luther "the big shy one" hargreeves | #00.01 (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
obediences) wrote2019-03-08 09:00 pm
obediences) wrote2019-03-08 09:00 pm
Entry tags:
for numberthree.
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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He should be more different.
There aren't two more people to pass it through next to them.
It wouldn't even normally be her because this isn't her normal anymore.
Which leaves Allison considering Luther and his newest Number One Fan, at odds with the mixed-up emotion it dredges into her. Old familiarity, like a strange creaking floorboard of an ache. A slightly colder, more familiar, distance. Or, maybe, more like absence. She'd left, and it seemed like so very little about him had changed, while it felt like almost everything about her and her life had since that day.
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What difference does any of it make? Not much. They might as well have stopped all the clocks, cut off the telephone, when she left.
(But then that postcard. The postcard and her hasty scribbled letter afterwards, which threw open all the doors again and took Luther down off the shelf, dusted him off, brought him back to the world of the living.)
There's a few more niceties exchanged, why are you in LA, is somebody going to attack us, and Luther, smiling, explaining about the museum opening, and no, kid, you're not in any danger. Eventually, though, Joe is self-conscious enough to thank them again and then finally withdraw, fleeing back to his mother's side, beaming. Luther watches him go, something inscrutable on his face, before he falls back into the line himself alongside Allison. His hand settles on her shoulderblades, nudges her forward.
"Do you get tired of that?" he asks, quietly, his voice low and for her ears only. "Or do you miss it?"
She's getting there as an actress, but her star hasn't soared as high as the Rumor yet.
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There's a smile, with a faint twist (even as her mind can't come off the heated presence of five fingertips she can't even see,). "Hollywood is the wrong place to be if someone's avoiding that."
The nice thing about the distraction is that the small cluster of people in front of them, assumedly all come together, too, moves off in a bunch, and it is their turn. Joe, having filled up all the rest of their time in line. Shuffles them up to it being their turn as the harried girl behind the counter, who pauses for just a long enough blink to be surprised at their clothes, tosses out the rudimentary opening to them as well now.
"Welcome to Lick. What can I get for you two tonight?"
Allison's glance is more in Luther's direction because she probably would have said both, but now she doesn't know if he is changing his from the pie to the salt lick. Instead, she just smiles. "I'll take a toffee caramel swirl."
Then, remember. "In one of those bowls this time."
Because of the dress, of course.
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A compromise. He's polite as ever, and also ravenous as ever. It's been a few hours now since the business dinner earlier, and as it's been ever since he was a kid, Luther's body needs a lot of fuel to power that superstrength. And the bowl, of course, to protect the very expensive suit, which he doesn't really get to wear often enough — more often than not, he's in the Academy colours and uniform, the super-suits that Grace has to meticulously launder and repair every time he comes home blood-stained and soot-covered and ripped and torn.
They sidle a little further along, down the row to pick up their orders as they're doled out to them, and then a spark of inspiration hits like a lightbulb going off, and Luther fumbles for the wallet in his back pocket. "Here. Let me get this for you. My treat," he says, as quickly as he can.
He's never gotten to pay for anything for her before.
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Which probably wasn't. It was probably some tyrannically ordered and rule-bound amount handed out to him with his trip by their father. Allison was pretty positive buying her ice cream wasn't on that list. And for the first time, stomach still wobbling with that first blush of surprise, Allison finds herself wondering if her father knows about this.
It's so patently suspect of the Monocle playing chess with his children, for some grand and pointless aim, it takes Allison another two seconds to remember they didn't even know this was going to happen. Because she wasn't supposed to be here, she'd told Luther she wouldn't be. Hadn't even known she would be until this morning. Reminds herself, her own insanity aside, Luther's not here in her favorite ice cream shop because of some twisted order to be here. That he'd said.
Schooling herself between vitriol and that too familiar unsettled twist in her stomach, the one he made happen far too easy to be anything good for her, Allison tried to pour herself back into a normal response. "I supposed that would be fair after getting the cab ride."
Like somehow that was all it was, and one generically polite sentence hadn't already blasted her thought an unexpected rollercoaster of too many feelings and opinions and overreactive considerations.
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(And that train of thought is a slippery slope, of wondering What would it look like if he could do it anytime he liked, but Luther can't let himself go too far down that particular road.)
"Sure," he says, because it's logical, rational, and makes it sound more a fair-handed exchange rather than the fact that he, very suddenly, wanted nothing more than to buy her something. The gentlemanly gesture that was a part of dates, supposedly, or so the movies had taught him.
