lanselos_du_lac | [Semi-Closed Post] Sadmas Aftermath

Rather suddenly, after this latest mansion event or incursion of unexpected visitors, Lancelot will not be seen around and about as has come to be usual for him. He is not drilling in the field in the mornings. He is not in the café seeking pastries or companionship. He is not around the kitchens or libraries or, seemingly, anywhere.

Lancelot keeps to his room. If he bathes or shaves or uses the bathroom, he does so carefully and avoiding anyone he might meet. If Laertes leaves food outside his door, folk will find it still there later in the day. If anyone knocks, he will not call them in. He lets the mansion provision him with bread, cheese, water-- sometimes wine or whiskey -- but he doesn't much want any of it.

He cannot bring himself to speak to anyone. He cannot bring himself to do much of anything at all. The best concession he will make, with the understanding that there are those who will worry, is that he does not lock or bolt the door.

[Typist note: Anyone who might be really worried about Lancelot's sudden disappearance or withdrawal is welcome! Post is "semi-closed" really only because a character would have to deliberately decide to enter, and no one will stumble across Lancelot by accident.]

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Susan rouses herself -- between the multiple rounds and his hands in her hair, she's very nearly drifted off -- and twists a little so that she's looking at him, brushing a kiss to his shoulder in the process. "Yes?"

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lanselos_du_lac

He smiles at her, because he can't help it with her looking as she does, but then sobers just a little. "I said before, I would not leave thee," his fingers brush her cheeks, "It is true, but I do not mean for thee to take it that anything has changed."

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Susan blinks. It takes her a moment to parse through the words, since none of them are things she expected to hear, and another moment to realize that she's really not sure what he's getting at. "Beg pardon?"

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Lancelot flushes a little -- he'd felt compelled to say it, but had hoped it was more obvious. "Only that I have no will to bind thee or for thee to feel bound. I would have thee do as suits thee. I did not... I chose to stay, and thought of thee, but I'd not have that press thee."

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"Oh!" Susan makes the connection then. "I hadn't thought it would," she confesses. Oh, she had at first; of course she had. But somewhere around the time Lancelot mentioned flirting with Laertes and clarified that his affection for the king was of a deeper nature, she'd let go of that concern. Already Lancelot has been a more regular lover than most men Susan has known, in the past - not a binding, perhaps, but still a closer connection, and so she'd categorized what he'd said about staying accordingly.

She reaches for his hand and threads their fingers together, running her thumb along the side of his index finger. They had, to her memory, agreed to be honest about potential other suitors as they explored what lay between them. She licks her lips, a delaying tactic more than anything. "I should tell you," she starts, and falls silent. She does want to be honest with him; she just doesn't know where to start.

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lanselos_du_lac

When he hears the first, he relaxes; he dreads to think he should make her uncomfortable, or should make her worry over any jealousy she thinks he might have.

(He had never felt jealous of Arthur, and he does not know if Arthur felt jealous of him. He doubts it, somehow, after all of this. He had told Guinever the truth because he felt he must; because in spite of everything he had been faithful to her. He is learning, now, that there are other ways to love, and to be in love, that don't require hiding and guarding and defensiveness. These things weren't possible at court, but here they are. He had always wanted for Guinever to choose what she desired, in so much as she could. He finds, increasingly, that he wants that for all of them.)

Lancelot watches her face, squeezes her fingers gently and then draws their hands closer to kiss the back of her hand. "Say on," he says quietly, "It's well."

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But Susan is hesitant. "I don't know how," she explains, aware that it is a nonexplanation at best. "There are things I have never really spoken about before, directly, outside of very specific contexts." The look she gives him is a helpless one, imploring him - perhaps - to make a guess that will allow her to react, rather than act.

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lanselos_du_lac

Lancelot considers, keeping her hand and smoothing back her hair with the other. He remembers their earlier conversation, his honesty about Arthur -- that admission that they did not have enough time, here, to come to understand one another as they should. He gives her a searching look, full of care.

After a long hesitation he says, with that very deliberate care he occasionally has, "Some here, thyself amongst them, have known me better than I know myself. Or have at least a different frame. I think thou didst understand me, when I spoke to thee of Arthur. My love for him. That, I have spoken of only to a very few, those closest to me. I also knew not how-- is't so with this, for thee?"

