Chapter Text
It is a relief when he finally makes it back to the inn that afternoon. The unshakeable sense of urgency he feels whenever Wei Ying is suffering pushes him to act immediately, to burst in and force help on him, as often seems the only way to help him at all. But the current problem is different: he cannot force anything, now. To try would be monstrous. He knows this, is acutely aware of the delicacy of the situation and the myriad ways in which his own feelings, his own desires, complicate it further. He goes to his own room first, to gather himself.
It is peaceful. Calm. And unbearably empty.
He stops before so much as sitting down, and forces himself to face the reason for his delay.
The only thing holding him back now, truly, is his own fear—of rejection, before or after. The fear that Wei Ying will be disgusted, or regretful. The fear of losing, to any degree, this most precious of things so soon after getting it back.
But this is nothing in the face of Wei Ying’s pain. He will go to him, and he will do whatever Wei Ying needs, or will allow, and he will face the consequences with a clear conscience. That was his promise, after all. So long ago.
He turns on his heel, and crosses the hall. Afraid in more ways than one of what he will find, he knocks.
“Not hungry,” comes the muffled reply. “Give it to the beggars.”
Lan Wangji takes a slow, deep breath. He enters.
Wei Ying looks up from his messy sheaves of paper, eyes bleary and wide with surprise. It is a futile effort not to stare back. He is wearing only one robe, and it drapes loosely, revealing a deep triangle of flushed chest. His hair is a tangled mess, and a sheen of sweat glows on his skin, illuminated by bright afternoon light filtered through paper windows. He looks agitated, but very much alive. Lan Wangji clenches his fist harder behind his back as Wei Ying scrambles up from his seat, and away.
“Lan Zhan,” he says, looking more like a cornered animal than anything. Almost a parody of the nightmare scenario Lan Wangji has always imagined if ever his own feelings were to come to light. His fears claw up his throat, threatening to force retreat. “I didn’t realize. Is there...something you need?”
Lan Wangji chooses to ignore the question and his fears both. “I have dealt with the maker of the array.” Wei Ying blanches. “He will not make so immoral a thing again.”
“Ah,” says Wei Ying, leaning against the wall, his body angled away. He is constantly in motion, even as he tries to appear nonchalant. Discomfort, already, then. Probably pain as well. “That’s...good.”
Silence stretches between them, broken only by nearby birdsong.
“Is there anything else?”
“He admitted that it would have a negative impact on your health,” Lan Wangji says. He forces himself to take a step forward, and Wei Ying crosses his arms as if to shield himself. “It was designed to result in extreme, prolonged pain if not properly implemented. Possibly death.”
Wei Ying laughs uncomfortably. “Implemented,” he repeats. His face twists into a grimace, and he won’t meet Lan Wangji’s eye. “Yeah, I did figure that out. Did he say what sort of thing needs to be implemented, then?”
“I understand the nature of the problem,” Lan Wangji says, rather than ask for more specifics. He was able to glean what he assumes is most of them from the design, but he is not sure what hearing it out loud might do to him, just now. His courage is fragile enough as it is.
“Uh-huh.” Wei Ying scratches the back of his head and turns to face fully away from him, frenetic. “Well, it’s unfortunate. His design works, I’ll give him that. As complex as it is, I couldn’t find a loophole, but it has an expiration factor, so. I’ll be alright if—when I make it to that point. No need to worry.”
Lan Wangji has a brief flicker of doubt about the supposed infallibility of the array. It was meant, as he understood it, to start its work gradually so as not to inspire suspicion. In other words, Wei Ying’s initial hedging explanation that it was an infatuation spell was partially correct. But Wei Ying exhibits no signs of such an effect.
He waves off the thought. The time has passed for its relevance. Wei Ying is in pain now, and neither of them have found another way forward.
“Wei Ying,” Lan Wangji says, boldly stepping closer still. “You are suffering. And your health—”
“My health will be fine,” Wei Ying interrupts him. “It’s nothing I can’t handle, anyway. Probably. Don’t...just don’t think about it, Lan Zhan. I know you worry, but there’s no need. There’s nothing to be done. I’ll keep working on the array itself, but other than that…”
Lan Wangji forces his jaw to unclench.
“It is designed specifically so that there is indeed something to be done.”
Wei Ying goes suddenly very still, then shakes his head, his tangled masses of hair swishing gently down his back. When he speaks, the levity is gone from his voice. “I don’t know what you’re getting at, Lan Zhan, but in case he didn’t say, the array is extremely precise. It was meant to make a woman’s...inadequate husband care for her. Thoroughly. And the way they made sure to make him care for only her, was a first sight element. Do you remember who I looked at first, after I triggered it?”
His words trip out quickly, as if his lungs are working faster than he’d like them to: another sign of pain. And his voice has gone bitter. Lan Wangji hates being both the source and the target of it; it reminds him of an old, bleak helplessness. But this is weakness. He is not helpless now. He swallows down the bile in his throat.
“I am aware,” he says, fighting to keep his voice even. “It is why I am here.”
After a beat of oppressive silence, Wei Ying whips around to look at him over his shoulder. The appalled look on his face confirms Lan Wangji’s deepest doubts, but he does not falter. He does not so much as step back. He is determined to offer his help, no matter the cost. He drops his gaze to the floor and waits. It feels like an eternity before Wei Ying speaks.
“This isn’t a job for the virtuous Hanguang-jun,” he bites out. “You’re not...it’s not your fault some villagers fell asleep in a bush.”
Lan Wangji breathes steadily through the hurt in his chest and fights to find the right words to make him understand.
“It is not a question of fault,” he says, eyes still firmly on the ground between them. “It is a question of what is needed that I can provide. Of...what you will permit.”
His heart is pounding painfully now, but when he steals a glance, Wei Ying’s eyes are suddenly shut tight, his face contorted, and a fine tremor is running steadily through his limbs.
“Wei Ying,” Lan Wangji says, stepping forward on reflex, reaching out. When he takes hold of his arm, it is alarmingly warm, and Wei Ying flinches away before leaning into the touch.
“Lan Zhan,” he says, shaking harder, looking at him with glassy eyes.
Lan Wangji’s worries have all narrowed down to this obvious distress. He puts a hand to Wei Ying’s forehead. It, too, is far warmer than it should be.
“Lan Zhan, you can’t...you can’t,” he murmurs, as if in a fevered dream.
Unable to help the impulse, Lan Wangji brushes back the hair that sweat has stuck to his forehead, and checks his pulse. It is pounding erratically.
“Why not?” he asks.
This is the most important question. If the reason is Wei Ying’s own preference, he will merely stay and hold vigil, seeing that he drinks and eats as necessary. It will be difficult, but he will respect Wei Ying’s wishes. He must. However, if the reason is refutable...
“I can’t ask you,” Wei Ying says, teeth nearly clacking from the force of his trembling. He drops his head to the side, away from him. “I can’t ask you...for...it’s too…”
“No,” Lan Wangji says, the overpowering instinct to merely take care of Wei Ying finally firmly in control. “You need not ask. Only allow me to help.”
Wei Ying makes a small, anguished sound. It is not a refusal.
Slowly, so that such a refusal may still be voiced, Lan Wangji brings up his hand and places it flat on Wei Ying’s stomach. A quiet gasp is muffled hastily, and hands curl into fists.
