Archive of Our Own

"Yeah, but..Lan Zhan?" Wei Wuxian winces as he says it. "First of all, he'd never agree to it."

"He already has," Jiang Cheng snaps. "He's very...filial."

"He's very something," Wei Wuxian says, rolling his eyes. "So you're telling me he'll do anything that uncle of his tells him to do?"

"Pretty much," Jiang Cheng says. "Just because you never listen to anybody doesn't mean other people don't make an effort to live up to familial expectations."

"And how'd that work out for you, Jiang Cheng?" Wei Wuxian shoots back, then immediately feels bad, making a face and reaching out for him. "Sorry, that was...sorry."

Jiang Cheng just blows his breath out and rolls his eyes right back at Wei Wuxian. "Stop being an asshole," he says. "You're lucky this is being set up for you. Do you know how many people would die—literally die—to get the chance to be betrothed to Lan Wangji?"

"Betrothed." Wei Wuxian rolls the word around in his mouth. "It even sounds stupid. I don't want to be betrothed to anybody. I don't like anybody enough to be tied up in an angry, loveless marriage for the rest of my life."

"Not all marriages are like that!" Jiang Cheng gives his shoulder a shove. "But I guess step one would be you not being a jerk, which is clearly impossible."

"Boys."

They both jerk around at the gentle, chiding voice of shijie as she enters Jiang Cheng's rooms, where Wei Wuxian had definitely not gone in order to hide out.

"Stop yelling at each other," she says. Her tone is stern but her mouth still has the same tug to the corners, like she can't quite hide the smile that always wants to come out. "I can hear you all the way outside."

"Sorry, shijie." Wei Wuxian mutters it, and sort of means it. She's moving a little slowly—he knows her morning sickness has been really knocking her sideways. He honestly can't, even now, four months in, believe his sister is pregnant. Is going to have a baby. It seems unreal. "But this is so stupid. Why are we even talking about this? What's the point? He's never going to do it."

Shijie sits down beside him on the bed where he's sprawled. "Sit up," she orders—gently, but he does it. She straightens his robes, tugging the collar into place. "We're not talking about it anymore."

"Oh, good!" Wei Wuxian feels a surge of relief. "That was quick, phew, okay, moving on!"

"A-Xian." She's looking at him and her eyes are soft and full of love and...excitement? "We've received official word. They've agreed. We're moving forward with the betrothal."

Wei Wuxian actually feels all the blood drain out of his face. "They what?" he says hoarsely.

"Damn," he hears Jiang Cheng breathe behind him. "That was fast."

Shijie rests one hand over Wei Wuxian's. "Our sect has a driving force to create an alliance with the Lans," she says. She sounds practical, and serious. "The fact that they have moved forward this quickly speaks well of you. They are committed to making this match."

"But." Wei Wuxian stops. His heart is beating loud in his ears. "I don't want this match. I barely even know Lan Zhan." It's a lie, and they all know it. Sure he knows Lan Zhan, but not enough to marry the guy.

Shijie looks at him. "You know him well enough to call him by his given name," she says pointedly.

"I just do that because it makes him mad," Wei Wuxian mumbles. "It doesn't mean anything." This can't be happening. He can't bring himself to truly believe this. "It's just another thing he hates about me."

Shijie shakes her head. "He doesn't hate you," she says, squeezing his hand.

"Oh, trust me," Wei Wuxian says. "He really does." He really does, is the thing. He's never liked Wei Wuxian and honestly, after a while, Wei Wuxian stopped trying to make it happen. He just kept annoying Lan Zhan as best he knew how, because at least then, Lan Zhan couldn't ignore him—honestly, Lan Zhan's ability to just completely pretend Wei Wuxian doesn't exist is definitely one of the many infuriating things about him.

"He doesn't," shijie says firmly.

"And even if he did," Jiang Cheng breaks in. "Even if he did, we need this." He gets up and moves over to the bed, sprawling down beside Wei Wuxian.

Wei Wuxian looks at him balefully. Even in his fancy sect leader get up, all fine purple silks and extensive embroidery, he's still just...Jiang Cheng underneath it all. He looks like he did when he was sixteen—Wei Wuxian knows he's been in charge of the Yunmeng Jiang ever since his parents were killed in a boating accident, knows he's been running it with very few hitches, knows that he's respected and lauded throughout the sects, but he's also just...Wei Wuxian's shidi, who is pretty much constantly irritated with Wei Wuxian. "You really don't," Wei Wuxian shoots back. "You're doing fine, we don't need to get all roped in with—"

"We do." Jiang Cheng says it flatly. "You would know this, if you ever attended a sect meeting."

"I go to meetings," Wei Wuxian mutters. He does. He has. They're just full of some of the most pompous people he's ever had the dubious pleasure to meet.

"You go to meetings, but you don't pay attention. It's like you're not even there." Jiang Cheng snaps it out, but he's rubbing his forehead like he has a headache. When did the line between his eyes get so deep, Wei Wuxian wonders? He looks...tired. Really tired. "We do need this. We need the alliance. We're not strong enough, Wei Wuxian." His jaw is set and he tilts his head so he's looking over at Wei Wuxian, an exhausted glare in his eye.

"We need this." Shijie's voice is soft, but firm, as she echoes Jiang Cheng. "We need this, and you know it, a-Xian."

"We can work harder," Wei Wuxian argues. "We can do better, I can do better, I'll—" He blows out his breath. "You just never said, you never said it was going to come to something like this."

Jiang Cheng sighs. "It wasn't exactly the first plan," he says tiredly. "We knew we needed an alliance. You know we've been meeting with the Lan contingent regularly."

"They're the ones who suggested it," shijie says. Her hand is soft against Wei Wuxian's. "That's part of why it's moving so quickly."

"They suggested it," Jiang Cheng repeats. "We were just asking for a mutual aid treaty and it was pointed out that it would be more expeditious to create a constant alliance."

"They suggested it?" Wei Wuxian is bewildered. He'd known something was going down, of course he'd known something was going down. He sees things; he knows things; he pays a lot more attention to sect matters than Jiang Cheng thinks he does. But he hadn't known that this was even something that was in play. "They think the best and most forthright plan is to marry one of the Twin Jades of Gusu Lan to...me?"

Jiang Cheng arches an eyebrow. "Trust me, I know how insane it sounds. But it's true."

"Who suggested it?" Wei Wuxian demands.

"A-Xian," shijie says, in that tone that absolutely demands that he look her in the eye. "It was Lan Wangji himself."

Wei Wuxian stares at her. "That cannot be true." He knows it comes out breathless, because his chest is tight and there really isn't, somehow, enough air in the room for him to catch his breath.

"It was." Shijie looks over at Jiang Cheng, who shrugs in confirmation. "I would never lie, a-Xian. Lan Wangji is the one who said it."

"I know you wouldn't lie, of course I know you wouldn't lie." Wei Wuxian feels like the worst brother in the world. Maybe he is the worst brother in the world. He's always causing trouble, always getting in fights, and now he just called his pregnant shijie a liar, which has to be some sort of a new low. Though he can always find new lows, that's one of the very basic things he knows about himself. "I know you wouldn't, but—how? How did he say it?"

Jiang Cheng pushes himself up off the bed. "Are you serious right now?" he asks. "Do you want to know if he blushed as he asked for your hand in marriage? Hanguang-jun, I mean—you know, the one you definitely don't care about, because he doesn't even like you. That Hanguang-jun?"

"Shut up," Wei Wuxian says. "Shut up, shut up, I just wanted to know if he said it like..." He's actually not sure what he's asking. It's not like he thinks Lan Zhan said it like he meant it, like he actually wants to get married to Wei Wuxian, like he means it as anything more than just what it is: an alliance. What's the word Jiang Cheng says he used—forthright? Right. It's just a forthright plan. Expeditious.

"He'll follow through," Jiang Cheng says. He sounds tired. "Whatever else, he won't renege on this."

Which is also a problem, out of many. Lan Zhan doesn't back down once he's made a decision. Which means this is a sure thing. Lan Zhan fully intends to marry Wei Wuxian.

Which is, of course, insane.

"Why me?" he bursts out.

Jiang Cheng looks at him. Then he looks at shijie. Then he shuts his eyes and lets himself sit back down heavily on the bed.

"A-Xian," shijie says in a chiding tone. "Would you have Jiang Cheng marry Lan Wangji?" She lets a small grin slide out. "Or me?" She has her hand resting gently on the small swell of her belly.

Wei Wuxian sighs and flops backwards on the bed. "Jiang Cheng would be the most forthright choice," he says bitterly. It's true, even though what's also true is that Lan Zhan seems to hate Jiang Cheng even more than he hates Wei Wuxian.

"That was never even in play," Jiang Cheng says, muffled, because he's rubbing his hands over his face. "He wants you."

"He doesn't." There isn't any way there is anything to do with want about this. No one wants Wei Wuxian. His face feels hot and his thoughts are a jumbled mess and he just wishes things were—that everything was different.

"A-Xian." Shijie slips her hand into his. "It's a good match," she says. "We wouldn't force you to do this—"

"Wouldn't we?" Jiang Cheng mutters.

"—but I really do think this will be okay. You will be okay. Give it a chance. You've only just found out. Let the idea of it settle, okay?"

Wei Wuxian stares down at their hands and takes a shallow breath, and then another. He finds a smile somewhere and pastes it on, looking up at his shijie. "Okay," he manages. "You're right." He takes a somewhat deeper breath. "Of course I'll do it," he says. As though he has a choice.

"Beautiful." Jiang Cheng pushes himself to his feet. "Let's go meet your betrothed."

"Oh god." Wei Wuxian stares up at Jiang Cheng. "I don't want to see him." He can't. He can't, it will be so weird, he can't look at Lan Zhan and see how—he's going to hazard a guess—exhausted Lan Zhan will look at the idea of being saddled with him for the rest of his life.

"Yeah, well." Jiang Cheng is standing impatiently near the door. "You're going to."

Shijie starts to get up, which means that Wei Wuxian needs to bounce to his feet so he can help her, taking both of her hands and tugging her gently to her feet as she giggles up at him. "I'm not made of glass, you know," she says. She leans up on her toes, Wei Wuxian bending down so she can reach to kiss his cheek. "Thank you," she says softly, patting his cheek with one hand. "It will be okay."

"Of course it will." He forces another smile. "I'm always okay."

It's just so weird, Wei Wuxian thinks. He stares across the table, at Lan Zhan's haughty expression. Lan Zhan is not exactly refusing to make eye contact with him but when he looks at him, it's icy in a way it hasn't been in a long time. It's not like they don't know each other. It's not like they haven't been through a lot together. This feels like Lan Zhan is reverting back to the days when he genuinely hadn't been able to stand the sight of Wei Wuxian. Wei Wuxian knows that Lan Zhan doesn't actually hate him—he does know that—but now, he's sort of questioning the whole thing. Everything he thought he knew seems a whole lot less certain in the face of Lan Zhan suggesting they get married. Lan Zhan, suggesting they get married, and then shuttering himself up, every part of the Lan Zhan Wei Wuxian thought he had known gone missing behind that stiff, stern expression.

He'd sort of thought they were meeting to, like, negotiate or something, but no, this is what would be the usual step of literally having the two of them meet for the first time. Only he knows Lan Zhan, and Lan Zhan knows him, and he'd thought there was maybe the possibility that they were friends, but that seems impossible now.

"It will be a brief courting period," Lan Qiren says firmly.

Great. That is just...so great. Lan Qiren is talking about the courting period for Wei Wuxian and his nephew. And perfect. Lan Qiren wants to keep it short. He doesn't even look that mad about it. Wei Wuxian would expect his mouth to look like he'd eaten sour grapes, but he just looks the way he usually does at any sect meeting: intense and ready to have a fight at any moment, like he can hate Wei Wuxian all he wants, but when it comes down to it, politics is politics. Lan Qiren excels at politics.

"The Jiang sect agrees," Jiang Cheng says, like a traitor.

Wei Wuxian glares at him across the table, but Jiang Cheng ignores him, fully in sect leader mode: back straight, jaw set, eyes focused on Lan Zhan's uncle across the table.

This is ridiculous.

"The ceremony takes place here, in Lotus Pier," Lan Qiren continues. "And they'll return to Cloud Recesses shortly thereafter."

Fuck. That's...fuck, that's right, Wei Wuxian's brain hadn't gotten there yet, but of course they'd live in Cloud Recesses. This union is to provide the Jiang sect with a powerful alliance, not the other way around. Jiang Cheng thinks Wei Wuxian doesn't pay attention in meetings, but he does. He does, he just hates to look closely at how weakened the sect is right now, how Jiang Cheng is struggling to build it back up after the loss of his parents. This is Lan Zhan stepping up out of—what had Jiang Cheng called it? Filial duty.

So of course Wei Wuxian is going to be carted off to Cloud Recesses.

Jiang Cheng's expression doesn't change but Wei Wuxian can tell he's relieved by the fact that the ceremony will be taking place here. It will be a show of strength for the Jiang sect, to have the Lans arrive en masse for the event.

There's more talking, more negotiating, but Wei Wuxian lets it all filter into his brain without really paying attention. He's focusing on Lan Zhan, staring at him across the table, trying to unpack why he would agree to this. Why he would suggest this. That wasn't Lan Zhan; that had to have come from his uncle. It had to have. None of this makes any sense, none of this reads as true.

Lan Zhan's not looking at him. His gaze is fixed on the middle distance and he looks, if anything, bored.

Bored.

Wei Wuxian resists the impulse to slouch, to let himself lean back insouciantly, to make himself look as disreputable as possible. He wants to do it too badly and realizes that means it's probably exactly what Lan Zhan is expecting. Instead, he sits up straight—he was raised correctly, he does know how to behave, when he chooses. He keeps his hands folded, his expression flawlessly benign, and his eyes on Lan Zhan.

Lan Zhan refuses to look at him. Not even a flicker of a glance.

The negotiations wrap up—it feels abrupt, but Wei Wuxian has been listening with half an ear and he's pretty sure it's just that neither Lan Qiren nor Jiang Cheng have any patience for pointlessly prolonged meetings. A lot has been negotiated here and Wei Wuxian is going to sort through all of that later.

For now, tea is being poured—the last stage of the meeting—and Wei Wuxian sits up even straighter, his spine a steel rod. Lan Zhan brings his gaze to the table as he picks up his cup.

"To the newly betrothed couple." It's Lan Qiren who says it and it doesn't even come out sounding like it costs him anything. He just sounds antsy more than anything else, like he's late for his next meeting.

Lan Zhan raises his teacup, his jaw, if possible, set even more firmly as he finally raises his gaze to Wei Wuxian.

Wei Wuxian has considered and discarded a slew of ideas of how he'd handle this moment, where Lan Zhan has no choice but to meet his eyes for as long as the toast takes place. The most compelling thought was to try a sort of smoldering look, like he's thinking of what goes along with a marriage, of the wedding night to come, but that feels...foolish, and embarrassing, because this is—this is insane. All of this is insane.

Instead, he holds his teacup up with two hands and looks at Lan Zhan across the rim of it. In that moment, all of the other possibilities fall aside and he can only let every bit of his confusion and dismay show through clearly, as he holds Lan Zhan's gaze, forcing him to keep his eyes on Wei Wuxian. Why, is what he's thinking. Why would you do this? We were so close to being friends. I thought we were friends.

Lan Zhan keeps his eyes on Wei Wuxian's, as is proper, because Lan Zhan is never anything less than proper. His face stays the same: smooth brow, no smile, just his usual demeanor that Wei Wuxian is pretty sure Lan Zhan thinks radiates calm but instead is imbued with the feeling of Lan Zhan holding himself desperately in check. It makes Wei Wuxian want to break through that barrier, crash right through it, knock it down, shake Lan Zhan until he can't hold anything back.

Why? he thinks again, and finally breaks Lan Zhan's gaze, releasing him from his polite duty to maintain eye contact with his betrothed.

Lan Zhan clearly didn't expect to be let off the hook quite so swiftly—he's holding up his teacup for a beat longer before he takes a sip.

Wei Wuxian doesn't storm out after the meeting concludes. He's too tired to storm. It's pointless, anyway—he's not a kid anymore, he's not been a kid for a really long time. Tantrums and misbehavior haven't gotten him very far.

He leaves slowly, pushing himself up from the table and giving extremely appropriate bows to all. Lan Qiren's eyes flicker over him distastefully.

He pivots smoothly on one heel. He has a headache brewing. He needs a drink. He needs something. This whole afternoon has been—

"Wei Ying."

He freezes for half a step on the path, then resumes walking, allowing himself a short glance over his shoulder. "Lan Zhan," he says, tsking. "Don't you know we shouldn't be seen together without a chaperone?"

Lan Zhan falls into step beside him without responding.

"Bold, Hanguang-jun," Wei Wuxian says conversationally. "Allowing yourself to flirt with breaking the rules of propriety."

"Wei Ying," Lan Zhan says again, this time in the oh-so-familiar tone of will you please shut up. "Can we talk?"

"We're talking right now." Wei Wuxian doesn't pause as he continues walking down the path. "You didn't talk at all in there, though." He gives Lan Zhan a look out of the corner of his eye. "Not a peep. Not a word. Not even when your uncle—your uncle, Lan Zhan—suggested a 'brief courting period.' You want to marry me that badly, that you want to rush this whole thing?"

Lan Zhan looks mildly pained and Wei Wuxian brings his gaze forward again, twisting his lips into a grin. Good. Good. They should both be uncomfortable.

"Time is of the essence." Lan Zhan says it quietly enough that it almost gets lost in the sound of their footsteps on the path. "An allegiance with the Lan sect will strengthen the Jiang sect enough that it will survive."

"Survive?" Wei Wuxian honestly can't even turn to look at him, he doesn't want to, he can't— "Jiang Cheng is doing a tremendous job as sect leader. He pulled the sect out of the confusion that set in after the death of his parents. He's training a whole new regiment, quite often personally, and look at him, he's a kid, he's, what, barely twenty, and he's done all this?" Wei Wuxian waves his hands around at Lotus Pier, everything, all of it, that Jiang Cheng is holding together out of sheer, stubborn will.

"You're also barely twenty." Lan Zhan trails behind Wei Wuxian as he keeps stomping forward.

Wei Wuxian can feel the breeze coming off the lake and he abruptly changes direction, heading down the path towards the pier. "Yeah, well," he mutters. "I feel a whole hell of a lot older than that."

Lan Zhan is quiet, but he quickens his step, keeping pace with Wei Wuxian as they finally get to the pier. It's blessedly quiet, only a few people around the shore, no one on the pier itself. Wei Wuxian strides along it, strongly considering just flinging himself into the lake as he hits the end of it. It would cool him off, at least.

Instead, he drops down to sit on the edge of the dock. He reaches down to wrestle his boots off, flinging them behind himself and letting his feet dangle over the edge. The water is close to the dock, close enough for him to dip his toes in.

Weirdly, it does cool him down.

Lan Zhan sits down beside him. He tucks his feet up under himself, and makes it look comfortable. Wei Wuxian casts a look at him. He has to be wearing at least six layers of nearly-blinding white robes, even though the day is sunny, and hot, the air hazy with it.

He's not sweating, of course. Lans probably aren't allowed to sweat.

They sit there in silence, both of them looking at Wei Wuxian's feet, as he lets his toes swirl the water beneath them.

"It was Sect Leader Jiang's suggestion of a treaty," Lan Zhan says after a while. "He would not have come to us if the situation wasn't important." Lan Zhan's not looking at Wei Wuxian. When Wei Wuxian glances at him, he, too, has his face tilted up towards the sun.

"I know," Wei Wuxian says after a moment. He sighs and sits forward again, scrubbing his hands over his face. "I do know that, Lan Zhan." It comes out muffled behind his hands. "What did your uncle call it? This solution? Expeditious?"

Lan Zhan doesn't move, still sitting lotus-style, hands resting loosely on his thighs. The sunlight makes his face look golden, his eyelids almost translucent. "Yes."

"Well." Wei Wuxian sighs, running his feet over the surface of the water. "It certainly is that." He pulls his robes up over his knees—it really is so, so hot, the sun beating down on them. "How do you feel about this, Lan Zhan?" He has to line the words up before saying them. He's not exactly sure he really wants to know the answer.

Lan Zhan opens his eyes. He seems to be contemplating the lake, stretching out in front of them, for a long moment before he says, "I'd rather you, than someone I don't know."

Something about it hits Wei Wuxian as extremely funny, in a way that loosens up the tight knot inside of him. He laughs, shaking his head. "You know what?" he says. He can't stop giggling. "That's a really good point." It could be worse. A lot of things could be worse. And—this is sort of the thing that keeps the giggles building up in Wei Wuxian's chest, so funny he can't swallow them down. "And honest," he manages to get out, dropping himself back to lean against his hands again. "At least you're honest."

Lan Zhan doesn't seem offended by his laughter, which is good—he can't stop, but he's not laughing at Lan Zhan, he's laughing at...he's not even sure what. This situation they've landed themselves in, maybe. The idea of him—Wei Wuxian—marrying into the Lan sect. The idea of Lan Zhan, with his six layers of robes and immaculate appearance, being betrothed—betrothed—to Wei Wuxian.

"Honesty," Lan Zhan responds finally, "is one of the rules."

He says it just like that, like he knows, and he knows, he has to know how silly it comes out, and that makes it even funnier. Lan Zhan making a joke—and Wei Wuxian is very certain it was a deliberate joke—while he looks at Wei Wuxian. His jaw isn't tight like before, in the pavilion with the family. He looks slightly softer here, caught in the golden sunlight.

"Lan Zhan." Wei Wuxian bumps Lan Zhan's shoulder with his own. "Trust me. I know all the rules." That's very funny, too, because Wei Wuxian does—even after all this time, they are very much burned into his memory, something rote that he can't forget, even if he tried. "Oh, Lan Zhan," he says, giggling again and swinging his feet, creating a splash of water below them. "Is there a rule against cooling off on a hot day?" He knows there is not. "Dip your feet in," he orders. "You're marrying someone from the Jiang sect. You're allowed to get your toes wet."

Lan Zhan gives him a frank stare.

Wei Wuxian just grins back and then is honestly astounded as Lan Zhan uncrosses his legs and smoothly pulls off first one boot, then the other, turning to line them up neatly behind him before dangling his legs off the dock and letting his feet sink into the water. He pulls his robes up just a little, to keep them out of the water, and Wei Wuxian is a little bit mesmerized by that, what seems like a scandalous stretch of skin, even though it's just his pale shins.

He drags his gaze up to Lan Zhan's face, and can't stop the grin that's spreading even wider across his face now. "Lan Zhan," he says, feeling a little breathless. "What a scandal. What even will everyone say, seeing Hanguang-jun all undone like this? And with his future bride, no less?"

Lan Zhan holds his gaze steady for a long moment before transferring it back out to the water. Something about the set of his mouth looks satisfied. "Ludicrous," he murmurs.

Wei Wuxian grins harder and leans his shoulder against Lan Zhan's again, kicking one foot against the surface of the water and sending a shower of drops up and over Lan Zhan's bare feet, swirling in the lake.

"But why?" Wei Wuxian protests, dragging his feet on the path to the private dining pavilion. He's scuffing up clouds of dust around him and something about that makes him feel better. "Why do we have to do this?"

