papadopoulos | happy pride, etc

Kade walks in! "Hey, what's all this?"

“Pride,” Apollo says cheerfully, looking up from his bracelets. He is very admirably not staring quite as much as he’d like to; but he is certainly appreciating the view. “Or, at least, it’s for pride. Figure a lot of people around here might not know what it is or why it’s important.”

“It apparently would be June right now,” Dionysus adds, “I mean, I know everyone arrives from different months and all, but by some estimates that’s where we’d be.”

"Yeah, that tracks." Kade surveys the stuff they have laid out. "Well, have fun!"

“Wait, you can’t just leave,” Apollo says. “I don’t even know your name yet, man; come on.” He picks up a bracelet —one of the rainbow ones, and waves it vaguely at Kade. “You want one? There’s not just pride ones.”

"Apollo, this is Kade, he's our resident tailor. Kade, this is my big brother Apollo," he certainly doesn't look like he would be Dionysus' big brother, more like he could be his teenage son or something, but Dionysus doesn't seem to be giving that a second thought whatsoever, and says this as if it's just an extremely basic fact with no weird complications whatsoever. "Apollo's the god of Music, the Sun, Healing, Twinks, Poetry, and apparently today, Making Bracelets."

Dionysus holds up the small face painting palette he found. "I'm doing face paint if you want something. I can doodle on you if you'd like."

"I'm also, from what I can tell, your token straight guy," Kade demurs.

"That doesn't mean you're not welcome," Apollo says lightly. "Wouldn't be much of a celebration of acceptance if we kicked people out of it, right? --And don't listen to Sissy over there, I'm not the god of twinks." He is certainly a god of youth and protection; which arguably could be defined as 'twinks', but let's let him have this. "Besides, like I said, they're not all pride bracelets. You want one anyway?" He offers a different bracelet; this one just a selection of various shades of reds and blues.

The 'youth and protection' thing is absolutely not why Dionysus called him the god of Twinks, but he doesn't argue, just rolls his eyes and starts casually painting a little star on the back of his hand with a purple shade from the palette.

"I'm good," Kade demurs again. He doesn't mean to be rude, but he can make so much nicer if he wants one.

"Okay, fine." Sorry he's not the god of arts and crafts, Kade, that's his son. "So you're a tailor, huh? That's cool. Do you make, like, anything a person wants?"

Dionysus has finished the star, and starts mixing some water into a pink color to activate it, so he can draw a cloud next.

"Just about," Kade says. "Why, you want something?"

"Maybe! I haven't been able to find any jackets like the ones I had back home here quite yet." Those jackets would, in fact, be leather and bedazzled. But like, in a tasteful (?) way.

"Well, maybe later you can describe what you want and we can see what I can do," Kade says. "We'll sort out the payment then, too."

"Oh -- yeah, I guess there's not much need for currency here, is there." He hadn't given that much thought -- but then again, he rarely does. "What kind of payment do you take, then?"

"Here? Mostly stories."

"Stories, huh?" He looks intrigued. "That's an interesting form of payment. Why stories?"

"I like stories."

"So do I," Apollo says cheerily. "Not a lot of people take them as payment these days, but it's nice to see it here."

"Well, like you said, it's not like we have a currency--I wouldn't ask my students for money, either. But trades are important."

"So it's a story for a story? I'll have to think of a good one, there are so many."

"It's a story for a jacket," Kade says, mildly. "Unless you changed your mind about that."

"Oh, yeah, right. I haven't! But I'd still want to hear some of your stories, too, if you like."

"That'll cost you extra," Kade laughs. "But sure."

"I've got tons of stories," Apollo replies cheerfully. "So it's a date." When? Whenever, he guesses. It's not like they're short on time here.

Kade is pretty sure Apollo doesn't mean it like a date-date, but there are enough men here who have hit on him that he feels beholden to say, "Sure, sure. As a reminder, though, I am hopelessly straight."

"Eh, even straight people aren't hopeless," he says cheerfully. "Just ask Pandora."

"I'm afraid I don't know what that means," mildly.

"Eh, it doesn't matter. It was a reference to her box, had hope in it despite all the terrors of the world. It was a dumb joke."

"So you're not suggesting heterosexuality is one of the horrors?"

He laughs. "No! Just 'cause I go for whatever doesn't mean people can't have their preferences."

Kade grins. "All right, then."

“I’m definitely not here to judge anyone; just to teach.”

"About Pride?"

"Yeah, pretty much. Or I guess whatever else thing someone might want to learn about that I know. There's a lot."

"All right," says Kade. "Teach me something." This is a test!

He laughs. "What do you want to learn? I've got a lotta things I'm in charge of."

"You're in charge of a lot of things about Pride?" Kade doesn't bother hiding the surprise in his voice.

He looks a little bemused. "No, I meant -- just, in general. God of a lot of things. Pride is not one of them, but it is important."

Maybe he's the god of short-term memory loss? "I think we got our wires crossed somewhere," Kade says. "I asked you to teach me something about Pride."

"Yeah, I think so." Apollo looks thoughtful for a moment. "First off, alright, tell me what you already know about it. It's not much of a lesson if you're not learning anything, after all."

"Assume I know nothing," says Kade. This is, after all, a test!

'Mm. Okay." He considers for a moment. "Well --Pride didn't exactly start in 1969, but it was more a culmination of a lot of people fighting for their rights and progress and the ability to be recognized as citizens and people regardless of who they love, or their gender expression. It came to the forefront properly in 1969, like I said, when a riot started at the Stonewall Inn in New York. There was a raid on the bar there, and people fought back. It turned into a few days of rioting, and the next year, to commemorate the whole thing, the first Pride parade happened."

"I see."

Attracted by the upbeat music, Tally wanders in. She gives Dionysus a friendly wave, but her attention is caught by the boy who looks closer to her own age. He looks like an ugly, but he does have a strange sort of glow around him.

"Hi! I don't think we've met. I'm Tally."

“Tally!” Dionysus grins and waves at her as she walks in. “This is my big brother Apollo.” He turns to Apollo, “Tally’s from a few hundred years in the future. There’s still bees.” This was obviously the most important takeaway from their first conversation.

“Good?” Apollo blinks a little and gives Tally a slight wave. “Hey,” he says to her, stringing another bead on his latest bracelet. “It’s nice to meet you. Want a bracelet?”

Oh, so this guy is another so-called god, and yet again a god who's chosen an ugly form for whatever reason. Utterly inexplicable! Tally's glad that Dionysus seems to remember her fondly; she winces a little thinking about how she'd broken her bubbly-making sobriety that night.

"Nice to meet you, Apollo. That's totally kind offer," she says, meaning it. Handmade items are special because they represent the time and labor put into them, especially for beings who can summon stuff. "Um, what do all the different color combinations mean? Is it a god thing?"

"Oh, they're pride flags." He gestures at the one hanging behind the pastry case, and at his shirt. "Well, most of them are. Some of them are colors I just thought looked nice together. The pink and blue and purple, that means I'm into both men and women as, um, partners. Do they still have Pride a few hundred years into the future?" There's a beat. "I mean, ideally a few hundred years into the future we wouldn't need a month to celebrate being proud of ourselves and stuff; but people have been saying that for literally thousands of years."

"Aren't, like, 90% of people into both men and women?" Tally puzzles. Sure, weirdos like Georgia and Gideon exist, but they can't be the majority. "No, we don't have a pride... month? Is this because of Rusty discrimination stuff?"

"I mean, probably, but I'm not the expert on that kind of thing. You'd have to ask Aphrodite or someone like that." He straightens up and sets his current bracelet down. "But yeah, pretty much, though I don't know what you mean by 'rusty'. A lot of people don't like what they don't understand."

"You're a Rusty, since you come from the past. And yeah, I know. That's why pretties like me all look and act the same. It has its drawbacks, but it totally created world peace." Tally sits down at the table. "What are the other flags for? Which one is for girls who only like girls?" Maybe Gideon would like one?

"I -- uh. Okay." Sounds ...weird. And boring, and a little unsettling, honestly, but who is he to judge? He's not from the future. "That one," he offers, pointing at the lesbian flag and a bracelet in the same colors that sits nearby. "My baby brother has a dress in the pansexual flag colors, and his bracelet is in the nonbinary colors. Sometimes the colors are self-explanatory -- like mine, pink and blue for men and women and then purple is the two combined. Sissy's has the yellow for people who don't identify as men or women. ...Which I guess could apply to me, too; but that's a whole other thing."

"Apollo doesn't like the term 'pansexual' as much because we know a guy named Pan," Dionysus interjects unhelpfully.

Tally nods. Nonbinary, just like Magnus had explained. "What is pansexual?" The number of different identities is starting to stress her out. How is she supposed to know what colors she's supposed to wear?

“Someone who’s attracted to all genders; basically. Man or woman or non-binary or people who don’t feel like they’re any gender. But, like —don’t feel like you have to pick. It’s not a requirement at all; we just wanted to educate people.”

Tally nods again. It feels obvious to her that she wouldn't know if she was attracted to someone until she met them, regardless of gender, and it seems redundant to say she's bisexual or pansexual. That's, like, being normal! But she guesses that it mattered way more when the Rusties were totally oppressing people for it.

"Is there one for girls who only like boys, too?" she asks, wondering if she can get one for Georgia.

"Uh--" He shrugs a little. "Not really? I guess if you want to give someone who's straight one, it could be a rainbow one. Or just one of the ones that's not specifically pride related. There's not really a flag for them? Straight people kind of --tend to think they're the majority, unfortunately. Pride is kind of a queer thing; though of course I'm sure anyone here wouldn't be against being an ally or anything like that."

Edited 2024-06-06 00:40 (UTC)

"Oh. Um, totally." Tally feels a little dumb for not remembering her history lessons, that the "straight" ones were the ones doing the oppressing. It's dizzy-making to try to wrap her mind around. "I guess... can I have two rainbow ones, then?" She frowns at the pink and orange flag. Pink is so not Gideon's color. It'd totally clash with her hair. "Three, maybe? Is that too much?"

"Nah, I've got plenty." He scoops up at least three of the rainbow bracelets and offers them. "You can take some of the other colors if you want, too; I just had a lot of extra beads." There's a slight pause. "If you want to learn more about the rest of the flags and stuff, there's also some information sheets here on the table."

"Thanks, Apollo." Tally takes them and puts them in her pocket, and grabs an information sheet as well. "Um, okay, well. See you around!"

"You're welcome," he says cheerily. "Bring your friends on by if you want to, too. We'll probably be here for a while, if not most of the day."

Ragnelle ignores Apollo entirely and beelines over to Dionysus' table. She looks great. The last time Dionysus saw her it was winter and she was out of sorts, her blood slow and her general feeling at being awakened one that could be generously called "pissy". Now it's spring, and her hair is rich and lustrous and full of traveler's joy, budding and green; her skin and eyes are brighter, her presence breathes growth and life and reawakening.

"What dost thou?"

Edited 2024-06-03 21:28 (UTC)

Dionysus grins as she comes in. "My dear! Oh, aren't you looking radiant!" He will give her a hug and a kiss on the cheek if she allows it. "How did your little house fare through the winter? Oh, this is my big brother Apollo." That last part is said very quickly, offhanded, and without taking his eyes off her. "We have so much to catch up on! You'll have to come by my garden some time soon, I'm sure all the little baby planties would love to meet you."

She does permit the hug and kiss, with an answering grin. "Thou madest me a fine bower, god. It kept me warm and well. Hast thou a garden now?"

"Oh, I am glad to hear it! And yes! I had to, now that it's spring again! I've got some grapevines, of course, but I've also got a few other vegetables and melons and such out there."

"O ay? For what purpose?"

"I like gardening," he shrugs. "Being outside, and growing things, digging around in the dirt. Y'know. It's nice."

