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Wei Wuxian remembers a time beyond time, where he thought of himself as rather handsome.
Back in Yunmeng, perhaps, with the eyes of disciples on him, both male and female, some of them blushing when he winked at them - before they went up in a sea of fire and blood. Perhaps in Gusu, with wide amber eyes studying the curve of his wrist, a moment of thinking - flattering, Lan Wangji of all people thinks I am attractive, then? - before dismissal. How could he?
In Yiling, though - that was where he learned to make it stick, until he started to believe his own lies. He ignored the gazes of people who thought he looked far too slender, far too sick. Robes helped - his wide bony frame looked attractive with them on.
“If I ever have an affair, I’m keeping these on,” he’d said to Wen Qing, when she reprimanded him for not taking care of himself enough. “That’s all that matters right?”
“Narcissism,” Wen Qing had sniffed. “It’s that old story from the west. The more self obsessed you are, the more likely you are to fall into the water.”
“Oh, but Wen Qing, if I don’t admire myself, who will?” Wei Wuxian had said, back to admiring himself in the mirror. “Besides, am I not an expert at fucking myself over?”
“We wouldn’t have this problem if you were Narcissus in the first place,” Wen Qing had replied, and they spoke of it no more, discussion left at a cautious boundary.
He thinks about it sometimes, in this new body, with its softer lines, prettier face, larger eyes. Thinks, if Lan Wangji would have fallen in love with the cultivator behind it if he met him too.
They’re nonsensical thoughts, of course. Wei Wuxian has been the only person Lan Wangji has ever loved. But he wonders, sometimes, if he has ever learned how to love himself. If he ever saw the Patriarch’s face, would he feel hatred or disgust at who he was, or just pity for the man he had become?
Thoughts like these plague him well into the night, even when Lan Wangji makes it impossible to think much beyond the pleasure he delivers.
Lan Wangji, of course, pops the question, as observant as ever, after they make love next to a waterfall once, during a night hunt of their own - too fervent to bother with the nearest inn, too caught up in the moment. He shies away from his own reflection, cringing, and his husband makes no mention of it until much later.
“Wei Ying, are you not satisfied with this body?” he says, bluntly, and Wei Wuxian attempts to hide a smile in the blankets.
“Not at all! Are you?”
Lan Wangji frowns at that, as if it’s a trick question. “It is you. I am never unsatisfied.”
“Then, Lan Zhan, you worry too much!” Wei Wuxian says. “Why, the only one who could do any better would be myself!”
Silence greets him.
“Lan Zhan,” he says slowly, curiously. “Were you - imagining -”
“I was not,” his husband reprimands, and Wei Wuxian bursts into peals of laughter.
“Don’t worry, Lan Zhan,” he says, in between bursts, “even if I - haha! - wanted to, I doubt I could make it work. And I was hardly attractive back then, don’t you think?”
Lan Wangji’s eyes widen, but he settles into bed before he can reply to that, unwilling to talk about it any longer.
There are some things, he thinks, even being loved cannot fix, and one of them is this… persistent issue of self-worth.
***
It gets brought up again when they go out on a hunt, this time skirting close to Yiling.
Today they are on their way to an exorcism, one that deals with dreamwalking. There are traps set all alongside the house they’ve been summoned to, and sleeping in it is imperative for it to be effective. The ghosts, too, have no definite schedule figured out, which makes Wei Wuxian think that it is not the timing but specific events that draw them out.
The most annoying part of it all, apparently, is that the ghosts are solid in these dreams, and no one can tell why or how - just that they may not be beneficial. Sometimes they are manifestations of themselves, or of people long dead - but in all cases, they point to unfinished business. Feelings, rotten or good, left hidden for a long time.
“This used to be a brothel, I believe, so there’s a high possibility that it was one of the girls who lived here who set up a potentially life-threatening curse here,” the new owner says. His face twists in distaste, and Lan Wangji clasps Wei Wuxian’s hand as they both stiffen. “You know with those types.”
