At the dawn of an otherwise unremarkable morning, a scream pierced through the Cloud Recesses.
Loud noise is forbidden, Lan WangJi wanted to say, but was unable to with his face where it was, planted onto the floor.
“Lan Zhan!” Wei WuXian cried as he flung himself out of bed to kneel beside Lan WangJi, pulling his limp body into his lap. “Lan Zhan—what happened, what’s wrong?”
Too loud. Any sound above a normal speaking voice seemed to bounce around the inside of Lan WangJi’s skull, stinging every placed it touched and buzzing like an angry hornet. An unattractive gurgling noise came from his throat as he attempted once more to inform his husband of the rules against loud noise, but was again thwarted, as his vocal chords didn’t seem to be working.
A cold hand pressed to his forehead. He shivered as it moved down his face to cup his cheek.
“Lan Zhan,” Wei WuXian whined. “You’re burning up.”
Was he? Lan WangJi thought he was freezing, but now that it had been pointed out, he could feel how his skin scalded under Wei WuXian’s touch.
“Shit, I didn’t even notice until it got this bad, all you did was just get out of bed and you collapsed like this—ah, Lan Zhan, no, don’t close your eyes! Hey, hey, look at me, come on, it’s gonna be okay, I’ll uh, I can make tea and soup, how does that sound? So just stay awake for me, okay? Oh, I guess that’s dying, not illness, you’re supposed to sleep more when you get sick, aren’t you… Hey, let’s move you back to the bed, okay?”
It was difficult for Lan WangJi to pick apart the individual words in Wei WuXian’s string of babble. He tried to hum in reply to whatever had been said but it came out raspy and voiceless. He didn’t get to linger on it, though; a moment later, strong arms hooked under his knees and behind his neck to lift him up.
“Geez, illustrious HanGuang-Jun, you sure are heavy huh… Oh!”
Lan WangJi was tipped unceremoniously back onto the bed in a graceless heap. Wei WuXian laughed, a sharp, involuntary sound that he quickly stifled into a few heavy breaths.
“Oh geez, I didn’t have a very good grip I guess.” A giggle managed to slip out of his mouth. “Sorry, sorry, I don’t mean to laugh at you, it’s just, no one would believe me if I said I saw you like this.”
Lan WangJi was prodded with careful hands until he was rolled onto his back with his arms and legs straightened out properly.
“There we go, that’s the proper posture a Jade of Lan should have. Handsome as always, you can’t even tell…” Wei WuXian’s hand returned to Lan WangJi’s forehead, gentle as his cool palm sapped away the heat emanating from the feverish skin. “Aiyah, you really are too composed, Lan Zhan, your husband couldn’t even tell anything was wrong until now, what am I going to do with you…”
His hand smoothed back Lan WangJi’s bangs from his face, lingering for a long moment. When the hand finally retreated, it was soon replaced with the soft pressure of Wei WuXian’s lips, a kiss so sweet Lan WangJi ached to return it.
“Goodness. It was probably from overworking yourself too,” Wei WuXian murmured. “Rest now, Lan Zhan, let your husband take care of you.”
Before he could leave, Lan WangJi finally summoned the strength to reach out blindly until he found Wei WuXian’s hand. Wei WuXian made a small noise of surprise, then clasped Lan WangJi’s clammy palm between his.
Wei Ying, Lan WangJi tried to say, though all that came out was the hissing sound of air scraping through a useless throat. He curled his fingers a little around Wei WuXian’s in an approximation of a tighter grip.
“Lan Zhan.” Wei WuXian answered the wordless call anyway, fondness blooming plainly in his tone. He brushed the back of Lan WangJi’s hand with his thumb. “I’ll be right back. Please wait for me.”
He pressed a kiss to the knuckles before returning Lan WangJi’s hand to his side and tiptoeing out.
****
Lan WangJi had never liked being sick.
He would expect that this was the case for most people. Nobody wanted to be in pain for days on end, potentially bedridden with nothing to do except complain to the walls.
