wei ying takes in all of lan zhan - the regal slope of his nose, the sharpness of his eyes, the disciplined line of his shoulders. the slight list on one arm, which has him frowning in question-- but later. he can focus on that later. there's the matter at hand, of lan zhan's ribbon sitting crooked on his forehead, and wei ying forges on with no hesitation, sure as a mountain goat on a steep mountainside as he nudges the cloud emblem into place.
there. now it sits in perfect center, and wei ying nods solemnly.]
There.
Ah, but Lan Zhan... [a frown mars wei ying's expression, as he looks down onto lan zhan's arm. the man moves economically, no single action wasted, but his arm is particularly stiff by any measure, and wei ying is suspicious of it.] What happened to your arm?
Did you— Have you been injured? Is this why you wanted me to wait three days, so you could heal? You should've said so! You need Chroma to heal!
[wei ying holds out his hand - an offering to the pyre, should the fire choose to take it.]
[ His arm, offensively imbalanced, limp and ill-used like the afterthought bracket of a body that should have known better to defend it. It startles him enough to realise not that he's suffered the hurt, but that he's failed even to mask the weakness.
His headband finds its way into righting. Wei Ying's fingers leave him, trail of sickly warmth behind, where the dying fever of another's skin touched what only family should. On his back, lashes spell the same defilement.
His teeth grit against the intrusion, but he survives the burdens of cosmetic correction. The hand calling him sparks every ounce of the anger he'd thought buried with snow. ]
What I asked, you would not do.
[ Now, Wei Wuxian asks in turn. The talisman spell yet cast, the wine undrunk. How can they fault Jiang Wanyin for his temper, when he is constantly afflicted with the stubbornness of his brother, the mule? Belatedly, Lan Wangji starts to find idle strings and strands of sympathy that dies no sooner than it's woken. ]
Cast the talisman.
[ One bargain for another. Price for paying. His chin rises, arrogant. ]
[wei ying puffs up like a blowfish, cheeks filling out as he frowns and pouts at lan zhan. the man is hurt, then - no contradictions to the questions asked about it practically confirm it, and wei ying wants to argue, to refuse to budge from the issue until it's been seen to. but wei ying also knows this, of lan zhan: they're well-met in stubbornness, and lan zhan has the better sense of patience between the two of them.
so wei ying rolls up his sleeves, enough to expose his wrists to the cold, and casts the talisman with pointed gestures.
it lands firm, steadfast, binding to lan zhan's good wrist, this thin blue line connecting the two of them together.]
Done. [hands on hips, like a mother scolding a child, though wei ying feels less of a mother than he does an overly attached... something. barnacle, perhaps. or a stubborn pet that refuses to be ignored.] Lan Zhan, I'm serious, you have to moonlace. You could die if you don't.
[ Ugly spider's bite of a charm, sorcery that grazes and gnaws. Flesh off his bone, this talisman won't break, but the intrusion of foreign cultivation still stings pride he thought he'd shed.
Between them, the thread knots and holds, hardening. Wei Ying watches him like the chicken he'd claimed to chase once, fat with smug self-satisfaction. Trickery that comes too easily was forged once more. What feat, Wei Wuxian! What mastery.
Brows perching north, Lan Wangji tries the resilience of the talisman's bind, then tugs with a hard pull to draw Wei Ying close. Lan Wangji's hand out this once, one coin to repay the other. If this is Wei Ying's prize, then he may come to claim it. ]
Do not speak to me of death.
[ He could die if he breathed, might as well have died the day his ideals paled and the sun rose in the dawns of a new cultivation era. Wei Wuxian did die, and now he thinks to presume something close to reprimand. ]
You meant to have wine.
[ So let them choke on each gulp that thin, begrudged flask may offer. ]
With you, [wei ying answers, whip-fast, blazing right past the mention of death and its implied unpleasantness. wei ying would ask, and ask, pulling at the edges of questions until something fell out or yielded to the ministrations of his mortal hands, but this is neither the time or place for it - even he has moments of self-preservation, rare as they may be. let lan zhan keep his secrets - wei ying will continue to wear himself on his paltry sleeves, bleeding out his heart like a fountain never-ending.
(but it does end, at some point in their future, the current drying up under the unrelenting gaze of a brief lifetime's suffering. wei ying bleeds, and will continue bleeding, for a world that has never liked men like him. what room is there for the bright-eyed and the selfless, beyond the immortalizing embrace of a grave, a funeral plaque?)
he takes lan zhan's hand, holds him firmly, chroma forming and coiling under their skin before being drawn out and into the sleek braces they both wear. ]
[ With him. With him, as if Lan Wangji were a paid companion, a musician or a palace dancer. (With him, because no one but Qing of the Wen would share Wen Wuxian's table.)
Under and in skin, needlework of sorcery Lan Wangji didn't invite again. Violation that his body absorbs like medicine and immunity, all the more devious for its stealthy infiltration. He mouths the word even as he fights the shiver of pulling his fingers away, Chroma.
The talisman first, now this exchange. Barter struck and executed on Wei Ying's part. No matter. Lan Wangji will abide the hold for a few moments, then call their slates equally cleansed.
He drags them both forward, to the snow mound, where he recovers the wine flask. Let Wei Ying have the first drink?
Ah. He stares it down, lusciously pale in its ceramic, a misfortune of the senses. He is tempted, briefly, to pour it over (Promised.)
Cutting Wei Ying with the edge of his glance, he thumbs the cap of the flask off, and takes the first sip instead, colld as wine should not be. Vile. Btterness and bile straining the inside of his teeth. Tongue lulled and slow. He swallows down.
Poor, compared with the warm edges of the Emperor's Smile. Still enough to induce the start of a blistering haze.
He offers the flask over. ]
Not poisoned. [ And another tug of the talisman-leash. ] Drink and walk.
[wei ying half-expects lan zhan to topple over as soon as he's done drinking from the flask, and he's numbly receiving the the blasted thing while staring at the lan as though he'd grown a second head. lan zhan - drinking! and straight from the flask without any hesitation! wei ying is promptly alarmed, and finds himself complying with half of the given missives.
one foot in front of the other; wei ying walks, aimless, along the length of the gully. where to? where else? he's still staring at lan zhan when he brings the flask to his own lips and drinks sedately-- and winces. it's poorly made, too sweet and too fresh, but it still has the distinct flavor of alcohol lacing through it. it'll do. wei ying takes another swig, deeper this time, and offers it to lan zhan.
lan zhan has yet to draw his hand away from wei ying's grip. the chroma meter ticks on ever upwards, polite in its slowness.]
Lan Zhan... You're worrying me a little. [it comes a little too fast, a little too honest, but what's been said can't be taken back, can it? words cannot be unheard, or at least wei ying hasn't figured out how to manage it yet.] Is everything alright?
