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Zewu-jun was pissed. He was, of course, as pleasant as he ever was, all diplomacy and Lan discipline. But Wei Wuxian had spent enough time around Lan Zhan to catch the tightness around his jaw and the stiff line of his shoulders, the white of his knuckles. That he agreed with Lan Zhan and extended an invitation to join him at Jinlintai was more of a surprise than Wei Wuxian wants to admit; he isn’t accustomed to being given the benefit of the doubt.
Except, of course, from Lan Zhan. Since this strange second life started, Lan Zhan has just… believed him. Like it’s obvious.
The full force of Lan Zhan’s attention is overwhelming, to say the least. Wei Wuxian knows his memory is bad--unreliable and full of holes, likely to trap him in a nightmare if he lets it--but he did remember the feeling of wanting Lan Zhan’s attention and not understanding why.
(Until he didn’t, because he couldn’t afford it. Because Lan Zhan’s attention would mean scrutiny, would mean secrets exposed, would mean--he isn’t sure anymore, actually, but he’d been so certain at the time.)
Now he has Lan Zhan’s attention and fuck if he knows what to do with it.
They’d stayed pretty busy, the two of them, since the day that Lan Zhan grabbed his wrist and held on and Wei Wuxian knew that he’d been found out. It hadn’t been entirely purposeful; someone had clearly set them on a path towards something, and they are both too stubborn and too curious not to chase the clues they were given. They’ve stayed busy enough anyway that Wei Wuxian has been able to pretend that he doesn’t have a huge, tangled knot of emotions he should probably work through at some point, many of which are not about the fluttering in his belly or the heat in his chest when Lan Zhan looks at him.
(So very many of them are about exactly that.)
But the conference in Jinlintai is a month away. They have a month. A whole month. That is, in Wei Wuxian’s estimation, a completely horrifying amount of time. There are so many ways he could make a mess of this in that amount of time. Hell, he wouldn’t even need the whole month; give him three days without a distraction and Lan Zhan will wish he’d never come back.
“It won’t take us a full month to get to Jinlintai, even with my stupid donkey,” Wei Wuxian says. Before Lan Zhan can suggest they leave Little Apple, he amends, “My stupid donkey that I love, mind you. Obviously.”
Lan Zhan does that thing that is very nearly a smile, an expression that softens his face, warms it. He reaches for the wine jar again, holding his sleeve delicately back with his other hand, and pours another cup for Wei Wuxian. It is patently unfair that he looks like that when he’s pouring wine. He’s too graceful, too precise, and far too beautiful to be sitting across a table from Wei Wuxian pouring him drinks.
“Are you going to send the junior disciples back to Gusu?” he asks.
Lan Zhan hums. “In the morning.”
“I really like that Sizhui. And Jingyi is a smartass, but he’s strangely endearing. I can’t believe your shufu let’s that kid out of the Cloud Recesses! He must have spent more time copying rules than I did!” he chuckles and throws his drink back, watches as Lan Zhan pours him another cup.
“Shufu is partial to Jingyi, though he has always reminded me of you a little bit,” Lan Zhan says as he pushes the cup back across the table. “He’s a good boy.”
Okay, Lan Zhan isn’t allowed to say the words good boy ever again because Wei Wuxian’s stomach somehow managed to do a backflip and he may feel a little feverish, actually. His tolerance for alcohol must be lower than he thought, that must be it.
“Is there anything you’d like to do before the conference?” Lan Zhan asks, sliding yet another full cup back across the table. Not that Wei Wuxian isn’t grateful, but it’s distracting, and it’s getting him drunk, besides.
Wei Wuxian smirks before he answers to hide the truth of what he says. “Well, first I thought I might spend some time pestering you for attention. Then I thought I might move on to badgering, and, if I get bored, perhaps even hassling.”
“Wei Ying,” Lan Zhan says, in that exasperated tone of his.
Wei Wuxian wonders who else pulls this tone out of Lan Zhan, who else would recognize it for the fondness it is. Wei Wuxian hadn’t always been able to see it. Zewu-jun would be able to, certainly. A few of the junior disciples must have figured him out, too, and Jingyi would definitely earn his exasperation often enough to know the look. And he must have had--
(the thought stutters a bit and his stomach goes sour)
He must have taken a lover at some point. Surely Hanguang-jun would have had plenty of offers in the time Wei Wuxian had been gone. He’s gorgeous and smart and funny and kind; there had to have been people throwing themselves at him. Beautiful people, probably. Learned people who were just as good as he is. People who weren’t Wei Wuxian.
“You have my attention,” Lan Zhan continues as though Wei Wuxian weren’t distracted by a matter of such great importance as who could possibly be good enough for him. Rude.
If Wei Wuxian had ever squeaked before in his life--he had not, obviously--the sound he makes when what Lan Zhan has actually said registers could almost be a near cousin of squeaking. “Aiyou, Lan Zhan,” he says.
They sit together quietly for a while then. Wei Wuxian makes Lan Zhan tea and pours for him; Lan Zhan keeps his alcohol cup full. Everytime Wei Wuxian looks up at Lan Zhan, Lan Zhan is looking back at him. Usually, Lan Zhan’s sedate quiet is a comfort when he can’t quite get his mind to stop spinning in circles, but this quiet is loaded somehow in a way he doesn’t understand.
“Your brother seemed upset at our suggestion that Jin Guangyao might be involved in whatever is going on,” Wei Ying says when he can’t do it anymore.
Lan Zhan’s mouth turns down and he takes a slow, contemplative sip of his tea. “He has never said so plainly, but I believe they are lovers.”
“Ah,” Wei Wuxian says, and finds that he is not terribly surprised, but his face is heating up, and he isn’t sure why. “That makes sense actually. Shit, Lan Zhan, you should have told me that before I went running my mouth. We didn’t have to drop our suspicions on him like that.”
“I would not mislead him,” Lan Zhan answers, though he looks conflicted. “Lying is forbidden,” he quotes.
“Harmony is the value,” Wei Wuxian counters.
“Do not mix public and private interests.”
“Do not argue with your family,” Wei Wuxian starts.
Lan Zhan finishes, a little snappy, “For it doesn’t matter who wins, yes, I know.” Lan Zhan looks truly frustrated. Which is fair enough; they were both stretching the spirit of the rules they were quoting, and they both knew it. Though Lan Zhan might be surprised by how much, despite all his bluster to the contrary, Wei Wuxian does respect the spirit of most of the rules.
Offering him an out from a back and forth Wei Wuxian is sure could last all night, Wei Wuxian says, “I just mean, it must be hard for him to hear these kinds of accusations against someone he trusts and cares deeply about.”
“I am sure that it is,” Lan Zhan says, dry and bitter, more astringent than the tea he drinks.
It takes Wei Wuxian a moment to parse where the response may have come from, and he fights a wince. Lan Zhan must have had to listen to so many people say so many absurd and terrible things about him for so long. And though Wei Wuxian doesn’t know exactly what they were to each other then, or what Lan Zhan might want them to be now, it’s clear that he cares. Wei Wuxian hopes that no one spoke poorly of Lan Zhan because of him. It feels like too much to hope for. The gentry are brutal. They always have been. They probably said awful things and Wei Wuxian is retroactively angry on Lan Zhan’s behalf.
(It would be better for Lan Zhan if he just stayed away.)
“Sorry,” Wei Wuxian says quietly. It is in no way adequate.
Lan Zhan sighs, barely a sound at all, and says, “No need.” He pauses, then goes on, his voice more gentle. “I would spare him the hurt if I could, but I am afraid for him.”
“He must have been afraid for you, too, back then,” Wei Wuxian says, though he feels like he might choke on the words.
“You would never have hurt me,” Lan Zhan says. His lips are tight, stubborn.
It would be stupid to argue, so Wei Wuxian doesn’t. He wouldn’t have hurt Lan Zhan physically, no, not if he could control it. But he had hurt him in other ways, and Lan Xichen had made sure he knew it.
(If he thinks back on an afternoon in Yunmeng too hard, he winces at his own hubris and unwillingness to hear what Zewu-jun had actually been saying.)
Eventually, it is Lan Zhan who changes the subject. “Do you remember our first encounter with Xiao Xingchen and Song Lan?”
Of course he does. He remembers watching them walk away and thinking for the first time: I want that. Before, he hadn’t thought much about what he wanted from the future. It had been given to him already: he would train to be Jiang Cheng’s second, and when Jiang Cheng took over as sect leader, he would serve as his right hand. He would help raise Jiang Cheng’s eventual heirs, and he would train disciples for the sect. He would give his life, and if called to, he would lay down his life. That was how he belonged. It wasn’t a matter of wanting or not wanting. It was what he owed. But then he watched the receding backs of Song Lang and Xiao Xingchen, black and white robes blowing together in the wind, and he had seen another possibility.
