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It’s a spur of the moment decision.
Luther is just clearing out his bedroom, sorting through everything he left in here almost five years ago when he left for the moon, when he finds it: the unopened box for a model Lockheed P-38 Lightning.
He sets the airplane aside, in the to get rid of pile, and keeps cleaning.
A minute later he’s pulling it back out of the pile to set on his desk. It’s dumb, but it’s not like he actually has anything else going on today and he kind of misses the ritual of putting model airplanes together. The puzzle of them, the delicate details, the satisfaction of having a completed project that he put together with his own hands. He hasn’t done one since his accident.
If he’s being honest, he knows this is sort of a challenge to himself, too; that he can still put the plane together, all its fiddly details, with his stupid, big, ape hands.
Luther pretends like he’s not going to spend the rest of the afternoon working on the model for another thirty seconds before he sits down at his desk and rips open the box.
Sorting through the pieces is familiar. Here’s all the parts for the fuselage, there are the pieces for the cockpit, the wheels and propellers. He can do this.
Things start going to shit immediately after that. He can’t pinch a propeller blade right with his too-big fingers and it snaps off the plastic mold wrong. Luther forces himself to set it down, counts to ten, and then finds a pair of needle-nosed pliers for the other small bits. It’s a little tedious to get the pliers to grip right and not slip as he adds pressure to break the rest of the pieces from the mold, but it works ok.
It’s just like training, just practicing using the right amount of strength. It’s why Dad let him get models in the first place – to practice fine motor control and stop bending every piece of silverware he used. It’s probably not healthy that he’s comparing this to training, but it’s not like he’s got that much else to compare it to. He likes doing this, too, he reminds himself. This is for him, for fun.
Luther snaps part of the fuselage when he can’t grip at the right angle. The next bit he gets ok, but the third he accidentally warps. He drops it all with a clatter and scrubs a hand over his face. “Shit.”
“Everything alright in there?”
Double shit. “Yeah. Yeah, it’s fine, Five.”
Five is frozen at his open door, large book in hand and obviously on his way to go curl up somewhere to read. Luther should have closed his door. Stupid. It’s not a habit, though; for so long he was the only one here and it didn’t matter.
They stare at each other for a long moment. Luther can feel Five trying to decide if this is something he’s supposed to push at or not. He usually errs on the side of letting things go, which Luther is hoping he’ll do now. It’s not like this is actually anything, and he would like to be able to sweep his failure into the garbage in private.
Five grimaces and sighs. He shuffles his feet a little. “What are you doing?” he asks.
“Just cleaning out my room a bit.” Luther shrugs.
Five’s eyes flick in a pointed look to the desk before he slowly looks back at Luther. One eyebrow quirks up in an obvious question.
Luther just smiles back at Five like he doesn’t know what he’s asking about. It doesn’t feel like a very good smile, but he tries to commit. Five rolls his eyes. “Alright, Luther.” He shakes his head and turns to keep going on his way.
“It’s a model plane,” Luther blurts, feeling unexpectedly bad about not telling Five what he’s up to. It’s stupid to lie about and lying about it makes it into a thing. Which it isn’t. It really isn’t.
Five sighs again, slowly turns back around, and waits for Luther to say more.
“I, uh, found it while I was cleaning. Thought I’d put it together.”
“Ok.” Five glances at the other model planes hanging from the ceiling.
Silence hangs for a beat.
Luther swallows. This is the hard part to admit. “I, um, was going to throw it away, though.”
Five’s eyebrows mash down. “Why?”
“My hands are too big,” Luther mumbles.
“What?”
“My hands are too big,” he repeats, louder. “I can’t… I can’t pick up the pieces right.”
Five’s expression relaxes and he blinks. “Oh.”
Well, now that’s out there. Luther wishes he could take it back. It’s embarrassing. Yet another thing he can’t do in his giant, freak body.
“Do you want help?”
Now it’s Luther’s turn to blink in surprise. “What?”
“Do you want help.” Five shifts at the door again, adjusting his grip on his book. As an afterthought, he adds, “I have very small hands right now.” He holds up one of his, to be fair, very small hands.
“Oh, um. You don’t have to,” Luther says. He wasn’t expecting Five to offer anything. Honestly, he’s not sure what he was expecting Five to do. “You’ve got your book, you can go read.”
Five snorts. “I can read any day, Luther. The book’s not going anywhere.” He steps into the room, tossing the book onto the bed. “What have you got?” he asks as he approaches the desk.
