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Lan Wangji had done her research. She always does, before a night hunt. Especially before a night hunt with Wei Wuxian, who in spite of her quick wit and quicker moves, cannot be relied upon for finer details.
So she thinks she’s reasonably prepared for the yaoguai they’ve tracked onto Guyao Mountain; until mid-fight, the creature screeches and sends out a blast of force so strong that Wei Wuxian — foolish Wei Wuxian, who never thinks anything through in such situations — shouts, “Lan Zhan, look out!” and hurls herself at Lan Wangji. Lan Wangji stumbles at the impact of Wei Wuxian crashing into her, and the imbalance sends them both rolling down a forest slope, tumbling head over feet through the trees. She tries to shield Wei Wuxian from the worst of the damage as they fall, the yaoguai’s fading shrieks tinny in her ears, and then they both collapse at the foot of the slope. The impact nearly sends them both sprawling, Wei Wuxian landing on top of Lan Wangji’s body with a punched oof.
Lan Wangji doesn’t move for a moment, too dizzy to collect her bearings. Wei Wuxian’s weight is heavy on top of her, pressing her into the ground. It takes another moment of recovery for Lan Wangji to realize they’ve landed in an unfamiliar type of grass, which spits up translucent spores in whatever places their bodies had crushed the stalks.
Wei Wuxian is still on top of her. She blinks down at Lan Wangji, her hair a wild tangle and her eyes dazed. Lan Wangji stares back with her breath caught, her heart crashing against the wall of her chest. Both of her hands are still anchored on Wei Wuxian’s slim waist from where Lan Wangji had tried to cushion her fall.
Wei Wuxian studies Lan Wangji closely for another moment, and then she flashes a dazzling smile.
“Hi,” she says, out of breath.
“Get off me,” Lan Wangji says.
Wei Wuxian raises an eyebrow. “Lan er-guniang, it’s not my hands keeping me here.” Her smile crooks into something devilish, and she gives her hips a little wriggle against Lan Wangji’s. Lan Wangji yanks her hands away from Wei Wuxian’s waist, feeling scalded.
Wei Wuxian takes the cue to move off of Lan Wangji and, perched on her heels, she surveys their surroundings for the first time. She reaches down to rub one of the blades of grass through her fingers. “I’ve never seen grass like this before. What do you reckon it is?”
“Don’t know,” Lan Wangji says. They’re both coated in whatever muck or residue the grass had left behind, leaving Lan Wangji’s robes stained and her skin somewhat sticky. Lan Wangji had caught the worst of it, having shielded Wei Wuxian as she did. Some of the spores drift around them in the growing dark like fireflies.
Wei Wuxian glances back up the top of the slope with a flip of her ponytail, her eyes following the path that she and Lan Wangji had ravaged with their fall. “The yaoguai is probably gone now, don’t you think? We lost the element of surprise.”
“Best to be certain,” Lan Wangji says, then takes closer stock of Wei Wuxian. “Are you injured?”
“Ah?” Wei Wuxian blinks and glances sideways at her. “Of course not! What do you take me for?”
Lan Wangji takes Wei Wuxian for many things. None that she can voice aloud. Slowly, they pick their way back up the slope and scope out the area as dusk falls over the woods, directed by the pale blue light from Bichen. As expected, the yaoguai is nowhere to be found.
“Well,” Wei Wuxian says with a sigh, “that was a bust. But we definitely can’t stay like this.” She attempts to scrub some of the muck off of her sleeves, pulling a face. “Here, I saw a place when we flew by —”
And this is how they wind up at the shore of a large pond in the fading light; this is how the evening finds Lan Wangji, spattered in unknown residue and watching Wei Wuxian, always watching Wei Wuxian, as she kicks off her shoes and unties the belt of her outer robe with a sound like relief.
A dry heat zips through Lan Wangji like a tendril of lightning.
“What are you doing,” she says.
Wei Wuxian frowns at her sidelong as she shimmies out of her outer layer. It pools around her bare ankles, and she gives it a dainty little kick. “What does it look like I’m doing? I’m not going to sleep with whatever that stuff is all over me.”
“You —” Lan Wangji says, then falls speechless when Wei Wuxian starts to pull off another robe. Once it’s gone, it leaves just her moxiong, the red of it dimmed in the waning dusk.
Wei Wuxian starts to tug at the fastenings while Lan Wangji watches on, mute with growing horror.
“If you had any sense, you would join me,” Wei Wuxian says easily. The last layer pools at her waist, leaving just the cloth binding over her chest. The movement bares her stomach and her lean shoulders. Wei Wuxian catches sight of the look on Lan Wangji’s face and grins. “Lan Zhan ah, such a face! I can turn my back while you strip if you want me to.”
It takes a moment for Lan Wangji to find her voice again.
“I will not,” she says coldly.
For a moment, Wei Wuxian appraises her with a thoughtful look, her mouth buttoned up like she might argue with her. Then she shrugs and glides toward the edge of the water, the moxiong slipping further down her hips as she does. With her back to Lan Wangji, Wei Wuxian unwinds the binding cloth over her chest and tosses it toward the rest of her clothes, leaving her top bare.
“Suit yourself,” she says.
