[ 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]

"What is a lot to you?" Lan Wangji asks -- reasonably, he thinks.

[summerdude]

Oh no, oh no no no, it's worse than Magnus thought! "Like, um. More often than not, maybe?"

[lightbearinglord]

"Not a lot," Lan Wangji concludes, then. His frown deepens again, and he looks at Magnus in the hope that he will explain why he asked in the first place.

[summerdude]

"So, like, a medium amount?" Magnus asks and sighs. "Sometimes I just, like. Get the feeling that you're really sad." It's different, Magnus thinks, from what he's pretty sure are Galahad's depressive episodes, and therefore harder to quantify and understand.

[lightbearinglord]

"I am," Lan Wangji allows, "sometimes." He is at once touched by Magnus' concern and quietly bemused. "I know no one who is happy at all times."

[summerdude]

"I guess," allows Magnus, but he's still stubbornly convinced Lan Wangji might be sad more often than 'sometimes.'

[lightbearinglord]

"Magnus," Lan Wangji says after a moment, able to tell, if nothing else, that his answers have not been satisfying. "What gives you the feeling that I am so unhappy?"

[summerdude]

Magnus makes a face. "It's another vibe," he confesses. "But like, especially when you're, like. Homesick I guess."

[lightbearinglord]

Lan Wangji allows another moment to pass. "I do miss Gusu," he says, more softly now. "I think that I always will. I had never called any other place my home until I came here."

[summerdude]

"I get that," he nods.

[lightbearinglord]

"But," he says, "it is a bearable homesickness. It is not the most painfully I have ever missed something." And he has the object of that most painful grief here with him, in his bed every night.

[summerdude]

"Wei Wuxian, right?"

[lightbearinglord]

"Right." He watches Magnus' face, cautious.

[summerdude]

Magnus nods. "Yeah," he says. "I would miss Alex, too."

[lightbearinglord]

"Mn." Lan Wangji takes one of his customary pauses, trying to sort through what he could have done or said to make Magnus so concerned. He has been weary often recently, burdened and distracted by the looming threat of Aornis, and intermittently worried for the people he loves -- but Magnus knows all of that. "I am glad to be here as often as I miss home. Wei Ying is with me. As are you."

[summerdude]

Magnus flushes. "Okay," he says. "Good."

[lightbearinglord]

The look Lan Wangji gives him is almost openly affectionate. "When I visited with my brother," he says, "Wei Ying was still in our bed. I was glad. It meant I didn't have to choose whether to stay here or return to Gusu."

[summerdude]

"Do you think you could have gone?" Magnus asks. "If you, like, wanted to?"

[lightbearinglord]

"I don't know," he says, honestly. "I was there." He smelled the incense and tea of the inside of the hanshi. He was certain that he could hear the very distant sounds of junior disciples at their morning recitations. "It felt possible."

[summerdude]

Magnus nods, thoughtful. "I guess I just want you to be okay here. I guess I just want everyone to be okay here."

[lightbearinglord]

"I do, too." Lan Wangji isn't so certain that it is possible -- but he wants it for them all, this haphazard community of theirs. "I will be more okay when Shen Yuan's murderer is no longer a threat."

[summerdude]

"You can say that again," says Magnus, finally relaxing. His and Claudius's surprise will help, too, he thinks.

[lightbearinglord]

"I will be more okay when Shen Yuan's murderer is no longer a threat," Lan Wangji repeats, along with a tiny flash of a smile. "Is that a dad joke?"

[summerdude]

Magnus snorts. "Yeah, Hanguang-jun," he says. "That's a dad joke."

[lightbearinglord]

"I believe I understand the term now." He is very serious now, as if in deep contemplation of the definitional boundaries of a dad joke.