He follows after her, having offered a sheepish grim and a thanks when she rescues the teapot. He also gestures ahead, to one of the small study surfaces and it's collection of chairs, tucked in next to a disorganized bookcase.
"Wanting to chat, wanting to talk with you about my being secretly married three times or something. I hope you like the oolong?"
It's like oolong, called something different, but his awkward smile is more indication he's not joking despite what he's saying being utterly ridiculous.
The small study area works for their purposes and she heads in that direction, only to stumble to a halt.
"What?" she asks, surprise coloring her voice, making her louder than usual. She clears her throat, looking at Wei Wuxian, ready to tell him to stop joking, but that smile. "Three times?" How the hell did you get married three times? goes unsaid but it's evident in her voice.
This might need something stronger than oolong, but she'll take what she can get. Wen Qing sets the teapot down, followed by the cups, still watching Wei Wuxian.
Her glance back and overall tone is met with wide eyes and a helpless shrug: he figures she'll understand it wasn't something he knowingly did twice, or knew at all. She's seen how he is with family, and where he's called fickle and a flirt, he's all words, no action.
He sets the hot water container and the folded paper containing the loose leaf tea down next to the teapot. Clears his throat, then offers, "Yes, well, I didn't know about the first two, though the second was more recent, and the third I finally knew what was going on--the Lans have some very specific, not explicit traditions involving their headribbons, it turns out. To my, er, surprise?"
He pours the tea leaves into the teapot. Mostly, he manages to look unaffected. Mostly.
The words and no action is what has her surprised: she thought the only way Wei Wuxian would end up married is by someone arranging it for him. That was unlikely to happen at the Burial Mounds— bring a bride there? Or marry out? No, had he left, it would have been for Lotus Pier and nowhere else— and she never asked him about his romantic inclinations before that.
"The Lans have traditions about their headribbons. What Lan let you touch—" She breaks off, her mouth dropping open and eyes widening in surprise. "Lan Wangji." If two of these encounters were recent, then there could only be one possibility.
She eyes him, raising an eyebrow, not at all convinced by his look. "Was he the first marriage, as well?"
The veneer of any lingering ease peels away from him slowly, Wei Wuxian going from halting motion to a stillness that aches with uncertainties.
"I'd almost forgive you for the implication I went around trying to touch every Lan's headband," he says, aiming late for levity he doesn't quite catch, "But I'll have you know I only tugged on any of them once, and really, that was Lan Zhan's fault for letting it twist about like that in the wind."
A half smile, and then he glances to the tea, cupping it in his hands so the warmth leeches from the cup into the cold that's lingering there.
"He was, though I had no idea. That or the second. In retrospect, maybe I could have guessed, if I knew anything about the seriousness of Lan traditions, but I thought it was a convenient help in the moment, and he never said anything." A pause, and a wry addition. "Lan Zhan decides not to say more than I realised. Even the things he should."
Lifting his cup and his hands, to keep himself from gesturing too much, his eyebrows quirked and Wen Qing subjected to a look of familiar woefulness, "I've apparently been married to a man who didn't bother telling me we were married since we were all in Gusu."
She may know, in ways Lan Zhan simply can't, on what other levels that can unsteady him, can hurt in surprising, unwelcome ways. To fail in yet one more manner, to have not known he was failing. For a man who had cut himself to ribbons to spare family, yes, he might have done it again, might have confronted Lan Zhan and forced a choice beyond the heartbreak of that windswept, raining night where the Wens were pulled out of labour camps of death and aimed toward Yiling, might have had other reasons to believe he could turn and ask for help instead of define himself as the sacrificial mountain, isolated and quiet, reviled and never forgiven for being frightening in his capabilities, labeled as malicious, deviant, horrific...
There's no way to know, in the end. He has to forgive himself that, too, and forgive the anger and sadness and the confusion it draws out of him, because it feels unpleasant, being both enough and nothing close to enough, worthwhile but not enough to tell, held in contempt of the unknown, and still: wait, what the hell was that song called, anyway?