“Lockheed P-38 Lightning,” Luther says. Five hums as he studies the dissembled plane in front of him. “You really don’t have to, Five. It’s fine, I’ll just clean it up myself.”
“Luther, if I didn’t want to do this with you, I’d just leave.”
It’s hard to argue with that. He would. “Thanks, then.”
“Don’t mention it.” Five glances around the desk for a moment before he disappears with a flash.
Luther frowns. Is Five messing with him and isn’t actually going to help? It doesn’t feel like a very Five way to go about it.
Five is back a second later with his own desk chair.
Oh.
He scoots to the side so Five can fit. Seated, Five looks expectantly up at him. “So, what is it we need to do?”
Luther can’t help his smile down at his brother. He looks so tiny sitting next to him.
God, they make such a pair. The way too big with the way too small.
He will never, ever tell Five this, but Luther would rather be too small. And at least Five has an exit, in a few years once he grows up again.
“We need to get all the pieces out from the mold, and then we can start gluing them together to make the skeleton,” he says, directing Five’s attention to the pieces he hadn’t disassembled yet. “I broke a few of them, so we’ll have to figure that out.”
“We can fix it,” Five says.
“Yeah, maybe…” Luther brushes a finger over the bent fuselage.
Five grabs it from under his hand and flips it over, studying it. “We will. This may come as a surprise, but most things in the apocalypse were broken. I’m pretty good at fixing things.” He glances up at Luther again and offers him a wry smile.
Luther can’t help softening at it.
He always forgets what an optimist Five is. He hides it well under his cantankerous nature.
They quickly fall into a pattern, working in tandem to get the pieces punched from the molding. Luther’s technique with his little pliers works best for the medium sized parts, the struts and internal supports. Five takes over to get the large fuselage sheets and the tiny details out.
Soon, they have everything sorted into neat piles. Five is more patient than Luther expected. They don’t talk, much, but Five is quick to ask questions, to check that he’s doing something how Luther wants him to, to wait for Luther to demonstrate how he wants pieces put together before he uses the glue.
It’s like having an older brother, Luther realizes after a little while. Five could probably put this all together by himself in record time, if he really wanted to. It’s not like it’s particularly hard, just time consuming. But he waits, indulges and invites Luther’s participation wherever he can because it’s Luther’s project.
Luther isn’t sure what to do with that. He’s always been the older brother, Number One.
It’s nice, is what it is. It’s a different side of Five that he hasn’t really seen before.
For his part, Five seems to be enjoying himself. There’s a small, soft smile playing at the corner of his mouth and he’s more relaxed than Luther has seen him in a while.
Time stretches on. Luther decides to not track it. Five will stay until he doesn’t want to anymore, and Mom will call them when it’s time for dinner. Luther can just enjoy this rare time with his brother.
Five’s admittedly small hands are what this project needed. Even with another pliers, so he could work on the plane like some gargantuan crab, Luther wouldn’t have the dexterity needed to get all the small pieces together to make the plane’s skeleton. Five’s long, thin, clever fingers are perfect for the job. Luther pushes down the jealousy threatening to overtake the nice moment they’re having together.
They keep working, the plane starts to take shape. The quiet begins to grate on Luther. He’s currently benched until Five finishes some fiddly details, and the silence was fine, before. It was blocked out by the activity with his hands and broken regularly enough by Five’s questions. Now, though, that he’s just sitting and waiting for a new task, the quiet isn’t as comfortable. It’s too pressing. Too present. Luther is about to turn and put on a random record, just to give them something, when he thinks better of it.
He’s not the only one in this quiet.
“Does the quiet ever bother you?” he asks. He probably could have phrased that better, but Five doesn’t glare at him and huff off, so Luther is fine.
Instead, Five glances up from the propeller he’s working on. “Hmm?”
“The quiet.” Luther rushes to clarify, “On the moon, I just… I had the radio playing almost constantly. Just to hear other voices, music, anything besides myself and the hum of the biopack.”
Five looks back down. Luther waits, fiddling with one of the wings that doesn’t need anything at the moment. “Yeah,” Five says softly after a long moment. “I didn’t have any…. There wasn’t…”
Luther almost doesn’t breathe and throws his entire focus onto the model in front of him. Five does not talk about the apocalypse. The most they’ve gotten is a passing comment here or there, a very general description, usually more feelings than any actual, concrete details. He hadn’t expected anything more than a yes or no from his question. So, he waits, afraid to break the moment and stop Five from sharing whatever he’s trying to find the words to say.
