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[fifthbeatle]

This time, it's Viktor that leaves.

He won't be gone forever. Just a night, just long enough to figure out what to do, what he's going to tell the others.

Quietly, he thinks, almost as if he were back at the Academy. He's got to be quiet, unseen. Neither Five nor Luther should know he's leaving.

Just a night, he tells himself. Just one night away from this place.

Who knows what he's packed in the little bag strapped across his body. Hopefully everything he needs. He's fighting tears to keep down the noise. None of them should hear him cry. Not tonight. Just tonight.

He nearly makes it out without incident, all the way to the front door, past the library. His eyes glance in and they blur up again. A warning crack of thunder breaks across the late night sky. There was no rain in the forecast. Dense clouds invade the night sky. The wind creeps in. Maybe that's what opens and slams the shutters on the house's shoddiest windows. Maybe. Viktor chokes over another sob.

It's just for a night. Just long enough to let his heart break somewhere else.

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[number1_himbo]

Luther startles when the lightning cracks, and again when the shutters slam, waking him from his doze on the couch. The pomology book falls from his chest to the floor as he sits up. He doesn't remember hearing anything about storms for tonight, and his brain's still fuzzy as he tries to remember if any of them had anything outside or if a window had been left open.

Peeling himself from the couch, Luther pads quietly (something he is entirely capable of doing, contrary to popular belief). He'll feel better if he looks outside and checks the shutters.

"Hey," he says, scrubbing at the back of his head when he finds Viktor at the front door. "You hear all that? We should check--" And then the wires connect in his brain and he sees the look on his brother's face. "Oh, shit. Shit, what's wrong?"

[fifthbeatle]

So close. Viktor's hand is literally on the doorknob. That he didn't see or hear Luther is a testament to his rapidly-decaying wits. This place has a way of giving and taking. Viktor has a way of taking things for granted, for seeing what he wants to see and ignoring what he doesn't.

He only tries to hide it for a second. There's no use, and he won't lie.

"It's okay," he says softly. Not a lie, he will be okay and that's what he means. He's not dying, nor is he about to wipe the city of all living things. But he is breaking down.

"I --uh --" Viktor glances about, takes stock of the chaos that he's probably causing. Low-grade as it may be, he wants it to stop. But maybe he needs to accept that tonight, he can't. "I don't think it's going to work out with Five."

[number1_himbo]

"Oh, shit," says Luther, glancing back into the quiet darkness of the house, and then back at Viktor. "What happened?" Already, conflicting feelings bubble up. The way Viktor looks and the ominous weather, his first instinct is to be pissed off and protective. No one breaks his brother's heart.

But it's Five, and--

Well, Luther's no one to raise questions about how this plays out.

He places a careful hand on Viktor's arm. "What happened?" he repeats.

[fifthbeatle]

Viktor glances up at the stairs again. This is the wrong place to have this conversation. What if Five is listening?

But that's the problem, isn't it? He hasn't been.

Still, Viktor's next question feels like a betrayal of trust.

"When was the last time you saw him use his powers?"

[number1_himbo]

It's not at all the response Luther expects. He doesn't think he'd really be able to predict what Viktor's going to say; Five's so goddamn private that the only inside Luther ever gets is through Viktor.

...which, when he turns the question over again in his head, kind of makes sense.

"I haven't, come to think of it. In a while."

[fifthbeatle]

Finally, finally, someone acknowledges it. Hedging and blanket denial has been all Viktor's had to work with. He's not crazy. Someone else sees it.

The dam breaks. Viktor looses his grip on the bag. It drops from his shoulder as Viktor tucks himself into his biggest brother's arms. He cries. The rain falls. Viktor lets himself drown in the awful sense that something great is lost and nothing will ever be the same.

[number1_himbo]

Luther's still turning the issue of Five not using his powers over in his head when Viktor folds against him. "Shit," he murmurs, alarmed for the briefest second at the outpouring of emotion, only to gather Viktor up in an embrace.

"I'm sorry," he adds, straightening up to make it a little less awkward, bringing Viktor off his feet. He lacks an exact connection between Five not using his powers and Viktor thinking the relationship is off, but it doesn't really matter. He holds onto Viktor as his littlest brother cries, and when he thinks it's letting up, Luther carts him back to the living room, setting him on the sofa but keeping an anchoring arm around him.

