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Wei Wuxian is drunk, which is not unusual.
He is awake in the middle of the night, which is also not in the least unusual.
He is in Qinghe, which is more unusual.
He is also lost, which up until recently would have been quite unusual.
He can’t quite bring himself to care.
He knows what awaits him back at the Nie stronghold in the morning, and it’s basically a big steaming pile of horseshit, not to put too fine a point on it. Meetings. Planning. Maps. Strategies.
He had no idea war could be so boring.
Then there’s the crowd of familiar faces that will be waiting for him at those meetings. Judging him, or suspicious of him, or infuriatingly indulgent towards him, but all of them expecting something from him. Shijie and Jiang Cheng, expecting him to be their funny, faithful brother. Nie Mingjue, expecting him to be an honorable warrior, whatever that means. Lan Xichen, expecting him to be a responsible, respectable cultivator, which would have been a ridiculous expectation even back when it had been possible.
Lan Zhan, expecting… expecting whatever the fuck it is that he expects. Righteousness, or something.
Wei Wuxian takes another swig from his bottle of liquor. It’s a local brew, and like Qinghe itself it’s aggressive, straightforward, and harsh. He likes it for that. It doesn’t pretend to be anything but a means to getting utterly, devastatingly fucked up.
He misses the mellow complexity of Gusu’s Emperor’s Smile, the gentle notes inviting the taster to close his eyes and explore the rich, intimate symphony of notes, unfurling one after another on his tongue with each sip.
It would be wasted on him now, though: since the Burial Mounds, everything tastes like ash.
Taking blurry stock of his surroundings, Wei Wuxian realizes he’s in the slums. Finally, he thinks, something honest.
The buildings here are crowded, crooked, and ugly. Small shuttered windows to prevent thievery and to keep the scant heat in during the brutal winters. Narrow, dark alleys for things that happen in narrow dark alleys to happen in.
Rats, of course, living their scurrying little rat lives. He smiles a crooked smile at himself. He never thought he’d miss the rats.
He reaches a crossroads with a small oblong pond at its center. The moon tonight is weak and dim, outlining everything in a hazy, anemic gray. He doesn’t need any light to know that the water in the pond is brown and scuzzy. There’s a crooked little tree there, and a half-rotten bench. He takes another swig, mostly missing his mouth, and plops himself down. The bench creaks, but holds him up, barely.
The person who’s following him stops before the moonlight hits them.
Oh, yes. There’s that too: he’s being followed.
He assumes they intend to rob him. He chuckles to himself. Whoever this idiot is, they have even worse luck than he does. If they’re intending to wait until he passes out they have a long wait coming. And if they intend to try and jump him while he’s still conscious, they are in for a very nasty surprise. The Yin Tiger Tally buzzes against his chest in agreement, and hunger.
For now they seem content to wait it out, and Wei Wuxian is in no real hurry. He slides Chenqing out from his belt and twirls it absently, looking up at the skinny crescent of the moon behind its mildewed veil of yellowish clouds.
Another swig and his last bottle is empty. That’s annoying. He tosses it away and it shatters on the stones, pleasingly loud in the night. He leans back onto his elbow and twirls his flute a few more times before he realizes that he’s bored.
“Hey, friend,” he calls towards the shadows of the street he took to get here. “Got any liquor on you?”
There’s no answer, of course.
“Shy, huh?” he calls with a grin. “That’s just fine, I talk too much; I’ll talk enough for both of us, alright?”
Another stretch of silence, into which he asks: “You mug people here often?”
There’s finally the tiniest noise, like a breath, or the shuffle of a shoe sole against the dirt.
“Is that a yes?” he asks. He’s glad to know his follower is still there. He’d feel foolish just talking to himself in the middle of the night.
“This doesn't seem like the best of hunting grounds, if you don't mind my saying so. Must be your lucky night then, huh? Some drunk idiot in nice robes wanders into the slums, pockets full of who-knows-what. Too good to be true, am I right?”
