Work Text:
“I had a dream about us, Lan Zhan,” says Wei Wuxian, not looking at him but at some point in the near pitch-black darkness, “Can I tell you?”
It is the first time in weeks that Wei Wuxian has spoken to him without honing his words into weapons or hammering them into blood-oaths. Only when Lan Wangji finds him lying on the floor in the quiet dark of a tent that belonged to someone now-deceased, and when he wordlessly lays down beside him, can Wei Wuxian lower whatever wall he’s built around himself. Only in the dark.
“Tell me,” Lan Wangji says, half-sobs, because what he wants to say is Do you truly think you need to ask? You could tell me anything.
Perhaps what he really wants is to ask what Wei Wuxian is doing, lying in the tent of a dead man, dreaming about them when all he has done for ages is keep a sword-length’s distance away.
When he speaks, his voice is soft as a cloud, practically crooning, “We were home. It was this little cottage in a valley where loquats grow and there were no people around for miles, just us. It wasn’t Lotus Pier or Cloud Recesses, but it was ours. We ran away from it all and made a home together.”
For a half-second, Lan Wangji stops breathing. His heart hits the walls of his ribcage again and again and again. He knows what this is, and at the same time, he can not allow himself to hope for it. From anyone else, it was a certain confession. But Wei Wuxian’s words are smoke and metal and mirrors and weapons and walls— Lan Wangji can never navigate them. And a dream is just a dream, after all.
They are lying close enough that he can feel the solid warmth of Wei Wuxian leech into the space between them, can sense the outline of his silhouette. He could reach out and touch him, if he wanted to. He keeps his hands by his side.
“Is that all?” says Lan Wangji, voice rough. He is crying in every way apart from tears.
“I’m just getting started, Lan Zhan.” The playfulness in his voice is less facade and more warmth, a childish inflection that he had not used since their days in that cave, a lifetime ago. Lan Wangji only then realizes that he had been mourning the loss of it.
“Continue, then.”
A catch on the inhale. He wonders if Wei Wuxian’s eyes are on him now that his own are trained on the ceiling. He’s too afraid that if he turns his head, their gazes might meet. Too afraid of reaching a point of no return. But that’s foolish, of course. There has never been any hope of going back.
“There were a lot of days, I think. I kept thinking I was waking up, but then I would look over at you still sleeping. I knew it was a dream because I could never wake up before you—” That’s the only reason? Lan Wangji nearly asks— “Sometimes I watched you for ages. I wished you would never wake up, so I could watch you for a little longer.”
It’s not the right time for this. There’s a war going on right outside this tent. And they’re fighting, the two of them. They haven’t gotten along… much, but least of all now. Wei Wuxian disappeared for three months and came back sharper, harder, more brittle, and Lan Wangji doesn’t know what to do with it. So, it’s not the right time for this. This confession should happen in the daylight, where they can both see each other for what they are and love each other all the same. This confession should happen when Lan Wangji can promise they’ll be safe.
Except— this is nothing, and his shoulders are tense with the knowledge of it. In this darkness, Wei Wuxian could retreat into himself without a moment’s hesitation, before Lan Wangji could even catch his breath. He wills himself to not move, to not even let his chest rise and fall too obviously, because he is terrified that when Wei Wuxian realizes that he’s alive, hearing and feeling, next to him, he will run. When he realizes that this matters, suddenly it won’t. Lan Wangji has watched Wei Wuxian juggle his heart for years, and this, this right here, is the moment. The moment where Wei Wuxian could drop it with a laugh and an oops, why was I holding that again?
Lan Wangi almost wants to plead, wailing and prostrating himself at someone’s feet. For all his austerity and silent reserve, his subconscious has always been too loud for his own good. Every thought is a clamor, every feeling a lightning strike. He’s like his father in that way, he knows, and he knows that almost everyone who matters to him knows it too. It’s a black omen hanging over his head, looming ever-closer since the day his blade met Wei Wuxian’s. His brother is worried for him lately, and not without reason.
