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“I can't believe them!”
The cup slams down on the low table with a ‘clack’.
“It is indeed surprising how the situation has escalated,” says Lan Xichen, who is seated on a floor cushion adjacent to Jiang Wanyin in one of the smaller pavilions behind the main house. In his case though, he still looks calm as he takes a sip of his own wine.
They have taken to drinking together during Lan Xichen’s visits to Lotus Pier. A recent habit, one that even began when Jiang Wanyin learned that the Lan clan leader can tolerate his alcohol—something about drinking with Lan Wangji in his time of mourning, and then briefly, recently, whenever he could leave Cloud Recesses, to help with his own grief. Jiang Wanyin invited him to Lotus Pier then and offered him their best plum wine. It is sad, after all, when a grown man drinks alone.
“Escalated?” asks Jiang Wanyin now. “Practically everyone in the cultivation world is convinced we are cultivation partners!”
It is hands down the most ridiculous thing to have happened in… well, perhaps not too long considering that they were only a few years past the time the news came out that the Yiling Laozu was: one, alive again; two, not actually the bad guy; and three, was a cut-sleeve and was cultivation partners with none other than the esteemed Hanguang-jun.
Jiang Wanyin squeezes at his temples. “Unbelievable. Did you know that Clan Leaders Yao and Ouyang congratulated me about it this morning? I never even knew they could be so open-minded about two men being cultivation partners.”
“I suppose we have our brothers to thank for that,” says Lan Xichen, still with that wretched calm. “With Wei-gongzi and Wangji traveling so often, people must have grown used to seeing them.”
“Shameless, that's what they are. Did you know he—”
Jiang Wanyin stops. Wei Wuxian is out traveling with his husband again, but not before catching Jiang Wanyin before they left to give him “advice”.
Said advice involved not only deeply personal and maddeningly incorrect assumptions about Jiang Wanyin’s relationship with Zewu-jun (“Jiang Cheng! You’ve liked him since we were teens! Why did you go about it so slowly, I even married Lan Zhan faster than you—and I was dead!”), not to mention the logistics of acquiring premium oils for the purpose of—of—
“He what?” prompts Lan Xichen, when Jiang Wanyin stopped speaking.
Jiang Wanyin groans. No, they were certainly not things he wants to be thinking about now. Stupid Wei Wuxian.
If his ears are burning, at least he can blame the wine.
“He should trip and fall on a fierce corpse’s ass, that’s what he should do!” Jiang Wanyin declares as he tips back another cup of wine.
If Lan Xichen is surprised by the outburst, he doesn’t show it. Instead, he smiles, sits back and just watches him, as still as the lake surrounding them. In the silence, the gentle evening breeze coaxes water ripples against the lotus leaves softly rustling, with the occasional slap of fishes swimming near the water surface. High summer in Yunmeng also means the constant sound of cicadas, but Lan Xichen hardly looks bothered by any of them.
“Uncle has spoken to me, too,” he says, breaking the peace.
Jiang Wanyin nearly spat his wine. “He what?”
Lan Xichen’s lips twitched into an amused smile. “It’s fine. I think at this point, few things can faze him, what with Wei-gongzi in residence with us.”
“What did he say though?”
“He only asked if I got the idea from Wangji. But I think the question was rhetorical.”
“Fuck.” Jiang Wanyin pinches the bridge of his nose. “I owe Master Lan a box of tea and our best lotus seed cakes. Maybe a crate.”
This time, Lan Xichen laughs—a gentle, soft sound. “I do not think that is necessary, but Uncle would like that if you do. He does love the tea you send.”
Jiang Wanyin shakes his head. “Did you know Jin Ling was upset with me because he—and I quote—had to find out that his uncle was dating Zewu-jun through Ouyang’s boy? He said his friends from the Lan Clan also know.” He gave a pointed look at Lan Xichen. “Did you know this about your disciples as well?”
Lan Xichen’s eyebrows rise. “Ah. Well. If he means Jingyi, then perhaps I am not all that surprised.”
