[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

[quote_gentle_unquote]

She wraps her arms around him, too. "It hasn't happened," she murmurs, kissing his temple. "In your Camelot. It hasn't happened yet. It mightn't ever happen."

[lanselos_du_lac]

Lancelot takes another long breath. Muffled, he says, "That is true. I am here."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"You're here," she agrees. "And it's not all on you, Lancelot. I'll tell you the same thing I told Laertes when he learned of his sister: we oughtn't act as if the beats of stories told about us are foregone conclusions. Words on a page are no promise, sweetheart, and words from a man who is such a divergence from any story told of you are even less so."

[lanselos_du_lac]

He sits back a little, reaching up to brush her cheek. He is not weeping, but his eyes are bright. "It feels, when I think of it, as if it is inevitable. I cannot make sense of the fact that Galahad and Sagramore know me, know things I have done, but I have not done them. I try not to think of it, to focus on what I have-- what I love, here. Thee. But what if this place should release me?"

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"Then I shall box its ears," Susan says, immediately. She kisses his cheek, then the tip of his nose, then the little line right between his eyebrows. "And bully it until it gives me a way to follow you. And if need be, you shall make different choices, because you are a different man. Sagramore and Galahad both knew a Lancelot who wasn't given any opportunities to heal, did they not? And they both like you as you are now, do they not?"

[lanselos_du_lac]

"That is true. And they do." There's a little pause. "I am different. I know this place, and the people in it, have changed me. And if I also had thee," his expression softens, "I do think it would be easier."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"I suppose I might refrain from fighting everyone myself if you asked me very nicely."

[lanselos_du_lac]

At this, he does smile. "I would never think to tell thee what to do. I trust in thy good judgment."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

She kisses that smile. "I know it's jolly difficult," she says, "and more easily said than done, but I wouldn't take any of this to heart. What King Galahad said... any of it."

[lanselos_du_lac]

Lancelot brushes back a wisp of her hair, "I shall try not to."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"Very good." She cups his cheek with one hand, thumb stroking lightly. "Sweet man. This is not your cross to bear."

[lanselos_du_lac]

"I suppose not, but I feel it," quietly. "It matters. It was important. They were the center of everything."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"Of course it was," she murmurs. "But things were well with Arthur when he visited, yes? There hadn't been any rumblings of disaster. Hold to the facts you know."

[lanselos_du_lac]

"Aye, aye that is sensible."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

She moves her hand from his cheek, stroking it over his hair.

[lanselos_du_lac]

"I love thee," quietly.

[quote_gentle_unquote]

Susan kisses him then, soft and light but with a great deal of feeling behind it. "And I, you," she says. "Ever so much. I do hope there being an - an alternate Susan didn't make things worse for you."

[lanselos_du_lac]

Lancelot settles a hand at her hip, "It did not do me much good, but thou'rt back with me. I had faith in thee."

He doesn't much want to admit that he had been bracing himself to have this place make a different decision.

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"I'm here," she says, "and I'm jolly cross that this happened to you again."

[lanselos_du_lac]

He gives her a little smile, deep affection in his gaze.

He wants to tell her how good she is, how everything seems manageable in their shared space, with her so close. He also would like to be done with thinking.

"Wilt drink with me a little more? Speak of other things?"

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"Of course," kissing his cheek again and leaning over to retrieve the bottle. She doesn't ask if they've got through enough of his list - the question is sign enough. She'll remind him in the morning that they can continue discussing whatever he needs, whenever he should like. "Straight from the bottle, or shall I get up and fetch us glasses?"

[lanselos_du_lac]

"Why ought we be civilized? From the bottle, so that thou hast no need to leave my lap."

What is left on the list is Gwen and Lancelot himself -- leaving off, after all they've already discussed, feels like a blessing.

[quote_gentle_unquote]

Susan opens the bottle, takes a swig, and passes it to Lancelot. "Do you suppose we ought to get some plants in here?" she asks, slipping an arm around his shoulders and leaning against him. "Or might Regina find them too much of a temptation?"