Chapter Text
Because Wei Wuxian is absolutely without shame, on the very day after their confrontation in the library Lan Wangji finds him poring over yet another filthy piece of literature with his useless friend Nie Huaisang, both of them giggling like fools.
Where do they even get these things from, Lan Wangji wonders, and then shakes his head, minutely. Of course two such unfocused degenerates would be more interested in smuggling pornography into Cloud Recesses than developing their cultivation. Here they have the opportunity to learn from the best teachers Gusu has to offer, and they would rather waste their time and spiritual energy on total decadence.
And besides, the artwork isn’t even that good.
Lan Wangji is preparing to sweep by them, ostentatiously ignoring their misdeeds, when he hears their voices floating to him across the small courtyard.
“No!” Nie Huaisang says, and titters. “Would you really—with a man...?” He turns his head to whisper in Wei Wuxian’s ear, the rest of his words lost behind his flowing sleeve.
Wei Wuxian laughs, high and loud. “I would, but….” He winks, an elbow nudging Nie Huaisang’s side and a devious look in his elegant eyes. “Just the tip!”
He tosses his head back with another raucous laugh, and when he looks up again, their eyes meet. Wei Wuxian’s are bright with mirth, beneath his tumbling hair, and Lan Wangji feels the heat pooling in the tips of his ears, outrage mingled with something else, tantalizing and aching. He has the urge to cross the courtyard and snap out sharp, superior words, but he knows it will only provoke another laugh, as well as letting Wei Wuxian know that he heard.
Instead, Lan Wangji stays his original course around the perimeter path, expression blank and his tread measured and steady on the white gravel. He doesn’t even let himself glance down at the scroll they’re holding, carelessly splayed across their laps for anyone to see. He could dispatch someone else to discipline them, at least confiscate the disgusting thing, but he doesn’t want to entangle himself further. It seems like that’s what happens every time he comes near Wei Wuxian, like sticky tendrils whipping out to seize him by the ankles, dragging him into another intolerable mess. Better to stay pure and apart.
Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Wei Wuxian twist his head to look up as he goes by, that same teasing heat in his gaze. Lan Wangji’s throat goes so tight it’s difficult to breathe, a piercing emotion beyond rage. He swallows, hard, and keeps walking.
He doesn’t let himself think about it until hours later when he’s alone, when the familiar dark is around him, when he’s lying on his back on the verge of slipping into practiced sleep, body and mind parting ways.
Just the tip.
And then he can’t stop thinking about it. The images come like a runaway spool of thread, bouncing and unraveling as he chases after it, trying desperately to wind it back up again. Wei Wuxian, undoing his white student’s robes. Lying in bed close to someone else, faceless and dark-haired. Laughing as his nakedness is revealed, the skin of his body paler than his bronzed hands and forearms. His legs spread wide, chest heaving, hands on the other man’s shoulders. No—the hips, holding the man off as he moves up the bed. Wei Wuxian’s cheeks flushed and his eyes bright, lips glistening as he murmurs a caution: Just the tip.
Lan Wangji does not sleep well that night.
The images remain when he wakes in the morning. It feels like they’re lodged in a corner of his mind, even as he goes through his usual exercises and meditations, strengthening and stretching the power at his core. His fantasies feel like ugly furniture or shameful mementos, shoved in a disused storeroom and covered with a sheet; he still knows they’re there, even as he locks the door.
It takes all his training and control to keep those thoughts from entering his mind the minute Wei Wuxian and his brother come panting up, eager and disheveled, to wheedle their way into the hunt at Lake Biling without an invitation. Lan Wangji expects his own brother will be steady and correct, refusing their request with a brief explanation, but to his horror, Xichen-ge unfurls that warm, tolerant smile he seems to have developed just for Wei Wuxian and invites them to join the hunt, along with those two Wen siblings who are obviously here simply to spy. Lan Wangji wants to ask about that, too, but all he can think of is Wei Wuxian’s lively face and intrusive questions, which he’d hoped to avoid during this recess from classes, instead trailing him for days. He presses his lips together, sure his outrage is palpable.
“It seemed to me that you wanted the two boys to join,” is all that Xichen-ge says, mildly, as they descend a staircase.
Lan Wangji feels like he’s cast a silencing spell on himself, his throat closed up by all the furious words he wants to say. He just looks away, swallowing against the coal burning in the center of his chest.
In Caiyi Town, he makes the appalling discovery of his brother’s further treachery. The hunting party has taken rooms at the inn nearest the lake, and as they’re ushered upstairs, he follows Xichen-ge, expecting to share a room as they always have on previous night hunts. Instead, his brother points him back down the hall, with the same pleased and inscrutable smile as before.
“I’m keeping my own quarters tonight,” Xichen-ge says. “I’m sure you’ll find your roommate to be delightful company.”
Lan Wangji does not find any such thing. He walks, with a growing sense of dread and inescapable fate, to the doorway at the end of the hall, where Wei Wuxian is already placing an order for dinner with a member of the inn’s staff and pelting him with questions about the quality of alcohol and entertainment to be found in the neighborhood.
“Lan Zhan!” Wei Wuxian cries, inappropriately familiar as always. “Did you know we’re rooming at the only inn in Caiyi Town with a steady supply of fresh chilis?”
“Perhaps we should be inquiring about the recent events at Lake Biling,” Lan Wangji says, through not-quite clenched teeth.
“Ah!” Wei Wuxian says, and does so.
The room is dirty but spacious. As soon as the attendant leaves them, Lan Wangji tries his best to pretend that he is the only occupant. His meditation training has been extensive, but nothing ever prepared him for a challenge of this magnitude. Wei Wuxian takes up space in every possible dimension, like a mosquito in the bed hangings at night who is also somehow simultaneously the most attractive person Lan Wangji has ever seen.
No. Irritating. The most irritating person.
The sun sets late in summer. The room is illuminated with a warm evening glow when the attendant brings their dinner and Lan Wangji is forced to open his eyes again, returning from the still blue peace that descends when he’s deep in meditative thought. He’s dimly aware that Wei Wuxian has been bouncing around the room like a skipped stone for the past few hours, but now he’s kneeling eagerly before the table, taking the lids off dishes with alarmingly red contents and exclaiming with pleasure.
“Real food, Lan Zhan! Not like that rabbit feed your kitchen gives us.”
Lan Wangji kneels primly at the table, arranging his robes around himself and turning back his sleeve as he reaches for plain steamed cabbage. It’s mildly surprising there’s any food he can eat, but several dishes look palatable. He serves himself an appropriate amount and then stops, chopsticks poised over his bowl, when he realizes Wei Wuxian is still talking. He waits; surely Wei Wuxian has spent enough time in Cloud Recesses by now to have accustomed himself to proper dining habits.
Wei Wuxian takes an unseemly amount of fiery noodles with his chopsticks, leaning over the bowl as he slurps it up, and continues. “Biling ghouls can’t be so different from Yunmeng ones, right? Unless that’s why they’ve suddenly started eating people.”
He is struck dumb, he tells himself, by Wei Wuxian’s continued lack of propriety and civilization. Or perhaps by Wei Wuxian’s admittedly broad knowledge of supernatural creatures and defense methods. Lan Wangji is certainly not kneeling on the floor, unable to speak, because Wei Wuxian’s cheeks are flushed with excitement and his lips are reddened with spice and slick with oily broth and his hair, wild as ever, is threatening to escape his topknot.
“No speaking during meals,” Lan Wangji says, at last, and drops his eyes to his own bowl.
“Lan Zhan,” Wei Wuxian whines, dragging it out. “We’re not in your dining pavilion now. What do you think is making the Biling ghouls act so strangely?”
Sealing Wei Wuxian’s mouth would prevent him from eating his dinner, prolonging this dreadful meal. Lan Wangji thinks about doing it anyway.
In the end, his continued silence discourages Wei Wuxian, who lets his stream of chatter die out and slouches down with an unhappy grumble, beginning to eat everything in sight. When he finishes, he gets up and finds his boots by the door, sitting down on his bed to pull them on.
“What—” Lan Wangji says, before he realizes he has a few pieces of cabbage left in his bowl. He hurriedly chews them down and swallows, painfully. “Where are you going?” he asks, his throat burning.
Wei Wuxian tosses his hair over one shoulder, wedging his heel down into his boot. “Some of the other students are meeting downstairs. Caiyi Town has more inns besides this, we want to try their wine too.”
He says it casually, as if it’s a perfectly normal thing to do. Lan Wangji just stares, chopsticks still in one hand, uncomprehending. “Tonight? You’re going out drinking the night before a hunt?”
Wei Wuxian shrugs. “Not much. Mostly we want to stock up for...” He trails off, seeming to realize who he’s talking to. “Ah, for another time,” he says, with mischief in his eyes.
Lan Wangji keeps staring, as though he could impose his will silently on this ridiculous person. They should be in bed early. They should not be drinking wine. They should—Wei Wuxian should take things seriously for once in his life, but he’s clearly incapable of it. For a wild moment Lan Wangji considers going down the hall to inform Xichen-ge, but he has the sinking feeling his brother might just shrug and smile unaccountably, making more allowances for this infuriating boy that he’s never made for anyone.
In the end, Lan Wangji just drops his gaze to his bowl again. The only way to endure Wei Wuxian is not to engage with him at all.
He hears Wei Wuxian spring to his feet, tossing a quick “later!” over his shoulder before sliding open the door to encounter other students, who he greets with a much merrier tone. Then the door slides shut again, leaving silence, empty bowls, and Lan Wangji’s seething emotions.
It occurs to him that Wei Wuxian didn’t extend an invitation to him, and then he shakes his head, banishing the absurd thought. It would have been an insult to even assume he’d accept.
Lan Wangji spends the rest of the evening in his usual manner. He calls for a bath and for the dishes to be cleared away, and then he combs out his hair with hundreds of strokes and dresses for bed, meditating for the customary amount of time before sleep. In truth, he’s rarely been away from home, and though he’s used to sleeping alone it’s still hard to adjust to the strangeness of night noises in another place by himself. When he extinguishes the lamps and lies down on his bed, something outside the window makes a harsh scraping sound and shadows cross the opposite wall in a sinister pattern. He shuts his eyes firmly, one hand squeezing the other on his chest, and wills himself to fall asleep.
He eventually does, since he’s awakened hours later in the dark of night.
“Sorry,” Wei Wuxian says, hurried and low. “Sorry sorry sorry. There’s—something in my bed. Some things. I felt them as soon as I pulled back the sheet.”
He’s sitting on the edge of Lan Wangji’s bed, lifting the coverlet as he swings his legs up onto the mattress. His bare feet are cold but soft when they brush against Lan Wangji’s leg, and he wiggles down to lie flat on his back.
“What,” Lan Wangji says, his tongue thick with sleep. “Are you doing.”
“Bugs!” Wei Wuxian says, close to his ear now. “I knew this room hadn’t been cleaned in forever but they could have at least given us fresh linens. Your bed is clean, right?”
“Yes,” Lan Wangji manages. “Get out.”
Wei Wuxian laughs, rubbing his shoulder against Lan Wangji’s before turning onto his side, tugging most of the coverlet with him. “I know you don’t want me to bring bedbugs back to Cloud Recesses. Go to sleep, it’s not long before dawn anyhow.”
He yawns, arching his back in a way that grinds his rear end directly against Lan Wangji’s hip, and apparently falls immediately asleep.
