[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.]}

Comments

[lanselos_du_lac]

Quietly, he says, "Yes-- that would be nice."

[ninth_cavalier]

Gideon puts down her whiskey, hops off the barstool, and opens her arms.

[lanselos_du_lac]

Lancelot stands and goes to her; at first, he hugs her carefully. (It is not that he thinks her fragile -- he knows she is not that -- but he means to be respectful, even if his urge is to cling, a little, to people he trusts.)

[ninth_cavalier]

Gideon immediately tightens the hug, because the main person she's hugged, kind of ever, has been Sagramore, who hugs like he's trying to squeeze the care he has for you through your skin and right into your bones. She won't hang on long if Lancelot doesn't, but she wants to be clear it's up to him to decide when they're done.

[lanselos_du_lac]

So Lancelot takes this as permission to tighten his own -- it's not Sagramore levels of squeeze, but his strength is in it. "My thanks to thee," he says quietly before he releases her and sits back.

[ninth_cavalier]

Gideon hops back up onto her barstool. "Yeah," she says. "Any, uh, any time."

[lanselos_du_lac]

Now that he's looking at her properly, though, something seems off. He squints a little, "Has someone struck thee?"

[ninth_cavalier]

"Oh," says Gideon, and reaches up to touch her cheek, where the swelling is clear when through the paint. "Uh. Yeah. Did you run into any of the other alternate versions of people?"

[lanselos_du_lac]

He gives her something of a wry look and says, "Aye. Susan."

[ninth_cavalier]

"Oh, that must've been weird," says Gideon. "Was she also, like, seven feet tall? Because that would be hot."

[lanselos_du_lac]

"I did not much like it," his brows drawing together. "She was a bit taller -- that was one of the first things I noticed -- but not seven feet tall. Why?"

[ninth_cavalier]

Gideon waves a hand. "Other Tally was seven feet tall," she says. Gestures at her eye again. "She's the one who, uh."

[lanselos_du_lac]

"What?" He seems genuinely alarmed, sitting up straighter, "Why?"

[ninth_cavalier]

"Pissed her off," says Gideon shortly. "On purpose. After she'd already low-key fucked me up trying to take my sword away." She sips her whiskey, makes a little self-deprecating face. "Not my smartest move, I'll admit."

[lanselos_du_lac]

He frowns, "Why would she try to take thy sword from thee?"

[ninth_cavalier]

Gideon's lips thin. "In her world, only 'Specials'—their word for cops—can carry weapons, because us uglies are too stupid and dangerous to be trusted with them."

[lanselos_du_lac]

"Uglies?" Lancelot looks a little baffled, but he waves a hand and asks instead, "Art thou well? Not badly hurt?"

[ninth_cavalier]

"Nah. I mean, the black eye is pretty impressive, under the paint, and I lost a tooth. And she got me in the side with her freaky nails, but that's just a scratch." She shakes her head ruefully. "It mainly sucks for, uh, other reasons." Lancelot knows she meets up with Tally after their morning sparring sessions; she doesn't know whether or not he knows it's for make-out purposes as well as self-defense ones, and she's not gonna ask.

[lanselos_du_lac]

"Lost a tooth? Christ!" He frowns. "She is thy friend. I can understand some of those other reasons. I am sorry."

[ninth_cavalier]

"The tooth is weird," Gideon admits. "Not losing it, that's happened plenty, but it staying gone. Back home my necromancer would just jam a spare bit of bone in there and alakazam, new tooth." She stares into her whiskey, but doesn't sip anymore--it's probably the half-glass she's had already that makes her say, "we're, uh, more than friends. Probably?"

[lanselos_du_lac]

Lancelot looks over, "Really? That makes it worse, yes. Gideon, I am sorry."

[ninth_cavalier]

Gideon shrugs. "It's okay. Like--it wasn't her. And she's here, so it won't be." Except, simultaneously, it was, and it will be, because she visited from somewhere. Man, fuck this interdimensional bullshit. "I hope your deal with the alternate Susan sucked less."

[lanselos_du_lac]

"Even so, it still hurts," he says, immediately. After a beat he ventures, "She did not punch me, though I suspect she is capable of doing so."

[ninth_cavalier]

Gideon gives him a look sympathetic look. "Doesn't mean it was a good time, though."

[lanselos_du_lac]

"No," with a little smile, "It could have been worse, but no. It was not a good time."