CLOSED ♔ THE BREATH THAT CARRIED ME

[slay]

{ between two lungs ♔ florence + the machine }

WHO || Buffy Summers & Arthur Pendragon
WHAT || Arthur wakes up from his near-death experience at the hands of the Slayer.
WHERE || Knights HQ, Medical Center
WHEN || After training
HOW || Whatevs.

According to the clerics, he'd be out for a while longer, despite the fact that he was perfectly fine now. A little while longer meaning hours, and she should go eat something and finish up with the others.

Buffy declined.

Instead, she pulled up a chair beside the Med Center's bed that Arthur was laying in, opened up a gossip magazine and began to flip through. By the time he did actually awake, she had made herself a nest of them. But, she wouldn't leave, no matter how bored out of her mind she might have been.

Because, thing about anxiety, it made sure you were never too bored. It just figured. Jack had been gone, like, less than a week, and already she had managed to screw up in major ways. First the thing with Lan at the feast, then showing off her colossal freakiness at training with Luthir, the guy who had been giving her hinky feelings since day one had turned out to be a freaking vampire, and on her first day of actual combat training, bam. She killed King Arthur.

Well. She cast him a glance over People. All but killed, anyway.

He was gonna be so mad when he woke up.

Comments

[king]

Maybe a little mad.

Arthur cracks his eyes open, but doesn't move or speak. One moment he's deep under, far below healthy REM, and the next he's awake and his body is clamoring for attention.

The loudest voice is actually his side where her sword had slipped through the chinks in his armour, but it no longer feels like a fresh wound. His nose isn't throbbing as it should, either, but he still reaches a hand up out of the constricting starched sheets, to feel gently at the bridge of it. He likes his nose. It's regal. He'd prefer it not be crooked.

But it seems to have healed well enough, and Arthur wonders how long he's been out. His eyes glance around the room, catch on Buffy reading her magazine, and his eyebrows raise.

"Come to finish the job?" he asks, and it's wry and probably completely inappropriate, but not as bitter as it could be. Looking at her, he's only really angry at himself. She's tinier even than Morgause. Surely he should have been able to put her on her back, and even if she looks like he managed to do her over well enough, he still feels humiliated that it's him bedbound and not her.

He doesn't say any of that, though, just asks, "How long was I out?"

[slays]

The voice made her jump as soon as she heard it, and her eyes shot to the bed where Arthur lay. She lowered the magazine into her lap and straightened up, lips pursing as if chastising him for surprising her, and for his first question in general. But, she wouldn't say anything, because she was busy focusing on oh god he's alive which wouldn't really allow itself to sink in until he was conscious again.

"Not as long as they thought you'd be. A little over an hour. And, considering the shape you were in, at this rate you should be doing jumping jacks before dinner." The levity lasts only a moment longer before her brow furrows and her expression falls.

"I'm sorry. I didn't think -- " She cut herself off, giving a sigh and trying a different approach to her apology. "I think maybe we both underestimated me." A beat, then, as if it excused it. "But, to be fair, you ruined my favorite shirt!"

[king]

"Oh, your favourite shirt, terribly sorry," replies Arthur, affronted and without any sincerity in his sarcasm at all. He rolls his eyes. She'd ruined his face. It was definitely his favourite face.

But he cannot hold a grudge. They were training, and she beat him — he's knighted men for the same.

Neither can he completely let go of his ego, though. There is a small part of Arthur who thinks his defeat was likely a fluke.

"Don't get too cocky," he says, because she sounds a little bit miserable. "I've had far worse."

[slay]

"Really? You've had death? You'll have to tell me about it sometime, 'cause that's just about the only thing worse than where you were at." Her eyebrows arch in a judgmental, doubtful way, and she sets her magazine aside, sitting forward so she can lean forward, resting her elbows on her knees.

"Look, I know that you probably don't want me to be … around. At all. In any capacity. But, I wanted to be here when you woke up." She got to her feet. "I wanted to apologize. So … now that I've done that … I'll just … get out of your hair."

[king]

"And leave me here to die of boredom?" A brief smile. "How is that any better?"

Arthur pushes himself up a little ways, wincing, his breath coming faster as he strains against the pain of his body. Movement makes a headache flare to life low at the back of his skull, and he closes his eyes with a sigh.

"Sit down." It's not quite snapped, but it has the ring of a kingly command. He doesn't even bother opening his eyes to see if she obeys it. "Tell me where you learned to fight."

[slay]

Buffy sits. Promptly and obediently.

Her hands fold in her lap and ball up a little as she does so, lips pursed. A part of her is scowling at the following of orders, but a bigger part of her is deadest to do right by Arthur considering she just kicked his ass six ways from Sunday. She can stick around if that's what he wants, because the whole point of leaving was to make him comfortable, not to make her comfortable.

… Wasn't it? Her shoulders were tense and her brow was furrowed and it was clear that her guilt was weighing heavy on her as she stuck around and she began to realize that maybe, just maybe, her eagerness to leave was selfishly motivated instead of doing what was in his best interests.

She remembered what Francesca had said: you can be whoever you want to be. That's the gift of forgetting. Buffy's shoulders eased and she settled back in the chair more comfortably. She wasn't going to be selfish.

