( On the way to midday and polite hours for Wei Ying, who would by now often have written a note with his Lan Liang's latest adventures, but is instead silent — )
Abandoned to his own devices, Wei Ying floats serenely between petty practicalities, always neglecting to address his own needs while prioritizing those of other people. So be it. Lan Wangji drifts in the wake of his husband, collecting him a set of evening silks — white tonight, if not Lan Wangji's own, a private reassurance that all that which belongs to the sect is living and safe — before dutifully floating behind Wei Ying to present them. On his arm, dead like flower petals, patiently expectant.
Their son, Wei Ying says, is under control, and the breath Lan Wangji had not realized he caged in his chest slowly releases. He nods, once, then silently again, before wrapping both arms around his husband from behind and pressing in, in a tight, corseting embrace. His head lulls over Wei Ying's shoulder, a resolute weight tenderly hanging.
"The little one stopped our breaths with his own all morning." But he cannot find it in himself to accuse Lan Liang of the smallest shortcoming. "You watched after my family. Fought valiantly. Thank you."
He lifts his arms to curl around Lan Zhan’s in a facsimile of a hug. It’s the best he can do with Lan Zhan at his back. It’s easy to let himself relax into the embrace, glad for their son’s health and the opportunity to share a little more touch. He’s always been a tactile person and tonight is no different.
“He’s given us quite the scare,” he agrees, looking down at the infant sleeping so peacefully. He doesn’t have to check his bottom because they’d smell it if he’d had another accident. “I was just doing what any mother would do when she finds her baby in a rough spot.”
He struggles a moment until Lan Zhan loosens his hold enough for him to turn around for a better hug. One that he can return. “You came in just in time to help take the pressure off my shoulders. So, thank you for that.”
He feels like he could be happy staying in his husband’s arms like this for the rest of the night. The disciple working for the kitchen must have the worst timing having knocked on their door to interrupt their moment of peace. He squeezes Lan Zhan before letting him go to accept their dinner.
Perhaps no more than a mother might have performed — but they were raised as cultivators, as warriors, with minimal expectation to rear children. He had anticipated perhaps to a lesser extent than did Wei Ying that a woman would become his wife and eventually undertake such assignments. That Wei Ying prevails in both destruction and nurture is a feat that Lan Wangji rewards, carefully, with kisses to his nape, the crown of his head —
Until a bashful, sedate knock at their door announces the flustering presence of a disciple and their dinner. As the only one of them sufficiently presentable to accept company, he excuses himself, releasing Wei Ying with a nudge for his husband to find a brief distraction in their secluded bed chamber and spare the disciple a lovely, if immodest sight.
After, he peers their door open, offering his thanks in exchange for platters of food he descends on their low table in a generous spread. More food than their typical serving — and, he notes, the kitchens have taken care to produce the more lavish meat fare that is typically reserved for the arrival of foreign sect leaders. No doubt, Uncle interceded, knowing all too well both Wei Ying's distress and the limited amount of food he accepted earlier.
He takes the robes from his husband’s arm and goes willingly to their room to put his resting clothes on. He doesn’t actually care whether or not he’s seen in this state of undress. Back in Yunmeng summers, all the male disciples swam in less. It was only ever an issue if his sister happened to witness the disciples’ immodesty and Madame Yu knew about it. Still, this isn’t Yunmeng and the Lan sect value modesty even among men. And he can’t forget his husband’s jealous streak.
He hears the door close as he emerges from the bedroom, tying the belt around his waist. “Smells good,” he says, looking over the spread on the table. He’s pleasantly surprised to see a substantial serving of pork along with the fish he’s usually limited to. “Looks good, too.”
His appetite is kindled by the generous serving. If Lan Liang were still in dire condition, he might have struggled to resurrect his appetite. Since the child is doing better than anticipated, Wei Wuxian’s meager lunch is catching up to him.
He sits down and grabs his chopsticks to catch a bite of the spiced pork and greedily pull it into his mouth. He nods his head and covers his mouth before saying around the bite, “Tastes good, too! The dining crew outdid themselves today.” He understands people for the most part, but he doesn’t think to credit Lan Qiren for the elaborate meal.
“Maybe we should set some to the side for when A-Liang needs to eat again.” Either Lan Zhan can share some of his soup, or they could pick a dish to smash into a chunky mush. Maybe it’s superstition, but A-Liang was sick after drinking milk earlier in the day, but he’s able to keep other things in him without trouble.
"Shall steep some congee in broth," he volunteers and settles a diminutive amount of the rice in a puddle of broth in two thumbs-width bowl for sauces, letting the grains gather their flavour. Then, for some time, he only watches, sat primly before Wei Ying and taking in the lovely sight of his husband thriving. So often, Wei Ying feels limited in his choices, condemned to food that satisfies his hunger but seems to seldom inspire him. Now, at least, resurging hunger after Lan Liang's recovery is pushing him to eat.
At the last moment, before his abstinence might trouble his lover, he begins to pour a little of the mushroom stew in his own bowl, setting rice in a second recipient. For a few heartbeats, he fusses before becoming entirely his husband's creature and picking at a spread of pickles. He learns, he supposes, even he — a son of Gusu Lan.
He does not speak between bites, but paces himself to slip a rare word now and then, the pace of his chewing sedate.
"The sect loves a-Liang. They rallied." He hesitates, part of him wishing to insist, to scream to Wei Ying that here, now, his people have embraced him. Learn to but embrace them in kind. Adore and understand them, also. "They care for his father, also. For Wei Ying."
