[texting post]

[laughitoff]

Wei Wuxian 魏无羡
22 / M / Hell

THE FEARSOME YILING PATRIARCH! DRIVING EVIL FROM YOUR DOOR WITH A GREATER EVIL! LOVES MILD FOOD, CUTE PUPPIES, LONG WALKS IN THE BURIAL MOUNDS AND KILLING ALL YOUR LOVED ONES!

<span style="font-family:century gothic,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/ScI5Hsw.png" style="height:20px;margin:0 5px -4px 0;"><b style="color:#e75480;">YOUR NAME</b> got horribly cursed by Wei Wuxian!</span> CURSE

<lj-raw><span style="font-family:century gothic,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/P3gZl1b.png" style="height:20px;margin:0 5px -4px 0;"> <b style="color:#e75480;">YOUR NAME</b> declared Wei Wuxian a heretic! <blockquote style="border-left:5px solid #ddd;padding:0 0 0 10px;"> Message_content </blockquote></span></lj-raw> DENOUNCE

<span style="font-family:century gothic,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/w2B4FYG.png" style="height:20px;margin:0 5px -4px 0;"><b style="color:#e75480;">YOUR NAME</b> challenged Wei Wuxian to a duel!</span> FIGHT

CODE BY

Comments

[laughitoff]

Obviously I was in his place, and I was! I just...

[strikingchords]

[waits peacefully, his hand in Wei Wuxian's hair a soothing counterpart to his once-again-regular heartbeat]

[laughitoff]

[tiredly]

I don't know. He was so young.

[strikingchords]

Yes.

[low; it's not a quip]

[laughitoff]

I don't...remember...

I don't know.

[strikingchords]

...

[seems to follow that; runs his thumb along his cheekbone]

It has been long.

[hesitates, unsure if he can or should verbalize it, but finally:]

I thought this as well.

[laughitoff]

What's "this"?

[strikingchords]

[thinks for a moment about how to put it]

I saw you wounded at your return. Some I recognized in him. Most I did not see.

[laughitoff]

[a bit clipped]

I wasn't wounded when I came back.

[strikingchords]

[eyes him sidelong, with a faint stir of surprise; says nothing immediately in response]

[laughitoff]

Unless you just mean that I was full of demonic energy, in which case I suppose I take your point.

[strikingchords]

[watching him steadily, still sidelong; he does not know the shape of this defensiveness, he thinks.]

He was as well.

[laughitoff]

Of course he was, he was a fierce ghost. Sort of.

[exhales]

[strikingchords]

[he trusts Wei Wuxian. he has even come so far as a degree of confidence that he isn't wholly mistrusted back any more, either.

tugs his hair, very gently, the emotion behind it soft; look at me, Wei Ying, and not at the threat you see.]

[laughitoff]

[his eyes flicker up to Lan Wangji's face, and he quiets, feeling oddly ashamed even though none of that was a scold]

[strikingchords]

[...cups his face in both hands for a moment, watching him, that scrutiny again. the sensation of Lan Wangji thinking and feeling his way through something is strange, that of a man building an idea like an image with cool marble tiles or heavy shapes of jade; not unpleasant but perhaps unsettling. a methodical artisan, gentler than the slow weighted slide of smooth stone would imply.

...he shifts one hand back to Wei Wuxian's hair and leaves the other softly pressed against his cheek, after a few moments of that, turning his eyes away with a faint exhale as if he's aware it's a release]

[laughitoff]

[swallows hard.]

What?

[strikingchords]

[tired... not discouraged, just weary and sad]

That was the hurt you took.

[laughitoff]

It was worth it.

For both of us.

[strikingchords]

[goes still with surprise; that told him something, apparently]

[laughitoff]

[frowns at him, something in him restless and secretive under Lan Wangji's eyes]

[strikingchords]

[Lan Wangji is thinking. this is a different thought process than the one he used before, a quick chain-linking of conclusions, working out a puzzle as swiftly as he would on a battlefield rather than building an edifice.

I saw you wounded at your return. Some I recognized in him. Most I did not see.

Lan Wangji was referring to wounds of the heart; to Wei Wuxian's damaged trust, to his very intact grief, to the collection of pains and bitternesses and betrayals that fed some of the springs of his answering cruelty. Lan Wangji did not see those in the other Wei Wuxian, or at least not as deep-running. he had attributed it to the fact that the other Wei Wuxian had been rescued, had been successfully reached out to; that he not been failed as badly as Lan Wangji himself and everyone around them had failed their own Wei Ying.

he knew from the first moment the reply to his remark came back harsh that Wei Wuxian wasn't thinking about that sort of hurt. he was considering other injuries, the bodily or spiritual wounds that cultivators naturally picked up in the course of their fights. and he was defensive about the idea, for no particular reason Lan Wangji could guess.

Lan Wangji had tried to clarify. that automatic latent hostility that the other Wei Wuxian hadn't demonstrated, that suspicious pulling back, those were the wounds he had meant. Wei Wuxian had replied it was worth it for both of us.

what was worth it? how were they both hurt?

the only things they had in common were resentment and a strange response to spiritual energy.]

...

[shit]

[laughitoff]

[oh he hates this, hates the feeling of Lan Wangji putting something together adjacent to this subject matter no matter how accurate it is or not. he is curling in on himself, inside.]

What?

[there's more unease than anger in his voice, this time]

[strikingchords]

[did it happen in the Burial Mounds? when he'd wondered about Wei Wuxian's spiritual energy, he'd always vaguely assumed--

no. he saw Wei Wuxian's memory of falling in there, after all. he felt his panic after he gathered himself. only weeks before, they had fought the Xuanwu together weaponless; of all people, being injured and without his sword alone would not have put that despairing taste in the back of Wei Ying's throat.

he never carried his sword willingly after that, which Lan Wangji had of course already noticed... ah. it all fits, doesn't it.

looks back up at Wei Wuxian, uneasy himself. he can feel Wei Wuxian hate Lan Wangji thinking about it, feel him curl back, feel his own intense reluctance to speak and distress that he's causing that reaction in Wei Wuxian; he can't stop thinking, can't stop paying attention, but there's no satisfaction or sense of accusation in his discovery. in his quiet way he's as dismayed and out of his depth as Wei Wuxian.]



You speak to your spiritual energy.

I had meant something different.

[laughitoff]

[he speaks thickly this time, as though something's choking him. don't say it, part of him is praying. don't say it, don't say it, don't say it. if it's not spoken aloud it doesn't have to hang between us. you're Lan Zhan. surely you can be depended on not to acknowledge something out loud, even if you know it, even if I can feel the shape of your knowing.

he seizes eagerly on the tangent, when Lan Wangji presents it.]

What did you mean, then?