icarus_chained (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
icarus_chained) wrote2015-02-09 04:14 am
icarus_chained) wrote2015-02-09 04:14 am
Entry tags:
- dark,
- fanfic,
- gen,
- librarians,
- mythology
Jenkins & Dulaque Fic
Following from Old Blood and New. There's a lot of the Morte D'Arthur version in this, but essentially I'm picking whichever bits/versions of the mythology will be the most angsty. *grins sheepishly*
Title: Sins of the Father
Rating: PG-13
Fandom: The Librarians (2014), Arthurian Myth
Characters/Pairings: Jenkins, Dulaque, Jake Stone, mention of Morgan Le Fay, Guinevere and Arthur. Jenkins & Dulaque, Lancelot/Guinevere, Jenkins & Jake
Summary: Jenkins receives a second unwelcome caller in as many weeks, and after what happened with Morgan he's not sure he can bear it. The news of what happened isn't something Dulaque can leave unanswered, however. No matter how many grudges, old and new, are dredged up in the process. At least Jake is there to ease the aftermath.
Wordcount: 5658
Warnings/Notes: Discussion of bastard sons, betrayal, rape, civil war ... all the fun stuff from Arthurian myth. In the present, a fractured father-son relationship, hurt/comfort, angst
Disclaimer: Not mine
Title: Sins of the Father
Rating: PG-13
Fandom: The Librarians (2014), Arthurian Myth
Characters/Pairings: Jenkins, Dulaque, Jake Stone, mention of Morgan Le Fay, Guinevere and Arthur. Jenkins & Dulaque, Lancelot/Guinevere, Jenkins & Jake
Summary: Jenkins receives a second unwelcome caller in as many weeks, and after what happened with Morgan he's not sure he can bear it. The news of what happened isn't something Dulaque can leave unanswered, however. No matter how many grudges, old and new, are dredged up in the process. At least Jake is there to ease the aftermath.
Wordcount: 5658
Warnings/Notes: Discussion of bastard sons, betrayal, rape, civil war ... all the fun stuff from Arthurian myth. In the present, a fractured father-son relationship, hurt/comfort, angst
Disclaimer: Not mine
Sins of the Father
Jenkins/Galahad: "No. We choose. A thousand years ago. You know that very moment when you, and I, stopped being ... whatever we were."
Dulaque/Lancelot: "If I hadn't tried, I'd actually be the monster you think I am. Travel well."
--- Apple of Discord
In the aftermath of Morgan's visit, life settled, as it always did, back into a routine. A different routine, of course, a much more crowded routine than he was used to, but a routine nonetheless. And, perhaps, not necessarily an unpleasant one. Order, liberally interspersed with madness, had returned to his Annex, and Jenkins welcomed it gladly.
There was a lesson there, perhaps. Something about false senses of security. He'd learned those lessons many times before, every one of them, and then forgotten them all again in turn. It probably figured that they wouldn't be content with that state of affairs.
He had to take peace where he found it, however. Otherwise he'd never have any at all.
So it was that a Tuesday afternoon found him sequestered at his table with a fascinating series of Atlantean treatises, thumbing absently through about four different texts while making notes with his spare hand, blind and deaf to the rest of the world. He didn't look up at a flicker of motion in the corner of his eye. Most of the others were out at present, but Stone was lurking around here somewhere, happily lost in a stack of 14th century Italian folios that was probably higher than he was. Jenkins had caught him wandering past in his peripheral vision a time or two before, heading for the card catalogue or the kitchen. Another figure, even one hovering around the front door instead, didn't really catch his attention unduly.
Until it knocked gently on the door frame, at least, a pair of quick, demanding little taps, and a dry, familiar voice said softly: "Knock knock, Galahad."
Jenkins closed his eyes. He didn't move. He neither flinched nor stood. He was too tired of all this by far to bother with that. Instead, he closed his eyes, and bowed his head exhaustedly.
"That's it," he said, reaching up to pinch the bridge of his nose. "You know what? That's it. I'm leaving. I'm moving house. Right now." He looked up, dropping his pencil onto the table and glaring at the slim, besuited figure in the doorway. "I had two hundred years of peace, did you know that? Two centuries where no-one so much as sneezed in my direction. And then in one year, one moment, you brought an end to it. I can't go two weeks anymore without someone dropping by, to kill me or to steal from me or ... I can't get one thing done for visitors these days. Thank you so much."
Dulaque smiled faintly, moving into the room with careful, cautious steps. He cast his eyes around, checking that they were alone, and Jenkins found time to hope that Stone would have the good sense to stay out of sight. For the moment, at least. Just until Jenkins had a chance to figure out what was going on. After that, he was more than welcome to pop up and drop something heavy on Dulaque's head, if he so wished.
"I had heard that," his father murmured, turning to look at him once again, coming to a stop a few feet away. He wasn't armed. Or not nakedly, at least. The cane at his side undoubtedly held steel, and a pistol beneath his jacket was far from out of the question. He bore no open threats for the moment, though. "I'm ever so sorry to have disturbed your refuge. Very rude of me, I know."
Jenkins stared at him. He didn't know what was showing in his face, had no idea what sort of expression might have crossed it at that, but something must have. Dulaque's expression shifted, something that might even have been genuine remorse flickering through it, and Jenkins pressed his lips together, shaking his head in tired, hopeless denial.
"... What do you want?" he asked, flat and uselessly. "The Library is out at the moment, and you wouldn't take it on your own anyway. You've made a passel of enemies this time, and several of them are waiting for you if you cross that threshold. Not even you would be that foolish."
His father's lip quirked at that. A strange, rueful expression, entirely self-directed. "Questionable," he noted softly. "I'm told that foolishness has ever been one of my defining characteristics. Nonetheless. You are, for the moment at least, entirely correct. I'm not here for the Library. Not this time."
"Then what?" Jenkins asked, turning on his stool to face him properly. To be ready to stand, to die on his feet, if it came to it. "The sooner you tell me, the sooner we can ... the sooner we can get it done and you can leave. I'd be grateful. I've had too many visitors lately. I'm not in the mood for another. No matter how compelling their grudges might be."
Dulaque stared at him for a second. He rubbed a finger against his thumb, a dark, thoughtful look in his eyes as he scanned Jenkins from head to toe. Looking for something, heaven knew what. Jenkins held his gaze with tight, angry defiance. One ghost from the past was enough for a month. One Morgan Le Fay was enough for a century. He had no patience left for his father on top of it, however cruel or unworthy a thought it might be.
It wasn't, though. Not anymore. Maybe once, he might have felt guilty for turning Lancelot away, but that was before Lamia's death, almost Colonel Baird's, before the attempted destruction of everything Jenkins loved. Again. They had passed the point of no return, Dulaque and he. There was no more need for niceties.
"... It's because of one of those visitors that I'm here, actually," Dulaque began, at last. He looked down at his hand, then back up, his face inscrutable. Jenkins couldn't have read him if he'd wanted to. That familiarity had long since faded. "After recent events, my being here is a step too far, I realise that. Even with enemies, one mustn't be rude. I recently received a ... message, however, that led me to believe an exception might be warranted in this case. It was rather alarming. Would you like to hear what it contained?"