“He mentioned Sizhui, too.”
“I suppose he is Master Wei’s boy now, too.”
Jiang Wanyin throws up his hand, resigned.
There is a lull after that. Never unpleasant, as such things never are between them, as they soon found out shortly after their more recent acquaintance.
Granted, even after years of knowing each other, they built a friendship only much later, after events at the Guanyin temple, and after Lan Xichen’s seclusion. Jiang Wanyin had been the one to reach out first, which was unusual for him, but after everything he now knew about the First Jade, the compulsion had been difficult to deny. Jiang Wanyin, after all, knew enough of loneliness to know what it looked like. He also heard enough from Wei Wuxian—yet another relationship rebuilt only recently—to know that Lan Xichen perhaps left seclusion earlier than he should have, as he did indeed look still wan and pale the first time Jiang Wanyin saw him again. But that is yet another thing that Jiang Wanyin knows too well: that sense of duty, a reluctance to take more time for oneself than what is absolutely necessary.
They've both gotten better at that, over the years. He likes to think these meetings help. Now, at least, Lan Xichen looks healthier, his old composure returned. There is color to his face that the wine has done well to heighten, so that his cheeks and even the tips of his ears blush a becoming red. Even close to 40, truly not even the years have dampened the First Jade’s beauty.
“Does it make you wonder, though?”
Jiang Wanyin nearly jumps. He shakes himself from where his thoughts were—no doubt planted there by all these rumors and that recent conversation with his brother.
Anyway, Lan Xichen is good-looking enough for poems to have actually been written about it. That observation is perfectly objective.
It takes a while for Lan Xichen’s earlier words to register. Jiang Wanyin frowns when they do. “Wonder about what?” he asks.
Lan Xichen’s eyes remain on his cup. He is as still as he ever has been, but the color on his face makes it so as though there is heat radiating from him even as he thinks about whatever it is he is thinking about.
“All the talk,” says Lan Xichen eventually. “The rumors. Do you wonder where they came from?”
“If I find out where they came from, I will give them a piece of my mind and maybe a taste of Zidian.”
Lan Xichen’s lips make that tiny twitch of amusement again. His eyes lift up to Jiang Wanyin. “Does it bother you though,” he asks again, voice now softer, “what they say about us? Like right now, with just the two of us, are you uneasy at all knowing what people are saying?”
Jiang Wanyin frowns at the question. “What we do in our own time is our business,” he tells Lan Xichen. “They should be ashamed to even be gossiping about it at all!”
Lan Xichen smiles, and his shoulders even seem to relax. “That is good to know. I cherish our time together, after all.”
At this, Jiang Wanyin looks away. He lets the view of the water distract him, takes a sip of wine for good measure, to hide the way those words light a fire under his skin.
Lan Xichen sometimes gets like this. Jiang Wanyin wonders, not for the first time, if this is how the man really is like—open, warm and honest. It must be how someone as fierce as Nie Mingjue from distant memory, or even Jin Guangyao, for all the terror he brought down on them all, two people who were so different, were still both charmed enough by Lan Xichen to have wanted a friendship with him, enough even to be sworn brothers.
“Jiang Wanyin, I—”
Jiang Wanyin turns back to him. Surprisingly, when their eyes meet, Lan Xichen seems to falter, and he does not speak. One hand lays visible against his lap, fingers curling as though they are just a moment short of clutching at the other clan leader’s robes.
Jiang Wanyin waits, but Lan Xichen takes too long.
“Spit it out,” he says, though not harshly.
A small wince crosses Lan Xichen’s face all the same. His head tilts to the side. “I’m not sure I should say,” he carefully says.
Jiang Wanyin pours himself a new cup—an attempt to keep his face away, his expression neutral. Lan Xichen watches him do it, but if he’s thinking that filling Jiang Wanyin's cup should’ve been something he did, well, Jiang Wanyin is not going to wait for Lan Xichen to remember common courtesies to get his next mouthful of wine.