He smiles ruefully. He’s starting to feel sorry for the poor fool. The world really is unfair.
“Seriously, though,” he says to the dark, “some things are too good to be true. You have to know that. There’s no way you live here and you don’t know that. Why not just go back home?”
He sits up again, leans forward, squinting into the shadows.
“Better yet, why not come out and have a drink with me? You’d have to provide the drink, though; I ran out.”
Silence, still. He’s not so fond of silence, these days.
“Hey, do you actually drink this stuff on the regular?” He gestures towards the broken bottle. “How are you people still alive? It tastes like it’s made for dissolving paint. Or maybe iron.” He laughs. It doesn’t sound or feel like it used to.
His first laughter after the Burial Mounds had been at the Yiling Supervisory Office, just after sending Lan Zhan away. The door closed behind him, and Wei Wuxian had turned his gaze, slowly slowly slowly, back to Wen Chao, and laughed. It was a stranger’s laugh, and yet entirely his. Every time he starts to think about it his mind recoils.
“Hey, friend,” he says again, and his voice is softer, more earnest.
“You know, this time of night… this type of place… There are no good people around, are there? Just ones like us.”
He can’t call himself a good person anymore. He can still hear Wen Chao screaming, whimpering, begging. He still likes it. And nobody can say the world isn’t better now, without him and Wen Zhuliu in it. Jiang Cheng is sleeping again, even if Wei Wuxian isn’t. That’s worth a lot.
“I bet you provide for your family, though, don’t you?” he asks his fellow lurker.
“You keep them safe, right? You keep their hands clean and their bowls full, right? What’s a few slit throats compared to that?”
He hears motion then, and he’s on his feet in a second. Black smoke is coiling eagerly around him before Chenqing even touches his lips.
No attack comes.
He lowers his weapon. Wei Wuxian walks into the shadows where the other person had been, unhurried and just a little unsteady, twirling Chenqing lazily between his fingers. Tendrils of resentful energy skip and tumble around his feet like otters.
The street is empty.
He sighs. He’s both relieved and disappointed to not be fighting right now.
Maybe he’s a little lonely.
“Whatever,” he says. It’s not what he wants to say. He has no idea what it is he wants to say. His brain keeps trying to think about things much deeper than a jug of wine. He needs to find another drink, and fast, to nip that nastiness in the bud.
He walks on, alone, through the twisting narrow streets, twirling his flute and humming a lost, empty little song.
Lan Wangji watches him from the rooftop with his heart hammering in his chest.
The next morning, Lan Wangji wakes at his usual time. He’s had precious little sleep: it feels like only moments have passed since he’d stolen back into his room and his bed and let his eyes drift shut.
He’s still tense and uneasy. He doesn’t know how Wei Wuxian knew of his presence--perhaps he was incautious. Regardless, it had been far too close a call.
It will not happen again. It was irresponsible of him, and he will comport himself better in the future. Tonight Lan Wangji will go to bed at hai shi, sleep through the night, and wake as usual. Wei Wuxian will do whatever he decides to do, and it will be none of Lan Wangji’s concern. He is neither responsible for Wei Wuxian’s actions, nor for his safety.
His mind is made up, and his duty is clear.
He steps outside of his rooms, and Wei Wuxian is there.
He looks up as Lan Wangji freezes with one hand still on the door, and he smiles. It is a complicated smile: wide but guarded, tight around the edges. It does not reach his tired eyes.
His shoes are dirty; he must only now be returning.
“Lan Zhan,” he drawls. “Is the reason you Lans wake up this early because the birds need scolding?”
He strokes his chin in an unflattering imitation of Lan Qiren.
“No singing without reason,” he intones.
Lan Wangji bristles, and Wei Wuxian’s sees it. His smile widens before he schools his face into an exaggeratedly dour frown.
“Flying is essentially the same as running, and is therefore forbidden,” he drones, continuing to stroke an imaginary beard with one hand, tucking the other behind his back as he straightens his spine into an overly-rigid posture.
