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Lan Wangji had known he was not long for politics.
Being made Chief Cultivator was a consequence of few other good options, with his brother in seclusion, Nie Huaisang maintaining his reputation for incompetence and Jiang Wanyin -- well.
So, he had done his duty as he had always done, even if his dreams were filled with barely-trodden dirt roads, wide-open skies, and a brilliant smile. He could fuel himself for days and weeks and months on those dreams.
And so, he did.
But for as competently as he could fulfill the role, he knew he was ultimately not suited for it in the long run. He was good at a wide variety of things: Inquiry, Cleansing, sword forms, teaching. Managing the petty squabbles of sects? Navigating the politics of those more interested in power than they were in the lives of the people they were meant to protect?
He found it exhausting. Especially when an alternative path had been there, waiting for him with open invitation.
He wasn’t the resentful sort. He tried not to be. But when he was in the midst of yet another discussion conference in the humid heat of Lanling, it was hard not to daydream of another life that could have been his had duty not called.
But discussion conferences came and went and so did this one, with relatively little dust left to settle once the shouting and histrionics were over with. He wondered when it would be best to make his intention of vacating the position of Chief Cultivator known. He didn’t want to bother Lan Xichen with the worry, nor did he want to admit his exhaustion to the world he was meant to manage.
He wondered and worried all the way back to the Cloud Recesses, making double-time to escape the summer heat and to get back to the things he did like - the guqin, the rabbits, his students.
“Welcome back, Hanguang-Jun,” Sizhui said, greeting him at the gates with Lan Jingyi shadowing him as usual. “You’ve arrived earlier than the rest,” he noted, a little pinch between his brows betraying his worry. He didn’t say it but the question was clear enough: why the urgency?
He imagined Lan Sizhui would understand better than most, why he was eager to be back to Cloud Recesses whenever he left. There was only one place Wei Ying would be most likely to return to, should he decide his travels were done for the moment, and Lan Wangji feared missing his visit.
Still, he could hardly say as much. To imply he’d been eager to be done with his duties for the sake of personal fancy -- well, he’d had enough of such rumors for two lifetimes. He wouldn’t admit such a thing only to invite even more upon himself or - more importantly - Wei Ying.
“There is work to be done after the conference,” he said in reply, brushing past the two and easing his gait to let them fall in behind him. It wasn’t a lie, of course. There was always work to be done.
He stopped at the Library Pavilion briefly to refer to some scrolls - some long-forgotten trade agreements between some minor sects in Qinghe - and left Sizhui and Jingyi with instructions for preparing for the next Lan-hosted night hunt. He and Sizhui could often work for hours in companionable silence, but Jingyi’s quiet buzzed in his periphery, like an alarm talisman setting off some distance away.
“Is something the matter?” he asked before they parted, placing the full weight of his gaze on Jingyi.
The pinch of Sizhui’s worried brows tightened and Jingyi nearly blanched under the attention. “No! Of course not, Hanguang-Jun, uh,” Jingyi stammered. “You seem tired after the trip, is all,” he said, grasping his robe sleeves and twisting the fabric nervously between his fingers.
“Hm,” Lan Wangji replied, noncommittally. It was true that his flight from Lanling had tired him out but it was nothing for these two to worry themselves over. “Your concern is appreciated but not necessary. I will check in on your work tomorrow afternoon,” he said, nodding to dismiss them.
They both hesitated but quickly nodded in turn, leaving with their bows and heading off. Lan Wangji watched from the Library Pavilion until their silhouettes disappeared from view before leaving, scrolls tucked under one arm. He made his way to the Jingshi, alone.
And he perused the scrolls alone, and prepared for sleep alone. He’d gotten very good at being alone but after Wei Ying had returned… there had been many days and nights, during their hunt for the saber spirit, that he had not been alone. There was likely a proverb about going so long without something that you get used to it, only to have it returned to you and taken away again. The loss of it was newly fresh, even after years of not having it.
