maskormenacelogs | Open ☂ We get a little restless from the searching, get a little worn down in between

Diego had barely had time to do anything close to even settling into a routine at the house he'd been told to live in upon his initial arrival. The only person he even really spoke to that he'd lived with was Rene and that was sparse and at random, at best. He didn't have much of anything to leave behind, or to bring with him into the new house. Whatever clothes could be crammed into a backpack, and his usual array of knives. He didn't need much, truth be told.

He hasn't had roommates since he left the Academy back home, at 17 years old. Even when he first went out on his own, he did everything entirely on his own. Lived in his car rather than be at anyone else's mercy, until he could get a crappy, rundown apartment. He isn't convinced this will go well, but at least they'll be together. Some of them on a constant basis, some of them in a swinging door policy, but still. As weird and screwed up as all of their varying relationships are with one another, these are still the only people that Diego would want to be around on anything like a regular basis.

Diego comes to a slow stop just behind Luther, standing there and staring up at the giant house set to outfit their entire brood, in varying stages of occupation at various times. "It's huge, innit?" Maybe not the most eloquent opening line, but what else is there to say, really? He hasn't lived in anything larger than his gym boiler room makeshift apartment in... more years than he'd like to put a number to, probably.

He almost has a joke about rent, about hoping Allison's modeling job pays her well enough, but he bites it back -- honestly, Luther doesn't even know what a reasonable rent is. It's not something he's ever had to deal with himself; the house in De Chima had been subsidised, and even back home, sorting through the inheritance from Reginald had fallen to Pogo as executor of the estate. They'd barely made a dent in it by the time the apocalypse reared its head.

So he just nods. Shifts to look back at his brother. "Looks like it might be smaller than the old house, but it's still massive." The old house. Not like he needs to specify which one that is: the one back home, and the one that had sprung up during the dream storm, a haunted manor dogging their nightmares. He wondered if Diego had seen it, too.

"Did you pack more or less than that, when you left the first time?" Luther asks, nodding to the backpack. Not hammering on a wound, but just-- curious. If Diego had left like this. Packing your life up into a bag and just... going. It's still so new for Luther in comparison: who's only ever known two homes in his life, and now in this world, he's already on his third and now fourth in such quick succession. So much change. He's not used to it.

"Everything is smaller than the Academy." Academy, not house, because it wasn't really, and definitely never was a home. Diego hasn't thought of the Academy as "home" since he was too young to know that the place you lived wasn't necessarily a home.

He blinks and his gaze shifts to his mountain of a brother, a bit surprised at that question. "Uh- I don't know... probably less. I didn't have much to bother taking with me, I just needed out." And it was a need, not only a want. He never felt like he had any other option. Leaving was what he was supposed to do and he needed to know that he could have a life away from the hellscape that was the Academy, their father, his rules and expectations and experiments.

"Come on," he tugs at his brother's sleeve on his way by him to head inside. "have you seen the place at all yet?" He had come by for an unofficial house viewing before they were given the keys, so he had an advanced look at the house.

Leaving was something that had been hardwired into all of them but one. (He had wondered, for so long, why that act seemed so easy -- so instinctive -- for the others, while it was the one goddamned thing that Number One couldn't do.)

"No, just the outside." A beat. "And the floorplans. And all the photos." Because of course Luther had done an exhaustive look as best he can, gathering as much information as he could from afar without actually stepping inside.

Diego takes the lead at first, but Luther's long legs quickly outstrip him and he reaches the front door first, their shoulders bumping slightly into each other as they reach the stoop. An aggrieved look at each other, and then Luther managed to get his key in the door, and swung it open to the marble foyer.

Two soaring staircases. All bright and airy and white, compared to the tight dark closed entryway of the Hargreeves manor. It stops him for a moment, heartbeat slamming him into place with how eerily similar-yet-not it is, and how the sight is so much more than seeing it in clinical architectural plans. It's grand and ornate, and thus so much more like home than that government-assigned house in De Chima. And yet not Reginald's aesthetic at all.

Their footsteps ring on white marble.

"Jesus," Luther says.

Edited (i should've used this icon tbh!!) 2019-06-29 05:11 (UTC)

His eyes slant toward his brother at that initial response, and a smirk spreads like wildfire with each ticker-box next note he mentions after it. "You would study the floorplans, you nerd." He laughs a little and shakes his head.

Diego doesn't look amused that Luther wastes no time in falling in step with, and then stepping ahead, of him. A look that only severes further when they both try to go in the door at the same time. This is his curse, forever, isn't it? He narrows his eyes at Luther as he pushes by to walk inside first, his own boots echoing softly in the empty house.

