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Though the scars which line the arms and abdomen of this body which is not his were not inflicted by his hand, there is still a sick feeling which sits in his stomach when he thinks too long on their creation. He drinks too much and he can tell Lan Zhan thinks so too when he catches him with his lips just pursed, something which cannot be described changing his eyes. It helps ease the nightmares but the knowledge only makes his companions' expressions grow tighter. There are words to be said but neither of them know what they are. And if they do, they don’t.
Wei Wuxian is alone with several empty jars and his thoughts, circling endlessly. Sometimes he is happy like this, contented and mellowed by the easy flow of liquor in his veins. Other times he spirals into an abyss from which it is nearly impossible to save him. It is comparable to a water abyss; you can chase it away, but not erase it completely. Like a water abyss he feels like he is drowning.
His fingers run up and down his forearm, feeling the indentation of scars which are not his. This body is not his, his had only been scarred by battle or perhaps foolishness. Never his own hand. But as he lingers on his life before death and on the consequences of the way he had lived it, of all the people’s whose lives had been lost at his hand, he begins to understand. Mental anguish deserved a physical outlet, a tangible expression. He thinks of Lan Zhan cutting open Su She’s wrist and wonders if it always bleeds so much. He thinks until he makes himself sick and can’t entirely blame an overconsumption of wine. Still, as he drifts towards sleep his fingernails test the skin of his arms. He doesn’t hate it as much as he should.
Lan Wangji doesn’t find out about it, Wei Wuxian makes sure of that much. He cannot stop any speculation over the way the circles under his eyes grow darker or his face thinner. With no quest to occupy him he is left with nothing but the results of a cultivator’s body with no core and the nightmare he had named life. No matter how much he slept his body cried out in fatigue, so he decided not to. His appetite waned, stomach turning at the thought of food, so he didn’t eat. No matter what he did his body hurt, so he continued to push it. He will pretend these things are spurred only by the physical symptoms, but internally he knows whatever inhabits his head pushes it further. He knows the effects of absorbing too much resentful energy, and this is not it. Somehow that makes it worse, more terrifying.
He grows restless. He has not sat in peace since his youth and he hasn’t a clue how to handle it. He wanders Gusu, sometimes with Lan Wangji, sometimes alone. He torments the juniors. He asks insistently after subjects for night hunting or any unusual goings on and is met with absence again and again. He is restless and spends more nights in the workshop he has been allowed in Cloud Recesses than laying beside Lan Zhan. At least if they do not sleep at the same time he cannot be made aware of the degree to which his nightmares have grown more persistent. Still, he worries, perhaps more than he would otherwise. Wei Wuxian insists he is fine, even as his fascination with the pain he inflicts on himself grows.
It never degrades to the acts which Mo Xuanyu had committed, but he grows bolder, especially when he drinks. He burns his fingertips and his hands more than he already does in his recklessness as he works. He tests the limits of what fingernails and teeth can commit, digs fingers into his flesh until it bruises. It is a dangerous game, but one he plays eagerly. On the worst nights he thinks of recreating all of the scars his old body had borne. He doesn’t yet.
Lan Zhan holds him in his arms and presses gentle kisses to his skin and he feels disgust with himself. He lives in the memories of the evils he has done and can only think why. Why does he dare still to love him, to embrace him, knowing what he has done. Though he would have once defended himself relentlessly, in this grey his own motivations fall to the side. He becomes the monster he had been framed as in his own mind.
Months since fingernails met inner arm he is alone and drunk when a clay jar once full with wine shatters. He stares for too long, finds his fingers wrapping around a particularly jagged piece, entranced and acting without thought. It is only when he grips too tightly and blood begins to flow around the shard that he gasps as if awoken from one of the nightmares that haunt him and the piece hits the ground once more, shattering into smaller pieces. He is afraid, not just of what he has done but what he might do. What he is capable of doing. He hadn’t known he could go this far before now.
Silence embraces him as he walks with eerie calm to the jingshi, numb to the blood dripping from his fingers and onto the pristine paths of Cloud Recesses. No one is awake to question him, to pull him from this state and into the impending breakdown before he is ready. He enters silently and settles at the edge of their bed ( their bed which he has done such a poor job of filling. Guilt twinges in his chest and only serves to make things worse. ), uninjured hand grasping Lan Zhan’s shoulder gently.
“Lan Zhan,” Wei Wuxian whispers and is met almost immediately with an indignant groan which causes his lips to twitch despite himself. It takes the sleeping man a moment to process the factors which made this situation unusual and sit up, turning abruptly to face Wei Wuxian. The Yiling Patriarch looks gaunt in the glow of moonlight but there is a childish terror on his face which turns him again to Wei Ying and sets Hanguang-Jun’s heart racing.
“Wei Ying,” He answers, voice rough with sleep. Taking his hands the words are poised on his tongue to ask what is wrong, but the action provides the answer. The sticky warmth coating the other man's hand chills him and he takes him carefully by the wrist, unfurling his fingers to show the wound. Even in the darkness he sees not only the bleeding gouge but also innumerous other minor injuries, the scars which had summoned him. “What happened?”
