westwhere | i will not ask you where you came from

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i will not ask you where you came from

WHO: Wen Kexing & Zhou Zishu
WHEN: Shortly after the TDM
WHERE: Ephes ( a tavern )
WHAT: Just two awful men reuniting for the love affair of the century.
WARNINGS: No, unless a mass murderer being absolutely pathetic is something to warn for. We're retconning their tdm meeting with permission, however!

The tavern is already full and noisy by the time Wen Kexing arrives, brow furrowed and a bundle of papers in his arms. He slips in easy enough, ducking around patrons to make his way to the bar, gaining the servers attention just by rapping his knuckles against the wood of the counter. A smile, and his bundle is taken away, promises that they will be signed and returned given. A cup of wine placed in front of him that he knocks back with a grimace, his constant headache looming behind his eyes. The server, a broad shouldered man who knows Wen Kexing, tells him he's just missed someone buying a round, and he gives a wry smile, tossing down his coin just as easily. Another cup, and he tilts his head to listen to a group of girls gossiping about the handsome man in the corner, pulling his fan from his sleeve so he can wave it lazily in front of his face.

He's tired, too irritable to make conversation, too busy to leave. He just needs the papers signed by the man in charge and then he can go back to his rooms and drink himself into oblivion, that's all. It shouldn't take long. But still he leans on one elbow to scan the room, idle and bored. It takes him a full sweep before his mind catches up with him and that attention snaps to that very same corner, the handsome brooding man he'd just heard about. They don't do him justice, he thinks, sudden and hysterical. He almost opens his mouth to correct the group of girls when they chitter about the prospect of walking over, but instead he's snapping his fan shut and moving, feet clumsy and his tongue suddenly dry.

The robes are new, the robes are new but he'd recognise him anywhere.

"Ah-Xu."

That lovely face snaps up to look at him, Wen Kexing having to steady himself by placing a hand on the table in front of him. He's shaking a little, he can feel it all the way up to his shoulder. There is a pin in his hair that matches the one in Wen Kexing's own and he thinks wildly that it suits him, that it's unfair that it suits him, when he can't remember placing it there.

"Ah-Xu, we can't keep meeting like this."

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"That's what I said."

Sulky, indignant. He knew he wasn't wrong. But the mood has shifted a little and so he wrests it back now, reaching out a hand to snag the wine from Zhou Zishu's lax grip, turning the bottle so that he can drink from exactly the same side, eyes dark as he does so. He takes a deep swallow all the while holding eye contact, wipes the back of his wet mouth with his hand after.

"How much further then? I know you're from later, Ah-Xu. I know I gave you that."

The hairpin, he means. Unless he died, and his zhiji is wearing it as some kind of memorial token. He considers asking, but Zhou Zishu isn't treating him like he's a ghost come back to life. It makes more sense that Wen Kexing chose to, there isn't a safer place for the armoury key beyond his own head. It does make him wonder why though. Would he give it up if he thought atop his own head was the wrong place? Maybe.

Wen Kexing's deliberate choice of where to drink from isn't subtle in the least, and it makes Zhou Zishu want to smile, tugging at the corner of his lips. This silly man. Doesn't he know he doesn't need to do things like that anymore?

Ah.

No, he doesn't. Because he's missing the information that Zishu has. Missing what they've gone through. It sends grief streaking through Zhou Zishu in a way reminiscent of how it felt when he thought Wen Kexing had died.

"A few months after that," he says carefully. He reaches up to his hair, though he doesn't touch the stick safely tucked into the long locks. "And you did, yes. You chased-- You chased away the person who was helping me to take over yourself, as though you're nothing more than a servant." Or a spouse. "Do you want it back?"

He doesn't want to give it back, but it isn't fair to keep it when Wen Kexing didn't even know he's gifted it.

"No."

He wants to break the one in his own so that Zhou Zishu alone has it, an impulse that surprises him at the same time that it doesn't. Of course he wants to, it's a claim in a way. He's surprised Zhou Zishu allows it, and he's hungry for the why's to that too. He supposes he has the time to find out now.

"It looks better on you than it could me."

It is safer with him.

"You know I'd be anything you'd have of me anyway, don't sound so surprised."

"Are you sincere?"

