acrookedpath | [pfsb]

[pfsb]

The good news: the energy-revealing array works!

The bad news --

It's not bad news, he insists to himself. It just... is. It's a complication, a hole in the road, a little snare tripping him up. That's all. It doesn't have to be more. It might not even be in the first place, yes? He is dead, Lan Zhan is alive, of course seeing just how very alive would stir something in him. That's all it is.

Right?

Never mind that he's fairly certain if he placed the same array on Harrow, or Tom-gongzi, or Ingress, he would not have been struck the same way. That -- it's ridiculous, this is all ridiculous, and that's why he's out here by the lake, standing on a flat rock with another array of talismans fluttering in his hand.

The key is not just luring resentful energy from the forest, despite the suppression around the inn. It is how swiftly he can do it. During his coffee-fueled spree of work last night, he drew up some new lures that ought to work faster than a traditional set. Now he scatters them in a wide circle around his feet, gestures sharply, and sends a bolt of red energy into the yellow paper slips.

Silently, in his head, he begins to count. One... two... three...

At the count of thirteen, something boils at the forest's edge, dark and oily.

Wei Wuxian smiles and lifts his flute to meet it.

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He nearly fumbles the mug he is holding, and quickly sets it down.

"I -- "

A quick breath, as he feels his ears start to flush.

"I would like that. If you do not mind."

A beat of silence.

"Certainly you could sleep later, before breakfast. If I did not leave so early."

He laughs a little, studiously ignoring how his hand quivers when he picks up one of the pastries to take a bite. Maybe Lan Zhan won't notice? Maybe he'll just think it's because he slept poorly.

"That's what I thought," he says lightly once he's swallowed the food. As if that were the only reason: a selfish desire to sleep late. Not any other selfish desires. "Will you not be so bored waking so much earlier than me, though?"

"I will not," Lan Wangji tells him.

Accepting, as usual, of abandoning silence during meals when it is with Wei Ying, he examines the egg dish, then uses the utensil provided by Bar-guniang to take a bite.

"I will meditate, and prepare for the day."

"Good," he says. And then, with mock-generosity, "Though if I sleep past wu hour, you may feel free to shake me awake."

The fan-like pastry, it turns out, has a pleasant orange and spice flavor to it. The smaller diamond-shaped one almost shatters in his hand for how crispy it is; another pastry is so light that it feels like biting into sugar-spun air. He tries them all before investigating the thick, battered slices of bread, and the syrup that runs darker and sweeter than honey.

"Mn."

Breakfast, aside from the egg dish, is very sweet. He limits himself to the fan-shaped pastry and half a slice of the battered bread, without the syrup, and is content.

Even Wei Wuxian has to admit that is is quite sweet, more than he expected when he asked Lan Zhan for breakfast. He doesn't mind! But he does wonder how some of the flavors might be complemented with more spice to balance out the sugar; he will have to investigate, he decides, and see what Madam Bar recommends.

He polishes off his egg dish and returns to the hot chocolate. All is quiet, for a time, but the comfortable quiet that occasionally marks their meals between Wei Wuxian's one line of thought and the next. Not like last night.

Perhaps it will be okay.

(Naturally, as soon as he thinks this, the dragonflies wake up for the day.)

He finishes with the meal, and pours tea for them both - something of a palate cleanser, and something of pure pleasure in the morning routine.

"I liked the chocolate drink," he says, even as he curves his fingers around his teacup. "And the egg."

Concern is in his glance as he looks at Wei Ying, trying to assess if the other man is satisfied or not.

Oh, no. Has he worried Lan Zhan again? Should he be talking more?

"Good!" he chirps -- why does he keep saying that, why -- and quickly follows it with, "I liked them all. The little fan-shaped one especially. And the chocolate! Perhaps I should've gotten a chocolate milkshake that time with Lady Ingress instead of a strawberry one after all. And I wonder how some of them might taste with more heat -- yes, I know, Lan Zhan, you do not have to look at me like that."

Even as he shakes his head at that, wryly amused, the tension goes out of him.

All right. That's good! So he just has to keep talking, and hope he doesn't say anything else foolish.

(It's the second half that is the sticking point, really.)

"All I'm saying," he goes on, as cheerfully as he can, "is that Madam Bar was very good at honoring our request for something sweet, and we should test her skill further by adding other flavors to the sweetness. Otherwise it will all taste the same, and who wants that?"

...says Wei Wuxian to one of the most prominent members of Gusu Lan.

"We can ask her to add more spice."

A heartbeat's silence.

"To yours."

Both expression and tone are mild.

"I do not mind trying other flavors, though."

