for numberthree.

[obediences]

And I’d choose you; in a hundred lifetimes, in a hundred worlds, in any version of reality, I’d find you and I’d choose you.

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a. the kiss.

[numberthree]

The world had sucked down to a pinprick in seconds. No matter how hard her lungs tried to move, her ribs, her diaphragm, nothing came in, and nothing went out. Muscles strained, her back contorted, hands flailing, grasping, toward snapping as Luther shouted her name over her. Eyes close and bright and wild and covered in the dark spots blotting like fallen ink into her vision.

Luther’s words, a demand, a plea, an order she couldn’t force her body to obey. For him. For her. For Luther’s mouth pushing air, she could feel on her lips, in her mouth, never make it anywhere into the click and gurgle in her throat, the top of her chest. Again and again, until there was a moment it all went still, the whole world stuck in a snapshot still frame, against the pressure of his mouth pressed to hers, willing her to live, willing her not to die, before suddenly she gasped in and air, every bit as sharp as Diego’s knives, pierced into her lungs.

Had her coughing, wheezing, gasping, like her body, still in panicked shock, couldn’t figure out how to take in both enough or any air. Luther’s face half blurry above her, asking if she was okay, an answer she could hardly give as her lungs rattled and rasped and demanded all the air in the world, and Luther slid straight into apologizing. Without even being able to say the words, rushed its “the thing” and not the name, the action, what it had taken, the anything he’d been willing to do to help her fight it. 



Allison has no time for that, fingers reaching out to find his face, stop his mouth, black gloves against his pale skin, only managing a hoarse, “Shhh,” as his face went slack into her fingers, into not having to explain or defend, and it wasn’t enough. For how grateful she was, how stupidly endearing that inability to name, noble half-embarrassed apology, the need to, this first-second making sure she wasn’t offended, he hadn’t overstepped in trying to save her.

The strange part-laugh raw in her throat, as her fingers knotted in the collar of his jacket, wide across his neck, pulling herself more toward him, and instead of her hands, she ran her mouth into his. Only briefly feeling the pain of the muscles and too much speed there. The only response that could ever truly put into place how much she didn’t care in the slightest about his mouth pressed against hers, saving her life.

That it was the only thing that made the smallest sense. When every other second she was either losing him or almost dying in front of him. That the last thing she was sorry about was these circumstances, was his utter willingness to do anything for her, compared to the sheer number of days she’d never come up with even the flimsiest excuse just to give in and do it herself already.

[obediences]

It's a blind desperate terror lodged tight in Luther's chest as he realises what's happening, as the words sink in and echo and echo in his ears (—you stopped breathing—). The man falls over himself, knees pressed into the cold snow and his arms around her, trying to press some life back into Allison with his bare hands, his lips, his breath, his lungs, his voice, every part of him trying to drag her back from the brink. Because she can't die. Not now. Not here. Not right in front of him, in his arms, after so long without her. Not after he just got her back.

Mouth on hers and his lungs working overtime, pressing air into hers. Breathe, Allison. Breathe. Luther's words like a steady tolling of a drum in tandem with her heartbeat. Breathe, Allison. Breathe.

And when she finally takes that rasping shaky trembling breath, Luther finally feels his own heart restart. His whole body unclenches its tense muscles,
as her hands latch onto the lapel of his jacket, his face, dragging herself closer. The apologies are tripping over his tongue, then, before she stops his stammering abject contrition with a hand.

And then with a kiss.

That instinctive gratitude propels her unthinkingly forward and she just slams herself into him, hands scrabbling for everything and everywhere she can reach. Luther goes motionless like a startled deer or like he's standing on fragile ice, careful to not shatter it beneath him, his hands still pressed into her shoulders, his stiff shoulders and arms rigid, face not moving— disbelieving—

He'd had his mouth on hers just a moment ago, and yet he can already feel the difference in this one, the shift of their bodies. There's a kind of giddy relief to it, to the way she captures him and smashes their faces together, and then Luther finally softens, leans into it in return: fingers tightening against her cloak, the two of them sprawled in the snow, clothes still singed from passing bullets, the sound of fallen bricks still shifting just feet away, they're a breath away from a battle still — but suddenly none of that matters, absolutely none of that matters except Allison.

[numberthree]

On the cusp of almost dying again, and the utter cascade of crackling, snapping, popping shocks still flooding her body, every vein, every muscle, every thin scrap of air, still questioning not why but how (because that's not how it works, how she works, her powers), Allison has nothing like reserve or restraint or patience left. Nothing like awareness about safety or slowness (there is no safety or slowness where it comes to suffocating, not even three years later).

Maybe the entire world will obliterate on the other side of Luther's mouth, but she doesn't care. Can't.

This is the first thing that feels right in so long she's not sure she even entirely knew what the word felt like -- meant -- entirely anymore. But she knows it here. This is right. The weight of his hands on her shoulders. Her fingertips dug into his short hair. The press of his lips, the heat of his breath, and the necessity, deeper than breathing, to pull him even closer, kiss him harder, reckless with lucidity and its lack, lips parting, tongue pressing between his, starved of this more than for any breath and throwing all of herself at it, at, into him.

She's done dying -- and living -- without having done this.

[obediences]

Never allow yourself to be distracted mid-battle, Number One. That chiding litany is there somewhere, in the back of his head, like being tapped on the shoulder with a rude reminder (a voice that even today, over a year later, he still can't quite banish).

But he doesn't care. He doesn't care, he doesn't care. For the first time in his life, Luther's peripheral vision flattens and he's not thinking about approaching threats, or the position of the rest of the team, or the trajectory of incoming bullets, or nearby cover that he should duck to. It's reckless and dangerous and it might end up with a bullet in his back, but he can't care about that when the tradeoff is, frankly, worth it: Allison's lips against his and her body scrabbling closer; them melting into each other; Luther eventually meeting her all teeth and tongue, the kiss deepening with a hunger. Like they've forgotten about the necessity of breathing after all; they don't need to, when they can drink each other up instead.

