text. anonymous.

[obediences]

Is there anything about yourself that you would change, if you could?

And do any of you have the ability or powers to change people's physical bodies? Like with magic, or something.

Not science.


[ Science has already let him down. Science led him here. Luther doesn't much savour the idea of another brilliant person with brilliant inventions trying to get beneath his ape-like skin, when he and his father already tried and failed.

There is something to be said for acceptance, and coming to terms with yourself and your new capabilities or lack thereof. Luther isn't there yet. And he has too many memories now, of an entire decade in the City without this albatross around his neck, this anchor around his ankle. Every time he thinks he might have readjusted to his malformed body again, this world delivers him another goddamned reminder of what he's lost: accidentally remaking his own form when dreams became real; his siblings winding up in others' bodies; waking up looking like his teenaged self, from a far simpler time. It rankles; makes it harder each time to feel comfortable again.

So. He asks the question, finally. ]


& ooc: I don't want to permanently 'fix' Luther, but if your character can do it, I would absolutely be open to a change backfiring or working temporarily! Feel free to plot ICly, or reach out OOCly to hash out some details!

Comments

[obediences]

It's a chaotic peppering of messages, flung out as quickly as she can think it and type it, and Allison Hargreeves almost never says please.

Their whole lives, she always demanded. She took. She never asked. She never had to. If she'd gotten into better habits in her normal life, out and about the real world, Luther was never around to see it — he knows of her as imperious, demanding, and he's spent his entire life unthinkingly complying even when she wasn't using her power. He'd give her anything, he'd give her everything.

(Except, apparently, he hadn't given her this.)

He doesn't shove himself backwards to get further away from her, but he watches the near-approach of her hand like a rattlesnake in the grass. Feels the distance shrinking between them like a tightening and shortening leash, while his shoulders tense up.

She came to him about Claire. Her lowest and her most vulnerable moment, her most painful. Shouldn't he repay the favour? Shouldn't that be an easy consideration?

(No. It isn't.)

"I would be responsible about it," he finally says, suddenly banking into an earlier facet of the conversation. Not quite following up on what he'd just given away a moment ago. Still focusing on the how rather than the more important why. "I wouldn't be stupid about it. I'd research anyone who responded, and talk to them in-depth. There's a few different healers, someone who can manipulate biological material. I wouldn't go in half-cocked or rushed. If that's what you're worried about."

(He is so stubbornly blind to this. Because that's part of it, sure, but it's also not entirely it. What she's worried about, plainly and simply, is him.)

[numberthree]

Even though she'd already stopped herself as fast as her hands had lifted, it's the way that Luther's eyes snap to the movement, a stillness so sharp, tense, reticent it might as well have been a cringe, and Allison crosses her arms again. Not the same way as earlier. Lower, under her chest, for a moment, both sets of her fingers hooking her elbows.

Even at their best, even occasionally casual, it's never quite normal.
And it's even less acceptable in not normal. (How is it she only wants to more, now?)

Her fingertips press light into the bones jointed there, under such thin skin, as Luther doesn't say to just go, that's he's still done, and she finds herself swallowing. Hopeful for even a partial tenuous inch of the same words not just restated. That he doesn't get up, jut watches her at first.

But then he does start talking, and Allison can feel her heart restart somewhere under the breath she pulls in. Not promised anything specific, any length or depth, but not sent away again either. But he's talking and for a moment she tries to hold her tongue. Curb any impulse. But it's already shifting. No. Shifted.

When it was someone else, anyone else, it wouldn't have mattered.
What happened to them. If they hurt themselves. Even died in the process.
But it's not someone else. Anyone else. It's Luther. It's. Luther.

Suddenly everything matters. Deeper than words. Anchoring her down with his voice -- rough, familiar, always more level and logical than emotional; at least on the surface, the part he made for everyone to see -- even when it's the words in that voice that make everything twist tighter and tighter in her core, too tight. Logical, but.

His earlier words keep stabbing back into her. Making her hold.
Was it a joke? Was it? She can't stop looking at his face now.

The place his word's end though, causes a shift in her expression. A press of her mouth and a quirk of her eyebrows. As though his protocol is her greatest concern. As though every detail hasn't turned a millionfold. Concern is not the tactic to take with Luther like this. Even if it is the thing sinking its teeth in, bloodying her skin. Her heart.

Allison has always been smart, but ruled by her emotions.
It takes a few seconds to land on a question that feels safe.

When did you start looking?

