On the willows there, we hung up our lyres

When he was Laurel, he used to conduct experiments all the time. He liked listening to Claudius talk about the very idea of experimenting, of creating a hypothesis and gathering the tools to test it; Claudius was more scientifically-minded about it and kept a log of his own findings, but Laurel made no more record than telling him every night about what things he had been able to get the many cupboards and cabinets and closets of the mansion to produce by what combination of thought and intent.

Galahad doesn't remember that well. He remembers the scarf Laurel chose for Claudius, after all the time he spent reading about clothes and considering what would look fashionable and fine on him. He remembers wrapping it in tissue paper and nestling it into the drawer with Claudius' dossier to give to him later. And of course he remembers seeing Claudius wear it, the day he found him in the garden with the spray of myrtle, and how it made him believe it was possible that Claudius still loved him and would want him back again. It made him think of Camelot, of seeing knights and ladies wear each other's tokens and colors, of seeing his own father in the lists with the queen's favor before he unhorsed all the other men who rode against him with bone-jarring strikes and falls (Galahad always sat out tourneys in his home court -- mere frivolity, God said -- though when he quested he was sometimes told to prove his strength and God's power in such games. Regardless, he only ever wore his red cross). For a moment, now, his mind strays to Claudius' bare neck, and how the white silk would look against his skin, how it would feel-- stop.

The point is he has an experiment to make now. His own experiment, not Laurel's.

He's sitting in the most public place he could think of, the front entrance by the welcome table, with a notebook and two small closed boxes. He's placed a chair for himself and his back is perfectly straight, but he's working hard to project an air of come talk to me. It's a welcome respite from trying to write a love letter.

It's a cold, clear day, and the sun streaming through the glass of the greenhouse makes it warm enough even for Galahad, as long as he wears a sweater; Magnus, meanwhile, is fine as he is. They've been arranging everything all afternoon, clearing off the long worktable by moving potted plants to the shelves along the walls or fitting them into the middle like a kind of centerpiece. There's a stack of plates and forks at one end, along with napkins and cups. There are also scorecards, with three-by-three grids, neatly labelled CAKE.

This is because, ultimately, they end up with all nine kinds of cake from Galahad's list (they run out of time to taste test in the handful of days between Ephiphany and the party, and Galahad suggests just making all nine as a group project with Laertes and Tress, especially since two of the entries on the list are cakes Laertes told them about in the first place. The absurd indulgence of having one cake, let alone nine, is the kind of sensuality Galahad wants to take for himself here. There's no reason not to. The day before and morning of the party are a wild flurry of baking, but it turns out Magnus and Laertes and Tress are a good mixture of people. Having Magnus there eases Galahad's awkwardness, and Tress and Laertes are both excited to be trying so many new recipes, and Galahad hardly has to talk at all -- he just has to be around people he likes. The kitchen smells wonderful, like chocolate and green tea and browned butter, ginger and cinnamon and cloves. It's hard to imagine the party itself being better). The cakes are laid out on the table with sprays of fresh flowers Magnus grew and little notecards to identify them, which Galahad lettered himself: Chocolate, Yellow, Almond, Sachertorte, Funfetti. Carrot, Strawberry Matcha, Brunsviger, Ice Cream. 

There are several pitchers of Mountain Dew, cherry Coke, and root beer (neither Magnus nor Galahad actually like alcoholic drinks very much). There's also a fancy bowl and a pitcher of milk intended for Mothwing, and a dish full of delicately flaked fish -- these are all cordoned off in their own little area of the table with a sign in Magnus' block capitals: TWOLEGS BACK OFF.

Magnus tapes blue and pink and green crepe paper around the door of the greenhouse, and uses his einherji jump to get up to the ceiling glass to hang the big paper stars Galahad folded and cut using a book from the library.

Galahad brings out and sets up an extra table for gifts -- it must be said that he somewhat misunderstood what Magnus meant about birthday gifts, and although it's taken him the better part of two weeks he has prepared a gift for every person they invited in addition to Magnus himself, all of which are wrapped and labelled and set on the table in question. All, that is, except the plate of Belgian waffles for Nina, which are on the table with their own notecard and a bowl of chilled whipped cream. When Magnus notices, he quickly encourages a random assortment of eleven greenhouse plants to grow their own flowers and adds them to each gift -- more flowers are always good! Especially this time of year(?? the mansion calendar is weird, but it's obviously winter).