Jenkins blinked at him. "A message," he repeated, shaking his head. "Someone sent you a message. About the Library?"
"Not the Library, no," Dulaque said, soft and precise, laying the words out carefully. His gaze was fixed intently on Jenkins, and there was something dark and seething beneath it. Jenkins swallowed silently, though he didn't dare look away. "A far older concern between us, I'm afraid. Shall I quote it for you? It was very simple, in fact. Short and sweet. 'The debt of the daughter of Pelles has at last been paid. Sleep well for it, my love.'" He paused, as Jenkins felt the blood drain from his features, and nodded softly. "You can understand, then, why I thought I should pay a visit in the wake of that, hmm?"
Jenkins didn't answer. He reached out, grabbed hold of the edge of the table. Stability. He needed something to hold him up. He could taste blood in his mouth. Not his own. Hers. The memory of what she'd ... He shook his head, mute with nausea. She'd sent a message. Of course she had. Of course she would have wanted Lancelot to know ...
"I will confess to a certain amount of relief," Dulaque went on, with a lift of his lip that only a fool would have called a smile. "I had half expected to find you dead when I arrived here. Or taken. It's easy to fear the worst when it comes to Morgan Le Fay. You understand that."
That actually jolted Jenkins a little. Not quite enough to shatter the hollowness in his head, but still a little. Not the ... not expecting the worst, no, but ...
"Fear?" he managed, pushing himself cautiously to his feet. "Why would you ...?"
"What were you thinking?" Dulaque hissed, cutting him off. He planted his cane in front of him like a sword, leaning forward across it, and for a second he looked every inch the knight he'd once been. Jenkins stared at him, baffled and ill. "You let the witch in here? You let her near you? I know you're letting every bit of riff-raff in these days, but even you should have the sense to draw the line at Morgan Le Fay!"
Jenkins bristled automatically. It didn't require much thought to manage it.
"No-one let her in anywhere," he growled coldly. "They didn't know who she was. We found someone trying to destroy a hundred lives with magic in an effort to escape your plot, and she gained access before we realised who she was. Then, once she realised I was still alive, she ..."
He trailed off, wiping his mouth, and Dulaque stared at him. His jaw was stiff, locked tight beneath the icy fury in his eyes, and Jenkins honestly wasn't sure who it was directed at. He drew himself up to his full height, on the off-chance that it was him. Of everyone in this little mess, he was the last to deserve it.
"She wounded one of my Librarians," he explained, soft and clipped, smoothing his hand down his shirtfront as he said it. Resisting the urge to let it drift sideways, to press against the place in his side where Ezekiel's had been torn. "It was either agree to her bargain, or let him die. I wasn't willing to pay that price. I couldn't let a boy die just so that I wouldn't have to ..."
He broke off, stopping that thought before it started, and something went through Lancelot in front of him. A flash of something ... terrible. Bleakness. Fury. Memory. Something. He couldn't be sure what exactly. He trailed off before that thought could finish, and saw something entirely without name in his father's expression.
"... No," Dulaque said at last. His knuckles were white around the top of his cane, his tone so very carefully blank and emotionless. "I don't suppose you could, at that. It's not the child's place to pay for their elder's sins. Is it?"
The words fell into silence between them, a quiet, hateful gauntlet. Something white and empty yawned open in their wake, a blankness that defied completion. Jenkins didn't answer him. He couldn't. Morgan's words clawed through him, neatly cut him in two with their echo here, and there was nothing in all the world he could say to this man. The sins between them had begun before he was even born, and had lasted long enough that a thousand years later they could still be tasted on his tongue. There was nothing that could be said in the face of that.
"... Why are you here?" he asked, the sound of his voice oddly distant to him. "We ... We chose our sides. Yet again. There was no reason ... Why did you come here?"
Dulaque snarled. Really and truly. His face morphed for a second into a mask of rage, and Jenkins took an instinctive step backwards. He bumped into the stool, drawing a squeal of metal on marble, and they both froze somewhat at the noise. They both fell still, and Dulaque pulled himself back under control. The fury didn't leave, mind. It simply went cold once more.
"Why am I here?" he asked, dark and furious. "You know what she is to me. You know what she's done. All of it. Every sordid little ... You know. You know what she would do to my blood. And you ask why I'm here?"
Jenkins looked away. He breathed, ragged, heavy breaths. He felt the memory of her hands on his face. He tasted ... he tasted the memory of her mouth. He knew what she'd done to Lancelot, yes. Hunted, imprisoned, owned, ruined. Fire and blood and death, the price of two loves unfulfilled, and the vengeance called down upon them. He knew what Morgan Le Fay would do for love, and for hate, and for those terrible places where they met and merged and became one thing, one endless, bloodstained passion. He knew. He did.
"It doesn't matter," he heard himself say. "She didn't ... It doesn't matter. It's over now. She said ... She told you the debt was paid, and she doesn't lie. It's done. It doesn't matter."
Dulaque grabbed him. His father seized his arm, and the memory of her hands crawled all the way up his throat and out of it. He flung himself backwards. He threw himself away. Lancelot didn't follow him. He fell still, his hand frozen and outstretched, and the mask on his face went blank and cold and remote. It felt like a breaking. Like something nameless had been severed. Jenkins no more understood it than he understood why Lancelot had come here at all.
"... I suppose I deserve that," Dulaque said, straightening himself up and dropping his hand back to his side. "Or one of us does, perhaps. I would remind you, though, that it was you who chose to destroy me, not the other way around. I wanted you to join me. I wanted your help."
"Why?" Jenkins asked. He'd wanted to know. Ever since the Conclave, since the answer he'd been unable to give, he'd wanted to know that. "Why ask me? Why go back at all? What did you think would be there? You, of all people ..."
"It was a chance to make it right," Dulaque snapped, with that fierce light in his eyes that Jenkins had last seen on a younger man, an echo a thousand years lost. "It was chance to undo ... to undo everything. To fix it. Why can't you understand that?"
Jenkins shook his head. He was numb, still, but there was something stirring inside him. Some anger of his own, maybe. Some grief.
"Because it wouldn't have worked," he said, with empty surety. "You can't fix ... What were you going to do? Pretend you didn't love her? Kill Arthur yourself? Kill Uther? How far back were you planning to take yourself? To what aim? Where did you think you could fix it?"
"Killing Morgan would have been a start," his father answered, a hard snarl of hatred. "Without her ... I would have found a way, Galahad. There had to be a way. There had to have been something ..."
"She said I was born in blood," Jenkins cut him off, shaking his head. Old, old pain. Old sins, old blood, turning the stomach even a thousand years on. "I wasn't the only one. That world ... Arthur carried his curse with him from the moment he was born. His father saw to that. He was a good man. A good king. But it was too much power, and it was bought in too much blood. You know that. Of all people, you know it. They died ... So many of us. For love or for sin or for prophecy. Which part could you have fixed? All of it? You could have made them all better? Stopped every mistake before it happened? Lancelot ..."
