maskormenacelogs | {Got a war going on in my head [OPEN]

There's a man wandering the streets, and he might seem familiar. He's no stranger to this city, after all, he's been here for awhile by now. And it's not like the entire city wasn't aware of the giant explosion at the Hargreeves house a few weeks ago. Hard to miss something that big going down in your hometown.

He's fallen into certain routines in his time in this city. Ones that he's following now, in the earliest hours of the morning, running. That he'll continue throughout the day, as if it were as normal as breathing-- a little random grocery shopping... a stop at the gym later in the afternoon. It's just normal, right?

Except nothing about Diego Hargreeves has ever been normal, and it's manifested in burning-gold eyes as he moves through the days like everything is fine. It's not fine. It's never fine. Everything is always being blown to hell, every time he turns around. He can't keep anything he manages to build together. It's only right, though, isn't it?

Not good enough to be leader of the Umbrella Academy.
Not good enough for the police academy.
Not good enough for Patch.
Not even good enough to keep a friendship that had felt as easy as breathing before it exploded into pieces, too.

Just like everything always does, because he isn't- and he never was- and maybe that's just his entire lot in life, in every universe, with every person. Just not up to par.

Sometimes, this golden-eyed doppelganger hangs around Diego and taunts him; others, he can be found wandering on his own, maybe even attempting to impersonate the one he was made from.

Edited 2019-10-21 20:44 (UTC)

It's another day, and her patience is starting to draw to something of a quick.

The frayed edge needing some release, when her impervious power gives no hint or sign of how little sleep and how right on the sharp she feels the further the days of this week. It's been weeks since she let loose, and Derek wasn't available this week when she asked about getting back to it, and that's probably her fault well-enough, and not even regretting the how-why just adds to the chafe.

Allison is drinking some orange juice when she hears the door open and ends up walking toward the front of the house. Because, maybe just maybe, she might have actually thought this out and then timed when she was up for a specific purpose. She rounds the doorway into the foyer before Diego can leave it.

Hey. Are you busy?

He doesn't even quite make it to the door when the words filter in front of his eyes and he blinks, a little thrown off by it. Too early in the morning, he'd say if she asked. But she's used to the varying reactions to people having words in their face suddenly, so he knows she might not say a word about it at all.

"Not really, why?" he turns toward where her steps came to a halt in the front hallway. The tension is obvious, but that isn't so unnatural among them, particularly in the last few weeks, so it doesn't feel quite like something to be on high-alert toward.

For the most part, Allison knew the answer before she asked it. Timed it to just after his run and his shower. They all live under each other's feet. They did for so long. They all know how the amount fo space in a place doesn't actually remove that from being true. You still live in each others lap. You still know when what other people do what regularly.

I'm feeling restless, and my current arrangement is busy,
so I was wondering if you wanted to go few rounds. Whenever.

She doesn't say she'd prefer anytime that was soon. Now-ish, especially. She doesn't say why. Most of them don't know why. One person knows why. Two. But only one here. Why she wants to go as hard as possible at something, so that her training will just take over. So she can't think about it. Can't feel it. Can burn it out in the purity of action and contact just a little while.

(Before the desperation for even the pain and lie, for even a shred of anything not true, but still Claire will beat her. Even a ghost of Claire, that wasn't real. That gave her every fear and ever desperation in one. Again. And again. And again.)

The light spilling into the foyer makes it hard to notice the soft, golden glow behind her brother's eyes, standing in front of her. If they were somewhere darker, she'd immediately see the wrongness, be instantly on the kind of guard she'd never truly had to be with Diego. But it's so bright, it isn't noticeable here. "Are you really asking that, like it's a real question?" He quips with a slight smirk on his lips. Diego Hargreeves is few things, but 'ready to fight' is always, always one of them, even if it's in a more controlled, training sort of sense.

The fact that he'd just taken a shower doesn't matter. He's got regular sessions with both Klaus-- to help their brother actually hone some of those long-inactive skills into something genuinely usable-- and Derek, but he hasn't gone in for a round with Allison in awhile. Not that it had mattered in any battle, here or back home, they found themselves in the middle of together. They still worked together like a well-oiled machine. Like there hadn't been over a decade of time between them. Some things are just so muscle, bone, and instinct-deep in this family, even time can't erase them.

