In The War Of The Pranks, You Ball Or You Die [closed post]

[summerdude]

Magnus has had an incredibly busy morning. The winter feels less oppressive in the wake of that totally insane blizzard the other day, so he spends the first few hours digging out camp with Alex (which does take some time, because they do take a couple of breaks for snow fights, make-out sessions, and snacks), and then digging out Galahad's church. In the process of tracking down a shovel to do said digging, he learns that the Mansion is making things again (thank gods), so he also takes advantage of that, once his home has been unearthed, to find another outdoor fireplace, a few candles and tiki torches, and a weird wooden chest thing filled with paper and markers. Plus some bells.

He takes all of these things back to the church, and works in earnest to continue setting it up. He writes TABERNACLE GOES HERE? on one of the papers, which he wedges in one of the slats of the box, demonstratively, and places it on his former reading branch, urging the branch to grow around the box a little more snugly. He threads bells through smaller branches, and then moves the branches like vines, securing them in place above the cross. The outdoor fireplace he puts next to the place where he imagines Galahad might sit or kneel or whatever, so he can stay warm; he places the candles on top of it, and then drags Dro's perch to the other side of the kneeling/sitting space. Finally, he shoves the torches into the frozen ground in a line leading up to the space.

Then, he decides, he can't do anything else without some sort of direction from Galahad. So he goes back to camp, gives Alex another big old kiss, and shoves his notebook into his backpack. "I'll be back by dinner," he promises her, "with dinner," and trots off to the Mansion to find Galahad.

Comments

[summerdude]

So Magnus leads them out to the forest. He detours them briefly through camp, so he can deposit the soup in the snowbank where he and Alex have been keeping perishables and carve a little heart in the snow underneath it. And then he takes a deep breath, squares his shoulders, and says, "Okay. It's just through here."

[onthewillowsthere]

Galahad squeezes his hand. Again, he's not sure why Magnus is so nervous, but he's sure he will like the surprise.

[summerdude]

"Okay," Magnus says, as he squeezes Galahad's hand back and ducks under the arch of branches leading toward the little church. "Do you want to close your eyes? No, that's silly, you can keep them open. Um." Just ten, fifteen more steps, and then they come into the second clearing. One of the torches has slumped over -- Magnus must not have shoved it deep enough into the frozen ground -- but everything else looks just like how he left it.

[onthewillowsthere]

As soon as they reach the clearing he stops where he stands, his blue eyes widening. Whatever he had expected, it wasn't this. It feels like coming upon a bush burning but not consuming itself in the middle of the desert -- like being somewhere ordinary and then realizing that the ground on which you stand is holy. The huge oak weaving itself into a cross that looks as if it had grown there from the beginning, a knotted plaited cross that looks like something he and Percival would have found in an old churchyard, is like a sign. If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.

[summerdude]

Magnus shifts his weight from foot to foot, rubbing the back of his neck with his free hand. "I'm still not, like, entirely sure what it needs to be right," he says.

[onthewillowsthere]

Without answering, he takes a few steps closer, until he can put his hand on the trunk of the oak. It feels important. "You made it."

[summerdude]

"Yeah, well." Magnus shrugs, but he's actually watching Galahad very closely. "You didn't have a church for Easter."

[onthewillowsthere]

He didn't, and he'd felt it keenly. He imagines keeping his vigil here, watching the dawn light spread in the sky with his back to the trunk, listening to the sounds of leaves rustling and the forest waking. It's hard not to imagine Percival, too, naming the insects and birds -- Percival would lie in the grass and talk about God in ways that Galahad has never been able to imagine Him, as a God of endless love and compassion and loving-kindness, whose sacrifices make meaning, not as a Father who has to dictate his every move because he might stray.

Because he has strayed.

"Thank you," he says, so quietly, so flatly.

[summerdude]

Magnus, of course, knows precisely what level of emotion that flatness signifies. He goes to pull Galahad into a hug. Against Galahad's shoulder, he says, "It obviously doesn't have to be just for Easter; that's just what gave me the idea. I just wanted you to have, like. A space." Say 'just' just one more time, Magnus!

[onthewillowsthere]

Galahad hugs him as tightly as he can, and at the time this thread is taking place, that's still quite a lot! "It's good," he says. "Thank you."

[summerdude]

Magnus squeezes back just as hard. "It's good?" he says. "Good. Good. Great. I can do, like, whatever it needs to make it better."

[onthewillowsthere]

"Will you come here with me?"

[summerdude]

"Of course, if you want me to."

[onthewillowsthere]

"Not all the time. Sometimes. Yes."

[summerdude]

"Yeah, dude, whenever you want. It's okay that I'm not christian? Laertes made it sound like one of the things that makes a church a church is having churchy people in it."

[onthewillowsthere]

"In community with Christ," he agrees. "No. It's okay. This is a different kind of church."

[summerdude]

"But it's still okay though?"

[onthewillowsthere]

"It's okay. It's holy in a different way."

[summerdude]

"So it's churchy enough."

[onthewillowsthere]

"It's good," he says again, more firmly, the tone he would use with Claudius to make him listen.

[summerdude]

Okay, okay, Magnus believes him! His spine straightens. "Great!" he says. "I can do whatever changes you want. Well, almost whatever changes you want. If you want this to be an inside thing we'll have to find someone else to help."

[onthewillowsthere]

"Outside is good. Will you help me get the icons from your room?"

[summerdude]

"Yeah, of course! Now?"

[onthewillowsthere]

"Is that all right?"

[summerdude]

"Dude, you have me for the entire day. I'd love to help you get the icons from our room."