* [semi-closed post]

[quote_gentle_unquote]

Susan is still struggling, but she's established a little routine, specific to Dark: every morning, she goes to her favorite room - the one with all the rugs - and retrieves several bottles of alcohol. These, she ferries down to the cafe and arranges them on a corner table, where she sits for the next hour or so, passing bottles to anyone who needs a full one, and measures from the bottles to anyone who would prefer just a drink or two. By now, she's got a sense of the regulars, their preferences (though she cannot always accommodate these - it really is the queerest assortment of libations), and how much they require, but she always brings an extra bottle or two just in case.

Today, she's tireder than normal, and moving slowly. Her tea was running low, and so she's rationing it. She's even on the verge of capitulating and getting a cup of coffee to tide herself over.


[Primarily intended for Dionysus and Lan Wangji, but if anyone wants to play out the awkwardness of the daily alcohol retrieval I'm all in!]

Comments

[quote_gentle_unquote]

Susan is merely trying to ensure that people always have access to their favorites, if they should have a particularly bad day or even, perhaps, a particularly good one. "He often takes whisky and there's plenty of that," she suggests.

[timebethine]

"Then that will do well."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"Have you got preferences as to which?" Susan has pulled a bottle each of Jameson, Evan Williams, and Laphroaig 12-year for the day. She sets the brandy back on the table and twists each of these so Laertes might see the labels.

[timebethine]

"--ah. These are Scotch, are they not?" He hadn't realized that Scotch and whisky were synonymous. It seems obvious, now: Scotch whisky. Scotch is a modifier. He ought to have known. "Perhaps not that."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"I believe one is Irish and one is American - bourbon, perhaps?" Susan is much more familiar with wine and gin than whisky. She surveys the other bottles - she only brings a portion of the collection down each day, and tries to cover the range of options. "Let's see. I haven't the faintest idea what 'Malort' is, but I've got a nearly-full bottle of that. Oh, what about grappa?" The bottle of it is less full than what she would typically provide for Sagramore, particularly given its alcohol content, so it would have to be supplemented, but it does seem akin to a brandy.

[timebethine]

"Grappa, then," says Laertes, relieved. He doesn't know what grappa is, but he does know that it has no strong associations with Claudius. "That will do."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

Susan nods, and makes a note, now properly calculating the alcohol content and amount in the bottle by Sagramore's usual withdrawal. In this moment of quiet, if Laertes is paying attention (though he would be forgiven for not doing so; he has his own concerns), he might note that she looks frayed at the edges. There are bruiselike shadows under her eyes that are only noticeable when she's looking down at her notebook, and the set to her mouth - while it appears as determined as ever - seems as if it might be more desperately clenched than her usual second nature. "Unless he's been taking more than he needs and reserving the extra for a rainy day," she says, without any judgement - if she were in this boat, she'd do the same - "you'll need something to supplement it."

[timebethine]

"Of course," says Laertes. He doesn't think Sagramore's been taking more than he needs and reserving it--if anything, he's been taking less than he needs and augmenting it with his personal stash. The fact that Susan knows to the dram how much Sagramore requires, and Laertes doesn't, is excruciating. "How ... how low do our reserves run?"

[quote_gentle_unquote]

Susan blinks. "Oh," she says. "I think we've got plenty, provided too many new people in need don't come out of the woodwork suddenly. A good deal of it is wine - Bacchus has been producing more, and though the alcohol content is variable, it does help considerably to offset the stores. At the rate people are going, we've enough to last till the 20th of Amphidocus, provided no-one gets too precious about the form his drink takes. I only hope the going theory - that this shall end with the month - is accurate." She presses her lips together. Suddenly (and unintentionally) sounding very young, she quietly adds, "I don't like this."

[timebethine]

"It must wear on thee," says Laertes, low, voice shaded with understanding. "To return to rationing, after a time of surfeit."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

She looks at him, surprised. "Yes."

[timebethine]

"Is there aught I can do to ease thy burdens?"

[quote_gentle_unquote]

Susan thinks about this for a moment. Is there anything Laertes can do to help her? Much of what troubles her isn't anything that can be addressed by another person.

Her mind settles on the conversation they'd had over the cinnamon rolls, though, and how he'd said they could build a friendship based on honesty, rather than omission. At the time it had seemed like a struggle; now she's once again grateful for the offer - as with when she first arrived, she hasn't got the energy right now to try and smooth over her rougher edges to facilitate social cohesion. And there is something that has been weighing on her, something that Lancelot alone can't satisfactorily address.

