Chapter Text
Wei Ying breathes heavily on his shoulder, warm as he exhales and cold as he inhales. Their Starfleet uniforms are designed to dry quickly, but the cave is so damp that both of them are still soaked through.
“I feel kind of bad about killing it,” Wei Ying admits. His voice is scratchy. “We discovered a new species and then immediately slaughtered it.”
“Self defense,” Wangji says. In his work as a xenobiologist, he has spent a lot of time learning to care for new kinds of life, and he grows attached to his subjects more easily than he ought to. But any sympathy he had for the creature that attacked them disappeared the moment it sank its teeth into Wei Ying’s side. He’s going to have a hard time forgetting Wei Ying’s strangled yell, more shocked than angry.
There were no bandages left in the first aid kit, so Wangji had to bandage Wei Ying’s stomach with fabric torn from their pants. He has a half circle of puncture wounds on both the front and back of his left side, with a diameter of nearly a foot. Wangji had to pry the creature’s heavy jaw up in order for Wei Ying to roll out, his uniform shirt ripped to shreds, the red material stained dark with blood. The bleeding has slowed for now, but Wangji is worried about so many things -- blood loss, infection, the possibility that the larger teeth had sunk deep enough to puncture an organ.
Wei Ying trembles slightly against his side on his next inhale. Automatically, Wangji shields himself from physic spillover, then reaches over and presses the back of his wrist to Wei Ying’s forehead. He vaguely remembers his mother doing it with her hand, but even Starfleet hasn’t trained the Vulcan propriety out of Wangji.
“You have a fever,” he says quietly. When he looks down at him, Wei Ying has closed his eyes, his dark eyelashes spread across his cheek, his chin tilted slightly up as if to meet Wangji’s wrist halfway.
Wei Ying makes a noise of disagreement. “You’re always cold, Lan Zhan,” he says. “I just feel warm because I’m human.”
“I know what--” Wangji corrects mid-sentence. It is true to say that he knows the usual temperature of Wei Ying’s body, but that seems overly intimate. “--human body temperatures should be. You have a fever.”
“Oh,” Wei Ying says. He shivers again, seemingly involuntarily. “Well, that’s no good.”
An understatement, even by Wangji’s standards. If Wei Ying’s wounds have been infected here, on this planet that was completely undisturbed and unstudied until yesterday, then there is no way of telling what he has been infected with. The bacteria here are utterly new, and therefore Wei Ying’s immune system has never encountered anything like them before.
He is silent for long enough that Wei Ying drags in a trembling breath and curls closer, pressing his forehead against Wangji’s shoulder. “I was hoping if I didn’t think about it, it would go away,” he mumbles.
“How do you feel?” Wangji asks, afraid of the answer. He should not be; it is not logical. But as he was taught in school, strain on the body and mind make it more difficult to adhere to logical principles. It is a challenge to do so, he reminds himself, not an impossibility.
“Bad,” Wei Ying says, closing his eyes again.
“Elaborate,” Wangji says. “Ensign Wei, report status.”
It makes Wei Ying huff a small laugh into the fabric of Wangji’s shirt. Wangji is -- or was, now that the FSS Rising Sun has left them behind -- the head ensign of the Sigma shift, which means that Wei Ying was technically reporting to him. It amused Wei Ying to no end when they were first assigned; where other ensigns might have been jealous of his marginally higher status, Wei Ying only said, “Aye aye, boss,” and addressed him with twice the respect he showed to any of the actual commanders or the captain.
“Ensign Wei reporting to Ensign Wangji,” he says. “Status: complete shit.”
Wangji waits. He can feel Wei Ying’s smile against his shoulder, but he knows he will give in after a moment. Sure enough, Wei Ying adds, “The bite is okay, but it’ll start bleeding again if I move. The skin around it is tender. Probable infection. Headache. Possible concussion, I guess, but it could just be shock.”
“Is that all?” Wangji asks drily.
“And the fever,” Wei Ying says, and then playfully pinches Wangji’s arm and adds, “Sir.”
It is, as Wei Ying said, complete shit. The same thought he had when he pulled Wei Ying from the creature’s mouth reemerges, impossible to ignore. They are going to die here.
“How’s your leg?” Wei Ying asks.
