luther "the big shy one" hargreeves | #00.01 (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
obediences) wrote2019-03-28 10:51 am
obediences) wrote2019-03-28 10:51 am
Entry tags:
| | [During this] Have you seen this conversation about justice and how to quantify it? [He's been having this conversation with Jacob and he's so conflicted on how to feel about any of it. And as much as he may butt heads with Luther, there is still a respect there, and over something like this? He can't really think of anyone better to talk to.] |
Yeah. I responded, a bit. Looks like Allison did too.
Little too close to home, isn't it.
[ Now that Luther's got a larger communicator device where he can actually manipulate the keyboard properly, he has the advantage of text, and his voice not betraying himself when it comes to delicate subjects like this. Picking their way through it like a minefield. ]
Little too close to home, isn't it.
[ Now that Luther's got a larger communicator device where he can actually manipulate the keyboard properly, he has the advantage of text, and his voice not betraying himself when it comes to delicate subjects like this. Picking their way through it like a minefield. ]
| | There have to be rules and punishments, don't there? People can't just say a death doesn't matter because they'll come back. |
Honestly? It throws me for a loop, too. [ Luther knows he's supposed to have all the answers, but he's been less confident with all of them since that week back home. And this is a weird, existential quandary that he still can't wrap his mind around; that their world hadn't prepared them for, with all the tidy rules Hargreeves had instilled in them. Ruthlessly black-or-white. ]
If someone had a Horn of Plenty that just kept refilling itself, and you stole some of that food from them, would it matter? They have more to spare, and it'll come back.
And apparently we can die, and come back. And killing that guy probably saved tons of other lives. Not just imPort lives. Civilians, too, who don't have the luxury of resurrection.
But it is still murder. So I don't know.
If someone had a Horn of Plenty that just kept refilling itself, and you stole some of that food from them, would it matter? They have more to spare, and it'll come back.
And apparently we can die, and come back. And killing that guy probably saved tons of other lives. Not just imPort lives. Civilians, too, who don't have the luxury of resurrection.
But it is still murder. So I don't know.
| | It's not even the murder that bothers me. I mean. Not objectively. Not on its own. But the supposed never-ending loop of resurrection could really lead to a lot of backlash in hundreds of different ways. I don't know how people here have really treated it, but it'd be a lie to say it wouldn't be tempting to just cross that line for the sake of venting frustrations at people. And that would be a really fucking bad cycle to fall into. Especially with no repercussions. |
Like people just grudge-murdering each other over and over in the middle of a heated argument, just because they can?
We might fight a lot, Diego, but for what it's worth I don't think we'd ever actually get that far.
[ It's a tiny shred of humour, an attempt at plastering over this difficult subject. The whole thing doesn't have a simple answer. ]
We might fight a lot, Diego, but for what it's worth I don't think we'd ever actually get that far.
[ It's a tiny shred of humour, an attempt at plastering over this difficult subject. The whole thing doesn't have a simple answer. ]
| | I could see it happening. Really feeling the love, brother. |
Apparently there haven't actually been that many imPort deaths, either. So maybe people still just behave like they normally would, and try to avoid it.
Because even intellectually knowing we resurrect, I still find it hard to believe. I'm not going to kill someone or jump off a building just because I've heard we come back.
Because even intellectually knowing we resurrect, I still find it hard to believe. I'm not going to kill someone or jump off a building just because I've heard we come back.
| | I guess that's a good thing, at least. Yeah, but we're way more suspicious of everything here than some people are. [Like Ben. Diego loves their brother, but the way he is clinging to everything about this place like it's nothing more than a miracle handed to them on a silver platter worries him.] |
Jacob Taylor came back, and by all accounts he actually did die.
Part of me probably still won't buy it until I see it happen to someone who fell in front of me. Hope I never do, but, y'know.
[ He doesn't touch that "some people" yet. He has a good idea who Diego means, but Luther himself is too increasingly attached to this place, too -- so he won't broach it just yet. Like touching a hot stove. ]
Part of me probably still won't buy it until I see it happen to someone who fell in front of me. Hope I never do, but, y'know.
