[closed post -- john 20:25]

[onthewillowsthere]

For the last few weeks, Galahad and Laertes have met regularly for baking. Most of the time Laertes only helps a little, which is no trouble to Galahad -- he works just as well on his own. Sometimes Laertes brings a book and reads in silence; sometimes he talks, about his and Sagramore's new puppy and how perfect she is, the most clever and beautiful creature in all the world, or about what he's learning, about alchemy (Galahad likes the differences in the way Claudius and Laertes talk about alchemy and what it's like to make distillations and tinctures) or about the cosmos and its order.

Galahad thinks idly how much he'd like to bring the record player into the kitchen for them, for the times they don't talk. After spending so much of his life without music, every new song is like a new taste, and he can lose hours to them, watching the spin of the records or sketching and listening.

He and Claudius have made a list together. When his mind isn't otherwise occupied he thinks of it, straying back to it like a snatch of song that keeps repeating -- of all the things he doesn't dare but wants to, the ways he could touch Claudius and be touched: all the fruit-sweet temptations that he's still too afraid to take from his beloved serpent, subtle and beguiling.

The list is both a comfort and a source of anxiety. In many ways he's glad of it; he likes knowing what Claudius likes. He likes having some frame for his imagination, he likes the orderly arrangement of things, he likes having time to roll all the possibilities around inside his mind like grains of sand turning to pearls. It's simpler to know what is and isn't permitted between them, or would be permitted if he could-- and there's the anxiety.

He's taking too long, he keeps thinking. Claudius loves sex; it's how he gets to know people. It's a language for him. And Galahad is mute, withholding still. All the things they could be learning in each other are closed to him, because he doesn't know to unlock the door of himself and let Claudius put his hand to the latch, dripping with myrrh or no.

He should trust Claudius -- he knows that. Claudius has accepted his ring, accepted his betrothal. And yet: Galahad is so inexperienced. He knows so much less of the world, so much less about people, so much less about everything but God (and he can't imagine Claudius is really enchanted by the idea of hearing Galahad speak on the heresy of adoptionism and the theologies of Peter Abélard). Sometimes in the mornings when he's caught between Matins and Prime and can't get out of bed, he thinks about how much better suited Laertes and Sagramore, with their warmth and brightness and spontaneity, are to keeping Claudius from loneliness and melancholy. Grantaire is so sweet and sad; Claudius says so all the time. Claudius has been open about his love for all three of them, and often Galahad can reason that of all the men Claudius loves it's Galahad he's chosen to live with. But sometimes it's hard; sometimes he feels too quiet, too inexpressive, too chaste. He's taking too long. He's too slow.

Usually he's attentive when he's baking with Laertes. He listens well -- he's good at listening. Today he can't stop thinking about the list and his slowness.

Galahad is folding browned butter into the madeleine batter when he realizes Laertes has asked him a question that he's missed entirely. He puts the saucepan down.

"What did you say?"

Comments

[onthewillowsthere]

"Gertrude said people hurt him because it pleased the king for him to be hurt."

[timebethine]

"I doubt it not. Mine own father was one of them--he sought to gain the king's favor, and bought it at the price of Claudius's pain."

[onthewillowsthere]

His back is very straight and his gaze is very serious -- but then, that's always true. Different here. Many friends. Many lovers.

[timebethine]

Many, many, many, Laertes signs. He chose you.

[onthewillowsthere]

A hesitation. He reaches up to touch the earrings that match Claudius' new ring, the opal-hearted roses. We-2 engaged.

[timebethine]

"What!" Naked delight breaks over Laertes's face. He doesn't quite know the engaged sign, but the context makes it clear enough. Happy happy happy!!! How long??

[onthewillowsthere]

Galahad flushes and looks down. Three weeks. "I thought he'd-- want to tell you first. I-- didn't want to take it--"

[timebethine]

"He'll want to do it properly," says Laertes. "To honor thee as thou deservest."

