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Chapter Text

“Lan Zhan, Lan Zhan, come here!”

Suppressing a sigh, Lan Wangji turned away from the door to their apartment building and walked over to his excited boyfriend, currently crouched down on the sidewalk.

“Look!”  Wei Wuxian pointed at a sandy mound.  “Anthills!”

Lan Wangji waited for the explanation of whatever was remarkable about these particular anthills.

“When you usually see anthills,” continued Wei Wuxian, predictably, “they’re like small cities, right?  Kind of like our apartment complex—a bunch of buildings with a bunch of people inside.  Well, but ants.  So, like, an ant complex.  But not complex like a mental complex but like—”

“Wei Ying.”

“Right, right, but do you see here?”  He pointed at one of the hills and Lan Wangji obligingly leaned in closer.  “This pair of hills here is curved at the top, almost like the soil wasn’t strong enough building material but ants don’t do shoddy construction and then leave it so this might be intentional, which would mean that there’s variated structural concepts which is like, architect ants doing daring new things.  Lan Zhan, this may be the design of the ant version of Frank Lloyd Wright.  How cool is that?”

Lan Wangji looked at Wei Wuxian, his breath caught yet again by how much he loved him.  His ability to notice the smallest and strangest things, his curiosity about the world, his delight that splashed across his face like sunlight, the lightning speed of his mind to connect seemingly disparate information and invite the listener to marvel along with him, his generosity in sharing his joy over and over and over—how could Lan Wangji not love him?  How could anyone not love such a brilliant and beautiful man?

"I wonder if there’s a way we could see through—oh.”  Wei Wuxian interrupted himself as he finally looked up at Lan Wangji.  “Oh, I know that look.  That—you want to rail me into next week, that’s what that look is.”  His grin widened and Lan Wangji loved him even more for having spent the time to understand even his minute facial expressions—although, to be fair, Lan Wangji wanting to rail Wei Wuxian into next week was a guess that would be accurate more often than not.  “Well,” said Wei Wuxian, standing and brushing off his faded jeans, “fortunately I am such a fan of that look.  And that plan.  The ants can wait.  Sorry, ants, but I have a gorgeous boyfriend who has that expression and even Ant Lloyd Wright isn’t better than that.” 

Lan Wangji let himself be led by the hand into the building, his heart full beyond measure of love, love, love.

***

Someone had kicked the anthills.  It was a strange thing to notice—Lan Wangji, unlike his irrepressible boyfriend, did not notice the small things around him all that often.  Wei Wuxian called him focused, though many others had called him robotic; there were routines, patterns, boundaries to the world.  It took Wei Wuxian’s chaotic sprawling into Lan Wangji’s life to show him how big the world was, boundary-less and teeming with interesting things.  Lan Wangji thought of Wei Wuxian as his interpreter, translating the incomprehensible noise of everything into a language he could understand, and he would never stop being grateful for it.

Lan Wangji had learned, over the five years of knowing the unstoppable force of Wei Wuxian, to remember the things he pointed out—inevitably they would appear in a conversation whose beginning half was entirely in Wei Wuxian’s mind and Lan Wangji would scramble to catch up to the constant movement of his thoughts.  It helped if Lan Wangji could keep some of the referents in his own mind so that the distance between what Wei Wuxian was thinking and what he actually said was slightly less. 

Wei Wuxian had gone down yet another research rabbit hole about the anthills after pointing them out two weeks ago, which meant that Lan Wangji knew more than he would ever need about insect construction habits but also meant that he had started keeping an eye on the little city, carefully stepping around the mounds each time he returned from work or the store.  It was inevitable that someone would knock them over—he understood better than most how the person wouldn’t even notice—but there was a strange kind of sorrow about it, this destruction of Ant Lloyd Wright’s engineering daring.  He stood for a moment, looking at the abandoned anthills, and wondered where the ants would go next, and marveled at himself caring about ants in front of an apartment complex of all things, and loved Wei Wuxian again for teaching him to look at the world like this.

“No!” he heard shouted with the voice of the one constantly on his mind.  Lan Wangji’s head snapped up.  “Stop!”

Lan Wangji took off toward the sound, rounding the corner of the building to see the toolshed in the side yard.

“I said no!” came Wei Wuxian’s voice again from inside the shed.  Lan Wangji shucked his messenger back to his back and pulled at the door of the shed—locked?  Could you even lock a cheap toolshed from the inside?  “Get off!  Please, don’t!”

Lan Wangji looked for the join just under the closure on the door, feeling for the switch from the enforced mechanism to the thin metal underneath.  Built-from-a-box sheds like this were not made for durability and Lan Wangji kicked with all his might into that vulnerable point, popping the mechanism free and twisting the door inward with an unholy screech of material.  He tumbled through, uncaring of the long scratch on his leg now that bled through his torn trousers.

The shed was filled with the detritus of all toolsheds—garden implements and buckets shoved behind a lawnmower and several toolboxes—but in the corner was an Army-style cot.  Wei Wuxian lay on that cot, his arms bent over his head, his t-shirt rucked up around his elbows, a man straddling his hips with one hand on Wei Wuxian’s nipple and the other curled into the button of his jeans.

Lan Wangji went cold, artic rage flooding his veins, as he strode to the cot and lifted the man off Wei Wuxian by the collar of his shirt.  The man’s feet scrabbled for purchase as Lan Wangji yanked him backward.  “See here—” he began and Lan Wangji distantly felt his knuckles scrape as he punched the man so hard he fell instantly, not moving.

“Lan Zhan, Lan Zhan, Lan Zhan,” came a gulping litany, drawing Lan Wangji’s focus away from the unconscious heap at his feet, “Lan Zhan, you’re here, you’re here.”

Putting one knee down at Wei Wuxian’s side, Lan Wangji looked him in the eye.  “I’m here,” he agreed, his voice unrecognizable under the layers of anger and fear.  He reached up to pull Wei Wuxian’s shirt back down and examine his hands.  They were zip-tied at the wrist to the frame of the cot, the skin underneath chafed raw by the plastic as Wei Wuxian had struggled.  Lan Wangji swallowed, damming the artic flow to the side as he searched for something to cut the ties.  “Hold still,” he said once he’d found a pair of shears, and Wei Wuxian wrapped his fingers around the metal bar to keep the tremors rippling through his body from making his hands shake.  Lan Wangji cut the tie and Wei Wuxian sprang up, launching himself into Lan Wangji’s arms.  Lan Wangji held him tightly as Wei Wuxian sobbed into his shoulder, his hands running soothing patterns down Wei Wuxian’s back. “I’m here, I’m here, I’m here, Wei Ying, I’m here.”

After a few minutes, the trembling subsided enough for Lan Wangji to risk letting go with one arm and pulling his phone out of his pocket, his other arm still braced around Wei Wuxian.  “Nine-one-one, where’s your emergency?” came the clipped voice after he dialed.

“There’s been an attempted—there’s been an assault,” Lan Wangji said, his voice still rigid and strange as he gave the address and answered the woman’s questions.  After he hung up, he noticed the blood on the pillow.  “Wei Ying,” he gasped, the cold sloshing over the top of the dam, “Wei Ying, where are you hurt?”

Wei Wuxian curled even more tightly into his chest.  “Head,” he murmured into Lan Wangji’s collarbone. 

Lan Wangji put his phone back in his pocket and ran tentative fingers over the raven-black hair, finding a still-bleeding mess at the base of his skull.  “Wei Ying, can you tell me what day it is?”

Shaking his head, Wei Wuxian squeezed.  “Lan Zhan, don’t go.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” Lan Wangji reassured him.  “I’m here, Wei Ying, I’m here.”

The rattling noise of the stretcher told Lan Wangji the ambulance had arrived.  He had no idea how long it had taken as he gently rocked Wei Wuxian on the cot and the other man did not wake up.  He answered the questions of the paramedics as best he knew how—he had punched the man once, the man who was their building superintendent, the man who so often chatted with Wei Wuxian at the mailboxes, who asked Wei Wuxian technical questions sometimes about building structures, who took advantage of Wei Wuxian’s brilliant engineering mind and now took advantage—

“Sir, I need you to let go so we can put you on the stretcher,” said one of the medics, and Lan Wangji felt Wei Wuxian tighten his grip.  Lan Wangji’s ribs strained under the compression and he didn’t care, but he knew that Wei Wuxian’s head was bleeding and that head wounds were always tricky and he could not bear to risk anything, to risk Wei Wuxian.  “Wei Ying,” he said softly, ducking his head, “I will be right with you.”  He felt Wei Wuxian breathe and nod, slowly letting go and allowing himself to be guided onto the stretcher.  Lan Wangji followed close behind, hauling himself into the back of the ambulance and distantly realizing the attention of the medics to his own bleeding leg and bloodied hand.

“We’ll need to get a statement at the hospital,” said one of the uniformed officers Lan Wangji hadn’t even noticed arrive, and Lan Wangji nodded blankly as the doors were closed and the ambulance drove off.

***

There were too many people to talk to at the hospital.  This was Wei Wuxian’s gift, talking to people; it was he who could strike up a conversation with anyone, he who could remember someone’s favorite color and the name of their cat (but never of the person), he who would know how to handle the building scream of frustration at repeating the same information over and over and over in the sweltering heat of the emergency room and then the medicinal chill of the patient room.  But Wei Wuxian was not talking, lying glassy-eyed on the bed as the machinery of the hospital moved around him checking for all the internal injuries Lan Wangji could not fix.  It was not until he was wheeled into the room with the MRI machine that Wei Wuxian began to respond, thrashing about in the bed.

“We need him to lie still so we can check for a concussion,” said one of the technicians.  “Can you get him to stop moving?”

Lan Wangji almost laughed at the question; no one could get Wei Wuxian to stop moving.  Movement was in his blood, in his soul—he was in constant motion, always, a river carving its way through the world.  “I will try,” he said.

The tech let him into the machine room and he held Wei Wuxian’s hand in his own.  “Wei Ying,” he said, and switched into Mandarin, their language of commands, of rules, of safety.  “I need you to stop moving.  I need you to lie still so they can take their images.”

Wei Wuxian latched on, gazing at him with wide eyes.

“Tap twice if you understand,” said Lan Wangji.

Two taps on his wrist.

“Good boy,” said Lan Wangji, “you are doing so good for me.”

“Lan Zhan,” rasped Wei Wuxian, “don’t leave.”

“I’m not leaving, baobei,” Lan Wangji replied.  “I will not leave you.  You know what to say if it is too much?”  He had no idea how he would handle things if Wei Wuxian safeworded out of an MRI scan, but he needed both of them to pretend they had some kind of control here, today.

Wei Wuxian nodded.

“Say it.”

“Radish.”

“Good boy.  Lie still.”  He squeezed Wei Wuxian’s hand and stepped back, letting the look of fear on Wei Wuxian’s face tear at his soul and leave it bleeding.

“Sir, if you just keep your gaze straight up,” said the technician loudly to Wei Wuxian.

“He’s traumatized, not deaf,” said Lan Wangji in English, and at least the tech had the grace to look ashamed.

***

After several hours of waiting, of talking, and of reminding himself that these were people honestly trying to do their jobs, Lan Wangji realized that he had no car to drive them back once Wei Wuxian was discharged.  “I need to make a call,” he said to Wei Wuxian in Mandarin, the language that seemed to have kept him grounded through all the tests and procedures.  “I will be back.”

Wei Wuxian squeezed his hand and let go.

Walking away before he lost the momentum, Lan Wangji left the room and leaned against the wall as the phone dialed.

“Wangji,” came Lan Xichen’s warm voice, and Lan Wangji felt his throat close at the familiar comfort of it.  He could not reply.  “Wangji, are you all right?”

“Huan-ge,” he eked out, the childhood name suddenly the only one he could manage.

“Zhan-di, what is wrong?”  Lan Xichen’s tone switched completely into concern, the focus of it almost palpable even over the phone.

“Wei Ying, he—I found—”  He couldn’t, the words trapping themselves on his tongue, both languages failing him.

“Didi, breathe,” said Lan Xichen.  “Where are you?”

“Hospital.”  He heard a sharp intake of breath.

“For you or for Wei Wuxian?”

“Wei Ying.”

“Do you need me to come to you?”

“Yes.”

“Okay.  Okay, Mingjue is getting the keys now and we’re heading to you.  We’ll be there in twenty minutes, okay?  Which part of the hospital are you in?”

“ER.”

“Okay.  Do you need me to stay on the phone with you while we drive?”

“No.  Need to be with Wei Ying.”

“Then go be with him, didi.  We’re on our way.”

“Yes.”  Lan Wangji hung up, realizing that he hadn’t told his brother anything about what had happened and knowing that he couldn’t have, anyway.  He needed to ask Wei Wuxian if he wanted the story told.

“Lan Zhan,” said Wei Wuxian as he reentered the room, reaching a hand out for Lan Wangji to grasp. 

“Jia xiong and da-ge are on their way,” Lan Wangji said.  “Wei Ying—”  He stopped, the words crowding thick in his throat again.  He cleared it.  “Wei Ying, I can tell them nothing if you wish.”

Wei Wuxian shook his head.  “They’ll be wondering.”

“They can keep wondering.  You do not—you do not owe them an explanation.”

“But everyone else in the ER gets to have one?” snorted Wei Wuxian.  “How unfair.”

Lan Wangji pressed his lips together to keep in his commentary about “fairness,” today of all days.

“Go ahead,” said Wei Wuxian, waving his free hand aimlessly.  “But—but you tell them, yeah?  I don’t—but I mean, I know you don’t like to talk, maybe I can—”

“I will tell them, Wei Ying,” assured Lan Wangji, completely uncertain he could do any such thing.

“Wuxian Wei?” said a nurse as he entered the room, and Lan Wangji switched his brain back over to English as the man read through the diagnoses:  strained trapezius, deltoids, triceps; lacerated wrists; mild concussion and minor hematoma above the occipital bone; bruising above the iliac crests.  It had been hell to explain that some of the bruising had already been there, that the bites and green-yellow outlines littering Wei Wuxian’s body were desired, that their love was not dangerous.  Lan Wangji could live another several lifetimes without having to watch Wei Wuxian differentiate what he had allowed from what he had not on the canvas of his skin.

Wei Wuxian signed the discharge papers and Lan Wangji took the prescription notes for painkillers and joint stabilizers, carefully paying attention to the way the nurse rewrapped the gauze around Wei Wuxian’s wrists against infection.  “Keep it gentle for a couple of days while your head heals, Mr. Wei,” said the nurse, “and wear the shoulder brace for a couple of weeks while your muscles and tendons do their thing.  Check in with your LP as soon as you can to set up a follow-up, okay?”  Wei Wuxian nodded, his fingers twisting in the blanket, and Lan Wangji followed the nurse out to get any further instruction, any idea of what to do next.

“Zhan-di,” he heard as the nurse left, and he turned toward Lan Xichen’s gentle concern.  Surprising them both, Lan Wangji stepped forward into a hug, holding Lan Xichen close as his body overrode years of distance to seek something strong enough to break on.  “I’ve got you,” Lan Xichen whispered into his temple, “I’ve got you, didi.”  His soothing strokes down Lan Wangji’s spine mimicked Lan Wangji’s own on Wei Wuxian and the parallel hurt enough that Lan Wangji remembered himself, stepping back and pulling down the dress shirt he was still in, the suit he was still wearing from having arrived just after work.  Lan Xichen let him go.

“We just got the discharge information,” said Lan Wangji, his mind still bumping along in English’s cadence. “He—we came here by ambulance.”

“We’ll drive you wherever you need to go, Wangji,” said Lan Xichen.  “Are you going back home?”

Lan Wangji hesitated.  “Need to ask Wei Ying.”

“May we come in with you?”

It was absurd to make them wait in the hall, but Lan Wangji knew they needed to be prepared for what they were going to see.  The time away from Wei Wuxian’s side chafed, but he had promised to speak where Wei Wuxian could not.  “He was—Wei Ying was attacked.”  He had gotten the flesh of the story listening to the bits and pieces Wei Wuxian had had to give to the police officers and the physicians, each new sliver digging under his skin and festering.  “Our building super lured him into the toolshed and hit him over the head.  He zip-tied him down.  I came home before he—before…”  His tongue refused the statement in any language.

“Oh, Wangji,” said Lan Xichen, grief in every syllable.                

“What do we need to know?  About what to do, or not do?” said Nie Mingjue, speaking up for the first time.

Lan Wangji was grateful for his pragmatism—grief could wait.  “He is only comfortable with Mandarin right now,” Lan Wangji said, “and is easily overwhelmed.  He is—he is obviously injured,” and he thanked the universe for Wei Wuxian’s clothing hiding the bites and the bruises from his own lips, his own teeth, the reality of their physical selves kept hidden from his brother’s eyes.

“We’ll follow your lead,” said Lan Xichen, switching to Mandarin, and Lan Wangji nodded curtly before sliding the door open again.

“Lan Zhan, Lan Zhan,” said Wei Wuxian, obviously distressed as he tried to stand with one shoe on, “Lan Zhan, I thought you left, I was going to catch up, Lan Zhan—”

“I am here,” Lan Wangji hushed him, “I am here, and so are Xichen-ge and Mingjue-ge.  They are going to give us a ride.”

“Oh, yeah, yeah, thank you!  Thank you, ge, I didn’t even think—I mean, Lan Zhan is the details, right, I never notice, I never think—”

“Wei Ying,” Lan Zhan interrupted, knowing that tone, fearing its powerfully deep roots.  “Do you want to go back to our apartment?”

“You’d be welcome at our home if you’d prefer,” said Lan Xichen.  “You know we have a guest room.”

Wei Wuxian grabbed at Lan Wangji as he knelt to put on Wei Wuxian’s other shoe, forgotten in the new conversation.  Wei Wuxian dug his fingers into Lan Wangji’s shoulder, wincing slightly at the pull on his flayed wrist.  “Er-gege, can we go home?” he said, his voice unnaturally quiet.  “I—I want to go home.”

“Yes, Wei Ying, yes,” said Lan Zhan, and he tied the shoe before standing, resisting the urge to pick Wei Wuxian up in a cradle hold and never let him go again.

***

The drive back was silent, Wei Wuxian’s head leaning heavily against his window, his usual chatter achingly absent.  Lan Wangji wanted to reach out to him, to pull him into his chest and curl him under his own ribcage, to hold him so tightly that fear had no room to take root.

He looked out his own window, instead.

Pulling into the lot of their apartment building, the quartet untangled themselves from their seatbelts and Nie Mingjue and Lan Xichen took the unspoken agreement to lead.  Lan Wangji walked just behind Wei Wuxian, almost bumping into him when he stopped suddenly on the sidewalk.  Even in the dark he could see that the grass was twisted and scarred from the amount of people who had walked over it, from the weight of the stretcher and the chaos of feet.  It looked as trampled as Lan Wangji felt.

“The anthills are gone,” said Wei Wuxian, and Lan Wangji looked.  The overhead security lights highlighted the sand swept clean, almost, the sidewalk itself striped with blades of grass that had gotten caught in shoes and wheels and lay on the light concrete like haphazard confetti.  Wei Wuxian took off, suddenly, around the building.  Lan Wangji handed the bag of braces and pills and instructions to Lan Xichen before he followed, finding Wei Wuxian standing in front of the bright yellow X of police tape over the door of the toolshed.

“Wei Ying,” said Lan Wangji, his voice low and uncertain.

“He wanted me to look at one of the lawnmowers.  The clutch was catching, he said.  I was good with machines, he said.  Stupid enough to have my head turned by an easy compliment.”

“Not stupid,” Lan Wangji replied, coming around to Wei Wuxian’s sightline.  “Wei Ying, you were not stupid.”

Wei Wuxian raised an eyebrow.  “No?  Not even when I walked in and didn’t see him because he was standing by the door with a fucking brick?  That’s a cartoon, Lan Zhan.  That’s poor writing.  That’s a cliché.”

“You were not stupid.  He had asked you to help many times before and they were true requests.”

“One wonders how long I wasn’t paying attention.”

“Wei Ying.”  Lan Wangji reached out and took Wei Wuxian’s hand, ignoring the limpness of it.  “This was not your fault.”

Wei Wuxian rolled his eyes.  “Lucky I have you to save the day, eh, Lan Zhan?  Should start calling you Hanguang-Jun, bringer of light to the dark and shadowed toolsheds of nefarious villains and their inept victims.”

“You are not inept.”

“No, just completely unaware.”

“Wei Ying—”

“Leave it, Lan Zhan.  Let’s not keep your brother waiting.”  He turned and strode off, the long line of him a layer of dark in the night gloom.

***

It was Lan Wangji who asked his brother to stay the night.  Wei Wuxian merely shrugged and rolled his eyes, dismissing the whole possibility of it, of himself.  He did not say he was fine and this worried Lan Wangji even more—if he was not even pretending, if he was not hiding, if he was only accepting…

Lan Wangji called in sick for the both of them and Wei Wuxian glared at him.  “I’m not sick, Lan Zhan.”

“You were in the hospital.”

“Yeah, but Jiang Cheng tells me all the time that stupidity isn’t a sickness.”

“You are not—”  Lan Wangji felt his hands clench into fists and concentrated on his breathing, watching Wei Wuxian watch him with calculating eyes.

“Not--?  There are a great many things I am not, Lan Zhan.  Sick is among them.  Well, medically sick, anyway.”

Lan Wangji continued breathing, continued focusing on loosening his hands, continued not crying, continued screaming inside.  Wei Wuxian said his good nights to Lan Xichen and Nie Mingjue and crossed to Lan Wangji.  He hesitated and laid a tentative hand on Lan Wangji’s shoulder; Lan Wangji could only see the gauze wrapped around the wrist.

“Take your medication before you sleep,” Lan Wangji said.

Wei Wuxian grimaced.  “If you say so, Hanguang-Jun,” he muttered, and Lan Wangji had never hated a nickname more.

“Didi,” said Lan Xichen after Wei Wuxian had left for the bedroom, “are you sure you want us to stay?”

Lan Wangji nodded.  “I focus on Wei Ying.  You focus on everything else.”  He paused.  “Unless you need to be elsewhere.”

“We’re here as long as you need us,” said Nie Mingjue.  “That’s a good plan of yours, especially for the first few days.”

Lan Xichen looked at him.  “Experience?” he said softly.

Nie Mingjue shrugged.  “Lot of folks in college decided I was their brother.  They didn’t have anybody else they trusted.”

“Protecting the world,” murmured Lan Xichen, reaching out and squeezing Nie Mingjue’s hand.

Nie Mingjue looked away, slightly flushed.  “Nothing big,” he mumbled, and Lan Xichen smiled.

“Go, Wangji,” Lan Xichen said.  “Go be with him.  We’ll take care of everything else.  Yes, we know where the linens are.  Go.”

Lan Wangji went.

Wei Wuxian was already in bed, curled up tightly on his side under the covers, an unmoving lump that made Lan Wangji’s muscles ache in sympathy.  Lan Wangji took his time getting ready, his movements telegraphed loudly as he kept Wei Wuxian’s watchful gaze in the corner of his eye.  When he finally climbed into his side of the bed, he felt more closely wound than Wei Wuxian, each muscle taut underneath his skin.  On his back, he waited for Wei Wuxian’s customary draping of himself as an extra blanket across Lan Wangji’s chest, a weight Lan Wangji had learned it was difficult to sleep without.

The space between them remained.

Chapter Text

It did not surprise Lan Wangji, as he blinked himself to awareness, to find Wei Wuxian thrashing in the tangled-up covers.  “Wei Ying,” he called, his voice cracking with sleep, “Wei Ying, wake up.”  He noticed that one of the wrist bandages had torn with the force of Wei Wuxian’s nightmare and reached to pull it the rest of the way off.

“No!” shouted Wei Wuxian, yanking his hand back, “no, don’t, Lan Zhan, please, Lan Zhan—”

Lan Wangji stopped breathing.  Was he the thing that Wei Wuxian feared in the shadows of his mind?

“Lan Zhan, please, help—don’t do this, Lan Zhan will come, Lan Zhan will—”

“Wei Ying!” shouted Lan Wangji, shaking his beloved until the grey eyes snapped open.

“Lan Zhan?”

“Wei Ying.”

Lan Wangji was not prepared for the full-body launch of Wei Wuxian, barely catching him before they could topple off the bed.

