marlowemuses | Lessons

Entry tags:

Lessons

Wei Wuxian had lost hope, but his pride had yet to falter.

The Wen Sect had attacked the Lotus Pier, using Wei Wuxian’s bad attitude as their excuse. He’d lost his home and his foster parents, such as they were, and Jiang Cheng had been bent on revenge. It had ended with them here, branded as traitors to the government. He didn’t know what had happened to Jiang Chen, but he assumed that his fate was much the same.

Time had blurred for him, though the unmarked stretches of time formed a pattern. There was the cold gray cell with the propaganda television upon the wall, proclaiming virtues and sins, and the Wen Sect’s superiority over all. There was the processing room, with the bureaucrat who explained his situation. He was now the property of the state. Because of his youth and his appearance (“Oh, are you saying I’m pretty? You’re not really my type, I don’t really go for lump-faced brown-nosers like you…”), he had the opportunity to be a helpmeet, if he would agree to yield to the training.

Wei Wuxian expressed that he was enjoying their hospitality so very much, he could not possibly wish to leave.

And then there was the torture, which went on for hours, until he wept and screamed. They explained to him that this was still a merciful torture, which left no damage. He still had the opportunity to become a helpmeet. He could serve an honorable clan and be well-treated. (“Oh, are you saying I can be someone’s bitch? I hope they’re prettier than you.”)

After the third round of this, they had informed him that this was his last chance. His last offer. If he would yield to the training and accept his role as a helpmeet, he would be fed and given soft clothes and allowed to rest. If he did not yield, he would suffer far more excruciating torture, and then he would be given the opportunity to enter a work camp or to labor in a mine. The more painful torture would leave him capable of work, but it would leave marks. He would no longer be pretty. (“You really are fixated on me being pretty! I understand that you are in love with me, but really this is no way to go about a courtship!”)

They threw him back in the cell.

Wei Wuxian had some regrets about his insubordination. It would perhaps not be the worst thing to be a helpmeet (especially if he was given to a pretty girl who wanted him as a stud!), but he could not endure yielding his pride and kneeling before some stranger. He did not want to become some mindless, simpering automaton. But the alternative was being tortured until he broke or died. Wei Wuxian was shameless, but he was very proud. He decided that he would be tortured to death before he broke and pleaded for mercy.

The next day, he was brought to a new cell. It was not at all what he expected. It was very large and very white, with a great many lights beaming down from the ceiling. There, they made him kneel in the middle of the floor, and chained his cuffs to a ring in the floor behind him so that he could not slump or stand. Wei Wuxian did not mind this so much. He was accustomed to kneeling.

In front of him was a large mirror that took up the whole wall. He suspected that it was a one-way mirror, so that whoever was on the other side of the glass could watch what happened in the room. Probably Wen Chao, he thought. It would be just like him to want to watch Wei Wuxian’s humiliation and torture, and to not do it himself.

He was left there for a long period of time. At least an hour, but he yet again had no way to tell how much time was passing. This seemed strange to him. Surely this was not the new, worse torture they had promised, and he had not yielded or agreed to cooperate, so there was no reason that they would take mercy on him.

Eventually, the door opened behind him. Wei Wuxian was very curious, so he twisted around to look. It was Lan Zhan!

This was a surprise. Lan Zhan was as flawless as ever, in his white GusuLan Sect clothes that looked like he was in mourning. He looked upright and dignified, so he was certainly not a prisoner here. As far as Wei Wuxian knew, the Lan Sect was still held in esteem by the Wen Sect and the government.

They were not exactly friends. Lan Wangji had never liked him, even though Wei Wuxian was always friendly to him and they had even fought together. Lan Zhan was still too uptight, and Wei Wuxian supposed that Lan Zhan found him inappropriate and annoying. He’d said as much! Almost half the words that Lan Zhan had ever said to him were things like ‘ridiculous’ and ‘pathetic’. Wei Wuxian considered him an ally, and would even have trusted Lan Zhan in most situations, but this was not a good situation. He couldn’t think of any good reason why Lan Zhan would be here, unless he had come to take part in Wei Wuxian’s humiliation.