He nods his approval of broth and congee, thinking it’s the perfect food for a sick kid. “When I was little, shijie would make congee with some sort of meat broth and lots of ginger whenever Jiang Cheng or I felt sick. Sometimes it was pheasant or chicken and sometimes it was pork,” he explains between bites, covering his mouth if he starts to talk with food still in his mouth. If they were eating in the dining pavilion, he’d try to keep quiet or at the very least, he’d keep his mouth shut when chewing.
He picks up his serving of soup, tasting the rich, umami flavor of duck broth. The kitchen workers really are treating him like an esteemed guest tonight instead of providing just enough meat in his meal to keep him sated.
Seeing Lan Zhan willingly going for the more intense flavor of pickles has him grinning. He reaches across the table to pick up a pickled radish and pops it into his mouth. It’s more sweet and salty than a tangier variety of pickle, but the flavor is still extreme for a Lan palate.
His grin goes from amused to a little sheepish when Lan Zhan continues. “They’re good people,” he admits, looking over his shoulder towards where their baby rests. A little color might be creeping onto his face. It’s true that the disciples in the dining pavilion had been concerned about Lan Liang and some even asked how Wei Wuxian was doing, too. They seemed sincere, but he was too worried about Lan Liang to notice until now. “I should do something to thank them.”
"No need," he intercedes quietly and takes it upon himself, head of a struggling family, to ease his husband's burden and carefully present him with the pick of the pickles' reddest offering between Lan Wangji's own chopsticks. "What they do, done gladly, without expectation."
Perhaps his people are glacial compared to the easy manner of Lotus Pier — but they have never lacked in true, unassuming kindness.
He holds the morsel up before Wei Ying's lips in slow invitation, begging his husband to do him the privilege of gracing Wangji's instruments with his luscious mouth. Then, catapulted back to paying his own meal attention, he surveys the spread before him with a withering gaze, only to conclude:
"Uncle favours you better now." To the best of his ability, the creeping downturn of his mouth might present itself as a pout. On any other man, it would nearly fail to introduce itself. He tries to emote, still.
"Wei Ying's dinner is more bountiful. Have failed as a nephew."
“Guess it would only make them feel uncomfortable if I tried, huh?” It’s a good point, so he drops the idea. Maybe he’ll take more of his meals at the pavilion itself instead of squirreling himself away in the jingshi every day. Really, he shouldn’t be surprised that he hasn’t made friends in Cloud Recesses. He hasn’t opened himself up to anyone new because he assumes he’ll be rejected because of who he is.
He grins and leans forward to take the pickled chili into his mouth. He must be the only one in the entire town to eat something like this and they still take the time to prepare it for him. He feels a prickle behind his eyes, but he manages to suppress the urge to reach for the spiciest-looking dish in case any tears might form.
Maybe Cloud Recesses, in its full, has finally become his home. would Lan Zhan feel jealous if he knew that he’s been thinking of Lan Zhan as his home until this moment? Or would he be happy?
“Your uncle?” He asks, confused at first. It doesn’t take long for him to realize the cafeteria staff wouldn’t have known to or been permitted to serve all of this meat for one meal without someone’s involvement. “You think he’s behind all this?” He gestures to the meal in front of them. By comparison, there’s a sizable difference in their meals. Lan Zhan might be onto something. For someone like Lan Qiren, he would have expected Lan Zhan to perform his duties as sect leader first and foremost and let Wei Wuxian handle the domestic affairs.
He picks up a cube of tofu and brings it up to Lan Zhan’s lips. “That’s okay, Lan Zhan. I favor you enough to make up for it. Here, you can have anything you want off of my side.”
The tofu, he decides unilaterally, is at once both an unnecessary and a perfectly acceptable concession, as he dips in to catch it in his mouth in a lone, greedy swallow. His lips press on the tips of his husband's chopsticks in gratitude, silence utterly restored as he chews with slow, careful measures.
Then, falling back in place, he passes his own chopsticks through the melange of soup and rice to further infuse his son's dinner. Tenderly, "A victor's generosity."
But it leaves his heart far too soft and fond to behold his husband's security, his growing and justified confidence. He cannot begrudge a man so often wounded by the carelessness and indifference of others the rare few moments when he is assailed by grateful pride. To mark the moment, he extends a bite of his own food on paired chopsticks — aubergine, cut thick and dripping moist, braised sweet. A rare monument of flavour.
"Speak to me," and he says it wistfully, as if Wei Ying, prime chatterbox, has denied him. "How are you?"
They pledged, after all, to attempt such reckonings each night: to intercede and court each other, to know their minds and tempt loose the darkness of Wei Ying's mind instead.
He accepts the taste of aubergine willingly. He doesn’t hate vegetables, other than the more bitter varieties, so it’s no difficult task for him to savor the offering. As soon as the exchange is made, he goes back to his own meal to pick and choose the best bites.
“I’m tired, but I’m content, too.” He looks towards Lan Liang’s bed briefly, smiling to himself. His temperature must still be within the parameters he’s set and the baby seems to be sleeping peacefully. “I’m relieved that A-Liang’s getting better already. I know it’s too soon to celebrate, but it’s hard not to.”
He scoops up some of the spiced sauce that accompanies the pork, making sure to get some of the dried chili with it. “And I guess I’m touched, too. It feels like the whole sect is rallying behind me to see that A-Liang’s being taken care of. And that I’m being taken care of, too. I didn’t expect it, especially your uncle’s role. I know he’s begrudgingly accepted our marriage, but maybe it’s less begrudging now.”
