rumores | open post

Seeing that face again sends her back to running through a cornfield, her heart in her throat as gunfire zipped through the stalks around her. For a moment the fear from the memory is so immediate that she can't move and then his and Allison's words catch up with her.

"No!" She cries out, raising her hand to send the Swede flying using the sound of the pounding of her own heart in her ears. She can't afford to lose anyone else. Not any of her brothers and not Allison.

She can feel the rush of power as it moves through her, her emotions strengthening it, until it suddenly dissipates as unbearable pain hits her square in the stomach. She gasps in surprise, her hand automatically moving to where she's just been shot. She looks to her siblings with utter shock before the world tilts under her feet and her knees give way.

Five raises his gun and shoots the Swede between the eyes.

It all plays out in slow motion. Allison half expects the Swede to argue with her, to force her to choose, but it doesn’t come. Before she can tell Vanya to step back, before she can Rumor the entire room into not interfering (not because she can, but because she doesn’t want them to step in), the shot rings out.

“Vanya,” Allison says, almost screams, but she doesn’t hear herself. She just rushes over to her, taking her in her arms as her legs buckle beneath her. Allison herself can’t remain standing, though, and she lands hard on her knees as she cradles her sister. She herself is thrown into a memory, that night at the Icarus when Vanya lost consciousness and her power shot a beam towards the moon. Allison doesn’t remember the way it tore through the theatre, the way it made a hole in the moon. Like that night, her focus is on Vanya. How weightless she feels. How terrified she is of losing her.

“No, you’re— It’s okay. You’re okay.”

She’s lying. She knows it’s bad, her hand moving gently to where she’s bleeding and realizing how much she’s bleeding.

No. NO, her mind screams. Or maybe she does, she can’t tell. Her heart feels like it’s roaring in anguish within her, harnessing the power within her to try to alter this. To change it, to save her if she can.

“I heard—“ Her voice shakes, but she clears her throat before the command comes out in full force, the energy in the room shifting as she tries to alter reality. “I heard a rumor you stopped bleeding.” She waits for a moment, but she doesn’t have to look down to see for herself it didn’t work. It won’t work. Just how it hadn’t worked years ago, back in the Academy, and she had tried to save Ben after that mission

“I’m so sorry.” She clings to her shirt as she holds her, as if it’ll make her hang on. “Vanya, I’m so sorry.”

She feels Allison catch her and unlike last time she's awake for every agonizing moment of it. She stares up at Allison with wide, scared eyes as she tells her it's going to be okay. "Allison," she whispers, clutching at her sister's arms as if she can keep her from sinking further into this nightmare.

She's not ready to die, as much as she's thought about how the world might have been better off without her in it. As much as she blames herself for the destruction that she's brought on her family and the world. Now that she can feel it slipping away from her, she doesn't want to leave her family.

Her brothers are suddenly there. Klaus's hand is on her ankle, Luther's giant fingers cover hers to put pressure on the wound and Diego is yelling about needing to get her to a doctor. Five kneels beside her as Allison makes her wish. He looks so old for his body.

She loves them all so much that for a moment it cancels out the pain. "I love you," she says between labored breaths, tears pooling at the corner of her eyes. "I'm sorry... I hurt you."

Because she remembers now. The sickening whoosh of the violin strings as they sliced through Allison's throat. The panic and horror that had come afterwards and that she can see mirrored in her sister's eyes now. She tightens her grip on Allison's arms. "This wasn't... your... fault."

“I love you, too. I love you so much.” She doesn’t realize it, but she rocks her a little as if to soothe her, to somehow make this hurt less as she rests her head against hers. She used to do this with Claire once upon a time, trying to help her feel better whenever she would fall and scrape her knee or her arm, but this is so much worse. Her sister is dying, and there’s nothing she can do to stop it.

At her apology, Allison turns to her as she shakes her head. “No, you don’t— You have nothing to apologize for, Vanya. You never did anything wrong.”

