Open: And they're gonna bend their branches down to lay their fruit upon the ground

[vineleaves]

Dionysus is in a kitchen, apron tied over a purple dress with vine details, singing to himself as he uses a melon baller to scoop out a watermelon. The large bowl next to him is already full of honeydew melon and cantaloupe, and he's got a few other ingredients nearby ready to add in once he's done with the watermelon. Mint leaves, some honey, some lemon juice, and some lime juice.

It has been quite an eventful time lately, but overall his life is pretty great right now.

Comments

[wickedwit]

"Thou sound'st like Crowley!" Claudius laughs. He loves Crowley, as Dionysus is well aware. "Does he know thou art stealing his lines?"

[vineleaves]

Dionysus laughs a little at that. "We have a lot in common, so I suppose it makes sense we'd sound alike sooner or later."

[wickedwit]

"Dost thou? I suppose I've never compared thee before." He pauses a moment to consider -- he felt rather starstruck when he met Dionysus, after all, about as starstruck as he was at Crowley's little meetcute story in the Garden of Eden. They're both celebrities. But rather than pursue the thought, he waves a hand and says, "But back to thee and Étienne. Art thou in love with him? I find him extraordinarily easy to love."

[vineleaves]

He smiles a very soft little smile. "Oh, I'm incredibly in love with him."

[wickedwit]

"I can see it in thy smile! 'Tis a veritably lovelorn smile," he teases. "So how didst thou come to fall in love? Was't a sudden, sure feeling, or slowly gradual?" It can't have been that slow, given the timeline. But Claudius's timeline for moving in with Galahad was -- debatable. It may've happened immediately after they started their courtship, or it may've happened a number of months into it, depending on how one counts.

[vineleaves]

"Ah, something in the middle, I guess." He shrugs. "I fell pretty hard pretty fast, but it wasn't, y'know, a love at first sight sort of situation." There was definitely something at first sight but 'love' is not really the word for that... "Had to get to know him, you know. I mean, I knew of him before I got here, there's a play based on the book he's from, but it's, y'know, different. Obviously."

[wickedwit]

"Rather like getting to know me, I suppose," Claudius says, cheer in his voice even if it still surprises him. Dionysus is a very dear friend, but he's also the god of drama who's seen every single performance of Claudius played as a villain. "From the moment we met, I think thou hast tried to know me as I am, and not judged me by repute alone. Of course thou wouldst do the same for Étienne."

[vineleaves]

"Of course," Dionysus says with a shrug. "I wouldn't want someone to judge me based on plays about me they'd seen."

[wickedwit]

Claudius laughs, mostly at himself. "And yet I was so addled when I met thee, because I'd heard such wonders about thee. Reputation can matter a touch too much with me," he says, which is a bold admission. Reputation does matter, of course, but Claudius is willing to concede when he's unhelpfully obsessed. Just a touch. "Of course I once thought my reputation would ruin me ... but thou showed'st me it has not. For that, I like thee better than any impressively distant gods who are more reputation than man. What hast thou best liked learning about thy beloved?"

[vineleaves]

"Everything," he says rather quickly, and then laughs a bit at himself. "That sounds incredibly like a cop-out, but it -- honestly it's true. He's not the main character of the book, and it's a very long book apparently, filled with a lot of ... events." Look he's been told that there's like 70 pages about the sewer system. Sure he has all the time in the world to have read the book but he ain't got that much time. "So to cut it down to a point where you'd be able to fit the important bits of plot in to something with a relatively normal run time means there's not a ton of time for revealing, oh say for instance, every single hobby someone has. So just, y'know, getting to know everything about him has been truly a gift, whether it's sitting with him while he paints or watching him kickbox -- oh, Claudius, if you haven't been present for that you're truly missing out -- or any of the other hobbies he's got, or learning more about his past, or -- or that look he gets in his eyes when he's just suddenly gotten an idea for something completely ridiculous and silly and stupid to do but that you know he's going to do no matter what, because it'll make someone laugh..."

[wickedwit]

"A boxer?" Claudius laughs, delighted by that detail, which is new to him. "Well, I have oft admired the muscles of his back, and wondered with what sport he shaped them. Boxing!"

[vineleaves]

"You'll have to watch him practice some time, dear, it's beautiful."

[wickedwit]

"Like watching him dance, I imagine," Claudius says, rather thrilled by the prospect. "Or watching Sagramore and Laertes spar -- but swordfighting is a sport of gentlemen, know thou. In all my years of taking in genteel entertainments, boxing was outside my sphere. I think meeting someone like Grantaire at all was outside my sphere. That was his initial draw for me," he adds in tones of fond reminiscence. "He was indifferent to God and to politics, covered in blood from a recent rebellion -- but the more I spoke to him, the sweeter and kinder I saw he was, and the more I wished to know about him. "

[vineleaves]

"He's so sweet and so kind, isn't he," Dionysus says. "Though getting him to admit as much can be like pulling teeth sometimes."

[wickedwit]

“Oh, I order him to," Claudius says, without any particular shame. “Or at least to endure the compliment. Next time I should make him repeat it back to me.”

[vineleaves]

"Oh, yeah, I'm not very good at giving out orders," he says, still with a tone like they're talking about monogrammed hand towels again.

[wickedwit]

“No, for a god, thou givest few commandments,” Claudius says with utmost fondness. “Thou art a liberator, after all. And thy praise is freely-given. We should seduce Étienne together sometime; I think our strengths would complement each other.” This, too, is said in a tone of genteel invitation, as if he were proposing a tea party or tennis match.

[vineleaves]

"Oh! That would be a lot of fun, actually."

[wickedwit]

"Oh, I always have fun when Étienne's about. And I like to see him loved," Claudius says, smile turning tender. "Know thou, books and musical entertainments aside, I think he's rather used to being a side character in his own life. Full of fine figures of speech and incisive observations for everyone else, but few for himself. Even fewer flattering. He deserves the focus and full-hearted adoration thou hast for him."

[vineleaves]

“He deserves… everything I could possibly ever give him, and more,” Dionysus says, soft and warm. Getting Étienne to admit as much is another story entirely. But they’ve been working on it, of course.

[wickedwit]

"We're in agreement, then. I'm lucky to have so many allies in love here," he says in a teasing tone, though it is a rare and wondrous thing. Claudius's old watchword was secrecy -- he spoke seldom of his lovers, even to wish them well. In Elsinore, his well wishes were sometimes more reason for King Hamlet to target somebody.

[vineleaves]

"We are quite a nice little polycule, huh?"

[wickedwit]

“A polycule,” Claudius repeats with delight. “Is that what we’re calling it? It sounds Greek — like you yourself, I suppose.”

[vineleaves]

He laughs. "I guess partially. I believe it's a combination of 'polyamory' and 'molecule', because if you draw a little diagram of everyone involved with lines going between who's in a relationship with who, it sort of looks like how scientists draw pictures of molecules."

[wickedwit]

“I adore pictures of molecules,” Claudius says with utter sincerity, leaning upon the counter. “It’s fascinating to imagine the connective bonds at the heart of all matter. Attractive forces, you know.” The last he says with an illustrative circling of his hands.