#untamedfics

~

"I remember," Wei Wuxian says quietly into the sliver of space between his body and Lan Zhan's. The night air has been turning rather chilly in the evenings, as autumn’s started settling in, and so they hide, tangled tightly together, under warmer blankets in their bed.

(Wei Wuxian thinks he could spend the rest of his life just like this, away from everything, just him and Lan Zhan.)

Lan Zhan hums, his fingers carding slowly, lazily through Wei Wuxian's unbound hair. "Remember?"

"That first time you came to the Burial Mounds." Wei Wuxian nods. He presses his face closer into Lan Zhan's collarbone, the memory of that day clear as a crystal. "I wanted you to stay." 

Lan Zhan's fingers stop, just for a heartbeat. "Wei Ying," he breathes, something sad and almost broken tingeing his voice. 

Maybe I wasn't the only one who wanted that, even then, Wei Wuxian thinks. His eyes start burning. Oh, how much time we could have had together. But. "I was also terrified of the very thought of you staying."

Because Lan Zhan, pure, righteous, big-hearted Lan Zhan would have had to give up a part of himself to be able to stay. 

Because he would have eventually found out about Wei Wuxian's missing core and things would have likely turned sour between them, hot-headed fools that they were back then.

Because they might have started something in the heat of the moment they were not really ready for at the time.

“What matters is that we are here now,” Lan Zhan says, hugging Wei Wuxian tightly and peppering his hairline with light kisses. 

Happy birthday, Wei Ying!

~

He wakes up slowly, languidly, aching in the most pleasant of ways, and when he manages to focus enough on anything outside his own body, Wei Wuxian is hit with the mouthwatering scents of breakfast.

"Lan Zhan," he all but moans in delight. "You really do spoil me." The bed dips next to him, and gentle fingers comb through his unbound hair, caress down his naked back, and in the late morning air, his skin breaks out in shivery goosebumps. Wei Wuxian moans again.

A soft pair of lips drop a light kiss to the ball of his shoulder. "Good morning, Wei Ying," Lan Zhan says, voice as calm and as full of love as Wei Wuxian's ever heard it. "And happy birthday."

And ah, yes, that's right. Today's his birthday. Today, he's turning… well, it should have been something like thirty-seven, Wei Wuxian thinks, had he not died all those years ago. He's stopped keeping count after he was brought back to life. Still, "Thank you, Lan Zhan."

Lan Zhan presses another kiss to his skin, and then one more to the apple of Wei Wuxian's cheek, before standing up. "Hungry?"

Famished, and not just for food, Wei Wuxian thinks, finally pushing himself up, and taking in his husband's pristine figure. Yes, not just for food. "I could eat." He smiles, stretches until his back pops. "It smells absolutely delicious."

"Sizhui helped make it," Lan Zhan says, extending a hand for Wei Wuxian to take. "Would not take no for an answer."

Wei Wuxian laughs at that, the image of sweet, gentle Lan Sizhui stubbornly pushing his sleeves back and helping in the kitchen. It makes him ache, still, the knowledge that he missed seeing the child A-Yuan used to be grow into the caring, straightforward, level-headed young man he is now. "Mn. He takes after Lan Zhan like that. After…" He stops for a moment, the memory still painful, then with a breath, he pushes forward. "After Wen Qing, too."

"Yes," Lan Zhan says as they both sit at the table. "Perhaps. But he takes after Wei Ying, too."

"Does he?" He's never been gentle or even-tempered like their son is.

Lan Zhan nods, and it is a testament of his feelings for Wei Wuxian, the fact that he still talks now, after picking up his bowl of food. "He does. He is mischievous, and just as trusting and as willing to help people as Wei Ying is."

And. Wei Wuxian blinks. Blinks again, as his eyes start to sting. "Lan Zhan ah, Lan Zhan, what did I say about saying things that will make my poor heart stop?"

~

There is something, Wei Wuxian can't say exactly what, but something both heart-wrenching and awe-inspiring, about seeing Lan Zhan, Lan Wangji, in dusty cotton commoner’s robes, playing in the low evening light with little A-Yuan, a small, rare smile on his face.

What did I ever do, he wonders, rubbing at his chest where his heart beats a wild rhythm in its cage, to deserve a man like him staying in a place like this for me?

Because there's no denying it, no hiding from it, not when Lan Xichen himself had come to the very edge of the Burial Mounds, pleading with his brother to come home, and Lan Zhan had only taken a step closer to Wei Wuxian's side and said, quiet but decisive, that he was already home. There's no misunderstanding when Lan Zhan had said that he would live out the rest of his life in the Mounds with Wei Wuxian and their son and their new family, and would take on anyone who would try to disturb their peace.

"Xian-gege, Xian-gege," A-Yuan calls out, his young voice breaking through the haze of Wei Wuxian’s thoughts, from where he's clinging now to Lan Zhan's leg, his new toy tucked into the crook of his elbow and dust marring his cheeks. "Come play with A-Yuan and Zhan-gege!"

~

"Weren't you going to travel for the rest of forever?" Jin Ling asks, his nose turned up in a horrid attempt at disdain.

Wei Wuxian smiles. His nephew can be so damn adorable sometimes! Surely, that's all Shijie's part of his blood, he thinks, rueful and fond and aching. Jin Zixuan was too boring and snotty.

