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Lan Wangji has three weaknesses, and they all have to do with one Wei Wuxian.
The first is his tears. He’s only seen them two times, and he’d rather not remember those moments. He’s not pretty when he cries, because Wei Ying crying hurts and feels just as wrong as a black sun on a bright sky. He cries with honesty and a broken-open vulnerability that aches to look at.
The second is his smile—obvious, really, for anyone who’s ever witnessed it. Wei Ying smiles bright and unabashedly, whole face crinkling up with joy or mischief; or more often both. He tilts his head and flashes his teeth and it’s beautiful. They all hit as hard, knocking any breath from his body. And sometimes they’re softer, gentler, more private. They’re given with sideways glances or shared over low tables late at night. He treasures them like the gifts they are.
The third—well. It’s harder to put into words. But sometimes Lan Wangji will witness the man he’s fallen in love with make a stand, raise his voice until it’s loud and harsh and stern. His fists will clench, limbs stiffening for a fight, face settling into a furious demand. Anger burns beautifully in him, as bright as his smile and as stinging as his tears.
He remembers Wei Wuxian fist fighting his sister’s fiancée in their youth, shaking in his fury as he defended her honor. He remembers looking up at a Wei Wuxian who had just crashed a banquet with the utmost confidence, downing a cup of alcohol meant for him. The expression of authority on his face as he counted down for war—along with the thrill of fear, there had been something else travelling down Lan Wangji’s body. It was the way he held himself, as if at this very moment, he was the predator, the one in control, the one in command.
Because it’s not really about anger, he knows. He has no wish to see Wei Wuxian disrespected. It's the way in which his lip twitches before he slays a demonic being—the way his eyes harden when someone badmouths the Jiangs or the Lans—the way he so naturally leads and takes control, as if born for the spotlight.
It makes his heart jackrabbit and his senses sharpen until the world is vivid around the stark beauty of Wei Ying. It’s not fear; it’s submission, freely offered from the deepest, softest parts of his chest. It’s a bared throat and underbelly, a tremble in his being, a given loss of control.
Oh, how he wants to lose himself to Wei Ying.
And as fun as the thrill of Wei Ying facing his enemies is, there are still enemies. He can never allow himself to lean into those urges, when there is a threat present. When Wei Ying takes the lead because of necessity.
No, the best moments are when that dominance is coaxed out of his every-day manner of humor and self-deprecation, to snap like a whip through the room, lazy and thoughtless, but sending shiver upon shiver down Lan Wangji’s back.
He’s penning a letter by candlelight in their shared inn quarters one evening, to inform his brother of their latest travels, while Wei Wuxian is busy over by his bed. Sewing up his sleeve after having it torn during a bustle with a particularly fierce animal spirit, he believes. The quiet noises of inkbrush against paper and needle through fabric are soft and comforting, a rustle in the calm evening.
It’s a moment of relief to sit in the stillness like this, after a dizzying day of being close, of Wei Wuxian’s smiles in his proximity, of his voice mumbling in his ear, of private jokes told only for his pleasure. Of a red-hot tension waiting to snap, patient but stretched taut in his pulse. Like this, he can feel the presence of him at a safe distance to breathe. To steal small glances in between strokes of ink.
He watches Wei Ying put his work away, seemingly proud of himself. He darts a look at the way he looks when he drinks—he’s produced a porcelain bottle out of seemingly nowhere. In the middle of his gulps, he catches his eyes. As he puts away the bottle he smiles. It holds a different edge than his usual beams.
“Lan Zhan,” he suddenly calls, voice gone soft. “Come over here.”
He looks over in confusion. Does he want him to look at something? There’s nothing in his hands. But there is intent in his eyes. Wei Wuxian is leaning back onto his arms, posture relaxed, face gently amused. He’s about to open his mouth to ask, but something in the way he’s looked at makes him hesitate.
Mouth a little dry, he walks over, stopping in front of the man on the bed. Wei Wuxian tilts his head as he glances up at him.
“On your knees,” he says, calmly.
The words sink through him with a weight that almost has him staggering. His lungs are out of air. Surely—surely, he couldn’t—
He has no idea what his face looks like right now. But Wei Wuxian just keeps looking expectantly at him, waiting.
Slowly, he lets his legs give out, until he’s settling gracefully on the floor. He cannot look away from Wei Ying even as his whole being burns.
“See, Lan Zhan dear, you’ve got—“
Wei Wuxian leans in close, hand reaching towards his head.
“—a poor leaf taken hostage here.”