"Like a worm," she says, meaning it as a compliment.

Dionysus was raised by wood nymphs. Comparing someone to a worm was a compliment for him before he ever considered it could be an insult, so he just beams at her. "Aw, thank you, sweetheart! So, what brings you inside to the café today? Looking for a little snack or a little company?"

"I like well the food they make here." Indeed, she will be filling her pockets with any unguarded pastries once she's done talking to him. "What's all this merriment thou makest?"

"A little celebration from back home! Pride! Celebrating being proud of who you are, even if that means you don't line up with what society thinks you should look like or who you should love."

She scoffs. "Men care too much for society. And so thou wouldst paint thy face and adorn thine arms?"

He laughs a little, happy and carefree. "People often go all out for this particular celebration, to show they are proud of who they are. It's a really very colorful event! Fancy outfits, lots of sparkles, and generally speaking there's a good bit of painting one's face, yes."

"Paint me with leaves. I am proud of that."

"Your wish is my command, my dear!" He puts a little bit of water on a brush and starts mixing it into a light green color, working it until the paint goes from a dry, almost eyeshadow-looking cake to the consistency of a cream. "Where would you like them?"

She raises her eyebrows and hikes her pink skirts up around her thighs.

Oh. He grins. "Of course dear. It would be easier to paint you in my room, if you'd like."

"Sirrah! Thinkst thou I would be painted with thy tongue? To work!"

"Well, the offer stands if you ever want to take me up on it," he winks, and reaches for the paint.

"Mary, I will," spreading her legs apart so he can easily get at the canvas of her thighs.

He smiles, and very politely sets about painting some leaves on her.

Ragnelle watches him, and it must be stressed that her commentary is very not polite.

After a while¹, Dionysus finally finishes the leaves. "Well, what do you think, dear?"

1. "A while" is a phrase which here means, "almost two weeks of real life time because the typist didn't realize she never responded to this tag".

She stretches out her legs and wiggles her toes approvingly. "Mary, 'tis done well. Thou knowst thine art."

Drawn by the music, Aleksander curiously poked his head into the café. Upon seeing both Apollo and Dionysus, he smiled warmly and stepped inside. "What is all this?"

Apollo literally brightens and gives him a wave. "A celebration, kind of! It's something from our world, figured we should share it here since it seems, uh...an appropriate place for that kind of thing."

Dionysus brightens too, but in, you know, a figurative sense. "Apollo's making bracelets if you want one."

"What kind of celebration?" Aleksander asked. The flags, while bright and cheerful, showed no heraldry that he recognized and he was left wondering what significance the colors had, if any.

He walked over to the table Apollo was sitting at and peered into the box. "A bracelet? Why not?"

"Well, it's called Pride. It's generally a month in our world -- or, at least, in the country I tend to be in generally --where people celebrate being proud of who they are, who they're attracted to; whether or not it aligns with the, uh 'generally accepted' way of things." There's a beat. Christianity as a whole has a lot to answer for, in his opinion. "There is, I'm sure you can imagine, a lot of discrimination against people being able to love who they want to love or who they want to be."

"People sometimes have parties, as a form of protest. Isn't it lovely?" Look he just really likes parties, okay. "I mean sometimes they have protests as a form of protest too."

Aleksander listened thoughtfully. For all of Ravka's many ills, people were free to love who they would. Objections were usually based on class, wealth and the lack thereof or the question of heirs but no outright discrimination. It was strange and sad that other worlds thought differently.

But being proud of one's identity and wanting to show that off? That resonated very clearly - it was a large part of the reason why he'd been so reluctant to give up wearing a kefta. It was the unmistakable sign that the wearer was Grisha. Whatever he had been, whatever he would be - he was always and forever Grisha first.

"I very much understand that feeling," he said. "To be proud of who you are and show that even in the face of people who would prefer you did not exist."

"Yeah. I mean, in Greece, back in the old days -- it wasn't a huge issue. It was fairly common, in fact. But it's been a long time since then." He shrugs a little sadly and settles back in his chair again, sprawling out.

"Ancient Greece had other issues," Dionysus says off-hand, and rolls his eyes. "But I guess nobody cared too much who I was sleeping with, which was nice. Really wish I could say that for every time period."

"I know people have preferences but I confess that I have never understood picking one over the other," Aleksander mused as he perched on the edge of the table. "The world is large and the variations of people are infinite. Why limit yourself?"

Apollo shrugs again. "Because people like to get into arguments about moralities and that sort of thing? I don't get it, either."

"A more accurate statement would be that people like to force their opinions on what morality is onto others, I think." He's getting grumpy thinking about it. Apollo will probably be right at home with Dionysus being in this mood.

"I've found those people shouting about morality and their own ideas of it are usually hiding something far worse," Aleksander said dryly. "People never change, I suppose."

Lancelot is really just wandering in for a cup of coffee in between his morning drills and his lunch with Susan -- he has a few other things to accomplish, and coffee would help. However, upon seeing that there is ... some kind of set-up, he comes to an abrupt halt, just inside the doorway, glancing around as if trying to figure out what's happened. All of the color, the music, has the effect of making him feel he's stumbled into a party that he didn't even know would take place.

Edited 2024-06-04 03:37 (UTC)

Dionysus grins and waves at Lancelot. "Hello dear! Come in, we're celebrating! Have you met my big brother yet?"

“Hey,” Apollo calls with a wave. “Yeah, we met when I first got here. Come on in, we didn’t really mean to take over the whole café.”

"What are you celebrating?"

Okay well, now, how to explain this to Lancelot. "Well, in the time period we're from, every year around this time we have what's generally called Pride Month. I mean, the month isn't named that, it's just June, but a lot of people choose to spend June celebrating, well, being proud of who they are, who they're attracted to, that sort of thing. To fight against people who think 'men should dress like men, and only be attracted to women, and women should dress like women and only be attracted to men, and nobody else fits into any other sort of category at all'." He says that last part with a put-on lower, more gruff voice than he usually talks with, then he rolls his eyes. "People have protests where protests are necessary, and they have parties when they need levity and joy, and it's just a lot of good fun."

"Yeah," Apollo agrees. "The flags -- well, they represent different sexualities, or genders, too, and the colors have different meanings." He gestures to his shirt. "In my world -- or, I guess, a lot of worlds, pink and blue generally stand for male and female. So my shirt, as you can see, has pink and blue and purple on it, which means in this case that I'm attracted to both men and women."

"Ah," Lancelot says, thoughtfully. "Bisexual, as Magnus said."

"Oh. Yeah." If Dionysus had known Lancelot knew modern terms for things it would have made his explanation a lot easier. "Apollo has a little paper we made up with what all of the different flags mean, if you're curious."

"Yeah," he nods and waves to one of the piles next to him. "There's a whole lot of them; not just for sexualities but whatever gender you might identify as that's out of the ordinary, or other such things."

Lancelot moves to take up one of the papers, glancing it over idly. His tone is thoughtful, a little distant, "Magnus suggested that I was. Bisexual. That was not a word I had, before."

This is not really an accurate representation of what Magnus said to him, but Lancelot also hadn't really been aware that this might be an identity, so there's a lot to consider here.

"A lot of these words are relatively new, even by a mortal's standard, so don't feel too bad about it." Not to mention the fact that some of the words have shifted around over the past few decades as well. "And some people don't pick a word anyway, it's not, you know, a requirement, or anything."

“It’s not,” Apollo agrees. “It’s just something we thought people would like to know more about. In my world, uh, there’s a lot of discrimination around stuff like this. Maybe in Sissy’s as well.”

"I suppose in mine as well," looking now at the bracelets, "Rather, it is not spoken of, and someone may come to violence as a result."

He pauses, glancing up and looking thoughtful. After a moment he says, "I suppose that's why I did not know, for certain, my own thoughts on the matter."

"It's hard, if you don't even know about something, to form an opinion on it, or to even recognize it as a possibility."

"Yeah. That's --partially why pride has evolved into what it is now; there are a lot of religions and cultures that look down on -- ah, well, differences in sexualities and genders -- and people were tired of hiding. Tired of being ashamed of something that's as natural to them as breathing."

"Things here, at least, seem more free."

"It's wonderful, isn't it? I wish it was like this everywhere, for everyone."

He sighs a little. "Yeah, me too. Our world's made a lot of progress, but it's still not as good as it needs to be."

"Here, there are many things possible that were not so in Britain. I'm grateful."

To Dionysus, he says, "Which one, again, is for those who would love both men and women?"

Dionysus makes quick, minute eye contact with Apollo, for no reason whatsoever before answering Lancelot, all smiles.

"Ah, if you're looking specifically for bisexual, that's the pink, purple, and blue one. There's also pansexual though, which is being attracted to any gender, that's pink, yellow, and blue," he motions towards the dress he's currently wearing. "They're ah, pretty close in concept."

Apollo is very much not laughing at that look. In fact, he is studiously turning his attention to changing to the next song on their CD player. "Yeah. One's just -- eh, a little more specific? I guess."

Lancelot looks thoughtful, frowning a little as he works out how to put it, or how to ask his question. "Gideon spoke of this-- of those who are neither man nor woman. I don't think I understand, though."

Apollo just seizes the day, to steal a phrase from a musical --and points at his little brother. "Not a lot to understand? You've met Sissy."

Dionysus waves. "Not really a man, not really a woman, hell I'm only a god by a technicality, apparently."

It still counts.

"Ah, the short answer though is that bodies aren't always an indicator of what someone's gender is going to be. Or if they'll have one at all. What're you confused about?" It's a genuine question, he wants to help if he can.

None of this is terribly clarifying for Lancelot; he falls silent for a long, perhaps too long, moment. He has an array of questions, but all of them seem rude. He trusts Dionysus, and isn't particularly worried that Dionysus (or Apollo, really) would somehow judge him for asking those questions, and yet -- what business is it of his? If anyone asked him similar questions, he would likely answer them, but would feel that very few here are entitled to know about his body, what he thinks of it, what he thinks of himself. And in truth, Dionysus' answer is information enough. (If nothing else, this is another thing he can learn about from his reading.)

So he doesn't ask. Instead he says, eventually, "I-- that short answer serves. I find, anyway, that these are not the things that primarily concern me, if I am discerning whether or not I might hope to pursue someone."

"Yeah, same for me," Apollo agrees. "I mean. I'm not quite in the same boat as my brother -- but I'm not exactly picky about what I identify as. Hell, I've been pregnant before. --Before you ask, though, since Dionysus did already, no, Sunny is not mine."

"Apollo can shapeshift," Dionysus says in a tone that admits just how jealous he is of that. "I cannot."

"Ah," still thoughtful. Then, to Dionysus, "Thy form suits thee."

He nods. "I mean, shape-shifting is handy, but it's not necessary." He's definitely acting like he wasn't whining about being stuck in the body of an average teen not four months ago. But it's in an effort to make Dionysus feel better, at least?

Dionysus brightens, taking Lancelot's words as a compliment. "Thank you, honey, that's sweet of you to say."

Is this the body he would choose, given the option to look like anything? No, probably not. He would probably look like Bernadette Peters, or Ramin Karimloo, or Yamato Yuuga, or someone like that, honestly. For the most part though he doesn't necessarily mind what he looks like, but he does wish this body had fewer aches and pains. He's a god with lower back problems and bad knees, for crying out loud. Being a little taller to reach things might also be nice.

Lancelot smiles, "Well. It is only truth."

"He's right," Apollo chimes in. "You know I don't lie."

Dionysus looks genuinely touched by Lancelot's words, but does roll his eyes a little at Apollo.

"You can't always use that as an excuse to win arguments, big brother." He turns back to Lancelot. "Anyway! So what other questions are you curious about?"

