Happy happy birthday!! May you have lots of joy on your special day!! I would love to read more Jiang Yanli and WWX run away please! Thank you!!! 😍😍😍
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Lan Wangji does not intentionally go looking for Wei Ying, he simply finds himself unable to sleep despite the late hour, but when he finds him sitting on the edge of one of the many piers for which Lotus Pier is named, he can't bring himself to look away either.
Wei Ying's not wearing any robes, his shirt loose and ruffled and his pants rolled up to the knee so he can dip his feet in the pond. He looks up at his approach and his face lights up in a smile. Every time he sees Wei Ying's smile, it becomes a little easier to breathe. "Lan Zhan! What are you doing up?"
"I could ask you the same thing," he returns, sitting next to him, although he keeps his feet out of the water.
He sighs and rolls his head across his shoulders until he's looking up at the sky. Lan Wangji follows his gaze. The moon is only half full, but the stars are bright. "Just thinking. What a mess, you know? Shijie and I knew running away would have consequences, but we didn't think it'd be these ones. They weren't supposed to think we were actually dead."
I was, he thinks, and doesn't say. Letters were supposedly sent to Jin Zixuan and Jiang Cheng but not to him. Which, of course not, why would they be? Jin Zixuan is Jiang Yanli's husband and Jiang Cheng is their brother. Lan Wangji is just a friend, at best, and nothing more.
Even if their letters had gotten through, Lan Wangji would have still spent all this time believing Wei Ying dead.
"We left Jiang Cheng alone," Wei Ying says miserably, pulling a leg up from the pond so he can wrap his arms around it. He knows Wei Ying is powerful enough to bring the major sects to their knees, but right now he looks like a wayward junior. "He doesn't do well alone."
"You're back now," he says because it's all he has. Even knowing that Wei Ying survived that fall, he can't quite get rid of over a decade's worth of hatred and resentment all at once. "He's not alone anymore."
Wei Ying rests his cheek on his knee, turned towards him. "He knows that. He doesn't believe it."
"Give him time," Lan Wangji advises and can't help the way his heart flips over in his chest. Time. They have time.
He sighs, but slumps over in a way where his shoulder brushes against his. Lan Wangji leans into it, holding his breath, but Wei Ying doesn't pull away.
He's breathing the same air as Wei Ying. They're speaking, he can feel the warmth of him against his side, his worst nightmare has come to an end.
It's enough.
