a woman like that is misunderstood.

[trouvaille]

Who: Geralt + Gwenaëlle.
When: Deceuer, now...ish.
Where: Their home.
What: Everyone here is great at feeling their feelings. Also, domesticity.
Warnings: Stay tuned.

( gwen isn't a vulture.

she doesn't immediately swoop in with a clipboard and a list of market values once it becomes clear that lambert is actually gone, and not just...whatever the lambert-specific alternatives might have been. they didn't know each other well enough for her to have a list of possibilities, which now she dimly regrets; she liked him fine, the little she did know him, and there's something that unsettles her about the absence of sentiment. the way that geralt had talked about being on his own, in a house that he shares. gwen's belgravia apartment had been a new departure from a life primarily lived out of the homes of her extended family, and even then she'd not been far from them. she's never been on her own like this, either.

it's not that she particularly misses lambert, it's just that it sits poorly with her to meet his absence with a shrug. like she might be gone one day, and not be missed. it's a sobering reminder that stronger connections aren't going to accidentally fall into her lap and she might actually have to reach out to forge them, that she should, but because she's the way that she is all she ends up doing with that thought is— )

Hey, do you want to help me value Lambert's furniture? And then I'm going to cook.

( after what she deems a suitably sensitive interval. )

Comments

[niespodzianka]

[ Lambert is gone. The last conversation they had wasn't much of a conversation at all - an argument, the way only emotionally warped warriors can have an argument. Everything fashioned into a weapon. Geralt is aware of his guilt like a knife lodged into his ribcage, even though he doesn't think Lambert would care. Wishing for prolonged emotional repercussions is somewhat beyond the capabilities of the average mutant.

If he's gone home, that's fine. If he's gone somewhere else--

well. That's probably also fine. He deserves his own story. ]

What do I know about furniture?

[ Anyway. He's alone now; an entire floor separates him and the accidental housemate and her dog, while world after world separates him from anyone who knows him. A Bond has been forged to save his life and permit him to carry on living in this dimension, webbing him to mirrorbound with a whole community. But he is still singular, in every way that counts. He supposes Gwen is, too. Discounting the dog. ]

He probably chewed on most of it. [ Werebunny bullshit. Puca. ]

[trouvaille]

( for the record, gwen doesn't discount the dog; a physical tether to home, to remind her that the people who love her are not imaginary because it would be so easy for most of them to fade, dim and distant. if she stops moving, what happens next? putin doesn't allow her to stop moving because he has needs and she cares about them, and when she looks at him she remembers laying with his ovcharka sire on the floor of a familiar apartment watching him gambol with too-big paws and a face that hadn't finished deciding what it was going to be and ignoring the muted and warm conversation in the other room, over a bottle of wine too expensive to be drinking in a kitchen, between people who loved her and wanted her to feel safe.

but none of them are here. and he doesn't talk. and geralt isn't her friend, exactly, but she wouldn't hate it if he was. she thinks she would like to miss him if he were gone, so: )

Well, if we can't get anything for it as is, there's bound to be some weird mirrorbound fetishist into memorabilia.

( ...is a hell of a way to extend that hand of friendship. )

[niespodzianka]

[ ... ]

That's true.

[ Says the guy who will, in the future, recommend a brothel where she can buy weed. Gwen will understand something new about that establishment then, perhaps. ]

Fetishists, anyway. Dunno about memorabilia.

[ So: Lambert's abandoned quarters. Equipment, curios, dirt ?? great, bunny things, Geralt assumes. It smells like him, both the way he should and the way he'd been changed into. The personal items or things he recognizes as originating at home will be put in a box and put away, but everything else he'll just donate.

As for the furniture - ] Did you save anything budget-friendly to replace this with? Rent will be easier with three people.

[trouvaille]

( tabling future questions about how geralt is familiar with that brothel, for now she picks through lambert's left-behind belongings (not starring nicolas cage) and exhales hard through her nose as she stands in the middle of the room, considering the best and most practical ways to approach this. it feels a bit callous, but what else are they going to do? he's right, they're better off having three people here than two. four, if they get a couple or a bonded pair or something.

nevermind that the basement is actually a better space for more than one person, because fuck you, she needs that for reasons. dog reasons. handiness to the deck geralt's building. there's that wall she wants to knock out. loads of things. it's disconcerting to think in the same breath as their peculiar transience just how she's settling. nesting. what's the alternative, crying? more? no. )

Yeah. But, plus, we don't have to sell absolutely everything. I just think we should consider all our options.

( we, our. )

Maybe someone will actually move in with their own stuff. Then we could get rid of more. Short of a messy break-up somewhere in the district it seems fairly fucking unlikely, though.

[niespodzianka]

Our prospects are mirrorbound. No one's bringing their own stuff.

[ The most senior among them have lived here less than a year, and if anyone has settled in and become heeled enough to have their own bedroom set they're not willing to part with, they're not going to be looking to move in here. Most likely they'll have to snag someone trying to get out of the barracks or, like Gwen, someone wandering around half-traumatized who will just neglect to leave.

Geralt pulls open a drawer, and begins sorting. Most of it's junk. Lambert's too short for him to recycle clothes, and he had bad taste with collectibles. A pause, and. ]

Fuck. [ Though that doesn't sound positive. Geralt looks around, abusing his witcher senses until he's prompted to go reach under the bed. ] He'll have left his gwent cards.

[ GERALT'S NOW, SUCKER. ]

[trouvaille]

( you don't know, she wants to complain, but the truth is he probably does and that if she thinks about it for even forty-five seconds she will also know, and it's just that she doesn't want to think about it because of the other thoughts that it leads to, like what happens if they're here long enough that their prospects being mirrorbound doesn't actually mean that any more?

she wonders what leaving aefenglom means for the ways that they've changed. if lambert is still what he became, somewhere and somewhen else now. if she will be, if she goes home. huh.

—she looks up from her list of furnishings when geralt swears, and she can't seem to quite decide whether or not she's allowed to laugh when he surfaces with a deck of cards. )

What's gwent?