Eventually, there come the times where only the winding roads stretch out before them. When the days ebb gently, to-fro, and there is no chaos to be found, save that of Wei Wuxian’s making: harmless mischief conceived only to cheat all but him out of attention from Lan Wangji.

It is one such day, today. For hours, Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji have walked with little words and less hurry, and the peace rakes itself down Wei Wuxian’s back like an itch baiting a scratch. A prick of the skin in want of a weal that weeps out.

Wei Wuxian opens his mouth, unbarring the way for the first thing to spring to his mind to tumble thoughtlessly out as he allows his eyes to roam slyly to his side. Lan Wangji is there to meet his gaze, not a half-step behind his pace, as usual, and Wei Wuxian can only abandon the burgeoning venture.

"Ah, Lan Zhan, why are you staring?" He beams, a picture of practised innocence. "Is there something on my face?"

"Make no trouble," Lan Wangji admonishes, untricked.

Well, so be it. "So doubting of me!" Wei Wuxian laments, aghast. Too quick to the muster of his own defence for it to be anything but proof of all the slight's alleged. "Have I not been behaving so well, this whole time?"

"No." Lan Wangji’s answer is not unexpected, for its haste nor its finality, yet it still shocks a helpless yelp of a laugh out of him.

"How unfair," Wei Wuxian claims, when he can sound serious again. "Ah, but isn’t that your fault too, then, Lan Zhan? Isn’t the temperament of the charge a reflection of the minder?"

"Mn," says Lan Wangji.

Wei Wuxian sways with the laugh that follows, this time, jostling their shoulders together.

When they are like this, Wei Wuxian can be less mindful of the seed of terror still sprouting from the soil of his chest. Much of the fear that follows the prospect of another parting has been stained so dutifully from him, over the last months; the vines binding his bones pruned back by the relief of Lan Wangji’s perpetuity.

Enduring boredoms in exchange is a price Wei Wuxian will all too gladly pay, but there is too much amusement to be found in complaining to abstain even as he tenders his fare.

The snare of Lan Wangji’s stare foils him again when he chances another glance. Wei Wuxian scrapes his teeth over his bottom lip to stifle himself, failing to school his features into a picture of innocence that could fool anyone, let alone his companion.

"We’ve been walking so long, Lan Zhan!" he whines, adopting a pout that is as exaggerated as it is shameless. "My legs will fall off if we continue like this."

"Endure it."

Lan Wangji’s voice remains steady, still as an unroused pond, but Wei Wuxian knows where to look as much as he knows when, and he reaps the soft curl of Lan Wangji’s smile as it blooms between seconds to wilt in a breath.

The sun has dipped low to the lip of the horizon when they spot the first signs of life they’ve seen since dawnbreak: a small merchant caravan gathered in the gully by the roadside, erecting camp while the fleeing light yet remains advantageous.

It would be simpler to pass them by than to encroach on their hospitality, but Wei Wuxian sets off towards them before it can even occur to Lan Wangji to protest, and so the other man can only trail closely behind. They make for a strange vision and a stranger pair, but even in calm times and in confident company, few would turn down the opportunity to be under guard of a night in passing by cultivators. Asking for little and being gracious for what they receive earns them a meal and a bed, and Wei Wuxian is glad to listen to gossip as he sprawls out by the fire alongside his counterpoint.

Lan Wangji warms his flank as much as the flames warm his legs. Wei Wuxian can hardly be blamed for the lazy way his eyes drift closed beneath the sensation, the slow of his breath and the sink of his chest. He circles the boundary between sleep and waking until he feels fingers skirting his forearm, rousing his attention close enough to the surface that he can haul himself back into the conversation.

"Isn’t it terrible?" one of the men sighs, pitying.

"I heard the stonesmith’s son is missing, as well," adds another.

"Didn’t the fishwife disappear this month past?"

"Truly unfortunate," says the third.

Wei Wuxian straightens up from his slouch. It is not uncommon for anyone to disappear under circumstances ultimately unmysterious, but even those occurrences deserve notice.

