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It’s a wonderful, unexpected stroke of good luck that brings Wei Wuxian to the best discovery of his life.
Fuck Demonic Cultivation. This, this little worn book, with its faded green cover, too old to match the barely yellowed pages within, the characters of its title barely readable; this is the best discovery Wei Wuxian will ever make, in this life and any other to come.
It’s not the craftwork, which is adequate at best, and can’t compete with any of Wei Wuxian’s own masterpieces. It’s not even the knowledge there is a dirty book pretending to be a—Wei Wuxian has to squint to make out the true shape of the blurred characters—music sheet compilation hidden in the Forbidden Library of Cloud Recesses that has him giddy, shaking on his feet.
No. It’s the characters of his own name—Wei Ying, he can almost hear them— filling the first page that have Wei Wuxian smiling wide enough for his cheeks to hurt. There’s a sweet warmth pooling in his belly, leaving him heady and hot all over. His skin prickles the more he reads, page after page of really skillful writing of the filthiest kind.
Wei Wuxian will fly away any second now.
There are even pictures! Scattered in between, as if its author—ah, Lan Zhan, Lan Zhan— couldn’t make do with the overly descriptive prose of everything that has been narrated this far. Wei Wuxian reads on, his heart losing a beat every time he stumbles over a Wei Ying. Lan Zhan writes his name as beautifully as he says it, and Wei Wuxian has to fight himself before he holds the book against his chest and hugs it while he kicks his feet against the ground. Lan Zhan is so damn cute, even when he is describing some really kinky shit. Which is rich of Wei Wuxian to think, really, given they’ve been together for months, now, and there has never been anything mild about their sex life.
It’s an exercise in desperation, the book. It’s overflowing with it, with want and anger and hurt and need. Wei Wuxian can taste the frustration when he mouthes some of the words, when he pictures their younger selves fighting each other to bed, instead of only fighting to hatred.
No, that’s not fair. Wei Wuxian never hated Lan Zhan, and he now knows Lan Zhan never hated him, either. Not really.
Wei Wuxian reads on. He reads and reads, picking up the real events that have inspired every scene in the too-fantasy-like content of it, and with every page, his smile fades, and his hunger grows. He’s so aroused by the time he makes it to the last page it isn’t even funny. Even less so when the stupid thing ends up with a cliffhanger.
“That can’t be, Lan Zhan,” Wei Wuxian murmurs, finger up, going through the shelved books, trying to pint-point the tellings of alteration he has no doubt are there.
Ha! There you go. Wei Wuxian pulls it out of the shelf, skims it in three seconds, and decides this can’t be it. These barely cover the first month Wei Wuxian stayed in Cloud Recesses. There has to be more.
And so there is. It takes Wei Wuxian over an hour to find the fifteen—fifteen!—pretend-books, all with music-sheet fake covers Wei Wuxian can’t but assume are of no real interest to anyone. Lan Zhan wouldn’t have been stupid enough to hide his porn in a book someone might need.
The last books are thicker. Heavy. The edges of the pages are worn, broken even. Wei Wuxian brushes the irregular surface with a finger, heart hammering against his ribs, suddenly filling more space than it should. He can’t swallow the knot in his throat, and he doesn’t know why. It’s just porn. Delightful, wonderful porn Lan Zhan has written about them even before he knew what he’d want to do with Wei Wuxian if any of these become true.
It’s stupid. Wei Wuxian is being stupid. He’s gonna read them all, take proper notes, and then make Lan Zhan turn the prettiest red in embarrassment when Wei Wuxian tells him about his discoveries.
He’s about to start the second book—properly, this time—when the heavy thumps of steps crack the wood over his head.
“Wei-xiong, are you here?”
“I told you he wouldn’t be here,” he hears Jingyi say. “He’s probably napping somewhere in the forest.”
“He said he was coming here after breakfast,” Sizhui replies, his steps getting closer to the hidden entrance to the Forbidden Library. Wei Wuxian looks down at his feet, the dozen of fake-music books scattered, and curses them both for interrupting. Now he either has to find a bag and pretend he is stealing knowledge from the Lan library, or hide them back and come when night falls.
Which, really. These are the perfect distraction while Wei Wuxian waits for Lan Zhan to come back from his diplomatic trip tomorrow, and there’s no way to make sure Lan Qiren doesn’t spend the night at the Library’s entrance just to not let Wei Wuxian in again when he inevitably figures out what Wei Wuxian has done.
