She watches it as it dominoes across his face. There's a burning feeling that's taking up the whole top of her chest. That whole space where breathing and heart beating is supposed to be taking place. It just feels like she's set fire to the inside of herself, and she's watching that burn reflected in Luther's eyes. In the sheer inability for him to keep anything from his face at all.
He doesn't even believe his own first words, and she's already tired of all of this. None of this was supposed to go like this. She was supposed to come home. To get to talk about her day. His. Maybe joke about how people would look at her less if she just switched with him and moved boxes. There could have been wine, maybe more of the leftover Asian food since populating boxes in the fridge.
It wasn't supposed to be the ground opening up like a swallowing maw between them.
"Because it's your life? Because it matters?"
That they exist. That he doesn't understand in the slightest. That she has to stand here and defend, with anger and desperation, what she never thought she'd have to fight for. What she's always thought she'd lose one day anyway, didn't she? When Luther finally wised up. About her.
"Because it shouldn't be--" Her hands just gestured, annoyed like even her now ever-present words aren't enough. "--this. Especially if you don't think they do matter. Broken into boxes and two different worlds that aren't allowed to touch. Never even admitting to having friends. To trying to figure out this place. Even when I hated this place, I wouldn't have held that against you."
She had never managed it, had she? Luther's love of the moon base. Of Aegis. Luther's easier acceptance of just being here.
"You're the one who--" Oh, no. She feels this one pushing up, and she wants to stop it, to pull back, to unshatter it when it's already breaking on her lips. "--said I was your best friend. The person you talked to. Except you didn't. You didn't even try. And instead, you made me look like an inconsequential idiot for it in front of someone who's, apparently, been your friend for nearly as long as we've been here."
She got to stand there and not exist in so many ways.
"Not your best friend. Your family. Not even someone who existed in all that time. And I was. An idiot." Allison shakes her head. "I thought she was wrong—all the way from Heropa to here. I just dismissed it. Like there was no way that something could have been that big, that long, and you just never would have said anything to me. To me. Even in passing. Even just a detail of your day."
"You know." It's so stupid—all of this. How important it feels only as it's lost. "You've met basically everyone who even managed to matter, even when I hated this place, and I couldn't even talk to people. Even the handlers and makeup artists at my job that I don't know that names of know who you are because you're always there at any of the satellite appearances."
"And, apparently, I know nothing about your life outside this room, and I don't exist outside of it. Because, you wanted it that way." She just can't stop her mouth now. Can't stop the hurt. Or want to hurt. "Great job. You succeeded entirely. Rainbow colors. High marks."
Luther's skin is so durable physically. Knives, bullets, they all bounce right off him. He's gotten so accustomed to being hardy and untouchable, even if it doesn't mean he's invincible; he barrels himself right into the line of fire, and pain is a distant afterthought if he isn't courting it. Isn't begging for it, making the other boxer in the ring slug him over and over until Luther's outsides match his insides.
But one thing he hasn't ever had to guard himself from is Allison's cutting speech, and so he doesn't have his guard up or a defense against it. Sticks and stones can't ever break his bones, but words can always hurt him. This aches in a way he's rarely felt before, like he's swallowed glass, like there's a dull panic pounding in his fingertips and his chest.
(You know, you are so goddamn big, sometimes I forget what a sensitive bastard you are.)
"I didn't want that," Luther says, frustrated and afraid, his voice finally getting louder as it frays and he can't hold back anymore. He shoots up to his feet in the middle of the living room, fists clenching and unclenching at his side. "Allison. That's not what I— Of course you exist. You matter. I fucked up. I didn't even realise. I know that's not a defense, it's not a good excuse, but I didn't even know I was doing it. If I'd known, or known that it mattered to you like this, I wouldn't have."
A hyper-compartmentalisation so specific that he hadn't even known he was doing it at the time.
Funny. How none of it feels real. How desperately she wants it to be. (How deeply, coldly, intimately familiar, and worn-in that oily spreading feeling of disbelief shattering through it all is.) How much angrier than makes her. At herself. At him. She hates that clawing, digging, disgusting desperation that wants to blot out the rest of this for that. To look away. That wants him to produce some good enough excuse. Except that's what they are. Excuse. Like he just said.
