Archive of Our Own

“...ei… Ying…”

It’s so dark that Wei Wuxian cannot tell if his eyes are closed or not. He tries again to shove the body beside him away, finds that he can’t even do that now, like his every limb is made of stone. The cold of the cave air leaves him aching, while everywhere that Lan Zhan touches him burns. Voices scream in his head, howling out grief and rage and pain. Worst of all is the weakening stream of spiritual energy that Lan Zhan keeps pouring uselessly into Wei Wuxian, resentful energy fighting it the way a fever burns away illness.

Voices break through the maelstrom in his mind. Not the voices of the dead and not Lan Zhan’s, tormenting him all these days months years lifetimes he’s laid here waiting to die, begging him to hold on, to stay with him — no, they’re new voices, distant and angry. Lan Zhan sobs. His hold tightens, and it hurts.

Leave me alone, Wei Wuxian tries to say; it comes out as an animalistic snarl. Let me rot here. Let rodents and worms eat my bones, then I’ll have been of use to something.

“They’re here,” Lan Zhan whispers. “Wei Ying. I have to go.”

It hurts, too, when Lan Zhan lays him on the cold, hard stone. For all the spitting and screaming, for all that Wei Wuxian has pushed Lan Zhan away, bit and scratched and beat with his fists, he cries out when Lan Zhan lets go, reaching for him in the dark. He can't see, and it isn’t that his eyes are closed, he realizes, and it’s not the natural darkness of whatever hole Lan Zhan has dragged him into; it’s resentment. It’s a thick cloud swirling all around him; he searches for Lan Zhan’s face among the fog and can’t find him.  

He'd tried. He'd tried so hard, begged Lan Zhan to go, to get out, and he hadn't listened, Now they're here, and it's too late.

“I will come back for you,” Lan Zhan says, his voice near but hardly audible, and Wei Wuxian knows that for the first time in their lives, he’s just heard Lan Zhan lie.

He tries to scream; it comes out as a hoarse croak. A hand brushes his hair aside and cool lips touch his forehead. It’s all wrong. It’s all wrong. He’s the one who’s supposed to die here, who walked into Nightless City with no plans to survive, not Lan Zhan. It can’t be Lan Zhan. 

The ghost of a kiss, and he's gone, and Wei Wuxian dies.

He’d nearly drowned once. A long time ago, back home. A dare from his jeering shixiong and deep water and lake weeds knotted around his feet. Jiang Cheng had pulled him free as his vision started to go dark. There was water in his lungs, and his chest and throat burned as he coughed up bile and silt for hours after.

Waking up feels like drowning. He shakes the way he shook then. Gasps for air, suffocating even as his lungs expand. Resentment is a cruel healer, this he knows. It doesn’t give a damn if it’s killing you even as it stitches together broken limbs and torn muscles. As long as you’re moving. As long as you are of use to it.

Wei Wuxian steps out of the cave awash in shadow, eyes burning red.

Don’t come out, he’d told A-Yuan as the boy curled up as small as he could into the hollow of the tree. If he weren’t already starving, he might not have fit. Wei Wuxian doesn’t know if he’ll find a tiny corpse or nothing at all. He doesn’t know how he found his way back here. It doesn’t matter. Resentment guides his step. It’s almost funny. He’d turned so many corpses into puppets; now it’s his turn.

A-Yuan blinks open eyes crusted over from crying. He smells of piss and vomit, eyes glazed over. “Xian-gege?” He rasps, voice nearly gone. The resentment stretches out toward him, twines around him like a mother soothing her child. It loves him, and A-Yuan doesn’t fear it the way the others always had — he never learned to be afraid of ghosts. But he’s never seen it act on its own this way. A-Yuan lifts his arms as Wei Wuxian pulls him from the cradle of roots and rotting wood. His clothes are rags and his skin burns even through the cloth, sweat-sticky, pressing his face into the crook of Wei Wuxian’s neck. Resentment wraps around them both, a facsimile of softness.

“I have you,” Wei Wuxian whispers, the dry croak of a dead man. “I have you, baobei.”

The Cloud Recesses are silent, unless you know how to listen. Then you begin to hear the whispers. Do not gossip — if that rule were enforced, the disciples and elders alike would never stop copying lines. The whispers are loud tonight. Did you hear — betrayed — how could he — punished —

As a teenager  Wei Wuxian had spent hours slinking around the place, hiding from Lan Qiren and his tendency to hurl books at his head. He knows the paths that Lan Zhan walked, and where to jump out and surprise him. He even knows the way to the jingshi - a fitting title for Lan Zhan’s home — though he’s never been inside. Lan Zhan would always slam the doors in his face before he had the chance. He wasn’t even going to do anything. He’d just wanted to see how someone as boring as Lan Zhan lived.

There had never been guards at the door in those days. There are now. Two of them, hands on their swords; they don’t hear Wei Wuxian as he crouches around the side of the house. But he can hear every whisper, the things they would never say except under the cover of night. 

“...don’t see why we have to be here all night.”

“Are you stupid? Obviously to keep an eye on Hanguang-jun!”

“Who’s stupid? You didn’t see when they brought him in! With those injuries, he won’t be going anywhere for a long time.”

“It’s that Yiling Laozu’s fault. He used some wicked trick on Hanguang-jun. Why else would he fight on the side of those Wen scum at the Burial Mounds and injure members of his own clan!”

“I heard it was elders he fought. Thirty-three lashings for the thirty-three that he injured.”

Tendrils of resentment snake out and cover the men’s mouths before they see it coming, muffling their crude words. Wei Wuxian watches it happen and feels nothing, feels far away. It pries them open and slithers down their throats, into their lungs. They drown on air, the only sound the thump of their bodies hitting the ground. 

“Do not gossip,” Wei Wuxian murmurs as he walks through the front door, not sparing them a second glance.

He doesn’t know what he expects to find here. He’d heard the sounds of fighting as he died, and that was all. But he knows one thing: Lan Zhan isn’t going to die. He isn’t, because he can’t, because he’s Lan Zhan, because if he dies — if he —

Lan Zhan was nowhere to be seen when Wei Wuxian crawled from that cave. Just blood in the dirt. Until he sees a body, there's a chance, and they would not bother to stand guard over a body.

And if he had to — Wei Wuxian could bring him back. He wonders if Lan Zhan would ever forgive him for it.

He picks his way through the dark rooms; there are no lanterns lit but the moon is bright through the circular window that frames Lan Zhan’s bed. He wonders if this is where Lan Zhan planned to keep him if he’d come back to Gusu after all; a pretty prison. Hanguang-jun’s prison now. He hears Lan Zhan’s labored breathing before he sees the shape of him, belly-down on the bed. Before he steps closer he commands the resentment to spread, and it answers easily, an extension of his body. It blankets the walls, the floor, the ceiling in smoke and muffles all sound from within. On the bed, Lan Zhan tries to move; collapses immediately, a pained noise wrenched from his throat. Red blooms through the bandages that cover his entire back.

Thirty-three lashes. The Lan clan’s discipline whip is infamous even outside of Gusu, and Lan Zhan had taken thirty-three lashes. The ghosts in Wei Wuxian’s blood hiss and spit; their rage is his rage, and his rage is theirs, and they want to hurt whoever did this.

When Lan Zhan opens his eyes, he doesn’t say a word, only stares. Sweat breaks out over his forehead. Without thinking, Wei Wuxian kneels by the bed, reaching for the cloth and the bowl of water nearby. He wets the cloth and dabs it against Lan Zhan’s brow, wiping away the sweat. He burns just like A-Yuan. This might have killed him if he didn’t have a strong golden core. It still might. He wonders who wielded the whip, who tore this skin, once smooth as jade, to shreds. He wonders how he can find out, so that he can kill them.

He could just kill them all. It wouldn’t be hard. He would burn down the world for Lan Zhan, who was his zhiji, who fought thirty-three men for him. He did not know this about himself until now, but he knows that it’s true. The only thing that gives him pause, that breaks through the haze of resentment, is that Lan Zhan and A-Yuan will die if he gets himself killed here. That’s assuming the resentment would let him die again even if he tried — he doesn’t care to test that theory.

“Wei Ying,” Lan Zhan croaks. He sounds like he’s speaking through a throat full of sand. Wei Wuxian shushes him as he wipes his brow, his neck, his hands. Stubborn as always, Lan Zhan tries to speak again. “Wei Ying — healer —”

That’s right — with Lan Zhan in this state it won’t be long before someone comes around to change his bandages, bring him water. When they come, they’ll see the dead men outside, see the Yiling Laozu haunting the second young master’s bedside.

“Time to go,” Wei Wuxian says. The resentment helps him support Lan Zhan’s weight as Wei Ying lifts him from the bed. He winces as Lan Zhan’s pained gasp, the way his legs tremble trying to keep him upright. He will bleed through his bandages before long. “I’m sorry — I’m sorry.”

It’s harder to sneak out than it was to sneak in, with Lan Zhan a dead weight in his arms. They nearly make it over the wall before they’re spotted. More guards; a woman with the same ribbon that Lan Zhan wears, a man with the plain ribbon of an outer disciple. The woman’s eyes go wide as the full moon above them.

“Yiling Laozu! It’s the Yiling Laozu, Wei Wuxian!”

The resentment acts on its own. It shoots toward the guards like tentacles of black smoke, knocking them to the ground and pinning them down. Ours, it seems to whisper, voices only Wei Wuxian can hear. Ours, ours, ours.

He doesn’t wait to see what happens to them. By the time he makes it back to where he’d hidden A-Yuan, the resentment has returned to curl around him, carrying with it a sense of smug satisfaction.

