[ If she doesn't answer -- and she doesn't, doesn't even lift her thumb like she's considering how to phrase the responses at all -- it's not that she's not answering. It's not even that she's refusing.
It's that he really will be here soon enough.
And he really will bring her water and aspirin even if she doesn't.
And it still hurts. More than her head does. More than waking up without pants is annoying. And embarrassing. And stupid. Childish. She can hear the therapist voice in her head, not that she's telling her this -- How does that make you feel? and Do you think that was a wise choice? and What other ways could you have handled this?
And she just lays her phone on her chest and studies the ornate, inlaid ceiling, waiting for Luther. ]
[Of course he will bring her what she wants, whether he gets his answer or not. He comes downstairs carrying pants and water, along with a bottle of pain killers. It isn't hard to guess she was out enjoying herself...
A little too much.
Luther fights back the worry that flares up and focuses on just helping for now. Helping and hoping she talks to him.]
[ That dusty bigs house can swallow sounds at times, but when it's just her, laying in the silence, listening to it throb just from nothing, it's impossible not to hear Luther coming. Those silent steps of childhood another thing of the long gone past. Allison shifted her gaze to the doorway he came in through, pushing herself up gingerly, at least meeting his eyes for a second, before she was shifting. Sliding a foot under her, while making sure the blanket stayed covering her.
The world is too bright and too noisy, and even at the same time as she feels incredibly stupid, and like the last thing she wants him to see is this, she can't help also feeling like it's better him than anyone else. That she doesn't have the manic need to wrap it neatly and pretend with him. She can just rub her cheek, instead of her eyes, and reach out for the water that he brought. ]
[He passes her the glass and then holds out the bottle. He doesn't have a vast amount of experience with hangovers, but he's learned a thing or two recently.]
Take a couple of these.
[The clothes, he places down beside her before he moves to take a seat quietly.]
[ Allison isn't certain it would easier with the ability to talk, but she's only ever made more aware of how impossible it is when she has to collect her thoughts, if not her pride, which is somewhere else, maybe it crawled under this couch hours ago and never came back, against the dull throbbing in her head.
She held Luther's gaze for a moment. A turbulent collision of regret, frustration, and something all too clearly still pain. One that didn't come from her head. One that went nowhere from standing on her chest still. Even as she worked on opening the bottle and swallowing down some of the pills first. At once so tempted to give in, give over, something unchecking just at the sound of his voice, at seeing his face, hearing his voice.
And almost suddenly frustrated it had ended up being him to answer, too.
Because she might have managed to find a way to say nothing at all. With anyone else. ]
[Luther watches her, studies her quietly. As much as things have changed, part of him still feels like... he knows her. Knows her well enough to know what a single gaze can mean, to see everything that seems to be building up inside of her.
Or maybe it's just wishful thinking, longing for the past when they'd tell each other everything.
Whatever it is, it prompts him to reach out, resting his hand over her free one carefully.]
... It's okay. [It's not, not really... but Luther doesn't want to push her into anything right now.] Do you want to get some more rest? Maybe we can get you up to bed instead.
[ It's almost hard to hear the reluctant give he offers up freely, even just half a minute into sitting down. The one she knows exists. Acknowledged could, would, if she chose it, before he even appeared. Except that isn't the part that makes it hard to hear. It's the way, for a few seconds, her focus skips, a bit like a record, a bit like a singular tunnel in waking to this haze, after his hand covers her.
Steady and solid, heavier than it used to be, yet so carefully placed.
It would take so little to turn her hand over.
Again. Like that first night. Again. Like in the phone booth.
(There's so much that aches there, too.)
It's almost worse than the words. It means what they say, but it's more, somehow, too. Luther just wanting to be there. Whatever she determines there means or doesn't mean. The one person she told everything for half her life, and that she never had so freely after with anyone. And never even close, without the comparison to it. Him. Them. Then.
Allison pulled in a breath and pushed it through her nose, her shoulders giving a little more. She picked up her phone from the blankets on her lap, opening it, again. Touching a handful of buttons with the edge of her thumb. Pulling up a voicemail and tapping it to play. If he happens to be looking close enough, it reads Patrick where the name is, but when he puts it to his ear, it'll be the all too newly familiar voice of Claire. ]
[He watches her so carefully, every emotion that flits across her face as if he can read what's actually going on in her head with a look. Maybe at one time, when they share absolutely everything, he thought he could. Maybe he'd been able to guess.
He doesn't have to guess long when she plays the voicemail though, Claire's voice coming through. He tilts his head, listens to it play. Ah... okay. It makes sense... at least more than it had when he received her message this morning. Letting out a breath, Luther does the only thing he knows to do--
He shifts forward once it ends and settles next to her on the couch and brings an arm around her, pulls her in to a careful embrace.]
I'm sorry... [He murmurs.] I know this is hard for you...
[ For a moment Allison froze, a strange stagger to her thoughts. Where no one has touched her during in the better part of a year, and before that, the better part of half a decade, even Patrick knew better than to touch her, except carefully, like a litmus test on a bomb, if she was angry or hurt.
But Luther isn't Patrick. Luther isn't.
No one on the planet is Luther. No one else. No one ever had been. Could be. Even come close.
She's not sure if it's better, like she can breathe a little deeper, or worse, like she might tear up, again, as he starts talking into her hair in the same second she finally starts to relax a little. Hard is such an understatement. Hard was leaving this place. Hard was coming back. Hard was not talking. And breathing being strange all together now, impossible to take for granted.