[ All right. At balance. Even. At ease with the world and its place within it.
Nothing is all right, but here they are, two shadows stabbing the horizon. Lan Wangji leads, and for once it's Wei Ying who follows, dragged along like a foolish child — lesser than a-Yuan, who at least found the cunning to command Lan Wangji to carry him.
The flask swivels back towards him, his turn to poison his mouth again. By right, he should accept it, part of the bargain Lan Wangji should have known better than to strike, for all it's stripped of him: his patience, his dignity, control of his one good hand. Still fastened to him, the other pulses in sharp increments of tender pain that revives before dimming, whipped down under the empire of luminous chroma. ]
Too sweet.
[ He gives by way of refusal, grimace smearing the better part of his lips, then fading into ether. This much, Wei Ying can understand: too sweet by far, a mistake of flavour. And too heady, Lan Wangji's next few steps fickle, as if straight lines have personally and indelibly offended him.
There's a short stretch to cover til the mouth of the forest, if only they limp it carefully. ]
Is this not as you wanted?
[ Wine, an encounter. True to the letter of Wei Ying's demands, if not their spirit. ]
[too sober, that answer. wei ying drains the rest of the flask, then, for want of a better means to shut himself up; hisses when the burn of alcohol clambers down his throat inelegantly.
wei ying looks at where their hands are joined together, the pleasant effects of moonlacing loosening what worries stick to wei ying's mind; here, like this, he can help lan zhan. this is something that he can do, something that requires the very least of him even though wei ying is ready to give so much more if lan zhan should ever ask.
it's just handholding. it's the most basic of interactions, outside of conversations and filial embraces. it doesn't explain the way wei ying's heart feels both elated and distraught, the two feelings alternating in between the spaces of his heartbeats. joy. sadness. happiness, soaring sky high, but yearning too, yanking wei ying by the collar of his robes and anchoring him firmly to the ground.
this is an indulgence. he's late in recognizing it, but it's clear that lan zhan is doing all this for wei ying's benefit. perhaps there's a perceived debt owed that wei ying hasn't paid attention to? is this an apology, perhaps, for the injuries sustained at mt. muxi's cave? but they're friends - lan zhan owes wei ying nothing.
maybe wei ying hasn't been clear enough on that front. fault of his character, then; it must be corrected.]
Lan Zhan. I want you to be happy, too. Even if that means refusing me. I'm just Wei Ying - you don't have to worry about offending me if you say no.
[ Kindness is an instinct, honed but not learned. Wei Ying always displayed it excessively, like every peacock who's shown the gaudy spread of its feathers.
Migraine, wine, glints of the crystalline forest, the elusive spell of Wei Ying's quiet voice. Lan Wangji is meant to be happy too. Then — ]
...let go.
[ But whispered with the air of every request he hasn't articulated since arrival, shreds of the weakness his brother's hawk eyes glimpsed first. He doesn't tug his hand free, vulnerable to Wei Ying's decision. This was their bargain, transacted fairly. Wei Ying can demand it upheld.
Too much, all at once: hands, cliffs, falls, the undead. Time, misplaced. The hurt in Lan Wangji's arm, abated but still burrowing beneath skin and into bone. If he is to have one indulgence, it is this: each trickle of the deluge, on Lan Wangji's own time. ]
Resume later.
[ Dose it out, like hurt for a man learning his tolerance. ]
[wei ying nods solemnly, and lets go of lan zhan's hand. his hand feels unbearably warm, the ends tingling, and he's not sure if it's because of their held hands or something else, some residual magic that still clings. is this why people moonlace so often? is the parting too painful, like happiness cut short? wei ying feels a small amount of regret, all of a sudden. this was a bad idea. he shouldn't have pushed, should have just stayed behind the line drawn between them.
but like a moth drawn to a flame, wei ying just can't resist. never could, with lan zhan.
he'll just have to work harder.
he puts on a smile, straightens out his shoulders, pushes his chest out.]
Do you want to go anywhere else? We could go and eat! If you're not too tired, that is. I'll walk with you back to your place if you want to rest now.
[ Their hands unwind, Lan Wangji's retreating in a tender, broken slither of print and flesh. The world fades in colour, between sneers of step on squeaky snow. Reproaches seed and linger: did Wangji need to let go? Did he need to question his own desires? Connection, here, is like addiction, a deep-rooted opiate. Smoke and absorb, do not question.
He startles to find himself suddenly, irrevocably awake. Unbidden, he reaches for Wei Ying's sleeve, fingers catching purchase on silk. Flesh traded for embroidery. Easier, for now. ]
I have no place. [ No, beyond that. ] No purpose.
[ The sects undone, reduced to leadership that holds no meaning without the men to follow. Shaped and educated to rule, now deprived of land and people. Futility is epidemic, a sickness of the affluent and the second born. Strident here, where they are all equally afflicted, but worsened in the wasteland of his sect-cleansed 'home.' ]
[lan zhan reaches for him this time, and though wei ying can see it happening, is witness to lan zhan moving of his own volition towards him, it still catches him by the throat, yanking his heart up to beat rabbit-fast against his tongue. he seizes the moment, seizes the hem of lan zhan's bat sleeve too, hungry and pathetically desperate for contact now that he knows how it feels like to hold lan zhan's hand.
pale imitation, certainly. but even a silhouette is a blessing for the previously blind.]
I mostly just train in the afternoons, [wei wuxian starts,] and then explore the city as much as I can. It's a big place! And there's so much that I've never seen before, that there's always something new to discover, something new to learn.
And... ah. I've made some friends here, and I visit them often to spend time with them - and to moonlace, as well.
[wei ying can feel his cheeks flushing, saying things so plainly in lan zhan's presence.]
I'm very physical to begin with, so it's pretty easy to just moonlace with a stranger by just holding their hand or embracing them, but moonlacing with someone you like feels so much better to me. I could be imagining it, though. I haven't fully tested the limits of what moonlacing can do.
Ah, but I tried! I asked around, and I found some people who volunteered to help me learn about the extent of moonlacing practices, and—
[and the implications of that, as he's said it, slaps wei ying in the face a moment too late.]
You probably don't want to hear about it. I'll stop now.
[ 'Moonlace'. Courtesy word for sorcery that trades affection, too often erotic by end-game, if not design. Days passed now, Lan Wangji's touch on Xue Yang's cheek, spelling hate and still achieving the same result as acts construed best between cultivation partners.
And Wei Ying, spitting in the face of modesty, inheriting nothing of his clan but the boldness to seek out — strangers for the contract. 'People who volunteered', so he might pursue this practice, like he did the demonic arts. A steward of ingenuity, no matter its dignity and form.