When he’d caught Lan Zhan’s eye back then, he’d seen the same hungry look on Lan Zhan’s face he knew he wore on his own. He had another first-time thought, an image so vivid in his imagination that it felt obvious it would come to pass: he and Lan Zhan, side-by-side, black and white, on an open road. Together. Close enough for their robes to blow together and for their fingers to brush. Close enough--
“Of course I do,” he says.
Lan Zhan’s eyes flit to his face and then away again. There’s a thread there that Wei Wuxian wants to tug at, to see what it unravels. He feels like maybe Lan Zhan is inviting him to do it. Has been inviting him since they met each other’s eyes over Xiao Xinchen’s body, watched Song Lan walk away again, dreadfully alone this time, and then turned back to each other, Lan Zhan’s face cracked painfully open in a way Wei Wuxian has only witnessed a couple of times.
“Did you know?” Lan Zhan asks.
“Know what?” Wei Wuxian happily accepts another full cup. The liquor is sharp and sweet, not even close to Emperor’s Smile in quality, but still good. He is making a conscious effort not to just grab the jar and forgo the cup entirely because Lan Zhan hates it; watching Lan Zhan pour makes it easier.
“That they were a couple.” Lan Zhan is looking steadfastly at the table.
He often looks away during these kinds of conversations, the ones that feel like they are skirting something bigger, as if he can’t stand to see what reaction his words will cause. Lan Zhan is almost never scared, but Wei Wuxian is starting to be able to see it now. He wishes he’d been able to see it in his first life: the way Lan Zhan’s eyes turned away or slid closed, the hard swallow, the too-tight grip on his tea cup or the hilt of his sword. Lan Zhan has his tells, just like anyone else. He is not a statue, after all, but just a man.
(Well, maybe not just. Lan Zhan really isn’t just anything.)
He wishes, though, sometimes, that the few things Lan Zhan chooses to put into words weren’t so cryptic. Not often, but sometimes, when his words are the surface of the water in a deep well.
“I’m not sure I would have known to call them that at the time,” Wei Wuxian says honestly. “I don’t think I quite realized at the time that two men--well, but I knew there was something. That they… belonged to each other.”
Lan Wangji hums, drinks his tea, doesn’t look up.
“Did you?” Wei Wuxian gently nudges.
“I suspected, yes,” Lan Zhan answers. “And then I spoke with Song Lan privately on the way to Qinghe, before they left.”
“What? Teenage Lan Zhan voluntarily having a conversation? With someone other than Zewu-jun? I need to know more, because I am intrigued.” He waits for the quick, slight tilt to the eyebrows that would be an eye roll on anyone else and then adds, in his most teasing tone, “And insulted a little, Lan Zhan! There I was making a spectacle of myself for just a few words, and you had whole conversations with someone else? Should I be jealous?”
“Ridiculous,” Lan Zhan says under his breath.
“Aiya, Lan Zhan, I really would like to know, though.”
“I was. Awkward,” Lan Zhan admits.
“Awkward? My Lan Zhan? The epitome of grace? I don’t believe it!”
Lan Zhan gives him a rueful look and Wei Wuxian laughs. “At least you knew how to shut up, I could never figure that out,” he offers through his smile.
“Mn,” Lan Zhan agrees, and Wei Wuxian squawks at him.
“You aren’t supposed to agree with me!”
Then Lan Zhan does what is maybe Wei Wuxian’s favorite thing: he smiles. The corners of his lips tip noticeably upwards, and the corners of his eyes crinkle, his gaze soft and amused. Wei Wuxian is so lost in looking at him that he doesn’t even notice Lan Zhan’s hand moving until it has slid on top of his own over the table and given a little squeeze. He leaves it there. All of Wei Wuxian’s attention snaps to that point of contact. This might be his new favorite thing: Lan Zhan holding his hand.
“My most sincere apologies,” Lan Zhan says, his eyes sparkling. He has learned how to tease back somewhere along the way. It’s awful. Wei Wuxian is so in love with him.
“I missed you,” Wei Wuxian says, like it’s been punched out of him. “Even before I died, I missed you.”
Lan Zhan’s face turns serious and assessing. His thumb rubs at the back of Wei Wuxian’s hand, bumps over his knuckles. “It’s time to rest,” he says, and pulls Wei Wuxian up with him.
They strip to their inner robes and trousers silently, with their backs to each other. Wei Wuxian washes his face from the washbasin, pats it dry with a towel, and pulls the ribbon from his hair. He isn’t sure why he feels so unsteady. Lan Zhan never used to be able to do this to him. Or maybe he always sort of did.
When he turns around, Lan Wangji is sitting on one of the two beds, the blanket over his lap pulled back next to him. He pats the mattress. “Come,” he says. And how is Wei Wuxian supposed to say no to that? It’s impossible. So he gets into the bed next to Lan Zhan, something hot and squirming in his belly, and he presses their shoulders together under the blanket, and he slides his fingers against the side of Lan Zhan’s hand until Lan Zhan intertwines their fingers between them. Then he sleeps.
It is either a miracle or a curse that Wei Ying rises with Lan Zhan the next morning at the awful Lan-appointed waking time. It’s practically the middle of the night, for gods’ sake, but Wei Ying finds that once Lan Zhan has untangled their fingers and taken his heat from under the blankets, the bed holds much less appeal. Besides, Lan Zhan gives him a soft look as he rises, and then fetches them breakfast and tea and keeps looking at him like that as they eat, so it’s worth it.
It also means that Wei Wuxian gets to see off the baby Lan disciples in their sharp white robes like a flock of little birds. He likes it so much, the way they salute Lan Wangji in unison with a near-reverent, “Hanguang-jun.” These kids love Lan Zhan, so they are obviously good and smart kids, and Wei Wuxian is enamored with watching their faces light up in admiration. It is only what Lan Zhan deserves, after all.
“Hanguang-jun,” Sizhui says. “Where will you go now?”
“Lanling. For the discussion conference,” Lan Zhan answers.
Sizhui gives him an assessing look, which is pretty ballsy, Wei Wuxian has to admit. None of the other junior disciples seem to want to question Lan Zhan in word or gesture. “Oh, I thought that was still some time away.” His voice sounds light and pleasant, friendly. Like idle chatter. And Wei Wuxian suddenly gets the idea that perhaps this Sizhui is secretly devious, which is obviously a delight.
Wei Wuxian would swear on his second life that Lan Zhan has a whole conversation with the boy via a complex exchange of narrowed eyes and the crooked smile Sizhui fights to keep off of his face.
Lan Zhan finally says, “Sizhui, please let me know when you all have reached home safely.”
Sizhui does smile then, a wide, laughing grin. “Of course, Hanguang-jun. This one hopes that you and Mo-gongzi enjoy your journey.”
As the disciples start off with their robes trailing behind them, Wei Wuxian can hear Jingyi doing an interesting impression of a whisper. “What are you thinking, Sizhui? You can’t just say stuff like that to Hanguang-jun! He’s your--”
“We should collect Little Apple and be on our way,” Lan Zhan says abruptly, and then spins on his heel to do just that, leaving Wei Wuxian to scramble after him and miss the rest of the disciples’ conversation.
Around midday, they pass a wide open field dotted with bright autumn-blooming flowers, the last of the season. The sun is warm on Wei Wuxian’s face and he can’t help himself. He hops off of Little Apple to tug on one of Lan Zhan’s long sleeves. “Lan Zhan,” he whines.
“Mn.” Lan Wangji does not dignify his whining with even a glance, which is colossally unfair.
“Can we stop here and have a picnic? It’s so pretty, isn’t it?”
Lan Zhan looks at him then, and his face is warm and fond. This is not an expression Wei Wuxian remembers from his first life; it is more self-possessed than Lan Zhan ever was when they were young. Every time this look gets turned on Wei Wuxian, he feels like his heart stutters in his chest a little.
“It is,” Lan Zhan says and it takes a moment for Wei Wuxian to remember the question he’s answering.
When his brain has booted up again, he grins and tugs Lan Zhan’s wrist and Little Apple’s reigns until they are far enough from the road to not be disturbed if anyone were to pass by. He plops down into the grass and lies back, soaking up the sun on his cheeks, the backs of his eyelids red with the light. He feels Lan Zhan settle next to him and he couldn’t help the smile that stretches his cheeks if he tried.
“Wei Ying,” he hears, and when he opens his eyes, Lan Zhan is offering him a steamed bun leftover from breakfast on a paper wrapper cupped in his hand.
The food is good, the sun is good, the flowers around him are good, and Lan Zhan is simply the greatest, so of course he has to tell him. “You’re the greatest, Lan Zhan, you know that? I hope you know, because you’re really the best.”
The tips of Lan Zhan’s ears turn a rosy pink. It’s adorable. Wei Wuxian likes him so much.
When he’s finished shoving huge bites of steamed bun in his mouth, he tips backwards again, letting the grass tickle at his neck and hands. The sky is clear and blue and huge above him, the whole scene idyllic. He points up at a fluffy white cloud that could, if viewed with the utmost generosity of imagination, look a little bit like a rabbit. “Look, Lan Zhan. One of your Gusu bunnies has followed us.”