Drosera is playing with an empty plant pot under one of the shelves, grabbing the plastic rim in her bill and shaking it as if it were a mouse she meant to kill. The sound of her paws and talons scrabbling on the ground is audible, as are her squeaky growls. She has a crepe paper bow stuck to her head, courtesy of Magnus, which doesn't seem to bother her at all.

Galahad listens to the noises and rubs his watchband. Now that guests are a few minutes from arriving, he's begun to feel anxious. It's one thing to be around one or two people at a time, or even their baking foursome -- twelve reminds him of the dance, or of feast days at Camelot, and he's worried Gu Xiang is going to be disappointed when she actually meets him, and he's worried he won't be able to understand people again, and he's worried that Claudius will think him childish for wanting this, and he's worried--

Magnus appears beside him and takes his hand, winding their fingers together and sending a pulse of summer into Galahad's body. It doesn't burn off the worries, but it makes them recede, like floodwaters, and Galahad squeezes Magnus' hand.

It's time.

The day after the dance, Galahad stays in his room the whole day. He needs the silence. He reads, and sleeps -- he feels exhausted, as if all the noise and effort of being present had drained his strength in a way no battle ever has -- and lets himself be still, and say nothing that he doesn't sign. Claudius is gentle with him, and sits beside him stroking his hair and telling him all the people he spoke to and danced with and the absolute disaster of Crowley and Aziraphale, who should never should have been left to their own devices, but he'd thought he could take his eyes off them for at least a moment--

He loves listening to Claudius complain. He loves listening to everything Claudius has to say, even when he doesn't care about the content almost at all.

The next day he feels better again, and so he goes out to Magnus' camp at Sext with his bag full of lunch and a few books, somewhat ashamed at having missed a day. He's back to his normal clothes, but he's still wearing the bracelets and earrings; he likes the way they feel, the way he can touch them.

After Galahad has finished sketching Alex and before he runs into Reynaldo, he stops at the lake.

He's so cold. There was a frost this morning before warmer air came in and caused the bank of fog to rise up from the lawn and cover the lake, and even in the long coat he's been wearing his hands get cold enough to hurt.

He can't stop thinking about Gertrude, with her kind eyes and quiet voice, the way she so easily made room for him, the way she said good when he said he loved Claudius. He has her portrait in his sketchbook; he won't forget her face that way.

For a few moments he stands in the slanting sunlight, and then he sits, near where he and Magnus were sitting the day Magnus told him he could talk to birds. The ground is cold too. He should compare it, he thinks, to something Biblical -- he should imagine a cold morning when a prophet waited for some sign, Amos with his sheep and fig trees. I was no prophet, neither was I a prophet's son; but I was an herdsman, and a gatherer of sycamore fruit But Amos had faith. Galahad's millstone feels huge again, crushing him into the muddy bank, and he has no faith at all.

He wants to go back to his room -- their room -- and be quiet by himself, until the despair becomes more manageable, but he doesn't know any more whether it's theirs. He doesn't know what Claudius will want. And having been beloved once, he doesn't know how to go back to before; the thought of not being looked at the way Claudius looks at him opens a cavernous sinkhole in his body, swallowing him from inside out.

He misses Percival. He misses Percival so much.

He misses when everything was hard in the way he knew. He misses Percival's warmth at his back, the soft sound of his breathing while he slept, the sun catching in his red-gold hair, the roe deer lying down at his feet, the ease of his laugh. He misses how Percival didn't even need him to talk to know what he meant. He misses knowing they'd be together until Galahad died, a simple straight line drawn into the horizon.

He draws his knees up to his chest and puts his head down and feels the sun on his too-long hair.

Throughout Advent, Claudius will regularly find a folded note tucked into his pocket of his jacket or pants, though the content varies:

One day it's a verse from Proverbs in Galahad's neat Latin, let thine heart keep my commandments.

One day it's a careful sketch of Galahad's own throat, done in the mirror: the line of his jaw, the delicate swell of his Adam's apple, the hollows at the base and where his shoulders meet with the column of his neck.

One day it's just a reminder, thou art good, and thou art mine.

They take time -- Galahad isn't clever with words even when he can speak easily; he doesn't have the wit for quips or banter. His sexts are deliberate, things he labors over until he thinks Claudius will understand the meaning and not mistake him.

