{Hazy sunshine over the hill

[deadlycurves]

WHO: Hargreeves + YOU

WHERE: Krakoa; various

WHEN: Varies, specified by thread

WHAT: Varies, specified by thread

WARNINGS: Warnings will be updated where necessary

Comments

The Conversation™

[numberthree]



three years ago.


“Another,” Claire mumbles sleepily against her chest, and Allison almost laughs, because it hardly looks like she’ll be awake another few minutes, no less the time for whatever other small book is next nearby. It smoothes to a smile, and Allison closers the book currently on her lap, for reaching up and brushing the length of Claire’s cheek with the curl of a finger (through a small yawn). “Tomorrow.”



“Promise?” Is muzzy, from the head heavy against her, as Allison starts moving her daughter from her lap and back onto the small bed beneath them both. Allison’s waits to answer until Claire’s head is securely on her pillow. Pulling the blankets close around her tiny body. “Of course. And if I can’t, I’m sure you’ll convince Luther to read you at least two to make up for it.”

“Momma?” There’s that little seriousness, the little not quite whine, always fighting the exhaustion at the end of the day. The last vestiges of awakeness trying to find reasons and excuses to hold on. Allison doesn’t know if it will be the book, again, or water, or the bathroom, or a specific toy left somewhere else, when she answers with a non-committal, but prompt mhm? 



“Is Luther my daddy?”

[obediences]

Outside, out in the living room, Luther's evening is proceeding entirely innocent and unaware of all of this. He's already done the dishes while she took Claire in for her bath, and he really should start making his way back to his own bungalow, instead of falling asleep on Allison's sofa yet again — but as ever and always, something keeps him rooted here even as the hours tick onwards. He can hear the low murmuring sound of voices in the other room, the melodic rise-and-fall of Allison performing the different characters in the children's book. He could listen to that forever.

Unable to hear the specifics of the story, though, it's mostly just comforting background noise to Luther's own book, as he lies sprawled out on the sofa, socked feet dangling off the end (he is just too tall), one arm propped under his head as a pillow. It's another quiet evening on Krakoa, another piece of the domestic routine as they all settle in for the evening.

Little does he know.

[numberthree]

When Allison steps out of the small, dark bedroom, she closes the door quietly, turning the handle as softly as possible, before letting it go slowly—waiting for the click. But then she doesn't move. Or at least not the direction she would have. She leans back on the door. Shoulder blades, and the back of her head against the wood, and gaze goes up, but the ceiling isn't any more help than her breath trying to convince her to let it speed up.

If Claire weren't still just starting to fall asleep, and it wasn't her room at all, Allison might have let the back of her head fall harder. Or maybe she would have done that a few times. She holds on to the frenetic energy of it, like one-second longer, she can keep herself from what she couldn't on the other side of the door. Aside from a testament to the fact her sanity seemed to be made of sterner stuff than she'd ever before given it the credit for, being a parent seemed to be like one giant confusing, terrifying, almost always unexpected, jump to the next.

But that?

Wasn't supposed to be one of them.

That was definitely not in any of the books.



And she couldn't just close her eyes and pretend it didn't happen. Claire didn't. She didn't. That Luther. Krakoa was where she was supposed to stop making messes of her life. Of everything. Take the chances she'd been afforded. Make the right choices. Stop hiding behind whatever she was 'supposed to be' for anyone else. Stop giving in to all the bad habits of two decades of neglect and anger, among so many other things.

For Krakoa. For Claire.

Allison's not sure how she manages to push herself back up, or quite how many steps it was from Claire's bedroom door back to the living room. But she's pretty positive she goes right on not remember how to breathe right when she spots Luther on the couch and has to wonder when the last time she just stopped and saw him was.

It feels stupid to phrase it that way in her head because she's always seeing him. He's always here. Always somewhere around, during even the days he isn't here. He's helped her so much with everything the last year, since getting here, since saying yes to David and Josh, about Krakoa, about the Council of Five.

Before that, before they left the White Tower. When she first came back with Claire, and not a single clue in the world what one even did with a baby, but the rabid certainty she would kill someone before letting anyone else take her. How was that only a year and some change ago. That person seemed so much younger. Different. A different life.

A different her.

A different him.