Lan Zhan, who has apparently learned to surprise Wei Wuxian at every possible opportunity, settles himself on his back next to him. “Perhaps it is trying to relay a message from the other rabbits,” Lan Zhan muses.
“Or maybe he’s been sent here to spy on us to make sure I don’t corrupt you too badly,” Wei Ying jokes. Lan Zhan huffs. Wei Ying scoots a bit closer to him and leans the side of his head against Lan Zhan’s shoulder. “He’s going to report back to all the other little bunnies about how we were idling in the grass like some kind of layabouts, and they’ll all be jealous of me.”
“Jealous of you?”
“Yep. Jealous that you are lying in the grass with me and not them. You are a very coveted companion, Lan Zhan, didn’t you know?”
Lan Zhan shakes his head. “I am not entirely sure most people would agree with you.”
“That’s because most people are stupid,” he says with an air of finality. “Rabbits, though, rabbits are smart.”
“Mn,” Lan Zhan replies seriously and laughter bubbles up in Wei Wuxian’s throat.
They lie there like that for a while, and the quiet is actually nice. It’s only with Lan Zhan that he feels like he can stand the quiet. Something about having Lan Zhan close and steady gives him some respite from his own whirling thoughts, a calm he can sink himself into sometimes, for a while. When it becomes clear that Lan Zhan isn’t going to pull away from where they are touching, Wei Wuxian gets bolder and shifts again so that his head is pillowed on his bicep. Lan Zhan lets him.
“Lan Zhan?” Wei Wuxian asks after a while. “How did you know? About Song Lan and Xiao Xingchen, I mean.”
Lan Zhan hums consideringly. He takes his time to put his answer together. “The way they looked at each other. The way they moved together.”
Wei Wuxian turns onto his side so he can see Lan Zhan. “How did they look at each other?”
Grass rustles under Lan Zhan’s robes as he pushes himself up to make eye contact. Wei Wuxian wants to take in every detail of him, to memorize him. His expression is open, offering himself up for Wei Wuxian’s gaze; the sunlight glints off of the silver on his forehead ribbon, the tall curves of his guan. The white of his robes glows with warm light, and his eyes are speckled with honey. His rich, dark hair picks up the light, too, and his long eyelashes that brush his cheeks when he blinks as slow as a cat settling in for an afternoon nap. All of him is soft lying here among the tiny yellow flowers. He’s gorgeous. The most gorgeous. Wei Wuxian could look at him all day, and he would never get tired of it.
“Like they wanted to look at each other all the time.”
“Oh,” Wei Wuxian croaks, then clears his throat.
“Like they were looking at something precious.” Lan Zhan tucks a stray piece of hair behind Wei Wuxian’s ear and his fingertips glance over his cheekbone, lingering. It must be deliberate because Lan Zhan doesn’t do anything that isn’t deliberate.
Wei Wuxian’s heart thumps too hard. Lan Wangji’s gaze on him makes him want to squirm and hide his face. “Yeah,” he says, and it is almost a question.
The village they find before the end of the night isn’t large, but the inn is bright and clean no matter that it probably sees few travelers, and the innkeeper offers them two rooms.
“One will suffice,” Lan Zhan says as Wei Wuxian is opening his mouth to thank him for his kind hospitality. Wei Wuxian just blinks at Lan Zhan instead.
The innkeeper recovers from his surprise quickly, though. “Of course, Hanguang-jun.”
“We would take dinner in our room, with tea and a jug of alcohol. If it is possible, I would appreciate a bath sent up, as well,” Lan Zhan says.
“Right away, Hanguang-jun,” the innkeeper answers. He seems surprised all over again when Lan Zhan sincerely thanks him and presses what is likely three times the cost of what he’s asked for into the man’s palm.
They follow a few hired hands carrying their tub and buckets of water to their room. There is only one bed, which Wei Wuxian should have expected, but it still brings heat to his cheeks.
When the tub is full and they are alone, Wei Wuxian sits across from Lan Zhan at the low table next to the privacy screen that shields the tub from view. Lan Zhan raises his hands to his downturned head and his long, nimble fingers start to pull the pins holding his heavy guan in place. Wei Wuxian likes to watch this process: the shedding of Lan Zhan’s titles, his responsibility, his reputation, clicking on the table one silver piece at a time until he is a different version of himself. Wei Wuxian has been watching these past few nights, at first from the corner of his eye across the room, then over the edge of a book or a cup, pretending he wasn’t watching. He isn’t pretending now. Lan Zhan glances at him, sees that he is watching, but he doesn’t say anything or change what he is doing, so Wei Wuxian looks his fill.
(He imagines that Lan Zhan’s hair would feel like silk between his fingers if he ever got the chance to tangle them there.)
Lan Zhan doesn’t speak until he’s finished tucking his guan into a qiankun bag and he’s pulled his hair loosely away from his face, a few strands escaping to brush against his jaw. “Wei Ying, you should bathe,” he says. “There is grass in your hair.”
“Ah? Lan Zhan!” Wei Wuxian pretends to scold, but the laugh is obvious in his voice. “You let me walk around with grass in my hair all day? How embarrassing! How could the peerless Hanguang-jun tolerate being seen with me as disheveled as I am?”
The corner of Lan Zhan’s mouth ticks up. Wei Wuxian isn’t sure he’ll survive a month of these sweet, teasing smiles.
His stomach flutters strangely when he begins undressing behind the screen. He wonders what it would be like if Lan Zhan watched him undress. Would he turn his eyes away, or would his gaze be steady? Would he like it? Wei Wuxian would want him to like it, he thinks, and the feeling makes him shiver. He can see Lan Zhan’s shadow through the screen and he tries to imagine what his silhouette looks from Lan Zhan’s perspective. Can he see the lines of Wei Wuxian’s body exposed as he peels away the layers of his robes? Is he watching the curve of waist to hip to ass slowly roll out from under the fabric?
Wei Wuxian shakes the thought away. Of course Lan Zhan isn’t watching. Lan Zhan is too proper for that. He shouldn’t even be entertaining the idea of Lan Zhan thinking like that; he’d be so offended if he knew.
The quiet is too much for him once he’s sitting in the bath. “Lan Zhan?”
“Wei Ying,” Lan Zhan says in acknowledgement from the other side of the screen.
“Did you ever--what Song Lan and Xiao Xinchen had. Did you ever want something like that for yourself?”
It takes a while for Lan Zhan to answer. “Yes,” he says, completely unhelpfully.
“With, I mean. With a woman? Or, or--”
“Wei Ying,” he says, as if Wei Wuxian is stupid, and maybe he is a little. “No.”
Wei Wuxian doesn’t want the answer to his next question, but it is easier to ask when he can’t see Lan Zhan’s face, and when he knows Lan Zhan won’t get to see his reaction to whatever the answer is. “Lan Zhan, were you, um. Was there someone? While I was gone. I mean, is there someone?”
“Ridiculous,” Lan Zhan says, which isn’t an answer at all, actually, and that is exactly what Wei Wuxian tells him.
“That’s not an answer, Lan Zhan.” He meant to be firmer, lightly and playfully chiding. But it’s too quiet for that, too rough, his desire and fear both too close to the surface before he can swallow them down.
“Isn’t it?”
They fall asleep holding hands again, Wei Wuxian’s cheek pressed against Lan Zhan’s arm. This is probably why, when Wei Wuxian shakes himself awake later from a nightmare, Lan Zhan wakes, too.
“Wei Ying,” he says, sleep-rough and worried. “Wei Ying, what’s wrong?”
His name in Lan Zhan’s mouth, in that deep rumble of a voice, is enough comfort that his desperate gulping for air turns into gasping and then, finally, he has enough breath to answer. “Nightmare,” is what he gets out, and without his permission, his whole body curls towards Lan Zhan, seeking heat.
He has always been a creature of touch, a clinging, pathetic thing hiding his neediness behind jokes and grins and playful ribbing. He has always asked too much of Lan Zhan.
“Sorry, I’m sorry,” he says, and tries to pull away, but before he can get very far, Lan Zhan scoops him up with one arm and draws him in until he’s half lying on Lan Zhan’s chest, the thump thump thump of a heartbeat just under his ear.
“It’s alright,” Lan Zhan says. “Stay.”
Wei Wuxian clenches his jaw around what he wants to say, that he wants to stay and stay and stay, but he knows Lan Zhan will get sick of him eventually, that he wants too much.
“It was bad?”
“It’s always bad,” Wei Wuxian mumbles into the robes under his cheek, because he has so very little self-control when it comes to Lan Zhan. Lan Zhan runs a hand through Wei Ying’s hair, brushing a stray strand of hair from his forehead, and Wei Wuxian’s eyes sting. The gesture is sweet, intimate, far more kind than he deserves. “Lan Zhan, stop being so nice to me.”
“I won’t.” His nails scratch lightly over Wei Wuxian’s scalp. “Would you like to talk about your nightmares?”
