Chapter Text
The first night on Yiling, Lan Wangji doesn't sleep. He lays flat on the cot, fists clenched, expecting the heat of a powered-up beamgun against his forehead.
There wouldn't be much he could to do fight, and he hates that, hates the ache in his ribs and the stupid powerlessness that drags his body down and makes him shake when he tries to sit up. The farmer offers him a shot of something from an old-model hypospray injector, old enough that Lan Wangji is startled by the fading serial number and is a little afraid it might actually kill him. He looks at the hypospray, squints at the vial that Wei Wuxian offered, and turns the small metal injector over in his hands.
"What is it?" The scratched-up glass vial doesn't look medical grade, not quite. It looks like something his uncle would kill him just for looking at. The liquid has an oily, rainbow tint to it, shimmering in the light.
The farmer scratches the back of his neck, frowning, lips scrunching down towards the little mole on his chin, "Morpho? I think?"
"You think?" He asks dryly, wondering how many years he'd get in the Gusu Correctional Satellite for just looking at it.
"I know it's Morpho. It's definitely not Trip."
Trip.
"You have. Trip. Here."
"Not in liquid form, so. Don't worry - fuck, don't look so alarmed - that's Morpho there."
"How do you know?"
"'Cause I make this shit - well, me and the Wens - so I think I can recognize it."
Wangji doesn't want to show that he's - scared, or angry, at that. Sleeping a crumbling farmhouse that's a drug lab. He schools his face into something blank and gently sets down the injector and vial on the endtable, wincing as the vial rolls towards the edge and Wei Wuxian leaps forwards, catching it just before it falls to the ground.
"Can you be a little gentle?"
"You want me to be gentle with your drugs."
Morpho is a system-wide controlled substance. Trip is illegal just about anywhere. Wangji wonders what other little vials and powders the farmer has hidden away. Looks at the drying herbs in a different light, at the glass jars of bright purple flowers and colorful liquids.
"I didn't make it for me," he says defensively, moving to the far end of the room and opening a metal cabinet overhead, stretching to his tip-toes to reach up and pull out a tube rack, meticulously labeled. He whispers to himself and runs his fingers over the vials, reading down the list before making a little noise of confirmation and sliding the Morpho into place. "These aren't for me," he continues, as if he can sense Lan Wangji's judgement, putting the rack back and closing the cabinet, "The Morpho's for a friend - chronic pain, can't afford a prescription. Cyclosporinis for my brother's organ transplant. I'll admit the Trip is for fun."
Okay, so, less of a drug den, more of a pharmacy. He's not sure how to wrap his head around that - some Yiling farmer, hidden away on a rock of a planet, making drugs for, what, his brother?
"I still don't want the Morpho."
"That's fine."
Lan Wangji sleeps without the pain medication, and he regrets it, eventually drifting off and waking with stiff muscles and an intense sharp pain in his arm. He rouses first, pushes himself into some sort of crumpled half-sitting position on the mattress and meditates until Wei Wuxian's alarm blares, stirring him from sleep just before the animals are set to wake up. Lan Wangji was confused, at first, by the weird mix of technology in Wei Wuxian's small home - stone walls and wood flooring, bright florescent lights that dim down to a deep orange in the evening. Herbs are lined at the windows, drying, and animals bay into the evening, but there's a workshop cluttered with circuit boards in the corner and a weird little robot-creature toddles around, eyes blinking slowly. Wei Wuxian introduces the robot as Suibian, some half-dead android he found out in the scrapyard and put back together. There are faded numbers-and-letters across it's chipped metal frame, totally illegible, hence the name, Whatever.
The complete disregard for propriety is a shock to Lan Wangji - no formalities or clean white surfaces and draping robes, no sickly smell of diplomacy and bleach. Wei Wuxian gave up on calling him Officer after the first day, and in the morning he's stretching up towards the sunrise and pulling on workboots, snagging an energy drink and nutripaste from the fridge as he greets Lan Wangji, "Off to feed the animals!"
Lan Wangji meditates until he can convince himself he's not lonely or in pain.
