number1_himbo | (no subject)

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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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"It's harder to speak about certain things with family," she says and shrugs. "At least, I assume it is."

It hadn't been for her. Then again, she had been far too young to have anything truly difficult to speak of when her Asgard was erased. At the time, she had still been young enough that she had told Thor nearly everything, every thought that entered her head, every silly plot, every bit of chaos she wanted to engage in. Nothing that really mattered.

"You can tell me," she offers. "Maybe then you won't have to tell them."

"Most families are different than mine," Luther says, "but... yeah. Easier to talk to someone outside of it. I did right away, after the memories popped up, and I thought it would leave me alone." He rubs the back of his neck. "It keeps coming back at different times. I saw a woman who looked like Allison on New Year's. Not even one of those doubles, just looked like her."

He's quiet, his body swaying ever so slightly, like he might run.

"So the thing about Allison, her power was about words. She could make people do things by saying them. Just tell them, I heard a rumor and I never saw anyone resist it."

How is it, she has to wonder, that she keeps finding herself around men with a troubled relationship with mind control? A woman like her, someone who needs to just barely touch a person to slip into their mind and find their memories, manipulating them with ease. These men don't deserve to be near someone like her. Someone willing to do the thing that seems to have so hurt them.

"That's a dangerous ability," she says, which she knows from experience. Sylvie doesn't need to say a word, but physical connection matters.

She doesn't know which one is easier.

Luther watches her with care, but definitely not out of any anxiety.

"Yeah, it is," he agrees. "Dangerous. Dad taught her to hurt people with it, even if it was under some weird moral code. Taught her it was like any other tool at her disposal. When she left home, it was to go to Hollywood. She was successful, she had a family, she..."

Thankful there's a massive slab of concrete nearby, Luther seats himself with a dull thump.

"We weren't normal, growing up. We were a family but we weren't. We all knew he bought us. Dad didn't raise us; he trained us. And out of everyone, I was closest to Allison. I loved her." He looks up at Sylvie. "Everyone knew. She knew. It turned into just background noise in our... fucked-up family, I guess."

"I'm in love with a variant of myself, I'm hardly in a place to judge," Sylvie points out as she comes to sit beside Luther, their thighs pressed together. Purposeful comfort is still incredibly difficult for her, she just doesn't know how. Simply sitting beside him, though, contact between them, she can do that.

"So what? So you loved her. Love her?" Maybe that love has never faded, she doesn't understand the complexities of how love comes and goes, she's only ever felt true romantic love within the past two years. "Is that why you're tearing things apart?"

She has a bad feeling that isn't the only reason. He wouldn't have brought up the power otherwise.

For a few seconds, Luther's so grateful for Sylvie that he almost breaks the moment to kiss her square on the mouth.

"I was," he acknowledges. "It wasn't healthy, but not because of the thing most people would probably think. She left the Academy while I stayed behind to try and hold it together. She got married, had a kid. Got married again when we all ended up in Dallas for a couple of years."

The firm press of Sylvie's thigh against his helps anchor him to the moment.

"So this last timeline jump, we got back to what was supposed to be home and it was all wrong. She was in a bad place, without her husband and then her daughter's gone in the new timeline. I wanted to support her. I wanted to be there for her, but she wanted a distraction."

"She wanted you to fuck her," Sylvie says, her words plain because it's easy to see. People aren't as complicated as they like to imagine they are. A woman with a man like Luther simply waiting for her is fairly predictable. A lifetime of being wanted, knowing she was always wanted by at least one person, but never following through, always keeping it at a distance. Moving on, getting married twice, yet still expecting him to just be there.

A last resort. A distraction, as he's said, when the rest of the world goes to hell.

The thought makes Sylvie's lip curl in disgust.

"She told you to," she continues, guessing now, but still fairly certain she's right. "With her power."

"Yeah," Luther says, shoulders slumping. "I could see it in her face, that she was going to try, and I-- I didn't want to believe that. She rumored me into staying there. Then she rumored me... she said, I heard a rumor you want me. You're... aware of what's happening."

He stops to suck in a breath, not sure if it's fear or anger that sets his jaw.

"I wasn't me, how I... the rumor just made me act, and I got rough, and she got scared." Eyes squeezing shut, he says maybe the worst part. "She called it off, but if she couldn't? If she couldn't stop me, I would have raped her."

