Cloud Recesses' wards were ridiculously easy to dismantle and rebuild when Wei WuXian was only fifteen. After the Wen attacked the GusuLan, he had supposed that what remained of the sect Elders would have demanded that the new wards be considerably stronger.
They weren't.
It was rather disappointing, actually. Did no one learn anything from the Wen? Well, that was an easy answer. The cultivation world moved smoothly from one man attempting to control everyone to the next with barely a hiccup or thought that maybe power shouldn't be held by a select few whose morality was never questioned.
Then again, no one in Cloud Recesses seemed to have learned from the fifteen year old who breached their wards, either.
Avoiding the Lan patrols was almost as easy; he just had to remember to erase his snowy footprints as he walked. The few times he knew he was seen, the Lan disciples ignored him: a white cloak with the hood pulled up over his head was sufficient to reassure them that he was merely another disciple out for a walk. Wei WuXian thought he really should have a conversation with ZeWu-Jun about the appalling security. After he was done stealing HanGuang-Jun away, though. No sense in messing up what was possibly going to be the easiest heist in his career.
He found a nice little clearing not too far from the Jingshi and set up camp inside the branches of a perfectly concealing bunch of bushes. And found, to his surprise, that the clearing was occupied with beautiful balls of fur. "Rabbits!" he cooed happily. "I could stew you right here! So yummy.... Roasted over a spit, perhaps?" The bunny he was trying to hold jumped away (in horror?). "I'm not actually going to eat you," Wei WuXian said crossly. "The smell of roasting meat would surely bring even the stupidest Lan disciple here and I am trying to be discreet." He pulled out a drawing pad from his belongings and started sketching. "I'll bet Lan Zhan knows you're here, huh? Does he feed you? I miss him, you know. All these months and not a single letter. If we were kids, I'd think that was normal. But he promised me he would write to me. So I'll bet he did and some mean person stole them and burned them." Wei WuXian looked up from the drawing. "Oh. Do you think he put anything naughty in there? Can you imagine how red that person's face would be after reading it? Lan Zhan writing a naughty love letter to the Yiling Patriarch." he whistled low. "Not that they think I'm the Yiling Patriarch now.... I suppose that's a good thing, right? I didn't mind that nickname, but I didn't really enjoy it, either. It always felt like it was supposed to be an insult.
"What do you think Lan Zhan wrote in his letters? Boring sect stuff? I suppose my letters were also rather boring. But how do you write, 'hey Lan Zhan. Have you read page sixteen yet? I think we should try that. I think you should be the one on top because your arm strength is better than mine and I'll just collapse on you and smother you.'" He smiled fondly, and a bit smugly, at the nearest rabbit sniffing at his robes. "What would you know about it anyway? I've never seen animals using their mouths on each other. How would you even do it to each other?" He tilted his head and thought about it critically. "I suppose if you were both laying on your sides you could stretch your legs out of the way and do it like that." He looked down at his lap. "Time to change the subject before this gets messy." His sketch looked pretty good, so he sent it to his love.
His love who still hadn't been able to get a rock. How hard is it to get a rock when Cloud Recesses is full of them? Unless the rumors were true and Lan Zhan really was a prisoner.
By the end of the following day, Wei WuXian was horrified to learn that, yes, Lan Zhan was indeed being held prisoner. Of course, that's not what the disciples called it; they mentioned 'forced seclusion'. But what else can it be if you aren't allowed to leave your own house?
Wei WuXian felt that he could have gotten Lan Zhan out of this predicament. He had the worst luck, though. Every time he thought it safe enough to approach the Jingshi, yet another patrol passed by or there were guards looking at the doors. It would be easy enough to knock the guards or patrols out, but he was trying to be as unobtrusive as possible. Unconscious people did not constitute unobtrusiveness.
A few days later, Wie WuXian wasn't sure if he was actually seeing Lan WangJi run into the clearing or if he was hallucinating. Hearing his name, "Wei Ying!" called out with such love and anguish decided it for him. "Lan Zhan!" Greedy eyes drank in the jade's appearance. "Oh, fuck, you're beautiful. I missed you. I love you." Anything else he may have wanted to say was shoved back into his mouth along by Lan Zhan's tongue. I missed this. I missed you. It wasn't enough. They were pressed together as close as two fully dressed men could be; it wasn't close enough. Wei Ying yearned to strip his lover bare; it was too cold.
His tent wasn't cold; it was kept warm by a rather ingenious heating spell. "Lan Zhan. My tent," he panted. "Right there," he pointed in the general direction of the bushes. "Need you."
Lan Zhan bent slightly and kissed a wet kiss into Wei Ying's neck. "My house. More room. No ribbon. Need you. Need you now."
Wei Ying leaned back and allowed his happiness to overspill in laughter. "Lan Zhan, Lan Zhan.... You know how to use complete sentences with me. Why are you regressing?" He received a rather nice bite for his teasing. "All right. Fine. Let me pack my things and we can go to your house." Your house. Which has a bed.
A bed.
Which we can lie on.
Together.
And....
