#ask me abt the italicizied and the bolded parts so i can impart my artistic vision on yall

[mdzs-owns-my-ass-i-guess]

Lives, taken (Futures, traded)

Chapter 1 - Desolate

Chapter 2 - Fracture

Warnings: substance abuse, heavy angst, psychological distress, suicidal ideation

Summary: Wei Wuxian reincarnates 13 years after his death in the body of Mo Xuanyu, the second young master of the Mo family. His lust for life is quickly extinguished after that.

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The world has never made much sense for Wei Wuxian - not ever since he let go of his golden core and had to face the horrors of the Burial Mounds alone, not ever since the Wen remnants turned to him for safety and the rest of the world condemned them all for the sin of existence, not ever since he died, his very being painfully fragmented into pieces of bloody and bruised nothingness.

And yet… Wei Wuxian has never felt as lost as he does now, the world entirely empty and senseless before his eyes, a shapeless mass of objects and concepts he can no longer comprehend.

There is nothing left.

Wei Wuxian has been staring aimlessly into space for hours, unable to focus on anything, as though his body and soul have divorced from one another, only still held together by a precarious agreement.

Rain pitter-patters slowly outside, and it's only the repetitive, familiar sound of it against the windowsill that still keeps Wei Wuxiantethered to the world. He doesn't remember much from the time he was dead - but he figures it must have felt a lot like right now, an emptiness underneath which ache and disillusionment threaten to burst.

Lan Sizhui (that’s his name, right? That’s what Zewu-Jun called him… why does Wei Wuxian feel like that’s not a name that was randomly given?) has brought in tea at some point, and politely left after. It must have been obvious Wei Wuxian wasn't in a chatty mood, so he left the tray behind and made himself scarce.

He doesn't know - doesn’t know anything about what happened, about who he is, about who found him and who saved him - it's Wei Wuxian's call whether to tell him or not. But for the moment, all of this is hard even for Wei Wuxian himself to grapple with, and he can't imagine having to share it with anyone else, let alone with... a kid. His kid. Is it even fair to call him that?

He wishes there was alcohol around. It wouldn't help, it never really does - but it would soothe, even if only for a moment. And he needs that, the warmth and the illusion of comfort. After all, he's never really known comfort, not for anything more than a fleeting sensation.

Zewu-Jun is angry. Bitter. Resentful even. Rightfully so - Wei Wuxian knows he deserves no kindness from the man and has already received a lot more than he should ever have.

After all, this all has been his fault.

Everything is.

Madam Yu’s been right, back then - all he ever brings is peril. Maybe he should have listened to her, maybe he should have… back then, when he was twelve years old and he pulled a prank he shouldn’t have, maybe he should have listened to her when she told him to just go ahead and… and… join his parents.

If he’d done that, none of the tragedies after would have happened. Or if they had, at least he wouldn’t have been the cause.

If he had, he would have never met Lan Zhan (and though the thought brings a fresh wave of tears in his eyes and a throbbing ache in his chest, wouldn’t it have been better this way?) and he would have never invoked anybody’s wrath, Lotus Pier wouldn’t have been destroyed, he wouldn’t have had to live the rest of his life coreless in a mass grave and he wouldn’t have died the way he did, torn into by ghosts and corpses…. and Lan Zhan wouldn’t have come to find him, he wouldn’t have become overwhelmed with the resentment of the Burial Mounds and he wouldn’t have… he would have never…

It should have been Wei Wuxian to take his life, back when he was twelve.

Or fifteen.

Or nineteen.

Or twenty-three.

It should have been him the one to lay dead on the cursed earth of the Burial Mounds, insects crawling into the crevice his sword left in his throat, resentful energy tearing chunks of flesh off his bones, undead fingers clawing at the crusted blood on his face and the mess of sullied clothes hiding the rot beneath.

It should have been him they found with dull, lifeless eyes - or, whatever was left of them, the globes sunk in, fallen victim to the hunger of the few living creatures of the Burial Mounds.

(Oh, how Wei Wuxian wishes he could still meet those beautiful, honeyed eyes again, so warm with emotion, so easy to get lost into, so haunting in his loneliest nights… Those golden eyes, so bright they’d put the most precious jewels to shame… those eyes, devoured by worms, by insects, by the lowliest, most cursed creatures in the world…)

It should have been him.