"Dinner with your future family." Jiang Cheng says it grimly. "It's what people do, when you're courting. It's normal. Be normal."

"No." Wei Wuxian petulantly kicks at the path again, creating another swirl of dust, then smiling sweetly when Jiang Cheng glares at him. "Anyway, what's the point? It's not like we don't know them. Why do we have to have dinner with them?"

"It's what people do." Jiang Cheng grits it out, smacking the dust off of his robes as he walks.

"Huh." Wei Wuxian studies him as they get to the entrance to the pavilion. "You want to do this even less than I do." It's comforting, somehow, that he's not the only one dreading this.

"Shut up," Jiang Cheng says through gritted teeth. "Let's just get through this."

"Fine." Wei Wuxian pastes on a smile and nudges Jiang Cheng's shoulder when he doesn't change his expression from his usual glower. Jiang Cheng shakes him off irritably and strides into the pavilion.

The Lans aren't early, because getting there before their hosts would be rude, but they do come in so close behind them that Wei Wuxian suspects they were timing it. He lets out a sigh of relief when he sees it's just Lan Zhan and his brother, without their uncle in attendance.

They all do the requisite bows. Wei Wuxian can't help giving Lan Zhan a raised eyebrow and a little grin as they bow to each other. They know each other. They are, in fact, currently betrothed. Bowing this formally seems overly polite in this particular set of circumstances.

Lan Zhan's face stays stoic.

"My uncle sends his apologies for having to miss this," Lan Xichen says as they sit. He's smiling at Jiang Cheng like they're friends, like they're buddies. "He is tired from travel and needed the rest."

A likely story, Wei Wuxian thinks. That's at least one positive part about this whole situation: however much Lan Zhan's uncle had gone along with it as a political machination, he's definitely not thrilled to have Wei Wuxiain becoming part of the family.

"I do think this is a good opportunity, however," Lan Xichen continues, still with that easy smile. "It allows us to meet less formally. Talk a bit." He turns his smile to his brother and Wei Wuxian thinks that, if he were not a Lan, he'd be giving Lan Zhan's shoulder a nudge right now. "Celebrate."

Lan Zhan is sitting stiffly beside him, his face expressionless.

"Celebrate," Wei Wuxian echoes. There's wine on the table and Wei Wuxian is profoundly relieved this betrothal discussion hadn't happened in Cloud Recesses where he'd have to be bearing this sober. "Absolutely." He pours three cups of wine, neatly, and a cup of tea for Lan Zhan. He serves them to each guest, starting with Lan Xichen, as is appropriate, and then Lan Zhan, who does, at least, look up at him when he slides the teacup in front of him. His mouth looks soft, his eyes less shuttered than they had been when he'd walked in.

Wei Wuxian serves his brother last, and lets himself sit back down, offering up a cheery smile. Jiang Cheng raises his cup and everyone else at the table follows suit. "To your upcoming marriage," he says, only a little grimly, giving Wei Wuxian a look that says behave.

"May it be a happy one," Lan Xichen chimes in afterwards, also raising his cup and giving both Wei Wuxian and Lan Zhan a warm smile, like he means what he's saying, like he truly does hope and believe that this will turn out to be a love match. Wei Wuxian shoots Lan Zhan a small, incredulous look and Lan Zhan's cheeks turn a dusty pink as he raises his cup of tea and takes a sip.

Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng both down their cups in a single gulp. Wei Wuxian glances at Lan Xichen—he supposes that was somewhat less than polite—but Lan Xichen, too, has swallowed the wine in a single shot.

Wei Wuxian knows Lan Zhan is really different from his brother but it sometimes is really clear how very different they are.

They eat—the food is good, as it always is, and Wei Wuxian thinks glumly about the menu at Cloud Recesses. "I can't commit to never having flavor again for the rest of my life," he says glumly, as he finishes his bowl of incredibly savory soup. "Sorry," he says, glancing up at Lan Zhan and his brother. "There's a lot of good things about Cloud Recesses, but the food isn't one of them."

Jiang Cheng is the one that's glaring at him—Lan Xichen just looks amused. "I recall the food not being up to your usual palate," he says, his tone genial.

"The chefs will learn to incorporate your local cuisine." It's the first time Lan Zhan has spoken in this whole time and that's almost as surprising as what he's said.

"I'm just giving you a hard time," Wei Wuxian protests. "I'm just being stupid, the food really doesn't matter."

Lan Zhan looks at him. "You should have food that pleases you."

Wei Wuxian thinks he's the one whose cheeks get hot now. Why. Why does that simple sentence sound so intimate, coming from Lan Zhan?

"Of course." Lan Xichen nods his head as Jiang Cheng offers him a refill of wine. "It will be easy enough to add to the standard Cloud Recesses fare."

Wei Wuxian takes the refilled cup his brother hands him. "Well," he says. "That would be...nice. I, uh—" He glances at Jiang Cheng. "I'd be most grateful."

Jiang Cheng makes a quiet scoffing sound that only Wei Wuxian can hear at this turn towards politeness. Wei Wuxian glares at him. He knows how to behave. He knows how to be polite. He just chooses not to, sometimes.

The conversation turns to the metrics of trading and how Lotus Pier's fishing industry has been faring. It's interesting, but Wei Wuxian fades out of the conversation after a while. He's studying Lan Zhan, who is clearly not paying attention to the conversation. He doesn't even have an expression of feigned politeness on his face. He's just sitting there and if Wei Wuxian had to guess, he'd almost think that Lan Zhan was lost in his thoughts.

"What?" he says, shifting closer to Lan Zhan's side of the table.

Their brothers don't even notice. Jiang Cheng is getting up, gesturing to Lan Xichen to follow him across the room, where there's a map on the wall, beautifully drawn, a real work of art, but it's clearly so Jiang Cheng can show Lan Xichen their trading routes.

"What is it?" Wei Wuxian asks again, sliding into Lan Xichen's vacated seat. "Where'd you go?"

Lan Zhan looks at him, his hands resting in his lap. "I am here."

"You know what I mean." Wei Wuxian inches his chair closer, nudges Lan Zhan's knee under the table with his own. "In your head. What were you thinking about? I can tell it wasn't trading routes."

"I meant no disrespect to your brother," Lan Zhan says stiffly.

"Okay, shut up, now you're being deliberately obtuse." Wei Wuxian reaches out to snag the jar of wine and his cup. He pours himself some more. "We're betrothed, Lan Zhan. I'm supposed to notice stuff like this."

Lan Zhan's shoulders relax just the slightest amount. "I was thinking about...that."

"That." Wei Wuxian takes a thoughtful sip of wine. "What, exactly?"

"Betrothal," Lan Zhan says after a beat.

"Okay, but that could be, like, a whole bunch of things," Wei Wuxian points out. "The wedding? The party? The mutual aid agreement? Me being in your space, cluttering up your home?" He grins as he says it, raising his eyebrows. It's a joke. Imagine if he really thought he'd be moving into the Jingshi.

"Not exactly." Lan Zhan's mouth has that softness to it again, unusual enough that Wei Wuxian can't help but notice it every time.

"Not exactly. Hmm." Wei Wuxian taps his chin, like he's thinking about it. Their brothers are still across the room, in an intent conversation about...Wei Wuxian's not sure, but he hears Jiang Cheng say, "And then we take the southern channel to..." so they're both clearly still transfixed by trade routes. Lan Xichen actually looks really into it. "Okay, so not exactly means not exactly not about that stuff, so..."

Lan Zhan just looks at him. He has one eyebrow raised just the slightest amount, and he has lost that tension he'd carried over dinner, looking a little more relaxed—as relaxed as Lan Zhan gets—and Wei Wuxian feels a flutter of success at that, that he can still do this, tease Lan Zhan until Lan Zhan loosens up a bit.

"What could it be?" Wei Wuxian props one elbow on the table, resting his chin on his hand as he asks it, grinning at Lan Zhan. "What goes on in that brain of yours? It's always working on something."

Lan Zhan's cheeks are very slightly flushed. "The wedding," he says.

"The wedding," Wei Wuxian repeats. "Oh, yeah, you're not a big fan of getting up in front of people. All that attention. Not your idea of a good time."

Lan Zhan's still watching him, and he shakes his head slightly. His face is only a tiny bit flushed going on, but the tips of his ears are bright red. "Not the ceremony," he says. "After."

"After the ceremony is...oh." Wei Wuxian shuts himself up quickly. After, is what Lan Zhan was thinking about. After, when they're supposed to—when the two of them will be alone together, in the nuptial suite, where they're supposed to—

Well, now, he's thinking about it, too. He feels his own face get hot, and he realizes he's just staring at Lan Zhan, where Lan Zhan's gaze is intense and steady on his own. He can't—he should make a joke here, keep loosening things up. Say something about how they don't have to do anything, how they can just hang out and eat peanuts and Wei Wuxian can drink and they'll just ride it out, because a political betrothal, a marriage of convenience, that doesn't mean that they—that they're going to—

"After." Lan Zhan says it again, his voice low. He's not fidgeting—Lans don't fidget—but his fingers twitch a little where his hands are resting on the table in front of him. His gaze is dark and his ears are still so, so red, but he's not dropping his gaze. He doesn't look uncomfortable, or like he's asking Wei Wuxian to let him off the hook. It's like he wants to talk about this. Like he wants Wei Wuxian to know exactly what he's been thinking about.

"After is, uh, we'll be...married, and it'll be—I mean, we'll be together, and things will be—" He's babbling, he knows he is, and he desperately wishes their brothers would come back, interrupt them, rescue him from this, but he can hear Jiang Cheng talking intently about something to do with seasonal fishing rights, which he can genuinely keep up for hours, and that leaves Wei Wuxian stuck here, with Lan Zhan looking at him like...this.

"Mn." That's all Lan Zhan says, that's it, but it's the way he says it. It's imbued with something more, like all that stuff Lan Zhan never says is just loaded into that one soft sound. And the way Lan Zhan is watching him—it's like he's thinking about it. Still. And it's like he knows Wei Wuxian is thinking about it too, now. Thinking about what would happen if it wasn't them just...eating peanuts and killing time until morning. About what would happen if it was a real wedding night and when they were alone in the nuptial suite, and Lan Zhan was looking at Wei Wuxian like this, and how they'd be allowed to—no, they'd be expected to...

Well. Wei Wuxian isn't actually totally sure what they'd be expected to do. Kiss, at least, to start off with. He'd be kissing Lan Zhan, and his face gets even hotter, thinking about it. About Lan Zhan's mouth on his own, bearing him back, to where the bed would be and—oh gods. His brain is overrun with images from Nie Huaisang's abundant collection of erotic art, and suddenly, he's picturing what it would be like, if he was sitting on Lan Zhan's lap, Lan Zhan up against him, or...not just up against him. Inside of him, and he'd be...they'd be...

He jerks his gaze away from Lan Zhan's face, shakily fills his cup again. "I," he says, and stops, shaking his head, trying to grin, and mostly succeeding, despite the litany of absolutely fascinating and filthy images of what else a wedding night could entail. "I think that we can, you know, just..." He takes a gulp of wine.

"Mn," Lan Zhan says again. "You can see why I got lost in my thoughts. Apologies."

He doesn't sound very sorry. He doesn't sound very sorry at all. He sounds, and looks, like he was thinking possibly something very much along the lines of what Wei Wuxian was thinking. What Wei Wuxian is still thinking, because his brain won't stop supplying helpful, vivid images of possibilities and— "I do. I do see that," he manages to say. "No problem. No problems here at all. I get it. I...really get it."

Lan Zhan nods thoughtfully, and reaches out one hand. Wei Wuxian is certain, for a single, dizzying moment, that Lan Zhan is going to take his hand, and he's honestly not sure if he can take that without maybe spontaneously combusting. But no, Lan Zhan is reaching for his cup, tugging it out of Wei Wuxian's suddenly nerveless fingers. "May I?" he says, but doesn't wait for Wei Wuxian's permission before taking a small sip, his mouth right where Wei Wuxian's had been on the rim.

Wei Wuxian can't wrench his eyes away from where Lan Zhan is maintaining steady eye contact over the rim, can't fathom what he is seeing. Both the fact that Lan Zhan is, voluntarily, imbibing alcohol, but also how very dark and very hot his eyes are as he does it.

Wei Wuxian hears himself swallow as Lan Zhan sets the cup down. "That's, uh," he says, and has to shake his head, hard, trying to get his brain cells to work again. "That's wine," he finishes finally, like an idiot.

Lan Zhan just nods, smiling a little bit. There are a lot of things about Lan Zhan that are sort of hilarious, but the fact that he gets drunk—actually drunk—off of the tiniest amounts of alcohol is one of the best. He's gone immediately tipsy, his shoulders relaxed, propping himself up on his elbow on the table, his chin resting on his hand. His ears are still red enough that Wei Wuxian wonders if they'd be hot to the touch. He's watching Wei Wuxian and leaning forward a little. "Do you?" he asks.

"Do I what?" Wei Wuxian can't help but smile at him—Lan Zhan is pretty cute like this, all loose-limbed and blinking slowly.

"Think about it," Lan Zhan says. He wets his lips with his tongue, just a little, and Wei Wuxian can't breathe for a moment, everything caught in his chest as he stares at Lan Zhan and—he can't help it—thinks about his tongue. Thinks about their wedding night. Thinks about—

"Ah." A hand lands on Wei Wuxian's shoulder and he jumps, his heart beating out of his chest. "I see you have continued celebrating." Lan Xichen is smiling warmly at Lan Zhan, his hand still resting on Wei Wuxian's shoulder.

Lan Zhan blinks up at his brother slowly. "It was a toast."

Wei Wuxian looks at him. Was it?

"To our wedding," Lan Zhan continues firmly. "I wanted to—"

"—celebrate," Wei Wuxian cuts in. "You're right. We were celebrating." He glances up at Lan Xichen, and then over at Jiang Cheng, who has settled back down at his end of the table, rolling his eyes and pouring himself another cup of wine.

When he looks back at Lan Zhan, Lan Zhan is frowning at him. "Allow others to fully complete their thoughts," he recites.

"Yeah, yeah," Wei Wuxian pats his hand. "I know the rules as well as you, Lan Zhan. Maybe better. I copied them down enough times."

Lan Zhan's frown is fading as he looks down at Wei Wuxian's hand resting on his on the table. He turns his hand over underneath Wei Wuxian's, like he's going to...hold it? But instead just rests it there for a moment before drawing it away slowly, his fingertips lingering just a little bit against Wei Wuxian's palm.

Wei Wuxian thinks he's blushing again. He thinks he'll maybe never stop blushing.

"Well, good." Lan Xichen settles down in a chair. He pours Lan Zhan a cup of tea and passes it to Wei Wuxian to hand to him—because right, of course, Wei Wuxian is still sitting in his seat. "It is surely something to celebrate. Wei-gongzi, I have long appreciated your close friendship with my brother."

Close friendship? Wei Wuxian almost drops the cup of tea as he hands it to Lan Zhan. What on earth?

"It's important to me, and to him," Lan Xichen continues, "That he have someone in his life he can trust, the way he trusts you."

How strong had that wine been, exactly, Wei Wuxian wonders. Is he as drunk as Lan Zhan? Are all of them drunk?

"And to be able to join our families this way is, well." Lan Xichen smiles at Wei Wuxian. "It is, as I've said before, something to celebrate."

"Sure," Wei Wuxian says, feeling a little dazed. "I mean, yeah, absolutely, I'm...celebrating." He is, because he's got to catch up, it seems like, and he pours himself more wine, and downs it. "Our nuptials."

"Nuptials." Lan Zhan says it so softly, Wei Wuxian barely hears it. He's gazing down at his teacup and his cheeks are still faintly pink.

"Right," Wei Wuxian says, just as quietly, and Lan Zhan's gaze flickers up to his. There's heat to it, almost too much to bear, and it takes Wei Wuxian more than a moment to drag his eyes away. Wow. Wow, he's marrying such a lightweight. He's got to remember to not give Lan Zhan booze, if he's going to get...like this.

"Cheers," Jiang Cheng says brusquely from the other end of the table. He downs his cup of wine as well, and Lan Xichen does the same, still with that quietly pleased look on his face.

When Wei Wuxian makes eye contact with Jiang Cheng, Jiang Cheng's eyebrows are way, way up, and he shakes his head, reaching again for the jar of wine.

"So the thing I'm not quite understanding," Jiang Cheng says as he walks along the path beside Wei Wuxian, heading back towards Jiang Cheng's quarters, "is why you were so exceedingly upset at the betrothal when it first came up, given how you and Lan Zhan spent the whole night eye-fucking each other across the table."

"What!" Wei Wuxian gives Jiang Cheng a shove, hard enough that Jiang Cheng very nearly staggers off of the path. Good. "We were not...doing that." What the fuck. He's blushing again. Jiang Cheng is an idiot. "You're an idiot."

Jiang Cheng gets his balance back, and gives Wei Wuxian a shove of his own. "You're an idiot," he snaps. "Look at the two of you. You're meant for each other. You're both ridiculous. I thought I was going to have to separate you just so you wouldn't destroy this betrothal by—" He waves his hands around as he searches for the word. "—compromising this whole thing right there."

Compromising. Is that what they're going to call it? "I wasn't," Wei Wuxian says hotly. "We weren't. We were just talking. And he had, like, a baby sip of wine and—" He shrugs. "You know how Lan Zhan gets when he has even the smallest amount of liquor."

"Right." Jiang Cheng continues doggedly up the path. "And I know how you get when you get even the smallest amount of attention from Lan Zhan."

"Are you drunk?" Wei Wuxian makes his tone solicitous. "Do I need to put you to bed, Jiang Cheng?"

Jiang Cheng shoots him an impatient glare as they get to his quarters. "Listen," he says, his arms crossed over his chest. "I have been watching the two of you in this endless cycle of...I don't even know what, for years at this point. The fact that you are refusing to admit for even a second that you know exactly what it is that you're doing is so fucking stupid that I can't take it."

Wei Wuxian stares at Jiang Cheng, his mouth hanging open. "We are barely even friends," he says finally. "Lan Zhan, at best—at best," he reiterates, waving one finger at Jiang Cheng, "tolerates me. He agreed to this whole thing because he's filial. He'll do anything his uncle tells him to do, and you add Lan Xichen to the mix, and Lan Zhan is left without a choice but to say yes to this whole stupid betrothal. He's not doing anything...compromising." Wei Wuxian blows his breath out in frustration. "He's just doing it because he thinks he has to."

Jiang Cheng stares at him for a handful of seconds. "I really do not have time for this," he says finally, sounding exhausted. "You are...such an idiot."

"I may be an idiot, but I'm right," Wei Wuxian says, poking at Jiang Cheng's chest. "And you know it."

"I'm going to bed." Jiang Cheng slides open the door behind him. "And so are you. Good night. Go away. Stop bothering me."

"I'm your favorite," Wei Wuxian declares, even as Jiang Cheng slides the doors shut in his face.

"Go away," Jiang Cheng growls through the closed doors.

Wei Wuxian does, sauntering away down the path towards his quarters. He extracts the jar of wine he'd tucked away when they'd finished dinner, pulling out the cork and taking a long sip as he heads down the path. "He's the idiot," he mutters to himself. "I'm going to tell shijie what he said. Shijie will set him straight. She knows that this isn't anything but a political alliance. Lan Zhan isn't..." He trails off, taking another sip of wine. Lan Zhan isn't...he just isn't any of the things Jiang Cheng says he is. He isn't, he'd just...he'd been tipsy. He gets weird when he's tipsy. Everyone knows that.

He gets to his quarters but goes to the porch overlooking the lake instead of going in, leaning against the railing and resting the jar of wine on it. The moon is up, so bright and low tonight it looks like you could reach up and touch it. The lake catches its reflection, the rippling water moon on its surface a quiet, mesmerizing thing. He takes another sip of wine before carefully setting the jar back down. He rests his elbows on the railing, propping himself up. "Endless cycle," he mutters to himself, echoing Jiang Cheng's words. "Endless cycle of what?" He and Lan Zhan haven't been...anything. Anything at all. For Jiang Cheng to insist they were...anything, it's just weird.

And okay, sure, Lan Zhan had been all...flushed and strange tonight, but this is a very odd thing they're doing. A very odd set of circumstances they've found themselves in. Betrothed, when they aren't even...anything to each other. "Barely even friends," Wei Wuxian says pointedly to the lake. Sure, he likes Lan Zhan but he can't imagine anyone would look at the two of them and say oh yeah, the two of them, sure, thick as thieves. He just likes teasing Lan Zhan. That's all. All those rules, and Lan Zhan taking them so very, very seriously. Who wouldn't want to tease him?

He thinks about that dusting of pink over Lan Zhan's cheeks, even before he'd taken the drink out of Wei Wuxian's hand. About how hot his ears looked after he'd done that, drunk from Wei Wuxian's own cup, drunk wine and been so immediately tipsy that he was still the tiniest bit unsteady as his brother had led him out at the end of the night. He thinks about what Lan Zhan had been saying, even before the wine. How he'd been thinking about...

"Fuck." Wei Wuxian sighs, as his own cheeks heat up. Again. He's not a blusher. He hasn't blushed this much before in his entire life. What is going on with him? It's just. The intimacy of a wedding night. It would throw anybody off. Particularly someone like Lan Zhan, who's so repressed, he probably has even less of a clue than Wei Wuxian does, as to what is expected to go on. Wei Wuxian knows for a fact that Lan Zhan has not had the experience of the many volumes of erotica that Nie Huaisang has shared with Wei Wuxian over time. Picture that, Lan Zhan solemnly perusing one of the volumes of raunchy poetry Nie Huaisang has curated. That would be—

"Okay, no, that's bedtime." He pushes himself off of the railing. Thinking about Lan Zhan and erotic poetry means that Wei Wuxian has definitely had too much wine himself, and definitely needs to put himself to bed.

His brain won't stop whirling though, even after he's clambered under the covers and closed his eyes, determined to go to sleep, if only to stop the image of Lan Zhan, reading about
Her warm red lips feel like they are melting, I taste her breath like a fragrant orchid, her creamy skin, her full jade flesh.

For example.

He rolls over, pressing his face against the bed with a groan. He's not thinking about this. He's not. He's a grown man, with power over his own thoughts, and strength of intellect to boot. He's going to sleep, and he's not thinking about this.

He's still thinking about it in the morning, when the intense sunlight pours in through the window over his bed wakes him up from whatever dream he's been caught up in, the memory of it skittering away even as he tries to sink back down into sleep. Whatever it was, it's left him hard, and aching, and he reaches down to palm himself through his pants, rolling his hips against his hand. He's still half asleep as he pulls out his cock, stroking himself, already a little bit wet. Is this what Lan Zhan was thinking about, last night, at the table, his eyes so dark and hot? Not this exactly, but this feeling of being hard, aching with it, wanting it? By himself, it's good, it feels so good, but the idea of doing this with someone else watching—with Lan Zhan watching—it's enough that Wei Wuxian gasps out loud, pressing the back of his hand to his mouth as he strokes himself faster, harder.

