Chapter Text
Wei Wuxian woke up surprisingly cold without his Hanguang-jun to warm him up. He blinked against the light in confusion. This wasn’t the Burial Mounds or the room they’d had in Yiling. This was the jingshi.
He sorted through his memories slowly — he didn’t remember coming back here, but he remembered… oh, he remembered the first time he’d come to Cloud Recesses when he was fifteen, and the trouble he’d made. He remembered pushing Lan Wangji away so many times. He remembered going home to Lotus Pier with his siblings.
Everything slotted back into him so neatly, like it had never been gone. He just was.
“Lan Zhan?” He stretched his hand out to his left and found only empty space.
Nothing.
It was late, he supposed; Lan Wangji always woke up so early. Usually Wei Wuxian woke up when he got up, just enough for him to whine and pull at his robes and beg Lan Wangji to come back to bed, but he must have been so tired — how did he even get here —
“Here,” Lan Wangji’s soft voice came and then his soft touch; two fingers tracing the back of Wei Wuxian’s hand.
“There you are,” Wei Wuxian said in relief, rolling over. Lan Wangji was sitting in a meditation position at the side of the bed, though he’d broken it to reach out to Wei Wuxian. He looked so soft. Wei Wuxian squinted, trying to figure it out. His memory was all jumbled up, and it was hard to categorize things from his old life and his new life. So it took him a minute to realize: “Your hair is down.”
He looked far less like the honorable Hanguang-jun that Wei Wuxian remembered and much more like the wonderful person that Wei Wuxian had come to learn — had already known — that he was. That had been impossible to remember, at the end. He’d been so caught up in his own hatred, his own pain, that he’d forgotten that Lan Wangji had always been kind.
And he was sitting here, without his robes or his headpiece, letting himself be seen, and Wei Wuxian loved him hopelessly.
“It’s early.”
Wei Wuxian grinned. Lan Wangji must have carried him back to the jingshi, carefully laid him in bed to wait for the healers.
“Lan Zhan,” he said again, trailing his hand off the bed. Lan Wangji’s other hand rose to meet it. Linked, they were. Wei Wuxian’s hands had been cleaned of blood. “Did you feel guilty about sleeping next to me when I had all my memories back?”
Lan Wangji didn’t say anything, which meant that Wei Wuxian was right. He grinned, propping his head up on one hand. “Did you stay up all night?”
“I slept.”
“Sitting up like that?” Wei Wuxian could feel his smile growing. “You can come back to bed, you know.” He tugged Lan Wangji’s hand until the man came to him, leaned up against the bedframe.
“Nine days,” Lan Wangji told him, the weight of his arm comfortable across Wei Wuxian’s hip. “How do you feel?”
“Nine days!” Wei Wuxian repeated. “I guess I had more memories than I thought.”
Lan Wangji gave him a wry look. “Lan-daifu already came to check you.” Always falling back on the facts, his Lan Zhan, and not talking about the fear lurking in his eyes.
Wei Wuxian reached up to cradle Lan Wangji’s jaw with both hands. “You don’t need to look so upset,” he said gently. Lan Wangji’s pulse danced under his fingertips. “Didn’t I tell you I loved you? Hundreds of times?”
Lan Wangji closed his eyes. “Thousands. But you will understand if—”
“Yes, I do.” Wei Wuxian understood, alright. “But that’s all forgotten, don’t you think? What matters is this now.” He smoothed a finger across the gentle shadows under Lan Wangji’s eyes. “Haven’t I spent all this time learning to understand you?” He traced his finger down the bridge of Lan Wangji’s nose to the bow of his lips. He had never been allowed to touch like this, in his first life. “Won’t you let me kiss you now?”
“You—”
“It’s still me,” Wei Wuxian promised. It had been him without his memory and it was him with. He’d been so scared of who he might become if he got his memories back, but he’d never been anyone but himself. He only felt filled in at the edges now. “It was always me.”
Lan Wangji dipped his head down, his breath ghosting across Wei Wuxian’s face. His lips a hair’s breadth away from Wei Wuxian’s. “You truly feel alright?”
“A little jumbled — hey!” Wei Wuxian clutched Lan Wangji’s robes when the man tried to separate them. “Come back here right now. Aiya, do you want me to beg? I will, Lan Zhan, I’ll beg. I’m begging you, gege, kiss me, marry me, I’m yours, I’ve always been yours.”
Lan Wangji finally came back, brushing his lips against Wei Wuxian’s. Wei Wuxian sighed into it, tugging him closer until they were flush together and he was warm all over, lost in the sensation of their lips sliding together.
He smiled at him helplessly when they broke apart. He loved this man. He loved him with everything he had, whether that was a year of memories or a lifetime. “Ah, Lan Zhan. Thank you for being patient with me.” Then, for good measure, another kiss. “I missed you.”
⭘
“You would truly forgive me? After everything?”
“There was never anything to forgive,” Wei Wuxian said truthfully. He was glad he could finally say it. “We were young and stupid, that’s all. But yes, if it makes you feel at ease. I forgive you. I forgive you everything.”
⭘
“A-die,” Lan Sizhui called, smiling at them. “Baba, you’re up!” He lifted the dinner tray in his arms, as if to remind them of what a good, diligent son he was. The little boy Wei Wuxian had loved had grown up. “Do you remember now?”
