"LAN ZHAN!"
Wei Wuxian cried out his husband's name so many times, but nothing responded but silence, silence that seemed eternal. He fell to his knees and sobbed, surrounded by battles on either side, being permeated by the unwelcome thickness of silence.
"W-Wei Yi... Wei Ying... h-help me..."
The soft voice of his husband spoke, shattering Wuxian's heart even more.
"Where are you?" he sobbed. "Please, tell me!"
He felt a small tug on his hanfu skirt and looked down to see Lan Zhan lying down on the ground, blood staining his snow white hanfu a dark crimson. The wound, Wuxian was scared to see, was right above his stomach- right below any vital organs but still a serious place to be stabbed. And the blood wasn't stopping its flow.
"Lan Zhan! Oh God... Lan Zhan," Wuxian wailed, helping his husband up to a sitting position, then a standing one. "I can't defend you, there's too much fighting going on. We're going to have to wait until-"
"WANGJI!"
Lan Xichen's loud, panicked voice broke through all the fighting people, stunning them for a moment. A moment was all Wuxian needed. Using all his strength, he picked Lan Zhan up and started flying, not stopping until he reached his and Lan Zhan's bedroom in Cloud Recesses. Then he laid the man down on the bed and opened his hanfu up, giving him some pain-relieving herbs to eat and then applying pressure on the wound with a tightly-tied cloth to stop the bleeding.
The door opened, and a disheveled, bloodstained Xichen burst into the room. When he saw his brother lying on the bed with his hair tangled, his face an unhealthy gray, sweat covering his brow, and fear in his eyes, so un-Lan-Zhan looking, he couldn't help but burst into tears.
"How? Who did this?" he sobbed.
"I'll kill whoever did," Wuxian said, seething with rage.
"N-n-no..." Lan Zhan whimpered, tossing around on his pallet. "D-don' g-go... Wei Ying! Don' leave me..."
"Lan Zhan... I'm not leaving you, my love. I'm not going, baby," Wuxian said, stroking Lan Zhan's hair and pressing his lips to his husband's sweaty forehead.
"Wangji. Wangji, it's Xichen. Can you hear me?"
Xichen had always yearned to hear his brother need his help- he had always missed the times when his brother was taken care of by him, but he didn't want to have them back in this way. Seeing his younger brother who was usually so strong and unyielding broken like this scared him.
"G-ge-gege.." Lan Zhan whispered. "W-wh-where are you?"
Wuxian politely moved out of the way to let Xichen sit in his place next to his brother. When Xichen took Wuxian's place, Lan Zhan smiled to see his brother, but began to cry when he saw that his brother was crying as well.
"Wangji's sorry, gege," he said. "Wangji's so sorry."
"No! No, didi, it's not your fault! Nothing is your fault, didi," Xichen said soothingly. "I just want to tell you to recover fast... and that we're all rooting for you."
Lan Zhan reached out with a trembling, weak hand and touched his older brother's cheek, running it over his lips like a gentle butterfly-wing kiss. Xichen smiled when he felt his brother's touch, and seeing his brother smile made Lan Zhan smile also.
That was, until he choked up a thick chunk of blood and some other unidentified solid object. Xichen wailed in panic and jumped back, and Wuxian replaced him in his place, although Wuxian wasn't exactly mentally stable at this point. Seeing his husband suffering like this and knowing he couldn't really help other than stopping the bleeding made him feel useless. He hated himself for not being there to protect Lan Zhan before all this happened, so his husband wouldn't suffer in the first place.
"H-h-hurts, gege," Lan Zhan sobbed. "It hurts."
But Xichen was long gone at this point, leaving only the tracks of the blood he had on his hanfu on the sheets. So Wuxian had to take the place of the protector, which wasn't usually a role he had to fill. But he tried his best to make his husband comfortable by doing various things. He stroked his hair, he played Chenqing for him, he stroked his hair, he kissed him, he sang for him- anything to make his husband feel comfortable. When he saw that Lan Zhan was sleeping, that was probably the most welcome vision he had seen in a long time. He was actually so exhausted he didn't even have time to go to another bedroom, he just fell asleep leaning on the edge of the bed right there.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Wei Ying!"
Wuxian was rapidly awoken to his husband screaming his name. He looked up on the bed, and was happy to see Lan Zhan sitting up and staring at him with a smile. Lan Zhan seemed to be feeling much better from how he was a few hours prior. That was amazing progress!
"What's wrong, baby?" Wuxian asked, standing up and wincing with the massive amount of back pain he was experiencing. Sleeping on the floor was clearly not a good idea, for future reference.
"Why is Wei Ying on the floor?" Lan Zhan asked drowsily.
"I-I guess I just- I- I don't know," Wuxian stammered awkwardly.
Lan Zhan rolled over and patted the empty spot next to him on the bed.
"Sleep," he said, smiling playfully at Wuxian.
"But Lan Zhan-" Wuxian said.
"No. Sleep," Lan Zhan interrupted in a firm tone.
And Wuxian obeyed his husband, as always.
He was sure he had never had a better night as that one.