wuding | Snowed In

Gladdened is exactly how he feels when Lan Zhan announces the loosening of Lan rules. He doesn’t usually let it bother him when he keeps Lan Zhan up at night only for him to rise before the sun in the morning after. But there’s something freeing about knowing they’ll both be able to rest as much as they need to - as long as Lan Liang doesn’t wake too early.

“You’ll be the one needing to be tolerant when I wrap my arms around you and refuse to let you leave the bed before I do,” he teases as he approaches his family. He snakes one arm around the small of Lan Zhan’s back and strokes Liang’s fine hair. “This little one will make sure we don’t sleep all day.” With a contented sigh, he leans down to press his lips on Lan Liang’s forehead.

“Unless you want round four when we wake up. In that case, we won’t want to rely on Lan Liang to get us out of bed,” he says, hand slipping lower to pinch the swell of his husband’s ass.

So held, he loans out some of his weight, tipping into Wei Ying minutely with the certainty that his husband has restored enough of his physical strength to offer support. More still, with time, will follow. He basks all the same.

"Most wives are wary of confinement," he offers in the face of Wei Ying's brimming enthusiasm. A nuanced truth: most wives are also raised in the isolated sect, or long acclimated to the precepts of Cloud Recesses. The early wake-up is ingrained, the instinct to prove of perpetual use prone to seeding restlessness. An artificial hesitation.

By contrast, Wei Ying was always a reluctant and mischievous disciple and a polite but superficially inoculated guest. He has subjected himself more and more to the rules of his clan by marriage in a desperate bid to honour Lan Wangji's rank and respect Uncle — but his heart does not sing in alignment with the precepts. Lan Wangji could not ask more of him. Does not.

"Wei Ying is brave to face it so steadfastly."

“If I were somewhere without you, I’d be more wary of it. Since we’re together, we may as well make the best of our predicament,” he answers as he raises his hand back up to Lan Zhan’s back. “The way I see it, I get to spend more time with two of my three favorite people.”

He may be giving himself too much credit. Chances are after another day or two of this, he’ll be pulling his hair out in bored frustration. He has always been partial to freedom. At least he has borrowed some books and scrolls he found in the library pavilion to keep his mind occupied while Lan Zhan does what work he can.

He taps his fingers against Lan Zhan’s back and nods towards Lan Liang who seems to be trying his best to stay awake with his parents. “You’re so cute when you’re half awake,” he compliments with a grin, “And so much quieter, too.”

He knows better than to look away from their son to talk to Lan Zhan’s right now, since Liang would probably get fussy if he did, so he keeps looking down and him. “Want me to lay him down? You can do it if you’d rather.”

"If I may," he murmurs in hesitant request, because Wei Ying has volunteered the mercy of allowing Lan Wangji to set their son to rest, but it feels like an imposition, all the same. "He seldom permits me."

But today feels auspicious, for all Lan Wangji's generosity extended to allowing his husband to slip back into Lan Liang's lost graces. The truth, as they both know it, is that Wei Ying will never be fully dethroned, no matter Liang's whims. But he came oh so close to a few hours' neglect today, if not for Lan Wangji's intervention.

One day, Liang will grow old enough to understand how deeply his fleeting attentions affect the two men who intercede as his servants. One day, he will likely regret ignoring Lan Wangji so despondently, for Wei Ying's sake. One day, perhaps soon. But not today.

"If it does not displease you."

“Go ahead,” he answers without a hint of displeasure. He doesn’t mind sharing parental responsibilities when Lan Zhan’s around. If anything, he wants the two of them to have a strong bond, too. “He’ll prefer you tonight. He’s not furious anymore, but I get the feeling he hasn’t completely forgiven me yet.”

He grabs socked toes and pinches them softly until Lan Liang kicks at his hand. “See? Usually he laughs first.” And usually, he’s not half asleep, either.