"I never knew." Quiet, that admission, skipping past so many other knowns and unknowns. "Then he tied my arm up in knots when he was drunk, after running off in my spare robes I had to put him in because he was drunk and in the water and he dragged in five chickens and an undead soldier, what was I going to do? Have you seen him drunk, Wen Qing, it's distressing, and also mildly unfair because he can still fight like it's nothing, but has no sense of when to stop."
He rambles, because he doesn't know how to say, there are things here that matter.
"All in Gusu...." She trails off, staring at him, the shock plainly written on her face, rare for her. That long. It wasn't long ago for her but with a-Yuan's age, and what Wei Wuxian's told her, she knows it was years ago for Lan Wangji. For Wei Wuxian, even with the years where he was dead.
He had been married before the war even broke out. Had he known, what might have changed. Not just for the Wens— she's reached her peace with what happened; from the moment Meng Yao stabbed Wen Ruohan, their fates had been set— but for Wei Wuxian. For a-Yuan, raised by more than just the Lan clan.
"People rarely say what they need to say." She had said the important things almost too late, even. And matters of the heart are hard to communicate, a fact she knew even before the war, even before everything that happened to them. But it's easy to find the anger and annoyance at Lan Wangji, especially when Wei Wuxian sounds so torn about it. Sure, he hides it well, but she learned to read his tone under pressure; it remains even now. "But we can make him talk, I'm sure. I can stab him a few times with my needles and we can interrogate him. Tell him about the importance of communicating such things to the people involved. Especially since that also impacts Sizhui."
(She realizes: if they are married— thrice over, and she wasn't even invited to one of the ceremonies— that makes Wei Wuxian a-Yuan's other parent. How would his life have changed, indeed.)
She grips her cup, forcing her hands to stay steady, something she can do no matter the conversation or how she feels. "I've never seen him drunk, but please, inform me the next time you drink." She wants to see that, just to see him at less than his best. Something close to bitterness swells in her and she stares into the depths of her cup. It's close to oolong but not quite, and it makes her miss the teas from Qishan, the homesickness making her choke for a second before she lifts the cup and sips.
"Wei Ying," she says, after another moment of silence. She considers her words and changes her mind on what to say. "If you don't want to be married, you can divorce. Do they have a ritual for that?" She'll help if needed.
He can't help it, but to burst into laughter that knows she's serious as well as jesting (probably, maybe, he should perhaps never assume Wen Qing jests) when it comes to interrogating Lan Zhan, the needles and the reminders, and would it be a case of Lan Zhan perhaps appreciating that too much? The man bears through pain without calling out, it may end up a point of pride.
(Lan Zhan has a good, healthy respect and fear of Wen Qing. Maybe that works in his favour?)
"Ahahaha, no, I don't think, unless you want to? Lan Zhan could use the fear of proper health knocked into him, he's been trying to fatten me up on millet alone for months now."
A sidestep into dietary concerns, but what else she says at least means he looks at his tea, then startles to look back up to her. "No! No, it's not that, though maybe before—ah, Wen Qing, I'm no good at these things."
Which he whines, not quite with the petulance or exasperation he could summon in his youth, but with the tired awareness of an adult who isn't truly that put out by whatever's going on. Uncertain, yes, conflicted, but not over all the easy things, or even the hardest.
"I... I've cared for him deeply, for a long time. Before here, I don't think it would have been wise. He's Chief Cultivator, he decided that on his own as any adult might. I'm a rogue cultivator, apparently married without knowing about it, which didn't make me all that married at all." Before here, back on marriage one, broken by the very nature of his mostly-death.
"It's only recently that I've felt... not unequal."
