Qinghe was experiencing a first bout of real heat.
It was early considering the time of year, but the plentiful rains spring had thus far brought meant that the plant-life was ready for it, stretching its verdure towards the sun and greedily soaking up its strength.
Wei Wuxian, who was sitting on a tree stump in the forest that formed the boundary between the outside world and the seat of the Nie sect, was hot.
He was sweltering.
He was nervously bouncing his knee up and down, fiddling with his sleeve and going silently but steadily crazy.
Had been steadily going crazy for multiple shichen already. He didn't know when exactly Lan Wangji planned to come and collect him but at this point it felt like he was intentionally being tortured.
Even Da-Shanyang, usually affectionate to the point of being pushy, had grown tired of Wei Wuxian's fidgeting by this point, standing with her butt turned in his direction so she wouldn't have to look at him while foraging in the underbrush.
Through the trees, Wei Wuxian could just make out the enormous grey wall of the Unclean Realm. If he'd had literally any brain capacity left to spare, he might have experienced some feelings of satisfaction to see it as imposing as it had ever been, unmarred by fire, a grace neither Lotus Pier nor the Cloud Recesses had been afforded.
But as it happened Wei Wuxian didn't have any brain capacity left.
He was completely occupied repeatedly rehearsing the best-sounding apologies in his mind and going through a hundred versions of the same speech, all of them beginning with some iteration of first of all, Lan Zhan, you're not allowed to hate me.
It was a thinly veiled attempt at distracting himself from the fact that no matter how much he practiced, he would never be prepared.
A shift in the air at last brought an end to the torturous period of suspense and doomed Wei Wuxian to his inevitable fate; something white flashed in the sky above his head, bright like a snowdrift come to knock him off his feet—a snowdrift with a beautiful face, beautiful hair and eyes that seemed to be spewing golden flames—
"Wei Ying!" Lan Wangji shouted where he was racing towards him at breakneck speed.
Wei Wuxian's heart all but stopped in his chest.
He barely had time to get to his feet and instinctively open his arms before—in a completely shocking display of gracelessness—Lan Wangji launched himself off Bichen and crashed into him.
The hug—if it could be called that, so violent that Wei Wuxian swore he heard multiple of his rips cracking—lasted only for an instant before Lan Wangji was roughly pushing them apart, gripping him by the shoulders, directly over his wound.
Wei Wuxian forgot to wince in pain, so entranced was he by how close they suddenly were.
Lan Wangji seemed to be taking him in too. He was panting quietly, like he had searched the entire forest at maximum speed, just to find Wei Wuxian that tiny bit quicker.
The expression on his face was—furious.
Severe.
Beautiful.
How was he even more beautiful than the last time Wei Wuxian had seen him? How could it be that imagination paled so much in comparison to the original?
Against all logic and forgetting all his speeches, Wei Wuxian leaned forward, drawn to Lan Wangji's pink lips like a moth to flame.
Lan Wangji let himself be kissed, but he blinked, startled.
Much too soon for Wei Wuxian's liking, he pushed them apart again, still gripping Wei Wuxian directly over his wound.
This time some scabs tore, and Wei Wuxian couldn't suppress a hiss of pain.
Lan Wangji wrenched his hands back as though he'd been burned.
"You are injured," he gathered, scanning Wei Wuxian from head to toe, clearly searching for blood or an indication of a wound but finding none—and then he was pulling at Wei Wuxian's clothes, leaving no room for objection.
There was a moment of silence as Wei Wuxian's shoulders were exposed to the world. Almost immediately Lan Wangji's eyes zeroed in on the marks of teeth which had broken through his flesh, impossible to confuse for anything but the bite of a corpse.
"Lan Zhan," Wei Wuxian choked out.
Lan Wangji kept staring at the wound. His fingers were trembling—Wei Wuxian could feel the tiny tremors that wracked them where Lan Wangji's knuckles were brushing against his skin.
"Lan Zhan, you..."
Lan Wangji pushed himself back into motion, reaching into his sleeve and retrieving a small pot of salve.
