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Far away, a fire crackled, distant and soft, the snapping sound biting at his ears, but he didn’t flinch. His gaze never lifted to find the source of the savage sting of the flames.
Shouts and screams rose around him, piercing the darkened sky looming above, the terrified and enraged voices melting into the black soil below his feet.
Chains rattled with every step. The rusted iron shifted and scraped, the warped metal clanging every time it was moved like a snarling protest of warped, poisoned metal.
Flames licked across his vision and heat swirled around him, fluttering through his robes, the scorching fieriness pressing on his skin.
Resentful energy bled through the forest, entangled within the black winds rippling in the air. The powers coursing through the earth pulsed at his feet, the vibrations passing through his skin and purring around his heart. The dark energy dripped through the trees like a sickly sludge, poisonously sweet and rancidly bitter. It flooded the sky and seeped into the ground, spreading through the forest in a wave of flooding ink, a poison in every sense of the word.
None of it mattered to him.
Shrill notes echoing through the burning forest had frozen his soul. The music lifted, trembling, as it found its way into the open air. Notes wavered and grew, searing his heart as they grew stronger, the sound of their quiet, mourning tone dominating his mind. The melody dipped and shuddered before rising into the sky again, certain but feeble as the rhythm stayed steady throughout the sharp, breathy tone of the makeshift flute.
Lan WangJi had seen pandemonium more times in his lifetime then he would ever be able to count. He was wherever chaos was, the water to flames that threatened to consume innocents. Almost nothing could make him halt; nothing could shock him.
Only the turmoil caused by one person had ever made him halt in his tracks, but it was impossible. He couldn’t be back, not from the dead. Lan WangJi knew all too well that this could not be the one person that he knew it was.
But, as the wavering notes of the flute shuddered and crescendoed, Lan WangJi knew it was the person that he knew it could not be.
Wei WuXian.
*
A bright-eyed boy, a grin plastered across his face as he laughed, pranced over the railing of the arching bridge with ease. His footsteps skipped and twirled, spinning him around as he leaped with ease across the narrow width of the bridge’s railing.
Lan WangJi walked next to Lan XiChen at the mouth of the waterfall that fed the water swirling under the boy’s bridge. As the brothers walked, Lan WangJi hesitated, his gaze finding the boy’s slender figure just as he dropped over the side of the bridge, grabbing the supports underneath and jumping across them to reach a small sandbar in the river. Lan WangJi stopped involuntarily, his eyes widening slightly as he watched the boys lithe form moving gracefully.
“What is it, WangJi?” Lan XiChen asked. Following his brother’s gaze, he smiled slightly. “Quite the character, isn’t he? Wei WuXian, the senior disciple of the YunmengJiang Sect and like a brother to Jiang Cheng.” With a twitch of his lips that looked suspiciously like a knowing grin, he prodded Lan WangJi’s side. “Go introduce yourself. I’m sure he would like to get to know you. Besides, from what I’ve heard of his reputation, you’re going to be seeing him a lot, especially in the ancestral hall.”
Lan WangJi calmed his expression and looked at Lan XiChen cooly. “I do not know what you speak of. We must be going,” he told his brother, beginning to walk again.
His brother huffed out a short laugh. “WangJi, I have not seen you make such an expression in quite a while. Say what you might, but I believe it would be best for you to meet him.”
“We are going,” Lan WangJi repeated, turning away from Lan XiChen.
As they walked, even though Lan WangJi prided himself on his self-control, he could not stop himself from glancing on more time at the boy standing in the sandbank as his companion shouted at him from the bridge. He carefully cataloged the way the sun fell on his face and played the shadows of his long hair, then forced himself to turn away, ignoring the lilting smile twisting the corners of his brother’s smirking lips.
*
Like his first encounter with the boy on the rooftop in the middle of the night, their second meeting proved that Wei WuXian was going to be a problem. A very, very large problem.
It didn’t take much for Lan WangJi to realize it, truly. He had been waiting in the Orchid Room for Wei WuXian to arrive, intending on making him serve punishment for the stunt he had pulled the night before. Wei WuXian had arrived with Nie HuaiSang and Jiang Cheng, stopping in his tracks when he saw Lan WangJi, explaining to the other disciples what he had done last night.
“You broke three rules on your arrival!” Nie HuaiSang exclaimed, nervously flicking a paper fan up to cover his face.
Lan WangJi focused his gaze on Wei WuXian, narrowing his eyes threateningly.
