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Luther frowns. “I don’t understand.”
In the easy, carefree way he’s always had (except in some few, select moments that Luther prefers not to think about, or when he was too high to put on his usual airs), Klaus offers up a lazy grin and pats Luther’s chest. “Don’t worry, mi hermano,” he says, affecting a tone of wisdom. “Few do.”
In the past, Luther probably would have dismissed that. Maybe he’d have assumed Klaus was high and just walked away. Maybe he would have assumed Klaus was making fun of him, with the tone and the words and the easy smile, and gotten angry in return. Now, he just wants to understand his brother, in a way he’s not sure Klaus has ever been understood – in a way he’s not sure anyone’s ever tried to, except maybe Dave. (He’s only heard Dave’s name a few times. It was enough, even if Luther still doesn’t have a clue who he is (was), or where (when) Klaus met him.)
His frown stays, though he does look away from Klaus to scan the streets again. Klaus may act like he doesn’t have a care in the world – and may genuinely not have much fear tonight on these dank, dark, city streets – but the gray dreariness of this city they’ve found themselves in unsettles Luther, and has since the first night he took a walk through the streets.
It’s late, now, the two of them having spent another torturous few hours after work searching for any hint of Sloane, and most of the businesses are closed. Anyone without an after-hours business permit has to be closed, and this late, that’s mostly a few bars and nightclubs, one or two twenty-four hour places for emergency supplies, and a couple restaurants for the night-shifters. The street lights are dim and yellow, casting unpleasant shadows over the gray everything – gray walls, gray sidewalks, gray sky – but there’s no one else in sight.
Luther refocuses on his brother, stopping himself from trying to force Klaus to explain anyway. This isn’t about him. “Do you… want people to understand?” he asks, trying to respect his brother’s boundaries.
Klaus, still walking half-sideways as he dances around on Luther’s left, turned to face him even as he keeps pace and gesticulates wildly, turns his lazy grin into a cheeky one. He puts his hand on his own heart this time. “Why, Luther!” he exclaims. “I didn’t know you cared!”
Luther forces himself not to roll his eyes. He’s being serious this time; this isn’t a laughing matter, no matter what Klaus thinks. (Klaus knows he cares, generally speaking, now. Luther’s been pretty clear on that, since coming back from the dead. But whether or not he actually thinks Luther doesn’t care about this is still up in the air. It’s hard to tell, with Klaus.)
“And, anyway,” Klaus says cheerfully, skipping ahead of Luther and tossing him a look over his shoulder, “we’re almost there! Fivey-O should be just around this corner.”
Though he wants to say they’ll be talking about this later, Luther stops himself. He’s not sure how private Klaus wants to keep this discussion. True, Klaus is open about most things, but he’s used to doing so in a family that will dismiss his words regardless, and since he knows that, he’s not really being open, more like hiding in plain sight. Their fault, not his, but the point stands. Plus, there’s a few select things Luther has noticed he doesn’t talk about. He’s not sure yet if this is one of those. He stops himself, too, from reaching out to pull Klaus back. Klaus can take care of himself, and anyway, there’s no one around.
That assumption is quickly proven to be incorrect as Klaus rounds the corner, comes to a complete stop, and Luther almost walks into him.
“What?” he asks, studying Klaus, before he realizes that Klaus is staring at something else. He follows his brother’s gaze.
Five is standing unhappily about ten feet from the corner, flanked by five other men. There’s one at each shoulder, one behind his left shoulder with a blade to his throat, and two more behind that. On instinct, nevermind they’re all just regular people now, Luther surges forward and presses Klaus behind him, shielding his twig of a brother with his larger body, even if it’s not quite the bulk he once had. You’re not as impervious as you once were, he reminds himself, even as he takes in the scene.
Honestly, he’s half tempted to dismiss the seriousness of the situation. Five looks bored and unimpressed, like he’s a minute away from tapping his foot against the ground and asking for these goons to go ahead and get it over with. But if it really was nothing, Five would have had it handled by now. It’s probably not the skill of these men, but their number. Five could take them out, even without his teleportation, but not without getting hurt, and probably not without getting hurt badly. They’re low on resources as it is; this is probably a matter of efficiency.
Likely, Five was just waiting for the two of them to show up and even out the numbers a little. Still, it can’t hurt to check.
“Five, you alright?”
Five rolls his eyes. “Just peachy, as you can see.”
Behind Luther – though he’s pointedly peering past his shoulder with interested – Klaus thankfully stays quiet.
“That the junkie brother?” one of the men sneers, grinning. “I was starting to think you was lyin’ to us.”
“Five?” Luther tests, quiet and careful.
Five’s expression turns a little reproachful. “They’re muggers,” he says. “I was trying –” Whether he cuts himself off of his own volition or because the knife gets a little closer to his skin, Luther couldn’t say. But he can see the regret in Five’s face – he’d probably been trying to convince these men that they had nothing to steal, instead, he’s given them a target.
Klaus, though… As far as Luther knows, Klaus has been clean, here (aside from alcohol and cigarettes and maybe some weed). Of course, he’s trying not to automatically assume Klaus is high when he starts acting weird, so he’s relying on Klaus to tell him that, and it’s not like Klaus never lies, but…
Luther saw his brother in death. Luther’s brother gave him one last chance to say goodbye. He trusts Klaus. It’s an active choice of his, and he’s not going back on it now. Which means… They’re not going to find what they’re looking for. And that’s not going to go well.
“Shut up,” one of the men is saying as he thinks through all this. He nods at Luther and Klaus with a leer. “Search the little one,” he tells his group.
