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The first time they share a bed, it’s when they are traveling with the sword spirit. The inn is small and cramped and there’s only one room that isn’t the barn, but Wei Ying doesn’t mind because Wei Ying takes everything like a sunny adventure, and Lan Wangji doesn’t mind either, because Wei Ying is back.
There is more space between them than you’d think, with two grown men on one bed. Lan Wangji’s heart beats madly, but he has enough discipline even in sleep that he doesn’t worry he might act inappropriately, and as he lies in the dark, not quite letting himself be pulled under even though it is long past his bedtime, it is an almost joyous, nostalgic pain to be there, Wei Ying within reach, just that small, orderly distance between them.
*
The second time they share a bed, it is again only Wei Ying who falls asleep with the afternoon sun shining through the screens of the Jingshi, his naked body flushed and heavy, his hairline damp with sweat. Lan Wangji holds him close, and the only thing warmer than Wei Ying’s relaxed weight against him is the glow inside him. His skin still holds the excitement, and the shivers of release, at getting to be with Wei Ying, finally, after all these years. It is perhaps a good thing that Wei Ying is not awake, for in addition to allowing him the comfort of feeling Wei Ying at ease and finally safe, sleeping in his arms, he knows that if Wei Ying were awake, Lan Wangji might try to say too many things at once, confessions and gratitude and silly endearments stacking up in his chest and threatening to overflow. He might, in fact, babble.
Like this, Lan Wangji stays quiet, listening to Wei Ying breathe. He never goes to sleep, for all that his own limbs feel tired with satisfaction.
There’s still a line of red around Wei Ying’s throat, a cut that will take time to heal. Other wounds that Wei Ying can’t heal here, in the Cloud Recesses. But Lan Wangji is grateful for now, for this.
Wei Ying wakes up after a nap, and when he wakes up, he giggles sleepily at how sticky they are, and seems fascinated by the tangled mess that he himself made earlier of Lan Wangji’s hair, and entirely unrepentant.
*
The next time, Lan Wangji is nervous.
He is excited at the prospect of taking Wei Ying to bed. Not their lovemaking, which they have already concluded, though Lan Wangji is always excited about that. But to have him here, to sleep. The whole night. They are facing each other, Wei Ying sitting at the opposite end of the bed, his hair still spilling freely over his shoulders, his red inner robe wrapped loosely around himself. His legs are languid, his feet just tucked under the bunched-up blanket, near Lan Wangji’s knees. Wei Ying has a sip of Emperor’s Smile, from the bottle because they left the cups behind on the table, and there is a comfort and warmth in the relaxedness of his pose that fills Lan Wangji with a muted sense of yearning.
They fell into bed early, hungrily, long before it was time to sleep even for a Lan. Lan Wangji thought he could still taste adventure and the wide world in the sweep of Wei Ying’s hair, and the weariness of a traveler in how Wei Ying slumped into his arms.
And here they are. Wine and the afterglow of passion are staining Wei Ying’s cheeks red. The sparkle in his eyes makes butterflies dance drunkenly in Lan Wangji’s stomach, even with the longing of their months apart soothed by his earlier release.
Wei Ying looks pleased. Tired but comfortable, like maybe he could be comfortable here, not just tonight, and that hope weaves itself into Lan Wangji’s heart.
Wei Ying yawns behind his hand, and then peeks at him with a grin.
“We should go to sleep,” Lan Wangji says, his voice low and a little thick. “You’ve had a long journey.”
Wei Ying tilts his head slowly, a little purse to his mouth. “Not that long, actually. I got sidetracked a couple of days ago, really messed up my planning. I was just two villages over today.” He shakes his head a little as if that was some regretful oversight.
“It felt like it was a long journey,” Lan Wangji says.
Wei Ying looks away, embarrassed, but there’s a smile there too. “Long enough,” he says, then seems to roll his eyes at himself.
Lan Wangji looks at him for a moment longer. His body feels heavy with the hour, late for him, unbelievably late for any other Lan, and the way Wei Ying draws his focus. “Would you like to rest now?”