"This shows signs of infection. Hold still," he instructed and just like that he was rubbing medicine onto Wei Wuxian's wound. A little too insistently, almost like he was trying to rub the bite mark off in its entirety, like he could erase it from Wei Wuxian's body through touch and willpower alone.
"Lan Zhan, look at me!"
Lan Wangji froze. Finally, he looked up, one finger still pressing against the wound.
Wei Wuxian gripped his wrist with both hands, suddenly scared that he would run.
"Lan Zhan. Jining was me. I did that. All if it! If you're waiting for some excuse that'll explain away what you saw, you can stop—there is no excuse. You were right. I've been keeping this from you. I've been so scared to tell you, for so long, because this isn't even a new development! Lan Zhan, do you remember the late Mu-furen? How everybody said I was lucky she passed on when she did, that I couldn't have possibly liberated her—but I did Lan Zhan! Back then, I liberated her—with Chenqing I channeled her resentment and helped her find back to herself."
Wei Wuxian stopped to catch his breath for a moment. He was honestly surprised how steady his words were coming out, even if he couldn't read what effect they were having.
"I told myself, back then, I told myself it would never happen again! That is why I didn't tell you right away. But it did happen again! In Lingshan—I ended up running into a ghost. He nearly possessed me, Lan Zhan—or I would have gone into qi deviation. But I had the idea to seal my golden core. It worked, I felt in control again. I could communicate with him! I could feel his resentment coursing through me, and I could channel it—he killed the Wens who'd been chasing me."
Lan Wangji's eyebrow moved, just a bit, like a trick of the light. Otherwise, his face might as well have been truly carved from jade. He was so still Wei Wuxian couldn't even tell if he was breathing.
"I needed it again in Yanling! A flooded river had destroyed some of their graveyard and remains had been washed away or hopelessly jumbled together. I made the unsettled spirits point me to their bones and—and I called to those lost in the water and in the end—in the end I restored every single corpse, and they were buried again!"
Still nothing.
"Wen Zhuliu is dead!" Wei Wuxian shouted, losing his cool. "And Wen Chao won't attack the Unclean Realm anymore! There were two thousand men in that camp Lan Zhan—their deaths are all mine!!!"
Things were, one could say, not going according to plan. Wei Wuxian wasn't doing a lot of apologizing, wasn't claiming regret where there was none, when he had been sure it was what he should do.
Somehow the truth was just slipping out of him, bypassing all his careful considerations, artless and not at all designed to please.
"Lan Zhan," Wei Wuxian begged when Lan Wangji still didn't react. "Lan Zhan, please say something. Fucking move! Don't just look at me like that—I feel like I'm not even here!"
He got his wish. Lan Wangji moved; in the blink of an eye, he had reversed their positions so that he was the one holding Wei Wuxian's wrist in an iron grip instead of the other way around.
Before Wei Wuxian knew what was happening, he was being yanked forwards and then dragged to the edge of the trees. He stumbled after Lan Wangji, almost falling over his own feet, thoroughly unbalanced.
"Lan Zhan?! Hey, slow down a bit—Lan Zhan what are we—?"
"Quiet!" Lan Wangji snapped. He whistled sharply.
Da-Shanyang looked up, studied the new white human for a moment, then obediently came over to follow him. Little traitor.
Lan Wangji glared over his shoulder. "Why is your voice not concealed?"
"Huh?" Wei Wuxian blinked, really feeling rather out of sorts, suddenly. "What, it's—after everything, I wasn't sure hiding my identity would still—Lan Zhan, can we slow down?! What are we—?"
He didn't even get to finish talking. With a sudden, slightly uncomfortably zap, Wei Wuxian's lips sealed themselves shut.
It took him a moment to understand what had happened.
As soon as he had realized that Lan Wangji had actually fucking used Gusu Lan's silencing technique on him, he was sure his eyes were about to fall out of his head from shock and indignation. What the hell?! Hadn't they left such petty measures in the past?! The last time he'd been forcefully silenced like this he'd still been an unruly child copying rules in the library pavilion!
