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 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.

In truth, he wishes to speak his acceptance of Wei Ying's apology. To welcome it and the formal end of their quarrel, and to call this chapter closed. Yet his mouth stays loose, jaw stiff, tension accruing steadfast in his body.

He is not yet at the point where can forgive. He will not forget. And he decides, for once, to allow himself moments with his grievance, to digest it privately and return to his husband if sympathy doesn't solidify.

It is not the problem of the moment. Wei Ying, at long last, begins the arduous task of picking himself up, and Lan Wangji orbits him after, wary of the possibility that his lover might grow faint-headed and lose his balance at any step. He is not — himself, still too frail. They reach the tub, and he pours in buckets of hot, yet steaming water, waiting on Wei Ying to complete his disrobing, only to offer his arm and assist him in.

They will both need, he suspect, a change of silks after, following Wei Ying's enthusiastic spell of tears. For now, he loiters at the tub's side, presenting various salts for his husband's consideration and dropping them on the rim, before collecting a cloth he dips in water to pass over Wei Ying's back and limbs.

"I would enjoy nothing better than Wei Ying's embrace," he whispers. "All that I wished."

It doesn’t go unnoticed that there’s been no comment, acceptance or otherwise, to his apologies. He won’t try to force it. Lan Zhan is at his side now and things feel… stable. Not the same as it had earlier in the evening or how it usually feels, but it doesn’t feel incendiary either. He wouldn’t go as far to say comfortable, though.

He thanks Lan Zhan, using his wrist to aid his balance climbing into the tub. The bath won’t take very long because he doesn’t feel like lounging around and basking in the warmth like they usually would. With Lan Zhan taking care of his body, he makes short work of cleaning and oiling his hair.

“All night then,” he promises. He won’t leave the bed unless it’s for emptying his bladder or drinking a cup of water. “I’m feeling pretty tired, myself. Maybe I’ll wake up earlier than usual, too.”

He’s not expecting Lan Zhan to go through with waking him up with his hands or mouth anymore after their fight. He gets the impression things aren’t back to normal between them just yet. Lan Zhan is quieter than usual. Things feel awkward in so many little ways and he’s not bothering to force himself to smile or turn things into jokes to lighten the mood.

Before long, he finishes with his hair and stands up, once again using his husband’s arm for assistance. He dries himself off with the same careless hurrying as he’d done washing. He’ll change into whatever Lan Zhan picked out for him and then he’ll be able to give Lan Zhan the one thing he’s said he wanted.

A brisk bath, entirely efficient. He does not debate Wei Ying's appetite for an expedited ablution, only stepping in to serve him where he is required or signaled wanted. Now and then, between sweeps of the cloth, he noses at Wei Ying's cheek or hair, only to remark shallowly, "The honey-infused oil suits you."

They can spare each other this little: passing compliments, small acknowledgements of their respective merits, even at a time of hurt. This much cannot be turned into a dispute.

Then the bathing is done, and he excuses himself only fleetingly to capture a handful of silks in hand — both sets his own, desaturated but heavily adorned, offering one out for his husband in private reassurance that he is loved, understood. Welcomed, in his rawness and vulnerability, in clothes that might remind him of Lan Wangji's embrace.

He offers his hand after, to lead Wei Ying to their bed. "Perhaps we may spend half a shichen together after waking. To break fast, practise forms."

To find their way back to each other.

"Does it?" He brings a few locks of hair to his face to remind him of the smell. "I thought it would go well with your sandalwood instead of overpowering it." Like the oils he'd grown up using in Yunmeng that he'd tried out before had done.

Part of him wonders if the only reason Lan Zhan is tolerating him right now is because he requires human touch tonight. Usually, they'd be avoiding each other until both of them have shed their resentment privately. The fight would have continued if Lan Zhan had approached him without making the request he'd made regarding physical touch. Maybe that's why the air still feels uneasy between them.

He takes Lan Zhan's hand and follows him to their bed where they will lie down and hold each other throughout the night while he continues to silently fret about what tomorrow will bring.