Wei Ying’s smile flickers up more shyly than usual. “I want nothing more.”
“Then let us go to sleep,” Lan Wangji says. It feels right, like a point that wants making, a sword having a proper place on a rack. He pulls the blanket out from under his legs, so they can both slip beneath it, and the gesture itself makes him feel warm inside.
Lan Wangji remembers the other times they have shared a bed, so in itself, this is not new. But those times were always something in transit, something temporary. He is nervous this time because he wants it to be anything but temporary.
He also realizes that in addition to other mundane questions they will have to find answers to, he doesn’t have enough information to make an assumption about where Wei Ying wants to sleep.
“Would you prefer the inside, or the outside?” he asks, not moving just yet. Instinctively, he wants Wei Ying to take the side of the bed against the wall, to shield him, to keep him. But something else holds him back. Wei Ying’s free spirit nature might prefer the side with an easy escape.
Wei Ying, despite his height, manages to pretend to look up at him, his chin tucked in coyly. “No guest room?” he asks. “Guest bed?”
“Are you a guest?” Lan Wangji asks.
It’s there for a brief glimpse, the sharp flash of Wei Ying considering something serious. Then Wei Ying’s mouth quirks up. “If I am, then I would most definitely want to be the kind of special guest who gets to sleep in Hanguang-jun’s bed.”
“If you are,” Lan Wangji replies, past an unwelcome tightness in his throat, “then I would most definitely want you to be that, too.”
Wei Ying’s eyes, darker and clearer now, as if he’s shed the aftereffects of passion, scan Lan Wangji, his answer not as quick to come as his habitual cleverness.
“Whichever side,” he says. “Whatever works for you.”
The belated answer reminds Lan Wangji that it was an open question. He considers it for himself, and doesn’t know how to answer, still torn between his two instincts of what he wants, and what he thinks Wei Ying might not want. “You should choose,” he says.
“Why?” Now Wei Ying’s smile looks just like regular teasing. “I’m not a guest, you don’t have to be polite towards me.”
Lan Wangji feels the weight on his throat go tighter still, then shiver out and disappear. He shifts to his knees and leans across the distance, reaching for Wei Ying, pleased when Wei Ying’s breath goes sharp and his smile deeper, as Lan Wangji grasps his hand.
“Polite was not what I was thinking, precisely,” he says, pulling Wei Ying towards him, against him, kissing him, and the question of sides does not become relevant just yet.
*
The fourth time they share a bed, it is Wei Ying’s second night at the Cloud Recesses after coming back from his travels, and nobody here who has interacted with Lan Wangji still assumes he is a guest. It is night, and they are tired, and after they retired to the Jingshi after the Cloud Recesses’ early dinner and they reconnected, twice, even Lan Wangji’s desire is a sleepy simmer in his veins.
Wei Ying has chosen to take the outside of the bed. He pulls the sheets up his legs, covering himself, and turns on his side facing Lan Wangji, his head resting on his arm. He’s smiling his beautiful smile, and Lan Wangji feels like a part of him is finally coming to rest, the air of the Jingshi warm and full of Wei Ying’s presence.
*
As Wei Ying settles in at the Cloud Recesses, they settle into the beginnings of a routine. Lan Wangji usually wakes up before Wei Ying, taking a few minutes to revel in Wei Ying’s presence before he carefully climbs over him to go to the Cold Spring, stepping around the odd piece of clutter left behind from Wei Ying’s invention work. They have talked about Wei Ying teaching the younger disciples, but any class Wei Ying would teach would likely have to be scheduled for the afternoon.
He thinks Wei Ying stays awake after him, once Lan Wangji has settled on his back in a comfortable pose, often a little later than the rules suggest but not as late as Wei Ying would naturally stay up, and he did not expect to feel this way, but there is something softly exciting about closing his eyes under Wei Ying’s affectionate, sometimes gently amused gaze.
The gap between them when they sleep is oddly familiar, back from before Wei Ying knew the true measure of Lan Wangji’s affections. But Lan Wangji is not bereft of touch and closeness anymore, and they are so close, so intimately joined in other ways, so in this as in many things, he takes his cue from Wei Ying, pleased that Wei Ying has found space here that he feels comfortable in.
