Work Text:
-•-
The air is thick with humidity, clinging to the collar of Lan Wangji's sky-blue cotton button-up shirt. The beginnings of a sharp headache are emerging in the back of his skull, heaviness in the air mixing with the sweltering heat as he picked his way carefully through a heavily-worn path in the neatly cut grass. The sun bakes the soil below him, crumbling apart under his shoes, wilting the bundle of chrysanthemums he is holding, bright petals a sharp contrast to the dull hues of grey and green of the surroundings.
He comes to a halt before a grave-marker, pitted grey stone weathered with age. Etched across the expanse of rock is his mother's name.
From the time he was old enough to understand her passing, he would come and kneel at her grave, every Saturday, the original day he was allowed to visit her hospital bed while she was still alive - before the bed turned into the unforgiving ground. The years dulled the pain, but the visits were still always a somber affair. Sometimes his brother would join him in mournful solidarity, but most often, he is alone.
He is exhausted and tense, the past week trying. He traded incense for flowers, short of time to prepare well for this week’s visit, placing them down delicately before positioning himself on the ground.
He sits quietly, eyes closed, breath steady. His mother's grave is also a place of peaceful meditation. Visitors are rare at the cemetery and the wildlife is quiet. He feels closer to her like this, with memories of her wide, ruby smile and soft, dainty hands, brushing his hair back, away from his face, before kissing his forehead. In his dreams - his memories - she looks healthy, cheeks full and eyes bright. His most treasured memories, locked away, before the cancer took her and withered her away. Before the brightest star in his life burnt out.
Suddenly, the peaceful lull of nature and his fitful meditation is shattered by a strangled yelp followed by a muffled thud and the rough sounds of loose dirt avalanching down. Birds previously perched on a nearby tree noisily scattered, feathers flying.
Lan Wangji cringed in annoyance. The sound was obnoxious, his already approaching migraine from the heat now increasing tenfold. He resisted the urge to rub his temples, jaw set tight with stress as he huffed a tiny sigh.
Rising, brushing the stray dirt off of his knees, he goes to investigate, heading in the general direct of the sound. The noises were coming from a freshly dug grave, just a few plots down. Loose dirt was still trailing down into the hole as he approaches.
Peering down he notices a mop of long dark hair and tangled limbs, the shadows making it hard to discern any specific features. Groans and curses travel through the air as he watches the person prop themselves up into a sitting position. They must have been messing around and fallen in.
They rise to make a mad scramble for the edge, hands sliding at first before finding enough purchase to heave themselves up by the waist. They finally notice Lan Wangji's presence, staring up at him with large, doe-like eyes.
"This is a cemetery." Lan Wangji said, his voice stern, brow furrowed in irritation. "Do not fool around."
The stranger's face comes more into view and Lan Wangji's heart stutters. The stranger looks about his age, male, broad shoulders, similar heights. The first thing that Lan Wangji notices is frustrating gorgeousness, even covered in loose soil. Long hair captured in a low messy bun, large grey eyes, delicate nose, full pink lips. It takes everything in Lan Wangji's power to look away.
He has something in his hand. The other follows his gaze down and realizes.
"Ahahaha. You see?" the stranger said, waving his phone, now gripped by soiled hands. "I was passing by and this dropped out of my pocket..." His voice trails off as he turns the device over, removing the case to shake the dirt out of it and inspecting it thoroughly for breaks. "It’s waterproof, surely it will wash out..." He looks up from his inspection to find Lan Wangji staring at him incredulously.
"Aiyah, don't stare at me like that, its not my fault! I was attempting to reach down when I slipped and fell. Can't have my phone being buried with someone's grandma." The stranger waves his hands in front of his face. Lan Wangji is still not amused.
"I'll tell you what, you pretend this never happened and I'll get out of your hair and leave you to your peace, how does that sound?" The boy's voice is flirtatious, teasing. Giving a flippant wink, obviously to purposely annoy him further, before turning on his heels to retreat.
Lan Wangji lets out a breath he didn't know he had been holding.
He is wiping his sweaty palms on his pants when he happened to look down at his wrist; a soft gasp escapes his mouth.
There, on his pale, previously unmarred skin, is an inky black dot. It lingers for a second, two, then fades away like sand in a windstorm, just as the beautiful boy flits out of sight. He is sure the boy must not have seen, too distracted by his embarrassment and escape.
He never even said his name.