Wangji’s only injury is his right leg, but that has nothing to do with the animal they had to kill and much more to do with Wang Lingjiao incorrectly fastening his bungee when he first prepared to enter the cave. He hit the ground hard when the bungee detached, so hard that his tibia broke cleanly and punctured through the skin. Wei Ying had scrambled down after him with medical supplies, but he’d only had time to patch it up before the creature emerged, and cave shook, and the rocks fell to cover the entrance --
It has been, by Wangji’s estimate, roughly two days. If Captain Wen was going to beam them out by now, he would have. If he was going to send anyone after them, he would have. If Wangji were a particularly optimistic man, he would hope that someone would, at the very least, try to contact them. But the wavering signal their PADDs were receiving from the FSS Rising Sun is long gone, which means they are, in all likelihood, well and truly stranded.
It’s a complete violation of protocol, of course. Wangji is hardly surprised. The past six months stationed aboard the Dawning Sun have made it entirely evident that Captain Wen has little regard for the rules. It was common knowledge that he only made captain because his father was an admiral, but Wen Chao apparently thought that it was a better use of his time to terrorize any dissenters onboard than prove them wrong. Wangji had wanted to go to someone after the very first time Wei Ying was thrown in the brig without food, but Wei Ying had disagreed. “It makes us look like whiners,” he’d said in between hurried bites of bland replicator noodles. “Like we don’t want to work hard. We should finish out the year as ensigns and then complain.”
That had been on the assumption, of course, that they would survive the year. Wangji can’t help but wonder if any of the other crewmembers would have been left down here like them. If Wang Lingjiao or Wen Zhuliu had been the ones to fall, he doubts Captain Wen would have declared them a lost cause so quickly.
“Manageable,” Wangji says. As long as he stays very still, the throbbing is not so bad. The skin is healed, thanks to a hypospray, but his bone is still broken.
Wei Ying lets out a breath, so deep the exhalation tickles Wangji’s throat. This planet’s atmosphere is more oxygen-rich than either Earth’s or Vulcan’s, which means it’s unlikely they’ll run out of air. Not before they starve to death, anyway.
“If it comes down to it,” Wei Ying says, very solemnly. “You should eat me.”
Wangji wants to strangle him. “Stop talking,” he says.
“I’m not saying I want you to!” Wei Ying protests. “I’m just saying, you know, I give you my blessing or whatever. After I’m dead, obviously, haha--”
Wangji grits out, through his teeth, “I am a vegetarian.”
“Well, okay,” Wei Ying says, picking up speed. “Would you rather be a dead vegetarian or a living cannibal? Half-cannibal. Hey, do you think--”
“Please stop,” Wangji says sharply. “We should prioritize both of us surviving as long as possible, not one surviving at the cost of the other. I do not wish to think about you dying.”
Wei Ying pats his chest. “Okay,” he says, chastised. He bites his lower lip, which is chapped already. “Sorry, I jest, I jest.”
“It is okay,” Wangji says. He knows Wei Ying’s primary coping method is humor. But he is not in a headspace to hear jokes about Wei Ying’s imminent demise. He can feel the warmth of his fever through their shirts now, where they are pressed together. He wonders if, like a star, Wei Ying will simply get hotter and hotter until he ceases to have the energy to continue. It is not a pleasant thought.
They lapse into silence after that. Wangji would meditate, but he cannot turn his thoughts from the alternate hot-cold breaths on his shoulder growing longer and longer. He jostles Wei Ying and gets a groan in return. “Do not sleep,” he says. “You said you may have a concussion.”
“Lan Zhan,” Wei Ying whines. His shivers have mostly subsided, but Wangji isn’t convinced that’s a good thing. “I’m conserving energy.”
“Permanent brain damage,” Wangji counters.
“I regret telling you that,” Wei Ying says. “I’m really tired.” His voice grows quieter. “I don’t know how long I can stay awake.”
Panic thrums in Wangji’s chest. The truth is, he could probably lie here and meditate for the next four days. He would be more or less fine until his body shut down from lack of drinking water. Wei Ying is in significantly more dire straits. And he cannot -- he cannot lose Wei Ying.
“Breathe,” Wei Ying says, grasping his wrist. His warm pinky brushes against Wangji’s bare wrist, and Wangji, too distracted to guard himself against Wei Ying’s thoughts, catches a flash of concern and regret and worry. Worry for Wangji, specifically, not himself.
He forces himself to take a deep breath, and Wei Ying’s approval flows faintly through the point of contact.