“Yes,” Wei Ying grits out. “Please.”
Lan Wangji spares a fleeting moment to think how truly awful it must be, for one's body to be forced into such a burning need for a person one does not truly desire. If he had seen Wei Ying in this state before, he would not have been so lenient with the cultivator responsible. But all he can do now, all he can hope to accomplish, is to make this as inoffensive as possible under the circumstances. He understands that the array calls for...completion. Assumedly at the hands of the intended target. So he moves his hand lower, still very slowly. More slowly than he probably should, he realizes. Perhaps he should dispense with it and try for expediency instead? He vacillates, not sure he could manage it.
A happy medium, then. He slips his hand between the overlapping edges of Wei Ying’s robe and presses lightly against the promincence beneath. It is startlingly hot even through the fabric of his trousers, and almost worryingly hard. As soon as he touches it, Wei Ying crumples into him, fisting the front of his robes in both hands. His chest heaves against him, and so much contact, such obvious desperation, wakes a stirring of Lan Wangji’s own. He clenches his teeth. It was to be expected. He puts aside the shame and disappointment in himself for later. It is of no use to either of them now.
When he moves his hand, Wei Ying’s knees buckle. He hurries to catch him with an arm around his back, but he is too late to stop them both from going to the floor.
“Sorry,” Wei Ying gasps, “I’m sorry, I—”
“No need,” Lan Wangji says, carefully folding his legs to support him.
It is difficult, with Wei Ying’s grasping hands and mindlessly shifting body, which ends up cradled sideways in Lan Wangji’s lap. He takes a deep breath. He will not think of all the places and ways in which Wei Ying is touching him. He will not think of their heat, of their breath, mixing as Wei Ying moves and pants in his arms. He will keep his mind on his task. This will work. His hand is still inside Wei Ying’s robe, fingers splayed to steady him. He takes another calming breath and finds the waistband of his trousers, then slips beneath it.
Touching Wei Ying’s hot, damp skin has a far greater effect on him than he could have imagined. His other hand tightens unconsciously around Wei Ying’s ribcage, and he forces it to relax. He tries very hard not to register the way Wei Ying’s lower stomach feels, the texture of the hair that grows there, or the stunningly smooth, scorching heat when he finally takes him in hand. But he knows, in his criminal heart of hearts, that he will never, ever forget it.
“Oh,” Wei Ying gasps, clutching him close with both hands, burying his face in his throat. He pants against Lan Wangji’s skin. “Ah, Lan...Lan Zhan…”
Lan Wangji is acutely aware that he is completely, screamingly hard. He ignores it. It means nothing, it is nothing. None of this is real, not in a way that matters. He keeps his back straight, his hold on Wei Ying careful and efficient, and moves his hand through the wetness that has already gathered there. This alone threatens to undo his calm, but he clenches his teeth and strokes firmly, with purpose. Wei Ying bucks into it and latches his arms around Lan Wangji’s neck, one hand gripping the back of his shoulder, the other in his hair. The movement of his body, the sound of his labored breathing, the feel of his skin, are all torturous. Certainly far beyond any of the private, depraved imaginings of Lan Wangji’s youth. But if this is a test, he will pass it. He will get them both through this without breaking.
“Lan Zhan,” Wei Ying moans. Lan Wangji can feel the movement of his lips and tongue against his throat. He shudders despite himself, but then Wei Ying whines. “I can’t...it...please.”
“Wei Ying, tell me,” Lan Wangji says. His own voice is rough, almost unrecognizable. He needs to know how to end this before he goes mad.
“Please,” Wei Ying repeats, twisting against him. “Please.”
“Anything, Wei Ying, anything,” Lan Wangji hears himself say, “only tell me, and I—”
Wei Ying pulls the hand from Lan Wangji’s hair and drags it down his chest, his stomach. Lan Wangji has no time to react before it is pressing down with purpose against his ignored hardness, and he comes abruptly, a shocked sound caught in his throat as his body goes taut. At the same moment, his fingers are coated with hot liquid as Wei Ying lets out a low, relieved moan.
It feels...it is beyond anything Lan Wangji has ever experienced. He tries to catch his breath as Wei Ying slumps against him, also breathing hard, but no longer shaking.
“I’m sorry,” Wei Ying says into his chest, once he can speak. “I’m so sorry Lan Zhan, I shouldn’t have...”
“Do not apologize,” Lan Wangji says. But his mind is moving slowly, and he is desperately confused. “But...why?”
“The conditions of the array,” Wei Ying says, hurried, and still muffled in Lan Wangji’s clothes. “Its purpose. The target’s release is contingent on...the object’s.”
After several more seconds of puzzling through this, comprehension dawns. If one wished a husband to give pleasure rather than merely receiving it, it would only make sense to incentivize it in such a way. It is, as Wei Ying said, genius.
It is also yet another complication.
To make matters worse, Lan Wangji’s hand is still in Wei Ying’s trousers, which is why he becomes aware that Wei Ying is still very hard. He is afraid to ask, but he realizes he should have, before now. Before he rushed into this blindly, with no plan.
“It is...not over,” he says, not bothering to frame it as a question. He knows the answer.
Wei Ying shakes his head against him. “It...you don’t…” he lets go of his hold on Lan Wangji’s back, the tension still rigid throughout his body. “You’ve done more than enough.”
“It will get worse,” Lan Wangji says.
Stilted and awkward, Wei Ying rolls out of his lap, and Lan Wangji feels cold. He tells himself it is merely the lack of body heat, nothing more. A feeble lie.
“It’s fine,” Wei Ying says. He has not looked at him, will not look at him. It is excruciating. “It’s not worth...I shouldn’t have done that.”
“Wei Ying,” Lan Wangji says, trying to cut through the guilt in Wei Ying’s voice. He feels wrong-footed, and flustered, and slightly out of breath, but the problem is not solved. He will not succumb to shame, not yet. He knows he will have plenty of time for that later. “I insisted.”
Wei Ying shakes his head, eyes wide and unfocused. He is curled in on himself, his breaths quick. The effort it is taking him to keep away is almost palpable.
“Listen to me, Wei Ying,” Lan Wangji says. “I only wish to help you.”
“I’m not—I’m not asking for help,” says Wei Wuxian. “Not like this, not from—you don’t understand...what it would take.”
The truth of this suddenly sinks past the barrier in Lan Wangji’s mind. That the expiration of the array should rest on his body’s satisfaction, and not Wei Ying’s. That he is offering—asking for—his own...that he would be required to…
He is shaken deeply by the concept. He was ready to help Wei Ying, and he had no doubts about his ability to do so, in terms of figuring out how to act on Wei Ying’s needs. But he has no knowledge of his own body in relation to another, this way. There is no precedent. He very much does lack all understanding of what it might possibly take.
And then, deep down, a pillar of quiet hope that has been holding up his certainty crumbles. The hope that, with time, Wei Ying might accept Lan Wangji’s determination to help him, when all he imagined it might require was his touch, as brief and perfunctory as he could make it. Now, however...now that his willingness must encompass this uncertainty, must accept any and all possible iterations of Wei Ying and his own body...it will be much, much harder to explain away. And, he feels certain, much less possible for Wei Ying to forget. To forgive.
Suddenly, Wei Ying shudders and clutches at his middle.
