[merlin] should i remember you? (nimueh/geoffrey) -english
I feel like this needs an explanation, because I'm REALLY shipping it now, and it's all thefrozenyogurt fault. If you are following me on tumblr you already know most of it, if you don't, here's the intro: the above mentioned crazy person and I decided one day to cast the pre!series OT4, which led to cast EVERYBODY from the preseries time, which lead to... strange ships, which basically led to this. I promise oen day I'll do a good spam about our casting choices and everything because I'm in love with the preseries world~ And sorry for bringing things out of order, like this before all the explanations. And just for the record, for the characters concerned here: Felicity Jones as young(reborn/whatever)!Nimueh, and Andrew Garfield as young(reborn/whatever)!Geoffrey. I hope it doesn't fail as much as I think it does (and that you do understand how nuts we really are, but maybe you'll enjoy it too~~)
Fandom: Merlin
Title: should i remember you?
Characters: Nimueh +/ Geoffrey.
Rating: PG
Warnings: i don't effing know what this is
Word Count: 1605
Summary: “Have we met before?” “Yeah, a very - very long time ago.” (re!born in modern era)
Notes: IDEK. This is for thefrozenyogurt, she is as crazy as I am. Inspired on this picture. Unbeta'ed.
“You don’t recognize me, do you?” The guy looks troubled. Should she remember him? Have they met before? They probably crossed each other paths on high school, or something. Maybe. She can’t be sure; he doesn’t look familiar at all.
“I’m sorry,” her voice is barely a whisper in the air, disappointment rushes through the guys features, and something that very much feels like being really sorry waves through her. She knows it’s stupid to ask, but she does it anyway, “have we met before?”
“Yeah,” his eyes evade her, and his hands play with each other out of sight, “a very - very long time ago.”
-
The next time they met. He looks older. University is almost over, and he looks grown up. The childish awkward smile is not there anymore, but he doesn’t seem comfortable anyway. (Maybe it’s the party, the wedding; he looks very much out of place, with a bit too big suit and cheap shoes).
“Oh, it’s you,” is all she manages to say. And they stay there, in silence, for what she feels like eternity. She realizes he probably believes she has recognized him from before (from wherever he remembers her from), but there’s no way to fixing it. He seems relieved when a friend comes to his help and smiles awkwardly in return.
“This is my friend, Gaius,” he introduces them. The name dances on the air for a second, she wonders if she should remember him too, but in the end, she decides neither the name nor the face rings any bells.
“Nice to meet you, Gaius,” she extends a hand, and he bents slightly and kisses it. She feels a bit flustered as well as uncomfortable, but no one is actually paying attention to them. In the end, she doesn’t mind. The guy, tall, handsome, and apparently a bit older than the guy without name, glimpses at his friend before saying anything. (There’s meaning there, common knowledge she doesn’t share, and for a second, a mere second, she wants to know).
“The pleasure it’s mine.”
-
She needs a walk. It starts like that. She needed a walk. She is only a few pages away from finishing her thesis and, if she is honest (which she is), it’s driving her fucking crazy. A walk seemed then like the best idea she could have. Back then. Before he found her; sitting under a tree with her head between her knees.
“Wishing it’d end already?” When she looks up, there’s a nice smile on his lips. His hair is all ruffled and he is carrying a weird old bag. He sits down at her side before she is able to say anything. “You always liked to walk when you stressed yourself. Of course, we didn’t call it like that back then.”
“I- How? What are you talking about?”
“Crazy old mumbles of an old man.” She looks at him as if he was mad, because, obviously, he must be, but he is simply smiling, a sincere soft smile. “You shouldn’t listen to me. Sometimes I forget you don’t know who I am.”
“And why should I?” She is surprised to see how his face illuminates at the question, as if he had been waiting all this years for her to say those four words.
“Because you used to know. I’m Geoffrey, by the way, well, I used to be.” He sticks his hand for her to shake, eyes bright with expectation. She complies in the end, part of her wanting to get answers at the touch of his skin, part of her just asking him to go in silence.
