Born again

[not_snake_bite]

We can only suppose it is the fact that he was, er, utterly destroyed that would explain how slow his return might be.

Steerpike is back, half amnesiac - he only remembers the Mansion in patches. Specifically, he remembers faces.  A woman, good to him, beautiful and sullen.  Something about a watch. And he might place a few faces, without

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[i_flynomore]

Him again? Lynn pauses and looks at him, frowning a little. Something's different now.

[not_snake_bite]

Oh yes. He's maskless, and very disoriented.

He looks at Lynette a long moment - he tries to remember whether he knows her or not.

[i_flynomore]

What she really wants is to walk away--he scared her a lot the first time she met him--but instead she says, deferential neutral, "Are you all right, ser?"

[not_snake_bite]

Oh did he? Interesting. He’s definitely not murderous right now - all the memories which made him a killer have been wiped out - he’s closer to the sane, if broken youth he used to be than he ever was.

“Lost, Madam,” he says, hesitating. He can’t seem to place her, yet the way she spoke…

[i_flynomore]

Well, he was emotionally noisy. It always freaks her out a little.

"Oh. Do you want to come inside?"

[not_snake_bite]

“Will the sight of…” he pauses. Laurel addressed that, didn’t she? Laurel. Friends only? How could they when the thought of her makes his heart skip?

“Yes, please, Madam,” he says, hesitating.

[i_flynomore]

"Not madam, ser. Lynette. Are you hungry? I can make sandwiches."

[not_snake_bite]

“Oh, thank you,” gratefully. Because a vacant brain, for Steerpike, is that - room for positive emotions, which is very, very odd.

We are wondering what going to the kitchen will do to him, though.

[i_flynomore]

...Huh. Okay. Lynette looks at him for a minute, trying to gauge, and then offers him her hand while they walk.

[not_snake_bite]

He takes it. Lost and confused and lonely and everything else, oh yes, he takes the hand and clings.

[i_flynomore]

She figured.

"It's all right, ser. Come on." She leads them to the kitchens.

[not_snake_bite]

The kitchens. It's not the place where Swelter abused him, but it's a kitchen. A violent shudder when he sees the hanging pots and pans, but he suppresses it.

[i_flynomore]

Lynette feels it all the same, attuned as she is to born-men. "Ser? What's wrong?"

[not_snake_bite]

"Nothing." Flashback. A hand in the dark, groping. He looks away.

[i_flynomore]

Lynn is no stranger to weird headstuff, or things that feel like/are flashbacks. She takes his other hand for a moment and squeezes it. "It's all right, ser. Just sit down."

[not_snake_bite]

He does, because his head is spinning.

"By all the gods," he says, shaking. "Why would this be?"