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Freshly laundered and tucked away in Cloud Recesses, Wei Ying’s robes smell of sandalwood and the mountain wind, just as Lan Wangji’s do. It’s in the wearing that they start to take on other scents, in his travels to far off places where Lan Wangji can’t follow. Not yet. But he comes to know them in the letters Wei Ying writes, and the stories he tells, and the scents he brings with him every time their paths cross. Dark earth and fresh ink in autumn; tallow candles and blood in winter; the wet, green scent that permeates all of Yunmeng in the spring and the wild summer press of rain and lightning.
“Lan Zhan, stop,” Wei Ying protests, but he’s laughing, pushing playfully at Lan Wangji’s shoulders when he buries his face in that dark red collar, close in the private world of a room in a small town inn. “Lan Zhan! That tickles!”
Lan Wangji presses a kiss to the curve of Wei Ying’s neck, and to his pulse, and to the smooth skin just behind his ear, and smiles as the hands on his robes stop pushing and instead curve in, tugging him closer. Wei Ying’s breathing slows, his breath warm against Lan Wangji’s shoulder.
“Lan Zhan,” he says, his voice dropping lower, betraying the rough edge of his exhaustion.
Lan Wangji kisses the curve of his jaw. “You’ve been making talismans,” he says. The smell of ink and paper almost covers the more general smells of travel—dust and sweat and donkey and bright hints of apples.
“I—yeah.” Wei Ying sighs as Lan Wangji kisses his cheek, and his temple. His eyes close with a flutter of dark lashes and he leans in closer, resting his head on Lan Wangji’s shoulder. His hair smells like smoke from a fire built with too-green wood. He nuzzles Lan Wangji’s neck and sighs again, going limp as Lan Wangji unties his hair ribbon and lets down his hair and then smooths his palm and trailing fingers from the crown of his head to the back of his neck, and then down his spine.
“Lan Zhan,” he says, his lips moving against Lan Wangji’s collar bone, “you’re so good to me. You know I miss you right? I miss you so much. And you always—no matter where we are, you always smell like home.” He sits up a bit, his face screwing into a doubtful expression. “Is that strange?”
“No.” Lan Wangji cups Wei Ying’s face in his hands and kisses his lips. “Not strange,” he says, with the solid conviction of the mountains he built into his bones, years ago when they were both too young to guess at the future. “Wei Ying is home,” he says, punctuating it with another kiss, long and lingering, just to feel the curve of Wei Ying’s smile against his lips.