numberthree | Mask or Menace ☂ IC Phone Post

[ She stares at the words in front of her vision for ticking, ticking, ticking seconds. Because there's so much that could, might, might not be tangled up in those questions, in those answers, and she isn't anywhere she can see him, and she just had to say she wouldn't even be able to tonight.

Tonight was already a lot, and there was some foreign grey line there. She could feel it. Or she was jumping at the shadow of assuming it was there. Somewhere between asking because she said, asking because it was information worth knowing, and asking because he needed to beat himself up with it.

She wasn't close enough. She wouldn't be.

She couldn't lie either. ]

A collar. Light, thin, silverish.

[ She hits send before she can stop herself. Not wanting to put the other part. The other part that mixes it too close. The other part that won't change. The other part she still really can't avoid or ignore or not tell him. ]

But she is in a cell, too.

[ Even Luther's not sure what lies behind his question. Wanting to know. A matter of strategy. A matter of worrying about Vanya. Second-guessing his past decisions. Not second-guessing them. Wondering how much the Aegis cells might or might not look like a sound-proof coffin underneath the Hargreeves house. ]

And she's staying calm? Now that she's away from Diego's powers, and... well, everything. Everything else.

Yeah. I think so. Him and Klaus. Probably more the second.
I might not tell her about where he is until morning. Unless she asks first.

[ Luther is one of the people Allison pretends the least for, but even she knows that's not entirely still not at all. But she doesn't have it in her to tonight. Not after everything. And it's not like he doesn't know. Like she doesn't try to make things easier for him at times, too. Maybe once upon a time, it had only been him. Forever and ever ago. And now. But now, not only him. That she didn't feel the need to explain or apologize. Either.

Which is maybe why she does have to add something. Too threadbare. Too clear. Too necessary.
Between the two parts of her so divided they stretched a chasm, while she tried to hold both. ]

She turned away, Luther. At the last minute.

She was there, and whatever it was that was happening, that happened last time, too. She was looking at me, because I was trying to talk to her. And whatever it all is, she has, it was too much. But she turned away. At the last moment. She didn't know how to stop it, but she knew it was me in front of her, and she turned away so none of it came at me. Or the house.

I saw it. In her eyes. I know I did.

She didn't hurt me. Specifically. She did everything she could not to.

[ He has to rein in and delete the instinctive thought that blooms out of nowhere, almost makes it into a mental text until he deletes it: ~~She sure didn't turn away from Klaus.~~

Luther's still lying on the sofa, dusty with plaster and debris, an oversized arm flung over his head to block out the distant sound of Nonah sirens. Firemen. Police. Still dealing with it. What their sister had done. Luther has a clear view of the gaping hole in the wall, the exposed pipes and wiring.

But he trusts Allison about Vanya more than he trusts himself with Vanya — that's been made abundantly clear, even to himself — and so he sighs. Carefully taps out the response. ]

Yeah.
This house is still standing.
That's at least one better on last time.

It's a lot more than just one house still standing.

[ It's not a reprimand or a rebuke, but she looks at it for a long number of passing second trying to decide if it looks like one, and if she has any clue anymore. Because everything feels bare and raw, both like she could pass out given five minutes to try and like she could keep going for days, if it was needed of her, of the situation. She doesn't know what is yet.

But it's not wrong either. Yes, it's still horrific. Yes, Klaus is in the hospital. Again.
And there are some innocent people dead. And a lot more hurt. And there's property damage.

But it's still so many fewer than six short of everyone in a world's worth of seven-eight billion people. ]

Yeah.

Could've been worse.

[ And how fucked up is that, that an entire wrecked neighbourhood counts as small fry in the grand scale of things, and in the wide spectrum of damage that a Hargreeves can do? But they've already seen the worst-case scenario. Lived through it. They know exactly how bad it could've been.

Another pause, then: ]

Do you need anything?

[ The first thought is the wrong one, because for a few seconds, overwhelmingly, all she wishes is that he was closer. Here. With her. That she could see him. That he could see her, see why, understand why. But that's all so far into too much in too many ways. And he is, isn't he?

She can close her eyes and his words are right there.
It's more than last time, and skies above more than a year ago.

It's enough. It has to be. ]

I don't know.

I'll tell you in the morning if I think of anything? I should know more by then about how long Vanya'll be here, too. Then, I can make a better guess about whether she'll need clothes and food and the rest. What Aegis provides, and how long, how badly this might all end up when the higher ups wake up, too.

[ When morning comes and it isn't just Finn who knows here. ]

Okay. Got it.

[ A lurch of self-consciousness, queasy in his throat, at the thought of Aegis having to handle this mess. He'd half-wished that this whole thing could have gone miraculously unnoticed, swept under the rug. But no. Of course they would be involved.

The thought of Ashley at the party and seeing it all, or Jacob getting the report and seeing the name Hargreeves, and suddenly knowing—

He presses it all down. It's not important. Not as important as the rest.

(But that irrational shame is still there.) ]

I'm going to try to catch a couple hours. But-- text or call anytime, if you need me. Even if it's the middle of the night.

