Hello! It's been way too long; it was not my intention to take this long of a break, but inspiration and time have been in short supply lately. I can't believe we're in the home stretch before the next season drops!
Also, I wanted to make a quick note about the recent announcement that Viktor (formerly Vanya) will be coming out as trans in the upcoming season. I'm excited to see where they take this character, and I know Elliot will do an amazing job as always. Since this will presumably be addressed in-depth in the upcoming season and I am not a trans person, I don't feel that it's within the scope of this story to incorporate that arc here. Plus, since this is specifically a season two AU, it technically hasn't happened in the story yet. I wanted to note upfront that I'll still be referring to Viktor as Vanya and using she/her pronouns, but I fully support Elliot Page and the rest of the show in this decision.
1961
"…Here is the place, my lord. Good my lord, enter. The tyranny of the open night's too rough for nature to endure."
The tentative voices of Ray's 100-level students bounced around the lecture hall, gathering awkwardness in the otherwise-silent room.
"Thou think'st 'tis much that this contentious storm invades us to the skin. So 'tis thee…"
Allison should have realized that it would be Shakespeare. Why hadn't she realized that it would be Shakespeare? A longtime "fan favorite" and a gen-ed class? Of course it would be him. But the fact that it was King Lear of all the Bard's plays felt like a personal attack. Even more so that the students around her mostly had their heads down, chins resting on a fist as they followed along in their copy while their two tentative classmates stumbled through Kent's and Lear's parts.
"…O, that way madness lies. Let me shun that. No more of that."
At the front of a crowded lecture hall, surrounded by oblivious, falling-asleep students, Allison had to resist the urge to close her eyes. If she hadn't been sent sixty years into the past, a part of her would definitely be wondering if this was Dad's posthumous revenge. "You can't forget me, Number 3." The old king who just wanted to love his daughters but was actively being scammed by two of them and didn't trust the sincere third. An old fool.
She'd told herself over and over again for the past month that she didn't feel bad for Dad. Not before they found out he'd essentially killed himself and certainly not after. But sitting here half-mute as the familiar words washed over her certainly wasn't doing anything good for the strange mixture of grief and anger she did feel and didn't know how to shake.
She wasn't sure where Ray had decided to cut the scene off, but the next thing she knew, students were rustling around and gathering their things.
"Do the reading, please!" Ray called to the retreating students as Allison rose and made her way up to the podium. Ray paused in packing his materials in his bag, smiling at her expectantly, palms open, waiting.
"Not bad," she rasped.
He snorted, eyes twinkling, and slung the strap over his shoulder, motioning for her to follow him toward the door at the front of the auditorium. It deposited them in a small hallway on the backside of the building, and, to Allison's surprise, was only about twenty steps away from his office.
This felt more normal—pausing a moment so he could get the lights before following him inside, twirling the old office chair he had to seat students during office hours, collapsing into their respective chairs in sync. Allison had only been in his office a handful of times before—and very occasionally after—sessions with Sheila, and it felt like a cozier, less-pretentious version of Dad's study. There were still weird, unnecessary knickknacks on the overcrowded bookshelves along the back wall and folders strewn across his messy desk. But when Allison listened to Ray talk, too tired from a long day at the salon to utter more than a few mhmms to show she was listening, or came and went to get them coffee from the commissary, or even simply met his eyes as they silently went about their own tasks, it all felt completely different.
This was a place where she was wanted. Where she could enter or exit at will with nothing more than a wave hello or goodbye. Where Ray smiled and so did she.
Now, Allison slumped back in the chair and watched Ray fiddle with a stack of essays from one of his 400-level courses. The one on top was partially marked up. Allison kept trying to convince him to slow down a little. He graded his stuff faster than any of her university professors ever had.
"So. King Lear."
"Yeah," Ray sighed, resting his elbow on his desk. "My favorite professor in college warned me that I'd get sick of teaching Romeo and Juliet within a couple of years. I should have known better than to think I wouldn't get tired of fair Verona. I started rotating plays every year instead. The worst part is, I still miss it in the years I'm not teaching it."
Allison snorted, half-smiling as Ray reached into his bag and produced a stack of letters. He must have stopped at his faculty mailbox earlier. She watched him begin to sort through them. "It's been my experience that high school covers that one pretty well. And, you know, all of society."
