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Wie Wuxian is aware of the stares he gets as he walks through the Cloud Recesses, but he doesn’t pay them any attention. It’s not something new after all. He attracts attention here, either because of his clothes (he’s still wearing the red and black instead of the white-blue Gusu Lan robes) or because of the disdain a lot of the people here still have for him.
It doesn’t matter to him, not anymore.
But the stares today are really something else, and Wei Wuxian wonders if he, yet again, unknowingly broke one of the many rules the Sect has, and keeps adding. Maybe one of the new ones forbids wearing colourful clothes.
Wei Wuxian wouldn’t put it past Lan Qiren to add a rule like that, just to annoy him.
“Sizhui!” Wei Wuxian calls out when he spots the boy, accompanied like always by Jingyi.
“Senior Wei,” they both greet, but he can tell that they too want to stare.
Jingyi doesn’t even try to hide it.
“Senior Wei,” Jingyi starts and points at Wei Wuxian’s hair. “Is that…?” he trails off and Wei Wuxian raises his hand to touch the forehead ribbon Lan Zhan had used to secure Wei Wuxian’s ponytail this morning.
“Lan Zhan’s forehead ribbon? Yes,” Wei Wuxian says and then frowns at the two boys in front of him. “Why is that so strange? I’m his husband. Of course I’m allowed to touch it.”
“Touch it, yes,” Sizhui agrees. “But wearing it like that…”
“How else am I supposed to wear it?” Wei Wuxian wants to know and Jingyi splutters.
“Not at all!”
“What?”
“You’re not supposed to wear Hanguang-Jun’s forehead ribbon!”
“But the tradition says I can. He told me himself. Only close family and significant others are allowed to touch it.”
“And again, touch it,” Jingyi reiterates Sizhui’s point from earlier. “You’re not supposed to be taking it from him or wearing it like this.”
“Why not?” Wei Wuxian asks and he wonders if Lan Zhan deliberately kept this from him.
“Do you know the legend behind the forehead ribbon?” Sizhui asks and Wei Wuxian allows himself a brief moment to mourn the fact that he missed how he grew up, how he learned about all these things.
But he pushes the thought away quickly enough and shakes his head.
“No one ever told me,” he says and both Sizhui and Jingyi sigh.
“But you know what the forehead ribbon symbolizes?” Jingyi asks and Wei Wuxian nods at that, because he does know at least this.
“Self-restriction and regulation.”
“Exactly. Did you never wonder why we need something like this?” Jingyi goes on and Wei Wuxian sighs.
“Just tell me, alright?”
“You know the legend of our Clan founder?” Sizhui asks and Wei Wuxian nods again.
“He found his love and came down to earth to build this sect.”
“And when she died he went back into meditation, or seclusion as we say today. It’s because we Lans only love once,” Jingyi explains.
Wei Wuxian nods again, because that he had heard before too. It still fills him with equal amounts of happiness and fear that Lan Zhan will never love anyone else but him.
“But we also love too much,” Sizhui goes on, smoothly taking over from Jingyi, and Wei Wuxian wonders if they practiced this somehow. “We would do anything for the person we love, to keep them safe and protected, or avenge them. Our emotions run quite high in that regard.”
“Okay,” Wei Wuxian says, unsure where the forehead ribbon is supposed to come in to.
“So we wear the ribbon, to remind ourselves to keep us in check, to not let emotion take the better of us. It’s to regulate and suppress those emotions.”
“But Lan Zhan gave his ribbon to me,” Wei Wuxian says and reaches out to play with the ends of the forehead ribbon.
“It means that he trusts you to keep his emotions in check and to regulate him,” Sizhui explains with a small shrug and Wei Wuxian stares at him.
“Why would he give it to me? I’m the worst person to keep someone in check!”
“And don’t we all know it,” Jingyi mumbles, but shuts up when Sizhui lightly elbows him in the gut.
“But you see, Senior Wei, it’s not commonly done. Yes, a spouse can touch the ribbon, maybe even tie it on, but it’s not usually given away like this.”
“He must really love me, huh?” Wei Wuxian mumbles.
“He must really trust you,” Jingyi corrects, and Wei Wuxian feels like that might even be more important.
“I have to go,” Wei Wuxian rushes out, suddenly desperate to get back to Lan Zhan.
“Of course you have to,” Sizhui says with a smile and Jingyi waves happily at him when Wei Wuxian turns around on his heels and runs right back to the jingshi.
Lan Zhan should still be there, he said he had a lot of paperwork to catch up on, and Wei Wuxian just hopes he doesn’t have to run through all of the Cloud Recesses to find him.
His fear is unfounded because when he opens the door to the jingshi, Lan Zhan is still there, sitting at the table and reading over something, but he lifts his head when Wei Wuxian storms in.
“Wei Ying?” he asks, already half up, like he expects some trouble or something and Wei Wuxian flings himself into Lan Zhan’s arms, uncaring that he just ripped apart a potentially important document.
“You really shouldn’t trust me that much,” Wei Wuxian says into Lan Zhan’s neck and Lan Zhan’s arms tighten around him.
“Always trust you,” Lan Zhan gives back and then slightly pushes Wei Wuxian away. “What happened?”
“What happened?? You gave me your forehead ribbon, that happened!” Wei Wuxian exclaims and completely delights in the way Lan Zhan’s ears turn slightly red.
“You know.”
“Sizhui and Jingyi had to tell me. The Juniors had to tell me, Lan Zhan, why didn’t you?”
“Not important.”
“Not important? You trust me to keep you in check and you say that’s not important?”
“I trust you with everything. With that, as well,” Lan Zhan gives back and Wei Wuxian has to hide his face again.
He still wonders how Lan Zhan can simply say these things.
“Lan Zhan,” he whines and squirms in his husband’s arms.
“Just a legend,” Lan Zhan tries but Wei Wuxian shakes his head.
If it was just a legend, they wouldn’t still be doing it. There must be at least a grain of truth to the tradition.
“I’ll take good care of it,” Wei Wuxian promises. “And you,” he adds as he pulls back to pepper Lan Zhan’s face with kisses.
It’s a lot of responsibility, Wei Wuxian knows, keeping the forehead ribbon, but if Lan Zhan truly trusts him with this, then Wei Wuxian won’t disappoint him.