*
He is pulled out of sleep, and at first he doesn’t know why. The darkness is not aligned with what he expects for his waking hour, and the quiet has a different depth to it. It’s night. He turns his head, alarm like the shadow of an old nightmare racing through him, though Wei Ying is right there, has not left him. Wei Ying is on his side, his hands curled into tight fists in front of him, and as Lan Wangji focuses his gaze in the dark, he sees that Wei Ying’s brow is knotted in fright, a sheen of sweat on him, the tension of a nightmare all over his still form.
It hurts to see him like this. Lan Wangji reaches across the space between them, feeling strangely as if he were a thief. When he puts his hand on Wei Ying’s shoulder, Wei Ying responds with a shudder, and it’s as if that flinch flows right into him, curling anxiously in his stomach.
Wei Ying opens his eyes. There’s a gasp on his lips, quickly stifled.
Lan Wangji almost takes his hand away, but then he doesn’t. Wei Ying has never minded his touch.
“You were dreaming,” Lan Wangji says quietly.
Wei Ying regards him for a moment, before he confirms, “Yes.”
“Is there anything I can do?”
He can see Wei Ying swallow. There’s a slowness to him that makes Lan Wangji think he hasn’t quite shed the terror of whatever haunted him tonight.
“I’m sorry that I woke you up,” Wei Ying says eventually, his voice dry and raspy even though Lan Wangji thinks he kept silent through his nightmare.
Lan Wangji shakes his head. He waits another moment, in case Wei Ying has another answer to his question, but then he pulls Wei Ying in, and Wei Ying goes easily, settling tightly against Lan Wangji’s side, answer enough.
*
It’s a few nights later that he wakes up from a touch to his side. It jolts him with a rush—fear that Wei Ying is suffering another nightmare. When he turns to Wei Ying, he is confused for a moment, like his mind isn’t putting the shapes and the darkness together right. He’s used to Wei Ying facing either towards Lan Wangji or away, his body on its side in an almost straight, tidy line on the outside half of the bed, an easy silhouette. Now Wei Ying is on his stomach, spread out across the middle of the bed, one knee tucked up that probably nudged Lan Wangji in the side, a hand almost caught in Lan Wangji’s hair.
He’s stirring, as if the movement woke him up. Lan Wangji doesn’t say anything, but his eyes stay watchful as Wei Ying shifts a little, disoriented. Like he’s not sure where he is.
Lan Wangji puts a light hand on his arm, to remind him, soothe the confusion away.
Wei Ying raises his head, still half on his stomach. “Oh, sorry,” he says, with a sleepy blink, his gaze fuzzy under his disheveled hair. Coordination seems to come back to him, and his eyes sweep down and up, taking in Lan Wangji, who is lying where he always lies. “Was I in your space?”
“Yes,” Lan Wangji says, and wraps his arm around Wei Ying’s shoulders, pulling him all the way in.
*
It’s after that that he becomes aware of how much distance there was, by how it starts to disappear. They still go to sleep in a fairly orderly way, but Wei Ying tends to fall asleep a little closer, and Lan Wangji frequently is nudged awake by a brush of a foot against his leg or Wei Ying’s forehead on his shoulder, or Wei Ying’s behind sticking out against his hip.
After a few bouts of worry, Lan Wangji realizes that this isn’t Wei Ying moving in the throes of a nightmare. It is Wei Ying becoming comfortable. As the Jingshi becomes busier with gadgets and Wei Ying’s work materials, the bed also becomes fuller, more crowded as Wei Ying takes up more space in sleep. Lan Wangji had not noticed that Wei Ying was holding himself back so much, but now there is a casual, relaxed, sometimes inelegant, always welcome sprawl, and Lan Wangji is surprised to discover how much he craved that additional closeness. So he lets himself enjoy it.
Sometimes Wei Ying moves around so much in his sleep that the blanket becomes twisted almost entirely around him. Lan Wangji procures another blanket to have in reserve, and makes sure to cover both of them when it is necessary.