Than the man currently sprawled out across her couch, comfortable sweater, and the dangling feet. A book held just high enough to read it comfortably, and his focus entirely turned toward it, perfectly at ease. And she thinks, with something arrestingly sharp in her chest, that if she didn't know better, if she wasn't herself, just looking at this, she might think he lived here, too.

@candobetter {For better or worse, one night or the rest of my life

[deadlycurves]

3 months ago... Sunlight filters gently into the room between the blinds and he tries to cling to the last remnants of sleep, seal himself away back into it before consciousness actually steals the chance away from him entirely. Doesn't work... it never does, he's not the kind of person that can sink so easily back into sleep once any slightest scrap of awareness peeks at the edges of his mind. Still, being awake doesn't mean he has to move from the bed just yet. There's nothing pressing on his schedule for the day, so he can just take a moment to relax in the quiet morning moments. He turns his head on the pillow to look at the woman next to him and he can't stop the smile that breaks across his face at the sight of her, hair haphazard and in her face, completely dead to the world. Things never were absolutely perfect, they had moments especially in the earliest days of their relationship, where the push and pull didn't feel like it would give way to them actually ending up together. But somehow, it worked out and he's eternally grateful that it did. Diego groans softly and instead of succumbing to the perils of wakefulness, he shifts and curls an arm around Lila's waist, tugging her close and buries his face in the crook of her neck. He might wake her up, or he could end up drifting back off, which really wouldn't be the worst thing in the world. What else are Saturdays for anyway, if not for lazing in bed with his girlfriend, relaxed and comfortable still trying to cling to the edges of sleep?

[candobetter]

The first sensation that tugs at Lila’s awareness is the warmth of Diego’s breath and light scratch of his facial hair against her neck, and her mouth twitches in the beginnings of a smile that it’s too tired to complete. The next is the smell of his hair, which also smells like her own since somewhere along the line they began borrowing both a shower and a single bottle of shampoo. For convenience. Lila sighs gently, her foot sticking out from under the covers and she kicks just enough to free her legs a bit more as the morning sunlight brings the temperature several degrees up.

She keeps her eyes closed, not quite faking sleep but unwilling to quite give up on it yet and disturb the peace, fingers finding Diego’s hair to gently comb through it in attempt to lull him back into it as well. When she first met Diego, she never imagined such a side to him. She never imagined such a side to herself, content and… safe, despite everything else going on in the world. She curls up closer in his embrace, lazily putting together a small list of things to do for the morning: getting dressed, making coffee, going for a run, a shower, starting breakfast if she doesn’t end up stopping somewhere during the run instead…

Lila dismisses them all, except maybe the coffee, if she can ever find the motivation to actually get out of bed. She could stay like this forever, she thinks. And then says so, with lips pressed against Diego’s shoulder. It comes out more of a mumble.

[deadlycurves]

He feels her wriggling her feet free of the blankets, but he doesn't dare say a word at the risk of ruining this all too perfect moment just yet. Her fingers find their way into his hair and there's a soft noise of approval resting in the back of his throat. She could do that all day, for all he cared, because it feels so damn nice. When Lila curls closer into him, it's like two jagged pieces of something that shouldn't fit, but still do; they were no lost puzzle pieces, they weren't that whole or perfect to be, but they still worked in ways neither of them might have ever really expected. And then she goes and says something like that, and Diego almost hates how things like that still make him feel that over-the-top giddy kick in his chest (except in all the ways he doesn't hate it, at all). "Mmm...me too," he mutters back quietly, still not moving away from where he's buried himself against her. "nothing says we have to move from this bed today." he points out, smirking, despite her inability to see it right now.

space & the empress → 4 years ago.

[obediences]

It's the first Synod after the formation of Krakoa, and Luther feels extremely self-conscious.

Josh's project had culminated in the spring and meant they were finally able to break away, like a peninsula shearing off from the main continent, tumbling into the ocean and to freedom. News has come trickling slowly out of the Tower since then — delicate political maneuvers, the wary truce, a marriage announced, a new High Chancellor and his new wife in Parliament, someone the Hargreeves had once worked with — all the way until today, their first time returning as official representatives.

Which means they have to show up. Bright, brittle smiles at one of the endless late-night parties, somehow trying to look perfectly unruffled, proving that Krakoa has been doing absolutely fine since leaving, doing fantastically, thanks, and you?