Wei WuXian wrenched his thoughts away from activities they had already done in bed and activities they had yet to do. Gathering up his few belongings, he asked, "Have they treated you well? Other than being stuck inside the Jingshi? You look like you've lost weight."
Lan WangJi nodded. "Well enough. Come."
Sneaking into the Jingshi was easy as there was no one guarding the back of the house. Looking at Lan WangJi tying his ribbon back on, Wei Ying sighed. "You mean to tell me I could have just walked inside?"
"Yes."
"I wasted all those days," Wei Ying muttered, more than slightly upset with himself for not even trying to break the Jingshi's wards.
"Here now." The jade's face wasn't so jadelike. There was a pink tinge to his ears and cheeks. "Bath?"
Wei Ying groaned in frustration. "A bath sounds heavenly. Lan Zhan.... What did they do to you?"
The jade ignored the question, instead opening his front door to request bath water from the disciple standing by his gate.
Wei WuXian washed himself up perfunctorily, more concerned with the fact that he was naked on one side of the privacy screen while Lan Zhan was completely dressed on the other. Although it wasn't as if this situation hadn't happened night after night in Yiling....
They hadn't confessed to each other, yet, in Yiling.
They hadn't been given a talk by Wen Qing in Yiling.
They hadn't been given a sex manual in Yiling.
Wei Ying was overly aware of exactly how naked he was. Every swipe of the rough washcloth against skin set sensitive nerves aflame. He would much prefer that it be calloused fingertips brushing against him. Lan Zhan... do you have any idea what you do to me? You're not even looking at me, and I'm already like this? Will you come here and touch me? If I leave this tub, dripping wet and just put my robe on, it will turn nearly transparent in seconds. Will you want to touch me, then? I've read QingJie's book so many times, I can recite it from memory. And you know how bad my memory is. So you know how many times I've read the damned thing. He stood up and dried off. It wouldn't do to be sopping wet and practically bare if Lan Zhan didn't want the same things. Wei Ying rounded the privacy screen, clothed enough in a shirt and trousers, only to see his love snap his writing brush clean in two.
"Wei Ying is beautiful," Lan Zhan whispered. "So beautiful."
Wei Ying wanted to make a joke: if you think I look good in clothes, wait till you see me out of them. Even he wasn't that shameless. Yet. "Lan Zhan is beautiful, too."
"Comb your hair," Lan Zhan stood up in one smooth motion and went to his dressing table to get his comb. Wei Ying obediently sat and let his love dry out his hair and start combing through it. "I missed this, too. You're much more gentle than I am with my hair. XiaoYuan sometimes tries to comb out my hair." Wei Ying laughed at the memories. "He just drags the comb through, disregarding snarls. I have so many pulled hairs lying around when he's done."
"Mmm."
"Lan Zhan? It's all right that you don't talk, you know. I can talk enough for the both of us. I guess being stuck here with no company, you got used to not talking again, huh?"
"Overwhelmed right now. Besides, no one wants to hear what Lan Zhan has to say."
"That's not true!" Wei Ying spun around. "There are plenty of people who want to hear what you have to say."
"Not here."
"I suppose your uncle just wants to hear you echoing him, huh? Or agreeing with him?"
"Elders, too."
Wei Ying leaned forward to peck at Lan Zhan's mouth. "Well, outside of Cloud Recesses there are people who will listen even if you say what they do not want to hear. Not everyone is stodgy." Another peck became a kiss. And another. Lips sliding, dragging, teasing. "Missed this," Wei Ying moaned softly. He took the lead, running his tongue along the seam, requesting access. Being granted access. Hands sliding across silk, combing through hair to caress scalps. Tongues tangling, swiping. Heaven. Heads tilting, wrong angle, can't breathe, who needs to breathe? So hard. Touch me. Touch me, Lan Zhan.
"Yes," Lan Zhan answered.
The ties at his waist fell away. His shirt pushed off and down. Wei Ying's fingers untucked and untwisted and untied. "So many robes? Do you really need five layers when you're all alone?" he grumbled. Bare chest to bare chest, fingers tugging and twirling around hard nipples. Sinking into the mattress with a hard body pressed on top in all the right places. How did we get to the bed? It didn't matter. Touch, taste. Wei Ying gasped as yet another bruise was sucked into his skin.
Wei Ying arose from the fog of being pleasured out of his mind enough to remember that he wanted more. So much more. He deliberately and slowly slid his hand from a taut pec, to trace the rectangular dents in Lan Zhan's abdomen, and lower. Circling the belly button, following the thin line of hair lower, lower, slowly, so slowly. Waiting to see if Lan Zhan would stop him. Fingers sliding sideways, back and forth along the trousers' waistline. Do you want this? Do you want me to touch you there? Silver eyes stared into golden ones. Tell me you want this. Or tell me to stop. There were no words forthcoming. Just inhalations and a bruising kiss.
Followed by Lan Zhan sucking his stomach in, allowing the waistband to droop.
Hello dear readers.
One big stress is off my shoulders. A gazillion more to go. Which means brain is more on track than it was a few days ago. This chapter is in the right place. Pinky promise.
- Aitch.