[ closed post: the heavy is the root of the light ]

[lightbearinglord]

His promise has been kept. Gideon has seen Aornis' body, and the conclusive nature of her death can't be denied. When Lan Wangji drew back the covering of his own robe, there was nothing, no lingering spirit. There was only a body.

He finds his way to the game room for the third time that day, weary. It has emptied of all its occupants now. The television has been shut off. Lan Wangji suspects that he spots one of SecUnit's drones, but he doesn't have the heart to look more closely. He is not trudging -- not in reality, not when he has his body trained so impeccably to obey him -- but he feels a certain heaviness of limb as he crosses the room's threshold again. His robes are flecked with blood and there are still traces of dried blood on his face, though the glass shard wounds that bled there are scabbing over by now. Memories keep plucking at him with demanding fingers, trying for his attention, and he continues to dismiss them as best he can, with every scrap of discipline that he has.

The room has been emptied, more accurately, of all its occupants but one. Claudius, who waited to meet him just as he asked. Lan Wangji could easily make an excuse for this request -- he and Claudius worked together on this plan for so long, coordinating what felt like a thousand game pieces and meticulously documenting every move and discovery they made. It would be easy to tell himself that he merely wants to bring finality to their efforts by going over the details of the battle, nothing more. It isn't untrue. But he knows that, in fact, most of what he wants is to see his friend. He wants the comfort of his presence and of the fact that they've accomplished what they meant to accomplish, as unclean as it feels now. They're done, and no one else had to die for it.

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[lightbearinglord]

Lan Wangji sits with the question in silence. Some of the mundane details of reality are filtering back into his awareness -- there is blood on his hands, on his face, a little on his robes. There are things that need his attention. But nothing is quite so urgent as it was before, when anything or anyone might be taken from them without warning. "It will be well," he says at last. "I would rather know and remember everything. Even what is painful to know and remember."

[wickedwit]

"As would I. I would be a daring hypocrite otherwise -- you advised me once on matter already, when Galahad wasn't himself, and I was considering going the same way. What was it you said?" It's a rhetorical device, nothing more -- Claudius knows exactly what Lan Wangji said. "Your regrets are lighting the path. Without them, how could you know the way forward?"

[lightbearinglord]

That look of affection, still in place, solidifies itself anew, Lan Wangji's eyes terribly soft as he looks at Claudius. Those words lead back to another memory he would have hated to lose, one of their earliest conversations. He was so uncertain then of what their friendship might entail; he only knew that he wanted to do what was right, to be whatever a friend could be. Slightly overcome, he finds Claudius' hand again and presses it in both of his. He says nothing. Claudius will know himself understood in that silence.

"The body," he says, after a time. "Luo Binghe asked me to see to it." Frankly, even if he had felt inclined to speak generally, he would not have argued or wanted to leave its care to Luo Binghe. "I took Gideon to see it, as promised. She wants to tend to it. I told her to speak with you."

[wickedwit]

"Thou know'st I think little of him ordering thee about like a servant," Claudius says with a dryness. He presses back those blood-stained hands. "But it must be seen to. Gideon -- she's lived long beside death, methinks. She's mentioned dungeons full of empty cradles and attacks by revenant saints in the same casual breath I once used to speak of my disastrous flirtation in the kitchen. Only I was trying to make it sound like an everyday occurrence, when it wasn't. I think such things were her everyday. I trust her knowledge about what to do with dead bodies, certainly ... and I've more than enough experience with soldiers who didn't make it." Sometimes, in moods of extravagant self-hatred, he even entertains the thought that those were his first kills. He failed to save them, perhaps even made then worse with war-time medicine, and there were times when he knew a sleeping draught was simply a way to a gentler death. "I will aid her an I can."

[lightbearinglord]

Lan Wangji won't thank Claudius, in deference to their agreement, but Claudius can likely read the gratitude into his slight drain of tension and his weary expression. "Mn. She took me for a necromancer." He would not even use that word for what Wei Ying does, but it certainly comes closer. Regardless, he is relieved to have passed off this responsibility, more relieved, quite literally, than he can say. "I have my share of experience with dead bodies, but--" This hesitation is not a reflection of trepidation about expressing himself to Claudius, only of the necessity of organizing his mind before he speaks. "I would rather share this burden," he admits, after a moment. The corpse of their enemy, who would have carved their minds to pieces for her own ends, who killed one of their own -- and yet whose remains must be shown care and respect. It is a complicated sort of burden.

[wickedwit]

Claudius smiles, and there's pride in the smile. So often he's thought of Lan Wangji as an elder brother, regardless of their respective ages -- as Gertrude was his elder sister, and a queen, at that. He understands, nowm why Lan Wangji asked that they be equals. Claudius admired Gertrude, sought to emulate her in her grace and charm and deft social insight, sought her pride like sunlight. But whenever they argued, they argued about care. They argued about who had the right, about who their burdens belonged to, both loath to let go even a little. They fell back on roles to cloak their plain desires: brother and sister, man and woman, courtier and queen. If he were any sort of man, he thought, he should've been able to protect the woman he loved. But she saw him as her sweet, soft-hearted brother and tried to shield him.

She was right -- Claudius is soft-hearted, and even sweet when he wishes. It's that soft heart that floods with warmth and fondness for his chosen brother. "Lay thy burdens down," he murmurs. "Go to thy husband, let him cosset and kiss thee, and worry not. We can carry this for thee."

[lightbearinglord]

Wei Ying is, after all, waiting for him, ready to draw a bath and scrub him clean of blood, to wash his hair and unspool all the idle chatter necessary to fill the air with frivolity and companionship while asking nothing of Lan Wangji in return. All his weariness aside, all the anger he feels at Luo Binghe and Aornis and every other force of injustice in the universe, Lan Wangji holds onto his good fortune. He has an impossible quantity of love and kindness surrounding him. There are people who see him, who know him, and who love him because of the man he is, fierce-hearted and doggedly loyal and painfully tender. None of it has been easy, but it has all been worth it.

"All right," he says quietly. He stands, but before he goes, he draws Claudius upright, too, and wraps him in a last embrace. It is just short of too tight.

[wickedwit]

He feels not only held, but held together, as though that the embrace were tight enough to fuse the broken pieces of him. Perhaps it has. “Oxytocin,” he says with a smile.

[lightbearinglord]

"Oxytocin," Lan Wangji agrees, absolutely serious and loyal. He frees Claudius for now, but before he goes, he gives him the smallest answering smile and says, "I'll see you tomorrow."