"I would argue that it was just the one promise but it had two clauses, and also since I'm not dead I'm not sure I can be said to have died."

This isn't the point. He knows full well that this isn't the point.

"I want you to quit."

Chop chop chop chop chop is he moving the paring knife with more force than necessary yes does it matter no.

"I know you want me to quit. And you know I'm not going to."

"You died."

"What if the next person to try to murder you doesn't drown you?"

"...Agravaine, I closed the mouth in Malta. I died, and then I did more to actually help people than I have in my entire life.

If the next person to try to murder me doesn't do it by drowning, then I guess I find out if there's more things I'm immune to. But I can't just-- not."

"You can just not! It's very simple. Instead of flying out to Siam you stay here."

"Let someone else's brother save the world."

"Someone else's brother is not going to, any more than someone else's brother has ever done the things that were important."

"Mrs. Winston-Rogers is clearly capable of hiring people who aren't you."

"And the next person she hires, if they die, is going to stay dead."

"So might you!"

This isn't working. With anyone else he'd go 'time for a different track.'

He's so much worse at feelings when they're his own.

"Yes, well. I am, empirically, better at this than almost anyone else who'd do it, and it's important enough that that matters."

Agravaine cuts his finger, curses, puts it in his mouth and sucks on it. "You can get someone else to close the Mouth but I can't get someone else to be my brother."

"You're the only family I have."

Neither of them have talked to Gawain or Gareth in years. There are letters, for if Mordred dies and stays that way, for Lev to mail. That doesn't help Agravaine at all.

"I know. I'm sorry. But I can't in fact get someone else to do it."

"Have you even tried?"

No. No, he hasn't. He can't say that.

"If you find someone who's willing to drop everything to save the world, can talk a cult leader into turning traitor to their god while in a flooded basement at gunpoint without losing their head, and doesn't have any siblings who will miss them, go ahead and let me know."

"Sounds like Mrs. Winston-Rogers' job. And I don't care about some stranger's siblings, I care about you. I love you."

"I care! I love you too but I don't in fact only care about the wellbeing of the people I personally know and--"

And you don't get to ask me to cut pieces of myself off to make you happy, he doesn't say, because that would be much more cruel than he wants to be.

"You said you're turning into a monster."

"I have a patch of weird skin, I'm still me."

"Is there anything-- anything at all-- that's occult and nice."

"Yes," Mordred says, because this one he actually has an answer for. "Her name's Inaaya, she can pick up objects' histories by touching them."

Agravaine pauses. Does a double-take.

"You like women now?"

"That's not what I said, I said there is something in the world that is occult and not horrible. But also, yes, it was a surprise to me too."

"Your voice got all soft. Apparently it's already starting to change you."

Eyeroll.

"Or, possibly, whether I like people has nothing to do with whether or not I'm a fish."