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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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.

On backfoot, he nearly breaks the second Wei Ying exits his peripheral view and retreats, step feline, to spirit the last of himself away from the room — only for the door of the jingshi to never screech open. The winds of the dying spring season do not dance in teasing shifts around his ankles. The crackling, gravelly taste of Wei Ying's qi does not dissipate in its entirety.

Then he hears Wei Ying take seat — and the traitor, his heart, beats once more in violent earnest. Sluggishly, he bides their time: lifts himself, limbs asleep from the tension of his knelt repose; starts his bath, steam balming his limbs, when he slips into the waters, making slow progress of his cleansing.

In the end, it is done, and he re-emerges, wearing, if not Hanguang-Jun's poise, then at least the sophistication of his extensive grooming. In their bed chamber, languishing by their clothes trunk, he lingers just enough to select three of the layers his foolish hearts remembers Wei Ying once complimented for their seascape embroidery.

Then, masked in what scant regalia he might call his own, he finally infiltrates Lan Liang's enclave, looming over his demolished husband.

"I understand the thought repels now," he starts, jaw slack and tongue clammy, because Wei Ying need not speak the words to condemn him to the realization. "I ask nothing of you. But I must... feel touch tonight."

Unmoored, drifting. Distant from himself. Requiring an anchor. He shared the truth of it with Wei Ying earlier in their evening, but failed to convey the magnitude of his urgency. It cannot be requested of his husband, now; he refuses the imposition.

"Release me to go to Sizhui." After all, Wei Ying did not flee their home, however mournful his blatant resistance. Lan Wangji cannot evacuate their shared premises without breaking his bond — or asks.

Edited 2024-05-31 22:50 (UTC)

He listens, stubbornly waiting to hear Lan Zhan settle in his bath before he allows himself the relief of silent sobs. They start out as angry things, but after a while, it’s the despair that consumes him.

He asks himself why he’d let himself become so angry in the first place? Why couldn’t he just keep his mouth shut long enough to let Lan Zhan’s anger fizzle out? They could be in the bath together now, enjoying each other’s company instead of hiding away with his old friends, guilt and loneliness.

He can still see Lan Zhan’s face when he’d said all those cruel things. He’d hurt him pretty badly. He’d implied that he only pretends to be happy when the truth of the matter is that Lan Zhan’s one of the few who brings the happiness out in him.

He’s still holding the unfinished jug of wine when he hears footsteps approaching. He’s finished crying, but there’s evidence that’s what he’s been doing. Moisture on his sleeves, red, swollen eyes. There’s no point in trying to hide it, but he still tries to avoid bringing attention to it.

He glances briefly at Lan Zhan’s face before staring pointedly at the ground between them, instead. He’d noticed which robes Lan Zhan’s wearing and he wonders if Lan Zhan knows they’re some of his favorites. It would be a strange choice, if so.

“So you’re leaving anyway,” he accuses, disappointed. He feels the tears coming on again so he looks down at his lap to try and keep some dignity. “If you’d rather have Sizhui, go ahead.”

He wept. Wei Ying, his Wei Ying, to whom Lan Wangji twice bowed in the ways of marriage, their fates bound. He permitted this, this beautiful, ostentatious, living creature reduced to the paltry fight or flight responses of a lesser thing. Thirteen years did not suffice him; he has deadened Wei Ying once more.

When he melts down bonelessly, like a coiling snake, it is the graceless, artless surrender of a man who barely recalls the geometries of his long-perfected kneeling. This much, all children of Cloud Recesses learn: how to be impossibly, impractically beautiful in obedience. Not now. He slips by Wei Ying's side, knees in loud, dragged shifts across the floor, struggling to fit himself in his husband's negative spaces — before giving up that war and simply catching Wei Ying in his arms and forcibly rotating him, so that Lan Wangji's front might fit behind him, back to the enclave's wall dappled with bells and folded coloured papers.

Perhaps it is not only Lan Liang who benefits from distractions.

And oh, he should have asked. Knows so. Is not entitled to his husband's affection or his company, but for once the intensity and urgency of his need must be afforded dominance. He clings to Wei Ying, manipulating him in his arms, clutching and steeling as if he is the life-saving rope thrown to a man at sea, and their storm has come. His eyes shutter, a coward, so there is not an inkling of possibility that he might glimpse the tears on Wei Ying's face again.

"Do not fight me now." He whispers it like a prayer, for all he has never lent himself readily to faith. "Please, do not fight me. Do not weep. I have you. Please."

What had he expected? Surely, Lan Zhan would want to go to Sizhui where he could feel safe from the strife that had boiled between them. He must not know Lan Wangji’s heart in this moment because he couldn’t be more wrong. He steals a glimpse at his husband lowering himself to crawl towards him. And Wei Wuxian doesn’t shy away, letting Lan Zhan do with him as he sees fit.

The tears still come, his body and mind confused and oh so relieved. His Lan Zhan is here again in spite of everything, he isn’t being abandoned for the night no matter how much he deserves it.