One night Wei Ying stretches out next to him, his arms over his head, a lazy tension in the arc of his body, and settles in the middle of the bed, one foot hooked over Lan Wangji’s leg. He’s blinking drowsily, looking like he might be about to go to sleep, and Lan Wangji gives in to impulse and turns on his side, to slide his hand on Wei Ying’s stomach, between the gap of his loose sleeping robes, the warmth of Wei Ying’s skin under his palm sending an echo of want through him.
Wei Ying turns his head. “I’ve been stealing the bed a bit,” he says, a rueful tug on his mouth.
Lan Wangji shakes his head, a small shift against the mattress. “It doesn’t bother me.”
“Sorry,” Wei Ying says, smiling, but it is still ridiculous.
“You never bother me,” Lan Wangji says a little more forcefully.
Wei Ying gives him a slow look that turns sly at the end. “Really,” he says.
Lan Wangji withstands the faint prickle on his skin and merely smiles back. “Really.”
Wei Ying rolls towards him, pushing Lan Wangji back to lie flat, and then climbs on top of him, heat coming off his skin, mischief sparkling in his eyes. He puts an open-mouthed kiss on Lan Wangji’s neck that makes Lan Wangji gasp, then blows over it, and runs a tickling touch down Lan Wangji’s side. “I leave my stuff all over the place,” he says, nibbling on Lan Wangji’s earlobe. “I steal your blanket.” He stares down at Lan Wangji, and then very intentionally shifts the cloud emblem of his forehead ribbon askew. “I’m a terrible fiend, Hanguang-jun.”
Lan Wangji lets this insolence run through him, and a little shiver of daring. “I am quite powerful,” he says. He feels off-kilter, in a pleasant way, acting like this, a flutter in his stomach when Wei Ying’s eyebrows rise. “I can defend myself.” He runs his hands down Wei Ying’s arms and wraps them around Wei Ying’s wrists, just a gentle pressure to hold him in place as he sits up, pushing up Wei Ying’s entire weight with him. Wei Ying is laughing and squirming, settling in his lap, and letting Lan Wangji push his hands behind his back, not putting up enough resistance that Lan Wangji even has to make it forceful.
There’s mirth dancing in Wei Ying’s eyes, and now he is flexing his hands a little, a half-hearted twist that does nothing to dislodge Lan Wangji’s hold. “I’m not convinced yet,” he says with the spark of a challenge, writhing suggestively.
Lan Wangji ignores the squirming and the teasing and looks at him straight-on. “You never bother me,” Lan Wangji repeats.
“I meant—”
”I like the way you bother me.”
Wei Ying holds still for a moment, mid-squirm, a small inhale going a little fast. Then he rushes forward, never mind that he doesn’t have his hands to brace himself, and kisses Lan Wangji on the mouth, his weight slumping as some tension goes out of him, but it’s all right. Lan Wangji doesn’t mind holding him up.
*
Lan Wangji sleeps more deeply with less fear of Wei Ying having nightmares, just drifts up now and then to Wei Ying’s jostling, and then slips back into sleep as Wei Ying settles again. Wei Ying likes touching him in sleep, and it makes Lan Wangji too happy to mind the occasional disturbance.
He, too, becomes freer to touch, to rest. Sometimes, when they are still shivering with exertion, and Lan Wangji’s skin feels like it’s drunk on Wei Ying’s touch and their shared pleasure, he wraps himself around Wei Ying, and lets Wei Ying’s closeness carry him under. Other nights, when they’re tired enough to just rest, and when Wei Ying doesn’t stay up to improve talismans or read forbidden scrolls that Lan Wangji has let him pocket from the locked section of the library, he always offers Wei Ying his shoulder to rest on and draws an arm around him, holding him safe in an embrace as they both fall asleep.
*
One morning, he wakes up, Wei Ying still in his customary position with his head on Lan Wangji’s shoulder, and is surprised to find Wei Ying already awake.
“Good morning,” Wei Ying says, a little smile on his mouth. It’s unusually early for him.