“It does not matter what it takes,” Lan Wangji says. He moves forward, ungainly in his stained robes. Wei Ying’s breathing picks up again as he nears. “If you would let me, I would do anything.”
Wei Ying’s expression crumples in on itself. “I know,” he says, mournful.
Lan Wangji stops very close to him. “I do not understand.”
“You shouldn’t—” he is panting now, sweat beaded on his forehead. It makes Lan Wangji’s chest ache fiercely. “You shouldn’t have to.”
“Wei Ying,” Lan Wangji says, heart caught in his throat. He hesitates, then lays a hand on Wei Ying’s once-again shaking arm. “I want to. To help.”
As if some dam of movement has been broken by his touch, Wei Ying begins yanking single-mindedly at Lan Wangji’s robes. But Lan Wangji forces himself to think ahead. He will need these clothes if he is ever to leave this room again—which he must, he knows, very soon. This room, this inn, this town. Quickly, once it is done. And alone.
“Careful,” he says with some effort, stalling him, tightening his hold on his wrist. “I will do it.”
Wei Ying makes a sound that is almost a whine, but lets go. Lan Wangji swiftly undoes his belts and unties his topmost layers, pulse pounding as he shrugs them off and sets them aside. He sits on the edge of the bed and keeps his mind blank. Any thoughts he might have would only hinder him now.
“Lan Zhan,” Wei Ying says, close. A hand falls on his shoulder, and it burns through his last remaining layer. “If—can—”
Lan Wangji nods, but Wei Ying goes stock-still.
“You…” he swallows hard. “You. I can’t,” he says, pulling back, only for his trembling to worsen. He turns away. “I can’t have you l-looking at me like. Like that. Like you’re. I don’t know. Afraid. Lan Zhan. I’d rather die.”
A heavy weight falls interminably through Lan Wangji’s stomach. He dares to reach out. To touch his arm again. To turn him back.
“Wei Ying,” he says, his entire broken heart in those two words. His ears heat, hearing the way they throb and plead. Unbecoming. He wishes the array would make Wei Ying forget, but of course it will not. Of course he will have to live with everything he reveals, now. “I am only sorry that this must happen to you. Tell me what is necessary.”
Wei Ying stares at him.
“Please,” he adds.
He is not above begging. Not for Wei Ying’s life.
Wei Ying’s lips part softly with surprise, his hazy gaze almost sharpening. “Happen to—Lan Zhan. I…I want...well not this, but...” He gestures between them.
Lan Wangji is gripping Wei Ying’s arm too tightly. He knows this, but cannot make his fingers relax.
“Do not...allow it to make you say things you will regret,” he chokes out. His ears are ringing with words he has wished to hear for many long, terribly empty years. But he knows that the array is simply doing its work.
“I’m not, Lan Zhan,” Wei Ying says.
Lan Wangji breathes through the pain of the horrible, baseless, crushing hope that it might be so. But Wei Ying himself said the array was foolproof.
Wei Ying eases him back with a hand on his shoulder, moving with a strange directness at odds with the haze in his eyes. As if something else is guiding him. Lan Wangji lets them both be guided, and lies down. He is suddenly unsure he will be able to bear it, being touched by him this way. The slightest brushes of fingers against his hand have habitually set him aflame. He is barely touching him now, and he feels as if he cannot breathe. He cannot free Wei Ying from his suffering if he simply expires before it is done.
Dark, wild eyes search his face. Warm breath, hot skin. Even through both their underlayers, Wei Ying burns as he leans over him, fighting to hold himself still, apart. It is a losing battle.
Lan Wangji wants to help, but does not know in what way he might be permitted to do so. He does not know how to help such that Wei Ying will not feel ill at the thought of it when his mind is once again his own.
“Lan Zhan, what made you...just now.” Wei Ying is shifting ceaselessly, maddening brushes of thigh, of hair, of chest, as he falls more fully against him. “I think...somehow. The array must be affecting you, too? Height—heightening...things. But I...I need to know what—what felt good.”
All of Lan Wangji’s muscles go tense, his ears burning. He knows the array is not working on him, knows intimately that there can be no heightening of the things Wei Ying makes him feel. But this truth is unnecessary. The answer to Wei Ying’s question matters regardless, if they are to get past all of this relatively quickly and painlessly. He finds himself staring at Wei Ying’s mouth: full, and pink, and close. Remembering the way it felt against his skin.
He cannot quite say it. He touches his own throat instead.
Wei Ying’s dark eyelashes flutter, and he licks his lips. “Okay,” he says, and covers Lan Wangji’s hand with his own, a shock of weight, of heat, of touch. “I’ll…” he trails off, and Lan Wangji’s pulse gallops as he leans in.
When he loses sight of Wei Ying’s eyes, his own fall shut. Before he’s taken half a breath, soft lips make deliberate, firm contact with his throat, and his entire body is lanced with adrenaline.
“Like this?” Wei Ying murmurs, his mouth, his warm breath, ghosting across Lan Wangji’s skin. The words are thoughtful, deliberate, a contrast to his restless body.
“Mn,” says Lan Wangji shortly, instead of shouting. Instead of pleading.
Wei Ying kisses him again—for that is what this is, a kiss, Wei Ying is kissing him—tenderly, a longer press, and Lan Wangji’s nails begin to bite into his palms. When Wei Ying opens his mouth against him and warm becomes hot, soft becomes wet, light bursts along Lan Wangji’s nerves. His lungs try to regain their even rhythm, but there is a tongue moving across his skin, and lips are sealing, and sucking, and Lan Wangji must think very hard in order to keep breathing at all.
“Lan Zhan,” Wei Ying murmurs against him, between kisses that are quickly growing frantic. “Relax.” He smoothes a hand up Lan Wangji’s chest, his neck, into his hair, and uses it to pull his head gently to the side. Lan Wangji does not resist. He perhaps could not, even if he wanted to. “Stop me. Or try to relax.”
Lan Wangji’s heart sinks even as it pounds erratically.
Is it worse for Wei Ying to think himself overstepping now? Or for him to remember Lan Wangji overstepping, once it is over? He cannot make this decision. There are no disciplines to inform him here. He tries to make his position clear without doing anything too unwelcome. He places his hands lightly on Wei Ying’s hips.
Wei Ying makes an appreciative noise and sucks an earlobe between his teeth. Lan Wangji immediately drops his hands back down to grip the bedding, needing something to hold onto, dizzy and reeling even as he lies prone. He wishes wildly that he could ask Wei Ying to kiss him properly, that he could have those perfect, smiling lips, just this once, to ground him, to make him feel less alone. But it would be deplorable to ask such a thing of him now. When he would give him anything, and think he wanted it, too.
Wei Ying’s roaming hands find one of Lan Wangji’s and pry it from the bedding as he kisses his way down his throat. He places it on his own bare waist, beneath his open tunic, and makes a small, pained sound against his collarbone.
“What is it?” Lan Wangji manages to ask, alarm cutting through the surplus of feeling, through the overwhelming guilt.
“Feels good,” Wei Ying pants against him. “Feels...like I’m on fire, except…” he presses his hand over Lan Wangji’s.