“Wei Ying,” Lan Wangji warns, feeling his anger boil up. He hates that Wei Wuxian can push him like this so easily.
“Exactly one unseasoned worm must be eaten for breakfast,” Wei Wuxian continues, undeterred. “Any more than that is excessive.”
“Enough,” snaps Lan Wangji, advancing on him.
Lan Wangji expects him to slip away like he had when he’d teased Lan Wangji in Gusu, but instead Wei Wuxian turns and steps in to meet him as he approaches, and his smile flashes to life again, dazzling and empty.
They are nearly nose-to-nose, too close for Lan Wangji’s comfort.
“How is my impression? Funny?” Wei Wuxian asks. Lan Wangji can smell liquor on his breath.
There are no good people around, he had said. Just ones like us.
You keep your family safe, right? he had said, almost too soft to be heard. What’s a few slit throats compared to that?
Lan Wangji wants to grab his face in both hands. He wants to shake him. He wants to kiss him, and bite his soft round lips. He squeezes his hands into fists to keep them at his sides.
“You stayed out all night,” Lan Wangji blurts out, and his gut clenches as the words leave his mouth, afraid he’s given away too much.
“There is mud on your boots,” he adds, perhaps a little too quickly.
“What an attentive nursemaid you are,” Wei Wuxian retorts without hesitation. “And so unfortunate, to have an unruly child like myself to look after.”
He pats Lan Wangji’s shoulders with both hands, twice, a little too heavily. Lan Wangji only just stops himself from flinching.
“It’s alright, nursemaid, I’m all grown up now. I release you from your duties.”
He finally steps back, out of arm’s reach.
“Go gossip with the other aunties,” he jokes with a sweet, vicious smile, and then he’s sauntering away.
Lan Wangji lets out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding as the black robes and swinging ponytail bound up in its red ribbon disappear around the corner. His nails are digging into his palms, and his internal energies surge and fizz. He spins on his heel and returns to his room to meditate.
At the end of the day, Lan Wangji is exhausted and angry. Wei Wuxian has been a terror all day: late to the meetings he deigned to attend at all, rude and sarcastic, confrontational and short-tempered. Only Lan Xichen’s calming presence has prevented Lan Wangji from attacking him with Bichen again, not that doing so would have accomplished anything.
He returns to his room and plays Wangji for a long time as the sun languidly dips down behind the gray rooftops. It does little to settle his anger or to quell the pit of hurt and discontent within him.
He wants, more than almost anything, to grab Wei Wuxian and shake him and demand “What is wrong with you?”, and not let go until he has a satisfactory answer.
The only thing he wants more than that is to push him up against a wall and kiss him senseless. Or maybe he wants Wei Ying to be the one who does the pushing…
He drops his head into his hands. Perhaps there is something wrong with him, too.
He should talk to his brother about it. Under other circumstances he would, in an instant. But Lan Xichen has enough problems--more than enough--without Lan Wangji adding this to the pile.
Xiongzhang is not even in his rooms, currently. He is, once again, with Sect Leader Nie, discussing the plight of the clans and the common folk late into the night. It has become the new normal for the young leader of the Lan sect. Lan Wangji feels great pride and admiration towards his brother, to take on so much and handle it all so well.
There is talk, too, he knows.
He’s not sure if he believes it. It is most likely only rumors. Still, he can’t help feeling a stab of jealousy at the prospect that his brother might be mixing his responsibilities with… more personal matters.
He shakes his head. Such thoughts are unbecoming, and the private dealings of his brother and sect leader are none of Lan Wangji’s business. And either way, whether or not there is anything more than duty between Lan Xichen and Nie Mingjue, he cannot trouble his Xiongzhang with his turmoil over Wei Wuxian. He must fight this fight on his own.
It should not even be a fight. He should banish his concerns about Wei Wuxian from his mind and focus on his duty to his sect and the common good.
