There's a fleeting panic that crosses his face for a second when they first see each other, and she can see the expression skew across his features before he manages to smooth it over. An immediate, brewing worry: What if she'd lied— what if she wasn't actually out of town this week, and instead just wanted to avoid him, didn't want to see him, couldn't tell him the truth and reject him directly—
But there's something in her own shocked, stunned, blown-open look that tells him no. That even after all these years and those thousand miles and their lives walking different paths, he's still somehow convinced that surely they don't lie to each other.
(When he first said he would leave with her, he hadn't lied. He had truly believed it at the time.)
He's not being very subtle, because subtlety is not Luther Hargreeves' strong suit. He's still looking right past everyone as his gaze snags on her, tall enough that he can just look over other men's shoulders and heads. He's completely missed whatever the curator was saying about... some kind of interactive segment, some audience participation recording thing, he has honestly no idea what it is anymore. He can't stop looking and looking at her, drinking in the sight of her.
It's not the same as the magazines, or even her on camera, on his television set. She's more alive, more present, and god, that dress—
He could never have forgotten how beautiful Allison is, but the reminder of it in-person is like being hit with a sledgehammer right between his ribcage. Luther's fingers are tightening; a small spider-webbing of a crack clinks and appears around the edge of his glass, and he has to consciously force himself to relent, to loosen his grip, to remember how to breathe. How to pick up the abandoned scraps of conversation that he'd been pretending to be a part of.
They've met each others' eyes, too far away to say anything, so instead he just arches an eyebrow, raises his drink in something like a toast. Nods toward the bar counter on the other side of the room. A question in his eyes.
An invitation.
Even if she can't extricate herself from her conversation just yet, or even for a while, just as Luther won't be able to for a while either, for politeness and for appearances and for convincing this curator he should call the Umbrella Academy if some ne'er-do-well decides to rob this museum. (But she's still here, and from this moment onwards, he's not able to lose her in the crowd. Some part of him is always watching, paying attention, every part of his concentration shot, orbiting, and tumbling inwards to the swallowing black hole that is the presence of Allison Hargreeves in the same room as him, breathing the same air as him.)
no subject
But there's something in her own shocked, stunned, blown-open look that tells him no. That even after all these years and those thousand miles and their lives walking different paths, he's still somehow convinced that surely they don't lie to each other.
(When he first said he would leave with her, he hadn't lied. He had truly believed it at the time.)
He's not being very subtle, because subtlety is not Luther Hargreeves' strong suit. He's still looking right past everyone as his gaze snags on her, tall enough that he can just look over other men's shoulders and heads. He's completely missed whatever the curator was saying about... some kind of interactive segment, some audience participation recording thing, he has honestly no idea what it is anymore. He can't stop looking and looking at her, drinking in the sight of her.
It's not the same as the magazines, or even her on camera, on his television set. She's more alive, more present, and god, that dress—
He could never have forgotten how beautiful Allison is, but the reminder of it in-person is like being hit with a sledgehammer right between his ribcage. Luther's fingers are tightening; a small spider-webbing of a crack clinks and appears around the edge of his glass, and he has to consciously force himself to relent, to loosen his grip, to remember how to breathe. How to pick up the abandoned scraps of conversation that he'd been pretending to be a part of.
They've met each others' eyes, too far away to say anything, so instead he just arches an eyebrow, raises his drink in something like a toast. Nods toward the bar counter on the other side of the room. A question in his eyes.
An invitation.
Even if she can't extricate herself from her conversation just yet, or even for a while, just as Luther won't be able to for a while either, for politeness and for appearances and for convincing this curator he should call the Umbrella Academy if some ne'er-do-well decides to rob this museum. (But she's still here, and from this moment onwards, he's not able to lose her in the crowd. Some part of him is always watching, paying attention, every part of his concentration shot, orbiting, and tumbling inwards to the swallowing black hole that is the presence of Allison Hargreeves in the same room as him, breathing the same air as him.)