Chapter Text
Things were going, for the most part, fine.
Sure, Lan Wangji was tired from yesterday’s hunt; Wei Wuxian couldn’t help but notice the way his feet dragged slightly as they trudged through the forest terrain. To anyone else, the great Hanguang-Jun would seem as composed and perfect as usual, but Wei Wuxian was grateful to know he was not anyone else.
And to be honest, Wei Wuxian’s own head hurt and his body felt shaky. God, Mo Xuanyu’s body was so weak. Every time Wei Wuxian was frustrated to find his limits so quickly. Normally, he would push himself until he was far beyond them, but nowadays Lan Wangji was there to stop and make him rest. It was awfully annoying.
But mostly, everything was fine.
Wei Wuxian frowned at the silence permeating the forest, broken only by bird calls and the crunching of leaves and branches underfoot. He glanced at his husband, who was glaring forward with his jaw set straight. The serious, focused expression made Wei Wuxian smile.
“Lan Zhan!” he called out suddenly, shattering the silence.
Lan Wangji glanced at Wei Wuxian from the corner of his eyes. “Hm?”
“Stop frowning like that or you’ll get all wrinkly and old!”
Lan Wangji’s frown only deepened at that, and Wei Wuxian shook his head. They walked in silence for a bit more.
“Lan Zhan.”
“Hm?”
“Lan Zhan, Lan Zhan, Lan Wangji, Lan Zhan.”
“...”
Wei Wuxian chuckled at his husband’s silence. He rolled his husband’s name around on his tongue, making up a melody as he repeated the words again. “Lan Zhan, Lan Zhan, Lan Zhaaaaan~”
“Wei Ying,” Lan Wangji replied, a questioning tone in his voice. Wei Wuxian’s face lit up. “Yes! That’s me! I’m Wei Ying, and you’re Lan Zhan, and together we’re… uh…”
Lan Wangji shook his head, turning his head back towards the front as Wei Wuxian continued to babble. Wei Wuxian pouted as he realized he wasn’t being paid attention to.
The sun was just starting to rise, and the forest was painted in orange, the tips of the trees swaying gently. A slight fog hung in the air. It was cool but not chilly, and the wind wove through Wei Wuxian’s hair pleasantly, even if it messed up his ponytail. Lan Wangji’s hair and ribbon were somehow still pristine. Sometimes Wei Wuxian wondered if his husband operated in an alternate dimension where wind, dirt, and rain didn’t exist.
As they strolled through the forest and nothing suspicious showed up, Wei Wuxian let himself relax. He stared at the small animals rustling through the undergrowth as his mind wandered to yesterday’s events. He and Lan Wangji had been called to investigate a series of disappearances at a small town on the outskirts of Yiling. Arriving at the location, they’d found no traces of resentful energy and nothing else wrong. Just as they had been about to leave, a villager pointed them to an abandoned shack in the woods near the town, and that began a wild goose chase featuring fierce corpses, malicious cultivators, and a thousand-years-old myth. Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji had been running about all night.
Wei Wuxian looked over at his husband and whined, “Lan Zhan, I’m tired. And hungry. And my legs hurt!”
“We will rest soon,” Lan Wangji replied.
“But I want to rest now! I’m tired, Lan Zhan, I’m tiiiiiired! Aren’t you tired at all? My husband is so strong!”
Lan Wangji shook his head, his ears reddening slightly. Wei Wuxian grinned. How he loved flustering his husband; it never got old at all!
“If Lan Zhan is so strong, then can he carry me?” Wei Wuxian asked out loud, winking at the man walking next to him. Lan Wangji furrowed his brows as if genuinely considering it.
“Hmf,” he replied, very seriously, after a few seconds of contemplation.
Wei Wuxian covered his mouth with his hand as he started to laugh. “Lan Zhan, I was just joking! Hahahahah, you’re so funny…”
“Funny?” Lan Wangji asked with a bothered expression, his eyebrows turned down and his eyes serious. Wei Wuxian began to laugh into his hand even harder, and Lan Wangji looked even more lost, causing Wei Wuxian to laugh more and more. Tears sprung to his eyes as he swore to sear that lost-puppy expression his husband wore into his head.
“Oh, I’m just joking, don’t-”
Wei Wuxian was cut off as Lan Wangji’s arm darted in front of his body and pushed him back. He heard the distinctive noise of swords clashing, and realized Bichen had been unsheathed and was now hovering in the air. Instantly the smile died on Wei Wuxian’s lips.
“What is it?”
“I don’t know,” his husband answered honestly, eyes scanning their surroundings. “I can’t sense anything.”
Wei Wuxian paused, frowning. Lan Wangji was highly trained, very attentive, and at a high level of cultivation. For someone to get in an attack undetected– they were either using dirty tricks or very, very strong.
This could be bad.