He tears something off a spike of his headpiece. It’s a little brown leaf. He stares at the other man, who bursts into a giggle.
“Haha, Lan Zhan, come on.” Playfully, he leans in again, merciless towards Lan Wangji’s current mortification. “You were very good. What did you think I was gonna do, hmm?”
Silently, he keeps his eyes on the floor. Of course. He burns with many things, now.
A fingertip catches his chin, has him look up. In the dim candlelit room, in black and red, Wei Wuxian is beautiful. Always beautiful. He can’t help his expression softening even as his gaze stays accusatory. A thumb swipes over his cheek, lightly, and he breathes out quickly through his nose.
“Ah, so pretty… Look at you. You look like you’d do anything I asked right now.”
A little grin tugs at the corner of his lip. Still, there’s some of that intent left in his eyes. Like a curiosity at what would happen if he were to push beyond something unnamed—to fall into that intoxicating rush of the unknown and forbidden. Lan Wangji hopes his eyes speak of his wish, his need, his plead for him to do whatever he wanted to him.
Wei Wuxian brandishes his hand, coquettish like an empress.
“Kiss my hand, Hanguang-Jun,” he says.
The air pauses around him, once more. He’s caught in it—the confused fluster of sitting between Wei Ying’s lazily lounging legs, looking up at the other man. His pulse balances the razor edge of fear and lust. It wraps him up, the atmosphere of it, like a hot and heavy blanket dragging him under.
It’s a joke and it’s not. Not to him. Not when it’s Wei Ying.
With all the hesitant elegance he can muster, Lan Wangji places his hand lightly under Wei Wuxian’s palm, which is very warm. He bows his head and places a noiseless kiss onto the top of his hand, then glances up.
Wei Wuxian has gone very still. He’s not smiling anymore. Something smug curls pleasantly in Lan Wangji’s belly as he sees his breathing has slowed significantly.
“Lan… Lan Zhan—”
Slowly, he breaks the skin contact between them. There is no taste on his lips, but the essence of Wei Ying still burns on his mouth.
“You…”
The hand above his has lost all strength, so he leads it to his own cheek and places it gently there. With a breath, the other man’s eyes seem to clear. Then they darken. His thumb wanders again, over the softness of his cheek and to his mouth. Lan Wangji accepts it with a dip of his head, allowing the plushness of his lower lip to push into the touch.
A moment, and then Wei Ying is asking permission—thumb brushing across his mouth in a way that tickles, teasing his lips to part. Lan Wangji opens willingly. He keeps his eyes turned up to catch any command, any unease or shock, any pleasure, but Wei Wuxian stays silent and breathless as Lan Wangji takes his thumb into the warmth of his mouth.
Only when he drags the tip of his tongue down its length does he react; closing his eyes and turning aside as a stunned gasp is torn from him.
“Again,” he breathes. Lan Wangji obeys, pressing his tongue flat against the skin, sucking.
“Hah,” Wei Ying moans, thumb hooking in his mouth. “Lan Zhan, okay, fuck.”
He tears his hand back and immediately begins to mess around with his headpiece.
“What,” Lan Wangji says, voice sounding deeper than usual.
“I wanna pull your hair,” Wei Wuxian explains, “—while you suck my dick. Yeah?”
Arousal hits him hard in a second wave, stronger than before now that it’s explicit. Vulgar words and something he’d never dare beg for, but yes—he wants that.
“Mhn—” His sound of consent ends up dragged-out and full of desire. “Wei Ying.”
“Huh?”
He’s breathless as he lets pins clatter to the floor. Soon the weight of his headpiece lifts away. Lan Wangji whispers his name again, wanting to hold it in his mouth, so intimately, as a tease of what’s to come.
“Like this, Lan Zhan,” and his fingers sink into thick dark hair, silky and lovely. He pulls, with one hand, and Lan Wangji’s head falls back.
“Hmm? You like it?”
His mouth is open, he realizes.
“You like having your hair pulled, Lan Zhan?”
A tug, and he makes a quiet moan.
“Please,” he says.
Wei Wuxian leans in close, grip unforgiving.
“Tell me you like it.”
“I, I like it.”
“Are you hard right now?”
“Hh—Please—"
“Answer me.”
He shuts his eyes, feels the blush on his skin.
“Yes.”
“Good.”
His hair is let go and he sways for a second, a puppet with cut strings. He looks up in confusion, but Wei Wuxian is opening his belt. Oh. Flushing with another layer of heat, he rests his head against the other’s thigh as he watches him through lashes. Black robes pulled aside, revealing the sensual red of his inner clothing. Then that also pulled aside, a calloused hand dipping into dark pants, pulling himself out.
