the air must be thick with words but not between us [closed/complete]
Characters: Arthur (rexquefuturus) & Lancelot (drinksalot)
Date/Time: Tuesday, 13/09/2011
Location: Lancelot's bar
Rating: PG13
Warnings: Brawling
Summary: Have you heard this one? "A king goes into a bar..."
Arthur was a man who faced up to the various problems in his life. It was something that had come with time and lives; when he was King, he had avoided certain issues. The principle one, of course, had been Lancelot and Guinevere. There was only so much denial a man could exhibit but Arthur knew now that he had been wilful in his avoidance of the problem.
Between Gaheris and Mordred, though a relationship with the latter might well be easier than figuring out the former, Arthur was apparently doomed to continue his headlong passage through life and its many and varied objects.
That was why, close to closing time, he made his way to Lancelot’s pub, in the hope of having a quiet drink and a few words with his former friend.
Inside the pub, Lancelot was making the rounds to collect empty tankards and inform his patrons it was last call. It was half past two. If his bartender didn’t faff around, they might make it home by four. Lancelot had hopes of making it to bed before the sun rose, but he found himself feeling less optimistic when he heard the sound of glass shatter against the wall followed by raucous laughter.
Setting the tankards down on the bar, Lancelot walked over to the group of men who found it fucking funny to break bottles right before closing. He didn’t have bouncers in his pub. When the odd fight broke out, he was the one who handled security. It wasn’t a lack of funding that kept him from hiring a brute to deal with the belligerent drunks. Lancelot liked a good excuse to rough it up. Even when he was outnumbered six to one - as it just so happened to be the case in that very instance.
“How about you boys see yourselves outside, yeah?” Lancelot suggested, folding his arms as he came to stand in front of the group. “I don’t appreciate y’all throwing bottles around my pub.”
One of the more brazen men stood up, and stinking of whiskey and stale piss, he mocked Lancelot’s accent, drawling, “Well, we don’t appreciate y’all closing up early!”
And Lancelot might have shrugged that little stint of stupidity off, but he couldn’t when the tosser managed to catch his jaw with a fist full of knuckles. The punch made him stagger back a step, maybe two, and then all hell broke loose when he swung back and knocked the man flat off his feet.
Arthur had barely set foot inside the pub before the fight broke out and, yes, there was Lancelot. It seemed an unfair fight from the start. As skilled a fighter as Lancelot presumably was, the odds were rather steep. Without thinking, Arthur strode over to the corner and, where everyone else in the pub was backing away, he walked straight into the fray.
“What the devil is going on?” he demanded (not of Lancelot but of the nearest messy, mean-eyed drunk. That simple question provoked an instant response in the form of a fist. Arthur would never let it be said that he shirked away from a fight and he was ready for this one. He ducked and shoved the man aside.
This time, he addressed the question to Lancelot. “Seriously, what the-?” He failed to finish his sentence as the man he’d pushed got back to his feet and ran at Arthur, nearly sending the former king flying. Arthur did lose his balance, crashing into a table, but he rallied and spun around to punch the man clean in the nose.
Lancelot had just caught the wrist of another drunk wielding a beer bottle when he heard a vaguely familiar voice. He glanced over in time to see Arthur tackled and actually laughed when his former King -- and friend -- decked the man. The reinforcement was completely unexpected, but not unwelcome.
“Questions later,” Lancelot grunted as he brought his knee up, knocking the air out of the man in his grip. The man’s spare ribs would be bruised in the morning. He gave the same jackass a shove that sent him tripping over his other pal.
Which left them with three more foes if they were foolish enough to try something.
Arthur shrugged, though a small smile played over his mouth. Honestly, he’d just come in for a quiet drink and it looked like the remaining three were just foolish enough to keep on coming. Their numerical advantage was dwindling but they were clearly so drunk that idiocy and bravery had become the same thing.
Arthur didn’t stop to think how familiar this was. They had fought side by side so many times that, even in this rather different setting, it was second nature for Arthur to move to Lancelot’s side, his eyes narrowing as he watched the drunks.
He didn’t even need to say that he’d take the one on the right and they could meet in the middle; Lancelot would surely know him well enough to know what Arthur’s instinct would be. He just stood his ground and waited for the man to come to him. A punch to the abdomen did the trick, winding the man and forcing him to double over.