No, not really. “Do you have nightmares?”
“I do,” Lan Zhan answers.
“What are they about?” Wei Wuxian asks, and then immediately feels like a jerk for asking. “You don’t have to say if you don’t want to.”
Lan Zhan hums, the low sound he makes when he is looking for the right words. “The Sunshot Campaign. Grief. Silence, loneliness.”
Wei Wuxian swears he could breathe just a second ago, but he seems to have lost that ability under the weight of his stupid feelings. “I’m sorry,” he whispers, and he hopes Lan Zhan doesn’t hear it.
“And you?”
“Ah,” Wei Wuxian chokes, and then clears his throat. “I have nightmares about Sunshot sometimes, too, the attack on Lotus Pier. But it’s mostly just--it’s like isolated memories, flashes of them.” His fist closes on Lan Zhan’s sleep robe, the fine fabric wrinkling under his hand. He can’t think too hard on the fact that he is being allowed this. “Grief, too. I miss Shijie, and Wen Qing, and Si-shu, all of the Wen.” He wipes hard at his wet cheek. “A-Yuan, sweet little a-Yuan. He was such a good boy.”
A sob shakes him and Lan Zhan’s arm tightens around him.
“You have experienced much loss, Wei Ying,” Lan Zhan murmurs into his hair.
“I thought I’d lost everyone, one way or another,” Wei Wuxian says. “But I didn’t, Lan Zhan. You’re here.”
They fall into a routine after that. They travel during the day like they are simply out for a leisurely stroll, stopping any time they see something along the road or visible in the distance that looks interesting or beautiful. Lan Zhan usually spots the latter. He never suggests they change their pace, and he is as likely to stop them as Wei Wuxian, happy to take extended picnic lunches near pretty little creeks or in sunlit clearings among the big, old trees. It feels indulgent, luxurious. It is maybe the most peace Wei Wuxian has had since that summer in the Cloud Recesses, chasing after Lan Zhan for a reaction.
He doesn’t need to chase him now, and he isn’t quite sure what to do with that. So he pushes, because that's what he did, what he always did. Pushed until he found the boundaries of what someone would tolerate. But Lan Zhan--this quietly confident, grown-up version of Lan Zhan--just keeps giving and giving. Wei Wuxian hasn’t found the edges of what he will accept yet, and it scares him.
At night, they camp or get a room at an inn, sharing a bed or a sleeping mat. Wei Wuxian wraps himself around Lan Zhan as close as he can and they don’t talk about it, but Lan Zhan cuddles him back, so maybe it’s a good strategy for now.
It works for a little over a week.
Then they are finishing dinner one night in their room in an inn in some village Wei Wuxian has never heard of, and he’s had just enough alcohol to loosen his mouth. “Lan Zhan, Lan Zhan, you know, I’m really happy,” he says, and realizes as he says it that it’s true. “The happiest I’ve been in a really long time, maybe since we traveled together as kids.” That sounds, probably, not great, considering everything. “I know that a lot of things are messed up right now, but you’re kind of my favorite person and I liked--I like traveling with you the best.”
Lan Zhan’s ears are a bit pink at their tips; it’s cute. He’s cute. “It is good to have Wei Ying at my side.”
“We’re a good team, aren’t we, Hanguang-jun?”
“We are.”
“Like--well, it’s a little bit like Song Lan and Xiao Xingchen, right?”
“Mn.”
Wei Wuxian can hear the smile in his voice, and it’s almost too much for him to stand. He shivers with how happy he is, and how afraid he is to fuck it up, and the weird combination those two things make together in his stomach.
“I know I used to say a lot of shit about the Cloud Recesses, but I missed it after the lectures. It was so… peaceful. Beautiful. Plus, you were there, and no one got mad at me for being good at things, either. And it, well, it made sense when I got punished in the Cloud Recesses because at least I knew what rules I was actually breaking. That was an improvement, trust me.” He’s rambling; he has to bite down on his lip to make himself stop.
Lan Zhan leans over the table and thumbs Wei Wuxian’s bottom lip out from between his teeth, but doesn’t look at him, which is the worst, Wei Wuxian has decided. He wants Lan Zhan to look at him all the time, though the thought makes him feel flushed.
“You never came back to Gusu,” Lan Zhan says, and it is true that he’s just stating a fact, but Wei Wuxian knows him well enough now to know that there are layers of meaning in the simple syllables.
“Aiyou, Lan Zhan,” Wei Wuxian starts. “How could I have? I really thought you wanted to punish me for my wicked ways.”
Wei Wuxian can hear the hitch in Lan Zhan’s breath, and then Lan Zhan’s forefinger is tipping his chin up so that they have to look each other in the face.
“I didn’t,” Lan Zhan says, and his gaze is firm and steady, but his eyes are wet. “I wouldn’t.”
His eyes are deep amber wells and Wei Wuxian cannot concentrate. “You should know,” he says, and then has to pause to lick his dry lips. Lan Zhan’s eyes drop down to his mouth and then come back up. “I always wanted to come back to the Cloud Recesses with you. Just because I didn’t think I could doesn’t mean I didn’t want to.”
Lan Zhan studies him for a long moment, his finger still holding Wei Wuxian’s head in place so he can look as much as he’d like. Wei Wuxian is taken completely by surprise when Lan Zhan’s lips touch his. They are warm and soft, a little dry, and the press of them against Wei Wuxian’s mouth is amazing. They share a breath between them. Then Lan Zhan is pulling away, pausing to dip their foreheads together, and then they aren’t touching at all anymore. Wei Wuxian makes a noise of complaint because, really, why would they ever stop now that they’ve done that? They should do more of that immediately.
“We should prepare for bed,” Lan Zhan says, instead of doing what he should be doing, which is kissing Wei Wuxian again. But bed means Lan Zhan’s arms around his shoulders, and that’s good, too.
They don’t kiss again or talk about the kiss the entire next day, but it’s all Wei Wuxian can think about. He thinks about it through breakfast and he thinks about it as he cajoles his stubborn donkey into moving and with every li they travel. How plush Lan Zhan’s lips were. How he wanted more. Wants more. The millions of questions it brings up.
Why did Lan Zhan kiss him? How did he know how to do that? Did that mean he’d kissed other people? Who else had he kissed? Surely there had to have been someone because Lan Zhan is so good, and he’s gorgeous, and if it was that good to kiss him, surely whoever kissed him would want to do it all the time, wouldn’t they?
His whole body feels taut; he’s more than a little jumpy. He tries to cover for it with laughter and Lan Zhan doesn’t say anything but he does look at him out of the corner of his eye a bit more than usual.
Wei Wuxian, of course, babbles through dinner. He can’t seem to make his mouth stop moving, and Lan Zhan doesn’t stop him. He just nods indulgently, and hums encouragement, and looks so soft and warm in the candlelight that Wei Wuxian’s fingers itch to touch him. He’d already taken his fancy guan down and re-tied his hair, stripped his outermost layer off. Wei Wuxian loves him like this, and he loves that he gets to see him like this, one of the few lucky enough to be trusted with a Lan Zhan so relaxed and contented. It feels domestic. Homey.
“Song Lan and Xiao Xingchen wanted to start their own sect, didn’t they?” Wei Wuxian asks, fiddling with a cup in one hand. Lan Zhan dips his head in acknowledgement. “It would have been pretty great, I think. I bet they would have been good teachers.”
“You would be a good teacher,” Lan Zhan says, and Wei Wuxian wrinkles his nose a little. He’s so much more comfortable with Lan Zhan’s criticism than his praise, even now, even though Lan Zhan has done nothing but show him more kindness than he deserves since he’s been back.
“I wanted to. I thought I would end up teaching disciples in Lotus Pier but--” Wei Wuxian says, and tosses a cup back. “Sometimes I think about having a little cabin somewhere. Out in the middle of nowhere, away from the politics. We could farm vegetables, and there’d have to be fruit trees, too, for Little Apple.”
The corners of Lan Zhan’s mouth are tipped up. “What vegetables would we grow?”
“Not radishes, that’s for damn sure,” Wei Wuxian laughs wryly. “Potatoes and cabbage, some cucumbers and gourds, maybe some beans. We’ll have to have carrots for the rabbits, too.”
“We will have rabbits?”
“Obviously! We have to have rabbits! Rabbits love Hanguang-jun. And a couple of fat chickens.” He puts three fingers to the side of his head. “And I promise that we won’t even eat them!”
Lan Zhan huffs, his version of a hearty chuckle, and it feels like honey in Wei Wuxian’s chest.
“We could play music together to entertain the bunnies, what do you think?”
“I would like that.”
Wei Wuxian pours himself another cup of liquor and looks down at his hands. He has kept so many secrets that eat at him. He’s good at keeping his mouth shut. But he can’t stop himself from saying this. He has to. He has to know. “Lan Zhan. You kissed me last night.”
“I am sorry. If I--” Lan Zhan starts, and he sounds so contrite and miserable that Wei Wuxian can’t listen to it for a second longer.
