woebegone, and so restless nights

Wei Wuxian in the Burial Mounds era—if you really want to go hard, in the three months between the Bloodbath at Nightless City and the First Siege of the Burial Mounds.

Wen Qing, Wen Ning and Jiang Yanli are all dead. He has nothing left to hope for, nothing to distract him from the monster he’s become, who would raise thousands of corpses to slaughter thousands more. He’s trying to destroy the Yin Tiger Seal without blowing himself and the remaining Wen to pieces; it’s difficult. He’s not sleeping, obviously. (He doesn’t know how he got back to the Burial Mounds after the massacre.)

I’m a big softy, so perhaps we’ll set this before Qiongqi Pass, when things are just impossible.

Wei Wuxian thinks about how, actually, yes, he can admit it to himself... He was in love with Lan Zhan. He can say this, now that nothing will ever come of it. That future was closed off to him when he gave away his golden core. If there was ever a chance Lan Zhan would return his admiration before that, it was lost when they were no longer equals.

Now, up on his fortress made of dead bodies, he sighs and gives up those dreams. Better to bury them than go on hoping. It’s in the past, aspirations from another lifetime, and he doesn’t have the energy to spare on them now.

Coda: the scene where Lan Xichen steps into Lan Wangji’s sickroom and doesn’t even have to say a word; Lan Wangji knows, has known—somehow, he believes—since the moment it happened. He lurches out of bed, still-knitting flesh torn open again, and collapses at his brother’s feet.