"I'll try to get up early," he offers, but he has his doubts. Maybe if he stays asleep instead of waking up halfway through the night, he'll be able to. He can probably force himself out of bed half-asleep, otherwise. He probably shouldn't try using a sword if he's in that state, though. "Just drag me out of the bed by my ankle if I try to sleep in."

"Do not strain yourself," he whispers and sweeps aside the covers and blankets of their sweet marital bed, to welcome Wei Ying in their abode and drown him, wrapping around him as if the roots of river weeds or the maws of a hunting hound.

It seems, no sooner than he greets the soft stretch of their linens and Wei Ying is entrapped beside him — something in him dissolves, strain releasing like heat from desiccated grounds in the wake of a rare rain. He is not complete, not without worry, not unencumbered —

But he is better. Wanting. Wanted. Satisfied that he is not alone, will not be abandoned, that his mother may have fled, but this one person has yet to. That Wei Ying lives, revived for him, breathes, and he can hear the minute hitches of his breath, that his heart beats.

He wishes to trust it will be so, too, tomorrow. "I am so glad you are alive. I am so fortunate. So grateful. Never, for anything more. My heart is joy."

Despite the evening's sorrows, despite their conflict.

He could be in a more comfortable position than the one Lan Zhan’s chosen for him but he’s almost scared to complain about it lest it rekindle the fire from earlier. He waits a few moments before squirming around so he can at least face Lan Zhan instead of the ceiling.

“I can manage getting up early for one day,” he says, “A-Liang usually woke me up early back before we got help.” He works his arms around Lan Zhan and pulls them that much closer.

He takes comfort in the touch and his husband’s presence around him, but he’s still worried. Neither of them are acting like themselves. It’s the first time they’ve been in a situation like this. He’s good at improvising, but he’s also good at worrying and overthinking when it comes to their fights.

“Lan Zhan, I’m lucky, too. I get to spend my second life with my favorite person in the whole world.” He presses a kiss to the closest patch of skin which ends up being Lan Zhan’s neck. “Thank you for staying tonight. I know I’ve been an asshole, but I’m glad you’re here with me tonight.”

"Do not speak ill of my husband," he cuts back instinctively, because come what may, there is a lingering edge of playfulness between them, and Wei Ying's reconfiguration in his arms marks that he feels at least at ease enough to shift, to squirm, to make himself at home. Lan Wangji's hand finds the back of his head, latching onto his hair and starting to gently work Wei Ying's temples in smooth, calculated circles.

They might not sleep easily or readily, but at least they can simulate the dregs of comfort between them. They can fight to achieve peace.

"Before Wei Ying's return, at times Sizhui would hold me. He was young. Barely reached my waist." He has not spoken of this to Wei Ying, though he anticipates he knew, somehow. There would have been no one else, past Xichen, whose sympathy was drowned out by mourning the elders Lan Wangji had culled and have their sect, lost to swathes of hostilities against the Wen, then the Yiling Patriarch after. "He would climb the bed to curl against my back."

And fit, somehow, even more loosely than Wei Ying does at present.

He barely flinches at the playful reprimand, at first thinking he’d said something wrong before realizing that it had been directed at himself. He snorts a small laugh, letting his eyes drift closed so he can concentrate on Lan Zhan’s fingers massaging the sides of his head. It reminds him all at once that Lan Zhan had mentioned a headache. Maybe that has something to do with them being on edge this evening.

Smiling softly, he says, “Sizhui’s always been a cuddler. Sometimes I woke up to him curling himself around my legs or at my back. I usually ended up urging him into my arms. I didn’t have as many nightmares back then, but he seemed to have a sixth sense about when they were happening.” Or maybe he made enough noise while sleeping to alert him.