-•-
Sometimes Lan Wangji obsessively looks at his wrist. In large crowds, at passersbys he sees on his morning runs, in the store waiting in line. Each time, his wrist is pathetically bare. At twenty two, he is the last of his peers to see the mark - a mark he knew would appear only when his destined is near - to find their destined mate. He is beginning to think that something is wrong with him, some wires crossed wrong in his brain, like the defective TV he bought three years ago and had to return.
He isn’t a particularly approachable person, his personality akin to a prickly pear, nobody able to get close enough to taste the sweetness inside. Maybe he just isn't destined for love. Maybe he is one of the rare few who he has heard about that died painfully alone.
His mom was one of the few outliers. Instead, wedding into a un-marked relationship, or so they called it. Despite both family's refusal to recognize the union, they recklessly disobeyed. Un-marked relationships often ended in tragedy, and theirs had been no exception.
Then she developed the cancer, confined to a hospital bed, getting thinner and thinner. Every time he visited more tubes would be there, forcing her to live, burying her alive. His father was absent, and Lan Wangji and his older brother were shuttled off to their uncle when she could no longer care for them.
She was determined to prevent Lan Wangji from following in her footsteps. She made a point to tell him everyday just how loved and important he is, how one day he will find someone that loves him in the different way.
The insecurities set in after she dies, and that day never came.
-•-
The week goes by unceremoniously and Lan Wangji returns to his routine, trying desperately to forget grey eyes and a teasing laugh that reverberated in his mind.
It is there when he is grocery shopping, playing the guqin, studying. He tries to banish the hopeful thoughts in his mind. He acknowledges the possibility that he has messed up, that he's missed his one and only chance.
-•-
The air is ripe with the scent of rain-soaked earth. The stifling humidity gives way to an angry storm. Lan Wangji dutifully makes his way through the muddy grass to his mother's grave.
As he approaches, he hears something, just barely a decibel over the sloshing of the rain. Straining his ears, Lan Wangji could swear it’s a faint whimpering, akin to a wounded animal. He follows it, trekking through the muddy earth, hand clutching tightly the wooden handle of his umbrella.
He is tragically poor at comforting people. He never knows what to say or do, finding himself standing awkwardly in distress over what he is listening to.
When he approaches tentatively he sees a body huddled in the mud at the base of a tombstone, face nearly fully planted in the dirt, arms up covering the head. As he gets closer more details come into focus around the fat beads of rain that cloud his vision.
The boy's skin is ashen, from either sickness or grief. Lan Wangji stiffens when he recognizes that face. The same face that has been haunting his dreams every night for a week now.
"It's my sister's," the boy said, muddy fingers tracing daintily over the worn letters on the stone. "It would be her birthday today," breaths coming out with a shudder. Lan Wangji waited for further explanation, but when none came, he spoke awkwardly.
"I'm sorry," Lan Wangji's eyes cast downwards, lips part with words unable to leave his tongue.
A pause.
"Who are you here to visit?"
"My mother. She died when I was six, cancer."
"Oh."
Lan Wangji felt helpless, panic mounting as he watches his, now soulmate, heave another sob, collapsing once again into the mud, shoulders shaking with the intensity of his grief. Lan Wangji's feet remained rooted in the ground despite the gnawing need to comfort. He is lost, anxious in his empathic misery.
The silence between them is stifling. The boy wipes off his face, smearing dirt and rain by accident. His eyes are red-rimmed as he looks up.
"My name is Wei Wuxian, but you can call me Wei Ying." Wei Wuxian's lips trace up into an earth-shattering smile, bright enough to make Lan Zhan's heart flutter in his chest.
"Lan Wangji, Lan Zhan." Lan Wangji responds. He bent down to offer his hand, not minding the mud squelching between their shared grip.
"Wei Ying," Lan Wangji says, testing the word on his tongue. He lines their wrists up parallel, flipping both over to reveal matching black dots.
Their bare skin together feels like an electric current, a pleasant tingling under the skin. And - oh - he could get used to this. Wei Wuxian's fingers trace delicately across Lan Wangji's wrist, drawing intricate patterns around the mark. Lan Wangji's other hand, gripping his umbrella like an anchor, trembles as his knuckles blanch white from the unforgiving grip.
Wei Ying’s cupid's bow arches perfectly, long eyelashes fluttering over muddy cheeks. Lan Wangji feels his own lips curve up into a small smile, unbidden. Their eyes met in mutual understanding. Warmth blooms in Lan Wangji's chest.
It is a start.