He cannot.
Lan Wangji realizes, to his own surprise, that he has already determined to follow Wei Wuxian if he goes again into the city tonight.
It has already occurred to him that one of the consequences of Lan Xichen being away from his rooms is that his wardrobe is unguarded, and contains raiment more conducive to nighttime stealth than anything in Lan Wangji’s possession. They will fit him perfectly, of course. And the enchantments woven into them will prevent them from picking up the dirt of the road or the smells of the city. If they are returned before Sect Leader Lan returns to his chambers in the morning, no one will ever know.
The thought is shameful. Abhorrent. It runs entirely opposite of every principle of his clan. It is theft, deceit, selfishness, neglect of duty.
That is what he tells himself, over and over, as he walks to the building next to his, as he touches his hand to the door, dispelling the protective spell. As he slides the door open, then closed behind himself.
This is wrong, he tells himself as he removes his own white robes and wraps a set of dark blue-gray ones around his body, as he ties the dark sash about his waist and places his own carefully folded clothes into a qiankun pouch.
This is your last chance to turn back, he tells himself as he dons his last garment--a dark gray cloak with a hood deep enough to hide his forehead ribbon-- and waits by the door, listening for Wei Wuxian’s footfalls in the night.
Finally he hears them, unmistakable. His heart seems to flip over in his chest at the sound of them. The light, confident, swaggering footfalls pass, then pause for just a moment in front of the building where Lan Wangji should be sleeping. A tiny silence outside, a racket in Lan Wangji’s ears of his own heart pounding.
Then Wei Wuxian’s footsteps begin again, leading away into the city.
Lan Wangji waits for ten breaths, then he slides the doors open and follows in his stolen robes, blending into the lawless night.
Wei Wuxian is not stupid.
He will soon be drunk, but he still won’t be stupid.
He was followed last night, and he’d be a fool not to be on the lookout for it again tonight. He’s two bottles in, and no sign of his tail yet, but that doesn’t mean they’re not there. He hasn’t seen anyone, but he can’t shake the feeling he’s being watched.
That doesn’t necessarily mean anything, of course. He always feels like he’s being watched. He’s certainly always being whispered at, these days.
Tonight the whispers in his head are barely audible over the sounds of the brothels on this side of town: gentle music, tinkling laughter, low sweet voices calling out to him. He smiles, flirts back. Subtly dodges the smooth beautiful fingers that reach for his sleeves and hands.
He wonders if he’ll ever want to be touched again. If an embrace will ever feel like anything other than a cage. If he’ll ever be able to hold someone’s hand without the fear of their fingers brushing his wrist, finding out what he’s done. What he’s made himself.
He ducks into one silk-draped establishment just long enough to buy another bottle of liquor and then saunters on. This brew at least is a little less astringent than what he had last night. In fact, this one is floral to the point of tasting a little bit like perfume. Good thing he’s not picky.
Three or four doors down, someone inside another of the brothels is playing the qin. His feet stop without his permission.
He leans against the wall and listens, and drinks his obnoxious wine.
The player inside can’t compare with Lan Wangji, of course. Few can. For all their lack of technique, though, the way they play has a looseness, a relaxed and unrestrained quality, that is so unlike the stony, stuck-up Hanguang Jun that Wei Wuxian chuckles to himself.
It’s a sweet, sentimental tune. He can’t help but imagine how it would sound played by a player of Lan Zhan’s skill… how he would look playing it… with his hair down, perhaps… relaxed, glancing up from time to time with emotion matching the music in his deep-water eyes…
If the esteemed Hanguang Jun was capable of fucking relaxing, that is, or exhibiting the slightest emotion besides judgmental superiority.
Wei Wuxian’s stomach feels bad, suddenly. Must be the wine. He pushes off the wall and walks on, quicker than before, leaving the qin player and his own foolish thoughts behind.
Lan Wangji watches, and follows.
