Chapter Text
Having cultivated a rather impressive lightness skill, Wei Wuxian is not generally in the business of being caught red-handed. What few rules there are for him to break at Lotus Pier are waved away by those who have known him since childhood; they are far too bored with him at this point to bother chasing after him without a very good reason.
As liquor flows freely on the docks of Lotus Pier, Wei Wuxian cannot possibly be expected to anticipate the dour, jade-like face reflecting moonlight up at him when he hooks his ankle over the wall.
“Stop.”
More from surprise than anything else, Wei Wuxian stops. He straddles the wall, the jars in his hand clacking merrily together as he peers over.
For someone so far away, his killing intent radiates quite powerfully. Wei Wuxian smiles.
Before he can decide between the myriad of pithy lines running through his mind, the boy steps forward. The light changes, reflecting off his pale eyes as they meet Wei Wuxian’s, and a shot of sensation runs up his spine.
Wei Wuxian realizes he’s quite pretty.
“Remove your foot from the boundary.”
And annoying, he adds with a frown. Perhaps he would be prettier if he didn’t carry on with such a rigid expression.
Cheer is one of Wei Wuxian’s greatest skills! Though those are plentiful and the list is long.
“How would I do that?” he asks, knowing quite well how it might be done. “I’m already inside, there’s no point in me going out. Besides, I’m meant to be here!”
For a moment, he thinks he’s won. The killing intent increases, but Wei Wuxian inspires killing intent in so many people, how can he be bothered by this one or that one, day in and day out? That’s only the prerogative of sad or boring people.
He readies to bring his other leg over and hop down when the boy leaps up to meet him.
“Your lightness skill is quite good!” Wei Wuxian exclaims, eager at the notion that someone might prove his equal in this place.
This Lan disciple lands silently in front of him, brows drawn in what might be read as frustration—the first proper emotion Wei Wuxian has seen on his face. He looks first at Wei Wuxian, then at the jars in his hand, still twirling a little from the motions of his body.
“What have you brought?”
Up close, his voice is deeper and softer, despite the harsh tone and fierce aura. Wei Wuxian is suddenly very aware that his legs are still spread on either side of the wall, and that this boy is standing between them.
He hops to his feet; it doesn’t make the melting, twisting situation near his lower dantian go away, but he’s almost as tall as this disciple, so it feels like he’s won something.
Wei Wuxian raises the jars, listening to their cheerful clack, and has a brilliant idea. He smiles.
“You don’t recognize it?”
The boy glares, which he’ll take for a no.
“Emperor’s Smile! They say it goes down smoother than anything you’ll ever try. I can’t believe you’re from Gusu and you’ve never tried it!” Wei Wuxian swings the jars, stepping forward a bit, crowding toward this straight-backed disciple for no other reason than to see if he’ll squirm.
He doesn’t. Wei Wuxian will have to try harder.
“You know,” he continues, not allowing room for interruptions, “I might be willing to share a little. How about you let me down and say you never saw me? I’ll give you one of these in return!”
The disciple’s glare is withering. “Alcohol is forbidden in the Cloud Recesses.”
Is it? Wei Wuxian truly didn’t have a clue, though it doesn’t surprise him. A sect so stuffy would certainly create a rule as mind-numbingly stupid as that.
He sticks out one foot over the edge, on the inner side, as if daring the boy to say something. “Forbidden? Ha! It would be easier to tell me what in your sect is not forbidden.”
Though his tone is jovial, this disciple looks down his nose at everything. He doesn’t laugh even once. Instead, his killing intent grows so great it’s nearly enough to throw Wei Wuxian off the wall. Faster than a lightning strike, he grasps Wei Wuxian at the wrist—luckily not the one holding his Emperor’s Smile, or he might have dropped it altogether.
“Ah!”
Ignoring his cry, the boy pulls him along the top of the wall. Wei Wuxian scrambles to find his footing, knowing he’s strong enough to pull away with enough leverage. He was just caught off guard! This disciple is also very strong, perhaps unusually so. Do the Lans have upper body strengthening regimens he doesn’t know about, or is this a trait unique to this person?
Eventually he anchors and frees himself, receiving a glare for his troubles. “You can’t just drag me anywhere you please!”
“You are clearly ignorant,” the boy explains. “You will receive instruction at the Wall of Principles.”
When he reaches again, Wei Wuxian is wise to his tricks, darting back along the wall with a laugh and a twist of his wrist. “Ignorant! Who would not be ignorant, if their choice was between ignorance and reading over three thousand rules in Seal Script?”
The boy’s hand goes to the hilt of his sword. It has a faint blue sheen beneath the moonlight.
“Me.”
“Well it’s different for you, growing up within the Lan Sect, of course you would know them. I know the rules of my own sect as well.” The disciple tightens his fist, clearly prepared to spring at any moment. Wei Wuxian has never seen someone take rules so very seriously before.
How stuffy!
“Does it anger you so much? I won’t tell on you for breaking the rules if you want to share. Can we not part as friends?”
“No.”
Wei Wuxian sighs. He puts his entire body into it, lifting and dropping his shoulders—his most piteous gaze, a truly thrilling pout. “If alcohol is prohibited within the Cloud Recesses…”
Having this boy’s eyes on him is heavy. He draws out his words for as long as possible, but he never once looks away, even when Wei Wuxian isn’t directly looking at him.
All at once, he brightens and takes a jar in hand. “Then I’ll have to drink it right here!”
The disciple’s eyes widen fractionally as he opens the jar and begins to drink. Such a shame; he can feel the liquor sliding in cool rivulets down his throat, his mouth over-full, but he doesn’t back down at all. It feels important for such a strong, righteous disciple to know that he won’t back away from a challenge.
Ha. Not a Challenge—but a regular challenge is always to Wei Wuxian’s advantage.
It really does taste good. Such a shame that he’ll have to drink it all now, rather than bringing it back and splitting with Jiang Cheng. He really had wanted to share the bounty!
Eventually he has to tilt his head back so far that he can no longer see the disciple in front of him, shutting his eyes against the glare of the moon.
“Impertinent,” he hears, low and outraged. “Shameless!”
Wei Wuxian finishes the last gulp as he senses the sword lunging in his direction. He leans back, almost choking, and dances along the wall as he stands straight up again. The boy is already pulling back for another strike—easily dodged now that he can once more see clearly.
“You can’t punish me!” he shouts, flitting this way and that. “I’m not inside the Cloud Recesses, am I?”
His protestations go ignored. Wei Wuxian continues dancing back over the wall; it’s a long expanse, and he has some distance to go before he’ll run into any obstructions. He darts and weaves around the sharp blade, all the while noting the expertise of its wielder, the intensity of its glare. A fearsome sword indeed.
“You’re pretty good!”
“Stop running.”
They continue on like this, which suits him fine before he suffers an unfortunate twist of his arm. In an effort to duck out of the way, he manages to catch the tied jars at an odd angle; with one smooth motion, the disciple cuts at the dangling string, forcing Wei Wuxian to watch as his precious second bottle falls to the ground and shatters.
Both of them stop to watch it fall.
“What a waste,” he says, turning back to the disciple and letting the other empty jar fall by its companion.
He still hasn’t sheathed his sword. After a moment of staring, Wei Wuxian finally goes for his own.
“So it’s like that?”
The only answer he receives is the whistle of the boy’s blade through the air. Wei Wuxian keeps his sheathed, delighting in being able to keep up with such a good swordsman while not employing his power at full potential. He presses a couple of times, but the patrolling disciple presses back harder; Wei Wuxian starts to get the feeling he might have been over-confident.
“You really can’t let this go?”
“I won’t.”
Such determination. I won’t, he says, like he could if he wanted to but has firmly decided not to entertain Wei Wuxian for some reason in particular. The liquor begins to kick in; he burns it off with the use of his golden core, but it’s not an instantaneous process.
One step with his toes half-off the wall is all this disciple needs.
Wei Wuxian ends back where he started, tailbone hitting the wall so hard he grimaces as his legs splay wide on either side, an awkward elbow the only thing saving him from his head cracking against stone. He blocks the sword as it ends near his throat, but it leaves him defenseless when the boy presses his boot against Wei Wuxian’s stomach.