It was true - despite everything that had come between himself and Arthur, Lancelot knew his King well enough to know who he would claim. Whereas Arthur waited for the twat on the right to come at him, Lancelot couldn’t simply stand back and let the fool on the left pick up a bar stool to throw at them. Before the man could gain an advantage, Lancelot charged forward and wrested the chair from his grubby fingers after a rough struggle. As soon as it was out of the way, he floored the man by clobbering him with a right hook.
Which left the middleman, who thought he stood a chance by picking up one of the busted beer bottles by the neck and wagging the pointy end at them.
Wiping away the dribble of blood running down his chin from his busted lip, Lancelot glanced over at Arthur. “You want him, your Majesty?” he asked, grinning in spite of the metallic taste in his mouth.
Arthur looked at Lancelot and grinned; it was the sort of smile that could often be seen on the face of the young king, when he had been coming into his own as the King of the Britons. The last man standing must have seen something in Arthur’s face though; some little voice of reason must have sounded because he lowered the hand holding the bottle.
Arthur could have been disappointed but the fact of the matter was that the man was still armed. So Arthur decked him.
“Closing time?” he asked Lancelot as he looked down at his own hand, knuckles red-raw and stinging.
“Reckon so,” Lancelot replied, hauling one of the men to his feet and helpfully shoving him toward the door. The rest dragged themselves up and followed suit, too rattled and battered to bother putting up another scrap. Lancelot respected the blokes for knowing when they were defeated, but still barked a threat to call the police after them if they didn’t get their asses in a taxi cab home.
It was only once everyone was ushered out of the pub and the door was closed and locked that Lancelot turned back to Arthur. Everything had happened so quickly, he had almost forgotten to question why Arthur was there at all.
“Not sure why you’re here, but I’m glad all the same you were - might’ve been a different outcome if you weren’t,” Lancelot said, though he sounded reluctant to make the admission. He moved around behind the bar and pulled out two tumblers. Without asking, he filled them both with a generous amount of whiskey. Not the cheap kind, either.
He pushed one closer to Arthur and added, “Thanks.”
Arthur picked up his tumbler and just nodded. “Sure. I’m sure you would have managed, though. I’ve seen you beat worse odds than that.” He raised his glass and touched it to Lancelot’s. “Cheers.”
He looked around the quiet, empty pub before taking a long swallow of the whiskey. He nodded again in appreciation of the quality of the drink. “I stopped in for a drink,” he said, after a moment. “I wasn’t expecting to have to earn it this way but I’m glad I did stop by.”
It was true. Lancelot had beat impossible odds back in his prime, shining knight days. He felt a great big wave of nostalgia hit him. Only 36, and he felt fucking old and weak. Sir Lancelot never would have doubted his odds against six drunks, but Langston Parker had to watch his blood pressure according to the doctors. “Cheers,” he returned, before draining a good amount of whiskey.
“S’that all you stopped in for?” Lancelot asked, sounding doubtful. He scrubbed the back of his hand over his mouth. His busted lip probably needed some ice, but he could tend to it later.
Arthur shrugged. “I guess I was stopping in to say hello, too. You’re not exactly my local.” That was true enough. There was a perfectly nice bar around the corner from Arthur’s apartment but it seemed a little sterile in comparison to Lancelot’s pub.
“And, no, I hadn’t quite figured out what I was going to say after ‘hello’.”
Lancelot eyed Arthur wearily. The man was admitting he had gone out of his way to come here and that’s all he wanted to say? “Most folks follow up with, ‘how’re you’ or ‘lovely weather we’re having’ - but if it’s all the same to you, we can skip that,” he said, hitching his shoulders in a shrug.
“You must be hard up for company, coming over here with nothing much to say,” Lancelot remarked, flashing Arthur something close to a grin. He downed more whiskey. A few more sips and maybe teasing the man wouldn’t feel so awkward. It’d been easier to joke with their fists flying.
Now? Every light-hearted thing felt a little more forced.
Now Arthur did laugh and he even meant it. “God, Lancelot, if you’re giving me tips on small talk, things are worse than I thought.” He took another long sip, too. He rubbed his forehead and offered a rather wry smile. “It just seems like I should make an effort, or something? We were friends, Lancelot.”
“So we were,” Lancelot agreed. He watched Arthur carefully. There was no reason he shouldn’t trust the man, but it was difficult to believe there was some metaphorical olive branch hanging in the air between them. Betraying the trust of his King and loving Guinevere had been no small sin. If anyone should be making overtures of friendship, it should have been him standing there, not Arthur.
