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Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji lay on the bed in the Jingshi while facing each other, basking in the other’s presence, before a question rises from Wei Wuxian’s never-ending thoughts and spills past his lips.
“Lan Zhan,” Wei Wuxian calls softly as he lifts his head from Lan Wangji’s laid out arm to peer into his tender amber eyes.
“Yes?” was the brief reply. Lan Wangji’s solicitous eyes lock onto Wei Wuxian’s, giving him his utmost attention.
He briefly hesitates before asking, in a bout of sudden bravery, “Can I see your back?”
He continues frantically and tries to backtrack, laughing nervously as his eyes needlessly avoid Lan Wangji’s heartfelt gaze and roam from the blanket to the tips of his hair to everything else in plain sight. “It’s okay if you don’t feel comfortable showing me since it’s a private and personal matter of course, this was just blurted out due to curiosity.”
As he rambles on guiltily, Lan Wangji’s eyes slightly widen out of surprise, briefly taken back, before nodding his consent. Wei Ying is his husband; all of his private and personal matters are his matters too of course.
At this, Wei Wuxian sits up and faces Lan Wangji, who is now sitting with his back faced towards him. Although he has caught small glimpses of Lan Wangji’s back, such as when they are bathing or meditating in the cold springs, he has never gotten a close view of them before, much less touched them. Wei Wuxian lets out a quiet breath to prepare himself, before an unintentional gasp also escapes his mouth as Lan Wangji gracefully removes his outer robes and lowers his inner robes, revealing his many scars.
Wei Wuxian lightly traces the many faded (but permanent) scars on Lan Wangji’s back with his finger, causing Lan Wangji to lightly shiver from the sensation. His eyes are wide and unblinking, mouth slightly agape, exhaling shakily. Lan Wangji, on the other hand, is the perfect pinnacle of calm right now in a straight, proper position, his face displaying none of his thoughts.
Wei Wuxian stares, transfixed, on the dozens of slashes that mare Lan Wangji’s otherwise perfect body and knows that he’s not worth it. Not worthy of him. And he voices the truth his thoughts.
“Why would, why did you sacrifice so much for me,” he whispers quietly, a sharp pain thudding in his chest. “When I’m not even worth anything it.”
Lan Wangji’s glassy mask disappears into shreds of fog as he immediately reacts; turning around and grasping both of Wei Wuxian’s hands into his own before bringing them to rest on his lap. Lan Wangji’s hands envelop Wei Wuxian’s in a warm hold.
Just like the rest of him always does.
“Because Wei Ying is everything.” he replies determinedly, his eyes shining with such a large variety of emotions that Wei Wuxian cannot decipher any of them, but a few are so glaringly obvious that he can’t help noticing, such as love. Longing. Affection. Trust. Devotion.
Wei Wuxian manages to tear his eyes from Lan Wangji’s focused, amber eyes to his lap, where their hands lay, still intertwined.
When they were teenagers, everyone would go on about how blank and aloof this person was, but this person had always been the only one holding out his arms wide open, without expecting anything in return. Even when everyone else had feared him and spitted on Wei Wuxian for becoming a demonic cultivator, and even more so for defending the Wen Remnants. As everybody’s fear, distrust, ridicule turned into hatred and disgust, Lan Zhan’s actions had always offered him safety, happiness, and more. He had been worried, concerned, for him and his safety all along, nurturing a deep love in his heart while maintaining peace and restoring order to the public. He volunteeringly offered him a warm place to stay- a home, and all Wei Wuxian had given in return was suffering and pain. More than 13 years of endless despair and torment.
Lan Zhan gave him an offer of “return to Gusu with me,” and all he had as an answer, was “get lost.”
Wei Wuxian has always been a curse- a plague, on people. All he brought was death and all he could promise was unrelenting grief. Uncle Feingmian and Madame Yu had granted him a home after his own parents died, only to receive a bloody death as they witnessed their home and sect burn down, all their disciples ruthlessly murdered. Even before that, he was just a constant reminder to Madame Yu of her husband’s possible love for another woman and a parasite that had deprived Jiang Cheng of his father’s approval and attention.
Shije, no, he didn’t deserve to call her that, or rather, Jiang Yanli, had always been kind and understanding towards him, somehow finding the goodness in her heart to forgive him for causing the burning of Lotus Pier and the death of her parents, along with coldly murdering her husband on her son’s one month celebration, but ultimately, she died due to his careless mistakes and sacrificed herself for him. He rendered Jin Ling an orphan, sentencing him to a lifetime without the presence of his parents, with countless others reminding him of what Wei Wuxian had stolen away from him. He had taken everything from Jiang Cheng, who was supposed to be his brother; his home, his parents, his sister, his golden core, his happiness and contentment.
He had taken and taken while giving nothing in return.
Furthermore, Wen Ning had risked his and his sister’s life to hide them from the Wens, and in the end, he was killed after being beaten and starved in the camps. If that wasn’t enough, he brought Wen Ning back to life as a weapon and used him to kill Jin Zixuan, along with thousands of other cultivators. Wen Qing had nursed Jiang Cheng back to health while hiding them from the Wens and successfully completed the golden core transfer for him, free of charge, not to mention support him during his time with the Wen Remnants in the Burial Mounds, but at the end of the day, she and her brother had given themselves up to the Lanling Sect for his sake.
The Wen Remnants had all suffered for his mistakes. For his weaknesses.
It was his fault.
Everything was his fault.
A hidden part of himself rises up and hisses scathingly, “A life with no regrets indeed?” as if to mock him. The bitterness in the voice could easily fill an empty vial of poison. "You have everything to regret."