Lan Wangji is left to stare up into the dark, his mouth hanging open. He’s not accustomed to being awake at this hour, or to sharing a bed in such close proximity, and certainly not to the object of his bedtime fantasies being pressed up all along his side, warm and solid and snoring lightly. He’s not accustomed to bedtime fantasies at all, but when he laid down hours ago they couldn’t be banished, warm and secret thoughts stealing in whenever he tried to sleep.
This time it was Lan Wangji that Wei Wuxian was looking up at, with those dark, laughing eyes, lying on a bed completely undressed. In the fantasy his gaze grew even darker, traveling down over Lan Wangji’s equally undressed body until he stopped, eyes widening. Those teasing red lips going round, his long fingers on Lan Wangji’s hips tensing to hold him off. Oh Lan Zhan, I can’t take all that. Just the tip.
The burning heat that sweeps through Lan Wangji from head to toe feels like it might set the bed covers on fire. He didn’t touch himself earlier, and he certainly won’t do it now, but all the same he’s so hard it’s tenting the coverlet, shockingly obvious. He clenches his hands into fists over his chest, nails digging into his palms. He hasn’t had an unwanted erection in several years, and he burns hotter with the realization of just how much control he’s lost. This has to be the most shameful moment of his life.
At least, until Wei Wuxian stirs in his sleep and rubs back against him.
The coverlet twitches, moving with the throb of his erection. Lan Wangji squeezes his eyes shut tight, hoping Wei Wuxian won’t move again. He feels like he’s drowning in a hot, chaotic sea, so aware of Wei Wuxian’s body against him and still half-caught in his fantasies, Wei Wuxian looking at him and laughing at him and calling him Lan Zhan before reaching to touch his—
The Lan code of conduct requires disciples to sleep on one’s back, arms folded over one’s chest. Lan Wangji has done so since he was four. The strictures also admonish against indulging in pleasure, and with a desperate, stifled gasp, Lan Wangji decides the only way to obey the latter rule is to break the former. He twists onto his side, pulling the blanket with him to cover his shame, feeling his hair become tangled and his inner organs compress out of place. No matter; anything is better than lying there soaking in the gravest of indulgences, bathed in unwanted desire.
And then Wei Wuxian wakes up.
“Hey,” he mutters, sleepily. “Didn’t figure you for a blanket thief.” He reaches back, grasping for the coverlet. As he does so, his hand very nearly grazes between Lan Wangji’s legs, instead rucking up the trousers over his thigh. Lan Wangji lets out a sound somewhere between a growl and a yelp, jerking away.
“So selfish!” Wei Wuxian says, sounding amused. “Don’t Lans share?”
“Keep your hands to yourself,” Lan Wangji snaps, shoving the coverlet off himself and onto Wei Wuxian. He slides as far away as he can, until his face is nearly pressed against the daybed’s wooden frame. He presses his knees together, hand covering his groin, and hunches his shoulders, hoping Wei Wuxian will leave him alone for one second in their lives.
“Well, then,” Wei Wuxian says, more softly. “We share in Yunmeng. Here.”
Lan Wangji feels a gentle hand tucking the coverlet back over his shoulder, settling it over his hip. He stays curled in on himself, silent and unmoving, until Wei Wuxian lies down again, more carefully than when he first shoved his way into bed.
Now they’re lying back to back, a little distance between them but near enough that Lan Wangji can still feel the warmth of Wei Wuxian’s body. The urgent, humiliating heat in his own is fading, but he’s still so, so aware of their proximity, all the potential of two young bodies in a bed together. He holds a breath, counting slowly, and then releases it, relaxing his jaw and shoulders, willing sleep to return.
After a long while it works, the familiar oblivion clouding the corners of his consciousness, removing him from the world. Just before he drifts off entirely, he hears it again in his mind: a hot, intimate whisper, his shameful and insistent fantasy. Just the tip, Lan Zhan.
Lan Wangji is saved from an even more humiliating moment in the morning, when he finds himself curled around Wei Wuxian, only because Wei Wuxian is sleeping so heavily that he doesn’t even stir when Lan Wangji startles awake. He lies there, frozen in horror, his senses assaulted by the feeling of another body so close to his; in his arms, even. Wei Wuxian’s messy hair falls against his face, smelling of smoke and spice, and his chest rises and falls beneath Lan Wangji’s arm, pressing them closer together with every breath.
He doesn’t know what to do. He moves his arm with agonizing slowness, trying to brush Wei Wuxian’s hair out of his own mouth, and ends up somehow stroking it, fingertips sliding through the tangled waves. Wei Wuxian’s hair is coarser, less silky than his own but filled with living heat. He can’t help stroking it again, smoothing it into place behind Wei Wuxian’s shoulder. Wei Wuxian still doesn’t stir, just taking those deep, even breaths, and Lan Wangji runs his hand over his hair again, letting his fingers comb through the dark cloud of it and trail against Wei Wuxian’s back.
A simple thing. People touch each other like this all the time; lovers, family, children. He’s seen Wei Wuxian hold his brother and sister close, Nie Huaisang, the child of a servant who was wandering lost through a courtyard. It doesn’t have to be so charged, so ominous. Lan Wangji lets his head fall forward, eyes closed, letting himself float in the dawn light with the soft warmth of Wei Wuxian’s hair over his face.
Wei Wuxian takes another, deeper breath, leaning into him, and Lan Wangji’s hips move of their own accord. Without a thought, he rocks against Wei Wuxian’s body, chasing the sweet burst of pleasure it brings. Another breath, and he does it again. This time the pleasure spikes through him, sweet and sharp like tangy fruit. Lan Wangji is warm and half-asleep, a contented desire humming through him, and he sighs, so low it’s almost a moan.
As if cold water had been dashed over his head, Lan Wangji jerks fully awake. He scrambles back and vaults himself out of bed, stumbling on the floor in his haste, staggering back against the wall. They touched—he touched—
For a rageful moment he seethes at Wei Wuxian’s sleeping form. Crawling into his bed, lying there seductively, creating this mess—a trap for a virtuous man! But as Lan Wangji’s breaths slow and he regains his composure, he has to admit that he is the one who has failed in his duty. Wei Wuxian cannot help being—what he is. Lan Wangji is the one who must strive to keep to his principles.
He gets to his feet and smoothes his robes, avoiding the place that was just pressed against Wei Wuxian’s tempting—no, not tempting, just prominent and firm and surprisingly well-muscled and—
He gives up trying to sort out his conflicted feelings about Wei Wuxian’s ass and throws an entire basin of cold water in his own face, finishing what shame and shock just did to wake himself up. He considers dumping a second basin on Wei Wuxian’s head, and then decides he prefers Wei Wuxian asleep.
As Lan Wangji leaves the room to find his brother, he can’t help glancing at the bed once more. There’s a smile on Wei Wuxian’s face, even as his breaths are still deep and peaceful. As if he’s somehow aware of the turmoil he’s caused, and enjoys it.
Lan Wangji clenches his jaw, struggling to maintain his equanimity. Rage bubbles through, and then a treacherously fond memory of Wei Wuxian’s warmth just now, which enrages him even more.
He does not speak to Wei Wuxian all day, or at least he tries not to. Despite his few hours of sleep, Wei Wuxian is infuriatingly loud as always, ceaseless chatter giving away far too much of what should be a sensitive situation in Gusu, and the growing incidence of strange events. It seems like he can’t think unless his mouth is running at the same time. He’s admittedly useful on the hunt for the water ghoul at Biling Lake, and has clever, unexpected insights, but makes himself so aggravating Lan Wangji almost regrets saving him from a watery death. It’s the same on the journey home, and Lan Wangji only finds peace by getting as far away from him as possible.
In truth, it’s not just Wei Wuxian’s nonstop flow of talk he wants to avoid. He’s never had such direct and explicit fantasies about an actual person before, and a choking guilt rises in his throat whenever Wei Wuxian gets too near. Lan Wangji can’t help wondering what Wei Wuxian’s body looks like under his robes, what his voice sounds like in the heat of passion, what kind of expressions he would make or things he would say. But however irritating Wei Wuxian is, however many rules he’s broken or poor manners he’s displayed, he hasn’t actually done anything to show that he wants Lan Wangji to think of him like this. It feels invasive and wrong, for Lan Wangji to treat him the way he does in his mind.
He recants any guilt the next day, when he wakes up in Wei Wuxian’s room back in Cloud Recesses with the first hangover of his life. It’s hard to think, with the throbbing headache and the shouting voices around him as he clutches at his robes, and he doesn’t remember anything from the previous night past Wei Wuxian’s talisman burning against his back and the sweet burn of wine down his throat. But he can tell, from Wei Wuxian’s desperate, darting glances, that he must have said or done shameful things, perhaps even sharing one of these damnable fantasies he can’t seem to shake. A shiver of horror goes through him, nausea rising hot and sick, or maybe that’s just the hangover.
“I’m sorry!” Wei Wuxian hisses as they’re taken to the punishment chamber, but Lan Wangji doesn’t even look at him. He’s too busy hoping with every fiber of his being that, whatever he did while intoxicated, his uncle and brother don’t know anything about it. He could ask Wei Wuxian, but that would mean looking directly at him, and Lan Wangji doesn’t think he can do that without turning scarlet from head to toe right now.
His uncle gives them the same punishment, and no indication he knows any details of Lan Wangji’s behavior last night, or his private thoughts. The relief sustains Lan Wangji all through the beating, along with the firm decision that, having been spared the worst, he had best never interact with or even think of Wei Wuxian again.
After, Xichen-ge is solicitous and kind, with a wrinkle of confusion between his brows as he helps Lan Wangji to his feet and then to his chamber, for tea and a rich broth to help with healing. He sends away the servant and undresses Lan Wangji himself, gently plucking away the fabric of his robes from his aching, sweat-soaked back. Lan Wangji lies facedown on the mattress and prays for his brother’s silence.
“Wei Wuxian forced you to drink, then?” Lan Xichen asks, hesitantly.
Lan Wangji nods, slightly.
Xichen-ge’s hand is cool on his shoulder. “Just one cup of wine? I’m sure he didn’t know you would prove so...susceptible.”
Lan Wangji didn’t know either, but he feels proud of his body’s purity, which rejected even the smallest amount of alcohol. He wants to tell his brother that Wei Wuxian used a talisman, not some coarser means of compelling him to drink, but he doesn’t want to talk about Wei Wuxian at all. He breathes into the warm darkness of the sheet against his face instead, willing energy to the injured muscles of his back.
“When you are well again, I’ll teach you how to neutralize the intoxicating effects of wine with your core,” Xichen-ge says, squeezing his shoulder. “You might like the taste one day, or wish to be civil in company outside of Gusu. And there are other....corruptions your core can mitigate. Other, er, pleasures you might wish to partake of.” He coughs politely, covering it with his sleeve.
Lan Wangji moves convulsively on the bed, tearing an unintended groan from his throat as his throbbing sinews stretch more than they should. He gets up anyway, clumsy and staggering, reaching for a clean robe. “I should go to the Cold Pond for healing. I do not wish to miss dinner tonight.”
“Wangji...” his brother says behind him.
Lan Wangji stops, fastening his robe at his waist, shoulders stiff. “Yes?” he asks, after a few moments.
“Be well soon,” Xichen-ge says.
