If Alex Came Back We'd DEFINITELY Be The Local Power Couple [open post]

[summerdude]

Magnus has come to realize that nobody else in this entire place is presently in a relationship that has lasted nearly as long as his and Alex's. Shen Yuan's concept of "communication" "with" "Luo Binghe" is continuing to horrify him every time he thinks about it. What if there are other people who could use the advice of a sixteen-year-old twenty-five-year-old virgin who has been in a committed relationship for nearly seven years with someone to who he is probably widely known to have never verbally declared the undying depths of his love? (Gods, he hopes Alex figures out a way to do another little visit for their rapidly-approaching anniversary)

To that end, he posts an announcement sign over the welcome table, in the café, and on the door to the kitchen. It reads:

NEED RELATIONSHIP ADVICE OR FEEDBACK? Local Long-Term Relationship Expert Magnus Chase Offers His Aid.

He even lists office hours — an inoffensive parlor (meaning he can tolerate hanging out in it, and the door can close if people want privacy for their conversations) every other day for an hour, immediately following his Drosera hand-off to Galahad.

Comments

[summerdude]

Magnus tries to guess at what Lan Wangji is hinting at. "Do you want advice about being with a dead guy? Because I do have plenty of that!"

[lightbearinglord]

"He is alive now," Lan Wangji points out, with some fondness and amusement creeping back into his voice. Another pause, and then he continues, "Those years are lost to us, but at times, Wei Ying feels he must make them up to me."

[summerdude]

Oh, so he got better. "Can you tell me more about that?"

[lightbearinglord]

"I have loved him since we were fifteen." Lan Wangji has no trouble saying that much, at least. "If he had lived, we might have had more years together." And then he lets another significant pause hang between them: or not.

[summerdude]

"Yeah, but don't you guys live, like, a really long time?"

[lightbearinglord]

With a fleeting frown, Lan Wangji says, "Not necessarily. It depends on one's cultivation. True immortals are rare." In a great show of restraint, he says nothing about how little Shen Yuan deserves his own immortality.

[summerdude]

Huh. "What's the average lifespan of cultivators like you and Wei Wuxian?"

[lightbearinglord]

"We may hope for a few hundred years, or more if we are very diligent. Immortality is the aim, but almost none achieve it." Even Baoshan Sanren is only, technically, rumored to be immortal.

[summerdude]

Magnus refuses to entertain the idea of Lan Wangji dying, actually! Gods, being immortal kind of sucks. "But you get more than, like, twenty or thirty years."

[lightbearinglord]

"Mn. Wei Ying owes me nothing." There's a little edge of extremely sincere intensity in the way Lan Wangji says this.

[summerdude]

"Yeah, that's my point," Magnus says. "You gotta live in the moment. Even if the future is foretold you still don't know what exactly it'll bring and when, so. All you can do is celebrate the time you have while you're having it."

[lightbearinglord]

Lan Wangji looks up again, then, and meets Magnus' eyes. "We do. I do." He lost Wei Ying once and lived for thirteen years with the burden of all of that regret. If he loses him again, it will tear him apart, but there will, at least, be nothing left that he wishes he had done.

[summerdude]

"Have you told Wei Wuxian with your words that there's nothing to make up for in the past as long as you're together in the now?"

[lightbearinglord]

"I have. I will continue to until he believes it." Lan Wangji allows himself a hint of a smile as he admits, "I don't believe I need your advice. I merely took the excuse to seek your company."

[summerdude]

"Aw, shucks," says Magnus, who is both genuinely touched but also a little disappointed that Hanguang-jun doesn't actually want his advice. "I do have advice about more things, though! I was telling Tress this the other day, but I recently realized that I went from being in the newest and shortest relationship of all my friends -- like, Halfborn and Mallory have been on-and-off again for over fifty years, and they're just getting started, too -- to being one of the longest-term ones here. I think, at least? Me and Alex are going to hit seven years during Eid, and I'm pretty sure that's next month. If Galahad's calculations are right."

[lightbearinglord]

Lan Wangji makes a faintly surprised face in answer to that. He had not realized Alex and Magnus had been together for so long. Wasn't Magnus only recently asking him for advice on how to declare his love for Alex? They have been courting for nearly seven years without Magnus stating the truth of his feelings?

Obviously, he says none of that. "That is longer than I have been married," he allows. "If there is further advice you want to give, then do so."

[summerdude]

Well, Hanguang-jun, it's different, okay? Seven years might as well be seven weeks to an einherji!

"What topic?" Magnus asks. He makes a face. "It's actually kind of hard to just, generate advice without a starting point. I could say, like, 'happy wife, happy life,' but neither of us have wives, and Wei Wuxian seems totally happy with you already, so."

[lightbearinglord]

Happy wife, happy life actually seems perfectly applicable to Lan Wangji, for all that the rhyme is lost in translation, and his mouth quirks into another almost-smile about it. "What do you know now that you did not know after only a year?"

[summerdude]

Magnus squints at Lan Wangji for a moment. "I'm guessing you of all people don't need to advice about how to say things without saying things."

[lightbearinglord]

Lan Wangji, again rising to the occasion, says nothing. He only lifts his eyebrows the slightest bit, asking, What do you think?

[summerdude]

Magnus snorts. "Do you need advice about saying things with words?" Shen Yuan definitely needed that advice.

[lightbearinglord]

In the interest of honesty, Lan Wangji does devote a moment to weighing the question. "When you asked me about declaring your love to Alex, I told you that I have loved one person all my life and could only recently bring myself to speak of it. That was true."

[summerdude]

"Remind me why?" Magnus asks. "Um, if you don't mind."

[lightbearinglord]

Lan Wangji's expression turns almost helpless. Where to begin? He straightens his back, although he was not remotely slouching, and glances down at his hands again. "Circumstances were complicated," he says, at length. "We were young. By the time I found my voice, it was too late."

[summerdude]

"He died before you got up the nerve to tell him?" Magnus guesses.