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Wei Wuxian is used to waking up to the movement of his husband’s hands on his skin, gentle fingertips against his temples, tracing the shadows under his eyes. A morning in the jingshi always means soft murmurs and breathlessness and wondering, for brief moments, if he is still dreaming.
This morning, Wei Wuxian is the first one awake.
“Lan Zhan,” he coos quietly, tucked into his husband’s chest. Wei Wuxian peppers kisses over Lan Wangji’s heart, over the brand mark from the darker days. Lan Wangji’s mouth twists as if to frown, but he doesn’t wake up.
Wei Wuxian loves Lan Wangji in every way but it’s rare to see him sleepy and ruffled, breath calm and steady and hands warm against the curve of Wei Wuxian’s hip, loosely tangled in the hair at the nape of his neck.
He is different like this, when it is just them. Wei Wuxian feels his heart speed up, feels the pleasant warm in his stomach.
Lan Wangji is so many things—righteous, otherworldly, patient, kind. His face is beautifully soft in sleep, sculpted by the gods from the finest jade. Wei Wuxian does not always get the chance to marvel him in the early morning light, does not always get the chance to stop in these sleepy-soft moments and realize this man loves him. Lan Wangji loves him and Wei Wuxian loves him back and they have vowed to stay this way forever.
It’s a special morning and Wei Wuxian is up too early, and this is a gift.
He takes his time laying gentle kisses along his husband’s broad chest, heart to collarbones, teasing at the edges of his robes where his lips taste the faintest hint of his skin. Wei Wuxian chases it, follows it up to the column of his husband’s throat, teasing at the skin of his neck with little nibbles and his tongue, sucks little marks onto the spots that could not be hidden by his robes later. Wei Wuxian doesn’t make it to that adorably sensitive spot under Lan Wangji’s ear before he feels his husband’s hand flex on his hip. Notices the change in his breathing and the twitch of his muscles and feels his husband come alive.
Wei Wuxian tilts his head up to watch Lan Wangji’s eyes open, blinking gold, hypnotically beautiful. He shifts just enough to place a kiss at the corner of Lan Wangji’s mouth, close enough for his husband’s breath to whisper against his skin.
“Good morning, Lan Zhan,” Wei Wuxian murmurs, smiles as golden eyes soften. Lan Wangji’s hand in his hair moves, soothingly sliding through the tangled strands, fingertips leaving tingling imprints on his scalp.
“Mn,” Lan Wangji hums back, dips down to kiss Wei Wuxian.
Wei Wuxian backs away before he can, offers his husband a bright smile when he frowns in dissatisfaction. Wei Wuxian feels warm laughter bubble up and spill out, dancing through the room like stardust.
Lan Wangji’s elegant pout shifts to wonder, awe. It warms Wei Wuxian from the inside out, burning between his ribs and lighting fires up his neck into his cheeks.
His husband reaches for him but Wei Wuxian intercepts, pulling his hand to his lips. He places soft kisses on every finger, and then every knuckle. He lets just a hint of his tongue linger in the press against Lan Wangji’s pulse point, feels his husband’s breath catch but gives him no time to recover before Wei Wuxian repositions himself in his husband’s hold, sits up and straddles his hips so he can look down at the handsome figure sprawled underneath of him, warm and vulnerable and chin tilted up to look at him like a flower toward the sun.
Wei Wuxian loves this man.
He resumes his butterfly kisses against Lan Wangji’s neck, traces his hammering pulse against his lips like a prayer. He mouths at the sharp cut of his jaw, hums as Lan Wangji’s fingers carve patterns against his back. Wei Wuxian holds this man’s face between his palms, his fingertips dipping into silky dark hair, and he is breathless at the open emotion on his husband’s face, the love and devotion and fondness; the contentment, as if he could lie beneath Wei Wuxian for the rest of his life and never want for anything else.
So Wei Wuxian holds his husband’s face between his hands and doesn’t waste another moment before suffocating him in kisses.
He paints trails across aristocratic cheekbones, dusts the bridge of his nose with sweet pecks. He presses his lips firmly to the spot between his brows, the place where Lan Wangji kisses him the most reverently—his husband’s hands tighten, his breath catches. Wei Wuxian continues to press kisses everywhere he can reach, smothering this ethereal man. His temples, his eyelids, the dip of his chin. He doesn’t stop until he is sure he has covered every single inch of his beloved’s skin, until the burning red of his husband’s ears make him laugh loud enough to fill the space of the jingshi.
He leaves the lips for last. Presses their foreheads together and slips his hands into Lan Wangji’s hair to hold his head softly, nuzzles their noses together. Their lips are so close they brush when Lan Wangji smiles, a quiet blessing on a beautiful morning.
Wei Wuxian backs away only to see that smile. Kisses his top lip, and then the bottom. The lifted corners of his husband’s lips.
“Good morning, Lan Er-gege,” Wei Wuxian murmurs against his lips, smiling so wide it nearly aches. He has never loved like this, never wants to love if it is not this. Lan Wangji looks up at him with that same quiet awe, that same blooming realization in his eyes that came with every morning light.
This is real. This is real, and this is theirs.
“Happy birthday, my Wei Ying,” Lan Wangji says like a prayer.
Wei Wuxian kisses him soft, quick, just a brush of lips. He pulls away with a teasing smile, feels his whole body go soft when Lan Wangji moves his head to chase his mouth.
He lays his hands on his husband’s strong chest, smiles with just a hint of mischief. “Lan Zhan, Lan Zhan, it’s my birthday. Do you know what that means? It means I can do what I want. What do you think I want to do today, Lan Zhan?”
Lan Wangji rubs his hands up and down Wei Wuxian’s back, face soft. “I do not know.”
Wei Wuxian touches Lan Wangji’s lips with his fingertips. “What I want,” he murmurs like a secret, smiling wider, “is to spoil my husband. I want to make certain he knows how much I love him and how much he means to me. Seeing him happy makes me happy, and nothing is a greater gift than my beloved.”
Lan Wangji blinks, surprised. His ears burn bright red and Wei Wuxian touches the shell with a single fingertip, listens to the lovely way Lan Wangji’s breath catches in his chest.
His husband looks up at him as if he’s made of starlight, holds his hands against him as if he is precious. Lan Wangji’s lips twitch again before he murmurs back, soft and quiet, “Anything Wei Ying wants.”
Wei Wuxian touches their foreheads again, closes his eyes with a gentle smile. “My husband,” he whispers, adoring and wonderstruck, so in love with this man that his voice trembles. “My beloved, my only, my treasure, my light—”
Lan Wangji pulls him down into a kiss, soft and loving and warm, fingers in each other’s hair and names on each other’s lips. Wei Wuxian pulls back after just a moment, hovers there until golden eyes open to meet his, a miracle and a blessing.
“My heart,” Wei Wuxian whispers into the space between them, into the first glow of morning light and this wondrous promise of now and forever—and kisses Lan Wangji again, and again, and again.