Not before, and not now. Even back in the cabin, Allison still firmly believes it had been her own fault for pushing her. Ultimately Vanya has always been the collateral damage of everything their father and even they have done, and she hates that this is no exception. That she’s suffering the consequences of her sister rumoring the man that shot her, and now here they are. Vanya is bleeding out in her arms.

“We never deserved you,” she says tearily, fighting back a sob that threatens to choke the air right out of her. Please don’t leave, she wants to cry, the pleas that she had cried out as Ben died resurfacing as they’re facing another loss. Another sibling they can’t save, and this one is solely on her.

Please don’t leave me, she thinks as she buries her face in her hair for a moment, but she can’t put that on Vanya. She hadn’t asked for this, she’s not choosing to go.

You failed, Number Three, she hears Reginald sneer in her head. You killed her.

“I love you, sis,” she says before she kisses her forehead, her tears making it hard to see. “I love you so much.”

He hadn't been there when they'd lost Ben. Something that he's had to live with ever since he'd found Vanya's book and read the words that said he'd died. It'd been almost a year after he'd jumped into the future before he'd stumbled across the book with Vanya's face on it in one of the few standing libraries. He'd devoured every page with news of his siblings and then he'd cried for one of the siblings that he had never found. Truth be told, that was the day he'd given up the sliver of hope that he might find Ben or Vanya out in the wasteland that surrounded him. He'd never found their bodies and despite all logic, his hope had kept him moving forward. As long as he didn't have concrete proof there was a chance. Up until the moment that he'd realized Ben had already been lost years ago.

He watches, stunned as the others hold onto Vanya, watching her blood bleed out of her the way it had out of so many of his victims. Maybe this was his punishment for killing all those innocent people who had stepped on the wrong side of the timeline. People who had no idea that one decision or action could change the course of the world as they knew it.

Vanya's dying in Allison's arms and he can't wrap his head around it. Vanya's grip on Allison loosens and he reaches out desperately to grab her hand.

"Vanya," he breathes, his voice breaking. "I can fix this." She doesn't answer him, and he looks desperately around at the others.

"Allison," he says, reaching out with his other hand to put a hand on her shoulder. His eyes are full of desperation. "I'm going to take you back with me. You have to stop her."

He doesn't give her any warning before time starts rewinding around them to just a few seconds earlier. He can feel time and space pulling at every atom of his being as he struggles to force them backwards. Just a few seconds... a minute... more...

He finds himself again holding the gun on the Handler, his cheeks still wet from tears, his hands shaking from the effort of rewinding time yet again. The Handler's eyes narrow and travel up to his face.

"Is it true? What Five said?"

Her eyes slide over to Lila. "Well..."

Feeling Vanya slip away cracks something in her in a way that she can't quite describe, grief and anger colliding within her in a way that knocks the air out of her as she feels Vanya's grip loosen. She's gone. She's--

For a moment she doesn't hear Five, but when she looks at him it's as if her attention zeroes in on him. She doesn't know what the hell he's talking about, but when he starts to rewind time, it clicks. You have to stop her, he says, and Allison doesn't respond, but understands. They have to change things. They have to fix it. They can't let their sister die. Since her focus isn't on trying to rewind time, Allison watches the events in reverse as they go back to the beginning of the end, flinching when the bullet pierces through Vanya, but she doesn't look away. That's what she has to stop. They have to fix it. They have to save her.

As they stop, Allison has to fight the urge to gasp, feeling as if she's emerging from underwater, and she hears Lila. She hears the handler and, like clockwork, before she can actually respond the sound of bullets ring through the barn before the Handler collapses. Lila disappears as Luther tries to jump for the case, as Diego tries to stop him, but Allison can hardly care about that as she stands slightly behind Vanya, and in front of Klaus. For over a year, even after regaining her ability to talk, she had fought the urges she would feel whenever her powers would want to push forward and take over. Whenever something felt difficult, whenever she wanted to bend reality to her whim. She had fought those urges, had controlled herself, and with it came a different strength in them. One that she has felt ever since she began using her powers again, the force behind her words heavier and stronger than before.

