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Really, Wei Wuxian should’ve noticed this a lot sooner. How he had woken up before Lan Wangji, how the other man had clanged onto him, nuzzling his forehead into Wei Wuxian’s neck; it was warm, more so than usual, but Wei Wuxian had thought it was simply the lingering heat from a night’s rest.
He had laughed, pulling Lan Wangji closer to kiss into his hair.
“You sure slept in today,” Wei Wuxian teased. The sun sneaked through the silk curtains, bathing the two in a warm glow. “Sleepyhead, did you tire yourself out last night?”
“Mn,” Lan Wangji said. His breath was hot against Wei Wuxian’s neck. “... Sorry, ‘m haven’t made breakfast yet.”
Wei Wuxian smiled softly. “No worries; let this humble wife cook for his husband today, okay?”
Lan Wangji hummed, playing with Wei Wuxian’s hair, fingers trailing the black locks as Wei Wuxian got up. Rarely did Wei Wuxian have the chance to spoil his husband–especially so early in the morning–and with Lan Wangji still soft from sleep, Wei Wuxian happily took up tasks that his husband normally completed.
Cloud Recesses had long since woken, with small disciples running about like little bunnies off to class. The morning fog had cleared its ways through the open halls, and there was a restless clumsiness only seen in the early hours. Wei Wuxian smiled as the kids stopped to say good morning to him before hurrying off again, their hands full of scrolls, instruments, or whatever else little Lans carried with them.
“Wei-gongzi!” someone called out, and Wei Wuxian winced as he heard footsteps racing towards him, unapologetically loud. Honestly, this boy…
Wei Wuxian turned to see Lan Jingyi grinning up at him, gasping for breath as Lan Sizhui followed quickly behind, walking so fast it would be considered running to anyone else. He chuckled at the two boys, fondly fixing Lan Jingyi’s messy bangs while Lan Sizhui caught up.
“Wei-gongzi, good morning,” Lan Sizhui greeted Wei Wuxian with a polite bow, while Lan Jingyi leaned on Lan Sizhui for support. “Is Hanguang Jun still in the Jingshi? We haven’t seen him all morning, and there’s a night hunt report that we need him to check.”
“Your Hanguang Jun had such a wonderful night with this wife that he’s still in bed right now,” Wei Wuxian said, laughing as the two boys suddenly flushed. “Here, give me the report–I can look over it while I make breakfast.”
“Wei-gongzi is… making breakfast?” Lan Jingyi mumbled, handing Wei Wuxian a scroll. “That would definitely wake Hanguang Jun up–ow!” Lan Jingyi whined when Lan Sizhui kicked him with a scowl.
“Let us help,” Lan Sizhui insisted, with a strange determination. He tugged Lan Jingyi’s sleeves until the other boy also nodded. “We don’t have classes in the mornings anyways.”
Wei Wuxian pinched Lan Sizhui’s cheeks, smiling as the boy grew shy. “Does A-Yuan miss Xian-gege’s cooking that much?”
“...Yes.”
Wei Wuxian laughed, knocking the scroll lightly on Lan Sizhui’s head. It was just too fun teasing these two.
“Let’s go then.”
--
(It was a flurry of excitement. Lan Jingyi’s laughter, Lan Sizhui’s exasperated looks, and Wei Wuxian’s sneaky fingers always ready to add a pinch more red. A fire too bright, a spark too much soy sauce, and a dish served too messy–Wei Wuxian thought it was as close to perfect as they could reach.)
--
“Lan Zhaaann,” Wei Wuxian called as he slid the door open with his foot. “Didja miss me?”
Silence responded, the house unchanged since he had left. Wei Wuxian frowned, setting the tray of food down as he went to open the windows in the dining room. Did Lan Wangji already leave? He walked back to the bedroom to see his husband still laying in bed, back turned towards the door.
“Lan Zhan?” Wei Wuxian called, softer. He walked over and nudged the sleeping form. “Lan Zhan, are you still asleep?”
Lan Wangji stirred, letting out a soft groan as he turned to greet Wei Wuxian.
“Wei Ying,” he said, raising a hand to Wei Wuxian’s cheeks. His hand was warm, almost unnaturally so.
“Hey…” Wei Wuxian leaned with a frown. “Are you feeling okay?”
“Mn.”
Wei Wuxian pulled Lan Wangji up. The man blinked sleepily up at him, a mix of fondness and something else cloudy. Lan Wangji sighed softly as Wei Wuxian combed his fingers through his hair, resting his head against Wei Wuxian’s shoulder.
“I made you breakfast,” Wei Wuxian said. “A-Yuan and Jingyi helped.”
“Mn. Thank you.”
