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Qiongqi Pass could maybe have gone worse, Wei Wuxian reflects, but overall it’d been pretty shit from the get-go.

First Jin Whatever showed up, showing off his pitted chest and yowling about some curse he thought Wei Wuxian had put on him (Wei Wuxian is fairly certain he’d have to know the target to lay as specific a curse as the Hundred Holes, and despite how much he’d wanted to rip the asshole’s face off in the moment, he could swear they’d never met before in his life). Then the archers, both Jin and some straggling, confused-looking Lan, popped up, and then Wei Wuxian’s gift for Shijie’s baby got smashed, and then Wen Ning was doing that thing where he gets rage-quiet instead of his usual good-shy-boy-quiet—Keep it together, keep it together, if Wei Wuxian snapped and let himself tear through the Jins’ soft spoiled little bodies who even knows what it might make Wen Ning do—and then, as everybody was snarling and bristling and braced for a fight—

He’d felt the change in pressure like an approaching storm, seen the flutter of crisp white robes in his periphery. From behind him, the sharpest, most familiar voice in the world called:

“Wei Wuxian, you’ve worried my sister with how late you are! Quit dragging your feet; Hanguang-jun and I’ve come to… What the fuck. What the fuck, Jin Zixun, what the hell do you think you’re doing—”

And then there was the creak-twang of a panicked, misfired arrow. A line of pain bloomed along Wei Wuxian’s cheek, then behind him came the thud as the shot hit the dirt, harmless—but it mightn’t have been.

Lan Zhan and Jiang Cheng were behind him, in the line of fire, and the Jin had still dared.

Wen Ning exploded into motion as the rage building behind Wei Wuxian’s clenched teeth tore outward, poured from him in a howling rush. The force of that rage toppled the archers, clawed chunks out of the cliff-face. Everything devolved into smoke and screams and blood, to arrows that ripped through his sleeves and sliced past his skin, to the vibrato of qin chords, to lightning that cut through the haze in clean, shining lashes—

Lan Zhan, he recalls, had shouted his name.

Now he’s a little more back in his body, the rage slowly draining away, and Wei Wuxian finds himself somewhere in the scrubby woodlands that flank the pass. He’s bloody, but whole. His innards prickle with the scorched sensation that follows heavy use of resentful energy. The ground is studded with Jin arrows, the arrowheads inlaid with mother-of-pearl and the fletching feathers literally gilt-edged, because the Jin are absurd; if Wei Wuxian grabs a few of these to sell, the Burial Mounds settlement will have extra food money for a month. Some of the arrows still have talismans for subduing and paralysis wrapped around their broken shafts (what overkill! The big bad curse-casting Yiling Patriarch had really freaked the Jin out, huh!). There are a few dead Jin disciples lying around him, gouges taken out of their backs where resentment had torn at them as they tried to retreat like cowards. The remaining Jins bleat in the distance, shouts steadily growing fainter as they chase something—Wen Ning, leading them away. Wei Wuxian can feel Wen Ning’s resolve through their connection, his calmness, his bitterness toward the Jin, his determination to draw the threat far away from Wei Wuxian. Wei Wuxian’s stomach lurches, but Wen Ning is faster and stronger than any of them, and is intimately familiar with this area. He’ll be all right, he’ll leave his pursuers behind in the dust. For now, Wei Wuxian needs to—

A groan, from off to the left. Wei Wuxian is sprinting toward it before he even consciously recognizes the voice.

A clearing. Everything drenched in bright, harsh light. Jiang Cheng is leaned against a tree, one hand clenched against the rough bark and the other pressed hard against his own torso. His fancy robes with the fashionably ugly patterned side-panels have been sliced across his ribs, the fabric gaping open—red, red. It spills from his side, seeps between his fingers, slicks dark down his body toward the scuffed dirt. As Wei Wuxian bursts into the clearing, Jiang Cheng startles up, snarling, then settles back down toward his normal level of pissed-off. “The fuck did you do,” he growls.

Resentment blooms sour in Wei Wuxian’s mouth, washed away immediately by the familiar, frantic nausea of seeing Jiang Cheng hurt. “Nothing! Not step directly into a Jin arrow, like you apparently did. How embarrassing for you.” He ignores Jiang Cheng’s hiss of Oh sure, I just walked right into an arrow and automatically goes to check the wound, then twitches away at the last moment. This keyed-up, there’s no telling what the resentful energy roiling under his skin will do. And it’s risky for him to touch Jiang Cheng anyway, now that he has no core. Wei Wuxian probably wouldn’t be found out just from a simple touch, probably not even a more thorough sweep of spiritual energy—but anything more than that, especially from Jiang Cheng, who once knew Wei Wuxian’s energy almost as well as his own, would be pushing his luck. Wei Wuxian might be reckless, but he can’t be with this. Not with Jiang Cheng.

The moment of hesitation goes unnoticed, anyway: Jiang Cheng smacks his hand away before he even comes close. “Get off,” he snaps. “It’s not that deep, my core will take care of it. Just… give me a minute.”

It totally is that deep, but Wei Wuxian pretends obedience, hovering a hand over the wound. Jiang Cheng’s hands are in the way so Wei Wuxian can’t see the injury clearly, and his ability to sense spiritual energy is now pretty much nil so he can’t really feel it either, but he can feel the chill rolling from it. Nasty, though nothing a cultivator as strong as Jiang Cheng shouldn’t be able to handle. “I saw the Jin had spelled some of their arrows with different kinds of curses. Fast-setting infection? Or minor yin imbalance, maybe…?”

Jiang Cheng grunts. “Maybe.” He scowls and flicks his gaze up and down Wei Wuxian, narrowing his eyes at the blood-streaked rips in Wei Wuxian’s clothes. “You were hit by the arrows. You’re not affected?”

Wei Wuxian flaps a hand. “Barely got scratched; they couldn’t aim for shit.” He glances around the forest. “Lan Zhan didn’t get hurt, right? Where is he?”

There’s the barest pause, then a wheezing scoff. “Who knows? He was fine last I saw him. The esteemed Hanguang-jun obviously wouldn’t be so stupid as to get injured by the likes of Jin Zixun.”

True, Lan Zhan is better than literally anybody! Also, “Jin who?”

“Jin Guangshan’s nephew, idiot. You can’t even name the man who just tried to kill you? No wonder you’re a walking political disaster.” Jiang Cheng shrugs off Wei Wuxian’s yelp of protest. “Zixun’s high-ranked in the Jin Clan, there’s no way this wasn’t sanctioned by somebody… Oh, shut up and look around for your precious Lan Zhan while I heal this up. But stay close; the last thing I need is you getting shot or stabbed or poisoned or whatever the fuck the Jin were trying to pull off here.”

The last thing Jiang Cheng needs? Wei Wuxian is the one who the Jin were trying to drag down, accuse of—whatever they were accusing him of. And Wei Wuxian hasn’t been Jiang Cheng’s problem for nearly two years now. He leaves Jiang Cheng to his muttering and his annoyed prodding at the arrow-wound, and steps into the shadows of the trees. He gathers resentful energy to himself with a breath, directs it with a whistle. His meridians flare with that scorched feeling again, needling and oversensitive. It takes a worryingly long moment to wrangle the energy, but it obeys him in the end, sweeping out across the forest floor away from him like the shadow of wings, hissing, clicking, whispering to him of everything it touches.

The Jin, scurrying around at an unthreatening distance. The cool familiarity of Wen Ning, sprinting safely away but still always tethered to Wei Wuxian, ready to be drawn back at a moment’s notice. The sticky potential of the several dead and dying Jin archers left crumpled by the cliffs. And a bright, clean presence driving toward Wei Wuxian, his every footfall a ripple of light.

Even in this situation, just knowing Lan Zhan is near helps Wei Wuxian feel calmer. The throb in his meridians eases.

“He’s okay,” he sighs, stepping back into the clearing. “I’ll go join up with him, and then first priority is making sure Wen Ning’s safe, and then we should all—”

Jiang Cheng is on his knees.

“Jiang Cheng!” Wei Wuxian crashes down next to him.

Jiang Cheng groans and curls further in on himself, hand tightening over the blood-soaked fabric of his side. Even at a distance, Wei Wuxian can feel the increase in the feverish, unnatural cold that rolls off the wound, burning like the resentment in Wei Wuxian’s veins. “I’m fine,” Jiang Cheng rasps, because he apparently thinks Wei Wuxian has shit for brains, or he’s already gone delirious. He opens one eye to glower at Wei Wuxian. Sweat beads at his temples and across his viciously furrowed forehead, but his skin has gone pale, the edges of his lips faintly blue. “Core’s still not working right. Some kind of—yin-energy misbalancing effect, I think. Don’t touch me, it might spread through contact.”

“Fuck,” says Wei Wuxian, because it’s not just a fucking spell, it’s not just a yin imbalance. He can tell even from here, can tell even with his spiritual senses muffled. The wound is a poisoned, it’s a curse. And it is, he realizes with growing horror, full of resentment. He pulls tentatively at the resentful energy collected around and inside the wound, able to sense the shape of it now—the deep puncture, the ripped edges where the arrow must have torn free, the curse sinking deep bruises into the flesh all around the gash. Something sharp and large and heavy-hitting had struck Jiang Cheng broadside and sliced him deep, then—ripped—like an animal, like something alive and angry, like… like…

No. Maybe Wei Wuxian’s resentful energy had been, what, drawn by the spilled blood? Jiang Cheng got shot, and the resentment tried to pour into the wound, tried to—but no, Wei Wuxian wouldn’t make a mistake like that, he’d never do anything to injure Jiang Cheng. He’d been totally in control during the fight. He’d been fine. He swears he’d been fine—

The resentment pulses out of Wei Wuxian’s grasp; Jiang Cheng hisses in pain and pulls away. A fresh gush of blood bursts from between his fingers, wetting Zidian.

“Stop it, hold still, let shixiong get at it—”

“Piss off. Who’s my shixiong,” Jiang Cheng snarls, making another halfhearted slap at Wei Wuxian’s reaching hand. “You think I don’t know you’ll just try to take in on yourself? I said you can’t touch me!”

He knows he can’t, far better than Jiang Cheng does. Core! Secret! “I wasn’t going to! I was going to hold my hand like an inch away and draw the curse into me from a distance!”

“That’s not even a thing. And what I mean is, what would it fix just to have you poisoned instead?”

“Oh, so now you admit you’re poisoned—And shit, Jiang Cheng, I don’t know, what other way have you thought of to dump a boatload of yang energy into you fast enough to drag your qi back into line?!”

They both freeze, going silent as the obvious answer hits them both at once.

After a long, long second, Jiang Cheng swallows. Sweat shines on the movement of his throat. “Dual cultivation isn’t the same as just dumping qi into somebody,” he croaks. “It’s way more involved and takes a long time. You mean an acute qi infusion.”

“Sure, fine, acute qi infusion,” Wei Wuxian parrots. “But that—it could be—” His brain stutters back into motion, thoughts spinning so fast around not-picturing The Obvious Answer that he can’t manage anything else. “That… would probably work.”

“No,” Jiang Cheng spits. He manages to get to his knees, tipping himself back and away from Wei Wuxian to lean against the tree, still clutching at his side. His face is paler than ever, but his eyes are huge and dark. “I’ll just—I’ll meditate.” Not a bad plan, per se; meditation is one of the aspects of cultivation that Jiang Cheng is genuinely better at than Wei Wuxian (although Wei Wuxian is superior at maximizing the cultivation benefits when he actually does manage to sit down and concentrate). But Jiang Cheng was clearly trying to meditate when Wei Wuxian found him; if it could help, it already would’ve. Pointedly, the wound oozes another wave of blood. “And there’s no one even here, anyway!”

“Other than me and you,” says Wei Wuxian, automatically. And idiotically. Brain still not working.

The silence this time is deafening.

“That’s,” says Jiang Cheng, and stops. His voice is hoarse, his face flushed with shame beneath the ashy paleness of the curse. He opens his mouth, flinches away from whatever he was going to say, then swallows hard. His hand—doesn’t lift, nothing that overt. But his fists loosen, then ease open to rest, flat-palmed, against his side and the blood-smeared grass. For Jiang Cheng, it’s as good as reaching out.

 “You and me?” he rasps.

Wei Wuxian stares at Jiang Cheng’s open hands, his open, vulnerable expression, and can’t move.

