[OOM + EP] - The feelings haven't changed, and neither has the pining.

[thesecondjade]

 [I loved thee, though I told thee not,
Right earlily and long,
Thou wert my joy in every spot,
My theme in every song.

-- John Clare]

Lan Zhan has been here since Wei Wuxian arrived.

This does not mean that he is constantly at the man's shoulder -- though he's often nearby in the background when his zhiji socalizes or trains, just in case. Still, he finds time for his own studies and pursuits, like study in the library, or creating a small space on the porch that is not too cold to play the guqin in.

Today, he's at a low table in the bar proper, seated before it. On the table is a packet of notes that are on magics that are forbidden - curses, spells woven by the Yiling Patriach, recently brought out of their hiding spot and re-copied for use in study only. His handwriting is much neater than his zhiji's, but if one knows Cultivator magic, this is most certainly dark stuff.

Which is fine, this is research in counter-curses. He is once again pouring through notes on the Songs of Clarity, wondering at what he might find to help counter such things. If there is a way to soothe Mo Xuanyu's cursed pain, perhaps they can buy themselves more time for their quest. Anything that will keep Wei Ying breathing longer.

Tucked to the side? Lesson plans. He's still teaching, after all, and he has to give the juniors something to study in his absences while he travels with Wei Wuxian looking for solutions to the little curse problem -- or whatever poor soul has to die to fulfill Mo Xuanyu's thirst for vengeance.

Comments

[alongfallfromgrace]

Wei Ying is glowing. He's spent the morning getting his ass carefully and comprehensively handed to him by a very enthusiastic Japanese cop, and after a quick swim in what is an incredibly cold lake, he's gotten cleaned up and set up with a very planned lunch.

He'd chafe at the regimented-ness of it all, but how can he protest so much effort being put towards his recovery? Besides, it's... very, very good, not trying to do this alone.

Speaking of not being alone...

"Lan Zhan! So studious!" He teases, like he didn't spend days here once trying to figure out how to grow lotus once upon a time.

[thesecondjade]

Having (spied) watched Wei Ying at his workouts with his very loud trainer, Lan Zhan has begun to wonder about that relationship. It is decidedly nonromantic and nonsexual. Zenigata-qianbei seems to have a lover, already, if the little monkey man -- were there two of them? -- draping on him is any consideration. However, he knows the look of a doting father on a son, because he's caught himself wearing it a few times.

If Wei Ying has found himself a new family, then Lan Zhan is happy for him. He deserves a loving family, a father that dotes. Someone better than the Jiangs. Someone who will love him like he deserves.

"Research," Lan Zhan gently corrects. "Returning to old work. Seeing if anything of value can be applied."

[alongfallfromgrace]

"Mmm?" Wei Ying has never obeyed the 'silence during meals' rule, reaching across his bowl to snatch up one of the papers up. "Now what are we..."

...

Oh.

He remembers writing this, curled over the paper, leaning too heavily on the makeshift table, candlelight flickering and smoky, the bodily ache a constant counterpoint.

"You... kept it?"

[thesecondjade]

"Yes," Lan Zhan says, and there's so much he says but doesn't say in that single word answer. Yes, he kept it. Yes, he kept everything that Wei Ying gave him, little pieces of the life that he lost. Yes, he holds on to them dearly. Yes, he made sure they would never be forgotten.

"Curse work requires broad study. I am seeking potential alternatives to fulfilling the curse's requirements, in case Mo Xuanyu's rage against someone is misdirected," he continues, as he puts his book of music down. "I still think we will find them among the Jin."

And if it is a Jin, I am certain they will deserve whatever punishment is meted out.

[alongfallfromgrace]

"Oh, I ... yes, I..." He stutters, stunned. He's visibly resisting grabbing all of the papers and running. When he planned this, it was... well. Not fine, obviously, but he didn't worry about it. It wouldn't matter at that point that Lan Zhan had access to all of his work, that was the point - maybe something he did could do some good in the world. Now... now it looks like a highlight reel of all his darkest moments, the grinding exhaustion, the darkness twined through his marrow.

Now it feels like a horrible display. It is beyond too late to hide it again. He has to keep remind himself of this, and carefully tuck into his meal instead.

"I don't know if I explored that too much - I mostly worked on the theory of it."