He pauses for another bite of food to gather his thoughts. “It feels good. Back in Lotus Pier, I had friends but whenever there was trouble, everyone always let me take the blame for it. I don’t really have friends here, but everyone wants to see me succeed when there’s a problem. I’m grateful.”
"Those were not friends." But he speaks it like gravel slipping beneath the wheels of a burdened cart, a quiet, begrudging truth. Of course Lotus Pier, a covert snakes' pit, would foster such creatures of treachery. Of course they would seek to pin all trouble on the fragile back of their foremost pupil, purposefully and vocally adopted into the main family.
At times, Lan Wangji suspects he will look upon the tablet of Madam Yu and scream. At others, he satisfies himself with the certainty that he need never walk into the vaunted halls of Jiang Wanyin's ancestral home, lest the entire cultivation world quakes beneath his feet, or Wei Ying's last breath depends on it.
They eat silently for a mere few heartbeats while Lan Wangji coaxes back his forced peace to himself, while he tames himself into an honourable man that his husband might not feel compelled to hide from. This is the game, in truth: how to tease information out of his lover and not react to it in such a way that Wei Ying feels inhibited, ever shy and prone to doubt.
He sets his chopsticks straight and narrowly paired on the table. "Will you sleep tonight?" No. This sets pressure, expectations. Wei Ying does not rule his own insomnia. "How may I help?"
“Maybe not very good ones,” he concedes. He hadn’t thought much of it back then, assuming the fault lied with his luck and not with his peers. Thinking about it now, he’s not so sure. If he found out the Lan disciples treated Sizhui as a scapegoat, he’d be furious. But neither Madame Yu nor Jiang Fengmian ever came to his aid. The only one who ever intervened on his behalf was Jiang Yanli.
No, those weren’t friends, were they?
“Hmm?” He looks up from the food he’s been torturing with his chopsticks instead of eating. “I’ll try to get some sleep when we’re done eating,” he says. After they move Lan Liang’s bed into their bedroom. “Will you hold me until I fall asleep?” If he falls asleep.
He’s tempted to put his chopsticks down, feeling mostly satisfied with the amount he’s eaten. It’s a shame to let any of this meat go to waste, though! He picks up another slice of pork and eats it. “Maybe we could talk a little while until I start to feel tired. It shouldn’t take too long after today.”
For all his hesitancy and uncertainty, at least Wei Ying is now setting himself to the task of eating, slowly but surely making progress against the diminutive feast before him. As if to placate and reward him, Lan Wangji replenishes his wine, clear and fragranced and far too potent even from such a cautious distance.
"Shall lie awake until you rest. No moment unguarded," he pledges, settling the wine jar back down on the thick-lacquered table with a tepid click. A hard pledge, he knows, challenging: whatever Wei Ying's sleeping hour, it only ever naturally arrives long after Lan Wangji's own. The Lan curfew will be the death of him, forever in place to dishonour him.
But he can push through, this once, when and as Wei Ying needs him. Cannot begin to fail his husband so. "Shall spend all night to watch Liang, if it pleases you."
In truth, that is ever the possibility even without Wei Ying's leave.
Sorry for the delay! It’s been a rough week at work.
“My brave defender!” he says affectionately, reaching across the table with his left hand to take Lan Zhan’s right while he picks up another meaty bite with his chopsticks. He doesn’t need someone to look after him like that, but there’s something he likes about encouraging Lan Zhan to keep him safe. That and maybe it will keep his bad dreams at bay just to be in his husband’s arms.
After another couple bites, he sets his own chopsticks down and lets out a satisfied sigh. He hasn’t had a meal like this since they came back from Jinlintai. He misses the food and Jin Ling, but he finds it nice to be back home with his Lan Zhan. Maybe his husband’s elderly ways are rubbing off on him.
“You don’t have to stay up all night, Lan Zhan. You have to be up all day. If anyone can spare the sleep, it’s me. I can just make it up by sleeping in,” he suggests. He doubts it will change Lan Zhan’s mind, though.
"No hardship," he murmurs, and there's truth in it. It is likely Wei Ying will doze and startle awake and repeat himself over and over and over awake, perpetually stirred by caution and dismay. The faintest sound will rouse and haunt him.
No different, alas, for Lan Wangji. Wei Ying's frailty terrorizes, but has been long survived prior. There is no precedent for fearing for a young child's life, not to this extent. Even Sizhui's young fevers, all encompassing and memory erasing, were inflicted on a body possessed of a golden core and a chance to fight. Liang is a paltrier, more delicate creature —
And he will live. It must be so. He will live and thrive and laugh in the face of his parents' strange absurdity. He will call them foolishly weak and far too fond and all the silly, wonderfully blubt-edged names only children give to their beloved.
"Come to bed," he invites and neglects to make a question of it, gently pleased to woo Wei Ying with a wave and Lan Wangji's own rise from the table's side. He delays only to loiter by Liang and collect his crib, to settled near their bed, and he descends it down.
"Without attack from my husband's ankles, my calves will lose battle readiness."
“If you say so,” he relents, feeling grateful for his husband’s love. All the bad luck he’s had his whole life is eclipsed by the brilliance of marrying Lan Zhan. He doesn’t fight this time over which one of them gets to sacrifice for the other, in part because he’s already tired and also because Lan Zhan’s old enough to make his own decisions.
He finishes his wine in one gulp and leaves the cup with the rest of their dinner mess, then he goes to their chamber to finish getting ready for bed. It’s way too early for him to stay asleep through the night, but their every day tends to ease him into nightly naps around this time.
“How is he?” He asks, walking over to Lan Zhan’s side and peering down at the infant. Lan Liang is somehow sleeping through being moved and Wei Wuxian reaches down to touch his forehead. “Fever’s still there, but he’s not too warm. He must be exhausted after such a big day.”