He moves his legs this time, feeling a little more comfortable now that they’ve been touching for a while. And finally, he rests with himself tangled up in his husband’s limbs. “Hey, Lan Zhan,” he starts, opening his eyes to look at his lover’s handsome face. “Would it be alright if I kissed you..?” He normally wouldn’t assume he needs to ask, but tonight still feels fragile.

A cuddler, yes. More so, was Sizhui, then still a-Yuan, in the wake of sudden relocation, the abrupt and critical loss of his beloved caretakers, along with his Wei-gege. He was a small thing, loving and soft, even after Lan Wangji was forced to briefly desert him for a number of years of recovery and seclusion in the sect's cold ponds, after his — delinquence. Throughout, only rare, scattered visit, and Sizhui still holding high hope for him, only ever greeting him with smiles.

Wei Ying gave him that wonderful boy, the exceptional man he has since become. Wei Ying gave him the gift of Lan Liang, the strength to raise a second child. Wei Ying gives him everything, and only asks...

...a kiss, as if a shy maiden or a pale ghost.

"Please," he says by way of acceptance, and sweeps in to capture his husband's face in both warm hands, bridging their mouths with stale numbness and fledgling interest. Soft and easy at first, then deeper, then their embers kindle, and it is heat, all heat and cunning and relief. They've made it. Despite tonight, despite their quarrel, they're here.

They've survived.

And maybe this is what marriage is, the decision to fight for the life of their trust and intimacy each and every day and win and win and win. And they've won.

He looks between Lan Zhan's eyes and his lips, waiting for a moment that feels like an eternity before his husband grants him permission. And once he has it, he leans closer and closes the distance between them. At first, the kiss feels lackluster and too tame but it doesn't last. The discomfort he feels peels away in thick sheets leaving them to each other and the safety of their love and marriage. He brings his hands back to cup Lan Zhan's cheeks, mirroring the way he's being handled.

And everything else slips back into place.

"Love you," he murmurs, only pulling away from the kiss long enough to get the words out before delving back in with a desperate kind of passion. They probably won't sleep together tonight and that's okay. Their bodies are still responsive and they can cling to one another like they'll sink and drown if they let go.

As long as it's together, he can accept it and be happy.

How could he have even considered for even a moment denying Lan Zhan this comfort. Denying himself, too. He could never withhold kissing because they'd both be destroyed without the other.

It feels right, two parts of a whole coming together, a soul reunited. Wei Ying's mouth is a beacon he gravitates towards without question, readily absorbing the taste and texture of his lips between strangled, rounded moans. It heats something in him, the pliant give of Wei Ying's body, the tender creaks of their bed beneath, the typical fervor of their recent trysts briefly substituted for a plainer, sweeter variant.

His hand trails warmth in the choked parting between Wei Ying's robe collars and skin, stumbling obediently over his husband's belt and only teasing a slip southbound. He can be respectable, tame, patient.

And he asks, after a moment's suspension to check in with himself and the root of his impulse, "May I take you?"

Earlier, he had denied Wei Ying, and part of that reticence remains with him, the fear that he would wound his lover through inattention as the pressures of the day call him to bear them witness. But he feels lost without Wei Ying now, consumed by the need for physical reassurance. Earlier, he had assumed a night's abstinence would ground and refresh him; now, he questions every ounce of that wisdom.

He can't help but move against Lan Zhan while they kiss, but he tries not to be too lewd about it. Lan Zhan had wanted to skip their bed play earlier in the evening and he's willing to skip it too despite the way kissing his husband always affects him. Waiting until tomorrow would be worth it if it pleases Lan Zhan.

And then Lan Zhan's hands start to wander, leaving molten trails of heat in their wake. And he melts into the sensation, moaning breathily though his parted lips. It's muffled against Lan Zhan's mouth and he thinks it's for the best that way,

Flushed and somewhat dazed, he chases his husband's mouth when he tries to speak, forcing him to share words like they share breath.

"Lan Zhan," he murmurs, pulling him closer for a firmer series of kisses. "I want you, Lan Zhan, but is it okay?" He strokes Lan Zhan's cheek with his thumb as he looks into his eyes for any sign of discomfort. "If you're just doing it to make me happy, you don't have to. But if it's what you want, too, then... please."