Would Lan Zhan just watch? The idea of being watched makes Wei Wuxian's heart jump, makes his cock get even harder, but if it was a wedding night, wouldn't Lan Zhan be more involved than that? What if Lan Zhan watched first, then slid closer, reached out, touched him? Pushed his hand away and wrapped his own hand around Wei Wuxian's cock and—

Wei Wuxian cries out and spills over his fist. He lies there panting afterwards, his hand still wrapped around his softening cock. He knows that a real wedding night would very likely consist of more than that, more than what he had just imagined, that made him come so hard he's still seeing stars. He knows that, but he can't even allow himself to think about it, because he thinks he'd maybe never get out of bed if he did.

Fuck. Was this anywhere close to what Lan Zhan had been thinking about last night? Is this even something Lan Zhan knows about? Does Lan Zhan do this? Did he, perhaps, wake up hard and take himself in hand and—

It takes Wei Wuxian long enough to get out of bed that he misses breakfast and has to wheedle one of the cooks in the kitchen to give him a couple of pork buns. His knees are still a little shaky from the last orgasm he had—he flushes thinking about how many times he'd gotten himself off this morning. He shakes his head, stuffing a pork bun into his mouth as he heads down the path, still half lost in the sexual fog of self-pleasure that this morning had been. When he turns a corner and sees Lan Zhan coming towards him, he stumbles to a halt, feeling wildly flustered.

"Hi," he says, feeling stupid, and self-conscious, and—impossibly, how is this even possible—turned on. Again. Or still. "I mean, uh, good morning. Where's Zewu-jun? Are we even allowed to be seen together alone, now? I guess we're in public, so it's probably okay, but." He stops talking—it takes some effort—and dusts his hands off against his robes to get rid of the grease of the pork buns.

Lan Zhan has drawn over to the side of the path, looking as though he's patiently waiting for Wei Wuxian to wind himself down. "My brother and uncle are meeting with your family, finalizing the details of the agreement."

Is there the smallest pause before agreement? Like Lan Zhan meant to say something else, like he, too, can't stop thinking about it as something more than just a political alliance? But no, that's dumb, a political alliance is all it is, no matter what Wei Wuxian's libido would like to think. "Right," he says. "Right, that makes sense."

Lan Zhan inclines his head. "Also, we are permitted to meet in public, yes."

"Oh." Wei Wuxian nods. "Okay, that's good, I think. I'd hate to do anything to tarnish your reputation before we're married."

"Mn." Lan Zhan gazes at him calmly. "And after?"

It takes Wei Wuxian a beat, but then he's grinning. "Well, after, we'll just have to see, won't we? You'll be stuck with me."

Lan Zhan doesn't deign to respond. He resumes his walk down the path and Wei Wuxian reverses direction, following him. He had nothing pressing to do anyway. "How long are you staying?" he asks.

"We depart in the morning." Lan Zhan keeps his look steadily ahead.

"Tomorrow?" Wei Wuxian stops where he is on the path. "But that's so soon! What about—hey, wait up."

Lan Zhan has, of course, kept walking, so Wei Wuxian has to jog to catch up to him. "Hey, wait, listen, Lan Zhan, if you guys leave tomorrow, then how do we even get to know each other?"

Lan Zhan glances at him. "We know each other."

"No, not like that." Wei Wuxian shakes his head. "You know what I mean, Lan Zhan. Aren't we supposed to—I mean, isn't this supposed to be when we...court each other? Isn't there supposed to be courting?" He'd never been the least bit interested when people talked about courting. It sounded boring, and sort of dumb. But he thinks what they had been doing at dinner last night had been courting. Possibly. He'd never really considered that courting might be actually something...fascinating. He wants to try it again. Maybe with less blushing this time.

"We will be courting," Lan Zhan says. "We can do it from afar."

"That sounds less fun," Wei Wuxian says dubiously. It sounds a lot less fun. What's the point of doing anything from afar?

Lan Zhan ignores him. "And then there will be your visit to Cloud Recesses."

Wei Wuxian stops on the path again, but this time he grabs Lan Zhan's elbow and hauls him to a stop beside him. Never let it be said that he doesn't learn. "Hang on," he says, as Lan Zhan tries to tug himself free before stopping with a barely-concealed sigh. He has Bichen held in one hand, and he tucks the other behind his back, staring Wei Wuxian down. "What visit to Cloud Recesses?"

"We agreed to have the ceremony here," Lan Zhan says. "But we'll be living in Cloud Recesses once we are wed."

Wed. Fuck. That still sounds so weird. "Right..." Wei Wuxian says slowly.

"Your first visit to Cloud Recesses shouldn't be when you move there permanently." Lan Zhan moves as though to start his way down the path again but Wei Wuxian grabs onto his arm again.

"Lan Zhan, I've been to Cloud Recesses. You know I've been to Cloud Recesses. We met in Cloud Recesses."

Lan Zhan gazes at him coolly. "Your first official visit," he says.

Oh. His official visit. As Lan Zhan's betrothed. That will be...different, he guesses. He's spent a bunch of time at Cloud Recesses but to come there as not just a guest of the family, but as the upcoming new member of the family, then...yeah, that will be different.

He thinks about his shijie moving to Carp Tower after she married the peacock, how shy and nervous she had been, but how her whole face had been suffused with pleasure whenever she talked about it. And to picture her now, not that long later, pregnant and glowing with it, a new sureness about her, as she's not only married to Jin Zixuan (sometimes Wei Wuxian honestly can't believe he'd allowed that to happen to his precious shijie, however happy it genuinely seems to have made her), but carrying his child, a possible heir, and how proud she is, how she just radiates a sort of confident contentment.

"Right," he says now, looking at Lan Zhan. "The official visit. Will you court me there, Lan Zhan?" He asks it brightly and Lan Zhan doesn't—quite—roll his eyes at him as he firmly tugs his arm out of Wei Wuxian's and sets off down the path again.

This time Wei Wuxian keeps up with him, lengthening his stride to match Lan Zhan's. "That's what we'll be doing there, right? Getting to know each other—okay, you know what I mean," he says off of Lan Zhan's look. "Getting to know each other as more than..." He doesn't quite know how to end that. Are they friends? He's spent a long time categorically denying that Lan Zhan ever did anything other than merely put up with him, but shijie has said that Lan Zhan likes him and Jiang Cheng certainly seems to think that Lan Zhan does more than tolerate him, but would you call what they have friendship?

Lan Zhan seems to be waiting him out, giving him another sideways glance as Wei Wuxian falters.

"You know what I mean," Wei Wuxian says again.

Lan Zhan sighs, just the tiniest amount. "We will spend time together," he says. "As is appropriate."

"Well, that certainly sounds like a party." Wei Wuxian lets his shoulder bump against Lan Zhan's as they walk. The thing is, though, is that it sort of does sound...interesting. Spending time together sounds weirdly intimate? Even though he's certain it will involve chaperones, and boring dinners with no talking or alcohol, and who knows what else, he finds that he likes the idea of getting to see Lan Zhan in his home, again. Getting to see him there as an adult, not exactly the way it was when they were kids. Getting to see how Lan Zhan functions there, now that he's Hanguang-jun, now that he's...betrothed.

He's slowed down, distracted by the thought of it, and Lan Zhan has strode on ahead. He's in his voluminous white robes today, layer upon gauzy layer, cinched at the waist, looking ethereal against the verdant green of the trees surrounding the path. Wei Wuxian keeps his pace slow, trailing behind him, studying him. His future husband.

It sounds so, so weird, in his head and he tries it out, murmuring it to himself out loud. "Husband," in a hushed tone, whispering it to the trees.

Still weird.

There's a curve in the path ahead and Lan Zhan pauses there, his head tilted, that one hand still resting at the small of his back. He doesn't look back, doesn't make any gesture, but Wei Wuxian picks up his pace, skipping ahead in order to catch up. "Miss me?" he says as he draws close.

Lan Zhan doesn't respond but when he starts down the path again, his shoulder brushes against Wei Wuxian's.

Wei Wuxian feels his cheeks get hot and he hurries so as to not fall behind again.

It's not that long after Lan Zhan leaves Lotus Pier that Wei Wuxian's trip to Cloud Recesses is planned. Their betrothal agreement is short, just long enough to be appropriate but everything is happening very swiftly. It's been strange to be without Lan Zhan for that brief time and Wei Wuxian finds his chest is a little tight with excitement at the thought of seeing him.

Walking up the path to Cloud Recesses is...strange. He'd come with a contingent from Lotus Pier—he's apparently not allowed to travel solo anymore.

He had the oddest feeling as he was escorted through the entrance, like everything he was seeing was sort of laid over with the image of first coming here, of the first time seeing Lan Zhan—stunningly beautiful, infuriatingly imperious. Of that sort of fumbling uncertainty of being so young—it feels like a lifetime ago, even though it was just a few short years between then and now.

Still, it feels so odd as he walks those paths he knew so well only a short time ago. Glancing down at himself, he half-expects to see the light white robes of when he was here before, instead of his preferred black robes that he wears now. He finds himself glancing around, looking for Lan Zhan, like he'll find him walking down the path ahead, where Wei Wuxian will jog to catch up with him, for the sole purpose of teasing him until his ears get red and he storms away.

Of course now, Lan Zhan is waiting for him in the formal pavilion, where they will bow to each other, and sit next to each other, but not too near, not close enough to even brush up against each other. They will sip tea and stand on ceremony and Wei Wuxian feels a familiar sort of itchy need to mix things up, to misbehave, to do anything at all that will upset these careful lines and rules and structure of the whole thing.

He can't bring himself to go in, not right away. "Be right back!" he says to the startled cultivator who was the head of his contingent, and jogged away before he could stop him.

"No running," the cultivator calls uncertainly after him.

Wei Wuxian ignores that. He's not sure exactly where he's going but he needs...something. He can't just go through all of the careful steps. He can't. He's never been able to do that.

He's willing to admit that he's as surprised as anyone else when he finds himself darting through the door of the library pavilion. It hadn't been intentional but his feet had taken him on that well-trod path by rote, and when he enters, easing the door shut behind himself, he finds that he can take a deep breath for the first time in what feels like hours.

The library is quiet and still, and the smell of it—old paper, scrolls, perhaps the smallest amount of panicked sweat from those students getting papers in late, the way he always had—sends him reeling back. This, too, makes him feel like he's a teenager again. Fumbling and cocky and—okay, maybe some things never changed.

He sighs and makes his way to the central desk, where Lan Zhan had spent many stern hours watching over him. He wonders what his fifteen-year-old self would think if someone told him he was betrothed to the venerable Lan Wangji.

"Ridiculous," he says out loud, as he swings himself behind the desk, dropping down to sit where Lan Zhan used to. He peruses the room from this vantage point, trying to see it the way Lan Zhan had all those years ago. "Ludicrous," he says then, trying for both Lan Zhan's voice and posture, sitting like he has a steel rod up his backside, sniffing disdainfully as he looks down his nose at the room.

"Boring," he hears from behind him and nearly has a heart attack, clutching his chest and losing the posture, collapsing over the desk as he tries to swallow down his giggles.

"What are you doing here?" he manages finally, once he can breathe again, trying to glare up at Lan Zhan, who is standing over him, as stately as ever. "You're supposed to be at the formal pavilion."

"We are both supposed to be at the formal pavilion." Lan Zhan gazes down at Wei Wuxian critically. "You're in my seat."

Wei Wuxian gapes up at him for a moment before he grins again, feeling it spread across his face. "You're not in charge of me anymore," he points out.

"Mn." Lan Zhan tilts his head slightly, looking down at him, before he moves, stepping off the dais and walking over to one of the desks laid out in front of it. He sits down smoothly, his robes fluttering as they settle around him.

Wei Wuxian gapes at him again. "Lan Zhan," he says, but has nothing to follow it up with. Lan Zhan is full of surprises today.

"Why are you here?" Lan Zhan asks. He sounds like he's genuinely curious, and he's sitting there like they have all the time in the world, even though Wei Wuxian knows that, at minimum, Lan Zhan's brother is waiting back in the formal pavilion to complete the required greeting ceremony and, at worst, Lan Zhan's brother and his uncle are waiting there together and probably discussing how best to put an end to this betrothal.

"I—" Wei Wuxian fumbles for an answer. "I was on my way," he finishes weakly.

Lan Zhan doesn't bother to take that seriously, one eyebrow going up.

"I know, I know." The library pavilion is nowhere near the formal pavilion, the one Wei Wuxian had raced past without even a glance when he'd gotten here, the very idea of entering it making his heart beat in an unpleasantly unsteady rhythm. "It's just—it's weird, being back here."

Lan Zhan keeps looking at him. Wei Wuxian had not gotten his posture exactly right, or maybe he was just trying to copy the way he used to sit, instead of the way he sits now. Wei Wuxian wasn't wrong that, back then, Lan Zhan had sat like he had a stick up his ass, it's true, and like every part of his body was tense, like he had to hold himself firm so he wouldn't...Wei Wuxian didn't even know. Just that Lan Zhan held himself like he needed to be on guard at any given time.

Now—and it's not that many years later, though it feels like it—he's still sitting perfectly straight, looking tall and lean and neat, not one hair out of place, not one wrinkle in his pristine white robes. But instead of that tension, where it was like everything was being held rigidly in place, he just looks almost...regal. Like this sort of posture comes easy to him, like he's settled into himself.

"It's not fair," Wei Wuxian says thoughtfully, studying him.

Lan Zhan tilts his head in a question.

"You look like a grown-up," Wei Wuxian says, sighing, and slumping forward over the desk again, fiddling with the inkpot resting there. "I still look like the slovenly, ill-behaved student I was back when you had to punish me."

Lan Zhan's eyebrow goes all the way up at that, and Wei Wuxian feels himself flushing for no reason. "That was quite some time ago," Lan Zhan says after a moment. "Do you plan to misbehave now?"

Wei Wuxian's face gets even hotter but he grins, tilting his head the same way Lan Zhan had. "Perhaps," he says, again going for Lan Zhan's best, most withering tone.

"Hm." Lan Zhan moves his shoulders a little and for a moment, Wei Wuxian thinks he might adopt Wei Wuxian's sprawling pose, imitating him the way Wei Wuxian is imitating Lan Zhan. He has a vivid image of Lan Zhan, in his immaculate robes, letting himself slouch over the table, propping one hand under his chin, maybe tilting his face up towards Wei Wuxian, looking at him through his eyelashes with...maybe not a grin, Wei Wuxian can't quite picture that, but with a hint of a smile on his face that would be so much more devastating.

He blinks, and of course Lan Zhan is still sitting there, straight-backed and sedate, but he's watching Wei Wuxian closely and Wei Wuxian feels like Lan Zhan knows every single thought that has just gone through Wei Wuxian's head, like he knows it all in detail, and is paying careful attention.

If Wei Wuxian's face gets any hotter, he's going to become a fire hazard. "Come on," he says, jumping up and hopping down off of the dais. "You're making us late. Your brother is waiting."

Lan Zhan's mouth quirks just the slightest amount at Wei Wuxian's stern tone, and Wei Wuxian gives him a broad grin, ignoring how hot his cheeks are, how weirdly his breath is coming. "My uncle, as well," he says, as he rises smoothly to his feet.

"Uh-oh," Wei Wuxian mutters under his breath.

"Indeed," Lan Zhan says, sliding open the door to the library pavilion and gesturing for Wei Wuxian to proceed out ahead of him.

The formal meeting with the family is...well, it's essentially as painful as Wei Wuxian had thought it would be, made manageable only by the fact that, every time he glances over at Lan Zhan, he can't help thinking of his nearly-amused face as he'd inquired if Wei Wuxian intended to misbehave. While it does, in fact, make him want to misbehave, he tamps that down, and makes an effort to sit properly, and listen quietly, and give a truly spectacular bow when he's finally allowed to rise at the end of the interminable ceremony.

Lan Zhan's uncle gives him sour looks throughout—even though Wei Wuxian is doing nothing at all out of line—and Wei Wuxian thinks that, perhaps, the shine has worn off of whatever benefit Lan Qiren had seen when he'd agreed to this union.

Wei Wuxian stands up from his perfect and appropriately low bow, his face schooled into a semblance of solemn contemplation as befits the situation.

Lan Qiren looks at him like he's barely restraining a sigh.

"Come," Lan Qiren says then and for one weird moment, Wei Wuxian thinks he's speaking to him, that Lan Zhan's uncle wants him to follow him so he can...well, Wei Wuxian can think of all sorts of unpleasant conversations Lan Qiren would prefer to have with him in private.

But of course, when Lan Qiren pivots on one heel, Lan Xichen falls into step behind him, casting a small, soft look over his shoulder at his brother, who is standing next to Wei Wuxian, having completed his own—perfect—bow to his family as they exit the formal pavilion.

Then it is only Wei Wuxian and Lan Zhan there, Lan Zhan settling himself neatly back down at the table. Wei Wuxian looks around, intrigued, but...of course. There is an auntie, sitting off against one wall, her sharp eyes on them. She seems pretty settled in, like she has nothing but time.

"Ah." Wei Wuxian looks down at Lan Zhan, then sits down beside him with a sweep of his robes. "I guess we have ourselves a chaperone."

"As required." Lan Zhan is pouring both of them more tea—Wei Wuxian longs for something stronger, just to take the edge off, but the lack of alcohol has always been the main problem with Cloud Recesses.

"Sure." Wei Wuxian stretches out his back, turning from side to side to work out the tension of the far-too-long formal family meeting. "What?" he says, off of Lan Zhan's look. "I don't know how you do it, this whole upright-and-precise posture thing you have. It's painful." He presses his hands to the small of his back, arching it as he rolls his shoulders.

"You're fine." Lan Zhan ignores his exaggerated stretches—the man has no sympathy—and pushes his tea cup towards him, then picks up his own, taking a silent sip.

"Your uncle hates me," Wei Wuxian says conversationally.

"You bait him," Lan Zhan responds, matching Wei Wuxian's tone.

Wei Wuxian gapes for just a moment, then grins—he can't help it, Lan Zhan is truly one of the funniest people he knows. Possibly the funniest. "I do," he allows. "I sometimes do, but even when I'm not baiting him, he still hates me. You saw that bow. It was a really good bow."

Lan Zhan's expression doesn't change as he says, "Adequate."

Wei Wuxian laughs—he can't help it, it just bubbles out of him. "Now who's baiting who?" he demands. "Are you seeing this?" he asks over his shoulder at the auntie in the corner, who glances up at him with a bored expression on her face, then returns to staring into the middle distance. "So mean, Lan Zhan."

Lan Zhan takes another sip of tea.

"So," Wei Wuxian settles down with a sigh. He very much wants to sprawl against the table, lean his chin on his hand, let his spine go loose the way it so very much needs to—but Lan Zhan would, he suspects, be expecting that, so instead he opts for an appropriate posture, casting a quick thought to his sister all the way at Lotus Pier...no, wait, right, Carp Tower. Even after a year of her being married to that guy, he still can't fathom that she doesn't live at home anymore, that she resides amidst the gaudy ostentation of the Jin sect. Regardless, he thinks that his shijie would be proud of him for displaying the fact that he does know how to behave appropriately when he chooses to. "So," he says again, dragging his brain back to focus on the matter at hand. "What now?"

Lan Zhan looks at him silently.

"Come on." Wei Wuxian looks at him encouragingly.

Lan Zhan just waits.

"Woo me," Wei Wuxian says finally, flashing a grin.

Lan Zhan continues to stare at him.

"How," Wei Wuxian asks, "how do you do that? How do you make your look that withering without even changing your expression?"

Lan Zhan opens his mouth and then closes it again, pressing his lips together. Wei Wuxian is more than fairly certain that he was about to say Ridiculous and stopped himself, thinking of Wei Wuxian's impression of imperious fifteen-year-old Lan Zhan, back in the library pavilion.

Wei Wuxian grins more broadly. "That's what we're supposed to be doing here, right?" he asks. "Wooing each other?"

"Getting to know each other." Lan Zhan says it stiffly but to give the man credit, he doesn't drop his gaze. The tips of his ears are, however, very slightly red.

"I know you, Lan Zhan," Wei Wuxian says recklessly. He doesn't, he definitely doesn't, not really, not like this. Not anywhere well enough to be getting married to him. It's a marriage of convenience and Wei Wuxian knows that those don't matter very much, that he should, as Jiang Cheng had so eloquently put it, deal with it. But still. "I know you," he persists. "We know each other, well enough, but not..." It feels too honest, all of a sudden, to say it right out. Not like this. Not enough to stand up in front of our families and our ancestors, to commit ourselves to each other. To have a wedding ceremony, to have a wedding night, to see each other like that, to—

"Come." Lan Zhan rises abruptly, sounding a little disturbingly like his uncle.

"What?" Wei Wuxian gets caught in his robes as he rushes to his feet. Lan Zhan doesn't even glance back at him. The auntie, who has gotten up just a beat after Lan Zhan, is standing, her hands folded in front of her, her stony gaze on Wei Wuxian, clearly waiting for him to get himself together as he scrambles to follow Lan Zhan out the door. "Where are we going?" he calls—too loudly, he guesses, because he gets a few startled looks from some cultivators making their way across the broad terrace in front of the pavilion.

Lan Zhan is walking swiftly along the path, and Wei Wuxian hurries—not running, he's not, he thinks darkly at the staring cultivators—to catch up. "Where are we going?" he asks again breathlessly, knocking his shoulder against Lan Zhan's. He glances behind them and realizes the auntie has somehow kept up and is pacing along behind them, not even breathing hard. He purses his lips and stares at her in admiration.

She continues to ignore him.

Lan Zhan also ignores him, not answering his question as he keeps walking.

"Is it a surprise?" Wei Wuxian persists because, well, why not? If they're supposed to be getting to know each other, Lan Zhan should get used to how very annoying he can be. "What is it, what's the surprise, Lan Zhan?"

Lan Zhan doesn't even bother to glance at him out of the corner of his eye and okay, turnabout is fair play, Wei Wuxian guesses he should get used to the fact that Lan Zhan can be cold as ice. Not that that's new information to him—he's proud to admit that he's been thoroughly ignored by Lan Zhan many times in his life.

He settles into a stroll alongside Lan Zhan, the auntie walking steadily behind them some ways down the path. "It's been a while since I've come to Cloud Recesses." More than a while. It feels like a lifetime. "What's new around here? Show me the sights."

Lan Zhan is leading him down a broad path, gently curving among the buildings and courtyards.

"I don't think I've been in this part before," Wei Wuxian continues. Chatting about nothing has always been one of his strong points. "But then again, I didn't explore too much of the place back then. I was more inclined to sneak off to the back hill. Did you ever explore back there? I mean, I know you came there, you had to come chase me back to the library enough times, but you never looked like you would come there on your own. Did you?"

Lan Zhan draws to a halt as they reach a neat, solitary building. He inclines his head towards the door. "Your quarters," he says, "for the duration of your visit."

Wei Wuxian looks at the door, then glances around. "Really?" It is definitely one of the nicer places—it's set back from the other, smaller quarters, and definitely in a more peaceful part of Cloud Recesses than the student quarters where he had stayed all those years ago. He gives Lan Zhan a look as he moves forward, easing the doors open and peeking inside. "This is all just for me?" It's huge, and airy, and even just looking in, it feels peaceful and smells like some sort of light incense he can't quite place.

Lan Zhan nods, standing on the wide porch as Wei Wuxian backs away from the doors, sliding them closed behind him.