Well. Taking the fifteen books with him it is, then. Lan Sizhui will never betray him, and Wei Wuxian has been teaching Lan Jingyi how to stash his contraband since he came to live in Cloud Recesses. If his better nature fails to aid Wei Wuxian to steal the porn he deserves, he figures some old blackmail will have to do.
Decided, Wei Wuxian needs another minute to find a bag big enough to fit the series of filthy porn. The little Lans steps have stopped in front of the Forbidden Library’s door for a while. Wei Wuxian can hear their whispers even from below, and they are loud enough to be heard from down the mountain by the time he makes it to the other side of the fake shelf.
“If he’s there, he’s sleeping or drinking.”
“He wouldn’t. And besides, why would he do that there when there are way better places to sleep in Cloud Recesses?”
Jingyi snorts. “To hide from Master Qiren? To piss off Master Qiren? To cry in secret because he misses Hanguan-jun?”
Wei Wuxian can’t let that slide. “Hey!” he says, pushing the shelf open and scaring them both enough to produce the most wonderful high-pitched sound. “I don’t cry!”
“You mop! All over the place,” Jingyi, the little shit, points out, a finger waving in front of Wei Wuxian’s face. “I saw you sighing like a forgotten damsel near the river yesterday.”
“I don’t sigh! Stop slandering me.”
“Wei-xiong, we are sorry to bother you, but Master Qiren is looking for you.”
“Of course he is. He loses sight of me for a second and he’s already in a fit state thinking I’m somewhere planning world domination.”
“You kind of were hiding in the Forbidden Library,” Jingyi points out because Wei Wuxian hasn’t instilled in him enough fear. He does step back when Wei Wuxian sends a murderous gaze his way, though. “And you’ve been gone since breakfast. It’s almost sundown!”
Damn. Really? Wei Wuxian pushes the bag of books up his shoulder in a thoughtless move, accommodating the weight and attracting the little Lans’ attention.
“And you were stealing!”
“I am not. I am borrowing, as one does in a Library.”
“You can’t take books from the Forbidden Library! It’s against the rules.”
“And so it is to sneak in alcohol.” Jingyi goes red to his ears; Sizhui hasn’t been anything but accommodating so far, but the little frown he’s wearing doesn’t look promising, so Wei Wuxian adds for good measure, “Or to sneak potential boyfriends at that.”
Now it’s Sizhui’s turn to blush all the way to his hairline. “I don’t know what you are talking about,” he says, plea in his eyes.
“The same way you don’t know anything about the empty bag I’m carrying?” Wei Wuxian asks, hopeful.
Both look at him for a long second before they nod in unison. They are so cute and Wei Wuxian has taught them well.
“If I promise these are absolutely innocuous and they are of no interest to anyone but me, would that ease your worries?”
“You could be lying.”
“I have no need to lie to you. I promise no one will miss them. In fact, I’d go as far as to say me taking them away will save Lan Qiren from a couple of strokes. Or a couple hundred.”
Jingyi and Sizhui share a look, then stare back at Wei Wuxian and nod, a copy of each other. Tenderness warms Wei Wuxian’s breastbone, deep into his stomach. He can't help but throw his arms around the two boys and drag them close to him. Sizhui comes willingly; Jingyi, despite the stiffness of his shoulders, melts against Wei Wuxian side as soon as he touches him.
“You are the best Lan disciples that have ever been.”
“Except Hanguang-jun.”
“Okay, except Hanguang-jun.”
“And except Zewu-jun.”
“Okay, fine! And except Zewu-jun as well.”
“And—“
“Jingyi, I swear to the Heavens—“
“Shutting up now.”
*
Wei Wuxian spends the rest of his afternoon with Sizhui and Jingyi after he leaves his precious cargo in the jingshi, concealed in the hiding place below the floor where Lan Zhan stores Wei Wuxian’s Emperor’s Smile. A harmless broken rule for a harmless broken rule. Looking at the books piled beside the three bottles of alcohol does something to Wei Wuxian’s insides he has no name for. A mix of overwhelming yearning and impossible love and the never-ending awareness he has done nothing to deserve the love of the best man on this Earth, and yet here he is anyway, so blessed he doesn’t dare count his curses.
And so he goes outside the jingshi and meets up with the boy he thought he’d lost and the boy he’s grown to love as much. He teases them and teaches them, trains them with love and laughs because that’s what Lotus Pier had taught him was the way to cherish one’s loved ones, and so he applies it to his new home, too. Making fun of Jingyi when he falls on his face three times in a row is just another way to highlight his day.
