* [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]

Abruptly, Susan is glad she didn't know Crowley could do this, especially when she first met him and could barely bear the weight of knowing Narnia had been real. She nods at Galahad.

[onthewillowsthere]

"I found Claudius again. He didn't want me without-- he wanted me. Not the person I was when I didn't remember. I asked Crowley to restore my memories, but he wasn't able to." He glances over at her. "I hurt him. I didn't know that I could, but I killed him."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

No wonder Claudius reacted as he did when I told him of how Lancelot rejected me, Susan thinks, before she registers the rest of what Galahad has said and looks at him in shock. "You killed Crowley? But... he came back, then?"

[onthewillowsthere]

"Yes. Because he's a demon."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

This takes a little more effort to wrap her head around, but she nods anyway. "Naturally."

[onthewillowsthere]

"After that Claudius let me live with him. We were lovers."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"What changed?"

[onthewillowsthere]

"When the angel came he restored my memory. He felt that Crowley had done something to me and he repaired it. I didn't ask."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"No, I meant - Claudius changed his mind before you got your memories back?"

[onthewillowsthere]

"He found me after I had killed Crowley. I was afraid, because I had burned him. I put my hand in the fire," holding out his scarred hand. "I was afraid to burn Claudius too."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"But you didn't," Susan guesses. "So he changed his mind after that, and you, ah, moved in with him, and it was later that the angel returned your memories?"

[onthewillowsthere]

"Yes."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

He'd mentioned that he didn't ask. "Did you want him to?"

[onthewillowsthere]

Silence. They're almost to the tower now.

"I would have chosen how. If Claudius had been with me--"

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"Between you and me," says Susan, trying to read between the lines and in tones of greatest confidence, "he seems like the sorriest excuse for an angel I could've ever imagined."

[onthewillowsthere]

Galahad nods sharply. "I was disappointed."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"He is rather disappointing."

[onthewillowsthere]

"An angel should be more." Though he does think, then, of his conversation with Claudius, about God being only a petty, vengeful father exerting control. Perhaps a disappointing angel is only appropriate.

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"I agree," says Susan, firmly.

[onthewillowsthere]

He casts her a look which clearly says they're in solidarity, even despite his flat affect. They've reached the tower, and he pulls the door open.

[quote_gentle_unquote]

Susan sighs as she slips inside. "I keep forgetting that I mean to keep a torch with me," she says. There's light inside, of course, but she'd feel better with one in her hand.

[onthewillowsthere]

"I need a demon to make light," somewhat wryly, although Magnus isn't there to appreciate it.

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"If there's anyone to burn I shall let you at them," says Susan, an inelegant attempt at humor. And then, as she'd explained it to his father, she says, "In my time, there are electrical ones. Like the lights in the Mansion, but portable."

[onthewillowsthere]

Galahad, who has mastered the various machines in the laundry room, including the steam press and the dry cleaning machine, finds electric torches quite easy to envision. He nods.

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"I've got one, but," she sighs again. "I do keep leaving it in my room."