[pfsb]

[acrookedpath]

Lan Zhan, he writes, I'm swimming in the lake! I love you -- Wei Ying. After a moment's thought, Wei Wuxian adds a smiley face to the bottom like Madam Bar so often does with her napkin notes.

It's unseasonably warm today, more early summer than late fall. The trees have dropped enough of their leaves that Wei Wuxian knows such days will depart for good soon enough. And frankly, if he stares at his latest iteration of the energy-revealing array much longer, his eyes will cross and stick that way. He needs to clear his head.

After leaving one copy of the note in their room and another with Madam Bar, he requests some swimming attire; she provides a black short-sleeved shirt much like the one he wore to London Above, the fabric smooth as silk but much stretchier, and loose red trousers that end just above his knees. A little revealing for a lake shared by many, perhaps, but they'll do.

He changes in the public washroom and walks to the shoreline. Stepping onto one of the larger rocks, he eyes the water with a smile.

Then he backs up, sprints forward to spring off the rock, and cannonballs into the lake with a loud whoop.

Comments

[acrookedpath]

A cold lump congeals in his stomach. The worry deepens; so does a furrow between Wei Wuxian's eyebrows.

"What is it?"

[lightamidchaos]

"With the scourge, she said. With lightning, with darkness. Zidian is part of it, but--"

He takes his hand from Wei Ying's cheek, and sets it on his shoulder, steadying him as he says,

"-- he is. Hunting people, Wei Ying. Who are -- who are practicing the ghost path. Or demonic cultivation. He seeks-- he seeks them out, to destroy them."

[acrookedpath]

His first incongruous thought is, There are others? It is an odd little flare in his chest, as if trying to reach out to an unknown person -- people -- he recognizes across a crowded street. Like he reached out to the Wen remnants, once.

Because Jiang Cheng --

That part takes a few tries to sink in, as a stone skips across water. Jiang Cheng. Hunting people. Hunting people like him. Still so driven by his hatred, three years later, that Wei Wuxian's death wasn't enough. No. Everyone who even reminds him fleetingly of the Yiling Patriarch must be killed.

No.

His face feels cold. His eyes have landed on the slope of Lan Zhan's jaw, watching it move as Lan Zhan speaks.

[lightamidchaos]

One look at Wei Ying’s face, and he instantly regrets saying anything at all.

He moves swiftly, without asking, and scoops Wei Ying up in his arms, pulling him into his lap and holding him close.

“I will look into it,” he promises, low and certain. “Perhaps the rumors are wrong. I will find out.”

[acrookedpath]

Lan Zhan never needs to ask. As swiftly as he gathers Wei Wuxian to him, Wei Wuxian tucks close against him in kind, eyes shut, letting the embrace ground him. He thinks to nod after a moment before curling an arm around Lan Zhan.

Rumors. Just rumors. That's -- better, he thinks. If anyone knows how quickly benign gossip can grow to something monstrous, it's the two of them.

"Thank you, Lan Zhan," he whispers.

(It means there is still a chance the prophecy isn't true.)

[lightamidchaos]

He kisses Wei Ying’s hair, rocking him gently, and adds another mark against Jiang Wanyin in his heart.

“I will find out,” he promises again.

[acrookedpath]

"Even for Jiang Cheng, it seems too far."

Softly, still, as he rests his head in the crook of Lan Zhan's neck.

"Even after everything."

[lightamidchaos]

“Yes.”

It is all he dares let himself say.

[acrookedpath]

"And you heard the rumors they spread about me."

He quirks a tiny smile, without much humor to it.

"They could be doing the same to him." Light, and exceedingly wry: "Grandiose stories of Yunmeng Jiang's leader, the one who ended the Yiling Patriarch and now keeps the world safe from evil."

[lightamidchaos]

His arms tighten around Wei Ying.

“They could,” he allows.

Not that it helps.

[acrookedpath]

It helps Wei Wuxian; speaking it aloud calms his mind further, enough for some color to return to his face. He wraps his arm more snugly around Lan Zhan, silently reassuring: we are here.

Tentatively, he ventures, "Have that many others really begun to follow my path?"