“How about you get him to bed while I get ready for you,” he suggests, standing up on his toes to kiss Lan Zhan’s cheek. “You want me to get anything special set out for tonight?” He would love for Lan Zhan to get off three times with him, but there’s always the second husband if it’s needed. Then there’s binding talismans, paralyzing talismans, and silk ropes they have access to if they want to be adventurous.

"His wrath is misplaced," he reassures Wei Ying, as if the whims of a young babe should ever dictate his husband's temperament. But Wei Ying has ever been sensitive to the wants of his children, and he has no true experience of denying — or being denied by — Lan Liang. Of the two, Lan Wangji has lived as a dog starved for his youngest affections.

He claims them now, accepting the child and draping him against his chest, warmed within by the sweetness of the infant's clutch of Lan Wangji's hair, and the print of heat in the wake of Wei Ying's kiss. Then, his husband's question — and, feverishly flushed, he permits himself a moment to contemplate his answer.

At long last, tentatively, "They found your disciple whites." From back then, when Wei Ying was little more than a temptation, a fledgling dream constantly conspiring against Lan Wangji's self-control. Sixteen but willy.

"Wei Ying was slim-framed then. The silks suit your present body." But the excuse sounds flimsy even to his own ears, the infamous Lan precept against profligacy surely allowing that the old robes of a man long gone could be discarded or have their cloth repurposed. He could not bare to. "Wear them."

His eyebrows raise when Lan Zhan mentions his old disciple robes and then he breaks out into a grin. “Just how recently were they found?” He asks, not knowing if Lan Zhan from way back then had enough of a crush to save those old robes from being repurposed or if they had just been in storage somewhere until now.

Still, the request is an intriguing one. If they were still fifteen, they could have probably both gotten off three times in one night easily. And that leads him to wonder, “Hey, Lan Zhan. When was the first time you thought about me while you loved yourself?”

He thinks about it a moment, then laughs. “You know what? I’m pretty sure I thought about you back when we were fifteen. Only I thought about us loving ourselves in front of each other. Do you think that counts?” He had convinced himself it was just something guys do, so it didn’t register to him as being a homosexual fantasy.

Loving ourselves. What a strangely romantic notion, both unexpected and somehow typical of Wei Ying. He considers the second question — the first, for its incrimination, discarded — with the entirety of his attention, the whole of his person.

"That counts." The first matter, because — obviously. Obviously, Wei Ying's passion for him should only belong to Lan Wangji. Then, carefully, "I did not think of Wei Ying, at first."

No, for that would have perverted him, transformed a living, breathing boy into the object of Lan Wangji's fantasies. Would have forced Wangji, also, to face his particularities at a time when he still considered the merits of ascetic cultivation.

"I envisioned... parts of Wei Ying. His hands, foremost. Often on Suibian. His thighs, clenched ad he rode his sabre. His back." Lan Wangji's desire was mutated, strange. Reshaped. "Then, the whole."

“That’s so… innocent. Did you think of those parts of me touching you?” He asks, working at his bottom lip with his teeth. Lan Zhan is just too adorable for words sometimes and this is one of those times. He knows Lan Zhan is still holding Lan Liang, so he doesn’t plan on saying anything too sexual, but he can’t stop himself from thinking about it.

He makes his way to the bed chamber and digs around in their wardrobe chest. And sure enough, there’s the white disciple robes a few items down on his side. He takes it out of the chest and lies it out over the bed. He runs his fingers over the silk with a smile. It’s coarser than the silks he wears now, but that’s only because Lan Zhan always wants the best of the best for him.

He slips out of last nights sleeping robes and dons the Lan whites. It smells of Lan Zhan’s sandalwood, but most of their belongings do. It’s strange to be in these robes again and it makes him feel playfully excited.

“This is the first time I’m wearing something I wore in my first life,” he calls out over his shoulder on his way to the mirror to take a look at himself. It’s strange to see the two lives come together this way, but it feels good, too.

"At times," he admits without heat, because those days are long and gone and silent, as if his memories also pertain to a different life. In truth, that is how he sees existence: the days of now, beside Wei Ying. The days of old, denied him.