In the back of his mind, he remembered a shared meal, little a-Yuan climbing into Lan Wangji’s lap. Wei Wuxian imagined a world where a-Yuan could be safe, protected by Hanguang-jun. After Lan Wangji had left, Wei Wuxian pushed the memory of that afternoon away as best he could.
But sometimes he’d stick his thumb right in the center of a-Yuan’s forehead and imagine filigree there instead of the smudge of dirt he’d left behind. A-Yuan always beamed up at him because he was a horribly perfect child who had grown up into a horribly perfect son. The filigree rested in the center of his forehead as he frowned now.
Wei Wuxian squeezed his eyes shut. “Come here,” he said thickly. He didn’t think he was going to cry — the peace that came over him was different now. “A-Yuan, come here.”
Lan Sizhui didn’t protest at being drawn into a hug, his arms going around Wei Wuxian’s waist easily. He was so tall now, almost taller than Wei Wuxian. “Ba?”
“You’re so tall,” Wei Wuxian told him, voice choked. “When did you get so tall, ah, you’ve grown so handsome!” He sniffed, running a hand over Lan Sizhui’s hair. “Wen Qing always said you would, but I always pretended you’d never grow taller than my waist.”
Lan Sizhui’s hands tightened in the back of his robe. “Baba?”
“It’s me,” Wei Wuxian promised. “I remember everything. Ah, let me look at you!”
Lan Sizhui stood still, letting Wei Wuxian inspect him. Ah, that furrow in his brow when he was serious — that was so like his father! But now Wei Wuxian was free to wonder what came from him. The way they held their teacups, the way they wrote. There was more and he was going to find it. He had his entire life to find it.
“A-Yuan,” Wei Wuxian breathed, and the force of the fact that the boy was alive hit him again. Alive and smiling at him, comforting and a little baffled, covered in sunlight the way he always should have been. “Ah, I’m so sorry I didn’t come back for you.”
“It’s alright,” Lan Sizhui said, because he didn’t remember that Wei Wuxian had promised to come back. The first real lie he’d ever told A-Yuan because the ones about planting him in radish fields didn’t count. I’ll be right back. “You’re here now.”
“But I should have been there for you.” Wei Wuxian smoothed his hand over Lan Sizhui’s shoulders, the crisp white robe. Heartache warred in his chest alongside pride. “I wish I could have seen you grow up. Will you forgive me if I spent the rest of my life making it up to you?”
“Ba, it’s alright,” Lan Sizhui told him. And now he was comforting Wei Wuxian, how embarrassing. “You left me in good hands.”
He had, hadn’t he? But he wished that he had never gone and died instead, never left a boy alone. He didn’t think that he could have done such a good job raising Lan Sizhui, as corrupted as he was at the end of his life. He’d lied to a child, he’d left him behind for revenge, he hadn’t gotten to see him grow up.
He wished Lan Sizhui could have known his family.
“And you’re here now,” Lan Sizhui added.
Wei Wuxian tweaked his son’s cheek. Lan Sizhui bore it regally, his eyes red-rimmed and watery and his smile huge. “Nothing could keep me away.” Wei Wuxian said the words for his own benefits just as much as for Lan Wangji and Lan Sizhui. “I’m not going anywhere.”
⭘
Lan Sizhui had brought them soup for dinner. It was good and hearty, to keep Wei Wuxian’s energy up. Both the Lans needed it as well; the circles under their eyes matched. They’d sat waiting for Wei Wuxian to wake up for nine days. Even Wen Ning had come back and forth, talking with the healers and saying that honestly, there was nothing they could do.
Wen Qing had never been able to do anything about the resentful energy that kept Wei Wuxian glued together. She’d wanted. Tried. But Wei Wuxian could never be convinced, was too far gone to be pulled back.
But he was back, with all these people who had never given up on him. And he would not make them wait for him again. He was going to seize the rest of this life with both hands and live it to the fullest, wring every last bit of love out of it.
He almost couldn’t believe this was all his — the memories from his first life mixed with his second poorly, like oil and water. But his first life seemed so long ago, hazy and in the past. His second life he was much more capable of trusting that people wanted him to stay, that people loved him. That Lan Wangji loved him still, throughout it all.
Wei Wuxian loved him impossibly so.
⭘
Later, after night had fallen and dinner was finished, when both Wen Ning and Lan Sizhui had disappeared, Lan Wangji tucked Wei Wuxian into bed, firmly and resolutely.
“I’m really fine, Lan Zhan,” Wei Wuxian mumbled, squirming against the piles of blankets. He smiled up at Lan Wangji winsomely, hoping for a kiss. He doubted Lan Wangji would let him get especially frisky tonight, but a kiss was an achievable goal. “I’m fine! Even Lan-daifu said so! Come here.”
Lan Wangji leant down — success! — and brushed his lips against Wei Wuxian’s forehead. It wasn’t what Wei Wuxian had wanted, but his eyes fluttered close with contentment, anyways. “You need sleep.”
“And you’re going to sleep with me this time?” Wei Wuxian wiggled over onto his side to watch Lan Wangji prepare for bed. “I missed you.”