The same as the rest of the family. While he’s thinking about it, he takes the time to write out a quick message to Sizhui and Lan Qiren to update them on Lan Liang’s improving condition. He could have asked Lan Zhan to do it, but he’s the one that benefited from them the most. It’s not past the usual Lan curfew yet, but he would have sent it anyway if it had been.
As ever, he lingers, impossibly disciplined and instinctively too ill at ease to surrender the remains of their dinner for cleansing without carefully covering them with a cloche and setting them outside of their door by the porch, where the evening guards and the grounds watchers will retrieve them for the kitchens. Then, he returns once more to fuss at their son, trying his forehead for fresh fevers, his flank and hind for wet or shivers.
"He sleeps restfully," he calls out with shallow heat, careful not to shower Liang with enough loudness to wake him. The odds are in his favor, even as he drags the crib behind him, sitting Liang's bed parallel to their own.
Then, Wei Ying slinks behind him, the scent of his husband bound with the borrowed sandalwood, and Lan Wangji allows himself to feel, to scent, go be. He tips back just enough to tease Wei Ying with warmth but not inconvenience him with the burden if Wangji's weight — until Wei Ying fleetingly excuses himself to write to their son.
After, long after, slipped into their bed and courting patience, he taps the empty side as if to bid his lover close. May Wei Ying at long last afford him the gift and honour of his presence. "Is it that you write your lovers, so secretively?"
“I hope not,” he answers with a laugh, “I’m sure Lan Shufu is handsome enough to women of his generation but we wouldn’t be compatible. Well, maybe if he shaved his beard and I lost my vision and sense of smell, I might think it’s you from a distance.” He isn’t trying to stir up Lan Zhan’s jealousy. He thinks the idea is absurd enough not to trigger anything.
Once he’s finished writing, he makes his way to their bed and climbs in on his side. He faces Lan Zhan at first, turning his back to their son for a handful of selfish moments. He wraps an arm around his husband’s middle and closes the distance between them. “Let me be close for just a little while,” he requests. They’ve been more or less avoiding anything too intimate since he’d come home and he misses it. With the baby behind him, he will try his best to behave himself.
“He’s asleep?” He asks, glancing down at Lan Zhan’s lips briefly. “I want to kiss you, but I’m scared I won’t want to stop. If you think you can be both our will power, maybe it won’t be so dangerous.”
Would it be fair to put that on Lan Zhan’s shoulders? Just because he grew up repressing his wants and needs doesn’t mean he should have to repress them now. But if he doesn’t, they shouldn’t consider kissing at all.
His... uncle. For once, the thought of Wei Ying with another man — this man — startles, sooner than enrages him, mind swiftly mired in the convolutions of such obscenity. He flinches, instinctively appalled by the possibility of glimpsing shufu bare, partaking of carnal pleasures alongside the supple, bewitching beauty of Wei Ying.
With a cough barely shielded by the back of his hand, he looks away, just as Wei Ying slithers beneath their covers and burrows in. The flush that assails his face may well burn it, brandishing him with shame in perpetuity.
"Asleep," he ventures with barely a fledgling glance, taking in the the tepid tremors of Lan Liang's blanket that announce the rise and fall of his tender breath. Surely, exhaustion has claimed the child to such a peak of bodily surrender that even a young infant must commit to being sleepy and sedate.
For a few moments still, he only nods as Wei Ying speaks his tempting proposition, rolling inward and mussing the pale stretches of their rippling sheets as he covers his lover from each side and burrows into the nook of his shoulder. Then, softly, "You can never ask me to be what keeps you at distance."
He rolls pliantly onto his back, hands curving around Lan Zhan’s well-defined waist in a loose hold. He hadn’t expected Lan Zhan to be so bold with their baby so close, but his whole body responds to it. From the pink flushing his cheeks to more noticeable changes down below.
He’s too attracted to his husband for his own good and he merely pouts at him because of it. With one hand, he wanders it up Lan Zhan’s side and across his shoulder to cup his husband’s cheek. He lifts his head up and leaves a butterfly’s touch between their lips as he whispers. “If you can’t stop and I can’t stop, maybe we shouldn’t.”
It may feel like it’s ‘just once,’ but it’s not a precedent he feels comfortable setting alone. But boy does not being able to get what he wants when he wants it just makes him want it even more!
He sighs and lowers his head back down to his pillow and looks up at Lan Zhan. “Maybe I should go splash around in the river. I feel like you might let me put us in an awkward place against your will.” He strokes Lan Zhan’s cheek with his thumb, looking at his lips again for emphasis this time.
Warm, receptive, readily pliant, engaging and embracing Lan Wangji — Wei Ying is more than an enchanter or a sophisticated artist of the fleshly pleasures. He is simply born to answer, a breed of brimming, tireless want. For a few heartbeats, when Lan Wangji's own body all but melts down to fill out the negative spaces of his husband's lines — pressing him in to steal even more of Wei Ying's accidental, brushing touch.
Like this, they are nearly too tightly close for anything more than the shared musk and comfort of their bodies, leaving hardly even the space for breath, let alone arousal. Then, all at once, his husband a wonderfully sweet prey beneath him, Lan Wangji rises again to tumble on his side, forcibly rolling Wei Ying on his flank so that his serpentine, bony spine might press against the rumbling heat of Wangji's core.
At least this way, an arm over his waist, Wei Ying can complain of neither the abandon of distance, nor an uncharitable and ultimately fruitless act of teasing.