“Virgins can be murderers too,” Wei Wuxian says sweetly, and the man seems to realize he is talking to the Yiling Patriarch, and backs away rapidly. Lan Wangji lets him sweat, content to let Wei Wuxian dig fingers into his palm until he’s on the verge of drawing blood. “Come on, Lan Zhan, we must go.”
They make their way out, and Lan Wangji asks him again, quieter, if he really wants to see this exorcism through. Wei Wuxian laughs.
“Of course I do!” he says. “Just because the new owner is terrible doesn’t mean those souls do not deserve to be at peace. And we already have the magical tools necessary for the ritual.”
“That wasn’t what I asked,” Lan Wangji says, but leaves the matter be. Wei Wuxian considers getting annoyed at him for it, but gets distracted anyway. There is work to be done, and the dreamscape incense burner sits heavy in the Qiankun pouch he had brought with him.
“It might not work the first time, you realize,” Lan Wangji says again.
“And what of it? It’s not like I can pull up old fantasies because of this. I really did die a twenty two year old virgin,” Wei Wuxian says, skipping alongside him. “A pity, really, Lan Zhan. You should’ve fucked me back then, and carried me off to Gusu.”
“Consent,” Lan Wangji says indifferently, used to these provocations at this point. Wei Wuxian has to try just a little bit harder when they’re out of earshot of other people these days - it is hard to get him flustered when Lan Wangji has taken him in every position and scenario they have thought of so far. Wei Wuxian is still delighted when he manages.
“Oh, you’d have my full consent. The Yiling Patriarch would surrender to your wiles - not without a fight, of course - but perhaps, perhaps I’d even be the one in you,” he sings, and watches Lan Wangji’s ears turn redder. Ah, it never gets old, doing that.
“The question is, why would you want to?” His bright smile is a little brittle, and he hopes Lan Wangji doesn’t notice. “It’s not like I was particularly -”
“Don’t,” Lan Wangji says. His tone is brusque. “You have never been anything but.”
Wei Wuxian laughs a little after that, but ignores the stare on his back afterwards. It’s not like he had any way of proving it anyway.
The incense burner lies forgotten, ominous; and even when he sets it up that night in the rooms of the cursed house after they let themselves inside, he forgets about this conversation completely.
***
The dreamscape looks… different.
For one thing, Wei Wuxian realizes - it is not his previous body that he inhabits in the dreamscape anymore. It is the amalgamation of his soul settling into Mo Xuanyu’s shell, which he still flinches at when he spots it in the mirror. He stares down at his hands and tries to figure out why before he looks up, and then immediately realizes that he is in his cave in Yiling this time, laid out on his makeshift bed.
A fantasy, perhaps? But he knows all too well that he had very little use for those in Yiling - so what could possibly be the case here?
And if he was not in his own body…
A man in familiar robes enters the room, and stops short at the door. Wei Wuxian stares into his own face - his previous face, his previous body. His Wen robes, dyed grey from resentment.
“Oh, I’m here,” he says - he himself says - it says. Wei Wuxian opens his mouth, and closes it. What in the three realms?
“Who are you??” he demands, when he finds his voice again.
The man shrugs, and pulls a red ribbon out of his hair - the same way he used to wear his ribbons, back when he was twenty, hair loose. “Who do you think?” He comes forward, and sits down on the makeshift bed. “Isn’t it obvious?”
“The Patriarch?” Wei Wuxian says. Blinks slowly, as if that would make the other person sitting on his bed go away.
“That’s me!” the younger version of himself confirms cheerfully. “And wow, I was dirty. Or no, you were. I just am. ”
He cuts a glance to the room, covered in experiments and parts of corpses in cold storage. Wei Wuxian has a feeling he’s not talking about those, because he was also constantly in a state of organized chaos. “What do you want from me? Why are you here?”
There’s a chuckle - one that doesn’t sound like his own. He remembers, then, what the rumours around town said about the curse on this house - it is likely that the manifestation of the man is merely an extension of himself, rather than an evil spirit. It feels like it.
It does not make him any less apprehensive. The air in the room is colder than usual. Wei Wuxian looks down at the advancing man, and bites his lip nervously.
“This,” he tries. “Is this what you actually want?”