“Why haven’t you kissed me again?” He gets a jolt of bravery and manages to look up to where Lan Zhan is staring at him, his eyes wide and his lips slightly parted, his ears red. It would be nice to touch his ears. They’re probably warm. “I would--that is, if you wanted to. You could.”
“Wei Ying.” His voice is rougher and deeper than usual.
“I want you to.”
Lan Zhan swallows, and then rises gracefully to his feet. “Ah?” Wei Wuxian asks, but then Lan Zhan is sweeping around the table to pull him up by the hand.
They stand facing each other for what seems like much too long. Like a shi, maybe. A whole night. 13 years.
Then Lan Zhan’s hand cups Wei Wuxian’s cheek and he draws near slowly. He gives Wei Wuxian time to change his mind, but that isn’t going to happen and Wei Wuxian wishes Lan Zhan would just take what he wants because he’s only pretending that he is not scared half to death. He gasps when Lan Zhan’s mouth finally lands on his own and then whines when Lan Zhan tries to pull away so that they end up closer together instead. One of Lan Zhan’s huge hands grips his waist, and the other slides from his cheek down into his hair to cup the back of his skull, pulling Wei Wuxian further into the kiss. When Wei Wuxian opens his mouth, Lan Zhan’s tongue takes it as an invitation and his knees feel suddenly weak at the sensation. He would fall if not for Lan Zhan’s hands on him
(he fell, he did, he fell and fell and fell--no)
holding him up and close. Lan Zhan’s body is hot against his as Lan Zhan leads them in an awkward shuffle in the direction of the bed. The platform hits the back of his legs, and Lan Zhan tips them over onto it without letting their mouths part for an instant. It is terribly, excruciatingly sexy, and the sound that Wei Wuxian makes is incredibly embarrassing. Lan Zhan bites his lower lip in response, though, and extinguishes all but a couple of candles around the room with a flick of his wrist, so it must have been alright anyway.
Lan Zhan has him caged in like this, their chests touching as they pant for breath. It makes Wei Wuxian feel small in a good way, protected and held.
Then Lan Zhan’s mouth is leaving his, and he whines to get it back, but Lan Zhan nibbles on his jaw and the soft skin just behind his ear and he changes his mind. This is perfect, actually, wonderful. It makes his eyelids flutter and his head tilt back to make way for whatever Lan Zhan wants. His hands find their way into Lan Zhan’s hair, tangling in the soft strands at his nape. He was right; it feels like fine, soft silk.
“La--Lan Zhan,” he says next to Lan Zhan’s temple, his lips just barely brushing over warm skin and hair.
Wei Wuxian moans and trembles when Lan Zhan drops closer to him still. Their thighs slot together, his cock rubs against Lan Zhan’s clothed hip, and then he feels the hard line of Lan Zhan’s arousal pressed against his thigh. Lan Zhan hisses and closes his eyes as his hips jerk into the friction.
“Wei Ying,” he groans, and it is literally the sexiest sound Wei Wuxian has ever heard in his life. He is even more embarrassed about his own noises now, but Lan Zhan sounds so good that he can’t think about it for long. “Wei Ying,” Lan Zhan says again into the hollow of Wei Wuxian’s throat. “If we don’t stop now, I will want more than is mine to take.”
“It’s yours for the taking, Hanguang-jun,” Wei Wuxian whispers into his ear. He can feel the pleased rumble of Lan Zhan’s voice everywhere their bodies touch, but especially where Lan Zhan bites down on his throat and sucks. “How could this weak and feeble man keep you from taking anything you wanted?”
Lan Zhan buries his face under Wei Wuxian’s ear where he has just finished biting and sucking at the sensitive skin and he moans. A shiver travels down his spine. He breathes there for a few beats to collect himself before his fingers trail down Wei Wuxian’s robes, finding and plucking open all the ties that hold them together. He doesn’t bother to sit Wei Wuxian up to pull them off of him; he just flings them open until Wei Wuxian’s chest is bared to him.
His eyes turn dark and hungry. They follow his hand as it slides from sternum down the stomach and the little trail of dark hair that disappears underneath the waistband of Wei Wuxian’s pants. It feels like his skin has been lit up underneath Lan Zhan’s palm. Like everywhere Lan Zhan touches is being made new. Made better.
“You, too!” Wei Wuxian protests so that he doesn’t sob instead. “It’s not fair if I’m the only one who looks indecent, is it?”
“Shameless,” Lan Zhan says, when he’s the one running his hands up Wei Wuxian’s sides, onto his ribs until his thumbs circle experimentally over Wei Wuxian’s nipples.
“Yes,” he gasps as his back arches to be closer to Lan Zhan at the touch. Wei Wuxian has not thought much about his nipples until just now, but it’s hard to think of anything else with Lan Zhan touching them.
Lan Zhan’s hands leave him, and his eyes snap open, but it’s ok because Lan Zhan is undoing his own layers of robes, shrugging them off behind him. He’s not as graceful as he usually is; his hands are trembling. Wei Wuxian covers them with his own.
“Lan Zhan,” he says. “Slow. Slow is ok.” Lan Zhan’s inhale stumbles over itself. “Let me help. I want to touch you. Can I touch you, Lan-er-gege?”
With a jerky nod and an expression something like awe, Lan Zhan’s white knuckles unlock from the ties at his waist so that Wei Wuxian can pluck at them instead. He sits up a bit to help Lan Zhan tug the fabric off his shoulders and touches his open mouth against Lan Zhan’s chest when he can finally get to it, tasting the warmth of his skin. The sound Lan Zhan makes travels directly to his twitching cock, a broken, wanting little sound. He can feel the proof of Lan Zhan’s arousal hot and hard on his stomach and the scar on Lan Zhan’s chest under his lips.
“I don’t, ah,” he says and laughs lightly. “I don’t actually know what I’m doing. So I really hope that you do.”
Remarkably, beautifully, Lan Zhan huffs in quiet laughter and they fall back on the bed together and Lan Zhan nuzzles under his jaw, peppering his throat with kisses. Their chests, now bare, come together. The skin to skin contact knocks the air right out of Wei Wuxian’s lungs.
Lan Zhan is hot, flushed where Wei Wuxian can see his ears. Wei Wuxian remembers that he wanted to touch them, so he runs his hands over the ridged scars on Lan Zhan’s back where they wrap around onto his shoulders
(what happened? who could have hurt him like this? who could do something like that to this man who is so good?)
and lets one of them wander to brush his thumb over the shell of Lan Zhan’s ear.
He giggles unevenly through a moan; he can’t help it. “I was right, they are warm! So cute, Lan-er-gege, is this for me?” Despite everything, despite the grief that lingers in him always and despite the danger they are walking towards every day, there is a bubble of joy in his throat, lighting up his hollow chest, in the empty place where his core used to glow. It threatens to break him right down the center, and when Lan Zhan bites hard on the junction of his shoulder and neck, he cracks open. “Lan Zhan,” he begs, and he isn’t sure what he’s begging for but he’ll take anything Lan Zhan will give him. He deserves none of it, but he’ll take it anyway. They rut their hips together in a steady roll; Lan Zhan nips and bites at Wei Wuxian’s neck.
“Please--ah, Lan Zhan, please, please,” Wei Wuxian says, mumbling and breathless, overwhelmed and yet wanting more.
When Lan Zhan slips one of his big hands down Wei Wuxian’s pants and wraps his long fingers around Wei Wuxian’s length, he moans as though he’s the one being grabbed and drops his forehead to rest against Wei Wuxian’s shoulder. His thumb brushes over the head of Wei Wuxian’s cock and smears the pre-come he finds down the shaft. Wei Wuxian has never felt this hot in his belly, this overwhelmed with a pleasurable sensation. Pain, sure, a bunch of times. But he doesn’t think he’s ever felt anything this good.
“Fuck,” he moans.
Lan Zhan rasps, “Is it good?”
Wei Wuxian whines at the back of his throat and his hands scrabble at Lan Zhan’s pants until he manages to wrestle his way in and wrap his own hand around Lan Zhan’s cock. It is, in a word, huge. The skin is hot and silky soft when he trails his fingers up the shaft. He’s so hard, and Wei Wuxian did that to him; Wei Wuxian made the Second Jade of Lan moan and--
“Fuck,” Lan Zhan says, and Wei Wuxian giggles helplessly until Lan Zhan squeezes a little too hard in retribution for being laughed at, but it just makes Wei Wuxian groan and buck his hips.
Lan Zhan makes a sound that can only be described as a growl and Wei Wuxian can feel his cock trying to twitch in Lan Zhan’s hand about it. Then Lan Zhan loses his patience, bats his hand away and takes them both in his grip.
Wei Ying gasps at the feeling, laughs breathlessly. He can hardly believe this is happening.
