For Wei Ying - Flying

[lan_wangji]

Lan Zhan had started making a mental list, lately. It is not so different from the almost unconscious observations he'd made about Wei Ying when they were young, but now more laden with affection. There are, in spite of everything, things that seem to still bring Wei Ying brief moments of joy. Thus far it largely involves meat pastries and dangerous water activities but Wei Ying had mentioned flying. And Lan Zhan has found a lake.

He hopes the fly will soften the conversation they must have.

He arrives at the graveyard, stifling a sigh at the fact that Wei Ying still will not live anywhere proper, laden with dinner and Bichen.

He does not immediately see him and stands still, waiting. "Wei Ying?"

Comments

[lan_wangji]

He stiffens, unable to stifle a flare of hurt at the insinuation. Lan Zhan knows he is cold, knows he has not been the friend he ought to have been, but he did think Wei Ying at least understood his intention to be that of friendship.

"Do not feel I owe Wei Ying," he says, although he does, he does owe him but that is not where this drive is rooted. "Wei Ying is my friend. Want you to be happy. Want to take care of you."

He feels, intensely, their proximity and his embarrassment at his own boldness.

"Does that make you uncomfortable?"

[yiling_laozu]

Wei Wuxian stiffens for the question. He is uncomfortable, but not due to anything Lan Wangji has done. No one takes care of him, no one save for shijie, and look how Wei Wuxian has repaid her.

"Lan Zhan is my friend, also," he says. "I thought you - " he says and stops, the words so close to his lips. He thought Lan Wangji would be the one to stop him if he went too far, that he would save him, even if it meant death. It feels like too much when they are riding on the flat of a sword.

"Our entire world hates me," he says instead. "How can I bring that shame to Gusu, also? I know why you didn't stay when you visited me, Lan Zhan. I didn't blame you for it."

[lan_wangji]

He is grateful for the glimmer of the lake appearing over a hill, afraid his unsteadiness will extend to Bichen and put them both in danger. He starts a slow descent, aiming for a stretch of shore with no houses visible.

"I was forbidden from leaving when I visited you," he admits, knowing it does not make up for the shame of him leaving them behind but wanting to try and explain his cowardice. "Punished when I returned home. Brother tried to understand and I know I made life more difficult for him, but I should have come back. Was difficult to get away and I was afraid. But never shamed of Wei Ying."

[yiling_laozu]

The words are remarkable, and Wei Wuxian will later curse himself for losing them to his sudden anger. He turns his head sharply, grateful that they're close enough to the earth that he can leap down and face Lan Wangji. "This was not - " he starts, reaching towards him, fingers tight around Lan Wangji's shoulder as he turns him to look at his back.

"Your scars are from visiting me?"

[lan_wangji]

"That punishment was kneeling," he spits out, panicking a little as Wei Ying leaps out of his hold and onto the thankfully close ground. He hops off Bichen, sword re-sheathing itself as he faces the surprising ire.

"Scars from something else, something after I lost Wei Ying." He holds up the food as a shield and a peace offering. "Something that I did. Not something you caused."

[yiling_laozu]

He isn't any less outraged that his own clan dared to lay a finger on Lan Wangji, but that it isn't the result of a simple visit to Yiling does lessen the fury roiling through his insides. Wei Wuxian fingers loosen their grip on Chenqing.

"Lan Zhan," he says, "You are so sure I died. But I'm standing here, aren't I? You know I'm not a corpse or a ghost."

[lan_wangji]

He sets down the food on a flat patch of grass and straightens up carefully, measuring his words.

People arrive in this place after death, seemingly regularly," he answers. "But I did not want to argue with you. Did not want to discuss that. Something else," he offers, gesturing at the food.

He'd managed to procure some sort of diced chicken and vegetables over rice that promised to be spicy and rich.

[yiling_laozu]

Wei Wuxian sits, as unnerved as ever by Lan Wangji's insistence that he is dead. He would remember dying, wouldn't he? His memory is awful, but surely that would leave an impression.