Once he's paid and they've armed themselves with spoons and napkins and the hot, crowded shop has spat them back out into the warm night air towards a few circular tables and parasols (ha) set up outside, he also suddenly realises that this might be logistically more dangerous than he'd expected. He looks at Allison's gown with a little bit of alarmed concern.
"We might not have thought this through all the way. Are we gonna put you out thousands of dollars if you wind up spilling on that?"
As if they hadn't already risked so much worse in the past; as if, in another life, her pleated skirt hadn't been hopelessly stained with someone else's blood.
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The path she's on now, the things she wants, nowhere near that yet.
She was recognizable, and famous still, but she wasn't The Rumor anymore.
Luther's sudden alarm at not stringing her choice into any eventualities and end results amuses her. Her first response is delightfully daring and unremorseful, feet slipped into shoes she so rarely gets to wears to flagrantly anymore, "As though anyone could make me pay thousands of dollars for anything."
"It's less that and more the chairs," Allison gestures with her spoon to direct his attention. While the table setup is nicely chic even outside the restaurant, their iron rod piece, with woven trellis & flower patterns cut in it. A hundred places and pieces in it that could catch or snag the fabric and ruin it entirely. "But I can stand, I don't mind."
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It was perhaps an odd way of utilising it, that she could stand perfectly in perfect heels for hours without flagging, but when needs must.
Luther shrugs out of his jacket and slings it over the back of his chair (a precautionary measure; the shirt by itself would be easier to launder if he spilled), and he takes a seat. Chivalry might've meant staying on his feet too, but the chairs are at a level that mean he can look at her more evenly, without tilting his head too far to look downward, and it gives his neck a bit of a break.
And when he tries the first bite of each flavour, a deeply appreciative look crosses his face that could only be described as blissful. He licks the back of his spoon, savouring it. "God, that's good," Luther says. It's not the same flavour as the plain chocolate he'd always had before, so it doesn't quite rocket him back to the Academy days — it's new, and that's almost more terrifying and exciting. He'd never have tried this place or even known about it, if Allison hadn't thought of it first and taken him with her.
(And wasn't that just emblematic of the whole thing.)
He digs in and considers how he really should've gotten more than the three scoops, all things considered, but it would take too long to get back in line. "You have the best ideas," he pronounces, and just for a second, it's like there's an echo of familiarity: the pair of them as teenagers, slipping away with schemes, Allison usually the instigator with some sort of plan, with Luther faithfully by her side to execute.
All of this. This entire night. He's a thousand miles away from home, but he feels home in a way he hasn't for two years.
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"When I first got here--" Allison said, putting her spoon back in to dig a little more out. "--the first few months, maybe half of that year, I went through more than one place just tasting most of the flavors."
Allison's just gotten her spoon to her mouth, shaking her head a little, with a falted smile around it, at the strange necessity to -- what exactly would you call it now? Tell Luther the truth? Connect her experiences to his? Like somehow part of any of those links were actually left outside a handful of handwritten words? Did it really matter?
Did it matter for more than just h--
"Mommy!"
There's a shriek of something that pretends to be a whisper behind them, from a small child, and like all small, small children, given to thinking they're doing well but not really having any clue yet, it's anything but quiet, as she leans into her mom. "The princess is still here!"
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But it's not an emergency, and no one is dying, and everything is fine.
"Princess?" Luther repeats dumbly, then glances back at Allison. Oh. Right. The ballgown. Like something out of the picture books. He continues, though, as if on autopilot: "She's not—"
Thankfully, he's interrupted before he can puncture the illusion and crush some poor random innocent child's dreams.
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Allison's hand had very suddenly found Luther's shoulder in the middle of his statement. A small but certain pressure squeezed there, her voice dropping to a quiet near-whisper of an octave she hasn't used in years, without much thought to that part. "It's fine."
Her hand seemed to lift quickly and smoothly as it landed, as though Allison had only briefly touched him as she walked past him. However, it would have taken someone standing at least as close as both of them in that passing second to have realized she'd actively said anything.
It's still new, this, and it still takes a creative amount of balance to figure out how to squat down in heels this tall, but she does at least know what she should do. Which is figure out how to balance, gracefully, as she lowers herself until her knees are parallel flush with her chest and her toes are very certain they should not be supporting her like this, and smile, saying only, "Hello, there."
