Mask or Menace ☂ IC Phone Post

[numberthree]

INBOX Voice | Text | Call | Video | Surprise Me A flat computer automated voice comes on and states in monotone: "This is the voicemail box for Allison Hargreeves. Leave a message at the beep."

Luther

Diego

Klaus

Five

Ben

Vanya

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[numberthree]

[ Okay, he says. Just making sure, he says. Like it's anything so simple. Checked a box. Made sure she knew he was there. Available. Willing. Meant to do whatever she needed, again, this time for her marriage, too.

She should care so much more about whether Ray is hurting, whether Ray actually did break down after she walked out, whether he & the group are weathering the storm of what she did at the diner, at their publicized association with a communist terrorist, and not about how she suddenly, devastatingly, wishes she could see Luther's face. It would be her undoing, and she knows it. But it's four words, and she doesn't know. Doesn't want it to seem like a slap in the face.

(How hypocritical, too.

When her words above it are even shorter than that.
When she just threw away someone's entire life.)

Christ, she's a mess. ]

I did this.

I shouldn't get to be not alright.

[obediences]

[ Someone with more experience in interpersonal relationships might have this more everyday comparison to make: even in an actual breakup, even if you're the one who did the dumping, you might still find yourself mourning the loss and wistfully missing what you once had. He doesn't really have that frame of reference to go off, though.

But. And yet. He knows. He knows, intimately and exactly how that feels. A teenaged Allison with her duffel bag packed and staring at him with her face splintering open as she realised what he was saying, the backpedal he'd fallen into, the betrayal he'd done. "I can't. I have a responsibility here," and Luther shooting himself in the foot and falling on his own goddamned sword and letting her walk out those doors alone. He did that. He did that, caused that, was responsible for that, and was still not alright after. ]

That's not how feelings work, though.

[numberthree]

[ More things he shouldn't be able to say so easily. Like it's so obvious a child would know it, and not so fraught the concept is more akin to sticking bamboo slivers under her fingernails and willing herself withstanding the pain without crying, just to try and prove she could again. ]

Well, they should.

[ It's a retort turned into text when she doesn't know what she should be. She's none of them. She's all of them. She chose this ending before it began, and she was right, so she should be fine, vindicated. She used someone, who loved her as unconditionally as their sanity could master, and then she took that, too, and so she should feel like shit, heartless.

This was why she hadn't wanted to talk about it. Wasn't it.
Because it's a catch-22, wherein she's damned on both sides of the line.
Where she deserves to be both, and neither, and should be vilified for all of it. ]

[obediences]

[ Despite the seriousness of the subject at hand, he can't help it: that small, subtle tug at the corner of his mouth. Through text, he can't tell if she really meant for it to come out as darkly funny like it did, like the stomping of a foot or stubborn childish pique. And so, tentative, like stepping out onto a sheet of ice and unsure if it'll hold his weight, but Luther tries for that touch of dry humour anyway: ]

I'll file a complaint about it with the powers-that-be. Maybe kick Diego's ass into training his empath abilities better so he can turn that part off.

[numberthree]

[ She hates that her brow furrows at the first part.
She hates that the edge of her mouth twitches by the end.


She hates most that she doesn't hate it at all.
And that's part of why, too, isn't it?
He makes it feel bearable.

Her.

He makes her feel bearable.
Even when she doesn't deserve it.
When she's being ludicrous.

(And that's why, too, isn't it.
Every night and never.) ]


Good.


Except I don't know about letting Diego anywhere near my head.

[obediences]

Yeah, me either. Guess who's doing it anyway, though.

[ Because there's really no alternative: for a power like that, you need someone else around to use it, and Luther's dead-set on helping his siblings train. So Luther puts up with it, and having Diego camp out in his head.

It's all irrelevant to the actual topic at hand, though. Approaching this subject askance, skirting away from the real heart of it, finding a way to lightly joke about it. It's a familiar coping mechanism. ]

[numberthree]

Better you than me.

I already got as close to his head as I need to at that dinner.

[ Punching him in the face, while still sipping her island drink.

Did she mean that? Not really. No more than Diego didn't pause in the barn to says 'well, everyone except Allison.' Loved him. No more than she'd stopped herself from suddenly shouting out his name, across everyone, the moment she saw him down the hallway from where her new entry briefing was. His hand on her shoulder and his on her arm, trading updates and building a battle plan like they were simpatico in one singular.

