tallying fifty on our foreheads {Lancelot}

[galahad]

Different. That was really the only word Galahad could use to describe his life now. He wasn't doing anything terribly different, but it felt different. He wasn't an only child...not that he technically had ever been one, but he'd been raised pretty much that way, and this was...different. He woke up in the morning and thought I wonder what Lancelot is doing today, and then in the same moment thought I have a brother. How peculiar.. It was all very disorienting, but incredibly exciting.

That much showed through in Galahad's enthusiasm, something he had never been lacking. The only thing that kept him from showing up at Lancelot's door every morning, overflowing with enthusiasm, begging to go do some brotherly bonding thing, was the fact that he wanted more than anything in the world to make his brother proud of him, and annoying the hell out of him didn't seem like the best way to do that.

Of course...just because he didn't do that every morning didn't mean he didn't do it at all, and this happened to be a morning on which Galahad might not be exercising the best of judgment. That much was clear. It was ten til six in the morning and he was standing outside Lancelot's place, banging on the door, shifting from one foot to the other anxiously. He had a bow in one hand and a quiver of horrifically brightly-feathered arrows in the other, and he tapped on the door again a few seconds later with the hand holding the quiver. Oh, this was going to be fun.

[Deleted]

When there was a banging on his door so loud he almost fell out of bed at the surprise of it, at not-even-six in the morning no less, Lancelot's first thought was that Gwen had concocted some evil scheme to get back at him for whatever his latest slight against her honour had been.

He still hadn't entirely shaken the idea once he'd disentangled himself from his sheets and woken up enough to realise it was somebody knocking on the door and not, say, some kind of magical earthquake or an invading beast. Who would be knocking, that loudly, at this time?
He reached over and grabbed the nearest thing that came to hand - which did actually happen to be a sword, he was a hopefully-future-knight after all - and crept towards the door. It was a miracle he managed to hold the sword in an even remotely threatening way considering he was only wearing a pair of boxer shorts.

He opened the door a crack and peered cautiously through, immediately relaxing and tossing the sword back onto his bed when he realised just who was on the other side, opening the door wide (despite, as stated, only wearing underwear).

"Galahad! Wait, what's wrong? Has something happened?" It was stupidly early in the morning, after all.

[galahad]

As Galahad stood there in the silence, he rocked back and forth from his heels onto his toes and down again. He heard Lancelot coming before the door opened, but he definitely wasn't expecting the half-clothed, sword-wielding form that was revealed when the door opened.

"Wrong?" he repeated. Why would anything be....oh, well, there was the time. And Lancelot had obviously been sleeping, but...well, no, nothing was wrong. He shrugged, shaking his head and pursing his lips.

"No, nothing's happened. I only thought that we might go out and see about getting in some practice before the old school bell rings, you know?" He patted his quiver of arrows to emphasize the point. "Since I've got an exam tomorrow, and I should really spend tonight revising, I thought it'd be best to do whatever we were going to do this morning, don't you think?" He was actually rather proud of himself for thinking that far ahead, and hoped Lancelot would be equally proud of his practicality and responsibility.

[Deleted]

"Right...of course..." Lancelot nodded, and for the life of him he couldn't tell his brother to bugger off so he could go back to bed, it would just be like kicking a puppy, the younger man looked so utterly enthusiastic about it all.

"Yea, good thinking." He said, as encouragingly as he could manage for someone so sleepy, and he had to admit that his brother was certainly better prepared than he was - he usually forgot about revising until about five minutes before the exam, and then it was too late so he'd decide just to wing it. The schooling wasn't so important, to him.

"Alright, just let me get dressed."

[galahad]

Galahad knew it was early. He wasn't stupid. He was a bright young man. He just assumed that his ambitious, knightly brother would be eager to overlook the ungodly hour and be ready to get to work.

Lancelot seemed to come around after a moment, and Galahad relaxed slightly. For a moment there he had wondered whether Lancelot wasn't a bit annoyed with him, but he seemed to be alright once he was almost (if not fully) awake.

"Of course," he said, instantly. "I'll just wait out here then, shall I? I've got to tell you, Lancelot, I'm terribly excited about this. I know training to be a knight is serious and such, but it's been...well, I've been looking forward to it for quite some time," My whole life, in fact he thought, but didn't say.

[Deleted]

Well, it was impossible to stay mad at someone when they showed you enthusiasm like that, and Lancelot was reminded that, well, Galahad was his little brother, and he'd missed out on years of having Lance actually there, so of course he'd want to make up for that.

Moving back into the room and pushing the door to so he could get changed, he couldn't help but allow himself a smile - there was a lot he'd missed out on as well, and having someone who looked up to him was, actually, pretty damn good.