"I would have tried!" It was desperate, furious, with a crack a thousand years deep through the middle of it. Jenkins stared, stricken in grief, and Lancelot glared back at him, alive and alight and so very, very desperate. Mad, in so familiar a way. "It fell because of me. You don't understand that. You can't. You never ... It was my fault. I did it. That means I could undo it. It was my mistake. I could have fixed it. I could have ... gone back before she married him, or just not ... She never forgave herself. If I had never told her ..."
"It wouldn't have kept Morgan from hating him," Jenkins said, with a strange, weary compassion. He was gentle. It seemed right to be gentle, all their sins aside. "It wouldn't have kept her from loving you. Even if you'd pretended, gave yourself to her to save them, even if you'd ... She would have known, sooner or later. You loved Guinevere. You couldn't help it. She would have figured it out. She hated them both anyway, for who they were and what they'd done. For the sins of the parents. Camelot was ... It was doomed before you arrived. It was born in blood and magic. That always ... There's always a price for that. Every time."
Lancelot stared at him. With shock, Jenkins thought. Or pity, maybe. A blank incomprehension.
"You believe that," the knight said, slowly. "You ... Galahad. It's not ..."
"Even if you'd killed Morgan," Jenkins went on. Lightheaded, and with a stone in his chest. The words fell out of his mouth as though pulled by a string. "Even if you'd killed her, and pretended not to love Guinevere, and served Arthur with everything you had ... Why? What would you have had? What was there in Camelot to make that worth it? Magic? The kind my mother used to make me, or Merlin to make Arthur? The kind used to conquer and keep a world defenceless? Or was it kings? The kind of king that had the right to burn his wife to death for the crime of loving another, that enacted that right? That was worth saving? At the cost of her love. Of all the worlds you'd destroyed to get there. That's what you ...?"
"Stop," Dulaque hissed, shaking his head desperately from side to side. "Stop. That's not ... It wouldn't have been that way. It wouldn't have ..."
"It was," Jenkins said, stepping forward, into his father's space. Trying to drive the point home. "It was that way. I was there. I was born in it. You, of all people. You have to know. I don't understand. You fought that war. You were preyed on by that magic. You started a blood feud to save your queen from that fate. Every sin, every price that was paid in that place, you lived it. I came later, but you ... How could you have forgotten? I never understood that. How could you forget what Camelot was?"
Lancelot stared at him, white-faced, pale as death. There was hatred in his eyes. It hadn't been there before. Desperation, fear, blind fury, but never ... never hate. Jenkins hadn't realised that until now. Until he saw it, until it was finally pointed at him, and he realised the absence that had come before. In that second, for the first time, his father looked at him, and hated him.
The rule of three, perhaps? Three sins, to finally earn a hatred. Failing to save Camelot the first time. Denying the chance to save it the second. Destroying the dream of it the third. Thrice around, and the cost calls due. He should have seen that coming, perhaps.
"... And what is there to save here?" Dulaque asked at last, his voice whisper-soft and deadly. "This ... world you would die for. What does it have that you think is worth more than what we lost then? What does it have worth fighting for?"
Jenkins shrugged, feeling splintered and uneasy. Daring, in that reckless, stupid way where there was nothing left to lose. "Divorce laws?" he suggested, and it wasn't wholly a joke. Too barbed and strung with old blood by far. "Democracy? The right not to be burned at the stake for loving someone? I could mention a few more--"
"She's dead," Lancelot said, flatly and finally, and Jenkins cut off in the face of it. He stopped, the words dying in his throat. There was grief on his father's face. An ancient, pale fury. "She died hating me. She prayed that she would die before she had to see my face again. I think those things are beyond her concern, now. I think perhaps they always would have been."
Jenkins didn't answer. There was ... there was nothing to say. There was no 'I'm sorry' that could hope to matter now.
"What does this place matter?" Lancelot asked him. Still soft. Still light. "What is there worth saving here? Everything that mattered died then. Honour. Love. All of it. It wouldn't have happened here? It would have been different, without the magic and the rule of kings? They're dead. It won't happen here anyway. Why not ... For a chance. Even one chance. Why would I hesitate? What do you have that would give me reason?"
"... Nothing," Jenkins answered, and it didn't taste like blood. It tasted like ash, instead. Like the severing of something he had never understood in the first place. "That's why I ... I have nothing that you love, and everything that I do. I had to fight you. That was why. I had to choose a side, and I had nothing to offer to make you choose mine."
Lancelot blinked at him, and then he smiled. A strange, fey thing, a twisting of his face. It wasn't hatred in his eyes. It wasn't pity either. Acceptance, maybe. A fatalistic understanding. He nodded gently. He took that at last in stride.
"So then," he said softly, Dulaque once more, contemporary and urbane. Something twisted in Jenkins' chest. He didn't understand why. "Thus the lines are drawn, hmm? Never again shall we be what we were. No more going back."
Jenkins swallowed painfully. "No going back," he echoed. It should have been ... It should have been easier to say. He wasn't ... It shouldn't feel like losing something. There was nothing here to lose that hadn't been lost centuries ago. There was no choice to be made that hadn't been made the first time. And yet ... yet. Something crumbled in his chest. He'd thought it had broken long ago. Apparently he'd been wrong.
"... You should invest in better security, in that case," Dulaque went on, still smiling faintly. Still with that terrible expression. "As it stands, just anyone could swan in here and ... Well. It's a miracle you're still alive, with all the visitors you've been having, isn't it? You should fix that, Galahad. One wouldn't want to win too easily. Or to let old enemies win either."
Jenkins closed his eyes. A mistake. With a warning like that, a threat, such a mistake to close his eyes. He did it anyway. It had at least one pleasant side effect. With his sight blocked, he listened instead, and heard the faint scuffling upstairs as someone stealthily made ready to move. Jacob Stone. He'd forgotten, hadn't he. He'd forgotten that he wasn't here alone.
"I'll take that under advisement," he managed, opening his eyes again and meeting his father's ... No. Meeting Dulaque's eyes. Let there be no more confusion there. "Alternately, I could go with my original plan. Between you and Morgan, I'm more than tempted to just move."
Dulaque chuckled mildly. "Ah, but that would be giving in," he noted, lifting his cane idly under his arm, one hand gripping below the hilt. It was a smooth motion, natural-seeming, non-threatening. If one didn't know that it allowed him the grip to draw the steel sheathed within the wood. "You've only just started to fight again, my boy. Don't ruin that again so soon. If you run you can be hunted. If you hide you can be found. You've tried both. I thought we'd just said there's no going back?"
Jenkins stared at him. Dulaque stared back, calm and peaceable and unperturbed. It didn't make sense. Nothing ever did. Nothing that came out of Camelot ever, ever had.