He should not be hurt or offended if Lan Xichen filters himself around him. He shouldn’t. He’s a grown man for heaven’s sake, and anyway, people probably have good reason to filter around him. He's fairly sure as well that Lan Xichen does it with others all the time, and it's foolish to think he would be different for Jiang Wanyin.
Still—doesn't mean he enjoys knowing about it.
He can feel the way Lan Xichen’s eyes flit over his face. Watching. Observing. He does that, reading people, and he’s better at it than Jiang Wanyin will ever be. Jiang Wanyin leaves him to it.
Eventually, Lan Xichen sighs. “It’s not that I want to keep it from you,” he says, unsurprisingly able to read him and knowing to appease. “I just worry—that it is because of something that I did.”
At this, finally, Jiang Wanyin looks back at him. “What do you mean something that you did?”
“The rumors. What people say.” Lan Xichen’s eyes drift down, to his cup on the table. “When they see me with you, maybe that is how they got the idea.”
Jiang Wanyin’s mouth opens. Closes. He frowns.
What?
“W-Why would they get the idea from you?” he asks, for lack of anything more coherent to say.
Lan Xichen sits back and sighs again, this time not without some exasperation. “Jiang Wanyin,” he says, the sound low, in that quiet, deep voice of his. “Think about it. What do you think it means?”
Think about it, he says.
A long time ago, a lady from another clan threw wine on Jiang Wanyin’s face. She called him blind, rude, unable to read the room and even less able to filter himself enough in the presence of a lady. All things true, and they are things that caused Jiang Wanyin endless trouble over the years. The only person he doesn’t seem to consistently offend is Lan Xichen, who sits facing him now having turned slightly on the pavilion floor.
Jiang Wanyin is not good at reading people. He’s not good at reading situations, but at the same time, there is enough of what Lan Xichen said—that he thinks the rumors are because of him when he is around Jiang Wanyin—for Jiang Wanyin to guess at least one thing.
But that cannot be possible.
He is distracted enough by the idea that he misses it when Lan Xichen moves. The alcohol must have gotten to him because he does not move as gracefully as he usually does, but he still does it fast enough that he now sits closer to Jiang Wanyin that their knees touch. He leans over, hands on the floor beside them, and there is heat and intensity to his gaze that was not there before.
“I am going to confess something,” says Lan Xichen, voice low as though speaking in confidence, nevermind that there is hardly anyone who would bother them here. “I hope I won’t regret it in the morning, just as I especially hope it does not summon Zidian on this otherwise pleasant evening.”
Jiang Wanyin opens his mouth to speak, but finds nothing forming once again, still distracted by the words spilling from Lan Xichen’s mouth and their sudden proximity. Lan Xichen’s eyes look bright in the low light, lit gold by the lanterns with some silver from the moonlight reflected in the water. They flit to Jiang Wanyin’s mouth and linger there.
Jiang Wanyin is not sure if it is the wine, or the light, or the absolute ridiculousness of this night, but suddenly he cannot look away.
You’ve liked him since you were a teenager. Why did it take you so long?
Because he didn’t think there was ever any chance in this world, that’s why.
He doesn’t know who closed the distance. Lan Xichen leaned in, definitely, but he did it slowly, carefully, taking long enough for Jiang Wanyin to lose any chance of claiming he never had the chance to stop him the longer the moment stretched. And then finally, finally, their lips touch, warm and soft and wine-sweet, their breaths warm between them as one of them gasps at the contact.
It starts out tentative, as all first kisses do. Just a press of lips, a testing of compatibility, movements minute as they try to sense what the other likes, figuring out how to breathe. Even so, it feels no less sweet, not when Lan Xichen slowly finds Jiang Wanyin’s hands on the floor, and pulls them so Jiang Wanyin is taken along, leaning forward towards Lan Xichen’s kiss.
