her in a way that didn’t allow him to forget about her but also didn’t allow her a place in his carefully structured life. Sometimes when she was older and was loved more freely and unconditionally, she wondered if it would have been better that he didn’t care for her, that he hated the sight of her.

Graysen’s life didn’t allow for children and yet there he was, with a room dedicated for her in his home, a few stuffed toys on her small bed, and his pens in her drawer with paper.

Winnie met her grandfather once, and it had been the most terrifying and miserable experience of her life. There was something about that man that brought tears to her eyes, his words landing blows on both his son and granddaughter. While Winnie’s eyes watered, Graysen flinched, and she had hoped then for a comforting hand from him, gentle reassurance that it was alright, they were in it together, but Graysen’s eyes remained fixed on the linen-covered little table they sat at in a restaurant on the riverside.

It didn’t take a genius to figure out Graysen was only passing on the cycle of terrible fatherhood, yet Azriel was always praised for being one.

Sometimes, in that small room in her father’s penthouse, when Winnie sat in the dark on the carpet and stared at stuffed animals that usually danced with life on their own, life was heartbreakingly unalive. Her, with the most vivid of imaginations, who saw scenarios and stories and games in even the most nondescript of places (IKEA was a dreamland), saw the world for what it was whenever she was with Graysen. Lifeless, flat, miserable.

Going out with him took ages, was boring, kept her silent, because it felt like commercial breaks on the tv repeating themselves over and over while she kept waiting for her show to start, for her life to resume. He would always comment on how toned-down she was, to Mama, told her she was excellent and well behaved and he didn’t understand why Elain was having a hard time.

Perhaps it was because she feared his temper.

It was harmless but hurtful in the ways that mattered the most, in a way that left the most impact.

At first it was little things; eye rolls and huffs when she did something that made sense according to child logic that never made her mother bat an eye. Reprimands and a disturbed mood. Sighs as if she was an inconvenience while he was forced to stop what he was doing to erase what mark she’d made on the world.

Then things like harsh chastising when she wet the bed in the night because he’d given her too much to drink and hadn’t reminded her to go to the bathroom before sleeping.

She’d woken up soaked one night because he hadn’t dressed her in the pull-ups Mama put in her bag for nights when she was still unused to going to the toilet. The mattress was soaked, so were the duvet and the bedsheets and she’d gone to seek him out quietly.

He had that lady with him who Winnie always saw. Mama hated her, vehemently, and if she found out Graysen had her over while he had Winnie then she’d get mad, and shout and rage and they’d have an explosive argument that would always leave Mama in tears.

“Dada,” Winnie whispered because that’s what they told her to call him.

Graysen, naturally, didn’t like being woken up.

“What?” His voice was hoarse and low and more human than she ever heard it. “What’s the matter Winnie?”

She didn’t know how to say it, so she fidgeted with her fingers. He glared at the bedside clock, rubbing his bleary eyes furiously before repeating his question, this time more annoyed and awake.

“Asdent,” she mumbled.

“Gosh Gray,” the lady mumbled, half asleep. “You still want that thing around?”

He pushed aside the covers and the lady’s arm from over him. He took her by the arm outside, where he repeated his question and then saw her soaked pants. His eyes flashed with irritation.

“Don’t you know how to go to the toilet?” He demanded. “Didn’t your mother teach you?”

Winnie mutely nodded, eyes on the floor.

“Why are you covered in piss then, huh? Shouldn’t you have gone?!”

She sniffled. He stalked into the room and groaned. “What am I supposed to do, Winnie?” He demanded, looking through her bag and finding no spare pajamas. “You wanna go back in the diaper, huh, is that was this is? You want to be a baby?!”

“No,” she moaned, eyes swimming with tears as she looked at the carpet and didn’t dare to look at him. He ripped the bedding off the mattress, and left her standing there while he put them in the washer. He came back to take her sleepwear and she couldn’t stop shaking.

“I don’t have clothes for you,” he said simply when she was left in the pull-ups. He got her a blanket and she slept on the couch, shivering, for the rest of the night. “Are you going to wet the couch too?”

“No,” she quietly replied, then he left and she sobbed silently in the cushions while her father left her on the couch, when his bed was occupied by the homewrecker who apparently belonged more with him than his child.

When she inevitably wet the bed in her actual room, in her real home, with her mother, Winnie couldn’t help but hesitate when she sought out her Mama.

Azriel started sleeping over almost every night, and nothing delighted Winnie more, but she knew this scenario; a parent with someone asleep next to them- they never liked being woken up, or reminded of a pest like her’s existence, taking them away from whatever little bubble they existed in together.

So she’d quietly whispered for her Mama, and honest to God she hadn’t meant to wet the bed, she’d just woken up from a nightmare and there was her shame, soaking her pants and her duvet and her mattress.

“Mama,” Winnie whispered, reaching out and touching her mother’s shoulder. She couldn’t see her face; Azriel’s arms were around her, holding her to his chest while they slept, his fingers in her hair.

He immediately awoke at the second whisper, and she felt like she had to apologize. Azriel made out her form in the dark, and then reached behind him for the bedside lamp and turned it on. The soft glow lit the room as he blinked the sleep from his eyes.

“What’s the matter, Bunny?” He whispered, voice hoarse and cracked.

She sniffed. “I want Mama. I did an accident.”

Azriel gently unwound his arms from around her mother, put on his glasses and got up quietly, motioning for her to round the bed to his side. She followed quietly.

“What’s going on?” Mama barely mumbled. Azriel pressed a kiss to her head and pulled the covers around her in his stead.

“Nothing. Bunny woke up.”

Out in the hall, Winnie sobbed.

He immediately knelt and swept her in his arms, soaked clothes and all. “Hey, hey,” he cooed soothingly, rubbing her back and pressing kisses to her head. “It’s okay, Bunny. It’s okay. It was an accident. It’s just water. Look at me, it’s okay, all right? It’s okay.”

“I’m s-sowry,” she sobbed.

“Don’t be, it’s all right.”

He cleaned her up, changed her and removed the bedding, without a word. She kept monitoring his face for displeasure, annoyance, but Azriel only had smiles and little kisses for her as he let her watch what he did. He carried her to their room when he was done, settled her between him and her mother who wrapped her in her hold.

“Our little baby’s sleeping with us if that’s all right with you,” Azriel told Mama, giving them both kisses and the warmth of his embrace as they snuggled her between them.

“Mmm,” Mama always smelt lovely. “Our baby can stay all she wants.”

“I’m not a baby,” she whispered in her Mama’s ears who smiled.

“False,” Azriel mumbled into his pillow behind Winnie’s head. He laid a hand over her chest. “You’ll always be our baby.”

“I’m not a baby,” she insisted.

“I’m prepared to do this all night, Bunny.”

“I’m not,” Mama interrupted. “Go to sleep, both of you.”

The pair of them giggled.”

— From The Vault, Winnie’s Point of View of apaixonar.

#azriel #elriel #apaixonar snippet #from the vault #this was a sneaky efficient way on your behalf in trying to flush out the contents of The Vault #and it worked apparently lol #apaixonar #ask #winnie #azzinie