Rumor has it Vanya's book doesn't sell many copies. Against the predictions of her agent and the publishing company, who booked her interviews and splashed their name across magazine headlines and promised a tell-all that would hold nothing back, it just never gains traction; it languishes in bargain boxes and on backroom shelves long after it is mercifully pulled from the window displays. No one really knows why, but no one really cares enough to wonder, either.
Diego isn't writing Allison any thank-you notes, even if he had her address or some way to obtain it. At the police academy, the book is a hit.
There is, as far as he knows, only one copy. One dog-eared, underlined copy, passed around between instructors and recruits alike. He sees it rarely, just glimpses here and there, never long enough to risk putting a knife through it.
He sees the effects everywhere.
"Man, and I thought my childhood was screwed up," He hears from a fellow recruit, when they're standing together at the shooting range and the other guy catches a glimpse of his tattoo. And Diego feels exposed, like he rarely does, and he knows it's supposed to be sympathy but he pulls his sleeve down and pulls his headphones back over his ears and empties an entire clip, and -
"Hey, Hargreeves, you wanna put five bucks on that being your brother?" A senior officer asks him in a squad car while he's on a tagalong, while the dispatcher delivers monotone details about an overdose five blocks away. It's all he can do to keep his fingers still, to keep them from twitching towards the knife he keeps hidden in the small of his back. And god, it's one thing for them to throw the old man's name at him constantly, like they weren't kids, like they somehow could know they were stepping on law enforcement's toes, but this isn't a joke, this is his heart really seizing up, this really could be Klaus, and -
And then there's a guy leaning over while they're learning interrogation rules to ask him, "Hey, what was in that book, is that really what happened to The Horror? We've had a betting pool going on since we were like ten, man, but none of us figured it was anything like that."
Or: "So do you all have a thing for apes, or just the old man?"
On Mother's Day, he goes to buy flowers from Mom, because she deserves them and the rest of her kids are self-absorbed dickheads. So, you know, maybe they inherited something from the old man.
And he runs into Eudora Patch.
He knows her because she is one of the most promising recruits at the academy other than him, and he likes to keep an eye on his competition. It doesn't hurt that she's easy on the eyes, and today she's got her hair down around her shoulders, letting it ride across her leather jacket. And when he sees her, he wants to drop the bouquet and bolt. But then she looks at him, and he knows he's beat. Diego never backs down.
One of her eyebrows arch.
He looks at the bouquet in his hand, and then back at her. "What?" He demands.
Both of her eyebrows are up now, and she frowns at him. "Oh, okay," She says, folding her arms over her chest. "So being a dick at work, that's not just an act."
Diego shifts. "Like you're not about to say something about me," He indicates the flowers with one hand. "Getting these for my mom."
"On Mother's Day?" Eudora asks. "Congratulations on being like literally 99.9% of all other guys, Diego."
Something occurs to him then, something that surprises him a little. "You mean - you don't know about my mom?"
"Know what?"
"That she's - " But he catches himself. "You haven't read the book?"
"The book?" Eudora looks genuinely confused. But then: "Oh. Your sister's book. No." She unfolds her arms. "I don't know if your ego can take this or not, Hargreeves, but I have more important things to do than read books about you."
(It's hours before he makes it home for Mother's Day, but Grace doesn't mind.)