Wei Ying is one of the only humans he’s ever met who wasn’t ever afraid to touch him. The other is his mother. Everyone else is either too wary of him to get close, or worse, afraid that he’ll intentionally read their mind. Uncle had warned him about that, before he left Vulcan, that humans were so incredibly detached from any semblance of psi-politeness. It’s fine. Wangji doesn’t want to be touched.
It is a blessing and a curse that Wei Ying is the only exception. He has never been afraid of contact with Wangji, although he usually pulls on work gloves before doing so. He’ll pat him on the back, lean his head against Wangji’s stiff shoulder, hip-check him as they walk. They’ve never curled up like this before, but it doesn’t feel alien to Wangji, not when he has long grown accustomed to the rest.
He cannot lose him, Wangji thinks again, and only realizes he’s accidentally projected the thought when Wei Ying quickly releases his wrist.
“My apologies,” Wangji says, mouth dry. “That was rude of me.”
“No, it’s okay,” Wei Ying says, flexing his hand. “I didn’t know you could do that. I thought because humans are psi-null, it only goes one direction?”
Wangji shakes his head. “No,” he says. “Even psi-null species can receive projected thoughts. It is possible to form a mutual telepathic connection.”
“That’s so cool,” Wei Ying says. His eyes are starting to shut again, his speech slowing. His cheeks are flushed with fever, but underneath the pink, he’s pale. Wangji shakes him gently, but Wei Ying just closes his eyes harder. “Lan Zhan,” he complains. “Just a little nap.”
“No,” Wangji says. He is very concerned that Wei Ying will bleed into his brain. But there is no way to tell, not without…
Not without a mutual telepathic connection. Wangji takes a slow breath. It isn’t the worst idea. Mind melds are risky, but it’s not as though their situation can grow that much worse. And unless he takes action soon, Wei Ying will stop being able to force himself awake.
“Wei Ying,” he says.
“Mm?” Wei Ying says.
“Have you ever heard of a mind meld?” Wangji keeps his voice as level as possible, as if he is not revealing foremost Vulcan secrets.
Wei Ying blinks his eyes open. “Those are real?”
“Yes,” Wangji says. “Did you think they were fake?”
“I’m going to level with you,” Wei Ying says. “I thought that was something made up for porn, like pon farr. I don’t watch that stuff, by the way, it’s really fetishizing, but Nie Huaisang is such an oversharer--”
Wangji’s face burns. He does not wish to be the one to inform Wei Ying that pon farr is, regrettably, also real. Though probably not in the way human pornography portrays it. “Mind melds are real,” he says. “They are not inherently sexual. In fact, they rarely are.”
“What’s it like?” Wei Ying asks, fascinated.
“I have never performed one,” Wangji says. “But I know how in theory. I believe it could be -- beneficial, here.” His mouth is very dry. “It would remove the need for you to forcibly stay awake. Your body could rest while your mind was active, connected to mine. It would help you be more stable for longer.”
“That’s wild,” Wei Ying says, sounding like he wants to be taking notes. “Why didn’t you say anything before?”
“It is not without risks,” Wangji cautions him. “If performed improperly, it could have negative side effects. It can also be very disorienting when it ends.” His instructors had been very clear on that. Brain damage was possible for even the most psi-sensitive species, and only became more likely the less sensitivity the recipient possessed. Wei Ying’s mind, though brilliant, is utterly without psychic capability. “Pa’nar syndrome can be deadly--”
“I don’t care about that,” Wei Ying interrupts. “I trust you.” His eyes crinkle up into reassuring crescents. “Seriously, Lan Zhan, I’m pretty sure the situation now outweighs future risk. As long as you’re comfortable doing it, I am too.”
“I agree,” Wangji admits. “But additionally, it is intrinsically… personal. Our minds would enter each other and become one.”
Wei Ying snorts. “Okay, you see why people think it’s a sex thing, right?” He wiggles his eyebrows at Wangji and sighs when he gets no reaction. “I’m basically an open book. You already know about Tarsus. As long as you’re okay with it, I am too.”
“If there is something you want to stay private, picture it inside a closed box,” Wangji advises. “Or behind a door. I will know to avoid it.” He could probably push past any blocks Wei Ying put in place, but he would never. He will not abuse Wei Ying’s trust in him.