“Stay alert,” Lan Wangji muttered, and Wei Wuxian hummed in reply, his hand hovering towards Chenqing. The muscles in his arms and legs ached from running around for several days; again Wei Wuxian cursed this body that hadn’t been neglected enough to get used to it. And the golden core was so weak, too– but, to be fair, it was more than Wei Wuxian had had when he died.
Suddenly, Lan Wangji gasped. Wei Wuxian whirled towards him and pain ripped through his shoulder, causing him to stagger. He saw his husband’s eyes widen as Bichen leaped from its sheath and began to deflect what appeared to be a large collection of throwing darts aimed at them. Wei Wuxian looked down and cursed as he realized that the tip of the dart lodged into his shoulder was covered in some kind of liquid. He drew the dart out and threw it aside, deciding to deal with the issue later.
Bichen was moving so fast the naked eye could barely see it, but still the barrage of darts continued. Wei Wuxian could tell that Lan Wangji was as exhausted as he was. They needed an opportunity to get away, but with Bichen so occupied, there was no chance to escape.
Wei Wuxian searched for Lan Wangji’s eyes. He met them and they stared at each other, matching each other’s gazes. Lan Wangji nodded slightly and Wei Wuxian smiled.
But just as they were about to put some plan into action, a large figure jumped onto Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian’s stomach lurched.
He shouted and dashed forward, but before he could reach his husband he made out what the figure was and stopped dead in his tracks.
The thing was a dog, a huge one, black and snarling.
Wei Wuxian’s breath stopped in his throat.
His mind was screaming at him, move, move, move, but his body went cold and stiff. He gasped for breath– he needed to go to his husband, his husband was hurt, he needed to help his husband, he needed to do something for his husband or it would be too late, Lan Zhan, he needed Lan Zhan, he couldn’t breathe, Lan Zhan was in danger, he needed Lan Zhan– and felt piercing pain go through his back and arm. Hazily, he realized that Bichen had stopped deflecting the darts still raining on them, that Lan Wangji hadn’t realized that they were poisoned, that he couldn’t be hit, that he needed to tell him, that Bichen was stabbing the dog over and over and that the dog had collapsed and couldn’t move, and then someone grabbed him and he felt himself rising in the air and his head spun.
Wei Wuxian couldn’t breathe. His head hurt and his limbs wouldn’t stop shaking. He scrabbled at his throat and pressed his nails into his skin, trying to ground himself from the pain. Gods, it was just a dog, a stupid dog. Wei Wuxian wanted to scream. He hadn’t been this scared when he had died, so why was he reacting this way now, consumed with terror through and through?
“Wei Ying!”
Wei Wuxian turned, panting pathetically as he stared into Lan Wangji’s face. He realized that he was draped across the man, holding none of his weight by himself, and tried to straighten out his posture. He couldn’t even think of anything scandalous to say.
“Wei Ying, it’s okay,” Lan Wangji said, worry darkening his expression. “We’re on Bichen. The dog is dead. It’s safe now.”
“Safe?” Wei Wuxian exhaled shakily, trying to calm himself. He unclenched his fists and jaw. If his head and muscles had hurt before, now they throbbed.
“Sorry,” he muttered, shaking his head. “Wei Ying is a little scaredy cat. Good thing he has his lovely husband to protect him!”
Lan Wangji only frowned at him.
Wei Wuxian cursed, wanting to squirm away from the look. He hated when anyone witnessed him like that, and Lan Wangji wouldn’t let him play it off as funny the way he always did.
The sword lowered to the ground and Lan Wangji left off, still half-carrying Wei Wuxian. Wei Wuxian took a second to steady his legs. As his rational thoughts returned to him, his focus drifted to the blood dropping onto the floor by Lan Wangji’s feet.
“Lan Zhan!” he exclaimed, rushing to his husband. “You’re injured! Is it bad?”
“It is not that severe,” Lan Wangji answered in a flat tone. Yet Wei Wuxian frowned and began to take off Lan Wangji’s robes, causing him to hiss in pain. Wei Wuxian’s eyes widened as the layers of cloth peeled away, covered in blood.
Deep bite marks ran along Lan Wangji’s shoulder, and blood flowed from them incessantly. The skin around the area was red and inflamed. Several deep scratches ran along his chest.
“Lan Zhan,” Wei Wuxian muttered. “Why are you lying to your husband?”
Lan Wangji looked away as if he felt guilty.
“We need to get out of here,” Wei Wuxian said to no one in particular, shaking his head. “What an eventful couple of days we have had, huh?”
“Mn,” Lan Wangji answered.
“I can’t wait to go back to the Cloud Recesses and drink some sweet old Emperor’s Smile,” Wei Wuxian muttered as he took a talisman out of his sleeves. Using the blood from the dart wound, he began to draw a messy character. “I really need a drink. And some sleep. And, of course, some time with my husband. What happened to every day is every day, huh?”
He heard Lan Wangji huff.
