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Wei Ying smirked. He was wearing Lan Wangji's second least favorite of his expressions: A mask of utter calm and absolute surety which played at distant cruelty. It was an expression that said he was entirely confident in his assessment of his own character, one based entirely on every misstep he'd ever made, both lesser and greater, without a single thought to the good he'd done or who had sheparded him to and lit the way along the darkest path.
It was better than vacant and hopeless, an expression that had once sent Lan Wangji to his knees in desperation and pre-emptive grief, but this expression hid a deep, festering wound. A wound that Lan Wangji would lance again and again until it healed.
"Mm, I have a response if you would hear it. Be warned, however, that if I begin, I will not stop speaking until I've finished."
Wei Ying blinked, a little surprise cracking through the mask. "Uhhh... Okay? Do your worst, Lan Zhan."
Lan Wangji smiled and Wei Ying recoiled in alarm, perhaps sensing the trap that had just snapped closed.
"I do not 'put up with' Wei Ying, nor do I need to forgive his past transgressions. If there are transgressions that need forgiven, it is my own. My suffering has been due to my own actions, not Wei Ying's. I stayed my tongue when I should have drawn my sword. I drew my sword when I should have taken your hand. I watched you walk away when I should have followed. I walked away when I should have remained. You did the right thing the wrong way, but I did the wrong thing the right way and that, Wei Ying, is the greater betrayal."
"Lan Zhan-" Wei Ying had grasped the brutality of Lan Wangji's rebuttal and was already wide-eyed with horror.
"The whip was excruciating, but it was nothing compared to my anger and grief. I failed catastrophically at everything I set out to be and do and you died. I don't regret the whip. I was a coward. I deserved every strike. I deserved more.
I survived because of a-Yuan. He was the worldly remains of the best of you and he was the task I could not fail, not even if it meant living with the grief.
I lived a life while you were gone. I raised our child. I learned how to do the right thing the right way and earned the title I'd been given by flattering fools. I went out into the world and looked at it through Wei Ying's eyes.
I could neither risk Sizhui nor abandon him while I did so, and I would not have him grow up to walk in the same sheltered cowardice as I so bitterly regretted. Instead, he often went with me and I tried to do with him as I thought Wei Ying would. We assisted in digging ditches and repairing houses. We were an extra pair of hands at harvest. When I went alone, I did equally needed work that would have been more dangerous for less experienced cultivators.
I had a life while you were gone in which I learned to be worth the best of you. Then an impossible song swept across Dafan mountain and I was reborn."
"I'm not worth-" Wei Ying choked out.
"You are, but it doesn't matter if you consider yourself worthy or not. It matters that I do. I will consider you worthy if I wish. Perhaps if Wei Ying cannot find faith in his own value, he will find faith in his Lan Zhan's stubbornness.
You will have my love no matter if you stay or go. When you laugh or cry. When your words are sharp enough to flay open my heart. When your words lock tight in your chest and when you break a dozen rules within the walls at once by running and shouting in your excitement. You will have my love if you wish to never again be naked between my thighs, if you never again favor me with a glance.
I require only your happiness, your comfort, your safety. It would bring me great joy to have the privelege of ensuring your comfort and safety personally."
Wei Ying's now continual shaking was broken by a hard shudder and loud sob. He had curled into Lan Wangji's chest, face hidden against muscle and bone. "Lan Zhan, I can't-"
Lan Wangji dried the tears and lay his down, kissed him hard and then gentle. When he pulled back, Wei Ying blinked open his eyes in slow motion. They were red and a little puffy now, tear tracks of salt streaking his cheeks where they had dried before Lan Wangji could clean them away. He looked exhausted and utterly devastated.
"Will you show me no mercy, Lan Zhan?" He whispered.
"I have no such mercy left for you, Wei Ying. Only the brutal truth you are loved."
Wei Ying let his head drop back, the rumpled covers pushing up his shoulders so that his neck lay stretched and bared. Staring at the ceiling, he said, "I concede, you impossible, stubborn man."