Work Text:
"No."
Wen Qing tosses the scroll away, and lets the weight of her gaze fall directly on Wei Wuxian."I will not even consider that."
"We don't have a choice, Wen Qing."
His eyes are bloodshot. He needs sleep. They all do.
For the three days they've been here, hiding, Wei Wuxian has only left Lan Wangji's side for a few moments to take care of anything necessary before returning. He's had Wen Ning running back and forth to the collection of medical scrolls, bringing him anything and everything.
If she had known this scroll were there, she would have hidden it from him.
"If we don't do this, what happens?" Wei Wuxian asks her.
She opens her mouth to lie, but he looks at her, pleadingly.
She sighs. "He dies. He's trying to die, now."
"Then save him," Wei Wuxian says.
He means it, she knows. Only Wei Wuxian would sit there and casually talk about this.
She understands obligation, has no small amount of it to him, in fact, for the kindness he has shown her and A-Ning.
By all accounts, Lan Wangji fought Wen Zhuliu and three other cultivators alone, giving Wei Wuxian cover and the chance to rescue his sect brother and sister, though they were unable to prevent the death of Jiang Fengmian and his wife.
Lan Wangji stood alone against four, losing only when Wen Zhuliu managed to get a sword strike in.
Then he crushed his core and left him to bleed out.
How he survived for Wei Wuxian to get him here, she would never know.
She has done all she can to stem the bleeding inside, but Wei Wuxian is correct. Without a core, Lan Wangji will die. And soon.
But his proposal is madness.
"You don't know what you are asking," she says. Then she nods toward Lan Wangji's pale, sleeping form. "He would never ask this of you. He will not thank you for it, even if it works. Which it likely will not."
Wei Wuxian nods. "I know. But there is a chance, and if there is a chance, we have to take it. Saving the second Jade of Lan can only help you, politically."
He does not say the unspoken aloud, but they all know it. If it were known that the second Jade of Lan died in her care, it would be far, far worse for them.
But what he proposes, she cannot in good conscience do it. Not with such a low possibility of success.
"The most likely outcome is that he dies, and so do you."
"We need him."
We need you, she doesn't say.
But he is right. Politically, Wei Wuxian wields no power, not with Lotus Pier fallen and his sect brother and sister fled to Meishan. The Lan would be a powerful ally.
Wei Wuxian is looking at her, intent.
Wen Ning comes in, bringing food that Wei Wuxian will not eat.
If it were just about her, she could refuse this idiot and walk away. Take A-Ning and run, and hope they find a place to survive the war.
But Wen Popo and Uncle Four and the rest of her family…what hope would any of them have?
"I can give you no more than a fifty percent chance of success," she says, resigned.
Wei Wuxian's expression brightens for the first time in days. "That's more than I thought. Let's do it."
"Jie."
"Jie."
Wen Ning is shaking her shoulder, holding out a cup of water, imploring her to drink.
Wen Qing pushes it away.
Wei Wuxian has finally, blessedly, passed out.
She looks down, at her blood covered hands and his pale face drawn tight with pain and wants to scream, to open her mouth and scream and scream and scream, as he had done when his golden core pulled free from his body, ripping apart his meridians and shattering every piece of him.
Lan Wangji sleeps on, oblivious, color already returning to his face, vessels knitting together as the bright energy that once coursed through Wei Wuxian's body rushes to fill the gaps and suffuse him with healing.
It should not have worked. Would not have worked, but for one thing, which she only now understands, only now comprehends.
"Burn the scroll," she says.
"Jie?"
"Burn it, and any other evidence of this procedure. Let no one ever find it."
Lan Wangji settles to the floor in his tent. He lights some sandalwood incense, and attempts to meditate.
It is a struggle. Has been a struggle, since he woke in the supervisory office in Yiling.
He owes the Wen his life. He acknowledges this, accepts it. Why they chose to save him, he does not know.
His memory is hazy, something Wen-daifu says is normal. He remembers going to Lotus Pier, after he and Wei Wuxian fight the Xuanwu of Slaughter. He planned to leave from there to search for his brother, but Lotus Pier was attacked. He remembers Wen Zhuliu, remembers falling to the ground, remembers a searing, burning pain and then he knows nothing more until he woke to find himself in a bed and Wen Qionglin dabbing his forehead with a damp cloth.
Wei Wuxian and Jiang Wanyin and Jiang Yanli were gone when he woke. To Meishan, Wen Qing said.
Wen Zhuliu damaged his core, that much was clear.
Not completely, it is still there.
But it is different.
