[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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[lanselos_du_lac]

"Yes," earnestly, though also with a little laugh.

[timebethine]

Then Laertes bends down gracefully and returns with a trowel in hand. "Canst lay mortar while I lay brick," he says. "We might have this little pavilion finished before the soup is done."

[lanselos_du_lac]

Lancelot grins at him, "Clever man. Show me how."

[timebethine]

"Ay, gladly." Then with a last, darting kiss, Laertes goes to get their bag of mortar mix from the cellar.

[lanselos_du_lac]

Lancelot waits patiently, trying to shake off the last of his feeling of being off-balance.

[timebethine]

Laertes returns with two buckets, one partway full of mortar mix, the other somewhat less full of water. Lancelot will be note that both buckets have lines marked on the inside, and they're filled up approximately to the lines--Laertes has figured out the proportions he likes, and ensured that he never has to measure them out again. "Bring thou that little tub," says Laertes, pointing to small kiddie pool lying off to one side. "This is mortar mix; it's made of lime, cement, and sand, well combined. We'll mix it with this water until it becomes thick and wet, and then spread it unto the lines where thou seest the twine staked. Then we'll lay bricks atop it, in the herringbone pattern that Sagramore and I have begun."

[lanselos_du_lac]

He does as he's told, watching with interest as Laertes mixes the mortar. It's easy enough to see how this would work. "This is a good task."

[timebethine]

"Only the best for thee." Laertes passes over the bucket with the rest of the water, as well as the little three-tined cultivator¹ that he's been using for mixing this particular batch of mortar. "Try thou."

¹ Did you know that the garden tool with tines that's often paired with a trowel is called a cultivator? Now you do!

[lanselos_du_lac]

He sets to it, occasionally glancing to Laertes for guidance or pausing to ask a question, but like many other things he is a quicker study than he thinks.

[timebethine]

"That's perfect," says Laertes as he carries over a double handful of bricks. "See--it's evenly mixed, with no spots of dryness or wetness and no lumps. Canst spread it now with a trowel, about an inch or a little less in thickness."

[lanselos_du_lac]

"All right," outright grinning now, at the praise and the opportunity to do something that feels useful and simple. It takes him a few minutes to really get rolling and to find a rhythm that works for him, where he's happy with the consistency of how thickly he's applying it, but soon enough he's fully engrossed.

[timebethine]

Between the two of them, they find an easy rhythm--Laertes laying brick into the spaces that Lancelot's finished spreading, nudging the bricks carefully until they fit flush with one another. The work is heavy and hot, but fully engrossing--and very soon, they'll have built out the patio all the way to the staked-out twine that borders it. By then, Laertes is streaming sweat so heavily that it leaves a dark stain down his t-shirt from his neck, but he's grinning like a light. "Thou hast a ready hand with this," he says. "I should've asked thee to help me long ago."

[lanselos_du_lac]

Lancelot, too, is both sweat-soaked and perhaps a little giddy. He draws his sleeve across his brow, "Aye. Shouldst have done. I am very good."

[timebethine]

Laughing, "My love, thou art shining."

[lanselos_du_lac]

"Nay," he laughs as well, "No, that is what thou'rt about."

[timebethine]

"I but reflect thy light, as the moon does the sun."

[lanselos_du_lac]

"Thou'rt too constant to be the moon," easily. "Is there cold water?"

[timebethine]

"Ay--inside, or in the cellar. Wouldst drink? Or wash?"

[lanselos_du_lac]

"Both, perhaps." He plucks at his shirt. He's taken to wearing his usual tunic with jeggings, most days.

[timebethine]

Laertes marks the plucking of the tunic with a normal amount of interest. "Couldst swim with me."

[lanselos_du_lac]

"Yes," brightly, "I had not thought of that, somehow."

[timebethine]

Laertes has the distinct sense that Lancelot is ribbing him, but he lets it be; he hauls Lancelot in by the front of his shirt for a swift, declarative kiss. "Then let me take the soup off of the fire, that it should 'scape burning," he says, and reaches for what seems to be a hook from a fireplace poker set to lift the soup pan by its handle. He sets it gently down on a nearby table and puts the lid on it, then tucks the poker against the oven again. "There. Race thee to the water?"

[lanselos_du_lac]

"Wouldst make a man race thee after laboring all day over bricks?" He truly was not ribbing Laertes before, but he absolutely is now.

[timebethine]

"Nay, I should let thee dawdle and creep."

[lanselos_du_lac]

"Aye, do-- and best of luck to thee!" And he's off.