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

[wickedwit]

“I see. So a decent proportion of scrubs, with powers that would tend to underscore one’s scrublike tendencies. A guy who thinks he’s fly is even more unbearable when he’s a master of illusions and trickery, and swindling someone of their share of a meal is his idea of a clever jape.”

[summerdude]

"You can say that again," Magnus laughs. "It's all, 'you're under my protection by rule of guest rights!' until you realize they're going to deliberately misinterpret everything you say in a way that will let them try to kill you anyway."

[wickedwit]

Claudius shakes his head. "If I can thank my upbringing for anything -- and I can thank it for very few things -- it's for impressing on me the importance of hospitality." Magnus won't hear it, but he says the Danish word, gæstfrihed, guest-freedom.

[summerdude]

"Yeah, Jack taught me all about that stuff. He cares a lot about the proper way of doing things."

[wickedwit]

"I like to know the rules of the game I'm playing, whether it's propriety or impropriety. In a place like this, where people come from all worlds and our hosts are invisible, we've no standard but the ones we set ourselves. Each new guest becomes the next host. Which is why this whole business with Lancelot stings," he says with a sigh. "It's not an unreasonable thing, I think, to hold a guest to account for striking a host. Even if he thought his host a portent. Yet Lancelot still couldn't seem to grasp why I took exception to him, or why loving Galahad might make me protective. I had to explain it to him, and when I asked for his empathy ... well, you would've thought I asked for much worse. For a moment I thought he might strike me, but that's likely because of my own history." The last he dismisses with a wave of his hand, rather than dwell on. "Ultimately, he responded quite civilly. It's still tiresome."

[summerdude]

Magnus makes a face. "I think he maybe gave me good advice, that day I was asking everyone about sex," he says, in tones of greatest commiseration. "It was infuriating." Then he brightens. "I pissed him off by thanking him by giving him a self-improvement reading list."

[wickedwit]

“You know just how to cheer me,” Claudius says, brightening alongside Magnus. “What a beautifully veiled provocation. If he did read some books, perhaps he could learn some empathy without needing it exhaustively pored over by the very people he’s hurt.”

[summerdude]

"I just think he needs to understand that first of all, sexism is bad, and B of all, having trauma is no excuse for making it everyone else's problem."

[wickedwit]

Claudius is appreciating Magnus's creative turns of phrase, when it occurs to him to ask, "What do you mean by trauma?"

[summerdude]

Magnus is about to answer, when he thinks to check: "In the context of Lancelot, or the meaning of the word itself?"

[wickedwit]

"The word itself. I do appreciate how many you're adding to my vocabulary."

[summerdude]

"Okay, so. You know how sometimes bad shit happens and you end up, like, with a bone sticking out of your leg or disemboweled by burning asphalt, but other times bad shit happens and you feel, emotionally, like there's a bone sticking out of your leg or that you've been disemboweled by burning asphalt even though physically you're actually mostly unharmed?"

[wickedwit]

"I've not been through that exact set of circumstances, I'll admit. But I've been through war and seen wounds as gruesome, bodies I'd scarcely recognize as human." He twists the silver band of his ring, recalling his odd feeling that afternoon he watched Enjolras fire his musket, a feeling he sometimes still has when tracing the bullet-wounds on Grantaire's chest. He doesn't like to dwell on it. All the same, "I'd say I've spent the better part of my life with the emotional equivalent of a bone's sticking out of my leg. As inconvenient as it is painful. But," to what he believes is his credit, "I nevertheless stand on it and smile."

[summerdude]

"Yeah," says Magnus, nodding seriously. "There's different kinds of traumas. Like seeing a ton of death and gruesome injury, or of being essentially a homeless orphan kid for a couple of years -- actually, that's a double whammy -- or, like, assault." He makes a face at Claudius. "You gotta take care of the injury, though, so infection doesn't set in. If you catch my drift. Like, sometimes we can't process our mom's murder because we have to spend two years in hiding because the cops think we did it, and then we die and have to save the world three times in a row, but it'll catch up with you eventually and you're going to have to deal with it. And, kind of to the point of Lancelot, just because you have a gnarly broken leg doesn't mean you should go around breaking every other leg you see. Or even just, like, giving everyone a solid punch in the face, so they can know a small bit of the pain you're feeling, or because you think it's the best way to reduce your own ache, or whatever."

[wickedwit]

That's a number of alarmingly specific examples, but Claudius supposes that's fair. He's sped through the unpleasant details of his life before, archly matter-of-fact -- they are matters of fact, banal realities he's had to live with, until he couldn't imagine living otherwise. Life goes on, or goes on until you die and ascend to Valhalla, and you forget to tend the jutting broken bones. It doesn't matter if you can still walk on them, however much you might wince. It's surprising, and revealing: he and Magnus have more in common than he'd thought.

"It's tempting at times, I admit," he says. "Passing one's pain on to others. I have a vicious, vengeful streak in me. My brother beat it into me. Of course I can hardly ask sympathy for childhood beatings, given how things ended between us ... but it may be a trauma I've yet to treat. Another reason why all this has rattled me." With genuine curiosity, and genuine respect for Magnus, he asks, "How do you handle the ache of your traumas?"