More whiskey. Another sip, and then Lancelot said, “Don’t know what we are now, though. Do you?”
Arthur shook his head. “I don’t know. I have no wife to warn you away from.” His tone was light but there was something steely in his blue eyes. These days, he wasn’t even sure if he had loved Guinevere. He just couldn’t remember. It had seemed like he had but when he thought of Polyxena, so kind and sweet, he had to wonder.
“And we’re clearly at the mercy of something or someone more powerful than us. Seems stupid not to at least entertain the notion that we’re on the same side. We’ve always fought well together, Lancelot, when we’ve not been fighting each other.”
“True enough.” Lancelot couldn’t help a quiet snort of amusement. He couldn’t argue with that. His busted lip was a stinging reminder that they could still fight well together. But they could also pummel each other just as easily. Lancelot wanted to swear they wouldn’t fight, but deep down, he knew he couldn’t make any promises. A part of him couldn’t let go of his Queen. She was his weakness.
“And what if she returns?” He was referring to Guinevere, of course. “Will we still be on good terms?”
Arthur’s face grew a little more serious, or more thoughtful, at any rate. “If she returns, it may well be as someone else’s wife, Lancelot.” He drained his whiskey glass. “You and I may not have a say in her life anymore.”
“I reckon you’re right,” Lancelot said, canting his head in agreement. He had to wonder what it would be like - to see Guinevere in the arms of yet another man. It wasn’t a thought that sat well with him, so he shook it off and focused on Arthur again. He looked young, or at least a lot younger than he stood. A smile returned to his face.
“But no matter how she returns to us, if she does return... I want us to be back on the same side.” Lancelot stuck out a hand.
Arthur’s eyebrows both rose though there was nothing suspicious in his expression. He simply reached out and shook Lancelot’s hand and nodded, wordlessly. Now there was an intimidating prospect; Arthur and Lancelot on the same side. Just like old times? There was part of Arthur that rather hoped so.
The handshake said a lot more than words could hope to convey. Not all was forgiven, but it told him a new page was turning, and hopefully for the better. Lancelot picked up the whiskey bottle and refilled their glasses. “We’ve got a lot of catching up to do, yeah?”
Date/Time: Tuesday, 13/09/2011
Location: Lancelot's bar
Rating: PG13
Warnings: Brawling
Summary: Have you heard this one? "A king goes into a bar..."
Arthur was a man who faced up to the various problems in his life. It was something that had come with time and lives; when he was King, he had avoided certain issues. The principle one, of course, had been Lancelot and Guinevere. There was only so much denial a man could exhibit but Arthur knew now that he had been wilful in his avoidance of the problem.
Between Gaheris and Mordred, though a relationship with the latter might well be easier than figuring out the former, Arthur was apparently doomed to continue his headlong passage through life and its many and varied objects.
That was why, close to closing time, he made his way to Lancelot’s pub, in the hope of having a quiet drink and a few words with his former friend.
Inside the pub, Lancelot was making the rounds to collect empty tankards and inform his patrons it was last call. It was half past two. If his bartender didn’t faff around, they might make it home by four. Lancelot had hopes of making it to bed before the sun rose, but he found himself feeling less optimistic when he heard the sound of glass shatter against the wall followed by raucous laughter.
Setting the tankards down on the bar, Lancelot walked over to the group of men who found it fucking funny to break bottles right before closing. He didn’t have bouncers in his pub. When the odd fight broke out, he was the one who handled security. It wasn’t a lack of funding that kept him from hiring a brute to deal with the belligerent drunks. Lancelot liked a good excuse to rough it up. Even when he was outnumbered six to one - as it just so happened to be the case in that very instance.
“How about you boys see yourselves outside, yeah?” Lancelot suggested, folding his arms as he came to stand in front of the group. “I don’t appreciate y’all throwing bottles around my pub.”
One of the more brazen men stood up, and stinking of whiskey and stale piss, he mocked Lancelot’s accent, drawling, “Well, we don’t appreciate y’all closing up early!”
And Lancelot might have shrugged that little stint of stupidity off, but he couldn’t when the tosser managed to catch his jaw with a fist full of knuckles. The punch made him stagger back a step, maybe two, and then all hell broke loose when he swung back and knocked the man flat off his feet.