“I’m sorry, Lan Zhan, I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry, I told him you would be so angry, I told him—”

“Wei Ying,” interrupted Lan Wangji, “Wei Ying, I am here.”  He ran soothing fingers down Wei Wuxian’s spine, sorting through the cascade of half-finished sentences that continued to pour out of him.  The dream, Lan Wangji gathered from Wei Wuxian’s broken fragments, had not featured he himself as the attacker but of Wei Wuxian calling for him—for him.  Had he done so in the toolshed?  The thought of Lan Wangji’s name on Wei Wuxian’s tongue at such a moment of fear and anger turned something inside Lan Wangji into molten lava, a river of fury and pride and lust that startled him.  He whispered love into Wei Wuxian’s hair, holding him tightly as the shockwaves lessened until he felt Wei Wuxian tense.  He let go entirely as Wei Wuxian scrambled backward.

“I’m sorry, Lan Zhan, I’m sorry, I woke you up—”

“Wei Ying.  There is no need for sorry.”

“Ahahaha, you say that, Lan Zhan,” laughed Wei Wuxian awkwardly, scratching the back of his neck, “but how grumpy you’ll be when you have to wake up in—” he checked the clock, “oh, fuck, in two hours.  I’m sorry, that’s going to be hell on your sleep schedule, ugh, and you don’t even drink coffee, I’ll just, I’ll just shut up now and you don’t have to—”

“Wei Ying.”  Lan Wangji reached out slowly, watching Wei Wuxian track his movement, and gently pulled down Wei Wuxian’s arms.  He turned over the wrists, noting the mottled bruising now purpled around the red lacerations on one, checking that the gauze bracelet was still secured on the other.  “I do not have to.  I want to.”

“Ah, well, that’s—you’re too good, Lan Zhan, always too good.”

“Do you want to tell me about it?”

Wei Wuxian stiffened further.  “About…?”

“The dream.”

“Oh, yeah, the dream, well, you know, I probably babbled the whole narrative at you just now, you know me, can’t even shut up in my sleep and then still crying nonsense at you, it’s fine, whatever—”

“Wei Ying.”

Wei Wuxian took a deep breath, his fingers uncurling against Lan Wangji’s wrists.  “This is so stupid, Lan Zhan, I don’t know why it’s a thing.  I mean, nothing really happened, right?”

Lan Wangji tapped the gauze lightly.

“Well, yeah, I mean, that, but what the hell, I’ve had worse from Madam Yu on her good days, right?  This is fine.”

Lan Wangji did not tighten his hands around Wei Wuxian’s wrists in anger, did not grit his teeth at yet another dismissal of the cruelty of Wei Wuxian’s foster mother, did not plan five ways to fly out to the house where Wei Wuxian grew up to slowly eviscerate the pair masquerading as parents.  It was a close thing.

“You’re getting that look.”

“What look?”

Wei Wuxian laughed lightly.  “The one where I’ve said something that makes you angry at someone else.  Is it Madam Yu?  I didn’t mean to throw her under your bus, Lan Zhan, don’t be angry.”

Lan Wangji let out a slow, controlled breath.  He and his brother had talked about this—for a given measure of “talk” between them, trained as they were to be seen and not heard, never heard, never unruly with the inconvenience of disruptive emotions.  In a relationship, one needs to be clear.  Expectations should be stated.  “I am angry that you were hurt,” he said, planning each word carefully.  “I am angry that there was no one to protect you.”

“Lan Zhan, I’m fine!  It was never that bad.  Don’t worry about it.”

The sheer magnitude of Lan Wangji’s worry could flatten a city block. 

“Anyway, I live with the unstoppable Lan Wangji now and Madam Yu is in a completely different city.  It’s fine.”

Lan Wangji did not preen.  He did not.  “It is not fine if you have nightmares,” he said instead.

It was the years of carefully watching that allowed Lan Wangji to see the moment Wei Wuxian’s laughter crystallized into a mask, the fear underneath buried so deeply even Lan Wangji couldn’t see it anymore.  “I had a nightmare, and we’re good now, and I’m sorry I woke you up.  We should go back to sleep.  I know you called us both out of work—which you didn’t have to do, but whatever—but we can still get some stuff done.  I can catch up on emails like you’re always telling me to do, you with the actually-empty inbox, who even does that.”  The teasing was strange and hollow, Wei Wuxian’s eyes flat and opaque.  Lan Wangji hated it, hated that Wei Wuxian still did this, hated that they trusted each other with their lives but not their fear, hated every single person in Wei Wuxian’s life who had taught him that being vulnerable was dangerous.

Including himself.

“Wei Ying—”

“Get some rest, Lan Zhan.  It’s been a long day.”  Wei Wuxian settled back down, his back to Lan Wangji, and Lan Zhan wanted to punch a hole through the wall.  He slept instead.

***

"Good morning, brother,” said Lan Xichen when Lan Wangji entered the kitchen and gratefully accepted a cup of tea.  The Lan brothers were used to being the only ones moving around at such an hour, their partners long since accustomed to the mornings being Lan property.  “Did you sleep?”

“Some.”

“Nightmares?”

Lan Wangji nodded.

“Yours or his?”

Lan Wangji looked at his brother, at the openness of his expression, and hated him slightly for knowing him this well.  “Wei Ying.”

"I am glad you got there when you did, didi.”

The reassurance zapped through Lan Wangji like lightning, burning him from the inside out.  He paused to consider for the first time how incredibly lucky it was.  What if he hadn’t made it?  What if he had stayed to finish more emails at work?  What if he had missed the bus and gotten a later one, or had his headphones in like he sometimes did to drown out the overwhelming noise of the world, and had not heard Wei Wuxian’s cry?  What if he had walked up the sidewalk slightly faster?  What if he had not noticed the anthill?

“Didi, A-Zhan, breathe,” Lan Wangji heard as the cup was taken out of his hands.  “Look at me.  Can you do that?”

Lan Wangji dragged his eyes into focus on his brother’s face, the shapes that so many people thought were exactly like his own.  He had never understood that, never understood how anyone could get them mixed up when there was so much movement in Lan Xichen’s face, so much expression and life.  Lan Xichen, he thought, would notice anthills.

“A-Zhan, can you hear me?”

Lan Wangji nodded, realizing that his mind was grasping now for the Mandarin coming from his brother’s mouth, that now it was he who needed the language of commands and rules and safety.

“Can you breathe with me?  In, and out.  Hold.  In, and out.”  Lan Xichen picked up Lan Wangji’s hand and put it on his own sternum to feel the rise and fall.  Lan Wangji focused, distantly realizing how short his own breathing had become, wondering when his heartbeat got this fast.  “Good, didi, good,” praised Lan Xichen, remaining in their original tongue, and Lan Wangji scowled at the way his breathing slowed even further at the approval.  They stood in the kitchen, breathing, for several minutes before Lan Wangji pulled away.  “Where did you go?” asked Lan Xichen.

Lan Wangji picked up his tea, wrapping his long fingers around the cup, still feeling the warmth of his brother’s chest under his palm.  “Could have missed it,” he said.

“Yes, you could have.”

Lan Wangji’s eyes snapped to his brother’s, the panic rising again.

Lan Xichen put his hand on his own chest, exaggerating his breathing, and Lan Wangji synced again.  “But you did not,” Lan Xichen said after several cycles.  “You did not miss it.  You heard, and you helped, and you are here.”

A silence settled between them as Lan Wangji took out this new guilt, examining it, feeling its weight in his grasp.  There was fear woven through, so much fear, and he felt the fear and anger and pain of how much Wei Wuxian had grinned his way through in his life, of how many times Lan Wangji had awakened to Wei Wuxian shivering alone in the nightmares he did not share, of how close this had been, how close—

“Wangji,” came his brother’s voice.  “Wangji, it was yesterday.”

Lan Wangji looked at him questioningly. 

Lan Xichen spun his cup slowly in his hands.  “Do you remember when Mingjue and I first started dating and I told you I had also started therapy?”

A slow nod.

“Did I ever tell you why?”

Lan Wangji shook his head.

Lan Xichen sighed.  “You probably filled in several answers of your own, and you’d be right—we have many things to unpack from our youth, didi, you and I.  But the thing that convinced me to go was Mingjue, actually.  On our fifth date, he decided that he wanted to impress me with a ‘real’ Chinese dinner—you know he was born here in America, but he’d asked friends and some cousins and done his research.  He wanted me to feel like I could show him home, he said, even though by that point I’d spent twice as long here as in China.”  Lan Xichen smiled at the memory and Lan Wangji felt something warm slide through him at the thought of a nervous and young Nie Mingjue learning his own forgotten culture to impress his boyfriend.  “Anyway, we went into Chinatown and it was beautiful and overwhelming and somehow so much different from when you and I would go even though it was all the same places.  After dinner we were walking around the stalls and we passed by an alley where a couple was having an argument.”  Lan Xichen paused, his lips tightening.  “I wasn’t really paying attention to what they were fighting about, but suddenly the man slapped the woman.  I can still hear the way his hand connected with her cheek.”

There as a long pause and Lan Wangji could see the way Lan Xichen was working on his own breathing, deliberately expanding in, contracting out.  Lan Wangji waited, glad that they had learned to always wait for each other.

“I’m a social worker,” Lan Xichen continued eventually.  “I see the effects of violence all the time.  Far more than I should have to.  But that image of a Chinese man hitting a Chinese woman…”  His jaw tightened, released.  “Mingjue had to pull me away, physically.  He says I didn’t answer him for nearly five minutes.  He didn’t know, at that point, about our parents, but he knew that I was connecting with that scene on a much deeper level than mere anger about domestic abuse.  He said he was concerned for me, that he was scared for me.  I called to set an appointment with a therapist the next day.”

Lan Wangji did not know how to ask how this is connected, any more than he knew how to picture a scared Nie Mingjue.  Other people were scared of Nie Mingjue.

“When we talked about that, the therapist and I, he said it was yesterday.  I thought he was talking about the scene in the alley, although even that had been a few weeks before by that point.”  Lan Xichen huffed a laugh that had no humor.  “He said no—what I was seeing was yesterday.  It was Father, and even though it was twenty years before, it was yesterday.  My mind kept it at the front all those years.”  He reached out and laid a gentle hand on Lan Wangji’s shoulder.  “For you, this literally was yesterday, that you found the one you love bleeding and frightened in a shed.  It’s going to scare you, and make you doubt everything, for a while, because it’s going to be right at the front of things like it was yesterday.  You’re going to see it in places that don’t make sense, that fear and anger.  That doesn’t mean it’s your fault, or that you’re broken in some inhuman way.  It means you’re very much human, actually.  Okay?”

Lan Wangji swallowed, suddenly feeling very young next to this brother who had faced the memories inside him, who dispensed advice with such genuine warmth, who saw him better than anyone else ever had, even Wei Wuxian.  It was an unnerving difference, both blessedly comforting and horrifyingly honest.  “Okay,” he rasped, his voice strangely raw, and Lan Xichen squeezed his shoulder before turning to pick up the teapot and pour.

***

Wei Wuxian slept most of the day, rousing in the late morning to eat half of a breakfast and scowl at Lan Wangji making sure he took his medications, changed his bandages, and checked the progress of the concussion and the muscle strains.  He drifted back into their bedroom almost sullenly, as though having to care for his body was an imposition he wished he could forget.

Lan Wangji thought that was exactly what Wei Wuxian would wish.

“Wangji,” said Nie Mingjue after Lan Wangji had made sure Wei Wuxian was settled and asleep, “come here.”

“Wait, Wangji,” cut in Lan Xichen from the kitchen, “was today your store day?”

Lan Wangji realized it was Thursday, suddenly feeling that it being Thursday was the most ridiculous fact in the universe, and almost laughed at the incredible tedium of it being Thursday, grocery day, as though chores had any meaning now.  He swallowed the hysterical bubble of derision.  “Yes.”

“I see your list here on the fridge.  Do you mind if I go?  I have most of the brands here to make sure I get the right things.”

Lan Wangji thought of going to the store himself and trembled inside.  “Thank you, ge,” he said.

“I’ll be back soon,” replied Lan Xichen, and Lan Wangji felt the gentleness of his tone run like sandpaper over his skin.

“Wangji,” repeated Nie Mingjue after a moment.  Lan Wangji shook himself and went to sit on the chair next to his brother-in-law.  “This isn’t my area of law, but I know some people—it will be up to Wei Wuxian, of course, but I wanted to give you a head start on thinking about this.”

“This?”

“Pressing charges.  For assault.  Did the police take a statement at the hospital?”

Ah.  Lan Wangji was suddenly so tired, tired enough that he wanted to curl up next to Wei Wuxian and sleep the day away.  “Yes,” he said, remembering the bored officers with their toolbelts full of violence.  Wei Wuxian had almost cut off the circulation in Lan Wangji’s hand during that interview, the flat terseness of his answers more painful than Lan Wangji’s fingertips going white.

“Good,” said Nie Mingjue.  “A statement goes a long way in this not being a he-said he-said case, especially since there’s the hospital visit to go with it.”

Lan Wangji flinched and Nie Mingjue paused before closing his laptop.  “Wangji,” said Nie Mingjue.  “I can keep going with this and talk to you again later.  It doesn’t have to be right now, I know, but these things get messier the longer you leave them.”

There were words in Lan Wangji’s mouth, he could feel them, feel the lilting consonants sticking underneath his tongue.  He opened his mouth and none of them come out.  He clicked his jaw shut in frustration.

“This is how I can help, Wangji,” said Nie Mingjue.  “I’m a lawyer.  I can’t do what Xichen can do.  But if I’m pushing you too fast, let me know.”

The words tasted sharp and metallic.  Lan Wangji nodded, swallowing them down, hoping they did not cut his throat on the way.

***

When Lan Xichen returned, the brothers wordlessly fell into the rhythm of putting away food and preparing dinner.  It was strange, Lan Wangji thought absently, how they danced with each other.  Preparing dinner with Wei Wuxian was a tango: slow in the scattered kisses, slow in the way Wei Wuxian would wrap himself around Lan Wangji’s back and chatter over his shoulder, quick quick in Wei Wuxian’s bright laughter as he brought a blush to Lan Wangji’s ears while his mind darted over a thousand connections and Lan Wangji could only love him as he followed along behind.

Preparing dinner with Lan Xichen was a waltz, stately and measured and smooth.  There was no hesitance between them as they flowed out of each other’s way until Lan Wangji suddenly interrupted the dance with a hand over his heart to push down how much it hurt in a good way.

“Wangji?” asked Lan Xichen.  “Are you all right?”

Lan Wangji did not know how to say that it was a gift that he and his brother still found each other’s rhythms.  He did not know how to name the aching gratitude he felt at not having had to spend the day fretting over Wei Wuxian alone.  “Thank you,” he said, knowing it was a paltry thing, knowing that other people would be able to make the waltz beautiful and clear.

Lan Xichen studied him a moment.  “You’re welcome,” he said, and Lan Wangji loved his brother beyond measure for knowing that they were both talking about so much more than a stir fry.

***

“Wei Ying,” said Lan Wangji a while later as he entered their bedroom.  “Wei Ying, dinner is ready.”  He could see the lines of tension in his boyfriend’s shoulders over the rise of the duvet and wished he could forcefully pull them out to leave Wei Wuxian loose and happy.

“Give me a minute,” said Wei Wuxian, his voice as strained as his shoulders, and Lan Wangji closed the door behind him to stand there and breathe until he could let go of the handle.

***

"Is that the Lan Xichen Special I smell?” said Wei Wuxian brightly when he emerged ten minutes later.  “An ever-popular crowd favorite, good choice, good choice.”

Lan Xichen smiled.  “Your chili oil is ready and waiting, Wei Wuxian.  I picked up a few extra bottles at the store today; Wangji made sure I knew the right brand.”

“You—?”  Wei Wuxian faltered as he reached his chair.  “Oh, shit, Lan Zhan, it’s Thursday.  Oh, fuck; I meant—were you—you didn’t have to do our shopping for us, Xichen-ge.”

“I rather like grocery shopping,” returned Lan Xichen.  “And Mingjue hates it, so perhaps it is good for me to have the excuse to get a little extra out of my system without dragging him along.”  His eyes were bright with welcome and fondness.

“He goes down every.  Single.  Aisle,” said Nie Mingjue in a tone of long-suffering endurance.  “Even if he knows we don’t need anything from that aisle.  Even if he has the whole store layout memorized and wouldn’t need to go down half the aisles ever.”

“It is fascinating to see what people sell,” replied Lan Xichen as they began to eat.

“And sometimes you come home with things no one in their right mind should buy, which only encourages such people to sell more ridiculous things because they think people want them.”

Lan Xichen grinned.  “Only rarely.  And you must admit, it gives the apartment such character to have interesting knickknacks.”

Nie Mingjue muttered something less than complimentary about “character” at his vegetables that Lan Wangji didn’t quite catch, and the whole exchange was so normal that Lan Wangji felt a scream building in his chest.  He knew that it was good to have this banter, that it was good to return to the familiar as much as they could, and he loved his brother for making that possible in a way that he would never know how to manage.  But the weight of yesterday hung so heavily on him.  How was there still banter in the world when the shed had gashes of Wei Wuxian’s blood?

“Lan Zhan, are you okay?”

Lan Wangji blinked at the concern on Wei Wuxian’s and Nie Mingjue’s faces—at the understanding on Lan Xichen’s.  He had no idea how to answer and he hated it, hated this, was startled by the sudden intensity of his hatred and rage that didn’t have a target or a direction.  “Wei Ying,” he said instead, helplessness shaping his consonants.

Wei Wuxian reached across the table and took Lan Wangji’s hand.  “Told you you’d be grumpy after I woke you up,” he said.  “You Lans need your sleep schedule.”

“Wei Ying, no,” protested Lan Wangji.

“Do you two have things you need to do in your real lives?” continued Wei Wuxian, turning away from Lan Wangji without answering.  “I mean, thank you for keeping Lan Zhan company today while I was a complete waste of space, but I’m going to work tomorrow and I don’t want you to miss anything on my account while I’m not even here.”

“What?” asked Lan Wangji.

“What what?”

“You’re going to work?”  Lan Wangji felt like he had missed a step in a staircase he hadn’t realized he’d been climbing.

Wei Wuxian shrugged.  “Yeah.  I’ve got all the meds and I slept all day today, so there’s really no reason I can’t go back to being a good little productive cog in capitalism’s wheels.”

“Wei Ying—”

“Wangji,” interjected Lan Xichen, and Lan Wangji just barely kept from glaring at him.  Didn’t he see how this was Wei Wuxian backing away from acknowledging that anything was wrong?  Didn’t he know this was a refusal to admit feeling pain, to having needs?

“Ge,” he said instead of any of that, his tone slightly pleading.

“Look, tomorrow is Friday,” said Wei Wuxian.  “I’ll work the day and then you have both full weekend days to fuss over all the broken pieces of me and glue them back together like you always do, Lan Zhan, don’t worry about it.”

“Wei Wuxian,” began Lan Xichen, but Wei Wuxian cut him off by standing abruptly.

“Thank you for dinner, Xichen-ge, and shopping, and staying, and I’m sorry to be a bad host but I’m all done for the evening.”  He took his half-full plate to the kitchen and headed back to the bedroom.

Lan Wangji pushed back his chair to go after him and felt a hand on his arm, pushing him down.  “Give him a minute,” said Nie Mingjue.

Lan Wangji scowled at him.

“I know,” said Nie Mingjue.  “Trust me, I know.  But chasing an animal that already feels trapped will only get you bitten.”

“Wei Ying is not an animal,” Lan Wangji snapped.

“In the ways that matter right now, yes, he is,” replied Nie Mingjue, letting go of Lan Wangji’s arm.  “If you push him right now, he’ll just yell at you and you’ll both feel bad.”

“He is not taking care of himself.”

“Nope.  But he is protecting himself.  He thinks normalcy is going to make the fear and the anger go away.”  Nie Mingjue’s gaze flitted over Lan Xichen before returning to Lan Wangji.  “He has to test that theory and watch it fail on his own before he’ll even begin to admit that he might need help.  If you stop him, he’ll just tell himself he would’ve been fine if only you hadn’t intervened, and he’ll be mad at you in a way even he doesn’t understand.”

***

Lan Xichen and Nie Mingjue settled in the guest room once again before Lan Wangji allowed himself to go back to his own bedroom.  Wei Wuxian was rigid in the bed in the dark and Lan Wangji tiptoed around him.  He did not want to negotiate either of them going to work in the morning.  He did not want to negotiate how they would sleep like this when he had become so accustomed to Wei Wuxian’s weight on him, their hearts beating next to each other.  He slid into the bed and dozed, filled with all he did not want.

He had no idea what woke him in the night—Wei Wuxian lay still next to him, his body having not moved an inch.  The grey of the too-late-but-not-early morning made him bleary and Lan Wangji thought of how Wei Wuxian was going to strain his muscles even further like this, thought of how much pain he must be in with such contrast to his usual loose-limbed sprawl, and Lan Wangji did not think before he pulled on Wei Wuxian’s hands.

“Don’t!” shouted Wei Wuxian, his limbs exploding outward as he flailed out of bed.  Something smacked into the wall, hard, flung off the nightstand in Wei Wuxian’s haste, followed by the heavy thunk of Wei Wuxian himself falling to the ground.

“Wei Ying, Wei Ying, I’m sorry,” said Lan Wangji, pulling away and into himself, “Wei Ying, it’s only me, it’s only me.”

The shuddering gasps of Wei Wuxian’s breath clocked the silence in an erratic metronome before several knocks came at the door.  “Wangji?  Wuxian?  Are you okay?”

“Fine,” called Wei Wuxian from the floor.  “We’re fine.”

Lan Xichen entered, the door swinging slowly as though it, too, needed time to adjust.  “We heard a crash.”

“Just fell out of bed, Xichen-ge, don’t worry about us, everything is fine.”  Wei Wuxian’s tone was as tight as his body, each syllable dragged from his teeth.

“Wei Wuxian—”

“Sorry to wake you,” interrupted Wei Wuxian, and Lan Wangji could not look away from him.

“Thank you for your concern, xiongzhang,” Lan Wangji said instead.  “Nothing is broken.”  He heard a hum from the doorway and finally turned, meeting his brother’s eyes in the moonlight.  It had been a long time since Lan Wangji had seen his brother in the dishevelment of sleep, but Lan Xichen’s eyes were sharp even in the shadows.  Lan Wangji knew that everyone in the room knew they were lying, but dating Wei Wuxian had taught him that the truth was always a matter of how one told the story.  “We will see you in the morning.”

Lan Xichen held his gaze a moment longer before nodding, closing the door behind himself as he left.

“Wei Ying—” began Lan Wangji, turning back.

“Not your fault,” returned Wei Wuxian as he stood and untangled himself from the covers.  “Didn’t break anything.  It’s fine.”

“I do not care if things break.”

“Well, you should. You spent money on them, after all.”

“I care if you break.”

The laugh that answered this was strangled and thin.  “Ah, Lan Zhan, I glue back together easily, right?  You have enough practice—always patching this one up, aren’t you?  Lan Zhan, going wherever the chaos is and saving the poor unfortunate souls he finds.  You’re too good, Hanguang-Jun, too good for this lowly one.”  Wei Wuxian bent to pick up whatever had fallen, to right the order of the nightstand.

“Wei Ying, please.  Please, talk to me.”

“Did I hurt you?” 

Lan Wangji was startled to suddenly be under the full focus of his boyfriend’s gaze, intense and dark.  “What?”

“When I lashed out, did I hit you?  Did I hurt you?”  The tone was achingly earnest, all the sharp sarcasm abandoned.

“No, Wei Ying.  I am uninjured.”

The sigh of relief was visible, even in the slivers of moonlight, and Lan Wangji ached that Wei Wuxian could not care for himself even a tenth as much as he cared for his partner.  “Good, that’s good, that’s—you.  You know I never want to hurt you, right?”

“Then talk to me.”  Lan Wangji could hear himself begging, hated the tone of his own voice, wanted to claw it out of himself.  “Please, Wei Ying, please.  I do not know how to help you.”

Wei Wuxian opened his mouth, teetering on the moment of reaching out, and Lan Wangji could not help himself from physically lifting his hand as though to catch him, to pull him back from this cliff.  “I’m sorry I scared you,” Wei Wuxian said instead, his face shuttering.  “I’ll go sleep on the couch tonight.”

“Wei Ying.”  The name tore Lan Wangji’s throat on its way out as Wei Wuxian grabbed his pillow and left Lan Wangji standing at the cliff edge, his hand holding nothing at all.