Lan Wangji huffed out a laugh as he shed his heavy blue outer robe, folding it neatly atop the trunk at the foot of the bed. “You were unconscious, you did not know I was gone.”
Wei Wuxian hummed. “I knew,” he said, only to watch Lan Wangji’s hands stutter where he was attempting to undo his guan. Lan Wangji shot him a fondly exasperated look, punctuated with the smooth removal of his hairpin, black hair falling down against his cheeks in loose waves. “I’d always know.”
“Incorrigible,” Lan Wangji accused, removing his last robe until he was just stripped down to his trousers. Wei Wuxian watched him unabashedly, marveling at how young they’d had been last time he’d been allowed to see all of Lan Wangji like this.
Lan Wangji raised an eyebrow when he caught him looking.
“I missed you,” Wei Wuxian said again quietly, propping his head up on his hand. He watched Lan Wangji unravel the last of his hair. His movements were slow. Wei Wuxian narrowed his eyes, tracking the still-elegant but slightly sluggish movements. Flicked his gaze up to find Lan Wangji’s. “I don’t think you really slept these past nine days.”
“Cultivators can go many days without sleeping if needed,” Lan Wangji replied smoothly, padding over to the bed, extinguishing each candle until all that was left was one flickering taper near the bedside.
“Yeah, in emergency situations,” Wei Wuxian said, grinning wildly. “Like, I don’t know, if we got stuck in a cave with a Xuanwu, or that mission in Laoling, remember, we were up for five days straight? Or when I had that fever, back at camp, you stayed up — mmph!”
Lan Wangji stuck his hand directly over Wei Wuxian’s mouth. Wei Wuxian couldn’t complain, because in doing so, Lan Wangji leant directly over Wei Wuxian’s body, his hair falling over his shoulder. His ribbon draped loosely and askew. He radiated warmth. “In the case that one’s partner is ill,” he offered, fingers still pressed gently against Wei Wuxian’s cheek, palm against his lips. “Wei Ying.”
“Mmph,” Wei Wuxian said encouragingly.
“You do not have to prove your memory to me.” Lan Wangji released Wei Wuxian’s mouth and straightened back up. He tugged the rest of his forehead ribbon loose. “I will sleep here.” He curled the ribbon as he always did into the small dish at the side table. Close enough that Wei Wuxian could unspool it if he wanted to.
“I just wanted you to know,” Wei Wuxian said. He rolled over as Lan Wangji tucked up against him, settling into their long-familiar sleeping patterns. Wei Wuxian buried his nose in Lan Wangji’s hair, shivering.
“Are you cold?”
“No,” Wei Wuxian whispered. “I’m very warm.”
⭘
It wasn’t easy, even still. Wei Wuxian faltered every so often when memories resurfaced. It was a strange feeling — they hadn’t reappeared, really. It felt like they’d always been there. They were old memories. But most days he was still struck by the newness of them.
Lan Wangji did his hair for him, that second day after he’d woken up with his memories.
Wei Wuxian had woken up alone, the way he usually did, but he stalled out while he tied up his hair. His hands followed the motions for the neat half-knot he usually wore it, guan in his palm, but suddenly he couldn’t stop thinking about how he’d worn his hair down in the Burial Mounds. He barely tied it back. It was so cold there; no golden core to keep him warm. He’d had a red ribbon he always wore.
If he wore his hair like that now, it wouldn’t look the same. He had a different face. He’d grown used to it but suddenly he was struck by the wrong planes of it, even they were more familiar now than his old one.
He wasn’t just Yiling-laozu. He wasn’t Mo Xuanyu, Lan Wangji’s wayward cultivation partner. He was somewhere in the middle.
Lan Wangji found him there, staring at the bronze mirror that sat in the corner. He eased the headpiece from Wei Wuxian’s hand, fingers gentle, and placed it on the side table. He’d let silky strands fall across his fingers before reaching into one of the drawers and pulling out—
“Is that the ribbon I wore for the new year?”
“Mm.” Lan Wangji ran his hands through Wei Wuxian’s hair, pulling it up. Wei Wuxian closed his eyes, letting him work. Not wanting to look at himself in the mirror. “I kept it.” He let out a small chuckle. “At the time, I was reminded of you. And then I was upset about it.”
“I do tend to bring those feelings out from you,” Wei Wuxian agreed. He opened his eyes, catching Lan Wangji’s gaze in the mirror. So fond, so warm. Wei Wuxian could drown in the love there. “Jokes on us, hm?”
Lan Wangji let out a throaty chuckle. “Perhaps so,” he admitted ruefully. He had wrapped the red ribbon around Wei Wuxian’s topknot; a neat compromise. He dropped a kiss to the top of Wei Wuxian’s head.
Wei Wuxian turned his head back and forth. He liked how the ribbon fluttered.
It felt nice, to have something in the middle. He was Wei Wuxian, through and through, and always had been, but that was the thing about being a person: even if you were the same one, you kept changing. He liked to have the reminder of it. That was the point of living, after all.
⭘
When the healers finally allowed him back into regular training — nine days ill in bed was no joke — he found himself out in the middle of the forest holding Suibian.
