luther "the big shy one" hargreeves | #00.01 (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
obediences) wrote2019-03-08 12:15 am
obediences) wrote2019-03-08 12:15 amEntry tags:
for ltbrownnoser.
for
obediences) wrote2019-03-08 12:15 am
ltbrownnoser.
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This post-fight banter is casual, comfortable... and oddly companionable. In a world where he was only taught to fight, this is the sort of thing he knows and thrives in.
But then Sarah banks left, and Luther suddenly finds himself at sea again. He's still buzzing with remnants of adrenaline thrumming down all his nerves, and her gaze is trawling slow-motion over every inch of him. And where once he'd have recoiled from that close attention, wary of what it means... even Luther, oblivious as he is, can read that that isn't disgust or revulsion glinting in Sarah's eyes. He feels his skin prickling, self-conscious.
Self-conscious for a different reason. A better reason, this time.
"I don't..." he starts, but then stops again, grinding to a halt as soon as he realises what a lie that would be. Because Luther does know it. Battle is always where the Academy has excelled: for most of their active years, four of them had found it joyful, playful, a time and a place to flex their skills and excel, to have fun with it. He's at his best in a fight. He knows what he can offer there, knows what he's supposed to do: the world narrows down and becomes beautifully simple and manageable and, even if it's just for a few minutes, he manages to forget everything else.
So Luther pauses, looks back at her. Feels the ground shifting underfoot and tries to find the right words for a response. This is the part that wasn't covered in the briefings and mission files and parameters; this is the part the Monocle never prepared him for. Anything outside a battle.
But his gaze is steady when it eventually does fix on Sarah, and meets her eye. When he responds, it isn't exactly an answer, but it's the closest thing he can get to a compliment:
"I like the way you handle yourself in a fight."
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Instead, he pauses as though taking a mental inventory to try to decide what he wants to say or, perhaps, how he wants to shut her down this time in particular. Sarah, to her credit, shows an uncharacteristic amount of patience. Some part of her is hoping that taking him off guard when he's coming down from an adrenaline high might work in her favour, but if it's going to, then she needs to make sure she doesn't startle the wounded animal hiding in his chest as she approaches it. So she waits. And she smiles, smug and amused all at once.
Sarah's eyes sweep over him again as she takes a few steps toward him. They're tentative in her heart but she's careful to make them look self-assured. "Yeah?" she asks. "Is it the witty banter or the skillful use of future tech and a laser?" she asks playfully. Then, because she's never been good at the long game, she adds, "I'd climb you like a tree right now if I thought you'd let me get away with it, One." Sarah goes with One on purpose because he seems most comfortable in his own skin when he's in Academy mode and she knows that One is what he went by when he'd been a part of it. Manipulative and shameless? Probably, but if it gets her what she wants, Sarah's kind of okay with that.
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He can feel his heartbeat ratcheting up, a nervous patter as Sarah steps closer — because the lifeline's shortening and he doesn't know what the hell to do when she gets there. He'd been gently, politely rebuffing her for weeks, but they've had time to get to know each other now. Excesses of time. To sleep in the same room, talk into the low hours, whiling away the days, scavenging together, having each others' back. At a certain point—
At a certain point, maybe keeping yourself trapped in suspension and pushing others away while waiting forever for something impossible, like a fly trapped in amber while everyone else in your life has moved on, is an exercise in futility—
He swallows, once. Still watching her. And it's been years, years since he's dusted off anything near flirtatious banter, but he still remembers being needled and pushing back, once upon a time, and so in the end he falls back on that, half-challenging, half-dare:
"I'm not sure you could even reach."
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Smirking, Sarah lifts an eyebrow at him. "Challenge accepted," she announces and, just because she can, uses the Vortex Manipulator's ability to spatially jump. He's right; she couldn't reach if she tried on her own, but with a well-planned jump, Sarah's able to get the height she needs and, in addition, gives herself enough of a boost to get her arms circled around his neck, her legs wrapping around his waist to keep her steady.
