Chapter Text
Lan Wangji was not looking for company on this journey, and he especially wasn’t looking for the loud, insistent and impossible-to-ignore company of Wei Ying of Yunmeng-Jiang. There have been enough rules broken, enough disruptions to the orderly patterns of his days and thoughts. Finding the other Yin Iron shards is a time-sensitive task with no room for flighty delays. He had, in fact, been looking forward to having some time to clear his head. Time to meditate, and reflect, and maybe dull down the memory of Wei Ying’s earnest, sincere promise, burning brighter in his mind than their Qixi lantern ever glowed against the sky. Time to wrap and re-wrap his sleeves, and maybe forget the winding, binding pull of his forehead ribbon around his wrist and the brush of Wei Ying’s knuckles against the back of his hand.
But instead Wei Ying is here. Talking. Loudly. Incessantly. Chattering about Yunmeng, and all the ways to eat lotus, and the best techniques to use when fighting water ghouls or a possessed alligator. Standing close enough that their elbows keep brushing. Jostling his shoulder and grinning at him like they’re sharing a joke and calling him Lan Zhan, like no one else in the world.
It should be annoying. Enraging that someone would so simply and carelessly step over so many boundaries.
Sometimes it is.
Sometimes it’s … not.
Lan Wangji does not tell him to leave. Not at the pier, not on the boat through the long, foggy afternoon. Not in the dwindling twilight as they make camp: clear the ground, set a ward, nurse a small cookfire. Not as they eat a simple meal of sesame qi zi rolls and tea and the loquats Wei Ying brought with him.
And after, still Wei Ying stays close, never more than three steps away, and sits even closer. Close enough that their knees just don’t quite touch. But instead of introducing some game, or talking more, he sighs, and closes his eyes, and … meditates.
One day, perhaps, he will run out of ways to surprise Lan Wangji. For now, they pass a quiet, peaceful stretch of time without any more pressing interruptions than the call of a hawk overhead and the rustle of small creatures moving through the underbrush.
Even after that, when Wei Ying starts moving again—rustling cloth and soft footsteps—he doesn’t speak. It’s unexpectedly thoughtful, as if he’s doing his best not to disturb Lan Wangji’s own meditations. Then come the familiar sounds and smells of ink grinding against stone, and the soft crinkle of paper. After a while Wei Ying starts humming, low and under his breath.
Lan Wangji opens his eyes to find Wei Ying backlit by the smoldering fire, a brush in his hand and his focus entirely on the strip of paper before him. To his left is a line of paper strips, fresh ink shining on each one. Talismans, Lan Wangji realizes. Each imbued with a touch of power. It’s not an invocation he’s seen before. He tries to get a better look, and Wei Ying looks up at him.
“Want to see?” he asks, grinning. Lan Wangji draws back, but Wei Ying picks up the driest of the talismans and holds it out to him for examination.
Scattered bursts of power, shaped and directed outward from the caster. A touch of fire. Enough intent and energy to damage a ward, distract a spirit, or leave minor burns on an enemy. He’s trying to make out the shape itself when Wei Ying draws the paper back and flicks it into the air.
Bright, fiery butterflies ascend into the space above their heads, trailing orange sparks until they wink out like distant stars.
“You can have one, if you like.” Lan Wangji slowly returns his gaze to his companion. “I know your sword work is very good,” Wei Ying is saying, “but everyone can use a bit of surprise on their side, right?”
Lan Wangji’s fingers itch. He’s never seen anyone use talismans the way Wei Ying does, and he does want to study this one further. And yet. “There’s no need,” he says.
“Even so.” Wei Ying smiles. He sorts through his papers, picking out two. “These are for you.” He holds them out for a moment, then sighs when Lan Wangji makes no move to take them. “Lan Zhan,” he says, “Are you one of those cultivators who thinks talismans are just toys for those with low spiritual power? Little party tricks for those not able to work a seal directly?”