"... Why do you care?" he asked at last. He was too tired to sound angry, or even bitter. It was simply a question. There was no emotion to it beyond a kind of blank confusion. "If I fight or if I hide, what does it matter to you? You're not--"
Dulaque moved. It was smooth, a single, controlled step that placed him right in front of Jenkins, his chest less than five inches from Jenkins' own. The motion made no sense. The closeness forced the sword-cane out and to the side, rendered the weapon useless. A knife from this range would have worked. A sword never could have. Jenkins broke off, staring down at him in numb confusion. Dulaque looked back at him, an expression on his face beyond Jenkins' power to read, and carefully placed a hand on Jenkins' shoulder. He squeezed, gently. It should have been a threat. Jenkins didn't quite understand why it wasn't.
"... It's not the child's place to pay for the parent's sin," Lancelot said at last. No emotion either. No rage and no love. Just a statement, flat and determined in answer. "You're not worth more than what I've lost, my boy. You never could be. But you are ... You are blood of my blood. You are worth a great deal more than anything else I have left to lose. You mustn't let her touch you. I know what she does to those she hates. You can't let her have you, and running has never stopped her. You have to fight. Do you understand? You have to make a place where you can stand against her. It doesn't exist, but you have to try. Otherwise ... Otherwise there's nothing left in this world that matters."
It was too much. That thing in his chest that should have been safely broken ... It was too much. Tears sprang into his eyes, and he let them fall. Silently. He commanded himself that much. But they fell nonetheless. Dulaque watched them, nothing but strangeness in his eyes.
"I never understood where you came from," he mused softly, holding Jenkins tethered, his useless sword in his other hand. "I know why she wanted you. I know what she did to get you. Her I understood. But you ... You were always more than us. It was never about Camelot. The Grail, the Library ... These things you were meant for. I never understood them. The choices you make have always been beyond me. But they're not ... It's not prophecy, is it? It's not magic. What you said to me. We choose. It's not chosen for us. We have to choose. You were never going to take my side. Not because of destiny, but just because ... you don't love what I love. And I don't love what's yours. We've nothing to offer each other. It was always too late for that. I should have known better than to ask it of you."
"... I'm sorry," Jenkins managed, because it was all that was left. It couldn't matter. It was too late for that. But it was all that was left to be said.
Lancelot smiled at him. He stepped all the way in, drawing Jenkins down and wrapping both arms around him, the sword-cane pressed diagonally across his back. Sheathed, still. Not even enough to cut. Lancelot pulled him down and held him, one last time.
"Go well," he said, soft into Jenkins' ear once more, another echo between them. "You face everything I have ever loved and everything I have ever hated. The least you could do is face it well. I'll not lose to a lesser man, Galahad. I've too much pride for that. Be worthy of it."
Jenkins flinched, full-bodied, and wrapped his arms around his father in turn. He ducked his head, hiding behind his father's line of sight, and held him close. "The next time you hurt them," he said thickly, "I'll kill you. I don't want to. But I can't lose anymore. You understand? I won't lose them. Not to anyone."
Dulaque pulled back. He was smiling, that pale light in his eyes once more. The madman, the fallen knight. The father. He gave Jenkins one last squeeze, and then stepped back, pulling away with an oddly gentle finality.
"Good," he said, and brought the cane up into a fencer's salute. It was a threat now. He had the distance again to make a sword worth something. It remained in its sheath, however. A promise, more than a present. "Once it was said that we two were the greatest knights and the greatest swordsmen of our era. Our last battle didn't much reflect that. Our next one, I think, will do it more justice. Hmm?"
Jenkins nodded silently. Not much of a promise, by comparison, but enough of one. The lines had been drawn. There was no need to belabour them.
"I'll be on my way then," Dulaque said, dropping his cane back to the floor and twitching his suit back into place with his spare hand. He was fully Dulaque, now. Lancelot had faded away, perhaps for the very last time. "Places to go, things to steal. You know how it is. Do stay away from the witch, won't you? She's very bad for our health."
"Thank you for stopping by," Jenkins said, with wry composure. There were tears still staining his cheeks, but he didn't raise his hands to wipe at them. He didn't need to. They didn't matter anymore. "Don't come back, please? We'll have done something with our security in the meantime. It might be unpleasant for you."
"So noted," Dulaque smiled. "Well then. Goodbye ... Jenkins."
"Mr Dulaque," Jenkins acknowledged, inclining his head. He watched the man leave. For security's sake, he told himself. Just to be sure it happened. He watched his father's back until it disappeared beyond the doors, heading for the surface and the world beyond it. He didn't feel anything. Not one little thing.
"... Okay then," a voice said softly above him, as Stone finally revealed himself on the top of the stairs. Jenkins blinked desperately, looking away while he scrubbed at his cheeks. Stone came carefully down to meet him. "So that was ... That was awkward, huh?"
"You do a fine line in understatement, Mr Stone," Jenkins managed, getting himself under control enough to straighten and actually turn to look at the man. The calm, quiet sympathy that waited for him almost undid him all over again. "That was indeed ... That was not something I would have chosen to have witnessed, no."
Stone looked at him thoughtfully. He rubbed at his jawline with his thumb uneasily, but there was no condemnation in his expression. If anything, there was a degree of understanding that Jenkins would not have expected from him, and quite possibly should have.
"I could forget, if you like?" the young man offered gently. "Or, well. Not forget, but I could fail to mention anything. Like, ever." He shrugged, watching Jenkins carefully. "I think forgetting's more what you want to be doing than me right now though, huh? Not that I don't get that."
Jenkins snorted. Not humour. Something close to it, maybe. "I would quite like to ..." he started, and shook his head. "I was considering drinking myself into a forgetful stupor sometime in the very near future, yes. As it happens."
Stone nodded calmly. "I know this hellhole in Tulsa," he said, only slightly out of the blue. "Beer's pretty shit, but they got a line on a still out the country a ways. Get you drunk in two hours, blind in three, maybe dead in four. Used to go there a lot when I first figured my dad was drinking the only thing he loved down the toilet. So. You know. Might be just what you're lookin' for, you think?"
Jenkins blinked at him. "Are you ... Were you volunteering to accompany me?" he asked, carefully, and perhaps a little incredulously. He kept forgetting, he thought. He kept forgetting he wasn't alone.
Jake shrugged amiably. "Always better drinking in company," he said. "Handy to have someone to pick you up off the floor afterwards. And to have your back in the bar fight. Not that I think you'd do bad or anything. Just nice to have someone watching out for a broken bottle in the back, is all. I figured I'd watch yours if you'd watch mine, and then maybe we'd get back through the back door in mostly one piece."
... Yes. Yes, that was ... Jenkins could go for that right now. He felt hollow, like there was an emptiness in his chest. A companion, a drink and a fight in company that wouldn't let him down ... He could use that. Yes.
"... I can do that," he said, after a moment. "Watch your ... I could do that."
Jake nodded at him. "Alright then," he said, moving forward to clap Jenkins gently on the shoulder. Not the one Dulaque had held. Stone deliberately chose the other one. "Let me get my wallet, I'll be right with you. And, uh. If you've maybe got somethin' more casual on you? Not that there's anything wrong with it, just that the bar fight might be startin' a little early otherwise. I mean, I'm cool with that, but you might want some drinking time first."
