wuding | Why is it Always Meditation?

Why is it Always Meditation?

The ride home gives him time to think and overthink everything they’ve been talking about. There’s a substantial side of him that wishes he could somehow take back everything that they’d been speaking about. He doesn’t want to face his demons. He wants to snuff them out completely and never think about them again.

But now that he’s let Lan Zhan in on it, he can’t see a way to get out of it. He feels exposed after sharing some of his inner workings and there’s plans set in motion to expose more. He hadn’t been lying about trusting Lan Zhan with that side of himself, but he hadn’t been thinking about how much it would hurt Lan Zhan to know about it.

By the time he reaches Cloud Recesses, he’s feeling more than a little frazzled. He leaves Little Apple near the stables where she can have the finest grasses in Gusu to appease her royal senses. He even gives her an apple he’s only had a couple bites of before he finishes the trek back to the jingshi on foot.

Luckily for Lan Zhan, there are only a few people loitering around outdoors so he isn’t flagged down to stop and chat with anyone. Carrying Liang around in public always tends to invite conversation.

He pauses outside the door and shifts Liang in his arms to free his right hand so he can open the door. “Lan Zhan, I’m home!” He doesn’t know what to expect after everything. The thing he looks forward to the most is being in Lan Zhan’s arms, and he can only hope that things haven’t become awkward between them. “I rode as fast as Little Apple could carry me. We should bring some more fruit down for her.”

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His body may as well be made of water, fluid in the way it moves along with Lan Zhan’s. He laughs a little at the gentle bites, but he doesn’t pull away from them. They aren’t so deep that they cause marks. At least, not yet. There’s still a smile on Wei Wuxian’s face when he’s rocked back. It dips slightly at his words, though.

“Shh,” he hushes, leaning in to kiss him gently on the lips. “No one can talk about my husband like that,” his voice is still playful as he says it. “You’re mine and I love you just the way you are. You’re handsome, righteous, loving, affectionate, loyal… and you’re the only one who believed in me when the whole world waged war against me. There’s no one else I’d rather be with.”

He gives another kiss, this one lingering for a few delicious moments before he breaks this one, too. “I know you’re older than me, stubborn as a mule, but you’re actually pretty warm. If you weren’t, I would have to sleep wearing socks.”

"A wise reason to remain wedded," he concedes, instinctively leaning in to catch Wei Ying's mouth when he withdraws himself, in awe of his lover's wisdom. Yes, no plan sounder than that of heavens-blessed matrimony in the name of politely warmed ankles. Wei Ying, a consummate icicle, has found his target and shamelessly annihilates his resistances. Already, a shiver walks up Lan Wangji's legs, fearful of the terror waiting.

"Please take pity on this husband," he whispers as if a lowly civilian begging succor in the face of a cultivator's overwhelming attack. How often have they not glimpsed this bemused terror, meant to impress upon assailants the injustice of their cause? "Spare his calves on this night."

Even as he begs and chases, he tips his forehead to touch Wei Ying's, their noses brush, their intimacy cleverly forged. His sweetheart, his lover true. "Take pity on this unworthy one, with your frigid ankles and pointy elbows."

He plays the game of kissing Lan Zhan whenever he comes close enough. Little kisses meant to make him smile rather than ones to convey his eagerness to move onto their marital duties. A giggle escapes him at his husband’s pleading. Usually Wei Wuxian is the one to beg and plead for mercy and it amuses him that their roles are reversed.

“But without your noble sacrifice, how am I going to sleep with cold feet?” He drags his hands along Lan Zhan’s back as he pulls partly away to get a good look at him. And to continue the journey of his fingers by running them down his lover’s chest to find the sash around his waist. “Okay, I’ll show mercy tonight, but you’ll have to let me keep my socks on all night after our bath.” His fingers slip towards the knot of that sash and untie it.

“We’re good, right? I’m not feeling upset now. What about you, Lan Zhan?” He’s prepared to just bathe chastely with Lan Zhan if that’s what it takes, but that doesn’t mean he’d prefer it.

