number1_himbo | (no subject)

Luther misses the moon for a lot of different reasons.

Always quiet, for one, which was comforting more often than boring. He could make a few adjustments and take a few precautions here and there and enjoy feeling weightless, whenever he wanted. He knew his role, too-- a sense of purpose.

Only at least two of those things would be a pretense, at best an escape and at worst a joke.

It's not like he can go back to the moon, anyway, and it's not like it's his moon. But maybe he can look, maybe get to know this moon a little better, and that's how he ends up at some store that sells telescopes, at the same time there's some kind of... what, a field trip? A huge milling group of children in uniforms flooding into the store and Luther tries to be really careful as he pays for his purchase and attempts to extricate himself.

He's successful right up until he's outside the store and he steps onto some kind of chalk drawing, space hopscotch or something. The little boy responsible for it starts to cry, of course, and as Luther backs away, he nearly trips over a little girl, who takes one look up at him and screams.

"Sorry," Luther says helplessly, and sort of lopes down the street.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

It was like a scene from a low budget creature feature.

The screaming kids, the scattering bystanders, and the monster, just as scared as everybody else, stumbling blindly down the street. I watched, standing just out of the way at the crosswalk, trying to figure out what the fuck was happening. It wasn't until he turned and charged in my direction that I realized that he wasn't some guy wearing a gorilla suit without the head.

Jesus Christ, he was huge.

I stepped out of the way of a few people hurrying to get out of his way, but stubbornly stood my ground.

Luther believes he might be able to make a clean getaway, and then there's a guy standing and watching him.

"What," he says, intending it to be a sharp bark of an interrogation, but he can hear how awkward and worried he sounds, only the thinnest veneer of the intended sharpness atop the word. At least in Dallas, people seemed to mind their business more than here.

Either that or he had been so wrapped up in depression he hadn't noticed it.

Just in case he's missing something, he turns to look behind him, checking if he's left any of those kids with permanent damage.

"Just watching to see how many bystanders you're planning on taking out," I said wryly, unmoved by whatever the fuck kind of tough guy bullshit he was trying to pull.

I knew it was stupid, the guy was huge and could probably snap me in two, but the whole thing was too fucking funny for me to take seriously.

"Not good with kids, huh?"

"I don't plan to take out bystanders," Luther says, looking about halfway to wincing. "It just, uh, happens." He gives an awkward shrug. It does happen, primarily when he has the ability to look like the biggest idiot; Dad had trained it out of him on missions early on.

Not that there had been anything to teach him how to move with the change in his body, so maybe he'd still take out screaming citizens anyway.

"Definitely not good with kids," Luther says. "Or most people."

His big shoulders moved under the tight stretch of his shirt. I'd wondered, at first, if it was some sort of padding, but it looked like it was all him.

"Yeah, I can see that," I said, grinning crookedly. Glancing in the direction he'd come, and the kids who'd already scattered, I said, "They'll get over it."

Something about the way the guy smiles at him makes Luther feel a little better about being a lumbering monster, and there's a quick tugging at the corner of his own mouth, and a nod.

"Well, they might get over it," he says, and sounds amused when he adds, "or they're scarred for life. I'd like to think this would be a... lesser mental trauma, at least." He can still remember when kids like that had wanted to be him. "This place is better than the last one, at least. With the staring and pointing."

"If you're enough to scar them for life, they could probably use some toughening up," I said, only half joking.

"So, how new are you?" I asked, because he had to be, with a statement like that.

"A month, about," Luther answers, appearing to relax a little. "From what I hear, I'm luckier than most. Most of my family's here." He holds out a massive hand, covered in a fingerless glove to hide any of the excessive hair. He's... getting a handle on being somewhere between the kind of growth that came from living on the moon and being someone's hairless fighting jockey.

"I'm Luther Hargreeves."

"Neil McCormick," I said, reaching out to slip my hand into his own. The gloves were a little strange, this time of year, but considering that he was just a little strange, they weren't worth commenting on.

"I've never understood how that happens. I had one guy I knew from back home, and he didn't stick around long. It's just been me for like, six years, now."