Lan Wangji had managed to turn just in time, spinning around on a heel to give Wei Wuxian privacy. To think she could be so. . . Lan Wangji has never encountered immodesty like this, from anyone in her sect. It leaves her with a nameless emotion that feels like anger, hot and spiky, a corked pressure.
With her heightened hearing, she can make out the sounds of Wei Wuxian picking her way across the rocks on the shore. After a moment, Lan Wangji hears a quiet slosh and a small yelp, which almost prompts her to turn on instinct, but she keeps her feet firmly rooted, refusing to budge.
“Oh, the water’s not so bad once you get used to it,” Wei Wuxian says. “Nothing even close to your Cold Spring, hah! I really think if I had to bathe in Cold Spring certain parts of me would fall right off.”
Lan Wangji clenches her fist so hard that she feels her knuckles creak. She continues to stare doggedly into the dark woods, trying to pick out any shapes of movement. Wei Wuxian is completely exposed right now, after all — entirely vulnerable. The last thing they need is someone stumbling upon them. The mere thought of it makes Lan Wangji’s palm itch for a sword.
“Lan Zhaaannn,” Wei Wuxian calls a moment later from the water. “Don’t be like this! Since when did seeing a little skin hurt anyone?”
“Hurry up,” Lan Wangji says, still facing the woods.
She hears Wei Wuxian sigh.
“At least turn toward me so I can talk to you and see your face?” Wei Wuxian presses. “I promise I’m underwater and I won’t come any closer to you! I get bored to death when I’m left by myself.”
Lan Wangji hesitates. It feels like a trap. Surreptitiously, her eyes half-squinted, she peeks over her shoulder. She finds Wei Wuxian staring back at her expectantly from the middle of the pond. True to her word, she’s submerged underwater to her shoulders, leaving just the pale circle of her face floating above the water. Her clothes, every stitch of them, are crumpled in a dark heap on the shore. Wei Wuxian naked, even out of sight and a small distance away, is not something Lan Wangji had prepared for this evening.
Still, Lan Wangji settles herself, a bit sullenly, into a seated position on one of the larger rocks, facing Wei Wuxian as requested. Then, feeling spiteful, she removes her topmost and heaviest layer, which had caught the worst of the mess from earlier. She keeps her eyes trained in her lap, not looking at Wei Wuxian as she divests it.
“Much better,” Wei Wuxian says, sounding satisfied. “Lan Zhan, there’s no need to be so modest. I really don’t care what you see of me.” She claps herself on the chest, as though in self-deprecation, and laughs. “Besides, it’s not like I have much to hide up top.”
“Have you any decency?” Lan Wangji says through clenched teeth.
Wei Wuxian tilts her head to one side. “I’ve been told I’m very decent.”
Lan Wangji feels her teeth click together, tongue-tied. While they’re equally matched in a physical fight, Wei Wuxian always remains one step ahead of her in conversation, twisting words and parrying them back with ease. It’s infuriating.
“Besides,” Wei Wuxian says as she reaches up to untie her ponytail. Her unbound hair pools over her shoulders. The intimacy of it makes Lan Wangji’s breath catch in her throat.
“We’re both women,” Wei Wuxian continues, still with a laugh in her voice. She shakes out her hair, running her fingers through the ponytail creases, then ties the loosed ribbon around her wrist and pulls it tight with her teeth. “My shijie and I undressed in front of each other all the time, growing up. It’s not like there are any men around to hide from now.”
Lan Wangji’s fist tightens in her lap. A secret sits inside her chest, thorny and hulking. She looks off sideways, firmly averting her gaze from Wei Wuxian. A sour shame coats her mouth. Is Lan Wangji not the same as them? Those men Wei Wuxian would hide herself from? What she feels toward Wei Wuxian is not sisterly. Not friendly. She is not like the other girls she knows, who could casually undress alongside Wei Wuxian and feel nothing at all. If Wei Wuxian knew the truth —
“Hey, Lan Zhan.” Wei Wuxian’s voice skips across the water. “You’re not over there reciting your rules just because I decided to take a swim, are you?”
“Be quiet.”
“Hmph,” Wei Wuxian says, and then there’s a slosh as she vanishes underwater. Lan Wangji relaxes a little, sighing out the breath she’d been holding. She looks out toward the dark water where the reflection of a half-moon wobbles on the surface; a black mouth with a curve of teeth. The pond trembles where Wei Wuxian had disappeared.
A moment later, Wei Wuxian resurfaces with a splash and a gasp, a few chi over from where she’d gone under. She’s further away from the shore now, her back toward Lan Wangji. Lan Wangji is still relatively young for a cultivator, but she has the senses of one nonetheless. Even in the dim light, her sight is painfully clear. Trails of water slip down the ravine of Wei Wuxian’s bare shoulder blades, the dip of her spine. Something inside of Lan Wangji squeezes and holds tight.
Wei Wuxian ducks underwater again to smooth her hair back, to comb her fingers through it. She starts to turn and Lan Wangji looks away quickly, locking her jaw.
