Healing (Umbrella Academy, Luther, PLATONIC Luther+Vanya)

[Bee]

TW: Brief mentions of eating disorder (bulimia)

EXPLANATION: I have a headcanon, given his body issues, as well as interviews with the design crew/Tom Hopper stating that Luther has an eating disorder, specifically bulimia. This fic is a sequel to another fic of mine (from my Tumblr) where the family has known about it for a while after avoiding the apocalypse (no de-aging though). In that fic, basically Luther and Vanya hug for the firs time since The Incident(TM), and they've been growing closer a lot since the incident anyway. STRICTLY PLATONIC!!!

The "event" from two days ago is that Luther told Vanya that he hasn't purged in two weeks, which is a huge achievement for him in his recovery. ALSO, he has been coming down to eat dinner with the family every night for two months.

Anyway here's some platonic Lunya fluff with sick!Luther:

Vanya was worried about Luther. The day after he told her his news, he skipped out on dinner for the first time in a month. Klaus reassured everyone not to worry, Luther was probably just having a rough day and wanted to isolate himself (still a coping mechanism for ). Klaus had met a lot of people with eating disorders during his various stints in rehab over the years.

But when Luther didn’t come down for dinner the next night either, suddenly Klaus’ argument switched to the “relapses are normal” argument, and Vanya felt the panic hat had dissipated two nights earlier come back full force in her chest. She went to bed worried about Luther.

But when she woke up sweltering just an hours later, her was the farthest thing from her mind.

Fever was the word that flashed through her mind as she kicked the blankets off her body and changed out of her sweatpants into a tank-top and shorts, stumbling blindly into the bathroom, still rubbing sleep out of her eyes. She wondered how she’d missed the signs. She’d always been pretty in touch with her body, and this didn’t make any sense.

She’d been a little sick two days earlier, but it was just your standard cold: a stopped nose, a bit of sneezing. By the time dinner rolled around, she’d felt completely fine. She didn’t even tell her siblings about the illness. She preferred to stay out of their hair when she was sick, and besides, it was just a little cold.

Or, so she’d thought. But now she was standing in the bathroom with the thermometer under her tongue, hoping she didn’t have a fever more for the sake of not having to tell her siblings to stay away from her than for the sake of her own health.

When it beeped, her brows raised at the perfect 98.6°F displayed before her. Huh. That made no sense. She was wearing a tanktop and shorts and still sweating. And it was the middle of the night, in October. There was no way it was this hot in the house. Unless…

Shaking her head, she stumbled back into the hallway, and checked the thermostat.

“What the fuck?” she mumbled to herself. Who the hell had set the thermostat to 78°F? WIth a little huff she turned it back down to the 70°F she was used to; the way dad used to keep it, anyway.

Her first thought was Klaus – he always felt cold to the touch anyway, he probably felt cold, too. She’d text him in the morning, reminding him of the existence of blankets. For now, she’d go back to her room, and wait for it to cool down a bit so she could fall back asleep. But she was stopped in her tracks by a sound from down the hall.

“Huh’KSCH-NXGTchiew! HIhhh…Hh’NXXT! HhrrENXGT-chu!”

Vanya flinched, and then immediately frowned. The tired, congested-sounding sneezes came from Luther’s room, but that wasn’t the way he usually sneezed. That was the way he sneezed when he’d already been sneezing for a while and didn’t have the energy to hold his violent explosions back anymore. And instead of his normal two, it had been four.

Shit.

Vanya had only even thought about Luther’s sneezing so much because she’d heard him sneeze about a thousand times in the past seven months. Luther had been sick five times in that time, and two of those five times, he’d ended up in the infirmary with a high fever. The last time Luther was sick, Five hadcome to the conclusion that he was immunocompromised from isolation on the moon for so long. Isolation at the hands of their father. The same thing he’d put Vanya through all her life. Hearing that made her feel sick herself.

She’d felt oddly protective of him ever since. She’d always viewed him as strong and stoic, never putting his feelings into perspective. Never been able to think of him as fragile. Now she felt like he might break.

And as she walked down the hallway to his room, stopping on the way to grab and disinfect the thermometer, she cursed himself for not thinking to warn him about her cold. And for automatically assuming he had only missed dinner because he was relapsing. She needed to put more faith in him, he really was trying.

“Luther?” she called out softly when she reached his door, knocking gently.

“Come in,” came a hoarse voice from inside.

She pushed open the door tentatively, face falling when she saw the sight before her.

