Chapter Text
WHEN RED RETURNS
It did not begin with light.
It began with warmth. Not the warmth of fire. Not even the warmth of skin. But a warmth that remembered.
A kind that moved gently, patiently as though it had waited across centuries for a soul to unclench its grief.
That was what reached Wei Wuxian first. Not memory. Not even thought. Just warmth, like a forgotten promise finally kept.
It came like breath returning to a hollow chest. It came like the last chord of a song once left unfinished.
And when he opened his eyes slow, unhurried, it was not to brilliance. No golden gates. No cold judgment. No searing sky.
But light that felt like spring after mourning. A soft radiance, the color of peach blossom petals caught in twilight.
He was lying on moss. Not stone. Not earth. But something living and tender, as if the ground itself remembered kindness.
He sat up, slowly, with the instinct of someone who had once died in pieces.
But there was no weight on his chest. No ache behind his ribs. No dark thing pressing on the backs of his eyes.
His limbs moved easily. The air was light. The silence wasn’t hollow. It was whole.
The robe on him shimmered faintly, red like ripened fruit. Not the thick, ceremonial robes of war or burial.
Just something soft, flowing, touched by starlight. And in the stillness, in the hush, a scent: familiar, impossible.
Osmanthus.
A breeze moved through the silver-barked trees surrounding him. They were like no forest he remembered, yet every leaf felt known. The trees bore tiny blossoms glowing gold, as if moonlight had bloomed.
He rose to his feet, barefoot. The moss held him. He took one breath then another. He was not dreaming. He was after.
Wei Wuxian turned, slowly.
His body did not tremble. But something in his soul did. It felt like the final note of a song resolving at last.
And there at the far end of the grove, framed by trees that bowed beneath glowing blooms stood Lan Wangji.
White robes. Hair bound with red thread at the crown. Face untouched by years, unchanged by grief. He had not aged. Not even in memory.
He stood still, as if carved from patience. But his eyes... his eyes held movement, memory, the aching gentleness of a soul that had never once forgotten how to wait.
Wei Wuxian took a step forward. Then another.
The moss gave way like velvet. The space between them seemed endless, but it closed with each breath, each heartbeat.
He could not speak, not yet. Because language was too small for the feeling unfurling in his chest.
So he simply walked. And Lan Wangji met him halfway.
When they stood before each other, the world did not pause. It continued. But softly, respectfully. As if even time knew it had done enough harm.
Wei Wuxian reached out. Fingers trembling, only now. And Lan Wangji did not flinch.
He let the touch land. Wei Wuxian’s fingertips brushed his cheek, traced the shape he had known so long, in memory, in life, in loss. He felt the warmth—real, living.
“Lan Zhan,” he whispered. The name cracked, even in this place. As if his soul remembered how it had once called out in despair.
Lan Wangji’s lips curved. Barely. But the soft light behind him seemed to grow.
“You came,” Wei Wuxian said, almost breathless. “You…”
“Of course I will,” Lan Wangji said, calm, fond.
“I didn’t mean to,” Wei Wuxian replied, voice breaking.
“I know.”
Silence swelled between them—not awkward, not uncertain. Just full. Full of everything they never said. Everything they did. Everything they lost.
And now, everything they could finally keep.
“I thought you would forget,” Wei Wuxian said.
Lan Wangji shook his head. “I never did.”
Wei Wuxian smiled then—half-ruined, half-bright. “Even after…”
Lan Wangji met his gaze. “Especially after.”
Wei Wuxian closed the final inch of space. Leaned forward, touched their foreheads together. Their robes whispered as they swayed slightly, bound not by wind but by gravity—a different kind of pull. One the heavens had no jurisdiction over.
“This isn’t a dream, is it?” Wei Wuxian whispered.
“No,” Lan Wangji answered. “This is beyond dreams.”
Wei Wuxian felt himself exhale something he hadn’t realized he was still carrying. A sorrow too old for words. A yearning that outlived its own name. And in that release—he found peace.
Together, they turned. Faced the grove behind them.
The trees shimmered. Lanterns floated between the branches, small and soft like stars. There was a house—if one could call it that. A dwelling shaped from warmth, from intention. Built not from wood or stone but presence.
Home.
They walked toward it, side by side. Not because they were expected. Not because they were summoned. But because they chose to.
And as they passed beneath the osmanthus tree, its blossoms rained down softly, catching in Wei Wuxian’s hair.