Their son refuses him further contemplation, riding the wretched cusp between exhausted to the point of collapse and to that of a tantrum. Hushing him and slowly swaying him in his arms, Lan Wangji delivers the child to his little bed, carefully positioned in a small alcove adjacent to their bedroom. Inspiration struck them timely a few days prior, when Lan Wangji brought in a folding divider, with proud phoenixes and dragons painted on brimming silk. Lan Liang can stay within proximity of his parents while allowing them some intimacy —

Such as now, when Lan Wangji turns to discover the vision that his husband paints, clad in these silks of old. The disciple robes have changed little since, but there is an element of nostalgia in the colors of the brocade, the shapes of lace at the rims.

"It..." Hurts. Hurts Lan Wangji's heart, how much he misses a dead man. "It suits you."

He beams at Lan Zhan, feeling younger simply by nostalgia. He doesn’t remember everything about that time in their lives, but he remembers being happy. It was before things escalated with the Wens. Before they were ravaged by war and loss.

Unfortunately, he fails to recognize the pain on Lan Zhan’s face. He takes the minute changes in his expression as just nostalgia.

Thinking it will be a fun bit, he makes his way to the under floor compartment where they stash wine. He grabs a couple bottles of Emperor’s Smile and ties a thin rope around the lips of them so he can carry them in one hand. Next, he fetches his sword. “Hey, Lan Zhan! Do you remember how we met? You were strikingly handsome back then, just like you are now!”

"Less wrinkled and sour," he corrects, because however fetching his husband might still find Lan Wangji, in his partisanship, there is no denying the passage of time. He has weathered it better than some but will always emerge insignificant before his glory of old — and Wei Ying's beauty of present.

He wants, all at once, to drag this man into his arms and thoroughly debauch him. It strikes him, not for the first time, that he is the single fortunate one who can. Abruptly, his manner changes, stiffens, readies. Tension rides on his back, crawls up his spine, settles in a crackling frown.

"Wei Ying speaks out of turn, as ever." This, harder than before. Borrowing the rigidity of a young man suppressing his impulse to rise to the occasion of his crush's exuberance. To make him regret his miscreant ways. "Never learning, always chattering. Bringing wine within Cloud Recesses. Shameless."

“You’re sweeter now, not sour,” he answers back. It’s true there are fine lines around Lan Zhan’s eyes and mouth that weren’t there when they were kids. His body scarred and some days he gets out of bed feeling stiff and can’t completely hide it, not that Wei Wuxian has ever told Lan Zhan that he can tell. But Lan Zhan’s face is softer now. Relaxed and gentle.

At least until Lan Zhan transforms right before his eyes into the adult Wei Wuxian had expected to meet after his rebirth. He looks just as severe as he had when they first met! And that haughty tone of voice, too!

He laughs a little and presents the bottles of Emperor’s Smile. “Is that any way to treat a friend?” He asks, swinging the bottles back and forth. “Come on, Lan Zhan. No one has to know about this. I won’t just give you a bottle if you keep it secret, I’ll keep you company and drink it with you.”

"All along, you'd planned to enjoy your wine. How can partaking in it punish you?" No, allowing Wei Ying his way — while second nature now — was never a priority then. He watches his husband in a manner predatory, hunting for any signs that he will break, for any likeness to the boy who once stood before Lan Wangji, parroting the same lines, the same arrogance. For all their physical differences, Wei Ying's breezy nonchalance makes the resemblance uncanny.

Lan Wangji steps in, hand catching his spouse's at the wrist fiercely, but not as carelessly as before, never quite upsetting the balance of the wine. Back then, Wei Ying's precious spoils were partly spilled. Now, with the snows rampant, they can't afford to waste his precious supplies on their roleplay.

"Offer better." His gaze chases Wei Ying's plump lower lip, falls down to the loosened collar of his robes. Throughout, his aim and interest are both evident. "Lest word of this reaches Yunmeng."

