f2020 | {Hazy sunshine over the hill

Entry tags:

{Hazy sunshine over the hill

WHO: Hargreeves + YOU

WHERE: Krakoa; various

WHEN: Varies, specified by thread

WHAT: Varies, specified by thread

WARNINGS: Warnings will be updated where necessary

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

 
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?”

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?

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?"

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.

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.

Edited 2020-09-09 04:50 (UTC)

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.

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."

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.

It's the creak of a floorboard that alerts him, and shakes him out of his reverie, away from the distant barren deserts of another planet and back to this house. Not all the buildings in Krakoa are professionally-built, and their still-growing residences are a particular hodgepodge: a product of Luther and Diego hammering floorboards into place and bickering, while Five directed them, and Klaus floated nearby sipping a drink and offering (not-so-)helpful commentary. So the floorboards are uneven, and they creak when she moves further into the room, and Luther finally looks up over the edge of his book (a battered paperback copy of Dune), and he sees her in the doorway looking thoughtful.

Luther slides a thumb into the crease of the book, holds his spot as he lets it drift and lie flat on his chest. "Is she asleep?" he asks; unable, for the moment, to parse whatever that expression is passing across Allison's face, because even she isn't entirely certain what to do with it either.

It's a habit, instinct, something more profound than thought that brings her two or three feet further into the room, at the sound of his voice. The easy curl of the question. The easy way he holds his book, lets it go level on his chest, holding his place, looking both like he really does care about the answer and like he might go right back to reading once he had it. Nothing about the pause, even a reason to move from being sprawled across the whole couch to sitting. Just enough to meet her gaze and ask that question.

But something in her head, something she can't name, something that does involve thought stops her before she even gets properly into the livingroom. A hand reaching out to land on the back of the chair she's still at the corner of, like somehow the girl who could easily face down anyone at a White Tower party, even now with every line crossed, maybe couldn't do this.

When she hasn't even defined what this is in her head. Because it doesn't need defining, she knows it, without words. Thought. The way panic knows the fight or flight response without a second-stop check-in. She doesn't think she can do this. She doesn't think it's a choice. It was never supposed to be a choice. It was never supposed to be either-or.

But for all that ease, and for all of how well they've all fit into Krakoa, they know what the diaster of their childhood did to them. Does to them. May forever go on doing to them. The choices of someone who didn't care ever enough to put them first. There is no either-or. She already made her decision. She signed it on a dotted line only a few months ago. Made it official. But it wasn't supposed to be this, too.

"What are we doing?"

The question finds air, like it's tasting the air itself, half like it's questioning itself.

Like the words don't even quite know how to knit together properly. Past a wall of silence deeper than a decade and never touched for all that nearness brushed fingers with it frequently. There is no safe path for this because there is no path for this. She doesn't have the vaguest clue how to do this -- she can't lose him; Allison doesn't know how to breathe getting to those words the first time as a thought -- only the hamstring knowledge she has to do it.

Because she might have to break her own heart to make sure she doesn't break Claire's.

He doesn't miss the fact that Allison hasn't answered the question, even small and rote and standard as it was. There's the faintest crease between Luther's brows, his other arm moving from its spot as pillow in order to rest against the top of the book instead. A tilt of his head, an expression of puzzlement flickering in his blue eyes.

"I mean, I'm reading my book, in the deserts of Arrakis," he says, a touch dryly. ('I say to you still that man remains on trial, each man in his own dock. Each man is a little war.')

"I finished the dishes, though, so you don't have to worry about that. You've got a Council meeting early tomorrow morning, but my next training session isn't until afternoon?"

Answering the question, but from entirely the wrong angle, because he doesn't realise. He doesn't even know the other angle exists; hasn't ever stopped to consider it, to allow himself to even think of it as a viable option. It's just been this, for the past year: the comfortable rhythm of life on the island, sedate when it wasn't packed to the gills, oddly peaceful compared to everything else they'd known before, the two of them perpetually by each others' sides and settling into each others' lives. Unquestioning. Unthinking. Undefined.

He says it so casually. So easily. A light bit of joking, about his book, and that comment about having already taken care of her chores (and how often has he done that? Too many times to count?), and he continues into tomorrow smoothly, with her morning and his afternoon (like it's something he keeps track of, can hand back to her, gently; how many times has he done that now, too? She knows she needed it a year ago, when she was barely sleeping, but now and still).

And he still doesn't even move from there.
Resolute ease, hanging feet, dry humor.

Her lips tremble, but she pushes out, "No."

And the breath she pulls in is noticeable, as is the way she shakes her head, because she has to do better than that. More words. More sense. Make him understand. Her eyes close briefly before she forces her eyes back open, and it already feels worse than losing her arm. There's no definable comparison she can reach for, even as she says it, "No. Luther."

