[ 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.
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numberthree) wrote2019-03-13 09:06 pm
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. ]
no subject
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...
no subject
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.