"Someday, you'll learn not to challenge me unless you mean it," she tells him in a low voice, just this side of raspy with desire. "Apparently, today is not that day." Sarah tilts her head a little and stares at his mouth for a moment before making a show of dragging her gaze back up to meet his eyes. "I hope it takes you a long time to learn the lesson," she adds in a near whisper, leaning in as though to kiss him — because, Christ she's been wanting to for long enough, now, and for once, he's not rebuffing her before she can even get close enough to try — and stops just short of it to give him the opportunity to change his mind and tell her to knock it off.
Sarah wants him; of course she does and has for what feels like an age even though it's only been weeks, but she's also not willing to shoot herself in the foot. At this point, the idea of being alone in this wasteland is the worst thing she can think of and she doesn't want to give him a reason to finally walk away.
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But he's not quite a statue anymore. His heartbeat feels so loud he's almost amazed she can't hear it. He half-steps backward until his back collides with the sun-warmed side of their car, and Sarah is suddenly so close, right up in his face, and he can see just how blue her eyes are. He hadn't really had a chance to notice before. Luther's fingers fan across her hips, the small of her back; careful with his strength, not digging in lest he accidentally bruise her.
His only memory of something comparable to this is unbearably hazy. He's trying to think back to it for reference, but that evening was blurry with alcohol and shot through with unnamed drugs, and so he can't remember— where does he put his hands, what does he do now? And should he? He shouldn't, this is messy, this might risk this fragile partnership they've built...
But that heady adrenaline's still knocking around in his blood, his pulse, and there's a restless energy in his system that he still needs to banish. (Both their systems, probably.) It's do a hundred push-ups or go for a run around the block or punch his way through a wall or this, and with Sarah's knees tightening around his waist, he's temporarily forgotten what all his reasons were for not doing this.
So he shifts her in his arms, close enough to reach, and he kisses her.
It's hesitant at first: the gesture delicate like stepping out onto thin ice, careful that it won't just shatter and fall apart beneath them at this added pressure to their situation, a changing of the parameters.
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She can't help noticing that he's gentle about it, though. Tentative, almost, like he's not sure he ought to be doing this and it's all a bit more intimate than Sarah generally likes to feel with someone. So she doesn't hold back.
Sarah's hands unclasp behind his neck and move into his hair as she deepens the kiss, rolling her hips against his abdomen in an attempt to goad him a little more. Her kiss draws back, just slightly, and her teeth scrape gently over his bottom lip when she sucks on it for a flicker of a moment before breaking it. "It's about fucking time, darling," she says quietly, voice low and husky before she crushes her mouth to his again to pick up where she left off.
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Somewhere, somehow, he'd still had his constant irrational doubts despite Sarah never batting an eye at his appearance, always telling him how fit he looked; it still hadn't felt real until suddenly she's all hands and tongue and teeth, and he realises, Oh. So it is true. She can actually be attracted to him—
About time, she says, and he murmurs, quietly, half to himself in the moment when they break apart for a breath: "You have no idea."
Ten years. So many long lonely pent-up years, and his first time was robbed from him, so this time he's set on feeling and experiencing and remembering it all: the warmth of Sarah's mouth (swearing and all), the near-ticklish sensation of her fingers combing into his short hair, and the strong arch of her thighs as he runs a hand along the denim, pauses for a moment, and then finally cups her ass to haul her closer and get a better grip on her.
He's a quick learner.
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Sarah is strictly non-monogamous but she's not opposed to playing the part if that's what it takes for companionship. Here, there's no one else around anyway, so what's the bloody difference? If he wants to get on board with making this a regular stress reliever, Sarah is all in.
Fingernails rake gently against his scalp before one hand curls behind the back of his neck and Sarah pulls back again for another breath. This time, she presses her forehead to his to force herself to take longer than half a second to breathe before going straight in again.
"Oh, really?" she asks, quiet and breathless as her chest heaves against his and her legs start to quake around him, half from the need to be touched between them and half because she's been using them to hold herself up this whole time even though she can feel him supporting her with his arm. It's a reflex. Men, in her experience, generally enjoy reaping the benefits of as little effort as possible in a sexual encounter. It's why she generally prefers fucking women, but sometimes a girl just needs a giant of a man to plow into her and remind her that sometimes rough is brilliant, too.