The roil of his skull-ache ramps, sea simmering before the storm's hit. A totality of events led here, each sharp on his back like new lashing. He looks at Wei Ying, and for the first time sees him — not the man who joined Lan Wangji so recently in battle, but the boy who yearned for nothing for paltry pleasures. The abyss behind them, distant with each new step, and somehow also yawning between them: Lan Wangji, meaning to carve himself a destiny. Wei Ying, still so keen to let others suffocate his own. What good will his new friends and partners do him, when the noose rounds his neck once more?
No matter. Not one for Lan Wangji to determine, between the troubled, fractured inclines of his head. Wei Ying's sleeve slips between cautious fingertips, the wrinkle inevitable. ]
Congratulations... to Yunmeng Jiang on your matches. [ What would Xichen's words be, his calculated kindness? What would a modern man decree, past Lan Wangji's instinctive contempt? ] Compliments to Jiang Wanyin.
[ Better. Accept the elegant dress of Wei Ying's circumstances. ]
[why does he feel the keen urge to defend himself, now? he hasn't done anything dishonorable, and yet here wei ying stands, lamenting lan zhan's surrender of his sleeve, wei ying's own following in step as conduct demands.]
It's hardly anything like that, [he protests, but the thread of his voice is... not defeated, no, this isn't a fight to be won. but he certainly feels like he's missing something, like he's only seeing a part of the whole, and it frustrates him in a way he can't quite articulate even to himself.] I'm not planning on choosing any of them as cultivation partners, and anyway Jiang Cheng will have to consent to that, since he stands for the sect while we're here.
Lan Zhan. I wouldn't dishonor a stranger like that! I'd never take what isn't freely given, and even then - it won't be just anyone! They'll be someone I like, someone I trust, someone who I can care for and who would care for me in return. An equal in matters of the heart, if not in skill. That would be nice, though - if we were evenly matched. And then we'd take on the world and never look back, carving our own path. Even if it's just the two of us in the end.
[wishful thinking. in its own way, subversive. wei ying feels the weight of lan zhan's judgment and despairs, but stands by his words.]
[ A short life, curtailed by the brother whose approval Wei Ying seeks out like a lap dog. A bridge chosen with Jiang Cheng's blessing, anointed with Jiang Yanli's kisses and sisterly embrace. There is a future Wei Ying might have glimpsed, romantic and curious, the curse of convention affecting a man renown for his blasphemy. This, the cultivation annals will not remember: Wei Ying the hopeless optimist, who thought himself intended for a simple life. ]
Noble. [ The right and appropriate words, spoken freely. Wei Ying would do his ancestors proud and his tutors honour, treating his lovers fairly. How reassuring, sparking the shiver that courses up to every end-point of Lan Wangji's limbs. ] Apologies. Too much wine.
[ He's disgraced himself with a mouthful. And now Wei Ying looks at him as if they're both one with the fresh snow, a chance but joyous accident of a winter day, when their presence should have been the token given. A bizarre and uncanny incident that seeks to infiltrate reality, as if it has its own place within it.
Lan Wangji's stiff arm joins him at the back, set for a stroll that starts at hastened pace. The other hand tugs the talisman thread neatly. Come along now, Wei Ying. ]
You don't have to apologize to me for anything, Lan Zhan. Please.
[wei ying looks away, though. companions, plural. of the varied men and women, two names surface prominently, and one of them he can't mention so easily. but this is lan zhan. surely— surely he can explain?]
Lady Yuri. Kozukata. I met her here, one of my first friends. She's been accepted into the Yunmeng Jiang by the other Jiang Cheng, and her abilities are extraordinary - I've seen what she can do, and she's powerful. More than I think she even realizes. But her power hurts her, and we've been looking for ways to help with the blowback, to ease the aftereffects so that it doesn't hurt her as much.
And Yangyang. He— [wei ying stops, in spite of himself. he. a man. admitting as much has wei ying snapping up to look at lan zhan, his breath caught once more in his throat. it's unlike him to worry about judgment, but in his defense, he's never brought shame about that's been committed in the bedroom.
well, there's a first time for everything, he thinks ruefully.]
He's someone from home. You've met him, actually. He's confided things in me, things I couldn't believe at first, but everything I've been told by our peers since I've arrived have stood true to what he's told me, or at least hasn't contradicted anything. I— If I can convince him to stay on the right path, to do the right thing for the right reasons— He could do good.
[there's no good way to breach the subject, wei ying realizes.]
[ The shy-cast girl, sullen and dull, a tragedy of skill she could not demonstrate. Kind, but strange enigma. And Xue Yang, Yangyang, the demon and his five-counted sins.
Bichen remembers him better than Wangji, and the pale glare of her glamour, inches unsheathing, calls his hand to bring her down. Enemy. No. ('I love Wei Ying.' That monster. A fool.)
And Wei Wuxian, who welcomes the snake to his warm bosom, in the face of Lan Wangji's bright-eyed, livid contempt. ]
I remember bloodying him. [ So there is only truth between them, and whatever repercussion Wei Wuxian would reap of that schism. ] The slaughterer of Yueyang Chang.
[ It's the drink in him, all of that mouthful. The drink and the famine of chroma, the fatigue and his wound, blistering under bandage, where his arm mends. He feels too living, prone and close to roaring, as if Wei Ying finally bared himself for a sin that Wangji's anger could direct at — if not the suicide he has yet to commit, then this. This will do. ]
Was there a shortage in gutters, that you had to take your lover from the dregs of our sect murderers?
[anger, for the first time. it rises like a flood, and it drowns wei ying with such force that he stops in his tracks and pulls on the thread that binds them together, pulls harshly that lan zhan might turn to spit the words back to his face.]
He didn't die.
[he throws the words down, for all that their meaning will not be hidden. they've met, and recently - wei ying feeding xue yang chroma by the cup with his fingers, his lips, until his wounds have eased in their pain. but that's not why he's saying the words, isn't it? xue yang is indefensible, his crimes great enough to warrant the righteous fury of qinghe nie; why, then, wei ying's defense?
he persists. wei ying doesn't know what else to do.]
I came from the gutters too, Lan Zhan. It's by Jiang Fengmian's mercy that I stand where I am, and the world has never let me forget that. Wei Wuxian, of Yunmeng Jiang - privileged son of a servant, like many have reminded me, son of Cangse Sanren who turned her back on the privilege of the gentry. I know what I owe. I can't forget even if I tried.
Do you know what he's told me? What everyone's tiptoed around since I came here?
The Wens, dead. All of them, down to the last child. And I stood to bear the blame for the delay of their execution, with no one to stand in my defense - not even my sworn brother, not even you. Nothing I've been told since has gone against it. Everyone's keeping the truth from me, I'm not so blind to not notice, the careful words, the turn of the head when I ask about what lies ahead of me.
Is it true? Surely the great and noble houses must have good reason to wipe out a whole sect. Surely there's a righteous explanation to stand aside and let the murder of so many come to pass. Xue Yang... He told me about Wen Ning. About the experiments. I don't want to believe it, I really don't - what was the whole point of our vows if we're no better than the evils we've sworn to fight?