In the Cold Pond, he finds his mind constantly slipping away from its healing task, like one of the fish darting around his feet between the rocks. This time, instead of memory or even fantasy, it’s an absence he keeps running over, the dark tender blank of last night like the sensitive hole where a tooth used to be. He can’t remember anything for certain, although words and images float up—headband, pillow, mother—just before they flick away again like one of the silvery fish. His head aches, almost as much as his back, and he wishes for something solid, some proof of what did or didn’t happen.
He lets his concentration wander for a moment, and the irrepressible fantasies come racing in, as if they’re more eager for their absence. What if he hadn’t turned away from Wei Wuxian in bed two nights ago, or had kept him in his arms the next morning. What if he’d pressed against him, letting Wei Wuxian feel his hardness, the intensity of his desire. What if Wei Wuxian had wriggled closer himself, pulling Lan Wangji’s hand down to feel his own erection. Had arched back against him, pulling down his trousers, acquiescing. Had murmured, breathy and coquettish, “Yes, but just the—”
And then Wei Wuxian appears.
Lan Wangji’s flare of blind panic when Wei Wuxian stumbles his way into the Cold Pond is like that of a trapped animal, sensing its own imminent destruction. He pulls on a robe, trying to cover as much of himself as he can, as Wei Wuxian keeps talking and talking, about—women? About courting the ladies of Yunmeng? As if Lan Wangji would have the slightest interest, as if his own longings weren’t unwillingly and infuriatingly fixed on this one person alone, who’s grinning broadly, despite being severely beaten just a little while ago, and calling them friends.
It feels like everything that happens to them next is a fever dream, so intense and improbable that Lan Wangji can’t believe it’s really happening. The treacherous pull of the water, and the echoing cave he can’t believe he never knew about, filled with ethereal rabbits hopping and snuffling everywhere. Is this really his home, his clan, his heritage?
He’s brought back to reality in a moment, though, by the sudden threat of spectral guqin’s attacks and Wei Wuxian’s casual, innocent request: “Hand over your headband, Lan Zhan.”
The choice to undo his precious headband and protect Wei Wuxian with it, unthinkable in the daylight, seems like the only course of action in this shadowy underworld. And then they’re bound by his choice, whether or not Wei Wuxian knows what it truly means, whatever Lan Wangji might have done in a drunken stupor last night, however things go from here. Bound by the sacred ties of his clan, and by his own deepest desire made manifest, even if Lan Wangji is the only one who knows about it.
Things get even more improbable when his ancestor appears, hale and alive and full of portents, and then they’re emerging into the sunlight with a fantastically dangerous supernatural item, and Wei Wuxian is crashing on top of him.
Lan Wangji stares. It’s like they’re still in that underground sanctuary together, and he feels the phantom sensation of his headband—his sacred headband—around his wrist, binding him to Wei Wuxian in the most intimate way possible. For just a few breaths, the spell holds.
Reality sharpens and returns when Jiang Wanyin calls their names, glaring at them both as if Lan Wangji had kidnapped his brother instead of being held hostage by strange forces right here in his own home. It’s infuriating to return to such small-minded concerns, when he’s been focused on the alarming history relayed to them by Lan Yi and the insight as to coming troubles, and most of all the urgent worry that Wei Wuxian might run his mouth as usual, spilling everything without a thought.
Wei Wuxian does not. He doesn’t tell his brother, and after they’ve been debriefed by Xichen-ge and Shufu, he doesn’t tell Nie Huaisang either, diverting him with an easy skill at dissembling that Lan Wangji can’t help envying. Relief sweeps through him, and gratitude, and a whole host of beneficent feelings he’s completely unaccustomed to having in Wei Wuxian’s direction—until Wei Wuxian strolls away with his arm draped over his brother, casually degrading Lan Wangji’s clan and his home.
“Surely Lotus Pier is much better. These three thousand family rules would finish me off!”
Lan Wangji scowls, all his good feelings gone in a moment. He doesn’t know why the idea that Wei Wuxian hates Cloud Recesses, could never consider living here, makes him feel so bereft, something beyond indignant defense. They’ve only known each other for the span of a few months, and he’s spent most of it wishing Wei Wuxian out of his sight for good. But when he imagines Wei Wuxian really leaving with happy relief when the lectures are done, turning his back and never returning, he feels an unexpected lurch of sick despair so strong that he turns away, intending to storm off.
Instead, he finds his brother in his way.
“Wangji,” Xichen-ge says, an apologetic note in his voice.
“Yes?” Lan Wangji says, after too long a pause. He hopes the others have left.
“While you were gone,” his brother says. “There was an....incident.”
Lan Wangji waits.
Xichen-ge laughs, slightly false, but still looking amused. “The students were a little too eager in their search. They carried their lanterns into the guest chambers, to look for signs of a struggle, I believe, and the rooms were...damaged.”
“Damaged?” Lan Wangji asks.
His brother coughs. “A fire? A small one, thankfully. But we’ve had to move several of the students into other quarters while they’re being repaired.”
A small, sinking, certain feeling settles in the pit of Lan Wangji’s stomach, like the whirlpool in the middle of Biling Lake full of watery death. He waits for the inevitable.
“We moved Wei Wuxian’s things into the jingshi while you were gone. Until the repairs are completed, it seems reasonable that they—and he—should remain there.”
“How long,” Lan Wangji asks, teeth clenched hard.
His brother spreads his hands with a smile. “Three days? The lectures are nearly over, but the repairs should be completed before then.”
Lan Wangji nods, slight and tight. His brother reaches out to squeeze his shoulder. “I knew you would be a generous host. And it seems that your misadventure has proven useful in more ways than just giving us the Yin iron. The two of you work well as partners now, yes?”
Respect for elders is drilled into Lan disciples from the earliest days, but only extreme love for his brother keeps Lan Wangji from wrenching out of Xichen-ge’s grasp and turning away without a word. Besides, Wei Wuxian and Jiang Wanyin might still be watching.
That night after dinner, he waits in his room with a feeling like he’s preparing for his own execution. He sits at the table and writes out pages of calligraphy, but the old ways of calming himself don’t work like they used to. He has the despairing thought that maybe it was easy to be good when there were no temptations, and that this ordeal has shown him to be nothing like the paragon everyone has always believed him to be. He was prepared for alcohol, for the free and easy ways of other clans, even for teachings that went against the Lan scriptures, but nothing could possibly have prepared him for Wei Wuxian.
He shuts his eyes, and the memories return like the slippery algae at the bottom of a pond, impossible to remove entirely. The way it felt to have Wei Wuxian in his arms in bed, however briefly, close and intimate. Their warm bodies resting together, and the scent of Wei Wuxian’s hair. The terrifying plunge beneath the pond, surfacing to sweet cold air and Wei Wuxian still alive, dark eyes wide in his pale face. Wei Wuxian’s laugh, and the crease in his brow as he thinks things through. The absence of the band at Lan Wangji’s forehead, and the way it wrapped around their wrists, tight and certain, binding them together.
The memories shift and become desires: comfortable heat, skin against bare skin, teasing laughter in his ear. Not too fast. Oh, that’s too much! Be gentle with me, Lan Zhan. And himself, covering Wei Wuxian’s plush and infuriating mouth with his own, their bodies pressed together and his hands on Wei Wuxian’s wrists. Holding him down, taking what he wants. Taking everything.
There’s a sound at his door. Lan Wangji’s grip tightens on his brush.
With shocking abruptness, Wei Wuxian slides open the screen. Lan Wangji does not look up until he hears him remove his boots on the mat and shut the door behind him, again with more noise than seems really necessary.
“Well!” Wei Wuxian says, looking around. “This is much nicer than your guest quarters. Those beds are so hard! I hope yours is softer. But of course Lan-er-gege must have the best...or I suppose the second-best, of course.”
Lan Wangji’s shoulders tense, slightly, beneath his night robes.
Wei Wuxian crosses the room and flops to the floor on the other side of the table, more gracefully than would be expected. He leans his cheek on one hand, tossing his hair back, and blows out a breath.
“Calligraphy? Really? At this hour of night?”
“Mn,” Lan Wangji says, not looking up.
Wei Wuxian watches him work for a while. Lan Wangji keeps his eyes on the page, solely to focus all his concentration on his brushstrokes, not to keep from being captured by Wei Wuxian’s dazzling smile and laughing eyes.
(He can’t see either feature, but he knows what they look like. He knows.)
“Your brush hairs are poor quality,” Wei Wuxian finally remarks. “See, they keep too much water! Half of your characters are running ink.”
Lan Wangji is aware of this, and irritated at Wei Wuxian for noticing.
“Since when do you take any care with calligraphy,” he says, before he can stop himself.
Wei Wuxian laughs, delighted. “Lan Zhan! I write a beautiful hand, when I’m not trying to write as many copies of your ridiculous strictures as I can in a few hours. Besides, since when do you not care? I’ve never seen you write so sloppily before.”
He’s been watching, a small treacherous voice says inside Lan Wangji, and he can’t smother the warm glow he feels.
“The brush is new,” he says stiffly, covering his tumult of emotions. He writes a few more messy characters, just to show that he doesn’t care, and then covers his work and turns away.
“You’re late,” he says. “It’s the hour to retire.”
Behind him, Wei Wuxian groans. “Can’t I sit up a while longer? I won’t use much light. It’s so early.”
“It’s the hour to retire,” Lan Wangji says again.
To his surprise and relief, and then to his consternation, Wei Wuxian makes no further protest and instead simply removes his guan and outer robe and makes for the bed. Lan Wangji’s bed.
He sprawls across it, of course. Arms spread wide, hips wriggling against the mattress. Lan Wangji works very hard to breathe evenly. Wei Wuxian frowns in concentration, and finally thumps the mattress with his hand.
“I think your bed might be harder than the guest beds,” he says. “Why do you all live in such privation?”
“Do not indulge in pleasure,” Lan Wangji says.
“Pleasure,” Wei Wuxian echoes. He laughs, but doesn’t say anything more. Instead he rolls over on his side, pulling the coverlet up to his chin, and somehow it’s more alarming than any rude retort he could have made.
Lan Wangji takes advantage of the privacy and quickly removes his own outer robes, laying them on the dressing table for his attendant in the morning. His hair has already been taken down but he still runs a comb through it a few times, nervously. They’ve shared a bed once before, under extreme duress, but that’s another thing entirely from climbing into a bed that already has Wei Wuxian in it.
At last he blows out the lamp and gets in, as stiffly and correctly as he can. He doesn’t touch Wei Wuxian at all, keeping himself to the extreme edge of the bed, though he can still feel his warmth beneath the coverlet, and the gravity of his weight on the other side of the mattress. He settles his head on the pillow and draws in a deep breath, releasing it slowly along with all the tension in his muscles, the way he has every night of his life that he can remember.
Pleasure, Wei Wuxian purrs in his mind, the word full of filthy insinuation, entirely different from the disbelieving mirth in his voice a few moments ago.
Lan Wangji shuts his eyes harder, squeezing them until it’s painful. This is only a trick of his treacherous imagination, the wellspring of his youth that he’s been cautioned against indulging. It’s taken the face and voice of the boy beside him, for twisted reasons unknown, but they’re not reality. Such things could never truly happen between them, and his secret desires are his alone.
“Are you going to sleep all the way over there?” Wei Wuxian asks, suddenly. “I thought you liked being close to me. You can’t pet my hair from so far away.”
Rage takes Lan Wangji like sudden fever, white-hot heat burning away even his shame. His jaw clenches, hands making fists against his chest, toes curling.