“Lan-er-gege, you have the best ideas,” he says. It’s true, Lan Zhan has the best ideas. This is incredible, the pleasure climbing up his spine, into his jaw. He tangles his fingers in Lan Zhan’s hair to pull him down for a kiss, and Lan Zhan kisses like he has been starving for it, deep and claiming. Then he starts to stroke them together and Wei Wuxian pants and moans and whines between their mouths.
The feeling is overwhelming, wholly and completely different from the occasions he has touched himself. It rolls over Wei Wuxian in waves, each one bigger than the last. “Lan Zhan, I’m going to--I’m close,” he pants, and it makes Lan Zhan bite viciously down on his bottom lip, a bright spot of pain that drives his pleasure higher still.
He spills and his body arches up off the bed to get closer to Lan Zhan, seeking him by instinct, the way he always has. “Lan Zhan,” he gasps into the hollow of Lan Zhan’s throat. And then Lan Zhan comes with a tiny sound in the back of his throat, their spend mixing on Wei Wuxian’s heaving stomach. Lan Zhan nearly collapses onto Wei Wuxian’s chest, but manages at the very last second to tip a little to the side. One of his legs and one of his arms remains sprawled over Wei Wuxian, and it’s sticky between them.
When he has his breath back, Wei Wuxian says, “We should have been doing that when we were 16.”
Lan Zhan replies, deadpan as ever, “We would have never gotten anything done.”
The laughter that leaps out of Wei Wuxian makes them both shake, and he can feel Lan Zhan’s upturned mouth against his shoulder, and for now, everything is perfect.
He doesn’t have to think about what tomorrow might bring.
He does think about it, eventually, and it keeps him sleepless long after Lan Zhan has drifted off.
The morning, it turns out, comes in slow and sweet. Wei Wuxian wakes to the press of Lan Zhan’s lips against his hairline, and that deep voice rumbling his name under his ear where it’s pressed against Lan Zhan’s chest. The sun is already warming them through the windows, which means it must be well past Lan Zhan’s typical waking. He doesn’t remember feeling Lan Zhan stir, but they are clean from last night, so Lan Zhan must have gotten up to clean them and then gotten back in bed with him. If he could melt, that realization might have made him.
“Lan Zhan, goodmorning,” he says just to have the name in his mouth and he knows his smile is audible.
They don’t talk about last night as they get ready for their day, and they don’t talk about it over breakfast or walking side-by-side, or even during the detour Wei Wuxian drags them on to follow a little creek through the woods. They don’t talk about it at all,
(if they talk about it, it may never happen again. If they talk about it, Wei Wuxian might learn that Lan Zhan regrets it or that Lan Zhan doesn’t feel the same that he does, that this is just--He doesn’t know, a lark? A bit of fun? A distraction? It is a problem that he doesn’t know, but once he knows it will be real and right now it’s just a happy dream. His happy dreams don’t usually stay)
but that night, it happens again: sharing dinner and then kisses, tumbling into bed with their hands on each other, half-dressed. The same thing happens the next day, and the third, until the pattern breaks.
They hit a small town in their travels, earlier than they would normally end for the day, but Lan Zhan stops them in front of the inn to hand Wei Wuxian a money pouch from his sleeve. “Wei Ying, will you get us a room? I will return shortly,” he says.
Wei Wuxian studies Lan Zhan for a moment and watches with a raised eyebrow as Lan Zhan’s ears begin to turn pink. “Are you keeping secrets from me, Hanguang-jun?”
“Mn,” Lan Zhan agrees.
“Good secrets?”
“Mn.”
“Then I suppose I will allow it.” He winks and saunters into the inn, twirling the money bag around his finger, knowing that, like this, he looks coy and tempting and much more confident than he is.
He refuses to let himself spiral into anxiety about Lan Zhan’s sudden need to run an errand alone. It couldn’t be anything nefarious, after all, since Wei Wuxian asked if it was good and Lan Zhan agreed. Of course, that doesn’t really tell Wei Wuxian anything since it only means that Lan Zhan thinks of it as good, not that it is objectively good, so it could be a lot of things, it could be anything, honestly. Lan Zhan could be sending a letter to his brother or the juniors. He could be grabbing supplies to fix the little tear in Wei Wuxian’s robes he kept eyeing whenever Wei Wuxian insisted he didn’t need new ones. He could be dropping in to greet an old friend, or checking up on someone he’d helped on a night hunt. He could--Lan Zhan could have a lover here, or a former lover. Someone he loved. Loves.
By the time Lan Zhan gets back, Wei Wuxian is pacing in the room he got for them, impatient and nervous for all that Lan Zhan was only gone for a shi. Not like he was panicking or anything.
“Lan Zhan!” he says, the moment Lan Zhan walks into the door, and he winces at himself because honestly he wouldn’t even blame Lan Zhan for being annoyed with him and needing some space. Instead of looking annoyed, though, Lan Zhan gives him that warm, soft look. “Lan Zhan, it was so boring without you!”
A smile plays at Lan Zhan’s pink lips. “Didn’t you say I was boring?”
“Aiyah, Lan Zhan, that was years ago! I have grown as a person since then!”
One of Lan Zhan’s eyebrows quirks the tiniest amount, as if to say, Is that so?
“Always teasing your poor Wei Ying,” Wei Wuxian pouts, and then tugs Lan Zhan towards the table by his sleeve. “C’mon, let me make you some tea, and you can tell me what you saw in town while you were on your errand.”
Lan Zhan sits and starts to pull the pins out of his guan as Wei Wuxian bustles about making the tea. “There was a man selling kites,” Lan Zhan says, and Wei Wuxian hums to let him know he is listening. This is something Wei Wuxian has discovered in the last few weeks: if he gives Lan Zhan a topic and manages to keep his mouth mostly shut for a while, he’ll get to listen to Lan Zhan talk, and he likes that very much.
“They were pretty. One had lotus flowers on it. It reminded me of you.”
Wei Wuxian can feel his eyes crinkle with how hard he is smiling. “Maybe we should buy it before we leave tomorrow, hm? Would you fly a kite with me, Lan Zhan?” He can picture it: Lan Wangji with all his grace and poise, holding delicately onto the string of a kite. He would, Wei Wuxian knows, look a little in awe at how pretty it was, how it was something almost like magic to see it floating in the middle of all that blue sky.
“Mn. We will buy it.” Lan Zhan looks pleased. It's in the barest curve of his lips, the gentleness around his eyes, the way the tension has fallen out of his jaws and his shoulders. He still has perfect posture, of course, but he’s relaxed in it, held upright instead of pulled.
Wei Wuxian wonders when he started learning Lan Zhan this way. There had been so many misunderstandings between them before, but how much of that had been Wei Wuxian’s own willful insistence, hell-bent on pushing everyone away so that he couldn’t drag them down with him? He thinks maybe he’s always been able to see the glimmer of Lan Zhan’s hidden depths, and he has wanted to know them, to crack Lan Zhan open so he can get his hands inside where he is hot and soft.
“What else did you see?” he asks.
“There were children playing, but I distracted them from their game. I am not sure they have seen many cultivators,” Lan Zhan says. “I would have returned sooner but they were curious so I sat with them for a time.”
“Ah, Lan Zhan, Lan Zhan, such a softy!” Wei Wuxian is grinning so widely that his cheeks are getting sore. “And what wisdom did you entrust to their care?”
“I taught them how to meditate.”
Wei Wuxian laughs from deep in his belly, delighted. “I wish I’d been there to see it. I bet you all were adorable.”
There is a knock at the door, Wei Wuxian bounces up to answer it, and soon a couple of inn staff are bustling in with trays of food that they lay out on the table efficiently. “Gongzi, the bath you asked for will come in half a shi, if that is alright.”
“Mn,” Lan Zhan says. “Thank you.” He slips a bit of silver into her hand.
The food is good; several of the dishes are red enough to be spicy, and Lan Zhan puts the best bites of them in Wei Wuxian’s bowl as often as he sneaks in a bland vegetable. Wei Wuxian can’t stop smiling as he chatters. Every once and a while, Lan Zhan gestures at Wei Wuxian’s bowl with his chopsticks to remind him to take a bite, but by some miracle, he never looks annoyed. He listens and nods, hums at the right places, and he watches Wei Wuxian’s face like he’s greedy for it.
The bath arrives as they are finishing up, and Lan Zhan pours him a cup of alcohol as the inn staff carry in a tub and buckets of water. When they leave, Wei Wuxian’s mouth moves faster than his brain: “I want--Lan Zhan, can I wash your hair for you?”
Lan Zhan’s eyes widen a fraction and his ears start to turn pink, which Wei Wuxian thinks, at this point, he can safely assume is a positive reaction. “I would like that,” Lan Zhan says, barely a whisper, looking at the table.
“Hey,” Wei Wuxian says, and cups Lan Zhan’s jaw with a light touch. “Me, too. I’d like it too, ok?”