And her hands are tightening in his hair, and his own hand's found the nape of her neck, and nothing could pull them out of this relentless orbit until—

"Allison, help!" Diego's voice, calling out across the fields somewhere. And then, sounding more aggrieved and annoyed than pleading: "Luther!"

It's like a bucketful of cold water to his face, suddenly snapping him out of it and reminding him, christ, they're still in the middle of a battle. They shouldn't. There's no time for this. What. What is happening. (What just happened.) Luther draws a few inches back, although his hand's still clutching at Allison's face, and his blue eyes are wide and startled as he meets her gaze, looking right at her, a question in his eyes that he's not even sure how to voice (what was that), before he looks over her shoulder instead. Across trampled earth and scattered farm equipment and broken haystacks. Somewhere Diego's hollering like an impatient toddler kicking his feet in frustration. Because he needs help.

"Shit," Luther says. Dazed. Stunned. He's snapping back into that sharp concentration mode as Number One, but it's taking longer than usual to get his thoughts back in orderly line and to find that cold focus again; he's too punch-drunk and kiss-dizzy. Too reluctant, still, to let go of her.

But he does.

[numberthree]

It's not without some recognition of awkward edges.

Fumbling mouthes and slightly knocking teeth, more driven than it is specific, and on one side, a lot far less than habit or experience, but all of that is made up for by the frenzied focus that is everything thrown into this. Like all the doors were thrown off. Everything is blown out by this. Keeping Allison's vision dotty and her heart rate through the roof of her head, ignored and lost completely when the only focus in the world she even has is the feel of Luther's mouth against hers, the places they are touching.

Touch. Twist. Keep shifting. Refusing to let go. To stop. To breathe.

Until Luther snaps still, pulling back like something struck him, and Allison's mouth hangs, gracefully inept, like a fish, suddenly drowning in the air instead of without it, shifting, without quite being able to close, tongue touching her bottom lip. As Luther's wide eyes, all blue, but blown darker than she's ever seen them, are suddenly faceted on her as that one word leaves his mouth, and her mouth hasn't even found words, but it's not necessary --

-- because then she hears Diego yelling.

Which has her twisting to look over her same shoulder that Luther's looking over, and they are. They are still on this farm, in the snow. And Lila is god knows where now. And they were just. She was. She had almost. They had. Allison's snap back to his face is more acute she thinks than his, even when her focus is choppy, and her vision is still spotty (and she's not sure which of those that one is, but she's not blind, so everything that isn't blind is manageable), and her fingers drop from his neck to his shoulder, beginning to push at the solid mass of him there, given Luther is still more than not half on top of her.

And. They don't have time. For anything. For words. For waiting.
For even taking a second to go holy shit that actually did happen.

"Up, up, up." A rushed series of sounds, more marching order than a request, matching the repeated shove of her hand, that almost doesn't sound like words through the crashing throb inside her ears, but they have to move. They have to get to Diego. They have to get their heads back in the game. It sends her into pulling her feet under her, from under him, gloved-hand in the snow, starting to push herself up.

Trying, without any success, to ignore the throbbing of her lips and the muscles around her mouth that match all too well that race of her pulse in her ears, in her teeth, in every too aware point in her body. But they don't have time.

[obediences]

Luther's pale eyes are darkened and hazy with desire, and his cheeks heated in a blush; his whole body feels like it's burning, set alight wherever she touched him. In one single motion, she's ripped down the brick wall that's existed between them for the past, what, seventeen years? Every last rule and requirement and firm boundary keeping them apart.

And she shoves him back into movement. The Rumor is the only person who can distract Space from his mission quite so thoroughly or so all-encompassingly, but also the only one who can shove him back into the saddle after she's thrown him off it, derailed the entire train of his concentration. Allison nudges at his shoulder and Luther finally clambers back up to his feet, almost slipping and skidding in the snow, and he reaches out and catches her hand in his gloved one to haul her back up to her feet. Her lungs are still a little breathless (from the suffocation or from the kiss, or both).

It feels like coming stumbling out of a dream, groggy and confused and disoriented — the world around them is too sharp and bright. He can't stop noticing every last little detail: the white beneath their feet, the clear open skies, the pale cream of the farmhouse. The tingling in his lips and fingertips, and the sight of Allison's hair disheveled; not just from the fight, but from his hands dragging through it.

They don't have time.

His hand's still caught in hers, but instead of letting go, he squeezes once, and then they start running, breaking into a sprint side-by-side.

[numberthree]

One hand is in the snow, and the other is suddenly in Luther's hand, and it's like the opposite of a trust fall because she isn't falling, but even the smallest tug of Luther in a rush comes with more force than anyone else could with their whole weight thrown into it. Sends her moving a little faster, upward. It's less like falling and a little like flying, without actually flying, plotting only where her feet need to be.

That once even the toes of her boots are crunching down into the hard-packed snow -- and the boards of the broken house wall, still everywhere around them; the ones Luther flew straight through the wall of only minutes ago, too -- they're already off and running. Debris isn't a concern. Only a detail. (And sometimes, when necessity calls for it, a weapon.)

Luther doesn't let go of her hand, squeezing hers gently once, and it's only one step out of the cadence of her roaring heartbeat, and she can't tell if it's just the warning of movement or it's something else. She doesn't have time for her heart to more than flutter something of a question mark that can't even make it to her mind, no less her mouth, before they're running.

Before she does what they've been trained to do;
tucks it away in her pocket; focuses on the mission in front of them.

Diego's voice and getting to him and the fact they've got whatever this is.