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Chapter Text

Usually, summers in the Cloud Recesses pass with a sticky slowness. Like strands of honey dripping from the comb. 

In his finite days with Wei Wuxian, Lan Wangji’s summer vanishes in the blink of an eye. Quicker, even; like a blinked eye when flinching. Lan Wangji is pressingly aware of each spent day as it passes, but awareness does nothing to slow the speed of the passing. Through the dwindling weeks, there are sunny and indiscriminate afternoons of kisses; warm, moon-silvered evenings of Wei Wuxian’s familiar skin under his hands and mouth; and then, as if with the darkening of a pleasant dream, their final week arrives in waking color.

Just a few days before the Jiang disciples’ departure, as he reties his hair with bruised wrists in Lan Wangji’s bed, Wei Wuxian convinces Lan Wangji to join him, Jiang Cheng, and Nie Huaisang for an evening out in Caiyi Town. In any other reality, Lan Wangji would say no; he would far prefer to spend his evening reading, practicing qin or meditating alone. But his days with Wei Wuxian are so few now, and he has tried to sponge up every last remaining moment before the inevitable. So, reluctantly, he agrees to come. His own discomfort is nearly worth it, for the way that Wei Wuxian lights up at the news.

The sword-ride to Caiyi is filled mostly with banter between the three boys while Lan Wangji takes up the rear of their flock, nearby but not enough so to be included. Whatever commonalities Lan Wangji has found with Wei Wuxian, it does not extend to the social circles of other boys. Most conversations among his peers he finds boring, overly crass, or trite; or even more revolve around pursuing women, something to which Lan Wangji wholly cannot relate. So he hangs back awkwardly and watches Wei Wuxian joke and banter with the others, his smile brilliant even in the setting sun.

It isn’t even a joss stick’s time before the four of them land outside one of Caiyi’s most popular winehouses. Nie Huaisang and Jiang Cheng move inside while Wei Wuxian hangs back with Lan Wangji. He’s rubbing at one of his wrists, and when his sleeve slips, Lan Wangji can see reddened rope-marks from their previous evening, still bruise-dark. Wei Wuxian catches him staring and winks, then slides his sleeve back down and scampers inside after his friends.

Once they find an open table, Wei Wuxian immediately orders three pots of wine, then spends the next several minutes relentlessly trying to convince Jiang Cheng to talk to two women their age at a separate table. Jiang Cheng huffs and grinds his teeth, his face steadily blackening along with his disposition as he chugs at his wine.

“Leave me the fuck alone, Wei Wuxian, my god,” Jiang Cheng eventually snaps, once Wei Wuxian has made his fifth pass at persuasion.

“I don’t see what the big deal is! How are you ever going to find a wife acting like this?” Wei Wuxian responds. Even after the first few cups, he’s already flushed with liquor, patches of pink in his cheeks as he throws an arm gamely around his brother’s shoulders. “I’m just looking out for you, and those girls are exactly your type! Well-mannered, not too loud, refined fashion, pretty faces . . .”

“If you’re so in love with them, why don’t you go talk to them?” Jiang Cheng grouses.

The moment Jiang Cheng says it, Lan Wangji sees the inevitable, and something in him flinches with a soft, plaintive no. 

Predictably, Wei Wuxian perks up at the challenge, his arm slipping off Jiang Cheng’s shoulders. “Fine, maybe I will! Maybe I need to show my shidi how it’s done, if he’s going to sit here sulking and drinking alone.” He bounces up onto his feet and shoves at Jiang Cheng’s arm. “Now watch and learn, punk.”

An acidic feeling climbs up Lan Wangji’s throat as Wei Wuxian saunters over to the two young ladies and greets them with a charming tilt of his head. The girls seem wary at first, or perhaps annoyed at having their evening disturbed, but they visibly relax as Wei Wuxian keeps talking. One of them even blushes and covers half her face to hide a giggle, no doubt in response to whatever flirtations Wei Wuxian is doling out.

“Can you fucking believe him?” Jiang Cheng growls, glaring across the room at Wei Wuxian, but there’s a shine in his eyes that seems envious. “Flaunting around like that so shamelessly! He’ll really just give it up for anyone who tosses him a spare look.”

“Wei-xiong is indeed shameless,” Nie Huaisang agrees, flapping his fan against the still summer heat. “But he’s handsome and talks well and he’s good at cultivation — who wouldn’t be interested?”

Who wouldn’t be, Lan Wangji thinks. He watches as the blushing girl leans toward Wei Wuxian, ensnared in whatever he’s saying. Even across the room, Lan Wangji recognizes the look on her face as one does a reflection: infatuated, a little dazzled. It feels like a prophetic vision. Lan Wangji is filled with resentment toward Wei Wuxian’s future wife, but perhaps what he truly resents most of all is that he can’t resent her, not in full, because he knows the truth she also will, which is how it feels to love Wei Wuxian. Effortless, helpless. Like stepping into the sun.

The girl that Wei Wuxian is flirting with leans forward on her elbows and says something with a devious curl to her mouth. Wei Wuxian laughs, audible even over the din of patrons. He rubs the back of his neck like he might be flustered or embarrassed. Perhaps this is Wei Wuxian’s type, after all: someone who can flirt back, be funny, talk smooth.

The vinegar in Lan Wangji’s chest burns too harshly to sit still any longer. He stands and ignores the surprised looks from Nie Huaisang and Jiang Cheng, who are still discussing Wei Wuxian and have apparently forgotten he’s there. Without another word, Lan Wangji strides toward the entrance, his hand clenched behind his back.

He steps outside, away from the chatter of drunken patrons, and closes his eyes. He tilts his face up to catch a cool breeze, but it’s still muggy by Biling Lake, even at night. Details wash over him in a gentle swell — stars, smoke, throngs of strangers flowing around him in currents; everyone and their someone, everyone and everyone and then Lan Wangji, apart.

He stands alone for some time, observing the teeming bustle of Caiyi Town at nightfall. Eventually, Lan Wangji turns, and is surprised to find Nie Huaisang standing beside him. He can’t say for certain how long he has been there. Nie Huaisang is wine-flushed, but overall seems more sober than not as he appraises Lan Wangji, folded hand around folded fan. 

“I know your secret,” Nie Huaisang says, then opens his fan in a lazy switch. “Well, I know everyone’s secrets. That’s neither here nor there.”

Lan Wangji sighs, then looks over Nie Huaisang’s shoulder, to where Wei Wuxian is still chatting with the two young women at the table. “He told you.”

Nie Huaisang’s brow quirks up. His fan snaps shut. “Nah. You did.”

Lan Wangji blinks, then glares off toward the lake to mask his embarrassment.

“It’s fine,” Nie Huaisang says airily. “I already knew, anyway. I’ve been watching the way you guys look at each other in class. I’m surprised more people don’t know, actually. Jiang Cheng’s been laying into him for weeks, trying to figure out who he’s been seeing; all the hickeys and bruises, the disappearances, the daydreamy silences, you know.” Nie Huaisang appraises Lan Wangji’s expression and seems to come up with nothing. He adds, “Don’t worry. I wouldn’t tell him.”

“Hm,” Lan Wangji says. He is not particularly worried about Jiang Wanyin’s opinion either way.

“Or anyone, for that matter,” says Nie Huaisang. “Your business is your business.” He pauses, as though considering how to word something. “I know it’s not my place, but you should be careful.”

Lan Wangji finds the implication insulting. “I would not see him hurt.”

“Aiyah — I didn’t mean it on Wei-xiong’s behalf,” Nie Huaisang says. 

Lan Wangji remains rooted in place, uncertain what to do with either Nie Huaisang’s advice or his concern. He’s never been skilled in the way of making friends or conversation with those he doesn’t know well. Although they’ve been acquainted with each other for years through their brothers’ friendship, Nie Huaisang usually acts nervous around Lan Wangji and avoids him. This is unprecedented; perhaps Nie Huaisang is drunker than he’d thought, or perhaps their year apart has changed him. 

“I don’t understand,” Lan Wangji says eventually, when the awkward silence is left to fester.

