milliways_bar | (no subject)

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There was a ringing in his ears, a hum of voices and the occasional shout that reminded him of the battlefield he had left...

...but it had been night, then.

Galahad opened his eyes and looked around, hand straying nervously to a sword that wasn't there, oh, yes, that had fallen into the grass after he had heard that Mordred -

Mordred

His eyes didn't get much further than that.

[OOC: Must be what, the tenth new character tonight? Veritable explosion of us, it seems.]

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After receiving the asked for vodka, Mordred drunk it all quickly and idly turned around. The small glass shattered on the floor, but Mordred was too busy-

choking gasping for breath needtobreatheneedtobreathecan'tbreathe it hurt and He was still alive fuck youkilledhim finally needto breathegalahadsorrysorrylove you

I really did love you,

"Galahad?"

He stared for a long moment, and then sprung into action, running across the room and...

...held Galahad at arms-length.

"What are you doing here? You'd...you'd have to be dead to be here, and you can't be dead...who killed you?"

"I..."

He tried to speak around a dry mouth and choking disbelief, and failed. Swallowed, licked his lips, forced an answer, long habits of obedience pushing the words out in a dull whisper.

"No-one."

He frowned at that, tilting his head like a cat. Lifting a hand from Galahad's arm, he gently strokes Galahad's cheek. Solongsolong...

"Then why are you here?"

For a second he stands there silently, almost trembling, knowing better than to try and move.

"I don't know where I am."

Not an answer, but please God let it be enough...

"Milliways- where that is..." A faint shrug, but not enough for his golden eyes to move from Galahad's face. He leans close, and kisses him gently before straightening again.

"Why are you here?"

Too much, too much, soft kisses in place of hard. He breaks free despite himself and stumbles backwards, hugging his arms."

"I don't know, my lord..."

Automatic honorific in a place as public as this.

"There was the battle, and then there was night. And then -" He breaks off, knowing that his eyes are saying too much.

Stares at him, for a moment looking uncertain. Then his cool mask came back. And went again. He had always been good at reading eyes.

"You didn't."

He whispers, too scared now to remember lords and loves and anything but the guilt.

"Please, Mordred..."

"Shit."

He looks away from Galahad, running a hand through his black hair. Looking back, he catches sight of an absence that makes him stop and go horribly still.

"The collar...where is it?"

"What?"

His hands fly to his throat automatically, and the guilt on his face increases tenfold.

"Oh, God. Mordred, I -"

The former prince reacts without thinking, his hand flying up to slap Galahad across the mouth.

Hard.

"What happened to it?" His soft voice is now very, very icy.

The best fighter in Christendom takes the blow without thought and without making a sound. He stares fixedly at the floor.

"I'm sorry, my lord. I took it off."

"Why?"

"Fuck it, Mordred, you were dead!" he bursts out, without thinking.

chockingdyinggaspingneedairbloodmixingwithdirt...

He reacts as if Galahad had hit him- taking a step back, looking shaken, but his voice is normal pitch.

"That doesn't mean you can kill yourself!" The tone, however, isn't.

"I didn't, I...it wasn't like that, Mordred, they told me just before nightfall and I..."

He trails off uncertainly, knowing that it's far more than it sounds.

"I just went to sleep."

Softly, and in another person it might sound as if Mordred was speaking as though Galahad was a very foolish child. It might not sound like it, but it was the exact same thing.

"After a battle. Away from warmth and those who might wake you up." Battle shock

"Yes."

He steps up to Galahad quickly and draw him in, one hand holding the back of his neck, holding him still.

"Idiot." And then Mordred was kissing him- hard.

Galahad's legs almost buckled in relief and the familiar, heart-wrenchingly painful sense of possession and love. His hands shook as they locked onto Mordred's arms, pressing into the flesh as if trying to reassure himself that this was no ghost, no figment of his despair.

His arm curls around Galahad's back as his weight shifts- it wouldn't do for them to go spilling to the floor, no matter how much things might progress from there.

"So long." A murmer against Galahad's lips, and then his jaw and his neck. "Missed this so much."

Galahad du Lac is sharp, no matter how heady it is to be back where he belongs, to be owned. He pulls back, running his fingers uneasily over the unfamiliar fabric covering Mordred's arms, taking in the strange outfit properly for the first time, dread rising in his face.

He sighs and leans forward, resting his forehead against the Pendragon's shoulder.

"How long was it, Mordred?"

[ooc: And this is me, disappearing. Cya in roughly 90 minutes]

Bends his head forwards, kissing Galahad's hair before answering. He was here, he was back...

"1500 years, or there abouts. The scholars' were never that good with dates."

[OOC: Righto. Leave me wincing at my hideously erratic sense of verb tense. I must be sicker than I thought.]

Galahad chokes and gasps at the same time, shaking against Mordred's shoulder, trying to calm the crazy urge to fall down and laugh himself breathless.