From the corner of his eye, Luther watches Five. He’s not working on the model, now: he sits frozen, plane suspended in his hands and his gaze a million miles away. “The apocalypse… it was so quiet. I didn’t have a lot of options for noise. Delores and I found a crank record player that still worked for a little bit when I was in my late teens, and a couple records. I played those until the needle was a nub that destroyed the records and the belt finally gave out. After that, I just filled the silence however I could. I talked. Or sang. I don’t think I shut up for a solid decade.” He blinks a few times, a small crease between his brows. “I would have done almost anything to hear another voice.”
God. At least Luther had the radio. And sporadic voicemails from Dad or Pogo. He swallows. “I sang, too,” he says, flashing a small smile to Five. The corner of Five’s mouth twitches up in return. “For a while they were actual songs from the radio, but sometime after the first year up there they sort of devolved… My original compositions were not very good.”
Five gives a little snort. “I had this one that, fuck. I think Viktor would play all the time? It might have been a warmup or something for him. I can’t even remember how it actually goes, now, it was stuck in my head for so long and I sang it so often that it fell apart.”
Luther tries to think back to the bits of violin that float through his childhood memories. “Was it this one?” he asks and then hums a couple bars.
Five startles and looks up at Luther, incredulous. “Holy shit, yeah. Wow, that sounds a lot better than my version. Fuck. Do you know what it is?”
He shrugs. “No idea. You could ask Viktor.” They both know Five isn't going to ask Viktor.
The quiet settles between them again, but it’s not like before. There’s a comradery in it, a quiet they’re choosing to make and share rather than just an absence of noise. And it’s not silent; Luther’s chair creaks a little as he shifts in it, there’s the muted clatter as they pick up and move model pieces around.
It’s a nice quiet.
Luther’s original frustration bubbles back up when they are almost done putting the basic body of the plane together; the only piece left is that fuselage section that he bent out of shape in the beginning. Stupid of him. He knows how fragile these models are, he should have been more careful. “I don’t think we can salvage that,” he says, bitterness bleeding into his voice. Things had been going so well, he’d almost forgotten about the damage he’d dealt to the kit before Five joined him.
Five holds the piece, rotating it in his hands. Without looking up, he says, “We can fix this.” And then he teleports away, leaving Luther to sit and blankly stare at the partially assembled airplane in front of him. Five is back a moment later, Klaus’ lighter in his hand.
That is a good idea. Luther wants to kick himself for letting his emotions get the best of him, so he didn’t think of this simple solution. Five pulls his attention as he holds the piece out for Luther to take. Luther gingerly accepts it, afraid to make it worse. Five doesn’t seem to notice Luther’s reluctance; his expression is still relaxed as he holds up the plane to study how the symmetrical part lays on the model. Satisfied, Five looks up at him. “Ready?”
No. Luther nods anyway. Five clicks on the lighter and tilts the flame towards the malformed edge. Luther jerks it back at the last moment. “Wait, maybe you should do this part. I’m just going to mess it up more and then–“
“Luther,” Five interrupts him. “If you fuck it up, we’ll just melt it again. It will be fine. If it really goes to shit, we’ll just have to get more creative.” He quirks an eyebrow up and offers Luther a small, lopsided smile.
Older brother indeed. Luther smiles back, more genuine, and takes a small breath in to settle himself. Five is right. The stakes are very low, and they can always try again if Luther doesn’t bend it right the first time. He holds the plastic piece out again and Five brings the small flame up to it.
It does take them two tries, but Five coaches him through how to minutely shift the softened plastic, comparing it to its twin already glued to the model. In the end, it fits where it’s supposed to go, only a slight dent to betray that anything was ever amiss. Luther isn’t sure if he should be embarrassed or not by the spark of pride he feels for having been the one to fix the piece. Probably; he’s the one who broke it in the first place.
“Do you want these to move?” Five asks a little while later, when the wings are attached and it’s time to start adding the details that make it a P-38.
Luther blinks, looking up from one of the wheels. “What?”
“The propellers.”