Jiang Cheng stepped closer to Wei WuXian, a hand coming to rest on his shoulder. Observing Lan WangJi, he murmured to Wei WuXian, “He’s targeted you. Good luck.”
Wei WuXian’s gaze swept over Lan WangJi, his expression thoughtful. His eyes brightened and his back straightened, a smirk twisting his lips.
Lan WangJi did not like the way that his expression looked. He didn’t like what it meant for Wei WuXian, and he certainly didn’t like the way that it twisted something inside him, insisting that he look at this boy’s smile and keep looking.
*
As Lan XiChen had predicted, Wei WuXian had indeed become someone Lan WangJi saw quite often. Being one of the largest handfuls the GusuLan Sect had ever had to contend with, the task of disciplining him was immediately shunted to Lan WangJi.
If the other members of the sect noticed that he went above and beyond his duty to follow and catch Wei WuXian, even in the dead of night on a rainy rooftop, no one dared to mention it. Even when Lan XiChen gave him knowing looks as Lan WangJi passed, dragging a laughing Wei WuXian behind him, he ignored it and focused on dealing with the troublemaking fiend that he was supposed to be keeping in line.
A task that had… not exactly been going very well. No matter what punishments were instilled on the boy, he would never stop laughing that carefree, golden laugh, promising that he would be back to once Lan WangJi caught him again.
Lately, to Lan WangJi’s frustration, the library had become infested with Wei WuXian’s rowdiness. A week of his supervised punishment had passed and Lan WangJi wasn’t sure how much more he could handle. First had come his incessant chattering and complaining, hovering right next to Lan WangJi, essentially crawling all over him in an effort to get his attention. When Lan WangJi silenced him, he resorted to writing papers. The papers were easy enough to ignore, so Wei WuXian turned to frantically attempting to talk, trying to break the silencing spell.
It took all the control in him not to snap his brush in half when Wei WuXian plastered himself against Lan WangJi’s back, his long hair brushing against Lan WangJi’s cheekbone and neck, and in his best attempts to talk, ended up moaning in his ear without even realizing what he was doing.
Needless to say, nothing about this situation was going well.
*
Maybe that had been a bit of a lie. If Lan WangJi was to be honest and unearth a part of him that hides deep, deep down and tell the truth, he truly did enjoy spending days in the Library Pavilion with Wei WuXian’s cheerful company. Yes, it was arduous and strange, but every time he saw Wei WuXian’s eyes scrunching closed, laughing that sparkling laugh, Lan WangJi thought that sitting through his teasing might just be worth it.
Wei WuXian would look at him with those strong eyes and slender face with such a strange smile playing across his lips and Lan WangJi felt his chest constrict in a way it never had before. Wei WuXian laughs like he has never been touched by sorrow or fatigue; he is a creature of endless mirth and joy, filling rooms with his bright laughter and brighter grin. Lan WangJi was halfway convinced that this boy had been blessed by something light and free when he was young, something that gave him endless pleasure and wonder, somehow that allowed him to be so beautiful as he smiled.
Sometimes, Wei WuXian’s presence drives him to the brink of madness. Having a bright, burning boy crashland into his world was nice, but it came with its own consequences. Namely, figuring out how to deal with the said boy.
Lan WangJi’s world had always been one of cleanliness and order, purpose and straight paths. He had never had to deal with a disturbance such as this before. The balance of this world tiled askew every time he saw Wei WuXian and he didn’t know what to make of it. Nothing about it made sense. When Wei WuXian insisted on following him, seeking him out in the Libray Pavilion, it only made Lan WangJi more befuddled and lost. Wei WuXian had thrown his world out of order and he wouldn’t leave Lan WangJi alone.
But even when Wei WuXian grinned that beautiful, devious, joyful grin and let his fingertips trail across Lan WangJi’s wrists or the back of his neck, he couldn’t find it within himself to be irritated. When the burn of Wei WuXian’s skin pressed against his own wouldn’t fade for hours afterward, lingering on his mind, Lan WangJi realized that there was no emotion inside him that could be called anything close to hating this.
*
Long after Wei WuXian left the Cloud Recesses, Lan WangJi stood on a bridge arcing above a wide river. Caiyi Town bustled around him, the loud noises and flashy sights begging to distract him, but his gaze was fixed on one person.
From beside him, Lan XiChen’s smile grew even more as he insisted that Lan WangJi had wanted Wei WuXian to be there. Lan WangJi forcibly tore his gaze from Wei WuXian, instead focusing on the horizon glowing in the distance as the failing sun began to pierce its belly on the sharp rooftops of the town.
