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Over the past week Luther had kept up his morning jogs.
When he’d been in Dallas his life had been incredibly public. His fights had been known throughout the city’s criminal underbelly and his apartment at the Plano Street Rooming House for Solitary Men had been one of many.
People knew him.
People saw him.
It didn’t matter if he went out running in the mornings, the locals already knew what he looked like and he had nothing left to hide.
Home was different.
The residents of the cold east coast streets that tangled in a geometric lattice around the Umbrella Academy had never seen Luther after the accident. After his body had changed he’d stopped going outside entirely and then, soon after, he’d been sent away on Reginald’s wild goose chase to the moon.
Here he was almost new. A novelty. Luther hated it but he ran anyway.
Luther had always thrived upon routine.
On the morning of April sixth he came downstairs dressed in his sweats to see Five curled up on the couch, scribbling in a battered marble notebook with Klaus collapsed against him clinging like a limpet. Five had merely raised a finger to his lips in the universal gesture to be quiet before turning back to his work.
Luther had shrugged and gone for his run as planned.
The next day he had come downstairs to see Klaus alone, awake and paging through a battered copy of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea . Luther had read it himself as a child and been enamoured by the idea of gigantic submarines and an isolated crew who performed scientific research far from civilization.
If he had imagined a particular determined captain who revolted against the evils of society to have worn a monocle, Luther had never told a soul.
As a child he had firmly believed that Captain Nemo should have been the protagonist.
Either way, the copy that Klaus was reading was one that he’d never seen before, and it was unusual to see Klaus read at all. It had always been a challenge to get Klaus to sit still long enough to complete their lessons, and Luther would have been willing to bet that Klaus had never read for pleasure. He wasn’t the sort of person to sit still for long enough to really piece together a story.
Luther hadn’t ever realized that there was another copy of the book in the house, he’d never felt the need to discuss literature with his siblings. When they were children Luther had gone over his assigned readings with Allison, but Ben and Five’s discussions had usually gone over his head, while Klaus and Diego seemed to forget everything they read as soon as they put their books down.
Vanya hadn’t even crossed his mind. Fleetingly Luther wondered if his sister enjoyed reading. He really didn’t know her very well.
Klaus read on, his fingers twitching along the spine of the book, and Luther shifted awkwardly in the doorway unwilling to interrupt.
Eventually, when he realized that his brother wasn’t going to go away, or even move from his spot anytime soon, Luther decided to go out the side door. It was a change from routine—usually he left via the front door on a path that led directly through the main parlor where Klaus had been sitting—but he had gone for his run as planned.
By the time he’d returned Klaus was gone, and his book lay abandoned underneath Reginald’s beautiful terribly lumpy couch.
The next morning Klaus was there again.
Luther stopped short by the door, unwilling to interrupt. He’d never considered himself to be shy or anything equally wimpy, but sometime between his accident and getting back from the moon he’d lost the knack for talking to people, even (especially) his siblings.
He’d never quite gained back that knack in Dallas, his role there (then?) had been to be strong and silent.
So instead he stood there and watched.
Like a great big creep.
Klaus was hunched over, painting his nails against the back cover of the book. His expression pinched in concentration as his breath rasped audibly. It didn’t look comfortable, and Luther knew from his siblings’ recent chatter that Klaus had been ill recently. It surprised him that he hadn’t heard it from Klaus himself; Luther had expected Klaus to loudly complain at every opportunity and had been mildly surprised to find that that wasn’t so.
If he hadn’t walked in on a muttered conversation between Diego and Five then Luther might not have known at all.
Even now that they were all staying in the academy together Luther still held himself a bit apart, unsure of where he fit amongst his siblings when he wasn’t trying his hardest to be Number One. If someone was hurt or sick he’d like to have known, but he didn’t blame his siblings for not specifically seeking him out to tell him. It wasn’t as though he sought them out either.
Luther hovered in the doorway and watched as his brother’s hands trembled and his expression twisted until he finally broke away coughing, dragging the brush across his cuticles and smearing paint as it went.
“Crap.” Klaus muttered as he caught his breath. The dark red paint looked like blood and the messy splatter didn’t help. “ Shit .”
There were drops of red paint obscuring the short summary of 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea .
Luther stepped forward almost without meaning to, pushing himself into the room on some strange impulse whether he was welcome or not.
He felt unwelcome, too large and ungainly for his own home.
The ever present sensation of being watched was absent for the first time in their lives. Five had destroyed every single one of Reginald’s interior cameras on the first day after their return. He’d claimed that he preferred privacy to the security they’d provided, that the cameras were weapons that had been used to control them, and that he refused to leave Reginald’s weapons lying around where they could hurt themselves on them.
Luther wasn’t quite sure what he’d meant but knew better than to argue (much).
It was a change and Luther liked routine.
Now the only one who watched him was Klaus, who’s eyes flitted upward when his brother had entered the room.
Klaus looked exhausted.
It wasn’t as though he’d been particularly busy since their return—at least as far as Luther knew—and Luther wondered what he was so tired for. If anyone, Five should have been the one to need to sleep their adventure off the most; or maybe Vanya who’d been kidnapped, tortured, and then had blown away countless commission agents in less than twenty-four hours.
