lightbearinglord | [ closed post: delivery for Hanguang-jun ]

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[ closed post: delivery for Hanguang-jun ]

The morning after the dance¹ sees Lan Wangji in one of the better moods that has visited him in quite some time. Wei Ying was happy last night: truly happy, the kind of happiness that chases all the ghosts out of his head. It is so much better to see than the false smile that graced his face for several days following their confrontation with Jiang Wanyin.

Lan Wangji, content and light of heart for once, has found a small parlor not far off the entryway of the mansion, and he is sitting cross-legged on a floor cushion, hair down, with his qin laid out on a low table before him as he strums a few thoughtful chords. It has been some time since Lan Wangji composed something, but there was so much unfamiliar music the night prior. It has made him want to begin again.

Now, surely nothing could possibly improve his mood even more at a time like this. And surely everyone in the mansion had an equally romantic and enjoyable evening.

¹Time is a flat circle. No further questions.

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Now that the attention is on the rabbits, Crowley leans (well, slouches) against one of the walls and watches Claudius carefully hand them over.

Now that permission has been granted, Lan Wangji draws his hands out from behind his back. He takes the white rabbit first, because it reminds him the most keenly of the Cloud Recesses rabbits and because it looks slightly more nervous. He is surpassingly careful to support its spine and hind legs as he settles it into the crook of his arm; the same goes for the brown rabbit, which he settles gently next to its companion. Throughout this process, his expression remains deeply serious, but it's the seriousness of attentive care and no indication that his happiness has waned. "Have you named them?"

"I thought thou shouldst have that honor," Claudius says, with more of that play-solemnity -- but his smile has widened enough now to demonstrate his full delight. "I' faith, I wished to hear what names thou wouldst give them."

Lan Wangji looks up to catch that smile, his own eyes alight in answer. With both rabbits cradled against his chest with one arm, his other hand is free to, very gently, stroke the impossibly soft space just between their ears. The brown rabbit begins chewing on the stray ends of his hair; patiently, he tells it, "Do not do that," and tugs the hair out of its mouth to flick it over his shoulder to safety.

In fact, he is so content, and so grateful to Claudius, that not even Crowley's presence or its appallingly bad posture can deter him from an offering of his own: "Keeping pets is forbidden at the Cloud Recesses, but my first two rabbits were a gift from Wei Ying¹." Looking faintly amused at his own past infatuation, as if any of his feelings have changed in their intensity, he says, "I named them Wei Ying and Lan Zhan. For these two, I will think more deeply."

¹Technically true, but not really an accurate depiction of the circumstances of their acquisition.

Claudius has already perceived what he believes to be marks of an exploratory, curious personality in the brown rabbit, so he's not surprised to see it testing its environs and chewing on tempting pieces of hair. He's so proud it's respecting boundaries gently set! Parenting truly is so rewarding.

"Fine, commemorative names," Claudius laughs. "Though I can well imagine Wei Wuxian teasing thee for thy originality. Such sweet creatures should be spoken to with fond names ... and I hear thy fondness, for little Wei Ying and little Lan Zhan, first gifts of thy youthful misadventures. Dost see, Crowley, how fondly a misadventure can be remembered, how romantic remembrance makes it?" He did resolve not to over-meddle, to let Crowley make his own mistakes, but this isn't meddling. It's just heartening conversation¹.

¹ He also never said he would stop meddling.

"Hm?" Crowley asks, snapping his head up from where he's been lurking¹. "Sure, yeah, the rabbits are cute."

¹One of the few standard demonic activities he excels at.

Lan Wangji narrows his eyes the slightest bit at Crowley. At the wedding dance, he paid very little attention to anything aside from Wei Ying's singular beauty, but he was occasionally drawn into other conversations and pursuits, and he does seem, now, to recall that he saw Aziraphale flitting about the room without Crowley in evidence.

"Aziraphale," he says again, looking first at Crowley, and then at Claudius, with the most infinitesimal quirk of a meaningful eyebrow. Meanwhile, he strokes the white rabbit's ears in an effort to soothe its nerves.

Claudius sighs, rather grateful for Lan Wangji's insight -- both rabbits are relatively calm, but the white rabbit does need the most soothing. Also: Crowley.