Nie Huaisang sighs. “Ahh, how to explain this. Our Wei-gongzi is . . . ” He seems to ponder for a moment, tapping his folded fan to his chin. “Mmm, he’s like one of those flytrap plants. He lays the bait, then snatches up a catch and swallows it whole. He doesn’t mean any harm by it, but — he can’t help but lay the bait. You know? Some things are just within our nature.”

Lan Wangji’s gaze moves past Nie Huaisang, to where Wei Wuxian is pouring another drink for one of the girls, beaming ear to ear. 

“Bait,” he says hollowly.

“Yeah,” Nie Huaisang says, then looks concerned by whatever he sees on Lan Wangji’s face. “Um, I mean — for what it’s worth, he talks about you all the time. Like, aa-ll the time.”

It is not worth much, all things considered. Wei Wuxian talks a lot. 

Nie Huaisang still seems unsettled by whatever expression Lan Wangji is wearing. “Sorry, Wangji-xiong — I really didn’t mean anything harsh by it. It’s just that — I saw you standing out here alone, and — I know Wei-xiong pretty well.” He makes as though to reach out and pat Lan Wangji’s shoulder, then thinks better of it and retracts his hand. “If it makes you feel better . . . if things don’t work out, it’s not like you’re ever gonna have any trouble getting back out there. I mean, my god, look at you.” He coughs, reddening. “Sorry, wine talking. I just meant — you’ll get snatched up so fast, regardless! You’ll find another — ”

“No.”

“No?” 

“No.”

“Oh.” Nie Huaisang stares at him. A new understanding works its way across his face; a blink, a pitying twist of his lips. He opens his mouth as if to say something else, then closes it.

“I should go,” Lan Wangji says. “It’s late.” There isn’t any use for him here, anyway.

“I can offer some reading recommendations if it helps?” Nie Huaisang suggests. “Fentao-laoshi has a companion guide, Fentao-laoshi’s Guide to Cut-Sleeve Heartbreak.”

“No thank you,” Lan Wangji says. “Good night.”

“Wangji-xiong,” Nie Huaisang calls to his retreating back, and Lan Wangji turns. In the half-dark cast by the awning of the winehouse, Nie Huaisang appears more serious than he ever has. It shifts his features in some unplaceable way, like a water ghoul moving under the surface of a lake. It makes Lan Wangji wonder, for a strange, split second, if he’s seeing a different person entirely. 

Nie Huaisang’s voice comes softer, but is still easily heard. In it, there’s no trace of his usual flustering or nerves. “It’s hard, for people like us. I know. Wei-xiong is a friend, but — I know he doesn’t understand. Even if he is like us . . . he may never understand. Do you know what I mean?”

The words put a cold splinter in Lan Wangji’s chest. Like a seam in the ice splitting and spindling under applied pressure.

“Good night,” he says again, and vanishes into the crowd.

◈ ◈ ◈

A shichen later, Lan Wangji is very nearly ready for bed, bathed and combed and his day-clothes sorted and hung up, when he hears three rapid bangs on the jingshi’s sliding door. He pauses, almost startled at the anomaly, then sighs when he realizes — there is only one person who would visit him so late at night, and so impertinently. 

For a moment, he debates not answering at all, but this kind of petty punishment toward a loved one isn’t really within his nature. He goes to open the door.

“Lan Zhan,” Wei Wuxian says the moment Lan Wangji slides open the door. “I’ve been looking all over for you! Where did you go, why did you leave? Lan Zhan — ”

“Lower your voice,” Lan Wangji says. “It is almost hao shi.”

Wei Wuxian hiccups, then obediently drops his voice. He’s back to speaking at the same volume by the end of the sentence. “Lan Zhan, how could you leave like that without telling me? I turned around and started looking everywhere and you weren’t . . . Nie-xiong said you’d already . . . . ”

“Yes. I left.” Lan Wangji can’t quite help the frost that creeps into his voice. “You seemed otherwise occupied.”

Wei Wuxian doesn’t seem to pick up on it. He stares at Lan Wangji with his mouth half-ajar. “Who? What? Occupied, huh?”

“With keeping more interesting company,” Lan Wangji says. Hurt makes his tone ugly.

“Who?” Wei Wuxian says, seeming genuinely lost. “What company?”

“The young women,” Lan Wangji says impatiently.

“Oh — them!” Wei Wuxian says, breezily dismissive. “I don’t even remember their names! Or what they looked like, or — hic — what we talked about, ahaha.”

Rather than assuaging him, the words only make Lan Wangji angrier. His words trip out of him in a hot rush.

“You should not — bait people,” he says harshly, “if you only intend to play with them.”

Wei Wuxian blinks, his eyes widening a little.

“Bait . . . ?” he echoes. “Who’s baiting who? What’re you talking about?”

Lan Wangji closes his eyes. He has no desire to continue this conversation when Wei Wuxian is inebriated and when his own emotions are too tangled to approach this rationally.

“It is late.” His hand moves to the door handle. “Good night, Wei Ying.”

Wei Wuxian doesn’t budge from the doorway. He goes quiet for a long time. Then he says, “Lan Zhan.” Softer, after another beat, he says, “Can I come in?”

Lan Wangji hesitates. “I don’t think it’s . . . ” He swallows. “Wise.”

Wei Wuxian’s brow furrows. “Wise?” Before Lan Wangji can respond, he continues, “Lan Zhan, did something happen? Are you mad?”

Lan Wangji sighs. “Not mad.” Anger would be much simpler. 

Wei Wuxian stares at him, reading something off of him, and then some kind of understanding seems to register in his face. His arm slips off the doorframe and hangs by his side.

“Oh,” he says, then gives a strained laugh. “It’s — the girls — ? You wanted to . . . ?”

“What?” Lan Wangji snaps, irritated to be back on this subject.

“Nothing,” Wei Wuxian says, but he seems more upset than before. “It’s nothing.” He releases a huge, juddering sigh. “Can I come in?”

Lan Wangji hesitates again, then decides it’s preferable that Wei Wuxian stay here than go trawling around the Cloud Recesses at night in this state. He moves to allow Wei Wuxian to slip past him. Lan Wangji doesn’t say a word as he takes up a seated position on his mat. He intends to ignore Wei Wuxian to the best of his ability and to meditate until he’s in a calmer state for sleep.

Instead of running around, Wei Wuxian sits down next to Lan Wangji, then stares pointedly at his lap. He glances at Lan Wangji’s face with a sorrowful look, then back down to his lap, then says, “Can I borrow that for a little?”

“ . . . My lap?” 

“Mhm.”

No good can come of this. Still, Wei Wuxian does look quite pitiful, half-asleep and almost listing in place with exhaustion and drink. Lan Wangji’s upset feelings from earlier haven’t diminished, but he is finding it increasingly impossible, as the days go on, to deny Wei Wuxian anything.

Lan Wangji consents with a single nod. Wei Wuxian shuffles into Lan Wangji’s lap and makes himself smaller, curling up there like a cat. He settles himself more comfortably in the scoop of Lan Wangji’s crossed legs before he closes his eyes and presses his face into Lan Wangji’s robes. He starts to talk in a low mumble, as if to himself, muffled into Lan Wangji’s chest. It’s so quiet that Lan Wangji strains to pick out the words.

“Kept looking and you weren’t there.” Wei Wuxian sighs, then turns his head to kiss Lan Wangji’s hand between two knuckles. “Gotta not do that. Don’t disappear, don’t go away from me.”

Lan Wangji is startled into responding.

“I won’t go,” he says, pitched low and soft. “I’m here.”

Wei Wuxian pats his chest twice, his eyes still closed. His cheeks are still flushed and puffy. “Good boy.”

Wei Wuxian’s head droops, and then he’s asleep. For a moment, Lan Wangji’s hand hovers, then he cups the back of Wei Wuxian’s head, stroking through his hair with a long, weary sigh. As if he feels it, Wei Wuxian nuzzles closer to Lan Wangji, one of his arms clinging to Lan Wangji’s side. They remain like this for so long that Lan Wangji’s legs start to lose feeling, and once his eyes begin to droop, he carries Wei Wuxian to his bed. Then he fetches a pot of water and places it next to the bedside, because Wei Wuxian will undoubtedly have a headache when he wakes.