If he's so despicable to you, Lan Zhan, then refute it all. I'll believe you. If you say it's not true, then it isn't. Tell me that I won't find myself in Yiling. Tell me that the sects have shown mercy. Tell me that I don't fall into the practice of demonic cultivation, that I don't turn my back on the right path. If it's you, if you say it—
Tell me he's lying. Tell me that I don't stray so far from where you stand that I'm left with the dead and the wretched in my wake.
[ The Wen, extinct. The clans in ruin. Cultivation explored past the limits of its very foundation. Murder, mayhem, bloodshed. Wei Wuxian, master of the deadless masses, back to the world, let alone its crossroads.
Call the lies of Xue Yang's viper tongue. Next time, rip it at hungry root.
Jiang Fengmian's mercy, the privilege of a favoured son, Lan Qiren's reluctance — a whirlpool of detail in the dead of nightless winter, corners of crystal glinting like mother's tears between sheets of powdered sleet.
Wei Ying pulls on him, like Jiang Wanyin calls on his dog, and treacherously Lan Wangji''s footing gives in a stumble disciples might know to correct at the last second with a rebalance of their momentum, but a drunk man fails to adjust. Hurt spills in web-work of ripples on impact, one knee thudding down into ice that doesn't crumble. Bichen, handier than a blind man's cane, breaking Wangji's fall.
The talisman-rope bridges them, a leash of Lan Wangji's summon, if not his make. He watches light travel on it, ride up in tip-toe like a cricket's footprint, crawling up Wei Yi — Wei Wuxian's hands, possessed of their malice. Yiling patriarch, oh, but there were signs, there were betrayals, there was arrogance, always, no matter how young. ]
You want to know where you stray to?
[ He rasps, and for once they share the hunger. Wangji rounds the talisman's thread in a loop around his hand once, rises — and pulls in his own right, to drag Wei Wuxian like the limp cloth dolls of peasant girls, steps behind him.
Violence warrants violence, one lesson for another. To the rim then, the teeth of the gully's maw, the very edge — so Wei Wuxian can have his look again, have his fill of it. ]
[he pulls; lan zhan pushes. it's not wei ying's desire to drag the man down with him, wants the opposite, wants him - the realization is sharp as a blade, cutting into his sides.
of course. recognition pierces through wei ying's compromised mind with blinding clarity - this is how his affections crystallize into something tangible in front of him. want cores through his nerves like lighting, carving quick, needle-thin paths straight to his heart, just as his own anger crests, crests still, never stopping.
here sits a difference of perspective between them - it might as well be a chasm.]
'Do not speak to me of death.'
[wei ying slings the words back, finally grasping their meaning. finally, finally, finally - the word turning over and over as it slots into the spaces of what he doesn't know, fitting perfectly. does it come soon? it must; it should. he hopes. let the damned abyss reach up and strangle him, let it drag him into his depths, let it eat him whole.
make him worthy of lan wangji's anger. rain it all down on him, soak him in it.
wetness stings his eyes. pity him, a fool - infatuated with a man who's only ever seen him as anything but a friend. he's begged with his heart for xue yang's words to be struck down; should he bow, should he kneel on the ground? it doesn't come. none of it comes.
so it stands, uncontested: wei wuxian, orphaned son of cangse sanren and wei changze, left alone by everyone he's loved to defend the dredges of a common enemy, doomed to fall into the arms of a murderer as a lover, with no one but his own shadow to watch his back.
madam yu was right. he's not worth the life he's been given.]
Piss off, Lan Wangji.
[words, calmly pronounced, as wei ying pulls on the thread, pulling lan zhan close.
he kisses him on the mouth, just as the last pull on the thread topples them over into the gully.]
[ Step back, his arm's drift, the poorer footing, sour stain of wine on Wei Ying's lips. They fall.
No grace to the dance. No guidance. Only the misery of hitting first hard things, then the snowy soft, smears of dirt and crystal crests — his spine and back grinding. His wounded side, poorly favoured when he controls nothing of the descent, less of the roll, far so of Wei Ying's weight, commanding Wangji's to twist and turn, retaliatory.
The forest is silent when they drop down, not a thud or a hard pronouncement, but a coarse, apologetic rustle, thin wave of ice speckles following them after. The gully was not so tall, the hints of river it may have watched over long frozen. Struck down, Wangji breathes in time with the passage of water he feels coursing beneath the glacial spread, so many lengths below.
Wan sunlight striking white angles into stark-blank snow. Farther out, the starting clamor of arctic geese, rallying against unseen targets. Chills sigh across Wangji's skin, betraying the rupture of cloth where it should fasten. When he moves, it's with the slow tell of the wine fog that stammers his thoughts, more than the clumsy bruising that compounds earlier wounds. A quiet, white noise of ache.
Bichen is close enough for Wangji to suffer the inconvenience of leaning to grasp it close, despite the protests of his shoulders. He raises himself slowly, Wei Ying a dark bundle beside him, visibly living and livid. With a hiss, Lan Wangji untangles them enough to sit, side by side, ungainly pillared by stretches of crystal behind them and brushing at shoulders, hips and the long line of neighbouring legs — all the better to generate the healing chroma Wangji has learned now, on three occasions, he'd sooner have than abandon.
Lethargy floods him, compelling every synapse of his sharpened mind down to the edges of his limbs. Every spark of storm has quieted inside of him. There is nothing to resent Wei Ying here, less to avenge. Give Wei Wuxian the stage of a cliff's lodge, of course he will put on his performance. And what had Wangji hoped for? Words? Explanations? Redemption? A fool's heart can't be understood, let alone forgiven, Wei Ying said so. This played out as well as any disaster between them could hope to. If Wangji's chest weren't a cushion of pins and needles, he might laugh.
His rasping waits until Wei Ying seems to stir back to his senses, alert as much as he is awake. ]
Wei Ying. [ The folds of his sleeve are dishevelled, the under-layer torn, where the outer silk, wind-swept, eluded the groans of gravity and tearing. He lifts his wrist to show wire and bone, the obstinate resilience of the talisman string that's survived the fall in strange, cobalt glimmer. Strong sorcery. Balanced make. If not for the time and the day and the people they've become, Lan Wangji should compliment the craftsmanship. ] Release the bind.