[ He doesn't touch that "some people" yet. He has a good idea who Diego means, but Luther himself is too increasingly attached to this place, too -- so he won't broach it just yet. Like touching a hot stove. ]
| | This is the first time I've talked to the guy. Although, apparently you two have spoken before. [Subtle, Diego.] Yeah, fingers crossed. [He notices. It's hard not to in these text conversations to see exactly what is being ignored. He isn't exactly going to let it go so easily, Luther.] You're not worried? About Ben. |
Yeah, we met on the moon. [ And ain't that a sentence. ]
You don't like that he's so attached to the place that brought him back to life?
You don't like that he's so attached to the place that brought him back to life?
| | I keep hearing the most random, vague things about the moon in this place. There's a base or ... something, right? No, I don't. I get it, but I don't like it. If it's that easy for them to bring the dead back to life, it's just as easy for him to ripped away from us again, Luther. We lost him once and the entire fucking family fell apart. Do you honestly think you or Klaus or any of us will ever be ready to lose him TWICE? |
Yeah. A large, fully-functioning lunar base. Allison and I had our swear-in there. [ It had been so very much on the nose, without the people in this universe even knowing it. ]
And no. No one's ever ready. But any of us could die at any time, too, Diego. That hasn't changed from the old world either.
And no. No one's ever ready. But any of us could die at any time, too, Diego. That hasn't changed from the old world either.
| | Damn, that's an insane amount of irony. Did you do it? I mean... side...with this place? Register and whatever? [Diego sure didn't, and the tattoo on his wrist says so, very plainly.] But back home, we didn't have a chance of having him BACK, Luther. I'm not saying that the death or disappearance of any of us is ever going to go well, but... I just think this is worse. It's just a game to the people that bring us here. We're a fucking social experiment and nothing about our lives has even changed. [Diego is really, really glad they're doing this over texts. It took him longer than he'd like to admit to put those last handful of texts together, if only because trying to think through the rage (and the underlying, ignored fear) he has toward everything about being here made it hard to put into words.] |
Yeah. [ He hadn't even really hesitated, in doing it. It gave him another organised structure to jot himself into, another vague sense of purpose. Registered Hero in his paperwork, and that at least made him feel a little bit more like himself. Like he'd used to be. Like Number One. ] It gives us more resources, more governmental support, more freedom to move around. [ And the possibility of, maybe, someday, joining Aegis Force-- ]
They're monitoring us anyway. I've spent my whole life being monitored. Might as well get the benefits out of it.
Plus, I'm not entirely sure it's just a social experiment. This place seems like it does need the help of imPorts.
[Like their world had needed the Academy. ]
They're monitoring us anyway. I've spent my whole life being monitored. Might as well get the benefits out of it.
Plus, I'm not entirely sure it's just a social experiment. This place seems like it does need the help of imPorts.
[
| | I don't want resources and government help from a place I hate being in, don't trust, and want no part of. [Plus, he'd been doing this thing fine on his own, within his own very specific code, for years. He didn't need the extra resources, if he was honest.] I hope you realize how fucking disgusting that statement even is, Luther. Yeah, we have been. And that's the POINT. It's been this way since we were BORN. At least when we were kids, we could delude ourselves into thinking it was just because he's our dad and maybe in his own weird, fucked up away, he cared. He sucked, but he was still our Dad, and it was easy to tell ourselves lies about him. [At least... until it wasn't. And unfortunately, Luther's 'until it wasn't' moment, and the freedom that comes with the acceptance of who Dad really is and always was, is still a little too new for him to have the right amount of clarity about it, probably.] But why the fuck should anyone willingly and blindly accept it out of captors? [And maybe this last one is a little too much, a little too harsh, but the words come so easy.] Needing us didn't work out so well for the world last time. |
That's exactly why we have to do better this time around. Be better.