“Lan Zhan,” Wei Wuxian says, so clearly that Lan Wangji pauses, thinking he’s awoken. When he lowers his head to check, Wei Wuxian’s eyes are still closed, his brow crinkled as if in distress.

“Lan Zhan,” he mumbles again, sounding more upset than before.

“I’m here,” Lan Wangji says, gently in case he’s having a nightmare.

Wei Wuxian’s hand shoots out and grabs the front of Lan Wangji’s robes, curling into a fist. “Don’t — don’t go.”

“Not going,” Lan Wangji reminds him, then slides into bed next to him to make good on his word. As he consistently does, Wei Wuxian starts to grope around until he finds Lan Wangji to cling to. With a smoother expression, he sighs and sleeps quietly again.

Lan Wangji watches him with a heaviness in his chest that feels crushing. One more day, and he will be gone.

◈ ◈ ◈

Upon waking, Wei Wuxian doesn’t seem to remember any of the previous evening, so Lan Wangji doesn’t acknowledge it either. Regardless, he would rather not let the previous evening’s unpleasantries spoil Wei Wuxian’s last day in Gusu. Once the worst of Wei Wuxian’s hangover passes, he seems more than happy to go along with whatever Lan Wangji wants to do for the afternoon.

The trip to their destination is as long as Lan Wangji remembers, but it passes much more quickly with the company of Wei Wuxian’s chatter. The market doesn’t feel as overwhelming and alienating as it did the first time Lan Wangji went, now that he has Wei Wuxian by his side. Wei Wuxian is visibly charmed by the setting, often stopping to chat with townsfolk and their kids or to sample different foods from stalls. He seems much more at ease here in the rabble than he does among gentry cultivators.

On their way out of the market, they’re stopped by a group of young women handing out fresh almond cakes, who call out coquettishly to them in the Gusu dialect.

“Lan er-dada!” they call when they recognize Lan Wangji, then giggle and flush at their own forwardness. They gesture to Wei Wuxian with suggestive, excited looks. “Who’s your pretty friend? He’s so handsome!”

Wei Wuxian tugs on his sleeve. “Lan Zhan, what are they saying about me?”

“Nothing,” Lan Wangji says, too sour to give a faithful translation.

“Your handsome friend looks hungry!” the bolder of the two girls exclaims, then she flounces up and deposits a pastry into Wei Wuxian’s open hands. She offers one to Lan Wangji, who gives her such a frosty look that she skitters back to her friend’s side, her eyes wide.

“It’s only half as sweet as meimei is,” Wei Wuxian calls back, his mouth already half-stuffed. “Or should I say jiejie?”

The girls dissolve into giggles again and wave goodbye, then turn to commiserate with each other behind cupped hands.

They move onto the dirt road leading out of town, where Wei Wuxian pesters Lan Wangji as he finishes his cake.

“Lan Zhan, what’s that long face for?” Wei Wuxian asks, wiping the crumbs from his hands. “How can you look so gloomy on a day as beautiful as this?”

Lan Wangji nurses his sulk in silence. After Wei Wuxian’s flirtations last night with other girls, it adds insult to injury that he’s continued to do so today with no remorse.

As he stares at Lan Wangji, a new understanding ripples across Wei Wuxian’s face. His mouth twitches up at the corners. “Ah, could it really be . . . that Lan er-gongzi is jealous?”

“Ridiculous,” Lan Wangji snaps, and he knows the heat of his reaction is damning.

Wei Wuxian crowds into his side, squeezing his arm between his as they walk.

“Lan Zhan, would you prefer it if I talked sweet to you?” Wei Wuxian needles, a smile in his voice as he hits the mark. “Alright, alright, how’s this: Lan Zhan is sweeter than any almond cake, far sweeter than any maiden in all of Gusu.”

“Don’t talk nonsense,” Lan Wangji says, even as the tips of his ears heat and part of him softens helplessly at the saccharine words. 

Wei Wuxian laughs, hugging Lan Wangji’s arm closer. With a resigned sigh, Lan Wangji reaches up with a thumb to brush away one of the cake crumbs clinging to the corner of Wei Wuxian’s mouth. Wei Wuxian tries to bite his thumb and misses.

“Lan Zhan, what were those girls saying? Can’t you teach me a few phrases while I’m still here?” he asks, gluing himself to Lan Wangji’s arm as they walk. “Oh, you should teach me how to swear! That way when I get back to Lotus Pier, I can cuss out all my shidis and they’ll have no idea what I’m saying, ha ha.”

“No,” Lan Wangji says, rankled by both the request and the reminder that Wei Wuxian is eager to leave.

“Come on, Lan Zhan, just a few swears,” Wei Wuxian cajoles. “The Gusu dialect is so sweet and light, I can’t even imagine how it sounds when you guys curse people.”

“No.”

“Lan Zhan, please? I heard that girl call you dada — Lan er-dada, please share some of your local knowledge, and I swear I’ll take it to my grave.”

Lan Wangji glances over at Wei Wuxian and finds himself being watched in return with startling warmth. The afternoon sun casts Wei Wuxian’s handsome features in goldenrod, his eyes shining. His robes are partially open, baring a stretch of his muscled chest. Lan Wangji feels his heart trip over one clumsy beat, and then the next.

Lan Wangji stops walking, and Wei Wuxian leans into him eagerly.

“You are beautiful,” he tells Wei Wuxian quietly in the Gusu dialect. “You are the only one my heart will ever want. I wish to never be parted from you.”

Lan Wangji’s breath catches. Speaking this way in his childhood tongue feels like he’s flayed open part of his skin to the bone, the sweetness of the syllables brazenly obvious. He is suddenly terrified that Wei Wuxian can understand him, after all — if not the individual words, then the meaning.  

“Wow,” Wei Wuxian says, sounding impressed. “Even how you swear sounds so pretty. Lan Zhan, what all horrible things did you say? Heh, Lan er-dada, I bet you’ve been waiting to curse me like this for a long time, haven’t you?”

“. . . It’s getting late,” Lan Wangji says. “Let’s go.”

Wei Wuxian keeps it up down the path, flirting with Lan er-dada, Lan er-dada~ until Lan Wangji puts a brief silencing spell on him. He lifts it once Wei Wuxian has settled down and has stopped teasing him for blushing at the pet name, though Lan Wangji suspects the matter is far from settled.

When they finally reach it, the lotus lake looks the same as it did a year ago, although it’s a much sunnier day than Lan Wangji’s first visit, and earlier in the afternoon. An older woman is rowing out on the water with a long pole — the one Lan Wangji met here last year, who had kindly allowed him to harvest after hours. She turns and catches sight of the two of them, then raises her hand to shield her eyes against the sun. Lan Wangji knows that he cuts a distinct figure, compared to the lake’s usual frequenters. The woman gives a friendly wave of recognition and calls out to him, unintelligible across the water, but it’s clear that they are welcome here. Lan Wangji raises a hand in response to thank her across the way.

Wei Wuxian turns to look at him inquisitively. “It’s almost like she knows you.”

“I came here once to pick lotus,” Lan Wangji replies.

After another few steps, he realizes the spot beside him is vacant. He stops and turns. 

Wei Wuxian is still a few paces behind him, where he’d stopped in his tracks. He’s staring at Lan Wangji with an expression of complete astonishment. 

“You — what?” Wei Wuxian says.

Lan Wangji didn’t expect such a reaction, and it makes him a little self-conscious, heat rising to his face. Less certainly, he repeats himself.

Wei Wuxian hasn’t moved yet. He’s still staring at Lan Wangji. The warm summer breeze skips up between them and whips Wei Wuxian’s ponytail into his face.

“When?” he says, with an odd intensity. “When did you?”

“Last summer.”

Wei Wuxian finally catches up to him, a faint awe dawning on his face as he studies Lan Wangji.

