Chapter Text
The first time it happened, Lan Wangji was in a meeting with Lan Qiren, and Wei Ying was just three days returned from his six month absence from Cloud Recesses after the defeat of Jin Guanyao’s treachery at Guanyin Temple.
They were consulting over a minor change Lan Wangji wanted to see made in the talisman curriculum after having observed Wei Ying in action during the course of their tracking and finding the mysterious sword spirit that had turned out to be the spirit of Baxia, Nie Mingjue’s saber. Normally, adjustments to the curriculum rested in his brother’s purview, but Lan Xichen was deep in his seclusion after the tragic events at the temple and showing no signs of reconnecting with the outer world yet. So, many of his household duties had fallen on Lan Wangji in his absence.
However, Lan Qiren was not particularly receptive to the changes, minor as they were, and Lan Wangji was counting this as the explanation for the skin at the back of his neck starting to prickle uncomfortably.
He did not have a great deal of patience. People generally mistook his stoic silence for patience when it was actually him exercising mastery over his short temper. Patience was his brother’s specialty, and the more Lan Wangji was forced to deal with his uncle over these small matters, the greater respect he was gaining for Lan Xichen’s diplomatic prowess. Lan Qiren was not only exhibiting stubbornness in flatly refusing the alterations to the curriculum, but he seemed almost apathetic to the subject entirely. Lan Wangji had no idea if this was a new development since the disruptive revelations at the temple or if Lan Qiren had gradually been becoming this way prior to it, and Lan Wangji simply had not seen it because his brother was the primary point of contact.
Lan Wangji did not mind Lan Qiren refusing to agree with his ideas on the principle of his longstanding disapproval of his youngest nephew’s choice of path in life or his preferences for companionship in the former Yiling Laozu, but he could not tolerate the refusal based on general apathy toward their clan and its disciples. It made his blood heat and a clammy sweat break out all over him beneath his robes.
‘Wangji, are you quite well?’
Lan Wangji looked up from the short sheaf of papers before him. His uncle was watching him with reserved curiosity that might be mistaken for concern if one squinted just right. His hand had paused in flipping through the book he was paying more attention to than Lan Wangji’s one-sided discussion on talisman use, and his teacup was poised halfway to his lips.
‘You are flushed,’ he said, and set the cup down, the hinted at concern in his gaze pushing reluctantly to the fore.
Lan Wangji looked back down at the papers in front of him. His face was hot. His chest was tight, too, and his heart was thudding behind his ribs as though he were in the heat of battle with a monster during a Night Hunt. Or the throws of a nightmare.
Surely, this was not caused only by his irritation with his uncle’s stubbornness. He needed to calm down.
He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. It didn’t help.
‘I am well,’ he said, uncomfortably aware of the breathless quality in his own voice. ‘It is merely…stuffy in here today.’
Lan Qiren glanced at the three windows thrown wide to the late autumn morning. The sun was warm and the breeze was soft but, in actuality, the day was rather cool and the room bordering on chilly this early in the day.
Lan Wangji fisted his hands and drew them into his lap while attempting another deep, calming breath. It lodged in his throat, caught against a sudden lump he couldn’t swallow around. His heart rate doubled.
'Perhaps…' Lan Qiren said slowly, 'we should continue this discussion at a later time.'
Lan Wangji barely heard him. He was staring at his hands in his laps, still curled into fists. They were shaking. His vision was blurry. His stomach hurt and felt like it was trying to fall through his guts to the soles of his boots while, at the same time, his heart was trying to crawl up his throat and choke him.
'That might be wise,' he said, proud of himself for managing to get the words out evenly when he felt like all the air in the room had suddenly been sucked out. The next challenge was going to be getting up without falling down because the trembling in his hands had worked its way through to the rest of him, and even kneeling he could tell his legs felt like water. He did manage it, though, drawing on his experience of so many years ago when sitting for any length of time in the months after his whipping had put him in so much pain and made him so stiff he could barely move. He bowed as deeply as he dared. 'I apologize for the interruption to our meeting, Shufu. Please excuse me.'
He turned to go.
'Wangji.'
He didn’t turn back. He didn’t dare. His cheeks were flaming now and sweat was pearling at his temples. The room was rotating around him, and he was struggling to get the smallest sips of air into his compressed lungs. He lifted his chin in acknowledgement instead.
'Rest,' Lan Qiren said. 'Take care of yourself.'
Lan Wangji exhaled in a stunned rush. It was the kindest thing his uncle had said to him in more than a year. Since he had taken his stand with Wei Ying in the Burial Mounds and openly disobeyed his uncle’s command. He gave the barest of nods. It was all he could manage without losing his balance to the tilting room. Then he walked out.
The fresh air helped. The cool breeze broke across his heated cheeks, and it was a little easier to breathe. The world slowed its dangerous spin. But the muscles along his shoulders were still drawn whipcord tight and a strange sense of dread was settling at the base of his skull. He paused at the rail to steady himself, ignoring the curious stares of the assistants where they still held the doors open from his exit of the Yashi. He breathed in and then out.