He is angry at himself that he is doing any of this. He is angry at the strong, sour twist that happened in his gut when Wei Wuxian entered the brothel, and angry again for the rush of relief when he came back out again moments later with only a bottle of liquor.
It was not anger that he felt during the long moment when Wei Wuxian stood leaning against the brothel wall with his bottle frozen halfway to his mouth, listening to someone inside playing a love song (with occasionally poor intonation and sloppy timing) on the qin. His face had worn one of his typical infuriating smirks for a moment, but then it had faded, leaving him looking soft and contemplative. His gaze was far-away and his lips barely parted, his brows tilted upwards ever so slightly at their inside corners. He had looked… wistful.
Lan Wangji has long ago come to terms with the fact that he finds Wei Wuxian beautiful. He’d believed he had grown used to it. But seeing him like that, thoughtful and almost vulnerable, had moved him to a surprising degree.
He wants to give him things, and tell him things. He wants to keep him safe, and to make him happy. He wants to learn how to find that Wei Ying, and how to keep him.
His target is moving faster now, and leading them into worse sections of the city. It’s not much of a challenge for Lan Wangji to keep up with him: the night is dark, and so are his brother’s robes, so it’s a simple matter to slip from shadow to shadow through the twisting streets and over the crooked rooftops, watching.
He doesn’t know what he’s watching for.
Meaning, he supposes. Reason. Sense. Some explanation as to what happened to the kind, carefree, chaotic boy who once called himself Lan Wangji’s friend. Some confirmation that there’s something left of him in there besides just the chaos.
Wei Wuxian hesitates when he reaches the end of the street. He laughs softly, then practically skips out into the crossroads. He looks, almost, for a moment, carefree.
It’s the same little place as before--the crooked tree, the rotting bench, the muddy pond--although they’ve approached it by a different route this time.
He plops himself down onto the bench, which creaks alarmingly under even his light weight, with all the comfortable familiarity of a man returning to his favorite spot after a long journey.
Lan Wangji watches crouched on the rooftop as Wei Wuxian leans back against the sad little tree and looks up at the tiny shaving of moon that’s visible tonight. Tomorrow night will be the new moon, so it’s barely anything, just a nick in the dark fabric of the sky, still mostly clouded over with a thin smoky haze. It’s too dark to read the expression on Wei Wuxian’s face.
It’s not long before he pulls out Chenqing. Lan Wangji’s hand rests near the pouch in his sleeve where he’s hidden Bichen.
When Wei Wuxian plays it’s not the wild, sinister song of shadows and blood. It’s not a tune Lan Wangji recognizes, but it’s light and wistful. He realizes after a few phrases that it would sound beautiful played in conjunction with the song the qin player in the brothel had played. He has no doubt, once he realizes this, that Wei Wuxian is making this tune up on the spot with that very purpose in mind.
It’s haunting and lovely on its own. Played in concert with the qin piece, by a player of skill equal to Wei Wuxian’s, it would be… sublime. Lan Wangji swallows past the lump in his throat.
Wei Wuxian reaches the end of his perfect improvised tune. He takes a slow breath and closes his eyes, then puts the flute to his lips again.
One slow, sweet progression of three notes, and Lan Wangji’ forgets how to breathe. Only three notes, but unmistakable. The song he hummed for Wei Wuxian as he lay feverish in the Xuanwu’s cave. The song he named after them.
Only three notes in, but his whole being resonates with the lilting phrase as if every one of his bones had been hollowed out, made into flutes for Wei Ying to fill with melodious breath and traverse with skillful fingers.
At the start of the fourth note, just across the street from where Lan Wangji kneels stricken and breathless on the roof, someone draws a bow. The arrow is cruelly barbed, and pointing at Wei Wuxian.
At the start of the fifth note, they release the string. Lan Wangji moves before he knows why. The arrow travels about an arm’s length before he catches it one-handed and snaps it in half between his thumb and forefinger.