"If you go to the river, you will touch yourself," he says with the heavenly patience of a Buddha and the simultaneous grudge-bearing of a child.
He rolls onto his side willingly, starting to press his butt against Lan Zhan’s hips. Only when he opens his eyes, he sees the innocent form of their baby still resting sweetly a mere two steps away from the edge of the bed. It’s disrespectful to their son and to each other to carry on like this.
With a sigh, he puts his hand on Lan Zhan’s arm. “I love you too much,” he admits. He’s got enough of his faculties to control himself but that doesn’t mean he isn’t in an uncomfortable position.
“It would help me fall asleep,” he tries. “You can watch A-Liang for me and then I can watch him for you. That way we can both relax completely.” He doesn’t know why Lan Zhan encourages him to touch himself when they’re apart but won’t tolerate it when they’re together.
“We could kiss for a while and work ourselves up, first,” he tries to look over his shoulder, giving up when the angle is all wrong. “But I guess you want me to meditate it away or something.”
"No," he concedes in a weathered breath that wrestles and punches its way out of his lungs, his aching throat. Now that he has allowed himself to recline, he begins to feel every lick and promise of the fatigue that sprawls within it, the bloom of hurt that batters his temples, the exhaustion of travel building in his joints. He half clings to Wei Ying, half drapes over him, hold turning gelatinous and loose.
"You may take a candle and visit our study or go to the river's bank." His single requirement: a flicker of light, for Wei Ying's safety and convenience. No man would presume to set his hand on the Yiling Patriarch in the confines of Cloud Recesses, but animals yet wander, feet slip and trip. Whether their abandoned room or the great outdoors, Wei Ying can only benefit from illumination.
Quietly, voice half muffled as he presses his head and mouth into Wei Ying's hair, he murmurs, "Let me hold you, first."
It should startle him, perhaps — will, with morning — that he is once clingy, increasingly hanging onto Wei Ying as if a life rope. It is no good, he knows. It spells only disaster.
“Really? You wouldn’t mind?” He asks, thumb and forefinger strumming against Lan Zhan’s arm like he’s playing the guqin. He smiles a little, relaxing against Lan Zhan. For some reason, the permissiveness gives him pause and all at once he feels like he’s taking advantage of Lan Zhan by wanting to escape somewhere to love himself and leave Lan Zhan to watch their son when he is wholly exhausted.
He wiggles until he notices how loosely he’s being held, then he turns around to face his husband again. He wants to wrap his arms around him, so he does, and he pulls himself closer. “You can hold me as long as you want,” he decides, pressing his lips to Lan Zhan’s. Instead of hunger, he kisses for comfort and reassurance. If he needs to see to his physical needs, he’ll do it later. In the study, maybe, so he’s still there in case Lan Liang takes a turn for the worst. For now, he’ll satisfy himself with being close to his husband.
He sighs, breaking their kiss so he can look up at Lan Zhan. “You look more tired than I do,” he says, cupping his cheek again. “If you fall asleep, it’s okay. If A-Liang’s temperature changes, my talismans will let us know. If he wakes up feeling uncomfortable, he’ll led us know.” He doesn’t add that the temperature alarm will trigger if their son’s warmth decreases, too. It seems as logical as it does morbid and he doesn’t want to trigger anymore worry.
Wei Ying turns. Their mouths meet. He blinks and breaks their kiss and tips his head back into it again, and they fall together like beads on a string, colliding. Kiss upon kiss upon the disaster of their breaths mingling with gasps, the crackling heat of their bodies. There is no passion in it, only animal reassurance, the quiet guarantee of Wei Ying's presence alive and well and beside him.
"You must be strong, Wei Ying," he whispers and knocks their mouths in a kiss again. He speaks as if he might sob, but refrains at the last moment. As if he aches. "Everyone hurts me through their frailty."
A selfish thing to say, to think. As if poor Lan Liang, who wants nothing but to please and laugh and love had purposefully entertained the notion of turning himself ill. And yet, Lan Wangji cannot help himself.
"You must strengthen and fatten and never take sick." This, to Wei Ying, the only person who has betrayed him with thirteen years of deathly distance. "And never die again. You cannot do so to me again."
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Their son, Wei Ying says, is under control, and the breath Lan Wangji had not realized he caged in his chest slowly releases. He nods, once, then silently again, before wrapping both arms around his husband from behind and pressing in, in a tight, corseting embrace. His head lulls over Wei Ying's shoulder, a resolute weight tenderly hanging.
"The little one stopped our breaths with his own all morning." But he cannot find it in himself to accuse Lan Liang of the smallest shortcoming. "You watched after my family. Fought valiantly. Thank you."
no subject
“He’s given us quite the scare,” he agrees, looking down at the infant sleeping so peacefully. He doesn’t have to check his bottom because they’d smell it if he’d had another accident. “I was just doing what any mother would do when she finds her baby in a rough spot.”
He struggles a moment until Lan Zhan loosens his hold enough for him to turn around for a better hug. One that he can return. “You came in just in time to help take the pressure off my shoulders. So, thank you for that.”
He feels like he could be happy staying in his husband’s arms like this for the rest of the night. The disciple working for the kitchen must have the worst timing having knocked on their door to interrupt their moment of peace. He squeezes Lan Zhan before letting him go to accept their dinner.
no subject
Until a bashful, sedate knock at their door announces the flustering presence of a disciple and their dinner. As the only one of them sufficiently presentable to accept company, he excuses himself, releasing Wei Ying with a nudge for his husband to find a brief distraction in their secluded bed chamber and spare the disciple a lovely, if immodest sight.