They're good, he supposes.

If not perfectly coordinated and in balance, then at least on the brink of that synchrony. His hand chases Wei Ying's, seeks the back of his head, draws him in so that Lan Wangji might rain another gallery of sweet kisses on his cheek.

"Tired." But that is not the question. "Not upset." No. They have pledged each other disclosure and sincerity, and Wei Ying needs him to hold true. The curling, souring chasm in his belly has mellowed but not completely abated. His voice sounds drawn to himself, too quieted. He feels, not for the first time, entirely on the backfoot.

"Your recovery appears shapeless to me, now." What will it entail? Over what time? Surely, it cannot be as simple as mere talk, yet Wei Ying seems substantively more relieved after exchanging mere words. "I am uncertain how to assist."

Wei Wuxian’s fingers work the knot free, releasing the bind and relaxing the folded silk at Lan Zhan’s middle while Lan Zhan answers him. Once he’s done with that, he draws the robe open and wraps his arms around Lan Zhan’s middle again.

“I don’t know what it’s going to look like, either. We’ll just have to take it as it comes,” he suggests, nestling himself close again. “I feel tired, too. I didn’t have a long, boring day like you, but all this serious talk is pretty draining. I doubt it’s going to get any easier, but that’s for another day to worry about, right?”

He rests his chin on Lan Zhan’s shoulders and takes a deep breath, letting it out as a sigh. “You want to plan how we’ll do it, huh? Since we’re dual cultivating every third night, we can schedule it around that. One night we cultivate, one night we talk through something that hurts, and one night we can just enjoy each other’s company without any of the hard stuff.”

The leech, his chilly husband, propels himself toward Lan Wangi's core-fueled, warmed waist, and low laughter sputters from his throat as he rounds his waist to receive him. To draw him further in, a welcome and beloved addition.

"No," he pronounces, but dips in to nip at the nearby shell of his husband's ear, to show through playfulness that this is not refusal born of anger or rejection. He bides his time, nibbling at leisurely pace.

"Wei Ying would iron his tongue and hold against speaking of his hurts on days unscheduled." He has learned, somehow, to give that breezily, as if choice whimsy. He has learned, they have both learned, how to tackle Wei Ying's inconsistencies and self-harmful behaviours. "Better we agree to ask each night, before the start."

If they must postpone either love play or dual cultivation as a result, so be it.

He sucks in a sharp breath as soon as Lan Zhan starts to nibble his ear. Startled and stimulated, he tilts his head to give his husband as much access to him as he’d like. He takes the opportunity to run his fingers over the small of Lan Zhan’s back, slow and teasing strokes.

“Before we start then,” he agrees, though he prefers his way because of the exact reason his lover gives. “You know me best,” he sighs and turns his head enough to kiss along his Lan Zhan’s throat. “And you want me to wake you if I have trouble sleeping or nightmares, too.” It’s going to be a rough few months or however long it takes to bare his soul without censor.

He’s not completely convinced this will help him feel better in the long run, but he hopes it will. Even if it doesn’t, anything that brings him and Lan Zhan closer together is worth doing.

“You’re warm,” he says with a smile, “I could stay like this all night, but we should move to the bath soon. Unless you want a trip to the bed, first.”

He is warm and welcoming and far too vulnerable to the pattering of Wei Ying's questing fingertips, expediting shivers of pleasure through his raw nerves. All at once, Lan Wangji comes to attention, oversensitive and aware of their surroundings, of the faint propagation of sandalwood in the air, of their numerous silk layers rustling with every fresh fold.

Before he knows so, he is tipping his head to allow Wei Ying greater access to his throat, where flesh bumps already line the trail of his lover's hungry mouth. And yet —

"I do not wish to bed tonight," he offers, not unlike an apology.