[they sit against each other in a picture of tragic comedy - bruised, disheveled, one half stoically seething while the other is openly crying, the cold wind slapping their cheeks as it howls past them at the bottom of the gully.
wei wuxian breathes slowly, shallowly, uncaring about dignity and pride as he scrubs at his face and nose before the cold can properly freeze his tears and snot. he doesn't look at lan wangji, even though every part of him is screaming at him to turn, turn, turn - see to lan wangji's injury, help him up, offer his help in whatever way he can manage.
it won't be welcome now, a slithering voice reminds him. not that it's ever been welcome before.
that's for the better, isn't it? wei wuxian's made enough of a mess.
he's an idiot. a fool. if it were possible to survive here without seeing another human being he'll gladly subject himself to secluded meditation. it'll be lonely, and he'll miss everyone deeply, but it'd be the right thing to do.
he should not have lashed out. should not have hurt lan zhan like this, should not have hurt him at all. his emotions have blinded him, rendered him a brute, thrown caution and respect into the wind. so what if his heart had shattered to pieces? he's an idiot to have given it away so freely in the first place. did he expect reciprocation? he'd only ever pushed at lan wangji's boundaries, offending the man at every turn, what love is there for someone like him, when all he's ever done is to break every rule he's ever faced?
a man like lan wangji doesn't deserve to suffer a man like him.]
I'm sorry, [he croaks out, voice wet as though underwater. wei wuxian releases the bind, the coil dissipating in a burst of faint light; he keeps his head down, moves to stand. his shoulder aches from the first impact, and his hip is screaming where suibian has refused to yield during the tumble down the gully. small cuts and bruises all over; they might as well coalesce into one large bruise.
he's never felt quite as hollow as he does now.]
I'll just go.
[shame, hot brands around his ankles and neck. wei wuxian flees.]
[ The bind, first: broken. It fragments, dissolving in blinks of sparkle that Lan Wangji has to push himself to stare away from. Whatever his hurt, his perversion, his trickery, Wei Wuxian's sorcery has always been the one one, central beacon of beauty that's anchored him. Even the patriarch of Yiling strove to set the attacks of his corpses to music, the breaths and groans and whispers of the undead to lulls and crescendo of the wind and untamed breeze.
His wrist falls in his lap, listless and as indifferent as Wangji's heart wishes it could still itself, beating to the cadence of guilt in resonance. It rises again, possessed of its own volition — to stop Wei Wuxian, only another breath longer. Drag him back. Say words they should have shared a life that Wei Ying's yet to live before.
Doesn't catch purchase. He'll go — does go, scant and dwindling in the distance, stretch of darkness in plain, blinding white. Fitting, to be abandoned here, in the aftermath of it all, gathering the pieces.
He knows the part. He's bled worse before for it. ]
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wei ying takes in all of lan zhan - the regal slope of his nose, the sharpness of his eyes, the disciplined line of his shoulders. the slight list on one arm, which has him frowning in question-- but later. he can focus on that later. there's the matter at hand, of lan zhan's ribbon sitting crooked on his forehead, and wei ying forges on with no hesitation, sure as a mountain goat on a steep mountainside as he nudges the cloud emblem into place.
there. now it sits in perfect center, and wei ying nods solemnly.]
There.
Ah, but Lan Zhan... [a frown mars wei ying's expression, as he looks down onto lan zhan's arm. the man moves economically, no single action wasted, but his arm is particularly stiff by any measure, and wei ying is suspicious of it.] What happened to your arm?
Did you— Have you been injured? Is this why you wanted me to wait three days, so you could heal? You should've said so! You need Chroma to heal!
[wei ying holds out his hand - an offering to the pyre, should the fire choose to take it.]
I'll help you.
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His headband finds its way into righting. Wei Ying's fingers leave him, trail of sickly warmth behind, where the dying fever of another's skin touched what only family should. On his back, lashes spell the same defilement.
His teeth grit against the intrusion, but he survives the burdens of cosmetic correction. The hand calling him sparks every ounce of the anger he'd thought buried with snow. ]
What I asked, you would not do.
[ Now, Wei Wuxian asks in turn. The talisman spell yet cast, the wine undrunk. How can they fault Jiang Wanyin for his temper, when he is constantly afflicted with the stubbornness of his brother, the mule? Belatedly, Lan Wangji starts to find idle strings and strands of sympathy that dies no sooner than it's woken. ]
Cast the talisman.
[ One bargain for another. Price for paying. His chin rises, arrogant. ]
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so wei ying rolls up his sleeves, enough to expose his wrists to the cold, and casts the talisman with pointed gestures.
it lands firm, steadfast, binding to lan zhan's good wrist, this thin blue line connecting the two of them together.]
Done. [hands on hips, like a mother scolding a child, though wei ying feels less of a mother than he does an overly attached... something. barnacle, perhaps. or a stubborn pet that refuses to be ignored.] Lan Zhan, I'm serious, you have to moonlace. You could die if you don't.
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Between them, the thread knots and holds, hardening. Wei Ying watches him like the chicken he'd claimed to chase once, fat with smug self-satisfaction. Trickery that comes too easily was forged once more. What feat, Wei Wuxian! What mastery.
Brows perching north, Lan Wangji tries the resilience of the talisman's bind, then tugs with a hard pull to draw Wei Ying close. Lan Wangji's hand out this once, one coin to repay the other. If this is Wei Ying's prize, then he may come to claim it. ]
Do not speak to me of death.
[ He could die if he breathed, might as well have died the day his ideals paled and the sun rose in the dawns of a new cultivation era. Wei Wuxian did die, and now he thinks to presume something close to reprimand. ]
You meant to have wine.
[ So let them choke on each gulp that thin, begrudged flask may offer. ]
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(but it does end, at some point in their future, the current drying up under the unrelenting gaze of a brief lifetime's suffering. wei ying bleeds, and will continue bleeding, for a world that has never liked men like him. what room is there for the bright-eyed and the selfless, beyond the immortalizing embrace of a grave, a funeral plaque?)
he takes lan zhan's hand, holds him firmly, chroma forming and coiling under their skin before being drawn out and into the sleek braces they both wear. ]
Here, let me have the first drink.
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Under and in skin, needlework of sorcery Lan Wangji didn't invite again. Violation that his body absorbs like medicine and immunity, all the more devious for its stealthy infiltration. He mouths the word even as he fights the shiver of pulling his fingers away, Chroma.
The talisman first, now this exchange. Barter struck and executed on Wei Ying's part. No matter. Lan Wangji will abide the hold for a few moments, then call their slates equally cleansed.
He drags them both forward, to the snow mound, where he recovers the wine flask. Let Wei Ying have the first drink?
Ah. He stares it down, lusciously pale in its ceramic, a misfortune of the senses. He is tempted, briefly, to pour it over (Promised.)
Cutting Wei Ying with the edge of his glance, he thumbs the cap of the flask off, and takes the first sip instead, colld as wine should not be. Vile. Btterness and bile straining the inside of his teeth. Tongue lulled and slow. He swallows down.
Poor, compared with the warm edges of the Emperor's Smile. Still enough to induce the start of a blistering haze.
He offers the flask over. ]
Not poisoned. [ And another tug of the talisman-leash. ] Drink and walk.
