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Lan Zhan doesn’t normally mind talking to his brother.

However, his brother doesn’t normally ask him to come home, which would be one thing, but this time he’s asking him to come home with his boyfriend. Which is something he’s been avoiding.

Lan Zhan knows his family is a lot. They’re rich. Crazy rich. And that they’re a little bit crazy too, and certainly all the various families they interact with are, and he grew up with it, but he knows it’s a lot. He knows that any interaction with the five major cultivation families is a lot, and these days they’re all tangled up in each other. Well, except the Wen, but even that is still relatively new. It’s only been eleven years since Wen Ruohan was toppled from his place of CEO of Wen Industries, imprisoned for a laundry list of blood curdling crimes among them tampering with Yin Iron. He’d been replaced by Wen Qing, when she had barely been an adult at the time, barely been old enough to take the position.

Wen Qionglin had still been a teenager when he’d earned the name of The Ghost General by summoning an army of fearsome spirits to apprehend Wen Ruohan and all those that had tried to flee in a single night. Lan Zhan had met Wen Qionglin a couple of times now, and this daring act has never seemed to fit quite right on the quiet, polite man’s shoulders.

“When are you going to come home?” his brother asks, pulling his attention back to him, fond and only lightly disapproving through the phone’s speaker. “You’re going to have to introduce this boyfriend of yours to the rest of the family eventually, if you’re serious about him.”

“I’m serious,” he says. He’s so serious that he’d put off going home a whole year after only a couple weeks of knowing Wei Ying. He’s so serious that he’s already started looking at engagement rings. “He’s not - he’s just not into all that,” he tries.

There’s a beat of silence on the other side. “I thought you said he was a cultivator?”

“He is,” he sighs, rubbing at the bridge of his nose. “That’s how we met, remember.” He hadn’t even wanted to attend the musical cultivation seminar, certain there was nothing more to learn about the techniques his family had been perfecting for centuries. Wei Ying had proved him wrong, of course. “Also, it’s the twenty first century, that shouldn’t even matter.”

“Of course it doesn’t matter,” Xichen says, but of course it does. “It’s just easier, when you’re both cultivators, is all.” Lan Zhan has heard this lecture before. He does not want to hear it again. Falling for anyone had been an accident, and certainly when he’d imagined someone who he might fall in love with, he hadn’t anticipated on them being a cultivator. The one saving grace is that Wei Ying appeared entirely uninterested in the higher level politics of the cultivation world. He’d teased him when they first spoke – “Ooh, a Lan, are you fuming about all the rules I just broke in that lecture?” – but hasn’t brought it up since.

He knows Wei Ying goes on night hunts for the city, but he doesn’t talk about it much and Lan Zhan tries not to press.

Tries not to worry. For someone who’s not part of the main five families, Wei Ying has an extremely strong golden core. If Lan Zhan itches to teach him the sword forms that he’s had drilled into him since he was a child, so that Wei Ying’s not going out there with just his flute for protection – well, Wei Ying has never asked, and he knows Lan Zhan would give him anything, so he’s not going to insult him by offering. Wei Ying will tell him about his work, saying he banished a ghost here or dealt with this cursed object, and it takes everything he has to smile and nod and not be an asshole about the fact that he’s Hanguang Jun, and could Wei Ying let him teach him some advanced cultivation techniques, please.

He doesn’t know exactly what kind of night hunts Wei Ying goes on for the city. He knows that they’re not simple or easy because he comes home exhausted, know that it’s not always safe because Wei Ying’s body has scars. A cultivator as strong as Wei Ying shouldn’t have scars, but he does, criss crossing lines over his back that Lan Zhan traces with his fingertips when Wei Ying is asleep and curled on top of his chest. He doesn’t know what kind of creature could leave such marks. He hasn’t wanted to ask, when Wei Ying knows that he’s seen them and has never offered to explain them.

“He has a life here,” he says down the line. He doesn’t say that he has a life here too, one he likes a lot more than the one he had before. He misses home. He’d miss Wei Ying more. But he doesn’t say that, doesn’t say how vibrant he is and how beautiful and how little interest Lan Zhan has at seeing him among the high society he grew up with.

“Well, your life is here, Wangji,” his brother says. “You can’t stay away from home forever. You’re going to have to see how he does with the rest of us sooner or later. It might as well be sooner.”

It might as well be never, as far as he’s concerned. His family can meet Wei Ying at their wedding.

“I’ll ask,” he says.

Wei Ying has no interest in cultivation politics. They’re horrible, the five clans have an iron tight alliance that’s thirty seconds away from collapsing in on itself the moment someone from one sect steps on another sect’s toes. It’s the worst and he hates it. Surely even just the idea of it will be so horrifying to Wei Ying that Lan Zhan will be able to tell his brother no.

Being either confined to Cloud Recesses or sent off to boarding school after their mother’s death had been less than ideal for many reasons, but at the very least he and Xichen had made it through their teenage years without having to play sect politics. Of course, that meant that he was comparably terrible at it now, but he wasn’t the one set to become sect leader so it didn’t bother him overly much.

Xichen hums, pleased, then asks, “Have you gotten a chance to talk to the Yiling Patriarch yet?” Clearly his brother is getting all the topics Lan Zhan usually refused to talk to him about out all at once. “You said your boyfriend works for the city too, he must know him.”

He might, although if he does then he’s never mentioned him, and it doesn’t seem like the sort of thing that Wei Ying would forget to mention. “The Yiling Patriarch has no interest in affiliating with a sect.”

“It wouldn’t hurt to ask, Wangji.”

He pinches the bridge of his nose because his brother can’t see him do it. “He wears no colors. He’s a city cultivator. He wears a mask. He’s not interested.”

The Yiling Patriarch is the name given to the to the city’s most notorious cultivator. He’s on the city’s payroll as a public servant, so obviously the people who matter know his true identity, but he wears a mask and all black and uses a sword with a sheath of plain wood. Lan Zhan had thought such measures to be the height of arrogance, to think people would be that interested in him that he’d have to hide himself.

It turns out it was less arrogance and more a necessary precaution. He was so strong and fast and skilled, easily doing the job of a half dozen average leveled cultivators all on his own, banishing and fighting monsters that even Lan Wangji would hesitate to face on his own.

He’s a little bit sorry he’s keeping himself so firmly out of this, actually. He’s only seen the Yiling Patriarch’s fights on the news, small and a little fuzzy around the edges. It must be even more impressive up close.

“A cultivator that strong should belong somewhere,” Xichen says, as if both of them haven’t met Xiao Xingchen and Song Lan. “Do you think he’s allied with the Wen? He wears red sometimes, with the black.”

“I think the Yiling Patriarch feels as if he belongs just where he is,” he says, but doesn’t do much more to redirect the conversation. If Xichen is musing about the Yiling Patriarch, then he’s not asking Lan Zhan questions about his boyfriend.

~

Theoretically, he and Wei Ying live apart.

Practically, Lan Zhan pays a lot money to keep a high rise apartment empty and typically spends at least five nights out of seven in Wei Ying’s two bedroom that’s not quite in the worst part of the city, but pretty close. The spare bedroom is a studio space, of sorts, half of it covered in paint and charcoal and easels and so many things that Lan Zhan doesn’t really have the name for. The other half is cultivation books and scrolls, some so ancient and rare Lan Zhan doesn’t understand how Wei Ying could have gotten his hands on them and some that he thinks Wei Ying picked up at the corner market just to laugh about how wrong they are. The fact that both these things are kept in the same room is enough to cause him to hyperventilate if he thinks about it too much, so he tries not to. He knows Wei Ying has covered the bookshelves in talismans so their contents isn’t harmed. It doesn’t make seeing an arc of red paint head for a three hundred year old manuscript less terrifying.

Wei Ying’s answer isn’t what he’d been hoping for.

“Yeah, of course, when do you want to go?” Wei Ying asks distractedly. He’s just come home, freshly showered with his long hair damp and wild down his back. He always showers before coming home, says it’s to scrub all the resentful energy off, and sometimes Lan Zhan can’t tell if he’s joking. “Have you already looked at how much the flight will cost? I’ll put in the vacation time now.”

Lan Zhan blinks. “You’re certain?”