He's crafted a wreath of balsam and cedar for his candles, but he keeps it in Damien's old room, where he cuddled with Magnus after his faint. Claudius, he knows, is ill at ease with God -- that phrase doesn't capture the whole of it, but it's the simplest way to describe something that even Galahad hasn't heard every particular of. Another thing that Claudius has shielded him from, as if in deference to what he was. Galahad tries to do him the same courtesy, and so the Advent wreath stays out of their shared space.

He doesn't talk about his fast, but Claudius notices anyway, which he had expected. Claudius notices every change in him. He begins taking a meal with Galahad in the late afternoon which Galahad is certain he conjures entirely from the refrigerator (he doesn't cook, like Laertes does), but which he also knows is far more complete than what Claudius would eat alone. They eat at table, across from one another, and Claudius takes so long that everything on his plate goes cold, because he keeps stopping to tell Galahad about things.

Claudius has always seemed formidable to him, but after the attack by the walking corpses Galahad has begun to understand two things that are sides of each other, like a coin or a host: Claudius is formidable, and Claudius is also vulnerable.

Some fragments of Claudius' expressions and inflections have started to become readable to him. It reminds him of learning Latin as a child, and the pleasure of recognition when a word resolved and began to mean something over and over. Claudius is like that, and Galahad realizes that Percival must have been a mystery to him once too, so long ago that he doesn't remember it; he must have stared at Percival's smiles once and longed to understand exactly what they meant, and yet by the time they were parted he knew every subtlety. Someday he might understand Claudius that well too. He's already worked out that sometimes when Claudius speaks highly of one of his friends there's something doubtful in it: Claudius doesn't know whether his respect is matched, and he wants it to be. He wants the people he esteems to esteem him.

Claudius speaks about himself as though he's very proud, and he is proud, but he also cares very little for himself. He stays awake late into the night and only sleeps a few hours; he rotates a thousand ideas at the same time and sometimes they strain the seams of his mind like an overfilled sack of grain. He doesn't eat properly. He can be airy and full of energy, eager to start every new venture, and then suddenly weary of everything. Galahad's despair is transparent (it feels simple: most of the time, he wishes everything would stop). Claudius is subtle, ever-changing, but sometimes Galahad looks at him and feels as if he's looking at his mirror. Sometimes he feels helpless in the face of it.

But among all the gifts Claudius has given him, there's one that is of immeasurable worth: Command me and care for me and keep me as thine own.

Commands are easy. He only has to pay attention, and he's always paying attention to Claudius.

So he says, "Come here," when he wants Claudius to go to bed, and cozies into his arms, letting Claudius hold him. "Drink," when he wants Claudius to take water, and "Eat," if he brings him food. He can order him into the bath, or order him to hold out his hands for lotion, or order him to stop and be cared for -- and it's always a fearsome joy in him to hold that power and know that Claudius has given it to him. He should be afraid of it, he thinks, but he isn't. I am the supreme and fiery force who sets all living sparks alight and breathes forth no mortal things, but judges them as they are. I blaze above the beauty of the fields, I shine in the waters, I burn in the sun and the moon and the stars. He is the vision of Divine Love. He is the fire in his chest and under his skin, he is holy still.

(Would it have felt like this, he wonders sometimes, to have healed the Fisher King? Would he have felt powerful finally, when being wielded for his purpose, or has it always been true that he wanted to be the hand that wields? Was that something he knew and buried deep within him, along with all his desire, or was he so entirely broken to the path God chose for him that he never understood himself? --It doesn't matter.)

It doesn't matter. What matters is that Claudius is his, and the power he has over him is care.

There's no way to be sure Claudius will find the notes at Sext, but Galahad always checks his watch anyway. He rubs the braided band against the pad of his thumb and thinks of Claudius, his half-translated face that Galahad will someday understand entirely. He loves the way the silver shines against his skin, loves the tiny hands that tick by the minutes, loves the intricacy of time. He loves that Claudius thought to give it to him. He loves Claudius.

He keeps his fast and marks the days and crafts his notes with all the care he holds for Claudius. They're a gift for Claudius, to let him know that Galahad loves and desires him, even when he can't act on that desire. It feels safe to share this with him. Claudius can do whatever he wants with the sexts (and though he can barely admit it in the privacy of his own mind, Galahad wants him to be stirred by them. He wants Claudius to think of them when he touches himself, or be moved to desire in the first place. He wants them to be a part of Claudius' vulnerability), and Galahad can control the chancel-lamp in his chest and keep the flame from burning too hot.