His memories of the next hours — days? — are distorted, as if watching himself through a hazy mirror. He must be hungry, he thinks, but he doesn’t feel that anymore. Not hunger, or exhaustion, or even pain. His body has very little to do with him now. It’s just a tool being wielded to reach his goal, much like it was in his first return to life after being thrown in the Burial Mounds, coreless and broken. And then he had his revenge, ended the war, and suddenly he had to think about what came after. He could imagine an after back then. If not for himself, then for the people he loved. But he was a person, then. Not whatever he is now.

The doctor startles when he pushes his way inside her clinic late at night, her eyes big and round as dinner plates. She stands up from her work bench, staring at them as Wei Wuxian shuts the door behind them. She’s young, and awkwardly tall, as if she grew too fast to keep up with herself, and she keeps her dark hair covered and out of her face.

Wei Wuxian knows he must be a sight. He’d taken off his outer robe to use as a makeshift sling to carry A-Yuan, who wouldn’t stop shivering no matter what he did; Lan Zhan had already been stripped down to his trousers when Wei Wuxian carried him from the jingshi. He almost wants to laugh. A young lord staining the tile floor with blood, a sick child, and a dead man in his underthings, so shrouded in resentment that he can hardly see his own hands in front of him.

He and the doctor stare at each other for a long moment like cats before a fight.

“You’re the one everyone has been talking about,” she says carefully. “The one who calls himself the Yiling Laozu. And that — that’s Hanguang-jun.”

“I’ve never called myself that,” he feels the need to point out.

“They say you died. They say your lair was burned to the ground.”

“People say a lot of things.” He wavers on his feet, black specks flickering behind his eyes. As he sways, Lan Zhan’s head lolls against his shoulder. As if jolted from a trance, the doctor rushes forward to support Lan Zhan’s weight. It takes effort to draw the resentment back, to keep it from lashing out at anyone who comes near; he manages, though those black spots in his vision grow. “He’s been whipped,” he explains, voice faint to his own ears. “And the child has a fever. So you’ll help them.”

“What happened?”

He does not have time for this. “You will help them,” he repeats, not a question but a command. He doesn’t care what happens next, where he’ll go. As long as Lan Zhan and A-Yuan are safe. As long as they live.

The doctor’s shrewd gaze darts between Wei Wuxian and the door behind him. She nods to herself, as if coming to some kind of decision, and crosses the room to lock the door and pull the shutters closed. So that’s how it is, he thinks — lock up the Yiling Laozu until the authorities arrive. It’s an awful plan on her part. Wei Wuxian really doesn’t want to kill her. The resentment does, wants it very badly.

“You’re lucky I have empty beds,” she sighs. “All three of you, come with me.”

“Daifu,” Wei Wuxian begins, but she’s already taking A-Yuan from his arms, so gentle he doesn’t even stir (the ghosts hate it, shrieking at the prospect of anyone else touching him), leaving Wei Wuxian with only Lan Zhan’s weight to support.

“Everyone who comes to me receives the treatment they need, no matter who they are,” the doctor says firmly. “Please follow me, gongzi.”

At a loss, he does.

The clinic is small, the room that she leads them to holding only two beds that sit across from each other. The doctor takes A-Yuan to another room, while Wei Wuxian sinks onto the nearest of the two, letting Lan Zhan’s head lay against his shoulder. 

“Wei Ying?” Lan Zhan whispers, eyes trying to flutter open.

“Shh. Try not to move,” Wei Wuxian says. “Lan Zhan, does it hurt much?”

“You are here,” Lan Zhan says instead of answering. He sounds nearly peaceful. “You…”

The doctor returns, stopping to dip into a bow when she sees Lan Zhan awake if not lucid. “Hanguang-jun, please allow this humble doctor to help you lie on your front. Then we will clean and dress your wounds. You,” she says to Wei Wuxian with none of the same politeness, “are going to take a bath. You smell like death. There’s already water in the other room. That bed will be yours; you’ll rest there until I’m ready for you. It may be some time.”

“Ready for me to do what?” Wei Wuxian allows her to untangle Lan Zhan from his arms and watches her every move as she eases Lan Zhan onto his stomach. She gives him a look like he’s the biggest idiot she’s ever met, and that expression is so familiar that for a moment he’s looking at another woman’s face entirely. He shuts his eyes tight, bites his own tongue until it hurts.

“To examine you. I need to tend to these wounds first, and then bring your son’s fever down — do you know when he last ate?”

“I… no. I don’t.” He forces himself to open his eyes again. The woman has her own face again; Wen Qing is still very much dead. He tastes blood in his mouth.

“Just broth, then. He’s starving, that’s obvious, but right now solid food would only upset his stomach. You can sleep while you wait for me. After you bathe.”

“Ah, daifu, there’s really no need.” Wei Wuxian waves his hands as if to fend her off. “I’m already dead, you see.”

With Lan Zhan settled on his front, the doctor turns back to him, eyebrows raised. She approaches him, peering closely at his face, and then starts poking and prodding at him, listening to his heartbeat. Wei Wuxian is too amused to do anything about it. She seems to know exactly where he’s falling apart, as if held together with bits of string; when her hand comes near his chest, where the arrow plunged in, his hand snaps up to grip her wrist. Only then does she back off, rubbing at her arm where he’d grabbed her.

“Well, gongzi,” she says, “sorry to disappoint you, but I’m afraid you’re very much alive.”

She has to force him into the bath — force him away from Lan Zhan and A-Yuan. She's lucky that his need for the two of them to be well outweighs the desire to kill anything that comes near them, that he’s too tired at this moment to fight her. He sits in the lukewarm water and stares at the wall, slowly becoming aware of all the ways his body hurts, though never quite feeling it, merely an outside observer. 

Eventually he does scrub himself down, turning the water gray-brown; it doesn't do much to help. More than one bath will be necessary to wash away the filth of the Burial Mounds. The effort sounds exhausting. It was easier being dead.

His hair is another story. A rats' nest at the back of his head, such a tightly wound mat of dirt and blood he can hardly untangle his ribbon from it, even shredded as it is. 

A-Xian, look at this mess. A voice like sunlight on water, fond and chiding. He can almost feel her small hands pushing his hair back, working through knots so gently that caring for his hair becomes something to look forward to, rather than a pain. Come here. Let your shijie take care of you, and there's blood in the water and on her hands -

He digs his nails into his palms, sharp pricks of pain where they’re jagged and broken. The phantom hands fade away with the sound of her voice and the smell of jasmine. The blood in the water is old, dry and flaking off his skin. He wants her back immediately. He doesn’t care if it’s not real or if he’s dead or alive or losing his mind.

His eyes land on a straight razor that sits with some other grooming tools. It must belong to someone who lives here. Perhaps the doctor's husband. He ponders it for a long moment.

He has done far worse things to the body his parents gifted him. And it is only a body, in the end. Only a tool. He still takes a moment to murmur, "Sorry, mother; sorry, father," as he takes the blade and hacks the tangled mess of hair off.

He sleeps all through the first day, maybe more. When he does wake, in that heavy way where the eyes beg to close again, it’s still night — or night again — and a dim lantern casts strange shadows across the room. The first thing he sees is Lan Zhan looking back at him.

For a little while, looking is all that Wei Wuxian does. Watching and allowing himself to be watched in return, nowhere left to hide. It’s ironic. When they were just boys he had poked and prodded and tried everything to get Lan Zhan to look his way, just for a second, a glance, even a glare would do. He barely knew why. Just another game, except sometimes it wasn’t. And then everything changed and Lan Zhan was always looking at him, and Wei Wuxian — he was terrified, all the time, that Lan Zhan would know, would see every rotten thing inside him, and if Lan Zhan would only look at him with disgust or pity then he didn’t want it at all.

Like so many things, all the lies and deflection seem incredibly pointless now. None of it had helped anyone in the end. But for a second, lying here, his eyes meeting Lan Zhan’s in the dark, everything is still and quiet, and Lan Zhan does not look pitying. He looks…

Happy.

The beds are only big enough for one. Without questioning where the urge comes from, he pushes his own across the floor, wood scraping wood, until his bed is flush with Lan Zhan’s. Only then does he lie down again, close enough to feel the feverish heat of Lan Zhan’s body as it fights off infection. He’s cold, Wei Wuxian justifies to no one but himself; he’s shivering even in the homespun underclothes that the doctor insisted he change into. He wants to curl toward Lan Zhan’s warmth like a lizard sunning itself on a rock. To feel him close, and alive.

“I’ll be quiet,” he says inanely. “You won’t even know I’m here.”

Lan Zhan inches his hand forward and lays it over Wei Wuxian’s. He threads their fingers together and squeezes gently. As sleep drags Wei Wuxian back under, Lan Zhan smiles.

Wei Wuxian dreams of whips most nights. He can’t be sure, at first, if he’s the one holding the weapon or the one being beaten or both at once. He is on his knees and Madam Yu stands over him — no, he’s wrong. It’s Jiang Cheng, with the same thunderous expression as his mother. Crack. Now it’s Wen Chao. Crack, crack. It’s shijie, her clothes drenched red. It’s Lan Zhan.

When he wakes, briefly, he can’t stop shaking.

The doctor’s husband prepares and brings them their food, simple fare without a hint of spice except ginger. He is not, Wei Wuxian suspects, happy about their presence — sometimes he hears the couple’s arguments at night, hushed through the thin walls, and the husband approaches Wei Wuxian with trepidation. Wei Wuxian wonders which stories of the Yiling Laozu he’s heard. Still, he feeds them, takes their linens to be washed every few days. The small daily tasks so that his wife can dedicate her time to keeping them alive.

