"People That You've Never Met...'
May. 5th, 2007 10:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
psalm_onethirtyoneBeware dorky Gawains, snarky Amys, and random flashbacks. >_>
"Mike! Hey, Mike, you coming? I thought you were gonna play some catch with me!" He slapped the ball against his glove out in the yard, shouting to the open door.
There was no answer.
Tom would never say he was disappointed with his son, but it was discouraging, it couldn't help being discouraging. Mike never wanted to do anything. He read when he wasn't in school, or watched TV, and sometimes he played with his little sister, doing God-knew-what, but he never wanted to spend time with his father. Tom occasionally wished things had been different. Maybe if he wasn't so old--he was fifty-five and Mike was only ten--maybe if he were retired and they saw each other more often--but Jesus, was it too much to ask for a son who wanted to play baseball?
A shadow was falling across the lawn, and he shouted again.
"Mike!"
"What?"
There he was. Tiny kid, small for ten, standing at the door and squinting into the sun. He'd been sleeping on his hair wet again; black as an Indian's, it was sticking up in all directions.
"There you are! You gonna play?"
"It's time for dinner."
Tom frowned.
"I thought you were gonna play."
"I had a lot of homework. I'm sorry."
"We don't get to spend any time together. I think it's important for you to get some father-son--"
"Dad. It's dinnertime."
"Don't speak to me like that, young man."
That was another problem. He'd start an innocent conversation, just try to get some time in, and Mike would stand there looking up at him. You could never tell what he was thinking. He didn't act like a ten-year-old. He acted like there was something--Jesus, just different about him. It was weird. And then he came out with something in that voice that sounded like he was just testing to see how much he could get away with, and once Tom put on his serious voice Mike would drop back. It was weird. Like he wanted to see whether Tom was going to stop him when he started acting out. Well, if that was what he wanted to find out, he'd find out--Tom didn't take any nonsense from his kid, no way.
Mike smiled at him, a little strangely.
"Sorry. I'll play to-morrow."
"Okay. That's better. What did your mom make for dinner?"
"Mac and cheese."
"Again?"
~~~
Mordred's sleeping on the sofa. Their little brick house has a kitchen, a living room, and a small space in between; Gaheris has never figured out what it's for, but the sofa and the TV are squashed in there along with the desk for Mordred's laptop. It's also where the dehumidifier stays. Right now Mordred's on the sofa, sleeping with his head on his arm, his body slightly sprawled, and Gaheris is surprised into looking at him.
It's been half a year since Agravain left, and Guenever still telephones and Mordred still talks to her and once in a while he visits her--he says she's getting on better with the therapist, but she still cries. He calls her an idiot, but he goes to her when she asks.
Gaheris is never jealous. He doesn't know why, but he doesn't resent her for sharing something of his brother; sometimes he goes along but usually he stays home, and Mordred comes back and says that Guenever is an idiot, and then he does something else.
Sometimes he talks about himself to Gaheris now, if Gaheris asks. It isn't always the case; sometimes he fixes him with a look and says something sarcastic.
But at least he tells some things.
Yesterday he talked about Gawain after dinner, while Gaheris lay in bed and Mordred sat with his back against it.
"I wish we'd just go and look for him. Clar's said California often enough we all know where the hell he is, we might as well go and look. You wait, one day you'll wake up and I'll have taken the car and you'll hear from me in Hollywood." He tipped his head back and grinned at Gaheris.
"I don't remember him much."
"God, how can you forget? He was the best of us."
"Maybe I'm putting him out of my head in self-defence, then."
"Idiot."
"Tell me about him."
"He was shorter than me, but he fought better. I don't know, what do you want to know?"
"Why do we say he was best? Agravain said it, too."
"Agravain's a son of a bitch, and if you've got half a brain you won't listen to anything he says. Except he was right that time, whenever he said that."
"Well, why?"
"Because Gawain--all those inane things Arthur wanted, grace and truth and bravery and courtesy and all that shit? Gawain had it all. While we were growing up, he actually used to talk back to Lot over me, because as you can imagine your esteemed father was less than thrilled to be raising the bastard kid his wife got with her brother, and he used to give me hell. Gawain would tell him to fuck off, but he did it beautifully, God, he was all sir this and sir that and sir my brother is a noble youth and hath done no wrong in any man's eyes, all that, the whole nine yards. I wouldn't have gone to Camelot if I hadn't known he'd be there." Mordred worried at the buttons on his shirtcuffs. "I stayed after all of you had gone, but I finally sucked it up and went, mostly because I missed Gawain like hell. I was too old for it, but he let me be his squire until I was knighted. He never let me get away with any shit, not like Arthur. Arthur was so damn sure he could make me like him if he just let me do anything I wanted, and I kept waiting for him to stop me, but he never did. If I pulled anything like that on Gawain he'd get pissed, sometimes he'd go quiet and sometimes he'd take me aside, even if we were in front of a bunch of people."