The man laughs darkly, and a thrill cuts through his spine. “I would not be here,” he says lightly, “if you did not want me to be.”
Then he kisses him, oddly familiar lips against his, mouth open.
Wei Wuxian has never kissed anyone but Lan Wangji before. He was never sure of how well he did - after all, it was impossible to be objective about your own abilities. Or so he had thought.
To his dismay, the kiss was clumsy - off-centre, his lips about to bruise.
“Sheesh,” he says, pulling away, and the man - himself - the Patriarch - looks almost offended. “Don’t look at me like that, it’s your own lack of skill.”
“And who exactly is to blame for my utter virginity? Why do you think I’m here in the first place? You’re useless,” Wei Wuxian’s past self retorts, and Wei Wuxian of the present curls in on himself. That was not something he would have wanted his husband to hear, especially if Lan Wangji was in the vicinity. He always is, during these dreams.
“Oh, are you shy now? Of all times?” the Patriarch teases. It’s getting rapidly more annoying to talk to this guy. Wei Wuxian has no idea how Lan Wangji could stand it back in the day.
“I don’t see why. It’s not like you ever fantasized about anyone else but him,” he continues, and this is a blatant lie and Wei Wuxian will not stand for it.
“I did!” Wei Wuxian protests, and then stops short, thoughtful. His fantasies were always vague, even before Lan Wangji burst into his life with all his immaculate beauty, but afterwards they had evolved into dreams of white jade-like hands on his cock, a pretty face shadowed by decadently long hair as it loomed over him. He had never given those much thought, and after marriage, no fantasies had been necessary.
Now he realizes, the Patriarch chuckles, and Wei Wuxian flicks his shoulder in annoyance. “I’m literally you, stop underestimating yourself.”
“I’m literally you, stop criticizing yourself,” Wei Wuxian says. He doesn’t know how he feels about this scenario yet, but there is definitely something - appealing, about being able to play with himself like this.
“I’m just being honest,” he says, and then ducks in to whisper in Wei Wuxian’s ear. “Besides, someone has to be.”
“But why are you even here?” he asks again. He knows - craves the answer. “Because of my fantasies? It can’t be that simple.”
“Not just yours. Both of you.”
“Both -” Wei Wuxian pauses. “Lan Zhan’s? No way.”
The Patriarch cuts a deadpan look at him. “You underestimate how kinky your husband is,” he says. “Hey, Lan Wangji! I know you’re out there!”
There’s a mildly startled noise, and Wei Wuxian’s eyes widen. “Lan Zhan!” he calls. “Lan Zhan, it’s not what you think it is!”
The door creaks open, and Lan Wangji stands in the doorway, eyes rapidly going from confusion to even more bewilderment as he sees the two on the bed. "W-Wei Ying?" he mutters.
“Oh, close the damn door, or passing spirits will wander in,” the Patriarch says, voice bored.
Lan Wangji does, and then he looks from Wei Wuxian to the Patriarch, eyes fluttering so fast Wei Wuxian thinks he might have a conniption. “Who… who is that?”
His heart sinks. It’s one of those deep-fantasies, the ones where Lan Wangji does not remember him as he is now. Mo Xuanyu’s face, although it has evolved much more into looking like Wei Wuxian’s face back in his teenage years, is nowhere near the haunted, sharp lines of the Patriarch’s gaunt face. A face that he had loved then.
This Lan Zhan has not seen him in the present day.
“Wei Ying?” he murmurs. “Two of you?”
Or - maybe he has. He turns a questioning look to the Patriarch.
“What, you think he wouldn’t recognize us? You? Terrible self esteem issues right there.” His words are mocking, and Wei Wuxian begins to recognize the voice as the annoying one in his subconscious, constantly doubting every action that happens to him. “Or maybe he doesn’t and is just guessing, huh? Hey Lan Zhan, which one is prettier?”
Lan Wangji doesn’t answer. He’s motionless, disbelieving at the sight. If Wei Wuxian had no idea about his feelings at that point he would have believed him disgusted.
