New Plan, Step One: Provide For My Community [open]

[summerdude]

Magnus needs something to change, so when a Mansion calendar helpfully informs him that it's International Falafel Day back on Earth, he goes to the library for some cookbooks, and then to the kitchen.

He lays out ten different falafel recipes. He gathers the ingredients they list, as best as he can understand them. He has canned chickpeas and fresh chickpeas and dried chickpeas and chickpea flour and box mixes of falafel that say 'just add water!'

Cripes.

"I can do this," he says, peering at the assorted recipes intently for a good ten minutes, and then takes the dried chickpeas over to the sink to rinse and soak.

Comments

[lanselos_du_lac]

"That's well." He finishes up with the onion and scrapes the bits into a neat pile. "And you still wish to keep your work a secret?"

[summerdude]

"Yes," says Magnus, immediately. "No one can know. Um, you can put the onion in the bowl of the food processor?"

[lanselos_du_lac]

Lancelot starts to do that, mulling Magnus' answer over. After a moment he asks, "Not even Alex?"

[summerdude]

Magnus sighs, scuffing his foot on the floor. "No," he says. "I mean, yeah. I mean. I do gotta tell him."

[lanselos_du_lac]

"So he doesn't know."

[summerdude]

"She might know. She's very perceptive. I just haven't... told her."

[lanselos_du_lac]

He carefully does not look at Magnus, "Don't you think you should? If only to share your success?"

[summerdude]

"What do you care?" Magnus asks, adding his garlic cloves into the bowl, too. Not confrontational, just curious.

[lanselos_du_lac]

He's quiet for a long moment, weighing out his answer.

"I find that keeping a secret, particularly one you are keeping for fear of hurting or worrying someone else, is like carrying a weight," he says at last. "Little good, in my experience, can come from it. It spares the people you worry about very little, and wears one down over time. You do a lot of good here, for many people. We can ill afford any of us to be worn down, least of all you."

[summerdude]

Magnus bites down his first reaction, which is to say I already know that it's all on me, dude, no need to rub it in, because he's pretty sure Lancelot isn't actually trying to rub it in. "You have experience with this?" he asks instead, tilting his head.

[lanselos_du_lac]

Lancelot scoffs, "With keeping secrets? I think you know the answer to that."

[summerdude]

"Okay," Magnus allows, dumping some herbs into the bowl. "I walked right into that one."

[lanselos_du_lac]

"I would say so, yes."

[summerdude]

He sighs. "I'll think about it." A pause. "Is it... bothering you? To keep the secret."

[lanselos_du_lac]

"No," sincerely, "it is not my secret, and it's no great trouble to keep it. Though, as I said, I did not keep it from Susan, in part because I feel she has a right to have some idea of where I'm spending regular time."

[summerdude]

"Yeah, that's fine. She knows it's a secret, right?"

[lanselos_du_lac]

"Yes, of course."

[summerdude]

"Good. Thanks."

[lanselos_du_lac]

"Did I not say I would ask that she keep it between us?" This is, he might admit, a little poke at Magnus.

[summerdude]

Magnus whines, "You did but..."

[lanselos_du_lac]

He raises an eyebrow.

[summerdude]

"That doesn't mean she will."

[lanselos_du_lac]

"She will. She has. You trusted me to do this -- grant me that same trust, here. If I had any doubt, I would not have told her."

[summerdude]

Magnus gives Lancelot a long, assessing look, then nods. "Okay."

[lanselos_du_lac]

"Thank you," with one of those little almost-bows. "She means a great deal to me."