" [closed post]

[quote_gentle_unquote]

Susan prevaricates for several days about whether to approach Sagramore. She's a little lost with respect to her feelings about him, particularly after the one-two punch of being charmed by his teenaged self and then having her own eight-year-old self being so thoroughly taken by him. (And isn't that queer, to remember it after the fact? She'd been so convinced he wouldn't remember their encounter in the kitchen, but... what if, like her, he has?)

Sagramore is a good man, which she's known for a while now. He doesn't like her, which is fine, because while she hasn't disliked him for months, she hasn't exactly given him reason to change his mind about her outside of a few awkward conversations. She thinks, perhaps, that there might be a world in which they get along. It isn't this one, clearly, but - the possibility is there, in some alternate dimension; perhaps one day the mansion's nonsense will bring it to bear for a few short hours and in its aftermath they will be none the wiser.

Regardless, she finds that she likes that they've got a truce, and not just because they've got people in common. He's an asset to the community, and Susan likes to keep close inventory of assets.

It's a hot day, and the queerness of the month is in full effect. Perhaps that's why Susan decides, in the midst of a fit of research, that Sagramore - who is ever so well-connected - might make a good co-conspirator for her newest project. (It is also - though Susan doesn't realize it - exactly one Earth-year since their ill-advised assignation. In truth, she's placed that encounter almost fully out of her mind, and while she does make a close study of her days here, she's merely noticed that she's known Lancelot for a year now, and refrained from considering the rest.)

And so she prepares her bribes offerings. She makes coffee the way Sagramore's teenage self taught her: with the grounds and the spices and the sugar and the water, boiled three times and decanted into a thermos. (She's also made tea for herself. She knows better than to pretend she's going to try the coffee again.) The thermos itself is a gift; it's a kitschy little affair that reads If found, return to Dad, and part of a number of queerly-labeled items that she's found populating her parlor (which is now attached to her room by a door next to her closet) since Rainbows began. While savory bakes aren't her forte in the same way sweet ones are, she also prepares hagymás tekercs, with the hopes that they're to his taste. Once she's got everything - coffee, tea, and rolls - packaged up, she places them carefully away in a satchel along with her notebook, a pen, and several samples of the focus of her true agenda. This time she hasn't got a list of conversational topics. She rather thinks she shan't need one.

To her relief, as she makes her way to his cottage, she sees that Sunny is off playing in Crowley's automobile, and Laertes is walking along the forest's edge with Magnus, seemingly deep in conversation. While it wouldn't matter if either were home, their absence shall make this discussion easier.

As before, she squares her shoulders. Then she knocks firmly on the door.

Comments

[sagramore]

"It would be my unmitigated pleasure, my lady."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"Oh, good. I'm ever so pleased." Susan pauses. "I had... an additional thought that I should like to run past you."

[sagramore]

"Oh, please."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

Susan takes another sip of her tea. It's not precisely what she's used to, but she doesn't dislike it. "Well," she says, somewhat tentative. "Janet does so enjoy, ah..." She glances up at Sagramore again and decides to dispense with euphemism. "Bossing men around. I thought she might enjoy being invited to arrange the... tableaux."

[sagramore]

"Oh! To direct, the way she did at the talent show, is that what you're thinking?"

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"Yes. If that shan't be a problem for you." Janet has said their relationship has improved, but if Susan is to enter into a project with Sagramore, she shouldn't want to put it at risk on day one.

[sagramore]

"I think we're on good terms, actually. As much as we can be."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"Ah! Splendid, then."

[sagramore]

"It is," with a little smile. "I like her a great deal, and I'm grateful that we can be friends."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

While Susan has likely been less uncertain and tense thus far during this conversation than any other she's had with the regular version of Sagramore, she unclenches further at this nod toward the idea that she and Sagramore are of similar minds regarding Janet - though Susan, naturally, isn't merely Janet's friend, and has the love-bites hidden away by the cut of her dress to prove it.

"Yes," she says, soft now in both tone and demeanor. "I'm pleased to hear it."