“I can’t believe you really picked lotus all by yourself,” he says, a little wonderingly. “Lan Zhan, why?”

“Someone told me that it tastes better with the stems attached,” Lan Wangji says.

Wei Wuxian blinks at him, apparently in shock, then he throws his head back and laughs, his hands clutching his sides. The sound is one of pure, unbridled joy. Lan Wangji’s heart gives a soft stutter.

“Is that really it? I was only messing with you, dummy!” Wei Wuxian puts both hands on Lan Wangji’s shoulders and squeezes. “You actually came all the way here for that?! Ah, Lan Zhan — of course you would believe me. Of course you would!”

Wei Wuxian looks happier than Lan Wangji has ever seen him. Genuinely happy, not teasing or flippant. Every line of his face is illuminated as he gazes at Lan Wangji, his smile whiter than sun on water. Lan Wangji can’t help but feel his own mouth soften under the force of it. He resolves to pick lotus much more often, if it makes Wei Wuxian so happy.

“Lan Zhan.” Wei Wuxian takes a deep breath, and something unusual, almost nervousness, flashes across his features before he relaxes into his usual, easy smile. “Let’s go out onto the lake, yeah? I’ll show you how to pick lotus like we do  in Yunmeng.”

“Okay,” Lan Wangji says agreeably. “But how?”

Beyond his shoulder, Wei Wuxian points, and Lan Wangji looks. A small fishing boat lies shored up in the reeds, half-shrouded by overgrowth. It looks like it would struggle to hold one man, let alone two. It is definitely a poor idea, but Wei Wuxian is already tugging him by the sleeve, charging ahead toward the shore.

The boat’s state up close is more dire than Lan Wangji had initially thought. The wood looks rain-sodden, some of the wood peeling away or choked with moss. 

“Will it hold both of us?” Lan Wangji asks as Wei Wuxian clambers into it, then rocks his weight side to side to test the floor.

“Sure it will.” In an exaggerated gesture, Wei Wuxian sweeps his arm out to escort Lan Wangji onto the boat. Lan Wangji just looks at him and ignores the hand, careful to make his own way without dirtying his robes. Beneath both of their weight, the wooden floor creaks out a threat.

“Don’t worry,” Wei Wuxian continues, then picks up the oar with a wink. “If we capsize, I’ll save you.”

“I can swim,” Lan Wangji says.

“But where’s the fun in that?” Wei Wuxian gives a small hup! and pushes them off the shore with the oar. The boat is partially mired in mud and reeds, so it takes some continued pushing and prodding to sail it onto clearer waters. It continues to teeter with Wei Wuxian’s strokes, its balance upset by even the smallest shift in weight. There is almost no chance they’re going to make it back to shore without getting dumped overboard, but Lan Wangji is distracted enough by the scenery not to mind. 

It’s a blue-skied day with only a few white tufts of clouds, the wind cool off the mountains. Teal-green water splits around their boat in long ribbons, pink lotuses bobbing in the boat’s wake. It’s only another few minutes before Wei Wuxian starts shedding layers, overheated by the exertion of rowing. A sheen of sweat forms at his brow and along his neck, and Lan Wangji watches with undisguised interest at the way his muscles work as he rows.

“Lan er-gongzi is such a brute, making me do all the manual labor,” Wei Wuxian calls over his shoulder, but his voice is too bright to suggest any grudge. “Lan Zhan, you’ll have to massage all the knots out of my back later!”

“Mn,” Lan Wangji agrees, warming at the image.

Once they’ve reached somewhere near the center of the lake, Wei Wuxian quits rowing and plops down with a sigh. He rests his elbow on the edge of the boat, props his chin there, and watches Lan Wangji, a smile in his eyes.

“What is it?” Lan Wangji asks, after a few more minutes pass without Wei Wuxian’s usual chatter.

“Nothing, just admiring the view,” Wei Wuxian says, and his dimple deepens when he sees Lan Wangji give a wry huff.

“Shameless,” Lan Wangji says, but the admonishment is nearly soft.

At this, Wei Wuxian’s smile widens. There’s already very little space between them on a craft this small, but he starts to shimmy his way across the boat, the floor rocking precariously as he does.

“Wei Ying,” Lan Wangji warns as Wei Wuxian settles between his knees.

“What?” Wei Wuxian asks, so close that Lan Wangji can smell the sweat on him, the sticky late-summer heat. “Can’t I share a side with you?”

“You cannot,” Lan Wangji tells him. “Our weight must be balanced.”

“But then how will I get to do this?” Wei Wuxian asks, and kisses Lan Wangji with a smile still teasing his lips. Lan Wangji closes his eyes, leaning into the familiar warmth of him; the soft press of his mouth that has become so impossible to live without, over the weeks. Lan Wangji has never housed such simultaneous happiness and despair in his heart, caught in anguish between the dream of Wei Wuxian kissing him on a beautiful day and his imminent absence. The impending, permanent end to their arrangement. Wei Wuxian makes a startled sound when Lan Wangji pushes back harder into the kiss, much more desperate than the languid pace their setting would befit. Wei Wuxian tries to match his fervor until eventually, Lan Wangji bites too hard, and Wei Wuxian retreats with a hurt sound, scuttling to the opposite side of the boat again.

“You’re always doing that, biting me like this,” Wei Wuxian complains, rubbing at his afflicted lower lip. “Were you born in the year of the dog? Heh, Lan er-didi, if that’s so, that would put me in the year of the coc — ”

“Wei Ying.”

“Aiyoh, I know already. Here, watch me now.” 

So much lotus surrounds their boat that it’s almost hard to believe they don’t get snared on the long stalks underwater. Wei Wuxian explains several things as he plucks them from the surface, so quickly that it seems like Lan Wangji blinks and Wei Wuxian’s side of the boat is half-full of pods. Wei Wuxian shows him how he prefers to peel the seeds and eat them, speaking warmly of his shijie as he does. 

Lan Wangji watches Wei Wuxian across from him, his nimble fingers shelling so fast they blur, his bronze skin gleaming with sun, and experiences the peculiar and self-aware sense of the moment fossilizing in his memory. Temporally sealed, each membranous detail of its makeup imprinted in sharp relief. No matter how long the years, he knows he’ll return to this exact moment like a bookmarked page: Wei Wuxian in the sun, the glossy jade waters around them, and love weighing so heavy and ripe in his chest that he can hardly breathe. 

Wei Wuxian had stopped talking, at some point. Lan Wangji has been too lost in thought to realize sooner. Wei Wuxian is eyeing Lan Wangji curiously now through his bangs, his fingers still moving over the lotus pods.

“Lan Zhan, you’re acting strange,” Wei Wuxian says. “What’s up?”

Normally, Lan Wangji would give a one-word response or neglect to answer entirely. Now, with such little time left, a sense of urgency rises up in him. He looks out over the water to where the lake meets the opposite shore.

“Tomorrow,” he says quietly, “you will leave.”

“Yeah,” Wei Wuxian says with a sad little smile. “I always had to at some point, huh?”

Lan Wangji remains silent. He’s only half-heartedly peeled a few of the pods, and one of the stems dangles in his fingers now, shredded to ribbons.

“But — ” Wei Wuxian pauses and also stops shelling. “It’s been a good summer, hasn’t it? A great summer.”

Lan Wangji nods, a bitterness as thick as syrup in his throat. “Your education will serve you well.”

Wei Wuxian laughs, but the sound is strangely hollow.

“Yeah,” he says, “I guess.”

There is another horrible silence. The boat creaks with the wind, ruffled waves batting up against the wood sides.

“Listen, uh, Lan Zhan — ” Wei Wuxian begins, at the same time Lan Wangji says, “When?”

They stare at each other, caught, and then Wei Wuxian says, “You first.”

“When do you plan on it,” Lan Wangji says, though he can hardly bear to know the answer.

“Plan on what?”

“Marrying.”

“Oh,” Wei Wuxian says, then tosses one of the stems away into the water. He scratches the back of his head. “Ahhh, not for a while probably, I don’t think.”

“Hm.” Selfishly, Lan Wangji is glad for the time, though he knows it makes little difference.