He doesn't even say another word, only nods his head and leads the way away from the front hall and toward their in-home practice space, already so well-used in their short time in this house. Probably unsurprising, honestly. If anything was going to be regular and common in a house full of Hargreeves, wouldn't it be this?

He tugs the overshirt he'd changed into off, leaving him in a muscle shirt and a pair of track pants. "Come at me, sister," he dares her, as he leans into a ready stance.

Edited 2019-10-22 17:09 (UTC)

Even if she hadn't before, it's always been clear why she'd choose him.

(Why you didn't instantly go to picking Luther, who was a great Drill Sargeant and might find his way to being a leader again, but who could stop all of them by just standing there, watching them break against the bulwark of him unless weapons came into it. Could pick them all off the ground with a single hand, send them flying with the same without a second thought. Had to treat gently even when sparring. Especially then. Not lose control. Never lose control.)

She and Diego had always been a good choice, a good team. Reckless, ruthless, willing to throw themselves almost without restrain at each other, in a way no one else could handle. Liked. Being so much in control of themselves, it ran the barren, bleeding edge of having no control, no hesitation, no mercy at all sometimes, and knowing the other could take it, could bring the same.

There's a swell of satisfaction that isn't even touched by sparring all the time that comes up in it. Something viscerally triumphant, and hungry, and relieved, and only really touched for a second all those months ago. They'd always been a good team where it came to this. When they get to the room, Allison doesn't drop anything. She's not in togs, just her usual outfit, but she is in boots, so she doesn't care. It's not like they hadn't trained for all circumstances to only be excuses they disregarded or used to their advantage.

Allison needs little reason more than the invitation to lunge.
Fuck waiting. She was so god damn tired of ~~everything~~ waiting.

Diego is always so ready to fight, it's the easiest thing for him to slip into, better than a glove or an old, comfy t-shirt. 'Fighter' is like a second skin to him, and when Allison lunges, the steps are automatic to get out of her reach.

The rest is poetic choreography of two people too equally trained and matched, and neither wanting to give even an inch to the other. Every hit is thrown hard, every dodge nearly a perfect evasion. They know each other so well, even with years stretching gone between them even knowing each other, there are times when moves are nearly predicted.

It's a long and drawn out dance between the two of them, but somewhere along with way, Diego's moves shifted, just the tiniest bit. A little less precision-perfect. A little more wild and messy. Something wormed its way into his head, and into every move he made, that made it just a little wrong. A little too hasty. Until it's one wrong step and he's pinned, staring up at his sister with an impressed expression.

This angle, this close, it's impossible to not see the soft golden glow in his eyes. "Damn, Allison." He grins up at her. "You got me good with that last one."

There's something just a little too rubbed raw in Allison. All of her moves are a sheer coiled visceral attack, with defense only barely appearing, only when it's required for blocking a blow that comes to close to scoring or staying on her feet, everything else is direct offensive. Everything else is a pouring out of everything that's been trapped under her skin, in her head, behind the cool, calm, collected, congenial smile of Allison Hargreeves.

It's good, but it's almost not good enough, and while she knows Diego has absolutely none of the reasons she does -- and knows absolutely none of those reasons, too; wouldn't; won't -- the feeling that they are off, out of balance is like a discordant note. One that strings along the same one that's had her out of sorts for a day and a half since getting off that train with Harry, wanting nothing more than to get on and stay on, no matter what it meant.

(Hating herself even more for the fact, it isn't true.

That she chose Claire, and getting off the train, which meant not picking her, too.
That she chose Claire, and said no to the chalice, which meant not picking her, too.
That she chose Claire, but listened to Diego about Vanya, which mean not picking her, too.)

There's triumph in the slam of her brother's back into the floor, but no quite enough. Not nearly enough. Because it all still feels off. Everything does. Making her brow furrow as she looked down at him, eyebrows raising a little, half-interested and a half just odd, when she hits send. What's up your eyes?

