I Up My Boyfriend Game With The Help Of My F̶a̶t̶h̶e̶r̶ Bother Figures [closed post]

[summerdude]

Magnus shows up to the kitchen earlier than the agreed-upon time, since he's actually really excited to fold tamales (and learn how to prep the individual components thereof) with a couple of his favorite people. When he gets there, he remembers having to teach Galahad about hand-washing, and thinks about the fact that both Sagramore and Lan Wangji are from old-timey places. When they arrive, they'll find him scrubbing down the countertops, making sure they have a clean workspace.

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[lightbearinglord]

"I have not had strawberries," Lan Wangji admits. He is, however, willing both to try them and to experiment generally. "I agree that we should make a significant quantity."

[summerdude]

"Cool." Magnus grins, and then looks down at his cutting board. "Do you think this is enough cheese?"

Then he does a double take. "You've never had strawberries?"

[sagramore]

"My lord," in scandalized tones; this is definitely a silliness he's willing to play along with.

[lightbearinglord]

About to answer the first question, Lan Wangji stops and looks between the two of them. He at least realizes quickly enough that he is being teased. "There was a cake at your birthday celebration flavored with them," he amends, and does not say the least disgusting among the cakes, "but we do not have them where I come from."

[summerdude]

"Dude," says Magnus, in his most commiserating of tones. "That blows."

[sagramore]

"It's a pity." He goes to the fridge to get some, and brings back a small paper carton of tiny alpine strawberries, the variety he's familiar with -- they don't look much like the cultivated Virginia strawberry of North America.

[lightbearinglord]

Lan Wangji considers warning them both that he often doesn't care for new foods, but they may as well find that out for themselves. "I will try one," he allows.

[summerdude]

"Oh, I love this kind," Magnus says, seeing what Sagramore's brought over. He takes one and pops it into his mouth. "The ones in Jotunheim are like this, except like twenty times bigger. Because of, you know. The jotuns."

[sagramore]

"They won't be wasted if you don't like them," he tells Lan Wangji, amused.

[lightbearinglord]

Lan Wangji meets Sagramore's eyes for a moment, caught out in his own hesitation. He takes a strawberry and eats it tidily with no change in his expression. "Very sweet," he says, utterly neutral.

[summerdude]

"Okay, what fruit do you like?"

[sagramore]

Sagramore produces a small knife and begins cutting the tops off to prepare the strawberries -- they're so small they don't need to be diced.

[lightbearinglord]

The most accurate answer to that question would, frankly, be whatever I can feed by hand to Wei Ying until we invariably become distracted, but Lan Wangji will not say that in front of Magnus. Nor will he dwell on the thought, which is distracting in itself. "Persimmons. Pears. Plums."

[summerdude]

"What was that look?" Magnus asks, because he is, as always, highly attuned to Lan Wangji's very evocative and descriptive facial expressions.

[sagramore]

He hadn't been looking -- due to the aforementioned strawberry topping -- and he glances up.

[lightbearinglord]

Lan Wangji has a new theory. The mansion is an experiment designed to coax him into humiliating himself. The tips of his ears turn a little pink. "I like whatever fruit Wei Ying wants to eat from my hand," he says, as evenly as possible.

[summerdude]

"Oh." Magnus blinks. "That's cool. Wait, that's a thing?" He tries to picture feeding Alex these tamales, but all he can envision is Alex lightly stabbing him a little for trying to feed him tamales. Well, that might be nice, too. What's a little stabbing when you're in love and can heal from it in like five minutes?

[sagramore]

Ah. A grin overtakes Sagramore's mouth, with a slow-spreading inevitability, as if there's nothing he could do but grin. He withholds comment, but he appreciates it.

[lightbearinglord]

"It is a thing." Lan Wangji's thoughts want dangerously to drift again: Wei Ying's mouth, sticky-sweet, the tilt of his smile, the freckles he begins to sport in the summer. At least Lan Wangji has considerable practice at thinking indecent thoughts about Wei Ying without showing it. He begins, at last, to lay out the corn husks so he can begin assembling the pork tamales.

[summerdude]

Magnus thinks about it for another moment, then nods. "I get it," he says, and then he glances back over at Lan Wangji and what he's doing. He immediately abandons his cheese. If it wasn't enough when he asked before, it definitely is enough now. "Oh, dude, this is the the only part I'm good at."

[sagramore]

He laughs. "Don't deny him his only talent."

[lightbearinglord]

It is tempting to protest that Magnus has many talents, but Lan Wangji catches himself before he fails to take the joke appropriately. "Then show me how it is done," he says to Magnus.

[summerdude]

"I mean, I bet you can do it really well too," Magnus says, a touch apologetic. He lays out a corn husk, and then puts a smear of masa on it. "But I've trained in proportions exhaustively." He flexes his bicep, 99.9% to be silly. It's not actually all that impressive. He does have actual muscles, thanks to dying, but they don't look like much.

True to his word, though, he's actually extremely good at filling, wrapping, and tying tamales. He does the steps slowly, glancing between Sagramore and Lan Wangji while he does it, just in case they have any questions.

To Sagramore, he says, primly, "I'd say I'm also good at simping, but I guess arguably I think this fits into that umbrella."

[sagramore]

"Please tell me what that means." Sagramore is watching his hands, picking up the steps.

[lightbearinglord]

Lan Wangji, too, observes as Magnus completes a few of the tamales. Once he is sure of the technique, he steps back in and starts on doing it himself as he awaits an explanation of the word simping.