“Do you work for the Department of Re-Education now, Lan Zhan?” Wei Wuxian asked, making his voice light and flippant, as though he had not been exhausted, starved, and tortured for days.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Seeing the child up and about and walking over to him, he's surprised the child can walk and speak. Lan Zhan normally distant expression softens and he handles the child, holding him while the child laughs.

Lan Zhan, "A-Yuan." He holds the child, playing with him up and down, and lets him sit on his lap while drinking the weak tea as he silently waits on his dinner. In the past, he never lets Wei Ying cooks for him, but now he allows him and he didn't find his cooking all that bad.

"..." Lan Zhan has no complaints since he reached the conclusion that Wei Ying wanted a child and keep him. Perhaps adopting a child and having a family is what he wished.

"He's a determined little monkey," Wei Ying says. He ruffles Wen Yuan's hair. Wen Yuan makes an alarmed noise and begins a systematic process of patting and smoothing it back down with his hands. "He's been coming with me to cut wood, even though it's hard work. He keeps me company and helps haul the wood. I made him a sled for the wood and some snow-shoes so he can walk on the snow like I do."

"I chop the wood," Wen Yuan brags.

"No you don't," Wei Ying quickly amended. "You just pull the sled."

Wen Yuan mimicked the action of an ax like he'd seen Wei Ying do. "Chop. Chop."

"I promise I have not given him any sharp objects," Wei Ying insists, looking worriedly at Lan Zhan like he's going to get in trouble. "Come on, I know at least that much about kids."

Wen Yuan continued his tree-chopping pantomime.

Edited 2019-10-30 04:12 (UTC)

Lan Zhan merely listened to how he goes about his day and how he met Wen Yuan as he drinks his tea. While Wei Ying's speaks about the days of chopping wood seems simple, Lan Zhan felt at peace seeing Wei Ying is more cheerful and find his days fulfilling with purpose that he declares on his own. Because Wei Ying is free and he is becoming himself.

Lan Zhan rearranges his priorities to help what he deems as his family, which is what is left of his clan, and then there's Wei Ying and now this child, to help survive in a war-torn country. Any memory of them or desire of them being lovers was simply set aside. He is satisfied just by simply giving what Wei Ying wants, what makes him happy. He makes no effort to make decisions to try to control him. Only giving him what he needs such as a place to stay, food to eat, money for necessities, unconditionally without any expectation in return. Emotionally, he set them aside, as he sees the error of his ways, and see to their wants, and not his own.

"Mn." He sips his tea quietly. They don't have much, but if this is the family that he has. It's better than an empty house to coming back home to. When he was a teenager, he lives alone, and now he has Wei Ying and the child. If a child adds more warmth than the fires itself...

"Wei Ying, do you wish to keep him?"

"Keep him!" Wei Ying exclaims. "Lan Zhan, you don't understand, it's not up to me. He follows me everywhere. He's decided to adopt me, there's nothing I can do. If you're jealous, you'll have to take it up with him." Wei Ying shakes his head as if this is a very serious concern, and he is completely helpless. "I don't know if he'll even let you sleep in the bed with us. You might have to bribe him."

Getting up to check on the soup, Wei Ying ruffles A-Yuan's hair again, which results in another indignant cry and some determined hair-tidying. Wei Ying comes back with a couple of bowls, giving one to A-Yuan and one to Lan Zhan, and then sitting down to help A-Yuan eat. He'll feed himself in a little while, after he's made sure that both of the men in his life have been fed.

Lan Zhan shook his head once and then slowly eats his meal. The child cries, and yet even with a child around, there is warmth and feeling being shared. He could feel it.