It was embarrassing and toeing the line on cringey to think back on how much she'd loved these over-the-top tragedies during her teen years. She'd just been so angry. At Dad for being a monolithic asshole. At the world outside the Academy for being so messed up that it constantly needed saving. At how much she wished she had a normal life. And then it had all just…led to nothing. Everyone had left except Luther, and when it came to their unsure relationship, they'd done what they always did and chose anything but each other.
"Exactly! Who wasn't swooning during that balcony scene?" He was wearing a shit-eating grin even before he looked up to see her deadpan expression, and his smile only got more sarcastic at her annoyance. "'Prodigious birth of love it is to me. That I must love a loathèd enemy.'"
"Yeah, whatever," Allison waved his needling off. That line wasn't even from that scene. Her voice was scratchy already from overuse, but she couldn't help adding, "'A rhyme I learned even now of one I danced withal.'"
Ray stared at her for a moment before reaching for a thick-spined book in the stack he kept in one corner of his desk. Glancing up at her intermittently, he flipped to a page, one finger running down it swiftly before he looked up at her, presumably having found the lines they'd just quoted to each other. He leaned back in his seat, looking slightly dumbfounded. "You just…knew that."
"You had to check that I'd gotten it right?" Technically, there was a line in between (the nurse's), but that wasn't as interesting. Allison had always been partial to Juliet's panic in this part of the story as she slowly came to realize that she'd danced with the absolute wrong person and was probably, definitely, now screwed. It was a fun arc to act out; Shakespeare was nothing if not a master of digging into the feels.
"It's…one of the less popular ones…"
She shrugged. "It's famous enough. Maybe you should go back to teaching this every year."
Ray gave her another of his quizzical looks. The one that said, I'm a teacher, and I smell bullshit, but I'm also aware that you're an adult, so I'll leave it there for now.
And then they both burst into laughter.
Before her laugh could turn into a coughing fit, Allison cleared her throat and sat forward. "Have you covered OP with them yet? Or is that only in your upper-level classes?"
Ray's laughter died at the same moment Allison realized her mistake. But it was too late; Ray had already locked his jaws on the unfamiliar term. "Covered what?"
"Well, I…" her voice was fading in and out as she fumbled, trying to pull a mask up fast enough. "OP. It means 'original pronunciation.' It's a—it's a theater thing." Which wouldn't exist in a well-known capacity until the 2000s. Shit, shit, shit.
If Ray noticed that her voice was straining, he didn't care to acknowledge it. "I've never heard of changing the pronunciation…"
"I was a theater major. In college. After I graduated, I got my start doing small productions while I was still…am still trying to break into the industry. OP is just…it's a way of performing Shakespeare's works as they may have been pronounced during his lifetime. It's…it's nothing…" Her throat felt raw in a way it hadn't since her first week in Dallas.
It didn't help that Ray's eyebrows were scrunched together like he was trying to puzzle out what (relatively little) Allison had just told him.
"You're an actress?"
"I…" She knew she was giving him a panicked look. Get it together. Get it together. "Yes."
Ray was still examining her way too closely, and Allison was ashamed to realize just how desperately she wanted this to work; she wanted him to drop it so she could keep coming back here to him, to Sheila, to this comfortable little bubble she'd found herself in.
"It's nothing, Ray."
He could have said he didn't believe her, and it was obvious he didn't. But instead he jumped over that part and leaned forward. "So you're telling me you've been in professional productions?"
"Well, yeah, but I haven't done one in, like, five years." She'd moved on to the screen after that. It was getting harder and harder to talk. Every word hurt. "And I'm not a stage actor."
"Anymore," Ray added, cocking his head like he already knew he'd summed it up right, which he had.
"Anymore," Allison echoed, her voice scratching almost uncontrollably across the syllables.
Ray just nodded, going quiet as if he'd finally come back to himself enough to realize that she was in pain. His tone was too nonchalant as he turned toward his desk and reached for the 400-level essay pile. "Well, you're always welcome to sit in on classes."
Allison should have said no immediately. Or at least shook her head. Ray knew something was up. This was clearly a form of keeping his friends close and his enemies closer. But she didn't. She couldn't. Instead, she just said "Thanks" so quietly she could barely hear it herself.