Not having Claire? Not even being able to say a single word to her now, when words were all she'd even had to hold her through the last months? Was a constant reminder of how much just living could feel like dying. Hyperbolic, her therapist would say. Stupid, she'll say later. It doesn't change -- even if she lets herself close her eyes against him -- that it feels just like bleeding out on the cabin floor did. Except for every day, without end, without a wound to point to that anyone can see. ]
[He wishes he could-- fix this. Make everything better for her somehow. He wishes none of it had happened and she at least had her voice because he can't imagine what this must be like for her. He can't do anything besides hold on though.
Hold on and press a soft kiss to her head.]
We'll make it okay somehow... Okay? I'll do whatever I have to.
[Not that there's a lot he can do, but hopefully it'll-- help. Maybe it will soothe some of the hurt she's feeling, some of the hopelessness.]
You're going to see Claire again-- and you're going to hold her again, no matter what.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
numberthree) wrote2019-03-13 09:06 pm
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[No pants and a hangover? When that happened to him, there really-- wasn't much good that came of it.]
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It's that he really will be here soon enough.
And he really will bring her water and aspirin even if she doesn't.
And it still hurts. More than her head does. More than waking up without pants is annoying. And embarrassing. And stupid. Childish. She can hear the therapist voice in her head, not that she's telling her this -- How does that make you feel? and Do you think that was a wise choice? and What other ways could you have handled this?
And she just lays her phone on her chest and studies the ornate, inlaid ceiling, waiting for Luther. ]
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A little too much.
Luther fights back the worry that flares up and focuses on just helping for now. Helping and hoping she talks to him.]
Hey- still awake?
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The world is too bright and too noisy, and even at the same time as she feels incredibly stupid, and like the last thing she wants him to see is this, she can't help also feeling like it's better him than anyone else. That she doesn't have the manic need to wrap it neatly and pretend with him. She can just rub her cheek, instead of her eyes, and reach out for the water that he brought. ]
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Take a couple of these.
[The clothes, he places down beside her before he moves to take a seat quietly.]
So... do I get to know what happened last night?
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She held Luther's gaze for a moment. A turbulent collision of regret, frustration, and something all too clearly still pain. One that didn't come from her head. One that went nowhere from standing on her chest still. Even as she worked on opening the bottle and swallowing down some of the pills first. At once so tempted to give in, give over, something unchecking just at the sound of his voice, at seeing his face, hearing his voice.
And almost suddenly frustrated it had ended up being him to answer, too.
Because she might have managed to find a way to say nothing at all. With anyone else. ]
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Or maybe it's just wishful thinking, longing for the past when they'd tell each other everything.
Whatever it is, it prompts him to reach out, resting his hand over her free one carefully.]
... It's okay. [It's not, not really... but Luther doesn't want to push her into anything right now.] Do you want to get some more rest? Maybe we can get you up to bed instead.
no subject
Steady and solid, heavier than it used to be, yet so carefully placed.
It would take so little to turn her hand over.
Again. Like that first night.
Again. Like in the phone booth.
It's almost worse than the words. It means what they say, but it's more, somehow, too. Luther just wanting to be there. Whatever she determines there means or doesn't mean. The one person she told everything for half her life, and that she never had so freely after with anyone. And never even close, without the comparison to it. Him. Them. Then.
Allison pulled in a breath and pushed it through her nose, her shoulders giving a little more. She picked up her phone from the blankets on her lap, opening it, again. Touching a handful of buttons with the edge of her thumb. Pulling up a voicemail and tapping it to play. If he happens to be looking close enough, it reads Patrick where the name is, but when he puts it to his ear, it'll be the all too newly familiar voice of Claire. ]
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He doesn't have to guess long when she plays the voicemail though, Claire's voice coming through. He tilts his head, listens to it play. Ah... okay. It makes sense... at least more than it had when he received her message this morning. Letting out a breath, Luther does the only thing he knows to do--
He shifts forward once it ends and settles next to her on the couch and brings an arm around her, pulls her in to a careful embrace.]
I'm sorry... [He murmurs.] I know this is hard for you...
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But Luther isn't Patrick. Luther isn't.
No one on the planet is Luther. No one else.
No one ever had been. Could be. Even come close.
She's not sure if it's better, like she can breathe a little deeper, or worse, like she might tear up, again, as he starts talking into her hair in the same second she finally starts to relax a little. Hard is such an understatement. Hard was leaving this place. Hard was coming back. Hard was not talking. And breathing being strange all together now, impossible to take for granted.
Not having Claire? Not even being able to say a single word to her now, when words were all she'd even had to hold her through the last months? Was a constant reminder of how much just living could feel like dying. Hyperbolic, her therapist would say. Stupid, she'll say later. It doesn't change -- even if she lets herself close her eyes against him -- that it feels just like bleeding out on the cabin floor did. Except for every day, without end, without a wound to point to that anyone can see. ]
no subject
Hold on and press a soft kiss to her head.]
We'll make it okay somehow... Okay? I'll do whatever I have to.
[Not that there's a lot he can do, but hopefully it'll-- help. Maybe it will soothe some of the hurt she's feeling, some of the hopelessness.]
You're going to see Claire again-- and you're going to hold her again, no matter what.