Stop talking, stop it, stop, please. Keep me tangled up in you for a little longer. Hold me to another oath. Hold me to anything. At least let me see you when you break my heart, Wei Ying.
But Wei Wuxian continues, beautifully oblivious to the one twisting himself into knots beside him, “I went to pick loquats on one of the days, but I got lost in the valley. I was terrified. I thought everything had disappeared. But then I heard the sound of your guqin and it led me home and—” he falters, a choked hiccup escaping him. Is he crying? Could a dream of Lan Wangji be enough to move him to tears?
“And you were waiting for me, Lan Zhan.”
It takes a herculean effort for him to say, without cracking, “Mn.”
Wei Wuxian laughs, but it’s not the laugh Lan Wangji was so afraid of, the careless dismissal of everything they are. This laugh is shaking and frightened, sob-like in a way that confirms the suspicion that he had been crying. This laugh makes Lan Wangji wonder if, all this time, he held something precious too, something he should have been more careful with.
He thinks, The first time I saw you kill someone, it changed nothing. I thought it might. That’s why I tried to bring you back, Wei Ying. I thought if you stayed I would have to watch you become something I could not love. But nothing has changed. Nothing.
He thinks, Have I changed? Will you still call me a peerless jade? Or will you touch me, if I asked you to?
He doesn’t know what answer he wishes for.
Every too-large, too-much feeling inside him wells up. It’s so overpowering he can taste it, a bittersweet bile. He is unmoored and out-of-depth in a way that only Wei Wuxian has ever made him feel. Never has he felt every bit of seventeen as just then, with the boy he loves lying next him and his mouth dry from constant swallowing.
He cannot speak. He knows he should find some words to say, but the only ones that could escape his heart-logged throat at that moment are the ones he is not ready to say. Once upon a time, his fear was mainly of a lack of reciprocation on the other’s part— the fear of humiliation, rejection. A child’s fears. But no longer. Now he thinks what he fears most is reciprocation. What is he supposed to do with this, Wei Wuxian in the dark admitting to a dream where he comes home to Lan Wangji waiting for him? Wei Wuxian uttering his courtesy name like the lightning-whip his brother now wields. Wei Wuxian baring his throat for a blade he could have dodged— and it’s laughable to think that Lan Wangji didn’t know he could have dodged it— like he had already accepted it, like he wanted it.
Lan Wangji wonders if Wei Wuxian would still accept death by his hand if he knew that he loved him. Wei Wuxian does not strike him as someone who accepts much from the people who love him.
He’s not sure what he would accept from Wei Wuxian, either. There’s a war going on right outside this tent. And a part of his mind whispers that there’s a war going on inside it too.
“Do you know who this tent belonged to?” Wei Wuxian says, and Lan Wangji stiffens. For all this distance between them, they still know each other’s thoughts. Then again, it is not so much knowing each other as knowing oneself. Wei Wuxian’s thoughts align with Lan Wangji’s simply because, beneath all the reputation and circumstance and facade, they are a mirror of each other. In Wei Wuxian’s dream, he sees every dream he has ever had.
“No.”
“Do you know how he died?”
“How do people die in a war?”
It was a cruel remark, he knows, and he regrets it when Wei Wuxian falls silent. He almost wants to take it back, an apology for dragging the reality waiting for them outside into their place of respite, but he doesn’t. He’s not interested in playing these games with Wei Wuxian. None of this is a game anymore.
“I feel bad for not knowing who he is.”
That makes him pause. Wei Wuxian moves amongst cultivators that never forget a slight without a single shred of tact. He does not know the majority of the people on this campaign, and he certainly will never apologize for it.
“It’s just— people would know. If it was either of us. Nobody would be asking who we were or how we died.”
He takes notice of the chagrin and utter remorse in Wei Wuxian’s words and tries not to think about where he gained such sympathy for the forgotten dead. He knows the rumors yet has been too fearful to give them any credence. The obvious questions of Where were you? What happened? never quite forming aloud. He tells himself, in the same mantra that he recalls the Lan Sect rules, that it isn’t possible. No cultivator has ever survived the Burial Mounds.