A laugh bubbles in Wei Wuxian’s throat but it is devoid of humor, eyes burning as his foolishness is met with tenderness. “I happened,” He says, going easily as Lan Zhan rises to retrieve a cloth and douse it in a basin of water from the evening before, cleaning his skin, carefully, meticulously. There is tension under his skin, but he waits for him to continue, feeling the words building in the silence. “It’s all been getting worse. And it started to seem like Mo Xuanyu wasn’t so mad as he seemed for what he did to himself. This was an accident though, I swear.” The last part is tagged on as an afterthought. A steady gaze meets his and he cannot hold it for long. “I didn’t really mean to do it, anyway.”
Lan Zhan is quiet for some time still, examining the gash once the blood had been cleared away. “It is not as bad as it appeared,” He states and Wei Ying notes it had indeed stopped bleeding. Carefully, he is brought back to bed, a pair of strong arms wrapped around him. Whether he is being held or contained he cannot tell, but he is not sure he cares. He is so very tired in a way he had not paused to notice before. The chest he rests against rises and falls in a sigh. “Sleep for now. We can discuss this matter further in the morning.”
It does not take long for Wei Wuxian to comply.
Though he wakes far later than the designated rising time of the Lan Sect, Lan Zhan still lies with him, though he has clearly been awake for some time. At first they do not speak, enjoying the warmth of skin against skin and sharing lazy kisses Wei Wuxian instigates. But soon Lan Zhan’s hand is holding his and brushing gently against the scabbing wound and he knows the topic will not be avoided for long. His head hurts and his stomach twists and neither can be blamed wholly on liquor. They share silence comfortably for a while, lips parting in favor of the press of foreheads. For years he had wondered if Lan Zhan slept in the forehead ribbon too, and he thinks he is glad that he doesn’t, that their bed is not bound by Lan principles.
“When did these urges start?” Lan Wangji asks, his hold on Wei Wuxian’s hand tightening so minutely it would be near imperceptible to anyone not so well versed in the small increments by which Wangjis lives his life. Wei Wuxian knows, and he may as well be clinging to him for all that it says.
Silence stretches for several moments after the question, but Lan Zhan does not press. He is not so impatient as Wei Ying and they are both thankful for the others inversion, pushing and pulling and allowing give with a coordination which defies logic. They fit together, filling in each others hollow parts. Which is why Wei Ying aches thinking of all he has hidden, all he has denied them both by being selfish with his---- whatever this was. He could almost name it grief, but the word feels sour in his mouth.
“To say it’s new feels dishonest,” He says, finally. “I’ve never regarded myself with much care. When I died I wanted it and I wanted it to hurt, to feel like retribution for everything I’ve done. So it’s not--- I have always been this way, Lan Zhan.” He is dodging the question itself and they both know it.
“I know this. When did it come to this point, Wei Ying.”
He puffs out his cheeks and sighs. There is the urge to hide his face against Lan Wangji’s chest or to change the subject, but he knows he is not allowed this. Lan Wangji has the patience of a saint for dealing with all of his turmoil. “Sometime after it all settled, after Jin Guangyao died and we were allowed to rest. Too much time to think. The scars… The scars are what made it worse, more than anything else. They make it so clear that this body is not mine, that this choice was not mine. But I think I understand the desire for control, the need to hurt that got him there.” He pauses, eyes closed, throat thick with emotion as he rolls his next words over on his tongue, tasting them before letting them see air. “Sometimes I need to hurt in a way I can control. Sometimes it’s like I deserve it... Mostly it’s that.”
They are quiet again but this time without the expectation for Wei Wuxian to fill it. It is contemplative, even without watching he can tell that Lan Zhan is thinking. He is not like Wei Ying, he considers the weight of each word as if compared to a feather, plays out each possibility before his mouth ever opens. Wei Ying has never had so much control or foresight. It is the give and take, words flowing endlessly from him, Lan Zhan absorbing each one, turning it over in his hands like some tender and delicate thing, considering it. For this, what he gives is nearly more earnest. Certainly more valuable in his eyes.
“I can give you pain as catharsis, if it is what you require,” Lan Wangji says with too much clean cut composure and honesty for what the words imply. Wei Ying’s blood is always quick to warm and he cannot help but inhale sharply, a slight twitch in one of his thighs. Though he does them both the favor of leaving it unacknowledged for the moment, this reaction is quietly filed away. “But the feelings you must tend to.”
“I knew you’d say that,” Wei Ying mumbles, and now he does hide his face against Lan Zhan’s shoulder. He has been wounded, has nearly died more times than he can count. Died, once. Physical pain and that which relates thereof is familiar and easy. He can cope with it and has the tolerance to show it. He had never been taught to deal effectively with the emotional. His parents probably would have tried, but the Jiang clan made no such effort and it showed in every strained family relation.
There is quiet again, the two of them breathing in tandem, bodies pressed close. He realizes how dearly he has missed this in his selfish introversion, an aching deep and firm in his chest as he thinks on what he has been denying them both in the name of his own punishment. This serves to rekindle those thoughts of wound as punishment but with Lan Zhan pressed so close he is able to think more actively that it would serve no purpose. Even the beginning of a thought that he may not deserve it.
“Wei Ying no longer walks this path alone.”
From the light trickling into the jingshi the hour must be creeping towards noon. But still Lan Zhan holds him, cradles him to his chest, does not make him sit with this alone. There are expectations, duties he must tend to. But they are shirked in favor of his company.
“I know Lan Zhan. Thank you. And I’m sorry.”