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Wei Wuxian scrunches up his nose and pouts, feigning sulkiness at something his husband had just said. Lan Wangji’s mouth twitches up into a fond smile. The sight of it is just so impossibly cute that he’s suddenly overcome by an irrational but irresistible urge to boop his nose. And so, without much thought to it, he leans forward awkwardly and, tentatively pokes Wuxian’s nose.
Wei Wuxian blinks in surprise and understandably so – Lan Wangji is not usually one to yield to such silly displays of affection.
“Lan Zhan!” he laughs, all grumpiness - playful or not - momentarily forgotten, owing to his husband’s adorably uncharacteristic behaviour. “Did you jus–” his bright smile disappears almost as suddenly as it had appeared.
A memory – no, several memories from over a course of more than a decade all blurred into one beautiful, heart-breaking image hit him with the violent abruptness of a tidal wave and it knocks the breath out of him.
𝘚𝘩𝘪𝘫𝘪𝘦.
The sob that escapes him then is as vehement as the unexpected assault of the memory itself.
Lan Wangji is utterly baffled and horrified, to say the least. He can not, for the world of him, understand what could have evoked such a response from Wei Wuxian. He’d been more than fine just a moment ago and yet here he was now, falling to pieces. He crouches down next to him and takes his hand, squeezing it.
“Wei Ying,” his voice is urgent, pleading. “What’s wrong?”
He seems to be in no condition to answer him at the moment. Every passing second weighs down on Wangji’s heart. It was torture to see his Wei Ying like this without even knowing the reason behind it.
“𝘞𝘦𝘪 𝘠𝘪𝘯𝘨,” he repeats, firmer this time. Wuxian finally looks up at him through his tears.
“Shijie,” he manages to blurt out as an explanation.
It takes Wangji a minute to get what he means. When he does, guilt claws at his heart. How could he have let a memory so important to Wei Ying completely slip his mind?
It dawns on him that Wei Wuxian has never really had the chance to properly mourn his sister. Or anyone else he'd lost in his previous life for that matter; it had just been one loss after another until he himself was no more. He knows that Yanli had been the closest thing Wei Wuxian had gotten to motherly affection for most of his life. And for someone who loved her so much that he quite literally lost his mind upon her death, he never really talked about her. To him or to anyone else. And on the rare occasions that her name was brought up in conversation by others, he either smiled wistfully and said nothing or casually changed the topic, like they hadn’t been talking of anything of much significance.
And Lan Wangji never asked because he understood. Because in the thirteen years that Wei Wuxian had been gone, he didn’t think he had ever talked about him either, save for that one time he’d gotten drunk. He didn’t think he’d so much as said his name out loud. At least not in front of an audience anyway. And it wasn’t because doing so would’ve earned him the condemnation of pretty much everyone in the cultivation world save for his brother; no, he couldn’t have cared less about that. It was just that he couldn’t bring himself to say the name without it getting caught in his throat and choking him on its way up.
For Lan Wangji, his mother’s death had affected him a great deal even though he hadn’t been allowed to see her all that often when she was alive. He hadn’t been much older than Wei Wuxian had when he lost his parents. And losing his father had been the same, more or less. The fact that he barely saw him because of his secluded meditation in no way lessened the hurt. He was no stranger to the grief of losing a loved one.
Wangji also knew what it was like to be half brought up by a sibling hardly a few years older and with their own burdens to bear. He understood the way Wei Ying had looked to Yanli whenever his world seemed to sway in order to keep him grounded because he too, found solace in the fact that he could always turn to Xichen if things seemed too overwhelming for him to handle alone.
But Wangji could not imagine what he’d do if he lost Xichen. And he definitely could not imagine losing his mother twice.
He pulls Wei Wuxian into his arms, holding him tight against his chest. It only makes him sob harder.
“Wei Ying,” Lan Wangji whispers, desperate, because he doesn’t know what else to say. He knows that nothing he can say will make a difference. Nothing would bring his Shijie back.
And so he just hugs him wordlessly for as long as he needs him to.
* * *
“I’m sorry,” Lan Wangji says later, as they get ready for bed. While he’s relieved that Wei Wuxian finally let loose the emotions he’d been repressing for so long, the nature in which it came to be seemed a little too harsh and he can’t help blaming himself.
“Huh? For what?” Wei Wuxian asks, walking over to him. He’s not quite back to his normal self yet but he definitely seems better compared to a while ago.
Lan Wangji looks down. “Earlier…for touching your nose like that. I’m sorry. I didn’t realise. I won’t do it again,”
Wei Wuxian’s expression softens.
“Ah Lan Zhan,” he chides, cupping his face and forcing him to meet his eyes. Wei Wuxian shakes his head, smiling.
“You didn’t do anything wrong, okay? Really. I got a little overwhelmed, it just caught me off guard I guess and reminded me of her and how it’s been so long since…” he trails off and clears his throat. “Anyway, I’m fine now!” He puts on the best 𝘐'𝘮 𝘰𝘬𝘢𝘺! smile he can muster.
Lan Wangji doesn’t look very convinced. Wei Wuxian sighs. He doesn’t know why he bothers pretending when his husband has always been able to see right through him. Old habits die hard.
“I will be fine,” he promises. This wasn’t a lie. “And no, don’t say you won’t do it again because I’d actually love for you to do it as often as you can.” He smiles sadly. “It’d kinda be like having a little piece of her.”
Wangji, of all people, understands that. Collecting those little pieces was what kept him alive at one point. He returns his smile. “Mn.”
Wei Ying presses his lips to Lan Zhan’s as a thank you.