[summerdude]

"Oh, same, dude," says Magnus, with a wry sort of expression. "Like I said, Lancelot has cop energy, and I have... cop issues. Obviously. And I think... I think you just have to stop running from it, sometimes, and face it head-on. But, like, realistically?" His expression deepens. "Well, one time I broke an entire room. Broke a sofa in half, punched through a solid rock wall... I had just died, but still. And this other time I moved outside for months? But the rest of the time... talking to friends about it when it hurts and explaining why and letting them be there for you is really helpful. Your fiance is really good at listening to that kind of stuff, for example."

[wickedwit]

"Yes, my fiance is a wonderful listener," Claudius says with a soft smile of sheer love. "When I go into raptures over Galahad's gaze, it's partly metonymy. He doesn't look away. There are so many unspoken rules governing where a person's allowed to look, times you’ll be considered presumptuous for looking someone straight in the eye, or dishonest if you don’t. I could write a book twice the size of Emily Post’s Etiquette on the subject. Quite frankly, it’s exhausting to keep all those rules in mind without a manual — but that doesn’t matter with Galahad, because Galahad doesn’t follow them. When he looks at you, he looks intently the entire time. I’m not measuring my words against his glances, waiting for him to look away in boredom or disgust so I can rein my words in. In fact, I know it’s pointless to. He has ways to tell me when I’ve said too much too fast, but he hears what I have to say, and listens intently as he looks.”

[summerdude]

"What's metonymy?" Magnus asks, since Claudius is the kind of guy it's easy to share vocabulary shortcomings and curiosities with. Then he nods. "Okay, well, firstly, it sounds like the Danish court lowkey sucked, if you had to be that concerned about all that kind of thing all the time. Second, yeah, Galahad is the best. I mostly meant that he asks good questions, though." Magnus himself has become so much more of a questions-asker since he and Galahad have become friends. "The eye contact is great too, though. Really makes a guy feel heard."

[wickedwit]

"You're naming all the things I love best about him. You'll compose an incredible toast someday," Claudius says, and all these wedding thoughts do warm him. "Metonymy is when something associated with a concept is used to refer that concept as a whole . When I say I represented the crown of Denmark abroad, for example, I mean I represented the royal family and their interests. Crowns are really only used for coronations and ceremonial events, anyway, and have no interests to speak of. But the association's strong enough that one can stand for the other -- an ornate piece of headwear for the power the ceremony grants." That said, Claudius would've liked to have worn the crown at least once. "Galahad's eyes are one of the things I love about him. They're so beautifully clear. But I might be speaking of his eye as an artist, and mean what he focuses on in his sketches, the devoted care in each pencil stroke that show how long and how patiently he looked at his subject and recreated the most precious details. Or, in this instance, I speak of his eyes that never look away, and I mean the way he focuses on people and makes them feel heard. There are so many things he does." And Claudius is absurdly in love with him.

[summerdude]

"Man, you are down bad," says Magnus, in tones of deepest approval. "I think that being in love can be a salve, too, in a way. You know? Like, the bad doesn't seem as bad, and also, there's someone to call you on your stuff when you're in the thick of it."

[wickedwit]

"It's a new experience for me, being openly in love. Perhaps it's because my origins are in tragedy, but I'm used to fraught silences, hidden sacrifices, feelings that were never spoken. I intended to lie to Gertrude for the rest of my life about killing my brother for her ... but there was never a moment where she didn't know. That's tragic irony for you." Perhaps this Shakespeare has earned his widespread fame, if he can construct tragic circumstances so neatly. Thoughtfully, Claudius asks, "What does 'down bad' mean?"

[summerdude]

"Like, extremely into someone," Magnus says. "You'll put it all on the line for them. You're horny for them in interesting ways, like for example rhapsodizing about their eyes for a million years. I'm down bad for Alex, obviously." He tilts his head, regarding Claudius. "I'm glad you can live openly now."

[wickedwit]

The word is a much-welcomed addition to Claudius's vocabulary. He can already think of multiple ways to use it in his sentence, multiple people in his acquaintance who have it down bad for each other. But before he can test it out, the rest of Magnus's words catch up with him. "Magnus," he says with a sincere smile. "I'm rather touched you said that. I'm glad of it, too, of course, but ...you've helped me realize how glad. Living openly wasn't among even my highest ambitions. It's a rare gift."

[summerdude]

"Really?" Magnus considers this, head tilted, and then nods. "I get it. My biggest ambition for the longest time was just to survive. You too, right?"

[wickedwit]

Claudius nearly laughs, nearly disagrees. His ambitions were loftier than survival -- no less than murdering his brother, taking his crown, and sharing it with the woman he'd loved all his life. But then he remembers the whole mad plan began with the fear his brother's jealous rages could take Gertrude's life. He remembers convincing himself that coming between them by any means but murder would hazard Gertrude's soul. It all felt like life or death. Since the first broken bone, when he realized none of the courtiers would condemn the future king, so he lied and said he broke it climbing trees. He couldn't rely on anyone, but he could always lie. "Yes," he says instead. "Me, too."