Chapter Text
As promised, Lan Wangji raised A’Yuan as his own. He tended scraped knees and nightmares, celebrated lost teeth and found friends, presented him with his sword and his courtesy name. In a blink, A’Yuan’s childhood was over, and Lan Wangji was guiding Lan Sizhui on his first night hunts.
Mo Village wasn’t exactly far from Gusu, but it would be Lan Sizhui’s first time leading a night hunt without the shadow of Hanguang-Jun hovering over his shoulder. Lan Wangji ensured that all of his juniors had signal flares packed, but he hung back at their inn while the young cultivators handled the situation at Mo Manor. It was a warm night, and his room’s window faced the manor, so he had the shutters open to the evening breeze. Somewhere nearby, a magpie sang the sun to bed.
As Lan Wangji enjoyed a cup of tea, he heard a sound that came directly from his memory: the chiming of little bells. There, just outside his window, floated a silver-bright butterfly.
Lan Wangji took to the rooftops just as the signal flare burst over Mo Manor. He didn’t hesitate to come to the aid of his juniors, though his heart ached to chase after that butterfly instead. As it turned out, he didn’t need to feel so divided. Wei Wuxian himself stood there in the courtyard, wearing a silver butterfly mask, arms crossed and foot tapping as though he’d been waiting. Sizhui and Lan Jingyi stood nearby, varying degrees of apologetic confusion (Sizhui) and annoyance (Jingyi) in their expressions. Lan Wangji touched down on the paving stones with his customary grace and scanned the courtyard for danger. The juniors all appeared to be safe, though there were three unfortunate corpses lying beneath sheets off to one side, and a malnourished young man (also wearing a silver mask) who could have passed for Wei Wuxian’s younger brother clinging to the demonic cultivator’s sleeves.
“Lan Zhan!” Wei Wuxian barked, giving his foot a petulant little stamp. “You sent babies to deal with this sword spirit! It was a lucky thing young master Mo Xuanyu here attempted to summon me, but I was almost too late to be of any help. What have you to say for yourself? Hm?”
Jingyi’s squawk of indignation sounded distant and muffled beneath the pounding of Lan Wangji’s pulse in his ears. He crossed the few steps it took to sweep Wei Wuxian into his arms and hold him close, heedless of the resounding shocked silence from his juniors and the surviving residents of Mo Manor. Wei Wuxian’s body was firm, though cold. Still a ghost, then.
“I should be more angry with you,” Wei Wuxian mumbled into his collar, “but His Highness and Hua Cheng explained what happened, and that you kept your promise. I’ve met your Lan Sizhui already. Is he really…?”
“He’s A’Yuan,” Lan Wangji confirmed. “Wei Ying. Wei Ying.”
Before he could second guess himself, before anything else could tear Wei Wuxian away from him, he reeled him in with a hand on the base of his skull and kissed him soundly. For a single, crystalline moment, there was only the staggering solidity of Wei Wuxian pressed against him from lips to knees, the very real weight of him in his arms. To a heart that had only known winter, the first signs of a spring thaw crept in.
Then, someone cleared their throat, bursting the fragile perfection of their reunion like a soap bubble.
“Aiya, Lan Zhan,” sighed Wei Wuxian, patting his back awkwardly. “Shameless. In front of the babies and everything.”
They parted reluctantly, but Wei Wuxian took hold of his hand and didn’t let it go. “We’ll have time to talk later, but right now we have some work to do.”
“Come home with me,” said Lan Wangji, squeezing his hand. “Come back to Gusu.”
Wei Wuxian’s expression softened as he nodded and squeezed back. “I will.”
…
End