He's willing to wait until tomorrow, but he doesn't want to. He can obviously feel that Lan Zhan's aroused, but being aroused isn't the same thing as wanting to sleep together. He could still have his headache or whatever it was that made him want to skip their love making earlier in the evening.

And is it, okay? He expends another few heartbeats to question himself, to judge his honesty for despair and failings and metabolize the answer. Then, quietly, because Wei Ying deserves no less than his truths, "Inside Wei Ying is the closest I feel to him."

An animalistic, crude realization, little improved by Lan Wangji's timid kisses on his husband's cheek, while his hand toys with the yielding curves of Wei Ying's belt, to loosen it. Already, he feels his own arousal quicken, the scent of their musk warming at slow simmer, the rustle of their sheets slowly binding.

He anticipates Wei Ying's capitulation with enough arrogant certainty that he rolls to hover over his husband, looming, one leg stranded between Wei Ying's to knock them open. "I wish to feel close to him on this night."

Perhaps there's a sickness there, another manifestation of insecurity they must explore one day, soon, without question. There is a reason, after all, why he exorcised the prospect of bedding when their minds are muddled. Still, the hunger for connection preceded their quarrel, and Wei Ying, sweet Wei Ying, already submits so beautifully.

"Shall not strain Wei Ying's body past measure."

He doesn’t see anything in Lan Zhan’s face that would indicate dishonesty or discomfort, so he smiles sweetly at him. His own head is starting to hurt after all the blubbering he’d done, but it’s only a minor thing barely worth noticing.

“It’s the closest I feel to you, too,” he admits openly. Refreshingly cool air slips through the opening of his sleeping robe and gives him a little shiver. He lets Lan Zhan guide him onto his back, parting his legs and exposing himself shamelessly for his husband to do with as he pleases.

His hands come up to touch Lan Zhan’s face, fingers tracing across cheeks and lips like he’s a blind man. “I want that too. To be close tonight. As close as two people can be.” He pushes some of Lan Zhan’s hair behind his ear and half sits so he can press another kiss to his husband’s pretty mouth.

It’s comforting to be close and accepted in this way after such a sharp conflict. A part of him still wonders if Lan Zhan will feel upset after giving in and sleeping with him, but he’ll have to trust in his husband’s decisions.

His hand comes up and fingers slip between their mouths, a sensitive analogue of other parts of him feeling the warmth and wetness there. His moan gets muffled between them and his hips lift off the mattress seeking relief. “You don’t have to be gentle,” his words form around fingers and lips. “Just want you.”

As close as two people can be, if not closer. Stitched together, coalescing, melting as one. Wei Ying urges him away from gentleness, and he shakes his head in minute, slowed gestures, less to reject once more than simply to signal he has exhausted the last of his stamina; there is no more.

He nibbles as Wei Ying's fingers interject between them, catching one between his lips to give it suckle, as he dares a hand between his husband's robes, slow in final, indelible parting. Under his palm, sweet, supple skin, little bruised or touched by sword hardships and only privy to the despair Mo Xuanyu encountered at his family's hand.

"How are you so unafraid? You barely wept on my account."

Short work, in the midst of it: pushing down his own sleeping trousers, undoing the fine lacings of Wei Ying's own. Leaning absently, after, to capture the much coveted, freshly replenished swell of their salve jar, nearly tipping it across their bed in the effort to drag it close.

He is nervous, he understands suddenly. No. Excited, for all he had thought himself hollowed of such an impulse earlier.

Moaning at the feeling of Lan Zhan sucking on his finger, he lewdly moves the digit in and out of his husband’s mouth. His body remembers that mouth around something else and his hips rise again. He strains for some contact but Lan Zhan hasn’t dubbed it time for that quite yet. In some ways, it’s more maddening than quarrel to be promised euphoria but denied it by gentle teasing.

