When Allison looks back from the driver, sliding back on the seat, her answer is, perhaps, a little more artfully vague and imperious than it needs to be; and maybe she tells herself it's because she's tense and irritated. "Consider it a surprise."
It's not irriration. That's not the name for this feeling. The static crackle in her skin that feels like it's not calming, but only humming louder, and slightly stronger in its contrast, without further contact. But she doesn't want to name it. Like somehow, she's just going to willfully ignore that doing that for a decade didn't smother it either.
That there's nothing smothered at all by his two years' absence. Even 'absence' feels too kind of a word at the edge of this electricity.
It's almost like she doesn't want to be (kind), because everything already always is. The whole world bows toward him as it is. The light passing the windows, while he's looking out it -- seeing, she can't quite even guess, he'd never dreamed of coming here, and she'd had all her dreams already in her eyes when she got here two years ago, but she can't think of that -- as the light, coming and going, continues to paint into far too clear relief the edge of his profile.
Strong jaw, and forehead, and the broad shoulders, nowhere near able to be concealed even in his well-cut professional appearances suit. All catching in the passing streams of white-gold light. The way his head tilts, so goddamn familiarly as his gaze catches on whatever it is in passing, out his window, and his head turns even minutely to let him watch that thing until it's gone, again, too. She hates how much it aches. (She's glad it's not all gone.)
And she hates that some part of her desperately wants him to say something again, anything. That even irritated -- even whatever this is; that it's not; because it never can be -- it's still all the minutes slipping by that she'll never get back. Like she's losing words to silence and the clock. And when had she ever cared if he was the one talking, even if it felt like she couldn't hold her own temper or reactions in?
"So." Allison prompts, ever petulant against desperation when she could act rather than react, than plead. Or whine. Even with herself. "These clandestine meetings of yours. Were they boring? Interesting? Is the world ending, and you're just not going to tell me now, because I'm simply one of the little people now?"
no subject
It's not irriration. That's not the name for this feeling. The static crackle in her skin that feels like it's not calming, but only humming louder, and slightly stronger in its contrast, without further contact. But she doesn't want to name it. Like somehow, she's just going to willfully ignore that doing that for a decade didn't smother it either.
That there's nothing smothered at all by his two years' absence.
Even 'absence' feels too kind of a word at the edge of this electricity.
It's almost like she doesn't want to be (kind), because everything already always is. The whole world bows toward him as it is. The light passing the windows, while he's looking out it -- seeing, she can't quite even guess, he'd never dreamed of coming here, and she'd had all her dreams already in her eyes when she got here two years ago, but she can't think of that -- as the light, coming and going, continues to paint into far too clear relief the edge of his profile.
Strong jaw, and forehead, and the broad shoulders, nowhere near able to be concealed even in his well-cut professional appearances suit. All catching in the passing streams of white-gold light. The way his head tilts, so goddamn familiarly as his gaze catches on whatever it is in passing, out his window, and his head turns even minutely to let him watch that thing until it's gone, again, too. She hates how much it aches. (She's glad it's not all gone.)
And she hates that some part of her desperately wants him to say something again, anything. That even irritated -- even whatever this is; that it's not; because it never can be -- it's still all the minutes slipping by that she'll never get back. Like she's losing words to silence and the clock. And when had she ever cared if he was the one talking, even if it felt like she couldn't hold her own temper or reactions in?
"So." Allison prompts, ever petulant against desperation when she could act rather than react, than plead. Or whine. Even with herself. "These clandestine meetings of yours. Were they boring? Interesting? Is the world ending, and you're just not going to tell me now, because I'm simply one of the little people now?"