( 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 — )
"We will," he echoes emptily, but seems to at least ease long enough to allow Wei Ying some degree of mobility, so that their twisting and turning, combined, can release his husband from entrapment and into a more comfortable configuration. His mouth finds the crown of Wei Ying's head to bless it with unbidden kisses, increasingly relaxed.
"Will surround Wei Ying with sound and gladness. His house will be a headache of joy." At times, he thinks he speaks such words less to reassure his lover than to entreat this future into prophecy — as if, once he has unlocked this outcome, he can finally hope to never question his husband's joy.
"You will never wish to leave, then." He does not now, some part of him knows, has been told repeatedly. And yet, he smarts at the mere possibility. "You will cook your meats, drink your wine unhindered. Jinlintai will not compare."
“Not too much of a headache for Lan Zhan?” He asks, but smiles to himself. Nurturing a baby together is not something that comes naturally for him, but playing with children is a different story. He finds it easy to entertain little ones and teenagers alike. Madame Yu would say it’s because he’s as responsible and mature as a five-year-old and that’s why he gets along with them. There might be something to that.
He gradually relaxes his hold on Lan Zhan, letting his muscles rest from all that squeezing. He likes it in his husband’s arms and if he stays there too long, he’ll only make Lan Zhan happy that he’s managed to fall asleep. He hopes he’s not the only one of them to sleep tonight. He doesn’t have to make an appearance and do all the sect leader work Lan Zhan is responsible for.
“I already wish to stay by your side forever and ever,” he speaks it against Lan Zhan’s neck. “I wouldn’t rather be anywhere with anyone else. All I need is my husband and our kids and everything else is extra.” He nuzzles his nose against his husband’s throat.
“What about you, Lan Zhan? Do you see yourself happy? In a year, we’ll be in the new house and it’ll just be us and a handful of servants for a while. You won’t miss living in the jingshi?”
"I shall," he admits without heat or urgency, as if this private reality is one with which he has long made his peace. In truth, the mathematics of their transition away from the jingshi were never simple: whatever its symbolism, the house was secure, established, known. The disciples on duty were taught the paths to reach and service it unfailingly. The sentries of Cloud Recesses accounted for it in their patrols and wards. Their new home will be more distant, foreign, unexplored.
Still, he finds himself wistfully awaiting it, grateful they will begin their new lives in a space to call their own. "But will prefer it. Miss Sizhui."
For all that their son may soon excuse himself from his sect duties as a whole and withdraw his presence completely. Still, this will be his home until such a time that he chooses otherwise.
"Lan Liang, too, will require his own quarters shortly." The infant is barely due to celebrate his first anniversary, but toddlers want space, and young children more so. And should they proceed with enlarging their family... "A house alone is not a home. The jingshi is as nothing without family."
His fingers graze over the expanses of his husband’s skin. Sometimes through cloth and others directly as his hands wander Lan Zhan’s body. He doesn’t mean to entice, but if he does, he won’t feel bad doing it. “We’ll have family there. You, me, A-Liang, Sizhui. All of us will bring love into the house so that it will become home soon after we move in. I was just wondering if you’ll miss your childhood home. I used to miss Lotus Pier, but I miss it less these days. I saw it again a couple times since I came back and it’s just too different now.” And even though Jiang Cheng is there, it doesn't feel like he has family there.
He knows Sizhui might choose to stay where he’s at instead of moving somewhere less conveniently located. Even when he’s relieved of learning the role of an heir, he’ll still have cultivation classes and lectures to attend. Wei Wuxian won’t force the issue, but he wants Sizhui to claim a room in their house. Whether he sleeps there one day or hundreds of days doesn’t matter. He’ll always be welcome in their home.
“A-Liang deserves his own room. I hope he’s not one of those kids that claims their parents’ bed because he’s scared of shadows,” he sighs, sulking at his imagination of them being interrupted when they’re loving each other. That would be a way to scar a child!
"He might," he offers warmly and hides the sunbeam of his smile against Wei Ying's hair, far too readily amused. In truth, has Wei Ying not brought this upon himself? "He loves you jealously."