Wei Wuxian waits at the table when Lan Zhan ducks behind the privacy screen by the bath, stripping off his outer layers to his trousers and shirt. He can see Lan Zhan’s silhouette through the screen, and part of him feels like he should turn away to protect Lan Zhan’s modesty. A silly thought, really, considering he’s had his hand around his dick, but they still haven’t seen each other totally bare, haven’t really stopped to look at each other in the light. When they’ve fallen together, it has been fast and half-desperate, more touch than sight.
Once Lan Zhan’s silhouette has settled into the tub, Wei Wuxian pokes his head around the screen, his eyes carefully schooled at Lan Zhan’s face and definitely not sneaking peeks towards the water for a glimpse of anything. Lan Zhan’s forehead is bare, and somehow that makes the whole scene more intimate. He looks younger sitting there in the bath with his naked forehead, his cheeks pink from the heat of the water, his knees just breaching the surface of the water, pale and, in Wei Wuxian’s opinion, very kissable. Wei Wuxian clears his throat and kneels behind him before he can embarrass himself by staring too long.
Soap and a bottle of hair oil have already been set on a low stool next to the tub. Lan Zhan’s hair is thick and beautiful, silken in Wei Wuxian’s fingers. He’s thought about touching it so many times, and in the last few days, he’s gotten to touch it so much, he’s gotten to wrap it around his fingers and bury his face in it. It still makes something bone deep in him settle. He dunks a bowl in the water to pour over Lan Zhan’s hair, careful to keep it from his eyes, and massages the water through the locks, letting his fingernails graze over Lan Zhan’s scalp.
“Lan Zhan, do you have a comb?”
“Mn,” Lan Zhan says, but it’s strangely rough, so Wei Wuxian ducks to the side and gently turns his head. There is a tear on his cheek.
“What’s wrong? Did I hurt you?”
Lan Zhan shakes his head and cups Wei Wuxian’s face in one of his hands and tips their foreheads together. Sometimes Lan Zhan needs quiet, and Wei Wuxian is trying really hard to learn to still his tongue, because he wants--he wants so badly--to know every part of Lan Zhan he will offer. And so they stay that way for several slow breaths while Lan Zhan gathers his words.
“My mother,” he starts, and then clears his throat as Wei Wuxian wipes the tear away from his jaw with a thumb. “No one has done this for me since she died.”
Wei Wuxian kisses him softly and nuzzles their noses together. How can he do anything else? He wants to say--so many things. He wants to say: I love you. Let me love you. But it’s a lot. Too much. This is about Lan Zhan. “Let me take care of you, ok?” Wei Wuxian says instead.
“Ok.” He sounds young, and vulnerable, serving up his underbelly for Wei Wuxian and trusting that he won’t be hurt.
It’s stupid. He shouldn’t trust Wei Wuxian like that, not with something so important.
But Wei Wuxian wants him--his trust anyway.
Wei Wuxian presses his lips to Lan Zhan’s forehead, where his ribbon would sit normally, and he hears the sharp little inhale, and he lets his smiling lips linger.
When he goes back to Lan Zhan’s hair, he takes his time with his task. He is sure to soap all through the dark locks, and he pays special attention to rinsing so that the soap doesn’t go in Lan Zhan’s eyes. Then he runs oil through with his fingers, rubbing over Lan Zhan’s temples and down the nape of his neck in soothing circles. The comb doesn’t hit a single knot when he passes it through, he’s been that careful with his fingers. Wei Wuxian is pretty sure that Lan Zhan cries for at least part of it, but his breathing is slow and steady so Wei Wuxian lets him have his silence.
Finally, he brushes Lan Zhan’s hair over his shoulder to expose his back, both palms resting lightly on his shoulders. This is the first time Lan Zhan has let him look, really look, at the thick scars. Some of them wrap around his shoulders, his rib cage; one of the scars curls over his collarbone, a break in the line over the hollow before it continues onto the top of his chest. The scarring is so thick in some areas that no unmarked flesh peeks through at all. It looks like a monster ripped him open with jagged claws and no one bothered to stitch up the wounds. It was a crime, what was done to him; he could not have possibly deserved it.
Wei Wuxian starts with his fingers, tracing the path of each scar. Then he follows his fingers with his mouth, and Lan Zhan croaks, “Wei Ying. I can’t.”
He stops immediately and wraps his arms around Lan Zhan’s shoulders, pressing Lan Zhan’s temple to his cheek. “It’s ok. I know, I’ve got you.” He replaces his cheek with his lips and Lan Zhan finally leans into him, wrapping his hands around Wei Wuxian’s forearms.
“I’m sorry,” Lan Zhan murmurs.
“No, not for this. Not for this, Lan Zhan.”
Then they are kissing again, chaste at first, just looking to comfort and be comforted, but it soon gets deeper. Lan Zhan coaxes Wei Wuxian’s mouth open with his tongue and they moan into each other’s mouths. He turns in Wei Wuxian’s arms to pull him even closer and when water sloshes over the edge of the tub, Wei Wuxian giggles. Lan Zhan eagerly swallows up the sound.
“Let’s get you out of there, ah? There’s so much of you I can’t touch in there, Lan-er-gege,” Wei Wuxian laughs, and Lan Zhan nods and waits for him to fetch a towel before he stands.
He lets Wei Wuxian dry him, and Wei Wuxian’s cheeks are hot the whole time. Lan Zhan is beautiful, of course, sculpted out of something even finer and paler than jade, something that is hard and soft at once, silky skin over solid muscle. He is half-hard just from this, and even his cock is pretty in its nest of neat, dark curls.
Lan Zhan gets impatient when Wei Wuxian is wringing his hair out, and he takes the towel from Wei Ying’s hands and tosses it aside to draw him in by his robes until they are in kissing distance again. Lan Zhan doesn’t waste any time taking what he wants; he kisses deep and long until Wei Wuxian feels breathless and aching.
“Lan Zhan, I want to taste you,” Wei Wuxian says, his lips still brushing Lan Wangji’s. One of his hands drifts down Lan Zhan’s abdomen, skipping teasingly over his skin, and comes to rest in a loose grip around Lan Zhan’s arousal. “I want you in my mouth. Can I do that, Lan-er-gege? Will you let me?”
Lan Zhan kisses him again feverishly, then pushes him down to his knees by his shoulders. Wei Wuxian giggles a bit at the eagerness and Lan Zhan’s ears turn red, but Wei Wuxian gets hard so fast that he feels a little dizzy with it. It doesn’t help that Lan Zhan is just right there, his dick level with Wei Wuxian’s wet mouth, fully erect now, the foreskin pulled back enough for this pink head to poke through.
“I’ve never done this before, so you have to--to tell me if I’m not doing it right,” Wei Wuxian says, and Lan Zhan opens his mouth to speak, but when Wei Wuxian gives his slit a little kitten lick, all that comes out is a moan.
Wei Wuxian wraps his hand around the base of Lan Zhan’s cock to hold it steady so he can lick and kiss his way up and down the shaft. Lan Zhan pants above him, and then Wei Wuxian takes him fully in his mouth and Lan Zhan groans so low and long that Wei Wuxian can feel it vibrating against his lips. Lan Zhan tastes of salt and clean skin. Rather than choke himself right away--though the option doesn’t sound so bad when he thinks about it--he eases his way down, taking as much of Lan Zhan as he can. The weight of him feels so good on his tongue that he’s afraid he might come in his pants without a single touch. He looks up as Lan Zhan hits the back of his throat and Lan Zhan looks enraptured, in awe. His lips are parted and his eyes are half-lidded, his pupils blown to deep, black pools. Lan Zhan’s fingers find their way into Wei Wuxian’s hair, not pushing or pulling, just looking for a place to be, but Wei Wuxian sort of wishes he would pull, that he would pull his hair and hold him in place and use him.
“Wei Ying,” Lan Zhan says, and it sounds like zhiji. “I want--” he moans and then tries again. “I want to--”
Wei Wuxian shows him a little mercy and pulls his mouth off of him. “What do you want, Lan-er-gege? Tell me what you want so I can give it to you. I want to.”
“Wei Ying, I want--” he closes his eyes and swallows hard. “I want to be inside you.”
With a shiver, Wei Wuxian says back, trying for a lilting tease but probably ending somewhere in the region of starving for it, “Lan Zhan, you want to fuck me?”
“Wei Ying,” Lan Zhan groans, and it is both an admonishment and a confirmation.
Wei Wuxian gets to his feet slowly and wraps his arms around Lan Zhan’s neck, a satisfied little sound escaping when Lan Zhan’s hands grab onto his waist and squeeze. “You want to take the last of my virtue, Hanguang-jun?” he teases. “Put your big, pretty co--”
Lan Zhan shuts him up with a fierce kiss, holding onto his head in both hands. They stumble together and almost knock into the privacy screen and Wei Wuxian just has to toss his head back and laugh. This, of course, creates an opening for Lan Zhan’s hot mouth and his sharp teeth. Wei Wuxian’s neck is already marked in a few places, but he certainly isn’t going to stop Lan Zhan from marking him again.