So Luther can feel that prickling between his shoulderblades as others look at him, and for perhaps the first time in his entire life, he wishes he weren't so tall, that he didn't stand out so conspicuously in a crowd. It turns out that leaving the Tower was surprisingly easy — but coming back for this diplomatic conference and the social engagements in the White City, seeing the familiar faces of former colleagues and their mistrustful scowls, well, that's worse.

(He hates to disappoint people.)

He's sipping his drink and watching the crowd when he feels a ripple in the air; a faint disturbance that he can't put his finger on (darkness? it tastes of darkness), but which makes him glance to the side. To yet another stern, familiar face. He tries to flash her his most winning smile; it probably doesn't work.

"Good evening, Palpatine," Luther says. A beat, then: "Or is it Palpatine-Stark now?"

[reydacted]

Predictably, she is not won over by his smile.

"Still just Palpatine," she replies rather coolly. "I don't intend to resign from my post, so I thought I'd keep it."

Even the smallest reminder of the name had once made her stomach churn, but she had carved out a place in this faction with it. It felt like reclaiming it, even if few knew the baggage that her legacy carried. Palpatine would not be a name to fear here, but one that conveyed security and safety.

She had been making serious strides at that as a young but tenacious member of Parliament, and even though a faction had broken off here and there, it's not as if any could really rival the White Tower. Kylo's departure had stung but at least she was able to reconcile it her own way.

Krakoa though... she had thought these were her allies. Friends even. If there had been problems with the White Tower, she could have worked to change them. But instead they had lied to her face, manipulated her, and betrayed her. And the rest of Parliament had just let them go.

"It was a small ceremony. Although you probably would have been too busy to attend, wouldn't you?" The jab still feels odd. Sort of forced even if it's coming from a place of genuine hurt. She had picked up more of these subtler high-society aggressions, but parts of her still want to lash out like a scavenger.

[obediences]

Honestly, Luther doesn't play the game well at all compared to the rest of his family. Most of them have mastered barbed sarcasm and veiled (or often not-so-veiled) insults: Diego, Allison, and Five wield their words like knives, and Allison in particular is a mastermind at it, at politics and manipulation and smiling through a two-faced compliment.

Luther, on the other hand, is a blunt weapon, a cudgel. He tends to say what's on his mind, and can't hide his true thoughts that well.

"Yeah, it's been pretty busy. And I'm not even on the council." He answers without cattiness or an attempt at a buried dig: it's just the bare and unvarnished truth. He shifts awkwardly, takes another swig of his drink, then looks surprised to realise that it's already empty. Goddamnit. He wants that cover of alcohol loosening him up; discomfort is already prickling in his fingers, tight-knotted in his muscles. He's having trouble looking at her.

"I would've thought it would be, I don't know, a huge affair. Pomp and circumstance and ceremony."

number five + ota

[timehit]

Luther and Allison's house often becomes the family gathering place of choice here on the island. A home away from home in some respects; it's not the sprawling estate, for however much they've renovated and built upon the original framework. But unlike that restrictive backdrop of their childhood, this feels...different. Filled with the sort of love and care a child needs to thrive.

Like Claire. His niece.

So it's earned Five's respect; he fixes what he can around the house, piping in with his opinions to Luther whenever something looks askew. He's not as open with his affection as maybe some of the others but he shows up just as much. Their presence in his life is a constant comfort. A reminder that he's no longer alone, regardless of the dreams that still haunt him at night. Of that other timeline, a future gone wrong.

This afternoon, he's baking peanut butter cookies. The coffee pot is going strong, as one would expect, and the kitchen is filled with warmth and life. Let's not call it mirth — Five hardly cracks a smile, save for when Claire peeks around to corner to check on the cookies.

Taking the first batch out of the oven, he calls back over his shoulder without looking, "Don't touch them until they've cooled."

[numberthree]

Allison never minds it. You'd think they might have all minded after being semi-split up for half a decade in White Tower, might have carried the cracks from it with them. But if they're carrying anything with them, it's more the almost two decades before they came to this world at all. Being underfoot of each other, almost always running into someone in the doorways, being prodded, poked, living in each other's shoes, is more normal than anything else is.

