I Lived, Grinch! [open post]

[summerdude]

The first thing Magnus does -- with Alex's help -- after fully healing is board up the hole in the side of the greenhouse where the cheetah ran through. The second thing, once he learns the full scope of Dark (it's different at camp; he'd already taken out a ton of camp-appropriate food for when Galahad and Laertes couldn't make it out there, and so he and Alex have been fine on the eating front) is go to the greenhouse again to figure out what plants in there yield edible produce. (Also, he tries to scrub his blood off the table. It... partially works?)

Partly it's that he's still feeling weird after the whole affair. The season doesn't help, but he does feel closer to his own mortality than pretty much any point since he died for real the first time. Being around growing plants helps that. Mostly, though, it's because he doesn't want anyone to get, like, scurvy living on bushels of rice alone.

He doesn't want to overtax any of the plants, but some can be cajoled into fruiting. Right now, he's got his hand on a kumquat tree, and he's trying to convince it that it can speed up the growth process by a few weeks. Drosera is with him, 'helping:' she's found a dead leaf, and she's chasing it down the pathway between some plants. If anyone shows up -- either because they've heard of his near-death experience and want to check in on him, or just to hang out, or even because they're drawn by the way it looks like sunlight is coming from the greenhouse itself -- he'll be glad for the company.

Comments

[sagramore]

A sigh. "Don't look at me like that. I just didn't realize it."

[summerdude]

Now the look has a healthy dollop of suspicion!

[sagramore]

Another, more put-upon sigh. "Dost know Asmodean?"

[summerdude]

"Sort of? He said he'd write a song for Jack if Jack starts getting really annoying about me not being able to go on that Bragi quest since I'm here. --Bragi is, like, the god of poetry. He disappeared. Jack wants an epic cause I forgot to mention him when I flyted Loki."

[sagramore]

"He's, ah-- we used to be-- it's complicated, actually."

[summerdude]

"Lovers in the night?" Magnus supplies, after watching the facial journey Sagramore goes on while saying that.

[sagramore]

"I'm not sure why night, specifically--"

[summerdude]

"It's an old song," Magnus says, and then squints at Sagramore again. "Very very young song for you, maybe."

[sagramore]

"I see. In any case, we're not still together, but we do see each other regularly. It's a-- project we're working on. Thou understandst."

[summerdude]

"You broke up but you're committed to actually working on your friendship instead of just saying 'let's be friends' and then never following up?"

[sagramore]

"Something like that. He doesn't really have anyone here. I worry about him." He frowns. "I worry about a lot of people, if I'm honest, but he's towards the top."

[summerdude]

Magnus leans back into the hug. "That's hard," he says. "That's really hard."

[sagramore]

"It's--" He pauses, about to protest, and then reconsider. "It is. It's been very hard."

[summerdude]

"And you're his only person here?" Even though they broke up?

[sagramore]

"More or less. I've asked a few people to look in on him, but he doesn't make friends easily."

[summerdude]

"Is he, like, super introverted or something?"

[sagramore]

"He wasn't permitted to have friends for a long time. Or rather, it was unsafe for him. He was part of something--" He hesitates, but this is the truth: "Something evil. He's changed since then, he's making different choices, and I believe him to be a better man, but-- it affected him and his ability to trust."

[summerdude]

"Ah." Magnus takes this in and processes it. "Yeah. That's hard. When you've been, like, shut out from the flow of things and then have to figure out how to wade back in?" He tilts his head. "But he's trying to trust people? More than just you?"

[sagramore]

Sagramore lets out a little huff of a breath. "I don't know. I wish I thought so, but I think he's so set in atoning still-- I'm not sure whether he talks to anyone besides me."

[summerdude]

"That's a lot of pressure to put on a guy," Magnus says, a little cautiously.

[sagramore]

"What, on me?"

[summerdude]

"Yeah, on you."

[sagramore]

"Oh, it's-- it's fine. I mean, I love him, so it's really-- he's worth the trouble."

[summerdude]

"Oh, sure," says Magnus. "But like... shouldn't atoning, or changing, or whatever mean working on trusting other people, too? The way I see it, the more you don't do something, the scarier it feels to do it." Not that he has any relevant and immediate experience with that sort of thing, like for example thinking about a certain event in a certain hallway that happened to a certain self not so very long ago.

[sagramore]

"Well, we haven't discussed that explicitly. I haven't really -- inquired about his social life, as it were."