In other words, Lan Liang might terribly and wickedly and deservedly reward his doting mother with his undivided, intrusive attention. What a tempestuous, beloved child. Lan Wangji, shivering under Wei Ying's touch, cannot bring himself to begrudge their young tyrant king. But then, a sliver of that amusement fades, and he allows himself to understand Wei Ying's trepidation, to feel it. And, testing the waters:
"You fear our children will compromise our intimacy?" No. That implies a degree of willfulness, malice and strategy that no child of theirs could possibly possess. Even at his most intemperate, Lan Liang is merely fussy, while Sizhui tends toward silent sullenness. They are mannered for their respective ages, keen to be agreeable. Still, children can blossom to occupy as much time as their parents have available. "Have I perhaps neglected you, my love?"
All fears have their root, and it is seldom irrational.
He sighs when Lan Zhan mentions how much A-Liang adores him. Even between him and the nursemaid, Lan Liang always brightens when he sees Wei Wuxian. It makes him happy most times, but he does want Liang to learn to share him with Lan Zhan without being upset by it. He only has so many hands and one mouth for holding and kissing, after all.
“You haven’t,” he insists. Tonight is an outlier, stemming from an acute illness so it doesn’t count. Though it is probably why he’s thinking about it now. “I guess I don’t want him to see anything he shouldn’t see. Once he’s walking, I’ll have to set up some talismans to trigger when he comes too close to our room just in case he does interrupt something between us.”
If their intimacy is not interrupted, it won’t be so bad. He sometimes sleeps close to Lan Liang when Lan Zhan is out overnight, which is probably going to backfire on him soon enough.
He moves back just enough to look at Lan Zhan’s face again. “It’s my fault if he ends up too dependent on my presence. I just hope it doesn’t affect our intimacy later, you know? I love you too much and too selfishly to want to share!”
A low hum, approving, appreciative, as deep as a seismic rumbling in his chest. It feels at once strange and suitable to inject levity in these scant few moments between them, when the day's threat has scattered and wholly gone. Laughter teases his mouth, warms it.
"We may pledge celibacy until the last of our children is wedded." A mere twenty summers to go, and Lan Wangji has experience already with suffering for more than half of that duration. It will be Wei Ying's hardship to bear, as much, if not more than his own. "We will take our gladness solely from witnessing their growth."
Keeping their tacky paws off each other, and only respectfully, modestly and virginally appreciating one another with the barest press of sweet mouths on cheeks. What a strange, challenging existence, when they have come to depend on their ability to seek each other out at will, to tumble in bed and bask in the brilliance of their lovemaking without delay or disruption.
He snorts when Lan Zhan starts talking about celibacy. He knows that his husband’s hungers are equal to or greater than his own and that celibacy isn’t something either of them would choose when it comes to their relationship. He can imagine it, though. The pristine couple whose hands never wander when they hug and the only kisses they share are chaste one.
“If the only way I can be with you is chastely, then that’s what I’ll do,” he answers, nuzzling his nose against Lan Zhan’s. “That doesn’t mean I’d like it. To be so close to you and not be able to have my way with you would be challenging for a day,” is challenging now, “But for decades? That is would be torture.”
Not to say that platonically loving Lan Zhan is a hardship. Before they got together, he toyed with the idea of staying by Lan Zhan’s side forever even if he had to do it as just friends. Fortunately, Lan Zhan shared his romantic feelings.
“I think you’d have it harder than me,” he teases, “Having me right there within your grasp. You’d be driven mad trying to keep your hands to yourself. Like when I bend down in front of you to pick up a toy from the floor. You’re telling me you wouldn’t need to at least take a little grab of my pretty little ass?”
He laughs, cannot help himself, the light trembling rumbles of his chest propeling him those precious few slivers closer and pushing their mouths together. They are kissing for comfort, for assurance, out of habit. Because they can. Less to start, than simply not to end.