[ He doesn't even engage with half of what Diego's spat out -- because somehow Diego can still manage that, even over text -- but just the last sentence. Luther's response flat, firm, unyielding. Some of his spine slowly returning after that catastrophic week, rebuilding around a new set of convictions. Something to hold him steady. ]
[ He doesn't even engage with half of what Diego's spat out -- because somehow Diego can still manage that, even over text -- but just the last sentence. Luther's response flat, firm, unyielding. Some of his spine slowly returning after that catastrophic week, rebuilding around a new set of convictions. Something to hold him steady. ]
[The silence that comes after that last text of Luther's is the kind that's thick, and hangs in the air so long it seems like it might choke all the oxygen from the room until you're eventually reminded you don't need words to breathe.
Diego just doesn't know how to respond to it at all. In some ways, he thinks, maybe it's true. It's a nice sentiment to cling to in the dark. But reality is a deeper kind of dark than that, it clouds everything else in ways no nice sentiment or bright hope can light any way to get out of.
They should.
Do better.
Try harder.
Be better.
With the world. And especially with each other.
But Diego's not sure it's that simple, either.
And he lets the text continue being read, but otherwise ignored.]
Diego just doesn't know how to respond to it at all. In some ways, he thinks, maybe it's true. It's a nice sentiment to cling to in the dark. But reality is a deeper kind of dark than that, it clouds everything else in ways no nice sentiment or bright hope can light any way to get out of.
They should.
Do better.
Try harder.
Be better.
With the world. And especially with each other.
But Diego's not sure it's that simple, either.
And he lets the text continue being read, but otherwise ignored.]
Edited (i will get my html settled at some point, I'm sorry for all the edits!) 2019-06-17 04:08 (UTC)
[ Luther sees that read icon -- he knows what it means now, thanks -- and keeps tinkering with a response, aborted sentences and questions and a nudge to prompt Diego to say something. ]
[ But in the end, he just lets it taper back out, and doesn't respond either. ]
[ But in the end, he just lets it taper back out, and doesn't respond either. ]
[ For the second time in a week, Allison has not the slightest urge to be awake, to leave her bed, to go to the bastion of bloodsuckers that is her job. Unable to sleep, unwilling to move, tears long since dried, but sore from the strength of the sobbing that had wracked her on the sudden jarring crack of waking from this newest dream with her daughter’s face and voice so perfectly clear once more, as though she hadn’t remembered it as clearly somehow as she swore never to lose.
But morning waits for no one. Allison's communicator rings, even though she ignores it. People who want to know where she is. A thing she doesn’t have to worry about from her daytime sleeping roommates. Eventually, she does have to move, late into the light that doesn’t permeate the house of blackout curtains in every room. Pretending it’s not a little surprising, a little painful and yet painfully relieving both there isn’t something from Luther already for the first time in days.
She remembers too well that girl at the door — her face.
Luther’s admission it was his. (Luther’s words at her shoulder.
The blasphemy of her own choice. The guilt within it. Selfishness.)
Reginald Hargreeves daughter, broken toy soldier, to the last, when what she turns to, instead of messaging him, herself, is the Network. Surprised not to find the reports of the newest worst turns of this attack on reality but endless messages and news updates about how nothing has happened since dawn. How all the objects and people pulled from dreams are gone. All the changes and powers and dreams brought to life have vanished as though they’ve never been there at all. Wariness more than anything clings like a bur even as she scrolled.
It’s that more than anything that pushed her finally out of bed, into clothes, and into the city she has little love for. There’s a hollow wariness and a perceptive relief, but the further she goes the more it’s true, the more conversations she overhears continues to keep that truth, the more buildings have returned their original shapes, sizes, appearances, and that more than anything digs into her gut.
Sinks more and more hooks into that reluctance each time she looks at her communicator considering. No matter how much she does not want to open the door that already blew itself down like there were never any hinges and locks on that door. Doesn’t want to know what he thinks of her now. Knows what he thinks of her now. Worse than that look in the living room when he realized.
There was a difference between the joke of using her power to solve the problem of having her daughter taken from her, and using her power on her daughter herself. There was a difference between merely saying she’d thought she’d had an advantage and being judged by a body of her peers and sentenced a child abuser. Her father’s daughter to the last. Gone from his house, but not from his training here either.
