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As Wei Wuxian follows the path that leads him higher and higher up the mountain, the stars above Cloud Recesses shine so brightly that for a moment, he almost believes he can hear them twinkling through the night. The soft clip-clop of the river lapping at rocks accompanies the silent song and, besides the crunch of his boots stepping over fallen leaves, is the only sound around. Wei Wuxian has spent many months in Cloud Recesses, but tonight it is quieter than he ever remembers it to be. He’s always been engulfed in noise: that of teenagers playing at catching fish in cold water, of his own bickering with Jiang Cheng, of the one that buzzed and worried at his ears many years later, even when he was alone.
So, this is peace, he thinks, stopping briefly to readjust the red ribbon in his hair. No one’s coming for him, be it for sneaking in jars of Emperor’s Smile or being the Yiling Patriarch, back from the dead. It’s eerily quiet, and Wei Wuxian finds that it isn’t so bad. It’s good. It’s different.
He smiles to himself, and walks on.
By the time he nears his destination, he’s almost skipping past the trees, with a lightness in his steps reminiscent of his youth.
Here it is, the spot Lan Sizhui, having just come home, told him about earlier this evening: thick grass, the sweet smell of wildflowers, and a view like no other of both the sky and the scenery. The moon shines its white light on it all almost as brightly as the sun would and, with ease, Wei Wuxian notices the traces of previous visitors in the shape of the grass.
Wei Wuxian avoids the trodden spot carefully, instead choosing to sit as close to the edge as he can. He lets his legs hang over it, makes sure he is comfortably seated, before looking up at the sky. He breathes in, breathes out, and begins counting the stars.
Turns out, from here the quiet is almost deafening. He can barely hear the water anymore, replaced by his own breath instead. He feels small—this place is beautiful, but it is too big for him alone.
Just when he begins to think that the silent atmosphere surrounding him now is perhaps too much so, the sound of branches cracking under feet makes him tilt his head.
Then, as silence falls again, a familiar voice replaces it.
“You are too close. You might fall.”
The welcome sound of Lan Wangji’s voice makes Wei Wuxian’s chest grow warm. Yet, he says, “It is not that high.” He shrugs. “At worst, I will break a leg.”
“Mn.”
“Lan Zhan, are you here to bring me back already?” Wei Wuxian asks with a pout in his voice. Now that Lan Wangji’s here, he wouldn’t mind staying a little while longer. “There’s no need for that anymore, is there?”
The answer comes as movement behind him. He hears Lan Wangji sit not far from him, where the grass was already flat.
A hand comes to rest on his shoulder, firm in its gentleness. It’s telling him something, and Wei Wuxian, liking his spot and his feet dangling freely over the edge, isn’t about to listen. Until Lan Wangji speaks up again.
“Please,” he says, and that is all.
Though Lan Wangji’s voice betrays nothing, it isn’t like him to beg. Wei Wuxian turns to meet his eyes, searching—
Instantly, he pushes himself off the edge, closer to where Lan Wangji sits. As he’d moved, Lan Wangji’s grip on his shoulder had grown tighter. It relaxes now, sliding down Wei Wuxian’s arm to rest upon the grass. Wei Wuxian closes his fingers over Lan Wangji’s wrist, and squeezes it.
“Sorry.”
“It is fine.”
It’s not, though, Wei Wuxian thinks. Feigning to stretch and yawn to close an arm around Lan Wangji, he then sets his head on Lan Wangji’s shoulder.
“Sorry,” he repeats, settling himself as close as he can, much like a cat would. “You’re right. It’s much more comfortable here.”
Lan Wangji heaves an almost imperceptible sigh. When Wei Wuxian glances up, he cannot help but catch the small smile grazing Lan Wangji’s lips with his own in a quick kiss to the corner of his husband's mouth.
His husband.
Wei Wuxian grins at the thought.
Lan Wangji looks down, a light blush spreading over the bottom of his ears, like he’s never going to get used to the attention. Wei Wuxian believes he never will either, and quite honestly, he doesn’t want to.
