I Have GOT To Pick Better Habits [semi-closed post]

[summerdude]

The zombies are gone, the bodies are healed, the Magnus is exhausted. He's had an extremely strange few days. First, everyone else seems to start unloading their entire hearts at him -- unexpected! But pretty cool! -- and then he wakes up to zombies.

It really gets him thinking, is the thing. He's been practicing swordplay daily since arriving, sparring with people or against Jack, trying to keep a hand in and not let his mediocre skills atrophy. He's also been exercising in new-to-him invigorating ways, learning new stuff, meeting new people...

He likes it here. He really, really likes it here. He misses his friends back home more than words can possibly express, but if he went back to Valhalla right now, he'd miss the people here, too, some of them even equally as bad. And he doesn't want to subject these people all to Valhalla -- it's really not for everyone -- but he also can't figure out how to bring all his people here. Jack still can't rip through the barriers between worlds here like he can anywhere else in the Nine.

He likes it here... and it's becoming abundantly clear to him that he doesn't want to fight all the time anymore. The zombies have made it really, stunningly clear how much he doesn't miss Battle Practice or dying all the time. The rest has clued him into how much he likes learning new things, and talking to different kinds of people, and figuring out who he is when he's not constantly in crisis all the time, zombies aside.

But liking it here so much feels kind of like a betrayal? Especially after all the specific, deliberate choices he's made to stay in Valhalla with his people. And this sobers him, a little, blunting the rough edge of the adrenaline that's still coursing through his body.

His thoughts are distracting and, thusly preoccupied as he walks through the halls in the vague direction of his room, a shower, and a nap, he absently reaches out and returns Jack to pendant form...

And immediately passes out.

[Post intended for anyone who will be particularly upset by Magnus passing out xoxo]]

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[lightbearinglord]

The corpses have stopped coming, and Wei Ying is safe¹, and Lan Wangji is making one final sweep of the mansion. He has ensured that Claudius is still unharmed, that the grounds are clear of any further threat, that no one is in any persistent need of spiritual energy or transport or protection.

He stops dead when he sees Magnus sprawled across the hallway, his blood running abruptly very cold. Lan Wangji had thought Magnus could care for himself. He will not forgive himself if he was wrong.

In short order, he kneels and bundles Magnus into his arms. Magnus is, at the least, breathing, and this allows Lan Wangji to breathe more easily as well. He resettles Magnus' weight so that one hand is free to grasp Magnus' limp palm and pass him spiritual energy even as Lan Wangji is on the move, searching the mansion for the closest open room with a couch.

¹And very well tended to.

[summerdude]

Magnus awakes in fits and starts, jolting from a dream about Samirah and Amir talking through their wedding plans. The first thing he notices is that he's warm and safe, held tightly by some mysterious person. The second thing he notices is that the person holding him seems to be healing him. It doesn't feel like the summer he's used to, but it still crackles through him like electricity and warmth.

The third is that the person holding him is strong and, like, totally jacked.

These three pieces of information coalesce into the only possible explanation: somehow, improbably, one of his prayers got through. He turns his face into the hold, allowing himself the luxury of being truly cared for. Voice muffled by clothes, he says, "Dad?"

[lightbearinglord]

Something cracks open silently in Lan Wangji's chest, a feeling like the first time A-Yuan wedged himself into his lap at a restaurant in Yiling. He gives Magnus' hand a gentle squeeze, not stopping the flow of qi. "Magnus," he says quietly, reluctant to dispel Magnus' illusion but equally reluctant to let it continue. That would be cruel.

Spotting an innocuous and empty sitting room, he steps aside and into it, but doesn't release his hold on Magnus quite yet.

[summerdude]

Not Frey's voice. Magnus lets the sound of his name, and the vibrations of the man saying it, rumble through his body down to his very bones, and nuzzles closer.

Then he places the voice. "Hanguang-jun," he says, relieved and, to his own surprise, happy. That makes a lot more sense than his dad, who isn't really the carrying type. His eyelashes flutter and he squints his eyes open, briefly -- ah, yes, there's the familiar white robes with their heavy embroidery. He relaxes further, and only then begins to wonder why Hanguang-jun is carrying him in the first place. "What ... ? Why ... ?"

[lightbearinglord]

There comes a fresh flood of weakening relief, although Lan Wangji doesn't allow it to touch his bearing. He thinks that this must be part of why he guards his heart so closely. There is always the possibility of pain tied up with the business of love.

"You lost consciousness." Magnus seems comfortable, but Lan Wangji would like to assess him more thoroughly, so he arrays Magnus on the nearest couch with his head on Lan Wangji's lap. He does not let go of his hand.

[summerdude]

"Did we win?" It's a standard question, after battle-induced passing-outageness or revivification, more from rote than from difficulty remembering the specifics.

[lightbearinglord]

"Mn. There are no more corpses. Everyone is safe and well." Lan Wangji is glad to be able to deliver this information truthfully, glad that he took the time to determine its veracity.

[summerdude]

Magnus scrubs his free hand over his face, and then feels the weight of the pendant on his neck. "Oh," he realizes. "Shit. I picked up Jack."