The hand that had still been in his hair falls away, then, and she shifts her body just slightly in an attempt to reach for the zipper of his trousers. She comes up a bit short because as much as she love this difference in size, it does mean that her arms are a bit shorter than necessary at the moment given where she's situated herself against him. "Fuck..." she complains, more to herself than to him. "I'm too bloody short."
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When he feels her muscles trembling, he turns around and gently deposits her on the hood of the car. It puts her at a decent height where he can step in between her legs, lean in and capture her in another kiss. Normally, this wouldn't be something he'd do in public, and part of him is still trying to stay vaguely aware of their surroundings — but they're in the middle of nowhere and you can see anyone approaching for miles around, like they had earlier, so fuck it. Why not. Public isn't public if the rest of the public is dead.
What eventually becomes apparent, though, is that Luther is oddly all mouth: he kisses hungrily, eagerly, and after a moment pulls slightly away in order to work his way down her jaw, her neck, teeth and tongue against her pulse-point — but all the while, his hands stay braced against the car on either side of her. As if he's still hesitant to touch her, to put his hands all over her.
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If she were less in the moment, Sarah might notice sooner that he's not touching her so much as centering himself. His mouth on her is distracting enough for her to miss it for the moment, and her fingers start again in his hair. They're only there momentarily before she remembers what she'd been trying to do in the first place and he's positioned her where the height disparity is less pronounced.
Sarah tilts her head back, exposing her throat to him as Luther makes his way to her neck and her ankles hook behind his back to keep him close. This time, when she reaches between them, she can successfully reach the waistline of his trousers and she huffs a soft sound caught between a moan and a laugh as she starts to unbutton them.
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He hasn't had a chance yet, though, to really work out what it is he likes and doesn't like. So, he's taking advantage of it now, and his mind keeps cataloguing everything neatly. An inventory of things he likes: the softness of Sarah's skin; that moan in the back of her throat; her fingernails raking through his short blond hair; the rapid thrum of her pulse under his lips. His alternating licking and sucking and biting at her neck in an attempt to leave a mark, some proof, Luther was here.
When she draws him even closer and starts working at his zipper, she can feel the hard line of his arousal through the fabric; it doesn't take much. But once Sarah manages to get his trousers open and dives a hand in to wrap around him, he jolts, his whole body shuddering around the pleasurable sensation, and he— grips too hard. The metal of the car hood buckles, an imprint of his hands crushed into its outline. A hiss through his teeth. "Sorry," he says, shakily, his whole attention narrowing down to just the warmth of her hand. The perimeter watch is a lost cause.
It's all probably too much, too fast, but Luther is stubborn and in need of something to prove, and therefore set on trying to make this work—
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Grinning, Sarah huffs out a soft laugh and shakes her head at his apology. "Oh, darling, I've barely even gotten started. You flatter me already," she teases playfully as she gives him a tentative stroke. Wait until I'm not stuck on the hood of the car and I can get on my knees, mate, she thinks but keeps herself from saying because she'd rather he get back to kissing her and she doesn't want to inject witty banter just now.
It never occurs to Sarah that there might be more to his reaction or his determination than the fact that he's shy and finally letting himself unwind and enjoy it. If it did, she might've thought this through a bit more and waited at least until they were back in their shelter or...something less harried and out in the open like this.
And, really, she does want Luther to touch her, but if it's been long enough since his last lay that her just touching him has him denting a bloody vehicle, it can wait until he's a little more settled into it. She's significantly more fragile than the car, after all. "Were you trying to give me a hickey?" she asks, grinning a little. "Christ, I haven't had one in a decade; it's been a while. Try harder," she goads him breathlessly, thumb sweeping over the head of his cock on her upstroke and her eyes on his face to gauge the reaction to that with mischievous curiosity.
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The man is hopelessly uptight, tightly-wound like a set of gears that's constantly just a minute away from snapping, and so she can quickly see that he starts coming undone with each languid stroke of her hand. When she rolls her thumb over his cock, his teeth reflexively nip sharper into her neck, grazing harder against the skin. His whole body is bowing forwards and leaning into the touch, and it elicits a low moan from him as he mouths against her throat. He keeps one hand braced against the car, and then the other tentatively reaches for the hem of Sarah's shirt, slides under it, enough for his fingers to reach bare skin—
And his hips judder and when he feels how smooth she is compared to him, he inhales sharply. It's been too long. It's been too long and he's not going to last long and now he's right here, right in the open, rutting against her in public and against the car like some animal—
And just like that, Luther withdraws, catches her hand in his and gently tugs her away from him with an iron-like grip. Something undefinable has shot across his face, a shuttered self-conscious look. He hasn't ever actually taken her hand before: when he glances down, even that touch is enough to see how her hand is dwarfed by his, his fingers oversized, monstrous. He shouldn't be touching her with these hands. Not like this.