Her brothers let themselves in and out, at really any and all hours. As much as it was her house, and then Luther's and hers, it's more communal than all that, too. It's grown too much, they've all put so much work into what it's become, has open-ended invitations for all the extra bedrooms, the couch, the hammocks swaying in the breeze outside. She's never entirely surprised to wake up to an extra person in the house who wasn't there when they went to bed, or to help carry people there who may have drunk a little much or simply stayed long enough exhaustion won over reason.

So, getting out early from a Council work for a day, to find Five already in her kitchen cooking what smells entirely too perfectly like cookies, fresh and hot and semi-sweet, is a kind of perfection she can't buy, purer than anything she could rumor into existence.

"Does that count for all of us who are old enough to decide to burn our fingers, too?"

[timehit]

“Someone wise must’ve said to never get in the way of a woman and her ambitions,” Five says wryly. He pushes the towel in his hands up across one shoulder and gestures for her to do as she will. “There’s fresh coffee if you want it, Allison.”

The kitchen isn’t in as much of a mess as one would expect after coming home to a scene like this. Priding himself on being efficient, he’s spent time cleaning as he goes. The countertops boast a glossy shine, and the only real mark of evidence that he’s been banging around in the kitchen is the warm, inviting smells of peanut butter and coffee.

While the others are just as guilty as coming and going seemingly at whim, it’s likely evidence enough that they haven’t been around yet to steal the rest of the cookies and make a bigger mess. More often than not, this house finds itself filled with laughter, commotion, and every reliable proof of their devotion to one another. Five makes his rounds just as Diego and Klaus, only that he can, at times, be a pinch more quiet or subtle.

In and out in a flash, sometimes reorganizing Luther’s dubious piles of books spread around the house, sometimes to fix a leaky faucet, always to make sure his family is present, accounted for, safe. While their collective happiness has grown over time, Five is perhaps not as faithful to the belief that this blessing will go on forever.

Content in his work in the kitchen, he reaches up to the cabinet and takes out a mug for himself. Which means, at least, he’ll stay around for a little while longer. “How’s work at the Council?”

eyes emoji

[evoque]

You see, the warning most certainly is for Claire, and arguably would have comes seconds too late on deaf ears anyway. Perhaps it would have taken a miracle for Klaus to actually heed the words. Klaus, who's patience and self control should be measured in decimals, who comes flitting in and out of the house same as the rest of them, with no exception to be found here. He pads along the floor barefoot, toenails glittering because Claire liked that nail polish the day before, in a flowy wrap and most certainly coming from the beach rather than lessons. That he may or may not have been needing to teach.

"They smell amazing," he hums. "Don't they, ma choupette?" No, he still doesn't know french in anything that resembles fluency, but it makes their niece smile and that may be the important thing here.

He doesn't even pause to reach over Five (risking life and limb, no doubt) to pluck a piping hot cookie from the tray. It's mere seconds later that he yowls, promptly drops it, his telekinesis swooping it up in the last minute before it can actually splat anticlimactically to the floor. "Okay, ouchie? Five, do you - what - cook them on the sun?"

Klaus, it seems, needs more of a warning than a toddler does.

@cannotrest + @obediences {2 guys, 1 girl, and an Awkward Conversation

[deadlycurves]

Four years ago; A Synod past It's the same as every other one of these gatherings, laced in politics and fake smiles in every direction. He's never been good at these sort of things. Not since he was a kid, ten and not knowing any better, and loving any scrap of attention he could garner from people. The discomfort leads him to the bar and requesting a drink. He doesn't immediately move away when he has a beer sat down in front of him. Instead he stays, and sips his drink, and surveys the people. Eventually, his eyes travel to the other side of him and whoever happens to be sitting there (a woman, probably around his age, maybe, brunette and gorgeous) gets a softly mumbled, "God, I hate these meetings, always feels like a political convention."

[cannotrest]

"Aaaaaah," Ashley intones with a nod. "That would explain why I hate them too - never did like politicians."

Well, not just politicians. She's never liked the White Tower, either, not since she first Ported in, and she doesn't like being here in the White City, right in the middle of all its imPort supremacist glory. One day, she'd like to take this whole power structure down... But she's a soldier, not a spy, and war isn't won in a day.

War isn't won without allies, either, so she tries to make the best of being at Synod. It's nice to see her colleagues embedded in other factions once in a while, and to feel out people who might be swayed towards the Resistance.

