[Closed Post] ..lines we're leaving behind..

[lanselos_du_lac]

He doesn't really mean to, but Lancelot keeps to his rooms for a time in the wake of the latest mansion upheaval. He doesn't disappear for days, and he mostly keeps his routines -- he does spend a little more time riding -- but he is subdued and not idly floating about for socializing.

It could have been worse. He knows this. He knows, too, that no one did this on purpose; he's grateful for Susan and Nightingale's understanding. But none of that makes it easier to regain his emotional balance. Much like that day (which felt very long), he is still grappling occasionally with that sensation of being... just outside of himself, a step removed, dizzy and longing to be even further away.

Still, he does not want to punish Susan and he knows they should talk. So this morning after he puts up Rivelin, he goes to find Susan, wherever she might be.

Comments

[lanselos_du_lac]

"Aye," quietly, settling her against him. "Was it similar?"

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"Nothing like it, actually," she says, wry amusement coloring her words. "I'm afraid I can't remember what details I've told you now, but when we left Narnia, we emerged back in England the age we were when we left, barely a minute after we'd departed. So I was twelve again, not twenty-seven. And by the time I grew up again, I'd quite forgotten about Narnia and that I was ever any different." Mostly, at least. Sometimes things had felt wrong, but always in ways she never fully chased down. "Save for occasionally feeling, I suppose, superimposed upon myself - like I did not properly fit some mold I was meant to fill."

[lanselos_du_lac]

"Hast spoken of it mainly when we speak of thy shooting," gently. "Go on."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"Anyway." Susan sounds businesslike again. "It felt rather like an overcorrection."

[lanselos_du_lac]

But by now he knows that the businesslike tone often covers something more. He brushes her hair back with his free hand, though there's nothing much out of place, and gives her space to say more if she'd like.

[quote_gentle_unquote]

Susan would not like! She's fairly certain he's waiting for her to say more, though, and gives him a pleading sort of look, trying not to immediately slot this all away. "It was... disconcerting."

[lanselos_du_lac]

"We need not speak on it, an thou dost not wish to," he says gently.

[quote_gentle_unquote]

Susan wants to take him gratefully up on his offer, which means - "No," she sighs. "I ought to. Only..."

[lanselos_du_lac]

Another gentle touch, "What, sweet?"

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"Come with me?" she asks, climbing reluctantly off his lap and extending a hand to him.

[lanselos_du_lac]

He takes her hand and rises, squeezing her fingers. "Anywhere."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

Oh! That warms Susan, and she pauses to kiss him appreciatively.

She only leads him across the room to the bed. Her shoes are already off, and she is (to her own surprise) not actively angling for sex, for once - though she would likely find it a relief if things turned in that direction sooner rather than later. So she climbs on top of the covers and lies down, gesturing for him to line up behind her and hold her like that, close and tight and warm. She's missed sleeping tangled up with him, and hopes that it'll be easier to talk when he's wrapped around her.

[lanselos_du_lac]

Lancelot gladly climbs into bed, gathering her up, kissing her neck as his arm goes around her waist to pull her close.

[quote_gentle_unquote]

Susan presses back against him, relaxing in increments. She pulls her hair over her shoulder and then then covers his hand with hers. This, at least, feels right: she fits, nested against Lancelot. It doesn't matter how tall she is or how broad her shoulders are, because he is (once again) taller and broader than her. And lying like this, with him so close but not facing her directly, it's easier to speak of things she doesn't enjoy thinking about. She really is growing ever so comfortable with him. He's familiar, by now, and she - she -

In any event! She's focusing. She's focused. She can do this. 'It was rather like - being in Thomas's body was as if a funhouse mirror was being held up to that feeling I sometimes get."

[lanselos_du_lac]

"Forgive me," he says quietly, giving her the smallest squeeze, "but I do not know what you mean-- funhouse mirror?"

[quote_gentle_unquote]

Oh, of course! "You know of mirrors, yes?"

[lanselos_du_lac]

"Aye, of course."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"A funhouse mirror is distorted - usually curved in some queer way - so its reflection is distorted, too. Your body might appear elongated or shortened or stretched or squashed or some combination of these things depending on it shape."

[lanselos_du_lac]

"I see," with a little nod she can likely feel. "I understand. Go on."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"Just - rather like a cruel joke. 'Oh, sometimes you feel as if you ought to be bigger? What if you became much, much bigger, especially in the areas that feel the strangest?'" Despite her words, she's settling against him a little more with every passing moment. "And it was quite queer to feel injuries I hadn't any idea he might've had."

[lanselos_du_lac]

He has the urge to pet her, to soothe her, but he settles for making sure she's firmly tucked against him. (As if she wasn't already.)

Lancelot has no experience of feeling wrong in his body -- in general, his body has been a thing that is easy for him to understand, where so many other things take effort. The worst he's felt is in those spells of traumatic neurosis, and in his view that has to do with his mind, though he certainly feels it in his body. And so he is trying only to listen.

His memory of that day is fragmentary, at best, but he does recall this, at least. "When you asked him if he'd been shot-- was that because you felt it?"

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"Yes." She runs her fingers over his knuckles. "I told you of guns, yes?" She has a dim memory of it, from the night they met, before her drunkenness truly set in.

[lanselos_du_lac]

"Thou hast. I've also seen muskets shot, here."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"I believe it came from one much more powerful than a musket, by how it felt."

[lanselos_du_lac]

Another little nod, "A wound like that-- I can imagine."