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“No, no, Lan Zhan,” Wei Ying chides, Lan Wangji’s ribbon tied at a rakish angle across his forehead, “you can’t just sit there on the bed looking scowly and haughty. I mean, you’re doing it beautifully, but Jiang Cheng’s way needier than that.” His borrowed white sleeves flap as he gestures to emphasize his point. Lan Wangji’s spare robes are far too big for him. It is adorable.
“I’m not needy,” Jiang Wanyin grumbles from his seat by the headboard. Beneath his standard grouchiness is a hint of what could deepen into genuine hurt, for which Lan Wangji resolves to keep a sharp ear out as the evening continues. “You complain that I’m not needy enough. You gripe all the time about how I’m too focused on my duties and the sect and how Ooh, Lan Zhan, our A-Cheng is so cold to us.”
“That’s not the same thing! You may be all aloof during the day, but you’re super clingy in bed. A little teariness, a little whining, and then Lan Zhan’ll be playing you perfectly.”
“Fine. Then I’ll be you perfectly.” Jiang Wanyin flops backward onto the pillows in a flutter of black sleeves and red ribbon, raising his hands dramatically. “Look at me, I’m Wei Wuxian!” He pauses, no doubt considering how best to express Wei Ying’s innermost character. Then he starts to flail around, limbs wiggling, repeating at increasingly high, grating volume, “Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at meeee!”
Wei Ying bashes him with a pillow.
Lan Wangji idly spins Zidian around his finger as his husbands tussle – “Petty pillow fights aren’t very Lan-like, you’re breaking character, Wei Wuxian!” “Have you never met our husband, he’s petty as hell! Shut up and eat feathers, Jiang Cheng!” “Don’t you mean Eat feathers, Wei Wuxian – augh, don’t lick me, what are you, four?” “Obviously XianXian is three –” “WELL WANGJI IS THIRTY-NINE” – enjoying the gentle, accepting warmth of the ring, a sign of Wanyin’s care for him.
Since Lan Wangji is being Wanyin at the moment, and Wanyin’s preferred method of expressing irritation with Wei Ying or himself in bed is to shove the man in question over and ride him hard until he’s too blissfully exhausted to be aggravating anymore, Lan Wangji is waiting for the most opportune moment to do that. He hasn’t yet decided which husband he should ride. To stay in character, he should choose whoever is being more of a menace. Jiang Wanyin is certainly annoying Wei Ying, but mainly for the purpose of being Wei Ying, and while Wei Ying is annoying Jiang Wanyin, he is being Lan Wangji, who Lan Wangji would contend is never annoying, even if he were to hit his husbands with pillows, as Wei Ying and Jiang Wanyin are doing now. What a dilemma.
Jiang Wanyin flings a pillow. Wei Ying ducks. Lan Wangji gets clocked directly in the face. He pitches backwards, his hair spilling from the bun and braids he’d laboriously twisted it into.
He slowly raises himself back up, Zidian sparking, trying to arrange his face into something simultaneously scowly, needy, teary and haughty enough to pass for Wanyin. His husbands both freeze, pillows still in their hands, their white and red ribbons dangling in disarray.
“A-Xian. Wangji. If you do not behave, I will break your legs,” Lan Wangji says tonelessly, “and then cry about it, and then punish you mercilessly.” He thinks for a moment, then adds, “Just as soon as I decide whose cock to sit on.”
Wei Ying and Jiang Wanyin glance at each other, then burst into laughter.
They are both very beloved, and very annoying, and very much themselves no matter what they wear. Lan Wangji smiles and crawls forward toward his cackling husbands. Maybe he’ll just have to take them both on at once!
It’s a good day to be Lan Wangji.