It slips out, unbidden. The Wen Kexing he knows, he wouldn't have to ask. This Wen Kexing, who is the exact same person yet isn't at all, he can't help but wonder at. He's like a child, his Lao Wen, still hurting and grieving over the loss of his innocence from twenty years ago, and denying it all the while.

He reaches out, covers Wen Kexing's hand with his own in a bold move. "Lao Wen," he says quietly, the wine loosening his tongue. "Are you sincere?"

"Can't you tell?"

He's still under Zhou Zishu's touch, his eyes wide when he looks back at him. There's something he's missing, he thinks, some experience he has yet to live. He wishes, not for the first time, that he could dig around a little in the other man's skull, pluck the answers free. He's always been an enigma, it will be worse now.

"I am."

He licks his bottom lip, mouth suddenly dry, heart hammering away in his chest. He wants - but no, Zhou Zishu had been very drunk when he'd found him. So he has to use his words instead and that feels somehow more mortifying than he'd like, his insides squirming with his unrest. "Ah-Xu, I know how I acted when we met, but I -. I really -." A curse, another helpless twisting of his expression. He wishes he had his fan to hide behind, "I mean it. Whatever way you'd have me, I'd be yours. I didn't even know what it was like to be me before you."

They really shouldn't be having this conversation when Zhou Zishu is as drunk as he is. He presses his free hand to his forehead, the other tightening around Wen Kexing's in a steady grasp.

"And when I die?"

"Then I die too."

Simply enough, though perhaps not what Zhou Zishu wants to hear. But he takes a breath anyway, trying very hard to ignore the way the thought has turned sour inside of his stomach, the panic rising along with the sickness.

"There are people here, Ah-Xu. People with powers well beyond my comprehension. If you're worried we're too far for Ye Baiyi to reach us then don't, I'll find someone to cure you. I'll do whatever it takes."

He shifts, leaning closer, reaching out a hand to take the other, bring both wrists to catch in his grasp.

"You're not dying on me, Zhou Zishu. You're not. So don't think about it."

Perhaps it's the wine. Perhaps it's the stress of the long day in so unfamiliar a place. Perhaps it's just finally having Wen Kexing back at his side where he belongs. Zhou Zishu's eyes burn, and he has to look away.

"If you can-- If there is someone here who can help me--"

He takes a breath.

"Senior Ye's help can't reach us here, in any case." And even if Wu Xi miraculously showed up, Zishu knows that he's ruined any chance of being able to be saved. The moment he forced the Nails out of his body, he knew. "I don't want to die, Lao Wen. We have to watch your girl get married and have a fat, bouncing boy. Chengling still needs so much training before he can take on the legacies he's inherited. There is so much of the world for us to see, so much wine for us to drink... If there is someone who can help me, then I'll pay whatever price I need to for it."

"Stop."

Dread is an old friend to Wen Kexing, he feels it looming now, spectral in the dark corners of the room. "Ah-Xu. You're not going to die. As if I'd let you!"

He knows how he is, half-mad most days, monstrous the rest. If he has to channel that to get someone to help then he will. There are so many people here, with so many skills, if he must barter or bully his way into gaining aid then that's simply what he'll do. Already his mind is ticking over the possibilities, who he could call upon, who might be swayed, but there's little he can do right now without a fully solid plan. So instead he lets one hand go, reaches out to cup it carefully around Zhou Zishu's neck.

"Listen to me, we'll have all that. Even if I have to accept that ridiculous worm as a son-in-law. You don't have to worry, I'll solve it." And then, with a weak attempt at humour, "I'm not raising your disciple for you anyway, so be good and put it out of your head."

He'd die, as soon as Zhou Zishu anyway. There would be no carrying on in his stead.

If (when) he dies, though, despite all that Wen Kexing says, Zhou Zishu knows that he's too soft at heart to leave Chengling and Gu Xiang alone. And if (when) he dies, Zhou Zishu will do it somewhere far away, so that he isn't one more ghost haunting Wen Kexing's mind. Beiyuan and Wu Xi won't be happy about it, but they'll cover for him and take care of Wen Kexing until he's able to move past Zishu's death.

However, if there's a way to stop that. To, at least, hold his condition in stasis until they're able to get back home... He'll grab at whatever opportunity he can with both hands.

"You don't have to do everything on your own," he says quietly, leaning into Wen Kexing's touch. "That's how things go badly, Lao Wen."

"Well then, don't make me."