Chapter Text

Lan Wangji woke at five, as he always did, and the bed was so cold.  He mechanically changed into his running clothes, pulled his phone off its charger, went out to the living room to eat a granola bar.  Wei Wuxian was curled up on the couch, his form impossibly small under the throw blanket, and Lan Wangji had to stop himself from bodily lifting the man into his arms to bring him back to the bedroom.  He settled, instead, for tucking the blanket more tightly around him and getting another blanket from the basket in the corner.  He knelt in front of the couch for a long minute, wishing desperately to trace the lock of hair across Wei Wuxian’s cheek with his lips, thinking of all the mornings that he has awakened at five in Wei Wuxian’s arms and had to untangle himself from the warmth of his body.  He was suddenly, foolishly furious at his past self for every time he left this beautiful man to go running, every time he kissed him and then walked away, and he knew it was irrational and that Wei Wuxian loved when he came back and kissed him awake with wind-chilled lips, and he did not care that it was ridiculous because he ached for the happiness of those mornings that was not here in this one.

He went running anyway.

When he returned, Lan Xichen was quietly preparing breakfast.  “Wangji,” he said as Lan Wangji toed off his shoes at the door.  “Wei Wuxian is getting ready for work.”

Lan Wangji closed his eyes and took a deep breath.  In.  Hold.  Out.  Hold.

“I apologized for waking him, but he said I was a good alarm clock.”

“He wanted to make sure he didn’t startle me again,” said Lan Wangji, hearing the question behind Lan Xichen’s statement.

“Wangji—”

“Xiongzhang, please.  I don’t—I can’t…”  Lan Wangji swallowed all the words that had no real form, anyway, the explanations he did not know how to give about his boyfriend sleeping on a couch when he was traumatized and hurting.  The fact that Wei Wuxian didn’t feel he could trust Lan Wangji with that twisted in his stomach, a dull knife digging through soft flesh.

Lan Xichen came around the kitchen island to meet Lan Wangji in the entryway and Lan Wangji tensed involuntarily, unsure how to respond to the proximity.  He was not a hugger, generally.  He had never been a hugger.

“Relax, didi,” Lan Xichen said, his voice gentle, his hands splayed wide as though Lan Wangji were a frightened rabbit.  “I only wanted to say that Mingjue and I are going to work as well today but that you have our numbers if you need us.  I did not want to shout that across your kitchen.”

Lan Wangji, who had never heard his brother shout in his life, relaxed.

“Go get ready,” Lan Xichen continued, turning away.  “I will finish breakfast.”

Lan Wangji met Wei Wuxian as he was heading out of the bathroom, towel slung low on his waist.  Lan Wangji’s body nearly convulsed at the power of two wildly different responses: the heat that always pooled in his abdomen at the sight of his nearly-naked boyfriend, and the new fury at the bruises blooming across Wei Wuxian’s torso that Lan Wangji did not put there.

“Ah, Lan Zhan,” said Wei Wuxian, his eyes darting across Lan Wangji’s face and then away.  “Shower’s free.  Good timing.”

“Wei Ying,” said Lan Wangji, the only words he knew he would never be unable to speak.  “Are—did you sleep?”

Wei Wuxian’s lips pulled in recognition of the absence of “well.”  He shrugged.  “Enough,” he said, which Lan Wangji knew was never actually enough for a functional human.  “Your brother is kind enough to make us breakfast again.  It’s a hell of a handy thing that both of you are good cooks—if, you know, less than adventurous about it.”  The usual ribbing about spice fell flat between them, its undergirding of affection stilted and stiff.  “Go on, take your shower, don’t want to be late to work, do you?”  Wei Wuxian turned away to pull his clothing from the closet and Lan Wangji saw the abrasions across his back.

He fled to the bathroom before he could punch a hole in the wall that would definitely lose them their security deposit.

***

Breakfast was a mechanical thing, Wei Wuxian joking with Nie Mingjue about his and Lan Xichen’s weekend plans as though this were a sitcom with bawdy lines delivered for a laugh track.  The Lan brothers fell back to the comfortable familiarity of years of silent meals, letting their partners bat meaningless taunts at each other.  They cleaned up together as Wei Wuxian did his usual mad dash all over the apartment to gather his scattered belongings necessary for the work day, chaos no matter how Lan Wangji tried to contain it.

When they all left, Lan Wangji was the one who locked the door behind them, realizing that this was the first time in three years that he and Wei Wuxian had left the apartment together without kissing each other goodbye.

His stomach hurt the entire way to his bus stop, the knife twisting and twisting.

***

Things happened over the course of the morning, Lan Wangji was sure of it, but he marked none of them.  He moved through his work with as much detachment as people usually accused him of having, the coldness of his exterior holding the heated confusion of his interior together.  After lunch, he knew that he could not continue this—if he missed something that actually mattered, some meeting or email or conversation, it would only make next week that much harder.  He took a half day, finding himself on the bus home on autopilot.  He stood on the sidewalk to their building and stared at the flattened anthills again and could not breathe, suddenly, his ribs breaking under the knife that was not there, his heart in splintered pieces, and he was kneeling on the concrete and he did not know why and the grass and the sand and the glaring white were so much—

“Didi,” he heard through the screaming static in his mind that sounded like the wrenching of cheap metal doors, “didi, come on.  Stand up.”

There were hands at his elbow, pulling, and his body obeyed.  He was walking, the sand crunching under his shoes, and there was the elevator and the door and this was his apartment, their apartment, and the person at his side settled him on the couch.  Lan Wangji’s hands were warm—tea, this was a mug of tea, gunpowder green that Wei Ying loved buying because he thought it was funny to talk about gunpowder as green even though he knew that was not what that meant.

“Wangji, look at me.”

The tea came from the voice that came from Lan Xichen, who settled on the couch with Lan Wangji, and both of them were supposed to be at work.  “Why are you here?” asked Lan Wangji, his brain unsure why he himself was here in the living room with tea.

“I called your office to check on you,” Lan Xichen replied.  “They told me you’d gone home.”

Lan Wangji nodded.  This makes sense.  “But I have only just left.”

Lan Xichen pressed his lips together. “Wangji, they told me you left an hour before I called.”

That was not right.  The timing was not right.  The bus ride was 25 minutes, when the bus was on time, and the bus was usually on time, which Wei Ying was jealous of because his bus was usually ten minutes late.  It took 15 minutes for Lan Xichen to get from the hospital to this apartment.  Thirty minutes of transit did not account for the 75 minutes Lan Xichen said had passed.

How long had he knelt on the sidewalk?

Lan Wangji felt a giggle bubble up his throat at the thought, a math problem from his school days of trains leaving in opposite directions with arrival times only trapped students had to calculate.  The giggle spilled out of his lips and it was not a giggle at all but a choked whine of a thing and the tea was no longer in his hands and he was wrapped up in his brother’s arms, held tightly like he had not been since they were children, and he could feel his own fingers digging into the back of Lan Xichen’s shirt and he was sobbing, his breath hitching on every inhale that was never deep enough.

“Breathe, A-Zhan, breathe,” Lan Xichen was saying, his own hand running up and down Lan Wangji’s spine, the pressure pushing Lan Wangji’s lungs back into place.  “I’ve got you, didi, I’ve got you.”

“I cannot—make it—better,” Lan Wangji cried as his fingers locked in curled tension, probably ruining the fabric bunched in between them.

“Ah, A-Zhan,” Lan Xichen breathed, “Zhan-er, of course you can’t.”

Lan Wangji pulled back and Lan Xichen let him go, his hands resting on his thighs.  “What?”

“You can’t make this better, Wangji,” repeated Lan Xichen.

“No, I—it will be fine.  He just needs to know he can handle this on his own terms, I won’t make him—”

“Wangji,” interrupted Lan Xichen.  “This is not something you can make better.”

Lan Wangji felt frozen at the thought.  “I have to.”

“Ah, didi.”  Lan Xichen leaned back and plucked the tissue box from the endtable, handing it to Lan Wangji.  “You know there are some things you cannot fix.”

Lan Wangji set his jaw as he wiped down his face.  “This is not like Mother.”

“No, it’s not.  It’s someone who is very much still alive and completely used to shutting everyone out when he gets hurt, which this time includes you, and that has to hurt like hell.”

Surprise stilled Lan Wangji’s hand; he and his brother rarely swore, so rarely that Wei Wuxian kept a vocal running tally for them both.

“But,” continued Lan Xichen, “that does not mean you try harder.  Wangji, Mingjue was right; if you chase him, he’ll just keep running.”

“I am not chasing him!”  Lan Wangji startled himself with the vehemence of his response.  “I am not,” he said, softer, “I’m only asking him to talk to me.  He talks about everything, all the time.  But he will not talk about this.”

Lan Xichen tapped his fingers against his trousers.  “Are you asking him or telling him?”

“I am—”  Lan Wangji paused, considering, reviewing last night.  “I am telling,” he whispered.

“Wangji,” Lan Xichen said, brushing his hand over Lan Wangji’s, “that does not make you a terrible boyfriend.”

“It does,” said Lan Wangji.

“It does not.  It makes you a person concerned for the person you love, which is a good and wonderful thing.  And.  You need to let him know you’re here without making him come to you.”

Lan Wangji breathed deeply, in, out.  “What if he does not?” he whispered.

Lan Xichen laid out a hand, palm up, and Lan Wangji took it, feeling as though he were six years old.  “Then we find him some other kind of help.”

The idea of being cut out of the process entirely sent a shudder through Lan Wangji and Lan Xichen lightly squeezed his fingers.  “But I do not think that will be the case,” Lan Xichen continued.  “He loves you, Wangji.  I have watched him love you for three years.  He loves you more than he is afraid; it will just take him a while to remember that.”

Lan Wangji gripped Lan Xichen’s hand hard, panic and grief and uncertainty and his own kind of fear circling within him.  He breathed—in, out—and the brothers sat for a while in the silence.

***

Lan Xichen left before Wei Wuxian returned and Lan Wangji busied himself preparing dinner and beginning laundry with the sheets from the guest room.  Nie Mingjue texted him a reminder that they were perfectly willing to spend the weekend at Lan Wangji’s apartment if it was needed, and Lan Wangji wondered how much Lan Xichen had told him.  The fact that he had a brother to comfort him and Wei Wuxian felt he had no one at all gnawed at him; the way he broke down when nothing at all happened to him burned him with shame.  Lan Wangji put the thought aside until later, focusing on their living space, focusing on home.

“Honey, I’m home!” called Wei Wuxian when he arrived, his voice jarringly bright.  “Ah, Lan Zhan, it smells amazing in here.”  He came to the kitchen island and leaned over it, flopping across the counter with his usual boneless enthusiasm.  “What are you making?  How did you have time to start it?”

Lan Wangji made sure nothing would burn for being left for a few moments and turned to his boyfriend, noting distantly that the island remained between them.  Usually, Wei Wuxian would have come and plastered himself to Lan Wangji’s back, speaking stories of his day into his collarbone, punctuated with kisses.  “I left work early today,” Lan Wangji said.

“Oh, are you okay?”  The concern on Wei Wuxian’s face cracked Lan Wangji’s slightly-mended heart back open again.  “Are you feeling well?”

“Wei Ying,” Lan Wangji began, and found he had no idea where to go from there.  “I just needed the time.”

“Ah, yeah,” said Wei Wuxian, scratching the back of his neck in the tell that he was about to disparage himself.  Lan Wangji wondered idly if he even realized he telegraphed himself so obviously.  “I’m kind of a lot right now, I know.  I hope you were able to get some of the quiet you need.”

“No,” replied Lan Wangji, having to mindfully bite back his anger at this response, the frustration that clawed at his chest from the inside out.  “You are not a lot.  I—I am having trouble, knowing how to be present for you.  I—ge spoke with me about it.”

Wei Wuxian’s smile returned, though it did not make it all the way to his eyes.  “I’m glad Xichen-ge was here to help!  He’s a good one, that brother of yours.”

“He is,” agreed Lan Wangji, and did not mention Wei Wuxian’s brother.

“But you’re great, Lan Zhan, you’re doing so great.  See?  You’re even making dinner.”

“Wei Ying—”  Ask, don’t tell.  “I am sorry if I have been…pushing you.  I am here.  If you need to talk.  Or not talk.  I am here, Wei Ying.”

Wei Wuxian watched him for a moment, his face strangely inscrutable.  “I know, Lan Zhan,” he finally said, his voice quiet.  “I—you know—you know I love you, right?”

Lan Wangji almost buckled at the knees with relief at the reminder, at the bond that still connected them.  “Yes, Wei Ying, I know.  I love you, too.”

“Good, good,” nodded Wei Wuxian, his voice already fading with distraction, and soon he made some comment about correct dinner table attire with the grin that was forced.  When he had gone to the bedroom to change, Lan Wangji wondered if burning down the tool shed would make him feel less like his skin was stretched too tightly over his bones.

***

The next week was a charade, a dramatic play of set markers and forced lines, Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji orbiting each other with invisible force fields in the rote memory of a life together.  Wei Wuxian did not sleep on the couch again but did not touch Lan Wangji in bed; Lan Wangji kissed him goodbye in the mornings but only on the cheek.  They ate dinner together and talked about nothing and Lan Wangji hated it, hated every minute of it, but chose only the battles of ensuring Wei Wuxian cleaned the healing abrasions on his wrists and shoulder, took the antibiotics until they ran out.  He would not push harder, but he did not know what to do with the silence that grew between them.

“Lan Zhan,” Wei Wuxian said on Wednesday evening as Lan Wangji read in an armchair.  His words slurred slightly; he had been drinking steadily since coming home from work, now well into a second bottle of wine.  Lan Wangji knew he knew his own tolerances, knew this was rather low on the list of unhealthy things Wei Wuxian did to himself, and had not put a stop to it because it was better for Wei Wuxian to be drunk here in their living room than off wandering around the city.

It was better for Wei Wuxian not to be drunk at all, but Lan Wangji knew there were only certain levels of “better” that were attainable, these days.

“Lan Zhan, are you busy?”  Wei Wuxian swayed over to the armchair, his gait a mixture of deliberate tease and drunken imbalance.  Lan Wangji set aside his book and Wei Wuxian climbed into his lap, straddling his hips.

“Wei Ying—”

“Lan Zhan, ah, Lan Zhan,” Wei Wuxian slid the consonants into each other as he settled on Lan Wangji’s thighs and slung his arms around Lan Wangji’s neck.  “It has been so long since you fucked me.”

Lan Wangji went rigid beneath him.  “Wei Ying, you are drunk.”

“Yep!” agreed Wei Wuxian.  “But I can still consent.  I will always consent to you.  I give blanket consent to Lan Zhan.”

“Wei Ying.”  Lan Wangji put his hands around Wei Wuxian’s hips, meaning to lift him up, but Wei Wuxian ground down.  He leaned in and kissed Lan Wangji, a messy and tongue-filled attack, and Lan Wangji lost himself for a moment in how much he had missed the taste of Wei Wuxian, the slide of their lips against each other.  Encouraged, Wei Wuxian dragged his nails across the back of Lan Wangji’s neck as he traced his way down to Lan Wangji’s chest, his palms flat against Lan Wangji’s nipples peaking under his shirt.  The shock of the pain and the warmth and the desire lit up Lan Wangji’s brain.  He felt himself wrapping his arms further around Wei Wuxian’s waist, closing the gap between them, and Wei Wuxian dragged his hips across Lan Wangji’s growing erection, moaning into his mouth.

“Fuck me, Lan Zhan,” Wei Wuxian whispered, wet and sibilant, into Lan Wangji’s ear.  He reached down between them to unbuckle Lan Wangji’s trousers as Lan Wangji swept his hands up Wei Wuxian’s back.  Wei Wuxian flinched when Lan Wangji pushed over the almost-healed abrasions on his shoulder blades and the action was a bucket of ice water over Lan Wangji’s fevered brain.

“Wei Ying—Wei Ying, stop,” said Lan Wangji, beginning to push Wei Wuxian away even as Wei Wuxian began to pull down the zipper.  “Wei Ying, please; Wei Ying, radish.”

Wei Wuxian pulled his hands back as though burned, nearly falling off Lan Wangji’s knees.  Lan Wangji jerked forward to catch him and Wei Wuxian braced himself on Lan Wangji’s chest, blinking away the disorientation of balance and alcohol.  When he had his bearings, he looked at Lan Wangji and scrambled up from his lap.  “Lan Zhan, I—Lan Zhan, 'm so sorry, Lan Zhan—”

“Wei Ying, please,” interrupted Lan Wangji, closing his trousers and standing to approach Wei Wuxian.  Wei Wuxian backed away, shaking his head in horror.

“You’ve—you’ve never safeworded before, oh God, fuck, Lan Zhan, I—”

“Wei Ying,” bit Lan Wangji, “please.”  He caught Wei Wuxian’s hands in his.  “I am unharmed.  I needed you to stop, and you did.  That is what the safeword is for.”

Wei Wuxian whined, twisting in Lan Wangji’s grip.  “I’m sorry, Lan Zhan, I’m sorry.”

Lan Wangji pulled and Wei Wuxian fell into him, his breath hitching against Lan Wangji’s neck as Lan Wangji combed his fingers through Wei Wuxian’s hair.  “I am here, Wei Ying, I am unharmed,” he murmured, feeling Wei Wuxian’s grip tighten and relax and tighten in his shirt.

“I'm hurting you,” whispered Wei Wuxian into Lan Wangji’s collarbone.  “I’m hurting you, and I don’t know how to stop.”

Lan Wangji swore he could feel his heart break.  “Wei Ying,” he said, “Wei Ying, you did not hurt me.”

“This time.”

“Any time.”

“This whole last week?”  Wei Wuxian pushed himself away, his face stubborn, his eyes still slightly unfocused.  “I know your expressions, Lan Zhan; I know what sad and hurt look like on you.”

“That’s not—”

“My doing?  You see anyone else here?”

“You aren’t—”

“Sure I am, Lan Zhan.”

“Wei Ying—”

“It’s been nothing but hurt—”

“Wei Ying, let me finish!”  Lan Wangji’s vehement interruption startled them both and there was a pause before Wei Wuxian gestured, go ahead.  “Yes, I have been hurting this week, because I see you hurting and I do not know how to help.  I cannot—I can’t fix this, or make it better, and you are in so much pain and I hate it, I hate that you cry only when you think I’m asleep and that you flinch when I touch you and that you hate yourself for flinching and I hate it, I hate him—”  Lan Wangji choked on it, the words turning to tears in his throat.

“Ah, Lan Zhan,” sighed Wei Wuxian, reaching out and catching Lan Wangji as he fell into his arms.  “You have always been too good.”

“Wei Ying is good,” Lan Wangji insisted wetly, curling his fingers into Wei Wuxian’s sleeve.

Wei Wuxian pet his hair and let him cry.  Lan Wangji stopped eventually, feeling drained and dry.  His head hurt.

“Let’s get you to bed, Lan Zhan,” Wei Wuxian said gently.  “Come on, I’ll get you some water.”

Lan Wangji went through his bedtime routine and Wei Wuxian flowed with him, a silent but steady presence always an arm’s length away.  “Will you not come to bed?” Lan Wangji asked as he turned down the covers, Wei Wuxian still fully dressed on top of his side.

“You know it’s too early for me to sleep, Lan Zhan.  I’ll bounce around a few hours yet and then try not to wake you.”

“Promise,” Lan Wangji said, reaching out and grasping Wei Wuxian’s arm.

“Promise not to wake you?  I’ll do my best.”

“Promise you’ll come to bed tonight.”

“Go to sleep, Lan Zhan,” Wei Wuxian replied, unhooking Lan Wangji’s fingers and leaning over to kiss him softly on the forehead.  “Get some rest.”

Lan Wangji did not fight him for the promise, too tired to keep pushing, glad that at least Wei Wuxian will not lie to him.

***

Percussive chants thumped Lan Wangji into wakefulness and he blinked in the darkness, disoriented.  His phone, his brain supplied—Wei Wuxian had downloaded one of the songs from Avatar as his ringtone after he’d insisted Lan Wangji watch the show with him.  “Hello?” Lan Wangji answered, wondering why Wei Wuxian was calling him from the living room.

“Lan Wangji?”  It was not Wei Wuxian’s voice, and Lan Wangji’s brain came the rest of the way online in a snap.

“Where is Wei Ying?”

“Lan Wangji, ah, hi, I’m sorry, ah, this is Wen Ning—”

“Where is Wei Ying?”

“He’s here, he’s here, he’s okay, I think—”

“Wen Ning.”

“Right, yes, he’s okay, he’s okay!  I just—he came to, ah, he came to my apartment, and he was drunk—he is drunk—and I tried to get him to tell me what happened and he kept drinking ad now he’s passed out so I took his phone and I know you were probably asleep but you’re his emergency contact so I figured—”

“Wen Ning,” Lan Wangji interrupted, willing his voice to be calm even as he wriggled into a pair of jeans.  “I will come get him.”

“Oh, good,” said Wen Ning, the relief palpable in his voice.  “If a-jie found him here like this she’d kill him herself—ah, not, ah, not literally, I promise, she wouldn’t—”

“Please text me the address.  I am on my way.”

“Oh, sure!  Sure thing.  Thank you.  Are—ah, are you okay?”

Lan Wangji took a deep breath, forcing himself to stop in the conspicuously empty living room and be honest.  “It has been—a difficult week,” he admitted.  “Thank you for taking him in, Wen Ning.”

“Oh, sure, sure, of course!  I owe so much to Xian-ge, of course I’m happy to help, I’m glad he came to me, if he needed, not that I’m glad he needed, of course.”

“I will see you soon.”

“Yes, thank you, see you soon.”

Lan Wangji was still in the stairwell when he heard the notification ding of Wen Ning’s text.  He looked at his phone and noted the time—far fewer buses were running at 3:30 in the morning and he did not want to try and maneuver an unconscious Wei Wuxian through public transit.  He changed course and headed for the car they kept for emergencies and trips out of town, grateful to his past self for near-obsessive regular care of the vehicle to keep it running no matter what.

He thought, on the drive, of Wei Wuxian at Wen Ning’s.  The pair was an unlikely friendship—Wen Ning’s sister, Wen Qing, was a doctor who had worked several cases with Lan Xichen at their shared hospital.  Wei Wuxian had befriended her in the way he so often did: meeting her while dropping off something for Lan Xichen and simply declaring them connected, blasting out a Wei-Wuxian-shaped hole in her life and refusing to let it fill with anything else.

It was how he had befriended Lan Wangji, anyway.

When Wen Ning had been hit by a car jumping the curb several months into Wei Wuxian’s declared friendship, Wei Wuxian had appointed himself part of the caretaking team so Wen Qing could focus on her own work.  Wei Wuxian had quickly become another older sibling, advocating for Wen Ning and keeping him company through the tiresome recovery process.  Wen Ning had idolized him since and Lan Wangji loved Wen Ning for appreciating Wei Wuxian so clearly, for seeing the boundless kindness and affection that Wei Wuxian could not help but give.  The Wens became a second sibling set, less complicated in many ways than Wei Wuxian’s adoptive brother and sister.  It made a certain kind of sense that, if Wei Wuxian were going to run, he would go to Wen Ning.

But why did he run at all?

“I’m hurting you, and I don’t know how to stop.”  Wei Wuxian’s uncertainty bled into Lan Wangji’s memory.  This was all wrong—Lan Wangji was not the one who had been trapped and afraid, was not the one whose body still bore the marks of betrayal.  Yet he felt like he was constantly asking for reassurance, for help, for healing.  From what?  What right did he have to be in pain when it was Wei Wuxian who was hurt?

“Thank you, I’m sorry, I know it’s late—er, early,” said Wen Ning when he opened his door to Lan Wangji.  “I’d be fine, ah, he’d be welcome to sleep it off here but he was so drunk and I, ah, I wasn’t sure you even knew, it’s so late, and all.”

“Thank you for calling me, Wen Ning,” replied Lan Wangji.  “You are correct; I was unaware he had left our home.”

Wen Ning led him to the living room where Wei Wuxian lay sprawled across a still-folded futon.  “I, ah, I know it’s not, er, really my business but, um, he was talking about you.”

Lan Wangji held himself deliberately still, letting his silence be as invitational as he knew how to make it.

“Yeah,” continued Wen Ning, accepting, “I, ah, I couldn’t fully piece together what happened, but it sounded like he was worried about not, ah, not being able, um, to…”  Wen Ning folded into himself in embarrassment and cleared his throat.  “Not being able, ah, to be your partner.  I—I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have listened, it isn’t my place—”

“Thank you,” Lan Wangji repeated, interrupting to spare them both.  “It is a baseless fear, but I am glad to know of it.”

Wen Ning’s shoulders visibly relaxed.  “Oh, that’s good to hear—not,” he suddenly looked stricken, "not because I, ah, need to know, or had any doubts, or would know to have doubts, or not—”

“I appreciate your support of him, Wen Ning.”

A smile stole across Wen Ning’s young face.  “Of course, of course.  Xian-ge is—he is so kind, really, and generous.”  He glanced down at the sleeping man, the smile fading.  “To everyone but himself, though.”

