Closed RP: Susan is Not Happy (and when Susan ain't happy, NOBODY is happy)

[usethepoker]

((Backdated to February 10, just after Stephen's popcorn-letter))

Comments

[charlesmacaulay]

Thank God for small favors. Henry and Camilla must indeed have gotten the same letter Susan got, which would have made Henry understand Charles wasn't just talking nonsense.

Charles experienced the uncomfortably contradictory sensation of feeling at once bitter and grateful about the same thing. Under the present circumstances it was a damn good thing Henry could get Camilla to do what he said and be quick about it; all the same, Charles hated knowing it.

It wasn't fair that Henry saw precisely what Charles saw: Camilla would not see just how dangerous her friend really is, Henry had written, and that just drove the pain of it home to Charles. Camilla didn't see how dangerous Henry was, did she? She never had. But right now that was an asset. Henry was dangerous and Henry could keep Camilla safe.

Charles wrote back:

Camilla doesn't see anything she doesn't want to see. Doesn't matter if no one can die here, Susan's got a huge scythe and I don't think she'd hesitate to lop off heads. The last thing she's going to

[c_macaulay]

"Surely you're not saying I encourage him. I don't. I haven't so much as touched him since -"

Since she kissed him, the day she went to tell him she was accepting Henry's proposal.

"A long time ago. If we're talking about anything that matters. I don't think he ought to be seeing Susan because she doesn't make him happy."

Or because she couldn't stand the idea of anyone else making Charles happy, the same way Charles couldn't stand the idea of anyone else making Camilla happy.

Charles had always gotten to have his cake and eat it too. Why shouldn't Camilla? His standards had always been grossly, manifestly unfair.

"I can't just not care whether he's happy. I'm happy. I want him to be happy too."

[h_m_winter]

"No, you don't encourage him," Henry said, and that at least he meant entirely. "However--why do you say Susan doesn't make him happy? Admittedly I haven't paid much attention, but they seemed content enough to me."

[c_macaulay]

"You don't spend any time with them," Camilla said. "You would see it if you did."

Of course Henry didn't spend any time with them. Charles and Henry wouldn't exactly prioritize quality time with one another. What was more, Susan didn't seem all too keen on Henry's company lately, either. Camilla had noticed it. She hadn't wanted to say anything; she hadn't cared enough about it, really, to say anything.

"He's unhappy." This was true. "Therefore she must not be making him happy." This was fallacious reasoning. "Anyway it has nothing to do with me or how he feels about me or how I feel about anything." She crossed her arms. Her chin quivered a little. She looked miserable. "I don't know why you think I'm jealous. Or why you say I have been for a long time."

[h_m_winter]

No, he didn't spend time with them--even with Charles tied up with someone else, Henry still didn't want to be around him. He didn't share Camilla's bizarre extrapolation of why Charles would be unhappy, though; involvement with Susan notwithstanding, Charles wasn't ever going to be happy so long as his sister was with someone else. Henry had thought before now that his relationship with Susan, whatever it might actually be, was probably calculated in part by a wish to make Camilla jealous. Why else would he settle on Camilla's best female friend? Henry had no way of knowing that Charles intentionally sought out women who looked and acted nothing like Camilla, but even if he had known, there were plenty of other women at Hogwarts who were absolutely nothing like Camilla.

"She's not making him unhappy, either," he said. "Come to that, Susan herself isn't what you'd call happy, either, but she's a great deal more content than I've seen her since last spring." Part of him really hated to have to push her like this, but he knew this was

[c_macaulay]

Camilla shrugged the suggestion away, an angry little movement that for once involved both her shoulders. Still in coat and boots, she might have leapt up and run out at any moment, ready for action or pursuit or evasion. "I never minded," she claimed. "I never minded when he was with anyone else. Why should I mind now? Of course I don't mind."

These were things they never, ever talked about, she and Henry.

Even through her consternation and upset, she remained attuned to his signals; she understood he felt uneasy about something, even if she didn't understand what or why; she understood he'd been watching her for signs of something, some malady, some malaise, and that he hadn't liked what he'd seen. "I can't just forget," she said, in a very small voice. That remark covered a multitude of meanings. She couldn't forget what Charles had meant to her once. She couldn't forget the things he'd done since. She could never, ever go back to him.

She didn't want to go back to him. She just didn't want anyone else to have him

[h_m_winter]

"I know you can't," Henry said, with some difficulty--he didn't like the fact that she couldn't, but he accepted it was there. Unlike the Macaulay twins, Henry did not have the luxury of selective blindness. "But you have to accept the fact that Charles is allowed to move on, too. He's let go of you--" nominally, at least "--and you've got to let him go in return. Be honest with yourself--you wouldn't want to see him with anyone else, no matter who that 'anyone else' was. Not in any kind of real relationship." And that, perhaps, was part of what was bothering her; that even if Charles wasn't necessarily knee-deep in love, it was always possible Susan was (though Henry did not think this at all likely). In any case, Charles was spending much more time with Susan than Camilla, and contrary to Camilla's opinions, he seemed at least content, if not really happy.

[c_macaulay]

Charles is allowed to move on. What was that supposed to mean?

"He already did. 'Move on.' He left a few months after you died. I didn't see him for years until Hogwarts brought him back. You know that." Camilla had known Charles had set up something of a household for himself with a woman he'd met in rehab. She'd known it thanks to the private investigator the woman's family had hired; Charles's paramour had left behind a husband and a small child, and they'd wanted her back. Camilla had been at once jealous and thoroughly disgusted. Her disgust, in that case, had far outweighed her jealousy. Here, it could not. Susan wasn't a bad choice. A weird one, maybe, but hardly beneath Charles's notice or interest. She was even a duchess where she came from.

"And he did let go. He's been very, very good. He gave me away at our wedding. He volunteered to do that! And I said yes. We both let go." Everything was true except for that last brief sentence. We both let go. Obviously, they hadn't.

"Why do you keep saying