"...Then keep him. Share the bed. I'm not jealous. He adopted me too. I guess that can't be helped." He meant that seriously, despite Wei Ying's concerns. "The child has nowhere else to go, so I would rather he stays with us. He seeks a warmth from you and me. So...let's share this warmth."

That's Lan Zhan decision on the matter. And he noticed Wei Ying took a liking to the child also.

“Share the warmth,” Wei Ying agrees. He’s pleased that Lan Zhan doesn’t mind. Once he gets a bowl for himself, he comes to sit on the bed near them both, teasing A-Yuan as they eat. “You hear that, A-Yuan? You can stay. We won’t throw you out in the snow.”

“I can stay with Wei Ying and Lan-papa?” A-Yuan asks, looking big-eyed and hopeful at them both.

“Well, yes, but what do you mean by calling him Lan-papa?! You’ve only just met him.”

“Mm,” said A-Yuan, quickly focusing on eating his soup.

“You’ve never called me Wei-papa,” Wei Ying went on.

A-Yuan stirred his soup instead of looking at Wei Ying.

“Already he likes you better than me,” Wei Ying complains to Lan Zhan, and pouts.

"...mn." Lan Zhan eats slowly, appreciative of the meal. He hums his "Mn" almost automatically as they talked. If Wei Ying wanted a child, he has no complaints about having another mouth to feed.

Lan Zhan felt guilty that Wei Ying is lonely every week, but ever since that argument, he never brought it up and said a single word. So seeing Wei Ying caring for a child, perhaps the topic of them being together won't be brought up ever again, and he's fine with Wei Ying just being a roommate and friend, and they could forget about it. Lan Zhan had the wish to be together with Wei Ying again, but throwing himself into work, he started to forget his original intention, and learn to will himself to forget.

Being called the father of a child, "Mm. That's fine." If anything, Lan Zhan had always liked children and entertained them in his travels.

Dinner came and gone as Lan Zhan washed it down with tea. "Finished..." He announced. He rose to head straight to bed to rest, not minding A-Yuan if he wished to curl up since night in the jingshi tends to get cold even with whatever warmth they have.

Wei Ying climbed into bed beside them both, wrapping his arms around A-Yuan and brushing his fingertips gently over Lan Zhan's arm before finally letting his hand settle on A-Yuan's shoulder. He pulled the blankets up over them all, smiling fondly at Lan Zhan as they cuddled in to bed as a family. "Are you staying tomorrow, Lan Zhan? You should arrange to formally adopt A-Yuan into the Lan clan so that he can attend classes with the other Lan children. Though I will not be able to bring home as much wood without his assistance"--this was not true, since Wei Ying knew he would be much more productive without A-Yuan trailing along with him--"I know you will think it is important for him to receive education. Even if it is very boring. I'm sorry, A-Yuan, but either you have to go to classes or we will put you in the soup and eat you."

"No eat me!!" A-Yuan objected, wiggling indignantly.

"I am still hungry..." Wei Ying teased, pretending to chomp at A-Yuan. "There wasn't enough meat in the soup!"

"No eating!!!!" A-Yuan squealed, giggling.

The three cuddle together in the same bed with extra blankets to cover the family and keep farm. Winters in Gusu tend to be very cold especially at night that at times, especially if one shivers, steam of breath can be seen. Even though Lan Zhan did his best by covering up the doors and shut the windows to keep what little warmth is in his house.

"Mm. I'm staying home tomorrow. I can certainly arrange that. A ceremony to adopt A-Yuan into the Lan clan and then he can play with the other children and start school."

The classes are not the same lessons when his uncle taught them ever since the old man fell ill. But perhaps A-Yuan will learn basics like writing calligraphy and math for a start. Lan Zhan felt guilty again when the child cries. Not enough meat, vegetables, or food or much of anything as the war strains resources.

