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Stephen had rather wanted to talk with Henry Winter at length, if for no other reason than to cement his hopeful deduction that Henry's recent wedding had well and truly laid to rest the remnants of old animosity concerning the woman who was now Mrs. Winter. Unfortunately, there had simply been no time for conversation. Stephen had brought little Rose Casson to the wedding, which meant he'd been kept busy with such important activities as eating icing with his fingers; and Henry had been kept busy with other matters (the brief abortive dust-up with Bunny had not escaped Stephen's watchful eye, though his primary concern had been to keep Rose away from whatever might happen). Then the bride and groom had gone off on some trip somewhere, or some such thing. Even if they had not, Stephen would not have dreamed of inquiring after either of them. He knew very well what it was to desire absolute peace, absolute and complete absence of any interruption.
As it happened, he did not see Winter again until an odd chance meeting out on the windswept grounds. Stephen was scouting out potential locations for test explosions of anti-clown ordnance. Henry, immaculately dressed in suit and somber black overcoat, appeared to be pushing a very large weird chunk of stone in a wheelbarrow.
As it happened, he did not see Winter again until an odd chance meeting out on the windswept grounds. Stephen was scouting out potential locations for test explosions of anti-clown ordnance. Henry, immaculately dressed in suit and somber black overcoat, appeared to be pushing a very large weird chunk of stone in a wheelbarrow.
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Date: 2007-11-26 12:56 am (UTC)He was rather surprised to see Stephen out and about--granted, his own almost unvarying schedule took him to a limited number of places, but it was cold enough now that he hadn't expected to see anyone out on the grounds. What residual animosity there had been (and really, 'animosity' wasn't the right word) had not been dispelled by his marriage; rather it had been wiped away, like old chalk dust off a slate. His cordiality had returned with Susan already, and now that he and Camilla were married, all that had come before had been rendered all but immaterial.
So he gave Stephen a nod of greeting, pausing his stride. "Stephen." He didn't know why he had slipped into using the man's given name--it had simply come out when he'd sent out wedding invitations, which was quite peculiar for Henry. Then again, he'd called Susan by her first name for quite some time now, but that was...different, somehow. Stephen was much more his senior than Susan, and Henry had been brought up to use an honorific when addressing anyone past a certain age. The only other exception had been Julian, but that wasn't a comparison that he was really even aware of at the moment.
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Date: 2007-11-26 01:08 am (UTC)He did not greet Henry by name. He could have eschewed surnames, he supposed. He would rather have a better sense of their footing first.
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Date: 2007-11-26 01:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-26 01:38 am (UTC)Having no notion that his own present had not pleased Camilla, he indulged in a brief mental picture prompted by Henry's words, the phrasing conjuring a Camilla with brows furrowed and arms folded, ordering the unfortunate Aztec god out of the castle in no uncertain terms. It made Stephen smile, faintly and wryly.
The smile turned to an outright grin when his thoughts then turned to conjecture how Diana might have reacted to such a monstrosity being housed indoors. It had been bad enough when Stephen had tried to bring skeletons and specimens into the house on Half Moon Street. In the end he'd simply kept his old rooms at the Grapes.
"I do not know much about the pagan customs of the pre-Columbian peoples," he said. "I do know a little about women's notions of what belongs indoors and what out of doors. The relocation of Xipe Totec is no doubt the better part of valor."
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Date: 2007-11-26 01:50 am (UTC)He didn't at all mind putting the thing in the garden; it was only Camilla's reaction that had led him to keep the statue inside as long as he had. "Personally, I think it's fascinating, even if it is hideous. As you say, though, a woman's taste in decor is as good as law." Henry had a decent appreciation for nice things, most of which had been broadened and developed by Camilla, but that didn't mean his taste was perfect. Far from it, given his current situation.
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Date: 2007-11-26 02:25 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-26 02:38 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-26 02:54 am (UTC)He walked along with Henry and the wheelbarrow-borne Xipe Totec, thinking of several things he would like to say. The foremost of them he could only pose as a question, because it was one. "I should have liked to speak with you more at the reception, if not for the aforementioned entanglements." Discussing swordplay with an alien professor and a little girl could be an exacting and time-consuming pastime. "I should have liked to speak with Camilla as well, of course; but I should have liked to speak with you apart from her. I never did quite understand, through our brief correspondence before the wedding proper, how you brought all this about -- how you persuaded her to undertake matrimony."
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Date: 2007-11-26 03:33 am (UTC)He actually laughed. "Fencing? Let me guess, she got the idea from Dax, didn't she?" Dax had been quite enthusiastic about trying to persuade him that what he and Camilla really needed was a Klingon wedding.
