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Wei Wuxian couldn’t, he just couldn’t refuse to let Shijie hold him....And so, now, she’s the only one who can.

Wei Wuxian flinches from Nie Huaisang; and makes the flinch bigger, as if it is entirely deliberate. He cannot always manage to not-react, now. He has to make his reactions work as weapons. Months in the Burial Mounds have taught him that he can never drop his guard.

Nie Huaisang sees him duck away from a friendly hand; and knows, just enough; and lets their hand drop. Wei Wuxian watches Nie Huaisang...Nie-xiong, Nie-mei, A-Sang; classmate, fellow reprobate, traveling companion; but no longer...as they consciously refrain from reaching out for Wei Wuxian.

As the war drags on, the heir of Nie Sect, the slightly regarded younger sibling of the hero Chifeng-zun…flutters their fan, and implies they don’t quite know why they are present in larger meetings. As if accidentally hinting at their own cowardice, they warn others against interfering with the Ghost Flute or encroaching on his personal space, their demeanor edgily not-quite-dignified and a little wide-eyed.

The logistics expert of the Sunshot Campaign, the one person closest in the confidence of their general, however...when meeting with just Nie Mingjue, Wei Wuxian, and perhaps one of the people constantly nagging Wei Wuxian…smiles sharply, and asks crisp efficient questions. They never lay a hand astray while reaching for figures on a relief map or weights on a scroll, though their gestures with the fan they wield remain the height of expressive elegance.

The Nie Huaisang who knew Wei Wuxian at Cloud Recesses, who caught fish and smuggled pornography with him, who talked about the hazy outlines of the future with him and encouraged him to admit to unexpected desires, who met with him again afterwards during various journeys and hunts and conferences…that Nie Huaisang brings wine to Wei Wuxian’s quarters in the Unclean Realm. And to his campaign tent. And to a campfire circle surrounded by guardian fierce corpses, where living cultivators rest for the night on the cold ground.

They pause, at the door, at the tent-flap, at the edge of the circle of firelight. Sparks of light gleam on their Nie braids and iron guan, the pristine embroidery of their green robes, the spine of their ever-present fan, the hilt of their saber. Their head tilts sideways with an unspoken question; and Wei Wuxian knows that if he wanted to be touched, to be held, chastely or otherwise, Nie Huaisang would give that to him.

And he wants, he wants, but he cannot—

Nie Huaisang sees, and goes away again.

Jiang Cheng, Wei Wuxian touches in brief, brotherly ways, trying to seem normal. Jiang Cheng's embrace, when they found each other again, broke him into infinitesimal pieces and glued him back together as something real and solid for the first time in months; but he cannot allow that to occur again. Diligently, he tries not to let himself be touched by Jiang Cheng.

Jiang Cheng of all people must not know.

Sometimes he falters, long enough for a side-hug, an affectionate punch, a moment of silent shared despair warmed by his shidi at his side. Never skin to skin. Never without the excuse of a quarrelsome conversation, affectionate or otherwise. Never for long.

Each time, before long, Wei Wuxian pulls away again; wrapping himself in the cloak of the Grandmaster of the ghost path, the heretical way, the road of monsters.

Instead, he asks things of his shidi as his sect leader. As a fellow commander of a major force, though Wei Wuxian’s followers are the walking dead. And, also, as the one he concedes—though he does not admit this—the right to judge him.

To his brother as his brother, he offers mocking admiration— “You really are like a Sect Leader now! Such a commanding presence,” —diligent deflection, “Don’t worry, Jiang-zongzhu, I won’t be anywhere near your part of the operation” —and teasing with a deliberate sharpened edge—“Even if I don’t feel like sparring with swords, I could still take you down in a few miǎo, A-Cheng! Who would have thought to see Jiang Wanyin holding back from the fight to observe and give orders, when he wields Zidian and Sandu both? No, no, no, I tease, I’ve seen you fighting; you should try harder to stay safe, shidi.”

