[Closed Post] ..the sky will come for you once..

[lanselos_du_lac]

The day is warm and bright -- it's lovely, in fact -- and so Lancelot is doing his best to ignore the strange tension that has been dogging him over the last few days. He is, of course, keeping to his usual routine, which helps, and now he is in the little clearing where he and Magnus meet for training. He's waiting for Magnus to arrive, checking the straps of Arthur's shield while he waits, and doing his best to clear his head and focus up on what he has determined they need to focus on today.

Comments

[quote_gentle_unquote]

Had she let her queer feelings slip? How curious! "It's all right if you did, of course," she says, busily, even as her eyelashes flutter at his touch. "Wish them here, that is."

[lanselos_du_lac]

He hadn't had any clue as to her feelings, but the busy note in her voice gives him pause. He smiles at her, "Of course, I know this."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

Susan¹ studies his smile for a moment, then asks, "What would you most want to say to them? If they were here."


¹Who is to be forgiven for mixing psychoanalytic techniques with those recommended by gestalt psychotherapists (which was newly coming into vogue at the time of her departure from London), given that she's not actually made a proper study of either approach

[lanselos_du_lac]

"The two of them together?"

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"Both individually and together, I should think."

[lanselos_du_lac]

Lancelot takes a breath, thinking this over. "I cannot imagine us discussing it together. I suppose we would need to start there," a long pause. "When Arthur was here, that day-- that was the first we had ever spoken directly of Guinever and I."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"Oh?" Susan's primarily memory of what Lancelot has said of Arthur's visit is how dreadfully worried she was when he sequestered himself to his room for days, and how desperately sad he seemed when she finally bullied him onto a walk. (It isn't Arthur's fault, of course, that Lancelot reacted thus, but given that he isn't here, Susan finds him a sufficient scapegoat.)

[lanselos_du_lac]

"I think that I had, perhaps, always known that he knew the truth of us. But he and I had not spoken so openly of it, before. He-- I think he wanted us to have one another, if that is what made us happy. I still don't know how to feel, about that."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"Because he loves the both of you, do you suppose?"

[lanselos_du_lac]

"Yes," quietly. "I hope they are doing better together, now."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

For a long moment, Susan studies Lancelot. She can't say that she's certain they must be, a little bit because she doesn't know, not at all and certainly not for certain, but mostly because she worries he'll take that to mean there's a subtext of without you to her words. "I do hope so," she says, finally, squeezing his hand. "Was it good, to be able to speak of it all with Arthur?"

[lanselos_du_lac]

Lancelot, perhaps unsurprisingly, had been thinking without me -- so it is probably best that Susan didn't reinforce it!

He says, "We did not speak deeply of it-- I wasn't sure what good it would do, as I believed he was trapped here. Still... it helped, I think, to know he knew and was making a choice."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

She nods, fingers stroking over the back of his hand. "How long were they together before you and Guinever started--" she pauses, then decides, "Your relationship?"

[lanselos_du_lac]

He looks thoughtful for a moment, "Perhaps five years? Perhaps a little less."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"Did you know them before they - got together?"

[lanselos_du_lac]

"No, when I came to court Arthur was already High King and wed. I can admit that my attraction to Guinever was almost immediate but we did resist it, for a time."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"For how long? Was it mutual from the start?"

[lanselos_du_lac]

"I think it was. For me, it all seems... as if a glamour was cast on us. I think it was perhaps a year before anything more took place between us."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

Susan nods, thumb stroking over the side of Lancelot's hand, again and again. "And how quickly did you fall for Arthur?"

[lanselos_du_lac]

This question seems, impossibly, to surprise him somehow. He blinks at her. "What?"

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"Was it also immediate, or did it take time?"

[lanselos_du_lac]

"I--" He has grown more used to speaking frankly of his feelings for Arthur, but there is still a newness about it. (In truth, he often does his best to forget them entirely, as if that were possible.) He tries again, "I think it was immediate, at least for me. Or very quickly indeed. We were fast friends. I suppose I wasn't certain my feelings had moved beyond that until I was here, without him. It isn't something one can speak of, there, so perhaps I set it by."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

Susan leans in to kiss him then, on the corner of his mouth, soft and sweet. "We're both of us terribly good at that sort of thing, aren't we," she muses rhetorically as she sits back again. "Setting things by. But," she adds, remembering the impetus for their conversation. "Is this one of the bits that's become more difficult for you to set aside, of late?"

[lanselos_du_lac]

Lancelot smiles at her, though it has a slightly sad cast to it. He brushes back her hair and lets himself feel a swell of gratitude that she understands him in this.

"For now, I think I am at peace with it," he answers, honestly. "But-- I think of how I might have done things differently. I might have married and had children of my own, that I could raise. I might have asked the King for a manor. After I came to court, and stayed, I set nearly everything else aside for love of the Queen, and I did not understand how I might hurt all of us by doing so."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

So subtly as to be nearly imperceptible, Susan stills; her unflinching gaze becomes a shade more watchful. Carefully - around the warning klaxons blaring deep inside her - she asks, "Is that something you might want? Marriage and children?"