Wei Wuxian was awake, then, that morning in Caiyi Town? And has held this knowledge until now, to mock Lan Wangji? How dare, how dare—
Wei Wuxian laughs, intimate and comfortable. Lan Wangji thinks of Jiang Wanyin, face set in a perpetual frown, always at his brother’s throat. Wei Wuxian often says outrageous things to him, but he always laughs like this after, good-humored and pleased. It’s nearly impossible to imagine, so foreign to the way Lan Wangji was brought up, but it seems that Wei Wuxian thinks this kind of mockery shows—affection?
He seems to be drifting off to sleep now, breaths growing heavier, but Lan Wangji is more alert than ever, despite the lateness of the hour. So Wei Wuxian was awake. He felt Lan Wangji’s attempts to disentangle himself, the unintended caress of his hair. Perhaps he was warm and comfortable too, the pleasurable lassitude keeping him where he was, content to be held. He certainly didn’t pull away, or unleash any mocking comments then. He just stayed where he was, letting Lan Wangji be close to him. Touch him. Rock against him.
Perhaps he wanted more. Perhaps he hoped for it.
A very small, very reasonable voice deep within Lan Wangji tells him he’s taken complete leave of his senses. Or more correctly, that his senses have taken complete hold of him. Physical desire has grown to a phantasm of starvation, rageful and demanding. He wants, in his fingers and throat and belly and thighs, with parts of his body that never felt anything before except the stretch of sword training or the warmth of a bath. It’s a desire that feels less like hunger and more like bloodlust, the madness of battle he’s heard can drive men through walls and battalions. He’s so tired of fighting it; he’s so tired of feeling like he doesn’t know anything. He wants answers, he wants satisfaction, he wants to dare, and to find out.
He rolls over, curling around Wei Wuxian.
Wei Wuxian seems to be near sleep. His body is warm and loose, and he rolls back easily against Lan Wangji, a murmur on his lips. It’s stunning, to deliberately touch another person this way, something Lan Wangji can’t remember doing since he was small. His mouth goes dry, tremors running through his limbs, along with an instinct to shrink away that he battles down. He spreads one hand over Wei Wuxian’s hip, moving slow, as if he’s doing it without meaning to.
“Lan Zhan?” Wei Wuxian says, very soft and very sleepy.
Lan Wangji just sighs, not acknowledging either way. Wei Wuxian doesn’t move. His breaths are still even but they’re fast, as if he’s waking up or disturbed in his dreaming. His hip is so lean and firm beneath Lan Wangji’s hand, all slim strength. Lan Wangji strokes it with his fingertips, catching in the soft linen of his trousers, feeling the close weave of the fabric as it outlines the long muscle of his thigh. Wei Wuxian is so warm in his arms, pliant and relaxed. Lan Wangji has to fight to keep his own breaths steady, his heart pounding in his chest at the liberties he’s taking, the lines he’s crossing.
Is Wei Wuxian asleep? Is he allowing this, is he liking it? What are they doing?
What is he doing?
Wei Wuxian doesn’t say anything, but Lan Wangji still feels the alertness that sweeps gradually through his body as he wakes. The way his hips hitch, just a little, into Lan Wangji’s touch, thigh lifting slightly to encourage him to move down, between. His head lolls back further, until Lan Wangji’s mouth is full of his loose hair. It smells sweeter tonight, less like the common room of an inn and more like Wei Wuxian himself, the scent of his body and some fresh, fragrant oil, watery and clear. Lan Wangji breathes into it, filling it with warmth, a soft net that’s ensnared him.
He should not be doing this, and he does not care.
When Wei Wuxian arches his back again, slightly, Lan Wangji runs his hand up beneath his shirt and onto the bare skin of his belly. It jumps beneath his touch, Wei Wuxian catching a startled breath, and Lan Wangji leaves his hand where it is, just taking in the novel sensation of someone else’s skin against his. Heat transfers between them, building up, and Wei Wuxian breathes faster now. The same aching tension is building in Lan Wangji’s body, where he’s pressed against Wei Wuxian, and he shuts his eyes, feeling the inexorable happening. His cock, flush and rising, hard and unmistakable. His vulnerability felt, his desire known.
“Oh,” Wei Wuxian says, a tiny helpless sound, like he can’t hold it back.
This isn’t anything like his fantasies. Wei Wuxian isn’t teasing or laughing, or doing more than just staying still, letting Lan Wangji touch his body. He gasps when Lan Wangji moves his hand again, stroking over his ribs and belly before sliding down, finding the waistband of his trousers. Lan Wangji’s heart beats in his very throat, waiting for Wei Wuxian to stop him, and when nothing happens he bites his lip and slips his fingers under, finding the secret heat beneath.
He strokes his thumb in the hollow of Wei Wuxian’s hip. The heat, the fine thin skin there. Three more thudding heartbeats and he moves again, tugging Wei Wuxian’s trousers down.
Wei Wuxian buries his face in the crook of his arm and lets out a moan. He doesn’t say stop, what are you doing, just rocks his hips as Lan Wangji works his trousers down until they’re around his knees. Is he playing coy, or waiting to say something devastating? Lan Wangji’s heart beats painfully fast, breath tight in his chest, as he strokes up the smooth long line of Wei Wuxian’s thigh, back over the tight ripples of his abdomen, and then, finally, down, towards that source of heat. Wei Wuxian moans again, a high, shocked note in it, his hips twitching back like he can’t bear the wait.
Surely Wei Wuxian knows that Lan Wangji heard them talking the other day. Surely Wei Wuxian has thought about this with—well, not Lan Wangji, but with someone. He wants it, Lan Wangji knows.
He knows even more surely when he brushes his fingers down the surprising thatch of thick hair on Wei Wuxian’s stomach—lightly, hesitantly, aware of his transgression but unable to stop—and finds Wei Wuxian’s erection with the tips of his fingers. Warm and straining, with impossibly soft skin at the head and a sticky trail at the tip, dribbling over. Lan Wangji groans, held breath escaping his lips.
He abandons himself, everything he once thought mattered, and just gives over to touching Wei Wuxian’s cock, thumbing the spilling wetness and curling his fingers around the hard, hard shaft. Wei Wuxian trembles in his arms, breathing so fast, and lets out a sharp cry when Lan Wangji squeezes him tight, damning them both to something he couldn’t stop if he tried.
“Lan Zhan,” Wei Wuxian breathes.
It’s too much. Lan Wangji releases his hold on Wei Wuxian’s cock and fumbles at his own waistband, yanking his trousers over his erection and down, filled with urgent need. One last moment of stunned hesitation, and then he presses his bared cock right against Wei Wuxian’s ass, letting out a choked moan at the contact. He reaches for Wei Wuxian’s cock again, closing his fingers around it possessively as he begins to rock his hips.
“Lan Zhan,” Wei Wuxian says again, higher, more shocked.
He puts his hand over Lan Wangji’s, grasping his wrist like he’s stopping this, and Lan Wangji catches his breath for a moment in sick anticipation. Has he pushed too far, assumed too much? But no—Wei Wuxian’s hips buck back, rubbing against him, right along the length of his cock. Lan Wangji squeezes his cock tighter in response, and Wei Wuxian groans and does it again, keeping Lan Wangji still as he grinds his hips like he’s chasing the feeling of it, their naked bodies together. The movement opens him up, cheeks spreading enough that Lan Wangji’s cock slips right between, fitting into a heat so startling that Lan Wangji’s breath stops entirely.
This is madness. He can’t—they shouldn’t—but he has to. It’s like a fever dream, being here at last, this place he hasn’t been able to stop thinking about for days. He can’t turn back now.
When Lan Wangji moves his own hips, meeting his grinding rhythm, Wei Wuxian lets out a soft, startled sound and stops, holding Lan Wangji’s wrist tight again. The tip of Lan Wangji’s cock is right there, right there, but Wei Wuxian keeps himself still and tense, panting fast, like he’s only just realized where this is going.
“Just,” Lan Wangji rumbles, the word caught in his throat. Saying it aloud at last feels unreal, and so erotic that it thrums through his body in one poignant pulse. It seems like his whole life has led to this fiery, outrageous moment. “Just the tip.”
“Oh fuck,” Wei Wuxian says, choked, and spasms against him. He takes a harsh, shaky breath, squeezing Lan Wangji’s wrist until the bones grind together. Lan Wangji rocks against him and he rocks back, like an impulse he can’t restrain. “All—all right,” he gasps. “Just the tip.”
Lan Wangji almost comes right then. He goes still, holding Wei Wuxian and his own breath, the universe spiraling around him, and then he begins to move, taking what he wants so badly.
There should be more to this, he knows. Oils and preparations, seduction and time. But there’s slickness between them, his own wetness and Wei Wuxian’s sweat, and he can’t possibly pull away for anything else now. He keeps rocking, shifting his hips, finding the give. Wei Wuxian clutches at his wrist, letting out little moans when he gets it right. It’s strange for Wei Wuxian to be so wordless, the stream of constant backtalk and teasing dwindled away. Lan Wangji is filled with new desires—to pull Wei Wuxian’s hair, to grasp his chin in one hand, to kiss him hard, tongue thrusting into his mouth. To stroke his cock until he’s begging for release, body bowed up beneath his. To have, to have, to have.
His cock slips in further, on one jerky thrust. Just the tip, the thick head making space inside. Lan Wangji knows his own qualities, the things he was born with instead of working for—regal height, full lips, a heavy cock—but he’s never thought of using them with someone else this way. And now—
“Lan Zhan,” Wei Wuxian pants, back arched, hand braced on Lan Wangji’s hip to keep him still. “That’s not the tip. Or else you’re fucking enormous.”
“It is,” Lan Wangji rasps, into his tangled hair. “And I am.”
Wei Wuxian lets out a high whine, sounding utterly overwhelmed, but when Lan Wangji moves again he doesn’t stop him.
Just the tip, just the tip. Lan Wangji keeps to his word. The heat around his cock beckons to him, and he knows he could go just a little further, a little deeper. Wei Wuxian would let him. Wei Wuxian couldn’t stop him. But this is what he wanted, what they both want—gasping breaths, flying on the edge of ecstasy and their own daring, with the tip of Lan Wangji’s cock just inside.
He rocks his hips, using all the fine control of his training. A ripple, an undulation, each thrust a burst of short, tight pleasure, like fruit that’s not quite ripe. Wei Wuxian’s nails bite into his wrist, thumb over his pulse. He’s all restless motion and strangled cries, muffled in his own arm, until Lan Wangji reaches down to give his cock one squeezing stroke upwards and he cries out loud enough to be heard.
“Lan Zhan,” he groans. “Lan—”
His body goes so rigid all over, hips pulling away as his back straightens up. But Lan Wangji follows, pressing into him again, and again, and again, a rocking sliding pounding litany of movement that feels like the only thing in the world, like the thread of a mantra when he’s lost in meditation. It’s such a relief to give in at last, no need to hold back those demanding fantasies any longer, when he has what he wants most. Wei Wuxian, in his arms. Wei Wuxian, letting him in.
He buries his face deeper in Wei Wuxian’s soft hair and rocks his hips, over and over. It’s so good, past anything he could have imagined. Just this tiny transgression, this taste of honey, their bodies close and entwined.
When Lan Wangji strokes his cock again Wei Wuxian only shudders, making a smothered sound like he’s trying to stay quiet. That won’t do. Lan Wangji squeezes tighter, rubbing one fingertip into that soft place beneath the head he loves to touch on himself, those shameful nights when he can’t keep his hands still in the bath. Wei Wuxian lets out a moan, louder but stifled like his lips are pressed together, and Lan Wangji does it again, timing it with a slow and shallow thrust.
