[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

[ninth_cavalier]

"I want to talk to it more. I think. I got kind of freaked out last time when it started talking about wanting to kill God, but, uh." She gives him an amused look. "I'm a little more willing to hear it out than I used to be, maybe."

[lanselos_du_lac]

Lancelot smiles at her, fond and even a little grateful. "Maybe?"

[ninth_cavalier]

"Well, it wants to kill my God, and I'm not really clear on whether that's the same guy as your God, so I don't know how long His list of crimes is."

[lanselos_du_lac]

"I am sure I cannot give thee a full accounting. He has had thousands of years, and I know only what I've been told."

[ninth_cavalier]

"Nah, the ones I know about are enough. I meant, like. Do I blame my asshole God for your asshole God's bullshit, or just His own, like, post-Resurrection?"

[lanselos_du_lac]

"Theology is not my strong suit," wryly. "Would thy God know of the God of my world and time?"

[ninth_cavalier]

"Aziraphale thinks they're the same God," says Gideon. "He thinks I'm from the same world as you, just way in the future and on Pluto rather than Earth."

[lanselos_du_lac]

Lancelot frowns faintly -- he doesn't know Aziraphale well, but he does suppose Aziraphale is most likely to have some kind of actual knowledge about this. "In that case," thoughtfully, "I am confused."

[ninth_cavalier]

Gideon laughs. "Yeah?"

[lanselos_du_lac]

"Well, I know of no way to kill God. Or even to see Him, should He not appear to one of His own will. Thou dost seem to think it possible."

[ninth_cavalier]

"Yeah. My God lives on a spaceship—uh, like a boat? In the space between stars? Which probably sounds about as abstract as whatever yours has going on, but it's real thing. I took one myself. And He sent us a note. So there's ways of, like, getting to Him."

[lanselos_du_lac]

"I know of no one who has seen God. I do know some who have heard Him. If a space ship is Heaven, then perhaps they are the same? Or-- it is unknowable." He frowns a little, puzzling it out, then asks, "What is a space ship like? Like unto a regular boat?"

[ninth_cavalier]

Gideon laughs. "I dunno. I've never been on a boat."

[lanselos_du_lac]

"Oh! Well, we can correct that."

[ninth_cavalier]

Gideon leans back in her barstool and then remembers that's not a thing you can do, catching herself with a hand on the bar. "Probably not tonight."

[lanselos_du_lac]

"No, no-- I'm in no condition to man it and besides which, I don't know how. But Laertes built one."

[ninth_cavalier]

Gideon huffs. "Of course he did."

[lanselos_du_lac]

"What?" With a bemused look, "Dost not like Laertes?"

[ninth_cavalier]

Gideon makes a face. "I like him fine," which is mostly true—Laertes doesn't like her,¹ but that's not what Lancelot asked. "It's just everything around here always seems to lead back to him somehow."

¹?

[lanselos_du_lac]

His smile turns wry, but soft, which is unusual on him. "Laertes has his hand in many things, that is true," he sips his drink, then goes on. "He has a passion to learn and make. I can understand thy point."

Lancelot pauses, as if considering something, but takes another drink rather than go on.

[ninth_cavalier]

Gideon doesn't have another drink to take, and shouldn't get one. It's getting late, and they've been talking a long time; usually she'd take this opportunity to excuse herself. But she'd moved her mattress off her bed into Tally's room, and she doesn't relish the thought of either moving it back, sleeping in there without her, or crashing in some random unclaimed room on a bare mattress without even her tiny modicum of personal stuff. So she waits, running her fingertips over the top of the bar, to see if he's going to add anything else.

[lanselos_du_lac]

"He and I are close," he eventually says. "I think he would like thee well."

Lancelot gives himself a little shake, then turns to her. "Art well enough? Have I given thee too much whiskey?"

[ninth_cavalier]

"Nah, I'm good." She's not gonna be addressing the Laertes thing. "I should try to sleep, though, probably."

[lanselos_du_lac]

"Aye, it's growing late." He drains the last of his drink and then says, a little more quietly, "I thank thee, Gideon. Thou'rt a good friend, and I'm glad of thee."

[ninth_cavalier]

"I—yeah. You too." Gideon rubs the back of her neck, shooting him a sideways smile. "Thanks for the drink."