Listening to his family talking and laughing, Lan Zhan quietly watches Wei Ying is actually being himself. It gives him much joy to see him being playful with a child. Tired and exhausted, this is his world, a child and his best friend that he secretly loves sharing this home with him.

Lan Zhan finds himself heavy with sleep. "Wei Ying, would you tell us a bedtime story?"

"A bedtime story, huh?" Wei Ying says. He reaches over and ruffles Lan Zhan's hair a little, which makes A-Yuan bat at his offending hand and say "No. Bad Wei Ying."

Wei Ying laughs at this, but he leaves off the hair ruffling. "Very wicked."

"Yes," A-Yuan agrees. "Wicked. Now story."

"Now story," Wei Ying repeats. "A very very long time ago, there was an emperor who was afraid of the dark."

He tells a story that his shijie once told to him to help him sleep, and he smiles as he watches Lan Zhan and A-Yuan. Wei Ying is a good storyteller, with different voices for all the characters and dramatic facial expressions. At the end, when everyone lives happily ever after, he laughs and kisses the top of A-Yuan's head. "And that is why we have stars."

"That's a very good story, Wei Ying." He murmured.

Lan Zhan was very captivated by his story about the emperor as Wei Ying becomes animated with each character, giving them life. This is a side of Wei Ying he has never seen before...and Lan Zhan realized one day, he has to show him a side of himself also.

By the time Wei Ying finished and the story ended, he drifted off to sleep with the warmth of his family huddled close on the bed. This feeling is the most comforting thing to him in the world in his jingshi, that he wouldn't have it any other way.

Wei Ying slept deeply, feeling safe and warm with A-Yuan and Lan Zhan so close to him. Knowing that they were both safe and nearby soothed him, and he felt warmer than he had in weeks. Lan Zhan radiated so much heat, but their nights together had been stiff and distant since Wei Ying had said he only wanted to be friends.

"Lan Zhan," he murmured in his sleep, as he dreamed of saying the words that he kept thinking, that he couldn't seem to stop thinking. "I love you, Lan Zhan."

As Wei Ying said those whispers of love in his dreams, Lan Zhan is so far away. He is as cold and distant as the moon itself. In those dreams, Lan Zhan is dreamless and was lost or drowning, that he couldn't find himself. Yet his heart is yearning and full of wanting. Emotions that he suppressed and seek distraction in his work, and doesn't give it a voice and pushed back with self-restraint.

In the middle of the night, golden eyes open sleepily, a blurred vision. He sees Wei Ying sleeping. He reaches out to him, but the child is between them. He caressed his soft cheeks, trailed his soft pink lips, twirling his fingers in his black hair.

"..." Grumbling, he can't reach to kiss him. The child will get a bed of his own immediately tomorrow morning and he went back to sleep until the Gusu rooster's crows in the morning.

Both Lan Zhan and Wen Yuan are awake and active before Wei Ying finally wakes up, mostly from A-Yuan nudging at him and saying "Wei Ying wake up, the rooster says wake up."

Yawning, Wei Ying got up and mussed A-Yuan's hair in revenge, accepting some tea and helping to get A-Yuan ready for the day. The soup he'd made last night was still good, and Wei Ying had more of it for breakfast. They couldn't afford to be picky about such things while food was still so scarce.

"Lan Zhan," Wei Ying said, as he bundled up and prepared to head out for the day. "I'll come back for lunch. Will you... I want to tell you about something."

After breakfast, Lan Zhan is set to seek his brother about finding a bed for the child and enrolled him in the classes with the other young juniors to start his education and training early. He puts his robe and is heading out the door.

"Mn? If you want to talk, it has to wait later." As usual, Lan Zhan now developed this tendency to push back and distract himself with work in the same usual distant expression, putting a distance between him and Wei Ying purposely.

And out the door he goes, being gone for a while, leaving Wei Ying with the child.