“How about you?” Wei Wuxian asks, and when Lan Wangji glances up, there’s a soft frown on his face, as if in concentration as he continues to mindlessly shell the seeds. He has not eaten a single one.

“When do you plan to,” Wei Wuxian continues, then rubs his nose. “You know.”

Lan Wangji hesitates, debating the merits of honesty. Then he says, “I don’t.”

Wei Wuxian’s hands still. “What?”

“I do not,” Lan Wangji clarifies, “plan on getting married.”

“Wait, to — to anyone? Ever?”

“Ever,” Lan Wangji confirms. If it isn’t you, is left unsaid.

The seed pod falls from Wei Wuxian’s hands. He stares at Lan Wangji blankly. “Then — what about all of the — all of that stuff from this summer? You . . . you said you needed to learn . . .”

Lan Wangji looks toward the water even as the glare of the reflection makes his eyes smart. This is the closest he can bring himself to a confession, and the longer it hangs in the silence with Wei Wuxian’s shock, the more he realizes it was a mistake.

“If you’re never getting married,” Wei Wuxian finally says, sounding a little frantic, “then why did you need to learn all that stuff? Lan Zhan?”

Lan Wangji closes his eyes. “Not need.”

“Huh?”

“Not need. Want.” For this, Lan Wangji looks at Wei Wuxian directly. Wei Wuxian has his elbows hooked over either side of the boat, his shoulders flat against the bow like he’s been physically knocked back. His chest rises and falls very fast as he stares back at Lan Wangji, still with a dumbstruck expression.

“You . . .” Wei Wuxian’s mouth opens, then shuts. “Wanted . . .”

It’s suddenly too much, being trapped here in the middle of a lake with nowhere to run or hide, Wei Wuxian echoing his words back to him out loud. Lan Wangji has been naked with Wei Wuxian several times now and has never felt so exposed as this.

“Let’s go,” Lan Wangji says, hoping to move past the discomfort. “We have taken enough from this lake’s owner.”

Wei Wuxian ignores this.

“Lan Zhan,” he says with a strange urgency, and then throws himself across the boat. It is not a far distance, but the boat pitches beneath them. “Wait, Lan Zhan, I have something I need to say to you, it’s really important!”

“What?” Lan Wangji says, wary.

“I — ” Wei Wuxian says, wriggling closer, and then the opposite side of the boat seesaws up and they fall.

It’s only once Lan Wangji is fully submerged that he realizes what’s happened. When he does, he reaches for Wei Wuxian on instinct before he remembers that Wei Wuxian could likely out-swim all of the nearby villages.

Lan Wangji kicks toward the surface, and Wei Wuxian follows with a splash and a laugh. The sound of it, ricocheting off the surface of the lake, dispels some of the intense mood from before they’d fallen. The boat bobs belly-up in the water like a dead fish, slowly sinking as the water sucks it down.

“Lan Zhan, I said I’d save you, remember!” Wei Wuxian calls, and he begins to tow Lan Wangji’s weight through the cool water as he kicks. “I’ve got you, Lan Zhan, don’t die on me now!”

“I can swim,” Lan Wangji says again as he lets himself be pulled. Wei Wuxian had managed to snatch up his discarded layers in one arm before they’d been lost, and they trail after him. Cutting through water with four robes is a considerable task, but with their combined effort to propel them, it doesn’t take long to reach the shore. 

Wei Wuxian stops them before it gets too muddy and shallow near the bank. Beneath their kicking feet, the water is clear enough to see straight through to the bottom, pleats of light rippling over the rocks and algae.

“Lan Zhan,” Wei Wuxian says, more serious now, “I have something important to tell you. But not here, not exactly.”

“Where?” 

Before Lan Wangji can react, Wei Wuxian pushes on his shoulders and tugs them both underwater again. The water is so crystalline that Lan Wangji can see the bubbles trailing out of Wei Wuxian’s nose. His hair and ribbon sway like kelp in the current.

Wei Wuxian points several times at his mouth to indicate he’s about to speak. In confusion, Lan Wangji stares back, his breath held.

Wei Wuxian opens his mouth and starts to talk. His voice is warped by the water, but he speaks slowly and clearly enough that Lan Wangji can read the shape of his lips. There’s Lan Wangji’s name, then three distinct syllables — 

That’s as far as he gets before Lan Wangji resurfaces again, staring at Wei Wuxian in wild disbelief.

Wei Wuxian surfaces with him, gasping for air and already complaining. “Lan Zhan, you didn’t let me finish!”

“Wei Ying,” Lan Wangji says unsteadily, his heart starting to crash in his chest. “Don’t mess around — ”

“I’m not messing around!” Wei Wuxian cries, genuinely indignant. “You wouldn’t even let me finish!”

He yanks Lan Wangji back underwater, his hands on his shoulders, and waits to make sure Lan Wangji’s eyes are on him. In the underwater silence, Lan Wangji’s pulse thumps so hard that he feels it in his ears. 

Wei Wuxian cups his hands around his mouth. 

“Lan Zhan!!” His words are distorted by the water, but unmistakable as he yells them with his whole heart. “I really really like you!!”

Even before they breach the surface again, Wei Wuxian is already paddling toward him with a self-satisfied smile, before he’s pulled in faster by Lan Wangji’s hands on his waist.

“That’s all,” Wei Wuxian says, then scoops his wet hair out of his face. “Whew, has that been eating me. I thought it would be easier to say it underwater, that way if you don’t feel the same we can just leave it down there and pretend it never happened.”

“Wei Ying — ”

“I was gonna leave Gusu tomorrow without saying anything about it,” Wei Wuxian continues. His touch is surprisingly gentle when he adjusts Lan Wangji’s wet, crooked forehead ribbon. “I thought it was just me being out of line, anyway.” His voice goes softer, more awed. “Then you said you picked lotus here last year and I — I thought, huh, oh, maybe he really . . . could that mean he really . . . then on the boat just now, you said you wanted . . .”

In his shock, Lan Wangji is still caught up in clarifications. “I thought you wanted a wife.”

“So did I,” Wei Wuxian says with an unperturbed shrug. “But what good is a wife when I have Lan Zhan?”

Lan Wangji pulls him into a hug so crushing that Wei Wuxian wheezes. Then he laughs and throws his arms around Lan Wangji, running a hand over his back. The embrace is a little stiff with so many wet layers between them, but Lan Wangji holds him for a long time like this, as disbelief fades and a wild, tentative hope dawns within him; an unfurling of possibilities he has never dared to truly imagine for himself. He is surprised to find that he’s shaking by the time he kisses Wei Wuxian, his hands fitted to either side of his jaw. Wei Wuxian’s fingers curl over his hands as he presses back into the kiss earnestly, his eyes closed. They flutter halfway open when Lan Wangji pulls back.

“I knew it.” Wei Wuxian’s cheeks are flushed with sun and desire, his eyes hazy as he smiles up at Lan Wangji. “I knew you really liked me after all.”

Lan Wangji has not exactly been inconspicuous about his feelings, but Wei Wuxian seems so pleased with himself that he lets it lie.

“You do, right?” Wei Wuxian adds, more doubtfully into Lan Wangji’s silence. “Lan Zhan, you’re really gonna let me keep talking while you stay all quiet, what am I supposed to think — ”

“I do,” Lan Wangji says. “Very much.”

Wei Wuxian beams, his arms tightening around Lan Wangji’s neck.

“Yep, I knew it,” he says. “You knew it when we first kissed, didn’t you? Lan er-gege, such a romantic.”

Lan Wangji squeezes the curve of Wei Wuxian’s waist. “Before.” 

“Before?” Wei Wuxian’s eyes widen as he waits for Lan Wangji to elaborate, then splashes him when he doesn’t. “Lan Zhan, what do you mean before? Hey, where are you going? You’re such a tease — Lan Zhan, really, when did you — ”

Lan Wangji had started pulling him toward the shore somewhere in the middle of that. It’s become uncomfortable to keep treading water with so many heavy layers, and he would much rather have Wei Wuxian on a flat surface for wherever the rest of this conversation leads them.