That's why, as she focuses and she feels the power of what she can do swirling within her, it's as if there's a sort of shift in the air, as if the very energy of the room is altered as she opens her mouth and the command pours out of her lips. "I heard a rumor you won't interfere with what happens next."

It's said loud enough for the command to be heard by both Vanya and Klaus, and while she doesn't know if it reached the rest of her siblings, she can only hope so. Especially as the Swede turns his attention to her, and she's already positioning herself in front of them as best as she can. There are five of them, after all; as much as she wants to protect them all, she can't.

"You want me, not them," she tells him, trying to not use the usual I heard a rumor preamble, but trying to focus her words as if that will make it a reality nonetheless even if she knows damn well that's a long shot.

He doesn't lower the gun this time. He knows without a doubt that the Swede won't take peace and he's too dangerous to follow through on his threat. But just as he is about to raise his weapon Allison's words move through the barn. He shivers and lowers the gun. "Allison," he says as a warning. He can't help her like this, but he knows that she's doing what he asked.

The Swede nods somberly at her words, his gun raised. "Yes," he says. "I want you to suffer as I suffered. Losing a brother is worse than death."

He looks at Five in front of him, Luther and Diego lying awkwardly on the ground mid wrestle and Klaus behind her. "Pick one."

"Rumor him," Five hisses, unable to move. The Swede's eyes narrow and he smiles mirthlessly, tapping his ear. Five realizes with a sinking feeling that he's wearing ear guards.

Shit.

Allison had already figured that he would probably shoot again the second he heard her attempt another Rumor, but when she catches the way he taps his ear, she knows that they're screwed. He had come prepared. Even if Five could somehow go back further in time, if she could wait for him outside of the barn, she wouldn't be able to stop him. Not in her usual ways, anyway.

"No." Her voice wavers, but she tilts her chin up slightly, defiantly. By stopping Vanya she knows she screwed herself over, because now Five also can't shoot him since it would be interfering, but what else would there be? Vanya had gotten shot - killed for trying to interfere. If Five would have tried, or Klaus, or Diego, or Luther... She can't lose them. She can't lose any one of them, which is why she had done what she did.

She steals a glance at her siblings, at the silent desperation that mirrors her own. I'm sorry, she wishes she could tell them. I love you.

She wishes they could have more time, that shit hadn't come to this.

There's a brief moment that she looks almost defeated, as if her resolve is broken and she will give him the answer he's expecting, but instead of speaking she charges towards the Swede instead, ready to try and keep him from shooting her siblings. Ready to do whatever she can to save them, because she refuses to lose any of them again.

Her siblings cry out to her, their expressions strained as they try to fight her order not to interfere, but they're held immovable where they are.

The Swede regards her dispassionately as she rushes him, raising his gun to incapacitate her, but she's faster than he anticipated. The hand with the gun gets knocked off course as she shoves it out of the way, a stray shot going off before he regain himself and try to block her hits.

"Shit! Luther?" Diego says as Luther slumps on top of him. No longer trying to get to Allison, the invisible force holding him in place loosens it's grip and he's able to move out from under his mountain of a brother and turn him over.

"No, no, no," Diego chants with building panic as he sees the trickle of blood from the bullet hole at the corner of his temple. He grips Luther's shirt. "Luther! Luther, come on."

For half a moment, Allison actually thinks that she may have gotten it right. That she was able to change things, that no one will get hurt. The gun goes off, but she doesn’t think it hit anywhere specific as she tries to at least disarm him.

But then she hears Diego and the panic in his voice, and Allison freezes. Luther? The Swede catches her distraction, hitting her in the abdomen and knocking down to her knees. There’s another gunshot, and she half expects to see another of her siblings fall, but instead it’s the Swede the one that’s bleeding as he collapses back into the hay.

It still feels like she can’t catch her breath, but she scrambles over towards where Luther is. Where Diego looks frantic and Luther is bleeding.

“Luther,” she gasps as she finally reaches him, trying to wake him as she grips onto his shirt with one hand and touching his face with the other. “No, you can’t— Please, Luther.” Hot tears roll down her cheeks, her voice cracking. “You can’t do this, I can’t lose you, too.”