But even as shame and disgust flare in every direction making the reoriented world barely seen for more than that, she can’t forget either.
Luther’s face in that long frozen moment in the foyer after his shirt and the jacket gave way with the chandelier. Horror and shame and fear before he ran away from all three of them, her, her most of all, as the only person he’d stared at. Horrified. Ashamed. Afraid. Luther’s hand catching her wrist, careless of the grind of the delicate bones there, to keep her from touching him again, asking her to drop it, telling her he was fine when everything about him said he wasn’t.
Four years later and nothing near to anything like fine.
Luther calling her first and foremost a week ago.
Uncomfortable, yet easier, in his own skin.
But there’s silence.
It’s not the same. It is.
The silence. What it means.
Her world might be ripped open, but no one she passes on the sidewalk, stands next to getting coffee, can tell, can see it, even pauses for longer than second in looking at her. The same would not be true of Luther; from the second he woke up. She hates herself. Every breath still feels an inch from proving she is still broken wide open, a shatter of shards forgotten how to pull together once again. But every single one she can’t forget. His admission. His regret. His face everytime. He called first. He called first. He called first.
He hasn’t called at all.
That she has to. Even if she doesn’t want to.
Allison finds a bench in a park that looks as run down as she feels. Sits drinking her coffee staring at the empty text box in her vision. Not the Network, itself. Not her communicator. Nothing open to the public. She doesn’t expect she's welcome. Wanted. She doesn’t even want to do it. Which doesn’t change she needs to. Needs it like breathing, too. Might be the only person who can. You’re the only person I can talk through things with, he said. How many times had she snapped at him? Things forgotten. Things unsaid. Things avoided. Things kept from her. How many things hadn’t she explained herself that he'd seen now?
She is a hypocrite at the highest level.
It doesn’t excuse her from this either.
With a breath in, Allison closes her eyes, even as the box stays in front of her vision all the same, against the back of her eyelids and the tracery of red-orange from the sunlight behind them, and sends the only question she can. Even if she knows the answer already. ]
But morning waits for no one. Allison's communicator rings, even though she ignores it. People who want to know where she is. A thing she doesn’t have to worry about from her daytime sleeping roommates. Eventually, she does have to move, late into the light that doesn’t permeate the house of blackout curtains in every room. Pretending it’s not a little surprising, a little painful and yet painfully relieving both there isn’t something from Luther already for the first time in days.
She remembers too well that girl at the door — her face.
Luther’s admission it was his. (Luther’s words at her shoulder.
The blasphemy of her own choice. The guilt within it. Selfishness.)
Reginald Hargreeves daughter, broken toy soldier, to the last, when what she turns to, instead of messaging him, herself, is the Network. Surprised not to find the reports of the newest worst turns of this attack on reality but endless messages and news updates about how nothing has happened since dawn. How all the objects and people pulled from dreams are gone. All the changes and powers and dreams brought to life have vanished as though they’ve never been there at all. Wariness more than anything clings like a bur even as she scrolled.
It’s that more than anything that pushed her finally out of bed, into clothes, and into the city she has little love for. There’s a hollow wariness and a perceptive relief, but the further she goes the more it’s true, the more conversations she overhears continues to keep that truth, the more buildings have returned their original shapes, sizes, appearances, and that more than anything digs into her gut.
Sinks more and more hooks into that reluctance each time she looks at her communicator considering. No matter how much she does not want to open the door that already blew itself down like there were never any hinges and locks on that door. Doesn’t want to know what he thinks of her now. Knows what he thinks of her now. Worse than that look in the living room when he realized.
There was a difference between the joke of using her power to solve the problem of having her daughter taken from her, and using her power on her daughter herself. There was a difference between merely saying she’d thought she’d had an advantage and being judged by a body of her peers and sentenced a child abuser. Her father’s daughter to the last. Gone from his house, but not from his training here either.
But even as shame and disgust flare in every direction making the reoriented world barely seen for more than that, she can’t forget either.