Jenkins looked at him flatly. "I think I have some chainmail around here somewhere," he deadpanned. "Would that work, or were you thinking something more modern?" At Jake's expression, he shook his head. "I can lose the tie. How about that?"
"That'll do," Stone agreed hastily. "Let's get gone, huh? I think you need the fight more than I do right now."
Now that he mentioned it, Jenkins thought that he really, really did. Something he could fight, something he could stand up to and not ... Yes. That was just what the doctor ordered, really. That was just what he needed right now. And no matter what else may have happened, it was at least good to realise that there was someone around who could recognise that, and didn't seem to mind it at all. Jacob Stone mightn't have been the companion he'd have expected, but that didn't make him any less welcome for it.
It was a good thing to remember, Jenkins thought tiredly. The fact that he wasn't alone anymore, that he had a sudden surfeit of people to lean on. It was a good thought to have.
It was ... something worth holding on to.
Jenkins/Galahad: "No. We choose. A thousand years ago. You know that very moment when you, and I, stopped being ... whatever we were."
Dulaque/Lancelot: "If I hadn't tried, I'd actually be the monster you think I am. Travel well."
--- Apple of Discord
In the aftermath of Morgan's visit, life settled, as it always did, back into a routine. A different routine, of course, a much more crowded routine than he was used to, but a routine nonetheless. And, perhaps, not necessarily an unpleasant one. Order, liberally interspersed with madness, had returned to his Annex, and Jenkins welcomed it gladly.
There was a lesson there, perhaps. Something about false senses of security. He'd learned those lessons many times before, every one of them, and then forgotten them all again in turn. It probably figured that they wouldn't be content with that state of affairs.
He had to take peace where he found it, however. Otherwise he'd never have any at all.
So it was that a Tuesday afternoon found him sequestered at his table with a fascinating series of Atlantean treatises, thumbing absently through about four different texts while making notes with his spare hand, blind and deaf to the rest of the world. He didn't look up at a flicker of motion in the corner of his eye. Most of the others were out at present, but Stone was lurking around here somewhere, happily lost in a stack of 14th century Italian folios that was probably higher than he was. Jenkins had caught him wandering past in his peripheral vision a time or two before, heading for the card catalogue or the kitchen. Another figure, even one hovering around the front door instead, didn't really catch his attention unduly.
Until it knocked gently on the door frame, at least, a pair of quick, demanding little taps, and a dry, familiar voice said softly: "Knock knock, Galahad."
Jenkins closed his eyes. He didn't move. He neither flinched nor stood. He was too tired of all this by far to bother with that. Instead, he closed his eyes, and bowed his head exhaustedly.
"That's it," he said, reaching up to pinch the bridge of his nose. "You know what? That's it. I'm leaving. I'm moving house. Right now." He looked up, dropping his pencil onto the table and glaring at the slim, besuited figure in the doorway. "I had two hundred years of peace, did you know that? Two centuries where no-one so much as sneezed in my direction. And then in one year, one moment, you brought an end to it. I can't go two weeks anymore without someone dropping by, to kill me or to steal from me or ... I can't get one thing done for visitors these days. Thank you so much."
Dulaque smiled faintly, moving into the room with careful, cautious steps. He cast his eyes around, checking that they were alone, and Jenkins found time to hope that Stone would have the good sense to stay out of sight. For the moment, at least. Just until Jenkins had a chance to figure out what was going on. After that, he was more than welcome to pop up and drop something heavy on Dulaque's head, if he so wished.
"I had heard that," his father murmured, turning to look at him once again, coming to a stop a few feet away. He wasn't armed. Or not nakedly, at least. The cane at his side undoubtedly held steel, and a pistol beneath his jacket was far from out of the question. He bore no open threats for the moment, though. "I'm ever so sorry to have disturbed your refuge. Very rude of me, I know."
Jenkins stared at him. He didn't know what was showing in his face, had no idea what sort of expression might have crossed it at that, but something must have. Dulaque's expression shifted, something that might even have been genuine remorse flickering through it, and Jenkins pressed his lips together, shaking his head in tired, hopeless denial.
"... What do you want?" he asked, flat and uselessly. "The Library is out at the moment, and you wouldn't take it on your own anyway. You've made a passel of enemies this time, and several of them are waiting for you if you cross that threshold. Not even you would be that foolish."
His father's lip quirked at that. A strange, rueful expression, entirely self-directed. "Questionable," he noted softly. "I'm told that foolishness has ever been one of my defining characteristics. Nonetheless. You are, for the moment at least, entirely correct. I'm not here for the Library. Not this time."
"Then what?" Jenkins asked, turning on his stool to face him properly. To be ready to stand, to die on his feet, if it came to it. "The sooner you tell me, the sooner we can ... the sooner we can get it done and you can leave. I'd be grateful. I've had too many visitors lately. I'm not in the mood for another. No matter how compelling their grudges might be."
Dulaque stared at him for a second. He rubbed a finger against his thumb, a dark, thoughtful look in his eyes as he scanned Jenkins from head to toe. Looking for something, heaven knew what. Jenkins held his gaze with tight, angry defiance. One ghost from the past was enough for a month. One Morgan Le Fay was enough for a century. He had no patience left for his father on top of it, however cruel or unworthy a thought it might be.
It wasn't, though. Not anymore. Maybe once, he might have felt guilty for turning Lancelot away, but that was before Lamia's death, almost Colonel Baird's, before the attempted destruction of everything Jenkins loved. Again. They had passed the point of no return, Dulaque and he. There was no more need for niceties.
"... It's because of one of those visitors that I'm here, actually," Dulaque began, at last. He looked down at his hand, then back up, his face inscrutable. Jenkins couldn't have read him if he'd wanted to. That familiarity had long since faded. "After recent events, my being here is a step too far, I realise that. Even with enemies, one mustn't be rude. I recently received a ... message, however, that led me to believe an exception might be warranted in this case. It was rather alarming. Would you like to hear what it contained?"
Jenkins blinked at him. "A message," he repeated, shaking his head. "Someone sent you a message. About the Library?"
"Not the Library, no," Dulaque said, soft and precise, laying the words out carefully. His gaze was fixed intently on Jenkins, and there was something dark and seething beneath it. Jenkins swallowed silently, though he didn't dare look away. "A far older concern between us, I'm afraid. Shall I quote it for you? It was very simple, in fact. Short and sweet. 'The debt of the daughter of Pelles has at last been paid. Sleep well for it, my love.'" He paused, as Jenkins felt the blood drain from his features, and nodded softly. "You can understand, then, why I thought I should pay a visit in the wake of that, hmm?"
Jenkins didn't answer. He reached out, grabbed hold of the edge of the table. Stability. He needed something to hold him up. He could taste blood in his mouth. Not his own. Hers. The memory of what she'd ... He shook his head, mute with nausea. She'd sent a message. Of course she had. Of course she would have wanted Lancelot to know ...