There was nothing left of Wangji when I found him. I don’t know if I should even call whatever I found of him ‘remains’… tatters of robes, bandages, empty vials of medicine, bits of skin and bone that I hoped were his own.

Can you imagine, Wei-gongzi, what it could possibly feel like to struggle to find pieces of your little brother to lay in a grave? The little brother you held as a baby, the little brother you shared your happiness and your sorrow with? The one person you’ve always felt closest in the world to?

Wei-gongzi, my brother was there for a reason, and that reason killed him. The reason was you. It always has been. And he went to find pieces of you just like I found pieces of him.

But no matter how much time passes, how much healing I try to do, there is an image I can’t get out of my head. There were - he died next to whatever remained of you. There was a hand covered in your robes, and over that hand, Wangji laid his forehead ribbon before he died.

Do you know what that means, Wei-gongzi? My brother died loving you. I lost him because he loved you.

And though it may not be fair of me to say this to you, as far as I am concerned…

Wangji died because of you.

Wei Wuxian agrees. Lan Zhan died because of him. But… why did Wei Wuxian not realize Lan Zhan loved him? How had he not seen it? Why did it have to take Lan Zhan dying for Wei Wuxian to find out the depth and breadth of his - Lan Zhan's and his own - feelings?

There was a little boy laying beside Wangji. He was not dead, but his body had been possessed by something much more powerful than he could take. There were wounds all over his body, blood stains all over his robes. When I picked him up, a pair of inhuman eyes opened, staring at me hatefully.

And in a thousand voices, the Burial Mounds asked me "What is it like, to lose someone you love? Do you see what you've done to us?!"

I could not answer. All I could do was cry. I've been crying ever since, Wei-gongzi, but no matter how many tears I shed, my brother will never return.

Yet, you have. You are here, and he is not. Tell me, how should I feel about this? About you? Would I not be justified in drawing my sword and taking your life right now, in revenge for my brother's death?

Would you not want yourself dead if you were me?

Wei Wuxian hates being alive, more than he ever did before. He hates that Mo Xuanyu forced his soul into this body and brought him into this wretched, empty world - he would have been better off dead, unaware. He would have never known about any of this, he would have kept on existing between realms, tormented and tortured, but wholly convinced the whole world hated him and celebrated he was gone.

Now he has to live knowing that Lan Zhan loved him to the point of self injury, to the point of betraying his sect, to the point of substance abuse and suicide.

He has to live knowing he cannot be loved in any way other than destructive.

I've brought the boy into the Cloud Recesses to be cared for and I… I adopted him as my own. Wangji talked to me about him after he came to visit you… he told me he felt drawn to him. I did too. Or perhaps I convinced myself I was.

Either way, I've raised him the way I know Wangji would have wanted. I am not him, I could never be, but I know him.

The boy's courtesy name is Sizhui. I am not the one that came up with it, my brother did.

I think Wangji knew he would not be returning from the Burial Mounds… perhaps, though I don't want to believe it, he went there specifically so he could die.

Either way, he left a letter for me to find, somewhere only I would know to look.

He was asking me to forgive him, as if I would have ever not. He was asking me that, should he be successful in finding anybody alive in the Burial Mounds, to take them in and protect them if he became unable. And if that person ended up being a child, to give them the courtesy name "Sizhui", in your memory.

I have done all of those things. But there is one more thing he asked me to do that I cannot.

He asked me not to hate you.

Wei Wuxian can’t imagine somebody not hating him. He even hates himself, how could the rest of the world be expected to do otherwise?

What is there not to be hated about him?

There are no guest quarters available in the Cloud Recesses at the moment. I will not - cannot host you in the hanshi, and I cannot allow you to share with anybody else for fear of them finding out who you really are. Though my disdain of you is clear, I am not an unkind host, I cannot allow you to sleep outside.

So, your stay in the Cloud Recess will be in my brother’s old quarters, the jingshi.