“You talk to your brother every day,” Wei Ying says reasonably. “You must miss him. If you want me to come home and meet him, I will.”

“My uncle too,” he reminds. Lan Zhan has told him stories of his uncle.

Wei Ying laughs, warm and bright. “Well, your brother and I sound like we’ll get along great, and I’m sure your uncle and I will manage.”

“Do you fear nothing?” he asks, exasperated and little bit put out that Wei Ying has ruined his one excuse not to go through with this, but still hopelessly fond anyway. Most people would not be smiling and laughing at the idea of facing Lan Xichen and Lan Qiren.

He pushes Lan Zhan against the wall, and it’s not that Wei Ying isn’t strong, but they both know that he’s only able to do that because Lan Zhan is letting him. “What’s to be afraid of? You’ll be at my side. I can’t be afraid if I’m with Lan Zhan.”

“Ridiculous,” he mutters, and then Wei Ying is kissing him. Dinner goes cold, neither for the first time nor, he suspects, the last.

~

Wei Ying is surprised when he tells them where they’re going, which Lan Zhan doesn’t understand. The cultivator families aren’t spread out like they used to be, instead clustered together in the same city. It’s not like where the Lans live is a secret, and Wei Ying may not care about sect politics or any of that, but he’s still a cultivator.

“My siblings live nearby, is all,” he says when pressed.

Lan Zhan blinks. For all that Wei Ying talks to his brother and sister nearly as much as he talks to Xichen, he doesn’t discuss them often. He never mentions his adoptive parents. Tentatively, he offers, “We could take a day and visit them, if you like.”

The smile Wei Ying is shy and pleased and makes the space under his ribs swell with warmth. “Yeah. Well, my sister, at least. You’ll like her. I like my brother, but he’s – well, he’s my brother. I’ll have to spring it one them, though, if they know I’m there then they’ll kidnap me and I’ll never get to meet any of your family.”

He resists the urge to tell Wei Ying to do it anyway. Getting kidnapped by Wei Ying’s sister who from all accounts is kind and sweet and whom Wei Ying loves very much seems like it would be a much better use of the trip.

Lan Zhan rents them a hotel room over his brother’s protests because the thought of Wei Ying exposed to his family’s three thousand rules is enough to give him a panic attack. He’d break at least seven of them thirty seconds after stepping into Cloud Recesses. Wei Ying would try and follow them because he wants to make a good impression, and fail, and be miserable besides that, and if Wei Ying is miserable then he’s miserable, and – no. There’s absolutely no reason to put any of them through that.

“You’re sure you don’t want to stay with your family?” Wei Ying prods.

“My family is,” he hesitates, “a lot.”

“Lans,” Wei Ying says fondly. He’s made that joke before, and their family is rather notorious, but Lan Zhan thinks that rumors really doesn’t do any of it justice. “I’ll manage, I don’t want to keep you away from them.”

When he was younger, he found comfort in those three thousand rules, in the three thousand ways he had to keep from spinning out of his control. But he’s not a kid anymore. “It’s a lot for me too,” he admits.

Wei Ying softens, and murmurs, “Oh, Lan Zhan, whatever you want,” and then they have to pause in packing so Lan Zhan can kiss him.

~

Lan Zhan doesn’t tell his brother when their flight it is because they last thing he wants is a welcome committee or some sort of car sent for them or anything like that. Instead they arrive late and take a cab to the hotel.

Wei Ying hesitates. “Ah, Lan Zhan, this is,” he pauses and then doesn’t continue speaking.

“My family owns the hotel,” he says, and this is not a secret, by the name of the chain it is in fact very obvious, “the room is complimentary.”

“Right,” he says, and smiles, but for some reason Lan Zhan thinks that there’s something more that he’s not saying, but before he can question him about it, Wei Ying is tugging him towards their room.

They do not have sex in the hot tub in their bathroom, but Lan Zhan gets to curl around Wei Ying warm and damp and smelling like his family’s expensive body wash, which is just as good.

What’s not as good is waking up the next morning at his normal time and instead of using his morning to stay in bed with Wei Ying, he gets up and gets ready to meet his brother for breakfast at seven. Wei Ying already knows, of course, and knows that it’s likely his brother will end up keeping him away for the rest of the day, but Wei Ying hates waking up alone. Lan Zhan folds one of the hotel towels in the shape of a rabbit and leaves it on his pillow, hoping it’ll be enough to make him smile when he wakes up.

Xichen smiles when he sees him but it quickly dips into a frown. “No boyfriend?”

He snorts. Wei Ying has stayed up until five more than once, going to bed as he’s rising, but that’s pretty much the only time they’re both awake this early. That at this point it’s past six thirty makes little difference.

His brother’s smile has turned uncertain even as he raises an eyebrow. “The boyfriend is real, isn’t he? You haven’t just been inventing a love life to get away from the family for a year?”

He stares. “Who thought that?”

“No on, no one,” he reassures as they’re seated. Remarkably few people are in the café this early. “Su She might have mentioned the idea, once or twice.”

“You shouldn’t listen to Su She,” he says. Perhaps he has been away from home too long, if this is what happens in his absence.

“So he is real then?” Lan Zhan frowns. “Ah, Wangji, don’t give me that face. You haven’t even told me his name! Surely I can know his name now?”

He considers his brother for a long moment. “If I tell you his name, will you be able to keep yourself from internet stalking him until you meet him in person?”

Xichen’s hesitation speaks all on its own.

“Hm. You’ll be seeing him tonight, you can wait.”

His brother doesn’t pout, exactly, he’s far too dignified for that, but his face gives the impression of it even without moving.

“You’re meeting him before everyone else,” he points out, more gently than he had before. “Isn’t that enough?”

Having dinner with his brother and his brother’s boyfriend had actually been a brilliant idea on Xichen’s part. A way to ease Wei Ying into it without unleashing the Lan elders on him with no warning.

“It’ll do,” Xichen says, but he’s smiling again.

Breakfast turns into heading back to Cloud Recesses with him, which involves seeing his uncle and receiving several lectures about infractions that seem mostly imagined, which is more of a sign that his uncle has missed him than anything else, and –

Maybe he has been away from home too long. Falling into old patterns is easy, and comfortable, and there’s a sharp ache of longing, but the idea of returning to this without Wei Ying by his side aches in a different, more intolerable way.

He gets pulled into one meeting, then another, and like it so often does in Cloud Recceses, family folds into business, and what should have been getting tea with Lan Yi ends up going over the cultivation instrument production numbers, which leads to paying his respects to Lan An, who doesn’t look that much older than Lan Yi in spite of being her grandmother, but Lan Yi and Lan An are among the strongest cultivators he’s ever met. Age isn’t going to touch them until they decide to let it.

There is a reason his brother is so insistent about only dating cultivators, and it’s not classist, exactly. It’s that he’s going to live a long time, probably, and he doesn’t want to live his long life in mourning.

Wei Ying’s core is strong enough that Lan Wangji doesn’t think he has to worry about that. He’s not sure if it would make a difference if it wasn’t. He couldn’t give Wei Ying up just because he’d lose him one day. What sort of sense would that make? He wants Wei Ying for as long as he can have him. Letting him go to stop himself from losing him is nonsensical.

As much as he enjoys catching up, both personally and professionally, it happens so quickly, and keeps happening so quickly, that by the time he takes a moment to breathe practically the whole day is gone and he’s going to have to hurry back to the hotel to pick up Wei Ying if they’re going to make it to Nie Mingjue’s on time.

“The hotel is in the opposite direction,” Xichen points out. “Wangji, don’t be silly. I’ll send a car for him and he’ll meet us there.”

Lan Zhan presses his mouth together, but his brother’s been remarkably helpful so far, and if he’s going to make it through introducing Wei Ying to everyone then he’s going to need all the help he can get. But he’d rather go and get Wei Ying himself.  

He compromises and sends Wei Ying a text. I lost track of time. Brother wants to send a car for you. Do you want me to pick you up instead?

It’s barely a minute later when his phone lights up. i will waste away into nothing if i do not see ur face rn!! He tries to keep the fond smile tucked away from his brother’s notice, but doesn’t quite succeed. jk the car is fine, i’ll see you soon <3 <3 <3

He ignores his brother’s incredulity to snap a quick selfie, sending it back with, Do not waste away.