It’s also extremely useful at distracting him from the nervous twitch of his fingers, and the choking awareness he’s never needed to hide into a room to read more than he does now.
Dinner is as forgettable as always, the only surprise being Lan Qiren hasn’t kicked Wei Wuxian out of the room to eat on his own like so many other nights before today. It begs the question if Wei Wuxian has finally started to crack the old man’s unbreakable shields, or if someone has spilled the beans and Lan Qiren has decided to never again let Wei Wuxian out of his sight.
Wei Wuxian is tempted to make a joke about it, but lo-and-behold, if he dares word a single sound during dinner he will probably be exiled into the mountain until who knows when.
“You look tired like the dead. You should sleep properly tonight,” Jingyi says when they step out of the hall, Lan Qiren hovering on the back like a bad omen.
“Oh, were you worried for me?” he asks Lan Qiren, who stares at him a second longer and then turns around and leaves.
Okay, then.
“He thinks you’ve been plotting something while Hanguang-jun’s not here.”
He kind of has, at least since this morning, but if Wei Wuxian dared share that with Lan Qiren he’d probably be accused of indirect murder. Wei Wuxian is planning a very busy week filled with a lot of horizontal laying, vertical manhandling and a lot of role-playing; he has no time to explain how his world domination plans begin and end with Lan Zhan being desperate, hard and naked in every hidden corner of Cloud Recesses.
“I’ve been trying to distract myself since I can’t go on huntings with you.”
“Master Qiren said that if your behavior is spotless for the next few days, he’d let you come with us next month.”
Doubtful, but Wei Wuxian smiles at Sizhui anyway because you don’t look at that face and not smile. “That would be nice.”
“Go sleep,” Jingyi spats, pushing him towards the jingshi. “You seriously look like the dead.”
So. Yeah, Wei Wuxian hasn’t been sleeping that tight these days without Lan Zhan there to warm their bed. You’d expect a man that has been dead for fifteen years would know how to rest, but as usual, Wei Wuxian just does the opposite of what’s expected of him. Why get proper rest when you can lay awake and turn and turn again while you dread the emptiness of the room and wither in the hollowness around your body left behind when your favorite person isn’t there?
Wei Wuxian hates how sappy he is, and hates even more how dependent he feels of Lan Zhan’s existence.
So no, he doesn’t go to sleep when he makes it back to the room. Of course, he doesn’t. He cracks open a bottle of Emperor’s Smile instead and takes a handful of books, and with the idle lounging of a man that knows he has all the time in the world, he sits near the window and starts reading.
And oh boy. If he thought little Lan Zhan’s flourished writing in that first book would slowly but surely lose its intensity with every angry scene put on paper, he was very, very wrong. Wei Wuxian, who started this little adventure ass on the floor and back against the bed, is now crawling onto himself, nose buried deep in a page, so flushed he has to check if he’s left something burning. His skin itches and his heart beats loud and hard, and his mouth is dry enough to be a desert. Lan Zhan, skillful as he is, has mastered the art of filthy writing in a handful of pages. And at the tender age of sixteen, no less! If Wei Wuxian weren’t as aroused, he’d be envious.
He sure is impressed, though, given how repressed Lan Zhan has always been, always seemed to be. Proud, too. Such filthy wants, such explicit needs, such beautiful words and images and scenarios. Wei Wuxian licks his lips every time book Lan Zhan says, Wei Ying followed by an order or a seemingly forceful action. Little Lan Zhan had fantasized way more than one would expect about tying Wei Ying down, and they do that on the regular. By the time Wei Wuxian makes it to the fifth book, he is hot and bothered, hasn’t taken a single sip of his alcohol, and is now laying on his back on the floor, blankly staring at the ceiling and wondering if he should jerk himself off before he tears his ropes open, or if it’d be more interesting to let the burning pool of desire cool down until Lan Zhan comes back.
These books are priceless. Precious. Of course, Wei Wuxian is a slut for any good porn book, and especially when the craftsmanship is this kind of excellent. But it’s the hidden yearning, the wants Lan Zhan had poured into them, that has Wei Wuxian brushing the fake covers with reverence. Its raw horniness and wonderful filthiness are stunning on themselves, no doubt, but when Wei Wuxian finally manages to fall asleep at the unhealthy time of six am, he doesn’t do so with the hot images Lan Zhan had so masterfully depicted in these impossible books.
