Chapter Text
Wei Wuxian dressed slowly as it felt like he did everything these days. Dark blue robes this time, without a single fire emblem. The barest outline of Lotus blossoms were picked out in gray embroidery on the hem. Arranging his belt was a slow marathon. Most of what he seemed to be doing was sleeping and listening to guqin melodies designed to reduce the harm caused by the massive amounts of resentful energy he had channeled through his body.
Lan Wangji had been very effective in arguing for the guqin music. Wei Wuxian did breathe easier after, but part of it might have been seeing Lan Wangji before his eponymous guqin, straight-backed and boring and safe. Also soft in the lamplight of the evening, with his high guans set aside and his hair curling loosely about his face.
Some nights, he woke terrified for what it meant that Lan Wangji was not sleeping beside him, but more often when he thought of Lan Wangji staying, it was only with a mind for their mutual pleasure. Which he would not be thinking about right before a discussion conference where he would need to stand before all of the sects with any kind of political power.
They had stayed in Nightless City as Wen Qing consolidated her control over Wen territory as the new sect leader. At least this time they both had proper guest rooms, ones they could leave when they desired. Lan Wangji had taken to exploring the gardens hidden away in various courtyards and taking Wei Wuxian with him. Wei Wuxian could now provide an ordered list of the best gardens to take a nap in.
Their actual presence was a thorny political matter. They had been named heroes and traitors, hostages and guests. Returning to their sects would only have meant moving to a tent pitched in the field in front of Nightless City instead of a room at this point, so the situation seemed rather moot to Wei Wuxian.
Shijie bustled into his room first, tugging his robes to lay flat and beckoning him to sit down, so she could re-tie the ribbon in his hair. He knew he had become quieter lately, and it was always nice to bask in her quiet comments without needing to add anything. Jiang Cheng came on her heels, thumping his fist into Wei Wuxian's shoulder gently, always gently.
It hadn't been possible to hide Wei Wuxian's condition when Jiang Cheng had found them after the battle at Nightless City. Wei Wuxian could care later who all knew he was now without a core. He had Qujin, his flute, and the Stygian Tiger Amulet. He was no more helpless than he had ever been. But he could not be the Jiang Sect’s head disciple as he once was. What he would be instead was undecided. Perhaps he would take after Xiao Xingchen’s example after all.
Shijie and Jiang Cheng escorted him to the throne room and left him for his grand entrance as a guest of honor for the new Sect Leader Wen. Lan Wangji was already waiting. He looked like a proper Lan in his white robes with the cloud embroidery picked out in such bright white it nearly hurt the eyes. His guan was a towering thing and his ribbon had been pressed flat. He looked every inch one of the Twin Jades of Lan. For a moment, Wei Wuxian overlaid the Lan Wangji he had met atop the roofs at Cloud Recesses, and the Lan sect's strict disciplinarian, and the Lan Zhan he had woken next to that first night, and the person here today.
“Your ribbon's a little—” Wei Wuxian gestured like it was crooked, though of course it was not.
“Mn,” Lan Wangji hummed and he tilted his head a little in encouragement.
Carefully, Wei Wuxian tugged it the tiniest bit straighter, fingertips smoothing across it, then down across the front of Lan Wangji’s robe. He looked up into Lan Wangji’s eyes and saw the same understanding and desire for where they were going, but the patience that they could get there in their own time.
When the doors opened, they walked side by side, and both silently swore never to be parted.