sunburned | (no subject)

To say that I am nervous about this impending discussion would be an understatement. It feels so very important that I can't even think about the consequences of saying the wrong thing, but I am damned if I know what the right thing is. I suppose we'll just have to do the best we can, and hope it's enough.

As I have in so many other situations, I pretend that I am completely at ease, though the grip I have on John's arm surely gives me away.

Laurence had half expected Granby to spend the night elsewhere, but it had hurt somewhat nonetheless. Perhaps the brief period of separation had been needed though, and now that the other man was back they could simply resume where they had left off.

He opened the door at Granby's voice, pleased to have him back. The not inconsiderable shock and embarrassment he felt upon seeing Julie holding tightly to his arm luckily did not much register in Laurence's expression. Even now he was determined to behave in a right and proper manner.

"Good morning. I am afraid I was not expecting polite company. If you will permit me a moment--" He was, after all, only in his shirtsleeves and hardly dressed for receiving a lady visitor, even one who spent a not entirely polite amount of time at the house as it was.

"Laurence, stop," says Granby, reaching out to touch Laurence's upper arm. He glances back at Julie, eyebrows raised. "I...we need to have a conversation. The three of us, I think."

He tries his hardest to ignore the way that his heart leaps and thuds in his chest, just at the sight of Laurence standing there.

"How fortunate that it's just me, and not proper company," I say, managng with a great effort to keep my tone light. "Don't go changing anything just on my account."

That I mean so very much more than his clothes, I can't quite bring myself to put into words.

Laurence looked between the two of them, his heart sinking in his chest. He could only imagine what it was that John wished for all three of them to talk about. "Of course. Shall we move somewhere more appropriate?" They could hardly remain where they were, hovering in the doorway.

"Aye, come on," says Granby, roughly, nodding. He sees the look on Laurence's face as he looks between them and he thinks that he knows him well enough to read it.

"It's not what you think, Will," he says, all in a rush.

For all the time I spend in this house, I am well aware that I am only a guest and would not ordinarily presume. This, however, I am sure counts as extenuating circumstances.

I let go of John and take Will's arm, forcing him to see me inside like the gentleman he so surely is.

"Is there tea?"

"I had just started some for myself," he answered. Despite the suddenly tumult of emotion he felt on the inside, instinct had taken over and he walked Julie inside politely and led her to a seat. "It should be ready presently. Would you like some as well?" He did not even notice that he had not asked Granby. He already knew just when and how the other man took his tea.

Granby notices that he isn't offered tea but he also doesn't ask for it; he trusts completely in the fact that Laurence will make him tea, whether he asks for it or not. He does pull a seat out at the table for Julie before he slides in to his own.

"Are you well, Laurence?"

"Yes, please." I slide into the chair as if this is all perfectly normal. Just tea,like we've all shared so many times before.

I have no idea what to say beyond the banal, and give John a helpless look. He's going to have to start this. I'm much too afraid of spooking Laurence beyond recovery, if I were to blurt out what's on my mind.

"Quite well, thank you." Laurence was too polite to continue a conversation while otherwise engaged and waited until his initial preparations for the tea were done before turning back to face them. He groped helplessly for something to say, settling for what he hoped was a safe subject. Simple pleasant inquiries were surely safe. "I trust your evening was spent comfortably, Granby?"

"Comfortably enough," he says, discomfort open on his face as he glances between Julie and Laurence. One of them was going to have to start it. One of them was going to have to bring it out into the open.

"Will, we have to talk about yesterday. The three of us have to talk about it." He looks at Julie, desperately appealing for help.

I remind myself that this is not, in fact, the most uncomfortable situation in which I have ever found myself, and regardless of what happens here none of us will end up dead. Really, it's nothing. Or so I tell myself.

"I think," I say, a bit too loudly and determinedly cheerful, but the best that I can do in the way of acting normally, "that we might be very happy together, if only we can put aside the oddness of the idea." A bit more quietly, I add, "Happiness is something we have to take any way we can find it. Don't you think so, Will?"

It may be unfair of me, but I know he wouldn't be so unimaginably rude to me as to refuse to answer a direct question, even now.

Laurence felt unaccountably trapped. How was one meant to react in such a situation. In that moment, he would have rather faced down a ship of the line in a rowboat than the conversation that he felt certain was marching towards him. "Of course. I shall not stand in the way of happiness."

"Oh, Christ," says Granby, sinking lower in his chair and covering his face with his hand. "You're not going to stand in the way of bloody anything, Laurence, because I'm not doing anything without your say so. Neither of us are, right, Julie?" He scowls. "You're a part of this, whether you like it or not, and you do not get to...walk away from me out of some misplaced sense of bloody nobility."

"Be fair, John," I say, more gently than I truly feel here. "You've had more time than we have to get used to this idea, and have made up your mind already. It's not so easy, when you might not love the same way."

I reach across the table to catch Laurence's hand.

"I'm willing to try, for him. I think we can make it work, but even if we can't I believe it's worth it. We've never... not the two of us. But that seems worth trying, too. I want to try, but I won't pursue it if you truly don't. I promise. Say no, and this is the end of it."

Edited 2013-02-28 22:13 (UTC)

"I am afraid I may have missed something vital in this conversation," Laurence said, his voice remaining calm and steady. He looked down at Julie's hand, so soft and small upon his own, and felt just as hopelessly lost and trapped as he had before. "If you have both already decided this thing there seems little I can do to affect it."

"Will," he says, shaking his head. "Nothing's decided here. It's a possibility, only. And one that works solely if you're involved, don't you see? I meant what I said, yesterday - you're where it starts and ends for me. And I won't be without you."

