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]]

Comments

[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.

[onthewillowsthere]

While Magnus drinks, he watches; he signs too much?

[summerdude]

Magnus nods. Not you, he clarifies. Today.

[onthewillowsthere]

Galahad nods. Stay with you?

[summerdude]

Please, Magnus says. Unless you have to go. That's okay.

[onthewillowsthere]

He shakes his head, and lies down beside Magnus, slipping his arms around him.

[summerdude]

Magnus trembles at the touch, curling even harder -- this time, into it. The day is catching up to him. Not just the exertion he and Jack both spent, and the desperate terror of fighting zombies and trying to heal what he could while convincing himself that the fight was a good thing, but his confusion about where he really belongs, and the poignancy with which he misses his friends, and the desperation with which -- if it weren't for them and the Chase Space -- he's realizing he'd never want to go back to Valhalla again. Too much, he thinks, and then Galahad's safe, and then he's bursting into tears. It's ugly crying, too, loud and messy, a jarring counterpoint to the silent way they've been communicating since Galahad found him.

[onthewillowsthere]

Galahad doesn't have the words for this, but he pulls Magnus close against himself and just holds him. If Percival were here, he'd know what to do. Percival is as certain as the path of the sun. Percival is so like Magnus, bright and shining, and he would know what to say, he'd know how to make this better.

He has no idea what to do. He just holds his friend.

[summerdude]

This, as it turns out, is exactly what Magnus needs. He cries for a good few minutes, deep, body-shaking sobs, and then he hiccups on his tears, and then he snorts at the sound and hiccups again.

"Do you know what bowling is?" he asks against Galahad's shoulder, voice thick with tears, hitching on the words, and hoarse with disuse. He clears his throat and hiccups halfway through. Fuck, he's a mess.

[onthewillowsthere]

"I know what a bowl is," Galahad says tentatively.

[summerdude]

Magnus snorts once more. "It's a game," he says. He clears his throat again, and his voice comes slightly -- but only slightly -- easier. "There's a bowling ball, which is really heavy, with finger holes, and you launch it down a slick, narrow wood surface called a lane. You're trying to knock down ten pins at the end... they're like, wood cylinders that are shaped like wine bottles?" He gestures with his hands, but doesn't bother moving back from Galahad's hold, so it's doubtful Galahad can see the shape he's making. "And they're arranged in a triangle. If you don't aim right, the ball will fall into gutters... troughs?... on the side of the lane, and you won't get any points."

[onthewillowsthere]

He can only half imagine it, but he nods. "Do you want to play?"

[summerdude]

Magnus shakes his head, and then considers. "Maybe," he says, and shakes his head again, hiccuping. "Jotunns -- giants, especially mountain giants, really like illusion magic where I'm from. This one time, me and my friends were guided to a jotunn bowling alley," (Magnus had had a series of visions leading them there) "and we had to compete against them in a series of rigged contests for quest information and also a five-minute head start on running for our lives. Sam beat Fear in an axe-throwing competition; Hearth set the new world pinball record; Blitz did extreme makeover: drunk giant edition, and me and Alex had to bowl for our lives. I'm okay at it, but I hadn't bowled in years, and Alex never had before. Plus they were cheating."

[onthewillowsthere]

"Do you want to try it now it doesn't matter?"

[summerdude]

"With you?" Magnus asks, and nods. "Yeah. Someday. But --" A shaky breath, deep enough that it almost dislodges another spate of tears. He lets it go slowly. "The giants set up a magic portal on me and Alex's lane, so that our balls were traveling, basically, this really long road that was impossible for a bowling ball to get down, while their lane was normal and they could play normally. I had to burn away the illusion with my, my summer." His fingers twitch with the memory. "Alex had to turn into an bear and destroy their lane and then turn into an elephant on her next turn and throw her ball with so much force that all the pins in the entire place, in all lanes, fell over. And then we still barely got away with our lives." His breath hitches. "That's what today felt like. Pointless and rigged." Another tear leeches out, despite himself, and he sniffles. "Galahad, I'm so tired of fighting."

[onthewillowsthere]

Oh, he thinks, as something seems to slot into place. He was asking the wrong questions.

He pulls Magnus against his shoulder and rubs his hand in slow circles on Magnus' back, the way Shen Yuan would have, touching without being asked, with all the gentleness in the world. "No more fighting," he says into Magnus' hair. "It's done." He doesn't mean this, today, though there's no telling whether Magnus would understand that. He means at all. No more sparring, no more of either of them leaping into someone's hand to be wielded, no more prophecies. They're in a new place; their Gods don't speak to them. It's over.

[summerdude]

Magnus falls easily into Galahad's grip, shaking against him as Galahad strokes his back. That's another thing, too: he's told Galahad about how he used to be Personal Space Guy, but it's feeling easier and easier to let himself be held here in the Mansion, and let it be soothing instead of something he has to escape from or leverage to try and kill someone or something. Galahad in particular, with his quiet intensity and careful reserve juxtaposed against his seemingly-effortless and frequent handholding has been doing so much for making Magnus feel like he can be someone who touches other people without any intent but the joy of closeness.

"Really?" he asks, voice tiny.