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Sometimes, when it was too cold, he could still feel the aching across his back. More like an uncomfortable nibbling than the terrible pain they used to cause, however. It had been over a decade and the wounds had long healed, yet they would never leave.
Lan Wangji could not see them without setting a large mirror in the right angle, which meant he would seldom glance at them on purpose. He wasn’t vain, he cared not about being a fractured statue of jade with cracks on its surface. It was fine by him. It was in the past. He had been forgiven by the elders and his rebellion was compensated by his hard work for the clan and sect.
He had not quite forgiven himself but that too shall heal in another decade or two, he expected. Or at least he should stop thinking about it in the long winter nights, when the scars whisper to him like old spirits of regret. His body was the only one who talked to him in its own language, as if his flesh was its guqin.
Sometimes, when it was too cold, he would reach his arm and touch his own back, pressing roughly to feel it sharper. He wasn’t unhappy with his life. His work was satisfying despite everything, his family was doing okay, the rabbits were adorable, and Sizhui filled his days with warmth. And yet, when it was too cold, he ached and wanted everything to ache.
Sometimes, when it was too cold and he was tired of his guqin not speaking back, he would think that he’d gladly accept getting these lash wounds reopened and bleeding once more for a chance to see his smile again.
That smile came back eventually, but the bleeding cuts weren’t his.
Sometimes, when it was too cold, Wei Wuxian would hug him from behind to stay warm. If you asked Lan Wangji, he would be unable to say whether his beloved had chosen such an embrace for his own sake or for Wangji’s. They both knew about wounds, after all. Perhaps the man suspected the scars on his back would awake in such temperatures and he decided to help using his chest like an enormous hot patch. Perhaps it was just his own selfish desires. We were talking about Wei Ying, so either would fit. Perhaps both.
Lan Zhan wasn’t going to ask. He could feel the other’s heartbeats pulsing through, whether they were wearing clothes or not. The old lashes were well covered. Eyelashes fluttered as he shut his eyes. Softer arms tied them together below his chest, legs tangled around his. The biting itch was drowned by the entirety of that body and its messy yang energy.
Sometimes, when it was too cold, the freezing jade felt like painfully burning underneath from a passion neither of them could put into words. He’d sigh and hold the constricting arms around his waist to make it last longer.
Wei Ying’s laughter would chime like an amulet bell from behind him. As his man whispered sweet words into his ears, Lan Wangji would think that he’d gladly accept getting these lash wounds reopened and bleeding once more for his partner’s sake: for his glee, for his welfare, for his embrace to last longer.
Wei Wuxian’s touch was quite different to what you’d expect. His fingers were determined yet delicate, with the softness and care of a kind heart. In his dreams and fantasies, Lan Wangji imagined them scorching hot and careless, leaving a trace like magma. But no, it was like lukewarm tea passing through your lips and cleansing your soul from worries.
Yet when his fingertips touched the scarred back, they felt even lighter, like tickles of a feather. Sometimes, he’d just stop, unsure of what to do, and then move his hands downwards to better explored territory with better expected results.
One morning, he spent a long moment tracing the entire length of Lan Wangji’s longest scar, over and over. The latter could read that there was something on his mind and it wasn’t meant to be foreplay.
“Say what you want to say,” Lan Wangji said, a look thrown over his shoulders.
“Haha, as expected from Lan Zhan…” he heard Wei Wuxian say in a more somber tone. “Well… Is it okay for you to talk about these?”
“Mnn, it’s fine. It’s in the past. Just don’t apologize, it is not your fault.”
“I know, I know!” He made a pause. His fingers moved to a neighbor scar. “Do they still hurt? They look cured, but wounds are tricky, so I wondered…”
“When it’s too cold they sting, but nothing more.”
“Ah, I figured as much…” He kept caressing each line with tenderness. “I can’t even imagine,” he finally murmured, “how much they must have hurt… Just one whiplash is bad enough, but thirty-three?!”
“You’re one to say,” Lan Wangji replied. “I cannot imagine how much your death…” He stopped, unable to finish the sentence. It panged more than the lashes while they were fresh, in a way.
“Oh, alright, that probably hurt more!” Wei Wuxian said too cheerful. “But it happened too fast! Just one instant and woosh, done. No more of that pain forever. Yet you, Lan Zhan! Like three years to just get out of bed, I heard. Let’s stop arguing about who hurt more, okay? The winner is obvious.”
Lan Wangji remembered a conversation with Wen Qionglin. How foolish it was to think his tragic demise was the worst physical pain in Wei Wuxian’s life! That sure was an agony his mind could never comprehend. The winner was obvious? He didn’t mention it, though. Wei Ying was avoiding the subject, and so would he until he was allowed to discuss it.
“Oh well, let me nurse your sore wounds, okay?” Wei Wuxian purred beneath his back. He felt something soft pecking one of the lines. Lan Wangji felt a tug inside him that knocked the air out of his lungs. Then the nimble lips moved to another spot, then yet another. His muscles shuddered and his skin was covered in goosebumps. The kisses came to a halt.
“Huh? Does it hurt? Want me to stop?”
It hurt but in not in a way that was displeasing. Quite the opposite.
“Continue,” Lan Wangji managed to utter with difficulty.
He didn’t need to turn around or open his eyes to see the mischievous sunny grin, warm enough to melt the winter snow lodged in itching dead tissue.
“Good, because I was planning to kiss all thirty-three of them better!”