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Susan latches gratefully onto Lancelot's effort. She closes her eyes, presses her lips together for a moment, and says, "I suspect certain things of Edmund in part because of the look on his face when he came across me at a time I did not expect him to visit."

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His eyebrows do go up at this, though if pressed he's not certain that it's surprise, exactly. He strokes her hair again, says softly, "Oh?"

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"It's not that I've been unaware. I've known Miriam for over five years." She's thinking of Janet, and the Jacuzzi, and the way she'd assured Janet (honestly) that she was no stranger to her own homosexual inclinations. She presses her face against Lancelot's chest as he strokes her hair, and forces herself to open her eyes again and look at him before adding, "But that sort of thing isn't discussed. I've never talked about it outside of... known flirtations."

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lanselos_du_lac

"Aye. I understand." He keeps stroking her hair, squeezes her hand again. "I know well what it is not to speak of that which one feels strongly."

He means, really, only that he has loved Guinever for so long and (until recently) never spoken of it directly to anyone but Guinever. His understanding of the depth of his feelings for Arthur, or of any potential flirtation with other men, is much more recent; and, in truth, that is still forming. Even so, the difference (to him) is not great. He has never been particularly good at articulating his feelings, what he knows in his body, down to his bones, except to those very close to him. He wants to know and understand her; he wants her to know she is safe with him.

So he makes himself as solid and steady as he can; he brushes back her hair. He says, "Go on. I would know thee-- as much as thou wouldst have me know."

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Susan sighs, and rolls her eyes at herself, and shifts a little to the side. Taking the hand he doesn't have in her hair back between her own, she studies it: the hair on the back of it, the strength in his fingers, the light calluses on his palms. "I wasn't bound to Miriam," she says, touching each of his nails in turn. She's steeling herself before every word - not because she thinks he'll react poorly, but rather because verbalizing this at all still feels so impossible. "Before. But I believe she might be the closest I've ever come to that sort of thing."

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lanselos_du_lac

Lancelot takes this in, curling his fingers around hers, watching her face. He pauses, to give what she's said time to work its way through him. He combs the fingers of his other hand through her hair again, then brings that hand to brush her cheek. He says simply, "I see, sweet."

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"All this to say," says Susan, abruptly tired of herself. "I slept with someone's visitor, the other day. Liu Mingyan. She-" she cuts herself off. "It was a one-time thing." Like so many of her assignations. Her tone, to someone paying close attention, might suggest that there's more to be said, though.

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Another raise of his eyebrows, though this one is curious. He is, however, paying close attention to her.

He brushes her cheek again, saying carefully, "That's as may be. What else of her?"

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"Not her," says Susan. Liu Mingyan had truly just been a simple, delightful single liaison - though later, perhaps, Susan will suggest a similar tryst to Lancelot (her in her nylons and their garter belt and nothing else; him snapping the belt's suspenders). She pauses, glancing at him when he touches her face, catching the pad of his finger in a quick, nipping kiss. "Do you know Janet?"

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"Aye," smiling at her kiss, "I have met her."

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"I think we're..." Susan pauses. She doesn't know what word to use, how to describe what Janet has become to her of late. They haven't exactly defined anything. Which is par for the course, for Susan, but she really is making an effort to be reasonable about the fact that she's now living in a world with a ridiculously small population. She has, at the very least, kissed most of the people she thinks of as friends here, and friends are hard enough to come by that she doesn't want to chance that. Perhaps she should talk to Janet, and soon, as miserable as that sounds.

They've spoken of dates. Perhaps that's the word to use. "...dating?"

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"Oh!" Lancelot smiles, seeming genuinely pleased for her. "That sounds well. I can see how she would be a good match for thee."

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Susan squints at Lancelot for a moment, searching for some catch. He really is unlike so many of the men she's known before - thoughtful and attentive, curious and kind, silly (though, she suspects, not always on purpose) and profoundly capable. A dear friend. Perhaps that's why she likes him so well, and so quickly. She doesn't bother trying to explain how whatever it is going on between her and Janet feels different from whatever it is going on between her and Lancelot.

She can't find a catch, and her heart clenches again as she relaxes minutely against him. "That's all," she says.

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He feels her relax a little, and presses her hand again. "Feared thee that I would mislike this?"

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"I took what you said at face value," says Susan; this is much more of a 'no' than it is a 'yes.' "It was more - we said we'd be honest. I worried I'd been dishonest by omission because I didn't know how to say... any of it."