Chapter Text
Wei Wuxian leaned back against the window frame of his room in Qinghe, hand loosely clasped around the...seventh or eighth jar of wine.
He'd definitely had a few too many, but right now he didn't care. The moon was bright, the sky clear, and he could gaze up at the stars for the first time in three months. He had killed those who tormented him, who had thrown him into hell and left him to rot. It may have cost him more than he was willing to think about, but those who had tortured him were dead.
If he fell off the window sill to the street below, he didn't think his mood would dim the slightest. (He wondered, briefly, if the fall would help him forget everything he’d had to throw away for his revenge.)
The last of the wine in this jar felt smooth sliding down his throat, and he let the empty container drop to join the others scattered around his feet.
A pale, strong hand caught his wrist as he reached for another. Long, slender fingers held his hand immobile, and Wei Wuxian blinked, frowning in consternation. Maybe he had finally lost it, imagining hands where none had been.
"Wei Ying."
He knew that voice. Deep, smooth as the wine he'd been downing all evening, and enough to send his heart racing.
"Ah, Lan Zhan," he drawled, the alcohol slurring his no doubt overly friendly tone. "It's a lovely night."
"You've had enough." Those long fingers held fast to his wrist. "It is late."
Wei Wuxian sighed, slumping further against the frame. "It's barely moonrise, Lan Zhan, and I haven't seen a proper moonrise in months." He closed his eyes against the waves of grief that battered at his heart, the sight of the man who'd struck so precisely at his deepest hurt painful. "Let me enjoy it, just a bit longer."
He felt the steady pressure of Lan WangJi's hand grounding him, even as his mind floated in the stupor of the drunk and miserable.
How long has it been, he wondered, since someone had just...held him? Not hit him, not tormented him, not seared his soul with fury and anger and desire for revenge?
Now, sitting here with his wrist held by the man he'd long since let into his heart, already aware of how little regard Lan Zhan held for him but uncaring right now, he felt a kind of peace settle on him.
It had been far too long since he'd just been held.
Lan WangJi shifted his grip on Wei Wuxian's wrist. What he was about to do was a huge invasion of privacy, but his heart had fallen into his stomach the night he'd seen black swirling around Wei Wuxian, caressing him as if alive, dancing so enticingly through the air. Without giving his conscious enough time to fully object, he let his fingers brush lightly against the pulse of Wei Wuxian's heart, beating hard and fast, and then against…
Against nothing.
Not even a faint glimmer, just a gaping void of nothing.
His hand spasmed, and he pressed again, just a bit harder, wondering if he'd been mistaken.
No, he hadn't been.
Wide eyed, he turned to look at the man lounging in the window frame, staring up at the moon with eyes drowning in sadness and aching loneliness.
"Wei Ying," he pushed out, voice hoarse. "Wei Ying..."
"I'm so tired Lan Zhan," the man whispered. "I'm so tired." Those liquid, cloudy eyes turned to stare at him, searching for...something. "I never wanted to, Lan Zhan," he breathed out. "I never wanted to." He tugged weakly at his hand.
Lan WangJi held fast; Wei Wuxian wasn't trying seriously enough for him to concede. "Wei Ying, what happened?" He would feel bad about lulling a drunk Wei Wuxian into talking to him later, Lan WangJi decided in an effort to soothe his protesting conscious.
The laugh that came out of the ever smiling mouth sent shivers down Lan WangJi's spine. "I was in Hell, Lan Zhan. I was in Hell, alone and defenseless and desperate, so I did all I could to survive, and I became the very thing we were taught to hate." He paused, the smile he sent Lan WangJi anything but pleasant. "Everything you were taught to hate." A slight head tilt. "Do you hate me now, Lan Zhan?"
Lan WangJi's mouth tightened. "I do not hate Wei Ying," he said firmly. "I cannot."
The huff of a laugh was derisive. "You'd hate me if you really knew." Somehow, despite the copious amount of wine Wei Wuxian had consumed, he still enunciated his words fully, weighted his self-hatred so utterly on every syllable.