He shakes his head, "Dunno-- they were just like that when I woke up." It isn't a lie, not really. Because when the fog rolled in and he appeared, this is just how he came to exist. It was a waking up of sorts, and that makes it not a lie by technicality.

"I don't feel any different." That, though, isn't quite the truth. Sure, he still feels, remembers, thinks, moves, acts, talks like Diego Hargreeves. But only a piece of him. A part, but not a whole, not the collective as an entire person.

It all reads wrong, tension hovering inside her middle like heavy clouds giving a grey grumble, but it's not entirely something Allison pays attention to. What exactly Diego is lying about. Holding out on. Holding back on. It's not like she and Diego have ever come anything like clean with each other where it came to talking. How long would she have to go back to even find the last time it was like that? Before they were teenagers even?

Still she frowned a little at it, tipping her head from side to side, looking at the golden glow of his eyes.

Try not to explode. Or go crazy. Or whatever it is this one is going to do.
You never know how long it might be to figure out what caused it this time.

It's annoying how regularly things show up to mess up with them.

He laughs a little, and it's just a little too hollow to even sound right. The shadow doesn't have any of the humor Diego has, just an echo of it that hits just a little off-key.

Still. She only seems to think it's some weird thing come to do something to them, the way it always seems to keep happening to them, and the rest of the displaced Porter City residents. He takes it for a kind of win, and nudges her off of him so he can get up.

"What's got you so tense anyway?" Not like there are a million things to pick from to call it the central issue, but it begs to be asked all the same. She was pure ferocity in that match.

Diego's never been funny, at least not to anyone who wasn't Diego, but even so, the sound of that laugh is strange. Stranger than the incredibly familiar arrogant half-laugh that he usually rolls with. Still, Allison rolls with easy grace, not lost in the last ten years in the slightest, to her feet, with a hand out to pivot and help him up. They are easy shoes to slip right back into. The give and take of one of these rooms, of these rounds.

There's a vague shrug of her shoulders, even if her skin is prickling a little too much at the spotlight.

This place. New day, same song.

"You sure that's it?" He arches a brow at her, letting his eyes sweep over her, as if assessing her mental state by looking at her unflappable outer self. Allison had always been good at covering any turmoil under the surface, but it's even easier now, with that Porter-given power of eternal perfection.

He takes a ready stance again, ready to go another round and makes a slight wave with his fingers. "Because that was definitely a level above on the ruthless scale, sis."

Allison backed up, weight shifting, even as something about having to put anything into words made it more grating. It wasn't something she wanted to talk about. It wasn't something she wanted to have words about. It was almost breathless clear enough to be zoned when she had to thnk of only her body. She hated that this place thought it was allowed to keep using all she had left in the deepest, dark boxes of herself.

She brought her arms up, weight and tension shifting as she watched his own posture and postion, for the faintest hint of pre-movement. It all has to go somewhere eventually, doesn't it.

"Guess so." Diego's okay with not having words-- this is a language they all learned to speak from as soon as they were steady enough on their feet and had enough sense of self to listen to directives. One might say that it was their first one.

He shifts his weight and circles slowly, watching her just as much as she is him, waiting for that micromovement to signal what she might do. Except Diego is impatient, he moves first, taking a jab toward her.

After everything that had happened at the party, Luther had actually been content to stick to the everyday banalities of his day job. Report in. Pick up furniture. Televator to the target location. Place everything in the spot where it's supposed to be. Feel the small satisfaction of a simple job well-done at the end of the day, like real-life Tetris.

But their new world has no intention on letting things stay peaceful, and the dimensional anomalies continue; even in their disturbances, though, they offer something like the weirdnesses they'd experienced back home. It's like being back in the Academy, a bit, even though they aren't. So when Luther hears on the radio (and of course he still listens to the radio) about a literal zombie outbreak in a small North Carolina town, he goes hunting through the house until he finds Diego.

(At least, a version of Diego.)

"Hey. Are you busy?" Doesn't matter. "There's trouble out in the suburbs. I think we should do something about it."