He can’t do it. He can’t just—like, obviously Wei Wuxian’s thought about—no, imagined—no—

Okay, so like, brains are weird, right? And if a guy occasionally has dreams, growing up, about his sharp-tongued, objectively-somewhat-better-than-average-looking shidi gone all red-faced and needy, wanting him—asking, offering, drawing open his own robes and pulling Wei Wuxian close with eager hands—or even just happy again, smiling like Wei Wuxian used to be able to get him to do so easily—

That sort of stuff is—fine. It’s hormones. It’s normal! It’s nobody’s fault, is the point he’s trying to make, and it doesn’t have to make anything weird as long as you just never bring it up or never like, consciously think about it, because it’s not like it’s real. Not like it would ever happen. It doesn’t have to ruin anything!    

And this, this would ruin—

—even beyond what Wei Wuxian has already ruined—

—for something Jiang Cheng has never wanted from him, something Jiang Cheng’s been forced into. Literally poisoned into needing—

And Jiang Cheng doesn’t want it. Not from him. Things are still all weird between them—which, yeah, technically things are also totally fine, Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng haven’t really cut ties like the rest of the world believes, Jiang Cheng brought Shijie to Yiling to show Wei Wuxian her wedding clothes, and Shijie’s letters have said that Jiang Cheng has done a lot to help her and the peacock ensure Wei Wuxian could attend baby A-Ling’s three-month ceremony (which, by the way, thanks for ruining all Shijie’s hard work, Jin Zi-whatever-the-fuck). Their duel had never actually been a true severing of ties.

But it also wasn’t… not true. Truer than Wei Wuxian had realized, when he convinced Jiang Cheng to do it. For all they’d shouted at each other in the Demon-Subduing Cave, all the blame Jiang Cheng had laid on him, all the compromises they’d both refused to make—Wei Wuxian had still been shocked, staring across the clearing at his own blood dripping from Jiang Cheng’s sword, shocked at Jiang Cheng’s arm dangling shattered and useless, at Jiang Cheng’s wide, incredulous eyes. Shocked that they really had meant it, at least enough to do this.

Ha. All the damage they’d undergone before that point, and yet they still couldn’t quite believe it of each other, until it had already happened.

But even after all that, ALL that, now Jiang Cheng is asking for—? Asking him? Letting him? When he’s the one who—

And it wouldn’t even work, Wei Wuxian realizes with a swell of nausea. He can’t direct his own yang energy properly without a core. He can’t purify the poisoned qi, can’t give Jiang Cheng qi at all, can’t give him what he needs. He can’t even touch him.

Wei Wuxian just kneels there, goggling and having a crisis. As the moment stretches on, Jiang Cheng’s expression starts to shift, the humiliation and grim resignation flickering. His eyes widen, mouth going soft with hurt—no, more like plain embarrassment, Jiang Cheng’s face is just so thin—then he shudders once, and his whole body locks down tight and vicious. “Never mind,” he spits, fist clenching shut and jamming back against his wound. “You’re right. Apologies, I don’t know what I was thinking. Let’s just fucking go.”

He shoves himself upright and starts to push past Wei Wuxian, stiff-legged. He doesn’t even make it ten steps before he staggers with a groan. Wei Wuxian seizes him by the back of his belt to keep him from falling and also from leaving—no skin contact, it should be fine. “Jiang Cheng, don’t be stupid, you can’t even walk!”

“Then. I’ll. Crawl,” Jiang Cheng snarls. He sounds very much like he’s considering biting Wei Wuxian’s hand off, which is at least better than crying. He must be feeling so awkward!

“Shut up, I’ll just get—You must’ve brought at least a couple disciples, right? They could, uh—” It’s a vile thought, somebody’s, some nobody’s hands on Jiang Cheng, on his hips or, or pressing him open—but now that Wei Wuxian knows what has to be done, someone’s got to do it. And better a Jiang disciple than… What other option is there, even? Not a fucking Jin, obviously. Could Wei Wuxian summon Wen Ning to do it? Jiang Cheng would hate that, he never much liked Wen Ning. And more to the point, Wen Ning’s only got resentful energy to work with, anyway, same problem as Wei Wuxian. Who, then? Who can—How can he—Wei Wuxian has to— 

“Wei Ying.”

Lan Zhan stands at the edge of the clearing, the edges of his body lit silver by the sun. He looks practically untouched by the battle, his robes still crisp and his hair still smooth, bound back neatly from his face by his white ribbon. Not even his shoes are dirty. The only sign of strain is the sudden cessation of it—the subtle relief that blooms across his fine-boned face, the slight easing of his wide shoulders and elegant hands.

He’s perfect.

“Oh, wow, yeah, see, this is way better,” Wei Wuxian says. “Jiang Cheng, here, c’mon—”

Jiang Cheng makes a confused noise, then squawks and drops his weight unhelpfully as Wei Wuxian tries to haul him forward by his grasp on Jiang Cheng’s belt. “What? No! Are you crazy? I’m not sleeping with Lan Wangji!”

Lan Zhan, who had been striding toward them, robes a-swirl, pulls up abruptly like he’s run into an invisible wall.

“Lan Zhan, no, see, it’s not like that, it’s a medical emergency,” Wei Wuxian says over Jiang Cheng’s increasingly vehement cursing. “It’s not sleeping with, it’s an acute qi infusion. The Jin poisoned Jiang Cheng—” Jiang Cheng scoffs at him—“and his yin energy is going insane, and, well, we all know the most thorough, fastest way to fix that!” It then occurs to him that maybe the ascetic Lan Sect doesn’t know the most thorough, fastest way to fix that. But no, Lan Zhan’s gaze sweeps across both him and Jiang Cheng, brow furrowing faintly—and then his eyes widen, and a pale flush of pink touches the tops of his ears.

“Such treatments are for life-threatening circumstances only,” he says. Ah, Second Young Master Lan, still a stiff little student disciplinary officer at heart.

“Which this is!” Wei Wuxian points out. Now that the ideal solution has presented itself, he’s starting to feel kind of excited. He loves solving problems. “Lan Zhan, here, feel his qi.” He finishes dragging Jiang Cheng over—which just proves how dire the situation is, with Wei Wuxian’s core gone Jiang Cheng should’ve been able to break away easily—and shakes him a bit. Jiang Cheng stubbornly holds his arms stiff at his sides.

Face set in a displeased little moue, Lan Zhan glances at Jiang Cheng’s wound, then, with reluctant politeness, holds out his palm. “Sect Leader Jiang.”

Jiang Cheng draws a deep breath through his nose and places his wrist in Lan Zhan’s hand with the same icy good manners, taking care that Zidian’s coils don’t so much as brush Lan Zhan’s fingertips. Lan Zhan’s brow slowly furrows again as he tests Jiang Cheng’s qi. “This…” His eyes flick once to Wei Wuxian, then back. “Jiang Wanyin should seek medical attention.”

“I’m trying,” says Jiang Cheng, at the same time Wei Wuxian explains, “I’m trying! This is why he needs your help, Lan Zhan!”

“I don’t need the kind of help you apparently think you can enlist over my head!” snarls Jiang Cheng, glowering at Wei Wuxian with fever-hazed eyes. Something hot and complicated flips in Wei Wuxian’s stomach. Jiang Cheng turns to Lan Zhan. “We’re wasting time. Lan Wangji, you and I came here because we thought something suspicious might be going on, and now we have evidence that there was. The Jin will try to frame today’s events as Wei Wuxian’s doing. I need to return to Carp Tower to do damage control as quickly as possible. If you will share your sword to fly on, that’s more than enough assistance. Yunmeng Jiang will of course be in your debt.” He shakes off Wei Wuxian’s hands and bows, proper and proud—then convulses as he tries to rise, unable to swallow down a low, pained noise. Wei Wuxian grabs for him instinctively, only just remembering to turn his hands aside. If Jiang Cheng won’t accept help soon, Wei Wuxian is going to have to force the issue somehow.

Thankfully, Lan Zhan quickly braces Jiang Cheng’s shoulder in his stead, despite hating to touch people. Whatever he feels from that brief touch makes Lan Zhan blink, then his expression shifts minutely. His eyes dart sharply to Wei Wuxian, something turbulent and unreadable in them, then he looks back at Jiang Cheng. “Jiang Wanyin. Sit back.”

“Hell, not you too—”

“You are unstable. Carp Tower is too far for you to reach in your current state. I will administer qi.”

“In what way,” Jiang Cheng says suspiciously, like his sense of prudishness is more important than the fact that he’s hunched over in agony and could fix it anytime.

Lan Zhan frowns again in distaste. “Standard methods.” Jiang Cheng glares for another second, then finally, finally nods. Lan Zhan, for his part, reaches to his outer robe’s lapels, and—

“Oh, for the love of—Lan Wangji, you don’t need to lay out your robes!” Jiang Cheng says, as if the prospect of sitting on comfy fabric instead of the literal mud personally offends him. “I’m not a swooning maiden with a twisted ankle.”

“You are literally swooning; that’s the whole problem,” Wei Wuxian is unable to resist pointing out. Jiang Cheng ignores him.

“Keeps dirt from the wound. Standard field-dressing procedure,” says Lan Zhan, unmoved. He spreads the robe out across the grass—so fine it’s transparent, subtly patterned with white on sheer white, soft as anything—and Jiang Cheng, unable to argue anymore, kneels gingerly on it. He holds out his wrist again, pretending he hasn’t started to shake. Lan Zhan takes the wrist, and they both shut their eyes, breathing deep and slow, to focus.

It’s useless. Wei Wuxian already knows it’s useless. He sinks down next to the spread-out robe as he watches the tiny flickers of Lan Zhan’s shifting expression, the tremble of Jiang Cheng’s hands. The unnatural chill, along with the familiar, icy burn of resentment, rolls outward from the wound in pulsing waves; the curse’s power has only increased in the amount of time they’ve wasted. If he had his own core, he thinks, swallowing down the acid taste of his own emotions, they would’ve been done with this already—or if he could even just touch Jiang Cheng, it would’ve at least been easier to convince him it was necessary; Jiang Cheng’s always responded best to a little physical handling. But instead Lan Zhan just keeps trying to pull Jiang Cheng’s qi into line as, sure enough, Jiang Cheng only goes paler and paler and shakier and shakier, biting his lips as they slowly turn blue, the fingernails of his upturned hand darkening to the same bruised color.

Eventually Jiang Cheng wobbles, and Wei Wuxian can feel his own expression twist in response. When he glances up, he finds Lan Zhan has opened his eyes and is watching him. The color of his eyes really is astonishing. Pale, shining gold, like the morning sun seen through water.

Lan Zhan, Wei Wuxian thinks, please.

Lan Zhan stares at him, golden and inscrutable. Then, like it’s being dragged out of him, he says, “Jiang Wanyin. If you need it. I am willing to… assist you.”

Jiang Cheng goes rigid, eyes boring down at Lan Zhan’s hand. But he doesn’t violently object. He doesn’t even verbally object.

That means he’s agreeing! Holy shit, fuck yeah, FINALLY! See?! Wei Wuxian is totally the best at solving problems! He’s fixing everything. Now Jiang Cheng and Lan Zhan just need to stop glowering in silence as though their clothes will just conveniently fall away through sheer awkwardness!

“Here, I’ll help,” says Wei Wuxian, his whole body buzzing with anticipation now that things are actually, maybe moving forward, and knocks Jiang Cheng’s knees out from under him so Jiang Cheng falls on his ass on top of the spread-out robes. Jiang Cheng squawks, then gives a genuine-sounding grunt of pain as he lands and claps his hand to his wound, which, in retrospect, oops. But they’re really under a time crunch now. If Jiang Cheng wanted to be laid gently down like the swooning maiden he claims not to be, he shouldn’t have walked into an arrow and then faffed around being a prude for half a shi afterwards.

…Although. Wei Wuxian had been so focused on successfully getting here, he hadn’t really thought about the… the specifics. It’s much harder to not think about the specifics when Jiang Cheng is sprawled on his back in a soft spread of white cloth, vividly red-cheeked with fury and embarrassment, belt pulled slightly loose around his waist. When Lan Zhan is kneeling aaaalmost between Jiang Cheng’s knees, uncertain but still elegant, the sun caught in his hair, the lack of bulky outer robe showing off the graceful lines of his shoulders and torso. It’s all very well-composed, aesthetically speaking. Wei Wuxian can note that as an objective fact and doesn’t need to feel any type of way about it, aside from appreciating it on an artistic level! As such, he starts tugging the edges of the spread-out robe straight. It seems like the sort of aesthetic neat-freak thing Jiang Cheng and Lan Zhan would both care about.

