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Wei Wuxian knew this had been his idea, but—now that the time had come to actually start—he was regretting all his ideas and choices that had led to this moment.
“Lan Zhan,” he whined, keeping his feet firmly on the ground, “do we need to do this?”
Lan Wangji looked at him, face full of subtle exasperation, and said, “No.”
Wei Wuxian immediately brightened, whirling around to hug Lan Wangji and stare up at his beautiful perfect face. “Excellent! I can just keep flying with you all the time, right?”
“No,” Lan Wangji said, with more amusement.
Wei Wuxian pouted.
“We do not always travel the same paths,” Lan Wangji said, and Wei Wuxian winced but he couldn’t protest; even if he took his husband’s words at face value they weren’t wrong. Lan Wangji went to way more discussion conferences, and Wei Wuxian liked visiting his nephew and his brother, and they didn’t always want to go along on each other’s trips.
“You have done this before,” Lan Wangji pointed out. His fingers stroked through Wei Wuxian’s hair gently, at odds with the cold exterior he liked to present.
“Different body, different core.” Wei Wuxian buried his face in Lan Wangji’s neck, let his final words come out muffled by Lan Wangji’s skin. “Same sword.”
“Suibian—” Lan Wangji still couldn’t say his sword’s name without a tinge of frustration at its name, which Wei Wuxian still thought was hilarious “—knows you.”
“I’m going to get on that sword, and I’m going to fall off, or it’s not going to do anything, because—”
Lan Wangji’s hand tightened in his hair, and Wei Wuxian cut himself off with a squawk as Lan Wangji pulled his head back until their eyes met. “Wei Ying,” Lan Wangji said quietly, “can do anything he puts his mind to.”
“Lan Zhan—” Wei Wuxian blinked rapidly, trying to keep his mind focused on the original reason they were standing in the garden outside their nice house, and not what Lan Wangji’s hand in his hair made him want to do.
“I am here,” Lan Wangji said, and his fingers relaxed. “I will catch you if you fall.”
The way he was looking at Wei Wuxian added, I do not think you will.
This time, Wei Wuxian blinked back tears. Then he nodded, and said, “Okay.” He trusted Lan Wangji, and Lan Wangji trusted him, and that was enough.
When Wei Wuxian stepped onto Suibian and channeled his qi through his body and into his sword, it resonated differently than he remembered it in his youth. But Suibian still rose into the air, and his feet stayed rooted to its blade, and Wei Wuxian looked into the sky with a smile. He could do this.
Even though he fell three seconds later, and landed in Lan Wangji’s strong arms, it didn’t matter. He would fly again, no matter how many tries it took, and Lan Wangji would be there for him every step of the way.