Lan Wangji felt gratitude rock steadily through him at Wen Ning’s shared understanding of the inherent paradox of Wei Wuxian.  He would fight the entire world to save a stranger—but would not lift a finger to fight for himself.

Not true, came a thought at the back of his mind.  He fought when it mattered.  He fought with everything in him.

Is he still fighting?

“Thank you for caring for him,” Lan Wangji said, leaning down to place Wei Wuxian’s slack arms over his shoulders.  “We will be going home now.”

“Yes, ah, yes, do you—oh, he wasn’t kidding, you really can—”

Lan Wangji breathed out and deadlifted Wei Wuxian, feeling the burn in his thighs under the weight.  It was one of Wei Wuxian’s favorite things, he had mentioned over and over, that Lan Wangji was able to carry him.  Lan Wangji had refrained from stating that even if he had not already possessed the strength to do so, he would have acquired it after the first joke Wei Wuxian had made about being held.  Lan Wangji had never seen it as humorous; it was something Wei Ying wanted, so it was something Lan Zhan would do.

Wen Ning held open the doors of his apartment and then Lan Wangji’s car as Lan Wangji poured his boyfriend into the passenger seat, careful to keep his head from hitting anything.  Wei Wuxian did not stir, lolling against the headrest. Lan Wangji brushed Wei Wuxian’s bangs out of the way, tucking them behind a double-pierced ear before buckling him in and closing the door.

“Would you—ah, would you—I mean, you don’t have to—”

“I will text you tomorrow that he is all right,” Lan Wangji said.

Wen Ning’s smile was soft and grateful.  “Safe drive home,” he said, and Lan Wangji nodded to him before getting behind the wheel.

Chapter Text

The sun was so bright as Lan Wangji blinked himself awake the next morning, his whole body aching.  He shifted, slightly chilled, and realized he was on the floor.  The night before poured into his mind in syrupy snapshots as he remembered positioning Wei Wuxian on the couch on his side so he would not choke if he vomited—Lan Wangji’s year as a residence assistant in college had taught him many things about the care and keeping of the drunk.  After emailing both of their workplaces to take the day off, he had laid on the floor next to the sofa, his fingers entwined with Wei Wuxian’s, and drifted to sleep. 

He checked his watch, rolling his wrist at the discomfort of having slept with it still on; 7:30, well beyond his usual five o’clock hour.  Everything felt slightly bleary and slow as if he were the one waking with a hangover.  Blinking away sleep, he turned to Wei Wuxian.  He was still out, curled into a tight ball against the back of the couch, his face pinched against his dreams.  Lan Wangji trailed his fingers over Wei Wuxian’s forehead and the muscles relaxed as Wei Wuxian unconsciously pushed his face into Lan Wangji’s palm.  Lan Wangji held his cheek a moment, his thumb drifting over Wei Wuxian’s cheekbone, and loved him.  It was not a surprise by now, how Lan Wangji almost hurt with how much he loved this man, but it was still staggering that he could feel this much, this deeply.  Wen Ning’s relay of the doubt that Lan Wangji would wish to stay in this relationship was laughable; where would he go without his heart, so firmly clasped in this man’s always-moving hands?

“L’n Zhhhhn,” Wei Wuxian mumbled, rubbing his nose against the couch cushion.  “Time ‘st.”

“It’s still early, Wei Ying,” said Lan Wangji, his voice soft as he pulled his hand back.

“Mmrph.”  Wei Wuxian inhaled deeply, his back arching as his brain slowly, slowly came online.  It was one of Lan Wangji’s favorite things to watch, this rare space of Wei Wuxian’s energy caught in the thick honey of sleep, the adorable stumbling of getting his thoughts revved up for the day.  “Feel like hell.”

“Do you want to get up and take a shower or go back to sleep?”

“Want—” Wei Wuxian’s eyes snapped open and he bolted to sitting, instantly clutching his head in regret.  “Oh, that—no, I have to—work will…”

“I’ve called in sick for us both,” said Lan Wangji once he was sure the realization had settled. 

Wei Wuxian blinked, the marshalling of muscle control clear, before staring down at Lan Wangji.  “What.”

“I called in sick.”

“But neither of us is sick.”

“You are decidedly not well.”

The stare sharpened and Lan Wangji cursed internally; it had been a playful observation, a recognition that Wei Wuxian could not escape the consequences of drinking as he had ten years ago when his body was more elastic.  But he could hear the undertones Wei Wuxian was hearing that had nothing to do with alcohol.  “I meant you are hungover, Wei Ying,” scrambled Lan Wangji, desperate not to lose the softness of the early morning light between them, not yet.  “You will feel better after a shower and some food.”

“And you had to take off work to make sure I got that,” Wei Wuxian said, flatly.

“I wanted to be here with you when you woke, to make sure you were okay.”

“Why wouldn’t I be?  Not the first time I’ve gone on a bender, right?  But,” Wei Wuxian looked around in confusion, “I was at Wen Ning’s.  I think.”

“You were.”

Wei Wuxian narrowed his eyes.  “He called you.”

“He did.”

Flopping back into the couch with a grunt, Wei Wuxian exclaimed, “Wen Ning, of all people!  Whoever can you trust in this world?”

“Me.”

Wei Wuxian eyed him from between the cushions.  “Bet it was a pretty sight, dragging your drunk of a boyfriend off whatever surface he’d collapsed on to get him home at a decidedly unrespectable hour.”

Lan Wangji shrugged, gambled.  “Wei Ying is always a pretty sight.”

A laugh startled out of Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji internally grinned in triumph.  Playful was still an option, though he had entirely meant it.  “Ah, Lan Zhan, you sweet talker,” said Wei Wuxian.  “I bet you carried me the whole way and I missed such a sexy thing completely, didn't I?”

“Wei Ying can see it again at some other time, if he wishes.”

“Oh, he wishes.  In fact, if you’ve ensured I can’t go to work today without proving you a liar, he wishes to be carried to the shower because this sleeping on the couch thing is not for—hang on, if I’m on the couch…Lan Zhan, did you sleep on the floor?”

Lan Wangji nodded.

“What the—why?  We have a perfectly good bed!”

“Wei Ying was here.”

“Yeah, and drunk off my ass.  I’ve been left alone to sleep it off so many times, you know that, I can handle it.”

Lan Wangji did know that—had heard all the stories cloaked in laughter of Wei Wuxian’s college and post-college adventures where he had had to navigate unfamiliar places and headaches and illnesses by himself after his friends had abandoned him.  They were not funny. 

“Oh, your face is doing the thing.”

“My face does not do ‘things’.”

“Your face totally does things, Lan Zhan, and that’s the frowny scrunchy thing when you’re mad about something.  Is it because I said I can handle it?”

“It is because you should never have had to,” replied Lan Wangji before he could stop himself.

“Ah,” said Wei Wuxian, and his face shuttered.

“Please,” said Lan Wangji, reaching out and not even sure what he was asking for beyond that Wei Wuxian not retreat from him.  “I didn’t mean—”

“I know, Lan Zhan.”  Wei Wuxian patted him on the hand.  “You want to protect me from everything, I know.  But I’m fine, you see?  Just fine.  Didn’t die in the night, no worries.”

The thought of Wei Wuxian dying while Lan Wangji slept next to him, unheeding, crashed so hard through Lan Wangji that he could not breathe.  His heart skipped erratically, his hand clenching at the fabric of Wei Wuxian’s jeans.

“Whoa, okay, sorry, I didn’t—I’m here, baobei, I’m okay, we’re both fine.” 

Lan Wangji felt Wei Wuxian’s arms wrap around him and pull him onto the couch, his hands soothing aimless patterns over Lan Wangji’s back as Lan Wangji buried his face in Wei Wuxian’s neck, inhaling the complexity of him, feeling his heart beat under his palms.

“Shhh, I’ve got you, I’m sorry, it’s too early in the morning for jokes like that, I know, I’m sorry.”

“Do not die, Wei Ying.”

“Well, eventually—okay, nope, right, not the time, I get it.  Breathe, Lan Zhan, I won’t die, no sir, I’m right here.”

Lan Wangji’s fingers creaked from how tightly they clutched at Wei Wuxian’s clothing as he gasped into his shirt.

“Shh, Lan Zhan, it’s okay, everything’s fine, I’m fine—”

“Everything is not fine!”  Both of them stilled in surprise; Lan Wangji was not known for raising his voice, nor interrupting.  “I apologize,” he said hurriedly, dragging himself away from Wei Wuxian to calm himself.  “That was uncalled for.”

“Lan Zhan,” Wei Wuxian whispered, tucking a stray piece of hair behind Lan Wangji’s ear.  “What’s wrong?”

Lan Wangji stared at him.

“I’m right here, Lan Zhan, see?  It’s fine.”

“You—you were assaulted!”

The full-body flinch that shuddered through Wei Wuxian was immediately followed by the mask.  “That was, like, a week ago, and anyway nothing happened—”

“Nothing happened?”  Lan Zhan knew this was wrong, knew that he was pushing again but he couldn’t stop.  “You only just stopped wearing bandages, Wei Ying.  You drank yourself into unconsciousness last night.  Something happened and you are allowed to be scared and hurt by it, you are allowed—”

“Why?” asked Wei Wuxian, his voice jagged and tearing at them both.  “Why do you keep dragging me back to this?  I know that you’re feeling like shit but that doesn’t mean I have to, you know, maybe I am fine, maybe it doesn’t have to be super traumatic given that he didn’t even fuck me.”

Lan Wangji felt sick.  “He didn’t—Wei Ying, he didn’t have to fuck you to traumatize you.  What happened was wrong.”

“Well, what happened, happened, so whatever, right?  Shit happens.  But if my boyfriend can’t see past that, can only see—no one wants to date damaged goods, right?  I get that, no worries.”

“Wei Ying,” gasped Lan Wangji.  “That’s not—you are not damaged.”

“But I’m broken, right?  Or at least you’re trying your damnedest to get me to be.  Maybe I am fine, Lan Wangji, did you think of that?  Maybe it’s you that has to deal with this and I’m just drinking to handle how we keep talking about it.”

“Stop,” breathed Lan Wangji, dizzy with the pain of it, the possibility that they had finally reached the point where his possessive streak would break them.  What if it was just him, what if he couldn’t move on…“Please stop.”

“Lan Zhan,” murmured Wei Wuxian into the crown of his head, his fingers locked into Lan Wangji’s hair.  “I don’t know how.”

They sat, Lan Wangji curled into Wei Wuxian’s knees, and shook against each other until Lan Wangji’s hands ached from the tension of holding.

“I keep hurting you,” Wei Wuxian breathed, tears thick in his voice.  “I keep hurting you and I hate it, and I hate myself, and I don’t know how to stop.”

I could not serve you as I ought, Lan Wangji thought, the poetic line drifting up from all the things his uncle had made him memorize as a child.  It had been one of Lan Xichen’s favorites, that poem; he had always thought it romantic.  Lan Wangji had just thought it sad.  Holding Wei Wuxian while knowing they had never been further apart, it felt even sadder in the deep grief at being separated.  Long I sob and long I cry.  “Wei Ying,” he finally said, his voice hoarse, “I think we need help.”

Wei Wuxian’s answering laugh was rusted and dark.  “Lan Zhan, I’ve always needed help.”

“No,” said Lan Wangji, pulling away to look Wei Wuxian in the eye.  “We.  You are right that I am not moving on, either, and that I still see this—not in you, not as though you are broken, but as though I…what if I…”

Wei Wuxian sighed, cradling Lan Wangji’s face in his hands and thumbing over his cheekbones.  “My good Lan Zhan, my Hanguang-Jun.”  Lan Wangji flinched at the nickname.  “You really do think you should save me from everything, don’t you?”

What if I cannot save you from myself, Lan Wangji thought as he held Wei Wuxian’s arms, careful not to grab at his wrists.

“Aiyah, Lan Zhan, don’t look at me like that.”  Wei Wuxian let go and flopped back into the sofa cushions.  Lan Wangji tightened every muscle he had not to follow.  “Fine.  You say we need help and we both know you’re always right, so what does that mean?  What’s the next step?”

“We do not.”

Wei Wuxian sat up again.  “What?”

“We do not both know—I am not always right.”

“Now?  You’re going to undermine your position now?  Take the win, Lan Zhan.”

“It is not—”

“Lan Zhan.”  Lan Wangji had never heard that sharp a tone directed at him by Wei Wuxian before and he shivered beneath it, his stomach twisting in fear.  “Either give me next steps or leave me alone.”

Everything in him ached to hold Wei Wuxian, but Lan Wangji sat back and folded his hands on his lap.  “I will call my brother.”

Wei Wuxian scrubbed his face with both hands.  “Yeah, great, cool, nothing like parading how fucked up your boyfriend is to your brother, this will be fun, tell him to bring Mingjue and we’ll have dinner together, one big happy quartet of avoidance, let’s do it.”

“Wei Ying,” said Lan Wangji, trying to keep the helplessness out of his voice.  “If you would prefer—”

“Nope, no, you’re right, he’ll know how to deal with this.  Bet he does it all the time.  Handy guy, that Lan Xichen.  You call him and I’m going to go take a shower and the whole bottle of Advil and we’ll reconvene later.”

It was involuntary, how quickly Lan Wangji grabbed Wei Wuxian’s knees.  “Wei Ying, are you—”

“What?  Oh; oh, shit.”  Wei Wuxian ran his fingers through Lan Wangji’s hair, kissed him on the forehead.  “I didn’t mean literally, Lan Zhan, I promise.  I will take a responsible amount of Advil and I will not kill myself while you’re calling your brother to get me help.”  He held up three fingers to his temple.  “Promise.”

“Wei Ying.”  Even the thought of it twisted Lan Wangji’s stomach.

Wei Wuxian sighed and reached out to pull Lan Wangji onto him, tucking Lan Wangji’s head into his shoulder.  Lan Wangji twined his fingers into Wei Wuxian’s shirt, breathing in the scent of him, alive, alive.  “I’m sorry, Lan Zhan, I know I shouldn’t joke about that, especially to you.  That was a dick move.  I’m just—God, Lan Zhan, I’m so fucking tired.  And I don’t—I don’t know what to say to you, I don’t know what to say to anyone, why do I keep fucking this up, I can’t—”

“Wei Ying,” interrupted Lan Wangji quietly, pressing against Wei Wuxian’s heart.  “I will call Xichen-ge.”

“Yeah,” said Wei Wuxian, stroking down Lan Wangji’s back.  “Yeah, you do that.”

***

Lan Wangji listened to the shower run for a few minutes while he stared at his phone, willing himself to focus enough to call.  Everything in him wanted to run to the bathroom to see for himself that Wei Wuxian was safe, that he didn’t—he wouldn’t—Lan Wangji wrenched his mind away from the idea of keeping an eye on Wei Wuxian at all times.  That wasn’t fair; Wei Wuxian was his own person.  Lan Wangji had to trust him to keep his word.

“Didi, hello,” Lan Xichen said as the call connected.  “How are you doing?”

“Xiongzhang,” choked out Lan Wangji.

“Wangji, are you okay?  Is Wei Ying okay?”

“Yes; no; we are at home, we…”

“Okay, that’s good.  Do you need me to come over?”

Lan Wangji considered, wondering whether Wei Wuxian would be comfortable having Lan Xichen in their space right now.

“I could drop by when I take lunch,” Lan Xichen offered.

That could work.  “Yes,” accepted Lan Wangji.  “I—we—we need help, Xiongzhang.”

“What kind of help?  Should I get Mingjue?”

“No, no—I thought…”  I thought I was helping but I was a fool.  “You might know…people we could talk to.  About.  About this.”

“Ah,” said Lan Xichen.  “Like a list of therapists?”

“Mn.”

“Didi, thank you for being willing to try this.  Yes, I can get you a list.  My colleague knows several who work with people after traumatic events like this.  I’ll bring it with me at lunch.  You’ll be at home?”

“Mn.”  Lan Wangji didn’t offer and Lan Xichen didn’t ask why he would be there on a workday.

“I’ll see you then.  Thank you for trusting me with this, Wangji.”

“Thank you, ge.”

Lan Wangji disconnected and stared at his phone before heading to the bedroom.  “Wei Ying?” he called through the door.  He heard a clunk.  “Wei Ying?!”

“Yep, fine, just—no worries, I’m good, what’s up?”

“Xiongzhang is coming over on his lunch break to give us a list of suggestions.”  There was silence on the other side of the door.  “Wei Ying?”

“Yeah, got it, cool, thanks for calling him, I’ll—I’ll be out in a bit, okay?”

“Okay.”  Lan Wangji stood for a moment with his hand on the door, hating the door and the distance and the too-high lilt of Wei Wuxian’s voice, the tone that signaled that he was not okay at all, and then Lan Wangji walked away to figure out what to prepare for lunch.

***

It was a relief, almost, when Lan Xichen arrived with his hospital badge still clipped to his shirt.  Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian had spent the morning awkwardly orbiting each other, checking emails and doing meaningless chores on the edges of a distance neither knew how to close.

“I know this is a difficult thing to begin,” said Lan Xichen as they all sat in the living room.  “And I am so, so proud of you both for being willing to begin anyway.”

“Lan Zhan is a brave soul,” said Wei Wuxian.

“Wei Ying is very brave,” replied Lan Wangji.

“You are both brave,” said Lan Xichen with a smile.  “And I know you support each other, but I also need to remind you that you have to support yourselves as well.  If you’re doing this to make each other happy, it’s not going to go very well.”

Wei Wuxian shifted, folding himself even more tightly into the end of the couch.  “What do you have,” he said, jerking his chin at the list in Lan Xichen’s hands.

“My colleague and I came up with a list of people who are near to you and are currently accepting clients.  Each of them has experience dealing with assault-related trauma.”

Both Lan brothers politely ignored Wei Wuxian's visible flinch.

“I don’t know all of them personally, so I can’t speak to which one would be the best fit for you two.  But I know other clients of mine have seen some of them and have said they were helpful, so—”

“Are we clients, then?” interrupted Wei Wuxian.

“No,” said Lan Xichen.  “But I don’t think Wangji asked me as his older brother, either.”

“Xiongzhang,” cut in Lan Wangji, watching the mounting tension in his boyfriend’s body, “how—how should we…”

“You can call any of them today,” said Lan Xichen.  “I would suggest asking for them to see you as a couple and individually.”

“Couples’ therapy?  You want us to go to couples’ therapy?”

“I do not want anything from this, Wei Wuxian.”  Lan Xichen’s voice gentled as Wei Wuxian’s hardened.

“Well, that’s a lie.”

“Wei Ying,” admonished Lan Wangji.

“No, he’s right,” said Lan Xichen, holding up a hand.  “I apologize, Wei Wuxian, that was poorly said.  I meant that my goal here is nothing more than to give you the information you need to make a helpful choice.  Yes, I would wish for you to go to couples’ therapy, as well as individual therapy, because I know from personal experience that it is helpful to have that kind of relationship while processing trauma.  But what I wish is not something that can or should guide your choice.”

“Lan Zhan and I are fine.”

Lan Wangji began to refute that and Lan Xichen shook his head.  “You are indeed a wonderful couple,” he said to Wei Wuxian.  “The pair of you are very good at doing the hard work of being in a relationship built on more than just attraction, and I am proud of you for that.  Going to couples’ therapy does not mean you have failed as a couple; it means that you, as a couple, are tackling issues together that affect you both.”

Lan Wangji watched Wei Wuxian ponder this, biting his tongue to keep from overly reassuring, to keep from fixing.  Neither his brother nor his boyfriend needed to be protected from this moment, he told himself.  He half believed it.

“I will leave this list with you,” said Lan Xichen into the silence, “and I will support whatever decision you make.  I will help however you wish me to, which includes answering questions if you have them.  And I will reiterate that even deciding to consider this is an important and courageous step, and I am glad to see you making it.”

“Are you this much of a cheerleader for all your patients?” said Wei Wuxian, his head bowed over the sleeve cuffs he worried.

“It helps to be supportive of my clients, yes,” said Lan Xichen, “but in this moment I am cheering for my brothers letting themselves be helped.”

Wei Wuxian’s head snapped up and he stared at Lan Xichen, who held his gaze evenly.  “Brothers,” Wei Wuxian said.

“Brothers,” Lan Xichen confirmed.  “You are not alone here, Xian-di.”  His voice quieted and Wei Wuxian’s sharp inhale was loud in comparison.  “And I have long since understood that you are now part of the family; where Wangji goes, you go.”

“Nothing like unloading the stuff no one will buy as a promotional add-on to the thing you want,” drawled Wei Wuxian.

“No,” said Lan Xichen, leaning forward as Lan Wangji clenched his fists in frustration.  “Nothing like buying one thing and getting another marvelous gift into the bargain.”

Wei Wuxian scoffed.

“Wangji and I will always have a different relationship,” Lan Xichen continued over it, “because growing up with someone is an irreplaceable experience.  It is similar to the fact that Wangji will never have the same kind of relationship with Jiang Cheng that you do.”

The snort of laughter that came from Wei Wuxian was almost as incredulous as the look on Lan Wangji’s face at the thought.

“But that doesn’t mean that you and I don’t have a relationship,” said Lan Xichen.  “It is different, not non-existent.”

“He does know we’re not married, right?” said Wei Wuxian in a loud stage whisper to Lan Wangji.

Lan Xichen smiled.  “If ever you do get married, I will happily welcome you as my official brother-in-law.  For now, I happily support you as my unofficial didi.  Older brother privileges apply.”

Wei Wuxian stared at Lan Xichen, almost visibly looking for the catch.  Lan Wangji pressed his lips together, knowing he wouldn’t find it, loving his brother for there not being one in the first place.

“And if I leave?”

Lan Wangji felt his chest seize at the thought, his breath short.  Lan Xichen reached out and laid a hand on his knee, barely there, his eyes still focused on Wei Wuxian.  “I would be heartbroken for both of my brothers,” he said.

“Not that I’m going to,” said Wei Wuxian in realization, reaching out and pulling Lan Wangji to him.  “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—Lan Zhan, I didn’t—ah, fuck, breathe, okay?”

Lan Wangji clung tightly to him before forcing himself to let go.  “If you ever wish to leave,” he said, forcing the words through his teeth, “you know you are free to do so.”

“I know, baobei,” said Wei Wuxian, tucking a strand of hair behind Lan Wangji’s ear.  “But you’re not going to get rid of me any time soon.”

“Do not wish to be rid of Wei Ying.”

Wei Wuxian smiled.  “Good.  Do not wish to be rid of Lan Zhan.”

Lan Wangji exhaled shakily.  “Good,” he murmured.

“So,” said Wei Wuxian, turning back to Lan Xichen, “how do we start this thing?”

***

After more conversation and lunch and even a practice run at what to ask in the first call, Lan Xichen returned to work.  Wei Wuxian bounced around the living room to psych himself up.

“We do not have to do this right now,” said Lan Wangji, eyeing the anxiousness in Wei Wuxian’s movements.

“Nope, we gotta,” said Wei Wuxian, slinging his arms around himself and hopping like he was about to run a track meet.  “I’m in the headspace, you’ve got a script, we’re gonna do it.”

Lan Wangji swallowed down further reassurances and pulled out his phone, setting it on the coffee table next to the list and the script he had written out with Lan Xichen’s help.  Wei Wuxian shook himself once more and then came and sat down beside him.  “I know you don’t like talking on the phone,” said Wei Wuxian, picking up his hand and lacing their fingers together, “so I’ll start and you can pick it up from there, okay?”

“Mn.”

And together, they began.

Chapter Text

The week and a half between the phone call and the first session was almost more exhausting than the week after the attack had been, both of them wound too tightly for their own good.  Wei Wuxian drank too much and Lan Wangji took on too many projects at work and neither knew what to do with the space between them in their bed.  The night before their appointment, Lan Wangji came home from work to loud music piping through the empty living room; Wei Wuxian was already there, then.  Lan Wangji winced as he toed his shoes off at the door.  “Wei Ying?” he called, hating having to raise his voice.  He crossed to the small stereo controls and turned them off.  “Wei Ying?” he called again at a much more comfortable volume.

“Hey!” came a shout from the bedroom.  “Where’s music?”

Lan Wangji went to the doorway of their room and gaped.  Wei Wuxian was splayed naked on their bed, a mostly-empty bottle of rum swirling in his fingers.  “Lan Zhan!” he slurred, raising himself up on his elbows.  “Hey, beautiful.”