He reaches for the food, and as soon as the smell reaches him the clamor of his empty stomach outweighs his anxious thoughts. "It's spicy!" he realizes. "It's so hard to find spicy food here."

[lan_wangji]

"Found a shop that serves food more like our own," he answers, sitting neatly on the ground and withdrawing his own dish of vegetables and tofu and perhaps more ginger than would be strictly allowed in Gusu Lan Sect.

"Owners speak in a tongue more like our own, writing more like our own," he says before stopping in order to eat. He wants to ensure Wei Ying has actually eaten before they speak as distraction seems to inhibit him from remaining well fed on a regular basis.

[yiling_laozu]

Wei Wuxian folds his legs beneath himself, shoveling large mouthfuls of the hot chicken past his lips as he listens. It's comforting to think that there are people like themselves here, when everything else his eyes fall upon is strange.

"Do they dress as we do, also?" he asks. "Or do they wear the funny little pants everyone else favors?"

[lan_wangji]

"Dress as the others in the city do," he says after carefully setting down his food. The rule could be bent for Wei Ying, but not entirely broken.

"They did not react to my appearance as obviously as others do, but I know I seemed strange to them."

The staring is not so terribly different at home but then it had been tinged with awe or fear. Here is seems to be amusement, as if they are some sort of spectacle. He hates it for Wei Ying who he knows could assimilate to this loud, diverse place so much more easily than Lan Wangji ever could.

"Strange that they wear so little clothing, everywhere they go. Do not understand why they wear their hair as they do."

[yiling_laozu]

Wei Wuxian snorts into his rice. "So many of the men look like babies with such short hair. Or as if they've been attacked by a sword and managed to keep their head and nothing else." He tries then for a moment to picture Lan Wangji with such a hairstyle, only to laugh all over again.

"Your topknot looked very nice, Lan Zhan," he says, "But please don't cut your hair."

[lan_wangji]

"Never!" he huffs, looking affronted at even the thought. Wei Ying is right, the men look like overgrown children. "It is a sign of maturity, long hair. Why would one want to look as they did when they were a baby? There is no sense in it."

He is pleased to hear so, however, pleased that Wei Ying will not be cutting his lovely hair any time soon.

"Wei Ying does not wish to dress more as they do? As he did at the beach? You would not be stared at, as much. Could be part of them," he tries to explain, unsure if he expressed himself clearly. He does not want it, fears it, but Wei Ying ought to have many friends and surely it would be easier if he looked more like them.

[yiling_laozu]

This earns him another snort, one far less amused. "I could not even be a part of my own people at home," he reminds him. "My own family. How could I be a part of anything here? Besides," he says, forcing lightness back into his voice.

"I look best in robes, don't you think?" He sets down his bowl. "Am I handome, Lan Zhan?"

[lan_wangji]

"Wei Ying could be a part of any people," he immediately argues, gearing himself up into a righteous fit before the questions filters through.

His ears immediately burn and he picks up his food again, muttering a quick, "No talking while eating," before taking a very decisive bite.

He eats more quickly than is allowed, looking determinedly over the calm lake. The evening is warm and sky clear and he hopes they can come back to this place again, some time when there is not such serious things to discuss.

[yiling_laozu]

Wei Wuxian plucks his own bowl from the grass and finishes the last of it, privately thrilling at the sight of Lan Wangji's bright red ears. He is always so easy to rile, even after all these years. It's actually quite comforting.

"I'm done eating," he announces. "If you aren't going to tell me I look handsome in my robes, then I'll be forced to talk about how you look in them, Lan Zhan."

[lan_wangji]

Lan Wangji shakes his head, barely stifling a roll of the eyes as he sets his food down and meticulously recovers it before muttering, "Wei Ying knows he is handsome."

It had been the next thing Lan Wangji had noticed after getting past the alcohol and the sneaking in and the general chaos of their meeting. It had been very, very irritating to notice.

"Wei Ying," he starts, quieter and more modulated. "Want to talk with you. Not to question you. But have something that I believe you would want to know."

