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The cave is damp, but “damp” is better than the deluge of half-frozen rain pouring down outside it, and the fire helps keep the worst of the chill away. Wei Wuxian has spent longer in worse conditions. Worse caves, even. At least here there are no vengeful spirits or restless dead to contend with. No ancient, spirit-devouring monster guarding the exit. And he has Little Apple now, huffing warm breaths and blocking out some of the wind. Really it would all be quite comfortable if it weren’t for Lan Wangji’s perfectly white silks and the careful lack of judgment in his expression.
That’s what he’s decided this particular expression means, anyway. There’s something about the curve of dark eyebrows and the bow of his lips that means he’s holding something back.
Maybe.
Possibly.
Wei Wuxian sighs. Some days, the man really is as inscrutable as a jade statue. A beautiful, unreasonably perfect, utterly untouchable jade statue.
He watches Lan Wangji pace a slow circuit around the cave. Watches the slight downturn of his lips and furrowing of his brow as he draws a ward line across the shallow slope of the entrance. Watches him circle back with a slow smooth swish of silk and sit—on the same side of the fire, closer than he has too. Close enough that if Wei Wuxian was sitting properly cross-legged, their knees would nearly touch.
That’s not unusual, these days. It’s just that there’s a bit of his hair out of place, brushing his cheek, and Wei Wuxian is having trouble controlling his hands. He grips the stick he’s been using to stir the fire more firmly and looks away.
For a moment.
When he looks back Lan Wangji is smoothing his hair into place with careful fingers, and then he meets Wei Wuxian’s gaze, something expectant in the set of his face. Wei Wuxian manages what he hopes is a reassuring nod and clears his throat.
“You’re probably missing Gusu now,” he says, suddenly self-conscious of the small rips and snags his robes have developed in the last several months. Of heat on his cheeks and the thrum of blood under his skin. He pokes at the fire, startling sparks from their ash-grey beds. “I’d meant to figure out a more permanent place before the first frost but—” he gestures vaguely at the cave, and the icy rain, and in the general direction of the corrupted tree spirit they’d managed to pacify before the storm started in earnest.
Lan Wangji just looks at him. “I do not miss it,” he says.
“Of course, of course.” A laugh spills out of his mouth, more breath than sound. Do not complain was one of the Lan rules, wasn’t it? Something like it, anyway. Certainly he’d gotten a lot of scolding looks any time he’d voiced disappointment inside those walls. “You’re so gracious, Lan Zhan, and my hospitality is so poor.” He grins and nudges their shoulders together. “You really are...”
Stubborn, he means to say, but his gaze catches on Lan Wangji’s face again and perfect tries to claw its way up his throat instead. He forces the words away, forces his eyes to move, but it’s a stuttering effort that skims over eyelashes and cheekbones and snags again on slightly parted lips.
He doesn’t mean to lean closer. It’s just something he does, and like many actions Wei Wuxian has taken in his life, he knows this one is a likely mistake. Unfortunately the moment of realization, as so often seems to happen to him, coincides with the moment that “possibility” becomes “reality.”
Their lips touch. Press together.
This is when he should stop. Apologize. Beg forgiveness. All reasonable standards of propriety say so and he’s never been good at those things but this is important—He jerks back and opens his mouth and a hand clamps down on his shoulder and then—
And then Lan Wangji pulls him even closer, and holds him there, and kisses him firm and insistent, open-mouthed and warm with slow strokes of his tongue and gently nipping teeth. He kisses like it’s a talisman he has to get just right, like he can pour himself through it, like it’s the only thing in Heaven and Earth that matters. Wei Wuxian feels fingers press over his brow and face, and a touch of frost at his temple, and then his name echoes in his skull, in his core, under his ribs. Wei Ying, Wei Ying, over and over again, joyful and desperate by turns, until his bones tremble with it like guqin strings.
Lan Zhan, he sends back, curling his fingers in smooth white silk, and he tries to send the feelings with it—the butterflies flapping their wings against the hollow of his throat and the giddy shiver of quicksilver that’s skipping down his spine—but there’s a laugh bubbling through him, and he can’t stop it—it’s too absurd that this should happen now, in this musty cave on the cold stone ground after everything, and he’s too happy. He breaks the kiss and drags his lips over Lan Wangji’s cheek and down his jaw, laughs helplessly against his neck.
“I love you,” he says between one breath and the next. “Lan Zhan, I—” he presses his mouth to Lan Wangji’s pulse, tastes the wild beat of his heart with his tongue as Lan Wangji’s arms enfold him, press him close. I love you, he repeats. I love you.
I never meant to make you wait.