More bewildered than anything—and like this not given a choice in the matter—Wei Wuxian kept his mouth shut all the way to the Unclean Realm's entrance gate.
The Nie sentries on duty didn't make them wait; bowing deeply with twin exclamations of "Hanguang-jun!" they immediately signaled for the portcullis to be dragged up. They also sent Wei Wuxian questioning looks, but didn't dare to ask about him; while Hanguang-jun's authority clearly granted him permission to come and go as he pleased, his icy face doused the disciples' curiosity like a bucket of cold water would a weak candle flame.
And so, Wei Wuxian was dragged right into the home of the Nie sect. After Da-Shanyang had been given into the custody of a servant, Lan Wangji led the journey through monotone walkways and courtyards, past square architecture and staring Nie disciples, all the way to the guest house the Lan brothers had been assigned during the last big discussion conference as well, never once letting up on his unforgivingly tight grip.
Once inside the house, Wei Wuxian was immediately towed upstairs into Lan Wangji's private quarters. There Lan Wangji took a moment to throw silencing talismans at the walls before resuming his manhandling; Wei Wuxian was pushed down to sit on the floor while Hanguang-jun himself sat behind his qin and immediately began to play Cleansing.
Honestly, Wei Wuxian didn't know what else he had been expecting.
"Lan Zhan," he complained as soon as he felt his lips unseal. He tried to stand up, only to be frozen in place by a cutting look.
So he endured it.
For an entire movement of Cleansing, Wei Wuxian endured having to sit quietly like a scolded child while Lan Wangji's spiritual energy probed around in his perfectly uncontaminated meridians.
Which, yes—Wei Wuxian wasn't actually running around with resentment in his system, thank you very much!
Cleansing wasn't doing anything at all.
"Really Lan Zhan—"
"Quiet! Focus."
"For fuck's sake, there's nothing to cleanse!"
Wangji cut off with a discordant twang.
Lan Wangji shot to his feet, eyes spewing fire.
"How could you do it? How could you be so reckless?!"
Wei Wuxian also jumped up from the floor.
"Reckless?! Didn't you listen to me earlier? I explained why I did what I did, I had a good reason every time—or do you think I was just fucking around for my own amusement, Lan Zhan? You think I can't take the truth?! If Gusu Lan's gonna kick me out just say so!"
Lan Wangji flinched, eyes wide. "No. No! They will not find out!"
"Huh?!"
"Shufu will not know! No one—you will not tell anyone what you've done!"
Scared, Wei Wuxian thought, Lan Zhan looks scared.
"Ling Yuxuan was unconscious and so will not recollect your ever being in Jining. I was the only one who performed Inquiry and so am the only one who can testify the dead mentioning your name!"
"But Wen Chao knows I was there!" Wei Wuxian shouted, head hurting as confusion warred with agitation. "He thought I was a ghost, yes, but that—surely, he's already told plenty of people he saw me in Jining?!"
Lan Wangji was quiet for a beat. Then he frowned, expression dark. "Wen Chao was not in Jining."
"He—was not—the fuck?! Of course he was—I left him lying there! He was unconscious!"
"No."
"Yes! Yes, he was already as good as—I didn't—what the fuck, Lan Zhan, I thought you'd captured him!" Wei Wuxian started to pace, gripping his hair. "You're telling me Wen Chao—what—he fucking ran? His leg had been sliced to fucking ribbons, he couldn't have run!!!"
"He was not there. But you saw him." Lan Wangji tracked Wei Wuxian as he paced, his eyes hard. "So he escaped. He escaped, after seeing you. Wei Ying—Wei Ying, you—"
Wei Wuxian whirled around to face him. "I what?! You want to blame me?! Yes, yes, yes, it's all my fault! It always is, anyway! Now the cat is out of the bag and the Wens will find out I'm not dead after all! You know what—to hell with it, I don't even fucking care anymore! This stupid disguise was never my idea and frankly, I'm fucking terrible at keeping it up! So the Wens will know and then—and then Lan-shushu will know and then not even you can stop your clan from finding out what I've done in Jining!"
