[semi-open post -- easter sunday]

[onthewillowsthere]

Christ is risen. He is risen, indeed. Alleluia.

Last night, Galahad kissed Claudius while he was reading and explained that he was going to keep the Easter Vigil, and Claudius tsked and fixed his collar, and then fixed his collar again, and then said Galahad should take a scarf -- he unfolded himself neatly from the bed, his dressing gown swirling about him, to take one of out of the closet. He knotted it around Galahad's neck, and kissed him, and then kissed him again, and then said in the morning they would have to eat something special to break the Lenten fast. Galahad knew he was worried, and he was grateful to Claudius for letting him go anyway.

Holy Week has been a crushing weight, hard in a way it's never been. Galahad doesn't know why, but he knows Claudius can tell; Claudius knows him better than anyone. Galahad has been reminding himself that it will change on Easter. That's what the miracle is about.

With no chapel to keep his vigil in, Galahad took the thick wax pillar he'd chosen for his Paschal Candle outside to the lake. He should have asked Magnus to come with him -- he knows that. Magnus wouldn't mind, and he would have kept Galahad warm, too, and been glad he'd been asked. But after his Good Friday vision, Galahad has felt so detached from his body that remembering to do anything outside of the strict soothing rituals of Holy Week is a struggle. He shivered through the night alone, thinking about the past Easter Vigils he and Percival kept in Camelot, huddled around their bonfire, laughing when they were supposed to be serious, knowing the priest was scowling at them.

The Lucernarium is supposed to be joyful, hopeful, but the hour for Matins ticks by -- Galahad checks his watch by starlight, because both moons are new, and there's hardly any light in the sky -- and dawn doesn't come. He reminds himself that it's because it's winter, and daylight takes a long time to break across the horizon.

By eight-thirty there's finally a hint of sunlight, wan and wobbly as Magnus in the greenhouse on Passion Sunday. Galahad's hands are so cold he can hardly feel them, and they shake on the matches, but he lights the Paschal Candle and cradles it against his chest as he goes back to the mansion.

In Camelot, he would have followed the procession into the church for the Lumen Christi. This morning he does it alone. When he gets to his chapel-room, he unveils his altar and sets the candle down, then lights the votives from it, until the room is bathed in weak candlelight. He sings the Exultet to himself, softly, both parts. There's no assembly to give it power.

Galahad knows the Liturgy of the Word by heart. He's always been able to remember written words with little study, especially when they're important to him. He can recite all seven scripture readings and all of the psalms and canticles, the Gospel of the Resurrection.

In Camelot -- he can't keep thinking in Camelot; it only makes him feel more lost, less tethered. But in Camelot, there would be baptisms after the Liturgy. Then all the congregation would renew their baptismal vows, and be sprinkled with holy water. Galahad would stay stone-still as water freckled his face, hating the sensation, and Percival would laugh at him, and surreptitiously dry it off with his sleeve when no one was watching. The priest would give the Eucharist, and it was Easter.

In Camelot, there would be a great feast. Percival would get a little drunk; Galahad would sometimes forget to break his fast slowly, in increments, would be giddy from small beer on an empty stomach, and Percival could make him helpless with laughter. The stone was rolled back from the tomb. Everything in the world had more color. Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again.

There's no Eucharist here. The Mass can't ever truly finish.

Galahad stays on his knees in front of the dresser-altar, watching the candles burn down, and waits to feel himself return to his body, but there's no return. He feels like a fish that can't be reeled in, thrashing in the stream. He feels like a threshed field. He feels like an empty tomb, with only the linens inside, because the Lord has been taken away, and he knows not where they have laid Him. He feels lost.

After hours of kneeling he manages to get up off the floor and slip into the bed, at least, but he doesn't manage to go any further. He's distantly aware that he's cold, that his head is aching with hunger, but those things are easy enough to ignore when he's so far from his body. He could be dead already.

When he was first restored to himself by the angel, he felt as though he were flour being ground under the weight of a millstone. It's an apt metaphor. He tries to remind himself that Claudius is waiting for him in their room, to end the fast together. He reminds himself that he is beloved, favored among men. There are good things ahead -- Easter heralds the beginning of a season of good things. But all he feels is tired and empty and spent.

[This post is open to people who already know galahad and might have a reason to know something is wrong]

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[onthewillowsthere]

He's silent, feeling out the ribbed knit of Claudius' cardigan. "I had a vision of Percival."

[wickedwit]

"What didst thou see?"

[onthewillowsthere]

"He met a woman and fell in love with her, but when he chose to lie with her he-- saw me. He crossed himself, and she was burnt up, because she wasn't real. She was a test. He failed it. He cut himself to punish his flesh."

Describing it to Claudius, he realizes: this was a warning for him. It makes the anger spark up inside him again. Was it only a warning? Did God test and punish Percival only to remind Galahad how close he is to sinning again? Was there no reason for it except to remind him to whom he belongs?