"I will confess to a certain amount of relief," Dulaque went on, with a lift of his lip that only a fool would have called a smile. "I had half expected to find you dead when I arrived here. Or taken. It's easy to fear the worst when it comes to Morgan Le Fay. You understand that."
That actually jolted Jenkins a little. Not quite enough to shatter the hollowness in his head, but still a little. Not the ... not expecting the worst, no, but ...
"Fear?" he managed, pushing himself cautiously to his feet. "Why would you ...?"
"What were you thinking?" Dulaque hissed, cutting him off. He planted his cane in front of him like a sword, leaning forward across it, and for a second he looked every inch the knight he'd once been. Jenkins stared at him, baffled and ill. "You let the witch in here? You let her near you? I know you're letting every bit of riff-raff in these days, but even you should have the sense to draw the line at Morgan Le Fay!"
Jenkins bristled automatically. It didn't require much thought to manage it.
"No-one let her in anywhere," he growled coldly. "They didn't know who she was. We found someone trying to destroy a hundred lives with magic in an effort to escape your plot, and she gained access before we realised who she was. Then, once she realised I was still alive, she ..."
He trailed off, wiping his mouth, and Dulaque stared at him. His jaw was stiff, locked tight beneath the icy fury in his eyes, and Jenkins honestly wasn't sure who it was directed at. He drew himself up to his full height, on the off-chance that it was him. Of everyone in this little mess, he was the last to deserve it.
"She wounded one of my Librarians," he explained, soft and clipped, smoothing his hand down his shirtfront as he said it. Resisting the urge to let it drift sideways, to press against the place in his side where Ezekiel's had been torn. "It was either agree to her bargain, or let him die. I wasn't willing to pay that price. I couldn't let a boy die just so that I wouldn't have to ..."
He broke off, stopping that thought before it started, and something went through Lancelot in front of him. A flash of something ... terrible. Bleakness. Fury. Memory. Something. He couldn't be sure what exactly. He trailed off before that thought could finish, and saw something entirely without name in his father's expression.
"... No," Dulaque said at last. His knuckles were white around the top of his cane, his tone so very carefully blank and emotionless. "I don't suppose you could, at that. It's not the child's place to pay for their elder's sins. Is it?"
The words fell into silence between them, a quiet, hateful gauntlet. Something white and empty yawned open in their wake, a blankness that defied completion. Jenkins didn't answer him. He couldn't. Morgan's words clawed through him, neatly cut him in two with their echo here, and there was nothing in all the world he could say to this man. The sins between them had begun before he was even born, and had lasted long enough that a thousand years later they could still be tasted on his tongue. There was nothing that could be said in the face of that.
"... Why are you here?" he asked, the sound of his voice oddly distant to him. "We ... We chose our sides. Yet again. There was no reason ... Why did you come here?"
Dulaque snarled. Really and truly. His face morphed for a second into a mask of rage, and Jenkins took an instinctive step backwards. He bumped into the stool, drawing a squeal of metal on marble, and they both froze somewhat at the noise. They both fell still, and Dulaque pulled himself back under control. The fury didn't leave, mind. It simply went cold once more.
"Why am I here?" he asked, dark and furious. "You know what she is to me. You know what she's done. All of it. Every sordid little ... You know. You know what she would do to my blood. And you ask why I'm here?"
Jenkins looked away. He breathed, ragged, heavy breaths. He felt the memory of her hands on his face. He tasted ... he tasted the memory of her mouth. He knew what she'd done to Lancelot, yes. Hunted, imprisoned, owned, ruined. Fire and blood and death, the price of two loves unfulfilled, and the vengeance called down upon them. He knew what Morgan Le Fay would do for love, and for hate, and for those terrible places where they met and merged and became one thing, one endless, bloodstained passion. He knew. He did.
"It doesn't matter," he heard himself say. "She didn't ... It doesn't matter. It's over now. She said ... She told you the debt was paid, and she doesn't lie. It's done. It doesn't matter."
Dulaque grabbed him. His father seized his arm, and the memory of her hands crawled all the way up his throat and out of it. He flung himself backwards. He threw himself away. Lancelot didn't follow him. He fell still, his hand frozen and outstretched, and the mask on his face went blank and cold and remote. It felt like a breaking. Like something nameless had been severed. Jenkins no more understood it than he understood why Lancelot had come here at all.
"... I suppose I deserve that," Dulaque said, straightening himself up and dropping his hand back to his side. "Or one of us does, perhaps. I would remind you, though, that it was you who chose to destroy me, not the other way around. I wanted you to join me. I wanted your help."
"Why?" Jenkins asked. He'd wanted to know. Ever since the Conclave, since the answer he'd been unable to give, he'd wanted to know that. "Why ask me? Why go back at all? What did you think would be there? You, of all people ..."
"It was a chance to make it right," Dulaque snapped, with that fierce light in his eyes that Jenkins had last seen on a younger man, an echo a thousand years lost. "It was chance to undo ... to undo everything. To fix it. Why can't you understand that?"
Jenkins shook his head. He was numb, still, but there was something stirring inside him. Some anger of his own, maybe. Some grief.
"Because it wouldn't have worked," he said, with empty surety. "You can't fix ... What were you going to do? Pretend you didn't love her? Kill Arthur yourself? Kill Uther? How far back were you planning to take yourself? To what aim? Where did you think you could fix it?"
"Killing Morgan would have been a start," his father answered, a hard snarl of hatred. "Without her ... I would have found a way, Galahad. There had to be a way. There had to have been something ..."
"She said I was born in blood," Jenkins cut him off, shaking his head. Old, old pain. Old sins, old blood, turning the stomach even a thousand years on. "I wasn't the only one. That world ... Arthur carried his curse with him from the moment he was born. His father saw to that. He was a good man. A good king. But it was too much power, and it was bought in too much blood. You know that. Of all people, you know it. They died ... So many of us. For love or for sin or for prophecy. Which part could you have fixed? All of it? You could have made them all better? Stopped every mistake before it happened? Lancelot ..."
"I would have tried!" It was desperate, furious, with a crack a thousand years deep through the middle of it. Jenkins stared, stricken in grief, and Lancelot glared back at him, alive and alight and so very, very desperate. Mad, in so familiar a way. "It fell because of me. You don't understand that. You can't. You never ... It was my fault. I did it. That means I could undo it. It was my mistake. I could have fixed it. I could have ... gone back before she married him, or just not ... She never forgave herself. If I had never told her ..."
"It wouldn't have kept Morgan from hating him," Jenkins said, with a strange, weary compassion. He was gentle. It seemed right to be gentle, all their sins aside. "It wouldn't have kept her from loving you. Even if you'd pretended, gave yourself to her to save them, even if you'd ... She would have known, sooner or later. You loved Guinevere. You couldn't help it. She would have figured it out. She hated them both anyway, for who they were and what they'd done. For the sins of the parents. Camelot was ... It was doomed before you arrived. It was born in blood and magic. That always ... There's always a price for that. Every time."