It strikes him, thunderously, that he has never outright rejected his husband's advances, however gently. That even at the peak of their strife, they would retreat silently in the miasma of their anger, seeking their rest apart or pointedly ignoring one another in the confines of the same bed, without never needing to communicate their abstinence.

Perhaps it is because he is at ease that he feels tranquil speaking a refusal. That he can trust Wei Ying not to misunderstand.

He’s just starting to get into kissing Lan Zhan’s neck when he drops the line about not wanting to sleep together tonight. He can’t help but make a connection between his honesty and the decision to forego bed play. It’s such a rare thing for them. He can count on his hands how many nights they’d spent married and together that they don’t perform their marital duties.

He stops the kissing and the caressing, but he doesn’t move out of his husband’s arms. If anything, he clings onto him tighter. “Is it because of what we’ve been talking about?”

He can always wait until Lan Zhan goes to sleep to take care of his physical need, but he’s worried that it will always be like this. If he has to choose between being honest with Lan Zhan or sleeping with Lan Zhan, he knows he’d choose the latter almost every time.

Another squeeze later, he moves away so he can give Lan Zhan space. If they’re not going to sleep together, then it would just be cruel riling him up.

Wei Ying withdraws himself, and the reaction is violent, instinctive — reaching out to loosely catch his husband's nape and draw him in again, settling Wei Ying's sweet head on the perch of Lan Wangji's shoulder.

"...feel unmoored," and so the physical reminder of Wei Ying and their ongoing connection grounds him. "Restless."

Impossibly lively in the quiet, dead husk of his flesh. His fingers itch, eyes bright, mouth at once sated and hungry. "My mind would not be on Wei Ying."

An insult and injury greater than any single other one he can imagine doling out. Throughout their matrimony, their countless conversations, he has been earnestly devoted to Wei Ying, resolute in his interest. To deny him now would be a wretched, strange thing.

"It is the sum, not the parts," he offers, limpid as shallow waters. Breath loiters in his lungs, struggling in transit. "The day. Our conversation."

He has been thoroughly useless, continuously helpless. It does not suit him. Reduces and constricts him, and he is — discontent.

He doesn’t fight being pulled closer again, finding comfort in the proximity. He closes his eyes and lets Lan Zhan speak his heart without too many interruptions. The hurt he’d been feeling dims the more he listens, and he knows trying to push and tease Lan Zhan into sleeping with him anyway would be doing a grave disservice to both of them.

His arms, now on the outside of Lan Zhan’s robes, rub soothing circles on his back. “It’s okay,” he tells him, finally resting his chin on Lan Zhan’s shoulder again. “Let me know if you need space to think or meditate.”

Had his confessions shaken the foundation between them? Will it grow stronger because of it or will it crumble around them, he wonders.

“Is bathing together okay? I can go after you if it matters. I won’t try to seduce you or anything if we bathe together. I know we didn’t have our duel, but I can wash you and dry you, then comb out your hair when we’re done,” he suggests. If Lan Zhan wanted those things as a prize, then he wants to deliver. Maybe he’s just scared that his husband will drift away from him without the constant physical reminder of his presence.

"Do not wish to part extensively from Wei Ying tonight," he murmurs by way of refusal, at once child-like and hostile against a prospect that the dimming light of Wei Ying voice suggests his husband is already ill at ease to consider. They are so very foolish with each other, prickly and stubborn and proud, but irrevocably tender and readily harmed if they are parted.

His grip on Wei Ying lowers to his lover's back, its curve. He pulls him back in, half to straddle Lan Wangji's own knees, to a point of what he can only assume will evolve into selfish discomfort. Forgive him, he will bear them parted, soon. Not now.

"May I make love to you with morning?" It will pass, he means to say. This strange peculiarity of his mood, no better than an ill-loved season. "Wake my husband with my mouth, my hands."