“What stupid thing’re you doing now,” Jiang Cheng says with weary wariness.

“Polishing the aesthetic! For your comfort. And for the best view.”

Both Lan Zhan and Jiang Cheng jolt at that. “View,” says Jiang Cheng. His face twists. “You want a view. Of something that disgusts you.”

“What?” Wei Wuxian frowns. “Don’t insult Lan Zhan like that when he’s helping you out.”

“You—! You couldn’t stand the thought of—” Jiang Cheng cuts himself off with a bitter little laugh. “But Lan Wangji’s here. Of course. Fine. Of course you’re okay with it in that case.”

Jiang Cheng’s starting to sound sullen, like he’d get during training sessions or tournaments where he hadn’t performed as well as he’d hoped. Wei Wuxian frowns deeper in confusion, giving the robe a last yank. “This was literally my idea. Of course I’d be okay with it, even if it were dual cultivation.”

“Not truly dual cultivation,” Lan Zhan pipes in, slightly strangled. “That requires time, and a plan, and great focus and concentration, and study of the ideal techniques beforehand, as it can be highly dangerous to attempt to meld and refine two individuals’ qi without taking proper precautions—”

Wei Wuxian flaps a hand. “Right, yes, I just said it’s not dual cultivation. Acute qi infusion!”

Jiang Cheng barks another laugh. “Right. It’s just a medical procedure. Nobody needs to make it weird.” He sounds even more sullen and even less hinged. “So, just so everybody’s clear, this is not weird. This acute qi infusion is not dining at the restaurant of Lan Wangji.”

“The menu is full of such delicacies, though!” (Lan Zhan makes a noise best described as ?!? Sorry to scandalize you, Lan Zhan!) C’mon, Jiang Cheng, be good and open wide.”

“Open—?! Fuck off, you’re not clever. If you make stupid comments I’ll bite your whole face off, I do not give a shit.”

“Well, there’s usually a certain amount of opening involved, I hear. Sometimes biting too, if you’re into that.” Wei Wuxian wiggles his eyebrows.

Jiang Cheng bares his teeth. “How exactly do you imagine this opening process is going to happen, anyway, since none of us exactly have anything to ease—”

Lan Zhan reaches into his sleeve, pulls out a small bottle of viscous liquid, and holds it out toward Jiang Cheng.

Jiang Cheng cuts himself off, open-mouthed. He gets up onto his elbows as he and Wei Wuxian both stare at Lan Zhan with identical expressions of shock. “…the way,” Jiang Cheng finishes eventually. “What.”

Lan Zhan’s ears slowly go pink again. “It is oil meant for sword-polishing.” Then, with difficulty, he adds, “But can have other applications. I have read several… instructive books.”

“What,” Jiang Cheng repeats.

“What!” Wei Wuxian yelps. The very thought of Lan Zhan seeking out… books… about cut-sleevery is like being clubbed in the head. Not in a bad way, exactly. More just—like, how would that even go? He can’t picture it at all. Like, what, Lan Zhan’s beautiful calm face, tilted studiously over the most scandalous of illustrations…? Or no, maybe more like that time in the library, when he’d sworn at Wei Wuxian after Wei Wuxian shoved that spring book in his face. Flushed with indignation, of course, eyes wide—No. Eyes wide, yeah, but even better, wide with surprise, shocked to be as intrigued as he is affronted. Eyelids fluttering, a blush rising, maybe his mouth dropping open as his elegant fingers tighten on the book… And what sort of book might he have found, stashed in the Lan library? Perhaps something truly beautiful, sophisticated, something he might have actually enjoyed and wanted to—NOPE nope nope, doesn’t compute, obviously there’s a perfectly sensible explanation. Such as, uh.

“Lan Zhan,” Wei Wuxian laughs after a moment, amazed, “I can’t believe how scholarly you are! Imagine researching cutsleeve books just to broaden your education! You know you don’t have to force yourself to read every kind of literature out there; you’re already accomplished enough.”

Now Jiang Cheng whips his head toward him. “What,” he says yet again, now sounding outraged.

“What? I’m just saying, it must have been really hard to read those, since Lan Zhan has no interest in such things.”

Jiang Cheng stares. “Wow,” he says. Then turns to Lan Zhan. “Wow. My condolences, Hanguang-jun. I know he’s always been a moron, but wow.”

“Mn,” says Lan Zhan, in resigned tones.

“Don’t gang up on me! How am I a moron?” Wei Wuxian demands. “I’m being maligned for no reason, when I was the one to figure out the solution to this poisoning problem!”

Unfairly, they both ignore him to focus on each other. Rude. “So you don’t have a problem with this,” Jiang Cheng demands of Lan Zhan. “Moron or not, you’re fine having him right here to watch—” He says it with odd viciousness, snapping his chin toward Wei Wuxian, who obviously has to be here for supervision, it’s a medical emergency and it’s somebody getting to know his shidi’s body in sex (sex-adjacent! Acute qi infusion!) ways AND this was Wei Wuxian’s plan in the first place, it’d be irresponsible for him to leave—“and you’re fine with me? Young Master Lan is truly eager to put that Gusu Lan sex education to use?”

He and Lan Zhan lock eyes, the air practically vibrating with tension.

Wei Wuxian’s jaw, however, drops, and he addresses the most important thing from that little speech. “There was a sex-ed class at the Cloud Recesses?”

Jiang Cheng blows out a huge breath and falls back, flinging an arm over his face. “Optional course,” he mutters into his elbow.

“Mn,” says Lan Zhan, then clarifies, “The first lesson took place after Wei Ying’s expulsion.”

This day is just Wei Wuxian taking one earth-shattering blow upside the head after another. “Well, okay, obviously Jiang Cheng took the course, because honestly, shidi, what other opportunity will you ever get to see another person naked—”

Jiang Cheng must really feel awful, because he doesn’t take the clear opportunity to point out the gloriously soon-to-be-nude Young Master Lan currently settled between his legs, even though Wei Ying totally set up that punchline for him.

“—but you, Lan Zhan?! Books are one thing, but, like… Hang on, was the class taught by Old Man Lan? Awkward!”

“Yes,” Lan Zhan says, dry as mountain air. “But not to worry. I was merely broadening my education.”

Jiang Cheng’s body jerks as he makes a wheezing noise. Wei Wuxian and Lan Zhan both snap around to look at him, Wei Wuxian’s heart clenching with terror. But when Jiang Cheng lifts his arm away from his sweat-streaked face, he’s smiling, crooked and wry.

“Lan Wangji,” he says, with another snort of laughter—it feels like forever since Wei Wuxian saw him laugh—“six fucking years and the span of a whole war I’ve known you, and it turns out you had a sense of humor the whole time? You’ve been holding out on us.”

Lan Zhan stares down at him. “Oh,” he says.

A long moment passes. When no other response comes, Jiang Cheng’s smile crumples back into a glare. He bites the inside of his cheek and looks away. “Never mind. Go on, then.”

Lan Zhan looks at Wei Wuxian again, then back at Jiang Cheng. “Jiang Wanyin. You are fine with this?”

Jiang Cheng doesn’t answer. Lan Zhan doesn’t know Jiang Cheng well enough to realize a lack of answer means an acceptance—but he does know that the situation is dire, that they need to get moving regardless of what Jiang Cheng doesn’t say. Wei Wuxian shuffles a little, but Lan Zhan doesn’t glance over again. Instead, he pauses, then leans forward, putting his weight on one hand that rests next to Jiang Cheng’s hip. Jiang Cheng goes rigid.

“Jiang Wanyin,” says Lan Zhan. “We have worked well together, these past months. Your contributions to improving Wei Ying’s reputation among the gentry have been clear, if…” His lips thin slightly. “…brusque. It speaks well of you, that you regret expelling Wei Ying from the Jiang.” Jiang Cheng’s eyebrows rise, then slam together. Oops. Touchy subject?

“I mean…” says Wei Wuxian. “Teeechnically that was my idea. And also kind of, y’know. Faked?”

“Wei Wuxian! Can you not keep a secret to save your damn life?”

“My life’s not the one on the line! Surely it’s fine to tell Lan Zhan, of all people, the truth. Especially if you and him are about to be swapping bodily fluids!” Or will be once Lan Zhan gets over whatever jitters he’s having!

Lan Zhan pauses. Then he blinks at Wei Wuxian, eyes huge. “The split between you two was fictitious?”

Jiang Cheng sighs. “Fictitious-ish,” he clarifies. “It was a stupid plan, pretty sure Jin Guangshan never really bought it, but we couldn’t think of anything else to keep the sect safe and get Wei Wuxian out of the public eye for a while.”

Wei Wuxian throws up his hands. “It wasn’t stupid! You even agreed there were no better options!”

“No better options you’d consider!”

“I didn’t want to take that option either!”

“Oh, like hell you didn’t! Don’t patronize me. As if you weren’t itching for any excuse to go!” This is getting into dangerous territory—Jiang Cheng’s voice cracks with something like true hurt, and resentment flares against the inside of Wei Wuxian’s skin—so Wei Wuxian accidentally-on-purpose rams his knee into Jiang Cheng’s injury as he flails in retort, meaning Jiang Cheng gets distracted snapping at him for that instead.

Lan Zhan stares down at Jiang Cheng through the bickering, that beautiful keen scholarly mind no doubt working away behind his forehead ribbon. Then he abruptly leans forward again over Jiang Cheng. “If you did not expel Wei Ying, then that is all the more reason to approve of your attempts to mend his reputation,” he continues, voice surprisingly urgent. “You and I are united in this cause. We fought with similar ease together in battle, during the war. And as we did while searching for Wei Ying. You never tried to force me into conversation as we traveled. It was restful.”

There’s a rebuke for Wei Wuxian (king of forcing Lan Zhan into conversation) in there somewhere, Wei Wuxian’s pretty sure. But okay, apparently Lan Zhan’s into the whole sullen, brooding schtick that Jiang Cheng wields like a weapon against everybody who doesn’t know how to ruffle him properly, i.e. everybody except Wei Wuxian himself. Good! Good to know!

“And I have not, I think, given you cause to mistrust me,” Lan Zhan finishes at last. He stares down at Jiang Cheng. His throat moves; he’s swallowing. “And, you have brought up the most important point: You must be in adequate physical and mental condition to speak against the Jin who will bring accusations against Wei Ying, not semiconscious from poison. Nothing else matters. So. As I said. I am willing to be useful.”

Jiang Cheng stares back up at him, then emits a weird, shrieky little noise from between his teeth and throws his arm back over his face. “Oh, well, in that case, obviously we have to fuck.”

“Not fuck,” Lan Zhan and Wei Wuxian both say (well, Wei Wuxian commits to saying ‘fuck;’ Lan Zhan presses his lips together and looks foreboding). “Acute qi infusion!”

Jiang Cheng breathes into his arm for a long, taut minute. "Fuck,” he says at last, like he always does when he’s giving in. Then, “Fuck,” then, “fucking fine.” He lowers the arm. His eyes are flashing. “All right, then,” he says, with the grim determination that got Yunmeng Jiang through Sunshot. “Let’s do this.”

Then, as slowly and awkwardly as is possible for a preternaturally graceful cultivator to move, he reaches for his belt.

Tension rushes out of Wei Wuxian’s body, replaced with a swell of relief. It’s here! It’s happening! Jiang Cheng finally put his pride down! Lan Zhan finally picked his pride up! It’s here, it’s here, it’s here! Wei Wuxian has solved the problem!! AT LONG! FUCKING! LAST!!!

He sits back on his heels and watches keenly as Jiang Cheng, jerky-handed, undoes just enough of the clasps on his belt to loosen it a bit and fold his skirts aside—first the bloodstained indigo outer layers and the underlying ugly patterned robe, then the inner layers of white silk, then deep blue linen, then undyed hemp—cheap and rough, no sense in wasting Yunmeng’s scant coin on inner wear Jiang Cheng would’ve thought no one would ever see—to get at the waistband of his trousers. Watches as Lan Zhan removes his own belt, pauses for a long moment with his fingers trailing over the ties of his middle robes, then leaves them alone to instead slide his trousers down just a little, keeping the main goods still covered. (So shy, Lan Zhan!) The revealed strip of skin across his hips is fair and fine, like his skin has never been touched by the sun; the corded muscles just visible at the tops of his thighs flex. Jiang Cheng is struggling to get his pants off one-handed, so Lan Zhan leans forward (the peek of visible skin widens in compelling fashion), grabs them—Jiang Cheng freezes up, then sets his jaw and lifts his hips—and draws them off, efficiently. Then Lan Zhan folds them, because he is secretly hilarious, Wei Wuxian doesn’t know how Jiang Cheng never realized that!—and lays them aside.