"And that didn't piss you off?"
"Oh, God, I was furious," he said, laughing, strange laughter. "I was absolutely furious. It was great."
"What else did he do?"
"One of his first quests he accidentally killed a lady. Her knight or whatever killed Gawain's hounds, and they fought, and Gawain won, naturally, and the whatever asked for mercy, and Gawain wouldn't give it. If you don't remember him, you don't remember him when he was angry. He wasn't the same, he completely lost it. It only happened one time after that whole episode, but it was still fucking terrifying. So he wouldn't give mercy, and the whatever's lady got in the way at the last minute and he killed her by mistake."
"God." Gaheris went still on the bed and tried not to see his mother.
"Somebody told me he rode in to Camelot months later with her head around his neck and her body over his saddle. Said it was the sickest damn thing, her head must have been partially decomposed, and Gawain said he'd been ordered to wear it by her whatever and he wasn't taking it off until he was sure he'd never forget what mercy was. They clean it up for the books. All this stuff, they make it sound so romantic, all storybook shiny, but he dreamed of it for years." For a while they were both quiet, and then Mordred said, "Do you remember Ragnelle?"
"His--his wife?"
"Yeah."
"Not very well. Less than him, even. I just remember she had dark hair."
"Forest-dark," Mordred said, laughing again. This time it was lighter, more boyish, and his eyes shone a little with delight. "Aye, as the trees whereby she sat, awaiting good a knight. Yeah. She was amazing."
"Nobody even writes about her."
"Yeah, well, that's because they're morons."
Gaheris snorted. "Maybe it's because she didn't do anything except marry Gawain."
"Not that they know about. But she did for us like you wouldn't believe. She was like--Christ, you can't describe Ragnelle. She was fantastic."
"More than Gawain?"
"Shut up." Mordred hit him lightly.
Now Mordred sleeps, and Gaheris watches him; asleep he looks younger, but the bitterness in his mouth is still there, as clear as ever. Does he dream about his killing? Is it with him like the head of the lady Gawain wore around his neck? Gaheris' own dreams are fewer now, though some nights he still wakes awash with blood. If Mordred dreams of it, would it be a kindness to wake him, or does it matter? Does he think too much? (Is there such a thing as thinking too much on it, or is that how you learn the mercy, by never forgetting, by always remembering?) Gaheris watches him, and then he goes out.
It's Saturday afternoon. He goes to see Amy.
She's laughing at someone when he gets to the ballfield at the park, standing there in the November sun with her hands on her hips, her brown hair up in a ponytail, and laughing. Gaheris goes over immediately.
"Hey."
"Oh, look who's here."
"No autographs, please."
"Please."
"How you doing?"
"I have a job, which is more than I can say for you."
"Hey, hey, hey. I have prospects."
"Where? A homeless shelter?"
"What an idea. Not until M--my brother throws me out."
"If he hasn't done it already, he must be either sentimental or retarded."
"Watch your mouth," he says, half-laughing, half-frowning.
"Whatever, Dad."
"God, I feel old."
"Not as old as you look."
"Women like mature guys."
"But decrepit?" Amy says, raising her eyebrows. She's gotten taller in the last two years; she's almost taller than he is, long and athletic. She's told him her mother says she can date now, but she isn't interested in any of the boys. She thinks they're all idiots. She's seventeen.
"The sooner we die, the sooner they inherit."
"Inherit what?"
"I have no idea," he says, as they walk toward the picnic tables under the trees, off to the side from the baseball diamond and the avant-garde basketball hoops made of crooked concrete. "I guess that idea doesn't work."
"Nope. How's your crazy sister?"
"Always better when I'm out of the house."
"I bet. No new lawsuits?"
"Knock on wood." His mother used to say that, not Morgause but his birth mother. Clar always calls them birth parents, or now parents. Amy laughs at him.
"Bend over here so I can reach your head, then."
"Don't you ever stop?"
"No."