“Oh. Fuck.” Wei Wuxian gasps out on two tight breaths.
He draws one leg up, his toes digging into the bed, and pulls at Lan Wangji’s wrist like he’s trying to stop him. But he doesn’t let go, doesn’t move away, even as Lan Wangji is so tense waiting for him to do it. Waiting for this to end, the madness to pass. But it doesn’t stop, this dream in the dark, fucking into Wei Wuxian and stroking his cock, pleasure winding up so sharp and tight.
Lan Wangji’s mouth hangs open as he pants for air, pulse throbbing in his head and heart hammering in his chest. He feels the slick glide of Wei Wuxian’s foreskin every time he moves his hand, the tight catch of his body every time he pushes roughly inside, these filthy intimate things he has no right to but wants all the same. It feels like he’ll never stop wanting them, now.
“I’m gonna come,” Wei Wuxian says, suddenly, the words clear and desperate.
He lets out a short, disbelieving laugh that slurs into a moan. His hips hitch, quick and needy, back onto Lan Wangji’s cock and forward into his hand. Back again, deeper, almost, and then away with a gasp before it’s too much, before Lan Wangji can feel more than a flicker of what could be. Wei Wuxian arches his neck, head pressing back against Lan Wangji’s face, and a low sound builds in his throat, a gorgeous rising hum.
Lan Wangji fucks him, because that’s what they’re doing, they’re fucking. Pops the fat head of his cock into him again and again, stretching him out, forcing himself into that sweet heat. Strokes Wei Wuxian’s cock, slick and straight beneath his hand. Kisses the back of his head, beneath the masses of dark hair, hoping that amongst everything else this transgression will go unmarked.
“Ah!” Wei Wuxian cries out, sharp. He’s so tight and hot and fuck, Lan Wangji could push all the way in, right now, and he’d like it. He’d like it, he’d want it, all of it, he called Lan Wangji’s cock enormous and he took it anyway, but it’s supposed to be just this, just the tip, just the tip, just—
Wei Wuxian spasms even tighter around him and Lan Wangji comes, messy and sudden, so hard that he bites his tongue as he spills everywhere. In Wei Wuxian, on his ass and up his back, on the sheets and down his own thighs and between his knees, the intensity of it a shock. Wei Wuxian is moaning in his arms, shaking with trembling jerks each time his cock dribbles hot come over Lan Wangji’s hand. The scent rises, the sour salty smell of them both. They’re filthy, they’re making noise and a mess and someone might hear, someone might find out, but all Lan Wangji can feel is a clean ringing triumph, everything in his body telling him he’s done exactly what he was meant for. That he’s won.
“Oh,” Wei Wuxian is gasping, brokenly. “Oh, fuck. Fuck.”
There’s nothing to say, and Lan Wangji doesn’t say it. He couldn’t if he wanted to, because the hot frantic madness is passing over and in its place is a need for sleep so crushing that he can only roll over and away, tangled and wet and half-dressed, and close his eyes, surrendering to oblivion. The world fades around him, and he thinks everything’s changed now, and then — no, this is how it’s always been.
Chapter 2
Notes:
Like a hobbit, I come bearing gifts on my birthday.
Thanks so much to everyone who’s been reading, and hope you enjoy the second half!
Chapter Text
In the morning, Lan Wangji wakes early and alone. It should be the same as any other morning, and a relief to be alone on this one, but the disorientation strikes him as soon as he opens his eyes. His trousers are stained, but pulled up to his waist once more, and the dirty sheets next to him are neatly made, as if Wei Wuxian hadn’t slept here at all. As if the whole thing had been merely a shameful wet dream.
Lan Wangji sits up straight in bed, one hand on those telltale linens and the other on his cheek, trying to remember anything past the fall of the dark curtain of sleep. Wei Wuxian must have rearranged things and then quietly slipped out, sometime before dawn. Out of propriety, or out of regret?
His stomach lurches, considering that. He feels even worse all through dressing himself and preparing for the day, and unbearably bad as he starts down the path to the dining pavilion for breakfast. The idea of encountering Wei Wuxian and seeing shame on that sunny, innocent countenance seems awful, like tearing up a meadow of flowers or startling a wild animal.
Wei Wuxian is so free and easy, that to have done something that shocked even him seems awful. Lan Wangji feels the gnaw of regret more with each step, remembering how he let himself give way to his urges. And he couldn’t even do that properly, he thinks; Wei Wuxian fled in shame or disgust at the intimacies they shared, at the unspeakable desire Lan Wangji revealed last night. If Wei Wuxian thinks what they did was wrong, it truly must be.
He pauses, girding himself, on the threshold of the hall, and then steps inside.
The long tables are filled with silent disciples, like any other morning, quietly consuming congee and tea. There’s space for him at his usual place, near the clan elders, and as he walks down the row a face lifts to him, one bright flower amongst all the dark bent heads.
For just a moment, Wei Wuxian’s eyes are wide and worried, like he was caught out doing something he shouldn’t be. And then they crinkle with his usual enormous smile, as he gives a quick and cheery wave, the sleeve of his white robe flapping.
“Hey, Lan Zhan!”
Lan Wangji looks away quickly, confused heat sweeping up his neck. Relief, and something like happiness, which he tamps down beneath his usual stern expression. Everything isn’t ruined and wrong, then.
“I bet you didn’t expect to see me here before you, did you?” Wei Wuxian says from behind him, smug and laughing, and Lan Wangji is off-balance enough that he doesn’t even send a silencing spell as he quickly walks away.
He regains his composure somewhat over breakfast, though not entirely. He does his best to focus on the meal, the taste and texture of every bite, in the way he’s been taught, but it’s hard to keep his mind clear. The images that sneak in aren’t just forbidden fantasies anymore, but visceral memories, suffused with burning pleasure. The feel of Wei Wuxian’s body beneath his hand, smooth and strong and slick, and the sounds when he—when they…
Lan Wangji has to drop his head, swallowing hard. The smell of sweat, his hot rough thrusts, Wei Wuxian’s filthy moans, all seem shocking in full daylight, here in this airy pavilion surrounded by quiet, somber disciples. He wonders, for an awful moment, if someone heard them; what seemed unimportant and even arousing last night is mortifying to contemplate today. It feels like everyone must be able to tell what he’s thinking, how desire is vibrating beneath his skin. He bites the inside of his cheek, willing the thoughts away.
The way Wei Wuxian moaned his name.
He makes it through breakfast somehow, and then leaves without speaking to anyone. He could sequester himself in his room for the day, drilling handstands and guqin chords, but being back in the jingshi will only open his mind to the torrent of memories. He’ll do a walking meditation through the back hill instead, he thinks, and hope the peace of the landscape will wash him clean. Barring that, he can always soak in the cold spring to shock these improper, incongruent desires out of himself.
But Wei Wuxian seems to have had the same idea, or at least he also wants to be outdoors. His idea of leisure seems to be slinging rocks into the trees, startling birds, which is why his back is turned when Lan Wangji comes upon him on the path. It would be so easy to turn around and walk away.
It should be so easy to turn around and walk away.
“Wei Wuxian,” Lan Wangji says, and then, trying it out: “Wei Ying.”
“Oh!” Just like this morning in the hall, Wei Wuxian seems startled at first, but quickly regains his usual jocular attitude. “Lan Zhan. Good morning.”
They stare at each other, standing in the path in the summer sunshine, birdsong in the distance and the scent of warm earth around them. A light breeze rustles the tree branches above and sends slender dancing shadows along the ground. Wei Wuxian’s hair is untidy, his robes tied too low at his waist and nearly dragging in the dirt. Lan Wangji wants to touch him so badly his fingers twitch with it, even in the fist at his back.
“I thought you were Nie-xiong,” Wei Wuxian—Wei Ying says, unnecessarily. “He’s meeting me here to throw stones at birds’—ah, to appreciate the beauty of Cloud Recesses.” He grins, wide and placating.
“I thought you couldn’t wait to be free of this place,” Lan Wangji says.
Wei Ying frowns. “Did I say that?”
Lan Wangji can’t very well say he overheard it, listening to him talk with his brother. “You left my room quickly enough,” he says, flustered. “After.”
Wei Ying’s expression does several things at once, emotions flickering across his face that Lan Wangji can’t track. “After?” is all he says, though.
They can’t possibly be having this conversation outside, so far apart, where anybody might hear them. Lan Wangji takes a few stiff steps forward, eyes darting to the side, and lowers his voice. “After we,” he says, so low that he has to clear his throat. “We had intercourse.”
The words sound outrageous in the open air, and he feels the instant flaming blush rise to his ears, having said them out loud. But Wei Ying just blinks fast, shaking his head. “We didn’t have sex.”
For a moment Lan Wangji thinks he must have completely imagined the entire thing after all, and terrible fear builds in his chest. But Wei Ying is blushing too, eyes darting away, like he knows exactly what they’re talking about. So Lan Wangji says, haltingly, “What do you mean?”
The tension goes on another moment, and then Wei Ying laughs as he tosses a stone in the air and leans back to catch it. “Just the tip isn’t sex,” he says, casual and confident.
“Oh,” Lan Wangji says.
“So don’t worry,” Wei Wuxian adds, tossing the stone higher in the air. “Your virtue is intact.”
“I wasn’t worried about that,” Lan Wangji says.
He says it seriously, the only way he knows how to say anything, but Wei Ying glances at him and fumbles his catch, dropping the stone.
“Good!” Wei Ying says, loudly. “Ah, well, I’ll see you tonight then.”
“Tonight,” Lan Wangji echoes. He pauses, meeting Wei Ying’s eyes deliberately, and says, with intent, “You’ll have to tell me exactly what constitutes…sex.”
He trips slightly over the coarseness of the last word, and Wei Ying’s eyes go wider. Wei Ying bends to pick up the stone he dropped, and Lan Wangji sees him swallow quickly, his throat working. When he straightens up again, he’s wearing a hard, cheerful expression.
“Oh, I’ll have to?” Wei Ying asks, and then he scoffs, a laugh that sounds forced. “You’ll have to make me.”
The heat that sweeps through Lan Wangji is exactly matched by the flush that spreads across Wei Ying’s cheeks. They stare at each other, blood pounding in Lan Wangji’s ears so he can hardly hear, Wei Ying looking like that wasn’t what he meant to say but not taking it back.
“Wei-xiong!” Lan Wangji hears from behind him. “You didn’t wait for me.”
He turns to see Nie Huaisang, shuffling along quickly in his billowing robe. He’s carrying a slingshot in one hand, tangled with his customary fan, and he looks surprised to see Lan Wangji.
“Aiyo, you take too much time over breakfast!” Wei Ying says to him. “It’s not like there’s anything worth savoring.” His laugh this time is short and sharp, directed at Lan Wangji like his usual gibes.
Nie Huaisang stops, panting. “If we want to catch—” He glances at Lan Wangji, wary.
Retreat is the only possible course. Lan Wangji makes an abbreviated bow and turns his back on the two miscreants, choosing not to learn what they’re up to this time. He has other things to think about.
“Make me,” Wei Ying says in his memory, a hundred times that day.
Lan Wangji wades deeper into the Cold Pond, submerging his shoulders, gritting his teeth against the pain of the icy water. “You’ll have to make me,” Wei Ying says to him.