This, at last, is actionable. Lan Wangji rests both palms on his skin, moving them across his burning body, trying to relieve what he can. Wei Ying moans softly and pulls at the collars of Lan Wangji’s tunic, frustrated and uncoordinated. Lan Wangji unties it as quickly as he can, and Wei Ying yanks it open before pressing himself down, groaning.
“Lan Zhan,” he murmurs, sucking hard on the tendon of Lan Wangji’s throat, rocking against his hip. “You feel so good, Lan Zhan.”
Lan Wangji shuts his eyes tight, tight. There is so much skin on his skin, he can feel every flex of Wei Ying’s muscles against his stomach, he can feel the heat of his hardness, his mouth is sending growing, sparking waves washing through him, and he...he…
“Wei Ying,” he breathes.
“What do you need, Lan Zhan,” Wei Ying pants, the movement of his hips becoming more focused. “Are you close, or just me? Are you close again, already? I...I am, if you can just—you’re so...”
Another wave of arousal, large enough to wipe away a good measure of his more difficult thoughts, crashes over Lan Wangji at the idea.
“Yes,” he says, for he is. So close. Embarrassingly so.
Wei Ying ruts against him, panting. “I...I need you to, if—start small, like this, can you—”
He thumbs absently over Lan Wangji’s nipple and cuts himself off with a moan as they both come. It is more intense this time, less a surprise than an inevitable end, and Lan Wangji’s chest heaves beneath Wei Ying’s weight. He holds his waist tightly as their hips jerk in time. His mind is nearly empty, his uncertainty and his desperation both a distant haze. When it is finished they lie still, panting, spend cooling uncomfortably in their trousers.
Wei Ying blows out a long breath that gusts across Lan Wangji’s neck and chest, then pushes up to look at him. His face is doing something complicated and delicate, somewhere between bashfulness and awe. His mouth is swollen red. Lan Wangji wants yet more desperately to kiss it.
It is this thought that brings him back down into the present. He looks away from Wei Ying’s open, spell-addled gaze.
“What more?” he asks, needing facts. Something concrete, a specific goal. An ending to this morbid fantasy. “What must...happen?”
“Do you really want to know,” Wei Ying asks, suddenly, momentarily lucid, “or would it just make you more nervous?”
A fair question. Lan Wangji tries his best to think it through, spent and blurred as he is. He does not find an answer.
“Do you need...do you need to rest?” Wei Ying’s expression is resolute.
He would give him space, give him time, if he asked, despite the incessant, quaking need in him. It is obvious, how it pains him not to touch, to hold himself apart. And yet he does.
This answer is simpler. Lan Wangji shakes his head.
Wei Ying hastily shoves his robe off, revealing straight yet delicately-boned shoulders, and the way his well-formed muscles curve over and into each other along his arms. Lan Wangji lifts a hand unconsciously, then drops it. He reminds himself it is wrong to take any sort of initiative like this, with Wei Ying’s state of mind altered.
“This—needs—” Wei Ying says, tugging on Lan Wangji’s sleeves.
Lan Wangji sits up, and Wei Ying’s fevered fingers slip under his tunic, pushing it off. Before he can register any kind of emotion about being bared in such a way, Wei Ying’s hands are on the waistband of his trousers. He flinches just slightly, still foolishly shocked by it after everything that has happened, and Wei Ying pauses. Meets his eyes. He is flushed and sweating, shaking with pain or restraint or both.
Lan Wangji nods.
Wei Ying pulls the thoroughly stained trousers down and off, pressing a kiss to Lan Wangji’s shoulder, then tosses them to the side. For a long moment, he simply stares. Lan Wangji’s face heats, self-conscious of the mess. He clenches his fists, resisting the urge to cover himself.
“I’m…” Wei Ying breathes, as if in a daze. “You…” he shakes himself and rests a hand on Lan Wangji’s thigh.
Lan Wangji feels it sharply, a shout inside his skin.
“Lan Zhan,” Wei Ying says, trembling fingers brushing a free lock of Lan Wangji’s hair behind his ear. “I really—”
“How long will it take to wear off?” Lan Wangji interrupts, past rules at this point, past propriety entirely. He cannot hear another false confession. He cannot. “After.”
“Immediately,” Wei Ying says, sure and certain, even as he squirms closer. “It was written like...like a complicated knot that each step pulls a little looser. The last one unravels it completely.”
This is some comfort, at least. Lan Wangji will not have to find ways to dodge Wei Ying’s errant declarations as he takes his leave. Rather, he imagines, it will be quiet. Wei Ying will be embarrassed, at best. Lan Wangji will be allowed to dress and go in relative peace.
Will he make it out of the inn before he falters, he wonders? Or should he stop in his own room to be sure to avoid public embarrassment?
Wei Ying’s fingers skim his jaw, his throat. Too tender. “You’re so—”
Lan Wangji pulls him close and Wei Ying cuts off on a groan, as intended: no more breath for lovely, false words. It also has the side-effect of boiling something thick and illicit in Lan Wangji’s stomach.
He had felt this same thing less than a moment ago. How could he already have forgotten this heat, this pleasure as Wei Ying’s body twists into his? How can it still come as such a shock?
“Lan Zhan,” Wei Ying moans, and then shoves him all the way back to lie on top of him.
It knocks all sense and breath from Lan Wangji, and for long moments he is lost to the softness of skin over hard muscle and bone, the shocking friction of a hip against his own now-bare hardness, the fever-hot, desperate need in every pore of the body moving over him.
It is worth it, he thinks, half-delirious and saccharine, every horrid consequence is worth it, to have this vital proof of Wei Ying’s miraculous return to life stamped into his body’s memory, to keep when Wei Ying himself is gone. This warmth will linger; it will keep the nightmares at bay. It burns too brightly not to leave a permanent mark.
“Wei Ying,” he breathes, when Wei Ying’s teeth sink into his skin. “Wei Ying,” when thighs push, artless, between his own. “Wei Ying,” when capable fingers curl around his cock.
“Lan Zhan,” comes the inevitable reply, the other half of the breath. “You feel...oh, I need…”
He presses hard against him then, aligning their bodies, thrusting in a shock of pleasure, piercing through Lan Wangji’s hazy mind, sending him dizzily off-kilter. He clutches Wei Ying’s shoulders, his only anchor to reality, and gasps. He cannot hold still, cannot stop touching, grasping. Wei Ying’s fingers dig into the meat of his thigh and pull; he brings his leg up around Wei Ying’s waist.
He wants more.
The desire is hopeless and futile, for what more could there be, than this? More than this complete contact, than this all-encompassing concert of movement? Wei Ying’s cock grinds against his in constant, sublime motion. He cannot breathe. Wei Ying’s head falls against his shoulder.
He wants more.
“Please,” he says.
Wei Ying takes both of them in one hand, guiding, so that his cock slides firmly across the sensitive dip below the head of Lan Wangji’s with each thrust. It arches Lan Wangji’s body; strange, involuntary, and luxurious such that his head slips back, off the bed.
“Ah, come on, Lan Zhan, please,” Wei Ying urges him, his lips dragging against Lan Wangji’s exposed neck once more. “Oh you’re so, oh, just like that, Lan Zhan, you can do it, please I, oh—your throat, your fucking throat, I want to put my cock down it and watch you swallow around me, I want—”
He breaks off as they both come for a third time, short, hard grunts puffing against Lan Wangji’s skin as his hips twitch spasmodically. It is almost as sudden as the first time, but it feels...different. Less like something that has happened to his body, and more like something his body has worked to achieve. He has never felt pleasure so tiring and yet satisfying as this.
