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Lan Wangji was always silent, even as a child.
He was perceived as cold, heartless even.
So when he wakes up shaking one day from a chilling sensation, he keeps silent. He allows the feeling to wash over him.
‘As long as you don’t hold on to the feelings, then it will pass,’ he thinks, as he curls under his blankets and wills himself to a-hopefully-dreamless slumber.
It passed, yet no one told him the dreams, or should he say nightmares, would come back. It comes back for the second, the third and so on. The dreading sensation keeps coming back, leeching onto him like a stubborn parasite.
Each time, when the cold gets too unbearable and all he wants is a warmth engulfing his body that his blanket could not provide, he crawls into his brother’s bed for comfort. On those nights, when the clouds hide the stars with misty smoke fogged screens, Lan Xichen holds his younger brother close to him, gently rubbing his back when he feels the smaller body burrow deeper into his side. It’s uncomfortable, and he often wakes up with a stiff body from sleeping in such a strained position, but if it gives his dear younger brother a small sense of comfort, he’ll do it every night. If only he could do something about his brother's perceived night terrors that have only been disclosed to him, but even after countless days filled with reading restricted scrolls, he has no clue on what had haunted Lan Wangji’s sleep.
A mysterious shadowy humanoid started to appear in his dreams, laying amongst lily pads of a bloody pond. He knows he should fear it, like the other grotesque spirits that also appear in his dreams, but the feeling of dread doesn’t wash over him whenever he nears the blurry figure. The being doesn’t move, nor does it make a sound — only lays there like a fallen angel on top of the crimson pond. It feels familiar, but not at the same time.
Lan Wangji doesn't know who it is and he doesn’t think he will anytime soon.
It wasn’t until Lan Wangji was ten years old when he deemed himself old enough to fend “them” off and restrained himself from going back under the covers of his brother’s bed.
During the war, when he once again heaved breaths from another nightmare, he thinks of a question that he has no answer to: why does the dream keep recurring, and each time more vivid than the last?
He noticed something peculiar about his dreams — the outlines of the figure in his dreams grow clearer each time they meet, gradually taking the form of a human-like being.
At first, they would meet at ponds or lakes but the terrain started changing. Mostly, they would meet on dirt terrains, but recently his dreams show the figure falling from cliff edges.
The figure stands on the ledge, its arms limp on its sides. He guesses it turns towards him with how it shifts, staring at him for a few seconds. Suddenly, the figure leans back and Lan Wangji panics at the sight. He rushes towards it to grip its arms, but just as his fingers surround the being’s wrist, his hand passed right through it like a hand through water, and all he can do is watch the misty figure fall into the rocky void.
Lan Wangji felt the chilling grasp of mist coiling around him and he woke up with the familiar sensation of his robes drenched with sweat and chest heaving for air. In. Out.
Seeing the moon still up in the night sky, he discerns the time to be around 3 a.m. Six hours of sleep — better, he supposes. He suppresses the urge to run into his brother’s tent, instead opting to meditate into the bright hours.
The dreams continue, each clearer than the last.
He remembered the night the dreams clear up, like a veil lifting up from his eyes.
The night after his punishment, the night terrors manifest in his dreams again. This time, the smoke covered the sky, yells of anguish and roars of warcry filled the air, the smell of blood permeated the air — in the middle of it all was him. He looks left and right, trying to look for any tiny detail that would let him know what place his dreams had assembled for him. And that’s when he saw it — a fallen body off in the distance.
He does not know why he chose to reach out for the figure today, but something about it seemed... familiar . When he gets closer, it's the same shadowy humanoid who’s been appearing in his dreams at sporadic intervals. He stares, and it’s only when the humanoid takes the form of an all too familiar grey and black uniform lined with red did he realise why he had reached out as desperately as he was. The edges clear, and features of its face starts to appear. The figure's face was blurry other than a soft, heart-beating smile, and when Lan Wangji is just a step from the bloody figure that laid amongst the dirt, it opens its mouth and whispers without a sound, “Lan Zhan!”
Lan Wangji wakes up with fear in his eyes and ghostly pain stinging his back. For once, he thought he knew the reason why the dreams affected him so much. The unnerving laugh, the colours, that last teasing smile all leads to one conclusion — Wei Wuxian . He does not do anything about it — only has more questions he wanted to be answered. One day, he thinks, he’ll find the man again who had apparently been plaguing his dreams ever since he was a child. One day, he’ll find some long-waiting questions finally answered. One day, he’ll confess deep-harboured feelings to the person he thinks would make him the happiest.