Lan Wangji swallowed, the now-familiar response of desire that zipped down his spine at the length of Wei Wuxian’s limbs completely doused by the wrongness of his drunkenness, the tension still clearly locked into the seeming sprawl.  Wordlessly, Lan Wangji turned to the dresser and pulled out boxers and a shirt, picking up Wei Wuxian’s jeans from the floor. He set them on the bed.

Wei Wuxian looked at the stack of clothes and then Lan Wangji.  He swigged from the rum bottle before leaning over to set it on the nightstand, the long arch of his side flexing.  He almost fumbled the bottle, missing the edge before righting it, and it was that kneejerk response to catch that yanked Lan Wangji’s attention back from how much he wanted to lick all the way up that stretched line of skin.

“Lan Zhan,” said Wei Wuxian after comically ensuring that the bottle had no plans of its own to tip.  He rolled himself to a seat.  “Lan Zhan, you come home to your naked boyfriend and give him clothes?”  He tried for a saucy leer, missed it by miles.

“I come home to my drunk boyfriend and want him to be comfortable,” Lan Wangji replied.

“This is comfortable!” Wei Wuxian snorted, gesturing at himself.  “Evolution, ‘s what clothes are.  Social evolution.  Of prudery.”

“Wei Ying, please,” said Lan Wangji, kneeling in front of the bed.  “Please, let me help.  Let me in.  Tell me how I can help you right now.”

Wei Wuxian scoffed.  “Don’t think you’re gonna suck my dick while you’re down there, I suppose.”  Lan Wangji shook his head and Wei Wuxian shrugged.  “Not real helpful, then.”

Lan Wangji clenched his hands in his lap, released them, breathed as he looked down at his knees.  “Wei Ying.  Please.”

“Did you know,” said Wei Wuxian, his English heavy and thick with drink, “that you were my first blowjob?”  He slid a hand up Lan Wangji’s neck, cupping his face.

Lan Wangji tilted into his palm and shook his head.  “I didn’t know.”

“You were.  My memory’s shit, you know, but I still remember that you kissed me after even though you knew where my mouth had been, and I remember what I thought about it.”

“What did you think?” Lan Wangji asked after the pause stretched too long.

Wei Wuxian shook himself back to awareness and smiled, beautiful and soft.  “I thought that if you wanted me in that moment, maybe you weren’t lying about wanting me in all the others.”

“Wei Ying,” choked Lan Wangji, sliding his own hand over Wei Wuxian’s and threading their fingers together against his cheek.  “Wei Ying, of course I wasn’t lying.  I always want you.”

The smile turned brittle and sad.  “Except for now.”

“No.”  Lan Wangji pulled their hands down, clasped them tightly against his chest.  “I still want you.  I always want you.  You are beautiful, and creative, and kind.  I love you.  I love you.”

“You just don’t want what someone else had, though.”

“That’s—”  Lan Wangji wanted to scream, to rip out the absurdity of that thought from Wei Wuxian’s mind and shred it into a thousand pieces.  He leaned forward instead, resting his forehead on Wei Wuxian’s naked thighs.  “I want you no matter what else has happened or not happened, Wei Ying.  I want you more than I have words to express, every minute of the day.  But I do not want to take advantage of you when you are impaired.  I want you, of course I want you, but I want you here with me, all of you.  Please.”

A silence stretched between them and Lan Wangji suddenly felt fingers combing through his hair.  “What if this is the only way I’m brave enough?” Wei Wuxian asked eventually, his voice so soft Lan Wangji almost missed it.

Lan Wangji sat up, catching Wei Wuxian’s hand as he rose and kissing the back of it softly, so softly.  “Then we will wait,” he replied, switching to Mandarin.  “We will wait until it does not require bravery.”

Wei Wuxian’s eyes searched his, bouncing back and forth.  “What if that’s a long time?  It’s already been more than two weeks, Lan Zhan, what if—what if I can’t…”

“Then we take a long time.”  Lan Wangji squeezed Wei Wuxian’s hands.  “Wei Ying—I am here, with you, baobei, as long as you will have me, in whatever way you will have me.  I am not leaving you.”

“You shouldn’t say such things,” Wi Wuxian replied, the smile on his lips sad and tilted.  “My poor heart can’t take it; you have to warn me.”

Lan Wangji kissed his hand again.  “You are warned, Wei Ying.  I have not stopped loving you or wanting you.  I will not stop, and I do not need you to satisfy me at your own expense.  You are stunning, and sexy, and I want you, but we are more than this.”

“Lan Zhan,” whispered Wei Wuxian, “I miss you.”

“I am right here.”

“But I’m not.”  Wei Wuxian shivered and Lan Wangji reached around him to pick up the shirt, sliding it over Wei Wuxian’s arms.  “Tomorrow’s not gonna fix me, Lan Zhan, but I want it to so much.  I hate being like this, I hate—I hate being afraid.  How many sessions is it gonna take to stop that, Lan Zhan?”

Lan Wangji pulled on his hand and Wei Wuxian slid to the floor next to him.  He enveloped Wei Wuxian against his chest, pulling down the comforter to cover them both.  “It will take as long as it needs to,” he said.  “And if it isn’t helping, then we will stop, and we will figure out something else.  And I will be right here with you.  Wei Ying, I love you even if we do not have sex for a year.”

Wei Wuxian spluttered against him.  “Oh God, Lan Zhan, let’s not do that, I do not want to wait a year, that’s awful.”

Lan Wangji smiled against the crown of his head.  “Whatever it takes, Wei Ying.”

There was silence between them for a moment before Wei Wuxian said, “You didn’t sign up for this kind of mess.”

Lan Wangji could not stop his arm from tightening around Wei Wuxian’s shoulder.  “I signed up for everything with you,” he said, and he gently pulled at Wei Wuxian until they were looking at each other face to face.  “Wei Ying, I signed up for everything.  I want to be here on your bad days and your good days; I want to laugh with you, and cry with you, and protect you and celebrate with you and learn with you.  I want to wake up with you and go to sleep with you and fight with you and heal with you.  I want you, Wei Ying, forever, with every scar and every story that includes.”

Wei Wuxian’s jaw hung slightly open.  “Lan Zhan, did…did you just propose to me?”

Lan Wangji swallowed.  “No.  I will do that properly.”

“You what?”  Wei Wuxian slid his hands up to cup Lan Wangji’s face.  “You’re planning it!  You’re going to!  Oh my God, and I’m drunk and I don’t even have any pants on, what the fuck, Lan Zhan, why are we like this, why am I—okay, okay, well, when you do, I’m gonna say yes.  I’m just—I’m just putting that out there right now.  But I’ll wait, because you have plans.  Oh my God, you have plans, your ears are giving you away, you know, holy shit, it’s going to be epic, I can tell.”  He ran light fingertips over the top of one of Lan Wangji’s blush-red ears.  “Ah, Lan Zhan, you’re really great. I like you. I fancy you, I love you, I want you, I can’t leave you, I whatever you.”

Pulling him further into his lap, Lan Wangji wrapped himself around Wei Wuxian.  “Like you, love you, fancy you, cannot leave you,” he echoed.  “It cannot be anyone else but you.”

“Even without pants?”

A soft exhale of a laugh.  “Even without pants.”

“Good.”

***

The first session was exhausting.  Wei Wuxian alternated between holding Lan Wangji’s hand so tightly it hurt and leaving an entire continent of space between them on the couch as he gave the barest description of why they were in the therapist’s office.  Lan Wangji felt like he was back in the ER with yet another person digging through the memory of plastic cutting skin, vision blurry, muscles tightening under unfamiliar fingers.

They agreed to return the following week, still together for the time being.  Wei Wuxian had said he wanted Lan Wangji there, and even though Lan Wangji had no idea how he was helping, there he would be.  They returned home afterward and curled together under the comforter fully dressed, Lan Wangji not complaining and Wei Wuxian not making a joke about it, each trying to claw the other close enough to still the trembling under their skin.

Wei Wuxian had agreed to drink less at the therapist’s request, but it meant far more nightmares waking him without the stifling blanket of alcohol.  Lan Wangji held him when allowed, sat with him when it was too much.  Sometimes Wei Wuxian would trace the edges of the dreams and Lan Wangji sliced himself open on the sharpness of toolsheds and living rooms and frat parties bleeding into each other, a lifetime of pain that hid under Wei Wuxian’s smile.  More often, Wei Wuxian would shake his head and curl into himself, shuddering out the last of the memories made even more grotesque by time’s distortion. 

The second session went surprisingly well and Wei Wuxian said they should invite Lan Xichen and Nie Mingjue to dinner to celebrate.  It was a good dinner, a defiantly joyful commemoration of monsters named, if not yet defeated.

“Lan Zhaaaaan,” Wei Wuxian said once Lan Xichen and Nie Mingjue had left, “Lan Zhan, let’s try something.”

Lan Wangji put the last of the dishes in the dishwasher and set it to run.  “Try something?” he said, straightening.

“Try something,” said Wei Wuxian, his voice sultry.

“Wei Ying—”

“Lan Zhaaaan, I’ve been good.  I’m so good, I did the thing today, I haven’t been drunk in days, don’t I get a reward?”

Lan Wangji fought with himself over whether this would be harmful in the long run and felt the heat of arousal flare in his belly.  Maybe it was okay to try, at least.

“Wei Ying has been very good,” he replied, and Wei Wuxian cheered before grabbing his hand and dragging them both back to the bedroom.  Lan Wangji was still recovering from the shift when Wei Wuxian was on him, kissing him fervently as he walked them both backward to the bed.

“Fuck, yes, Lan Zhan,” said Wei Wuxian between kisses, dragging his fingers under Lan Wangji’s collar.  “God, yes, you need to fuck me, tell me how you want me, Lan er-gege, tell me how to take it.”  His knees hit the bed and he fell backward, pulling Lan Wangji over top of him with an oomph. 

Lan Wangji almost felt dizzy with the force of it, so much after so long, and the taste of dinner on Wei Wuxian’s tongue with the kick of the spice he always added burned Lan Wangji to the core.  He knotted his own fingers in Wei Wuxian’s hair, yanking backward to bare Wei Wuxian’s neck, nipping his way down the jaw and onto the throat.  He licked the pulse point, feeling the heartbeat push against him, and sucked a bruise into the thin skin, his, his recognition of the life that kept on living in spite of everything.

“Aaaah, Lan Zhan,” whined Wei Wuxian, the vibrations of his voice quivering under Lan Wangji’s lips, “mark me up, Lan Zhan, bruise me.”

Suddenly Lan Wangji did not see the skin in front of him but the skin as it had been, purpled fingerprints from hands not his own around Wei Wuxian’s throat, wrists red and bleeding.  He yanked himself back, breathing heavily.

“Lan Zhan?” asked Wei Wuxian, propping himself up on his elbows.  “What’s wrong?”

Lan Wangji swallowed, willing the images down, forcing himself to look at the man in front of him with the single bruise forming over his pulse point.  He rubbed his face with both hands.

“Are you okay?”  Wei Wuxian scooted himself up to sitting, reaching out for Lan Wangji.  “Hey, what’s going on?”

“I do not—I do not want to harm you,” eked out Lan Wangji in Mandarin.  He looked up just in time to see the shutter of recognition fall over Wei Wuxian’s eyes.

“You won’t, gege,” he said softly, following the language shift.  “I’m asking for this.”

“Wei Ying, I—I don’t think I can do what we…how we normally do this.”

“Fuck me until I beg for your cock, you mean?  Stuff me so full I break open with it, use me like the slut I am?”  Wei Wuxian’s face twisted, the words not playful but barbed.  “I suppose I can be your vanilla pillow princess, if you need.”

“That’s not fair,” said Lan Wangji, stung.  “Wei Ying, I can’t—”

“You said you still wanted me,” interrupted Wei Wuxian, his voice almost a hiss.

“I do.  Wei Ying, I do, I just—”

“I thought today went well.”

“It did.”  Lan Wangji reached out to run a hand through Wei Wuxian’s hair; Wei Wuxian flinched back and Lan Wangji withdrew his hand quickly.  “It did, and I am so proud of you, and I am glad you—we—are doing this, but I…”  He dropped his head.  “I am scared.”

“Of me?”

“Of me, Wei Ying.”

“What?” 

Lan Wangji looked up.  Wei Wuxian was staring at him in confusion, his brow deeply furrowed.  “Why would you be scared of yourself?” he asked.

“I can be…”  Lan Wangji sighed and realized he was still standing.  He began to kneel and Wei Wuxian made a noise, scooting back on the bed instead so Lan Wangji could sit on the corner.  “I want so much,” he said, picking at nothing on the comforter.  “I would break—have broken—you open, have tied you down, have ignored your pain—”

“Lan Zhan,” said Wei Wuxian, taking his fidgeting hand and pulling on it until Lan Wangji looked him in the eye.  “Lan Zhan, you did all of that because we talked about the fact that we both liked it.  You have never ignored me when it mattered.”

“It always matters.”

Wei Wuxian rolled his eyes.  “I mean when I meant it, when I was actually hurt.  You always take such good care of me.  They’re not the same.  Do you hear me, Lan Zhan?”  He resituated them so that they faced each other fully.  “What you and I do, it’s not the same.  Don’t—don’t take that from me, too, please.”  His voice choked on the request.

“Wei Ying,” said Lan Wangji in anguish.  He opened his arms and Wei Wuxian fell forward, allowing himself to be pulled tightly against Lan Wangji’s body.  “I’m not—I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I want, I want to do this for you, I will try, I will try.”

“Lan Zhan,” came Wei Wuxian’s muffled voice, “I don’t think the therapy cured us.”

Lan Wangji gripped him tighter.  “We will try again, then,” he said, and hated himself, and hated himself.

***

The next morning, Lan Xichen called Lan Wangji.  “Ge?” answered Lan Wangji, puzzled. 

“Wangji,” said Lan Xichen.  “Nothing’s wrong, don’t worry.  I just wanted to check in with you after last night’s dinner.”

Lan Wangji got up and closed his office door.  “What about?”

“I’m glad the sessions are going well,” said Lan Xichen, “but things seemed a little too well.”

“What?”

“I know you, Wangji, but more importantly I know Wei Wuxian at least a little bit.  He was trying so hard last night, and I remember that first month and how overwhelming it was and how badly I wanted to make it work, to make everything be fixed, to shorten the timeline so I could be normal and well-adjusted.  Does that sound familiar to you?”

Painfully so.  “Mn,” Lan Wangji said.

“I thought so.  It’s okay, you know; it’s okay to want everything to be okay sooner than later.  I just wanted to make sure neither of you were pushing yourselves too far to make that happen.”

Lan Wangji thought of how it was he who was not okay, he who was overwhelmed and unadjusted.  He was holding back Wei Wuxian’s healing.

“Wangji?”

“I could not help him,” blurted Lan Wangji, the lack of a filter painfully unfamiliar.

“Help him how?”

“He wanted—I could not—I am the one who is holding us back, holding him back.”

“Didi,” Lan Xichen sighed, “no one’s holding anyone back.”

“He is the one who was hurt but I am the one hesitating.”

Lan Xichen shifted on his end of the phone.  “Wangji—hmm.  Say that’s true, then, that Wei Wuxian is perfectly fine to continue relations between you and you’re the only one in the relationship who’s still processing the attack.  Why is it wrong for you to need the extra time?”

Lan Wangji felt his ears burn at his brother discussing his “relations,” but pushed on.  “Nothing happened to me.”

“Oh, Zhan-di.  Have you talked to the therapist about individual sessions yet?”

“No.”

“I’m not going to tell you you should because I don’t want to push you into anything, but I would recommend it—as your brother and as a social worker.  Trauma is so much more than the obvious things; yes, Wei Wuxian was the one who was attacked, but you were the one who found him.  You were the one who sat with him in the ER.  I know what it’s like to do all the reports, Wangji; it’s difficult enough when it’s a stranger you’re protecting and advocating for, so I can’t imagine how much it hurts when it’s someone you love.”

Lan Wangji swallowed drily, everything in him locking up against the memory of a hollowed-out Wei Ying, of dredging up his dominant self simply to keep them both coherent as the hospital flowed around them.  “It was what was needed.”

“And that can’t be traumatic?”

“It is right.”

“Wangji—” Lan Xichen paused and Lan Wangji waited, both of them understanding a lifetime of gathering the right words, of the careful awareness of what should not be said carelessly.  “A-Zhan, just because something is good doesn’t mean it can’t hurt you.”

Why would that be true, Lan Wangji asked himself, bewildered.  He followed the rules; the rules were there to prevent harm.  To do all the right things and still be hurt meant—what?  How could anything be worth doing if everyone was going to end up injured anyway?

“Wangji, are you still there?”

“Mn.”

“Wangji, I know that’s a lot, and I know it’s unfair, and I know you’re trying so hard, but you have to—no, I’m sorry, that’s not it.  It’s important to let yourself acknowledge that you’re hurting, too; that you were hurt, too, and that you need the space to heal, too.”

“Not about me.”

“Not to the exclusion of Wei Wuxian, no, but it’s not not about you, either.”  Lan Xichen clicked his tongue, an old habit of thought Lan Wangji thought their uncle had trained out of him entirely.  “Wei Wuxian insisted he was fine last night.  Is he?”

“He is…better.”

“But is he fine?”

Lan Wangji thought of the nights of feeling the bed jerk as Wei Wuxian startled awake, of the shadowed dark in the early morning as they breathed together until Wei Wuxian’s heart slowed down enough, of the days when Lan Wangji lay alone after Wei Wuxian decided going back to sleep was more trouble than it was worth.  “No.”

“Is he telling you he is?”

“Yes.”

“Hurts to be lied to about that, doesn’t it?”

Lan Wangji saw the parallel his brother was drawing.  “It is not the same.”

“Isn’t it?  Aren’t you both modeling for each other that admitting you’re not fine is somehow a weakness?”  The silence stretched between them as Lan Wangji refused to answer until Lan Xichen sighed.  “I’m sorry, Wangji, I know I’m pushing you hard today.  I just hate watching you sacrifice yourself because you don’t think you deserve to feel hurt.  You learned to do that a long time ago and I’m sorry, I’m sorry I never thought to tell you that it was okay to be sad, or angry, or scared.  You should never have had to learn that it wasn’t.”

“Xiongzhang,” said Lan Wangji helplessly, unsure what to do with an apology for all the things his brother could not control.

“I’m here if you want to talk about it, you know that, right?  And not just this; if…if you want to talk about Uncle, or our parents, or work, or whatever…”

“I know, ge,” said Lan Wangji into the open space.  “But I need to be here for Wei Ying.”

“You can work on yourself at the same time, you know,” said Lan Xichen.  “You don’t have to wait a turn.”

“Mn.” 

“Right.  I’m done lecturing you, I promise.  Social worker hat off.  Call me whenever, okay?  And let Wei Wuxian know he can call me too, if he wants.”

“I will remind him.”

“I love you, didi.”

Lan Wangji’s echo felt more performative than true, and he apologized to his brother in his mind as he ended the call.

Chapter Text

Lan Wangji was the first one home that night and he pulled out various vegetables to begin dinner, his mind soothed by the rhythm of chopping and heating, measuring and pouring.  There were rules to cooking, rules that led to expected outcomes.  The right amount of heat led to an expected amount of preparation; specific kinds of knives were meant for specific things; certain flavors went together and did not go with other things.  Cooking was orderly, linear, controllable.  The end result was good, because the rules were meant to ensure good things.

Weren’t they?

“You seem really out of it today, Lan Zhan.  Long day?”

Lan Wangji snapped back into focus on Wei Wuxian sitting across the table from him, chopsticks poised over the meal he had made.  “Just…thinking,” he said.

Wei Wuxian smiled.  “Always so much going on in that mind of yours,” he teased.  “I can’t believe I ever found you boring.  What an idiot younger me was.”

“Not an idiot,” countered Lan Wangji, the response almost automatic to Wei Wuxian’s self-deprecation.

Wei Wuxian rolled his eyes.  “About this one, we agree to disagree.  I could have been dating you so much sooner and I will never stop regretting that.”

“No regrets.”

An exaggerated sigh, a slurp of the last of the noodles in his bowl, and Wei Wuxian continued, “Well, at least I figured it out eventually.  Sorry to make you wait.”

“No sorrys.”

“Aiyah, Lan Zhan, give a man some room to acknowledge the superior awareness of his boyfriend!  I just want to praise you, then, can I do that?  Or is there also no praise?”

Lan Wangji finished his own meal and gathered the dishes for the kitchen.  “Wei Ying is always worth praising.”

Wei Wuxian buried his face in his hands and moaned.  “Lan Zhan, how dare you turn that around on me.  My poor heart can’t take that kind of smoothness.”

Lan Wangji set aside the unfinished dishes and bent over Wei Wuxian, still seated at the table.  “Wei Ying is smart,” he said, kissing Wei Wuxian’s temple.  “Wei Ying is a good boyfriend,” the hands over his face.  “Wei Ying is clever,” the forehead as Lan Wangji pulled his chair back.

“You can’t use ‘smart’ and ‘clever,’ that’s a repetition.”  Wei Wuxian dropped his hands to shake a finger at Lan Wangji.

“Can,” said Lan Wangji, kneeling in front of Wei Wuxian.  “Not the same.  Wei Ying is smart—picks up ideas—and clever—uses them in new ways.”

“Lan Zhaaaaaaan,” Wei Wuxian whined as his face reddened.  “You can’t say all that and not kiss me.”

It was the easiest thing for Lan Wangji to lean forward and press their lips together, to feel Wei Wuxian’s smile curve against him as Lan Wangji kissed deeper, opened his mouth to pull at Wei Wuxian’s lips, his hand coming up to slide through Wei Wuxian’s hair and tug.  Wei Wuxian moaned and Lan Wangji licked over the dropped jaw, teeth and tongue and fingers sliding across Wei Wuxian, taking him apart, drinking in the tastes of him.  Lan Wangji stood, dragging Wei Wuxian with him, the dishes forgotten as they walked back to the bedroom and Lan Wangji all but threw Wei Wuxian onto the bed.  He pulled off Wei Wuxian’s shirt, sliding his hands over Wei Wuxian’s triceps until Wei Wuxian lifted his arms to the headboard.  Lan Wangji clasped their fingers around the wooden spindles, a clear and familiar command to keep them there.  Wei Wuxian’s breath hitched as he complied and Lan Wangji kissed and bit his way down Wei Wuxian’s jaw, his throat, the bruises in his mind surfacing to be ruthlessly squashed as Lan Wangji laved his tongue over a nipple.  He was determined to give this to Wei Ying, determined not to shy away from this when they both wanted it, when this was the right thing to do.

Wei Wuxian’s body bucked as Lan Wangji undid his trousers and bit at the hip joint, pulling down the cloth to watch the erection spring free.  Wei Wuxian was only half-hard and Lan Wangji slid back up Wei Wuxian’s body to kiss him on the mouth, messy and harsh, his fingers gripping Wei Wuxian’s hair.  “Does Wei Ying want this?” he growled into his mouth.

“Yes,” gasped Wei Wuxian.  “Yes, take it, take me, tie me up and claim it, Lan Zhan.”

Lan Wangji blinked before dragging his Dom self back into place.  If Wei Wuxian wanted to be tied, then he would be tied.  Wei Wuxian would get what he wanted.  It was only right.  They had negotiated this a hundred times before; it was fine, it would be fine.  Lan Wangji leaned over to the nightstand to fish out the rope and made quick work of loops around Wei Wuxian’s wrists to attach to the headboard.  “Color?” he asked when Wei Wuxian’s breath hitched again.

“Green,” said Wei Wuxian, and Lan Wangji ignored the way his voice wavered.  It was Lan Wangji who was a coward, who was lagging behind the courage and love of his boyfriend.  Wei Wuxian said green, and it did not matter if Lan Wangji felt yellow running across his bones.

“Good boy,” he said instead, trailing his way down again to Wei Wuxian’s cock and pulling Wei Wuxian’s pants the rest of the way off.  He took a deep breath and swallowed Wei Wuxian whole, relaxing his throat to allow the length of it.  He bobbed his head, the action familiar and yet strange for the weeks it had been, the taste salty-bitter-sweet across his tongue as he reached underneath to draw a finger across Wei Wuxian’s perineum.  Wei Wuxian bucked and shuddered underneath him, his cries inarticulate, and Lan Wangji concentrated on giving him pleasure.  He blocked out the sound of a shed door, the feeling of Wei Wuxian’s blood on his hands, the confusion, the anger, the fear, the fear, the—

He glanced up Wei Wuxian’s body as the shudders changed depth and Wei Wuxian was not looking at him but had flung his head back against the pillow, his hands scratching at the bedframe, his chest heaving in something other than bliss.  Lan Wangji pulled off, swiping a hand across his lips.  “Wei Ying?”