For a moment it looks like Allison has the upper hand and then his head spins to see Diego crouched over Luther's unmoving form. Even from here, Five can see his huge chest isn't rising with breath and he feels a wave of failure hit him and threaten to drown him.

Allison is distracted and he moves to help, but he's still stuck in place. Up until the moment a shotgun blast cracks through the air and the Swede falls back with a thud. Vanya's friend is pale and staring at the man she just shot, but Five can barely give her a second thought because he finds himself standing over yet another dead sibling.

"He's gone," he says, his voice sounding dead to his own ears as he stares at Luther's still face between Allison's hands. He swallows thickly and kneels beside Allison, reaching for her wrist.

"Again," he says. He doesn't know if he can keep doing this. He can feel every bit of himself protesting at the energy he's using to rewind time and to bring Allison back with him, but he can't do it on his own. Even if he hates that she has to live these loses out with him.

They go backwards, the others moving around them. This time he can't go all the way back. He hits a wall when the Swede taps his ears. He pushes against the rumor holding him in place but it's immovable.

He looks over at Allison, unable to help her.

Unlike with Vanya, there are no final moments with Luther. No apologies for everything left unsaid, for the hand she has in this. Her throat feels raw from the sobs she’s trying to contain within her, because she refuses to mourn him. She refuses to let this be it after they had managed to save Vanya, and thankfully Five is of the same mentality and they’re going back in time again.

Except, they don’t rewind all the way back and she can feel a sense of panic gnaw at her at once. She could have tried to intercept the Swede before he could make it into the barn, she could have tried to find a way to incapacitate him or even kill him before he could give her the ultimatum, but that moment doesn’t come. Her siblings are frozen thanks to her own command, and for a moment she looks lost. What else can she try? She could have them all leave, but would that make him shoot at them randomly? Would it be Vanya again? Luther?

This time she moves again, looking as if she’s ready to charge him again, but instead of attacking him, when she’s in proximity to Five she speaks again, her voice low so that he won’t hear the command through his earplugs.

“I heard a rumor you shot this son of a bitch.” Her voice is venomous, rage and grief accentuating that familiar power within her as it stirs to life, the air almost buzzing with her command. Five may be running out of juice with every time they flip back through time, but for Allison it’s as if it’s dialing her powers higher and higher with each turn. Watching her siblings die feels as if it’s cracking her very soul, and right now she just needs to save them no matter the cost.

He watches as Allison charges, the Swede raising his gun and he tries to prepare himself for what's about to come next. And then he hears her words, echoing his own sense of rage and grief at a world that won't let them all survive. His mouth twitches and he raises his gun to fire.

The Swede catches his sudden movement too late to stop it, but the bullet Five sends through his forehead sends one last nerve pulse to his trigger finger and his gun fires wide.

Five drops his weapon and turns to look at his siblings. All looking shell shocked. For a moment nothing happens and he begins to breathe a sigh of relief.

Then Klaus, who is holding his hand over his chest as if he's been startled lowers it. "Ow," he says, almost child-like and Five can see the red splatter of blood on his skin above his leather vest.

God damn it.

"Klaus?" Vanya asks, reaching out for him and catching him as he falls. "Klaus!"

Five balls up his fists, pulling on the energy that isn't there. He doesn't even have enough to spacial jump across the barn by Klaus's side. His breath stutters and stops as he realizes he can't go back this time.

Some part of her, despite the lousy previous attempts, is actually hopeful for this one to work. No one had dropped to the ground, no one was yelling, no one--

She turns to Klaus almost at the same moment that he speaks, and whatever cautious relief could have been on her face drains at once.

'NO,' her mind screams, or she does, she can't tell anymore as she rushes over to him. No, no, this can't happen again. He can't die. She can't lose him. NO.

As she kneels next to him, using her hands to put pressure against the wound, she tries to look reassuring as she turns to him even if it feels damn near impossible. "It's okay. It's okay, we'll fix it. You'll be okay."