"Good," he says, softer. She's so like Lynet in all things, and he knows that she does stop, sometimes, and goes gentle with him, once in a very long while, but she'd never admit it, and he remembers the same in Lynet. He remembers when the child, their daughter, was born, and Lynet scowled and sighed and told him she wished they'd never had it, that it would only be a nuisance and another thing to look after, and then she kissed him, and he knew she was glad, truly, that she was glad to be a mother. She was glad in her own bitter-tempered way.
"You're doing it again."
"What?"
"Your face went all mooshy. Do I look like an ex or something?"
"If you looked like an ex, I wouldn't be going mooshy, would I?"
"Sure, I believe that. She probably dumped you because you can't catch and now you think about her constantly, and you're only friends with me so you can live a pathetically vicarious lie pretending we're the same person. You can probably get arrested for that."
"Definitely. Which is one of the reasons I'm not."
"That's what they all say when they're confronted."
"Uh-oh."
"I've been taking self-defence classes at school, so you'd better watch out."
"Great, I can see where this will go. I'll try to surprise you some day and you'll Mace me."
"Mace is for girls. I'm working on a black belt."
"Jesus Christ."
"Now who's got to watch his mouth?"
He stays with her until it gets dark, and then he walks her home; for all she reminds him of the self-defence, he tells her he doesn't like her to walk alone. It's not a bad neighbourhood. He just likes to be with her.
She feels like clear air after the house, heavy with Clar's cigarettes and everyone's memories. She knows nothing but the present, and she's his friend because of what he is now, and not what he used to be. Over the summer he came to all her ballgames and finally introduced himself to her parents; they asked him what he taught at the school and he said he was a substitute for the eighth grade, but he'd been thinking of giving up teaching for art--it seemed better to get out of the lie as quickly as possible. (He's begun submitting his charcoals to galleries around the city, and a few of them are accepted; none have been bought yet, but it doesn't matter, it's just sending them out that's important.) She talks with him about everything important, and everything unimportant, but never about who he was. Once she told him she'd been studying Howard Pyle in school, and wanted to know about his name. He told her that his foster mother had a weird imagination. She was satisfied.
He's always happy when he's with her. He feels like laughing, he talks easily, and he tries to give her the world but she rolls her eyes at him and tells him he's stupid. It's the most beautiful thing, Gaheris thinks, that has ever happened to him.
After he leaves her at the door he goes back the others. Clar's making dinner again, though Gareth keeps asking her to let him do it. She always gives him nasty looks and says she'll let him do it the day she's finished fireproofing the whole house, and Gareth looks crestfallen for a minute and then forgets about it, because he's got other things to tell her. With her he always seems like his old self, untouched unburdened innocence.
During dinner Mordred suddenly says, "Clar."
"What?"
"When are you going to do me a favour and use that laboratory of yours for finding Gawain?"
"I didn't know you were a hurry," Clar snaps, slicing her chicken with a knife she's always held like a dagger.
"Surprise."
"Tchhh."
"It's been long enough."
"Miss him?"
"Yes," he says, a touch irritably, but honestly; Gaheris can tell it.
"Maybe I will. Maybe I'll get my mirrors to-night. I'll need your hair. And Gaheris'."
"How the hell we don't get arrested I'll never know. Scrying with hair in the middle of the night."
"The lot you know about it," Clar says, in a tone that's enough to shut even Mordred up.
Gareth laughs at them both. He doesn't much seem to care what happens, whether they find Gawain or not.
Gaheris remembers what seems like years ago, when he still lived in New York, when he drew Gareth and was sure he hated him. He doesn't now.
Even finding Gawain doesn't seem so terrible.
~~~
"Mr. Styer, there's a call for you on line one. It's from a Michael Wilkinson. He says it's urgent."
"Thanks!"
She transferred him, then, thinking yet again how glad she was to be working for George Styer. He was always so friendly and so polite to his staff, he gave everyone beautiful gifts at Christmas or Hanukkah or whatever they celebrated--he made it part of his policy to know what religious groups they fell into, so he would know when to give them leave for their holidays and could be respectful in his treatment of them. It was like an employment utopia; he personally worked out any conflicts between his staff and he gave great benefits. She was pretty sure there was a downside somewhere, but she hadn't figured it out yet, and as long as it wasn't showing itself she, for one, was going to be glad of what she had.