“Not fair,” he gasps. He’s inebriated. He’s been up all day, and for all he knows, this disciple could have slept or meditated just before finding him. He had a long journey to get here to begin with. It’s only his first night.
Surely this cannot be considered an even defeat.
The only thing he gets is the minute raise of the boy’s brows. It makes something hot and shameful curl in his gut, right beneath the solid weight keeping him in place.
For a moment they seem frozen in time. Neither moves. Wei Wuxian forgets even to breathe, gasping when the pinning sensation eases, the disciple taking a step back from him.
“Come,” he says, ignoring his gasps as he waits for Wei Wuxian to get to his feet.
Presumably, if he goes, there will be punishment. In that case? He’d rather not.
“Let’s do this again sometime!” he says in lieu of an answer, throwing up a quick salute. “I’d like to see you in a fair fight.”
Before he can be pinned again, Wei Wuxian rolls over the side, dropping to the ground and scrambling back to his quarters. The disciple does not give chase.
It’s not until he’s drifting off that he realizes how close his words were to a Challenge, but by then, he’s sinking off into the realm of dreams.
He’d been excited to learn the rigid disciple’s name the next morning, but when Lan Wangji refused to hear out his apology, he quickly and easily let go. It isn’t that he forgot him—how can he, with his constant and strict hovering, his upstanding manner through every course no matter how many times he must have heard it, his small and pretty face—but there’s much excitement to be had, being with so many students from disparate sects in a new environment.
So he doesn’t think of him, really. Not at all. Wei Wuxian knows the sort of person he is, the sort of person he’s always been, and he knows he wasn’t made to be pinned.
No matter how often he doesn’t think about it.
It really is Lan Zhan’s fault, being so stern. He invites pranks and tricks simply by breathing. He has such boring, stuffy answers to everything, no matter how Wei Wuxian calls him or wheedles or begs with as little dignity as he can muster.
So when Nie Huaisang offers to share his materials with him, well, how can Wei Wuxian pass up such an opportunity?
He’d gone through the entire book the night before, trying to select the right page for Lan Zhan. There are a lot of scenes focusing on Challenges, but lately, seeing those had Wei Wuxian blushing all the way to the roots of his hair, and he doesn’t need Lan Zhan discovering him any moment where his face might be thin. He’s already established his shamelessness so well. How can he ruin it?
Instead, he focused on the parts of the book surrounding Claiming. There, the images are sweeter, much more in line with what Wei Wuxian has been told to expect of his future life. Alphas taking care of their omegas, opening them up, sinking teeth into them, pinning them down—
One of those pages lies between them now: two masculine figures entwined, kissing as they knot for the first time. It’s rather tame, compared to most of his options, but is Lan Zhan grateful?
He certainly doesn’t seem to be, if the drawing of his sword is any indication.
“Lan Er-gongzi, Lan Er-gongzi, where are your manners? Fighting without permission is prohibited in the Cloud Recesses!”
Lan Zhan doesn’t argue back, but he doesn’t have to. Wei Wuxian can see his desires in the stubborn clench of his jaw.
“You think you can get permission?” He snatches up the book before Lan Zhan can get it, holding it high above both their heads. “Who would you show it to? You’d get halfway to xiansheng and your face would be so thin the wind could poke holes in it, who are you trying to fool?”
This is what they call a win-win situation. Either Lan Zhan destroys the book, and therefore has no evidence with which to accuse Wei Wuxian, or he provokes him into fighting outright in the Cloud Recesses again, preferably where people can see. He’s sure if Lan Zhan had to be punished, he might understand why others were so keen to avoid it and become more agreeable.
Messing with him being so very fun is simply a side benefit.
“Wei Ying,” he hisses, “what sort of person are you?”
“Not one whose head gets turned by something as plain as this!” He darts out of Lan Zhan’s grasp once again, laughing so hard he almost forgets to breathe. “Lan Zhan, Lan Wangji, are you so astonished?” He runs around a shelf, delighted when Lan Zhan follows him. He’s gotten so much improper behavior from him this time.
“Could it be,” he asks, leaping over the desk where they started, turning to walk backwards so he can watch Lan Zhan’s expression, “that Lan Zhan has never seen anything like this before?”
He rounds his mouth into a shocked little ‘o’ and satisfies himself with Lan Zhan’s killing intent. He’s never seen him so angry at anyone else; Wei Wuxian really does change him. Who else can say that?
“Be silent.”
Having caught onto this idea, Wei Wuxian holds tight. “What do they tell you Gusu Lan about the Claiming?” His smile sharpens. “Or is it only Lan Zhan who is ignorant?”
Wei Wuxian steps backward when Lan Zhan advances on him again.
“Wait, wait, I was only joking, I swear I was. Don’t come so close!”
His heel hits the wall before his back does, but only just. Lan Zhan doesn’t stop moving, closing in, caging him.
Wei Wuxian looks for the window, but it’s more than a zhang away.
“Lan Zhan,” he says, turning back. This close, the spare difference in their heights becomes more obvious. He has to turn his gaze upward to meet Lan Zhan’s. “Do you always corner people in such a manner? You’re making me nervous. What would you do if everyone knew you were so shameless?”
He receives no answer. Lan Zhan only continues to glower at him, searching his face for something Wei Wuxian doesn’t know how to give.
Not that he would give it. What?
“Really, this sort of behavior is unbecoming of you, er-gongzi.”
He isn’t even sure what behavior he means. It’s not as if they’re doing anything aside from standing here, across from one another, staring. Perhaps a little closer than is comfortable, but that’s the most he can lay claim to, isn’t it?
Wei Wuxian finds it a bit difficult to swallow. Lan Zhan’s brows form a minute furrow between them; the urge to touch it is nearly unrestrainable.
Between one blink and the next, Lan Zhan’s hands dart out, capturing Wei Ying’s where they hang above his head. He barely manages to hold onto the book. It gives him no ability to struggle against the hold, though he does, a futile effort that doesn’t rattle Lan Zhan in the least.
“What are you doing?” He wasn’t nervous before, but he is now.
Ignoring him, Lan Zhan lets go of the arm that holds the book, reaching up to collect it. Spiritual power fills his palm; a moment later, the pieces rain down on both of them like confetti.
“Lan Zhan!” he pouts, though this was one of the acceptable outcomes. Maybe this encounter is still salvageable? “Destroying other peoples’ property, pinning them down. Who knew Lan Wangji was this sort of person?”
Golden eyes stay affixed to his. Wei Wuxian only realizes he didn’t take the opportunity to free himself when Lan Zhan grasps him by the wrist again, holding him more firmly against the wall.
“You take it well.”
“What?”
Lan Zhan tightens his grip, pressure biting into Wei Wuxian’s skin. He catches the gasp before it leaves his throat. Lan Zhan seems to recognize it anyway, if the flash of satisfaction on his face is anything to go on.
“Being pinned.”
Wei Wuxian’s mouth falls open. He—that can’t—that’s just—
“No I don’t.” He wishes he could get enough breath in his lungs to sound as definitive as he feels, but Lan Zhan is pressing him down with his whole chest, now. His wrists throb.
All at once, Lan Zhan pulls away. He drops his grip, stepping back, hands behind him as though he never touched Wei Wuxian at all. For a moment they stand there, frozen in place, Wei Wuxian with his hands still held above his head for no discernable reason.
“I see.”
“What?”
Lan Zhan doesn’t answer. With fluid motions, he returns his sword to the desk and settles in, finding the actual text he was copying with little effort. He goes back to writing with a steady hand, as though nothing in this world has ever bothered him.
Curiosity burns in Wei Wuxian’s chest. He should ask. Lan Zhan already said something incorrect about him; who knows what other assumptions he may have made? How can he know if he doesn’t ask?
He lowers his hands to his sides. The little pieces of the book have shriveled to ash and nothingness at this point, nothing that can’t be swept away with a light breeze.
Though Wei Wuxian is not a coward, he decides to take his leave. Let Lan Zhan think whatever he wants. What does it matter to him, anyway?