(She keeps saying it's okay. And yet. And yet.)
"Sorry," he says, and this time there's less amusement laced into that one word, more panic. Like a deer caught in the headlights, suddenly unsure what to do, where to go. "I— I can't. Shit. Sarah—"
He quickly starts buttoning up his trousers again, and his ears are beet-red in a blush. Mortified. "I'm sorry."
And he can't tell if he's mortified for this almost having happened like this, or for shutting them down so abruptly— or some inexplicable, irrational combination of both.
(The latter. Of course it's the latter.)
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And then, for some unknown reason, leaving her anxious, confused, and obnoxiously wet, he pulls the plug and everything grinds to an abrupt halt, dragging a grunt of indignation from her as he pulls her hand back out of his pants.
"Luther, what the fuck?" she blurts out breathlessly, panting and clawing her free hand's fingers against the hood of the car beside her as if willing that to release the tension. She's torn between angry and hurt because now he's gotten her all worked up and let her get him worked up and now what the bloody fuck is she supposed to do? But he's apologizing and the anger slips away into a passive frustration as Sarah lets her head fall back, exposing her red-marked throat to the sky as she lets out a heavy sigh to catch her breath.
After a moment, Sarah lifts her head again, chest still heaving as she continues to try to settle her breath again. "Don't be," she says, although it does take a conscious effort not to let the offense she's feeling trickle into her voice. Everyone is entitled to revoke their consent, she knows that, but for fuck's sake, he'd seemed just as into it as she was, so why had he?
She wants to ask, but asking would sound more desperate than Sarah ever wants to sound, so she doesn't. She just hops off the roof of the car and tugs down the shorts a little to straighten them out and smooths her hands over her top to straighten that out. ...and steadfastly ignores the uncomfortable wetness between her legs and hopes that it hasn't had a chance to soak into her panties because they're the last clean ones she's got until some of the others dry and, without a dryer, sometimes that takes whole days. "Right, then..." she says and tries not to make it more awkward than it already is. "I guess we should get back, anyway. The sun'll be going down soon."
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It's all excuses and justifications, really, but Luther uses it anyway in desperation to try and paper over this suddenly-awkward offbeat stiltedness to the scene. It all sounds perfectly rational. Perfectly sensible.
Sensible went out the window the moment he almost fucked her against the hood of a car, though.
Still blushing up a storm, Luther opens the door and hops in, shoulders hunched and hands rigid on the steering wheel while he waits for Sarah to get in beside him. He's still uncomfortably hard and he can sense it, trapped against the fabric and desperately yearning for relief. Maybe it's a good thing the water heater's on-again off-again back home; once they get back, he's drenching himself in a cold shower to try to take care of this. This situation.
He keeps his gaze riveted straight ahead as he drives them back to the house, trying not to look at Sarah (lips swollen from kisses and her hair still mussed, with the mark of his teeth against her neck). It doesn't help, though: he can clearly see through the windshield and see the dent in the hood, his handprints pressed into the metal. He's going to think of that every time he looks at this goddamned car now.
God, this was a mistake.
When they get back to the house and offload the groceries and ammunition (some strange variation of a domestic ritual), they make a brave effort at recapturing some of their easy camaraderie from before, but it's difficult. They're walking circles around the elephant in the room, both of them wired and geared-up and restless (and in Sarah's case, confused). He almost apologises while they're heating up a sad little dinner. Considers trying to explain while she's counting the bullets. Almost blurts it out while he does the dishes and she wanders past.
But he bites down on his words and lets the awkward strained evening go on, instead.
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So she leaves it alone until they've settled on their respective beds, hours after she's finally cooled down from the incomplete encounter, and silence falls between them in the darkness.
