YOU Get A Big Banana, and YOU Get A Big Banana, and YOU Get A Big Banana! [closed post]

[summerdude]

"Okay, just another minute," Magnus says.

It's a hot day out, so holding Galahad's hand is a sweaty affair... and Magnus's current use of his alf seidr isn't making matters any more comfortable. The grass is tickling at Magnus's back -- his shirt has ridden up while he lies, spread-eagle, in the middle of the lawn. Galahad is always so smart about his clothes, Magnus bets he's not getting the grass itches at all.

But he can put all that aside. Grass tickles are good tickles, and the heat of the sun is -- to Magnus -- always more refreshing than it is annoying. There's a trickle of sweat at the side of his neck, but even though it's hot out it's not really a temperature extreme, so as usual he feels regular about it.

All his attention is on the plants around them. Feverfew and milkweed, black-eyed susan and queen anne's lace, aster and boneset and flowering spurge and yarrow and tickseed and teasel and wild thyme and forget-me-nots and poppies and and and -- well. He's not sure what else is in the mix. He's been trying to get better at plant identification with Claudius's guidance, but the package he found earlier that morning only said FIELD SEEDS. He's doing his best! Right now, his 'best' is less focused on identification and more focused on growing them to flower, high enough that some of them are providing shade to both him and Galahad, in a very neat outline of the grass they've politely crushed between the two of them.

Eventually, he's done all he can without overtaxing the plants. "There," he tells Galahad. "Summer snow angels, check."

Comments

[onthewillowsthere]

"And people didn't like it?" He's really not sure what he's missing.

[summerdude]

"They think it's creepy." Magnus sounds proud about this.

[onthewillowsthere]

"Will you be happy if I think it's creepy?"

[summerdude]

Magnus laughs. "You can think whatever you think. Alex always says she's seen creepier." He sounds pleased about this, too.

[onthewillowsthere]

"Your face always makes me feel happy. Because it's yours."

[summerdude]

"You sweet-talker," Magnus says, tipping forward into a heavy hug. "Love you, buddy."

[onthewillowsthere]

Galahad holds him for a long time; he doesn't want to let go, so he doesn't. Finally, he asks, "Now that we know about Lancelot, do you feel less weird?"

[summerdude]

Magnus, who doesn't think of his secret sword lessons as being particularly about Lancelot, is visibly confused. "Now that -- what? What about Lancelot? Was there some kind of Lancelot thing? Did something hap--- sorry. Too many questions. Let me sum up: huh?"

[onthewillowsthere]

Patiently, "You are training with Lancelot. You were hiding it from me and from Lan Wangji."

[summerdude]

"Oh, that." Magnus -- slightly disappointed by the lack of fresh new Lancelot dirt -- considers this. "Yeah. I think so? Do I still seem weird?"

[onthewillowsthere]

"You seem less weird." He pauses. "In the kitchen, when we made falafel, you lied to me."

[summerdude]

"I did what?" Magnus says, frowning. "I mean... I did? Did I?"

[onthewillowsthere]

"You said that you weren't being weird because of Lan Wangji training me. You wouldn't tell me what was happening. You pretended that everything was okay." His fingers flutter for a moment. "You know that I have a hard time understanding things that are-- subtle. I'm easy to mislead, and you misled me. It hurt me. I am still hurt."

[summerdude]

Magnus's heart plummets in a nauseous sort of free fall. He sits back, frowning, pulling free from the hug in the process. "I -- what? Gods, I never -- I'm sorry, Galahad, I -- how did I mislead you?"

[onthewillowsthere]

"You said you were okay. I asked if you wanted to talk and you turned it back on me." He feels a little of the same way he did then, wondering if he misunderstood, wondering whether he should try to take it back.

[summerdude]

"I turned it back on you?"

[onthewillowsthere]

Galahad hesitates. It feels petty to quote Magnus back at himself, but: "I said You always talk and you said Do I?."

[summerdude]

"Did I?" Magnus doesn't have the clearest memory of that entire day. "I didn't — if I said that, and I believe you that I did, I wasn't trying to, like, pull anything. I wouldn't do that. I would have been asking for real."

[onthewillowsthere]

"Before that you were always honest. You always say what you're thinking. It makes you easy for me to understand. On the day Claudius says we were compelled to be truthful you and I didn't notice anything was different because we always speak truthfully to each other." It's why Magnus was so easy to be friends with, why Galahad was drawn to him so immediately. There's no need to wonder whether he is holding something back or dissembling. It's why Galahad has been nursing this anxiety quietly inside him since that day.

[summerdude]

It's safe to say that Magnus is hopelessly confused, and also horrified that Galahad has been holding onto this for so long. "Galahad, I — asking that wouldn't have been a lie. I don't... like yeah, I guess I talk a lot here but I don't really think of myself as, like, particularly a talker."

[onthewillowsthere]

The conviction with which Magnus argues this point is enough to make Galahad doubt himself again. But that's exactly why this has unsettled him so much. He wants to believe everything Magnus says; he wants to believe that the secrets Magnus was keeping for so long haven't changed anything between them. But something has been different. He's not wrong to think that.

He waits.

[summerdude]

"I was--" Magnus can't help but fidget, but he also hates sitting back from Galahad and facing him during this -- whatever this is, so he scoots in close again, side-by-side now, and takes his hand. "I don't remember a lot about that day. I remember being overwhelmed and having a panic attack and an intense conversation where I promised to tell you my secret after I talked to Alex. No real details. But, like, I did, right? I'm sorry it took so long. Is that the matter? Is it that I didn't mention it at first?"

[onthewillowsthere]

Galahad hesitates, running his thumb over the back of Magnus' knuckles, gathering his words. It's harder than talking to Claudius, because as different as he and Claudius are, they are so alike, and Claudius so often understands what he means as soon as he puts it into words, as if he's only waiting to hear it spoken aloud to snap his fingers and say, "Of course."

"I was alone in Camelot except for Percival. I couldn't make friends. Because when most people speak, they mean things besides the words. Things they are saying with their voices, or their bodies. It's hard for me to understand that kind of language," he says finally. Magnus knows this, but it must matter for him to say it again, clearly and plainly. "But you mean what you say. From the beginning. Sometimes you're very rude. And you have no respect for the things that are unspoken. I like it."

[summerdude]

Magnus listens carefully, turning Galahad's words over in his mind, trying to understand what exactly it is that has bothered Galahad for so long, so that he can never do it again. "No respect for things that are unspoken?"

[onthewillowsthere]

"When people say one thing and mean another."