He'd risen to fame in the United States and abroad only a few years ago, when he invented an incredibly cheap, efficient way of making solar panels and distributing them to people for use. He was an environmental fanatic, had rebuilt his mansion in southern California--rebuilt, he said, because to use up more land was a crime--to all the latest environmental standards, including his own solar panels in the roof, and a wind farm out behind, which he used to power his lights and the rest of his house when the sun wasn't shining. There was another one behind his factory. Thanks to his patent he was a multi-billionaire, and he kept working on new experiments and inventions, right now to reduce air pollution. He gave huge grants to other people who worked on the same thing.
He and his wife, on top of all that, were the nicest people you could imagine. Betty had always assumed that the serious environmental types were all holier-than-thou, look what I'm doing that you're not--that had been her previous experience, that was for sure, she thought grimly. Her ex-boyfriend had been one of the worst. Mr. Styer always smiled at her when he arrived at the office in the morning, immaculate in his suit of organic cotton, and hoped she was doing well, wanted to know whether she had everything she needed, and he had never even tried to get into her pants. Even when she gave him calls he was sure not to want to take, he was courteous to her, and even more to the people he was talking to. He always told her not to tell callers he wasn't in. He never avoided people, even the most obnoxious people.
He buzzed her now from his office.
"Miss Levee?"
"Yessir?"
"Would you mind letting everyone know that I can't make to-morrow's meetings? I'll be back on schedule by Monday, but I'm having some important visitors this weekend."
"Yes, of course, Mr. Styer. Right away."
"Thanks very much." She could hear him beaming at her from the office.
She picked up the phone and started making calls.
"Mike! Hey, Mike, you coming? I thought you were gonna play some catch with me!" He slapped the ball against his glove out in the yard, shouting to the open door.
There was no answer.
Tom would never say he was disappointed with his son, but it was discouraging, it couldn't help being discouraging. Mike never wanted to do anything. He read when he wasn't in school, or watched TV, and sometimes he played with his little sister, doing God-knew-what, but he never wanted to spend time with his father. Tom occasionally wished things had been different. Maybe if he wasn't so old--he was fifty-five and Mike was only ten--maybe if he were retired and they saw each other more often--but Jesus, was it too much to ask for a son who wanted to play baseball?
A shadow was falling across the lawn, and he shouted again.
"Mike!"
"What?"
There he was. Tiny kid, small for ten, standing at the door and squinting into the sun. He'd been sleeping on his hair wet again; black as an Indian's, it was sticking up in all directions.
"There you are! You gonna play?"
"It's time for dinner."
Tom frowned.
"I thought you were gonna play."
"I had a lot of homework. I'm sorry."
"We don't get to spend any time together. I think it's important for you to get some father-son--"
"Dad. It's dinnertime."
"Don't speak to me like that, young man."
That was another problem. He'd start an innocent conversation, just try to get some time in, and Mike would stand there looking up at him. You could never tell what he was thinking. He didn't act like a ten-year-old. He acted like there was something--Jesus, just different about him. It was weird. And then he came out with something in that voice that sounded like he was just testing to see how much he could get away with, and once Tom put on his serious voice Mike would drop back. It was weird. Like he wanted to see whether Tom was going to stop him when he started acting out. Well, if that was what he wanted to find out, he'd find out--Tom didn't take any nonsense from his kid, no way.
Mike smiled at him, a little strangely.
"Sorry. I'll play to-morrow."
"Okay. That's better. What did your mom make for dinner?"
"Mac and cheese."
"Again?"
Mordred's sleeping on the sofa. Their little brick house has a kitchen, a living room, and a small space in between; Gaheris has never figured out what it's for, but the sofa and the TV are squashed in there along with the desk for Mordred's laptop. It's also where the dehumidifier stays. Right now Mordred's on the sofa, sleeping with his head on his arm, his body slightly sprawled, and Gaheris is surprised into looking at him.
It's been half a year since Agravain left, and Guenever still telephones and Mordred still talks to her and once in a while he visits her--he says she's getting on better with the therapist, but she still cries. He calls her an idiot, but he goes to her when she asks.
Gaheris is never jealous. He doesn't know why, but he doesn't resent her for sharing something of his brother; sometimes he goes along but usually he stays home, and Mordred comes back and says that Guenever is an idiot, and then he does something else.
Sometimes he talks about himself to Gaheris now, if Gaheris asks. It isn't always the case; sometimes he fixes him with a look and says something sarcastic.
But at least he tells some things.