A stolen glance at Lan Zhan’s broad chest, where the Wen Sect brand sits clearly, reminds him of this indisputable fact once more.
All in all, once again, Wei Wuxian was and is Lan Wangji’s biggest mistake, unsurprisingly. His only mistake. And so many could attest to that. Lan Qiren, Lan Xichen, the rest of the cultivation world that saw Lan Wangji as their pure, righteous Hanguang-Jun.
But Lan Zhan had given it all up for a broken, despised man.
“I,” Wei Wuxian’s voice weakens and breaks off at the end when he replies with, “I don’t have anything to offer you.” Because I have no value to anyone, much less to someone as flawless and pure as you.
One of Lan Wangji’s hands rises up from his hands to rest on his cheek, raising Wei Wuxian’s face to look at him. “Wei Ying is enough.” he solemnly promises. “Wei Ying will always be enough because Wei Ying holds my heart.”
Wei Wuxian stays silent for a moment and takes a few steady breaths to clear his thoughts, and more importantly, to push away the tears that threaten to fall from his dimmed eyes.
“You know,” he begins, “Everyone thinks that the wretched Yiling Patriarch managed to seduce and drag the greatly revered Huguang-Jun away from the righteous path, and in a sense, they’re not-“
Wrong? Lying?
Before Wei Wuxian finishes his sentence, Lan Wangji surges forward and connects their lips into a searing kiss. Lan Wangji pushes Wei Wuxian down, gradually lowering him, until his back touches the bed. His hands lightly grasp Wei Wuxian’s wrists in a firm grip, but not hard enough to bruise his fair skin. His lips press against Wei Wuxian’s as his tongue pushes past his lips to entangle with the other’s as an attempt to convey all of his unspoken emotions to Wei Ying; that Wei Ying means the world to him.
The scars he had gained, from the 33 back lashes from the discipline whip that permanently marked him as a criminal to the Wen brand burned into his flesh to the rough crests and faint lines in his fingertips from the hours and hours of frantically and desperately playing his guiqin in hopes of finding his beloved to talk to, or hear, or see him, so he could beg for his forgiveness of not being able to protect him; they were all worth it. Lan Wangji would never and has never regretted any of them, because they were his love for Wei Ying and more. Although none of them had given him back Wei Ying, each sacrifice justified his love for Wei Ying, because the reality was that he was the one that was never not worthy of Wei Ying.
Wei Wuxian had gone through a multitude of battles- emotionally, physically, psychologically, and he had never truly darkened due to his unconditional love and unceasing need to protect those he cared about. It isn’t just Lan Wangji who doesn’t deserve him, it is the world. The world they live in was too dirty, too tainted, and too twisted for someone as pure hearted as Wei Ying, but Wei Ying has entrusted his heart to Lan Wangji, despite Lan Wangji’s imperfections and failures, and Lan Wangji swore to never allow Wei Ying to be hurt after all he had already gone through.
It does not matter who or what it was. Wei Ying is perfect, in every way that was possible and impossible and in between that existed and was nonexistent. Xue Yang, Fairy, Su She, Jin Guangyao, Jin Ling, Jiang Cheng, the Lan Elders, Uncle, Brother, Lan Wangji himself; none of them would ever hurt Wei Ying again, be it directly or indirectly. He would make sure of it. No matter the cost.
13 years without Wei Ying was 13 years where he lacked a purpose and had no reason to live. He lived everyday regretting how he was unable to save Wei Ying, but he deserved all of the pain because of his failure that eventually led to Wei Ying’s demise.
Lan Wangji gathers all of these thoughts and presents them to Wei Wuxian in a desperate attempt to comfort him and remind him of who was truly unworthy of the other.
Just as Wei Wuxian starts to run out of breath, Lan Wangji releases his lips and tugs off his forehead ribbon to gently rest his forehead against Wei Wuxian’s.
Wei Wuxian lightly pants, catching his breath. Lan Wangji takes this time to gaze meaningfully into Wei Wuxian’s crystal clear, enchanting silver-gray eyes before embracing him, a silent promise to never let him go. “I fell for Wei Ying at first glance in the Cloud Recesses. Before he gained the title of the Yiling Patriarch.” he states. “And loved him long after he became known as the Yiling Patriarch.
Wei Wuxian recovers his breath and smiles teasingly. “Technically, we were outside of Cloud Recesses,” he recalls. “Or I was anyway~”
He quiets down with a smile filled with subtle mirth. “And thank you, Lan Zhan,” he says meaningfully.
Thank you for loving me.
“There are no sorrys or thank yous between us.” he reminds in a comforting manner.
You do not need to thank me for loving you, nor do you need to apologize for hurting me, otherwise I would be thanking and apologizing to you for eternity.
On the outside, he conveys, “Wei Ying was made perfectly the way he is and has always been my equal.”
My heart beats for Wei Ying. Without Wei Ying, I wasn’t; couldn’t, be happy.
Wei Wuxian lays his head against Lan Zhan’s bare chest, where he can hear his stable heartbeat and basks in the other’s presence while thinking with a small, content smile, ‘Maybe I can bring myself to believe that someday.’ A traitorous part of his mind whispers back to him, ‘Or maybe you can delude yourself into believing that someday.’
Because neither of them are perfectly whole; both of them are fractured, and they have been hurt by the world's actions, hurt by their own actions, and regrettably, hurt by each other’s actions. So as two broken, incomplete people, they fit together perfectly, like a puzzle.
Like soulmates.