Luther’s face in that long frozen moment in the foyer after his shirt and the jacket gave way with the chandelier. Horror and shame and fear before he ran away from all three of them, her, her most of all, as the only person he’d stared at. Horrified. Ashamed. Afraid. Luther’s hand catching her wrist, careless of the grind of the delicate bones there, to keep her from touching him again, asking her to drop it, telling her he was fine when everything about him said he wasn’t.
Four years later and nothing near to anything like fine.
Luther calling her first and foremost a week ago.
Uncomfortable, yet easier, in his own skin.
But there’s silence.
It’s not the same. It is.
The silence. What it means.
Her world might be ripped open, but no one she passes on the sidewalk, stands next to getting coffee, can tell, can see it, even pauses for longer than second in looking at her. The same would not be true of Luther; from the second he woke up. She hates herself. Every breath still feels an inch from proving she is still broken wide open, a shatter of shards forgotten how to pull together once again. But every single one she can’t forget. His admission. His regret. His face everytime. He called first. He called first. He called first.
He hasn’t called at all.
That she has to. Even if she doesn’t want to.
Allison finds a bench in a park that looks as run down as she feels. Sits drinking her coffee staring at the empty text box in her vision. Not the Network, itself. Not her communicator. Nothing open to the public. She doesn’t expect she's welcome. Wanted. She doesn’t even want to do it. Which doesn’t change she needs to. Needs it like breathing, too. Might be the only person who can. You’re the only person I can talk through things with, he said. How many times had she snapped at him? Things forgotten. Things unsaid. Things avoided. Things kept from her. How many things hadn’t she explained herself that he'd seen now?
She is a hypocrite at the highest level.
It doesn’t excuse her from this either.
With a breath in, Allison closes her eyes, even as the box stays in front of her vision all the same, against the back of her eyelids and the tracery of red-orange from the sunlight behind them, and sends the only question she can. Even if she knows the answer already. ]
To: Luther Hargreeves (Locked)
Are you okay?
Yes.
I'm fine.
It's fine.
[ Luther picks through all of the possible responses, sifts through his words, erases them just as carefully. It had been a temporary reprieve, he knew that, some things were simply too good to be true, and he had to have known it would go away eventually — and yet. And yet he can't help that helpless sting of bitter disappointment and grief when, for the third time in his life, he wakes up transformed overnight. Back to rough and leathery skin with its pockmarked scars, the ones that did not come from battle; those oversize hands; that clumsiness. He's been trapped in his room all morning, called in sick and unable to even step out into the hallway. Can't face the strangers in his house, or on the street. Any of them. Even the Hargreeves.
He'd lied to her before. Claimed it was fine. But Allison can see right through it, and so: ]
No.
[ She waits. She waits. She waits. Her heart beating faster and slower in swings. Uncertain he'll answer. Uncertain she should be selfish enough to feel hurt, to feel like she deserves something, needs him to, doesn't want him to, does, for him, for her. It's not about her. None of this about her. It's about Luther. Whatever he needs. Whatever he wants. Even if that isn't her. Especially if it isn't now.
She has to try; let him know, she knows, she's here. He's not alone.
It doesn't mean he does. Have to answer. Have to care.
She sits. Drinks her coffee. Watches the derelict park in this ever contentious city, where children aren't. Freezes against that overwhelming wave that catches like a rock in her throat, in her chest, strikes her eyes, to a stinging degree when a response even pops up, before opening it. It's only one word, and her heart aches even harder for it. For it not being the two words she expected. For the finite, heart stabbing, heartbreaking, honesty.
For having no clue how honest it might be. How deep and dark that tunnel. She doesn't know enough. Doesn't know anything. Enough to know nothing, enough to know there's so more. Maybe even knows too much already, in his opinion. But he answered. So she does, too. She started this. I'm sorry is the wrong words. Same with thank you. Same with I know. She grasps for something else after a few too long seconds. ]
Is there anything you need?
She has to try; let him know, she knows, she's here. He's not alone.
It doesn't mean he does. Have to answer. Have to care.