He turns when he hears the familiar rumble of his brother's voice, always a sort of command in it that Diego can never quite ignore. The kind of touch of something that causes a soldier to fall in line. He hates it, sometimes. A lot more often than he might even admit, because of the level of control it means Luther has over him, even if it's unintentional. He's not sure it always is.

"Um," he turns toward Number One. "What kind of trouble?"

"Zombies," Luther says, even as he's aware just how bizarre that sounds, his voice a little sheepish. But they've fought strange water zombies in this universe before, so perhaps it's not that much of a leap.

"Not like the Lake Tahoe ones. More like the ones the Masons posted about recently. They've been cropping up all over in isolated pockets."

"Of course," he huffs, an almost annoyed sound. Couldn't they at least get less... repetitive threats to face? This was hardly new, especially only a few months out from the Tahoe problem.

But... Well.

"You sure you even need me?" There's something so off about a question like that even passing his lips, something diametrically wrong, somehow. Diego rarely ever shows anything even vaguely shaped like nerves to anyone on the surface. "Am I even who you want out there with you, or just who's convenient because I'm who you came across first in the house?"

"I—"

Luther's mouth is already open, before he grinds to a halt and snaps it shut again, thrown for a loop. He'd gone to Diego because out of all of them, Diego was the one who'd kept closest to their training, to staying a hero and diving recklessly into danger to save people. They were on the same page about it, to the extent of the idiot even going out and doing it unregistered. He always ran straight towards trouble, blades first.

So this question, this reluctance, it just doesn't compute, and Luther stares at him.

"What, do you have something better to do?" Sarcastic. "A hot date or something? There's trouble, Diego. We go fix it. That's what we do."

Out of all the siblings, this was the last one he'd expect to have to talk into it.

The reluctance doesn't even feel right to Diego. This is what he does, has always done, but somehow it's different, suddenly. Why? He can't explain it, or won't, perhaps. Instead he just stares at Luther and says, "You don't need me, though. Not really. You haven't in a really. long. time."

The words are simple. Short. Clipped. But they carry a weight that seems discordant to the rest. Out of step and off-balance in ways Diego really ever allows himself to be seen as. Something is definitely wrong. That wrongness is starting to show in more than just his words and the way he holds himself, too, something in his eyes. Or maybe it's just reflection of the sun from the window, right?

Luther's still staring, his jaw taut; biting back on all the comebacks that might've slipped their reins and rolled out if he had a quicker tongue and if he was anything more like Diego in that respect. What crawled up your ass and died.

In the end, it's just a simple question instead: "What's your problem today?" A fair question for Diego most days, honestly, but Luther's left scrounging his memory, trying to pinpoint what he said to Diego last time they spoke, what Luther might've said or done to accidentally piss him off.

And, oddly, this time there's actually nothing.

"You woke up on the wrong side of the bed or something?"

Still trying to sidestep the thing Diego brought up, because it feels too much like something real and serious, and a subject neither of them try to broach much. (But of course, today isn't a usual day, and little does he know this isn't the usual Diego—)

"Nothing," he snaps, and it's true, really. Nothing Luther had done or said recently could possibly land them here. It's years upon years of things out of their control, and of pressed upon roles. And the fact that this isn't the proper version of his brother certainly makes things all the more different. "I just don't think you actually need me. You're really good at choosing for convenience sometimes."

Luther exhales through his teeth, rolls his eyes a little. The smallest signs of irritation nipping at him.

"You're Number Two, Number Two," he says, and it's hard to tell exactly what tone he means to take with that. But he tries to clarify a second later: "That means you're my second-in-command. My lieutenant. I go to you." ... All those times he didn't go to Allison, anyway, which were far more plentiful.

"We all need each other. What makes you think it's convenience?"

Everything after that double repetition of his number, his place in line, his rank may as well have fallen on deaf ears for all the good that it does Diego in this moment. Those words-- that name-- only serves to make him absolutely explode, suddenly jumping from mild irritation to irrationally provocation.

"Goddamit, Luther, does it always have to come down to that for you? Don't throw my rank in my face! Don't you ever get tired of it?" He doesn't notice (or maybe he doesn't care) that his eyes are glowing a bright gold at this point, and throws one hand up in a dismissive wave, face all scrunched up in disbelief, "And stop trying placate me, because I think we all know that if it really came down to it, you'd choose Allison, but you're still too faithful to Dad's bullshit to change it after it's been this way our entire lives."