[lightbearinglord]

Immediately, Lan Wangji recalls what Magnus told him the second time they met about how this works, the way that Jack can drain him. He frowns, but at least this is a situation with understandable precedent. He lets the passage of qi between them slow and stop, but continues holding onto Magnus' hand. "How do you feel now?"

[summerdude]

"Drained," Magnus says, with a rueful smile. "Between the energy drain of Jack flying me through the window and mowing down thousands of zombies on his own, plus all the sunlight and healing and fighting I did... It's been a while since I've fought like that." His smile dims. "Hanguang-jun?"

[lightbearinglord]

"I'm here." Convinced finally that Magnus will come through this, Lan Wangji lets the tiniest amount of his tension fade away.

[summerdude]

"I think," Magnus says, slowly, testing out both the thought and the act of sharing it aloud, "I don't like it."

[lightbearinglord]

Lan Wangji is silent in answer to this, his hand around Magnus' gentle but unyielding. He gazes at Magnus' face, the untidy fall of his hair and how tired he looks, too tired for a teenager. A teenager who died, and whose reward for that brave death was to die again and again, to fight again and again. Surely he has given enough.

"Then rest," he says finally, "and don't fight again. I can fight for you if it is necessary."

[onthewillowsthere]

Galahad has done an admirable job today of leaning in to the ways combat is easy and letting himself be led by his sword. He doesn't have to think to be a weapon. But now that it's over and Claudius is safe, some of that distance is leaving him.

When he sees Magnus on the floor he drops instantly to his knees beside him to check him for injury. Magnus doesn't seem hurt, and he vaguely remembers in the vast quantities of things Magnus has said to him that this might be normal? It might be something that happens after battle? He doesn't remember exactly, but--

He moves Magnus' body out of the middle of the hallway and sits beside him stubbornly, waiting for him to wake, however long that happens to be.

[summerdude]

It takes Magnus some time. He's trapped in a dream for a while -- Hearthstone and Blitzen in the Chase Space, looking worried but focused as an unfamiliar kid comes in with concerns, communicating with muted sign when the kid is turned around, rummaging through their backpack. Magnus catches his own name, and Frigg, and Alex, and quest. Which is weird, why would Frigg want Magnus and Alex for a quest? She's an extremely capable goddess and rarely even calls on her own daughter.

But eventually he twitches and then sits bolt upright, eyes wide, hand grasping at his throat. Jack's there, good; there was a fight going on outside, he has to get up and help his friends --

[onthewillowsthere]

Galahad grabs his arm. "Magnus." It's that severe tone he uses when he's giving an order, when he's trying to stay in control.

[summerdude]

Magnus's throat works, but no words emerge; just an embarrassing little croak. Galahad, he signs instead, his hands clumsy and slow. What happened?

[onthewillowsthere]

Found you, he signs back. Hurt?

[summerdude]

Magnus considers this carefully. He has a hell of a headache, but it's unclear if that's from banging it on the floor or from all the exertion or both. But other than that... he shakes his head 'no.' Disoriented, he signs. Embarrassed.

[onthewillowsthere]

Carry you? Your room?

[summerdude]

This, too, requires careful consideration. Magnus is about to sign his agreement, but it occurs to him that the idea of going back to his room -- with the broken glass from leaping through the window at the start of the day -- kind of makes him want to puke. He shivers. Would outside be better, or would it remind him of the battle, too? He wants his clearing in the woods. I don't know, with hesitant hands.

[onthewillowsthere]

My old room? Quiet. He's thinking of the room he picked as Damien, not the one where Magnus found him dying, not that there's any reason for Magnus to know that.

[summerdude]

Magnus nods. Thank you.

[onthewillowsthere]

Galahad carefully lifts Magnus up in his arms. He's stronger than he shoulder be, for a man of his height and build, and he carries Magnus with very little effort.

He wasn't Damien for very long, altogether, but there are a few touches in the room that give away the thru-line -- on the bedside table there's the crown of columbine and rosemary he made for himself the first time he met Claudius in the gardens, when Claudius held him, and two or three books of dance steps, because Laertes was teaching him to dance and he'd wanted to learn more. There's also a napkin full of sugar cookies that are essentially petrified by now.

He puts Magnus down on the bed and goes to the bathroom to get water (he closes his eyes and wills a glass into existence and when he opens the medicine cabinet there's a little paper cup there), which he brings back.

[summerdude]

Magnus curls up on his side. He's in a weird mood, emotionally torn in like six different directions. And that's on top of the adrenaline drop following a marathon of a fight. Usually when he passes out after taking Jack back in hand, he's doing it on purpose, at a specific time -- right before bed, for example, so it just turns into sleep after, or else he's in Valhalla and dead on top of taking on the strain of the fight. And something about resuscitating after death makes him more glad to be alive again than anything else. What he's learning here at the Mansion is that regular old passing out without dying first has a different emotional spectrum associated with it... and not a particularly pleasant one.

When Galahad hands him the cup, he takes it, because he's been the guy forcing water on friends plenty of times in the past and doesn't want Galahad to have to insist. He half-sits, chugging it, and then curls up again. He thinks he has his voice back, but sign still feels easier, so he sticks with it. Thank you, again.