Meanwhile, just as efficiently, Jiang Cheng grabs the bottle of oil from where Lan Zhan had placed it on the ground, dumps a bunch of it into his non-bloody hand, folds a knee up, reaches down and inward, and—and Wei Wuxian can’t really see, it’s a bad angle and the knee Jiang Cheng has propped up is, spitefully, blocking Wei Wuxian’s view. He scoots closer. Jiang Cheng shoots him a dark look, but doesn’t stop the movement of his arm, spreading oil across himself with brisk, perfunctory swipes. Then the angle and motion changes, more minute movements, harder to see. Twisting his wrist and fingers, pushing the oil into—inside, now. Wei Wuxian still can’t see much with Jiang Cheng’s skirts all bunched up, but the skin he can see—the back of Jiang Cheng’s thigh as it swells into the curve of his ass, not as tanned as he was when they were swimming every spare second as teens but still familiar, the intriguingly shifting shadows where his skirts fold aside—is slippery-looking, the kind of wet shine that makes you want to trace a finger over it. His body is starting to make slick sounds, too quiet for anyone but Wei Wuxian and Lan Zhan to hear. Wei Wuxian shuffles even closer, angling a little sideways so his knees almost touch the top of Jiang Cheng’s head. Jiang Cheng shifts to get his hand deeper, eyebrows furrowing with discomfort. His head rolls a little on the white cloth, like he could turn his face and press it to the inside of Wei Wuxian’s knee as he tries not to overwhelm himself with sensation, his fingers must feel so weird, maybe he can’t open up effectively by himself—

Then Jiang Cheng makes a tiny, cut-off grunt, takes his hand away, and says to Lan Zhan, “Okay.”

“You sure that was enough,” Wei Wuxian says, dubiously and not at all breathless. Lan Zhan, on his knees, slides into place between Jiang Cheng’s legs, crowding up near but not quite against Jiang Cheng’s ass. He also looks dubious. “Don’t you want to be, like, comfortable?”

“One, being ‘comfortable’ is literally impossible to achieve in these circumstances—don’t you fucking dare,” Jiang Cheng snaps without looking over, and Wei Wuxian closes his mouth with a grimace. Attempt the impossible would’ve been a funny joke! “Two, I’m least uncomfortable when not pretending this is anything other than what it is. And three, what it needs to be is fast.” Jiang Cheng lies back, stiff and miserable-looking, fists clenched at his sides. He glares up at the sky like he’s trying to summon lightning storms with his mind to strike them all dead. “So go,” he barks to Lan Zhan. Then he hesitates, scowling in embarrassment. “Uh. Unless you need a minute to… be ready?”

“No,” says Lan Zhan. He shifts forward on his knees, the movement tugging his trousers down just a little more as he goes. His robes still hide a lot, but beneath the shifting fabric Wei Wuxian can see what’s either the makings of a truly impressive hard-on or an entire spare sword-hilt tucked into Lan Zhan’s waistband, and statistically speaking the more likely option is—

Lan Zhan slides his trousers down to mid-thigh, and the lower panels of his robes shift aside just enough to glimpse what’s underneath.

…

God damn, Wei Wuxian just about manages not to say aloud.

Lan Zhan definitely did not need a minute to be ready. He’s huge. He’s flushed with blood and hard as iron. He’s gorgeous; Wei Wuxian’s pretty sure cocks are not generally gorgeous but Lan Zhan is clearly the exception. He’s huge, again, because it’s worth saying twice.

(Wei Wuxian himself is nothing to sneeze at, mind you! He’s nice and proportional. And longer than Jiang Cheng! Who’s still hefty (and very-slightly-maybe-just-a-little-thicker-than-Wei-Wuxian-BUT-THAT-DOESN’T-MATTER) and thus also nothing to sneeze at, which Wei Wuxian already knew because of that time they were fifteen and he accidentally walked in on Jiang Cheng jerking off and Jiang Cheng turned about eighty shades of red and shrieked Don’t you ever fucking knock and threw a book at him that nearly broke Wei Wuxian’s nose, since Wei Wuxian was just standing there, goggling. Goggling because of the sheer weirdness of seeing another guy’s junk just all out there! Specifically Jiang Cheng’s junk! Wei Wuxian had yelped, dodged the book and beat a strategic retreat, the view of Jiang Cheng’s cock still burned into his mind.)

(He noted at the time that Jiang Cheng also seemed to get a lot wetter than Wei Wuxian did, which featured pretty heavily in the subsequent hormone dreams that weren’t Wei Wuxian’s fault. He can’t see if that’s still the case now, with Jiang Cheng’s robes all bunched up around his hips, but he figures it hasn’t changed—even if Jiang Cheng’s dick is only just starting to stir, he’s probably already beading with syrupy precome at the tip, Wei Wuxian can just picture it… and he’s probably, hm, even heftier now than he used to be! Little shidi, all grown up…)

(But definitely not grown as huge as Lan Zhan. Worth saying three times!!)

“God damn,” he hears faintly from Jiang Cheng, who is staring wide-eyed down the length of his body at Lan Zhan, then notices he’s being looked at and flops back again with a scowl.

Lan Zhan’s ears go violently red, but he moves a little more confidently into place between Jiang Cheng’s knees (which twitch once, but Jiang Cheng doesn’t let himself close them). He takes the bottle of oil and pours the last of it over himself, taking a moment to spread it over his full length, up and down—and down, and down, fuck, because might as well call him huge four times—then hitches Jiang Cheng’s hips up with one hand, making sure not to touch bare skin, to position him level with Lan Zhan’s hips. Adjusts his insane cock with his free, oil-smeared hand, starting to feed it forward.

He must be sliding between Jiang Cheng’s asscheeks now, the flesh pressing hot and plush around his shaft… the blunt head of his cock is rubbing up against Jiang Cheng’s hole, which is all oil-slick and clenched tight with nervousness… Lan Zhan just holds Jiang Cheng there for a moment, rocking minutely—not hard enough to sink in, but seeming to just feel. His face twitches, his eyelids flutter, and Jiang Cheng is biting his own lips as he stares upwards. Already Jiang Cheng’s color has improved! His lips are red rather than blue, the flush in his face looks more self-conscious than feverish, and the bleeding from his wound has slowed, even as Lan Zhan holds him bowed off the ground. Fantastic progress. This was a great idea. And soon it’ll get even greater, Jiang Cheng’s going to relax and let Lan Zhan in, he’s going to—he and Lan Zhan going to—

Then Lan Zhan pauses, shifts his grip, and starts to lower Jiang Cheng’s hips.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Wei Wuxian starts to say, at the same time as Jiang Cheng snarls, “Lan Wangji, aren’t you the one who wants me at Carp Tower ripping into the Jin, shall I get you an official permit from your elders to fu—hhngh.”

“Better angle,” says Lan Zhan through his teeth, as he pushes his hips slowly forward.

They’re suspended like that for a long moment, Jiang Cheng’s mouth fallen halfway open, Lan Zhan’s face taut with concentration as he tries to press on. For a second it seems like nothing’s happening—Jiang Cheng’s too unyielding; Lan Zhan’s not forceful enough. Then Lan Zhan’s brow furrows, and he changes his grip again to hold Jiang Cheng’s thighs, shifts his weight, and—

And his body suddenly jolts, driving abruptly forward and in.

He and Jiang Cheng both make simultaneous guttural sounds, Jiang Cheng bucking hard. Then they both freeze—save for Lan Zhan’s hands, which clamp down so hard on Jiang Cheng’s thighs they leave white indents.

Oh. Ohhh shit. Was that—

“Shit,” Jiang Cheng wheezes after a moment. Lan Zhan breathes in through his nose—his eyes are wide open and dark, all the iris swallowed by pupil—then lets the breath out. He’s in, but—Wei Wuxian zeroes in on the half-hidden place where they’re joined—barely; there’s still far to go. Lan Zhan eases his fingers from Jiang Cheng’s thighs with measured deliberateness, leaving pale finger-marks that slowly darken to red, then he firms his grip and presses his hips forward another inch. Jiang Cheng hisses. “Shit, fuck. Okay, head’s in now, so just—Just fast, just do it—” Lan Zhan ignores him. Another long, steady exhale. Another inch. Lan Zhan’s ears have flamed from pink to crimson. Wei Wuxian finds himself craning forward like he’s trying to spy on somebody else’s paper in class. There’s still so much clothing in the way.

Lan Zhan’s hips roll backward, drawing out the whole hard, oil-slick length of him, save for the tip—Jiang Cheng spasms—then work forward again, sinking back in. He keeps sinking, slow, smooth, seemingly endless. Wei Wuxian’s mouth feels thick, watching that slow slide. Jiang Cheng’s hands make fists at his sides, then dig like claws into the white fabric spread around his body, then crawl up to the lapels of his own inner robes, gripping tight. His hands and jaw tighten the deeper Lan Zhan presses into him. When Lan Zhan’s about halfway in, Jiang Cheng’s breath stutters in a small gasp, then another, and another, until he’s panting quietly through his teeth.

At long last, Lan Zhan finally comes to rest, fully sheathed. As his hips sink that final inch, his mouth parts, and he breathes out a low “Ah”—the only sound he’s made so far.

Jiang Cheng’s hands slap down over his own face.

“Aha, don’t be like that, Jiang Cheng,” Wei Wuxian says. His own voice sounds overbright and kind of tinny in his ears; his whole body is buzzing. He can’t look away from where their bodies meet, Lan Zhan’s hips flush against Jiang Cheng’s ass, the press of skin to oil-sheened skin. “Don’t be so embarrassed, it—Haha, I mean, wow, Lan Zhan looks like his brain’s about to melt right out of his ears. That’s something to be proud of! It takes a lot to make Second Young Master Lan lose his cool. How does, ah—How does he feel, Lan Zhan? Can you tell me?”

“Soft.” Lan Zhan’s lips stay slightly parted after he speaks. He blinks, or rather shuts his eyes for a few long seconds before they drag open again, darker than ever. His hips roll slowly in, so slowly; his head tips forward with the movement, just as slow, and his teeth sink into his lower lip, pressing it red and swollen. It glistens as he speaks again. “Soft. And… tight, and slick, and… hot…”

“Shut up, shut up, don’t fucking narrate,” Jiang Cheng hisses, sounding a little hysterical. His hands press harder over his face.

“And good,” Lan Zhan finishes. Then he braces his knees and drives in for real, once, strong and deliberate.

Jiang Cheng’s hands fly off his face to dig into the grass above his head. Wei Wuxian watches him strangle down the sound he was going to make, sees it arch his spine, swell his lungs, catch in his throat, and finally break like a wave behind his bared teeth. His whole face floods red with the strain of holding back the sound. The flush then seeps back down over his throat, across the bared sliver of his chest. When Lan Zhan slides out, Jiang Cheng’s mouth opens as if dragged with him to take a long, shuddering breath. Lan Zhan pushes back into him, inevitable; Jiang Cheng’s teeth clench around a hissing exhale. In and out. A rhythm that rolls again and again through their whole bodies, slowly gaining speed.

Lan Zhan is so graceful—Wei Wuxian knew that, of course, Lan Zhan looks elegant whether he’s training with his sword or slumped bleeding in an evil turtle cave—but god, this is better than any of those. He fucks like he fights, flowing, powerful. His movements get more confident, the robe slips down to hang open around his pale, perfect torso, the haze clears from his eyes until his expression turns keen and focused. He looks like a painting. He looks like poetry. People probably invented painting and poetry just so they could try to evoke even one-tenth of the beauty of Lan Zhan in pleasure—the arch of his neck, of his spine, the gathering speed of his hips, the minute twitches that scatter across his face and body until all of him is trembling—

Wei Wuxian couldn’t picture Lan Zhan like this? Wei Wuxian thought Lan Zhan couldn’t so much as look at spring books without combusting? Wei Wuxian is a moron. He lacks all imagination. He should take a stab at writing some poetry after this; this calls for odes.