But it's easy enough to fall into without it actually being anything more than normal. Her and Diego. Sharp edges forever rubbing. Forcing him to say hello. Punching him for his comment. Mocking him while half under a tractor.



Pausing in the strange snap of where it leaned from last.
She sends another before Luther can reply.]

He asked me for advice. About Lila.

[obediences]

What kind of advice?

[ He has a fair idea, but has to ask it anyway to be certain. ]

[numberthree]

[ Is that a serious question, Luther Hargreeves?

How very few things in the world would she or Diego come to each other over?
There were warmer spots in the north pole than chances she would talk to him about the same. ]

I don't know. The 'I one-up-ed everyone in the running and was the first of us to sleep with the daughter of an evil time empire, and now she's here, and hating people doesn't go as well as just wanting to and that's my forte so just tell me what to do now' kind?

[obediences]

I mean. I wasn't intending to sleep with the daughter of an evil time empire. Not sure there was actually a running to run in.

[ Har, har. ]


Does he think there's a chance she's still a threat?

[numberthree]

[ Is it easier to lean into this, to imply in a better shade of ludicrous? When she can't actually stop herself from laughing at that response. Or the knowledge that's not even a thing she could consider he would try for. ]

Fine. We can make it an everyone but you running for next time. And who knows. I haven't seen her. But she didn't try to kill him, so I'm taking that as a 'maybe not entirely' until there's anything more telling. He's probably not the best judge of that right now.

[obediences]

[ That light of amusement, like a sparking lightbulb in the darkness. He starts typing, almost digging deeper into the conceit, the joke — but then he stops partway through, like he's just been dipping a foot in the shallows of the pool, resisting jumping in headfirst. So he banks left, addresses the last part instead: ]

Leaving it at something like 'jury's still out, but we'll stay cautiously optimistic, and hope Diego doesn't do something stupid that we'll have to save him from later'?

[numberthree]

Yeah, that's never going to happen.

Did you miss the part where I said he was sleeping with the enemy and asking the girl who can't even keep me for dating advice? Surely, that has to be the first two signs of Diego's personal apocalypse, and he was never great at holding it together before that.

[ She hits send, and then drops the half statement of ] But. In all seriousness -- [ Mostly, because she just doesn't want him to reply to only that. Because it actually was an important topic and she did have more than sass and squandered references (and backbiting personal sentencing of herself) for it. Diego's conversation had made sure of that, too. ]

I think you and I and Klaus should keep our eyes open for her. That someone who isn't Diego or Five should talk to her. Even if it's probably the last thing she's expecting, maybe even wanting, after what happened.

[obediences]

[ When she suggests it, there's that initial almost child-like lurching recoil and distaste at the thought of it: Oh god, please no, not me. Then the other predictable, pendulum kneejerk that follows: It should be me. It's my job.

He's been going through this a while since Dallas, this rapid see-sawing back and forth between instincts. He's had a year off from heroic responsibilities, so now it's shaking off the dust, getting re-accustomed to the role. ]

Yeah, that's a good idea; those two have a more complicated history with her. Who do you think would be best-suited? Klaus is good with people, but he can also lose the plot or stick his foot in his mouth sometimes.

I feel like it should be my responsibility, but I'm also-- I mean, I tend to stick my foot in my mouth too, I'm not sure if she'd take well to that.

You're good with people.

[ Not an order, but a gentle hint. He'd once tasked Allison with being the one to go talk to Vanya. Sent her like a messenger, because he had been too cowardly to do it himself.

This one is different. This time, it's specifically looking at their strengths. Like each of them are a tool in a toolbox, arrayed in front of him, and he's sizing them up and considering who would be best for the task. Normally Luther's pretty good at this part, but he doesn't know Lila. Can't read or predict her the same way he can the rest of his siblings, and that's a faint annoyance; it throws all his strategic calculations off. Leaves him guessing. ]

[numberthree]

Also, the only person she almost managed to kill.

[ She doesn't know if it'll translate the same way she types it, with all the nonchalance of announcing the newest color of her nails done by whatever makeup artist to match whatever new outfit. Maybe it's been a few years, but people have been trying to kill her (all of them) since they were twelve.

That part is hardly new, and it was rarely anything like excitement-worthy.
It's just a comment on the part of the baggage that might come with it.
Not that, again, she wasn't trying to kill all of them.

She just got closest stealing Allison's power. ]

I can ask Diego if he has any ideas where she might be here, and maybe encourage someone who runs the gym they ran into each other at to give me any of her details if the place has memberships.

[obediences]

Almost.