Now, that he knows, he hastens to correct whatever assumptions have happened. “Lan Zhan, please look at me - it’s really not what you think, it’s not a dark ritual -”
“Hush now, if you tell him, the dream will break, and we can’t have that.” A push to his shoulder, and Wei Wuxian goes down.
“What are you doing!” Lan Wangji says, but then hesitates. Bichen is still sheathed, but his hand is on the hilt.
The Patriarch tuts. “Still treating me like I’m the enemy. Won’t do, this just won’t do. And here he’d thought you’d join us.”
Something dark flashes across Lan Wangji’s face. “I - I shall not.” He backs away.
“Oh?” This version of him is enjoying this far too much. “Then… do sit down. We can give you a show.”
“I would rather take my leave.”
“You can’t. This space is bound by my laws.” The Patriarch turns to him again. “Sit down, Lan Wangji. You’re not leaving - and you certainly won’t raise your sword against me, will you?”
Lan Wangji collapses onto the cushion next to the low desk right in front of the bed, head bowed. His ears are flushed, and he’s trembling - with rage, or repressed arousal, or both. It doesn’t take a minute until cables wrap themselves around him, and he makes a wounded noise, of disbelief or something more.
“Don’t worry, they’re only designed to keep you in place if we say no. Good boy,” the Patriarch says silkily. “Now, where were we?”
Wei Wuxian has no idea. It’s yet to hit him that this is happening, which is why he lets the resentful energy curl around him again. He kneels in supplication, watching a too-thin back turn around to disrobe, and then turn back, eyebrows raised.
“If you don’t disrobe too, how will we ever have any fun? My future self can’t be this stupid.”
Your future self is a whole lot less mouthy, he thinks, and does as instructed. It’s surprisingly easy to disrobe, but the strange hungry glance in the Patriarch’s eyes unnerves him. It is as if he wants this body - not sexually, but to possess. Like his own, of narrow lines and hard muscle, means nothing at all.
Wei Wuxian doesn’t like this line of thinking at all. “Distract me,” he orders, ignoring the sharp breath Lan Wangji takes at the words.
Tendrils of resentful energy slide past his fingers and into Wei Wuxian. One caresses his mouth, far too close for comfort, and the other slips past the crack of his thighs, coming to rest along the beads of precome dripping onto his navel.
Wei Wuxian opens his mouth, and then shuts it, half-alarmed at the barely-remembered feeling of how the energy sneaks past all his orifices.
“That’s not - stop! Stop doing that!” Lan Wangji demands. His eyes are on them now - Wei Wuxian’s gaze goes to him immediately; he looks distressed, but now there’s the faintest trace of red on his cheeks.
The Patriarch laughs heartily again. “After this picture of seduction in front of you, you’re more worried about what a little demonic energy would do to him? We’re the same person - it exists in both of us, Lan Wangji.”
“He… he shouldn’t. Don’t make him,” Lan Wangji pleads, but his gaze follows the way the tendril curls around slippery fingers and right into him.
“I’m not making him do anything, sweetheart,” he says. “Watch. Learn. ” He makes Wei Wuxian turn towards him, and kisses him again, this time with his eyes widen open.
There is a level of compartmentalization Wei Wuxian has to do, where he can look at this body and accept, that it is objectively perhaps attractive, more so than he would have thought.
His face, however, is the last straw.
“It’s too weird looking at myself,” he says, frowning.
“You just hate your own face,” the Patriarch says.
“I do,” he admits. He ignores the sharp intake of breath behind him. “I always have, ever since I was you. Is that what you want me to say?”
“No,” the reflection says. “But it’s something someone else needed to hear, I think.” His lips curl. “Now we can move on to the main course.”
Wei Wuxian lets out a moan when the tendrils penetrate him, and clutches the robes of the man in front of him. This was a technique he hadn’t used long enough to remember exactly how, but his subsconscious clearly does. The tendrils are solid inside him, and another creeps past his dick until it’s slipping under the skin, into it. He shouts and falls back against the bed, and the Patriarch climbs over him. “Too much?”