The grass was somewhat soupy, sucking at the wheelbarrow's tire, and he had a tricky moment of navigating it through a divot in the lawn. "That is something I still haven't fully fathomed myself, honestly," he said. "There is a logical progression, but logic doesn't cover everything." He thought a moment. "In a way, I owe it in at least some measure to a serial-killing demon Camilla met in the Sorting Room. Somehow, over the course of their conversation, she came to the conclusion that she wasn't as averse to the idea of marriage as we had all once been. He really is an odd man--how on earth he of all people gave her the idea, I still don't understand. He came to the wedding, actually, though I don't know if you met him--tall man, smirks a great deal. I understand he was the one who told Susan her hair had turned purple, an occurrence I'm convinced Camilla had something to do with."
He laughed again, realizing he was rambling, as he was sometimes wont to do. "That started it, at any rate. Actually, he nudged things along in another sense, too--Camilla was briefly married during the tent village fiasco, and the wedding ring she'd been given had been charmed to always return. Susan loaned Camilla a ring to take its place, and Ryder opined that eventually it was going to have to be replaced, whenever Camilla gave the ring back." Carefully he avoided another puddle. "I still think he and Susan were in on it together, as...odd...as she was at the time. They were force-married at the time, too, and I think that Ryder at least was terribly bored."
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Date: 2007-11-26 04:21 am (UTC)Tramping through the muddy grass with no care for shoes or trouser-cuffs, he listened most attentively to Henry's somewhat disjointed account of how the marriage came about:
A serial-killing demon had softened Camilla's attitude toward marriage.
Camilla had caused Susan's hair to turn purple.
Camilla had been married to someone by the Hat.
Susan had been married to the serial-killing demon by the Hat.
Camilla had been forced to wear an enchanted wedding ring which Susan had replaced and which the serial-killing demon had suggested Henry replace.
Susan had been in on something with the serial-killing demon, perhaps regarding the wedding ring.
"I had been married to a very nice nurse during that tent village mess. I still think of her fondly," Stephen mused, as a brief aside. In fact he had very nearly fought a duel for Carla's honor! "I must say I should not feel at all sanguine about owing any good fortune to a serial-killing demon."
He found that he did not, however, have any misgivings -- not even the vaguest hint of jealousy, nor worry -- about Susan having been married to said serial-killing demon. He would have been more worried even about Camilla.
"What you are telling me," he said, after a moment's thought, "is not precisely how Camilla was induced to accept the notion of marrying you, but how circumstances were manipulated by various parties to the effect that a proposal could be at all possible. The question remains as to how that proposal met with real success. I may say, by way of explaining why I find this such a remarkable event, that I myself spent a number of years pursuing a woman very like her in some respects, with several proposals issued, some rejected outright, some accepted provisionally and later deferred; and then, when I had at last secured the lady's hand in civil union, it remained that she should then flee to another country entirely, and from there I eventually brought her home whereupon we were married a second time. God rest her soul," he added, more to himself than to Henry, with a perfunctory sign of the cross. Resuming in a normal conversational tone: "Thus it seems to me extraordinary, not to say improbable, that you have had such an easy time of it, and with such celerity as to make winged Hermes blush."
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Date: 2007-11-26 04:42 am (UTC)"I have to admit, compared to you, I've had very little difficulty," he said, shaking his head. "Though I would not say bringing it about was an easy thing. As to the celerity--well, I honestly didn't expect Camilla to take me at my word, when I suggested the date. Then again, I really should have known better." There was actually a hint of fondness in Henry's voice, which was little short of amazing--he who so very rarely betrayed anything of the sort to an outside party. "Camilla and I...there is no really coherent way to explain it all, since I will admit it's not something I can make clear sense of even to myself, at times." There was also a very great deal he could never say aloud, to anyone, about all that had gone on at Hampden, and especially not anything about Charles.
"I'm not by nature a social man," he said, stating the patently obvious, "and I'm not someone who was really capable of being at all close with anyone, until I met her. We were at school together--long ago, now, though not so very long for me, all things considered. Back then I don't think she would have ever contemplated the idea of marriage," though he had, albeit for different reasons, "but now that we're here, that we've been here...things changed. I died, and I came back, and Camilla traveled all the way here to attempt to bring me back. I can't really speak of it, but how and why I died changed things as well, even when I had first returned, and since we've been here we've both learned a great deal." About themselves, and about each other, and in Henry's case at least about life in general. It had taken some terrible experiences to teach him some of the things he knew now, but then that was part of growing up.
He recalled his first serious thoughts about marriage, and the talks he'd had with Francis and Susan. On the surface it all did sound straightforward--it was only when applied to himself and Camilla as people that it became very complicated. "I spoke to a couple of friends of mine, before I actually asked her, and what both said boils down to 'You know you're going to ask anyway, so just do it and have done with it'. In the end, they were right." For perhaps the only time in his life, Henry had been nervous--no, to be honest, he'd been downright scared. Only Camilla could do that to him.