“Good morning,” Lan Wangji replies. He tightens his arm around Wei Ying’s back, enjoying the warm feel of him against barely awake body. When he tilts his head, Wei Ying meets him halfway, and they kiss. “Is something wrong?” Lan Wangji asks after. “Did you sleep badly?”
“No,” Wei Ying says brightly. “Just awake before you for a change.”
He’s moving sleepily as they both get up, and as he settles at his overflowing desk, Lan Wangji sees him roll his shoulder as if to shake out stiffness. But as Lan Wangji gets ready to head out for his cold morning bath, Wei Ying says, “hey,” tilting up his head to demand a kiss before he can slip out, and apart from the hour, everything seems normal.
*
Maybe Wei Ying’s sleep rhythm has changed. He seems tired earlier in the evenings, and wakes up more often a little before Lan Wangji. Instinctively, Lan Wangji wants to approve, because there’s still a part of him that finds this the correct and healthy time to be awake. But it’s unusual enough for Wei Ying that concern drowns out that instinct, as he finds himself wondering if Wei Ying is perhaps feeling pressured to conform in ways Lan Wangji never meant him to, and made clear to others he would not allow when Wei Ying agreed to stay in the Cloud Recesses with him.
He asks carefully if something is wrong at dinner one night when Wei Ying seems weary from his teaching and a little more bristling than usual in his recounting of the students’ efforts and failures, but Wei Ying just blinks at him, then shakes himself as if from a sudden cold breeze, and says, “No, nothing’s wrong.” Then he sends Lan Wangji a lopsided smile. “Am I not becoming a proper teacher when I lament the deficiencies of the youths?”
It seems honest, self-deprecating in a way that suggests Wei Ying means it, but Lan Wangji keeps watching him anyway.
When they go to bed that night, Lan Wangji extends his arm in invitation, and Wei Ying doesn’t hesitate to curl up against his side, settling warmly as Lan Wangji pulls him close. It feels normal, and whole.
But Lan Wangji waits. He doesn’t go to sleep. There is something here, and he wants to understand what it is.
He can feel Wei Ying is not going to sleep either. “Lan Zhan?” comes his voice after a while.
“What is it that you have on your mind?” Lan Zhan asks, his thumb brushing a gentle half-circle on Wei Ying’s hip, his arm never wavering.
“Nothing,” Wei Ying says. It comes out quick and decisive.
“You can tell me,” Lan Wangji says. He keeps his eyes on the ceiling, in case Wei Ying needs to gather his thoughts first. There is a small knot of worry in his stomach, a little voice at the back of his mind asking him what he’ll do if it’s something serious, if whatever doesn’t fit can’t be reshaped or amended.
Then we’ll go, he tells that voice, and breathes down deeply. He is concerned that Wei Ying might be unhappy, but he is not afraid.
“It’s not important,” Wei Ying says.
“It bothers you,” Lan Wangji replies. “So it is important.”
“It’s really not,” Wei Ying says, with a huff of breath that says he’s annoyed with something, possibly himself.
“Did something happen with my uncle?” Lan Wangji asks, his voice completely even. “Or with the students?”
“No, nothing,” Wei Ying sighs. “The students are adorable in all their well-behaved old man ways, and Teacher Lan is being totally—well, considering, he’s fine. Really, it’s no big deal.”
“I’d like you to tell me even if it’s a small deal,” Lan Wangji says, which for some reason makes Wei Ying snort.
Lan Wangji waits while Wei Ying is gathering himself. He can feel Wei Ying’s concentration in the small shifts against him. “It’s nothing,” Wei Ying says after a while. “I just haven’t been sleeping so well.”
Despite his earlier resolve to not be thrown, Lan Wangji is relieved. “What is troubling you?” he asks. “What can I do?”
Wei Ying huffs out another breath.
“What is it, Wei Ying?” he asks after a few moments more. “You can tell me. I want you to tell me.”
“You could—” Wei Ying cuts himself off. Sighs impatiently. Lan Wangji waits. “I need to move a little more than I can when you’re holding me like this,” Wei Ying almost blurts out. In contrast to his words, though, Wei Ying’s arm around Lan Wangji’s chest squeezes tight.