[obediences]

The slight raise of an eyebrow; nowhere near the sardonic looks she's mastered, but still a flicker of half-incredulity half-bemusement from him. "Uh, you saw it," Luther says. "Today."

But even that isn't the full picture, really. The real question is: how long have you been thinking about it?

Every day. In constant futility back home, the one thing he'd asked and demanded and pleaded his father to fucking fix, and Sir Reginald had been unable to. Every damn day for four— no, five years now. Reinforced and amplified every time this world served him up another reminder of what he'd been.

He crosses his arms, too, unintentionally mirroring Allison's body language. It's easier than wondering what the hell to do with his hands, whether or not to stand up, or if he's still going to be stuck in this chair with his chin tipped up forever, looking at her.

[numberthree]

At first, she can't tell if the relief or the incredulity is larger, even as Luther settles her with a look that almost seems confused and like he can't believe she asked it. Maybe, because there's no way it started tonight, and she doesn't know if she can believe she's that lucky.

But she doesn't actually believe he'd lie to her. No.
Not even like this. Not even about this.

Not tell her, yes. But lie?
She doesn't think so.
Hopes not.

But there's. She doesn't actually doubt it, does she. The expression he has, that keeps rowing back and forth between too much and too little seems too real itself. A little chagrin even at being caught, at having to do this in person. With anyone. He'd chosen to not do it as himself to being with, hadn't he.

She's the only person who knows this part. That it is him.
She wishes she didn't feel like she had to steal that to claim it.

Allison hates that anything can make him want to be less than who she knows he is. That this makes him feel like he is. Isn't. Himself. The only person that the whole of her universe revolves on here. One of the only two points that define what is good and right in her whole life.

She turned, willing herself patience. Without asking anymore at this moment than she might have if it were any other day and she'd walked in on him working, Allison sits down careful, not entirely casually, on the bottom corner of his bed. Trying to think past every part of her still yelling this was wrong.

I still don't think it's safe.

But.

You said people wrote you back?
That there were possibly options?

She hadn't been listening. She didn't really when she was yelling. Apparently, even when she was doing it without making a sound. Words just became weapons to catch and throw back. Fury was always easier than fear. She wasn't taught to be afraid, and if she had to be afraid, she was taught to use that as a weapon, too.

How did those things never come out them when they grew up?

Her expression was a least ruefully calm. Trying to listen. Without lying either.

[obediences]

When she sits down, some of the tension ebbs out of him, too, his shoulders loosening; looking a bit less like he's about to bolt out of that seat and out of the room. (He'd done that before, back home, fleeing the foyer.) He hates having Allison angry at him. Hates it. It saws on his nerves, makes them sing in strained jaw-clenched unhappiness. This rueful, logical rationalising is better: Luther knows how to deal with this better.

It's almost like talking about mission parameters. Logistics. Safeguards.

Not emotions.

"There's a couple people who— have experienced something similar." He breathes in, breathes out. He doesn't explain that it's nice to have that unexpected solidarity, a thread of simpatico even with total strangers. Maybe it goes without saying.

"And then one person said they can manipulate biological material on a genetic level. I'm asking them for more details, because that sounds promising. Another said they can heal injuries and illnesses — anything from puncture wounds to heart attacks to poisons to hypothermia to comas, but I... don't think that'll work for me. It's not an injury."

Despite himself, Luther's gaze automatically drifts down the line of Allison's jaw, to her neck. The healed scar there. His jaw works, chews over the question that's suddenly on the tip of his tongue, a pivot of the topic right back at her:

"Have you ever considered...?"

[numberthree]

It's not hard for Allison to keep her expression whatever she wants it to be. That's been honed over that last decade. She can laugh until her eyes are sparkling even when all she wants to do is cry. It's not the same thing. But there's carefulness to her expression, even as she tries to dissect every bit of his and his voice while he speaks.

Listening to him explain more than what was left out there publicly.
Making her wonder what more might exactly have been said. Where. To who.

Even more so, what might have been said by Luther. To someone else. Somewhere else. Somewhere private. Locked away. All the words that might be like the ones he threw right back at her. With someone else who might have understood. Or take advantage of it. That didn't even understand how hard it was for Luther to drag anything out into the light from behind the mask.

Did it hurt more now, thinking about with all the details in rows,
or was it just that she didn't have the anger to throw that hurt into now.

She doesn't expect the question, but she should have, throws her right back to

It's not small then


No. Is yours?