"Aziraphale may also come to reflect on the past with romantic fondness. Nothing's as hopeless as Crowley believes. And Crowley, I will note, Aziraphale would never have conjured a single rabbit for me if you weren't present. He certainly wouldn't have conjured two."

Crowley sighs. "It's because we're used to doing favors for each other. He performs a temptation, I perform a minor miracle. I provide the wine, he tells a silly but ultimately entertaining story-- and he likes it when I listen to what he tells me to do," he adds, a little sullenly. "When he looked at me, his expression said Crowley, whatever you do, do not make me summon a nigh-unimaginable amount of rabbits. I had to go along with it."

Crowley is not helping his point or any point. We're not even sure why he's telling Claudius all of this.¹

¹And that's not even in the footnotes.

This description of devotion softens Lan Wangji's face anew. It is surprisingly familiar: I provide the wine, he tells a silly but ultimately entertaining story. He, too, would do nearly anything that Wei Ying asked of him. He hid bottles of Emperor's Smile under the floorboards of the jingshi for years for the hypothetical enjoyment of a dead man.

"You love him," he says, as if in agreement with some point that Crowley has made. Perhaps he is being overly blunt, but what is the use in dancing around this?

Claudius is also pinning him with a Look, so there's no escaping the statement. Crowley desperately wishes he had an emotional support rabbit of his own right now.

He nods, a nod that's simultaneously both solemn and awkward. "For a long time," he confirms quietly. "There's just been so much-- stuff in the way of it that I didn't realize until now."

Unfortunately for poor Crowley, the weight of Lan Wangji's gaze on him is quite heavy just now. It may, at least, help with the utter solemnity of his demeanor that he is now using one finger to pet the brown rabbit's cheek. "It was the same for Wei Ying."

"I presume thou mean'st the man," teases Claudius, "not the rabbit he gave thee." He smiles, and it's full of its own fondness -- Lan Wangji's romantic stories¹ always move him. "No doubt he told himself, like a demon tempting an angel, that he was only encouraging thee to break the rules of thy sect ... but looking back and reminiscing, he'd given thee a sweet and loving gift. You were like that, Crowley. You told me about the kindnesses you'd done for Aziraphale, with such casual disavowals -- the same way you talk about exchanging favors, as if favors can't also be romantic gestures²."

¹ Even if those are stories are one sentence.
² It's kind of like when you have a crush on a guy, and then you meet him as a kid, and he's so cute you want to make him a plate of crispels. And then things are weird for a while, but you clear the air while under the influence of a truth spell, and later at the wedding dance you arranged for him and his husband, his husband points out you're in love. And then you think back and realize the plate of crispels was a romantic gesture. This is just a random example.

"Sure, maybe on my part, and maybe I see that now, but--" Crowley gestures, a mildly helpless one. For some reason, it suddenly all feels so overwhelming. "Remember when I took that nap for a week? I think I need to do that now. Except I just need to just sit and think for a week."

A little frown pinches Lan Wangji's brow. He pets the white rabbit's cheek as well, in order to remain equitable with his affections, as he says, measured, "Meditation can be helpful." Still, he tosses a glance of concern at Claudius about the matter.

"I have heard good things about meditation," Claudius says, in light-heartedly helpful tones that belie the equally concerned look he gives Lan Wangji. "But you know, the inclination to sit for weeks on end and think can also be a sign of melancholia. Is this a purposeful, meditative sort of thinking, or is it more like brooding?" Was Crowley just 'taking a nap because he was bored' during most of the 19th century, or did something make him melancholy? These are questions Claudius worries about.

Crowley completely and absolutely misses these looks of concern. "No no, it's just... there's thousands of years of history. It's all jostled in my head along with endless memories of--" He gestures vaguely towards the ceiling, the sky. "It takes a while to sift through all of it. A week for me is like... like if a human sat and thought and, er, I don't know, blogged or whatever they do for half an hour."

Whatever blogging is, this explanation does little to alleviate Lan Wangji's apprehension about Crowley's wellbeing. He can hardly claim to understand thousands of years of history, nor would he pretend to, but he believes he understands something like the mortal equivalent of such a thing. "After the events surrounding Wei Ying's death," he offers, keeping his voice even, "I required three years in seclusion."