Don't die, he means, don't leave me. The fingers against Zhou Zishu's neck twitch, and he heaves out a sigh, finding the wine from between them and leaning away only to place it carefully where it won't be knocked and spilled. Then he's shifting to his knees, a hand on each of Zhou Zishu's shoulders, squeezing. He's too skinny, even now, and Wen Kexing has to wonder what he spent the months doing if not searching desperately for a cure or trying his best to fatten him up.

"You're going to be fine."

If he says it often enough, firmly enough, then maybe it will be true.

"I'll ask around, mm?"

He should have been doing so before. He's wasted so much time simply expecting he would return home and Ye Baiyi would have pulled through. How foolish.

"Now stop being maudlin, or I won't let you drink anymore."

"Don't do anything on your own. And especially don't do anything stupid on your own." His tone is very, very flat. "Haven't we kept enough from each other? No more secrets, Lao Wen."

And if he sounds a bit pleading--well. He's allowed to.

No more secrets, he says, as if Wen Kexing is not made of the things. He sits back on his heels, deflated, suddenly moved to chewing the inside of his cheek like a child. It is hard not to want to immediately slam the walls back up, that urgent, desperate fear that he will be found out and cast aside gripping him by the throat. No more secrets, as though Wen Kexing could easily spread them out between them and not cower from it?

"Ah-Xu."

He wishes he hadn't put the wine aside. It feels too obvious to reach for it now. He lets go of Zhou Zishu instead, fidgeting with the fall of his own robes, fingers plucking. This week has been nothing but the open raw wounds of Wen Kexing's past seeping out, could he do it again? He doesn't know.

"I don't lie to hurt you. But surely some things are better left in the dark?"

He grabs for Wen Kexing's hands, gripping them tightly. Zhou Zishu feels very, very sober right now.

"When you gave this to me," he says quietly. "You asked me why I wasn't more surprised to see you. And I told you that I may not have known how or when, but I knew you would come for me."

There's a wealth of information he's implying with what he's saying, but he isn't going to give Wen Kexing the luxury of knowing those gory details.

"Am I wrong? Are you so different to the Lao Wen that pledged himself to me?"

"No."

The fact that Zhou Zishu might doubt him has him startled into movement, a flock of birds on the wind. His own hand clutch back, desperate, white knuckled, mouth twisting in something close to misery.

"I'd always come for you, Ah-Xu. I don't care how far, or how difficult, or how impossible it might be. But that's not what I -." He cuts himself off, teeth clacking. And then, helpless. "What if it's horrible? What if the things that I've been are too awful to look at? I know I did this all wrong in the beginning, but I'm trying now. I've been trying. I just don't want to lose you. Even here, the only thing that's kept me going is knowing I could get back."

"Lao Wen," he says again, then. He tightens his hands on Wen Kexing's not letting him pull away, because he knows he'll try.

"You asked me once, and I'll tell you again. You are a good person. In all the ways you are not, neither am I. I would protect you from all the pain of your past if I could, but I can't regret that it's made you who you are. It's only because of that, thst we fit so well together, you and I. Or do you think my hands are any cleaner than yours, Valley Master?"

He had hoped he could coax Wen Kexing into telling him on his own time, but he also remembers how Wen Kexing ran off to face Te Baiyi alone rather than admit it to Zhou Zishu. Perhaps it'll be easier to just point out that he's well aware of it all.

Reflexively he tugs, Zhou Zishu had the right idea of tightening his grip because his first instinct is to try and flee. It's an animal kind of panic, a fox caught in a trap and willing to gnaw at it's own leg for freedom. It is only because it is Zhou Zishu himself that Wen Kexing doesn't lash out, and after a second the breath that had caught tight in his chest loosens, comes free in a ragged exhale.

"It's different."

It feels as though it is to Wen Kexing. There has always been something wrong in him. His teeth bare, a spike of familiar pain lancing behind his skull, he realises distantly that his hands are shaking. How terribly close the Valley feels, so far away from it's mountains, how badly he approaches being human. But Zhou Zishu is still holding on to him, is still looking at him, and Wen Kexing raises his head with guilty eyes.

"Why aren't you angry?"

"Why should I be?"

He sighs, letting go of one of Wen Kexing's hands so he can mirror their earlier position. Wen Kexing's cheek is soft beneath his hand, warm, and Zhou Zishu pats it a few times before sliding his hand down to cup Wen Kexing's nape, pressing their foreheads together.