Apparently, the last part wins. He stands up, still smiling, and just then she notices he is still holding her hand. It’s not her who takes it away but him that lets it fall.
“I need to go now. I must give a class in -he checks his watch- five minutes; I don’t think they’ll appreciate it if I’m late.” He stays there, immobile, staring at the building, his hand tucked on his bag, as if he was trying to make it move -to make himself move. He finally looks back to her, his smile barely visible under the shadow of the tree. “You know, you used to say that you could think clearly when you felt the mud on your feet. You should try it.”
She watches him go, and only when she can’t even glimpse at the shape of his body is that she moves. She takes her shoes off then, and walks on her skin her way back to her dorm.
-
She remembers him one day. Geoffrey. Well, she remembers everything. Uther, Igraine, Gaius, Geoffrey….
She hugs Igraine that day. A very long strong hug, as she hasn’t hugged her since they were five years old and Igraine fell off a tree. It feels a bit more appropriate now that she would keep repeating she’d use her magic to repair her. She didn’t even remember that until now.
Then, she fights with Uther. “You were such an idiot,” she exclaims. She doesn’t really care that he doesn’t understand (he will one day). “Such a stupid moron. That’s what you were. I can’t believe I ever listened to you, ever trusted you, ever in my life, in that life, in whatever that was, thought for one second that you could have some good reasons other than your own.”
She doesn’t explain herself. It takes a year before she goes back. A year and several phone calls from Igraine- well, she is not Igraine now, but she finds herself incapable of calling her anything but that. She avoids calling them at all if she can.
One day, they’ll remember too, but she isn’t sure she wants that. There’s no need for them to understand, they are happy as they are now.
She remembers him one day, but he isn’t around when she does.
-
She writes. She likes to write. This is what she does. When she was petit, nothing but a kid playing on white papers that looked too big and too little at the same time, she used to believe, there was a trick in words, a trick she knew, that’s why she was good. (She thought she was good, she knew she was good). Now she feels more like she herself is the trick. There’s no magic, no pretty words that will solve everything (that will ruin everything), but just words, amazing words. That, at least, hasn’t changed.
-
She never thought she’d be back to University. But there she is, standing in front of a pretty huge crowd and her hands are sweating. It’s easy, you just stand there and be you, Igraine had said. Not that Igraine had ever introduced a book to a mass of teachers, students, random people, but it was always difficult to go against Igraine.
She feels as if words were suddenly a curse, just like they once did, just like she once lost to them. But she makes her way through the moment, she is -she was- a fighter, a survivor, and if she had once been the most powerful witch on Camelot, she could perfectly way survive to just a few too critical people.
She is almost ending when she recognizes a face she hasn’t seen in a very long time. Her words get stuck in her tongue as she absorbs every inch of him. He looks older, a bit more alike the Geoffrey she remembers. He has a beard now, but his hair is still very much a mess. She reacts before the crowd gets nervous.
“I believe,” she tries not to keep her eyes stuck on the place where he sits very long, but she knows no one in this room will understand as much as he will anyway, so in the end, she just doesn’t mind. “I believe that some stories get lost, some where in history they get changed and forgotten and when someone remembers them again, they just don’t feel the same. They aren’t the same. There are some stories that were never told, and even if this will never tell them, maybe, it’ll open up the way.”
-
She knows where to find him. Why she didn’t thought of it before, she doesn’t know. It still takes her a few months before she can go back.
-
She knows where to find him. So she knocks on his office door on the first day of spring (she likes to think the old religion is still fond of dates). The clock ticks on her wrist and she counts every second it passes by until the doors open. A first year kid looks at her, and that makes his way down the corridors, leave a Thank you, professor behind.
She steps in to find him surrounded by papers, his face stuck to them while a soft Coming in, please. leaves his lips. She has to stop herself from laughing, and manages so until he looks up. His eyes become huge balls on their cavity. Surprise doesn’t even begin to describe it.