"It’s that Yiling Laozu, I tell you," the first man adds. "Nothing but bother and bloodshed since he’s returned."

Wei Wuxian purses his lips, cheeks puffing childishly to leash a petulant huff. Why is it always him, even now? Have the tales of Jin Guangyao and his depravities not yet spread to all the provinces? It would be nice if they could encounter one of the few eccentrics who liked him every once in a while, even if that like was for its part only a spurious marriage to his creations.

He wonders how long it may take for his name to fall out of mouths and favour when it comes to cursing misfortune and directing blame. For a year, the cultivation world has known the truth, but spite always did spread swifter than sympathy. Wei Wuxian leans blindly, tilting his face towards Lan Wangji to ask and see what he thinks, only to find Lan Wangji has already anticipated him, the heavy scrutiny of his gaze dragging the bow of his head low.

Wei Wuxian’s breath grazes the blade of Lan Wangji’s cheekbone. It’s unexpected enough that it takes him a moment to remember himself, and another to correct his posture. Lan Wangji’s expression is inscrutable, but it is so rarely not inscrutable that Wei Wuxian doesn’t know what to think, or if he should think at all.

"I’m tired," he whispers, sieged. The contemplation has robbed him of the opportunity to say anything else.

Lan Wangji nods, and Wei Wuxian clambers to his feet. He excuses them both with words he doesn’t entirely hear, then walks himself to a destination he doesn’t entirely see. The moment his knees next touch the ground, he sleeps, and for his penance, it is morning when he next wakes. Lan Wangji’s hand is there, cradling the backs of his knuckles, Wei Wuxian’s limp arm held outstretched towards him. Wrist upturned, of course, delicate-pale and bared-nude for the probe of Lan Wangji’s fingers.

"Did you worry?" is how Wei Wuxian greets him, for no amount of drowsiness can stymie his playfulness. "This body can only take so much," he sighs, and, "I warned you," he reminds. "You should take responsibility."

Lan Wangji looks up from their hands, at that. Tender concern has broken open his face, contorting it to something revealingly ugly, cowing.

"But how can you?" Wei Wuxian starts, sharp, to scare from it, only to trail as sleep notches his throat, thick enough to need clearing. "Ah, I know! Shouldn’t you carry me today? It would only be fair."

Lan Wangji doesn’t even flinch. Wei Wuxian squeezes his eyes shut to trap the sight with him as he laughs, the sound breaking into a shrill yelp when he feels himself being drawn in, arm dragged over the broad span of Lan Wangji’s shoulders. He could count on his hands between his two lifetimes the instances where he’s moved as fast as he does in retaliation, squirming to his feet and dancing out of reach, hands flinging out placatingly.

"Lan Zhan— still, you take me too seriously!" He cracks open an eye. The kneeling Lan Wangji could be mistaken for porcelain; as untroubled as he is unblemished, at least to layman's sight. Wei Wuxian straightens, palms slinking down his sides, and clears his throat. The commotion he’s orchestrated has attracted the inevitable audience, and he tries to look appropriately contrite as Lan Wangji stares up at him. Truly, he tries. "See?"

Lan Wangji looks away, freeing him at long last. Wei Wuxian aches softly when his arrest abates, body unfurling from its too-tight coiling.

Trouble, thankfully, does find them before Wei Wuxian has to crack and make it.

The hours they’ve lost in the day must be found in the night, after all, and it is there in the dark that they are discovered by something unbidden.

They sense it as one, and though Wei Wuxian feels Lan Wangji draw closer, there is no wariness to it, no worry. Their guest lacks malevolence as much as it lacks manners, meaning no harm beyond imposition.

Wei Wuxian stops, sudden enough that Lan Wangji has to steady himself, his fingers roping tightly around his bicep.

"Let’s stop," suggests Wei Wuxian. "Let’s wait."

And so they do. Hours pass, yet nothing comes to meet them; not even when Wei Wuxian rests his cheek on Lan Wangji’s shoulder and falls asleep, despite all his rambled promises that he intends to do no such thing.

