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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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."

This is not about whatever foolish games the infatuation plays with his mind. It doesn't matter. It never should have mattered, this entire past night. He could not be there for Lan Zhan, but he has the chance to be there now: that is what's important. Later he can go back to his foolishness, but right now --

Wei Wuxian reaches across the table, covers Lan Zhan's shaking hand with his own, and holds tight. Their hands are warm. No blood streaks across their skin, threatening to make them slip free of one another. There is no cliff. No whispered pleas for Lan Zhan to let him go.

He doesn't let go.

He turns his hand under Wei Ying's and holds on in turn, forcing his breathing to steady, forcing the memories back.

He cannot make himself tear his gaze from the other man, however; cannot bring himself to look away.

"Wei Ying," he whispers.

His mind is a complete blank. He cannot see anything but Lan Zhan's eyes, can feel nothing but their hands twined together, sparking bright as a golden core. The words he has tried to choke down all night sense their chance, bolt up his throat, almost make it to the tip of his tongue --

He swallows them down again.

If it was not the time before, it is absolutely not the time now.

"I am here, Lan Zhan," he repeats instead, hardly above a whisper either.

I am here.

Yes. He is here -- and he has just spent half the night wracked with his own nightmares, ones so bad that he felt the need to hide himself away, and now here he is once again reaching beyond his own needs to provide comfort and care to another--

Lan Wangji draws another slow breath, nods, and squeezes Wei Ying's hand before allowing his grasp to loosen. (He cannot make himself let go, not quite, but the indication is clear that Wei Ying can easily pull back if he so wishes.)

"Yes," he says.

"And your nightmares will ease in time. Rest assured."

Lan Zhan loosens his grip, indicating Wei Wuxian should as well, and he forces himself to draw away. He nods as he wraps both hands around his teacup. There isn't much tea left in it; soon, he thinks, it will probably be time for Lan Zhan to leave.

"Or they will go back to the nightmares I had before," he jokes, half-heartedly. "Where my flute has suddenly turned into a chicken and yet everyone expects me to play it just as normal."

Lan Wangji stares at him.

"..."

"What?" he asks, struggling -- with no success -- to keep a straight face. "You've never had a dream like that about your guqin?"

"No."

"Ah, count yourself lucky, then, Lan Zhan," he says, all the seriousness of his voice overshadowed by the cheerful grin that breaks across his face. "Chickens make for very uncooperative spiritual tools."

He lets out a sigh that is half exasperated, half fond.

"Wei Ying."

"Yes, I know, I know." He waves one hand as his smile goes more lopsided. "What else am I to do but joke, Lan Zhan?"

Dry as dust:

"Avoid chickens."

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