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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.”

Chapter Text

Lan Wangji was meditating.
Or trying to.

The training hall was empty. The sun streamed through the tall windows, casting gold across the floor, and onto him. “Hanguang-Jun,” they called him, after his accomplishments on the battlefield- “Light-Bearing Lord.” Perhaps the light had taken that personally after recent events.

He aligned himself precisely- spine straight, knees level, hands folded in his lap perfectly. His breath was measured, and his expression serene.

His thoughts, though, were certainly neither measured nor serene. He lasted approximately eight minutes before the memory of Wei Wuxian’s hand on his cheek rose unbidden from the depths of his pathetically weak subconscious.

Again.

The moment itself had been simple. Everything he should never have dared to dream of.
But his reaction to it-
Lan Wangji’s palms twitched.

When Wei Wuxian had reached for him, he’d frozen like a deer with a severely defective fight-or-flight instinct. Every cell in his body had lit up like a paper held to a flame.
And for what?
A single brush of fingers and the Emperor cooing “Lan Zhan~” in That Voice?

What had he even expected?
A command? A pat on the head? A kiss? Or perhaps for that hand to slip into his hair and tighten , so that- 

He inhaled sharply. No. Absolutely not.

The point was, he had expected something , and that was humiliating in itself.

Clear evidence of his long-suppressed fantasies that he had never expected to be forced to confront in this manner. He was a general. A cultivator of near-legendary restraint, who now blushed at the memory of the Emperor’s gentle call of his given name and couldn’t hold a meditative posture for ten minutes without reliving a hand on his cheek.

Lan Wangji exhaled slowly. His left knee twitched. He hated everything.

His pitiful attempts at meditation were derailed as his brother’s familiar footsteps approached, measured, deliberate, and just loud enough to make it clear they could have been silent if he hadn’t wanted to give him time to prepare emotionally.

He briefly considered leaping out the tall windows to escape whatever conversation was coming next, but decided it wouldn’t be befitting of someone in his position- his position being that of a general who had already compromised his dignity quite publicly and couldn’t again be caught doing so as he had no more left to lose. With grim resignation, he forcibly relaxed his body back into the semblance of a meditative posture and awaited his fate.

“Wangji,” his brother said, voice gentle and full of preemptive sympathy.

Lan Wangji did not open his eyes. “Brother.”

“I thought,” Lan Xichen said delicately, “we might talk.”

Silence.

Lan Wangji said nothing. His shoulders, however, visibly tensed.

Lan Xichen sat beside him with practiced poise, folding his sleeves over his knees.

“I’m not here to judge,” he said gently. “What happened at the banquet was… passionate.”

“Unforgivable,” Lan Wangji said, voice tight.

And then- because he was committed to repentance in its most dramatic, no, sincere form- he shifted out of posture entirely, bowed forward, and pressed his forehead to the floor.

“I humbly request disciplinary action,” he said solemnly. “Since divine retribution has not yet struck me down. I am deeply remorseful of my actions and for the disgrace I have brought to our family.”

Lan Xichen sighed. “Wangji, it is alright. Rise. You may copy Conduct as many times as you see fit as your punishment, later.”

Acceptingly, Lan Wangji sat up, golden eyes drifting to his brother’s once before shifting to stare into the middle distance, possibly waiting for this conversation to be over.

Lan Xichen gave him a moment. Then: “You’ve always been devoted to the Emperor. We all knew that. But this…”

He trailed off delicately.

Lan Wangji did not move. Possibly because his soul had exited his body. This was, without question, the worst possible person to be having this conversation with- his beloved older brother and now, apparently, his romantic crimes’ primary audience and commentator.

Lan Xichen tried again. “This… display… was more than devotion.”

Lan Wangji did not respond. Partially because he wasn’t sure what his face was doing, and partially because he was now staring very intently at the floor like it contained the wisdom of the ancestors and not the echo of his public humiliation.

Where was his brother going with this?

The Lan Xichen he knew- kind, gentle, endlessly patient- was surely not cruel enough to bring these things up simply to torment him.

“And now,” Lan Xichen continued, tone still maddeningly mild, “after you were seen this morning leaving the Emperor’s chambers in only night robes- his night robes- well… people think you’ve long had something going on with him.”

A beat.

“Do you think that, brother?” Lan Wangji asked stiffly, eyes still fixed firmly on the dying rays of sunlight on the floor.

Lan Xichen blinked. “That you’ve had something going on with the Emperor?”

“Yes, that I- that I would- That we are lovers.” His ears flushed a deep red even as he stumbled over his words in a manner very unlike himself. It wasn’t his fault that uncle's etiquette lessons had never remotely prepared him to say this line to his brother.