Jiang Cheng, on the other hand, does not look like poetry. His teeth are gritted, his eyes screwed shut. He looks half-wrecked, he looks overwhelmed, he looks… well, kind of pissed off, albeit not in the funny way. The little noises getting knocked out of him sound more like when he takes a hit on the training grounds than like pleasure. He never lets a bit of pain stop him, that’s one of his good points, but in this case… Wei Wuxian glances down the length of Jiang Cheng’s body. The robes around his hips have been knocked askew by Lan Zhan’s movements and Wei Wuxian can finally see all of Jiang Cheng—and his cock’s just as Wei Wuxian imagined, thick and pretty and wet with precome. But, oof, only half-hard. Which stands to reason, Wei Wuxian supposes; he knew Jiang Cheng didn’t prep enough, and so taking that monster cock can’t be comfortable. If the proceedings hurt, it’d probably help if somebody got a hand on Jiang Cheng’s dick, nice and gentle, made him relax a little, made him like it… But Lan Zhan’s y’know, busy, and probably uninclined anyway, and Wei Wuxian obviously can’t do it, since he can’t touch Jiang Cheng. He leans over Jiang Cheng, trying to see his face without touching him directly. Maybe he can coax Jiang Cheng into stroking himself instead.

“Hey, A-Cheng, you need some help? Does it hurt?”

“Khh—unh—”

Jiang Cheng doesn’t respond beyond that, doesn’t even open his eyes. Wei Wuxian risks tilting Jiang Cheng’s head back with a tug on his hair. Jiang Cheng blinks up at him, red-faced, mouth screwed up. The muscles in his neck and shoulders shiver with tension. “Jiang Cheng, you have to say if it hurts. It’s supposed to feel good, right?”

“Th’ hell would—” His voice is hoarse, breathy, even though he hasn’t been using his throat for anything. Wei Wuxian’s fingers spasm minutely in his damp hair. “Jus’—just get it done with; it doesn’t matter how it feels.” Jiang Cheng pants for a second, then, sounding more lucid (i.e. grumpier), adds, “Getting something rammed up my ass is gonna suck no matter what.”

Wei Wuxian winces in sympathy. “I mean, according to Huaisang’s books…”

“According to me, who’s actually experiencing it—”

Lan Zhan’s rhythm stutters to a halt. His eyes widen. “‘Sucks’…?”

Jiang Cheng lolls his head forward to glare at him. “Calm down, Lan Wangji, I’m not insulting your technique or whatever. The guy being rammed up the ass is the one who gets to decide what word choice accurately describes it, all right? So. It feels weird and it hurts and that’s fine. Just—”

“…Hmm.”

“—fuck, ow, fuck, hey?!”

Lan Zhan is moving, twisting his pelvis to grind methodically in at a different angle on every stroke. “There is supposed to be a spot,” he says, shifting Jiang Cheng around with a tight grip on his hips and without any apparent effort, which, wow, “deep inside a man, around here. It’s more sensitive.” His expression is thoughtful, assessing, even as Jiang Cheng swears and squirms under him, scrabbling at Lan Zhan’s wrists. Even more wow. “You will feel good.”

“Nnnh—It doesn’t have to feel good, we don’t need it to, just—” Whatever Lan Zhan tries just then must feel particularly weird, because Jiang Cheng gives a pained yelp and slams his teeth together, face twisting. Lan Zhan freezes.

Wei Wuxian experiences a sudden flash of brilliance. “His leg,” Wei Wuxian says over Jiang Cheng’s angry squeaking. “Try this, Lan Zhan, he’s really flexible, I bet it’ll work.” He catches himself before he can reach for Jiang Cheng’s thigh, but Lan Zhan’s already pushing the leg up in place of him. It folds easily to Jiang Cheng’s chest. All their eyes widen (even Jiang Cheng’s, who should frankly have known about this ability).

“Aha!” says Wei Wuxian.

“Huh,” says Jiang Cheng.

Lan Zhan murmurs, “Wei Ying is right. You are flexible.”

Then he pushes back inside. The glide is slick and easy with the new angle, and Wei Wuxian can tell now how much deeper he’s getting, and it must be—

Jiang Cheng’s whole body heaves once. His face goes wide and blank with shock. “Oh,” he gasps.

It sounds like it was ripped out of him. It sounds incredible.

Lan Zhan rocks in again at the same cautious angle. Jiang Cheng twitches, making another shocked, almost outraged noise, but the undertones of it are sweet and hungry. His hips roll down onto Lan Zhan, once, like he can’t help it. “That’s it,” Wei Wuxian whispers. “You like it there? Must be so good, yeah?”

Jiang Cheng’s scowl looks kind of dazed. “Nnn… nnnot really. Felt—weird.”

Wei Wuxian almost laughs. “Sure, sure, that’s why your cock’s starting to chub up. Here.” He gathers Jiang Cheng into the open vee of his knees. Already some of the tension has been knocked out of Jiang Cheng’s limbs with just two good thrusts against his sweet spot; he lets Wei Wuxian haul him up a little, lets Wei Wuxian tighten his fingers in the crumpled fabric of his robes. He makes a startled sound when his spine brushes against Wei Wuxian’s hard-on. Wei Wuxian only grins down at him, barely able to feel abashed in the moment. “What? Sorry, but I’m only human, and you two are making such great noises.”

Lan Zhan’s eyes have gone dark and focused. He pulls Jiang Cheng’s leg up over his own shoulder, prying him wide, and presses deep again, harder. Jiang Cheng’s mouth falls open.

“Ah, ah—!”

“Yeah, like that.” Wei Wuxian looks up from Jiang Cheng’s face. Lan Zhan looks up too, meeting his gaze. A fine sheen of sweat gleams at his hairline and temples, darkening the fabric of his ribbon ever so slightly, and his lips are bitten red. He’s stunning. Just rumpled enough, just askew enough to seem touchable. He moves so beautifully, can make Wei Wuxian’s shidi feel this fantastic, wrings such amazing sounds out of Jiang Cheng so easily. Fixing everything, when Wei Wuxian was the one who—who might’ve—

Wei Wuxian has to bite down on the swell of feeling that rises in him. He smiles instead. “Sounds like you’ve got it perfect, Lan Zhan. Right there, keep it up.”

Lan Zhan’s expression does something Wei Wuxian can’t quite parse—it’s intense, whatever it is, flashing across Lan Zhan’s face too quick to catch as his eyes drop down to the lower half of Wei Wuxian’s face, Lan Zhan’s reddened mouth pressing thin at whatever he sees there—but then his face sets in concentration. He hitches Jiang Cheng’s leg up higher and braces himself on one hand, the movement tipping him slightly forward over Jiang Cheng, closer to Wei Wuxian. Wei Wuxian smells the oil he uses for his hair—sandalwood, of course, resinous and strong, plus something floral but not overly sweet. He can feel the vibration of the bitten-off noise Jiang Cheng makes at the shift in weight, the pressure as Jiang Cheng’s head jostles in his lap. They all just breathe for a moment as Lan Zhan rocks his hips into Jiang Cheng in small, exact movements.

Wei Wuxian is so close to them. Breathing with them. Right next to them. He never thought he’d get to be this close again. He closes his aching hands against the desire to reach out, shuts his eyes and breathes slowly.

Jiang Cheng has apparently wrangled his brain back together in the interim, though, and kicks the leg pulled up over Lan Zhan’s shoulder. “Stop gazing into each other’s eyes and just fuck already,” he snarls. (So impatient, shidi! Lan Zhan is fucking you, he’s just taking bit of a pause.)

Lan Zhan responds with a tiny huff and an honest-to-god eyeroll. Wei Wuxian’s jaw drops in delight. “Lan Zhan! Snark? I didn’t know you had it in you.”

“I have a great deal in me,” Lan Zhan says, deadpan. “Though perhaps not as much as Jiang Wanyin currently does.”

Wei Wuxian nearly shrieks a laugh. Jiang Cheng makes an incredulous noise. “Lan Wangji! You smug—”

Then Lan Zhan yanks Jiang Cheng’s legs even wider—leans in—and fucks him.

With a shout, Jiang Cheng’s head slams back against Wei Wuxian’s lap. He’s twisting, shuddering, trying and failing to pull away, trying and failing to pull Lan Zhan closer with his legs. Lan Zhan just grips Jiang Cheng’s thigh and braces himself and keeps on, always driving in at that same precise angle that makes Jiang Cheng cry out. Wei Wuxian grips Jiang Cheng’s sides so hard he hears the cloth rip, holding him in place for Lan Zhan as best he can.

Groaning, Jiang Cheng clutches at Lan Zhan’s wrists, at his own thighs, then he gropes above his head at Wei Wuxian’s robes. He almost grabs Wei Wuxian’s hand, but Wei Wuxian has the presence of mind to twist his arm at the last second so Jiang Cheng latches onto the bracer covering his wrist instead. Jiang Cheng clings on, panting. The constant rolling motion of his body yanks Wei Wuxian’s robes further and further into disarray with every stroke, shoves Jiang Cheng’s back over and over into the crux of Wei Wuxian’s spread legs, a sparking burst of sensation every time.

The pressure on his cock is so, so good. The sounds Jiang Cheng is making, the rising gasp of Lan Zhan’s breath and the powerful arc of his body, the close heat of them, it’s all so—but he can’t—Wei Wuxian can’t touch. He just looks on, feels them, open-mouthed and ravenous for every detail. 

Lan Zhan makes a low sound and hunches forward, grinding in. Jiang Cheng whimpers at the stretch; Wei Wuxian’s breath catches. Lan Zhan’s eyes flick between both their faces. “You like that,” he rasps, and his voice rakes like fingers down Wei Wuxian’s spine. “Here, then.” He leans back, hauling at Jiang Cheng’s hips to pull him along. He drags Jiang Cheng’s other leg up over his shoulder, then swoops back down, driving his whole weight down into Jiang Cheng, folding him practically in half right in Wei Wuxian’s lap. Jiang Cheng howls, clutches at Wei Wuxian’s wrist like a lifeline. His cock blurts precome down onto his own collarbone in spatters. “Yes. Just like that. Look—” And Lan Zhan begins to hammer into Jiang Cheng, and fuck, Wei Wuxian is greedy for it, hungry eyes wide—he can finally see properly, sees how Lan Zhan’s girth stretches Jiang Cheng open, how swollen and sore-looking Jiang Cheng’s hole is as Jiang Cheng takes it, flesh clinging—sees the slick sheen of Lan Zhan’s plunging cock, the slapped-hot softness of Jiang Cheng’s ass and thighs all scattered with purpling fingerprints where Lan Zhan held him in place. The marks beg for Wei Wuxian to add his own, to set his teeth there and bite down.

“Harder,” he says, to give his mouth something else to do. “Harder, Lan Zhan, he needs it. Show me.”

“W’xian,” Jiang Cheng slurs, then chokes as Lan Zhan drives down, tilting Jiang Cheng’s hips to keep him exposed, to keep Wei Wuxian’s eyes on the two of them together. Lan Zhan’s breath gets ragged, louder; Jiang Cheng’s half-pained, hungry cries slowly get softer. He melts more and more the harder Lan Zhan goes, until he’s slack in Wei Wuxian’s lap, a constant quiet moan seeping from his mouth, all the cold pride that he slams up like a wall between him and Wei Wuxian fucked right out of him.

“There, see?” Wei Wuxian whispers, voice raw and gone weirdly shaky from the rhythm, so quiet that there’s no way Jiang Cheng can hear. His hands brush Jiang Cheng’s temples as his head lolls back and forth in Wei Wuxian’s lap. Jiang Cheng’s hair is a soft, tangled disaster, twining between Wei Wuxian’s fingers. Lan Zhan makes a quiet sound, watching them. “All better, yeah? You just had to trust your shixiong. You’ve never understood how much I’d do to keep you safe.” Something feels cracked inside his chest. His eyes are burning. His skin, everywhere he’s not touching Jiang Cheng, is burning. He has to—he wants to—He has to remember that this is all for— He clears his throat and says louder, “The qi infusion. Lan Zhan, you both should be ready for it by now—”

Lan Zhan exhales hard, looks down, and shifts his weight so he’s not slamming down into Jiang Cheng but grinding into him, his hips screwing in small, needy circles. “Jiang Wanyin,” he rasps, “your—your wrist, your meridians.” (Wrist?! Lan Zhan, you’re literally up in his guts, there’s no need to be so formal!) He reaches for Jiang Cheng’s arm, but hesitates when he sees how Jiang Cheng is still clinging to Wei Wuxian with one hand, the other pressed, fingers slick and red-stained, against the sluggishly bleeding cut in his side. “Ah,” he says.