“Can’t you tell?” he snaps back, and the man grimaces and nods, sweat shining on him. This situation is too much to comprehend - he turns to Lan Wangji again, but the man refuses to look this time. He would have to make do.
Wei Wuxian grabs him and pushes him down. This time the tongue against him and the way he takes his cock makes his own mouth feel full, and he realizes what the dual sensation is doing to his system. He goes nearly cross-eyed with pleasure.
“That’s good, isn’t it?”
“Keep going,” he moans, uncaring of Lan Wangji’s eyes directly on him. He doesn’t so much as struggle in those cables. The Patriarch deepthroats him until he can no more, and then it is his turn. The wet heat of his mouth is even more unbearable around another - he loves to deepthroat, even now, and is sometimes sad he doesn’t get to do it as much.
“You should let him service you like this more often,” the Patriarch says casually, cruelly. “Look how much we enjoy it!”
“Shut up,” Lan Wangji mutters. His hands twist into his ribbon, in spite of the cables that bind him - they are left free, and the Patriarch smiles in a kind of vicious satisfaction.
“Won’t,” Wei Wuxian - and his earlier self mutter in response. They stare at each other for half a second, before he gets the message and lies down face first. He makes a keening noise in his throat when he feels the tongue at his entrance - feels the pressure on his own tongue.
“This part sees a lot of use, these days,” the Patriarch says casually, pulling away to put in two fingers instead. In the dreamscape, Wei Wuxian knows he doesn’t need preparation of any sort, especially when they barely need to use it in real life, but he still clenches down on the fingers, body arching back into them until he’s riding them. He missed this sensation - in his first life, it had been exactly those fingers he had used to bring himself to climax.
A whine rips through his throat when he realizes Lan Wangji is very much present and watching, as much as he pretends to not. Heat pools in his ribs and his cheeks, and his stomach tightens at the vivid memory of a fantasy - getting off to someone watching, someone with golden eyes, just like Lan Wangji’s, long pretty hair, someone who would call me shameless - for whom I would be worked open, just for their pleasure.
“You remember now?” the Patriarch asks, even though he knows the answer already. “You must have missed playing with these. Don’t worry, I’ll do a great job with them.”
That’s exactly the problem! Wei Wuxian wants to scream, but he goes willingly with the flow. They penetrate deeper until he can feel them brush directly over his prostate gland, and his fists tear at the sheets when the relentless assault begins. He had never been able to work himself over from this angle, and it felt so, so good.
“Imagine anything you like, I’ll probably find it hot too,” he hears the Patriarch say into his ear, pulling on his ponytail, until he arches further. Wei Wuxian bites his lips, and looks over at the stone-faced Jade of Lan sitting on the cushion on the floor next to them. He refuses to look in their direction, and his ears are bright red. The mischief that comes to his mind is immediate, and the Patriarch makes a noise of approval.
“Lan Zhaaaan,” Wei Wuxian sings. “Don’t you want to look at me?”
“That’s right, Lan Wangji,” the Patriarch repeats, in the same tonal inflection, colder yet the same. “Don’t you want to look at us? What, too much Wei Wuxian for you?”
“Shameless,” he says, gritting his teeth, and the way his hands clench on either side of his thigh says he is not entirely unaffected. If Wei Wuxian squinted a little, could he spot a tent in the fabric from here?
“You can touch yourself,” the Patriarch adds. “In fact, you should. Put on a show.”
Across them, Lan Wangji jerks as if hit, and Wei Wuxian’s eyes widen in realization.
Every single move he makes not only brings him pleasure, twice over - but comes with the added advantage of having the only other person he’s wanted to view all of him, do so from every angle possible. He moans out his first “Lan Zhan” and watches him jerk with pleasure, and laughs a little. “You’re right. This is fun.”
“Would it kill you to say anyone else’s name?” the Patriarch says, but he only sounds amused. “All that narcissism went to dust, huh?”
“God, I really couldn’t shut up back then,” Wei Wuxian says out loud, and dives into another kiss. The Patriarch cuts a glance at Lan Wangji on the sidelines, whose arms are quite practically straining from holding himself together. The very model of propriety.