It’s not as though the opinion of Lan Wangji has any bearing on anything he needs to consider.
At the very least, Lan Zhan cannot punish him.
With the old man gone, he manages to invite himself on a little excursion with Zewu-jun. Lan Zhan doesn’t act too much differently than he had before, which spooks him a little. He didn’t realize he was so fluid or changeable.
It seems as though Lan Zhan may have actual layers to him?
Wei Wuxian is still able to rile him, though; he gets him with the name of his sword. He thinks he might have regained his footing until the very last second, when Lan Zhan is forced to catch him and the other disciple before they plunge to a watery death.
Rather than catching him by the arm, as one might expect, or by the collar, as Wei Wuxian might expect from someone such as Lan Wangji, the first thing he feels is Lan Zhan’s hand tightening on the back of his neck.
The other hand grabs him at the arm, but that hand on his neck doesn’t ease.
“Lan Zhan, isn’t this overly familiar of you? I thought you said we weren’t close!”
“Did I?”
His voice is mild, modulated mostly to hit Wei Wuxian’s ears. Something in his tone makes him want to babble more—just to make sure Lan Zhan can’t say anything else.
“If you slip even a little, you might choke me, and then where would we be? Would I rather drown or choke at Lan Zhan’s hands?” Considering it, the answer is actually quite clear. “Ah, it would still be the second. It’s alright, Lan Zhan. I’ll take this as a sign of our familiarity from now on, okay?”
“Mn.”
“Can we get out of here?!” Jiang Cheng yells, breaking into Wei Wuxian’s… whatever it was he was doing, feeling Lan Zhan’s hands clamped down on him.
He doesn’t change his grip until they’re safely returned to shore, and even then, Wei Wuxian’s feet are on the ground for a moment too long before it eases.
It doesn’t quite bruise, the place where his fingers held, but Wei Wuxian can feel them lingering for the rest of the day. Sometimes, if he pretends to brush his hair off his face and applies weak pressure in just the right spot, it throbs.
He thinks Lan Zhan might catch him doing it, just once, but it’s his fault, really, so who else can he blame but himself?
“Would you really have yours outside?”
“Yeah!” Wei Wuxian rolls his eyes at Nie Huaisang. It’s their last day of freedom before Lan Qiren returns, and he wants to spend time trying to catch Wei Wuxian in a lie? “I’m no coward. When I put my mate on their back, I want everyone to know how good I was at it.”
Jiang Cheng pushes him. “You’re such an ass.”
“Oh yeah? You’re the one that makes a girl bring a list of virtues every time she wants you to challenge her.”
“Shut up!” Jiang Cheng tries to push him into one of the small streams of water that run like veins through the Cloud Recesses, but Wei Wuxian avoids him, laughing the whole time. The two bicker and slap at each other until Jiang Cheng spots something over Wei Wuxian’s shoulder and drops his hands, letting Wei Wuxian get under his guard.
“Fighting is prohibited.”
Wei Wuxian spins so fast he nearly trips over himself, grinning as Lan Zhan’s stern gaze comes into view. “Good thing we weren’t fighting!” When he doesn’t seem moved by this argument, Wei Wuxian steps closer, almost in his space.
“How could Jiang Cheng remember I care unless I hit him every day? Are you really so improper as to frown on the traditions of others?”
Lan Zhan studies him, eyes not once flicking toward his companions. This sort of look has come from him more and more, of late; it always makes him feel like a rabbit caught in a snare. Should he run? He thinks he sees something satisfied lurking in the back of that glare, but surely he’s let his imagination run ahead of him. What would Lan Zhan have to be satisfied about, exactly?
Whatever it does, it has no staying power. Lan Zhan turns on his heel and goes to leave, message delivered.
Wei Wuxian gives chase.
“Wait, Lan Zhan! Help us settle an intellectual debate.”
Lan Zhan stops, barely turning his head. This inattention irks Wei Wuxian; it’s polite to look at someone when speaking to them. He’s grown so rude since their little chat in the library pavilion.
“It’s a battle between tradition and modesty. Are those not subjects of interest to you?”
Lan Zhan turns to face him fully. Wei Wuxian stands up straighter under his gaze.
“Then ask.”
Ah, permission. There’s something so delicious in obtaining such from Lan Zhan, especially when he knows he’s tricked him into it. Wei Wuxian beams.
“When you Challenge your mate, would you fight in public, or do it in private?”
He waits for the expected response: the rise in killing intent, the indignant glare, some comment about Wei Wuxian being shameless.
Instead, Lan Zhan ponders him, cool gaze inspecting his own. This, too, is newly common.
“Public.”
Wei Wuxian’s delight is near-dizzying. “That’s what I said, too!”
Lan Zhan makes a noise that sounds vaguely like interest, which might as well have been a please, do continue, from the way Wei Wuxian feels.
“I expect it’s the tradition of it for you, right?” He doesn’t wait for Lan Zhan to respond. “For me, I just want everyone to know I did it. I don’t think I’ll be a particularly jealous lover, but it’d be easier if everyone knew from the start, wouldn’t it? So there are no misunderstandings. And,” he adds, swaying forward on his toes, “it’s about reputation, of course.”
“Of course.” Lan Zhan sounds amused. Was he funny? He didn’t think he was being so, but there are many worse things than Lan Zhan finding him funny.
“It’s like I said: when I get them on their back, I want everyone to know how good I was.”
Lan Zhan hums.
“Confident.”
“What do you mean?”
His eyes follow the length of Wei Wuxian’s body, all the way down to his toes and back up to his eyes again. Wei Wuxian thought that only happened to maidens seconds from being ravished and forced to present in those lascivious novels Nie Huaisang’s been passing around. Or maybe he’s unfamiliar because he’s not a buxom maiden?
“Wei Ying is sure he will put them on their back.”
Wei Wuxian tilts his head, grinning. “Yeah. Aren’t you?”
Lan Zhan just looks at him.
“Lan Zhan?”
He turns on his heel and departs, ignoring Wei Wuxian’s calls after him. Something about his demeanor prohibits being followed. When he turns, he sees that Nie Huaisang and Jiang Cheng have also left him behind, though he can’t determine when they left.
He really was too preoccupied to notice.
Meeting Lan Zhan on the wall that night feels like tempting fate.
It’s dangerous, but in a way that makes him shiver in anticipation. He’s been so unpredictable lately. Maybe he can also be enticed to break the rules? Wei Wuxian cannot help being curious enough to find out.
“Lan Zhan ah!”
Wei Wuxian hops down from the wall. There will be no repeat shattering of his liquor jars. To ensure this, he nestles them in a soft spot of grass by the wall before straightening up.
“What a coincidence. Do you always watch this wall?”
Lan Zhan steps closer, ignoring the question. Wei Wuxian feels a bit nervous—maybe a little cornered.
“I’ll have to remember, so I can come through this way again. Since we’re so familiar! Surely you wouldn’t turn me in over a little thing such as this?”
He stops a sword’s length from Wei Wuxian, his cold eyes even more piercing when they shine through the thin slivers of moonlight. He’s really beautiful, he can’t help noting. If we stood together on those boats before, I think the maidens in Caiyi Town would have fainted.
“Why do you ask questions you know the answer to?”
Lan Zhan’s voice is lower and sweeter in the dark. Something about it makes Wei Wuxian step back. Lan Zhan follows, step for step, even when he tries another, smaller one.
Deliberately misunderstanding, he salutes. “I knew you would do me this small favor. Everyone says that Lan Zhan is the most generous, after all.”
He goes to retrieve his jars of Emperor’s Smile, grin faltering slightly when Lan Zhan follows. It’s beginning to unnerve him, the way Lan Zhan matches his every movement, not letting him get any further away, keeping himself on one side and Wei Wuxian on the other.
Unbidden, the memory of the library pavilion returns to his mind. Is Lan Zhan thinking of it too?
Wei Wuxian sighs.
“Why must you be so unfeeling? It’s our last night of freedom! Do you begrudge fun? Laughter? Enjoyment?”
“None of these necessitate violating sect principles.”