His hands will not let go of Wei Ying. But neither does Wei Ying seem able to let go of him.
“I”m sorry,” Wei Ying pants. “I’m so sorry. I’m. I don’t. I don’t know why I…”
“The array,” Lan Wangji finds the breath to say.
He does not want to think about what was said, or what it did to him. He does not want to think at all. But one thought wriggles through the militant blankness of his mind:
Will his body be able to do such a thing again?
Wei Ying is already watching him, red-faced but starry-eyed. Lan Wangji swallows and looks away quickly before the pain that stabs through him at such a look—physical, like a spike in his chest, his wrists—can grow. He glances down instead, to check, and is unsurprised to see that Wei Ying is still in need. He hopes this will not have a permanent adverse effect on his weak-cored body, but it cannot be worse than his fate without intervention.
“We can rest,” Wei Ying says, rough and low. “Three was my limit, with a core. There’s no point in trying to force it if—”
“My golden core is far more advanced than yours was, at that age,” Lan Wangji says, stubbornly disregarding the full meaning of what Wei Ying is saying in order to keep the shreds of his sanity functional. Then, hearing the way that sounds, “Than either of our cores were, at that age.”
Wei Ying huffs. “I know. But it...ah, it’s.” He stops and draws in a tremulous breath, his forehead against Lan Wangji’s shoulder. He is shaking already. “It’s worse, each time. It’s getting worse. I don’t think...it would be easier to wait now, than later.”
Lan Wangji’s heart sinks to see him this way, trembling with hurt and determination. He takes Wei Ying’s arm and opens the pathway from his meridians, beginning the flow of energy.
“You should—should keep it,” Wei Ying says. But Lan Wangji can see it helping. His fever decreases palpably, his breathing slows. “It’s just going to get worse again.”
Determined, Lan Wangji keeps transferring energy. He stares up at the ceiling, at the light that shifts across it with the breeze in the leaves outside. He does not think he should savor this moment: Wei Ying's weight, his heat, his skin. It seems grotesque to let it sink into his core, to let it soothe his deepest, darkest wants. He lies still, ashamed of himself, and holds him close, giving him what relief he can, until Wei Ying can hold still no longer, rubbing his face into Lan Wangji’s bruised throat, his shoulder.
“Lan Zhan,” he breathes, shaky. “Nothing—has ever felt as good—as you.”
Lan Wangji’s chest hollows out. He has not felt the urge to silence Wei Ying in many years. He feels guilty for it, but not guilty enough to let him keep saying such horrible, wonderful things. He pulls at his thigh, bringing their hips flush once more, and Wei Ying groans.
“Finish this, Wei Ying,” Lan Wangji pleads.
Wei Ying bites down on his collarbone, sending a flash of shivery-hot pleasure across his skin, then kisses it, soothes the bite with his tongue. Even that softness feels sharp, Lan Wangji’s skin registering each touch with unusual clarity that borders on something like discomfort. He breathes in through his nose and out through his mouth, his hold on Wei Ying’s flank, his shoulder, tightening. Wei Ying kisses his chest. The dips between muscles there. Lightly licks at a nipple. Everything is too much, and Lan Wangji cannot help but shift, a new disquiet overtaking his limbs. He...he is overwhelmed, and yet he needs. He is impatient, his body is impatient, he cannot think beyond what Wei Ying is doing to him, nor does he wish to. He wants this, just this, and more, anything more, forever.
He startles as fingers brush along his length, questioning. The hum voiced against the skin of his lower stomach makes him almost gasp. He glances down just in time to see Wei Ying turn his head, place his slick mouth on the side of his cock. A sound escapes him then he had not thought himself capable of making. But Wei Ying does not falter, wet heat caressing, enveloping, sliding along until he braces up and fits his mouth around him properly, and Lan Wangji’s entire body locks up with tension.
“Wei Ying,” he pleads, fingers twisting in the sheet beneath. For what seems like the hundredth time, he is startled to experience a feeling he has never so much as dreamed of.
This time, when Wei Ying hums, it reverberates through Lan Wangji’s cock and into his body, a hot, involuntary tightening of his every muscle. He cuts off a moan before it can escape, but only just. Wei Ying dips lower, taking more of him into his mouth, and Lan Wangji’s hips move of their own accord, making Wei Ying flinch.
Lan Wangji stares, aghast. His body has never done such a thing before. He has never felt less in control.
“Wei Ying,” he says, “I—”
Wei Ying braces his weight on his forearms against Lan Wangji’s hips and swallows him down, his lips a tight ring that drags pleasure from him with every slow pass. Lan Wangji’s fingers spasm and his tendons shorten, bending his knees higher and tossing his head to the side without his volition. His pulse batters at the walls of his veins. He stalls his breath to stop more shameful sounds from escaping, to save some modicum of face for his future self, but the sensation is too great. He squeezes his eyes shut, refusing to look, refusing to see Wei Ying like this, debasing himself outside of his control. He knows it would sear itself into his eyes and never leave his thoughts, and it is unfair. Unfair how much he wants this, wants to truly feel it, wants to keep it for himself. Unfair how much it is not his to keep.
His body begins to tremble with the force of his holding back, and Wei Ying pulls off. “Lan Zhan?”
Lan Wangji does not respond. His chest heaves, and he tries to slow it.
Wei Ying kisses his skin. “Is it...is it...can you—is this alright?” His words skitter over each other, rushed by harsh breathing.
“Yes,” Lan Wangji grinds out. A gross understatement.
“Good,” says Wei Ying, nuzzling at him, making his heart and his stomach clench. He whispers against Lan Wangji’s skin, “Good. I can’t—don’t want to stop.”
He puts his mouth around him once more, and Lan Wangji holds himself staunchly together. But it is so much. So impossibly good. When Wei Ying begins to use his hand in tandem, when he rubs his tongue beneath the head, Lan Wangji’s breath goes short and his hips try to buck against his weight.
He begs, almost delirious. “Wei Ying.”
Suddenly the pressure increases, an inexorable, all-encompassing tug as Wei Ying sucks, his cheeks hollowing out, his fist twisting around him. Then there is a soft, slick touch, feather-light, farther down—behind—
Lan Wangji comes, moaning softly before he is able to stop it, his hips canting into wet heat as the climax booms through him, blunt and forceful.
When it is over, Wei Ying pants, his forehead resting heavily on Lan Wangji’s hip. Lan Wangji lies still, stunned. His mind is empty for an infinite, stretched-out moment before his thoughts crash back in, frenzied and confused. He has never in his life felt physical sensation so strong. He did not know his body was capable of any feeling so intense, let alone one of pleasure. He also did not know that anything pleasurable could be brought about by a touch...there. He knows, in theory, that sex can involve such things. But he thought it some sort of means to an end, rather than good in and of itself.
“Lan Zhan,” Wei Ying says, broken and muffled. He is clutching Lan Wangji’s thigh to his shoulder, and trembling. “I’m sorry. Can I…”
“Yes,” Lan Wangji tries to say. It comes out equally broken. All he knows anymore is that he does not want Wei Ying to suffer.