He watches. It’s all he can do today; watch in a daze as he indulgently takes in the shape of Wei Ying’s cock, the way it’s curved, the coloring of it. His body can’t move until he hears that gentle but unforgiving voice again.
“Lan Zhan… Look at me.”
That’s easy. He’s sitting closer now, the space between thighs welcoming him. With this angle he feels small and soft in Wei Wuxian’s full attention. The weight of the other’s lust sinks down around him like honey.
“Open your mouth. You know how?”
“I will try,” he whispers. Amusement, or maybe endearment, curls across that pretty face.
“Okay. Try well for me, love.”
“Yes,” he says hoarsely, and leans in.
His tongue drags against skin, smooth and strange and intimate. It’s clean and warm. He decides he likes it.
His slow, sliding explorations have fingers sinking into his hair again, holding the curtain of it away from his face. They tighten just a little, as a reminder, and a palm cups the back of his head as guidance. Lan Wangji closes his eyes and breathes in through his nose, and takes him into his mouth.
Almost instantly, the fullness of it has him make a sound—which is muffled and rounded by the flesh in his mouth, which again turns him on and makes him repeat it. He ducks his head in further, tasting and struggling a little with the first wave of something bitter. But then his nose reaches hot belly and dark hair, and he has to press his thighs together hard.
Wei Ying moans, a punched-out groan. His fist tightens in his hair, pressing him in further. Lan Wangji allows him, wills his body to open up and relax around the intrusion. It’s a fucking rush to be able to take all of him—to please.
Am I pleasing you, Wei Ying, I want to please you, make you happy, make you come…
The hand tugs, reminding him to pull back and suck in air through his nose. His head spins even in the dark behind his eyelids, so it’s likely a good idea. He finds a rhythm of moving, slick now with his own spit—filthy, a part of his mind observes—and his lips slide easy against cock.
“Yes, Lan Zhan… Yes, keep going.”
His breathless words sends a happy thrill through him, and he devotes himself to hearing them again. Shyness melts away as he absorbs himself in his task, fully and utterly lost in the haze of it. His universe folds into simple forms of flesh and rushing blood, of skin and scent and precome, of a sting in his scalp and a tremble in the body enveloping him. His own lust throbs between his legs, heavy but patient.
“Yes, that’s so good. Fuck. You’re so good at this.”
“Mhhmmhm…mhm…”
He practically purrs, his moans melting right into skin.
“How can you be so pretty sucking dick—”
“Mhmf—”
“Look so fucking pretty—”
Wei Ying swears as he’s swallowed down fully again, Lan Wangji leaning in and in and in, following the tremble in that abdomen even as the other’s body curls in around him.
“Fuck—fuck—yes, take it—yes, come on—”
Wei Ying comes in his mouth. Even as open and slick as his throat is, he soon coughs, leaving behind a mess matted in dark hair as he pulls off. He licks his sore lips, tasting sticky come. A deep sense of fulfillment rests in his belly, making everything feel okay.
His eyes find their center of gravity again, wide and honest and waiting. His mouth hangs open, messy and warm. Wei Wuxian is catching his breath. A slight sheen dusts his face, his cheeks darkened. He looks beautifully disheveled.
“You’re close,” he observes between pants. Lan Wangji hasn’t been aware it was that obvious. He’s shaking with it. It feels like the right word from Wei Ying’s mouth would make the particles of his being tremble apart in ecstasy. The anticipation is tight and heavy in his gut.
“I wanna see you.”
Wei Wuxian puts his free hand on his thigh, leaning down close. He pulls hard at his hair, forcing his neck to arch. When Lan Wangji only gasps, he tightens his fingers close to his scalp and gives a yank.
“Yes, moan for me—”
A sharp tug back and forth.
“Look at me—”
Lustful eyes burning into him.
“Look at me when you come.”
It burns through his nerves in a slow, electrifying wave, whole body clenching up with the pleasure. His cock twitches, a delicious satisfaction spilling through him. No sound is filtered through his open mouth.
He falls into Wei Ying’s lap when he’s spent. His chest is heaving. There is no muscle fiber left in his content limbs.
“You did very well,” he hears the whisper as a hand drags apologetically through now tangled hair. “Wow, Lan Zhan… You impress in all fields.”
“For you,” he says, sounding half asleep. There’s a delighted laugh.
“Only for me?”
“Mn.”
A pause. Then, as if accepting the gift offered, Wei Ying’s voice turns confident.
“Only for me.”