“Lan Zhan,” Wei Wuxian says, as if in protest, but he slots his fingers through Lan Wangji’s and squeezes his hand as he’s led. As they wade through the shallows, the mud destroys whatever had remained salvageable of their clothes, their shoes too. 

When they reach the shore, Wei Wuxian tries to pounce him down into the grass, clinging and kissing up his neck, but Lan Wangji says, “Not here,” mindful of the woman he’d seen rowing by earlier. In their sodden clothes and shoes, they squelch past the line of trees until the copse opens up into a small, grassy clearing. It’s still not entirely out of eyeline from the water, but enough so that anyone idly passing their eye over likely wouldn’t make them out.

Lan Wangji manages to get Wei Wuxian onto his back, kissing him down into the long grass. Wei Wuxian’s legs twine around his waist, his hands cradling Lan Wangji’s face. They exchange kisses like this for a long while, tangled up in each other. A gentle breeze moves over them as the mid-afternoon sun beats down, the light flickering with the sway of the trees. Their wet clothes, uncomfortable before, keep them cool in the heat, the tips of their hair going dry. 

“Lan Zhan,” Wei Wuxian murmurs after a little while, his breathing ragged as Lan Wangji bites down his neck. “Before I leave tomorrow, I-I want you to . . . ”

Lan Wangji tugs at Wei Wuxian’s belt, kissing down his bare chest as his wet robes spill open.

“That one chapter, about — ” Wei Wuxian breaks off, squirms his hips against Lan Wangji, then says, “You know.”

There are many later chapters of Fentao-laoshi’s guide that Lan Wangji has skimmed, ones filled with much more illicit material than they’ve practiced — hitting, plugs, whips, cages. He does not believe Wei Wuxian is referring to any of that.

“Which?” he murmurs against Wei Wuxian’s sternum.

Wei Wuxian’s voice is hushed and hot. “Where one of us is — inside.”

The chrysanthemum lesson. Lan Wangji has studied it well. His cock, already hard just from kissing and grinding against Wei Wuxian, strains harder against the front of his damp trousers. 

“Lan Zhan, could we,” Wei Wuxian breathes, “I want you to . . . ”

Lan Wangji stops kissing him long enough to pull back and meet his eyes. He wants so much that it nearly dizzies him, but he feels it’s important to make absolutely certain, for this.

“Are you sure?” he asks. Wei Wuxian’s words from the library, weeks ago, still ring in his ears. “You said . . . on a technicality, you would like to remain . . .”

Wei Wuxian looks puzzled. “I said what? When? Oh.” He waves it off with a snort. “I can’t believe you remember so much nonsense. I don’t care about any of that!” His voice lowers into a husk as he bats his eyes at Lan Wangji. “C’mon, gege, I wanna be inside you.”

At the words, Lan Wangji freezes, feeling himself blanch. When he had imagined doing this particular act with Wei Wuxian, he’d always assumed that . . .

At the sight of his expression, Wei Wuxian bursts into peals of laughter, so raucous that he pounds the ground with his fist. “Hahahaha, Lan Zhan, your face!!” He gives Lan Wangji a quick peck. “I’m kidding, of course. Eh heh heh, you really thought I was going to make you . . . ” 

Torn between exasperation and relief, Lan Wangji pinches his side, and Wei Wuxian twitches and keeps laughing. 

“I mean, maybe someday if you want to, but not right now,” he continues. “Today I’ll handle all the pain because I like you just that much. How about it, ah?”

In a flash, Lan Wangji has half of Wei Wuxian’s clothes off. The untied robes bunch loosely around Wei Wuxian’s elbows, just the trousers left intact by the time Lan Wangji moves a hand to his waistband.

“But wait, wait — ” Wei Wuxian gasps, even as the hard press of his cock prods against Lan Wangji’s wrist. “You don’t have the book with you, do you?”

 “No.”

“Then how are we going to — ?” Wei Wuxian says. “How will we know what to — ?”

“We do not need it,” Lan Wangji says, and means it. This is something he wants free of pretense. Something he wants for the two of them alone, without the book’s associations, the imaginary specter of future lovers who will reap the benefits from their teachings. 

Wei Wuxian wiggles as Lan Wangji lowers his mouth to circle his tongue around one dark nipple. “But what if we do it wrong?”

“That’s fine,” Lan Wangji replies. 

“Easy for you to say!” Wei Wuxian gripes. “Lan Zhan, what if you get in there and break something?”

“I will be careful,” Lan Wangji assures him.

The more he kisses down Wei Wuxian’s body, the more Wei Wuxian relaxes, until he’s eventually sighing softly with pleasure, his fingers tangling in Lan Wangji’s damp hair.

“Lan Zhan,” he murmurs after another few moments, sounding uncharacteristically shy now. “Before you start. You should know that . . . well, um, it’s my first time.”

“With a man.” Lan Wangji knows this. The reminder does not make his cock any softer.

Wei Wuxian throws his arms over his face. “Not — not just that.”

Lan Wangji stills, his mouth pressed to Wei Wuxian’s navel. He raises his eyes to where color is creeping up Wei Wuxian’s neck.

Wei Wuxian sighs, his voice muffled by his arms. “You said you remembered all that bullshit I was saying in the library earlier this summer.”

“Yes.”

“Well — that’s all it was.” Wei Wuxian peeks down at Lan Wangji from under his arms. “I was just running my mouth, you know? Sometimes I just do that for fun to see if I can get a rise out of Jiang Cheng, given he’s so easy to dupe and all.”

Lan Wangji levers himself up onto one elbow, processing this with increasing disbelief. “You mean . . . ”

Wei Wuxian hides his face in his arms again. “I mean I haven’t done anything with anyone! Well, other than you, obviously. It wasn’t like I was lying on purpose or anything, but — you kept acting like I had all this experience, so I just went along with it.”

“Everything we did this summer,” Lan Wangji says slowly, “was your first?” 

“Well, yeah.”

“Your first kiss?” Lan Wangji insists.

“Yes!!” Wei Wuxian says, then groans. “Lan Zhan, come on, as if you couldn’t tell!”

“I could not.”

“I missed your mouth!!”

“It was cute,” Lan Wangji says honestly.

To this, Wei Wuxian makes a funny face at him from under his arms, his blush deepening.

“Hmn,” he says. “Lan er-gongzi, you’re not allowed to call me cute, it’s very bad for my health.”

“I see.”

“But now you know the truth, so.” Wei Wuxian looks at him with an expression of great forbearance, as if he’s bracing himself to part with a limb. “You can go ahead and do it. You know. Stick it in.”

At this, Lan Wangji hesitates, recalling the spring books he’s read before. “There are methods . . . ”

He turns Wei Wuxian over by the hips, and in doing so, the rest of Wei Wuxian’s damp robes slip off his elbows and crumple into the grass. The motion leaves him completely bare, the sun-kissed, sharp lines of his shoulder blades bobbing with his breath. His back is slightly arched, the long line of his spine curved inward. Lan Wangji has seen Wei Wuxian undressed many times now, but never in a position as wanton as this. He swallows to wet his throat.

Gently, Lan Wangji runs a hand down Wei Wuxian’s hip, the skin petal-smooth and just as soft. He cups one of Wei Wuxian’s firm buttocks and squeezes, watching the skin blanch and then blush into five points when he pulls away. Wei Wuxian squirms, spreading his knees to settle more comfortably in the dry grass. The motion bares the small pink furl of his hole. Lan Wangji stares, then spreads Wei Wuxian open to get a better look.

Either in impatience or modesty, Wei Wuxian sways his hips enticingly to distract him, his hard cock bobbing between his legs. 

“Lan Zhan, aren’t you looking at the wrong side of me?” he taunts, putting a deeper bend in his back. “There’s another part up front that — ah! ”

Halfway through Wei Wuxian’s teasing, Lan Wangji had pressed a dry thumb to his rim, temporarily stunning Wei Wuxian into silence. He pushes down now with a little pressure, testing the give, but Wei Wuxian is too tight and too dry to take it in, seizing up with a small clench.