Lancelot stared at him. With shock, Jenkins thought. Or pity, maybe. A blank incomprehension.
"You believe that," the knight said, slowly. "You ... Galahad. It's not ..."
"Even if you'd killed Morgan," Jenkins went on. Lightheaded, and with a stone in his chest. The words fell out of his mouth as though pulled by a string. "Even if you'd killed her, and pretended not to love Guinevere, and served Arthur with everything you had ... Why? What would you have had? What was there in Camelot to make that worth it? Magic? The kind my mother used to make me, or Merlin to make Arthur? The kind used to conquer and keep a world defenceless? Or was it kings? The kind of king that had the right to burn his wife to death for the crime of loving another, that enacted that right? That was worth saving? At the cost of her love. Of all the worlds you'd destroyed to get there. That's what you ...?"
"Stop," Dulaque hissed, shaking his head desperately from side to side. "Stop. That's not ... It wouldn't have been that way. It wouldn't have ..."
"It was," Jenkins said, stepping forward, into his father's space. Trying to drive the point home. "It was that way. I was there. I was born in it. You, of all people. You have to know. I don't understand. You fought that war. You were preyed on by that magic. You started a blood feud to save your queen from that fate. Every sin, every price that was paid in that place, you lived it. I came later, but you ... How could you have forgotten? I never understood that. How could you forget what Camelot was?"
Lancelot stared at him, white-faced, pale as death. There was hatred in his eyes. It hadn't been there before. Desperation, fear, blind fury, but never ... never hate. Jenkins hadn't realised that until now. Until he saw it, until it was finally pointed at him, and he realised the absence that had come before. In that second, for the first time, his father looked at him, and hated him.
The rule of three, perhaps? Three sins, to finally earn a hatred. Failing to save Camelot the first time. Denying the chance to save it the second. Destroying the dream of it the third. Thrice around, and the cost calls due. He should have seen that coming, perhaps.
"... And what is there to save here?" Dulaque asked at last, his voice whisper-soft and deadly. "This ... world you would die for. What does it have that you think is worth more than what we lost then? What does it have worth fighting for?"
Jenkins shrugged, feeling splintered and uneasy. Daring, in that reckless, stupid way where there was nothing left to lose. "Divorce laws?" he suggested, and it wasn't wholly a joke. Too barbed and strung with old blood by far. "Democracy? The right not to be burned at the stake for loving someone? I could mention a few more--"
"She's dead," Lancelot said, flatly and finally, and Jenkins cut off in the face of it. He stopped, the words dying in his throat. There was grief on his father's face. An ancient, pale fury. "She died hating me. She prayed that she would die before she had to see my face again. I think those things are beyond her concern, now. I think perhaps they always would have been."
Jenkins didn't answer. There was ... there was nothing to say. There was no 'I'm sorry' that could hope to matter now.
"What does this place matter?" Lancelot asked him. Still soft. Still light. "What is there worth saving here? Everything that mattered died then. Honour. Love. All of it. It wouldn't have happened here? It would have been different, without the magic and the rule of kings? They're dead. It won't happen here anyway. Why not ... For a chance. Even one chance. Why would I hesitate? What do you have that would give me reason?"
"... Nothing," Jenkins answered, and it didn't taste like blood. It tasted like ash, instead. Like the severing of something he had never understood in the first place. "That's why I ... I have nothing that you love, and everything that I do. I had to fight you. That was why. I had to choose a side, and I had nothing to offer to make you choose mine."
Lancelot blinked at him, and then he smiled. A strange, fey thing, a twisting of his face. It wasn't hatred in his eyes. It wasn't pity either. Acceptance, maybe. A fatalistic understanding. He nodded gently. He took that at last in stride.
"So then," he said softly, Dulaque once more, contemporary and urbane. Something twisted in Jenkins' chest. He didn't understand why. "Thus the lines are drawn, hmm? Never again shall we be what we were. No more going back."
Jenkins swallowed painfully. "No going back," he echoed. It should have been ... It should have been easier to say. He wasn't ... It shouldn't feel like losing something. There was nothing here to lose that hadn't been lost centuries ago. There was no choice to be made that hadn't been made the first time. And yet ... yet. Something crumbled in his chest. He'd thought it had broken long ago. Apparently he'd been wrong.
"... You should invest in better security, in that case," Dulaque went on, still smiling faintly. Still with that terrible expression. "As it stands, just anyone could swan in here and ... Well. It's a miracle you're still alive, with all the visitors you've been having, isn't it? You should fix that, Galahad. One wouldn't want to win too easily. Or to let old enemies win either."
Jenkins closed his eyes. A mistake. With a warning like that, a threat, such a mistake to close his eyes. He did it anyway. It had at least one pleasant side effect. With his sight blocked, he listened instead, and heard the faint scuffling upstairs as someone stealthily made ready to move. Jacob Stone. He'd forgotten, hadn't he. He'd forgotten that he wasn't here alone.
"I'll take that under advisement," he managed, opening his eyes again and meeting his father's ... No. Meeting Dulaque's eyes. Let there be no more confusion there. "Alternately, I could go with my original plan. Between you and Morgan, I'm more than tempted to just move."
Dulaque chuckled mildly. "Ah, but that would be giving in," he noted, lifting his cane idly under his arm, one hand gripping below the hilt. It was a smooth motion, natural-seeming, non-threatening. If one didn't know that it allowed him the grip to draw the steel sheathed within the wood. "You've only just started to fight again, my boy. Don't ruin that again so soon. If you run you can be hunted. If you hide you can be found. You've tried both. I thought we'd just said there's no going back?"
Jenkins stared at him. Dulaque stared back, calm and peaceable and unperturbed. It didn't make sense. Nothing ever did. Nothing that came out of Camelot ever, ever had.
"... Why do you care?" he asked at last. He was too tired to sound angry, or even bitter. It was simply a question. There was no emotion to it beyond a kind of blank confusion. "If I fight or if I hide, what does it matter to you? You're not--"
Dulaque moved. It was smooth, a single, controlled step that placed him right in front of Jenkins, his chest less than five inches from Jenkins' own. The motion made no sense. The closeness forced the sword-cane out and to the side, rendered the weapon useless. A knife from this range would have worked. A sword never could have. Jenkins broke off, staring down at him in numb confusion. Dulaque looked back at him, an expression on his face beyond Jenkins' power to read, and carefully placed a hand on Jenkins' shoulder. He squeezed, gently. It should have been a threat. Jenkins didn't quite understand why it wasn't.
"... It's not the child's place to pay for the parent's sin," Lancelot said at last. No emotion either. No rage and no love. Just a statement, flat and determined in answer. "You're not worth more than what I've lost, my boy. You never could be. But you are ... You are blood of my blood. You are worth a great deal more than anything else I have left to lose. You mustn't let her touch you. I know what she does to those she hates. You can't let her have you, and running has never stopped her. You have to fight. Do you understand? You have to make a place where you can stand against her. It doesn't exist, but you have to try. Otherwise ... Otherwise there's nothing left in this world that matters."