“Hey, Lan Zhan,” Wei Wuxian says again. Her voice drifts closer as she treads water in Lan Wangji’s direction. “You really shouldn’t keep all that ick on you. I promise I can look the other way while you rinse off if it makes you uncomfortable.” She seems to sense Lan Wangji’s skepticism, because she adds, “No messing around, I swear!”
Lan Wangji hesitates. She holds hygiene in high esteem; there hasn’t been an evening in which she hasn’t bathed before bed to clear off the day’s grime and wear, unless in unusual circumstances when she’s traveling. But the idea of being undressed in front of Wei Wuxian, near her or around her, no matter the circumstance, is unbearable. Inconceivable.
“I will bathe when we return to the Cloud Recesses,” she says after another moment.
“Lan Zhan, ” Wei Wuxian says in disbelief. “You don’t even know what’s in that stuff, and it’s all over you! It could be toxic – it could be flesh-eating! It would really be best if you —”
“Enough,” Lan Wangji says, glaring up at Wei Wuxian on instinct as she does. Mistake. Wei Wuxian has drifted closer back to shore now, the waterline dipping lower than before. She has a mole on her breastbone. Moonlight limns the tops of her shoulders in pearl. Lan Wangji can almost make out the shape of —
Lan Wangji looks away again, heat creeping up her neck.
“Have you really never seen someone undress before?” Wei Wuxian asks. There’s only plain curiosity in her voice, no teasing, but Lan Wangji tenses up at the question nonetheless.
“Modesty is paramount,” she recites, acutely feeling her own prudishness as she does. She still refuses to look at Wei Wuxian.
“Certainly there are allowances,” Wei Wuxian says, in the tone she usually gets when she’s about to pick apart an argument piece by piece. “Don’t your rules allow for extenuating circumstances? Surely there are situational permissions for each one? For example — no talking while eating. But what if you saw an attacker sneaking up on your companion from behind? Surely you’d have to say something even if you were mid-meal, and you wouldn’t be punished for it?”
An impending migraine starts to cluster beneath Lan Wangji’s brow. “Dress, if you’ve finished already.”
Wei Wuxian audibly pouts. “What if I want to swim some more? Hey, I’m really a very good swimmer, you know. Probably the best in Lotus Pier. I don’t say that to be arrogant or anything, I’m just letting you know. I’m probably the best, although Jiang Cheng and my shimei Guo Ming are pretty close —”
“Wei Ying. ”
“Alright, fine, aiyah, I’m going! Fussy.”
A series of splashes sounds out as Wei Wuxian moves out of the water, then she starts to mutter to herself as she putters around with her dirty robes and her qiankun pouch. With her gaze still averted, Lan Wangji gets up from the rocks to move closer to the woods. She keeps her back turned as she waits, on edge.
“Shit,” she hears Wei Wuxian say under her breath after another moment of rustling. “I didn’t bring a change of clothes.”
“I have some,” Lan Wangji says quickly. It’s her only spare set, but. Anything to expedite this whole ordeal.
She hears Wei Wuxian pause as though in surprise. “Don’t you need them to change into? I can sleep in my own, and that way you don’t have to —”
Lan Wangji is already fishing around in her qiankun pouch, groping around until she touches on the familiar silk. She wordlessly sticks out the bundle of robes with one arm.
Wei Wuxian goes silent for a moment, and then there’s the hush of her bare feet on the rock as she shuffles toward Lan Wangji.
“Are you suuuure?” she says. Closer now. Closer and still not wearing any clothes. If Lan Wangji turned around, she would see everything. Her jaw aches from clenching it so much.
“Mn, just take them,” Lan Wangji says testily.
Wei Wuxian does. There’s some rustling and muttering and fumbling, and then she says, “Lan Zhan, your underwear is really nice. It’s a lot better quality than mine. A little roomy up top though, probably because you have bigger —”
“Stop talking.”
Wei Wuxian sighs, then stumbles around for a few more minutes while Lan Wangji grinds her teeth. Finally, Wei Wuxian announces, “All done!”
A little cautiously, Lan Wangji turns back around. Wei Wuxian is adjusting the various layers of silk with a small, pinched frown. She looks strange in Lan whites and blues. Still beautiful, but different. Her forehead seems naked without a ribbon to accompany them.
“Woo-oww, these are great!” Wei Wuxian praises, shaking out the sleeves appreciatively. “The material is beyond compare!”
Lan Wangji experiences the ridiculous thought, for just a moment before she banishes it, that her clothing has now touched more of Wei Wuxian than she has.
“I’ve never seen you without all of your layers.” Wei Wuxian is considering Lan Wangji thoughtfully now, and it takes Lan Wangji a moment to realize she’s still missing her outer robe from when she’d removed it earlier. Before she can even think about retrieving it, Wei Wuxian reaches out to her with one hand. Lan Wangji tries to recoil, but Wei Wuxian only picks something out of her hair with a raised eyebrow.
“Please forgive me, Lan er-guniang,” Wei Wuxian says, a warm gleam of laughter in her eyes. “You had a leaf in your hair.” She gives a little bow and offers the small leaf to Lan Wangji with her palm out. It’s ridiculous. It’s strangely, heart-wrenchingly endearing.
Lan Wangji stoops to snatch up her missing robe, then she turns on her heel and marches off into the woods without another word, ignoring Wei Wuxian even as she cackles and calls out for her to wait up.