“They’re not supposed to.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
Luther has always made his models exactly as the instructions told him to. Details on straight and precise, colors historically accurate and cleanly painted on. His immediate reaction is to brush the offer off, but Five’s expression stops him. There’s a gleam in Five’s eyes as he considers the propellers, a gleam that Luther hasn’t seen since they were kids. It’s the same spark Five would have when he’d teleport into Luther’s room to persuade him to skip the homework for the night and join them on a heist to Griddy’s (Luther would agree, they’d get back late and full of sugar and then it would come out that Five already finished all his homework, leaving the rest of them to scramble and stay up until the wee hours of the morning to catch up. It was one thing if they all didn’t finish their homework; it was another entirely if Five was the only one who had it done.). The memory pangs at Luther’s misshapen heart, bittersweet.
“You can do that?” he asks.
Five shrugs, that spark still in his eyes. “We can find out.” And then he’s gone again in a flash of blue. Luther sits and waits, aching unexpectedly for that rebellious, brash, fun brother he lost seventeen years ago. The Five that came back is not him, and it’s not fair to anyone to pretend he is. This is the closest Luther has seen of him, though, and the familiarity of that glimpse rubs that old wound Five’s disappearance left in them all.
Luther is just wondering if he was also supposed to be doing something while Five gathered whatever he’s gathering when Five reappears, arms full of miscellaneous odds and ends. He elbows spot clear on the desk and dumps out his haul. It is truly a random assortment of objects; pens, rubber bands of all sizes, some things he thinks might be from Allison’s vanity, broken pieces from this and that.
Five dives in. He shrugs off his hoodie to get the baggy sleeves out of his way and hangs it on his chair. It leaves him in just a simple t-shirt, his thin arms exposed. Luther’s gaze catches on the bold umbrella tattoo. His own had gradually faded over the years, and after the serum it’s barely recognizable as an umbrella anymore. Five’s, though, is still dark and contrasts sharply with the pale skin of his forearm. It makes sense, it’s technically only about a year old. Luther catches himself rubbing his own forearm, where his mangled tattoo is, and he forces himself to stop.
He tries to follow what Five is doing, to distract himself, but this is now squarely a Five Project and he’s working fast, picking up and setting down pieces almost before Luther can figure out what he’s even touched, holding up parts and twisting them in his hands.
It is very obvious Five slowed down before, for Luther’s benefit. Luther wants to feel a little mad about it, but all he can really muster is a vague warmth that Five wanted to do this with him.
“Have you done this before?” Luther asks as Five finally settles on a combination of rubber bands, partly because he’s curious and partly because Five is mumbling to himself under his breath as he works and it is freaking Luther out, just a little bit.
“Hmm?” Five hums absently. “No. Well, sort of.”
“Sort of?”
“Obviously not with a model plane, but I tried to make a wind-powered generator, once. The part I got to work was the windmill, propeller bit.”
Luther blinks and his eyebrows furrow. “You made a generator?”
Five scoffs. “Not a working one. It was a stupid project, I wasted a lot of time on it. I don’t know why I thought it was a good idea.” He keeps messing with the propellers and rubber bands. Luther thinks he’s found a weird little sweet spot for talking to Five. His hands and mind are just busy enough that he’s not thinking too much about what he’s saying, and those apocalypse memories that lurk just under the surface are leaking out. Luther isn’t sure if he’s supposed to let Five tell him this anecdote or not.
He is curious, though. “Why was it stupid? Electricity sounds like a good idea.”
“Sure, if I’d tried it a decade or so earlier. I tried when I was… shit. Thirty-seven? Thirty-eight? Late thirties.”
“You aren’t sure?” Five is usually spot on when it comes to anything with time. The fact he’s unsure about his age when he did something surprises Luther.
Five shrugs. “From my thirties to, well, I guess the Commission came, things are a little… fuzzy.” He pauses, a small crease between his brows, and he glances up, gaze distant. “I’m pretty sure I was batshit insane. Hence I tried to build a generator when every wire on Earth had corroded past the point of no return a decade before. Stupid.” He shakes his head and goes back to the propeller in his hand.
Luther has no idea what to say to that. “Oh.” He doesn’t actually need more, as Five has already focused back on the pieces in front of him. There isn’t really anything for Luther to do, and he doesn’t know how long Five is going to take with his propeller project, so he excuses himself to swing by the kitchen and grab a snack for them. He isn’t sure if Five ate lunch or not, and it’s a good habit anyway to try and have food for him to nibble on as often as possible to offset all the meals he forgets to eat. Feeling generous, Luther flicks on the coffee pot. He probably has enough time to brew a pot before Five is done.