He tilted his head. “This place… it remembered us.”
Lan Wangji looked at him, eyes clear. “No,” he said.
“We remembered each other.”
There was no sunrise. There was no clock. But time moved here quietly, tenderly.
Days did not pass. They gathered. Like petals fallen from trees, or dew collected in a bowl.
Each moment so light, it barely touched the ground. But together, they built something eternal.
And in the heart of that eternity stood a house. Not grand. Not holy. But made of memory and choice.
The doorway opened not with locks, but with familiarity. Inside: two cups always warm. Two robes always hung.
A table carved smooth by patient hands. A bed wide enough for silence, or shared laughter, or simply lying side by side—breathing the same air.
They woke when they wished. Slept when they needed.
Some mornings, Wei Wuxian woke first and lingered in the doorway, gazing at the forest as light drifted lazily between the trees. He would hum—a quiet tune, maybe unfinished, maybe made up on the spot. The kind of sound that filled a space without trying.
Sometimes, Lan Wangji would wake beside him, already watching. He would reach out, brush a lock of hair behind Wei Wuxian’s ear, and say nothing. That gesture—gentler than any morning bell—was enough to make the world feel whole.
There were rituals, but none required. Only chosen.
They tended a garden, though nothing ever wilted.
Wei Wuxian would talk to the plants as he worked, teasing them with the same tone he once used for rabbits or juniors. Lan Wangji, beside him, watered them with quiet precision.
At night, they lit lanterns—not because they needed light, but because they liked the way it shimmered in the wind.
Sometimes, Wei Wuxian would ask, “Lan Zhan, what day is it?”
And Lan Wangji, brushing ink across paper at the low table, would answer, “It is now.”
Wei Wuxian would grin. “That’s my favorite day.”
There were books. So many books, some never written in the world below. Some remembered only by Lan Wangji’s heart. Others Wei Wuxian dreamed up, then forgot, then found again on their shelf.
They read aloud, or in silence. They debated philosophy while sipping tea that never cooled. They re-created their favorite dishes from life, then laughed when the flavors turned out slightly wrong but strangely perfect.
Lan Wangji played the guqin on the porch sometimes.
Wei Wuxian would sit with a rabbit in his lap—one that simply appeared one afternoon and refused to leave.
It was the kind of life no sect ever promised. But it was everything they had once feared they could never have.
Sometimes, memories drifted up like silt from a deep riverbed. Wei Wuxian would grow quiet in the garden. Lan Wangji would sit beside him, their hands touching, waiting for the past to pass through.
Other times, Lan Wangji’s fingers would still on the strings.
And Wei Wuxian would press his forehead to Lan Wangji’s shoulder and whisper: “We’re here. We made it.”
There was no forgetting. But there was no pain in remembering.
They had learned the difference. Together.
One day—if one could call it that—Wei Wuxian turned from the porch and said, “Lan Zhan.”
Lan Wangji looked up from where he was trimming a paper lantern, white silk trembling in his hands.
Wei Wuxian stepped closer, fingers laced behind his back. “I think we should get married.”
Lan Wangji blinked. “We already are.”
Wei Wuxian grinned. “I know. But let’s do it anyway. For fun. For formality. For…” He hesitated, then shrugged. “For celebration.”
Lan Wangji nodded. “Then we will.”
They made their own robes.
Wei Wuxian’s hands fumbled the needle, pricked his fingers more times than he admitted, and Lan Wangji re-stitched half the hem in secret.
Lan Wangji’s robe was white with pale red thread woven in—the color of old vows and new beginnings.
Wei Wuxian’s was red with white embroidery—a pattern of clouds and flowers that never bloomed the same way twice.
They did not invite guests (as if they could). Yet the whole forest bore witness.
The blossoms fell like snow. The wind held its breath. Even the rabbits lined up along the moss path, unmoving. They stood beneath the oldest tree, its branches bent with time and affection.
Wei Wuxian reached out, took Lan Wangji’s hands. “Do you promise?”
Lan Wangji’s voice was steady. “I already have. Every day. And still, I do.”
Wei Wuxian’s eyes sparkled. “So do I.”
They did not kiss—not right away. They touched foreheads, hearts beating in tandem. And the silence rang louder than any ceremonial bell.
When they did kiss, it was gentle. Lingering. Not the fire of firsts, but the deep, enduring warmth of everything that survived.
Afterward, they ate sweet lotus cakes beneath the tree.