She looks away, without even thinking about it until she has. The end of the bed. The wall. Not sticking a landing anywhere her gaze lands. Feeling suddenly self-conscious, all the feeling in her body seeming to rush to her throat, where the skin prickles and she nearly wants to rub the skin, but she won't move now either.

The answer is of course and it probably shows, but what she writes instead is,

Not like this.

[obediences]

Luther's gaze sinks in turn, dropping away from Allison and down to his own arms, his fingers splayed across one oversized bicep. As ever, he doesn't like what he sees; he rearranges them, hands settling restlessly into his lap. Even indoors, even while relaxing at home, he still wears those fingerless gloves. Hasn't ever stopped. He only peels them off at night, when he's brushing his teeth and changing clothes and getting ready for bed. (That in itself should've been a sign. It's as much to shield himself from the sight as to shield others.)

The urge is still there, to slam the metaphorical door shut and just bail out of this entire thing. But he owes it to her, he owes it, he owes it. His best friend. The person he's been closest to in this world and the next, in three different universes now. So he pushes himself. Makes himself talk, even if he can't meet her eye just this second:

"It's... the only way I could do it," he admits, his voice low as he looks down at his lap. Soft and miserable.

[numberthree]

It's strange how for someone who can't make much noise, the quieter it gets the edgier she feels. Like somehow, even though he's still talking, this could all just start slipping through her fingers if she doesn't make sure he keeps talking. About this thing they never talk about. Don't even entirely talk about when this place is messing with bodies, minds, and ages.

Barely. Scraps here and there. Never returning to that night, or his telling her the next morning. About as even and logical as he could try and make them. Then, and now. It's not the same. His asking about her. He ended up here by nearly dying while saving the world. She couldn't begin to claim something that noble. If someone deserved the better of how they go to here, it wasn't her.

It's nearly battering at her teeth to write the words, you almost died. Like it's some unrecognized thing. He didn't. But he almost did. And they sweep it under the rug like it's just another of every time someone got brought back needing to get stitched up by Mom. Except it wasn't that easy. This happened. This saved him.

This ... makes him feel not-real. Not himself. Like he might hate himself.
And Allison still can't even think that word without tension. It's so wrong.


It's hard to find the words. The ones she doesn't think he'll throw out. But, also, the ones she wants to know, to ask for, without somehow pushing too much, when she wants to push for everything. When she wishes he could even see a quarter of how she sees him.


Tell me about it?


It's not like I've never noticed anything.
But I never thought it was this bad.

Does that make her the worst best friend?
She's not certain she's ever been a good friend.



But she's always been his.

[obediences]

And he wants to ask. What she's noticed. Which tells he's slipped and given away, even as he knows how horrifically obvious it feels too. As if she couldn't tell from the turtlenecks, the gloves, the heavy layers, the dreamstuff that brought him his old body just as her dreamstuff brought her a Claire, of sorts—

But that thought isn't all that prominent either; when Luther thinks over it, he realises he doesn't feel bitter that she hadn't realised. He's relieved, mostly. Relieved that he managed at least some semblance of hiding it.

"I didn't want you to know," he says. And then a moment later, realising how that might sound wrong, like a kind of rejection: "I didn't want anyone to know. I'm not supposed to... I'm supposed to be Number One, Allison, for god's sake. Impervious."

Another breath. The only way this is easier, doable at all, is because it had already come up a little with Jane, hot on the heels of the City.

Leaders are supposed to have faith in themselves. What a shitty one I am.

"But I haven't felt like him in a long time. Even before... before finding out about my mission."

(Even now, a whole year later, he can't quite bring himself to say those words and name it for what it is. Finding out about the moon. What Dad did. The sham of his life. The waste of his life.)

[numberthree]

It lands. Even if he didn't mean it to, and it shows a second later, and Allison for can't tell if it's supposed to be better or worse that it goes from not her to her just being part of anyone, everyone else. Either way, it lands, and she tries not to press her lips.

But it smooths away into something utterly otherwise at the words that come after it, softening her expression, with a shake of her head.

You're not impervious.
You don't have to be.

You're human. Like the rest of us.
You get to make mistakes,
and not like things.



Even if that involves yourself.


He was always Dad's Best Little Soldier. Even when he was taller than all of them. Even when it was only him. First, brightest, and best so far back she doesn't think she remembers a single part of her child where that wasn't a fact. Even before their friendship became what it was. Still that, staunchly that, even when it wasn't anymore.