No, it’s with the memory of Lan Zhan whispering Wei Ying as if he were trying to convey with the sound of Wei Wuxian’s name everything that has been hiding in these books for two decades.
*
Wei Wuxian wakes up hungry, angry, and horny. He might be feeling slightly lonely, too, but he’ll be damned before he acknowledges that.
Lan Zhan is scheduled to come back later this afternoon if everything goes as planned. Wei Wuxian hadn’t asked many questions, because the existence of the Yiling Laozu is bad enough without having him be Hanguang-jun’s life partner. Wei Wuxian doesn’t ask for more information than Lan Zhan can offer, and Lan Zhan always offers the bits Wei Wuxian needs to know so as to not lose his mind while he stays put and waits.
Like a dog.
So, maybe he isn’t taking all this as well as he’s supposed to. Fine. Being alone and surrounded by paper-shaped longing hasn’t improved his mood, and it’s no one’s fault but his own. He should have jerked it off yesterday night instead of falling asleep to dreams of Lan Zhan’s sturdy body around him and the safety of his chest against his ear. He should have read the whole batch of books and let the horny images lull him to a late sleep.
As it is, he’s awake at an unholy hour, barely past ten. He lays on the bed—their bed— and stares at the ceiling while the overwhelming truth of his existence falls upon him. He wants to leave Cloud Recesses with Lan Zhan when he goes hunting; he wants to accompany Lan Zhan in his diplomatic visits; he wants to be allowed to visit his nephew and his childhood home and even his brother.
Wei Wuxian punches the bed, and then again, and then he adds a couple of kicks until he’s tired and heaving. The little attack of anger hasn’t helped him one bit. Arousal is still idly warming his nerves, yearning for the man he loves is still clogging his throat.
It’s time to read some more books, then. Read more, and this time, jerk off, because no way is Wei Wuxian going to survive how many more hours without having any kind of release.
Decided, he crawls onto the floor to where the books lay scattered (he didn’t bother hiding them again yesterday night) and there he sits, ravenous but with a mission. Food sounds wonderful, really, but leaving this room, this little paradise of past and love and longing and sex, will probably sour his mood in insurmountable ways. And Lan Zhan is coming back today, probably, and Wei Wuxian still has many books to enjoy before that happens, but most importantly, there is no way in Hell he can be in the same room as Lan Qiren today without cracking.
So Wei Wuxian starts reading. His stomach growls, unhappy, but Wei Wuxian’s attention is rapidly snatched away from it. Lan Zhan is truly a masterful storyteller, and after Wei Wuxian reenacts every single one of these scenarios, they will have a serious conversation about Lan Zhan’s prospective career in the erotic market.
The descriptions are detailed enough that Wei Wuxian feels the ghost touch of his love on his own skin. Kisses on his neck, the bite of rope on ankles and wrists and even around his cock. Images so vivid, for a blink of a second Wei Wuxian sees them both in the healing waters, Wei Wuxian plastered to the wet, cold stones, Lan Zhan angrily taking him from behind with the rage of a young man’s want that he can neither comprehend nor deny.
It’s hot. Wei Wuxian finds Lan Zhan’s repressed passion lovely, which is funny given that it is everything but a novelty. It’s interesting, too, because, through the fantasy of what Lan Zhan wanted but could never demand or take, Wei Wuxian can picture what could have been for him, too.
Truthfully, it’s doubtful that Wei Wuxian could have put a name to his desires back then, if he even had them. He’d loved Lan Zhan already, he believes now, with the privilege of hindsight, but he’d have never been able to put it in such clear, beautiful words. Wei Wuxian was as repressed as Lan Zhan. No, not repressed: he’d been in absolute obliviousness. Maybe that’s why these are so funny. Maybe that’s why he’s so entranced by these books, filled to the brim by literal porn of him and what’s virtually his husband, in an impossible, imagined past of what could have been. Wei Wuxian had been a little, stupid bitch, and it’s hilarious to read about what he could have been having all along hadn’t he been, well, a stupid bitch indeed.
And then Wei Wuxian makes it to the tenth volume, and it isn’t funny any longer.
These are erotic fantasies, desperate even, but undeniably an outlet for a young man that couldn’t express his desires in any other way, even less confess them to the object of his affections. The fact Lan Zhan has loved Wei Ying for so long—from the beginning—doesn’t change that: these had been the self-discovery of a man, and Wei Ying the object of desire through which he’d walked that journey.
Until the tenth volume.