The figure starts and turns, but Lan Wangji is there, pushing them back against the rough wall with his other hand around their throat.
Lan Wangji wants very much to kill this person.
Their hood slips back a bit. A man, balding, perhaps in his forties. Skin sallow and sagging, eyes dull even in surprise. An ordinary man; a poor, desperate, unhappy man. Not a good man. Perhaps a man who has never had the option to be good.
You know, this time of night… this type of place… There are no good people around, are there? Just ones like us.
Lan Wangji’s arm moves almost without his permission. He drops the halves of the arrow, pulls a pouch of silver from his robes, and shoves it onto the man’s calloused hand as it grasps feebly at his sleeve.
“Provide for your family,” he hisses next to the man’s ear. He follows his advice with a “Piss off” and a shove that sends the man scampering away.
The flute, he realizes, has stopped.
He turns slowly, and Wei Wuxian is standing at the mouth of the alley, watching him with a bemused little smile on his face.
Lan Wangji considers following the balding man’s example, and running away as fast as he can, but he can’t seem to make himself move. Has Wei Wuxian recognized him? If he has, Lan Wangji prays that the ground beneath his feet will open and swallow him whole.
“Well, that was interesting,” Wei Wuxian says. He doesn’t step any closer, nor does he call Lan Wangji by his name. Lan Wangji’s heart is pounding so loud it’s a marvel he can’t hear it echoing off the walls.
“I wonder, though,” Wei Wuxian says, twirling Chenqing between his fingers, “if you did that to save me from him, or him from me.”
Lan Wangji can’t answer.
“Why are you here?” he demands, ice and fire in his voice. “Someone send you to follow me? Who was it?”
His posture shifts, loosens, and when he next speaks it’s in an annoyed groan: “It wasn’t Lan Zhan, was it?”
Panic hits him at the sound of his name, followed closely by relief. Wei Wuxian hasn’t recognized him, then. Not yet. He should run, now, while he’s still unknown.
He doesn’t move.
Wei Wuxian’s face suddenly brightens. “Was it Shijie?” he asks.
Lan Wangji blinks. Then he... he doesn’t nod. It would be lying to nod. He just… looks down, that’s all. He can’t be blamed if Wei Wuxian interprets it as something more than that.
Wei Wuxian lets out a little breath.
“She would,” he says. He shakes his head, and an honest, genuine smile dawns over his face; the first Lan Wangji has seen from him in a long time.
It feels like the return of spring after a long, dark winter.
“Well,” Wei Wuxian says, bright and beaming as if he hadn’t been ready to tear Lan Wangji apart in a dark alley, “now that you’ve kept me out of trouble, what say we sit down and have a drink together?”
He should say no. He really should. He should shake his head and run off into the night while he still can. That’s what a sane person would do.
Instead he looks down again, then follows Wei Wuxian’s (slightly weaving) steps and sits down next to him on the bench.
Wei Wuxian is very drunk, which is not at all unusual.
He is in Qinghe, which is more unusual.
He is relaxed, and enjoying himself, which is so unusual these days he’d begun to think it would never happen again. He's been talking for a long time, now, and the drink is really catching up with him.
The bodyguard cultivator Shijie sent isn’t much of a conversationalist, which is fine. As Wei Wuxian told him that first night when he’d thought he was a thief, Wei Wuxian talks enough for both of them. He’s also dead set on keeping his hood over his face, which is obnoxious, but ultimately fine too. Of course Wei Wuxian is curious. He wonders if he knows him. If he’s from Yunmeng, or Meishan, or from here.
He finds he doesn’t really care. For all that Wei Wuxian was not in need of saving, the fact that his new friend not only helped him out, but sent his would-be murderer on his way with a slap on the wrist and a bag full of money for his family is the most heartwarmingly sweet, naive, good-hearted thing. It’s Shijie, through and through. Whoever he is, he’s doing exactly what Jiang Yanli would want. Even if it’s just for money, Wei Wuxian likes him so much for that.