“I do not know what you are talking about,” he insisted again.
Later, Wei WuXian was torn from the sky and trapped in the clutches of a waterborne abyss. Lan WangJi cursed everything he knew, feeling his heart freeze.
As he reached into the water to save Wei WuXian, emotion coursing through his veins at the thought of Wei WuXian being in danger, Lan WangJi realized that Lan XiChen might have been right about his wish to be with Wei WuXian again. He might’ve even been right about a couple of his other suspicions, for Lan WangJi could come up with no possible explanation for the torrential storm of feeling that raced through him the moment he saw Wei WuXian’s face again, smiling and laughing and safe.
When he gazed up and Lan WangJi with such fondness in his gaze and quietly rasped, “Lan Zhan,” telling him, “We are already so close. I’m not just another person to you,” how was he supposed to label the emotions that coursed through his heart at that moment?
Lan WangJi felt something encircle his heart every time he was with Wei WuXian, something warm and golden hazing the edges of his vision. He did not wish to think about what those feelings meant. He couldn’t afford to let himself grow too close to this boy, he couldn’t allow himself to give too much of his heart away. Nothing would ever happen, and nothing could ever happen.
Despite his resolution earlier, after they escaped the waterborne abyss and drifted on a canal as the sun died on the horizon, bleeding reds and oranges that diffused into the clementine sky, Lan WangJi found his gaze fixed on Wei WuXian again.
Wei WuXian was flirting with a girl on the riverbank, fooling around as he was so fond of doing. Lan WangJi felt his heart clench as he watched him tilt his head back, laughing at something the girl said.
Wei WuXian really had no idea how beautiful he was with the golden sunlight painting his grinning features as he laughed that golden, golden laugh.
Lan WangJi turned away, doing his best to ignore him. When Wei WuXian pointed to him, asking the girls, “Sister! Do you find him good-looking?” he turned back to them, eyes widening slightly in confusion.
The girls tittered in laughter. “Even more good-looking,” they chorused. Lan WangJi’s bewildered gaze shifted to Wei WuXian’s grinning face.
“Then praise him some more!” Wei WuXian insisted, causing Lan WangJi to face away from them again. As he turned away, he saw the two other men observing them. Jiang Cheng had a hand pressed against his face in exasperation, a fairly common sight when he was in the company of Wei WuXian, while Lan XiChen was looking at his brother, a warm, amused smile stretching across his lips. Lan WangJi’s eyebrows twitched when he saw the look on his brother’s face; it was a mirthful, teasing expression and he did not want to think about its implications.
“Don’t you think he’s much cuter? Somebody give him some! If I’m the only one getting some, he might be jealous with me. Lan Zhan, your Gusu dialect sounds so nice. It’s so soft!” Wei WuXian chattered away, turning to face Lan WangJi with an earnest, pleading look that definitely did nothing to Lan WangJi’s heart. “Teach me how to swear in it?” He asked.
“Pathetic,” Lan WangJi managed, forcing his gaze away from the grinning boy beside him and stepping onto Lan XiChen’s boat, pointedly ignoring his brother’s own knowing smile.
An extremely heavy boat came from in front of them, filled with buckets of golden loquats. Lan WangJi took one glance at it, his mind replaying the sound of Wei WuXian’s voice from just a moment ago, and continued to look straight ahead.
Lan XiChen spoke again, his tone falsely innocent, “If you want to eat loquats, should we buy a basket?”
Lan WangJi gave him a flick of his sleeves. “I do not!”
When he saw Lan XiChen’s face, he went to stand on another boat.
*
Many years later, after a war had begun and their lives had been torn apart by the QishanWen Sect, Lan WangJi was in pain.
His body was broken and his heart was shattered. He was a prisoner to his enemies, enemies that had burned his home in front of his eyes.
Wei WuXian stood in front of him, a small smile on his lips and a hand outstretched in an offer to help him.
Lan WangJi had no choice but to turn away.
Just an hour later, standing in a dark, dripping cave with only a beast and unarmed disciples as company, Lan WangJi could not bring himself to turn away as he saw the monstrous tortoise bearing down on Wei WuXian's frame, illuminated by his roaring flames.
Lan WangJi felt his soul freeze in terror as the monster neared Wei WuXian.
He had no choice but to crash into him, letting himself be taken into the jaws of the monster in Wei WuXian's place.