For his part, he mentally boxes away any and all romantic and sexual longing he’s felt towards Wei Ying in the past four years. That has no place here. This is about trying to save Wei Ying’s life. (Maybe, on some level, it is also about the quiet, illogical terror Wangji feels about the idea of being left alone here.)
“How do we do this?” Wei Ying asks. “Do I have to do anything?”
“Take deep breaths and try to relax,” Wangji advises, trying to sound as though he is more practiced than he is. The only person he has regularly shared his mind with is his brother, and those were always brief check-ins, nowhere close to full melds. He shifts them both, so they are lying facing each other, their legs nudged together. Wei Ying’s only concession to the pain of being jostled is a small huff of indignation. Wangji reaches out to cradle Wei Ying’s face. “It may feel strange when I enter.”
Wei Ying bursts into hoarse laughter as Wangji settles his fingers against his psi points. Temple, nasal cavity, jaw. Wei Ying’s soft skin is burning with fever and his eyelashes brush against Wangji’s index finger as he shuts his eyes. “Okay, okay,” Wei Ying says. “I feel like you’re making fun of me now, because that definitely sounds like--”
Wangji closes his eyes to concentrate, and presses his consciousness forward as gently as he can. Wei Ying stops talking abruptly, overwhelmed by the rush of sensation. Without his shielding, Wangji can tell just how overwhelming it is for him. His mind is bright and eager, despite the fuzziness from pain and fever and it only flails for a few moments before reaching back towards Wangji’s.
Describing a mind meld necessitates metaphor. Even Vulcans, who prefer precise language, have accepted this. Wangji’s instructor had told them very plainly that it was difficult to convey to someone who had never experienced it, and no two mind melds were the same.
“It is one of the highest levels of intimacy,” she had stressed, pressing her palms flat together. “You will cease to be simply yourself. You must maintain concentration and control in order to prevent lasting effects, but it is impossible to be entirely unaffected. Your emotions will be heightened. You must be aware of that as you begin, so you do not lose yourself.”
Wangji remembers her instructions well. Between one breath and another, he grounds himself as best he can, constructing a space around them so they do not lose themselves in each other.
It feels like -- nothing else he knows. Like floating, but like being held. Like being in a dark, soft, safe space. It feels like cupping Wei Ying’s soul in his hands. He holds them both steady as their bodies distantly fall into alignment -- breathing and heartbeats syncing, brainwaves settling identically.
The first thing that hits him is the pain rippling through Wei Ying’s body, radiating out from his stomach. Carefully, Wangji peels it away and sets it aside. He can do nothing more about the injury itself, but he can make it so Wei Ying does not have to feel it so much. Wei Ying’s surprise and relief and thanks washes over him in waves.
All young Vulcans are taught to organize their minds. Wangji keeps a library in his head, and now he pulls Wei Ying into it. It is not identical to, but rather modeled after, the library in the Vulcan Science Academy in which his uncle works. Wangji often studied there with Xichen after school, and the familiar tall ceilings and clean light soothe him as Wei Ying stares at the room in wonder.
“It feels so real,” he says, awed. He reaches out and runs his fingers over the table as if he expects it to dissolve beneath his touch.
On one level, Wangji is aware that he isn’t actually speaking. Wei Ying’s brain is transmitting the patterns for speech directly into Wangji’s, which interprets them as words without either of them speaking aloud or receiving soundwaves through their ears. He doesn’t have to listen to the impressed tone of Wei Ying’s voice; he can feel the amazement itself, beating in his own chest.
On another, Wangji simply likes the image of Wei Ying in such a familiar place. He has constructed himself -- probably subconsciously -- back into his Academy workshop outfit, with his baggy black overalls pulled on over a red engineering cadet shirt and his work gloves tucked into a back pocket. It is a comforting sight.
Wei Ying laughs at the thought. Wangji remembers abruptly that he can see into Wangji’s mind just as surely as Wangji can see into his. “You missed seeing me like this?” he asks, charmed. He plucks at his overalls. “These do such great things for my ass, right?”
It’s a joke -- the overalls are several sizes too big for him -- but Wangji tucks any related thoughts away very hurriedly. “I recall our time at the Academy fondly,” he admits instead.
Wei Ying slumps down into a chair. “Me too,” he says. “Why were we in such a hurry to graduate?”
“Because we did not know whose ship we would be assigned to,” Wangji says. He still doesn’t know why Wen Chao requested them, when he is so clearly disdainful of Wangji’s Vulcan heritage and when he seems intent on not allowing Wei Ying to get through a shift without another demerit.
