[for Luther] - Canon Update

[fifthbeatle]

He wakes up with a terrible headache in the wee hours, the new day's color not yet streaked in the sky.

Viktor's power doesn't give him a hangover, nor did he drink last night. Yet, he's groggy, awakening into a strange, barely-conscious space. It's almost like the pill-hangover he'd get when he took a few too many of Hargreeves' suppressive pills.

Reginald Hargreeves, the image of him, is seared into Viktor's mind, cruel and sneering and alive. Other shapes and vague concepts try and assemble themselves, but Viktor won't let them. It's just a dream. A really fucking bad dream. With meditation and stubbornness, Viktor finds sleep again.

The next time he wakes up, it's with a start, a gasp, feet flipping the covers off of his body like that time one of his young, asshole siblings dropped bugs in his bed. The pain in his head isn't a feeling, it's a sound, like the first time he knew he and Harlan were connected. Oh, fuck, Harlan. Harlan.

Young Harlan, sitting up gasping for air that wasn't ever Viktor's to give. The boy he knew, terrified, his sneakers finally touching down on the hay of the barn floor. Harlan as an old man, swinging a thrall of yellow lights, tearing into Viktor's body, painful and chaotic, but guided with love. The sprawl of marigold gifts he gave. Harlan dead. Harlan's dead.

Viktor is up on his feet now, possessed. He stares hard at the sheets, like maybe they're drugged. A hand goes to touch his hair... and there's much less of it. Synapses are still firing. Viktor grabs the first shirt he can find and ducks into it. Since there are no mirrors in his room, he dashes out to the bathroom, and stares.

Liking what he sees doesn't lessen the panic of seeing himself so changed. It's right, Viktor has no doubt, has always known -- it's not about that. It's about yesterday, and what happened between then and today. Fuck, what did he do yesterday?? He had lessons, didn't he?

No! No, yesterday was Luther's wedding. They were drunk. Like, really drunk. And today. Today is... weird. It feels weird.

Yet, he feels great. He looks great. This is who he is. The feeling of looking in the mirror and seeing him is... indescribable. Singular. Like when he found out that Hargreeves--

"Oh, shit. Luther," Viktor breathes. Nothing quite makes sense, he doesn't know what is real, and he is panicking. When he sprints to Luther's room and he isn't there, Viktor starts to freak out. Tears sting his eyes as he walks a small, barefoot circle, a hand rubbing at the back of his neck. What is going on with him? How will he know where to look for Luther if he doesn't know what's real?

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[number1_himbo]

Luther does sit down, eventually.

He's too busy, at first, kind of gaping at Viktor. "Look at you," he says, with a bit of a goofy grin. "It's weird. Not you, just... like things are overlapping. I remember you here and I remember you... in Dallas, at the Hotel..." Maybe he did concuss himself slightly, but he still reaches out to catch Viktor's chin with the blunt tips of his fingers, looking for the mark that should be there, and then just looking at his face.

"Yeah, you're all in there," he says, and finally turns to the question that's been waiting, his shoulders sinking.

"I remember Klaus bringing me back long enough to save Sloane. I remember fading back into the Void."

[fifthbeatle]

A grin spreads over Viktor's face before he can stop it. He shuts it down late with twist of his lips that doesn't quite contain the whole thing. "Shut up." Luther hasn't put his head back yet, but presses on before Viktor can bully him there.

"Me too, but I remembered Dallas before. Didn't you? It wasn't like..." Viktor searches for words and fails. This shit was way, way above his paygrade. "I don't know."

The mark Luther is looking for is gone, but the rest of Viktor remains. Luther's gentle inspection pulls Viktor back into the present. He smiles. And tilts Luther's fucking head back before he has to ask again.

"Let me see."

It sounds like Luther's dream had a shorter runtime than Viktor's. Luther doesn't know what happened next. If any of it happened, at all. And Viktor wishes he could believe it didn't.

[number1_himbo]

"I know that I came from a different point in the Dallas timeline," Luther says, easily bullied into getting his head back once he sees Viktor's unmarked. "You missed out on the point of my departure, which was... our Five and old man Five, who was really several days younger than our Five, going at it in a homicidal rage."