Edited 2025-01-05 19:07 (UTC)

He takes a half step back, but allows Lan Zhan to catch him nonetheless. He stands proudly in front of him, letting the jars of wine clink together. His own eyes also fall to Lan Zhan’s lips briefly. He takes a step forward, not quite close enough that their bodies are touching, but almost. Heat is already brewing between them. It’s both difficult to hold himself back and enticing to dangle what they both want between them, just within their grasp.

“I can offer you wine and my company,” he says conspiratorially, inching closer and standing up on the balls of his feet. “The only other thing I can offer is my body. Surely a stick in the mud like you wouldn’t have an interest in something like that.”

He closes the space between them, eyebrows raising in amusement. “Maybe I was wrong about you, Lan Zhan.” He presses close, his own interest just as evident. “Promise you won’t tell anybody and you can do anything you’d like with me. I won’t tell a soul.”

"You have no decency," he hisses, coming into the pull of Wei Ying's orbit like a hound giving chase to the quarry's scent, enticed ever so plainly. His eyes cannot peel away from the miscreant's lips, where heat would bloom and bruise so prettily, if only he pressed in —

But he remembers his part, his hubris of old. Remembers that Wei Ying ever sought to irk and stir him, and Lan Wangji had to hold himself above such invitation. Hissing, he lets his glance fall where the start of Wei Ying's interest makes itself apparent through the flimsy disciples' robes, while Lan Wangji's own simmering arousal warms. No matter. Hypocrisy never stopped him before.

"This is how you do it in Lotus Pier? Sell yourself like a whore?" But he nods toward Wei Ying's hand, where the bundle of wine jar rests like a sweet reward. "Release the wine. First, you earn it."

They can't risk Wei Ying's supplies being harmed in the makings of their intimate endeavors. Not with the snows piling.

His fingers loosen their grasp on the wine and he knows Lan Zhan will catch it before it can be damaged. So he lets it go as a demonstration that Lan Zhan doesn’t hold all the power here.

“No, not usually. But we make exceptions for pretty women, so why not pretty men?” He reaches up to touch Lan Zhan’s cheek, dancing away and laughing a moment later, half expecting some sort of retaliatory action.

It’s easy for him to play at this age. He loved to tease Lan Zhan and it hasn’t become any less endearing now. “It must be hard for you, Lan Zhan,” he says, stepping closer again. “I bet you don’t even know how to kiss.” He licks his lips when he says it, trying to goad Lan Zhan closer to the point where either he or his younger persona will have to give in to Wei Wuxian’s charms. “I could teach you if you’d like. I’ll even start out nice and slow,” like the way he presses himself against Lan Zhan’s front.

Pretty men, Wei Ying says, and there is an inevitability of words surrounding the one, building meaning — yet all Lan Wangji can do is focus on his husband's mouth, how it utters, rounds, whispers. He wants, grip tightening on Wei Ying's wrist, to kiss him feverishly. Wants to ravage him, wants to tip him back or pin him to a wall, wants to —

...to pull back with abrupt brutality and catch the wine jars slipped readily between them, alarm writ large in the vastness of his widening eyes, mouth agape. How could you risk this? But the deed is done, Lan Wangji is setting the jars aside in careful and perfect balance on the nearby stool typically reserved to for their evening silks. He turns, and already Wei Ying speaks of finer things, of knowledge and hardship and kisses.

Nice, he says, and Lan Wangji comes to him, beckoned. Slow, Wei Ying adds, and Lan Wangji's hand rounds over his spouse's lower back. Their mouths meet, terrible and wild, and Lan Wangji cannot help the sting of his biting teeth, the hunt of his tongue. He eases, subduing himself only because of the memory that he should be wholly inexperienced, relying exclusively on enthusiasm. It is permitted, in his part, to pivot them around as he does and push Wei Ying down on the spread of their conveniently already made bed — while Lan Wangji hovers, the curtain of his hair raining down, one hand proprietary over his sweet lover's chest. Hunting.