Wei Wuxian did not respond and Lan Wangji leaned forward—he was crying, tears rolling down into his hair, the wood of the headboard covered in tiny nicks from his fingernails.

“Wei Ying!”  Lan Wangji yanked at the knot and released the rope, pulling Wei Wuxian into him in a crushing embrace, feeling the sobs shaking through the naked torso.  “Wei Ying, Wei Ying, I am here, I am sorry, Wei Ying.”  He ran soothing fingers through Wei Wuxian’s hair and grasped blindly behind him to grab the comforter and pull it over them, arranging them in a half-lying position with Wei Wuxian tucked tightly against him.  Wei Wuxian pulled at Lan Wangji’s shirt and Lan Wangji realized he was still fully dressed, a horrible discrepancy, an imbalance, and he yanked off his top before curling around Wei Wuxian again, skin to skin.

“Wei Ying, I’m here, I’m here,” he repeated into Wei Wuxian’s crown.

“I’m—I’m s—sorry,” Wei Wuxian gasped against Lan Wangji’s chest.  “I’m so s—sorry.”          

“Wei Ying, there is nothing to be sorry for,” said Lan Wangji.

“I wanted—Lan Zhan, I wanted—”  The words stuck in Wei Wuxian’s throat as his fingers dug into Lan Wangji’s skin.  It had not been the right thing; Lan Wangji felt panic surge under his breastbone because he had no idea what the right thing was.

“Breathe, baobei,” Lan Wangji said, the Mandarin sliding off his tongue in an attempt to ground them both.  He was supposed to be the one in control here, he was supposed to be the one planning, where was his control, why couldn’t he do this right.

“Lan Zhan, Lan Zhan, I am so sick of this,” hiccoughed Wei Wuxian into Lan Wangji’s collarbone, and Lan Wangji froze.  Of them?  Of his failure to get them back on track?  Would he be sick enough to stop trying?  “I hate that this has so much power,” Wei Wuxian continued.  “I hate that this is stopping us from being together, that I see him instead of you, I hate it, I hate it.  There is no reason—why this?  Of everything I’ve been through, why is this what I can’t get past?”

Lan Wangji had no answer, running soothing fingers through Wei Wuxian’s hair in helpless silence, kissing the crown of his head in fearful love, until he felt Wei Wuxian go slack against him in exhausted, frustrated sleep.  He stayed awake, absurdly thinking of the unfinished dishes, feeling the taste of Wei Wuxian on his tongue.

***

“I am glad you have returned,” said Xiao Xingchen as Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian settled into the couch in his office.  “It is good to see you.”

Wei Wuxian snorted.  He had almost refused this week, exhausted from the awkward dance they had been doing after their last failed sexual encounter.  Wei Wuxian had woken tense and aching and the pair had resumed their strange orbit from the first week after, always circling, never touching.  Lan Wangji was so, so tired.

“Should I not be glad to see you, Wei Wuxian?” said Xiao Xingchen.

“I mean, we’re paying you, so you can be as excited as you like.”

Xiao Xingchen smiled.  “Is it easier to see this as a business transaction?”

“It would be easier to stay home and get fucked by my boyfriend, but sure, I love a good business transaction.”

Lan Wangji shifted in embarrassment and frustration.  It wasn’t like that would be what they did at home, anyway, not these days.

“Lan Wangji, would that be easier for you?”

“Ah,” said Lan Wangji, caught out. 

“How is the fucking going?”

Wei Wuxian whined.  “The fuck, man, you can’t just ask like that.”

Xiao Xingchen smiled.  “I would think you would love to talk about your exploits.  The shock value, right?  And you certainly have netted a fine-looking man for it, congratulations.”

“Are you hitting on my boyfriend?  I thought you were supposed to be fixing me.”

“And you also probably thought I would never say ‘fucking,’ yet here we are.”  Xiao Xingchen leaned forward slightly.  “Wei Wuxian, I do not mind if you fight me at every turn, and I do not mind your sarcasm, and I do not mind your glibness.  But it is much more difficult for me to be helpful—to earn my pay, if you want to look at it that way—when I am spending most of my time with you sparring.”

“Means we keep coming back and paying you,” Wei Wuxian grumbled.

“It does,” said Xiao Xingchen easily.  “And if you would like to go that route, that’s fine.  You could also stay home and simply send me the money, if you like.”

Wei Wuxian glared at him.  Xiao Xingchen stared mildly back.

“You’re terrible at this,” said Wei Wuxian.

“I’m really not,” said Xiao Xingchen.  “But I could be terrible for you, as a therapist.  Perhaps we don’t fit.  That’s okay; not every client and therapist work together.  If you wish to work with someone else, you can.  I will be sad, because I see a lot of possibility and strength in both of you that I would like to explore, but I will move on.”

“You’re not really doing a lot to boost my confidence, here.”

“I wasn’t aware it needed boosting,” said Xiao Xingchen, and Lan Wangji felt an unexpected heave of anger—how dare this man call Wei Wuxian arrogant, how dare he take the mask at face value, Wei Wuxian who would grind himself into the floor for others, who—

“Lan Wangji, how have I offended you?”

Lan Wangji startled.  “I’m sorry?”

“You don’t have to be, but please help me understand.  How have I offended you?”

“You have not.”

“In some way, I have.  Unless the anger is directed somewhere else.”

“Wait, wait,” said Wei Wuxian.  “How do you know he’s angry?”

Xiao Xingchen gestured.  “His facial expression.”

Wei Wuxian’s jaw dropped.  “You can read his face?”

Xiao Xingchen’s brow furrowed.  “Is that unusual?”

Wei Wuxian started to laugh and Lan Wangji gave him a look.  “You have no idea,” said Wei Wuxian. 

“People say I am—unexpressive,” said Lan Wangji.

“Well, it is subtle,” said Xiao Xingchen.  “Do they then say that you are unfeeling?”

Lan Wangji gave a jerky nod.

“Ah.”  Xiao Xingchen pondered briefly.  “But you are not.”

“He is not,” agreed Wei Wuxian, emphatically.  “Lan Zhan is a beast, really.  And quietly hilarious.  And absolutely mean, in all the best ways.  And such a sap, holy shit.  No one ever believes me, but it’s true.”

Lan Wangji felt his ears warm.

“I believe you,” said Xiao Xingchen.

Wei Wuxian stuttered a bit.  “Well, yeah,” he said, recovering, “of course.  You do.  You’re paid to believe me.”

“No,” said Xiao Xingchen.  “I believe you because you are truthful when it matters.  And he matters to you.”  He gestured to Lan Wangji.  “You would not lie when you are celebrating him.”

Wei Wuxian stared.  “Ah, damn right!” he recovered.  “My Lan Zhan is the absolute best!”

“So how is the fucking going?”

Lan Wangji wanted to crawl under the couch at the mix of such blatant praise and such blunt intrusiveness.

“Damn, dude, you pivoted so hard right there.”

“I returned us to a topic that you introduced as a preferable activity,” replied Xiao Xingchen.  “We can leave it, if you wish, but as you say—it is your money.”

Wei Wuxian squawked in outrage and Lan Wangji was so overwhelmed and so tired and surprised no one more than himself when he said, “It is not.”

“It is not?”

“Not going.”

“Lan Zhan,” said Wei Wuxian, suddenly serious. 

“Wei Ying,” replied Lan Wangji, turning to him and reaching out for his hand.  It was an overwhelming relief when Wei Wuxian let him.  “We have tried twice, and I have failed twice, and I do not know what to do, and perhaps he can help.”

“What?  You didn’t fail, Lan Zhan, that’s—that’s not it at all.”

“How do you think you failed?” asked Xiao Xingchen.

Lan Wangji turned back to him.  “I am—frightened.”

“Of?”

“Of…”  Lan Wangji searched for the words and felt Wei Wuxian squeeze his hand.  He squeezed back, gratefully.  “Of being.  Like him.”

“Like who?”

“Wen Chao, our super,” supplied Wei Wuxian.  “The guy who—Lan Zhan, I told you you weren’t, you couldn’t be.”

“Am hurting Wei Ying,” said Lan Wangji.

“Oh, baobei, no you’re not.  I’m not—none of this is your fault.”

“I cannot—cannot—”

“Sex is frightening for you?” asked Xiao Xingchen, his voice gentle.

“Do not want to hurt Wei Ying.  To be like—be like him.”

“But you aren’t,” whined Wei Wuxian, and Xiao Xingchen held up a hand.

“Whether he is or isn’t like Wen Chao, he feels the comparison, Wei Wuxian.  Fear can sometimes distort things and the new reality is no less real than the one someone without fear is experiencing.”

“But Lan Zhan is good!”

“Wei Ying, I am holding you back.”

“What?  The fuck you are, Lan Zhan, what do you even mean?”

Lan Wangji bit his tongue in exasperation, wishing for the words to fill his mouth as easily as blood.  “I—you are so—Wei Ying, you are always brave.”  Wei Wuxian opened his mouth to reply and shut it again at the soft insistence of Xiao Xingchen.  “You want to rewrite the memory—all the memories, all the times you have been hurt, and I…all I see are bruises, and blood, and I put more there, and I did not protect you, and I am not protecting you, and you were the one who was hurt but I keep hesitating and it should not be about me—”

“Lan Wangji, breathe in deeply for me, if you can,” interrupted Xiao Xingchen.  Tears spilled down Wei Wuxian’s face as Lan Wangji breathed in, and out, his rabbiting heart slowing, slowing.

“Lan Zhan, how can you say you’re not brave?” whispered Wei Wuxian after some moments of breath-filled silence.  “You’re the bravest person I know.  You’re Hanguang-Jun.”

Lan Wangji flinched at the name. 

“‘Light-bearing lord’?” asked Xiao Xingchen.  “Quite the title.  You don’t seem fond of it, Lan Wangji.”

“It is…it was not meant…Wei Ying,” Lan Wangji finished, feeling helpless.

Wei Wuxian let go of his hands to fold his own in his lap.  “I, ah, may have made it up when we were fighting.  About…about this.”

“Not a compliment, then.”

“No, it was!” insisted Wei Wuxian, looking earnestly at Xiao Xingchen.  “He really does bring light into the shadows; he always has.  He sits with me after every nightmare, and he found—he found me, he stopped—”  Wei Wuxian’s breath hitched and he looked at Lan Wangji.  “Lan Zhan, you walked in on that.  I’m surprised you didn’t rip his whole head off.”

Lan Wangji was also surprised, but, “You were more important.  You were hurt.” 

The pair of them stared at each other for a moment before Xiao Xingchen asked, “When people call you unfeeling, Lan Wangji, what do you do?”

Lan Wangji furrowed his brow.  “Do?”

“In response.  How do you respond to them?”

“I do not.”

“You don’t correct them, or ask them not to say such a thing?”

“No.”

“Why?”

Lan Wangji tilted his head in confusion.  “Why would I?”

“Because they’re incorrect.”

“Not entirely.  I am—unfriendly.”

“But that isn’t the same thing.”

“And also, like hell!” cut in Wei Wuxian.  “You’re reserved, but—”

“Wei Ying,” said Lan Wangji gently.  “I know I am…stilted, in social situations.”

“Still not the same as unfriendly,” said Xiao Xingchen.

Lan Wangji wanted to ask why it mattered—the end result of being left to himself was the same no matter the reasoning—but it felt rude.  “I do not…connect, easily,” he said instead.

“Yet you connected to Wei Wuxian.”

“That was…unexpected.”

Wei Wuxian laughed.  “What he means is that I annoyed him until he stopped fighting me about it.”

“No,” said Lan Wangji, turning to him.  “Wei Ying was never annoying.”

“Oh, come on, Lan Zhan,” said Wei Wuxian, smiling.  “You hated me at first.  I wouldn’t leave you alone.”

“Good.”

“What?”

“I—”  Lan Wangji faltered, looking to Xiao Xingchen for guidance.

“Not many people try to connect with you, do they?” Xiao Xingchen asked.

Lan Wangji shook his head and turned back to Wei Wuxian.  “You—wanted to talk to me.  You were…loud, and confusing, but no one…no one wants to be…to be my friend, like you did.”

Wei Wuxian stared at him.  “Why not?  Lan Zhan, you’re great?”

“It sounds like many people don’t take the time and energy to discover that, Wei Wuxian,” said Xiao Xingchen.

“Well, their loss,” said Wei Wuxian.  “Besides, not only is Lan Zhan absolutely perfect—no, I get to say that, Lan Zhan, don’t interrupt me—but he’s also loyal as fuck.  Once Lan Zhan loves you, he will tear apart the world for you.”

“So you understand that he loves you?” asked Xiao Xingchen.

“What?  Of course I do.  He says so all the time.”

“And you understand that he thinks you’re worthy of being loved like that, of his loyalty?”

“Sure he thinks that; Lan Zhan is the best.”

“And you understand that you are worthy of being loved like that?”

Wei Wuxian started to respond and stopped.  “Ah, that was sneaky, Xiao-laoshi, that was very sneaky.  Well done.”

Xiao Xingchen merely waited.

“I—well, Lan Zhan thinks so.”

“And Lan Wangji thinks things through carefully, and has willingly accepted your friendship and built a relationship with you.”

“Well, because Lan Zhan is amazing.”

“Because Wei Ying is amazing,” said Lan Wangji, fervently.

“Look, I’m totally here for praising Lan Zhan, but what does my worthiness have to do with the fucking?”  There, the scratching his neck.  Lan Wangji wanted to scratch lines down his back, to scrape the doubt and the feelings of worthlessness right out of him.

“Lan Wangji is having trouble with intimacy because he is only seeing his failure of one of the few people who have accepted him and taken the time to get to know him.  You are having trouble with intimacy because you don’t feel you’re worth taking time to sort out things like pain and fear.  The two of you together are having trouble with intimacy because neither wants to admit to the other that he needs time and it is not selfish to take the time and relearn how to be intimate after such an extreme violation of trust and safety.  Am I close?”

They stared at Xiao Xingchen for a moment before Wei Wuxian said, “Well, fuck, that’s.  Ah.  Maybe you’re not actually, um, terrible at this.”

Xiao Xingchen smiled.  “I am not actually, um, terrible at this, but I’m very glad to hear that I’m not entirely wrong, either.  I don’t know everything, and I’m still getting to know you, but both of you seem to keep sacrificing for the other without realizing that the other only wants the best for you.  Would you say you trust each other?”

“Absolutely,” said Wei Wuxian as Lan Wangji nodded.

“Then why do you not trust that the other will not stop loving you if you have to be frank about what you need after a traumatic event?”

Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji carefully did not look at each other as the question sat heavy between them.  “I am…difficult.  To love,” said Lan Wangji after a considerable silence.

“What?” cried Wei Wuxian.  “Lan Zhan, you are so incredibly easy to love.  You’re so good and patient and weird in hilarious ways.”

“Wei Ying is good, and kind, and patient when I—when words are…difficult,” replied Lan Wangji.

“Both of you are good,” said Xiao Xingchen softly, “for each other.  But something like sexual assault requires that you also be good to yourself.”

Wei Wuxian flinched at the stark naming of it.  “It’ll be fine,” he said.

“Because it’s always fine?” said Xiao Xingchen.

Wei Wuxian shrugged.

“And yet there is no fucking.”

“Ugggggghhhhh,” groaned Wei Wuxian, putting his hands over his face, “why do you have to be so blunt about it.”

“You both have older siblings, right?” asked Xiao Xingchen.

“Again with the harsh pivot, but yeah,” said Wei Wuxian.

“I know you have spoken with your brother, Lan Wangji, at least to get here.  Wei Wuxian, have you talked with yours?"

“Jie?” said Wei Wuxian.  “Ah, no, that’s—no, I haven’t.  Why?”

“Would she not want to know that you have been hurt?”

Wei Wuxian squirmed.  “No need to add things to her life,” he said.

“Because she is good,” Xiao Xingchen prodded.

“Because—yeah, she is, she’s the best, and she has a lot going on with her life, and she takes on so much, and she doesn’t need more stress when everything’s over and done with anyway, and this would only make her sad.”

“Is it bad, to make her sad?”

“It’s fucking terrible,” said Wei Wuxian, passionately.  “No one should ever make jiejie sad.”

“He is still angry with her husband for making her cry,” added Lan Wangji.  “Eight years ago.”

“Damn right,” said Wei Wuxian.

“And you don’t want to make her cry,” said Xiao Xingchen.

“Of course I don’t!”

“So will you keep her out of everything that hurts you?”

“If I can.”

“Have you seen her since the assault?”

Wei Wuxian flinched again.  “No.”

“Why not?”

“It’s—well, I’ve been…she’s been busy, and I’ve been—well, like this.”  He gestured to himself.

“So keeping her out of what hurts you is keeping her out of your life entirely right now,” said Xiao Xingchen.

Wei Wuxian picked at his fingernails.

“Wei Wuxian, if you are not comfortable with her seeing you, that is okay.  But I want you to be honest with yourself, and with us, about how the choice to shield her from your pain is causing you more pain because you don’t get to see someone who is important to you.  If Lan Wangji had not found you, would you be trying to hide this from him?”       

There was no answer. There didn’t need to be.

“And do you think it would help your relationship with Lan Wangji to push him away from you?”

The idea of being shut out of something like this, of watching Wei Wuxian’s nightmares and not knowing what drove them, of sex twisted into a fear whose name he did not know, made Lan Wangji’s stomach twist.  “Wei Ying, I—” he began, and Wei Wuxian looked at him.  “You have suffered alone so many times,” he said.  “I do not want that.  For you.”

“Ah, Lan Zhan,” sighed Wei Wuxian.  “Nobody wants to hang out with someone who makes them sad.”

“I do,” said Lan Wangji, fiercely.  He took Wei Wuxian’s hand in his.  “I want to hang out with Wei Ying.  You make me happy just by existing, even if I never got to touch you at all.  You make me happy when you are happy, or when you are sad, or when you are angry, because you are still here and the world needs that.  I—I need that.”

“But my sister—”

“Loves you,” interrupted Lan Wangji, surprising them both.  “She loves you.  For existing.  No matter whether you are smiling or not.”

“But I’m always supposed to be smiling,” whispered Wei Wuxian.

“No,” said Lan Wangji.  He tugged lightly on Wei Wuxian’s hand and Wei Wuxian followed, folding into his chest.  “You owe no one your smiles,” he said into Wei Wuxian’s hair.  “You are allowed to be sad.”

“Are you allowed to be sad, Lan Zhan?” came the muffled voice.

Lan Wangji sighed.  “I will—try to allow that,” he said.

Xiao Xingchen watched them breathe together.  “Well, you’re not terrible at this, either.”

“Do we get to keep our money?” asked Wei Wuxian.

“Of course not,” said Xiao Xingchen, and Lan Wangji loved the huff of laughter he felt against his ribs.

Chapter Text

Wei Wuxian declared that milk tea was the only recourse after a session “of being totally dragged, Lan Zhan, how dare Xiao Xingchen say things like that without even flinching” and Lan Wangji sipped at an iced green while Wei Wuxian happily gnawed on his tapioca pearls.

“Lan Zhan,” said Wei Wuxian as they leisurely walked back to the bus stop.

“Mn,” said Lan Wangji.

“Do you think he was right?”

“About?”

“About—about telling jie.  About seeing her.”

Lan Wangji pondered.  “You have missed her,” he said, neutrally.

Wei Wuxian shrugged.  “We’ve been apart for longer, before.”

Lan Wangji did not probe further, remembering the reunion the year after he’d met Wei Wuxian that had involved a great deal of weeping over the lost six years of separation between the siblings.  A couple of months was nothing to that.  “Being able to be apart does not mean it is necessary to be so,” he said instead.

He heard Wei Wuxian sigh beside him.  “Yeah, but—she just doesn’t need to know, right?”

Lan Wangji stopped and turned to him.  “Wei Ying.”  Wei Wuxian stopped as well, abandoning his straw.  “Do you not wish to tell her because it would make you uncomfortable or because you feel it would make her uncomfortable?”

“Ah, hahaha, well,” chuckled Wei Wuxian nervously.  He scratched his neck.  “I just don’t need to impose on her, really, I mean who even wants that kind of information in their heads, it’s bad enough you have to think about it.”

“Wei Ying,” said Lan Wangji softly.  He pulled Wei Wuxian’s hand down and wound their fingers together.  “You do not owe anyone this story, and you do not have to tell it if it hurts you.  But you do not have to shield those who love you from it if you want them—want us—to know.”

Wei Wuxian searched his eyes and Lan Wangji wondered what he was looking for.  Apparently finding it, Wei Wuxian said, “Lan Zhan, what if that’s the only thing she thinks about me, then?”

Lan Wangji squeezed his hand.  “You have a lifetime of her other stories of you, Wei Ying.  I do not think this will overshadow those.”

A shrug of uncertainty and Wei Wuxian turned back to his tea, tugging Lan Wangji along by their still-interconnected hands.  “Come on, Lan er-gege, we don’t want to miss the bus.”

***

A few days later, Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji sat in Lan Xichen and Nie Mingjue’s living room, pleasantly full from dinner.  “You know I appreciate you, Xichen-ge,” said Wei Wuxian, “but I am glad when you let Mingjue-ge cook.”

Lan Xichen chuckled.  “I am glad he meets your specifications.”

“I’m just saying, there’s a whole world of flavor!” whined Wei Wuxian, the argument well-trodden ground.  “It’s not like you have to get super wild about it, I mean, like there was this one time that jiejie was making—”  He stopped abruptly.

“Was making?” asked Lan Xichen after the pause stretched a few breaths.

“Ah, soup.  She was making a soup.  Added a lot of cayenne, couldn’t eat it herself,” Wei Wuxian muttered.  Lan Wangji slid his hand into Wei Wuxian’s and squeezed.

Lan Xichen looked to Lan Wangji, a brow raised in question.  Lan Wangji tilted his head in tentative permission.  “Is she well, your sister?” asked Lan Xichen.

Wei Wuxian’s grip on Lan Wangji’s hand tightened.  “I think so,” he said.

“Please pass along our greeting when you next speak to her,” Lan Xichen said.

“Yeah, I—yeah, well, maybe, I mean, sure, will do, got it,” said Wei Wuxian in a rush.

“Xian-di,” rumbled Nie Mingjue.  “What’s up?”

Lan Wangji felt the shiver run through Wei Wuxian at the address and glowed internally with love for Nie Mingjue’s casual reinforcement.  You are wanted, here.  You are loved.  You belong, he chanted in his mind at his beloved.

“Well, it’s just—I mean—Lan Zhan?” said Wei Wuxian, turning.

“You don’t have to tell us if you do not wish to,” assured Lan Xichen.

“No, it’s fine, I mean, shit, you guys know all the other stuff, why not.”

“Because we never need to know anything you don’t want to tell us, Wei Wuxian,” said Nie Mingjue.  “Ever.”

Wei Wuxian stared at him.  “But, like, if you need—”

“Ever.”

Wei Wuxian turned back to Lan Wangji.  “Lan Zhan?”

“Your story is always yours, Wei Ying,” said Lan Wangji, keeping his voice soft.  “If they can help you, that is good.  But you do not owe them an explanation.”  You owe no one, he finished silently.  There is no debt.

“Ah,” said Wei Wuxian, a placeholder while his mind turned over this information.  “Well.  But.  It would help—”

“Only if you want.”

“Ah, Lan Zhan, so determined.”  Wei Wuxian smiled, a lopsided and half-hearted thing that turned small and genuine under Lan Wangji’s gaze.  “But he said older siblings can help, right?  And they’re—aren’t they?”

Lan Wangji nodded, glad he could follow the incomplete sentences, glad it was true; these older siblings could help, would help, had helped so much already.  Not everyone had such a gift in their relations, he knew, and he wondered how Wei Wuxian was thinking of his younger brother these days.

“So, here’s the thing,” said Wei Wuxian, turning back to Nie Mingjue and Lan Xichen, his thumb brushing down the back of Lan Wangji’s hand.  “Our—ah, our therapist,” the word taken at a run, “is a jerk but he’s a jerk who’s good at his job and you can never tell him that, right, he would be so insufferably pleased and nice about it and that would be just awful, really, but he said that I should get together with jiejie and, well, and tell her about—about, ah, things, and what—what happened, if I wanted, at least, because I haven’t talked to her since then and I’ve been ignoring her calls and I think she’s freaking out but I don’t want her to know because that freaks me out and what if she is just freaked out by me after she knows because it always makes her so sad when I’m an idiot and this is a pretty colossal idiot moment, really.”

Lan Wangji blinked while Wei Wuxian breathed; he had not known that Wei Wuxian was ignoring Jiang Yanli’s calls.  No wonder she was worried; his history of disappearing was still fresh in all their minds, however understandable the reason.