"I don't remember learning how to fight at all," she answered honestly, open and forthcoming in a way that, though she didn't realize as much, she hadn't been in years. "I don't remember anything before January. Barely anything before Wynn brought me here. If I'd know that I -- " She shook her head. "I would have been more careful."

i'm so sorry this is so late, i just brainstalled on a reply :'(

[king]

"You don't remember anything?" Arthur repeated, surprised. But there was something vulnerable in her tone, wholly different to the strength of will he'd felt at the feast, and felt somewhat more significantly just a few hours ago.

Still. It eases him a bit, to know she hadn't deliberately humiliated him. Perhaps her little altercation with Lan had unfairly influenced his impression of her.

"I suppose I shouldn't be too surprised. Wynnefalshond said it was normal for the Veil to take memories. I lost — a lot." Arthur opens his eyes now. It's almost a secret returned, because really, he'd only told Merlin and Wynn just how ragged his memory of his life was. "I suppose you could say I kept the necessities, but—"

He thinks of knowing that he had love, and being unable to picture her face, and cuts himself up. How could that not be necessary? But how could he complain when the young woman sitting at his bedside remembers so much less?

piffle. it's fine, boo <3 i still love you.

[slays]

Her vulnerability led to her perceiving harshness where he's only surprised and she flinched a little, though it was barely noticeable. She didn't exactly go advertising that she even had Veil problems to begin with. But, when she saw that it put him at ease, and when he admitted that things are blurry for him too … Her expression softened and she relaxed some. Even if he couldn't really get it, not completely anyway, it meant something that he was trying.

"But they're all necessities," she finished sternly, trying to effectively reassure him that he wasn't out of line to feel that overwhelming sense of loss, that he didn't need to have that grateful attitude that at least he didn't lose it all. Because he still lost.

"One of the knights … she told me I was lucky. Since I lost everything, I get a chance that nobody else does: I get to be whoever I want to be." There was a certain wryness to her tone. "I get that chance, and within a week, I wind up the girl who almost killed you." She shook her head decisively. "I don't feel lucky. I feel dangerous." She'd said something similar to Fred. That it makes her afraid of who she was, makes her feel like she can't get away from it.

She'd felt at peace at first, like that chapter of her life was closed and she could move forward, but her identity was locked away in that. And that was something she couldn't escape, and that someone was apparently a killer. Even if she was instinctively horrified by the idea, as Fred had pointed out.

[king]

"Good."

Arthur lifts an eyebrow, his remark seemingly callous in the face of her distress. But before she can say anything, he elaborates. "I mean, you're not going to save anybody if you've the strength of a kitten."

They are members of this order of Knights, after all. They'd sworn vows. Buffy's abilities were going to be a great asset to the fight — if she wasn't too afraid to use them.

"You still have that chance. You're only as dangerous as you allow yourself to be, after all." He waves a hand, as though to dismiss and dispel the apologies that were lingering in the air between them. "It's not as though you attacked me out of nowhere. You're challenge is going to be into controlling yourself, so that the next time you knock someone that close to death, it's deliberate."

[slay]

There's a flash of indignant frustration that he calls it good, but the rest of his response soothes her. She looks down at her hands, fidgeting for a moment, then meets his gaze again with a soft look. It's difficult, putting herself out there this way, but Arthur's reassurance makes it easier, reinforces the behavior that much more.

"It won't happen again," she seems determined, and she goes on to explain. "Not on accident. I won't … I won't fight anyone else until I know exactly what I can do. I'll train, and I'll -- I'll get better."

It means more than just apologizing. So, she figures she can get away with it. She isn't interested in saying she's sorry again -- he knows that, and he seems to be past it. But, she can amend her behavior, make sure it doesn't happen again. She can try harder, do better. She can show that she means it through her actions. She can swear that much.

[king]

Buffy's resolve is admirable, and Arthur finds himself wanting to match it. "I look forward to seeing it next time we fight," Arthur says, and means it. "Although don't think it'll be such a foregone conclusion. I'll be training too, after all."

She may beat him now, but he knows in his heart he can do better, feels as though a lot of his instincts for the fight have been lost with the years of training and tourneys. Time was he would have assessed someone with Buffy's skill for his own knights. "You've a lot of combat potential — for a woman."

He grins, deliberately baiting her, even though it's not entirely far from his true feelings on the matter. But it's not as though she can knock him out again. ... Right?

[slay]

"For a what?" Buffy's lips pursed in annoyance. Okay, so, granted, for someone her size, yeah, definitely, way potential-y. But, she had a feeling there were plenty of girls around here who'd be happy to reintroduce him to the ground. She wasn't the only one, and, well, she just didn't like the sound of for a woman to begin with.

"This woman just handed you your ass, thank you very much. And, unlike some people, remains perfectly capable of doing it all over again if you keep with the ookie woman commentary." The scowl she fixes him with, when combined with the arch in her eyebrows, is lecturing and firm, but almost laughably so. That authority seems out of place on her in so many ways.

[king]

And Arthur does laugh, mostly because she's just so annoyed. He lifts a hand, palm out, as though to ward off these promises of further attacks, whether for the "ookie woman commentary" (ookie?) or the simple fact of his not being able to take her seriously at all. "You're really bad at taking compliments, you know," he tells her, still chuckling.

[slays]

The askant look deteriorated into one of amusement slowly, and then she too began to laugh, light and airy, unladen by any remote trace of guilt for having brought him here. She reached up, taking a moment to push hair out of her face as the chuckling died down, smile still shining in her eyes even as she fought back its presence on her lips.

"You're really bad at giving them." The acknowledgment just made her laugh again, and she sat back, dropping her hand to the chair's armrest.