"The Burial Mounds," Lan WangJi said, keeping his voice as even as possible. "For three months, without spiritual energy." He felt his body tremble, hoped his voice didn't.
Wei Wuxian just waved his free hand. "I didn't ask to go there, if that's what you're wondering. Being dropped out of the sky into the middle of that place, it really does clear the mind."
The casual confirmation was heart-stopping. "How did you survive?" He needed to know, even though he desperately didn't want to. "How are you here?" He felt he may have spoken more in the past five minutes than in the past five weeks, but if it got him answers from this infuriatingly intoxicating man, he would find his words.
Wei Wuxian was silent for a long moment. Lan WangJi wondered if he would answer at all, if Wei Wuxian would trust him enough to tell him.
Then, a deep breath, a sigh. "The Burial Mounds are filled with so much anger and fear and pain and suffering. I...I was empty, Lan Zhan. Empty, a void, nothing where there had once been something so bright it blinded." Wei Wuxian didn't notice the tears dripping down his face, sparkling in the moonlight, beauty from the utter horror he spoke. "I fell into the Burial Mounds a void, and the resentment thriving there, it found a home." He twisted his hand to clasp Lan WangJi's wrist. "Do you know how painful it is to have the force of thousands of angry souls pour through your mind, screaming their fury at you?" It was rhetorical, Lan WangJi knew, because no one should know what that felt like and still live.
"You're alive, Wei Ying," he whispered, knowing his voice was full of emotion.
A wry smile that didn't reach eyes clouded by drink replied. "I did everything I could to stay alive in that place, and in the end I survived." A long pause. "My heart has already long suffered for my choice, Lan Zhan, your words fell on the ears of someone who already knew their fate."
'This path harms the body. Harms the nature of the heart even more.' Lan WangJi felt those words he'd spoken barely a week before return to slap him in the face. "Wei Ying, how are you alive?"
"I'm a genius, Lan Zhan, didn't you know?"
The flippant tone slurred with alcohol was too much, and Lan WangJi yanked Wei Wuxian around until he could touch his face, slide a thumb against the tears slipping down too pale cheeks. "Wei Ying, don't lie. Please." His plea was full of all the emotion he couldn't show.
Wei Wuxian's eyes were wide, shocked and disbelieving. "Lan Zhan..."
"Please, Wei Ying, don't lie." He didn't care that his thumb was caressing Wei Wuxian's cheek.
Luminous eyes stared at Lan WangJi for a breathtaking moment, before they fled to the floor. "You'll hate me, and of all the people in the world, Lan Zhan, I don't think I could bear it if you hated me." Drink brought more honesty to Wei Wuxian's lips, Lan WangJi thought, feeling his heart thunder in his ears.
Gathering his courage, Lan WangJi took a deep, steadying breath, before leaning forward to rest his forehead against Wei Wuxian's. "I could never hate you, Wei Ying," he said, his voice firm.
A heartstopping moment later and Lan WangJi suddenly had an armful of teary, drunk, and desperately touch-starved Wei Wuxian. "Lan Zhan, Lan Zhan, Lan Zhan" was muttered like a chant against his neck, tears dripping onto his robes. "I'm so sorry Lan Zhan. I'm so sorry."
It was awkward, for a moment or two, before Lan WangJi just tossed out the mental hold he kept over his need to hug Wei Wuxian and ignored half a dozen clan rules, wrapping his arms around the young man so desperately in need of a hug. "I am here, Wei Ying."
"I didn't want to, but I was there, alone and empty and they screamed. It was so loud Lan Zhan, it was so loud. And then I learned how to quiet them. Soothe them, so they didn't scream so loud, and I let them in. I had nothing, nothing to fight back with, so I didn’t. They curled up in my core, Lan Zhan, and they screamed at me through my soul. It was so loud and they are so angry and it hurt, but they were there, and it was power, and I wasn’t dying yet, so I learned how to use it, Lan Zhan. And they taught me. Amidst all the screaming and pain, they taught me, and I survived." It was barely a whisper, heard only because Wei Wuxian's mouth was right next to his ear.
