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jingyismom · 2 years

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Lan Wangji has known of his curse since he was old enough to run.

The first time he broke free of Shufu's arms and made his unsteady way toward the bright green world beyond the entrance of the Cloud Recesses, Shufu caught him hard around the middle, panic in his eyes.

"A-Zhan," he said, shaking him, "you must never try to go out of the gate."

Lan Wangji only stared, truly afraid for the first time in his life.

"You must NEVER go near it, A-Zhan, do you understand?"

He nodded, eyes wide and filling with tears.

Shufu held him tight.

(wangxian, canon divergence, rated T, some angst but no warnings

imported from twt)

As he grew, and learned, and rose above his peers in cultivation and scholarship, he came to understand that his situation was unique. Others came and went through the gate with no issue, but he and Xiongzhang were not allowed.

He never asked why.

But the way Xiongzhang would sometimes stare out the gate in silence, or would shy away from the heads of deep forest paths, told him that Xiongzhang knew. That Xiongzhang was afraid.

Until he was angry.

Every week, Shufu would lead the two of them to the house at the edge of the Cloud Recesses where their fuqin lived, and would make them recite their most recent lessons for him.

Lan Wangji hated the dim, stuffy rooms, the heavily perfumed smoke from the ever-lit brazier. He hated the sharp gaze of his fuqin, and the way he would drawl, "Good boys will will fetch good wives."

He hated the way Shufu's grip on his wrist would tighten when his fuqin would come forward to embrace him.

When he turned ten, Xiongzhang stopped coming with them.

"You will know why in time," Shufu told Lan Wangji, when he asked.

Their fuqin's sneer and Xiongzhang's refusal to speak of it made him eager to turn ten himself, if it meant he would also be allowed to abstain.

Visits to A-niang were altogether different, but happened only once a month. Shufu did not come with them on these visits at the edge of the Cloud Recesses. They only ever entered through the back door, which faced the rest of their sect.

The front, which faced the forest, was as off limits as the entry gate. Neither Xiongzhang nor A-niang went near it—though sometimes, when A-niang would gather him up into her warm arms, she would go very quiet looking out the window beside it.

Their fuqin died before Lan Wangji ever turned ten.

At their first visit with her immediately after, A-niang was different.

"My precious loves," she murmured, each of them held close in either arm. "Sometimes, even when the fall looks steep, you must take a leap of faith."

Lan Wangji blinked at her, confused. She smiled. He had never seen her smile this way before, without a hint of sadness.

"When you learn to weild your sword, you'll understand," she said. "The fear of falling is worth the chance to fly."

Xiongzhang began, silently, to cry. Lan Wangji felt confused, sympathetic tears prick his own eyes.

"A-Huan, be brave," she told Xiongzhang.

He nodded, and wiped his eyes.

She turned to Lan Wangji, smiling again, softly.

"A-Zhan. Gentle, sweet boy," she said. She kissed the top of his head. "Be good. Never forget A-niang loves you. Never."

Lan Wangji nodded dutifully. She squeezed him close.

This is the last memory Lan Wangji has of anybody touching him outside of brusque training corrections.

He dreams of it often.

He dreams of holding on when A-niang lets go.

The next month, Shufu told them there would be no visit. That A-niang was gone. Lan Wangji did not understand.

He knelt outside her door anyway, waiting, until he fell asleep, numb with cold. He woke up in his own bed to a lecture from shufu about taking care of one's body. He listened dutifully.

But he knelt again the next month, and the next, and eventually, the lectures ended.

The snow faded and returned with the seasons.

The cold in Lan Wangji's bones did not.

It was Xiongzhang who eventually took him aside and gave him the scroll. It was marked as forbidden, and Lan Wangji hesitated to take it.

"I am not allowed," he said. He was fifteen, and adhered scrupulously to every rule save those he could not help breaking.

To make up for those he could not help breaking. Every month.

"You are," said Xiongzhang. "It's about A-niang. It's about us."

On the scroll was a virulent curse for trapping its victim inside a boundary. To leave would mean instant death. The only chance at freedom entailed true, requited love.

Their fuqin's message to A-niang was clear:

Love me back, or die here.

Lan Wangji read the scroll three times before the anger set in, hot and all-consuming. His hands shook where they gripped its edges.

Xiongzhang watched him, and gave him time.

When he was calm, he rolled it up, and handed it back.

"It is unclear how it might weaken from generation to generation," Xiongzhang said. "Or if it will weaken at all."

Lan Wangji stared hard at the ground.

"Shufu is reviewing eligible matches for this sect leader next month," Xiongzhang continued. "But given our circumstances, we will be allowed...input."

Lan Wangji nodded.

"In a few years, you will be old enough to join the guest lectures, Wangji. It would be a good idea to practice making friends before then."

It was not until that impossible suggestion that the awful, agonizing yearning gripped Lan Wangji's chest. His stomach opened up, a bottomless pit. For a brief, horrible moment, he understood A-Niang's choice. He understood what it meant to live without the hope of ever knowing what it might be like to fly. Understood why she might grasp at any slight, impossible chance at freedom.

But the curse had not broken with their fuqin's death, she had proven that for all of them.

And Lan Wangji felt certain that for him, it would never break at all.

The years go by, and the guest lectures begin. Xiongzhang's hope radiates off him like a gentle glow.

Lan Wangji hopes for him, too. He dreams of letters addressed to his name from far-off places, smelling of the sea, or of spice, or of unknown flowers; things he will never see.

He is unprepared for the influx of outsiders his own age. Their noise, their laughter, their bustle. Every time a new sect arrives he is assaulted with their liveliness. With their obvious camaraderie.

He keeps his distance. Watches carefully. He knows they are meant to learn from each other, and tries to honor that spirit. He is determined to keep an open mind about this.

Until.

Until he catches the Jiang head disciple sneaking over the wall with two jars of liquor in hand.

The boy introduces himself with a cheeky smile, and pats his contraband with a wink.

"I'll share with you if you let me in. What do you say?"

It angers Lan Wangji, unreasonably so, to the point where he draws his sword.

Another rule broken, and as they fight, another, and another.

But Lan Wangji finds he cannot stop following, cannot stop meeting him strike for strike, testing him and feeling himself tested in return. He has to work at it, far more than he is accustomed, and there is a startling joy in the exhilaration.

He is lost to it such that he leans past the peak of the roof, and feels for the first time the curse that waits for him.

It is thick and viscous, sucking at his skin like sap. If sap were alive and hissing for his blood.

He startles away, heart pounding, and lowers his sword.

But Wei Wuxian smiles at him again, glowing with exertion and moonlight, and then politely takes his leave.

Lan Wangji's anger flares. He knocks the liquor from his grasp. Yet another rule smashes to pieces with the cloud-white ceramic jar.

He drags Wei Wuxian before Xiongzhang and Shufu, shaken by the curse, and the fight, and himself.

It does not go as he imagines. Instead of punishment, Wei Wuxian is granted mercy. And then knowledge of the mysteriously killed disciple that was brought in earlier that day. Somehow, he makes observations that escaped all of them.

His eyes are bright, when he is thinking. Almost as bright as when he fights.

That night, Lan Wangji's mind is far from the calm he is so adept at cultivating. He is far from the model disciple he works so hard to be. He meditates long after curfew, his thoughts swirling with glinting blades, and sunny smiles, and the phantom touch of blackened hands that resemble his fuqin's.

Things only worsen from there.

Wei Wuxian and his shamelessness plague him. Strange voices fill his normally quiet home. Tensions are rising with the Wens.

But among it all, Lan Wangji has noticed the softness of Xiongzhang's smile when directed toward one of the Nie ambassadors, Meng Yao. It is the same expression, yet different, from the one he wore when the late Nie-zongzhu brought his sons to visit, when they were all young.

Lan Wangji understands it much more now than he did then. He does not allow himself to wonder about either of those smiles. But his feelings about them are twofold:

Where he had fearfully expected jealousy, he finds he feels only relief. That his brother so easily makes such connections can only mean his chance of escape is greater.

Anterior to this relief is another: that Xiongzhang's hope is founded, and Lan Wangji will not have to watch him, too, fall into despair.