Lan Zhan eats the bland food obediently, small portions between long periods of sleep. For A-Yuan the rice is mashed, the only way he’ll keep it down; the doctor says he’ll barely chew. When Wei Wuxian does eat, half the time he throws it up. The doctor says nothing about this. She quietly fills another bowl and places it in front of him, whether he accepts it or not.

“Have you been drugging me?” Wei Wuxian asks. He’s been cruelly kicked from his bed — the doctor needed room to redress Lan Zhan’s wounds — and he realizes that he doesn’t have a clue how much time has passed or how much of it he’s spent asleep. It’s jarring, the loss of control, not knowing every detail of Lan Zhan and A-Yuan’s care. Puts him in mind of Wen Qing’s needles keeping him paralyzed, lying still in a cave while his family went off to die. He wants to break something.

“It took you this long to notice?” The doctor continues working, hardly glancing his way. 

It’s difficult to watch Lan Zhan’s bandages come off, but Wei Wuxian makes himself look anyway. A sort of self-inflicted penance. He’d vomited the first time he saw the wounds, when blood still ran in rivulets down Lan Zhan’s back even as it started to clot. He’d run out to the back courtyard and heaved in the grass, and when he was aware of himself again the doctor had draped a wool blanket over his shoulders, a cup of water pressed into his shaking hands. She’d looked at him with such pity that he thinks he hurled the cup at the wall and shattered it, but it’s hard to remember. Hard to remember a lot of things. The time before his death is a red blur from the moment Wen Qing left him, a haze of pain and rage and wishing desperately to be done with it all. But what he does know is that Lan Zhan would never have been punished if not for him. So he watches. 

The bandages no longer peel away soaked in blood, but the wrapping still sticks to the wounds, leaving them an oozing, angry red. Infection is to be expected, the doctor had explained to Lan Zhan, who laid motionless and silent save for his hands clenched in the bedsheets, knuckles white. The wounds are deep, in some places leaving hardly any skin intact. Wei Wuxian hates them, every single person who had a hand in hurting Lan Zhan, himself included; he daydreams about methodically killing every member of the Lan clan. He wonders how much of those fantasies are his own and how much is the resentment still squirming underneath his skin; dormant now, no longer guiding his every step but still very much present, always whispering. Either way it calms him to think about it. The alternative fantasies are too self-destructive.

“It was the only way you would sleep,” the doctor continues, “and rest is what you need, all three of you. It’s the only thing I can do for you, when those… shadows of yours won’t let me close.”

That’s news to Wei Wuxian. He raises his eyebrows and glances down at himself, then back at her. And here he was just glad they weren’t actively screaming in his head today. “Won’t let you?”

“When you’re asleep… it surrounds you. Like a cocoon. Truth be told, I don’t even like to look at it for too long.”

“I didn’t know.”

“You’re not in control of it?”

He’d thought he was. He always thought that no matter what happened he would be able to shape and mold this power to his will. Really, truly believed that, right until that one wrong note and a hole punched through Jin Zixuan’s chest.

How fucking arrogant.

She takes his silence as an answer. “You need to figure out how. Your condition isn’t improving, and I need to be able to take a closer look at you.”

“I didn’t ask you to,” Wei Wuxian snaps.

“No, but he did.” She nods toward Lan Zhan, whose eyes are closed — maybe asleep — as she finishes bandaging him. She washes her hands in the basin she keeps nearby. “What you do after you leave is up to you, but if my father taught me anything, it’s that you don’t allow a patient to go untreated. No matter who they are.”

“You remind me of someone I knew,” Wei Wuxian says coldly. His eyes are still on Lan Zhan, whose expression is pinched with pain even at rest. “She wasted too much time on me, too. Focus on what’s important.”

He leaves before she can protest, slipping into A-Yuan’s small room, which is filled with the bitter smell of medicinal tea. He takes a seat by the little bed, watching A-Yuan’s chest rise and fall as he sleeps. As if monitoring his every move will accomplish anything, or tell him something he doesn’t know. A-Yuan is still too warm, and the doctor says that it’s too soon to tell how well he will recover.

Without the haze of the drugs, Wei Wuxian can feel the way his body aches, down to his very bones. Really, truly feel it. There’s always been pain since he crawled from the Burial Mounds the first time — an ache in his back and his left ankle, stiffness whenever it rained. He was weaker. He wouldn’t admit it, but he was, without his core. Resentment made him strong again, at a cost. He couldn’t let himself think too much about that cost, when it was helping him get his revenge. 

His return to life brings with it new pains to ignore — breathing is harder, he finds, sharp and stabbing in the place where the arrow hit his chest. His hands shake like an old man’s. When his mind wanders to his shijie, or to Jiang Cheng, he feels like he’s going to die, and so he doesn’t think of them. The resentment is stronger than ever but it’s taking more, and it can work against his will now. That won’t do. He can’t let his control slip, not around Lan Zhan or A-Yuan.

He closes his eyes, drawing his legs up in a familiar meditation posture, though his back protests it. Contrary to all of his teachers’ assumptions, he was never bad at meditation. It was a challenge like any other, and when it came to cultivation he strove for excellence in all things. It was just that there were always ten thousand things he would rather do, and he always found clarity in sword forms over a perfect posture and steady breathing. Swordwork isn’t exactly an option anymore. So he meditates properly for once, the way he taught himself in the Burial Mounds, this new power inside him that didn’t want to be leashed. Learning all over again the shape of it, it’s sharp and seductive caress. It’s voice.

You can still have revenge.

Don’t you want to?

They would hurt your son.

They killed your people.

Don’t you want to make them pay?

We can help you.

He tries to breathe through it; it hurts. The voices don’t quiet, won’t be pushed down. If anything they grow louder and his vision grows darker, until there is nothing but screaming in his head. He cries out, curling in on himself, body wracked with shivers. On the bed, A-Yuan rolls over with some effort, blinking open wide, frightened eyes. “Gege?” 

“It’s alright.” Wei Wuxian shakes his head, as if the resentment could be shed like a cloak. A-Yuan reaches out for him, and Wei Wuxian takes his tiny hand, squeezing gently. “Shh. Go back to sleep. Gege is here.”

It takes time to soothe him. Wei Wuxian strokes A-Yuan’s hair and finds himself humming a tune he still doesn’t know the name of — can’t even remember where he heard it. But back in the Burial Mounds, A-Yuan always found it comforting. Whenever he would decide that Wei Wuxian was done with whatever project he’d been fixated on, A-Yuan would clamber into his lap and demand a story or a song. Usually this was the first that came to Wei Wuxian’s mind — something that was just beautiful, not a tool to wield resentment. A-Yuan would fall asleep to it every time, no matter where they were; even Wei Wuxian’s horrid little cave didn’t faze him. Such a strange child. The other Wens were afraid of Wei Wuxian at first, of his demon flute and the dead he raised, even as they relied on it — but never A-Yuan.

To A-Yuan, he wasn’t the Yiling Laozu. He was just Xian-gege.

A-Yuan drifts off to sleep as the song fades, and curiously, Wei Wuxian finds that the cloud of resentment has settled too, for now. He stays there with A-Yuan a few moments longer, just watching him sleep, not acknowledging the figure in the doorway behind him.

“You’ll be of no use to him if you let yourself waste away,” the doctor says — blunt, though not unkind. She leaves before Wei Wuxian can answer.

“You must allow her to help you.”

Lan Zhan’s voice is a low, drowsy murmur; Wei Wuxian wouldn’t hear him if their faces weren’t close enough to feel the puff of Lan Zhan’s breath against his cheek. That voice still carries the same command, the same weight as it always has. Come back to Gusu. Wei Wuxian rolls onto his back, staring at the dark ceiling.

“Wei Ying,” Lan Zhan continues insistently. “This cannot continue. You aren’t healing —”

“And why does that matter, Hanguang-jun?” Wei Wuxian interrupts. “Or can you claim that title anymore?”

Even that doesn’t come out as cold and dismissive as he intends. Not huddled together in the dark like this. He just sounds sad. And Lan Zhan is used to him by now, used to him lashing out like this; Wei Wuxian’s jab is ignored. “I fed you as much energy as I could,” Lan Zhan goes on, “but it is no substitute for proper care.”

“...you did?”

“You don’t remember?”

The way that Lan Zhan is looking at him — he can tell, even in the dark — makes him squirm in its intensity. Like there’s something he should remember, but that time is just… blank. “Not really. I’m sorry.”

“No apologies between us.”

Wei Wuxian laughs under his breath. “Lan Zhan, ah, why shouldn’t I apologize? I’ve made every mistake a person could make. I’ve ruined everything. And you were hurt because of it.”

“All that matters to me is that you’re alive.”

“Am I?” He hears his own voice shake. “Lan Zhan, I — I think I died there. I really think I did. Maybe I’ve been dead since they threw me into the Burial Mounds, and everything since has been hell. That’s all I am, a walking corpse. That’s why — there’s no point.”

Lan Zhan shakes his head. “Your heart beats. You still breathe.”

“I —” Fingers brush his cheek; he falls silent. His face fits into the cup of Lan Zhan’s palm as if it was made to fit there. They’ve never touched like this. He leans into it, eyes fluttering closed — guilty even as he does so, when every movement must cause Lan Zhan pain.

“You are warm,” Lan Zhan softly. The pad of his thumb traces Wei Wuxian’s cheekbone, and a shiver runs down Wei Wuxian’s spine. “So how could you be dead?”