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And he sits there with his spoon forgotten in the ice cream, twisted sideways with one arm over the back of his chair, just watching the interaction play out. Something in Luther's crisp blue eyes softens as he sees the way she smiles, the patient and effortless way she handles this exchange. (He, too, has eyes for nothing else but Allison.) As long as the kid isn't asking for his autograph or isn't a spider-demon in disguise, Luther isn't sure what the right move is here; so he stays quiet, trusting her to know what to do and say far better than he could.
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"Not tonight." Allison keeps her tone light and her smile curved. "We're all here--" This with a flourish toward the door she and her mother hadn't long since left to join them out here. "--for ice cream instead, aren't we?"
The girl looks a little confused and not easily persuaded in a different direction. The kind of small-expression that looks like it's flirting with whether to flutter straight into completely crestfallen. "But you could if you wanted to? Right?"
Allison considers barely a second, and her siblings more than anyone else would recognize the momentarily puckish shift of her expression, even as the girl's mother is beginning to apologize. The sharpening edges of Allison's smile shift her expression to almost being rather clearly like a dare, when Allison looks back over her bare shoulder at Luther. "I believe we have a request."
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"I'm not sure that's exactly what she was asking, was it? She was just wondering if you could—"
Out of the mouths of babes, because the girl cuts in quick and insistent: "No, but I want you to. You're in a ball dress and everything."
Sounding plaintive, begging, the way a child might ask for a favourite dog to do a trick or, in this case, near-mythical figure to show what they're made of. Dancing isn't a party trick he's used to seeing the Rumor pull out — normally, when they were once made to jump through performing hoops in front of a crowd, it was to demonstrate their lethality. Their combat skills. Their special superpowers.
Not their footwork.
He dabs his mouth with a napkin, suddenly self-conscious, wondering if there's ice cream on his chin. He's been classically-trained in ballroom dancing; all of them had been. But he's rusty, and hasn't done it in so very long. (To dance, you need a partner.)
"Well, if it's a request," he says slowly, each syllable measured, and then looks over at Allison, and finally stands up and holds out a hand to her.
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(Young in a way that neither of them, none of them, had ever been.
But it's her job, even more now, to know and care what it is people want from her.)
She can't entirely justify why she's throwing the yoke of it on him, too. She could easily apologize and look to the girl's mother for help, diffuse this all in seconds. And yet. She doesn't know which is more appealing and unsettling by that feeling too: the nervous panic of Luther's suddenly careful movements and even slower words, or the way he holds his hand out all the same, as she lets herself take a step toward it, and him, taking it.
That hand that never left her hanging.
(Until it did.)
Is there a note of the pettiness none of her siblings would find surprising, somewhere deep inside it? A pale excuse to find herself back disastrously close to him, like in the cab, chasing that pricked longing that could only hurt her more in the end? A refusal to let him get comfortable, or anywhere near to control any of what happens here, in the place that is her world, and hers alone, now?
But all those question marks, and safer than's, are turning into smoke as her other hand settles against his shoulder, fingertips curling it only barely, and she finds herself whispering, with the edge of that smirk peeking out again. "Try not to make it look too much like you'd really rather flip the table and use it as a shootout shield."
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And there's something in the muscle memory of a hand outstretched, an invitation granted — them moving towards each other across a divide, even if it's the small one of this outdoor cobblestoned courtyard space this time — her hand going for his shoulder — and it dislodges the memories of an abandoned greenhouse, a slammed door. These recollections were so old and dusty that they'd been buried for the most part, but they're shaking themselves loose now, and Luther pauses. Finally swallows that nostalgia which rises up like it could choke him, and when he looks at her again, he simply asks (and he tells himself that it's for the sake of the girl watching them, donning the shape of the chivalrous knight or gentleman):
"Allison Hargreeves, will you dance with me?"
And there's no real music besides the faint, top 40s background music of the ice cream shop being piped outside, but it's enough to get them moving, at least. Something to steer by. With her hand on Luther's shoulder and his floating by the small of her back, he starts moving them in a tight, controlled waltz, and Luther keeps his gaze trained on Allison's face; partially just to look at her and drink in her features all over again, and partially to remind himself not to look down. When he'd first hit that growth spurt so many years ago, he'd stepped on her toes over and over and over. It had taken a long time to stop tripping over himself, but it all comes back to him now: nimble steps and a surprisingly easy push-and pull like the balance they'd once had on the fighting mats together,
and it turns out that it really is like riding a bike. Luther's steps are just as sure and certain as ever, and he doesn't step on her very expensive shoes; he has to be more careful with the voluminous shape of her gown, but soon enough Allison's hand bunches in the fabric to hold it out of the way regardless.