When his mind is most turbulent, he calms himself with this thought. When he kneels behind his A-niang's house, he whispers of these hopes to bring the both of them some peace.

The curse will end, though differently in either of their cases. It will end nonetheless. No new generation will be held prisoner.

In the dead of night, when he wakes in cold sweats, his skin crawling with the memory of the curse's touch, he imagines the day he will watch Xiongzhang step through the gate, free of its hold.

In the full light of day, however, such calm is much harder to find.

No matter how he tries to remain upright, to provide a peerless example of his sect's teachings, Wei Wuxian relentlessly works to wear down his patience. He is arrogant, and undisciplined, and altogether too concerned with impressing others. He is clever. But uses this cleverness for all the wrong things.

He shines more brightly than anything Lan Wangji has ever seen.

This only makes his conduct all the more infuriating.

Yet worse is his tendency to turn this cleverness, this brightness, toward Lan Wangji. He seems to delight in Lan Wangji's anger, in his discomfort. In his attention. He tests his boundaries, finding new ways to wrest it from him. Lan Wangji does his best to avoid him, to avoid the foreign, unwelcome fire his presence stokes in his chest.

But Shufu finally assigns him a punishment, with Lan Wangji as his keeper. It is impossible to stay out of his way.

"Wangji-xiong, look!"

"Ji-xiong, don't be so mean."

"Wangji-xiong, why don't you go on nighthunts with us?"

"Ji-xiong, what are you reading?"

His laughter rings out, golden in the sunlight.

"Ji-xiong, I'm sorry for being rude, forgive me. Ji-xiong? Lan Wangji? Lan Zhan!"

The constant teasing is unbearable.

Worse, at times his teasing seems to target something in Lan Wangji he himself has not yet been able to acknowledge. He tears the spring book to pieces. But the image, and Wei Wuxian's use of it to goad him, linger in his mind.

"Lan Zhan! You should have seen that monkey yao today! It was disgusting!"

He is once again leaning into Lan Wangji’s space to chatter at him during the evening meal. Lan Wangji glares at him, and he sneers.

"No talking during meals, bleeggghh, and you call me boring."

But he does not speak again until the meal is over.

"Lan Zhan, when will you come nighthunting with us? We would make such a good time. Team! We would have fun."

This plucks a strange chord in Lan Wangji’s memory. The reports he has always read of nighthunts have been clinical. Precise But when he was young, in a small house at the edge of the forest...he remembers hearing tales of excitement. Of daring. Of fun.

His jaw tightens.

"Lan Zhaaaan..."

"Wei Ying," he admonishes.

For these are the names they use with each other now. He has lost track of when they began to feel natural.

"Jiang Cheng, stop making faces! Hey! It's going to freeze like that if you--HEY!"

He dashes off, as he always does, to more engaging prospects

Lan Wangji tells himself this is a victory on his part. A successful deflection. He goes to the back hills to fly his sword in peace.

Alone.

It takes until the lantern ceremony, until their carefully-fashioned lights fill the sky, for him to understand.

When Wei Ying speaks his wish, Lan Wangji's eyes are opened. He realizes all at once what is happening, what has been happening since their first duel. It shocks him momentarily, blunt and paralyzing. He stares at Wei Ying. His earnest, hopeful face.

He sees all the places Wei Ying will go. All the great deeds he will accomplish.

Of course he is in love with such a person. Of course. Of course.

He is suspended in the epiphany until Wei Ying turns that smile on him once more, and he comes crashing down to earth.

Of course he is in love with Wei Ying.

Wei Ying is in love with the world.

Lan Wangji watches from the roof as Jiang-zongzhu tows his disciples home. He watches, fists clenched, as the vivid red of a hair ribbon grows distant down the path.

He breathes deeply. He breathes, and breathes, and thinks hard of the difference between flying and falling.

For there is a difference. A-Niang knew it. And still she leapt.

But she was leaping away. Lan Wangji has nothing to leap away from.

He thinks of Wei Ying's anger at Jin Zixuan, and the way only Jiang Yanli was able to calm it.

The spark of red disappears between the trees.

Lan Wangji has nothing to leap toward, either.

In a flash of fear, he hopes he never sees Wei Ying again. He does not know what he would do. He knows that it is in him both to fall and to grasp too tightly, and he is loath to find out which would come most naturally.

He drifts down from the roof.

He moves into A-niang's house, with the curse camped out at its door.

A year passes in quietude. The cold in Lan Wangji's bones sets, and hardens. There is peace in it.

One day, Xiongzhang leaves.

He does it without fanfare, as if it is easy and natural, and returns the same way. Lan Wangji receives his oft dreamed-of letters. They carry no scent of far-off lands. But Xiongzhang's freedom, his happiness, is enough.

This is what Lan Wangji tells himself, in his house full of ghosts. He tells himself that one day, when he becomes one of them, this life will have been enough.

It is not a lie if he is determined to make it true.

Months later, a message arrives from Wen Ruohan. He demands the heirs and top disciples of the sects be sent to Qishan, to "learn." Shufu sighs deeply when Xiongzhang reads the missive aloud.

"He will want us destroyed when we do not comply," he says. "It would not matter why. And we do not have the resources to outlast a siege of the mountain."

Xiongzhang nods. "An outright defeat, then."

"It is unlikely we have the resources for that, either," says Shufu.

"Not without warning, perhaps" Xiongzhang presses, "and not alone."

Shufu shakes his head. "Each sect is under its own constraints."

Xiongzhang turns toward him. "But we are stronger together."

Lan Wangji watches this exchange with a tightly-contained feeling of dread in his stomach. If they are attacked, every drop of blood will be on his hands. If they are attacked and must retreat, Lan Wangji will have nowhere to go.

After a moment of dissonance, of freefall, these two facts begin to cancel each other out. Begin to seem right.

They make plans for Xiongzhang and Shufu to write to their peers, and after, Xiongzhang walks with him.

"It's not your fault," he says softly.

Lan Wangji's jaw clenches, his fist tightening behind his back.

"The curse is not of your making, Wangji."

Lan Wangji is silent, for he cannot say what he is thinking:

That the curse was not of Xiongzhang's making either, but were his presence the one demanded outside their home, he would not be holding them at the brink of war.

When they receive word that the Wen soldiers are coming, they are as prepared as they can be. But they have not heard from anyone other than Nie-zongzhu, who, at the foot of Qishan, cannot spare more than a few fighters.

The Cloud Recesses are quiet. Braced for impact. Lan Wangji has plenty to occupy his mind away from the letter Xiongzhang convinced him to write to Wei Ying.

Unanswered, like all the other requests for aid.

When the battle comes, the chaos is unlike anything Lan Wangji has ever seen.

Wen soldiers rush the mountain path on foot while cultivators rain down from the skies. The wards hold until they are overwhelmed, and then the peace of his home is soaked with blood, and sweat, and screams. Familiar pathways are filled with the clash of steel and qi.

For the first time, Lan Wangji fights to survive.

He falls back on his incomparable training, and finds in himself a vicious precision for the taking of lives. There is no time to think on it between this cultivator and that footsoldier, this sword and that fist.

No matter how many he kills, more seem to come.

And more.

He is fighting back-to-back with Xiongzhang when a strange ripple of sound goes through the battle. Many pause—a fatal mistake—and turn to look.

Though Lan Wangji has never seen either of them before, it is clear that the two men leading the fresh column of soldiers are Wen Xu and Wen Zhuliu. The Wen heir wears an arrogant smirk. The Core-Melting Hand's eyes glint as they scan the carnage.

Their command fans out, red and black now outnumbering Lan white. Lan Wangji watches Wen Xu delight in slitting the throat of a disciple two years his junior. Watches Wen Zhuliu destroy the core of one of the elders.

The weight of his guilt is crushing, even as he struggles to keep focus on his sword.

If only he were different. More likable. Warmer. If only he tried harder to be amiable, to at least feign the welcome always apparent in Xiongzhang's eyes.

But it is too late now. His defects have cost his people their lives. Soon, perhaps, he will repay them with his own.