No cultivator has ever been Wei Ying, though.
Childishly, Lan Wangji wants to dispute what he says, to insist that the two of them are no different than any other cultivator, no more or less valuable. On principle, it’s true.
But Wei Wuxian is right. They are different. It has never been so apparent as it is now, with their fame talked about in the present rather than a potential future. Lan Wangji has been ignoring it all this time because it doesn’t matter to him, but here in this dead man’s tent, he feels keenly the privilege and the burden of it. It presses down against his jugular, making each inhale a struggle. They will never be forgotten. Nobody will ever forget them.
“...there were no people around for miles, just us.”
He wants that so badly it feels pitiful to even call it want. It’s an all-consuming desire, so fierce it’s almost painful. He thinks of Song Lan and Xiao Xingchen traveling the world, beholden to no one but each other. He imagines holding Wei Wuxian in his arms and knowing that he’s safe because he has him, because nobody else can touch him ever again. It hurts, knowing that he can’t have it. It’s not the right time. Someday, he tells himself, someday. When everything is better, when they’ve done the right thing for long enough that their hair grays and their bones creak and the world can find nothing more to ask of them. If he hopes for it enough, maybe it will stop feeling like a pipe dream. Someday.
“Wei Ying,” he says, bizarrely reverent even to his own ears. He feels his face burn as soon the name passes his lips. Surely Wei Wuxian can tell, will know now if by some miracle he didn’t already.
“Lan Zhan,” is the reply. Some of Lan Wangji’s restraint crumbles, just a little. He feels Wei Wuxian shift closer to him, so their shoulders are pressed together, and feels eyes on him that he cannot bring himself to meet. Please don’t do this, he begs, even as he begs the opposite.
“Lan Zhan, I lied to you.”
I know.
“About what?”
“I didn’t have that dream. I don’t even know why I lied.”
“Don’t you?” he murmurs. When he turns his head, Wei Wuxian’s eyes are all he can see, wide and shining and wet. Their noses bump a little, and it takes everything in him to not lean into the contact.
Wei Wuxian blinks once, twice. A tear clings to the eyelashes of his left eye. Lan Wangji wants to kiss it away.
“It wasn’t a dream,” he says, desperation bleeding into his tone, “It was just something I wanted to tell you.”
You could tell me anything.
“What do you dream about, Wei Ying?”
Maybe he’s pushing too hard. But this is the first conversation he’s had with Wei Wuxian since he returned that didn’t feel like walking barefoot on broken glass, and he wants… something. He wants Wei Wuxian to give him something, at least.
“My dreams aren’t that nice, Lan Zhan.”
It’s not nearly enough. But it is something. A kernel of honesty that proves Wei Wuxian still thinks he matters enough to be worthy of that. He touches his forefinger to the back of Wei Wuxian’s hand and pretends not to notice the way it twitches violently, but his heart aches. The Wei Ying he knows used to be all easy affection, constant touches and hands grasping for another hand to hold. Lan Wangji wishes he was better at reaching out, now that Wei Wuxian is the one always retreating.
Although this time Wei Wuxian moved first, he remembers. He marks it down on the list of reasons to not give up— not that he could, even if he wanted to.
“Someone will come looking for us,” Wei Wuxian whispers. His hand nudges back against the still-extended finger, as if in apology for his initial reaction.
“Mn.”
“Try to sound a little more worried, Lan Zhan.”
“Why should I be?” says Lan Wangji, not teasing but genuinely curious.
“You know why.”
“I don’t.”
“It’s—” Wei Wuxian drags his hand up Lan Wangji’s arm, just a quick brush, before coming to rest against his shoulder. The pressure is feather-light, almost like Wei Wuxian wants to break the contact but can’t quite bring himself to. Like the action itself was involuntary. “You should be more cautious about associating with me. Even your reputation is not infallible.”