"It's really fancy." He feels strange about it and he settles himself on the porch, sprawling on the broad, low steps leading up to it—even the porch is fancy—and fiddling with the belt on his robe. "You didn't need to get this place all set up just for me."

"You're my betrothed," Lan Zhan says.

Will that ever stop sounding stupid to Wei Wuxian? He winces, then looks up at Lan Zhan apologetically. "Sorry," he says, waving his hand at Lan Zhan, gesturing at him to sit down. "Sorry, sorry, it's not that we're going to get married—" Though that, too, is so strange that when he thinks about it too closely, his hands get sweaty. "—it's just the whole betrothed thing. It was fine when it was shijie, that worked for her, it fit her, but with you and me..."

Lan Zhan, to his surprise, actually does sit down next to him on the steps. Wei Wuxian glances around and sees that the auntie has already found a low seat set off to one side of the house, aside the garden planted out front, and has settled there, silent and watching.

Wei Wuxian gets the impression that she's served as chaperone more times than he can count and that nothing on this earth can surprise her. She looks bored more than anything else.

"With you and me?" Lan Zhan prompts.

Wei Wuxian has to back up in his brain to remember what he had said. "Right. With you and me, it's just...weird. You don't need to do all...this." He gestures at the house behind him. "Not for me. I'm just, you know." He looks at Lan Zhan helplessly, then, when Lan Zhan opens his mouth, holds up one hand. "If you say my betrothed again, I'm going to lose my mind."

Lan Zhan shuts his mouth.

"I don't know, this is so weird. Don't you think this is so weird? Me being here, again, for the first time in I don't know how long, just because my sect needs a boost and you guys stepped up and here we are expected to—I don't even know. Woo each other." He makes a face. "Why are all the words around this so dumb? Wooing. I don't know the first thing about wooing."

Lan Zhan is silent beside him.

Wei Wuxian sighs heavily and leans back on his elbows on the step behind him. He studies his feet, stretching out his legs and wiggling his feet back and forth. "I think it's weirder that we know each other," he admits. "Like, if you were some random son of a sect leader that I'd never even heard of, then I think maybe I could just, I don't know." He gnaws on his lip. "Roll with it."

Lan Zhan tilts his head to look down at Wei Wuxian, a small crinkle between his brows. "You'd rather marry a stranger."

"Yeah," Wei Wuxian says distractedly, then, seeing Lan Zhan's face go slightly wooden, "no, hang on, not exactly, it's not like that, not like, oh, I'd rather a stranger than you. It's just that it makes it so strange to think about you getting these nice quarters all set up for me, about me coming here and being all, I don't know. Treated like I'm something special, like you and I are really...you know. When we're really...not."

Sometimes, he ponders, watching the crinkle between Lan Zhan's brows go deeper, his mouth just keeps talking even as his brain is clearly nowhere involved in the process whatsoever. It's a problem, but what can you do.

"You know what I mean," he tries. He really hopes Lan Zhan does. He's pretty sure his brain has run out of words.

"I'm—" Lan Zhan hesitates. His face would, maybe, look expressionless to anyone else, but Wei Wuxian can almost see his brain moving, like it's trying to unravel the ideas behind what Wei Wuxian had so ineptly said. Wei Wuxian knows the feeling well. "I'm not sure I do understand, precisely," he says finally. "But I will say that, regardless of our...status, you are no longer a student here. You are the first disciple of a sect and, as such, would be assigned quarters such as these." He pauses. "If that is what has been making you uncomfortable."

Wei Wuxian feels like squirming on the stairs. He keeps looking up at Lan Zhan. That's not it, not exactly. It's not the fancy quarters, however much they have set him off. It's Lan Zhan saying betrothed. It's thinking about wooing and not having the slightest idea how that goes. It's thinking about how he's going to be married, going to be married to Lan Zhan, and he's never even been kissed. Not by anyone, and definitely not by Lan Zhan, and for some reason, that's what his brain has decided to hook itself on: that wooing means kissing, and his brain will not stop thinking about what kissing Lan Zhan would be like.

Looking up at him now, Wei Wuxian thinks about how soft his lips got when he was tipsy, that night back in Lotus Pier, how his gaze kept dropping to Wei Wuxian's lips, and how Wei Wuxian has this tiny inkling of a feeling that Lan Zhan is also thinking that wooing means kissing.

There is a heartbeat of a moment where it seems like Lan Zhan is swaying forward a bit, like he's considering—

But no, of course not. The thought is ludicrous and Wei Wuxian pushes himself to sit more fully upright. "The quarters are fine," he says brightly. "It's fine, I'm just being strange, you know me."

Lan Zhan nods, but his expression doesn't clear. He's still looking at him like he knows there's something more going on.

Wei Wuxian shakes his hair back out of his face, reaching up to straighten his ponytail as he grins at Lan Zhan. "Honestly, don't worry about it. I'll get used to being your honored guest." He lets his grin twist sideways. "At least you don't have to put up with sharing a room with me. I wouldn't want to mess up your rooms. It's probably way too nice."

Lan Zhan is quiet for a moment. "It's where my mother lived," he says, finally. "My quarters. The Jingshi."

Wei Wuxian hesitates, but listen, if they're going to be married, the way Lan Zhan's been talking about, truly married, not just in words and vows but in daily life, he should get used to asking the tougher questions. "She died when you were pretty young, right?"

Lan Zhan inclines his head. "Yes."

Wei Wuxian watches Lan Zhan's face. He's not looking away from Wei Wuxian and, again, Lan Zhan has always excelled at keeping his face stoic, shuttered. He doesn't let every emotion race across his face the way Wei Wuxian does. Right now, though, he looks less closed off, more...you couldn't call it open, exactly, but he's not shutting down. Not offering up much, either, but that's to be expected. "Did you spend time there with her, when you were a kid?"

Lan Zhan nods again. "Some."

"Not too many memories of it?" Wei Wuxian gets that. He's not one hundred percent sure of the story of what happened with Lan Zhan's parents, but he knows it wasn't great, however it went down. And he himself knows a few things about a traumatic childhood.

"A few. Nothing too clear. The way the sunlight would move across the floor as we visited. The smell of the breeze from the porch. Her smile, and how she would pull me to sit in her lap."

It's possibly more words than Wei Wuxian has ever heard Lan Zhan say in a row. He says it all calmly, but it's still a lot. The idea of baby Lan Zhan—Wei Wuxian thinks he'd heard Lan Zhan was only six when his mother died, around the same age Wei Wuxian had been when Jiang Fengmian took him in—being tugged into his mom's lap, being held close, maybe grinning in that wide-open honest way kids have—it's a lot to imagine. "And you get to live there now," he says. "That must be nice. Maybe you don't have all of the memories, but they get held in the place where they happened. You getting to live where she lived—that has to be nice."

Lan Zhan inclines his head again.

Wei Wuxian blows his breath out. "Things are getting far too serious," he announces. "See, I warned you, having me around is going to be one big hassle after another."

Lan Zhan merely raises one eyebrow the slightest amount. "We'll adjust," he says. "We'll adjust to each other."

Wei Wuxian feels a grin spreading across his face. "You want that?" he says, trying to keep it light. "You want to adjust to me, Lan Zhan?"

Astonishingly, the tips of Lan Zhan's ears go very, very pink, but he doesn't look away.

"Oh." Wei Wuxian can't stop grinning. "Okay, then—we'll adjust." He tips his head back, shaking his hair out of his face and is completely unprepared when Lan Zhan leans in over him and—more astonishing still—presses his lips against Wei Wuxian's, kissing the grin right off of his face. Wei Wuxian can't process it, can't move or breathe or do anything more than stay there, still leaning back against his elbows, as Lan Zhan warm, soft lips press against his, kissing him—chastely, but somehow thoroughly.

"Lan Zhan," he breathes, somewhat strangled, when Lan Zhan leans back. "You can't just—" He glances over, but the auntie has her hands crossed over her stomach and her head has nodded down, her eyes closed, napping in the afternoon sun. "Lan Zhan," Wei Wuxian says again, feeling dazed. "So daring!" He tries to laugh but that, too, comes out strangled, and he can't stop himself from pressing his fingers against his lips, trying to go back over every detail of the short time the kiss had lasted.

Lan Zhan is sitting back up. His ears are even more pink now, almost red, but he's not looking away from Wei Wuxian. "As you said," he says, and Wei Wuxian is gratified that he sounds slightly strangled himself, "we're wooing. I'm told that stolen kisses are part of that."

Stolen kisses. Wei Wuxian is pretty sure his mouth has dropped open. Lan Zhan's been thinking about this, thinking about stolen kisses. Thinking about stealing a kiss from Wei Wuxian and then—doing it.

Astonishing. It's been a day of astonishing things.

There's a creak from across the way as the auntie stands up from her seat, wide awake and watching them with a bored expression.

"Right," Wei Wuxian manages with a small laugh, pushing himself to his feet. Lan Zhan gets up too, standing next to him, close enough that his sleeve is brushing against Wei Wuxian's fingers. He wants to wrap his fingers around that sleeve, wants to haul Lan Zhan close, wants to get his own back. Push up on his toes and press his lips against Lan Zhan's and see if the second kiss tastes as sweet as the first. "Right," he says again, instead, and pivots on one heel. "Show me around these fancy quarters. They're so big, you have to make sure I don't get lost in there."

Lan Zhan nods and moves forward, sliding open the doors, as the auntie makes her way up the steps. Wei Wuxian gestures for her to go through first and she does, slanting him a look as she passes that is frank enough to make his own ears get hot, just like Lan Zhan's. She looks at him like she's seen everything and their attempt at stealing kisses is nothing to her. "Guess she's been a chaperone for a long time," he mutters to himself, and follows her in, Lan Zhan bringing up the rear.

The visit goes by quickly. It's weird, how easily the days flow by. There's planning to be done, but he and Lan Zhan aren't really a part of that. It's a structured ceremony and they have their parts to play. They're shuffled around from meeting to meeting, where they're shown the selections of seating arrangements (strictly based on political seniority), where they're measured for their wedding robes, where they're instructed on how they are to behave and the steps they are to take to avoid any sort of a debacle—so many meetings that they become a whirlwind. The days melt into each other, and the auntie—Wei Wuxian has finally found out her name is Lan Fang—is their constant, bored companion as they make the rounds.

They get not a single moment of private time together, not a one. The first day was, in fact, the quietest, and Wei Wuxian feels like it was perhaps set aside for wooing, as it were, because the days that follow are packed in a way that keeps them from any semblance of intimacy.

Which is good, Wei Wuxian supposes. He shouldn't...this isn't really an intimate sort of thing, right? Or, well, it is, at its core, but that strange stolen kiss aside, this is a political betrothal. It's something he keeps reminding himself of, sternly, as he watches Lan Zhan in profile at meeting after meeting, his face stoic and sedate. It's just political. Nothing more.

He's ready to depart, the Jiang cultivator assigned to accompany him back standing nearby with his sword, waiting for him. Lan Xichen has come with Lan Zhan to see him off. "The next time I see you," Lan Xichen says with a warm smile, "will be to welcome you to the family."

That's weird. That's so weird. Wei Wuxian nods, trying to grin. "Not too much longer now."

"Quite soon." Lan Xichen gives him a bow and retreats, strolling over to chat with the Jiang cultivator. He's clearly giving Wei Wuxian and Lan Zhan some space to bid each other farewell, and Wei Wuxian moves closer to where Lan Zhan is standing, watching him.

"Strange week, right?" Wei Wuxian says. He's alone with Lan Zhan for the first time in many, many days, as alone as they're allowed. Even Lan Fang is nowhere in sight, her duty served. Lan Xichen is leaning close to the Jiang cultivator, talking intently about something, and no one is paying them any attention.

After a full week of constant supervision, it feels intimate. Wei Wuxian feels like he can take a deep breath for the first time in days.

"It's not just me, right?" he continues, when Lan Zhan declines to comment on the strangeness of the week. "This was a lot. I knew wedding planning wasn't as exciting as it's made out to be—shijie was exhausted during the lead-up, she talked about how much it all was—but this feels a little ridiculous. And it's not even a love match!" He laughs and nudges Lan Zhan's shoulder, feeling bold—he's pretty sure he hasn't even brushed up against him since that first day. Since that first kiss.

"Planning is a significant part of a successful ceremony," Lan Zhan says.

"Well, yeah, you've got me there." Wei Wuxian sighs. He wants to lean up against Lan Zhan, wants to drape himself over him the way he used to do when they were kids, when he really wanted to get on Lan Zhan's nerves. "I'm not much of a planner. You should know that about me, if we're going to get married. I like to take things as they come, work it all out in the moment."

"I do know that about you," Lan Zhan says after a significant pause that hits the exact right beat alongside his dry tone.

Wei Wuxian can't stop the laugh that bubbles up, even though it's at his own expense. "I guess you would." He presses one hand against Lan Zhan's shoulder. "Next time I see you, I'll be all in red. Think you'll recognize me?"

Lan Zhan's gaze flickers down Wei Wuxian's body so quickly Wei Wuxian almost misses it. "I believe so," he says.

Wei Wuxian doesn't feel like laughing this time. There's a hint of heat in Lan Zhan's look and his mouth is suddenly very dry. His brain skips ahead, from wedding day to wedding night. Thinking about the nuptial chambers, thinking about that meeting they had about how the trajectory of the day would go, the expectations of the ceremony, the escorting of them the marital suite, all of it delivered in the clipped tone of the organizer who had been leading that meeting, made so dull that Wei Wuxian had nearly missed the fact that they'd been discussing the fact that they were fully expected to...deflower each other.

"Right," he says, drawing his hand back from Lan Zhan's shoulder. "Okay. We should—I mean, I should—I'm going to go."

Lan Zhan nods.

"I'll see you really soon." Wei Wuxian does sometimes wish he could stop babbling when he's nervous. "You remember how to get to Lotus Pier, right? You can't be late. It would be very embarrassing."

"Wei Ying." The way Lan Zhan says it—slightly exasperated, maybe a tiny bit fond—it works to both shut Wei Wuxian up and send a frisson of happiness through him. Hope, maybe, or something like it, that the next time he sees Lan Zhan—at their wedding. Their wedding!—it might actually, possibly, be sort of...fun.

"All right, all right." Wei Wuxian looks at Lan Zhan and he can't help it—he darts in close and presses a kiss against his lips, one hand on Lan Zhan's hip for balance. He means it to be a short peck, almost a joke, but he lingers there for one beat, two. He wants more, he wants to fit his mouth against Lan Zhan's, wants to see what would happen if Lan Zhan's lips softened under his, if Lan Zhan would—

There's a discreet cough behind them and Wei Wuxian draws back hastily, glancing over to where Lan Xichen is still talking with the Jiang cultivator, though his eyes flicker over to them briefly.

Wei Wuxian grins apologetically at him, then looks back at Lan Zhan. Lan Zhan still looks steady—back straight, one hand tucked behind it, his robes smooth, his face impassive, but his eyes—his eyes tell a whole other story. There's definitely heat there—Wei Wuxian isn't imagining it—and he's studying Wei Wuxian like Wei Wuxian holds all the secrets of the world.

"See you soon," Wei Wuxian says, giving Lan Zhan a little wave as he makes his way over to the Jiang cultivator.

Wei Wuxian is lying backwards on his bed, head hanging off of the end of it, contemplating his mortal existence, when there's a quiet knock at the door.

His doors slide open after his mournful, "Come in," and shijie comes in.

He's so happy she's here. He needs her. She paces over to him slowly, her belly looming into his view like the moon. "A-Xian," she says. "What are you doing?"

"Getting married," he says with a sigh. "Tomorrow." All the blood has rushed to his head. It feels kind of good, like he can maybe think better this way.

"Oh. Well, scoot over," she says. "Let your poor pregnant shijie sit down."

Obediently, he scrambles to shift over, leaving space for shijie to sit down next to him.

"Okay," she says when she's settled. "Tell me what's going on in here." She taps his forehead gently, where he's still got his head dangling off of the bed.

He tilts his head to look at her. She's got a soft look on her face, like she really does want to know, is ready to listen. Only even he doesn't really know what's going on in his brain. Maybe the extra rush of blood isn't helping after all. "I don't know," he says, going for plaintive. "I don't know what's going on in there at all. It's all a jumble. How can someone whose brain is always in a jumble marry Hanguang-jun?"

Shijie makes a soft noise of dissent. "Do not tell me that my A-Xian isn't good enough for that," she says. She sounds kind. She alway sounds so kind. "I'll have to fight you about that and I'm in no shape for a fight." She rests one hand on the curve of her belly with a smile.

He grins up at her and rolls onto his side. He wishes he could put his head in her lap. He wishes she still had a lap for him to do that. Her belly is so much bigger than the last time he'd seen her, and she is beautiful, glowing with it. "I can't believe you're having a baby," he says, tucking his arm under his head and resting against it as he looks up at her. "An actual baby."

"And fairly soon," she says, grinning down at him. "Just a few months more. Imagine how big I'll get."

They both contemplate her belly for a moment, Wei Wuxian thinking about the fact that in just three or so months, he'll have a niece or a nephew; that soon, his shijie will be a mother. And how soon, so soon, he'll be a husband.

"It's just so weird," he bursts out. "Not your baby, not that, of course not that, but just the idea of being a husband—me! Can you picture that?"

She studies him, like it's a real question, like she's honestly taking that moment to look at him and picture it, see him as someone's spouse. "I can," she says finally. "And I will. Tomorrow, in fact."

He groans and buries his face against the bed for a moment.

"You do care for him," she says gently. "You've cared for him for quite some time now."

He lifts his head to stare up at her in dismay, his cheeks going hot, a whole new rush of blood. "That isn't—I haven't—listen, he's not—"

She ignores his sputtering, running one hand over his head, tucking a piece of hair behind his ear. "And he cares for you."

Okay, that is a blatant untruth, it just is, it's not that his shijie is lying, it's that she's wrong. She's always wanted to see the best in people and this has got to be part of that, because okay, maybe—maybe—Lan Zhan cares about the survival of the Jiang sect, maybe Lan Zhan would do his filial duty and get married to whomever his uncle deemed the most politically well-placed but in some way he'd just prefer to do it with someone he knows, someone who's not a stranger, like he'd said, but that doesn't mean that he cares about Wei Wuxian in particular.

"It's just that he knows me," is what he finally says. "Not that he cares about me. Not like that."

Shijie makes a small humming noise, still stroking his hair. "He's been good for you, A-Xian."

Wei Wuxian makes a noise of protest and pushes himself to sitting. "He hasn't," he says. "How? He isn't—we don't even—"

"Oh." Shijie says it on a quiet gasp, her hands flying to her belly.

Wei Wuxian looks at her in alarm, ready to scramble up, run for a doctor, but she's shaking her head and reaching for his hand. "The baby is kicking," she says. She presses his hand against her stomach and oh, he can feel it, he can feel that patter of tiny thumps, coming from the inside out.

"That's so strange," he breathes out. She moves his hand as the kicks shift, like the baby is rolling over in there.

"Imagine how it feels from the inside," she says with a rueful smile.

He does, for a second, think about that, about how it would be if his marriage went the route of shijie's, where she got pregnant only a few months after the wedding, how that's how it so often goes, how it would be, that sort of bewildered joy he'd seen in her eyes when she'd told him, like the whole thing was a miracle.

He has a swift second of that image, him with a swollen belly like shijie's, Lan Zhan with that look of aching pride like shijie's almost-total-disaster of a husband gives her constantly.

It's ridiculous, of course. He shakes his head and grins at shijie. "Strong child in there," he says. "This baby is going to be a force to be reckoned with."

She gives a small, proud smile, tucking it down against her chest as she gazes down at their hands clasped against her belly. "Perhaps," is all she allows, but he sees the flush of her cheeks, and knows she knows it, too. How could his shijie's child be anything less than perfect?

"It will be." He says it like a promise.

"You'll be a good husband, A-Xian." She's smiling at him now, reaching out to rest one hand against his cheek. "All grown up, now."

He feels himself flush. "I've been grown up for a while now, shijie," he says.

"I know," she says. "But you'll always be a little kid to me."

He shakes his head at her, rolling to his feet and reaching down to take her hands. "Your baby brother, who is right now definitely late for a meeting. Walk me over, so Jiang Cheng can't yell at me."

She giggles quietly as he tugs her to her feet.

"My beautiful shijie," he says, gazing at her.

"Stop." She shakes her head, smoothing his robes into place. "You're ridiculous."

"I am." He slides the door open for her, gesturing her out ahead of him.

The wedding, when it comes down to it, is both more exciting than Wei Wuxian had expected it to be, and more boring, in turns. It definitely involves a whole lot more waiting around than he would prefer.

The exciting parts are the lead-up: the morning of, with shijie doing his hair in an intricate style, Jiang Cheng looking on and scolding Wei Wuxian when he'd moved too much. Wei Wuxian's stomach is churning with unexpected nerves, staring into the mirror shijie is holding up, feeling almost unrecognizable in his red robes, his hair glistening and smooth, looping up in a much, much fancier style than he's used to.

"What if he doesn't recognize me?" he mutters. His eyes look back at him from the mirror, wide and a little alarmed.

"Of course he'll recognize you." Shijie's putting the mirror down, her soft smile comforting. "You're going to be his husband. You're all he's thinking about." She sounds like she means it, leaning in to adjust his hair, where tendrils of it are curling over his shoulder.

"Saddled with you for life," Jiang Cheng mutters, but shuts up when shijie gives him a look over his shoulder.

"I'm really glad you could be here," Wei Wuxian says, peering down at her stomach. "Glad we didn't cut it too close, huh?"

She rests one hand on the curve of her stomach, her smile taking on a quiet glow, as she looks down at herself. "Three more months to go. It's my last trip for a while," she says. "But I wouldn't miss this for the world."

"I can't believe you're going to be a mother," Wei Wuxian says. "You're going to be the best mom. This kid is so lucky to have you."

She flushes, but she smiles up at him, looking quietly pleased. "Stop trying to change the subject," she says sternly. "It's your wedding day. This is all about you. Stay focused."

"Okay, okay!" Wei Wuxian says, laughing and holding up his hands. "But listen, I'm just going to say, that was a mom voice if I ever heard one."

She gives him a little push. "Get up," she says. "Let us look at you."

Wei Wuxian gets to his feet, reaching down to help her gently up off her low stool, getting the giggles again at how she's slightly ungainly—she's never less than perfectly ideal in her every movement and seeing her have to push herself to her feet is adorable.

She looks him over with a critical eye, while Jiang Cheng looks over her shoulder. She straightens the collar of his robes, going up on her toes to do so, then brushes a piece of lint off of his shoulder. Finally, she steps back, giving him a final once-over. "You look perfect," she says, her voice breaking as tears spring to her eyes.

"Shijie," Wei Wuxian says in quiet alarm. "You can't cry! Don't cry!"

"Oh, be quiet," she says, smiling as she dabs the tears away with the back of her hand. "I can cry over you on your wedding day. It's allowed."

He smiles at her helplessly and bends down to kiss her cheek. "It's not even a real wedding, you know," he says.

"Oh, A-Xian." She smiles up at him, catching his hands in her own. "It is, though." She squeezes his hands. "You'll see."