Wei Wuxian fed Lan Wangji one with his fingers, laughing when it crumbled.
Lan Wangji caught the crumbs and pressed a kiss to Wei Wuxian’s fingertips in return.
A red thread had appeared between their robes, tying them at the wrists. Not by magic. Just by memory. Just by choice.
So the days went on. Soft. Infinite.
Not perfect—but full. No more battles. No more separations. No more aching silences across years or lifetimes.
Just mornings. Just music. Just walks beneath golden trees. Just hands held for no reason at all.
They were not gods here. Not heroes.
Just two souls who had waited. And now, finally they had nothing left to wait for.
It stood at the edge of a clearing, nestled where the trees parted like cupped hands.
The blossoms had no season here. They fell year-round, golden-white and honey-scented, drifting slowly like snow, like blessings.
The house did not need walls to be real. It was made of everything they remembered and everything they no longer feared forgetting.
The scent of old sandalwood lingered in the doorway, and fresh tea was always waiting by the window.
There were robes draped over screens, ink drying on parchment, soft bedding folded with care, guqin strings humming quietly even when untouched.
But more than that. There was presence.
Wei Wuxian’s laughter, soft and unhurried. Lan Wangji’s silence, so full it felt like an embrace. The hush of shared glances. The breathless pauses between words that no longer needed to be spoken aloud.
Sometimes they lay on the floor in the sunlight, heads resting on one pillow, listening to the wind stir the branches above them.
Sometimes Wei Wuxian told stories— wild, half-true, embroidered by memory.
Lan Wangji never corrected him. He only looked at him the way he always had: as though the world was most real when Wei Wuxian spoke it into being.
In the afternoons, the rabbits came.,Dozens of them, soft as clouds, unbothered by time.
They nestled into Lan Wangji’s robes or piled onto Wei Wuxian’s lap like they knew they belonged there.
Wei Wuxian often teased them: “You’re just here because Hanguang-jun spoils you rotten.”
The rabbits never denied it.
Some days, they wandered far—into forests that glowed softly with dusk-light, across meadows that whispered with every step. But no matter how far they walked, they always found the house again.
It was never lost to them. Because it was not just a house. It was a returning place. A home that didn’t ask who they had been. Only who they chose to be, here, now, together.
Lan Wangji sometimes sat by the window and wrote. Poetry. Letters. Names in the margin of books.
Sometimes, the only word he wrote was "Wei Ying."Over and over again.
Wei Wuxian would come up behind him, lean over his shoulder, and rest his chin there.
“What are you writing today?” he’d ask.
Lan Wangji would answer, always the same “Truth.”
And Wei Wuxian would press a kiss to his temple, whispering, “Then it must be love.”
They did not count the days. But if they had, they would have seen that the seasons never passed.
Because this world had no need to change. It only needed to hold.
And still, there were nights when they lay awake. Not in restlessness, but in awe.
Wei Wuxian would curl closer, one leg over Lan Wangji’s, one hand idly toying with his hair. “Do you ever wonder,” he’d murmur, “if this is still a dream?”
Lan Wangji would close his eyes. “It was. For a long time. But not anymore.”
Wei Wuxian would smile into his shoulder. “I used to be afraid I’d lose you again.”
“You won’t,” Lan Wangji said. “I have nowhere else to be.”
They aged here. Not in body—those remained untouched, forever youth-kissed.
But in peace....in knowing.
Wei Wuxian stopped looking over his shoulder. Lan Wangji no longer waited for silence to be broken.
They simply were.
One night, the blossoms fell thick. So many, they blanketed the ground like snow.
Wei Wuxian sat on the steps, chin in his palm, watching them fall.
Lan Wangji joined him, warm and quiet at his side.
Wei Wuxian leaned into him, voice soft. “Lan Zhan... we’re here, aren’t we?”
Lan Wangji nodded. “We are.”
“Really here. Not just... visiting. Not dreaming. Not passing through.”
“Home,” Lan Wangji said, like a vow.
Wei Wuxian exhaled. “That’s all I ever wanted.”
Lan Wangji’s hand reached for his—threading their fingers together. The red thread that bound them glowed softly in the night. Not glowing from magic.
Just glowing from being held.
And in the years that followed—years that did not end— the house beneath the blossoms remained.
A home made from waiting, from sorrow endured, from love that did not break, even after death.
It was never silent there. Because silence was not emptiness anymore. It was fullness.
Two voices. Two hands.
One bond.
Eternal.