“You only think alcohol is unnecessary because you’ve never tried it!” Now that’s a thought. Wei Wuxian taps his nose, imagining it. “There’s still time, you know. Even if you don’t come back with me tonight, you could come to Yunmeng later, so you won’t be breaking any of your rules. Liquor isn’t forbidden in a single corner of Lotus Pier, and for good reason!”
Lan Zhan seems momentarily thrown. It’s a relief; Wei Wuxian was beginning to think he’d lost his touch.
It doesn’t last.
“Do you act out in such a manner in Yunmeng?”
What an odd question. Wei Wuxian considers it—perhaps because anything sounds serious when delivered with as somber a face as Lan Zhan’s.
“What do you mean? If you’re asking if I go out late at night and hunt pheasants and drink liquor and sleep late, the answer to all of these is yes, but can they really be considered acting out? What you should be asking is what other sect has as many rules as yours. I’ll tell you now, the answer is none.”
Lan Zhan’s lack of answers is the worst enticement. Something in his stony silence makes words drip more freely than ever from Wei Wuxian’s lips, unable to stop them, even if he wanted to, which he really doesn’t.
“Who needs so many rules to be righteous, anyway?”
He receives a hum for that. Wei Wuxian wonders how long it would take him to categorize every single version of Lan Zhan’s hums, order them by how much emotion or inflection they offer, peel them apart until he knows exactly what Lan Zhan is saying at all times.
Distracted, he almost misses the way Lan Zhan takes another step forward. Only he can’t, and he wouldn’t, because he’s been watching Lan Zhan this whole time.
When Wei Wuxian steps back in return, he hits the wall. It’s a familiar position.
“What are you going to do?”
He thinks he might take being turned in for punishment, now, if it meant he could get away from this wall. There’s a rising tide running through him that makes him want to run, but he knows that if he did, Lan Zhan would run after him.
Would he catch him? Throw him down into the grass and pin him there, until the white of his robes was smeared with green and Wei Wuxian could go nowhere at all?
“Lan Zhan?”
He tilts his head just a little at the sound of his name. In the dark, mostly in shadow, Lan Zhan could almost be a predator.
What a strange thought.
“Impertinent. Undisciplined.” Wei Wuxian opens his mouth to argue, but Lan Zhan doesn’t give him the opportunity. “Idle. You are easily bored.”
Unsure of how to handle this turn in the conversation, he banks on his smile.
“Aren’t you?”
Lan Zhan inclines his head. Somehow, it doesn’t feel like a victory.
There’s no warning when Lan Zhan grabs for him. One moment they’re standing, the next he’s pulling at Wei Wuxian’s arm, twisting him so he faces the wall. The stone is rough against his cheek, Lan Zhan’s weight pressing him forward, forcing a gasp from his throat.
“What—”
“Quiet.”
Something in his chest caves in. He can’t remember the last time anyone hushed him and it worked, but here he is, silent and twisted in Lan Zhan’s grip. It feels like learning how to ride a sword, like standing on the edge, unsure of whether you’ll rise or fall until you’re trying.
When he struggles, Lan Zhan presses his knee into the back of Wei Wuxian’s. There’s a rush falling through him from shoulder to hip, unfamiliar and strange. He goes limp.
“Look at you,” Lan Zhan murmurs. He sounds… pleased, with an undercurrent of something that makes Wei Wuxian’s cheeks flush.
“Look at me what?”
When he tries to move again, he’s caged by Lan Zhan’s body, chest to hip. Something digs into his back; wasn’t Lan Zhan wearing Bichen on his back? That rush is back again, making him dizzy. Surely that’s not…
Lan Zhan is so close to him. Has he ever been this close to another person? He tries to strike out with his free hand and get some breathing room, but Lan Zhan catches that one too, the angle awkward and unfamiliar enough that Wei Wuxian can’t pull back in time. All his prodigious skill feels a million li away; like this, his body is foreign and strange, dizzy and heavy in Lan Zhan’s grip.
“So sure,” he says, breath fanning across Wei Wuxian’s cheek, “that you’ll have your mate on their back.” Lan Zhan digs his shoulder into Wei Wuxian’s back like he’s making a point, pressing him harder against the wall, forcing the air from his lungs.
He tries to reply and it comes out a sad little wheeze.
“Yet Wei Ying cannot even fend me off.” His tone is cutting; it twists through him, leaving little stinging wounds in its wake. That’s not—it’s not the same, obviously, Lan Zhan is misinterpreting him, but he can’t figure out how to say so, between the breathing and the twisting and something melting, deep in his chest.
Lower.
“I—” he says, gasping on it. “Unfair.”
“So you have said.”
He has, hasn’t he? Wei Wuxian struggles to glare over his shoulder. Who knew the Second Jade of Lan to be so, so—dishonorable?
Lan Zhan presses closer for a moment, forcing a sound from Wei Wuxian’s throat. It’s not one he’s ever made before, and certainly not one he’ll be repeating, soft and wounded in a way he doesn’t feel. He’s angry, he wants a fair fight with Lan Wangji, wants to show him—show him—
“Mark your words.”
Lan Zhan lets go, leaving Wei Wuxian coughing where he braces against the wall. By the time he’s collected himself, Lan Zhan is some distance away, his robes gleaming like starlight in all this darkness.
His Emperor’s Smile has also vanished.
Wei Wuxian bites off a curse and heads back to his quarters, tossing and turning through the night before melting into strange, disembodied dreams—merging with a budding flower, each individual petal blooming toward the sun; a dark and roiling ocean, wet and frothing as it meets the shore; the sheath of a blade, welcoming the sharp edge and the rust-salt of blood inside.
Bruises already fading under his eyes, Wei Wuxian waits the next day for a punishment that never comes.
The old man is back at the head of class in the morning, strict as ever, but another Lan disciple takes over after they break for lunch. Lan Wangji is conspicuously absent; some disciples begin speculating that they’re conspiring together on some new lesson plan or demonstration that’s sure to fail half of them immediately, but Wei Wuxian finds himself unbothered by the prospect.
His irritation has a different source entirely.
If he had honor at all, Lan Zhan would have presented himself to Wei Wuxian first thing! For what, he hasn’t decided; teasing would surely poke holes in that thickened face he’s developed of late, but the cold shoulder might teach him some respect. Who does he think he is, pinning Wei Wuxian down whenever he pleases, using dirty, underhanded tactics against him, taking advantage of his distraction and faith in Lan Zhan’s upstanding temperament—
The rant goes on like this for some time in his mind, until they’re on their way to dinner and Jiang Cheng snaps his fingers so close to Wei Wuxian’s eyes that he leaps back, slapping his arm away.
“Aiyo! Jiang Cheng, if you wanted my attention you should have asked!”
“I did.” The rolling of his eyes punctuates his annoyance. “Have you heard anything I said today?”
“I hear you every day! So what if I take one off, hm?” He manages to get a single good head-pat in before Jiang Cheng ducks out of the way. “I’ve had other things on my mind!”
“Like what?” he asks, arms crossed. “Study? Don’t try that.”
“Don’t mistake your idle mind for mine…”
“Wei Wuxian!”
Before they can fight it out, Wei Wuxian catches a flash of white over Jiang Cheng’s shoulder. He can’t really say what sets it apart from all the other Lans in white—it must be something about Lan Zhan’s gait, or the width of his shoulders, or his unmatched posture—but he’s jogging over on instinct, ignoring Jiang Cheng’s sounds of irritation as they grow faint behind him.
“Lan Zhan!”
They meet each other quickly in the middle, having been traveling toward each other even before Wei Wuxian noticed him. He skids to a stop with several chi between them, not wanting to repeat past mistakes, and opens his mouth to take Lan Zhan to task.
He is not given the opportunity.
“Wei Ying.”
Something in Lan Zhan’s tone stops him short. It’s too formal, encompassing too much. How can he put that many things into Wei Wuxian’s name?
“Wei Wuxian,” he continues, “Head Disciple of Yunmeng Jiang.”