The energy circulating through his meridians feels…wilder. That is the only way to explain it. He is as powerful as he had been, is able to do everything he used to be able to do, but the energy feels as if it never comes fully under his control. Like it is a feral animal, straining at its bonds, striving to be unleashed.
Tomorrow they will make the final push to Nightless City.
He will be in the vanguard, along with their strongest cultivators - his brother, Jiang Wanyin, Nie Mingjue, Jin Zixuan.
And Wei Wuxian.
Wei Wuxian who will not talk to him. Who has been strange, and cold, and distant. Wei Wuxian who no longer carries his sword, but calls forth the dead with a black dizi and eyes that burn like red coals.
He circulates warmth through his meridians, and his golden core flares to life and he feels the energy of it thrash around inside him like a wild beast.
Wei Wuxian leans back against the tree and considers that perhaps, just once, he might have channeled Wen Qing and just shut his ridiculous mouth.
He knows exactly how he got manuevered into this ludicrous situation that has led to him being blindfolded. During a night hunt.
Like an idiot.
Call it bravado, arrogance, irreverence, all those words the other cultivators use to describe him. He knows what they say to his face.
He is also aware of what they say when they think he doesn't know. What they whisper, what they speculate, what they plot and scheme.
They needed him in Sunshot. Were happy to have his army of the dead doing their bidding, sang his praises and vocally thanked him.
Now, though, now that their fear of Wen Ruohan no longer trumps their distaste of him…Wei Wuxian knows that they whisper.
Maybe he should leave. Shijie is engaged, to that ridiculous peacock, and Jiang Cheng is getting Lotus Pier back up and established again. The longer he stays, the longer he pretends, the more likely it is that he will be found out. That Jiang Cheng will know what he did.
He will never understand.
And Lan Wangji…if the truth comes out, if the cultivation world knows Wei Wuxian no longer has a core, Lan Wangji will piece things together. He is smart.
Wei Wuxian doesn't want that. Doesn't want the weight of Lan Wangji's obligation.
What he wants is to get in touch with Wen Qing, but he is not sure how. He wants to make sure she is well, and her family, and make certain there is a place for them, somewhere they can settle and not have to keep looking over their shoulder.
He's hoping to raise it, soon, to the others. Jiang Cheng will support them, once he feels a little more secure. And if the Lan are behind them, then they should be okay. Should be able to secure things.
It's about timing, is all. Bringing it up at the right time. He takes a breath and tries to calm himself.
A noise.
Something is approaching, through the underbrush. He tenses up, before relaxing. Those are human footsteps. Not the shambling of a fierce corpse, or the hurried energy of a beast or yao. The careful steps are those of a cultivator.
"Who is that?" he calls out. "I would greet you, but as you can tell, I'm not exactly able to call you by name."
The person doesn't speak.
They are close enough he can hear breathing, quick, but not labored.
He steps away from the tree trunk, and twirls Chenqing in his hand. "Not going to talk? It's okay, I usually talk enough for everyone."
A rush of air from rapid movement is all the warning he gets before he is slammed back into the tree.
A long lean body is pressed against him and his lips…his lips are being claimed by another.
Wei Wuxian is a noted flirt, but for all his talk he has never kissed anyone before. That's what this is, a kiss. Right?
He takes a heartbeat to catch up and then he is kissing back. A moment of awkwardness, of finding his footing, but the other person turns their head just so and the angle shifts and then it is something completely else.
Wei Wuxian sinks into it, making a soft sound in the back of his throat and his free hand comes up and wraps around the person's back and he can feel a strongly muscled back and then he engages the rest of his senses and realizes he can smell sandalwood and his brain is trying to formulate a thought but the person's mouth is so hot, and wet, and he pulls them closer instinctively and then something deep within him, some part of him that is always cavernous and cold and hungry surges to life and it is like the relief of a warm fire to frozen hands.
Energy, golden and warm, pours into him, not much, just a trickle, but it may as well be a wellspring of clear water to parched earth. He wants to drink it in, bathe himself in it, every nerve ending in his body is lit up, he feels frantic, wild, ready to claw into Lan Wangji's body and make a place for himself inside it.
Because it is Lan Wangji. It has to be. It is Lan Wangji kissing him, and sharing the energy of his own golden core with him.
As quickly as it began, it is over. The warmth is gone, he wants to cry out in the pain of losing it.
He rips off the blindfold and sees Lan Wangji standing before him.
The expression on his face is one of pure horror.
Wei Wuxian flees.
Lan Wangji does not stop him, does not call his name.
"Where are the Dafan Wen?"
Wei Wuxian's voice rings out in the dining hall. Lan Wangji turns with a start. It has been weeks since Phoenix Mountain, weeks of him sitting and thinking and putting pieces together until the entire horrifying picture is revealed.
