[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

[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?

[strikingchords]

[his hand is still on Wei Wuxian's cheek, gentle. his voice is low and level and unhappy.]

Your defense of your silences.

He did not see himself besieged.

[laughitoff]

. . .

[he looks aside]

I suppose not.

[strikingchords]

...

[closes his eyes entirely; he'll just go on what he can feel and hear of Wei Wuxian's continuing reaction to that, if any]

[laughitoff]

[don't say it, don't say it, don't say it -- oh, but he is so afraid. Lan Wangji may have found the heart of it here, like a stone to be dug out of a fruit]

As I said, he was no demonic cultivator, and he was out of the public eye. He had a different set of problems.

[strikingchords]

[softly, not opening his eyes]

Not the difference. Response, not surroundings.

[this conversation does not matter. what matters is how scared Wei Wuxian is underneath it. he aches a little at it.]

[laughitoff]

[shrugs a little]

Perhaps my understanding is imperfect, then!

[strikingchords]

[he wonders if the actual difference is that the other Lan Wangji found out whatever it is that Wei Wuxian is hiding so frantically, already.]

Wei Ying.

[laughitoff]

I was only in his mind for a day, after all, you can't trust that I got every nuance. You know my memory is bad.

[strikingchords]

[waiting for that spate of nervous avoidant chatter to burn itself out; he's opened his eyes now, slightly wide]

Wei Ying.

[laughitoff]

And it was confusing anyway, so...

[Lan Wangji's heart is not the only one that betrays itself; the beat of Wei Wuxian's is racing again when his words peter out, loud and fast in his ears]

[strikingchords]

[also quiet for a long minute, gut finally he turns Wei Wuxian's face towards him with his hand on his cheek so he can catch his eyes properly; it's an unexpectedly firm gesture for as gentle as the movement is. his own heart is beating hard, in sympathetic fear.]

Wei Ying.