The familiar sheath fit into his palm perfectly. It might not have been the same calloused palm. Wei Wuxian didn’t have the same hands or the same strength and, arguably, not even the same core. But Suibian still fit him perfectly.
The blade caught the glare of the sun as Wei Wuxian pulled her out of her sheath. It blinded him momentarily and he curled his hand, arcing the sword down in an elegant swipe.
He cut a falling leaf clean in two; each half separating neatly to fall on either side of his boot.
She moved as she always had. As if they were one. The way a spiritual weapon was supposed to respond. He had missed this sword. He had missed the feeling of her in his hand, the feeling that he could do anything. That even the sun and the wind at his back, pushing him forward, had no bearing on him.
He hadn’t held this blade in so long. After the war, he had cast it under his bed, unable to look at the wooden sheath. It was too cruel; he could barely hold himself together when he held it in his hand. He had been afraid that if he looked at her, he would regret what he had done. What he carved out of himself. So he had never looked.
But fourteen years later and Wei Wuxian only regretted that such a beautiful blade had been hidden away for so long.
⭘
Lan Wangji became Chief Cultivator on a drizzly gray day at the beginning of summer. The banquet was huge. Lan Wangji was uncomfortable with it and Lan Xichen did not attend.
There was no sentencing of Jin Guangyao, because he was dead. Lan Wangji became Chief Cultivator with hardly a snag, everyone lauding him as their new savior in a way that was, objectively, hilarious. Lan Wangji was no one’s savior but Wei Wuxian.
Wei Wuxian convinced Lan Wangji to leave early — not as early as either of them would have liked, but early enough that it skated the edge of what was proper. And instead of returning to the jingshi, Lan Wangji tugged his hand, leading Wei Wuxian out of the banquet hall and up towards the grassy back hill. Scandalous, Wei Wuxian faux-gasped, grinning.
The grass was damp from the earlier rain; mud squelched under their feet. Lan Wangji delicately held his robes up out of the dirt and stepped over to one of the small pavilions that was usually used for morning meditation. And they just sat there, their boots tucked just outside the pavilion so they wouldn’t stain their robes. A moment of peace.
“What will you do now that I am Chief Cultivator?”
Wei Wuxian’s only plan was sleeping late tomorrow. “Mm, I don’t know! Think I could coax Lan Qiren into giving me my classes back?” He leant back on his hands, catching glimpses of the stars through the rain clouds. “Oh, A-Yuan told me about a pack of water ghouls outside Gusu. We could go do that! Wouldn’t even take a week.”
Lan Wangji gave him a disbelieving look. He had several variants, ranging from did you just do what I think you just did to the more recent one, which was close to I can’t believe I get you back. This was neither of those and Wei Wuxian couldn’t figure out what it meant.
“What,” he said, “You don’t want to go clear some ghouls? It’ll be like our first date all over again.”
“That was not our first date.”
Wei Wuxian burst into laughter. “Lan Zhan, of course it was! What do you consider our first date? When we killed the Xuanwu, is that romantic enough for you?” He leaned over the edge of the gazebo, kicking at the grass. “We’re married, you know.”
“Wei Ying,” Lan Wangji reprimanded, which Wei Wuxian was pretty sure meant both answer the question and not yet.
“I have no idea what you want from me,” Wei Wuxian told him. “I told you about the water ghouls!”
The corner of Lan Wangji’s mouth lifted and then flattened out. “Your name is cleared; you can go anywhere.” Cleared was perhaps too much of an exaggeration but the point stood. “You used to have so many dreams about helping the common people — I would not ask you to remain trapped here with me.”
Wei Wuxian’s eyebrows flew up. “Well, I want you to ask!” He bumped playfully against Lan Wangji’s shoulder. “You’re so silly, Lan Zhan, what kind of husband would I be if I just abandoned you?”
“We are not technically married.”
“Whatever, we can fix that,” Wei Wuxian said easily. “We should, even.”
Lan Wangji frowned. “This is serious.”
Lan Wangji was wallowing, that’s what this was. “Aren’t you being a little too serious? It’s just a job, you know.” He laced their fingers together, not giving Lan Wangji a moment to breathe. No one would ever believe that Hanguang-jun could be so prone to dramatics. “I’ll be here with you to help. We’ll be together.”
Lan Wangji sighed. “I know this,” he said quietly. “I only wish…”
Wei Wuxian caught Lan Wangji’s jaw as the man trailed off. His mouth stretched silly under Wei Wuxian’s fingers, his eyes fond, and the joy of it lodged warm under Wei Wuxian’s breastbone. “It won’t be forever, and then we can go again. Wherever you’d like.”
Roaming the world with his husband… it sounded like a dream. They could go all over the four sects, spend summers in Cloud Recesses and winters in Lotus Pier, if Jiang Cheng would let them. Maybe Lan Sizhui could come with them sometimes, before he got too old for night-hunting with his dads.
He’d used to have dreams like this, when he was younger. He wanted Lan Wangji by his side for them now.
“I’m going to kiss you until you agree with me,” Wei Wuxian said after a moment, dipping his head in.
It made Lan Wangji laugh against his lips, shoulders shaking. A sound that Wei Wuxian planned to cherish for the rest of their lives. “Wei Ying is a tough negotiator.”
“Oh, I win?”