An uncomfortable understanding runs through Lan Wangji, and he almost lets go, he never wants to trouble Wei Ying with his affection, but he manages to stop himself. To wait again. “You don’t want me to hold you?”
Wei Ying lifts up his upper body, Lan Wangji relaxing his hold instantly, his hand just a tentative hovering brush on Wei Ying’s lower back. Wei Ying’s face is close, and his eyes very serious “Lan Zhan, I want you to hold me a lot,” he says. He nips down for a dry brush of lips. It tingles and soothes at the same time. “I love it. You’re so good at it.” Another kiss. This one lingers a little. “The best.”
Lan Wangji waits. There’s an old embarrassment racing around under his skin, an echo of fear. Fear of getting it wrong, fear of Wei Ying laughing at him, fear of misreading, having misread.
But he knows Wei Ying’s laugh and he treasures it, and so he lets that old tremble run itself aground under the surface, and breathes. “But?”
“No but,” Wei Ying says, hiding his face a little as he brushes his nose against Lan Wangji’s cheek. “You’re great.” Lan Wangji can feel the ghost of his breath, and waits. “Just, when you hold me all night…” Wei Ying kisses his cheek again. “You know you’re really strong, right?”
A flush steals into Lan Wangji’s face.
“Very powerful,” Wei Ying grins, which makes Lan Wangji’s stomach flutter. “And you sleep like a rock, and then I either have to wake you, or pretend to be a rock, too, and it’s just a bit…” He shrugs, awkwardly because of the way he’s holding himself. The way he’s watching Lan Wangji tells Lan Wangji he’s still concerned about the reaction. Wei Ying, too, worries about being misread.
Lan Wangji breathes, and then he keeps any sulkiness out of his voice. He wants Wei Ying to be comfortable, not just to move into his space, but also to withdraw from it. “You want me to let you go?”
“Only eventually,” Wei Ying says. “Temporarily. Definitely temporarily.”
“Very good,” Lan Wangji says. “Temporarily is acceptable.”
*
They practice.
Wei Ying insists that he wants Lan Wangji to go to sleep just the way he has been. So Lan Wangji lies on his back and Wei Ying makes himself at home against his side. Lan Wangji arranges his arm along Wei Ying’s back, but lower, not wrapped around Wei Ying’s waist. He locks his arm at full strength, and Wei Ying succeeds in squirming out of his hold without jostling him too much, or having to struggle.
It feels quite silly to Lan Wangji in the moment, but Wei Ying looks pleased like he does when he has just found an answer to a particularly tricky research question. It feels almost celebratory when he drops himself back against Lan Wangji, draping Lan Wangji’s arm around him again.
“Perfect,” he says, so satisfied and bright that Lan Wangji can only take him at his word.
“I’m glad you said something,” he says. “I always want you to tell me when something is troubling you.”
Wei Ying hums what sounds like slightly embarrassed agreement against his chest. “Okay,” he says then. “I’ll keep it in mind.”
*
Wei Ying sleeps better, and longer in the mornings. Lan Wangji often goes to sleep with Wei Ying tucked into his side, and only occasionally feels it when Wei Ying turns away, or comes back, content in the compromise.
One night he wakes up from a restlessness against him, a poking pressure against his arm. He’s lying behind Wei Ying, holding him in a close embrace, and realizes they must have dozed off as they were after sex. “hmgoff,” Wei Ying mumbles, nudging his forearm with slightly uncoordinated fingers. Lan Wangji makes his muscles obey and lets go, whispering a gentle apology, and Wei Ying makes a smushed, forgiving sound.
Lan Wangji rolls on his back, settling the way he usually does. Next to him Wei Ying is restless for a moment, seems to spin in a slow, rumpled roll once all the way around. Then he shuffles close again, rests his head next to Lan Wangji’s shoulder, and pulls Lan Wangji’s arm over his hip as he settles back down. “I like the way you bother me, too,” he says, softly in the dark, and then his quiet breath and still warmth lulls Lan Wangji back to sleep.