Luther doesn't move; doesn't jerk back his hand from her shift, doesn't shift his hand, his fingers in the slightest over her hand. Stays quietly frozen for all but that small word. Let's her take this smallest thing she should be satisfied with the miracle of being granted, like having it a second doesn't blow past that entirely. Doesn't make the fierce traitor ache turn over her heart, flaring like stoked flame, with the sudden wish that her own hand wasn't between her cheek and his palm. That it was just that, his hand only that she could lean into.
Rough and warm and steady against her skin. She doesn't care if it's larger, or heavier, any more than she thought even for a second, all her life or even the ones with his fingers at her throat, about the sheer danger and capability of his strength, physical and supernatural both. She's never felt anything but safe with him.
Allison can't remember if he tried to comfort her when she woke up, before she remembered. How she got hurt. What happened. Before the notepad and Pogo. She's so late to even realizing, and he's gone through so much of her anger since only hours after that waking, that it feels like she was blindly obviously all over again. She wants to close her eyes. She wasn't to add an apology to that too small, too soundless, thanks.
(She wishes uncontrollably, arrestingly, chokingly it was his hand, against her skin. Wishes he would move. Would touch her in any way except holding still where she put him.
That it's the exhaustion. The too late gratitude. The scare from the day. But that it's never just that. Not with Luther. Never with Luther.
Knows it would be too complicated, too much moving, the tenuous bubble would burst.)
Especially when he draws back, gently then, like somehow he can feel the encroach her will trying to slip what little grasp she still has on it, in the still dark and quiet of the night, in this moment of painful truths and tentative trust. She doesn't fight him, even as it makes her chest ache for the loss, phantom ghosts of the warmth against her cheek. Her own palm. The places his fingertips had lain. The full back of her hand. She let him disentangle his fingers and the back of her knuckles, even as it felt like losing a part of herself.
Let own hand fall back to her pillow, and the whiskey glass resting there on it, while Luther's voice filled, and erased, that too large room, as she lifted to glass to take another drink. To do anything against the phantom warmth and the sudden empty air, at her cheek, at her throat, at her hand, the too full, too empty ache in her chest that seemed like it could have been written in the perfect mirror of his blue eyes unwavering on her. A language, a line of words, deeper and truer than any of the ones he'd just said.
I'll try my best.
It's no promise that she couldn't lie to him even now.
Because of who she is, they are, the unwavering, unthinking way they throw themselves into every battle, and because no matter how true any of the rest of it is, because of who he is, too. No lie would be good enough. No lie could be true enough. She doesn't want to die on him. She doesn't want to die at all. She still needs to get home. Needs to change time. Needs to save Claire, and the rest of the world while she's, they're, at it.
Needs to believe there's more of this. These small, silent, awkward series of missteps and choices bringing them back to anything like the children they once were. To the truest thing she ever knew in her life. The truest person she ever knew. The only one who ever truly saw her, knew her, liked her without any masks, or lies, or rumors.
On an awful night after long hours thinking their brother might die, and the smell of hospital seeped into their clothing, and now in need of comfort, a well-adjusted person probably would've offered a reassuring hug. Or even just his arm around her shoulders. Or just sitting there together, in companionable silence, staving off the darkness a little longer. Or, at least when leaving, perhaps delivering a friendly kiss to the top of her head before drawing away.
But the Academy hadn't been trained that way.
So Luther finishes off his whiskey — one glass, even neat, isn't enough to make a dent in him — and slowly rises to his feet again.
(Maybe someday, he'll linger; he'll stay just for the sake of staying, for the low murmur of conversation, for being near each other. But he's been awake too long and there's that exhaustion buzzing in his wrong shape, so recently disoriented, and this house is alien and unfamiliar too — not decked in their childhood posters and magazines, all the old comforting touchstones gone, and the only thing that's right is Allison, here, in front of him.
The silence lingers, not long, before Luther is pushing himself to his feet, and Allison takes a moment before deciding to even let her gaze travel all the way back up to the top of his height, as he says those words. There's something she can't really parse. Whether it's a sting or an ache, or just the inflation of exhaustion, that knows he's right, knows they both should sleep.
This place never lets itself lull long, and they'll need to see Klaus again, and the house has to be seen to.
Still, she finds herself swallowing and only nodding. Not reaching even for the four letters of any sort word. Okay. Good. Fine. Right. Allison just nods, against the weight of her eyelids and the unshaped one inside of her chest. She wonders how many minutes this even really was. Should be, is, grateful he felt he could, but there's something sore in it, too. A door opened and closed so quickly.
She has to remember she started this, too. With only two words.
(She could blame Klaus, but it's not what started this.)
And besides, it got started years ago, a snowball tipped into motion and rolling inexorably down the mountain, gathering weight and heft with every year. Even with those years apart, they hadn't lost any of it.