"Fifteen hundred years? And you..."

He takes deep breaths, not letting go of the other man's arms. His voice is wavering on the same edge of hysteria.

"You remembered the collar, Mordred? You still wanted...still want..."

[ooc: Sneaking on between dinner and tutre. It's not that bad, I haven't been noticing. Then again, that might not be that reassuring...*hugs*]

Had this been a normal interaction between the two, Mordred might have told him to calm down. Or just let him laugh- it was hard to tell with him. But now, the hysteria links to his own and he has to bite down hard on his cheek to keep it down.

chokingdyingloveyou

"You to wear it? I do not see why death should change the circumstances." Mordred's tone is mild, civil, and faintly surprised that Galahad is making such a fuss.

"That's not precisely what I meant..."

His breathing evens out and he meets Mordred's eyes with a slow, painful kind of smile.

"Fifteen hundred years is a long time to hold onto the memory of a plaything, my lord."

Softly, as if he is afraid that Galahad will be gone once more, Mordred speaks.

"Is that what you are, Galahad?"

- listen, 'Ala -

He blocks the memory before it can fully take shape, his smile turning brittle.

"Aren't I?"

He has always hated that brittle smile of Galahad's, and kisses him swiftly to get rid of it.

"Do you know what I remember most about living, Galahad?" His lips are speaking near his ear, his breath purposefully cold. "I remember dying, gapsing for air, and seeing your face in a dark haze. I ask you again, pretty one...are you?"

"All that there was in your life, and you remember dying the most clearly."

He laughs shakily, bringing a hand to his mouth, not thinking about the question.

Can't have been worth much if all he remembers is leaving you, the dark voice whispers, the one that sounds horribly like his father.

"That's wrong, Mordred. That's...me. Not you."

"There were only 19 years." Not a trace of bitterness there. None whatsoever.

He observes Galahad's shaky laughter almost clinically before a faint smile curved his lips. It wasn't that nice.

"What do you mean by that?"

"I'm the morbid one. I'm the one whose head doesn't work right, if you believe court gossip."

Galahad's mouth twists sardonically, the darkness spreading across his mind and his heart like a mail shirt that is far too heavy.

"But perhaps you're right. What was there in those nineteen years to remember?"

"I have never believed them," Mordred starts to say before Galahad's next words make his breath catch. Ghosts don't have breaths, nor hearts...didn't stop it from hurting though.

Framming Galahad's face in his hands, Mordred bends his head close.
"Listen, Ala, I really do love you." He says the words, but in his mind they are echoed by his voice all that time ago, confusing the tense so for a moment he doesn't remember if he said 'do' or 'did'.

"No..."

Something akin to panic rises in Galahad's chest and he'd pull away if he was able to remember how to make his legs work.

"I can't believe it. I couldn't," he corrects himself absently. "That was the only way I could live, Mordred. You can't just throw something like that on me when...when..."

And now he does pull back, arms thrown out in a wild gesture for understanding.

"When all I'd ever had from you was everything but. And then to leave me with those words and fucking go and get killed..."

Dangerous, this much anger. But darkness swirls around his mind and he staggers, not caring any more if Mordred hits him or disowns him or hates him, because it's his fault, always his fault...

Blind fingers reach for a collar and a pendant that isn't there.

It doesn't matter that the collar isn't there anymore, that gesture could hardly be interpreted in any other way.

"Stop." Soft voice still, but not icy. He reaches out and takes Galahad's fingers in his own, forcing them away from Galahad's neck.

"We're dead now, Galahad." His turn for shaky laughter. "Would you have rather that I never told you?"

Galahad stops, instantly, holding onto the quiet command and Mordred's warm fingers as the only constants in this cloud of confusion. Obeying is easy. He's used to it.

"I...don't know." Helplessly. He looks up, wilting in relief at the lack of anger in the golden eyes, and his fingers press Mordred's nervously.

"Depends on whether or not I can believe it, I suppose."

His fingers curl around Galahad's- comforting, yes, but only in their warmth and possession. Anything else, and Galahad would have flown apart again.

"Do you?"

Galahad can't quite find the words, so he doesn't even try and use any. He keeps tight hold of the Pendragon's fingers and leans against his shoulder, exhausted now that the darkness has passed.

It's too much to think about, right now, whether Mordred is telling the truth. He's safe - he's dead, Christ in heaven, he still hasn't quite adjusted to that idea - and he has the person that he loves back again. That'll do for now.

Mordred is faintly grateful that Galahad doesn't answer, and just wraps one arm around him. He doesn't know how he would answer if Galahad had answered- there was a reason he told him and then bolted, knowing full well he was going to die.

"Come on, pretty one...I'll find you a bed." Walks them over to the bar, and Mordred on a whim asks for a room. Looking mildly surprised when a key appeared in his hand, he helped Galahad up the steps and to their room.

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