Yesterday he talked about Gawain after dinner, while Gaheris lay in bed and Mordred sat with his back against it.
"I wish we'd just go and look for him. Clar's said California often enough we all know where the hell he is, we might as well go and look. You wait, one day you'll wake up and I'll have taken the car and you'll hear from me in Hollywood." He tipped his head back and grinned at Gaheris.
"I don't remember him much."
"God, how can you forget? He was the best of us."
"Maybe I'm putting him out of my head in self-defence, then."
"Idiot."
"Tell me about him."
"He was shorter than me, but he fought better. I don't know, what do you want to know?"
"Why do we say he was best? Agravain said it, too."
"Agravain's a son of a bitch, and if you've got half a brain you won't listen to anything he says. Except he was right that time, whenever he said that."
"Well, why?"
"Because Gawain--all those inane things Arthur wanted, grace and truth and bravery and courtesy and all that shit? Gawain had it all. While we were growing up, he actually used to talk back to Lot over me, because as you can imagine your esteemed father was less than thrilled to be raising the bastard kid his wife got with her brother, and he used to give me hell. Gawain would tell him to fuck off, but he did it beautifully, God, he was all sir this and sir that and sir my brother is a noble youth and hath done no wrong in any man's eyes, all that, the whole nine yards. I wouldn't have gone to Camelot if I hadn't known he'd be there." Mordred worried at the buttons on his shirtcuffs. "I stayed after all of you had gone, but I finally sucked it up and went, mostly because I missed Gawain like hell. I was too old for it, but he let me be his squire until I was knighted. He never let me get away with any shit, not like Arthur. Arthur was so damn sure he could make me like him if he just let me do anything I wanted, and I kept waiting for him to stop me, but he never did. If I pulled anything like that on Gawain he'd get pissed, sometimes he'd go quiet and sometimes he'd take me aside, even if we were in front of a bunch of people."
"And that didn't piss you off?"
"Oh, God, I was furious," he said, laughing, strange laughter. "I was absolutely furious. It was great."
"What else did he do?"
"One of his first quests he accidentally killed a lady. Her knight or whatever killed Gawain's hounds, and they fought, and Gawain won, naturally, and the whatever asked for mercy, and Gawain wouldn't give it. If you don't remember him, you don't remember him when he was angry. He wasn't the same, he completely lost it. It only happened one time after that whole episode, but it was still fucking terrifying. So he wouldn't give mercy, and the whatever's lady got in the way at the last minute and he killed her by mistake."
"God." Gaheris went still on the bed and tried not to see his mother.
"Somebody told me he rode in to Camelot months later with her head around his neck and her body over his saddle. Said it was the sickest damn thing, her head must have been partially decomposed, and Gawain said he'd been ordered to wear it by her whatever and he wasn't taking it off until he was sure he'd never forget what mercy was. They clean it up for the books. All this stuff, they make it sound so romantic, all storybook shiny, but he dreamed of it for years." For a while they were both quiet, and then Mordred said, "Do you remember Ragnelle?"
"His--his wife?"
"Yeah."
"Not very well. Less than him, even. I just remember she had dark hair."
"Forest-dark," Mordred said, laughing again. This time it was lighter, more boyish, and his eyes shone a little with delight. "Aye, as the trees whereby she sat, awaiting good a knight. Yeah. She was amazing."
"Nobody even writes about her."
"Yeah, well, that's because they're morons."
Gaheris snorted. "Maybe it's because she didn't do anything except marry Gawain."
"Not that they know about. But she did for us like you wouldn't believe. She was like--Christ, you can't describe Ragnelle. She was fantastic."
"More than Gawain?"
"Shut up." Mordred hit him lightly.
Now Mordred sleeps, and Gaheris watches him; asleep he looks younger, but the bitterness in his mouth is still there, as clear as ever. Does he dream about his killing? Is it with him like the head of the lady Gawain wore around his neck? Gaheris' own dreams are fewer now, though some nights he still wakes awash with blood. If Mordred dreams of it, would it be a kindness to wake him, or does it matter? Does he think too much? (Is there such a thing as thinking too much on it, or is that how you learn the mercy, by never forgetting, by always remembering?) Gaheris watches him, and then he goes out.
It's Saturday afternoon. He goes to see Amy.
She's laughing at someone when he gets to the ballfield at the park, standing there in the November sun with her hands on her hips, her brown hair up in a ponytail, and laughing. Gaheris goes over immediately.