Luther can't tell how long this little meeting had taken, either: it simultaneously felt too brief and too small, and also like it had dragged on forever, the awkward lurch of the conversation intolerable. Moreso for how conversations between them had never been awkward before.
He lets himself back out of Allison's room, and closes the door behind him. Pauses there on the landing, listening to the house settle around them. Wonders if he's made a mistake.
But in the end, Luther turns and goes back to his room.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
obediences) wrote2019-03-28 10:51 am
no subject
Rough and warm and steady against her skin. She doesn't care if it's larger, or heavier, any more than she thought even for a second, all her life or even the ones with his fingers at her throat, about the sheer danger and capability of his strength, physical and supernatural both. She's never felt anything but safe with him.
Allison can't remember if he tried to comfort her when she woke up, before she remembered. How she got hurt. What happened. Before the notepad and Pogo. She's so late to even realizing, and he's gone through so much of her anger since only hours after that waking, that it feels like she was blindly obviously all over again. She wants to close her eyes. She wasn't to add an apology to that too small, too soundless, thanks.
(She wishes uncontrollably, arrestingly, chokingly it was his hand, against her skin.
Wishes he would move. Would touch her in any way except holding still where she put him.
That it's the exhaustion. The too late gratitude. The scare from the day.
But that it's never just that. Not with Luther. Never with Luther.
Knows it would be too complicated, too much moving, the tenuous bubble would burst.)
Especially when he draws back, gently then, like somehow he can feel the encroach her will trying to slip what little grasp she still has on it, in the still dark and quiet of the night, in this moment of painful truths and tentative trust. She doesn't fight him, even as it makes her chest ache for the loss, phantom ghosts of the warmth against her cheek. Her own palm. The places his fingertips had lain. The full back of her hand. She let him disentangle his fingers and the back of her knuckles, even as it felt like losing a part of herself.
Let own hand fall back to her pillow, and the whiskey glass resting there on it, while Luther's voice filled, and erased, that too large room, as she lifted to glass to take another drink. To do anything against the phantom warmth and the sudden empty air, at her cheek, at her throat, at her hand, the too full, too empty ache in her chest that seemed like it could have been written in the perfect mirror of his blue eyes unwavering on her. A language, a line of words, deeper and truer than any of the ones he'd just said.
I'll try my best.
It's no promise that she couldn't lie to him even now.
Because of who she is, they are, the unwavering, unthinking way they throw themselves into every battle, and because no matter how true any of the rest of it is, because of who he is, too. No lie would be good enough. No lie could be true enough. She doesn't want to die on him. She doesn't want to die at all. She still needs to get home. Needs to change time. Needs to save Claire, and the rest of the world while she's, they're, at it.
Needs to believe there's more of this. These small, silent, awkward series of missteps and choices bringing them back to anything like the children they once were. To the truest thing she ever knew in her life. The truest person she ever knew. The only one who ever truly saw her, knew her, liked her without any masks, or lies, or rumors.
no subject
On an awful night after long hours thinking their brother might die, and the smell of hospital seeped into their clothing, and now in need of comfort, a well-adjusted person probably would've offered a reassuring hug. Or even just his arm around her shoulders. Or just sitting there together, in companionable silence, staving off the darkness a little longer. Or, at least when leaving, perhaps delivering a friendly kiss to the top of her head before drawing away.
But the Academy hadn't been trained that way.
So Luther finishes off his whiskey — one glass, even neat, isn't enough to make a dent in him — and slowly rises to his feet again.
(Maybe someday, he'll linger; he'll stay just for the sake of staying, for the low murmur of conversation, for being near each other. But he's been awake too long and there's that exhaustion buzzing in his wrong shape, so recently disoriented, and this house is alien and unfamiliar too — not decked in their childhood posters and magazines, all the old comforting touchstones gone, and the only thing that's right is Allison, here, in front of him.
Which means he should stay.
But he doesn't know how to.)
"I should let you get some rest," he says.
no subject
This place never lets itself lull long, and they'll need to see Klaus again, and the house has to be seen to.
Still, she finds herself swallowing and only nodding. Not reaching even for the four letters of any sort word. Okay. Good. Fine. Right. Allison just nods, against the weight of her eyelids and the unshaped one inside of her chest. She wonders how many minutes this even really was. Should be, is, grateful he felt he could, but there's something sore in it, too. A door opened and closed so quickly.
She has to remember she started this, too. With only two words.
(She could blame Klaus, but it's not what started this.)
end
Luther can't tell how long this little meeting had taken, either: it simultaneously felt too brief and too small, and also like it had dragged on forever, the awkward lurch of the conversation intolerable. Moreso for how conversations between them had never been awkward before.
He lets himself back out of Allison's room, and closes the door behind him. Pauses there on the landing, listening to the house settle around them. Wonders if he's made a mistake.
But in the end, Luther turns and goes back to his room.