Swallow Your Pride [Closed]

[zeros_requiem]

Who: Schneizel el Britannia and Suzaku Kururugi
Where: Schneizel's Office
When: Backdated slightly to Tuesday, November 29th
What: Suzaku knows he's not going to master the Patronus charm in time, so he seeks out help coming up with alternatives.
Rating: I don't see this any higher than PG. PG-13 at the worst

Comments

[maskmastery]

[He's doing so much studying himself, these days, he muses that he might as well be a student all over again. Being granted the place of teacher meant he arrived better equipped than most, but there's still much he has to learn.

Which is why his free time finds him seated in his office, a wide selection of books ranged across the desk. The library is well-equipped, at least (even if Madam Pince only yielded so much to him after threatening him extensively).

Schneizel's finding himself with plenty to think about, at any rate, and the creeping unease he's oh-so-aware of in the back of his mind is not wont to shift for mere practicality. Dementors, he'd suspected and then confirmed. Knowing is half (or more) the battle, but it doesn't make one immune. Unfortunately.

He looks up at the knock on the door, taken by surprise for a moment as the words sink in. There is only one person that could be, because there's only one person still calling him 'your highness'. Curious.]

Certainly, [he says, aloud, and the door swings open as though

[zeros_requiem]

[Suzaku stood tall, as he always did when dealing with most members of the royal family, though he did look a little frayed around the edges. The lack of sleep and the increasingly-harder-to-combat cold were starting to wear on him. And if even the normally unflappable Schneizel was a little bothered by the Dementors, one can only imagine how much of a mess Suzaku's head must be.

And the creatures aren't even near the school. Yet.]

Sir. [Schneizel gets a small bow in greeting, mostly as a courtesy. But nothing as formal as full on kneeling. There's a notable pause after that, though, as Suzaku weighs his words carefully.

This would be so much easier, he thinks, if Schneizel were still his loyal, geassed minion.]

I need your assistance. As a professor.

[maskmastery]

[And he notes those subtle changes in Suzaku - the circumstances are taking their toll on him, that much is evident, but entirely expected. It might be chilling to see, concerning, but Schneizel's expression is smooth as glass. The bow is returned with a nod, and it might be less formality than they were used to once, but it's funny how they're still bound by these things, so far from home and after all that's happened. Habit again, perhaps, or something more than that.

As a professor. That sets foundations, of course - on how to act, how to conduct oneself, how to consider the knight standing before him. Smoothly, easily, Schneizel sets all else aside - any resentment that might linger, any questions he might possess, any dry little quips about the state of things as they are now - and gestures for him to sit down.]

Go ahead. [There's a great deal else he could say, but he favours a more direct approach this time.]

[zeros_requiem]

[Commander and soldier, Prince and Knight, enemies, slave and master, now teacher and student. Or, at the least, that's what they were playing at this time. Suzaku didn't know how seriously or not Schneizel took his job, whether or not he looked upon him any differently as student compared to a Knight, or whether it was all the same to him.

It made him wonder if he actually hurt Schneizel's feelings on some level when he betrayed him, or that Suzaku turned out to be an unexpected variable in his plans, when he figured the boy to be a constant. But he's not here to hash out the past. There'll be time for that later.

He sits once the offer is made, and with Schneizel deciding to get right into things, Suzaku does the same.]

The Dementors. If we're expected to face them, then I need to know if there's a viable alternative to the Patronus charm.