The gibberish and heart eye emojis he receives in response are excessive, even for Wei Ying. “Ridiculous,” he murmurs, sliding his phone back into his pocket.

“Wangji,” Xichen says, delighted, “what has this boy done to you?”

He levels a glare at his brother which does absolutely nothing to dampen his enthusiasm, even during the drive to the Nie residence.

When they pull up, Lan Zhan does not turn to strangle his beloved brother. “Xichen. What is this?”

The manor is crawling with people, valets and servants, and he sees the colors of no less than three different sects, including the Yao, of all people.

“Brother,” he says, and something in his voice must give him away because Xichen’s smile freezes on his face. “Answer me. What is this?”

“Dinner?” he offers. “You know the others in the clan don’t attend parties, don’t worry.”

“It told Wei Ying to come and have a quiet dinner with my brother in his boyfriend,” he says, not doing a great job of keeping the thread of hysteria out of his voice.

“His name is Wei Ying?” Xichen asks eagerly, completely missing the point.

Before Lan Zhan can say anything else, he’s putting the car in park and stepping out to leave it for the valet. He rushes after him, scanning the area for Wei Ying, but not certain he’d see him even if he was here already. The hotel is further from the Nie residence than Cloud Recesses. He probably isn’t here yet. He takes out his phone to call him, but Xichen loops their arms together and drags them inside. He scowls, pressing the phone to his ear even as he’s dragged through the guests. It goes to voicemail. “Wei Ying, there’s been a misunderstanding. Call me when you get this.”

“Wangji, I’m sure it’ll be fine, you said he was outgoing after all,” Xichen says cheerfully.

His brotherly love is outweighing his murderous outrage, but only barely. “This is too much.”

“If this is too much,” he says, voice no longer quite so light, “then he’s not going make it through everything else.”

This is not his brother being uncharacteristically airheaded. This is his brother being a scheming meddler. “That’s not for you to decide!”

Xichen is saved from answering that by the arrival of his boyfriend. “A-Huan,” Nie Mingjue greets, in a dark grey suite with a silver shirt and his hair pulled back from his face in an intricate braid. “Lan Wangji. It’s good to see your both.”

“Were you in on this too?” he demands, easily the rudest he’s ever been to Nie Mingjue. Obviously he had to know about the party occurring in his home, but he wants to know if he knew about the rest of it, about the part where no one told him about this.

He falters. “Ah. In on what?”

“Wangji,” Xichen begins reproachfully.

A look of shock comes over Nie Mingjue’s face and then Lan Zhan feels a hand on his shoulder, turning him around to look into Wei Ying’s face. His stomach drops. Wei Ying looks terrible, too pale and eyes wide, almost scared. “Lan Zhan,” he says urgently, “It’s like, so sweet that you think having me here won’t end in property damage, but I can’t be here. I’m sorry.”

None of that really makes sense to him, but he doesn’t care, he’s about to assure Wei Ying they can leave right now when Nie Mingjue chokes out, “Wei Wuxian!”

“Hey Nie Mingjue,” he says, a smile that’s edged in panic but entirely genuine across his face. “You look great. We’ll catch up, but you know, later. Not here.”

Xichen looks as confused as he feels, which is something, at least. “A-Ming. Do you know my brother’s boyfriend?”

“Boyfriend?” Nie Mingjue asks. “Your brother’s dating Wei Wuxian?” He looks back to Wei Ying and demands, “You’re dating Hanguang Jun?”

“No?” he returns, eyes darting around them worriedly. “I’m dating Lan Zhan. Can we talk about this later?”

This is all just making him more and more confused. “I am Hanguang Jun.”

Wei Ying’s eyebrows dip together. “But that’s the Lan sect heir.”

He keeps staring. “Yes.” Then, “Did you not know?”

He hadn’t known it was possible for Wei Ying to become even paler. He reaches out for his arm, worried for a moment that his boyfriend is going to pass out. “You’re – you can’t – why did you think being seen with me was a good idea?”

“This party wasn’t my idea,” he says, and then before Wei Ying can think he’s saying something he’s not, he adds, “Why wouldn’t I want to be seen with you? I love you.”

Wei Ying moans, covering his face. “Lan Zhan, that is just, so sweet, but I wasn’t joking about the property damage. I can’t be seen here, especially not like this.”

“Why?” he asks. He’s missing something. He hates it. “Do you know someone here? Is it how you know Nie Mingjue?”

Nie Mingjue sucks in a sharp breath. “You don’t know who he is. You weren’t here when it happened and gossiping is forbidden and you don’t know who he is.”

“No,” Wei Ying says, “that’s impossible.” But then he looks at Lan Zhan and an expression comes over his face that Lan Zhan has never seen before and never wants to see again. “Oh. Oh shit. You really don’t know who I am, it’s not that you don’t care, is that you don’t know. Fuck.”

“You’re Wei Ying,” he says, unable to keep his frustration from spilling into his voice.

“Wei Wuxian! Is that you?”

They all stiffen and Wei Ying forces a smile before he turns to speak to Sect Leader Yao. “It is.”

“You have a lot of nerve,” he scowls, stepping too closely. “Showing your face after all these years-”

“Sect Leader Yao,” Wei Ying says, cutting him off. “It’s a pleasure as, always, but I really don’t have time for this right now.”

Nie Mingjue flashes a smile does little disguise the fact that he’s grinding his teeth together. “If you’ll excuse us. Please.”

His eyes narrow and he opens his mouth to say something else terrible when a fan taps him on the shoulder and then Nie Huaisang is there saying, “Sect Leader Yao, Sect Leader Ouyang is looking for you.”

Sect Leader Yao huffs, casts them all one more not very intimidating glare, but walks back into the throng of people. He’s an idiot, but at least he’s an idiot who knows he’s outnumbered.

“Fuck,” Wei Ying says. “He’s going to tell everyone, I’m so fucked. Okay, I’ll just have to – stay, I guess. Fuck.” He pats Lan Zhan on the chest absently, which would be nice, except that Wei Ying is refusing to look at him. “We’ll leave the Lans out of it, we’ll say I’m back for, uh, a visit.”

Nie Huaisang strides forward and grabs Wei Ying by his wrists. “My nightingale, my bluejay, my ostrich, my chickadee, my sweet extinct dodo bird,” he grips Wei Ying’s arms a little higher each time, until he’s cupping his face, and Lan Zhan considers ripping his hands off.  “Why the fuck would you do that? Why are you here? Is this about your Lan boyfriend? Is someone trying to kill you again? Is your Lan boyfriend trying to kill you?”

Again?

“Because I’m dumb,” he says, “and dramatic, but mostly dumb. Lan Zhan is my Lan boyfriend.”

Nie Huaisang freezes, still clutching Wei Ying’s face, and slowly turns his head to stare at him. Lan Zhan has never been intimidated by Nie Huaisang before, he hadn’t known the flighty, weak cultivator could even do intimidating, but that is not a pleasant look on his face. “Lan Wangji. What the fuck are you playing at?”

“He doesn’t know,” Wei Ying says, tugging on the front of Nie Huaisang’s shirt, “he doesn’t know and his brother doesn’t know and now that Sect Leader Yao knows I’m here he’s going to tell literally everyone, so you need to help me. I can’t be here wearing this shit.”

“Hobo chic is a look,” Nie Huaisang says dubiously, his attention shifting back towards Wei Ying and softening. “Is this your life now? Are you still living in that garbage can? Really, Wei Wuxian, if money’s an issue you know I’m more than happy to-”

“No, shut up, I don’t need money and my apartment is fine. I blocked Jin Zixuan last time he tried to give me money, I will do the same to you,” he warns.

Nie Huaisang waves his fan dismissively. “Whatever, you block him every other week for sport. Can I at least buy the building? I’ll build something actually nice in it’s place and you can live in the penthouse.”

Wei Ying pinches the bridge of his nose and doesn’t answer.

Lan Zhan is having trouble following all this, but he doesn’t think that hobo chic is appropriate description for his boyfriend’s current outfit. Wei Ying is wearing slacks and a button down and his long hair is swept up in a sleek hightail, something he almost never goes to the effort to do. Wei Ying had come here to meet his boyfriend’s brother, and he’d dressed nicely for it, and Lan Zhan still has absolutely no clue what’s going on but he knows he loves this man so much he’s not sure how it all fits in his chest. “Wei Ying.”  