Lan WangJi bit back a growl of pain and closed his eyes, feeling the world drop around him as he was flung into the air, the tortoise's gaping jaws waiting below him. As he fell into the maw of the beast, something blocked the jaw of the beast from snapping closed around his body. Opening his eyes, Lan WangJi saw Wei WuXian prying apart its fangs, a snarl pouring from his lips as he wrenched open its jaw.
Lan WangJi felt his eyes blow open wide. This was the absolute last thing he had expected to happen when he had sacrificed himself.
As the creature’s jaw was ripped open, the fangs embedded in his leg fell out, letting him fall helplessly to the lake below.
The water rose up to meet his plummeting form, cold and black as the bitterest nights of winter, eerie and icy as it churned around him. Lan WangJi desperately kicked with his good leg, his arms working to keep himself afloat while gripping onto his guqin. His robes swirled around him, heavy and cumbersome in the water.
A hand gripped his waist, pulling him into the side of an easily floating person. Wei WuXian held onto him tightly and brought them to the shore as fast as he could manage. He hauled Lan WangJi onto the rocky shore, his hand still encircled around his waist.
Wei WuXian asked abruptly picked him up and threw him onto his back.
Lan WangJi’s breath stuttered in his throat. “Let me down!”
From far too close for comfort, a great roar echoed from the tortoise, rumbling the earth and shaking the cave. He quickly shut his mouth, Wei WuXian limping even faster to find shelter.
After they were the farthest they could possibly be from the tortoise, Wei WuXian found a small side-cave to duck into. He maneuvered Lan WangJi to the ground, setting him on a flat patch of rock.
Wei WuXian bent down for a moment to inspect the wounds before standing up again to find shrubs with thick, straight branches. Completing his search, he kneeled next to Lan WangJi with the branches in one hand.
“Do you have something we could use to secure them, a rope or ribbon? Hey, your forehead ribbon might work. Come on, take it off.”
Lan WangJi felt his eyes widen, his mind racing to catch up with what was happening. Before he could respond, Wei WuXian reached out and took it, wrapping it around the branches.
“You…!” Lan WangJi exclaimed, suddenly speechless.
“What do you mean, ‘you’ ? Don’t worry yourself about it, the ribbon can’t be worth more than your leg, can it?” Wei WuXian asked as he finished tying the branches around Lan WangJi’s leg in a makeshift cast.
Lan WangJi let out a quiet, slow breath and leaned back, suppressing a shudder. He was alone in a cave with Wei Ying. They were trapped together for as long as he could foresee, and now he was left without his forehead ribbon.
This was the very definition of an unideal situation.
Wei WuXian suddenly spoke again, excited, “Lan Zhan, Lan Zhan,” he said, Lan WangJi’s name rolling off his tongue in a way that made him shiver again. “I forgot, Lan Zhan. Sit up, we have the perfume satchel. There might be herbs we can use in it.”
Pulling out the bag of herbs he had harassed out of MianMian, he dumped the contents onto the ground next to Lan WangJi.
“Sort through them,” Wei WuXian said as he continued to clean the dirt away. “The girl said that it was made out of medicinal herbs. We can use some for your leg.”
Lan WangJi looked at him in surprise. Was that the reason he had persuaded MianMian to give him the bag? Because of its healing properties, not because he was flirting with her?
Looking down, he thumbed through the pile of herbs. After a minute of sorting, he handed some of the leaves and flowers to Wei WuXian.
“These are for pain relief and fighting infection,” he said. “There aren’t a lot of them. These three can draw out most poisons.”
Wei WuXian nodded. “Well, go on then, strip.
He frowned slightly, unsure if he’d heard Wei WuXian correctly. “What?”
“What do you think? Strip your clothes!”
Suddenly, Wei WuXian’s hands were peeling of Lan WangJi’s shirt. He looked up at him with widened eyes, his breath catching in his throat as he exclaimed, “Wei Ying! What do you intend?”
“What do you think I intend to do. We’re the only ones here, Lan Zhan,” Wei WuXian said, his eyes half-lidded and sparkling in the dim light of the cave. He tugged his outer robe off, letting the sopping wet garment fall to the cave floor.
Lan WangJi felt several different parts of him short-circuit all at once. His mind stopped working as his heart raced and his lungs froze. Nothing about this could be happening, something was off , this was wrong , this wasn’t something Wei WuXian would do.