She turns to Five, almost as if to tell him that she's ready, that they can go back. They can try again, she's ready, but he doesn't have to say anything in order for her to know there's no other time. The look on his face as they look at each other says everything, and she feels her heart break for what feels like the millionth time today.

He's going to die, she thinks as she looks down at he wound on his chest. They're going to lose him. They can't fix this anymore.

"Stop bleeding," she mutters as she looks at the way that his blood keeps seeping through her fingers. Her voice shakes as she does so, but the command is said almost in a blend of firmness and desperation all rolled into one. Even without saying I heard a rumor, the surge of power within her swells to the brim as she tries to alter reality, but like with Ben and Vanya, it doesn't work. He's still bleeding. She can change a lot of things, apparently, but death? Death is one she can't quite cheat with parlor tricks.

"I'm sorry," Allison finally says as she turns to him, unable to hold back the sob that escapes. She knows what's coming, after all. She has lived it with Vanya, with Luther, and now Klaus is next. "I'm so sorry."

The loud crack of the gun, the instant, sharp pain in his chest, and Klaus knows exactly what's happened. Somewhere between point A and point B, the Ikea motherfucker shot him. He barely registers saying ow, but it does hurt, and he sinks to the ground before he's aware his knees are giving out.

He's been here before, after all, his head swimming as his body tries to wrap itself around the shock of the wound. Ah, right. Shock. He can feel the edges of it beginning, as fog settles over his brain, as his heart rate ratchets up to a dangerously high speed, as sweat stipples his brow.

"It's fine, I'm fine, I'm like a bad cat with nine lives, right?" He murmurs hoarsely, laughing to himself. But the laugh brings with it a sputter of blood, a line of thin red stark against the pale of his chin. "Besides, really adds some drama to the outfit, you know? Red's gotta be— shit, Al," he wheezes when his sister presses a hand over the wound.

Dying. He's dying. He can feel the sick pull in his gut, not unlike the time he slipped under on one of his many overdoses, or the time he cracked his head on the dance floor, and while he hadn't given a shit before, he finds himself panicking. All those times before hadn't been like this, with blood rushing out of his body uncontrolled. Had he just been lucky before? He thinks so, but there's nothing here that can save him at the last minute. No drug or medic or dead dad to whisk him back to the world of the living.

He's dying. "H-hey... it's not your fault," he says softly and he looks dizzily around at his family before he reaches for Allison with a bloodied hand. "Jesus, why... all the long faces?"

Diego and Luther scramble out of their frozen pose and move to their fallen brother. Diego reaches out to grip his arm as if he can somehow anchor him there.

"Hey, buddy," he says his voice low. Jesus, there's so much blood. On his chest, on his lips. "Hold on, okay? We'll get you some help."

He looks up and around for Five. "Five, can we tele-" but the words die on his lips. Five is sitting on the ground, his head in his hands. He's never seen him look so young or so defeated.

He feels as if he's been punched in the stomach, all the air leaving him at once. He looks back at Klaus, his expression darkening. "I swear to God, Klaus, if you die I'll find you and murder you again."

Luther puts a heavy hand on his shoulder and he refuses to look at him. He can already hear his sniffling. He shrugs off his hand, getting to his feet.

"We've got to be able to do something," he shouts, looking at the others. This isn't happening.

The dam breaks when Klaus calls her Al, and despite her best attempts at remaining composed and reassuring, she crumbles as a sob tears through her throat again. Especially when he tells her that it’s not her fault, and she knows damn well that’s not true. This is her fault. If she hadn’t forced the Swede to kill his brother, if she hadn’t used her powers...

“Don’t go where I can’t follow, Klaus. You know the deal.” Her words are low in almost a whisper, her voice choking with emotion. She still remembers that morning when he had reminded her of that promise, the morning she had decided to finally leave the Academy and in turn leaving him behind, but now he’s the one that’s leaving. He’ll be gone, and as much as she wants to trade places with him, she can’t.

Vanya. Luther. Now Klaus is dying, but there’s no going back. There’s no more fixing it, and the realization that she’s losing another one of her brothers is more than she can bear. Losing Ben had been brutal, but this? Knowing that she might as well have pulled that trigger, it’s beyond agonizing.