He knows. He knows, he knows, he knows, and he can never unknow.
He's been looking, querying Jiang Wanyin, Jiang Yanli, anyone who might know where Wei Wuxian is and now he is here, he has just walked into the dining hall and asked for the location of the Wen.
Jin Guangshan bristles, he will delay, he will stall, he will throw his not inconsiderable weight around just to prove that no one questions him in his own hall.
There is clearly no time for that.
Lan Wangji stands.
"I will only count from three," Wei Wuxian says.
"Three."
Jin Zixun, who is closest to Wei Wuxian, sneers at him.
Lan Wangji steps forward, ignoring his brother's hushed: "Wangji!"
He aligns himself next to Wei Wuxian and draws Bichen, pointing the end of the blade at Jin Zixun. "Two."
Now facing both of them, Jin Zixun folds. "Fine, fine who cares? They're at Qiongqi Path."
Lan Wangji pivots and leaves the room in silence, and Wei Wuxian follows. He turns to him once they are out of the hall and alone.
"Lan Zhan you don't have to do this, you don't have to —"
"We will get there faster if we fly," Lan Wangji says, cutting him off.
Wei Wuxian's face flushes, he stammers, and twirls Chenqing nervously. "I, I, I can't exactly…"
Lan Wangji just steps onto Bichen, and holds out his hand. "I know. I can carry us both."
"Wei Ying."
He hears Lan Wangji call his name, but he shakes his head, rejecting it.
Anger surges through him, calls to the resentment that always infuses him. Anger, white hot and burning and so, so very hungry. Anger that begs him to give in, and lose control.
A hand falls on his shoulder. "Wei Ying, focus."
He shrugs Lan Wangji off. He can't think about him, can't think about the fact that he is here, with Wei Wuxian's own core burning inside him, because if he thinks about it too much he might push him down, might immobilize him and take and take and take like he has wanted to since that kiss in Phoenix Mountain.
No. No, he doesn't want to take.
He wants to receive. Wants to wrap himself around Lan Wangji and let the man just pour everything into him.
Now is not the time.
"Wei-gongzi, we're okay," Wen Ning says. But he doesn't look okay, he looks starved and bruised and abused and so does every other member of the Dafan Wen.
They are all alive, but they are also all hurt. And Wei Wuxian wants to make the Jin hurt in return.
"Wei Ying!"
Lan Wangji touches him.
He turns him to face him and there is a line of tension in Lan Wangji's face. He looks worried. He looks scared.
Scared of Wei Wuxian.
That thought hollows him out, he feels the resentful energy bleed away. He takes a breath.
"We need horses," he says. "Many of them can't walk."
"Where will we go?" one of the Wen asks. The one Wen Qing called Popo.
"To Gusu," Lan Wangji states, confidently, strong. "We will go to Gusu and all of you will be under the protection of the Lan."
Wen Qing thinks she really deserves some kind of medal, some award, for tolerating all the foolishness she is forced to deal with on a daily basis.
"Have you talked to him?" she asks Wei Wuxian.
He shakes his head.
Wen Qing sighs, then gives into temptation and smacks him on the back of the head.
"Ow!" Wei Wuxian shouts.
They've been here, in Gusu, for ten days now. Long enough to build some shelters, especially with the help of the Lan disciples. They are outside the walls, so that they are not beholden to following the Lan precepts, but Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji personally worked to extend the wards so they are under the protection of the Lan clan wards.
Uncle Four has mobilized people and begun clearing ground for crops, so that they can become self-sufficient as soon as possible.
Wen Qing, approached by the lead Lan healer, has begun working in the Lan infirmary.
The Dafan Wen are settling in, getting comfortable, adjusting.
More than she can say for Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji, who still dance around each other like they are afraid of getting burned if they get too close.
Politically, things are still fraught. But the Lan stand firm against the Jin and surprisingly, the Jiang have also supported them. The Nie remain neutral but Wen Qing knows that with the close relationship between Lan Xichen and Nie Mingjue, it is only a matter of time before the Nie also support them. They are helped by the fact that Lan Wangji was able to stop Wei Wuxian from killing any of the Jin manning the labor camp at Qiongqi Path. Jiang Yanli's upcoming marriage to Jin Zixuan also serves as a needed distraction.
"You two need to sort your shit out," she says.
Wei Wuxian shakes his head.
"I don't…I don't want him to feel like he owes me," he says.
Lan Wangji does owe Wei Wuxian, Wen Qing doesn't say, because it it will not help.
But there is more information, information only she knows. And perhaps, it is time to share it.
"I need you to shut up and listen to me, until I tell you to stop," she says.