He still doesn’t look at him, flashing him a fake smile and looking at the space right next to his face rather than at it. “It’s okay, Lan Zhan. We’ll just get through this, and then I’ll explain, and,” he falters, “and we’ll move on from there.”

Lan Zhan reaches out to him, but Nie Huaisang is tugging him away. “Come on, come upstairs, we’ll get you into some proper clothes.”

“Whose?” he snorts. “You’re a twink and your brother is built like a brick shithouse.”

“Well, he wasn’t always,” Nie Huaisang huffs. “Mingjue, I’m raiding your closet.”

Nie Mingjue waves them off and Nie Huaisang snaps out his fan, walking quickly and holding it up so that Wei Ying is mostly obscured as he leads him away.

This evening has quickly gotten away from him.

“A-Ming, what was all that about?” Xichen asks, looking faintly bewildered around the eyes.

“I need a drink,” he says, rubbing a hand over his face. “It’s a long story. Let’s just get through tonight and I’ll tell you later.”

“Tell me now.” Lan Zhan doesn’t blame Xichen for startling. He barely recognizes his own voice. “Why won’t my boyfriend look at me?”

Nie Mingjue just shakes his head. “You don’t know what you’ve gotten yourself into, Lan Wangji.”

“So tell me,” he says. Whatever it is couldn’t have been that bad. The Nie may be gruff, but they’ve got an even stronger moral code than the Lan. If Wei Ying had done anything truly terrible, then Nie Mingjue wouldn’t have just let his little brother go off with him. Besides, Wei Ying isn’t capable of doing anything terrible. Wei Ying is good.

“I’m not the right person for this,” he insists, “and this isn’t really the place for a history lesson anyway. Let’s just get through tonight, okay? I’m sure Wei Wuxian will tell you everything.” He glances around, then says, “I’ll get you two something to drink, I’ll be right back,” and doesn’t run, exactly, but does quickly put quite a lot of distance between himself and Lan Zhan.

He doesn’t put his face in his hands or curl up in the corner or punch a hole in the wall. But he kind of wants to do all three at once, so he’s not sure that’s saying much. “Wangji,” his brother says quietly. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine,” he says, even though it isn’t. His brother had been wrong to invite him to a party under the guise of dinner, but laying all this at his feet when it’s hardly as if Xichen could have foreseen any of this is a bit too unfair even for him, even with how it feels like his whole world is unraveling at the edges.

Nie Mingjue returns with two glasses of something sparkling and non alcoholic and he and his brother talk about – something, he has no idea, he’s not paying attention. People come up and try and talk to him, but quickly give up, and he should probably feel bad about that. If he’s lucky, he’ll feel bad about it tomorrow. If he’s lucky, by tomorrow will have settled enough that he has the room to care about other people’s feelings.

After what feel like hours but is surely less than that, Nie Huaisang heads back towards them, which is significant only because Wei Ying is behind him.

His mouth goes dry.

Wei Ying is in dark grey jeans so tight they have to belong to Nie Huaisang and a dark clingy sweater with a wide enough neck that it threatens to slide off one shoulder. His sleek ponytail has been shaken out so it falls heavy and messy around his shoulders, the front pieces pulled back and braided together to keep it out of his face.

“I didn’t know I even still had that sweater,” Nie Mingjue says.

Nie Huaisang is beaming. “Am I good or what?”

“Yes, yes, you’re a genius,” Wei Ying says impatiently, taking out his phone and pausing. “Shit. How do I even tell the groupchat? If they hear it from anyone else first, they’ll kill me.”

“What’s there to tell?” Nie Huaisang takes out his phone and holds it out to take a selfie, holding out his hand shaped in half a heart. Wei Ying laughs and steps close enough to complete the heart with his own hand, smiling into the camera as Nie Huaisang takes the photo. He taps at his phone a couple times then says smugly, “There. Now we just have to wait. Don’t worry, to hear anything from Sect Leader Yao they would have to be willing to talk to him.”

That seems to cheer Wei Ying slightly. “True. He’s the worst.” Wei Ying still isn’t looking at him, but he does turn in his direction to say, “Maybe you and your brother should make yourself scarce? People will ask questions if they see you around me.”  

Lan Zhan has too many things to say – mostly demands to know what’s happening but a not insignificant portion of him wants to just get his hands on his boyfriend – but he hesitates for a moment too long because then an excited, feminine voice yells out, “A-Xian!”

Wei Ying lights up in a way that Lan Zhan’s never seen before and he can barely bring himself to tear his eyes away to see who’s using such a familiar nickname.

Jiang Yanli, who Lan Zhan has never known to be anything but perfectly proper and courteous and soft spoken, is practically elbowing people out of her way as she rushes towards them. Once she pops out of the throng of people she even goes so far as to kick off her shoes and hike her expensive silk skirt to her knees so she can break out into a run. “A-Xian, A-Xian!”

Wei Ying is grinning as he meets her, sweeping Jiang Yanli into his arms and lifting her off her feet, spinning around and laughing as she peppers kisses over his cheeks. He doesn’t put her down, instead hooking his arm under her knees to keep holding her, and it’s absolutely ridiculous, but Jiang Yanli doesn’t complain, just wraps an arm around Wei Ying’s shoulders and smiles.

Jin Zixuan, Jiang Yanli’s husband, is walking towards them and seems entirely unconcerned with what’s happening. He pauses to pick up his wife’s shoes, something resigned in his expression but not surprised.

“A-Xian, what are you doing here?” she asks breathlessly.

“I came to see you, A-jie,” he says.

A-jie. This is Wei Ying’s sister? Jiang Yanli is Wei Ying’s sister?

“Liar,” she says fondly. “Are you in trouble?”

“Why does everyone think that?” he complains.

“Probably because of how good you are at getting into trouble,” Jin Zixuan answers. He bends so he can slide his wife’s shoes back on, carefully buckling the straps in place. “Wei Wuxian. I never thought I’d see you here again.”

Jiang Yanli kicks him in the shoulder.

“That wasn’t a complaint,” he says, wrapping his hand around her ankle. He pauses and makes a face. “Or it was, but only a personal one.”

“Where’s my nephew?” Wei Ying asks. “It’s been so long since I held him, I need to kiss his face and tell him how terrible his father is.”

Jin Zixuan rolls his eyes, but doesn’t seem truly upset. “Aren’t your hands a little full at the moment?”

Wei Ying considers this then shifts Jiang Yanli so she’s sitting in the crook of his arm and he’s pressing her legs to his chest, holding her up with just one arm. This is completely the wrong situation for Lan Zhan to be turned on in but he can’t help it. Wei Ying holds out his empty hand and says, “I have two arms. Nephew please.”

Jiang Yanli is half collapsed over his shoulder in giggles and Jin Zixuan snorts, but that’s definitely a smile on his face. “He’s with a sitter, this is a party, not a place you bring babies. You’ll have to wait. Also put down my wife before you drop her.”

“I would never,” he declares, but does carefully lower Jiang Yanli back onto her own two feet.

She stays close, leaning against his side. “When did you get in? Where are you staying? It better not be a hotel, A-Xian. You can stay with us and hold Jin Ling all you’d like.”

“I just got in last night, and of course I’ll come by and hold my nephew,” he says cheerfully, not actually answering the question. By the way Jiang Yanli’s eye narrow, she’s noticed.

Lan Zhan is about to say that they have a hotel room, but he’s distracted by the sight of an absolutely furious Jiang Cheng barreling towards them. Jiang Yanli takes a couple hasty steps back and Lan Zhan figures out that he’s headed straight for Wei Ying just in time to step in front of him, causing Jiang Cheng to stop short. “Lan Wangji, get the fuck out of my way.”

“No,” he says, unable to keep the alarm out of his voice. Surely Jiang Cheng isn’t planning to start a fight in the middle of the party.

“A-Cheng!” Wei Ying steps around him and throws his arms out. “Come to your favorite brother!”

