She feels the faint ripple of his bare arm beneath her fingers; not jerking away, but the slight tremor at being touched, the unaccustomed weight of contact. When Luther turns his head to the side to look at her, his eyes are too-wide and too-blue and too-startled and too, too painfully relieved. Drinking up the sight of her, as if he can commit her to memory, then maybe she won't vanish this time.
Even this. Just having her here and within reach is more than he ever could have asked for.
The silence stretches out too long and too far and his heart is lodged in his throat, making breathing, speaking, truly impossible. Eventually, though, Luther manages to swallow past it, pressing down past that catch. The moment, if it is a moment, passes.
She's good at this part. Whenever it's like he's about to scuttle off and slam those metaphorical shutters back down, Allison can usually reel him back in, stop him from going cold and remote and closed-off from her.
(Promise me.)
This own promise of hers is technically empty — if the Porter decides in its whims to whisk her off, there's absolutely nothing she can do about it. Might as well cross your heart and make a wish on the moon, for all the agency you have. Others have broken those pointless promises before, because they can't not.
(But Luther. Seriously. History doesn't have to repeat. I hope to hell the rest of your siblings don't get pulled with you still here. But you're not gonna get stuck alone in this place. For one thing, I'm way too annoying as a friend to let you have that much peace and quiet.)
And yet. There is something strangely comforting about it regardless, Allison's eyes dark and watchful right beside him and the weight of her on the mattress and hearing those words from her lips: a talisman against the loneliness and the emptiness. An intention, even if it's not a guarantee.
"I won't give up. Ever again," Luther says, firmly, and there is something almost childishly simple about that promise, too. Licking his wounds. Picking himself up. Deciding to do better next time. And then, because something about this moment still feels too raw and vulnerable with her so close, the walls of personal space tumbling down like they never existed, he course-corrects. Quickly makes it plural again: "I mean, we got Diego and Klaus back, right? So. That just proves it. The others will be back, eventually. And for now— at least you're here. And I'm not leaving you, either."
And how much that matters. It matters so, so much.
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Even this. Just having her here and within reach is more than he ever could have asked for.
The silence stretches out too long and too far and his heart is lodged in his throat, making breathing, speaking, truly impossible. Eventually, though, Luther manages to swallow past it, pressing down past that catch. The moment, if it is a moment, passes.
She's good at this part. Whenever it's like he's about to scuttle off and slam those metaphorical shutters back down, Allison can usually reel him back in, stop him from going cold and remote and closed-off from her.
This own promise of hers is technically empty — if the Porter decides in its whims to whisk her off, there's absolutely nothing she can do about it. Might as well cross your heart and make a wish on the moon, for all the agency you have. Others have broken those pointless promises before, because they can't not.
And yet. There is something strangely comforting about it regardless, Allison's eyes dark and watchful right beside him and the weight of her on the mattress and hearing those words from her lips: a talisman against the loneliness and the emptiness. An intention, even if it's not a guarantee.
"I won't give up. Ever again," Luther says, firmly, and there is something almost childishly simple about that promise, too. Licking his wounds. Picking himself up. Deciding to do better next time. And then, because something about this moment still feels too raw and vulnerable with her so close, the walls of personal space tumbling down like they never existed, he course-corrects. Quickly makes it plural again: "I mean, we got Diego and Klaus back, right? So. That just proves it. The others will be back, eventually. And for now— at least you're here. And I'm not leaving you, either."
And how much that matters.
It matters so, so much.