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[tu_vas_triompher]

Even the excuse of coming out of a very strange week of not being himself isn't enough to keep Feuilly from work--but he finds that in that week, barely remembered, he finished up his translation of the Pasteur volume, and made a great deal of progress reading it over! Or at least he thinks that's what he's done. The notebook with the translation is full of marks in green pencil, in his handwriting, making corrections that he certainly agrees with.

So for the morning he carries on correcting his work, now with a dog lying on his feet in a way that will be welcome in winter weather; and when his two hours are up he makes his way to the stables with an odd feeling of having gotten ahead of himself somehow.

Comments

[tu_vas_triompher]

"Yes..." He remembers, almost from nowhere, being here with a sense of urgency. 1830, Bound, restless, storing up ideas and skills to bring back home. But that's not...that's some other life. Or maybe a dream.

He watches Harry's shoulders work under his s hirt. "But it would be a shame to waste the good weather. Come December I might not be so enthusiastic about getting knocked around with practice swords. In the cold rain. The snow."

Feuilly draws a breath to say something more, to say that people here do find work, that Harry could find something that isn't just passing the time. But--what's the use in saying it, with nothing in mind? "--Have you walked over towards the lake yet?" A while back Harry had said something about not having seen it yet, but then they'd--gotten distracted. Still, that was some time ago.

[harryhotspur]

Harry laughs. "Ay, true enough. Is there a deal of snow, then? Of rain?"

He lingers for a moment or two after he lets the brush fall still, his hand resting against Duncan's side. He wants to say-- something? But he's already said all that it makes sense to say, as far as he can tell.

So he straightens up at last, wipes his face with his sleeve. "I have not seen the lake."

[tu_vas_triompher]

"Well--less rain than you'd expect, maybe. But it was winter when I got here, and there was plenty of snow. And it was a while before I made up my mind to ask the bar for a decent coat--"

Feuilly wishes he had something better to offer than the vagaries of Milliways weather, strolls along the lakeside, idleness. But for now--he shrugs. "Well, we could go for a walk?"

[harryhotspur]

"Ay, let us do so. Thou canst spare our company, canst not, Duncan?"

He gives Duncan a last firm pat and slips out of the stall to join Feuilly. He stops in front of him and then abruptly, clumsily (and there is a little part of his mind that seems aware now, or maybe seems aware still, of how clumsy it is, that there was another self that knew what it was doing when it did these things--) kisses him.

[tu_vas_triompher]

Feuilly's startled by it; he'll probably never not be startled by kisses. Bt he kisses back--in fact, tugs Harry a little closer, tugs him into a bit of a corner where they have the slightest illusion of privacy.

When they break off, he brushes Harry's hair with a fingertip and searches his face. "--Don't--don't run mad here, Harry. I like you."

[harryhotspur]

"I had guessed thou didst not hate me," Harry says. He wants to laugh, but at the same time it seems to him it would be wrong to, somehow. "I think if I do not, it will be thanks to thee. For we are friends, are we not?"

[tu_vas_triompher]

"I think we might be." He has a hand still on Harry's shoulder; now he gives him a little shake. "Maybe. It's possible. --Do you want to go see the lake?" Feuilly is amenable to distraction, but he'd also be happy to go sit by the water, maybe take his shoes off and put his feet in.

"...Can you swim? I bet you can swim." Because Harry can do just about everything Feuilly can't.

[harryhotspur]

"Ay, let us." What he wants to do is kiss Feuilly again, but settles for just ruffling his hair.

"I can keep myself from drowning, no better," he says. It's not a skill that has ever seemed pressingly important to learn. "Canst thou swim?"

[tu_vas_triompher]

"No," he answers cheerfully. "Well, I can paddle a little bit, that's all. It's a strange lake--because everything here is strange. Part of it is salt water? With a sandy beach? But the rest of it looks like lakes are supposed to."

Feuilly finds that he still has a hand on Harry's shoulder and, on impulse, leans in to kiss him again.