“Hello.”
“Hello, Geoffrey.”
-
It feels a bit like stolen moments. This chance they get, not everyone has it. So she takes the fullest out of it. When she is free, she visits him, at launch time, and they walk on the grounds of the University. Some times in silence, some times remembering, always with bare feet. They are a strange pair, they always were.
She recognizes him now. And maybe, just maybe, she knows him just a tiny bit more.
Fandom: Merlin
Title: should i remember you?
Characters: Nimueh +/ Geoffrey.
Rating: PG
Warnings: i don't effing know what this is
Word Count: 1605
Summary: “Have we met before?” “Yeah, a very - very long time ago.” (re!born in modern era)
Notes: IDEK. This is for thefrozenyogurt, she is as crazy as I am. Inspired on this picture. Unbeta'ed.
“You don’t recognize me, do you?” The guy looks troubled. Should she remember him? Have they met before? They probably crossed each other paths on high school, or something. Maybe. She can’t be sure; he doesn’t look familiar at all.
“I’m sorry,” her voice is barely a whisper in the air, disappointment rushes through the guys features, and something that very much feels like being really sorry waves through her. She knows it’s stupid to ask, but she does it anyway, “have we met before?”
“Yeah,” his eyes evade her, and his hands play with each other out of sight, “a very - very long time ago.”
-
The next time they met. He looks older. University is almost over, and he looks grown up. The childish awkward smile is not there anymore, but he doesn’t seem comfortable anyway. (Maybe it’s the party, the wedding; he looks very much out of place, with a bit too big suit and cheap shoes).
“Oh, it’s you,” is all she manages to say. And they stay there, in silence, for what she feels like eternity. She realizes he probably believes she has recognized him from before (from wherever he remembers her from), but there’s no way to fixing it. He seems relieved when a friend comes to his help and smiles awkwardly in return.
“This is my friend, Gaius,” he introduces them. The name dances on the air for a second, she wonders if she should remember him too, but in the end, she decides neither the name nor the face rings any bells.
“Nice to meet you, Gaius,” she extends a hand, and he bents slightly and kisses it. She feels a bit flustered as well as uncomfortable, but no one is actually paying attention to them. In the end, she doesn’t mind. The guy, tall, handsome, and apparently a bit older than the guy without name, glimpses at his friend before saying anything. (There’s meaning there, common knowledge she doesn’t share, and for a second, a mere second, she wants to know).
“The pleasure it’s mine.”
-
She needs a walk. It starts like that. She needed a walk. She is only a few pages away from finishing her thesis and, if she is honest (which she is), it’s driving her fucking crazy. A walk seemed then like the best idea she could have. Back then. Before he found her; sitting under a tree with her head between her knees.
“Wishing it’d end already?” When she looks up, there’s a nice smile on his lips. His hair is all ruffled and he is carrying a weird old bag. He sits down at her side before she is able to say anything. “You always liked to walk when you stressed yourself. Of course, we didn’t call it like that back then.”
“I- How? What are you talking about?”
“Crazy old mumbles of an old man.” She looks at him as if he was mad, because, obviously, he must be, but he is simply smiling, a sincere soft smile. “You shouldn’t listen to me. Sometimes I forget you don’t know who I am.”
“And why should I?” She is surprised to see how his face illuminates at the question, as if he had been waiting all this years for her to say those four words.
“Because you used to know. I’m Geoffrey, by the way, well, I used to be.” He sticks his hand for her to shake, eyes bright with expectation. She complies in the end, part of her wanting to get answers at the touch of his skin, part of her just asking him to go in silence.
Apparently, the last part wins. He stands up, still smiling, and just then she notices he is still holding her hand. It’s not her who takes it away but him that lets it fall.
“I need to go now. I must give a class in -he checks his watch- five minutes; I don’t think they’ll appreciate it if I’m late.” He stays there, immobile, staring at the building, his hand tucked on his bag, as if he was trying to make it move -to make himself move. He finally looks back to her, his smile barely visible under the shadow of the tree. “You know, you used to say that you could think clearly when you felt the mud on your feet. You should try it.”
