wuding | a home.

a home.

They fall together, like fresh snow off the mountaintop: first, in measured, patient, cultivating reunion after an extended dinner at their inn. Then, with passion. Then, syrupy and slow, with morning. In a rare, turn, after bathing, Lan Wangji denies himself the rigors and discipline of morning and coaxes them back abed, to hold his lover throughout his rest near sunrise, until halfway to midday.

He stirs them, inevitably, when the blinding bright white of the day overwhelms, and they must set for the road to make good pace to Cloud Recesses while still enjoying their stroll. They arrive, meandering, in the depths of a trickling, golden afternoon, when much of the clan is distracted with the latest lecture of a visiting hermit — they say, an aspiring immortal — and neither Uncle nor Sizhui can be politely parted from his wisdom. First, a brief stop with Liang. Secondly, for Lan Wangji, yet slowed by his fading wounds and bruises, to test the recovery of his disciples.

Lastly, facing the dregs of an afternoon together with no duties, no assignments, no occupation — curiosity wins over. With the packed necessities of a quick meal in his qiankun pouch, he steers Wei Ying to walk the winding, if peaceful path toward the peripheral territories, past the liminal, isolated quietude of the jingshi and into the periphery of Lan Wangji's inherited grounds.

A short walk, yet they may have breached the threshold of a brave new world. He had chosen the space for its proximity to river water, cunning, lively spikes of rice stabbing the field, alongside feral flowers. Already, the builders and architects have marked a path to make a road, but they have yet to set down wood or stone for steps. These, he knows, are still young days for their home, Wei Ying's house, rising on strong, sprawling bones that stretch out over a considerable territory: a number of rooms, some superfluous, including an isolated study for Wei Ying's pleasure and a music chamber. A large kitchen, for all much of the house yet misses its roof. A segment for the archery post Lan Wangji had bidden. The house, designed to host an inner garden, even boasts the allocated space for a pond men had been digging until mere hours prior, when their toil ended.

"To grow lotus," he murmurs, nodding ahead where the pond is yet to glisten and crest, where its waters are short of rising. And he does not ask, Do you like it, what it can be? But his gaze flickers between Wei Ying's face and the home in desperate, hungry study.

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He spins, carrying Wei Ying as if a precious and tenderly loved burden and exposing him to every corner and line of the quarter, every flicker of dust. Wei Ying, for his part, begins the careful autopsy of the chamber, reviewing where their bed might sit, where his wine can be housed, how they can arrange their other possessions thereafter. Sunligt, yes.

In truth, only part of Lan Wangji heeds him, eyes slanted and gaze soft as he nods along, permitting his husband's lilting voice to mellow and soothe him. He has no opinion, no priorities, scant preferences. Cloud Recesses raises its sons obedient and grateful for whatever it is that the Heavens ordain and their ancestors choose. But this is of relevance to Wei Ying, and so, he must try harder.

"The styles will not harmonize. Perhaps one quarter in one style, another in a second. We need not force. Only accommodate. Put at balance."

“Our room should have furniture we’re both used to,” he suggests, leaning back far enough for him to look at Lan Zhan’s face. He grins and gives his husband’s nose a pecking little kiss. “My work room will have Yunmeng style. The kitchen and dining room, too. Most of the rest of the house can have Gusu decor.” After all, they’ll be living in Gusu and it just makes sense. It will not only be less expensive, but it will be ready sooner.

He cups Lan Zhan’s cheeks with both of his hands and steals a slow kiss. A pretty long one, at that. By the time he’s had his fill, his heart is beating a little faster and his cheeks are slightly pink. He wants to kiss him more, until they’re both lost in the moment, but he rests their foreheads together instead.

“Take me to the library, Lan Zhan, and then I want to see where the banquet hall will be,” he requests, foot wiggling a little behind Lan Zhan’s back. “After that, we should start placing the talisman before we run out of daylight.” Which wouldn’t be the end of the world. They have the means to light their way.

Some truth to Wei Ying's speculation, no matter Lan Wangji's opposition: they are better together than apart, reassured when their mouths meet. His husband withdraws first, and Lan Wangji gives instinctive chase, following his lips, only to restrain himself at the last moment and proceed, breathlessly, as instructed. He should release Wei Ying to the autonomy of his own legs, he supposes — only, the flooring remains unreliable, splintered, stabbing, and Wei Ying is too precious a burden by far. Such, then, is the reason, if he is asked.