He raises an eyebrow, puts his hands on his hips. "Now who's been spreading rumours about me again?" He tsks, shaking his head. "Really, now, A-Ling. Haven't you learned not to believe every single thing you hear?"

Jin Ling rolls his eyes, and good gods above, but he looks like his father sometimes. Right down to the way he almost stomps his foot in annoyance, Wei Wuxian notes, amused. "That's what stupid Lan Jingyi was moaning and groaning about," the boy says, crossing his arms. "That you left, and cruelly abandoned not only Hanguang-Jun, again, but Sizhui and the rest of u-, um, them, the rest of them, too."

The rest of us, he almost said, and Wei Wuxian's heart grows hot in his chest. Silly boy. Silly, silly boy. "Lan Jingyi's going to get his ears boxed, and then he'll have to rewrite those damn Lan rules fifty times when I get back to Gusu." His smile softens. "I'll always come back. Shijie's child needs a fun uncle who will hug him and teach him how to fight off annoying brats."

Jin Ling blinks big, brown, red-rimmed eyes at him. And then, in Typical Jin Style, his hackles rise in embarrassment almost instantly. "I don't need-"

~

"Is Jingyi going to be alright?"

It's all Sizhui has been asking himself for the past day, with no answer coming, with little hope that he can see, and it feels like his chest might actually break open if someone doesn't tell him something he can cling to. 

His damn fool of a husband had gone night-hunting by himself, stating that he was going to start crawling up the walls of Cloud Recesses if he didn't get away from Old Master Lan's lessons (because apparently being the spouse of the next in line to be head of the Lan Clan meant more lessons, to Jingyi's dismay), and Sizhui had just nodded and sent him on his way. 

He sent him on his way, and Jingyi barely came back in one piece, and now Sizhui is the one who will start crawling up the walls. 

"He's going to be just fine," Young Master Wei says, plopping down next to where Sizhui had been sitting in one of the rabbits' clearings. "Jingyi's strong. I know that, and I know you know that. That brat's not giving up so easily, not when he has you and your daughter waiting for him to wake up."

And, yes. Logically, Sizhui knows this. "Mn, you're right. He's going to wake up soon."

~

They give Meiling her official Lan forehead ribbon (cloud-embroidered and with the small, silver centerpiece) when she turns five (or well, on the day they've chosen as her birthday, based on her approximate age when they found her and took her in). Great Uncle Lan has been grumping about it since the day they put the simple white training one on two years prior, going on and on about how she should have been sufficiently disciplined already to not need an adjustment period. Lan Jingyi, very respectfully, and very loudly when it comes up, disagrees.

(There are some clan elders who still whisper among themselves that she has no business even wearing one, seeing as she was not born into the clan, to which both Jingyi and Sizhui raise an eyebrow and point emphatically at Sizhui himself. That always shuts them up pretty quick.)

Meiling takes the ribbon with trembling fingers, though her back is straight and her posture impeccable. (Jingyi doesn't know if the tears he's holding back are from an overwhelming sense of pride or because of the fact that his little girl is growing up so fast.) "Thank you," she says, voice still so tiny and soft, as she lays it gently, carefully across her lap before bowing deeply to her fathers. "I shall wear it with both mindfulness and pride."

Yeah, Jingyi's definitely going to cry in about five seconds. 

"Would you like one of us to help you with it?" Sizhui, as always the calmer one of them, asks with a smile. 

~

He considers it, once, early on.

Telling someone, telling Xichen-Ge, is the most sensible thing to do, Huaisang knows. If there’s anyone who would be able to help him get justice for his brother’s untimely death, it’d be him.

Huaisang considers it. Carefully, he considers it.

And then discards the idea for the useless daydream it is, because he knows. How can he not?

(Who doesn’t know about Lan Xichen’s blindspot when it comes to Jin Guangyao?)

Lan Xichen would listen, and he would smile sadly, and he would hug Huaisang and pet his hair as if he were still a child. And then he would say that in his grief, perhaps Huaisang is looking for someone, anyone, to blame, that it is understandable. And he would be so genuinely kind about it, too, because Xichen-Ge has never been anything but kind to him.

Kindness is not what Huaisang needs.

No, he needs practicality, and he needs ruthlessness. He needs-

~

“Wangji needs to stop his foolishness with the Yiling Patriarch, and accept one of the proposals we have gotten for his hand, already,” Wei Wuxian hears one evening, as he’s heading back to the Jingshi. 

It’s been a long, tiring few days, what should have been a quick, simple hunt with Sizhui and Jingyi going slightly sideways, and he’s very, very ready to greet his husband and then sleep for a week. What he’s not ready for, is the vitriol in what sounds like a Lan Elder’s voice coming from around a corner. “I don’t understand why Xichen and Qiren have allowed this to go on as long as it has.”

And it’s not like Wei Wuxian hasn’t heard whispers along these lines before, talks about who would best suit as Lan Zhan’s wife, which marriage alliance would be more beneficial for the Lan Clan, and the legitimacy of Wei Wuxian’s place by Lan Zhan’s side. He has, a number of times in the few years since he and Lan Wangji have made their bows to each other.

It’s just that, sometimes… Sometimes, it hits harder, the reminder that he’s still not someone worthy of someone like Hanguang-jun. 

Still. 

Whatever the Lan Elders have to say, Lan Zhan is his as much as he is Lan Zhan’s.