Wei Ying's heart aches as Lan Zhan leaves so abruptly, so that Wei Ying isn't sure that he'll come back for lunch, or maybe not for days. He feels painfully lonely, and wants Lan Zhan to hold him with a desperation that feels pitiful.

Picking Wen Yuan up quickly, Wei Ying buries his face in Wen Yuan's shoulder so that he won't feel so painfully alone.

"Wei Ying," A-Yuan says, patting worriedly at him.

"Come on, lazybones," Wei Ying says, putting A-Yuan back down on his feet. "We have to go to work. We can come home for lunch."

"Wei Ying, when does Lan-papa come home?" A-Yuan asks.

"Lunch," Wei Ying lies, hoping. "He'll come and join us for lunch."

He make sure to get back early, heating food for the three of them and trying not to ache with loneliness. He'd managed without Lan Zhan for weeks, barely seeing him for a few days here and there. But he couldn't bear all of that anymore, especially not with Lan Zhan keeping him distant.

After he spoke with his brother about the child to register him to be part of the Lan Clan, eventually Lan Zhan did return for lunch because he remembers Wei Ying does indeed cook, though in the past Lan Zhan is the one who did all the cooking. Nowadays, he doesn't have the motivation to do so.

Wordless as usual, he gives a nod to Wei Ying. "...Wei Ying." He's true to his word that he has the entire day to stay with them. While he leaves abruptly, he usually notifies Wei Ying how long he'll be gone and when he returns. "A-Yuan you'll start class tomorrow morning and join the other children."

Part of him is aware of the issue, but he is reluctant to speak about it. This normal routine of just existing and tolerating, eating together, and working. He's fine with it. Being friends and being together by necessity and surviving, but no passion for being together.

Wei Ying provides bowls of food for all of them, but this time he doesn't tease A-Yuan as they eat. He wants to press Lan Zhan again, to insist on speaking to him, but now he doubts himself. Lan Zhan doesn't want to speak to him. Lan Zhan doesn't want to hear the foolishness that Wei Ying has to say.

He feels uncertain and adrift in a way that he hasn't since Lan Zhan first brought him home as a helpmeet. It makes him think that maybe that empty feeling isn't something that can ever be fixed, and maybe it's just something that's a part of him.

"Wei Ying," A-Yuan says, grabbing Wei Ying's knee and shaking it.

Wei Ying doesn't answer him.

A-Yuan turns to Lan Zhan for help, confused and scared by a situation where Wei Ying isn't confident and teasing. "He's sad."

Lan Zhan heard the child. "...I see."

Lan Zhan quietly drinks his tea, contemplating. His expression remains stony and cold as ever as he felt something begin to pummel when Wei Ying wanted to speak to him. Taking a deep breath

"Little one, please go outside and play. I need to speak to Wei Ying and talk to him."

A-Yuan looked from one to the other, worried about them and not wanting to leave them alone, but he trusted Lan Zhan, so he went.

Wei Ying watched him go, and then looked over at Lan Zhan. He wasn't quite sure whether Lan Zhan was creating the space he had asked for, when Wei Ying had asked to talk, or if Lan Zhan had something else he wanted to say. Wei Ying felt like he was in trouble somehow.

He didn't say anything, waiting to see what Lan Zhan wanted to say.

Lan Zhan waited for the child to obediently leave. Now he has Wei Ying all to himself, a space to talk without the child present and worrying him. It's simply grown-up matters that shouldn't worry someone that young.

Sensing Wei Ying's anxiety and sadness since the beginning, especially when he's gone for days, working for weeks to make ends meet, he sensed the trouble and distance grown between them and he knew he's being unfair to him.

Gently, "...Wei Ying. Do you wish to talk about it? What's on your mind?"

Wei Ying smiles a tiny bit, grateful that Lan Zhan wants to listen and has created this opportunity for them to talk at last.

"I miss you so much when you're away," Wei Ying says, which isn't at all what he had planned to say, but the words aren't as easy as they are in dreams.