He turns to Xiongzhang.

"Retreat," he pleads. "Take everyone left to Qinghe."

Xiongzhang shakes his head. "Wangji—"

A flash of light in his eyes cuts him off. It is followed by another, and another. They look skyward.

A small host of cultivators flies down past the rooftops. Their robes are purple, gold, red, and gray. The numbers, it seems, are once again in their favor.

Xiongzhang meets his eyes, a fierce smile on his face.

"Fight, Wangji," he says. "They didn't leave us, and we won't leave you."

Lan Wangji nods, grim hope taking root. He fights.

"Lan Zhan!" comes an achingly familiar voice. Lan Wangji whips around to look, and sees Wei Ying bounding toward him. "I got your letter! I thought you'd never write!"

Shock, and joy, and longing mix with the fear and horror in his gut. He shoves it all away. Maintains his focus. Turns away from the distraction of Wei Ying's sharp smile, somehow more beautiful even than before. He keeps his mind on the blade.

"You did not write," he says, answering the accusation.

"I thought about it!" Wei Ying says, slashing, and dodging a gout of blood. "But things have been..."

He ducks, barely missed by a wild arrow, and they toil on. Lan Wangji takes fierce delight in the way they work together. Guarding each other's backs, filling the gaps in each other's defenses without speaking. He can feel where Wei Ying will move next, can anticipate his needs and his fulfillment of Lan Wangji's own. There amidst the fear and pain and death, Lan Wangji's heart lifts. His blood sings.

This is what it is to find one's equal. One's match. The word Wei Ying once tossed out casually, almost jokingly, comes to mind: zhiji.

Something essential locks into place in Lan Wangji's chest.

He does not think of the end of the battle, when it will be taken from him again. He thinks only of protecting his home, and of catching as often as he can the corner of Wei Ying's grin.

It goes on for what feels like centuries. Lan Wangji's strong core is depleted, his muscles aching.

But the tide is turning dramatically. No longer are they backing away from the onslaught—dead Wen soldiers outnumber the living, and those that remain begin to flee.

That is when Wei Ying spots Wen Xu making a break for the forest.

"Lan Zhan, look!" he shouts.

Wen Xu has a small group of cultivators with him, all of them battered and bloodied and looking for escape. Lan Wangji nearly buckles with relief at the sight of them running. But then Wei Ying is running after them, and Lan Wangji has no choice but to follow.

"We can catch them," Wei Ying calls back to him, "we can take him hostage instead!"

Lan Wangji understands that this could potentially change the balance of power, could give the newly-allied sects a powerful bargaining tool. But the back of his mind is uneasy, to be heading away from the center of action. To be heading toward the back hill, and the boundary which he cannot cross.

They run, all of them lacking the strength any longer to fly. Each of Wen Xu's men eventually fall behind to be cut down by either Lan Wangji or Wei Ying, until he is alone, and not far ahead.

"Lan Zhan, your qin," Wei Ying pants as they pass the last of the outbuildings.

Lan Wangji shakes his head. He does not have the power to stop him that way.

The curse looms ahead, waiting. Lan Wangji can almost feel its anticipation. He grits his teeth, ready to call out, to stop Wei Ying somehow from going on alone.

"Wen-gongzi!" Wei Ying calls. "You may as well surrender! There's no escape this way!"

Wen Xu snarls and turns on them, a cornered animal. He lashes out with something dark and twisting, something that drags at Lan Wangji's depleted core. He gasps, and hears Wei Ying choke beside him. The sound spurs him on.

He lunges, but Wen Xu twists away, catching Bichen's tip in only the meat of his arm. He yells, and spins, and cracks down hard at Lan Wangji’s shin.

It buckles beneath him.

Wei Ying is there suddenly, rushing up behind Wen Xu, Suibian extended—

But Wen Xu is fast. Inhumanly fast. His eyes are dark—black—and he turns toward Wei Ying—

Lan Wangji sees Wei Ying's eyes widen over Wen Xu's shoulder. Sees blood spill from his mouth.

Rearing back, Lan Wangji puts all of his remaining strength into his blade, but just as he drives it forward, a sudden, blunt force drives him back, throwing him from his feet.

When he looks up, Wen Zhuliu is there, standing before Wen Xu, palms outstretched to either side. Wei Ying lies motionless on the ground, a ways beyond them.

Lan Wangji moves to get up just as Wen Xu stumbles. His hand comes away from his side bloody, and his face twists with rage. He turns toward Wei Ying. Lan Wangji's heart stops.

But Wen Zhuliu grabs hold of Wen Xu, and simply shakes his head at his furious glare.

"Burn them! Burn out their cores!" Wen Xu screams, as he grips Wen Zhuliu's arm to keep upright.

Wen Zhuliu glances at Lan Wangji.

Ice fills his veins.

He glances next at Wei Ying, and Lan Wangji struggles and fails to get to his feet. But Wen Zhuliu merely shakes his head once more, takes hold of Wen Xu, and mounts his sword. In the space of a few frantic heartbeats, they're gone.

"Wei Ying," Lan Wangji calls.

Wei Ying coughs, and Lan Wangji can see the blood even from here.

"Wei Ying!"

He tries to stand again, but cannot manage it. He crawls.

The rough forest floor drags painfully at his mangled leg, and his progress is maddeningly slow. He is almost there when he feels it.

The curse. The boundary. Wei Ying lies on the other side of it.

Desperation beats at Lan Wangji's ribs as he nears, but Wei Ying is just out of reach.

"Wei Ying," he repeats.

"Lan Zhan?" Wei Ying rasps. He tries to sit up.

"Do not move," Lan Wangji says. He crawls along the barrier, so close he could touch him, if only...

"Lan Zhan? Where are you?" A pause. "That was—are you alright? Are you—did he—"

"I am fine," Lan Wangji says tightly, holding back tears. "Do not move. I am here."

The curse hisses and churns. Lan Wangji's stomach turns.

A-niang felt this. A-niang walked straight into this hungry abyss, and did not look back. Did she think it would give way if she persevered?

Lan Wangji used to think she did.

"...Where?" Wei Ying murmurs. His voice is weakening.

"Here," says Lan Wangji, desperate. "I am here."

"You're hurt?" Wei Ying asks. "Can you not...move? Let me see."

He tries to push himself up again.

"No!" Lan Wangji says. "No, I..."

"Lan Zhan?" Panic, now, in his voice.

Lan Wangji sets his jaw and takes a breath. He summons the last of his remaining spiritual energy.

"Here," he says, and pushes his hand through the boundary, into the clinging, tarry dark.

He holds back the gasp of shock, of horror, of pain, and stretches forward, pushing his qi into the limb. Trying to keep the curse on the surface only. It is like plunging his arm into quicksand, into death. He stares at it, at the incongruous sunlight on his skin, and pushes harder.

His fingertips brush Wei Ying's arm.

"Wei Ying," he forces out.

Wei Ying's hand finds his and holds on.

"Lan Zhan...your hand is so cold."

Lan Wangji cannot feel Wei Ying's hand at all.

He leans back, and pulls. The curse seeps through his skin, but he does not let go. He pulls, and crawls back, and pulls, terror spurring him on. Wei Ying scoots himself to the side, and together they move him far enough in. Lan Wangji looks down into his pallid face.

"You're alright," Wei Ying says with an echo of his usual grin.

Lan Wangji nods, and hauls him to sit half up, propped against his unharmed leg.

"Pressure," he says, and presses Wei Ying's hand over the wound in his side.

"Oh," says Wei Ying distantly, "right."

He is still staring up at Lan Wangji. Lan Wangji still cannot feel his arm. Or his shoulder. Or his entire left side.

Wei Ying's eyelids begin to droop.

"Stay awake," Lan Wangji says.

Someone will come. Someone must come.

"Mm?" Wei Ying says, still smiling. "We made a good team, didn't we Lan Zhan."

"We do," Lan Wangji says.

There's a sudden cool sensation on his chin. Something wet drops down onto Wei Ying's robes.

Wei Ying frowns. His lips are white. "Are you sad, Lan Zhan?"

"Stay awake," Lan Wangji repeats. "Use your qi."