It is three more nights before they meet with any success. Wei Wuxian is flicking peanuts into his mouth, to Lan Wangji’s mulled exasperation, when he hears the snap of a twig beneath a heavy footfall, buried beneath the crackle of the fire.

Though there is no danger, Lan Wangji has put himself before him and between it before Wei Wuxian can finish chewing, so he takes his time to swallow, and then more still to rise. He eyes the gloom over the hill of Lan Wangji’s shoulder, and is unsurprised to find that the gloom eyes him back.

"Did you follow us all this way only to become shy?" Wei Wuxian asks the darkness.

The darkness does not reply.

"You’ve come too far to give up and be satisfied," he insists. "We’ll hear your request."

A gust streaks through the clearing, soft as a sigh yet sharp as a slap, snuffing their fire. Wei Wuxian watches the subtle twitch of Lan Wangji’s shoulder, the minute shudder of his control cinched between seconds of unsurety, and how instinct floods through to wash his fingers down the valley of his side until they’re curled around Bichen’s hilt.

"We would have hurt you by now if that was our intention." Wei Wuxian sighs. It’s unseemly, how even those who are outliers on the threshold can be so reluctant to accept the help they are asking for. Impractical. He flicks another peanut from the cup of his palm into his mouth. "Don’t you think your fear is a little foolish? There’s a limit to our unpriced patience— right, Lan Zhan?"

Lan Wangji nods, the shift of his fingers as they leave Bichen imperceptible to anyone and anything but Wei Wuxian.

Wei Wuxian’s tongue clicks against his teeth wetly as he chews. "So now you owe us! Come out from the trees and we’ll consider it paid."

"Close your mouth," Lan Wangji chides him.

Wei Wuxian obeys, of course, in his own way: by closing said mouth around his entire handful remaining. "Stuffy," is his muffled retort as he dusts his fingers of their crumbing, meeting the crest of Lan Wangji’s pique with a wink.

The snap of another twig ringing out into the night tells Wei Wuxian that the presence has turned his words over enough to decide on an answer. He rewards himself for his diligence by pinching at the crease of Lan Wangji’s robe that has rucked up the bend of his elbow while he chews, silently delighting in how the other pays him no mind at all.

With shambling steps, their pursuer limps out into the moonlight, veiled by the tangle of their frayed hair and the slump of their back. Wei Wuxian begins to exclaim, exerting a meaningless sound before he remembers himself, clapping his hand over his lips while he readies his other as a balm for the flare of Lan Wangji’s ire.

The spirit regards them, the clouded puncture of his eyes a dull gleam within their sunken, ashen sockets. Wei Wuxian can see that he does not wait with tolerance but in resignation; bodiless, the spirit is adrift, encumbered by his own powerlessness to right whatever it is that denies him respite.

"Lan Zhan." Wei Wuxian swallows, patting absently at the bob of his throat. "Ask him his name," he tries next, instead.

Lan Wangji has already called forth his guqin without Wei Wuxian’s ask, the pads of his fingers plucking at the strings. Inquiry billows out; ethereal and familiar, a sprawling panacea to wariness, a lantern within the murk. Wei Wuxian breathes; out, in. Listens as Lan Wangji shapes his question into music. Hears the pointed silence that follows in answer.

"You won’t tell us?" Wei Wuxian thumbs his nose. "It’s harder to become endeared to your cause when you are so cold, you know?"

Wei Wuxian looks at Lan Wangji. The spirit can only refuse because he is being granted the luxury. If Lan Wangji were not so gracious, his was a strength that could— no, would not be denied. How frightening. "Ask what he wants."

Lan Wangji looks back at him for the span of his nod before returning the keen blade of his gaze to his task, intent on the strum of his own fingers as they beckon forward the notes deemed suitable.

The strings flick in answer. "To find what he seeks."

Well, aren't they all? "Is it lost?" Wei Wuxian asks.

Lan Wangji slides his fingertip down a raised string, too quiet to hear, even in the silence. The spirit pinches it back.

"Missing," says Lan Wangji.

"Ah…" Wei Wuxian lets it lapse and hang, casting his eyes upward in thought. "Is it a who that’s missing, or a what?"