"You're my whore. Teach me. Teach me how to taste you," he rasps, for all they both know a true courtesan would be the one performing such service, sooner than her lord.

Oh how he loves to tease Lan Zhan past the point of no return. He catches his husband’s mouth eagerly, torn between laughing and crying out at the vicious teeth pinching at his lips. His hands start at Lan Zhan’s stomach, migrating up his chest where he can brush against raised nipples before gripping at his husband’s shoulders.

They move together, savoring every brief touch as Lan Zhan rotates them. He’s expecting it, so he doesn’t flail too much when Lan Zhan pushes him down. He lets his legs part on the way down and knows he must look thoroughly debauched. But so does Lan Zhan. And Lan Zhan looks so pretty with his hair draping down in sheets, staring down at him in lust. He just grins back at him.

“Come now, no need for that. You can call me your teacher,” he says, cupping one of Lan Zhan’s cheeks with an amused sort of grin. He half sits so he can kiss Lan Zhan again before the lesson can begin.

He thinks, and has always thought, that Lan Zhan back when they were young was too fun to mess with. So easily embarrassed and quick to rile up. If he had only known it was because Lan Zhan had a crush on him, maybe his bullying could have led to something like this.

“Let me teach you,” he suggests, laying back down. His hands drop to the sash holding his robes closed and he loosens it. He doesn’t open the robe all the way, but he teases him by letting the cloth slip down and expose parts of his chest. “You should start with your hand to hold me steady. Get to know me first,” he says even though Lan Zhan already knows him inside and out. “And when you’re ready, put your lips on me. Start at the crown. Just take as much as you can, don’t try to take me all in. Your hands can help.”

"Laoshi is so eloquent," he drips out like droplets of the wine Wei Ying nearly spilled, but follows him obediently down and down and down, dragging his hands over his husband's sides to coax down the layers of his silks. Already, courtesy of Wei Ying's subtlety play, his robes have parted, and Lan Wangji need only drag his thumb through the binds of his sash to undo its work completely.

He parts the silks, parts Wei Ying's legs, slips in between and rises, on hands and knees, to hover. Of course Wei Ying's instructions leave nothing for either criticism and imagination, and Lan Wangji studies him with avid intent, licking his lips before diving to capture the proud standing crests of Wei Ying's nipples, visible through the innermost silk. His mouth sinks down.

"This pretty thing is too dainty to bully," he teases, hand gliding down to round between Wei Ying's legs, cupping and stroking the base, then pinching the crown, before caressing down again, through the interference of his husband's garments. He dare not expose the flesh — he, the second Jade of Lan, and this an envoy of Yunmeng. "My mouth will not injure it?"

His husband’s name leaves his mouth in a gasp and he’s tempted to tangle his fist in Lan Zhan’s hair and hold him there to work at his nipples a little longer. The reminder of what’s to come stays his hand.

There’s something alluring thinking about the young Lan Zhan giving into his temptations instead of denying that part of himself. But he can’t help but tease him, “How many Lan pre—-“ his words catch in his throat when Lan Zhan touches him. His whole body shudders and it’s easy to imagine this is the first time he’s ever been touched.

“Never thought the stoic Lan Zhan could be so passionate,” he says, moving under the touch. “You won’t hurt me as long as you don’t bite it. You can be as mean as you want to otherwise.” He reaches up and touches Lan Zhan’s cheek. “I think I like you like this, Lan Zhan. You’re not nearly as boring as I thought. Kiss me again?”

All three thousand precepts, gladly trampled for you, he thinks, but does not speak the words, careful to maintain some part of the pretense his role requires of him. He was not reverent of Wei Ying at this conjunction, had not learned yet that to satisfy this beautiful creature was to fulfill his own needs, sophisticated or base. So, he must comport himself as a villain, still, flinching away from Wei Ying's searching touch on his cheek, avoiding his candor.