"All right, Luther?" she asks finally, looking in his direction but really only able to make out the general shape of him in the very dim light from the moon. "You seem tense and that's making me anxious, yeah?"
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For the first time since that first evening and their first occasion sharing a bedroom at night, Luther was discomfited and on edge again, hyper-aware of Sarah's proximity. Self-conscious and aware of the fact that as he lay there in the darkness staring at the wall, aware and cataloguing every inch between them, she was just a few feet away in the other bed and there was something he could easily do to change that, actually. The small distance between them suddenly so significant, where it hadn't been before. Every tell-tale rustle of the sheets, creak of the mattress, had him picturing her.
He'd been pretty good at not picturing her, this whole time. Days and weeks. Lieutenant Sanders was someone to merely survive with, to have his back, to persist through this awful situation together, a hand on a stun gun—
(but until now, not a warm body in his arms, soft skin and hot mouth and—)
It's impossible to sleep. His thoughts keep going in circles. It's like she's planted a seed, a germ of an idea that finally took root after weeks of failed transplantation, and now those roots are growing and digging their way into the foundation and and those thoughts are stubbornly, persistently present. He hadn't really cared, before. She'd been a stranger, before.
But now—
Sarah speaks up, and Luther stares at the ceiling, until he rolls over enough to look at her across the gulf of the bedroom. Too far and not far enough.
"I just, uh," he starts, pauses. "Wanted to apologise. For earlier."
(For what part of earlier, Luther Hargreeves?)
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Except, she won't. She won't because he shut it down and Sarah can only assume that the consent is revoked until further notice. It actually takes the fun out of even joking around about it, so she hasn't done that, either. Really, it's put quite a damper on conversation, she can't help noticing.
The apology comes as a surprise, given he's been spending the rest of the evening dancing around the elephant in the room and giving her rather a wide berth. "Which part, my love? Leaving me all hot and bothered or making me spend this whole evening wondering what I did to upset you enough to shut it down so abruptly?"
Her tone is neutral, bordering curiosity more than anything. She's moved past the initial hurt and anger and frustration and onto just wondering and wanting to have the mystery solved for her because, quite frankly, she's too bloody lazy to solve it on her own. Fortunately for Luther, he's found himself a survival partner who is largely averse to feelings; she allows herself to feel them for a few minutes, and then she moves on. They're mostly a waste of time, in her opinion. So, at least he hasn't got a mopey, desperate woman hanging on his every word. Just a confused and curious partner in crime wondering whether she broke some unspoken social construct and blown her chances for getting laid ever again before she dies on this burning rock.
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The cold shower earlier had done the trick of getting him back down to baseline — Luther didn't ordinarily get hot and bothered anyway, was accustomed to tamping down those urges with almost monastic self-control, ignoring desire for years at a time, particularly compared to something like Sarah's libido — but he was still left tense, wound-up. Today, and riding that adrenaline high and the rush of knowing you'd just killed someone and you'd just survived, you'd just come out of it alive with a partner by your side, well.
Turns out that revved his engines like nothing else.
He hesitates, feeling the silence and the darkness spinning out between them. Weighing his words, trying to decide how much to say. Sarah's averse to feelings, and Luther feels all of them but always bites down on it, tries not to show it. Tries to present that steely indomitable facade as much as he can.
And he fails, often.
But he doesn't want to explain. He doesn't want to expose this part of himself, vulnerabilities bared to view, but Sarah's officially his only goddamned friend in the world anymore, and she deserves the truth after what he'd done earlier: diving in so enthusiastically, only to flip a 180 and pull the rug out from under her. Contrary. Hypocritical. Coward.
Looking at the outline of her neck and shoulder in the moonlight, he's suddenly thankful for the relative darkness in the room, compared to the cold daylight they'd in before.
"You didn't do anything. It's not your fault. It's— it's not you, it's me. I don't really..." Luther says, but then stops, tries to rearrange the words, setting them out carefully. "I haven't really... Uh. I haven't really. Done that before."
He doesn't specify what exactly he means by that.
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So while he considers his words, Sarah waits with some modicum of patience he's earned by never making her regret showing it for him in the past several weeks.