“You know, Lan Wangji,” he says, casual, half-cruel, breathes into Wei Wuxian’s mouth. “You could do all the things I’m doing now, but you won’t, will you?”
The Jade trembles in response, a full body shudder, and Wei Wuxian half-opens his eyes to stare at his visceral reaction. Pleasure crashes through him in waves, and Lan Wangji’s delicate, stunning features contorted in restrained pleasure makes it all the more rewarding.
“Please, Lan Zhan,” he begs. “Look at me! Look at us!”
“Shall not,” Lan Wangji says. There are tears glinting on his lashes as he looks to the side deliberately, and Wei Wuxian’s heart goes out to him. As many fantasies as he must have had, this might be one too overwhelming for the younger Lan Zhan’s heart.
“You could always silence the both of us,” the Patriarch adds, and Wei Wuxian shudders against him. The thought of being unable to cry out is unbearable - but filthy. Heated, the pads of his fingers warming up rapidly, all the blood that doesn’t pool in his groin rushing to his cheeks.
“No? What a pity. Such a feast laid out before you, and you deny yourself.” Laughter, cold and eerie, yet Wei Wuxian can hear his own despair from then in it.
“Wei Ying is not... a banquet to be partaken of,” Lan Wangji says stiffly.
“Oh, but he wants to be one so bad. I thought of you every single time I touched myself, you know, Lan Zhan.” Their voices blend, and Wei Wuxian wants to hide at how honest the words are.
“But it’s all right, I wouldn’t let you anyway.” The Patriarch’s laughter is wild, and Wei Wuxian’s heartbeat accelerates, his own throat straining from it. “Today, I’m all mine. After all, I know best how I like to be treated.”
***
Wei Wuxian is led willingly, for once.
This time the tendrils curl in and out of his mouth, forcing his jaw wider open. The ones in his ass stretch him wider and wider, and then the Patriarch is penetrating him. His cock goes deeper with every little movement, half-startled, before he bottoms out.
The noise Wei Wuxian makes is absolutely filthy - a wretched, high whine bursts forth, and then increasingly higher as he slides down. He feels -
There is pressure on his cock, he realizes, just like there was a phantom pressure on his fingers when the Patriarch had fingered him. He attempts to relieve it, but his hands are batted away.
“There more you realize I am you,” the Patriarch tells him, “the more you learn.”
Wei Wuxian nods, and dives in for another kiss. This one, too, has evolved into a surge of pressure on both ends - he kisses, and is kissed in return, and the half-bemused feeling of being fucked by himself never quite leaves as he bounces harder, the shaft lodged inside him growing harder with every step. The tendrils leave his mouth at the same time as the Patriarch - himself - he feels his hands on his ponytail, tugging in the same way that it was earlier. The same way he tugs on Lan Wangji’s hair, but harsher.
“This isn’t as good,” he pants. “You can’t keep up - how are you managing? How did I manage to do anything at all with this strength?”
“I don’t have that kind of stamina.” The Patriarch’s face is shining with sweat, and he looks half dizzy. “I’m not him. ”
“You’ll just have to deal,” Wei Wuxian retorts, pushing back.
“ You don’t have that kind of stamina either! You have barely more than me - than you did earlier!”
“Just deal with it!” Wei Wuxian yells again, and then pushes down. Behind him Lan Wangji makes a tortured noise, and the grimace on his face cracks into a smile of sorts. Twin sensations, and they both feel so, so good.
“For someone who hates me, you’re enjoying yourself,” the corpse of himself says. For a long time, Wei Wuxian had wondered if those eyes would be as bright as they used to be once upon a time.
They are, now, but with a different, almost fervent light. And Wei Wuxian knows - exactly what he had craved back then - so he shakes his head. “I do not hate you.”
“One out of two,” the Patriarch/fake/reflection says, lines blurring together. Wei Wuxian attempts to ride it out faster - everything feels closer to disappearing. “Not that I expected anything more.”
He’s disappearing. This is important - Wei Wuxian thinks - important enough to his subconscious to need closure. He makes a desperate, last-ditch attempt. “Lan Zhan!” he begs. “Please! You must!”