“He’s just jealous,” Wei Ying says automatically, responding to his thoughts. “It looks good to have the highest ranked ensigns on his ship, but he doesn’t like that we’re smarter than he is.” He wanders over to a bookshelf. “Are these real books?”
Wangji shakes his head. “Memories,” he says. “It is easier to categorize them like this.”
“Talk about compartmentalization!” Wei Ying says, stepping back with his hands on his hips. “They’re not alphabetized, are they?”
“Roughly chronological,” Wangji says. He looks towards the books on the leftmost wall. “Those are my earliest memories. We are standing beside the most recent.”
“This is so cool,” Wei Ying enthuses. In his mind, he’s picturing what it would look like if his memory was a library -- books flung all over the floor, covered in dust. It is humorous, but concerning. “So we’re like -- we’re standing in your brain right now.”
“That is a simplification, but yes,” Wangji allows. “It is a consciously created construction of my mind. It is important to maintain order. We were taught from a young age to keep everything as neat as possible. This way, nothing spills out.”
Wei Ying clicks his fingers. “Like when you accidentally transmitted to me,” he guesses.
“Yes,” Wangji says. “It is more difficult in situations with heightened stress. On Vulcan, it is very -- rude to exchange emotions without permission and forewarning.”
“So do we just… hang out here?” Wei Ying asks, clapping his hands together.
“We may,” Wangji says. “Your mind must stay active. That is the main thing.” Distantly, if he extends his consciousness into Wei Ying’s further, he can feel the ache of his injuries. He had downplayed the pain of his bite wound; even lying utterly still, it hurts with every breath. He is shaky and weak from the fever, and thinking straight is becoming more difficult. And he is hungry, even more hungry than Wangji is--
The library flickers around them.
“Aha, sorry,” Wei Ying says, blocking him off from the hunger. Wangji can feel it disappear behind his mental walls. “I think that was me.”
Wangji can go a fairly long time without food. Probably not as long as a full Vulcan, but he is unsure exactly how long, since Uncle had categorically refused to let the doctors ask Wangji to fast any longer than two days. “I do not care if it is for science,” his uncle had snapped. “He is a child, his wellbeing is my responsibility, and he will not starve himself in the name of science.”
“Your uncle isn’t so bad, huh,” Wei Ying says, responding to the memory.
“He did his best,” Wangji agrees. It had not always been ideal, or even adequate, but his uncle had cared for himself and his brother as best he knew how. “Are you alright?”
“Fine, fine,” Wei Ying promises. As he always does. “I’m just not as organized as you, Lan Zhan, that’s all. I don’t know how to keep things where they’re supposed to be.”
“Take us to a memory of yours,” Wangji suggests. “Somewhere you will feel safe. I will follow you.”
“This is so trippy,” Wei Ying mutters. He pulls on a glove and holds out his hand -- which is unnecessary, since none of this is real. “Don’t make fun of me, Lan Zhan, I’m new to this.”
“Have I ever made fun,” Wangji says, deadpan, and Wei Ying offers up a variety of memories in response. Walking in the park after finals, letting Wei Ying scatter his leftover rice to feed the flocking pigeons, that time he accidentally drank Wei Ying’s hot chocolate and got very drunk, the face he’d made when Wei Ying told him how he beat the Kobayashi-Maru...
When he blinks back from Wei Ying’s reverie, they are no longer in his library. The ground tilts beneath Wangji’s feet; they are standing on a narrow, steep San Francisco street. Wei Ying brightens. “This is the neighborhood where the Jiangs used to live,” he says. “Jiang Cheng and I used to take forever walking home from school because we were chasing each other all up and down this street…”
His expression softens as a little Wei Ying darts around the corner, red-faced and out of breath. “Slowpoke!” he hollers behind him, and then a little Jiang Cheng bursts out too, no more than ten or eleven, backpack slung haphazardly over his shoulders.
“No fair!” Jiang Cheng cries, leaping forward to wrestle his brother into a headlock. “You had a head start, it doesn’t count! I could beat you any day.”
Wangji has never been close to Jiang Cheng, but right now the immensity of Wei Ying’s affection is bleeding over into him. Ten-year-old Wei Ying yelps and tries to twist out of Jiang Cheng’s grip, then, when it becomes clear he can’t brute force his way out, goes limp so that Jiang Cheng will be forced to drop him or choke him.