Lan Wangji has the sudden urge to grab Wei Wuxian by the shoulders and shake him. Do you think I care about that? He considers screaming at the top of his lungs, enough to shock Wei Wuxian to his bones, to make him understand the depth of what Lan Wangji feels for him.
I can’t stand you. After everything we’ve been through, do you think something so trivial matters to me? Do you think anything matters to me more than—
He takes the hand against his own shoulder, lacing their fingers together and holding it between them. Wei Wuxian’s eyes dart down to it and then back up and back down again. He’s looking right at him, though, when Lan Wangji leans forward. He’s looking right at him, so you’d think he wouldn’t gasp when their lips make contact, when Lan Wangji presses into his open mouth with the single-minded purpose of someone too afraid to consider their actions.
—you?
The way Wei Wuxian kisses him, Lan Wangji thinks maybe they are in love. Maybe they aren’t going to die, not while Wei Wuxian kisses him like he’s pinning every last hope on this kiss alone. He’s going to stay here forever, erasing every brittle edge, keeping Wei Ying beneath the palm of his hand like this, just like this.
Whatever you made yourself into to survive, he says with a kiss to the corner of his mouth, leave it. Let it go. Tell me it isn’t worth more than this.
When he pulls away, Wei Wuxian whines and tilts his head up to chase him. Thoroughly charmed and so very weak, Lan Wangji kisses him again. He notices the moisture clinging to Wei Wuxians’s cheeks, the way his eyes are screwed tightly shut, and how his whole body shudders every time Lan Wangji strokes a hand down his arm.
He draws back fully this time, “Wei Ying?”
But Wei Wuxian only shakes his head, eyes still shut, “Please, Lan Zhan, please, please, please—”
Lan Wangji obliges, of course he does. He brings their lips together if only to not hear Wei Wuxian pleading in that broken voice ever again. If only so he knows that he never has to beg for anything, not from Lan Wangji.
Wei Wuxian trembles in his arms, clinging to him as Lan Wangji pushes him gently onto his back so he can half-lean over him, never once breaking apart. Lan Wangji doesn’t know what he wants, why he won’t stop shaking or kissing him like he wants to swallow him whole.
“You should leave,” says Wei Wuxian, lips fumbling against his, as he wraps his arms around Lan Wangji’s neck, “You really should.”
“Let me go, then,” he replies, amused.
“That’s not how this works.”
“No?” He thinks he might be smiling. It’s hard to tell with Wei Wuxian nibbling on his bottom lip.
“No, but you really should go. This was a terrible idea you had.”
“You seem to be enjoying it.”
Wei Wuxian bites down on his lip for that, and then says with a grin that reminds Lan Wangji so much of when they were fifteen that it’s excruciating, “Well, I’m known for terrible ideas.”
He’s still vibrating with some energy too bright to name, and Lan Wangji leans his weight into him in some misguided effort to keep him there, as if he might fly away without something to hold him down. He captures Wei Wuxian’s lips once more in a long, languid kiss that has some of the tension bleeding out of him, arms hanging limply off his shoulders.
“Wait, wait—” Wei Wuxian drags his mouth away, panting, “I need a minute.”
Lan Wangji nods and makes to lift himself off, but the pair of arms tighten around him.
“No, just—” he cuts off, expression sheepish, “Just be like this, for a little bit. Can you?”
Lan Wangji does not know how he isn’t bawling or laughing uncontrollably or beating his fists bloody against the ground. The emotion within him feels too large for him to remain so unmoved. If he did anything of the sort, some grand display of feeling, what would be Wei Wuxian’s reply? Would he recoil? Would he place his hand between Lan Wangji’s shoulder blades and whisper gentle comforts, promises he might try to keep?
He settles over him. Wei Wuxian lets out a pleased sigh.
“I know why you’re doing this,” he says, a contented little hum in his voice, “and it’s okay. I just want to be close to you.”
“Why I’m doing this?” Lan Wangji repeats cautiously.