As if there is a clear distinction. As if part of him didn’t die the moment that sword plunged into his sister’s chest. As if the dead haven’t already claimed him as their own. Whatever he is now, dead or alive, is not what he was before. “I don’t feel warm,” Wei Wuxian whispers, swallowing hard. “I’m so cold, Lan Zhan.”

“Come here.”

There is only so close he can get; Lan Zhan can’t hold him the way Wei Wuxian craves, with the state he’s in. He curls up with his head tucked against Lan Zhan’s arm, still shivering.

“We’ll do it outside,” he says when he approaches the doctor the next morning. “I don’t want them to see.”

“Eat first,” she replies. He pouts, which she doesn’t respond to in the slightest, and dutifully eats what little congee he can manage. 

It’s early, and the sky is still gray, sunlight thin and dappled through the trees in the courtyard. The doctor directs him to sit on a low seat, then to remove his robe down to the waist. It’s immediately clear she doesn’t like what she sees, the scars and bruising, the way his skin clings to his ribs.

“This here is what I want to focus on today,” she says, gesturing at the place where the arrow pierced his chest. He’d hardly felt it at the time, only the force of it — like being punched with a hundred percent of Jiang Cheng’s spiritual energy. “It’s not exactly getting worse, but it’s not healing either. How are you alive?”

“Excellent question.” He can feel the resentment rising to protect him already, distrustful of this stranger. “Resentful energy. It can’t heal, not really, but it can hold you together. From what I’ve observed.”

“But surely your golden core —?”

“This is new to me as well, daifu,” he interrupts. He’s counting on the fact that she’s not a cultivator, that in all likelihood she doesn’t know how a golden core works, to avoid any questions. “I have to learn to control it again.”

She looks him up and down, skeptical, but only says, “You can use my name, you know.”

Wei Wuxian pauses. “I… don’t know it,” he admits, rubbing his nose. He hadn’t bothered to ask.

“It’s Wang Ming.”

“Wang-daifu, then. If I lose control, then leave.” He doesn’t think that will happen — the resentment seems fairly willing to cooperate with him, if he asks nicely — but arrogance hasn’t gotten him anything but trouble lately. Better to be safe. Better not to let another bystander get hurt through his sheer fucking incompetence.

Wang Ming nods and takes a seat in front of him. “I think that I just need you to… hold it back? Keep it from harming me so that I can tend to your wounds. Is that possible, Wei-gongzi?”

He doesn’t want to make any promises. He settles again into a meditation position, evening out his breath. It should be like controlling any muscle, he thinks, like an extension of his body. When his goals align with the ghosts’, it’s exactly like that. Right now, not so much. The third time that Wang Ming reaches out to touch him and the resentment curls around her hand like it’s smacking a child for sneaking into a jar of sweets, she scowls at him. “ Gongzi. ”

“I know.” He takes a deep breath and closes his eyes, trying to sink down into it this time, to open himself up to the shadows that run through him. It's probably not a good idea. He just can’t see how else to communicate in a way that it will understand. All he can feel within himself is discord — between his crumbling body and its stubborn will to hold on, between his own heart and all the overlapping voices of the spirits in his veins, angry and…

Afraid?

Curious, Wei Wuxian starts to whistle. Not the low, discordant notes he would so often utilize with Chenqing, but that same song that he hums for A-Yuan, that has comforted him through so many long nights. The thing is, he’s good at this. It’s his own technique and he’s perfected it; no one else in the world does what he does. But it was born out of war and revenge. Never has he thought to use it as anything but a weapon.

Now, putting power into this pretty, calming harmony, he tells it, You aren’t going anywhere. We are safe. I am here with you. Just like he’s soothing A-Yuan after a nightmare, which feels more than a little ridiculous when he’s dealing with the remnants of countless mad ghosts — but it’s working, he thinks. The resentment settles, slowly and reluctantly. Not happy with him, but not lashing out; he can keep it calm. He lets out a slow breath and opens his eyes, nodding in answer to Wang Ming’s questioning glance.

It hurts when she cleans the wound. That shouldn’t be surprising, but somehow it is; the immediacy of it, the clarity. He gasps softly even as he continues to keep the resentment tapped down. She doesn’t stop when he flinches, and he doesn’t ask her to. There’s something comfortable in the pain, familiar. Something that makes his body seem real. Maybe he’s just used to being patched back together.

“You mentioned your father before. Was he a doctor too?” Wei Wuxian asks, too restless to be quiet, landing on the first topic that comes to mind. Wen Qing would always ignore him when he blathered on while she worked on him — and she did so often, worried about what his cultivation was doing to him. Keeping him going a while longer. He felt like one of his own inventions sometimes, with the constant tinkering. She was focused except to berate him for acting recklessly, abuse that he accepted with a sheepish grin. Inevitably she would storm off, too angry to look at him, and Wen Ning would be the one to give him the medicines that he always refused to take. They had so little; the old men and women and children would always need it more.

Thinking about them in the past tense aches more than all his wounds. 

“Yes.” Wang Ming doesn’t pause in her work, small hands moving carefully — not stopping at the arrow wound, but examining his other injuries too, ones he’d hardly been aware of until she stripped him down. “He wasn’t a cultivator either, but he was a skilled healer. Before he died, he taught me everything I know.”

“He died in the war?”

“After.” Her mouth twists, small and bitter. “Killed when it was discovered that he was caring for patients on both sides. Like any decent doctor should.”

Wei Wuxian can relate to that bitterness. “By which clan?”

“Does it matter?” She finally meets his eye for a moment before her focus returns to his injuries. “Seems like they’re all the same in the end. What about you, Wei-gongzi?”

“What about me?”

“Are all those rumors about you true? Were you doing terrible witchcraft on that mountain?”

“Depends on the rumor.”

“I heard one where you ate children and kept a harem of ghostly wives. That you built an army.”

Wei Wuxian laughs. It feels strange, grating on his throat, like he’d forgotten how. “Greatly exaggerated,” he says, though he had eaten things in the Burial Mounds that he would rather not know the origins of. He had his girls, though they followed him of their own volition, and he never touched them. And an army? He’d made one, during the war. At Nightless City.

Wang Ming shrugs. “By the time any rumors make it to us, they’re too distorted to trust. In my opinion, the less we regular folk get involved with cultivators, the better.”

He’s exhausted after she’s done with him, drained. It isn’t entirely bad. Cleansing in a way, as if this body has finally gotten the hint that it’s time to heal. He starts to stand as she puts away her tools, but she stops him. “One moment,” she says, coming to stand behind him, and he only jumps a little when he feels her fingers comb through what’s left of his hair. “You could have let me help you comb it.”

He shrugs, shoulders bowed. His hair only comes to his shoulders now — so strange, not to have the weight of it - and he hasn’t looked in a mirror to assess the damage. He can only imagine it’s an uneven mess. Wang Ming tsks, pulling something he can’t see from her tool bag — some kind of blade — and begins slowly, methodically, cutting it into something vaguely presentable. It’s even shorter after, just brushing the tops of his shoulders. It’s only hair, it’s nothing, but he looks at the black strands littering the courtyard and mourns it, a little, though he’d done this to himself. He’d been vain once — what young man wasn’t? — and he’d liked the way he looked. Wanted to be seen as handsome. Pretty, even, although he wouldn’t have said so. He wonders idly what Lan Zhan thinks of it now. If he ever thought Wei Ying was pretty.

“I have a mirror inside,” she says when she’s done, twisting his hair up into a passable up-do. “Would you like to see?”

He shakes his head, and she doesn’t push. She won’t let him collapse on the bed and pass out until she bombards him with more instructions. “You need to eat more. At least twice as much as you’re eating now. And sleep — without the drugs. They’ll do more harm than good in the long run. You may have a dose once every several days at most.”

“You’re no fun, daifu,” he pouts.

She lingers, clearly hesitating before she asks, “Gongzi, I don’t know much about cultivation, but… your meridians —”

“An old injury,” he cuts her off. Steel in his voice, because she needs to know not to broach the topic ever again. Lan Zhan’s face is turned away from them, and Wei Wuxian can only pray that he’s still asleep. “Nothing for you to worry about.”

She searches his face, then slowly nods. “You said I remind you of someone. Who was she? Your wife?”

“Not quite.” He sits on the edge of the bed and doesn’t look at her. There’s probably nothing to remind him of Wen Qing at all, when he thinks about it, except that she’s a lady and a doctor. He’s haunted by every dead woman he’s known. It’s for the best, he decides, that they aren’t much alike. “Just a friend.”

Whenever Wei Wuxian can’t sleep he slips into A-Yuan’s room to watch him breathe. He’ll pull him into his arms and let him sleep against his chest, a hand on his back to feel his lungs expand and contract — healthier each day now that the fever has eased, but still so weak.

Wang Ming fears that the fever lasted too long. She says that though he will recover, it may have affected his mind. When he is awake, he’s confused. Scared.

Wei Wuxian will sit with him like that for hours, hoping that A-Yuan sleeps peacefully but also wishing that he would wake while he’s there, so that he can see that his Xian-gege hasn’t left him. Eventually Wang Ming will bully him back to his bed. She won’t give him the drugs back even when he whines, or flirts, or shouts at her, and so instead of sleeping he sees Jiang Yanli in every shadow, and if he does sleep he dreams. 

In one of the dreams he’s already been whipped, and skin hangs in ribbons from his back. A-Yuan is there, bright-eyed and round-cheeked in the way he had been before the fever left him so pale and thin. His pudgy, curious fingers prod at the wounds, peeling back skin and digging down to bone. Wei Wuxian wakes gasping or shaking or biting down on his own hand to avoid waking Lan Zhan up, sometimes hard enough to break skin. 