"Mn," Wei Ying hums. "Not much left."

"Use it."

"So tired..."

"Wei Ying."

"Sing me a song? Sing me...keep me awake, ah?"

Lan Wangji takes a deep, unsteady breath. He does not remember breathing being so arduous. He tries to remember songs of healing, of clarity, of power.

He cannot call up any of the notes.

He hums instead a song only he knows. A song he wrote one summer for the most vividly alive thing he had ever seen. A song for the boy currently dying in his lap.

"Pretty, Lan Zhan," Wei Ying murmurs. He pats Lan Wangji's arm. Lan Wangji cannot feel it. "What's it called?"

The song dies off as Lan Wangji's lungs go weak. He forces more air in.

"Wangxian," he answers.

But Wei Ying's eyes have closed.

Lan Wangji stares. Kneeling, cold and helpless as he always has been, he stares.

"Stay," he whispers. "Please. Stay."

When Lan Wangji wakes, once again in his own bed, aching and cold, he tries to stand.

Xiongzhang gently pushes him back down.

"Wei Ying—"

"He is well," says Xiongzhang. "Or will be soon. He's healing quickly now."

Relief washes over Lan Wangji, loosening his constricted muscles. He registers Xiongzhang's pristine robes.

"The Wens?"

"Beaten back," Xiongzhang says. "They fled once Wen Xu abandoned them."

Lan Wangji looks away. "Casualties?"

Xiongzhang sighs. "Minimal. This was a victory, Wangji. If we had fled, or even given in to the initial demand, Wen Ruohan would simply have considered himself above reproach. Recovery...should be your focus, now."

His tone is strangely careful, and he will not meet Lan Wangji's eye.

"I am fine," Lan Wangji says. He feels heavy, and tired, but unhurt. "I will look in on Wei Ying."

"It would not be prudent for you to go out at this time."

The refusal is stark. Shocking.

"Xiongzhang."

"Your health comes first," says Xiongzhang. "And I do not think you would wish for people to see your injury."

Lan Wangji blinks up at him, and then moves his leg experimentally. It is nearly entirely healed. He looks down at himself, and turns back the blanket.

His arm is covered in thick bandages.

He does not understand. He turns it, and it moves, but with a leaden slowness. It is then that he catches the glint of energy—activated talismans woven into the dressings. This would require a near-constant stream of spiritual energy. He looks back at Xiongzhang.

"The curse did not leave you unscathed," he says, "though we believe you will make a full recovery."

Xiongzhang's presence at his bedside begins to make a different sort of sense.

"You have been containing it," Lan Wangji surmises.

"Yes. And Shufu, and the healers, in shifts."

Dread and guilt grip him once more. He can feel it faintly, a sluggish hissing along the meridians of his arm. The curse that traps him, trapped inside him now. Waiting much closer to take him to his death.

"Now you're awake, you must focus on purging it, while we keep it caged."

Lan Wangji blinks, and nods, and takes a deep lungful of air. The knowledge that Wei Ying is nearby, that he could see him if only he were to go, tugs insistently at his mind. He expels it. He will never see Wei Ying again if he is dead.

Xiongzhang very graciously says nothing of how Lan Wangji was found, how he must obviously have come in contact with the curse. But it is a very loud silence. Lan Wangji is appropriately ashamed of his recklessness.

The days pass, and he is hardly aware of them. He does nothing but meditate. He cultivates, and he works against the curse, and he is hardly aware of his family and the healers changing places to keep his bandages intact.

Shufu always rouses him when he leaves in the evening, though.

"Eat, Wangji," he says each night. "You have done well. Rest."

Lan Wangji is alone for a quarter shichen to eat, and to bathe as well as he can, and to ready himself for an exhausted, dreamless sleep, before one of the healers comes in to take up the containment process.

The curse is lessening. It is growing smaller, weaker, in the face of his blunt assault, and the unrelenting force of the bandages holding it back.

And Lan Wangji is growing lonely.

He is accustomed to loneliness—it has been his constant companion for many years. A deep, gnawing lack, a futile need for something long out of reach. But this feeling is a shade different. The sadness is the same, but more present, its fruitlessness more unbearable. He wonders if A-niang was this kind of lonely. And for whom.

One of many things about her he will never know.

He does not ask after Wei Ying again, does not wish to draw attention to his obvious weakness for him. Does not wish to know when he will be leaving. Like this, he can pretend Wei Ying has already gone, and the loneliness can shrink back to its proper size and place. Eventually.

Surely, it must.

Perhaps when the curse is gone back to its home at the border, he will feel less cold. Perhaps when he can once more go out and feel the sun on his skin, the loneliness will melt away.

He can only hope.

But one evening, when Shufu is gone and Lan Wangji has put his weary self to bed, there is a faint rustling sound from near his window.

He sits up, the sleeves of his softest, warmest robe trailing. He hugs it closer, and peers through shafts of moonlight until he sees movement. It is small. Like a bird, or a mouse. But it moves strangely, an ungainly shadow in the blue dim of night. It hops onto the foot of Lan Wangji's bed, and his heart seizes.

The paperman toddles toward him, climbing along the slope of his leg to stand proudly atop his knee. It bows, exaggerated and grand.

Lan Wangji is frozen.

The last time Wei Ying visited, he was only able to send his papermen over short distances. The idea of him waiting just on the other side of the thin wall of Lan Wangji's house, is...

The paperman awkwardly tosses a folded slip of paper on the blanket and then crosses its arms in front of itself as if waiting. It is painfully dear. Lan Wangji resists the urge to scoop it up and lay it gently in his box of memories, an apology and a friend for the crumpled red one still kept there. Instead, he takes up the proffered note.

Lan Zhan, it reads, in Wei Ying's effortlessly elegant scrawl, I'm leaving soon. How are you? They won't let me see you.

And then, at the bottom of the misused talisman paper, a crude drawing: ☹️

Lan Wangji stares at the characters, memorizing the slant of the strokes, the unique quirks of the speed of Wei Ying's mind and his hand. Absently, he runs his fingertips over the ink and finds it barely dry.

The paperman shifts, startling him, and then exaggeratedly mimics writing. Lan Wangji's pulse hammers up to speed. There are scant moments before one of the healers will return, expecting to find him asleep. Wei Ying expects an immediate reply. He hurries to his desk and quickly grinds ink into the long-dry dish, and composes his reply with shameful haste.

Wei Ying, I am well. And you?

He hands the note back to the paperman and carries it to the sill it came in through. He watches as it floats down to the earth, watches as it hurries across the garden, through the bushes and around the pond. He tracks it across the stone, following from cracked window to cracked window, until he spies him.

Wei Ying, kneeling behind A-niang's house.

Lan Wangji's heart stops altogether for several breaths, then pounds as he watches him take the paper. Watches him read the note, and shake his head.

He looks well. Very well. It is hard to see from this distance, yet all the kinetic life of him is clearly back in his limbs. Lan Wangji takes a deep, relieving breath, finally easing the part of himself that could not let go of the image of him cold and still, despite Xiongzhang's reassurance.

He is well. He is well. That is all that matters. And he is going home.

Before Lan Wangji can feel properly sad at the prospect, the paperman is sprinting back toward him, practically glowing with Wei Ying's re-infusion of spiritual energy. He catches it as it comes in, and gently plucks the new note from its hold.

You're not well, obviously! It's the resentment, isn't it?

Lan Wangji feels a stab of horror, of breathless confusion. He never considered Wei Ying might come to know of the curse. He hates thinking of the way his kindness would spill over in the knowing of it. Of his pity.

But the paperman is frantically performing a strange twisting gesture. Lan Wangji flips over the paper.

I felt Wen Xu wield it somehow. He has a new weapon. How badly did it hurt you?

Lan Wangji looses the breath he has been holding, relieved once more. But the healer will be here any moment. He takes up a sheet of his own paper and tears off a strip.

I will heal fully soon, do not worry. I am glad you are well. Safe travels.

He pauses, and then, for the mere pleasure of writing it, amends it to, Safe travels, Wei Ying.