“Take me to bed, gege, hm?” he says, because he isn’t sure he is going to be able to stand for much longer if Lan Zhan keeps doing what he’s doing, nibbling his throat and jaw.
He yelps when Lan Zhan simply picks him by the backs of his thighs, and then he laughs again. It feels good to laugh like this, like he’s rediscovered some part of himself he thought was torn out of him with his golden core, the part of himself that plays and laughs and touches because it feels good, not because he is trying to distract or hide. He probably couldn’t distract Lan Zhan right now if he tried.
“Ah, gege, you’ll spoil me, you know?” he says through his laugh. “I’m supposed to be taking care of you tonight, remember?”
“You did,” Lan Zhan says. “You are.”
Lan Zhan sits Wei Wuxian down on the bed gently, and then immediately pushes him onto his back and crawls over him, shoving his robe aside and off his shoulders to plant searing kisses on his stomach, his chest, his hard, brown nipples, tugging his trousers off gracelessly and throwing them out of the way. Between Lan Zhan’s hands and his mouth, Wei Wuxian pants and moans and says his name over and over, because he is here, they are both here, and Wei Wuxian would have never even known to imagine something like this with Lan Zhan. This is so much more than his furtive, teenage fantasies of stolen kisses and held hands.
Then there is something cold and wet pressing against his hole, rubbing little circles over the sensitive skin, and he gasps. He knows, in theory, from the many, many books Nie Huaisang shared when they were teenagers, that it is totally possible to be entered there, and he did, in fact, just invite Lan Zhan to do exactly that, but it still feels a bit impossible. Lan Zhan is gigantic! Where is all of that dick going to go inside of him? His sources have been a bit muddy on that point. He wants it, though. He wants to be re-made in the shape of Lan Zhan.
But when Lan Zhan’s finger presses into him finally, it glides smoothly, painlessly.
“Is this ok?” Lan Zhan asks. His voice is tight, strained. This poor man is trying so hard to control himself. And it is ok. It’s strange, but it isn’t unpleasant, so he bites his bottom lip between his teeth and nods, and he sighs into Lan Zhan’s kiss as the finger starts to slowly move in and out.
“What is--your finger, it’s wet,” Wei Wuxian says.
“Mn,” Lan Zhan agrees, clearly distracted by what he is doing. “Oil. For lubrication. I bought it today.”
“How scandalous, Lan Zhan! Sneaking away to buy sex supplies!”
“I was thinking about you. I’ve wanted this.”
Wei Wuxian is going to start crying if Lan Zhan keeps being so nice to him.
When Lan Zhan curls his finger, he hits something that makes Wei Wuxian see stars and gasp. “Oh fuck, Lan Zhan,” he says. “Fuck, do that again.” He does, and Wei Wuxian keens when he adds a second finger and presses on that spot harder on his next pass. He can feel his dick leaking onto his stomach; he’s making a mess. He wants to make a mess. “What is--what are you doing to me?”
“It’s good?”
“Mn, gege, yes, keep going,” Wei Wuxian moans. “How are you so good at this?”
(He could kick himself for asking. If Lan Zhan has--if he’s been with other people, it’s none of Wei Wuxian’s business, and he isn’t sure he wants to know.)
“Books,” Lan Zhan says. “I read books.”
He is so earnest and sweet, and Wei Wuxian can’t help but giggle. “Such a quick study, my Lan-er-gege,” he purrs.
“Shut up,” Lan Zhan says, low and darkly threatening. Wei Wuxian wishes Lan Zhan would make him shut up, would put one of his big hands over his mouth and maybe hurt him a little until he obeyed. He thinks of telling Lan Zhan that. His belly is hot with the idea, arousal and shame wrapped around each other like twins.
Wei Wuxian nips at Lan Zhan’s earlobe. “Come on, Lan Zhan, I want you inside me. Won’t you teach this poor virgin what you learned?”
Lan Zhan looks at him seriously, his fingers still rocking in and out of his hole. “It might hurt if I try to do it now.” His flushes an even darker pink, the color traveling down his neck and onto his chest. “I’m--I’m big.”
Wei Wuxian pulls him close again and whispers right into his ear: “I want to feel you stretching me out on your cock.” Lan Zhan groans and the rhythm of his fingers falters. “I want you to make me take it.”
“Wei Ying,” Lan Zhan says, and the desire is so obvious in his voice that it is a wonder there was ever a moment that Wei Wuxian couldn’t recognize it. “You’ll tell me if it’s too much?”
“You couldn’t be too much for me, Lan Zhan,” Wei Wuxian says, and he means: I want all of you. But he’ll take what he can get.
The time between Lan Zhan entering him with his cock and his fingers leaving him are unbearable, so although it does hurt when Lan Zhan first pushes inside him, it is better than the emptiness there is without him there. Lan Zhan moves slowly, but it doesn’t take long for the size of him to push everything else out of Wei Wuxian’s brain entirely. He can feel Lan Zhan in his ribs, in his throat, breaking him into pieces and putting him back together. He makes a hiccuping sob, and Lan Zhan stills on top of him, breathing hard.
“No, don’t stop, Lan Zhan, please,” Wei Wuxian begs, wrapping his legs around his waist. “You’re so big, I’m splitting apart, don’t stop.”
Lan Zhan growls, and he doesn’t stop. He doesn’t even pause to give them time to adjust when he bottoms out, he just starts moving. He pulls Wei Wuxian tight to his chest, his hands locking onto Wei Wuxian’s shoulders from underneath to use as leverage as he rocks them brutally together. It hurts, and it is sublime, and his dripping dick is trapped between them, catching friction against Lan Zhan’s tight stomach.
“Do I feel good, gege?” he whines.
“Yes,” Lan Zhan says, barely a word at all. He’s still holding himself back, jaws tense. “Wei Ying,” he says, and Wei Wuxian knows it means more. It always does with Lan Zhan, but he’s half out of his mind on pleasure.
“Don’t hold back,” he says. “Don’t hold back, give it all to me.”
Lan Zhan takes him at his word, and then words are gone. Instead, there is the sound of their skin meeting, the damp of Lan Zhan’s breath against his neck, the press of his weight sinking Wei Wuxian into the mattress beneath them, the smell of sandalwood--of Lan Zhan--all around him. He is aware that his mouth is moving, but he doesn’t have a single idea what kinds of sounds he is making. He can feel the pleasure gathering in him, pushing him closer and closer to the edge. He starts to move one of his own hands between them to help propel himself over, but Lan Zhan stops him with a firm grip, tossing both of his wrists above his head and holding them there in one hand.
“No,” he bites out. “On my cock. You’re close.”
As is true so much of the time, Lan Zhan is right. His words alone, his deep voice, rough with commanding, is almost enough to take Wei Wuxian there. Just a few hard strokes of Lan Zhan’s cock later, and Wei Wuxian is coming between their bodies, his spend smearing over their bellies as Lan Zhan continues to fuck into him. Lan Zhan’s careful, steady rhythm turns erratic, his strokes more shallow, and Wei Wuxian’s boneless body bounces with the momentum.
When Lan Zhan comes, he bites down so hard on Wei Wuxian’s shoulder that Wei Wuxian thinks he might have drawn blood. He also thinks that he might be able to come again just from the feel of Lan Zhan’s pulsing release inside of him and his teeth in his muscle.
Lan Zhan swipes the sweaty hair off of Wei Wuxian’s forehead and kisses him, still inside. “You’re beautiful like this,” he says, and Wei Wuxian pulls him down for a kiss.
They are slow to part the next day, their limbs all tangled together under the blankets, miles of skin-on-skin lighting up Wei Wuxian’s nerves in the sleeping warmth of early morning cuddled next to Lan Zhan. Wei Wuxian kisses Lan Zhan’s cheek and his thigh brushes Lan Zhan’s dick.
“Are you hard, Lan Zhan?” he teases.
“Mn,” Lan Zhan confirms, and Wei Wuxian watches his ears slowly turn pink. He loves that. He wants to kiss it, so he does.
“Insatiable.”
“For Wei Ying,” Lan Zhan agrees.
Their kiss is unhurried, and Wei Wuxian pets Lan Zhan’s hair, his sides, the inside of his arm, reveling in his ability to touch. It wasn’t that long ago that he was dead, and now he is in bed with his favorite person, pleasantly sore and absolutely sure that wouldn’t stop him from taking more.
“We are only a few days from Lanling now,” Lan Zhan interrupts his thoughts. “We can continue on, and stay in Lanling, though you will need to keep a low profile. Or we could find an inn off the main road in which to pass some time.”
“Well, we do have time, don’t we, Hanguang-jun?” He grins. “Come be indolent with me and waste some of it, hm?”
“It will not be time wasted.”
“Tell that to your uncle after I make you spend a whole day in bed.”
“I do not think my uncle would appreciate hearing about what I intend to do to you while we are there.”
“Lan Zhan!” Wei Wuxian laughs, and he doesn’t think his grin could get any brighter. Someday, he’s going to tell Lan Zhan that he loves him. Soon. Someday soon.