“Wh-what are you doing?!” Wei Wuxian flings a wild-eyed look over his shoulder, reddening in his shock. “Are . . . are you supposed to — ?!” 

“Yes,” Lan Wangji answers distractedly. “I read ahead.” Perhaps spit will do; all of the remaining lakewater on them has dried by now, and fucking Wei Wuxian as dry as this may injure them both. He taps Wei Wuxian’s hole again and feels a little fevered as he watches it flutter around the pad of his thumb.

“Lan Zhan,” Wei Wuxian is saying above him, reedy and out of breath, “are you sure this is how cut-sleeves do it? Using fingers like this? Aren’t you being a little . . . ”

Spit will have to do, Lan Wangji thinks. Keeping Wei Wuxian spread, he inclines his head and licks into him with a broad sweep of his tongue. 

Wei Wuxian yells with a full-body spasm, rocking back onto Lan Wangji’s mouth.

“Lan Zhan — !” he wheezes, sounding scandalized within a breath of his life. “What are you — !!” 

Lan Wangji ignores him, preoccupied now with the task of opening Wei Wuxian up on his mouth. His tongue alternates in probing and circling Wei Wuxian’s rim, focused more on the practical aspect of getting him wet than on the technicalities. He hasn’t read this chapter yet — then remembers he doesn’t need to anymore.

“Lan Zhan, have you lost it?!” Wei Wuxian cries. He’s started to tremble, his knees sliding open further along the forest floor as he tries to support his weight. “A-aren’t you being too much? Isn’t it — isn’t too dirty, p-putting your mouth in a place like — hngh — ah — ”

As he talks, Wei Wuxian has started to push back onto Lan Wangji’s tongue with intermittent moans, his hips moving as if on instinct. Lan Wangji relaxes his jaw against the strain, still focused on making sure Wei Wuxian is wet and open enough. He’s inexperienced enough to know he’s probably not doing this correctly, but Wei Wuxian is making enough of a racket that it doesn’t seem to matter. He could probably keep going until Wei Wuxian comes just from this — maybe someday soon, he will. He pulls back only when he’s satisfied with his work, then presses the head of his cock to Wei Wuxian’s hole to test the give again.

Wei Wuxian jerks again like he’s been shocked, his hands slamming into the ground to brace himself as he rocks back with a moan.

“Fuck,” he says, “ah ah, fuck, Lan Zhan — ”

“Yes,” Lan Wangji answers, distracted. Wei Wuxian is still too tight to take him like this. Lan Wangji’s mouth is quite dry from his recent ministrations, so he reaches around to shove three of his fingers into Wei Wuxian’s in a wordless command. Wei Wuxian gets the idea, moans, and starts to suck until Lan Wangji’s fingers are soaked with spit. 

When Lan Wangji’s fingers return to their task, Wei Wuxian is still slightly tense, but not enough that he can’t take one of them to the second knuckle, and he does it beautifully, the resistance eased with both of their spit. Wei Wuxian buries his face in his arms to muffle his whimpers, still pushing his hips back into Lan Wangji’s hand. He’s started to clench down rhythmically on the finger Lan Wangji has inside him; then the second when Lan Wangji adds it. At the first experimental crook of Lan Wangji’s fingers, Wei Wuxian’s knees nearly give out again, his body sinking toward the ground.

“Oh — ” he moans, “there — please — Lan Zhan —”

Lan Wangji wraps his hand around one thigh — his grip is nearly big enough to encircle the entire width of it — and starts to pull Wei Wuxian back in a rhythmic fuck against his fingers. On an instinct, he adds a third, which is such a tight fit that his knuckles nearly cramp, Wei Wuxian’s rim spread wide and pink around his fingers. He’s wetter than when they started, as if his body is responding naturally to the treatment. 

“How do you know how to — ?” Wei Wuxian is saying, sounding dazed. “L-Lan Zhan, where did you learn . . . ”

At this, Lan Wangji suddenly recalls that, for all his talk, Wei Wuxian may actually be the more innocent of the two of them. After an entire summer of imagining Wei Wuxian’s other lovers, this reminder makes something in Lan Wangji snap. He seals his hands to Wei Wuxian’s hips and yanks him backward, sinking him partially onto his cock. He’s still fairly tight, but less so than before and much wetter, so the head of Lan Wangji’s cock plunges inside before Wei Wuxian clenches and he can go no further.

Above Lan Wangji, Wei Wuxian is breathing at a hysterical cadence, his shoulders shivering. His face is still hidden in his arms, the back of his neck scarlet. 

“Breathe,” Lan Wangji murmurs. “Relax.”

“How can I relax?” Wei Wuxian says with a pitiful sniffle. “You’re going to split me in half!”

“It will be easier if you relax.” Lan Wangji runs a gentle hand down Wei Wuxian’s trembling flank. Wei Wuxian seems to ease into the touch, but inside of him remains just as tight as he squeezes around the head of Lan Wangji’s cock.

Lan Wangji is about to pull out, to temporarily call this off until Wei Wuxian calms down, except then Wei Wuxian says in a small voice, “C-can we try it — the other way?”

“The other way,” Lan Wangji echoes in confusion.

“Yeah — toward each other.”

Lan Wangji agreeably removes himself, then helps Wei Wuxian to turn over so that he’s sitting up. Wei Wuxian’s body is marked up with mud, grass-stains, and bruises from Lan Wangji’s teeth. Once they’re facing each other, Wei Wuxian throws his arms around Lan Wangji’s neck.

“Are you hurt?” Lan Wangji asks, stroking a hand up his side again.

“Nah, pain doesn’t bother me.” Wei Wuxian presses a clumsy peck to Lan Wangji’s mouth, which effectively distracts from the somewhat alarming nature of that sentence. “But I’ll like it better like this, promise.”

“We should stop, if it hurts,” Lan Wangji insists, but Wei Wuxian stubbornly shakes his head and lifts himself onto his knees. Lan Wangji fits his hands to his hips to help direct him as Wei Wuxian lines himself up, then slowly sinks down onto Lan Wangji’s cock again, which makes them both moan.

“Wanna make you feel good,” Wei Wuxian mumbles against Lan Wangji’s mouth around his gasps. “Want you to fill me up.”

At the words, Lan Wangji can’t help but thrust his hips up, deeper than he’s gone yet. It is easier, in this position. Wei Wuxian’s body seems to have relaxed, now that he’s facing Lan Wangji, his arms looped around Lan Wangji’s neck. Gravity helps, allowing Wei Wuxian to sink down onto Lan Wangji’s cock in a slow but inexorable slide. After another thrust, Lan Wangji is fully seated inside him, and for a moment, they grip onto each other and shake, gasping into each other’s necks. Up until now, Lan Wangji’s focus on logistics and Wei Wuxian’s comfort has distracted from how it feels to be buried inside him, but with nothing else between them now, pleasure overwhelms him. Wei Wuxian is so unbelievably tight around his cock. He bites to do something with the muchness of it, sinking his teeth into Wei Wuxian’s shoulder until Wei Wuxian whimpers.

Wei Wuxian’s mouth grazes against his earlobe.

“How’s it feel?” he breathes. “Good?”

Lan Wangji answers with another sharp thrust of his hips, and Wei Wuxian collapses against his chest and moans weakly. Now that Lan Wangji is inside him, that animalistic urge from earlier rears its snapping head again — a desperation to take, take, take until Wei Wuxian is wrecked, sobbing, senseless. It is so confusingly at odds with the other part of him that longs to care for Wei Ying; to bring him comfort, happiness, to spare him from pain. He cannot make sense of himself at all.

During this thought, Wei Wuxian wraps his legs around Lan Wangji’s waist, his ankles crossing at his back, which makes it easy for Lan Wangji to lift him by the thighs and to fuck him in small bounces along the length of his cock. After a few shallow thrusts like this, his hands move to Wei Wuxian’s ass for a firmer anchor as he lifts him, and they move together like this in an artless, unpracticed grind.