He’s forgotten how to close his mouth. It’s the shock, surely. The other disciples taking this road down to dinner have slowed or stopped altogether, some trying to pretend they aren’t watching, others shameless in their perusal of the spectacle. He wants to ask them what there is to watch, but he can’t, because his mouth hangs open in shock and his heart is racing in his chest, because this sounds an awful lot like—
“I challenge you.”
—a Challenge.
Wei Wuxian has thought a lot about what his first (and only, he’d always thought with a bit of stubbornness) Challenge would be like. In his mind, he was always issuing it in a flirtatious, teasing tone, to some faceless maiden who would swoon into the arms of a friend the instant she heard she’d been chosen. In his vision he was always watching from outside his body, able to see how dashing he was as he came close to ask if she was okay.
He skipped over the actual ritual in his mind, because of course he won, right? And then he usually skipped to vague ideas of wedded bliss where he would night hunt all the time and she would be at home waiting for him, weaving or cooking, and he never had to worry about it again.
Needless to say it did not go like this.
“Lan Zhan,” he tries, surprised at how weak his voice sounds. He clears his throat. “I—”
“Accept.”
He isn’t even asking! That’s—rude. Obvious. It makes Wei Wuxian want to drag him away from all these people and ask what he thinks he’s doing. Which he definitely can’t do in front of all these people, that would be… would be…
Wei Wuxian swallows. He hasn’t done so in a while. “But I—”
“Accept.” Lan Zhan’s eyes bear down on his, inescapable. He doesn’t need to hold Wei Wuxian at the wrists to pin him down.
“I accept.”
Lan Zhan bows to him, overly formal, ignoring the flames igniting beneath Wei Wuxian’s cheeks, though he cuts his gaze down to them when he lifts his head once more.
“Tomorrow at sunset,” he says, waiting for Wei Wuxian’s nod. He gives it, if a second too late, and watches Lan Zhan walk away, frozen in place.
Nie Huaisang whistles from his place near the front. He doesn’t seem bothered by the fact that he was shamelessly watching Wei Wuxian’s… whatever that was.
“Come on, Wei-xiong,” he says, walking up and rapping him once in the chest with his folded fan. “You’ll need your strength, won’t you?”
“Right.” His voice is still too dazed, but he allows Nie Huaisang to lead him to a surprisingly mute Jiang Cheng, the three of them descending on the bland food of Gusu Lan in a sort of horrified silence.
He only realizes he didn’t ask Lan Zhan where they’d be meeting when it’s almost hai shi. Luckily, news of the Challenge has spread rapidly; the first Lan he can wave down takes pity, because of course everything has its proper place in the Cloud Recesses. When a public Challenge is issued, the two meet in the flat stone circle normally used for sword form demonstrations. Wei Wuxian has practiced there before, but he never considered it as the place he would—
Anyway, after that he has to scramble just to get back to his quarters, grateful for the privacy. Jiang Cheng had only asked once if he was sure, clapped him on the shoulder at whatever expression he saw on Wei Wuxian’s face, and told him he’d stay with Nie Huaisang for the night.
Nothing is more ominous than being roughly cared for by Jiang Cheng.
The emptiness of the room does suck some tension from his shoulders, though. It was a good call. He readies for bed with the air of a dying man, mind working in circles, spluttering when he washes his face and gets too much water in his mouth.
Who would have thought that Lan Wangji would want to be his omega?
They’ve talked about this, of course, but Wei Wuxian has gone through it time and time again, and Lan Wangji never said to him how he thought he’d present. He always assumed alpha—how could he not? He knows he shouldn’t stereotype, but Lan Zhan is all broad shoulders and commanding tones.
So everyone would imagine him as an alpha when he presents, wouldn’t they?
But Wei Wuxian has been very clear. He will have his mate on his back. He’s known this about himself for, well, as long as forever. Set in stone.
He flops onto his back, inner robe barely tied, and stares at the ceiling.
Lan Zhan as his omega has some appeal. He’s nothing like any of his imagined future mates, when he had a mind to focus on that, but it isn’t so bad. His fingers are broad but dextrous; Wei Wuxian thinks he would probably have a knack for weaving, if he put a mind to it. There’s a plus. He has no clue if Lan Zhan can cook, but Wei Wuxian burned a hole in the pan only as recently as last year, so he’ll have to try. Putting his mind to it, he’s certain there’s nothing Lan Zhan couldn’t do if he tried.
Putting Lan Zhan into the mated role in his dreams of the future is very good. He can picture him well, sitting primly near the crackle of the fire, mending something or stirring or weaving a basket. Wei Wuxian would come back from whatever he was doing and Lan Zhan would have a cloth ready to wipe the sweat from his brow, and Wei Wuxian would slide into his lap and… no, something isn’t quite right about that one—
Night hunting! Of course, Lan Zhan wouldn’t wait for him at home. With a cultivator mate, Wei Wuxian could go night hunting with Lan Zhan, and he could mend the tears in Wei Wuxian’s robes with all his patience and sometimes, on the rare occasion he was hurt, Wei Wuxian would bandage his wounds. They’ll go anywhere they want, and stay at a different inn every night if they want to, traveling between Gusu and Yunmeng so they honor their duties to their respective families. Sometimes, when it rains, Lan Zhan will tug him by the wrist, grip firm while Wei Wuxian laughs at his eagerness, and lead him up the stairs and hold him down on the bed and kiss him until—
He doesn’t realize his hands have slid beneath his inner robe until his fingers brush over his nipple, wringing a gasp from his throat. Oh.
But that one isn’t right either, he knows. He did a pretty thorough perusal of those erotic novels and manuals Nie Huaisang collected before. There’s a few pictures, of course, of the way it might work—of omegas holding down their partners and riding them, of omegas opening their alphas with their own slick to ease the way—but he’s always flipped past them with a generalized disinterest, far more focused on the more traditional diagrams. And it’s not like he’s a traditionalist, of course not, but he’s never felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up from seeing what it would look like for an omega to take their alpha apart.
He thinks of his favorite image from the loosely-instructional manual, the one he showed to Lan Zhan. He never imagined that for himself, all his fantasies of faceless maidens aside, but the two figures had appealed to him. They weren’t even in a bedroom, but there was a wall, and it was like—like they couldn’t wait, like they’d just come in from their Challenge and they had to Claim right then, like they couldn’t even make it past the privacy screen in the corner of the frame, they wanted each other that much. The omega against the wall, hands curling and failing to find purchase, eyes shut and mouth open on what can only be some lewd, dreadful noise.
The thing that got him about it, that circled in his mind and made him choose it for Lan Zhan, was the shamelessness of their position. How the omega’s back arched, how the alpha pulled him up at the hips so he was presenting for him, the way his fingers were digging into the omega’s skin. The slide of wetness down both their thighs—even thinking of it brings a flush to Wei Wuxian’s cheeks, he didn’t know omegas got that wet, not until he saw the drawings—and the way he could see the beginnings of a knot forming at the base of the alpha’s cock.
It’s really good, for a drawing. It makes it so easy for Wei Wuxian to imagine what that’s like, alpha and omega, desperate for each other, aching to knot and be knotted, the hunger to be filled.
Oh, he’s hard. He didn’t think he would be this hard just thinking about it, but when his hand reaches down for his cock it’s already wet, dripping onto his belly, staining his robes. He unties them with his other hand before returning it to brush over his nipple, sighing.
He heard once that sometimes, when you present as alpha, you lose sensitivity here. He really should make the most of it on his last night with this body.
Wei Wuxian drags his hand down to circle the base. By the end of the day tomorrow it will swell, knotting him in Lan Zhan’s body—
There’s a twist in his belly that he doesn’t like, an almost nauseous feeling he can’t figure out. His dick flags in his hand. Wei Wuxian’s eyes flutter open, unsure when he closed them, unsure of anything at all.
He tries again to think of it—of Lan Zhan presenting to him, slick and open like that—and the twist repeats, fuck, it’s bad, oh fuck, why did he agree to this?
Hands at his sides, Wei Wuxian tries to breathe through the sudden panic. He hadn’t thought before about what’ll happen if they aren’t compatible at all. It’s rare, because usually you can sense compatibility long before you get to the point of actually challenging someone, but he saw it happen once in a public challenge at Lotus Pier. Neither disciple presented, and they still can’t look each other in the eye over meals.
