Chapter Text
Lan Wangji wakes to the scent of sandalwood and citrus. His mouth is dry. His head is ringing. His armor is missing.
And he’s in the Emperor’s bed.
For a moment, he stares at the intricately carved canopy above him, unblinking. The silk sheets beneath his palms are far too fine, the silence too weighted, the shame crushing. There’s a few memories he’s missing, and he’s almost certain it’s the kind that ruins careers.
He tries to sit up, and regrets it instantly.
“Careful, General,” comes a voice, bright and insufferably fond. “You took on half a jug of peach wine and then half the court.”
Lan Wangji closes his eyes, despair blooming. “No.”
He registers, distantly, that one does not say no to the Emperor in that tone. Unfortunately, his dignity is somewhere beneath the silk sheets and the honey-gold frame of the huanghuali bed, and his brain is full of static.
“Oh yes.” There’s the soft clink of porcelain. “You climbed onto the banquet table, quoted poetry, and told Minister Yu his toupee looked like a dead fox.”
A pause.
“And then,” Wei Wuxian says with delight, “you pointed directly at me and declared, ‘I would die a thousand deaths if it meant your smile would reach me in just one life.’ ”
“…No.”
“You proposed marriage.” There’s the sound of a lid being removed- tea being poured.
“To whom?”
It is, he realises, possibly the most idiotic thing he’s ever said aloud.
There’s a beat.
“To me , in front of everyone,” Wei Wuxian says, voice aglow with delight. “I never knew you were so audacious, General.”
Lan Wangji’s throat closes. He swallows sand and air. “...Did you accept?”
“Hard to say,” Wei Wuxian muses. “I was laughing too hard. Nie Huaisang was crying. He bribed the steward for the crystal orb footage.”
Lan Wangji sits up fully now, slow and stiff, only to find Wei Wuxian lounging at the foot of the bed in an informal robe, holding a teacup like it’s an award. There’s a flickering projection hovering above his hand: hazy, but unmistakable.
There he is. Lan Wangji. On the table. Disheveled. Glowing faintly with spiritual energy, hair loose, face as serene as ever except for his flushed ears. Yelling something about "devotion unspoken is cowardice" while trying to pull a jade ring off his finger.
Lan Wangji buries his face in his hands and considers suffocating himself on the spot. He has never sworn before, but perhaps this would be what finally drove him to it.
“...Your Majesty,” he says, muffled, before gathering the courage to look up at him again. “Forgive me. I- last night- ”
Wei Wuxian waves a hand airily. “Oh, no need to apologise. You were very eloquent. Poetic, even. Do you remember what you said?”
“No.” Not remembering the full extent of his shame somehow makes it worse. His imagination is not helping.
Wei Wuxian cocks his head thoughtfully. Lan Wangji knows he isn’t going to want to survive whatever comes next.
“You know, I never realised you were so… devout , General.”
Lan Wangji clenches his hands in his lap and makes a last desperate attempt. “I was drunk.”
“Oh, very. But quite clear. You corrected a minister’s grammar mid-confession.”
Silence.
Then, with mock solemnity:
“General…”
Lan Wangji flinches. His voice comes out low and wrecked. “Please. As I have already thoroughly disgraced myself before your Majesty, you may… call me Lan Zhan, if it pleases you.”
“Lan Zhan,” Wei Wuxian says sweetly, setting the tea aside. “Would you like to see the part where you tried to duel the envoy from Yan for saying I was handsome?”
“I would like to die.” He hears himself say it and wonders if it qualifies as treason, or merely bad manners.
“Well,” Wei Wuxian hums, “you did offer.”
He shifts, rising from the foot of the bed in a rustle of silk. “You were very romantic about it. ‘I am yours in soul, heart, and body- command me, and I shall follow.’ Something like that.”
Lan Wangji lets out a low, strangled sound.
Wei Wuxian's grin curves slow and bright.
“Lan Zhan…may I?”
“Anything, your majesty”
“Oh? I didn’t expect you to agree so easily.”
He takes a step forward. Lan Wangji holds his ground- barely.
“Hm,” Wei Wuxian muses, one hand raised to his chin in mock-thought. “You told me this body was mine to take... Lan Zhan~ ”
Lan Wangji goes rigid. It is too early for this, screams his brain.
Wei Wuxian’s fingers drift toward him, his gaze mischievous, unreadable.
Lan Wangji’s blood roars in his ears. His breath catches. A full-body flush blooms across his skin like a fever, slow and overwhelming. He doesn’t move. Can’t.
Wei Wuxian leans in, just enough.
And then-
His palm presses gently to Lan Wangji’s cheek.
A simple, grounding touch.
Lan Wangji’s whole body shudders.
Wei Wuxian’s thumb strokes lightly across his cheekbone. Then, with infuriating tenderness, he brushes a lock of loose hair behind his ear, tucking it neatly in place.
He doesn’t linger, doesn’t speak- but it matters not for Lan Wangji cannot hear the silence beyond the pounding rush of his pulse in his ears.
This is the Emperor. The man he has loved from a distance- at court, in war councils, behind a veil of titles and protocol.
And now that man is looking at him like he’s not a disgrace, but something… wanted.
Lan Wangji opens his mouth. Nothing comes out.
He tries again. “I… meant it.”
That was not what he’d meant to say.
Wei Wuxian stills.
Lan Wangji lowers his eyes. “What I said last night. All of it.”
Wei Wuxian exhales- an amused, incredulous breath. His voice drops.
“Even the part where you said I could command you to kneel, and you’d thank me for it?”
Lan Wangji shuts his eyes in agony. He'd said that? Regardless- “Yes.”
A pause.
Then Wei Wuxian laughs. Not unkind. Not mocking. Just- delighted.
“You really are in love with me.”
Lan Wangji dares to meet his eyes. “I have been. For a long time.” What does he have left to lose anyway?
Wei Wuxian looks at him for a moment. Then steps back, gives him a little space.
“Well,” he says, voice lighter now, “then I suppose I should give you the chance to say it properly.”
Lan Wangji frowns, startled. “Say what?”
“The proposal,” Wei Wuxian says. “You know.”
Lan Wangji’s mouth opens. He closes it.
Wei Wuxian just winks.
“I’ll be waiting.”