[Open Post] ..hell yes i mind..

[lanselos_du_lac]

It's been a long while since Lancelot felt this way: angry and adrift, too overwhelmed and in his own head to determine how best to manage it. (If Susan were here, it would be simple -- but the fact that his Susan is gone is part of the problem.) His anger is a hot stone at his center, a roiling mess, a weapon without a target. He still feels that he would like to smash something, start a fight, find some way to externalize everything all the things he could not bring himself to say to the Galahad who is far older than he ought to be, the quiet king of a quiet kingdom.

A fulfilled purpose. A completed quest. A long chain of manipulation and events that dragged Lancelot along in its wake, and that (in this other time, he has to acknowledge, not his time and not now) led only to the ruin of everything Lancelot had cared for. And for what? It makes him furious to think that the price of the Grail was Galahad's joy, Galahad's self, and that that price was somehow being paid long before Galahad was even born.

That's just the start of it; there is more, much more, and it feels like it will keep spooling out without ceasing.

His impulse, as ever, is to stalk off to his room and stay there until he feels he can manage himself. (He thinks, not for the first time, of himself ten years older and outwardly angry, angry enough that everyone sees it, fears him or dreads his company. A man who lashes out. He does not want that future, but this possibility has always been somewhere just under the surface; he's always known it. Sometimes it has worked for him, with him, but he knows that it is dangerous and there is no one in this place that he would want to bear witness to it.) If this were Camelot, that is what he would do.

Since he can't figure what to do, he settles for a middle ground. It's been a long while since he felt like getting very deliberately drunk, but that appeals just now, and so he heads for one of the smaller bars, just off the main corridor.

^{[Note: All are welcome! Those who care for Lancelot and/or those who also wish to fistfight God are particularly welcome.]}

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[wickedwit]

Claudius leaves his own conversation with Galahad with the bittersweet feeling of knowing, despite all doubts, that Galahad wouldn't have been happier if he returned to God's side. Even if Galahad somehow avoided early martyrdom, the survival would be a bitter thing, forced upon him while God took away everyone he loved. As if to punish him, not reward him, by denying the one thing he asked. The only sweetness is knowing his Galahad will return soon. It's no wonder Claudius finds himself at the bar, searching for some whiskey to burn away that particular taste.

"You know, this is strange," Claudius says as Lancelot approaches, "but you may be the perfect company for a drink right now." He gestures at the opened bottle of rye with his own half-empty glass. He doesn't ordinarily drink rye, but it does burn nicely. "Come, sit down. Pour yourself a glass."

[lanselos_du_lac]

"I am not certain how it is that I am a perfect companion, but-- today has been enough. I will accept your invitation."

He does come and sit, after finding an empty glass, and does as Claudius has suggested.

[wickedwit]

"You're another victim of the Grail prophecy, if you'll excuse me for saying so." He kept himself from saying so at the Bacchanal, but that was under the ebullient influence of wine, where such thoughts could float away and pop like bubbles. Whiskey only feeds the fire in him. "When Gertrude came -- did you meet Gertrude? I'm sure she charmed everyone she met. She called us survivors of the same family. You and Galahad are survivors of God's meddling."

[lanselos_du_lac]

Lancelot looks up at that, his gaze sharp and bright, open in a way that he isn't usually, to Claudius. "Yes. I was thinking much the same."

[wickedwit]

Claudius returns that gaze with a similar sharpness, eying Lancelot anew. He lifts his glass to an opening toast. "To thinking," he intones dryly. "God's least favorite past-time for his chosen. He shushed Galahad like a disappointed tutor, you know. What were your thoughts?" His eyes reflect real interest, glinting like the whiskey glass in the electric light.

[lanselos_du_lac]

Lancelot raises his glass to Claudius, and drinks. After a moment to savor the sip, he says, "Mostly, I have been thinking about how angry I am. At God. For all of us."

[wickedwit]

"Oh, this was a fortuitous meeting. There's one subject where I wouldn't mind seeing you angry." There's a slight awkwardness, as he remembers he never precisely cleared the air there, he never explained why Lancelot initially made him growl and snap like a ruined dog reminded of a bad owner. He shakes his head. "What are you angriest about?"

[lanselos_du_lac]

"Where shall I begin?" He glances down; when he goes on, he's quiet, carefully measured, but it's clear that there is something pretty close to rage burning under that control. "I am angry for King Galahad, that God deceived him and that he has neither rest nor joy. I am angry that I've learned the Grail was at Corbenic, all along, and that there was a time I once desired to attain it myself -- it is meaningless. I am angry that God used us -- me, Elaine, Galahad, all of us. I am angry that the way in which I was used apparently led me to destroy everything I love. I'm angry any of it happened at all; that we are just things God has used to entertain Himself."

[wickedwit]

"Just so," Claudius says, with a fierce appreciation, glaring down in his whiskey and wishing for one burning instance that he could do more than complain. It's enough that his Galahad is free, enough for Claudius to keep him and never fall again for those wistful what ifs that tell him Galahad might be happier without him in God's welcoming grace. But he still hates God on behalf of every Galahad that's suffered, and wishes there was a poison to infect divinity. "You know, my first friend here -- or my second, they came so close together -- he told me that God is a jokester, whose wit is beyond our understanding. We're all sure to die before ever approaching the punchline. But what punchline would be worth it? What divine plan could make any of us laugh, and excuse all the suffering it took to complete it? The Grail was at Corbenic all along?"

[lanselos_du_lac]

"So he said," scowling at his drink. "I suppose that is a joke, of a kind."