A lack of guilt, of appeasement, of giving in to what's asked of him by someone he cares about because he feels it's what he must do. It's strange, uncertain territory, and no, he doesn't look confident about it. When it comes to feeling, Wei Wuxian is dodgier than most. Not for his own capability, but for his learned expectation of others.
Am I worth this? He argues back now, he puts up resistance, he doesn't cave before each statement Lan Zhan makes, and it is perhaps the presence of contention that lets him believe, maybe. Maybe it'll work out, beyond their time here and the ways they lash out at each other, bleeding where none can see.
The offer is entirely serious, but there is a slight jest to it; she's offered it to women before, when she was the best doctor in Qishan and people came to see her, before her uncle and his paranoia and his health took over everything about her life, set her on a path from which there was no escape. A jest, for them, but a serious offer too, to help and protect. Most of them laughed it off or blushed and looked away and ignored the request, but it was there.
"Millet won't work," she tells him, even though he's aware. A sigh, long-suffering. "Just because he grew up on the blandest food imaginable and was healthy doesn't mean it's actually going have an impact on you." Millet. Of all the foods. "I'll inform him to feed you more vegetables."
"Not unequal," he says, and Wen Qing wants to laugh at that, although she doesn't; she'd spent too long with him in the Burial Mounds to laugh at any of his insecurities. Especially when she helped it along, asking him to do the impossible and save Wen Ning. But she does mentally scoff, shaking her head. He's the best of all the cultivators she knew, even beyond standing up for them and being willing to help her find her family.
"He's the one unequal." It's mostly a grumble, and she sips her tea to give her a second to compose her mind. "Properly court him. Or have him court you. Don't let him make all the decisions about your marriage. Especially since he hasn't told you any of them."
He gives her a look, one that's partly conflicted, partly amused, and partly lost.
"I don't know what that'd look like," he says, an admission in and of itself. "As for making all the decisions, that... is at least not something I'm struggling with as I might have, months ago."
Confession again, of a different kind. Once I would not have felt I had the right to decide.
"Good." She's still of the opinion that Lan Wangji is the one unworthy of Wei Wuxian but she understands, somewhat. Wei Wuxian's never been one for halves. Either he was making the decisions or letting people decide things and going along, as much as he possibly could.
"And what do you mean, you don't...." She narrows her eyes at him over her tea before setting the cup back down. "You never thought about courting rituals? Or what it might look like? Jiang Wanyin at least knew to buy me a comb for a courting gift." And really, she'd thought that piece of advice came from Wei Wuxian.
He lifts his brow, cocking his head as he regards her, smile wry for the
moment.
"Once I was meant to be Jiang Cheng's support, his closest ally. Marriage
was not my consideration or concern."
They both know why, looking at his adopted brother. At the confidence
concerns, at the rivalry that once didn't bleed toxic. At one man running
from yoked affections, and another man desperate in his hope for them.
Then there was the example of his parents to nod toward too. He's been
aware of that since he was very, very small. Madam Yu made certain of that
much.
There's no denying that, and Wen Qing doesn't even know all of the details. Just that Jiang Cheng had expected Wei Wuxian to be there, and that Wei Wuxian would have done it. Stayed in Lotus Pier with him, his right-hand man, if everything hadn't happened.
It's impossible for Wen Qing to regret begging Wei Wuxian to help her brother or the time they had in the Burial Mounds, and part of her knows that everything had changed once they put Wei Wuxian's core in Jiang Cheng. Still, sometimes she wishes she could have sent him home, back to his siblings.
Not that she can say as much to him, not now, so it's easy to shrug off the thoughts and return to her tea. "In that case, make up your own courting customs. It's not like he, or you, can pay a bride price or send extravagant gifts to the family, so demand appropriate gifts. Give him something in return. Tell him you want an actual wedding, witnessed by the family you have here."
His lips twitch, less amused at her suggestions than his own imaginings of
the same. It's not bad advice. Knowingly how to use it, that's... going to
take consideration.