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Date: 2007-11-26 05:33 am (UTC)Nor did Henry have to betray any emotion through word or expression; Stephen had seen evidence of that at another time, in another place, the tight furious set of Henry's jaw when he'd confronted Stephen over a certain indiscretion of Camilla's. (Stephen still wondered how Camilla had managed to erase whatever traces of displeasure the incident had left, but he was not about to ask. Ever.)
It never occurred to Stephen to wonder why Henry might have wanted to marry Camilla in the first place. To Stephen, a product of his time, transitory dalliances were all well and good, but marriage was the logical conclusion when one truly loved a woman. It meant financial security for her, and a measure of social acceptance and accommodation for the relationship, acceptance and accommodation only achievable by means of that formality. More, it was a matter of public record and of public respect.
A woman like Jack's wife Sophie would, quite reasonably, desire marriage as much as her male counterpart would wish it, for the same benefits accrued to both. It was the contrary sort of woman -- like Diana, like Camilla -- that dodged it, or held it out as a carrot above the head of a poor laboring mule, or reviled it as a loss of freedom.
"You took your friends' advice, then, and it proved sound; she proved receptive, mirabile dictu. So the ground was tilled in advance, as it were, and no persuasion necessary on your part, no argument or pleading, no interminable waiting for answer?"
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Date: 2007-11-26 05:50 am (UTC)"It wasn't unexpected, though--I knew there was a very good chance she'd ask for time, and that perhaps she'd put off her answer for months. If anything, I was surprised at how relatively quickly she gave me an answer."
He shook his head. "Francis thought I was insane for wanting to be married to begin with--Francis is a friend of mine, whose own marriage was not at all a happy thing--" mainly because not only was Francis gay, his wife was a vapid imbecile of a woman "--and Susan had no idea why Camilla would say no, or why the possibility of her refusal was so terrible. Neither of them know Camilla as well as I do--not even Francis, who went to school with us. Even he couldn't really understand just what a monumental thing I was asking of her--I knew all along that it wasn't simply a matter of loving her, or her loving me. Marriage isn't something either of us would ever dream of taking lightly." Which made Camilla's acceptance all the more meaningful, when she finally gave it.
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Date: 2007-11-29 06:07 am (UTC)She squelched over the damp lawn, her footsteps crunching in the still-frozen bits in the shadows of the trees. Over the last weeks she'd tried meditation, square breathing, yoga, and even (far out in the forest), primal scream therapy, and while she'd felt no hint of that murderous rage that had gripped her on Halloween, she still didn't feel closer to anything resembling actual peace. And that, to put it plainly, frustrated the living hell out of her.
Being cold and wet, as well as frustrated, she stopped by her room to put on dry clothes and footwear that wasn't soggy. Her jars of tea held no allure, and even the idea of a hot bath just didn't quite do it. As had been so often the case since Halloween, her thoughts were in a hopeless tangle--she'd tried writing them out in her journal, with some success, but right now her restlessness wouldn't let her sit.
"Bugger it." Susan didn't even bother putting on proper shoes--instead she stuffed her feet into a pair of fuzzy slippers and headed for Stephen's office. Perhaps the only visible difference Halloween had left her with was in her walk--she didn't stalk, now; her movements were slower, more thoughtful, her air of tensely coiled energy gone.
Padding through the dungeons, she stopped outside Stephen's door and rapped on it with her knuckles. "Stephen?" she called. "Are you busy?"
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Date: 2007-11-29 06:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-29 06:26 pm (UTC)She took a seat in the fat armchair across from his desk, most uncharacteristically hugging her legs and resting her chin on her knees. "Henry thinks I'm just not cut out for it, which is...somewhat annoying, really."
It was an odd sort of greeting, but Susan was in an odd sort of mood. Much like her grandfather, it was rarely a good thing when she got introspective. "How have you been?" she asked, abruptly changing tacks, and added in a burst of complete and utter honesty, "I've been worried."
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Date: 2007-11-29 09:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-29 09:54 pm (UTC)"I meant I've been worried about you," she said. "About the whole...well, Halloween thing. Incidentally, I found out what caused it--it was a spell sent out over the WART broadcast. Everyone who heard it had the same symptoms we did; we were hardly the only ones. It just lasted longer for everyone else." Somehow, knowing what had done it was both a comfort and a source of annoyance; it was such a stupid little thing, yet it had turned them both into monsters, and had almost cost Stephen his life. If she ever found out just who had cast it...but damn, she was trying to get away from all that. Maybe she could hire Shaun to beat him up, whoever he was.
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Date: 2007-11-30 01:13 am (UTC)"It does not at all surprise me the phenomenon should have affected many people. As I may have mentioned, there have been previous such episodes, though none with the same effect as this one; rather, there have been outbreaks of love-enchantments, bodyswapping, and the like; some of these had nothing to do with contaminated food, but took place by an unidentified means of transmission. Who knows but that WART might not have been a vector for mental disease in these past instances as well? at least, those which occurred after the inception of the radio station."
