Wei Wuxian awoke to a dark tent. A pale sliver of light passed through the loose flap of the tent. Wei Wuxian already knew where he would be. He had been sharing a tent with Lan Wangji for the entirety of the war and the familiar interior of their shared space was illuminated into rough silhouettes. Wei Wuxian guessed it was probably very late at night. Late enough that most of the late night drinkers were already passed out, but not quite hitting the early hours of the morning when everything became deathly quiet.

If they had not had such an intense battle yesterday, or earlier today, Wei Wuxian would have just buried his face in the crook of Lan Wangji's neck and let himself sink back into sleep. He was exhausted. He didn't remember eating when they came back to the tent. Wei Wuxian vaguely recalled helping Lan Wangji clean the blood and grime from his body. He probably fell asleep sometime during the blissfully relaxing sensation of having his stiff limbs massaged and warmed.

Wei Wuxian forced himself to draw a bit further from sleep and took a moment to focus on his body. His whole body was still tender and aching, like he was covered in invisible bruises. It didn't exactly hurt, but every touch of pressure caused a vague achy sensation to radiate from the affected area. Wei Wuxian yawned so wide that he felt his jaw pop.

It was fiercely tempting to curl beneath the blanket and go back to sleep. Wei Wuxian's mind and body would both appreciate the rest. By the time morning rolled around his body would no longer be hurting. Lan Wangji was so warm, and Wei Wuxian still had a bit of a chill in his bones. The night air seemed to steal the warmth Wei Wuxian had likely leached from Lan Wangji while cuddled under the blankets.

Wei Wuxian toyed with the idea as he blindly sought out Lan Wangji's wrist. It was after a battle. He had to check. Maybe Lan Wangji was more reasonable this time. Then Wei Wuxian could cuddle back into the warmth and go back to sleep. Wei Wuxian's searching fingers found the back of Lan Wangji's hand first. He followed it blindly to Lan Wangji's wrist, wrapping his fingers around the wrist to rest against Lan Wangji's pulse point. A gentle probing with his own spiritual energy was all it took for Wei Wuxian to check Lan Wangji's spiritual energy.

Wei Wuxian frowned. He checked again, gently prodding Lan Wangji's golden core as Wei Wuxian pulled himself to a sitting position. Lan Wangji's spiritual energy was incredibly low. Wei Wuxian exhaled an unhappy puff of air. Lan Wangji overdid it again. It shouldn't really be a surprise anymore.

Wei Wuxian adjusted himself closer to a proper sitting position. His hopes of immediately going back to sleep were now thoroughly shattered and he did need to be awake to do this properly. The glow of spiritual energy lit the walls of their tent as Wei Wuxian directed a steady stream into his unconscious betrothed.

A familiar mixture of emotions bubbled up in Wei Wuxian's stomach. A feeling that wanted to come out of his mouth in a long stream of unhappy grumbles, but was entirely too warm and soft to be even close to anger. Suddenly there was too much emotion and too much energy for Wei Wuxian to contain in his body. His feet began to wiggle in small fidgety movements, using it to give the excess energy somewhere to go.

Wei Wuxian was not happy, but he also sort of was. It was a frustrating combination. He understood Lan Wangji's motivations. Wei Wuxian even sort of adored the lengths Lan Wangji would go to to dote on him. Wei Wuxian did not like that Lan Wangji would expend his spiritual energy to this extent. However, when Wei Wuxian complained, Lan Wangji had many very rational arguments to support his behavior. Lan Wangji was also... really stubborn.

Wei Wuxian has had to rely almost exclusively on resentful energy during battles. Wei Wuxian had some concerns about how having a golden core would impact his use of resentful energy. Surprisingly the answer has been that it mostly doesn't. The only thing is that the two energies require a little gentle handling if you want them to play nicely together.

So if you spend hours controlling massive amounts of resentful energy, and it leaves you exhausted and a bit more saturated with the stuff than usual. It would be a bit more challenging to reach past all of that and begin to channel your spiritual energy without accidentally making the two smash into each other while inside your body.

Spiritual energy is often used to dissipate resentful energy, as in purge, purify, disperse. All words that may or may not sound violent, but definitely feel violent if the two forces are trying to do that to each other while still inside your body. The two energies could hang out side by side in Wei Wuxian's body without problem. The two energies could touch, not mix. Mixing them was a fast way to bring yourself to a qi deviation.

So if Wei Wuxian was already so exhausted that the idea of controlling resentful energy makes him want to pretend to be as dead as an unanimated corpse, then it was already a bad idea to start doing things that require any sort of precision with his control. Then add the fact that using so much of it would leave Wei Wuxian's body saturated with resentful energy so that it was basically filling every space that was not occupied by spiritual energy.

At this point the two energies sort of instinctually settled next to each other, and if Wei Wuxian had the energy for very precise control he could probably still use his spiritual energy without problem. Except that Wei Wuxian's own exhaustion was part of the problem and he did not have the energy to precisely channel his spiritual energy while moving or dispersing some of the excess resentful energy out of the way.

Instead, trying to access his spiritual energy in the midst of, or after, he has used so much resentful energy hurt. It hurt the way trying to walk on a badly broken leg hurt, except worse. It was like reaching to do something you know how to do, but your body doesn't respond. If he tried to force it to respond there would be an explosion of pain. It was like his body was so done with attempting to do such a task that it just gave up without his consent. Then punished him for having the audacity to attempt it, just for good measure.