Wei Wuxian starts reading, and after two pages his heart is heavy enough to have sunk into his stomach. He bites his lower lip, book cracking under the pressure of his grip. Some of the pages feel thick and uneven on the borders, and it takes Wei Wuxian to make it to half of the volume to realize those are the landmarks left by Lan Zhan’s tears.
Wei Wuxian had never seen his own tragedy from someone else’s perspective. Never cared to think about it, too painful from this side to even contemplate it from somewhere else. But now, here he is, reading in Lan Zhan’s handwriting how fear of Wei Wuxian’s death had haunted Lan Zhan like a ghost, how he’d imagined every sort of scenarios in which Wei Wuxian was safe, in which Lan Zhan had been there all along, in which he’d stood by him and never left.
It gets worse and worse. It hurts, deep into Wei Wuxian’s soul. The wistfulness tainting the pages and painting every character. The hunger those same possibilities of a past that will never be wakes in Wei Wuxian’s chest. He doesn’t linger in what was and can never be changed. That’s a futile endeavor only made to waste time and energy.
He does it now. With every word that crosses the barrier of paper and engraves itself into Wei Wuxian’s bones. It’s impressive what ignorance can do to a man. He’d never dwelled on how much he’d hurt Lan Zhan while he’d been drowning in so much pain himself, and now here he is, staring at it, clear black against white, and it’s almost unbearable.
He wants to see Lan Zhan. He needs him here, and he needs to burn these books, and put every single one of them on an altar.
But Lan Zhan has yet to come back, even when the soft reds of sunsets are already turning the whites in the room pink. Wei Wuxian hugs the book he has in his hands—volume number fourteen, the one before the last of them—and hugs it tight against his chest. A poor substitute. It lacks warmth, and the comfort of knowing they’ve made it through the bad and the worst, that they are together now, that although not everything is perfect, it is in the ways that matter.
That’s how Lan Zhan finds him, close enough to darkness Wei Wuxian would have teased him about the inaccuracy of his predictions had he not been a mess on the floor of their room.
“Wei Ying?” the lovely voice of Lan Zhan asks, and it takes Wei Wuxian a dizzy moment of confusion before he realizes it is the real thing.
“Lan Zhan! You’re back!”
“Mmn,” Lan Zhan says, briskly entering and closing the door. His clothes look pristine, his face a neutral mask if one ignores the soft press between his eyebrows.
Wei Wuxian can’t stare away. He’s spent almost a day and a half picturing Lan Zhan from twenty years ago, shorter and younger and naive in his anger. Stupid, that the real adult version would grab his attention so intently as to steal his speech, but there you have it. Wei Wuxian is madly in love with this man.
“What is it?” Lan Zhan asks, kneeling beside Wei Wuxian, carefully moving books around without bothering to look at them.
Wei Wuxian knows he’s staring at him with eyes filled with all sorts of emotions, knows he probably looks like the mess he is, but he can’t tear his eyes away.
“You are very handsome, Lan Zhan, did you know that?”
“Mmh.”
Lan Zhan’s fingers brush a lock of hair from Wei Wuxian’s face, and Wei Wuxian leans on his touch like a man that hasn’t known tenderness in millennia.
The warmth of his palm cupping his face does dampen somewhat the overwhelming melancholy.
“I’ve missed you,” Wei Wuxian confesses in a whisper. “You took forever to come back.”
“I apologize.”
Wei Wuxian slides closer, closer still, until he’s half draped half sat on Lan Zhan’s lap. The book remains plastered to his chest, Wei Wuxian’s arms unable to move no matter how strong he wishes them to.
Lan Zhan doesn’t hesitate: as soon as Wei Wuxian’s weight is on him his arms circle his back, holding him close, holding him dearly. It’s like arriving home despite never leaving, Wei Wuxian thinks in a haze.
They stay like that for hours, or maybe minutes. Wei Wuxian is hungry and dizzy with it, but pain and sorrow have filled his stomach until it aches. He couldn’t eat even if a feast with real food (not that bland thing the Lans deem as edibles) appeared right in front of him.
It does, incidentally, make it somewhat hard to play it cool when Lan Zhan finally asks, “What has happened?”
“Oh, you know,” Wei Wuxian says against the tender skin of his throat, relishing the steady beat of his heart against his lips. “I went into the Forbidden Library and found quite a collection of very, very interesting books.”
Despite the mood, Wei Wuxian manages to put enough emphasis on his words for Lan Zhan to do the math. Wei Wuxian feels him tense under his touch, although the soft patterns Lan Zhan’s fingers are drawing on his back don’t waver.