Wei Wuxian looks over at her, and shrugs. "Sure."
"I mean it, Wei Wuxian. Be quiet and say nothing until I am done. Then promise me you will go to Lan Wangji."
He nods, and she takes a deep breath and speaks.
Lan Wangji attempts to quiet his thoughts and initiate meditation. Now that he is aware that his core is not his own, things make much more sense.
The wildness, the birghtness, the brilliance of Wei Wuxian, he feels it. In a way, it's helped him make peace with it.
The energy that courses through him is still hard to bring under control, however.
He is sitting on the rock edge that surrounds the cold springs.
Normally this place encourages meditation, makes him feel grounded, but the energy in him roils and pitches and strains.
A rustle of robes and the displacement of air and then Wei Wuxian is seated beside him.
"Hi," he says.
"Hello," Lan Wangji replies.
"We should probably talk."
"I have tried. You have avoided me," Lan Wangji says, and he doesn't try to stop the bitterness from creeping into his voice.
Wei Wuxian winces. "I know. I'm sorry."
"Why?" The question pours from him with more emotion and anguish than one syllable should be able to convey. He is not asking why Wei Wuxian hasn't talked to him. And wei Wuxian clearly knows it.
Wei Wuxian doesn't say anything at first. He fidgets, as he is wont to do, plucking up blades of grass and throwing them into the cold springs.
Finally he speaks: "At first I told myself it was because politically, saving the Second Jade of Lan would benefit the Wen."
"At first?" Lan Wangji asks, because that implies there is at least a second, more important reason.
Wei Wuxian squirms, uncomfortable. Lan Wangji waits, in silence, giving him space to process and think through how he wants to answer.
He mumbles something, incoherent, the words too soft and too jumbled together for Lan Wangji to make out what he said.
"What?""
"It wasn't supposed to work!" Wei Wuxian says more loudly, more vociferously.
"Explain," Lan Wangji says, a cold sense of dread beginning to creep into his body.
"Wen Qing did more research, after," Wei Wuxian says. "There were several mentions of attempted core transfers, more than a dozen were attempted, but only one was successful. She didn't know that when she did ours."
Lan Wangji feels that dread overtake him and has to force himself not to visibly shudder with it.
"The only successful one, well, the two people, they were…" Wei Wuxian trails off and Lan Wangji wants to scream but he forces himself to remain impassive, to remain still.
"They were what?" he asks, quietly.
Wei Wuxian shifts some more, his body unable to hold still. This frenetic energy is at once so familiar that Lan Wangji wonders why it took him so long to piece the events together.
"Zhiji," Wei Wuian finally says. He is looking away, purposefully refraining from meeting Lan Wangji's eyes.
"They were cultivation partners and by all accounts, soul mates," Wei Wuxian says.
He sounds wary, uneasy.
As if the news is unwelcome, or unbelievable.
But to Lan Wangji, it is as if everything uncertain in his life has suddenly slotted into place.
"And I know, I know you don't want this," Wei Wuxian continues. "But I need you to know, after she told me, I did some thinking and I think I get it. You're my person. All that time, in Gusu, and after, I wanted your attention. I wanted you to notice me, to pay attention to me. It's always been you, Lan Zhan. For me. It's always been you. So I think that is why, you were going to die, without a core, and I couldn't let you."
Lan Wangji does not know what to do, how to respond. He does not have words, does not have the ability to respond with any type of coherence.
So he does the only thing he can think of. He reaches out, places a hand on Wei Wuxian's face, tilts him toward him, and kisses him.
It starts tentative, unsure, but when his golden core flares to life beneath his skin, surges through him and tries to re-connect with Wei Wuxian, he abandons all sense of propriety, and pulls Wei Wuxian toward him and he comes willingly and soon Wei Wuxian is in his lap and they are wrapped in each other and the kisses are deepening and he wants to do nothing more than this forever.
Wei Wuxian pulls back and they both catch their breath. "I can feel it," he whispers. "I can feel my core."
"I'm giving it back to you," Lan Wangji assures him.
Wei Wuxian shakes his head. "Wen Qing says she's never doing that again."
"Surgery is not my chosen method," Lan Wangji tells him and waits until the realization dawns on his zhiji's face.
"Oh? And when exactly are you planning on starting that process?"
Lan Wangji stands and pulls Wei Wuxian to his feet. "Now."
Wei Wuxian laughs and walks alongside him toward the Jinghi. "You know, er-Gege, it will probably take multiple tries. I don't imagine we can rebuild my core with only one attempt."
"Diligence is the root," Lan Wangji quotes the Lan precept and listens to the music of Wei Wuxian's laughter. "We will be focused, and consistent. Every day."