“I’m glad to hear that your therapist is working well for you,” said Lan Xichen, and Lan Wangji was impressed once again by his brother’s ability to sort through that monologue.  Nie Mingjue rested his hand on top of Lan Xichen’s, nodding along.  “It sounds like a ‘jerk’ is exactly what is helping right now.”

Wei Wuxian laughed, a trembling thing in his throat.

“I’m sorry to hear that you haven’t been able to connect with your sister,” Lan Xichen continued.  “I know how important she is to you.”

“Yeah, well,” said Wei Wuxian.  “She’s a great sister, the best sister.”

“She loves you very much,” said Lan Xichen.

“Because she’s a saint,” said Wei Wuxian, and Lan Wangji breathed deeply to keep himself from the frustration of how little value Wei Wuxian held for himself.

“But you’re having doubts about contacting her?”

“Well, I mean,” said Wei Wuxian, reaching up with his free hand to scratch his neck.  “I don’t want to dump this on her, you know?  ‘Hey, how you doing, how’s the peacock, been a minute, by the way I went off-grid because I got myself hit with a brick and locked in a tool shed and had to have my boyfriend save me from a horny hopped-up janitor, good to see you again, hope you didn’t think I died without telling you.’”

Lan Wangji inhaled quietly, sharply, at that stark description.  Was that really the narrative Wei Wuxian was telling himself?  It covered over so much, ignored so much about who was at fault and who was hurt.

“Probably don’t tell it like that,” said Nie Mingjue, his voice dry, and Wei Wuxian laughed.

“You’d think I’d be more practiced after the sheer amount of times I’ve had to talk about it to doctors and such,” said Wei Wuxian, “but nah, apparently not.”

“It takes time to be able to tell such a story without the need to avoid how much it still hurts,” said Lan Xichen.  “It’s okay if you can’t do that yet.”

Wei Wuxian shrugged, looking down at his lap.

“But if you’re asking whether it would be good to contact her, I would say yes,” Lan Xichen continued.  “I would be worried, too, if I didn’t hear from Wangji for several weeks and he wasn’t returning my calls.”

“I’d break into A-Sang’s apartment,” huffed Nie Mingjue.  “Just to make sure he hadn’t done something stupid.”

The four of them took a moment to consider the real possibilities of what “stupid” could look like in the actions of the wildly inept but curiously connected Nie Huaisang.

“Anyway,” said Wei Wuxian, shaking himself, “yeah, but Huaisang is a menace and Lan Zhan would never ghost you like that, Xichen-ge, he’s too good.”  I am not went unspoken and heard loudly.

“Perhaps,” said Lan Xichen, and Lan Wangji heard so much of their life before Wei Wuxian in it.  “Regardless, I would want to know that he was well.  You would want that, too, for Jiang Cheng, would you not?”

“Well, sure, he’s my—oh.  Damn, Lan Xichen, Xiao Xingchen would like you.”

“I will take that as a compliment.”

“Sure, sure.  But yeah, it’s just—okay.  I see what you’re saying.”

“You don’t have to tell her about what happened, Wuxian,” said Nie Mingjue.  “But checking in with her?  Yeah, that would be good.  Let her know you’re okay.”

“For a given measure of ‘okay,’” muttered Wei Wuxian. 

“That you’re okay,” Nie Mingjue repeated.  “You’re doing okay, didi.”

Lan Wangji felt the shiver run through Wei Wuxian again and his heart warmed at it as he thought through when there would be free time to invite Jiang Yanli over for dinner.

***

It took two more days before Wei Wuxian settled on the couch with his phone in his hand, staring at it as Lan Wangji knitted quietly next to him.  The rhythmic click of his needles kept time as Wei Wuxian shuffled the phone back and forth in his hands, the screen flashing on and off at each pass of his fingertips.  Lan Wangji knew better than to push this silence after having watched Wei Wuxian spend the two days approaching his phone with as much uncertainty and trepidation as a feral cat. 

“Lan Zhan, what if she doesn’t want to talk to me?” asked Wei Wuxian finally, his voice small as his hands stilled.

Lan Wangji finished his stitch and set the yarn on the coffee table so he could turn fully to Wei Wuxian.  He reached out and covered Wei Wuxian’s hands with his own.  “She loves you, Wei Ying.”

Wei Wuxian shrugged.  “But I’ve been ignoring her.  Maybe she’s more mad at me than loves me, by now.”

Lan Wangji squeezed slightly.  “From my experience of your sister, I do not think that will be the case.”

“Will you—will you hang out, for a sec?” asked Wei Wuxian, still looking down as he lifted one finger to trail across Lan Wangji’s.

“I would be honored,” said Lan Wangji.

Wei Wuxian took a deep breath, and another, before swiping up the screen to enter his code.  “🥰 JieJie 🥣💞” was right near the top of his Favorites in the contacts list, second only to “🤩Hottest Man Alive 🥵💗💙,” an appellation Lan Wangji had never quite known how to receive for himself.  Wei Wuxian tapped the beginning of a call and set it to speaker, his hands trembling within Lan Wangji’s.

“A-Xian?” came an uncertain voice after two rings.  “Are you okay?”

“Hey, jiejie,” said Wei Wuxian.  His voice wavered.  “I’m—yeah, I’m sorry I’ve been ducking your calls.”

“Oh, A-Xian, I’m so glad to hear you!  I was worried, but I knew if something was really wrong that Lan Wangji would tell me.  I’m sorry you felt like you couldn’t talk to me.”

“Oh, no, no, jie, that’s not--!  It’s not you!”  Lan Wangji squeezed Wei Wuxian’s hand as Wei Wuxian melted at the idea that, Lan Wangji privately admitted to himself, was completely true.  He hadn’t felt like he could talk to Jiang Yanli, although it was in no way her fault.  “I just—it’s been—um.”  Wei Wuxian stopped and looked at Lan Wangji, his eyes pleading.

“Good evening, Jiang-nushi,” Lan Wangji said.  “Wei Ying has you on speakerphone.”

“Oh, hello, Wangji!  I hope you’re well?”

“I am well,” confirmed Lan Wangji, and ignored Wei Wuxian’s raised eyebrows.  “It has been a—difficult few weeks.  Our routines have been much altered.”

“Oh,” said Jiang Yanli.  “How can I help?”

Whatever Lan Wangji felt about the rest of Wei Wuxian’s family, he was forever grateful for the light of his sister, a woman who could immediately shelve her questions to help when she heard her little brother needed it.  Lan Wangji nudged Wei Wuxian; Jiang Yanli’s response was admirable, but such love should be returned with communication.

“Jie, I—yeah.  Like Lan Zhan said, it’s been—it’s been something, around here.  I think…I think I should have that conversation in person.  With you.”

“Would you like me to come over or would you want to come here?”

Wei Wuxian froze and Lan Wangji stroked his arm.  “If you would be willing to come here, Jiang Yanli, that would be appreciated,” Lan Wangji answered.

“Of course, of course.  When?”

With Lan Wangji’s careful support and Jiang Yanli’s gentle acceptance, Wei Wuxian set a date for two days later.  “I love you, jie, you know that, right?”

“I do know that, didi,” came Jiang Yanli’s soft reassurance.  “And I am so glad of it, because I love you, too.”

Wei Wuxian’s breath hitched and he quickly signed off on the call, tossing the phone onto the table before dissolving into Lan Wangji’s waiting arms.  “She’s too good,” he sniffled into Lan Wangji’s chest.  “She didn’t even yell at me once for ignoring her.”

Lan Wangji stroked Wei Wuxian’s hair.  “She was concerned for you, not angry with you,” he said.  “You do not stop communicating unless you have good reason.”

“This is a terrible reason, Lan Zhan,” retorted Wei Wuxian.  “A shitty reason.  A fake reason.”

“Not fake,” interrupted Lan Wangji.  He pulled Wei Wuxian up so he could look him in the eyes.  “It is not a fake reason.  You needed time.  She will not begrudge you that.”

Wei Wuxian looked away.  “I was cruel to her.”

“You were hurting,” said Lan Wangji.  “You are hurting.  Sometimes, there is not enough room to care for other people.”

Wei Wuxian turned back to stare at him.  “But what if that’s all the time?  Come on, Lan Zhan, you know how selfish I am.”

Lan Wangji took a deep breath so as not to shake the other man, to see if he could jolt loose all the lies and insults that had been so deeply ground into him.  “I do not know that.  I know that you are kind, and loving, and gracious, and generous, and that sometimes things happen that require everything we have so there is nothing else to give, including time.”

“Lan Zhan,” said Wei Wuxian, burying his face in his hands.  “You need to warn me when you’re going to be complimentary and sincere, my heart can’t take it.”

“Mn,” Lan Wangji replied, pulling his boyfriend back into his arms.  “We will work on your tolerance, then.”

Wei Wuxian huffed against his neck and wrapped his arms around his waist, breathing, until the trembling in his body stilled.

***

“This was incredibly stupid, Lan Zhan, this was ridiculous, what was I thinking, what was I thinking—”

“Wei Ying,” Lan Wangji broke in, trying to stem the anxiety he had felt building in Wei Wuxian for several hours.  “It is not stupid.”

“How is this going to go?  ‘Hi, jie, hope you’re well, how’s the peacock, by the way I did a brief hospital stint after a brick to the head and a cock to the face, no worries, I have a shrink now.”

“Wei Ying,” said Lan Wangji, unable to contain his horror.  “Did—”

“No, it’s—look,” said Wei Wuxian, wrapping his arms around himself, “there wasn’t—he didn’t—it didn’t get that far.  You know that.  You’ve listened to me a hundred times about it by now.”

And you always keep the worst things to yourself, Lan Wangji thought but didn’t say.  It would not surprise him in the least if he were to learn, even years from now, that the assault was worse than anyone knew because Wei Wuxian felt the whole truth would inconvenience someone else.

“Don’t make that face,” said Wei Wuxian, crossing their living room to where Lan Wangji had stopped cutting vegetables in the kitchen.  “Please don’t make that face, I hate that face, it makes me horribly sad because I know you’re horribly sad and I’m sorry I make you sad—”

“Wei Ying, hush,” said Lan Wangji gently, setting down his knife and taking Wei Wuxian into his arms.  “You do not make me sad.  What you have endured makes me sad, and angry.  There is a difference,” he added, squeezing Wei Wuxian when he felt him shift to interject.  He took a deep breath, remembering Xiao Xingchen’s constant admonition for them to be honest with each other.  “And I am sad if I have made you feel like you cannot tell me everything.”

“What?  No!” said Wei Wuxian, pushing out of the hold.  “You’re the best, Lan Zhan, you always listen and you have the patience of the gods and you make me—”  He cut himself off.

“Wei Ying?”

“Safe.  You make me feel safe,” said Wei Wuxian to Lan Wangji’s collarbone, his fingers absently toying with the hem of Lan Wangji’s shirt.  “It was a hell of a thing, you know, the way you just busted right through that door.  The scar you have from it is very sexy.”

There was indeed a long scar running down Lan Wangji’s leg now from the wrenched locking mechanism on the shed.  He would bear thirty more with ease if it meant he could protect Wei Wuxian from the world.  “I always want you to be safe, Wei Ying,” said Lan Wangji as he ran a hand through Wei Wuxian’s hair.  “I always want you to feel safe with me.”

“Well, I do.  So.  That’s good.”

“And with your sister.”

“Lan Zhaaaan, that was sneaky,” wailed Wei Wuxian.

“Mn.”

“You won’t even deny it!  Lan Zhan, no one will believe me when I tell them you are horribly sly and you outmaneuver me—say, if you want to maneuver—”

“Wei Ying,” Lan Wangji interrupted again, feeling his ears heat at the thought of maneuvering Wei Wuxian.  They still had not been able to go beyond kissing, but Wei Wuxian’s salacious references were returning more and more.  Lan Wangji loved that he felt comfortable enough to joke again, but his own nearly-automatic response was far more frustrating to him.  “Your sister will be here in less than an hour.  Should we tell her that it would be better to reschedule?”

Wei Wuxian slumped against him, defeated.  “It’s not going to be any less stupid an idea later, Lan Zhan,” he said, his voice small.

“It is not a stupid idea, Wei Ying,” Lan Wangji responded immediately.  “You trust her.”  It was not a question, but sometimes Wei Wuxian needed statements stated.

“Yeah, of course,” replied Wei Wuxian.

“And you think Xiao-yisheng is right when he said that it would help to let her know what’s been going on?”

Wei Wuxian grumbled.  “Yeah,” he eventually admitted.

“So this is a natural next step built on trust of Jiang-nushi and Xiao-yisheng’s relationships with you.”

A loud sigh.  “Why do you have to be logical about it, Lan Zhan.”

“Because you are erroneously continuing to denigrate yourself.”

Wei Wuxian pulled back.  “You know, sometimes I think you use really big words just to show off how many years of English you had to take.”

Lan Wangji kissed him on the forehead.  “You are wrong in saying your idea is stupid,” he said.

“Yeah, it doesn’t sound better in smaller words.”  He slid into Mandarin.  “What if she’s disappointed in me?”

Lan Wangji held in the sigh and the scream alike, following his love into his native tongue.  “Then she will not be the woman I thought she was,” Lan Wangji said, “and she will not be welcome in my home.”

“Lan Zhan!” exclaimed Wei Wuxian.  “You’d kick her out?”

“Unless you wanted her to stay.”

“Just to protect me?”

“Mn.”

You’re such a sap.”

“Mn.”

Wei Wuxian laughed and returned to English.  “You’re supposed to fight me on that, silly.”

“Do not wish to fight with Wei Ying.”

“Ah, you softie, what shall I do with you?”

Lan Wangji let the myriad of suggestions in his mind play without watching them.  “You can finish making dinner with me,” he said instead.

“Aiyah, we both know I’m a menace in the kitchen.”

“Mn,” said Lan Wangji, earning a huffed “hey!” and a playful slap.  “But you can rinse the rice and put it in the cooker.”

“Demoted to rice duty by my own boyfriend,” fussed Wei Wuxian in high theatrics as he went to measure cups out of their bag of rice in the pantry.  Lan Wangji smiled as he picked up the knife again, each slice a prayer that Jiang Yanli was, indeed, the woman he thought she was.

***

The chime of their door startled them both after half an hour of the easy rhythm of chopping, stirring, and cooking.  Wei Wuxian stiffened, every muscle held in locked anticipation, and Lan Wangji’s hand brushing over his arm made him jump.

“I will get it,” said Lan Wangji, staving off Wei Wuxian’s ready apology.  “Set everything on the table for us?”  At the last minute, he turned the command into a question, unsure how much Wei Wuxian needed him to be in charge right now.

Wei Wuxian bit his lip, looking at the door again, and nodded.

Lan Wangji smoothed out his shirt, making sure nothing of dinner had gotten on it, and went to open the door.  “Jiang-nushi,” he said, inclining his head.

“Ah, Wangji, hello!” said the woman, pressing a bag into Lan Wangji’s hands.  “I know you said you were preparing dinner and I’m so excited for that, I know A-Xian talks about how much he loves your cooking, but I couldn’t quite stop myself.”

Lan Wangji looks in the bag to see a pair of fresh loaves of bread.  “Thank you, Jiang Yanli.  Please, come in.”  He stepped aside as she stepped forward and slid off her shoes, carefully closing the door behind her.

“A-Xian,” she called, her whole body caught in recognition of the man leaning next to the last filled plate. 

“Jie,” came the strangled response, and suddenly they were in an embrace halfway between as Wei Wuxian folded himself into his sister’s arms.  Her hands smoothed down his spine as she whispered soothingly at him and Lan Wangji walked around them to put the bread in the kitchen.  He thought about the idea of cutting himself off from Lan Xichen for months as he wrapped the loaves and shuddered at how deeply lonely the thought was.

“Come, Xian-di, Wangji prepared this whole meal and we shouldn’t let it get cold,” said Jiang Yanli after a few moments.

“Hey, I helped!” squawked Wei Wuxian through the tears he dashed away as he straightened up.

“Mn.  Very good with a rice cooker,” said Lan Wangji, and Jiang Yanli laughed while Wei Wuxian sulked dramatically.  Lan Wangji kissed him on the cheek as they sat and Wei Wuxian turned a smile on him, full of the hope and fear Lan Wangji knew he didn’t know how to voice.

“So how has work been going, Wangji?” began Jiang Yanli, and the dinner unspooled comfortably as she guided the conversation around their work and Jin Zixuan’s latest tales—stopping to fight for her husband’s honor against Wei Wuxian’s immediate disparagement, of course—and all the light connections of months missed.  Lan Wangji, eating in his usual silence, marveled at the deftness of Jiang Yanli’s conversational skill that acknowledged more without letting it take up too much space.  He wondered where he had learned such finesse, and then thought about what family dinners with her two brothers would have been like.  He vowed to buy her something extra special for the new year.

After the meal was finished and the dishes returned to the kitchen, Lan Wangji gently shepherded the siblings to the couch.  He began to leave and give them privacy but Wei Wuxian grabbed his wrist.  “Stay?” he asked softly, and no Lan Wangji in any universe would have left.  He settled beside Wei Wuxian, who immediately shifted to sit back into Lan Wangji as though he were part of the couch.  Lan Wangji put one arm over the back to create room and Wei Wuxian wriggled in further.  Lan Wangji could almost swear he felt their hearts beating against each other, resting like lapis legit’s layers.

“A-Xian,” began Jiang Yanli, and hesitated.  “Have you been well?”

Wei Wuxian sighed and reached back for the hand on Lan Wangji’s lap.  He entwined their fingers, now almost wearing Lan Wangji like a cape.  Lan Wangji situated so that his spine wasn’t twisted quite so much and settled, wiling to be whatever Wei Wuxian needed.

“Ah, so, well—no,” said Wei Wuxian, and Lan Wangji squeezed his fingers in encouragement.  “I’m—that is—so I…”  He trailed off and turned his head slightly.  “Lan Zhan, I don’t know if I can do this,” he whispered.

“Breathe, baobei,” Lan Wangji replied, slipping into Mandarin to ground his partner. Their chests expanded and collapsed against each other as Lan Zhan set the pace in, and out.  After three breaths Lan Wangji squeezed his hand again.  “She loves you, and you trust her.”

Wei Wuxian nodded and turned back to his sister, who had sat patiently the whole time.  Lan Wangji loved her completely for it.

“There was a superintendent to this building, you know,” Wei Wuxian began, his grip on Lan Wangji’s hand achingly tight. 

“He asked you to help fix things,” said Jiang Yanli.  “You mentioned him.”

“Yeah.”  Wei Wuxian fidgeted.  “He—so he—it wasn’t just my way of fixing things he wanted, it seems.”

Lan Wangji could almost watch the understanding connect in Jiang Yanli’s eyes, but she held her tongue to let Wei Wuxian speak it himself.

“He—when I stopped…when I ghosted you, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, jiejie, I just couldn’t—he trapped me in the tool shed and hit me with a brick and was going to rape me and Lan Zhan punched him in the face and I had to go to the hospital and now we have a therapist and I’m still so scared and such a mess and I didn’t want you to see that but I missed you and I hope you don’t hate me for not talking to you because I was so wrapped up in my head and it hurts because everything hurts but missing you hurts too much and Xiao Xingchen and Lan Zhan are smarter than I am and they said I should tell you and I hope they weren’t wrong and—”  The breathless, rapid-fire recitation was cut short by Jiang Yanli launching herself across the couch to drag her brother into her arms.  Lan Wangji willingly let go, narrowly missing a hit to the face from the force of Jiang Yanli’s embrace.

“Oh, A-Xian, what a terrible thing, I am so sorry that happened to you and so glad Wangji was there, oh, didi, I hope the punch hurt him for weeks, of course I’m not mad at you and I’m so proud of you for going to therapy and I’m so glad you told me, I’m so honored, Xian-di, thank you for trusting me with this.”

The pair wept on each other for a few moments and Lan Wangji shifted back further, meaning to excuse himself, before he was caught by Jiang Yanli’s surprisingly strong hand.

“Lan Wangji,” she said over Wei Wuxian’s shoulder, using his full name in a way she hadn’t since he had allowed her his first name after his second anniversary with Wei Wuxian.  “You saved my baby brother.  I will never be able to thank you enough for that.”

Lan Wangji felt his ears burn at the ferocity of her earnestness.  “He saved himself,” he said, “because he never stopped fighting.  I am glad I was able to do what I could to help him in that.”

She squeezed his wrist as the tears rolled down her face, her other hand soothingly running through Wei Wuxian’s hair, and the love and gratitude shining in her eyes shouted louder than any spoken language.  Lan Wangji bowed his head and she smiled, letting him go to tenderly rock her brother as Lan Wangji slipped out of the room.

Chapter Text

It was late into the night when Wei Wuxian returned to bed, waking Lan Wangji from his half-doze.  “Go back to sleep,” Wei Wuxian said, his voice rough and cracking.

“Yanli?”  Lan Wangji asked, his mind not yet fully awake.

“She’s asleep on the couch,” Wei Wuxian said.  “I told her it was ridiculous for her to go home at this hour, especially when none of us has to work tomorrow, and she said she wanted to make us breakfast anyway, so.  She texted the peacock and declared herself fine with the couch and honestly, Lan Zhan, I’m too damn tired to argue with her about it.”

Lan Wangji reached out and ran a hand down Wei Wuxian’s face, barely seeing its outline in the moonlight.  The skin was warm and puffy against his fingers; he wondered how much Wei Wuxian had cried.

“I’m going to go wash my face and then sleep for about thirteen years,” said Wei Wuxian, turning his head to kiss Lan Wangji’s palm.  He sighed against the skin.  “Thank you, Lan Zhan.  I’ll thank you again tomorrow when you’re more awake to hear it, but thank you now.  I—jiejie was really helpful in getting me to see some things, and you’re not even going to say ‘I told you so’ but you did, and you made it possible, and I love you so much it kind of hurts sometimes, which makes it sound bad but it isn’t, really it isn’t—”

“Wei Ying,” said Lan Wangji, putting his fingers over Wei Wuxian’s mouth.  “Wash your face and come sleep.”

Wei Wuxian nodded, and did.

***

The next morning, Lan Wangji was surprised to see Jiang Yanli up and about in the kitchen when he returned from his run.  It was still what Wei Wuxian would call “obscenely early,” especially on a weekend.  “Good morning, Yanli,” he said.

“Good morning, Wangji,” she replied.  “And thank you.”

Lan Wangji wasn’t entirely sure what the thanks were for, but he replied honestly, “It is no trouble.”

“No,” said Jiang Yanli, setting aside her knife and turning fully to him.  “That may be true, but you—what you have done to help, to love my brother is a gift.  I believe you that it is no trouble because you do love him, and even though he thinks he’s so hard to love I see that you understand how easy it really is.  But that doesn’t mean that everything that goes into that is easy.  He didn’t tell me much more, last night after you left, but…”  She sighed heavily.  “I know how much negotiation and conversation and failing and succeeding Zixuan and I have had to do, and I would not doubt it’s been at least that much for you.”

Lan Wangji blinked, sorting through the habit all the Jiang-Wei trio had of half-telling a story, and snagged.  Which one between her and Jin Zixuan knew which part of the desperately horrible, beautiful dance?  He noticed her roll her shoulders back deliberately, taking up space with her small frame, and knew. 

He made a mental note to do something kind for Jin Zixuan at the next family gathering.  Maybe, one day, they could share—not notes, but intents.  Hopes.  Refusals to think of their relationships as anything broken, now.

“So for what you’ve done that I know of and the overwhelming amount of things I don’t, thank you.  I am so glad my brother had you—has you.”

It felt absurd, this grave and important moment between a woman with an apron coated in flour and a man in sweat-soaked running gear, and yet.  Lan Wangji bowed to Jiang Yanli.  “It is no trouble,” he repeated.  Jiang Yanli smiled and bowed in return, and Lan Wangji left to take a shower.

***

Wei Wuxian woke as Lan Wangji was straightening his shirt.  “La’ Zha’,” came the bleary address, and Lan Wangji crossed to the bed to kneel beside him. 

“Good morning, Wei Ying,” said Lan Wangji.  Wei Wuxian flailed for a moment before grabbing Lan Wangji’s hand and pulling it into his chest, hugging his arm.  “Wei Ying, your sister is preparing breakfast.”

“Mmmn.”

Lan Wangji could feel Wei Wuxian’s breath across his fingertips as he shifted to accommodate Wei Wuxian’s hold on his arm.  He kissed Wei Wuxian’s temple in fondness.  “Shall I tell her you’re sleeping in?”