It's sweet, how she thinks that, and he wishes, for one moment, again, that this was happening differently, that it was more than what it is. But still—at least he does know the man he's marrying. At least he does like him.

"Ready?" It's Jiang Cheng, looking both irritable and emotional at the same time, which is not actually an uncommon look for him. "You can't be late to your own wedding."

"I could, though," Wei Wuxian says, even as he allows them to hustle him towards the door. "What are they going to do, start without me?"

"I will murder you," Jiang Cheng says grimly, one hand firmly on Wei Wuxian's shoulder, steering him out the door.

"Hey, you're going to wrinkle the robes," Wei Wuxian protests cheerfully, making his way down the stairs, Jiang Cheng finally releasing him so he can offer his arm to shijie as she makes her careful way down the steps.

Things happen very fast after that. He honestly barely remembers the ceremony itself. He knows that he's in his proper place at the proper time. He knows Lan Zhan appears just when he should, and that is something that is seared into his brain, the image of Lan Zhan in wedding red, looking exactly like himself but also like a stranger, this beautiful man out of his usual whites and blues, his robes, if possible, even fancier than Wei Wuxian's, layer after layer of them. And yet he is still Lan Zhan underneath it all. His face is quiet, almost serene, but Wei Wuxian can see, as he draws close, his pulse jumping in his throat.

And then he's next to Wei Wuxian, so close that their sleeves brush as they stand there. Wei Wuxian, looking down at himself, sees the skirts of his robes trembling and realizes he's shaking as he stands here, next to his soon-to-be husband. He looks up at Lan Zhan's face and Lan Zhan is looking at him, his expression open, unshuttered, and oh. Oh, Wei Wuxian knows him. He knows Lan Zhan, he knows him. This isn't something scary, this is them. Maybe it's the strangest possible circumstance they could have found themselves in, but this is them, and they can do this. He takes a deep breath for the first time in what feels like a while.

Wei Wuxian can do this.

They can do this.

They recite the vows and take their bows. There are rows and rows of guests looking on, but Wei Wuxian doesn't pay attention to any of them, just watching and listening as Lan Zhan says the words to him. Takes him as his husband, as simple as that.

They perform the tea ceremony, Wei Wuxian pouring for Jiang Cheng and shijie, Lan Zhan pouring for Lan Qiren and Lan Xichen, focusing all his power on keeping his hands steady and his gaze lowered.

When it's over, he looks at Lan Zhan. At his husband. "We got married," he whispers, like he's telling him a secret.

Lan Zhan's gaze is soft, like he's feeling it too, this dizzy, unmoored feeling. "We did."

They did. They're married. They did it.

There's the party afterwards and that's a whirlwind, too, going by in a flash. Wei Wuxian remembers almost none of that, either. He's dizzy, giddy, going from person to person, getting congratulations and sternly-worded advice, and nudges and winks from some people, and all of it is a blur.

It's different, when it's two men, and the party attendees all come behind them as they make their way together to the nuptial suite as their part of the party draws to a close. It's a feeling of celebration, of whoops and whistles and everyone around them is grinning and the tips of Lan Zhan's ears are so red they look like they might catch fire.

By the time they're able to slide the door open, Lan Zhan looks like he's truly suffering. Wei Wuxian nudges Lan Zhan in ahead of him, turning to block the doorway as he grins at the crowd and gives them a wave. "Go back to the party," he orders. "Have a drink on us."

He closes the door—finally, finally—and slumps back against it as the sound of the boisterous crowd fades as they make their way back to the wedding pavilion. "That was a lot," he declares, rubbing his hands tiredly over his face. "That was so much. Are you okay?"

The whole place is lit by shimmering candles—the servants must have done it and slipped out right before they got there. Lan Zhan is standing in the middle of the room, looking a little helpless. Even he is slightly disheveled after the party—his robes are a little askew, his hair—up in an incredibly intricate style, wound through with so much gold filigree that Wei Wuxian wonders how they'll ever get it down—his hair is ruffled, and he looks both wide-eyed with overstimulation and exhausted, the hint of dark circles under his eyes.

And Wei Wuxian, looking at him from where he's still slumped against the door, is struck by that same feeling he'd had the first time he'd ever laid eyes on him: this is the most beautiful man he's ever seen.

And now he's his husband. Wei Wuxian has married him. Wei Wuxian is married. He's married to Lan Zhan.

"I can't believe we did it," he murmurs, mostly to himself. He knows it's been months of planning, and a whole day of actually doing it, but somehow, he still feels stunned. "Hey, listen, come here, let's sit."

Lan Zhan looks grateful for the direction, letting Wei Wuxian steer him towards the low table off to one side, both of them resolutely ignoring the bed that takes over the center of the room, draped in red. There's time to deal with that later. For now, he sits Lan Zhan down at the table and pours him a cup of tea from the steaming pot resting there. There is, thankfully, a jar of Emperor's Smile and he pours himself a generous serving. There had been drinks during the celebration but he'd kept putting his down and then being pulled away, losing cup after cup of it.

He takes a bracing sip, and watches, smiling over the rim of his cup, as Lan Zhan takes a sip of his tea in the same way: like he needs it as much as Wei Wuxian needs the fortifying alcohol.

"So," Wei Wuxian says, going for a light tone, "what are your thoughts on marriage so far? Good? Bad? Indifferent?"

Lan Zhan studies his teacup for a moment. "Strange," he says finally.

Wei Wuxian lifts his own cup in a toast. "You're not wrong."

Lan Zhan actually lifts his own cup up and toasts Wei Wuxian back. Wei Wuxian can't stop the grin that spreads over his face. "Husband," he says, trying it out. "You're my husband." He shakes his head, taking another sip of liquor.

"And for you?" Lan Zhan says. His shoulders are a little slumped—so strange to see Lan Zhan like this, dressed as fancy as Wei Wuxian has ever seen him, but also as undone as he ever has, too, like he's too exhausted to put on any sort of a front.

"For me?" Wei Wuxian asks.

"Your thoughts on marriage," Lan Zhan says.

"Ah." Wei Wuxian fiddles with his cup. "Hard to say. We haven't been alone together, not for a second in...months." They haven't, and that feels so strange, that right now is the first time since the whole thing was set up, that they are just...them. Together.

"We're alone now," Lan Zhan says quietly. He's looking at Wei Wuxian like it's a genuine question, one that he'd very much like an answer to. Wei Wuxian gets that. They've found themselves—put themselves—in a very weird situation and whatever the reasons behind it, now it's just...them. In it. Together.

"I don't know," he admits. "It's not that I haven't been thinking about it—of course I have, but." He scratches the back of his head, probably making his already disheveled hair even worse. He knows he's lost the careful style shijie had created this morning, and he wonders if Lan Zhan is looking at him, at this haphazardly put-together man to whom he's now legally wed, and wondering what he's done. He shrugs his shoulders, grinning at Lan Zhan. "But now that it's here, it's even weirder than I thought. Not in a bad way," he says quickly—Lan Zhan's face hasn't exactly changed but Wei Wuxian feels like he may be starting to hurt his feelings. "Just in that way where—I don't know. I know you! You're my—well, okay, we probably won't go as far as friend, but we've known each other for years and suddenly we've been shoved together into this fancy suite and that bed is right there and everyone out there is thinking we're in here and that we're going to..."

He trails off, because his mouth has, as ever, gotten away from him.

"I would," Lan Zhan says. He's set down his cup of tea and is watching Wei Wuxian across the table.

Wei Wuxian goes back over what he'd been babbling about again, trying to figure out what exactly Lan Zhan is offering up. "Would...what?" he asks finally.

"Consider us friends." Lan Zhan says it simply enough, like it's a known fact.

Something about it makes Wei Wuxian's heart go soft and he leans forward, stacking his hands on the table and resting his chin on them, smiling up at Lan Zhan in what he knows is a very cute manner. "You do?" he asks, just to hear Lan Zhan say it again.

"I do." Lan Zhan sits up a little bit straighter and Wei Wuxian thinks that if he were anyone else, he'd be stretching out his back. Wei Wuxian's own back is aching, and his fancy robes are too warm, and a little itchy, and all he really wants is to relax. It's been an extremely intense day.

"You barely tolerated me," Wei Wuxian says, pushing himself to his feet. "When we were kids, it was so easy to make you mad." He reaches down and holds his hand out to Lan Zhan. Lan Zhan, to his surprise, takes it, and lets Wei Wuxian tug him up from the table. "You were constantly ready to be irritated by me."

"You were constantly ready to irritate me." Lan Zhan says it very matter-of-factly, following as Wei Wuxian draws him away from the table.

Wei Wuxian laughs. "That's true enough," he says. He starts unwinding his belt, sighing in relief as he frees himself from it and lets it fall to the floor, his robes flowing out around him. "No reason we can't get comfortable," he says, starting to search for the inner fastenings to his robes. It had taken both Jiang Cheng and shijie to get him into them; he's not exactly certain how he's going to get out of them.

In yet another surprising event, Lan Zhan follows suit. Wei Wuxian glances up at him as Lan Zhan unwinds his own belt—he, of course, catches it as it comes undone and folds it neatly before laying it on a nearby bench. Wei Wuxian gets caught up for a moment, watching Lan Zhan in those swirling robes, the red still a strangely jarring look on him. Lan Zhan, already shrugging out of his delicately woven top robe, doesn't seem to notice.

Wei Wuxian makes himself go back to struggling out of his own robes. He gets the second layer off no problem, letting it pool on the floor at his feet, but the third layer has some sort of weird back fastening that has him struggling to reach behind himself, going in circles like a cat chasing its tail as he tries to reach it.

"Here." Lan Zhan stops him with one firm hand on his shoulder while Wei Wuxian is twisted half around, one arm caught up in the layers of cloth as he tries to find the fastening. "Let me."

"Please." Wei Wuxian sighs, blowing his hair out of his face. "I know these things have to come off, that's sort of the point, but I can't see how to..."

He trails off—again—because as he's been struggling to free himself from the prison of these fucking robes, Lan Zhan—efficient as ever—has stripped off all of his layers but one, so he's standing there in his filmy red shirt and trousers as he pushes Wei Wuxian's robe aside, his fingers deftly undoing the fastening that he finds without any struggle. He draws his hands back out and Wei Wuxian shivers as his fingers brush against his side in a way that feels wildly intimate, even though it's...nothing, it really isn't anything.

Lan Zhan moves around behind Wei Wuxian, drawing the robe off of his shoulders and folding it in half, resting it on the pile on the chair behind him. Wei Wuxian allows it, letting Lan Zhan take charge, effortlessly undoing layer after layer, until Wei Wuxian, too, is left in the shirt and trousers, as red as the wedding robes had been.

"Thanks," he says, feeling strange, and exposed, but— "That's better. It's better, isn't it?" He stretches—the robes had been heavy, and his shoulders ache, and his back, and he feels, genuinely, like he's been tense for as long as he can remember.

"Mn." Lan Zhan seems to agree and then he—in yet another in a long series of surprising events—moves towards the bed. It's up on a dais, like it's the centerpiece of the room—which, of course, it is—and Wei Wuxian watches as he settles himself on it. "Come," he says and Wei Wuxian hesitates, but follows. "Sit," Lan Zhan instructs, and Wei Wuxian does, settling gingerly on the edge of the bed and gazing up at Lan Zhan. Lan Zhan shifts and Wei Wuxian's breath catches in his throat for a moment, but Lan Zhan moves behind him, reaching for his head and starting to carefully undo the pins holding the complicated styling in place. "Oh," Wei Wuxian says, as Lan Zhan eases the first pin out. "Oh, that feels good."

"Hold out your hand," Lan Zhan says and Wei Wuxian obediently does so, and Lan Zhan drops the pin into it.

With each one he extracts, Wei Wuxian's hair loosens, and when he gets to the final one, all of Wei Wuxian's hair tumbles down his back and Wei Wuxian can't help a relieved moan at the feeling of release. "Oh," he breathes out, his shoulders relaxing. "Oh, that feels so good."

"Mn," Lan Zhan says, and then he's pressing his fingers into Wei Wuxian's hair, massaging his scalp and Wei Wuxian feels like he's going to literally melt into a gooey, tingly pile right here on the bed. He can't stop the noises he's making, Lan Zhan's firm fingers against his head feel so good that his body doesn't quite know what to do with it, only that it doesn't want it to stop.

When Lan Zhan slowly pulls his hands away, Wei Wuxian flops over onto the bed. "That was tremendous," he mutters, his face pressed sideways against the mattress. "That right there was worth getting married to you."

Lan Zhan makes a small, satisfied noise and Wei Wuxian feels him settle onto the bed next to him. He turns his head to look up at him. "This is so strange, isn't it?" he says. "You and me, here together, like this." He pushes himself up on one elbow, studying Lan Zhan. "How do you manage to still look so stately?"

It's true: he does. He's in his loose shirt and trousers, his hair still up, his face quiet and reflective as he looks down at Wei Wuxian.

"I can't believe I'm married to you," Wei Wuxian breathes. He sort of hadn't meant to say it out loud. He just honestly can't believe that Lan Zhan—Lan Zhan, right here, second of the Twin Jades of Gusu Lan; Lan Zhan who looks so devastatingly beautiful that Wei Wuxian's brain can't process it; Lan Zhan who couldn't stand Wei Wuxian, all through their teenage years—Lan Zhan is now his husband.

It's a point of fact, but it still seems impossible.

Lan Zhan is looking down at him and his face also has a look of almost bewilderment, like the whirlwind of the day is just hitting him, as well.

"Weird, right?" Wei Wuxian says, or starts to, because he gets cut off when Lan Zhan leans in and kisses the words right out of his mouth. Kisses him, like he has two times before, but those other times, they weren't married. They weren't married, and they weren't undressed, and they weren't in this bed scattered with rich red linens. The kiss is soft, at first, and as sweet as the first two kisses. Then Lan Zhan makes a soft sound in his throat, and tilts his head a little bit, and then, oh. Oh, this is kissing. This is married kissing. Lan Zhan's mouth is a little bit open, and Wei Wuxian is helpless not to open his own against his. When Lan Zhan's tongue slips inside, just a little, Wei Wuxian's arm goes out from underneath him and he falls back against the bed, Lan Zhan following him down.

He gets lost in it, in the feel of Lan Zhan's mouth against his own, in the sensation of Lan Zhan tumbling him back against the bed, kissing him like he can't quite stop. He's never felt anything like this before, and he thinks he's making small, desperate sounds against Lan Zhan's mouth. Lan Zhan is quiet as he kisses, but his breath is coming quick, and ragged, and when Wei Wuxian's body arches up against him of its own accord, Lan Zhan's hands clutch at his sides.

"Fuck," Wei Wuxian pants. "We can't—you're so—" He doesn't know, he doesn't know, he doesn't have words for this. He arches up again, just to hear Lan Zhan suck in his breath. Then Lan Zhan is rolling them over, Lan Zhan on his back, hauling Wei Wuxian on top of him, the blankets sliding underneath them.

Wei Wuxian pushes himself up on his hands, straddling Lan Zhan on the bed. And oh, fuck, Lan Zhan is—that's Lan Zhan, hard. Right there. Lan Zhan's hands are on his hips, clutching at him like he can't bear to let him go, and he looks...thoroughly kissed. Almost debauched. He's underneath Wei Wuxian and they're— "Lan Zhan," Wei Wuxian says, and it comes out tight. "Are we—you don't have to, we don't have to—"

Lan Zhan's hands go even tighter against his hips, digging in in a way that is almost painful, but also makes Wei Wuxian's cock—already halfway hard just from the kissing—give a jerk. "Do you not want to?"

He sounds—fuck, Wei Wuxian is going to lose his mind, if this is what Lan Zhan sounds like as he's just starting to come undone: breathless, and intent, and like everything in the world balances on Wei Wuxian's response.

"I do," he says quickly. "I do, fuck, I do, I just—I haven't—this isn't—" He's blushing, hard, can feel his cheeks going very, very red as he kneels there over Lan Zhan. Can Lan Zhan see how hard he is, how his cock very much doesn't care about Wei Wuxian's embarrassed, fumbling explanations? "I haven't done this, and—"

"Not with men," Lan Zhan says carefully. His hands are still tight on Wei Wuxian's hips, his lips red with kissing as he looks up at him.

"Not with anybody," Wei Wuxian says helplessly.

Lan Zhan's eyes go narrow. "Please don't make fun," he says stiffly. "Not right now."

Wei Wuxian sits up more, burying his face in his hands. His cheeks are so, so hot. "Not with anybody, Lan Zhan," he says, the words muffled against his hands.

Lan Zhan reaches up, tugging his hands away from his face. "No one?"

Wei Wuxian shakes his head. Is it possible for someone to actually die of embarrassment? He thinks he might be going to find out. "No one."

Lan Zhan's eyes flash and in the next moment, he tumbles Wei Wuxian over onto his back on the bed, climbing on top of him. The kisses this time are impossibly more intense, and Lan Zhan is no longer silent—he's making small, desperate noises as he kisses Wei Wuxian, like he can't quite hold them back. He has Wei Wuxian's hands caught up in his own, holding him down, pressing him into the bed as he kisses him, his hips rocking down against him.

Wei Wuxian can't help the quiet whimpers that are escaping, something lighting him up inside the harder Lan Zhan holds him down. If Lan Zhan had somehow been unaware of how hard Wei Wuxian had been getting earlier, it's no longer a secret now—Wei Wuxian gasps as Lan Zhan presses down against him, can't help the way his hips jerk up and, oh. "Oh," he pants, his brain going off entirely on its own, "oh, you're hard, too. You're so hard, it's so—"

Lan Zhan pulls his mouth away, burying his face in Wei Wuxian's neck. His cheek feels hot against Wei Wuxian's skin and his breath is damp and Wei Wuxian has a moment of utter disbelief that any of this is actually happening; that they're here in their wedding bed, making the exact use of it that everyone in the party is expecting.

"Hey," he says, fumbling at Lan Zhan, pushing his hand into his hair—and oh, messing up that perfect hairstyle even further, it's halfway out, tumbling against his face, the fancy pins holding it up sparkling a little in the candlelight. He pulls Lan Zhan's face up so he can see him. Lan Zhan looks down at him, his eyes huge and dark, his cheeks flushed red. His mouth is open just a little and Wei Wuxian has never in this life seen Lan Zhan this undone. Not even close. "Hey," he says again, his hand still caught up in Lan Zhan's hair. "I..." He means to say something important, something that will communicate everything he's feeling right now, which is mostly bewildered, with a side note of terrified, but also a huge, big portion of so aroused I can't catch my breath.

Instead, he brings Lan Zhan's mouth down to his own, kissing him again. He gets to do this. He gets to kiss Lan Zhan. He gets to kiss Lan Zhan and Lan Zhan likes it, he thinks, from the broken noise he makes against Wei Wuxian's lips and the way he shudders, driving his hips forward like he can't quite control it.

He's hard, as hard as Wei Wuxian himself is, and that's astounding to think about, the fact that they're here, in bed together, and both of them hard, and Wei Wuxian wants more. He doesn't know what to do to get them there, but he wants more. "Lan Zhan," he pants, rolling them over, so Lan Zhan's beside him, his hair a mess, his clothes askew. His shirt is halfway open and he's flushed all the way down his chest. "Fuck, look at you," Wei Wuxian says, staring at him. He wants to push his hands inside the shirt. Wants to reach down and press his hand against where Lan Zhan's cock is pushing up against his thin pants, a wet spot clear and obvious where he's already leaking and why is that setting Wei Wuxian on fire? Never mind his hand, he wants to put his mouth on it.

"Wei Ying." Lan Zhan says it soft but rough, like he's having problems forming the words, and Wei Wuxian yanks his gaze back up to his face, feels his own cheeks go impossibly hotter, thinking, still, about his mouth on Lan Zhan.

Something about it must show in his face, because Lan Zhan makes a noise that's almost a whimper, then his eyes flash hot and he's fumbling for Wei Wuxian's hand, dragging it down and pressing it against himself. Right up against where he's so hard, and he's scorching hot even through the fabric of his pants. Lan Zhan sucks in a startled breath, even though he's the one who's pressing Wei Wuxian's hand down, holding it there.

Wei Wuxian makes an embarrassing sound, his breath caught in his throat, feeling daring as he runs his thumb over the spot where it's the wettest, tracing the thick head of Lan Zhan's cock—Lan Zhan's cock—through the damp fabric.

The sounds that Lan Zhan makes at that—wrecked, desperate breaths—and how his eyes go even wider in the flickering candlelight make Wei Wuxian feel bold enough to move his hand, slipping it out from under Lan Zhan's, reaching up to undo the laces on Lan Zhan's trousers. He watches him the entire time, keeping his eyes on Lan Zhan's even as he gets the trousers undone and—daring, it still feels so daring—slips his hand inside.

Lan Zhan is wet. Lan Zhan is very, very wet. His cock, as Wei Wuxian wraps his hand around it, is slick with it, almost like he's already come, but he's tense as a bowstring, biting back sounds, his hips shifting restlessly against the bed even though all Wei Wuxian is doing is holding on, moving his fingers just a little, tracing the not-inconsiderable length of him.

"Wei Ying." It seems like all Lan Zhan can do is say his name and, oh, he's trembling against Wei Ying like he's barely holding on.

"I've got you," Wei Wuxian whispers. Again, it feels bold to say that out loud, like he's crossing a line, like it shouldn't be his place, but when he wraps his fingers more tightly around Lan Zhan, Lan Zhan trembles harder, and pushes his hips forward like he can't help it. Lan Zhan, who always has impeccable control of his body, is moving unsteadily, his cock sliding through Wei Wuxian's hand, making it slick all the way up his wrist. "I've got you," Wei Wuxian says again, staring at him in the light of the flickering candles. "Keep moving, keep doing that, it's so much, I want you to—" He can't catch his breath, as Lan Zhan's cock gets impossible harder in his hand. "Fuck, you're so wet. I want to taste it. Can I taste it?"

He doesn't know where that comes from, and he's blushing hard, but Lan Zhan moans, a high, desperate sound and in the next moment, his cock jerks hard and everything gets much, much wetter as he comes right there in Wei Wuxian's hand, spilling over his fist.

Wei Wuxian knows his mouth has dropped open as he looks up at Lan Zhan. Lan Zhan's eyes are closed tight, his head thrown back, even though he's done, his cock having given one last jerk, one last spurt of come. He's breathing hard, his face slack, like he's still lost in ecstasy, and Wei Wuxian gets to see him like that. Wei Wuxian did that to him.

"Lan Zhan," he whispers, pulling his hand away slowly.

Lan Zhan makes a soft sound as he releases him.

"Lan Zhan," Wei Wuxian says again, because he wants Lan Zhan to look at him, wants to see his eyes. "That was—" He doesn't have the words, which seems insane, because Wei Wuxian has never lacked for words, not once. Instead, he brings his hand up to his lips, slipping his fingers inside his mouth, desperately curious to taste.

Lan Zhan, his eyes flickering open in the darkness, gives a quiet groan. He's watching Wei Wuxian and he looks...honestly, he looks like he just hadn't come all over Wei Wuxian's hand, like he could go again this second. Which maybe he can—that whole thing had taken only a handful of moments.