The talisman fluttered and hovered over Wei Wuxian’s hand, and he looked down at it excitedly. “It’s something I’ve been working on,” he explained as he fiddled with it. “It points me to the location with the least resentful energy within a several mile radius. It should, theoretically, lead somewhere safe.”
Yet as he watched, the talisman spun this way and that, as if confused, before beginning to rotate rapidly. It went on for a while, stopping when it abruptly burst into flame and the ash fell onto Wei Wuxian’s hand.
“What does that mean?” Lan Wangji asked, frowning down at Wei Wuxian’s palm. Wei Wuxian thought that this would be very funny in another situation.
“Either my talisman is broken, or there’s a lot of resentful energy everywhere,” he muttered. “I did make this one pretty recently, and it’s not finished yet, but…”
“I think we are inside an array.”
Wei Wuxian looked up at Lan Wangji, his eyes widening. “Well, that would actually make sense. But is someone trying to trap us?”
“Mn,” Lan Wangji said. “We need to go.”
“Shouldn’t we rest a bit first?” Wei Wuxian asked, scanning Lan Wangji. His husband was injured and exhausted and his face looked way too strained and pale. “And I think I should fiddle with the talisman more. I might have written one of the strokes wrong last time…”
Lan Wangji shook his head. “Very well then. Let us rest.”
The two leaned against a tree, sitting side to side. Wei Wuxian tried to strip his outer robe and bandage Lan Wangji’s wounds, but his husband waved him off, tending to it himself. Although Wei Wuxian tried to protest, his limbs were leaden, his stomach was still uneasy from how scared he had been, and his head was aching. He decided that, just for a second, he could lean onto his husband’s shoulder.
–
Wei Wuxian gasped as whatever he was leaning on budged and he began to fall. He forced himself awake, sitting up harshly and groaning at his aching head. He turned his head, about to ask his husband what time it was, and saw Lan Wangji laying on the ground in a puddle of blood and shivering.
Wei Wuxian froze, a sick feeling filling his insides.
“Lan Zhan..?”
When his husband didn’t reply, Wei Wuxian crawled over desperately, grabbing onto his pale hand. Lan Wangji’s pulse was a little fast, but it was steady, and Wei Wuxian could feel the spiritual energy coursing through his arms.
“Lan Zhan, can you hear me?” he asked again, gently tapping his husband’s cheek. The man frowned but did not respond further.
“Fuck,” Wei Wuxian muttered. His body felt leaden, his head hurt– it was fine. It was fine. If he hadn’t frozen over some stupid dog, Lan Wangji wouldn’t have been hurt. Wei Wuxian had no right to complain.
He gently turned his husband over, inspecting his shoulder and chest. Lan Wangji had wrapped the wounds tightly and expertly, but there was nothing to clean them with and the scraps of clothes Lan Wangji had used were already stained in blood.
“Lan Zhan, Lan Zhan, wake up,” Wei Wuxian said, moving his husband’s head onto his lap. He ran his fingers through his hair, trying to comb out the dried blood. “Lan Zhan! Don’t leave your husband waiting. Wei Ying is very very bored…”
The man remained unresponsive. Wei Wuxian sighed and gripped Lan Wangji’s hand tightly.
He began to channel spiritual energy into Lan Wangji, and his husband’s face eased, his body reacting. Wei Wuxian sighed in relief, but as the spiritual energy left him his arms felt heavier and heavier and his body seemed to turn cold on the inside. He knew he was taking energy that Mo Xuanyu didn’t have– screw him and his weak golden core and low spiritual energy reserves again!-- but he didn’t want to stop until Lan Zhan woke up.
As Wei Wuxian began to feel dizzy, though, he realized this wouldn’t do.
They were in the open, and with Lan Wangji unconscious, there was no way they could defend against danger. Wei Wuxian tried to stand up and swayed on his feet. His head hurt even worse now, black dots covering his vision, and his head felt awfully light. He cursed.
“Shelter, we need shelter,” he muttered to himself, scanning his surroundings, but the trees and grass blurred into each other.
Thankfully, there was a small cave tucked in a corner filled with shrubs and debris.
Wei Wuxian stumbled to Lan Wangji and put his arms under his husband’s armpits. He attempted to lift Wangji and almost fell backwards. Gritting his teeth, he had to settle with literally dragging his husband over the ground. The white robes he wore were torn and dirtied.
“Sorry, Lan Zhan,” Wei Wuxian hissed while dragging the unconscious man forward. “I’ll buy you a new pair later. Well, actually, you’ll probably end up paying for it anyway…”
Finally, Wei Wuxian reached the cave. He dragged Wangji into its depths and nearly collapsed onto him. The world was really going dark around the edges now.
“Lan Zhan,” Wei Wuxian muttered as his eyelids closed. He reached for his husband’s hand and squeezed a last bit of spiritual energy into him as his consciousness faded. “Lan…”