Real affection, real warmth, summoned like ghosts out of his cold heart, too.

“A-Cheng, Shijie was worrying for you. She made soup again. It’s in your tent. I sent her off to get some sleep and left a talisman to keep it warm.”

But never too close—

“I have to go; I’m working on making something to help the scouts,” where something means modified fierce corpses. The reminder of what Wei Wuxian is and has to be now will build the wall between him and Jiang Cheng back up.

Lan Zhan—

No, Hanguang-jun, as Wei Wuxian called him when he destroyed Wen Chao—

Lan Zhan. To Wei Wuxian’s ravaged heart, if not on his lips.

In order to not let Lan Zhan show concern for him, Wei Wuxian lashes both of them with cruel words on a daily basis. Dismissing, justifying, arguing dark philosophies he doesn’t want to believe, and probing for weakness. He hates Lan Zhan for making him do this. He hates himself for what he makes Lan Zhan witness, his power in full sway over a battlefield and in intimate cruelty of individual vengeance both.

Again and again, he thinks he’s finally found the words to drive Lan Zhan away for good. Again and again, Lan Zhan takes the pain of it and stays by his side.

He can’t stop. If he stopped, Lan Zhan would reach out. The simplest of friendly—not even friendly, merely considerate—touches, from a reluctant, unimpeachable ally he cares about and respects so very much too much…would be irresistible.

He doesn’t know what he’d do to Lan Zhan. He might devour him with shadows. He might break down weeping at his feet. He would have no secrets.

Without his secrets, he is nothing.

Shijie doesn’t see.

He discovers after he embraces her that she officially serves with the medical staff now. He is informed after she dabs soup from his chin that, in fact, she reports on their accomplishments and their needs to Nie Mingjue himself. He learns from her directly, while she combs his hair, that the true medical cultivators say she is developing some skill.

Yet she doesn’t notice anything wrong with him. She’s sad and concerned, yes. She repeats Lan Zhan’s words about his body and temperament as a gentle caution. But still, she holds his wrist in her hand, his body to her chest, and perceives only that he is tired and depleted. Not that he is hollow.

Whatever quirk of her inward-turned, low-burning cultivation prevents her from perceiving that he is broken, he almost wants to thank. Except that it is her so-called weakness that has made her less in the eyes of others, and he will never be anything less than coldly furious at the world for dismissing the impeccable beauty and infinite worth of Jiang Yanli.

When one who must fight while utterly hollow walks onto the battlefield, all feelings numb and vanish.

By chance one day, an emotion persists long enough for Wei Wuxian to notice even as he begins to kill. It is the depth of his desperate gratitude that Shijie can still touch him. That his morning began before dawn with him woken from his nightmares by her hand on his brow as she hummed a lullaby.

Thinking of that moment, even as the dead rise roaring at his command, he weeps tears of dark smoke that vanish into the haze around Chenqing.

Nothing he has can stay clean in the end. Shijie herself is always kindness entire, a living incarnation of mercy, and he cannot diminish her. But his bond to her, that he can stain with his own worthless necessities.

Wei Wuxian realizes what it will mean, if he is ever sufficiently depleted to be placed under a healer’s care. He has fainted before, and his guardian spirits and warding talismans prevented even Lan Zhan from reaching him until he struggled awake again. But he has not created anything that will power itself off of him to maintain a barrier around him indefinitely, if he remains unconscious; that would be an open invitation to disaster. If he should fall, he needs his allies to be able to remove him from the field.

And yet—and yet—he cannot let them touch him. Not deeply. Not for long enough. Not with a professional’s perception of the state of his meridians and qi.

So he asks Shijie. He says he is afraid, and he is. He says he thinks others envy his power, and it is true. He says he cannot bear strange hands on him now, and it is honest.

He asks her to be the only one to care for him, if he is unable to perform his own medical care.

He lies to her about why.