"Hey."
"Oh, look who's here."
"No autographs, please."
"Please."
"How you doing?"
"I have a job, which is more than I can say for you."
"Hey, hey, hey. I have prospects."
"Where? A homeless shelter?"
"What an idea. Not until M--my brother throws me out."
"If he hasn't done it already, he must be either sentimental or retarded."
"Watch your mouth," he says, half-laughing, half-frowning.
"Whatever, Dad."
"God, I feel old."
"Not as old as you look."
"Women like mature guys."
"But decrepit?" Amy says, raising her eyebrows. She's gotten taller in the last two years; she's almost taller than he is, long and athletic. She's told him her mother says she can date now, but she isn't interested in any of the boys. She thinks they're all idiots. She's seventeen.
"The sooner we die, the sooner they inherit."
"Inherit what?"
"I have no idea," he says, as they walk toward the picnic tables under the trees, off to the side from the baseball diamond and the avant-garde basketball hoops made of crooked concrete. "I guess that idea doesn't work."
"Nope. How's your crazy sister?"
"Always better when I'm out of the house."
"I bet. No new lawsuits?"
"Knock on wood." His mother used to say that, not Morgause but his birth mother. Clar always calls them birth parents, or now parents. Amy laughs at him.
"Bend over here so I can reach your head, then."
"Don't you ever stop?"
"No."
"Good," he says, softer. She's so like Lynet in all things, and he knows that she does stop, sometimes, and goes gentle with him, once in a very long while, but she'd never admit it, and he remembers the same in Lynet. He remembers when the child, their daughter, was born, and Lynet scowled and sighed and told him she wished they'd never had it, that it would only be a nuisance and another thing to look after, and then she kissed him, and he knew she was glad, truly, that she was glad to be a mother. She was glad in her own bitter-tempered way.
"You're doing it again."
"What?"
"Your face went all mooshy. Do I look like an ex or something?"
"If you looked like an ex, I wouldn't be going mooshy, would I?"
"Sure, I believe that. She probably dumped you because you can't catch and now you think about her constantly, and you're only friends with me so you can live a pathetically vicarious lie pretending we're the same person. You can probably get arrested for that."
"Definitely. Which is one of the reasons I'm not."
"That's what they all say when they're confronted."
"Uh-oh."
"I've been taking self-defence classes at school, so you'd better watch out."
"Great, I can see where this will go. I'll try to surprise you some day and you'll Mace me."
"Mace is for girls. I'm working on a black belt."
"Jesus Christ."
"Now who's got to watch his mouth?"
He stays with her until it gets dark, and then he walks her home; for all she reminds him of the self-defence, he tells her he doesn't like her to walk alone. It's not a bad neighbourhood. He just likes to be with her.
She feels like clear air after the house, heavy with Clar's cigarettes and everyone's memories. She knows nothing but the present, and she's his friend because of what he is now, and not what he used to be. Over the summer he came to all her ballgames and finally introduced himself to her parents; they asked him what he taught at the school and he said he was a substitute for the eighth grade, but he'd been thinking of giving up teaching for art--it seemed better to get out of the lie as quickly as possible. (He's begun submitting his charcoals to galleries around the city, and a few of them are accepted; none have been bought yet, but it doesn't matter, it's just sending them out that's important.) She talks with him about everything important, and everything unimportant, but never about who he was. Once she told him she'd been studying Howard Pyle in school, and wanted to know about his name. He told her that his foster mother had a weird imagination. She was satisfied.
He's always happy when he's with her. He feels like laughing, he talks easily, and he tries to give her the world but she rolls her eyes at him and tells him he's stupid. It's the most beautiful thing, Gaheris thinks, that has ever happened to him.
After he leaves her at the door he goes back the others. Clar's making dinner again, though Gareth keeps asking her to let him do it. She always gives him nasty looks and says she'll let him do it the day she's finished fireproofing the whole house, and Gareth looks crestfallen for a minute and then forgets about it, because he's got other things to tell her. With her he always seems like his old self, untouched unburdened innocence.
During dinner Mordred suddenly says, "Clar."
"What?"
"When are you going to do me a favour and use that laboratory of yours for finding Gawain?"
"I didn't know you were a hurry," Clar snaps, slicing her chicken with a knife she's always held like a dagger.
"Surprise."
"Tchhh."
"It's been long enough."
"Miss him?"
"Yes," he says, a touch irritably, but honestly; Gaheris can tell it.