Is that his fate with Lan Wangji?!
Forcing a deep breath, he rolls his shoulders a little, settling into the hard pillow and fanning his hair out over the edge so it doesn’t stick to his neck with sweat. He plants his feet against the bed, curling his toes a little against his own inner robe where it’s ridden down the bed, trying to settle.
He’ll just try one more time. Surely if he lets his mind wander, rather than overthinking it and forcing things, he’ll figure out what it is he wants. Once he knows that, everything else will come easy.
There’s no way him and Lan Wangji aren’t compatible. There’s just—it’s not possible, he smells so good and his hands—
Wei Wuxian takes himself in hand again, relieved to feel himself hardening in his own grasp. He focuses on the sensation alone, the feeling of a hand sliding up and down his cock, soft and smooth under sword-roughened palms. Wetter, he thinks, a little mindless, should be wetter.
He slides his thumb over the head, languorous, trying to gather as much slickness as he—
There’s a noise, soft and almost nonexistent, that pushes from his mouth when he thinks the word. Slick. It would feel better if he was slick, if he was soaking, wet and sloppy between his thighs. His hand wouldn’t feel so rough on such delicate skin, everything smoother and sweeter like that.
His thighs shift open a little wider, hips tilting up into his questing grip. Yes.
Wei Wuxian tries to chase the thought, imagines fucking into something tight and hot, but it edges a little too close to the sour note from earlier, and he quickly abandons it. He brings his hand to his mouth instead, licking and then spitting when that just isn’t enough. When he grazes his cock again it’s sticky, and he moans, thrusting up, feeling closer as he gets a good slide.
Close as he gets, it’s still not enough.
He wonders if Lan Zhan has such problems. If he touches himself, like Wei Wuxian does. He has to. He has to, is he doing it right now? Is he fisting his cock in one huge hand and thinking of Wei Wuxian?
It’s impossible not to think of when Lan Zhan pinned him against the wall, chest against his back, his knee dug into the back of Wei Wuxian’s. He’d forced himself not to ask if that was Lan Zhan’s cock, if he was hard—it felt like a question he didn’t want the answer to. In some dark part of his mind, maybe he wasn’t ready to hear it.
Now, on the eve of their Challenge, dick in hand, he can’t stop thinking about it.
If it was his—it feels safer saying if, like there’s plausible deniability, like if he speaks in hypotheticals it will prevent any of it from having actual consequences—if it was his cock he pressed against Wei Wuxian’s back, hot and hard, then Lan Zhan is certainly proportional. The size of his hands and fingers tell no lie.
Wei Wuxian feels suddenly dizzy, arching his neck into the cool porcelain beneath it and gasping. Lan Zhan’s hand is big enough that if he did what Wei Wuxian was doing, he would engulf him, probably. He makes Bichen look like a child’s toy sometimes, even though it was made for his hand, even though he’s one of the best swordsmen of their generation. Nothing about him is clumsy, he never falters, Lan Zhan is Lan Zhan is Lan Zhan and he’s so fucking big—
He knows, to some extent, what two males can do with one another. Secondary genders aside, he’s heard that everyone likes being taken into the mouth of someone warm and willing. Wei Wuxian lets his mouth fall open and imagine what it would be like, trying to take something so big inside, saliva pooling under his tongue as he thinks of how Lan Zhan would split him open.
It would hurt, he guesses, but the hurt of a bellyache after a good meal, the hurt in your muscles when you’re getting stronger. Lan Zhan is always saying he’s idle. Would he turn idle to idolatry, keeping Wei Wuxian open like this? He stretches his mouth open wider, unable to stop any sounds that choose to spill forth, glad more than ever that there is no one to feel self-conscious for. He twitches at the wet slide of his own saliva down his cheek, running from the side of his mouth, but he forces himself not to touch.
If it were Lan Zhan he was open for, he wouldn’t care. He would make it wet for him.
The phrase sends a rush down his body, the same rush he felt when Lan Zhan pinned him to the wall, the same rush he’s felt a lot, actually, when Lan Zhan gets his hands on him. Like every bit of spiritual power in his body is congregating, molten hot, below his navel. Like one day it will grow so hot it melts him.
Would he be wet, then?
It feels too good to get his thoughts in order, the base nature of his desires overriding logic. Wei Wuxian spreads his legs a little wider and imagines what it would feel like to be wet for real, slick and open, speared by Lan Zhan’s hard cock.
He feels like there’s not enough air in the world to fill his lungs, like if he could gasp hard enough he would be able to get a handle on things, but the only thing Wei Wuxian’s huge gasps offer are the high, foreign noises escaping his throat.
There’s a desperate urge to close his mouth, but he thinks it wouldn’t be as good if he did, so he compromises by shoving three fingers inside. They don’t feel anything like he imagined Lan Zhan’s cock feeling, but if he fucks up into his fist and shoves them as far down his throat as he’s able to go, it’s almost the same. They taste like salt and skin, filling at an awkward angle, right but also wrong and so, so good.
His lashes tickle where they flutter uncontrollably against his cheeks.
If he were that sort of person, he’d present as Lan Zhan’s omega. They’d fight until he bled, until his body ripened and the dormant magic in him spurred to life, making him slick, getting him ready. It doesn’t even matter if he’s good for Lan Zhan, does it? Lan Zhan will knot him even if he’s bad, he’s already so big and he’d get bigger, splitting Wei Wuxian open and leaving him nowhere to go, nowhere to run.
Lan Zhan and his hands, so big they can fit around Wei Wuxian’s throat. Lan Zhan and his voice, telling him to accept, telling him he can’t fight him off. Lan Zhan fucking him, remaking his body into a space hospitable to Lan Zhan, holding him down and forcing his scent to sweeten, Lan Zhan with his teeth in Wei Wuxian’s neck—
He clenches down, feeling too open and exposed. Something at the center of his being aches.
Moaning around his hand, he squirms, annoyed with himself. He’s never taken this long to get off before. Is this Lan Zhan’s doing?
Whatever it is, he’s close, but he can’t see the edge of it, the fall too big and too hard for him to take just yet. He wants it so badly he may well bite his fingers through. He likes how it feels, the pinch of his teeth, the wetness as he drools around them.
Wet.
He makes a mindless noise as he draws his fingers from his mouth, something small and hungry, but he can’t be bothered with it, not when he’s thinking wet and hot and inside me. He slides his hand down over his balls, shivering and twitching away from how sensitive everything feels, drawn tight and ready for more. Below that, skin, and below that, his hole, where if he were the sort to present as an omega, he’d be slick by tomorrow.
Wei Wuxian fists his other hand furiously over himself, tentative as his wet fingers slide across his skin. He digs the middle finger in, the biggest and bluntest, while thumbing over the head of his cock.
He reaches completion with blinding speed and force.
Crying out, he tilts his hips forward into the sensation, clenching around the intrusion as he comes all over his chest, hand, and arm. Wei Wuxian is winded in the comedown, reluctant to slide even the tip of his finger from his body—without it, his body has nothing to clench around in the aftershocks, hollowness clanging through him.
It takes him at least two incense burned before he can put himself together enough to clean himself off, using a separate cloth to dab his face with cool water as he avoids his reflection by making the water in the basin ripple. He’s sure if he looks, something in his face will have changed.
None of that matters, he promises himself, curling into a ball so tight he could fit into a lotus pod. Pop out the seed, pop in Wei Wuxian, that’s it. He’s sure he’s still the same person he was on the inside, and that’s what matters during a Challenge; that’s the version of him that Lan Zhan will see.
Being excused from lessons does not ease his nerves. Eventually, when he’s unable to sleep any longer and the sun is high in the sky, Wei Wuxian is combing his hair when a knock comes at the door.
The disciple who offers him his robe and trousers blushes a little when Wei Wuxian meets his eye. It’s the sort of job he would normally volunteer for, giving himself the opportunity to tease someone right before their potential mating and all that—it seems the Gusu Lan have a quieter form of curiosity to them. He musters a thanks that sounds far more cheery than he feels, and something petty yet satisfied curls in his chest at how much harder he blushes before he runs off.