He sends the paperman off with a pang of loss that echoes like a bell inside his ribs, and goes back to bed. He breathes, and he calms his speeding heart, and he waits for the healer to come in. Just before she does, the rustling sound returns. Before Lan Wangji can get up, the paperman is hopping up his chest.

He snatches it out of the air, hoping to read this last missive before it is too late. But it carries nothing. It merely goes limp in his careful grip.

He hears his door slide open.

Eyes shut tight against unbidden tears, he slips the paperman inside his robes, against his heart.

Lan Wangji does not sleep that night until exhaustion sweeps him away from the world.

Xiongzhang brings news of the volunteer Jiang cultivators' departure the next day.

He tries to accept it with graceful disinterest, but feels the gentle weight of a hand on his shoulder.

"I'm certain you will meet again," Xiongzhang murmurs.

Lan Wangji's jaw clenches. If he were not trapped—in this room, in this house, on this mountain—he would simply leave this conversation. He has nothing to say on the matter.

Days pass, and eventually, the curse is purged from his fingertips.

"Wangji?" Xiongzhang says, when it happens.

Lan Wangji opens his eyes, and nods.

The relief in Xiongzhang's smile reveals just how tense he has been. But he quickly hides it.

"Is it...could it be..."

The restrained hope in his expression makes Lan Wangji's stomach clench.

"No," he says.

He can still feel it. Alive and writhing just outside the door. If anything, the curse seems more ravenous now that it has had a taste. Lan Wangji shudders just as Xiongzhang's face goes serious, and he nods.

"In time," he says.

There is nothing for Lan Wangji to say. There is no sense in dashing his hopes. He does not need to know that Lan Wangji's position is the perfect foil to A-niang's, and Lan Wangji does not wish to speak his darkest secret: That in this—the unrequited, clinging love of a bright, free thing who can never love him back—he is exactly like their fuqin.

He emerges from his seclusion to find the Cloud Recesses still recovering from the attack. The damage and loss of life are devastating, but drive home his understanding of the gift they were given. Had help not come, they would have been decimated. The debt they owe is great. And all the sect is busy rebuilding, healing, preparing for the inevitable repaying of it.

Lan Wangji joins in the work. He trains harder, if only to drive his comrades to train harder as well. He cultivates, and he studies, and he works.

He also writes back and forth with Wei Ying. He seems determined to discover the source of Wen Xu's power and safeguard against it. He writes like a man obsessed. Lan Wangji treasures every letter, and scours the Lan Sect library, and begins to compile his findings. He writes to Wei Ying of a device he finds in the archives, an ancient belt imbued with a powerful ward. They begin to unspool its inner workings, to try to construct a solution that will work for an army instead of an individual.

It is invigorating, to work together. He tells himself, as is his custom, that it is more than enough. Even as Wei Ying's responsibilities grow and he writes less often, each letter is enough.

Between them, Lan Wangji fulfills his duties. He regains his strength.

As the exhaustion of fighting the curse falls away, so does the bliss of dreamless sleep. As the nights wear endlessly on, they become plagued with nightmares. In the dark, his mind is not his own. It fills with gruesome imaginings of A-niang's death, of his own, of his fuqin's. It fills with Wei Ying's weak voice, his bloodless face. His death rattle.

It fills with the curse. Hissing, calling him a disappointment for not bringing in a good wife. Sweetly welcoming him home. Gripping his wrist hard, harder, his fuqin's fingers pulling him into the muck. Telling him they are one, now. They are the same.

He does not wake screaming. He chokes, gulping down clean air. He calms his racing heart. He sleeps again, determined to rest, to keep up his strength for his people.

When he kneels in the garden that month, he apologizes to A-niang. He knows she had greater hopes for him than this.

He has told her of Wei Ying many times in the past, but does not mention him now.

It seems not long at all before the news comes. Lan Wangji is meditating with his peers in one of the courtyards, cultivating. He is as strong as many of the elders now, and has begun to teach some of the youngest disciples. It is a good thing he is not on duty with them when he overhears the messengers leaving Xiongzhang's meeting room.

"...hit them too fast. Nobody knew, no warning. Nothing we could do. The disciples we sent last week were something, but we may be holding their funerals tomorrow."

Lan Wangji's eyes fly open. He knows of only two sects to which Lan disciples were recently sent. Qinghe Nie, and—

"Jiang-zongzhu has some of the most powerful fighters in the cultivation world. Don't they stand a chance?" the other messenger asks.

The first does not answer.

Lan Wangji is on his feet before their footsteps fade from earshot.

"Xiongzhang," he says, bursting into the room, "is Lotus Pier under attack?"

Xiongzhang and Shufu turn to look at him with disparate expressions of surprise and disapproval. He catches his breath, straightens, and bows.

"It is," Xiongzhang says, calm and mournful. As if it is over.

"When?"

"As we speak. The Wen forces have just—Wangji? Wangji!"

Shufu joins in, and they call after him as he breaks rule after rule, running all the way back to his house.

He has no sense of time, nor of whether or not he is pursued. He does not think of the many punishments incurred by interrupting his elders, by departing rudely, by ignoring them, by running, by disturbing the peace. He simply runs until he is opening the door, and then he is running to his desk, snatching the ancient belt from its surface, and tearing outside once more.

He runs all the way to the eastern gate before he hears quick footfalls behind him, and Shufu's voice.

Scared. Just like it was that day when he was a child.

He leaps atop the gate, and then, only then, does he hesitate.

The world unfolds beneath him, bright, and green, and wide. It is beautiful, and it is not his. He loves it dearly, fiercely, in a way he has never before allowed himself to consider. He wants to fly, he wants to see it—he wants to be allowed to want it.

He lets himself want it. Just this once. Desperately.

He mounts his sword.

And he realizes, sudden as the breaking dawn, that he has misunderstood A-niang all these years. For it is not like falling at all if the leap of faith has any chance of saving someone you love.

He leaps.

The curse closes in around him, a void of sticking, sucking, seething hunger. He pushes hard and finds that it gives—thinner than mud but thicker than water. It drags at his skin, at his bones, at his meridians, as he flies. But fly he does. He speeds through the open air, slower than his usual pace but faster than the horse runs. He keeps his mind on his purpose and his fist clenched around the belt.

He is stronger now than most cultivators. He puts that strength to flight, and to repelling the curse.

He cannot help but think of his A-niang. Of how long she tried to keep going once it was clear the curse was not broken. Did she bother to try to hold it at bay? Did she lie down and let it take her in the hope her death would break it?

He does not think of the distance. Forest, road, and town reel below him, and he would look, would drink his fill of these first and last sights, but he cannot spare the focus. He drives on, and on, and on.

He does not know how long he lasts before Bichen begins to falter beneath his feet. His face is long since numb from the sting of the wind, his hands curled into unfeeling claws. His strength is drained, inevitably, by the dual strain of curse and sword. And what's more, he does not know the remaining distance.

He pushes harder, no longer bothering to shield against the curse. It seeps through his skin with a sigh, as if it belongs. Perhaps it does.

It is nothing. He would break his meridians if it meant bringing Wei Ying a weapon to keep him safe. He pushes, and pushes, until he has nothing left.

He goes down, sailing through leafy green canopy, branch and twig slowing his fall. He lands in a bed of moss, he thinks, for it is soft. Everything feels soft. The world is cradling him, rocking him to sleep.

His eyes close. Or at least, the world is hidden from him. It is dark.

He would weep for Wei Ying, if he could. He is briefly angry with himself for not reserving the strength for that.

Or maybe he hopes. Hopes that Wei Ying will live, and live well, despite this last failure. Maybe that is why he does not weep.

He hears a woman's voice, somewhere. It is familiar. Kind.

"A-niang," he breathes.

He hopes he is smiling. She was always happy when he smiled.

He strains to hear her again.

But he hears no more.

Wei Wuxian hefts Xing'er up higher with his good arm, and glances back along the road. He does a quick headcount, making sure they're all still together, before zoning back in on what A-Cheng is saying.

"...not going to reach the gates by nightfall."

"No," he replies, "we'll make camp."

A-Cheng rolls his eyes. "That's what I just said."