Wei Ying moves about, then, but Lan Wangji has neither the energy nor the curiosity to look. Whatever happens, will happen. He is at the mercy of the array, and perhaps this should be irritating, should be disturbing, but he is long past caring about why this is happening. His limbs are heavy, his mind adrift. Only when Wei Ying returns, when a slick finger passes over his entrance, does he fall back to the present.
“This is...this is what...what I...is this alright?” Wei Ying asks. “This, and…”
Lan Wangji finds that Wei Ying was correct: he fears it will only make him anxious, to hear what must follow.
“Mn.”
Wei Ying pushes his leg up higher, baring him more fully. It makes him feel exposed, and he is surprised to find the effect a positive one. His own cock is softening now, for the first time, and the touch is still too-sharp, shivery and shocking, but it is also somehow good. Wei Ying massages the muscle briefly with his finger, then presses in, spreading it open. Lan Wangji makes a broken noise, and immediately berates himself for it.
“Sorry,” says Wei Ying. Sweat drips from his flushed skin. “I...sorry. Is. Are you…”
“Go on,” Lan Wangji says.
The finger presses farther in, slowly, and Lan Wangji struggles not to make another helpless sound. It is new, and strange, and a part of Wei Ying inside of him. His mind is too blurred to think anything but yes.
“Relax, Lan Zhan,” Wei Ying says, a frenzied edge to his voice. “Can you relax? Sorry, it’s easier, I swear, you just have to—yeah, like that, fuck.”
He presses deeper, then back out, then in again. The motion is filthy, suggestive, and altogether unexpected in its decadence. Lan Wangji moves against it aimlessly.
“That’s it,” Wei Ying says, kissing the back of his thigh, the side of his knee. He keeps moving his finger, questing inside of him. “Just let me in, Lan Zhan, that’s it.”
The angle changes, the motion transitioning to a caress, and it tries to coax a low moan from his throat. He stops it. He cannot think, cannot sense his body’s intentions, cannot predict what will happen next, but he tries all the same to reign himself in. He thinks of Wei Ying, after, shamefaced and horrified, and holds his breath. The contrast to the present is sharp, unbearable: Wei Ying presses a wet, open kiss to his hip as he works.
“En, like that,” Wei Ying murmurs. His breath is hot and damp. “Is it okay?”
Lan Wangji tries to respond, he does. But all that comes out is a soft, senseless grunt. Wei Ying continues in, and in, pressing his thumb above the rim of muscle, and a low, animal sound threatens in Lan Wangji’s chest at the new, confounding depth of pleasure. His grip on the bedding tightens. Wei Ying squeezes harder, making Lan Wangji’s body arch, but then his hand is gone.
The loss is confounding. Terrible. Lan Wangji is horrified at the high rasp of breath that almost-whines from his throat in complaint.
“It’s alright,” Wei Ying assures him, ragged. “It’ll be over soon. I just...this—you could still stop me, couldn’t you? If...if…” he trails off, and his hurried breaths take on a different, labored quality. His hands clench into fists in the bedding on either side of Lan Wangji’s waist as he leans over him, head bowed “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Lan Zhan, I’m so sorry. You should stop me, before I hurt you, before you hate me forever, I couldn’t live with it, I…”
A drop of saltwater lands on Lan Wangji’s skin. He does not know if it is sweat or tears, but his heart...his heart sinks. He has thought his resolve strong, his denial of his desire and the expression of it a necessity for Wei Ying’s peace of mind. He realizes now this was entirely selfish.
He takes hold of Wei Ying’s anguished face with both hands, and smooths his thumbs through the indeterminate wetness beneath his eyes until he opens them. Until he looks at him, unfocused and full of regret.
“I could not hate you,” he tells him. “It is not in me, not for anything. But least of all for this. For something I have wanted.” He takes a breath, wet and shaky. “Wei Ying. You have all of me. I want you to have all of me. Please. Take all of me.”
Wei Ying’s eyes have gone wide and awed. “Lan Zhan?”
Lan Wangji nudges his thigh with his own. “I want you to,” he says. Then, the final leap: “I want you.”
Now that he has gone this far, he cannot find the wherewithal to stop himself from brushing a thumb across Wei Ying’s perfect lips. They are damp, and soft, and slightly parted. With a jolt of shame, he removes his hands somewhere safer, to Wei Ying’s shoulders. He does not allow himself to think of how Wei Ying will remember this moment. The sinister pall it will cast over so much of their friendship.
He will not be wrong, to draw such conclusions. He will not be wrong.
But Lan Wangji does not think of it, not now. And then Wei Ying’s hand is lifting one of his thighs, and he is pressing against him, and letting himself down to kiss him, and Lan Wangji can think of nothing at all.
He hears the small, stunned noise he makes at the contact, at the touch of lips to his. His chest aches as he kisses him back, as he gives Wei Ying what has always been his, and takes what has never belonged to him. He gasps into the softness of his mouth at the sudden press of his cock, at the overwhelming, incomprehensible stretch of it. He goes entirely, emphatically blank but for Wei Ying’s whispered encouragements, his scattered, rough kisses. He holds himself open, makes of himself a void for Wei Ying to fill.
“Lan Zhan,” Wei Ying groans, lips and vibration and breath against the shell of his ear.
Lan Wangji shudders around him as he pushes deeper—thick, and slick, and viscerally satisfying. As if this act is somehow the culmination of something he has always wanted, always needed, without ever having known. As if Wei Ying was made for the shape of this vacancy in him, made to fill it perfectly with heat and pleasure.
“Oh, fuck,” Wei Ying whispers, strained. “Oh, fuck, Lan Zhan.”
He kisses Lan Wangji’s face, his temple, his eyelid, the corner of his open, panting mouth.
“Okay?” he asks. “Are—are you…”
“Wei Ying,” Lan Wangji breathes.
His fingertips sink into muscle and bone; shoulder blade, spine, and rib.
Wei Ying’s breaths are fast and deep. Lan Wangji can feel them inside his body, he can feel them against his mouth. Wei Ying is breathing, here, with him. Wei Ying is breathing. Wei Ying is here.
“Lan Zhan. Please. Is—this alright?”
He is trembling against him, every muscle pulled taut, a drastic counterpoint to the helpless looseness of Lan Wangji’s limbs. He is desperate for something he is not allowing himself. Desperate for movement, for the reaching of a final goal, for freedom from his suffering. But he is keeping himself from it, keeping as still as he can, for Lan Wangji.
A tear slips down Lan Wangji’s temple, into his hair. He turns his head to hide it.
“Yes,” he breathes. “Please.”
With a tight, aborted sound, Wei Ying moves.
Just slightly at first, but it makes Lan Wangji’s body bow with sudden tension low in his belly. More, then, as he maneuvers Lan Wangji’s thighs, open and up, as he bends him into a more workable shape. Still he manages to keep close: that insensible need for touch, that unshakable requirement for Lan Wangji’s skin ruling him, pressing him down as he rolls his hips against him.
“Ah, Lan Zhan, I—oh—can’t tell. What you—what you need.” He kisses him again, an afterthought, a necessity. He sucks once on his bottom lip before letting go. “Tell me, can you—ah, fuck, please, I…is—is it—”
“Yes,” Lan Wangji manages, his shoulders curling off the bed as he clutches him close.