[yiling_laozu]

Wei Wuxian scarcely has time to bask in the rare compliment before Lan Wangji turns terribly serious, and Wei Wuxian feels his other thoughts drop away, all of him suddenly primed as if for a fight. Which is silly when they aren't fighting, and Lan Wangji has already told him he doesn't mean to argue with him about the burial grounds today.

Still, he can't help feeling that something unpleasant is coming, and he meets Lan Wangji's eyes with equal somberness. "Tell me, Lan Zhan."

[lan_wangji]

"There are many things Wei Ying does not remember," he says, trying to quickly get past this part to stave off any further arguments. "Do not think you ought to know all of them as for you they did not occur. There was so much chaos, difficult to know what knowledge you do and do not have."

He trails off, brow furrowed as he remembers the frantic flight to the Burial Mounds against Uncle's orders. Perhaps he would have gotten to Wei Ying before everything fell apart but he knows it would have meant he was unable to give this one piece of good news. "A-Yuan is not dead. Think you believe he is."

[yiling_laozu]

Wei Wuxian doesn't know what he expects to hear, but it isn't this. A-Yuan, who left with the rest of the Wens to Carp Tower? A-Yuan, a sweet and innocent, trusting child, who was murdered just because of his blood?

Wei Wuxian shakes his head, a feeling of prickling unease washing over him. A-Yuan is dead, and he mourns him harder than any of them, even his dear Wen siblings. He aches for him, and Lan Wangji wishes to offer him hope when he is trying so desperately to keep himself together?

"I know he's dead," he says, and it takes every drop of concentration within him to keep his voice steady. "Jin Guangshan killed even the grandmothers. We saw the Jin clan hunting mothers and children alike. He would not have spared that child."

[lan_wangji]

"No," he insists, leaning forward as he tries to catch Wei Ying's haunted gaze. "Wens must have hidden him when they left. Heard about Jin Zuxian and went to find you. Arrived and found A-Yuan instead."

He hesitates for a moment before reaching out to lay a hand on Wei Ying's bony knee. "He is in Gusu with Brother. Zewujun promised to watch over him for me."

He does not mention the reason Lan Wangji would be unable to watch over him, it is not the point of any of this.

[yiling_laozu]

"He was still in Yiling," Wei Wuxian whispers. He'd lain in the cave paralyzed for days, straining to move despite Wen Qing's needles, exhausting himself in his efforts to go after his last family until he'd been exhausted. Not once had he heard A-Yuan. "I thought he - "

Abruptly, Wei Wuxian stands. He doesn't know where he means to go, only that this isn't the sort of news he can comprehend sitting down. "He is in Gusu?" His voice shakes, breaths rattling in his chest against the sudden tightness that threatens to suffocate him. "He's alive?"

[lan_wangji]

Lan Wangji stands as soon as Wei Ying jumps up, fists clenched and he tries to anticipate what he needs to do.

He nods abruptly, not yet making a move to reach out.

"Sick with a fever but with healers, safe and clean and fed," he murmurs, aching as he watches numerous emotions flicker across Wei Ying's face. "Brother will care for him. He will be allowed to stay. I begged for it before punishment began. Zewujun will follow through."

[yiling_laozu]

Wei Wuxian makes a low, agonized sound, grabbing for Lan Wangji's hands. He'd tried to so hard to save them, to keep them alive in a land that only welcomed the dead, and he'd lost them, but Lan Wangji...Lan Wangji has saved the one dearest to his heart.

Jerkily, he begins to bow, but it isn't enough, and Wei Wuxian falls to his knees, forehead pressed to the top of one of Lan Wangji's white boots.

[lan_wangji]

"Wei Ying," Lan Wangji gasps, frozen for several long moments in shock before he realizes what has happened.

"Don't, please," he mutters, going to his knees and reaching for Wei Ying to try and pull him upright. "I should have already been there, with you. Don't deserve this. Wei Ying was so brave, brave for them. I'm sorry I was not there."