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" 'Let's all go on a night hunt together,' they said. 'It'll be a fun time with friends and family,' they said," Wei Wuxian complained bitterly, as he dodged yet another strike from the yaoguai he was fighting. "Whose bright idea was this, anyway?"
A chorus of answers came from the woods around him: "Yours, Senior Wei," in stereo, a timid "Um, yours, Master Wei," from under the treeline, a shout of "It was yours, Uncle Ying!" from closer to the road, and a bellow of " Shut up and fight, Wei Wuxian!" from the road itself.
"You're all just awful," Wei Wuxian whined. "If Lan Zhan were here, he'd defend me!"
Honestly, it wasn't so much quality of the monsters as quantity at the moment. There had been some great upwelling of resentful energy nearby -- Lan Zhan was still interviewing townsmen to find out why, while the rest of them had gone ahead to scout -- and it seemed that the strong energy had seeped into a nearby meadow of woodland beasts, transforming them from harmless critters into aggressive yao.
None of them were especially strong, but there were quite a few of them -- and for beasts that ate bugs and greens in life, they had developed a powerful craving for human flesh. Wei Wuxian whacked a toad yao over the head with his flute, stunning it, and grinned. Who needed a sword?
"Senior Wei, look out!" a voice from behind him shouted. Wei Wuxian turned and found himself face to face with -- he thought it might have been a porcupine once, actually, given the blanket of sharp grey quills that spread downward from its head over its disturbingly manlike shoulders and arms. It had come up nearly on top of him while he'd been distracted, and opened its mouth to let out a screeching hiss and a long, prehensile tongue.
Wei Wuxian backed away hastily, trying to put some distance between himself and the yao while he brought his flute up into attack position -- but his back hit a wall and he stopped, momentarily pinned. The yao let out a wailing keen, its crest of spines rippling -- and the next moment Wei Wuxian saw what looked like a hundred of Wen Qing's silver needles flying directly towards him as it loosed a barrage of quills.
"Uncle Ying!" The shout came from behind the yao, and a moment later a figure in golden robes leaped over the rock with a bow drawn taut and three arrows set in the string. The arrows loosed with a tung and landed with a thwackthwackthwack, and the yao wailed as it began to crumble into nothingness.
Wei Wuxian blinked, looking around the forest meadow. That seemed to have been the last of the yaoguai, and the others were just down to the cleanup phase. He turned to look at the rock behind him, the sheer stone face of it riddled now with cracks and pits as a cloud of dark, viciously sharp quills had embedded into them. There were so many quills, and the spread was so random, that it was honestly absolutely a miracle that none of them had hit him on the way to the rock. "Wow," he said.
"Senior Wei!" Lan Jingyi called out, running over as he sheathed his sword. He took in the dead yao, the quills in the rockface, and Wei Wuxian's position, and his eyes widened. "Are you hurt?" he exclaimed.
"Me?" Wei Wuxian said in surprise. "No, I'm fine."
"That means you are hurt!" Jin Ling snapped, clambering down from the rock to glare at the dead yao. "You only ever say you're fine when you're actually hurt really bad!"
"Oh, no," Sizhui gasped as he hurried over to join the growing crowd. "Senior Wei, please let us help you! Where are you hurt?"
"No... no..." Wei Wuxian tried to laugh it off, holding up his hands palm-out. "I'm actually all right! I don't need help, I promise!"
"Is he bleeding?" Lan Jingyi asked.
"I don't see any blood," Sizhui said worriedly. "Uncle Wen, can you tell?"
Wen Ning was at his side in a flash, and the next moment Wei Wuxian yelped as familiar, steady, cold hands patted him briskly all over, starting at his shoulders and moving down his arms, sides and thighs. "No blood," Wen Ning reported.