As he waits for the coffee to brew, he pokes through the cabinets, looking for a snack that sounds good. He should grab something from Five’s shelf of family-approved-high-protein-high-calorie snacks, but, honestly, they taste like shit (not that Five cares). He absently rummages through the other shelves, his mind on his brother upstairs.
It’s been an unexpectedly nice time. After his almost immediate failure, Luther had been prepared for an afternoon of wallowing while he kept cleaning out his room. It never would have crossed his mind to ask Five if he wanted to build a model plane with him. But Five had come by at exactly the right moment and, for whatever reason, decided he wanted to hang out with Luther. Even seemed to be having a good time with it, too.
Not only that, but Five shared more about the apocalypse in those couple hours than he has in the months he’s been back. To Luther! Not Viktor, not Allison; Luther. Warmth bubbles in his stomach at being trusted with the information.
The coffee machine rumbles to a halt and Luther blinks, still empty handed for a snack. With a sigh, he grabs a couple of the nasty For-Five protein bars. Two mugs of coffee balanced in his hands, he heads back up to his room.
Luther finds Five exactly where he left him, although the plane now has two movable propellers. He gets a genuine smile from Five when he passes him one of the steaming cups of coffee. Five turns back to the plane after taking a large gulp. “They don’t actually work, it’s just potential energy storage and release. You wind the internal band up and then they’re linked together to spin, and they’ll change rate and direction as the rubber band unwinds and winds, but it gives the effect and it’s a model, anyway. At least they move.”
Luther twists one of the propellers and then lets it go, watching the other spin with it. “It’s really cool, Five. Thanks.”
Five hides another small smile in his mug. Luther passes him one of the protein bars that he accepts without thinking, unwrapping it and taking a large bite. “What’s next?” Five asks, mouth full.
“Um, paint.” Luther half expected Five to bail once the propeller project was done, but he’s leaning over the desk to grab some of the old modeling paint lined up there, inspecting the colors. Luther pulls out the discarded instructions and reads the paint list. “We need gunmetal, army green, royal blue, goldenrod, and white.”
Five shifts to his knees on the chair, to give himself enough height to better reach and sort through the shelf of paint. Luther takes a bite of his own protein bar so Five can’t catch the endeared smile that’s threatening to overtake his face. The bar is as gross as he was expecting; it almost makes him nostalgic for his moon rations.
“You know,” Five says conversationally as he lines up the small paint bottles, “I don’t think I’ve ever painted anything.”
“Never?”
He shakes his head, holding up a paint brush to scrutinize its fine tip. “I don’t think so. Maybe when we were really little, finger painting or something.”
“Wow. Well, I’m honored to be present for a rare first for the old and experienced Number Five.” Luther teases. “It’s not hard.”
“I figured it wouldn’t be. You can do it, after all,” Five says. Any insult Luther could have interpreted from that is erased by the crooked smirk Five sends him.
Luther is once again blindsided by that old grief for Five. He really, really missed his brother.
Painting is not a two-person job, especially on a model airplane with fine details. Still, they work out a system: Luther primes and then paints the largest sections of the fuselage and Five will finish the details. While Luther paints, Five practices making lines on scrap pieces of plastic, eyes narrowed in concentration.
Five wasn’t lying; he really hasn’t ever used paint. It’s obvious in the way he dubiously dunks a brush into a paint bottle. Luther keeps an eye on his experiments from his peripheral. The first trial has too much paint; it glops off onto the desk. Then it’s too little, then he plays around with which paintbrush he likes. The seriousness with which Five figures out the paint eventually pulls Luther’s complete attention, and he only realizes he’s been staring at Five for a solid minute, plane forgotten in his hand, when Five turns to look at him with a frown. “What?” he asks.
Luther shakes his head and goes back to painting the base coat, swallowing his smile. “Nothing.”
When Luther is done, he passes the model to Five. Time to see if his practice pays off. Again, Five asks for Luther’s opinion and input as he carefully – oh so carefully – paints on the details of the plane. What color he wants, double checking he’s painting the right part, confirming it looks how Luther wants it.
It takes almost an hour, but eventually the plane is done. Five sets it on the desk for them to admire. Luther glances up and is shocked to see it’s dark outside. Did they miss Mom calling them for dinner?
“Well,” Five says, “that’s that, I suppose.” He scoots his chair back to stand up, grabbing his hoodie to shrug back on.