He took off his spectacles and pinched the hem of his shirt between thumb and forefinger to wipe the lenses. "I am given to understand there were also persons wholly unaffected by the phenomenon. We know Shaun was affected; I am told Henry and Camilla were not. I confess I have not felt inclined to inquire as to who else might or might not have been involved ..." The sentence trailed off, and he looked down at the glasses he held, which by now needed no further polishing.
"I assure you there is no cause to worry for my well-being. There have not been ill effects," he said, folding the spectacles and laying them aside. He referred to what she'd done to him, not to what she'd almost done.
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Date: 2007-11-30 01:38 am (UTC)Susan had very vague memories of body-swapping, but the few times she'd brought it up in the past seemed to have alarmed him, so perhaps there was a reason those memories were vague. "If any of the others were as terrible as that one, I'm glad I don't remember," she said. "Camilla's told me she and Henry hadn't even known about it until I told them. They must either have been completely shut away, or just not paying attention."
Enough of that. She'd wanted to tell him where the spell had come from, but she didn't want to dwell on it. She had another issue--well, all right, several of them, but this one was forefront in her mind. "That potion of mine," she said slowly, "I know now that I shouldn't give it out to anyone else--Henry and Camilla had bad reactions to it, too--but...damn it, part of me wants to. I know humans just don't seem to be built to handle my senses, and that I've done none of you any favors, but I just...I wanted to share it." She paused, searching for the right words. "I guess I wanted all of you to know what it was like to be me, and none of you were really meant to."
She picked at a ragged thread at the end of her sleeve. "Is it very wrong, that part of me still wants to share it, even though I know it would be a truly terrible idea? I know it's the equivalent of mental poison, yet part of me...well. Part of me is completely insensible, apparently."
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Date: 2007-11-30 02:01 am (UTC)He imagined himself married to Shaun and the cricket bat.
Now was not the time for self-indulgent might-have-beens, he realized as Susan went on. Whatever her reasoning, her agitation was clear. "Henry told me a little of this," he said.
His nerves screeched at him not to let this opportunity slip. He forced himself to ignore the urge. "If you know, or feel reasonably certain, that your potion is harmful to the subjects who ingest it, what do you stand to gain from sharing it?" he made himself say.
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Date: 2007-11-30 02:12 am (UTC)She rested her chin on her knees again, staring thoughtfully over Stephen's head, her eyes unfocused. "Camilla told me a little, too, though nothing concrete," she said. "Only that it was...not pleasant. As to what I'd gain from it...." She didn't know how to phrase it, precisely; she knew what she wanted to say, just not how to articulate it. "Do you remember what I said, before the spell broke--what I said about being alone? That wasn't a delusion. So far as I know, I'm the only one who sees and hears and feels like that, and I...well, dammit, I didn't want to be alone in that. I couldn't--still can't--imagine what it must be like not to have these senses, and reasoned that the reverse must be true, too. Apparently it is, just a little more so than I'd thought."
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Date: 2007-11-30 02:44 am (UTC)Vade retro (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vade_retro_satana), he told himself firmly, all the while.
"But you are to consider that even when you have given these senses to another person, by whatever means, potion or what you did to me, you are still alone, Susan. You can never make your test subject into a true match to your own experience, your own substance; you can only approximate for them what it might feel like to be such a thing. Their genes remain the same, their flesh unaltered. Throwing a man into the water does not make him a fish."
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Date: 2007-11-30 02:58 am (UTC)"I know," she admitted, sadly but also almost grudgingly. "I don't want to know, but I do. I'd just dump the stuff and have done with it, except that I have to try to ease Shaun off it. He alone had a decent reaction, and I can't just cut him off, or he might well go mad. Liz told me about these patches Muggles use, to try to quit smoking--they give a dose of nicotine, and every two weeks the dose is reduced, thus easing away from the addiction. They don't always work, but I hope the idea will work in Shaun's case." She didn't know what the hell she'd do, if it didn't.
She shifted, resting her cheek against her knee now, and looked at him. "Shaun told me he hadn't thought it was possible to have a mid-life crisis at twenty-five. I told him I was almost twenty-six, and that he'd better stuff it. He has a point, though. I've never been unsure of myself in my life, that I can remember, and I'm discovering that it's...well, not very pleasant. I suppose it's how most people feel, at times, but I'm not used to it. I think I can see now how people could become drug addicts."
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Date: 2007-11-30 03:47 am (UTC)"I know what you mean," he said, and whether he really did know what she meant or not, there was conviction in the words; he thought he knew.
He was quiet for a long moment, then said, very low:
"I would take it, if you wished."
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