Challenge robes are red, of course—red and thick, as they are designed to be worn without an inner robe.
Wei Wuxian sets them carefully on the low table and lays down on the floor. This is how Jiang Cheng and Nie Huaisang find him an hour later, as the day stretches into afternoon.
“Wei-xiong!”
“Wei Wuxian, what are you doing?”
“I’m preparing,” Wei Wuxian says. Shouldn’t that be obvious?
Nie Huaisang’s face looms into his view, followed directly by Jiang Cheng’s glare.
“Good form,” says Nie Huaisang.
“Idiot,” scoffs Jiang Cheng.
Oddly, this performance of theirs cracks his chest, loosening up the things that had grown tight in there. Wei Wuxian giggles, clapping his hands over his face.
“What am I doing?”
“Preparing,” Nie Huaisang says, as though speaking to a small child.
Jiang Cheng gets his hands under Wei Wuxian’s upper arms. “Losing it.” Ah, Jiang Cheng. He does not pull punches.
With no help from Nie Huaisang, he maneuvers Wei Wuxian onto the bed. He goes limp, making Jiang Cheng struggle with his dead weight, but even that isn’t as fun as it normally would be.
“What are you moping for?” Jiang Cheng finally snaps.
Wei Wuxian pouts. “Can I not be upset to leave my shidi behind? The world is a cold and lonely place, and since no one is ever good enough, in his infinite wisdom and humility, I am afraid he—”
“Wei Wuxian.”
His mouth hangs open, silent now. After a moment he closes it.
Jiang Cheng looks more surprised by that than anything else.
Nie Huaisang, probably noting that they’re floundering at the prospect of speaking about this, insinuates himself at Wei Wuxian’s side, bumping their shoulders together.
“You spend a lot of time talking about Lan Wangji,” he points out. “Would it be so bad?”
“No!” His vehemence surprises him, making him bashful. “I mean, I just, who would see that coming? He doesn’t even like me.”
“He talks to you,” Nie Huaisang points out. “More than most.”
Wei Wuxian ruminates on that, turning to Jiang Cheng. “Is that so?”
“How should I know?” Jiang Cheng punches him softly in the shoulder. Maybe he does pull punches, and Wei Wuxian has never known it, because he’s never been so pathetic as this. It really puts things into perspective. “I don’t spend all my time thinking of Lan Wangji, unlike some.”
Huh.
Huh.
With a little bit of clarity, he looks between the two of them, frowning. “Aren’t you supposed to get lost? You’ll get your scents all over me!”
“You’re welcome,” Nie Huaisang says as he stands, turning and saluting Wei Wuxian properly. “We only came as volunteers to ask when you’d like your bath.”
“My—oh. Ha! Right. Uhhhh. Soon? What time is it?”
“Too long past shen shi.”
“Fuck.”
Jiang Cheng gives him a parting clap on the shoulder and assurance that, should he and Lan Zhan be incompatible, he’ll break his legs for Wei Wuxian, which is quite sweet.
The disciples who bring him the bath are both less blushy than the one who brought him the robes, but they avert their eyes, like they know something he doesn’t. The thought follows Wei Wuxian as he finishes preparing, dressing, tying his hair back with a ribbon as red as his Challenge robe.
The first thing he hears upon nearing the designated space is gossip. It seems fitting, somehow.
“—all day here, even when Xiansheng—”
“—by hand? It’s gorgeous, but of course Lan Wangji would be so—”
“—heard he wouldn’t let the elders help at all, do you think he practiced? Or do you think he’s—”
Wei Wuxian feels something taut inside him snap as he approaches the speaking disciple. “Just that good?” he asks, smirking a little when the two who’d been conversing turn to gasp at him.
“I’d say so,” he continues, tilting his head. “How else would he have any hope against me?”
Not waiting for an answer, he moves forward, ignoring the hush falling over the gathered crowd as he surfaces. He spots Nie Huaisang easily, but Jiang Cheng is absent—they made a pact not to watch each others’ Challenge when they were barely old enough to understand the term.
He notes Lan Qiren’s absence as well, though there are Lan elders lying in wait to record the results, and Lan Xichen catches Wei Wuxian’s eye with an unreadably serene expression.
Lan Wangji stands on the far side of a large array.
Though Wei Wuxian can see the majority of the array has been drawn in cinnabar, there is still a small portion to complete. There, in front of his eyes, Lan Zhan sinks to one knee and presses a bleeding fingertip to it, drawing enough blood to complete the final radical before straightening again. He dabs at the blood with cloth until it clots—fast, even for a cultivator of their level—and tucks the cloth into a pouch he sets to the side.
“How traditional of you,” Wei Wuxian can’t help noting. Sealed in blood. The thought makes all the hairs on his body stand up straight.
Lan Zhan says nothing at all. He takes Bichen from his back and hands it off to one of the clan elders; Wei Wuxian did not bring Suibian at all.
Challenges are fought tooth and nail, fist to fist, skin to skin. To bleed your mate you must do so as nothing but what you are, meeting them without artifice and taking in their very essence—or offering it, as the case may be. To demonstrate this, Lan Zhan also removes the white ribbon characteristic of the Lan clan, though this he tucks into his sleeve rather than handing off.
Lan Xichen is the one who introduces the ritual. His voice is smooth and calm as he takes them through each part, step by step:
- They must stay within the bounds of the array in order for the Challenge to continue. Should either leave the perimeter entirely, they will be declared incompatible.
- You cannot be pinned until you have been bled.
- Once bled, you are not considered pinned until you submit.
Submission declares the ritual satisfied, signaling the start of a Claim. At that point, they’ll be rushed to whatever solitary place was deemed suitable and left alone for their presentation heat and rut, respectively.
“Wangji, do you accept?”
“I do.”
Wei Wuxian blinks. Was his voice that deep before? He feels like he’s been staring at Lan Zhan for hours. He barely heard a word Zewu-jun told them. He may even have stepped forward, though he can’t recall when.
“Wei Wuxian?”
“I accept.”
Lan Xichen looks between the two of them, but the only thing Wei Wuxian can focus on is Lan Zhan, looming large in his vision. There are no official words to begin the ritual; it must be of their own volition, each stepping into the array with intent to come out of it mated.
Lan Zhan moves forward. “Come.”
Annoyed that he didn’t move earlier and it will now be interpreted as his obedience to Lan Zhan when he does, Wei Wuxian steps over the boundary of the array.
It snaps shut around him, a force that seems with all its power to want him to stay. Not something he expected. Is it an effect of Lan Zhan’s blood seal? The practice is so outdated, he’s never seen anyone else do it, before.
Wei Wuxian licks his lips. Neither of them move.
“Is this it?” he asks, taking a dragging step closer. He knows he won’t smear the array or anything, but it still feels dangerous, like standing on the remains of a campfire on purpose.
Lan Zhan watches him and says nothing at all. It’s a skill. Wei Wuxian has never thought of it as such, but standing in front of him with all these foolish words pressed beneath his tongue and bursting, he gets it. He gets it.
It doesn’t stop him.
“You spoke so shamelessly before,” Wei Wuxian teases. “Where is Lan Zhan’s thick face now?” He takes another step. It feels a little wider. He scuffs his toe and listens to the sound it makes against stone, the quiet rustle of it. “Or can he only speak when no one’s watching?”
He stands in the center of the array, noting the way Lan Zhan’s hands have tightened to fists. Success!
Wei Wuxian pounces.
He doesn’t manage to take Lan Zhan down, but he always seemed too centered for that to be the approach. Instead, he fights dirty, yanking at Lan Zhan’s hair so he’s pulled to the side.
Wei Wuxian laughs as the spectating crowd’s surprise; how could he resort so early to dirty tricks? Well, he’s really not going to hold back on Lan Zhan, so he better give him a good fight!
He’s so proud of the reaction he doesn’t react fast enough to Lan Zhan’s arm as it darts out, taking Wei Wuxian down with him. Between Wei Wuxian pulling and Lan Zhan pushing, they both hit the stone hard, Lan Zhan’s free hand coming up behind his head just in time to save it from a hard crack.