She should reassure Diego. She wants to agree, there should be something they could do, a way to fix it, but they’re out of time and she can only look at Diego for a moment in sympathy before turning back to Klaus as she leans down to kiss Klaus’s forehead.

Keeping one hand over his wound, as if that does anything, she takes his hand with her other one and gives it a squeeze. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so fucking sorry.

“I love you. I love you so much.”

His family moves around him so quickly that he can't quite keep up, but he's vaguely aware of Five in the background, of Vanya who caught him on the way down, of Allison. Diego's voice cuts through the din like one of his tricksy knives and Klaus's eyes swivel to his brother. He coughs up a laugh at the man's words.

"Oh good luck with that macho man," he teases, a slow arm raising to reach for Diego's hand, but his brother is standing, saying something to Luther, but he can't quite hear it over the pulse thumping loudly in his ears. His eyes burn as the pain gets worse, as the sluggishness and fatigue start to take over, as his chest heaves harder to suck in air when he's sure there's nothing but blood between his ribs.

He hears Diego shout and he reaches for his brother again, as though to somehow drag him back, but the motion doesn't make it far off the ground. What good is he, after all, if he can't make them laugh? If he can't make them roll their eyes and shoo him away. But he squeezes Allison's hand and tries to sit up, boots sliding in the dirt and hay. He knows immediately he's not going to make it up, and that's when the reality of it sinks in. He falls back into Vanya's lap and lets out a shuddering breath, hissed through his teeth with pain.

"It's okay. Hey, it's... I'm okay," he tries, but everything seems so distant and slow now. He's impossibly cold, which is the worst part, really. Is this what Ben felt? "Can't... keep me away forever." His eyes feel heavy, his vision tunneling. This feeling he knows, like standing at the precipice of a long, deep cavern with no bottom in sight.

"Don't move," Vanya begs, placing a hand on his shoulder to keep him still. Her tears are falling freely now, rolling off her chin and into Klaus's hair.

It's hard to imagine that just a few days ago they'd been laughing, drinking and dancing in Allison's shop. She just got them back, she can't lose them again and yet here she is, holding onto Klaus as he slips away. Still trying to tell them it's going to be okay.

Her hands cradle his neck, her thumb feeling his slowing pulse and she feels like she's the one that's been shot in the chest instead. She shuts her eyes and tries to focus her energy, tries to use her powers to do something. She'd brought Harlan back, but that had been different. Still, she tries, light pulsing through her fingers and lighting up his skin at their touchpoints.

But nothing happens. His pulse only grows fainter under her fingers, the numbness of grief darkening her vision as she watches each pained and slowed movement.

"Klaus, please..." She says, as if he can control it. As if he has a choice. "Don't leave us."

Klaus’s attempts to sit up are met with protests from Allison, too, asking him to stay still, but she doesn’t have to do much. He can hardly move, and for a moment her eyes blur with tears.

That’s why, when Vanya initially tries to use her powers to save Klaus, she doesn’t catch on right away. It’s not until she sees the light at her fingertips that makes her hold her breath, as if somehow that will make a difference and she will manage what Allison can’t. She had saved that little boy, right? Maybe she could save Klaus, too.

But, the bleeding doesn’t stop. Klaus’s breathing doesn’t improve, and Allison feels her heart breaking as the finality sets in. She doesn’t want to accept it, because the failure and the guilt and the pain of it all feel like they’ll decimate her entirely, but she knows, too, that this is it. Klaus is dying. This shouldn’t be it, she doesn’t want this to be it, but...what else can they do?

In a last attempt, Allison focuses her eyes on the chest wound, harnesses her power as much as she can to make him stop bleeding. Maybe with Vanya’s power and her own, maybe they can both make it work. Maybe they can both fix it.

Maybe...

She feels the surge of her power buzzing through her veins in a way that makes her dizzy, but despite it she can feel the way his heart is slowing as her hand continues covering the gaping wound. The blood doesn’t stop. They can’t stop it, and Allison can only bring up Klaus’s hand up to her lips, holding onto him tightly as if somehow that will keep him from letting go.