Wei Wuxian looks around, at the modestly furnished room, and tries to imagine Lan Zhan there, reading his asinine books by the window, writing perfectly structured night hunt reports at the mahogany table, tucking himself into bed at 9 pm sharp.

Dying.

He doesn’t want to imagine Lan Zhan dying - but he knows… he knows how it happened, has experienced it himself… in a way, at least. He’d given up, and he’d allowed himself to be killed. Is it still suicide

He could have stopped the corpses at any time, but what would have been the point? What would have Wei Wuxian had to live for?

Oh, if only he had known… if only he had realized… if he had known Lan Zhan was injured, punished because of him, Wei Wuxian would have stormed the Cloud Recesses, turned them to ashes again, just to see him and hold him and thank him, take him away and run away somewhere, anywhere, just them and A-Yuan and Wen Ning and…

Wei Wuxian finds himself crying as he laughs at the notion. The world would have not allowed him - them - to live, no matter where he ran off or with whom. Destroy the Cloud Recesses? Save Lan Zhan? Who does he thinks he is?

Didn’t Lan Zhan die because of him?

How could Wei Wuxian save him?

Who has he ever saved? Who has ever survived his good intentions?

All he would have done would have been to doom Lan Zhan to death. Just like he did shijie and Jin Zixuan, the Wens and - like Madam Yu always said - even his parents. They probably died because of him too, just like everyone else.

Everyone that he’s ever cared about, everyone he’s ever loved, is gone.

And he has no right to be sorrowful, to regret, to hurt.

He needs to take accountability, to accept his fault, to pay for his sins.

Perhaps dying once has not amounted to much - to anything. He should die a thousand, a million deaths, each worse than the last - and only then, perhaps, to hope for atonement.

But though there is no way he knows to do that, he does know how to die a second time.

He looks around the jingshi, but this time it’s not for Lan Zhan’s image. It’s for something sharp, or strong enough ceiling beams, for knives, for talisman paper.

His eyes fall on a guqin instead.

Wei Wuxian blinks at it, as if he’s seeing it for the first time. Why is it here? Why hasn’t Lan Xichen or Lan Qiren or anyone else locked such a precious item away?

He walks up to it, as if entranced.

As if he’s found Lan Zhan’s ghost.

His fingers trail over the fine wood, plucking the strings in a senseless tune.

Lan Zhan would hate the sound, disharmonious, meaningless.

Wei Wuxian’s eyes fill with tears again, though he feels a painful warmth in his chest as he closes his eyes and remembers Lan Zhan playing the instrument, mimicking his gestures from memory.

He sees Lan Zhan in his mind’s eye, sat perfectly poised as he places his fingers over the guqin with practices ease, firmly concentrated on the task. He sees two strands of hair framing his face as his head leans down over the instrument, eyes half opened, lost in the melody.

"Wei Ying."

I wish you’d call for me again… I wish I could hear you again, even if just for a moment, even if just for long enough to tell you that I…

Wei Wuxian lifts his fingers off the guqin and decides to return to his plan of taking his life.

Wei Ying!

His head snaps in the direction where the sound came from, but his eyes only meet an empty wall, his shadow dancing on it with every flicker of the candle's flame.

Of course, what was he expecting? There's nobody there to call for him, nobody to call his name like it's soft, beautiful, beloved.

There is nobody alive who would ever call his name with anything but disdain.

And there really is nobody left to mourn him this time. He's made sure of it, hasn't he?

The empty jingshi is proof enough of that.

Wei Wuxian sighs, realization befalling him slowly, like a veil placed daintily over the face of a dead maiden's corpse. He did fulfill Mo Xuanyu's wish (one less person to disappoint) so there is nothing keeping him tethered to this world either.

He walks leisurely around the place, as if to carve it in his memory. Would Lan Zhan hate it if he killed himself in his home?

Ridiculous. Lan Zhan is dead. He doesn't care about anything anymore.

He cared too much, and now he's dead. He shouldn't have cared about Wei Wuxian, shouldn't have ever loved him.

He would still be alive now if he didn't…

If he didn't love Wei Wuxian, if nobody ever loved Wei Wuxian… the world would have been a much better place, and a lot more people would still be in it.

People who shouldn't have loved Wei Wuxian but did.