000
1962
It was late in the afternoon by the time they reached the grocery store near their motel, and Luther was just about to suggest that Vanya should pick their fruit this time since she hadn't really touched the Golden Delicious apples he'd gotten, but she was already walking further into the aisles, shouldering silently past a few people leaving, and disappearing into the soups and stuffing mixes without so much as an "I'll be back."
Luther stared after her for a moment, surprised, before grabbing a cart, tossing in his bag of new clothes, and wheeling it around to head for the cereal.
If Vanya needed some space, he was more than happy to let her wander without him. They'd been spending a lot of time together lately, and the extent to which he'd spiraled in the last few weeks was just starting to settle over him. Having an emotional crisis in a small motel room in front of another person was much different than having one in the cavernous, empty Academy, and it was all he could do to distract himself from thinking about what his breakdown must have looked like to her.
Even worse, he'd vowed to take care of them when they'd first arrived, and so far he was doing a shit job. It was Vanya who'd stepped up and pulled him out of an all-too-familiar abyss. Luther rounded the cereal aisle, desperately trying to push down his mounting embarrassment. After three weeks of floating in near-total apathy, the sudden onrush of feelings and regrets made it hard to breathe, hard to focus. He had to blink a few times before he finally returned to himself enough to dump some Cocoa Puffs and Frosted Flakes into the cart.
He couldn't do this again. It wasn't just him anymore; someone else was depending on him.
He was surprised a moment later to feel the words ring true the way his post-accident pep talks in his claustrophobic bed hadn't. Granted, a part of this was probably because he was directly responsible for this situation. That was another truth that had pushed down on him—a never-ending press of heavier and bigger rocks.
After a few moments to let the mounting embarrassment settle again, he was able to drag his thoughts away enough to start mentally calculating how much fruit and cereal they could load up on and still have enough to splurge on a loaf of bread, some peanut butter, and a bag of marshmallows. He'd been thinking about Five's sandwiches over the last few days; they'd floated in and out of his mind amid heavier, darker thoughts like a winking lighthouse beacon. And since he would be seeking a job to make more money anyway, this was a good opportunity to let their hair down a little.
In the next aisle over, he found the peanut butter and, a ways down, a small bag of mini marshmallows tucked in between pie crusts and cocoa powder. They—or, rather, Five—always used to make sure Mom or Pogo got the jumbo marshmallows, but these smaller ones would do.
Luther turned, about to go in search of bread, and immediately had to pull up short to avoid running into the little boy that had stopped on the opposite side of the aisle from him and was looking up at box mixes on a shelf that was way too high for him to reach.
"Sorry, didn't mean to almost run into you." Luther swiveled the cart around completely and, after a moment's lack of response, carefully stepped up beside him. "Can I get one of these down for you?"
The boy's focus gradually moved to him and he blinked once, as if he was just noticing that there was someone next to him.
Luther smiled. "Do you—I can hand you whichever one you want."
More blinking and silence. Then the boy looked back up at the boxes as if Luther hadn't spoken.
"Um…" Luther tried to follow his line of sight. It appeared he was specifically looking up at the flavors of muffins they had, and after a glance back down, Luther pointed to the chocolate one nearest him. "What about chocolate? Do you like chocolate ones?"
No reaction.
His finger moved to the ones next to it. "Blueberry?"
No reaction.
"Ooh, what about cinnamon?"
The boy's eyes flicked to his, and his expression shifted slightly from vaguely unsure to almost hopeful. At Luther's smile, he clapped his hands together once.
"Good choice." Luther grabbed the box and passed it to him. A quick glance to either side of them confirmed that the aisle they were standing in was empty, which meant that whoever this boy had come with had either sent him to grab something or they'd gotten separated. Either way, he was really too young to be wandering on his own.
"Hey, let's go find your family, okay?" Luther offered his hand and, a moment later, the boy reached back for him.
They headed toward the cash registers together, Luther steering the cart with one hand and every few steps glancing down at the honey-blonde top of the boy's head. He couldn't be more than eight or nine.
When they reached the front, Luther cast his eyes around once, not really expecting to see anyone looking back, and then flagged down a passing bag boy. "Hi, sorry, do you have a PA system?"
"PA…?"
"To make an announcement. I think this boy got separated from his parents. I'm sure they're around here, but…"
"Harlan!" The sharp voice cut right through the rest of Luther's question, and he barely had time to turn toward the sound when the boy—Harlan, apparently—let go of his hand and ran to meet the approaching woman halfway, already shoving the muffin box into her hands.
