Inbox: Ximilia

[singlelogbridge]

// Wei Wuxian

TEXT • AUDIO • VIDEO

XIMILIA

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a few days after the return to the station

[calmness]

( a few days after the orbers have returned to the station, a cardboard tube is left outside of wei wuxian’s door. his name is written on the outside on xichen’s fine script.

there is no note attached but inside are three paintings. the first is of lan sizhui looking roughly ten, beaming with excitement and holding a sword. the second is of the same boy but now he is nearly a man, his smile softer and gentler as he stands in a pose that mirrors one of the father that raised him.

the last painting is of lan wangji and unlike the refined works that the previous two are this one was done in haste, the strokes rough but capture the softness in his brother’s edges and the smile in his gaze. it is a rare thing but xichen knows it well for it is a sight reserved for few; for sizhui, for xichen himself, and for a wei wuxian that is not the man here but may one day know this smile. )

[singlelogbridge]

[When Wei Wuxian has finished unrolling the first picture, Gwen isn't in the room and that's for the best. He sits down on the bed with the painting in hand and makes sure that his tears don't get the paper wet. He studies every detail, memorizing the shape of a-Yuan's smile—much loved and well missed—and he traces the round of his cheek, no longer gaunt with need.

Wei Wuxian cries silently as he stares at the boy who was almost his son. He sits there like that for over an hour, staring and weeping and aching so deeply he doesn't know what to do.

When he's finally able to set the first painting down, he debates waiting to unravel the other two, knowing that whatever they're of they're likely to hurt just as much. Then again, he's never shied away from hurting himself. He unravels them both.

As expected, they both hurt, but the one of Lan Wangji shatters what was left of his composure and he falls to the grounds and weeps loudly and openly, curling into a ball and trying to breathe through his chest rattling sobs. It's a good thing that Gwen is off doing something else because there is no hiding or containing this, and it's all he can do to roll them back up and then retreat into the shower to curl up on the floor and cry some more.

Eventually he'll come out and wander the station, avoiding anyone he knows to keep to himself before finally returning later that night.

The next day the tube gets placed under his bed with the paintings of 10 year old a-Yuan and the one with Lan Wangi safely stored inside. The one of a-Yuan as a young man gets carefully tacked to the wall in the center of other various poems, paintings and pictures.]