Carefully, as if he's thinking it through as he goes, "Well-- this is all about attraction, yes? And preference?"

“Yes. And being proud of who you are and not letting societal norms stand in the way.” That’s not his question, though; so Apollo leaves it there.

Dionysus nods in response to Apollo, waiting patiently for whatever Lancelot is about to ask.

Lancelot speaks slowly, choosing his words carefully. "I spoke of this wish Sagramore, but am curious as to whether thou hast any other knowledge," he's including Apollo in this, though he's not really making eye contact with either of them. "Laertes once asked me what sort of man heats my blood, and I found it difficult to answer. I think perhaps no one does, unless I know them well enough to feel comfortable -- I don't even really think of it, otherwise. Sagramore says that is not strange, but it doesn't seem to be common, here at least."

"Ah, I think what you're talking about probably is a lot more common in a normal sized population than what we've got represented in our little community here," Dionysus says, thoughtfully. "It sounds like you're describing what a lot of people in the time Apollo and I are from call demisexuality. You're not going to see someone and immediately find them attractive, but if you've got a strong enough bond with 'em that might change. Right?"

Look just because it's very wildly different from how Dionysus himself is doesn't mean he is unaware of it as a concept.

He seems a little surprised. "Aye, that is what I mean."

"Oh, yeah, that's definitely a thing," Apollo agrees. "Not my kind of thing, particularly, but it's not as uncommon as you would think it is."

"Yeah, don't worry. Just because a lot of us here would sleep with ... a lot of the others, doesn't mean it's not just as valid and correct to ah, be a little more discerning, if you will. And if anyone ever tells you any differently just come get me, I'll talk some sense into them." He crosses his arms for emphasis. "People have got to be able to live whatever life they want, after all."

"I see. I knew not there was a word for it." He does seem relieved.

"Well, if you have any other questions, we can try and answer them."

Dionysus catches that relieved look in Lancelot, and is happy to have helped bring him some level of comfort, even if it was just by giving him a word he hadn't heard before. Another job well done for Διόνυσος Λυαῖος.

"It is good to make sense of things." He does grab one each of the bisexual and pansexual bracelets.

Claudius has been rather distant, of late. More appropriately, he's been absent. He's put in his appearances, gone about his routines, had ordinary but shallow conversations with people. He's pored obsessively over the pages of his dossier, tried to pick through the web of connections and relationships he's mapped there. He's softly recited the names aloud to himself, starting with A. But nothing ever comes together.

Truthfully, he doesn't even know what problem he's trying to solve. All his skills are useless now, and he's begun to think none of them were ever particularly useful. Knowing every flirtation and friendship, every grudge and motive for violence, didn't give him the ability to predict what happened. It won't help him prevent it from happening again. It's easier not to try anything, to freeze entirely, until the danger passes. And it may never pass.

Absently, he thinks he understands the chemistry here. In times of crisis, the sympathetic nervous system floods the body with the neurochemicals necessary to either fight or flee. There was no place to flee from this particular threat, which was his own yawning grief and helplessness, so he fled himself. Now he only moves in his body as an actor pacing through an empty stage, detached from his own feelings. Today he wanders down to the cafe, to put in an appearance, to keep up a routine.

But the cafe is different, today. Claudius notices the colorful flags hung on high, like at an embassy, and listens to the sound of Cole Porter playing. I truly am never going to dance with that boy, am I? It's the strongest emotion he's felt in days, and he doesn't like it. But he feels briefly connected to himself again, as a thing that sees and hears, with a heart can be moved by music.

By the time Claudius enters, Dionysus has filled both of his arms with various doodles in the facepaint. He hops up and goes over to meet him in the doorway, wrapping him up in a tight hug and giving him a kiss on the forehead.

“Claudius! Darling how are you?” He hasn’t noticed anything is wrong yet, this is just, you know, how he is. Fortunately all of the body paint is dry enough that it shouldn’t smudge off on to any of Claudius’s clothes.

The force of the hug is almost enough to crush his spirit back in his body -- but he steps back, smoothly. That ember of real emotion is like a burning coal escaped from the fireplace. He has to stop it before it catches, before the flames spread to the rest of the house. "I couldn't help noticing the change in atmosphere," he says, as neutral as mentioning the weather. "What's all this?"

"We're celebrating!" He explains, still a little oblivious to all of the turmoil going on with Claudius. "Back home in the time period Apollo and I are from, June's a time to celebrate being attracted to whoever you're attracted to, regardless of if it fits "standards", and to celebrate being whatever gender you are, again, whether or not it aligns with boring shitty societal expectations. Oh! We made reading material--" he grabs the little pamphlet they put together and hands it to Claudius.

"It seemed like it would be fun to bring some of the party here, even if almost everyone is from a much earlier time period, or just another world entirely. Well, I say 'party', Pride started as protests, there's still protests, but there's also lots of partying. Sometimes it's both at the same time, which is fun." He's talking very fast, all smiles. "Apollo's making bracelets, do you want one?"

There, if Dionysus isn't worried, Claudius is successful. The fleeting, rueful thought occurs to him that he's never hid turmoil from a god before for fear of worrying him. But it isn't his duty, anyway. He doesn't know what the mourning duties are, what they would be in anyone else's world ... and this is another cultural tradition he can dwell on. A celebration.

He's been standing and holding the pamphlet for a while, before he realizes he's been asked a question. It's not that he didn't hear it; he simply forgot to give the appropriate reaction. Pay more attention to your cues, he thinks. "I'll take a bracelet," he says. And then, to get Dionysus talking more, he says, "Tell me about the beginning of Pride. Where were these protests?"

"Well, in a modern sense, related to the formation of Pride Month at a concept, there was a gay bar in America called Stonewall. It got raided by the police. That unfortunately wasn't too out of the ordinary, but it triggered a good deal of fighting back. I mean, this was also not the first time anyone fought back, but this time it was... well, it's considered a defining moment. There were several nights of riots, actually. A year later different groups started organizing marches, there was a bit of a snowball effect, a few decades later many places around the world have ...marginally better rights for people."

You'd think Dionysus Liber would be able to give a decent summary of the gay liberation movement, but then again you'd also think the god of Drama would be able to give a decent summary of West Side Story and The Wizard of Oz, and here we are.

It gives Claudius more questions to ask, at least. "So it was a revolt?" he asks, imagining the sort of uneasy riots that break out among the serfdom when the local lords are cruel or incompetent. Nobles would petition the crown for assistance, he remembers, and they would always receive it. King Hamlet could never resist a show of force to put someone in their place.

Edited 2024-06-06 01:58 (UTC)

"Basically. Lots of bricks being thrown, that sort of thing." He wasn't actually in America that year, but he of course heard about it. Obviously. "It wasn't one of the easier times and places to live in, for anyone like us. They were tired of it."

“Like us?”

"Yeah! Y'know, we're not straight. That, and then I'm not even a man even though people like to expect me to be."

He discussed this with Kade, and — Shen Yuan. They never continued that argument, about how common straight men were between worlds. Idly, as though it can’t hurt him, Claudius takes the thought and turns it around. He could’ve asked the other residents, compared their opinions, refined an argument and come back to Shen Yuan with it. Would Shen Yuan have enjoyed that? Would that have been better than bickering over things that never changed?

It still burns like a hot coal. He would’ve died all the same. All friends die. It’s the common theme that cries, from the the first corpse till to-day, ‘this must be so.'

He’s been silent too long again. He clears his throat. “Neither am I, I think,” he says. “I’ve been told the word is queer.”

Edited 2024-06-07 11:03 (UTC)

Dionysus slowly starts to catch it, that maybe there's something going on with Claudius, that he isn't just thinking over what they're talking about. "Yeah, that's a common word in modern times for this, I just wasn't sure if you'd heard it yet." A pause, and then, "Are you doing alright, dear?"

That's harder to deflect. How are you is a nicety, easy to answer without giving anything away -- are you doing alright is specific. He can't elude it without ignoring it, at least in part. "I'm listening," he says, prompt, and hopes that comes close enough. "It was a coalition of interests, then? Those can be difficult to maintain among disparate groups of people." Like the mansion itself. Perhaps he would've never understood Shen Yuan's strange relationship to his identity, but he would've liked to have tried. "I suppose the celebration creates a sense of unity. What are the flags?" It's the natural next question, when speaking of nations and coalitions.

It still feels off, but he’ll continue explaining anyway.

“Right! Well, the flags represent different identities people might feel align with themselves. There’s quite a big umbrella, and if everyone who might fit under it is just called “gay” or “queer” it can sometimes feel a little, y’know, isolating, if your specific experience is different from how you’re seeing everyone else. Someone might be attracted to every gender, including what most would consider the “opposite”. But if in their mind “queer” is just men attracted to men only and women attracted to women only, they might assume they don’t fit in. But then they learn the terms pansexual and bisexual and realize no, nevermind, there are people like them as well. Or maybe someone is asexual, a lot of my friends who are ace have talked about that specific struggle too, of feeling like they don’t fit in anywhere, until they learn of the community. Uh, that’s— that’s when you’re not sexually attracted to anyone, not “asexual” in the scientific sense of reproducing by yourself.” Claudius is pretty scientifically minded, Dionysus thinks he might need that clarification if this is the first time he’s hearing the term.

“And then there’s the whole consideration of personal gender. Lots of different flags in that realm as well. But even though there’s all the different specific identities, it’s still important to work together to try and fight back, you know?”

"Is it?" This time, the response comes too quick. He might've considered it more.

Yeah, no, there's definitely something wrong.

"You know, if something's up, you can talk to me, right?"

Claudius shakes his head. At what, he couldn't say. "I don't mean to sound cynical. First you seek common ground, then you acknowledge differences ... those are the first steps of any negotiation. It's essential to do both. But matters of love, attraction, and identity are rather personal and volatile. In Elsinore, sounding out someone's interests is like handling quicksilver, and as dangerous. Even here, I've fallen out with a young man for whom admitting his attraction to other men was so frightening he suspected me of seducing him as part of a conspiracy to undermine his power, and lashed out at the first opportunity. I simply wonder what it would take to establish a community among such people. Whether abstract notions of working together and fighting back against a shared threat would be enough. I don't believe it would. Too many people are selfish, given to secrecy, and care only about the safety of their immediate circle." It's why Claudius hasn't done anything, why there's nothing to do. Friends die. The idea that the mansion is a community, a community that would work together to protect its own, seems quite impossible now. Too late.

Edited 2024-06-08 11:42 (UTC)

"Not everyone is always going to want to, ah, come to the party, so to say. There's different reasons for that. Some better than others. There's times when it is absolutely safer, or more comfortable, for someone to keep their true self quiet. But that's -- that's why it's important for everyone who can come together to do exactly that. Especially when it's dangerous, when it's a matter of life or death. Sitting around passively and being complacent doesn't solve anything, it allows things to get worse. If people are going to lump a bunch of us all together in an attempt to subjugate us, then it's up to us to come together, even if we don't all fit together perfectly, and actually try to do something about it."

He doesn't sound angry, because he isn't angry (at Claudius, anyway), but he definitely sounds passionate, and it might be easier than normal to see why he was given the name Liberator. "Sometimes the best way to protect the safety of your immediate circle is to stand together with everyone else going through the same shit."

He's thinking about centuries and centuries worth of friends who couldn't live how they wanted, who couldn't be with who they wanted, who were forced into a life that brought them no joy, just because someone somewhere decided to pass shitty laws that allow misery and hatred to be the accepted way of things.

Claudius doesn't feel the first tear but then, he feels very little. It's not until he opens his mouth to speak that the salt-taste takes him by surprise. (Absently, he remembers reading that tears flush out the chemicals the body no longer needs. Compared to blood or bile, shedding tears may be the only form of fluid-letting that works.) "Ah," he says, as the words he'd meant to say leave him.

