#yamp

Lan Wangji sees it.

Sees the way demonic cultivation changes him.

Could still change him.

Could make Wei Wuxian into someone, something, unrecognizable and awe inspiringly terrible.

Perhaps being merciless and cold would take time to set in, more than it would take in a lesser man but set in it would, to his veins and his heart.

But it would come and make home in the soul of someone who so fully experiences the world.

Would take that human shaped sun’s worth of warmth and care, and twist it into something recognizable only by the face it once wore.

And Lan Wangji can not do what must be done in the moment.

Can not raise hand or sword to Wei Wuxian.

(Tries with words and truths and is rebuffed and it feels like he’s being thrown away.)

Does not want to even though he is desperate to do so.

He flees.

-

His hands settle on the strings.

Stretched taunt.

Practically vibrating on their own waiting for someone to give them a way to release sound into the air.

He let’s them use him as their conduit.

Let’s the soft melody wash over him.

Let’s his companion sit nearby and listen.

It is peace.

It is comfort.

“Did you practice the guqin as much as the sword Lan Zhan, you seem to be perfect with both.”

Wangji does not give him an answer beyond his sword shooting towards a laughing Wuxian.

His yelp and continuing laughter blend well with the music.

-

“Oooo, so cold.”

The complaint is annoying.

Just as all the others have been.

“How can you handle this.”

It’s muttered and Wangji can tell it’s not a question actually directed at him, but one that Wei Wuxian thinks he’s asking quietly.

Lan Wangji takes a steadying breath and keeps his eyes closed as the water shifts around them.

Nothing about Wei Wuxian has been quiet since the day they met.

“Are you not cold?”

Close enough for the words to glide over his skin and the warmth of the other’s body to sink through the air towards his skin.

He keeps his mouth closed and turns from the voice.

Doesn’t let the frustration show on his face.

“Stupid perfect Lan Zhan.” Muttered again.

Wangji let’s one small bit of air puff from his nose and steps into a deeper part of the river.

Stupid loud Wei Wuxian.

-

“Perfect.”

Whisper quiet, it threads through the air like the soft night breeze off a placid lake.  Carrying tenderness and reverence in the way that breeze would the aura of life and bring relief to a warm summer evening, yet when it reaches Wangji it sours through his soul before he can stop it.

Perfect.

He is no more perfect than any of the men who clutch at what they have and wish for more more more.

Than the spirits of the world that demand innocence lost.

Lan Wangji is not perfect.

Never was.

Proof of that is in the way his heart beats strongly for the first time in years through their gentle conversation.

The way his eyes shut against his will when Wuxian moves close.

(Don’t they know to keep open?

To keep watch of this wonderful, despicable, man who’s finally returned to him.

Don’t they feel the need to capture every single piece of him they can so that if they are torn apart again he may have more to remember him by?)

The way he tenses minutely, yet they both sense it don’t they, when a hand cradles his neck and fingers dip under his clothing.

There is nothing perfect in the way Lan Wangji, second of the Twin Jades and Bringer of Light, leans into the touch of a man who should be dead.

Any scraps of perfection are continuously torn from his soul and he pulls himself back when those nearly soft hands drift farther along his bare skin and jolt him back to the moment they are living.

(Gods they are living, both of them.)

“There is work to be done,” He says to the man he’s loved so long with so much of his heart that he can barely remember what it felt to not love him. “Wei Ying.”

That gorgeously bright smile is directed at him again.

Wangji is reminded intimately that he does remember what if felt like to not love that smile, that he knows what if feels to be left by that smile.

He shifts his robes back into place, his own fingers brushing cloth over scarred skin.

“Ah, my perfect Lan Zhan, always so set on business.”

Wangji wants to tell that smile that though he will always be Wuxian’s there is nothing about him that is perfect.

A-yuan is a blessing and curse.

(It hurts for so long to see him and raise him, but it would hurt so much more to not have him in his life.

To have lost another good and sweet soul when he’s still fresh in heartbreak.

Not that Wangji only keeps A-yuan around for the sake of his Wei Ying, but that the boy is good and kind and is nothing less than his son in heart and now name.

There is so very little Lan Wangji would not do for that boy if he needed it.

He hears the whispers of ‘what a perfect father’ and he crumbles from the inside out, he holds A-yuan tight enough that it will hopefully convey the love of two men rather than one.)

He brings out humor and is a constant reminder of why they keep the world cleansed and turning.  Is so very clearly an innocent who needs guidance and deserves patience and care, that Wangji could never even think not to take him.

He brings out joy and softness and unending depths of kindness in Wei Wuxian that leave Wangji taken and-

And Wangji wants.

Ardently, with a force and strength that steals his breath each and every time it hits him.

Wants to give this man, this Wei Wuxian that comes and goes and searches him out, his everything.

Wants to hold and be held in return.

With all the tenderness those hands reach out to their little A-yuan with, Wangji wants that wrapped around his chest like it already cradles his heart.

-

Lan Wangji looks over a cliff.

And over a ledge.

And over a pool.

He searches in vain for something he can not find.

Will never find again.

Could perhaps given a proper burial years ago.

But he did not search here years ago.

(With his mind, his soul, his entire being trapped in the clouds and cold streams that did nothing more than hurt and hurt and tease painful remembrance from him till his limbs could take him beyond the guarded walls and barriers.)

Can not even give a burial in his mind, because Wei Ying dances between his thoughts like he danced between his strikes when they fought.

And that can never be forgotten.

Never put to rest.

Not that he’s tried very hard to do so.

Lan Zhan can only suffer so many goodbyes in person, why enforce them in his own heart.

-

Somehow it is roofs that become their domain.

A meeting on a roof.

A fight on a roof.

A talk and secrets pressed between gasps and delight.

Where Wei Wuxian gazes at him, eyes reflecting the vast myriad of stars above them that are out matched only by the love Lan Wangji holds in his being.

Where Wei Wuxian holds his arms and counts ribs with his thumbs and calls him perfection with his words and eyes and fingers and lips.

Where Wei Wuxian is perfection and Lan Wangji feels like a poor imitation of that and every other perfection that’s entered into his life, but if perfection is what Wei Ying imagines him to be then perfection is what Lan Zhan will strive for with more of himself than ever before.

-

Once upon a time Wei Wuxian thought of him like a soulmate.

The intensity of it rises itself within him and Lan Wangji almost breaks.

“Such a perfect man that I once, twice, forever treated as my soulmate.”

It is said again in the night air between them, as hands begin to push back his robes and weight shifts over top of him.