“You’re my only brother,” he retorts, putting Wei Ying in a headlock instead of hugging him. “What are you doing here? Just dropping in with no warning and no prep, are you insane?”

“A-Cheng,” he whines, flailing around in his grip, but not actually putting in any effort into pulling himself free. “Don’t be so mean to your older brother! A-jie, help!”

She’s still smiling as she walks over to lightly tug on Jiang Cheng’s arm. “A-Cheng, A-Xian, enough of that. Get along for your elder sister, hm?”

Jiang Cheng lets go of Wei Ying immediately and they both straighten, Wei Ying’s hair even more of a wild mess. “Yes, A-jie,” they say in unison. Then Wei Ying elbows Jiang Cheng, who elbows him back.

Lan Zhan turns to his brother to see if he has any sort of explanation for this, but Xichen has that perfectly polite smile on his face that means he has no idea what’s happening around him. At least Lan Zhan isn’t alone in his confusion.

“Shit,” Nie Huaisang whispers. “Yu-bomb alert, thirty seconds to impact.”

The smiles drop off everyone’s faces. “Scatter!” Wei Ying hisses, waving them away.

No one moves.

Wei Ying frowns. “Guys, go, do you have a death wish?”

“We’re not kids anymore,” Jiang Cheng scoffs. “No one’s going anywhere.”

The smile on Wei Ying’s face is so unbearably sweet that for a moment Lan Zhan forgets to breathe. Then he’s rubbing at his nose and ducking his head, saying, “Fuck, fine, but protect the Lans, they don’t know shit.”

Lan Zhan has no idea what they’re talking about until he sees Madam Yu marching over to them, a sneer slashed across her face. Nie Mingjue steps in front of them, which as Xichen’s boyfriend isn’t that surprising, but while he’s a large man, he’s not exactly broad enough to hide both of them behind him. Jiang Cheng shifts to stand shoulder to shoulder with Nie Mingjue, placing himself in front of Lan Zhan even thought he doesn’t think they’ve ever had anything but at best a lukewarm interactions.

“Wei Wuxian,” Madame Yu says. Lan Zhan doesn’t realize he’s started to move until his brother’s hand clamps down on his wrist. He doesn’t need to understand what’s going on to know he doesn’t want anyone speaking to his boyfriend like that, in that horrible tone. “I thought I made myself clear the last time you were here.”

“Crystal,” Wei Ying answers tightly.

“Then you’ll understand that if you don’t go back to wherever you crawled out of, I’ll be forced call security.” She pauses. “Unless of course you want me to drag you out myself.”

There’s a faint sizzle in the air that Lan Zhan recognizes as the sound Madam Yu’s spiritual tool makes when it’s sparking, and surely she can’t be threatening Wei Ying with Zidian, except that he struggles to find an alternate explanation for her words and can’t.

“Do you presume to find yourself madame of the Nie as well?” Nie Huaisang asks sweetly. “This is our party. Wei Wuxian is my guest. You have no say here.”

“Presumptuous boy-”

“Madame Yu,” Nie Mingjue barks. “Be mindful of how you speak to my brother. I would hate to have to ask you to leave.”

There’s a tense silence. All Lan Zhan can see is the broad, tense expanse of Jiang Cheng’s back, and he’s so desperate to step away from them, to be able to see what’s happening rather than just hearing it.

“If you want a traitor in your midst, so be it, Sect Leader Nie,” she says coldly. “But the company you keep reflects back onto you. The Jiang will remember this. A-Cheng, A-Li, with me.”

“No,” Jiang Yanli says. If her voice quavers, it’s slight enough that Lan Zhan might not have noticed if he didn’t have anything to focus on but listening.

“No?” Madame Yu repeats thunderously. “Soft hearted girl. Do you forget what he did? Enough of this nonsense. Come here.”

Jiang Cheng swallows then says, “We’re not going anywhere, Mother. We’re staying with our brother.”

“He is not your brother!” she snaps. “He’s troublesome son of a servant who would do to remember his place.”

“Mother!” Jiang Yanli’s fear is washed away by her anger. “His place is here. With us.”

“He is our brother. You don’t get a say in that,” Jiang Cheng says quietly.

There’s another silence. Lan Zhan is crawling out of his skin. “If you insist on trying to defend him again-”

“You’ll what?” Jin Zixuan interrupts. “A-Li is my wife. If you insist on upsetting her, then you’ll no longer be welcome in our home.”

Jin Zixuan and Jiang Yanli have a child. He’s threatening to keep Madame Yu’s grandson away from her.

“You can cut me off, I suppose,” Jiang Cheng says, offhand, like it doesn’t matter. “But I can find work anywhere. What will people say, when I go to work for another cultivation family?” He pauses. “The Wens can always use people.”

Lan Zhan thinks he hears Madame Yu snarl, but there are a lot noises and he can’t be certain. From what Lan Zhan knows, Wen Qing has done a perfectly respectable job of leading the Wens since her uncle’s imprisonment. Their family still isn’t looked at too kindly. He does hear the sound of Madame Yu walking away and then everyone settles.

Jiang Cheng steps away from him to knock his shoulder into Wei Ying’s, who’s got his face buried in his hands. “You okay?”

“No!” He lifts his head, and he’s not crying, but his eyes are red and bright. “What was that?”

“What we should have done eleven years ago,” Jiang Yanli says, placing her hand on Wei Ying’s arm.  

“Eleven years ago we were kids,” he protests. “Also, I know you tried. She nearly kicked you both out along with me!”

“She wouldn’t have,” Jiang Cheng says. “I know that now. I should have pushed.”

Wei Ying shakes his head, “Stop, stop it, it’s fine. Please stop, I’m dying, this is killing me.”

“You’re so dramatic,” Nie Huaisang coos, waving his fan at him. Nie Mingjue sighs. “I am glad you let us actually help this time, though.”

“As if any of you gave me a choice, fuck,” he says, but he’s smiling. “Okay, okay, this is fine. I just have to get through tonight without causing an inter-clan incident or killing anyone. I can do that.”

There’s a beat of silence.

“Oh, fuck you guys,” he says.

“You didn’t bring your sword, so there’s that,” Nie Mingjue sighs.

Jin Zixuan snorts, “Forget his sword, we should be grateful he didn’t bring his flute.”

“Sword?” Lan Zhan says, and now they’re all looking for him. Maybe he doesn’t understand Wei Ying’s past, but he should at least know about his present. “Wei Ying doesn’t carry a sword.”

“Well, yeah, I leave it at work,” he says. “I don’t have a permit to just carry it around.”

“Why?” Jiang Cheng asks. “You’re a public servant, don’t they just give those out?”

He shrugs and rubs the back of his neck, “Yeah, I guess, it’s just a lot of paperwork, you know? And as long as I have Chenqing, it doesn’t really matter, it’s not like I can fly in the city anyway. You’d think they’d need a permit for that, actually, more than Suiban.”

Wei Ying cultivates with a sword. Its name is Suibian.

Lan Zhan feels very small, suddenly, standing there surrounded by people who all know Wei Ying better than he does.

Jiang Yanli is frowning. “Wei Ying?” she repeats, looking right at him, clearly wondering why he’s referring to her brother in such a familiar way.

“Ah, A-jie, never mind that,” Wei Ying says hastily, not allowing him the chance to explain. “It’s good that I don’t carry my sword outside of work, hm? What if someone recognized it when I was getting in the grocery store or something?”

Jiang Cheng rolls his eyes. “Why would you be carrying your sword in the grocery store? Idiot.”

“Imagine if I did, though,” he teases. “The fearsome Yiling Patriarch buying potatoes.”

The Yiling Patriarch. The brilliant city cultivator that goes around the city dressed in black and in a mask, who Lan Wangji has only seen through new footage, who is strong and clever enough that every major sect has made noise about wanting to offer him a place in their clan. Except, he realizes, the Nie, who have known who he is the entire time.

“Excuse me,” Xichen cuts in, and Lan Zhan knows that something of his feelings must be showing on his face because his brother’s voice is hard. “Wei Wuxian, are you saying that you are the Yiling Patriarch?”

“Ah,” Wei Ying falters. “Didn’t Lan Zhan tell you?” He looks back at him, meeting his eyes for the first time. Wei Ying isn’t playing with him. He’s just confused. Apparently there’s a lot of things his boyfriend thought he knew, and didn’t.