[fifthbeatle]

Viktor barely notices his feet leave the ground. He lands on the sofa somehow, bags forgotten near the door. He has to leave, definitely can't bear to stay tonight, but he can't deny what the big, quiet hugs are doing to calm the storm -- literal and figurative.

He cries and whimpers, but keeps it quiet, a practiced thing from his youth, not dissimilar from riding a bike. It all comes back when he needs it.

Five full minutes pass before Viktor pulls himself away from where he's cried a sad, wet shape into Luther's shirt. His vision is too blurry and swimmy to see the damage, even as he sweeps puddles from under his eyes with the back of his hand.

"So much of it is so easy," Viktor bemoans, his voice rough and quiet. "The hard parts are too hard. He's there for me, always, but he won't talk to me."

[number1_himbo]

Viktor cries so quietly, and he knows why.

None of this is about him, but Luther lets himself feel the moment of self-reproach for all of the times he'd had the fleeting thought that he should be checking on Number Seven, the times he'd wanted to and pulled back.

And then he lets it go, doing his best to offer Viktor what comfort he can.

"No, he's not much of a talker," Luther agrees. "Especially about himself. I gotta admit I was surprised you got through to him in the first place."

[fifthbeatle]

Viktor laughs, maybe. Maybe it's a deep sob. "'Got through to him,'" Viktor repeats, as Luther's just highlighted his point: the reality-adjacent way they dance around talking about their feelings, even now. They've come so far, but it's clear that they (all of them) have a lot to learn.

"I love him, Luther," Viktor clarifies, as he realizes Luther may not know. He doesn't say it much. "I love Sissy. If were born on the same timeline, I believe we could have made it work." But it wasn't so, and that was that.

"Now, I get to be with all of you --" most of you, he thinks, "and we have a house and finally, we have time. Together." In this fond reflection, Viktor takes a second to feel the hope swell in him, the love in the house that is, generally, good.

"Somewhere in there, things changed with Five -- feelings did. The timeline's still fucked, but we get to have it: time together. The love is there, and it's good. Like it was with Sissy."

Viktor looks up at Luther through humiliatingly damp lashes. "Isn't that supposed to be enough?"

[number1_himbo]

Luther can't be sure where all of this is going, but he's sure that Viktor needs to say it, and that Viktor needs someone to hear it.

So he listens, keeping Viktor close, letting himself be as protective as he'd like of his glass cannon of a brother. "You deserve to be happy," he murmurs at some point. "So does Five." And it sounds like they were, even if it had been quiet, existing for itself and the two of them.

"I wish I could say it's enough," Luther answers. "I don't know. Maybe it's different if you're both in it, all the way."

[fifthbeatle]

"I thought we were," Viktor muses miserably. He wipes the heel of his hand across his damp face -- one side, then the other. On a technicality, Viktor is the one who is leaving, even though he can't believe it quite yet. He sighs and leans his head against the back of the couch where he can strain less looking at Luther. "Even with him, I feel so lonely, sometimes."

Luther had something real with Allison, once upon a time, and something much less toxic with Sloane. Neither of them know if and how it ended, but it was real. Viktor saw it. Anyone could. He loves Five like that, but does Five love him? Viktor wants to believe so, but he lost that surety a little more every time Five would dodge an honest question or lose himself in... wherever he goes when he gets in his head.

[number1_himbo]

Luther's quiet for a moment.

He thinks of Allison because he can't help it, the tangled mass of thorns in his chest, the push and pull of feelings there.

"I'm pretty sure that's not how it's supposed to feel," he finally murmurs. "I can't-- I can't pretend to know what's in Five's heart, beyond knowing he loves you, that you've got a place there the rest of us don't get near. I'm not surprised he doesn't have any clue what to do with it, not after being alone for a lifetime. I was only in isolation for four years and I'm still fucked up. I can't imagine what it was like for Five."

He smooths Viktor's hair, an obvious fussing. "Maybe it's not a terrible thing, for him to understand he's gotta try if he wants to be with you."