milliways_bar | (no subject)

(no subject)

(OOM: I have many sorrows; I know how long the night is.)

Wei Wuxian, wrapped in his more rough robes in dark greys and dull reds, steps up to the bar. He has a heavy sheaf of papers, which he attempts, momentarily, to straighten with tired fingers when he sets them on the polished wood.

After a few moments of conversation, the papers disappear, and Wei Wuxian bows, carefully. Then he takes the bowl of lotus soup the bar gives him in return, he retreats to his usual seat by the fire, but once there is more interested in putting a fresh edge on the trowel he digs out of his sleeve's pocket than eating.

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Thinking quietly to a previous discussion with Wen Ning, Zenigata is quiet a while. There's a lot of words hidden in the gaps of them, and even the translation affect can't hide longing like that. One of them was definitely pulling pigtails, alright. Wen Ning just didn't notice.

"Ah, you weren't raised there. But formative time, yeah? Getting close to people, learning about people away from home. That can be even harder to leave behind," Zenigata says as he muses over his second tumbler of whiskey. He knows he'll never move home to Japan. Not even with his heart breaking at the thought. Too much of him is anchored in France now, whether he likes it or not.

"Suddenly you've tasted a big wide world and there are people who are different from you," he laughs softly. "But you still-- they're still important, and they taught you things, yeah? Opened up your eyes somehow. When you're away, you miss them more than the place they're connected to. For all the good friends in my home that I left behind, I missed... the people that I left behind, but the relationships I forged elsewhere! Ah--"

He drains his glass. "My Henri, I will miss him."

"Henri?" Wei Wuxian clings to the conversational turn, not wanting to delve too close into how he lost Lan Zhan's friendship.

(If he ever had it, whispers the part of his mind he's always thought of as the bit that wants too much like Jiang Cheng. Lan Wangji is a noble, upright man only ever tolerated you for your talents. He did say you were annoying, after all, when you two were alone and there was no one else to be polite for.)

"Is he a friend of yours?"

"Henri was-- mmm," Zenigata ponders just how much to say. At home, he is not 'out.' Here, he has let things slip a little, being unconcerned with those who might know that Zenigata has had his share of lovers, men and women... not a large share, but still. But he takes the safe route, for now.

"When I first came to France for work -- a country far from mine and very different -- I was a bit lost. I didn't speak as much as the language as I could, and I needed to polish a lot of skills to go from police detective to full fledged Interpol inspector. We call it -- Senior, Junior, you know?" At least that's what Senpai and Kohai are translating to. It's not perfect, but Zenigata was it. "I was his junior. He was supposed to show me the ropes."

"Mmm, I used to train younger disciples of the Jiang clan, I understand." Wei Wuxian says, failing to understand the full scope of the relationship, but...

Well.

Close enough.

He would have moved heaven and earth for his little shidis and shijies.

"Well, he became a rival and a good friend, and we pushed each other to succeed. We were very close," Zenigata says, letting a weight fall on 'close' in a meaningful way. They were Close.

Very. Close.

"I made Inspector, and we started to work together less and less often. My travel took me away all the time, and there were other factors so we grew apart," he tips back his drink, emptying the last of it down his throat. "But we still cared about each other, even if things couldn't be the same."

He sets the glass aside. "He died a few years ago. Saving my hide. It's complicated but-- that's the short of it, anyway. His corrupt commander, I send him to jail. Didn't bring Henri back, but it satisfied the law, even if it didn't soothe my heart much."

He looked into his empty glas, and then set it aside. "What is your friend from Gusu like?"

~~They were roommates~~

"I am sorry - the grief over a friend falling in your defense is particularly severe." Wei Wuxian had more than his fill of that particular pain with the burning of Lotus Pier, and the Sunshot Campaign that followed. He had his fill and beyond, and would happily never feel it again.

"Hanguang-Jun?" Wei Wuxian asks, unknowingly revealing himself. "He is... he has the highest morals, and the greatest skill - when we sparred I had to watch myself or he would trounce me in a heartbeat. And he is kind... not enough people say he is kind, but he is. A-Yuan has that figured out already, conned the poor man out of an entire cart of toys just by giving him a sad look and hugging his leg. And he is very brave - he killed the Tortoise of Slaughter you know, strangled it to death with his bare hands! Saved my life doing that. Poor Lan Wangji, we were trapped together in that cave for so long, and he doesn't even like me."