Lan Wangji’s eyes are bloodshot when he looks up, and views them impassively.
“Lan Zhan, do you really not want us? Want me?” the reflection says, and Lan Wangji blinks at him.
“I will want any iteration of you.” he says firmly. His ears are red, his robes are tented, and he’s wound and bound helplessly tight, but something about his sincerity makes Wei Wuxian’s heart tighten
The Patriarch nods, as if he understands. He holds Wei Wuxian’s face together.
“And you,” he says. “Do you not want me?”
There are lifetimes of questions in that word - and Wei Wuxian knows that this isn’t about the twisted fantasy their minds had shared anymore than it is rhetorical.
“I accept you,” he says with a shudder, and the sparks that lick at his spine grow more satisfied, and he comes like a sudden rain shower, everything going white.
He hears, dimly, the sound of Lan Wangji getting to his feet, and sees, as if from a different dimension - the way he drags the memory of him into a kiss before it disappears, smiling right against him, and then the way Lan Wangji weeps and pulls him into his arms.
“Don’t disappear again, Wei Ying,” he says - vulnerable to the point it breaks his heart.
“I won’t,” he says, sincerely - and means it. “I won’t.” He curls his hand around him, and places his head on his chest. “I never will.”
***
Wei Wuxian blinks open his eyes moments before dawn, staring up at the ceiling. It is rickety, as it was when they went to sleep. The scent of the incense burner has not dissipated, and it is easy for him to realize that their mission has been futile for now.
The dream, however, has left him warm-faced, and his blush intensifies when Lan Wangji opens his eyes next to him, and frowns at him, lovely face making his heart hammer more than ever after the contents of his fantasies. He can only imagine the kind of turmoil in his husband’s heart at this moment.
“It wasn’t a curse,” he says. “It’s some kind of array, perhaps - made for reconciliation of your inner demons. I can find out more if we investigate all the talismans buried in the building. Don’t you think?”
“Too loud,” Lan Wangji reprimands. “At least try to sleep, we can check in the morning.”
Wei Wuxian wriggles his toes, and laughs. “How am I supposed to, now that I know that you fantasized about me even as the Yiling Patriarch?” He turns his face into his chest. “Lan Zhan, oh, Lan Zhan, you must have really understood me so well back then. All these dirty fantasies about oh-so-helpless-me, did you really dream of having me right on my messy cave floor?”
Lan Wangji doesn’t seem pleased at this revelation, and he ignores the deflection expertly. He curls his hand around Wei Wuxian’s. “Did you really think I hated your appearance then?” he asks, voice small. “Hated you?”
“Perspective is harder when you have one side of the story,” Wei Wuxian says, sighing, and burrows his face deeper into his robes. Lan Wangji clasps him tight, and he wonders why deflecting never works. He is grateful for it, but it still causes him a certain amount of amazement.
“Even if I didn’t hate you, I would have always thought you hated me. I hated me, too. You should have - I never attempted to understand you, only made my own assumptions.” He sighs louder. “I should not have - communication might have fixed that.”
“You still make your own assumptions now. I could never hate you - and it was partly my fault too.” Of course. Lan Wangji has had years to think about where he went wrong. “I do not blame myself for everything, and neither should you.”
“But it’s fun!” Wei Wuxian says, and then falls silent at the look directed at him, more serious than the others.
“Do you hold the same hatred towards yourself still?” The words are quiet, and poignant in the way only a husband - his husband could make them, and they make him still for a moment, parsing the question.
Wei Wuxian thinks of the contentment in his eyes as the Patriarch faded from existence. He remembers a time, beyond time, where he had thought that not all the beauty in the world could win him love - and it had.
“No, not quite. Not really, anymore,” he murmurs, eyes clear. He looks back up at the dearest, concerned face, shadowed in the moonlight. “I guess I - or whatever that version of me was - saw and conquered my fears.”
“ And came,” he adds, mischievous, and Lan Wangji makes a noise of muffled laughter, as if in exasperated assent, before he slides his hand down to his ass, evidently to prepare for a repeat assault.