Life had been hard for him, as a child.
His father was so hollow after his mother died, so quiet and reserved. Empty. Everything was empty and meaningless. He went to school in a haze of routine. He answered questions before they were asked, dodged any ball thrown at him ("I swear, it's like it moved or something!") and he sensed his father's depression. He was a telepath; he drowned in other people's emotions. His father's sobs echoed through his son's mind, the pain seared through them both, and finally Sasha couldn't take it. He was dead inside, desperately trying to shut off his own mind in an attempt to find peace. At age twelve, however, it was all too much. He'd snapped.
He'd left, without a word to his father. Without a word to his aunt. He'd wandered, and drifted, and mastered his powers. He'd used them to get food and get cigarettes and just scrape by, until he'd found himself in America. The Psychonauts found him. He'd done something awful, of course; psychics were only noticed if they hurt someone. But by then he could sense their intent and focus in on people until their deepest, innermost thoughts, things they hadn't thought of for years, were there for him to read. He could shut people out so hard that trying to telepathically reach for him was impossible. His aim was eerily accurate. That little boy was long gone. He was deadly then. He was also so shut off no one ever knew the things he'd done. A little bit of drugs, a lot of alcohol, a lot of smoking. And all the dingy, backwater bar activities those things entailed - he'd done things he'd never forget as hard as he would try later on. He wasn't some little angel like Milla Vodello with a great life and lots of charity and generosity to speak of, and he wasn't a legacy inheriter like Truman Zanotto. He was and, too a degree, will always be a product of the city streets. Ironically it wasn't as awful as any of them had pictured. He'd enjoyed it immensely, some days. The problem was that when seventeen year old Sasha Nein was arrested and brought in to the Psychonauts, he was totally out of control.
He'd struggled to find control, a sense of it at least. He needed to be able to control things and make sure they would work according to plan. So he mastered his powers long ago. He was so mentally sound that when he'd been captured on a mission once, confusion grenades to the head hadn't shaken him. He could go invisible for an hour flat. He could telekinetically reach things several hundred feet away. Control? Sasha Nein was control after a few months. He was logic. His whole being was made up of these things, the sum of his parts, so to speak. Nothing ever happened to him that he couldn't change, work around, or get through. He needed no one. Agent Nein was not weak, but at the same time he wasn't whole or happy, either. His emotions were locked away, sealed down so deep no one would ever see his radical side again. He forced down all those parts of him that liked to act like a random spazz. Sasha was logical, facts, technical terms and official names only. He could be snarky and smirky, or thoughtful and distant, but either way he was simply controlled.
Then there had been her.
She overruled him, outdid him, out smarted him. She lectured him, tightened up procedures on him, made sure things were clockwork. And he hated her. Dear God, he hated her. She was an awful woman, horrifying in her diligence. But he loved her, because lurking beneath the surface was a hollowness that matched his. She was cold. She was detached. She was more controlled than he ever would be. She was like a robot. Valerine Frizzle was less of a person than him, somedays. She was hurting inside like him, putting up defenses so thick no one could ever find her. Truthfully a more at peace person would have survived that faithful night without any complications whatsoever. If she'd been alright to begin with, she'd be here beside him right now, a constant in his life instead of a secret. If she'd been just a bit more real, she'd have been okay, but she wasn't ever real.
This, what she has now? This is real. Always has been, always will be. The laughter, the insane clothes. They can all think her loony. They call her out of her mind. She'll still laugh now, openly, a sound that takes his breath away and makes his mind stop. She can be as silly and childish as she never got to be, because underneath it all he's sure her family would never have let her do this before. This is her, as much as the sun is fire or the ocean is water. She is more real and full now than she's ever been in her entire life. He hesitates, pondering going invisible, but it's too late because he's in the school, in the hallway, outside her door, and she spots him.
She freezes. He waits for her face to twist in anger now that she remembers. He waits for her to scream at him, to blame him for taking away her powers, her career, her memories. Instead her face lights up and, not saying a word to the class, she throws open the door. With a delighted, "Sasha! It's you!" she throws her arms around him, burying her face in his shoulder. He smells hibiscus flowers, for some odd reason, like the ones on her earrings and dress (where does Frizzle get her clothes?) and leans into her. His eyes close and he indulges in the kind of embrace they were never allowed to have before.
"Valerie," he murmurs, and with that all professionalism comes soaring back into him. The embrace ends, he crosses his arms and looks at her sternly, though his face is half hidden by his glasses. "We need to talk. Soon. Can I meet you here after class, or-?"
He's cut off by her beaming at him. "Of course! Meet me here at three!" And she kisses him on the cheek, a darting motion that stuns him. "See you later, sweetie!"
Despite his training and moral stance against reading minds, sometimes emotions are so strong that they're like red flags in a sea of gray, and he turns. Another teacher, a man, is staring at him. Shocked. Looking and feeling ill. Hurt. Confused. Betrayed. He loves the insane madwoman of a teacher. Sasha feels it, breathes it in like air. The poor man is beyond confused and his thoughts are so scattered that the Agent doesn't bother reading them. He doesn't try to set things right either. At this point the whole last few years have blown up in his face and Agent Valerie Frizzle just acted like a schoolgirl whose long lost best friend had just come back. Putting his hands in his trenchcoat and walking away, Sasha knows that today, he'd believe anything, control and logic be damned. A zombie raptor could come rampaging down the highway or Agent Vodello could give up disco, and he would not be surprised. Now is not the time to do damage control; he'd make it worse.
He pulled directions from someone's mind to help him a coffee shop with outdoor tables. There he sat, smoking and drinking coffee. Reliving the past reunion in his head, again and again. She wasn't mad at him for what happened. She probably didn't have the whole story yet, then, or else it might've just been that her current happy state of mind wouldn't let her be angry with him. Quite possibly she was happier here than she'd ever been, and so she'd forgiven him. She certainly seemed to love teaching, squealing about an adventure, taking chances and getting messy. Her enthusiasm was catchy. Her face was bright and lit up, her eyes shiny, her body relaxed. This was the best time of her life. On some level he regretted entering it, breaking her out from her routine. But if she was willing to give him a chance… he frowned to himself, thoughtfully. Then what? Be her friend, after all these years? Be something more? Tell her what had happened?
His eyes closed under his glasses, and he massaged them with one hand while sipping coffee with the other. An observant eye would have noticed that his cigarette re-lit and found its way into his mouth without his hands being involved. He stared into the coffee, wondering what exactly he'd come here to accomplish. The happy woman who'd tackled him was hardly a ghost of Agent Frizzle. She was none of his business, he realized with a cringe. She had a man who pined for her, a simple minded one without FBI level clearance or psychic powers. She had a job that was her life's dream.
But she didn't have a past. And as much as Agent, man in his late thirties with a cold shell around his heart, would love to leave, Sasha, man in his late thirties with an unhealthy amount of concern, can't. He owes her the past, the truth. Sasha is, was and would always be her partner. Partners help each other. He sighed softly.
Just because he wasn't a child, didn't mean life wasn't hard anymore.