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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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.

“That’s it, Lan Zhan,” he coos, doubling his effort to pleasure them both, momentarily tempted to take them both to completion. It would be rushing things and neither would get what they really want, but having his husband melt against him in bliss is a delicious thing. His moans echo Lan Zhan’s as they slide together in his hand.

Until Lan Zhan comes to his senses and interrupts, at least. He loosens his grip and grins at his husband. “Got too distracted listening to you,” he explains, curling his fingers to slip them past Lan Zhan’s lips. “I could get off just listening to you.”

He spreads his legs a little wider and pulls Lan Zhan down for another kiss. When he reaches down this time, he takes just Lan Zhan into his hand and guides him to his destination.

“Love you,” he reminds him, leaning back so he can look up and into his lover’s eyes. He’s feeling impatient to hear Lan Zhan coming undone inside of him. He wants the reassurance that everything is going to be okay between them. That their bodies and souls still sing for one another.

He wants to bite Wei Ying.

He wants to bite Wei Ying and make him squirm and pierce him on his length and see him cry and cry and cry and plead limpidly for mercy, and that urgency to own so much that he can destroy nearly consumes him. His moan's gravelly, buried in the locking tomb of his lungs, as he yields to his husband again, Wei Ying's hand guiding him in position. He would miss, he knows with bashful boyishness, without the assistance, far too overwhelmed by animal instinct and quiet fever.

Then, he enters his husband, tip to smooth thrust to complete, agonizingly sweet insertion, and his mouth crashes onto Wei Ying's, swallowing the last of his lover's confession. Yes and yes and home.

And, I love you. He has been scant with his words since their quarrel, as if sweetness costs him. Even now, tattered and made fragile by reuniting with Wei Ying's body, sweat beading down his brow, he feels — too overcome, again.

He forces himself to remove himself nearly completely out of Wei Ying, before pushing back in, once, again, again. A constant, thrilling periodicity. He won't last long, he knows already, truly prone to shaming himself. He won't last long, and yet he knows Wei Ying will not think less of him for it.

"I love you. I love you, soulmate, my soulmate. I love you."

His hips rise off the mattress when Lan Zhan pushes into him. It’s always uncomfortable at first and this time is no different. “That’s it,” he coaxes, willing himself to help his husband go deeper as he lowers himself back down.

He cups Lan Zhan’s face between his hands and grins at him. There’s nothing more reassuring than their lovemaking. It’s a balm to his soul as much as kissing, which he responds to with an encouraging moan, toes curling into their bedding as he gets used to the push and pull of their bodies.

His hands explore Lan Zhan’s skin, fingers pausing to pinch at a nipple, rolling it between his finger and thumb. He hopes it gives Lan Zhan the same sort of jolt between his legs as it gives him.

“Lan Zhan, I know. I know you love me as much as I love you. You’re so good, Lan Zhan. Feels good. I love you so much.”

He knows Lan Zhan must be as tired as Wei Wuxian feels. This will be one of those times where they’re so desperate for each other that they aren’t taking their time drawing things out. That’s fine with him. They know how to efficiently get them both off. It won’t be a world stopping orgasm, but it’ll be enough to solidify their union in spite of the pain of conflict earlier.

Feels good. It does, glimmers of pleasure stabbing his gut, spreading liquefied through his limbs while the push and pull of their body settles into a deep-thrust routine.

"Vixen," he hisses when the pinch of his nipple spills lightning through him, eyes briefly dripping closed while a shudder consumes him. He breathes, retaliating against Wei Ying with careless nips of his jaw, his ear, whatever comes within reach. "Another night, have your fill."

He is not adverse to allowing his lover the reins of him for an evening, the chance to explore his body in bites and pinches, if it satisfies this yearning Wei Ying always manifests to pay his dues. To bring as much pleasure as he receives, if not more.

Already, they are reliably competent at base fucking, attentively learned and thoroughly rehearsed, and though it should worry him that they have reduced lovemaking to a predictable — there is nothing pedestrian about their reunion, nothing perfunctory or bored when one of Lan Wangji's arms bends to bracket to the right of Wei Ying and pillar Wangji above. The other hand, unbidden and sly, slips in between them to remember Wei Ying's pretty length and cup it as if a precious gift, falling in between tight strokes, rolls and squeezes.