He glances at Julie.

"Julie more than understands that."

I nod, understanding perfectly.

"Everything must be equally decided amongst the three of us. It won't work, otherwise. At least, I'm sure it won't. It isn't as though I have any experience here, but it makes sense, doesn't it?" I squeeze his hand. "Might we love each other, Will? Even only a little bit?"

"Of course," Laurence answered, not sparing the time for any deep thought into the matter. After what they had been through in France how could he possibly feel otherwise? "Yet I still do not think I entirely understand what you are both speaking of."

"She means love, Will," he says, looking at the two of them, their hands touching, and feeling something all but trying to explode out of him. "The three of us, come what may. Did I not tell you that the solution would present itself? This is the solution, Will. If you'll have it. I already know that me and Julie would, so the final decision, it seems, is yours entirely."

"I know it's a lot to take in. Seems like it would be complicated, but I've been thinking about it all night, and it might actually be very simple. All we have to do is love each other, and be honest with each other always, and we might be more together than just the sum of our parts." I am looking directly at Will, speaking to him, because John already knows my thoughts. He watched them take shape. "Something good for all of us. And if it turns out that I am wrong, we might at least have something special for a time. If we want to take the chance."

Laurence looked between the two of them, feeling more hopelessly out of his depth than he had ever been before. What they were saying was unthinkable. If it had not been for Julie's dream the very notion might never have crossed his mind at all.

"What you are proposing is--" He cleared his throat as he searched for words, painfully aware of the flush spreading over his face. "It simply is not done." The words felt weak and hollow even to him.

He recognises the look on Laurence's face: that fear of being all at sea. He's seen it on his friend's face a handful of times, both before they came to the island and since. He reaches out, offering his hand for Laurence's free hand but not taking it, not yet. He's already aware that he's touched him more this morning than he has in front of Julie before.

But times do seem to be changing.

"It is simply not done yet," he points out. "But we are the kind of people who do impossible things, William Laurence. The three of us are. How many aviators do you know with children by men or women they've never married? We find a way to happiness, Will. Can you truly say it wouldn't make you happy?"

"I was killed, you know. Before I found myself here." I can keep my voice level when I say this now, here with them; it is only a fact, a thing that happened. "That I am here with you at all is nothing short of a miracle, and that's without even bringing different times, and dragons into it. My life is something that isn't done. What we're proposing now seems so small in the face of that, but important."

I let John's comment about children go without comment. I may have promised him, but that was separate from this.

"If I would make you happy,both of you, then I want to."

"Pardon me," he said, extricating his hand from Julie's and rising from the table. In that moment he required at least the impression of distance. "I must see to the tea."

Laurence was trying so very hard to hold onto what little reserve he had, and it made his movements appear rather stiff and forced. That alone was the only sign that showed of how truly affected by the situation he was.

At least with Granby he had had some previous knowledge to go on. He had, after all, been a naval officer and could not have gone through the service completely blind. But this-- This was something for which he had no prior experience. There was no protocol. There was no precedent.

Granby is silent for a moment, watching Laurence move around the kitchen. He watches him go through the motions with the tea. He sighs, worrying his lip with his teeth.

"Should I leave you, Will?" he asks. "Have I misjudged this all so horribly?"

I understand that he needs a little bit of time to work through this, because I can see all too plainly myself that it sounds more than a little bit mad. I am, however, too stubborn to let anything go, once I have set my mind to it. This may be my fatal flaw, but that hasbt ever stopped me before.

"I won't go, not until I'm sure you've truly considered it, Will. Because I've already told you that it's the end of it, if you only say no. And you haven't, yet."

Laurence waited until the tea was entirely ready before turning back to them. For Julie he set out milk and sugar. Granby's tea was already made as he knew the other man preferred it. Only once he had sat down with his own cup in hand did Laurence speak.

"I have not said no because I will not abandon any manner of undertaking before I have given it sufficient thought. I do not wish to drive either of you off, truly." He paused, taking a deliberate, steadying sip of tea. "Yet I fear that what you are both proposing is beyond my ability to form a decision on at this time."

"You think too much, Will," says Granby, reaching for his cup of tea. "You always have. Sometimes, you have to...let your heart go first."

It's the aviator in him, he knows. It's always been different for Laurence.

Nobody has ever accused me of thinking through anything to excess. I feel as though we are all too far into this already to back out now, even Laurence who hasn't really committed himself yet.

"Will." I move to the chair closest to him, take his cup from his hand and set it on the table, then lean in to kiss him on the mouth.

I hope that might be sufficient information for him to base a decision on.

The first time that Granby had kissed him was not yet so far distant that Laurence could not remember both the kiss and his reaction to it in perfect detail. Then he had done nothing immediately, too shocked to respond. The same thing appeared to be happening again.

He remained perfectly still until Julie saw fit to pull away. It took him a while to find the proper words to say, and his blush had darkened intolerably, but he did speak. "I am sorry. I need very much to think."

More than anything, Granby knows Laurence, and he knows a losing battle when he sees one. He finishes his tea and sets the cup aside.

"We'll go," he says, reaching out to squeeze Laurence's shoulder through his shirt. "You'll know where to find me when you need me, Will."

You might think that I understand the value of a strategic retreat, but leaving now feels too much like surrender for my taste.

Still, I trust John's judgment here, and though I am not happy about it I will leave Will with his thoughts.

"I'm not so hard to find, either," I say quietly.

"Thank you," Laurence said in reply, though their granting him time did not seem overmuch like a gift. Any reasonable person surely would have expected it just as he did. Surely.