More seriously. His name. Needing his attention. Needing him to -- to not do whatever this is, whatever they've let it become, that she can't even lay a finger on when started, how long it's been going on, how it's become so much a part of this house, of her every day. Needing him to stop looking so. Himself. Comfortable. Concerned. Helpful. Handsome. No. She pushes herself harder, pictures Claire in her bed, tries to remember just how soft her cheek was when she kissed it only seconds ago:

"What are--" And she raises the hand that isn't on the chair to gesture between just them, as though there were nothing else around or between them. "--we doing?"

She lets her nails dig into the cloth of the chair. "What is this?"

Makes herself ask what she maybe never would have for herself. "What are we?"

Edited 2020-09-10 04:48 (UTC)

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?"

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.

Diego is sitting at the table when Klaus flounces into the room, making the most ridiculous, showy, fuss about the cookies. He’s checking headlines for anything important in the world outside of Krakoa and doesn’t even glance up as he mumbles a quiet, “He warned you,” practically sing-song, and then his eyes lift just slightly to look at Klaus. “Idiot.” But there’s no heat to it, just amusement, and a smirk hidden in the corner of his mouth.

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."

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.

Edited 2020-09-11 00:26 (UTC)

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.

And it feels, oddly, somehow, like all the air's been drained out of the room and sucked into vacuum. His comfortable sprawl on the sofa isn't comfortable any longer, and Luther finds himself finally having straightened (you can't have a serious conversation lying down like a man at leisure, while Allison's wound up all uncharacteristic straight angles and hanging onto that chair like she needs it to stay standing). He's seated upright now without remembering having done it, leaning forward and elbows propped against his knees, watching her somberly.

If he were more like Klaus or Diego, maybe he could brush it off with levity, with a wisecracking joke to hold this at bay. But Luther is Luther, and her suddenly— ripping open— this subject means it needs the appropriate focus and gravitas, even as he can feel the tell-tale prickle of panic down his spine, tight in his throat, clenched in his chest. What brought this on, he could ask. Almost asks, as a way to buy himself time.

Because they've never discussed it before. It had been so easy to fall into that undefined routine, in fact. So easy that it hadn't begged the question, and as long as the question wasn't asked, then neither of them risked losing it. (Never risked losing, nor gaining more. A cowardice, of sorts.)

"I don't know," is what he says in the end; plainly, honestly. Looking up at her with a steady gaze. "It's— I mean. It's... It can be what you want it to be. Whatever you need me to be."

Still terribly vague. But it's an attempt at addressing it, and it's a start. Touching on what's been unwaveringly, steadfast true for the past year anyhow: whatever she needed, if it was babysitting help so she could get at least a couple hour's uninterrupted sleep, or someone to chase away the distracting students, or take care of dinners when she was too tired to cook, or build a cradle for Claire even if it meant accidentally banging his thumb with a hammer and peppering the room with quaintly old-fashioned curses... whatever it was, Luther had done his best to provide. To simply be that quiet foundation she could rest on.

Luther finally moves, and it's like the world comes to a screeching halt.

Like everything she said a second ago could have been something she only dreamed up, a brushed quasi-reality, until nothing exists except the book that ends up on the couch, and Luther finally staring at her like she sucker-punched him. She watches the freeze in his expression, the minute alarmed shifts, the gravity of the realization slap down walls, and that thing in her chest, that thing without thoughts and a name a second ago, it's suddenly developed claws and is trying to fight its way right out through the front of her rib cage suddenly.

Because it's suddenly so, so very real. It's happening.

It's a wild, scrabbling thing, trapped in too little space, with no room to breathe in around it, that goes the wrong direction at the seriousness on his face. Because she was never supposed to lose him. Leave him. Vanya went off to school, and Klaus got kicked out, and Diego left in the middle of the night, and they were never never never going to leave except together. And they had. Even if it was this world, instead of the world outside the Academy. When it was the White Tower instead of Hollywood, or Nasa, or wherever the road went. When it was Krakoa. This house.

The ice is too thin, and his first words hurt about as much she'd always thought it might. If she'd just tried. Had ever pushed it. Asked. Considered only to fall back into the fact she couldn't risk it. Backed out of the thought time and time and time again.

There's something that's almost a laugh, but it's so much closer to soundless because her breath doesn't catch in it, that he might not even realize it happens first—hooking on the wrong word. The word that has plagued her life since the second she knew what it meant. What it cost. (Want.) "That's not how it works."

She doesn't get what she wants. She doesn't want to ask this. She doesn't want him looking at her like this. She doesn't want more of those first three words. She doesn't want to feel like the floor is alternating ice and fire under her bare feet. She doesn't want this. Doesn't want to lose this.