[thesecondjade]

"Theory is all we have," Lan Zhan points out. This is not something that is commonly cast about in violence and spite, like the Hundred Holes, but something that is focused, resentful, angry. A long burn of a spell.

He pauses there, and weighs all the things he could say, before he finally settles on something: "The magic in itself, the theory here, is not evil. It is not-- blood sacrifices, maidens defiled to power dark ritual. It is just-- theory about how things could work with a type of energy. You do not give descriptions or instructions. You simply point out what things are, and how they could be used. The ritual of transference itself was a spell where something is given, not stolen. The rest of the world was blind the these facts, but I am not."

Lan Zhan has to take his third, final drink of his tea before he can say anything else after all that speaking.

"But it upsets you. I can understand why," he says, acknowledging that his logical ruthlessness is not shared. "Would you prefer me to put this aside?"

[alongfallfromgrace]

"No, no, it is yours." Wei Ying declares once he recovers from such a speech from Lan Zhan. "Just... it was different then. I was... different." That is painfully vague, and immensely unhelpful, but he doesn't want Lan Zhan thinking that he's still trapped there.

[thesecondjade]

Lan Zhan looks up at him from behind the fringe of his inky lashes. But he says, "It's alright -- if part of you is still there. That is why we are here. So you can can have time to leave that behind, and more forward, if you need to."

Lan Zhan can empathize better than Wei Ying can possibly understand, how hard it is to step out of the dark place you were and push forward. This is time is for healing; Lan Zhan's studies are dark, yes, but he takes them on willingly. All to help another.

[alongfallfromgrace]

"You are too good to me." Wei Ying ducks his head, overwhelmed. He doesn't have a coping method for this kind of support - this was never something he heard, previously. It was always demands to return to normal, pointed observations about all the ways he was failing, snide asides covering all the ways he had changed.

How could he use so many evil tricks?

How could he break so many promises?

Where was his sword?

"So good to me, Lan Zhan." There's a shaking, tremulous ache in his voice. He doesn't know where the limits to this permissiveness are, and is braced, reflexively for the end to come.

[thesecondjade]

Lan Zhan looks at him for a moment; he could let Wei Ying shake and tremble, wrapped up in his own pain. Or, he could reach out and lay one hand over Wei Ying's, and say, "Wei Ying deserves good things."

So Lan Zhan does that. He says it. He does not hide away the support he should have offered whole-heartedly a decade ago. Instead, he makes sure it is spoken to Wei Ying's face while he is here with Lan Zhan. He refuses to have it all penned up inside, to let Wei Ying look for support and see none.

Lan Zhan will not fail his zhiji a second time.

[alongfallfromgrace]

Wei Ying blinks at Lan Zhan, owlishly. Lan Zhan doesn't lie, has never lied, so he as to accept that at minimum, Lan Zhan believes this to be true. He twists his hand to grab Lan Zhan's, accepting that support, no matter how inexplicable it is.

"Ahh, Lan Zhan, you will spoil me."

[thesecondjade]

"Then Wei Ying will be spoiled," Lan Zhan says flatly. If that's what it takes, that's what it takes. He'll embrace that duty without a second thought. He will give the world to Wei Ying, if that's what he wants.

[alongfallfromgrace]

Wei Ying laughs, slightly hysterical, slightly stunned, but... happy. He couldn't have even thought to ask for this.

"Speaking of being spoiled." Wei Ying skips away from his ongoing lingering anxiety about... all of that, and moves onto other things he feels he doesn't quite (or at all) deserve that he's getting anyway. "Zenigata has offered to have me spend some time in the country, in his world."

[thesecondjade]

There's a brief, warm smile that moves across Lan Zhan's face, giving him the soft, honeyed glow of the happy, before he moves into his usual neutrality.

"Would Wei Ying like to do that?" Lan Zhan asks, as he gathers up his papers. Work will be paused for now. Wei Ying deserves undivided attention, after all. "Would it be beneficial?"

[alongfallfromgrace]

"I would." Wei Ying admits, pushing the pile of greens around his plate. He is unused to asking for what he needs, never mind what he wants. It's almost painful, but for those he loves, he'll try. He'll try.

