; [interlude/closed post]

[quote_gentle_unquote]

After a few dances -- with several attendees, but mostly with Lancelot -- Susan liberates two bottles of wine and a plate of food from the ballroom and slips off to go find Janet. Luckily, after struggling to track Lancelot down earlier in the week, she's made a point of mapping the location of everyone's rooms, and so she doesn't have to search to find Janet's.

She raps on the door with the back her hand, careful not to let the food or the wine jostle overmuch. "Diplomatic envoy for Queen Janet of Fillory," she calls.

Comments

[sorrowandsorrow]

Janet's rarely been so grateful for the size of the mansion. She can catch some of the sounds of revelry if she really strains her ears, so she's just... not doing that, focusing instead on reading some stupid magic textbook she got from the library. It's not one whose theory she recognizes, so it's probably from a different world, which is annoying. Someone should organize that mess of a library.¹

Careful not to seem too eager, she counts to five before she opens the door and musters up a half-smile for Susan. "Hey."

¹Someone has tried. Many times.

[quote_gentle_unquote]

Susan give Janet a sharp once-over - it seems her absence from the dance was by specific design. Susan can understand that; she'd nearly abstained herself. "I've brought wine, food, and myself," she tells her with her easy flirtatious smile. "Should any of those appeal."

[sorrowandsorrow]

"Three for three," Janet says, stepping aside to let Susan into the room. At least she's not in sweatpants -- she'd really considered going for the full wallow, but fuck if she's going to let Sagramore have that kind of power over her. So she's still in jeans, and a respectably expensive-looking sweater. It takes a little effort, because saying it is a more explicit acknowledgement that there's something happening that she's not part of, but she does manage to add, "You look incredible, by the way."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"The satyr wool is doing most of the work," Susan says; she expects Janet will understand. She places the food on a handy nearby surface and hands Janet one of the bottles of wine; they're both off-dry effervescent rosés. "Those trousers are..." she tilts her head. "Very complimentary."

[sorrowandsorrow]

That, at least, makes Janet laugh a little. She makes herself a little stack of meat and cheese and eats it, then goes rummaging in her desk for a corkscrew so she can get started on opening one of the bottles of wine. "Aw, shucks," she says dryly. "They're just jeans. I'm not saying I don't look, but these are what everyone wears when I'm from."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"The others here don't wear them like you do." Susan might be laying it on a little thick, but it has been such a queer hour, and she's relieved to be tucked away with Janet.

[sorrowandsorrow]

"I'm not going to argue with you that my ass looks great in jeans," Janet relents, already feeling better. From somewhere else in her desk, she finds a couple of clean mugs. It's a bit of a shame to pour presumably-nice wine into them, but it'd be an even bigger shame not to pour the wine at all, so she dispenses a reasonable amount into each and passes one to Susan. "Have fun down there?"

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"I felt rather like I was crashing," Susan confesses, taking the mug and having a nice sip of the wine. She hesitates a barest of moments before adding, "But Lancelot wanted a dance."

[sorrowandsorrow]

Lancelot? Janet makes an understated little huh expression about that one. He didn't seem offensive, just kind of boring. "I hope your fling with a knight goes better than my fling with a knight did," she says with forced casualness. This calls for her own hearty swig of wine.

[quote_gentle_unquote]

Susan considers, briefly, asking Janet if her knight was here or in Fillory, but too many dots are connecting, suddenly, and that's really not her style. "That's why you're up here," she says - gently enough. She wonders at the timeline of it all, but it seems fairly obviously likely that Sagramore was pretending Susan was Janet that night.

[sorrowandsorrow]

"Yeah." Janet does an okay job of sounding only kind of bitter, instead of extremely fucking bitter. She downs another long sip of rosé. "Sagramore getting married is the whole reason we crashed and burned."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"I can see how that would throw a spanner in the works," says Susan. She's really not sure what else to say - oh, she knows what she would say, normally, but she cares too much about Janet to be glib.

[sorrowandsorrow]

"Yeah," Janet says again. She sinks back into sitting on the edge of her bed, which is, thankfully, neatly made just now. "It wasn't the -- I knew I wasn't the only one. I think he's fucked half the mansion. Whatever. But he got married, and didn't tell me before the next time we fucked."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"No."

[sorrowandsorrow]

"Oh, yes," Janet says with withering dryness. "And I found out he'd gotten married from his husband, not him."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

Susan sits down next to Janet. "Men," she says, lightly scathing, clinking her mug against Janet's. "Truly the worse end of sexual dimorphism in every conceivable way."

[sorrowandsorrow]

"You're telling me." Janet musters up a sidelong smile for Susan, although it's a little bitter. "And that's why I'm not at his stupid wedding dance."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"I don't believe we get along," Susan confides. She gestures at the wine. "So I didn't want to overstay my welcome."

[sorrowandsorrow]

"Seriously?" Janet gives her a skeptical look over her mug of wine. "I thought that asshole got along with everyone. Except me now, I guess."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"We've yet to have any sort of productive interaction." Unless you count the sex, which did serve its purpose, but it certainly wasn't the sort of thing to make two people become close!

[sorrowandsorrow]

"Huh." Weird, but not unwelcome. Janet's not above the pettiness of enjoying that there's someone else here who isn't Sagramore's biggest fan. "Glad it's not just me."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"No," Susan agrees. She could offer up more information - she's perfectly willing to - but she doesn't want to belabor the subject if it bothers Janet.

[sorrowandsorrow]

Susan's presence is helpful, yeah, but Janet's honestly still feeling sulky with a side of bitchy. She lapses into silence, holding her mug in both hands and letting her shoulder lean against Susan's.

[quote_gentle_unquote]

Susan leans back. She doesn't suppose that Janet is interested in being cajoled out of her mood, so she doesn't try, just lets the silence settle around them for a long moment.

[sorrowandsorrow]

Eventually, as she's drinking the last sip in her mug but before she can get up to refill it, Janet says, a little quiet, "Thanks. Really."