summerdude | Me and My Best Friend Put On A Show That Would Make Freya Totally Jealous [closed post]

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Me and My Best Friend Put On A Show That Would Make Freya Totally Jealous [closed post]

Magnus wakes up, normal again except for how he's in an unfamiliar room. Not Galahad's old room, either. A nondescript one that, as far as he can tell, just has a bunch of clothes and stuff. Also he's wearing silky pajamas he'd never pick out automatically on his own?

It doesn't take long for him to feel like the walls are closing in on him. It's out of respect for Aornis that he stumbles out of her room through the door (barefoot and in the silky pajamas) and goes outside the normal way. Once outside, he flops into the snow, calling summer and feeling the way the snow steams against his skin as it melts.

He's not feeling totally regular again when he sits bolt upright, remembering that Drosera is probably in Galahad's old room with two people that aren't Magnus or Galahad. Existential crisis over, there's a child to retrieve! And hopefully, he'll run into Galahad in the halls.

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"Jack knows you, and he can do it without you wielding him." Galahad could also do it, he's pretty sure, but he's deferring to Magnus.

"Or would some enormous scissors be better? More controlled," Magnus says, musingly. He kicks off his latest pair of shoes -- a fun set of gladiator-style sandals Galahad had pulled, which he thinks he might actually keep, for the vibes -- and then peels off the socks he's been wearing pretty much all along, and regards his toe. Then he draws Jack from his necklace. "Hey buddy, do you think you could chop off my little toe without getting anything else?"

Jack does a little swoop. "Oh, sure, señor, I'm the sharpest sword in the Worlds. It'll be a cinch!" Then he stills in midair. "Why do you want to chop your toe off?"

"To see if I can reattach it."

"Weird," Jack comments. "Well, okay. I've destroyed a few feet in my time. Do you remember the jotunn in Flam? And how we stabbed it right in the tootsie? Man, that was a good fight. It would've been better if--"

"So," says Magnus to Galahad, sotto voce. "Jack is an option."

Galahad gives him a yeah, okay kind of look. "In the bathroom. You can bleed into the bathtub. And there are towels."

"I was thinking the same thing," Magnus nods. He sighs, and pulls off his pants, too. He's pretty sure toes don't bleed a ton, but he'd prefer not to get blood on anything nice.

Jack is still talking, so Magnus wraps his hand around his hilt. "C'mon, Jack," he says, and -- whoa! It's kind of weird to be actually wielding a sword again (by some value of wield) for the first time in months. He finds himself automatically wanting to sink into a fighting stance, but he squelches the urge with a weird little look down Jack's blade. "You're the precisest sword in the Nine Worlds, right? We only want the little toe off."

"Boss, I sewed Tiny's bowling bag, I can cut off a toe," Jack says.

This -- doesn't actually follow, in Magnus's estimation, but he does trust Jack with his life, so he just shrugs. "Okay, dude," he says to Galahad. "I guess it's all sorted. To the tub?"

He nods. From something of the same impulse, he strips down to the sensible underwear -- he's certainly seen limbs cut off before, if not specifically a small toe, and he's deeply uninterested in getting blood on his clothes.

The bathroom is small and clean, and Galahad assesses it briskly. "Sit in the bath," as he grabs an armful of towels.

Magnus plops himself down in the tub, and props his foot up on its faucet. "I feel like I should make a toast," he tells Galahad, wiggling his toes. "A toe-st. In case I can't reattach it. Like, 'thank you for your outstanding job.'"

To this Galahad says nothing; he gets a Dixie cup out of the cabinet over the sink and fills it with water, then sits down beside the bathtub. He lines up the cup of water, one of the folded towels. Mothwing would want him to have cobwebs and moss to stanch bleeding, marigold to prevent infection.

Oh, hey, Magnus recognizes that cup! Well, that style of cup. From the last time they did healings in this bathroom. Wow, things sure have changed over the past however many months... he barely even knew Galahad at the time, and now they're, like, brothers, about to cut off his toe together. That's actually so cool. He loves this guy so much.

He lolls his head back, trying to work up the nerve to let Jack rip. Obviously a toe is no big deal, in the grand scheme of things, and it'll probably barely even hurt compared to most way he's been injured before, but it also has been an awfully long time since he last died or even got injured in any major way, so.

He's starting to realize that he can read Magnus, just as he can read Claudius -- it's a new realization, and quietly pleasing (he hasn't studied Magnus the way he has Claudius; he must have just learned it from being around him so much). Right now, he can tell that Magnus is -- he's nervous. He's usually only nervous when talking about Alex, the future.

Galahad leans forward towards Magnus' foot and says, softly, "It was an honor to toe you."

And Magnus cracks up! If Galahad's intended purpose was to get him to relax, it worked; obviously everything will be fine since he's here with him. The only thing that could make this more reassuring would be if Galahad somehow whipped Alex out of his pocket, or whatever.