He winces at the taste of the blood going down his throat. "So I didn't remember the farm, and Lila, and all of that. I knew about it from talking to all of you here. And then everything from the new timeline... until after I was, uh. Gone again. I hope that wasn't the end."

The shape of Sloane against him as he faded tries to impress itself upon him now. "Were you there until the end? Did it end?" His hands shake now.

[fifthbeatle]

"I know," Viktor reminds him gently. He didn't know about the warring Fives in Dallas, but he was there when Luther arrived in Darrow, wide expanse of his shoulders tight, gripping the biggest gun Viktor has ever seen with his own eyes. Viktor knew about the different timelines because of Five and Klaus, explicitly explained because Allison's timeline matched Viktor's. Five wished he could see the final battle. Klaus didn't know they made it out of Dallas. Viktor didn't know what version of Luther he would meet that day.

In a stroke of uncharacteristic luck, it was a Luther who lived through the repair of their relationship. Well, repair implies they may have had one to begin with. While Luther ran sweeter than most in their younger years, he was still eager for their father's approval. To Viktor, there seemed to be no faster way to Hargreeves' heart than to ignore Viktor entirely.

In Dallas, stripped away from all of the pain and damage, Viktor started to find himself. Luther was the first wayward piece of the life he couldn't remember to find him. He carted Viktor around Dallas and filled in the missing pieces with patience and humility -- except that one time he punched a hole through a wall.

If what they both think happened did happen, the repair of their dynamic was a success, like it has been in Darrow. If this is another timeline, it's nice to know that Viktor got to exist in another world that wanted him to be a part of it.

"It did," Viktor says quietly, gently. He gives Luther's shoulder a gentle squeeze. "At least, I think it did. The last thing I remember..." is pain. The excruciating, never-ending pain of his essence being ripped from his body. He tried to stop it, knowing it would kill him.

No. The last thing he remembers is letting Allison go, despite Five screaming to stop him. Then more blinding, soul-shattering pain, and not just from the machine.

Viktor swallows hard and drops his gaze. He can't talk about it. Not Allison.

[number1_himbo]

The moment Luther gets a good look at Viktor's face, he reaches out and pulls his brother into his arms. He's been so fucking grateful since the day in that barn, for who Viktor has become to him, and the rush of new memories threatens to overwhelm. All his brain really manages is tiny brother sad and so there's hugging.

He does gently dab at his nose in hope that he's done bleeding, and thankfully, he is. Viktor doesn't need that on top of everything else.

"You don't have to tell me, not right now, if you don't want to," he murmurs. "I know we beat those big samurai bastards up, but things still didn't look good." His brain starts to whir and buzz a little, like a fan trying to start up despite the heat. "If we're back here, we're safe. And whatever is supposed to happen there happens. I guess."

His whole chest hurts.

[fifthbeatle]

Viktor jumps on the offered comfort. Rather, he settles into it, letting himself be pulled to sit on Luther's leg. He wraps his arms around his brother and hugs tight. Tears prick at Viktor's eyes. He buries his face between his own arm and Luther's neck. There are no sobs to be heard, just a quiet couple of moments where he can safely feel terrible with comfort present and little possibility of collateral damage.

"It's okay," Viktor says, swiping at his eyes before loosing his arms from around his brother. A small, sad smile in thanks, a squeeze of his arm in solidarity, and Viktor shifts himself to the adjacent chair. He takes a breath. Where to begin?

"Hargreeves tricked us," Viktor begins on a sigh, pitying for all of them. He drags his eyes from his own hands and looks up at Luther. "There were no seven bells to safety. We were the bells. He needed 7 of us to... I don't know, start up this machine he said was left there by whoever created the universe." Viktor swallows here, because somehow, this sounds infinitely crazier than everything that came before.

Viktor's voice is quiet, now. "It was... Luther it was so painful." His voice breaks over the last word. "It felt like every atom in my body was being ripped through my throat, one by one. We were dying. Like what I did to those FBI agents and all of you times a thousand." Though he talks of apocalypses past like he's reading from a history book, the pain and regret pools I'm his gaze, pulling his eyes to the wood grain of the table under his hands.

"I should have stopped it. I tried at first..." Until he didn't. Until he could see enough of a glimpse of his sister in her imploring eyes to trust her. Another decision made on his own, without consulting the others. But anyone would have done the same. Wouldn't they?