But that wasn't the person she'd missed. The person she loved best. Not that she hadn't loved that, too, before she even knew it was love. But it wasn't the mask of Number One or Spaceboy that she'd stayed in love with for the second half of her life, when he wasn't even there to be those. When it was everything under them, that made up who he really was, that she compared every other person to.

[obediences]

Luther reads over those words, over and over, and he silently shakes his head a little. Automatically doubtful, disbelieving.

Because it doesn't track. Doesn't fit with the other twenty-nine years of his life, the poison he drank even after everyone else had been weaned off it, after the others had taught themselves to leave it behind. He's the leader; he's not supposed to make mistakes. How else can he be worthy? How else do you measure someone's value? How else had he ever been able to draw Sir Reginald's attention and notice and approval?

Only in this: in being rigid and perfect and inhuman, without a single visible crack in the foundations, no quaver in his voice, no weakness, no hesitation in his obedience or duty.

He's aware in a distant sort of way that those considerations don't work anymore; that they fell apart the day he was discarded like so much trash. (like dad didn't just use you like a drill and toss you aside once the battery was dead)

And he's been trying to learn a better way.

But old habits die hard. And their father did such a goddamn number on them.

As he looks away from that hovering text, and back to meet Allison's eye, there's another thought turning itself over and over in his mind. Remembering: I think maybe you're the only person who really knows who I am and still likes me anyway.

He swallows; tries to choose the right words to ask what he wants to ask, finally settles on: "Is that... speaking from personal experience?"

[numberthree]

Allison watches him wrestle with the words. The shift of his eyes over it again and again. And again. The faintest washes of almost-expressions on his face. The near imperceptible way his shoulders, his whole upper body, almost moves but doesn't.

Fallibility was never a thing Luther believed in. Still isn't. That's the whole reason she's sitting hereafter only somehow stumbling on what he'd finally decided to do. Because he didn't want her, or anyone, to even know that this existed. And would she have, if she hadn't been aimlessly scrolling? Would she have been too late?

Was she? Or was it all beginning still, right here, right now.

A tenuous vine, trying to wait through his silence, even though she'd probably have added more words if speaking was an option. But she already threw enough at him -- or too much, she didn't know. She sat on the thousand words circling, more so after the recklessness desperation of moments ago. But he focused back on her, and she stopped curving one of her manicured nails inside the other in her lap.

She didn't know what her expression was for that.

All of her worst moments, her worst mistakes, the sins she got to carry, she did that to herself. She chose those things. Did those things. Said those words. It wasn't the same. He -- hated? -- what their Father had done to him, in the course of saving. She hated herself often enough, for things only she was responsible for.

Except it's not that simple either. For all that they don't talk about it, what they've seen since coming here, Luther's greatest regret, whether it had to do with her or not, was not leaving that day, that morning, when she came to get him. Was a stab of culpability lain blank and bare, almost too?

He chose to stay. Chose their Father. Even after deciding not to.

Didn't we start there?
In the family room. Only days after getting back.

It's been a year and half, but it's impossible to forget so many of the moments from that week. Even for all the truly horrific things then, she can't forget the worst things she said to Vanya because of Patrick, or about implying with no subtly to Luther that she was broken and unfixable. And this place had taken him beat by beat through every red-handed reason for it.

You always could get me to say more than I meant to.

Not the angry words. The real ones. The true ones.
The ones she hid so well from everyone else.

[obediences]

It's probably unfair. She's been so honest with him, confided in him (and he hadn't even had to work that hard on it back home; just a few words from him and she'd spilled her heart out). While Luther still held so much back, unaccustomed to having someone to talk to again, having his best friend back, a partner he can trust in. He's bottled it all up instead. And Allison exposed her worst parts, the things she'd done, her deepest shame— meanwhile, he'd almost died years ago and hadn't even called her. It hadn't made the headlines, not like the usual heroic near-misses that the press reported on the Academy; Reginald had buried it.

Even up to today, Luther had buried it.

"I'm sorry."

He's said it before even realising he was about to say it. Because there's another litany running in circles now: You hypocrite, Luther. You absolute hypocrite. She'd done it. So why couldn't he?

"For... not telling you. I don't... I still don't even really know how to." He exhales. Tries again, although wrenching out more words is, as ever, like squeezing blood from a stone: "That age thing a few weeks ago. It made it worse."

[numberthree]

It's a distracted expression that's stolen over her some since her words, because they could be flippant. They're an answer without an answer. They're an answer that existed almost a year and half ago, and not a present answer at all, and he could press for it. Might. Does she still hate herself? Does she ever think to ask the question that bare? Was it easier to ask the questions that were serrated?