But, as Wei WuXian said, “Strip your trousers,” Lan WangJi couldn’t find an alternate explanation for the events occurring. Completely frozen in the thralls of his panic, a great fit of coughing overcame him. The moment he saw the dark, congealed blood he coughed up and Wei WuXian stepped away, satisfied, he realized what he had been doing.
“Can you not make a joke of this kind again!?” He asked, irritated.
Wei WuXian protested, “It’s bad for that blood to be held in. Don’t worry—I don’t like men, I won’t take advantage of the opportunity or do anything to you.”
Lan WangJi muttered, “Ridiculous!”
Wei WuXian didn’t argue and waved his hand. “Okay, okay. Ridiculous it is. I’m ridiculous. I’m the most ridiculous there is,” he said, standing up to gather dead leaves and branches, a fire springing out of a talisman he drew on his palm.
Settling down next to Lan WangJi, Wei WuXian took the herbs and crushed them into a paste. He set to work applying them to Lan WangJi’s wounds, his face stony and serious as he devoted all his attention to Lan WangJi.
The pile of herbs grew smaller and smaller until only a couple of usable ones lay on the ground. Lan WangJi’s gaze fell to where Wei WuXian’s robe covered his chest, watching the way he moved carefully as to not disturb his bur.
Lan WangJi realized that Wei WuXian intended to use all the herbs on his leg and leave none for his own injuries. The amount of pain Wei WuXian was in was visible from just the way he moved.
Lan WangJi brought his arm up, stopping Wei WuXian.
“What’s wrong?” He asked. When Lan WangJi said nothing, he leaned back to brush his long hair out of his face, his robe slipping slightly as he moved, revealing the corner of his burn. Without speaking, Lan WangJi swiftly put the herbs on his chest, keeping his touch as light as he could to not cause him any more pain.
Wei WuXian paused for a moment, trying to figure out what was happening. Looking down, he saw the herbs pressed against his burn. His eyes widened and he turned to where they were lying on the ground a moment before.
“Lan Zhan! You need those herbs for your leg!” He exclaimed. When Lan WangJi didn’t reply, he asked in horror, “Were those the last of them?”
“You need to treat your wound,” he insisted.
It was just like Wei WuXian to be self-sacrificing and not even realize it. In Lan WangJi’s opinion, he never took good enough care of himself.
*
Three days later, Lan WangJi’s palms had been filled with gashes and lost pools of blood as the assassination chord vibrated from his fingertips for six hours.
Wei WuXian was nowhere to be seen.
Lan WangJi called again and again, searching for him with desperate cries of “Wei Ying!” falling off his tongue. When he found Wei WuXian lying unconscious halfway down the beast’s throat, Lan WangJi had no words to describe the rush of relief that coursed through him. He gripped him tightly around the waist and brought them both out of the tortoise’s mouth.
When Wei WuXian finally collapsed to his fever, Lan WangJi could not restrain himself from bowing to Wei WuXian’s wishes and letting him sleep on his lap. He would not remember it when he woke up, so there could be no harm in allowing him a small amount of comfort while he was in the throes of sickness.
At least, that’s what Lan WangJi told himself as he held the boy, pouring more and more spiritual energy into him, attempting to give him everything that he could afford to. It was all for Wei WuXian’s comfort, he reasoned. None of it was for his own heart that ached every time he looked down and saw such a bright, joyful person in so much pain.
When Wei WuXian begged to hear a song, the tune that immediately sprung to Lan WangJi’s mind was spilling from his guqin before he could stop himself. As he played ‘Forgetting Envies,’ he could not bear to tear his gaze away from the boy sitting in front of him, the golden, shadowed, harrowed, beautiful boy that he had written it for.
Lan WangJi felt another part of his heart slip away, another piece of him fallen into Wei WuXian’s clutches.
*
On the hunt of Phoenix Mountain, Lan WangJi felt a small part of his control slip away the moment he noticed Wei WuXian’s presence. He had been riding in with the GusuLan Sect’s procession alongside Lan XiChen when he saw a flower land on his horse’s back.
He did not know how, but every fiber of his being was telling him that Wei WuXian had thrown that flower.
The thought of Wei WuXian throwing him a flower in admiration made him draw to his horse to a halt without realizing it, only snapping back into reality once he saw his brother stop beside him.
Raising his hand to signal that they would halt, Lan WangJi turned to see Wei WuXian atop a gleaming black horse, his elbow propped against its head as he laughed with two maidens.
“Wei Ying.”
Wei WuXian lifted his head, turning to face Lan WangJi with faked surprise. “HanGuang-Jun, did you call me? What’s up?”
