For Luther

[number_five]

Living with his brothers and sisters again, Five has to admit, it's been an adjustment. He's got used to Klaus's comings and goings, living with him for a few months before this, but the rest of them add a new dimension to things.

It's not bad, just an adjustment. But they're making the place their own. Five's biggest contribution so far has been the house's growing library. Each one of them has added their own books to the collection, but Five's added the most books by far. Quantum physics books, dimensional theory and the odd biography, mostly. Today, he's shelving a book on paradoxes-- theoretical and very wrong, of course-- when he finds something he thinks Vanya's added. Music theory's never been his thing, but he doesn't have anything else to do with his afternoon.

He tucks the book under his arm and decides to head to the kitchen for a cup of coffee, but when he walks into the hallway, there's someone there he doesn't expect. At least, not today.

"Oh. It's you," Five says, looking up at his brother with a mildly surprised expression, "You know, between you and Diego, my money was on him showing up first."

Comments

[number1_himbo]

"You could at least be surprised to see me," Luther says. "Everyone else was surprised, and mostly happy. I think." The very beginning still seems a bit foggy, what with the pain and the adrenaline.

Both of which had been caused by the same knee sock-wearing little menace in front of him.

He sniffs the air, which seems clear, and really takes a good look at Five.

"How are you feeling? Everything in the ol' digestive system okay? You look room temperature, at least."

[number_five]

Five shoots Luther a bewildered look at his line of questioning, but looks pleased, nonetheless.

"I think I'm past being surprised at what this place can do and who it can bring," he says, "But it's good to see you, Luther, unconventional greeting aside."

Darrow might be a strange place, full of unpredictable people and the occasional crisis, but he thinks it'll be a good start for them all, especially Luther.

[number1_himbo]

Luther knows he's staring like an idiot, he knows that, but this is so far from what he'd just left that he's going back through the list of psychosis stages to make sure he didn't miss one about everything looking totally fine.

"Maybe unconventional to you," he says, "but I also just got back from dealing with two of you at once. It wasn't pretty, Five, and I think you'll understand why."

Maybe he should have searched for a better place to put the rifle than propped up in a corner nearby. "Might help you understand my unconventional greeting, too."

[number_five]

Five frowns, trying to make sense of what Luther's saying. It's nonsense, which he sometimes expects from his siblings, but this is more nonsensical than usual from Luther.

"Two of who?" he asks, then glances past Luther and spots the rifle. He'd know that rifle anywhere. He used it on countless missions with the Commission; he can even see the scuff on the stock from New Jersey, 1937.

"Luther," Five says slowly, "Why is there a standard issue Commission rifle in the corner?"

[number1_himbo]

"Two of you," Luther responds, nearly hissing it. "Dallas. Only Klaus and I showed up when it was time to go home with the Commission briefcase, and it got destroyed and you needed another, so off we went to find the you that was there to, what, make sure Kennedy died?"

He stops, makes a bemused face. "That'll fuck with Diego."

Following Five's gaze over to the rifle, he scrubs at the back of his neck. "I had to take it from one of you because you were trying to kill each other."

[number_five]

The first part of that sounds familiar, even if Five was seemingly plucked out of the timeline before it happened and only knows it from what his other siblings have told him. At least until Luther gets to the part where they'd gone after the briefcase his younger self had on him.

Five had considered it. After going to their father and after his deal with the devil, it had been Plan C, probably the riskiest one of all.

"...paradox psychosis," Five says to himself, and now all of Luther's questions are starting to make sense, "We must have been desperate."

[number1_himbo]

"Yeah, you-- we-- were," Luther answers, and something about having Five acknowledge both the plan and the absolute chaotic desperation lets him breathe a little easier. He thinks, at least, that even if he's somehow from after Five, he can trust that this one's only a little bit of a homicidal maniac, part of the time.

"So yeah, the gun's yours. Did you... was it like, the same gun every time you, uh," and he sort of mimes firing a finger-gun.

[number_five]

"Mostly," Five says, though he frowns at Luther's finger gun, "That one, I had for a while. And it was the last one before I skipped out on the Commission."

As he talks, he's running it all through in his head. Going to see his younger self was a calculated risk. He had a briefcase he wasn't going to need anymore, because he was about to break his contract. But up until that point, Five would have defended that briefcase with his life.

...which is probably where the rifle comes in.

"Please tell me that one of me didn't kill the other," he says.

[number1_himbo]

"Well, I was trying to keep that from happening," Luther says, and he'd planned to be at least a little mad at Five. It's not working out that way, though, especially when Five seems so sane right now.

He hopes it lasts.

"We got through talking to you, and we were all headed to where you were going to-- hey, wait. Did you actually kill Kennedy? Because you looked like you were ready to kill Kennedy."

[number_five]

"No, Luther, I did not kill John F. Kennedy," Five says, sounding thoroughly unimpressed with being asked the question in the first place. He'd left the Commission before he finished the job, of course. But the job had been ensuring things went right, not taking them into his own hands.

"But I guess a thank you is probably in order. For making sure I didn't succumb to homicidal rage."

[number1_himbo]

"Hey, you don't get to pretend that was a stupid question. We were right there. This whole family got pretty tangled up in it." But there's no real rancor in his voice, because it's kind of funny, too, that they had been sucked into one of the biggest assassinations of all time.

Well, Five might have a different list.

He doesn't want to look as happy as he does to have Five thank him, but he's probably grinning stupidly. "No problem. I mean, I could have lived without kick to the balls when you guys decided to kill each other." He shrugs. "This doesn't seem like the worst place we've been."

[number_five]

"If I did it, you probably deserved it," Five says, but there's no hostility in his tone for once. Going to find his younger self in 1963 could have gone horribly wrong, and it sounds like Luther took one for the team.

In a few senses of the phrase.

At Luther's comment on the house, Five looks almost proud.

"Not the best, but not the worst," he says, "There's a room for you if you want it."

[number1_himbo]

"I did not, you just wanted to kill each other more than you wanted to do anything else," Luther answers, and even if he's griping about it, that doesn't mean he's still, somehow, counting it as a fond memory.

"Not the-- Five, you saw where I was staying," he says. "This is a good place, and it has almost all of us here now." He grins down at his brother, feeling something like contentment for the first time in a long time. "You found us a home. Of course I want to in it."

[number_five]

"It wasn't bad," Five says, without sarcasm for the moment, "At least until you punched a hole in the wall."

It was probably Luther's own fault in the first place, but apparently he'd been going through some personal issues back in 1963. Five had been too preoccupied with preventing the apocalypse and saving them all.

Five considers his own statement before adding, "Don't punch holes in any walls here."