Coming home too early, to find music streaming out the windows and Luther waltzing Claire around a room in his arms as she giggled at the turns. Luther as the sounding board of all her thoughts, always too late into the night, when the day's meetings were playing out in her head, again, now that the distraction of Claire's chatter was done, and she needed to talk the ones she could through. Never once feeling like she'd ever had to be alone here; ever would have to be.

Edited 2020-09-11 03:31 (UTC)

Luther never bullshits her, or at least tries not to. Not purposefully.

And the answer is right there, even though she can't see it either, can't see it past how those first three words tripped her up. Handing her whatever she wants, and not because of her powers, but because he'd carve out his heart and hand it to her on a platter even without them. Without a single delicate application of her abilities.

He didn't know it was possible to be this frightened of what ought to be a simple conversation. (But it isn't.) He's never had to do something like this before, let alone with Allison, his oldest and best friend. The one who matters most. This— whatever she is—

(And isn't that part of the problem?)

Never daring to define it due to this fear of assumption, of presuming too much. Overstepping. Staking a claim on her that he isn't owed, and therefore would never dream of asking for. So how in the world can he even begin to answer that question? What are we?

The silence drags on a bit too long, the gears almost visibly turning behind his careful expression. It feels like they're stepping on thin ice and if Luther moves just wrong, says the wrong thing, he's going to go plummeting right through and this whole damned thing will break. This fragile peace they've had. This life. He knows what it's like to accidentally break things; to apply too much pressure unthinkingly and unknowingly, leave nothing but splinters and fragments in his wake.

He never wanted to break this.

"I just mean," Luther says slowly, each syllable dragging as he tries to arrange them in place before he speaks, "that I'd do anything for you. I, uh. Think that's probably pretty obvious by now. So I just..."

It's been easy, too, to spin up endless excuses for himself. She's a single mother raising a war orphan. She's a council member of a harried island nation. She has too many things on her mind; he shouldn't add one more complication to her plate. But in so doing, it's evolved into a nebulous complication anyway. (It just took longer.)

He swallows, his Adam's apple bobbing. "'This'. It's— whatever it is, it's important. You're important. I don't want to ruin it."

Luther sits there silent and still, and Allison's pretty sure whatever she had to break, it's started. It's a thing she can't stop, the way she can't look away from him. Wants to will him to say something. Wants to will him to say nothing at all. Has to push down too hard on both. Almost bites the inside of her cheek over it, rather than risk words as desperation bleeds through every thought, every cell, to take it all back.

Bury it down. Pretend she didn't. Undo it, undo it, just undo it.

But then Luther starts. Slow as molasses. Like he's digging them out of somewhere they don't want to come from. Like he doesn't want to say them. To answer her. Things that are both too stark and too cool all at once. That he'd do anything for her. That she's important. That he doesn't want to ruin this. Them. And she wonders how it's possible to feel like she's thirteen in too-tight saddle shoes, a world and a decade away from it. The exact same kind of lines she'd throw popcorn at a screen for while watching one of Ivy's terrible network dramas.

The last words just repeat. Too much.

I don't want to ruin it.
I don't want to ruin it.
I don't want to ruin it.

"I think we already did," comes out before she can stop it, with barely more than two or three seconds pause from those words, and she doesn't want to say that. But she does, and it's agonized reticence in five words. Everything in her chest is seizing. Like the ice on the ground is finding a way to slowly, steadily freeze the thing in the middle of her chest. Because she can't not say it, not tell him.

Not if she's already admitted that much, because it's her fault -- their fault? It doesn't matter who is to blame now, only that she has to fix it. Her eyes end up on her hand on the chair, lips pressing only for a moment, not quite sure about even looking in his direction. "Claire just asked if you were her dad."

But somehow, she can't stop herself from glancing toward him even then.

Edited 2020-09-11 04:32 (UTC)

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?"

Diego recognizes the act the boy is putting on instantly— because he was the same way not so many years ago. Always look strong, always seem brave, never appear weak. The expectations he’d been raised under meant always being ready and strong and never faltering; his inability to be perfectly stone stoic was what he convinced himself for years was the reason his father didn’t love him. The sad truth, that only truly learned after running away and sealed in his mind after ending up here on this island, was that his father didn’t love anyone.

The facade puts an easy smile on his face, the question earning a shake of his head. “No,” he assures him immediately about breaking any rules— and wasn’t that always a worry, back home, at the Academy with Dad? The thought makes his stomach twist uncomfortably but he doesn’t let it sour his expression. “you’re not in any kind of trouble, I was just taking a walk. What’s your name?” He looks over at him and, never one to ask for something he won’t equally hand over he offers, “I’m Diego.”

“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?”

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{Hazy sunshine over the hill

The Conversation™

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

space & the empress → 4 years ago.

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number five + ota

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eyes emoji

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

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

@longoverdue {Wedding planning is a headache

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ty for setting this up!!

no problem! I’m hype about this event I’m flinging starters everywhere XD

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