Lan WangJi lifted up the flower so Wei WuXian could see it. He forced his voice to be cold, shutting all his emotion out of his tone. “Was it you?”
“No, it wasn’t,” Wei WuXian immediately denied, a grin edging onto his lips.
One of the maidens shouted, “Don’t believe him. It was him!”
“How could you say that? It wasn’t me!” Wei WuXian protested.
“My apologies, ZeWu-Jun, HanGuang-Jun. Don’t pay attention to him, he does not know what he speaks of,” Jiang Cheng said.
Lan XiChen smiled graciously. “That is fine. I will thank Young Master Wei’s kindness behind the flower in place of WangJi,” he replied, slightly bowing his head. Turning to Lan WangJi, a more pointed smile replaced his formal one.
“He has given you a flower of admiration,” his brother said mirthfully. “What do you make of that, WangJi? Will you still attempt to convince me that he holds only animosity towards you?”
Lan WangJi pointedly ignored his brother, looking straight ahead. Behind them, Jiang Cheng snarled something at Wei WuXian that Lan WangJi couldn’t hear.
Wei WuXian responded petulantly, “I think he looks nice. Can’t I throw a few to those I wish to praise as well? It is not just maidens who admire him.”
Lan WangJi did his best not to choke at those words.
*
Of all the times that Wei WuXian made Lan WangJi lose his composure, there was one instance that rose above all.
All he did was tilt his head at him and grin and everything he had been holding back, every emotion, every bright smile, every peal of ringing laughter, every light, dainty touch, every single day of his life that was consumed with thoughts of a slender figure, graceful fingers, long lashes brushing against high cheekbones, glimmering eyes and grinning lips that would never still, every single thing he’d pulled behind his walls and shut deep inside came pouring out.
In the Library Pavilion, he’d wanted to push Wei WuXian against the wall and tie his wrists together with his forehead ribbon.
On Phoenix Mountain, he pushed Wei WuXian against a tree and kissed him with every emotion he’d held for him since they were fifteen years old.
It was something soft, something shaped of the love and soft-hearted admiration of years, the soft-eyed gazes given to Wei WuXian when he did not look, it was something precious and sweet.
It was bitter, it was longing, it was regret, it was a strange thing made of an age of silent admiring and inaction, poisoned by the bittersweet passing of many years filled with yearning and craving for something that would never, could never happen.
It was everything at once, every roaring, blazing, floating, simmering, thrumming emotion pouring through him, every single heart-wrenching burst of adoration he had ever felt for this boy. It was fire and water, it was sweet and anguished, it was love.
Lan WangJi loved Wei WuXian.
Honestly, it was quite a funny realization. He had always known that he would die without hesitation for this boy, he had always known that the extent of his feelings surpassed most labels, but he had never attempted to name it, especially not with this daunting word.
But, as his lips were pressed to Wei WuXian’s, he realized that love was the only name that was worthy of such a feeling as the one that was coursing through him right now, electrifying his senses and setting his soul ablaze.
And so he fled, shaking and trembling in a way that nothing had ever left him to shake and tremble. Alone in the forest, leaning up against a tree with knees weaker than they had ever been before, he pressed his fingers to his swollen lips and closed his eyes.
Lan WangJi had never, ever, in his entire life, lost that much of his self-control. Out of all the times that Wei WuXian had driven him to his breaking point, he had never lost this much of his restraint.
A minute later, he was thrusting his fist into a tree, shattering the trunk and watching it snap in half, splintering as violently as his composure had.
*
The last battle of the Sunshot Campaign was very nearly a defeat. If it had not been for the combined efforts of Lan WangJi and Wei WuXian, all would have certainly been lost.
The fight had been desperate and vicious, a last stand made with savagery and desperation. The Wens had fought back harder than any of them had expected, slaughtering many of the cultivators of the Sunshot Campaign in horrifyingly fast, brutal waves.
The battle was teetering on a cusp, wavering on the razor-thin edge of defeat and triumph, waiting for someone to come and command it as to which way it should fall.
Wei WuXian fought beside Lan WangJi, their movements tiring and footsteps wavering as their wounds and exhaustion weighed down on their shoulders, dragging them down to the ground as they fought for their lives.
Without warning, a sword pierced Lan WangJi’s stomach, bringing a wretching gasp to escape from his lips as he slowly fell to his knees.
