Noctis Lucis Caelum (veggiehater) wrote in valloic, @ 2021-02-14 19:11:00 |
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Entry tags: | !: action/thread/log, ₴ inactive: lang wangji, ₴ inactive: noctis lucis caelum (2) |
Log: Noctis & Lan Wangji
Unfortunately, something had gone awry almost immediately. Perhaps it hadn’t reset properly from the last person who had used it, but it was barking orders at him in a language he didn’t recognize. To make matters worse, it kept aggressively displaying an image of a paper bag, but there were no bags left for him to use. He had everything scanned but no place to put anything, and the line behind him was growing, and his face - kept blank, never show your fear - felt like it might be thinking about forming an expression of panic without his permission.
Wei Ying would have laughed it off and approached someone for help, but that wasn’t Lan Wangji’s style. At all. Self-sufficient and in-control, he tried to reason with the machine under his breath, using that soft voice that had always calmed Lan Sizhui’s nightmares. The machine wasn’t interested in his consolations and began to beep angrily.
Noctis rarely grocery shopped at home. Ignis would’ve lost his mind if he’d even tried. And he definitely would’ve bought all the wrong things without a list-making control freak hovering behind him anyway.
But Ignis wasn’t here. And a wayward would-be king still had to eat. His little handheld basket was full of pre-processed food but it was something at least.
If only this line wasn’t taking ages. He peeked around the impatient man in front of him and posted Lan Wangji looking a little tense in front of the self-checkout screen. The attendant seemed to be helping someone else so Noct gave the line an awkward glance and slipped out of it to move ahead. He got a few looks and a tsk, but he’d been judged worse over the years.
“You, uh….look like you could use some back up here.” He poked his head around Lan Wangji to get a look at the screen. “First time?”
Lan Wangji somehow both angrily and gracefully jerked his head to face the person speaking to him, nostrils flaring as he did so - but once he saw it was Noctis, the anger left him, and he performed a fast bow in greeting. Noct had always treated him (and more importantly, treated Wei Ying) with kindness, and consequently wasn’t the worst person to see him embarrassed here.
He nodded, and gestured to the screen with a frown lighting his features.
“Dame dinero, por favor!” the machine demanded, and Lan Wangji frowned at it, not understanding what it was telling him. He’d already scanned groceries and put the credit card in; what more could it want?
“I don’t have bags,” he said to Noct in his quiet voice, because that was one thing that was wrong, and they would have to start somewhere.
It was strangely flattering to watch Lan Wangji’s stormy face settle at the sight of him. But then it had been really easy to see how much Wei Wuxian meant to him. He was glad his attempts to not be a socially awkward loner weren’t a complete disaster. He pointed at a corner of the screen.
“You can change the language here. Unless, you know, you’re trying to learn this one on hard mode,” he shrugged. That probably wasn’t the case, but what he’d learned of Lan Wangji so far suggested the man was quietly studious and surprising. Besides, Noct didn’t like to underestimate people. He pulled his one bag out of his handheld basket. “There are usually some bags you can take but you don’t have a lot and I don’t have a lot. Do you just want to share? You’re headed back to Morningside, right?”
Lan Wangji eyed the menu that Noct was referencing and immediately pressed it to English, which didn’t make much sense either because he’d never learned English, but here it seemed to be some strange universal language that magically everyone knew, so it was familiar.
At Noct’s offer of sharing, he tried to think of a proper phrase to show his gratitude at the kindness and just managed a nod followed by another bow in agreement. “I am going to the Jingshi,” he answered, as that was where he and Wei Ying lived now, “but it isn’t out of the way from Morningside.” He didn’t know if Noct had seen the Jingshi yet. Lan Wangji was proud of what they had done to it - the lotus were beginning to grow, and they had replaced some of the Lan adages with sketches and knick-knacks that they had purchased here. “Neither of us mind you coming,” he added, because Lan Wangji knew he kind of gave off a remote air that kept people at a distance.
