[ closed post: the sun shines brightly ]

[lightbearinglord]

It has been a strange handful of weeks, but Lan Wangji can accept strange far more easily than he could accept the pain that rippled inexorably outward from Shen Yuan's death, seeming to leave no one untouched. The parade of visitors was unusual, and thought-provoking, but not painful. Lan Wangji enjoyed meeting most of them. Even Galahad, whose empty politeness made him feel hollow in turn -- there was a quiet satisfaction in bringing him to the rabbits and watching his stunned expression at the simple joy of holding something small and vulnerable and trusting.

As for himself, the memories are so abstract as to be incomprehensible. There is something there, enough something to assure him that Aornis had no hand in this specific strangeness. But he can barely grasp at the details. He remembers embracing Magnus, but that signifies nothing out of the ordinary. He remembers sparring with Gideon; he remembers that he needs to ask Sagramore for fresh poetry. He remembers the loss of Wei Ying, newer and crueler than it typically is these days, but when he came back to himself the next morning, Wei Ying was there, his head tucked beneath Lan Wangji's chin and his ankle hooked around Lan Wangji's hip.

The least enjoyable of his encounters, at the least, provided him with something important. He has not removed the locket from his qiankun pouch. He wants to waste no time in bringing it to its intended recipient. He performs the first of his morning routines -- his meditation, his patrol, Wei Ying's breakfast -- and then goes to look for Magnus at the camp.

Comments

[lightbearinglord]

"Jokes with groan-worthy punchlines." Lan Wangji's eyes narrow slightly. "Is that what you want for your comedy show?"

[summerdude]

"Anything that comes to you," Magnus says, serenely. "It doesn't have to be groan-worthy. You tell really good regular jokes too."

[lightbearinglord]

Lan Wangji has some trouble believing this, but he won't argue. If he can make Magnus laugh, that is a good thing and he is uninterested in troubling it. Fondly, he brushes back a stray lock of Magnus' hair -- a little unnecessarily, because Magnus' hair is barely long enough to require it. "Mn." The verdant nature of their surroundings, and the warmth, reminds him: "You gave your bedroom to Apollo."

[summerdude]

"Yeah," says Magnus. "He, like, sucks extremely, but that doesn't mean he shouldn't have a room good for a sun guy."

[lightbearinglord]

The look he gives Magnus is overtly fond. "I believe I startled him."

[summerdude]

"Why?" Magnus asks, and then he grins. "Did you hear me and Uncle D almost had him convinced I was one of his kids? When he first got here?"

[lightbearinglord]

The very corners of Lan Wangji's eyes crinkle with momentary amusement. He nearly asks, Only almost? before he remembers that Apollo is the god of truth. "If he was uncertain, perhaps he deserved the deception." He doesn't have much patience for men who father so many children they cannot keep track of them. As for Magnus' question, he adds, "I had come to tend to your plants. We didn't expect one another."

[summerdude]

"He was extremely freaking uncertain. He actually believed it, but we backed down when he freaked out about it. I didn't, like, want to be a dick or whatever. even though.... He's from my world, you know," Magnus says, and frowns. "He was a huge dick to my cousin and her boyfriend. He showed up wearing my cousin's boyfriend's clothes." His tone is more angry than scandalized, but there's a good bit of both in it.

And then he forces himself to redirect his thoughts! "You -- oh my gods, Hanguang-jun, is that why they looked so good when I collected them?" He pulls him into another hug. "I planted them in the ground back at camp after I gave him the room."

[lightbearinglord]

"Mn." Lan Wangji said he would look after Magnus' plants, and so he did, although he is far from the most qualified person at the mansion to have done so. Claudius provided a helpful consult when it became obvious Magnus was not reclaiming that bedroom anytime soon. Still, if Magnus thinks they looked good, he must have done well enough at meeting their needs. He is perfectly content to receive the renewed embrace, settling Magnus back into his arms. "Good. Your cousin's boyfriend's clothes? Why?"

[summerdude]

"Heck if I know, Hanguang-jun. To be a dick?"

[lightbearinglord]

"He has been pleasant enough to me, but we have met only twice."

[summerdude]

Magnus isn't impressed, but he also doesn't want to dwell. "Anyway," he says. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you I gave up the room."

[lightbearinglord]

Magnus is being exceptionally endearing today, but he is also tending toward being intermittently confusing. "Why?"

[summerdude]

"You could've avoided an awkward encounter? I didn't know you were taking care of my plants."

[lightbearinglord]

"I told you that I would." In the interest of giving credit where it is due, he also says, "Crowley repaired the window." At Lan Wangji's request, but he still performed the actual repair.

[summerdude]

"Oh. I forgot."

[lightbearinglord]

"About Crowley? Understandable." In this case, he is deliberately misinterpreting Magnus in the interest of gently mocking Crowley.

[summerdude]

"Hanguang-juuun."

[lightbearinglord]

"Mn?" Lan Wangji looks down at Magnus with his face perfectly expressionless.

[summerdude]

"Again with the dad jokes!!"

[lightbearinglord]

"Was that groan-worthy?"

[summerdude]

"The groaniest," Magnus assures him, and then he sobers up a little. "I know it's, like, a super low bar or whatever, but I think it's really cool that you read a bunch of baby books when Sunny got here."

[lightbearinglord]

That is a low bar indeed, and Lan Wangji's expression shifts from put-upon blankness to muted surprise. "Did Wei Ying tell you that?"

[summerdude]

"Um, no? Sunny did? It..." He pulls up that specific mental note. "Struck her as the same sort of thing her brother Klaus would do, so it made her feel at home."

[lightbearinglord]

Some additional surprise, shaded with warmth, flickers its way through Lan Wangji's eyes. The loneliness of Sunny's plight strikes him whenever he thinks of her. "You understand her, too?"