“I’m not going anywhere,” he promises, nuzzling the side of his face against Lan Zhan’s. Guided until he’s sat with Lan Zhan between his thighs, he wonders why his husband would want to put them in such a position if he isn’t interested in sleeping together. Wouldn’t it just lead to discomfort? “I just wanted to give you some space so you don’t go to sleep… uncomfortable.”

Really, it’s Wei Wuxian who is feeling a little uncomfortable. It’s in his nature to want something that has been labeled as unobtainable. If it were something mundane, he’d weasel his way into getting it, but it feels wrong when it’s intimacy with Lan Zhan.

And then Lan Zhan goes and makes it worse!

“I want you,” he says, moving back again, just far enough to look at his husband. “But I’ll wait until tomorrow morning when you’re ready. You don’t mind if I take care of myself after you fall asleep?”

He fingers the edge of Lan Zhan’s robe, feeling all kinds of conflict in himself. Maybe he had been trying to rush being okay during and after their conversation. He’d felt better, but now that he’s been denied love making, he can’t help but think of all the things he’d admitted to. It was just a nightmare. No, it was memory, too. Why are the darkest memories the ones with the most detail? Why can’t he remember his sister that well?

"I mind," he says sweetly, for all he would not bear witness, for all that Wei Ying might cheat him of his abstinence and Lan Wangji would only know it from the syrupy relaxation of his body, come morning. Peering into the molten silver of Wei Ying's eyes, he nods only to bring their noses closer, refusing the possibility of distance, while Wei Ying's fingers dance shivers of excitement wherever his flesh kisses the trim of his robes

"Wait for me," he instructs patiently, reining in the impulse to neglect his instincts and proceed with love making, for all his mind and body are misaligned. How difficult can it be to stoke his appetite from embers? Surely, Wei Ying has never failed to excite him, to trigger or ensure his yearning. In this, they have been perpetually, tirelessly matched.

But no. If he forces his desire, it will only mellow, then extinguish, as if to defy his heart. He will disappoint them, and doubtlessly kindle Wei Ying's fears that he has neglected to enthrall his husband.

"Wait until tomorrow," he repeats. As Wei Ying did once, postponing his satisfaction on the very cusp of pleasure to taste it doubly, delayed. "Shall take Wei Ying as he lies soft and sleeping, sparing him discomfort."

“But what if it keeps me awake?” He asks, starting to sulk about it. If Lan Zhan wants to go to sleep unsatisfied, why does he have to, too? And Lan Zhan wants to stay close like this, so he’s going to inevitably want more the longer they stay close.

But it’s important enough for Lan Zhan to deny him even his own touch.

He pouts, but nods his head slowly. The petty side of himself considers telling Lan Zhan that if he has to wait to be bedded then Lan Zhan will have to wait to be kissed. He knows if they start kissing, he’s going to end up hard and then he really will have trouble falling asleep and it won’t just be because of his freshly kindled self-doubt.

“It’s because of the socks, isn’t it?” He asks, trying to lighten his own mood. Sleeping together tonight would have had him nude except for socks since he’d agreed to have mercy on his husband’s ankles for once. He knows that wouldn’t be enough to deter Lan Zhan under normal circumstances and he’ll be wearing the socks in the morning anyway.

...the socks. Before that, suspicions of Wei Ying's part played in Lan Wangji's abrupt, frigidity. Fault, in too many ways, was Lan Wangji's own: he has too often permitted his lover his silences, the chance to shield himself in sullen, deep-rooted uncertainty with no recourse past hard sulks. Of course Wei Ying does not possess the instruments to relieve his doubt. Of course, too, that Lan Wangji's constant vigilance of their love making has transformed an unexceptional spell of sexual inedia into the signal of their marriage's sickness.

This cannot be allowed to bloom, to swell into nerves, into questions, into self-recrimination. Wei Ying does not shrivel or cast his eyes away, but feels — taut, like a wire strained. Small.

It cannot pass. It cannot pass again.

"The socks, yes," he whispers and forcibly bridges the space between them to crash their mouths together, dipping his husband to the floor and giving him chase. Belatedly, he remembers to slip his hand beneath Wei Ying's head and cushion his head from bruising collision.