Luther isn’t ready for their afternoon to end. Five has been back for months and this is the first time Luther has felt like he’s hung out with his brother. “Wait!” he blurts. Five pauses, one arm in a sleeve. “We, uh, still have to name it.”
Five’s face folds in confusion. “Name it?”
“Sure. Planes and boats get names. Usually female, although we don’t have to stick to that.”
“Why?”
Luther considers that for a second. “I don’t really know.”
Five considers that, too, and then asks, “Did you name your spaceship?”
An incredulous laugh escapes Luther. “No. It was Dad’s rocket, anyway. Feels weird to give it a name.”
Something flashes over Five’s face at that, and he pulls his arm back out of the sleeve. “Well, this is your plane. You should name it,” he says.
“It’s our plane.”
Five crosses his thin arms. “I haven’t named a thing my entire life. You named yourself, that gives you more experience than me.”
“Mom named me,” Luther says, but his mind isn’t on the conversation. Five is wrong; he’s actually named two things in his life. Five named himself, even if it was just Number Five. He took it from Dad and made it his.
There is one other thing Five has named.
It gives Luther an idea.
“Anyway,” he says, “Name for our plane. I have an idea, but you can say no.”
Five raises an eyebrow and nods for him to continue.
Luther studies Five carefully for his reaction. “What about Delores?”
Five’s expression softens immediately, a small, sappy smile curling the corner of his mouth. He glances down at the model, reaches out and pushes one of the propellers to watch them lazily spin. “Yeah,” he says, voice quiet. He clears his throat. “Yeah, it can be Delores.”
“I thought it was a good namesake,” Luther says with a gentle smile of his own. “I need you to paint it on, my hands—”
Five clears his throat, again, interrupting. “Right. Yes. Little hands.” He sits back down. “What color?”
“Your choice, Five.”
There’s still that softness around Five’s eyes as he scans the paint colors. He picks a light blue that, if Luther remembers correctly, is close to Delores’ eye color. Who knows, maybe it’s the same paint; Luther doesn’t know what they use to paint mannequins.
With utmost care, Five prints Delores along the nose of the airplane.
They stay where they are for a long moment, staring at their finished model; Luther giant and standing, Five made even smaller by his position sitting at the desk.
“Thanks, Five,” Luther says, breaking the silence.
Five swallows thickly. “Sure thing.”
They sit for another moment, still staring at Delores.
Five inhales loudly and lets out the breath in a long sigh. “Well,” he says, and gets back up. He pulls his sweatshirt on and slips past Luther to grab his book off the bed. He keeps his head down, avoiding eye contact. Luther watches him head to the door.
Once there, he pauses for a moment, book under one arm and the other hand on the door frame. He turns after a second. “Hey, um.” He chews on his words, still not looking at Luther. Luther waits for him to say what he wants to say. Five continues after a moment, “If you found another model. Just lying around, you know, and needed smaller hands to get it together, you can… You can always grab me again, ok?” His eyes flick to meet Luther’s again for the barest second before he looks away. He clenches his jaw and grimaces lightly.
Warmth blossoms through Luther’s massive chest. He does his best to contain the grin that’s threatening to overtake his whole face. As straight as he can, he nods and says, “Sure thing. If I find one lying around that needs to be put together, I’ll let you know.”
Five nods seriously. More of the grin leaks onto Luther’s face.
“Hey, Five?”
Five looks up at Luther, eyebrow quirked up slightly in response.
“Thank you, again. I had fun,” Luther says.
Five ducks his head and rubs a hand along his jaw. Instead of saying anything, he flips one of his little salutes to Luther and then turns and steps into the air. Whumpf.
Luther smiles at the empty space in his doorway. He shifts his attention to the small airplane sitting on his desk. Delores really does look nice. Five did a fantastic job painting all the fine details, the lines straight and precise. He ghosts a finger over the dent on the back panel, then winds up the propellers to watch them spin.
Glancing up at his ceiling, he mentally rearranges the planes already up there so it will be able to hang in a place of prominence, one of the first things seen when entering his room.
“Dinner is ready!” Mom’s voice floats from the stairs.
With a sigh, Luther heads to the door, already knowing he won’t see Five at the table. He well and truly overwhelmed his older brother with everything today. Still, it was a great afternoon. Unexpected. So much better than just cleaning out his room. He can always finish that tomorrow.
And then, Luther thinks as he trudges down the stairs, he should head to the hobby store to see what new models are there…