Wangji, who has seen Wei Ying execute this very same maneuver with his brother as an adult, watches with quiet amusement as Jiang Cheng momentarily tries to support Wei Ying’s dead weight, then gives up and lets him fall to the ground.
Little Wei Ying sprawls on the sidewalk, gasping dramatically. “Jiang Cheng!” he shrieks. “I’m going to tell Jiejie that you tried to kill me!”
“Not if I tell her that you cheated at racing first!” Jiang Cheng retorts, unbothered by his brother’s obviously fake distress, and takes off sprinting up the hill. The Wei Ying in the memory gives up the act in an instant, hauling himself to his feet and running after him. The two of them disappear around another corner.
It is a testament to how confusing Wei Ying and Jiang Cheng’s relationship is that Wangji finds himself barely understanding it even when he is literally sharing Wei Ying’s mind. Wei Ying laughs at his bewilderment.
“Of course you wouldn’t get it,” he says warmly, even as nostalgia curls sweetly in his chest. “You and your brother didn’t really roughhouse, did you? I can’t picture it.”
Wangji offers him an image of his and his brother’s version of play when he was ten: reading side by side in Uncle’s living room while listening to music. Xichen was already sure that he wanted to go offplanet once he was an adult, but he still made time to sit with Wangji in the afternoons and help him with his homework when necessary.
“Not even a playdate?” Wei Ying asks, a little sad.
Wangji blinks, and they are standing in the cafeteria of his lower school, for children ages four to eleven. Before he can chide himself at the lack of control, Wei Ying is already clutching his arm.
“Is that you?” he demands, pointing at the little version of himself that Wangji has accidentally conjured. His small face is solemn as he opens the lunch that his uncle packed for him. The same thing each day, since he knows Wangji appreciates regularity. “You’re so cute, it should be illegal, bowlcut and all. How come I didn’t see baby pictures when I visited your house?”
There are pictures of Wangji as a child, but very few. Most of them were taken by Xichen, using a camera their mother brought them.
Wei Ying continues to coo over Wangji’s younger self as he spreads a napkin on his lap. “Ugh, Lan Zhan, so well behaved, so adorable.” He glances around, belatedly realizing that unlike the other children, Wangji is sitting by himself. “Is anyone going to sit with you?”
Wangji shakes his head. “Lunch is a period for silent reflection upon learning,” he says, which is what Uncle reminded him when Wangji mentioned how none of the other children wanted to come near him.
Wei Ying’s eyes widen. “Really?” he says, then wrinkles his nose. “Little fools. I wish we’d known each other back then, Lan Zhan, I would have made friends with you right away.”
Wangji doesn’t quite believe him. Wei Ying was, and is, gregarious. Wangji probably wouldn’t have spoken a word to him.
Wei Ying laughs. “You’re not exactly talkative now,” he teases. “And you put up with me just fine.”
It startles Wangji just how much Wei Ying believes that. “I do not just put up with you,” he says firmly, as Wei Ying attempts to hide his disbelief, embarrassed. “I enjoy your company. Very much.” He’s not sure exactly how to communicate that without giving too much away. He does not intend to burden Wei Ying with the full weight of his complicated feelings in the middle of a stressful situation, so Wangji tries to limit himself to conveying the way receiving Wei Ying’s attention feels. Warm and satisfying. Dizzying, sometimes. He is Wangji’s equal intellectually and his superior interpersonally. He has never felt so well matched.
“Oh, Lan Zhan,” Wei Ying says, genuinely shocked, and clumsily reciprocates the same thing Wangji was trying to show him. He wants Wangji to be looking at him always. There is no one whose opinion he cares about more; Wangji is easily tied with his siblings for that honor, and there is no close second. A small tendril of thought slips through, unsummoned: I want to travel with you forever.
Wangji clears his throat. If they continue in this vein, his romantic feelings for Wei Ying are going to spill out. Before he can change the subject, his tight hold on Wei Ying’s pain receptors slips, a momentary lapse of control, and for a second, the sensation of the tooth marks in Wei Ying’s stomach and the fever frying his body inside out rush back. Wangji jerks in surprise, and returns his concentration to that.
Wei Ying looks shaken. For a moment, his consciousness blips out, then returns -- he blacked out for a moment.
“My apologies,” Wangji says immediately, scolding himself for the breach.