But though illness in itself was universally wretched, it could be dealt with in pleasant ways. Many adults could look back fondly on the times they got sick as children, remembering the coddling and hot food dished out by their mothers, the well-wishes from friends, the unconditional love and support that weakness elicited from others.
The number of times Lan WangJi got sick when he was little could be counted on one hand, and he remembered it all with distinct clarity. He used to lock himself in his room, blacking out the windows and curling up in his bed under a blanket. He usually never cried as a child, but the illness brought out a misery in him that had nowhere to go except to leak out from under his eyelids, just as it prompted his nose to run.
He didn’t know what to do. He couldn’t run to either of his parents, no matter how much he ached to bury himself in his mother’s arms. His uncle, too, was not a possibility, being the very man who had instilled the mantra of showing no weakness in Lan WangJi in the first place. Even setting that aside, the idea of seeking comfort from him was laughable, given that he approached children with as much affection as an ice cube. His brother would probably have been sympathetic, even if he couldn’t offer much substantial help since he was also a child; but even then, Lan WangJi didn’t have the language to ask.
With the illness came overwhelming helplessness. He had never been good with words, so he relied far more on speaking with his actions. Being incapacitated by sickness took that from him, leaving him trapped inside his own head to suffocate on too many thoughts with no means of escape.
It was miserable and lonely and he was a child being forced to form connections between vulnerability and seclusion for the first time in his young life.
As soon as Wei WuXian left the room, there was nothing to distract Lan WangJi any longer. He was alone in his bed, sure that he was as cold as a corpse despite the sweat that insisted he was too hot. It was utterly silent, apart from the ragged scrape of his breathing, every inhale just feeding the fire in his throat. It felt like his brain was too large in his head, throbbing and pushing up against the inside of his skull until he could imagine the bone splitting apart from the pressure. His thoughts were multiplying faster than he could read them as they jostled to fill the cracks, as if it were only a matter of time before they could carve through his forehead and escape.
He brought his hand to his face, brushing the knuckles that Wei WuXian had kissed against his lips. He couldn’t tell if he was shaking or if the room was just spinning. He pushed his hand harder into his mouth, as if to cut off a yell that his scorched vocal chords were incapable of producing anyway.
He couldn’t stay still like this anymore, he needed to do something. Even something as simple as just playing his guqin would help, anything that could release even a fraction of this swirling, angry thing inside him, like draining poison from a wound.
And that was how Wei WuXian returned to find him, once again, collapsed on the floor, the blanket trailing from the bed to where it tangled in his legs.
“Lan Zhan!” There was a frantic shuffling, the sound of a tray being set down on a table, and then Wei WuXian was hovering over him. “Oh no, no, no—”
After some more awkward scrambling to get Lan WangJi back onto the bed, Wei WuXian began checking him over for bruises.
“Again?” he asked as he pressed lightly around Lan WangJi’s shoulder. It was tactfully restrained, but a hint of amusement softened his tone. “I really can’t leave you alone for one second, can I?”
Please don’t, Lan WangJi thought hazily amidst the din of everything else crashing around in his head.
“Stubborn man… Stop trying to get up, geez.” Wei WuXian leaned over to kiss his cheek. “Whatever you need, that’s what I’m here for, okay? So you just focus on resting.”
Lan WangJi tilted his head, as if to chase Wei WuXian’s lips as they retreated. All I need is you here, he wanted to say.
“Look, I made you some soup and everything!” Wei WuXian grinned as he retrieved the tray and balanced it on his lap. “Aren’t I such a good husband? You’re so lucky to have me, HanGuang-Jun!”
That made Lan WangJi smile. Just the smallest tug at the corners of his mouth, barely noticeable to even himself with how numbingly feverish his face was. But nevertheless, it was there: a smile that simply meant, I am so lucky.
Wei WuXian quieted, staring at Lan WangJi. He laughed after a moment, a short, chirping thing that was dampened when he quickly looked down.