[lightamidchaos]

“Some,” he says. “I do not know how many.”

Xichen is understandably reluctant to discuss it too much, although he does some, knowing how important it is to him.

[acrookedpath]

He exhales a long, long sigh across Lan Zhan's skin, fingers curling into the thin fabric of his shirt.





"I hope it is easier for them."

[lightamidchaos]

He makes a soothing sound, and runs one hand up and down Wei Ying’s back.

[acrookedpath]

They stay like that for a time: Wei Wuxian silent, listening to Lan Zhan's soft breath, feeling the other man's palm trace a steady line along his back.

He thinks of the Burial Mounds. Not how it ended, but an indeterminate time in the middle when their home had settled into quiet routine. The moments when he looked out of Demon-Subdue Cave and thought, We have dug a new clan out of the soil. Something small, scraggly as the lotuses he struggled to plant in the water, but slowly blooming all the same.

Would he have taught A-Yuan some of his crafty tricks as the boy grew up? Would their little clan have brought others who did not seek to destroy them, but wished to learn of a new way?

Knowing now that his work has marked him, he isn't sure he would have taught it to others. And he will never forget the rabid scramble among the sects as he hurled the broken Stygian Tiger Seal into their mist: those who practice it now could walk the path for nothing more than power and violence.

Still.

There are others, now.

[lightamidchaos]

He does not know what Wei Ying is thinking, but he knows that he is deep in thought. He says nothing that would disturb him, being content to hold him close, petted and soothed, loved and cherished, as he should always be and should always have been.

(Jiang Yanli's loss, he suspects, was greater far than anyone may have yet realized.)

He is not certain what he will do if the rumors are true. He has an idea how he can begin to find out, though, and it fits neatly with another plan he has already been thinking about.

[acrookedpath]

After a time, he lifts his head; smiles just a little at Lan Zhan, before leaning in to kiss him.

"Let's go inside?" he murmurs when it breaks.

The sun is slanting downward a bit more: enough to take some heat with it, and leave Wei Wuxian's bare skin colder.

[lightamidchaos]

“Yes.”

He helps Wei Ying up as he gets to his feet, and glances around for his robes. On not seeing them, he realizes that Wei Ying must have left them in their room or with Bar-guniang.

He picks up his own neatly bundled robes, separates his second and third layers from the rest, and moves to help Wei Ying into them.

(He knows that Wei Ying is perfectly capable of managing. He also knows that it is likely he might protest that Lan Wangji will need them, and this helps to sidestep that.)

[acrookedpath]

And indeed:

"Lan Zhan," he protests with a small laugh. "I'm not that cold."

He makes no move to shrug off Lan Zhan's robes, however. It is too small a battle to fight, especially when it makes an entirely different sort of warmth blossom in his heart.

[lightamidchaos]

“Mn.”

He finishes fastening the second layer and leans in to kiss Wei Ying before donning his own inner and outer robes.

“Thank you for indulging me.”

[acrookedpath]

"Sometimes it is fun." He wrinkles his nose, teasing. "I admit."

He gathers the shells he found in the lake bed -- he'll find some use for them, even if only as decoration -- and snags Lan Zhan's hand, linking their fingers as they walk back to the inn.

[lightamidchaos]

He squeezes Wei Ying’s hand and walks beside him with a lighter heart than before as they return to the inn.

“Do you want to eat in the common room, or upstairs?”

[acrookedpath]

He hums, considering. "The common room," he decides at last. "By the fire."

It's a nice spot! And, considering the warmth of the day, not too crowded at the moment.

[lightamidchaos]

He makes a quietly approving sound and holds the door open so that Wei Ying can lead the way.

[acrookedpath]

Walking into the common room wearing Lan Zhan's robes -- more than that, sitting in the common room wearing Lan Zhan's robes -- feels faintly scandalous. For all his thoughtlessness in physical affection, the kisses and touches he steals in public whenever he gets the chance, this is... different, somehow. It sends a tiny thrill through him: I am his.

He settles onto one of the couches with a low table in front of it, whistling to get a waitrat's attention. "Er kuai chicken and some wine, please?" he asks, before glancing Lan Zhan's way.