onthewillowsthere: (serious business)
Galahad son of Lancelot ([personal profile] onthewillowsthere) wrote2024-07-22 01:40 pm
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[closed post -- training]

The day after Evil Twin Magnus leaves, Galahad shows up for his training with Lan Wangji exactly as he always does (although later in the day, because Lan Wangji asked him to wait until afternoon to meet) -- if Lan Wangji were going solely on his appearance, he'd see absolutely nothing out of order. He throws himself into the sword forms with his usual focus. But he's gripping the hilt of his sword too tightly, and his movements are tense; he's never graceful, but today he's almost clumsy, and each failure or misstep only seems to pull him tighter, like an overwound watch.
lightbearinglord: (hanguang-jun)

[personal profile] lightbearinglord 2024-08-22 05:25 pm (UTC)(link)
Lan Wangji, in a slightly more domestic mood now, settles for sliding his feet into his house slippers before they go. He does, however, recall Bichen to his side before actually directing them down the stairs to the smaller kitchen he most often uses.
lightbearinglord: (twin jade)

[personal profile] lightbearinglord 2024-08-22 08:30 pm (UTC)(link)
The silence is a pleasant one. Lan Wangji told Claudius that he likes to be around people who talk, and that has not changed, but the companionable quiet and their unspoken understanding is equally welcome. They will pick up training tomorrow, but for now he thinks it will be better to turn their sights to a more mundane task. He leads them to the kitchen and begins carefully washing the teacups, passing each item to Galahad for drying as he finishes.
lightbearinglord: (changyang)

[personal profile] lightbearinglord 2024-08-23 04:32 pm (UTC)(link)
Lan Wangji finishes washing the teapot itself and passes that, too, to Galahad. It gives him a moment to think about how he wants to answer. "We were alone," he says, then. "We had already performed our first two bows in the family shrine at Lotus Pier. Only one remained." It didn't matter that, when he took those two bows with Wei Ying beside him, he barely dared to hope that they meant what he wanted them to mean. He would have married him then if he had thought it was wanted. He would have married him the day he came back to life. "Wei Ying had already threatened to dunk me in a pig's cage for taking him once before we were married. We bowed to each other before the next time."
lightbearinglord: (in blue)

[personal profile] lightbearinglord 2024-08-23 07:47 pm (UTC)(link)
Lan Wangji notices Galahad's flushed face, naturally, but he would never draw attention to such a thing. "The first is to the heavens and the earth," he says. "The second is to the parents. The last is to each other."
lightbearinglord: (moonlight)

[personal profile] lightbearinglord 2024-08-23 09:07 pm (UTC)(link)
"Mn. It is a deep bow performed while kneeling, one of especial respect."
lightbearinglord: (tiny smile in profile)

[personal profile] lightbearinglord 2024-08-24 02:21 am (UTC)(link)
"We had already said everything we needed to say." A fleetingly tender look crosses his face, a memory of the sweetest part of Guanyin Temple.
lightbearinglord: (golden)

[personal profile] lightbearinglord 2024-08-24 06:22 pm (UTC)(link)
"You and Claudius will make vows." Claudius always has more to say, a thought he has with the utmost fondness for his friend.
lightbearinglord: (profile)

[personal profile] lightbearinglord 2024-08-24 08:12 pm (UTC)(link)
Lan Wangji nods; this is obviously the case. There were not many dishes in the first place, so he turns from the sink to look at Galahad. "When Wei Ying told me what he felt," he says after a small pause, "I couldn't speak at all."
lightbearinglord: (hanguang-jun)

[personal profile] lightbearinglord 2024-08-25 12:24 am (UTC)(link)
"Yes." He makes eye contact, direct and serious, to show that he understands and that he understands so completely that no further elaboration is required. "I had to borrow his words and give them back to him."
lightbearinglord: (quietly happy)

[personal profile] lightbearinglord 2024-08-25 02:27 am (UTC)(link)
Lan Wangji smiles, or something close to it, his eyes softening again. He ducks his head as if he could possibly hide how wholly it makes him ache with sentiment to recall Wei Ying, absurd and brave and beautiful, calling out to him across Guanyin Temple because it could not wait even one moment longer. "You're really great," he recites, low, the words polished with the number of times he has turned them over in his memory. "I like you. I fancy you. I love you. I can't leave you. I whatever you. I want to night-hunt with you for the rest of my life. I don't want anyone but you. It can't be anyone but you."
lightbearinglord: (changyang)

[personal profile] lightbearinglord 2024-08-25 09:31 am (UTC)(link)
He lets himself stay in that memory, the stunned amazement still close at hand and still powerful enough to coax the rest of the world to fall away, whether that amounts to a quiet kitchen in a different world or a crowded temple, constructed by the scheming chief cultivator, at the end of a long investigation. "It had been more than twenty years since I fell in love with him," he says. "I felt too much."
lightbearinglord: (sparkly)

[personal profile] lightbearinglord 2024-08-25 06:18 pm (UTC)(link)
Time and repetition have made the words less overwhelming, but Lan Wangji is silent anyway as he thinks of them, of holding onto Wei Ying as tightly as he could hold onto anything. He had sealed his own meridians to buy Wei Ying's life from Jin Guangyao; he had only the strength of his body with which to fold him into his arms and sink into wild, impossible happiness.
lightbearinglord: (ornamented)

[personal profile] lightbearinglord 2024-08-26 03:11 am (UTC)(link)
Because he knows that Galahad will not mind, he allows himself to be quiet and still for another stretch of time. The kitchen is silent, too, and clean, because he keeps it that way, aside from the tidy collection of their tea accoutrements drying. At length, he lifts his eyes to Galahad's again. "Do you know yet what you will say?"

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