Ah, the ever-dreaded it's not you, it's me speech and she hasn't even the romantic relationship to go with it. Still, she waits for him to finish, clamping down on her urge to interrupt with a complaint about his word choice, and she's only further confused by his comment.
"What, have at it out in the open like that?" she asks, making an assumption. "Yeah, all right, that's fair enough. Not everyone can be an exhibitionist and, even though there's no one else around, I can see that being a bit much for you if you're not," she replies, agreeably enough. It doesn't occur to her even for a second that a fit bloke at his age might not have ever done any of it. Why should it, after all? "Right, apology accepted, but maybe next time just tell me, mate. I was going mad all bloody evening, you know."
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"I mean, having at it. In general. At all."
oh god this is a mistake why is he talking about this
"I mean, I've done it once? I think. But I was— I don't really remember it. I'd had too much to drink, took some pills someone offered me, so I kinda. Blacked out. I don't have any memory of it."
And unfortunately, if he can't even remember what it was like, then it doesn't even really feel like he lost his virginity at all. He doesn't have the experience and knowledge to fall back on, no frame of reference. He hadn't felt triumphant that morning, despite Klaus trying to sound celebratory; Luther had been abjectly miserable, regretful. He hadn't ever meant for it to go that way, unfold like that.
"So I'm just. Not used to it. Uh. Which is why." He clears his throat. Still sounding oddly prim and old-fashioned and never quite able to name it for what it is, because old habits die hard, and he'd been raised to be just that straightlaced.
"So. Not your fault."
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First, that Luther is her age and is functionally a virgin. Second, that Luther got drunk enough to black out. Third, Luther took drugs? This is all entirely too fascinating because it flies in the face of everything Sarah had put together in her head about the person Luther was before the end of the world.
She wants to ask a million questions but all of them seem rude enough to make him shut down. And then, Luther stops talking and Sarah realizes she needs to say something before too long a pause has time to pass between them. Waiting too long will only reinforce the awkward tension and she'd really rather be rid of all that, if it's all the same to Luther.
"Right, I reckon fucking someone on the hood of a car out in the open isn't really an ideal first time, so that's fair enough," she says simply. Then, "I'm glad it wasn't anything I did. Or said."
Sarah finds herself wondering whether she ought to be less overt and pushy and just let Luther come to her when, or if, he wants to try again. A part of her thinks he'll never do it, though, and not because he doesn't want to; because he'll think he can't or shouldn't. So now, how do they proceed from here?
As much as Sarah loves quick and dirty and rough, there is something to be said about taking things slower and gentler every now and again. Maybe it wouldn't kill her to let Luther see the softer side of her to let him know that the door's still open and she'd really rather love for him to come in, but that she isn't going to stand in the doorway nagging him to, any longer.
The mattress creaks under her as Sarah climbs off the bed and crosses the room, closing the small gap between their beds and climbing onto his beside him. She doesn't lie down; just sits beside him and takes one of his hands without permission, moving it to settle against the left side of her chest so he can feel her heartbeat beneath it. The skin is rough against her own, but nothing she hasn't felt something similar to with past lovers. He isn't as different from her previous partners as Sarah suspects that he believes himself to be.
"I'm going to let you come to me when — if — you want another go on your terms. I want you to, but I'm not going to push anymore, yeah? Feel that heartbeat and how steady it is so you know I mean it when I tell you: I want you to. I really want you to." Sarah moves her other hand to cover his where she's kept it pressed to her heart, holding his wrist. He could break away but she likes to think she's earned enough of his trust that he won't. In the dark, she can't read his expression as well, but she can see him more clearly being this close. So Sarah looks him in the eye and hopes he can see it. "I know you don't believe me, so I'll say it once more: I want you, Luther. When you're ready, I am, too."
Then, Sarah lets go of his hand and takes a deep breath, letting it out in a soft sigh. "Okay?"
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He tells himself not to pull away. He doesn't pull away.
Instead, Luther levers himself up to a seated position, and you can practically see the gears turning in his head. She's being patient. Tamping down all of that spitfire energy that she's been wielding this whole time, replacing it with a patience that echoes his instead.
When you're ready, I am, too.
And it's like testing your weight on a still-healing broken bone, wondering: Am I ready? How do you tell?