She watches him go, and only when she can’t even glimpse at the shape of his body is that she moves. She takes her shoes off then, and walks on her skin her way back to her dorm.
-
She remembers him one day. Geoffrey. Well, she remembers everything. Uther, Igraine, Gaius, Geoffrey….
She hugs Igraine that day. A very long strong hug, as she hasn’t hugged her since they were five years old and Igraine fell off a tree. It feels a bit more appropriate now that she would keep repeating she’d use her magic to repair her. She didn’t even remember that until now.
Then, she fights with Uther. “You were such an idiot,” she exclaims. She doesn’t really care that he doesn’t understand (he will one day). “Such a stupid moron. That’s what you were. I can’t believe I ever listened to you, ever trusted you, ever in my life, in that life, in whatever that was, thought for one second that you could have some good reasons other than your own.”
She doesn’t explain herself. It takes a year before she goes back. A year and several phone calls from Igraine- well, she is not Igraine now, but she finds herself incapable of calling her anything but that. She avoids calling them at all if she can.
One day, they’ll remember too, but she isn’t sure she wants that. There’s no need for them to understand, they are happy as they are now.
She remembers him one day, but he isn’t around when she does.
-
She writes. She likes to write. This is what she does. When she was petit, nothing but a kid playing on white papers that looked too big and too little at the same time, she used to believe, there was a trick in words, a trick she knew, that’s why she was good. (She thought she was good, she knew she was good). Now she feels more like she herself is the trick. There’s no magic, no pretty words that will solve everything (that will ruin everything), but just words, amazing words. That, at least, hasn’t changed.
-
She never thought she’d be back to University. But there she is, standing in front of a pretty huge crowd and her hands are sweating. It’s easy, you just stand there and be you, Igraine had said. Not that Igraine had ever introduced a book to a mass of teachers, students, random people, but it was always difficult to go against Igraine.
She feels as if words were suddenly a curse, just like they once did, just like she once lost to them. But she makes her way through the moment, she is -she was- a fighter, a survivor, and if she had once been the most powerful witch on Camelot, she could perfectly way survive to just a few too critical people.
She is almost ending when she recognizes a face she hasn’t seen in a very long time. Her words get stuck in her tongue as she absorbs every inch of him. He looks older, a bit more alike the Geoffrey she remembers. He has a beard now, but his hair is still very much a mess. She reacts before the crowd gets nervous.
“I believe,” she tries not to keep her eyes stuck on the place where he sits very long, but she knows no one in this room will understand as much as he will anyway, so in the end, she just doesn’t mind. “I believe that some stories get lost, some where in history they get changed and forgotten and when someone remembers them again, they just don’t feel the same. They aren’t the same. There are some stories that were never told, and even if this will never tell them, maybe, it’ll open up the way.”
-
She knows where to find him. Why she didn’t thought of it before, she doesn’t know. It still takes her a few months before she can go back.
-
She knows where to find him. So she knocks on his office door on the first day of spring (she likes to think the old religion is still fond of dates). The clock ticks on her wrist and she counts every second it passes by until the doors open. A first year kid looks at her, and that makes his way down the corridors, leave a Thank you, professor behind.
She steps in to find him surrounded by papers, his face stuck to them while a soft Coming in, please. leaves his lips. She has to stop herself from laughing, and manages so until he looks up. His eyes become huge balls on their cavity. Surprise doesn’t even begin to describe it.
“Hello.”
“Hello, Geoffrey.”
-
It feels a bit like stolen moments. This chance they get, not everyone has it. So she takes the fullest out of it. When she is free, she visits him, at launch time, and they walk on the grounds of the University. Some times in silence, some times remembering, always with bare feet. They are a strange pair, they always were.
She recognizes him now. And maybe, just maybe, she knows him just a tiny bit more.