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It’s in time like this that Wen Ning really appreciates Wei Wuxian.
In a totally platonic way!! Sure, Wei Wuxian is cute and attractive and very funny, but Wen Ning had moved on from this crush. His appreciation is purely platonic.
But oh, how great of a friend Wei Wuxian is- he speaks a lot, but he’s always willing to listen, when it matters. Make light of it to undo the knot of anxiety in Wen Ning’s chest, give away friendly shoulder pats and hugs. Maybe even, sometimes, give out a few advice that will make Wen Qing screech, but that Wen Ning will appreciate nonetheless because at the end of the day, he and Wei Wuxian are made of the same disastrous cloth.
Gods, yeah. He really misses Wei Wuxian. His other friends could do with a little more compassion.
“I fail to see how this is a problem.” Nie Mingjue, without an ounce of sympathy for poor overwhelmed Wen Ning, judges.
[This is the o p p o s i t e of a problem.] Song Lan adds, spelling out ‘opposite’ for emphasis rather than using the actual sign.
“The problem is-isn’t! That he’s checking, checking me out! This, this part is very appreciated.” Wen Ning clarifies. “But, uhm. First of all, he is married.”
“Then remind him of that.” Mingjue shrugs with his huge bear shoulders. “Literally say what you said just now. Thanks, you’re cute, but also you have a wife.”
[Or just shag his wife too.] Song Lan signs, and Wen Ning chokes .
“That’s a terrible idea.” Mingjue says. “Don’t.”
[Why not? Your nephew got himself two boyfriends, you can get yourself a married couple.]
“A good point.” Mingjue concedes, the absolute traitor . “Do that, then.”
“Zixuan is literally the, the father of one of my nephew’s boy, boyfriend!”
Slowly, Mingjue takes a sip out of his milkshake, mimicking perfectly that one kermit the frog drinking tea meme. “You are the only person in the world who could get in that kind of situation, Wen Ning.”
[First name basis already?] Argh, of course Song Lan would pick that up, the guy would have made an amazing investigator if his friend hadn’t gotten him to open a library instead. [That’s just more reason to] he rapidly taps his fingers on the table, which isn’t technically a sign, but Wen Ning has always interpreted it as three very dramatic dots for the sake of tension. [get your families closer. Is his wife cute?]
“She-she’s Wei Wuxian’s sister! Hell, she’s, Jiang, Jiang Cheng’s sister!!”
Mingjue raises an eyebrow. “Weren’t those your last two crushes?”
[So she i s your type.]
Wen Ning groans and shoves his face in his hands- a regular occurrence around people, unfortunately. “I hate you guys. I don’t know why I called you folks, you’re useless.”
He hears the sound of Song Lan’s hands moving, but he can’t see what he’s signing by virtue of having his palms over his eyes. Mingjue, however, he hears loud and clear. “Unfortunate. Do you want me to call Wei Wuxian for you? I’m sure he’d love to hear about how his sister’s husband keeps looking at your cock after the gym.”
Whatever Song Lan signs next, it makes him snort. “Accurate. Did you ever tell Wei Wuxian you’d also done his brother, anyway?”
“No!” Wen Ning gets his hands back on the table, flushing. “That’s none of his business anyway.”
Mingjue shrugs at that, which means he either don’t have a good answer or don’t care enough to find one. He takes another slurp of his milkshake. Wen Ning can tell he’s judging.
But, Wen Ning glaring back is interrupted by the quick snap of Song Lan’s fingers to get his attention.
[Okay but, let’s talk for real for a second.] His signs are a lot slower than earlier, which means he wants to be sure he’s understood; and, by extension, that he means business. [For all your excuses, you never once said you weren’t interested. So. What’s the r e a l problem?]
Ah. Busted.
Wen Ning could deny some more, probably. It would be both useless and counterproductive, though, so he won’t.
“... Okay, the actual issue is, uhm…” He rubs his forearm, trying to find the best way to put it. Oh, his friends will get it , he has no doubts about that. But even knowing he’s understood here doesn’t make it easy to start a conversation about That . “Zixuan. I , I like him a lot, but he. He, erm. He triggers. You know. My Thing .”
His two friends turn very silent at that.
Slowly, Mingjue sets down his milkshake.
“... ah.”
[That] Song Lan is slow in his signing again, but this time, Wen Ning can tell he just… doesn’t really know how to be tactful about it. Bringing reassuring words has never been his forte.
[That really sucks.]
*
The thing is, most people don’t know how Wen Ning and these two met.
Hell, most people aren’t even aware they know each other in the first place. They have different friend circles, different jobs, different hobbies.
But, their few common acquaintances (that is to say, Huaisang, Wei Wuxian’s friend, Lan Xichen, Wei Wuxian’s step-brother, and A-Qing, that one kid Wen Qing tutors every once in a while) most likely believe that they’ve met at the gym. Wen Ning vaguely remembers Huaisang saying something to that effect at a party once, and he’d never bothered to correct him. He doesn’t think any of the others did, either.
Besides, they do all work out. They even work out together every once in a while, when their schedules align- though Wen Ning more often ends up with Zixuan than with them.
But, originally, they met in a hospital.
Yeah. Not what most people imagine.
It goes something like this: on one friday night, a butcher and a librarian get into a car accident.
Wen Ning isn’t actually in the hospital that night. For once he has a night off; he’s resting.