“Lan Zhan… Ah, oh no, you’re going to make me blush, don’t look at me like that.”
He cleared his throat and patted his cheeks, as if to ward away the blood despite such a gesture having the opposite effect.
“Handsome, even when you’re on death’s door. Honestly! So unfair,” he muttered. Huffing, he picked up the soup bowl. “Well anyway, I brought you soup—Lan Zhan!”
Lan WangJi, who had lifted his head and braced his hands in preparation for sitting up, was swiftly stopped by Wei WuXian’s palm planted in the middle of his chest.
“I just told you, no getting up!” Wei WuXian scolded. “You’ve already ended up on the floor twice. But not to worry, your incredibly talented and loving husband is here to feed you. Open wide, Lan Zhan!”
Lan WangJi dutifully opened his mouth and Wei WuXian brought the bowl to his lips, tipping it gently.
As soon as the broth hit Lan WangJi’s tongue, it flooded his mouth with fire. His nose was blocked up so he hadn’t smelled the spice sooner—something that was also probably reducing his sense of taste and saving him from the worst of it – but it was still too much. He inhaled sharply in surprise and it went down the wrong pipe, a cough sputtering out of him before he could suppress it.
His chin hit the bowl in the midst of this and hot liquid went spilling right down his front.
“Shit!”
Wei WuXian sprang up, throwing the bowl out of the way. He froze for a second with his hands hovering a few inches over Lan WangJi, then his brain seemed to kick back into gear and he started tugging the soiled robe out of the way.
“I’m so sorry, Lan Zhan, fuck—“ He let out a shrill laugh as he lifted Lan WangJi’s arms to get the sleeves off. “It’s a good thing I’ve gotten so much practice taking your clothes off, right? Look at that, I must have set a record right now, haha…”
He trailed off once he’d removed the top half of the robe as best he could without moving Lan WangJi too much, leaving it to lie there like a sheet under him. He briefly got up to grab a cloth and began dabbing away the remaining liquid that had soaked through to Lan WangJi’s chest and neck.
“Totally on purpose, yep, you know me, Lan Zhan, absolutely shameless, I’d never pass up a chance to see you naked,” he rambled.
He balled up the cloth when he was done with it and tossed it over his shoulder. His strained smile finally wavered as he smoothed a thumb over the brand on Lan WangJi’s chest, which had flushed redder from the soup.
Lan WangJi managed a scratchy hum in response. In truth, the touch burned more than the soup had.
“Sorry,” Wei WuXian said again quietly. “I’m messing this all up. I really did make sure I was putting in less spice than usual, I thought I was, but it’s good for clearing up your sinuses, so I couldn’t help adding a little…”
The gloom in his voice made Lan Wangi’s throat close up in a way that was distinctly worse than what the illness was already doing. He laid his hand over Wei WuXian’s, covering up the brand, and gave a weak squeeze.
He was familiar with the frustration of having no words for the mess in his head, but actually having the words and simply being unable to voice them was a new one. He wanted to say, It’s fine. Or, You’re doing so well. Or, All I need is you beside me.
He couldn’t. So he held Wei WuXian’s hand to his chest and hoped the message got through.
Wei WuXian sniffed and shook his head, collecting himself. Bit by bit, he reconstructed his grin, hitching up the corners of his mouth first and slowly working his way up the rest of his face until it crinkled around his eyes.
“Okay,” he said, inhaling deeply. “Okay. Soup was a bust. That’s fine, Lan Zhan, because this smart and attractive husband of yours thought to bring tea as well!”
This went significantly better than the soup. The tea was a little bitter from being steeped for too long, but it was a nice temperature and Lan WangJi was able to stay still while Wei WuXian tipped it into his mouth.
“There you go.” Wei WuXian set the teacup aside when it was empty. “That should soothe your throat some. Once you’ve rested a bit, I’ll prepare a bath for you, okay? I know it’s fun to be filthy, but the steam will be good for your sinuses and I can change the sheets in the meantime, so-“
He was interrupted by a voice calling to them from outside.