[sagramore]

Sagramore smiles at her, equally soft, a peace offering.

[quote_gentle_unquote]

Susan doesn't precisely smile back, but the look she gives him is unguarded and pleased, and she forces herself to let the moment linger for the space of a few breaths and a sip of her tea before she launches into her next point: "We've got fourteen months to fill here, but with your help I can't imagine that shall be an impossibility."

[sagramore]

"We should make a list. I should make a list," he amends. "I'm forgetful. Let's see. Laertes, Claudius, Dionysus, Asmodean, Grantaire -- Lancelot?"

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"I shall speak to Lancelot," Susan says. "You may too, of course. I imagine he mightn't agree straightaway." She purses her lips. "Lan Wangji?" She's gleaned that they don't get along, Shen Yuan and Lan Wangji, but Susan has got eyes. Lan Wangji is beautiful, and Shen Yuan does tend to stare so at large social gatherings.

[sagramore]

A short, sharp bark of laughter. "Lan Wangji. And Wei Wuxian, probably. Aleksander, of course. Kade, if he doesn't mind."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"Perhaps Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian for the same month," says Susan thoughtfully. Surely photographing them together must overcome any social complications of including Lan Wangji in Shen Yuan's gift. Then she gets a wicked curl to her lip; a playful light sparks in her eye. "I suppose I might add 'present yourself for photographs' to Crowley's chore chart."

[sagramore]

"Christ Jesu. Yes. I wonder if I could get him and Aziraphale to do it together."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"Oh, that would be exceptional," says Susan, amusement flitting across her face. She doesn't care for the angel at all, but she can clearly picture a fussy little moue as he arranges a book to perfectly obscure - have angels got genitals? She shan't be asking!

She glances up at Sagramore again, taking another sip of her tea. Has he always been like this? Engaging, quick to laugh... easy? The other Sagramores she's met have been, of course, and so naturally she's wondered if she's just not noticed that same tendency in this one. Clearly there's something about him that attracts so very many people. She's recognized it, during her observations, even if she hasn't precisely understood it. But if he recalls his time as a teenager - if that truly was just his younger self - well. There's a through-line to the man he is now, and while she mightn't understand it in full, she gets the sense that perhaps they've not got on... not because they're so very different, as she thought previously, but because they're terribly similar in incompatible ways.

It bears reflection.

"I imagine Little John might do it for a laugh," she says, tone now thoughtful. She shan't be suggesting Enjolras or Apollo.

[sagramore]

"Oh, he would. Yes, marvelous, he certainly would. I wonder whether Xie Lian would. I think he might be a bit shy, but--"

[quote_gentle_unquote]

Susan's primary association with Xie Lian is that he's got fascinating perspectives on religion, but that doesn't necessarily preclude an interest in participating in a nude calendar. "It certainly shan't hurt to ask," she says.

[sagramore]

"It will be my pleasure."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"Lovely," firmly. "Ought we ask his lover as well, or just include men he hasn't got the opportunity to see regularly?" Susan knows what she'd prefer!

[sagramore]

"Well," a bit more delicately. "His lover and I aren't on speaking terms, so that does make that a little more complicated. I think I could arrange it, though, if it seemed vital."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

Susan wants so very badly to ask, but she can't quite convince herself that it's for the purpose of ensuring that she hasn't erred in asking Sagramore for his help. So she resists the urge and instead says, "No? Very well. I might, if you thought it prudent."

She's only spoken to the man once in the past year - their paths rarely cross and since the only person they've got in common is a friend of Susan's (rather than, for example, Lancelot) she's given herself a pass on getting to know him better, given that they never really clicked in the first place.

"But they do say variety is the spice of life. I imagine if Shen Yuan should like to see his lover thus arrayed," tapping the edge of one of her sample calendars with a fingertip, "he need only ask."

[sagramore]

That makes him smile. "I do think Luo Binghe would do anything for Shen Yuan. So perhaps it's redundant. How many is that?"