Chapter Text
Past:
Wei Wuxian first sees Lan Wangji as a lone swirl of white against the bloody backdrop of the battlefield. Wei Wuxian is far away from the clashing swords, standing cross-armed in the watchtower alongside Wen Xu. They watch the battle carefully, both with different intentions.
“That one. Who is that?” Wen Xu points to the man who has everyone’s attention.
After all, he had come out of nowhere and killed men in his path as easily as if they were standing still and awaiting death.
Wen Xu’s advisor shakes his head, saying that he has never seen nor heard of the man before. The royal families stand little chance against the sheer force of the emperor’s army, but their stubbornness is commendable.
Wei Wuxian watches in fascination as the royal forces rally behind the man in white, pushing forward with all their might. He supposes someone like that inspires confidence.
It’s over in an instant.
Wen Xu sighs as if disappointed by the fire ravaging the last of the royal fortresses. An eerie silence follows as ash falls from the sky. The man’s pristine robes are soon speckled grey. Wen Xu barks at the guards to bring him the man alive but by then he has already disappeared into the smoke.
The first time Wei Wuxian has a real conversation with Lan Wangji, it’s after Wei Wuxian has killed three men for him.
They bring him an omega under the guise of him disobeying the empire, but Wei Wuxian is well aware that the man is supposed to double as his prize for the night. The soldiers have been working hard to impress him.
The omega is bound and blindfolded, but even the bottom half of his face is pretty. Wei Wuxian doesn’t need to ask what the crime is, because it’s always the same in the smaller, impoverished districts.
After the emperor had given back the royal families their lands and permitted them to restore their governance, uprisings from citizens loyal to their respective kingdoms had died down. It had been a commendable move according to strategists. The royal families became the emperor’s allies, opened the doors to free trade, and decorum was restored.
It’s only that the palaces have also grown incredibly lazy and irresponsible under the empire. There is no longer any war or tensions over the borders to worry about. The royals prefer to fill their pockets with the annual peacekeeping grants from the emperor rather than working to make their kingdoms prosper. The poorest, as a result, have been hit the hardest.
So while it’s true that the people are sufficiently subdued, there are always those trying to rile up the crowds to overthrow the emperor.
Despite being restrained and unable to see, the omega’s spine is a proud curve. Even when Wei Wuxian perches his boot on the man’s shoulder, he gets no reaction.
A rebel through and through then. Wei Wuxian doesn’t like those, the ones that convince others to shoot way above their means and get innocents hanged with no results to show. They could use a lesson in tact.
“Now, what have we here?” Wei Wuxian asks, sickly sweet. He runs his pointer finger under the cloth covering the omega’s eyes.
“Don’t,” the man finally says, just as Wei Wuxian is reaching for the blindfold’s ties.
Wei Wuxian’s eyebrows shoot up in surprise.
“What, are you ugly?” Wei Wuxian’s temporary general asks mockingly.
“No, no.” One of the soldiers who brought him in protests, looking at Wei Wuxian with wide eyes. “He’s very pretty, Your Highness, the most beautiful I’ve ever seen. I would only bring you the best.”
Wei Wuxian ignores them and the warning from the omega as well, ripping the blindfold off in one sharp tug.
“Is that Lan—“
Wei Wuxian gives himself only a second to freeze before two of the throwing knives at his hip embed themselves in the clueless soldiers’ necks and one slits the throat of the Wen army general at his back. Wei Wuxian comes out spotless but the blood of the man closest to him drenches Lan Wangji’s face and clothes.
“Fuck, come on.” Wei Wuxian cuts the rope on Lan Wangji’s wrists and feet, whisking him away from the Wen encampment before anyone can spot them and before Lan Wangji can recover from his shock.
Lan Wangji tries to run from him when they are deep inside the forest, but Wei Wuxian catches him by the waist and bites down hard at the back of his neck until Lan Wangji’s body succumbs to its instincts and relaxes in Wei Wuxian’s hold.
Wei Wuxian reaches inside his pockets, searching, and lets out a breath of relief when he finds it. The ornate jade hairpin glitters in the moonlight and Wei Wuxian watches as Lan Wangji’s lips part in shock. Still too pliant to stand on his own, Lan Wangji simply turns his head to look at Wei Wuxian instead.
Rumours of Lan Wangji’s beauty have spread far and wide, only fuelled by the new emperor setting his sights on the Lan heir. Wen Xu had declared his intentions to court the omega come summer, but Wei Wuxian had experienced Lan Wangji’s kindness way before anyone saw Lan Wangji and experienced attraction.