Dionysus immediately wraps his arms around Claudius, thankful that he and Claudius are of a similar height so that the hug will envelop more of him, and he hugs tight.

"Claudius," he says, almost pleading, "you can talk to me. That's what I'm here for. What's wrong?"

“All my life,” Claudius murmurs, “I’ve wanted to live in a peaceful place. Even before I knew war, even before I’d seen men die in one. I wasn’t at peace. Violence could erupt at any moment, and I would have to weather it, because there was no escape from it, and no one would protect me. But I believed I could bear it. If every court, every community, has a sacrificial lamb to bear the punishment for everyone’s sins, I could be that lamb. But I couldn’t control even that. Because I couldn’t control my own feelings, because I couldn’t hide them, she hurt her, and she hid it from me. I never knew until it was too late. I’ve learned to look everywhere for dangers I might otherwise miss, and still — I didn’t know until it was too late.”

He can imagine the stark, black lines in his trauma workbook, the ones he didn’t want to fill in because it felt like confession. What triggers you or causes you to react strongly? What feelings come up when you are triggered? His voice is even. He doesn’t look Dionysus in the eye, but over his shoulder. But even detached like this, he stays in the hug. Despite everything, he wants it to make him feel something.

"Look at me," he says, turning Claudius's head so their eyes can meet. "Nobody's going to punish you, especially not for 'everyone else's sins'." Whatever the fuck that means. Christianity is so frustrating. "I'm here, okay? I've got you. You're standing in this room with me, and I'm not going to let anything happen to you, alright?"

They need to sit down, they need to talk. Dionysus is incredibly aware of the fact that Apollo is sitting maybe a yard away, and that literally anyone could walk in at any given moment. He doesn't think Claudius would appreciate that.

"Do you want to sit in here? My room's just a few doors away too if you would like that better."

Claudius nods. It's all he can do, and even that feels like effort, like dredging something up from the depths.

Dionysus kisses Claudius' forehead then spares a quick, wordless glance to Apollo before leading Claudius out and to his room. He quickly arranges a bunch of cushions for them to sit on (maybe he should think about getting a sofa one of these days, he wonders), and he grabs one of the remaining weighted blankets as well. Once they are settled and the blanket is firmly wrapped around Claudius -- with Dionysus's arms around him as well -- he says, "You're safe, my darling. Nothing bad's going to happen in here, I won't let it."

"Someone has died," he says, soft. He looks so small wrapped in the blanket, so small and young for all his years.

Well that -- yep, that would explain a few things. His arms tighten around Claudius.

"Who?"

An easy question, at least. Not how he feels, but stark facts. "Shen Yuan. Shen Yuan has died."

"I'm so sorry, dear." He starts rubbing a hand up and down Claudius' back, though given that he is wrapped in a weighted blanket he may not be able to feel it that much. "What happened?"

"Shen Yuan was an immortal cultivator, or at least he'd inhabited the body of one. It wasn't a natural death." The blanket's a welcome weight. "That's all I know."

That's... concerning. Genuinely concerning. It would be wrong to say he was hoping that it had been some kind of fatal accident or some other random happenstance, because hoping for a specific cause of death just seems wrong, but he definitely was not expecting an implication that it was some kind of -- of what? An unnatural death. Was it the mansion spirits? If they can trap a god here they might also have the ability to kill someone otherwise immortal.

He doesn't have time to worry about that right now. Getting Claudius stable is his main priority.

"I take it you were close with him?" It almost feels like a sense of deja vu¹. How many times in his life has he needed to console someone, because the Fates decided their friend's allotment was up long before anyone else expected it to be? There's different ways people handle things, of course, but this is a role Dionysus seems to have found himself typecast as, over the millennia.

1. Deja vu, or maybe just the mansion being wibbly wobbly timey wimey...

If Claudius could laugh, he would. "Far from it. He led me to believe I was dying once, then suggested I deserved it, if I couldn't humble myself and beg for mercy. He apologized later -- when a truth spell compelled me to admit it still stung. But there were obstacles to us becoming friends. A jealous, unreasonable lover who wouldn't let him out of sight at parties. The same one who accused me of conspiracy, who I was supposed to beg for mercy." Even if his tone is flat, the words at least take the familiar shape of storytelling, the absurd and terrifying events of his life retold as thrilling gossip. Right now there's no thrill, only the frank recognition that he was never truly safe. Violence came to him early. It must be attracted to him, Claudius thinks, like flies to a carrion flower.

"I would've liked to have known Shen Yuan better," he says. "He had a fascinating mind."

Edited 2024-06-10 04:40 (UTC)

"A loss of opportunity still stings," Dionysus says. The regret of not having made time for something. How often has Dionysus found out about the death of an acquaintance only to be torn that he never made the time to get to know them better?

"I only met him once, at the party."

Claudius's mind, it seems, wants to play memories -- he watches them go by, without getting caught up in them. The procession at his father's funeral, the stone faces of the soldiers who acted as pallbearers, the coffin draped in a banner of crowned lions and lake-leaves. He should have felt something. He should feel something, standing on the other side of memory, looking in as into a glass, darkly. But there's nothing, nothing. A pretty piece of cloth to cover the emptiness. "I told him," he says, "at the next event, I'd ignore Luo Binghe altogether. I'd ask him to dance, even if Luo Binghe glowered." He didn't ask. He took one look at the couple, arriving together and late as always, and realized he didn't care enough to come between them. Let them have their night, he thought; there would be others.

There were no other nights. He should have asked at the first dance, should have insisted and let Luo Binghe simmer, because holding back from fear back has only ever cost Claudius. He shouldn't have had to fear.

But none of it matters, because, "I'm sure he would have refused."

Whatever the reason, Claudius is clearly taking all of this rather poorly. Not that he shouldn't -- death is death, it's a big fucking deal, but Dionysus needs to help him through it.

"I'm going to make you something," he says, and magics up a kylix of kykeon. Not the psychoactive kind everyone used to use back in all of Demeter's celebrations, it's not needed right now. There's a real death to deal with, not a hypothetical, religious "death" that people dealt with by getting super drugged up.

This kykeon is still very strong, in an alcoholic sort of way, due to the pramnian wine serving as its base. But that's sort of the point, to serve as a way to kickstart Claudius's emotions back into gear so he can hopefully stop looking so incredibly, painfully numb.

"It doesn't taste good," it doesn't look like it would -- a dark, almost blackish purple color, and thick like a smoothie, due to the cheese and oats inside, "but would you drink it? For me?"

"You sound like Gertrude," Claudius says -- a statement that would ordinarily make him smile. As he gazes down into the dark drink, his face doesn't change. He twirls the glass, from habit, and the sludge fails to swirl. "Whenever her son Hamlet was ill. He was often ill as a child, like I was." We should've both died in our cribs, he thinks. But he swallows his medicine all the same. The texture's no worse than posset curds with cocksparrow bones to rouse the sanguine humors, the wine no more bitter than wormwood beer for fever and for choler. Only the salt-taste of cheese surprises him, and it's a distant, dull surprise.

"This is going to be a weird question, but -- humor me. Can you describe to me how it feels as you're drinking it? And how it tastes?" Get him recognizing the here and now, the physical sensations he's feeling but -- from the looks of it -- blocking out. Get him back in his body, more or less.

“It feels like an over-curdled posset,” Claudius says, since the comparison is close to hand. “Coarse-grained and congealing. Some parts are smoother than others. The taste …” He runs his tongue over his teeth. "Is not unlike the froth of some men. Bitter, salty, strangely sweet."

He raises an eyebrow at that ...comparison. "If kykeon came outta someone, I'd have some concerns." Let's all collectively ignore the fact that it did, sort of, just come out of Dionysus. Or from him, anyway. That's different.

"I know it's not great, but I'm glad you're drinking it. It'll help. Do you like the blanket? Doesn't it feel nice and heavy?"

"It does," Claudius admits, as though it pains him to admit. His voice has been so flat, that slight grudging tone stands out starkly. "Galahad would like one, I think. We've a table fringed with a heated blanket, but nothing this heavy and ... comforting." It feels childish to say it, that the soft shelter of a blanket and the weight against his back can be comforting. If he were a child (for the third time) he'd want to pull it over his head and make the world disappear.

"Oh, please take one. Take two. I have too many." He's still got, like, six of these things. "They're great for napping underneath." Or if you're ever so stressed out you feel detached from your body and need a heavy weight to be able to connect back to it. Multi-purpose, really.

"How is Galahad handling everything?"

"He's afraid he can't protect me. He's been afraid since ..." Claudius sighs. "Another bit of Christian nonsense. Since our first night, he's no longer blessed with God's strength and holy fire, and he can't fight on pure instinct as he once did. He's begun cultivating the sword path with Lan Wangji, but I thought ... I thought he would have more time. The mansion's never put me in danger without giving me some way out of it. It's egotistic to say, but I thought they wouldn't want me to die. Or any of us, really -- the mansion provides all the necessities for a long life, and some of us were brought here from the brink of death. I was, apparently, wrong. I believed we were songbirds in a protected cage, but we're live bait in a trap." Another sigh, this one deeper, filling his lungs in a way he can feel. "But even if he can't protect me, Galahad does take care of me. If he didn't ... I think he would be doing worse. Is that a selfish thing to think? He's a devoted man who deserves better than me, but somehow both of us need each other. I'd have given up moving otherwise."

Dionysus had hoped that none of them would die, just as Claudius apparently has. That maybe there was some chance that whatever powers the spirits had to bring people here from death would keep them from dying again. It's a similar feeling to the day he realized his children wouldn't inherit his immortality. That, as it turns out, there is limited time with everyone here. It's a feeling he is much more accustomed to now though than when Oenopion passed away.

"I'm glad you two have each other. Having a partner you love and can rely on helps. Even if he doesn't have --" what was it? Jesus fire? Something. "the abilities he used to have." Good save. Probably. "Most people don't have abilities like that, y'know. But that's what is so great about having loved ones. You're able to get through the rough times together. It's hard, and it can be pretty scary at times, but having people worth getting up out of bed for every day makes -- well, it makes everything easier."

Oh. Claudius laughs, and his voice breaks, as he realizes that's what he's afraid to lose. These people who make it worth getting out of bed for every day. "I've never had so many people I love in one place. Isn't that ridiculous? I tried very hard to stay ahead of that sort of thing. Whenever I suspected I'd grown too attached to someone, I'd go to a different country. Even Gertrude and I ... I kept praying for years not to be in love with her, going on diplomatic missions and hoping my heart would cool, before I realized God and politics weren't going to help with that one." He rubs at his face, aware when his eyes start to itch. "But still, I was able to outpace so many impossible love affairs. Someone like Galahad ... I would've known it was impossible. I wasn't going to marry some sweet young knight I flirted with at a guesthouse, so I would've broken things off before anyone got his heart broken. This is the only place something like that is possible. Where Laertes's marriage to Sagramore is possible, or where Aziraphale and Crowley can simply exist. Do you realize how important it is to me?""

Dionysus kisses Claudius's temple, then leans over to rest his head on Claudius's shoulder. "There have been far, far too many places and times that have tried to make it impossible for people like us to just exist, just to have happy lives full of love. If you knew how often people've tried to arrest me, or worse... I'm so glad for all of us that we don't have to worry about any of that here. That we're all getting to just be. It's -- I mean, it's different for me, I'm from the future where it's better than it used to be -- in some places, anyway." Plus he's a god, he never needed to be too worried for his personal safety. "But there's so many of you who wouldn't have had this chance otherwise. I'm just -- I'm so happy for all of you. It's not perfect here, but at least we can all cling to that, right?"