At the pause, Jiang Cheng drags his eyes open. His face twitches grumpily, then he rocks up into Lan Zhan to take him deeper, hole clenching hard around the thick line of Lan Zhan’s cock. Lan Zhan pitches forward with a surprised grunt, bringing his face down close to Jiang Cheng’s. Jiang Cheng meets his stare, hazy-eyed.

Then, with a hint of his usual haughtiness, Jiang Cheng tips his chin up, eyes still locked to Lan Zhan’s like a challenge. His mouth falls open in wordless invitation.

Easier to exchange spiritual energy if Lan Zhan’s in two of his holes. Sensible. And so gorgeously shameless.

Lan Zhan’s eyes widen. With a tiny groan, he sinks his first two fingers into the wet, red softness of Jiang Cheng’s open mouth. Wei Wuxian watches Jiang Cheng’s tongue slide slick and smooth between those fingers before Jiang Cheng closes his lips around Lan Zhan, sucking him deep, saliva seeping from the corner of his mouth as his eyes fall shut again. Lan Zhan hisses and presses his fingers deeper, echoed by a buck of his hips. Jiang Cheng swallows around him, throat working, nostrils flaring, his eyebrows drawing up high and furrowed. Lan Zhan thrusts his hips again, sharply. Then he rolls his whole body, setting a rhythm that builds and builds and builds—not too fast but deep and strong, the force of it radiating through them both. “I,” says Lan Zhan, “Jia-ah—”

And then something changes in the air—the sheer force of Lan Zhan’s gathering energy raises all the hairs on Wei Wuxian’s arms—and Lan Zhan’s strokes lengthen, dragging at the apex of each thrust, and he bares his teeth and pulls Jiang Cheng in closer, Jiang Cheng whimpering once as his knees press back almost to his ears, one of Lan Zhan’s hands still pushed deep into Jiang Cheng’s mouth and the other dragging at the swell of Jiang Cheng’s ass, and around Lan Zhan’s fingers Jiang Cheng makes high, needy noises that sound almost like crying. Both of them so close, so alive, so almost-touchable, and Wei Wuxian wants, he wants, he—

And it’s probably okay, they’re distracted by, y’know, having bendy mind-blowing lifeforce-swapping sex and not paying attention to Wei Wuxian at all, nobody will even notice, he’s allowed, and—and—And when will he ever get another chance—

His wrist slides in Jiang Cheng’s grip again, letting Jiang Cheng clamp down on his hand instead—which, fuck, he swears Jiang Cheng’ll crack his bones—but his skin is so soft and has gone so hot, burning against Wei Wuxian, familiar as Yunmeng summer. Wei Wuxian is starving for that familiarity, for touch. So hungry that his body must be bristling with teeth. And Jiang Cheng just makes a wounded, eager noise—sweat-soaked and open-mouthed and helpless with the pleasure that Wei Wuxian has obtained for him—and tries to turn his face into the crook of Wei Wuxian’s arm, burrowing in like it’s a comfort.

Emotion hits Wei Wuxian like a blow under the ribs. He curls forward with the force of it and finds his forehead pressed into the side of Lan Zhan’s neck. Lan Zhan’s skin is even softer than Jiang Cheng’s, fragrant, sweat and sandalwood and flowers. The taste of salt prickles over Wei Wuxian’s tongue as Lan Zhan’s pulse throbs against his lips.

“Wei Ying,” Lan Zhan gasps. He turns his head so his own lips slide along Wei Wuxian’s neck, soft and scorching. Beneath their bodies, Jiang Cheng makes another of those high, crying sounds. “Wei Ying—!”

“I’m here,” Wei Wuxian says. Not quite a reply, but more just the shock of it. Astonishment that he is here, with Lan Zhan under his mouth, panting and miraculous, with Jiang Cheng, pinned safe and pliant in the curve of Wei Wuxian’s body—here, with them. “I’m here, I’m right here, yes, I—I’m—”

Lan Zhan gives a short, sharp cry, breath rushing hot over Wei Wuxian’s throat. Then he bites down, right at the join of Wei Wuxian’s shoulder and neck, and his hips jerk forward.

And—

Wei Wuxian feels Lan Zhan, feels them both through Lan Zhan’s mouth at his shoulder and Jiang Cheng’s hand in his. Energy crests like a wave inside Lan Zhan, radiant behind Wei Wuxian’s closed eyes, then spills forward. Jiang Cheng takes it, and takes it, spiritual paths lighting up as he shapes it to himself like water filling cupped hands, refining it into usefulness. The flood draws all three of them in. It flows through Jiang Cheng’s body, healing the meridians that the poison has left scorched and raw. It slides like a salve past the torn, resentment-burnt edges of the wound in his side. It curls around his—their—their golden core… the heat of which is banked from the curse’s poison, but it’s still so warm.

It’s… 

It’s true welcome. It’s endless summer. It’s Jiang Cheng’s breath on the back of his neck when they used to sleep curled together in the same too-small bed. It’s the thrill of Suibian ringing against Lan Zhan’s sword on the rooftops of Cloud Recesses, the knowledge that Wei Wuxian had finally met his equal. It’s everything good and treasured and gone now, everything that once loved Wei Wuxian. The core sparks at his touch, feeling so like a homecoming that he can’t bear to pull away.

Then the sparks catch, with a single gasp bursting from their three mouths. The qi surges anew, fiercer, molten, Lan Zhan’s energy now joined with Jiang Cheng’s own unlocked power. The three of them flow back up through Jiang Cheng’s body together, not just soothing him now but strengthening. They pour back into Lan Zhan, curl through him, become a wave of gold sweeping back and forth between him and Jiang Cheng—faster, flooding them both—arching Jiang Cheng’s back and tightening his thighs around Lan Zhan’s shoulders, shivering over Lan Zhan’s skin, their energy swelling—incredible, Lan Zhan and Jiang Cheng are incredible together, they both have their hands on Wei Wuxian and they pull him close.

They all—overflow—

—into each other, into Wei Wuxian—

—and he’s—

It’s not gentle. He gasps with it: The flood of familiar power that spills through his stagnant meridians, engulfs his bones, streams all the way from his heart to his fingertips, surging, searching, reaching deep. It gushes into the empty space where his core had been, soothes the sting that years of resentment has left inside him. It overflows him like the riverbanks in the rainy season. It’s too much, it’s so much.

For a moment he is full of light, full and whole and himself again. Except even better, because Jiang Cheng and Lan Zhan are a part of what fills him.

But.

But he can’t hold spiritual energy in such a cracked vessel. Like the tide, it all slowly drains away.

He feels it sink down through him, and dissipate. Receding. The warmth, dimming. The taste of Lan Zhan’s skin dulls, Jiang Cheng’s closeness fades. He’s trapped inside the confines of his own body again, cold, and cut-off, and alone…

Don’t. He reaches out, all empty starving hands, dragged with the vanishing spill of energy down into a dark place. Don’t go. I want you here. I need you. I need you! You’re mine!

He grabs—

Something catches his hand.

Jiang Cheng’s hand grips his in return—familiar calluses, the hot sparking of his ring, warm and grounding. Then that hand slips away, but doesn’t stop touching him. Jiang Cheng slides his fingers up Wei Wuxian’s body, the backs of his knuckles skimming Wei Wuxian’s arm, then the side of his throat where his pulse beats fast—then his hand hooks around the back of Wei Wuxian’s neck, and Wei Wuxian is pulled down, close-eyed and open-mouthed, into warmth.

Heat, against his mouth. It’s inexpert, their teeth clacking together, but it’s warm as the core had been. Slick and soft and tasting faintly of blood, and the gentle puff of breath against his cheek contrasts with the firm hold on his nape.

Wei Wuxian is being kissed. Jiang Cheng is kissing him.

Wei Wuxian can’t help but throw himself into it. He chases the warmth, the taste, the strength, the smile he feels curving against his mouth. He wants it back. He wants Jiang Cheng back, wants the future he’d half-imagined with Lan Zhan, wants himself back. He’d told himself he could last, he could endure, but he can’t, he can’t, he doesn’t want to. He turns his head to get a better angle and finds another mouth on his; Lan Zhan’s kiss is more forceful, less inelegant, but just as warm. Their mouths slip apart, then back together. All three of them, one after the other, all together.

They kiss for so long and so deep that a little of the warmth seems to stay, glowing, in Wei Wuxian’s chest.

Eventually he hears breathing, distant and muffled. Wei Wuxian remembers how his eyes work and drags them open. He has to blink a few times to clear them; his vision is blurry.

Lan Zhan’s face swims into view, almost close enough for Wei Wuxian to brush noses with him. His eyes are shut, he still has one arm wrapped around Wei Wuxian and the other around Jiang Cheng’s thigh for balance, his (huge, say it one last time) cock is spent and pearly with cum, softening in the crease of his thigh. And his perfect hair is totally, ruinously mussed. It’s so endearing it makes Wei Wuxian’s vision blur again.

Unable to handle it, his gaze slips down to Jiang Cheng instead, who lies limp and panting in Wei Wuxian’s lap. Relief hits Wei Wuxian like a punch. Jiang Cheng’s complexion is healthy again, and though blood still smears his side and stains the ground beneath him, the wound itself no longer seems like it’s bleeding. His mouth is pressed red from kissing, his cheeks are still flushed with qi. Every bit of strain has been wiped from his face, leaving only a soft, slack, glowing sweetness that Wei Wuxian can’t remember ever seeing on him before. It’s captivating. Somebody could probably look at this sated, peaceful Jiang Cheng for centuries, and still not have looked their fill.

(The relaxed expression is even more impressive considering that Wei Wuxian’s lap and thighs are sticky with cum—he didn’t even notice himself coming—and he cannot believe Jiang Cheng is resting his head on said thighs without complaint.)

Lan Zhan’s eyes flutter open, sunlight-gold through clear water. He gazes at Wei Wuxian almost like he’s drunk, all hazy and trusting and gorgeous. “Wei Ying,” he says, hushed, the syllables held soft in his mouth. Then his brow gradually furrows. He blinks at Wei Wuxian with a tiny, adorable, slightly cross-eyed frown. His hand slips upward to rest, gentle, at the back of Wei Wuxian’s neck as his hips, equally gentle, twitch forward. Jiang Cheng sighs at the movement, eyes still closed. A final golden spark of power flickers from Lan Zhan’s body, through Jiang Cheng’s, and into Wei Wuxian—a last little frisson of heat to warm himself on.

Then, of course, it flickers out. Wei Wuxian can’t help but shiver.

Lan Zhan blinks again. His frown deepens, his eyes starting to clear. “Wei Ying…?” he says again, a thread of something awful tracing beneath his voice, and a cold bolt of dread lances through Wei Wuxian’s body.

Then Jiang Cheng shifts in Wei Wuxian’s lap, hissing with pain. Both Wei Wuxian and Lan Zhan’s heads snap down toward him.

“A-Cheng?”

“Jiang Wanyin.”

Jiang Cheng grimaces and opens his eyes. He lifts his blood-streaked hand, Zidian flashing in the afternoon light, then, with a flick, sends a pale violet crackle of electricity dancing across his fingers. “It worked,” he rasps. He lets his hand fall back down, shuts his eyes again for a moment—cycling his qi to make sure the damage is truly gone, Wei Wuxian guesses—then gives Lan Zhan a deep nod. He even almost manages to make it look more regal than awkward. “Lan Wangji. Thank you for your… aid.”

“It was my pleasure,” Lan Zhan replies, apparently automatically. Then he winces without moving his face. (But Wei Wuxian can tell. He felt that cringe.)

“…Guess so,” says Jiang Cheng. Then, to Wei Wuxian’s surprise, he grins—wry and exhausted, sure, as well as covered in blood and other bodily fluids, but he grins—up at Wei Wuxian. “Fine, Wei Wuxian. I suppose this wasn’t an awful solution after all.”

The shock of that upside-down smile feels like it knocks something loose in Wei Wuxian’s ribcage. Jiang Cheng is okay. He’s not just okay, he’s—Wei Wuxian never thought—smiling at him, again, like Jiang Cheng used to—despite how Wei Wuxian was the one who’d, who’d—“Ha,” he croaks. His hands twitch against his own thighs, inches from Jiang Cheng’s tangled hair. “Haha! Well! Like I said, you don’t know half of what I’d do for my little shidi. I told you I’d fix everything! Just leave it to me—” And then the knocked-loose thing inside him cracks open.

