A/N: I never write sequels, I said. I certainly won't write a sequel to that one vampire AU, I said. And yet here we are.

The title is a misheard lyric from Robert Pattinson's "Let Me Sign", which I listened to on repeat while writing this, along with Hidden Citizens' version of "Everywhere", Grace Carter's cover of "Wicked Game", VAST's "Flames", Florence + the Machine's "Big God", Tinashe's "Bet", Imogen Heap's cover of "Thriller", and Hozier's "As It Was".

This fic comes with warnings: due to the specific vampire shenanigans that take place, there are consent issues here. Neither character feels that their consent has been ignored, but some of the stuff that happens should really require verbal consent first - in particular, there's a mild incident of somnophilia. This is a vampire fantasy and it's not meant to be realistic! Please take care of your own mental health first and read on if you feel able.

Like an arrow shot from a bow, Jiang Cheng sped across the sky.

The message had been brief, in the quick, no-nonsense hand of Lan Xichen's trusted aide. Come quickly. Zewu-jun is badly injured. Nothing else needed to be said – least of all what was being asked of Jiang Cheng.

Of late, it had been Nie Mingjue offering up his lifeblood. Jiang Cheng was too often away, tearing apart the might of the Wen together with Lan Wangji, and combing its remains for the brother who haunted him like a shadow. But Lan Wangji had been called back to Cloud Recesses briefly by his uncle; and Chifeng-zun was at the main front, far off. So for once Jiang Cheng was the closest. The most likely to come in time.

Let me be in time, he pleaded, to any god listening. He was sick to death of being too late.

That thought sped him onwards at breakneck pace. At length he saw the lights of the Lan encampment ahead. When he landed, a blank-faced Lan disciple led him quietly to Zewu-jun's tent, without ceremony.

"Leave us," Jiang Cheng said grimly. He ignored the man's mute look of doubt.

True enough, Jiang Cheng took his life in his hands every time they did this. True enough, Lan Xichen's state now must be severe enough to test even his legendary self-control. And if this disciple left, Jiang Cheng would have no defences but his own reflexes against a First Jade mad with pain and starvation.

But Jiang Cheng had known both danger and humiliation. He could endure danger, rather than expose himself, either of them to – to –

He could keep their privacy, at least. Some dignity.

The Lan disciple left. Jiang Cheng pulled open the tent flap and stepped inside.

The sight slammed into him like a blow to the solar plexus. Lan Xichen was not standing, bandaged, to greet him. Lan Xichen was laid prone on his bed. He was very still: even his breathing barely moved him.

Across his white robes – impossible, unprecedented – was a vivid stain of red blood.

Jiang Cheng's heart rose into his throat. Cleaning charms were a way of life for the Lan sect. That Lan Xichen's robes were stained said worse things about his state than any message could.

He shook his hair back, and pulled the collar of his robes aside, loosening them. As he stepped towards the bed, he felt a sick, numbing fear shiver through him. Some of it was for Lan Xichen; more of it was for himself. To walk slowly towards something deadly –

He could hear his heartbeat roaring all around his head, like wingbeats.

He knelt beside the bed. One hand went to brace against it; with the other, he pushed his hair over to one side, baring the tendons of his neck. He leaned down.

Everything next happened very fast.

Lan Xichen's hands, shooting out, suddenly. A flash of pitch-dark eyes. Jiang Cheng in the air – nerves screaming with mortal, dizzying terror – the painful shock of his back hitting the bed. Bone-white fingers clawing at him, bruising, holding him down.

Then the pain in his neck, ripping into him, white-hot.

Jiang Cheng let out an animal cry of pain. He could not move. Lan Xichen's hands were not gentle, this time, digging into Jiang Cheng's flesh with preternatural strength. Nor were his teeth careful. Jiang Cheng could feel them lodged in his throat, a sharp, blinding agony like a bright slash of fire, that went on, and on… He lay there twitching, his body fighting to move, a bound, trapped animal.

Then the pleasure came. He felt it wash through him, felt his limbs go sleep-dark. Every pain signal turned into something dazzling, addictive. It drew a hoarse groan from him. It was good, it was so good…

Yet the pain was still there. He could not drift off as he always did, he was forced to feel it, every second of sharp hurt and sharper pleasure like sparklers in his nerves. "Ah – hah –" Little choked cries came from his mouth as he breathed out.