“Er-ge,” he croons, “so gentle with me.”
Lan Zhan’s eyes flash before he pushes up onto one elbow, trying to throw himself over Wei Wuxian in full. He rolls out of the way, starting to scramble to his feet. Lan Zhan grabs him at the ankle and yanks him forward.
The two roll back and forth a bit, which is thrilling to Wei Wuxian but probably not as exciting for the spectators. They won’t have a clear view of the fight like this. When Lan Zhan’s thigh goes between his, he decides he doesn’t care.
Capturing that thigh between both of his slight ones, he grinds upward, startling Lan Zhan so much that he gets the leverage to put him on his back. “Got you,” he laughs, breathless. He’s never seen Lan Zhan so disheveled; there’s actually a few hairs out of place!
Golden eyes cut into his. “Do you,” he says, mild and not at all out of breath, before shoving Wei Wuxian to his side so violently he rolls several times, bruising his shoulder and landing mostly on his face. He turns it to the side, coughing a little, and has no time to roll before Lan Zhan presses down on him, pressing him hard into the stone.
“Lan Zhan!” he gasps. There is no response, beyond perhaps an additional roughness as Lan Zhan presses his shoulder against the stone. He can move his hands, technically, but not with enough arm movement to get him anywhere.
He doesn’t remember what the danger is until he feels Lan Zhan’s warm breath fanning over the back of his neck. Where his secondary scent gland will manifest. Where—
There’s no warning, no time to beg or whine. One moment Wei Wuxian is considering how to wheedle his way out of this, the next he feels teeth at his neck, clamping down hard. He makes a sharp, pained cry, unable to contain it as they break the skin, the force of Lan Zhan’s bite pinning him in place.
For a moment, the world around them fades. There is just this, their two bodies against the cold stone, blood dripping down his shoulder into the divot of his collarbone, his struggles growing weaker the longer Lan Zhan holds him down. It’s not supposed to be like this. He really should… he…
At last the teeth release him, but Lan Zhan’s tongue licking over the wound he made is worse, somehow. Abruptly he remembers they are very much not alone, that those who have raised Lan Zhan from childhood are watching him lap shamelessly at the blood on Wei Wuxian’s skin, and the wave of humiliation is enough to give him strength he didn’t know he had. He throws Lan Zhan to the side and scrambles to his feet, gasping for air and finding there’s not enough in the world.
When he turns around, Lan Zhan is already back on his feet. He doesn’t even wipe at his mouth, Wei Wuxian’s blood staining his lips and chin red, staining the shoulder of his robe a darker red in several fat drops.
Wei Wuxian can’t stop looking at them.
“You—” he says, unable to finish, swaying a little on his feet. “That hurt!”
“Yes.” Lan Zhan can’t stop staring either, though Wei Wuxian doesn’t think it’s just the bloodstains he’s staring at. There’s an urge to cover the wound, hide it from everyone watching, but Lan Zhan should see it, see how he—he hurt him, he bled him, he—
“Thought you were gonna be gentle with me,” he whispers, knowing Lan Zhan can still hear him perfectly well. He really hasn’t stopped staring. Wei Wuxian studies his face, the singular focus on it. There’s a little blood smeared onto his cheek, like he nuzzled at the skin when Wei Wuxian couldn’t focus.
Lan Zhan is all focus. To be at the center of it like this is overwhelming. That’s why Wei Wuxian keeps shivering.
It’s Lan Zhan’s turn to advance, and nowhere for Wei Wuxian to go. He’s certainly not giving up, not after all that, not when Lan Zhan’s sandalwood scent still burns in his nose.
“Not what you need.”
Rather than stepping back, Wei Wuxian steps to the side. It doesn’t really make him any further from Lan Zhan, but it makes him feel like he’s doing something, and his scalp is still tingling, his shoulder and neck radiating a muscle-deep soreness that grows with time.
He tries to sound mocking and cross, but the question comes out genuine: “Who are you to know what I need?”
Lan Zhan’s eyes on his skin are like a physical caress all their own.
“The one who bled you,” he says, and that’s true. It’s true. The truth of it clangs in Wei Wuxian’s ears, sharp and irritating—he’s bleeding, he’s been bled, Lan Zhan got his teeth in him.
He snaps his gaze up to meet Wei Wuxian’s.
“The one who pins you.”
And between one breath and the next, Lan Zhan moves. Fast and graceful, a predator seeking prey, he takes Wei Wuxian down to the ground again, the same huge hand cradling the back of his head so his skull won’t split open.
He fights. Of course he fights. Aching shoulder aside, Wei Wuxian does not quit, and he does not give up. Lan Zhan thinks he’s going to win? He’s in for a surprise.
It’s nothing glamorous, nor is it the playful rolling around they did before. Wei Wuxian doesn’t properly bleed Lan Zhan, not the way that counts for the ritual, but he rakes his nails down his forearms until they well with little drops of blood, trying to break free until he can’t breathe at all, managing to turn onto his front and use his arms to pull him out of Lan Zhan’s grasp.
The horrible, animal cry he makes when Lan Zhan grabs him—one hand on his thigh, big enough to pull him by that alone, and the other in his hair—and pulls him back is so shameful he feels tears welling in his eyes.
“Please,” he whimpers, kicking back in a futile attempt to put distance between them again. Everywhere Lan Zhan holds him burns, but most especially his scalp as he’s held in position, back arched, neck exposed. The wound throbs harder than ever, a thick pulse that extends down his arm, at first, then throughout the rest of his body, less pain and more pure sensation.
“Look,” Lan Zhan speaks directly into his ear. Wei Wuxian opens his eyes on instinct, unsure when he shut them, and breathes a hitching little whine.
They’re all—watching. They see him as he is, held open in Lan Zhan’s hands, his bite the first thing any of them will see when they look at Wei Wuxian. And they are looking. Not everyone—another well of horror crests in him when he realizes that the crowd has thinned, as though it’s a foregone conclusion, as though everyone already knows who’s going to win, and it’s not—it’s not him, it’s not Wei Wuxian, he’s bleeding and he’s pinned—
He shuts his eyes again. “Nh” is the most he can manage, but Lan Zhan gets the message just fine. He always seems to know what Wei Wuxian is trying to say, even when he doesn’t know, following where he leads only to let him follow again.
Maybe Lan Zhan was always leading him here. Maybe he only thought he was tugging him along.
“What do they see?”
“No,” Wei Wuxian manages. If he has to be held down like this in front of everyone, this part, he gets to keep to himself. The next time Lan Zhan asks a question he’ll bite through his tongue before he answers.
“Wei Ying.” Lan Zhan moves to press him down with his body instead of just his hands, drawing a gasp from him. Something hot and liquid shoots down his spine. His hand comes up to hold Wei Ying at the jaw, turning his head toward where he knows the majority of the remaining crowd are gathered. “What do they see.”
He doesn’t need to open his eyes to know.
“Me,” he says, and it feels good to say it. Lan Zhan’s thumb brushes through the tracks of tears on his cheeks, not really brushing them away, but touching them. Something soothing, at least.
“And?”
Wei Wuxian stays mute. Lan Zhan’s hand tightens enough on his jaw that he gasps, mouth open, lashes fluttering but refusing to open entirely.
“What is Wei Ying?”
What is Wei Ying? There are many answers to that question. Beneath his robes, there’s a damp, sliding sensation between his cheeks, wet where he’s never been before. That hot slide from before intensifies as he twitches his hips back, just a little, barely noticeable, and feels the heat of Lan Zhan’s cock against his back. Hot, he thinks, because he is, and then—wet.
All true. All him. All Wei Ying.
His body has already accepted it, the free-fall, the weightlessness of letting go and waiting to be caught.
“Yours,” he slurs out, turning his head. Lan Zhan lets him turn, lets him open his eyes for the reward of Lan Zhan and his stern, branding gaze. “Lan Zhan’s.”
“Good.” The single word in Lan Zhan’s low voice makes him tremble. He knows people are probably dispersing, knows they need to go somewhere private for the Claim, but when Lan Zhan takes his mouth, he can’t think of anything else.