[wickedwit]

For Claudius, who reflects so often on relationships of power and reads the hidden currents by which control exerts itself, it's easy to interpret the vision as manipulation. Galahad, he knows, loves Percival like Christ. He sees in Percival the holiness to attain the Grail on his own, and believes Percival worthier of it, for having allowed followed God in his own way without God's whispers to guide him. Showing Percival fail a test of God -- a test God no doubt knew Percival would fail, but put on him regardless -- seems a petty ploy to shake Galahad's idolatry and warn him at once. Percival isn't good enough is the vicious implication. Only you are, and only if you do as I say, and don't make the same mistake.

God truly is like any other tyrant. Claudius presses Galahad close, and says, "That was a cruel vision."

[onthewillowsthere]

"I wish--" He almost says, I wish I had been there with him, but it's not quite the truth. The truth is that even though he doesn't think Percival would be happy here, even though he doesn't think it's a right future for him, he wishes Percival were here. He doesn't want an ultimatum between the things he's learned about himself here and being able to comfort Percival. He doesn't want to give up love or friendship -- he doesn't want to give up Claudius. He wants to be married. He wants to have sex. He wants to choose, to choose over and over again, every day.

He doesn't know why God is speaking to him again, in this way, instead of as a Voice in his head, but he doesn't want it.

"There were others," he says quietly. "He is calling me."

[wickedwit]

"Calling thee to return?" Claudius asks, as quiet.

[onthewillowsthere]

"I don't understand why. I've done more than Percival has. I'm not a virgin. I'm not pure." His tone isn't regretful but matter-of-fact: these are statements of truth.

[wickedwit]

After some hesitation, Claudius says, "God had a plan for thee. I say this not as some empty consolation, that thou shouldst trust in Him and bear it -- thou know'st I would not have thee bear it. But there are earthly fathers and mothers who become just as fixed upon the plans they have for their children. If thou wert a son of a noble house, thy lord and father might compel thee to obey by reminding thee ever of the realm thou wilt inherit of him, and of thy duties as a steward of the land. If thy heart went a way he did not approve, if thou hadst passions contrary to his plans for thee, if thou didst fall for someone he would not have thee wed for the sake of his alliances, he might threaten to disown thee and give thy shares to thy cousin. But that would be a choice for thee. Thou couldst choose to surrender thy birthright, choose to take thy fortune. Then the threat would lose its power, and such a lord would be forced either to accept the choice his son has made, or compel obedience some other way. He did not want thee to think leaving was a possibility. And though thou know'st thy cousin loves thy father well, thy father will still punish him to make a point to thee, to prove thy choice was ne'er a true one." Tone turning droll, he says, "I know 'tis blasphemy, to ascribe such venial motives to the Everlasting. But though thou wert not meant to rule it, thou wert still saddled at birth with the fate of a realm, where others could've held the reins. It is unfair to thee. It is unfair to thy Percival."

[onthewillowsthere]

He thinks of the story he told Lan Wangji, of Job, and how God allowed Satan to torment him to prove his loyalty -- or how He meant to destroy the good men in Sodom along with the wicked, and tried to hide it from Abraham, knowing he would protest. That be far from Thee to do after this manner, to slay the righteous with the wicked: and that the righteous should be as the wicked, that be far from Thee: Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right? God is cruel, when it suits Him.

Galahad knows very few people with good fathers. Not Percival, not Claudius, not Magnus, not Laertes, not even Sagramore (he's heard Claudius talk; he listens). Perhaps not even God can be a good father.

"Dost think He loved me? Or only made me for His use?"

He's not sure he truly wants the answer, though he also thinks he knows it.

[wickedwit]

Claudius smooths back Galahad's hair, which never truly lays flat, but he likes that. He likes that it's something he can cut and shape but that doesn't make it tame. "I think He does," he says, in sincerity. "I think thou canst choose whether His is a way thou want'st to be loved." Because it matters, he asks, "Dost thou love Him?"

[onthewillowsthere]

He's quiet for a long moment, feeling Claudius' hand in his hair, the gentle weight of it. "I think-- it's hard not to love someone who has always taken care of me. Even when I realize He's been hurting me. It's not the same kind of love any more, but-- it would matter to me if He regretted it. If that matters, then I think I must still care."

[wickedwit]

It's almost a shame, Claudius thinks, that Galahad has to be kindred spirits to him in this particular sorrow. It's that frustrated pain Galahad recognized in Claudius, the pain of wasting many years on waiting for an apology that wouldn't come. "I understand thee," he says, soft. "If thou can'st believe it. For all I hate the people who took care of me as a child ... it isn't a hate that precludes love. There were many times, I think, where I sincerely hoped someone say they knew they had hurt me, and regretted it. Even after that hope turned bitter, the hope of making them regret it ... I still cared a great deal."

