#poor xichen

There is a small child crying somewhere nearby. 

It shouldn’t be as distracting as it is. Wangji is stretched out on his belly, his back shredded and bleeding through the bandages at an alarming rate. There is the mystery child they had discovered unconscious on his bed when they bore Wangji back after his punishment--he is now curled up next to Wangji under the covers, pale and feverish.

Exhaustion lays flatly over Xichen with no poetry--so many dead; his uncle on the verge of qi deviation over Wangji’s behavior, over their massive losses in the combined slaughters of Qiongqi Way and the Nightless City, and over Wei Wuxian, who is dead--who had killed himself and torn apart the fragile pieces of his brother, so tenderly fastened to him. 

Xichen had been so afraid...so afraid that Wangji was going to follow him. Over the cliff or under the lashes. He is afraid now. Shakingly so.

 His eyes burn under the combined power of sheer sleeplessness, withheld grief, and the fact that he had fought for his life not 24 hours ago. Right now, they must be red rimmed, the lids sticking and heavy. He is no stranger to horrible circumstances. He is no stranger to distraction in the midst of trying to remain calm and focused. 

And yet the wailing of that nearby child is like a hook in his ribs and he cannot keep from turning toward it like some strange sea plant caught in a current, yearning toward the sun far above the murk. When he lays a hand on both of their foreheads, he finds Wangji and this child’s energy low and distant--they will not wake for hours but they are stable. Levering himself up to his feet, every muscle in his legs either shaking water or aches, he follows the sound.

It crescendos to a shrieking, hysterical pitch as he opens the door to one of the newer common houses they had constructed after the fires. He finds a handful of Juniors in a panic, wrangling upwards of a dozen children in various stages of distress. It is late, nearly midnight, far past standard Lan bedtimes and it shows on every temper-twisted face in the room. When the Juniors spot him, they freeze, then dip into frantic bows that some of the older children clumsily imitate as the murmur of, “Zewu-jun,” ripples through them underneath the wails. The screaming child is young, perhaps a year and a half old, red in the face and squirming so hard the girl holding him is having a hard time keeping her grip.

“We’re so sorry if we disturbed you, zongzhu,” she half-shouts over the din, desperately joggling the boy around in her arms, swaying on the spot. “We’re trying to get them to quiet down.”

“Are their parents….”

When he stops, unable to find the words he hopes for--or dreads--in the weary, dire mush that had become his mind, one of the boys hesitantly answers, “They all left for the Nightless City with you, Zewu-jun. Some have checked in and said they will collect them later. There must...I suppose there must have been a lot of injuries. No one has told us what’s going to happen.”

They’re scared. Lost.

Everything in disarray. Such a mess. He apologizes, praises their resilience, assures them someone will be by to arrange for more suitable accommodations. They bow and insist it was their duty and try not to look relieved.

The wailing child has reached the stage of hysterics where every ounce of his strength is going into each scream, petering out into the ominous silence of reached lung capacity, then a heaving gasp, and it starts all over again. The poor girl holding him is close to tears herself. 

Wangji had never cried loudly that he could remember. He would sit stock still, red faced and silent and shaking. When he was very young, he would let Xichen sidle up next to him and loop an arm around his shoulders, let him turn him into his chest until the front of his robes were covered in tears and snot, but he never let anything but gulps of air escape him. 

It had been so many years since Wangji had let Xichen hold him.

Xichen turns out his hands. “Here.”

“Zongzhu, I--” she half protests until the boy twists so mightily, a thrashing hand punches her straight in the throat. He is still a very young toddler, but toddlers possess the unique ability to channel their entire being into one single emotion and his is lung-crumpling upset. Rage. Fear. Hunger. Exhaustion. Desperation.

The child is no happier in Xichen’s arms, but his hold is sure, tucking the boy to his chest as he strokes the black fluff of sweat dampened hair. The screams are growing hoarse and rattle through Xichen’s chest. “Who are his parents?” He finds himself swaying slowly on the spot, still running his fingers through the child’s hair as he wails into Xichen’s shoulder, fists balled in his robes.

“Only his mother, zongzhu--Lan, uh, Lan Liu.”

Of all things from the past few days, this catches a squeezing in his throat as he nods. The memory of a crumpled form in the blood-churned muck, a shoe print between shoulder blades. A red tide across white. Too far, too slow. Alone. He lay his hand on the boy’s back, let his cries buzz through his palm. 

“His name?”

The girl, massaging her throat answers, “Lan Fu, Zewu-jun.”

“Someone is coming,” he assures the Juniors, reassures them all with a stretched smile. Relief at the idea of respite from the noise and responsibility is clear on every face. “Soon, you can rest. You have all done...so well.”

They bow and murmur him out again. He finds some Seniors, some Elders, some parents and directs them. They are too polite to grimace at the rule-breaking noise of the child in his arms. 

He walks with Lan Fu. His wails are rough, pitifully thin things, now. His hot, wet face is tucked into Xichen’s throat and the collar of his robe is sopping, but he walks and rubs his back and hums. Sometimes it’s nonsense, sometimes it’s songs of calming, and sometimes it’s the lullabies his mother had sung whenever he would nap in the Jingshi, soft and sweet. Screams to hiccups to whimpers to sniffles to silence. He is not asleep because Xichen can feel the cold brush of his eyelashes against his pulse. Every once in a while, he’ll heave a deep, shaky sigh.

“There, now. There we are.” It’s senseless crooning, but it seems to do him good. Perhaps it does both of them good, for he can’t seem to stop. “Deep breaths. That’s good, little one. You’re alright.”

Perhaps it’s a lie and perhaps it’s not what needs to be said, but just now, Xichen finds that he needs to believe it. “You’re alright,” he says again as he opens the door to the Jingshi.

It smells of metal, thick and cloying. There is blood on the bedclothes. Wangji is still and pale, but breathing, labored and shallow. He shifts Lan Fu to one arm, squeezing him when his fists tighten like little claws in the cloth. “You’re alright. I’m not leaving. I have you,” he whispers.