"Huh." he muses, standing with a hand on his hip as he really takes in the expansive foyer. "Kinda looks different when you walk in from the front." There's a beat before he adds, "We came in through the kitchen door, at the back last time..." The other in that 'we', of course, being Allison. Diego had been practically childishly giddy that day, and he can't even explain why, except that a little B-and-E with his sister had felt like a game he'd long forgotten he used to love playing, at the time.

"Of course you would've," Luther says, and there's an equal echoing fondness in his voice. He tends to take the most direct approach -- front door or just outright smash through a window, while Diego is better at slipping in the back, skulking in the shadows. (When Diego's not catching some of the contagious Hargreeves stupid and smashing through front doors himself, at least.)

Their voices echo strangely in that empty, hollowed-out house, and he can hear their conversation bouncing around all that marble. It's hard to conceive of this place as theirs, but then again, Luther's still not used to any place that isn't the manor or the lunar base.

"Where to first—" he begins, then remembers that Diego already must've seen all of this, and then the dawning realisation seems to sweep over both of them at the same time: "Claiming bedrooms."

He could be mature about this. Number One. Calm and measured team leader, dignified, strolling through the place and discussing who should have what.

But Luther immediately starts running.

The idea hits them at the same time and Luther's lumbering toward the stairs, but Diego darts around him and runs up the other side of the split staircase, taking two stairs at a time as fast as he can. "No, nope! I already claimed mine earlier!" Luther can take bigger steps and cover more ground, but Diego's fast and they end up at the top of the stairs at the same time. There's two side of the hallway to choose from, but Diego already knows where to go and darts past Luther.

He absolutely does not care that this is probably worse than a pair of twelve year olds running wild in a house all to themselves. He is not letting Number One take his bedroom, thankyouverymuch.

The problem with Luther and Diego-- One and Two-- is that even in all their years apart, their rivalry has not died, and their way of falling in step hasn't either. Because for the second time in the last five minutes, they both hit the door at the same time, trying to go through the door at once.

And again.
And again.
Fighting, struggling at each other, and Diego's clawing at Luther's overcoat, doing every damn thing he can think to try and get that mountain of a brother of his to move, all the while--

"Dammit, Luther."
"I called this last week, you don't get to--"
"No, you stop!"

"I need more space, so I need the larger—"
"I wasn't there last week—"
"Stop it!"

The whiplash I'm Number One footstomp doesn't hold much traction anymore, even for Luther, so he doesn't even try it, but they're still stuck there bouncing off each other and trying to catch at the edge of the doorframe and drag themselves in. They finally do manage to tumble through in a tangle of limbs, and it's unclear which one of them was actually first; Luther then pivots on his heel, turning around and looking at the big room (so much more sizeable than any of their little attic warrens back home), and trying to imagine living there.

"You can't call dibs when nobody's even around."

They're like squabbling kids, for a moment. That thing they never actually got to be.

"That's the point!" is the last thing he gets out before they're falling through the door in a mess of limbs on the floor. Scrambling to his feet and standing with his shoulders back, that ridiculous attempt to seem taller than he is which might work with someone else, but Luther... Luther's still completely towering over him and all the weak attempt does is further point out the difference in their heights. Which does nothing for Diego's pride, thanks.

"I totally can, and did!" he points a finger at Luther. Very intimidating, obviously. "You snooze you loose, this is my room!"

"Doesn't look like it to me. Looks like I made it in here first, just now." (Had he, though?)

These two are so very capable of bringing out both the best and worst in each other, and right now, it's the worst: every piece of pointless competitiveness that has ever been stoked between them. And yet, it's fun — it's weirdly fun and light and it feels good to be fighting over something that isn't somber chilling life-or-death for once.

...Oh god and predictable as the tides, Luther's busting it out after all, with all the flat simplicity as if he's stating the world is round and the sun rises in the east: "I'm Number One. I should get the largest room."

"I came through that door first!" One arm flings wildly behind him, in the general direction of the door, his face incredulous.

It's stupid. This whole thing is completely stupid and futile and it doesn't matter, but... it does. It matters because it's the kind of thing they never got to do, growing up. The kind of things siblings were supposed to argue about, normal pieces of family life they never got to have.

"Nuh- Nope. NO!" What's he doing? He's running and-- yup, he's standing on the bed. Like the mature adult person he is. Pointing at Luther like he means business. "You don't get to pull that card, buddy!"