He stared at the ceiling, sleep eluding him even as nine at night came and went. It wasn’t fair to himself or Wei Ying for him to be this way. It should be easier than it had been those sixteen years, knowing that Wei Ying is alive and happy and doing what he had always wished to do. Travel, see the world and be unburdened by its obligations.
When will I get to do what I wish to do?
The thought tugged at the edge of his mind often but he’d gotten very good at ignoring it, too, in the months since Wei Ying had left once again. He ignored it now - or tried to. His mind could outrun routine for only so long before sleep took him, leaving his anxious thoughts to parade uselessly in his dreams instead.
.o.
Lan Wangji had known he was not long for politics, especially after becoming ill enough to alarm the entirety of Cloud Recesses after returning home from a discussion conference in Lanling.
The world returned to him in a haze of colors and sounds, the bitter taste of something medicinal coating his mouth. He blinked, trying to focus despite the too-bright light of morning. Later than five, clearly, but still early enough that the Jingshi’s windows caught the light and fractured it across the floor and along his bed.
There was someone standing nearby, a shadow the only thing he could make out. He stirred, feeling suddenly vulnerable, but his arms gave just as soon as he managed to prop himself halfway up.
“Lan Zhan!” The shadow turned, a voice he’d dreamed of for months piercing his muddled senses like the truest of arrows. “Hey now, don’t fall out of bed and hurt yourself. What will your uncle think if that happens on my watch?”
Lan Wangji hazily blinked and tried to remember what he had been doing when he’d fallen asleep but all he can remember is being--tired. And feeling quite maudlin, even for him. But that wouldn’t usually precipitate fever, or any kind of illness.
“Here,” Wei Ying’s voice was closer now and there was a cup of water being waved in his direction. Wei Ying bent down next to him, the full vision of him clarifying now that it was all his mind could focus on. Something morose tugged at him, something missing pulling at his heart and leaving a hole there.
What a nice dream this is , his mind supplied shakily, for anticipating the alternative would be too much for his fever-addled heart to tolerate when it turned out to not be true. Wei Ying had last written a few weeks ago and had made no mention of returning. This was a dream, it had to be.
Still, the cup in his hands was alarmingly solid for a dream. “When did you return?” he asked of the vision, frowning at the scratchy timbre of his voice.
“A few days ago,” Wei Ying said, reaching to brush an all-too-real feeling back of his hand against Lan Wangji’s forehead. He grimaced briefly, before his expression startled back into a smile. “A few days after they got word to me by butterfly that you’d taken ill. I have never made Lil’ Apple hoof it so fast, she is still furious. You and I both owe her some of the sweetest apples Gusu has to offer,” he said, his chatter endless.
Lan Wangji blinked again, slowly. Usually, the Wei Ying of his dreams was talkative but never in such specifics. It was like his own mind could never keep up with the endless supply of the words Wei Ying chewed through at breakneck speed. Instead, his mind usually simply supplied the familiar ups and downs of his voice, the animated tempo of how he spoke.
“Wei Ying,” he tried out; he took another sip of water and cleared his throat. “Why did you come back?” he asked, to test this dream out.
That smile he’d missed so badly faltered some. He immediately regretted asking the question. “Well, I heard you weren’t well and I had to--I wanted to make sure you were okay. And Sizhui, well he was beside himself, so at the very least I had to make sure he was okay, though I suppose he had Jingyi--who was also a nervous wreck about it all--really, I’m not sure how much help I’ve been,” he finished, at last, with a nervous laugh.
“Oh,” Lan Wangji said, his mind frantically catching up with all this - detail, this chatter, this--
Was this not a dream?
“Oh?” Wei Ying echoed, concern wrinkling his brow. That’s where Sizhui gets it , he thought.
“That’s not what I meant,” he said, trying to find his words through the fog. “I would have been well-attended to and I do not wish to distract you from your travels,” he said, the sick and the months of dealing with Sect Leader Yao’s chicken coops and Jiang Wanyin’s river borders and--whatever it was he was doing here, he felt it build up like bile in his heart, losing him his elegance.