He gets up, not looking at Lan Zhan, and goes to a cupboard in the wall. From it, he draws out a large bundle wrapped in white cloth, cradling it his arms with the same affection and care that he used with A-Yuan. He brings it back over and lays it on the floor in front of Lan Zhan.

The technique is something that he had to develop by himself. Nothing like it has ever been done before. Every night, he read for hours, studying the properties of woodgrain, and then he set to work. He had pieced the broken guqin together like a puzzle, and then he had poured spiritual energy into it to coax the wood to heal. He knew already how to use spiritual energy to heal other humans, and there were certain techniques like that which could revive and even repair dead flesh, but no one had ever tried to use it on wood.

Some of the pieces were missing entirely. They had been smashed into a dust that was too small for Wei Ying to have found when he gathered all the fragments, or the fragment had been lost. He filled in the gaps with clear resin, which strung like spiderwebs through the flesh of the instrument.

When it had been finished, and all the wood had been healed as best as he could manage, Wei Ying had strung the instrument, and learned from books how to tune it. The basic musical tuning of it was easy enough for him, but the sound of the instrument was permanently altered. It sounded strange and unearthly, even in the few testing plucks Wei Ying had done. He doesn't know if Lan Zhan will reject it again as a failure, and cast it into the fire as he had promised to do.

Lan Zhan swallowed hard as he felt emotions that he buried deep within. Emotions of his guilt and shame. When the broken pieces being mended, Lan Zhan can't help but to stare at him hopelessly as the instrument is being pieced back together again.

"Wei Ying, no...you shouldn't have. I told you to throw it away as firewood. I already found another one. I even learn to play the erhu for my shows." But it's too late, he couldn't stop him. For once, Lan Zhan sat in place hopelessly as he watches Wei Ying so meticulously put the pieces together. He didn't expect this, not at all, hence his surprise and shock.

Softly again, "Wei Ying, please. Even like that, it won't..." But he was defeated. Why Wei Ying was so kind and thoughtful to him?

Lan Zhan picks up the guqin and examined it. It was whole again, but he felt different even though he reluntantly pluck a tune and it almost sounds as good as it was before. But he felt detached from it and his initial reaction is to reject it. Yet in a few moments, he decides out of practicality to keep it because guqins are expensive instruments and thought about the value of it and because Wei Ying put so much thought and energy into putting it back together again for him.

Gingerly he lifted the instrument to put on the table, but he has no will to play it and Lan Zhan stare at it with a hollow look. Since the first one, he sold it, and this second one, he broke it out of rage, which he regret it later.

"Thank you, Wei Ying. It's beautiful..." The thought and care he puts it together counts, but Lan Zhan's expression reveals it doesn't get to the heart of the issue of why he's distant.

"Is this what you wanted to show me?"

Wei Ying's heart aches as he watches him, and he feels that he should not speak. He has already done enough damage. He has already caused enough pain.

The guqin alone cannot communicate what he means, and he knows that. If he doesn't speak, then the guqin is only a reminder of Lan Zhan's pain, and there is a certain cruelty in such a gift.

"I love you," Wei Ying says. He watches Lan Zhan with desperate hope, wanting to be able to mend both their hearts and frightened that Lan Zhan will not want him back. "I want to make love with you every day for the rest of our lives."

"..." Upon hearing that, Lan Zhan trembles with emotion and he is in tears. Does he love him? He finds it hard to believe, even though he already knows, he had been waiting for so long to hear those words from him.

It was then the truth spilled out as to why he's behaving distant and enforce this loneliness. Lan Zhan fingers slide over the strings and pluck a note. His voice a whisper, "But I...I force myself upon you. So I ran away." Ran away to towns, get lost in people, get lost in the wildest places, get distracted to find purpose. "I was thinking you'll forget about it. You don't have to love me. It wasn't..." With difficulty to finish. "Necessary. We can live side by side like this. It's fine."

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject