He doesn't sleep that night, needless to say.

Sensation returns incrementally to his paralyzed arms, millions of invisible pins and needles jabbing themselves through his skin, and the process is not so much painful as torturously frustrating. He wants nothing more than to march after Lan Xichen, seize him by the collar and demand that he answer for himself, but instead he's stuck here until such time as he can at least dress himself properly. After a few hours he regains enough motor control to drag the zhongyi off the ornamental screen and shrug it over his shoulders, half with his teeth and half with hands he can't raise past the elbow. But putting his arms through the sleeves without help, let alone doing all those tiny hooks back up, turns out to be physically impossible.

So he doesn't leave his quarters. He paces furiously, letting his arms flap behind him in his wake, and occasionally stops to stare at the door as if that might help him process whatever just happened; and when that doesn't work, he paces some more. But he does not leave, and he does not sleep. As far as he's concerned, whether or not he ever sleeps again is neither relevant nor worth giving a single fuck about right now.

Tell me again that my blood runs cold.

Damn that doctor. Jiang Cheng is going to murder him as soon as his arms stop impersonating noodles that got sat on and then dried out in the sun.

He just nearly got kissed. On the mouth. Thirty-eight years of never meeting a single person who could make the concept seem any less like a colossally embarrassing waste of time, and now – the one time he really, truly wanted it, for the tenderness it promised as much as for the declaration it ought to have been – they had to go and get interrupted, because the cosmos loves its little playthings and Jiang Cheng has been one of them since he was fucking five. Shock, shock, surprise, surprise. Wei Wuxian would laugh himself to death if he could see him now, all atwitter because of a few caresses and a kiss that never even happened. Jiang Cheng, ah, Jiang Cheng, he'd say, grinning, what does an experienced gentleman like you have to be so nervous about, huh? Aiyoh, how embarrassing. Don't tell me you used those cheekbones for nothing but war while I was gone!

What began as a case of shellshock when Lan Xichen fled the room has rapidly devolved into what might with justice be called a tizzy. Jiang Cheng has never, to quote his brother, "put the moves on" anybody, and no one has ever, to quote the romances, "declared themselves" to him, but by all accounts that is exactly what happened tonight. He feels a little bit drunk, and a lot like he might be sick, but both these feelings are overridden by the impatience of almost getting something he wanted very badly on the first try. He can almost taste the kiss that was snatched from him. Not that he knows what a kiss is supposed to feel like, exactly, but he has always privately imagined that it must feel like heat and daring and single-minded purpose – like the world narrowing to a single point held between them, whoever they were, the two people who had decided to lay down their weapons and meet each other in the middle, unarmed and unshielded.

Which begs the question: where the hell does Lan Xichen get off, running away like that? So they were interrupted! Things never work for Jiang Cheng on the first try anyway! Since when is the First Jade of Lan such a skittish fawn? Now that it's occurred to Jiang Cheng that he might be wanted in return, it can't un-occur to him, and he's starting to see his illustrious guest's behaviour toward him over the past few weeks in something of a different light. Whatever spurred Lan Xichen into nearly kissing him, it can't have been the fruit of a single night's temptation, can it?

And – oh. Ugh. Clearly he's more shaken than he realized, because "the fruit of a single night's temptation" sounds like something out of the salacious literature he's definitely never had the time or desire to read, and now he's thinking about how situations like theirs usually devolve into a great deal more than just kissing.

Realizing that he's stopped, horrified, in the middle of the room, Jiang Cheng feels his face grow hot all over again.

Fuck.

Lan Xichen knows that wasn't in any way on his mind, doesn't he? Jiang Cheng's arms were paralyzed, for heaven's sake. He would have had to do all the work himself.

Which is not a respectful mental image. Jiang Cheng gives himself a good hard imaginary slap and resumes pacing.