So he doesn’t sleep, despite Wang Ming’s instructions. Lan Zhan does — more often than he’s awake. Even with the help of his golden core, to heal from something like this is exhausting. The medicines the doctor gives him make him groggy, and the pain when they wear off leaves him incoherent. Wei Wuxian watches him sleep, too, distantly guilty about doing so. He’s had this face memorized since he was fifteen; now he learns it again. The way it twists in pain in his sleep. Wei Wuxian can’t stroke his back to soothe him like he would for A-Yuan, but he can brush the hair from his face and wipe the sweat from his brow. He observes the way that his eyelids and his mouth twitch when he’s dreaming, the way that color begins to return to his cheeks. The bloodstain on his forehead ribbon, dried rust-orange.

It’s only a matter of time before somebody manages to track them here, searching for the Second Jade of Lan. Wei Wuxian can feel it coming, waiting for it like he’s teetering at the edge of a cliff. He thinks about it all night long. He thinks about it when he helps Wang Ming clean Lan Zhan’s wounds, as gently as his hands are capable of, the cool wet cloth catching on raised, scabbing skin. He thinks, though it’s wrong and not even a promise he can make, No one else touches you. Never again. 

One night, when it’s so dark that all Wei Wuxian can see are the outlines of Lan Zhan’s sleeping face, he kisses Lan Zhan’s slack, dry lips. Lingers, just for a moment, tasting bitter herbs, before he gasps and pulls back, rolling to the far side of their shared bed. So much of the time his body feels like a separate entity from him, moving of its own accord, but he cannot blame anyone but himself for whatever the hell that was. His heart pounds, and he thinks of another stolen kiss, taken from him just before his life had fallen to pieces. A strong maiden, he’d assumed then. He wonders.

He doesn’t trust Wang Ming — no more or less than anyone else — but he does find himself growing fond of her. Not romantically; if he’s honest with himself there’s never been a woman he truly felt that way about. She’s not even really a friend, though she’s kind to A-Yuan. She’s their doctor, and she conducts herself as such. Doesn’t ask him questions, unless it’s to do with his health. She knows who, what he is, must know at least some of what he’s done, and it doesn’t make a difference. Or if it does, she never says so. He likes her because he can sit in silence and let her work, and he doesn’t have to be Wei Wuxian, or the Yiling Laozu, or anyone at all.

A-Yuan does not remember his family. He does not remember the Burial Mounds, or the bright days when they would go down the mountain to sell turnips and talismans, and if they were lucky Wei Wuxian might make enough to buy meat and rice, and A-Yuan would eat every extra morsel slipped onto his plate, blissfully unaware that others were eating less so that he could have enough. He does remember his Xian-gege, and his rich-gege a little, but that’s likely because they’ve been by his side this whole time — Lan Zhan eager to see A-Yuan on the rare occasions that they’re both awake and well enough; Wei Wuxian holding A-Yuan when he cries in his sleep, the way Granny would do when A-Yuan had nightmares about Qiongqi Path (and he prays that A-Yuan has forgotten that time, too).

Wei Wuxian ignores the sorrowful, pitying expression on Wang Ming’s face when she tells him that her fears have come true. He tells himself that this is a blessing. A-Yuan’s life so far has been one that no little boy should have to live. He tells himself this until he nearly believes it, but somehow this is what reduces him to weeping at night, his whole body shuddering with it. This, of all things. Lan Zhan holds his hand, quiet beside him, and Wei Wuxian doesn’t know if it makes it better or worse to have him there. 

“No one is left to remember them,” he whispers, realizing that this is the crux of it all as he says it. His Wens, who will only be a footnote in history and then forgotten entirely. He couldn’t even bury them. He’d wanted to go back and do it, but Lan Zhan stopped him. Told him gently — pityingly — that there was nothing left to bury. He could have done more, should have taken better care of them. Should have tried harder. They put up with so much of his bullshit, and he doesn’t think they ever knew how grateful he was for that, how they kept him alive too.

“You are,” Lan Zhan reminds him. Wei Wuxian still catches himself doing that sometimes — counting himself among the casualties. Easier than the idea that he will keep on living after he leaves this place. It isn’t so much that Wei Wuxian wants to die, only that he cannot imagine anything else. “One day, you will tell A-Yuan all that they did for him.”

Wei Wuxian hugs his knees tight to his chest, pulling his hand away from Lan Zhan’s. “My memory is too bad for that. I’ll forget everything first.”

“Then I will remind you,” Lan Zhan says, “and I will tell A-Yuan all I know.”

“You will?”

“I love him too. I will be there for him.” Lan Zhan sounds drowsy, fighting against his medicine. Half the time he doesn’t remember what he’s said when he’s like this. He’s doing better, though. Slowly. Wei Wuxian strokes his hair until he falls asleep, and then keeps going until his own eyes are dry. Until he can breathe. Then he slips out of bed and into A-Yuan’s room, a candle the only light to see by.

He only means to check on A-Yuan, not to wake him, but the boy stirs the moment that Wei Wuxian approaches, sitting halfway up in his bed. He rubs his eyes with the back of his hand, and mumbles, “Hi, Baba.”

Wei Wuxian’s breath catches, and for a moment he thinks that he’ll burst into tears again. Baba. 

A-Yuan can’t call him that. 

Oh, Wei Wuxian had joked about it — this is my son! I birthed him myself! — but he knew it wasn’t real, a game except when it wasn’t, except for how sometimes he wished that he was the kind of person who could be a father. It made the Burial Mounds feel a little less like a tomb and a little more like a home. Like he was building something good there, something permanent. He’d only ever wanted to build something good.

He knew that A-Yuan had parents and an older sister he missed. Parents who, in all likelihood, Wei Wuxian might have killed during the war. He’d never asked who they were, and no one had ever told him. And then he’d gotten the rest of his family killed too. For all that Wei Wuxian has tried to do right by him, isn’t it his own fault that A-Yuan has no one else?

And yet, what else can he do? He’d failed his Wens in every way possible, but he can still do this for them. A-Yuan can’t be alone in this world; Wei Wuxian won’t leave him to the streets, to starvation and wild dogs. Which means he has to stay alive.

“Hello, little turnip,” he says softly. “Xian-gege — Baba — had a bad dream. Maybe A-Yuan can help him sleep?”

“Okay,” A-Yuan yawns, reaching out his arms in invitation. Wei Wuxian goes to him, settles him against his chest where A-Yuan can tuck his face into the crook of his neck, dark hair tickling Wei Wuxian’s chin. “Don’t be sad, Baba,” he mumbles, and then he’s out again, snoring softly, so if Wei Wuxian does cry again, a little, no one has to know.

Maybe Lan Zhan will be with them too, or maybe not. Either way, he’ll stay alive.

“- please, sir, all of our sickbeds are full, I must ask you to leave —”

“Not until we’ve had a look around,” a man’s voice growls.

Wei Wuxian startles from a fitful sleep at the muffled commotion on the other side of the wall. Lan Zhan, too, is awake, eyes bright and alert (as they are far more often lately, as he heals) listening intently to the voices. It’s late already; Wei Wuxian must have slept most of the day away. 

“What possible reason could you have for disturbing my patients?” Wang Ming demands.

“Do you live under a rock?” Another unfamiliar voice jeers. “The brother of a sect leader has been kidnapped! Now, imagine the kind of reward he might offer to whoever finds him.”

Wei Wuxian sits up in bed, immediately awake; Lan Zhan pulls him back down, clapping a hand over his mouth. They lie still, hardly breathing, and he thinks, panicked, of A-Yuan, prays that he won’t come out of his room. 

From the other room, Wang Ming scoffs, “I think I would remember if the Second Jade of Lan had passed through my door, gongzi. He isn’t here.”

“Just stand aside and we’ll see for ourselves —”

“Stop!” Footsteps coming closer, and Wang Ming’s shadow at the threshold. Wei Wuxian’s breath is hot and damp against Lan Zhan’s palm. “My patients are deathly ill! Going in that room will definitely make you sick too!”

There’s hushed muttering, nothing loud enough to understand. Finally, the first man snaps, “This isn’t over!” and their footsteps fade away. Only after the front door slams shut does Lan Zhan let his hand fall from Wei Wuxian’s face, and Wei Wuxian leaps out of bed, his sleepwear askew, and rushes to A-Yuan’s room. Only after seeing A-Yuan can he breathe; A-Yuan looks up at him from where he was sitting on the floor, playing with a doll that Wang Ming had given him, eyes big and round with worry. 

“Why are they yelling?” A-Yuan asks as Wei Wuxian scoops him into his arms. 

“Don’t worry about it, baobei. They’re gone now,” Wei Wuxian says, kissing the top of A-Yuan’s head. He returns to the main room just as Wang Ming joins them, worry etched into her strong features.

“I knew this would happen,” she seethes. “You cultivators! You only bring trouble! And here I was naive enough to believe you’d rescued him — turns out I’m harboring a kidnapper.”

“And a fugitive,” Wei Wuxian says, bouncing A-Yuan on his hip. The kid always gets nervous when people raise their voices. “The Yiling Laozu eats children and keeps a harem of ghost brides, so I hear; is kidnapping really your main concern?”

“Nuh-uh,” A-Yuan says. “Baba eats turnips.”

“Oh really? Why do you think I’ve been trying to fatten A-Yuan up? It’s so I can cook and eat him!” Wei Wuxian growls and mimes gnawing at A-Yuan’s neck, sending him into a fit of giggles and distracting him from his worries, at least for now. 

Wang Ming doesn’t share his amusement. “This isn’t a joke, Wei Wuxian! It was a flimsy lie. They’ll be back, or someone else will be, and who knows what they’ll do then.”