This one hurts more. Not knowing about the past his boyfriend doesn’t talk about it one thing, but he practically lives with Wei Ying. How has he never noticed that his boyfriend doesn’t play his flute for the city but instead dons a mask and uses a sword and is a cultivator as strong and well trained as he is himself?

“No,” he says, hoping it doesn’t come out sounding too stiff. “I didn’t tell him.”

The Jiang siblings are giving him strange looks, clearly trying to make sense of his and Wei Ying’s familiarity. The know he’s dating someone from the Lan clan, and it’s still completely unthinkable to them that the Lan that Wei Ying is dating is him.

“Oh,” he says, looking over to Xichen. “Um, yeah, try not to spread it around? The people who know outside of my bosses are uh,” he looks around at their small group, “pretty much just everyone here. Mostly. Also this is the sum total people of the people in this house who don’t hate me, so. We should probably disperse, actually, everyone looks like they’re going to riot.”

Lan Zhan glances around, realizing how strange it is that the crush of people hasn’t pressed in any closer to their corner which is comprised of people who those in attendance are usually desperate to speak to. Instead they hang back, glaring and muttering.

“Mianmian is here,” Jin Zixuan says mildly. “Meng Yao and Mo Xuanyu are here too, somewhere, but I think they’re hiding from our father. Otherwise A-Yao would be here,” he nods to Xichen and Nie Mingjue in a way that doesn’t make any sense to Lan Zhan but causes Nie Mingjue’s face to turn bright red and Xichen’s lips to pull up in one corner, the motion small enough that it can’t be anything but entirely sincere.

“Mianmian,” Wei Ying gasps, not quite as delighted as he was at seeing his sister, but close. “Is she really? Why hasn’t she found us yet?”

“She muted the groupchat because she says we spam it too much,” Nie Huaisang says, already pulling his phone out again, sending out a quick message. “She just checks it whenever. You can hang out on with her, she’s part of the Jin but everyone knows you two were friends, and she spoke up for you the loudest when everything went down. People won’t be too scandalized at seeing you two here together, at least. Plus it will lay some nice groundwork for her.”

Groundwork for what? Lan Zhan wants to ask, but can’t, in this conversation where he clearly has no place other than as a spectator.

“And it doesn’t hurt that she’s just a clan member rather than part of the main family like the rest of you,” Wei Ying points out.

“Rest of us,” Jiang Yanli corrects, because apparently Wei Ying is ingratiated enough with the Jiang siblings that they’ll scold their mother in public for trying to say that Wei Ying is anything but their brother. “But yes, that’s better, if you’re interested in avoiding too much of a scandal.”

She says it like it’s surprising to her, that Wei Ying would avoid creating a scandal. He’d thought the same, but it aches to know they’re probably basing it off two different sets of data. Jiang Yanli off a whole childhood of sect politics clashing and him on how often Wei Ying will tell him stories of causing trouble at the university and at work, of how he flirts with every waiter and barista just to see them stutter but only smiles like he means it at Lan Zhan.

“First time for everything,” he says. “Okay, I’ll go find Mianmian, or wait for her to find me, and the rest of you should go mingle. We’ll catch up after we all survive this party. I promise snooty high society bullshit won’t be the thing that kills me.”

His siblings don’t look convinced, but Jiang Yanli kisses him on the cheek and Jiang Cheng claps him on the shoulder before heading back into the throng of people.

“I’ll stick with you to go find Mianmian,” Nie Huaisang declares, fanning himself and looping his arm through Wei Ying’s. He looks to Lan Zhan. “Don’t talk about Wei Ying to anyone. You’ll probably end up making things worse for him if you do, since you don’t know what you don’t know.”

And who’s fault is that, he thinks bitterly, but can’t bring himself to voice it because he’s afraid the answer might be his own. Wei Ying should have told him. But he thought Lan Zhan knew, because apparently everyone knows, because apparently every guest in the Nie Manor besides his brother knows more about his boyfriend than he does.

“I’ll tell you everything tonight,” Wei Ying says softly, and he’s looking at him again, but not in a way Lan Zhan likes. He looks like he’s in pain, the muscles around his eyes and mouth tense even as he does a terrible imitation of his usual smile.

“Alright,” he says, because he can’t say anything else. He doesn’t want to wait until tonight, he doesn’t want to spend a whole day pretending he doesn’t know Wei Ying, and he really doesn’t want his boyfriend spending the night with someone other than him on his arm.

Nie Huaisang drags Wei Ying away and the crush of people part for them, as if repelled by Wei Ying’s very presence. The both pretend not to notice but Lan Zhan feels a twinge in his chest anyway.

“Mianmian is married,” Nie Mingjue says. “Her husband is staying at home with their daughter, but everyone knows who he is, since he usually comes to these things.”

He nods instead of saying anything. It doesn’t help much. He wants to be with Wei Ying, the man he loves and knows so little about.

“Excuse me,” he says abruptly, because the only thing worse than making small talk with cultivators he doesn’t even like is standing here in this strange, heavy silence with Xichen and Nie Mingjue.

His brother reaches for him, but Nie Mingjue pulls him back, so Lan Zhan is able to slip into the crowd of people unencumbered.

The night is so, so long.

He sees glimpses of Wei Wuxian, standing with a beautiful woman in Jin gold and seeming genuinely delighted to be around her for the few moments he gets to see them together. Those are the only bright spots of the night. The rest is spent having to listen to people say terrible things about and even sometimes to Wei Ying and not being able to do anything about it.

“I thought the Jiang threw him out? The nerve to see him here now!”

“A traitor, under the Nie’s roof! Nie Mingjue’s parents must be rolling in their graves.”

“Disgusting, how he hangs off her, as if she doesn’t have a husband and child waiting for her at home.”

“Madame Yu let him off too easy. You know he was still able to walk away after she was done whipping him? If it had been a proper punishment he would have had to crawl.” A pause. “Well, if it had been a proper punishment he wouldn’t have been able to get away at all.”

The last one leaves him frozen, drink halfway raised to his mouth. He doesn’t realize the glass in his hand has shattered until he feels blood dripping down his wrist. Everyone has gone quiet around him, staring, and he should probably make some sort of excuse, but instead he just turns around and walks away, stepping outside, but there are still too many people, so goes further, to the middle of the Nie’s courtyard, but it’s not enough, he can’t breathe suddenly, it’s all too much.

The scars on Wei Ying’s back aren’t from a creature, aren’t from his work as a city cultivator.

They’re from his adoptive mother whipping him. Likely with Zidian, the very thing she’d used to threaten him earlier tonight.

He wants to scream. He wants to tear his own skin off. He wants to go back in there and summon Bichen to teach them a lesson. He clenches his hands into fists because at least the bright flare of pain along his palm is distracting.

“Lan Zhan! What happened?” He turns and Wei Ying is there, still looking beautiful, his face creased into concern. The woman who’d been with him all night, Mianmian, is nowhere in sight. Wei Ying makes a wounded noise in the back of his throat, reaching for his bleeding hand and peeling his fingers back so they’re not digging into the wound. “Stop that, you’ll make it worse,” he scolds, but his hands are gentle as spiritual energy flows from his fingers into his palm, healing it easily, not making any comment on how Lan Zhan could have done it himself and pulling down the sleeves of his borrowed sweater to wipe the blood off.

“Do I know you?” It slips out of his mouth before he can stop it.

Wei Ying freezes then lets go of his hand like it’s burned him, his whole face closing off. “Ah, right, yeah. That’s fair. I’ll just, you know.”

He turns as if to leave, but Lan Zhan reaches for him before he can, tangling his fingers into the back of the soft sweater. “I didn’t – that’s not what I meant. Don’t go.”

Wei Ying stops but doesn’t turn around. “It’s okay, Lan Zhan. I’m not who you thought I was.”

“You are,” he says, frustrated. “I know who you are, but I do not know what you are, and, I just – I thought I was paying attention. I thought I cared, and listened, and loved you as you deserve to be loved. But if that were true, then I should have noticed, I should have known,” he takes a deep breath, holding it on top of his lungs before slowly letting it out. “Have I been terrible to you?”

