[ luke shuts the door and moves past her. with a lift of his shoulders, he shrugs off her compliment and any self-deprecating thing he wants to say. (it's a mess.i'm in the middle of redecorating.) but he lingers, like she is, uncertain of what to do in his very own home. ]
[ it's clean and sparse. he doesn't have much in terms of personal items. he lacks in photographs and the vast collection of shit he used to hang on his wall back at the hermes cabin. it's clean and it's neat and it's entirely unlike luke that not even he sometimes recognises his own apartment. it's as though he's afraid of making a mark on the world, just in case it's another scorching one that leaves people burned for years, if not for the rest, of their lives. ]
[ the thing about clarisse is that she throws him off guard. she had never really done that before, throwing him. she's always been predictable; press this button and you get this violent reaction, say this and you get called punk. but with her so willing to spend time with him, when all they've been doing is getting comfortable with the dance of punching and nursing a bruise … luke falls short on what the next step is. and he's the guy with the plans — he knows what he wants to do, knows how to get it, and knows how to work with it once he's accomplished it. clarisse's offering of … it's not friendship, necessarily, nor is it forgiveness, but her attempting to try is something he had never planned for. he had never thought he'd get it, her warmthness, her ability to break out of a vicious cycle of punishing him for crimes both she and he and the world had been at fault for. ]
[ he shifts on his feet. his gaze flickers to her, then to the wall behind her. ] You want something to drink? [ and it sounds so dumb. he wants to wince, but it's the normal thing to say — the mortal thing to say. ]
no subject
[ it's clean and sparse. he doesn't have much in terms of personal items. he lacks in photographs and the vast collection of shit he used to hang on his wall back at the hermes cabin. it's clean and it's neat and it's entirely unlike luke that not even he sometimes recognises his own apartment. it's as though he's afraid of making a mark on the world, just in case it's another scorching one that leaves people burned for years, if not for the rest, of their lives. ]
[ the thing about clarisse is that she throws him off guard. she had never really done that before, throwing him. she's always been predictable; press this button and you get this violent reaction, say this and you get called punk. but with her so willing to spend time with him, when all they've been doing is getting comfortable with the dance of punching and nursing a bruise … luke falls short on what the next step is. and he's the guy with the plans — he knows what he wants to do, knows how to get it, and knows how to work with it once he's accomplished it. clarisse's offering of … it's not friendship, necessarily, nor is it forgiveness, but her attempting to try is something he had never planned for. he had never thought he'd get it, her warmthness, her ability to break out of a vicious cycle of punishing him for crimes both she and he and the world had been at fault for. ]
[ he shifts on his feet. his gaze flickers to her, then to the wall behind her. ] You want something to drink? [ and it sounds so dumb. he wants to wince, but it's the normal thing to say — the mortal thing to say. ]
[ even a friendly thing to say. ]