But Sarah's words are unexpectedly soft, the cocky brash time agent gone now. And he couldn't have explained it aloud if you paid him, but that burst of gentleness and understanding makes something in his chest go into freefall. A low ache that isn't only desire, exactly, but something else. Something that's always been commingled with that rare stirring of desire where Luther's concerned. Where the trust and faith and patience and late-night conversations and having each others' back in a fight, all of that matters more than the way she fills out a pair of shorts, or how blue her eyes are.
Luther's sitting upright in bed now, legs stretched out beside her, where Sarah still perches on the edge of the mattress. And he considers how cowardly it is to be frightened of a woman who simply likes you and wants you.
(It's the most terrifying thing in the world.)
His gaze has dropped to where Sarah's hand is resting on the sheets, his own next to hers. Still looking terrible, but he can still remember that steady thump-thump, thump-thump of her pulse. He reaches out, runs a thumb along the line of her wrist, her knuckles. Swallows his heart in his throat and looks up, meets her eye, and scrutinises what he finds there. In the end:
"I want to," he says. And then hesitates. "And I think I can. If you... can you tell me what to do? As we go. What you'd like best."
Because more than anything, Luther Hargreeves is obedient; takes to instruction well. And while it stings to admit inexperience, but compared to Sarah fucking her way across the galaxy, he's certainly inexperienced. So in this, he can slip out of the skin of Number One and hand over the reins instead for once. Unlike his jostling for authority with Diego— if Sarah has a bossy mouth, he'd rather like to listen to it.
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But the reason for the patience isn't the important thing. The important thing is that she has it, for now, so she's willing to spend it on him. Somehow, it doesn't really surprise her that he's sat up, but it does, take her off her guard when he initiates physical contact. That's not a thing that Luther does; never has been, at least in Sarah's experience. Her eyes shift down to watch the tentative way he touches her, like he's afraid he'll break or offend her and he's not sure which would be worse.
After a few seconds, she looks back up at him and now that her eyes have had time to adjust to the darkness more, his face is a little bit clearer. He's gauging her response, perhaps to the movement of his coriaceous thumb against her skin. Sarah gives him a small smile to let him know that his touch is welcome.
When he speaks, he surprises her again and Sarah tells herself to stop underestimating him or at least stop trying to assume what might come out of that mouth of his any time he opens it.
His request is strangely heartwarming, but then he tacks on that last and Sarah snorts a laugh. "Oh, darling, you are most assuredly not ready for what I like best. Baby steps, my love," she says, turning her hand over, under his, and giving that thumb an affectionate squeeze. "But we can work up to that. In the meantime, yeah, I can tell you. You have to promise to tell me this time, though, if you're uncomfortable. Don't wait until you can't stand it anymore and then leave us both high and dry, yeah?" This time, when Sarah smiles, it's coyly before she moves again.
Sarah takes his hands, both this time, guiding them to her back where the hooks of her bra are. She's not entirely sure he'll be able to manage it with such big fingers, but it's worth a try. "It hooks together; feel that?" She pauses. "Pinch the fabric on either side of the hooks and push the sides together. That ought to knock some of the hooks out of their eyes, if not all of them. Start there. If you can't get it, don't get frustrated and don't try to force it. There's workarounds in a pinch."
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But it does turn out to be more difficult than he realised: his hands aren't as dextrous as they used to be, the fingers large and clumsy, and even normal men have trouble with this part. He winds up leaning in closer, his expression turning distant and furrowed in concentration like he's working on a particularly confounding crossword puzzle. Eventually his cheek is nearly against hers, head bowed as he feels blindly for the hooks behind her.
"Somebody needs to design a better mechanism for this," he mutters into her hair. He's keeping his movements careful, so careful to not rip it with his strength — he suspects she certainly wouldn't appreciate him destroying one of her only bras, they'd have to go scavenge for more and hope that they fit — but finally, he manages to unhook it. And his fingertips graze against the strap, and so the bra just slides off her shoulders. And it turns out he got so absorbed that he practically forgot why he was working on that puzzle to begin with, because now he looks a little startled to find that Sarah is sitting on his bed just a few inches from him, and she is. Very. Topless.
Luther swallows, his Adam's apple bobbing, as he glances down. Then, carefully, back up to the level of her eyes.
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