[ID: tumblr message from @kokorobun: Hi hi!! I’ll take anagapesis for Wangxian :3 (or Xiyao if you don’t want to hurt wangxian anymore)]
(Is this ending cheating???? I really don’t know, but this was the only scenario in which I could make this true for either wangxian or xiyao xD I guess the ultimate truth is that I don’t want to hurt either of them.)
Send me a prompt!!!
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Anagapesis - The feeling when one no longer loves someone they once did.
It’d been thirteen years.
The first few years had been the hardest. Bedridden and broken in more ways than one, his only thoughts were on his regrets, his rejected confession, what he’d finally been willing to sacrifice and how it had been too little, too late. He’d fallen in love, and he’d only managed to act on it when his actions no longer mattered, and because of that, he’d lost everything.
There would only ever be that one stolen kiss and a history of longing, and maybe none of that mattered because Wei Wuxian hadn’t accepted his feelings anyway, but he couldn’t help but weigh himself down with the knowledge that if he’d just spoken up sooner, if he’d just acted before things had spiraled out of control, then maybe none of this would have...
There was nothing to be done to change the past, but it didn’t stop him from dwelling on it constantly.
Once he was finally healed, finally able to interact with his brother, and with the small boy he’d saved from the Burial Mounds... the ache didn’t go away, and he’d been sure it never would, but it did soften. Eventually, he could leave the Cloud Recesses, he could go night hunting, he could help teach young Lan Sizhui about cultivation and sword technique and playing the guqin, and when he was doing those things, it wasn’t as easy to focus on sadness and regret and lost love. In his quiet moments alone, he would still flash back to the memory of a smile stretched over Wei Wuxian’s face, bright as sunshine, the ringing sound of his laughter, and to the reckless goodness in his heart that had driven him ultimately to his destruction...
At some point, Lan Wangji realized that he’d mourned Wei Wuxian for longer than he’d ever known him. He’d spent more years in love with Wei Wuxian’s memory than he’d spent in love with the man he’d once known, and that...
Lan Wangji was stubborn, but even he knew he was being ridiculous.
He couldn’t move on; he knew that he’d never fall in love again, that he’d never be interested in anyone else, but even as he rooted himself in that feeling, year after year... the enormity of the love he’d once held for Wei Wuxian slipped through his fingers like grains of sand. Something that had once felt endless and engulfing became a smaller and smaller ache in his heart, taken over and naturally covered up by the memories he’d created since then.
And then it’d been thirteen years, and the feelings he’d once known were love had become little more than background noise, the memory of a memory of an emotion he could only be sure he’d once had because he had the mementos. He had the faintest memory of a stolen kiss, a stolen perfume pouch, a stolen peony, a brand mark seared into his chest, a nearly forgotten hidden compartment full of liquor, and a rescued child that he’d thought of more and more as his own over the years.
Eventually, what he had became more important than what he’d lost. Raising Lan Sizhui, teaching the junior disciples, sharing quiet meals with his brother, travelling and helping people... Those things took prominence in his mind, and his feelings for a boy he’d only barely known felt like something from a lifetime ago, lingering only as a hint of regret and a reminder not to fail anyone else again.
It was natural, after all, for feelings to fade with the passage of time. His brother assured him of that, that there was nothing wrong in letting go of old feelings and finding new loves to focus on, however they might make themselves known. After so many years lost to longing, Lan Wangji was willing and able to accept that his heart had finally let go of Wei Wuxian.
Strange then, that all it took was the distorted notes of a single painfully familiar song for every aching ounce of that love to come rushing back to him.
