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"Shit it’s the fucking cube!"
Vanya turns at Diego's shout, eyes white, glare sharpening, "I’m on it."
Christopher had already played more than a few of his little games on them in previous fights. Luther could still remembering when Allison had started screaming the last time, little Claire crumpled on the pavement in a grotesque display of twisted limbs and bloodied bone. She had cried afterwards, back at the hotel, but she did not cry now, her lips curling with fury as she beat back Ben, her brothers at her back.
It was with Klaus's fear that they'd discovered that the apparitions moved and breathed like real people. The countless multitude of ghosts had screamed and cursed at Klaus until Diego had started screaming back at them.
They’d been more careful of the damned cube since then but they hadn’t been expecting him in this fight. They’d been aiming for only Not-Ben, Klaus insistent that they at least try to talk to the former member of the Umbrella Academy. (Which was going so well.)
There was a shout from Vanya, and then Diego’s cry of, "Five, look out!"
Luther turns, eyes wide with fear, momentarily distracted, "Oh shit ."
The cube. Five. Five's worst fear. What where they going to see? Luther had thought Allison's fear had been bad, but that was before he’d seen the army of the dead that burdened Klaus's memories. What lay beneath Five's mind? The apocalypse? The Commission?
"Luther!" Yells Diego in warning and Luther just barely dodges Ben's tentacle. He couldn’t let himself get distracted. Five could deal with Christopher himself. Diego let out a cry as he was thrown against the brick wall of the alley, Luther ducks under another. Vanya cries out and Luther curses, "Allison, forget talking- we need to finish this!"
Allison nods and turns, "I heard a rumor-!" Not-Ben's head snaps towards her, aware of the danger but unable to do anything as she finishes her sentence faster than he can react, "That you fell asleep!"
Not-Ben howls, the tentacles withdrawing as he collapses in a heap of limbs. Luther whirls around as soon as he drops, searching for Five and Christopher.
They were already too late.
There was another player on the field.
A man, short and small and dressed in a suit, stands before them. He would be impeccable if it weren’t for the blood staining his hands and the axe coated with gore in his left. Five stands before him, trembling. The sky behind them is on fire, the city nothing but rubble. It’s the academy, Luther realizes, the academy is destroyed behind the old man, the world burning. At the man's feet are bodies, terribly familiar figures, bloodied and bruised. Their skulls crushed and limbs severed, glistening with gore, dripping with blood, their muscles exposed, sinew shredded, and bones broken. It’s grotesque. It makes him nauseous, to see such a terrible parody of himself and his siblings torn open and ripped apart.
The man stares at Five, green eyes boring into him. His voice is rough, the blood drip drip dripping from his fingers, " I did this. It was my fault. "
Klaus blinks, surprised and revolted, "Who the hell is that?"
Luther knows.
Luther knows who that is.
His throat is dry, his tongue thick in his mouth. he can’t make himself move. The others are confused, they don’t understand why Five's breath hitches with fear and horror. The old man's fingers curl around the axe as he places the other in his pocket, posture so terribly familiar in the way that it mirrors Five's stance exactly, " I’m a killer. I belong here. This is what I always was. This is all that I will ever be. "
Luther panics. He runs forward and yanks on Five's shoulders, tearing his eyes away from the projection. Five is pale, lips bloodless, eyes wild, welling with tears. He tightens his grip on Five, shaking him, "That's not you, Five! Don’t listen to him!"
Five is trembling, so small, utterly unaware, and Luther curses, turning back to his dumbstruck siblings, "Do something!"
The old man, Five, Number Five, stares at him. He looks tired. Resigned. Blood coats his hands and his shoes, the axe lies heavy in his hand. Beneath his feet, blood pools, his own family gutted. Luther swallows.
This was his brother.
This was his brother.
Five's, little Five's, breath hitches and Luther snaps back to the present. In one move he picks up Five, throwing him over his back, and then bolts in the opposite direction. He turns a corner and slows almost immediately, once the macabre projection of his brother and the end of the world is out of sight. He can feel Five stirring out of that catatonic state, a low snarl building in his brother's throat.
He lets Five down, his brother stumbling. Luther steadies him, brows furrowing with concern, "Five? Hey, hey Five, are you okay?"
Five slaps one of his hands away, color returning, clearly disoriented, "F- Fuck off."
Luther can’t help the elated grin, "Oh thank God."
He pulls Five close, an instinctive hug. He can feel Five tense, before relaxing ever so slowly into the embrace.
They breath for one moment, two, before Five mutters, "I’m fine. We need to get that orthogonal asshole."
Luther nods, "Yeah, I know." He let go, rubbing the back of his neck sheepishly, "Are you feeling okay?"
Five folds his arms, bristling, "I’m fine. We need to get back out there."
He turns and stalks back the way they’d come, hiding his shaking hands in his pockets. Luther's brows furrow as he follows, lips pursing with worry. Five looked almost exposed, distressingly vulnerable, as if his ribs had been pried open and his beating heart set out on display. Luther blames the violence he’d just seen for the strange roads his thoughts are traveling, but he can’t get the image out of his head.
They turn the corner just in time for Five to get slammed by Diego who neatly rolls with the impact and grabs Five's arm, yanking him along behind him, "Run run run run-!”
Five yelps, Luther scrambling backwards as Vanya passes him and Klaus runs screaming behind his brother. Allison sprints after them, yelling more comprehensibly, "The rest of them are coming! Go, go, go!"
Luther runs.