“Wei Ying did not kidnap me,” Lan Zhan says firmly. 

“Technically —”

“Regardless,” Lan Zhan goes on, ignoring him. He slowly pushes himself up until he’s sitting upright; Wei Wuxian rushes to support him, A-Yuan in one arm and bracing Lan Zhan with the other. Lan Zhan holds himself stiff, brow drawn tight with pain. “We have caused you trouble, daifu. We will take our leave.”

“No,” Wei Wuxian and Wang Ming snap simultaneously. She goes on. “Even if I believed you were well enough yet — which I don’t — A-Yuan still needs to regain his strength. Hanguang-jun, perhaps a healer from your clan…”

“Not an option. Hanguang-jun’s clan are the very ones who gave him these injuries. As for A-Yuan…” Wei Wuxian hesitates, stealing a glance at Lan Zhan, whose fingers are curled around his wrist. “His surname is Wen.”

Understanding dawns slowly on Wang Ming’s face. She closes her eyes, looking exhausted for a moment. “Fuck,” she mutters. After a moment, she seems to come to a decision, voice and expression cold. “It changes nothing. But Wei Wuxian, you brought the four great sects’ trouble to my door. You’ll be the one to deal with them. Are we clear?

Wei Wuxian bows his head.

“Good. Come with me, A-Yuan. It’s time to eat.”

The boy wriggles in Wei Wuxian’s arms until he sets him down, toddling after Wang Ming. Lan Zhan is still gripping his arm loosely, and Wei Wuxian kneels beside the bed, looking him over. “Lan Zhan ah Lan Zhan, what are you doing trying to sit up? Your wounds —”

“Are fine.” His grip tightens and Wei Wuxian meets his gaze, breath catching at the intensity of it. His heart is pounding, he realizes. Fear that he didn’t know he was carrying apparent now that the immediate danger has passed, every horrible outcome running through his mind — if they had forced their way in, if Wang Ming had turned them over — what he would have had to do, to keep them all safe —

“Wei Ying,” Lan Zhan says seriously, pulling Wei Ying out of his useless panic. As if he knows when Wei Wuxian is spiraling. Maybe he does. He was always one of the few people who could calm Wei Wuxian down when he began to lose control, up until the end when no one could. “I will not let anyone harm you or A-Yuan.”

Wei Wuxian laughs. His own safety was the absolute last thing on his mind. “Shouldn’t I be the one saying that to you?” He swallows, watching the way that Lan Zhan holds himself, so still and determined to sit up on his own. It must hurt, every time. “When I think of what they did to you —” he bites his tongue and looks away. He can’t think of it. He can’t not think of it. Lan Zhan, a prisoner in his own home, bleeding out slowly in his bed. How could he let anyone from the Lan Clan come near him again?

“I would make the same choice again,” Lan Zhan says, soft and close. Wei Wuxian shudders. Why? he wants to ask. What was the point?

“Do you… want to go back to Gusu?” He asks quietly instead, not sure what he wants to hear. Wanting anything feels like a foreign concept, a memory of another time, another self who was still capable of such things. Anything outside this house may as well be an ocean away, but it was here moments ago, intruding on their little haven. Reminding Wei Wuxian abruptly that they cannot stay forever. Maybe not for much longer. Lan Zhan looks down at his lap and doesn’t answer, and Wei Wuxian can’t blame him. He knows the bite of the whip too. And no matter how it stung, it had never been a question that he would return to Lotus Pier — until he couldn’t.

This is wanting, he remembers now, distantly. This is how it feels, aching and very, very human. He wants to take Lan Zhan far away from here, somewhere no one can ever touch him again. Kidnap him, he supposes; that’s what he is now, on top of all the rest. A kidnapper. 

“I want,” Lan Zhan begins, hesitant and soft. And then he stops, looking down at their joined hands.

Shadows crawl from Wei Wuxian and up Lan Zhan’s wrist, caressing his fingers and the delicate bones as they reach for him, possessive, clinging. Loving. They want him too. They want him because Wei Wuxian wants him, loves him. Because, perhaps, there is no difference anymore between Wei Wuxian and the ghosts that live in him. Lan Zhan shivers, and Wei Wuxian jerks his hand away in horror, backing up. The resentment retreats with him, sluggish, reluctant. Slow enough for Lan Zhan’s eyes to follow. Has it touched him when Wei Wuxian wasn’t paying attention, in his sleep, crawling over him in the night? It makes him sick to think of it, even as it thrills a deep, dark part of him. It’s part of Wei Wuxian now, the resentment, but it should not be allowed to touch Lan Zhan. Not him. The wounds on his back, the scars that will ache for the rest of his life — Wei Wuxian has already tainted him enough.

He doesn’t try to give an excuse before he leaves, balling up all of the resentment in his core so that it can’t go anywhere, can’t ruin anything else. He sneaks out the back of the house so that Wang Ming can’t scold him for it, and then he goes into town and steals the biggest jar of alcohol he can find. 

It’s well past nightfall when Wei Wuxian stumbles back in, thoroughly drunk. Unexpectedly so. His tolerance used to be so much better — but he’s still underweight, according to the doctor’s nagging, and he can’t hold it the way he used to. Even that part of him is useless now. He’d tried to climb onto the roof to sleep, until Wang Ming caught him and chased him off like he was some sort of pest, so he tries to move his part of the bed back to the other side of the room, as if those few feet of separation would do anything to stop his resentment from reaching out greedily in the night. The bed frame creaks and scrapes the floor, and in his drunken state he stumbles.

A hand reaches out for him in the dark, keeping him from crashing to the floor. He startles, but the familiar grip on his arm doesn’t loosen. “Stop sitting up,” Wei Wuxian scolds. 

“I will not lie on my stomach for the rest of my life,” Lan Zhan says. Wei Wuxian can’t see him, not really. Only the vague shape of him, the breadth of his shoulders. Wang Ming must have lowered the dosage of his pain medication — Lan Zhan is alert, eyes sharp when the moonlight catches them. “What are you doing?”

“Leaving.”

“Don’t.”

“I’ll sleep outside. I’ll — stay away. You can go back where you came from, away from me —”

“ Wei Ying. ” Soft, but commanding. “I am not afraid of it.”

Wei Wuxian clenches his fist. “You don’t know what you’re talking about, you — I don’t even know what it is anymore.”

“It’s you,” Lan Zhan says. Slowly, like coaxing a skittish animal, he draws Wei Wuxian back to him. Wei Wuxian goes, watching as if it’s happening to someone else, as Lan Zhan takes both of his hands in his own, unfurling his fists one finger at a time. His hands are warm. Calloused on the palm where he holds his sword, on his fingertips from years of playing the guqin. Wei Wuxian likes the way it feels when Lan Zhan touches him; sometimes he’ll look at Lan Zhan’s hands and ache for it. He can’t bear it right now. “It’s just you. And I am not afraid of you.”

Wei Wuxian laughs, which becomes something like a sob and then laughter again, ugly and strange, and still Lan Zhan holds onto him. He wants to wrench his hands away and be held there forever all at once. He hasn’t allowed himself to think too hard about what Lan Zhan must think of him, after all that has happened — all that he’s done. It didn’t matter. Lan Zhan would be safe, and A-Yuan would be safe, and Wei Wuxian would do anything — kill anyone, kidnap anyone, die over and over again — to make that happen, because otherwise what was the fucking point of being brought back to life? So Lan Zhan could hate him if he liked, and even if Lan Zhan wanted him dead for what he’s done, that would be fine, as long as he and A-Yuan were safe. He was fine with all of that, cared nothing for what happened to him after this. Why is this — this tenderness — what has him unraveling?

“Wang-daifu told me that your meridians were damaged,” Lan Zhan says, and Wei Wuxian goes very still. “I know that isn’t true. You would not be able to cultivate the way you do if they were.”

Wei Wuxian tries to pull himself out of Lan Zhan’s grip; it only tightens, near enough to hurt, the narrow bones of Wei Wuxian’s wrists protruding from where he’s lost weight and muscle. “She isn’t a cultivator. She doesn’t know what she’s talking about.”

“Wei Ying, stop lying to me. Please.”

“Why does it fucking matter!?” Wei Wuxian’s voice rises sharply, and this time he does manage to jerk away, stumbling backwards. His knees hit the edge of the other bed where he’d manage to move it a couple of feet; he tips backwards, elbow slamming hard against the wooden frame. Pain shoots up to his shoulder. With a small flare of spiritual energy, Lan Zhan lights the dim lantern by the bed, the shadows receding. It’s worse to be able to see him, the worry and pity on Lan Zhan’s face, the one thing Wei Wuxian has never wanted from him. “What are you trying to do? Still think you can fix me somehow? Put me back on the righteous path? Look at me! There’s nothing left to fix! This is it, this is all that’s left!”

“If your core no longer heals you —”

“My core, ” Wei Wuxian spits, “is gone.”

It’s so easy to say that it shocks him. He’s never even said those words to himself, not aloud, and now there it is, out in the world. He laughs at the stricken look on Lan Zhan’s face.

“I’ve never told anyone that,” he says, half to himself. “You weren’t supposed to know. No one was, not ever — but does it matter now?” He laughs again, high-pitched and nearly hysterical. His arm hurts. His stomach hurts, his chest, the place in him that should be full of light but instead swirls with shadow and hate, he hurts and hurts and hurts and he is so fucking tired. “It doesn’t matter anymore. Everyone who mattered is gone, aren’t they — Wen Qing and Wen Ning were the only ones who knew. And they’re gone. I’ll never see Jiang Cheng again. Jin Zixuan, the Wens, shijie, all dead. She’s dead, she’ll never know, so it really doesn’t matter anymore, does it?”