Like hers. Just like hers.
Every reason she gave herself. Ray. Klaus. Vanya. Even Luther.
Luther swings himself up, making her have to go from looking down at him on the couch to havnig to look up at his now towering form, and if anything, Allison's expression only hardens a little, sharpens, shoulders holding, eyes narrowing. But at least he's on his feet. Her jaw feels like steel, and there's an itch in her muscles that's familiar even if it's seldom given into. Not here. Not Dallas. Not Hollywood. Not for over a decade. Not at him. Never at him.
No. Lie. But only one of them.
Only one of them got to be mad the last time. When there was a place to have, be a last time.
What do you want from me?
Nothing.
But she had nothing. She had two and a half years of nothing. The last thing she wants is nothing. (But she feels reduced to nothing, too.)
"Great." It's almost, but not quite the same as seconds back. Even shorter, sharper. Thrown across the space. "You're sorry. You didn't mean it. You just never considered it. Does that fix it? Do you think it makes it better? I just, what? Forget it now? And it doesn't matter? Even though nothing has changed, except you got caught?"
"'Got caught'," he repeats in disbelief. Got caught? Like he was purposefully sneaking around behind her back? Like he was cheating on her? It's unthinkable.
"I wasn't trying to hide anything."
Maybe it's a relief that he doesn't have anything like Diego's empathy or Klaus' telepathy, to not feel— whatever it is that's bowling her over. To feel it any more than he already is, the sympathetic bruising ache and panic that he feels just looking at her, just hearing it, just hearing that sharpness in Allison's voice and knowing that she's furious at him and he's still struggling to follow why.
So he almost wishes for it, now. Those powers. To understand her better. Because this feels like it's slipping away from him, the thread of the conversation furiously unravelling and he can't hold it in place.
But the same boy who could unconsciously exclude Vanya from everything in the family, because she wasn't the Academy, was the same one who could unconsciously exclude his friends from his family and his family from his friends. The two groups weren't the same, and so weren't supposed to line up. Until now, like a bucket of cold water being thrown in his face.
"It doesn't fix it or make it better. But I want to fix it. I'll— look, I'll tell you whatever you want to know. I can try to open up more."
She's only person he'd fall all over himself to promise these things to; to try to be better for; to communicate better for, which isn't exactly a Hargreeves strength.
"I don't want that!" It comes out so much louder and faster than even parsing his words into a thought first, and somehow even she distantly realizes that feels weird even through it. Discordant. Like a shoe that somehow doesn't fit right either, even when it's absolutely her, too. She hasn't been able to react this fast in months. Over a year.
But Allison doesn't back down. It's not what she was built for.
"I don't want--" He hands raise like quotation marks, her second hand finally coming off the strap of her bag again. "--'whatever you want, Allison.' I don't want to force you to tell me all these things if you don't want to, or wouldn't ever even think of it, or actively don't even want me to know what you're doing or why or with who."
Promise me, she'd demanded. Stupid. Childish.
So unaware. Of everything. Except that she'd regret it. Letting her hurt, anger, fear, arrogance force his hand.
She won't do it again now. She wasn't supposed to have to.
It wasn't supposed to be like that, or like this. It was supposed to be like three nights ago. Before she stayed too long. Before he fell asleep. Back when it was unexpected laughter echoing through the house, and then they were curled up next to each other on his bed in the dark, just talking, whispering in the dark. Too old to forget they weren't thirteen anymore, and letting it happen anyway. Safe enough to say the truth, no matter how dark or raw that truth might be. It was supposed to be that.
But it wasn't. "Just stop, Luther."
"Just-" There's an angry shrug, shaking her head. "-figure out whatever it is you want or don't want." But that's not enough, is it? There's too much emphasis like she has to be clear adding, "With me." Which sounds so goddamn childish, too, but she's tired of assuming. Tired of trusting blindly in something that obviously isn't anything she thought it already was. "That's not on me to tell you."
A second after, barely, "I have things to put away." Allison turned away from the living, heading toward her room.
Luther could easily have reached out and snagged Allison's arm and kept her here, stopped her from leaving, but she was too volatile and he was nowhere near eager to prolong this—
Well. This fight. He had to admit it, it was a fight. An argument that he still wasn't entirely sure where it had come from or how it had so unexpectedly slammed into both of them, leaving him reeling.