“HanGuang-Jun? Senior Wei?”
It must have been Lan JingYi, given how loudly this was shouted. The excessive volume made Lan WangJi flinch, shutting his eyes as it reverberated through his eardrums. It felt like his brain was bruising itself on every sound wave that came near it.
Wei WuXian cursed under his breath and stomped righteously out of sight. There was the sound of the door sliding open just a crack, followed by him whispering, “Keep your voices down. HanGuang-Jun is resting.”
There was a murmur of apologies – there must have been several juniors who came to visit, then.
“Is everything all right, Senior Wei?” Such a gentle voice could only be Lan SiZhui.
“We heard a scream earlier, but we sort of assumed it was just your everyday stuff until someone saw you making soup—“ Lan JingYi was cut off abruptly, most likely by a more tactful student’s nudging.
“Yes, we’re okay,” Wei WuXian replied slowly. “HanGuang-Jun is just feeling a little under the weather. I’m afraid he won’t be able to supervise your lessons today.”
A chorus of displeased noises rose up, but was quickly silenced by somebody’s insistent shushing.
“He must be pretty sick if he’s actually staying in bed,” Lan JingYi said in what must have been intended to be a whisper, despite being at a normal volume.
Wei WuXian snorted. “Trust me, it wasn’t easy keeping him there. Luckily, I can be very persuasive in that regard.” A beat of silence ensued, until he broke it with a muffled laugh. “Don’t look so disgusted!”
“Senior Wei,” Lan SiZhui cut in, “is there anything we can do?”
Several other voices chimed in with similar sentiment.
“Hmm…” Wei WuXian thought for a moment. “Are any of you good at cooking?”
There were a few affirmative responses.
“Excellent. I’m going to entrust you with the extremely important task of making some soup for our dear HanGuang-Jun.”
“Senior Wei, didn’t you already make soup?” somebody asked.
“That… It spilled, on the way here,” Wei WuXian said hurriedly. “We’re going to need a new batch. And I’m sure some hot food prepared with love by his students is just the thing HanGuang-Jun needs to feel better.”
A few different voices said things such as, “We’re on it, Senior Wei!” and, “You can count on us!”
“Good.” A warmth was blooming in Wei WuXian’s voice that could only come from his speaking with a genuine smile. “Your beloved HanGuang-Jun is depending on you. I will do my best as well to see that he is returned to you in full health.”
Everyone said, “Thank you, Senior Wei!”
“Now run along, or you won’t have time for both this and your studies!”
The door slid shut and Wei WuXian returned to Lan WangJi’s side.
“Lan Zhan, all your students really adore you,” he was saying as he sat next to the bed, but the fond look on his face quickly dropped into open-mouthed horror. “Lan Zhan! Are you okay?”
Lan WangJi blinked, eyelids uncomfortably sticky as he deciphered this reaction, and realized that Wei WuXian’s face had become blurry because he was crying. Only a few teardrops had actually escaped to roll down his cheeks; the majority had bubbled up in his eyes and clung to each other in a hot, gooey mess that only seemed to grow more bloated as fresh tears sprung up to join the mix.
Before he could act on the reflex to turn away and hide his face, Wei WuXian caught his cheek, brushing a thumb through one of the greasy tear tracks.
“Lan Zhan?” he asked softly.
How could he possibly explain, Lan WangJi wondered. How could he ever put words to this feeling, like he could hear his ribs creaking with the effort to contain how full his heart was, like his chest was too small and his skin stretched too thin, like any moment he was going to burst open from this strange and wonderful sensation of being loved?
Another tear managed to escape the thick syrup in his eyes and slid down his face like a fat slug leaving behind a trail of slime. These were not tears of sadness, which were thin and ran freely in fountains of unhappiness; no, these were sick tears. Viscous and slow, an expulsion of emotional bile that clogged in the eyes until they were wiped away like snot.