Since forcing himself to do it anyway would likely result in qi deviation, Wei Wuxian sort of accepted that he just needs a few hours before he can switch to using his spiritual energy. Wei Wuxian had been tempted to try and force it, but Lan Wangji had been so distraught at the suggestion that Wei Wuxian had to firmly tuck the idea into a 'never attempt' box in his head.

Since Wei Wuxian couldn't use his spiritual energy during or after battle, Lan Wangji had enthusiastically taken it upon himself to fuss over Wei Wuxian after every battle. Wei Wuxian was certain Lan Wangji would have done this anyways, the inability to use his spiritual energy just made for a good excuse.

Wei Wuxian remembered what it was like in his last life. After most battles Wei Wuxian would keep himself together long enough for him to be alone. Then he'd collapse for some number of hours. Sometimes it was in his tent. Sometimes it was not. Sometimes Jiang Wanyin would throw Suibian at Wei Wuxian after a battle. Give him some lecture and fly off back to camp. Wei Wuxian would be left alone, with a sword he couldn't use, in the aftermath of a battle. Wei Wuxian usually had enough presence of mind to step to the side of a road or path before he collapsed where he stood.

On the good days Wei Wuxian would walk back to camp and collapse on the floor as soon as the flap closed behind him. He'd lay in his blood soaked clothes, body aching, and painfully cold. He'd try to ignore the hollow feeling where his golden core used to be. By the next day he'd usually be able to make himself get up and clean himself up. Just enough to not frighten people. Just enough to make himself pass for functional.

Wei Wuxian had not been well. Wei Wuxian was starting to realize that maybe he hadn't been well for a very long time. He was doing what he always did after all. Trying to pretend he was fine. Even when people began to see that he was in fact, not fine, they all were quick to make their own assumptions about what the problem was and why. That had been so painfully infuriating that Wei Wuxian wasn't sure he had the words to describe it.

Everyone was so happy to decide why he wasn't okay. Who were they to say he wasn't okay? He had been the way he was for so long, was doing so much, but now suddenly he wasn't okay? At the time it had simply sounded like being told he wasn't good enough. Something Wei Wuxian knew quite well, but it still hurt to hear.

Wei Wuxian took a few deep breaths, letting those old familiar feelings drift away. Things were different now. Lan Wangji would never let Wei Wuxian pass out alone on a battlefield. Lan Wangji would not leave him in his blood soaked robes on the floor of their tent. Their tent. Even that was different. Wei Wuxian was not sleeping alone in a tiny tent. He was not crumpled up on the floor, clutching a blanket around him trying to keep him the body heat that he didn't have.

After every battle Lan Wangji made certain Wei Wuxian returned to camp safely. Sometimes they walked back together, Wei Wuxian not being able to safely draw his spiritual energy so soon after a battle. Most of the time Lan Wangji would pull Wei Wuxian onto Bichen and fly them back to camp.

Lan Wangji would make certain they changed out of their bloody clothes and gently prod an exhausted Wei Wuxian into getting cleaned up. Then, even though Lan Wangji would have expended enormous amounts of spiritual energy during the battle, Lan Wangji would gently massage Wei Wuxian's cold, resentment filled, body. Lan Wangji would channel small amounts of spiritual energy into his hands to help warm Wei Wuxian's freezing limbs. He'd gently use small amounts of spiritual energy to help disperse resentful energy from Wei Wuxian's saturated body.

If Lan Wangji wasn't completely spent by then, he would sometimes play Cleansing to help speed up the process of dispersing some of the excess resentment. It was beyond sweet, beyond caring. By the time they were both under the blankets Wei Wuxian would feel so incredibly spoiled. Safe and loved, like he was the most important person in Lan Wangji's world, and no one could ever possibly hurt him. It was impossible to be mad about Lan Wangji making him feel like that.

That did not mean Wei Wuxian was entirely happy about Lan Wangji exhausting himself like this. Lan Wangji would almost always exhaust his spiritual energy to the very brink of dangerous levels. Lan Wangji had not crossed the line to actually needing medical attention, or emergency transfusions of spiritual energy. However, he was virtually always exhausted enough that his body would complain about the strain.

It was enough that Lan Wangji would be slow to recover from the physical exertion of the battle. It would slow his ability to heal and make Lan Wangji temporarily vulnerable to infections and illness that Lan Wangji's core would usually be able to fend off. It would leave Lan Wangji drained and exhausted for much longer than normal. If Lan Wangji got a little too close to that dangerous level of exhaustion it would give Lan Wangji something akin to a bad hangover. Lan Wangji would wake up with his body protesting the strain. Head pounding, body aching, and horribly nauseous.

Lan Wangji would not stop, no matter how much Wei Wuxian complained about the lengths he was pushing himself to. So Wei Wuxian had to learn to accept that Lan Wangji would push himself this far while taking care of Wei Wuxian. So, once Wei Wuxian managed a few hours of rest, he would drag himself back to wakefulness to return the favour. Wei Wuxian would transfer spiritual energy to help compensate for the energy Lan Wangji expended. Once Wei Wuxian was happy with the amount he transferred, Wei Wuxian would go back to sleep.

Wei Wuxian yawned again as he checked Lan Wangji's levels. Lan Wangji had been low enough that he might still feel the effects in the morning, even with the transfer of spiritual energy. Wei Wuxian stopped transferring spiritual energy as he climbed back under the blankets. He grumbled quietly about the cold as he wrapped himself around Lan Wangji. He tucked his ice cold feet against the warm skin of Lan Wangji's calves as he settled his head against Lan Wangji's chest.

"M'still gonna yell at you in the morning." Wei Wuxian mumbled sleepily. He vaguely felt an arm wrap around him, giving him a gentle squeeze as he fell back to sleep.