“You won’t say anything?”
“You read them,” Lan Zhan says. It’s not a question.
“I did read them. Almost all of them.” A wave of gloom washes over Wei Wuxian, who tries to crawl closer, into Lan Zhan’s chest almost. “I want to make a joke about how filthy you were, Lan Zhan, but now I only want for you to hold me and never let go.”
Lan Zhan’s arms tighten around him. “Never.”
“I didn’t know,” Wei Wuxian whispers, unable to stop. “I wish I knew. I wish—“
“Shh. It is alright.”
“I hurt you so much.”
“That is not important now.”
“Isn’t it? Don’t you ever wonder… if I’d listened, or if I’d asked for help, or if…”
“Shh,” Lan Zhan murmurs again. “I did wonder, as you have read. But not anymore.”
Wei Wuxian lets Lan Zhan’s steady breathing fill his mind, his body, his cells. He’s the unwavering rock in the middle of a waterfall, the safety rope around one’s waist. It’s unfair that Lan Zhan should comfort him after all the pain Wei Wuxian has caused him, but he’s selfish and shaky, so he lets it happen. He takes in the warmth, and the indisputable hold, and this moment, so frail and so true and so real it becomes a physical thing mutating Wei Wuxian’s core forever.
“I love you, Lan Zhan, did you know that?”
“I know.”
“And I miss you when you are gone, and I want to be with you when you are here, and I love having sex with you. Do you know that?”
“I know.”
“If I’d been less stupid, maybe you could have fucked me in every single place you wrote, Lan Zhan.”
“Mmh.”
Wei Wuxian smiles at that contained response. He shifts, the book still against his chest, the lingering heat of both their bodies turning it into a living thing. Lan Zhan carefully takes it out of Wei Wuxian’s grip, and puts it down on the floor, thus freeing Wei Wuxian’s hands to cup the face of the man he loves.
Lan Zhan looks back at him when he feels the touch, his own hands possessive on Wei Wuxian’s hips, holding him in place, simply holding him.
“Are you embarrassed I read them?” Wei Wuxian brushes a thumb on Lan Zhan’s cheek, feeling the subtle warmth of his blush. “I enjoyed them enormously, you know? At least until shit got real. Don’t look at me like that, Lan Zhan, you are a superb writer. Filth was made for you, I can tell.”
“Does Wei Ying know much about filthy books?”
“You know I do! Don’t slander me. I was the master of porn books in our time, Lan Zhan.”
“Picture books. These are written.”
“Oh, I see. Are you implying my tastes aren’t as refined? How rude.”
There it is, the wonderful, toe-curling glint of joy and laughter in Lan Zhan’s eyes. Wei Wuxian can’t resist it—he truly should try to get a hold of himself—and leans forward to kiss him. And kiss him again because he has missed him, so much it has become a dull ache in his bones.
“Wei Ying,” Lan Zhan says, simply his name.
It does things to Wei Wuxian’s insides.
“I really liked reading my name in those books, Lan Zhan,” he confesses, lips against lips. “I got hard every time your fictional past self said it, because he’d do something really dirty right after.”
“Mm?”
Wei Wuxian moves, sitting properly on Lan Zhan’s lap, the melancholy not fully forgotten but put aside in a shelf, letting lust take its place. Lan Zhan’s hands don’t wander yet, but his grip betrays him.
“Yeah.” Wei Wuxian tilts his hips, prompting a soft gasp. “You really wanted to fuck me in that cold spring, didn’t you, Lan Zhan?”
“It is against the rules.”
“We are in the Cloud Recesses, what isn’t?”
Lan Zhan knows him too well to not take the meaning of his words.
“I will not fuck you in the cold spring.”
“But you could,” Wei Wuxian says, kissing Lan Zhan shallowly, rolling his hips just enough to be provoking. “You could press me against the wet stones, hold my hair tight and fuck me from behind while I can’t do anything but take it.”
“Wei Ying.” It’s a warning.
“Or we could do it on the roof at night. We could pretend I’m bringing in contraband and you caught me, and then we maybe fight a little until you overpower me with your big, strong body, and then you fuck me under the moonlight.”
Lan Zhan’s breathing is coming out harsh now, his fingers digging into Wei Wuxian’s flesh hard enough to bruise. He wants it, needs it. Seeing the marks of Lan Zhan’s desires on his skin, feeling the ghost presence of Lan Zhan inside of him, splattered on his skin. Wei Wuxian moans out loud, thrusts forward seeking Lan Zhan’s hardness, gasps when he finds it.