Liquid weakness of the ugliest variety. A primal signal that cried out the most pathetic, simple message: it hurts. I’m sick and it hurts.
The instinct that every human was born with – to cry so one’s mother will come running, to show weakness in order to receive help – was foreign to Lan WangJi. It was trained out of him and his brother thoroughly from the beginning. They were supposed to be above such mortal affairs as wanting to be comforted or feel safe. This point wasn’t subtle, either, it was what he was named for.
WangJi. Above earthly concerns.
(This, Lan WangJi had started to question as a fallacious concept to begin with. Even gods demanded attention for fear of fading away.)
He never realized he was missing something necessary until now, until Wei WuXian had begun to unknowingly teach it to him so late in life.
“Wei Ying.” The name came out raw and stripped down to its barest syllables from the rough journey up his thorny larynx, but it was there.
Wei WuXian’s smile was small but the corners of his eyes wrinkled with it, exuding affection. He leaned down to wipe Lan WangJi’s tears away and press a kiss to the middle of his forehead.
“My dear husband,” he murmured. “I’m here.”
In Lan WangJi’s experience, weakness was selfish. It required others to hold him up when he couldn’t stand on his own, and for most of his life, that had been unacceptable.
But Wei WuXian had always brought out selfishness in him like nothing else, and maybe that was part of why Lan WangJi guarded his love for him so jealously. It was the one thing he could have for himself, the one feeling he didn't have to justify with some kind of altruism. In the end, despite his name, he was only human like everyone else, and humans want.
And maybe it was okay to want.
“Ah—Haha oh, Lan Zhan, oh no.” Wei WuXian was stifling a giggle. “Your nose is running. Let me get a handkerchief.”
He scooted back and attempted to reach the wardrobe without getting up, groaning when his fingers couldn’t quite make contact. He gave up after a few seconds with an exasperated sigh and stood.
Lan WangJi’s attention turned to the multiple sources of wetness on his face and realized, indeed, some mucous was dripping inelegantly out of his nose. He sniffed, but it didn’t do much apart from blocking up his nostrils even more.
Wei WuXian returned to his side and dabbed the snot away with a handkerchief. He folded it to hide the dirty section and patted Lan WangJi’s eyes dry again for good measure.
Lan WangJi could have probably mustered the strength to do this himself by now, but he chose not to say anything.
“Oh dear, this really is an undignified look on you,” Wei WuXian mused. He hid his grin behind his hand, but the laughing crescent shape it urged into his eyes was clearly visible. “Ah, forgive me, Lan Zhan, but it’s really adorable. I think I finally understand why you like taking care of all those helpless little bunnies so much.”
Lan WangJi was certain that a gross, sweaty human could never be as cute as a rabbit, but decided not to argue the point. Instead, a new thought occurred to him.
“Wei Ying,” he started, but the words tripped over the hot spikes that lined his throat like a growth and choked up the passageway, triggering an uncomfortably wet coughing fit.
Wei WuXian leaned in with the handkerchief, but Lan WangJi twisted away with a hand firmly covering his mouth to contain the spray as best he could.
“You—“ His chest was tight, but he managed to scrape enough air off the very top of his lungs to cobble together a few words. They were wispy and frayed, but they were there. “Sick too.”
Wei WuXian frowned for a second as he puzzled through that message, then brightened again. “Oh, I could get sick too? Well of course, but I’m not afraid of that, because you’d take care of me, right Lan Zhan?”
As he spoke, he gently turned Lan WangJi’s face back towards him to clean around his mouth.
“You wouldn’t mind, right? I could cover your fine robes in sneezes and be sick all over the bed but you’d still help me into a bath and replace the sheets without a fuss. I could be completely gross and drippy and you’d still hold me through it, even though you hate getting dirty. So I’ll do the same for you!”
He grinned as he crumpled up the handkerchief and set it aside.