—
They set up camp for the night in the woods. Lan Wangji had, of course, packed a bedroll in her qiankun pouch, and Wei Wuxian had, of course, forgotten to prepare for sleeping arrangements outside of an inn. After the third whining plea of Lan er-jiejie, can’t I just share yours, would you really be so cruel as to deny me, think of my poor back — Lan Wangji puts a short Silencing Spell on Wei Wuxian and settles down to sleep. It’s past hai shi now, so she slips into unconsciousness easily in spite of Wei Wuxian’s muffled, outraged protests.
When Lan Wangji wakes later, in the dead of the night, she’s sweated through her dirty robes. Her mouth is as dry as chalk; her head is on fire. It’s rare for her to wake in the middle of the night like this. She can recall once, when she was very young, when she’d woken in the throes of a bad fever. She’d called out for her mother, over and over, but it had only been her xiongzhang who had come to scoop water into her mouth; to mop her brow with a scrunched look of worry. She had thrashed and sweated and dreamt fitfully all night until the fever finally broke. Lan Wangji is reminded of it now — she can’t stop shifting around, trying to alleviate her discomfort. In her restlessness, her head rolls to the side. A shock travels through her when she finds Wei Wuxian already staring back at her, sitting cross-legged near the fire.
Wei Wuxian is awake. Wei Wuxian is awake and watching her, oddly expressionless, the hollows of her cheeks flickering in the bounce of the firelight. How long has she been sitting here, watching Lan Wangji writhe around in her sleep, squirming and flushed? A horrified realization strikes Lan Wangji that the damp between her legs isn’t sweat; that she’s wetter here than everywhere else, and that she wants — she needs —
“I knew you should have washed it off,” Wei Wuxian says softly. She sounds sympathetic, not at all smug.
Heat builds under Lan Wangji’s navel and spreads its tendrils through every part of her. Panic works its way up her throat in tandem. She doesn’t know what’s — in her or on her, or what it will make her do. She has never felt so out of control, to something beyond what discipline and meditation can temper.
“Lan Zhan,” Wei Wuxian says, shuffling closer. She looks more serious than Lan Wangji has ever seen her, which makes the scenario scarier, somehow.
The closer Wei Wuxian gets, the brighter the heat beams inside Lan Wangji. She clumsily moves away from Wei Wuxian, nearer to the fire.
“Get away from me,” she says. She means to sound commanding, righteous. Instead, she sounds as shrill as a frightened child.
Wei Wuxian holds up two hands out in front of her, her eyes careful. Like Lan Wangji is a snared animal, snapping and vicious. She holds Lan Wangji’s gaze steady as she inches closer and closer.
“Lan Zhan,” she says, talking low. “Whatever it is, let me help.”
Lan Wangji’s voice shakes with restraint. “Stay back.”
Wei Wuxian moves toward her in a half-crouch, her hands still out. The closer she gets, the higher the flame rears inside Lan Wangji, and for the first time, the shape of her own body’s wants becomes clear to Lan Wangji. It cleaves her between the ribs; it nearly causes her to double over. She wants to curl in on herself until she disappears. No, she thinks through the haze. Not like this.
Wei Wuxian is above her now, like Lan Wangji hunched over in pain had drawn her in.
“Lan Zhan,” Wei Wuxian says again, still matter-of-fact, deathly serious. When Lan Wangji looks up, she finds only concern reflected back at her. “Tell me what’s wrong. I can go fetch some water, I can try to fly by sword nearby and find help — whatever it is, I can –”
Lan Wangji kisses her. She doesn’t think twice about it — cannot, doesn’t have the faculties to — just grabs Wei Wuxian by the front of her borrowed robes and hauls her in, their faces crashing painfully together. Wei Wuxian makes a shocked sound against Lan Wangji’s mouth, a noise like mmph?!
As far as first kisses go, Lan Wangji could surely do better. It’s clumsy, too rough, their noses misaligned. Wei Wuxian had initially frozen, but she hasn’t tried to move away, at least not yet. Helplessly, Lan Wangji brings a hand up to Wei Wuxian’s throat. She cups the shape of it, her thumb under Wei Wuxian’s chin. Wei Wuxian’s pulse thumps frantically against her palm. The heat inside of Lan Wangji banks, simmers low; tempered by Wei Wuxian’s touch, cooling by degrees.
Wei Wuxian still isn’t moving. She hasn’t made any attempts to get away, but she’s also not quite kissing back, her lips parted but motionless against Lan Wangji’s. It’s this belated realization, through the heat-haze, that makes Lan Wangji wrench herself back with a gasp. Wei Wuxian, her eyes half-closed, nearly follows after her, swaying forward into Lan Wangji’s space. Then she blinks and opens her eyes to stare at Lan Wangji in dazed shock.
“Oh,” Wei Wuxian says.
Through the mindlessness of the heat, humiliation crashes into Lan Wangji, an overwhelming wave of it. How could she have — she had never intended to take advantage, to —
She lies back down and twists onto her side, giving her back to Wei Wuxian. She can feel her blood beating under every part of her skin. The tips of her fingers, between her legs, in the hollow of her mouth. From Wei Wuxian behind her, there’s only silence, aside from the spittle of logs shifting.