Each time there’s more of a challenge, more teasing flirtation in his eyes, more of a dare in his words. Wei Ying won’t go so easily this time, letting Lan Wangji have his own way. Lan Wangji will have to make him.
But Wei Ying will let him do more than just put in the tip, Lan Wangji realizes, with a dizzy rush. He’ll have to fight for it, but Wei Ying didn’t say no.
Maybe he’ll undress them both, Lan Wangji thinks. Tussle with Wei Ying the way he’s seen him roughhouse with the other boys. Yank his hair and shove him onto the bed, pulling a startled cry from his lips. Hold him down by the back of his neck and strip off his belt, his trousers, his robe. Grip Wei Ying by the wrists, writhing beneath him, and show off the extent of his own hard-earned strength, holding him pinned with just one hand. Lean in close to his face, their breath mingling, watching the knowledge in Wei Ying’s eyes that he’s well and truly trapped.
Lan Wangji thinks of squeezing Wei Ying’s wrists as he tries to get away, pressing him into the bed, and the pang of desire in his chest is acutely painful, making him clench his teeth even harder.
No. As good as that is, better still for Wei Ying to do it himself. He wants Wei Ying to have to show how much he wants this, instead of just letting it happen to him.
Lan Wangji shuts his eyes and sinks in cold water up to his chin, abandoning himself fully to the fantasy. Now he’s lying on his back on the bed, knees drawn up. Wei Ying straddles his waist, hands braced on his chest, mirthful eyes for once darkened by uncertainty. “Do it,” Lan Wangji murmurs to him, hands encircling his hips. “Take it all.”
In his imagination, Wei Ying gasps a little, hips wriggling in Lan Wangji’s hands like he’s trying to move away. But Lan Wangji doesn’t let go, just stares up, letting Wei Ying know he means it with a fierce squeeze of his hips. Wei Ying doesn’t have a choice; he has to do what Lan Wangji says. (For…reasons. Lan Wangji has also abandoned realism at this point.) Wei Ying’s rosy mouth falls open as he starts to move down, and now it’s a groan that comes from his lips when he makes contact with Lan Wangji’s cock.
“Lan Zhan,” Wei Ying whines. “It’s too much.”
“Take it,” Lan Wangji says, fiercely, and in his mind Wei Ying does. Whimpering as he goes, loose hair coming out of his updo and sticking to his sweaty brow, bitten lips falling open and eyes scrunched shut, he takes all of Lan Wangji’s slicked-up, thick and throbbing cock, his legs trembling with the effort of going slow. Lan Wangji never lets go, never looks away, just giving encouragement under his breath. “That’s good. Take more. You can take more. Keep going. Take it all, Wei Ying.”
He’s hard, despite the mountain chill of the water. It would be wrong, so wrong, to defile the sanctity of this place by touching himself. Lan Wangji presses his legs together, hands clenched behind his back. He imagines Wei Ying’s gasping relief when he finally moves all the way down, their hips flush together and Lan Wangji’s cock inside him. Not just the tip this time but the entire thing, filling him completely. He imagines how Wei Ying’s cock would be hard and straining and pink, and the way his eyes would fly open, chest heaving with startled breath, when Lan Wangji wrapped his hand around it, the way he’s wrapping his hand around his own cock now—
“Wangji!” his brother calls out, pleasantly.
Cloud Recesses has never seemed as small as it has these past few days. Lan Wangji whips his hand behind his back again and stays where he is, breathing steadily, letting the hectic pulse of arousal die down. His awareness of the frigid water rushes back in, and he gets a full-body shiver, something he hasn’t felt here since he was small. Once again he feels out of control, physically and mentally, like he’s in the grip of something outside himself.
He’s composed again by the time Xichen-ge reaches the water’s edge. Lan Wangji comes to meet him, rising from the pond and letting the water sluice off his shoulders and pull at his trousers, with only a slight worry there might be anything noticeably different about him now. He doesn’t want to feel changed around his brother.
Xichen-ge frowns at him, concerned. “Are you still not recovered from your discipline session? I thought your back was feeling better.”
“It is,” Lan Wangji says, not wanting to lie, even as it complicates things. Xichen-ge should not be concerned about him. “I was meditating.”
“Oh,” Xichen-ge says, and smiles. “Well, I was just coming to see if you wished to take afternoon tea with Shufu and me.”
Lan Wangji thinks of his uncle’s tea parlor, the still, airless, unchanging peace of it. Once he longed to stay in it forever, like an ornament on a shelf, immortal and correct. Today he can hardly bear the thought of being there.
“I had thought of sword drills in the afternoon,” he says. It’s not a lie; he did think about it, even if he wasn’t planning on it.
Xichen-ge just nods, amiable as always. “It’s a rest day,” he says. “But I won’t dissuade you from your work. Did you sleep well last night?”
Only the lingering chill of the pond and immense physical control keep Lan Wangji’s entire neck from bursting into a fiery blush. “Mn.”
“Wei Wuxian is a good bed companion?” his brother presses. “I know it’s taken him some time to accustom to our ways.”
“Mn,” Lan Wangji says again. His gaze becomes unfocused, resting somewhere beyond his brother’s shoulder, and he thinks, as always when meditating, of a perfect, pale jade sphere. Exactly what Wei Ying’s ass must look like bared, something traitorous whispers inside him, and he pushes it aside with an effort. Wonderful, now he needs a new meditation focus, on top of everything else.
“Wangji?” his brother asks, with that slight frown of concern again.
“I slept well,” Lan Wangji says, stiffly. He adds, truthfully, “Wei Wuxian rose before I did.”
“That’s a surprise,” Xichen-ge says, and smiles. “I hope that means he rose early, not that you slept late. It’s good that he’s learning,” he says, before Lan Wangji can respond to his little joke.
“Mn,” is all Lan Wangji can say.
“I’ll leave you to your work,” his brother says. “See you at supper?”
He turns to climb the hill path again, and now Lan Wangji actually does have to get dressed and go drill with his sword. The heat of the day is becoming oppressive, and he’d rather be back in the cold pond or reading poetry in the library or even in his uncle’s tea parlor, but instead he retrieves Bichen from his room and goes to the training yard. Unsurprisingly it’s empty, and he doesn’t see Wei Ying anywhere either.
As he moves through the old, familiar steps of the first exercise, he can’t help but wonder where Wei Ying is now. Still bothering birds with Nie Huaisang? Or perhaps they’ve climbed further into the back hill and gone wading in the streams, chasing after the flickering silver shadows of the fish Lan Wangji has never tasted. It’s hard to imagine spending his day in such unstructured leisure, impulsively deciding how to spend the next shichen, with no goal beyond pleasure.
He swings his sword until his arms ache, dripping with sweat that makes his robes cling to his shoulders and back. The hottest part of the afternoon has come, along with droning cicadas that make him feel sleepy and out of place, the only moving thing in all this still and dusty yard. He returns home again with some trepidation, but the room remains empty as attendants bring him a bath. Lan Wangji soaks in it, drowsy and irritable, one arm along the wooden side of the tub and his chin resting on top. Everything in his life is just as it should be, the solitude and the work, but he feels the same restlessness he has for days now. All summer, if he’s honest with himself.
“Make me,” Wei Ying says in his mind. “Make me, make me, come on and make me.”
His hands at Wei Ying’s waist, holding him in place. His cock thrust deep inside, full and aching. Wei Ying’s frantic breaths, every rocking downward shift of his hips betraying his desire to be taken. To be held. To be made.
Lan Wangji spends, in the bath, without even touching himself. White globules like water lilies, suspended in the warm water for a moment before sinking down, into the dark and shameful depths.
At dinner, he speaks with the elder on his left and no one else. He eats at a measured pace once the meal begins, never lifting his eyes from his bowl. After, he does not linger, but takes the path home, watching the lights of the jingshi come closer with every eager step. He’ll be safe there, and go to bed early, leaving it up to Wei Ying whether to pursue this madness further, to follow up on his outrageous words. Perhaps he will actually be asleep when Wei Ying comes back, and never have to decide at all.
When he opens the door of the jingshi, he finds that Wei Ying has had the exact same plan. He’s already curled up in bed like he was last night, dark hair catching the light from the one lit lamp, facing away from the door. As he enters, Lan Wangji can’t tell from the rise and fall of his shoulder whether he’s really asleep or not.
He undresses with deliberate but speedy care, extinguishes the lamp, and bets on “not.”
To speak would be to break the delicate spell. Like last night, Lan Wangji moves onto his side and fits his body against Wei Ying’s beneath the coverlet, fighting the slight recoil of contact once again. Wei Ying smells like river water, the tang of earth and stone, his hair like hot sun. Like Lan Wangji’s home.
When Lan Wangji puts a hand on his hip, Wei Ying doesn’t move. Lan Wangji leaves it there, for two heavy, portentous breaths. “Tell me.”
“Tell you what,” Wei Ying says, after a moment, tightly.
“Tell me when to stop,” Lan Wangji says. “If we go too far. Tell me…” He swallows, adjusting his grip, the cloth of Wei Ying’s trousers catching beneath his sweaty palm. “Tell me when we’re having sex.”
“Oh,” Wei Ying says, sounding winded.
“I will stop,” Lan Wangji promises. “I will stop whenever you ask.”
Wei Ying laughs, small and high. “You haven’t even started yet.”
Lan Wangji knows a challenge when he hears one. He’s learned a lot of things about Wei Ying, and he knows when he wants something, even if his words seem to say the opposite.
For all that, his hand is nearly trembling as he rubs it over Wei Ying’s hip, rucking up his undershirt so he can get at the waistband of his trousers. The enormity of the potential before him is alarming, the freedom to try anything from his fantasies until Wei Ying says stop. The cascade of images from his daydreams flashes through his mind once again—pushing, pulling, holding, biting—and then he makes himself still his hand, taking a deep breath. He can have what he wants, if he follows one simple directive.
Make me.
“Is this too far?” Lan Wangji asks, slipping his hand beneath Wei Ying’s trousers, cupping his behind. Smooth like a jade sphere—stop that—but warm and alive.
“What?” Wei Ying asks. “No, of course not. We did—” He cuts off his own words. We did more last night, Lan Wangji hears.
“Mn,” Lan Wangji says. “So anything we did last night…was not sex.”
“Oh,” Wei Ying breathes. Lan Wangji is stroking his ass now, circling with the flat of his hand, letting his fingertips brush the crease. “Yeah. Sure.” He doesn’t sound like he knows exactly what he means by that.
“All right,” Lan Wangji says, and reaches for the massage oil he left by the bedside this morning.
Wei Ying gasps when Lan Wangji tugs his trousers all the way down. He lets Lan Wangji take his trousers off and push one leg forward, exposing him behind, but he hisses when Lan Wangji’s fingers push between again. They’re slick with oil, and Lan Wangji strokes up and down a few times, spreading it around.
“Too much?” he asks.
This time Wei Ying just shakes his head against the pillow. He breathes faster as Lan Wangji works his fingertips inside, beginning to slick him up. Lan Wangji watches him carefully, the quick rise and fall of his chest, how his body flinches with every deeper touch. How far can they go? Lan Wangji tightens his jaw and pushes one finger all the way in, slow but steady. Wei Ying lets out a sharp little cry, his voice catching roughly, and Lan Wangji holds still, waiting for him to pull away. He doesn’t.
They didn’t do this last night. Wei Ying doesn’t stop him.
“Is this sex?” Lan Wangji asks. His voice sounds heavy, low.