[wickedwit]

"Personally, I think it was a political maneuver. Awe and spectacle. Susan would understand." He sighs. "Susan's also in agreement me with that a man who tells jokes no one else can laugh at is a terrible bore at parties. You chose very well with her. I think she'd be furious on your behalf. I admit," he says, and this is a large admission, "I'm furious on your behalf, too." It's a large admission because he doesn't get this kind of furious unless he cares for someone. Perhaps, by some transitional property, he's come to care for Lancelot because of how very like Galahad he is.

[lanselos_du_lac]

Lancelot looks up, a little surprised at that. He says, a bit stupidly, "Thank you."

[wickedwit]

Claudius looks surprised. As though it just registered with him oh, that is a thing to be thanked for. With a polite blink, he supplies, "You're quite welcome." Because that's what follows next, naturally. "I can always be furious with God. Free of charge."

[lanselos_du_lac]

He gives Claudius a little smile and raises his glass. "I had not given it much thought, until today."

[wickedwit]

Claudius laughs, and clinks their glasses together. "I think too much," he says, with a swig of whiskey. "My brother used to say that a man who thinks too much is dangerous¹, and he was right, in my case. But I'm a danger to myself, as well."

¹ That's Julius Caesar, actually, but same vibe.

[lanselos_du_lac]

"Oh, I can think overmuch about some things, but I rarely spent time considering God, what His plans might be, and so on. I went to Mass, of course, but my focus was elsewhere."

He could admit, too, that there have been times when he has acted without thinking at all, and at those times he has done harm to himself or someone else... but today is not the day for that sort of admission to Claudius.

[wickedwit]

"My focus always came back to it. The nature of concupiscence and man's tendency towards sin, that was a particular obsession of mine. For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness: all these evil things come from within, and defile the man. I spent a long time despising myself and God and trying to balance the calculus of defiling myself for the salvation of someone better." He didn't expect to being confiding this much in Lancelot, so he asks in turn, "What thoughts kept you up at night?"

[lanselos_du_lac]

Within that list are enough sins that Lancelot knows all too well, sins that he knows he himself as committed, and regularly. Adultery, certainly. Deceit, yes. Pride and foolishness -- without question. But most of all the others, as well, give him a little pang. He feels a jumble of things and very nearly says all of them. To stop himself, he takes a drink.

After a moment, he gives Claudius a measuring look and says, "Would you like to know-- if not the whole of it, then much of it?"

[wickedwit]

Claudius nods slowly. He gives it enough time to show he's serious -- of course he wants to know. He wants to know everything. But not all secrets are easily told, and he has to recognize that difficulty. "Yes," he says. "As much you're willing to share."

[lanselos_du_lac]

Lancelot takes a breath, another drink. "You already know I am an adulterer. You may conclude, from there, that I have also deceived someone I care about. But I never thought to serve God -- this is part of why I was never meant for the Grail. My dearest desire, before I came to Camelot, was to be of service, of use, to the High King. What kept me from sleep, what pained me, was that even as I served him, I betrayed him for my own... well. I would have said my own joy."

[wickedwit]

"You would have said that." Claudius picks up on his wording. "Not any longer?"

[lanselos_du_lac]

"I loved her," quietly, "and when we were happy, we were very happy indeed. But-- I also spent a good deal of time afraid to upset her. And after Corbenic... she was hurt. Furious. She was unkind, and she punished me. I have come to see, here, that all was not well. That joy does not necessarily require suffering."

[wickedwit]

“You know Gertrude,” Claudius says, after a moment’s reflection and swirling his whiskey. “Remarkable woman. The only true monarch I’d swear myself to, the way you swore yourself to your king. She’d rule with wisdom and grace, and know the meaning of mercy. Her king, however, was rather lacking when it came to mercies. I believed she loved him, for a time. She was capable of those feats of empathy — of looking past his moods and flares of temper to see a lonely man who’d never been truly loved. And for a time, he was grateful to her, kinder than I believed my brother capable of being. But he still had his flares of temper. He still jealously guarded her, still hurled accusations at her, and hurt her in ways that wore away at her love for him. Love and fear, you see, make very poor bedfellows. They can exist together, but never peacefully.” He should be clearer, he realizes, about the parallel he’s making — not to his brother and his choler, for all he once feared Lancelot would lash out like Hamlet. “You and Gertrude both deserve lovers you shouldn’t have to fear.”

[lanselos_du_lac]

Lancelot listens to all of this with an expression that goes from carefully controlled to frowning, then to flushed. At the last, he looks back into his glass.

He has the urge to argue, and perhaps the only thing that prevents it is that he has already heard something similar, from so many people he loves, that he can at last begin to believe that good things are something he might deserve. He takes another drink.

After a long pause to master his voice he says, "I have such loves, here, and I am grateful. Your Gertrude -- she was kind to me without any reason to be, in a way that I know means she is kind to her core, sincerely. She taught me to dance, that I might please Susan, and I will ever be grateful to her for that."

[wickedwit]

Claudius cherishes the story, holding it in his heart as the unexpected gift it is. By letting Gertrude go, by resolving to stay here, he'd accepted never hearing anything new about her -- and though he doesn't miss the vicious gossips of Elsinore, he misses when someone would speak of her kindness and he would fall more in love with her, feeling a fierce private gladness that others recognized her virtues, too. He almost keeps it private, almost buries it under flippancy, the way he would have to in a court where any rumor he loved the queen could be dangerous to them both. But the whiskey is warming, the company surprisingly reassuring.

"Kind to her core," he repeats, and raises his glass. "You have it exactly. And my brother would not have liked her dancing with you -- a foolish, jealous man to the last. He could never see her kindness for what it was. You do."