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But Allison doesn't have the leisure to think about it, when Luther starts them moving, and there's jostling and whispering starting to grow, as more people are stepping out from inside the shop and stopping walking on further ends of the sidewalk to watch this newest little streetside entertainment. She tilted her head and lifted her brows just a little at Luther's serious face, like she might have been poking her fingers at just that.
That way he maybe he could regiment himself through it. When she swears some part of her feels like she could start whispering the count she can almost see taking place in his head. The cobbles aren't as forgiving on her stilettos as they are on his dress flats, which she finds a time or two when her balance almost doesn't catch right, but they'd both learned long ago how far up their actual pain threshold from strain was.
But he never lets her fall, and she never lets the possibility flicker through her posture.
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(About tomorrow. About how there's a limited span on the amount of time they have together. About how the hours are shrinking and shrinking, the more that time goes on.)
His steps so far are perfect, like the dance has been taken right from the instructional record or the illustrative diagrams, but it has something of a stern Prussian ballroom to it: it's meter-perfect but emotionless as a metronome.
But then Allison's arm shifts, curves even closer around the broad span of his shoulders — her fingers splayed against the nape of his neck — and the touch sends a convulsive shiver down Luther's spine, a ripple that melts him into her touch as it goes. The stiff cage of his arms loosens, and his feet start to stray slightly from the textbook. Improvising, going off-book, and he turns her in a slow spin across the courtyard and then back towards him — and she can see his stern, studious expression softening, too, a small smile flickering on his mouth.
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More than the way she can feel it as the muscles in his arm and shoulder finally start relaxing more. More than the way her heart goes light and she finds a tiny laugh slipping her lips when he sends her twirling out suddenly, only one hand keeping her anchored for coming back, when she'll find the end of that snap. Never pausing, only trusting, following, becoming a fluid extension of his arm, theirs, a seamless extension of both of them, like this was something perfectly perfected spectacle.
But it's the smile -- when she spins back in, a rustling spiral of red silk stopped only by his body -- more than anything else.
Maybe it's the only thing even.
She can't make herself pause before she's a reflection of it, an unfettered glow of an answering smile, broad and bright, at least three or four years out of practice and somehow utterly uncracked for it long time packed away. Slipping on like the glove of her bone-deep, life-long, ever-uncheckered delight anytime Luther finally let himself go, and then somewhere amid that, realizes-without-realizing he actually likes doing just that.
Getting lost. Having fun.
Allison can't help it. It makes her steps lighter. The shift of her hand against his lighter. Her expression turning, without any announcement to even her, playful. That would involve stopping too much, thinking further than the next step, the next time their hands meet, looking away from those blue blue eyes. Keeping up with him, as much as pushing him to let himself just fall into it, even though it just drags her further in a string.
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And after a moment, impulsively, Luther just leans down and scoops her up into his arms with a dramatic spin, his stance surefooted on the stones, unflinching at the added weight. He lifts her like she's a feather; like she can fly. It's yet more close contact like they'd had in the cab, except now it's his arms bracketed under her thighs, her hips, hugging the edge of her gown. He whirls her around in a flurry of voluminous fabric, both of them near-drowning in it, before he sets her delicately back down on the ground just as the song peters out.
His hands are still settled on Allison's hips, and he's looking down at her, and their faces are too close. There's absolutely zero chance that the physical strain could've made his heart work double-time, but there's a hitch in his lungs regardless. (It's not the physical strain.)
He's looking too long at her, at the laughing twist to her mouth, the bright light in her eyes, and—
And the spell is broken when he hears a few people around them clap. Luther seems to jolt awake, and takes a genteel step back and away from her. He has to resist the urge to take a bow, and maybe salute.
Actually, fuck it. He does turn to their inadvertent audience and executes a stiff bow. The girl who asked about Cinderella's ball is practically aglow.
(So is he. So is Allison.)
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Anyone else, anywhere else, and her first instinct would be to punch someone either before or during rumoring them, but she only laughs as the air and velocity of the spin sends her tumble of skirts spinning out around them, the way it tugs at her hair. But she's settled firmly against his chest, cradled with arms under her legs and one across her back, hand at her side, and never once in her life has she ever been afraid of Luther's strength or that he might drop her.