“Shouldn’t you be sleeping? It’s well past nine.”
“You were not there.”
They bask in the quiet for a while, Wei Wuxian listening to Lan Wangji's steady breath, feeling his heartbeat under his ear. He knows Lan Wangji is doing the same. Even silence is better shared. It’s not as deafening, with him around. Instead, it’s like a delicate embrace. Having this— something soft, and something gentle. . . it’s relaxing.
“Sizhui was right,” Wei Wuxian eventually mumbles. He struggles to keep his eyes open when all he wants is to look back and forth between the landscape ahead and Lan Wangji above him, both bathed in the moonlight. Both equally beautiful. “Before you showed up, I was going to change my mind. Too much quiet's not good. But this is a good spot.”
“Mn.”
“You’ve been here before, right?”
“Many times,” Lan Wangji says, quietly. He shifts slightly, readjusting his position to better accommodate Wei Wuxian’s head in the crook of his neck. “It is. . . nice.”
Wei Wuxian feels his eyes closing.
It is. It is nice.
~•§•~
When Wei Wuxian wakes, Lan Wangji hasn’t moved an inch, but he has. His head is now in Lan Wangji’s lap, fingertips threading so carefully through his hair that he might as well start purring at the sheer tenderness of the gesture.
He indulges in the moment for a while longer, letting his mind regain all of its senses before he opens his eyes. What else can he do but smile? Lan Wangji’s eyes are closed, and he seems to almost be in a meditative state. Yet when Wei Wuxian catches his hand and leaves a kiss onto his palm, his eyes open ever so slowly, and the bare affection laid upon him could make Wei Wuxian’s heart burst.
To think he was once enough of a fool not to see it.
Shaking himself off, Wei Wuxian straightens up and stretches his arms high above his head.
“Let’s go swim,” he suggests, then yawns as he rubs his eyes. The Cold Spring will wake him up. Perhaps then he can look at Lan Wangji a while longer.
“Don’t you like it here?”
“Yes, but come on, Lan Zhan,” he says, much like a child fearing he will not get what he wants. “I want to go swim.”
“Very well, then.”
Lan Wangji stands up, dusts off his robes. Then he offers Wei Wuxian his hand and helps him up to his feet, his touch lingering a while longer, as it always does. Before the warmth of Lan Wangji’s skin can disappear with it, Wei Wuxian closes his fingers around his wrist.
Wei Wuxian smiles brightly and, dragging Lan Wangji by the hand into the night, runs down the narrow paths to the Cold Spring, laughter following in his wake.
There, they undress quickly (Lan Wangji first, while Wei Wuxian makes sure no prying eyes catch him bare) before slipping into the water, the freezing cold of it sending shivers up Wei Wuxian’s spine.
“Cold, cold, cold!” he exclaims, getting closer to Lan Wangji; any excuse to seek his warmth being a good one. Any reason to stay close.
Lan Wangji seems unbothered by the temperature, and Wei Wuxian cannot quite tell whether it is because he’s used to it, or because he doesn’t show it.
Rubbing his hands together and blowing hot air on them, Wei Wuxian pats the water absently.
“Not so sure about swimming anymore,” he sighs dramatically, slumping against Lan Wangji’s side.
Lan Wangji makes what’s closest to a fond roll of his eyes, before he grabs Wei Wuxian’s hand and takes him further into the springs. When he lets go to find the flat rocks they like to sit on, Wei Wuxian cannot tear his eyes off of him. Off of his hair falling down his back. Off of what’s hiding behind it. He clenches his fists, his jaw. He feels—
A low, satisfied hum escapes Lan Wangji’s lips before he sits where the water is lowest, and in a blink, the scars disappear from sight.
Wei Wuxian frees his breath, his vision regaining its focus, and he finds a concerned Lan Wangji looking up at him.
“Wei Ying—”
Wei Wuxian doesn’t let him finish; he takes the steps separating them quickly, plastering a smile across his face as he sits down beside Lan Wangji.