Noct flashed a small smile and bowed his head in return. Thankfully, bowing wasn’t completely out of his wheelhouse so he didn’t feel like an idiot. “Oh right, I forgot you guys had a place. Well that works too. I’d like to see it.”
He glanced behind him at the line and thankfully it seemed the store had opened up two more lanes so no one was glaring at them anymore. He set his basket down on one side of the register and unfolded his bag in the baggage area for Lan Wangji to use. The register beeped like they’d done something right.
“There you go,” Noct said. “If it helps any, I piss off a piece of technology at least once a week and I’ve been using computers since I was a kid.”
Lan Wangji sighed in contained frustration and swiftly finished up his bagging, sliding the card from the slot now that it appeared to have been accepted. He stacked his groceries with the sort of precise neatness a Jenga Master would have envied, and then stood to the side, waiting for Noct to check out and stack his items on the ample room up top.
“It is strange,” he said while Noct worked, “I prepared for so many eventualities back home. Very little surprised me.” Particularly after Wei Ying had died, but he kept that tucked away in the edge of his voice. “But I would never have guessed this. Nor could I have anticipated it, or prepared for it. It is so different that I could not have conceived of it even with imagination, which I don’t have much of.” Perhaps Wei Ying had daydreamed about a place as foreign as this, when he was supposed to be paying attention to his studies. Lan Wangji wouldn’t have been surprised. As Noct finished bagging his items, Lan Wangji took the bag out of politeness. “I’ll show you the way to the Jingshi.”
Noct raised his eyebrows at Lan Wangji offering up so many words at once. He really did remind Noct of Ignis. Thoughtful and driven. Considerate. Careful but surprisingly adaptable when given the opportunity. The comparison made him smile.
“I mostly prepared for one future,” he shrugged, ringing himself up quickly and adding his few items to the bag. His one future hadn’t really been a future so much as a singular goal he didn’t expect to survive but that wasn’t the kind of information you brought up over a cashier stand. He followed Lan Wangji towards the door instead. “Do you miss home a lot? Wei Wuxian has talked a bit about how bad things got on his end but I uh, don’t really know about yours?”
Lan Wangji considered the question, and his answer, gliding along the street silently. He missed the quiet with a pang - there were few places here in Vallo that he had discovered that were devoid of people, and appropriate for meditation, but he also understood that the ability to meditate despite one’s surroundings was good to practice.
“I miss my brother,” he finally said, but he had been missing his brother for a while. Lan Xichen’s withdrawal once the truth about Jin Guangyao had surfaced had been as immediate as it was complete. “But home is Wei Ying.”
It was offered offhandedly, but it was honest. Lan Wangji indicated that it was Noct’s turn to answer the question: do you miss home?
“Oh! You have a brother.” Noct hadn’t known he had a brother until he’d gotten here. Now he dreaded the thought of never seeing Nyx again. “Well I’m glad you’re not here without your home at least.” He gave a little awkward smile, but it was genuine. He knew what it was to have a person - or in his case, people, who became home in the face of losing the one he grew up in.
“I...I don’t miss the pressure of prophecy hanging over my head, but I miss my family. Well, my friends who are my family. I, uh, lost my dad not too long ago and things were kind of going from bad to worse so in my more selfish moments…” Noctis turned to stare down the street, grimacing. “...I’m pretty glad to be here.”
“Responsibility is a weight,” Lan Wangji answered neutrally, with all the experience he had on the topic. Several years before he wouldn’t have sympathized so readily, believing that duty to family and their expectations took precedence over all other matters - and friends. Now, though, he knew better.
The pathway to the Jingshi led past pools of lotus not-yet-bloomed. Lan Wangji glided along the walkway and to the small, neat building with its porch and gardens, and opened the door inside. Wei Ying was not home, but Lan Wangji didn’t expect him to be. “Wei Ying is teaching today,” he explained, and began methodically separating his groceries from Noctis’s. “Would you care for some tea?”