“Oh, Luther…” He was buried under his comforter, curled up in a ball, and barely fitting on his bed. A giant human burrito, only his head stuck out of the blankets. A thin sheen of sweat coated his flushed face. “You look awful.”

“ ‘m okay,” he mumbled, voice gravelly and barely there.  “Dn’ worry about me.”

“Did you turn the thermostat up to 78 degrees?” Her tone was a bit more accusatory than she’d intended.

“Yeah, cause it’s freezing,” Luther mumbled, hugging his blankets tighter around his shoulders. He shivered violently underneath the covers as if to prove his point.

“No, Luther, it’s really not.” Vanya sat on the end of his bed. “Are you feeling okay?”

“Yeah. Js’ tired.” He punctuated the sentence with a wheezy cough, the beginnings of something wet rattling in his chest.

“Yeah, right.” She gently reached out a hand to feel his forehead, which was unsurprisingly burning. He shivered profusely when she touched him, but didn’t make an effort to move. That was not a good sign. “How long have you been sick?”

Luther’s shoulders shrugged under the blankets, making the whole burrito move.

Vanya reached for the thermometer. “I think you just have a fever, will you let me check?”

“No, I don’t. ‘M okay, don’t worry.” Nonetheless, he made no move to stop Vanya from putting the thermometer in his mouth, nor did he try to stop her from reading the results.

“103.1. Jesus, Luther. You should have-” she cut her rant off when she saw how miserably he was, looking up at her with those big, sad blue eyes. She brushed back the sweaty hair clinging to his forehead. How was his hair even long enough to do that? 

“You should have said something sooner, Spacey.”

Luther just looked down at his blankets. “I didn’t want to worry you.”

Vanya sighed and stroked his cheek gently. “Well now I’m even more worried!”

Luther turned his head away from Vanya’s touch and buried his face into his pillow. “I’m sorry.”

Vanya bit down on her lip when she heard him sniffle. “Luther?” When his breath started to hitch, she put a hand on his shoulder. “C’mon, Lulu, don’t cry-”

“Hh’GNKtchiew! Hahh-nXXGT! Hihhh! Hih… hih!”

Oh.

Vanya couldn’t help but giggle, so loud she didn’t even notice the third budding buildup. 

“Bless you. I thought you were-”

“Hh’kTSCHIEW!-ugh, sorry…”

Vanya brought her hand to her chest. “Goodness, bless you! Nearly gave me a heart attack!”

Luther finally turned his head back around and blinked tiredly at her, flashing her a sheepish little smile. His nose was running like a faucet. She reached for the tissues on his nightstand and dabbed at his upper lip.

“Thanks,” he muttered, and wheezed, which quickly dissolved into a coughing fit.

Vanya pat him on the back until it was over. “You poor thing,” she cooed. He really did look pretty run down. “Let’s get some medicine in you.” 

She got up to leave, when she felt a hand on her wrist, pulling her back Even sick, Luther could easily restrain her. It was a feeling that still struck panic in her heart, even after all these months. She turned back to look at him, eyes alert.

“What?”

Luther was giving her those big sad blue eyes again. His grip on her immediately slackened.

“Please stay.”

Vanya softened, all her anxiety fading into tenderness as she bent down so she could be at eye level with him.

“I’m not going anywhere, Lu.” She brushed his hair back from his forehead again. “I’m just gonna get some things for you, and then I’ll be right back, okay?”

“Promise?”

She booped him on the nose. “I promise.”

Luther scrunched up his nose and buried his face into his blankets, cupping them over his mouth with his hands. “Hhh’GNK-Nn’XXT!” Vanya giggled at his reaction, and even more so at the little glare he shot her when he finally lowered the blankets, snot dribbling down his chin now. She wordlessly wiped at it again.

“Okay,” Luther mumbled with a thick sniffle after a moment’s repose. “But be quick.”

Vanya pulled an extra two blankets up to his chin before she quietly slipped out of the room.

When she returned, he was already half-asleep, just barely coherent enough to accept the medicine before he opened up his arms for his little sister to climb into.

Uncomfortable as she felt surrounded by the heat that was radiating from Luther’s body, Vanya felt satisfied when she felt his arms stop shaking around her frame, relaxing into the sleep he so desperately needed.

She waited for the sound of his congested snoring to be sure he was really asleep. Then she slid easily out of his arms and out the door, making sure to ruffle his hair once for good measure and pull the blankets up to his chin one last time before leaving him for the night.

[starpollen]

I've decided I like Luther-whumpage.   Happy to read more!