[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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[timebethine]

"I'm glad thou didst." The fruit goes in bowls on the table; the cheese wheels (still in their wax) go in a ceramic box with a lid that's very obviously of Laertes's own making. He lines up dried goods: flour and oats and barley and beans, peas and lentils and nuts. He's stolen a mortar and pestle on this expedition, and those take pride of place on the counter (lovingly sanded and oiled until it shines). "What happened, on thy hunt?"

[lanselos_du_lac]

He smiles a little, "We did not go far -- just far enough to feel we were away from court. We were only hunting small game, fowl, the sort of thing that doesn't take a hunting party and few hounds. We rode out, and once we were out of the castle town it was like a weight came off of Arthur. He has a way of... there is a light in him. It can be seen at court, now and again, but when he is allowed to be someone simple, to be only himself, it's as if a bright lamp has been unshuttered. We hunted, we laughed, we drank-- when he was here, that day, it was much the same. We could speak freely with one another, and he could be glad and... cease, in a way, to be king for a time. We took some small pheasants, had a very nice campfire meal. We spoke of things that did not matter, or we made jokes about things that did. There are very few people I have felt I could speak freely with, without worry of misstepping or being misunderstood. Before I came here, it was most often only Arthur or Bors."

[timebethine]

And that ease came to an end, when Lancelot began his affair with Guinevere--it must have weighed on all three of them, the pain of keeping a secret (of being a secret) from those who loved them best. Even Arthur, Laertes thinks, must have suffered; how much it would have ached for him, if he had seen Sagramore hiding an affair with someone that he, too, adored! "And Guinevere?" says Laertes as he hangs up the empty bags on their hook. "Tell me of the most joyous of thy days with her."

[lanselos_du_lac]

He moves to sit in one of the chairs, "In truth? Many of them were joyous with her." Lancelot gives a thoughtful pause. "If she was feeling well, if things were well, then any time one might spend with her was joyous. She was gentle and bright, much of the time. As I think on it now, it seems to me that at least her ladies knew of our love. I know others did, but-- she must have made an effort. We would go out riding, on good days. I had an excuse to be with her and her ladies, as I was the Queen's Champion. Often, on these days, we were eventually left to our own devices somewhere in the wood or the clearing."

A little pause. Then, after a long breath. "Laertes, she was beautiful. I cannot tell you how much. She and Arthur both were like a bolt in me. But even outside of that-- if she was happy, there was no way anyone could look at anything but her. She was so often joyful with me, that I cannot tell you of any particular time. I loved her. I loved making her look that way."

[timebethine]

Laertes comes over to him, and stands behind his chair to wrap his arms around Lancelot's shoulders. "I would thy days could have been spent hunting with him, and riding with her. I would thine could have been an ordinary love, and not ..." The long silence that follows encompasses the decades of intrigue and deception, the treason, wars both civil and foreign, and ultimately the loss of those Lancelot loved best in all the world.

[lanselos_du_lac]

Lancelot reaches up to set his hand over Laertes' wrists, and leans into him. "Aye," he says, quietly, "but-- now I am here, and I may have that sort of love with thee."

[timebethine]

"Careful," says Laertes, gently chiding. "Loving me means a hundred tasks. I might set thee to laying bricks, or helping me lay electrical wires from the mansion."

[lanselos_du_lac]

He twists a little, to kiss Laertes' jaw, "I was made for tasks. I mind that not at all."

[timebethine]

"A hundred tasks," says Laertes solemnly, and he kisses Lancelot's temple in turn. "We have fields to till ere spring is over, that we might plant in time to reap. A peasant's life is labor--but his heart is his to give where he will."

[lanselos_du_lac]

"I have seen folk tilling fields, but I've not done it myself. Thou'lt need to teach me."

[timebethine]

"Nor have I--I'll need to learn."

[lanselos_du_lac]

"Thou canst learn anything, I think."

[timebethine]

"As canst thou. As can anyone."

[lanselos_du_lac]

"Oh, perhaps." He smiles at Laertes. "Give me a task now."

[timebethine]

"A great task? Or a little one?" He molds his hands to Lancelot's chest, then, and lets them wander down. "Or one to rouse thy blood?"

[lanselos_du_lac]

Briefly, he lets his hands cover Laertes', squeezing gently. But in truth he is still a little too unsettled; that feeling of adriftness has eased, but not left him. He would rather not be both adrift and amorous. Not today.

At last he says, "Can... can I help thee prepare a meal? For the both of thee?"

[timebethine]

"For the three of us, since thou wilt be staying--certainly." Then, kissing Lancelot's temple, Laertes goes to examine his supplies. "We could make a stew," he says, "and bread to go with it. They can bake together in the oven."

[lanselos_du_lac]

Lancelot has a little pang at the realization that he had excluded himself from dinner, but he says gamely, "That would be well. I am good at chopping things as instructed."

[timebethine]

"Excellent. Let's see what there is to be had--ham and split pea, perhaps? We have some cured ham that would do well in a soup." Laertes starts taking out down ingredients from their shelves and hanging baskets: onions and celery and garlic, a big jar of split peas, what's left of the cured ham (still on the bone). "Wilt thou cut up the onions and celery very fine?" says Laertes, passing Lancelot one of the cutting boards. Unlike the furniture, the cutting boards have very clearly been liberated from one of the mansion's kitchens, along with two good kitchen knives. Laertes passes the bigger of the two over to Lancelot.

[lanselos_du_lac]

"I will," taking the knife and giving Laertes a grateful smile. He moves to set up his little station, and gets started, happy for something concrete to focus on.

[timebethine]

For a while, then, there's only the solid, repetitive thunk of knives on cutting boards, and the easiness of scooping vegetables and ham into mise-en-place bowls. "Sagramore and I made this sink," says Laertes, as he's putting his cutting board and knife into it. "We hammered it over a frame until it made a bowl, and then we cut a hole at the bottom and attached a drain to it. Sagramore's done all the plumbing in the house--it's very cunning work." Warmth and pride shine through in his voice.

[lanselos_du_lac]

"How is it thou dost know what to do? How to fashion it? We have nothing like this at court."

[timebethine]

"He has a book--hold a moment--" Laertes goes to the bookshelf in the living room (one of Susan's contributions) and fetches a much-bookmarked copy of Everything You Need to Know about Indoor Plumbing. "He's become a great reader, now that he has his spectacles."

[lanselos_du_lac]

Lancelot shakes his head as he flips through the book. "It is one thing for such magic to exist at the mansion, but to build it himself!"

[timebethine]

"Nay, it's science, not magic--pressure, and gravity, and sealants, and insulation." A pause. He can feel what Claudius calls an infodump coming on. "Hast thou the idea of gravity? It was new to me."