And when new allies don't seem forthcoming, well. The Porter tends to have better taste in looks than morals. She's looking forward to her regular, ahem, appointment later on, but for now, she's happy to eat the eye candy, giving the man a slow smirk of agreement over her beer.

@khajidont {That's the melody of your life starting anew

[deadlycurves]

Jaime's first week on the islands... Krakoa is growing more all the time, and Diego is really thrilled with the way things are going. They're saving these kids from a lifetime of trauma like the kind he and his brothers and sisters didn't have anyone to save them from. And it feels good, like they're really making a difference; stopping a bank robbery for the publicity could never could be on the same level as the feeling from truly helping people. He tries to keep an eye on all the kids, especially in those earliest first weeks here. The younger kids bounce back easier than some of the older teens, because the teens are old enough to understand a lot more of what's happening in the world than the little ones can. And once you have the sour taste of the true state of the world in your mouth, it can be hard to get rid of it, even in the easier to breathe in serenity of the islands. He finds Jaime on one of his walks around the islands; he thinks of them as walks instead of patrols because nothing about the action is as sharp as he once might have been, but that doesn't mean he wouldn't be ready if there was ever a reason to jump into actions long-trained down into his bones. He's relaxed in ways he never dreamed of in the life he led both back with White Tower, and at home in the Academy, but he is always ready with a hand in a fight if it were to come. Most of the time, he doesn't have a fight to lend a hand into, but he does find kids looking helpless or lost or confused or any other number of unsettled sort of adjectives one might conjure up. Diego never tries to approach the kids like a counselor looking to find a problem he can fix; he always keeps himself relaxed, casual. "You're one of the new recruits, right?" 'Recruits' sounds worse, harsher that what he really means, it's wrong, but he doesn't know another word for it, either.

ty for setting this up!!

[khajidont]

Jaime wishes he could say he was here for a lot of reasons. He should have them. He's a hero - or he's supposed to be - which means he should be working towards the greater good. But it didn't take long in the White Tower for him to immediately realize that what he really wanted was somewhere he could be safe. He likes to think of himself as an independent hero, but he's always had his mom, his dad, his friends, his teammates. Here and now, he's got nothing and nobody.

Krakoa seemed like the best bet. More importantly, it seemed like a place he could recoup, with other people his age. He hasn't even whipped out the Blue Beetle yet, too afraid that someone will be able to see the new recruit and put two and two together, because he won't trust like that yet. Instead, he just walks in circles around the island. In fact, Diego may have heard Jaime before he saw him, muttering to himself as aimlessly as he's walking. It's easy enough to pass off as a harmless - yet vaguely alarming - quirk.

"Oh. Hi." Jaime clears his throat, letting his voice deepen a little. Gotta stay tough, Reyes. "Hey. Yeah, I'm new." He looks around them, trying to suss out why he's being approached. "I haven't, like, broken any rules or anything already, have I?"

@longoverdue {Wedding planning is a headache

[deadlycurves]

Current Day Diego has been friends with Richie for a long time. He isn't sure how it happened, if pressed, Diego would probably just say Richie chose him, specifically, to annoy into a friendship and here they are; the truth is, all of the older crowd of Krakoa who were here more or less from the very beginning just had this kinship among them. And Richie was funny. Who hates funny? These days, in the midst of all the chaos outside of the island's protections, Diego spends a small portion of certain evenings talking Richie down from some wedding planning panic he's built up in his own damn head. Sure enough, when he gets some time to sit down for the evening, he notices a small series of missed calls from Richie and he can't help the smirk and soft shake of his head. He shoots him a quick text, which he figures Richie will either answer, or it will be the sign that he's available for a call now and his friend will call in lieu of bothering with a text-- You still need to talk about it? I'm in for the night now.

[longoverdue]

Richie wastes no time in calling Diego back, having tried not to freak out over this to no avail. He can’t freak out on Eddie. He just cannot. Eddie will also panic and it’ll just be a terrible feedback loop of screaming, so Diego it is, even though Richie’s pretty sure Diego doesn’t actually know what Richie’s plight is like.

“What if the wedding photographer backs off?” he says with no preamble. “Who the fuck are we going to get if the photographer has to back out? I’m sure she won’t but I said that about the singer and look what the fuck happened there.”