For now, that suffices.

The last few days have been good.

His morning heaviness is a little shorter than usual: it's a little easier to get out of bed. He makes sketches of herbs, reads, bakes, helps Claudius in the greenhouse or the garden -- he's busy enough for the days to have purpose, but not so busy he feels overwhelmed. Sometimes the Sword with the Red Hilt is gone from their rooms for a day or more at a time, off with Jack, a phenomenon he still finds fascinating, but it feels right that his sword, too, should have other things to do besides wait to come to his hand. He practices signs with Magnus. Shen Qingqiu brings him an armful of books and says they can talk about them when Galahad has read them. Tress shows him how to make the little sweet balls with coconut.

He keeps his calendar. Advent is coming soon, and he thinks about what he'll do this year, the first year when God hasn't been at his ear for the season. He wants to keep a wreath for advent candles, even if it doesn't matter. He wants the familiarity of it, the smell of melting beeswax and balsam fir.

That's what he's doing now, in the kitchen -- standing with his eyes closed, picturing thick cylinders of purple wax, before he opens the drawer.

A littler purpose.

Galahad imagines the grain of wheat all the time now, preciously tucked in the pocket of his corduroy pants, close by if he needs to hold it in his hand. It has a weight, somehow, and that weight is grounding; he can always find it when he needs it.

Every night Claudius tells him about his plans for the wedding dance -- what's done, what still needs to be done, what pieces have been put into play. He tells him about Jasin Natael, the bard, who will arrange the music and who is sleeping with Sagramore, obviously, but fortunately it seems he can be clear-eyed about it and understands that he is necessary for this whole enterprise (Claudius lays emphasis on words in a way that Galahad finds frankly bewildering, but he likes it too. He's gotten used to it, and he thinks it would feel wrong to hear Claudius speak uninflected). He tells him that he's found a room he believes will be suitable, large enough for tables and chairs and mingling and dancing. He's pleased and maybe surprised (Galahad doesn't know whether he ever surprises Claudius) that Galahad has already begun to practice what he would bake -- he takes a tiny pecan pie as if it were a treasure and tastes it, brushing away crumbs of pastry fastidiously when they flake off in his lap, but he says, very good. Galahad wishes he could sketch something that showed what those words feel like, something soaring and magnificent but small and soft too. He nods. He'll keep practicing.

Claudius has things to do besides planning. He likes to talk to everyone, to know what everyone is doing, and he's often busy. Galahad doesn't expect to see him during the day; he likes their nighttime routine and he understands that Claudius is not like him, that Claudius takes to company like a field of wheat drinking in the rain.

But to his surprise, Claudius begins to make space for him in his days, too.

"Help me with this," he says, having learned not to ask if Galahad would like to help. The days are getting cooler and the nights incrementally longer, and Claudius takes Galahad to the gardens and begins showing him how to overwinter the delicate plants.

There's something about seeing Claudius without his jacket, his sleeves rolled up to his elbows, his impeccable presentation spoiled by sweat on his brow and a lock of hair falling loose, or dirt on the knees of his trousers. Galahad wants-- the wanting rises up in him like a wave, choking him. But he's used to pushing it down, riding it out, so he says nothing, and instead kneels down beside Claudius to be taught what to cut back and what to dig up and what will be covered with dead leaves and brown paper to protect it from the frost.

So that becomes a routine too, not daily, but once or twice a week when Claudius has the time. He brings Galahad to the greenhouse and shows him how to transplant the bashful plant into sturdy ceramic pots that will see it through the cold months. He explains that the plant may fail to root properly because it has lost roots through being moved; that it must be watered plentifully to make up for the fact that the earth in the pot holds water less than the ground outside. The leaves may scorch and curl. It must be treated generously to overcome these obstacles.

When he says this, Galahad thinks he isn't just talking about the plant, but he doesn't want to be wrong so he keeps silent. He can feel Claudius' gaze on him. He keeps his head down.

A few days later, Claudius says again, "Help me with this," and Galahad follows him dutifully.

This is a straightforward task that requires no thought at all -- Claudius shows him the great hall where he wants to hold the dance, and asks Galahad to help him move tables and chairs into it. He does what he's directed, and it feels good. He misses being told what to do sometimes, the ease of it, the voice in his ear instructing him and cautioning him.