Wei Ying shakes his head. “It’s fine,” he says. “I almost forgot how bad it was.” He fixes his glare on Wangji. “Stop feeling guilty. It’s not your fault.”
Wangji recenters. He cannot allow emotion to interfere. “Take us somewhere else,” he suggests.
Wei Ying narrows his eyes, but nods. Then they are standing in a bedroom painted half purple and half black. The purple half has athlete posters on the wall; the black half, music posters, and the occasional scribble in silver marker on the paint itself. Wei Ying lets go of his hand and flops back on one of the beds, an unmade twin pushed against the far wall.
“Isn’t it awful?” Wei Ying says, delighted, referring to the decor. “Jiang Cheng started it. He was so insistent about the purple, and I said, fine, then I’m painting my half my favorite color too, and he was like, black isn’t a color, it’s a shade, and Mrs. Yu was like, you’re going to make yourself depressed --”
Wangji nudges one of the piles of clothes strewn across the floor with a toe. “I thought red was your favorite color,” he says, ignoring Wei Ying’s burst of surprise and pleasure as best he can. Wei Ying likes that he knows what his favorite color is.
“It is now!” Wei Ying agrees. “Which is convenient, since I have to wear it everyday. But I had a neo goth phase in high school, you know this.”
Wangji does know this. He’s seen the pictures, most of them saved to Jiang Yanli’s PADD, of a baby-faced Wei Ying in eyeliner and fingerless gloves. But he’s no sooner conjured up the image than Wei Ying flings an arm over his face and says, “Ugh, stop thinking about that! So embarrassing.” He pats the bed beside him and says, “Come sit.”
“Thank you for mind melding with me,” Wei Ying says seriously, looking over at him. His hair spills out over the sheets, longer than it is in real life. Wangji had gotten a cultural dispensation to keep his hair long, which was ironic, considering he’d never met anyone in modern Vulcan society other than his brother who’d approved of keeping it long, pre-Surak style. But Wei Ying had had to cut his hair to uniform standard for graduation, so he’d hacked off nearly six inches in Wangji’s suite bathroom with a pair of kitchen scissors. Now his hair just barely brushes his shoulders. “Seriously, it’s much nicer than bleeding out on the cave floor. It hurts less, when I’m in your head.”
Wangji has to restrain the more illogical of his thoughts. He wants to be Wei Ying’s asylum. He wants to protect him from pain. He does not like the way Wei Ying’s body is shivering again, outside the bubble of their connection. “I am glad,” he says quietly.
“Can I ask a question you won’t like?” Wei Ying says, kicking his legs where they dangle over the side of the bed.
“Yes,” Wangji says.
Wei Ying laughs at the wave of his trepidation, too vast to ignore. “I know you didn’t want to talk about me dying,” Wei Ying says, “but will it hurt you? If we’re still melded and I die.”
Will it hurt him? What a stupid question. There is nothing that could hurt more. He can sense Wei Ying’s growing astonishment at the depth of Wangji’s fear, and he bites it back as best he can. Wei Ying does not need to worry about him right now. “Physically, no,” he admits. “It is common for Vulcans to meld as they are dying, in fact.”
“Oh, don’t be like that,” Wei Ying chides. He tugs at Wangji’s sleeve until Wangji lies down beside him obligingly. He hesitates. “You really won’t go?”
Wangji swallows back as much of his premature grief as he can, to make it manageable for Wei Ying. “No,” he says firmly. “I will stay here as long as Wei Ying wants me to.”
Wei Ying takes his hand, their fingers sliding between each other. Not quite a kiss -- more intimate. Wangji immediately pushes down the knowledge of what it means to do such a thing. Wei Ying is trying to comfort him, nothing more. Wei Ying is trying to make him feel the way he feels when his sister holds him, as though nothing can hurt him ever again. Like he will never be lonely ever again. He pulls the memory around both of them like a blanket, pressed up against Wangji’s side in the narrow bed.
They could imagine a bigger bed, if they pleased. But this is Wei Ying’s bed, and it smells like him, and it has him in it, so Wangji wishes for nothing more. The room becomes hazier. Wei Ying is losing focus. Wangji could take them somewhere else, but he would rather stay here, in Wei Ying’s childhood bedroom, curled up together, even if the edges are beginning to melt away.