[onthewillowsthere]

Another hesitation, but as long as he's telling Laertes everything-- "We made a coat of arms. I want to make him a new signet ring."

[timebethine]

"Thou shouldst--I can help thee," says Laertes earnestly. "I made Sagramore's ring; I remember a little of the art."

[onthewillowsthere]

His eyes widen slightly, a subtle surprise and pleasure. It's impossible not to think of Gideon saying the magically-made things don't count; there would be immeasurable satisfaction in making the thing he wants to give Claudius. "Yes. Please."

[timebethine]

"Hast some skill art drawing, dost thou not?" Laertes offers his tattooed arm for Galahad's consideration. "Sagramore gave me these. Couldst give Claudius something like this--some mark of thy union to bear eternally."

[onthewillowsthere]

He's noticed Laertes' tattoos before -- they're meant to be noticed -- but they never particularly stirred him. Now Galahad feels a flush of heat reminiscent of the realization corsets could have a practical application on Claudius. He swallows against the flood of saliva in his mouth. Ye shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead, nor print any marks upon you.

"What do they mean?" he asks.

[timebethine]

"They mean that we share a family," says Laertes, and his smile grows softer, warm and infinitely tender. "We chose them together--the trees doubly crowned; the fenced-off pastures where horses and dogs might run. All our dreams for our marriage, writ small upon mine arm. Sagramore bears marks just like these upon his thigh. They mark us as each other's." Unconsciously, he trails his fingertips over the branching fir at his wrist.

[onthewillowsthere]

At once he feels ashamed at having had lustful thoughts. The marks are a covenant, a shared present and future. "The work is very beautiful," seriously.

[timebethine]

"Ay," says Laertes, with a spark of mischief in his eyes, "and they were a great pleasure to get."

[onthewillowsthere]

Galahad doesn't know Laertes' expressions well enough yet, and he hesitates. "What do you mean?"

[timebethine]

He hesitates--but they were speaking of sex, were they not? Perhaps this, too, is permitted? I like hurt, he signs, with a shy smile.

[onthewillowsthere]

It takes a moment, but when it clicks Galahad flushes in a flood of rose that disappears below his collar, even as he asks, with genuine curiosity, "Why?"

[timebethine]

Feels good, Laertes answers--the first answer easy, instinctive. But as he thinks more on it, he finds himself trying to wrap words around it, like forming clay onto an armature. "It means something different, to choose a pain and endure it," he says after a moment. "I like not the pains that come upon me suddenly. To smash my thumb with a hammer, or to dash my leg upon a table, pleases me not. But to bear my hurts for one I love ... it feels different. As though each strike or cut were purifying, like a lance of light that pierces any shadow. All else falls away, and I am glorified by it."

[onthewillowsthere]

Saint Paul said I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection, and so the church proscribed fasting and chains, and, to share in Christ's suffering, scourging with the discipline. Galahad had tried it, once, because he'd thought it couldn't be worse than the cilice, and he can still remember the way it felt to be whipped with God's strength. It was the most pain he has ever been in, and afterwards Percival curled around him in bed, careful to put no pressure on his back, and let him cry.

When Laertes describes the ritual of pain, it sounds like something beautiful, a mortification of the flesh that quickens instead of deadening. Galahad imagines him a saint, crossed with bloody lashes and crowned with a disc of light, holding the whip in his own hand as martyrs do with the instruments of their death. A patron of pain made pleasure for love's sake. It is glorious, and he wonders whether it would be wrong to try to draw him like that.

"I understand," he says.

[timebethine]

A small smile. "I know that most pains, Claudius likes not--but this one would be new to him. Perhaps he might be persuaded to try."

[onthewillowsthere]

"Thank you." A pause. Hurt lots? Or little?

[timebethine]

Little-- but he makes a stacking, additive gesture. More time, more hurt.

[onthewillowsthere]

He nods understanding again. He loves the idea of the marks, but he can't imagine Claudius or himself facing them as anything but a torment to be borne.