Family Dinner; 1 Day Before Synod 2020

[numberthree]

They’ll all be leaving in the morning.

Correction: everyone in the house, who is not Claire, will be leaving in the morning. She’s going to stay with friends. They are going to stay with a bunch of people who would mostly rather see them dead than handle their neutrality, but who wouldn't challenge the White Tower for the rights to their demise. These nights are always a little tense. Right before Synod. There’s always too much riding on them. Krakoa is a child state, even if it’s older than so many more now. It still bleeds need as much as it represents uninvolvement.

Allison doesn’t usually drink anything while Claire is awake, or anywhere nearby, so it’s noticeable, even if no one says it, she doesn’t miss the way their eyes go to it the first time they realize, that she has a drink at her side. Something amber dark, on ice, with nothing mixed in. That more than once she’s had to look down at her communicator and shoot off another message, even though it's island-wide-known no one is supposed to interrupt during these hours. It’s different this year, even if the Synod is the same. Krakoa is different.

Krakoa is still bleeding; missing their unofficial head.
It was easy to pretend for weeks, for David, they could be fine.

But it’s tomorrow, and she needs a little bit more than usual tonight, so maybe Allison’s a little quieter, a little more withdrawn. And, yet, somehow, for all that, she’s even more deeply relieved these dinners exist.

She’s grateful for Klaus’ nebulous terrible commentary, and how cute Lila and Diego still are three months later, and the all too concerned and understanding expression that tries, and fails so often, to fade off Luther’s face when she finds him watching her. 

For Five's biting, dry commentary. For the way they make her laugh. Her heart always light watching Claire flit between all of them, radiant smile and bouncing steps.

They make her insanely grateful she’s not alone on this last night before tomorrow. That she can be distracted even in snatches of half-minute sections. That she isn’t alone. (That it isn’t any of them.) She loves them so much more than she has any words to ever express it. And she's trying, she is, to believe she isn't about to pay the price tomorrow for the faith, or disregard of it, they've all put in her.

[deadlycurves]

The eve prior to any Synod is always a stressful thing, but nothing before this has ever matched the tension in the air tonight. Diego does his level best to pretend it isn’t there, all while never truly being able to ignore it at all. He can pretend the same as anyone, but it does nothing to settle the sharp rigidity of his shoulders.

Still, all the same, there is a comfort in these weekly family dinners that always bring a sort of freedom from the rest of everything in the world along with them. A connection beteeen a family that never had good role models for what being a family was meant to be like. They’d found their way, though, learned to navigate all the best and worst parts of each other and honestly? They’re the closest they’ve been in years.

He’s on the couch, Lila at his side because of course she is, his hand on her knee, as he listens to some story from Klaus, which is interrupted so suddenly when Claire darts into the middle of the room, stealing the show and everyone’s attention along with it. “Everybody guess what? Daddy taught me how to whistle! Listen!” She tries, and she even hits the right combination of her lips pursed and air pushed through to make a few sounds, but by the end it’s just a long raspberry that forgot it was meant to be a whistle, and a fit of giggles from the brightest point in the lives of everyone in this room.

“Hey, kiddo, that was good. You just gotta keep practicing,” Diego says it with a grin that’s easily a mile wide, a hand held up for a high-five, which Claire obliges in over-enthusiastically as she always does.

{There’s something in the air » Luther

[deadlycurves]

Three years ago.

This Sunday is much the same as any other, with the whole family that is on the island packed into the house that is easily Hargreeves Central Station, at all times any one of them might be found here, but all of them can be found here on Sundays. Sometimes it’s just dinner, sometimes it stretches across the majority of the day, but Sundays are specially, specifically reserved family time.

This Sunday was different, somehow, in a way he couldn’t quite pinpoint in any one single, specific way. But it was an energy in the house, a feeling hanging in the air and weaving between the empty spaces. Something bright and warm that sought to fill in all of the crevices it could find.

Everyone has split off into their own, smaller groups for the moment; Lila and Allison are cleaning up in the kitchen cathartic about who knows what, while Klaus and Five keep Claire entertained.

Diego is looking for Luther and eventually finds himself outside on the front porch, staring out at the island. Everything here has a sense of peace and calm that Diego has found hard both to adjust to and to trust, but it still finds its way to wash over him when it’s quiet like this. He didn’t find his brother, but the sun is starting to set and that tranquility just caught him in that sense of ease for a moment.