Wei Wuxian pulls his fingers out of his mouth with a slightly embarrassing sound, feeling weird and flushed, but Lan Zhan's eyes go even darker at the sound and he's rolling Wei Wuxian over, pushing his fingers away and kissing him again, kissing him like he's trying to lick the taste off of Wei Wuxian's tongue.

Every single bit of Wei Wuxian's body is tense and he's hot all over. His own cock, half-forgotten as he'd focused on Lan Zhan, is so hard, so desperately hard, and when Lan Zhan presses up against him, Wei Wuxian spreads his legs. He can't help it, he can't stop it. Lan Zhan settles in between them, and Wei Wuxian is the one making noises now, louder than Lan Zhan's—he's alway louder than Lan Zhan, at every turn—and thrusting up. He drags his mouth away from Lan Zhan's—he can't breathe, he needs to breathe, his chest tight with how badly he needs this, needs something. "You were so wet," he says, unable to stop the words from coming out. It's all he can think about. "Are you always so wet, or was it for me?" Bold. Embarrassing. Shut up, Wei Wuxian. "You tasted so good, next time we do this, oh, can I take you in my mouth? I want to taste all of it, I want—"

Lan Zhan growls against his neck, and Wei Wuxian can't shut his mouth, can't stop the movement of his hips, driving him closer and closer, and then Lan Zhan presses his mouth against Wei Wuxian's neck, digging his teeth in. Wei Wuxian cries out, so loud, again, and again, he can't stop the sounds any more than he can stop his hips from driving up against Lan Zhan, any more than he can stop the white-hot rush of orgasm that ricochets through him, like it's setting his body on fire. He arches up against Lan Zhan, shaking hard as he comes again and again.

When he's done—he doesn't know how long after he's done, it takes so long to come back to himself, his fingers still numb, his body still giving tiny tremors as he tries to remember how to open his eyes—Lan Zhan has rolled off of him, but is still very close. When Wei Wuxian opens his eyes, he's watching him, looking almost shy in the candlelight.

"How," Wei Wuxian starts, then has to stop and clear his throat, his voice raw from all the noises he's made, "How can you look like this—so—" He shakes his head, reaching over with a hand that's still slightly shaky, tracing it down Lan Zhan's face. Lan Zhan looks shaken, his cheeks red: not flushed like they get when he's aroused—and god, the fact that Wei Wuxian can make that distinction now is certainly something to process—but red with blushing, and he can't quite meet Wei Wuxian's eyes, for all his gaze keeps flickering over his face.

Wei Wuxian takes a deep breath, and then another, but his heart is still pounding in his chest. They're sprawled amidst the messy sheets—even Lan Zhan looks loose-limbed next to him. Lan Zhan's trousers are still half-undone, though he's tucked himself away at some point, which somehow makes him look even more wanton. Wei Wuxian himself never even got his trousers off and they're messy, too, and will be uncomfortable very soon, but all he can think of now is the fact that they'd done...that.

They'd done that and Lan Zhan had not seemed like he was doing it out of a sense of duty. Wei Wuxian feels shaken himself, his brain still lagging so many steps behind he can't quite process it. "I—" He takes another breath. "Are you okay?" he tries instead.

Lan Zhan nods but his face looks uncertain, his eyebrows a little drawn, his mouth tense. Too tense, even after he had come all over Wei Ying. Wei Ying feels a frisson of heat go through him at that thought. "Are you?" Lan Zhan asks quietly.

He's too far away from Wei Wuxian. He's keeping a careful line of demarcation between them, despite everything they had just done, with and to each other. They're not touching in any way and Wei Wuxian wants a million things all at once—he wants to tangle their feet together, or sling his leg over Lan Zhan's thigh. He wants to tilt his head up and have Lan Zhan kiss him, the way he had before. He wants something, anything. He wants to roll Lan Zhan over and do it all again.

Instead, he lets a grin flicker over his face. "I messed up your hair," he says, his tone soft, like he's admitting something. "Look at you." He lets his gaze run over Lan Zhan's face, where his eyes are still blown, his mouth still looking very red even in the flickering candlelight. "Shockingly unkempt."

Lan Zhan doesn't exactly smile but his mouth relaxes a little bit—Wei Wuxian is entirely certain that no one in Lan Zhan's life has ever had a reason to call him unkempt, not even when he was a little kid.

"Come here," Wei Wuxian says, pushing himself up on one elbow—oh, he's still a little shaky. He likes that, likes the feeling of his body still processing what they'd just done.

Lan Zhan actually does, shifting forward a little bit, until his knees bump up against Wei Wuxian's, which feels intimate, in a different way than everything else had. He settles himself next to Wei Wuxian, his head resting on his arm where it's crooked underneath him. He's watching Wei Wuxian in the candlelight, and while he still can't quite meet Wei Wuxian's eyes, he looks less trepidatious.

Wei Wuxian reaches up, brushes his hair off of his face. The complicated hair styling has lost its integrity, falling down in waves, the pins that had been holding it in place still scattered throughout, caching the candlelight. "Here," Wei Wuxian says softly. He works out one of the shiny pins, finally extracting it. "Now you hold out your hand."

Lan Zhan obediently does, resting his cupped hand against the bed between them, his fingers brushing against Wei Wuxian's side. Wei Wuxian drops the pin into it, the way Lan Zhan had done with him. He reaches up again, feeling languid, almost, dreamy, as he works out the next glinting pin, gentle as he tries not to tug at Lan Zhan's hair. He drops them into Lan Zhan's outstretched palm, one at a time. It feels like a ritual, almost, and something about it gets his heart pounding a little bit again—that he gets to do this, this thing that feels almost stunningly intimate.

When he's done, he drops the final pin into Lan Zhan's palm and gently wraps Lan Zhan's fingers around them. Lan Zhan's breathing has settled and when Wei Wuxian looks up at him, he's looking at Wei Wuxian, finally able to meet his eyes, it seems. His pupils still look huge in the candlelight, and dark, and his hair is tumbled around his shoulders in waves from being woven into the complicated style for so long. Wei Wuxian's breath catches in his throat just looking at him.

"Come here," he says again, and this time, Lan Zhan does precisely what Wei Wuxian has hoped he would, and leans in, fitting their mouths together in a kiss that feels different from any other time they have done this. "Oh," Wei Wuxian murmurs against his mouth, his elbow going slowly out from under him as Lan Zhan tilts his head, moving his mouth against his own, the kiss deep and warm and feeling somehow important.

When Lan Zhan lifts his head, he looks a little shaky and Wei Wuxian thinks he felt it, too, how that kiss felt strangely significant.

"Hey," Wei Wuxian says, wrapping one leg around Lan Zhan's hip, not really trying to start them up again, just to keep Lan Zhan close. "Come with me? I want to show you something."

Lan Zhan's expression flickers and Wei Wuxian lifts his head, kisses the concern off of his face. "Trust me," he says, and eases out from underneath Lan Zhan. "Okay?"

He holds out one hand and Lan Zhan slips his own into it immediately, and lets Wei Wuxian draw him out of the bed.

The water of the lake is cooler than it would have been during the day, but still holds onto the warmth of early summer sunshine as they slide off the pier into the inky water. They stay together, Lan Zhan reaching for Wei Wuxian immediately as soon as they're both in the water, grasping his hand. The water laps at the wood of the pier and it feels delicious around them, just cool enough, washing away the sticky residue of their activities.

Lan Zhan had insisted that they put on robes over their underthings, but everything they'd been wearing is now in a pile on the pier, a rumpled heap of fine red linen left abandoned as they'd slipped into the water. Even though they've just had sex—married sex—it's the first time he's actually seen Lan Zhan naked, and even now, it's just a short glimps of the curve of his ass, the long length of his back, his muscled thighs, before they entered the water.

Fuck, everything is so strange right now.

"Come on, Lan Zhan," Wei Wuxian breathes, even though Lan Zhan is so close already. He tugs at Lan Zhan's hand, squeezing it. "Let's swim."

He lets go and turns, cutting through the quiet water, Lan Zhan keeping pace beside him. It always feels exciting, swimming at night, out under the stars. Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng used to do it when they were teenagers and it always made Wei Wuxian feel like they were the only souls in the world in that moment.

"It's been forever since I've done this," he says when they're a ways out from the pier, stopping and paddling in the water. "Too long."

Lan Zhan pulls up beside him and Wei Wuxian can see his hands moving in the water, keeping him afloat, as they circle around each other.

"Come here," Wei Wuxian says breathlessly. He flips over onto his back, floating, reaching out his hand for Lan Zhan's. Lan Zhan follows suit, turning onto his back and slipping his hand into Wei Wuxian's. They float there easily, their legs brushing as the water gently rocks them together. The stars up above look bright, almost too bright, like they may be close enough to touch, if only Wei Wuxian could reach high enough.

Lan Zhan's hand is strong and sure in his own and when Wei Wuxian squeezes his fingers, Lan Zhan—almost shockingly—squeezes back.

They're quiet together as they make their way back to the dock, holding the silence of the night. It's late now—Wei Wuxian thinks it must be well past midnight, extraordinarily late for Lan Zhan.

They push themselves up onto the dock easily, the water sluicing off of them. They sit there at the foot of the dock for a moment, catching their breaths. "I know we need to go back." Wei Wuxian pulls one leg up, resting his head on his knee. "It's late. You must be tired. I'm tired, so you must be really worn out." He tilts his head against his knee, crooking a smile at Lan Zhan. Lan Zhan's leaning back on his hands, looking loose and relaxed, comfortable in his nudity, the water from the lake glistening on his skin in the glow of the moon and the stars.

He's Wei Wuxian's husband. Wei Wuxian married him. They're married.

"I'm not tired," Lan Zhan says softly.

"No?" Wei Wuxian watches him, still wondering at the fact of where they have found themselves.

Lan Zhan yawns, sudden and unexpected, and makes a wry face when he's done, as Wei Wuxian presses a giggle against his knee. "Perhaps a little, but..." He trails off, his gaze going to Wei Wuxian.

"But?" Wei Wuxian asks.

Lan Zhan leans forward, and Wei Wuxian's breath catches in his throat as Lan Zhan kisses him, soft and sweet, his hand on Wei Wuxian's thigh, both of them still damp from their swim.

"Oh," Wei Wuxian says when Lan Zhan pulls back. He swallows. "Should we go back?" Back to their marital suite. Back to their marital bed, the red sheets messy now, rumpled and damp. Back to the quiet room where it's just them and if Lan Zhan isn't sleepy, not quite yet, then maybe—

"Yes." Lan Zhan rises easily to his feet, reaching down a hand and tugging Wei Wuxian up after him.

Wei Wuxian wakes up slowly, stretching and rolling over to bury his face against the sun edging in through the window. He hits something in his bed and opens his eyes blearily, confused, to find his face buried against someone's shoulder instead of the expected pillow. He yawns, trying to process where he is and what he's doing, then tilts his head up, and oh.

It's Lan Zhan's shoulder. Lan Zhan, who is looking down at him with wide-awake eyes. Lan Zhan, who is in bed with him. Lan Zhan, who is nude under the sheets, his hip pressing against Wei Wuxian's pulled-up knees.

Lan Zhan, who he married yesterday. Who he not only married, but also— Memories of last night come back in a rush. Wei Wuxian feels the color rising in his cheeks. "Hi," he says, feeling weirdly shy as he pushes himself up on his elbows, sweeping his hair back out of his face with one hand.

"Good morning." Lan Zhan's voice sounds just like usual, calm and quiet, but he's watching Wei Wuxian, his gaze flickering over his face, like he's looking for something. Maybe trying to figure out what Wei Wuxian is feeling about...everything they'd done last night.

Wei Wuxian remembers taking Lan Zhan night swimming, holding his hand tightly in the darkness, gazing up at the stars. He thinks about what they did after, back here on the bed, exploring each other, less tentative than earlier, and he buries his face against Lan Zhan's shoulder, trying to hide his grin. "We still smell like lakewater," he says against Lan Zhan's skin. They do, a fresh, earthy smell, so familiar that it settles Wei Wuxian, makes all of this feel like home. It is, however, overlaid with the undeniable scent of sex. The sheets are imbued with it and he feels like he can still taste Lan Zhan on his tongue.

"Mn," Lan Zhan says. When Wei Wuxian peeks up, his ears are quite red—he's clearly thinking about last night, too.

Wei Wuxian wants to tease him about that, but he can't quite bring himself to make light of it. Every flash of memory sends a short, sharp jolt of heat through him, a mix of arousal and embarrassment. He'd truly been shameless when they'd come back here last night, late, so late, feeling otherworldly, almost, like they'd stepped out of time, languorous, like all they were meant to do is explore each other.

Which they had. They had explored each other, very thoroughly.

In the light of day—bright and rich, pouring in through the window, it has to be late morning—Wei Wuxian can't quite figure out how to get back to that feeling of easy intimacy. Even though he's up against Lan Zhan, naked underneath the crumpled sheets, he still feels almost like had back when they were just awkwardly circling each other, when they were not-quite-courting.

"Did you—" Lan Zhan says, then stops, his expression uncertain.

Wei Wuxian waits, watching him.

Lan Zhan seems to be working it out in his head, lining up his words. "Last night," he continues finally. "I—was it what you expected? Did you—" He stops again. "I want to be sure that was something you wanted to do."

Wei Wuxian can't stop staring at Lan Zhan. Lan Zhan who, despite his stiff words, his very, very red ears, seems deeply concerned that Wei Wuxian somehow hadn't been absolutely losing his mind with pleasure here in their bed last night.

"You did not have to—you do not have to—if you see this as a political agreement only, then—"

Wei Wuxian knows giggling here would be a mistake. Last night, all the things they had done—that was not a political agreement. "It was good, Lan Zhan," he interrupts. "I wanted to do it." He'd wanted to do all of it. He still has this feeling of heat uncurling inside of him—he wants to do all of it again, all of it and more, even the stuff he doesn't know enough to think of.

"Oh," Lan Zhan says. "Good." He still has that stoic look he gets when he's uncertain, his ears still brightly pink, and Wei Wuxian can't help but press his smile against Lan Zhan's shoulder.

Lan Zhan shifts against him and Wei Ying's flashes of last night get more intense, and he wonders if they have time to maybe go again, explore some of the finer points they had, perhaps, rushed through last night but—Lan Zhan is pushing himself to sitting.

Wei Ying rolls back in the bed and pouts up at him. "It's so early!"

Lan Zhan glances at the rich mid-morning light coming in through the windows. "It's late," he says, but even he has a slightly resigned tone in his voice. "There's a meal planned for the guests. It would be—" He pauses and Wei Wuxian's brain helpfully fills in obvious that we were late because I was fucking you through the mattress. "—unfortunate for us to be late."

His ears really are very red and Wei Wuxian is pretty sure he was thinking about the fucking through the mattress assumption the guests would have, himself.

Wei Wuxian sighs, loud and long, and stretches on the bed, arms up over his head, feeling aches in odd places. When he blinks his eyes open, Lan Zhan is still in bed, watching him, his mouth open just the slightest amount, and Wei Wuxian gets—another—flash of heat, fuck, this whole being-married thing is going to burn him up inside.

His inclination is to grin, to tease, but instead, he lets himself look at Lan Zhan the same way Lan zhan is watching him. Lan Zhan, who is still nude, the covers pooled around his waist, and even that seems startlingly intimate, that Wei Wuxian gets to see this, Lan Zhan rumpled, his hair having dried into messy waves after their swim last night, his chest bare, the glimpse of his hips as the covers dip low feeling like a revelation.

Lan Zhan holds his gaze and the heat between them is—

"We really must get up," Lan Zhan says, his gaze flickering away.

"Unfortunate," Wei Wuxian says, letting his voice go lazy, and he's fairly sure he's not mistaken that Lan Zhan gives a tight little sigh as he gets up. Wei Wuxian gets a far-too-short glimpse of the curve of his ass before Lan Zhan slips on a robe.

Wei Wuxian sinks back against the bed with a disappointed sigh. Marriage isn't anything like he'd thought it would be so far. He thinks he might like this.

The meal with the guests is brutally dull. He's seated near Lan Zhan but their tables are separated like if they were too close, they might end up accidentally fucking at the family luncheon. There are toasts and there are speeches and it inevitably slides into political discussions that are so excruciating to listen to that Wei Wuxian spends some time contemplating throwing himself into the lake fully clothed.

He knows he's been told about the trajectory of the day but he'd definitely not been listening, caught up in the far more concerning thoughts of the wedding night. He bounces up when the function concludes, waving at shijie across the room and turning, half-planning to grab Lan Zhan's hand and drag him over to her—but Lan Zhan has already been drawn away by his uncle and is in discussion with a staid-looking group of old men. Lan Qiren looks nearly lit-up inside by the heated political discussion going on. Lan Zhan looks attentive but Wei Wuxian doesn't miss the twitch in his jaw that means he's reining himself in.

Wei Wuxian gazes at him, trying to catch his eye, but Lan Zhan doesn't glance his way.

With a small sigh, Wei Wuxian turns and hurries towards his sister. "Shijie," he says as he gets to her, grabbing both of her hands and squeezing tightly. It feels like far too long since he's seen her, even though it was only last night. "What are you doing on your feet, you're far too delicate for that, sit, sit!" He gives a quiet glare to her annoying husband for allowing shijie to stand when she's pregnant with Wei Wuxian's nephew, or niece.

Jin Zixuan ignores him, brushing an invisible piece of lint off of his shoulder.

"I'm fine," shijie says, a slightly chiding tone in her voice. "It's good for me to move. Come, walk with me, I want to hear everything."

"Everything?" Wei Wuxian says, letting his eyebrow go up.

Shijie laughs, batting him with her fan. Jin Zixuan presses his lips together and looks into the far distance, but only after letting his offended gaze pass briefly over Wei Wuxian.

Wei Wuxian resists the urge to stick his tongue out at the peacock. He's the bigger person and he is, after all, a married man now.

He strolls with shijie down by the water and it strikes him, for the first time, that he won't live here after today. He and Lan Zhan are to head back with the Lan contingent today—he remembers that, at least, that their departure is scheduled for probably far too soon, and that's something he's been pushing to the back of his head, that he'll be leaving.

"It feels strange, right?" shijie asks, like she's reading his mind. "To think that you'll be leaving here soon?" She squeezes his arm where her hand is looped around his elbow. "You'll get used to it more quickly than you think. I promise."

"Did you?" he can't help but ask. He remembers when they sent her off, after her wedding—he still can't believe they let her get married to that guy, however much she loves him. There really is no accounting for taste, even in his beloved shijie.

"I did," she says, sounding quietly happy, like she's remembering those first early days of her marriage. "It was different, and a little intimidating, but—" She squeezes his arm again. "Your husband will be there for you, just as mine was for me."

Husband. He knows that, he'd said it, over and over again last night, but here in the light of day, walking along the well-worn path along the lake that he knows so well, it seems impossible. Impossible that he's married. Impossible that he's married to Lan Zhan. Impossible that in not too very long, he'll be leaving Lotus Pier, to go live in Cloud Recesses, that he'll be leaving this all behind.

"Hey," shijie says, drawing to a stop and tugging him around to face her. She reaches up and presses her hand against his face. "You're okay. You're married now. You're going to live with your husband but you'll be back. Look at me. I'm here all the time. Zixuan didn't even want me to travel, but what was I going to do, miss your wedding?" She shakes her head firmly. "Never."

"Never," he says and is vaguely mortified to feel a catch in his throat as he says it.

She smiles gently. "How was the wedding for you? You looked very handsome. Very grown-up."

He laughs, a little wetly. "It was good. Even a little fun. I feel like I don't remember half of it."

"It all goes by in a blur," she says in agreement.

"It was weird how quickly it was all over," he says. "When it was just me and Lan Zhan, all of a sudden. Alone together, for the first time in so long."

She nods, her hand resting on the curve of her belly. "Good, though, right?"

He nods unsteadily. He wishes he did have someone he could really talk to about the wedding night, but— "I took him swimming," he says, grinning a little. "Late last night."

"You didn't!" She swats his arm again, laughing. "What if someone saw you?"

"It was our wedding night," he shrugs. "I figured we could get away with anything."

"You really are incorrigible," she says. "What on earth is Lan Zhan going to do with you?"

Wei Wuxian shakes his head. "I'm not sure he knows exactly what he's gotten himself into."

"He does. He knows you, Wei Ying. He knows you very well." She pauses, gazing up at him. "He loves you, you know."

Wei Wuxian's cheeks get very hot, very suddenly and he shakes his head with a grin. "Lan Zhan?" he says. "No, he's doing this because it's the right thing. His uncle and his brother agreed to it because of Jiang Cheng being really good at convincing people of things. Everyone knows that."

She hums quietly, looking up at him, her head tilted. "I wouldn't be so sure of that."

Before he can protest again, she sucks in a quick breath, glancing down at her stomach. "Oh," she says breathlessly, pressing her hand against the very top of her belly. "The baby is very strong," she says, her eyes sparkling. "These kicks wake me up at night."

"Going to be a fighter," he says in awe, unable to stop looking at her belly.

"Of course he—or she—is." It's Jiang Cheng, striding down the path towards them, the usual irritated look on his face slightly softened by a look of pride as he comes towards them. He's smiling. Is he smiling? It's been a bit since Wei Wuxian has seen him smile. "Our whole family is full of fighters." He knocks his shoulder against Wei Wuxian's as he draws close.

"That's true enough," Wei Wuxian agrees, finally looking away from shijie's belly so he can more effectively shove Jiang Cheng back.

"Your husband is looking for you," Jiang Cheng says to him. He doesn't even sound particularly sour as he says it. "You're supposed to be leaving. You're his problem now."

Wei Wuxian feels his throat get tight again—is this what marriage does to you? Makes you an emotional wreck? "Taking me off your hands," he manages, trying to grin.

"Like hell he is." Jiang Cheng's tone is gruff. "You're always going to be my problem."

Wei Wuxian has to look out over the lake and blink several times at that. He's fine. He's going to be fine. "Probably," he says, finally, and bumps his shoulder against Jiang Cheng's again.

"Stop fighting," shijie says, the familiar chiding tone and gentle smile making Wei Wuxian's throat go tight again.

Jiang Cheng grins down at her and wraps his arm around Wei Wuxian's shoulders, squeezing tight for just a second before dropping it and shoving him away. "Go find your husband," he says. "I sent your stuff ahead. It'll be there when you get there."

"Thanks," Wei Wuxian says, looking at Jiang Cheng and wishing he could say more.

"Get out of here," Jiang Cheng says gruffly. "And don't wait too long before inviting me to visit."

"I won't." Something about the idea of Jiang Cheng in Cloud Recesses, visiting Wei Wuxian where he's going to be living, however the reality of that works out, makes Wei Wuxian feel somewhat better about going. "Promise."

Jiang Cheng snorts, looking out over the water. "Go," he says.

Wei Wuxian bends to give shijie a kiss on the cheek, and allows himself to clasp Jiang Cheng's shoulder briefly before he heads back down the path. He glances over his shoulder once, and sees shijie has looped her arm through Jiang Cheng's and is leaning her head on his shoulder, both of them looking out over the lake. They'll both, now, have left Jiang Cheng—he'll be alone here in Lotus Pier, holding it all together.

Wei Wuxian pauses on the path, looking down at them for a long moment, then takes a deep breath and turns around, heading to find his husband.