Those words hit their mark, just like Diego intended them to. He can see the muscle leap in Luther's jaw, the tightening in his neck. Luther knows exactly how true it is, how sore that still-healing wound was, and yet he still tries to deny it and spit back, "The man is dead, I'm not really sure how I can—"

But then.

The eyes. Luther's quick to notice when things are different about his teammates and siblings in particular, considering they were the only seven human beings he'd grown up knowing, his entire formative life. Diego's eyes flare gold and Luther's own blue eyes widen, then narrow in confusion. Suspicion.

It could be an illness. A fever, maybe. Stranger things have happened here in this world.

"What's wrong with you?"

"Nothing!" He shouts, all defenses on their highest settings. "I'm just sick of this. I am so tired of being second rate! It is all I have ever been my entire life. And you are always the first one to bring it all into focus."

Maybe it's stupid-- no, actually, it's definitely stupid, not to mention pointless-- but the resentment is leading at this point. Diego marches up and shoves Luther, hard. Except it doesn't do him one wit of good, because his brother is as solid as a rock.

Luther just looks... exasperated, unimpressed at the sheer waste of time, and that in itself is probably the most infuriating thing for Diego. How completely unaffected Luther is by the shove, how it glances off him like a gnat nipping at a mountain.

"The more you yap about it, Diego, the more time we're wasting time where you could be doing something useful and helping me save the day," he says, the irritation rising in his own voice — and for a moment, despite all his best efforts, old instinct rears its head and Luther's voice sounds like a pitch-perfect reproduction of Reginald's tone, all withering scorn. He'd been taught to copy it, to echo it. That voice and all its criticism had burrowed its way deep under his super-durable skin like it had the rest of them, taking up residence where blades and bullets couldn't.

"Shut up! For one fucking second-- just... stop trying to be Dad!" He shouts, desperate and biting in a way that Diego can always have at the tip of his fingers in an instant. "You're not him. You're never going to be. And I can't believe you still want to be, after everything!"

Those eyes, though. They just seem to burn brighter, more intense, the more emotional he gets. The anger fueling whatever is affecting him right now.

This is not, at all, what he expected when he'd gone seeking out Diego to ask him to tag along on this mission. It was a simple thing. He just wanted to fight some zombies!!

As ever, Diego goes for the metaphorical jugular and squarely hits his mark. The words drive the breath out of Luther in a way that the shove hadn't, in a way that even his knives never could have. Maybe that's why Diego developed that acid tongue. To have a weapon that could actually get under that inhumanly tough skin.

Stop trying to be Dad. You're not him. You've never going to be.

Luther's hand snaps out, lodges around Diego's neck, lifts him briefly off the floor. "What," he says, slow and steely, each word gritted through his teeth: "the fuck, is wrong, with your eyes."

It's easier to focus on that than the words. What he said.

There's a choked up bubble of laughter that escapes him around the grip Luther has on his throat, and his next words seem to have a double, an echo, as they churn out of him. "Go ahead and do it, Luther." A nearly sinister smirk spreads across his lips. "Be the monster." It's spoken like a dare-- go ahead, kill him, see what he cares.

And he could. He could. That's the thing. All it would take is a slightly too-hard flex of Luther's thick fingers, and he could pinch Diego's aorta shut, collapse it. Snap his spine. Or simply press inexorably harder and harder until he suffocated all the breath out of his brother, like he had done to Vanya—

Luther's aware of how little it would take. Each iota of force he has at his possession, and knowing what amount would kill an enemy. How many years he's carefully-honed his control and strength, so that there's rarely a slip anymore, not a loss of that tight rein he has over himself.

And yet. How easily he could let that all go, and instead simply pull the other man apart. How fragile human bodies are. They're just a loose collection of sinew and blood and bone. He could crack it open, spill that blood on the floor.