[ That damned gully still stares at him. ]
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one foot in front of the other; wei ying walks, aimless, along the length of the gully. where to? where else? he's still staring at lan zhan when he brings the flask to his own lips and drinks sedately-- and winces. it's poorly made, too sweet and too fresh, but it still has the distinct flavor of alcohol lacing through it. it'll do. wei ying takes another swig, deeper this time, and offers it to lan zhan.
lan zhan has yet to draw his hand away from wei ying's grip. the chroma meter ticks on ever upwards, polite in its slowness.]
Lan Zhan... You're worrying me a little. [it comes a little too fast, a little too honest, but what's been said can't be taken back, can it? words cannot be unheard, or at least wei ying hasn't figured out how to manage it yet.] Is everything alright?
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Nothing is all right, but here they are, two shadows stabbing the horizon. Lan Wangji leads, and for once it's Wei Ying who follows, dragged along like a foolish child — lesser than a-Yuan, who at least found the cunning to command Lan Wangji to carry him.
The flask swivels back towards him, his turn to poison his mouth again. By right, he should accept it, part of the bargain Lan Wangji should have known better than to strike, for all it's stripped of him: his patience, his dignity, control of his one good hand. Still fastened to him, the other pulses in sharp increments of tender pain that revives before dimming, whipped down under the empire of luminous chroma. ]
Too sweet.
[ He gives by way of refusal, grimace smearing the better part of his lips, then fading into ether. This much, Wei Ying can understand: too sweet by far, a mistake of flavour. And too heady, Lan Wangji's next few steps fickle, as if straight lines have personally and indelibly offended him.
There's a short stretch to cover til the mouth of the forest, if only they limp it carefully. ]
Is this not as you wanted?
[ Wine, an encounter. True to the letter of Wei Ying's demands, if not their spirit. ]
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[too sober, that answer. wei ying drains the rest of the flask, then, for want of a better means to shut himself up; hisses when the burn of alcohol clambers down his throat inelegantly.
wei ying looks at where their hands are joined together, the pleasant effects of moonlacing loosening what worries stick to wei ying's mind; here, like this, he can help lan zhan. this is something that he can do, something that requires the very least of him even though wei ying is ready to give so much more if lan zhan should ever ask.
it's just handholding. it's the most basic of interactions, outside of conversations and filial embraces. it doesn't explain the way wei ying's heart feels both elated and distraught, the two feelings alternating in between the spaces of his heartbeats. joy. sadness. happiness, soaring sky high, but yearning too, yanking wei ying by the collar of his robes and anchoring him firmly to the ground.
this is an indulgence. he's late in recognizing it, but it's clear that lan zhan is doing all this for wei ying's benefit. perhaps there's a perceived debt owed that wei ying hasn't paid attention to? is this an apology, perhaps, for the injuries sustained at mt. muxi's cave? but they're friends - lan zhan owes wei ying nothing.
maybe wei ying hasn't been clear enough on that front. fault of his character, then; it must be corrected.]
Lan Zhan. I want you to be happy, too. Even if that means refusing me. I'm just Wei Ying - you don't have to worry about offending me if you say no.
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Migraine, wine, glints of the crystalline forest, the elusive spell of Wei Ying's quiet voice. Lan Wangji is meant to be happy too. Then — ]
...let go.
[ But whispered with the air of every request he hasn't articulated since arrival, shreds of the weakness his brother's hawk eyes glimpsed first. He doesn't tug his hand free, vulnerable to Wei Ying's decision. This was their bargain, transacted fairly. Wei Ying can demand it upheld.
Too much, all at once: hands, cliffs, falls, the undead. Time, misplaced. The hurt in Lan Wangji's arm, abated but still burrowing beneath skin and into bone. If he is to have one indulgence, it is this: each trickle of the deluge, on Lan Wangji's own time. ]
Resume later.
[ Dose it out, like hurt for a man learning his tolerance. ]
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[wei ying nods solemnly, and lets go of lan zhan's hand. his hand feels unbearably warm, the ends tingling, and he's not sure if it's because of their held hands or something else, some residual magic that still clings. is this why people moonlace so often? is the parting too painful, like happiness cut short? wei ying feels a small amount of regret, all of a sudden. this was a bad idea. he shouldn't have pushed, should have just stayed behind the line drawn between them.
but like a moth drawn to a flame, wei ying just can't resist. never could, with lan zhan.
he'll just have to work harder.
he puts on a smile, straightens out his shoulders, pushes his chest out.]
Do you want to go anywhere else? We could go and eat! If you're not too tired, that is. I'll walk with you back to your place if you want to rest now.
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He startles to find himself suddenly, irrevocably awake. Unbidden, he reaches for Wei Ying's sleeve, fingers catching purchase on silk. Flesh traded for embroidery. Easier, for now. ]
I have no place. [ No, beyond that. ] No purpose.
[ The sects undone, reduced to leadership that holds no meaning without the men to follow. Shaped and educated to rule, now deprived of land and people. Futility is epidemic, a sickness of the affluent and the second born. Strident here, where they are all equally afflicted, but worsened in the wasteland of his sect-cleansed 'home.' ]
What do you do here?
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pale imitation, certainly. but even a silhouette is a blessing for the previously blind.]
I mostly just train in the afternoons, [wei wuxian starts,] and then explore the city as much as I can. It's a big place! And there's so much that I've never seen before, that there's always something new to discover, something new to learn.
And... ah. I've made some friends here, and I visit them often to spend time with them - and to moonlace, as well.
[wei ying can feel his cheeks flushing, saying things so plainly in lan zhan's presence.]
I'm very physical to begin with, so it's pretty easy to just moonlace with a stranger by just holding their hand or embracing them, but moonlacing with someone you like feels so much better to me. I could be imagining it, though. I haven't fully tested the limits of what moonlacing can do.
Ah, but I tried! I asked around, and I found some people who volunteered to help me learn about the extent of moonlacing practices, and—
[and the implications of that, as he's said it, slaps wei ying in the face a moment too late.]
You probably don't want to hear about it. I'll stop now.
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And Wei Ying, spitting in the face of modesty, inheriting nothing of his clan but the boldness to seek out — strangers for the contract. 'People who volunteered', so he might pursue this practice, like he did the demonic arts. A steward of ingenuity, no matter its dignity and form.
The roil of his skull-ache ramps, sea simmering before the storm's hit. A totality of events led here, each sharp on his back like new lashing. He looks at Wei Ying, and for the first time sees him — not the man who joined Lan Wangji so recently in battle, but the boy who yearned for nothing for paltry pleasures. The abyss behind them, distant with each new step, and somehow also yawning between them: Lan Wangji, meaning to carve himself a destiny. Wei Ying, still so keen to let others suffocate his own. What good will his new friends and partners do him, when the noose rounds his neck once more?