"Shufu will give preference to my testimony!" Lan Wangji snapped. "So perhaps you were there, but you did not control those restless dead!"
Wei Wuxian stopped to stare at him, incredulous. "Lan Zhan, what the hell? What's going on with you? Are you trying to say you want me to make stuff up, or something? To lie? Make up some story to—to deceive your uncle? Don't you know that the consequences will only be worse when he finds out?!"
"Do not speak to me about consequences!!!"
Wei Wuxian flinched. He stared at the floor, clenched his shaking hands into fists.
"The clan cannot know. Not ever," Lan Wangji said lowly. His voice wasn't steady—he was trembling too. "Shufu cannot—the punishment for this—"
He's trying to protect me, Wei Wuxian realized with abrupt and immediate clarity. He's scared of what might happen to me.
It cut through his whirlwind of emotions, managed to steady him a little.
He loves me, he loves me so much he wants to lie to the entire world.
"Okay," Wei Wuxian spoke aloud, trying to project calm—for both their sakes, despite the fact that his heart was still rabbiting in his chest, a small animal trying desperately to escape a trap.
He crept forward and hesitantly reached out.
He was allowed to take Lan Wangji's hand.
"Okay," Wei Wuxian repeated shakily, even as a voice in his head screamed at him that he was making a terrible mistake. "Whatever you want. If you—if you think that this is the right thing to do, that it could work, I will... I will come up with something. I will! Your uncle won't know the truth. If he..."
And then despair abruptly made Wei Wuxian lose his voice. Eyes burning, he had to swallow around a sudden lump in his throat.
Who, if not the Second Jade of Lan, pride of his family, trusted from an early age with the role of disciplinarian by his uncle, would know what the consequences would be if that uncle learned of Wei Wuxian's actions?
There was no room for delusional hope.
Lan Wangji was very obviously terrified of a punishment so horribly gruesome that he, of all people, would prefer, would actually push for deceiving the man who had raised him.
Until this very moment, Wei Wuxian hadn't even been aware of the tiny part of his heart which had still been stubbornly holding out hope that Lan Qiren could forgive him, that Lan Qiren would continue to love him and treat him like his own blood even if he learned the truth.
He hadn't known that some part of him had still been clinging onto a dream of unconditional affection, of family—not until he had felt that dream die just now.
"You must never do it again," Lan Wangji beseeched, quietly now. He squeezed Wei Wuxian's hand, too tightly. "You will not continue down this path. Not a single step further. Wei Ying, swear it to me."
Wei Wuxian sniffled. All his defensive, indignant feelings were gone. He felt stripped bare, small and foolish. Simultaneously alone and like he would float away and disappear if Lan Wangji let go of him.
Lan Wangji did not let go of him. He interlaced their fingers.
"You will not think of it again," he said, like a conviction, like he could make it so merely by speaking the words. "And we shall never mention it between us from this point on. It never happened."
Wei Wuxian closed his eyes against a sudden surge of wetness. He nodded, once.
Lan Wangji exhaled. Moving steadily, he maneuvered Wei Wuxian further into the room until the backs of his knees hit the bed and he fell onto the mattress.
"Are there further injuries?" Lan Wangji asked, seeming utterly composed again.
Even though Wei Wuxian knew it was a mask it could have fooled him. There he was, in front of him; Hanguang-jun, the wall, the facade, having taken his husband from him in the blink of an eye, leaving him with this cold, untouchable stranger.
"No," Wei Wuxian replied to the question, but it didn't matter what he said—he was already being undressed. He allowed all of it, until he was shivering and completely bare. Lan Wangji inspected every inch of his naked skin, as if searching for proof that he had lied. Wei Wuxian couldn't read if he was satisfied or unsatisfied when there really were no secret wounds.
"You will bathe," Lan Wangji decided next.
During the walk to the bathtub in the next room he touched Wei Wuxian the entire time; a gentle hand at his back to steer, a warm palm placed against his ribcage to guide, fingers on his uninjured shoulder to make him sit down in the hot water—as if Wei Wuxian was unable to move if not for minute directing.