No one asks.

The library is a close destination, consigned in a generous enclave where master carpenters have already begun to fit in the loose entombments of wooden cases, absent shelves. A room eclipsed of strong light, its windows narrow — all the better to preserve the quality of their scrolls.

"Will this suffice you?" For Lan Wangji, a library is a matter of inheritance, of study and storage, perhaps of correspondence. For Sizhui's perusal, if he chooses to relocate here, or the instruction of their other children, once they have grown. But for Wei Ying, learning is a greedy, constant pursuit, something to both occupy and amuse him. This room must him, above all. "Speak your ambitions."

When they’re on the move again, he tucks his face against Lan Zhan’s neck so he can breathe him in again. They’ve been married for over a year and he still feels as smitten as ever. His lips graze the skin there appreciatively as he smiles. It’s only moments before they’re in the first destination.

He leans back to look around again. There’s so much room for so many books and scrolls. “More than. Unless you own a lot of books, it’s going to be pretty empty for a while.” He only has a few books to his name, two of which he’d only just received from Jin Ling. He doesn’t know if any of his favorite books survived the massacre and he doesn’t think asking Jiang Cheng about them is a good idea.

He leans in, brushing their cheeks together and stopping when his mouth is suggestively close to Lan Zhan’s ear. “It’s not the same as messing around in the library pavilion, but we can probably have a good time in here.” They’ll more than likely claim most of the rooms in that way over time.

"Wei Ying." This, chastising, but still expending the energy to twirl once in place and amuse his husband, much as the same movement tends to indulge and entertain Lan Liang. "We cannot be so careless in this house, with servants you must look each day in the eye, and children."

It is... a different proposition, when they are only inconveniencing their grudging hosts of Lanling, or the staff of Cloud Recesses that Wei Ying needn't encounter more than a number of times, in passing. Lan Wangji's cheek yet bruises in a hard blush, but he can overlook their extravagance then. This is their home, their sanctuary. They must keep it pristine and above reproach.

And so, he removes himself, skin chilled where the print of Wei Ying's mouth has barely gone, as he walks on to their second destination: the reception hall, generous but unimposing, skeletal in construction so far. He anticipated the need to host, but gently shrugged off the possibility of holding banquets. It strikes him that perhaps Wei Ying might require that spark of friendliness and kinship. "You require it bigger?"

Laughing, he extends his legs out behind Lan Zhan and leans back as he’s twirled only to come close again right after. “Aww, we’ve got to try it at least once. We can wait until the late hours after your usual bed time and sneak our way in,” he sighs and squeezes Lan Zhan close while he’s carried to the next destination.

“The best banquets are held primarily outside,” he boasts, because that’s how it was done in Yunmeng. “But this is a good size for indoor gatherings. Anything that requires a full-sized banquet hall can be held in your family’s halls.” It’s not like he’s popular enough to fill a room even this size. Not yet. His reputation is repairing as more time goes by and he interacts with more cultivators, but it will take some time before the damage is fully healed.

“We can fit a few tables in here. All the same size like the Lans do. I’m not a fan of lording over everyone like I’m a Jin,” or a Wen before that.

"Only a handful of tables," he corrects, and finally betrays Wei Ying by tarting to descend him and allow him his freedom, so that he might walk the room and dance in the steps of its vastness and taste the realm of its possibilities. "We require more space between guests, here. To fit guqin and other instruments."

It is rare for representatives of Gusu Lan — their likeliest daily visitors — to feel at ease without their musical instruments close by, or to not volunteer or join in performance. Music is paramount in Cloud Recesses, an extension of the being and will of its inhabitants. Houses must be prepared to host it, built to accommodate acoustics.

"All greater banquets outside," he concedes, then carefully, airily studies the previous proposition. "We may consider Wei Ying's other ambitions, if he perfects silencing wards."

It’s fine for him to be set back down on his feet. He raises himself up to give Lan Zhan a chaste kiss on the cheek before turning to inspect the room on foot. Imagining four decent-sized tables - one for every quadrant -is easy for him to do. It’s not as grand as the halls run by sect leaders and that feels fitting. If his house was more impressive than the sect leader’s house, he’d feel conflicted by it. As it is, this whole house is a sprawling mansion compared to the modest house he’d dreamt about sharing with Lan Zhan.