“Wei Ying,” Lan Zhan whispers. A tear rolls down his cheek. It’s satisfying; it’s horrid.

“Would it have been different if I had just told them at the beginning? Would I have gone down this path at all? But they’re all still dead, and I’m still fucking here. Why?” He lunges forward, grabs the collar of Lan Zhan’s robes, crumpling the plain fabric in his fists. Lan Zhan doesn’t put up a fight. Wei Wuxian wishes he would. Wishes Lan Zhan had ended him at Nightless City like he was supposed to. “Why!?” he shouts. “Why should I be here when my shijie is dead? When Wen Qing and Wen Ning are dead? It should have been me, it was supposed to be me! I should have just died when I ripped out my core, when they threw me in the Burial Mounds, but I couldn’t even do that — I heard your voice there. Did you know that? I heard you calling and I had to follow you, I couldn’t die, you wouldn’t let me. And then you drag my body away from the battlefield. FUCK YOU, LAN WANGJI! WHY WON’T YOU JUST LET ME DIE?”

Lan Zhan says nothing, at first. He only takes Wei Wuxian’s hand from his collar, holding it in both of his own like it’s some precious, fragile thing. He presses his lips to Wei Wuxian’s knuckles, the back of his hand, his palm. Holds it to his cheek, and only then does Wei Wuxian feel the wetness on his face. The tiny, hitching sobs.

“No,” Wei Wuxian whispers. His voice feels rough, scraping. He kneels down before Lan Zhan, holding his face in both of his hands like a cradle. “No, no no, Lan Zhan, don’t. Please don’t. You’ll break my heart. My Lan Zhan. Don’t cry.”

He kisses Lan Zhan’s face, the delicate skin under his eyes and across his cheeks, the edge of his jaw, tasting salt tears where they cling just before falling. Lan Zhan shudders, curling towards him until their foreheads touch and Wei Ying can taste his breath.

“Why?” Lan Zhan whispers. In the other room, Wei Wuxian can hear A-Yuan faintly crying. Woken by his shouts. “Because you are good. Because I did not want you to die.” 

Wei Wuxian swallows. The filigree of Lan Zhan’s ribbon presses hard into his forehead; he still hasn’t removed it, all this time. “And that’s all?” He asks, small and wavering when a moment ago he could have screamed himself hoarse.

“I do not want to exist in this world without Wei Ying.”

Wei Wuxian goes slack, a puppet with cut strings. His shoulders shake with the sobs that overtake him like a tide coming in, an unstoppable natural force. He lays his head down on Lan Zhan’s lap, and feels Lan Zhan’s hand in his hair, stroking gently. Like something shijie would do. He can feel the way that Lan Zhan trembles all around him, breath hitching as he cries.

A-Yuan toddles in, his little footsteps announcing him though he doesn’t speak. He tucks himself against Wei Wuxian’s side, and resentment drapes itself across the three of them, like the blankets that shijie would lay over him and Jiang Cheng when they fell asleep at the table. Tucks itself around them with whispers of safe and ours and this time, Wei Wuxian doesn’t try to stop it. 

The quiet lasts a little while longer. Lan Zhan still lays on his front; the beds are pushed snugly back together. A-Yuan takes to sleeping in their bed, curled in the crook of Wei Wuxian’s arm or on his chest. Wang Ming doesn’t try to stop him, probably knowing they wouldn’t listen. Wei Wuxian thinks that he could be content to lie together with them forever, to waste away himself as long as he knows that they are nearby and breathing, Lan Zhan waking him when he screams in the night, dreaming his death; stroking Lan Zhan’s hair from his sweat-sticky forehead when his wounds are too much to bear. 

Wang Ming refuses to let him be idle, though, coming up with task after task for him to do. And it helps. He feels nearly like a person when he's picking herbs, washing dishes. Playing in the courtyard with A-Yuan, now that he’s well enough. Those days are good. Sunlight on his face and the pitter-patter of a child’s bare feet on stone and grass. Laughter and bright eyes and new weight packed on too-skinny limbs. Once in a while, Jiang Yanli will sit beside him, just at the corner of his vision. Look how fast your boy is growing up, she’ll say.

“You aren’t here,” he says, half-wishing that he was crazy enough to believe she’s anything but a hallucination. He never tells Wang Ming or even Lan Zhan about this. If he does, he thinks she will stop coming. When he cannot bear it anymore and tries to look at her, she’s gone again.

On the best days, Lan Zhan will join him for a little while, will sit with Wei Wuxian on the bench and hold his hand, lay his head on Wei Wuxian’s shoulder, and watch A-Yuan play. Sitting together like two old men, Wei Wuxian thinks, amused. Or a married couple. He’s known for years that he would die young — it was an inevitability, a universal law — but he thinks, sometimes, it would be nice to be old alongside Lan Zhan. 

Once, Lan Zhan turns to him, sun warm on pale skin. A-Yuan rolls in the grass across the yard, laughing to himself. Lan Zhan looks at Wei Wuxian for a long time, and he asks quietly, “Do you know that I love you?”

He does know, and he doesn’t. A universal law and a grand revelation. An inevitability for Wei Wuxian to kiss him softly on the mouth, and pray it makes up for the words lodged at the back of his throat. By the look on Lan Zhan’s face when they part, mouth open and eyes half-closed, he thinks that maybe it does.

Yes, those days are good.

Wei Wuxian is in the kitchen grinding herbs for Wang Ming when the quiet breaks. It’s repetitive work, but he finds he doesn’t mind it, keeping his hands busy and his mind still. He sees their visitors walking up the path before the knock sounds on the door, disciples in white and the sect leader himself. Wang Ming shoots Wei Wuxian a sharp look. 

“The Lan Clan of Gusu requires only a few moments of your time,” a disciple calls.

Wei Wuxian sets down his mortar and pestle. He takes his time brushing his hands off on the front of his robes, the earthy medicinal scent clinging to him. They had, eventually, managed to get him real clothes, a spare set that no longer fit Wang Ming’s husband. Not his color — pale green, much like the herbs he gathers — but at least he won’t be facing Zewu-jun in his underthings. He offers Wang Ming a smile that he hopes is comforting, and bows to her before he tucks his hands behind his back and steps outside, as calm as he can remember ever being.

He isn’t planning on killing Lan Xichen today. Lan Zhan would never forgive him, and as it turns out, that’s something he cares about deeply. But whether that plan turns out depends more on Lan Xichen than on Wei Wuxian.

The disciples surrounding Zewu-jun draw their swords the moment Wei Wuxian steps out, at the same time taking a step backwards. They steal glances at each other, unsure what to do. They are so afraid of him. Even like this, in oversized borrowed robes, with no flute and no sword and no Stygian Tiger Amulet, they are terrified of him. They should be. He did terrible things. He does not want to have to do those things again.

“What a pleasure, Lan-zongzhu,” Wei Wuxian smiles. He does not bow. Zewu-jun’s expression barely changes when he sees him, save for a narrowing of the eyes. People act as though he’s the more emotive between the Twin Jades; to Wei Wuxian, Lan Zhan has always said more with a twitch of the eyebrow than any of Zewu-jun’s many smiles. “But surely a sect leader needn’t run his own errands.”

“Wei Wuxian,” says Zewu-jun. No Wei-gongzi anymore; fine. His sword is in hand, though sheathed; his thumb moves restlessly along the pommel. “Where is Wangji?”

“Safe, which is far better than I can say for when he was in your care. Actually, I was wondering about that. Were you the one who whipped him?” He says it conversationally, as if talking about the weather. The disciples shift uncomfortably. “Does Lan-zongzhu sully his hands with the blood of those who fall from the righteous path, or do you have someone else do that for you?”

Lan Xichen closes his eyes for a moment; the pain written on his face brings Wei Wuxian little pleasure. “Wangji’s punishment is not your concern.”

“If I say it is my concern, then it is.”

“He needs the care of our healers. Without them, he could die.”

“Then you’ll be the one who killed him!” Wei Wuxian shouts. Resentment moves under his skin now, through muscle and blood and bone. It is him; he is it. He could do anything with it, if he chose. “I’ll say it plainly, Zewu-jun. You and your Lan Sect will not touch him.”

“Wei Wuxian!”

“Xiongzhang.”

Wei Wuxian turns, gaping as Lan Zhan steps slowly over the threshold — walking without help, body held stiff with pain. Wang Ming hovers in the doorway, A-Yuan clinging to her leg. Half of the Lan disciples keep their swords trained on Wei Wuxian; the rest swing toward Wang Ming and A-Yuan.

Wei Wuxian snarls, resentment welling up and out like a wave to knock the disciples to the ground; only Lan Xichen remains standing, buffeted back as if by a gust of wind. He puts himself between them, shadow wrapped around them like a shield as he scoops a crying A-Yuan into his arms. The resentment cares nothing for Wang Ming, shoving her back through the doorway, treating everything but Wei Wuxian, A-Yuan, and Lan Zhan as a threat.

“Wangji!” Lan Xichen shouts, rushing forward only to be shoved back again.

“Tell the disciples to retreat.” Lan Zhan calls out.

“Lan Zhan —” Wei Wuxian is shaking so hard his teeth knock together, a thousand voices screaming in his head to fight, to hurt, to kill. Lan Zhan grips his shoulder tight.

“Wei Ying,” he says, soft but firm. “Stop. It’s alright.”