Wei Wuxian had discarded most of his Wen garb before making it to the prisoner encampment. The war was coming to a close then, and he knew the prisoners’ futures were bleak but he’d still wanted to help as many escape as he could—at most, their crimes were simply being on the losing side of the war.
As it turned out, someone was already way ahead of him.
Lan Wangji had brought supplies with him, sending people off with anything they could carry in their weakened arms; food, blankets, coins. At some point, as Wei Wuxian watched, hidden, Lan Wangji had begun to remove money and jewellery from his own person to be handed out.
Wei Wuxian had turned to walk away, feeling a mixture of complicated emotions.
“Wait.”
Wei Wuxian is sure Lan Wangji had seen the Wen ribbon he had forgotten to remove, but he had still approached Wei Wuxian with concern in his eyes. Wei Wuxian had remained rooted in his spot as Lan Wangji searched his pockets and came up empty. A small frown had creased his brows before he’d reached up, removed a jade hairpin (easily worth a house in wartime), and closed Wei Wuxian’s hand around it.
“Keep safe,” Lan Wangji had said before walking away. Wei Wuxian had been left with no choice but to take it.
“I was there to rescue the prisoners, before you ask,” Wei Wuxian clarifies now.
Lan Wangji blinks up at him. “I know. I saw you help a pregnant woman all the way out of town. Why did you help?”
“Why did you?” Wei Wuxian counters. They’re talking about two different things.
Lan Wangji doesn’t answer. Their faces are close, perhaps way too close to be proper.
“What are you doing here Lan Wangji?” Wei Wuxian asks.
“I can stand,” Lan Wangji says before disentangling himself from Wei Wuxian. He continues on, quieter, “I try to help when I can. They’re going to starve if I don’t.”
“And what will you do when the emperor marries you?” Wei Wuxian asks rather callously.
Lan Wangji gives him a sharp look. “I will die before I let that happen.”
“He broke your leg, didn’t he?”
It’s not well-known beyond the emperor’s palace walls. To the citizens of the empire, it’s a story of love at first sight, but Wei Wuxian knows exactly where Wen Xu’s obsession with Lan Wangji stems from.
The main branch of the Lan family were the only ones who’d refused to bend to Wen Ruohan’s will and died for it. Wen Xu wants the only survivor of the massacre to kneel at his feet. Looking at Lan Wangji now, silent and determined, Wei Wuxian doesn’t think that Wen Xu will have it easy at all.
“Break his will.”
“What?” Lan Wangji asks.
There’s still blood on Lan Wangji’s face. Wei Wuxian steps closer, and when Lan Wangji doesn’t move away, he carefully wipes it with his own sleeve.
“Some wars are won without swords,” Wei Wuxian whispers. “Let’s win this one together.”
———
Future:
Lan Wangji is meditating when he hears the wood of the front door splinter.
Everything aches when you’re seven months along. Wei Wuxian won’t let him lift objects heavier than a plate of food and carries Lan Wangji down the slope of their property because he’s scared—a direct quote—that Lan Wangji will roll down like a wheel if he tries to traverse the path on his own. As much as Lan Wangji scowls, he’s grateful for the way Wei Wuxian cares for him.
Just this morning, Wei Wuxian has gone down the mountain to get him watermelon because Lan Wangji has been craving it and they don’t grow it on their farm. After soaking his swollen feet in the cold pond, Lan Wangji had dressed down in just a willowy gown and attempted to calm his mind. Being away from Wei Wuxian nowadays made him more anxious than he had been when he fled the emperor’s palace.
It’s perhaps luck that he still retains the habit of tucking knives into the folds of his clothes; Wen Xu hadn’t let him carry his sword within the palace walls. One of his hands goes over his stomach and the other holds out a blade half the length of his arm. It’s small and non-threatening to anyone who hasn’t seen Lan Wangji fight.
He has expected Wen Xu for months. The emperor’s fall from grace hadn’t been as much a fall as a slow descent with a deceptively soft landing.
Lan Wangji was a quiet, upstanding, and trustworthy omega in a household full of secrets waiting to burst the seams of sealed lips. While he’d had to work for every ounce of respect he’d earned, secrets came easy. People liked to talk at him and he let them, giving them his undivided attention and no direct prompting whatsoever. Apparently, this only made people want to elicit a reaction (‘Much like me in the early days Lan Zhan,’ Wei Wuxian had pointed out) and they talked and talked.