In and then out.
His heart thudded heavy and uneven as he made his way down the stairs and along the paths that led back to the Jingshi. He was due to attend Master Gao’s advancement of the second year disciples in swordsmanship in less than an hour, but he could afford a few moments in the peace of his own home, have a cup of tea to calm whatever this attack was that had taken him so off guard.
See Wei Ying.
In the three days since he had stumbled dusty and tired, pale but grinning, through the front gates of Cloud Recesses, Wei Ying had spent the majority of his time sleeping. It was obvious from his worn appearance and the dullness in his eyes, that he had not slept well on the road. At least, not recently. They had not spoken much of his travels yet because they had hardly seen one another except at meal times, and even though Wei Ying was usually the most nocturnal of them both, it was he who had drifted off first the last two nights while Lan Wangji was engaged in his nightly meditation and practice on his guqin. Lan Wangji did not begrudge him the rest he so obviously needed, but he was eager for news of his journey.
And even more eager to renew their friendship.
Not that their friendship was not already renewed after their weeks of chasing the sword spirit and the events at Yi City, the confrontation at Jinlintai and the Burial Mounds, or the revelations on Yunmeng Jiang’s lakes and in Guanyin Temple. Wei Ying’s continued surprise at Lan Wangji’s willingness to help him not withstanding, they had come together in their quest like a key and lock fit to perfection, even more so than their strained almost-relationship prior to Wei Ying’s death had hinted at.
But perhaps friendship was not the right word for what Lan Wangji wished to pursue. Neither was renew. What had never been could not be renewed. What he wanted now had to be created.
And he had to broach the subject carefully, or Wei Ying might just leave Cloud Recess for good.
That thought made his stomach cramp hard. He stumbled to a stop at the gate of the Jingshi, leaned on the post for a moment and tried to breathe. Waited for the pain to pass. When it finally eased, he managed to get himself to the door and slide the screen aside, fell through it heedless of the fact he might wake Wei Ying who would still likely be abed this relatively early hour.
Only Wei Ying was not there.
Lan Wangji stood in the open door and stared around the empty room. The sense of dread gripping the back of his neck grew exponentially.
The guest bed was made, the pillows fluffed and the blankets rolled away neatly.
Wei Ying never made his bed.
In the two short weeks he’d stayed in the Jingshi prior to his leaving six months ago, Lan Wangji had tidied the bedclothes every day when he came home for the midday meal. He had done so yesterday as well, wordlessly tugging the sheets into place and folding the blankets back. He didn’t mind it. He almost enjoyed it. For too many years, the Jingshi had been a spartan shell of a house that barely looked lived in. Wei Ying’s innate messiness made it feel like a home.
His books, too, were neatly stacked away and set on their shelves, and there was no sign of Wei Ying’s usual scattering of open scrolls, notebooks, or half completed talismans with their absent doodles in the margins. Chenqing was not on the new stand Lan Wangji had commissioned for her and positioned beside the table where his own guqin sat.
Even Wei Ying’s spare clothes and traveling bag were no where in evidence.
It was as though he’d disappeared entirely.
His stomach clenched again and nearly doubled him over. His throat closed up on a gasped mewl of distress, and the room spun as his heart started to pound twice as hard and drown out every other sound in his ears. His eyes blurred with tears.
'Wei Ying…'
He took a blind step forward, and his knees buckled.
But before he hit the floor, an arm hooked around his chest and hauled him back up.
'Lan Zhan!'
His name in that voice from those lips so close to his ear sent a wave of relief through Lan Wangji’s limbs. His chest loosened all at once, and he heaved a deep breath. The tension bled from his shoulders and neck, and he hung limp over Wei Ying’s arm for a few eternal moments.
'Lan Zhan, what happened! Are you all right?' Wei Ying asked anxiously, still holding him up and trying to pat him down at the same time. Looking for any injury that could cause his sudden collapse.
Lan Wangji got his feet back under him and slowly straightened. The world held still as it should. No more precarious spinning. He took another deep breath, and his heart rate slowed back to its normal, steady thump. He turned in the circle of Wei Ying’s arm.
'I am…fine,' he said, but it was still a little breathless, a little graveled and rough around the edges.
Wei Ying’s brow pulled down in concern, and he kept a hand at Lan Wangji’s waist as though he were afraid he might topple over again. They stared at one another for a full minute while Lan Wangji tried hard not to lean into that supporting hand. Had to stop himself from reaching out a finger to touch the lines of worry between Wei Ying’s brows and smooth them away.
'Lan Zhan, you look…terrible,' Wei Ying said at last.
His eyes widened briefly on the word because it wasn’t one that applied to Lan Wangji often, if at all. Evidently, it took him by surprise, and Lan Wangji had to wonder just how bad he did look in the aftermath of whatever that episode was.