Lan WangJi held him closer, almost crushing the slight frame against his. "Wei Ying, I'm sorry I couldn't save you."
He felt the slight shiver. "Don't apologize, Lan Zhan. Please don't apologize. You've done nothing wrong."
"I accused you without knowing," he replied. "You were alone, suffering. Then you came back and I..." his words, sparse as they were, failed him.
Wei Wuxian shook his head. "How were you to know? I'm drunk and my brain’s squishy and I’m babbling now, which is why I'm telling you. Lan Zhan, you're everything I ever wanted, you know, and you're so fucking warm Lan Zhan, and I don't care if you hate me or want me gone and banished for walking this crooked path later but right now, right here, I just want you to keep holding me, because I'm afraid I'll break into pieces if you don't."
Lan WangJi gripped Wei Wuxian's robes, turning them gently until he could walk them both towards the bed nearby, sitting down and pulling Wei Wuxian into the cradle of his arms, letting him curl up against his chest, tuck his head against his neck. He brushed stray strands of hair out of Wei Wuxian's face and said softly, "Just rest, Wei Ying. I'm here. As long as you want me, I'm here."
Wei Wuxian's breathing hitched. "Lan Zhan I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry."
"No need, Wei Ying." He tucked Wei Wuxian's face closer, running a hand through loose tangles of hair as he felt tears slip down his skin.
"Don't...don't tell Jiang Cheng, Lan Zhan. Don't tell him, please."
Lan WangJi's breath caught as realization struck, the muddled reports they’d received from Yunmeng now clear as day. "It was for him," he murmured softly. "Why…"
"Please don't tell him," Wei Wuxian said in soft, hitching gasps, between tears.
"I won't. Just rest." In a move that he couldn't explain, he pressed a kiss to Wei Wuxian's temple, letting his fingers run in soothing circles through thick, knotted hair.
Wei Wuxian's hands fisted in Lan WangJi's robes as he cried with near silent, hitching breaths. Cried for the core he’d given away willingly, cried for the boy he’d been that he let die in the Burial Mounds so he could survive, cried for the souls that screamed their fury, cried for the man who held him as gently as spun glass.
Lan WangJi heard the door on the far side slide quietly open, knowing that Wei Wuxian hadn't heard it as he still clung to his robes and sobbed without pause.
The wide, startled eyes that met his belonged to the younger brother of the man in his arms, and before Jiang Cheng could say a word, he shook his head minutely, eyes pointedly looking at the door.
A brief moment of hesitation, before Jiang Cheng nodded and stepped back into the hallway, shutting the door quietly, and leaving just as quietly.
Lan WangJi didn't know how long he sat there, holding a very lost and broken Wei Wuxian in his arms, lips pressed against cool skin, fingers soothing soothing soothing. He didn't care either, willing to let this moment last as long as Wei Wuxian needed it too, feeling the unrest in his heart settle the longer he held Wei Wuxian close.
The candles had long burned out when the hitching breaths smoothed out and relaxed, when the flood of tears trickled off and stopped, when the trembling faded into the soft rhythms of sleep.
But Wei Wuxian's hands still held tight to Lan WangJi's robes, something that didn't even register as a problem. That Wei Wuxian was asleep after several weeks(months?) of very little was a relief. He didn't bother moving either of them, not wanting to risk waking up the man who had finally drifted off. He could rest here just fine, the weight of Wei Wuxian in his arms enough to comfort him.
"Sleep, Wei Ying. I will be here when you wake, xingan." He wouldn't have dared whisper that last word if Wei Wuxian had been awake, but he needed to now, needed some part of Wei Wuxian to know just how much Lan WangJi cared for him.
He locked his arms around the slight body curled against his, leaned his head against Wei Wuxian's brow, and closed his eyes, letting the exhaustion of the night and the tangle of his emotions pull him into sleep, comforted by the solid weight he held close.