"Yes," she decides. "I've got a question for you, and I would appreciate your honest answer.

[timebethine]

He sets his weight upon his back foot, unconsciously lifting his chin and squaring his shoulders. "Very well--ask it."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

Susan lifts her chin, too - she's trying ever so hard not to be embarrassed about her lack of genuine relationship experience. "Is it a problem for you?" she asks. "That Lancelot has been spending more time with me since all this-" she gestures loosely toward the alcohol, to indicate the change in their circumstances- "began? I just..."

A tiny nod, mostly to herself: she must be honest. "I don't know how these things are supposed to work," she admits, flushing lightly. "And I don't want to... infringe, I suppose, on your time with him. But this month is ever so dreadful, and I've needed him more."

[timebethine]

All the tension goes out of Laertes at once. It's a relief to be asked something so simple, where he can answer without caveat or reservation. "No, of course not," he says, and his smile shades more sincere. "It makes me glad to know that he has thee. His heart had weathered many mortal shocks, before he came here--shocks which would have broken him, had he remained. To see him safe with thee is a balm to me."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

Susan visibly relaxes. "You'll - will you tell me if that changes? Please?"

[timebethine]

"I'll tell thee--but I doubt very much it will change. I have a husband, and other lovers besides; alone, I fear I could not be all that Lancelot deserves."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"Thank you," says Susan sincerely; she gives him an anxious look. "Only I shouldn't want to assume, you know? He was ever so mistreated in Camelot. I find it -" She pauses, trying to sort out what to say. The truth of it is that, although she hates fighting, given the opportunity, she would march into Camelot, bow in hand as protection just in case, and give everyone a piece of her mind. Especially Arthur and Guinever. She knows how to treat with royals. Whilst they mightn't recognize Narnia as a sovereign nation and she hasn't got trade agreements to threaten, she fancies she could still put them in their places, a little, at least where Lancelot is concerned. He'd likely hate that, and so she wouldn't actually, but she does fantasize about it sometimes. Especially on his worse days.

"Jolly infuriating," she decides. "And if some unspoken resentment toward him should arise here because of something I've done, or could easily prevent with a change in my behavior, I would be-" Horrified. Devastated. Furious with herself. "-rather upset. I'm..." Again, that hot flash of embarrassment; she tamps it down. "Like I said, I'm new to this sort of thing. I'm fearful that I might misstep."

[timebethine]

Her broken speech resonates with him--all those flashes of fire and feeling, simmering, carefully controlled. Many times, Laertes has hoped that they might understand one another; now, though, as he glimpses the deep well of righteous fury in her, for the first time he feels that they do. "We're of like mind in this," he says. "He deserves a thousand times better than Camelot gave him--but we cannot undo that harm." Satisfying though it was to give King Arthur a piece of his mind. "We can only work toward his happiness, and in this, I am thine ally."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"No," Susan agrees with a little sigh. "But it would be rather satisfying to hold them accountable." Perhaps she might learn how to fly a biplane, and then transport herself and the biplane to Camelot, and affix a sign to the back that reads LANCELOT DESERVED BETTER THAN YOU, and fly it overhead. They don't know of planes; it might be received as some dread portent.

She reaches out impulsively, then, to take Laertes's hand in her own and give it a quick squeeze. Just as quickly, she releases it. "I'm glad we're in accord." A pause while she wets her lips. "I love him." And lest Laertes not recognize the magnitude of the words, she adds, with no small measure of wonder, "I've never loved a man before."

[timebethine]

His eyes light. "That's well," he says. "I never had, either, until I came here--nor woman, neither. It's like nothing else, isn't it? The world is remade in brightness, as though thou hadst spent thy life behind a curtain that was suddenly rent asunder."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

Susan laughs, more of a rough exhalation than anything. She might've loved a woman, especially if everyone is right about love being different with different people, which is why she specified 'man.' She wouldn't call it a relationship, though; she and Miriam never talked about it. Which might've been part of their problem. "I fancied myself thoroughly experienced," she says, ever the pragmatist in the face of Laertes's poetics. "And perhaps I was, in matters of sex. The love - it took me rather by surprise."

[timebethine]

A flush colors his throat and the tips of his ears. "Didst never think to braid sex and love together?"

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"I never gave it the opportunity, I suppose." Again, she thinks of Miriam. "Perhaps with one person. But that was... different."