number1_himbo | (no subject)

Luther holds on for a little over a week before he hits his limit.

It's longer than a week and a handful of days, of course. It's been months since the Hotel Oblivion got crammed into his head, a whole tangle of realizations and plot twists and feelings he's only barely attempted to put in order.

Any attempt to work this knot of fucked up Hargreeves shit leads to Dad, not Dad ripping him open and bleeding him out, which is a shitty thing to remember, to burst back into the waking world with phantom pains. And should any attempt get any further into the tangle, enough that he sets his death aside, he's left with the very worst thing, the thing he can't touch at all.

I heard a rumor you stay.

The knot won't stay tied like it used to, tight enough to keep everything about Allison on the inside. And there's no reason it should be coming undone now. No fucking reason.

I heard a rumor you want me.

It almost tears out of him at the breakfast table, and no amount of exercise burns off the excess feeling. He takes it instead to a local junk yard where the owner doesn't mind him busting shit up.

That, at least, feels good. Appliances crunching into blocks of concrete, rebar spearing massive rolls of carpet, a totaled out care thrown overhead at another.

Luther loses time, hands scraping up, muscles aching, bits of glass clinging to his arms, and none of it erases the feeling of Allison's struggling body against the pool table.

He starts to tear apart blown-out tires, aware of the sun starting to sink in the sky-- too easy. Back to the blocks of concrete then, huge broken chunks that Luther throws and hammers into one another, his ears filled with his own breathing and heartbeat.

Not gone enough to miss he's not alone in the clearing of wrecked shit he's made. "What," he says, almost dully, fully expecting to be told he needs to leave.

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Luther almost misses the voice, the furious crunching of concrete roaring in his ears.

He doesn't, and wouldn't, miss the presence of his smallest brother, who sometimes thrums with power. Instead, he drops the rubble in his hands, rubbing his fingers together to feel the powder and grit on them. Luther's not necessarily surprised by the arrival, especially when it's Viktor.

If any of them are going to understand, it'll be Viktor.

"Hey," he says, tone muted, not bothering to deny he's up to something. "Yeah. Here I am."

"I see that," he replies, easy and light. A few seconds tick by when Viktor considers Luther, the setting, the very air around him. The smallest Hargreeves takes a deep breath of the brisk evening air, waiting.

When the quarry isn't immediately filled with the sound of Luther pouring his soul onto the pavement, Viktor gently follows up. "Are you okay?"

Luther huffs out a sound of bitter resignation, sharp at the edges and dampened only for Viktor.

"No, I-- I guess I'm not," he admits. Denying it any further seems exhausting, and he can't really think of a reason to do it anymore. "I tried really hard to be okay, but I'm not."

Admitting his exhaustion only makes it worse, and he sinks down slowly onto a concrete slab, one he hasn't gotten around to destroying yet.

"There's something I didn't tell you. From the time we were at Hotel Oblivion. I didn't tell any of you. I'm not really sure how."

Viktor glances at the floor instead of his brother's outline. Sensing Luther's misery doesn't make it any easier to hear. The Hargreeves keep breaking and fixing the world for each other -- for harm and help. Fiercely, dangerously codependent, and Viktor no longer on the sidelines.

He walks over and perches next to his brother, no regard for sweat or space. Something tells him he's going to want to sit down for this.

"Okay," Viktor says cautiously. It's not hard to remember how fraught their relationship was, how their bullshit ended the world. He's not worried that Luther will hate him, he's worried he did something that he doesn't remember. It would be no stranger than waking up with a head full of new memories.

For a minute, Luther's not there. He's at Allison's bedside, staring at the bandage on her throat, listening to the soft beeps of her vitals.

He wishes it still felt as awful as it did then. He wishes he didn't feel a little thankful that Viktor's going to believe him maybe the most easily of anyone in the family. More than anything, he wishes he could chalk his own rumoring up to a direct order from Dad.

"It's about Allison," he says, his lips feeling numb. "She rumored me."

All at once, he's cold. Not in his blood, in the sudden hollow of his gut. Despite his efforts to bundle up for the setting sun, his fingers are suddenly cold. He rubs them against his legs absently as the worst possible thing happens.

Viktor isn't surprised.

Shocked, maybe, but only for a moment. He asks, not quite able to look up Luther yet, "what did she do?"

Luther's eyes may have snapped over to Viktor immediately, but he can't hold it.

The truth sits heavy in his mouth. It may be the heaviest thing he's ever lifted, to get it out.

"She was hurting, and I went to comfort her. She tried to kiss me, and I was going to leave and see Sloane." His voice drops, low and quiet, ashamed. "She wanted a distraction. Rumored me to stay with her. Rumored me to want her. She panicked when I got too forceful and managed to call it off."

No going back now.

Asking the question feels like the worst thing ever until he gets the answer.

Does he touch Luther? He doesn't know. He wants to, but it seems like it may not be the right moment, after admitting (maybe for the first time) he'd been violated.

"I'm so sorry," Viktor says. He wishes he could say more, but he can't imagine.

At least when Allison rumored Viktor, she didn't understand what she was doing.

"Yeah, I... I am too. I mean, I fucking hate it. It's the worst thing she could do to me. Like the worst things she could do to me."

He slides down to the ground, pulling his long legs up to his chest. Mostly.

"If she hadn't been able to stop it," Luther says raggedly, haunted, "I would have been a passenger as I raped her. She would have made me live with that too, let alone doing that do me, and--"

He reaches out blindly with one hand for Viktor.

A pang of guilt surfaces. It doubles when Viktor realizes he's not going to tell Luther that he let Allison go. Not now. Why bother? It would only hurt him. And Viktor still doesn't feel like it was this him that did this.

What he does, what he'll always do, is hug his brother. He sits up on his knees next to Luther and hugs his face to his small chest. When it occurs to him he doesn't want to suffocate the poor man, he loosens the loop of his arms to let his hands fall on his brother's far shoulder.

"It didn't happen," Viktor says after a few moments. The worst of it didn't come to pass. Luther didn't rape Allison. Viktor won't give Allison the benefit of the doubt or give her credit. He's reminding Luther what's real.

And, most importantly, "she's not here."