He did not know if they were pleas for mercy, or for more of this.

Above him, Lan Xichen made a hungry, groaning sound, and pressed in – impossibly – even closer to his neck. He drank from Jiang Cheng like a starved man. In the iron grip of his fingers, Jiang Cheng could feel his frantic drive for survival. They lay intertwined: two bodies gripped by the same wordless terror of death.

Jiang Cheng's heart raced, rabbit-quick. He could not stop the jerking movements of his fingers, his feet. He felt – he could feel every hair on his skin, every nerve ending beneath it, lit up. Fear and that urgent, drugging pleasure met in a white blaze of sensation, burning through his veins.

That inescapable pain, fixed in his neck, and that greedy, sucking mouth… Jiang Cheng moaned aloud. It was so good, he couldn't get away from it, it was so much –

Lan Xichen shifted further up the bed, tilting his head as if seeking better access. The change in angle made Jiang Cheng gasp. Pleasure spilled through him, a wave across a helpless shore: his body jerked. He let his head fall further back against the pillow, eyes squeezed shut. Lan Xichen's hands fisted in his robes to move them aside, to get more of him.

Something about that movement – those clutching fingers, those lips nursing urgently at his neck – made tears start at the corner of Jiang Cheng's eyes.

He let them fall. Pain and pleasure and his racing heart had driven him into some strange, empty place beyond fear. A sudden, overwhelming wave of tenderness was surging through him, washing over him – something like pity, but deeper, so deep it almost hurt: a great and terrible compassion, for those fingers clinging to his robes. For Lan Xichen's desperate mouth at his neck.

As if in a dream, he brought his arms up to hold Lan Xichen to him. One hand at his head, to press him in close, to sink in and comb through his hair; one hand to stroke across his back. Easy, easy. Lan Xichen went, obedient.

Somehow it seemed to calm him: his frantic mouthing became less urgent, until he was almost nuzzling at the hollow of Jiang Cheng's throat. His hands opened up from their claw-shape to spread firmly over Jiang Cheng's body, as if to make sure Jiang Cheng was still there.

Like this, they were pressed together, body to body. As his heartbeat slowed, Jiang Cheng could feel it more. Lan Xichen on him, above him, legs on either side of Jiang Cheng's thigh. Chest against chest. Lan Xichen's hair falling over Jiang Cheng's shoulder, over the bare sliver of chest where his robes were open.

It was the closest embrace he'd had since Lotus Pier fell. Since years before that. He could not remember anything like this.

He was hard, trapped against Lan Xichen's thigh, but there was no urgency to it. Just the good, sensory heat of arousal, sparks smouldering all through his body, his blood. Lan Xichen's hands, pressed against his skin; Lan Xichen's hair falling against him, soft and shining; Lan Xichen's lips, working at his neck. The weight of him, covering Jiang Cheng's body, every inch. Jiang Cheng let out a long, low moan.

He lay still, water still leaking from his eyes. His arms relaxed around Lan Xichen. After a time he felt Lan Xichen's teeth slip from his throat, though the other man did not move: his mouth stayed there, seeking the last traces of blood, nuzzling as if drowsy. The world grew dark and quiet.

It was like that – tear-streaked, bloodstained, nerves still singing with pleasure – that Jiang Cheng fell asleep.

He came out of sleep slowly. For a while, he felt he was still dreaming. It was dark. Something was pulsing, in his blood, fire-hot against his neck. Everything was warm around him, over him. Fabric. Weight. His body shifted, artless, chasing what felt good. His hips were rocking against hot, dark pressure.

There were teeth in his throat.

Jiang Cheng blinked. It made hardly any difference whether his eyes were open, in this dead-of-night dark. Lan Xichen was a shape against him, an outline, in the pitch darkness of the tent. Lan Xichen's teeth were sunk into his neck again, but now there was no haste and almost no pain: he was nuzzling as he drank, almost burrowing his face into the hollow of Jiang Cheng's throat. The familiar pleasure spreading from the wound was muted, embers, sparks lacing through Jiang Cheng's blood.