Wei Wuxian stares into his face for a long moment, breathing hard, allowing Lan Zhan to bring him back to himself bit by bit. Between them A-Yuan cries, frightened and confused. Wei Wuxian notes the pain in Lan Zhan’s expression, the sadness in his eyes. Do you want to go back to Gusu? he’d asked, and Lan Zhan had never answered him. Perhaps he should have taken that as an answer in itself. Uneasy, he calls the shadows back to himself, watching Lan Zhan’s slow steps toward his brother. There is a part of him, he fears, that will not be able to let Lan Zhan go if that’s what he wants. 

“Xiongzhang,” Lan Zhan says, dipping into a bow though the motion must tug at his scars. “Tell the disciples to retreat. Wei Ying — and everyone else present — will not come to harm.”

“Wangji, has he hurt you?”

“Promise me.”

Perhaps Lan Xichen can’t say no to his brother. Perhaps he knows, now, exactly how far Lan Zhan will go to stand by Wei Wuxian. Slowly, Xichen takes his hand from his sword. He makes a gesture, and after a moment of hesitation the disciples retreat out of sight — though Wei Wuxian remains on guard, knowing they won’t go far.

Once they’re gone, Lan Zhan kneels.

“Wei Ying,” he says. “Please remove my forehead ribbon. I cannot lift my arms to do it myself.”

“Wangji!” Lan Xichen cries, but he doesn’t move to stop Wei Wuxian, only stares as Wei Wuxian works at the knot. It’s silky in his hands as he draws it away, the embroidery fine, the metal filigree warm to the touch where it has sat against Lan Zhan’s skin. The wisps of hair held back by it fall into Lan Zhan’s face as Wei Wuxian hands it to him. Lan Zhan offers it up, arms straight and head bowed. This time, Wei Wuxian doesn’t block Lan Xichen’s way when he rushes forward, catching Lan Zhan by the elbows. “Stop this. Please, come home.”

“The ribbon is for disciples of the Lan Sect,” Lan Zhan says firmly, looking straight ahead. “It no longer belongs to me.”

“You aren’t thinking straight. Don’t you understand what he’s done? How many of our sect brothers he killed? Wangji, what has he done to you?”

“I won’t ask you again what is right, and what is wrong.” Lan Zhan meets Lan Xichen’s eyes. “I only ask — in my situation, what would you have done?”

All at once, Lan Xichen appears exhausted. He sits back, eyes closed and despair etched into his face. “I did not want this,” he whispers. “I never wanted… any of this.”

“I know, da-ge,” Lan Zhans says gently.

For a long moment, neither brother speaks. A-Yuan’s cries slowly quiet to shuddering sniffles, and wind blows cold through trees dropping their leaves. If it were Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng having this talk, Wei Wuxian thinks it would end in screaming and violence, both of them saying things that they didn’t mean. The quiet the Twin Jades share might be worse. When Lan Xichen takes a deep breath and looks up, his eyes fall on Wei Wuxian. On A-Yuan. “Who is he?” he asks, nodding at A-Yuan, who hides his face.

“My son,” Wei Wuxian says coldly.

“Our son,” Lan Zhan adds. Wei Wuxian’s heart squeezes almost painfully; he hugs A-Yuan tighter to his chest. 

Lan Xichen watches the three of them for a long moment. “He will be hunted, when the other sects find out,” he finally says, turning back to Lan Zhan. “You both will.”

“I know.”

“Where will you go?”

Lan Zhan turns his head, looking back at Wei Wuxian. He smiles, tiny and soft. It takes Wei Wuxian’s breath away. Every smile does, always has. “The world is wide,” he says, still looking up at Wei Wuxian. “Somewhere, there must be a place for us.”

He should say something. He can’t. Wei Wuxian can only manage to stand beside Lan Zhan, laying a hand on his shoulder. Lan Xichen sighs heavily, mournfully, as he reaches out, taking Lan Zhan’s open hands and closing them around the ribbon draped across them.

“It was a gift. Keep it. You will always be a Lan.”

Lan Zhan nods, finally allowing his trembling arms to fall to his side. Lan Xichen retrieves a white qiankun pouch from his belt, opening it to reach inside. “I hope that one day you will be able to use them again,” he says, drawing from the pouch Lan Zhan’s guqin, and then the unmistakable Bichen. He lays both on the ground in front of Lan Zhan, along with the pouch, and then stands. 

Quietly, Lan Zhan says, “Tell shufu…” and then trails off.

“I will. And… I’m sorry, Wangji. A-Zhan. I’m so sorry.”

“Goodbye, xiongzhang.”

As he walks away, Lan Xichen glances back once, meeting Wei Wuxian’s gaze. He nods, and then turns away. Wei Wuxian doesn’t move — nor does Lan Zhan — until he and all his disciples are long out of sight. Only then does he sink to the ground beside Lan Zhan, just as Lan Zhan slumps against him, body trembling with the pain he’d held in. Wei Wuxian looks at his back, still wrapped tight with bandages, relieved to see that, at least for now, he has not bled through to the undyed robes. 

“Rich-gege?” A-Yuan’s eyes go big and watery again, little hands hovering over Lan Zhan as if wanting to help. 

“I am alright,” Lan Zhan murmurs, eyes tired and half-lidded. He reaches for A-Yuan, palm to his cheek, and wipes away his tears. Something in the gesture cracks Wei Wuxian’s heart open. “Do not be afraid.”

“‘m not,” A-Yuan says, voice wobbling. Around them, resentment fades slowly into wisps of gray smoke. 

“Lan Zhan, ah Lan Zhan, what am I going to do with you,” he murmurs, pressing a kiss to the top of his head. Lan Zhan hums, the weight of his body heavy against Wei Wuxian. With a deep breath he sets A-Yuan on the grass, supporting Lan Zhan’s weight as they stand together.

Wang Ming’s husband, Yun Jian, has his wife seated at the small table in the kitchen, looking her over and holding a bandage to the side of her head. She must have hit it, Wei Wuxian realizes, heart sinking, when his resentful energy pushes her away. “Just a scratch, laogong, stop fussing,” she mutters, though she does nothing to stop him from cleaning the small cut, a little dazed. Yun Jian straightens and looks at Wei Wuxian, expression cold, as they enter, A-Yuan with a fist in Wei Wuxian’s skirts and Lan Zhan propped against his side. 

“Sir,” Wei Wuxian begins, but Yun Jian cuts him off.

“It’s time for you to go,” he says. He glances at Lan Zhan and amends, “Tomorrow, if need be. But you will go.”

Wei Wuxian glances at Wang Ming, who won’t look him in the eye. “We’ve overstayed our welcome,” he agrees. He lowers Lan Zhan into the other chair, and then he bows deeply — nearly kowtows — to the doctor and her husband. “Daifu. I owe a debt to you and your husband that I can never hope to repay.”

“It was my duty. Just do one thing for me, Wei-gongzi. Stay alive, will you?”

I can do that, Wei Wuxian thinks. I can try.

They leave with more than they arrived with. Clothes, medicine, a few days worth of food. There was money in the pouch that Zewu-jun left, where the guqin and Bichen are stored until Lan Zhan is able to carry them again. Almost as if he had already known that Lan Zhan would not return to Gusu. 

Their first evening on the road finds them in a little shrine for shelter, long abandoned and the altar dusty; the first thing that Wei Wuxian does when they find it is to open the doors and windows, clean the shrine of dust and debris as best as he can. He shows A-Yuan how to make an offering to this neglected god — a handful of berries that he’d picked along the roadside, staining his hands purple. A small fire warms the space. The night is blessedly dry.

He might go hunting, after A-Yuan has settled down. Find a pheasant or a rabbit. Eventually, he will need to find a way to earn money so that A-Yuan can have enough food, wherever the road takes them. He only knows that it will be far from here, and that he may never return to the lands that he knows, and that will have to be alright. For now, he rubs a healing balm into the raised wounds that criss-cross Lan Zhan’s back, closed over but still fragile, and wraps the bandages around him just as he’d watched Wang Ming do dozens of times. She had taught him how, before they left, and pressed a bag of supplies into his hands with instructions on treating the pain. When he argued that he couldn’t pay, she’d only grumbled that he’d better not put all her hard work to waste. 

“Is that too tight?” Wei Wuxian murmurs as he ties the bandages. Lan Zhan shakes his head. “Lan Zhan, you must be so mad at me, getting us kicked out. We had a perfectly fine bed and a proper roof and three meals a day, and now you’ll be sleeping on the ground.”

Lan Zhan turns to face Wei Wuxian, moving stiffly; the day of travel, short as Wei Wuxian tried to keep it, has taken a lot out of him. He takes Wei Wuxian’s face in his hands and kisses him, soft and lingering. Wei Wuxian does not deserve anything so sweet, and he’s too weak not to accept it anyway. “Nothing to be angry about. I am with you.” Lan Zhan’s mouth brushes his when he speaks, as if he can’t bear not to be close.

It’s a lie, of course, there is so much to hate him for. But It’s a lie that Wei Wuxian wants to believe, because he doesn’t know how he would face this exile alone. Somewhere in this world is a place where they can be safe, a place for A-Yuan to grow up. He wants to believe that. 

He wants to make it true.

When night comes, A-Yuan curls up right against Wei Wuxian’s belly, thumb in his mouth and making soft noises in his sleep. Some part of Lan Zhan is always touching Wei Ying; his hand or his ankle or the entire length of his side. Wei Wuxian will hunt for their food soon. For a while, he stays like this: listening to their breath and the singing of insects and their low fire crackling. He watches the night sky turn through a small hole in the thatch roof, and he wonders if, wherever this second life leads them, all his ghosts will follow.