Dropping his elbows to his knees, he hides his face in his dirty hands. "She wouldn't have just gotten into my head, she would have made me that."

"What?" she asks, surprised into the word. What Luther says makes no sense and Sylvie looks at him, brows drawn together, then punches his arm. It isn't a hard blow, just enough to get his attention, to make him look at her.

"Shut up," she says. "You wouldn't have raped her, Luther, she tried to rape you. She went into your brain and she used her powers to force you into something you didn't want to do."

If she ever meets this woman, Sylvie is going to show her what mind control really looks like. She's going to make her live in the memory of what she'd done to Luther, over and over, until it drives her insane.

While it's safe to say Luther never stops expecting Sylvie might thwack him at any given moment, he's still caught off guard, and even moreso by the statements that come with it.

Okay, he gets this, in a very I read a couple of pamphlets way.

"I know," he says, and even he can hear that's not true. "I mean. Fuck, I don't know. I just-- if she hadn't been able to break the rumor, I would have hurt her and how the hell do I live with that? I'm so tired of being a tool to hurt my family. Dad used me for it so much I hurt Viktor on my own, and Allison was going to use me to hurt herself." His voice is getting louder, angry and panicked, his hands opening and fisting again. "I just want to make my own fucking choices. How could she fucking do that?"

"You don't know, I can hear as much in your bloody tone," Sylvie answers, a bit snappish, though she's not angry with Luther. She's angry with his entire family, even the ones who probably aren't to blame, even the other one she likes, but not Luther.

"She shouldn't have done that to you. It's selfish and cruel and..." And evil, she thinks. Sylvie has done a lot of things in the name of revenge, she's hurt a lot of people, she's dipped into their minds and driven them mad, but she tells herself it was all in the name of freeing them. Ultimately, she had only wanted to fix the timeline, make it better for everyone.

That's what she tells herself. The truth is, she's just as evil.

"It's awful," she says instead. "I'm sorry."

Sylvie's anger comforts him, feeds a dark little part of him that feels weirdly resentful of his family's reactions before they've even happened. It's good, it feels good to imagine Sylvie raining down vengeance on his behalf.

Maybe, he finds himself considering, that's part of the attraction. However else holding that level of anger has shaped Sylvie, she fights against the injustice done to her. He's fought giving into it, against being turned into Dad's fucking lackey, his literal monkey, and for what--

Luther lets out a ragged breath and leans forward, forearms on knees like he might need to keep his head low. A tremor runs through him at Sylvie's words, and he nods. "You were right. It was better to say it."

"I usually am," she answers, though the words lack their usual arrogance. She's too caught up in thinking about what he's said, the horror of it all. At least she's never done that, she thinks, as if it somehow absolves her. It doesn't. Maybe she's never raped someone in that way, but Sylvie has taken bodily autonomy from plenty of people in her time.

"Are you going to tell your brothers?"

They should know. It Allison ever arrives here, they ought to know. If Luther won't tell them, that's his choice, but if this woman shows up in Darrow and the rest of them treat her as if she's welcome, their beloved sister, Sylvie will tell everyone.

"I think I have to," Luther murmurs, rubbing at the back of his head. "Not just for me, but-- what the hell has she become? I think she might have been working with my dad. Who fucking killed me. And Klaus."

He sits back up, seeking Sylvie's gaze.

"If she came here, ever, could you keep it from happening? I mean, if she tried to rumor me, is there some kind of magic you know that would keep it from working?"

Hopefully one that doesn't just involve blowing Allison up, as he suspects would be the easiest.

"Am I forbidden from killing her?" she asks.

From anyone else, the question might have been rhetorical, a vicious attempt at a joke in a terrible moment, but not from Sylvie. If Luther doesn't want her to immediately eviscerate Allison, should she ever arrive, he'll need to tell her. To love someone is to do everything to keep them from pain.

It's foolish and impossible and after losing Thor to the TVA, Sylvie will destroy anything and anyone who threatens to hurt the few people she cares about.

"If I am, then... yes," she says with a slow sigh. "Not my own, honestly, but I could put her into an endless memory loop while we figured out something else. There are other people here with powers different than my own." Wanda, she thinks. This is something she needs to talk about with Wanda.

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