Unsuspecting, he’s drawn into the kiss like a moth to flame. It’s just as passionate as any of their other kisses and his arms encircle Lan Zhan’s neck, pulling himself close as he’s laid down upon the ground by their table. He takes comfort in the kiss, but he doesn’t lose himself like he normally would. He’s still guarded and eventually he squirms and reluctantly pushes Lan Zhan away.

“Sorry,” he says, face flushed already, “We can’t… I can’t.” He reaches up to touch Lan Zhan’s cheek. “I love you too much and I don’t want to push you into anything you don’t want to finish and I think I might if I get too worked up.”

Even if he could hold that part of him back, he’d still be likely to sneak off to another part of the house and touch himself even after Lan Zhan asked him to wait.

“Let’s take care of that bath, okay? Then we can lie down in each other’s arms until you fall asleep. We can talk more if you want, too. Whatever’s on your mind.” And now he’s the one denying Lan Zhan when all he wants to do is keep kissing him.

An instruction as clear as a cracked whipped and twice as keen to bleed him. He slips off his husband, peeling free of his body to rest knelt and prone, posture rigid and composed, hands bunched on his thighs. Fingers curling. He does not raise his gaze to meet Wei Ying's. Cannot.

"First, you wished to make love," he throws at Wei Ying as if the back of his hand, as if gelid, crystallized violence. As if it is his entitlement, and he lays claim to it. "Now, no longer."

It should strike him that just as he wishes so often to safeguard Wei Ying's feelings, his husband may be seeking not to push him in an unfathomable, harmful direction. That Wei Ying would never cross well-articulated boundaries, and that Lan Wangji has made his own known.

It does not. Rejection is bitter medicine, collapsing on his tongue. May he choke on it. May he have poisoned Wei Ying with a taste.

He sits up slowly, a little dazed from the kissing and Lan Zhan’s reaction. He’d screwed up, hadn’t he? He mutters his husband’s name, wincing at the bitter accusation in Lan Zhan’s voice. Yeah, that answers it. He’d gone and screwed things up.

“I thought you didn’t want to,” he answers, trying to keep his temper in check. If they both get upset, they’ll end up in a worse position for them both. “I do want to sleep with you. A lot. I only pushed you away because you were the one who said you wanted to wait until morning. I’m not as good at restraint as you are and I was already starting to react to that kiss, as if you couldn’t tell.”

He folds his arms over his chest, feeling all kinds of conflicted. “It’s not fair. I don’t know what you want from me. I was just trying to honor your request and you’re making me out to be the bad guy here.”

The bad guy. The villain of their interaction. No — he flinches — he cannot spell that fate for Wei Ying, no matter the bitterness of their exchange, the downturn of Lan Wangji's mouth. He chances a glance away, yet resting knelt as if a disciple obediently listening to his instructor to accept punishment due.

"I thought to overcome my initial reticence." To push past the headache, the suffocated appetite, the bone-weariness that has infected his entire skeleton. He would never need to force himself to make love to his husband, body attuned to every stirring from Wei Ying, every pulse of pleasure. At most, he might perhaps have divorced his mind and his body enough to perform his marital duties and alleviate his lover's qualms.

"To meet Wei Ying's enthusiasm." Perhaps not head on or to equal measure, but surely, it matters. That he makes attempt. That he would coax and tease himself to warm to the possibility.

“I thought about letting you,” he admits, then loosens up his posture by resting his hands in his lap instead. “No, that’s not quite right. I thought you just wanted to make out for a while because you like kissing so much, but it would just end up sending us both to bed without finishing. I would have tried pushing you or I would have taken care of myself even though you asked me to wait and I didn’t want to do that to you.”

He leans forward and gets onto his hands and knees to crawl the short distance to where Lan Zhan’s kneeling. “I don’t want our love making to feel like an obligation. That’s not us.”