Going to Cloud Recesses this time is much less weird and awkward than the last time.

Home. Cloud Recesses, which is now Wei Wuxian's home.

It's a distracting thought and he worries it in his mind, scenario after scenario of what it might be like, to actually live there. When he spots the path to Cloud Recesses, it doesn't seem like enough time has passed, but there it is, curving gentle and smooth up the side of the mountain.

His home. Their home.

Wei Wuxian hops off his sword quickly as he lands. A little too quickly—he stumbles, his body still caught up in the rush of flying. Lan Zhan's strong arm catches hold of his immediately, steadying him.

Wei Wuxian feels like an idiot, so he lets himself sag against Lan Zhan, pushing his weight against him and tilting his head back, grinning up at him. "My husband," he says, "always there to rescue me."

The tips of Lan Zhan's ears go pink and when his brother comes up to them, saying, "Wangji. Uncle is waiting," he seems almost relieved.

Lan Xichen glances at the scene Wei Wuxian has created and gives him a genial smile, "Wei-gongzi," he says, "you'll, of course, make yourself at home here."

"Right." Wei Wuxian straightens up as Lan Zhan takes a step back, both of them straightening their robes. He can't stop casting glances at Lan Zhan, but Lan Zhan is refusing to meet his eyes. "Right, of course, yeah. You go work, I'll just..."

Lan Zhan gives him a short nod and then he and his brother are striding off with the rest of the contingent that had flown in with them—their uncle must have left earlier—leaving Wei Wuxian standing in the very center of Cloud Recesses. He feels obvious and awkward, with his wind-blown hair, his black robes standing out starkly against the clean, calm white robes of the junior disciples not-quite-scurrying here and there around him. Even these well-trained disciples are casting him looks from the corner of their eyes and he straightens up. "This is, by far, not the weirdest situation you've found yourself in," he mutters to himself. "You can do this."

He raises his hand in greeting at the next disciple who hurries by, who looks startled, but stops on the path and bows at him. "Greetings?" the boy says, uncertainty.

Wei Wuxian gives him a cocky bow back. "Just saying hello," he says. "Nice place you've got here."

The disciple glances around, as though wondering if this is some sort of prank, before bowing again, and hurrying on his way.

Well. It's not like Wei Wuxian hadn't known that the Lans weren't the friendliest people in the world.

He goes to explore while he waits for Lan Zhan to be done with whatever his uncle has dragged him into. He's spent time in Cloud Recesses before, of course, so there's not that much new to see. He pokes his head into the kitchens, where he spies the cook who likes him, always telling him he's too skinny. She looks up from the pot of soup she's cooking and Lans don't really ever actually grin, but her chin comes up and she beckons him in. He makes his way over to her and she studies him sternly, then shakes her head. "You'll fade away to nothing," she says, as she snaps her fingers at one of the kitchen workers. The worker seems to know exactly what she means and scurries over to grab several freshly-steamed buns from a plate, wrapping them up and hurrying back to hand them to Wei Wuxian's favorite cook.

"Here," she says, pushing the package into Wei Wuxian's hands. "Eat. All of them."

She makes it an order and Wei Wuxian grins at her and holds three fingers up near his forehead in a vow. "I promise," he says solemnly, and she gives him a steely eye but bows back and shoos him back out of the kitchen.

He munches on the rolls as he strolls around Cloud Recesses. It's a beautiful day—far less hot here than it had been in Lotus Pier. "No nightswimming here," Wei Wuxian mutters mournfully to himself around a bite of a bun.

He makes his way over to the fancy guest quarters where he'd stayed before, pausing by the low window and pushing up on his toes to peek inside. There's an unmade bed and someone's belongings scattered throughout, and right, that makes sense. This is where temporary guests stay, as a place of honor. He's permanent, now. He wonders how that will work. Surely not the student quarters where he'd stayed when he was here as a kid taking classes here? He's Lan Zhan's husband now. There has to be some in-between place they're planning to put him up. He knows his stuff is here; he just needs to track it down.

He lingers around the main pavilion where he knows the important meetings take place, hoping to catch Lan Zhan after whatever it is his uncle has sidelined him for, but he has no luck, and it gets embarrassing to keep catching the various inhabitants of Cloud Recesses casting him subtle, curious looks as they go by.

He takes the path that leads down to the cold springs, quiet in the middle of the day, fog rising off of the spring as it meets the warmth of the day. Out of sheer foolish curiosity, he sits down on the lip of a rock jutting out over the spring, taking off his boots and setting them to the side before steeling himself and slipping his feet into the water. The shout he gives as the categorically frigid waters encompass his feet echoes in the trees around him. "Fuck fuck fuck," he mutters to himself, but stubbornly keeps his feet in the water, the spring seeming to tug at him with its icy tendrils.

He thinks about being here with Lan Zhan when they were younger, tries to imagine what it would be like to submerge his whole body in these waters now.. He gazes down at his feet—he thinks they might be turning blue.

"Okay, your feet are going to fall off," he saysto himself, and is this what is going to happen to him in Cloud Recesses? He'll wander, spending too much time with only himself as a companion, so he starts talking to himself regularly like a crazy old man on the streets?

Probably.

He pulls his feet out—he genuinely can't feel his toes, fuck—and dries them on the end of his robes. He gingerly wiggles them until the feeling comes back enough that he can stuff them back into his boots.

"Okay," he says, getting up and settling his robes back into place. "Time to be a person."

He strides resolutely back to the heart of Cloud Recesses and grabs the arm of the first disciple he spots. He fully expects to be shaken off, perhaps with a barely-concealed look of disdain, but this kid looks only a little surprised, and immediately gives him a bow. "How may I assist?"

"Hi," Wei Wuxian says with a grin.

The kid, startled, drops into another bow.

Wei Wuxian shakes his head with a smile. "I'm Wei Wuxian. The, uh, the one who just sort of got married to Lan Zhan."

It feels incredibly forward to just say it out like that. Is he supposed to just say it to people? It's not a secret, obviously, but it just feels weird.

The kid's face stays still and his tone is careful as he says, "Of course." He drops into—another—bow. "Congratulations, Wei-gongzi."

"Right." Wei Wuxian needs the bowing to stop if he's going to get any answers. "Okay, so, that's great, you know who I am, so maybe you can guide me to the quarters they've assigned to me?"

The boy blinks at him.

Wei Wuxian waits.

"I—yes, Wei-gongzi," the boy says. "Yes, I'll just—follow me?"

He sounds tentative and Wei Wuxian wonders just what rumors he's heard about Lan Zhan's new husband and the sort of chaos that follows him around. "Thank you," he says brightly, giving the kid a neat bow in return.

"Of course," the boy says and heads down the path, glancing behind him nervously to see if Wei Wuxian is following.

Wei Wuxian lengthens his stride, skipping a little to catch up. "I used to know this place inside and out," he says cheerfully. "I was here a lot when I was around your age, probably. But last time, they put me in those fancy guest quarters—" He waves his hand, gesturing behind them. "—which obviously aren't permanent. Can't wait to see where they've put me now."

The boy looks at him over his shoulder, still a bit nervous but also curious. "Did Hanguang-jun—" He cuts himself off quickly, pressing his lips together, a blush rising in his cheeks.

Wei Wuxian grins at him, patting him on the shoulder. "Hanguang-jun is a busy man," he says. "And you know how Lan Qiren is, dragging him around to do who knows what."

The kid looks startled at the description of Lan Qiren's behavior and drops his gaze respectfully, like somehow Lan Qiren will know he's being denigrated and the kid wants to recuse himself.

"Anyway," Wei Wuxian continues, striding along the path the kid is leading him down—it curves away from the main area of Cloud Recesses, leaving the well-populated area behind. Lan Qiren must have really wanted Wei Wuxian to be put where he'd stay out of trouble. "I figured I could just find the place on my own. With a little help from my new friend." He nudges the kid's shoulder and the kid's blush rises higher.

Wei Wuxian can't help but grin again. Lans are far too easy to tease.

He gives the kid a break, walking in silence for a while. They veer off to a different path—where the fuck have they put him, he doesn't cause that much trouble—and then through a small wooded area, the air around them smelling rich with blooming flowers, though there are none to be seen. Not until they emerge from the woods into a broad clearing and—oh.

The kid is gesturing at the Jingshi. The Jingshi, where Lan Zhan lives. The garden out front is thriving, that's where the scent of flowers is coming from: this gorgeous, neatly-tended plot laden with cluster upon cluster of flowers Wei Wuxian can't even identify.

"No, kid," he says gently. "I think I didn't explain myself well. I know where Lan Zhan lives, I've got that down pat. I was asking about where they were putting me up."

The kid looks at him, then at the Jingshi, then back at Wei Wuxian. He gestures at the house again, cautiously, and drops—another-bow. "Wei-gongzi," he says as he rises, his expression uncertain, like Wei Wuxian is the crazy one here, "this is where you are to live."

"This is where Lan Zhan lives," Wei Wuxian points out again.

"...yes." The kid looks nearly frantically confused now, which is a pretty hilarious expression to see on a Lan. "Your...husband."

"Sure, but—" Wei Wuxian starts to argue, then falters. There is no way—there really is just no way that...

"This disciple assisted in bringing Wei-gongzi's belongings here earlier." The kid has lowered his head politely, his eyes fixed on the ground, but Wei Wuxian can still see the blush high in his cheeks. "At Hanguang-jun's orders."

"Right," Wei Wuxian says vaguely. "Right, that's...okay. That seems..." Absolutely fucking insane. "Right. That seems right."

The kid is looking up at him through his eyelashes, worrying his lip in his teeth. "May I assist with anything else, Wei-gongzi?"

"Uh." Suddenly Wei Wuxian doesn't want to be left alone to—impossibly—make his way to the door of the Jingshi and let himself in like he belongs here or something. "No," he says with a sigh. "No, I'm all good here. Thanks."

A look of wild relief goes across the kid's face and he bobs into another bow, then scurries off into the woods like if he doesn't move fast enough, Wei Wuxian is going to send him inside in his stead.

Not that he's considered that or anything.

That leaves Wei Wuxian alone in the overly-silent clearing in front of Lan Zhan's house. Or, he guesses, their house. Supposedly. He shakes his head. They probably hadn't told Lan Zhan about this, either. He probably doesn't know. He's going to come home and find the pile of Wei Wuxian's stuff inside and be just as confused as Wei Wuxian is. They're going to have to sort this out together.

Wei Wuxian straightens his shoulders. Probably best to head inside and make sure all his stuff is together so he'll be ready to move to wherever he's really supposed to be quartered.

He slides the door open tentatively, peeking inside. He doesn't see a pile of his stuff. Was the kid wrong? Lans don't actually often make mistakes. He makes his way in—he's never been in here—the last time he was in Cloud Recesses, when they were courting, they had met in Lan Xichen's place, or in Lan Qiren's, as was appropriate. The scent of it, when he goes in, is the gentle aroma of sandalwood mixed with the sweetness of the flowers from the garden outside.

"Wow," he says quietly, gazing around. "This is—augh." The sound he makes when Lan Zhan emerges from behind a screen is wildly embarrassing and he almost chokes on it as he clutches his hand to his chest. "Fuck, you scared me," he manages finally, when he can breathe again.

Lan Zhan is standing with one hand tucked behind his back per usual, gazing at Wei Ying peacefully. "I apologize," he murmurs.

"No, fuck, that's not—don't apologize, this is your house, I'm the one who's breaking in. I definitely deserved to get the crap scared out of me." Wei Wuxian is babbling, he knows he's babbling. It's partly because his heart is racing wildly, and partly because the Jingshi, for however suddenly familiar it is to Wei Wuxian, feels much different with Lan Zhan standing in front of him. He feels like it's overlaid with the image of the two of them in their teenage years, Wei Wuxian making a mess of the place as they'd studied together, Wei Wuxian lounging on the floor with his papers held over his face, only occasionally falling asleep like that.

And now, Lan Zhan, here in front of him, is his husband.

"It's not breaking in if you live here." Lan Zhan says it like it's something reasonable.

Wei Wuxian gives him a look. "You live here," he says. "I'm just looking for my stuff."

"Ah." Lan Zhan glances around. "I took the liberty of—" He stops, and his face flickers uncertainly, making him look for just an instant like the young disciple who had led Wei Wuxian to the Jingshi.

Wei Wuxian looks at him curiously. "Lan Zhan," he says, "you can take any liberty you want."

Lan Zhan's gaze immediately goes to Wei Wuxian's, and the heat there is overwhelming. Like Lan Zhan is thinking about every single thing they had done with and to each other last night—was it only last night? Did they only get married yesterday?

"Lan Zhan," he says weakly.

"I unpacked for you," Lan Zhan says abruptly. "You can, of course, rearrange it all, but."

Wei Wuxian glances around, suddenly realizing the room is interspersed with his stuff. His not-insubstantial collection of books has a whole set of shelves of their own, nestled next to Lan Zhan's shelves. The few trinkets he's kept over the years have been meticulously arranged on the display shelves that line the walls. He bets if he opened the clothing cupboard, he'd find his robes and sleeping clothes carefully hung next to Lan Zhan's own. That last thought feels overwhelmingly intimate and he's nearly dizzy with it.

"You didn't have to—" he starts.

"I wanted to." Lan Zhan cuts him off. Interrupts him.

"Yes, but—"

"I wanted to," Lan Zhan repeats firmly, and steps closer to Wei Wuxian.

"You can't possibly want me in your space all the time." Wei Wuxian's going for an argumentative tone, but it comes out dazed.

"I do." Lan Zhan's not pulling any punches here. His gaze is fixed firmly on Wei Wuxian's, and he moves even closer.

"I'm a disaster. I'm a mess. You'll get irritated." Wei Wuxian doggedly tries to keep arguing but the way Lan Zhan is looking at him is distracting. His heart is beating faster now and he wants—

"You're not a disaster," Lan Zhan says. He's quite close to Wei Wuxian now. "I won't get irritated." His voice is low and Wei Wuxian notices that his hair is down, not up in his severe Hanguang-jun style with the complicated silver headpiece. It's just pulled back into a soft topknot. It makes him look impossibly young.

Wei Wuxian huffs out a laugh, looking up at Lan Zhan where he's so close, close enough to touch if Wei Wuxian moves even an inch. "You will very much get irritated with me," he says. "Everyone does. I'm an irritating person."

"I like it." Lan Zhan raises one hand, tucks a strand of Wei Wuxian's hair behind his ear. "You can irritate me." Wei Wuxian is having trouble catching his breath even before Lan Zhan leans in closer. "We can make up afterwards."

The way he says make up sounds deeply filthy and Wei Wuxian's breath catches in his throat. "Lan Zhan," he says, or tries to, because Lan Zhan is kissing him in the next moment. They had kissed last night; Wei Wuxian knows they had kissed just last night. They had kissed a lot in the marital suite, the memory of it a haze of anticipation and arousal. They had kissed on the dock of the lake, Lan Zhan tasting of lake water, sweet and fresh.

This feels different. This feels like more. This feels like Lan Zhan's been thinking about this all day, from the frantic way he's kissing Wei Wuxian—no hesitation, no holding back. His hands are gripping Wei Wuxian's hips and he's making these small sounds into Wei Wuxian's mouth, deep moans like he can't hold them back, and that's something Wei Wuxian is going to have burned into his memory, that Lan Zhan is losing control and it's just from kissing Wei Wuxian.

He's got his hands wrapped around Lan Zhan, his fingers caught up in his robes, and he wants more. He wants something more, he's not even sure what, exactly, he just knows that his body is aching for it, and it doesn't care that it's been a day of oddness and confusion; doesn't care that they really haven't talked about anything, have barely even seen each other today; doesn't care that he has absolutely no idea what he's doing. It just wants.

"Let me," Lan Zhan is saying, against his lips, and Wei Wuxian doesn't know what he's asking for but he knows the answer is yes.

Lan Zhan draws him across the room, to the bed. The bed, which Wei Wuxian has been doing his level best not to look at since he'd entered the Jingshi, where Lan Zhan is now taking him, even as he works his hands in between them and expertly undoes Wei Wuxian's belt, letting it fall to the floor.

"Lan Zhan," Wei Wuxian says, too breathless, too eager, but he can't hold it back, everything is happening so fast.

"Wei Ying," Lan Zhan says, pausing for a moment, looking at Wei Wuxian, studying his face, like he's worrying he's overstepped, which is the very last thing Wei Wuxian is thinking. "Do you—"

"Please," Wei Wuxian says, stepping closer and kissing Lan Zhan again even as he starts shrugging out of his robes. He's being shameless, and he knows it, and he can't bring himself to care. "Let's—you too, come on."

Somehow they both manage to rid themselves of their robes and then they're on the bed and Wei Wuxian doesn't actually remember how they got there. How can he be expected to remember such pointless details like that, when Lan Zhan is here, and completely naked, and kissing him like if he stopped, he might die.

Lan Zhan lifts his head, his lips red from kissing, and his face as he looks down at Wei Wuxian is nearly startled, like he, too, is uncertain as to how they found themselves like this. Wei Wuxian can feel that Lan Zhan is hard, pressed up against Wei Wuxian's hip, and that makes Wei Wuxian's own arousal somewhat less embarrassing, though he's leaking against his stomach, and can't stop shifting against Lan Zhan, however much he tries.

"Wei Ying," Lan Zhan says again, and every way he says Wei Wuxian's name is different. How does he do that? This one is a question and his hand is kneading Wei Wuxian's hip, his fingers digging into the soft flesh there, which is such a strange spot to feel so intimate, but it does.

Wei Wuxian's brain is too hazy with arousal to figure out what the question is but it doesn't matter—the answer is yes. Lan Zhan has good ideas. He's willing to go along with whatever idea Lan Zhan has brewing in that brain of his.

He nods frantically, gulping in breath like he's been running a race, and the expression that flickers across Lan Zhan's face is the hottest thing he's ever seen. It's a revelation, Lan Zhan looking down at him like this, his gaze hungry and gratified, like whatever permission Wei Wuxian just gave was the best gift of his entire life.

Then his hand is easing around Wei Wuxian's hip, fingers moving over his ass, and then dipping down, in between, and oh. Oh, that was the question. Wei Wuxian wonders what he would have said if he's had to respond verbally, but his body is answering the question quite clearly for him, as he rocks back against Lan Zhan's finger where, even though it's only pressing dryly against his hole, it feels like something Wei Wuxian's body finds very intriguing.

It's not enough and the position is awkward and no one has ever accused Wei Wuxian of having couth. He's sure there's some sort of oil lying around and he'll definitely pursue that line of investigation but for right now, he grabs Lan Zhan's hand and brings it to his mouth, sucking his fingers in.

The look on Lan Zhan's face is worth it.

He gets them as wet as he can then tugs them back out, Lan Zhan's eyes intense on his as he does so. He's pretty sure he can feel Lan Zhan's cock pulsing against his thigh. "Here," he says, and shifts, spreading his legs and pushing Lan Zhan's hand in between them.

Lan Zhan makes a small noise in his throat and immediately strokes his wet fingers over Wei Wuxian's hole.

Wei Wuxian's heart is beating so hard he feels light-headed. He wants more. He wants so much more. He whispers that to Lan Zhan, even as Lan Zhan is pressing the tip of one finger inside of him. Lan Zhan looks as shaky as Wei Wuxian feels, but he's got his act together better than Wei Wuxian ever has or ever will, because he's the one who reaches, fumbling at the side of the bed, and comes back with a small vial of oil.

Wei Wuxian stares up at him and Lan Zhan stares back and they are doing this. They are so very much doing this.

Things move quickly after that. Wei Wuxian thinks this might be easier if he turned over, but he wants to see Lan Zhan's face, he doesn't want to miss a second of this. Lan Zhan is spilling oil onto his fingers and shifting a little ways down the bed, easing one of Wei Wuxian's legs up, and that should be embarrassing, is embarrassing, but Lan Zhan's finger presses up against him in the next moment and Wei Wuxian doesn't have the brain capacity to be embarrassed any more.

When Lan Zhan pushes inside, it feels odd and intrusive for a handful of seconds, and then he crooks his finger and it feels like something else entirely. Wei Wuxian gasps up at the ceiling, his head dropping back, and he has absolutely no control over the fact that his whole body rocks down against Lan Zhan's finger, asking for more.

By the time Lan Zhan has two fingers all the way inside him, Wei Wuxian is sweating hard, his hands clenched against the sheets. There's a spot that Lan Zhan is brushing against every time he slides his fingers in deep, wrenching a high, desperate moan from Wei Wuxian's throat as fireworks light up behind his eyes. Lan Zhan jerks his gaze up to Wei Wuxian's face, looking startled, as Wei Wuxian look down at him in a daze, saying, "Again. Do that again."

Wei Wuxian might regret that request, as Lan Zhan, ever the quick study, sets his mind to it, a small wrinkle between his eyes as he focuses on seeking it out with every stroke. Wei Wuxian curses tightly up at the ceiling, his cock hard as it's ever been, his belly slick with precome, feeling like he's going to die from this, he's going to die if he can't come, but his hands are too busy holding on, one caught up in the sheets, the other clenching against Lan Zhan's shoulder. He's lost to words now, can only keep moaning each time Lan Zhan rocks in. He's got one leg hooked up over Lan Zhan's other shoulder, he doesn't even remember doing that, but he doesn't care, he needs it for leverage so he can rock down against Lan Zhan's fingers.

When Lan Zhan pulls his fingers out, the moan that comes out of Wei Wuxian's throat is almost outraged. He can't speak, can only whine, pawing at Lan Zhan's shoulder as Lan Zhan shifts himself up. His cock is—fuck, it's so hard. It's huge. Lan Zhan is panting like he's the one who'd just gotten fingered half to death, and he looks wild around the eyes, like if he doesn't—like if they don't—

"Wei Ying," he says, rough and hot, and bends to kiss him. Wei Wuxian moans against his lips—he barely has the ability to kiss back, his entire body caught up in this relentless need. He feels empty, where Lan Zhan's fingers had been, and he wants them back, he wants—

Lan Zhan's hands are on his body, restless, needy, running down his sides even as he rocks up against him. The movement brings their cocks together, sliding against each other, and for a moment, Wei Wuxian is absolutely certain he's going to come like this.

Then Lan Zhan tumbles them over, Lan Zhan on his back, Wei Wuxian on top of him, and this is better. This is so much better. Wei Wuxian can rut against him, sliding their cocks together, everything between them slick with the oil Lan Zhan had kept adding to his fingers. It's so good, it's so good, and then he shifts forward and Lan Zhan's cock slides back, and oh. He blinks his eyes open, staring down hazily at Lan Zhan.

Lan Zhan looks as fucked up as Wei Wuxian feels, his mouth open, his pupils huge, his hair spread behind him, messy and gorgeous. Wei Wuxian moves again, he can't help it, bracing himself with his hands on Lan Zhan's chest as he rocks back against where his cock is sliding up now, between Wei Wuxian's cheeks.

Lan Zhan's hands move to Wei Wuxian's hips, clutching at them so tightly that Wei Wuxian thinks he might leave marks.