Arthur had barely set foot inside the pub before the fight broke out and, yes, there was Lancelot. It seemed an unfair fight from the start. As skilled a fighter as Lancelot presumably was, the odds were rather steep. Without thinking, Arthur strode over to the corner and, where everyone else in the pub was backing away, he walked straight into the fray.
“What the devil is going on?” he demanded (not of Lancelot but of the nearest messy, mean-eyed drunk. That simple question provoked an instant response in the form of a fist. Arthur would never let it be said that he shirked away from a fight and he was ready for this one. He ducked and shoved the man aside.
This time, he addressed the question to Lancelot. “Seriously, what the-?” He failed to finish his sentence as the man he’d pushed got back to his feet and ran at Arthur, nearly sending the former king flying. Arthur did lose his balance, crashing into a table, but he rallied and spun around to punch the man clean in the nose.
Lancelot had just caught the wrist of another drunk wielding a beer bottle when he heard a vaguely familiar voice. He glanced over in time to see Arthur tackled and actually laughed when his former King -- and friend -- decked the man. The reinforcement was completely unexpected, but not unwelcome.
“Questions later,” Lancelot grunted as he brought his knee up, knocking the air out of the man in his grip. The man’s spare ribs would be bruised in the morning. He gave the same jackass a shove that sent him tripping over his other pal.
Which left them with three more foes if they were foolish enough to try something.
Arthur shrugged, though a small smile played over his mouth. Honestly, he’d just come in for a quiet drink and it looked like the remaining three were just foolish enough to keep on coming. Their numerical advantage was dwindling but they were clearly so drunk that idiocy and bravery had become the same thing.
Arthur didn’t stop to think how familiar this was. They had fought side by side so many times that, even in this rather different setting, it was second nature for Arthur to move to Lancelot’s side, his eyes narrowing as he watched the drunks.
He didn’t even need to say that he’d take the one on the right and they could meet in the middle; Lancelot would surely know him well enough to know what Arthur’s instinct would be. He just stood his ground and waited for the man to come to him. A punch to the abdomen did the trick, winding the man and forcing him to double over.
It was true - despite everything that had come between himself and Arthur, Lancelot knew his King well enough to know who he would claim. Whereas Arthur waited for the twat on the right to come at him, Lancelot couldn’t simply stand back and let the fool on the left pick up a bar stool to throw at them. Before the man could gain an advantage, Lancelot charged forward and wrested the chair from his grubby fingers after a rough struggle. As soon as it was out of the way, he floored the man by clobbering him with a right hook.
Which left the middleman, who thought he stood a chance by picking up one of the busted beer bottles by the neck and wagging the pointy end at them.
Wiping away the dribble of blood running down his chin from his busted lip, Lancelot glanced over at Arthur. “You want him, your Majesty?” he asked, grinning in spite of the metallic taste in his mouth.
Arthur looked at Lancelot and grinned; it was the sort of smile that could often be seen on the face of the young king, when he had been coming into his own as the King of the Britons. The last man standing must have seen something in Arthur’s face though; some little voice of reason must have sounded because he lowered the hand holding the bottle.
Arthur could have been disappointed but the fact of the matter was that the man was still armed. So Arthur decked him.
“Closing time?” he asked Lancelot as he looked down at his own hand, knuckles red-raw and stinging.
“Reckon so,” Lancelot replied, hauling one of the men to his feet and helpfully shoving him toward the door. The rest dragged themselves up and followed suit, too rattled and battered to bother putting up another scrap. Lancelot respected the blokes for knowing when they were defeated, but still barked a threat to call the police after them if they didn’t get their asses in a taxi cab home.
It was only once everyone was ushered out of the pub and the door was closed and locked that Lancelot turned back to Arthur. Everything had happened so quickly, he had almost forgotten to question why Arthur was there at all.
“Not sure why you’re here, but I’m glad all the same you were - might’ve been a different outcome if you weren’t,” Lancelot said, though he sounded reluctant to make the admission. He moved around behind the bar and pulled out two tumblers. Without asking, he filled them both with a generous amount of whiskey. Not the cheap kind, either.
He pushed one closer to Arthur and added, “Thanks.”
Arthur picked up his tumbler and just nodded. “Sure. I’m sure you would have managed, though. I’ve seen you beat worse odds than that.” He raised his glass and touched it to Lancelot’s. “Cheers.”
