Why is it Always Meditation?

[emperorssmile]

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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[shangba]

"I know," he murmurs, still wet against the stretch of skin of Wei Ying's throat, still heady, still needy. "I know."

And he loves Wei Ying for it, part and whole, loves the the candor and domesticity and kindness that compel Wei Ying to yield and reassure him. The truth, as they surely both know it: Lan Wangji has failed him. Has proven insufficient. Must work harder, faster, more consistently to find an answer that progresses his husband from luxurious futility to a sense of worth and urgency.

He melts altogether into the warmth of Wei Ying's arms, drawn into an embrace that all but dissolves him. Their breathing synchronizes, limbs entangling. He lets himself be, as close to Wei Ying as flesh and skin will allow them — then pulls out, drifting to settle at his husband's left and finally allow him comfort.

"...should bathe you again." He cannot possibly be asked to rise again.

[emperorssmile]

He doesn’t rush Lan Zhan, holding him for as long as he wants to be held and murmuring all sorts of ‘I love you’s and the like while they just exist together. The longer it goes on, the sleepier he starts to feel. He usually doesn’t fight against sleep unless he’s busying himself on a project that catches his attention, but he fights it tonight because he wants to be there for his husband just like Lan Zhan was there for him earlier.

He grunts when Lan Zhan finally exits him, melting into the new feeling of emptiness. He rolls onto his side to follow his lover, laying with one arm pinned between them and the other draped over Lan Zhan’s chest.

“We can bathe in the morning,” he coaxes, wiggling just enough to find the most comfortable position. And if he ends up laying on top of his husband, it won’t be the first or the last time. “Let’s stay like this for a little while longer.”

[shangba]

The fight's fled him, drained syrupy from his flesh and bones. He languishes, accepting Wei Ying stumbled over him like a tattered flag, nearly weightless for how small he remains, despite ongoing, assiduous efforts to heal him of his thinness. He noses, haphazardly, landing first in Wei Ying's hair, then his collarbone.

"You smell of me," he fumbles the words, strung along by more stubbornness than proper enunciation. "Smell of mine."

And he does, their musk combined, for all their intimacy hardly lasted enough to warrant an afterthought in the annotations of the most generous love poet. Truly, he laughs, stifled and strange, mouth caressing Wei Ying's ear in passing. "This is not the bedding of which to tell the washerwomen."

As if Wei Ying ever succumbed to such gossip, as if he would share the secret of his husband's intimacy, like all the pretty young girls who chatter and tout their trysts. Still, the thought amuses.

[emperorssmile]

“That’s ‘cause I am yours,” he says, stifling a yawn shortly after. He always ends up feeling so sleepy after sex, but he’s still doing his damnedest to stay awake until Lan Zhan falls asleep before him.

He knows he must have seen Lan Zhan more exhausted than he is in this moment. Either when they were in the Xuanyu of Slaughter’s cave or in the Burial Mounds following the massacre at Nightless City, but he doesn’t remember the former clearly or the latter much at all. The battles of today were only words, but the injuries are just as real.

Surprised by the sudden laughter, he lifts his head up so he can look down at his lovely husband’s face. It would take a truly broken person to not smile back, and he’s only got a few cracks here and there. “I’m not complaining,” he answers, stealing a quick kiss. “It did what we needed it to do.” They both finished and he feels like the pain from earlier is well on its way to healed.

[shangba]

"Will make it up to this neglected maiden," he pledges, thieving a second kiss from Wei Ying's laughter-warmed mouth. There, right there. He has captured the essence of his husband's beauty and instead to keep it for his own, enshrined in perfect, crystalline memory. "Will make you biddable with silks and sweets."

Like a perverted older man who cannot satisfy his bride with his flesh and must instead depend on the wealth of his coin purse. How convoluted, how strange. He draws Wei Ying to himself, to his chest, calling his lover to spread over him as if a second blanket, while shifting so the covers might better house Wei Ying beneath.

"My love is stubborn on this night." Whimsy, playful, as if he is only an observer to Wei Ying's fine habits and not his foremost instigator. "Eludes the sleep that should have long claimed him. What distracts him?"

[emperorssmile]

He's laughing when Lan Zhan kisses him, rubbing his cheek across his husband's shortly after. "You haven't neglected me. I'm satisfied by my husband's performance. But... I won't say no to being spoiled. I had my eye on a black robe with red and silver dragon scales embroidered into it, but decided not to buy it today." And he stifles another big yawn by pressing his face against Lan Zhan's chest.

When he lays his head back down on Lan Zhan's chest, he can hear the comforting sound of his heart beating strongly. He smiles to himself, remembering the first time he'd seen Lan Zhan drunk. When was it that he fell in love with Lan Zhan? It must have been before that at some point. Why else would he have not been alarmed by his own reaction?

"Hmm?" Ah, so Lan Zhan noticed. If anyone could, it would be him. "Just want to spend as much time with you as I can." No, that's not the whole thing. "You wanted to be held tonight. I want to make sure I'm holding you until you fall asleep."

[shangba]

It blooms a certain satisfaction in him, to hear Wei Ying speak material desires with whimsy and confidence — as if he no longer fears rejection, no longer dreads the look of Lan Wangji pondering his request. As if he is entitled, and he is, oh, he is. To this and more than the cultivation world can ever fruitfully deliver him.

"Have a fresh garment cut for you of the same cloth, sooner than refitted," he chastises, and does not speak the truth they both know: that Wei Ying's instinct has still taken him to the cheaper merchant stalls and houses, where pieces of clothing are cut already to a broad size. A premium seller would never presume to create a garment without taking the buyer's measure.

Lan Wangji's hand stumbles in Wei Ying's hair, fishes out knots and loosens binds. The strokes, the kissing, the carefully obsessive attention are, inevitably, by-products of care he has never learned to direct at anyone, anything else.

"You already hold me. Wei Ying is my blanket." Beneath another cover that stretches above them all. "He may sleep."

[emperorssmile]

He hums an agreement about the robe. Having the display fitted or being measured for a new one would have taken precious time out of his outing with the kids. It works out in his favor this time since he’ll follow Lan Zhan’s instructions to get fitted for a new robe instead of one already produced for a quick sale. He has to remind himself that he isn’t tragically poor now. He has access to more than enough money to live lavishly and a husband encouraging him to do so.

“Might go back and commission one,” he murmurs, snuggling close. His knee ends up between Lan Zhan’s now and his arms bracket his husband between them. Lan Zhan’s heart’s steady beating is just one more comfort drawing him towards sleep.

“Love you,” he insists, turning his face just enough to kiss husband’s chest just under his collar bone. “Don’t stay up too late.” It won’t be long now before he lets himself drift to sleep.