No matter. Not one for Lan Wangji to determine, between the troubled, fractured inclines of his head. Wei Ying's sleeve slips between cautious fingertips, the wrinkle inevitable. ]
Congratulations... to Yunmeng Jiang on your matches. [ What would Xichen's words be, his calculated kindness? What would a modern man decree, past Lan Wangji's instinctive contempt? ] Compliments to Jiang Wanyin.
[ Better. Accept the elegant dress of Wei Ying's circumstances. ]
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It's hardly anything like that, [he protests, but the thread of his voice is... not defeated, no, this isn't a fight to be won. but he certainly feels like he's missing something, like he's only seeing a part of the whole, and it frustrates him in a way he can't quite articulate even to himself.] I'm not planning on choosing any of them as cultivation partners, and anyway Jiang Cheng will have to consent to that, since he stands for the sect while we're here.
Lan Zhan. I wouldn't dishonor a stranger like that! I'd never take what isn't freely given, and even then - it won't be just anyone! They'll be someone I like, someone I trust, someone who I can care for and who would care for me in return. An equal in matters of the heart, if not in skill. That would be nice, though - if we were evenly matched. And then we'd take on the world and never look back, carving our own path. Even if it's just the two of us in the end.
[wishful thinking. in its own way, subversive. wei ying feels the weight of lan zhan's judgment and despairs, but stands by his words.]
I'll cherish them for the rest of my life.
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Noble. [ The right and appropriate words, spoken freely. Wei Ying would do his ancestors proud and his tutors honour, treating his lovers fairly. How reassuring, sparking the shiver that courses up to every end-point of Lan Wangji's limbs. ] Apologies. Too much wine.
[ He's disgraced himself with a mouthful. And now Wei Ying looks at him as if they're both one with the fresh snow, a chance but joyous accident of a winter day, when their presence should have been the token given. A bizarre and uncanny incident that seeks to infiltrate reality, as if it has its own place within it.
Lan Wangji's stiff arm joins him at the back, set for a stroll that starts at hastened pace. The other hand tugs the talisman thread neatly. Come along now, Wei Ying. ]
Who are your... companions?
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[wei ying looks away, though. companions, plural. of the varied men and women, two names surface prominently, and one of them he can't mention so easily. but this is lan zhan. surely— surely he can explain?]
Lady Yuri. Kozukata. I met her here, one of my first friends. She's been accepted into the Yunmeng Jiang by the other Jiang Cheng, and her abilities are extraordinary - I've seen what she can do, and she's powerful. More than I think she even realizes. But her power hurts her, and we've been looking for ways to help with the blowback, to ease the aftereffects so that it doesn't hurt her as much.
And Yangyang. He— [wei ying stops, in spite of himself. he. a man. admitting as much has wei ying snapping up to look at lan zhan, his breath caught once more in his throat. it's unlike him to worry about judgment, but in his defense, he's never brought shame about that's been committed in the bedroom.
well, there's a first time for everything, he thinks ruefully.]
He's someone from home. You've met him, actually. He's confided things in me, things I couldn't believe at first, but everything I've been told by our peers since I've arrived have stood true to what he's told me, or at least hasn't contradicted anything. I— If I can convince him to stay on the right path, to do the right thing for the right reasons— He could do good.
[there's no good way to breach the subject, wei ying realizes.]
Do you remember Xue Yang?
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Bichen remembers him better than Wangji, and the pale glare of her glamour, inches unsheathing, calls his hand to bring her down. Enemy. No. ('I love Wei Ying.' That monster. A fool.)
And Wei Wuxian, who welcomes the snake to his warm bosom, in the face of Lan Wangji's bright-eyed, livid contempt. ]
I remember bloodying him. [ So there is only truth between them, and whatever repercussion Wei Wuxian would reap of that schism. ] The slaughterer of Yueyang Chang.
[ It's the drink in him, all of that mouthful. The drink and the famine of chroma, the fatigue and his wound, blistering under bandage, where his arm mends. He feels too living, prone and close to roaring, as if Wei Ying finally bared himself for a sin that Wangji's anger could direct at — if not the suicide he has yet to commit, then this. This will do. ]
Was there a shortage in gutters, that you had to take your lover from the dregs of our sect murderers?
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He didn't die.
[he throws the words down, for all that their meaning will not be hidden. they've met, and recently - wei ying feeding xue yang chroma by the cup with his fingers, his lips, until his wounds have eased in their pain. but that's not why he's saying the words, isn't it? xue yang is indefensible, his crimes great enough to warrant the righteous fury of qinghe nie; why, then, wei ying's defense?
he persists. wei ying doesn't know what else to do.]
I came from the gutters too, Lan Zhan. It's by Jiang Fengmian's mercy that I stand where I am, and the world has never let me forget that. Wei Wuxian, of Yunmeng Jiang - privileged son of a servant, like many have reminded me, son of Cangse Sanren who turned her back on the privilege of the gentry. I know what I owe. I can't forget even if I tried.
Do you know what he's told me? What everyone's tiptoed around since I came here?
The Wens, dead. All of them, down to the last child. And I stood to bear the blame for the delay of their execution, with no one to stand in my defense - not even my sworn brother, not even you. Nothing I've been told since has gone against it. Everyone's keeping the truth from me, I'm not so blind to not notice, the careful words, the turn of the head when I ask about what lies ahead of me.
Is it true? Surely the great and noble houses must have good reason to wipe out a whole sect. Surely there's a righteous explanation to stand aside and let the murder of so many come to pass. Xue Yang... He told me about Wen Ning. About the experiments. I don't want to believe it, I really don't - what was the whole point of our vows if we're no better than the evils we've sworn to fight?
If he's so despicable to you, Lan Zhan, then refute it all. I'll believe you. If you say it's not true, then it isn't. Tell me that I won't find myself in Yiling. Tell me that the sects have shown mercy. Tell me that I don't fall into the practice of demonic cultivation, that I don't turn my back on the right path. If it's you, if you say it—
Tell me he's lying. Tell me that I don't stray so far from where you stand that I'm left with the dead and the wretched in my wake.
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Call the lies of Xue Yang's viper tongue. Next time, rip it at hungry root.
Jiang Fengmian's mercy, the privilege of a favoured son, Lan Qiren's reluctance — a whirlpool of detail in the dead of nightless winter, corners of crystal glinting like mother's tears between sheets of powdered sleet.
Wei Ying pulls on him, like Jiang Wanyin calls on his dog, and treacherously Lan Wangji''s footing gives in a stumble disciples might know to correct at the last second with a rebalance of their momentum, but a drunk man fails to adjust. Hurt spills in web-work of ripples on impact, one knee thudding down into ice that doesn't crumble. Bichen, handier than a blind man's cane, breaking Wangji's fall.
