8:43am, Tuesday August 13th, 2019

It's Ben who alerts him to the trouble.

He appears in Luther's room limned in blue light, looking panicked and wild-eyed and Luther is instantly on point, muscles tensed for danger. Ben would never come to him like this unless something was terribly wrong.

Sadly, his instincts are dead-on (hah).

"It's Five! We nee-" Ben starts, vanishing before he could finish and Luther doesn't waste time pondering the rest of the message. There's two flights of stairs, eighteen steps and a couple hallways between his room and Five's bedroom in the attic. He makes it in about twenty seconds, which is ten seconds sooner than it takes Five to finish strangling their brother to death.

They're on the floor, Five's hands locked around Klaus' throat, the later's face already turning from scarlet to purple and thank god (thank god) they had long ago removed anything that could be used as a weapon. No cords, no neckties, no hangers. The room was bare, strictly utilitarian. Even the food came with paper plates and plastic spoons these days. It probably wasn't helping his mental state but they hadn't had a choice.

Five had been trained to kill, and it seemed to be one of the few things he hadn't forgotten. In any case, they weren't going to risk another suicide attempt. It was sheer luck the first one had failed, and they wouldn't be that fortunate again.

If you could call this 'fortunate'.

"Five! Stop it!" Luther throws himself on top of them, grabbing Five's wrists and prying his hands from around Klaus' neck. Five fights him for every inch but when it comes to brute strength he's hopelessly outmatched. Luther pulls him back, massive arms locking around his thin frame, keeping him pinned. Klaus takes a deep, ragged breath that whistles at the end and falls into a violent retching, coughing fit. There are bruises on his neck the shape of fingerprints.

Five is still struggling in his grip but beginning to tire. Luther looks over at Klaus, worry creasing his face as his brother struggled not to vomit. "You okay?"

Klaus is too busy breathing to answer with words but gives him a weak thumbs up.

"Can you get mom?" he asks but Klaus is already dragging himself to his feet with a nod, silent understanding passing between them. Five growls like an animal and mutters something about mission directives. Luther sighs and tips his head against the wall, waiting for the last of the fight to go out of him. "Tell her to bring the Haldol. And...and the chloroform."

It's going to be one of those days...

"I'm not sure that's going to help your throat," Luther says, nodding at the cigarette between Klaus' fingers. It's the kitchen again. They congregate here a lot these days and Luther isn't sure if that's because it's the furthest room from the attic or not.

Klaus takes a drag just to spite him and winces as it sends him into another coughing fit. " 's fine," he wheezes and Luther just sighs, sliding a mug of honey and lemon tea over to him. Klaus makes a face but drinks it anyway. "You know," he says, voice sounding like it's been scraped off the bottom of someone's shoe, "If you'd just been strangled by a pint-sized psycho, I'd let you smoke whatever you want."

"Don't call him that!" Luther snaps and Klaus' eyes go momentarily wide. Luther braces his hands against the table, breathes in and wrestles himself under control. The whole subject of accidentally violent siblings and how best to manage them was an admittedly sensitive topic, not least of all because this whole mess was at least partially his fault. "He's not a psycho," he says quietly.

"You're right, bad choice of words. Sorry."

"It's okay. I'm just..." he pauses, groping about for the words, but the only thing in his head is Five (what was left of him), bending over Klaus with dead-eyed focus, crushing the life out of him with his own two hands.

"Exhausted?" Klaus offers helpfully, cigarette smoke making circles in the air as he gestures. "Pissed off, hopeless and full of despair? Screaming to the sky about an uncaring universe and cursing whatever god brought it all into existence?" He takes another drag and slouches indolently in the chair like a bohemian king, but his eyes are studying Luther with piercing lucidity.

Sometimes Luther wonders when Klaus became so eloquent. Probably about the time he became sober. "Well, maybe not in so many words...but yeah."

Klaus makes a noise of agreement in the back of his throat, winces again as it stings.

Luther frowns at him. "You should see a doctor about that."

"Fuck doctors."

Fair enough. Luther shifts uncomfortably. "I should- someone should...you know." He gestures vaguely towards the attic.

"It's fine for now; mom pumped him up with enough anti-psychotics he'll sleep straight through till next week. Or you know, tomorrow."

They lapse into a melancholy silence that presses in on Luther, his eyes drawn again to the mottled, purple-red bruises rising on his brother's neck. That's your fault too, his conscious reminds him. Klaus almost died. Would have died, and Five- Five would never even know what he'd done. (Or worse, he would. Luther doesn't trust anything in this world anymore.)

"I'm sorry," he hears himself say, not for the first time. "This- this is all my fault."

Klaus just rolls his eyes at him. "Christ not you, too. You and Vanya should get together, start a club."

"If I hadn't-" he chokes on the words. Every time chokes on the words. "The night she came home, after Allison- I didn't-"

Klaus crushes out his cigarette on the table top and leans forward. His voice is ground down to a rasp but it's still forceful. "Climb down off the cross, Luther. We all had a hand in it, all the way back to when we were kids; Five was right about that much. It took all of us to fuck things up bad enough for the world to end, and it took all of us to un-fuck it too. And don't forget the person with the biggest slice of the blame pie is dear old dad. So You wanna take some responsibility fine. But don't give yourself all the credit, okay?"

Luther nodded, though he was having a hard time agreeing. He should have been a better leader. At the very least, a better brother. Well, he got his second chance, didn't he? All it cost was a Fiver.