If Wei Wuxian has any sense of mercy, she’ll never bring this up again. Won’t use it to tease or torture or exploit Lan Wangji. Lan Wangji doesn’t believe she would — Wei Wuxian isn’t cruel by nature, only playful in her antagonism — but the secret that had felt so big inside of her earlier is now a shared thing between them. A weapon against her, a cudgel that can hurt. The heat pulses miserably inside of Lan Wangji, snarling for more, more. Maybe it’s always lurked within her, hibernal, and whatever she’d touched earlier had woken it up. Had given it teeth and claws.
“Lan Zhan,” Wei Wuxian says. She’s closer than Lan Wangji expected; she hadn’t retreated, she hadn’t gone fleeing off into the woods. There’s another beat of silence, and then a gentle hand presses flat between Lan Wangji’s shoulder blades. “Listen, I. I know that I’m not — I’m, um, not a boy or anything, but if you, if it’s what you need to —”
Lan Wangji rolls back over. Body ahead of mind. She moves too quickly to stop herself, pinning Wei Wuxian into the dirt in a flash of something that isn’t rage, but close to it. She gathers Wei Wuxian’s wrists in one hand and tacks them above her head. Wei Wuxian gasps, but it’s not a sound of pain or protest, it’s —
The red haze in Lan Wangji crests higher and higher, need need need. She kisses Wei Wuxian again, graceless and messy and a little bruising, and Wei Wuxian makes a new sound against her mouth, a tiny, choked-off moan. All of their days together, Lan Wangji thinks with her remaining coherence, have been leading to this. Watching Wei Wuxian practice sword forms in the fields, the flash of her smiling teeth, the narrow shape of her hips in her robes. The naked line of her shoulders in the water, the droplets beaded in her collarbones. Each time Wei Wuxian had laughed or boasted or pouted or coquetted or teased in her direction, Lan Wangji had wanted only to do this: Her tongue in Wei Wuxian’s mouth, shutting her up. Wei Wuxian’s mouth fallen open, hot and panting and sticky against Lan Wangji’s. She tastes a little sweet, a little acrid, the way rice wine smells. She must have sneaked some after Lan Wangji fell asleep. Can Lan Wangji get drunk just from this? She’s never been drunk, but she thinks it would feel like this. Buzzed and out of body, all of her thoughts clumsy and too big for her head.
“Lh’Zha’,” Wei Wuxian pants against Lan Wangji’s mouth, her own still open. “You —”
Lan Wangji reels back from her, an unconscious flinch.
“You’re really,” Wei Wuxian says, staring up at her. Her eyes are dark and glazed, her cheeks flushed even in the low firelight. She’s still gasping a little. “Where did you. . . how do you know how to . . .”
Thin-faced, Lan Wangji glances off into the woods, pursing her lips to hide her sudden embarrassment. She had indeed once found . . . illicit materials, sanctioned off in the Forbidden Chamber of the Cloud Recesses library. Erotic texts and art between two participants of the same sex. Cutsleeve art was most common in those texts, but there had been rare images of two women, caught in the throes of passion, their stenciled breasts small and pointy, their mouths sharp and open with pleasure. Deep into the night, far past hai shi, Lan Wangji had pored through the texts until there was a pulsing ache between her legs, and she’d thought, with each new page turned, I will ask for punishment. I will ask. She hadn’t.
“It seems that Lan er-guniang is — surprisingly well-educated in such matters,” Wei Wuxian says, a breathless attempt at her usual coyness. “Ah, who would believe me? The Second Jade of Lan ravishing a poor servant’s daughter in the woods, to get practice for when she —”
Lan Wangji pins her to the ground again in a surge of that same emotion from earlier. That cousin of anger, but it isn’t directed at Wei Wuxian. She finds herself furious at — expectation. Expectation for her to be a certain way, to like certain people. From Wei Wuxian, from everyone. She is an island.
“Do not mention boys again,” Lan Wangji snaps before she can think the words through. It possibly gives too much away, but it’s better than the alternative. Wei Wuxian trotting imaginary men into the spaces between them, granting them an audience.
Wei Wuxian’s eyes are wider than before, flickering over Lan Wangji’s face, trying to read something from her.
“Okay,” Wei Wuxian says, and then they’re kissing again, Lan Wangji dropping awkwardly to one elbow to keep her weight from crushing Wei Wuxian. The sounds of it are loud; louder than Lan Wangji would have expected, the many times she’s imagined this. Wet, obscene. If she weren’t bespelled, it would bring an ashamed heat to her face. Wei Wuxian isn’t a passive participant as she was before. She seems eager to prove something now, throwing herself back into the kiss with messy enthusiasm. Whatever it is that’s in Lan Wangji, magic or otherwise, swallows it whole, greedy for more. Wei Wuxian is breathing hard into the kiss, her skin nearly as hot as Lan Wangji’s where they touch. Her hands are on Lan Wangji’s shoulders, then around her neck. Her legs fall open to make room for Lan Wangji, and Lan Wangji goes, pushing her hips down so they’re flush against each other. It startles a moan out of Wei Wuxian, helpless and choked, and Lan Wangji thinks, Yes.