He looked around the quiet, empty pub before taking a long swallow of the whiskey. He nodded again in appreciation of the quality of the drink. “I stopped in for a drink,” he said, after a moment. “I wasn’t expecting to have to earn it this way but I’m glad I did stop by.”
It was true. Lancelot had beat impossible odds back in his prime, shining knight days. He felt a great big wave of nostalgia hit him. Only 36, and he felt fucking old and weak. Sir Lancelot never would have doubted his odds against six drunks, but Langston Parker had to watch his blood pressure according to the doctors. “Cheers,” he returned, before draining a good amount of whiskey.
“S’that all you stopped in for?” Lancelot asked, sounding doubtful. He scrubbed the back of his hand over his mouth. His busted lip probably needed some ice, but he could tend to it later.
Arthur shrugged. “I guess I was stopping in to say hello, too. You’re not exactly my local.” That was true enough. There was a perfectly nice bar around the corner from Arthur’s apartment but it seemed a little sterile in comparison to Lancelot’s pub.
“And, no, I hadn’t quite figured out what I was going to say after ‘hello’.”
Lancelot eyed Arthur wearily. The man was admitting he had gone out of his way to come here and that’s all he wanted to say? “Most folks follow up with, ‘how’re you’ or ‘lovely weather we’re having’ - but if it’s all the same to you, we can skip that,” he said, hitching his shoulders in a shrug.
“You must be hard up for company, coming over here with nothing much to say,” Lancelot remarked, flashing Arthur something close to a grin. He downed more whiskey. A few more sips and maybe teasing the man wouldn’t feel so awkward. It’d been easier to joke with their fists flying.
Now? Every light-hearted thing felt a little more forced.
Now Arthur did laugh and he even meant it. “God, Lancelot, if you’re giving me tips on small talk, things are worse than I thought.” He took another long sip, too. He rubbed his forehead and offered a rather wry smile. “It just seems like I should make an effort, or something? We were friends, Lancelot.”
“So we were,” Lancelot agreed. He watched Arthur carefully. There was no reason he shouldn’t trust the man, but it was difficult to believe there was some metaphorical olive branch hanging in the air between them. Betraying the trust of his King and loving Guinevere had been no small sin. If anyone should be making overtures of friendship, it should have been him standing there, not Arthur.
More whiskey. Another sip, and then Lancelot said, “Don’t know what we are now, though. Do you?”
Arthur shook his head. “I don’t know. I have no wife to warn you away from.” His tone was light but there was something steely in his blue eyes. These days, he wasn’t even sure if he had loved Guinevere. He just couldn’t remember. It had seemed like he had but when he thought of Polyxena, so kind and sweet, he had to wonder.
“And we’re clearly at the mercy of something or someone more powerful than us. Seems stupid not to at least entertain the notion that we’re on the same side. We’ve always fought well together, Lancelot, when we’ve not been fighting each other.”
“True enough.” Lancelot couldn’t help a quiet snort of amusement. He couldn’t argue with that. His busted lip was a stinging reminder that they could still fight well together. But they could also pummel each other just as easily. Lancelot wanted to swear they wouldn’t fight, but deep down, he knew he couldn’t make any promises. A part of him couldn’t let go of his Queen. She was his weakness.
“And what if she returns?” He was referring to Guinevere, of course. “Will we still be on good terms?”
Arthur’s face grew a little more serious, or more thoughtful, at any rate. “If she returns, it may well be as someone else’s wife, Lancelot.” He drained his whiskey glass. “You and I may not have a say in her life anymore.”
“I reckon you’re right,” Lancelot said, canting his head in agreement. He had to wonder what it would be like - to see Guinevere in the arms of yet another man. It wasn’t a thought that sat well with him, so he shook it off and focused on Arthur again. He looked young, or at least a lot younger than he stood. A smile returned to his face.
“But no matter how she returns to us, if she does return... I want us to be back on the same side.” Lancelot stuck out a hand.
Arthur’s eyebrows both rose though there was nothing suspicious in his expression. He simply reached out and shook Lancelot’s hand and nodded, wordlessly. Now there was an intimidating prospect; Arthur and Lancelot on the same side. Just like old times? There was part of Arthur that rather hoped so.
The handshake said a lot more than words could hope to convey. Not all was forgiven, but it told him a new page was turning, and hopefully for the better. Lancelot picked up the whiskey bottle and refilled their glasses. “We’ve got a lot of catching up to do, yeah?”