"I knew, Lao Wen. There's only so many people in the jianghu who can match me, and practically none that I wouldn't know." He shakes Wen Kexing carefully. "You did what you had to. Lao Wen, you'll get your revenge. You find who was responsible for everything, and avenge your parents. You will get your happy ending."

Or, mostly. He hopes that he didn't leave behind a body when he came here, that he didn't die in Ghost Valley right before the wedding. It'll certainly put a damper on celebrations.

It's a little much. Wen Kexing finds it hard to control his emotions at the best of times, but after the week he's had his defences are tattered, useless things. His eyes are wet, he knows, adrenaline and fear and dreadful hope flooding his veins. Does he do it, truly? Could he possibly succeed? Even at the height of his mania the certainty of his victory had always come with a cost. He'd crawled from the Valley not expecting to survive, and that was all right, wasn't it? If he found somewhere for Gu Xiang, if he gave her a nice life with someone else that would be enough.

And then he had stumbled over Zhou Zishu, and he'd still been certain this would all end with his death, but he wanted to survive then. The world was brighter, vaster, better, all of a sudden.

He clears his throat, an ache in it, "If I wake up in the morning and find this has all been a dream and you're not actually here, I'll burn this entire place to the ground, Ah-Xu. I really will."

The ghosts that have been haunting him lately have been too real. This could be one as well, he thinks, nervous gaze alighting over Zhou Zishu's face. But no, it feels real.

"So you know, and you still -?" Ah, emotions are terrible, he wants to drink, he wants to sleep, he wants to crawl into Zhou Zishu's ribcage and stay there. And then, carefully. "What are we, in the future?"

"We are--"

What are they?

"Zhiji," he says, for lack of anything better. "You're the reason I want to live."

It is both the answer he wants to hear and not. Truthfully, Wen Kexing has been pondering the state of them since he arrived here, since multiple people have implied that he is a very much taken man, despite how easily he'd slipped into the sleazy, unserious skin he used to wear. He can't say it isn't appealing, it is, it's everything he wants in fact, but it's also vaguely terrifying.

Maybe he's still a coward in the future.

But, Zhou Zishu knows who he is. And he still calls Wen Kexing zhiji. Isn't that enough? And so he lets out a wet laugh, smiles, leans back to wipe at his eyes.

"Ah, good. You've caught up then. I thought I'd have to spell it out for you."

Isn't being the reason he's no longer seeking death enough? Isn't it a declaration of sorts that Wen Kexing is the reason he's looking for a way to live?

Zhou Zishu thinks he knows what Wen Kexing wants, but he doesn't know. His own Lao Wen, he's more sure of, but a few months makes all the difference and he's frightened--Zhou Zishu can admit that to himself. He's frightened of the differences, of pushing too hard and too fast and scaring his soft, silly Lao Wen away.

"You're mine," he says, and means you are my person, you are mine to protect and care for. "Is that caught up enough?"

It settles something inside of him, the confirmation. What does it matter which shape they take, as long as Wen Kexing can be his. There was a reason those shining days of childhood bliss stayed long after he drank the Meng Pao soup, though he'd been too young to understand it then - that bright fascination he'd had, that want, a boy a little older offering him the hand of friendship. He's yearned to belong somewhere else all these years, and here Zhou Zishu is, offering it. Wen Kexing laughs once, a hiccup of sound, leaning back in to press their foreheads together again. He closes his eyes, takes a breath, lets some of the weight drop from his shoulders.

"Ah-Xu, you've gone soft."

So has he, if he's honest.

A moment passes, two, and he opens his eyes, pulls reluctantly back into a more respectable sitting position. "It'll be midnight soon. Do you want to rest before?"

"I wasn't going to tell you..." He certainly didn't, the first time around, but it'll be too hard to hide, here. Especially when he's so dependent on Wen Kexing in this strange new place.

"The Nails, they don't...hurt. As much as they used to, at least. Senior Ye said it was an indication of my body's progression, but-- It's not so bad. Sometimes, they don't bother me at all, and I can sleep through most of the night."

"Oh."

Isn't that good? But then the rest of Zhou Zishu's statement catches up with him and an earnest, fervent light appears in his eyes. "You spoke to that old goat again? So he came back? Did he bring a cure? What was it?"

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