The thoughts come automatically, just like their father trained him to — those ruthless calculations, how to apply that strength to most lethal force — but then through the ringing in his ears, Luther hears that word monster and he stops instead. Shoves Diego against the wall, driving the breath out of him, but then drops him back to the ground. Luther's expression furious, but also— confused. Suspicious. They've fought before, they always fight, and yet...

"Something's up with you," he says.

He slides down the wall and takes a long moment to catch the breath that Luther had knocked out of him. But he looks more amused than anything else, staring up at the looming figure several feet away with a smirk on his face.

He gets to his feet again a few minutes later. "Oh, noticed that, did you?" He asks with a laugh, and it sounds so odd and sinister with that weird echo that makes it all sound doubled and reverberated. "I wondered when you might catch up."

This is not his brother.

Luther's brain immediately snaps into action mode, starts sifting through plans and contingencies. Either Diego's possessed, or maybe this is a doppelganger, or—

With those strangely-glowing eyes, Luther's money is on possessed, which means he has no fucking idea what to do about this. Maybe Klaus would be able to take a crack at it, but god, demonic possession isn't really up his wheelhouse, either—

He needs to knock Diego out, tie him up, buy themselves some extra time to figure this out.

He's getting real tired of knocking out his siblings.

"What did you do with Diego?" he demands, before he suddenly lunges forward and tries to catch the yellow-eyed man in a proper grapple. With that forewarning, though, he's not as quick as Diego — the other man is lean and swift where Luther's all brute strength.

Luther is all force, the kind that can take down buildings with little effort if he so chose, but the sacrifice in that power is speed-- and while the other man does manage to wrangle this Not-Diego into a tussle, it's a short one. A bit of a back and forth between them before he gains enough purchase to slip just outside of Luther's grip. And that's all he needs to dart around his Real's brother and scamper away. Running God-knows-where to cause more havoc, surely.

Luther goes haring after him — or at least tries to, and lets loose an uncharacteristic "Fuck" as he collides with Diego's bedroom doorway instead. Almost rips the frame out of the wall just with the sheer force of his impact (he doesn't even feel it, himself), before he squeezes himself through and goes thudding through the house after his not-brother. He's slow, and made even slower by his attempts to not break every single damned thing he passes in their house.

By the time he's gotten out to the landing, down the stairs, the front door is already slamming shut and Diego is gone, just gone, as if he was never there.

Luther's left standing in the foyer, his hand on the banister.

"What the fuck," he breathes.

It doesn't take long for Diego to realize there's some weird, golden-eyed copy of himself running around. Some asking around points to it being part of the reality-falling-apart nonsense going on lately. And here he'd been hoping he could avoid being hit by any of it.

Apparently, he's supposed to accept that part of himself to make it stop. But that's so much easier said than done. He's completely aware of everything the doppelganger version has said every time he's come across him--

"Weak and pathetic and never going to amount to anything."

"What kind of brother can't talk to a sister, or stop his brother from killing himself from the inside out?"

"Police Academy? You really think you can handle another rejection?"

"You were never good enough, and that still hasn't changed in thirty years. And it probably never will."

but apparently awareness isn't the same as acceptance and the golden-eyed jerk is still hanging around to taunt him whenever he sees fit, whether it's by impersonating him elsewhere or literally hanging around and annoying the hell out of Diego with his insults.

What he didn't know is that there could be effects on him personally if he refused to accept those insecurities that were running around with his face. This is how he's ended up in the middle of a shift at work, randomly and out of nowhere stuck in a pit of quicksand.

He knows enough to know that struggling really won't help matters, but he's about waist deep and not looking like he is getting out of this particular predicament any time soon.

"Well, fuck." he mutters under his breath to himself.

{Got a war going on in my head [OPEN]

{Yeah I'm no stranger to the shadow of doubt » Shadow Shenanigans » Around the city of Nonah

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lmk if this is too assume-y/godmod-y/too quick of a run through-summary?

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idk how to end this but maybe they grapple for a bit but then persona!diego flees/escapes??

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end

{More and more I feel less and less - real!Diego during Shadow shenanigans » Around Nonah

{No don't drop me now, I'll sink into the underground » Jeopardy Mall » Plot end/Shadow destructio