"Uh, thanks anyway," Luther nodded to the bag boy, whose eyes had already glazed over. A moment later he'd dematerialized in the direction of the semi-busy checkouts, and Luther turned back to Harlan and his mother.
She was crouched down, the box forgotten on the floor, and was gently squeezing Harlan's upper arms, talking swiftly to him eye-to-eye. Luther was well aware that what he lacked in book smarts he didn't make up for in emotional intelligence, but it wasn't hard to guess at her feelings as she finally seemed to notice him standing there and straightened up, one hand on Harlan's shoulder, the other yanking irritably at the hem of her gray pencil skirt.
"You found my son?"
"Yeah, he was just…" Luther motioned vaguely, feeling the usual creeping panic of a parental figure even slightly annoyed with him, even if the woman was probably about his age. "…in the baking aisle."
He was half-waiting for her to snap back that she'd figured that part out already, but for a moment, all she did was purse her lips a little and give him a once over. Then she nodded. "Thanks."
"Of course." He tried to give her a reassuring smile and motioned to the muffin box, which was still on the floor. "I don't know if that's the one you sent him to get, but that was the one he picked out."
"I…oh." She looked down at it as if she'd completely forgotten.
Which was about when Luther's stupid hero complex kicked in and he was asking, "Are you okay?" before he could stop himself. Of course she wasn't okay. She'd obviously lost track of her son for a few minutes and was still getting over her panic.
The look she pinned him with when she looked up a second later agreed. And time seemed to slow for a couple of stretched-out seconds while he waited for her to snap at him that she was fine, that he should just go. He was already getting ready to nod his assent…
Then her anger seemed to melt away, and her shoulders slumped a little. The hand that was holding Harlan's let go and reached out toward him. "Yes. I am. I'm sorry… I'm just… I'm Sissy."
"Luther." He took her extended hand for a moment, then let go. Holding Harlan's hand had felt like the right thing to do, but around other adults who would pick up that something wasn't right more quickly… Now that he thought about it, this may already be the longest casual interaction he'd had with a stranger in the last four, five years. It didn't seem possible that it had been that long.
Sissy glanced down at Harlan once. "Really, thank you. It's been a long day."
"Yeah, no problem. It...it has," he huffed a tired laugh. Now that she'd mentioned it, he was absolutely exhausted. And it was that thought that triggered the realization he'd forgotten about Vanya for the last few minutes. Reflexively, Luther glanced around them, hoping to see her serious brown eyes staring back at him. They weren't, no surprise, and when his gaze swung back to Sissy, she was staring at him with her eyebrows drawn together. He felt the beginning heat of a blush on his cheeks. "Sorry. I just realized…my sister…I should go find her."
"Oh," Sissy blinked at him. "Of course…"
"I just…we're not from here, and I usually do the shopping, so she hasn't been here yet… We're the same age and everything; it's just, I don't want her to think I forgot about her, and I'm not sure where she disappeared off to…" Now his blush was inescapable. He knew he'd already crossed over the threshold from awkward to weird, and Sissy wouldn't understand why he'd feel guilty about forgetting about his sister's existence for even a few minutes… "I mean… That is, if you're alright."
Sissy's eyebrows had risen in something akin to amused surprise while he'd been stumbling over himself, and it brought his panicking mind to a slow but sure stop. Her tone was almost laughing as she said, "I can tell you're not from around here." She carded her fingers through Harlan's hair. "And we're just fine, Luther. You go find your sister."
"I…thanks." He breathed out a relieved sigh and offered her a sheepish smile. "We've just… been spending a lot of time together lately, so it feels weird to have split up here." Which also sounded really weird. He was weird. She'd probably already realized that. It was too late to backtrack.
"You're close." She was nodding, still smiling, somehow.
"…Sort of." He had no idea how to talk about them, actually. You don't even know Vanya. Why would you? You've been ignoring her here just like you did before. Bad brother… Bad brother… Bad brother… "We just lost our father about a month ago, so it's been…an adjustment."
Her smile dropped immediately. "Oh…Luther, I am so sorry."
"It's okay." He couldn't quite stop a nervous laugh from bubbling up. "We weren't close to him or anything. But it was still…sad."
There was a beat, and then, "Yeah." Sissy was nodding, looking him up and down like she hadn't really taken a good look at him yet. Luther couldn't help it; he shifted uncomfortably.