He lets go of Jack and take Galahad's hand, gripping it hard. "Just the little toe, Jack," he says, closing his eyes. "From the base of it. I gotta have enough to try and reattach it. And don't tell me when."

Perfect. Galahad threads his fingers through Magnus' and holds on tightly. Since Magnus has his eyes closed, Galahad watches Jack.

Jack, being Jack, strikes swiftly. It feels like a pinch, and then Magnus's body is flooding with the heat that always follows an injury, so fierce and distracting he barely makes out the soft sound of a dislodged toe hitting porcelain. "Fuck," he breathes, choking back a groan and then wondering why he's bothering to swallow the noise -- it's not like he's trying to keep a second arrow from hitting somewhere fatal during Battle Practice so he can swing his practice sword at a few more einherjar before he succumbs. "Holy Helheim. Ow." He grits his teeth and opens his eyes. Yup, there's a bloody toe-stump at the end of his foot. Wait, where did his toe go?

It's not the worst wound he's ever seen, not by a long way. It's bleeding a lot, but wounds at the extremities always bleed more than wounds on the trunk -- especially the feet. He reaches for the towel--

--and sees the river at Corbenic, his mother's castle. The land is barren: the fields are empty, as in winter, with occasional broken stalks of wheat or corn blowing in some ill wind; the trees have lost their leaves, and no birds sing. Though the sky is cloudless, it's a yellowish color, the way it turns sometimes right before a storm; the air smells like lightning. The castle keep is looks as it should, but there are no people coming and going, no smoke from fires, no sounds. The river is grey, and on the river is a coracle.

In the coracle, there is a man.

The man is dressed in a loose robe, his shoulders draped with a cloak, and on his head is a circlet studded with jewels, their settings worked to look like stars. He has a net in his hands, and he throws it into the water and brings it back in again to the boat, over and over; every time it's empty. Just as the fields are a wasteland and the animals on the earth are silent or gone, the river yields no fish.

The man looks up when he hears Galahad approach, and brings the coracle over to the shore. Galahad waits for him to stand, but instead he hooks the net at the side of his boat, and throws open his robe.

The Fisher King's groin has no male organ, but a deep gash, a mirror of the wound in Christ's side. It's a deep cut, from which blood continually seeps, and Galahad understands: the land is empty because the Fisher King is empty; it's an impotence that has begun in him and seeped forth like blood. This is what God has prepared him for -- not just to heal a man, but to heal the earth, to heal this kingdom, to undo its maiming so that its life can begin again. This is the quest he's forsaken. It's a suffering that has no answer except the Grail. Only with the Grail and the blood of Christ within it can this body be anointed with health.

Galahad can say nothing. What can he say? Tell the Fisher King that he can't heal him because he's fallen in love? That even before he was in love he broke his vow of chastity and lay with a man? That his quest is over?

The Fisher King smiles at him. "You look so much like your mother."

Galahad says nothing.

"Come here, boy. Let me see you better."

He takes a reluctant step forward. His eyes keep straying to the gash between the Fisher King's legs.

When he's close enough, he drops to one knee, and the Fisher King takes hold of his chin and turns his face back and forth, as if searching for something there. Galahad is rigid.

"Come inside," the Fisher King says at last. "The Grail is within."

"I can't," Galahad answers.

"It's time."

"I'm not--"

"I know the prophecy. It's time."

Galahad's ears are ringing. If Magnus is talking, he's missed it entirely.

"...ly it's not that bad," Magnus is saying. "I'm just out of practice. Maybe I should cut off appendages more often, just in case, so I can stay in practice." He's rambling, he knows he's rambling, but he's trying to distract himself from the throbbing as he half-sits and scrabbles through the blood that's trickling down the side of the tub to try and find his toe, still clinging to Galahad's hand with his other hand. "Wait, maybe I should have prayed to Njord first? Oh great Njord, god of the wind and the seas, ...grandpappy... you of the glorious feet, the most glorious feet of all the gods in all the Worlds, please help me make my feet glorious again. I'll, uh, tell everyone how great your feet are if you do. Thanks, your grandson, Magnus-- Oh, there it is -- amen."

Edited 2024-03-04 02:36 (UTC)

He crosses himself reflexively, and finally remembers to press the towel up against Magnus' foot.

"Dude," says Magnus, who has retrieved his toe and is looking at it. "I think that's bone." He glances over -- he hadn't thought Galahad was squeamish about blood, but he's looking a little peaked? "Are you okay?"

"I had a vision." It's hard to tell, when he's so pale already, but there's definitely less color in his face than normal. Still, being addressed reminds him -- he's here for a reason, to help look after Magnus, and he schools himself to focus. "I'll tell you later. How would you heal this? Do you have to put your toe back where it was severed?"

"A vision???! That's usually--" he sucks in a breath through his teeth at another wave of pain. "--my thing. Yeah. Uh, are you willing to hold it in place or would you rather I do it?"