"I would. I would, beloved. You would tempt me like water does desert walkers." And he would not hold himself back, would not be kept at bay, would not insult Wei Ying's offer or his own outlandish, hungering appreciation. He starves for this man, loves and adores him. Aches and bleeds and desires him, above all. May the heavens strike him, but what celibacy? What modesty? They broke that dam, and the waters will not stay.
He kisses Wei Ying's mouth, his cheeks, his forehead. "Look at you. Who may fault me? Look at you."
He pours himself into kissing Lan Zhan, but holding back just enough. Usually his kisses are urgent before they’ve slept together, but this is more possessive and desperate to maintain closeness. It’s the sort of kiss they share after their bed play.
His hand rises to cup the back of Lan Zhan’s neck and he holds him steady even as he pulls back to speak so that their breaths are trapped between them. Look at him, Lan Zhan says like Wei Wuxian is the very model of masculine beauty. He laughs, pressing a few kisses across Lan Zhan’s face. “You think I’m cute,” he teases, twirling some of Lan Zhan’s hair between his fingers.
“I’m irresistible, hmm?” He asks after a moment of appreciating Lan Zhan’s handsome face. “So how are you laying here next to me, resisting?”
Months ago, he might have ruined the moment by asking which of his forms Lan Zhan thought was sexiest. It would have put Lan Zhan in a bad position where there would be no acceptable answer. Either Lan Zhan prefers his first body and he’ll forever be a merely acceptable replacement or he prefers him as he is now and he’ll have to concede that his original body is less attractive than Mo Xuanyu’s. He realizes now that it doesn’t matter which Lan Zhan would prefer because it doesn’t change anything. Lan Zhan loves him now and Wei Wuxian will be spending more of his life in this body than he had in his first one in another roughly twenty-five years.
"I think you are beautiful," he corrects, and leans in to play into the tug of Wei Ying's fingers, the mute luster of his tresses roping his beloved's hands. Would Wei Ying have been so playful, so accepting in a first life? Surely not. Not when his last breath condemned the clans and spurred Cloud Recesses. Not when he might have had his pick and his fill of maidens, of young fools, of accomplished cultivators.
"I resist you only to watch over my son," he murmurs it as if it is an excuse unworthy, as if Wei Ying misunderstands. Surely, out of everyone, Wei Ying would not presume to judge him on this count. Their child and their welfare are sacred, and for all this little one coos and snores blissfully beside them — they cannot assume the risk, now.
He raises a hand to wander it over Wei Ying's cheek, the cut of his jaw. He kisses it, then his husband's lips.
"Would we have had this in another life?" What difference does it make? Why must he spoil their evening so? "Would you have had the patience, the stillness for family?"
“Our son,” he says gently, nudging his nose against Lan Zhan’s. This little game they’re playing will just stoke the fire between them. Eventually, they’ll both be feeling uncomfortable. Lan Zhan has his restraint and Wei Wuxian could learn to use some himself. He realizes Lan Zhan doesn’t resist him out of disinterest but out of respect for their recovering child.
“You won’t have to resist me tomorrow,” he says optimistically, hoping their son’s ailment will be gone come morning. He thumbs at the side of his husband’s throat, thinking about kissing him there. No, it would be cruel to do that to Lan Zhan tonight.
His cheek follows Lan Zhan’s hand, and he feels good. Relaxed and loved and wanting more but understanding why he can’t always have everything he wants.
“Any life,” he says, turning his head to kiss Lan Zhan’s palm. “Maybe if there hadn’t been a war, you could have come to Lotus Pier. I was being serious when I invited you back then. If I trusted your motives when you asked me to come with you to Gusu, we could have found each other then. If the Lan sect was willing to take in the Wens, I might have considered it.” But no, everyone was following whatever Jin Guangshan decided. It would have been considered an act of aggression to host them all.
Our son, he mouths after Wei Ying, as if to beg forgiveness, careful to curve his hand around Wei Ying's cheek and reward him with slow, tender strokes that do not breach into seduction. They can respect and honour and care for one another without teasing past the point of no return — surely.