Wei Wuxian's days have always passed slow, tucked away on a remote farm in Yiling as he is, but with the soldier in his home, there is an undercurrent of tension and danger in the air. He knows he should be worried, but it's fucking thrilling. He loves languid days in the fields, picking herbs to dry, enjoys taking his morning at his own pace, spinning around his small cottage to the noise of whatever popular music is playing over the holopad, so he didn't expect to enjoy the company of a stranger this much.
For a long time his only visitors have been his brother and the townspeople, sometimes the doctor, who's brother likes to bring Wuxian picks from his latest hunt in exchange for Morpho and a friendly face.
The second night Lan Wangji spends on Yiling, they're both too afraid to sleep. Wei Wuxian can see the wounded-animal fear in the pilot's eyes, the way he lays flat on his back with his shoulders drawn up, eyes fixed on the ceiling. He looks afraid, tense, pain gnawing at his features, and Wei Wuxian knows to fear terrified animals. He spent the afternoon prior hunched over his worktable, dismantling Officer Lan's beamgun, stripping his communicator bare, checking his uniform for trackers. He'd watched as Wuxian worked, face carefully blank but eyes tracking his every movement.
Come winter, the battle raging overhead has calmed down, distant skirmishes breaking out on the edges of the system, but no more soldiers fall from the sky, and the military outpost on Yiling morphs into a small communication center, and Lan Wangji is still sleeping in Wei Wuxian's bed. He's bought a second cot since the crash, laid it out on the floor, and a threadbare blanket, but he still lets the officer sleep on the mattress. Even when it's cold and the atmospheric regulators go on the fritz, letting some of the outside chill seep under the doorframe. The cold make's Wangji's bones ache, makes the stiffness in his muscles that much worse.
At least his ribs have healed, the gashes have scabbed over and turned into silver-white scars, raised and bumpy like the surface of an old-world coin.
And he is still in Yiliing.
When he can walk, he starts helping Wuxian around the farm, hobbling out with bowls of feed to toss at the birds. Sometimes he catches Wei Wuxian singing to himself.
"I have to go into town," Wei Wuxian says one day as he prepares their bowls of nutripaste, passing one cracked metal dish off to Lan Wangji and sitting down across from him at the tilted table, "Before the cold wave hits." He keeps talking as Wangji eats, "We need blankets and I need to see if an old friend of mine can fix our heater, 'cause it fucking sucks. And," he draws the word out long, squinting at the floor as he thinks. On the ground, his weird little robot-creature toddles around, eyes blinking slowly. Wei Wuxian had introduced the robot as Suibian, some half-dead android he found out in the scrapyard and put back together. There are faded numbers-and-letters across it's chipped metal frame, totally illegible, hence the name, Whatever . It's currently repeatedly running into the "Oh! Food. I made good money in the spring and I'm sick of eating nutripaste. So we're buying some real food."
"We?"
"You're coming with me."
"With you?"
"I need someone to carry things, and you need new clothes."
"Mn."
Lan Wangji sees Wei Wuxian rolls his eyes at that response, standing up and lacing up his boots, pulling on a heavy leather overcoat and gesturing for Lan Wangji to follow him, "Eventually you're gonna say more than two-word responses."
"No," Wangji replies, feeling his lips pull up in a smile. He tries to stamp it down, control his expressions, but Wuxian has already noticed and is cackling, head throw back, pushing the door open and pulling Wangji with him.
They ride to the market on his falling-apart speeder, Wangji watching as the grassy fields stretch by, spotted with orchards and farms, then morph into the starts of a town. Homes getting more closely tucked together, scrap-metal windchimes hanging outside and bright digital flags adorning thick glass windows with shifting colors. The market itself is - small, to say the least. And loud, nothing like the quiet of Gusu. Wuxian is quick to drag him off to a stall selling something that looks like - sweet bread? It's sticky and sugary and Lan Wangji want to hate the cheap decadence but it smells so goo, and Wei Wuxian is grinning as he passes the food to him and converses with the seller in a clicking, guttural language that Lan Wangji can't make sense of.
"Clothes first," Wei Wuxian says, guiding them towards a tent adorned with draping fabric. A shimmering billboard catches Wangji's eyes, and he pulls Wei Wuxian towards it, wandering over to read the bright text, the photo, the way his face stares back, a digital portrait, blinking slowly, WANTED. There's a money reward listed, an exorbitant amount of credits.