He sits back on his knees and opens his arms to invite Lan Zhan back into his arms. “I’ll confess that I thought about withholding kissing until tomorrow morning because I was feeling rejected, but I wasn’t going to actually go through with it.”

For a moment, his stillness transcends his mutinous sullenness, his stubborn pride. He watches Wei Ying with a silent, cavernous awe, and he feels — he is entitled to feel betrayed.

His husband had thought to punish him for declining physical congress. To withhold kisses, Lan Wangji's only succor, at a time when he needs it best to quiet his soul. At least, Wei Ying did not allow himself to be governed by this malice, tempted to the point of contemplation, but falling short of execution.

He looks away, neglecting the spread of Wei Ying's arms, the embrace they promise. No. Not yet. "I apologise if my inability to perform disappointed you."

But it should not have, it strikes him. Wei Ying's feelings of rejection are hollowly misplaced. "If one night's omission from our trysts is so repugnant, seek your hand."

He settles back on his folded legs and looks down at the ground between them. So much for honesty. So much for understanding. This is the second time he feels like the rejection is directly linked to his honesty. When he’d been sharing half truths and keeping himself chipper when when he didn’t feel that way, things were better between them.

“Sorry,” he says, frowning and feeling defensive. “You only thought you wanted to know me inside and out, didn’t you? If you want a placated happy husband, then I can pretend to be that for you all you want me to. I told you that I’m not a good person and you didn’t believe me. Well, do you believe it now? You can’t have me both ways.”

He knows he’s being unfair now. He’d been trying to calm Lan Zhan but it’s backfired on him. He reaches up and roughly wipes at his eyes with the back of his wrist. “Just go take your bath alone. I’m going to take a walk.”

With that, he rises up to his feet. “And for the record, you can skip sex with me as much as you want. I’ll just keep my damn mouth shut next time.”

The barrage continuous, preposterous, unyielding. No one can sting and stab or kill more efficiently than the ones we love. Than Wei Ying, setting himself to vengeance. Perhaps Lan Wangji should have recalled this: the legacy of resentment undertaken by the Yiling Patriarch's ghosts was, after all, born of their master's spirit.

He weathers the first offensive, bloodless and barely blinking, suffering each slap of words with the impunity of men who were too slow to be cowardly and must now be brave. And he bears it.

He steels himself when Wei Ying indicates they will take their bath apart, with his husband no doubt seeking solace on a rooftop, his wine sour and attention ill placed. And he bears it.

He flinches when Wei Ying rises, affixes his gaze on the single twin grazes of the thickly lacquered and painstakingly polished floor, to avoid his lover. And he bears it.

"If you leave now, I shall not be here on your return."

He freezes, gaze icy when Lan Zhan gives him an ultimatum. If he leaves now, no matter how temporarily, Lan Zhan would go gods only know where and leave him to the jingshi alone. That’s not what he wants, but his temper is already stoked. There are two options. He could leave and face the consequence of at least one night alone, probably more. Or he could stay and keep fighting with Lan Zhan, risking one or both of them saying more things they can’t take back.

“Suit yourself,” he says, grabbing the half-finished bottle of wine from the table and walking past Lan Zhan to the enclave they’d set up for Lan Liang. His back leans against the wall and he slides down it until he’s sitting. He’s not leaving the jingshi, but he is leaving the room. It’s up to Lan Zhan to decide whether it counts.

He wonders where things went so wrong, feeling quite sorry for himself. There’d been no pleasure in berating Lan Zhan with barely any response. Lan Zhan may have been the first one angry, but Wei Wuxian had plunged the knife in deeper, twisting it for good measure.

Maybe Wei Wuxian is the bad guy after all.

He cradles the jug of Emperor’s Smile against his chest, making no move to drink it just yet. Once he’s done with it, he’ll have to go back into the other room and face Lan Zhan again and he’s not ready for that. He’ll end up making things worse if he’s still angry and hurt when he does it.

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