“Oh,” Lan Xichen said, startled. “ People certainly- But one must not make assumptions and heed rumors.” He regained his composure. 

“If people believe it,” Lan Wangji cut in, clearly working through some kind of internal protocol emergency, “then I must… take responsibility.”

“…Responsibility,” Lan Xichen repeated slowly, with the cautious concern of someone watching a beloved relative walk into a half-frozen pond in winter against all protests.

“Yes,” Lan Wangji said. “It is dishonourable to allow such assumptions to persist without resolution. I have compromised His Majesty’s reputation. The only appropriate course of action is marriage.”

Lan Xichen stared at him.

“To preserve his honour,” Lan Wangji clarified, as if this explained anything at all. “And mine.”

Lan Xichen opened his mouth. Closed it. Opened it again.

“You… remember he told you to propose again sober , don’t you?” Lan Xichen said eventually.

“Indeed,” Lan Wangji said, rising with purpose. “I shall depart at once. Thank you, Brother, for your guidance.”

And with that, he turned and left- swift, determined, and clearly mistaking this conversation for a green light.

Lan Xichen remained seated, blinking slowly. 

“…Guidance?” he said aloud, faintly. He had simply meant to comfort his brother over his heartbreak. He hoped whatever happened next wouldn’t be his fault.

Chapter Text

“Look,” Jingyi said, voice hushed and dramatic, “I’m just saying- if they’ve been sleeping together this whole time, it explains a lot.”

Sizhui choked on air. “What?!”

“Carnal relations,” Jingyi whispered, like he was invoking a curse. “It makes sense. All that restraint? Classic long-term lovers finally cracking. He snapped, Sizhui. He snapped . The alcohol was just the catalyst.”

Sizhui opened his mouth in horror.

“You know what the rumors say, right?,” Jingyi pressed on.

“I do not want to know what the rumors say- ”

“Lan Wangji heard rumors that the Emperor was going to get married, and he couldn’t bear it. That’s why he got drunk and ended up confessing everything. ”

“Jingyi- ”

“ ‘If you must marry someone, marry me,’ ” Jingyi quoted dramatically, eyes gleaming. 

“That is not how General Lan operates,” Sizhui said firmly. “He would never- before marriage- ”

“Oh my god,” Jingyi gasped, whirling around. “You knew !”

“I didn’t know anything! What are you talking about?”

“You didn’t deny anything!”

“I- ” Sizhui floundered. “I’m saying someone of his reputation wouldn’t do that. You can’t just assume- !”

"Oh, but you didn’t protect the Emperor’s honour, did you?" Jingyi said accusingly.

"You didn’t say, ‘ Oh, but the Emperor wouldn’t! ’ -That has got to be treason. Besides, love has nothing to do with reputation and renown, as Zizhen would say.”

Sizhui looked like he was seriously considering throwing himself into the koi pond.

Before he could reply, they turned a corner in the palace gardens- heading toward the general’s quarters- and stopped dead.

There, just barely visible through the trees, was Lan Wangji in his unmistakable light blue robes.

Pressed intimately close to someone who had their back to a tree.

Sizhui stopped breathing.

“Who- ” Jingyi began, already bracing himself for trauma.

Then the pinned person shifted slightly, and Sizhui gasped quietly.

It was the Emperor. Dressed in wedding red.

Wei Wuxian was laughing softly, head tipped back, one hand braced against Lan Wangji’s chest. His hair was slightly mussed, his collar parted deeply enough to reveal the lines of his chest.

Lan Wangji said something low in response. Wei Wuxian’s smile went from amused to adoringly pleased .

Jingyi’s mouth fell open. He made a soft, strangled sound. “What. The. Fuck. ”

Chapter Text

Lan Wangji stood in his quarters, breathing as steadily as he could manage. His hands were folded neatly in front of him, a habit he had formed when young to prevent fidgeting. His speech- brief, sincere, and mortifying- was memorized. He was going to propose. Sober . Just as instructed. Like a proper, honourable cultivator who had not previously attempted this by yelling across a banquet hall in front of an audience of court officials and dignitaries.

Then there was a knock.

And without waiting for a reply, Wei Wuxian let himself in.

He was wearing something red and infuriatingly casual, with loose sleeves and an air of dangerous mischief. “Lan Zhan~” he said brightly. “I was in the area.”

Lan Wangji opened his mouth to speak and forgot how. 

“Oh, are you going somewhere?” Wei Wuxian asked innocently, eyeing the formal robes, the neatly tied forehead ribbon, the box containing marriage tokens on the table.