“Lan Zhan!” Wei Ying cries, turning, and they’re so close now. “Of course not, don’t be ridiculous, you’re perfect.”

“Why didn’t you tell me about your work? About your past?” he asks desperately. “It’s not – you don’t owe me anything, but – but why didn’t you?”

He shrugs, spreading his hands in front of him. “I don’t know. You didn’t talk about your job much, not really, so I didn’t talk about mine, and, you know, cleaning ghosts and fighting ghouls is pretty straight forward so I didn’t feel like it was that big a deal to talk about it, and, I just, I thought you knew the rest and didn’t want to talk about it, which, fine, I don’t love talking about it either. You’re not terrible, you’ve never been terrible, even for a moment. You’re wonderful.”

Lan Zhan’s throat is tight and Wei Ying is close enough to touch, and he’s spent all night not touching him, and all he wants –

“A-Xian,” calls out Jiang Yanli’s voice the same time as his brother yells out, “Wangji!”

He sighs, looking over Wei Ying’s shoulder to see their siblings heading towards them.

Jiang Cheng gets there first, swinging an arm around his brother’s shoulders. “There you are! We thought you left without telling us. Are you going to stick around after this? Or was crashing the Nie party a one time thing?”

Lan Zhan is looking at Wei Ying, of course, so he catches the way his eyes flicker towards him then away again. “Got to figure some things out, I guess.”

Jiang Yanli and Jiang Cheng turn toward him. Clearly he wasn’t the only that caught that. “Why are you both out here? What’s going on between you two?”

Wei Ying opens his mouth, to say something untrue, and Lan Zhan is tired of this. If Wei Ying wants to break up with him, then he should do it, not lie about them. “I am Wei Ying’s boyfriend.”

Jiang Cheng reaches for his hip, trying to grab for a sword that he’s not currently carrying, and Jiang Yanli says, “A-Xian. You didn’t say your Lan boyfriend was Lan Wangji.”

“I didn’t know! I thought he was just like, one of the Lan cousins, there are a bunch of them. I didn’t know he was the clan heir,” he says defensively before turning to him. “Lan Zhan! You can’t just say that, what if someone overheard you?”

They’re far away from the party that no one would have, but that’s not the point.

“I’ll tell everyone here myself,” Lan Zhan says helplessly. “Either I’m your boyfriend or I’m not. Are you breaking up with me?”

Wei Ying stares at him. “I think you’re supposed to be the one breaking up with me, actually, after seeing and hearing all of – that.”

“Nothing I’ve seen or heard has made me want to break up with you,” he says. He’s not sure what would make him want to break up with Wei Ying. “I didn’t know you were part of the Jiang. I do not understand what so many people are upset about or why they say such horrible things. I wasn’t here eleven years ago and gossip is forbidden. But you thought I knew. You didn’t keep anything from me on purpose, just as I didn’t keep my place in the Lan sect away from you on purpose, and I do not need to know what happened to know that I love you. I am not going to break up with you. I am never going to break up with you.”

This is more words he’s said at once in a long time, and there are people who are not Wei Ying looking at him, which is awful, but if Wei Ying doesn’t stop avoiding him and acting like he’s something Lan Zhan should be ashamed of he’s going to end up breaking something in the Nie’s very nice courtyard.

“Holy shit,” Jiang Cheng says. “A-Xian, what did you do to him?”

Wei Ying doesn’t answer, too busy staring at him. He takes a deep breath, then asks, “Never? You’re sure? Maybe I did something awful. Maybe everyone hates me for a good reason. Lan Qiren, who I’m just realizing is the uncle you’re always talking about, hates me. So you have to be sure.”

“I am sure,” he answers.

“Wangji,” Xichen starts hesitantly.

He shoots his brother a look that shuts him up immediately then turns back to Wei Ying. “You are good. There is no acceptable reason to hate you.”

“I cannot handle this,” he says, pressing his hands over his face and bending over, as if he’s about to start hyperventilating. Lan Zhan starts to move forward, but then Wei Ying straightens and closes the distance between them himself, fisting his hands in the front of his shirt and looking him in the eye. “Okay. Okay, if you’re sure, if you’re really sure, then okay. I’ll do it. I’ll come back, and I’ll stay, and I’ll deal with all the stupid rich person, cultivator political bullshit that I hate, because I do hate it, okay? I haven’t missed any of it, I’ve missed the people but the rest of it can walk for all I give a shit. But I’ll do it, I’ll deal with all your crazy bullshit as long deal with mine. Okay?”

“Wei Ying,” he says tenderly, “I already deal with all your crazy bullshit.”

Wei Ying’s siblings are laughing at him and his brother chokes but he really doesn’t care. All he cares about is that Wei Ying is looking at him and smiling at him and touching him.

“Fuck, you’re so hot,” Wei Ying says and the tips of his ears burn. “Okay, okay, let’s just – I’ve been here long enough, let’s go somewhere and I’ll tell you everything. And after you hear it, you can still dump me if you want.”

The flinty glares of the Jiang siblings inform him of exactly what will happen if he tries that, but he’s not worried.

“I won’t,” he promises, then holds out his arm to Wei Ying, who takes it with smug, pleased little grin that loosens something in his chest.

“If you’re going to tell him everything, we’re going to need a couple more people,” Jiang Cheng points out.

Xichen frowns but Jiang Yanli nods even as Wei Ying pulls a face. “I’m just telling him stuff that everyone already knows.”

“Okay,” Jiang Cheng says agreeably. “Are you going to explain that to her or shall I?”

Wei Ying makes the same face, but worse. He turns to Lan Zhan and asks, “How do you feel about pancakes?”

Ambivalent at best. “If you want pancakes, then we’ll get pancakes.”

“Lan Zhan,” Wei Ying says fondly, then kisses his cheek. “Not what I meant, but okay, great.”

~

Extricating themselves from the party is fairly quick, and he and Xichen and the Jiang siblings end up taking Jiang Cheng’s car to a trashy, twenty four hour diner that Lan Zhan hadn’t even known existed around here.  

When they walk in, possibly the last people Lan Zhan were expecting are sitting here.

“Young Master Wei!” Wen Qionglin shouts, jumping excitedly to his feet.

Wei Ying bolts past him to tackle Wen Qionglin, who’s shorter than Wei Ying but also broader, and barely stumbles under it. “Wen Ning! Stop calling me that, scheesh, I haven’t been a young master in over a decade. Ah, your hair is so long, it looks good!”

“Thank you,” he says, pleased, then steps back.

Wen Qing slides out of the booth with all the grace and poise he’s seen her compose herself with in every situation. Then she slaps Wei Ying on the shoulder and demands, “You just drop in, without telling us, no warning? I should beat you.”

“Wen Qing,” he whines, making his eyes go large and liquid.

She huffs, the closest thing to a laugh that Lan Zhan has ever heard from her, and then she too pulls Wei Ying into a hug. She finally looks over at them and raises an eyebrow. “The Lans. Really? Why do you want to tell them?”

Wei Ying curls a lock of hair around his finger. “Um. Lan Zhan is my Lan boyfriend.”

He wonders if he should be thrilled that apparently Wei Ying talks about him to literally everyone he knows, or disappointed that he’s only referred to as the Lan boyfriend. He decides to go with the former, since he assumes Wei Ying’s reasons for keeping his full name a secret were much the same as why he never told his brother Wei Ying’s full name.

They would have instantly googled the shit out of him. Although, in this case, they would have known who he was immediately and probably saved them all some of this headache.

“Wow,” Wen Qing says after a moment. “You really don’t do anything halfway, huh?”

“Do you even have to ask?” Jiang Cheng grumbles, but he bends down to kiss Wen Qing on the cheek before sitting at the table next to her.

Hm.

“Um, excuse me?” Wei Ying clutches his chest. “What’s this? What’s happening? My baby brother and one of dearest friends? And no one told me? This is unacceptable.”

Perhaps a lack of proper communication of important details is a Jiang sect trait.

“If you were here, A-Xian, you’d get all the good gossip when it happened,” Jiang Yanli says serenely before also sitting down.