The talisman-rope bridges them, a leash of Lan Wangji's summon, if not his make. He watches light travel on it, ride up in tip-toe like a cricket's footprint, crawling up Wei Yi — Wei Wuxian's hands, possessed of their malice. Yiling patriarch, oh, but there were signs, there were betrayals, there was arrogance, always, no matter how young. ]
You want to know where you stray to?
[ He rasps, and for once they share the hunger. Wangji rounds the talisman's thread in a loop around his hand once, rises — and pulls in his own right, to drag Wei Wuxian like the limp cloth dolls of peasant girls, steps behind him.
Violence warrants violence, one lesson for another. To the rim then, the teeth of the gully's maw, the very edge — so Wei Wuxian can have his look again, have his fill of it. ]
I want to know why your memory mocks me.
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of course. recognition pierces through wei ying's compromised mind with blinding clarity - this is how his affections crystallize into something tangible in front of him. want cores through his nerves like lighting, carving quick, needle-thin paths straight to his heart, just as his own anger crests, crests still, never stopping.
here sits a difference of perspective between them - it might as well be a chasm.]
'Do not speak to me of death.'
[wei ying slings the words back, finally grasping their meaning. finally, finally, finally - the word turning over and over as it slots into the spaces of what he doesn't know, fitting perfectly. does it come soon? it must; it should. he hopes. let the damned abyss reach up and strangle him, let it drag him into his depths, let it eat him whole.
make him worthy of lan wangji's anger. rain it all down on him, soak him in it.
wetness stings his eyes. pity him, a fool - infatuated with a man who's only ever seen him as anything but a friend. he's begged with his heart for xue yang's words to be struck down; should he bow, should he kneel on the ground? it doesn't come. none of it comes.
so it stands, uncontested: wei wuxian, orphaned son of cangse sanren and wei changze, left alone by everyone he's loved to defend the dredges of a common enemy, doomed to fall into the arms of a murderer as a lover, with no one but his own shadow to watch his back.
madam yu was right. he's not worth the life he's been given.]
Piss off, Lan Wangji.
[words, calmly pronounced, as wei ying pulls on the thread, pulling lan zhan close.
he kisses him on the mouth, just as the last pull on the thread topples them over into the gully.]
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No grace to the dance. No guidance. Only the misery of hitting first hard things, then the snowy soft, smears of dirt and crystal crests — his spine and back grinding. His wounded side, poorly favoured when he controls nothing of the descent, less of the roll, far so of Wei Ying's weight, commanding Wangji's to twist and turn, retaliatory.
The forest is silent when they drop down, not a thud or a hard pronouncement, but a coarse, apologetic rustle, thin wave of ice speckles following them after. The gully was not so tall, the hints of river it may have watched over long frozen. Struck down, Wangji breathes in time with the passage of water he feels coursing beneath the glacial spread, so many lengths below.
Wan sunlight striking white angles into stark-blank snow. Farther out, the starting clamor of arctic geese, rallying against unseen targets. Chills sigh across Wangji's skin, betraying the rupture of cloth where it should fasten. When he moves, it's with the slow tell of the wine fog that stammers his thoughts, more than the clumsy bruising that compounds earlier wounds. A quiet, white noise of ache.
Bichen is close enough for Wangji to suffer the inconvenience of leaning to grasp it close, despite the protests of his shoulders. He raises himself slowly, Wei Ying a dark bundle beside him, visibly living and livid. With a hiss, Lan Wangji untangles them enough to sit, side by side, ungainly pillared by stretches of crystal behind them and brushing at shoulders, hips and the long line of neighbouring legs — all the better to generate the healing chroma Wangji has learned now, on three occasions, he'd sooner have than abandon.
Lethargy floods him, compelling every synapse of his sharpened mind down to the edges of his limbs. Every spark of storm has quieted inside of him. There is nothing to resent Wei Ying here, less to avenge. Give Wei Wuxian the stage of a cliff's lodge, of course he will put on his performance. And what had Wangji hoped for? Words? Explanations? Redemption? A fool's heart can't be understood, let alone forgiven, Wei Ying said so. This played out as well as any disaster between them could hope to. If Wangji's chest weren't a cushion of pins and needles, he might laugh.
His rasping waits until Wei Ying seems to stir back to his senses, alert as much as he is awake. ]
Wei Ying. [ The folds of his sleeve are dishevelled, the under-layer torn, where the outer silk, wind-swept, eluded the groans of gravity and tearing. He lifts his wrist to show wire and bone, the obstinate resilience of the talisman string that's survived the fall in strange, cobalt glimmer. Strong sorcery. Balanced make. If not for the time and the day and the people they've become, Lan Wangji should compliment the craftsmanship. ] Release the bind.
[ So Lan Wangji can piss off. ]
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wei wuxian breathes slowly, shallowly, uncaring about dignity and pride as he scrubs at his face and nose before the cold can properly freeze his tears and snot. he doesn't look at lan wangji, even though every part of him is screaming at him to turn, turn, turn - see to lan wangji's injury, help him up, offer his help in whatever way he can manage.
it won't be welcome now, a slithering voice reminds him. not that it's ever been welcome before.
that's for the better, isn't it? wei wuxian's made enough of a mess.
he's an idiot. a fool. if it were possible to survive here without seeing another human being he'll gladly subject himself to secluded meditation. it'll be lonely, and he'll miss everyone deeply, but it'd be the right thing to do.
he should not have lashed out. should not have hurt lan zhan like this, should not have hurt him at all. his emotions have blinded him, rendered him a brute, thrown caution and respect into the wind. so what if his heart had shattered to pieces? he's an idiot to have given it away so freely in the first place. did he expect reciprocation? he'd only ever pushed at lan wangji's boundaries, offending the man at every turn, what love is there for someone like him, when all he's ever done is to break every rule he's ever faced?
a man like lan wangji doesn't deserve to suffer a man like him.]
I'm sorry, [he croaks out, voice wet as though underwater. wei wuxian releases the bind, the coil dissipating in a burst of faint light; he keeps his head down, moves to stand. his shoulder aches from the first impact, and his hip is screaming where suibian has refused to yield during the tumble down the gully. small cuts and bruises all over; they might as well coalesce into one large bruise.
he's never felt quite as hollow as he does now.]
I'll just go.
[shame, hot brands around his ankles and neck. wei wuxian flees.]
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His wrist falls in his lap, listless and as indifferent as Wangji's heart wishes it could still itself, beating to the cadence of guilt in resonance. It rises again, possessed of its own volition — to stop Wei Wuxian, only another breath longer. Drag him back. Say words they should have shared a life that Wei Ying's yet to live before.
Doesn't catch purchase. He'll go — does go, scant and dwindling in the distance, stretch of darkness in plain, blinding white. Fitting, to be abandoned here, in the aftermath of it all, gathering the pieces.
He knows the part. He's bled worse before for it. ]