[PALACE GAME - LAN WANGJI RUN]

[laughitoff]

Everything is red. You are dying, somewhere far beyond pain, the very essence of yourself going to pieces. You’re shattering so badly you don’t know if you’ll ever find all of yourself again, if you’ll ever put yourself back together. There are teeth on you, ripping, tearing, devouring. There are teeth inside you, carving their way out, and those are worse.

This is a memory, happening at a remove. It is not yours. This is not happening now.

Everything is grey. You wake up in a prison cell, eyes wide, the ceiling flat and blank and unfamiliar above you. For a moment you simply think, no. You think, Please, wasn’t it over? Wasn’t it enough? You consider closing your eyes again and refusing to get up, until oblivion reclaims you. Even if you’re no longer dying, everything hurts.

This is a memory, happening at a remove. It is not yours. This is not happening now.

What is happening, then?

You–

–sit up.

Comments

[laughitoff]

[Wei Wuxian gulps hard at recieving the memory, his eyes filling with tears; fuck, fuck]

Ah...

[strikingchords]

[it's a memory bright with promise, of a person he doesn't always recognize as himself any more

but Lan Wangji is hugging the him of right now fiercely, in response to those tears, so maybe it doesn't seem so far from him, after all]

[laughitoff]

[THANKS HE HAS WEI WUXIAN'S SHADOW CRYING IN HIS ARMS NOW I GUESS. TERRIBLE]

[strikingchords]

[he is being squeezed so tightly, a low vibration in Lan Wangji's chest marking a near-purr of possessive, protective concern...]

[laughitoff]

[the landscape begins to gently dim around him, as that crying jag finally starts to peter out...]

[strikingchords]

[still wrapping him up in his arms, unwilling to let go]

Wei Ying.

[laughitoff]

L-Lan Zhan...

[he doesn't have much time left.]

[strikingchords]

...

Do you regret accepting?

[laughitoff]

No.

[and, as the scene fades to black and he's taken to endgame, he can feel that it's the truth.]