Then—Lan Xichen sighs. His lips part, coaxing Jiang Wanyin’s to mirror the movement. A sound escapes Jiang Wanyin as Lan Xichen licks into his mouth like he is chasing the taste of wine. He pulls Jiang Wanyin’s arms so they wrap around Lan Xichen’s neck, and the kiss deepens then, Lan Xichen slanting the kiss so his mouth fits better with Jiang Wanyin’s. His hand is warm on Jiang Wanyin’s cheek, thumb tracing the sharp edge of his jaw, warm and tender.
Jiang Wanyin couldn’t say how long they kissed. Every moment they parted for breath is sealed back with lips meeting, the air around them warm and sweet with their breaths and the scent of plums and just that sharp edge of alcohol. Emboldened by it, he let his teeth scrape over a plush lower lip and then soothed it with his tongue. He hears the sound Lan Xichen makes, notes the way his fingers curl tighter around Jiang Wanyin’s nape. His other hand wraps around Jiang Wanyin’s waist, settles on his lower back, pulling him closer.
Jiang Wanyin’s breath catches. His fingers tighten where they rested on Lan Xichen’s shoulders, and he tilts his head and kisses him deeper.
It’s dangerous how much he wants more.
“You said you have something to confess,” Jiang Wanyin forces himself to say. His breaths are shallow, and his fingers clutch at Lan Xichen’s robe like a lifeline. “What were you going to say?”
Slowly, reluctantly, Lan Xichen pulls away. He does not go far, his forehead resting against Jiang Wanyin’s as they each catch their breaths. His eyes find Jiang Wanyin’s—they really do twinkle in the golden light—though really they are too close to be seeing each other clearly.
It’s close enough at least to see Lan Xichen’s smile.
“I like you,” Lan Xichen says, on an exhale, which even dissolves to a charming laugh. “If that is not yet obvious. I have liked you for a while now.”
Jiang Wanyin can feel his face flush, which is rich considering what they have just been doing. He leans back to more comfortably look at Lan Xichen's face. “Why didn’t you say anything?” he asks.
Lan Xichen smiles. “I meant what I said when I said I cherished your friendship and company,” he says. His hand moves to brush hair out of Jiang Wanyin’s face, his touch warm and gentle. His thumb slowly settles and brushes Jiang Wanyin’s cheek. “And I suppose, I’ve always admired you, even before that. For your strength, the things that you have achieved, the way you get things done. You have become quite a formidable clan leader—it’s a little intimidating.”
Jiang Wanyn scoffs. “You?”
Lan Xichen? Zewu-jun—intimidated by Jiang Wanyin? The very idea.
The smile on Lan Xichen’s face turns bemused. “Why not? You don’t think you’re intimidating?” He shakes his head. “I guess there is also that I didn’t want to burden you with it. It took us years to become friends, and that… that has meant more to me than words can say. I need not tell you why, for you know the story. You were there."
The temple. Of course. The first time Jiang Wanyin saw Lan Xichen break, when the truth about his sworn brothers came to light. That time as well was when the truth about Jiang Wanyin's golden core was revealed, one that Lan Xichen also heard and witnessed.
A night of secrets revealed, and a time when they learned more about each other than either of them might have preferred to say. You can never really go back after that.
"I thought actually that that might be why you reached out to me back then. Whatever your reasons, I thought it was thoughtful of you—the letters, the gifts, the news that I have missed in the long months of my seclusion."
Softer now, that smile. “I also like that about you,” Lan Xichen goes on to say, “that you can also be kind. I’m not sure many know that.”
“Right, that’s enough,” Jiang Wanyin immediately says. He’s not sure how much more embarrassment he can take.
He pushes Lan Xichen and moves so he could sit straight, but Lan Xichen catches his hand and stops him.
“Wait, Wanyin—”
And just like that, somehow they are kissing again. The surprise and confusion pass quickly for Jiang Wanyin, because this time Lan Xichen’s kiss is more insistent, and Jiang Wanyin would be embarrassed by how quickly his mouth opens to Lan Xichen. It is as though their earlier kisses were sufficient practice, and now Lan Xichen knows how to kiss Jiang Wanyin in a way that would make his knees buckle had they been standing.