"I'm telling you, I wasn't hurt!" Wei Wuxian exclaimed, pushing Wen Ning's hands carefully away. "I'm fine --"
"It must be a really bad injury for him to be this far in denial," Jin Ling said, with a rough edge to his voice that usually meant he was actually worried. He frowned stormily at Wei Wuxian. " "Maybe he hit his head?"
"I didn't hit my head," Wei Wuxian protested. "Honest!"
"Let's take him to the doctor!" Sizhui said. "There's sure to be one back in town!"
"No, no!" Wei Wuxian objected to this plan instantly. If he went to a doctor, then Lan Zhan would really worry. "I really don't need to go to the doctor... I promise..."
"If he was really not hurt, he wouldn't mind going to the doctor!" Lan Jingyi said triumphantly, like a magister proving his court case. "He must be hiding some injury!"
"Senior Wei, please..." At his side, Sizhui turned on the San Lan Eyes -- a wide, teary, pleading gaze that had the immediate effect of making Wei Wuxian feel like shit for inspiring them. "Won't you let us help you? We care about you..."
If he actually had been hiding an injury (which, in fairness, he had done once or twice... or three or four or more times,) that would have definitely driven him to confess. Since he wasn't, all he could do was try to reassure Sizhui again. "I know you do," he said. "I -- really appreciate you guys, I'm truly honored, but I really am fine!"
"Is he cursed?" Jin Ling demanded, eyeing Wei Wuxian suspiciously. " Again?"
Another brisk once-over from Wen Ning, and Wei Wuxian yelped again. The strange bond between a necromancer and his primary summon was a deep and intimate one, but he did wish Wen Ning wouldn't take advantage of it this way. "No curse marks," reported Wen Ning, whose state made him sensitive to such things.
"That's because there was no curse!" Wei Wuxian sputtered. He got that they were worried about him, he did. It was honestly kind of humbling to be reminded that they cared if he was hurt or sick. But the disarming gratitude he felt at that reminder was beginning to give way to the panic-inducing sensation that, once again, he was surrounded by people who refused to believe him when he was telling the truth. "Really, I'm fine!"
Jin Ling snapped his fist into his open palm, as though to mark an epiphany. "What if he's possessed?!" he said. "Of course, if he was possessed, the ghost would want to keep anyone from looking too closely!"
"Who's possessed?" another voice joined the scrum, and Wei Wuxian moaned in despair as Jiang Cheng came marching over to join the rest of the party, glaring daggers at Wei Wuxian for being the source of all this trouble. Purple lightning crackled on his wrist as his eyes narrowed. "This idiot got possessed? I can take care of that with Zidian! Stand back!"
Wei Wuxian couldn't help the cringe; he still remembered what being struck by Zidian felt like, even on low power. (Well, Jiang Cheng's idea of low power was pretty different from everyone else's anyway.) "Ahaha, Jiang Cheng, there's no need for that!" he protested hurriedly. "Really, I'm not possessed!"
"Ah," Lan Jingyi nodded knowingly. "That's exactly what someone who was possessed and trying to throw us off the trail would say!"
A rush of white robes landed at the edge of the road, and Wei Wuxian flung himself at the newly returned Lan Wangji before he'd even had a chance to put away his sword. "Lan Zhan!" he cried, burying himself against Lan Wangji's broad chest with a new found gratitude. "Lan Zhan, please tell them I'm telling the truth! I'm not cursed! I'm not possessed! I'm not hurt at all! There's no need for any possession checks of any kind!!"
He heard a rustle of fabric as Lan Wangji turned to look at the other members of the ghost-hunting party; he didn't know what expression was on his face, but nobody else tried to approach them. "This was in doubt?" Lan Wangji asked.
"We were just worried about him, that's all!" Jin Ling huffed. "One of those stupid yao almost nailed him, he was so slow. And you know he always lies and says he's fine even when he's not!"
"But I'm not lying now, cross my heart and pinkie promise," Wei Wuxian said, sitting back far enough to look pleadingly up into Lan Wangji's face. "Lan Zhan, you believe me, right?"