"Lan Zhan," Wei Wuxian manages. Ah, he has words again. "Lan Zhan. I want—" He stops, gulping in a breath, rocking back against Lan Zhan's cock again. "I want you to—"

Lan Zhan doesn't make him say it. Lan Zhan just takes a breath, his hold on Wei Wuxian's hips tight and grounding. He moves Wei Wuxian, urging him up onto his knees for a moment, and Wei Wuxian feels shaky in his desperation but he does it, he manages it, and he reaches behind him, wraps his hand around Lan Zhan's cock and holds it steady as he sinks down onto it.

Lan Zhan's breath is coming in gasps, which makes Wei Wuxian almost want to laugh, since Wei Wuxian is the one being absolutely split open by Lan Zhan's cock. His body wants it, wants it so badly, and he's only taken it in maybe halfway but he wants more, he wants it all.

"Hang on," he says, his voice coming out tight and desperate.

Lan Zhan freezes, his hands still clenched tight on Wei Wuxian's hips. His eyes are wide as he gazes up at Wei Wuxian and Wei Wuxian's heart gives a weird, wobbly beat. He wants to give Lan Zhan everything. He takes a breath and lifts up a little, then sinks down on Lan Zhan's cock, a little further than before. There's a muscle jumping in Lan Zhan's jaw as he holds himself completely still, allowing Wei Wuxian to work him in.

Wei Wuxian does it again, sinking down deeper each time, until he's finally seated fully, Lan Zhan's cock all the way inside him. "Fuck," he says, breathing hard, staring down at Lan Zhan beneath him.

Lan Zhan gives a shaky nod and Wei Wuxian huffs out a laugh. "Fuck," he says again, bracing himself against Lan Zhan's chest and rocking himself, keeping Lan Zhan in deep. It feels tremendously good and he does it again, closing his eyes, biting his lip, and just rocking there with Lan Zhan as deep inside him as he can get. He's barely moving, just shifting back and forth, but he's so hard he's dripping with it and he'd stroke himself if he could, but he needs to hang on, needs to press his hands against Lan Zhan's chest as he moves. He thinks he could come like this.

A long, low sound comes from Lan Zhan and Wei Wuxian manages to open his eyes. Lan Zhan is staring up at him, his mouth open a little. He's sweating, beads of it around his hairline, and his jaw is tight and he looks as undone as Wei Wuxian has ever seen him. "Wei Ying," he says, and oh, he sounds desperate. "I need to—can I move? Are you ready?"

Wei Wuxian isn't sure it's possible to be ready, not when Lan Zhan is looking at him like that. He gives a small nod though, and Lan Zhan pushes up immediately, just a small shift of his hips, but it's a shockwave through Wei Wuxian, who lets out an embarrassing moan just from that. "Wait," he pants out.

Lan Zhan groans, like he's trying to hold it back, but can't, his eyes wide and desperate.

"No, hang on, let me just—" Wei Wuxian lifts up on his knees a little, sinks back down, and oh. Oh fuck, that's good. That's so good. "Go," he says tightly. "Now."

Lan Zhan does. Lan Zhan grips his hips and rocks his cock up into Wei Wuxian and Wei Wuxian isn't going to last, he isn't, he can't. Not when Lan Zhan is lifting his hips up, fucking into him hard, fast, his breath coming hot and tight, his gaze fixed firmly on Wei Wuxian.

"Lan Zhan," Wei Wuxian says, or tries to, but it comes out almost slurred. "Fuck, please, I—please." He sinks down against Lan Zhan again, and they find the rhythm together, and oh, that's fucking. This is fucking. This is how it goes, this endless, dizzying rhythm, like they're connected, no need for words or anything other than this deep, desperate need unspooling between them.

Every time Lan Zhan slides into him, Wei Wuxian gives a moan like it's being wrenched out of him. He can't stop it. He's so hard it hurts and he can't do anything about that either, he needs to hold on.

Lan Zhan is the one who takes care of it. He shifts, drawing his knees up, pulling Wei Wuxian closer. Wei Wuxian falls forward with something like a sob, and oh, now his cock is caught in between them, sliding against Lan Zhan's belly, where it's already slick from where he's been leaking down onto him. "I—" He has to gulp in a breath as Lan Zhan lifts his hips, pushing in harder, and does it again. "I'm going to—" It feels important, to tell Lan Zhan that he's going to come, right here, all over him, but Lan Zhan won't stop moving, won't stop fucking him. Wei Wuxian's cock is sliding in between him, he's rutting against Lan Zhan, and he cries out, a long, strangled sound as everything hits a peak and he's coming, right there in between them, making an absolute mess of both of them. It goes on for a long time, like now that it's found its release, his body doesn't know how to stop.

Maybe it's that, or maybe it's that Lan Zhan keeps fucking him through it, as Wei Wuxian gasps for breath against his chest. It's dizzying; Wei Wuxian feels like he might pass out, it's so good, it's too good. Lan Zhan's breath is coming faster and Wei Wuxian can't even help anymore, can't move, can only stay there limply as Lan Zhan fucks up into him.

Lan Zhan gives a frantic groan and the world is spinning as, oh, Lan Zhan flips him over, onto his back on the bed, pushing his legs up and sliding back inside him. He's fucking into him frantically and Wei Wuxian knows it's not possible but he feels like he's still coming, jolts of pleasure rolling through him every time Lan Zhan slides into him.

He's clutching at Lan Zhan's shoulders, his back, hanging on, but Lan Zhan has got him, holding his hip with one hand as he thrusts into him again, and again, and oh, he's close, Wei Wuxian can feel how close Lan Zhan is, from how he's trembling, the noises he's making against Wei Wuxian's neck, the tension in his back.

Three more frantic thrusts and there it is, Lan Zhan making a loud, broken noise against Wei Wuxian's skin as he stays in deep, his cock pulsing inside of Wei Wuxian.

They stay like that for—Wei Wuxian doesn't know how long. He knows his thighs ache from being held up, and he knows the sweat is cooling on their skin, but he doesn't want to move, doesn't know that he could even if he did want to.

It's not until Lan Zhan's cock slips out of him that Lan Zhan shifts, with a quiet sigh that sounds almost disappointed, like he wanted to stay inside Wei Wuxian forever. Maybe stay there until he got hard again and took Wei Wuxian apart, piece by piece, over and over again.

Wei Wuxian finds that his hands are still caught tight around Lan Zhan, that Lan Zhan has to gently tug his arm away so he can pull back just enough to settle beside him.

"That was fucking," Wei Wuxian says, because his brain is absolutely not in charge of his mouth right now. Or his body. He's not sure he can move.

Lan Zhan, still very close beside him, nods his head. "It was." He doesn't sound smug, though he surely has every reason to be, or sedate, the way he usually does. His voice comes out a little raw and when Wei Wuxian makes an enormous effort and manages to roll his head to the side to look at him, he looks wide-eyed and a little uncertain.

Wei Wuxian's mouth wants to tug up into a grin. It makes him feel better than Lan Zhan seems to be as undone by this as Wei Wuxian.

"How'd you learn all that?" Wei Wuxian asks, his mouth running away from him again. "That was—fuck, that was—" He doesn't have the words. Wei Wuxian, who always has the words, who never knows how to shut up. He's at a loss.

All he can do is roll closer, giving a small hiss as he does so. "Oh," he says, staring up at Lan Zhan. "I'm going to be feeling that for a while."

Lan Zhan looks startled, then a little guilty, his hand landing oh so gently on Wei Wuxian's hip. "Did I hurt you?" he asks.

Wei Wuxian shakes his head. He can't stop looking at Lan Zhan's face. His expression is full of concern, yes, but he also looks open and undone, like Wei Wuxian feels, like what they just did has unlocked something between them and here in this bed that they have made a considerable mess out of, just the two of them, they've left no space for anything to hide. "You did not hurt me," Wei Wuxian says firmly, because it's incredibly important that Lan Zhan know that they are doing this again at the very earliest opportunity. "I can feel where you were." He can, a deep ache in his thighs and his ass that he loves. He loves it. He hopes he feels it all day tomorrow, a secret he'll carry, that only they will know about. He takes a breath, letting it out slow as he tucks one hand under his cheek, looking up at Lan Zhan. "It feels amazing. Like that's where you're supposed to be."

Lan Zhan's eyes do something complicated, going hot and intense, and he makes a small noise in his throat, almost a growl. Wei Wuxian's chest goes hot, and he feels, weirdly, almost like he might cry. He doesn't know where that's coming from, but Lan Zhan's hand, huge and firm on his hip, like he owns him, and Lan Zhan looking at him like he wants to eat him, it all bubbles up in Wei Wuxian and he has to bury his face against Lan Zhan's chest and stay there for a little bit, breathing hot and damp in between them.

Lan Zhan just wraps his arm around Wei Wuxian and holds him there, close, like he somehow understands that it's exactly what Wei Wuxian needs.

They do manage to untangle themselves from each other after a while—they are almost literally stuck together, sticky and damp. "Gross," Wei Wuxian says, laughter bubbling up as he peels himself away from Lan Zhan. "Oh god, so gross."

"Mn," Lan Zhan says, but he looks satisfied more than anything else.

Fuck, Wei Wuxian loves him. He starts to move off the bed, saying, "We have to change the bedding, Lan Zhan, I hope you have extras, because we have destroyed these ones, look at..." He trails off, freezing halfway off the bed, and can't stop himself from looking back over his shoulder at Lan Zhan, startled.

"What is it?" Lan Zhan asks, his forehead wrinkling in concern.

"Ah." Wei Wuxian wonders what his face looks like right now. "Nothing, it's nothing." He loves him. He loves Lan Zhan. Fuck. Fuck. "Oh shit, who washes your sheets? Oh, that's embarrassing, they're going to know, aren't they? That's so embarrassing. Maybe we can do it ourselves. I'm sure we can figure it out, right?"

He's babbling, even as he's pushing himself up off the bed, scrambling for his robe, pulling it around him, absolutely ruining it in the process, since he's still sticky with sweat and come, all over, made even worse by the fact that Lan Zhan's come is sliding down his thighs as he stands up, which is not something he'd ever considered would be a situation he'd have to deal with.

He sits down abruptly on the edge of the bed. "I'm going to have to throw this robe away," he says helplessly.

"It will wash," Lan Zhan says. He's moved forward on the bed—Wei Wuxian can feel him close behind him, a moment before his lips land on Wei Wuxian's shoulder, kissing him gently through the now-disgusting robe. "It's nothing to worry about."

"Who's worried?" Wei Wuxian declares, too loudly. "I'm not a worrier, Lan Zhan. That's something you should know about me. I'm more of the opposite. I just keep on pushing through and hope for the best."

He's still talking too loud. Why is he talking at all? He should learn to shut up. Lan Zhan is excellent at shutting up. The thing he says the most is just Wei Wuxian's name, and that never gets him in trouble.

"Wei Ying," Lan Zhan says just then, softly, and Wei Wuxian is man enough to admit that the giggles he breaks into at that are slightly hysterical. Maybe more than slightly, given the look of alarm Lan Zhan is giving him. Wei Wuxian has fallen backwards on the bed, still fighting down giggles, his hands over his face, peeking up at Lan Zhan in between his fingers. Nope. Nope, still too much, Wei Wuxian can't look at him right now. He shuts his eyes and presses his hands over them for good measure.

"Wei Ying," Lan Zhan says again, more firmly, and is it possible to die from giggling? Because Wei Wuxian is laughing so hard his stomach hurts and there's a non-zero possibility that he might puke. "What's funny?"

"Nothing," Wei Wuxian says, then hiccups through another giggle. "Oh, fuck, that's a lie, Lan Zhan, that might be the biggest lie I've ever told. A lot of things are funny. So many things are funny that I can't even walk you through it, it's too much, I promise you that."

Lan Zhan's forehead is wrinkled again. Is being married to Wei Wuxian going to cause Lan Zhan to age prematurely? Yet another hazard Wei Wuxian has brought down upon him.

"I assure you," Lan Zhan says slowly, "that I have a well-rounded intellect. I am certain you can adequately explain what it is that is causing you to..."

He trails off but Wei Wuxian gets it. He does. He steels himself, forcing himself to drop his hands from his face, letting them flop down beside him on the bed. Their bed. Their bed, which still smells like sex, because that's what they'd just done: had sex. They'd fucked. Lan Zhan had fucked him, right here in his bed in the Jingshi, where they live—together, apparently.

He had not been lying when he'd said there was a lot that was funny.

"Causing me to lose my mind?" he says, and hiccups again, a giggle caught in his throat. He forces it down. "Right, okay, sorry, it's just a lot. The last couple of days have been...a lot."

Lan Zhan's face clears and he eases himself back down to lie beside Wei Wuxian. Lan Zhan is still naked and that seems wrong, suddenly, like Wei Wuxian shouldn't be allowed to lie here in his come-stained robe and sticky thighs next to Lan Zhan, who seems, somehow, completely at ease in his nudity. Wei Wuxian reaches over to tug the sheets up over Lan Zhan's hip, draping them over his cock. He can't have this conversation where he can see Lan Zhan's cock. He just can't. It's a new rule he's just established.

Lan Zhan glances down at where Wei Wuxian has draped the sheets over him, then back up at Wei Wuxian. "It has," he says carefully. "It has been a lot. I, too, am feeling overwhelmed."

"Overwhelmed. That's a good word for it." Wei Wuxian thinks he should sit up, maybe, instead of lying here on his back with Lan Zhan propped up on his elbow, looking down at him. But he feels too weak for it, the idea of it—ha—overwhelming. He stays where he is, wondering what Lan Zhan sees as he looks down at him.

"We'll settle into it," Lan Zhan says. "We'll give ourselves time. It's a big change."

"A huge change," Wei Wuxian says. He can't stop looking at Lan Zhan. He feels like he should cover his eyes again, to stop himself from staring. Lan Zhan is still, as ever, the most beautiful man Wei Wuxian has ever seen, and Wei Wuxian is somehow married to him. Which, that part is all well and good, he can manage that part, but. "They want me to live here?" he asks. "With you? I mean, I know you said it, but—"

"They?" There goes the wrinkle between Lan Zhan's eyes again. Wei Wuxian wants to press his finger against it. "Who is—" He cuts himself off. "I had intended for you to do so, yes. But if you would prefer your own space, then—"

Wei Wuxian is rocking his head back and forth against the bed. "No, that's not it, I didn't mean that I didn't want to live with you. Of course I want to live with you, fuck, look at this place, look at you, of couse I—" Love you. I love you. He presses his lips together for a moment, then breathes in through his nose, out through his mouth. "I just didn't think that was the plan."

"Well." Lan Zhan is gazing down at him thoughtfully. "Now that we're married, I will endeavor to communicate my intentions more clearly."

Something about how he says intentions sends a swirl of heat through Wei Wuxian's belly. He wants to hide his face again.

"But," Lan Zhan continues. "To make sure I am clear: yes, I would like you to live here."

"With you," Wei Wuxian says. Just to be clear.

"With me," Lan Zhan says firmly.

It takes every ounce of Wei Wuxian's not-inconsiderable will to not climb into Lan Zhan's lap right now. Instead, he harnesses his strength and pushes himself up on his elbow, so he's at least able to meet Lan Zhan's eyes like a human being with dignity. "Okay," he says. "Okay, well, I want that, too. Good to establish things clearly. Like adults. Well done, us."

Lan Zhan nods. "What else is worrying you?"

Oh fuck, is Lan Zhan going to make him talk about his feelings just because they're married now? That's not really in Wei Wuxian's wheelhouse. "Nothing," he chirps cheerfully. "I am all set. Completely set. Totally fine and also very good."

Lan Zhan catches his arm as he goes to scramble off the bed. His thighs are definitely sticking together. He needs a bath like nobody's business. But Lan Zhan's grip on his arm is stopping him from getting up, and also sending completely the wrong signal to his cock, which is starting to perk up even though he just came so hard he saw stars all of, what, ten minutes ago?

"Wei Ying," Lan Zhan says, sounding stern, and Wei Wuxian is either going to get another attack of the giggles or get seriously hard again. Or both. Both things are happening. Great.

He collapses back down on the bed, rolling onto his side and burying his face in his hands and then pressing himself against the mattress like that for good measure. "I'm fine," he tells his palms. "I'm fine, it's fine, I just need a bath. A scrub." Maybe a dunk in the cold springs until his body and his brain both decide to cooperate and stop being absolute lunatics.

Lan Zhan's hand is easing down his shoulder to his side, stroking gently, like he's trying to soothe him, which only serves to make his cock get harder. He really is losing it. Fuck. He takes a breath and pulls his hands away from his face as he tilts his head away from the mattress, looking up at Lan Zhan. "I really am fine," he says. It comes out hollow. He's certain he used to be better at lying than this.

"You don't have to be." Lan Zhan says it like it's something reasonable.

"Don't say things like that," Wei Wuxian says miserably. His heart gives a weird sort of lurch in his chest. Maybe he'll have a heart attack. That would be convenient.

"Why not?" Lan Zhan asks in a tone that is—again—reasonable.

"Because," Wei Wuxian says, pushing himself up on his elbow, then fully to sitting, scrambling to pull the covers over his cock, which is continuing to betray him by finding every word Lan Zhan says enticing. "You say things like that and suddenly everything's weird and wrong and upside down."

"It is?" Lan Zhan asks after a moment. Seriously, Wei Wuxian thinks that being married to him is going to make that confused wrinkle between his eyebrows permanent.

"Yes," he says irritably. "Of course it is. You're so reasonable."

Lan Zhan is silent for a moment. "Do you want me to apologize for that?"

He sounds amused. Amused, when Wei Wuxian's heart and cock have gotten everything mixed up and he's suffering, right here in front of him.

"Yes," he declares. "You should apologize for it. Take responsibility for this. You married me, and you had sex with me—"

"We had sex together," Lan Zhan murmurs.

Wei Wuxian gives his shoulder a shove. "No interrupting! You know that's a rule. You're breaking rules left, right, and center, and we've only been married for a day, and what's going to happen as we go on, is this just going to keep getting—"

Lan Zhan isn't—quite—smiling. It's infuriating. Wei Wuxian's heart skips several beats and he can't catch his breath. He wants to pummel something, he wants to scream, he wants to climb onto Lan Zhan's lap and beg him to fuck him again, no matter how sore his ass is.

Instead, he kisses him. Just leans in and puts his hand on the back of Lan Zhan's head and drags him in and kisses him. Lan Zhan meets him immediately, opens up for him, starts dragging Wei Wuxian back down on the bed, and no. "No," Wei Wuxian says against Lan Zhan's mouth. "No, no way, we can't do this." He's straddling Lan Zhan on the bed and Lan Zhan is going to feel how hard he is, and he can't, he shouldn't—

Lan Zhan's hands are on his hips and he's pulling Wei Wuxian into another kiss as he rocks up against him. Lan Zhan is hard, too. That's...infuriating? Wei Wuxian is exhausted, trying to keep up with the mixed messages his body is sending him.

"We can't," he says, weakly.

Lan Zhan moves, kissing the side of his mouth, which shouldn't be as arousing as it very definitely is. "Why not?" he asks. Reasonably.

Wei Wuxian shoves himself to sitting, still straddling Lan Zhan. "Because," he says hotly. "Because I think I love you."

"Ah," Lan Zhan says after a moment. "A problem, indeed."

"Are you making fun of me?" Wei Wuxian asks, his indignation made slightly less effective by the fact that he's basically sitting on Lan Zhan's cock, with too many layers of robes and sheets between them.

Another moment of silence. "Perhaps," Lan Zhan says, because of course Lan Zhan never lies. Because he is perfect.

Wei Wuxian is in despair. "It is a problem," he says, but he's not even sure Lan Zhan is listening anymore, because he's rocking up against Wei Wuxian, his cock obvious even through the layers between them. "It is, because—"

"Wei Ying." Lan Zhan reaches up and drags his head down, kissing him thoroughly, to the point that for a handful of moments, Wei Wuxian forgets what they're arguing about. "Wei Ying," Lan Zhan says again, when he finally releases him from the kiss, leaving Wei Wuxian feeling dazed and undone. And hard. Still very, very hard. "I love you too."

"A problem," Wei Wuxian says, because his brain continues to be several steps behind the way it has been all day. "Because—wait."

Lan Zhan, who is—again—perfect, does, stilling the movement of his hips under Wei Wuxian and looking up at him. His eyes are smoldering. How did Wei Wuxian end up with a husband who can smolder like that?

"You do?" Wei Wuxian intends for it to come out like a demand, but he sounds bewildered, instead. Because now, of course, is when his brain decides to get it right.

Lan Zhan nods. The tips of his ears are very red. He's looking at Wei Wuxian with his chin slightly up, like he's challenging Wei Wuxian to fight this.

"Oh," Wei Wuxian says weakly. This is insane, right? It must be, it has to be, only he's too tired and too horny to work it all out. "That's—"

"Good," Lan Zhan says. "It's good."

"Interrupting," Wei Wuxian says, with no heat behind it. "What about the rules, Lan Zhan?"

"Mn," Lan Zhan says and that combined with the expression on his face makes Wei Wuxian fairly certain that what he means is fuck the rules. When he tumbles Wei Wuxian off of him to the bed and slides on top of him, pressing him down against it and moving in for another kiss, Wei Wuxian is definitely certain that's what he meant.

"Lan Zhan," he says, when Lan Zhan lets him come up for air.

Lan Zhan makes a soft noise in his throat. His cock is firmly up against Wei Wuxian's hip, and he's mouthing at Wei Wuxian's jawline.

"Lan Zhan," Wei Wuxian says again, just for the sake of it, and laughs, high and breathless.

"Mn," Lan Zhan says again, and shifts, moving down the bed, shifting aside the covers and pushing off Wei Wuxian's messy robe as he goes, laying Wei Wuxian bare. He's mouthing at every piece of skin he reveals, sending wave after wave of heat through Wei Wuxian's body.

"Listen," Wei Wuxian says, feeling like it's important that they finish this conversation, although with Lan Zhan's mouth now down by his hip, his tongue skating hot and wet over it, he's not entirely sure what it was that he needed to say. Lan Zhan's mouth is very, very close to Wei Wuxian's cock. His brain has lost the thread again.

Lan Zhan pauses, looking up at him. His eyes are very dark, and very impatient. Wei Wuxian gets that flash again, coursing through him, that flash of what he now knows is love, because he loves Lan Zhan, he loves his husband, and Lan Zhan seems to be okay with that. "Wei Ying," he says, when Wei Wuxian just stares at him, silent, at a loss for words.

"What?" he manages.

"Let me," Lan Zhan says, the two words coming out sultry, and all Wei Wuxian can do is nod shakily just before Lan Zhan takes his cock into his mouth. Wei Wuxian collapses back, his hands reaching down to clutch at Lan Zhan's shoulders as he arches up into it. Lan Zhan is taking him down deep, his hands holding Wei Wuxian's hips firmly, not holding him down, just somehow guiding him as Wei Wuxian pushes up, and up.

And maybe, he thinks with that tiny portion of his brain that is still capable of rational thought—maybe this is enough. Maybe Lan Zhan is right. Maybe they don't need to finish the conversation in any other way than this. He laughs a little, up at the ceiling of the Jingshi, the place where he lives, and Lan Zhan's hands squeeze his hips, like a response. And it is—Wei Wuxian laughs again, stuttering off into a moan as Lan Zhan swallows around him. It is enough. It's more than enough. It's them, here, together, in their new, married life. They'll figure out the rest of it. Together.