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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[obediences]

Luther's expecting that sharp but innocuous jab of pain to settle him back in his body, to remind him of the reality of this (and violence is a language he still speaks, a daily vocabulary: bruised knuckles and blackened eyes and cutting his knuckles on other men's teeth). But instead, just like that, Allison is kissing him again.

If he'd ever known it could be this easy, and that all he had to do was ask—

He freezes again for a moment, a deer in the headlights, taking the moment to let it wash over him like a wave and meticulously cataloguing every last detail of the sensation, as if memorising it for posterity, if he could press it into amber forever. The press of her nose against his; her mouth opening; the weight of her hand against the plane of his chest. The solidity of Allison's shoulder when his own hand settles there, fingers splaying almost timidly against the fabric of her shirt, as delicate as if he could burn himself on her skin. He very well might, still.

And then he gives back into the kiss; deep breaths, a pulse ratcheting higher in his throat, a hunger so long abated. That prim caution melting away more and more each second, as they simply collapse into each other, and he becomes increasingly painfully aware that they are in his bed. No one else has ever been here before. The only one who was, he'd kicked her out shortly after.

Luther's hands don't stray, however: the press of his lips and then the tentative exploratory shift of his tongue is increasingly eager, but there's just that fluttering barely-there touch against her shoulder, like this whole thing is fragile, like he might shatter her at a touch (or, more likely, he would shatter).

[numberthree]

Her lips press gently against his, and she's touching too much of him not to feel that he doesn't move. He doesn't. But. He doesn't jerk away either. Or press her back, as though all her strength to fight, it wouldn't even shift the air beside his smallest push. He's done it before. They both know he's capable of it. But Luther doesn't.

He's simply still and quiet. The race of his heart beneath her fingers not slowed in the slightest. She doesn't know what is going on in his head exactly, but she softens the surprise kiss, slows it, without stopping. Gentle, almost coaxing, a soundless request to come to her, come back to her, follow her; hand sliding up the back of his neck slowly, thumb running gently from in his hair down the back of his neck.

Allison doesn't need a race. She doesn't even need this to go anywhere. She just needs him with her. Whatever that looks like. Even if they need to stop kissing (even as insane and wholly impossible as that feels with her lips still against his). She considers pulling back, but then Luther's fingers raise, brushing the curve of her shoulder so soft that it feels almost uncertain. Shy. Barely braved.

But it's enough, and more than enough, when his hand is warm and heavy through the thin cloth covering her shoulder, choosing to touch her, and more than enough, when Luther's mouth finally moves, and he's kissing her back, again, letting her heart breathe out again. Let go of that momentary consideration (for a moment, but she knows, maybe not entirely).

She can take this incredibly slow, the way nothing else in her life has ever felt like it could be. But Luther has always been the eternal outlier. The place she was always supposed to have started. Tried everything. Learned everything. Where she'd felt safest. Happiest. It feels like that all over, again, in its own way. New and never touched, even though she knows she's nowhere near that. So very far from it, the fact curls cold guilt in her stomach.

But maybe she can tip that to her advantage.
Be the ground all of this rests on.

Luther can.

The race of his pulse under her thumb, a constant pounding that feels like it's running electricity up her wrist and into her arm, continually reminding her it's not just her. Especially as Luther slowly presses his mouth deeper, longer, slowly more and more open against hers; that slowly less and less cautious pass of his tongue, into her mouth, against her own. She can keep pace with him, pulling him slowly closer, slowly further out.