Claudius realizes what that itching in his eyes is -- they're trying to cry again. He laughs, and shuts his eyes tight. He wants to be here, even with the threat of tears, if he can listen a little longer to the words of a kind god who only wants humanity's happiness and freedom. A god who's fought that for that freedom, and nearly been arrested, for the same loving vices human beings commit.

Is this the strength from faith true believers experience? The words of the church, even in times of mourning, only reminded him of his weakness. Impious stubbornness, he thinks. A fault against the dead. To be this crushed and empty speaks only to his failure to accept the inevitability of death, to say with Job, Man's days are determined, the number of his months are with thee, thou hast appointed his bounds that he cannot pass. But Dionysus isn't that god who chooses when sparrows fall.

And anyway, Claudius thinks more wryly, Crowley and Aziraphale stepped in with Job, and Job and his family were all happier for it. He takes another long drink of the kykeon. Like a child, he asks, "Thou wilt not leave me?"

Dionysus isn’t sure if Claudius is asking if he’ll leave him physically right now, or if he means in more of a metaphorical sense, but the answer is the same for both.

“Of course I won’t leave you,” he responds softly, holding him close, his own weight adding to that of the blanket. “I’m here as long as you want me. I’m stubborn like that.”

Claudius breathes in slow. He breathes out slow. Cotton seeds, drifting. "The universe is a lonely place. I think often, know'st thou, of the monologue you prepared for me. Our world is arduous. Such need, such desperation." Breathe in, breathe out. "Thou wilt not leave me."

"I won't leave you," he repeats, and starts to lightly rock Claudius back and forth. The gods Shen Teh had to deal with in Good Person of Szechwan couldn't say that. They left, repeatedly, multiple times, but especially notably right after she gave that monologue.

"Part of the problem for Shen Teh is that she tried to bear every burden alone. Granted, the script was written in such a way that it would have made it difficult for her to find someone who could help her out," Wang the Water-Seller is really the best option she could have had, and, you know. Plot devices to keep the two from actually talking much, or whatever. "But we don't have to worry about that. Especially not here. It's hard right now, but we've got such a sweet little community of people. None of us have to bear anything alone. You don't need to invent a Shui Ta to get through this, Claudius, you can just be Claudius."

Edited 2024-06-15 00:28 (UTC)

"I have a name here," Claudius says, working aimlessly through his thoughts, lulled by the rhythm of Dionysus's rocking. "It was a rare thing, in Elsinore, to be called by my name. My brother called me a beast and a serpent. Courtiers called me prince, or your highness. Sometimes they talked around me, like an untoward secret, without calling me anything at all. I had to learn to read between the lines." Between the lines was the only place he felt allowed to exist.

"I know," he says softly. It's not too difficult to extrapolate from Hamlet that people - even before the curtain rises - hardly ever referred to Claudius by name. "I, for one, am so happy that I get to meet you as Claudius. That you get to be yourself here."

Yeah, when they first met, it was a little bit like meeting a celebrity. He got to meet King Claudius, how special is that? But the actual special thing about this place is that he can get to know just Claudius. Who he is, separated from who Will wanted him to be. That's the person Dionysus cares about, not just a character in a play he already knows.

Claudius chokes back a sob. Oh, he thinks. There it is. The tonic Dionysus gave me must be taking effect. It feels awful but only because everything is awful. His body feels tired. His eyes feel wet. His heart feels utterly empty, and yet crushed with pain. "I don't want to lose what we have here," he says. It feels so frustratingly petty and small. "I love this place. I love the astonishing variety of people who come through here. I love ..." He almost laughs. "I love listening to someone badly explain one of their celebrations, the same way I loved to walk through cities where I only half knew the language, and learned it as I went. But what if I was only ever meant to live out a tragedy?"

Dionysus thinks of so many prophecies that came true regardless of what people thought would set them free. Laius believing he would not be killed, because he was certain his child had been abandoned to die, then later that same child believing he would not fulfil his side of the prophecy because he left Corinth. That's the whole point of a prophecy. They're going to come true.

But a play is not a prophecy. And even if it were, Dionysus is pretty sure Laius would have lived if Oedipus had been teleported to the mansion. That's clearly something that neither him nor Apollo can foresee, as evidenced by the fact that they were both taken by surprise at arriving here.

"I think you're here so that you don't live out a tragedy," he says, with full confidence. "The same way Étienne and Mercutio are here to be saved from death, the same way my brother is here to escape our father, the same way I'm here to give you monologues to learn and to make sure everyone had enough vitamins to make it through the winter."

He boops Claudius's nose, you know, for old time's sake.

"I'm not going to pretend I understand everything that's going on with this place. Anything that's powerful enough to keep me trapped -- not to mention Apollo -- that's weird. But I can't imagine they'd want to bring us all here if the plan was to have us live the same kinds of lives we all had to deal with before. If that were the case why even bring us to start with?"

It's a true, in a way Claudius can't deny. He works through a sleepy logic of it, nestling against Dionysus's shoulder, "If the spirits truly chose us from stories they loved, they could easily read the same stories over and over. They wanted new entertainment. Something different. I suppose for someone with a tragic fate, anything different would be better." A little sulkily, as though to concede in some imagined debate with the mansion's spirit, he says, "I am glad Étienne is here. I'm rather hopelessly in love with him, and it grieves me to think he might have died so young. And Mercutio is a feckless bear-baiter of a young man, but I like him. I'm teaching him alchemical reactions, and he's going to bring me back gossip from his flirtations." All future things. Things that aren't the chasm of his own hopelessness stretching on and on, forever. He can almost touch the other side.

"Oh, I didn't show you when we came in," he says, as if they hadn't been dealing with Crisis Mode when they first entered Dionysus' room, "Étienne painted that for me." He points up to Ariadne's constellation on the ceiling. "Actually, I suppose you might have heard about it already, your sweet Galahad gave him the idea. They knew how much I was missing my wife's stars and took matters into their own hands to make things better for me." A sigh, then he adds quietly, "...I love him so much."

Étienne, not Galahad. Obviously.

"Whatever the downsides to this place are, we can work together to make it better. To make it bearable for each other. More than bearable. You're getting married, for goodness sake. There is so much happiness to go around."

There's an aching, in the emptiness of Claudius's chest -- the emptiness Claudius created by vacating his body, but it must not have worked, because there's something there that can be hurt. He tries to grasp it, tries to imagine the wedding day, but after the loss of Shen Yuan nothing is certain. "How canst thou bear it?" He asks, looking up at the stars of the ceiling, put there by two men he loves for the god he adores. "How canst thou bear all the losses thou hast had?" Is he looking at the answer, while looking at those stars? He finds he can't look away. That aching in his chest starts to feel like bitter hope.

"It's hard," he answers truthfully. "Sometimes I'll be going about my day, and something someone says, or the way the light hits their hair, or a look they give, or just -- well, anything, really. It'll remind me of Ariadne, or one of my children, or Ampelos, or any number of friends. But those are the moments when I get to remember them, too. I wouldn't trade my happy memories for anything in the world."

One hand travels down to Claudius's chest, to rest above his heart. "Grief means you had someone worth missing. To block it out entirely is to deny yourself the chance to remember the good, too."

"Wilt thou remember the good of me?" he asks, soft. He'd accepted the likelihood that he'd died before his first and closest friends, sometimes driven by the fear that a mortal life wasn't enough to do any significant good for them in. Now Shen Yuan the immortal has died, and he can't trust the likelihood of anything. He can trust, right now, in the fact Dionysus's hand on his heart. In the stars and the memories that Dionysus still carries.

“Oh, darling,” Dionysus gives Claudius a kiss. “The gods themselves couldn’t make me forget all the good in you.” It would sound like hyperbole if he wasn’t himself also a god.

"Imagine the parable," Claudius says, a flicker of brightness in his eyes, the fleeting shine of a smile at the end of a kiss. "The villain of a celebrated tragedy meets the god of theater, who promises always to remember the good in him. I could worship no god but thee, know'st thou."

There he is.

"I suppose when you look at it that way, it is sorta perfect," he says, as if this isn't a thought he's already had before, how it's so fitting that the person worshipping him here is one of the ones from a play. "Thank you, though," he says, grabbing one of Claudius's hands and kissing the back of his fingers. "It does mean a lot, that you'd trust me like this."

Claudius remembers Rome, where kissed the Ring of the Fisherman, and hoped the city's holiness would cleanse some stubborn wickedness inside him, but he only found more wickedness. It seems silly, now. "Thou art so unlike Him," he laughs. "Stop me. I'll do nothing but complain of God, like some tiresome suitor who thinks flattery is comparing his second love to the first. But He had me believe that faith must always be a trial to endure. Faith in thee comes easily."

Dionysus melts at that, both the fact that Claudius is laughing again, and that last bit about faith in Dionysus coming easy. He may be one of the twelve Olympians, but he's aware of the many ways in which he might not live up to someone's expectations of him as a god. He's not omniscient, he can't will himself to different locations instantly, and the powers he does have, while strong, are rather limited and aren't always going to be the most massively useful things.

He runs a hand through Claudius's hair, then wraps him up in a big hug. "I'm gonna be here for you, dear. Whenever you need me."

A god who swears always to be there for him, who hugs him and soothes him when he's sad (he's sad he's so hopelessly sad he doesn't want to feel anything else) is still unlike any another. "If I were to sleep," he says, realizing he's tired, too, "wouldst thou watch over me?"

"Of course, dear." He gives Claudius a kiss on the forehead. "My bed will be more comfortable than here though," he says, motioning to the pile of pillows they've been sitting on.

"Everything in thy room is comfortable," Claudius says. It occurs to him to wonder how long he's been calling Dionysus thou, without noticing it. That's not such a forward thing, is it? Even the psalms invoke God as a thou. Someone more familiar than anyone else, someone as close as your own soul. "Including thee," he adds.

"Bedrooms are supposed to be comfortable, silly," he says gently before getting up, and offering a hand to help Claudius up as well. "C'mon, we can snuggle on my bed, you can take a nap."

“We have a kotatsu,” Claudius says, dreamy as he lets himself be led. “Dost thou know what a kotatsu is?”

"I do, yes," he helps Claudius climb into his bed, covering both of them up with his regular bedspread as well as the weighted blanket. "It must have been an absolute lifesaver during the wintertime."

"It was," he says, settling under the blanket and looking up at the ceiling, the stars. "I was sad then, too. I spend a lot of time being sad. I'd say it's a family aliment, but I think it's a human one."

Dionysus, propped up on his side, starts combing his fingers through Claudius' hair. "There's -- unfortunately -- a lot of people who spend a disproportionate amount of time being sad, you're right. I'm sorry, dear. You've spent a lot of time in a very bad environment, and didn't get out until, y'know, relatively recently. It takes time to heal from these sorts of things. Doing what you can to get the emotions out can help. Right now though, I think you need some rest."

"How art thou so kind?" he mumbles. But he cuddles close to Dionysus, accepting the touch and the comfort therein. "There were few such kind people in Elsinore. Know'st thou ... I was once a child for a day, here. And every stranger I met was kinder to me than any of the family or other courtiers surrounding me." Save Gertrude who, at that age, had seemed so untouchably far from him. She became both closer and farther away from him with every passing year. With a scoffing laugh, he says, "I suppose that's what thou mean'st by a bad environment."

"I only wish you had been rescued sooner," Dionysus tells him in a quiet voice, leaning over to kiss his hair. "But you're here now, surrounded by so many people who love you and want what's best for you. Speaking of, you should rest, dear. We can talk more when you wake up."

He's been tired, so tired, but the feeling of tiredness never touched him, not feeling his heavying brows, or the soft ache of being awake and always tensed for a danger he can't see. Galahad has had to pull him into bed, and pulled the sheets over them. Claudius's last thought, as his eyes drift closed and sleep steals over him, is that Galahad really would like a weighted blanket. He might also like a little flag, so they can celebrate the sweet sin of shared pride. Some scrap of common identity to still hold onto, when everything is so uncertain.