She sits. Drinks her coffee. Watches the derelict park in this ever contentious city, where children aren't. Freezes against that overwhelming wave that catches like a rock in her throat, in her chest, strikes her eyes, to a stinging degree when a response even pops up, before opening it. It's only one word, and her heart aches even harder for it. For it not being the two words she expected. For the finite, heart stabbing, heartbreaking, honesty.
For having no clue how honest it might be. How deep and dark that tunnel. She doesn't know enough. Doesn't know anything. Enough to know nothing, enough to know there's so more. Maybe even knows too much already, in his opinion. But he answered. So she does, too. She started this. I'm sorry is the wrong words. Same with thank you. Same with I know. She grasps for something else after a few too long seconds. ]
Is there anything you need?
[ They're being honest — trying this on for size, settling in past those atrophied years of distance, re-learning how to exist in each others' lives again — and so he keeps that up. Answers that impossible question as best he can: ]
[ Because maybe there is, or isn't. And even Luther can't predict that yet, craning his head to look up out of that deep, deep, black pit he's in. Superstrength and yet he can't even gather the will to climb out of bed. What a fucking joke.
And then, because even now Luther's aware he's not the only one who lost something, and they were both flayed down to the bone and forced through the wringer last night: ]
Not yet.
[ Because maybe there is, or isn't. And even Luther can't predict that yet, craning his head to look up out of that deep, deep, black pit he's in. Superstrength and yet he can't even gather the will to climb out of bed. What a fucking joke.
And then, because even now Luther's aware he's not the only one who lost something, and they were both flayed down to the bone and forced through the wringer last night: ]
Are you okay?
[ She's expecting the first two words.
Expecting them enough she sighs, a hollow woosh of air and nothing else, and leans back on the bench, at the impass of what she knows and what she can't change and what she can't make better. And still wanting to somehow do more. Say more. Help. Anyway. Somehow. Allison isn't expecting the three-word question that appears before she can plan her response. The question that cuts its teeth on her heart like it's nothing, arrowed for her center.
When she wants to say I'm fine, even though she isn't, even though he knows she isn't. Isn't fine. That it's the reverse? That on some levels she's not sure she's ever okay. Not entirely. Not anymore. And not since just getting here. Here was just a heightened level of it, that danced right at the edge of logic-as-madness and hope-as-desperation. But good enough for government work. For lights, camera, action. Handling it the same way she has for over half a year. Herself.
Are you done with your pity party, yet? She can hear the bland voice of her therapist,
in her head at least and not just right beside her, suddenly breathed into life. Berating her in public.
His honest answer, raw and unexpected, sits only a few lines up still.
She stared it all another few long seconds. At war with it. ]
No.
[ No reason. No excuse. No embellishment. No lie. No pointing out this is the first time she said anything about it that true, in months, since that first day in the living room, when he said we used to tell each other everything. ]
Expecting them enough she sighs, a hollow woosh of air and nothing else, and leans back on the bench, at the impass of what she knows and what she can't change and what she can't make better. And still wanting to somehow do more. Say more. Help. Anyway. Somehow. Allison isn't expecting the three-word question that appears before she can plan her response. The question that cuts its teeth on her heart like it's nothing, arrowed for her center.
When she wants to say I'm fine, even though she isn't, even though he knows she isn't. Isn't fine. That it's the reverse? That on some levels she's not sure she's ever okay. Not entirely. Not anymore. And not since just getting here. Here was just a heightened level of it, that danced right at the edge of logic-as-madness and hope-as-desperation. But good enough for government work. For lights, camera, action. Handling it the same way she has for over half a year. Herself.
Are you done with your pity party, yet? She can hear the bland voice of her therapist,
in her head at least and not just right beside her, suddenly breathed into life. Berating her in public.
His honest answer, raw and unexpected, sits only a few lines up still.
She stared it all another few long seconds. At war with it. ]
No.
[ No reason. No excuse. No embellishment. No lie. No pointing out this is the first time she said anything about it that true, in months, since that first day in the living room, when he said we used to tell each other everything. ]
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