Dawn arrives, glowing blue through the glazed door and the still rain-wet windows: a transient, underwater sort of illumination. By now the first prudish hysterics have passed, and he has managed to calm himself down with the semblance of a plan. When he sees Lan Xichen again, he won't waste time like his idiot brother. He'll march right up to him and demand what exactly he meant to do the night before, and whether or not he's ashamed of having left the job unfinished. Or would it be better to just pretend like nothing happened, and … what, keep his fingers crossed that Lan Xichen might try and kiss him again without his having to ask or hint for it in any way whatsoever? No. Being nonconfrontational never got anyone anywhere. It certainly never got him anywhere, and he's tried it in enough political situations to know that when there's something you want, you either give it up or you hold the fucking line. And if this self-fortifying litany distracts him from the old, gnawing, slimy feeling of having done something wrong, then so much the better. He's not a child anymore. He shouldn't make assumptions. He shouldn't –

There's a discreet knock at the door. Jiang Cheng all but throws himself across the room to shoulder it open.

If it's him, he thinks wildly, pitching it aside on the runners, I'm going to tell him off like he's never been told off before. I'm going to let him have it. I'm going to

He promptly forgets what he was going to swear to do. On the other side of the threshold, Lan Xichen blinks and lowers his hand back to his side.

"Wanyin," he says, and takes half a step backward.

Jiang Cheng stops dead.

It's him.

He came back.

He came back, and he looks … remarkably as though last night's hunt never even happened.

How is it that, where mere mortals bear the evidence of sleepless nights and brutal journeys on their faces and clothes, the Jades of Lan contrive to look as if they've never heard of dust or dark circles in all their lives? Looking him over, Jiang Cheng becomes abruptly, hotly aware of his own state of undress: his hair loose and tangled as a swamp corpse's, a broad swathe of his chest and collarbone exposed by the torn shirt and the undone zhongyi. But Lan Xichen – heavens, no. He stands draped in five layers of irreproachably creaseless robes whose sterling corners have been tucked away exactly where they belong. His hair, tied up in one of his less ornate hairpieces, looks to have been freshly dried and combed out. Liebing hangs alongside Shuoyue on his waist, the sheath scrubbed clean of mud and moisture. Even his boots are once again pristine-white as peaflowers.

And over everything else, he wears a woolen winter cloak.

Jiang Cheng scans him from the crown of his head to the tips of his boots and back again, frowning, to meet his eyes.

He doesn't understand. At least, not straightaway. In that last, wavering instant, they stand there and watch one another like archers on opposite riverbanks, gauging the distance, the opportunity, the threat of return fire. Jiang Cheng doesn't know what Lan Xichen has come here to say, but he's already half ready to lower his guard, to put down the bow, to stretch out a hand across the water. The balance has not yet tipped. He could still be here to say, I am sorry for running away. He could be here to say, I meant it. Every word. He could be here to say, No matter how many sect rules I broke last night, our disciplines say that one's work, once begun, must be seen through to the end.

But even if the cloak didn't give him away, Liebing would. Lan Xichen never wears it on a daily basis, the xiao being too long to comfortably stow away inside a cultivator's sleeves, unless he is planning on using it or going somewhere he might need it. Besides that, his boots are of practical design, the robes only one of his second- or third-nicest sets, and then, of course, there is the cloak, tastefully worn at the edges by wind and rain. He's dressed for travel, and travel by sword.

"How do you feel?" Lan Xichen asks quietly, a beat too late.

Jiang Cheng says, "You're leaving."

It is neither command nor conjecture. It is statement of fact. Lan Xichen must catch something less than clinical in his voice anyway, because his expression shifts from tentative expectancy to guarded apprehension.

"Yes," he says, a bit too carefully. "I thought, in case … you might prefer to hear it from me as soon as possible."

It would be incorrect to say that Jiang Cheng can't think what to say to this. Half a dozen responses occur to him at once and then scatter, like a quart of fish emptied into a water tank. The politest of these is a half-sarcastic thank you, because the last few people who left him did so by dying horribly and without any sort of tactful advance warning. The rest aren't even worth entertaining. He cannot spit poison at Lan Xichen. He grasps blindly, instinctively, for anger, which has reliably swelled up inside his chest cavity at every moment of crippling vulnerability throughout his life, but it isn't there. It has deserted him.

And without it, he is weaponless.

It is not the same as talking to someone I know, and who knows me in return.

I suppose I must have learned them off by heart without even noticing.

How lucky I am not to have to endure it alone.

I know the other poem, you know.

Why did you not befriend me sooner?

Tell me again that my blood runs cold.

A great, glacial weight settles into the latticework of his bones.

Do you think that I have learned nothing after all this time?

Of course he has.

Of course.

It's Jiang Cheng who hasn't learned a goddamned thing.

