[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]

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."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"It - pulled." Susan is quiet for a moment, and then shivers. Fiercely, she says, "I'm glad it's over."

[lanselos_du_lac]

Lancelot kisses her shoulder, "As am I."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

Susan falls quiet then, focusing more strongly on Lancelot's presence. She's genuinely unsure of whether she has more to say. She wishes they might've done this sooner - having Lancelot so close really is tremendously soothing - but there really is no point to making a fuss about it. Obviously Lancelot needed to take time in his own way.

[lanselos_du_lac]

He stays there, holding her, breathing in the scent of her -- realizing that, while he understands (mostly) why he withdrew, it might have been better for them both if he had challenged himself to find her sooner. She soothes him, calms him, and he's (still, somehow) faintly surprised to find she isn't angry with him, but understanding.

This has been true for some while, but he keeps finding that the habits he has formed out of long experience with Guinever don't serve him very well when it comes to Susan. (Perhaps, when it comes to anyone.) The way that Susan cares for him, takes care of him, seeks to understand him -- it is nothing he ever expected.

Lancelot lets his hand stroke gently over the fabric of her dress, keeping her tucked closely against him, content for now to just keep her here, with him, quiet and near.

[quote_gentle_unquote]

After a little while, Susan catches Lancelot's hand with her own and brings it up so that she might brush a kiss against his knuckles. She's breathing more steadily at this point, relaxed against him.

[lanselos_du_lac]

In answer, he kisses the nape of her neck.

[quote_gentle_unquote]

There's a minute, involuntary shiver at the feeling, and then Susan is turning in his arms, shuffling and shifting until her front is lined up flush against his. Her hair, half-pulled from its braid, tangles across her face, she twists her head so she can blow it out of the way with an impatient puff of breath without hitting his face in the process, too. "Lancelot," she says, quietly; her expression is soft, fragile, and full of that quiet, deep emotion she still can't bring herself to name.

[lanselos_du_lac]

Very softly he says, "Aye, love?"

He gives her a warm, searching look, a little hazy, but calmer and more present than he has been in some while.

[quote_gentle_unquote]

She shakes her head - she'd thought to ask him if he might make love to her, but the words aren't coming. Instead, she presses her forehead against his for a long, long moment, and then kisses him, a clinging, careful thing.

[lanselos_du_lac]

His answering kiss is sweet, deep, with a kind of soft surety behind it. He strokes her hair back from her face, holding the kiss, and lets his other hand stroke down her back.