Who was she if she wasn't doing everything in her power to save her daughter?
Who was she if she wasn't doing everything in her power to save her sister?
Who was she if she wasn't doing everything in her power to save the world?

Was there any worth to her in a life where she had no voice, no powers, no job skills, and basically the only thing left to her was her pretty face. And more ruthless fight training than most people could imagine. Did she hate herself? Did she? When had it gotten so hard to answer that clearly, and how was she even supposed to sit fine with the fact she was pretty certain that it was Luther, sitting so close by, deep in his own gray clouds, that had so much to do with that uncertainty, too. Acceptance, deserved or not, was an addictive thing.

Allison blinked at Luther's words that came. Those two. Then, again, as it settled, confused. Not a judgement, even if she always waited for his judgement to finally callus over, looked for it and feared it and was grateful it didn't, all at once. Her own knotted tangle of deserved, not deserved, needed.

For a moment she wasn't sure if the apology was about making her say more than she meant, or for her potentially uncertain, and possibly downright unforgivable, digusted, unmendable, belief in herself, espoused in that second. Trying to rebuff him with her anger. Trying to make him disgusted at her. Trying to make him understand how despicable she'd become.

There was a faint huff out her nose when the words after made it not her, but him. An apology she wasn't sure she knew how to hold. Both didn't need and felt strangely unsettled to hear. Made something in her throat stick. Because it mattered. It matter so much, maybe even too much, everything whether Luther of all people considered her worth talking to. Trusting.

Even with these parts of himself.

Even the parts they'd hadn't hesitated to give so long ago.

Her lips pressed and her nose scrunched, a little less that something looking grateful and more like he didn't really need to say those words. Not even if she screamed. Or it hurt. She understood him too well. And if it buried under at least half of that muddled reaction, she still couldn't look away from the earnest apology in his blue eyes at first.

That other place. And the body swapping.

This place loves to fuck with everything.

There's no anger in the words when they come. It's solemn this time. Quiet dark eyes considering her words, considering her truths, how to put them together in a way that isn't screaming at him like he'd just cut her skin open, and the only response was to hit harder until she could be heard. The way she looks down, not even realizing she's reached a hand up to run her forefinger and thumb against the opposite sides of the locket, as her head tilts and she's focused on the air, obviously writing more.

You know that's what I'm worried about, right?

It's not that I don't understand why.

There's only so much that ever seems to go right here,
and a lot that seems to go wrong before it even gets there.


She'd rather gut someone and leave them dead on the ground right in front of the Aegis building than see something hurt Luther more than the shadows in his eyes showing right now. This almost inability to even talk about it once he started. Even a year and half (and five or six) later. The depth of this. The self-imposed isolation and ownership of it. It hurt to even think about something having even a five percent chance of hurting him more.

[obediences]

There's a pained flicker across his face, then a slow nod. He hadn't even had to list off all the experiences, because she'd already instantly guessed at them: the memories and twists of fate that kept digging those knives deeper with their reminders of what he'd been, what he'd lost, what he'd once been. The feywild. The memory share. The City. The body swaps. The dreams.

Luther leans forward, elbows propped against his knees and hands interlaced between them (and even that shift of position is uncomfortable; his shoulders pull at his shirt, tugging it taut across his shoulderblades, the fabric straining).

"That's kind of it, though. All those other times... we didn't control any of that. It was a surprise. We didn't even know what was causing it and it just happened, out of nowhere, uncontrollably."

And you didn't have to be a genius or a seer, to guess that things unexpectedly happening to Luther's body could still be a sore point, a raw wound.

"But if I did the research and reached out... at least that's my choice. At least I examined the options, spoke to the person who can do it, listened to what they could do, sized up their experience with their powers, decided whether or not it was worth the risk of trying. Then it would be my choice. Does that make sense?"

His blue eyes are riveted on her now, his expression cut open in a way that it rarely is, praying and hoping that she understands. His open beating heart on display. That hopeless yearning drifting unhappiness that sits beneath this skin, and which has been smothered so long.

[numberthree]

Oh.

Oh. She was wrong.

A hundred times over, she was wrong. She doesn't hate anything that she's listed and forgotten the way she hates this. The relief at her words giving birth to this. The way his face opens, and he leans in toward her, beseeching, and she knows this face.

This is the face of a hundred ideas, and a hundred perfect missions details, and a hundred things that if he just got right, just managed to do what no one on the planet was even capable of -- and their father would compliment him. Recognize him. See him. Approve of him. Respect him.