In her impatience and in her hunger, Lan Wangji’s movements turn rough, sending them both sliding along the dirt floor. Wei Wuxian is openly panting, shallow and fast, as she tries to keep pace with the fervor of Lan Wangji’s kisses, and even through the haze, Lan Wangji thinks that Wei Wuxian is exactly how she imagined and more; much more. Her hands are greedy, after all those months and now years of staring and wondering and wanting. She feels up and down the lines of Wei Wuxian’s body through her borrowed robes, over her ribs and her sharp hips and the outside of her thighs. Wei Wuxian seems too absorbed in the task of kissing to do much else, but she has one hand anchored to the nape of Lan Wangji’s neck, keeping their faces pressed together. Her other hand roves over the expanse of Lan Wangji’s back, which is sweat-damp and fever-hot through her robes.
Before she’s aware of what she’s doing, Lan Wangji’s hand moves to Wei Wuxian’s chest, skating across the curve of one of her breasts through her robes. Wei Wuxian makes a sound and Lan Wangji goes rigid, a sensation like ice water lancing through her even through the insufferable heat because — what is she doing? Is this how — someone else would touch Wei Wuxian, push himself on her, someone with the same desires but different than Lan Wangji, is this how they would — could she be the same as one who would —
Wei Wuxian’s fingers wrap around her wrist, where Lan Wangji’s hand had seized up. Without a word, she moves Lan Wangji’s hand back to her chest, staring up at her a little dazed, possibly shy but bold in spite of it. Lan Wangji loses whatever panicked line of thought had run away with her and grips harder than before, fitting the shape of Wei Wuxian’s breast to her palm. Wei Wuxian’s back arches up from the dirt, her mouth falling open. Her lips are puffy and dark from kisses and bites. Her hair is completely ruined from being tangled in the dirt and the debris from the forest floor. Lan Wangji has never wanted a single thing more in her life than this, nothing even close.
She should stop, a rule-abiding and morally upright voice keeps reminding Lan Wangji with a frantic insistence. She should stop for her sect disciplines; for taking advantage of Wei Wuxian, who believes she’s lending a helping hand and nothing more; for acting on impulses she knows to be . . . profane. New questions arise for the first time, a trembling in the foundation of her staunch self-discipline: How could something that feels this good be wrong? How could wanting Wei Wuxian like this be, when it feels . . .
Emboldened and kiss-drunk and out of her head, Lan Wangji’s hand slides between the open gap of Wei Wuxian’s oversized robes, burrowing and fumbling deeper and deeper under her layers until she finally touches skin, until Wei Wuxian moans above her with a sound like a sob. Lan Wangji is gripping and pinching too roughly, leaving bruises, biting down the column of Wei Wuxian’s throat. Her thumb brushes over the bud of Wei Wuxian’s nipple and all of the breath leaves her body. Wei Wuxian’s hips drive up against hers, her head snapping back into the ground with a ragged oh. Has she never been touched like this? Is Lan Wangji the only one to. . .
“Lan Zhan,” Wei Wuxian is rambling from somewhere up above her, breaking through the ringing in Lan Wangji’s ears. “Lan Zhan, you’re really, hah — pretty, do you know? I always thought so, you’re so pretty, you feel so good, h-how. . .”
Lan Wangji sinks her teeth harder into Wei Wuxian’s neck, wanting to taste. It will mark. Wei Wuxian whimpers, rocking her hips against Lan Wangji’s.
“Is it what you need,” Wei Wuxian is saying, “is it what you need to. . .”
What Lan Wangji needs is far more than this. The possibilities now, with Wei Wuxian underneath her, seem infinite. Perhaps Wei Wuxian will forgive her tomorrow. Perhaps Lan Wangji will forgive herself.
The magic, the pollen, whatever it is, demands something of her. She thinks they will both give it. Lan Wangji drops her hand between Wei Wuxian’s legs, and the fire rises until it closes above her head, swallowing them both whole.
—
When Lan Wangji wakes the next morning, it takes her a few moments of blank, ignorant peace, staring across the forest floor, to remember that something is dreadfully wrong.
When the memories do flood back, all at once, Lan Wangji wrenches herself up in a storm of emotion. Horror, first. Embarrassment, quickly after. Shame fills her too, and a slow-mounting shock as she replays what she can still recall. She had hardly been in control of her actions last night, and Wei Wuxian had — Wei Wuxian had let her . . .they had really. . .
Lan Wangji casts a few disoriented looks around, but Wei Wuxian is nowhere to be found. Had she left Lan Wangji here to make her way back to Lotus Pier or the Cloud Recesses by herself? Perhaps she hadn’t been able to stomach the disgust after she’d woken up, when she’d remembered what they’d done together. Perhaps she couldn’t even bear to look at Lan Wangji; perhaps they will never speak again.