Lan Zhan spent another long moment looking at the others, then shifted his gaze to meet Wei Wuxian's and nodded. "Mm," he said, affirmative. "I believe Wei Ying."
Wei Wuxian melted against him in gratitude. "Lan Zhan, you're the best," he said, voice muffled against Lan Zhan's shoulder.
Jiang Cheng threw up his hands in exasperation, and Zidian crackled through the air once before reverting to its inert form on his hand. "Fine," he said. "He's your problem now. If he turns up cursed or possessed later, you can deal with him!" he said.
With mixed relief and disappointment, the other members of the hunting party agreed.
The best part of going on a night-hunt with Lan Zhan, Wei Wuxian always thought, was the congratulations-well-done sex afterwards. Not that sex with Lan Zhan wasn't always great, but there was something uniquely enjoyable about the slow comedown from the adrenaline rush, both of them crackling with unspent energy looking for better outlets, plus the rare excuse to see the impeccable Hanguang-jun mussed and (heaven permit) dirty for once.
This time around Lan Zhan hadn't done as much fighting as the rest of them -- though he'd guided them to the original sunken tomb that had caused the problem in the first place and led the efforts to purify it. That just left him with all the more energy left to really take Wei Wuxian apart.
"You're being really thorough tonight, Lan Zhan," Wei Wuxian said. "I'm feeling awfully loved."
"Good," Lan Zhan hummed, then dipped his head and pressed a kiss to the dimple in Wei Wuxian's lower back, which made him arch and squirm. He was sprawled face-forward on the bed, practically purring with pleasure as Lan Zhan moved behind him. His lover had insisted on being the one to undress him, laying kisses and little bites on every inch of exposed skin on his front side before encouraging him to lie down on the bed so he could do the same --
Wait a minute.
"Lan Zhan!" Wei Wuxian pushed himself up on his elbow, twisting to look over his shoulder. "Are you checking me for curse marks?!"
Lan Zhan froze like a rabbit in the gaze of a hawk. Busted.
"Lan Zhan!" Wei Wuxian whined, flopping back against the mattress with an arm slung over his eyes. "I can't believe you, you said you trusted me! Was all that a lie? Do you really think I'd lie to you, even now, about something like this?"
He felt the bed shifting, heard fabric rustling, but refused to uncover his eyes. He couldn't look at Lan Zhan right now, mostly because he could just tell that he was making the Sad Lan Eyes, and Wei Wuxian knew that if he caught sight of the Sad Lan Eyes he wouldn't be able to stay mad. And he had a right to be mad, dammit! Husbands were supposed to trust each other! Lan Zhan was supposed to trust him, because Heaven knew that nobody else did.
Maybe it wasn't so much a matter of 'mad' after all. Hurt. Yeah, that was the word.
"Wei Ying..." Lan Zhan said at last, and Wei Wuxian squirmed with the effort it took to stay turned away from him. He sighed. "Wei Ying, will you look at me?"
He sat up and did so. And, yeah, there were the Sad Eyes, dammit. "I trust your intentions. I trust this heart." He put one hand on Wei Wuxian's bare chest, just slightly to the left of the breastbone. "But you say 'I'm fine' when you mean 'Don't worry.' And I must worry. I must guard your wellbeing, because you will not."
Wei Wuxian blinked, several times because the room was getting a little fuzzy, and sighed. "Yeah okay," he said, a treacherous waver in his voice. The Sad Lan Eyes look eased up, and his husband leaned back in to kiss him.
A few more minutes of kissing, and Wei Wuxian thought he had his eyes and voice under control. He pulled back far enough to favor Lan Zhan with a sly smile. "I really am fine," he assured his husband. "But maybe you should check again, from the beginning, just to be sure."
Lan Zhan smiled at him, that wicked little half-smile that nobody else got to see. "Mm," he said, affirmatively, and got started on that right away.
~end.