The jug of wine is discarded at his side so he can curl himself around Lan Zhan’s arms. “I’m sorry, Lan Zhan,” he says pitifully, anger having already fizzled out. He’d been too cruel and too vicious, lashing out with his words like a sword. And Lan Zhan was still the first one to come back. “I don’t deserve this. I don’t deserve you. All I ever do is mess things up.”

He’s not finished feeling sorry for himself.

He scoffs at himself, “And now I’m letting you do all the comforting when I should be the one holding you.”

"Don't. Don't weep. Don't." He litters his words incontinently, half hiccuped, half murmured, drowning in the torrential onset of his own silent tears. It is Wei Ying who triggers them, sooner than previous sorrow, the look of his husband reduced to this.

"You break my heart," he gasps and only tightens his hold, raining kisses on the side of Wei Ying's face, cradling him close. "Don't weep."

Of all the fates he has condemned Wei Ying to, from their marriage to the dissatisfaction of restricting himself to the territories of the Cloud Recesses — this is, must be the worst. He has compelled his love to cry, to reach the sharp, harmful limit of his tolerance for Lan Wangji's eccentricities. He has failed, once more, to communicate —

...no. No, for once, no. He communicated, and everything worsened, evidencing the truth behind the precepts that bind them to mindfulness, discretion, composure. He should have performed, as Wei Ying clearly wished him to. Should not have articulated his disappointment, to be distrusted. It would have been no hardship. He has born bloodshed and mourning and countless encounters with Jiang Wanyin, and the lashing of his back; he might have born this.

"Come sleep, come. Don't weep."

Unfortunately, being told to stop crying just makes it harder for him to do so. To hear the strain in Lan Zhan’s voice, knowing that he’s the one that caused such pain makes it harder still. His composure crumbles and he wipes the wetness from his eyes and nose on his shoulder. “I should be holding you. You asked me for my touch and I should be holding you.”

He turns as much as he can, struggling until he’s able to cling on to Lan Zhan where he can hide his face against the prettily embroidered silk covering up that branding scar. And he lets himself cry ugly sobs until he manages to calm down under his husband’s patient guidance. His tears now are as much relief as they are pain.

It takes a little while, but he eventually stills. He mutters another apology for dirtying Lan Zhan’s clean robes. It’s been a rough evening between deep talks and harmful words and it’s caught up to him leaving him feeling exhausted. A nap sounds good to him, but it will only end up with him waking up in the middle of the night.

He pulls one hand back, rubbing at his eyes and nose again. He feels like some sort of bog monster dripping unceremoniously on them both.

“Haven’t bathed yet,” he says, finally sitting back and looking at Lan Zhan’s face. He knew he’d made him cry too and he wipes the trails of moisture on Lan Zhan’s cheeks. “I didn’t mean what I said before. I don’t always pretend to be happy. You really do make me feel happy most of the time, Lan Zhan.”

"...I know. I know," he says in between the spasms and feverish tearing spells that afflict Wei Ying savagely, sabotaging his composure, leaving him to cling and drag onto Lan Wangji as if he is the best and last trustworthy thing in the world. He bides his time, focused on holding them both upright, on shifting to allow Wei Ying to turn towards him and envelop him.

Warmth and wet and shivers. This is the experience of Wei Ying cascading over him, letting his outburst run its course, helpless before the tide of his own emotions. Lan Wangji can only hold him through it, obedient when Wei Ying returns to himself and begins to attend to both of their grooming, likely overwhelmed by misplaced shame.

"Shall we bathe Wei Ying?" A communal effort, the power and resilience of their steadily depleting stamina, combined. If Wei Ying wants the marks of his dishevelment reduced, they may erase them so. "Shall hold Wei Ying's hand."

They need not be parted, past the inevitable few heartbeats when Wei Ying must climb and collapse in the tub, or Lan Wangji must pour in his water or ready his fresh silks and balms.

He nods his head before speaking his agreement, “I’ll bathe and then I’ll hold you until you fall asleep. No, no, I’ll keep holding onto you all night long if you’ll have me.”

There is a fair amount of shame. Most of it revolves around his behavior before excusing himself to Liang’s room. Now that he’s cooled his anger, he’s just embarrassed for getting upset in the first place. Lan Zhan had only been trying to sleep with him in spite of his feelings of unease and desire to skip it. If anything, he should have been angry at himself, but he’d lashed out at Lan Zhan instead.

He leans in and brushes his lips over Lan Zhan’s, lingering there and kissing him for a few sweet moments. “You’re too good to me, Lan Zhan. I’m sorry again for losing my temper like that.”

One last squeeze and he gets the nerve to let go of his husband and get to his feet. With the wine jug in one hand and offering the other to his husband, he makes his way back to the main room to set the wine down and to get ready for his bath. It’s not usual for him to want to take a bath after Lan Zhan implying he doesn’t have to, but he feels like he needs it.

“You don’t have to help me bathe if you don’t want to,” he offers, standing near the tub and starting to strip down. He won’t take a long bath. Just enough to wash off so he can feel like an adult again.

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