[harryhotspur]

That's a good impulse, Harry approves of that impulse. He grabs hold of Feuilly's shirt to tug him closer. He doesn't dare go much father than that-- the stable's not exact private, much as it sometimes seems that way-- though when he pulls away he keeps his hand knotted in Feuilly's shirt.

"So it is both lake and sea," he says, as if their conversation had not been interrupted at all.

[tu_vas_triompher]

"--Um." He's a little pink. "Um, yes. Yes, the lake. Is also a sea. Or something like that."

It's a little hard to think about what to call the large body of water in Milliways when Harry has his hand knotted in Feuilly's shirt like that.

[harryhotspur]

"Then let us see it," Harry says. And he's definitely going to move to do so. Just, in a moment. Or two. When he's done looking at Feuilly (and half-remembering through the hazy strangeness of the past week how he looked at him then, how it was the same and so very, very not the same).

[tu_vas_triompher]

Feuilly doesn't--he really doesn't know how to say let's go to that extra bed in the tack room first, he doesn't know how to direct the two of them into anything like that, and he's not even really sure how to say no but really I like you quite a lot, so he's stuck looking back at Harry and biting his lip. "--Yes. Let's. Go do that?"

[harryhotspur]

Harry does know how, has done, would like to (well, the first part, anyway)-- but he's thinking about it now, which makes him feel wrong-footed and unsure. So after another short moment, he claps Feuilly on the shoulder (maybe a little too hard) and says, "Yes."

And this time he does actually do it, slinging an arm around Feuilly's shoulders to steer him towards the door.

[tu_vas_triompher]

Feuilly leans into him, nudges against him, drapes a balancing arm around Harry's shoulder, jostles along as they head out towards the lake.

Which is, indeed, a pretty lake. And Feuilly is blissfully unaware of the man-eating mermaid. And the kraken. Otherwise he'd be a little less inclined to propose taking off their shoes and cooling their feet.

[harryhotspur]

Harry knows nothing of it either, of course, and so happily obliges, dropping down to the ground and wrestling his boots off.

[tu_vas_triompher]

Ah. That's--that's really quite nice. He rolls his trousers up to the knee as well: it's a warm day and a cool lake, and Feuilly wiggles his toes and kicks his feet unselfconsciously in the water. "I think people skate on it in the winter," he volunteers, not really à propos of anything in particular.

[harryhotspur]

"Does it freeze?" Harry sits shoulder to shoulder with Feuilly, leaning just a little bit against him. "It must get cold indeed."

[tu_vas_triompher]

"It does. You'll be glad you're not living in the stable then."

Feuilly is likewise leaning, and wondering how long it will be before they start splashing each other like a couple of boys. Also wondering if there are any flat stones to skim across the water.

[harryhotspur]

"Nay, I could do it," Harry says stubbornly, because of course he does.

He's been poking around for rocks himself, not flat ones to skip, just regular round ones that he tosses in to make a splash.

[tu_vas_triompher]

Feuilly snorts. "Of course you could. I just think you'll be glad you don't have to."

Sploosh, splosh. Feuilly finds a rock that he hopes will be flat enough, and flicks it out onto the water. It's been years since he's done that.... It only skips twice, but it's enough for his satisfaction.

[harryhotspur]

The deficiencies of Harry Percy's childhood may be displayed in this: he has never skipped stones.

"O, very good!" he says. "Canst do it again?"

[tu_vas_triompher]

"If I can find another flat stone..." He hadn't bothered doing such things as getting up, in his search, and isn't especially inclined to at the moment, even though you can skip stones much better standing than flopping around with your feet in the water. "You want one that's nice and flat, round--about so big--"

[harryhotspur]

After a few moments' search, Harry turns up a stone that he offers to Feuilly: maybe a little thick, but mostly flat and mostly smooth. "Near enough?"

[tu_vas_triompher]

He turns it over in his hand and nods. "Worth trying. --Oh, all right, I'll get up--"

Feuilly scrambles to his feet. This time he manages a little better, though nothing stupendous: two good hops and a series of little stutters. "I think they say ducks and drakes in English? But I don't know when they began to call it that."