His head is dragging, his neck lax, and Wei Ying bites it, fucking into him harder. He grunts, and Lan Wangji groans, and then he does it again.
“Ah, Wei Ying,” Lan Wangji says, choked by a sudden, sparking burst of light expanding his skin. “There.”
He struggles to gather enough breath for speech. His arms, his stomach, all of him is beginning to shake, the two of them twin leaves in an autumn wind. But Wei Ying’s effort is fruitful. A feeling bigger than anything Lan Wangji has ever felt, formidable in the echoes of its coming, is bearing down on him. It nears, closer and closer, the promise of euphoria building, looming, ominous. His every breath begins to catch, hard. He is sobbing, begging. He is afraid.
“Please,” he cries. “Please, Wei Ying.”
He needs it. He needs release, even as it terrifies him. He despairs of his need, of his desperation to reach the end of this. The end of them.
“Please.” A hand in Wei Ying’s hair, he pulls him down into a sloppy kiss.
“Oh, you feel—you feel—” Wei Ying pants along with his thrusts, deep and quick, lifting Lan Wangji’s hips. “So close, Lan Zhan, just let me—just let—you feel so good, you’re so good, I need you, oh, always, Lan Zhan, fuck, fuck, oh, fuck—”
With a violent jolt, a full-body, straining stretch, Lan Wangji comes. He rolls through it helplessly, pushing himself back on Wei Ying’s cock, unintentionally dragging his peak on and on, blinding, draining, overstimulating, until the tears flow freely from his eyes.
As if frozen, Wei Ying stays still through it all, buried deep and silent after an initial obscene moan. They stay locked together, sweat-sticky and heaving, as they both go gradually limp.
Wei Ying lands atop him, heavy. Almost lifeless but for the frantic beating of his heart, the ragged wheezing of his lungs. Lan Wangji lets his arms stay around him, for now. Lets both their bodies simply exist, drained to the breaking point, before they must take their first steps apart.
He allows himself this closeness, this unselfconscious sharing of heat, for an unknown number of minutes. He will not be the first to move away—he cannot make himself do it. He catches his breath, and he transfers what little spiritual energy he has left into the dangerously low reservoir inside of Wei Ying, and he waits.
At length, Wei Ying stirs. He makes a low, pained sound, and rolls off of him.
Lan Wangji withdraws his arms, quick and careful. In his mind, he is already composing the note he will write to the innkeeper, how he will phrase his request for her to send for the replenishing blend of herbs that will help Wei Ying heal. His brush and paper are in his pouch, which he will take to his room. He will write the note, and take it down, and leave. This part of the road is not busy, and the woods are thick. He will find a place to sit, and to allow himself to grieve, and eventually to meditate.
He can make it that far. He has endured worse. Far worse. For this parting is of no consequence to any but himself. The world will still have Wei Ying, and Wei Ying will still have the world, and all the things in it he loves. All will still be well.
He takes a deep breath, and begins to rise. A new, resounding ache makes itself known, deep in his middle, and does not subside. He sits up slowly, gingerly, and suddenly feels the full extent of his weakened state.
He would like very much to lie down and sleep.
But he cannot stay here, in Wei Ying's bed. And he has tasks to take care of. To take care of Wei Ying.
With another steadying breath, he stands. He is filthy in more than one distressing way, and he is loath to simply throw his robes on over the mess. But he has no choice.
“Lan Zhan?”
He freezes, the sudden tension aching along his every bone. He has nothing to cover himself with. He reaches for his discarded clothes.
“Lan...Lan Zhan?”
Wei Ying sounds afraid, now. Lan Wangji turns enough to see him out of the corner of his eye, but no more. He is lying on his side, one hand fisted in the bedding where Lan Wangji had lain.
“Are you hurt?” asks Lan Wangji, pulling on his zhongyi.
Wei Ying takes a deep breath, considering. “No.”
Lan Wangji nods, and ties on his second layer. “Drink the tea when it arrives. It will help.”
There is silence as he wraps his third layer of robes around himself, until Wei Ying’s breathing goes labored, uneven, hitched. Lan Wangji turns, alarmed, and just before Wei Ying turns away, he sees that he is crying.
Every nerve in his body flares with pain, to be the cause of it. To be unable to stop it.
“I am sorry,” he murmurs, trying to hurry his fumbling, inelegant hands. “I will be gone soon.”
He hesitates, then adds, “I will not ask you to forgive me, nor not to think less of me, but...I will beg you not to let my presence keep you from Gusu. Sizhui and his friends do not deserve to suffer the consequences of my actions. I will not seek you out.”
There is an agonizing silence. Then, “You did nothing wrong, Lan Zhan.” He sounds exhausted. “I know you won’t let me apologize, but...” He takes a shuddering breath. “Be safe. I hope...I hope I’ll see you again, if you’ll let me. I’ll find a way to repay you, when—whenever that is. Or. If not, then...I understand. Just be safe.”
Lan Wangji is too fatigued, too heartsick to parse this speech. He only feels ill at the concept of transaction.
“Unnecessary,” he says, tying on his layers. “Do not think of repayment. Be well, and…”
If you’ll let me.
He pauses. His pride, his pretense, are already long cast away. There is no further harm he can do. And Wei Ying must understand.
“If I will let you,” he echoes. “Given the choice, every moment of every day, waking or sleeping, I would see you, Wei Ying. You are always welcome wherever I am.”
He finishes wrapping his belt, and pulls on his outer robe in silence. He hopes he does not have to explain that Wei Ying’s friendship has always been more than enough, that he would never ask anything more. But as he tugs his outer robe on and turns, Wei Ying’s voice rises, hurt.
“Then why are you leaving?”
Lan Wangji stops short. He almost turns, but makes himself keep still.
“I would not continue to impose on you."
Another silence.
When he speaks this time, Wei Ying’s voice is measured. Careful.
“Is that the only reason?”
It feels like a trap. Lan Wangji was not prepared to converse, to think, to read between the lines of what Wei Ying might want him to say. It is, again, an old, bleak feeling. They have not been at odds for a very long time.
“I cannot think of another,” he says. “I apologize if—”
“Then, Lan Zhan, please listen,” says Wei Ying, thick, “you could never impose, with me. I—don’t know if you didn’t believe me or you didn’t want to hear it, but I meant...everything I said. Nothing between us has ever been an imposition.”
The hurt from this declaration, from its falseness, from apprehension and disappointment, nearly makes Lan Wangji fall to his knees. He forces himself to keep upright. To breathe, no matter how the air tears at his lungs.
“You said the array would lose its influence immediately,” he says. “What have we done wrong?”
Bedding shifts behind him. “It—it did. It has lost influence—I—Lan Zhan. None of the way...all it managed to do was give me pain, and to take away my...my judgment. There was nothing else for it to do; efficient arrays don’t waste energy on conditions already in effect.”
Lan Wangji breathes. In and out, in, in, and out. Short fits and starts. His fists curl tight.
More rustling, and shifting, and then the rasp of fabric dragged slowly across a wood floor.
Wei Ying’s voice again, close.
“What you said...I know you wouldn’t lie. But if you meant it.”
Lan Wangji’s eyes close. He cannot move away, no matter how he thinks he should.
“If you meant it the way it felt. Then is it so hard to believe I would feel the same?”
He thinks of hostile murmuring in a banquet hall. Rain, and hoofbeats. A child’s innocent question. Lan Zhan. Let me go.