Though his hearing and vision were filled with white fuzz, he heard as an inhumane scream was ripped from Wei WuXian, spurring the corpses fighting around him to tear into the nearby Wens even faster.
Lan WangJi stumbled, collapsing on the ground. His vision was filled with white and red as the Wens swarmed him, their blades flashing as they prepared to finish him off.
Lan WangJi dimly heard Wei WuXian snarl desperately as he tried to find him. He darted to where Lan WangJi was slumped over a rock as a growing stain of vermillion spread over his back and chest like a sickly wave of red ink.
“Lan Zhan!” Wei WuXian screamed, his sword plunging into the Wens that got in his way. Lan WangJi watched through blurry, half-open eyes as Wei WuXian hacked through bodies, cultivators dropping to his sword as wheat fell to the sharp bite of a scythe.
Wei WuXian reached him and fell to his knees, dark energy pouring from him in roiling, thick waves, forming an unsteady shield against the Wens. Lan WangJi grimaced as he saw it, knowing that the shield would take up the last reserves of his power and leave him defenseless on the battlefield. There were no allies left alive to come to their aid; Wei WuXian would surely die without his powers.
“Lan Zhan,” he gasped again. Lan WangJi forced his uncooperative, fluttering eyes to focus on the face hovering above him. Wei WuXian was streaked in blood, cut up, exhausted, and gasping for breath, but he still managed to be the most beautiful person Lan WangJi had ever seen.
“Wei Ying,” he managed to choke out, blood burbling on his tongue.
“Don’t speak, Lan Zhan, you’re too injured,” Wei WuXian said back, his voice catching, hooking on something desperate, raw, and hurt, something Lan WangJi hadn’t heard since before Wei WuXian had been trapped in the Burial Mounds, before he had lost so much of himself to this war.
“Wei Ying,” he said again as if it was the only thing he knew how to say.
“Lan Zhan,” Wei WuXian replied through gritted teeth as his eyes clenched shut, all his energy pouring into forming a shield around them.
“Wei… Ying, I have to tell you,” he gasped, choking on the blood welling in his mouth. “Wei Ying, Wei Ying.”
Wei WuXian’s eyes were blown wide, his pupils dilated as fear overran his mind and dictated his body. “Don’t say anything. You’re going to survive, you’re going to be okay. Don’t speak so much, you’ll make your wound worse.”
“Wei Ying,” Lan WangJi repeated, feeling his soul slip as his mind wavered. Only panic held him to life, fear that he would not have enough time to tell Wei WuXian. He repeated the name, rolling it around his tongue over and over again until it was the only sound he knew, the only sound that mattered. “Wei Ying, please forgive me, I did not tell you soon enough.”
A sword thrust through the shield of dark power and Wei WuXian flinched as the wound pierced the resentful energy inside of him.
As cultivators forced their way through the shield, fracturing the dome, Wei WuXian snarled something animalistic and desperate, flipping over to cover Lan WangJi’s bloodied body with his own. He clutched Chenqing in a vicious grip, his other hand planted next to Lan WangJi’s shoulder.
The Wens sensed victory and began another rousing battle cry, charging in to finish the cultivators off.
Wei WuXian sprang up, fighting with a sword he had stolen from a dead Wen as best he could. His capability of handling dark energy had been almost completely drained, leaving him defenseless on a field of enemies with a wounded friend to protect.
Lan WangJi pulled his mind to consciousness, forcing his eyes to sharpen and his feet to find their standing as he saw the danger Wei WuXian was in. He stood up on shaky legs, leaning on his half-shattered guqin for balance as he unsheathed Bichen.
He would not let him become a burden to Wei WuXian. He would fight for himself. Wei WuXian still had enough energy to escape on his own. Lan WangJi knew that no matter what, no matter how hard he or Wei WuXian tried, Lan WangJi would not make it off this battlefield alive. The only thing he could do is help Wei WuXian survive in his place.
As he began to stagger around, swinging Bichen with bleeding fingers, it seemed that Wei WuXian had realized what Lan WangJi was trying to do. He whirled around, his gaze panicked and frightened.
“Lan Zhan! Don’t fight, you’ll injure yourself more!’
Lan WangJi gritted his teeth, knowing that his arguments would be futile. Instead, he concentrated all his fading energy on fighting his way to Wei WuXian. As he reached him, he spun to fight beside him.
“Wei Ying,” he said through clenched teeth as he fought, keeping as close to Wei WuXian’s side as he could, “Wei Ying, you must listen.”
