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His dreams used to be unremarkable, slipping away with his waking. Comfortable, familiar routines of misformed memories that were forgotten before he could remember them at all. But now that everything has gone wrong, now that he is dying, he cannot seem to have a moment of peace whether waking or sleeping.
He did not think he would sleep tonight at all—Most nights, the pain is too great for anything more than snatched moments of half-slumber, watching the movement of shadows over his tent wall. He has grown used to this order of affairs, for what other choice does he have?
But now, he's soundly asleep and wickedly awake within the dreaming world.
"Where are we?"
Without turning, Gawain shakes his head. The wind smells of sea salt and spring; it moves cleanly over his face and stirs the grass with whispering noises. "You are not meant to be here," he says.
"Why not?" The voice moves gently, like the wind.
Gawain rounds on him, feeling a rush of anger that he can almost believe is strength. "Because this is my dream," he says. "Do you know how I know this place? This is Avalon. This is the Avalon my aunt spoke of." He remembers it clearly, not through a haze of pain as he remembers everything else of the last year. No, sharp as a knife, he is seven years old on Morgan's knee as she spins him tales of the salty blue water and the waist-high grasses, flowers bursting forth in purple and gold and the trilling calls of strange birds.
The man facing him is not supposed to be here. No, he is a stain on the memory. He is the reason for the ache in Gawain's head, in his ankle, in his shoulder. He is the reason that Gawain aches.
Now, he smiles smoothly. The bastard. "I apologize," he says, his voice low and amused. "I thought it was my dream. I did not mean to interrupt."
Anger is a cat clawing. It is the day breaking. It is shards of ice on teeth. It is a hair shirt scratching Gawain's skin, and he is so angry he can hardly breathe. Lancelot is smiling softly, unintentionally, and Gawain feels it rising up, choking him: He is childish and bitter, an unpleasant person, and Lancelot is tolerating him, because Lancelot always tolerates him. And Gawain is supposed to be grateful.
He grips the heads of grass near him. He wears no sword in his own dream. "You're not here," he says. Lancelot's face falls apart a bit. The smile falters. His eyes slip away to watch the water. It's such a beautiful way of being upset. Gawain feels his stomach twist. His mouth is hot. He holds his tongue between his upper and lower teeth, bites down.
"Why wouldn't I be here?" Lancelot asks. He speaks kindly. Patient. Everything is too hot suddenly. Everything is burning. Lancelot takes a step forward, and Gawain takes a step back. The grass, green at the root and fading to golden at the tip, rustles accommodatingly.
"Because this is my place," Gawain says. "And I'm not even here."
Lancelot stops. His hair does not shine, even in the sun. He looks very tired, Gawain realizes. There are stains like blackberry juice under his eyes, and he holds himself like an old man.
Good.
"Avalon?" Lancelot asks. His voice is still soft. His voice is still velvet on a window sill. What a twat. Gawain nods. This voice cannot do anything to him. It cannot envelop him like a warm blanket, and it cannot clean his wounds, and it cannot lull him to true sleep, and it cannot smother him, push him down, hold him until he stops struggling. Lancelot cannot hurt him now.
"From my aunt's stories," he says. "I have never been here myself. Perhaps it does not exist." No, he thinks. Likely it does not. He is surprised by how dull the ache of the realisation is. Perhaps he's always known that most of Morgan's stories shine too brightly to be true. Perhaps he only believed them for a time because both he and she were so desperate for it to be true, for there to be something beautiful that they have to return to. Perhaps it's a family trait to believe that there is something beautiful to fight for.
"What are we doing here, Gawain?" Lancelot asks.
Gawain turns on his heel. "I've no idea what you're doing here," he calls over his shoulder. "I'm dreaming. I'm dead-asleep right now."
He starts to walk away, but Lancelot catches his arm. "We've no need to be—" He breaks off. "You're warm." He goes to feel Gawain's forehead, and Gawain, weak, lets him. Though he does not look into his face, Gawain knows that Lancelot is staring at him with big, sad eyes now. "You're feverish," he says, and Gawain curses his body for betraying him even here in the last untouched place he had.
"I'm dying," he corrects Lancelot. His own voice is sharp. Lancelot's hand falls. "And it's your fault." He hears his heart in his head. Stunningly fallible. "You're going to kill me."
"I have to." It's a tiny, miserable whisper. "Nimue, she told me—"
"It's not true!" Gawain explodes. "It's another damn Faerie lie, and I think you're a fool for believing it."
"I don't have a choice." His voice grows stronger. It is becoming a great knight's voice. It is not a voice used to speak to a friend. He is forgetting Gawain already in the face of his supposed destiny or fate or whatever damn thing they've fed him now.