Whatever it is you want or don't want. With me.
The answer was, in fact, so easy. So incredibly easy that he could have automatically blurted it out to her back, her shoulder as it turned away from him — you, I want you, everything about you, in any way you'll have me — but the words died on his tongue. In the end, he was left alone, standing in the center of the living room and watching helplessly as she marched up the stairs to her bedroom, and as he heard the distant slam of a door.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
obediences) wrote2019-03-28 10:51 am
no subject
He doesn't even believe his own first words, and she's already tired of all of this. None of this was supposed to go like this. She was supposed to come home. To get to talk about her day. His. Maybe joke about how people would look at her less if she just switched with him and moved boxes. There could have been wine, maybe more of the leftover Asian food since populating boxes in the fridge.
It wasn't supposed to be the ground opening up like a swallowing maw between them.
"Because it's your life? Because it matters?"
That they exist. That he doesn't understand in the slightest. That she has to stand here and defend, with anger and desperation, what she never thought she'd have to fight for. What she's always thought she'd lose one day anyway, didn't she? When Luther finally wised up. About her.
"Because it shouldn't be--" Her hands just gestured, annoyed like even her now ever-present words aren't enough. "--this. Especially if you don't think they do matter. Broken into boxes and two different worlds that aren't allowed to touch. Never even admitting to having friends. To trying to figure out this place. Even when I hated this place, I wouldn't have held that against you."
She had never managed it, had she?
Luther's love of the moon base. Of Aegis.
Luther's easier acceptance of just being here.
"You're the one who--" Oh, no. She feels this one pushing up, and she wants to stop it, to pull back, to unshatter it when it's already breaking on her lips. "--said I was your best friend. The person you talked to. Except you didn't. You didn't even try. And instead, you made me look like an inconsequential idiot for it in front of someone who's, apparently, been your friend for nearly as long as we've been here."
She got to stand there and not exist in so many ways.
"Not your best friend. Your family. Not even someone who existed in all that time. And I was. An idiot." Allison shakes her head. "I thought she was wrong—all the way from Heropa to here. I just dismissed it. Like there was no way that something could have been that big, that long, and you just never would have said anything to me. To me. Even in passing. Even just a detail of your day."
"You know." It's so stupid—all of this. How important it feels only as it's lost. "You've met basically everyone who even managed to matter, even when I hated this place, and I couldn't even talk to people. Even the handlers and makeup artists at my job that I don't know that names of know who you are because you're always there at any of the satellite appearances."
"And, apparently, I know nothing about your life outside this room, and I don't exist outside of it. Because, you wanted it that way." She just can't stop her mouth now. Can't stop the hurt. Or want to hurt. "Great job. You succeeded entirely. Rainbow colors. High marks."
no subject
But one thing he hasn't ever had to guard himself from is Allison's cutting speech, and so he doesn't have his guard up or a defense against it. Sticks and stones can't ever break his bones, but words can always hurt him. This aches in a way he's rarely felt before, like he's swallowed glass, like there's a dull panic pounding in his fingertips and his chest.
(You know, you are so goddamn big, sometimes I forget what a sensitive bastard you are.)
"I didn't want that," Luther says, frustrated and afraid, his voice finally getting louder as it frays and he can't hold back anymore. He shoots up to his feet in the middle of the living room, fists clenching and unclenching at his side. "Allison. That's not what I— Of course you exist. You matter. I fucked up. I didn't even realise. I know that's not a defense, it's not a good excuse, but I didn't even know I was doing it. If I'd known, or known that it mattered to you like this, I wouldn't have."
A hyper-compartmentalisation so specific that he hadn't even known he was doing it at the time.
no subject
You're never irrelevant.
You exist. You matter.
Funny. How none of it feels real. How desperately she wants it to be. (How deeply, coldly, intimately familiar, and worn-in that oily spreading feeling of disbelief shattering through it all is.) How much angrier than makes her. At herself. At him. She hates that clawing, digging, disgusting desperation that wants to blot out the rest of this for that. To look away. That wants him to produce some good enough excuse. Except that's what they are. Excuse. Like he just said.