'I am fine,' he repeated, this time with more certainty.
Wei Ying gave him one more thorough once over with his eyes and let him go to stand under his own power. Lan Wangji swayed fractionally, but it wasn’t from dizziness or the room spinning this time, but the loss of Wei Ying’s touch. Something he found only in that very moment he wanted more than the ability to breathe.
Something of that wanting must have shown in his face. Not that anyone else would ever have been able to interpret it, but Wei Ying had a special gift for reading Lan Wangji’s expressions—or lack of them—and he backed off a step, blushing, and ducked his head. He edged around Lan Wangji into the space, careful not to touch him again.
'I didn’t think you’d be back so early in the day,' he said. 'I tried to…tidy up a bit.' He waved an arm at the collected and all-in-order state of the Jingshi. 'I’m sorry I’ve made such a mess the past couple of days.'
Lan Wangji continued to stare at him, counting his breaths, because the tidiness of the space was weighing on him again, making his pulse race. Wei Ying moved in an arc through the room, straightening the corner of a rug that didn’t need it and tugging at the corner of his bedsheet where it was already smooth and wrinkle free. He turned back and raised a brow,
'Lan Zhan, are you sure you’re all right?'
Lan Wangji blinked, licked his lips. 'I thought you had…left.'
Wei Ying’s other brow went up. 'Left? No, I—' He cut off and a dark, old shadow crept into his eyes. 'Did you want me to?'
'No!'
The retort was quick, sharp. Angry. Wei Ying flinched at it and looked away. Lan Wangji stepped forward. Stopped. Strangled Bichen’s sheath in his fist and kept counting silently as he said,
'No, I did not. Do not. Want Wei Ying to leave.'
'Ah,' Wei Ying nodded slowly, caught Lan Wangji’s gaze for a moment but couldn’t hold it because of something he saw there. He brushed nervously at the side of his nose, his gaze sliding away, looking everywhere but at Lan Wangji. He spied a brush on the table he’d inadvertently let lie. He snatched it up. 'Ah. Ah-ha! Sorry. Missed this one.'
He turned a circle, hunting for the box of brushes he’d already put away on the shelf, lifted the lid and dropped it in. He turned back with a chagrined smile, and it made Lan Wangji’s heart twist so hard in his chest he almost gasped.
'Wei Ying…'
'I’ll try to keep things picked up,' Wei Ying said. 'I know you don’t like the mess, and this is your space, your home and—'
'Wei Ying, it is your home, too.'
It wasn’t what Lan Wangji had intended to say. Not yet. Not this way. If he weren’t so well trained in self-restraint, he would have clapped a hand over his mouth. Too late to take back the words but a clear sign he knew his error. They were out now, though, and Wei Ying was standing, blinking at him owlish and stunned. They stared at each other for another tense minute.
'Lan Zhan, I’m a guest here,' Wei Ying said slowly.
There was a question there. Or Lan Wangji thought there was. Wished there was. And he wanted to answer it, to tell Wei Ying that he was not a guest, had never been a guest, that the reason there was so much empty unused space in the Jingshi was because Lan Wangji had been keeping it for him. It was space waiting to be filled, jealously guarded against any other encroachment save Lan Sizhui when he had still lived here; but even then Lan Wangji had set it aside, kept it near him, waiting. Even when he knew there was nothing to wait for.
'Wei Ying, you—'
'Lan Zhan, it’s all right.'
Wei Ying finally looked at him. There was resignation in his eyes now, and it made Lan Wangji want to scream. But he didn’t, because he couldn’t. He wished he could. Wanted nothing more in that moment than to have the freedom of Wei Ying’s own lack of inhibitions to say exactly what he wanted to say. Instead, he stood tense and silent, trembling inside his skin in fear of the next words that might fall from Wei Ying’s lips.
'If you’re really all right,' he said, and gave Lan Wangji another cursory appraisal that still held a shadow of concern. 'Then you probably have a meeting or something you need to go to, and I promised Sizhui I would, ah, help him with a paper. So…'
He approached Lan Wangji slowly, cautiously, as though he were in doubt of his reception if he stood too near. He paused in front of him, flashed a smile. It was so close to that old mischievous grin he’d break into years ago that Lan Wangji’s eyes smarted with tears on seeing it. Wei Ying reached out with two fingers and tugged at Lan Wangji’s sleeve, like he’d done that night long ago in trying to appease his temper over his rule breaking, and he looked up from under his dark lashes in exactly the same endearing way,
'Don’t work too hard, Lan Zhan. Okay?'
If Lan Wangji could have found a suitable reply that didn’t somehow include the words "don’t go", it would have stuck in his throat anyway. He nodded. Wei Ying dropped his hand, disappointment caught and held at the corners of his mouth before they could turn down. He smiled again and slid past Lan Wangji and out the door.