Allison hates this face. In the same way that her throat closes up sandpaper walls and the edges of her eyes suddenly feel dry and she's not even positive she can breathe looking at Luther looking at her like this. Suddenly needing her to see (how well he's planned it), to understand (why he has to), to agree (that he's allowed). And she can't.

Everything in her strangles loudly at sheer magnanimity of that truth.
Because this is the part of Luther than can be hurt most. Worst. Has been.

Because she can't stand the idea, even in her head, of the light darkening more.

Allison has to look away. She doesn't think she can lie to him. Knows she can. Doesn't want to even here. She doesn't have to like. He already knows she doesn't. He already knows exactly how she feels about it. She said that loudly in the network. When she blew in here. What she chooses she doesn't choose kindly, but out of a mirrored sort of desperation.

That doesn't look like desperation, because when she looks back her face is more set.

You will tell me before you do anything. Go anywhere. Choose whatever.
You don't get to leave me in the dark about any of this anymore.

Or so help her god. She'll never manage to do anything in a day thinking he could be anywhere else, not telling her, doing god knows what to himself, to chase a potential impossibility. Even the idea of going back to her room and leaving him in here alone, when this is what he was doing, made her feel tense.

And maybe that makes her cruel in her choice,
even if she barely feels like she's holding on to the bed. Gravity.

Promise me.

[obediences]

His endless plans and contingencies, when they're desperate and desperately optimistic like this, they always sound like if only. If only he could ace every single performance exam levied at the students, then Sir Reginald would notice. If only he could be the youngest person in space, green across the board and his flight licenses passed, then the Monocle would care. If only he could destroy every last obstacle placed in the Academy's path, then Dad would love him.

(And if only he could look like himself once more, tall and trim shoulders and normal human-sized arms and unblemished skin and the face that once plastered the magazines along hers, then maybe he could look in a mirror again. Touch Allison again.)

When Allison delivers her orders, he's still looking at her, and it doesn't even take that long before Luther nods.

Nobody else would dare. Five might snap commands for some things, for the specific realms of his expertise, for mending timelines, exerting the privilege and know-it-all-ness of being the eldest— But nobody else could hope to tie Luther down quite like this, his heart and self, his personhood, his decision-making. She's the only one. Because it's trust. It's trust and love and his best friend and the best-closest thing he has to a confidante.

"Okay," he says. "I promise."

(And even to his ears, those two words sound like an echo of the past. Numbers One and Three, their voices tinny over two cans and a single thread of string, a pinky promise and a swear.)

[numberthree]

He doesn't look away, and he doesn't balk. Doesn't, even for a second, look like he's considering how to get out of a mandate so childish she knows she'll be disgusted with herself for it later, even if she'll hold on to like it is the only thing that will let her breathe. Because of this most of all.

The way he just nods.
He just says, I promise.

She doesn't think she has any idea what she's capable of doing if someone hurt Luther. The man staring at her with such capability to hope even in the darkest, deepest hurt. Or the boy somewhere in there, still giving in to her every demand, like she asked all his allowance for a gift and not a minute-by-minute traffic report on every single step of his free will.

And he just gives it up. Which only hurts more. That he doesn't fight.
Only presses harder on that bruise under her sternum. Why didn't he tell her, then.

Words. Words are just gone. She's not even certain she'd have them if she had her voice. It's a wrinkle in her expression, set as it is. When she nods, too. She just mirrors him a little too completely without realizing it. Nods, even if her brow is knitted.

Okay.

[obediences]

Even though it's a lull in the conversation (which has felt like rough sandpaper on his skin, a heavy leaden stone in his stomach), it's not a dismissal; it's agreement. And Luther chews over that for a moment, uncertain how to fill up that silence — if they were anyone else, he should probably reach out to her. Take her hands. Something. (Once and only once did he slip, here, his lips grazing against the backs of her knuckles. Accidental muscle-memory from yet another life that hadn't, exactly, been his.)

But he can do this, at least: Luther reaches out and closes the laptop. Slides his chair away from the desk and stands up, rolling his shoulders back, as if he can shed that interminable weight. (He can't.)

"You wanna go have some dinner?" he asks.

It's not done, because it'll never be done. The subject isn't over. He'll likely go back to those conversations on the network later, those options, and she knows it — but it doesn't have to be right now, right under her nose, her attention and distress and panic burning a hole through the wall.

So instead, it's a break, a cease-fire. An apology. An until later.