There are (cold, chilling, breathtaking) ablutions he wishes to make, and he does, veering to the side and one of the cisterns of water inside of the cave, cupping hands to splash water over his face. The shock of it leaves him inhaling sharp, cutting away at the humidity and grit and sweat and blood and dirt of the day and its fighting, to this night that rests uneasy.
He makes use of the small drying rag nearby to drag across his face, sopping up water before it slips down to soak his collars, aiming himself casually toward Lan Xichen. He has respect for the sect leader. He has respected most of them, while he doesn't agree with their actions or decisions, time and again, or simply time to time. Lan Xichen is a rarity in his willingness to provide chances, but those were tempered too by the complexity of Lan Zhan's habitual, unfailing turning toward Wei Wuxian, to the man who had dragged a wanted criminal into Gusu Lan to heal him and be allowed to offer shelter, just as Wei Wuxian was equally allowed to leave after.
Both of them are better men than their father ever was. Both may be closer to their mother than either are allowed to know. Both are, in the end, raised by an uncle who had never sought his brother's position, but had stood strong and strident for it anyway. Wei Wuxian is as aware of this with Lan Qiren as he is forever going to find the man's beard ridiculous, and his overbearing need for constrained, confined definitions of the world tiring.
(He remembers him with the juniors. Remembers the softening edges, the changes to him decades after Wei Wuxian dies, in a world not defined simply by increasing strife from the Wen Clan and the costs of the war that followed. He can respect Lan Qiren, in the ways proper to an elder, in a sense of understanding now what he did not as a younger man, but he reserves judgment on anything else.)
Lan Xichen, however, merits a smile to lift little more than the corner of Wei Wuxian's lips as he sinks down, sitting on the ground with the ease of a much younger man. Most days it doesn't matter. Tonight, the ground feels as comfortable as anything else.
"Did he offer you tea?" They have that, if little else, and already that's a bounty and a blessing beyond what had been possible in Yiling. Tea as a luxury here, too, and not terribly good, but it's more than simple water. He's curious, but presumes, given Lan Zhan's sense of propriety and tradition held strong through so many other moments, and this is his brother, his clan leader, his elder twinned half in so many ways, and not in others. An interesting man with poor instincts for people's motivations.
A failing, largely for the lack of balance to see him through the betrayals that had opened him to from those he wished better of.
He doesn't answer directly, but the actions, sitting and asking after what would be part of an opening motion toward conversation, the fact he doesn't stir himself to worrying, is a more relaxed, confident man than he's been two years and six months ago. Someone who knew himself better, who understood the world was as he had come to know it, but was worth protecting, defending, upholding justice within, and not finding the erroneous belief of doing so in singularity, by solitary means, as necessary. Lan Zhan had taught him that first, just as Jiang Cheng had wept for the horror of them both not understanding how to be what each other needed, one too giving to the point of leaving, the other too tongue twisted to find a path he wanted over the one he felt was expected.
Love is like that sometimes.
Wei Wuxian simply waits for Lan Xichen to speak, quietly attentive, tamping down on his own sprawling maze of thoughts and considerations. Later, he promises himself.
no subject
He makes use of the small drying rag nearby to drag across his face, sopping up water before it slips down to soak his collars, aiming himself casually toward Lan Xichen. He has respect for the sect leader. He has respected most of them, while he doesn't agree with their actions or decisions, time and again, or simply time to time. Lan Xichen is a rarity in his willingness to provide chances, but those were tempered too by the complexity of Lan Zhan's habitual, unfailing turning toward Wei Wuxian, to the man who had dragged a wanted criminal into Gusu Lan to heal him and be allowed to offer shelter, just as Wei Wuxian was equally allowed to leave after.
Both of them are better men than their father ever was. Both may be closer to their mother than either are allowed to know. Both are, in the end, raised by an uncle who had never sought his brother's position, but had stood strong and strident for it anyway. Wei Wuxian is as aware of this with Lan Qiren as he is forever going to find the man's beard ridiculous, and his overbearing need for constrained, confined definitions of the world tiring.
(He remembers him with the juniors. Remembers the softening edges, the changes to him decades after Wei Wuxian dies, in a world not defined simply by increasing strife from the Wen Clan and the costs of the war that followed. He can respect Lan Qiren, in the ways proper to an elder, in a sense of understanding now what he did not as a younger man, but he reserves judgment on anything else.)
Lan Xichen, however, merits a smile to lift little more than the corner of Wei Wuxian's lips as he sinks down, sitting on the ground with the ease of a much younger man. Most days it doesn't matter. Tonight, the ground feels as comfortable as anything else.
"Did he offer you tea?" They have that, if little else, and already that's a bounty and a blessing beyond what had been possible in Yiling. Tea as a luxury here, too, and not terribly good, but it's more than simple water. He's curious, but presumes, given Lan Zhan's sense of propriety and tradition held strong through so many other moments, and this is his brother, his clan leader, his elder twinned half in so many ways, and not in others. An interesting man with poor instincts for people's motivations.
A failing, largely for the lack of balance to see him through the betrayals that had opened him to from those he wished better of.
He doesn't answer directly, but the actions, sitting and asking after what would be part of an opening motion toward conversation, the fact he doesn't stir himself to worrying, is a more relaxed, confident man than he's been two years and six months ago. Someone who knew himself better, who understood the world was as he had come to know it, but was worth protecting, defending, upholding justice within, and not finding the erroneous belief of doing so in singularity, by solitary means, as necessary. Lan Zhan had taught him that first, just as Jiang Cheng had wept for the horror of them both not understanding how to be what each other needed, one too giving to the point of leaving, the other too tongue twisted to find a path he wanted over the one he felt was expected.
Love is like that sometimes.
Wei Wuxian simply waits for Lan Xichen to speak, quietly attentive, tamping down on his own sprawling maze of thoughts and considerations. Later, he promises himself.