“You knew you would.” Lan Wangji sounded tired but hazy at the edges with contentment; like how sunlight blurred the edges of everything it touched. He overflowed with it. “But it could be many years before I can go with you.”
“A year or ten, what do I care,” Wei Wuxian said. What was a year to the rest of their lives? “We’ll be together either way.”
⭘
Wei Wuxian did his best to forget the elders and the disciples who hated him. He instead tried to think about those who still wanted to know him. The doctors and the little apprentices who fetched him bitter herbs, the instructors he’d helped with their talisman classes and the woman in the library with a perpetual frown who had a fondness for puzzling out cultivation styles. They all treated him just the same and there was more of them then he’d thought.
He saw Lan Xinyue in the doorway of his classroom and the man, after a moment of hesitation, nodded quietly back. It was small but after months of only seeing his back, Wei Wuxian felt so light he might float away like a glowing lantern.
It was enough to have the possibility of friendship. His past existed, it always would, but oh, to have a future in hand as well…
It was a life, a home. Some people adjusted, some people didn’t.
And Lan Wangji treated him just the same too, because it had never mattered what name Wei Wuxian had; only the gentle peace between them and the laughter too, loud and raucous as it bounced around the jingshi.
⭘
Jiang Cheng sent him a get-well gift, delivered by two Jiang disciples in official robes. One of them was Jiang Yan, who refused to hand the gift over to the disciples guarding the gate. She insisted she was required to pass the gift directly into Wei Wuxian’s hands.
Lan Jingyi came barreling through the door of the classroom where Wei Wuxian was teaching a few of the youngest Lans the basics of talismans. One of the kids accidentally lit theirs up at the interruption, creating an impressive spout of water.
“Class dismissed,” Wei Wuxian said, amused, wiping water from his face.
When he saw the gift, though, Wei Wuxian understood why the head disciple had come all this way just to hand him a package. It was long, balanced against her palms, and wrapped in dark purple silk.
When Wei Wuxian’s hand wrapped familiarly around the body, he could feel the spirit of it. Almost could feel the warmth.
“Take these two to the guest quarters.” Wei Wuxian waved his spare hand at the Jiang disciples. “Thank you, A-Yan and — ah, I’m afraid I didn’t catch your name, other one, that’s rude of me — Jingyi, take them to the guest quarters?”
“Of course, Wei-qianbei,” Lan Jingyi said, gesturing the two in. They made quiet, customary protests about how they were supposed to leave after finishing their delivery, but Jiang Cheng had surely made them come directly here only to stand in front of the front gate for an hour while someone found Wei Wuxian, because they couldn’t just give this package to anyone.
Halfway up the stairs, alone in the forest with just himself, Wei Wuxian tore open the silk. His fingers curled around a black dizi. Its heft was familiar. Its name was too.
Jiang Cheng had kept her. He had even clearly carefully kept her clean all these years; she was in perfect condition.
The white dizi Wei Wuxian had used for the past year had never truly been his — he never even named it. It never sung the way it was supposed to; maybe because it was pristine and Lan-made and Wei Wuxian needed something a little more flexible than that. When he’d broke it saving Jin Ling’s life at Guanyin temple, he’d barely been sorry.
It was a perfectly serviceable dizi with a beautiful tone. It mitigated many effects of demonic cultivation the way it was supposed to.
But Chenqing sang at him immediately, begging to be used. If he played her, she would duet with him, something he had perfect control over. She would let him be flexible.
And Jiang Cheng had kept her. He’d kept her all these years and he’d returned her.
⭘
Jiang Cheng had also included a clarity bell. It had Lan Wangji’s name carved into it instead of Wei Wuxian’s. Wei Wuxian squinted at it, confused, then realized — Lan Wangji had his clarity bell. It was an old tradition among the Jiang disciples, to exchange their bells on the morning of their wedding. To give each other their spiritual energy, the bell that held so much of them.
Wei Wuxian hung his around his belt, warm all over. Sure, he and Lan Wangji weren’t married yet, technically. But Lan Wangji had been wearing his for fourteen years. Wei Wuxian needed to catch up.
⭘
Summer passed slowly. Lan Wangji couldn’t leave Cloud Recesses all that often and Wei Wuxian couldn’t bear to leave it much either.
He had promised he would stay, true, but more than that — he wanted to. This was his home. The jingshi was full of his clutter; a far cry from the quiet, empty house that Wei Wuxian had first found Lan Wangji in. Not a home, Lan Xichen had said, but it was now. It had been for some time.
And Wei Wuxian didn’t feel the need to push as much anymore — didn’t beg Lan Wangji for night hunts, or quick trips to town. Sure, he’d grown used a life on the on the road and he missed it. Lan Wangji did too. But they would figure it out; they always did. This was home too.
It was funny: with Wei Wuxian’s determination, somehow, Lan Wangji was the first to slip.
Maybe it was the heat that did it.
Perhaps they should have expected this but Lan Wangji wasn’t prone to slips of the tongue. His every word was carefully considered.
Wei Wuxian was pestering Lan Wangji about dinner, wondering if he could convince the chefs to start stocking lotus root. It was the sort of meandering conversation he held, mostly with himself, when he was utterly occupied by something else. His notes on this new summoning array. For objects, instead of people.