The shame has mostly receded, gentled by Claudius' fond teasing, the obvious fact that Grantaire framing his vandalism was a good-natured joke rather than anything more sinister. Lan Wangji still does not frequent the café, but that is a matter of habit rather than principle. His habits are askew recently anyway. He can't quite say why. There are some obvious reasons, but they feel intangible when he tries to reach for them.

Today, he is drawn in by sheer curiosity, an answer to the music piping from its doorway and into the hallway. He steps inside, hands tucked neatly behind his back, with a look of faint surprise, glancing around.

Apollo-as-Lester looks up and gives him a cheery nod. "Hey, how's it going?"

Now that he knows this boy is, in actuality, a god, Lan Wangji arranges himself into an appropriately formal and respectful bow. "What is this?"

"A celebration, kind of? Commemoration? Informational event? It's a lot of things, really." There's a pause. "I guess the easiest way to start off would be: how much do you know about, uh -- say around the year 2020 America? Like, um -- do you know Magnus? Around his time." Magnus would probably not appreciate Apollo bringing him up in this conversation, but at least it's only as a point of reference.

"I know Magnus," Lan Wangji says, his voice laced with subtle fondness. He considers the question with all due seriousness. "He told me that my time is more than a thousand years before his."

For his part, Apollo is a little uncertain on the topic of Magnus. Sure, their first interaction hadn't been great; but the guy did give him his old room. And he can't blame the kid for being bitter about gods; he knows the feeling extremely well himself.

"So -- you may not know a lot, is what I'm hearing, then." He tilts his head and threads another bead onto his latest bracelet. "Unless you've been doing a lot of reading here, I don't know."

"I have been reading." This is true. Lan Wangji frequents the library, looking for any books there that will help him contextualize and understand the people he has met and grown to love here. "For Magnus, I researched the Norse pantheon."

"Ah. Right. Met his dad in a bar one time." And flirted with him, but Jack sort of put him off the whole 'Frey' thing. "Anyway, reading, so -- have you done any about homosexuality in modern times? That might give you a little more context for this."

Lan Wangji thinks very little of Magnus' father, despite never having met him. Presumably Frey's inability to take responsibility for having fathered a child is not Apollo's fault, however, so he merely thinks on the question. "I have seen the word. It came up in some additional reading I did for Magnus."

It is not his fault at all, in fact.¹ "Yeah," Apollo nods. "It's a term for people who love people of the same gender. Pride is a celebration of the fact that we're proud of who we are, sometimes a protest if it's necessary. It's not just for people who are gay, though, it's for people who may not fit society's general --um. 'Guidelines' of who a person should love or how they should define their gender and sexuality."

¹ Though he has on occasion failed to take responsibility for a few children himself. He's working on that.

"Mn," Lan Wangji says, and this serves as something of a stand-in, a polite acknowledgement, while he turns this over. A protest if it's necessary. Until he came here, he had never imagined there could be so many people like him in one place. He is not ashamed; he has known the truth of his own desires since he was a child. Still, he is not immune to the surprising comfort of finding himself surrounded by people who find his love comparatively unremarkable.

"These flags," he says, at some length. "They are part of the celebration?"

"Yes," Apollo nods, pausing in his beading to offer a little informative sheet. "The colors have different meanings -- in -- uh, Western cultures, I guess -- pink and blue like I have on my shirt are generally seen as colors associated with women -- that's pink -- and blue for men. So then on my shirt here I have those two, along with purple. Means I don't really have a preference as to what gender a person has, if I'm into them. The pink, blue, and yellow is a similar thing, but -- a little more open I guess. Like, it includes people that may or may not have a gender for whatever reason." He would be into that too, probably, but he's not going to say that just now.

Lan Wangji takes the sheet, holding it in both hands and studying it, wholly thoughtful. He has only ever desired men -- one boy, who became one beautifully frustrating man, specifically, but even before he met Wei Ying, he knew this about himself. If blue is the color associated with attraction to men, perhaps that is convenient. Blue is the only color he wears that is not white. "Where are these flags typically displayed?"

"Oh, anywhere. People carry them in parades, put them up on their houses, hang them in walls -- I might take one back for my room here, maybe, if I remember. It's a way for people to show they're proud of who they are, or accepting of other people's choices, sometimes."

Edited 2024-06-15 02:49 (UTC)

"Mn," Lan Wangji says again; again, this is a polite acknowledgement, but one of genuine interest. "This celebration is an act of defiance," he ventures.

“Yes!” Apollo nods vehemently. “A lot of people forget the first pride was actually a protest. It just kept getting commemorated and has sort of also turned into a celebration over the years.”

Lan Wangji continues perusing the sheet Apollo handed him. "A police raid," he reads, with a little frown. Magnus has not instilled in him any great love of police officers.

“Yeah.” He sighs and sets his bracelet down. “For a lot of the history of America —and our world, unfortunately, loving who you want to love and being your true authentic self has been —um. Illegal, in some cases. Not in Ancient Greece; and not now at least in America—there have been some changes to the laws. Gay marriage is legal in the US now.”

Lan Wangji is certainly familiar enough with this general concept. To his knowledge, any legal recognition of his own marriage would be an impossibility, something beyond even pretending to consider. That didn't matter to him -- nothing mattered but the impossible breadth of Wei Ying's smile as they made their last bow, no witnesses but the heavens and no finery but robes just-shed and hastily-donned. "Mn." He looks up from the paper. "Cut-sleeves are not viewed kindly where I come from."

For Apollo's part, marriage isn't his thing. He swore a long time ago that he would not marry unless it was Daphne, and we all saw how that turned out. He sighs, and nods. "I get it. A lot of people don't view it kindly nowadays, either. It's hard, but that's part of the reason why this celebration exists."

Lan Wangji, still holding that informational sheet in both hands, nods, very serious. He folds the paper crisply in half and tucks it into his sleeve. He will hang onto this and show it to Wei Ying. Wei Ying will like the idea of this Pride -- a protest and a celebration, a show of defiance. "Thank you," he says to Apollo, with sincerity.

"Of course," Apollo replies with a small smile. "Do you have any other questions?"

After a slow and thoughtful pause, Lan Wangji does have a question. Although he is a god, Apollo is evidently from the same time as Magnus. "Do you know how to repair a bicycle?"

"Um." He considers this for a moment. Would he be any good at repairing a bicycle? Probably not, he left that sort of stuff to Leo when they were adventuring together. But does he know how to? Potentially. "I can't say I'd be any good at it, but I can take a guess on how to do it. What's the issue?" If it's something easy like a flat tire, then they're set.

"I need an air pump," Lan Wangji clarifies. Actually, Magnus needs an air pump.

"Oh! Well, yeah, if it's a flat tire that should be a pretty easy fix. I'm sure I could find an air pump around somewhere."

"Thank you," Lan Wangji says again, just as serious about the bicycle repair as he was about the Pride lesson.

He grins and gives Lang Wangji a cheery nod. "I'm no god of smithing, but I think I can figure it out. Anyway. Anything else? I could write a song, or a poem to the glory of the bicycle." It's pretty clear he's joking.

Lan Wangji does realize that Apollo is not serious, but his own expression stays solemn regardless. "I will take the poem," he says, perfectly straight-faced. Truthfully, he wants to see what happens, and he does like poetry very much.

"Alright," Apollo laughs, and falls silent for a moment, thinking. After a few more moments of silence, he starts: "There once was a man named Michael, who liked to ride his bicycle. He would quite often ride 'cross the wide countryside 'til the wind turned him to an icicle." This may or may not translate well enough into Mandarin; but the mansion is a wibbly-wobbly sort of place. "Sorry about the limerick, it's not my preferred form of poetry; but that's another story. Limerick prophecies are always some of the worst."

The rhymes certainly don't translate, nor does the meter. Lan Wangji listens with mildly baffled amusement regardless. "What are the parameters of a limerick?"

He sighs. "I was afraid that was going to happen. It doesn't translate well into Mandarin, I guess. But the general parameters are -- five lines of poetry, the first two lines and the fifth one rhyme with each other, while the third and fourth are their own rhyme scheme. It's usually something humorous. Could have gone for something a little easier by shortening words, but --oh well."

That, at least, makes perfect sense, enough that Lan Wangji can think back over the words he heard and try to imagine applying such a rhyme scheme to them. He will have to enlist the assistance of someone who speaks English to investigate this further in one of the rooms in which translation is more nebulous, eventually. Perhaps not soon; things are unsettled. "And prophecies can come in this form?"

"Oh, yeah. A lot of prophecies come in poetry --sonnets, terza rima, I even gave a couple in haiku a few times. Some oracles do other things, too, though; it's really up to them. The oracle of Erythrea likes to give hers out in word puzzles these days. They don't have to be, of course; my brother Ares gave one once and it was just completely to the point." He makes a face. "Sort of defeats the vagueness of prophecies in my opinion; but what do I know, I'm only the god of them."

Of course. Lan Wangji did know that Apollo is the god of prophecy, as little as he can imagine precisely what that means. "Has there ever been a prophecy in the form of lüshi poetry?"

Apollo considers this for a moment, thoughtful. "None that I can recall off the top of my head, but I don't really choose what form they come in unless it's one I'm specifically giving out. The oracle's the one that gets to choose. Not to say there won't be, at some point; but even I don't know when that might be."

Lan Wangji can feel a thousand possible questions springing into being, but he is uncertain how unwise it might be to test his luck with a god who has already indulged him considerably. He hesitates. "Must every prophecy be fulfilled?"

"I mean, they generally are; but it can be hundreds or thousands of years before that happens. Sometimes it doesn't even apply the way you think it will -- the ones I got during my quest basically said I was going to die or dissolve into chaos and be forgotten, but ...here I am, not dissolved and back to my immortal self."

Slightly conflicted, Lan Wangji considers this. He is, of course, thinking of Magnus, burdened by several prophecies and, simultaneously, buoyed by one: the one that promises him another sight of his mother. After a short pause, he nods. If he wants to argue, he is not going to do so with Apollo himself. "And do those prophecies continue to hold power here?"

"I don't know. They may just be on pause, if people can come and go from their own worlds?" He considers this for a moment as well, frowning. "Everything's a little different here, at least for me. I don't have the full scope of what I'm used to. Could be the same for prophecies, they may just not apply. Since it seems like this is an entirely different universe."

It is not a satisfying answer, but Lan Wangji prefers it to a more fulfilling lie. He nods. "Understood." He folds himself into another bow, a final expression of gratitude for Apollo's time and all the information he has provided -- and, of course, the poem -- before he takes his leave.

Now that he knows that Shen Yuan will live again -- Claudius explained what Magnus told him in sign, rather than speaking it aloud, wary of some danger he hasn't quite explained to Galahad -- Galahad feels less fluttering anxiety about leaving Claudius alone. It's the only reason he pokes his head into the café with a basket of black raspberry scones topped with a sprinkle of crystallized ginger and stops, arrested by whatever Dionysus and this other person he hasn't met are doing. He's looking especially androgynous today in the sheerish blouse Magnus picked for him and a pair of dark-colored skinny jeans, and his birthday earrings in (his gender may not be at all obvious to Apollo).

He sets the basket down on the floor beside Dionysus' table, drawn to the face-painting setup.

Dionysus is ecstatic¹ to see Galahad. He left him a basket as a thank you for the stars, but he hasn't actually seen him since then.

Galahad! Galahad thank you so much for the stars! This is my brother. Apollo. He points to Apollo.

"Apollo," he says out loud to get his attention, then switches back to signing. Come meet Galahad.