The admission surprises Claudius, having heard the truth of Lan Wangji’s seclusion while under a truth spell — a complex situation, to say the least. Someone who doesn’t make a study of Lan Wangji’s minute expressions might not notice, but Claudius admires how even he keeps his voice, with the kind of calm that wouldn’t disturb an anxious rabbit.

It’s gratifying, in its way, to see one friend share concern for another. Sincere concern wasn’t a feature of Claudius’s more shallow friendships, and Claudius feels far more for Crowley than certain pining dukes he’d pretend to console while quietly mocking in Ilyria. There’s a compulsion to protect his friend’s heart, to surround him with commiserating kindness and warmth — and, once again, someone who hasn’t made a study of Lan Wangji might not see the warmth in him. But Claudius does.

He stays quiet, proffering his fingers to the brown rabbit in the crook of Lan Wangji’s arm.

Crowley looks up and over at Lan Wangji; he's learned a lot about him since the first time they met¹ but there's still a lot he doesn't know, clearly. "Must have been agonizing," he offers, sympathy in exchange for a personal piece of information.

It brings him back to the time when the bookshop was burning, the fact that he couldn't find Aziraphale (though he thought he could still feel his presence on Earth somewhere, but how much of that was in his head?) -- but with everything happening, he still had to swallow down the panic to deal with the rest of the Apocalypse. He can't imagine thinking that Aziraphale was permanently discorporated -- or worse, gone back to Heaven for all of eternity.

¹His name, for one, and the fact that he isn't divorced.

It is easier now, with the gift of hindsight, to look back on his seclusion without excessive pain, but agonizing is an entirely apt description. Lan Wangji had no way to know that Wei Ying would, through an accident of fate and the misfortune of others, return to him years later. He was dead, torn apart by his own unorthodox cultivation, with no body to recover and no one alive who loved him¹ to share in Lan Wangji's grief.

Lan Wangji resettles the rabbits in both of his arms and lowers them slightly so that they are easier for Claudius to reach as they snuffle at his fingers. "Mn." After all of their endless difficulties communicating, perhaps it is fitting that in this, he and Crowley should need very few words to understand one another.

¹Sorry, Jiang Cheng. I know you love Wei Wuxian, but Lan Wangji doesn't think you do.

As Claudius delicately strokes the cheek of the little brown rabbit, he reflects and realizes he's also unfamiliar with the practice of friends exchanging genuine sympathy and vulnerability when neither of them is drunk. It's really not the time for him to exclaim aloud that he's just realized another Danish cultural problem. Or to say he went into his own, self-imposed isolation when he feared losing Gertrude to the king's wrathful jealousies, and came away with the idea that the only solution was to have another king. He can't recommend retreating to one's own thoughts, even if he doesn't regret the means by which he freed Gertrude.

"Crowley," he says instead, "you had something to ask Lan Wangji, didn't you?"

"No?" Crowley says, raising an eyebrow at Claudius.

Claudius sighs, and rolls his eyes. Honestly, Crowley does have too many thoughts in that head of his. Claudius can't blame him for forgetting small things when his mind's crowded with pining. "Lan Wangji," he says, smiling. "Thou toldst me once that when Wei Wuxian returned to life, he played a song that thou remembered'st, because thou hadst written it for him. Wouldst thou play it for Crowley to hear, too?"

Whatever Lan Wangji expected the question to be, a request to hear this song was not it. He looks at Crowley with muted surprise and hesitates, but only for a moment. There was a time when no one but Wei Ying had ever heard that melody, but that time is past. Wei Ying played it on a stalk of bamboo for the juniors and Wen Qionglin and even Jiang Wanyin to hear. Also, Lan Wangji is abysmal at saying no to people he loves.

Carefully, he returns the rabbits to Claudius' arms and tells them, still quite serious, "Shushu will hold you now."

With those two safely ensconced, Lan Wangji can return to sit behind his qin, shaking out his sleeves crisply and setting his hands to the strings. He looks up and waits for Crowley and Claudius to sit as well.

Edited 2024-01-04 21:52 (UTC)

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