He looks over his shoulder, grin somewhat wicked. “You mean that?” Of course he does. Lan Zhan doesn’t waste words, so if he says something, it’s usually genuine. “I’ve got it mostly worked out, but now I feel inspired to put on the finishing touches.” The only reason he hasn’t already is because he’d accepted it as ‘good enough’ and moved onto the next thing.

“Don’t worry, Lan Zhan, we’ll be careful so we won’t get caught. And if you really don’t want to do it in our library, I’m still open to having a sensual tryst in the library pavilion. Maybe reenact that dream we shared if you’re feeling passionate.”

"Perhaps." 'With certainty,' from any other mouth. Wei Ying's wish, his command. If his husband decrees they must honour each room of this house with their presence and passion, his will be done. There is a point past which they both know all too well that Lan Wangji's token refusals are play-acting and that he is singularly devoted to enjoying his lover under all and any circumstances in which he offers himself. Whom do they wish to fool?

Absent of furniture, the room shallowly echoes their voices, the sound losing emotion and character as it ricochets from the gilding ceiling trims and wall edges. A large room, after all. Vast and unending.

He pauses, having only just begun to trail after his beloved, one arm shackled against his lower back. Concern drips venomously at the corners of his words. "...Wei Ying. Is it... too much? Too large?"

Has Lan Wangji perhaps... overdone thingS?

And is it too large? He pauses mid-step and turns to face Lan Zhan. He can see the concern etched across his features and his heart goes out to him. “It’s a lot of space for a family of four, but our family will grow,” he admits thoughtfully. “We’ll have the privacy and freedom to relax here without having to worry about all those Lan rules. The most important part is that we’re going to be together.”

He reaches one of his arms out towards Lan Wangji, inviting him to take his hand. If he does, he’ll bring Lan Zhan’s hand up to his mouth to kiss; and if he doesn’t, then he’ll lower his hand. Either way, he takes a few steps backwards.

“We’ll make it work! Your uncle will probably stick his nose up at it, but I don’t care what he thinks. The thing that matters most to me is that we’ll have our own house and all of our children - present and future - will get to have their own space that they don’t have to share if they don’t want to.”

"We may yet remove some quarters," he volunteers, because the sketches have been completed, Cao Zhaofeng will fuss and disdain, but in truth they do not owe him a masterpiece of vastness. If a smaller abode suits them, let it be done. Wei Ying should not more be confined in his dwelling than suffocated by its expansive ambitions, a no-longer virgin sacrifice anointed by Lan Wangji's overcompensation.

He takes his husband's hand, clutches, squeezes. Relinquishes only when Wei Ying has finished with him, mouth soft on Lan Wangji's knuckles. I ever remember you by way of your footsteps.

They will make it work, says Wei Ying. A consummate optimist. "I asked and decided too much without consultation. This cannot be your home without your say."

A fool. He was a fool, sincere in his kindness but overreaching. The same error, committed again and again and again. And he does not learn.

“Then I’ll say it now,” he says with a grin, “This will be our house. There’s no need to trim it down or anything. Well, unless we need more space outside for the second garden,” he says, looking around the room again. It does feel large, expansive, but some of that will be mitigated once they add the furniture and decorations.

“I’m still getting my head around it being mine,” he admits. It’s obviously the most opulent house in the area - and perhaps in all of Cloud Recesses and its territories - but that doesn’t mean it has to be a bad thing. There’s a small worry in the back of his mind that the neighbors around them will stay their distance and treat him differently because of nonsense like class and wealth. But he’ll just have to be more friendly and generous in his invitations.

He beckons Lan Zhan over to him with a curled finger. “You just did what we agreed on when you first brought up the house. I really do want to have a big family with you and fill up the rooms and halls. I just feel a little overwhelmed now that I’m seeing it with my own eyes. That doesn’t mean I want to change it or make it smaller.”

He comes, large and looming but obedient, seeping into Wei Ying's personal space to claim it and him, to once more absorb his scent. He does this, he supposes, far too often: overcorrects at the first sign of Wei Ying's potential disagreement, for fear that his lover will flee him. That this will finally be the turning point, the line Wei Ying will not allow crossed.