Wei Ying moans. It feels like Lan Wangji is holding him so intimately, hand filled with the roundness of his ass and finger buried in his heat. “No,” he whispers.
Lan Wangji begins to move, withdrawing his finger. It’s slick and secret, the way Wei Ying’s body pulls at him, opening up again when he pushes back inside. Something for them alone, something no one else has ever had. For all Wei Ying’s bravado and boasts, he knows this surely with every thrust, from the choked groan that Wei Ying keeps swallowing down and the way his hips follow the motion of his hand, hitching but helpless.
He leans in closer, nosing away the tangled hair falling over Wei Ying’s shoulder, and mouths at the back of his neck. They haven’t even kissed yet, and he wants that too. He wants everything he can get.
Wei Ying’s hair is in his mouth, and Wei Ying shudders beneath him. Lan Wangji licks over his nape, tasting the musk of his skin, and pushes his finger in deep, squeezing Wei Ying’s ass hard. His senses are filled, scent and touch, warmth and this shocking closeness, another person near him after all these years. The want that pours through him suddenly feels like too much, something unseemly and wrong, more than he’s supposed to have. He’s overflowing with this hungry ugly desire, and Wei Ying is burning up in his arms, like something delicious he just wants to consume.
Lan Wangji bites him. Wei Ying makes a noise, jerking in his arms, but he doesn’t pull away and Lan Wangji doesn’t stop, tonguing the delicious salt of his skin, breathing in his hair. Lan Wangji’s teeth scrape against the back of Wei Ying’s neck, and he fights the urge to bite harder, to eat him right up, limp and dazed here in Lan Wangji’s bed.
“Lan Zhan,” Wei Ying is moaning, far away. “Lan Zhan.”
With a desperate gasp he lets go, twisting his head back and removing his hand. His heart is pounding, and the cold pulse through his veins is all shame shame shame, horror at what he just did and thought. He’s frozen with it, sick and immobile, and when Wei Ying half rolls over to look back, a thrill of fear goes through him, the enormity of his unacceptable desire finally known.
“Lan Zhan,” Wei Ying says. His eyes are half-lidded, his lips so red and slick. It’s everything from Lan Wangji’s most persistent, forbidden fantasies. “Why did you stop?”
They stare. Lan Wangji can’t speak. Wei Ying licks his lips and it rises between them, so clear and sharp it’s like it already happened, the hard collision of an unstoppable, inevitable kiss.
Instead, Lan Wangji heaves in a strained breath and pushes Wei Ying over onto his side, reaching for his own waistband. Wei Ying arches back against him with a whine, as Lan Wangji pulls his own trousers over his straining erection and kicks them down. He fumbles for the oil behind him and spills it across the sheets, heedless. He fists his cock with it roughly, with quick squeezing strokes before he pops his foreskin down to free the slick and sensitive head and push it against Wei Ying.
This is what he’s supposed to do. This is what Wei Ying wants, to be made. What Wei Ying will allow, if he takes it.
Despite his touches, Wei Ying is still tight inside, and like last night Lan Wangji has to work his way in, heart pounding the whole time as he waits for Wei Ying to stop him. It’s awkward at first, the oil making things slippery but not easy, until he finds a rhythm with his hips, slow deliberate rolls. His cock shoves in deeper with each one, and Wei Ying cries out every time, reaching down to hold Lan Wangji’s wrist with that same desperate grip.
“Oh,” he gasps, almost soundless, all panicked breath. “Lan Zhan. You’re—oh, fuck. Fuuuuck. Oh I can’t—we should—Lan Zhan.”
Lan Wangji stops, more than halfway inside. He’s breathing almost as hard as Wei Ying, sending desperate pulses of crazed desire through his whole body. He feels crazed, on the edge and unraveling, undone. He can’t believe what he’s about to say.
“Do you want me to stop?” he rumbles, so low his throat aches.
Wei Ying whimpers in response, grip going tighter. “I don’t know. Is that—just the tip?”
“No,” Lan Wangji breathes, into the curve of his neck.
“Then,” Wei Ying says, weakly. “We should—we should…”
He doesn’t finish. Lan Wangji kisses his shoulder, pulling his loose shirt aside with his teeth. Wei Ying arches his neck, letting him in, and Lan Wangji bites him under the ear. He stays there a moment, his own hot breath reflected back at his face, spit sliding from his mouth and down Wei Ying’s neck. He licks over Wei Ying’s skin with one dragging flick of his tongue and then lets go to whisper in his ear.
“Do you want me to stop,” he says again, very quietly.
He knows, he knows that Wei Ying does not. He knows he will stop if Wei Ying asks him to. He knows that Wei Ying won’t.
After a long time, silent except for their own harsh breaths, Wei Ying squeezes Lan Wangji’s wrist, letting out a soft whimper.
Lan Wangji starts to move again.
Wei Ying lets out a guttural moan, sounding as undone as Lan Wangji feels. There’s still a ways to go but Lan Wangji has the rhythm now, the pulsing pressure of his hips that works his cock inside, down where Wei Ying is so hot and so tight. He doesn’t want this to be easy. He wants Wei Ying to resist, to feel the challenge, to let him in at last. He wants to win. He wants to win Wei Ying.
“Oh that’s it,” Wei Ying sighs out, when Lan Wangji’s hips finally come to rest against him, their bodies flush together. “I can’t take any more. Please. Tell me that’s it.”
Lan Wangji kisses his shoulder, giving himself time for a calming breath. “I am all the way inside of you.”
Wei Ying makes a punched-out sound, his legs moving together restlessly on the bed. Lan Wangji finally takes his hand off Wei Ying’s hip, stroking down his thigh and then up over his belly and chest, kissing the sweaty curve of his neck. Wei Ying’s body feels so good beneath his fingers; the firm lean muscles, the heat of his smooth skin. He tugs Wei Ying’s shirt up more so that Wei Ying’s back is bared against his own belly, hungry for the shock of contact. Every press of their bodies together sends a jaw-clenching shudder through him, transgressive and exquisite.
“This is sex,” Lan Wangji murmurs, into Wei Ying’s hair. “Tell me it is.”
“Yes,” Wei Ying says, faintly. He sucks in a gasping breath as Lan Wangji finds his nipple with the pad of his finger, caressing the soft nub.
“You said you’d let a man put in just the tip,” Lan Wangji says. He flicks Wei Ying’s nipple, relishing the way it stiffens and how Wei Ying bites down on a cry, going tight around his cock. “You know that I heard you that day in the courtyard. But this is more. This is—fucking.”
“I,” Wei Ying breathes.
“You’re letting me fuck you,” Lan Wangji says, every word heavy, a golden lustful glow thrumming to his toes. “I made you, but you let me.”
He doesn’t let Wei Ying finish whatever choked words are caught in his throat. He reaches for Wei Ying’s hip, holding him still with a crushing grip, and pulls out in one long steady movement. He pauses there, just on the threshold, every feral desire and modicum of better sense warring within him, and then thrusts back inside, hard and deep.
“Fuck,” Wei Ying gasps, loud and strong. He groans as Lan Wangji pulls out to do it again, and that’s it, this is happening.
They work together, is the marvel of it all. After the first few thrusts Wei Ying’s knees find purchase against the bed, and he lets go of Lan Wangji’s wrist to brace himself with his hand, too. When Lan Wangji rocks back in, Wei Ying’s eager hips meet him, driving him deeper. It’s like mock swordplay, every move perfectly choreographed, the give and take of it a dance they both know.
Wei Ying keeps being loud, nothing like last night’s stifled pleasure. He cries out with every thrust and soon Lan Wangji does too, trying his best to muffle it against Wei Ying’s shoulder but feeling like the sounds are torn from his very root. It feels so good, that slick tight pressure on his cock, better than his own hand or anything he could have imagined, and knowing it’s Wei Ying that he’s fucking drives him wilder as it goes on. Wei Ying’s strong and willowy form, his familiar scent, his teasing voice gone hoarse with cries, that disrespectful Lan Zhan turned from an irritating goad to a stinging brand that sets Lan Wangji’s cheeks on fire to hear.
“Lan Zhan,” Wei Ying moans. His back arches sharply as Lan Wangji thrusts in, hips slapping against Wei Ying’s ass. “Ah, Lan Zhan.”
Lan Wangji wants to tug Wei Ying’s hair, yanking his head back, and he does. Wei Ying moans louder. He wants to see Wei Ying’s face, he has to, and he stops, so suddenly that Wei Ying keeps rocking in their old rhythm, expecting another thrust, and whimpers when one doesn’t come.
“What—” Wei Ying asks, confused, as Lan Zhan pulls all the way out, and then Lan Zhan grasps his shoulder and pushes him flat on his back.
“This,” Lan Zhan breathes. He climbs on top of Wei Ying, shoving a knee between his legs, and leans down close to his face, intending to claim that kiss at last.
And stops.
“What?” Wei Ying asks again, concerned and sharp. His hands go to cradle the sides of Lan Wangji’s face, fingers tangling in Lan Wangji’s hair. His brow creases, eyes wide. “Lan Zhan?”
Lan Wangji feels frozen, unable to move. Wei Ying looks exactly like he hoped, like he dreamed, tousled and ravaged and disarrayed with want. Lan Wangji made him look like that, held him down and took exactly what he wanted. What they both want. He doesn’t know why this last intimacy seems so impossible, like a final transgression when everything else was just a challenge to win.
Beneath him, real worry sweeps across Wei Ying’s face. Those lovely phoenix eyes flick back and forth, studying Lan Wangji’s face in the dark, and he pulls his reddened lip under his front teeth, charming in their oversized protrusion. The good humor and sweetness Lan Wangji has grown to cherish are lost in the sudden awkward hesitance, which is all Lan Wangji’s fault.
It’s been a battle until now, he realizes. Reading Wei Ying, seeing how far he could go, what he could take. But this, he needs Wei Ying to really want. To want him.
“I,” he says, and then presses his lips shut, over all the half-formed words he isn’t sure how to say. Or whether they would be welcome, or understood. “Wei Ying,” he says instead, soft and helpless.
His heart is still beating so hard in his chest that Wei Ying must feel it against his own. His hands are propped on the bed above Wei Ying’s shoulders, halfway on his hair, slippery and warm beneath his fingers. Their lower bodies are pressed together, as Lan Zhan straddles Wei Ying’s thigh, and there’s an answering throb to match his heartbeat in his still-hard cock. Wei Ying is breathing fast, every inhale making his chest swell against Lan Zhan. He swallows, his throat working.
“Lan Zhan,” he whispers, and then a lightning-quick smile flashes over his face before he pushes his fingers deeper into Lan Wangji’s hair and pulls him down into a kiss.
Oh, Lan Zhan thinks. His eyes fall shut and it feels like there’s a roaring in his ears, an irrepressible tidal wave of pleasure rolling through his whole body. Wei Ying is kissing him. He’s kissing Wei Ying. Oh.
Getting this right is harder than sex, somehow. It’s a dry kiss at first, a press of lips, and then they both open too wide, mouths misaligned. They part and try again, kissing deeper. Wei Ying laughs when Lan Wangji’s teeth catch his bottom lip, and then groans when Lan Wangji sucks at it for a moment, pulling it into his own mouth. It’s easier after that, warm and slick, like some meal that’s delicious in a way Lan Wangji has never tasted before. Wei Ying’s hands move in his hair, sliding and caressing, and he finds himself grinding down against Wei Ying’s hip before he remembers what they were doing.
“Wei Ying,” he murmurs, into his mouth, and grinds again, suggestive.