Lan Wangji’s voice was full of fond exasperation as he interrupted. “Xuanyu—”
Wei Wuxian didn’t realize it, at first. Too busy jotting down his notes. “Yeah, hold on,” he mumbled, finishing up the last character, then said, laughing, “Wait, did you just call me by the wrong name?”
Lan Wangji’s eyes fluttered closed. He did not move. “I apologize.”
Wei Wuxian dropped his brush, stretched out his shoulders. “It’s really fine.” He didn’t mind — fuck, he’d barely realized. He’d been Mo Xuanyu for a long time. In a way, it kind of felt good. “Aiya, don’t beat yourself up over it, all right? Sit down.”
Lan Wangji sat down. “It wasn’t your name,” he said after a moment, clearly conflicted.
“I know.”
“I forgot.”
“Yeah, I know,” Wei Wuxian said slowly. He ran his hands over Lan Wangji’s shoulders; the tense muscle and the stressed set of his shoulder blades. Lan Wangji let out a quiet sigh, slowly melting under Wei Wuxian’s hands. “I know that.”
Lan Wangji bowed his head and Wei Wuxian wanted to unfurl him and hide him away in equal measures. The paper of the classroom door wasn’t enough; Wei Wuxian would take him away forever if he wanted. Maybe they had been here too long. Could they afford a quick night hunt? Even a visit to Caiyi Town? Any little break at all?”
He didn’t know. He could only sit, his hands folded around Lan Wangji’s, and wait.
“I forget, sometimes,” Lan Wangji said eventually, turning his head. His nose brushed against Wei Wuxian’s cheek. “That Wei Ying is alive. That you are not Xuanyu.”
“Oh,” Wei Wuxian said, and his heartbreak was a quiet thing under Lan Wangji’s hands. “Oh, Lan Zhan, I—”
“I fell in love with someone else,” Lan Wangji said. “I betrayed you.”
Wei Wuxian didn’t know what to say. How could he imagine what it was to slowly let yourself feel again, winter thawing into beautiful spring? Lan Wangji had made his peace with Wei Wuxian’s death, and found a way to move forward. But he had stopped wearing mourning whites to move forward with the very man he was supposed to be mourning.
Wei Wuxian could only duck his head for a reassuring kiss. Lan Wangji rose to meet him, their lips brushing together with familiarity. They’d kissed so many times now. Did Lan Wangji feel like this each time, the imitation of betrayal pulling at his heart strings? Wei Wuxian couldn’t stand that. It pulled words from him quick. “Lan Zhan, it would never be a betrayal to fall in love again.”
“But I am undeserving of such a thing.”
“What don’t you deserve,” Wei Wuxian said determinedly. Lan Wangji’s lips were chapped and red, there were tear tracks on his face. He was beautiful, letting himself fall apart in Wei Wuxian’s hands. “Lan Zhan, you defended me, you raised our son, you — you lived your life the way we always wanted to. I can’t — that’s not a betrayal. You loved me.”
“Yet I was prepared to leave you behind,” Lan Wangji whispered.
“I’d have wanted you to.” Wei Wuxian was clutching Lan Wangji’s face too tight, fingers pressed against his jaw. He loosened his grip, sliding his hand around the back of Lan Wangji’s neck but he couldn’t let go. “Even if it hadn’t been me, if — if Mo Xuanyu brought you any happiness at all, I would have been happy. More than anything, I wanted you happy.”
Lan Wangji looked doubting.
“Ah, Lan Zhan, had it been you who died—” His tongue was thick, he stumbled over his words. It was a terrible question. Wei Wuxian almost didn’t want to hear an answer. He knew, between the two of them, that was Lan Wangji who was steady, who did not wear down. It was Lan Wangji who’d held a first love close to his chest for all those years. “Wouldn’t you want me to find happiness again?”
And yet Lan Wangji did not answer. “Would you have been able to?”
That was hardly a fair question. “Ah, I fell in love with you twice, I don’t think I’m a good test subject.” Wei Wuxian shook his head. “I’ve never fallen in love with anyone else.”
There had been girls he flirted with and people he’d cared about. But from the moment Wei Wuxian had first see Lan Wangji, on the rooftop in the moonlight, that had been it for him. He hadn’t known it at the time, but the second their swords met, Wei Wuxian had belonged to him.
Jiang Cheng had mentioned marrying off Wei Wuxian once after the war, testing the waters. He had, actually, specifically asked about marrying Lan Wangji, which was why the conversation hadn’t gone well, but he’d followed it up with wondering about one of the daughters of the Yao sect. Could Wei Wuxian had done that?
Well, he would have done whatever was needed back then. He had already given Lan Wangji up. But could Wei Wuxian ever have been alright with losing him entirely? Ever letting him out of his heart to let someone else in?
The thought itched, uncomfortable. Wei Wuxian squeezed his eyes shut.
Lan Wangji wrapped his palm around Wei Wuxian’s wrist, fingers resting there gently. As if to say you see it is not easy. Was nothing ever easy for them? Could nothing be straightforward?