Standing before Wei Ying, disciplined like a waiting pet, he anticipates his husband's next instruction, only offering, "Bide yourself time. This will be house. Our home."

A man of property is one of distinction, a harder breed to kill or ostracize than a lone, tolerated addition — even to one of the major sects. It takes... effort to deprive such a man of his possession, to confiscate it without complex reason and due course.

Far more precious than gold, it is a gift of stability.

Once Lan Wangji steps close to him, he takes a step forward and wraps his arms around Lan Zhan’s waist. He holds him there for a few precious moments before looking up at him with that grin still on his face. “We’ll turn this place into something warm and inviting for Sizhui and Liang. Maybe Jin Ling will see that we can treat Sizhui just as well as he could and inspire him to try harder to earn distinction before the end of their courtship.”

He lets go of Lan Zhan so he can cup both of his cheeks and tilt his face down to look him in the eye. “I love you, Lan Zhan. I love what this house will become.” He leans up and kisses his husband’s mouth. Short, sweet. There’s no overt heat in it, but he does spill his love into it.

“Let’s finish looking around. Oh, before I forget, do you think the carpenter would be open to building a small barn? It would be nice for Little Apple and the goat to have somewhere with a roof for when it rains.”

For Sizhui, he murmurs back mutely, because they both know the way of it: should anything occur to them — and any tragedy upon one would surely strike at both — it will be Sizhui who inherits, who must make his house and home. The child who must look after all his other siblings and his poor, defenceless uncle of the Wen. He must be afflicted with every privilege, alongside his burdens.

Held, then released — blessed, then teased. His chin sits fleetingly over the crown of Wei Ying's head, withdrawing to allow him more room to prance about like a drawling, incandescent firework, enchanting and untamed. Even as he answers, Lan Wangji draws them down the winding path of the main corridor to bypass the various nooks, pantries and crannies — all emptied, some prepared to host arsenal, other provisions — and investigate the kitchen: only the hearth and the start of the heating elements have been built already, but floor has been more tightly marked for where great tables must sit, alongside shelving and cutting posts.

Abandoned in one corner, a lone shelf is already half-stacked with fresh supplies brought from Lan Wangji's stops at various marketplaces, on the way back to Cloud Recesses: spices, some soft, some incendiary, all violently coloured.

"A barn has been commissioned, alongside a tower of pens. For rabbits, when they please." ...truly, Lan Wangji has been nothing if not extravagant. He feels the flush that nearly consumes his cheeks. "Father's home was more affluent, before his confinement."

On the way to the kitchen, Wei Wuxian takes the time to look around at every little detail. There’s plenty of room to showcase their wealth with their collection of possessions. Art, pottery, carvings, and any other trinkets they find or win on their travels. They’ll likely leave anything too dangerous they come across behind lock and key either in their home or in the Lan treasury.

The sight of the spice rack steals his attention and he approaches immediately to take a look at each of the jars. He’s not shy to take a whiff of the ground peppers and other things, one of which irritates his nose and makes him sneeze hard into his sleeve. He’d ducked his head down so he wouldn’t spill the spice with the force of his sneeze.

“When did you have time to buy all this?” He asks, impressed. Many of them are things he recognizes, but some are entirely new and ready to be explored. Technically, he’s probably eaten most of them at some point, but he doesn’t spend too much time in the kitchen. He sets the jar he’s holding down and turns to face Lan Wangji again. “I still owe you soup! I completely forgot.”

For a treacherous inhalation, his hand wonders where his robes, distinctly high-collared, hide the fading prints of wandered hands and purposeful claws, where he allowed an audacious, disgusting creature to claim its mark upon him. He does not speak, does not flinch, only shakes his head with absent-minded, cautious disinterest — with feigned enthusiasm.

"Unnecessary. The matter is ended." There is no urgency to revisit Lan Wangji's collapse into frail, undignified, helpless indulgence. Soup, care, spoiling, making a fool of himself — these are the disgusting marks of a man who ignores his responsibilities to his family. He cannot linger on his private hurts.

And so, he instead joins Wei Ying to take his lover's hand and position it on each of the precious spice pots and jars, showcasing them, one by one: "Chang'an. Caiyi. Yunmeng. Anyang. This, a payment gift from a nameless village in the Unclean Realm. Xidi."