1. almost like he's the god of it, or something

His gender is not in fact obvious, no, but that doesn't bother Apollo in the slightest. He gives a cheerful wave from his little table.

Oh! Hi. He considers a moment, then continues signing. Nice to meet you. I'm his big brother. Kind of. Complicated. He certainly does not look like a big brother, but like he just said; it's complicated.

Edited 2024-06-08 02:42 (UTC)

You're welcome, to Dionysus, in his usual serious way (the basket was unexpected, and he went through it carefully, examining each individual snack and gift, the soft brushes that he stroked along his cheek (Claudius says that Grantaire and Dionysus are lovers; without that, he can't imagine how Dionysus would have known that he wants to get better at painting), the little cube with its buttons and switches and gears that is in his pocket now, opposite the bone frog). Thank you for the presents.

When Dionysus points out Apollo, he turns to look. Hi, he signs back. Complicated?

Dionysus shakes his head. No, thank you for the stars. It means a lot.

As to the question of 'complicated', Apollo and I are from different universes. He debates whether or not he should mention that Apollo is from Magnus's universe. He knows that Galahad and Magnus are besties, but that, uh. Might backfire, considering, you know. Everything.

Yes, Apollo signs back. Also look younger right now, but -- He shrugs. More comfortable like this. Sometimes. In fairness, Apollo in his 'normal' form also looks a great deal younger than his baby brother, but we can't all be forever twinks.

You're Magnus' dad. Please, Dionysus, Magnus has definitely told Galahad about the Apollo situation.

Dionysus bursts out laughing, very loud, which is probably more than a little jarring considering they've not been speaking out loud this whole time. Hopefully the music from the cd player will help balance it out though.

I see my sweet nephew told you all about Apollo's first day.

Yeah, it was hilarious. He looks distinctly unamused. But he did give me his old room, which he didn't need to do. He's a good kid.

With the flowers? Even though he knows better, he has a sudden jolt of anxiety that Magnus gave Apollo their room.

It was pretty empty from what I can remember. He mostly just remembers singing with the sword though, so maybe there were flowers? That day is a bit of a blur when he tries to think too much about it. All the excitement of having Apollo here finally (and then having to stop Apollo from accidentally burning down the whole mansion), he figures.

Yeah. He said no one was using it anymore. And it's good for --sun guys. There's a pause. There are different flowers in it now. He has added a hyacinth in their place, certainly. Unfortunately bay laurels are rather too large for a bedroom, but he's sure to find some in the gardens sooner or later.

Galahad's shoulders relax fractionally. If they'd meant Damien's old room, they would surely have mentioned the flowers were painted; they must be speaking of Magnus' first room, the one he abandoned after the zombies. He nods and turns back to Dionysus. What is the paint for?

Dionysus watches Apollo out of the corner of his eye. He has been in his room, he knows exactly what flowers Apollo is talking about and he knows exactly what they mean to him. Once he has determined Apollo's okay and isn't about to go off upset or anything like that, he addresses Galahad fully. It's body paint! A lot of times people get very festive for the celebration we're replicating. Lots of paint and glitter.

Apollo is, to all appearance, completely fine with this line of conversation. If Galahad does care to notice, there is a small sprig of hyacinths set behind his ear, purple to match his shirt. He threads another bead onto his latest strand, half-paying attention to the signing going on in front of him. Yeah, he adds. Usually there aren't many clothes involved, either.

Like at the party? You wore sparkle, signing the butterfly-like word with both hands.

Dionysus smiles and lifts up a little mesh pouch that has a few containers of body glitter inside it that he definitely had with him the whole time, regardless of whether or not the typist remembered to mention it, it's an important part of face painting, clearly.

Do you want some glitter?

The other sparkly god in the room is just going to sit back and let Dionysus and Galahad do their thing. He's absently humming along to Queen and making bracelets, it's a good time.

Yes. There's more fervent emotion in that bobbing fist than Galahad can possibly express with his face.

Where? Which color? Dionysus lines up the small containers on the table. There's a couple that are a standard holographic-white glitter, but there's also other colors as well.

Do you want paint as well? Or just glitter?

Everything. Please.

Dionysus laughs. I will cover you in doodles then! Come sit! He motions to the chair beside his.

Galahad makes sure the basket of scones is safe and then sits in the chair, straight-backed and straight-shouldered as always.

Dionysus carefully wets the dry makeup cake, mixing the water in with his brush until it activates into a creamy paint. Yellow to start with, he thinks, and carefully starts drawing a little flower on Galahad's cheek.

When Galahad sees himself painted with flowers later he is going to be thrilled -- he looks like a garden, like his favorite overalls, like a greenhouse full of orchids, like Claudius' beloved -- but right now all he can think about is how much the brush tickles.

A few minutes later and Dionysus has put several flowers of different colors on Galahad, all connected by twisty green vines and leaves. He’s also thrown in a few other doodles as well. It doesn’t necessarily look cohesive, he never claimed to be an artist. But Galahad agreed to doodles so that is what Dionysus gave him.

Satisfied that any more paint would be too much, he picks up the glitters and starts in with those, adding them on top of the drawings in strategic places.

Once again, it takes all his practice at meditating and praying to sit perfectly still and not react to all these ticklish particles, but he is good at stillness, and he does want to be glittery. He closes his eyes and lets Dionysus work.

It doesn’t take long to do the glitter, and then Dionysus digs around in the mess of things he brought until he finds a small hand mirror. He taps Galahad on the shoulder to let him know he can open his eyes, and hands him the mirror.

Galahad stares in the mirror, turning it slightly to change the angle, his expression stern and unmoving as always as he takes in the riot of color on his face, the way it glitters and shimmers in the light.

Finally he puts the mirror down and says, tonelessly, "I love it."

Galahad may not be outwardly expressing the concept of 'loving it' as much as, say, Dionysus would. But Dionysus has been around long enough, he's known enough people, to know that sometimes people are just reserved like that, so he's able to take Galahad's words as the truth.

He breathes a sigh of relief and smiles. "I'm glad! I know I'm not the world's greatest artist or anything, so I'm glad you like it. Whenever you're ready to wash it off it should come off with soap and water." he pauses. "The glitter might be stubborn. It tends to stick around."

He brings his hands to his cheeks and pats them very lightly, feeling out the texture of dry paint. When he says, "Thank you," he signs it too, thank you so much, his hands more expressive than his face can be.

After a hesitation he adds would you like a scone?

Dionysus grins. Galahad is so darling.

Yes please! I would love one! Thank you!

He leans over and retrieves the basket of black raspberry and ginger scones, and offers it to Dionysus.

Thank you! He takes a scone from the basket and takes a big bite. It's so good!

The smile lasts less than a second, a firefly-light of a smile, but it was definitely there. I like practicing. And tasting things.

I wish I could take you on a trip across the world to taste lots of different foods! Do you have a favorite food?

Food is too different to have a favorite. I have favorite kinds of foods, he explains, very seriously. My favorite kind of cake is chocolate with vanilla ice cream. It is balanced. Laertes made it for me at Wanderers Gather.

That IS balanced! he responds excitedly and completely sincere.

What's your favorite?

Favorite food in general is grapes. I'm predictable. Favorite cake is... he thinks this over for a moment. Strawberry cake is good.

T-r-e-s-s and L-a-e-r-t-e-s Laertes made strawberry cake for my birthday. With green tea frosting. It was fluffy and only a little sweet. Lots of people liked it.

That sounds so good! I haven't spent much time with T-r-e-s-s but she seems very nice!

Her boyfriend is a rat named C-h-a-r-l-i-e.

An actual rat, like the animal? asks the guy who was almost married to a satyr.

Galahad nods. Because of magic.

Ohhh. That makes sense.

She misses him.

I imagine she would. Poor dear.

She gave me the first sweet thing I ever tasted. She's very kind.

Dionysus stares. You never ate anything sweet before here?

I wasn't allowed indulgences.

That's terrible, I'm so sorry.

The thought that eating one (1) sweet thing would be considered an indulgence and not, just, normal damn behavior is so frustrating. Dionysus can't stand it.

It's different now. I sin often.

Good for you! As you should!

Especially if 'sin' extends all the way to eating snackies. Seriously, what a fucked up religion.

Another one of those blink-and-you-miss-it smiles. Thank you. A beat, and then he adds, Thank you for not inviting me to the orgy, though. I don't want to try that one.

They're not something everyone would enjoy.

Claudius did.

I'm glad he had fun!

Dionysus was pretty sure Claudius enjoyed it, considering, well. But it's still good to hear so from a trusted news source.

Just because he enjoyed it doesn't mean everyone would though.

Galahad nods. He's about done being Talking Guy, but he thinks he understands why Claudius likes Dionysus so much.

Thank you, he says again.

You're welcome!

He gets up from the chair with his basket of scones and turns to Apollo. Very politely, he says, "I'm glad to have met you, father."

Apollo just sighs and gives Galahad a somewhat resigned wave. “I’m not his dad; but it was nice to meet you.”

"You're Magnus's dad, and Magnus said we're brothers."

Dionysus is doing his best not to laugh, and halfway succeeding. "You're an absolute joy to be around, Galahad."

No one has ever told Galahad he's a joy before. He turns around and tilts his head at Dionysus curiously, looking very much, in this moment, like a character from Godspell.

A joy, he repeats in sign.

The CD-player, currently playing Mika's 'Grace Kelly,' starts skipping—life on the brink, life on the brink, life on the brink—and then one of the rainbow bracelets slides off the table and onto the floor.

Edited (punctuation nitpick) 2024-06-07 13:50 (UTC)

“Apollo I think your cd is scratched,” Dionysus says as he gets up and takes it out of the player. He looks at the back of it — no scratches. He blows on it, maybe there was some dust? Then puts it back on.

"They looked okay when I found them," Apollo says absently, and leans to pick up the bracelet and place it back on the table. "That's weird, though."

Drawn by the music, Qi Yan peers in to what appears to be some kind of festival. The decor is unfamiliar, but that's unsurprising. More unsettling is that she doesn't recognize either of the colorfully dressed men in the room. She has missed a lot during her long period of convalescence, and for someone as attuned to social structure as Qi Yan, she does not like not knowing people.

She enters and bows politely, addressing both men. "Please excuse my ignorance. What manner of celebration is this?"

((note for those who haven't met Qi Yan before - she uses she/her in her own narration, but presents as a man and expects people to perceive her as such))

Edited 2024-06-07 18:58 (UTC)

In fairness, Apollo currently looks a bit more like a boy than he does a man, seventeen and dark-haired and a little chubbier than he would really like to be, but he's still wearing a cropped shirt and tight shorts regardless. "Oh, hey," he says, waving at the new guy.¹ "It's, um, a thing we have in our world. A month for being proud of who you are without anyone shaming you and --sometimes, unfortunately, still fighting for equality that everyone should have." Not for the first time, Apollo thinks, Christianity was a mistake. "But explanations can come after introductions, I guess. I'm Apollo, and the guy with the makeup over there is my baby brother."

¹ There's a lot of new guys; Apollo just hasn't met everyone yet.

Edited 2024-06-08 03:23 (UTC)

It's someone Dionysus does not know either, which is saying something. "I'm Dionysus, I don't believe we've met! Are you a new arrival? Or have I just been terribly lax in meeting people?"

"I have been keeping to myself. My name is Qi Yan," Qi Yan says with a bow. The irony of giving this name at a celebration for "being proud of who you are" does not escape her. "How long has it been since you both arrived?"

"I've not been here too long," Apollo replies with a shrug. "Maybe a month? Or close to that. My little brother has been here a little longer."

"I've been here since before Dark. So ...what's that, nearly half a year now? Half an Earth year, anyway. Years are longer here." ~~He should do the math to figure out~~ he should ask Apollo to do the math to figure out new lyrics for Seasons of Love.