"You do!" The words break from him like a sob. "Right now, right now, you could wake up and let me live. Or send Lionel to kill me, or kill yourself, or run away with Guin—There are a thousand things you could do, but no, you will choose to kill me." He pauses. He is shaking with the fever. "You don't love me," he says, and his voice is ragged and wind-torn, a tattered piece of sailcloth cut jaggedly.
Lancelot actually takes a step back as if he's been struck, and Gawain almost smiles. For all his dramatics, Lancelot is a bad actor. "That's not true," he says, his voice heavy and desperate and substantial.
Gawain lets himself smile, in the dream. He stands there in Avalon and smiles.
"It's not true," Lancelot says, advancing on him. "It's not. It's not. Gawain. I love you."
"And yet—" Gawain gestures to his head, his shoulder. The places where Lancelot has pierced him. In the dream, he is unharmed and whole, but he hopes that Lancelot will know what he speaks of.
For once, anger makes Gawain's head clearer. He does not speak thoughtlessly, releasing his anger for fear that if he does not, he will shrivel and whither with the force of it, as he usually does. Did.
No, now Gawain speaks as clear and sharp as a January morning. He speaks with the force of Lyonesse's wails, Linet's stony eyes, Laurel's worrying hands, Arthur's trembling mouth, Kay's white hairs, Mordred's slow fading. The force of Agravaine and Gaheris and Gareth's dead bodies. This is all your fault, he says under each word. He speaks now to wound.
"I do," Lancelot insists. "I do, I'm sorry, I love you—"
"Not enough." Gawain looks into Lancelot's eyes and feels himself falling. It has always been this way. Gawain has always been the fool, never loved as much as he is loving. His mother, Ragnelle, the Elaines, the King, Gingalin, Ag, Mordred, Gareth, Gaheris—and now Lancelot, too. He should've realised it sooner, because it grants such wondrous clarity. Everything is sharp as a knife now, and Gawain feels none of it.
Lancelot can say nothing more. His mouth opens and closes like the mouth of a fish. Gawain watches him, catlike, the way he watches his opponent in battle.
"I want to save you," Lancelot says when he can manage it.
"Not enough." He doesn't say anything. "Not enough. You can want whatever you want, but in the end you'll always follow this foolhardy tale you've written yourself, that you don't have a choice, that I have to die—"
"That's not what it—"
"Enough! Lancelot. You'll tell yourself whatever it is you need to convince yourself—You let Galehaut die for you, and you saved Guin, and even Arthur you let go with an understanding between you—I'm the only one you won't let free. You killed my brothers, and you want to say it doesn't matter because the moon and stars move where you tell them to, and you—you—"
For a second, the dream collapses, and Gawain feels his mouth filled with soft light. He is tired, he is so very tired, and the anger can burn as brightly as it likes but it is not the sun and it does not strengthen Gawain. He wants to lie down in the grass. He wants everything to go soft and silent and still. His face is hot. His eyes burn.
"I know it matters," Lancelot says slowly. His voice is measured and sensible. "If I could call your brothers back to life, I would. But it's not as it is for you. I have a duty, and it's not to anything here. Gawain—" His head drops, and his shoulders rise and fall in a fluttery sigh before he looks back up. "I'm hardly human," he says. "You are—so alive. You can be anything in the world. I'm nothing but the construction of what they made me. Gawain, of course I understand your reluctance to trust the Fae. But they are all that I have. It is…impossible for me to deny that. My mother left me to them. I have no choice. Gawain—" He looks at him. He must see the anger in his face, for he looks away again. He seems to shrink a little. "Please try to understand," he says.
Gawain does not, and Lancelot's speech only serves to rekindle the rage inside him to a burning point set against his ribs. He feels words, hot, in his mouth.
But before he can speak, Lancelot holds out a hand. "Dance with me," he says, and suddenly there is music coming from somewhere.
Gawain considers it. "I thought this was my dream," he says.
Lancelot half-smiles, shrugs, keeps his hand them, palm up, in clear air. Perhaps Gawain is weaker than he thought, or perhaps the white-hot knife of clarity allows him to see that this is the last bit of respite he will receive. There will be no one left to care for his body after it is done, so if he wishes for peace, this is the closest he will be granted.
And still his steps are clumsy, and the music is unfamiliar, and it is a strange substitution for a fight. But Lancelot is bones and meat and breath, a dim reminder that though his brothers are dead, Gawain still lives. Lancelot calls to the part of Gawain that he thought he'd long-since killed, the part of him that screams and scratches and bites to stay alive, the part that can never be killed until he is finally dead.
For now: A step backwards, a hand on a waist. A stumbling twirl and a gallant bow and a gradual leaning-together, like snow melting, of Lancelot and Gawain.
"I love you," says Lancelot.
"Not enough," says Gawain, and he awakens long before dawn. He is feverish and wracked with pain, and whatever strange dreams he had are forgotten before he can work out why it is that his cheeks are wet with tears.