Wei Yin pouts, but takes a seat as well, tugging Lan Zhan along with him. Xichen follows, sitting next to him and at the end of the table. He’d be more concerned at his brother’s silence if he wasn’t sure it was just so he could give off the impression at not being as bewildered at all of this as he obviously is.

A waitress comes over and Jiang Yanli gives the order for the whole table without having to check in with anyone. Possibly she just has everyone’s preferences memorized, but more likely they’ve been here together before, a lot, enough that they have a regular order at a stained and mostly empty diner that instead of air conditioning has a squeaky fan.

He and Xichen just order tea, and then after that and the coffee is brought, everyone is silent for a moment, until Wen Qing breaks it by saying, “So. You don’t know anything.”

“Gossip is forbidden,” Xichen says.

She stares at him for a moment, then, “You’re a sect leader. You better get used to gossip. How do you even run your businesses if you don’t gossip?”

“Ethically,” he answers.

There’s a short burst of laughter at that, but it doesn’t sound cruel or mocking, and some of the tension leaches from Xichen’s shoulders.

“Wild,” Wen Qing says. “Okay, so. It’s not that complicated, honestly, we probably could have done this over text. Wei Wuxian broke the cultivation clans five way treaty and nearly started a civil war the likes of which we haven’t seen for about a thousand years, but he didn’t, which is the important part.”

Lan Zhan tries to think of something that Wei Ying could have done that would have upset the balance that badly and draws a blank. He turns to his boyfriend, who’d fidgeting at his side but does turn to meet his eyes and asks, “How?”

“Oh, you know, the whole Wen Ruohan thing,” he says. “I may have been slightly more involved in that, than, you know, not involved in it.”

He blinks. “You were seventeen when Wen Ruohan was arrested.”

“I wasn’t enrolled in enough after school activities,” he says. Jiang Yanli tugs on his hair and he says, “Okay, okay, sorry. It – things got out of hand, a bit.”

“A-Xian went snooping around in Wen Industries with A-Qing and Wen Ning and found out that Wen Ruohan was experimenting with Yin Iron, against the treaty,” Jiang Cheng says bluntly, clearly getting tired of all them talking around it. “He tried to tell our dad but he just told him not to talk about it, since he’d broken the treaty by sneaking aorund, and said there was nothing to be done about it, even thought obviously Wen Ruohan had also broken the treaty by not leaving the Wen piece of Yin Iron forgotten and buried like he was supposed to.”

“I needed help,” Wen Qing says. “I could report it, since intersect problems don’t affect the treaty with the five clans, but I couldn’t neutralize the Yin Iron or prevent Wen Ruohan and his people from killing me or my brother.”

Wen Qing is an excellent cultivator, and the top of her field in medical cultivation, but she’s not a fighter.

Jiang Yanli picks it up. “That’s when A-Xian started using the flute. He figured out a way to harness the resentful energy of the Yin Iron, but, well, in doing so he’d broken the treaty again the very same way Wen Ruohan had, never mind that it was just to stop him.”

“We weren’t going to tell anyone,” Wen Qionglin says hastily. “Of course not, but then they managed to escape after we’d managed to subdue them, and then Young Master Wei had to send ghosts after them to stop them from getting away, and everyone saw, and then the Wen figured out that it had been Young Master Wei manipulating the Yin Iron. They told, of course, and well, then the rest kind of … came out. Jiejie took over as sect leader still, but, well, what we did was okay under treaty and what Young Master Wei did wasn’t.”

Lan Zhan blinks, decides not to focus on how the supposed great deed marking Wen Qionglin as the Ghost General was actually done by his boyfriend, and instead says to Wei Ying, who’s back to not looking at him, “You managed to develop a form of musical cultivation powerful enough to manipulate and subdue Yin Iron when you were seventeen?”

“That’s what you got from that?” Wei Ying demands, meeting his gaze incredulously. “I manipulated resentful energy! I broke the treaty twice over, the second time going against one of the very things the treaty is founded on!”

“You stopped Wen Ruohan when no one else could and helped your friends,” he says. “You broke the letter of the treaty in order to protect the spirit of it.”

Wei Ying stares at him for a long moment and Wen Qing lets out a low whistle. “Wow. Never thought I’d see the day a Lan didn’t care for rules. Maybe you should keep this one around, Wei Wuxian.”

“I’m planning on it,” he says, smiling, and this is a completely inappropriate setting to kiss Wei Ying in, so he doesn’t, but he wants to very badly. “Anyway, Wen Qing stood up for me and pretty much threatened to start a war against the other sects, so instead of locking me away forever or killing me or whatever, I got some lashings and unofficially kicked out of the cultivation world. Madame Yu didn’t even do any permanent damage or anything, I think she was too happy about getting rid of me to really get into it.”

There’s brief, tense ripple across the table, and Lan Zhan is glad that’s as unacceptable to the rest of them as it is to him.

“You just got kicked out of the Jiang, you could have stayed,” Jiang Cheng huffs. “Or at least let us help you out more.”

Wei Ying kicks his brother’s chair. “It would have made things difficult for everyone if I stayed. And you went behind my back to pay for both my undergrad and masters degree, how much more help do you want me to accept?”

“You live in a hovel and fly economy,” he says. “Any would be a start.”

“My apartment is fine!” he cries. “It’s close to work and I like the bagel shop across the street, leave it alone.”

Jiang Yanli elbows her brothers before this can turn into a full blown argument. “Anyway. There’s – well, a lot more little things that happened, but that’s the broad strokes of it.”

They’re all looking at him then, but he only has eyes for Wei Ying. “And you’re willing to come back even after all that? For me?”

Wei Ying’s cheeks stain red, but he nods. “I mean, my family and my best friends are here, so. Besides, you’re the Lan heir, you’re – this is your life.”

“You’re my life,” he answers. None of this has changed that. “I like the life we have in your apartment in the city. I do not mind returning to it.”

“Lan Zhan,” he says, then kisses him in front of everyone, because he’s shameless. “You’re perfect, but no, I’m not going to do that. I said I’d deal with all your crazy bullshit and I meant it. Lan Qiren is going to murder me on the spot, and I probably need like, a job in an actual sect. Not the Jiang, though, that’ll make it worse even if we managed to talk to Madame Yu into it. Or the Jin, I’d die there.”

Jiang Yanli’s mouth quirks up at the corners. “Mianmian is leaving the clan to join the Wen at the end of the month. You could do the same.”

Wei Ying sputters, putting his hand dramatically over his chest. “She used helping me to loosen her association with the Jin? I’m so proud of her!”

“You can have my job,” Wen Qing offers.

Wen Qionglin rolls his eyes then says, “You know you’re always welcome in our clan. And I know the Nie will take you.”  

Lan Zhan looks to Xichen, who makes a face, likely thinking of their uncle’s outrage, but then gives a small nod. Uncle had wanted the Yiling Patriarch to join their clan, after all.

He smiles then puts his hand over Wei Ying’s, and this really isn’t how he’d planned on doing this, in front of their siblings and the Wens in a tacky midnight diner, but this whole trip has gone so far out of his control since the beginning, that maybe this is exactly how he should have expected this to go. “Wei Ying.”

“Yeah?” he asks, absently turning his palm so he can lace their fingers together.

“You can join the Lan clan,” he says, then squeezes their hands together, “as my husband. No one will speak against you then.”

Or if they do, they’ll have to deal with him. He’s never cared much for sect politics and faux politeness. He has no problem ignoring all of them for Wei Ying.

“Lan Zhan,” he whispers, eyes wide. “You don’t have to – you can’t want–”

He thinks for a moment, trying to put this in a way that Wei Ying will understand, then says, “I love you. I would very much like to spend the rest of my life dealing with all your crazy bullshit.”

Wei Ying launches himself at him, causing his chair to topple backwards and dumping them both on the floor of the diner, but then Wei Ying is climbing on top of him and kissing him, saying, “Yes, yes, yes,” in between breaths, and really, he could die happily right now.

The wait staff is cheering, Jiang Yanli is recording them on her phone, Wen Qionglin is clapping while his sister and Jiang Cheng both pretend like they’re not smiling, and this is the softest look Lan Zhan has seen on Xichen’s face in a long time.

He’s returning to Cloud Recesses and Wei Ying is going to be his husband.

The night may have started terribly, but he can’t think of a better ending.