Wen Qing is, though. And on saturday morning, when she comes home, the first thing she does is wake her brother up.
“Got two guys with a concussion last night.” She says, while Wen Ning struggles to wake up. “They talked to me while they were on drugs.”
Her next sentence is what snaps him out of sleep.
“They told me they were immortal.”
Wen Ning’s eyes snap open.
*
Cotard syndrome:
The delusional belief that they are already dead, do not exist, are putrefying, or have lost their blood or internal organs. Denial of self-existence or delusions of immortality.
*
It’s saturday afternoon when Wen Ning visits them.
He brings flower, to be polite. Should he even be polite in that kind of situation? He doesn’t know. It’s never happened before.
(He’s learned long ago to never bring them up to anyone; those things he sees when he’s awake, those things he he sees when he’s asleep, those things he knows to be true down to his soul even when the evidence of the opposite is staring at him right back. Schrodinger cat, Schrodinger man, he whose heart beats but whose soul is rotting. He thinks Wen Qing knows, though, that he’s just as delusional and broken as he was as a kid before he learned to hold his tongue.
For all they can hint and refer to his condition with hidden words, though, Wen Ning is set on never admitting out loud to her that he has hallucinations on a daily basis. That secret, he’ll take it to his grave.)
“Do you, uh. Know these?” He asks awkwardly the man in the hospital bed (a butcher built like a brick house who kept giving him the stink eye) while handing over a dirty notebook.
Nie Mingjue- for it is Nie Mingjue, the first of the two Wen Ning ever meets- raises a brow, opens the notebook with his unbroken arm, and freezes.
(Later, Nie Mingjue would help him settle on one design for the head of the beast. But for now, Wen Ning is just focused on drawing his dreams down, on exorcising those recurring themes that float on the flags lighting his nightmares with fire.)
“Who the fuck are you?!” The man spits out, with the aggressiveness of cornered beasts whose secrets have been dug out.
“W-Wen Ning! I’m Wen Ning.” he flails in response. “I’m not, your therapist or anything. But, erm.” He smiled awkwardly. “You can’t prove I’m mortal until I, actually die. And, uhm. I’m told you’re the same?”
*
Point being: when Wen Ning says that Zixuan triggers his Thing , Song Lan and Mingjue immediately get it. They don’t ask for him to explain why. They don’t tell him he’s imagining it, or doing it for attention, or he’s insane (that last one is true, to be fair, but that doesn’t mean it needs to be said.)
Not like they can anymore. It would be quite hard to write off Wen Ning’s Thing as made up when Mingjue had outright admitted that he had a tendency to just… forget some of his limbs exist, sometimes. (What led to that accident on that fateful friday night- he got distracted from suddenly feeling his leg falling apart, and couldn’t step on the brake fast enough as a result.)
As for Song Lan, Wen ning has yet to hear him talk, even though his tongue, his throat, his brain, everything theoretically works fine. ( I know it’s here. I know, okay? Just like I know Japan exists. But I don’t see Japan in front of me. And. Sometimes, I don’t feel my tongue, either. Just the weight of blood in my mouth. )
“What do you see?” Mingjue asks, straightforward as always.
“Blood, at, at his chest.” He answers. Then, a little quieter. “I know it’s me. I killed him.”
Neither of his friends question how Wen Ning can regularly work out with someone he has killed. They, too, have their certitudes that should be impossible.
(Schrodinger cat, Schrodinger man.)
“Now that’s an unfortunate crush.”
Song Lan makes a quick hand gesture- not a real sign, just a signal to wait. He seems to think for a moment, then he starts to sign for real.
[I’m the opposite. I know Xingchen killed me.] I know . Different from I did . Wen Ning uses precise words with his friends, and so do they. [Painful. Hate it. But it helps to touch the wound, usually.] he briefly brings his fingers to his own chest. [Feel the heartbeat. I know he killed me, but he did not. I have not been killed. We’re good.]
Mingjue nods. “Same. Sometimes, just seeing Meng Yao pisses me off.” Quite out of character of him. Not the angry part; Mingjue gets angry quite easily. But usually, it’s for a reason. If nothing else, Mingjue is lawful, and his quickness to anger comes from what he considers unfair. Showing your face is hardly worthy of wrath. “I power through it by doing something nice with him. Or at least force myself to remember nice stuff we did together. Cancel out the awful with some good.”
Sounds like solid advice. Oh, painful, tiresome advice, and Wen Ning should probably just avoid the source of his anxiety altogether, but… well. Zixuan is worth it. Wen Ning… Wen Ning wants to try.
(Besides, it’s not like Wen Ning can just, cuts him off his life. He is Jin Ling’s dad, and Wen Ning doesn’t intend on asking Sizhui to break up with one of his boyfriends just for his own comfort.)
“Does it ever… go away? With exposure?”
Mingjue raises an eyebrow. “Did it go away with your sister?”
Wen Ning goes silent. He can taste ashes in his mouth at the thought alone.
[It gets easier.] Song Lan signs. [Most things in life do. You know that, don’t you?]
Wen Ning does.
He breathes in; the air goes through his throat, in his chest, in his lungs, fresh and good and here . Breathing used to make him dizzy, as a kid. Then again, he quite often ended up forgetting to do it until his head started spinning, too.
It will get easier.
He will get better.
Wen Ning will keep practicing. He quite likes it, after all, being alive.