"Would you count among that number?" Asked casually, as if it doesn't
matter if she says no.
"Then that'll make three people I'd be honoured to have attend."
Soft, because his heart feels like tiny needles have driven into it, and it
aches, gaining another sister, already knowing he's lost her. Is fated to
not share her world, but love her while they share this one, and beyond.
He smiles back, heartened, and laughs with a wave of his hand, not to
dismiss her point, but because there are aspects of it which simply go
beyond what he wants, if he's considering wants. Lily's presence would be
welcome, of course, but it's enough of a ritual from their world, their
home, that he's not sure whose eyes he cares to have on it. Does
it matter? To some extent, to him, but that's neither here nor there.
His fool of a husband, and his own foolish self, have enough to slog
through to try and get to some point that isn't this tower, isn't this
landscape of other people's hubris, to try and find their footing... if it
can even happen before it's too late.
He brushes that thought aside as well, and shrugs instead.
"As soon as I know, I'll send along your invitation."
"It already took half a decade, I'm sure a little longer won't hurt." Except it's been much longer for him, she realizes. While Hanguang-jun doesn't look too much older than he had when she last saw him, there's an air of maturity to him, a gravitas that hints at his real age. Sizhui's a teenager, nearly as old as Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng had been when the war started.
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no subject
"Wanting to chat, wanting to talk with you about my being secretly married three times or something. I hope you like the oolong?"
It's like oolong, called something different, but his awkward smile is more indication he's not joking despite what he's saying being utterly ridiculous.
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"What?" she asks, surprise coloring her voice, making her louder than usual. She clears her throat, looking at Wei Wuxian, ready to tell him to stop joking, but that smile. "Three times?" How the hell did you get married three times? goes unsaid but it's evident in her voice.
This might need something stronger than oolong, but she'll take what she can get. Wen Qing sets the teapot down, followed by the cups, still watching Wei Wuxian.
no subject
He sets the hot water container and the folded paper containing the loose leaf tea down next to the teapot. Clears his throat, then offers, "Yes, well, I didn't know about the first two, though the second was more recent, and the third I finally knew what was going on--the Lans have some very specific, not explicit traditions involving their headribbons, it turns out. To my, er, surprise?"
He pours the tea leaves into the teapot. Mostly, he manages to look unaffected. Mostly.
no subject
"The Lans have traditions about their headribbons. What Lan let you touch—" She breaks off, her mouth dropping open and eyes widening in surprise. "Lan Wangji." If two of these encounters were recent, then there could only be one possibility.
She eyes him, raising an eyebrow, not at all convinced by his look. "Was he the first marriage, as well?"
no subject
"I'd almost forgive you for the implication I went around trying to touch every Lan's headband," he says, aiming late for levity he doesn't quite catch, "But I'll have you know I only tugged on any of them once, and really, that was Lan Zhan's fault for letting it twist about like that in the wind."
A half smile, and then he glances to the tea, cupping it in his hands so the warmth leeches from the cup into the cold that's lingering there.
"He was, though I had no idea. That or the second. In retrospect, maybe I could have guessed, if I knew anything about the seriousness of Lan traditions, but I thought it was a convenient help in the moment, and he never said anything." A pause, and a wry addition. "Lan Zhan decides not to say more than I realised. Even the things he should."
Lifting his cup and his hands, to keep himself from gesturing too much, his eyebrows quirked and Wen Qing subjected to a look of familiar woefulness, "I've apparently been married to a man who didn't bother telling me we were married since we were all in Gusu."
She may know, in ways Lan Zhan simply can't, on what other levels that can unsteady him, can hurt in surprising, unwelcome ways. To fail in yet one more manner, to have not known he was failing. For a man who had cut himself to ribbons to spare family, yes, he might have done it again, might have confronted Lan Zhan and forced a choice beyond the heartbreak of that windswept, raining night where the Wens were pulled out of labour camps of death and aimed toward Yiling, might have had other reasons to believe he could turn and ask for help instead of define himself as the sacrificial mountain, isolated and quiet, reviled and never forgiven for being frightening in his capabilities, labeled as malicious, deviant, horrific...