"For me. Will you? For me." As if Wei Ying has ever strived to reach orgasm for another man. As if he would presume to admit this truth, if he had.

He giggles and tilts his head back, both backing away from and also inviting more little bites. It thrills him to know he’s pushed his husband that far, but he obediently moves his hand to cup the back of Lan Zhan’s neck to hold him close. It’s been a while since Lan Zhan marked him in a place where anyone might see, either by tooth or suction.

“I’ll keep you up all night,” he warns. They’ve slept together so many times now, but there are still so many things they can uncover about each other when they take the time to savor their bed play.

His hips buck against Lan Zhan’s hand, a moan catching deep in his throat. He clings onto his husband with both arms and legs, “For you,” he promises, grinding his backside against Lan Zhan’s front to chase the spark that ignites every time they move just so.

“For you, Lan Zhan. Almost got it. Just a little more. Faster.” He’s usually good about speaking in complete sentences even while they’re sleeping together, but now that Lan Zhan’s loving him from both sides, the ability fails him.

With a few more thrusts, he squeezes Lan Zhan close and rides that last thrust as the first wave of his climax hits him. With it, he lets go of all that stress that had built up over the course of their evening. Things are all as right as can be as far as he’s concerned.

Inevitably, climax finds him shivered, barely in control of himself, chasing Wei Ying's lips until his mouth lands on his husband's throat with hungry inevitability.

He suckles, hand still mean over Wei Ying's arousal, pulling his pleasure as if wresting hard-won victory and readying him for fresh pinnacles of satisfaction. He isn't: it comes, like Lan Wangji's own stuttered, lowly moaned climax, too careless and quick and coarse, and he cannot help himself, hard grinds hunting the last trickle of that same fruition.

He thinks he spills into Wei Ying for a short eternity, the last few thrusts like stabbings meant to gut both of them. Angrily, shamefully, he inches harder into Wei Ying even his body has peaked into overstimulation, and he is tired, tired and worn and licking and kissing his husband's throat in apology, where a mark welts.

"...apologise. I apologise." But he is not pulling out still, not giving Wei Ying that relief, as if only like this, connected in body and soul, can they court true honesty. "I am sorry you are not wholly happy."

They move together, wrenching every last drop of pleasure and then keep going for several moments after just in case they miss some. When they’re both finished, he lays back on the bed and runs his fingers through Lan Zhan’s hair and down his shoulders and back. Touch feels nice after sex and he wants to share the intimacy.

“Shhh, no need for apologies,” he tells him gently, bringing his hands to cup his husband’s cheeks. “I’m happy in this moment. And you make more of my moments happy than they would be without you.”

He’d been worried that confessing his unhappy moments would trouble Lan Zhan and it’s bittersweet to know he was right. He’d never been honest about the existence of that part of himself to anyone, not even his sister. He’d rather smile with the ones he loves, but Lan Zhan isn’t just that to him. He’s half his soul, half his heart, half his life.

“I love you so much, Lan Zhan.” That’s why fighting with him hurts so much. If it were any other person, he wouldn’t take it to heart. Sure he might sulk a little, but that’s because he likes getting his way, but it doesn’t hurt.

After some time, he knows, Wei Ying will strain and ache beneath him, suspended in a state of discomfort. Lan Wangji will have to roll over him. In a few heartbeats, but not now, and he clings to that certainty, that they can rebuild themselves as a unit no matter the grave, slippery hardships of their evening gone.

And he murmurs, far too close to Wei Ying's ear, "I wanted... thought. If I gave you everything I had, everything I am... you would be happy."

As if Wei Ying is a child to be so readily satisfied, as if he must accept all that Lan Wangji directs, unbidden. As if he, like Lan Wangji, does not host and home his struggles, his wants, his needs, his challenges.

"But it is not enough." Lan Wangji and what he can provide are not enough. And he had thought he was at peace with this, thought himself healed of that hubris, but the sting spreads and burns and leaves him breathlessly, impossibly sedate.

He allows himself what he rejected when he was still of sober mind, urging Wei Ying to find a world greater than Lan Wangji. "I wish it were. I wish I were."

Why is it Always Meditation?

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