“Mm,” Wei Ying says, nodding. He tips his head back, breaking the kiss, and spreads his legs wider.
Lan Wangji gets up on his knees, puts a hand beneath each of Wei Ying’s thighs, and lifts at the same time as he presses the tip of his cock against Wei Ying’s hole. It’s too dark to see clearly, and he wishes he could, to see the evidence of what he’s done.
He doesn’t think he’ll ever forget the raw, desperate sound Wei Ying makes as his cock slides in, perfect and sure. Wei Ying curls in on himself as he cries out and Lan Wangji encourages it, pressing his knees back almost to his chest. He lifts Wei Ying’s ankles over his own shoulders, undulating his hips to work his cock in even deeper.
“Oh,” Wei Ying groans, pulling hard at Lan Wangji’s hair, spilling around them like a curtain. His feet flex in the air, and he clenches down on Lan Wangji’s cock. “You’re in me, you’re all the way inside.”
“Yes,” Lan Wangji breathes.
“You’re so deep,” Wei Ying pants. “Who knew you were so fucking big. Fuck, there’s no room for anything else. I can hardly even breathe.”
Lan Wangji can’t help the glow of pride he feels at those words, at the way Wei Ying is pulling him closer despite them. For a moment, he entertains the thought of trying to work in a finger alongside his cock, pushing Wei Ying even further, but his own body’s needs are too strong. He pulls out and thrusts back inside, shallow but fast. He sets up a quick pace, chasing the rich pleasure that feels like spilled honey, thick and so sweet his teeth ache with it. No second thoughts, no hesitation now, just hungry needy fucking, with heedless panting groans falling from his mouth that don’t seem like his own voice. That can’t be him, answering Wei Ying’s shameless pleading with such deep, rough assurance, filth easy on his tongue now.
“Like that,” Wei Ying gasps. “Like that, fuck me just like that.”
“Yes,” Lan Wangji promises. “I’ll fuck you just like this.”
“Don’t stop.”
“I won’t.”
“Don’t stop.”
He means to say I won’t again but the pleasure is beginning to choke him and he has to ease off, slowing before it becomes too much, ending this too soon. Wei Ying lets out a half-sob of displeasure, arching beneath him.
“Kiss me,” Wei Ying begs. He tries to lean up to catch Lan Wangji’s mouth but his own legs are between them, holding him down. “I can’t—please—”
It takes an awkward effort, but Lan Wangji leans back enough to let Wei Ying’s legs slip off his shoulders, and then descends on his mouth again. This time he knows what to do, and what he can have. Wei Ying’s strong arms around his shoulders pull him in, and their kisses are desperate and devouring, as he keeps rocking his hips. Wei Ying’s tongue is sweet and nimble, darting against his, and Lan Wangji thinks he doesn’t need air, doesn’t need anything but this, drowning in the best way imaginable.
Wei Ying pulls away at last, gasping like he’s surfacing from a lake. He clutches at Lan Wangji, fingers finding his ass and digging in hard to keep him close. Lan Wangji kisses Wei Ying’s cheek, his ear, his throat, teeth scraping over soft skin, sparking off something wild inside him. He feels it again, that desire to bite and hold, marking and possessing. Spit gathers in his mouth, hunger turning into need, and he fucks in harder, trembling with the exertion of holding back. Of being good.
“Lan Zhan,” Wei Ying moans, and it feels like he’s trembling too. “It’s so much. Tell me you’re close.”
He needs to come so badly it feels like he’s going to die from it. “Yes,” he says thickly, into the curve of Wei Ying’s neck.
Wei Ying squeezes his ass. “Do it,” he says hoarsely.
Lan Wangji grasps after the last vestiges of control, a twisted, ludicrous urge for propriety still in his head. “I have to—you should finish first.”
“Lan Zhan,” Wei Ying whispers in his ear, hotly. “I want you to come in me right now.”
It’s like a dam bursting in spring. “Oh,” Lan Wangji gasps, and fucks his Wei Ying until he sees sparks behind his eyes, until he’s buried in a lava flow of hot heavy ecstasy, smoldering and overwhelming. Last night didn’t feel like this, nothing has ever felt like this, their shared, smooth motion building into something shimmering and poignant, tender like the soft secret places of their bodies. With a shudder Lan Wangji realizes it’s Wei Ying’s core he feels, their meridians merging in the sublime moment, running together like spilled pools of molten gold.
He keeps moving through it all, the extraordinary wonder of it, and then it recedes, like the last pink wink of the summer sun disappearing behind the hills. One moment he has a thumbnail sliver’s worth of Wei Ying’s essence, his wild sweet goodness, and then they’re retreating back into their own selves, a soul in each body with just the memory of more.
A long time later, it seems, he finds himself washed up on shore, face buried in Wei Ying’s hair with a strand wound round his fingers, murmuring words he doesn’t understand. Wei Ying breathes beneath him, tempestuous and uneven, hands clasped possessively over the small of Lan Wangji’s back. There’s something in the air, like the tang of smoke after a wildfire or the memory of early morning frost after the day’s heat has melted it away. An absence, a promise.
“Wei Ying,” Lan Wangji murmurs, feeling like his throat has been scorched.
To his surprise, Wei Ying tenses beneath him and then draws his feet up on the bed, rolling them over with easy strength. Lan Wangji ends up on his back with Wei Ying above him, an arm braced across Lan Wangji’s chest and a grin sneaking across his face, behind tumbling hair that he shakes aside.
They look at each other. The heat in Lan Wangji’s body is all simmering affection now, a longing for closeness and touch, things he’d never thought to feel for anyone in particular ever again. Things he’s tried not to feel, smoothing them down with every other longing that arises, manicuring himself into the paragon he’s supposed to be. That he needs to be.
Wei Ying kisses him again, and every thought leaves his head.
“I still need,” Wei Ying breathes against his mouth, contorting his body to work one hand down. He moves up on his knees, giving himself space, and lets out a little cry when he manages to get his hand around his own still-hard cock, trapped between their bodies. Lan Wangji comes back to himself enough to help, rocking his hips up to grind against Wei Ying. He wraps his hand across the back of Wei Ying’s neck, holding him close and kissing him harder, and Wei Ying cries out again when he squeezes his neck tight, pulling him in.
“Lan Zhan,” Wei Ying gasps between kisses. They’re moving together, all purpose and no grace, and Lan Wangji can feel his back stiffening, arching up.
He puts his other hand on Wei Ying’s bare ass, nails digging in as he holds him steady. Wei Ying cries out sharply, bites Lan Wangji’s lip, and comes, spilling hot liquid pulses all over Lan Wangji’s belly as he thrashes in Lan Wangji’s arms. He squeezes Lan Wangji’s softening cock inside too, forcing it out with a warm gush of fluids that flows down to soak the sheets. Lan Wangji holds him through it, tasting his warm wet mouth and breathing his heavy breath, feeling the sunburst of ecstasy like a mirror of his own. He wonders, for a dazed moment, if it will always be like this, if now that their souls have touched, some part of them will always remain with the other.
And then there is silence, and stillness. Wei Ying’s slender weight on him grows heavier, the air cooler, the unsaid words louder. The moment, longer.
In his arms, Wei Ying moves, but only to bury his face deeper in Lan Wangji’s shoulder.
“You,” Wei Ying breathes. “You’re so much. I’ve never—have you?”
Lan Wangji shakes his head, nose tucked into Wei Ying’s hair.
“Of course not,” Wei Ying says, with a tremulous laugh. “If you’d done this with anyone else they wouldn’t have survived. You’re so much.”
At his words Lan Wangji jerks his head up, making Wei Ying do the same. They stare at each other in the dark. His face must be wearing that old, too-serious expression, the one he never even intends to make, because Wei Ying’s eyes widen before he relaxes into a smile.
“It was good,” Wei Ying says, tipping his head to the side, and oh how Lan Wangji’s insides quiver at the roughness in his voice. His intimate tone, his familiar look, things that enraged him to the point of violence just a few days ago.
“Good,” Lan Wangji says, or echoes.
“I liked it,” Wei Ying says, lowering his voice to a whisper and looking to the side, coyly. How does he do that, slip into those liquid, flirtatious expressions, charm flowing from him like a river, Lan Wangji wonders.
“Mn,” Lan Wangji says. Wei Ying looks back at him expectantly, and he forces out a few more words. “I liked it too.”
Wei Ying laughs, delighted and deep, so that Lan Wangji can feel it. He arches up, stretching, and rolls off gracefully, landing on his side. Coolness rushes in where he was, and Lan Wangji takes in a deep, unencumbered breath, fighting at the bite of sudden panic. They aren’t touching anymore.
And then Wei Ying stretches once more and pushes up to rest his head on his hand, foot sliding forward to hook over Lan Wangji’s calf. He smiles, bright even in the dark.
“I would worry that I’ve corrupted the Second Jade of the Lan Clan,” he says, voice still deliciously low and rough. “Except he seems to know a number of things I never taught him.”
Lan Wangji’s ears burn. He says, throat thick, “The libraries of Cloud Recesses are extremely well curated.” He can’t resist adding, “With better illustrations, too.”
Wei Ying laughs, quieter this time, and shakes his head so that his loose hair brushes against his arm. “Still. Lan Er-Gege is a prodigy indeed, to perform so well without practice.”
Looking at him steadily, summoning every ounce of composure, and thinking that himself of a month ago would be outraged at the words and everything else about the situation, Lan Wangji says, “So is Wei Ying.”
He’s surprised by Wei Ying flinging himself down against his shoulder, arm coming across his chest. Surprised that he doesn’t recoil this time, accepting the closeness, welcoming it even. Surprised to find himself here at last.
“Lan Zhan,” Wei Ying whispers in his ear. “That day in the courtyard, when you saw Nie-xiong and me with the spring book…what did you hear?”
Lan Wangji licks his lips, careful. It feels harder to say aloud, now that the passion of the moment has cooled. “That you would let a man…penetrate you. With just the tip.”
He feels the warm puff of Wei Ying’s laugh. “You have to do a better job of being an interfering busybody, Lan Zhan. That’s not what I said at all.”
“No?” Lan Wangji says after a moment, hoping that his voice doesn’t betray the sick clench of his heart.
“Ah, Lan Zhan,” Wei Ying sighs. “If only you’d eavesdropped with the same dedication you give to your studies. When I spoke those words…I wasn’t talking about being penetrated.”
A beat. A breath. A ringing in his ears.
“Oh,” Lan Wangji says. The heat in his ears has never left, and now it sweeps down his neck and over his body, just like the first night Wei Ying climbed into his bed. An inexorable, instant arousal, hot and pulsing, mindless and urgent. Images roar through his mind like a firestorm, new and shocking and all so very tantalizing.
“It turns out, I like being penetrated very much,” Wei Ying is saying, rattling on in that mischievous, maddening way of his. One of these days Lan Wangji will seal his mouth again just for his own good. Or at least Lan Wangji’s sanity.
“But you know,” Wei Ying goes on, terribly. “It’s important for young cultivators to keep an open mind, and experience as much of the world as possible. Isn’t it?”
Lan Wangji is incapable of speech, as if he’d sealed his own mouth with a spell. Wei Ying’s hand creeps across his chest, palm smooth and warm against his bare skin, resting over his heart.
“What do you think, Lan Zhan?” Wei Ying murmurs in his ear, wicked and intimate and full of rich promise, setting every hair on his body on end. “Just the tip?”
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