Luther holds her like something precious, like something that might break and snap between his fingers if he applies too much pressure. (Or might dissipate into nothing, vanishing right between his hands. He's wondered, for a while, what it looks like when someone Ports out. If you had a camera running on them like Reginald's nighttime monitoring, would you be able to capture the exact moment it happens? Or does it only happen when you aren't looking? Whenever you blink, letting your gaze slide off them for one unattended second?)
Allison moves infinitesimally, her neck starting to arch as she leans slightly into the touch; he can feel the shift of her muscles and the angle of her cheek beneath his hand, a tectonic drift. They're still far too close (and yet not close enough—) for comfort: both lying on their sides, mirroring each other, where they can easily look right into each others' faces and read those splintering, earnest, aching expressions by the dimness in the room, having grown adjusted to the darkness. That murkiness is a lifesaver; it blurs Allison's edges, makes it safer to look at her. Where those few inches of mattress between them in the bed are a canyon and yet Luther has, for once in his life, gathered up all the paltry scraps of his courage to reach across that invisible barrier and somehow, inexplicably, miraculously, he's still touching her.
His hand slides slightly to the nape of her neck, the side of her throat, the now-long-healed scar he can still trace the trajectory of. He'd unthinkingly touched it once, in the late-night darkness like this. This time, he can also feel the delicate lines of Allison's vertebrae, the knob of her spine beneath his hand. It would take so, so little to snap a neck or shatter bone with the wrong pressure. It would take so, so little to rewrite someone's mind with the wrong word.
She's trying to grant him the same absolution he gave her.
You did what you had to, to make it through. It was hard, right? Losing everyone and getting stuck here. [...] No one gets to tell us how to deal with the end of the world, right? Not even each other.
And yet, it's true. They hung onto what they could, took whatever parachutes they could find. And right now, Luther's distinctly aware of the fact that he's probably grasping onto another one, another safeguard against the tumbling free-fall. The comfort of her being right here— and god, but he never wants it to end.
There's so much he could say about the rest of their family and their coping mechanisms and the ways they got through the time, like his surprise and pride at Klaus mastering his abilities for once— But there's a strange shiftless restlessness beneath Luther's skin, and he can't bring himself to name the others anymore. Can't talk about them anymore, with her in front of him. The others don't belong here in this dark and quiet room; it doesn't feel right to bring them in, when Allison's gaze and the thoughtful turn of her mouth is so close.
"We should probably start listening to each other and actually take it to heart already," he says, sounding a little distant, a little contemplative. It's running in circles, handing forgiveness back and forth to each other while still finding it a bitter pill to swallow themselves.
But he gets it, though. They're both stubborn in exactly the same way. It's always so much easier to be kinder on each other rather than themselves.
no subject
Allison moves infinitesimally, her neck starting to arch as she leans slightly into the touch; he can feel the shift of her muscles and the angle of her cheek beneath his hand, a tectonic drift. They're still far too close (and yet not close enough—) for comfort: both lying on their sides, mirroring each other, where they can easily look right into each others' faces and read those splintering, earnest, aching expressions by the dimness in the room, having grown adjusted to the darkness. That murkiness is a lifesaver; it blurs Allison's edges, makes it safer to look at her. Where those few inches of mattress between them in the bed are a canyon and yet Luther has, for once in his life, gathered up all the paltry scraps of his courage to reach across that invisible barrier and somehow, inexplicably, miraculously, he's still touching her.
His hand slides slightly to the nape of her neck, the side of her throat, the now-long-healed scar he can still trace the trajectory of. He'd unthinkingly touched it once, in the late-night darkness like this. This time, he can also feel the delicate lines of Allison's vertebrae, the knob of her spine beneath his hand. It would take so, so little to snap a neck or shatter bone with the wrong pressure. It would take so, so little to rewrite someone's mind with the wrong word.
She's trying to grant him the same absolution he gave her.
You did what you had to, to make it through.
It was hard, right? Losing everyone and getting stuck here. [...] No one gets to tell us how to deal with the end of the world, right? Not even each other.
And yet, it's true. They hung onto what they could, took whatever parachutes they could find. And right now, Luther's distinctly aware of the fact that he's probably grasping onto another one, another safeguard against the tumbling free-fall. The comfort of her being right here— and god, but he never wants it to end.
There's so much he could say about the rest of their family and their coping mechanisms and the ways they got through the time, like his surprise and pride at Klaus mastering his abilities for once— But there's a strange shiftless restlessness beneath Luther's skin, and he can't bring himself to name the others anymore. Can't talk about them anymore, with her in front of him. The others don't belong here in this dark and quiet room; it doesn't feel right to bring them in, when Allison's gaze and the thoughtful turn of her mouth is so close.
"We should probably start listening to each other and actually take it to heart already," he says, sounding a little distant, a little contemplative. It's running in circles, handing forgiveness back and forth to each other while still finding it a bitter pill to swallow themselves.
But he gets it, though. They're both stubborn in exactly the same way. It's always so much easier to be kinder on each other rather than themselves.