numberthree | Mask or Menace ☂ IC Phone Post

[ 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.

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. ]

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.

What kind of advice?

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

[ 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?

Edited 2020-08-31 21:28 (UTC)

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?

[ 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.

Edited 2020-08-31 21:48 (UTC)

[ 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'?

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.

Edited 2020-09-01 14:07 (UTC)

[ 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. ]

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.

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.

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.

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.

[ 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.

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. ]

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.

[ 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.

Edited 2020-09-09 15:47 (UTC)

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. ]

[ 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. ]

[ 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?

Edited 2020-09-09 17:16 (UTC)

It didn't go well.

[ Repeating those flat words, not doling out any further information, any elaboration. Can't they just leave it at that? It's not necessary anymore, it's no longer relevant. Or he could just paraphrase it, skim over the gory details. It's not like Allison needs any further ammunition to hate the man.

— but. But this is Allison. The eternal exception. He's supposed to tell her everything. So, in the end, he does. ]

I walked right into the Academy building. He was hosting a party -- like, an actual cocktail party, with music and dancing and guests and everything, it was really surreal. He was talking to a group of people, and I tried to tell him that I was his son from the future. I even mentioned his secret work to prove it. Tried to ask for his help.

[ Luther had felt such actual comfort at first in listening to his father's pompous overbearing voice, lecturing the crowd as they attended to his every word. That self-assurance, the firm conviction. You could hang your belief on such conviction. You could build an entire world on it. (Luther had.)

Then, Luther's voice cracking on 'Please. I need your help.'

He doesn't even have to struggle to remember what Reginald had said in return; it was burned into his memory. For a man of such tremendous size, he had felt terribly, terribly small. ]

He tore me to pieces in front of the whole party. Said there was absolutely no way he was going to adopt kids in 1989, because he has a deep dislike of children. Said that even if he did adopt children, he'd expect more from us than-- let me get this straight-- "a scruffy face, poor hygiene, and your grotesque simian proportions". And the "stench of failure".

So.

You know. Total success.

[ "Fuck."

The air has gone out of the room, and every other thought, and Allison's knuckles are white on the edges of her device, and anyone on the side stage with any brains would take one look at her face and inch very quickly on the furthest away direction. It starts with confusion, shifts to horror, and ends somewhere almost too hot to simply be called rage.

She wants to say he's wrong. She wants to say she's sorry. Luther's been carrying this around for over a year now, and without memories of this place, there's every chance there were barely even weeks between Luther finding out about the moon and, then, this, too. ]

That asshole.

[ The man with the key to every weakness Luther ha,d who had been the cause of every single thing, stomping on every part of what everyone else tiptoed around for Luther's sake. In front of a crowd. There's not much worse that could be added to it.

No wonder he blew up at Elliot's.

No wonder he's started yelling at the table. ]

Edited 2020-09-09 18:04 (UTC)

[ It's nothing new, at least for her. It's the same thing she'd said the last time she heard this sort of thing about Reginald.

If anything, Luther is kicking himself and feeling so goddamned stupid for still being so slow on the uptake. For having taken so long to reach the same realisations everybody else already had thirteen, fourteen, fifteen years ago. ]

Yeah. So I'm learning.

[ She hates this. She hates this. She hates this so much.

She can't fix it. She wasn't there. It's forever ago now. Another scar, in with all the others. Even if she were, Luther still would have taken as hard as she assumes he must have this whole time. Hard enough, he blew through every wall of decades of restraint, yelling at the miserable excuse of a man who called himself their father over the table and tearing his shirt open. Demanding not to be dismissed for the first time in his life. ]

I'm sorry. He shouldn't have done that.

[ But was their father made of anything except all the things a parent shouldn't do? He'd pinned Diego like a bug with a long stinging line of words, and even nearly a decade and free, they'd all just sat there, basically turned back into children afraid to be next. Made them all ashamed to even shift in their seats. To say anything, until Luther suddenly was shouting.

Luther.

Luther, who somehow had still believed. Hoped.

Still gone to him. Even after the moon.
(Thinking they were dead.)

She wants to hug him. She wants to hurt her father. Someone. Anyone else. As a stand-in. She wants to go home. Or wherever he is. She still has hours here, unless she were to fake something. Or rumor someone. But she can't even think of that long. Only Luther, somewhere, staring at the words he'd just written. Writing them like they couldn't be forgotten by time. Not given by that voice. ]

He's not right. About any of it.

Edited 2020-09-09 19:23 (UTC)

Mask or Menace ☂ IC Phone Post

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