After, he peers their door open, offering his thanks in exchange for platters of food he descends on their low table in a generous spread. More food than their typical serving — and, he notes, the kitchens have taken care to produce the more lavish meat fare that is typically reserved for the arrival of foreign sect leaders. No doubt, Uncle interceded, knowing all too well both Wei Ying's distress and the limited amount of food he accepted earlier.
"Wei Ying. Dinner. Necromance your appetite."
no subject
He hears the door close as he emerges from the bedroom, tying the belt around his waist. “Smells good,” he says, looking over the spread on the table. He’s pleasantly surprised to see a substantial serving of pork along with the fish he’s usually limited to. “Looks good, too.”
His appetite is kindled by the generous serving. If Lan Liang were still in dire condition, he might have struggled to resurrect his appetite. Since the child is doing better than anticipated, Wei Wuxian’s meager lunch is catching up to him.
He sits down and grabs his chopsticks to catch a bite of the spiced pork and greedily pull it into his mouth. He nods his head and covers his mouth before saying around the bite, “Tastes good, too! The dining crew outdid themselves today.” He understands people for the most part, but he doesn’t think to credit Lan Qiren for the elaborate meal.
“Maybe we should set some to the side for when A-Liang needs to eat again.” Either Lan Zhan can share some of his soup, or they could pick a dish to smash into a chunky mush. Maybe it’s superstition, but A-Liang was sick after drinking milk earlier in the day, but he’s able to keep other things in him without trouble.
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At the last moment, before his abstinence might trouble his lover, he begins to pour a little of the mushroom stew in his own bowl, setting rice in a second recipient. For a few heartbeats, he fusses before becoming entirely his husband's creature and picking at a spread of pickles. He learns, he supposes, even he — a son of Gusu Lan.
He does not speak between bites, but paces himself to slip a rare word now and then, the pace of his chewing sedate.
"The sect loves a-Liang. They rallied." He hesitates, part of him wishing to insist, to scream to Wei Ying that here, now, his people have embraced him. Learn to but embrace them in kind. Adore and understand them, also. "They care for his father, also. For Wei Ying."
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He picks up his serving of soup, tasting the rich, umami flavor of duck broth. The kitchen workers really are treating him like an esteemed guest tonight instead of providing just enough meat in his meal to keep him sated.
Seeing Lan Zhan willingly going for the more intense flavor of pickles has him grinning. He reaches across the table to pick up a pickled radish and pops it into his mouth. It’s more sweet and salty than a tangier variety of pickle, but the flavor is still extreme for a Lan palate.
His grin goes from amused to a little sheepish when Lan Zhan continues. “They’re good people,” he admits, looking over his shoulder towards where their baby rests. A little color might be creeping onto his face. It’s true that the disciples in the dining pavilion had been concerned about Lan Liang and some even asked how Wei Wuxian was doing, too. They seemed sincere, but he was too worried about Lan Liang to notice until now. “I should do something to thank them.”
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Perhaps his people are glacial compared to the easy manner of Lotus Pier — but they have never lacked in true, unassuming kindness.
He holds the morsel up before Wei Ying's lips in slow invitation, begging his husband to do him the privilege of gracing Wangji's instruments with his luscious mouth. Then, catapulted back to paying his own meal attention, he surveys the spread before him with a withering gaze, only to conclude:
"Uncle favours you better now." To the best of his ability, the creeping downturn of his mouth might present itself as a pout. On any other man, it would nearly fail to introduce itself. He tries to emote, still.
"Wei Ying's dinner is more bountiful. Have failed as a nephew."
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He grins and leans forward to take the pickled chili into his mouth. He must be the only one in the entire town to eat something like this and they still take the time to prepare it for him. He feels a prickle behind his eyes, but he manages to suppress the urge to reach for the spiciest-looking dish in case any tears might form.
Maybe Cloud Recesses, in its full, has finally become his home. would Lan Zhan feel jealous if he knew that he’s been thinking of Lan Zhan as his home until this moment? Or would he be happy?
“Your uncle?” He asks, confused at first. It doesn’t take long for him to realize the cafeteria staff wouldn’t have known to or been permitted to serve all of this meat for one meal without someone’s involvement. “You think he’s behind all this?” He gestures to the meal in front of them. By comparison, there’s a sizable difference in their meals. Lan Zhan might be onto something. For someone like Lan Qiren, he would have expected Lan Zhan to perform his duties as sect leader first and foremost and let Wei Wuxian handle the domestic affairs.
He picks up a cube of tofu and brings it up to Lan Zhan’s lips. “That’s okay, Lan Zhan. I favor you enough to make up for it. Here, you can have anything you want off of my side.”
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Then, falling back in place, he passes his own chopsticks through the melange of soup and rice to further infuse his son's dinner. Tenderly, "A victor's generosity."
But it leaves his heart far too soft and fond to behold his husband's security, his growing and justified confidence. He cannot begrudge a man so often wounded by the carelessness and indifference of others the rare few moments when he is assailed by grateful pride. To mark the moment, he extends a bite of his own food on paired chopsticks — aubergine, cut thick and dripping moist, braised sweet. A rare monument of flavour.
"Speak to me," and he says it wistfully, as if Wei Ying, prime chatterbox, has denied him. "How are you?"
They pledged, after all, to attempt such reckonings each night: to intercede and court each other, to know their minds and tempt loose the darkness of Wei Ying's mind instead.
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“I’m tired, but I’m content, too.” He looks towards Lan Liang’s bed briefly, smiling to himself. His temperature must still be within the parameters he’s set and the baby seems to be sleeping peacefully. “I’m relieved that A-Liang’s getting better already. I know it’s too soon to celebrate, but it’s hard not to.”
