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spaceicat · 30 days ago

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A Lifetime Without Him - MDZS (thoughts)

TW: character death, detailed description of a deadly disease (necrotising fasciitis), injuries and blood, English is not my first language

A couple of years after the end of the novel, Lan Zhan and Wei Wuxian are still married and happy. Lan Zhan, having already cultivated to immortality, helps Wei Wuxian cultivate his golden core in Mo Xuanyu's body in order to catch up to him.

However, what if Wei Wuxian got hurt during a night hunt he accompanied the juniors on?

Nothing too severe, just a big cut on his thigh. When they got back to the Cloud Recesses, it was treated appropriately, and it was nothing to worry about. Yet, after that incident, he started experiencing some bizarre issues. He developed a fever, and the thigh where the wound once was started to become irritated. The cut just wouldn't close.

For the first month, Wei Wuxian would pretend that everything was fine, convincing Lan Zhan that whatever was happening to him "would go away." Lan Zhan wouldn't believe him, but then Wei Wuxian would hug him, kiss him, and smile against his lips. What could he do but trust his husband fully?

This would all get worse when, out of nowhere, Wei Wuxian fainted in the middle of talking to some of the juniors. He was forcefully made to go to the physicians for an examination. Lan Zhan waited anxiously outside the examination room, because this was the man he had already lost once and didn’t want to lose again. Only for the physician to come out and inform him that his husband had some kind of injection they had never seen before and that they would try to find a cure. His world instantly started to collapse around him, thinking, not again, please. Fear gripped his heart and tore at it.

He entered the room, only to find Wei Wuxian with a smile on his lips, whining teasingly about why Lan Zhan would let another person touch him. For a moment, Lan Zhan forgot the severity of the situation as Wei Wuxian was still alive and smiling at him. He would never allow him to leave again (yet, life likes to play cruel jokes).

From then on, the juniors would try to be more careful with Wei Wuxian, observing him closely in case he was tired or lightheaded. Lan Zhan started to take more care of him (if that was even possible), and still, Wei Wuxian grew worse by the day.

It all started when Wei Wuxian woke up one day and realized that the cut on his leg had… spread. It had become slightly bigger. The redness and irritation around his wound were now present in different parts of his body, making his skin ache and burn uncomfortably. Yet, he stayed silent about it, only being discovered by his husband at night when he left his robes on the floor. Lan Zhan looked at him with sadness in his eyes and kissed every injury, every irritated spot on his skin to try and make him feel better.

Nonetheless, that was only the beginning. The physicians were desperately trying to find a cure, but Wei Wuxian's symptoms grew worse.

A week after Wei Wuxian realized that his old unhealed wound had increased in size, he noticed that new wounds started opening around his body, very small and extremely slow. The cuts would clot with blood, but that didn’t stop them from increasing in size. Another two weeks later, and his leg was starting to turn blue. A small patch of skin on his biceps had fallen off, and he started to notice that blood was coming out of his hair follicles on his legs, as though the wounds were increasing in size and losing more blood.

Lan Zhan and many of the juniors were completely devastated. They watched as Wei Wuxian went from carefree and lively, running around causing chaos, to being unable to get up from the pain. Still with a smile on his face, but the sparkle in his eyes was gone—was it tiredness? Was it hopelessness? Was it acceptance? He had experienced death before, yet now he still had something to lose.

Every day, Wei Wuxian's skin would turn slowly blue, then purple, then black. The smell of decay became strong in the jingshi, on his husband. Lan Zhan didn’t care—Wei Wuxian was what mattered to him, and he spent every day trying to find something to make his husband’s pain less. But how do you stop something when you don’t even know what it is?

Lan Zhan never gave up on his husband; he had come back from the dead once, but he also wasn’t blind. He wanted his husband’s death to at least not be like the last time. He didn’t know when it would happen, or how. But when it did, he wasn’t ready. He wasn’t prepared for it.

Wei Wuxian lay on their bed, multiple bandages around his limbs, patches of skin missing, and dried blood all around his body and the bed. His skin was painfully pale, mixed with the colors of the night sky, yet there was nothing magical about the brutal scene before Lan Zhan. Wei Wuxian turned to look at him, still with that beautiful smile, and called him over. Lan Zhan would hopelessly follow, willing to destroy the world for him, and sit on the bed. Wei Wuxian would take his hand and pull him onto his chest, listening to the creepily slow beat of his heart. No words would be exchanged—none would be needed. They would lay silently, with tears following on Lan Zhan's shoulder. Wei Wuxian would lovingly kiss Lan Zhan's forehead and slowly relax on the bed. The whole time, Lan Zhan would hear the last of his heartbeats. Holding him, his eyes shut tightly, and for the first time in decades, Hanguang Jun sobbed on his husband's chest.

His funeral would be private and small, attended only by the people who truly cared and knew him. They would bury him and hope for his soul to reincarnate in a new body, one that would lead a life of less suffering. Lan Zhan promised to wait for him and to find him in every life.

Yet, even after centuries of searching and patience, Lan Zhan has yet to find a reincarnation of his husband.

This idea has been in my head for ages but never had the motivation to write it, so I'm putting it here incase someone wants to make an actual full version of it.

#mdzs #the untamed #wei wuxian #lan zhan #sad thoughts #angst #one shot #cloud recesses #deadly disease #late night thoughts

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