“If you died,” Wei Wuxian said, words catching. He cleared his throat, tried again. To make himself the steadying presence that Lan Wangji needed. “I don’t know if I could have fallen in love again. I don’t know if that even matters, I just—” he tipped his head back, caught up. “Lan Zhan, if you died, I would at least hope that you wouldn’t be mad that I had moved on.”
“Of course I would not be,” Lan Wangji admitted. “Only heartsick.”
“So then how could I be mad?” Wei Wuxian said. “I’m not even heartsick, because I still get to have you and I don’t deserve it either! Maybe neither of us deserve it, but I don’t care, I really don’t, I just am so grateful to be here with you. Whoever I am. Your Xuanyu or your Wei Ying.” He traced his fingers against Lan Wangji’s lips. “Your Xuanyu never hurt you like I hurt you.”
“Wei Ying never hurt me.”
“Ah, we both know that isn’t true.” Wei Wuxian slipped his fingers under Lan Wangji’s collar, tracing that high scar on his shoulder blade. “I did this.”
“You did not.”
Wei Wuxian didn’t need to push that argument right now. “Just — Lan Zhan, you don’t have to answer right now, or ever. But this was a choice you made, and I don’t think you truly regret it, I don’t.” He steeled himself. “If I hadn’t been Wei Ying. If I had been someone else you met and fell in love with, would you feel so bad?”
He knew the answer was no. Oh, sure, Mo Xuanyu’s very existence had, at times, seemed to tear Lan Wangji apart at the seams. It had been so impossibly hard for him to step forward, move on, and yet he had. And they had both worked hard for their happy ending. Maybe Wei Wuxian didn’t deserve it, but he was selfish. He was going to get it anyways.
“It’s weird, but I don’t regret falling in love again,” Wei Wuxian said quietly. “Even like this! I know it’s different for you, but I — I loved falling in love with you again. I’ve no regrets about the… circuitous path that brought us here. Okay?”
Lan Wangji looked doubtful. “Alright.” Ah, he was so impatient sometimes, Wei Wuxian forgot that. But this was the man who, fed-up with himself, had tried to push himself too far, tried to shove himself forward when he wasn’t ready. Sometimes Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji were just too well-matched.
“I really don’t! You loved me, you took care of me — I got to see you, I don’t regret it. We walked it together and we … grew with each other, didn’t we? And it’s not even that I don’t mind, but I value it.” He laughed. “I guess it sounds stupid to say after you just talked about my death.”
“It doesn’t,” Lan Wangji said, immeasurably softer. “You did not make it easy, but I have not regretted the past year with you. I will have you for a lifetime instead.”
Wei Wuxian thought that what Lan Wangji regretted was that he didn’t regret it.
But how could he? In the past, love had not been enough. If Wei Wuxian had been resurrected with his memories, he couldn't be sure that love would have been enough this time. Would they share a bed still? A home? Wei Wuxian didn't know. Perhaps the burdens of the past would be too much for them to truly move forward, like they had this last year
No. Wei Wuxian truly was grateful to have learned better how to be in love with Lan Wangji.
He could work with having been fallen in love with, twice over.
⭘
It was the middle of fall by the time they were able to eek a couple of weeks out of Lan Wangji’s busy schedule. Wei Wuxian made sure everyone was used to him occasionally dragging his partner out on night hunts when he could, just in case the cultivational world got too comfortable with Lan Wangji being in charge. Wei Wuxian wasn’t going to give him up for forever, and who would dare oppose Yiling-laozu when he wanted to spend time with his husband?
They weren’t married yet, of course, but that was easily resolved. They had a plan.
Wei Wuxian demanded a donkey for a wedding gift, which Lan Wangji had promised to procure for him. He’d even managed to con Jiang Cheng into gifting him a set of wedding robes —Wei Wuxian had told Jiang Cheng that he and Lan Wangji were going to renew their bows because, come on, Jiang Cheng, I died, it only kind of counts now, right?
The robes had come within a matter of weeks. They were dark purple with lotus embroidery and one of the nicest things Wei Wuxian had ever worn. They weren’t traditional, of course, because no one else knew that Yiling-laozu and Hanguang-jun weren’t actually married. But Wei Wuxian would get to marry his husband in a set of Yunmeng robes.
All that was left to find out where to get married.
Wei Wuxian had suggested the lotus ponds near Yunmeng or one of those small towns on the other side of Cloud Recesses. But Lan Wangji thought they should get married somewhere neither of them had ever been.
It is a new beginning, he said. It would be nice to discover something new together.
Wei Wuxian had laughed. Make memories together, you mean? He bumped Lan Wangji’s shoulder playfully. That sounds nice.
There was only just one last thing to do, first.
⭘
Mo Village didn’t look much different the third time Wei Wuxian saw it. It was still a place full of quiet, warm life. Less people bothered to stare at Wei Wuxian this time — their eyes slid right over him. It was honestly kind of funny. Maybe they’d simply forgotten, by now, what the young master looked like.
“Lan Zhan, does it feel weird to be back,” Wei Wuxian said curiously as they stepped up the path. The first time they had been here, it was at the end of autumn, and it was autumn again, two years later. “Knowing that I’m not actually a Mo this time, I mean.”
Lan Wangji considered. “No.” He stepped over a muddy puddle with undue elegance. “It feels right.”
