[ He can't reject the sentiment, much as he might want to hold himself to impossible standards. It's not down to him to dictate how she should respond to his mistake. What matters, all that really matters, is how he goes about fixing it.
And to that question he still doesn't have an answer.
All he can do is think back over how it had gone with Nami. What he'd done, what had changed. It's a different scenario: the problem there had been in her lungs, her bloodstream, the cure the sharing of breath... but what part of it had been the fix? ]
I don't know. [ He admits. ] It didn't happen like this.
[ Not on the surface, sunken into skin. He swallows, looks back up to her again from where his attention had drifted down to the marks he'd left. ]
There are things I can try.
[ The tension in that response, his hesitation, implies a discomfort that might be telling. ]
[ The lack of specificity in his words speaks greater volumes than if he'd made up a solution there on the spot — but they're both navigating this relative unknown, aren't they? She doesn't expect him to have an answer right away, same as she'd been unable to determine one on her own. At this point, fumbling through it together is still a better option than what she's already been struggling and failing to do by herself. ]
Well, the most obvious might be to reproduce the circumstances that put it there to begin with.
[ One of them needs to just come right out and say it, and Yennefer hardly has an issue with candor — though she does use a bit more tact than simply pointing out that they might need to fuck again. ]
But I'm guessing you want to attempt some other measures before it gets to that point.
[ It's a bizarre position to find himself in: not quite propositioned, not quite propositioning. Feeling the need to defend himself against the insinuation that there is a world in which having reason to sleep with her might ever be an undesirable outcome.
It flashes across his face for a moment, brief confusion, a pinch between the brows. But she's right. He would prefer to try other measures. Not least of all because, in this very specific set of circumstances, sleeping with her is a last resort. ]
I don't think it needs to come to that. [ It hadn't last time. He's just not sure how to translate what did work last time to skin of her back. ... And actually, maybe rather than stand here frowning at her like she's a conundrum only he can solve, it'd be more sensible to just - ] When this happened before, it was the lungs.
[ Which may go some way to explaining why he's quite so tense. Why he came quite so quickly once he realised what she was telling him. ]
She couldn't breathe, so I breathed for her, and after a while she was able to take over again.
Perhaps it's simply a matter of drawing... whatever this is, back into yourself.
[ Whether that means he needs to be touching her, embracing her, whatever it is — making direct contact seems to be the simplest way of going about it.
There's also the possibility that magic might need to play a role, if it means opening herself up to him in that sense, but she isn't that eager to suggest that particular merging if they can achieve the same through some kind of physical connection. ]
I don't — it's not that I can't breathe.
[ But she does have an awareness of this strange ooze on her, of it embedded in her flesh, even if she can't tell whether it's moved or expanded since she first noticed its existence. Besides, it's not exactly at the best angle for her to study it head-on; she'd only caught the briefest glimpse in the mirror, and half-believed it was some kind of mudstain at first. ]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
And to that question he still doesn't have an answer.
All he can do is think back over how it had gone with Nami. What he'd done, what had changed. It's a different scenario: the problem there had been in her lungs, her bloodstream, the cure the sharing of breath... but what part of it had been the fix? ]
I don't know. [ He admits. ] It didn't happen like this.
[ Not on the surface, sunken into skin. He swallows, looks back up to her again from where his attention had drifted down to the marks he'd left. ]
There are things I can try.
[ The tension in that response, his hesitation, implies a discomfort that might be telling. ]
no subject
[ The lack of specificity in his words speaks greater volumes than if he'd made up a solution there on the spot — but they're both navigating this relative unknown, aren't they? She doesn't expect him to have an answer right away, same as she'd been unable to determine one on her own. At this point, fumbling through it together is still a better option than what she's already been struggling and failing to do by herself. ]
Well, the most obvious might be to reproduce the circumstances that put it there to begin with.
[ One of them needs to just come right out and say it, and Yennefer hardly has an issue with candor — though she does use a bit more tact than simply pointing out that they might need to fuck again. ]
But I'm guessing you want to attempt some other measures before it gets to that point.
cw: suffocation mention
It flashes across his face for a moment, brief confusion, a pinch between the brows. But she's right. He would prefer to try other measures. Not least of all because, in this very specific set of circumstances, sleeping with her is a last resort. ]
I don't think it needs to come to that. [ It hadn't last time. He's just not sure how to translate what did work last time to skin of her back. ... And actually, maybe rather than stand here frowning at her like she's a conundrum only he can solve, it'd be more sensible to just - ] When this happened before, it was the lungs.
[ Which may go some way to explaining why he's quite so tense. Why he came quite so quickly once he realised what she was telling him. ]
She couldn't breathe, so I breathed for her, and after a while she was able to take over again.
no subject
[ Whether that means he needs to be touching her, embracing her, whatever it is — making direct contact seems to be the simplest way of going about it.
There's also the possibility that magic might need to play a role, if it means opening herself up to him in that sense, but she isn't that eager to suggest that particular merging if they can achieve the same through some kind of physical connection. ]
I don't — it's not that I can't breathe.
[ But she does have an awareness of this strange ooze on her, of it embedded in her flesh, even if she can't tell whether it's moved or expanded since she first noticed its existence. Besides, it's not exactly at the best angle for her to study it head-on; she'd only caught the briefest glimpse in the mirror, and half-believed it was some kind of mudstain at first. ]
But I don't know that it isn't spreading.