He scoops up some of the spiced sauce that accompanies the pork, making sure to get some of the dried chili with it. “And I guess I’m touched, too. It feels like the whole sect is rallying behind me to see that A-Liang’s being taken care of. And that I’m being taken care of, too. I didn’t expect it, especially your uncle’s role. I know he’s begrudgingly accepted our marriage, but maybe it’s less begrudging now.”
He pauses for another bite of food to gather his thoughts. “It feels good. Back in Lotus Pier, I had friends but whenever there was trouble, everyone always let me take the blame for it. I don’t really have friends here, but everyone wants to see me succeed when there’s a problem. I’m grateful.”
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At times, Lan Wangji suspects he will look upon the tablet of Madam Yu and scream. At others, he satisfies himself with the certainty that he need never walk into the vaunted halls of Jiang Wanyin's ancestral home, lest the entire cultivation world quakes beneath his feet, or Wei Ying's last breath depends on it.
They eat silently for a mere few heartbeats while Lan Wangji coaxes back his forced peace to himself, while he tames himself into an honourable man that his husband might not feel compelled to hide from. This is the game, in truth: how to tease information out of his lover and not react to it in such a way that Wei Ying feels inhibited, ever shy and prone to doubt.
He sets his chopsticks straight and narrowly paired on the table. "Will you sleep tonight?" No. This sets pressure, expectations. Wei Ying does not rule his own insomnia. "How may I help?"
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No, those weren’t friends, were they?
“Hmm?” He looks up from the food he’s been torturing with his chopsticks instead of eating. “I’ll try to get some sleep when we’re done eating,” he says. After they move Lan Liang’s bed into their bedroom. “Will you hold me until I fall asleep?” If he falls asleep.
He’s tempted to put his chopsticks down, feeling mostly satisfied with the amount he’s eaten. It’s a shame to let any of this meat go to waste, though! He picks up another slice of pork and eats it. “Maybe we could talk a little while until I start to feel tired. It shouldn’t take too long after today.”
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"Shall lie awake until you rest. No moment unguarded," he pledges, settling the wine jar back down on the thick-lacquered table with a tepid click. A hard pledge, he knows, challenging: whatever Wei Ying's sleeping hour, it only ever naturally arrives long after Lan Wangji's own. The Lan curfew will be the death of him, forever in place to dishonour him.
But he can push through, this once, when and as Wei Ying needs him. Cannot begin to fail his husband so. "Shall spend all night to watch Liang, if it pleases you."
In truth, that is ever the possibility even without Wei Ying's leave.
Sorry for the delay! It’s been a rough week at work.
After another couple bites, he sets his own chopsticks down and lets out a satisfied sigh. He hasn’t had a meal like this since they came back from Jinlintai. He misses the food and Jin Ling, but he finds it nice to be back home with his Lan Zhan. Maybe his husband’s elderly ways are rubbing off on him.
“You don’t have to stay up all night, Lan Zhan. You have to be up all day. If anyone can spare the sleep, it’s me. I can just make it up by sleeping in,” he suggests. He doubts it will change Lan Zhan’s mind, though.
please don't worry!
No different, alas, for Lan Wangji. Wei Ying's frailty terrorizes, but has been long survived prior. There is no precedent for fearing for a young child's life, not to this extent. Even Sizhui's young fevers, all encompassing and memory erasing, were inflicted on a body possessed of a golden core and a chance to fight. Liang is a paltrier, more delicate creature —
And he will live. It must be so. He will live and thrive and laugh in the face of his parents' strange absurdity. He will call them foolishly weak and far too fond and all the silly, wonderfully blubt-edged names only children give to their beloved.
"Come to bed," he invites and neglects to make a question of it, gently pleased to woo Wei Ying with a wave and Lan Wangji's own rise from the table's side. He delays only to loiter by Liang and collect his crib, to settled near their bed, and he descends it down.
"Without attack from my husband's ankles, my calves will lose battle readiness."
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He finishes his wine in one gulp and leaves the cup with the rest of their dinner mess, then he goes to their chamber to finish getting ready for bed. It’s way too early for him to stay asleep through the night, but their every day tends to ease him into nightly naps around this time.
“How is he?” He asks, walking over to Lan Zhan’s side and peering down at the infant. Lan Liang is somehow sleeping through being moved and Wei Wuxian reaches down to touch his forehead. “Fever’s still there, but he’s not too warm. He must be exhausted after such a big day.”
The same as the rest of the family. While he’s thinking about it, he takes the time to write out a quick message to Sizhui and Lan Qiren to update them on Lan Liang’s improving condition. He could have asked Lan Zhan to do it, but he’s the one that benefited from them the most. It’s not past the usual Lan curfew yet, but he would have sent it anyway if it had been.
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"He sleeps restfully," he calls out with shallow heat, careful not to shower Liang with enough loudness to wake him. The odds are in his favor, even as he drags the crib behind him, sitting Liang's bed parallel to their own.
Then, Wei Ying slinks behind him, the scent of his husband bound with the borrowed sandalwood, and Lan Wangji allows himself to feel, to scent, go be. He tips back just enough to tease Wei Ying with warmth but not inconvenience him with the burden if Wangji's weight — until Wei Ying fleetingly excuses himself to write to their son.
After, long after, slipped into their bed and courting patience, he taps the empty side as if to bid his lover close. May Wei Ying at long last afford him the gift and honour of his presence. "Is it that you write your lovers, so secretively?"