"Maybe I will. Maybe I'll get my mirrors to-night. I'll need your hair. And Gaheris'."
"How the hell we don't get arrested I'll never know. Scrying with hair in the middle of the night."
"The lot you know about it," Clar says, in a tone that's enough to shut even Mordred up.
Gareth laughs at them both. He doesn't much seem to care what happens, whether they find Gawain or not.
Gaheris remembers what seems like years ago, when he still lived in New York, when he drew Gareth and was sure he hated him. He doesn't now.
Even finding Gawain doesn't seem so terrible.
"Mr. Styer, there's a call for you on line one. It's from a Michael Wilkinson. He says it's urgent."
"Thanks!"
She transferred him, then, thinking yet again how glad she was to be working for George Styer. He was always so friendly and so polite to his staff, he gave everyone beautiful gifts at Christmas or Hanukkah or whatever they celebrated--he made it part of his policy to know what religious groups they fell into, so he would know when to give them leave for their holidays and could be respectful in his treatment of them. It was like an employment utopia; he personally worked out any conflicts between his staff and he gave great benefits. She was pretty sure there was a downside somewhere, but she hadn't figured it out yet, and as long as it wasn't showing itself she, for one, was going to be glad of what she had.
He'd risen to fame in the United States and abroad only a few years ago, when he invented an incredibly cheap, efficient way of making solar panels and distributing them to people for use. He was an environmental fanatic, had rebuilt his mansion in southern California--rebuilt, he said, because to use up more land was a crime--to all the latest environmental standards, including his own solar panels in the roof, and a wind farm out behind, which he used to power his lights and the rest of his house when the sun wasn't shining. There was another one behind his factory. Thanks to his patent he was a multi-billionaire, and he kept working on new experiments and inventions, right now to reduce air pollution. He gave huge grants to other people who worked on the same thing.
He and his wife, on top of all that, were the nicest people you could imagine. Betty had always assumed that the serious environmental types were all holier-than-thou, look what I'm doing that you're not--that had been her previous experience, that was for sure, she thought grimly. Her ex-boyfriend had been one of the worst. Mr. Styer always smiled at her when he arrived at the office in the morning, immaculate in his suit of organic cotton, and hoped she was doing well, wanted to know whether she had everything she needed, and he had never even tried to get into her pants. Even when she gave him calls he was sure not to want to take, he was courteous to her, and even more to the people he was talking to. He always told her not to tell callers he wasn't in. He never avoided people, even the most obnoxious people.
He buzzed her now from his office.
"Miss Levee?"
"Yessir?"
"Would you mind letting everyone know that I can't make to-morrow's meetings? I'll be back on schedule by Monday, but I'm having some important visitors this weekend."
"Yes, of course, Mr. Styer. Right away."
"Thanks very much." She could hear him beaming at her from the office.
She picked up the phone and started making calls.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2007-05-06 03:08 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-05-06 03:17 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-05-06 03:22 am (UTC)OMG GAAAAAAAWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIN! I love Gawain best of all the Camelot knights who aren't knights. He's such a darling and I love him to pieces and he's the maiden knight. <3
How fantastic that he's an environmentalist billionaire. XD
Gawain! <3
Please do say you'll feature him more?
(no subject)
Date: 2007-05-06 03:27 am (UTC)He's in the next chapter! He's the main point of the next chapter. He's going to be a dork and make Mordred look at his wind turbines. XD And there will also be Ragnelle, and Gareth will be awed by Gawain's vast wealth.
Gawain's the best. XD
(no subject)
Date: 2007-05-06 03:37 am (UTC)In any case, aaawwwww. Wind turbines. <3
Oh! totally forgot to express my love on how you develop Gaheris's relationships. You're so good at sticking in little details, or choosing key adjectives that very subtly show change and the basic nature of the relationship. It's very nice- you're not whapping the reader over the head with how Gaheris feels and what he thinks but all the same it's there and it's easy to pick up on, sort of like how you notice things without really paying attention to them and, upon remembering them, think "Hunh. That makes sense."
(no subject)
Date: 2007-05-06 03:43 am (UTC)Heh, yes. Kajillions of them. Come and see, Mordred! You'll love them!
...<3333333 Hi, does anybody read this story who gives gorgeous comments like you do? Thank you so much.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-05-06 03:31 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-05-06 03:37 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-05-06 06:40 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-05-07 01:59 am (UTC)