Without breaking the kiss, he pulls Jiang Wanyin, coaxing one leg over Lan Xichen’s thigh so they can press closer. One hand cups Jiang Wanyin’s jaw, fingers skirting the hairline at his nape, thumb brushing against the sensitive back of Jiang Wanyin’s ear in a way that pulls a sound—between a gasp and a moan—from him.
Flushing now to the roots of his hair, Jiang Wanyin pushes him again.
“What are you doing!”
It is a consolation, at least, that Lan Xichen looks a little dazed, pushed from a kiss he probably intends to take longer. His skin is flushed and his lips look red and wet from kisses, and Jiang Wanyin just knows his brain is committing the image to long-term memory.
Lan Xichen has the grace to look sheepish. “Sorry. You were moving away.”
“So you kiss me?” Jiang Wanyin asks, incredulous. “Lan Xichen, and here I thought it was your brother who was the shameless Lan.”
“Sorry.”
“You don’t look sorry.”
Lan Xichen smiles. “No, not really.”
Jiang Wanyin groans. In that moment, a thought occurs to him, and he turns back to Lan Xichen. “We are not telling people this happened after the rumors,” he says firmly.
Lan Xichen blinks. “No?”
“No,” says Jiang Wanyin. “They’ll gloat. Or claim they knew it—or worse, take credit. I’m not giving them the satisfaction.”
Lan Xichen laughs, a real one, quiet and warm. It softens his face, where the red is even still high on his cheeks. It makes him look younger, and as handsome as ever.
“Of course,” he says gently. “We’ll let them wonder.”
Jiang Wanyin looks at him—at the softness of his gaze, the fondness sitting there as he patiently returns Jiang Wanyin’s gaze.
Jiang Wanyin is not used to this. Over the years, maybe, especially when his letters turned into gifts exchanged, then visits, to one another’s places, and many, many conversations in between. He can still remember it clearly, that first time Lan Xichen—not Zewu-jun, not Clan Leader Lan or even the First Jade—stepped into Lotus Pier with no agenda other than to see Jiang Wanyin, because he asked, and because he said Lan Xichen would be welcome. However beautiful Jiang Wanyin had thought him then, no matter how nervous he had been to have him there, he never thought of Lan Xichen as anything more than a friend, and that Jiang Wanyin, in turn, would just be one of many other friends and acquaintances.
He had never had anyone to call his own, who would sit still because Jiang Wanyin wanted him to, because he wanted him there.
Cultivation partners.
Is it truly possible?
Something in him shudders and sets into place all at once.
All the while, Lan Xichen sits, infinitely patient, a soft smile on his lips. He blinks slowly back at Jiang Wanyin, as though being stared at by Sandu Shengshou is not something that has had weaker cultivators running, or had women crying foul, citing rudeness or even, in a particularly horrific encounter, indecency. Lan Xichen has a calmness to him that has always worked well with Jiang Wanyin, even in their youth, when they weren’t friends and Jiang Wanyin hated everything and everyone. Faced with Lan Xichen however, it was like opening a window to cool, morning mist, one to breathe in, take the rage down.
He is pulled back to present when he catches the way Lan Xichen’s eyes drift down—to Jiang Wanyin’s lips, lingering, before moving back to his eyes.
Jiang Wanyin takes a breath. Right, so maybe not quite infinitely patient.
With a roll of his eyes—half exasperation, half fondness, nervous all the while—he pulls Lan Xichen by the front of his robe. There is much yet for them to discuss, but he quiets down that part of his mind, pushes it for later.
That is a problem for daylight. Here, now, under gentle moonlight, his heart yearns for something else.
“Fine,” he says, leaning in so his lips brush Lan Xichen’s as he spoke. “One more.”
Lan Xichen’s gaze shifts to something soft, more private, just for him.
“Like I said,” he says, just short of a whisper, eyes already trained on Jiang Wanyin’s lips. “Jiang-zongzhu is kind.”
He then leans down, and seals the kiss.