He laughs, shaking his head. "Then I will see what I can find that does not sear your mouth too terribly, Lan Zhan."

(...Gods help him, now he's thinking about Lan Zhan's mouth. Help.)

The corners of his mouth turn up in a very slight smile.

"Mn. I appreciate it."

If only his tea were in the same sort of big, hefty, ceramic mug the chocolate came in. That would make it so much easier to hide his face.

Talk. Talk so he doesn't get worried. But Lan Zhan's smile has leveled him and turned him mute again, and all he can do is smile stupidly in return, bend his head, and drink more of his tea.

Unaware of the thoughts racing around Wei Ying's mind, he takes another sip of his own tea and absently looks at the arrangement of items on the table.

"Did you like the incense?" he asks, after a moment. "Would you prefer a different scent?"

"Hm?" He looks up, jolted from thoughts. "Oh, no, it was fine. It was nice."

A beat, as his smile goes a bit rueful.

"It helped."

"I am glad. That it helped."

He will make sure that, as with a tea pot and kettle, incense and an incense burner remain available in the room at all times.

"I am fond of sandalwood. As a scent."

"It's nice," he repeats, and instantly fights the urge to put his head down on the table and never look Lan Zhan in the eye again. Why.

Trying to marshal his thoughts toward something more useful: "I don't know why I never thought to bring some up here before. To help with the nightmares. You were smart to think of it, Lan Zhan."

"Mn."

He has his own suspicions on why that might be. Several of them have to do with what he knows about what Wei Ying thinks is important, and what Wei Ying thinks he deserves.

"If I think of other things, I will tell you."

He nods, his gaze drifting back to his teacup.

"I promise not every night has been like this since I died," he says, with a small, wry smile. "There are easier nights, too. Ones where I hardly dream."

"In time there will be more easier ones."

It comes out low and strangely certain.

Wei Wuxian would be content to keep his eyes lowered, but Lan Zhan's tone --

He looks up, unable to stop a faint tug of concern from shading his features.

There is no need to ask. In fact, it would be an unfathomable cruelty if he did. You have both been through a terrible loss together, Harrow had said; he is certan every cultivator who lived through Nightless City still dreams of it at times, and when one of his own clearest memories of the battle is Lan Zhan screaming his name --

Oh, Lan Zhan, he thinks, and fears his heart may crack.

It takes all his willpower not to reach across the table and take the other man's hand.

He has given himself away through his tone of voice, he realizes, as he sees the expression on Wei Ying's face.

Lan Wangji lets out a long, slow breath, and offers a small nod.

"In time," he repeats. "Although it may-- take a while."

This does not do much to smooth the worry from Wei Wuxian's face.

To think of Lan Zhan alone in Cold Pond Cave, haunted by his own mind each time he tried to sleep, for three years -- is that how long he means when it says it will take a while? Has he spent his entire seclusion this way? Even now, does he still dream of Nightless City, and is just able to bend his impeccable composure toward holding himself together better than Wei Wuxian ever could?

I was not there, is all he can think. I was not there to help him.

"Yes," he manages, very soft. He tries for another faint smile. "And you are here now. So am I."

You are here now. So am I.

Here in this room, warm and softly lit, with the faint scent of sandalwood still lingering in the air, he is able to feel more grounded, more distant from those first weeks and months in the ice-rimed chill of Cold Pond Cave. He had lain on his pallet, wracked with agony from the whip wounds and worse, far worse, from loss and sorrow, and had lost himself in fevered dreams both asleep and waking.

Some things he had known were not real, but merely the imaginings of a grief-shattered mind. Seeing everyone he had ever known and loved possessed by angry spirits and transformed into puppets that swarmed and devoured him. Betrayal on Xichen's horror-stricken features as Lan Wangji whirled on him in battle and cut him down, unknowing. A-Yuan lying dead beside Jiang Yanli, crumpled and broken. Throwing Jiang Wanyin from the cliff in revenge for Wei Ying's death. Throwing himself after.

Some, however, were all too real, memory made anguish, over and over again.

The feel of Wei Ying's wrist in his bloodied fingers. The pain in his arm as the other man's weight threatened to pull his shoulder from its socket and drag them both over the edge. The flash of light from Sandu as Jiang Wanyin struck with his sword.

Losing his grip.

Wei Ying slipping from his grasp, falling, out of reach--

Wei Ying!

He draws an unsteady breath and places one hand flat on the table, as if to remind himself of its reality. His fingers are trembling.

"Yes," he agrees, his gaze on Wei Ying, here, now, present, real. "We are here. We are both here."

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