Under his then husband’s nose, Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian cherry-picked the most honourable royals out of the standing palaces and built alliances in secret. Lan Wangji who suddenly found himself in possession of immense influence within the palace walls, used it to lobby fairer laws in the most underhanded manner: through the spouses of the emperor’s council.
Wen Xu stands in the doorway of his home now, face twisted in an ugly snarl. Lan Wangji sees surprise flicker in his eyes at the sight of Lan Wangji’s bulging stomach, but the anger burns it out before it can take form. Wen Xu knows it’s not his, it has been a year since Lan Wangji left after all, and even back then Wen Xu had hardly touched him. It is that knowledge perhaps that makes Wen Xu cruel enough to point his sword at Lan Wangji’s unborn child.
Lan Wangji has done it all.
He has endured a one-sided mating bite and the pain of foreign scents on the alpha who gave it to him the day after. He has endured his body rejecting Wei Wuxian for months after his mating ceremony and the sheer mental and physical agony of going against instincts anyway—the look on Wei Wuxian’s face when Lan Wangji had snarled at his touch the first time will haunt him till his very last days.
He has snuck around with Wei Wuxian knowing the risk of execution if they were found out and he has stood over Wen Xu’s sleeping body countless times, blade inches from the emperor’s throat, contemplating. And yet, Lan Wangji has never felt raw fear the way he does now.
“Do not come any closer,” Lan Wangji warns, grip tightening around his knife. For some reason, he feels like crying.
Wen Xu gives him a manic smile. “Lan Wangji, Lan Wangji. Whose child are you carrying, hm?”
Lan Wangji remains quiet, watching Wen Xu carefully for any sudden movements. When he moves closer, Lan Wangji instinctively takes a step back. The sun is almost setting. Wei Wuxian should be back by now… unless Wen Xu got to him first. Lan Wangji forces himself not to think of such a possibility.
Wei Wuxian still retains his status in the royal world. Even after the gradual turn against the empire’s absolute control, people still love Wei Wuxian. He’s stronger and has a lot more allies than Wen Xu probably realises. He’s fine, Lan Wangji assures himself.
“How dare you run from me?” Wen Xu asks, and everything suddenly clicks. He still has no idea what Lan Wangji and Wri Wuxian have done.
Lan Wangji stops the oncoming sword with his knife. Now, Wen Xu certainly looks surprised. Lan Wangji is at several disadvantages, but he refuses to relent. He fights with all his might.
Lan Wangji has been experiencing mood swings lately. His eyes tear up easily and he pouts when Wei Wuxian doesn’t give him attention. Even though Wei Wuxian loves him in every manner, this new window into Lan Wangji’s inner emotions is an exciting find.
Wei Wuxian wonders if he’s going to find Lan Wangji asleep as he makes his way back to their house. It’s either that or meditation, otherwise, Lan Wangji fidgets too much in Wei Wuxian’s absence.
The watermelon, along with the calming concoction Wei Wuxian had a healer brew to help Lan Wangji sleep better, slips from his grasp and splatters on the ground at the sight of their broken door. He has drawn his sword before he has even set a foot inside.
His eyes zero in on Lan Wangji.
The omega has a cut on his cheek but looks otherwise unscathed. Under his foot lies Wen Xu, disarmed and wide-eyed. Wei Wuxian feels his heart stop and restart. The sight of any potential danger around his pregnant omega makes him furious, both at Wen Xu and himself.
He rushes forward.
“Wei Wuxian!” Wen Xu says when he spots him and points up at Lan Wangji. “Kill this traitor.”
Wei Wuxian lazily brings his sword to join Lan Wangji’s knife at Wen Xu’s neck. His other hand frantically pats Lan Wangji down to check for any hidden injuries.
“I’m okay alpha,” Lan Wangji says, but there are tears brimming his eyes.
Alone and with child in a life-threatening situation—he must have been terrified. Wei Wuxian feels awful for not being there to protect him. Lan Wangji clearly did fine on his own, but he shouldn’t have had to at all. He should be resting.
Wei Wuxian sees the exact moment realisation dawns on Wen Xu’s face. Anger surges through Wei Wuxian, hot and quick as the fire that burned countless cities down for the emperor’s glory. His hand trembles with it.
Wei Wuxian cups the back of Lan Wangji’s head and brings his omega closer until his nose is pressed against Wei Wuxian’s neck.
“Don’t look,” he says, stroking Lan Wangji’s hair softly.