All Noctis managed to respond with was a distracted nod; he was lost in his own head for a moment. There was more than just a lack of responsibility that made this place a wonderful reprieve from the last few years of his life. If Gladio weren’t here, if things hadn’t worked out the way they were currently, it would be a lot easier to miss home more.
He blinked rapidly as he refocused on their surroundings and took in the Jingshi. It was beautiful and peaceful, like nothing they had at home. “Oh,” he murmured, staring at everything with appreciation. “I...what? Oh yeah, please. Tea would be great. ” He didn’t actually drink tea very often but Lan Wangji had a way of making Noctis want to be his most princely and respectful.
“Should I…?” Noct pantomimed taking off his shoes in the doorway. Everything looked so neat inside.
Lan Wangji nodded in assent, having already removed his shoes, and commenced with making the tea. He gave Noctis space to admire the interior of his home, silent as he placed the tea and its accompaniments on a tray; it was a show of respect not to hover and to trust someone else within his space.
When done, he came into the main room and gestured to the low table, taking one side of it and pouring Noctis some tea. Somehow he made even squatting on the floor to sit on a pillow look graceful.
“Wei Ying said that you were on one of the defense teams,” he said, and carefully passed the hot tea cup to the other man. “How do you like it?” It wasn’t an idle question. Lan Wangji had considered joining as a part-time member, but he had held back initially because he wanted to ensure that the people here were just. Convinced of that now, he was back to curious.
Feeling a bit like he was back in Insomnia and welcoming foreign dignitaries, Noct took off his shoes and lowered himself to his knees on the opposite side of the table. At least there wasn’t fifteen pieces of silverware and four different sized glasses to sort through. He’d only been good at those tests when Ignis had been around to give him the occasional nudge in the right direction. He was distracted looking around the room anyway.
“Huh? Oh, yeah, Gladio and I are on a team. It’s good. We used to get paid for freelance work at home and I kinda preferred the hours with that, but…” Noct shrugged and accepted his cup, taking a small, careful sip. “It’s nice knowing we have the teams. That we’re all in this together and don’t have to figure it out on our own. You’re working in the DOA office, right?”
Lan Wangji was mildly suspicious of teamwork, having seen firsthand how it could translate to mob rule.That said, the notion of a team that actually served the greater good was tempting. He supposed it’d be no more unlikely here than anywhere else.
“Yes,” he confirmed, “I mediate disagreements between Outlanders and native Vallo citizens.” There were fewer conflicts than he had thought, but he credited that with his department’s hard workers and quick thinkers. “I had a similar position back home. For a while.” It should have been his brother’s, but Lan Xichen had shown little interest in involving himself in clan politics recently. Lan Wangji took a sip of tea. “What did you defend against? Back home?”
Noct felt like he was missing crucial information to understand Lan Wangji’s position at home, but he was only so nosy before awkwardness kicked in. He simply nodded and drank some of his own tea.
“My dad used to send me on diplomatic trips? That’s all I got.” Rather than ask if Lan Wangji liked his job and risk forcing him to say no if that was the case, Noct latched onto the new topic. “We had a lot of monsters to deal with at home. Some fairly ordinary but some worse stuff. Demons came out at night and our world was suddenly starting to have longer and longer nights, so. It wasn’t looking good.”
Lan Wangji raised his eyebrows. They had monsters back home, of course, and the notion of a too-long night was an interesting one. Wei Ying likely already knew all this, but he didn’t. “Were the monsters spirits?” he asked, curiosity easy to find in his face if you knew where to look.
Which was how Wei Ying found them, a half-hour later, finishing up the pot of tea and chatting like old friends. Old friends on Lan Wangji looked… well, still very reserved, but he graced Wei Ying with a relaxed lifting of the corner of his mouth as he entered the Jingshi. It was a much finer sight than he had been a few hours before contemplating jamming his sword into the self-checkout machine - and for that, Lan Wangji would be grateful to Noct.