" [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

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"Or at least an entertaining argument." 'Entertaining' here has a specific sort of emphasis.

[sagramore]

"As opposed to one that's a waste of time and then the other person leaves?"

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"Precisely. Particularly if the other person is prone to bringing the subject up in the first place and then implying it's a painful topic and you oughtn't have discussed it at all."

[sagramore]

He feels a little guilty for enjoying this, but it's so cathartic. "Indeed! And in front of one's young child, no less! As if one is desperately interested in having to explain self-absorbed idiots to a two-year-old."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

Susan looks at Sagramore, shocked by this last, and then shakes her head, rolling her eyes as she does so. "I imagine if he were to have a photo taken for the calendar, he'd explain how he's circuitously responsible for photographs and/or calendars, attempt badly to flirt with all present, and then grow impatient when others present disagree that 'bragging' is consonant with 'flirting.' Really," brightly, "in addition to considering Shen Yuan's broader interests, if Janet does choose to become involved, we're reducing the risk of a defenestration incident."

[sagramore]

"Jesu, I'd love to see him try any of that with Janet. She'd eviscerate him."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

Fondly, "the look on her face if he tried to storm off in another huff..."

[sagramore]

"Christ. Perhaps we should invite him after all, just so she can."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"Perhaps we ought to leave it to her discretion," Susan suggests, practically laughing. "As tremendously satisfying as it would be to watch."

[sagramore]

"Oh, I suppose we could be fair and ask her, yes."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

Susan flicks another glance up at Sagramore. "In front of Sunny, truly? You'd think several millennia would give a man some sense of tact."

[sagramore]

"Lady, I was so irritated. Now she's worried that he won't look out for her if something should happen while he and Dionysus are taking care of her, which is the last thing she needs to think about."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"Yes, that oughtn't need to be the concern of a child at all. How perfectly dreadful."

[sagramore]

"All because he wanted to talk about his children but couldn't help mentioning he doesn't remember how many he has or whether they're all right or have survived the stupid trials and quests he sends them on."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"Tactless!" Susan says, shaking her head. "Thoughtless! Isn't he supposed to be the god of foresight? And yet he does so love to bring things up and then get upset when they're discussed, doesn't he?" Really, Bacchus is the only individual she's met who lends any sort of worth to gods as a whole.

[sagramore]

"Christ, who the hell entrusted him with foresight? He certainly doesn't make good use of it."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"I couldn't possibly say," says Susan, primly. "He gets ever so defensive whenever one tries to discuss the sources of his powers after he brings them up."

[sagramore]

"Oh, really? What did he say to you?"

[quote_gentle_unquote]

Susan rolls her eyes. "Nothing so dreadful as your conversation in front of Sunny, it seems," she says. "He made some comment about how it's lovely that there's no greater authority here, deliberately misunderstood when I asked if he was subject to that at home and bragged about all his domains of power instead, got upset when I clarified, and told me he refused to speak on the topic at all."

[sagramore]

"What an absolute ass."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"Insufferable, really."

[sagramore]

"I really don't understand it, because Dionysus, of course, is lovely."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

Susan visibly hesitates for a moment, then admits, "Our Bacchus isn't the first Bacchus I've met. The other was rather different - though still not nearly as obnoxious as Apollo. I do wonder if it comes down to Bacchus and Apollo having different... origins, or if all Apollos might be similarly..." She presses her lips together, searching for the correct descriptor, then settles on, "Ill-behaved."

[sagramore]

"I'm not exactly-- I'm not well-versed in all of this. What exactly is the origin of Apollos?"

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"I'm afraid I can't be more precise than classical Greek or Roman mythology."