[obediences]

Life on the island has been calming for a while — even high-strung as the Hargreeves are, it's hard to be too stressed-out when most days are warm and sunny, the ocean is a perfect blue, and every day they're granted the daily reminder of everything they've worked hard to build — but it's true, there's something else in the air today.

After a while, there's the creak of the porch floorboards, and Luther stepping outside to join Diego. Luther's not even reading or listening to music for once, just looking thoughtfully out to the distance with a kind of abstracted distraction, which doesn't usually fit their sharp-focused once-leader.

Today, he's seemed more contented than usual. Throughout the day and during the meal, he and Allison have been shooting each other the sorts of looks that, once upon a time, would have driven Diego up the wall; the pair of them falling into the orbit of their secret language again, unspoken and insular.

"Is Five with Klaus and Claire?" he asks, once he sees that Diego isn't indoors with the others. Double-checking that one of the more responsible brothers is still around. Not that Luther mistrusts Klaus as a babysitter, but— look, it's just better if Five's around too.

{ I pray that you'll lift me, when you know I need help

[numberthree]

Allison lets Luther take her home, and she knows she's not going well, if by nothing more than the soft, consistent tenor of his voice (and the way he doesn't let go of her shoulder). She can't remember much of what he's said even thirty seconds after he says it, no less if she replied, what she said if so. It all just keeps washing in and out.

Her mind keeps taking her back to Josh in that bed. Her ears keep anchoring her in the steady, dependable sound of Luther's voice. The faith that she doesn't have to focus and she'll still be fine. He won't let her fall or walk off in the wrong direction. There are no tears. She isn't shaking, or stumbling. She just can't quite get back to right here. The given moment. Where she's standing.

She stops into Claire's room first when they do finally get home, sits on her knees by the side of her bed. She's so small and so still, lost in peaceful dreams and little even breaths and it might be the first time Allison realizes she half-wants to cry, and she wants to curl down and lay her head on Claire's bed and just watch her sleep. Maybe all night. But her eyes stay dry and her spine stays straight.

What if Josh doesn't come back from this? What if was David next? Or Jane, Rumiru, her next? What if it was all of Krakoa, and Claire with it, once Stark decided his next move post-losing Josh? Would he wait until the Synod? And why had he waited all this year without futher agressive action, anything to stop them in the smallest?

Eventually, there's a kiss on Claire's temple and she does get up.

Sheds cloths. Find's something to sleep in. Falls into her bed, into the darkness, curling herself into a small ball of herself. Unsurprised when very little time passes before Luther's forehead presses into her neck and shoulder, arm curves around her, his chest is flush warmth against her back, and there's no tug of her being pulled playfully or exhaustedly back into him, so much as he simply comes to her, wraps himself like an even closer blanket around her, in the darkness, than their actual blankets.

Warm hands, warm body, warm breath on her skin. She loves him, and hates him, for knowing exactly what she needs. Exactly what will defuse her, and deconstruct her, like she's a bomb, or a trap, an inert puzzle box made of steel, holding back something so much worse than itself. She feels her eyes prickle for the first time since she saw Josh, and shakes her head against the pillow, and his head behind hers, saying, "This is my fault."

[obediences]

Her voice is so soft, almost a mumble against the pillow, that he can barely hear it — but all of Luther has been waiting and watching and listening for Allison to say something, and so of course he hears it. And his arm tightens around her, a silent reassuring squeeze.

She can carry so much. She has been carrying so much, as one of the Council of Five. But when she inevitably fractures, Luther's there to pick up the pieces.

It's that familiar weight of responsibility and of leadership; the exact kind that he had, unpredictably, let go of for the past several years, although he still recognises it. The self-flagellation, the heavy burden that you shouldered when you took everyone under your wing. He had felt it over a decade ago, lashed in place by their father, Ben's death pinned on Number One's conscience even if she'd tried to tell him otherwise. 'It wasn't your fault, you know. I know everyone blames you for what happened to Ben. But none of us knows what really happened that day.'

So, tonight, he offers it back to her, his nose pressed into her shoulder.

"Allison. Did you, personally, abduct Josh from Krakoa?"