Like hers. Just like hers.
Every reason she gave herself.
Ray. Klaus. Vanya. Even Luther.
Luther swings himself up, making her have to go from looking down at him on the couch to havnig to look up at his now towering form, and if anything, Allison's expression only hardens a little, sharpens, shoulders holding, eyes narrowing. But at least he's on his feet. Her jaw feels like steel, and there's an itch in her muscles that's familiar even if it's seldom given into. Not here. Not Dallas. Not Hollywood. Not for over a decade. Not at him. Never at him.
No. Lie. But only one of them.
Only one of them got to be mad the last time.
When there was a place to have, be a last time.But she had nothing. She had two and a half years of nothing.
The last thing she wants is nothing. (But she feels reduced to nothing, too.)
"Great." It's almost, but not quite the same as seconds back. Even shorter, sharper. Thrown across the space. "You're sorry. You didn't mean it. You just never considered it. Does that fix it? Do you think it makes it better? I just, what? Forget it now? And it doesn't matter? Even though nothing has changed, except you got caught?"
no subject
Like he was cheating on her?It's unthinkable."I wasn't trying to hide anything."
Maybe it's a relief that he doesn't have anything like Diego's empathy or Klaus' telepathy, to not feel— whatever it is that's bowling her over. To feel it any more than he already is, the sympathetic bruising ache and panic that he feels just looking at her, just hearing it, just hearing that sharpness in Allison's voice and knowing that she's furious at him and he's still struggling to follow why.
So he almost wishes for it, now. Those powers. To understand her better. Because this feels like it's slipping away from him, the thread of the conversation furiously unravelling and he can't hold it in place.
But the same boy who could unconsciously exclude Vanya from everything in the family, because she wasn't the Academy, was the same one who could unconsciously exclude his friends from his family and his family from his friends. The two groups weren't the same, and so weren't supposed to line up. Until now, like a bucket of cold water being thrown in his face.
"It doesn't fix it or make it better. But I want to fix it. I'll— look, I'll tell you whatever you want to know. I can try to open up more."
She's only person he'd fall all over himself to promise these things to; to try to be better for; to communicate better for, which isn't exactly a Hargreeves strength.
no subject
But Allison doesn't back down. It's not what she was built for.
"I don't want--" He hands raise like quotation marks, her second hand finally coming off the strap of her bag again. "--'whatever you want, Allison.' I don't want to force you to tell me all these things if you don't want to, or wouldn't ever even think of it, or actively don't even want me to know what you're doing or why or with who."
Promise me, she'd demanded. Stupid. Childish.
So unaware. Of everything. Except that she'd regret it.
Letting her hurt, anger, fear, arrogance force his hand.
She won't do it again now.
She wasn't supposed to have to.
It wasn't supposed to be like that, or like this. It was supposed to be like three nights ago. Before she stayed too long. Before he fell asleep. Back when it was unexpected laughter echoing through the house, and then they were curled up next to each other on his bed in the dark, just talking, whispering in the dark. Too old to forget they weren't thirteen anymore, and letting it happen anyway. Safe enough to say the truth, no matter how dark or raw that truth might be. It was supposed to be that.
But it wasn't. "Just stop, Luther."
"Just-" There's an angry shrug, shaking her head. "-figure out whatever it is you want or don't want." But that's not enough, is it? There's too much emphasis like she has to be clear adding, "With me." Which sounds so goddamn childish, too, but she's tired of assuming. Tired of trusting blindly in something that obviously isn't anything she thought it already was. "That's not on me to tell you."
A second after, barely, "I have things to put away."
Allison turned away from the living, heading toward her room.
end
Well. This fight. He had to admit it, it was a fight. An argument that he still wasn't entirely sure where it had come from or how it had so unexpectedly slammed into both of them, leaving him reeling.
Whatever it is you want or don't want. With me.
The answer was, in fact, so easy. So incredibly easy that he could have automatically blurted it out to her back, her shoulder as it turned away from him — you, I want you, everything about you, in any way you'll have me — but the words died on his tongue. In the end, he was left alone, standing in the center of the living room and watching helplessly as she marched up the stairs to her bedroom, and as he heard the distant slam of a door.