So when his brother tells him that Wei Wuxian is gone, ‘Wei Wuxian is dead’ his elder brother solemnly said to him , he regrets not heeding all the red flags his last dream raised. Of course, why had the shadowy humanoid finally taken form that night? What Lan Wangji didn’t realise was the dream’s premonition — shown right in front of him.
Lan Wangji was powerful yet he was powerless.
So he takes his nightmares as punishment. Ever since the news of Wei Wuxian’s death, a night of dreamless sleep is as rare as seeing his uncle break a rule of the Cloud Recesses. And in all of those nightmares, the scene of Wei Wuxian’s bleeding body constantly repeats in his sleep, torturing himself of his inability to save him that day.
Lan Wangji doesn’t notice the concerned and worried looks his brother sends him, seeing the dark eye bags beneath his eyes and the dimmest he’s seen his younger brother’s eyes been.
“Lan Zhan,” a voice shook the foundations on whatever land Lan Wangji was standing on. It was a mellow voice, one Lan Wangji could recognise everywhere, one that brought him calmness every time.
Wei Ying.
He could feel something warm press against his left side before the warmth started to envelop his right side too. The said warmth was shaking, he noticed, not violently but rather a tremor-like movement.
Lan Wangji gasped and he was awake, staring at the wall across his bed, the familiar feeling of sweat running across his face and his body. His vision shook as the warmth next to him did, the arms around him firm, but not tight to make him feel alarm. He looked down to find a tuft of raven hair tied into a high ponytail, inhaling the sweet scent but did not speak a word to alert the other person of his consciousness. He knows Wei Wuxian will notice, and will understand him without verbal words needing to be spoken.
Wei Wuxian eventually looks up with sparkling grey eyes. Understanding washes across his face like a wave, and a comforting smile spreads across his face.
The arms latched onto his waist unwinds, and Lan Wangji panics at the loss of the comforting presence at his side. His husband is quick to reassure him and in no time, Lan Wangji was handed a warm cup of tea, his husband's hand stroking his back with soothing touches.
"It will be okay, Lan Zhan. I’m here"
Wei Wuxian does not ask if he is alright nor did Wei Wuxian ask what he dreamt of. Wei Wuxian knows the vision he sees, knows what he needs, and he holds Lan Wangji's hand tightly, kissing the latter's hand with warm puffs of breath.
Lan Wangji nudged his husband's chest, once, twice — on the third, his husband gave in and allowed him to rest his head against his husband's chest. His ears follow his lover’s heartbeat in no time, calming his own erratic one.
Lan Wangji allows the fear to wash over him while he rubbed circles around his husband's knuckles. His thoughts wander back to his nightmare, only grateful it is only what it is — a nightmare. He remembers the cold, lonesome, helpless time when Wei Wuxian was gone, when he regretted not saying what he yearned to say. Actions are stronger than words yet Lan Wangji’s mistake was his words, or the lack thereof. The three words that would’ve changed the way things ended.
Maybe it would have, maybe it won’t, but his regrets are in the past and he focuses on the present, his husband living and his body warm against his.
Sometimes, he thinks about why Wei Wuxian stayed.
Lan Wangji felt the warm fuzzy texture of a washcloth rub around his neck and face. When Wei Wuxian speaks, he speaks in a gentle whisper, “Do you want me to comb your hair?”
Lan Wangji doesn’t reply, he doesn’t need to. He allows Wei Wuxian to manoeuvre his limbs so that his head rests on Wei Wuxian’s lap.
Wei Wuxian combed his hair like he was fiddling with his dizi — gently and slow but with intent. He started from the scalp, massaging the headache away with nibble fingers. His fingers worked circles around the skin like ripples on the calm pond surface.
Slowly, Lan Wangji begins to let go of the fragments of nightmares that he paranoidly held onto, erasing its presence from his mind.
“Lan Zhan, I will stand by your side, until our hairs turn white. If I can claw my way out of burial mounds, who is to say that I won't come crawling out of whatever fate uses to separate us?”
And Lan Wangji thinks, ‘I love this man.’
And he doesn’t have to speak those words because he knows the man these fingers belong to has known for years, and the years to come.