Homes to markets, small or grand, enough to entertain the possibility of an exotic offering for Wei Ying's meals. Perhaps their children, too, might grow to share his appetites.

"I think of you, often." Said, for once, not amorously, not bittersweetly. Only with the quiet, plain civility of fact. "I enjoy bringing gifts from travels."

His eyes follow Lan Zhan’s hand to his throat. The bruising he’d seen there must have been far worse before Lan Zhan’s constitution and golden core had softened them overnight. The fact that it’s taken days for it to heal is a testament to the severity of the attack. And even if there were no marks, the sudden interest in settling affairs indicates how perilous the situation had been.

He leans close to Lan Zhan as they go through the spices one by one, letting his lover guide the pace and his hand. “Yunmeng, too? You’ve been collecting these for a while.” It feels nice to receive gifts like this just because his husband had been thinking of him while he was out on assignment or for travel. When it comes to that sort of thing, he usually only thinks to buy gifts when Lan Zhan urges him to think of their children and other family members while they’re in a market. Maybe if he buys something for Lan Zhan next time he’s alone in the market, it will make his husband feel nice, too.

“I think of you, too,” he says, tilting his head towards Lan Zhan’s shoulder. “All the time. I’m completely obsessed.” Which is one of the reasons he can’t help but send messages back and forth whenever they’re away from each other for more than a shi or two.

"Obsession is the root of feverish consumption." A learning, if not a rule outright. They cannot fall into the extreme of yearning, consumed by their desires. They need not become candles, lit at both ends. He dips in, mouth catching the top of Wei Ying's head as it passes by, whispering kisses. "We must remain disciplined."

And hearty and demure and strong. Paragons of virtue. Yes, and he winds an arm around his husband's waist, starting gently to steer him again — this time, back through the reception hall, never quite lingering until they've arrived at the welcome corridor. Here, then, by the door every righteous entrant must pass through, their wards bloom and burn.

"Here, if you wish to reinforce or adjust." His husband, a consummate tinkerer, cannot be expected to pass by and merely let be, not when he can perfect what others simply crafted. "Make your home safe."

“It’s okay, Lan Zhan. I love you, but it’s not really an obsession,” he explains, smiling when he feels the tickle in his hair when he’s kissed. Sure, his mood is lower when they’re apart and he isn’t spending his time with other people or working on something to occupy his mind. Being bored has always been burdensome for him but it feels worse now, somehow. Probably because his mind slips into doubt or painful memories when unoccupied these day.

As soon as they approach the door, he lets out an unimpressed grown when he looks at the various wards. “No wonder there are so many requests for cultivators around here. Who put these together?” The question is rhetorical. He strips down over half of the wards and proceeds to fix the ones he can and crumple the ones he can’t. He can’t really blame someone for using standard marketplace warding talismans, but he can complain about putting two talismans next to each other that cancel out the effects!

“Once we have the baby’s room set up, I’ll put some extra wards in there,” he says with a little sigh. He means the sound enhancing talismans that will alert them if he starts crying when they’re in another room. Actually, he should think of another way to alert them that won’t disturb the rest of the house. Perhaps he could find a way to alter the messaging system he and Lan Zhan use to write each other but instead pass sound through them. But that’s neither here nor there and he has his hands full with the wards in front of him.

He bites his thumb and uses the blood to quickly scrawl symbols on a few blank talismans of his own design. Lan Zhan should recognize them since he’s put up a few in the jingshi. “This one will ward off anything undead,” he explains, “And this one will keep anyone from using scrying spells directed towards anyone in the house.”

He can't help it, the choked spell of laughter, pearlescent — only pulls it back at the last moment, gently domesticated into discipline because it does not do, does it? To ridicule those who have only attempted their perfunctory, lacklustre but undeniable best. Of course a master of the warding arts is unimpressed, perhaps to a point of exasperation, by chaotic efforts.

Far from Lan Wangji to remind Wei Ying that they have, after all, failed to complete this exercise with their own two hands and should therefore wisely abstain from criticism. Instead, he dips to kneel beside his husband, obediently only intervening to facilitate, to pass a brush or quickly remove a parchment piece from before Wei Ying's eyes, or offer a kerchief from his qiankun pouch at the very end, so that Wei Ying might rest and bind his bloodied hand.