Grantaire is never away from the café for all that long, so of course he walks in, and looks around admittedly a bit quizzically while he heads to grab a drink. "Interesting choice of décor."

Oh look, it's Dionysus' Favorite Person(TM). "Étienne!" He practically runs over and gives him a hug and a kiss. "I found some face paint, do you want to play with it with me?"

Sure enough, his arms are covered in little designs.

"I see face paint is also acceptable elsewhere than on the face."

"It's also called body paint."

"That would certainly be inclusive of many things that are not face."

"Several, at least."

"Knees, for instance."

"Shoulder blades."

"Ears."

"Ears are face-related enough to count as face, I think."

"I think ears are attached to the face, but not face itself."

"I mean, I guess I can allow it. Tummy."

"I would imagine so, yes. Heel."

"Get a room, you two," Apollo says from his corner of rainbows and beads. "I can name all of the bones, and you don't hear me bragging about it."

Dionysus turns, and is definitely not blushing at all, and stares at Apollo for a moment.

"You can't put this on bones, they're on the inside, it's for external use only, dear brother."

"Sometimes bones aren't on the inside," he points out, helpfully. "But anyway, I'm getting really tired of you two naming random body parts. Yes, we know you can paint them."

Grantaire laughs. "How odd that the god of truth would object to a full accounting. O Phoebus, do not make us hide the light of the many possibilities before us."

Oh this is absolutely just the best possible way for today to have gone. 10/10. Dionysus is so happy. Grantaire is reading Apollo for filth, it's a pride month miracle.

"So anyway, as I was saying before the baby from the opening of Teletubbies over there interrupted us, toes." He's aware that Grantaire will not know what the hell a Teletubby is, but he also hopes that there is enough context in his tone for it to be obvious that he's dragging the heck out of Apollo. He can explain Teletubbies later if necessary.

"Yes, yes, no one needs to know what filthy things you two are going to get up to with the body paint later. Artists," he says with a dramatic eyeroll, like he himself is not the head of the Muses.

He laughs. "That's quite an assumption, Apollo Musagetes."

Dionysus basically has heart-eyes right now. Please make fun of Apollo more, it's hilarious.

"We were just listing out possibilities, tiny little baby big brother, we never said we were actually going to paint each other's heels."

"Yes. The most scandalous of places, the heel." He leans back in his chair and sets his feet up on the table. "I've been to your parties, baby brother, I know how this ends."

"His parties do have excellent endings, I agree."

Dionysus winks at Grantaire and gives him a kiss on the cheek.

Apollo just rolls his eyes and holds up a bracelet in his hand. "How about it, want a bracelet?"

"I'll take one, although I'm not quite sure of the occasion."

"Oh! We never really explained that, did we?" Nope, they just started listing off body parts. "There's a modern celebration -- Pride, Pride Month, Gay Pride, lots of different versions of names for it -- for being, y'know, proud, obviously, of different sexualities and gender identities. There was a protest a few decades ago in America that sort of kickstarted it, that's why it's in June specifically," Grantaire will know all about protests that take place in June. Uh. Moving on quickly from that thought, "The different colored flags all represent different identities that people might have. But there's usually parades in a lot of cities, parties, it's nice to get to see everyone being happy about who they are, y'know?"

They sure did. Which is why Apollo interrupted to try and get them back on track, if such a thing exists. "Yeah," Apollo agrees. "The colors and stripes all have their own various meanings, if you wanna know more about them we have a little sheet over here. And the music playing is all by queer artists, though I'm guessing you probably don't know most of them."

Grantaire contemplates this torrent of information. "Huh. The future is an interesting place."

Dionysus laughs. "That's one way to describe it."

"It's fun, most of the time. Not perfect, of course; but fun."

"Perfection is grossly unattainable, so that's unsurprising."

"If it was perfect we wouldn't need all of this," he gestures vaguely around, at the flags and everything else. "But it's definitely a nice, fun way to help in the meantime."

"It is. And it's not quite the same here, but we figured people should learn about it in any case."

His voice turns slightly amused, although at what is not immediately evident. "Education is certainly important. The ABCs of a new subject, if you will."

Dionysus just giggles.

"...Good thing I'm not the god of puns, because I might have to yell at you for that one." Yes, he knows your song(s), Grantaire.

His eyebrows rise suddenly. "Is there a god of puns?"

"Not... specifically?" Dionysus says, after a few moments to mentally run through all of the possible choices and try to remember if that exact title already belongs to anyone. "You could just start telling people it's you, not like anyone can prove you aren't." He glances at Apollo to see if he's getting as annoyed by that comment as Dionysus intended.

"The god of truth could," Apollo says, throwing a rude gesture Dionysus' way. Because he is a mature god, you see.

"I don't need to be a god anyway. I'll just tell people the god of puns is Jambonette Capiglet."

Dionysus definitely has heard about the stuffed animal his son (???) gave his boyfriend. He giggles and grins. "I don't even know if that entirely counts as a lie. Who's to say Jambonette is not a god of this place?"

Needless to say, Apollo has not. He rolls his eyes and settles back into his beadwork. "Yeah, okay, you two have fun."

"Well, I also know who isn't the god of having a sense of humor, apparently."

"This is why I'm the fun god people like to hang out with, and he's the god they go to when they need to... I dunno, get a tan, or whatever." He does actually like his brother, for the record, he's just being a pain in the butt out of Little Brother Obligation.

"Yeah, because concerts are totally boring." He sticks out his tongue. "Shut up, unless you want hay fever." They both know it's an empty threat.

"That depends on the concert."

"Yeah, some concerts are definitely boring." Some plays are boring too, but that's not what they're talking about right now.

"You just don't know how to appreciate good music."

"The concerts of good music aren't the boring ones."

"Exactly! Thank you, Étienne, you beat me to it." Dionysus gives him a kiss on the cheek.

"Well, some of us here are the god of music, whether it's good or bad, unfortunately. They do get points for trying, at least."

"So you're also the god of songs people make up when they're extraordinarily drunk? Or is that a shared domain between both of you?"

Dionysus pretends to think this over. "Well, you could just get extraordinarily drunk and make up a song, and then we'll see if I like it or Apollo likes it more." This may be a flawed experiment. He's already making a bottle of wine for Grantaire though.

"Mm, well, I think we have some standing bias in the room. I don't know if it would be a fair judgement."

"It's at least worth a try, right?"

"I don't know what you're talking about, big brother, I doubt you'd be very biased, don't worry." he says with a smirk as he passes the wine bottle to Grantaire.

He rolls his eyes and flicks a little flame Dionysus' way. It doesn't do anything, it's no bigger than a candle flame, but the point of it is basically 'you know what I meant.'

Grantaire takes a large drink from his wine bottle. "Clearly we will have to repeat the experiment in the future, too. To see if songs created when drunk on wine are more obviously favorable in certain directions than songs made under the influence of other liquors."

"Oh, well naturally. Wouldn't be properly scientific if we didn't."

"Or maybe we'll have to try it without someone's boyfriend involved."

"Well, if you think about it, who isn't someone's boyfriend?"

"Apollo, we need to get you a boyfriend," Dionysus says suddenly. "Or girlfriend, whatever. Anyone you want us to put in a good word for you with?" A pause, then he adds with a smirk, "I think Georgia's still available, if you're going to keep being a teenager."

"I can get my own partner," he says, waving his hands around in an effort to head off this nonsense at the start. "Shut up, Lester's comfy to be in. Sometimes. And Georgia is younger than my kids."¹ There are people he has in mind, but he's quite content to pursue them in his own time.

¹ Except for that one five year old kid in Indiana who may or may not be his, Trophonius is a troll.

"If you need me to put in a good word for you, I'm more than happy to do so."

"Yeah, Apollo, c'mon. Who do you want us to set you up with?"

“I don’t need to be set up with anyone, I’m not that out of practice.” Let’s ignore that the last time he hit on a girl she laughed in his face. In fairness, he was Lester at the time.

Grantaire's expression turns solemn, although there's an entirely too amused gleam in his eye. "Oh, this is dire."

“Oh, Grantaire. What are we going to do? He doesn’t even realize how tragic he sounds.”

Apollo raises an eyebrow and threads another bead onto his latest string. He is silent for a moment, counting syllables in his head. “You’re not Yente, bro. Just let me do my thing. Sorry not sorry.”

Both the reference and the haiku are completely lost on Grantaire, sadly. "Yes. Completely tragic."

Neither are lost on Dionysus, he just chooses to ignore them completely. "Ooh, wait, what about Aleksander? He seems like your type. Likes poetry, y'know."

"Lots of people like poetry." He's not even sure why he's entertaining this discussion, he definitely doesn't need his little brother helping out with his love life. "I really don't need your help."

"How horrible life would be if we only ever got what we needed, though."

"Exactly, Étienne! Such sage advice, see, that's why I love you so much." And he gives Grantaire a kiss before turning back to Apollo. "Ἀπόλλων. I've known you¹ for four thousand years, I know what your type is. I think you two would be sweet together."

1. Or... close enough to count, anyway.

He raises an eyebrow. "Not just because he controls darkness and I control light?"

"Oh, that's an interesting contrast. I'm sure a poet could do it justice."

Dionysus blinks. "That... was actually not even a thing I'd considered." Though it is sort of fitting. "I was actually mostly just referencing how intense he is -- in a good way, and his looks. He's super sweet though."

There's also all of the war crimes, but that's another thing Dionysus isn't thinking about.

"He is pretty hot," Apollo agrees, somewhat unwillingly. "But I still don't need your help."

"One truly insistent sungod." He grins. "So how long would it be before you do need help?"

"Want me to throw another party?"

"You do what you want, I don't need siblings meddling in my love life."

"And therein is the advantage of having only one sibling. Who is more than a decade younger than you are."

"To be fair, I am more than a decade younger than him. I'm ... what, 600-something years younger than you, Apollo?"

"Something like that, yeah." He waves a hand. "Whatever. Point is, I've had enough of that stuff. It tends not to end well if my siblings are involved."

He looks at Dionysus. "I am widely known to be terrible at mathematics, but I am fairly confident that if you compare the ratios of six hundred years to immortality against thirteen to even an average mortal lifespan, the two of you may as well have been born the same week."

Dionysus casually wraps his arms around Grantaire's waist, and rests his head on his shoulder. He doesn't want to think about Grantaire's shorter-than-average lifespan. So, instead, he just looks at Apollo, and says, "Literally what did I ever do to you? You used to¹ like coming to my parties."

1. Ignoring the fact that this is, technically, not the same person who has ever attended one of this Dionysus' parties. He just forgets sometimes.

"I still do! It's just -- been a while, okay? I never said I didn't like your parties: for one, my you hasn't had a good one in about a century, for reasons that you already know. But I can do this myself."

Grantaire leans into Dionysus. "Well, as squabbles among gods go, this is at least one of the least destructive on record."

"It helps that me and Apollo actually like one another."

"Yeah, he's right up there with Artemis and Hermes and Athena." --He could name more, but that would take too long.

At some point during the festivities, a word that here means, "the weirdest Pride celebration ever", it has fallen to either Auntie Sissy or Uncle Polly to watch Sunny Baudelaire. She can't remember which one is technically her guardian right now, but it doesn't matter much either way, as they are both in the same room.

She has been dressed in a festive outfit, has been given a festive beaded necklace (Auntie Sissy was very upset about this, but Sunny assured her she would not swallow any of the beads. She did not seem to hear her when she said this, and Uncle Polly had to mention how if Sunny chokes he can fix her, whatever that means), and is now sitting in a high chair with a roll of festive stickers, slowly peeling them off the paper backing one by one and placing them all over the previously mentioned festive outfit.

Edited 2024-06-14 03:07 (UTC)

happy pride, etc

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