"I heard Wen Ning speak of him today, at breakfast," Zenigata says, rolling over this new perception of the boy Wei Wuxian was, and his relationship with this many-named young man. "He spoke of this-- Hanguang-Jun. Said he was as pretty as a jade statue, but cold and uncaring. He liked rules, and that was all. There's no passion to him. Just law."

He wriggles around, now out of booze, and fishes up a cigarette and lights it. He takes a drag and exhales into the open air.

"Said he was quite stiff, and unfriendly," Zenigata continues, letting the cigarette smolder a moment between his fingers. "But it sounds like he's soft around the right people. I'd say he trusts you implicitly. That he feels safe enough to show you where he's soft and kind. Those are the sort of things that stir a man's heart but also open them to hurt. He probably doesn't share them with just anyone."

From the pigtail perspective, if sounds like an admiration started on one side -- likely Wei Wuxian's -- but grew reciprocation from this Han-whatever, Lan Wangji, whatever these complex names might be. Or maybe this powerful fighter found a match and didn't know how to deal with it? He's not sure -- young love was damned complicated, and he was sure as hell glad he wasn't twenty anymore.

Wei Wuxian huffs a laugh that is entirely pain, around a smile that is as bitter as one of Wen Qing's concoctions. Thankfully one of the rats comes by with a couple jars of Emperor's Smile, and he takes one without even pretending he isn't going to down the entire contents.

"He approves of what I am doing, saving the remnants of the Wen clan, but he most ardently disapproves of how I am doing it. He would see me back in Gusu, to give a full account for myself, and face the clan's punishment for my misdeeds. I am a... project. Someone to rescue despite himself." He declares, and he's so very tired. "I know I can hurt him. He has told me I am."

He sighs, and tips back a generous portion, wiping his mouth with his sleeve.

"I really am a most useless person."

To stop hurting Lan Zhan, to stop disappointing him, he would die. But if he died, who would protect the Wen clan remenants? But he is such a sorry line of defense, one man with almost no resources, leading them to live in the grave dirt.

Aiya. What a mess.

"A man who is kind," Zenigata says very quietly, "sees no one as a project. you will always be a person to a kind man. You should be so lucky as to have the love of one. You won't find a heart more steadfast."

He's not thinking of Lan Zhan here, though; he's thinking of Kurashina, and... God, he misses that man so much. Another dead friend, another gravestone to visit when he goes home.

"You aren't useless," Zenigata says, nbefore he takes the second jar, and downs it. "You're just young, and that's halfway to useless. But the young can learn! O:ld men like me, we don't learn anymore. Set in our ways. Busted and broken in. You have a chance to change things, young man. But it'll be work!"

He sets the empty jar aside, and then watches, and waits. The boy was already far gone before -- but there's no way Wei Wuxian is going to down another full jug of baijiu and be able to walk after. Hell, Zenigata's gota liver made of titanium and even he's going to wobble when he walks.

"Only half useless?" He stares down at his hands, with their assortment of callouses - the ones from his years of swordwork nearly gone, the ones from Chenqing standing in their place, the ones from working the fields new and just on the wrong side of angry.

"Which half?" He asks, with a laugh that is only a near neighbor to humor, and it doesn't really matter what the answer is. His posture rapidly deteriorates as the wine catches up with him, leaving him sprawled half-on the table, the half-empty jar cuddled up in his arms.

"The half that needs this experience to learn how to handle what you've been given," Zenigata says, mouth turning crooked with a wry smile. Why does anyone want to be young again? It fucking sucked, if you asked him. "That's the problem with being young. You're constantly presented with things you must do, but no experience to do them rightly or wisely. You learn halfway into them that you've made a misstep. You can't help it, it's not really your fault, but it's there and you have to live with it."

He gets up a moment later, and then walks over to Wei Wuxian's drunken slouch. There are glasses everywhere, jugs of wine, empty bowl of lotus chips. All the evidence of a good boozer you needed. "It's okay. We can talk about you and your pretty boy tomorrow. For now, let's get you to bed."

Zenigata's just sober enough (JUST sober enough) and easily strong enough (please he's just like a sack of potatoes) to pick Wei Wuxian up, and help him onward. Time for bed, little mage, though he requests two bottles of water on is way up from the bar.

Best to make sure that the hangover isn't as bad as it could be. (But it's still going to be bad.)

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