Lan Wangji made a vague, strangled sound that he hoped sounded like an agreeing hum.

Wei Wuxian stepped closer. “That tea smells good.”

“It’s for- ” Lan Wangji began, only to be cut off by the sound of a porcelain cup tipping and liquid splashing across Wei Wuxian’s bright red sleeve, darkening it.

“Oh no ,” Wei Wuxian said, far too quickly. “How clumsy of me. I’ll have to remove that layer- can’t go falling ill, you understand.”

Lan Wangji, dazed, watched as he followed through with sliding off a layer of robes, revealing a bit more neck than before.

Somehow, that led to Wei Wuxian suggesting a walk to “clear the air.” They stepped into the garden. Then there was teasing. Laughter. Wei Wuxian calling him Lan Zhan again, in that voice, soft and smug and warm.

Lan Wangji allowed himself to be coaxed into calling him Wei Ying . 

He had not been the same since.

Then they reached the tree.

Wei Wuxian leaned back against it, casually seductive, tilting his head as if the pose were effortless . The angle of his throat was unfair. Lan Wangji hadn’t known necks could be tempting.

And then- 

Their faces had been close. Too close.

Wei Wuxian wasn’t smiling anymore.

Lan Wangji pulled away. “I- can’t.”

Wei Wuxian blinked. “Can’t?”

“This isn’t- ” Lan Wangji looked away, breathing hard. “This is…not what I meant to do.”

Wei Wuxian was silent. Then, suddenly, he laughed. Sharp and joyless.

“I see,” he said. “You don’t want me, then.”

Lan Wangji’s head snapped up. “What?”

“If the proposal was a drunken mistake,” Wei Wuxian said, “you could have just said so.”

“It wasn’t- ”

“I would’ve understood,” he pressed on. “You don’t need to feel obligated. I can even vouch for your character if anyone’s still talking- I'll say I seduced you, or that nothing happened, or- ”

“ Wei Ying, ” Lan Wangji said, stunned. “What are you saying?”

Wei Wuxian wouldn’t meet his eyes. “You took so long to come see me, I thought maybe you were too shy. So I came here to give you the opportunity, to… make it easier.”

His eyes flicked up, guarded. “But you didn’t bite. So maybe I was wrong.”

Lan Wangji was already moving.

Two steps forward. One hand pressed to the tree, just beside Wei Wuxian’s head. The other at his waist, warm through the silk. Wei Wuxian didn’t move, didn’t flinch- he looked up at him like he’d known, hoped, this would happen eventually. Like he’d been waiting.

“You were not wrong,” Lan Wangji said, low.

Then he kissed him. 

It started careful- tentative. Reverent. Like a man afraid to touch something sacred.

But Wei Wuxian made a soft, utterly satisfied sound against his mouth- half amusement, half something that sounded suspiciously like delighted pleasure- and melted against the tree, and Lan Wangji’s restraint shattered like cheap porcelain.

He kissed him deeper. His hand slipped around Wei Wuxian’s waist to pull him closer, and the Emperor let himself be pulled, willingly, eagerly, one arm sliding around Lan Wangji’s shoulders like he belonged there, the fingers of his other hand clenching into the front of his robes to hold him close in return.

Wei Wuxian’s hair brushed against Lan Wangji’s jaw, prompting him to slip his fingers into it. His mouth was soft, warm, wicked. And that noise - that delighted, humming, pleased little sound he’d made at the first touch- was now lodged in Lan Wangji’s soul permanently. He would remember it during meditation. During battle. Until his death.

Wei Wuxian broke away first, breathless and grinning. “So this is what I had to do to get a proper answer.”

Lan Wangji was still trying to reboot.

“I’m yours,” he managed, dazed. He was certain he had probably said this during his drunken ramble, but it deserved repeating. “If you’ll still- ”

A loudly whispering voice cut through the quiet.

“ I TOLD you they were sleeping together! ”

Wei Wuxian froze.

Lan Wangji turned slowly, like a man hoping, against all odds, to be wrong.

In the garden path, not ten feet away, stood Lan Jingyi and Lan Sizhui.

Sizhui looked too stricken to stop Jingyi from speaking.

Jingyi looked vindicated .

“This is exactly what I said would happen!” he declared to no one in particular. “ Exactly! Do I not say these things?! I say these things!”

“Jingyi,” Sizhui whispered, staring in horror. “You’re going to get us executed. ”

Lan Wangji let out the long-suffering sigh of a man far too tired, while Wei Wuxian’s quiet laughter pressed soft and fond against the curve of his neck.