Luther straightens his shoulders. “You’ll have to go through me,” he counters, rough, strong, determined. He doesn’t have the powers he once had, but he’s spent time adjusting to that. He’s still taller than everyone here and he still knows how to fight. And he’s not alone. He shoots Five a glance even as the leader of the muggers agrees that that’s fine with him.
Five meets his gaze unflinchingly, just as determined. Four of the men start to move to Luther (it’s good to see that he’s still fairly intimidating in this body). Okay, so, Five can handle the leader with the knife. In the meantime, that leaves Luther (and Klaus) with four men to deal with.
It’s not that Klaus can’t take care of himself. Luther had literally just been thinking that he could, but he was more thinking about Klaus’s propensity to talk his way out of trouble, or to run and hide on the occasions when he talked himself into trouble. Neither of those is an option here, and it’s been a very long time since Luther has seen Klaus do any sort of fighting that doesn’t involve his powers. As such, he resolves to protect his brother best he can.
Not waiting for anyone to pull out any weapons, Luther surges for the nearest man, a stocky mugger about a foot shorter than him. He grabs the man by the front of his shirt and tosses him at the man behind him. Tries to, at least. He’s not as strong as he used to be; the move works, but it’s more of a very forceful shove than any kind of toss. Luther isn’t paying attention to that. He’s already pulling his arm back and spinning, delivering a powerful right hook to the tall, skinny guy that’s nevertheless still a few inches shorter than him.
The skinny mugger goes reeling backward and Luther spins for the final man, already encroaching on Klaus who carefully dances out of his reach. It looks more like flailing out of his reach, honestly, and it’s hard to tell if his brother’s moves are deliberate or just lucky. Regardless, Luther pulls Goon #4 away from Klaus by the back of his collar and spins him around to clock him on the jaw. The man reals back, then lashes out with a sloppy blow that Luther easily dodges.
“Luther!” Klaus cries out, still avoiding the fight and hovering at the street corner.
Luther gratefully takes the advice, dodging a blow from the stocky goon he’d gone for first, now recovered. (From further behind him he can hear grunts of pain and sounds of hits that indicate Five, even powerless, has things well in hand.) Then, it’s four on one, all of the goons ignoring Klaus to circle around Luther. One of them has pulled a knife, Goon #2, so Luther focuses his attention on him. He dodges the knife swipe and lashes out at the stocky goon, getting in a good hit to the face again, but a blow from tall-and-skinny gets him in his side and he grunts out at the impact.
Then, tall-and-skinny is reeling backward, ducking out of the fight as Klaus jumps on his back and pulls him by the hair. Luther has a few seconds to admire Klaus’s dirty fighting before he refocuses on dodging the knife. He gets in one more hit on Goon #4, and a third on stocky goon that really seems to daze him, but the knife cuts a long swath down his left forearm and Goon #4 gets a hit on him as well, a kick to his kneecap that almost brings Luther to the ground. (With the knife still in front of him, he knows how bad that would go and musters up all his strength to stay standing.)
Then Five’s behind the three goons, putting the lead goon’s knife in Goon #2’s shoulder, and the tide of the battle turns. Between the two of them they wipe the floor with the three muggers, even though Luther’s knee is screaming at him to stop putting weight on it and his forearm is still leaking blood. He gets tired quicker now too, but not tired enough that he doesn’t immediately head over to Klaus to help him finish off tall-and-skinny as soon as he and Five are done.
Adrenaline still flowing through him, he stands tall for a moment, gaze constantly scanning the streets – and scanning Klaus and Five too, who seem to have escaped mostly unscathed. The muggers are groaning on the ground in various states of consciousness. No one else is around; no one’s even turned on any lights, or seems to have noticed the commotion. (It is very late.)
Klaus is still a little bouncy, his own way of reacting to the adrenaline, Luther figures. “You said you had news for us, little brother?” he says, beaming.
“Idiot,” Five hisses at him. “Not now!”
Klaus just beams harder.
“Are you both alright?” Luther asks, before the two of them can start bickering. Klaus is very good about pushing Five’s buttons, but he’s also, apparently, the only one who can do so without Five getting so irritated that he gets up and leaves the conversation. Luther doesn’t understand their relationship; he’s stopped trying to. Right now, Five is right. They don’t need to get started.
“Fine.”
“Peachy keen!”
“You’re not, though,” Five cuts in. “We can head to my place.”
Luther very carefully doesn’t point out that Five’s place is an abandoned warehouse with a room that Five’s rigged to be secure; he’d tried to get Five to move in with him and Klaus shortly after they’d gotten the place, but Five had said he’d be too restricted and shoved off their concerns.
He nods now, takes a step, and almost immediately crumples as his bad knee collapses. Klaus is there though, quicker than he’d thought the man was paying attention, and he folds himself under Luther’s arm and props him up with ease. Luther feels a swell of gratitude.
“You know, you’re really heavy.”
The bubble bursts. He rolls his eyes.
“Next time,” Five says. “Try not to get hit in the legs.” He grabs Luther’s forearm and twists the cut to study it better in the time lighting. Before Luther can interject, he lets go with a nod. “That can wait.” He frowns down at Luther’s leg. “Can you walk?”
Luther nearly rolls his eyes again. So much for the compassionate and caring brothers who’d been present for all of two seconds. Still, he knows this is how they express that care. “I can limp,” he says, carefully. He’s not interested in Five calling him a liar if it turns out he can’t.
“Don’t worry.” Klaus pats Luther’s back reassuringly. “I’ve got you, you big lump.”
Luther isn’t worried. He knows Klaus does.