Luther Hargreeves (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
number1_himbo) wrote2023-01-10 05:53 pm
number1_himbo) wrote2023-01-10 05:53 pm
(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.
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.
no subject
"Would you prefer something that can hit back?" He suggested, brow arched.
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The suggestion of something that can hit back catches him slightly off-guard, his own eyebrows going up. Would it help?
"...probably," he admits. "It's not exactly a healthy coping mechanism, but if I wanted one of those, I'd go to therapy."
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"I think you ought to take the first swing," he suggested, smirking faintly. "I'll adjust accordingly."
He was joking— egging him on a bit, even, but it was true that he wasn't entirely certain how strong the other man was, and as a god, or something like one, he knew he might need to hold back a bit.
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His eyebrows go up-- sure, he gets it, one of them has godlike powers, and it's not him. Th'e hesistation isn't founded in any real concern for Loki's safety, or for his own; he trusts Loki despite having heard h shouldn't plenty of times.
A different kind of trust, maybe. Luther pushes away anything that can be misconstrued as being a monster, doesn't he?
It's a flicker of a moment, and then he nods, falling into a fighting stance. "Well," Luther says, gathering up his trust, reflecting some of Loki's own smirk back at him, "Good. I wouldn't wanna mess up such a pretty face." And then he takes a swing, not entirely as hard as he can-- but pretty close to it.
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The fist cracked across his cheek, rattling his teeth, the strength behind it bracing but nothing close to the tussles he and Thor had as children.
He grinned, and as he took a matching swing of his own, he said, "Yours or mine?"
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And aren't those complicated feelings.
"I've been baselessly accused of a lot, but a pretty face hasn't come up." Luther doesn't really try to dodge the hit, if out of curiosity more than anything else.
It knocks him back a couple of steps, that part of him that lives to soak up damage slowly activating. "That'll work," he decides, and sinks into a fighting stance, looking for his next opening.
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"Don't sell yourself short. It's a good face," he added, taking another swing straight for it.
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"I did usually look better than the other guy," Luther allows. "Of course, the underground beatdown circuit in 1960-something Dallas was a lot of broken faces." He leans back, one massive arm coming up to keep Loki's blow from landing, grasping him by the forearm and aiming for a body blow himself.
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Friendly fight or not, he'd never been above cheat.
"We'll do our best to keep yours unblemished."