People Wei Wuxian would always love regardless.

The floorboards near Lan Zhan's bed creak in a way that's different from the rest, and the sound pulls Wei Wuxian out of his thoughts.

He's curious more than he is suicidal - so he leans down to inspect the noisy floorboards, and easily discovers they can be removed, likely hiding something underneath.

Did someone hide something in Lan Zhan's home?

Zewu-Jun did say this place isn't used anymore, it would be the perfect cover for something scandalous… for a secret.

There is nothing scandalous there.

Just two jars of wine, a flute and a neatly folded letter.

Wei Wuxian cries as he picks up the alcohol and downs it much too quickly, trembling fingers careful around the delicate paper of the letter.

Wei Ying. I know you may never find this letter, or these gifts I have bought for you, because I know that you are no longer among the living.

But I must write to you regardless, in hopes that, perhaps, my intention, my feelings, may reach you, no matter whichever realm you may reside in now. I must write to you because this is the only one I can pretend that you are not completely gone from this world, but rather have gone far away from me and this is the only way I can still talk to you.

I have tried talking out loud, but there is never an answer, and it is easier for me to pretend it is the distance that keeps my inquiries without answer, rather than your absence… your death.

Wei Ying, I love you. I have loved you even before I knew that I did, my soul yearned for yours although I've been unable to understand it until it was too late. I do not know if anything would have been different, I do not know if I could have saved you, I do not even know if you would have loved me back.

But I do regret never having told you. I do regret having been weak in my conviction in you, in myself, in the love I now carry for you but have nobody to give to anymore.

I have been a coward, back then, not admitting to my sin, giving in to my impulses despite not having had the courage to tell you how I feel beforehand.

I do regret not having told you - not having told you when you could still understand me, when you could still respond to me with anything other than 'Get lost' and pushing me away. Perhaps you would have done that back then, as well, if you knew it was me that kissed you - but I was scared, too scared of rejection, of heartbreak, to admit it.

So I didn't tell you. I kept my secret, dirty and shameful, and I will keep it forever, because it is the only form of intimacy I have ever, and will ever, allow myself to feel. There will never be anybody else, Wei Ying. I have been foolish not to realize this when you were still alive, but I am realizing it now.

However, I am not choosing to be alone as punishment. No, this is my way of honoring you, of loving you in spite of fate, in spite of my life and your death.

I wish I could have done more for you. I wish I could have understood why you changed, I wish I could have helped you, and the Wen remnants, A-Yuan… All that is left of me are wishes.

I have wished for much in this life - but none of that has ever been granted. I wished for my mother to be freed, but she never was - not until she was dead, at least. I wished for my father to leave his seclusion, but he never did. I wished to find my place in the world, my purpose, but I stay feeling lost still.

And ultimately, I wished for you to find happiness. But you never did.

Even if your happiness may not have been with me, I so wished you would find it - find it within yourself to smile the way you used to when we were young, when none of the war and the aftermath happened.

My wishes have never been granted, but I wish still.

I wish to meet you again someday. In a different life, in a different world… I wish we could find each other again and… be.

It is so overlooked, to be. So simple.

I am - but you are not.

I am here, and I wish I still had you to be here for.

But I do not, and I have nobody to be here for anymore.

When I was told what my punishment for protecting you would be, I had hoped it would kill me. I knew, somehow, somewhere deep inside my heart, that you would be gone soon, and I did not want to live in a world without you.

And yet, I do.

I wish, when I can move a little better, when I can take enough medicine so it doesn't hurt anymore, to come find you.

To find you, to apologize to you, to confess to you.

Perhaps I will die on the way there, or on the way back, or I will fall prey to the Burial Mounds.

But if I hadn't gone to the ends of the world for you while you were still alive, I will do so to honor you in death.

You deserve to be loved and honored, no matter what this wretched world says.

The last thing I wish to tell you is that you will find a music sheet attached to this letter. It is a song I have written for you - for us. It speaks for itself, so I will not talk about it because I know you can understand music to the same level I do.

There is no title to this song, because I wished I would come up with it with you.

I love you, now and forever, across time, across realms,

Lan Zhan.

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