“But don’t misunderstand, Lan Zhan!” He poked the red tip of Lan WangJi’s nose playfully. “It’s not about getting even or anything! It’s because I love you and I want you to feel better, and I know you want the same for me. So you better behave and let me help you because otherwise, when it’s your turn to take care of me, I’m gonna make it really difficult for you, got it?”
Lan WangJi’s eyes were already watering again, as if his heart were a sponge and when it squeezed with Wei WuXian’s words, the liquid came wringing out. He nodded.
“Good!” Wei WuXian tapped his chin thoughtfully. “Now then, I’m going to see about preparing that bath for you. Rest in the meantime, okay? If I come back to you on the floor one more time, I’m really going to throw a fit.”
He brushed the hair out of Lan WangJi’s face again, the touch searing hot across his feverish forehead. Lan WangJi shut his eyes and clung vainly to the heat as it rapidly cooled into another layer of shivering sweat.
Wei WuXian left his side one step at a time, lingering. But as soon as he made it to the door, his footsteps abruptly picked up the pace and he rapidly disappeared from earshot.
Lan WangJi was left alone again.
His thoughts flickered back to his childhood once more, to his dark room; silent, except for his bed sheets rustling when he shuddered from the chills and pulled them closer.
It was quiet now, too. Quiet enough that he could hear the throbbing of his brain starting to creep up again, pressing against the inside of his eardrums.
He turned onto his side, pushing his nose into the pillow. His sinuses were too clogged to find Wei WuXian’s scent, and he was too feverish to tell if any of Wei WuXian’s warmth had lingered from the night before. But that didn’t matter. The space beside him was empty only because Wei WuXian had been there.
As a child, Lan WangJi remembered huddling in the center of a bed that stretched out far too wide for his body, coiled up as small as he could make himself and swathed in a blanket to ward the cold away.
He blinked hazily at the indent left behind in the pillow from Wei WuXian’s head and the scribbled outlines of his form in the sheets. There simply wasn’t room to crumple in on himself anymore. Instead, Lan WangJi molded himself around the shape of his husband and, fighting the acid pain in his throat, began to hum softly to himself.
He could still feel the vibrations of his head leaking out of his ear and propagating through the pillow, but the low melody seemed to block the echo from returning to him. Every pulse would simply knock on the inside of his skull once before escaping, instead of crashing around over and over with nowhere to go. Little by little, the intensity of it drained away as the time passed.
“Lan Zhan.”
He roused himself at Wei WuXian’s call, rolling over onto his back. His husband stood there next to a barrel of steaming water, sleeves clumsily knotted and pushed up to his elbows. His robe was noticeably darker with wet patches where the water must have splashed him coming back.
“Was that our song?” he asked as he knelt next to the bed, taking Lan WangJi’s clammy hand between his own. A smile curved the sweet lines of his cheeks. “Did you miss me?”
Always, Lan WangJi thought. Out loud, he managed to produce a sticky, “Wei Ying.”
Wei WuXian kissed his fingertips. “Mm-hm. Come on, let’s get you into the bath before the water cools.”
Lan WangJi could probably have summoned the strength to sit up by himself at this point, but he looked where their hands were joined together and the will to do so left him. He stared at Wei WuXian meaningfully instead.
Wei WuXian snickered. “Okay, okay, fine, I get it. My dear husband wants to be spoiled now, hm? Well then, who am I to refuse?”
Shoving the blanket back, he helped Lan WangJi sit up and pulled his legs to hang over the edge of the bed. The upper section of Lan WangJi’s robe had already been pushed off during the soup incident, but it was still belted modestly at his waist. Wei WuXian shifted closer so Lan WangJi’s head could drop onto his shoulder as the sash was undone and the fabric covering his lower half fell away. Once he was naked, Lan WangJi hesitated for only a moment before looping his arms around Wei WuXian’s neck.
“Of course,” Wei WuXian answered his wordless request, hooking one hand behind Lan WangJi’s back and the other under his thighs.
He tilted his cheek into the side of Lan WangJi’s head as he stood and carried his husband the short distance to the barrel.
