Imagination 12, on the train, dining car | OTA

[only_one_wei]

Wei Wuxian slumped down onto the bench and laid his head on the table. "This is a catastrophe," he declared, slightly muffled by his position. "I've recovered from the battle, gotten all cleaned up, and I am out of wine."

He gave a heartfelt sigh before turning his head. "How are you doing? You weren't injured, were you?"

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[only_one_wei]

He looked up at her and frowned. "No," he said quietly.

"I felt...helpless out there, and I...let a sect member die." He pinched his lips together and reached out to just barely touch her hand. Losing one of his own was still an open wound, he'd discovered.

Then he sat up and shook himself, his usual grin coming out again. "But I'm good now, right? He'll be back, and you won't even have to heal him. Which reminds me, I had an odd thought while we were waiting for the train to come back."

"If I were to buy eyes from the train, do you think you could give daozhang his sight back?" And now she knows why he hasn't gone and bought wine...

[radishlobbyist]

He let a sect member die. Right. Wen Qing's own face tightens, her hands folded together, knuckles tight enough to go white.

"You didn't let anyone die," she says, her voice a little too curt maybe to count strictly as comforting, though it is certainly intended as such. But her own frustration is bubbling up at the thought, at the shock she had felt when she learned of it by overhearing an offhand mention. "I don't know what happened down there with you two but I know you."

He may not be the Wei Wuxian of her own world but there are some things she is convinced remain the same across universes. Such as knowing the kind of man he is. That he would immediately think of helping someone else after failing to save another only proves it.

It's an urge she feels herself sharing, so she lets herself think about it instead of immediately dismissing it... "An eye transplant is something Baoshan Sanren did, and I'm no Baoshan Sanren," she cautions, "but there are many healers and doctors here. Baoshan Sanren did it all by herself. I... Normally I would say I can't but we shouldn't dismiss a chance to do good without trying."

[only_one_wei]

"He did die heroically," Wei Wuxian said with a half smile and a half laugh. He didn't really feel cheerful though. "We were on opposite parts of the field though, so I couldn't do anything." He shook his head. "I need to be a better mentor."

"You did manage a successful golden core transplant," he reminded her, his smile turning more fond. "And as you kept reminding me, the odds were against that. Even if grandmother had done it. So I have absolute faith in you. And in your colleagues here on this train."

[radishlobbyist]

A heroic death, he would get some enjoyment out of such fame, Wen Qing thought to herself, though she couldn't quite bring herself to join in with the laughter, no matter how humorless it really was. There was just a wan smile flickering over her face.

"I did manage a golden core transplant, but that was a desperate situation and you were very persuasive." Now, the smile lingered, a little wistful as she thought back to that compound in Yiling, to arguing with Wei Wuxian in the library, though she wondered if it had happened in the same way for him. "You asked me if I wouldn't take the same risk for my brother. I couldn't refuse you then." She ran her fingers over the tabletop. "Daozhang is very kind, he deserves just as much regard. And I won't have to do it alone with just my brother this time, nor will I be as pressed for time... if he even agrees."

[only_one_wei]

Wei Wuxian nodded firmly. "I will ask him...persuasively, then." He grinned. "I have the points. I'll order them. Uhm, human, brown...anything else I should specify?"

He sighed. "I miss both our brothers. But...perhaps it is for the best mine isn't here." He gave a laughing snort. "Could you imagine?"

[radishlobbyist]

"Very well, I will leave persuading the patient to you then," she agrees, a little amused. It would be hard to withstand Wei Wuxian's enthusiasm, even if he is initially skeptical. She gives a snort. "As long as the train understands these eyes are intended for a transplant and not as a trophy, we should be fine. It has been good at giving me exactly what I need for my purposes, even when I didn't specify."

Another grin flickers over her face as she lets her eyes wander down the length of the train carriage, and imagines Jiang Cheng storming around here. That would be sure to tax everyone's nerves. "Jiang Cheng, here? I can't see him being happy to be locked up in a small space with hundreds of people."

[only_one_wei]

"I will be very careful," he promised, not specifying if he meant his uncle or the train.

"I would drive him mad within the week. And that's if he came from a time period where he actually liked me!" Wei Wuxian said with an enormous grin.

[radishlobbyist]

That actually gets a snort of laughter out of Wen Qing, as well as a fondly exasperated look. "And then where would you be running to escape him? This is a train, at the end of the train he would catch up to you!"

It would be entertaining, though, she's got to admit that to herself. At least for a day or two, at which point the hollering is bound to give everyone a headache.

[only_one_wei]

"I would run to Lan Wangji, of course! He'd protect me. Or to you. He respected you too much to just...be himself in front of you." Wei Wuxian grinned again.

[radishlobbyist]

Wen Qing's lips twitch, though there is a hint of old pain lurking in her eyes at the mention of her own memory with Jiang Cheng. She shakes that off, forcing her mind back onto the teasing.

"I wouldn't let him chase you with Zidian," she promises, "Lan-gongzi would never forgive me. But I would let him chase you without a little bit, maybe, if you deserved it..."

[only_one_wei]

He sees the pain, and it finally answers a question for him. Why did his brother have to be so incredibly stupid.

"Well, thank you...wait! What...how could I possibly deserve it?" he asks, pretending affront. "I was the perfect second, you know. I uplifted, I supported, I covered his failures. Ours would have been the best clan in the world!"

[radishlobbyist]

Much like the mention of Jiang Cheng, Wei Wuxian's bold claim has her first chuckling, then turn somber as her line of thoughts proceeds.

This time, unlike when she was thinking of her own feelings for Jiang Cheng, she forces herself through the discomfort - it's always easier talking about others than herself.

"You would have been," she responds, far too solemn for their banter, "You would have been as good to them as you were to us." Her eyes drop to the table and her hands, tightly clenched. "If it hadn't been for us..." For her. If it hadn't been for her, pleading with him for a favor that changed his life.