All of a sudden, the market is to cramped, too many people, and the heavy footsteps overwhelm him and he sees Wei Wuxian looking at a police officer, back at the reward money, his eyes ghosting over Lan Wangji with something contemplative, and Wangji is very, very afraid. The officer nods sharply at his partner, gesturing at Wangji, stepping closer, then -
Wei Wuxian grips Wangji's wrist with bruising strength, dragging him to the side and running, sprinting towards the lot where he left the speeder, and the officer is yelling behind them. They're running so fast, knocking through the crowd. Wei Wuxian bumps into a tall, spindly creature carrying a box of pottery and sends it shattering to the ground, little crushed pieces of clay scattering on the pavement. They yell something unintelligible, but Wuxian keeps running until the two of them are skidding around the corner, Wuxian pulling him into a dark room that's heavy with purpleish smoke, it's cloying sent sickly-sweet and invasive. They keep going, even as the police slam open the door and a dancer screams, the fleshy vine-like tendrils coiled around his head vibrating anxiously and a silvery bill falling from his waistband. The barkeep slams on the counter, yelling something that Wangji barely catches, but then they're bursting out the back exit and ducking around a tramcar.
Wuxian yanks Wangji onto his speeder, flooring on the gas and tearing away from the market.
The news comes on the holopad first - a shockingly impersonal scroll of text, bright blue-light in Wei Wuxian's eyes as he reads. Lan Wangji watches as his eyes widen, eyebrows shooting up, and then he's flinging the holopad across the room. It clatters to the ground with an alarming glass-on-metal sound, knocking over Subian. Lan Wangji isn't sure what to look at, pulled suddenly from his quiet mediation, but then Wei Wuxian is whooping, fist pumping the air, a bright grin on his face. It makes Wangji want to smile too.
"We won!" he says breathlessly, "We won!"
That could mean anything, really, with Wei Wuxian. It could be a game of mecha-boxing or a cyberball competition. Lan Wangji lets his eyes drift shut, lets himself sink back into the cold calm of meditation.
"It's over," Wei Wuxian says, softly now, "no more people have to die. My parents - they died, in the war. My best friend's brother died. No-one has to die anymore. Now it's over. It's over."
It's over.
The words send a spike of fear through Lan Wangji, they make his ribs ache, make the old fracture on his arm sting with sense memory. He cracks his eyes open, afraid to look, but - there, scrolling across the holopad on the floor, propped against Subian, in bright letters reads - VICTORY AGAINST GUSU
Lan Wangji feels himself crumple, even as some grotesque relief washes over him. Because it is over, he can leave now, he can leave now.
"I can leave," he whispers, suddenly, as the reality sinks in.
Wei Wuxian's face falls and he crouches before Wangji, fingers stroking small circles on the other man's knees as he studies his face, trying to parse out his thoughts, "What do you mean? You're safe now - do you, did you want to leave?" He looks afraid.
"Come with me," he tries, desperate, "Gusu is my home. Come back to Gusu with me."
"You know I can't."
"I - "
"What are you going back to? What - Lan Zhan, think. When they find out - "
"I can't stay."
He tries to imagine what will happen if he leaves, tries to imagine the bustling spaceport in Gusu, the clean walls of the Cloud Recesses. Tea. Waking up for meditation, quiet music on the observation deck watching as the stars drift by or mush together in the bright streaks of hyperspace. Wonders what happened to his brother, his parents. His uncle.
His uncle.
" - what do you have waiting for you? The Gusu Correctional Satellite? You've been on Yiling for two years. How long is that on Gusu?"
He imagines the stiff gray of a prison uniform, the disgrace of a traitor, the punishment and the scars and the years and years he'd spend in a small cell with different rules and the crushing weight of having done wrong. It a condemnation, going back. He aches for the gardens of his home, the perfectly regulated atmosphere, the tapping of his brother taking notes on his datapad or the soft footsteps of students outside.
"I can't go back, either, can I?"
"No," Wei Ying says softly "you can't."