[ They're both inured to near-death misses over the course of their lives, particularly in the middle of a chaotic battle, but Luther has a particular weakness here where it comes to her. As if that one word isn't, also, like a knife grinding into his side. Almost killed, if it weren't for his intervention. If it weren't for—


He can't really think on that for too long. ]

I could do it, though. If you're not comfortable.

[numberthree]

No, it's fine. If you see her first, of course, do what you have to, but otherwise, it's fine. I don't mind.

[ It's those words, but really it's equivalent of a shrug. He's not wrong about what he said, and while she doesn't doubt either of them could talk to her, in the logical breakdown it's almost too obvious. Plus, she's been thinking about it since Diego sought her out. ]

It's still crazy, you know? That there's more of us.

[obediences]

Yeah. In hindsight I feel like I should've guessed at it, because why only seven? that doesn't make any sense -- but I just never questioned it. We were the only ones, and we were the only ones who mattered, and others never cropped up in thirty years, so I never thought to wonder.

[numberthree]

[ They were special, and they had been born to save the world. They heard it over and over as children. Until it was drummed in deep. Special. Unique. With great potential. Until they hadn't questioned that, even when they questioned the man who said it.

Like never questioning why Vanya was normal. It just was. ]

Me, too. Not even when came here.

It makes me wonder how much he knew, and how much we still don't.

[obediences]

Yeah.


Being able to interrogate him properly with Klaus' powers would be pretty useful right about now, huh.

[ How absolutely typical, that when Klaus had actually managed to make post-mortem contact with their father, the man had still been elusive and unhelpful about it. Only saying enough to reveal that he'd committed suicide to bring them together. ]

[numberthree]

If only.

[ Wrong world, and it wasn't like it helped much trying. ]

Not sure if it's helpful or not, realizing he really was that much of dick before he bought us even. So much for the stress of seven super-powered children causing all that.

[obediences]

[ So much for the stress of seven super-powered children causing all that. As if it was their fault. As if, on some level, a small part of them all had quietly assumed that they had something to do with it, with how Reginald treated them; if they could just be better, perhaps he'd be better. ]

Yeah.

[ Again, that one word, which just isn't enough. Then after a longer pause, hesitant like he's having to drag it out of himself, but: ]


I went to see him, you know. When I first arrived in 1962.

[numberthree]

What?

[ It's out and sent before she can think to temper it. She's obviously not expecting it, and it'd be a lie to say it doesn't blow straight into the sore hole still sitting in her, like a small crater since the first weekend they got back. Makes her wonder, with more flippant speed than can be stopped, if some unconscious and incredibly petty part of her didn't tell him on purpose.

Held something back for the first time here since not doing that.

Except she knows that's not true. Hating herself a little for both thinking it, and for the truth. That she did do it for Ray. That she's not sure she could even do that even now. Especially not here. In the combination of whether to pick being perfectly adrift and alone, even among people who loved her for two and a half years, and a year and a half of truly being seen. By him. By the one person it mattered most to be.

No one ever said that had to be fair. Or equal.

She's an idiot. But what else is new.

It wasn't like Dad was a good subject for Luther almost ever.
Maybe it even made what happen at the dinner make a little more sense. ]

[obediences]

[ It certainly does explain some things.
And it's like some puzzle pieces clicking together. 'Going to Dad' wasn't a move that any of the others would fall back on as their first instinct, as their first kneejerk thought when lost and adrift and alone in a new state, new decade.

But Luther had gone home. To their old house. Expecting help. Still somehow expecting his father, his hero, to fix it and rescue him. Instead— ]

Yeah.


I begged for money and caught a Greyhound home. It didn't go well. Like. It was worse. He was actually even worse than he is in the 2000s. I told Diego over and over that we shouldn't go to that meetup. He'd never help us.

[ Even after the disaster of discovering his mission was a lie, Luther had still believed. But this had been the death knell and final nail in the coffin for his faith in the Monocle. Ripped right out of him. ]

[numberthree]

[ She still hates the circumstances Luther found himself in for who knows how many months first. There's a part of her that curdles with no one to flay at the idea of Luther standing somewhere on the side of the street, in the city she was actually in, begging for money. She can't change it, but she still hates it.

Even smarting, her chest a too tense network of an ache she'd rather just ignore to all hell, she's glad this isn't in person, as much as she almost wishes it was. She hates the dichotomy, too. She wants to be able to see his face, or be able to touch his hand. She doesn't want him to be able to see hers. ]


What happened?