"Oh, never?" Luther repeats, bemused, pretending to take Allison at face value and in absolute seriousness, even as he, too, is savouring this position, the skin-to-skin warmth of it, the fact that they're still as close as it's physically possible to be and the rest of the world has absolutely no claim here, and hasn't called them back to it yet. He shifts a little, rests more of his weight against the back of the couch cushions. One of his arms has wound up sprawled under her neck like a pillow, her lips against his throat as she refuses to let him go.

"That might present some challenges. We'd starve to death on this couch. A shitty way to go."

It's stupid. The joke is so very silly and stupid and his sense of humour runs cheesy like this sometimes. (Almost as if, if you look at these two monsters and tilt your head and squint: perhaps there's two softer creatures underneath, all vulnerable edges around each other, and the potential to be something else— but they're not. Not here. Not this time. This time, they're the only ones who ever get to see this side of it, this pared-down tenderness and all the walls dropped.)