[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]

Lancelot is most of the way through a glass of bourbon. He glances up when Galahad comes in and blinks.

This Galahad looks as he should: relatively relaxed, working on something. Can he be here when the other Galahad is also here or does this mean the other Galahad has gone?

He says, still sounding surprised, "Galahad. Hello."

[onthewillowsthere]

His relationship with Lancelot is still somewhat difficult for Galahad to grasp firmly. He feels a certain protectiveness towards Lancelot -- he wants him to be happy. To be allowed to choose, as Galahad himself has been allowed to choose, the kind of person he wants to be, and the things that will make him happy. Galahad doesn't want Lancelot to be his father, but he feels the familial nature of their connection. Sometimes he feels as if he's much older than Lancelot, and more experienced, and other times he's acutely aware of how young he is.

As he begins poking around the bar, he realizes it will be difficult to find the bottle he wants while keeping the beetle trapped in his hands.

"Will you please help me find a jar?"

[lanselos_du_lac]

"Oh," blinking again. But he does get up and come around beside him. "Of course."

[onthewillowsthere]

"I want to show Susan, but I need something to put it in."

[lanselos_du_lac]

"Of course," he says again. His brain is still trying to get traction on the fact that this Galahad is here now. He gets down to start sorting through glassware behind the bar.

[onthewillowsthere]

After several moments, during which he watches Lancelot sorting through the glassware and feels the beetle's tiny feet on his palm, he asks, "Are you all right?"

[lanselos_du_lac]

"Today has been," a long pause, until he settles on, "difficult."

He finds a small jar with a metal lid, and holds it up. "Will this do?"

[onthewillowsthere]

"Yes. What happened?"

[lanselos_du_lac]

He stands and uncaps the jar, setting it before Galahad. "Some folk are... switched. Not with other residents, but, I think, other versions of themselves. Susan is one of them. As are you."

[onthewillowsthere]

"Me?"

[lanselos_du_lac]

"Yes," simply. His jaw is set again, a faint frown. He steps aside so that Galahad can place the beetle into the jar. "I spoke with... him."

[onthewillowsthere]

Carefully, Galahad tips the rainbow-shimmering beetle into the jar, and then adds a few leaves of hemp dogbane from the pocket of his vest. He always collects a sample of the plant in which he found the insect.

He doesn't look up, intent on his task. "What happened?"

[lanselos_du_lac]

Lancelot takes a drink, watching Galahad's careful attention on the beetle. After another moment he says, "He was older-- older than I am. He spoke to me of how he came to be a king."

[onthewillowsthere]

His chin comes up sharply, before he looks down again to cap the jar. "A king?"

[lanselos_du_lac]

"Galahad," Lancelot says, his tone gentle in spite of the anger that still burns in his gaze. "Think carefully, before I say anything more. What he spoke of-- I am not sorry I heard it, but it sits ill."

[onthewillowsthere]

He's quiet for a moment. Whatever Lancelot heard has hurt him. But Galahad meant what he told Claudius -- that he is less afraid when he knows. And he doesn't quite understand what happened to make the person Lancelot talked to. He doesn't understand how he could have been older than Lancelot, or a king.

"I want to know."

[lanselos_du_lac]

Lancelot nods, glancing down again. He starts with, "He is a king because he and Percival attained the Grail."

[onthewillowsthere]

Galahad frowns. "That is not what God promised."

[lanselos_du_lac]

This is curious.

"Was it not?"

[onthewillowsthere]

He presses his lips together. "For a long time I wanted to die. I asked God to allow it once we had the Grail. He said He would."

[lanselos_du_lac]

Now that very long pause, after he had asked King Galahad whether he was happy, makes sense. Lancelot finds himself stifling the urge to throw his glass against the wall.

He looks down, sitting very still for a long moment, then takes another drink.

"I see," he says eventually. His voice is flat, deliberately even. "No-- he took the Grail to a kingdom known as Sarras. There, the folk had fallen to paganism. They converted when they saw the Cup of Christ. His reward was to rule over this peaceful kingdom. He has been at it, I think, for a long while."

[onthewillowsthere]

God mislead him.

Galahad looks down at the beetle in the jar, its shining iridescence. His anger at God, the licking flame of it, sometimes burns so low that he forgets it's still present until some breath of air revives it and the fire surges up again. He asked God for one thing in exchange for his faithful service -- he asked for death, and God promised to grant it.

He tries to imagine the person he would have become if he had attained the Grail and lived; the kind of person Lancelot met. He can't imagine it. He can barely remember what it was like to have felt so empty and hopeless.

He's ferociously glad to have come here. He's glad Claudius asked to kiss him. He's glad he asked Crowley to take his memories. He's glad he met Magnus and Shen Yuan, glad he learned to bake with Tress and Laertes, glad to have begun training with Lan Wangji. He's glad of the tattoo that burns like a holy sigil against his lower back. He's glad for the sex; he's glad that last night Claudius kissed open his thighs and took him in his mouth.

He's glad that the Grail no longer matters. He wants to live. He wouldn't ask God for any gifts now, least of all death. But it still makes him angry that God lied.

"I don't feel that way now."

[lanselos_du_lac]

Lancelot presses his fingers against his eyes for the space of a breath or two. (It is a strange relief that floods through him, hearing that Galahad does not wish to die -- that he would no longer ask God for death. He can't puzzle that out, not alongside everything else.)

He sits up again, takes up his glass. "That, I am glad to hear. I asked him if he was happy and he could not answer me. He said, though, that in his time, we all of us have-- lived out our purpose, I suppose." At this last, his tone turns bitter.

[onthewillowsthere]

His attention flicks sharply back to Lancelot. He can't tell what the change in tone was, exactly, but he can tell that it happened (he half-wishes Claudius were there too, to understand, and to translate that understanding with his own expressive eyes and mouth).

"What do you mean?"

[lanselos_du_lac]

"He told me of Elaine's death, and assured me she had filled God's purpose for her. He said this as if it should be a comfort to me." He takes a drink. "He spoke, too, of the fall of Camelot. Which is my doing."