"Just because something's serious or important doesn't mean it can't make you happy." He called back as he pulled a shirt over his head.

[galahad]

Galahad grew more and more impressed with his brother's intellect every day. Just because something was important...that was a pretty smart thing to say. He'd never really thought of it that way.

"That sounded very wise, Lancelot," he said, thoroughly in awe. "Do you think these things up all on your own?" He wanted to add something along the lines of 'I always knew that you were going to be terribly intelligent when I found you' but he didn't want to be...well, annoying or anything.

"I intend to be a very happy knight," he decided, almost as much to himself as to Lancelot, who he really wasn't sure could hear him anyway. "Perhaps they will call me Sir Galahad the Joyous, do you think, Lance?"

[Deleted]

Lancelot paused in his getting ready to turn a steely eye on his little brother, about to scold him for being cheeky. Just because it was maybe a little bit obvious and he'd made it sound very dramatic, that was no reason to go being sarcastic at him, what he'd said was true.
Only when he saw Galahad's face, he realised the other boy wasn't being sarcastic at all, and actually was impressed. Then he just didn't know what to think, and he stood there speechless for a moment, trying to drum up a response. He was saved by Galahad's next idea, and for a moment all he could do was nod and try to look encouraging.

"Yea," he finally managed to say "Yea maybe they will."
It wasn't a bad name, and he did seem pretty chirpy, so Lance didn't really have the heart to refute the idea.

[galahad]

Indeed Galahad was not being cheeky or sarcastic, he was one hundred percent, alarmingly serious. As far as he was concerned, Lancelot would have to do quite a lot to prove that he wasn't the brother Galahad had always imagined he would be, and "wise" went right along with that.

However, he already had moved on to the idea of having a knightly adverb affixed to his name, and his brain was going over different possibilities. Joyous was alright, but what if something awful happened and he was grief-stricken and on his knees and some painter decided to make a portrait of him and he went down for posterity as "sir Galahad the Joyous, except in the most famous portrait of him, where he wasn't joyous at all and was a lot closer to despondent."

"What about you, brother?" he asked, curiously. "What do you suppose they'll call you? Perhaps I won't be Joyous. Perhaps I'll be...well, not Gallant, Galahad the Gallant is a bit too much alliteration for me. Galahad the...I'm sure brave is already taken. Galahad the Absti--no, Galahad the Pure, perhaps."

[Deleted]

"Me?" Lancelot was a bit surprised by the idea, despite the fact that Galahad had already brought it up, and despite the fact that he'd been training to be a knight all his life, he'd never really considered it before. He supposed he'd always just assumed that those sort of things happened, naturally as it were, at some point somebody would come along and give you a suffix, or you'd earn one through a particularly dramatic act.

"Galahad the pure?" He repeated, to put off thinking about himself for a little while "It suits you."
He did actually mean it as a compliment, despite being a bit rubbish in a lot of ways, Lance knew a lot about knights and chivalry and what they were supposed to represent, and pure was, well, a good thing.
"Lancelot the... really cool, maybe." He grinned.

[galahad]

Galahad had been thinking about his knightly title for quite a long time. It was one of those things an aspiring young knight laid awake and considered when he was on a quest to find his long-lost brother. And naturally, since said brother was going to be a knight too, probably long before Galahad himself ever would, he assumed Lancelot would have a clearer idea of it than he did himself.

Or maybe not. Really cool. Well, Galahad wanted to think that was amazing because Lancelot had said it, so he tried really hard, and found that...well, there were a lot worse things one could be than really cool.

"Well, you are...cool." he said, testing out the new lingo. It still sounded a bit odd from him, he thought, but he had time to get used to it. "An' as for pure, well, I..." This was probably something Lancelot did not need to know, but he couldn't really help himself. "Imagine it suits me more'n I'd care for most people to know."

[Deleted]

For a moment, when Galahad agreed that he was cool, Lancelot wondered if his brother had thought he was being serious, and was going to try and pretend it was a good idea for the sake of being supportive, but luckily (or not), galahad chose to continue the conversation with a discussion about his... purity.

"Right... well..." At first, Lance wasn't sure how to deal with that information, wasn't sure he wanted to have it, but then he rallied. After all, it was something everybody went through, and friends discussed their conquests and so forth - Gawain certainly did, at length - so why not brothers? Just as long as they didn't get into any disturbing details, he could handle that. "I could help you with that, if you wanted, help find you... someone." he kept it non-gender-specific at the last minute, mindful of the people he knew here, he was beginning to realise you couldn't assume anything.