“You’re going to have to let go if you want to get in the water,” he murmured.
Lan WangJi reluctantly loosened his grip so he could be lowered into the bath. He shut his eyes as the warm water enveloped him, shivering faintly until it covered his shoulders as well.
“There you go,” Wei WuXian said. “Aren’t you proud of me? I didn’t drop you this time.”
He gathered Lan WangJi’s loose hair behind his back to keep it from running off in the water, letting it spill over the edge of the barrel. But when he moved to pull his hands away, Lan WangJi caught his wrist.
“Oh.” Wei WuXian exhaled through his nose to keep from laughing again. “Okay.”
He began to comb his fingers through Lan WangJi’s hair. The glossy locks, usually so perfectly in order, had tangled some in the night. It wasn’t very noticeable to the eye, so Wei WuXian sought them out by feel, diligently going through every strand and working them apart.
Lan WangJi relaxed under the touches, enjoying the gentle tugs along his scalp. He could already breathe easier too as the steam cleared a path through his nostrils.
His eyes fluttered open and landed on their instruments in the corner, his guqin put away properly in its stand and Wei WuXian’s flute haphazardly leaning against it.
“Wei Ying,” he croaked. He was surprised to realize the sound of his own voice, sanded down to the point where it was little more than a puff of air, no longer bothered him.
Wei WuXian’s hands stilled and he touched his chin to the top of Lan WangJi’s head, following his gaze.
“You want me to play something for you?” He laid a few butterfly kisses over Lan WangJi’s hair. “Mm. It’s so hard to drag myself away from you! Ah, Lan Zhan, you ask so much of me! But for you, I suppose I can manage.”
His fingers glided the rest of the way through Lan WangJi’s hair and he went to retrieve his flute.
When he returned, he asked, “Anything in particular?”
Lan WangJi gave a creaky, “Mm.”
“Picking up where you left off, then?” The muscles in Wei WuXian’s face strained as he fought a smile down so he could bring the flute to his lips. “Okay.”
As he began to play their song, Lan WangJi sank a little deeper into the water and was unable to resist humming along. In his opinion, the tune was far better as a duet—from a strictly objective point of view, of course.
Wei WuXian abruptly stopped playing to giggle, his nose scrunching up in delight. “Oh Lan Zhan, you sound like an old man’s squeaking joints right now.”
Lan WangJi frowned.
“No no, don’t stop!” Wei WuXian hurried to say. “You had to put up with my terrible flute playing for ages, there’s no way I can tell you to stop. Actually, I think it’s cute. The great HanGuang-Jun always does everything so effortlessly, but I get to see my dear husband Lan Zhan trying his best. Don’t worry, I’ll keep it a secret. I want this Lan Zhan all to myself anyway.”
Lan WangJi could definitely tell that his ears had turned red now. His only hope was that Wei WuXian would attribute it to the hot water. He attempted to clear his throat – with minimal success – and once Wei WuXian started to play again, he dutifully followed with his humming.
His thoughts wandered with the notes. After this, he would ask Wei WuXian to help him dry off and then join him in bed. He definitely wouldn’t be able to verbally request that Wei WuXian hold him, but, knowing his husband, he wouldn’t have to.
His humming stuttered at that. Wei WuXian noticed and paused his playing.
“Lan Zhan?” There was an unspoken, What’s wrong?
Lan WangJi shook his head. There was nothing wrong. He was just…
Wei WuXian leaned over to peck him on the cheek and then went back to his flute. Lan WangJi watched his fingers move skillfully across the instrument and felt the tight knot of shame that had been in his chest since he woke up finally loosen.
He was happy, he realized. Happy in his moment of weakness, and not despite it, either. There was something inexplicably sweet about being allowed to revel in it.
Weakness was selfish, his brain reminded him. It made him want.
And that was okay, he thought as he picked the melody back up. He had spent long enough without.
Name: firesonic152 twitter: firesonic152 archiveofourown: firesonic152
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