Wei Wuxian grimaces. "I was agreeing with you, since you were right...for once."

"That last blow addled your brain."

"At least I was actually getting hits in!"

"Wei Wu—"

"Boys!" Shijie calls, behind them. "Is this really the best use of your energy at this time?"

Wei Wuxian glances at Xing'er's frightened little face, then back at the ragged group following them through the trees. He sighs.

"He started it," Jiang Cheng says.

Before Wei Wuxian can so much as open his mouth to yell something back, Shijie cuts him off.

"He also started the advance warning system that saved Lotus Pier today," she says. To Wei Wuxian's smug look, she says, "And A-Cheng defended the gates while you were at the water."

He grimaces again.

"We should make camp soon, so that we can gather supplies and make dinner before dark," she goes on. "None of them have strength enough to go without."

"Cooking and babysitting and taking care of the wounded," A-Cheng mumbles. "How did we get stuck wi—"

"A-Cheng," she admonishes.

"Yeah, come on, we're the most trusted disciples," says Wei Wuxian. "Of course they sent us to defend the defenseless."

"YOU volunTEERED!" A-Cheng says, pointing. "As soon as we got word the infirmary was destroyed you piped up!! 'Gusu is closest!!'"

"I did not," Wei Wuxian says, even though he did.

"Ugh. Ridiculous, just because of your precious Lan Wa—"

Something flashes in the sky, and then a crashing sound breaks through the woods to their left.

"What was that?" A-Cheng finishes.

Wei Wuxian is already setting Xing'er down.

"Stay with Lao Pei and the others," he murmurs, and draws Suibian.

"Something fell," Shijie says, a hand on his arm. "Don't look for a fight."

He pauses, and nods. Nothing too dangerous would have made all that noise. He lowers his sword but keeps it bare, just in case, as he follows A-Cheng into the trees. Shijie follows, too, and Wei Wuxian tries to keep her behind him until she gently pushes his battle-wounded arm out of the way.

"Let's split up. Stay in shouting distance," she says.

As they move away from each other, he feels as if he hears each and every tiny movement in the entire forest. He's still on edge from the attack, wary of Wen stragglers looking to win back their lost glory. It's like he can hear insects breathing. He tries to settle, and remember what Shijie said. If there's something wounded here, it'll probably need to join them, not fight them.

"A-Xian!"

Shijie's voice is panicked. He runs.

"A-Cheng? A-Xian!"

"Shijie! Where—"

"A-Xian, here!"

He weaves through the trees until he sees her kneeling on the ground beside something large and white. A-Cheng is beside her, standing still. Wei Wuxian rushes forward.

And stops short.

His pounding heart stalls.

He feels A-Cheng staring at him, but he can't look up. Can't look away from. From.

"Lan-er-gongzi," Shijie says, panic still thinning her voice. She shakes one of his pale white arms. "Lan-er-gongzi, wake up. A-Xian, what—"

Wei Wuxian collapses to the earth on Lan Zhan's other side, and grips his other arm.

"Lan Zhan," he finally manages.

"What happened?" A-Cheng says. "Why is he...what's wrong with him?"

Wei Wuxian shakes his head. His chest feels tight, and he can't...he can't think. Lan Zhan almost looks as if he could be asleep, if he weren't so pale. He's like a statue, like actual jade except for the angry red scratches on his face and throat. Bichen is a good stone's throw away. He fell. Out of the sky. And now he's. He's...

"A-Xian," Shijie interrupts, holding out a crumpled paper. "This is from you. And this..."

She lifts a threadbare strip of fabric decorated with small, bronze discs. He takes the paper from her and forces his eyes to scan it, forces his brain to understand. It's the last letter he wrote him. The page about how that old, warded Lan belt could be activated, expanded—

"He..." he breathes.

He picks up the fabric. The belt. He clears his throat.

"He came to help us," he says. "This..."

"What's wrong with him?" Jiang Cheng repeats.

"JIANG CHENG," Wei Wuxian shouts, livid. "What's wrong with YOU?! LOOK! Look! He—he died for US, and now YOU—"

Jiang Cheng is staring at him strangely. "Died? He's breathing."

Wei Wuxian breaks off, the sudden taste of salt in his mouth shocking him almost as much as the words. He wipes at his face and looks back down at Lan Zhan. At his perfect, horribly still face.

Shijie is holding a hand above his nose, and then touching his throat.

"He is," she says, low and shocked. "He's alive. He is. But why—"

Wei Wuxian knows what she means even as she's unable to finish the sentence. After a day so full of it, they know—Lan Zhan feels like death. He feels empty. He feels like a candle that's just been blown out.

"He's cursed," he says.

He puts two fingers to Lan Zhan's wrist, and feels first relief, then fear. Relief at his steady pulse. Fear at the deep, thrumming resentment in his meridians, proving Wei Wuxian's old theory correct.

"Cursed? How? Since when?" says A-Cheng.

But Wei Wuxian is already pulling at Lan Zhan's arms, lifting him, trying to get him off the ground.

"I don't know," he says, struggling with his wounded arm. "Since we've known him? It was a hunch. I don't—can you—can you help—"

Shijie unhooks one of Lan Zhan's torn, trailing sleeves from a root, and Wei Wuxian finally lifts him, then gets his other arm under his knees. He's not heavy. His head lolls back. Wei Wuxian resists the animal urge to press his face to Lan Zhan's throat and cry.

Shijie's hand on his shoulder steadies him. He realizes he's breathing fast and shallow, and takes a deep breath.

With a nod, Shijie gently lifts Lan Zhan's head, and lays it against Wei Wuxian's chest.

He looks to A-Cheng.

"Keep everyone safe," he says, half expecting a scolding, or an attempt to forbid him to go. But A-Cheng just nods. "I'll see you soon."

He calls Suibian from where it lies on the ground, and steps up onto it. He staunchly finds his balance. And he flies.

He flies as fast as he can, keeping in mind his lowered spiritual energy and the distance ahead. He knows he can make it, he just doesn't know how long Lan Zhan has.

He ignores the weight of his head on his chest, and the shape of his ribs beneath his fingers.

It's always felt like a violation, thinking and feeling the way he does about Lan Zhan, when Lan Zhan holds himself so separate and trusts so few. But this is worse. Lan Zhan hates to be touched, and this is...so much touching.

He wants to hold him closer. But he doesn't.

Lan Zhan deserves respect above all else. He can give him that. Even if he fails at everything else, fails to save him. He can give him that. He hopes Lan Zhan knew—knows. Hopes Lan Zhan knows, despite all the ridiculous antics, that he's always, always respected him. Even when they were young, and silly, and Lan Zhan was always so angry at him, he always—

He stops that train of thought. His vision is beginning to blur again. He can't have that. Instead he goes back over what he knows, to try to determine how the curse might work. To try to determine if Lan Zhan will even survive this flight.

It can't be something the Lan doctors can cure, or they would have done it by now. Unless they don't know. But they must—they knew Lan Zhan could never leave the Cloud Recesses, that much was obvious even to him as a teenager.

So no cure in the sect, though he remains hopeful they can keep him alive until the cure is procured, or found, or...invented. He's good at that. He can invent something, he knows he can. As long as Lan Zhan—

Boundary curses. It has to be a boundary curse. Which Lan Zhan knew the borders of. And feared enough to never try to break.

Until he thought Lotus Pier needed help. Until he thought. Until—

Boundary curses vary in strength, so it might not be too difficult. But if it were a weak one, then surely they would have dealt with—or maybe it's just creative? Something he can work with.

He can't feel Lan Zhan's breath through his mere two layers of robes. He should be able to, his face is right there. He should be able to feel his breath, his warmth, he should be able to feel him, but he still just feels like nothing. He could already—could already be—

Maybe it's not strong, or creative, but rare? He'll journey a thousand mountaintops to find the answer if he must, that's not an issue. He'll do anything, and nobody will be able to stop him. He'll steal that new weapon off Wen Ruohan’s corpse and use it to leach the resentment away.

He just has to...he just has to fly faster.