Could you two be any louder? This from Allison who'd finally grown exasperated with listening to the yelling from down the hallway, where she'd been stocking sheets and finding herself retroactively grateful she'd never had to think of having two dozen and more sheets needed as a child.

Which is gone, obliterated in the second she actually rounds the door to the room Diego claimed that first day, while sending it. Her eyes going wide and her mouth dropping open, though it's hard to know if she noticed, because she was already typing at that point. You've got to be kidding me. Seriously? You're on the bed? Seriously?

It's happening faster than it can even be seen on her face. Still arriving at then, even as she persists forward. Exasperation the level she doesn't think she's had since Claire's own screaming tantrums over wanting something. She points at Luther. You.

Are over there now. She pointed to one wall.

Then, at Diego, on the bed. You.

Are over there. She pointed to the oppposite wall.

They are both, basically, the same size, and I will put anyone who argues over the square footage in the smallest closet we have, downstairs in the garage. And all of this -- She actually sends it right there, as though she were talking. To create the point as she throws her arms out, fingers wides, gesturing to the room around them. -- is now mine because neither of you remember how to not be five.

Edited 2019-07-02 05:24 (UTC)

It's such an instinctive thing: just as Diego's hardwired to obey Luther (when the stars line up and he feels like it, at least), Luther's hardwired to listen to Allison. And though they can't hear the sharp, exasperated snap of her voice cutting them back into line, they both respond to those words slamming into their vision just as if they had. When Diego slinks off the bed, Luther looks over at the wall and the adjacent room that is, now, apparently his by executive decision.

(Still the one next to hers. At least there's that.)

And Luther could be abashed, apologetic at this absolutely childish little squabble that had erupted with all the pressure of a decades-plus rivalry behind it -- but instead, the corner of his mouth twitches at the absurdity of it all. And that rare, dry-as-bones sense of humour creeps out:

"We're not Five," he says. "Five's the other one."

"I could try," is the first, knee-jerk response to Allison's very first message in his face suddenly. In such a stupidly petty quip that it was befitting of a 12 year old at best.

Somehow, it's more sobering the second she's in the room, jaw-dropping and incredulity shining in those so, so very judgmental words. "....No?" He offers weakly as he slides back onto the floor. He isn't exactly deflated, so much as suddenly seeing for all the world like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar before dinner.

However, there is no one, bar Luther, that Diego will ever truly kowtow to at all, and perhaps least of all Allison. So, when she starts trying to make demands of him to go stand on a wall on the opposite side of the room away from Luther? He stubbornly stays exactly where he is. Feet planted on the floor there, just in front of the bed, arms folded across his chest, eyebrows arched in his sister's direction.

Any pretense of annoyance is lost when he breaks and snickers at Luther's joke about Five, though he doesn't say anything else. Only casts an amused glance in his brother's direction.

Allison has no real clue why it is Diego suddenly looks dead set on not moving, like he's hunkering into the ground, but, honestly, Diego was jumping on a bed five seconds ago and Diego can do whatever the hell it is he wants to now that his feet are back on the ground and they aren't on what became her bed five seconds ago.

In a room she never planned for or even wanted.
(What is she even going to do with this much space?)

It's the only thought in her head, ten seconds late, when Luther makes decides to get cute.

Which means he totally gets a look. Head tilting and eyebrows raising.
Very much questioning if he just tried that.

Of course he just tried that, and so there's that small smile still lurking, irrepressible and his main form of answer. And Diego snickered, which means it succeeded in at least one of its intended directions, and Luther's feeling rather pleased with himself. Sharp wit has never been his forté; that's always belonged to these two, and to Five. Luther and Klaus tend to stick their foots in their mouth instead.

"Alright. So. That's settled, at least. This is your room now." At least it's a decision, and that's better than what they had a few minutes ago.

He just gives Allison a look that is somehow a shrug with face, while never actually moving a single piece of the features of it at all, besides a little jerk of his head. A silent 'What?' of childish indignation. Everything about this house had brought some buried twelve year old in him out, ever since the first day when he and Allison had broken in to see it in the first place. This, it seemed, was no different.

He casts a glance between the two of them before he lets his arms drop away from his chest, and marches toward the door. "Whatever," he sounds a lot less bothered than he may actually be, but it's fine. He'll deal. Whatever room he gets is still going to be better than the one he'd grown up with, and the boiler room apartment in the gym. He taps the top of the doorframe on his way out, leaving the pair of them to whatever it is they do when no one else is in the room and heads down the hall to the one on the other side that Allison decided was his.

Open ☂ We get a little restless from the searching, get a little worn down in between

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject