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Chaos.
The sounds of growls and screams, swords clanging through the air, echoing across the Nightless City with the ominous strum of a guqin’s strings.
How did this come to happen?
They killed his friends.
Innocent, paying for crimes that he committed.
Wen Ning… he was simply a knife in his hands, following his commands and trusting him to wield him properly. He’d broken that trust. He was the one who deserved to be punished, not Wen Ning.
Wen Qing… she had saved his love’s life. She had become a friend to him, and she burned to save him.
It was his fault.
The chaos, the death, the bloodshed, was his fault entirely.
He doesn’t know what to do anymore.
All he can feel is the overwhelming storm of emotions, ones he spent his whole life repressing until he no longer could. Rage and pain and grief and he doesn’t know what to do anymore.
His mind was going hazy, unfamiliar fury whirling in his chest and he felt his strings of control begin to snap one by one. He doesn’t know what to do, he’s lost and confused and—
“LAN ZHAN!”
Clarity returned to him as fear clutched at his heart, desperate eyes searching for the owner of that voice.
“Wei Ying?”
What was he doing here? He didn’t want his love to see him like this, but all he could think was that he had to find him.
Where are you?
“Lan Zhan!”
“Wei Ying!” he called, running in the direction of the voice.
Where are you?!
There!
The army of cultivators and fierce corpses parted in front of him to reveal his love, frantically looking around.
“Wei Ying!”
Wei Wuxian’s panicked eyes landed on him; a relieved expression lifted his lips into a half smile as he started weaving through the bodies between them.
“Lan Zhan!” He looked so happy to see him—why, why even in his situation did he give him such fond glances? —and he was so close. He could protect him.
But then his eyes caught sight of the fierce corpse, clouded eyes following Wei Wuxian predatorily as it growled.
Leave him alone!
Don’t touch him!
His frantic orders went ignored, Wei Wuxian’s eyes solely on him as if they were the only two people in this horrible place, unaware of the clawed hand raising behind him.
“No!”
Wei Wuxian gasped as sharpened nails tore into his back, eyes going wide with pain.
“Wei Wuxian!” Jiang Wanyin yelled from somewhere but Lan Wangji couldn’t look away from Wei Wuxian.
His fury reared its ugly head, eyes glowing red as he ordered any corpse that would listen to destroy the one that dared hurt his Wei Ying.
Wei Wuxian stumbled towards him, face pale and breathing labored. Before he could fall to the ground, Lan Wangji was there—finally—and caught him in his arms. “Wei Ying,” he gasped, his hand shaking over the gaping cuts in his love’s back.
“Lan Zhan,” Wei Wuxian replied, his arms wrapping around his neck as Lan Wangji slipped to his knees and maneuvered him so they were face to face. Blood stained his hands, darkening the sleeves of his midnight robes and bile burned the back of his throat—there was so much blood.
Sweat gathered at Wei Wuxian’s temple, soft grey eyes peering up at him as a trembling hand reached up to cup his face. “Lan Zhan, my Lan Zhan. Don’t cry,” he chided, a shaky smile curling his lips. “It’s just a few scratches. I’ll be fine!”
Lan Wangji hadn’t even realized he had begun to cry.
“Wei Ying,” he whispered, his voice cracking. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
He couldn’t say it enough and would have continued forever if Wei Wuxian hadn’t brushed his lips with the tips of his fingers, a dreamy smile on his face. “It wasn’t you, Lan Zhan. This isn’t your fault.”
But it was. It was his fault. He had overestimated his strength, thought he could hold his control. He thought he could protect the ones he loved by stepping further into the darkness.
“Lan Zhan, stop blaming yourself.” His focus returned to Wei Wuxian, whose brows were furrowed slightly until they softened again when Lan Wangji’s attention was back on him. “I have to tell you something, okay?”
Wei Wuxian’s thumb drifted up to where his forehead ribbon once wrapped around his head.
“Lan Zhan, I love you,” he whispered and Lan Wangji’s chest ached with such adoration, it hurt like an open wound. “I love you so much, Lan Zhan, and I always will.”
There were tears streaming down both of their face now, silver orbs meeting flickering red and golden eyes.