“Wei Ying!”
“I really want you to fuck me in every way you wrote, Lan Zhan.” There’s a desperate note in his words. “It was hot. It was wonderful.”
“I can’t— Those were—“
Wei Wuxian has no control over his hips anymore. They haven’t even undressed. How stupid. His hands are on Lan Zhan’s nape, holding him, tethering himself. He’s breathing onto Lan Zhan’s mouth, taking him in, letting him control the movements of his hips. They are his, anyway. All of Wei Wuxian is his.
“Oh, shit, Lan Zhan, I need you.”
“Wei Ying.”
They are going to come in their robes like fucking teenagers, aren’t they? Wei Wuxian has asked for it enough, so it is, undoubtedly, his fault.
It lacks finesse and it’s rushed and almost brutal, but Wei Wuxian can’t bring himself to care. He’s missed Lan Zhan so much, and he’s been horny and needing release for hours and hours, and the images are still lingering in his mind, the fantasies and the possibilities. Lan Zhan is losing control, which always takes Wei Wuxian closer and closer to the edge, finally throwing him into orgasm.
He comes in his clothes, loudly. Back arched, nails digging into the skin of Lan Zhan’s neck. Lan Zhan is almost there, Wei Wuxian can tell from the halts in his breathing and the frenetic push of his hard cock against Wei Wuxian’s.
Still riding his own orgasm, giddy and hazy and so fucking in love it’s madness, Wei Wuxian leans forward and starts whispering.
“You’ll fuck me one day in the Library, Lan Zhan, and then I’ll draw what you do to me so you can look at it whenever I’m not there. I will let you fill me, with your cock and your cum, and—“
“Wei Ying!”
Lan Zhan grunting Wei Wuxian’s name when he comes must be how the gods feel when prayers reach them. Wei Wuxian surely feels as powerful as a mighty being, pushing against Lan Zhan’s cock, seeking the wetness of his release. If they were naked he’d lick him clean, Wei Wuxian thinks, dreamlike.
They hold each other for long minutes, breathing together, breathing each other in.
“We must clean our clothes,” Lan Zhan says after a short while.
“Just hold me for a second.”
Lan Zhan does as bid, staring up at Wei Wuxian, seeking his lips when Wei Wuxian leans forward. They kiss languidly, tenderly. Wei Wuxian feels raw and exposed, needy still, and so he allows his lips to explore the valleys of Lan Zhan’s face, the soft skin under his jaw, the warmth of his cheeks, the trust in his eyelids.
It’s worshipful. Wei Wuxian can only hope Lan Zhan feels as venerated as he deserves.
“I love you,” Wei Wuxian tells him again, on the space between his eyebrows, where the worry usually shows.
“I do not regret the past,” Lan Zhan reminds him. He knows him too well. “I will not dwell on the past, or these books. These are not important.”
Wei Wuxian follows his kisses back to Lan Zhan’s mouth, unable to answer the silent question. Lan Zhan is an intelligent man who understands Wei Wuxian in ways no one has ever, and will ever, do. He is a generous man, too, which is why he allows the kiss to deepen, knowing full well it is an answer in itself.
And then Wei Wuxian’s stomach finally comes back to life with the loudest, lousiest sound ever made by a human organ.
“When is the last time you ate?” Lan Zhan asks.
“… dinner last night? Probably.”
“Wei—“
“I know! I know! I was just, too sad missing you and too busy reading filthy porn written by baby Lan Zhan. You couldn’t expect me to eat.”
The look in Lan Zhan’s eyes tells him exactly that, but Wei Wuxian only smiles down at him.
“I did miss you, you know. It was quite unbearable. Also, I was bored out of my mind. Hence the secret-porn-books retrieving adventure.”
“Mmh.” Lan Zhan, strong hands on Wei Wuxian’s hips, lifts him from his lap. He stands and makes a gesture to indicate Wei Wuxian should do the same. As soon as Wei Wuxian is on his feet, Lan Zhan starts undressing him in a clinical, this-is-not-a-prelude-to-sex kind of way. “How did you know the books were there?”
“Oh, I didn’t. It was a wonderful discovery. I’d gone just to piss off Lan Qiren, but then I noticed the weird binding of that one,” Wei Wuxian points at the first, oldest book, “and here we are.”
“I should have hidden them better.”
“Don’t say that, Lan Zhan! I loved reading them. I love knowing you’ve always been sexily filthy.”