I'll keep you posted on things over here.

Yeah. Do.

I want to know the moment we hear anything from the hospital, too.

[ There'd be time for everything that came after it, after that. After Klaus was out of the hopsital. After Vanya was out of pre-self-imposed prison. There's a want, exhausted somewhere in her bones, to think about sleep. But she can't yet. Not in this big, sterile bulding, with it's bright, floursecent lights that she'd seen last on a harmless, kind tour from Jacob, himself.

And now it was all sideways. She didn't even know if she could stay, or where she'd sleep if she did.
If she'd sleep at all tonight, before knowing really what was decided tomorrow morning.

But at least one of them could try.

She added another line and sent it, too. ] Good luck.

Out getting some breakfast and coffee for us.

Any updates over there?

[ Then, a second later. Because it is still dark. ]

Sorry, if this wakes you for nothing.

[ Luther's used to operating without sleep, to pushing himself past endurance, but when he wakes up to that text he's suddenly disoriented. The birthday party had been discombobulating enough, unreal and surreal and unusual enough, that for a moment he just isn't sure where or when he is. Alone as ever — or surrounded by people, coming off the high of another party and press conference and schmoozing the crowds?

Let alone the fact that there's a hole in the wall and their entire neighbourhood is wrecked and they have guests in the hospital. Or which 'us' Allison is referring to. Her and Vanya. Or her and the house. If she even slept at the house last night. He suspects not. ]

Don't worry about it.

Hospital says Klaus is stable, but still unconscious. She did a number on him and he's not as durable as I am.

[ Luther should've gotten to the fight sooner. Still wished that it had been him. He could've taken it. ]

Still no deaths reported.

No one ever is.

Between the two of us, hopefully, he'll turn out at least as durable as I did.
Given everything, he's come back from almost dead more than anyone of us.

[ It's brisk, but there's a brittleness under it. One the letters don't have, but her thought did, and her voice probably couldn't have hidden. She hates that she'd have to abandon Vanya, leave her utterly alone in that cell, to go see Klaus, but she's worried about Klaus, too. The same as she knows Klaus would have been worried about her that night, too. She still remembers him in the car, over Diego's shoulder, in that dreamscape. Him, in the front seat, with all of them, and her bleeding body.

They may not get along, and she might not approve of pretty much all his life choices, but Klaus is family,
and she'd rather kill someone for him, than have to live through another one of them actually dying. ]

Small favors.

No brass back at Aegis yet either.
But that's probably not long off.

Let me know what they say, when you see them.

I wish they hadn't had to deal with this. But glad that they have the resources.

[ He lets slip that admission without quite intending to, because he's sleep-mussed and just woken up and disoriented, stumbling through the dusty hallways and to the kitchen, searching for coffee. Trying not to look too closely at the hole in the wall as he passes it. Remembering the sight of the old mansion crumbling, falling apart on its foundations.

At least this one is still standing. ]

[ Allison can't help lingering on those words as soon as they are said. There's a precarious surprise, as blunt as it is by the night without sleep, in the strange place, in Luther admitting it at all. At the way, everything seems blown open thrown parallel to last time. When they could barely exchange a word.

She studied the menu over the coffee shop registers, ordering two coffees, and two breakfast sandwiches, and leaning to look at the bakery. When her breath caught looking at something she hadn't expected to see there. Which just seemed like another sudden brick of surprise dropping itself. Before ordering a few of those, too.

It's probably three or four minutes, once she done when she's finally able to answer Luther.
Holding the bakery bag and waiting on the rest. Restless at this time already. ]

Not that it changes anything, but I wish none of us did.

Yeah.

[ Now that they're out in the cold light of the next morning, there isn't as much for Luther to do here at the house. There's the hole in the wall, but the rest of it has him helpless, useless, compared to everything Allison is likely fielding at Aegis. So he pauses, thinks it over, but then sends: ]

Do you need anything from home? Would it help if I stopped by Aegis for anything?

[ Allison knows she's tired because the answer inside of her -- the one she knows is only her, and very much not Vanya or for-Vanya -- is Luther. It's that undeniable, unforgettable ache in her chest that is only Luther. It's that truth that answers his first question with only wanting him from home. To see him. His face. What exactly that face is. Where exactly they are. Even this much talking is somehow more than she ever expected.

She wants to see him. She thinks just one look at him, his face, his eyes, his posture, his tone of voice, could tell her more of the truth of where they are than fifteen hundred of these messages. She doesn't want to let go of what she has, she never expected this much when he let go of her at the door, but she wants more -- which might as well be a treatise on her traitorous heart. ]

Probably not yet. I'll tell you if it changes anytime soon.

Got it.

[ And he, obediently, pulls back until asked-for. Because she's too far away: inaccessible, squirreled away and dealing with a situation that he's itching to get involved in, to fix, but it's not his place anymore. He fucked that up royally, the last time he tried.

In the meantime, there's a work shift to rearrange, swap with someone else if he can, go grudgingly lug furniture if he can't. ]

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