He pulls back, teeth showing in pearly glints, a bitter fanged grin. When he kisses Wei Ying, it's stormed, hand to the back of his nape, pushing in and forcing close, their lips bruising. His spare hand glides down beneath the loosened rim of his husband's trousers to palm the flesh of his thickening arousal, in a coarse, clumsy gesture. No affectation, not even the decency to remove Wei Ying's clothes.

One tug, another. The third almost mean, showing perhaps too much of the knowledge of Wei Ying's body that Lan Wangji has only gleaned with time. Still hovering, he inches down, starting to peel away Wei Ying's trousers until he is presented wholly with the gift of his length. He slips down until he has descended the bed and his knees brush the floor once more, head resting prettily on his lover's thigh until next his mouth rounds it's on the crown of Wei Ying's arousal. "Kiss here?"

As if he's turned shy, all at once. As if he never learned.

He laughs when Lan Zhan retreats, finding it incredibly cute to see his husband in his mid-thirties act out the adolescence they could have shared if they’d been born to a peaceful world. “Awww, don’t turn away. I like the way your ears turn pink, but I like you’re pretty face more.”

Their next kiss is intense and he surrenders to it, hands gripping at Lan Zhan’s shoulders. So this is what messing around with that version of Lan Zhan would have been like. It’s all fire and passion and none of the stoic cold Lan Zhan showed him.

His hips press into the touch, Lan Zhan’s sweet name on his lips. His mouth hungrier than before, struggling to find dominance. They’re equals in this. In all things. He whines when Lan Zhan pulls away from him, but he settles for a playful pout when he catches his lover’s eye.

“Wait,” he says as soon as Lan Zhan mouths at him. The trickles of pleasure make him want to push into Lan Zhan’s mouth but he wants to try and be gentle with this inexperienced youth. He pushes himself up and touches Lan Zhan’s lips briefly before reaching a hand behind his husband’s head to loosen his headband. “That’s better.”

Clicking his tongue, he bats away Wei Ying's hand, careful to overcome the instinct to preen and instead tightening his ribbon perfunctorily. This band belongs bound on Wei Ying's wrist, at all times, flaunting his status. It is more ill at ease with Lan Wangji than it ever lingered with Wei Ying himself.

"That is for —" You, your touch, Wei Ying alone. "Spouses. You are only a whore." No. He cannot injure his husband's pride with such talk extensively, no matter the depth of their roleplay. Mouth still schooled in a terse line, he revises, "Perhaps a concubine."

A Jinlintai habit, far more than an appetite of the Lan, who wed for fated love and undying affection. But they can pretend that Lan Wangji would entertain the notion, as he sets himself to lewd task: dipping down to capture Wei Ying's length in his mouth, base neatly upheld by his hands, tongue flicking between blitzing kittenish licks and long, laving attention. In the end, he swallows down, managing the better part of Wei Ying's arousal with hungry enthusiasm and his typical breathlessness — perhaps not all that different from a virgin, after all.

In between, he pulls back: "You taste sweeter than you have a right to. Is this how you draw men in?"

He can’t help but grin when he’s waved away. He can see the red creeping up Lan Zhan’s neck and ears and he knows how much he’s both loved and wanted by the man kneeling between his thighs. Maybe his lover would have been more prudish, but he likes this fantasy. It’s bittersweet that he can’t know for sure how they would have loved each other given the chance back then.

“Who’s a whore? I wouldn’t have started something like this if I didn’t already like you,” he says, grabbing the pillows from the head of the bed to prop himself up so he can watch Lan Zhan comfortably. “If anyone’s the concubine here, it’s you. Unless you don’t really hate me?”

He lets out a shuddering gasp when his husband starts, fingers digging into the mattress as he forces himself to stay put. There’s no need to keep quiet after tinkering with their silencing talismans from earlier, and he’s not good at being quiet anyway. Whether it’s moans like this or talking.

“That’s it, Lan Zhan,” he encourages, “It feels good. I want to taste you, too. I want to make you moan my name.”

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