Lan Wangji proffers another tune. "Who," is the clarity he is granted in exchange, and what he then shares, in turn, with Wei Wuxian.

The unravelling of each inch has been sedulous, but now Wei Wuxian is starting to see the course each gain has been charting. "Who is missing?"

Lan Wangji’s fingers judder against his guqin at the spirit’s reply, lips parting with a strange, inexorable gingerness. "My heart," he murmurs. The cadence of it is hesitant, as though Lan Wangji is unsure of its exactitude, even as he parts with it.

It pulls at something within Wei Wuxian to hear it; buried deep and best forgotten. He shakes it from its encroach on his thoughts. "Who is that?" is what he asks, wasteful — for all it weighs on this one, it is not something that either tells or matters.

He does not look at Lan Wangji throughout the moment the other man must take to compose himself before resuming. For a second time, the spirit denies them.

"How can we help you when you won’t help us?" Wei Wuxian gripes. "You really are unreasonable. We are not in some fable, you know…"

"Wei Ying."

Wei Wuxian obediently discards his petulance. At least this once. "Can you at least tell us what she looks like?"

Lan Wangji has barely finished when the guqin springs to life, a glissando sweeping sweetly across the silk strings in eager response.

"...Beautiful," Lan Wangji summarises, after careful consideration and greater consternation.

"Beautiful," Wei Wuxian repeats, incredulous. "Beautiful, that’s, hah, perfect, that could be anyone, really— no, no, Lan Zhan, don’t tell him that, or he really might become vengeful."

"Mn." Lan Wangji begins to pluck one of the strings with his right hand, the fingers of his left tapping in turn. The ensuing sound is honeyed, as pleasant a surprise as a sunshower over a thatched roof in drought.

The spirit’s answer is sombre in stark contrast. Wei Wuxian tilts his head, brow furrowing.

"She has a charm," Lan Wangji says. "Bronze, with flowers."

"So you asked if this heart of his had any defining possessions?" Wei Wuxian laughs. "Ah, Hanguang Jun really is the best. Where did she go missing, then?" What a help that charm will be as long as it turns up somewhere, as with its owner as without.

One caress; two plucks. "Shenqiu."

"Shenqiu?" Wei Wuxian splutters, staring at and through the spirit in disbelief. "Shenqiu? The Shenqiu we just left?"

Lan Wangji simply sets about dismissing his now quiescent guqin as Wei Wuxian rants after the retreating spirit, moving only to interrupt him with a hand to the wrist when the instrument has departed and Wei Wuxian has begun to simmer. "Wei Ying."

Wei Wuxian’s nostrils flare as he snorts, brow crinkling. "Could he not have approached us three nights ago?" he grumbles. "Now we have to walk back…"

He casts a glance down between them, at the bridge of their bodies where Lan Wangji’s fingers have encircled him. Lan Wangji releases him so quickly that just for a moment, just for a beat, Wei Wuxian’s ears ring.

"Lan Zhan—" Wei Wuxian snatches his hand back, feeling the impulsive tremble of resistance before Lan Wangji can quell it. Panic purls up Wei Wuxian’s throat, and he turns Lan Wangji’s hand over in his own until his knuckles are resting in the basin of his cupped palm, his other lifting to press over the flutter of Lan Wangji’s pulse. "Is something wrong? Are you hurt?"

Lan Wangji shakes his head. Wei Wuxian is cornered between the blatant lie and the need to spare Lan Wangji from his suspicion of it.

"Right, of course," he answers, choosing and becoming the part of the ignorant, giddy fool in an instant. "What could hurt you?" Wei Wuxian — the silly little bronze charm girl of another sordid story — winds their fingers together, and tugs Lan Wangji towards him without repent, his grin toothy and spirited. "Then it’s fine if you take care of me, isn’t it?"

"Yes," says Lan Wangji, simple and easy enough. The always left unsaid but never undone; much like the uncausal tragedy of the world, all its unkindness. Ever-present and waiting, unexpectant, for a moment's pause; for grieved good to find it.