"You might have," he agrees whimsically, wistfully, knowing all too well that Wei Ying's cooperation was a tentative proposal back then, when options roamed aplenty. Scarcity played a part to position Lan Wangji as the best and finest choice for his husband as a long-time, devoted partner. He does jest in this: of course a son of Gusu Lan is an acceptable consort, when all others cower away from the Yiling Patriarch.
True love sweetened an already practical arrangement. They are fortunate in this.
"Come sleep, beloved," he whispers and finally relinquishes his hold of Wei Ying only to grasp him tighter by his arms and nestle him in. "Rest."
He can’t imagine a life without loving Lan Zhan. It would be a lonely life, aimless in his pursuits. What it could have been if Lan Zhan had given up after the death of his true love. What would he have done if he’d played any other song on his dizi back then? He would most likely have been captured by Jiang Cheng at some point. To be tortured and ultimately killed without the protection of Hanguang-Jun. Jin Ling could only get away with letting him go once before he wouldn’t be trusted with the task of watching him.
What a dark thought! He snuggles against his husband, grounding himself with their love and trust. He’s safer here in Lan Zhan’s arms than he would be anywhere else.
He laughs when he’s squeezed, only wiggling around a little until he gets comfortable. “Will the great Hanguang-Jun protect me?” He asks with a smile. “I’ll rest in your arms. Wake me up if you get too tired, okay? If you fall asleep, that’s okay, too.” He hopes Lan Zhan gets some sleep tonight or tomorrow will be a difficult day for him.
"Hanguang-Jun knows no worthier mission," he murmurs and reconfigures himself like a caving wall to enshroud Wei Ying, to keep him close. He will be a cocoon for his husband, an armour, broken and mending around his lover's bones, arms crowding Wei Ying and even his legs coming to bracket the captive thin frame.
"Shall wake you, if the need calls." Only, it will not. He will not permit it. At low, immediate distance, Lan Liang snores gently and visibly, the low rise of his bounty of blankets signaling the work of his chest. Even now, Lan Wangji can see him.
And he breathes better for it, allowing himself to briefly, only briefly, hush, shutter his eyes as he envelops Wei Ying — and drift together asleep, awareness still snagged on any warnings alert from the nearby child. They have earned this respite, together.
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"Will surround Wei Ying with sound and gladness. His house will be a headache of joy." At times, he thinks he speaks such words less to reassure his lover than to entreat this future into prophecy — as if, once he has unlocked this outcome, he can finally hope to never question his husband's joy.
"You will never wish to leave, then." He does not now, some part of him knows, has been told repeatedly. And yet, he smarts at the mere possibility. "You will cook your meats, drink your wine unhindered. Jinlintai will not compare."
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He gradually relaxes his hold on Lan Zhan, letting his muscles rest from all that squeezing. He likes it in his husband’s arms and if he stays there too long, he’ll only make Lan Zhan happy that he’s managed to fall asleep. He hopes he’s not the only one of them to sleep tonight. He doesn’t have to make an appearance and do all the sect leader work Lan Zhan is responsible for.
“I already wish to stay by your side forever and ever,” he speaks it against Lan Zhan’s neck. “I wouldn’t rather be anywhere with anyone else. All I need is my husband and our kids and everything else is extra.” He nuzzles his nose against his husband’s throat.
“What about you, Lan Zhan? Do you see yourself happy? In a year, we’ll be in the new house and it’ll just be us and a handful of servants for a while. You won’t miss living in the jingshi?”
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Still, he finds himself wistfully awaiting it, grateful they will begin their new lives in a space to call their own. "But will prefer it. Miss Sizhui."
For all that their son may soon excuse himself from his sect duties as a whole and withdraw his presence completely. Still, this will be his home until such a time that he chooses otherwise.
"Lan Liang, too, will require his own quarters shortly." The infant is barely due to celebrate his first anniversary, but toddlers want space, and young children more so. And should they proceed with enlarging their family... "A house alone is not a home. The jingshi is as nothing without family."