But Luther didn’t ask why Klaus was so tired, too awkward to stride into conversation with a non-sequitur. He knew that if he did he’d only come off as aggressive, and that Klaus would immediately shut down and smile as he ran away.
“Hey.” He said instead, no less awkward but explicitly unaggressive, as gentle as he was able.
“Hey.” Said Klaus, capping his nail polish and leaving the mess to dry on his hands and on the cover of the book. “Do you need something?”
Yes. No. Luther didn’t need anything from Klaus, not really. But he’d been so alone, both on the moon and in Dallas, and for all those years alone in the Academy with no one but Grace and Pogo and the ever looming Reginald.
Luther needed someone . He’d thought that that someone was Allison, that it should have been Allison, but now he was less sure. Maybe he was just grasping for anyone who would give a minute, no matter who they were.
He sat heavily beside Klaus, still wordless and too-large.
“What are you going to do now that we’re back?” He asked, finally ending the expectant silence. Beside him Luther felt Klaus tense as he processed the question. In Luther’s experience it was unusual for Klaus to look serious, but in the dim light of the morning his expression could have silenced a crowd.
“I don’t know.” He said, picking at the still-drying splatters of nail polish on his cuticles. Klaus’s long hair was tied back behind his head in a way that sharpened his features, emphasizing the edge of his jaw and the bags under his eyes. “I really don’t have much here. I guess I’ll stick with you guys for as long as you’ll have me, but who knows after that.”
Luther was startled by the surety in Klaus’s voice as he expressed the belief that his family would inevitably stop tolerating his presence.
It wasn’t really an unfounded assumption. Luther had been the first person of all of them to start turning Klaus away at the door.
He didn’t apologize; it felt as though the words were stuck in his throat when he tried.
“I’ll probably do that too.” Luther said instead, watching Klaus fidget. He paused for a moment, wondering if Klaus was going to snap at him, or get up and walk away leaving Luther alone again. When Klaus did nothing Luther cleared his throat before he continued.
“I’ll probably stay here at the Academy so, like…” He trailed off, curling his hands into bulky fists. “If you need a place to stay I wouldn’t mind the company.”
“Hold up.” Klaus said suddenly, sitting up straight and meeting Luther’s eyes. “Since when have you ever wanted me around?”
Luther winced and hunched over, regretting that he’d said anything. The unwelcome feeling had returned and for a moment he wished fervently that he had Five’s powers and could just disappear on the spot.
“Did you get turned down by Allison or something?” Klaus continued, his eyes cold.
When they’d been children Klaus had always been a part of the crowd that had been siblings two through six, a true middle child who only stepped into the spotlight to cause trouble before sinking again into the background of Luther’s life.
If he’d been asked as a child what he thought of Klaus he probably would have called his brother annoying. Their father had always said that everything that Klaus did he did for attention and Luther had taken that idea to heart. Klaus wasn’t someone that he’d ever taken seriously.
But there had been times where Klaus had been terrifying. Moments when Klaus had talked about ghosts that hovered and bled and told him frightening things about the world around them. Times where he had been overwhelmingly loud and upset and out of control in a way that Luther couldn’t even comprehend.
Reginald had always called these episodes tantrums, but Luther had seen his other siblings get upset, no one but Klaus had ever screamed and hit and bit with no regard for their own safety in the way that Klaus had. Like a mad animal.
Luther would have never admitted that he was scared of Klaus at those times.
He wouldn’t admit to it in the present either.
“Allison doesn’t need me.” He said, brushing the thoughts aside.
“And you think I do?”
“No!” Luther said “No…I know that you don’t need me, none of you do.”
And didn’t that hurt? Luther had spent his entire childhood convinced that he was at the center of something important, that he’d been important—vital—to his family, and then they’d all gone off and lived their lives without him. Sometimes it felt as though his siblings had left the house one by one and returned for the funeral a decade later as strangers.
When the world had been ending it hadn’t been Luther who’d led them as they fought to stop the apocalypse. They’d fumbled and argued and split from each other twice and twice it had ultimately been Five who’d directed them to victory.
Five hadn't been their leader, not really, he’d simply done the majority of the legwork and relayed information. The rest had been a messy collaborative effort.
They’d had no Number One. No hierarchy.
Luther had just been one of six (seven?)
None of his siblings needed him, but Luther needed them.
Klaus looked at him, still sharp and defensive but considering. Luther held himself stiffly unwillingly reminded of the many many times in their childhood when Reginald had looked at Luther dispassionately from across his desk and found his Number One to be lacking.
“I hate this house.” Klaus said finally. “I was never happy here, and I can’t even walk to the bathroom without being reminded of some awful childhood memory. So I don't want to stick around for too long.”
Luther nodded, resigned.
“But if you’re here, I’ll at least drop by once in a while.” Luther looked up just in time to see his brother’s expression soften. As the lines around his eyes gentled he looked more like the Klaus that Luther knew, the one that he’d grown up with.
“Thank you.” Luther replied. It was the least he could say. “I’d like that.”
And Luther stood up.
And he went for his run.
When he got back the spot on the couch was empty, and again the red-splattered copy of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea was left underneath. Luther picked it up, sat on the couch and opened the cover.
His eyes traced the printed words and the scribbled notes in the margins, and Luther felt closer to his family then he ever had before.