Disclaimer: Game of Thrones is D&D's property, after being GRRM's property. Or else, Lancel would be the happiest kid in Westeros, should it be mine.
Summary: Mending took time and healing took trust. The thing was, Lancel didn't love nor trusted himself.
Author's note: A huge thank you to Assassin Master Ezio 91 who helped in making the chapter guide and in brainstorming with me !
Author's note 2: English isn't my first language, it's french. If you see any mistake or issue with the language, feel free to tell me so that I can improve.
WARNING! THIS FANFICTION CONTAINS HEAVY THEMES SUCH AS DEATH, BULLYING, DEPRESSION, ABUSE ETC. IF YOU ARE ILL-AT-EASE WITH THOSE SUBJECTS, PLEASE FEEL FREE TO CLICK ON THE RED CROSS ON THE RIGHT TOP OF THE SCREEN.
Broken Things
Chapter 1
Lancel's eyes slowly opened as he heard his alarm clock ringing, disturbing the peaceful silence of his dark room. With one swift move of his hand, he set it off and allowed himself to close his eyes again, just for five minutes, the time he needed to adujst to the change of state that was waking up. He usually was a morning person, but with some of the medicine he was forced to take, some he had to continue, he felt constantly tired and getting up from bed seemed like a struggle sometimes. This morning was not the case fortunately. He left his sheets, drew back his curtains and let the morning light enter as he opened his window. Then he grabbed his clothes and went to the bathroom.
In less than fifteen minutes, he was washed, dressed and his bed already made.
That was mechanical, he didn't even have to think and in his current state, the less he thought, the better he felt. He looked at his reflection in the mirror. He looked ghastly and he knew it. First of all, black wasn't his colour at all, it drained the colours from his already pale face. However, he didn't feel like wearing something else anyway. He had no way to describe properly how he felt, but he knew that was the only way he could hope to make people understand that the way he was now, he couldn't help it, he didn't do it for attention, heck, all he actually wanted was to be left alone and if he had been allowed to, he would never go out, face the world, attend school. He'd remain safely locked inside his room, helping around the house and the only trip outside would be to take out the trash or retrieve the mail. Wearing colours meant pretending he was okay, which he wasn't. He felt tired of pretending, like he used to, before all this mess. He studied himself again. He wasn't particulary built before but here, he looked like a bag of bones. He ate when hungry, but he ate less than usual, not that he felt hungry a lot. He had dark circles under his eyes and he was so pale he wondered if he wasn't dead and his body was just animated by magic or necromancia. His eyes didn't have the same glow. No wonder people picked on him, he looked just so different, so...
Gone.
It certainly was scary and people didn't react well to difference or scary things, he knew.
He made his way to the kitchen, passing by his brother's room.
The baby brother he had lost.
His room, which was always filled with games sounds, with laughs, was now desperately empty and mute.
Just like him, he thought.
Not far away, he could see his other brother, Martyn, who had been spared the fate of his twin Willem, but who, in exchange, had been cursed by having to live now stuck in a wheelchair. And that was his fault entirely.
Even if the man who crashed into their car had refused him the priority he was entitled to have.
Even if the man didn't run away and actually called the emergencies, confessed, apologized.
Even if the police proved him he wasn't to blame, that he was innocent.
He could still see everything, the smell actually coming back to his nose, the mixture of burnt, of blood...
And the sight of Willem laying down, his green eyes, so similar to his own, deprived of all their glee, his blond hair tarnished by crimson blood, his body being covered by a linen by men who had sorrow painted on their faces.
He had wanted to move, to be with him as life was leaving him if he hadn't been killed on the spot, to tell the men to leave him be, that he was alive, that they had no right to take him. But the pain had been overwhelming and all he had been able to do was stare, powerless, not even strong enough to cry. For some reason, he hadn't been able to cry, to numbed, even when knowing this was real. Even when told Willem was gone, he hadn't cried. During the funerals, he hadn't cried. He had just stood there, watching as the coffin was put in the hole, wondering how a tall young man like his brother could have fit in that tiny box, holding the hand of his almost four years old sister, who had innocently asked their father why they were putting her brother in a box under the ground. He wasn't a tree. And he wouldn't be able to breathe down there. Lancel still wondered how Kevan had done to answer his daughter without breaking down completely. He couldn't remember his response to be honest, just that his father had remained the same man he had known for his entire life: tall and dignified. He couldn't understand why this had to happen. But on top of that, he would never be able to understand why no one was mad at him. He was a kinslayer, even if he hadn't meant to, he had been the one driving after all, and no one was mad at him. No one blamed him. His parents and siblings just continued loving him while he had robbed them of a son, of a brother. To this silence, he would have prefered violence, screams and tears so that pain could be forgotten, buried along his poor baby brother.
"Oh, good morning, sweetie! Did you sleep well?" His mother asked when she spotted him
He tried to smile, for her sake, and nodded. Seeing her trying to be cheerful, to go on for their sakes, he desperately wanted to speak up, to really answer, to apologize.
But he couldn't.
Not anymore.
Ever since the accident, he hadn't been able to utter a word. At first, the doctors had thought it was just due to the several shocks but when he had tried, later on, to answer his father on a simple question, despite opening his mouth, moving his lips, apart from air coming out of his lungs, no real sound escaped from his throat. He remembered his panic and his father asking for help right away. After examinations, it seemed that his vocal cords were fine, they hadn't been hurt but durning the accident, he had certainly seen something that traumatized him psychologically and caused this reaction, that was his body's way to cope and mend. He remembered his anger when a nurse had suggested it was because he wasn't putting any effort. And the shock of the assembly when he had written down that yes, he should try and make an effort putting words on the fact that he had litteraly seen his brother dying, unable to rescue him, his eyelids being shut by fingers and his covered body being taken away. He remembered the horror on his father's face when he learnt. That had occurred three months ago.
He tried to smile, to show a good face, even if he was actually in agony deep inside, because his parents deserved it, Martyn deserved it, Janei, so innocent, deserved it. His body had mended, but he still had medicine to take, for the bloody depression and the PTSD that were undermining him.
And once outside, he sighed, trying to gather his courage.
It was time to face the horrible war zone that was high school.
To Be Continued