It was too much. That thing in his chest that should have been safely broken ... It was too much. Tears sprang into his eyes, and he let them fall. Silently. He commanded himself that much. But they fell nonetheless. Dulaque watched them, nothing but strangeness in his eyes.
"I never understood where you came from," he mused softly, holding Jenkins tethered, his useless sword in his other hand. "I know why she wanted you. I know what she did to get you. Her I understood. But you ... You were always more than us. It was never about Camelot. The Grail, the Library ... These things you were meant for. I never understood them. The choices you make have always been beyond me. But they're not ... It's not prophecy, is it? It's not magic. What you said to me. We choose. It's not chosen for us. We have to choose. You were never going to take my side. Not because of destiny, but just because ... you don't love what I love. And I don't love what's yours. We've nothing to offer each other. It was always too late for that. I should have known better than to ask it of you."
"... I'm sorry," Jenkins managed, because it was all that was left. It couldn't matter. It was too late for that. But it was all that was left to be said.
Lancelot smiled at him. He stepped all the way in, drawing Jenkins down and wrapping both arms around him, the sword-cane pressed diagonally across his back. Sheathed, still. Not even enough to cut. Lancelot pulled him down and held him, one last time.
"Go well," he said, soft into Jenkins' ear once more, another echo between them. "You face everything I have ever loved and everything I have ever hated. The least you could do is face it well. I'll not lose to a lesser man, Galahad. I've too much pride for that. Be worthy of it."
Jenkins flinched, full-bodied, and wrapped his arms around his father in turn. He ducked his head, hiding behind his father's line of sight, and held him close. "The next time you hurt them," he said thickly, "I'll kill you. I don't want to. But I can't lose anymore. You understand? I won't lose them. Not to anyone."
Dulaque pulled back. He was smiling, that pale light in his eyes once more. The madman, the fallen knight. The father. He gave Jenkins one last squeeze, and then stepped back, pulling away with an oddly gentle finality.
"Good," he said, and brought the cane up into a fencer's salute. It was a threat now. He had the distance again to make a sword worth something. It remained in its sheath, however. A promise, more than a present. "Once it was said that we two were the greatest knights and the greatest swordsmen of our era. Our last battle didn't much reflect that. Our next one, I think, will do it more justice. Hmm?"
Jenkins nodded silently. Not much of a promise, by comparison, but enough of one. The lines had been drawn. There was no need to belabour them.
"I'll be on my way then," Dulaque said, dropping his cane back to the floor and twitching his suit back into place with his spare hand. He was fully Dulaque, now. Lancelot had faded away, perhaps for the very last time. "Places to go, things to steal. You know how it is. Do stay away from the witch, won't you? She's very bad for our health."
"Thank you for stopping by," Jenkins said, with wry composure. There were tears still staining his cheeks, but he didn't raise his hands to wipe at them. He didn't need to. They didn't matter anymore. "Don't come back, please? We'll have done something with our security in the meantime. It might be unpleasant for you."
"So noted," Dulaque smiled. "Well then. Goodbye ... Jenkins."
"Mr Dulaque," Jenkins acknowledged, inclining his head. He watched the man leave. For security's sake, he told himself. Just to be sure it happened. He watched his father's back until it disappeared beyond the doors, heading for the surface and the world beyond it. He didn't feel anything. Not one little thing.
"... Okay then," a voice said softly above him, as Stone finally revealed himself on the top of the stairs. Jenkins blinked desperately, looking away while he scrubbed at his cheeks. Stone came carefully down to meet him. "So that was ... That was awkward, huh?"
"You do a fine line in understatement, Mr Stone," Jenkins managed, getting himself under control enough to straighten and actually turn to look at the man. The calm, quiet sympathy that waited for him almost undid him all over again. "That was indeed ... That was not something I would have chosen to have witnessed, no."
Stone looked at him thoughtfully. He rubbed at his jawline with his thumb uneasily, but there was no condemnation in his expression. If anything, there was a degree of understanding that Jenkins would not have expected from him, and quite possibly should have.
"I could forget, if you like?" the young man offered gently. "Or, well. Not forget, but I could fail to mention anything. Like, ever." He shrugged, watching Jenkins carefully. "I think forgetting's more what you want to be doing than me right now though, huh? Not that I don't get that."
Jenkins snorted. Not humour. Something close to it, maybe. "I would quite like to ..." he started, and shook his head. "I was considering drinking myself into a forgetful stupor sometime in the very near future, yes. As it happens."
Stone nodded calmly. "I know this hellhole in Tulsa," he said, only slightly out of the blue. "Beer's pretty shit, but they got a line on a still out the country a ways. Get you drunk in two hours, blind in three, maybe dead in four. Used to go there a lot when I first figured my dad was drinking the only thing he loved down the toilet. So. You know. Might be just what you're lookin' for, you think?"
Jenkins blinked at him. "Are you ... Were you volunteering to accompany me?" he asked, carefully, and perhaps a little incredulously. He kept forgetting, he thought. He kept forgetting he wasn't alone.
Jake shrugged amiably. "Always better drinking in company," he said. "Handy to have someone to pick you up off the floor afterwards. And to have your back in the bar fight. Not that I think you'd do bad or anything. Just nice to have someone watching out for a broken bottle in the back, is all. I figured I'd watch yours if you'd watch mine, and then maybe we'd get back through the back door in mostly one piece."
... Yes. Yes, that was ... Jenkins could go for that right now. He felt hollow, like there was an emptiness in his chest. A companion, a drink and a fight in company that wouldn't let him down ... He could use that. Yes.
"... I can do that," he said, after a moment. "Watch your ... I could do that."
Jake nodded at him. "Alright then," he said, moving forward to clap Jenkins gently on the shoulder. Not the one Dulaque had held. Stone deliberately chose the other one. "Let me get my wallet, I'll be right with you. And, uh. If you've maybe got somethin' more casual on you? Not that there's anything wrong with it, just that the bar fight might be startin' a little early otherwise. I mean, I'm cool with that, but you might want some drinking time first."
Jenkins looked at him flatly. "I think I have some chainmail around here somewhere," he deadpanned. "Would that work, or were you thinking something more modern?" At Jake's expression, he shook his head. "I can lose the tie. How about that?"
"That'll do," Stone agreed hastily. "Let's get gone, huh? I think you need the fight more than I do right now."
Now that he mentioned it, Jenkins thought that he really, really did. Something he could fight, something he could stand up to and not ... Yes. That was just what the doctor ordered, really. That was just what he needed right now. And no matter what else may have happened, it was at least good to realise that there was someone around who could recognise that, and didn't seem to mind it at all. Jacob Stone mightn't have been the companion he'd have expected, but that didn't make him any less welcome for it.
It was a good thing to remember, Jenkins thought tiredly. The fact that he wasn't alone anymore, that he had a sudden surfeit of people to lean on. It was a good thought to have.
It was ... something worth holding on to.