Wei Wuxian drowsily shook his head, his lips passing over Lan Wangji’s hand.  “Gon’ get up, La’ Zha’,” he drawled.

Lan Wangji breathed deeply against the sensuality curling up his fingers and down to his groin; now was not the time.  Would there be a time? came a voice in the back of his mind, and he shoved it down ruthlessly.  “Would you like help getting ready?” he asked instead.

One silver eye slid properly open and a smirk spread across Wei Wuxian’s face.  “Lan Zhan,” he said, his voice coming to its own rhythm now, “what kind of help are you offering?”

Clearing his throat and cursing the heat he could feel in his own ears, Lan Wangji pulled slightly on their entangled hands.  “I will lay out some clothes for you,” he said.

Wei Wuxian rolled over, releasing Lan Wangji to stretch tall against the tangled sheets.  “I don’t have to work, Lan Zhan, I can wear whatever.”

“Still.”

Wei Wuxian rolled back, smiling softly.  “I accept your finding me clothes to make me presentable to my sister,” he said, “so that I do not look like the bedraggled corpse-wrangler I would on my own.”

Lan Wangji huffed a small laugh and kissed Wei Wuxian on the cheek before crossing to their dresser.  “Wei Ying is beautiful,” he said, smiling to himself at the predictable whine behind him.

After more theatrics and absurdities, the pair of them made it into the kitchen.  “Jie, most blessed and beautiful gift of Buddha, most wondrous sister, queen of all kindness,” extolled Wei Wuxian as he wrapped Jiang Yanli in an embrace.  “Did you sleep enough?”

She chuckled as she returned the hug.  “I did, a-Xian, thank you.”

“It’s not a bad couch,” said Wei Wuxian.  “Lan Zhan insisted on good furniture.”

“I am glad of his insistence,” said Jiang Yanli, kindly not remembering the curbside find of the remnants of a sofa that had been in Wei Wuxian’s living room before he moved in with Lan Wangji.  “Sit, sit, I don’t want the pancakes to get cold.”

“Scallion pancakes!” exclaimed Wei Wuxian.  “Jie, how did you know?”

“Because you always request them,” Jiang Yanli said with a smile. 

“How predictable I’ve become,” replied Wei Wuxian, and they set to eating.  As the many bowls and platters were emptied and the chatter slowed, Wei Wuxian twirled his water glass thoughtfully.  “Jie,” he said, and Jiang Yanli hummed affirmation.  “Do you—should—should I tell Jiang Cheng?”

Lan Wangji clenched and unclenched his hands, hiding them under the table.  Jiang Cheng would be furious on his brother’s behalf in the ferocious kind of love he had, but there was no guarantee that Wei Wuxian himself wouldn’t get got in the crossfire of whatever ill-advised thing Jiang Cheng would say.  Very few people could hurt Wei Wuxian in the way that his brother could, and Lan Wangji hated him for it.

Jiang Yanli took a sip of her juice before smoothing the napkin on her lap.  “If you want to, a-Xian, yes.  If that feels right to you.”

“But?” asked Wei Wuxian.

“But,” she acknowledged with a tilt of her head.  “A-Cheng might not know what to do with the anger, Xian-di.”

“Have you told him?”

Jiang Yanli sighed.  “Yes.”

“Really?”  The him but not me question was almost palpable.

“It wasn’t until a long time after,” said Jiang Yanli, reaching across the table and folding Wei Wuxian’s hand into hers.  “I didn’t want for him to think he was supposed to fix anything.”

“Bet he loved you having kept that from him.”

“A-Xian, I didn’t mean to keep it from you.”

Wei Wuxian looked away and Lan Wangji made to stand. 

“Wangji, please, stay,” said Jiang Yanli.  “You need—I want you to hear this, too.”  She turned back to her brother.  “Xian-di, please.  You know that it’s hard; you know it’s so hard to know who should know what, and when, and how.  You know how telling the story makes you sick of it, sick of how it keeps happening in your mind, sick of how this is something other people know, now.  A-Xuan was so good for me then because he was the only one who knew for a long time, and I hated him for it sometimes.”

Wei Wuxian slid his eyes to Lan Wangji and away.  “Yeah, jie, I know.”

“You and a-Cheng would have been so good to me, too, but it wasn’t in the way I needed, then.  It was—I needed to talk about this on my own time.”

Wei Wuxian laughed, the sound hollow.  “And then I forced your hand, anyway.”

“No,” insisted Jiang Yanli, scooting her chair around the table so they were next to each other.  “I chose to tell you because I wanted you to know that you are not alone in this, that I am not disgusted by you, that there is nothing wrong with you for this being part of the story, now.  Remember what I told you last night?”  Wei Wuxian nodded, his eyes on his plate.  “It’s still true, XianXian, it will always be true.  I am so, so sorry that you understand this, now, but I never want you to think that I am ashamed of you, because I refuse to be ashamed of myself.”

Wei Wuxian finally looked up and Lan Wangji could see the tears gathering in his eyes.  “I don’t want to keep doing this,” he said, his boisterously lovely voice a mere whisper.

“I know, didi,” she said, and pulled on Wei Wuxian’s hand.  He fell into her gracelessly.  “But you have Lan Wangji to do this with you, and me, and Lan Xichen and Nie Mingjue and Xiao Xingchen, and we are so proud of you, and we love you so much, and we know that there is so much more to who you are, and we know that this hurts, and that’s okay.  Right, Wangji?” she asked, looking over her brother’s shoulder.

“Yes,” said Lan Wangji without hesitation, relieved beyond measure at such a long list of supportive people in Wei Wuxian’s life.

“See?” said Jiang Yanli, running her free hand up and down Wei Wuxian’s shuddering spine.  “We’ll do this together.”

A muffled sound came from Jiang Yanli’s shoulder and she tilted Wei Wuxian so she could hear better.  “Does it get easier?” he repeated.

“Some days,” Jiang Yanli said, and she looked Lan Wangji straight in the eyes.  “Most days, it’s easier.  Some days, it’s not.  And I think that will always be true, so you hold on to the most days, and you let your people hold you on the some.”

Lan Wangji nodded in acceptance, in commitment, in sorrow and hope, and Jiang Yanli nodded back, and they sat for a while longer, resting in the promise of easier.

Three months later

“Lan Zhan Lan Zhan Lan Zhan, guess what?!” shouted Wei Wuxian as he barreled into the apartment.

“Yes, Wei Ying?” replied Lan Zhan, stepping out of the office. 

“I got it!  I got the promotion!  I’m going to lead the new team!” 

Out of long habit, Lan Wangji saw the jump far enough ahead that he could prepare, shifting his stance to catch his boyfriend as he launched himself the last few steps down the hall.  The warm octopus of Wei Wuxian wrapped himself around Lan Wangji, wriggling with excitement.  “I am so proud of you, baobei,” Lan Wangji said into Wei Wuxian’s dark hair.  It was a relief to have good news; with the seemingly never-ending stress of the court system as Wen Chao fought the charges at every step and Nie Mingjue worked with their lawyer, Song Zichen, the last month had been a litany of some days rather than most.  Lan Wangji hugged Wei Wuxian more tightly, delighted at his chatter about what the team would be doing and how he would structure its workload and all the things that made little sense to Lan Wangji beyond the flashbulb excitement of it lightening Wei Wuxian’s voice.  He hummed in the right places as he carried Wei Wuxian back to the couch and settled them, Wei Wuxian comfortably draped over his lap.

“So I think it’s going to be awesome, Lan Zhan, and we’re going to totally rock this project,” Wei Wuxian finished, his eyes bright.  He paused and said shyly, “What?”

“Hmm?”

“You’re looking at me.”

Lan Wangji quirked an eyebrow.  “I am often looking at Wei Ying.”

“Lan Zhan,” Wei Wuxian blushed, “I mean you’re looking at me with the soft face.”

Lan Wangji tucked a stray strand of hair back behind Wei Wuxian’s ear.  “Mn,” he agreed.  “My boyfriend is beautiful, and brilliant, and very accomplished in his work.”

The predictable wail of protest covered Wei Wuxian’s collapse forward into Lan Wangji’s arms.  “Lan Zhan, ah, Lan Zhan, how did I ever land someone as good as you?”

“Wei Ying deserves good,” Lan Wangji replied.

Wei Wuxian pulled back, slyness tilting his lips.  “Oh?” he said.  “What else does Wei Ying deserve?”

Lan Wangji breathed in and cupped Wei Wuxian’s face in his palm.  With the help of Xiao Xingchen, they had been talking through their love life and working up to the possibilities of scenes again.  Both of them were frustrated with the vanilla handjobs and teenage rutting that defined sex for them now, but neither had yet felt comfortable enough to bring back the dynamics of power.  Their session the previous week had been the first tentative agreement to try and Lan Wangji had idly been putting together a scene in his mind since.

“Everything,” Lan Wangji replied.  “Wei Ying deserves everything.”

“Will Lan Zhan give it to his Wei Ying?”

His Wei Ying.  His.  The ownership rebounded through Lan Wangji’s ribcage, fiery warm and ice sharp.  “Are you sure, Wei Ying?”

Wei Wuxian sobered and sat up, pulling away from Lan Wangji’s palm.  “I’m sure.  Please?  I want this.  I want us, this version of us, and I want to celebrate this with my boyfriend that today is a good brain day and I got a promotion and Song Zichen got the courts to take a step and I am dating the sexiest man in the universe who really should be taking me apart because he always, always puts me back together.  I’m sure, Lan Zhan.  Is—is that okay?”

Lan Wangji leaned forward and kissed him.  “It is okay,” he whispered against Wei Wuxian’s lips.  “I love you, Wei Ying.”

“I love you, too,” came the reply, and the kiss deepened, and for a few moments there was nothing more important than making out on the couch as Lan Wangji bent Wei Wuxian backwards and licked his way through the laughter, tasting balm-flavored smiles.  Wandering hands eventually reminded Lan Wangji of Wei Wuxian’s request and he sat up, schooling his face against Wei Wuxian’s whine of loss.

“In the bedroom.  Clothes off.  Kneeling on the bed,” he said, sliding into Mandarin, and Wei Wuxian kissed him excitedly on the cheek before scrambling off the couch to comply.

Lan Wangji took a moment to straighten up the couch, breathing deeply as he settled into the Dom space in his mind.  This is good, he told himself.  Is this good?  He could hear Xiao Xingchen’s insistence of honesty with himself as well as Wei Wuxian and took a moment to scan through his own state.

Joy.  Joy, relief, hope, pride, worry, love, love, love tripped along his veins and into his fingertips, the plan he had for Wei Wuxian (his Wei Ying) bubbling underneath his tongue.  Yes.  Yes, this is good.

He went to the bedroom to find Wei Wuxian wriggling on the bed, his hands splayed over his knees, and Lan Wangji swallowed his smile at the blatant eagerness.  He stood in front of Wei Wuxian and slowly, slowly unbuttoned his shirt, taking it to the basket (and picking up Wei Wuxian’s flung clothing along the way, sighing fondly) before returning.  See, we are equals, he thought to himself.  I bare myself to you when you bare yourself to me.  They would work up to his old habit of torturing Wei Wuxian to the greatest heights while affecting boredom in his work clothes, but not yet, not yet.

The schick of his belt as he pulled it from its straps sent a full-body shudder through Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji allowed the smirk this time.  Wei Wuxian whined at him, his fingers clenching on his knees to stay put as he not-so-subtly opened his legs wider, his cock full and ready.  Lan Wangji hung the belt in the closet and folded the trousers, ignoring the increasing noise from the bed even as the joy and the love and the pride continued to thrum through his nerves.

Naked, he knelt before Wei Wuxian and watched the confusion play across his face.  “Color?” Lan Wangji asked, his mouth a hairsbreadth away from Wei Wuxian’s knee.

“Neon green, Lan Zhan, so green but why are you not touching me I need—”

“I know what you need,” said Lan Wangji, his voice steel against the velvet sibilance of the Mandarin, and Wei Wuxian closed his mouth with a snap.  “You will keep your hands on your knees.  I will neither bind you nor gag you,” not yet, not yet, “but if you move, I move away.”

“Lan Zhaaaaan,” came the expected wail, “can I talk?”

“You may talk.”  Let me hear you.  Let me hear you being okay, being unhurt, being loved, reclaiming this language of play, of defiance. 

“Please please please,” began Wei Wuxian’s recitation, and Lan Wangji leaned forward to drag his hands down the creases of Wei Wuxian’s folded legs.  Keeping an ear on the ceaseless litany coming from his boyfriend and an eye on the twitching fingers grasping the bony knees, Lan Wangji began kissing a slow trail up Wei Wuxian’s thigh.  He tossed in several sharp nips along the way, not enough to mark but enough to pull yelps of delight from Wei Wuxian as he went.  Lan Wangji paused at the crease of Wei Wuxian’s hip and inhaled the scent of his skin, mine, mine, safe, here, love, before kissing his way up to the scar over the liver, back to the appendectomy scar, and then to the other hip, avoiding Wei Wuxian’s cock entirely.

“Lan Zhan!” came the indignant cry as the neglected member wept anew against Wei Wuxian’s stomach.  Lan Wangji smiled to himself and kissed and bit his way down the other leg, noting the scratches as Wei Wuxian dug his hands into the curve of his knees to keep them there.  “Lan Zhan, please, please, touch me,” begged Wei Wuxian.

“I am touching you,” replied Lan Wangji, his lips brushing just beneath Wei Wuxian’s fingertips.

“No, Lan Zhan, please?  Want you, want…”  His voice trailed off as Lan Wangji slid his palms up the creases of Wei Wuxian’s legs, digging his nails into the flesh of his hips.

“What do you want, Wei Ying?”

“Want you,” said Wei Wuxian petulantly, spreading his legs against the pressure of Lan Wangji’s hands and rocking his hips forward.  “Want your mouth on me, or mine on you, want you to fuck me.”

“Hmm,” murmured Lan Wangji in pretended consideration.  He rose up and kissed Wei Wuxian’s sternum, carefully keeping his own chest from brushing against Wei Wuxian’s cock to give any relief at all.  Wei Wuxian swayed into him as he took one nipple into his mouth and laved it with his tongue, smirking at the sharp squeak when he bit down and raised a hand to the other, rolling it between his fingers.  Wei Wuxian’s fingers scraped against his own legs as he fought the desire to grab Lan Wangji.  You’re doing so well, Lan Wangji thought.  “Good boy,” he said, and rode the shudder it sent through Wei Wuxian’s body.  “Stay still.”

Lan Wangji knelt again, kissing each of the knuckles on Wei Wuxian’s hands clasped over his knees, licking into the divots between.  Wei Wuxian keened deep in his throat, his body leaning toward Lan Wangji, his cock dripping against his stomach.  Lan Wangji slid his own hands up Wei Wuxian’s legs, locking his hips in place, and swallowed Wei Wuxian’s cock without warning.  Wei Wuxian shouted and bucked against Lan Wangji’s grip, his whole body rolling with the sensation as his hands popped up and bumped against Lan Wangji’s triceps.

“Hands on knees,” said Lan Wangji, pulling back to lick at the slit, and Wei Wuxian wiggled and whined before resting his hands again, the fingertips white with his own grip.  Lan Wangji pressed a kiss to the tip and softly nipped his way down the shaft, ignoring the “ahh ahh ahh” coming from Wei Wuxian as he squirmed away from the pleasure-pain.  Lan Wangji lifted one hand to encircle Wei Wuxian’s cock as he swallowed it down again, his head and hand pumping together and he felt Wei Wuxian hurtling closer, closer, closer--

Lan Wangji pulled off and clamped his hand around the base of Wei Wuxian’s cock, shutting down the orgasm.

“Lan ZHAN!” cried Wei Wuxian, doubling over and bracing himself on Lan Wangji’s shoulders.  “What the fuck, no, why, what--”

“Hands on knees,” said Lan Wangji, not bothering to hide his smirk.

“You absolute bastard, what the hell, why are you--”

“Hands.  Or are we done here?”

“No, no, not done, not done at all, fuck,” stammered Wei Wuxian as he returned his hands to his knees, his chest heaving.  “You’re so mean.”

Lan Wangji had heard it a thousand times before and knew it was playful, knew it was one of the many pieces of Wei Wuxian’s babblings during sex, and yet.  “Color?” he asked.

“So green, baobei, so green.”

Reassured, Lan Wangji stood and pushed on Wei Wuxian’s shoulders, guiding him down to the bed.  “Hands on your ankles,” he said, repositioning Wei Wuxian’s legs to make sure the blood could flow unhindered. 

Wei Wuxian reached down and hooked his thumbs against his heels.  “Bet you’re pleased with yourself for making me do all that yoga with you, eh, Lan Zhan?  Look at how flexible you’ve made me.”

“I am looking,” replied Lan Wangji, and Wei Wuxian writhed in amusement and mortification.

“Ah Lan Zhan, Lan Zhan, how can you just say that, straight face and all, ah, have mercy.”

“No,” said Lan Wangji, and he leaned over Wei Wuxian to let their torsos barely touch, cocks skimming past each other as he pulled away, the lube he’d been retrieving clutched in his hand.  Wei Wuxian huffed in annoyance and arched his back, almost creating a bridge pose in his effort to reach Lan Wangji.  Lan Wangji sat back on his heels and ran a hand up and down Wei Wuxian’s inner thigh, never touching the arching flesh that craved it.

“Lan Zhan, please,” said Wei Wuxian.

“Are you so ready to beg?  It is early, yet.”

“Yes, yes, I’m begging you, please Lan Zhan.”

“You are not truly begging yet.  But you will.”  Lan Wangji leaned down and took Wei Wuxian into his mouth again as he slid one finger around the rim of Wei Wuxian’s hole, the deliberate cold of the lube and the heat of his mouth ping-ponging Wei Wuxian’s hips back and forth.  He heard a strangled cry above him and felt the muscles in Wei Wuxian’s legs spasm before Wei Wuxian could get a grip on his ankles again.  Lan Wangji slid his finger in slowly, inexorably, mindful of how tight Wei Wuxian was after so long without anything in him.  He felt the heaviness of Wei Wuxian on his tongue, the pressure of his thighs against Lan Wangji’s jaw, and closed his eyes against the overwhelming love that Wei Wuxian offered this so freely, so joyfully to him.  Mine, purred Lan Wangji in his mind as he added a second finger and listened to the cacophony of sound from the thrashing man beneath him.  Yours, he promised, scissoring open the body he knew so well as he opened his throat further in offering.  He felt Wei Wuxian reaching the crest again just as he was about to add a third finger and hollowed his cheeks before pulling off and stifling Wei Wuxian’s orgasm once more.

“Oh fuck no Lan Zhan, why, holy shit why,” sobbed Wei Wuxian, his fingers digging crescent moons into his ankle bones.

“Are you begging now?” asked Lan Wangji.

“Yes, yes, fuck, yes, please, let me come, Lan Zhan, please, fuck, I can’t.”

“Hmm.”  Lan Wangji pretended to ponder as he slowly released his grip on Wei Wuxian’s cock.  “I think you can.”  He dove in again, stretching Wei Wuxian to three fingers as he turned his tongue and free hand to Wei Wuxian’s nipples and neck, folding Wei Wuxian into himself as Lan Wangji sucked deep bruises into his collarbone.  Wei Wuxian jerked with a shout as Lan Wangji found his prostate and Lan Wangji stroked his fingers over it, an unrelenting barrage of pressure.  Wei Wuxian’s shouts became louder and louder and less and less coherent, a symphony of “please” and “more” and “less” and slurring repetitions of Lan Wangji’s own name.  Lan Wangji finally looked up, seeing the glaze in the silver eyes, and kissed him deeply, claiming his tongue and lips as he reached down to grab his cock.  “Do you want to come?” he asked into the open mouth.  Wei Wuxian nodded frantically, his arms shaking with the effort of holding onto his ankles.  “Then come,” said Lan Wangji, twisting his hand around Wei Wuxian’s cock as he dug into his prostate, and Wei Wuxian came with a screech.  Lan Wangji stroked him through it until the shudders of oversensitivity demanded an end and Wei Wuxian flopped, boneless, beneath him, legs splayed open and hands loose.

“You did so well, baobei,” said Lan Wangji, peppering his face with kisses.

“La’ Zha’,” mumbled Wei Wuxian.  “I le’ go.”

“You can,” replied Lan Wangji.  “It’s okay now.  You can.”  He pulled away to get a cloth and clean Wei Wuxian’s stomach.  Wei Wuxian clenched grabby hands at Lan Wangji’s sides and pulled him on top before Lan Wangji could angle himself enough to avoid poking him in the hip with his still-hard cock.

“You didn’t,” said Wei Wuxian, his eyes clearing.  “You want?”

“Yes,” shushed Lan Wangji, kissing Wei Wuxian’s cheeks, “but I can wait.”

“In me,” said Wei Wuxian, dragging his knees up.

“Wei Ying--”

“Green, Lan Zhan.”  Wei Wuxian shook his head to clear the cobwebs of orgasm.  “I want this.  I want you.”  Lan Wangji leaned over him a moment, searching his eyes, and Wei Wuxian reached up to cradle his face in one hand.  “Fuck me, er-gege, like only you can.”

Lan Wangji growled and Wei Wuxian laughed as Lan Wangji lubed himself up and slid home, burying himself inch by inch in Wei Wuxian’s welcoming body.  He trembled with the heat and tightness and unfamiliar familiarity of it, the months of not having this and the intensity of returning.

“Move, Lan Zhan,” said Wei Wuxian, rolling slightly beneath him, and Lan Wangji did.  They moved together, a sinuous roll that picked up speed until Lan Wangji hooked Wei Wuxian’s legs over his arms and pounded him into the mattress, words of love in English and Mandarin dripping from his lips.  He reached between them and stroked Wei Wuxian once, twice, three times before Wei Wuxian convulsed and came again with a thin spurt, the pressure of him pulling Lan Wangji along after.  They came down together, chests pressing into each other with each deep breath, sweat mingling across tired muscles.  Lan Wangji moved to pull out and Wei Wuxian wrapped himself around him.  “Not yet,” he whispered.  “I like feeling you in me.”

Lan Wangji felt the squelch around him inside Wei Wuxian and knew that a part of his mind grimaced at it, but he settled into Wei Wuxian’s arms and thought only of this closeness as he softened, of the gift of a man with so many scars loving him like this.

“Ah, my Lan Zhan,” said Wei Wuxian, his English still lilting like Mandarin’s cadences, “I love you so much.”

“I love you,” said Lan Wangji, brushing aside a lock of hair from Wei Wuxian’s face.

“Thank you.”

“There are no--”

“Thank yous or sorrys between us, I know, I know,” interrupted Wei Wuxian.  He shifted and Lan Wangji slid out of him on a rush of fluid.  Lan Wangji held back his wince.  “But thank you, anyway.  I get to say it because it’s important, and Xiao Xingchen would want me to.”

“I do not think discussing Xiao Xingchen is the best use of this moment.”

Wei Wuxian laughed.  “Why not?  He’s cute.”  He laughed harder as Lan Wangji pulled back slightly to scowl.  “Don’t worry, babe, you’re so much cuter.  But he would.  He’d be proud of us.  We did it.  We did this.”  He gestured to the sticky mess between them.  “You fucked me so good, baobei.”

Lan Wangji kissed him, and kissed him again.  “It is a privilege,” he said, “that you give yourself to me.”

“Only you,” whispered Wei Wuxian.  “I only ever want it to be you.”

The pair lay together until Lan Wangji could stand it no longer.  He gathered a cloth to the sound of Wei Wuxian’s gibes and cleaned them both.

“Hold me down, Lan Zhan,” said Wei Wuxian, pulling him on top like a blanket.  Lan Wangji settled so that he didn’t crush Wei Wuxian, their soft cocks nestled together between them as they breathed.  “I want to know we’re both real.”

“We are real, Wei Ying,” said Lan Wangji, brushing his lips over Wei Wuxian’s pulse.  “I am here, with you, and we are safe, and it is good.”

“Good, huh?” said Wei Wuxian, tilting to look Lan Wangji in the eye.  “Yeah, good.”  He shifted them so he could bury his face in Lan Wangji’s shoulder.  “We’re good, Lan Zhan.”

“Mm,” said Lan Wangji.  “We are good.”  He felt his mind slowing toward sleep and a fragment of a poem drifted up.  With thoughts of you my mind is obsessed; “in my dreams I see the light of your face,” he finished out loud.

“Sap,” said Wei Wuxian affectionately, his voice slowed and syrupy.  “You can see me when awake.”

“Yes,” agreed Lan Wangji, and he turned to look at the man falling asleep in his arms.  And what a light it is, he thought, and watched him until they both fell asleep.