He shatters the wards at the Cloud Recesses without a second thought, and breaks their precious law against flying within the bounds of the sect. There is no pause between dismounting his sword and running for the healers. Nobody stops him, nobody so much as calls out. At least, if they do he doesn't hear. Not until he's almost reached his destination, and a familiar, if rattled voice says his name from just behind.

"Wei-gongzi!"

He doesnt turn. "Lan-zongzhu."

Lan-zongzhu follows him into the bare, herb-scented rooms as three healers rush to greet them.

"Wangji, is he—how did you find him?"

"In a ditch," Wei Wuxian finds himself growling, "unconscious. Barely alive."

"Alive," Lan-zongzhu breathes.

He lays Lan Zhan gently on the nearest pallet. Two of the healers rush forward, one transferring energy and the other assessing his pulse and core.

"Wei-gongzi—"

"How could you let this happen?" Wei Wuxian snaps, cutting off whatever Lan-zongzhu might have said. "How long have you done nothing? How could you let him just...just..."

Lan-zongzhu's face slides smoothly from distress into diplomatic calm.

"There was nothing for any of us to do. Wangji has long been beyond need of guidance."

Wei Wuxian grits his teeth, and looks back down at Lan Zhan. So lifeless despite the red of very living blood congealing over his cuts. He can tell the spiritual energy isn't taking. It's going nowhere, the curse filling all the strong pathways of Lan Zhan's qi.

"What will you do?" he asks the healer who assessed him. "What does he need?"

She steps back, and bows her head. "An end to his curse."

"Which is?" he persists. "What's keeping it alive? Who cast it?" He looks at Lan-zongzhu. "Why hasn't it been dealt with?"

Lan-zongzhu sighs deeply, and then eyes him shrewdly.

"Our fuqin cast it. On our muqin."

The idea of such an act blindsides Wei Wuxian. He stares at him.

"He inherited it? He was born cursed?"

A nod. "As was I."

"But..." He's seen Lan-zongzhu in Qinghe. He knows it.

"The curse is an old one," Lan-zongzhu says, "and impossible to circumvent. Wangji nearly died confronting it for you once before. Do you remember?"

"Yes," Wei Wuxian says slowly. "I remember."

It was the thing that solidified his guess. But he hadn't thought of it as done for him. The suggestion makes his skin crawl with guilt.

"He knew both times it could kill him," Lan-zongzhu goes on. He pauses. "As it killed her."

Wei Wuxian looks into Lan Zhan's cold, still face. It's more relaxed than he's ever seen it. There’s none of Lan Zhan’s determination, none of his pride, his fire.

He hates it.

"Why?" he murmurs.

"Thank you all," Lan-zongzhu says to the healers. "Please give us some privacy."

They leave. Wei Wuxian is alone with the two brothers, both of them now cold as stone. He waits impatiently, Lan Zhan languishing beside him.

"It is a love curse, Wei-gongzi," Lan-zongzhu says, when the door has closed. "Requited love will break it, nothing else. Effectively a death sentence, and a deliberately cruel one. Its effect on us was, I believe, unintended...but not regretted."

Wei Wuxian can do nothing but stare yet again.

A love curse. Cast to kill a woman trapped in an unwanted marriage. He feels numb with the knowledge of it. With the knowledge of all the life stolen by one man's rapaciousness.

And then the hopelessness descends. He closes his eyes, and his heart falls through his stomach.

There's no one on this earth deserving of Lan Zhan's love. If there were, the curse would already have broken.

He can't stop his hand from gripping Lan Zhan's wrist. Can't stop the awful sound his lungs make as they try to keep working.

"Wh...he..."

He wrests back control of his voice.

"He's strong," he says. "He survived, before. He's still breathing. Do something."

Lan-zongzhu shakes his head, watching him all the while.

"By all reason, he should not have lived—then or now. The curse should have taken him immediately."

Wei Wuxian shakes his head, uncomprehending. Tears fall from his eyes.

"Wei-gongzi. Something is keeping him alive."

It takes effort to resist the urge to get up, to pace, to run. But he can't leave Lan Zhan. He won't. Not even to escape Lan-zongzhu's knowing gaze.

"It doesn't matter," he says, in answer to the implied accusation. "He's still dying. It's not enough."

Lan-zongzhu's voice is soft. Gratingly gentle. Painfully kind. "What is not enough?"

Wei Wuxian squares his jaw. He meets his eyes.

"That I love him," he says. "It's not enough. It's never been enough."

There's a moment of heavy silence.

And then Lan-zongzhu smiles.

"It could be."

It jolts Wei Wuxian, sets fire to his skin like lightning.

"How? Lan-zongzhu. How? You must tell me."

"I have told you everything we know," Lan-zongzhu says. "Only requited love can render the curse ineffective."

Wei Wuxian shakes his head again. "Then how—"

"Think, Wei-gongzi," Lan-zongzhu interrupts, fierce and uncharacteristically short. "Wangji is unconscious."

He repeats himself, speaking slowly.

"Unconscious. But alive. Do you not think it possible that things might change, if he were...made conscious of certain things?"

Wei Wuxian's own loud breaths are the only sound in the empty room.

"What?"

It is Lan-zongzhu's turn to shake his head.

"I would not dare to speak for Wangji, however...of what has been clear to me for a long time, his very heartbeat now speaks for him. You must listen. And then you must make him hear you in return."

The shift in Wei Wuxian's worldview is seismic, and seems to begin deep in his gut. When it has finished turning him on his head, his panic returns twofold.

If Lan-zongzhu is right, Lan Zhan's life rests in his hands.

"But how??" he asks again. "He's. He's unconscious. How can I..."

Lan-zongzhu's expression goes somber. "That, I do not know. But you must try."

He lets the command, the plea, sink in.

"No one can help him, if you do not find a way to reach him." He takes a deep breath. "I will leave you."

He goes out, and shuts the door silently. And then Wei Wuxian is alone with Lan Zhan.

Or, what remains of him. His unmoving, battered body. His dear face with its disapproving brow, its sharp eyes that go soft with wonder at the most unexpected times. His hands, strong and skilled and elegant.

Lifeless, all.

"Lan Zhan," he croaks, and that won't do. If this is really so important, so possible, he must speak clearly. He tries again. "Lan Zhan, listen to me," he says.

He takes one of Lan Zhan's hands between both of his own. It feels wrong.

It should be clenching into a fist, or flinching away from his touch. But it doesn't move.

He holds it tight.

"Your brother seems...seems to think. That you...that if you knew, somehow. That I. If you knew how I felt."

He stops. It's too hard to say to him, even unconscious. Too embarrassing.

"Lan Zhan, I've said it already. Didn't you hear? You should...you should wake up."

He doesn't even look like he's breathing anymore. Wei Wuxian's heart stutters, then gallops faster. He checks Lan Zhan's pulse again.

It's so very weak. He can barely feel it now.

"No," he says. "No. Lan Zhan. Wake up. You wake up now, right now. Listen, Lan Zhan, listen to me."

He shakes his hand, his arm. There's no resistance. It shakes his entire limp body.

He presses his palm to Lan Zhan's soft, red-striped cheek.

"Please," he says.

He leans down, closer.

"Hear me," he begs. "I want to do everything with you. I want to see the world, to fight by your side. I want...I wanted. I've wanted so much, and I thought it was too much, but all I want now is for you to wake up."

He's struck all at once by the futility of thinking this might work. By the naive, ridiculous hope of one brother for another, completely divorced from reality.

He buckles, and lets his grubby, wet face fall on Lan Zhan's pristine shoulder. He cries.

Ugly, wracking sobs come and go, interspersed with short periods of calm. He begs again, each time more desperate, Lan-zongzhu's voice ringing in his mind.

"Lan Zhan," he says again and again, hoarse. "I want...Lan Zhan, I'm sorry. I don't care if you love me or hate me, just wake up. Tell me to fck off. Tell me to copy lines until I die, I'll do it, I swear. I'll kiss you every day or never speak to you again. Just stay."

No one can help him, if you do not find a way to reach him.

He keeps his fingers pressed to the inside of Lan Zhan's wrist, desperately chasing the fading thud of his failing heart. Until he can feel it no longer.

