YOU Get A Big Banana, and YOU Get A Big Banana, and YOU Get A Big Banana! [closed post]

[summerdude]

"Okay, just another minute," Magnus says.

It's a hot day out, so holding Galahad's hand is a sweaty affair... and Magnus's current use of his alf seidr isn't making matters any more comfortable. The grass is tickling at Magnus's back -- his shirt has ridden up while he lies, spread-eagle, in the middle of the lawn. Galahad is always so smart about his clothes, Magnus bets he's not getting the grass itches at all.

But he can put all that aside. Grass tickles are good tickles, and the heat of the sun is -- to Magnus -- always more refreshing than it is annoying. There's a trickle of sweat at the side of his neck, but even though it's hot out it's not really a temperature extreme, so as usual he feels regular about it.

All his attention is on the plants around them. Feverfew and milkweed, black-eyed susan and queen anne's lace, aster and boneset and flowering spurge and yarrow and tickseed and teasel and wild thyme and forget-me-nots and poppies and and and -- well. He's not sure what else is in the mix. He's been trying to get better at plant identification with Claudius's guidance, but the package he found earlier that morning only said FIELD SEEDS. He's doing his best! Right now, his 'best' is less focused on identification and more focused on growing them to flower, high enough that some of them are providing shade to both him and Galahad, in a very neat outline of the grass they've politely crushed between the two of them.

Eventually, he's done all he can without overtaxing the plants. "There," he tells Galahad. "Summer snow angels, check."

Comments

[onthewillowsthere]

"It's not fine. It dishonors him."

[summerdude]

"Why?"

[onthewillowsthere]

"Because he's holy."

[summerdude]

"Okay?" Magnus blinks at Galahad. "I'm gonna need more of an explanation. I don't think I'm following."

[onthewillowsthere]

"He's too important. He's sacred. What I feel for him is-- wrong."

[summerdude]

"None of your feelings are bad or wrong," Magnus says, stoutly.

[onthewillowsthere]

"It's wrong to think about Percival like this," just as stubborn.

[summerdude]

"Would he be mad?"

[onthewillowsthere]

Galahad's mouth goes dry. "I don't know." He and Percival never spoke about desire. Galahad doesn't even know whether Percival ever wanted anyone besides the woman in his vision.

[summerdude]

"Obviously I've never personally actually met him," Magnus says. "But his vibes were really strongly seemed, like, at worst he'd be confused but flattered."

[onthewillowsthere]

He shakes his head. He doesn't know how to say how much the idea frightens him -- even the possibility of Percival being repulsed by him is overwhelming.

[summerdude]

Magnus sits back and waits, ready to listen.

[onthewillowsthere]

"He is... how I imagine Christ," Galahad says slowly. "Someone good. Faithful. The most important person there is. I'm afraid to-- sully him."

[summerdude]

"A of all," says Magnus, "You know that arrows guy^* in all those paintings? I'm pretty sure catholics are horny about saints and stuff all the time. And Jesus, too; I'm pretty sure there's a ton of horny Jesus art out there. There's like songs about him being sexy or something⁺. And movies about how he fucked^$? So even if Percival was Jesus Christ, it would be fine to, like, be in love with him and think he's hot. B of all, you could never sully anyone, ever, because you're not, like, morally or literally dirty or diseased or anything. C of all, I might not be, like, well-versed in your religion beyond what you've specifically told me, but wouldn't Jesus, like, be down with love? Especially loving someone important to you?"

*Do I even need to clarify that he's thinking of Saint Sebastian?
⁺Nice job finally working in a Hamlet 2 reference, S
^$He's thinking of the Da Vinci Code...

[onthewillowsthere]

"Saint Sebastian," he says automatically. Then he's quiet again; now he is rubbing his watchband and its familiar braid. He doesn't know how to tell Magnus that this doesn't help -- how to put it into words that make sense, how to explain that he's always been precise in his feelings and practices, and what Magnus is describing is choosing imprecision. Eroticizing the saints and Christ is something people do because they don't know or don't care about sacredness. When Galahad chooses to sin, he is breaking the rules he knows better than his own body, the scriptures he committed to memory when he was still a child (Magnus knows what he was like back then, serious and certain and unwilling to deviate from God's path). He isn't rejecting religion; he never has. He is a disobedient son shaming his Father in ways only his Father sometimes sees.

He doesn't know how to say that in Camelot he was scorned and hated for caring too much, and he's never stopped caring. He doesn't want to do what Magnus is describing, and apply himself haphazardly, to stop being precise about what matters because everyone else doesn't care. Even the thought makes him uneasy.

He reminds himself that Magnus doesn't understand -- he said so himself. Magnus understands him, but not God, not God's rules, not the way it feels to have them inscribed on the very cells Claudius has shown him in the microscope.

[summerdude]

"And D of all," Magnus says triumphantly, "nuns! Don't they literally fantasize about being married to--" he clocks the cast to Galahad's eyes and cocks his head. "I'm way off base, huh," he guesses.

[onthewillowsthere]

"Nuns don't fantasize. They are spiritually married to Christ," Galahad says, once again unable to stop himself from making sure Magnus has the accurate information. And then, "Percival is faithful. Without proof. He is good -- he's always good. God should have chosen him, not me. That's what I thought before. But now I don't want God to choose him either. I want him to have what he deserves. Everything."

[summerdude]

"Okay, so what I'm not getting is why you being into him is bad, though," Magnus says. "Because to me that's internalized homophobia vibes, and I don't like it. Like he can be perfect and good, obviously, but wouldn't that just make it even more reasonable for you to be into him?"

[onthewillowsthere]

"What is internalized homophobia?" he asks.

[summerdude]

"It's when someone who's gay -- or bi, or queer, I guess -- thinks that being gay is wrong. And it makes them feel really bad about themselves. Homophobia directed at yourself."

[onthewillowsthere]

"No," decisively, relieved to have something clear-cut to reply. "It isn't that."

[summerdude]

Magnus, visibly enormously relieved -- and completely believing Galahad, since he never lies -- scratches his head. "So it's more about the sex than the gender?" he guesses.

[onthewillowsthere]

Galahad rubs at his watchband. "When I met Claudius here and asked Crowley to take my memory, it wasn't because he was a man. It was because he asked to kiss me. It was the first time I wanted someone I could have had."

[summerdude]

"So it's about sex in relation to the flesh prison?" Magnus says, and then shakes his head, and says, "I think I mean 'desire' by that?"

[onthewillowsthere]

"My desire is sinful. But Claudius wants it. He is like me. We can choose together." His brows draw together ever so slightly as he looks at Magnus.