There's no way to know, in the end. He has to forgive himself that, too, and forgive the anger and sadness and the confusion it draws out of him, because it feels unpleasant, being both enough and nothing close to enough, worthwhile but not enough to tell, held in contempt of the unknown, and still: wait, what the hell was that song called, anyway?
"I never knew." Quiet, that admission, skipping past so many other knowns and unknowns. "Then he tied my arm up in knots when he was drunk, after running off in my spare robes I had to put him in because he was drunk and in the water and he dragged in five chickens and an undead soldier, what was I going to do? Have you seen him drunk, Wen Qing, it's distressing, and also mildly unfair because he can still fight like it's nothing, but has no sense of when to stop."
He rambles, because he doesn't know how to say, there are things here that matter.
no subject
He had been married before the war even broke out. Had he known, what might have changed. Not just for the Wens— she's reached her peace with what happened; from the moment Meng Yao stabbed Wen Ruohan, their fates had been set— but for Wei Wuxian. For a-Yuan, raised by more than just the Lan clan.
"People rarely say what they need to say." She had said the important things almost too late, even. And matters of the heart are hard to communicate, a fact she knew even before the war, even before everything that happened to them. But it's easy to find the anger and annoyance at Lan Wangji, especially when Wei Wuxian sounds so torn about it. Sure, he hides it well, but she learned to read his tone under pressure; it remains even now. "But we can make him talk, I'm sure. I can stab him a few times with my needles and we can interrogate him. Tell him about the importance of communicating such things to the people involved. Especially since that also impacts Sizhui."
(She realizes: if they are married— thrice over, and she wasn't even invited to one of the ceremonies— that makes Wei Wuxian a-Yuan's other parent. How would his life have changed, indeed.)
She grips her cup, forcing her hands to stay steady, something she can do no matter the conversation or how she feels. "I've never seen him drunk, but please, inform me the next time you drink." She wants to see that, just to see him at less than his best. Something close to bitterness swells in her and she stares into the depths of her cup. It's close to oolong but not quite, and it makes her miss the teas from Qishan, the homesickness making her choke for a second before she lifts the cup and sips.
"Wei Ying," she says, after another moment of silence. She considers her words and changes her mind on what to say. "If you don't want to be married, you can divorce. Do they have a ritual for that?" She'll help if needed.
no subject
(Lan Zhan has a good, healthy respect and fear of Wen Qing. Maybe that works in his favour?)
"Ahahaha, no, I don't think, unless you want to? Lan Zhan could use the fear of proper health knocked into him, he's been trying to fatten me up on millet alone for months now."
A sidestep into dietary concerns, but what else she says at least means he looks at his tea, then startles to look back up to her. "No! No, it's not that, though maybe before—ah, Wen Qing, I'm no good at these things."
Which he whines, not quite with the petulance or exasperation he could summon in his youth, but with the tired awareness of an adult who isn't truly that put out by whatever's going on. Uncertain, yes, conflicted, but not over all the easy things, or even the hardest.
"I... I've cared for him deeply, for a long time. Before here, I don't think it would have been wise. He's Chief Cultivator, he decided that on his own as any adult might. I'm a rogue cultivator, apparently married without knowing about it, which didn't make me all that married at all." Before here, back on marriage one, broken by the very nature of his mostly-death.
"It's only recently that I've felt... not unequal."
A lack of guilt, of appeasement, of giving in to what's asked of him by someone he cares about because he feels it's what he must do. It's strange, uncertain territory, and no, he doesn't look confident about it. When it comes to feeling, Wei Wuxian is dodgier than most. Not for his own capability, but for his learned expectation of others.