"I can hold it." He lets the towel fall into the tub and carefully grips the severed pinky toe, holding it against its stump.

"It's the right way around?" Magnus asks, and then frowns. "I wonder if I could reattach it the wrong way around. That would be pretty cool, actually... not the point, Chase." He's getting distracted. It's the overwhelming throbbing pain; that kind of thing tends to be distracting.

He reaches inside himself and draws on the warmth of Galahad being here with him, helping him, holding his severed toe to his foot. The fact that Galahad is getting married to the love of his life. The look on Hanguang-jun's face right after he gives Magnus a big old bear hug. The curve of Alex's lips when she's pretending like she isn't smiling at him. Sagramore's expression when Magnus called him an adult-shaped adult. Gu Xiang when she borrowed his qi and used it to punch through cave walls. Shen Yuan crowing, victoriously, as he unlocks another character. Mallory and Halfblood and TJ, blood in their teeth halfway through a Battle Practice when they're not immediately losing. Hearthstone watching Blitzen sell his clothes. Drosera biting at snow and looking surprised at the cold. The pride on Qi Yan's face when Magnus answers one of her questions well. Tress when she's remembering Charlie. Nina, laughing as she explains another thing about flirting. Claudius touching his ring and talking about Galahad's eyes. Galahad's eyes, right now, carefully watching Magnus, even with the distance behind them from his vision. The beautiful poison dart frog sketch of Alex that Magnus keeps with him all the time, 24/7.

With each thought, Magnus grows warmer and warmer. As usual, it's harder to heal himself than it would be to heal someone else. He concentrates on the source of that pain, and tries to will himself into wholeness, burning out infection and pain alike, encouraging flesh and bone to knit back together. It takes some time; he's breathless with it and sweating, slipping in the tub. Alex's face, hanging upside down as he swings from a branch in Magnus's room in Valhalla. Alex's hand, callused against his, her skin dark against Magnus's uber-paleness. Alex's curls falling into his eyes. Alex, sitting still and letting Galahad commit her to paper even though she hates being pinned down, so Magnus could have the drawings.

Light and heat burst from Magnus's foot. Bone knits together with a sickening crunch, and he nearly whites out from the feeling of it. That's the hard part; the rest is just flesh. Magnus is good with flesh. He takes a deep breath and concentrates.

It's strange watching Magnus heal himself. Galahad has seen him heal twice already -- once his own scarred hand, and once Claudius' arm, after he was bitten -- and somehow neither of those healings are vivid in his memory. Now, light-headed from the vision, Galahad is still more present than ever before, and he watches the light emanate from Magnus' flesh in a way that feels like it should be stomach-churningly familiar. Would it have been like this if he had knelt with the Grail and poured its blood into the deep unsexing wound of the Fisher King? Would that light have sprung forth from them both?

Once the toe is obviously reattached he lets go of it and supports Magnus' whole foot with his hands, as if he were going to wash them for the Ordinance of Humility. As if he were the priest and Magnus the novitiate -- as if he were Christ, with his towel around his waist, and Magnus his beloved disciple.

Magnus slumps as the wound turns into a hairline flash of red, and then a scar, and then disappears, letting the summer fade from his foot. In its wake, there's a rush of cold and bone-deep exhaustion.

He only passes out for a second. Toes aren't hard -- he's healed much, much worse injuries before; TJ and Halfborn both needed greater effort on the quest to Naglfar and he was fine after them -- but perhaps it's reattaching a body part, and especially his own, that takes it out of him.

It's just a second, but it's still enough for a vision of his own: The Chase Space, bustling with kids. Alex and Samirah are in one corner; Hearthstone is there, too, Alex's arms are folded and his chin is jutting obstinantly; Sam looks -- resigned, maybe? -- and Hearth is signing something, but his back is to Magnus so he can't make out what. Alex shakes his head and lifts his hands, huffily--

But then Magnus comes back to himself. "Ow," he says, belatedly and a little blearily but otherwise fine, and gives his toe an experimental wiggle.

Galahad hasn't moved. He's perfectly still, waiting for Magnus like a vigil. His gaze flicks from Magnus' face down to his toe. "You did it."

"I think something's up with Alex," Magnus says, and then blinks, registering Galahad's words. "Yeah! I'm re-toed!." He wiggles it again. "That's probably enough, right? I don't think I'm going to try with my hand." It would make logical sense to -- after all, hands are a lot more complicated than toes -- but he really doesn't want to know what that one feels like even though it would probably be good practice.

"Don't do your hand," firmly (he isn't trying to, but he says it in his commanding voice, the one that brooks absolutely no argument. Even though he still believes this was a well-reasoned decision on Magnus' part, it was deeply unpleasant to be part of, and he doesn't think they need to test it. Magnus can reattach parts of the body, but it taxes him, and Galahad is confident they don't need any more taxing in the absence of a real emergency). "Drink." He takes the Dixie cup and presses it into Magnus' hand.

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