There's only laughter, light, and speed in it, bubbling up in her blood everywhere when he's setting her back on her feet, and she can't stop smiling enough even to catch her breath and breathe in because he's right there above her. Blue eyes burning electric bright, drilling down into her own, into her very center, and this is what's been missing from every breath in the last million month. These eyes. So close, and so bright, and so blue in the way she rarely gets to see when he always has his mask on for interviews.
This is the way it's supposed to be. The only way it was.
Her heart is going too fast, and the lights are caught up in his hair and the curve of his mouth, and there's that impulse to lean closer, starting to press into her toes, and she doesn't know if she's going to laugh or tease him or ki-- right as Luther jolts suddenly. Still.
Then, backward. And Allison swallows it like an unexpected blow, a sudden stupidity for her thoughts a second earlier, for letting herself get swept up. Because he's bowing and she's looking at the crowd, and if she faltered, just for a second there, she strong-arms her smiles back into place, and extends a hand like a declaration of showing him off to everyone.
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With his attention on the small crowd — Luther's always concerned with appearances, and how people watch him — he doesn't catch her falter, that tiny tremble to her smile before she gets her own mask back in place.
But he does shoot her a sidelong look, and he still looks bright, entertained. (Oblivious.) "I think it passed muster," he says.
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(Even if it suddenly feels like she's learned nothing.
Like she's still the girl in that cab,
blinking tears at the closed doors.)
"Good enough for government work," Allison says airily, without looking sideways toward Luther, while the beat of her heart has suddenly slowed. The very instant of her words. Not because she'd naturally calmed from the dancing, but because it had refused to stop stumble-racing from the second she caught herself being stupid. Because she wants to control something, and she hates that she lost control of herself for even that moment. Like that.
No one has the right to take that from her anymore.
Not anyone. (Not even, or especially, him.)
Instead of looking at Luther, she lets the cool ease of her posture hold her, and her smile dazzles into something like personal as she settles her gaze back on the awestruck little girl who looks like she's been granted the wish of her dreams. "I hope you enjoy the rest of your night and your ice cream."
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But he does know something about that joy, the way it fizzes and bubbles up inside your chest, like you've swallowed a whole mouthful of champagne. He hadn't felt it in years, so it's gone rusty, but that spark keeps catching fire with each little stolen glance at Allison, or another inside joke between them taken off the shelf and dusted off.
Ever since that drunken postcard, addressed and sent where she thought she shouldn't have.
The awareness curdles in the back of his throat: those shrinking minutes and hours, that countdown ticking until he has to leave. It feels like the sword of Damocles hanging over him, over them both — that ever-shrinking territory before he'll have to be on a plane heading east and back to that lonely house —
(that place he can't bear to think of, right about now)
so he extends another gentlemanly arm, ever the knight, still playing a role for their watching audience. But Luther's blue gaze softens when it lands on her again. This evening was supposed to be coffee, but then she'd surprised him with this, and now he doesn't know where they're headed next.
"Your chariot awaits," he says. "Unless there's somewhere in walking distance that you had in mind? I'm pretty much entirely yours, at this point. You're the local expert."
His gaze drifts over Allison's shoulder, to the small crowd which coalesced around their little scene. It'd be a good idea to move on to the next location on their whistlestop Los Angeles tour, anyway, before the paparazzi show up. It's a familiar song-and-dance that both of them know well: Allison navigating that balance of dangling just enough tabloid fodder to remain relevant; Number One swooping in on a mission, staying long enough for a photo op looking heroic in the rubble, then swooping back out before they can ask him too many questions.
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No. That's a lie. She could. She absolutely has the power to do that.
But same as any hundred times she might have contemplated it, she knows it couldn't be undone. And she doesn't know how much of the past would be unstitched and reknit entirely differently to make that lie a truth that all of Capital "R" reality acknowledges. It might be shattered fragments of a once complete picture, but they were her shattered fragments. The last of everything she has left.
Until suddenly he was here. Still here. Holding his handout.
Literal Super-Hero-Boy-America. And everyone is watching them.
Delighted by the entirety of the last few minutes.
Allison smiles, pretty as the picture she's learning to make of herself no matter her mood or role, but she's still young, and there's something that's so wholly still Rumor in the black glitter of her eyes that doesn't quite match her smile. Game and partner in this charade, but nothing else beyond it. Her hand lands and curls into his elbow, looking up at him dutifully like one would expect.
"Home, maybe." She is quiet enough not to carry as she watches him look at those watching them. "Before the natives think to ask for an encore?"
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