Am I worth this? He argues back now, he puts up resistance, he doesn't cave before each statement Lan Zhan makes, and it is perhaps the presence of contention that lets him believe, maybe. Maybe it'll work out, beyond their time here and the ways they lash out at each other, bleeding where none can see.
no subject
"Millet won't work," she tells him, even though he's aware. A sigh, long-suffering. "Just because he grew up on the blandest food imaginable and was healthy doesn't mean it's actually going have an impact on you." Millet. Of all the foods. "I'll inform him to feed you more vegetables."
"Not unequal," he says, and Wen Qing wants to laugh at that, although she doesn't; she'd spent too long with him in the Burial Mounds to laugh at any of his insecurities. Especially when she helped it along, asking him to do the impossible and save Wen Ning. But she does mentally scoff, shaking her head. He's the best of all the cultivators she knew, even beyond standing up for them and being willing to help her find her family.
"He's the one unequal." It's mostly a grumble, and she sips her tea to give her a second to compose her mind. "Properly court him. Or have him court you. Don't let him make all the decisions about your marriage. Especially since he hasn't told you any of them."
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"I don't know what that'd look like," he says, an admission in and of itself. "As for making all the decisions, that... is at least not something I'm struggling with as I might have, months ago."
Confession again, of a different kind. Once I would not have felt I had the right to decide.
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"And what do you mean, you don't...." She narrows her eyes at him over her tea before setting the cup back down. "You never thought about courting rituals? Or what it might look like? Jiang Wanyin at least knew to buy me a comb for a courting gift." And really, she'd thought that piece of advice came from Wei Wuxian.
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He lifts his brow, cocking his head as he regards her, smile wry for the moment.
"Once I was meant to be Jiang Cheng's support, his closest ally. Marriage was not my consideration or concern."
They both know why, looking at his adopted brother. At the confidence concerns, at the rivalry that once didn't bleed toxic. At one man running from yoked affections, and another man desperate in his hope for them.
Then there was the example of his parents to nod toward too. He's been aware of that since he was very, very small. Madam Yu made certain of that much.
no subject
It's impossible for Wen Qing to regret begging Wei Wuxian to help her brother or the time they had in the Burial Mounds, and part of her knows that everything had changed once they put Wei Wuxian's core in Jiang Cheng. Still, sometimes she wishes she could have sent him home, back to his siblings.
Not that she can say as much to him, not now, so it's easy to shrug off the thoughts and return to her tea. "In that case, make up your own courting customs. It's not like he, or you, can pay a bride price or send extravagant gifts to the family, so demand appropriate gifts. Give him something in return. Tell him you want an actual wedding, witnessed by the family you have here."
no subject
His lips twitch, less amused at her suggestions than his own imaginings of the same. It's not bad advice. Knowingly how to use it, that's... going to take consideration.
"Would you count among that number?" Asked casually, as if it doesn't matter if she says no.
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"Then that'll make three people I'd be honoured to have attend."
Soft, because his heart feels like tiny needles have driven into it, and it aches, gaining another sister, already knowing he's lost her. Is fated to not share her world, but love her while they share this one, and beyond.
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"Though I know Miss Lilly would attend, and be honored, and others here." Wei Wuxian is a friendly person, even if he keeps people at a distance.
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He smiles back, heartened, and laughs with a wave of his hand, not to dismiss her point, but because there are aspects of it which simply go beyond what he wants, if he's considering wants. Lily's presence would be welcome, of course, but it's enough of a ritual from their world, their home, that he's not sure whose eyes he cares to have on it. Does it matter? To some extent, to him, but that's neither here nor there.
His fool of a husband, and his own foolish self, have enough to slog through to try and get to some point that isn't this tower, isn't this landscape of other people's hubris, to try and find their footing... if it can even happen before it's too late.
He brushes that thought aside as well, and shrugs instead.
"As soon as I know, I'll send along your invitation."
no subject
"Make him pour tea for your brother."