He's slight, slighter than Claudius, and he doesn't know whether he'll be strong enough for this until he tries it (it's not, after all, like holding a sword), but it seems whatever strength he holds for fighting follows through to this (he thinks of someone whose face he can't get to resolve, the mocking strength of ten). He moves furniture easily, and it's so solid and specific that he can't help but feel something almost like joy. It's so simple.

When he has everything to Claudius' liking, Claudius takes his hand, and dabs his face tenderly with a handkerchief, though it isn't necessary. Galahad is grateful for this, too, in the same way he's grateful when Claudius brushes his hair or brings him some smooth object and presses it unobtrusively into his hand.

Claudius presses his hand now, looking at him thoughtfully. "Beloved," he says. Galahad aches. "I'm going to kiss you."

Galahad digs his thumb into Claudius' palm urgently, hard enough that he's sure he's hurt him, but if he has Claudius doesn't show it in any way that Galahad can read. Instead he does what he's said, and kisses him.

It isn't the first time, but usually when they kiss it's right before bed, and Galahad has no trouble pushing down his wants. This is different. His chest gutters, oil and flame, hungry and demanding. He's getting better at kissing with practice -- he's less clumsy than he was at first, and he knows Claudius' mouth, the way his lips part, the way it feels when he's smirking into it -- but he has to come at it studiously, as if Claudius were a psalm and Galahad is reading call and response, following the line, waiting for his turn. This is different. He feels untethered, half loose from his body, blood roaring in his ears, and he licks into Claudius' mouth with an animal sound: Claudius grips his arms with a bite of neatly trimmed nails, and Galahad wrenches back. He aches with shame.

"I'm sorry," he says.

"No, no," Claudius says, looking at him again, as unreadable as he was in the greenhouse. "Do you want to continue?"

Galahad shakes his head, and Claudius accepts this.

After that he's more careful. It's one thing to see the possibility in the wheat, and another thing to feel wild and rapacious. He doesn't mind the bedtime kisses; they're part of a routine, a quiet intimacy after the gift of listening to Claudius speak. They're not chaste, he knows that, but they feel permissible. Wanting more than that -- taking more than that -- still feels like a sin so grave he's made stone by the idea of committing it.

He lets himself have smaller sins, though. Despite not asking Shen Qingqiu for his remedy again, he sometimes wraps himself in Claudius' purple robe and sits at the vanity, studying his own face, trying to imagine himself beautiful (he realizes his hair is overlong now, wilder, more tangled, but he isn't brave enough to ask Claudius to cut it for him). He feels held like that, and he lets himself feel held. He practices the sign for his name in the mirror, and imagines being someone new -- not like Laurel, scraped of his memories like cooked meat from a bone, but someone who remembers everything and moves forward from it, leaving behind what he doesn't want.

He wears what he wants to wear. He doesn't like his white linen tunics and the complicated laces of the hose -- it's just he's always worn them, and it was unthinkable to do anything else. Now he finds a compromise between the things he likes and the ways Claudius dresses, and chooses pants and sweaters, soft things with raised patterns he can touch.

He keeps his fast days, but when he's not fasting, he eats what he wants to eat. He reads when he wants to. He spends more time with Magnus and Shen Qingqiu and walks outside and gets better at sketching, and doesn't ask Magnus to spar with him unless Magnus asks first. He plays billiards by himself and shoots with Enjolras. Littler purposes, which make the yawning vastness of freedom feel less like a chasm that could engulf him.

One day when he's in the greenhouse with Claudius he realizes that Claudius arranges flowers too. The little vase on the welcome table is his; Galahad has seen him choosing flowers in the garden and seen them in the vase later on. He'd known, or he thinks he'd known, but not moved from knowing to knowing, not felt the knowledge as a real thing before.

Galahad stands and when Claudius looks up at him he holds out his hand. "Come with me," he says, because that's easier than trying to explain, and to his relief Claudius takes his hand and allows Galahad to lead him out to the garden, to the myrtle tree that still has some blooms left in its branches, though it probably shouldn't. Galahad isn't as connected to the turn of seasons as Percival was, but he does realize the flowers should be gone by now, when it's November back in Camelot.

Claudius stands at his shoulder, still holding his hand, and for once he doesn't say anything, as if he's waiting.