Wei Wuxian sees a split-second of Jiang Cheng’s beautiful relaxed face turning to horror before his vision blurs worse than ever. His eyes spill over with heat, and his lungs spasm, and his throat aches, and he’s—

“WHAT,” says Jiang Cheng. His warm weight convulses in Wei Wuxian’s lap as he scrambles upright, grabbing at Wei Wuxian’s arms. Lan Zhan also grips the back of Wei Wuxian’s neck, making alarmed noises. “Stop that. It worked. We’re all fine. What’s the matter with you? What made you cry?!”

Wei Wuxian’s chest heaves. “D-Don’t thank me.”

“I didn’t.” Jiang Cheng sounds outraged, which means he’s appalled. Wei Wuxian laughs through the sobs, scrubbing his wet face with his hands.

“It shouldn’t—” He has to force the words out, choking on them. “It shouldn’t have had to work. It wasn’t the Jins’ arrows that poisoned your qi. It was me. My resentment. I lost control! I did it! I—” He swallows, the words tearing at his throat—“I cursed you.”

(He reaches back into his spotty memory as far as he can, and he thinks he remembers the moment of it. The righteous glee of tearing down Jin Zixun and his archers. The flash of metal and wood as the Jin arrow gouged Jiang Cheng’s side, just as Jiang Cheng had leapt toward Wei Wuxian in the smoke, reaching for his arm—when Jiang Cheng should’ve known Wei Wuxian wouldn’t let himself be touched anymore—when Wei Wuxian would be able to touch him if he still had a core—except Jiang Cheng had been stupid enough to go back for his parents’ bodies all those years ago—! And then the easy power, the impact. The sudden shock of hot blood across his arm where he’d struck out, lashing Jiang Cheng away with a blast of resentful energy that then swooped upward to tear into the Jin. That blood cooling as he turned back to the battle. In the chaos, he hadn’t cared that he’d let himself lose control; he barely even noticed what he’d just done.)

(The even worse possibility: That he hadn’t, entirely, lost control. That in the moment, he’d wanted it.)

He still has Jiang Cheng’s blood on his hands, even now. On his hands, on his thighs, on his knees where he’d knelt on Lan Zhan’s robes and let Jiang Cheng be fucked to fix Wei Wuxian’s mistake. The Jin may have started this, but there is no one at Qiongqi Pass more shameless, more disgusting, than Wei Wuxian.

“I did it,” he says again. “I cursed you.”

He makes himself look Jiang Cheng in the face, knowing what he’ll see there. Knowing he deserves it.

…Except he didn’t know, apparently. Jiang Cheng’s scowl hasn’t even flickered at this world-ending revelation. He just continues to stare like Wei Wuxian is an idiot crying over nothing. “Yeah?” he says. “I know?”

Wei Wuxian stares. Then he stares some more. Then he says, “What.”

Jiang Cheng’s scowl deepens. “I thought we all knew? Lan Wangji was literally right next to us when you hit me.” He glances at Lan Zhan. “I appreciate your discretion in this matter, Lan Wangji. In, uh. Multiple matters.”

“Mn.”

“What,” says Wei Wuxian again, at heightening pitch. “What do you MEAN. You said you believed the curse was from the arrows!”

“You said it was the arrows. I thought we were setting up to pin all my injuries on the Jin.” Jiang Cheng glares at Wei Wuxian. “You’re damned lucky you didn’t hit Lan Wangji instead of me, by the way, which would have been a fucking political nightmare. Or, Jin Zixuan was originally planning to be the one to come escort you through the pass! If you’d hurt him, it would’ve been an even bigger disaster, and A-jie would’ve been devastated! At least this way, you only injured someone who could handle it.”

“You couldn’t handle it!” Wei Wuxian squeaks. It’s not the most relevant point, but he’s having trouble getting his brain around everything else. “That’s why you needed an acute qi infusion!”

“I only did that because—!”

“Technically it was not an infusion,” Lan Zhan says over Jiang Cheng.

They both snap around toward Lan Zhan, whose ears go red at the tips. Gamely, he continues, “When we began, I had thought Jiang Wanyin would not be able to refine whatever qi I passed to him, in such a state. But he cultivated it well, and even passed it between the three of us. So. Not merely an infusion. Nor even dual cultivation. Triple cultivation.”

They all blink. “Huh,” says Wei Wuxian. “I didn’t know that was a thing.”

Lan Zhan’s ears go redder. He nods at Jiang Cheng. “Nor I. It was… skillfully done.”

Jiang Cheng’s ears are also red. “Oh. Uh. Cool. Thanks?” He gives himself a shake. “Maybe-triple-cultivation aside! Wei Wuxian, look. The fact is, this whole disaster may have been shit from the get-go, but it could’ve been so much worse. If you didn’t mean to curse me—”

“Of course not!” (Surely. Surely.)

Jiang Cheng glowers. “—then that’s even worse! It means you don’t have a plan to keep it from happening again. Next time it does, it might injure someone who actually matters!”

Wei Wuxian’s chest seizes up. Fuck. Fuck. Jiang Cheng isn’t wrong. The vulnerable Wens. His little radish A-Yuan. Wei Wuxian was supposed to be meeting Shijie’s baby… No, no, it might still be fine. As long as nobody attacks him again, it should be okay—except (he doesn’t deserve to touch Jiang Cheng, but his hand snakes out to grip the hem of Jiang Cheng’s ugly fancy robe anyway) except that’s what he’d thought before, and look what he’d done to Jiang Cheng. What if next time he can’t fix things, or rather, beg Lan Zhan to fix things? The tiger tally barely helps anymore, it just makes the resentment stronger. What if he truly can’t control—

Lan Zhan’s hand settles again onto the join between his shoulder and neck. Warm, grounding. Familiar, after this afternoon spent together. “Wei Ying,” he says. When Wei Wuxian looks up at him, he has the faintest furrow between his brows, but not in anger. “You do not have to come to Gusu. I will go anywhere you wish. But, please. Let me play for you, to ease the resentment. Please let me help.”

Wei Wuxian stares at him. Lan Zhan looks back at him. He is golden, and perfect, and pure as sunlight. He is rumpled, and awkward, and human. Lan Zhan is so utterly good that it hurts.

“Okay,” says Wei Wuxian.

It’s so quiet he almost doesn’t realize the word has made it out of his mouth, but Lan Zhan is well-versed in quiet things. His expression flickers, as if in relief. As if in amazement. “Thank you,” Lan Zhan says.

Jiang Cheng is close enough that Wei Wuxian can feel him inhale, sharp, then exhale in a warm rush that brushes Wei Wuxian’s cheeks. “Thank you,” he echoes—to who, Wei Wuxian can’t tell. Why, he can tell even less.

Then, Jiang Cheng’s head snaps up. Lan Zhan goes alert. Without cultivation-sharpened senses, Wei Wuxian at first can’t hear what they do, but after a moment:

“Sect Leader!”

“Sect Leader, can you hear us? Are you hurt?”

“The hell were these Jin assholes thinking?”

“Fan out, try to find him—”

The shouts are faint, but he can tell the voices at the edge of the forest have that familiar Yunmeng burr to them. Jiang Cheng scowls with relief. “My disciples,” he says. The obvious warmth in his voice makes the cracked-open thing in Wei Wuxian’s chest throb. “Fucking finally, they took their time. I’ll—” He looks down at himself and goes red. Then he shoots to his feet, yanking his clothes and hair back into as much order as he can (so, not much) before swearing under his breath, yanking a talisman from qiankun space, and smacking it onto his robe. The most questionable stains disappear, though the blood remains. He snatches up his (folded!) pants from the ground and yanks them back on, covering up the beautiful fingermarks still bruised along his thighs. Then, primping complete, he raises his chin, locking back into sect leader mode. “I’ll regroup with them and inform them of Jin Zixun’s assassination attempt. Both of you, get up and get… as presentable as possible.” Zidian sparks as he bares his teeth in a vicious grin. “Then we’re going to Carp Tower to raise hell.”

“So energetic, Sect Leader Jiang,” Wei Wuxian offers—a little wobbly, but it’s a decent stab at his usual joking tone. “I guess the day’s activities agreed with you.”

Jiang Cheng sneers at him, red-cheeked, then stalks off into the trees. Wei Wuxian can’t help but feel a little internal glow at how strong Jiang Cheng’s stride is, how steady his back, how he flexes his hand to run lightning over his fingers again like he’s enjoying the heat. No matter how bad Wei Wuxian fucks up, it’s always worth it if Jiang Cheng is left standing upright and proud at the end.

When Jiang Cheng vanishes into the cool green shadows of the trees, Wei Wuxian doesn’t turn away, just keeps watching the space where he was. He slowly straightens up, fixes his own robes (worse than Jiang Cheng did), squares his shoulders under the prickling gaze that he can feel against his back like a physical thing. Waiting for it. He hears the quiet swish of cloth being folded, hair being neatened. Then Lan Zhan takes a long, steady breath. The wind echoes him, rustling through the trees.

“Wei Ying,” says Lan Zhan. “You have no core.”

Wei Wuxian doesn’t say anything.

He could joke, or deflect, or lie, or leave. He probably should. But. But no one has said it aloud before. Wei Wuxian for sure hasn’t. Even Wen Qing, pouring medicine down Wei Wuxian’s scream-raw throat after the core transfer, had just said It was successful. ‘It.’ That was fine, because the important thing was that the life was coming back into Jiang Cheng, and if Wei Wuxian’s own body was now a gouged-out, empty pit… no, but even metaphor is just talking around it, right? He spent such a long time twisting around himself to avoid hearing it spoken aloud that he’d half-thought he’d wrench apart if he heard it.

But he hasn’t. He has no core. It’s just a simple truth, when Lan Zhan is the one saying it. Just words. Just a blow that finally lands, and can thus be recovered from.

Wei Wuxian absorbs the hit, and a rusty little laugh creaks out of him in response. “What gave me away? The qi infusion—ah, triple cultivation?”

“That… illuminated Wei Ying’s condition. But I already knew something was wrong.”

“Oh? Young Master Lan has been looking at me so closely?”

“Yes. I always look at Wei Ying.”

Wei Wuxian wheels around before he realizes it. True to his word, Lan Zhan is staring at him. He’s all smoothed down and buttoned up again, the polished Jade of Gusu once more—but his gaze is still as avid as when he and Wei Wuxian were stripped down to nothing but golden qi and open, hungry meridians.

“…Oh,” says Wei Wuxian.

Lan Zhan looks at him with that bright, burning gaze, then continues, “I have known something was wrong. I wondered if the war still weighed on you, or if it was the demonic path. But today… you wished to save Jiang Wanyin. You were frantic with it. But despite the obvious solution, despite the need, you would not touch him. You even asked me to do so in your stead.” He swallows. “Save for something being gravely wrong with Wei Ying’s ability to transfer qi—something gravely wrong with Wei Ying’s core—I could think of no reason why you would not touch him. Not when you love him so deeply.”

The cracked-open thing inside Wei Wuxian stabs once with pain. Then, it settles.

(Jiang Cheng, hurt, waiting for Wei Wuxian to touch him. Letting him. “You and me,” he’d said. And then, later, still hurt, apparently knowing who’d hurt him, he’d opened himself up to pour golden, healing light through Wei Wuxian’s body.

Jiang Cheng always, always—)

Wei Wuxian wheezes, barely a laugh, and covers his eyes with a hand. “Don’t tell him.”

A pause. “Jiang Wanyin does not know?”

“You can’t tell him, Lan Zhan.”

A longer, more loaded pause. When Lan Zhan speaks again, he sounds mildly troubled, which means he’s probably in agony. Ah, Lan Zhan hates lying, even by omission. “…Today, if Jiang Wanyin had returned to Carp Tower for medical assistance immediately after being injured, he might not have needed a qi infusion in… in such great quantities. But the wound was obviously resentment-infected; if the other sects had seen it, they would have accused Wei Ying at once. Yet Jiang Wanyin chose to treat the wound in private, between the three of us, despite the… inconvenience. He put his body on the line to help clear Wei Ying’s name. Might that not mean Wei Ying’s feelings are re—”

Wei Wuxian is wheezing again, in some agony of his own. “Lan Zhan, have mercy! The core! You can’t say anything about the core!”