Lan Wangji feels sick to her stomach. She begins to walk without direction, leaving their campsite behind her. Memories of the previous night trickle sluggishly back to her as she walks, layering on and on. Wei Wuxian had climaxed twice, she remembers, after that first round of kissing, just from Lan Wangji touching her through her robes; then again when Lan Wangji had touched her bare, hot and slick. Still caught in the worst of the spell, Lan Wangji had come twice or three times as much, mostly just from rubbing herself against Wei Wuxian’s thigh, against Wei Wuxian’s lap. Wei Wuxian had touched her too, she remembers with a shock: Wei Wuxian had parted her robes with a determined look and returned the favor, her fingers moving strange and hot inside of Lan Wangji.
Without so much as a glance backwards, Lan Wangji had broken some of her most revered sect disciplines. She could face exile from her sect if the two of them were found out, for more reasons than one. She had put Wei Wuxian in jeopardy, too — while the YunmengJiang’s rules aren’t so severe, coupling before marriage for any young woman could nonetheless be a life-ruining transgression.
She has to find Wei Wuxian, Lan Wangji thinks as she barrels forward into the woods without direction. Wei Wuxian might not be able to look at her the same ever again, but Lan Wangji at least needs to apologize, to try to make things right —
“Lan Zhan,” a voice calls out to her, and Lan Wangji whirls around. Wei Wuxian is sitting cross-legged on a felled trunk, staring at her through the trees. At the sight of her, Lan Wangji’s heart gives a pained thump and then sinks to her feet.
“Wei Ying,” she replies, and when it doesn’t look like Wei Wuxian is trying to leave, she stiffly makes her way over, her hands clasped behind her back. Wei Wuxian is in the middle of whittling the holes in a bamboo flute with a blade. There are at least five discarded others by her feet, each a little more crude than the last.
Lan Wangji stops in front of her, feeling helplessly awkward. She grasps for a conversation topic to ease it. “Do you play?”
“Huh?” Wei Wuxian says, staring at her distantly like she hadn’t heard the question. Then she blinks, registering it. “Ohhhh, no, haha. No, I don’t.” She drops the flute and makes a face. “Ahhhh, hah, Lan Zhan, good morning.”
Lan Wangji doesn’t say anything to that, still frozen. Wei Wuxian is staring up at her, expecting her to say something. A collar of dark, bruise-like marks encircles her throat where Lan Wangji had bitten and sucked her skin. Wei Wuxian’s lips are swollen, redder than usual, purpling in some places from how much Lan Wangji had bitten her. The magic is clear from her system, and yet Lan Wangji’s wants haven’t changed, the same pitch and the same fervor.
“Wei Wuxian,” she says, then swallows. She circles her arms in a bow and lowers her head, keeps it low. “For what happened last night. Please forgive me.”
“Stop,” Wei Wuxian says, regarding her now with faint alarm. “Lan Zhan, what are you doing? You’d better not start kneeling.”
Lan Wangji, who had been planning on that very thing, straightens her knees and keeps her head low, her arms outstretched.
A moment later, Wei Wuxian says, “I’m not mad.” She sounds a little baffled.
Lan Wangji keeps her head low, staring at her white shoes against the dirt of the forest floor. “You left.”
“Because I knew you’d be freaked out and I wanted to give you some space to work through stuff on your own,” Wei Wuxian says. “But I’m not . . . Lan Zhan, do you think I’m angry with you?”
How could you not be, Lan Wangji thinks, but doesn’t voice it. Wei Wuxian seems to hear the unspoken question regardless.
“I’m not sure how much you remember,” Wei Wuxian says. “But I volunteered.”
“Under duress,” Lan Wangji says.
“Because I wanted to.” Wei Wuxian sounds impatient now. “Lan Zhan, look at me.”
Warily, Lan Wangji does. Wei Wuxian stares back at her with a complicated expression, earnest and a little frustrated. She purses her lips and flushes the longer that Lan Wangji stares and drinks in the details of her. Wei Wuxian glances away with an uncharacteristic fluster.
“I know you didn’t even want to,” Wei Wuxian says to the trees, the line of her jaw still red. “I know you probably can’t even stand the sight of me right now, and that you might hate me forever. But it’s not like I did it to — I didn’t do it to hurt you or make you embarrassed, and —” She tips her chin up with a small jerk, her jaw jutted in a streak of her usual defiance. “And whatever you think about it, I wouldn’t take it back. So there.”
All at once, a great pressure eases from Lan Wangji’s shoulders. In its absence, her chest feels as light as a floating lantern. She takes a step closer, wanting suddenly to drop her entire weight into Wei Wuxian’s arms, to go boneless in her relief. To gather her up close and keep her there.
“Wei Ying,” she says.
Wei Wuxian folds her arms over her chest with a pucker in her chin, still not looking at her.
“I apologized because I believed I took advantage of you,” Lan Wangji says, quiet and clear. “Not because I have regrets.”
Wei Wuxian’s head snaps around to her again, her mouth falling open in her surprise. “You — oh?”
Lan Wangji tightens her jaw, the sting of a blush in her ears and cheeks.
“But you — your rules,” Wei Wuxian says. She’s staring at Lan Wangji, a little lost-looking.
“What we did was not wrong,” Lan Wangji says, and finds that she means it.