"Yes, yes. Forgive our oversights. Negligent. Yes." Poor cultivators who, hastily, barely dashed in to perform the rites, unsupervised by a sulking Lan Qiren and a secluding Xichen. "You are pleased, now? No one will come steal you at night?"

He puts the finishing touches on the last talisman and then proceeds to display them in what might look to be a randomly chosen order to most people, but there’s a method to his madness. He takes the kerchief and wipes the blood off his finger. The flow is mostly stopped already, but he pushes down on the insignificant wound to stop the bleeding completely.

“I’ll have to deliver a charm to Wen Ning next time I see him so he can come to visit Sizhui,” he says, knowing that Wen Ning may also think to visit him, too. They used to be pretty close back in Yiling, but there always an awkwardness between them now as they both learn to navigate their friendship without the subservient elements of before.

“The only one who’ll be able to steal me is invited to do so any night he chooses,” he flirts and puts a hand on Lan Zhan’s forearm briefly as he looks around at the rest of the entrance that he’s missed entirely upon seeing the state of the talismans hanging there.

It strikes him, with distant satisfaction: Wei Ying does not request his permission to grace Wen Ning with a pass-key to their home. He does not hesitate, does not remotely consider. He decides, as a true master of the house — and it is Lan Wangji who has given him this authority, who has fostered his confidence. His smile languishes and blooms, deepening when Wei Ying touches him without cause or reason past the simple pleasure of passing contact.

"He may have to. He has not been offered a charm." Meaning, in other words, that Lan Wangji must struggle to make his own way inside their abode, perhaps stealing Wei Ying along the way. "Must prove his worth."

Belatedly, he lifts his arm to offer it out to Wei Ying, reassured that his husband may have exhausted the quiet energy that previously motivated him to flit around the house like a firefly. "You have finished?"

He could answer with the truth that Lan Zhan is not undead and would not need a charm to make his way through the wards he’d just improved. Instead, he slips his arm around Lan Zhan’s with a little smirk. “Sneak into our room tonight and give me a taste of the theft I’ll anticipate living here,” he says with mischief in his eyes. It’s been a while since they played around with dubious consent and it sounds delicious.

He nods affirmative that he’s finished with the tour of the house so far. His house where he can raise his family and make his own rules if he feels like it. Once A-Liang begins his rein of terror as a walking toddler, he probably will suggest a few rules.

To think the son of a servant who spent time living on the streets and in a cave would have such a grand house. Life is full of twists and turns and he hopes this particular turn will stay for a long time. Forever if he has any say in it.

“What do you want to do now, Lan Zhan?” He asks as they walk down the hall towards the exit. “We’ve still got some daylight left. Want to take a detour to look at the river?” It’s too cold to want to get in the water, but it’s such a pretty view. It’ll be even prettier with Lan Zhan at the banks.

He does not answer the plain, shameless and delightful provocation — sneak into our room, Wei Ying says, as if their hearth home at the jingshi, carefully shared with their youngest son and his nursemaid in a nearby quarter, is not also dutifully protected against assault, subterfuge and vicious crime. But he can play the part. Perhaps, on this night, they may ask the nursemaid to acquaint herself to her formal quarters in the main encampment of Cloud Recesses and leave the babe with them in his cradle, permitting their intimacy. This part of the arrangement will prove tenuous until the move to their new home has finalized.

For now, he takes Wei Ying's arm, uninvited, steering his husband towards the garden so that he might oversee the river's side he wishes close. The light is still golden, mellow, daunting. Wei Ying, inevitably is beautiful — so much so that Lan Wangji cannot help himself, steadying them in place and turning to set both hands into his lover's hair and unwind it from its ponytail, until soft tresses caress him.

He catches strands from each sides of Wei Ying's face, weaving it to bind in a half-tied, half-loose hairstyle that is impossibly, heart-breakingly familiar, corseted by Wei Ying's blood-red ribbon. The same, and yet changed: Wei Ying's hair is straighter now, tame where his first body's mane accepted neither comb, nor coaxing. He takes a step back to admire his work.

"You have a start until I count to five. After, if I catch you, I shall toss you in the river."

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