Lan Xichen's hands were on him, clinging. Lan Xichen was still pressed against him, bearing down, his thigh solid against Jiang Cheng's erection and good, so good.

Jiang Cheng let out a low, hoarse gasp. Unthinking, his hips ground upward. He gasped again, desperate. Found an answering hardness – he pressed his head back into the pillow to groan, "Mmh, oh –"

Lan Xichen ground against him in turn and sucked harder at his neck, and Jiang Cheng realised he could hear Lan Xichen moaning, muffled, as if in relief.

His eyes closed. He ground up against Lan Xichen, chasing that sweet pressure, the hot animal warmth of touch. He was breathing deep, his exhales leaving him as grunts of pleasure, low and wounded-sounding. The dark was warm and smothering above him. He rocked together with Lan Xichen, curving around the other man, feeling Lan Xichen's moans vibrate through him.

He was warm. It felt so good. He was drifting, he was rising, borne on a tide that rocked him through the dark and rose in his veins, higher, hotter, better, he wanted, he wanted, he wanted to stay like this, it was so good, almost, almost –

"Ah –"

He gasped, high and soft, as all the tension left his body in one sharp, dizzying rush.

Lan Xichen thrust steadily against him, still groaning, nursing at the wound in his neck. Jiang Cheng held onto him, moving and breathing in sync, until his hips, too, shuddered and he came to rest against Jiang Cheng's hipbone. He drew his teeth from Jiang Cheng's throat. Face resting there, he pressed his mouth to the bite mark, working at it with lips and tongue almost unconsciously. Jiang Cheng breathed out, long and deep.

The dark swallowed him.

He woke in the quiet of the early morning. His inner robes were tacky with sweat, clinging to him. On his neck, the bite mark was a pulsing ache.

Lan Xichen lay next to him, already awake. They had shifted during the night: now they were side by side. Jiang Cheng watched him realise that Jiang Cheng had woken, and begin to sit up. He moved as he always had, with the grace of a beam of sunlight unfolding. Like Zewu-jun again.

The tent was dim. The sun had to be low, perhaps barely even over the horizon. Certainly there were no sounds of activity from outside.

"Jiang-zongzhu," Lan Xichen said, voice very soft in the silence. "I'm glad to see you awake."

Jiang Cheng looked down at the bed for a moment: he never knew what to say, faced with those dark, solemn eyes. "I'm glad to see you recovered," he replied, at last.

Lan Xichen's mouth tightened. In the half-light, the lines of his face were suddenly very taut, against the soft, dark fall of his unbound hair. For a moment, he said nothing. His eyes closed.

He tilted his head to face Jiang Cheng. Bowed it. "What I did last night was unforgivable," he said. "I risked your life. I could have killed you. For that, I apologise unreservedly."

His voice never shook, and yet Jiang Cheng had never heard a note of such distress in it.

He stared at Lan Xichen, still dishevelled in the dim light. "Don't think of it," he said hoarsely. "There is no need for such apologies."

The corner of Lan Xichen's mouth twisted. He did not seem comforted. "You came to my tent as an ally," he said, still in that quiet, unhappy tone. "In return, I put your life at risk. I can't dismiss that."

At his side, Jiang Cheng's hand was trembling. He said, "It was mine to risk. I knew what I was doing when I came to your tent."

Lan Xichen shook his head. "You had no reason to expect – this," he said. For a moment his voice seemed to come close to breaking. "This was nothing you owed. You could have died."

"I know," Jiang Cheng said. He knew his own voice was shaking. He was shaking, here in this quiet tent in the silence on the cusp of sunrise.

The truth was, Lan Xichen had almost achieved what all the might of the Wen had not. If Jiang Cheng had been weaker, less healthy – if Lan Xichen had had one iota less self-control, injured and in great pain –

The Jiang sect had just passed within a hair's breadth of being wiped out.

"I chose this," he said. "Do you think I took it lightly? Do you think I don't know what we're here to do?" Beside him, Lan Xichen was still as a statue. "I came to your tent as an ally in war, Lan Xichen. Do you understand that? Do you think I don't know exactly what I risk? What war could take from me?"

A sudden, choked gasp broke the silence, and Jiang Cheng froze.