They make it into a side street before the flock of birds descends. Five grabs Luther's arm and Luther reaches out for Vanya, a speck of white in the flurry of dark feathers. Then the world vanishes and they are standing in a different street. There is another flash of blue and white as Diego, Allison, and Klaus appear, along with Five who pants, "We’ve got a block. Let’s get going."
Allison follows, "Five, what the hell was that? Who was that guy?"
They skid around the corner and come face to face with Marcus. Luther's eyes narrow, he remembered their last fight. Instead of slowing like his siblings were doing, he took one out of Diego’s book and barreled ahead, right into the Sparrow, shoving him into traffic.
They needed to get out, now.
Five, ever supportive, appeared by his side, blinking away with him again. Luther stumbles, chest heaving from the teleportation. His siblings appear again, next to him, all equal parts exhausted and disoriented. Five appears last, Klaus in tow. He leans down, panting, "None of your business. It’s a private matter."
Vanya pipes up, surprising them all, "Like the Commission was a private matter? Right before they stormed Sissy's farm and tried to kidnap Harlan?"
Five glares, hands on his knees, lips curling with a bitter anger, "And I am truly sorry about that. But this isn’t something we need to talk about right now. We have more important business. Like not dying."
He straightens and turns on his heel, storming down the alley and right into a woman and her son who stare, shocked. Klaus blinks, incredulous, " Kenny? "
Diego barks, "Allison!"
She nods, "On it." She steps forward, the air humming around them as she speaks, "I heard a rumor, that you saw us going towards the right." She points and the woman and her son both stare, eyes glazed. Allison looks back at her family and jerks her head towards the left. They follow, ducking back into another side alley, sticking to the back streets as much as they can.
Luther hopes the subject was dropped but Klaus, intrigued by Five's continued deflection, shakes his head and says, "I don’t know Five, some old guy saying that he's at fault for our deaths isn’t exactly the most reassuring thing."
Five growls in the back of his throat, guttural and jagged, a warning for Klaus to back the hell off. Vanya points, "Bird!"
Diego whips out a knife, spearing it almost as soon as she says it. Luther watches the dark crow flap it’s wings, pitiful, breast pinned by the knife, dark blood staining it’s iridescent midnight feathers. They need to hurry before the Sparrows use it to find them but Luther doesn’t move, feeling vaguely nauseous. It flaps weakly and Five stares, almost transfixed by its last breaths. His eyes flick to Luther then, something unreadable there before he hurries after his fleeing siblings.
Luther swallows, spares a glance for the dying bird, and follows suit.
He catches up to them quarreling, Five throwing out his hands, "I don’t get what’s so important about you knowing who he is!"
"Why won’t you tell us?"
"We're literally running for our lives right now, could you have maybe picked a better time to make your stand? Is this really the hill you want to die on?"
Luther clears his throat and they turn, "I know who he is."
Five's eyes narrow, fists clenching. Allison sighs, a hand massaging her forehead, "Good. No thanks to you, Five."
Luther shakes his head slowly, "I uh, I’m not telling you who he is. I just thought you should know that he won’t… he won’t hurt us."
Five blinks with clear surprise, lips parting with disbelief. Diego throws up his hands, "Oh, that’s just great, big guy. Why does he get to know and not us, huh Five?"
Luther rubs the back of his neck, feeling out of place, "Look, if Five had his way, he probably wouldn’t have me know at all, yeah?"
Five's lips thin but he mutters grudgingly, "…Yeah."
"It’s not my place to tell you. But he’s not a threat. He won’t… he wouldn’t," Luther struggles to say it, just as he struggles to say most things nowadays, so clumsy and unsure that it’s infuriating, "He wouldn’t hurt us. Everything he ever did, he did… for his family. For their safety. He would never do anything to jeopardize that."
He smiles at Five, and Five, impossibly seems almost touched, soft and astonished. Diego snaps, "Well color me reassured, that some random old guy wouldn’t hurt us. I don’t trust like that. Especially not when Five's greatest fear is him!"
The moment is lost. Five sneers at Diego and Luther snaps, "Oh for the love of-! We're his family, Diego!" He drips superiority and venom, reverting instinctively to role of Number One, "Maybe if you were smarter, you would realize that. Now stop being such an asshole."
" We’re his family?" Vanya's eyebrows raised.
Klaus gasps with realization, "The old man was Five, wasn’t he?"
Five snarls, "Oh, thanks Luther, thanks so much. Maybe you should just tell the whole street, yes?"
Allison presses a hand to her chest, fingers curling around her jacket, "Five, you're afraid of killing us?"
Five loses it, "No! For fuck's sake, stop psychoanalyzing me!"
Klaus nods sagely, "He’s afraid of himself and the monster he might become."
"I will rip your intestines out through your nose and gag you with them."
Luther caught Five's shoulder, steadying him, "Five,” he stops just as soon as he starts. His little-old brother stares up at him, eyes a murky green-blue, thin lips pressed into a line, hair falling into his eyes, skin pale and shiny with sweat.
Five is afraid .
Luther starts again, hoping that he’d guessed right, "Five, you were a killer once. But I promise you, you’re not that man now. You are better, you can be better. That vision was a lie. You could never do that to us. You are not that man anymore."
Five looks away, trembling, "We should go. The Sparrows could find us at any time."
Luther squeezes his shoulder and lets go, "Alright."
The others stare. Five snaps, angry, "Well? What are you morons standing around for? Do you want to get caught or not?"
They all burst into movement, Diego and Allison taking the lead, Vanya and Klaus not far behind. Luther sneaks a glance behind him at his brother before he follows. He is small and tired and afraid. But when he meets Luther's eyes, he nods, clear and grateful.
Luther recognizes the thanks for what it is and smiles at Five in return.