"Then I woke up back here, like this." Is he losing his mind? That's the pained, frantic thing in his eyes when he finally looks back over at Luther.

[number1_himbo]

"Hey, it's okay," Luther murmurs, holding Viktor securely, one massive hand at the back of Viktor's head, that spot that seems so much more vulnerable with his hair cut like this. It calms him too, to be able to hug his brother, something he now understands he's wanted since he was old enough to be shoved into the Number One role-- to protect and comfort his family.

He lets Viktor go when it's time, but stays close, knee to knee, listening, his jaw clenching and flexing.

"Hey," he says again, reaching out to steady Viktor by the shoulder. "None of that was your fault. Dad had some horrible master plan with the bells, and he-- he played all of us. Again." It's easier, too, to focus on Viktor, to not let his mind run wild with worry about if Sloane had been in the same pain, if Allison hadn't, about any of the really ugly stuff he can't examine yet.

"So it's the same deal, kind of. We're remembering things we haven't lived, and my tape stopped before yours."

Because he's dead. In their shambles of a timeline, he's dead. Man, does that suck.

[fifthbeatle]

"We should have known," Viktor laments, angry at himself for giving Hargreeves a chance. "That Hargreeves didn't even know us. We weren't his kids. But we know him. We should have known he was smart enough to know that if he could make a staunch believer out of one of us..." and wrangling the heart of the group wasn't enough, he could offer someone powerful everything they've ever wanted. Viktor would have said they've all moved past that, but he was wrong. Hargreeves knew that, too.

Was killing Luther part of the plan, too? Or, did he simply get in the way? And what can Viktor say to the man when he'd done nothing to try and get him back? That Allison said it would all be okay and Viktor believed her?

Just like 2 apocalypses before, their universe ended because the Hargreeves couldn't get their shit together, again. Only this time, Viktor could have stopped it. And he didn't.

Fuck. Viktor has to tell him everything. It's like Five said: no more secrets.

"Allison made a deal with him." Her name tastes like lead and poison. "She promised me we'd get you back." And, so it seems they had. Right? Is this where they were all headed?

If all of those things happened, Sissy is dead. Allison killed Harlan. Harlan killed their mothers.

But also, Luther fell in love. And got married. Viktor found himself. Klaus is immortal. Maybe even Five got some rest.

Feeling like his consciousness is splitting in two, Viktor passes a shaky hand through his hair and murmurs, "fuck, I don't know what's real."

[number1_himbo]

"Allison made a deal with him?"

Luther knows he probably looks like he's been slapped because he feels like he's been slapped. Already, he's cramming all of those Allison-related feelings and memories and incidents as deep as they'll go, away from him. He can't face it now, he can't think about about--

"What kind of deal did she make?" Luther asks, hating how small his voice sounds. "Did she know? What Dad was going to do to me?"

With his heart roaring in his ears, Luther tries to get control of the absolute feeling of freefall. Maybe Allison really had more in common with the old man than he thought. Maybe Allison also knew what someone should do with a tool that doesn't work for them anymore.

He reaches back out to Viktor with shaky hands. "Hey, hey, this is real. Right here. We're in this weird purgatory world named Darrow. And whatever the hell happened, it just happened to both of us, so we can deal with it together."

[fifthbeatle]

"I don't know what the deal was. She said it would bring you back," Viktor says. He looks up at Luther. "I don't think she knew what Hargreeves did to you. It if was part of the plan, he didn't tell her." Just that much is believable enough. He kept his secrets across all timelines.

And Viktor doesn't know what Allison has done to Luther. Now, he believe she isn't capable, though he should. The rumor that robbed Viktor of his power was set into motion by Hargreeves' instructions to a child that couldn't have understood what their father was asking. The Allison he knows understands that her power is costly. She was leading an honest life.

Or so she thought. Can any of them call their lives honest when they don't even know how or why they exist in the first place?

Seeing Luther's hands trembling like his own, hearing his call back to what they have to believe is the present bolsters Viktor's courage. He nods, swallowing all of the fear and confusion and tucks his hand into Luther's.

"Yeah, you're right." It looks like he's not quite around to fully believing it, but having Luther here, remembering the same things that Viktor does makes him sure that they will find their footing. He rests his head against Luther's shoulder between them.

"I'm so glad you're okay."