Far too grateful for the touches Wei Wuxian didn't object to the coddling. Unlike Lan Wangji's stony face, those sticky hands of his at least conveyed some emotional investment on their owner's part.
Lan Wangji washed him meticulously, allowing not a single speck of dirt to remain. Just as always. Like they were back home preparing for bed or for the day, like this was nothing more than a sweet indulgence between lovers.
Wei Wuxian felt like crying again by the time he was squeaky clean, but he managed to squash the impulse.
Lan Wangji toweled him dry and then back to bed they went, where Wei Wuxian, to his great astonishment, learned the reason he hadn't been allowed clothes.
"Oh! We...?" he gasped as he was pressed into bed and Lan Wangji climbed on top of him, methodically beginning to rid himself of his own clothing.
Little by little, snowy white skin was revealed, lovely and perfect.
Wei Wuxian blinked up at it, feeling extraordinarily stupid, suddenly uncertain whether he had slipped into a weird parallel dimension without noticing, one that lay square in the middle between sweet dream and nightmare.
To be granted this intimacy now seemed too good to be true—there had to be a catch—but Wei Wuxian's brain was not capable of looking for that catch at present, not when, at this time entirely naked, Lan Wangji gripped him by the thighs and, with a single tug, pulled him into his—again, entirely naked—lap.
Bowing his head he swallowed Wei Wuxian's dick in its entirety.
Wei Wuxian let out an injured yelp. He wasn't hard, too confused by half for arousal, but his husband seemed unbothered, an adorable little crease forming between his eyebrows as he gently held Wei Wuxian's dick in his mouth and caressed it with his tongue, coaxing him towards pleasure.
Like that, it didn't take long at all for Wei Wuxian to get there.
His body didn't care that his mind was lagging behind, frantically trying to figure out how in hell this was currently happening, how in hell he had managed to go from arguing with Lan Wangji to suddenly getting his dick sucked—it just cared about the wet mouth on his dick, about the incredible tightness, the heat, about the fact that it was Lan Zhan, and gods, it had been so long!
By the time a slick finger prodded at his entrance, Wei Wuxian had been reduced to a keening creature of need, freed of thought and incapable of doubt, barely able to weakly buck its hips and beg.
Lan Wangji prepared him so thoroughly he barely felt it as he finally thrust into him, sheathing himself in one go. He only realized he was being fucked because his stomach suddenly felt pleasantly full and because he could see Lan Wangji's eyes hovering over his, and because Lan Wangji's hot breath was puffing against his lips.
Perhaps ironically it was the inevitable race towards climax that finally restored Wei Wuxian's ability to form thoughts; his gut tingled but it was a faint sensation, a gentle pleasure, a soft surge. Too faint. Too gentle. Too soft.
Wei Wuxian's mental faculties managed to push back to the forefront of his mind to sound the alarm, to rear their head in complaint.
This wasn't what he wanted.
This wasn't enough.
This was almost over yet still barely anything.
"Lan Zhan," Wei Wuxian gasped, reaching out to cling to Lan Wangji, to grab his wrists where his big hands were spreading him open, to tug and pull, to spur on.
When he was unsuccessful, he tried to add his voice into the mix, to goad and tease, but before the nonsense tumbling from his lips could turn coherent, he was being kissed into silence.
One of Lan Wangji's hands stopped clutching his thigh, moving to lie flat over his stomach instead.
And then, at the most inopportune time imaginable—Wei Wuxian had been on the point of reaching a very unsatisfying peak, but still; an orgasm was an orgasm—Lan Wangji stopped moving entirely.
A hot wave of spiritual energy flooded into Wei Wuxian's body, finding purchase in his lower dantian and just like that he was sent hurtling back from the most underwhelming climax anybody had ever found himself miserably looking forward to.
Dual cultivation.
Ah, Wei Wuxian thought, panting and staring past Lan Wangji's sweaty shoulder at the ceiling of the guest room.
Ah, yes, here it is. The catch.
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