But he can wait her out. Like he always does. Luther notices that shift to her expression (how could he not? Allison is painfully emotive when she lets herself be; she was an actress, after all), and feels her anger like a knife nicking at his skin, but his fingers just tighten in their interlocked cage between his knees, and he waits. His whole body still knotted tight with tension, but he manages to keep his expression level and patient as he watches her.

A distant awareness, in the back of his head, that he probably fucked this up somehow — didn't handle it as he should've — probably said something wrong, or did something wrong. That voice has been self-doubting himself more and more. It's small and timorous, and just honed enough to tell him when he's made a misstep, but not how to fix it nor how he could've done it better.

He's still learning.