Chapter Text
“Wei Ying.”
In Lan Zhan’s deep musical voice.
Oh no.
Something else. Something real, please. There is a sharp chunk of gravel digging into Wei Wuxian’s shoulder. His back hurts. His stomach hurts. His head hurts. The straw tickles. He’s cold. These days and nights, he’s always cold.
“Go ’way, Lan Zhan. Y’r not here,” Wei Ying mutters.
The dreams are the worst part. Except for waking up, and trying to figure out if he’s still dreaming.
He shivers. Something tickles and slides over his ankle. Cold, cold, cold.
“I am here, Wei Ying.”
“No. Lan Zhan’s not coming n’ you aren’t him. Lemme sleep.”
He had almost been warm, when he laughed while sitting with Lan Zhan in a restaurant. When he cried all over him at a crossroads. Maybe...a month ago? When he fell…didn’t fall…Lan Zhan didn’t let him fall from his sword. He’s certain of that.
He thinks he remembers…Lan Zhan had offered some kind of help, something that made Wei Ying think that maybe…yes, he’s almost positive that he had told Lan Zhan to go to Lotus Pier and talk to Jiang Cheng. It would be nice to think that much, at least, could have really happened. That somewhere out there in the world, Jiang Cheng could have Lan Zhan for an ally.
Maybe Wei Ying’s core could still fight alongside Lan Zhan's shining power, somewhere in Yunmeng…even after Wei Ying, himself, gave up the only home he'd been lucky enough to have for a while, along with the only part of him that could merit Lan Zhan's attention.
Footsteps in the cave, crunching the ever-eroding sandy surface, hesitating as they come nearer. The resentful energy is getting cleverer at taunting him. Or else his ears are playing tricks on him. It wouldn’t be the first time.
Of course Lan Zhan wouldn’t really return to the Burial Mounds, again. Wei Ying had thought he would for a while, but he must have been making up that part of their conversation on Lan Zhan’s second visit to Yiling.
He can’t really remember the end of that interaction. Just…bad dreams.
He doesn’t want to remember—today? Yesterday? A week ago?—waiting and pacing and waiting and drinking and waiting and figuring out that Lan Zhan wasn’t going to come.
“I will leave you to rest… but I came back as quickly as I could, Wei Ying. I am sorry for the delay.”
“No you didn’t. Y’never do. S’been a month and…some. Qing-jie jus’…got it wrong or…or…Lan Zhan’s fine, he’s jus’ not gonna show up, so.”
He remembers discussing logistics with her; bringing up Lan Zhan’s offer to be…some kind of support for the Wen Remnants. He'd mentioned something Lan Zhan had said to him about protecting the innocent, and Wen Qing responded with...something Lan Zhan had apparently told her about supplies. So Wen Qing had talked to Lan Zhan, at some point. Wen Ning had, too, during the bit where Wei Ying, apparently, fainted and was carried back here.
Those memories…three whole weeks, more than…it should have been real, if he’d chatted about roughly the same thing with Wen Qing at least a couple of times on different days. He remembers more than once. He remembers her poking him with needles while they talked. Maybe she had misunderstood Lan Zhan, mistaken his words, turned an offer to arrange for a delivery of medicines into an offer to make a delivery…
The feeling of the floor falling away from under him, a vast empty space yawning and tilting, while he can also tell that his body is staying still on his bedding of straw over rock, provides a visceral reminder that while Wen Qing is extremely reliable, Wei Wuxian himself is not. He should just resign himself to being the one who makes things up and gets things wrong. Except he can’t because…if he loses track…he can’t. People live with him. Because of him. He has to remember that he lies to himself sometimes, and not all the time—so he can try to piece together the truth, stay in control, hold on.
“…y’aren’t a liar, Hanguang-jun…please get lost, ah, can’t stand dreaming ’bout you being nice. Druther th’other ones.”
He dreams about Lan Zhan hurting him, being hurt by him, almost as much as he dreams about Jiang Cheng and Shijie. Sometimes, parts of it are a relief.
Sometimes, Wei Ying wakes up wishing the dream-injuries inflicted on him were real. Who would ever have believed it, if he'd said that Lan Zhan actually had bitten him once, in Xuanwu's cave when they were both injured and feverish? Who would be more impossible for Wei Ying to successfully sink his own teeth into now, like a venomous crawling creature seeking warmth and incapable of not attacking its source...than the one cultivator best equipped to defend himself against Wei Ying...Lan Zhan, who'd fought him to a standstill back when he'd still had his own core. Lan Zhan, who'd fought at his side over and over to keep him alive all during Sunshot. Lan Zhan, whom Wei Ying had, more than once, willingly allowed to place a blade at his throat. Hanguang-jun, Lan Wangji, Lan-er-gege, Lan Zhan. How could it be anything but a good thing, a mercy like a cool hand on a sick person's forehead, if Wei Ying someday felt Bichen's bite.
“I am not a dream, Wei Ying.”
“Y’r a fucking nightmare, Lan Zhan. Hate me…”
It’s dark, behind his closed eyes. That’s nice. He doesn’t want to see things too. Hearing them is bad enough.
Wei Ying is so tired of waiting for this dream to turn on him. For the part where Lan Zhan hurts him for being bad, destroys him for his own good, or reveals his disgust and walks away from him forever. He just wants it to stop.
If just one of the strongest dreams with Lan Zhan in them had been real, then surely the rest of it would have stopped.
“Wei Ying. I do not hate you…I am an…ally; a friend if you permit; I would call you zhiji still. You are…ill. I will...try tomorrow.”
“So’m’gonna start...th' nightmares while m'awake again, huh? Thanks f’r th’ warning. Piss off, dream Lan Zhan. I’ve gotta headache.”
He really, really does. His head throbs. He drank himself to sleep…he remembers deciding to do that. The first jug of wine, part of the second. That was last night, maybe. The hell of it is, it works, it knocks him out beautifully. But then he wakes up exhausted. So he needs sleep more than ever, dreamless sleep, and he won’t get it. And now he can’t do that again, when he needs to; because putting any more alcohol in his stomach will just make him immediately, horribly sick.
He might be sick anyway. He really hurts. He almost wishes that Lan Zhan were here, actually here. It had been unexpectedly, astonishingly safe to be ill and injured and in pain, alone in a cave with Lan Zhan, once.
“I will wait for you,” says Lan Zhan’s voice, quiet and sad. Then there is the sound of retreating footsteps.
Time to go back to sleep, if he can; diving deep and dark, plunging below even his nightmares.