“Wei Ying, I—“
Fear took over Wei Wuxian’s face and before Lan Wangji could react, he was being shoved backwards and blood splattered across his face.
Time slowed to a crawl as he stared at the sword embedded in Wei Wuxian’s chest, blood already beginning to soak his robes as the blade was ripped out. He fell to the ground like a puppet with cut strings, beautiful eyes slipping closed.
The murderer stared down at Wei Wuxian’s body in shock and Lan Wangji’s vision went red.
The next moment, his hands were around the cultivator’s throat and squeezing, bones shattering under his grip.
“WEI WUXIAN!” Jiang Wanyin bellowed, pulling his brother’s body into his arms. His hand pressed down on the bleeding wound as he began to cry, desperately trying to save Wei Wuxian.
Bloodshot eyes pierced Lan Wangji with a furious glare. “You did this!” he accused.
Lan Wangji stumbled back. He couldn’t look away from Wei Wuxian’s ashen face, no trace of his perfect smile on his slack face.
Wei Ying loved him.
He loved him.
He returned his feelings.
And he killed him.
Wei Ying was dead because of him.
Lan Wangji’s mind went blank, feeling his eyes shift to a demonic red, vaguely aware of the scream that ripped his throat apart and the burning power of the Stygian seal in his hands before everything went black.
--
He woke up with a start; sweat coating his skin despite the feeling that his body had turned to ice. His heart was pounding hard enough against his sternum that it felt like the force of each beat would break through his chest.
“Lan Zhan?” a drowsy voice murmured from beside him and he felt the warmth that had been resting against him shift.
It was almost fourteen years after that horrible night. After he lost his mind at the sight of Wei Wuxian’s limp and seemingly dead body.
His soul had been summoned into the body of a cultivator who he had saved long ago, one who believed there was still good in the horrid Yiling Patriarch’s heart. Though with the events of Nie Mingjue’s corpse and the possibility that everything that had happened, including his resurrection, had been meticulously planned, Lan Wangji had some doubts.
It didn’t matter now; that was behind them, and he was married to Wei Wuxian, just as he had always dreamed but never truly thought he deserved.
“Lan Zhan, are you alright?” his husband asked again, gently sitting the both of them up. Lan Wangji’s heart may have slowed but the trembling that had settled in at the vivid nightmare—memory—was still there. All he could see were pain-filled eyes and blood, so much blood, and it was his fault—
“My love, take a deep breath, okay?”
He did, a sharp inhale followed by a shaky exhale. A soft hand rubbed against his back, the touch soothing and grounded Lan Wangji as he tried to regain his bearings. “There you go. That’s my Lan Zhan.”
He turned his head and met moonlit silvery eyes full of such love and his heart lurched in his chest, his eyes stinging with stubborn tears. “Wei Ying,” he whispered, his voice weak and frail between the two of them.
Wei Wuxian gave him a small smile, lying back down on his back and holding his arms open. “Come here, Lan Zhan,” he murmured and Lan Wangji repositioned himself so he could rest his head on his husband’s chest, the gentle beat of his heart right at his ear. “Can you hear it, Lan Zhan? I’m here with you, my love. I’ll never leave you again.”
With a quiet sound that almost sounded like a whimper to his own ears, Lan Wangji clung to his love as tightly as he dared, Wei Wuxian’s arms coming around him to hold him.
His husband’s inner robe had slipped open, revealing the mass of scar tissue over his pectoral where that damned sword had pierced through his chest and Lan Wangji knew that if his hands ran along his husband’s back, he would feel the five thick lines from when he was hurt just before that.
“Lan Zhan, it’s okay. We’re okay,” Wei Wuxian murmured, kissing the top of his head. His hands ran through Lan Wangji’s hair, softly humming their song and allowing it to reverberate through his chest to his husband’s ear.
Tears dampened Wei Wuxian’s inner robe, but he did not say anything about it, continuing to brush through his husband’s hair and whispering reassurances until eventually, Lan Wangji had succumbed to sleep again.
Wei Wuxian pressed one last lingering kiss to the crown of his husband’s head, whispering, “I love you, my dear Lan Zhan. Sweet dreams,” before letting himself fall back to sleep with his beloved held close in his arms.