[pfsb]

[acrookedpath]

Wei Wuxian's notes have long been a haphazard disaster, and it has reached a point where he knows he's circling a revelation, missing only one or two key parts, and said parts are probably lying half-forgotten in a notebook he thought he'd reserved for another project entirely. In theory, he is trying to dig through everything to organize it a little better.

In theory.

In practice, however, Wei Wuxian is staring out the window with his chin in his hand, and he hasn't touched the papers scattered across his table for about two hours. He's too busy smiling an absolutely foolish smile at nothing in particular.

It has been a very good couple of days.

Comments

[we_bring_hell]

She bites the other half of the ball of dough. "Then perhaps those feelings may be the fuel you need," she says simply.

[acrookedpath]

"Perhaps."

He turns the wine bottle in his hands, then lifts it again for a proper drink.

Slower: "I am still not certain if it is only joy that makes me wish to stay. I am happy with Lan Zhan -- " Again, that small smile returns unbidden. "But I also know that he would be devastated if I left, after he lost me once before. And I do not wish to hurt him so."

[we_bring_hell]

"If he were not here, do you think you would not have stayed as long as you have?" she asks.

[acrookedpath]

"I don't know," he admits. "I may have. Before he arrived, I passed all my time examining the inn's energy, learning how to utilize it, and I could see that occupying me for months more. Perhaps even years. But..."

Wei Wuxian shrugs.

"I could also seeing myself growing bored, if that was all I could do. Wondering what else I might find beyond the borders of the inn."

[we_bring_hell]

She nods, unsure how to say how that makes her feel. (Bad. It makes her feel bad.)

"Well. At least, I thought it might be helpful for your studies."

[acrookedpath]

"It is something to think about, at least." He offers a cheerful, unbothered grin. "And it will be much more pleasant to work with joy than resentment, if they can be used to contain the thanergy equally! But speaking of studies, how do your own fare? Or have all your matters focused on Gideon lately?"

No judgement! Wei Wuxian made absolutely no progress on his own work after Lan Zhan returned to the inn.

[we_bring_hell]

"Ah--I have been charting my knowledge from the studies and looking for how they build together to achieve Lyctoral power. But today I worked on portal magic. I believe I can create the pinhole I need to make our mechanism work by drawing on my body's own thalergy. I should only need a tiny amount."

[acrookedpath]

"Really." Up go Wei Wuxian's eyebrows again. He takes another swig of wine. "And it will not harm you?"

[we_bring_hell]

She makes a gesture which adequately conveys, I didn't say all that. "It should be minimal."

[acrookedpath]

Considering Wei Wuxian's own blithe disregard for his wellbeing in pursuit of new and interesting paths, he would be a terrible hypocrite to make faces. So he only makes a very small one that he tries to hide behind the wine bottle.

"It might be worth speaking to Lan Zhan more about our world's cultivation," he says. "Thalergy and qi are very similar. He may be able to offer guidance on how to draw from it, to power your creation."

[we_bring_hell]

She nods. "A sound idea. I am curious to see if my status as Post-Resurrection makes a difference."

"Once the two of you become separable, at least. At least you live here, and I can find you when he is away."

[acrookedpath]

He snorts out a small laugh, his grin going a touch flustered.

"We did leave each others' sight for a shichen or so when he returned!" he points out. "I will send him to the library again while I refine my lure talismans, if I must."

[we_bring_hell]

She shakes her head. "You have found happiness. By all means, hold onto it with both hands."

"I cannot pretend to understand limerence, but it seems to suit you," says Pluto's greatest hypocrite.

[acrookedpath]

"You do not feel that with Gideon?"

Because it sure seems like it from where Wei Wuxian is sitting, but what does he know.

[we_bring_hell]

She colors under her paint, her ears giving her away.

"It is--an intense relationship. She is certainly the most important person in my life. But we are not entangled in that way. I am not what she desires in a woman; indeed, I doubt I am what anyone desires in a woman. I have no illusions about that."

"Fleshly desires have never been... particularly important to me."

[acrookedpath]

Ah, yes. He remembers her saying that now, when he groaned about his lovesick heart at the lake shore and confessed his feelings were not merely those of intense friendship. Matters of the flesh are not hers to want.

(Even if her bright red ears speak another story. He can be kind.)

"I see," he says. His smile has gentled. "Well -- then it does not have to be so, if you don't desire it. But I am very glad you have each other. That you have found your bond of trust, and caring, and you will be able to stand together as you have long wished."

One flesh, one end.

[we_bring_hell]

As if it were entirely up to my desires, Harrow thinks. I don't believe I've noticed her subscription to Emaciated Nuns Quarterly.

She shakes her head. "You are not the only person to be confused on that point. Lady Ingress asked me about earlier today, but seemed to get very uncomfortable discussing it."

[acrookedpath]

He frowns, slightly. "How so?"

Ingress has never seemed like the type to grow uncomfortable easily.

[we_bring_hell]

Harrow frowns too. "I am not sure. It was--bewildering. She seemed very concerned that by acting my protector in London Below and via certain affectionate gestures she had not 'come between' us. But when I clarified that we are not..." Harrow colors slightly.

"And that I understood fully that Lady Ingress was not..." Slightly more.

"The atmosphere became rather tense and awkward, and we moved on to other topics."

[acrookedpath]

...Huh.

A small suspicion has awoken in Wei Wuxian's mind. It nudges some memories of his night out with Ingress closer to the surface: the heartbreak she insisted was not as bad as it seemed, her worries she would never have a person the way others did.

Is this part of the reason why?

Oh, Ingress, my friend, he thinks, with rueful sympathy.

"Perhaps that was for the best," he says wryly.

[we_bring_hell]

She shakes her head. "I have had so little experience... even in seeing such relationships form among others."




"Although not none. It is extraordinary, what elderly folk may get up to, with long after you think such concerns would have... passed."

[acrookedpath]

If there is a single truth that persists across all times and universes, it is this: anyone under the age of twenty-two will make the exact face Wei Wuxian is making when the topic of elders having sex comes up.

They may also make the tiny revolted sounds he is making, but that can be hit or miss.

"Are you certain you don't want any of this?" he asks, holding out the wine bottle to her.

[we_bring_hell]

She shakes her head. "Wei Wuxian, when the average age of one's congregation is north of fifty, one grows used to certain things."

"The only other person within two decades of my age was Ortus Ninegad, and I certainly would not prefer to consider his amorous activities."

[acrookedpath]

Suit yourself, Harrow: more for him! Matching action to thought, he gulps down more wine.

"Yes," he says dryly. "With those options, I see why fleshly desires hold no appeal."

Within two decades means this Ortus fellow could be old enough to be Harrow's father, for one.

[we_bring_hell]

"That's not why," she says slowly. "I mean, the other was Griddle, and--well, objectively speaking, there's no question--"

She turns pink under her paint gradually until she gives up on the sentence, then immediately lurches into a worse one. "I've just always... it's all so... My devotion was given to higher things," she concludes.