He had begun to lean up on one elbow, to force Lan Xichen to look him in the face. In the process, his loosened robes had fallen open. Lan Xichen's gaze – Jiang Cheng realised, in a sickening rush, like freefall – was fixed on what that revealed.

The marks of the discipline whip, on his bare chest.

The air seemed to go very still. Lan Xichen's eyes were huge and dark. He had not moved, yet his whole body seemed to curve towards the sight, his eyes set on it. Slowly – it seemed to Jiang Cheng that it was in slow motion – his hand rose – to touch or to close the robes, Jiang Cheng did not know. He jerked backwards, a sharp stop.

Lan Xichen's hand fell back to his side.

"Don't," Jiang Cheng said. He was shuddering all over. "Don't."

He did not know if he meant ask, or touch, or pity.

Lan Xichen nodded. "I won't," he said quietly.

They sat together on the bed, in silence. Jiang Cheng took one deep breath, and then another, trying to calm his shudders. It was as if his body had suddenly remembered how close it had come to death. He was very aware of the cold bead of sweat at his temple, the sticky soreness of his neck.

He waited it out. It would pass. It would pass.

At length he was able to move and breathe without shaking again. He shifted to look at Lan Xichen, his mouth set.

Lan Xichen's eyes were firmly on his face, nowhere below. "The Wen?" he said. His voice was so soft it could hardly be heard.

Jiang Cheng inclined his head, infinitesimally. He felt the weight in his throat of everything he could not bear to say. To think.

"In Lotus Pier," he said at last. The words came out very small, squeezed out around that weight. He bent his head and could not say anything more.

Lan Xichen made a sound of quiet understanding, as if nothing more needed to be said. It was strange, this quietness between them. Something like peace, wrung out.

"Jiang-zongzhu must be strong indeed," Lan Xichen said, at last, "to have survived that. I am sorry you had to."

Jiang Cheng bit his lip, hard. He had to. The gasp of pain and disgust that had risen to his lips would have escaped, otherwise.

Jiang-zongzhu must be strong indeed. It had not felt like strength. Even the memory of it was like a mortal blow. His parents' bodies. Pain pulling hoarse screams from his throat. The shocking thud and shrieking sting of the lash, and the laughter, from all sides.

Strength. No. It had not felt like strength.

Yet neither had the past night, and that had brought him almost as close to death. He had survived both.

Lan Xichen's life, at least, he had saved.

He raised his head to meet Lan Xichen's eyes. "So you see," he said hoarsely. "I know about being wounded. I know what it does to you." He knew the mad dog it had made of him, biting the hand that fed. "And I know about marks that don't fade."

He lifted his hand and pressed it to the bite mark on his neck, showing how it was half faded already.

Lan Xichen shook his head for a moment, eyes closed. A wan smile was on his face. "Yes," he murmured. "Yes, I suppose you do." He sounded exhausted. Relieved.

He was tired, Jiang Cheng knew. They all were. Zewu-jun, tireless, would never show it, but there was no escaping it in this war.

It had been so good, to have no choice but to rest, for a while.

They stayed in that silence a while longer, until Lan Xichen said, "I can do nothing but respect Jiang-zongzhu's courage, in war. But will you allow me to apologise, even so? For taking what was not mine to take?"

He sounded – different. Jiang Cheng stared at him. Lan Xichen went on, "There are some things that should be asked." The words seemed to bear the weight of things unsaid.

Jiang Cheng felt his throat close up, and his face flush with heat. "Don't apologise for that," he said. He wished, not for the first time, for eloquence. "The blood, perhaps. Not – not that."

Lan Xichen nodded solemnly. "Very well," he said. His eyes, his voice, were sincere and a little sad. "Then for the blood, Jiang-zongzhu – I am sorry."

Somehow that hint of sadness hooked at Jiang Cheng's heart. He knew, suddenly – the way he always felt these things coming, in advance – that he was about to do something foolish and bold.

"Lan Xichen," he said. "After all of this, won't you use my name?" He leaned forward, and kissed Lan Xichen on the mouth.

It was soft, it was chaste; it was something he had wanted terribly and not known until this moment.

Lan Xichen's look of bewildered delight, when he broke away, was like the risen sun.