( That one word trips him up, makes the rest of the world suddenly narrow and turn strangling around him, everything grinding to a halt as he reads.
Dating. Dating.
And even as it makes all the oxygen drain out of the room and makes him have to put the piece of paper down and go for another restless stewing walk through the forty-odd rooms of the empty mansion, Luther's already kicking himself for the reaction. He doesn't have any claim to this, any reason or right to have that catch his breath like it does. Despite the letters, the coy playfulness he thinks he can read between the lines. Dating. Of course she'd be dating. Her career isn't quite big enough yet for the tabloids to report on every single public sighting or suspected coffee date, so he hasn't had to be confronted with it in the pages yet, but—
Of course she would be.
But then the rest of the letter reminds him to breathe again, to pick himself back off the floor, to finally sit down and write a response. )
Dear Allison,
I feel like all of my letters are always too short — I'm not very good at this — so anything you write is fine. More than fine, even. Don't ever feel obligated.
You should rest up, after all your travel. I can only imagine the days on set are long. If there's one good thing about not needing to supervise the training of four other students, it's that I can sleep in more often. The missions are always draining, of course, sometimes I'm up for days at a time, but I can usually take it easy and rest afterwards. Mom still cooks her smiley face pancakes.
Do you travel a lot?
- Luther
PS: Huh, well. Is there any paperwork involved in applying? Do I need to propose a particular route of divination and religious devotion and ritualized worship, maybe? It'll take me a while to get all the bureaucracy together, but I'll consider it.
( Time has passed, and the weeks have turned and turned, and somehow autumn's here, the trees in the northeast changing their leaves. And then, much like the very first piece of mail from Allison that kicked all this off— there's a second envelope along with the delivery. A simple sepia-green envelope with a card inside, on off-white cardstock. It's almost October 1st, and somehow, Luther has found and obtained stationery. He slipped away during his return from a mission, stepped into an indie book shop with his uniform still ripped from the fight and a black eye blooming, and he'd first admired their books and then, secondly, found their collection of quirky cards with vintage illustrations. They had made him laugh; he'd picked one up, and then carefully written on it at home.
That smudge of the ink might be her imagination. )
no subject
Dating.
Dating.
And even as it makes all the oxygen drain out of the room and makes him have to put the piece of paper down and go for another restless stewing walk through the forty-odd rooms of the empty mansion, Luther's already kicking himself for the reaction. He doesn't have any claim to this, any reason or right to have that catch his breath like it does. Despite the letters, the coy playfulness he thinks he can read between the lines. Dating. Of course she'd be dating. Her career isn't quite big enough yet for the tabloids to report on every single public sighting or suspected coffee date, so he hasn't had to be confronted with it in the pages yet, but—
Of course she would be.
But then the rest of the letter reminds him to breathe again, to pick himself back off the floor, to finally sit down and write a response. )
I feel like all of my letters are always too short — I'm not very good at this — so anything you write is fine. More than fine, even. Don't ever feel obligated.
You should rest up, after all your travel. I can only imagine the days on set are long. If there's one good thing about not needing to supervise the training of four other students, it's that I can sleep in more often. The missions are always draining, of course, sometimes I'm up for days at a time, but I can usually take it easy and rest afterwards. Mom still cooks her smiley face pancakes.
Do you travel a lot?
- Luther
PS: Huh, well. Is there any paperwork involved in applying? Do I need to propose a particular route of divination and religious devotion and ritualized worship, maybe? It'll take me a while to get all the bureaucracy together, but I'll consider it.
( Time has passed, and the weeks have turned and turned, and somehow autumn's here, the trees in the northeast changing their leaves. And then, much like the very first piece of mail from Allison that kicked all this off— there's a second envelope along with the delivery. A simple sepia-green envelope with a card inside, on off-white cardstock. It's almost October 1st, and somehow, Luther has found and obtained stationery. He slipped away during his return from a mission, stepped into an indie book shop with his uniform still ripped from the fight and a black eye blooming, and he'd first admired their books and then, secondly, found their collection of quirky cards with vintage illustrations. They had made him laugh; he'd picked one up, and then carefully written on it at home.
That smudge of the ink might be her imagination. )