[onthewillowsthere]

He meets Claudius' eyes again and nods. He can see that knowing pain again, in the way Claudius holds his body, in his gaze, in the softness of his voice and the pauses he leaves, in the hundreds of pages of cypher he's left for Galahad to study. When they sat together in front of the fountain, Galahad remembers thinking he knows what it is not to have been loved, and how it was that moment when he realized Claudius had something to give him that Percival couldn't.

He leans down, touching his forehead to Claudius', eyes closed.

[wickedwit]

Knowing the painfulness of that hope, Claudius can't deny it -- a part of him even shares it. If God were truly forgiving, then He would also be humble. All the same, he wishes he could guard Galahad from every vision, that he could stand at the door of the divinity and say your son doesn't want to hear from you, unless you're here to say sorry. He wants to cross his arms before the Almighty and archly ask, shall I take a message?

He closes his eyes across from Galahad's, mirroring him. He holds on to that moment of shared feeling.

[onthewillowsthere]

It's easier to bear than it would have been, even a few months ago -- the pain and despair of a perfect God's imperfect love isn't something he faces alone. Claudius understands, and that understanding is like a balm.

He sits quietly with the pain and the understanding. It's better than feeling nothing but despair. It draws him back to his body, and he finds his body something he can bear to inhabit again.

"I still choose thee," he says. "I choose thy love, not His. Thou art how I want to be loved."

[wickedwit]

And Claudius has felt so frail, so full of fear of loss, as if his skin might split and burst from it, like over-ripe fruit left to sit in the sun -- he could weep from this, he thinks. It would be the second time this Dark he's wept uncontrollably on a man he loves. He laughs, to keep the tears from coming. "Didst thou know how much I longed to hear thee say that? I did not, until thou hadst oped thy lips." Softer, he says, "I will cherish those words. As I cherish loving thee."

[onthewillowsthere]

"I didn't know how it felt before thee. To be cherished. Thou makest me feel it always. Thou-- I see how thou lookst at me, and-- how thou rememberest what I like. And how thou likest me as I am. I'm glad to be thy kindred soul. I'll always choose thee."

[wickedwit]

Claudius thinks of that silly liquor cabinet, and it makes him laugh again, less forced. He thinks of the intimate notes he'd made in his dossier, and it doesn't ache as much as he feared it would. He thinks of the shelves rearranged in his workshop, when he realized his instinct to keep his tools tucked away and hidden wasn't conducive to sharing them, or the way his partner's mind works.

It pleases him to pay attention to the people he loves, and use that knowledge for them, in little ways. When Gertrude didn't stop spending time with him in the garden, he started to plant bulbs for her, flowers that reminded her of home. But it never seemed like enough. "Dost know," he says, "I've always felt my love meant little. Like it was a poor and paltry gift compared to the love of a king or a god. But thou deserv'st to be cherished, and seeing thy desert ... the gifts I have feel richer. They're the jewels I'd have thee always adorned in. The ones whose shine suits the light of thine eyes."

[onthewillowsthere]

Galahad kisses him. It's not without heat, but that's not the point of it. He doesn't know how to say how much he loves Claudius in this moment, or how grateful he is, or how cherished he truly feels -- he wishes for a split-second that he had Laertes' gift for words, or Claudius' own, but that longing is quickly forgotten as he kisses Claudius' beloved mouth and drags his precious body close, as close as he can, as if he could truly make them one body just through the fierceness of his love. They don't need sex to be one flesh. He is already Claudius' in every way he can be; he is Claudius', and Claudius is his, to love and guard and comfort and listen and study and taste.

"Thou art the jewels," he says, when he finally draws back to let Claudius breathe. "Thy love is the adornment. I am clothed in thee."

[wickedwit]

Claudius's breath comes a little short, after that kissed. He feels claimed in a way that's deeper than flesh, a way that pulls on the core of him. "When I find jewels that suit thee," he says, smiling close flirting, "I want them to belong to thee. Wilt thou have me belong to thee?""

[onthewillowsthere]

"Yes. Thou art my betrothed. Thou art my bride. Thou art mine."

[wickedwit]

"Thy bride," Claudius repeats, a delighted flush creeping up his neck.

[onthewillowsthere]

Oh. He notices. He can't not notice; he's dedicated the greater part of his new life to it, to all these beautiful subtleties. "Yes," he says again, more firmly. He wants that flush to spread and deepen. "Thou saidst thou couldst imagine thyself the divine androgyne. I would have thee so."

[wickedwit]

Claudius shudders. If properly teased, he would admit he had certain dreams about his wedding day and wedding night would go, even if he was prepared for contingencies -- and still if he shudders, as though the idea were entirely new. "And thou wouldst take me so? Accept me, and -- enjoy me, as thy bride."

[onthewillowsthere]

"Yes," softly, still perfectly serious. He places his hand flat on Claudius' chest, over his heart. "I will take thee, and take pleasure of thee."