If Alex Came Back We'd DEFINITELY Be The Local Power Couple [open post]

[summerdude]

Magnus has come to realize that nobody else in this entire place is presently in a relationship that has lasted nearly as long as his and Alex's. Shen Yuan's concept of "communication" "with" "Luo Binghe" is continuing to horrify him every time he thinks about it. What if there are other people who could use the advice of a sixteen-year-old twenty-five-year-old virgin who has been in a committed relationship for nearly seven years with someone to who he is probably widely known to have never verbally declared the undying depths of his love? (Gods, he hopes Alex figures out a way to do another little visit for their rapidly-approaching anniversary)

To that end, he posts an announcement sign over the welcome table, in the café, and on the door to the kitchen. It reads:

NEED RELATIONSHIP ADVICE OR FEEDBACK? Local Long-Term Relationship Expert Magnus Chase Offers His Aid.

He even lists office hours — an inoffensive parlor (meaning he can tolerate hanging out in it, and the door can close if people want privacy for their conversations) every other day for an hour, immediately following his Drosera hand-off to Galahad.

Comments

[timebethine]

Laertes blinks several times. "Ay, something like that," he hazards. "Is it an affliction?"

[summerdude]

"Depends on who you ask," Magnus shrugs. "But I think most people would say yes."

[timebethine]

"Dost thou share it?"

[summerdude]

Magnus shrugs. "I was never diagnosed, but I'm also a high school dropout, so... maybe I would have been eventually? They say it runs in families and my cousin has it, but having parents who attract gods apparently also runs in families, and Annabeth's mom is Athena, and like I said, she says all Greek demigods have it. So who knows? I bet there's books on it in the library, though."

[timebethine]

"It's a place to begin," Laertes acknowledges. "What was it called?"

[summerdude]

"ADHD," Magnus says. "Um, in the past I know it also used to be called ADD. Attention deficit disorder."

[timebethine]

"Has it any associations with melancholy? Or--" he tries to remember how Magnus had phrased it "--depression?"

[summerdude]

"Maybe?" Magnus makes an apologetic face. "I'm sorry, dude, I definitely dropped out of school before I was eligible for AP Psychology. I spent a couple days in a library when I was fifteen looking up the mental health stuff that tends to crop up with other homeless kids, and I know a ton about panic attacks because I for sure get those, but apart from that it's kind of like, 'what do I remember overhearing about once or twice' territory."

[timebethine]

"It's been of great help nonetheless--I've begun with less," says Laertes. "What is a panic attack?"

[summerdude]

Magnus hesitates for a moment, trying to think of how to describe them. "Do you know what asthma is?"

[timebethine]

"It's from the Greek," he guesses. "For breathing heavily, or panting?"

[summerdude]

Magnus nods -- that's close enough. "For me, before I died, it was like someone tightening a belt around my chest until I couldn't breathe," he says. "At totally random times, but especially when I was sleeping inside or playing. For me, panic attacks are kind of like that, but scarier. Sometimes they're in response to something, like being around too many people, or if there's a wolf, or even if it feels like an asthma attack is coming on, even though dying cured me of the asthma. Being in my inside room here, right after the zombies. But I think that they can feel a little different for different people."

[timebethine]

Laertes recognizes that feeling--as though his body is failing, heart and lungs pressed under iron bands. Panic attack is such an evocative term for it: a madness and false feeling of being hunted, as though he were stalked by Pan. "I wish it were not so, for thee," he says at last. "It's a hard thing to suffer."

[summerdude]

Magnus shrugs. "It is what it is," he says, and hazards a grin. "But once you know what's up you can adjust, right? Like, for a totally random example out of nowhere, becoming Outside Guy, cuz for you the biggest thing that helps you breathe through it is going out to a place that feels wild, green, and fresh."

[timebethine]

"Is it difficult for thee, to be here right now?"

[summerdude]

"What?" Magnus processes the question and shakes his head. "Nah, now I'm pretty much just out there because I like it better."

[timebethine]

Laertes musters a smile. "Then I'm glad for thee. A panic attack is no small thing; I would not wish it on thee, not even for the sake of all thy sound advice."

[summerdude]

"You get them too, huh?"

[timebethine]

The slightest of nods. "The day when the visitors came ... it went hard with me."

[summerdude]

Magnus nods, too. "I met that guy," he says, a little cautiously. "While Alex was taking time for herself to, uh, process, and after I Peace of Frey'd Wei Wuxian's visitor. I, um. Tried to get him lost."

[timebethine]

Laertes cannot remember whether Magnus ever told him that Alex was his visitor--but the more he thinks about it, the less sure he is that Magnus was lucky. One thing had to be said for Reynaldo: Laertes was glad to see the back of him. "Thou hadst an eventful day," he says. "And so did he. Sagramore meant to kill him, I think. My thanks for defending me in thine own way."

[summerdude]

"I told him my dad was a pretty big deal in Denmark and leaned into the whole, you know." Magnus gestures at himself. "Thing where I look really young. And then I took him past the -- you know the crevasse?" But this isn't about what Magnus did, this is about Laertes. "You panicked?"

[timebethine]

"I saw him, and I fled into the woods. I was too far gone for thought; I was a hare pursued by a hound. I ... remember little of what happened, before he found me," says Laertes. "Only being cold, and afraid, and unable to breathe past the top of my chest."

[summerdude]

"That'll do it," Magnus says. He scoots over a few inches, so that he's closer to Laertes, and bumps their shoulders together.

[timebethine]

Laertes exhales, long and slow. "It was well enough, in the end. I bid him take back to my father that I had no wish to return, for I'd married a Hungarian prince and had no desire to repent it. He seemed pleased enough to carry that message."