Klaus can't help but wish that Ben were here right now. For all the horrific things that have happened in his life, Ben had always been at his side. And though things between them hadn't always been the best, the silence in his head with his brother's absence has been miserable. He'd confess to Ben, out of all of them, how scared he is right now.

Vanya's hands are warm at his throat and his eyes flutter closed for a moment. The power doesn't do anything to make him feel better, but she's so warm. If he had the energy to wrap she and Allison into a hug like they had at the salon, he would in a heartbeat.

"Sorry," he says finally, eyes distant, his grip slackening around Allison's hand. He tries to will his fingers to close, to will his body to wait, because maybe, just maybe, they'll figure something out. Five will, maybe even Luther. Then they can all laugh about how stupid Klaus got shot and made them all worry.

But there are no solutions, and he's silly to think there would be. It's fitting, really, that he's been shot in the chest. In the last few seconds of true awareness, he remembers the battlefield, remembers the way Dave clung to him, the way the blood just wouldn't stop. He feels guilt, sharp and swift, because he knows exactly what they're all feeling. What the slick of blood feels like as it pumps too quickly out of a body, how the sounds of labored, wet breathing will haunt your dreams, how the light left Dave's eyes in the dim light of the A Shau valley.

Dave.

Now that is a pleasant thought. His head falls to one side, against the warmth of Vanya's arm, but the corners of his mouth quirk up at the edges. It's not how he planned it, but maybe, just maybe, he could see Dave again. Finally. And while he's still scared, shaking from the shock and blood loss, he suddenly feels a strange sense of calm wash over him. His hand goes slack, his chest stops heaving, and half lidded eyes dim, the fair, mischievous fire extinguished.

It feels like losing Ben all over again, except this time it's Klaus. Luther's face is wet with tears, helplessness twisted so tight inside him that he thinks he might explode, or just fall apart.

"It's okay, Klaus," he says when he apologizes again. As much as he doesn't want Klaus to go, he can't stand seeing him in this kind of pain. Slowly, he fades away, finally going still and Luther feels a piece of himself go with him.

For so long it had been his job to keep all of them safe. He'd even gone as far as to lock up Vanya because he thought that was the only way he could do that. And yet, the hard, unforgiving reality is that he couldn't. Klaus's death hadn't even been intentional, but an accident that none of them could've seen coming.

He puts a hand on Allison's shoulder and looks over at Diego who is just staring at Klaus's unmoving form in with ashen disbelief. He looks for Five, but he's not there. He's going to have to find him, but for now all he can do is try to adjust to a world without Klaus in it.

Even just having his light extinguished seems to make the inside of the barn darker and colder without it.

Allison shakes her head slightly when Klaus apologizes again, wanting to tell him to not speak. To hold on. To not apologize because that's too close to a goodbye that she's not ready to say yet. She wants to tell him he doesn't have to apologize for, that this isn't his fault. She wishes she could ease his pain at the very least, she wants to reassure him that it's okay, but she can't. She can't bring herself to speak anymore, her hands shaking as she tries to stop his bleeding with one hand and the other one holds tightly onto him.

But then his grip loosens, and Klaus is actually gone, and Allison feels her heart shattering all over again. Vanya and Luther are still here, breathing and alive, but to Allison this is the fourth sibling that she has seen die - third one tonight alone, and it's her fault. It's all her fucking fault.

You couldn't stop him, Number Three. You failed, and there are no do-overs. No make ups. He's dead, and it's your fault.

In the back of her head, she knows that Luther is trying to comfort her; she can feel the weight of his hand on her shoulder, but she can't stop staring at Klaus. Her tears keep falling unchecked, but for a moment she's almost too still, almost as if the shock and the impact of it all is too much for her to truly be able to process.

