Mask or Menace ☂ IC Phone Post

[numberthree]

INBOX Voice | Text | Call | Video | Surprise Me A flat computer automated voice comes on and states in monotone: "This is the voicemail box for Allison Hargreeves. Leave a message at the beep."

Luther

Diego

Klaus

Five

Ben

Vanya

code credit

Comments

a delivery.

[obediences]

[ Valentine’s day. Not a day that Luther’s ever in his life had an excuse or a reason to celebrate, and never, in his life, had a person that he’s wanted to celebrate it with—

Except for one.

Except that’s not what they are to each other, except that the cities and shops and screens are overflowing with persistent ads for the holiday (closed off from the media his whole life, he never realised how irritating advertising could be). And there’s lingering memories from the City, ones that he can’t quite see clearly but which leave Luther with a restless nagging instinct. Like there’s something he forgot to do. Like there’s something missing.

And in the end, it’s not really a big gesture. It’s not the locket. And he doesn’t think he’s very good at gestures anyway. (This is the boy who, once upon a time, brought an axe to a romantic picnic, just in case.) But Luther uses his teleportation ability for a hop, skip, and a jump southward, to warmer climes, where spring’s sunk in its teeth properly, and he finds a patch of wildflowers and he picks a few. Takes them home. Wraps them up in twine.

Deposits the simple bouquet on Allison’s bed, when she’s not around. He doesn’t label it; there isn’t really anyone else left, nobody else that this might have come from. ]

[numberthree]

[There isn't any question about who, but there is a little bit of how and a rather heavy dose of why when Allison freezes, right before she'd been about to toss her purse and the day's heels on her bed, aiming originally to jump drop on the sofa near the window.

Maybe not why. (And yet.)

Her purse and her heels ended up placed on the bedtable, and she sits down, looking at the bundle of flowers, so obviously not professionally made. Loose, with some nodding heads, in various states or open and growth. The not perfectly symmetrical tie o of the twine. She couldn't even begin to count the number of flowers sent to her in the last decade. But she could count the number of flowers picked for her, not by Claire, from their garden.

(One.)

Allison sat down, reaching out for it after a second, something at the very edge of her thoughts. Hazy. Uncertain. The edge of a half-remembered smile. A touch. She rubbed a delicate white petal between her fingertip and thumb. Who was easy. How was even not hard. Why. Why was a question she wasn't supposed to ask.

They had a name for this.

The same name they'd initially had for this.

The same name under which she'd never fully managed to stay within.
Not then. Not when it didn't exist. Not when she was married.
Not now in the sudden aching loss of their family.

(When it seemed so easily he might vanish.)




Allison curled her knees up, leaned her head back against her headboard, and rubbed that same petal slowly. ]