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Once he’s finished writing, he makes his way to their bed and climbs in on his side. He faces Lan Zhan at first, turning his back to their son for a handful of selfish moments. He wraps an arm around his husband’s middle and closes the distance between them. “Let me be close for just a little while,” he requests. They’ve been more or less avoiding anything too intimate since he’d come home and he misses it. With the baby behind him, he will try his best to behave himself.
“He’s asleep?” He asks, glancing down at Lan Zhan’s lips briefly. “I want to kiss you, but I’m scared I won’t want to stop. If you think you can be both our will power, maybe it won’t be so dangerous.”
Would it be fair to put that on Lan Zhan’s shoulders? Just because he grew up repressing his wants and needs doesn’t mean he should have to repress them now. But if he doesn’t, they shouldn’t consider kissing at all.
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With a cough barely shielded by the back of his hand, he looks away, just as Wei Ying slithers beneath their covers and burrows in. The flush that assails his face may well burn it, brandishing him with shame in perpetuity.
"Asleep," he ventures with barely a fledgling glance, taking in the the tepid tremors of Lan Liang's blanket that announce the rise and fall of his tender breath. Surely, exhaustion has claimed the child to such a peak of bodily surrender that even a young infant must commit to being sleepy and sedate.
For a few moments still, he only nods as Wei Ying speaks his tempting proposition, rolling inward and mussing the pale stretches of their rippling sheets as he covers his lover from each side and burrows into the nook of his shoulder. Then, softly, "You can never ask me to be what keeps you at distance."
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He’s too attracted to his husband for his own good and he merely pouts at him because of it. With one hand, he wanders it up Lan Zhan’s side and across his shoulder to cup his husband’s cheek. He lifts his head up and leaves a butterfly’s touch between their lips as he whispers. “If you can’t stop and I can’t stop, maybe we shouldn’t.”
It may feel like it’s ‘just once,’ but it’s not a precedent he feels comfortable setting alone. But boy does not being able to get what he wants when he wants it just makes him want it even more!
He sighs and lowers his head back down to his pillow and looks up at Lan Zhan. “Maybe I should go splash around in the river. I feel like you might let me put us in an awkward place against your will.” He strokes Lan Zhan’s cheek with his thumb, looking at his lips again for emphasis this time.
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Like this, they are nearly too tightly close for anything more than the shared musk and comfort of their bodies, leaving hardly even the space for breath, let alone arousal. Then, all at once, his husband a wonderfully sweet prey beneath him, Lan Wangji rises again to tumble on his side, forcibly rolling Wei Ying on his flank so that his serpentine, bony spine might press against the rumbling heat of Wangji's core.
At least this way, an arm over his waist, Wei Ying can complain of neither the abandon of distance, nor an uncharitable and ultimately fruitless act of teasing.
"If you go to the river, you will touch yourself," he says with the heavenly patience of a Buddha and the simultaneous grudge-bearing of a child.
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With a sigh, he puts his hand on Lan Zhan’s arm. “I love you too much,” he admits. He’s got enough of his faculties to control himself but that doesn’t mean he isn’t in an uncomfortable position.
“It would help me fall asleep,” he tries. “You can watch A-Liang for me and then I can watch him for you. That way we can both relax completely.” He doesn’t know why Lan Zhan encourages him to touch himself when they’re apart but won’t tolerate it when they’re together.
“We could kiss for a while and work ourselves up, first,” he tries to look over his shoulder, giving up when the angle is all wrong. “But I guess you want me to meditate it away or something.”
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"You may take a candle and visit our study or go to the river's bank." His single requirement: a flicker of light, for Wei Ying's safety and convenience. No man would presume to set his hand on the Yiling Patriarch in the confines of Cloud Recesses, but animals yet wander, feet slip and trip. Whether their abandoned room or the great outdoors, Wei Ying can only benefit from illumination.
Quietly, voice half muffled as he presses his head and mouth into Wei Ying's hair, he murmurs, "Let me hold you, first."
It should startle him, perhaps — will, with morning — that he is once clingy, increasingly hanging onto Wei Ying as if a life rope. It is no good, he knows. It spells only disaster.
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He wiggles until he notices how loosely he’s being held, then he turns around to face his husband again. He wants to wrap his arms around him, so he does, and he pulls himself closer. “You can hold me as long as you want,” he decides, pressing his lips to Lan Zhan’s. Instead of hunger, he kisses for comfort and reassurance. If he needs to see to his physical needs, he’ll do it later. In the study, maybe, so he’s still there in case Lan Liang takes a turn for the worst. For now, he’ll satisfy himself with being close to his husband.
He sighs, breaking their kiss so he can look up at Lan Zhan. “You look more tired than I do,” he says, cupping his cheek again. “If you fall asleep, it’s okay. If A-Liang’s temperature changes, my talismans will let us know. If he wakes up feeling uncomfortable, he’ll led us know.” He doesn’t add that the temperature alarm will trigger if their son’s warmth decreases, too. It seems as logical as it does morbid and he doesn’t want to trigger anymore worry.
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"You must be strong, Wei Ying," he whispers and knocks their mouths in a kiss again. He speaks as if he might sob, but refrains at the last moment. As if he aches. "Everyone hurts me through their frailty."
A selfish thing to say, to think. As if poor Lan Liang, who wants nothing but to please and laugh and love had purposefully entertained the notion of turning himself ill. And yet, Lan Wangji cannot help himself.
"You must strengthen and fatten and never take sick." This, to Wei Ying, the only person who has betrayed him with thirteen years of deathly distance. "And never die again. You cannot do so to me again."
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