Wei Ying made a spluttering sound. “Distract!? Lan Zhan gets sick and he expects me to not be distracted?” He crossed his arms and huffed exaggeratedly. “What would you do, if you heard I’d taken ill?”
Lan Wangji looked down at his half-filled cup of water. They both knew the answer to that question.
“Right! So, I’m back. How have you let yourself get this bad?” he asked, pivoting from himself - he was so damnedly good at that.
“There’s been… a great amount of work,” he said, carefully. He would not speak ill of his duty, no matter how ill he felt.
“And so you’ve been neglecting your health?” Wei Ying asked, probing and prodding.
“It has perhaps not been as well-maintained as it ought to have been,” he admitted, shame flushing through him. He settled back on the bed, hiding beneath the cool linens to try to find relief from the heat emanating from every inch of him.
“Oh, Lan Zhan,” Wei Ying said, his voice sounding muffled from under the sheets. “I wish I had known. I would have come back sooner to nag you about it.”
“I wouldn’t want you to,” Lan Wangji said, too quickly.
There was a flinching movement from above the sheets, so Lan Wangji quickly pulled the sheets back down and reached to not let Wei Ying get away - yet again, not again. “I wouldn’t want you to come here. I wanted to go with you,” he said -- again, far too quickly.
Wei Ying stared at him and he felt like a child who had just sworn, or said something inappropriate at a banquet. He dropped Wei Ying’s hand and retreated under the blankets again, much like he’d see his rabbits do when they were scared or sick or simply upset.
Which was he?
“Lan Zhan, I would like you to have been with me too,” Wei Ying said, placing a hand atop the blankets and rubbing where he probably thought Lan Wangji’s shoulder was. In reality, he was pressing the sheets against Lan Wangji’s chest, and would he be able to feel how hard his heart was beating under all that fabric?
“That tincture ought to kick in soon,” Wei Ying said, his voice soft. “Sleep and get better, and let me handle the rest, hm?” he said, sounding ever more distant as Lan Wangji realized that sleep was dragging at him.
Not a dream, then, he thought. If not a dream, then--
.o.
Lan Wangji had known he was not long for politics and that meant establishing the precedents those who came after him would be expected to follow when leaving their seat of office.
“We’re what?” Lan Wangji asked, the surprise robbing him of his usual elegance in speech.
Wei Ying beamed at him, shoving several scrolls with GusuLan stamps emblazoned on the ribbon keeping them closed. “We’re leaving! Together, in a week, or if you take longer to get better, a little after that,” he said, grinning ear to ear. “Important sect duties to be conducted in the provinces of Lanling, Qinghe, and Yunmeng. The Chief Cultivator seeks to take an assessment of affairs in each with his own eyes before beginning the process of selecting a successor,” Wei Ying added, stroking his chin in an approximation of his uncle’s mannerisms.
Lan Wangji looked from the scrolls in his arms to the man smiling at him, tilting his head. “How did you manage that?”
Wei Ying’s smile got wider; it was starting to look like it hurt. “I threatened to stay and start teaching immediately. I know we talked about it but I think Lan Qiren thought he had more time to write more rules about it.”
The image of Wei Ying casually mentioning an intention to instruct, which Lan Wangji would no doubt authorize, to his quickly-reddening uncle was enough to prompt a quiet huff of a laugh out of him. And -- ah, when had been the last time he’d laughed?
Wei Ying laughed, a crow of a sound compared to his own small one. “See? I knew you’d find that funny! Now hurry up and get better. We have things to see and sects to judge.”
Lan Wangji nodded, but made sure to catch Wei Ying by the eye. “And things to discuss, I think,” he added.
Wei Ying’s smile softened, from wide and wicked to something more impossibly soft. “If you say so, Chief Cultivator.”