What's In An Unknowable Birthday? I Guess We'll Find Out!

[summerdude]

Magnus is a man on a mission. Actually, he's a man on several missions, but now that he's successfully pulled off the bachelorette part of Galahad's wedding, this one stands out as of particular import. As such, he has a pad of construction paper chock-full of notes tucked in his backpack and he's swinging briefly into every room he passes, on the lookout for Grantaire.

Comments

[futaille]

"I'd tell you to ask Enjolras, but I think there is a chance of misinterpretation there. At home, I could barely help reinforcing my reputation as an annoyance. An amiable one, to be sure, but an annoyance nonetheless. It was really only the amiability that made me not completely intolerable to be around."

[summerdude]

"What, were you, like, trying to avoid the mortifying ordeal of being known or something?"

[futaille]

"That's certainly evocative phrasing. No, I just... couldn't help myself, really."

[summerdude]

"Why not?"

[futaille]

"I have no idea. I assure you, there are much more important things to think about at any given moment than why I'm being foolish."

[summerdude]

"See, me, I hate assholes," Magnus says. "Especially ones with more money than manners and sense. So that's why I was a foolish annoyance to, um. Certain people back home."

[futaille]

"Whereas most of the people I annoyed, I liked."

[summerdude]

"Huh."

[futaille]

"Yes, exactly."

[summerdude]

"Is it fun? For you? To be annoying?"

[futaille]

"That's not exactly how I'd put it. At least not all the time."

[summerdude]

"Then how would you put it?"

[futaille]

"I'm terrible at shutting up."

[summerdude]

"Whoa," says Magnus, now with his trademark shit-eating grin. "So you like talking to your friends? Huge if true."

[futaille]

He laughs a little. "To, with, around, over, near, against, for, any conjunction you can conceive of."

[summerdude]

"And you call that annoying? Maybe they're just weak."

[futaille]

He shrugs. "Maybe they were. Or maybe I was singular."

[summerdude]

"Do you talk a lot less now or something?"

[futaille]

"There isn't generally quite as much going on around me that I have to talk over here."

[summerdude]

"...what did you use to try and talk over?"

[futaille]

"Everyone else's conversations. At the same time."

[summerdude]

"So are you saying that you're more... heard... here?"

[futaille]

"By virtue of it being quieter here."

[summerdude]

"Huh."

[futaille]

"I am well-suited for speaking over six different conversations at once."