“Well,” Wei Wuxian says doubtfully, “going off what your clan has on the big rock, it really —”
“What we did was not wrong,” Lan Wangji repeats, because this is something she has to believe, or else — or else what? She has never felt this way about anything or anyone; she hadn’t known she was capable of it. She hadn’t known it was even possible, this sensation, like everything inside her is humming and alight. Like everything inside her is phosphorescent. How could it be wrong? Wei Wuxian with her laughing eyes and her sunlit smile and her kindness as fierce as the slash of a saber — how could wanting her be wrong?
“Lan Zhan,” Wei Wuxian says, still appraising her in astonishment. She seems at a complete loss for words, which would be a first in the history of their relationship.
Lan Wangji takes another small step closer, and Wei Wuxian rises to meet her, to move toward her in turn.
“I thought,” Wei Wuxian says. Her eyes trace over Lan Wangji’s features a little wonderingly. “Wasn’t it — the curse?”
Lan Wangji’s hand rises of its own volition to touch Wei Wuxian’s cheek. Now that she knows how to touch her, she’s not sure she can ever stop. Wei Wuxian’s eyes go wide in her face, pink creeping into her cheeks.
Lan Wangji moves a step closer. Wei Wuxian does too, so that their chests are brushing. Wei Wuxian’s hip is under her hand now — when had that happened? Lan Wangji isn’t certain. Wei Wuxian’s mouth is a more vivid color up close, the puffiness more evident. It must be painful. Lan Wangji will be gentle, just this once.
She leans in, close enough now to feel Wei Wuxian’s breath catch, a stutter of air against her own mouth. When the heat of Wei Wuxian’s lips is close enough to taste, she hesitates — maybe they shouldn’t — and Wei Wuxian huffs, a sound of impatience, and closes the distance, guiding Lan Wangji’s mouth against hers. Wei Wuxian makes a soft sound into it, her hands curling in the front of Lan Wangji’s robes. Lan Wangji would have never been able to imagine it, were it not happening — kissing Wei Wuxian in broad daylight, with a nearly calm assuredness. Wei Wuxian kissing her in return. Lan Wangji is not the same person she was yesterday, before she’d kissed Wei Wuxian. She doesn’t think she’ll be the same person ever again. The feeling is terrifying and new, as though she’s an outlander stumbling her way through a strange terrain. A beautiful one, all the same.
They pull apart, their foreheads resting together, breathing unsteady. The filigree of Lan Wangji’s headband is pressed between their skin. Wei Wuxian has a hand on Lan Wangji’s chest as if to steady herself, her eyes closed.
“Lan Zhan,” Wei Wuxian says quietly. She licks her lips. “Aha. Hmm. How do I say this. I have . . . certain feelings about you. I’m not sure what I should call them.”
“Are they not simply called feelings?” Lan Wangji wonders.
Wei Wuxian gives a startled huff. “You — ” She sounds very aggrieved. “You — !!”
Lan Wangji’s hands encircle Wei Wuxian’s narrow waist. She pulls Wei Wuxian in closer, bold in a way that she’s never felt before. Something in Wei Wuxian brings it out in her, flint to steel.
“Lan Zhan,” Wei Wuxian mutters, sullen-sounding, as she’s tugged into Lan Wangji’s chest. She rubs her nose against the front of Lan Wangji’s robes petulantly. “Ahaha. You really do know how to talk, after all.”
Lan Wangji smiles, ever so slightly. Wei Wuxian must sense it, because she pulls away to stare at her with big, incredulous eyes.
“Lan Zhan,” Wei Wuxian says again, staring at her mouth. “You . . .”
“Let’s go,” Lan Wangji says softly. “The Cloud Recesses are a long way yet.”
Wei Wuxian doesn’t budge. She looks at Lan Wangji for a long time, quiet in a strange way. Lan Wangji looks back at her, somewhat perplexed.
“Last night,” Wei Wuxian blurts, then glances away from Lan Wangji, chewing on her lip. “Do you. . .would you ever want to do it again?”
An emotion surfaces in Lan Wangji so suddenly that it takes her a moment to identify it: excitement. Years and years of routine, of solitary mornings and evenings, and then — her. So many years the same, so many years asleep, and now Lan Wangji finds herself dizzy with anticipation, high on the thrill of it. Wei Wuxian’s reciprocation, in even the barest capacity, had for so long seemed utterly impossible. She finds herself dumbstruck on the receiving end of it.
I’m going to marry her, Lan Wangji thinks. “Yes,” she says.
“Oh,” Wei Wuxian says. “Then.” She swallows, her pupils spreading as she stares at Lan Wangji’s mouth. “Would you — would you want to meet somewhere on the back mountain? Tomorrow night, when we won’t be spotted?”
“Tonight,” Lan Wangji disagrees. Wei Wuxian’s mouth pops open, and she gives a little laugh of amazement.
“Lan er-guniang!” she scolds, shimmering with delight. “Who would ever believe such a thing?” She leans in on tiptoe, the curve of her mouth sly. “Is er-jiejie so hungry to have me again already?”
Whatever Wei Wuxian sees in Lan Wangji’s expression causes a small hitch in her breath, a small and soundless ah. She blinks at Lan Wangji in growing astonishment. “Oh — y-you really . . .”
“Let’s go,” Lan Wangji says again, her hand around Wei Wuxian’s wrist as she pulls her. They have a long night ahead of them, after all.