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He knows Sizhui might choose to stay where he’s at instead of moving somewhere less conveniently located. Even when he’s relieved of learning the role of an heir, he’ll still have cultivation classes and lectures to attend. Wei Wuxian won’t force the issue, but he wants Sizhui to claim a room in their house. Whether he sleeps there one day or hundreds of days doesn’t matter. He’ll always be welcome in their home.
“A-Liang deserves his own room. I hope he’s not one of those kids that claims their parents’ bed because he’s scared of shadows,” he sighs, sulking at his imagination of them being interrupted when they’re loving each other. That would be a way to scar a child!
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In other words, Lan Liang might terribly and wickedly and deservedly reward his doting mother with his undivided, intrusive attention. What a tempestuous, beloved child. Lan Wangji, shivering under Wei Ying's touch, cannot bring himself to begrudge their young tyrant king. But then, a sliver of that amusement fades, and he allows himself to understand Wei Ying's trepidation, to feel it. And, testing the waters:
"You fear our children will compromise our intimacy?" No. That implies a degree of willfulness, malice and strategy that no child of theirs could possibly possess. Even at his most intemperate, Lan Liang is merely fussy, while Sizhui tends toward silent sullenness. They are mannered for their respective ages, keen to be agreeable. Still, children can blossom to occupy as much time as their parents have available. "Have I perhaps neglected you, my love?"
All fears have their root, and it is seldom irrational.
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“You haven’t,” he insists. Tonight is an outlier, stemming from an acute illness so it doesn’t count. Though it is probably why he’s thinking about it now. “I guess I don’t want him to see anything he shouldn’t see. Once he’s walking, I’ll have to set up some talismans to trigger when he comes too close to our room just in case he does interrupt something between us.”
If their intimacy is not interrupted, it won’t be so bad. He sometimes sleeps close to Lan Liang when Lan Zhan is out overnight, which is probably going to backfire on him soon enough.
He moves back just enough to look at Lan Zhan’s face again. “It’s my fault if he ends up too dependent on my presence. I just hope it doesn’t affect our intimacy later, you know? I love you too much and too selfishly to want to share!”
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"We may pledge celibacy until the last of our children is wedded." A mere twenty summers to go, and Lan Wangji has experience already with suffering for more than half of that duration. It will be Wei Ying's hardship to bear, as much, if not more than his own. "We will take our gladness solely from witnessing their growth."
Keeping their tacky paws off each other, and only respectfully, modestly and virginally appreciating one another with the barest press of sweet mouths on cheeks. What a strange, challenging existence, when they have come to depend on their ability to seek each other out at will, to tumble in bed and bask in the brilliance of their lovemaking without delay or disruption.
"You would suffer so, beside me?"
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“If the only way I can be with you is chastely, then that’s what I’ll do,” he answers, nuzzling his nose against Lan Zhan’s. “That doesn’t mean I’d like it. To be so close to you and not be able to have my way with you would be challenging for a day,” is challenging now, “But for decades? That is would be torture.”
Not to say that platonically loving Lan Zhan is a hardship. Before they got together, he toyed with the idea of staying by Lan Zhan’s side forever even if he had to do it as just friends. Fortunately, Lan Zhan shared his romantic feelings.
“I think you’d have it harder than me,” he teases, “Having me right there within your grasp. You’d be driven mad trying to keep your hands to yourself. Like when I bend down in front of you to pick up a toy from the floor. You’re telling me you wouldn’t need to at least take a little grab of my pretty little ass?”
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"I would. I would, beloved. You would tempt me like water does desert walkers." And he would not hold himself back, would not be kept at bay, would not insult Wei Ying's offer or his own outlandish, hungering appreciation. He starves for this man, loves and adores him. Aches and bleeds and desires him, above all. May the heavens strike him, but what celibacy? What modesty? They broke that dam, and the waters will not stay.
