Work Text:
"Wh... Why is it like this?” Wei Wuxian asked, standing in the room that was his working space. Lan Qiren had given it to him begrudgingly after not being able to stand the thought of the Jingshi looking like a storm passed through his nephew's private quarters. Not that he could ever stop the storm that was Wei Wuxian.
"I tidied it, so you don't have to work through the clutter" Jiang Cheng crossed his arms, looking at the now clean room with a sense of accomplishment. He had come by this morning to pick Jin Ling back up from a night hunt with the other juniors, but hearing they were still on the way but would arrive within the day, he went out looking for Wei Wuxian.
"But... Why? The other one asked, more breathing out the question than actually saying it. Wei Wuxian didn’t trust his voice in that regard. He started to regret leaving Jiang Cheng alone in here to fetch himself new ink and then get distracted by a group of disciples asking him about his latest projects.
"Isn't it obvious? I did you a favor." Jiang Cheng answered. After the whole ordeal with Jin Guangyao and the aftermath that followed, the two have tried to mend the burned bridged from years ago, meeting up a few times a month to discuss their lives and drink in honor of their Shijie once a year.
"I didn't ask you for one" was left unsaid. Wei Wuxian’s eyes burned with tears he didn't dare shed, trying not to let the devastation of this favor cloud his judgement of the situation. Change doesn’t happen over night, and not without effort. But a fact that was forever unchanged was that the Jiang Clan leader was a proud man.
"Usually a 'thanks’ would be returned" he said, waiting for the answer he demanded. He took up the task of organizing Wei Wuxian’s chaos after all.
I don't want to thank you. I have nothing to be thankful for. Wei Wuxian thought but didn’t say it.
"...thank you, Jiang Cheng" he said finally, voice only slightly wavering and much quieter than he would’ve liked it to be. But it’d have to do for now.
"You're welcome. I have to hurry now, I think Jin Ling is at the foot of the mountain by now. But I’ll see you later in Caiyi for that drink you promised." And with that final statement, Jiang Cheng left his working space, closing the door a little louder than was acceptable in the Cloud Recesses.
Wei Wuxian stood in the middle of the room for a minute. It didn't feel like his anymore. It looked like someone else's. Everything was orderly stored away, somewhere Wei Wuxian knew he would have to look ages for. He didn’t want to admit that it looked like Jiang Cheng’s office. At first it was one tear that fell, then the next, then a whine started to form in his throat and Wei Wuxian sank to the floor, crying, trying not to look to closely at everything. He broke.
The tears flowed down his cheeks, leaving tear tracks on his cheeks and not having a chance to dry before the next ones fell. Wei Ying didn't feel save. He felt wrong. This was not the place he returned to when he had another idea. This was not the place he invented multiple different talismans. This was not the place that Lan Qiren had given him so he could be himself. Everything needed to be back in place.
Wei Wuxian grabbed the stack of finished talismans that Jiang Cheng placed on the windowsill to dry, scattering them across his worktable, then he grabbed the unfinished ones and spared them somewhere in between.
No, that's not now they were earlier.
He swept a few off the table, right on the floor. That looked more like what he left behind. But something was missing.
He also had a bunch of brushes strewn across if he remembered correctly. He looked around for them, opening boxes and drawers until he found them, washed and neatly hung on a brush holder or placed in a smaller box.
But the box was also on the wrong side of the room.
He grabbed the box and placed it on the other side, then saw another box that was out place and placed that above it as well. He let go of the brushes still in his hand and grabbed more boxes, pulled open drawers and placed them where he thought they were before all this. It's alright, he thought, everything will soon be in the right order again. Everything is fine.
It was, until he found his favorite incense burner and incense were not where they always were. And he didn’t know where they were.
He panicked, frantically opening boxes and reorganizing shelves, trying to recall where they might be lying according to Jiang Cheng's order.
Jiang Cheng's order.
The thought of someone else's order made him want to scream. He looked around frantically for his incense, hyperaware that his surroundings were different now, everything replaced and re-replaced again multiple times. Different. And his incense was somewhere in this different. And his clothes from today where not washed the way they were always washed.
They felt wrong. They are wrong.
Wei Wuxian fumbled with the belt, almost ripping it off when it didn't budge under the tension of his fingers. Then came the zhequn, the the outer ru, then the other ru, then his shoes until he stood in nothing but his under robes.
A draft blew in through the window. Wei Wuxian was cold.
Wei Wuxian screamed. Nobody heard it. No sound left his throat, his vocal cords not moving stubbornly. He crouched down and pulled his legs closer to his chest. His face was hidden in between his arms and all you could heard was the occasional sniff or a small whimper.
Lan Zhan found him like this, crying and curled up in a corner, wanting nothing more than to hide and never come back.
He approached him and Wei Ying only noticed him when those strong arms wrapped themselves around his shoulders. He froze, looking up and into the eyes of Lan Zhan, his Lan Zhan. His safe space. His home.
And Wei Wuxian wailed in his arms, falling into the strong chest and letting himself be held. He cried until his eyes have run out of tears to shed and slumped into Lan Zhan's side. He stroked Wei Wuxian's back until his breathing had evened out again. He would wait for Wei Ying to talk. He always did.
"Jiang Cheng cleaned up" Wei Wuxian said.
"Mn" Lan Zhan answered.
"It's feels wrong looking at it. It's not..."
"Safe? Familiar?"
"Both."
Wei Ying felt Lan Zhan shift next to him, letting go before standing up and walking around the room, moving boxes and scattering papers everywhere. Wei Wuxian wanted to laugh if it wasn't for the fact that he didn't know what Lan Zhan was doing. It didn’t follow a particular pattern and wasn’t tidy the way Lan Zhan preferred it. It all seemed very random, but Wei Ying let him.
Only after a ke, when Lan Zhan pulled out the Incense burner and incense from nowhere and placed it back to its rightful place did Wei Ying see what he was doing.
The papers where exactly like he left them before he went out today. The ink and brushed were haphazardly thrown somewhere, the finished and unfinished talismans lay strewn across the floor in no recognizable pattern. It was Wei Ying's pattern.
And before he could even begin to ask himself how Lan Zhan has managed to recreate the orderly chaos that was Wei Ying, he handed him a new set of robes. Wei Ying reached out to touch and felt the familiar sting in his eyes again. They were washed as they always were. Silky smooth and smelling of sandalwood.
Wei Ying fell back into Lan Zhan's arms and cried until he didn't want to cry anymore. But there where still so many more tears left to cry.
Wei Ying had so many more tears to shed. And Lan Zhan would catch them all and hold Wei Ying through the shivers.