Until someone tries to move her - she can't tell who it is, ultimately it doesn't matter - and Allison stubbornly shakes her head as she holds onto Klaus again. She tries to speak, but it only comes out as a ragged sob as she more or less clings to him. She can't leave him yet. She can't leave him, he can't be alone, he can't--

He can't be gone. God, he can't be gone. Hadn't it just been a few days since she had hugged him in his pool? Since they had been drinking, laughing, and not giving a shit about what people thought about them as they walked with Five to meet the rest? It's so unfair that he's gone, that once again they're separated and now it's for good. He's gone.

He's...

Somehow Luther manages to pry her off of him, her hands covered in Klaus's blood, but it hardly registers. She doesn't care.

Her brother is gone, and there was nothing she could do to stop it.

There's always this strange line between the moment he's sure he's dying and the moment he comes screaming back into life, but this feels different. Like falling down a deep, dark well where the water fills his ears with pressured silence. It's maddening, the way Luther sounds muffled, the way Allison sobs, the way Vanya holds to him. Maddening because it's like they're just beyond the surface, just out of reach.

But when he opens his eyes, he finds himself laying on cold, hard ground. Is he outside? He blinks against the harsh light of the overcast sky and sits up, reaching for his chest first, and finding the wound has either closed up or disappeared somehow. He's struck by the trees and realizes, very suddenly, that he's been here before.

It's the sound of a bike bell that catches his attention - the same girl he'd seen when he met his father however long ago, and something heavy and nervous sinks deep into the pit of his stomach. There's no conjuring this time, no birth-given abilities that can save him from what this is and from the cold, disinterested stare of the girl who skids her bike to a stop and stares at him.

"Do I need to tell you how this works again," the girl asks, bored and unamused. But Klaus just shakes his head, following the line of her extended arm where she points to a clearing in the trees and, conveniently, sits Griddy's Donuts. The inside seems warmly lit and when Klaus's eyes land on it, a neon sign in the window pops to life: now baking.

"Are you fucking kidding me?" But Klaus says it to no one as, when he turns around, the girl is gone. How often had they sneaked out of the house to share donuts and shitty diner coffee together as kids? How often had he, Ben and Five stuffed extra donuts in their jacket pockets for later? When he makes the trek up the hill, he rests a hand on the door and sucks in a deep breath. He can smell the dough, the icing, the burnt coffee.

He misses home, sudden and real, but part of him can't help but wonder who, exactly, is on the other side of these doors. His hands tremble, his heart (does he have a heart now that he's really dead?) beats quickly. It could be Dad, it could be Dave. It could be any number of his cult disciples.

Wait, could he be in hell? He opens the door with a flourish.

"Put a new pot of coffee on, babe, because it's gonna be one hell of a long night," he all but croons into the seemingly empty shop.

Edited (words) 2020-11-05 03:49 (UTC)

(no subject)

ghostbro - 2020-11-06 05:21 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

imprudency - 2020-11-08 04:05 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

ghostbro - 2020-11-08 16:11 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

imprudency - 2020-11-08 20:02 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

ghostbro - 2020-12-28 04:28 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

imprudency - 2020-12-29 05:30 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

ghostbro - 2021-05-26 02:22 (UTC) - Expand

oh man im so rusty sorry

imprudency - 2021-05-29 18:46 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

ghostbro - 2021-05-30 15:16 (UTC) - Expand

"Allison. Allison, please." He says it over and over again, his heart breaking as he watches her cling onto Klaus, her grief escaping in sobs and gasps as he tries to get her away from him.

He wraps his arms around her, partly because part of him thinks that she might just fall apart in his arms, and partly because he can't take the sight of her crying over Klaus any longer. He wants to keep it from her. From all of them, but he can't.

Vanya is crying, her breath hitching as if she can't get enough air against Diego, who seems to have taken it upon himself to move over to her. His face is somehow fixed in a blank furiousness, his eyes fixed on Klaus even as his hand rubs Vanya's back absently.

Luther tightens his arms around Allison. "There was nothing we could do," he says, his voice rough as each word scrapes against his heart.

(no subject)

rumores - 2020-12-29 05:46 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

gotbigger - 2021-05-30 15:21 (UTC) - Expand