Over the course of the one-sided conversation he’s been holding about nothing at all, Wei Wuxian has been scooting closer, little by little, and now his shoulder is bumping against his new friend’s shoulder under its layers of dark fabric. He’s being such a diligent bodyguard, sitting alert and vigilant while Wei Wuxian relaxes further and further.
“Has anyone ever complimented you on your posture?” he teases, bumping their shoulders together. “Because it’s expemillary… expemplary… it’s really good. Like, almost Lan Wangji level. Almost. You’ve seen him, right? Hanguang Jun? You must have, who could miss him?’
He leans his head against the solid shoulder. His friend seems to straighten his spine even a little further. Wei Wuxian laughs.
“Ha! Yes, exactly! The most perfect, perfect, perfect posture. You’re funny.”
He chuckles again, unable to help himself.
“What’s the point of trying to be so perfect, hmm?” he asks his companion, not expecting any answer. “In this rotten world.”
He sighs. He’s maybe a little too drunk. He doesn’t feel good, physically. He probably should have eaten today.
“I need to lie down,” he says, and laboriously adjusts himself so he’s lying on the bench, using his new friend’s leg as a pillow. It’s very rude and cheeky of him; he should probably feel smug about the awkwardness he’s inflicting, but he’s too tired.
The other man doesn’t complain, or move away, so he can’t mind too much. Maybe Shijie paid him extra to humor Wei Wuxian in the event he gets needy like this.
Well, no good thing that’s not worth pushing too far until it falls completely apart and everyone hates him.
“Y’know,” he says, slurring more than he’d like, “Shijie would pat my hair if she was here. Jusss saying.”
The man in the gray cloak doesn’t move, which is a surprise; Wei Wuxian expected to be tossed off the bench completely.
He turns onto his back, facing upwards. It’s pitch black under the hood of the cloak; he can’t make out any features at all. The moon is there, just behind him, like a silver guan in black silk hair.
“”S a nice night,” he says. “Not bad. Not perfect, though. Couldn’t be perfect. Not possible, right?”
To his great surprise, he feels a gentle hand brush the hair above his forehead. It’s so unexpected, but so, so nice. He can’t bring himself to say anything about it, because then it would stop, and it’s just so nice. He closes his eyes, and keeps talking.
“Do you know Lan Zhan?” he asks. The hand pauses, and he thinks he’s fucked up and ruined it already, but before he can apologize the petting resumes.
“He’s perfect,” Wei Wuxian says. “Sooo bloody perfect. He’ll probably make it through the whole war without a scratch, without even messing up his hair. He’ll come visit my grave to scold me for lying in it wrong.”
He can’t help but smile at that.
“Funny thing is,” he says to his new friend and the pale moon, “I probably will be. Lying in it wrong. Friend, when I die, will you make sure they put me lying in it wrong, so Lan Zhan will come and scold me? Don’t tell Shijie I said that.”
He can imagine it now, what it would look like, the perspective from his cold, shallow grave: Lan Zhan’s face leaning over him, peering down at him with that inscrutable expression. It’s funny, and sad. He cuddles a little closer in towards the warm hip by his ear.
“Friend, you smell nice,” he murmurs. The smell is so soothing, like dark forests and green meadows and clear, cool, still water.
Wei Wuxian drifts off to sleep.
Lan Wangji stays perfectly still, except for the hand stroking Wei Wuxian’s hair.
The moment is strange and beautiful, and he wishes it could be just this, forever, just them.
He can’t begin to parse the feeling in his chest, or the jumble of thoughts in his mind.
It can't last forever. They'll have to wake up, and he'll have to get back unseen before mao shi.
They’ll both be irritable and short-tempered tomorrow. They’ll probably fight.
Wei Wuxian will probably not remember the things he said tonight. Lan Wangji will never forget them.
But that is all in the future.
The present is just this: this simple, delicate moment.
Not perfect, maybe, but close.