Lan Zhan cuts himself off. “He does not know that, either?”

Either?! “There’s no ‘either’! There’s not—I’m not—Just don’t say anything about anything! He doesn’t know! He can’t know! Lan Zhan, please!” Wei Wuxian finds himself crossing the distance between them in a leap, reaching for Lan Zhan’s arms. He freezes at the last second. Lan Zhan, hands half-raised as if to ward Wei Wuxian off, also freezes.

Then, deliberately, he takes Wei Wuxian’s hands.

He’s extra gentle, knowing now that Wei Wuxian’s bones are more fragile than they used to be. The touch sends goosebumps racing up Wei Wuxian’s arms and down his back and across the tender bite-mark Lan Zhan placed on his neck. He might even have goosebumps on his heart. Maybe it’s silly to react this way when he’s already kissed Lan Zhan’s mouth, but he was so out of it—they were all so out of it, and they were—they were caught up in the moment. So a bit of kissing might not, haha, might not mean… but this. Means.

“I will not speak of it,” Lan Zhan murmurs, “until Wei Ying does. But… but such a secret drives people apart. Is it not… hard on you?”

Wei Wuxian’s throat tightens. “Ah, Lan Zhan,” he says again. Of their own accord, his fingers curl around Lan Zhan’s—a small touch, but he’s had so little, for so long. His skin is starving for anything, anyone at all—but especially for this painfully honorable man. “Have mercy. You really are too good.”

“I am not. I only…” Lan Zhan’s thumb brushes over Wei Wuxian’s knuckles, slow. “I only wish to help. If… if Wei Ying wants that.”

“I,” says Wei Wuxian. He’s about to deny it like always, shrug it off. He doesn’t want help. He already agreed to let Lan Zhan play the qin for him, to begin dispersing the resentment Wei Wuxian has relied on for so long. He already has revealed so much that he never meant to. He shouldn’t drag Lan Zhan in any further than he has! And yet—

And yet…

“All right, the Jiang are ready. Let’s go.” Branches snap at the edge of the clearing. Wei Wuxian and Lan Zhan jerk away from each other. Wei Wuxian spins to see Jiang Cheng emerge back into the sunlight, batting aside a stray branch. He looks even better than before, standing strong and straight, and—no, hang on.

“WHY are you BLEEDING again,” Wei Wuxian half-shrieks, pointing to Jiang Cheng’s side—his formerly mostly-healed side, which now is spurting fresh blood and has a splintery inch of arrow-shaft sticking out of the re-gouged gash. Lan Zhan makes another of his alarmed noises.

Jiang Cheng rolls his eyes and shakes the other half of the broken arrow at them. “Calm down. I removed the curse talisman before I stabbed myself—sloppily drawn, by the way, no wonder you barely noticed when they shot at you, Wuxian—and I’m not so weak that one tiny arrow-wound will affect me, provided nobody hits me with a wave of concentrated resentment right afterward.”

Sure, okay. Sure. “WHY,” Wei Wuxian shrieks again, still pointing.

“Because the sects won’t care if the Yiling Patriach accuses the Jin of an assassination attempt! They WILL care if a furious, loud, visibly injured Sect Leader accuses the Jin of an assassination attempt. I can’t pitch an ungodly fit about a mere disciple like Jin Zixun wounding me if all I have to show for it is one tiny, already-healed cut! Anyway, don’t complain at me. You’ve been ten times as reckless for infinitely stupider reasons. Such as today.”

He sounds almost smug. Wei Wuxian stands open-mouthed. He is speechless, for once, with outrage. Lan Zhan looks from Jiang Cheng, to him, and back again.

“Both Wei Ying and Jiang Wanyin are in grave need of help,” he says to himself.

Jiang Cheng’s eyes narrow. He marches over, blood shining on his robes, and plants himself in front of Lan Zhan.

“Lan Wangji. Clearly, your desire to clear Wei Wuxian’s name is strong. So strong you’ll…” His mouth works. “Subject yourself to bodily hardship.”

“Not really hardship, except in the literal sense,” Lan Zhan says, then blinks. Jiang Cheng blinks back, looking startled. Lan Zhan’s ears flush again. “Yes.”

“Then can I count on your backing as I make my complaint to Jin Guangshan? There’s a risk you’d need to lie, given I did just stab myself,” he warns. “But I need to sway the sects to my side, and Hanguang-jun’s word is worth a great deal.”

Lan Zhan stands even straighter. “I will not need to lie. Wei Ying did not attack first. He is unmarked by the Hundred Holes. The Jin did shoot Jiang Wanyin with poisoned arrows, and afterward your qi and core were compromised. Your objections to their behavior are all reasonable.” When Jiang Cheng doesn’t respond right away, Lan Zhan reaches out and grips his wrist. “I said earlier I do not mistrust you, nor your intentions. As you say, I will risk much for… for the truth. Wei Ying needs help. I will help you.” His grip tightens. “I will help you both.”

Jiang Cheng looks up and meets Lan Zhan’s eyes. They look for a moment, gazes and hands aligned. Then Jiang Cheng’s shoulders straighten and ease, just a little, and he gives a brisk nod.

“Then Yunmeng Jiang is even more in your debt.”

Lan Zhan, solemn and intense, inclines his head back. “No need for debts.”

They really do look great together, even outside the context of qi infusion/triple cultivation/filthy tender deflowering in a bed of white spread out on the soft-crushed grass. Whatever to call it. Lan Zhan still almost polished, even with the ends of his hair disheveled and the tips of his ears ruddy. Jiang Cheng still loose-limbed, pushing himself through the aches (and the stabbing pain of an arrow wound! Because he stabbed himself!) that he must feel despite with his high cultivation. The strong clean lines of their bodies, the wrap of Lan Zhan’s long fingers around Jiang Cheng’s wrist.

Lan Zhan helped Jiang Cheng, touched him, and Jiang Cheng let him do it—and Wei Wuxian was there. He was there, touching them, the whole time. He as much a part of it as they were. Watching them, now—seeing the space between their bodies where he knows, objectively, that he fits—twists something hungry in Wei Wuxian’s ribcage, fires sweet-awful warmth through his veins.

(It’s okay. It’s safe. Even with this promise to help Jiang Cheng, Lan Zhan swore to Wei Wuxian first. He swore not to say anything about the core unless—until—Wei Wuxian does. Which he won’t. he can’t! Jiang Cheng obviously still can’t know! Nothing has changed!

But—)

Jiang Cheng shakes off Lan Zhan’s hand, turning away to draw Sandu, griping at Wei Wuxian as he does about how Wei Wuxian has no doubt left Suibian somewhere again. Lan Zhan lets him go, unsheathing his own sword. His golden eyes catch on Wei Wuxian’s as he moves. His gaze is full of words.

(But.

Maybe… Wei Wuxian could. Someday. Say something to Jiang Cheng. Not now! Not soon! But not never. Maybe he could say it, if Lan Zhan helped. Lan Zhan had said lots of shockingly complimentary things about Jiang Cheng to convince him that Lan Zhan was serious about performing the qi infusion. Lan Zhan never lies. Jiang Cheng respects him. Maybe with Lan Zhan, it could be possible to explain to Jiang Cheng that Wei Wuxian giving up his core wasn’t supposed to be an insult, or a way to repay the Jiangs—not just that, anyway—or a mere final sacrifice by an otherwise useless disciple who had failed in his one sworn duty to keep his sect leader safe. But that it had been—it had been—

That he would have taken any solution, any imperfect, agonizing solution, if it meant Jiang Cheng no longer hurt. Because…)

(You love him so deeply, Lan Zhan had said. Like it was obvious. Like it was simple.)

“All right,” Jiang Cheng barks. He jabs a hand at Sandu where it floats a few inches off the ground, ready for passengers. “Wei Wuxian, are you flying with Lan Wangji or with me? Or I can deputize a Jiang disciple to carry you, but frankly, it will be a better statement if you’re visibly aligned with someone high in rank when we arrive at Carp Tower.” Beside him, Lan Zhan nods, standing at attention next to Bichen, which also hovers just above the ground.

They stand in dappled sunlight, united and touchable and beloved, waiting for him as he watches from the shadows.

Wei Wuxian will never be warmed by a true core again. But he lets himself imagine, for a moment, the next best thing:

Being able to touch Jiang Cheng whenever he wants again, without secrets keeping them apart. Able to settle into the brightness of Lan Zhan’s qi, learning its surges and swells, eloquent where Lan Zhan is quiet. Maybe—if he were being really self-indulgent, here—able to lie back and let their energy fill him up again, focused on him this time, warming him from his toes to the tips of his fingers to his mouth as he’s kissed and kissed and kissed...

(Don’t go, he’d thought, earlier. Don’t let me go. And they had been strong enough, together, to hold him.)

These are dangerous, ridiculous imaginings. Dangerous, ridiculous, impossible imaginings.

(Then again. Wei Wuxian has rarely met an impossibility he didn’t want, at least a little, to attempt.)

Wei Wuxian raises a finger. “Well, actually!” Jiang Cheng scowls, anticipating bullshit. Lan Zhan’s brow furrows. “Lan Zhan, I know you just expended a lot of energy. And Jiang Cheng, your qi probably still isn’t quite recovered. And also you’re right, I did forget Suibian at the Burial Mounds. So rather than ride with any one man, I propose a buddy system! You two should fly close together, and I’ll go in the middle, like, straddling the gap.”

Jiang Cheng performs a truly explosive eyeroll. “For fuck’s sake. Y’know what, forget saddling one of my disciples with you, I should find some idiot still-alive Jin disciple and stick you on their sword.”

“Heaven forbid! The Jin all have such awful taste in swords—I can’t let myself be seen on that!”

Wei Wuxian does end up balanced between Bichen and Sandu, his arms slung around Lan Zhan and Jiang Cheng’s shoulders—no skin contact, but a lot of, ah, general contact—and one foot on each blade. (“Don’t you dare dick around while we’re flying, Wei Wuxian, unless you want to do a really painful split.” “You’d know all about splits, wouldn’t you! I know I’m the one who pointed out how flexible you are, but I still can’t believe how high you can get your legs.” “Wh—Fuck off!” “Mn. No fighting, or Wei Ying truly will be pulled into a split.”) Lan Zhan loops his arm behind Wei Wuxian’s back and around Jiang Cheng’s waist, carefully cradling Jiang Cheng’s stupid-but-apparently-politically-necessary arrow-wound; with his free hand, he holds Wei Wuxian’s bare wrist. He can do that, now. He knows Wei Wuxian’s secrets. Wei Wuxian can let himself be touched, like this. The cracked-but-mending thing in Wei Wuxian’s ribcage flutters.

Just before they take off, Wei Wuxian is close enough to hear Jiang Cheng mutter, “Hanguang-jun. Your technique...” His mouth twitches in what Wei Wuxian knows is an attempt not to smirk. “…maybe didn’t totally suck.”

It turns out that Lan Zhan, even if he doesn’t smile, can still radiate smugness in a way that evokes smiling. “I know,” he replies.

“Ugh, you really do have a stupid sense of humor. No wonder you and Wei Wuxian get along.”

Wei Wuxian laughs, shaking them both back and forth. “I must say, you’ve both grown much closer than before! It’s positively heartwarming. I really did come up with the perfect solution!”

“Wei Wuxian!” “Wei Ying.” They sound equally appalled, and neither of them lets go of him.

Wei Wuxian laughs again. He lets himself lean in, and they grip him back, their arms wrapping around him. Lan Zhan’s qin-callused skin slides warm against Wei Wuxian’s wrist; Jiang Cheng’s stance is rock-steady, easily taking Wei Wuxian’s weight. All together, they rise into the sky, and with a harmonized shout and a clang of clarity bells, the Jiang rise to follow them. The ground falls away, and bright clouds roll in beneath their blades. Wei Wuxian tips his head back. The evening sunlight plays in warm red across his closed eyelids, the wind pulls at his hair and clothes—he’s airborne again, the way he hasn’t been in years. Qiongqi Pass shrinks away, then vanishes over the horizon behind them.

As he flies with Lan Zhan and Jiang Cheng—their ridiculous stance more stable than it has any right to be, both swords miraculously remaining right next to each other in unwavering formation—Wei Wuxian lets himself imagine what may not be impossible. Just for a little while. Just for the time it’ll take the three of them to reach their destination.

[END]