Denial sticks in his throat. He has heard others voice such thoughts, and “toys” certainly describes how Wei Ying uses them, but it’s not a fair judgment to speak aloud.
“Why butterflies?” he asks instead.
“I like butterflies.” Wei Ying’s expression twists, perhaps wistful. “We have lots of them in Yunmeng.” This does not seem to require a response, but Lan Wangji must be missing something, because Wei Ying sighs and pulls the talismans back. “Do you not trust my gifts anymore? How about a trade then? I give you some talismans, and you give me something you think is a fair trade. Better?”
He looks—annoyed, but somehow Lan Wangji still feels like he’s being teased in some way; there’s some joke he’s not getting as Wei Ying sits just a handspan away, limned in firelight and offering him butterflies with an expectant expression and Lan Wangji wants—
It’s not a good kiss, Lan Wangji is certain, and it’s not really anything like the impulsive thoughts that have littered his waking hours over the last few days, but the touch of Wei Ying’s lips still steals the breath from his lungs and narrows his focus in a way meditation and sword forms never have. Wei Ying is softness and warmth and, for a moment, the orbital center of the Heavens, as far as Lan Wangji is concerned.
He leans back, his heart beating as fast as dragonfly wings. Wei Ying stares at him with wide, dark eyes.
“That was …” his hand rises, and he touches his fingertips to his lips. “That was my first kiss.”
Lan Wangji’s pulse thrums faster at that, if that’s possible. He’d been certain, certain that someone as brash and forward as Wei Ying would have been kissed before now.
“Mine also,” he admits, and the surprise in Wei Ying’s eyes would be comical if Lan Wangji had not so obviously spent his entire life distanced from his peers, if he had not so clearly displayed his disinterest in most companionship. He thinks Wei Ying must be making fun of him again, that perhaps he lied to elicit this confession and—
“Lan Zhan!” Wei Ying protests, “My talismans aren’t worth your first kiss!”
Lan Wangji had forgotten about the talismans. They are not currently carrying any prominence in his thoughts.
“It was Wei Ying’s first kiss also,” he returns, daring him to deny it and reveal the ruse.
But he doesn’t. He just sort of stares for long enough that Lan Wangji looks away, shame rising in his throat. He had hoped—it doesn’t matter what he hoped. The kiss was obviously a misstep, and now he has achieved the dual consequences of pushing Wei Ying away while revealing his own weakness. Perhaps he should leave in the morning, before Wei Ying wakes. Perhaps by the time they see each other again this will be forgotten, or at least—at least—
“A second kiss,” Wei Ying says, sudden and much louder than necessary. Lan Wangji looks back at him and waits, hardening himself against further disappointments.
“Two first kisses is an even trade, right?” Wei Ying says. He’s wearing the same sort of eager, coaxing expression he’d had in the library, trying to explain once again how he couldn’t possibly be at fault for climbing over Cloud Recesses’ walls after curfew and drinking alcohol in front of the Wall of Discipline. “Your first kiss for my first kiss. But a second kiss could be… hm.” he frowns. “No this is...” He turns away, rummaging through his papers for a moment and then holds them out triumphantly—six of them. “Six talismans,” Wei Ying says, grinning, “for your second kiss?”
Lan Wangji looks from the talismans to his face, to his lips. Even with shame burning in his center it had felt—it had been—He should have more self-restraint than this. He has more self-restraint than this, with everyone, it seems, except Wei Ying.
He nods, hardly daring to breathe, and Wei Ying scoots closer on his knees. This time, Lan Wangji stays where he is and Wei Ying touches his face with careful fingertips, his expression hardly visible with his body blocking most of the firelight, and then he bends slightly and their lips touch. It is a slow, gentle kiss, more mixing of breath than lips, and the longer it goes on the more Lan Wangji’s fear that this will turn into a new opportunity at provocation melts away. He lifts his own hand to Wei Ying’s jaw and opens his mouth, and lets himself concentrate on only this: warm breath, and softly brushing lips, and the rush of Wei Ying’s heartbeat at his fingertips.