Wei WuXian let out another frustrated growl. “Lan Zhan, don’t you dare. You’re not going to die here, this is not the place for your last words.”
“You cannot change it, Wei Ying. I will not make it off this field, but you still can. You must leave while you still have the energy to.”
“No!” He snarled again, plunging his stolen sword into the Wens with an enraged ferocity. He did not even flinch as swords and spells bit into his skin and tore his blood and flesh out. “I’m not leaving you, Lan Zhan! There is no reason to!”
A vicious strike ripped across Wei WuXian’s side, causing him to stagger. As he lost his balance, another flash of steel plunged into his arm. He stepped back, dodging every strike as best he could. The swords kept raining down, driving him back to where Lan WangJi fought.
He stumbled backward, retreating to protect Lan WangJi, falling to one knee as an arrow embedded in his thigh.
The world around Lan WangJi slowed as he took in everything around him. They stood in a small area, a minuscule circle where they had managed to drive the Wens away. Around them, cultivators staggered and lifted their swords, preparing to charge in and finish them off. Before him, Wei WuXian kneeled on the blood-soaked earth, his gaze fixed on the approaching Wens with a savage anger burning in his eyes.
Wei WuXian turned around slightly. He met Lan WangJi’s eye, his expression hardening in determination as he saw his state. Turning around, Wei WuXian pulled out the Stygian Tiger Seal from the folds of his robe.
He stood up slowly, raising the seal to the sky, and brought it crashing into the ground with every fragment of dark energy he had left in his body as a hoarse scream was ripped out of his throat.
As Wei WuXian was thrown back from the blinding power rippling through the desolate, bloodied, torn field, Lan WangJi caught him. He held Wei WuXian, his arms circling tightly around his waist, tucking his head into the unconscious man’s neck, pressing his forehead against the torn skin and muttering desperate prayers for his safety.
As the power set fire to the souls around them, Lan WangJi murmured to Wei WuXian, eyes clenched and mind braced to be lost to the flames of the tiger seal.
He felt the roaring, thudding energy begin to nip at the edges of his soul, fraying the edges of his core.
“I love you, Wei WuXian,” Lan WangJi whispered hoarsely.
There could be no finer parting words from the world he loved and protected so fiercely. There was nothing that he wanted more in life than for the one he loved to know the extent of his adoration before he left.
*
When Lan WangJi woke up in a medical tent, a harrowed but grinning Wei WuXian sitting by his bedside, he did not pause to think of how he had survived the tiger seal. He merely vowed to tell Wei WuXian what he had itched to tell him on the battlefield before it was too late. This time, he would tell it to him when Wei WuXian was safe and alive, not hovering on the brink of death.
*
Far too little years later, before Lan WangJi could stop anything from happening, before he was able to change anything, a messenger came to the GusuLan sect.
“Wei WuXian has been killed.”
*
Far too many years later, Lan WangJi had only his regret, sorrow, and bittersweet love. A decade had passed, yet he was not the same. The grief still coursed through him like a wildfire every day; every time he played Inquiry, every time he stepped on the floorboard that hid the jars of Emporer’s Smile, every time he heard the lilting laugh of a flute, every time a flash of black and red crossed his vision, every time a rabbit entered his sight, every time he called out “Wei Ying,” in a desperate search through the unforgiving world that would never answer back.
Lan WangJi had not been on the battlefield alongside Wei WuXian when he was killed; he had abandoned him, left him for dead in the wilds of a harsh world. Lan WangJi should’ve known better than to trust Wei WuXian to stay safe in a treacherous land of hateful people that sought his death. He should’ve stayed by his side.
Lan WangJi should’ve never let Wei WuXian go.
*
As they echoed across Dafan Mountain that night, the flute’s notes were soft and sorrowful, reminiscent and regretful. Lan WangJi knew the heartbreak that every note had been written with. The song was drenched in his lamenting grief.
The flutist took one more step backward and fell into Lan WangJi. As the flutist stiffened, Lan WangJi grabbed their wrist, lifting it away from the flute, his other hand securing their waist in an iron grip.
There was no chance of them getting away from him anymore.
Wei WuXian’s gaze slid to meet Lan WangJi’s, the vibrant red power flashing in his iris’s heart-wrenchingly familiar. His mouth was open in shock, his eyes blown wide as he saw who was the one holding him.
The burning embers faded from his eyes, the dark, resentful power draining from his body as Lan WangJi held him tightly.
Lan WangJi was never letting Wei WuXian go again.