"You are wonderful, Lan Zhan, this is... there is nothing wrong, it's just all been so very fast? I can't have you be risking yourself to help me when I'm still tripping over my own feet."

[thesecondjade]

It isn't personal, and Lan Zhan doesn't take it as such. Does it hurt a little? Yes, but this is the cost of wanting more. Hurt where it's silly to hurt. It's not an offense, it just needs something else.

"I understand," he says, hoping it comes out the right way and not a snippy one. "I hope you enjoy the countryside."

[alongfallfromgrace]

"You can come, if you want!" Wei Ying scrambles, expecting the disapproval he knows he would have gotten from Jiang Cheng in a similar situation. As if him choosing to do something unexpected has anything to do with who he loves. "I asked, I don't want... I'm not running away. It's just... I haven't been in Cloud Recesses since indoctrination, and there are... a lot of memories. I expect to see shijie around every corner. And instead I see a stranger in every mirror."

[thesecondjade]

I know. But the Wei Ying I love is still inside.

"I will come," Lan Zhan says, watching him with his golden eyes light, glittering like coins, "if Wei Ying wishes."

[alongfallfromgrace]

Wei Ying laughs nervously, so far out of his comfort zone he has lost his sense of direction back to it.

"Ah, I thought you wouldn't want to, maybe, you have better things to do than follow me around." Here Wei Ying is, crashing into Lan Zhan's life again, being impossibly needy and disrupting what is most assuredly a well-ordered routine. "But France is lovely, I remember it being lovely, and I think you would like it."

[thesecondjade]

"I still have the book," Lan Zhan says, knowing that gives something away but not caring. "Paris seemed a wonder. The countryside will be - different, though?"

Paris was beautiful, but the sort of beautiful that overwhelmed with noise and light. Lan Zhan liked to look at that kind of beauty from a safe difference. It's not that he couldn't handle it -- he's gotten much better at these things -- but still.

[alongfallfromgrace]

"I am told it will be quiet." Wei Ying promises, and then laughs. "Except there should be wine, so quiet except me and baba."

And then he freezes.

Oh wait. This isn't how he wanted to introduce that idea. It's not that he's anxious about it, he's completely over the moon about the whole thing. But... if Jiang Cheng wasn't howling for his blood already, he knows this adoption would earn him condemnation. Here is a last betrayal of one of the great clans, from an unworthy disciple. Here is an unruly cultivator turning his back on what kindness he has gotten from the cultivation world.

[thesecondjade]

"So," Lan Zhan says, "like normal."

The implicit acceptance is there. So is the complete lack of judgment. After the last few years, Lan Zhan understands family is a mutable thing, and can't truly be constant. Or perhaps that's the instability talking -- his parents now gone, Lan Qiren destroying what little trust that he had in Lan Zhan, the addition of his son.

Lan Zhan knows his rebellion is entirely unfilial. He cannot bring himself to care too much. (Sometimes, though, sometimes his guts twist up in the night; those nights pass slowly, but they pass all the same.)

[alongfallfromgrace]

Wei Ying, who was braced for censure, feels unbalanced when it doesn't come. Maybe Lan Zhan missed it? That idea is... beyond ludicrous, but Wei Ying doesn't know what's happening here.

"Zenigata has offered to adopt me - as officially as can be coming from different worlds." He lays out his cards boldly. He doesn't want to hear disapproval, but he prefers it comes out now, where he can deal with it and then retreat.

[thesecondjade]

"Good," Lan Zhan says succinctly. Does he need to spout poetry on it? No. He saw what was happening before, what drove the man after Wei Wuxian died. Lan Zhan knew he didn't need to help bring Wen Qing out, but they both shared the same thread: they would do it in Wei Wuxian's name. He even asked for help.

Then again, maybe Wei Ying didn't understand that Lan Zhan's acceptance was approval. Maybe it should be clearer. He will make a second effort.

"Wei Ying deserves a good father, who loves him and wishes to be a part of his life," Lan Zhan expounds on it, just in case Wei Ying doesn't hear him right. Hopefully that will get the point across.

[alongfallfromgrace]

....oh.

Oh, that's...





Oh.

"Lan Zhan is too good to this one." Wei Ying knows better than to go with his gut reaction, but he's absurdly grateful for the acceptance he hadn't hoped for.