“It’s fine, Lan Zhan, I don’t blame you,” and when Lan Wangji does not reply, he goes on, speaking quickly as if he doesn’t want his words to be dwelled upon, “I know you feel like you have to try and save me—”
He rears back, ignoring Wei Wuxian’s startled yelp and looking him in the eye, “Do you think I’m here because I feel obligated?”
Wei Wuxian’s gaze slides away from his. An eternity passes before he responds, tonelessly, “Why else would you be here?”
Lan Wangji opens his mouth, closes it, opens it again. A thousand impulses come forth, none of them words, and he almost wishes he could vomit each one up and dump it all in Wei Wuxian’s lap. He wishes he could bottle himself up and give it to the boy before him, let him drink it, and say You see? This is me.
He can do none of those things. He can only stare in open shock as Wei Wuxian continues to not meet his eyes.
Eventually, it is Wei Wuxian that breaks the silence with a sigh, “It’s fine, Lan Zhan. I promise you it’s fine. I don’t really have the energy for dignity right now.”
He might genuinely vomit at this point. What is happening? Just minutes ago, he remembers being something close to happy, with Wei Wuxian’s smiling lips against his own. How could the beauty of a moment die so quickly?
He needs to tell him, needs to say something, needs to have some semblance of control over this situation because he knows, the way a soldier on the battlefield knows the death blow in the moment before it strikes, that if he cannot get through to Wei Wuxian in this moment, he will never get through to him again. But he can hardly breathe.
“I said it’s fine, Lan Zhan. We don’t have to speak of this ever again, alright? Please,” he says, hands running over his shoulders, soothing a worry he could not possibly comprehend, “just kiss me.”
Much later, with open wounds littered across his heart and back, Lan Wangji will regard this moment as just one amongst his many failures, but he will also see with the clarity of hindsight: Wei Wuxian did know, in an as much capacity as he let himself know, how Lan Wangji truly felt. He must have. They were each other’s mirrors. So he knew, and he drew the line all the same. There, in the dark of that dead man’s tent, Wei Wuxian whispered a desire disguised as a dream to prove to himself that he could never have it. He let himself be kissed just to prove that even this, even love, could not save him.
Much later, it will be nothing but another wound.
Then and there, though, Lan Wangji lets loose a broken noise and kisses Wei Wuxian like both of their lives depend on it. Wei Wuxian twines his arms around his neck once again, pulling and pulling, as if trying to meld their bodies together. It’s brutal and horrible and Lan Wangji thinks he might finally be weeping, judging from how wet everything is, and he’s never been more full. The kind of fullness that makes you realize that you lived every moment of the day just shy of complete, functional but never quite whole. He wants to eat Wei Wuxian so that he never has to go without him, so the flesh he bites off can be his forever. He does actually bite him, right on the underside of his jaw, and Wei Wuxian gasps and twists his hands in his clothing. He cannot ever give this up; who would be so cruel as to make him give this up?
Let them come looking for them. All the leaders of every sect may find them like this and look away, shamed by their intrusion and the knowledge that all their bare attempts to turn them against each other had been so, so pointless. They won’t approve, of course they won’t approve, but what can they do? Who would not turn a blind eye in this time of war, when the two of them are so valuable? He imagines saying nothing but making it clear all the same: If you wish to keep us, you will keep silent. Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian, together alone, could take Nightless City tomorrow if they so wished. They could be so excellent, so unparalleled, that nobody could even hope to say anything against them. And when they fight side-by-side, they’ll only ever be heroes.
The fantasy, in all its perfection, sends a pang of nausea through him.
I love you. He knows he’s crying now, his tears so hot he suspects it’s actually blood coming from his eyes. I love you. Wei Wuxian drags his mouth across his cheeks, tasting the blood-tears, cooing small endearments. I love you, I love you, I love—
“Where are you going?” he says, face pressed into Wei Wuxian’s neck. He’s not fully aware of saying it out loud, all the words he can and cannot let out blurring together, “Where are you going, Wei Ying?”
Wei Wuxian makes a dazed, inquisitive sort of sound, “Nowhere,” he breathes, “Nowhere.”
Lan Wangji kisses the lie out of his mouth.