Pieces of the lake are visible through the next row of buildings, and within it the forested horizon has blurred into a dark green smudge along the shoreline. The world is no longer washed in shades of blue, but the sun has not yet risen. A discreet enough hour to make one's escape. Lan Xichen watches him with an uncertain, faintly apprehensive air, no doubt anxious to know how he'll be received.

Waving him off would be the kind thing to do. It's all right, I understand. Please, be on your way, and give my regards to your uncle. No hard feelings.

Fuck that.

Jiang Cheng summons every ounce of icy dignity that has ever served him as lord protector of Yunmeng Jiang and wraps it around himself like a shield. "Well?" he asks curtly.

And – there. A flare of what might have been hurt, in Lan Xichen's eyes. Then it vanishes as if whatever possessed him last night has left nothing behind but still waters and a smooth shoreline.

"You have been a more than generous host," he begins quietly, after a moment. "And I thank you for … everything you have done for me. But I have been unforgivably presumptuous. There is no excuse for the way I behaved yesterday, none whatsoever, and I can only offer this paltry apology and a promise that I will depart Lotus Pier by sunrise." He clasps his hands and bows to Jiang Cheng – bows to him, like a thrall, like a debtor, like a common servant, and notch by notch, with every moment that he does not rise, the deliberate avoidance of familiarity grows starker. "I am deeply sorry. The friendship of Yunmeng Jiang is priceless to my sect, and I beg that any offense I have caused be counted against myself and myself alone. My conduct was unworthy of Gusu Lan, and it was unworthy of Jiang-zongzhu, for whom we have only the greatest esteem."

"Unworthy of the great Zewu-jun, too, I expect," Jiang Cheng says, dangerously soft.

Lan Xichen's clasped hands tighten until the knuckles go white. "I apologize also for the abrupt end to my stay," he says. He straightens, one hand coming to rest on the pommel of his sword, the other tucking itself behind his back as he reassumes the leave-taking posture of a visiting dignitary. "I made a commitment to teaching your disciples until the end of winter, and this will leave you understaffed on short notice. But given the circumstances, I think it would be best if I did not impose on your hospitality any longer. Not if I still wish, in good conscience, to call myself your friend."

Behind him, in the gap between two buildings, a few servants blink past, grabbing each other's elbows and hissing in stage whispers. Jiang Cheng's face has rigidified into the coldest, most forbidding expression he has ever unconsciously made. "I see," he says.

Lan Xichen's genteel mask cracks all the way through.

"Wanyin," he says; and swallows, and shakes his head. "I am so sorry. I should have known better. If there is anything the past four years have taught me, it is that when it comes to the people closest to me, I have a gift for seeing only what I wish to see. I ought to have learned better before taking any … any liberties."

Being struck across the face would have hurt less. Jiang Cheng remembers a phantom touch on his back, a grave voice, the thrilling and excruciating sensation of exposure. I am not sure what it is you want me to see, apart from the scars of a good man.

The water rises; the riverbanks swell. The bowstring digs bloody grooves into his palms as he pulls it back, viciously, and puts the arrow-point between them. "If that's all," he says coldly.

Lan Xichen's expression shutters. It seems for a moment as though he will not answer at all, but then he drops his gaze and draws something out of his sleeve, and proffers it with both hands.

"This belongs to you."

The lotus hairpiece glitters silver-and-violet in the brightening dawn. Jiang Cheng turns one of his hands palm-out, lifting it barely an inch, and Lan Xichen sets the hairpiece into it. It takes nearly the whole of his concentration to make his fingers close around it properly, but close around it they do, and good for them; otherwise he might have broken them all afterward for humiliating him.

"I know I can scarcely have the effrontery to make requests of you now," Lan Xichen says, after another brief silence, "but would you … if you could convey my regards – and my apologies – to your disciples, I would be very grateful."

"I'm sure they'll do fine without them," Jiang Cheng says shortly. With a massive effort, he hauls his eyes back up to Lan Xichen's face. "Was there anything else?"

Lan Xichen drops his gaze; it catches on the exposed swath of collarbone, like an autumn leaf snagging on the rain gutters, before falling again. "No," he says.

"Then I think we're done here," Jiang Cheng says. "Safe travels, Zewu-jun."

He turns and shuts the door in Lan Xichen's face.