Title: No Fairy Tale
Summary: Theirs is no clichéd love story (they are damaged and broken and too complicated)
A/N: This is my first Luther (and very short) fic + I just had to write it – the sexual tension between these two is ridiculous. Not quite sure what this fic is but nevertheless, here it is.
X
When she moves underneath him, he feels alive.
He wants to tell her so many things but instead, he looks into her eyes (he used to think they were soulless but he knows better now) and he watches her fall apart. They end up entwined together, sheets at their waist and she rests on his chest, red hair tickling his chin. (He kisses her head and she pretends to be asleep – there are things they can't say, still now, and she won't be the one to break.)
The first time – after they'd left the bridge and he'd wondered who he was going to be – she kissed him in the hotel elevator. It had been burning and intense and her kiss felt like a seductive promise of what she could make him feel. The room door had shut behind them with a thud and he pressed her up against it – she urged him on, divesting him of his shirt and her hands expertly unbuttoned him – and he couldn't quite remember wanting someone more.
He lifted her from the ground and her thighs wrapped around his waist – it felt wrong and right and he couldn't think of anything else but her and them and how badly he needed this. She whispered in his ear – "I want you" – and the last remaining vestige of control left him.
The next time (later that day - because around her, he was someone else and he had started to like it) had been different. The lights of London had started to twinkle and the sky was darker than he'd known it before – their room was unlit and he watched her face with the merest of illumination from the city below them. That time was softer and real and he'd seen a flash of something in her eyes that he couldn't place (had never before thought she was capable of before) and he wondered what she was thinking. He realised he wanted to know it all.
Several hours later, they sat at the floor to ceiling window – she gazed at the sky and pointed at the constellations that shone before them (she used the Latin names and he forgot each one as easily as she said them) He tried to pay attention – there was an innocence in her voice as she told him of her favourite stars, that many of them were already dead or dying and we were yet to know of it – but her words were like music in the background – all he knew was that she was barefaced, real and next to him, and he couldn't stop looking at her ("John, look at the sky, not me" - there was a hint of amusement in her voice, of victory – he was transparent to her now) She was volatile and unpredictable and dangerous and he wanted every part of her.
X
She wasn't weak. She never had been. Her parents had made a mistake in assuming she was - thinking she was malleable and their creature to be contorted and moulded into the product of their expectations. She was no-one's to own.
And yet, here she was. She was letting him in, making her feel something for someone. This wasn't who she was – but then, he would look at her and she felt like an open book that he had read and could recite by heart. She had become different because of him – he was a deep dark mystery that she wanted to solve – she wanted to put the pieces of him together and work out what she'd made of him.
She'd never cared much before - about anyone, including herself – there was no reason to. Life was merely a series of events that merged into another – to care about anything (anyone) was futile. Science made sense to her - it was dispassionate and there was no pity hidden within it – it was logical and unemotional and it created no pretence of anything other than what it was.
But he is an equation she cannot solve and a theorem for which she has no answer. It thrills her because he makes her feel something other than apathy inside – she knows now that something matters. She rests her head on his chest and she can hear his heart beat (it is strong and solid and unwavering, like him)
Theirs is no clichéd love story (they are damaged and broken and too complicated) and she is certainly no princess waiting to be saved.
X
On their first day in Mexico, she wears a bikini that means they don't leave the room for twenty four hours. His fingers leave a trail of fire on her skin and she relishes the power she has over him (he has it over her too and she tries to tell herself it isn't love)
In the second week, the receptionist calls him her husband (she's alone and she doesn't correct the woman) and in the third week, they stroll through the hotel lobby and the receptionist refers to her as Mrs Luther (he doesn't correct her either) They both tell themselves it's easier like this – less attention and no explanations required.
When he takes her hand in his, she doesn't pull away.