“Sexily is not a word.”
Funny for him to say that while he pushes Wei Wuxian’s pants down his legs, leaving him naked and embarrassingly exposed. Trying to maintain his balance, Wei Wuxian’s hands find their way onto Lan Zhan’s clothed shoulders, and stay there.
He looks… beautiful. So caring and so real, here on his knees. Lan Zhan looks up, the gold of his eyes full of promises. They look at each other, Wei Wuxian’s face probably showing too much. Without a word, Lan Zhan leans forward and leaves the softest of kisses against Wei Wuxian’s knee, on his thigh, on his navel.
Wei Wuxian inhales loudly, trying to quiet his heart and his stomach, trying to hold the overwhelming tide of emotions that are about to overpower him.
“It’s okay,” Lan Zhan tells him, kissing his sternum, his heart, his shoulder. Wei Wuxian’s shaking. Not cold, or aroused, or embarrassed. The rawness has crossed the barrier of his skin and turned it inside out. He’s tired and hungry, that’s all, except emotion after emotion pours out of his heart like a frenzy river at the end of the rain season.
Lan Zhan embraces him. “I will ask permission so you can come out with me next time.”
“It’s not that,” Wei Wuxian says against his chest.
Lan Zhan simply kisses his head.
“I mean,” Wei Wuxian tries again. “It’s not only that. I wish— I wish for things to be just a tiny bit different. Which is awful because I have so much already, you’ve given me so much already. A home and your heart and yourself, and A-Yuan and your love, and I—“
“It is okay,” Lan Zhan says, deliberately pronouncing every word, “to want more. I do not, and will not, judge you or condemn you for what you wish, or want, or need.”
Wei Wuxian has no power to find words to answer that. He hugs him tighter instead, trying to crawl into Lan Zhan’s chest, the warmest, safest place he knows.
There are no tears in his eyes despite the fact his body is sobbing every feeling out of his system. He shivers, fingers trembling on their hold. Maybe this body doesn’t know how to cry, maybe death has taken that bit of release from Wei Wuxian.
Lan Zhan holds him in quiet, comforting care. Wei Wuxian should be pampering him with sex and anecdotes and laughs and more sex. And instead, here he is, needing the solace of Lan Zhan’s presence as if he’d never had had to face the consequences of his own actions.
“I’m fine now, Lan Zhan.”
“Are you okay?”
“I am.”
Lan Zhan hugs him for three more seconds for good measure, before he lets him go. He helps Wei Wuxian dress after cleaning him with a wet cloth and rapidly cleans and changes himself before Wei Wuxian has time to process how ravenous he truly is.
“There is food left in the dining hall.”
“There is? But you usually fast when you come back so late.”
“Wei Ying needs to eat.”
“I can—“
“Wei Ying.”
The finality of his tone warms Wei Wuxian’s belly in ways that are totally unrelated to actual food. It also puts an honest smile on his lips, which is a welcoming plus.
“Fine. I will accompany you because if you don’t feed me you’ll be unbearable.”
“Mmh,” Lan Zhan agrees, taking his hand.
“Do you think, we could maybe introduce some spice in the Cloud Recesses?”
“No.”
“Lan Zhan! You filthy thinking man. I meant spicy food.”
A beat. “Still no.”
Wei Wuxian leans against his arm while they walk towards the dining hall, hands clasped together.
“It’d be a nice change.”
“I will bring you spicy food next time.” Lan Zhan’s hand squeezes Wei Wuxian’s. “Or we will both go eat spicy food when we next leave, together.”
“I know you don’t like spicy food, Lan Zhan.”
Another beat. “I like it.”
“And me?” Wei Wuxian asks with an annoyingly whiny tone. “Do you like me, Lan Zhan?”
“Yes.”
“How much?”
“If you want me to say it, you will have to ask.”
“How rude! I tell you I love you all the time.”
“Mmh.”
There’s a long silence. Wei Wuxian can see the soft press at the corners of Lan Zhan’s mouth, the telltale of his smiles. It’s so tempting to lean onto him and taste it.
Instead, Wei Wuxian asks, “Do you love me, Lan Zhan?”
“I love you, Wei Ying.”
Wei Wuxian knows. How can he not, when Lan Zhan’s love lives permanently in his soul, temporarily on his skin in the shape of bruises or wet patches or kiss marks. Lan Zhan loves him, so intrinsically and so deeply it’s amazing Wei Wuxian hasn’t exploded with how full with it he is, all the time.
And it is, truly, as simple as that.