He kisses Wei Ying's mouth, his cheeks, his forehead. "Look at you. Who may fault me? Look at you."
no subject
His hand rises to cup the back of Lan Zhan’s neck and he holds him steady even as he pulls back to speak so that their breaths are trapped between them. Look at him, Lan Zhan says like Wei Wuxian is the very model of masculine beauty. He laughs, pressing a few kisses across Lan Zhan’s face. “You think I’m cute,” he teases, twirling some of Lan Zhan’s hair between his fingers.
“I’m irresistible, hmm?” He asks after a moment of appreciating Lan Zhan’s handsome face. “So how are you laying here next to me, resisting?”
Months ago, he might have ruined the moment by asking which of his forms Lan Zhan thought was sexiest. It would have put Lan Zhan in a bad position where there would be no acceptable answer. Either Lan Zhan prefers his first body and he’ll forever be a merely acceptable replacement or he prefers him as he is now and he’ll have to concede that his original body is less attractive than Mo Xuanyu’s. He realizes now that it doesn’t matter which Lan Zhan would prefer because it doesn’t change anything. Lan Zhan loves him now and Wei Wuxian will be spending more of his life in this body than he had in his first one in another roughly twenty-five years.
no subject
"I resist you only to watch over my son," he murmurs it as if it is an excuse unworthy, as if Wei Ying misunderstands. Surely, out of everyone, Wei Ying would not presume to judge him on this count. Their child and their welfare are sacred, and for all this little one coos and snores blissfully beside them — they cannot assume the risk, now.
He raises a hand to wander it over Wei Ying's cheek, the cut of his jaw. He kisses it, then his husband's lips.
"Would we have had this in another life?" What difference does it make? Why must he spoil their evening so? "Would you have had the patience, the stillness for family?"
no subject
“You won’t have to resist me tomorrow,” he says optimistically, hoping their son’s ailment will be gone come morning. He thumbs at the side of his husband’s throat, thinking about kissing him there. No, it would be cruel to do that to Lan Zhan tonight.
His cheek follows Lan Zhan’s hand, and he feels good. Relaxed and loved and wanting more but understanding why he can’t always have everything he wants.
“Any life,” he says, turning his head to kiss Lan Zhan’s palm. “Maybe if there hadn’t been a war, you could have come to Lotus Pier. I was being serious when I invited you back then. If I trusted your motives when you asked me to come with you to Gusu, we could have found each other then. If the Lan sect was willing to take in the Wens, I might have considered it.” But no, everyone was following whatever Jin Guangshan decided. It would have been considered an act of aggression to host them all.
no subject
"You might have," he agrees whimsically, wistfully, knowing all too well that Wei Ying's cooperation was a tentative proposal back then, when options roamed aplenty. Scarcity played a part to position Lan Wangji as the best and finest choice for his husband as a long-time, devoted partner. He does jest in this: of course a son of Gusu Lan is an acceptable consort, when all others cower away from the Yiling Patriarch.
True love sweetened an already practical arrangement. They are fortunate in this.
"Come sleep, beloved," he whispers and finally relinquishes his hold of Wei Ying only to grasp him tighter by his arms and nestle him in. "Rest."
no subject
What a dark thought! He snuggles against his husband, grounding himself with their love and trust. He’s safer here in Lan Zhan’s arms than he would be anywhere else.
He laughs when he’s squeezed, only wiggling around a little until he gets comfortable. “Will the great Hanguang-Jun protect me?” He asks with a smile. “I’ll rest in your arms. Wake me up if you get too tired, okay? If you fall asleep, that’s okay, too.” He hopes Lan Zhan gets some sleep tonight or tomorrow will be a difficult day for him.
no subject
"Shall wake you, if the need calls." Only, it will not. He will not permit it. At low, immediate distance, Lan Liang snores gently and visibly, the low rise of his bounty of blankets signaling the work of his chest. Even now, Lan Wangji can see him.
And he breathes better for it, allowing himself to briefly, only briefly, hush, shutter his eyes as he envelops Wei Ying — and drift together asleep, awareness still snagged on any warnings alert from the nearby child. They have earned this respite, together.