When she met his eyes again, though, he could have sworn there was something there, almost an echo of his own elusive, unnamable feelings about Dad. Then they were both smiling a little in acknowledgement that there was nothing funny about this and that it was sad and also other things too, and for some reason, Luther felt like he could breathe for the first time in he didn't know how long.
"Hey." Vanya's flat voice broke the brief silence, and Luther looked down to see her placing a bunch of bananas in the cart along with a small can of something he didn't recognize and an unmistakable package of Oreos.
Sissy looked between them once before smiling at Vanya. "Hi there, I'm Sissy. This is Harlan."
Vanya barely glanced at them. "Hi."
Luther just stopped himself from wincing at her clipped tone. That was definitely his cue. "We should get going. It was nice to meet you both." Luther smiled at them as he began herding Vanya toward the registers.
"It was nice to meet you too." Sissy gave him one last semi-knowing smile and then began gathering Harlan and the muffin box and her other groceries.
He glanced back a few seconds later, but they were gone.
000
1961
Later that night, lying in bed still feeling half-panicked, Allison realized with a jolt that she probably could have done it. Her voice was technically working again. She could have used her power and reset her conversation with Ray. It hadn't even crossed her mind to try it.
Of course, the immediate thought following this realization was that she didn't actually know if her power was back. And the only way to find out was to…
To her even greater surprise and considerable relief, Allison's first reaction to that thought was to flinch away from it. She'd gone almost a month now without even really thinking about her power. For as often as her mind was on her voice—worrying over it, testing it, cautiously using it—it hadn't even occurred to her that speaking again meant having this other part of her back.
It gave her a rush of hope that she hadn't felt in a decade. Maybe…maybe she could start over again. She could stop her power's grip here and now, quit cold turkey. She'd already gotten a much better start than when she'd promised herself the first time as an emotionally exhausted, red-eyed, eighteen-year-old leaving home, family, first love, and the only "normalcy" she'd ever known.
Allison couldn't count how often she'd thought of that younger version of herself and wished she could reach back in time to shake her until some sense finally rattled free. It usually hurt to think about because it inevitably led to realizing she didn't actually want to time travel even if she could because of what had happened to…
Five. It was okay. She could think his name now. She had to keep reminding herself of that. He was alive and out there somewhere looking for them. Again. And Allison was older now and knew more than she'd have thought possible.
She rolled over away from the streetlight-washed windowsill and stared at the darkened wall. She missed Claire. She missed her family. And a not-inconsiderable part of her missed life before all of this happened. For as messed up as everything had been, at least it wasn't this.
At least back then she would have been smart enough to not tell Ray before she left his office that she'd try to get off early on Wednesday so she could attend his next class. Wouldn't have felt like it was the right thing to do even as he grinned and contentedly leaned back in his seat like he even understood a small fraction of what he was getting himself into with her. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. On both their parts, really.
And that was the other difference between life before and after what she'd taken to calling the "Harold-fucking-pocalypse." Taking risks like this didn't seem like as big of a deal as it had before. Whether that was because she'd arrived alone to an unfamiliar time and place and now had to navigate this world of new people and escalated prejudices or simply because her slate had been unintentionally wiped clean and she'd been away from her old life (and habits) for long enough now, she didn't know.
Sometime during her mulling, her body had begun relaxing by degrees, slowly sinking down toward sleep. Her drowsy mind, on the edge of consciousness, made one last attempt to remind her that she didn't belong here, would never fully belong here. But the thought was swiftly followed by her new friends' faces: Odessa and Ray, Sheila, Miles, and the ladies from the salon.
Maybe it was okay if she wasn't going to be here forever. Because whatever happened, she couldn't—didn't want to—do this alone. And for the first time in a long time, Allison fell asleep secure in the knowledge that she didn't have to.
Ta-da! Shakespearean drama as the summary promised! "Original pronunciation" is a totally real thing and is very cool. (I simplified the description a bit for the sake of dialogue, so don't come for me!) The two guys at the forefront of figuring out OP are a father and son duo: David and Ben Crystal. Highly recommend looking into it if you're so inclined.
I had been planning to include more of Diego's shenanigans as well, but this chapter was getting way too long, and I need a little more time to work on his section.
Thank you, Jess and Katie! And thank you for reading!