“Do you think anyone’s tried to claim it, since I haven’t been back?” Wei Wuxian eyed the estate ahead of them. It looked far too ostentatious, now that Wei Wuxian could compare it other things. It had none of the clean lines of Gusu and none of the comforting aura of Yunmeng. It just felt empty.
Lan Wangji shrugged. “Most likely.”
Yes, surely some cousin or uncle out there wanted to get their hands on it. Unless they’d heard it was haunted; that ghosts and murderers roamed the halls at night. But that wasn’t true, of course. Wei Wuxian had long since left. “Come on, let’s find the ancestral hall.”
He stepped over one of the rickety bridges. The choked stream had been cleared out since the last time they were here; water was running smoothly. Wei Wuxian couldn’t imagine who would come clean out a desolate old house full of ghosts. He hadn’t even come back to clean it out and he had supposedly been related to these people for over a year.
He had never felt bad, exactly, about that fate that befall the Mo’s. He’d only felt bad for himself, in an impressive pity party, because he’d realized he was a murderer. He felt far less bad about it now; Mo Xuanyu deserved a bit of revenge, and Wei Wuxian, for all that he had settled, had taken his own revenge in equal shares.
I’m glad you chose me, he thought as he stepped over the lintel into the dusty ancestral hall.
There weren’t very many tablets. They were all incredibly dusty. It would have been Mo Xuanyu’s job to sweep and clean, to offer prays. But Mo Xuanyu, in all the ways that mattered, was dead too.
Wei Wuxian cleaned the altar where Mo Xuanyu’s tablet would go — after the dirt and grime were gone, it was the only clean alter in the hall. Mo Xuanyu’s tablet, when Wei Wuxian set it down, was the only clean tablet. Wei Wuxian almost reached out to brush off Mo Xuanyu’s cousin’s tablet, sitting next to him, but then decided, fuck it, they could stay in the dirt and the grime. They could be forgotten.
Mo Xuanyu was the only person who mattered here.
Maybe Mo Xuanyu wouldn’t want to be laid to rest in his family ancestral hall. The Mo family hadn’t been kind to him. And it wasn’t as if Wei Wuxian could make it here every Qingming. But Wei Wuxian thought that Mo Xuanyu might like annoying his family members with his presence in the ancestral hall. They had tried so hard to remove him.
And Mo Xuanyu had won.
And Wei Wuxian wanted to say goodbye to him here in the place where they’d first met. If this could be considered meeting.
He bowed his head over the tablet. Felt the rustle of robes as Lan Wangji joined him. This wasn’t their family or their home. They could probably consider themselves lucky that they’d never met most of the people in this room. But one clean tablet was important.
One clean memorial tablet had brought them back together.
Wei Wuxian cleared his throat. “Well,” he said to Mo Xuanyu, not knowing how to start. It seemed that they had been in conversation for so long, despite never saying a word to each other. “We didn’t know what you’d like, so I brought wine and Lan Zhan brought tea. Oh, and peaches; I hope you like peaches.”
He set the plate out, pink curves neatly sliced in the bowl. He turned two cups over, for the wine and the tea. He hadn’t been sure what to bring; Emperor’s Smile was his favorite but there was a Jinlintai rice wine that he’d grown fond of in the last year. It wasn’t something he’d enjoyed all that much before, but he’d brought it now. In case it was Mo Xuanyu’s favorite.
Lan Wangji poured the tea and the wine, his motions elegant. Each cup, to the brim. Then he set out incense and brought out a thick stack of paper money from his inner pocket, more than Wei Wuxian had ever seen anyone burn. But of course no one had burned paper money for Mo Xuanyu yet. No one had even known he died.
But Wei Wuxian would not forget any longer.
“I know you didn’t do all this for me,” Wei Wuxian said to Mo Xuanyu. “In fact, I did this all for you! I do respect that, I really do. But I hope you accept my thanks anyways, Mo Xuanyu. I have a very good life because of you. One that I can live without regrets.”
“We can live without regrets,” Lan Wangji added. Wei Wuxian shot him a quiet smile. They were a team, after all.
“We can live without regrets,” Wei Wuxian conceded. “And that is because of you. You are—” he swallowed. “You are one of the most important people in my life, Xuanyu.” It was true in more than just one way. Mo Xuanyu had brought Wei Wuxian back to life again, of course. But Mo Xuanyu had also given Wei Wuxian a year in which he had found so much of himself, despite the false name. “Don’t forget that to me — to us — our debt to you cannot be paid.”
“Thank you,” Lan Wangji murmured. “For everything.”
“We won’t be able to make it here every year,” Wei Wuxian said to Mo Xuanyu regretfully. “This is a little out of the way! But I got your little nephew to set you up another tablet in his ancestral hall. I wonder if you liked him? I think you would have; he’s a good kid. He’ll pray for you.”
“And we will too,” Lan Wangji murmured.
Wei Wuxian nodded, resolute. They would not forget him. When they left here, Mo Xuanyu would be a memory again, intangible. But it was his body that Wei Wuxian carried. It was his soul that had brought Wei Wuxian back to life.
Together, they burned the paper money. “You know, Xuanyu,” Wei Wuxian said as the smoke rose. “I regret that we never met each other. I think we would have been really good friends.”