As he moves inside Wei Wuxian, Lan Wangji is very careful to mind himself — he is cautious and controlled, keeping all of himself perfectly in line — until after a few minutes of this, Wei Wuxian says near his ear, almost inaudible, “More.”

Lan Wangji pauses in his next thrust to make sure he’s heard correctly.

“More,” Wei Wuxian repeats, more clearly. “I can feel you’re holding back for something. L-Lan Zhan, I  — I can take it. I want to.”

As if to punctuate his point, he clenches down on Lan Wangji’s cock, rocking his hips more urgently to take him deeper. It feels like permission for something Lan Wangji hadn’t realized he could ask.

“Tell me to stop,” Lan Wangji says, almost losing the sentence, “if I —”

“Don’t stop,” Wei Wuxian pleads, and Lan Wangji gives in. 

Now that he’s allowed to, he fucks Wei Wuxian with a frenzied, carnal roughness, driven by months of pent-up want. The repeated smack of Wei Wuxian’s ass against his thighs is so loud that it reverberates around the clearing. Wei Wuxian’s nails claw into his back as he tries to ground himself, his muffled cries pitching up in volume the harder Lan Wangji drives into him. For all his strength, he’s limp and pliant in Lan Wangji’s arms as he’s fucked, letting himself be lifted and gripped and spread open. There is something in this for Wei Wuxian too, Lan Wangji suddenly realizes; some inner release or discovery in tandem with his own. With each thrust, Wei Wuxian seems to give himself over further, letting Lan Wangji take from his body with the same fierceness as the taking.

Lan Wangji has never experienced anything like this, spiritual or secular. He was raised to believe carnal desires were the basest, most shameful form of release. He understands, now, the meaning of ascension; he completely loses track of the surrounding world, narrowed only to his body, Wei Wuxian’s, and how they can make each other feel. Time is also lost until Wei Wuxian starts to softly beg him for mercy, his limbs still wound tight around Lan Wangji. 

“Lan Zhan, I’m close,” he’s rambling with soft, breathy sobs, hiccuped with his bounces, “I’m so close, make me come, fuck me raw, fill me up, don’t you dare stop — too good, too much toomuch — yes, right there, that spot, fuck me harder, ah, Lan Zhan, Lan Zhan — ” 

Spurred on by his words, Lan Wangji’s next few thrusts are too violent, so deep inside Wei Wuxian that he sees stars, right against the spot that has Wei Wuxian babbling. On the last thrust, Wei Wuxian jerks, and with a low cry, he starts to come, his head thrown back and his back arched. Some of it splashes across his own chest and stomach, the rest of it catching Lan Wangji’s front. 

Lan Wangji bites down on his neck and follows, spilling into tight heat as Wei Wuxian desperately rides him for the last few thrusts, chasing the last throes of his orgasm. He’s still shaking by the time Lan Wangji is finished filling him. It’s an easy slide inside Wei Wuxian now, almost too slippery.

Even mostly soft, Lan Wangji’s cock is sizable enough to keep Wei Wuxian filled. Wei Wuxian keeps squirming his hips with small whimpers, gasping and grinding down as he rides out the aftershocks. Finally, he relaxes against Lan Wangji, face buried in his chest.

A very long silence passes, filled with nothing except their stunned breathing and the oblivious sounds of forest life milling around them. 

Finally, Wei Wuxian is the one to break it.

“Fuck,” he says hoarsely. “Why haven’t we been doing that this whole damn time?”

“Don’t know,” Lan Wangji says, equally breathless. 

He has no idea what to do with this new knowledge of how good it feels to truly fuck Wei Wuxian. He feels like a changed person, like his former body died and has been made anew. Lan Wangji understands now why so many of his sect’s teachings condemn sex; if it weren’t for Wei Wuxian’s upcoming absence, he fears he would never do anything else.

“Lan Zhan.” Wei Wuxian winces, shifting a little on Lan Wangji’s cock where it is still partially hard inside him. Then he sighs. “I realize how this may sound, given your cock is in my ass, but I think I’m a cut-sleeve.” 

“Hm,” Lan Wangji says, running a hand down Wei Wuxian’s side. “Would you like to make sure?”

In the spirit of self-understanding, they fuck again. It’s much easier now, with Wei Wuxian as loose and wet as he is, and Lan Wangji makes him come with shocking swiftness, their positions shifted so that he’s pounding into Wei Wuxian on his elbows and knees from behind, nailing his prostate with each thrust.

“Okay, yeah,” Wei Wuxian says after the second orgasm. “So that’s settled.”

Lan Wangji pulls Wei Wuxian back into his lap by his hips, kissing down his neck. He’s still hard, lazily swiveling his hips and grinding his cock into Wei Wuxian until he also releases again, gentler than before. When he finally pulls out, they make a mess of the grass; there’s so much of Lan Wangji’s spend inside Wei Wuxian that it leaks out of him and down his thighs in a steady stream.

“Fuck,” Wei Wuxian sighs, then swivels in Lan Wangji’s lap and hugs him. They’re both filthy, enough so that they’ll need to rinse off in the lake again before they return to the Cloud Recesses. For now, Lan Wangji is content to stay like this, so sated and heavy-limbed he can barely move, Wei Wuxian sticky in his arms.

“I’m not gonna be able to move right for a week,” Wei Wuxian is whining softly near his ear. “Lan Zhan, look what you did to me. I have to fly all day with Jiang Cheng and my shushu tomorrow and I can’t even walk! I’m gonna be more sore than one of Yu-furen’s beatings, aiyoh, only in a worse place . . . ”

Lan Wangji had been rough on him, even if Wei Wuxian had asked for it. In apology, he gently pats Wei Wuxian’s thigh and starts to massage the trembling muscle. Wei Wuxian hums, appeased, when Lan Wangji’s hands move to his other thigh, then the muscles of his lower back.

“Lan Zhan, there’s something else I need to tell you,” he says. “I meant to tell you on the boat, but then I got distracted.” To Lan Wangji’s face, he adds, “It’s good news, promise.”

“Mm?”

Wei Wuxian nips his ear. “A few weeks ago, I wrote Jiang-shushu and asked if you could come stay at Lotus Pier this fall. I told him you’ve been teaching me a lot about cultivation and that I wanted to continue my education under your peerless tutelage. Heh.”

“Wei Ying.”

“I didn’t specify what kind of cultivation. Anyway, he wrote me back a few days ago and said it would be totally fine, that you can stay as long as you like.” He pulls back from Lan Wangji and beams. “So how about it?”

Lan Wangji had anticipated it would be months before he saw Wei Wuxian again; possibly another year, until next summer’s studies. The idea of seeing him so soon makes a feather-light giddiness take hold in him. The feeling is so novel that he isn’t sure what to do with it, except to kiss Wei Wuxian’s face in lieu of a verbal answer.

“Lan Zhan,” Wei Wuxian says into the kisses, with a tone of exaggerated injury, “I wrote to you so much last summer begging you to visit, and now suddenly you’re all on board because you can have your wicked way with me? I feel so objectified.”

“I would have come,” Lan Wangji says. He would have, if he believed Wei Wuxian’s invitation was serious.

“You don’t have to visit too soon, if you’re sick to death of me already,” Wei Wuxian continues, as if such a thing could be possible. “But you have to at least come before winter starts. Fall’s the perfect time for the lotus harvest. In fact, you should come for the Mid-Autumn Festival. Lotus Pier is so beautiful that time of year; there’s all this amazing food, and all the vendors from the surrounding villages come into town to sell their wares. We’ve got the best mooncakes in Yunmeng.” Wei Wuxian sighs, carried away by his own words. “We can set off some lanterns together if you want. I know some of the best lakes where we can take a boat out, a real one this time, and look at the moon. Lan Zhan, will you come?”

“Of course,” Lan Wangji says.

Wei Wuxian beams, tightening his arms around Lan Wangji’s neck.

“Lan Zhan, I like you so much,” he sighs, then smacks a kiss to his cheek. “What am I supposed to do about it, huh?”

“I have an idea,” Lan Wangji replies, and with a smile of his own, he pulls them both down into the grass.

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