“Yes,” says Lan Wangji.
There is a sharp intake of breath behind him, and then a hand on his arm. He flinches.
“I will go and question the cultivator who made the array,” he says. “It is my lack of thoroughness that has caused this. I will resolve it.”
Finally, finally, he moves. He is far too weak to fly his sword, but he has more than enough money to hire transport. It will take longer, which is unfortunate, but it will do the job.
But the hand tightens. Holds him fast.
“Do you have my talisman?” Wei Ying says, gentle. “The one I sent you, to detect foreign energies.”
“Wei Yi—”
“You wouldn’t trust me to draw one up at the moment, that’s fine. Use the one I sent you before.”
Lan Wangji is silent, and still. Wei Ying’s voice goes soft.
“You admitted you like them. My talismans. Remember? You said they’re creative and useful. So use it.”
Slowly, limbs leaden, Lan Wangji pulls his pouch from his sleeve, and the talisman from the pouch. He takes a deep breath, imbues it with the dregs of his spiritual energy, and turns just enough to send it to Wei Ying.
It sticks to his bare chest and flares, colorless, before disappearing.
All the air seems to leave the room.
“See?” Wei Ying breathes. His smile is slow and bright, but falters. “Do you still want to go?”
All Lan Wangji sees is a desolate wasteland. A high mountain.
“I never wanted to go,” he chokes out.
“I never wanted you to, either,” says Wei Ying. He reaches for him, hesitant, fingers catching on Lan Wangji’s sleeve.
Lan Wangji looks at him, and sees the quiet, fragile hope on his face. As he turns toward him, his insides froth into something like seafoam. Insubstantial, and fraught with movement. He lets himself raise his arm, lets his fingers close around Wei Ying’s elbow.
Wei Ying’s eyes slide closed. But his smile is not one of resignation as he steps forward, as he crashes against him.
“I thought I would lose you,” he says into Lan Wangji’s shoulder. “I was so angry, I was so sure this stupid array of all things would be what finally drove you away, I…”
“No, never,” Lan Wangji tries to say, but he has no breath with which to say it.
His arms are around Wei Ying now, and he is squeezing too tightly, but he has no control of them. His legs shake, threatening to buckle.
Wei Ying takes a deep, shuddering breath, and straightens to look at him. He is so close, and so beautiful, but Lan Wangji still cannot bring himself to smooth the uncertain crease from between his brows. He feels unreal. He feels like a thief, like this should not be happening. He watches Wei Ying search his face. Watches his eyes catch on his mouth.
“If this isn’t...if that was just…”
Intolerable, that he should sound so doubtful. Lan Wangji’s very being rebels against it, and he finds, suddenly, that he has closed the small distance between them, that he has pressed his lips to Wei Ying’s.
He pulls back, startled by himself. He looks down, away, his overful reserves of shame trying to find an outlet.
He feels more than hears Wei Ying sigh.
“Lan Zhan,” he says, and kisses him, high on his cheek.
Lan Wangji leans into the press. His chest expands, and he clenches his teeth against the sob that threatens to break through, shuts his eyes against the tears.
They come anyway.
“Ah, Lan Zhan,” Wei Ying soothes, leaning his forehead against Lan Wangji’s temple. He wraps his arms around his waist and holds him. “Don’t cry.”
There was not enough air; now there is too much. Lan Wangji feels lightheaded as he clutches at him, as they clutch at each other. Wei Ying’s skin is warm and smooth under his hands, his lips soft where they land all over his face, then back on his mouth. They kiss, and they kiss. Slow, deep, and sweet. It is unlike anything Lan Wangji has ever done. It is unlike anything Lan Wangji has ever felt. The purity, the simplicity of warmth, of feeling, is at once exhilarating and a comfort. He drinks in Wei Ying’s quiet, desperate, unconscious sounds, and tries, somehow, to get even closer.
At length, Wei Ying breaks away, pressing his palm to Lan Wangji’s cheek.
“Bath,” he says. “Then food. Yes?”
Lan Wangji nods, blinking, working hard to get his mind working sufficiently, or at all.
“You first,” he says, automatic.
With a disgusted twist of his mouth, Wei Ying rolls his eyes. “Take your clothes back off or I’m dragging you in with me fully dressed.”
He lets go of him then, and rifles through the papers on the table until he finds a warming talisman. He tosses it toward the untouched bathtub while Lan Wangji simply watches, stunned. The quilt begins to slip from where it is wrapped around Wei Ying’s hips, and he catches it with a reflexive glance at Lan Wangji. He laughs nervously.
“Are you really going to just stand there, or…?”
Fighting past lifelong instinct, Lan Wangji peels off his dirtied robes. He tries not to let his hesitance show, tries to remind himself that just moments ago they were bare together, that there are so very few secrets left between their bodies. But Wei Ying is watching him, and it is different. This is Wei Ying, Wei Ying for real. Not Wei Ying in pain, not Wei Ying compromised by a curse. He opens his mouth to say something, to protest somehow or to explain, but then Wei Ying is close again, hands working alongside his own.
“I can’t stand here and watch you undress,” he mumbles. “I...I’m too tired for this, it’s making me crazy.”
The heat that has risen in Lan Wangji’s ears spreads to his face, his neck. Wei Ying pauses, catching sight of the blush, and kisses him again. And kisses him.
“Stop it,” he says, stern. “Stop being so...so cute, when we’re supposed to be bathing. It’s bad manners.”
He pauses, his fingers on the ties of Lan Wangji’s trousers.
“Unless you don’t want to. With me. I...there could be a rule about that. I don’t—don’t let me bully you into it.”
Lan Wangji covers his hands with his own, and speaks slowly. Clearly. “I want everything you want, Wei Ying,” he says. He lets the terrifyingly expansive nature of this truth sit between them. “Always.”
After a long moment, Wei Ying takes a sudden, deep breath, and nods.
“Alright,” he says. He goes back to work on the ties, his cheeks pink. “Bath, then.”
They climb into the hot water and manage, with only a few bumps and bruises, to navigate helping each other wash. When Wei Ying’s eye catches on the tip of a scar left by a whip, Lan Wangji reminds himself he is allowed, and kisses him until the clouds clear from his expression. There are lingering touches, and shy smiles, and laughter. There are silences, and words that spill over the edge, and soft sighs. And when they are clean, they fit themselves together and breathe. They meditate there, in the steam, hands clasped, energy flowing.
“Wei Ying,” murmurs Lan Wangji, when the water is cooling, “where will you go next?”
Wei Ying looks at him, level, across the few inches of water between their faces. He squeezes Lan Wangji’s hand. “Where should we go?”
Lan Wangji closes his eyes, exhausted and relieved beyond measure. He lets his forehead fall against Wei Ying’s.
“Food,” he says, “then sleep. And then we will decide.”
Wei Ying gathers him close. “Good plan,” he says, and kisses him. “Perfect.”
“Perfect,” Lan Wangji agrees.
The next day is brighter, sunnier, than any that has come before. They walk through it together, shoulder to shoulder, bearing the heat of each other’s gazes. Looking, and smiling, and looking again. When Wei Ying takes his hand and does not let go, Lan Wangji muses that the only greater joy than the way things have changed between them, is the way things have not changed at all.