“Afraid of you?” He asks, leaning his head back to look up at his husband. His finger is still dipping in and out of Lan Zhan’s mouth and his eyes keep glancing down to track what’s going on. While he would love to have Lan Zhan’s mouth around him, he wants to feel him inside even more. “I’d never be scared of you, Lan Zhan. You love me too much to hurt me in ways that aren’t fun.”

He lifts himself up so Lan Zhan can pull his trousers down past his knees and expose him. His knees part again, not just inviting but demanding more attention.

“I love you,” he reminds, slipping his hand from his lover’s mouth so he can cup Lan Zhan’s cheek. “So much, Lan Zhan. If I were drowning, you would be my first breath of fresh air.”

If Wei Ying were drowning. But he isn't, will never be permitted. Persists, a tempting creature of an eerily wild night, unraveled before Lan Wangji, permitting himself known. The skin of his trousers is shed obediently, and Lan Wangji peels it off him to reveal the ivory of his pallid legs, the heat of his pretty, swollen arousal.

His own garments fall just open enough to allow them tender friction, marked by a slow, cresting sigh whenever he shifts only so, gasps only so, tips his head only so to slip the roundness of his cheek into Wei Ying's head. So often they pretend Lan Wangji controls their relationship, between his silver, his status, the pride of his sect. But it is Wei Ying who draws and retains him in orbit, who settles him, as if an animal well tamed.

Between moans, he prevails to gather to coax the debris of his attention to himself, wetting two fingers in salve, before searching between Wei Ying's legs to hunt the trail to his hole and dip in once, to spread the wetness. More balm meets skin, loosening open the rim, sweetening its yield. For a man untouched for less than a day, Wei Ying is already impossibly, alarmingly tight and disobedient.

"I thought earlier I might have scared you."

His husband’s name is on his lips, hips rising once more to meet Lan Zhan’s halfway. He pushes Lan Zhan’s robe to the side, drawing one of his hands downward across his chest, abdomen, lower. His hand finds Lan Zhan’s cock and guides it along side his own for a handful of desperate thrusts until Lan Zhan decides to move onto the next step.

“I was only scared you’d leave,” he admits, “For the night or however long you needed space. I was never scared that you’d strike me or do anything else to hurt me.” Not physically, at least. Their words are another story, but he’s typically more worried that he’d be the one to say something he couldn’t take back than Lan Zhan.

He gasps when he’s entered, spreading his legs wider to give his husband more room to loosen him. To distract himself from the vaguely uncomfortable sensation, he curls a leg around Lan Zhan’s and works both of their cocks at the same time. He could probably get off just doing this, but he wants to feel his husband inside him before he’ll be able to sleep.

“Besides, if I ever pissed you off enough to actually attack me, I’m confident I could avoid injury long enough for me to calm you down,” he says a cockily. He’s not Lan Zhan’s equal, but he suspects his husband would be too subconsciously worried to hurt him that it wouldn’t be a problem.

For a few moments, the work of his hand stutters, as his eyes shutter close and he stills completely. Then, he thaws, hips lulled into a gentle sway to ease Wei Ying's strokes. His husband's hand, tight and warm around him. Their lengths, suffocated in a tight ring of delicious friction. His lover's skin everywhere, the honeyed notes of earlier blooming thick and heady when Lan Wangji's forehead dips into Wei Ying's collarbone.

Helplessly, he ruts his hips into his husband's grip, fleetingly forgetting everything except a heated litany of, "Wei Ying. Wei Ying."

In the end, he only resists being overwhelmed to a point past return for their evening by turning his head aside and — recalling enough of Wei Ying's previous disturbance to avoid his skin — biting into his own arm. The tremors of pain stir him back to focus, and he stays his pace, drawing a hand to loosen Wei Ying's off his length and kissing the mountain chain of his husband's disobedient knuckles.

"You tempt me to shame myself, beautiful thing." For all they've both visited the ways in which they can bring one another to cusp without penetration.

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