“If I leave you alone here,” Wei Ying whispers. “I’m sorry.” There are emotions behind the words, so tangled that Wangji has to unpick them like a ball of string. Wei Ying thinks so many things at once that it is dizzying. He does not want to leave Wangji alone. He knows what it is to be left behind. He does not want to think about his siblings’ faces when they see his dead body. Wei Ying dances between thoughts almost instantaneously, afraid to settle on one for too long, and they emerge too quickly for him to hide them from Wangji. He pictures his brain boiling in his head like a pot of soup from the fever. He thinks it is kind of funny. He is very, very glad that he doesn’t have to die alone. And he is afraid. To abandon Wangji, because he is worried Wangji would never forgive him for it.
“Wei Ying,” Wangji says, throat constricting. “It would not be your fault. If I can provide any comfort to you--”
Yes, yes, says Wei Ying’s mind, in images more than words. The barrier between his thoughts and his intended speech is breaking down. Lan Zhan is always comforting, he is thinking, Lan Zhan is the person who holds onto my kite. The image of Wei Ying with a string around his waist, being spooled up into the sky.
“--then I am glad to,” Wangji finishes. He can feel Wei Ying becoming less coherent. The fever is getting worse. His answers come in half words, half pure thoughts that he trusts Wangji to translate.
“Tell my siblings that--” A mess of feelings. Things he could never say to Jiang Cheng with a straight face, not without a teasing sing-song so his brother could think it was a joke. Things he couldn’t admit to Jiang Yanli without crying so hard he would scare her. They are his home. They are his people. His , and he would destroy a galaxy for them, he would rip a warp core apart with his teeth.
“I will tell them,” Wangji promises.
“Good,” Wei Ying says, and thinks, good good, because Lan Zhan always keeps his promises, he always does. Lan Zhan will know what he meant, Lan Zhan knows him better than himself sometimes, Lan Zhan is too good.
Wangji grips his hand; Wei Ying grips back.
“I really don’t want to die in this cave,” he admits sheepishly, as if this is a ridiculous admission. “I always thought I would die in space, out among the stars.”
Wangji balks at the idea of Wei Ying envisioning his own death; Wei Ying thinks that is funny.
“I thought I’d go out in some sexy warp core explosion,” he confesses. “Saving the day. This is… a little anticlimactic. No offense, Lan Zhan. Your brain is great, but this cave is awful.”
“Here,” Wangji says softly, and brings them back to rest at the edge of the desert, the place where they sat a few months ago on Vulcan.
Wei Ying sighs. It’s beautiful, he thinks, with the kind of deep seated awe only someone with a mind as brilliant as his is capable of. He feels it in every fiber of his being. “Thank you,” he says, and thinks to himself, This is a much better place to die.
Wangji breathes in, then out, through the hurt. “Then we can stay here,” he says.
They do. It is difficult to tell the passage of time from inside the meld; Wangji has a vague sense that time passes more quickly inside their minds than outside, but it doesn’t really matter. Time does pass. They watch the stars, which look as much like real stars as Wangji knows how to make them. They settle there, together.
“You’re really not going anywhere?” Wei Ying says again, after some time, half-question. The words take all his concentration to muster.
“No,” Wangji promises. He means it. He will maintain the meld as long as he can.
Good good good , Wei Ying thinks again, even though Lan Zhan probably has better things to do than lie here and cradle my dying brain.
“I told you,” Wangji murmurs. “It is common practice to meld when a close family member or companion is on the verge of death.”
That’s nice , Wei Ying thinks. This is so nice, Lan Zhan. Thank you, thank you. What an honor.
The pain is beginning to creep back into his mind, impossible to ignore. Wangji suppresses it as best he can, but he can no longer protect Wei Ying from all of it. “The honor is mine,” Wangji says, although his heart is stuttering in sympathetic agony. “It is said that the greatest intimacy in the world, and the most noble, is sharing the mind of your--”
Wei Ying stops listening. He is not dead, but he has slipped away to float quietly somewhere where he doesn’t have to feel the pain anymore. He is… beyond formulating thought right now. They will have to be very lucky for him to wake up again, and Wangji does not believe in luck.
“--t'hy'la,” he finishes, although Wei Ying wouldn’t know the word if he said it aloud. With their minds linked, if he were conscious, Wei Ying could probably fish out the meaning from Wangji’s head, whichever translation he preferred. Brother. Soulmate. Dearest friend. Lover. Zhiji.
Wangji takes a deep breath, and he does not let go of Wei Ying.