Galahad is silent. He knows what he wants to ask, but he never knows whether it will be possible to say the words, or whether they'll be the ones he wants when they finally come. But at last he says, "I want to make a myrtle crown to wear for my portrait."

There's no thunderclap; the earth doesn't crack. They're still in the garden, Claudius' smooth fingers against the roughness of his scar. Nothing is different. Everything is different. If God has rejected him again, there's no way to feel it.

"I want you to help me," Galahad says softly. "I mean, I'd like your help."

And then, before Claudius can answer or not answer, he puts his free hand in his pocket and holds the grain of wheat in his fist.

Once his father is gone, Galahad very deliberately retrieves his flowers. The focus he expends in picking them up one by one helps him feel less like he's going to shatter to pieces. He was going to find Shen Qingqiu. He can still do that.

He goes to the greenhouse first, because that seems like the most likely place.

He very carefully does not think about the blood on his knuckles or the throbbing pain in his jaw (it's already bruising). If he doesn't think about those things and just does what he already planned to do then he doesn't have to think about how Lancelot didn't know him, or how easily Galahad overpowered him.

Galahad quietly moves his things back into Claudius' rooms. The clothes Claudius chose for Laurel he can't quite bring himself to wear, so he folds his white tunics in a drawer and hangs the Sword with the Red Hilt by the wardrobe. He has very little, in truth: not the psalter with the gold edges, which is back somewhere in another world at a campsite where Percival is alone, and not the silver cross the abbess gave him when he left the nunnery. Aside from clothes and sword, he only has Claudius' letter.

And things are still hard. He still wakes in the morning and can't rise, too weighted down to gather himself out of bed. He still doesn't know why he's here. He still can't ask for what he wants. But it's different, to sleep in the same bed as someone he trusts. He sometimes sits at Claudius' desk and just looks at Claudius' things, not daring to touch, but drinking in everything he can with his eyes. The smell of herbs and perfume, the warmth in the sheets after Claudius has left. He holds it to him the way he holds Percival's laugh and his Welsh brogue.

He keeps the canonical hours, waking himself for matins, lauds and prime (but he does it quietly, for himself), because it's how he's always measured the days. He fasts on Fridays; he makes a mass for himself on Saturday nights and Sundays by reciting the liturgy in his head. He remembers the saints on their feast days. It keeps everything even. It allows him something to hold onto, something normal, something easy. Things are still hard. Sometimes he feels as if everything is made from glass, and it would be so easy to break, like a cruet slipped from an acolyte's hand smashed on the tile floor of the sacristy. Shattered crystal and wine that's blood. Sometimes he feels as if the cruet is in his hands, and his hands are always shaking.

But he's trying. He's trying. He lies in bed and imagines it getting better, imagines that it could get better. He imagines a grain of wheat, a single grain, full of possibility, and sometimes he's able to hold it and keep it from being crushed. Sometimes there's still a grain of wheat when he gets up.

He has very little, in truth, but now he has more.

Galahad has always been good at the holy things.

Fasting, scourging, midnight masses, dawn prayers. Anything with a ritual or pattern to it is easy to follow, even soothing -- he knows the liturgy by heart, could speak the priest's part if he had to. He has a thin, toneless singing voice, but that's well-suited to sacrament, unlike hymns (Percival sounds beautiful singing hymns, and once again Galahad wonders how he could ever have thought he'd be pure enough for the Grail, when he can't even think about Percival in church without that greedy surge of longing (now that he knows what it's like to kiss someone, he can imagine kissing Percival, not just chaste fantasies of sleeping in his arms, and he hates himself harder)).

Stop -- he's losing the thread again. In his mind he takes hold of it, following it back to where he started.

He has always been good at the holy things, and he believes he could keep his vigil in his room forever. But after being rescued from his penance once already, he's trying to... try, at least a little. People have helped him. His burn is a scar, a remembrance: that's good (If he were who he used to be, before he came here, he might look at the warped tissue of his palm and think of nails, but the comparison disgusts him now. It's just a reproach, but that's good). People have helped him, and he owes it to that charity to do more than die through self-neglect, no matter how tempting the idea is.

So, following that thread, he's in the kitchen making himself something to eat. It's well past midnight; he's hoping, at least, not to meet or have to talk to anyone. The refrigerator has given him plain brown bread, which is good, but when he tries to get small beer it just keeps giving him a red, sweet drink instead.