He sobs into the front of his robes, his hair, the side of his throat, his face.

"Lan Zhan," he murmurs, "what do you want to hear?"

He presses his lips to his cool cheek. To the corner of his soft, full mouth.

He cries, and he whispers, "I'm sorry."

He kisses him gently. Reverently.

A goodbye.

"I love you," he breathes in his ear. "I'm so sorry."

Beyond the silence of this room, beyond the pall of death, the sun is still shining, and birds still sing. The merry sound of water bubbles somewhere nearby.

Wei Wuxian looks up, out the high window, and sees the shadows of wings as they pass. The glint of light on a leaf. He does not understand how each of these things, by virtue of simply existing now, when Lan Zhan does not, can be like a dull knife to the heart.

He cannot let go of his hand. He does not know what he will do when they try to make him.

He closes his eyes against fresh tears, and waits. Lets the silence fill him.

"Wei Ying?"

He looks down, and the movement feels strangely slow. Impeded. Suspended. He looks down, and sees Lan Zhan.

He sees Lan Zhan looking back at him.

Air fills his lungs, burning and heady as liquor. He can't speak.

Lan Zhan looks around, sluggish and confused. "Wei Ying?" he repeats.

Wei Wuxian almost laughs at the sharp joy of his own name in that low, steady voice. It's been so long. And he really thought—

He feels for Lan Zhan's pulse again, his meridians. All are strong and steady and clear. There's no trace of the curse.

He feels as if his face might split open on his smile.

"Lan Zhan."

Lan Wangji watches as Wei Ying's face lights up, blindingly bright despite the tears not yet dry on his face.

"What has happened?" he asks, feeling dazed.

The last thing he remembers is flying. And falling. But now he is here. At home? In the infirmary.

He becomes aware of his hand because of the way Wei Ying is squeezing it. He looks down at them tangled in Wei Ying's lap, yet more confused. Wei Ying has never touched him this way. No one has ever touched him this way. Not since A-niang.

"You woke up," Wei Ying says, wiping roughly at his wet face. It is ineffective. He is still crying.

Lan Wangji blinks. He does not understand.

"What of Lotus Pier?" he asks, shamefully unable to so much as dread the answer with the miracle of Wei Ying beside him.

Wei Ying lets out a brief, damp laugh. "It's alright, we won the day. It's—it's not—how do you feel?"

This is a question that requires some thought. Lan Wangji focuses inward, and takes stock. His core is depleted, and he feels...worn. Battered. But well enough.

"Fine," he says.

He wants to repeat his earlier questions, but restrains himself. He is afraid to speak with his hand cradled between Wei Ying’s. He does not know what he will say.

Wei Ying swallows, nodding, tears still periodically dropping from his eyes.

Lan Wangji watches one catch in the corner of his mouth, and his heart thumps hard.

He dreamed...he thinks. He thinks he might have dreamed—

"Your curse is—is broken," Wei Ying says. "It's...you’re free."

Lan Wangji’s eyes snap to Wei Ying’s face. To his watery smile, his reddened, puffy lips. For a brief moment, he has a wild, impossible thought: that not only nightmares can be true.

But he grounds himself in reality, reminding himself that Wei Ying is nothing if not a genius, and a determined one at that.

"How?" he asks. A thought occurs to him. "The belt?"

Wei Ying's face does something he has never seen before—it shows hurt. It makes him look young and vulnerable, before he twists his mouth into a more rueful shape.

He shakes his head. "I, ah..."

He glances toward the door.

"I should. I should tell them you're alright. Everyone was...we all thought..."

He smiles again, brief and only partly sincere, and tries to stand.

Something stops him. Lan Wangji realizes it is his own hand, still holding tight.

"Wei Ying," is all he can say.

His throat is thick with a strange mix of fear, and anticipation, and something yet more choking that tastes almost like hope. It takes the space of several shallow breaths for Wei Ying to look at him, but when he does, his gaze is steady.

"You know, Lan Zhan," he says. "You heard me. I know you did, because it worked. You woke up. You can keep on pretending, or forgetting, that's alright. I understand. But don't ask me, when you know."

Lan Wangji stares at him, and stares at him. And stares some more. His mind is utterly, entirely empty.

Save for A-niang's voice.

My precious loves. Sometimes, even when the fall looks steep, you must take a leap of faith. The fear of falling is worth the chance to fly.

He thought he took his leap of faith when he rode Bichen out into the world, to his death.

But somehow...this fall looks far steeper.

"Lan Zhan?" Wei Ying says. He looks alarmed, and then terrified. "What's wrong?"

His hands fumble for Lan Wangji's wrist.

"Is it—are you—I'll go get the healers back. Hang on, don’t—"

"Wei Ying," he forces out, still holding on.

He pulls until Wei Ying is facing him, waits until he knows he is listening.

"You spoke to me," he says. "You..."

He touches his free fingertips to his own lips. He still cannot believe it. But Wei Ying's expression confirms it.

"I heard you," Lan Wangji breathes.

He is airless, hollowed out and light with disbelief. Feathered with hope. Wei Ying is looking at him as if he does not know whether to run or to devour him whole.

This, he has never dreamed of. Such a look in his eyes. It makes everything real.

"I have—" Lan Wangji's voice stalls, lodged in his throat under the weight of all his years of believing himself to be one thing, which he is now not. "I have always—"

He reaches out. Clasps the knot of their hands, wordless. Wei Ying knows him all the same.

"Lan Zhan," he says, broken.

He is crying again. He hauls Lan Wangji up, crushes him close. Lan Wangji crushes him back, yet closer. They shake in each other's arms as the new shape of the world, open wide and full of Wei Ying, settles over his mind.

"Don't cry, Lan Zhan," Wei Ying says, crying.

He pulls away enough to wipe at the tears on Lan Wangji's face. With only the barest hesitation, Lan Wangji returns the favor, brushing a thumb across Wei Ying's sharp, tanned cheek.

He loses track of himself somewhat, in the act. He finds his fingertips trailing down, searching out the touch he only half-remembers from his sleep. Wei Ying's lips are sorrow-soft. He wonders if they would have tasted of salt.

He comes to his senses at the thought, and snatches his hand away. But Wei Ying takes up his wrist, and pointedly presses his mouth to Lan Wangji's fingers. To his palm.

Their eyes catch, as he does it.

"Wei Yi—"

Lan Wangji's voice is cut off by a kiss. True, and hungry, and deep. When it ends, he no longer remembers the urge to speak.

He kisses Wei Ying back.

Days later, a leader and an heir of the great sects stand at the Cloud Recesses gates. They speak lightly, of the fine weather and of the even finer goods that travel between their lands. They are not there for serious discussion. That will come soon enough. Now, they wait.

At length, two cultivators—one in white, and one in black—approach.

"Wangji," says the sect leader, smiling.

It is his truest smile. The one that few people know.

The cultivator in white bows. "Xiongzhang."

"Travel safely," the sect leader says. "Your mission is dangerous. Take no unnecessary risks. Come home soon."

The cultivator bows to him once more.

Then the sect heir crosses his arms. "If you get killed showing off, I'm not making you a shrine."

But the cultivator in black only grins.

"Maybe Gusu Lan will be the ones in charge of my shrine," he says.

The sect heir splutters. "You—Wei Wuxian, you—"

The black-robed cultivator laughs, and laughs, and tugs the sect heir in for a rough hug.

"Stay safe. I'll see you at home," he says into the embrace.

The sect heir grimaces and pushes him away, but only after he's squeezed him back.

They all exchange bows of farewell, and the matched pair turns to the gate.

As they walk through, they find each other's hands, and hold on.

Neither of them look back. Only forward.

(They turn Wen Ruohan's weapon against him, and win the war. After that, it's all happily ever after. The End!)

#wangxian #theuntameddaily #mdzsnet #wangxian fanfic #the untamed fanfiction #my fic #this was a threadfic i took ages to finish #i wanted lady of shalott lwj simply because it Felt Right...and then of course. sleeping beauty lwj. we need him #debating throwing this on ao3 as well but that's tbd #so for now: here u go! <3

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