Still sitting, Wei Wuxian slips behind Lan Wangji, ignoring his raised eyebrow. Parting his hair, he then carefully presses his fingertips to Lan Wangji’s back when, after a testing feather touch, he doesn’t pull away. Lan Wangji visibly shivers, but stays still when Wei Wuxian begins tracing patterns upon his skin.
Humming as his fingers follow the many scars scattering Lan Wangji’s back, Wei Wuxian’s heart aches.
He cannot help it.
Slowly, Wei Wuxian leans in, kisses a scar, then another, until he’s kissed every single one of them, humming still. All the while Lan Wangji stays silent, but sometimes joins in for a few moments. The past is in the past, but part of him wishes that each kiss could erase them all.
Lan Wangji wouldn’t want that, though. And, however Wei Wuxian feels about it, it’s still a testimony to how far Lan Wangji’s love took him.
Love. Am I truly worthy of such devotion, he wonders?
Ever since he came back, after everything he’d done. . . he’s been respected, he’s been feared—but when was he last loved like this? There have always been people who wanted to hurt him, learn from him, steal from him. . . but Lan Wangji?
Lan Wangji has only ever wanted to love him.
Again, he shakes his head, his lips still close enough that they brush Lan Wangji’s skin.
Wei Wuxian ends his ministrations with a kiss to the back of Lan Wangji's neck.
Circling around him again, Wei Wuxian kneels down, further into the water despite the cold. His eyes flutter up to the burn mark marking his husband’s chest. Yet another testimony of Lan Wangji’s overwhelming grief after he was. . . gone. It fills him with sadness, the weight of it making him shut his eyes as he lays his palm flat upon it.
Lan Wangji’s own hand closes over his.
“Wei Ying.”
Fingers lift his chin up; soft lips brush his own in a gentle kiss.
“Lan Zhan,” he says, smiling through the tight feeling in his throat. His eyes glint with mischief. “Truly, I didn’t know you to be so—”
Another kiss shuts him up.
He gives in to it, letting it claim him entirely. He kisses back, one hand not leaving the mark, the other finding Lan Wangji's jaw.
In a blink, he’s laughing, and the world as it is is no longer cold, no longer exists; instead, the whole universe is in front of him, warm as the sun, kissing him, cupping his face in a tender grip that he tries to lean into but fails, accidentally shaking it off because gods, he’s laughing, he’s laughing—
He’s crying.
It’s the strangest thought: to know that Lan Wangji has loved him for a long time now, and never let go. What else can they do today, but catch up on lost time?
Their foreheads come to rest against each other. The metal of Lan Wangji's ribbon presses hard against his skin. It almost hurts, but Wei Wuxian would choose to feel it every second of each day if he could.
Lan Wangji’s thumb brushes his tears away. There’s the smallest, softest of smiles on his lips. He’s crying too, but his eyes have this spark that speaks more than he could ever say. He’s glowing in the moonlight. He’s got no regrets.
Taking a step back, Wei Wuxian holds his hands, then drags Lan Wangji into the water with him until it reaches their collarbone.
The night sky is peppered with stars, more appearing minute after minute. None, however, is as beautiful as Lan Wangji, looking up at them.
“The moon’s bright tonight.”
Lan Wangji doesn’t answer. His eyes do not leave the stars, and Wei Wuxian thinks that’s fine by him, if that’s the sight he is offered. He cannot tear his eyes away.
Eventually, Lan Wangji looks away, gazes fondly at him.
“Would the moon shine as brightly,” he says slowly, like he wants his words to be not only heard, but remembered as well, “without the burning light of the sun?”
A light laugh shakes Wei Wuxian. His smile is wide enough to hurt his cheeks, and the longer it lingers, the fonder Lan Wangji’s eyes become.
Soft hands frame his face. As he is kissed, a wave of warmth envelops him, and he lets himself sink into its gentle embrace, taking Lan Wangji with him.