This slowness was not something Wei Wuxian was used to; the way his husband seemed heavier in all his movements, a dragging weight holding him down. Wei Wuxian pulled Lan Wangji up a little to press the back of his hands to his forehead. It was warmer than earlier, enough to make Wei Wuxian worry.
“Are you sick?” It almost felt silly to ask; Hanguang Jun? Sick? An impossible thought.
Lan Wangji stayed silent.
“Lan Zhan?”
“Just tired,” Lan Wangji said. Then, as if he just remembered, “Have you eaten yet?”
Wei Wuxian tucked a stray hair behind Lan Wangji’s ear. It was difficult to keep concern from coloring his eyes. “Was waiting for you.”
Lan Wangji sat up slowly. His long black hair pooled around his hips, and his robes were slightly askew from Wei Wuxian’s tugging and pulling last night. Yet outside of the small damage caused by their nightly activities, there wasn’t anything off about Lan Wangji; the only noticeable differences were the light flush that painted from his cheeks up to his ears and the sleepy ways his eyes blinked, as if still amidst a dream.
Wei Wuxian pulled Lan Wangji out of bed and walked him to the table where breakfast waited. His husband ate in silence as Wei Wuxian sat behind him, braiding his hair and occasionally opening his mouth as Lan Wangji held food up for him. Mornings were always quiet in Jingshi, but today, Wei Wuxian talked even more just to fill up the empty space and keep Lan Wangji awake. He would poke Lan Wangji when his eyes were closed for too long and pressed a kiss on his neck when he started swaying.
“You should call today off,” Wei Wuxian said, after almost half a shichen of watching his husband doze off. The dishes had cooled to an uncomfortable temperature, yet most still sat untouched. “I’ll talk to your brother and uncle,” he added after Lan Wangji brows furrowed. “Just stay home today, okay?”
“...Mn,” Lan Wangji finally agreed. He set his chopsticks down and looked at Wei Wuxian. “Can Wei Ying start a bath for me?”
Wei Wuxian smiled and ruffled Lan Wangji’s hair. When he leaned down to kiss Lan Wangji, a large hand covered his mouth; Wei Wuxian looked up to see Lan Wangji in a slightly pained expression.
“I will get you sick,” Lan Wangji explained.
Wei Wuxian pouted and kissed the inside of Lan Wangji’s palm, feeling the fingers push back into Lan Wangji’s lips, parting it open. He pulled back before Lan Wangji could do anything but stare with a pretty flush.
“You just sit back and look pretty.” Wei Wuxian grinned, patting Lan Wangji’s cheeks.
He covered up the leftover dishes with a food mesh cover; he didn’t want to throw it away yet.
--
The last time Wei Wuxian took care of someone ill was when he was still in the Burial Mounds in Yiling–not counting the events with Xue Yang. Wen Qing could only care for so many people, her hands permanently stained with a red hue, and with Wei Wuxian being the only abled-bodied young man around–Wen Ning was still unconscious then–he picked up wherever she couldn’t. His hands were far more clumsy and stiff than Wen Qing, yet the Wens only expressed gratitude at his weak attempt at imitating their beloved doctor.
Now, looking into his rippling reflection, a cold towel still dripping in his hands, he couldn’t help but almost smell the bitter rust that seemed to linger in Burial Mounds. Somehow, the simple act of care had associated itself with tragedy. Maybe he should call over Lan Sizhui–pretend that he needed help taking care of Lan Wangji instead of a raw need to see the boy grown up and healthy; a living proof that time had passed and that all was not lost. It was a biting desire, but he pushed it down to his guts–he had seen the boy just this morning–and walked back to the Jingshi with a bucket of cold spring water.
Lan Wangji had gone back to sleep. Not even Lan Sizhui and Lan Jingyi’s help in the kitchen could get Lan Wangji to finish breakfast, and he had certainly not wanted them reheated; his taste got significantly more picky the deeper the sickness sunk in, and his lips had zipped shut with a stubborn pout that made Wei Wuxian want to kiss it away if he wasn’t so worried.
The last time he tried to care for someone, it broke into war. The last time he tried to care for someone, his shijie died.
He really did not know what to do, this scarred hand that built and created, but never anything that truly mattered–never anything that protected.
When he entered the bedroom, it was to a resting husband. Wei Wuxian set down the bucket next to the bed and took the towel resting on Lan Wangji’s forehead to rewash; when he checked Lan Wangji’s temperature with the back of his hand, it was even warmer than earlier. Wei Wuxian wondered if this was how Jiang Yanli felt when she had to take care of him—worry like an impatient animal, clawing and scurrying in his chest cavity. He wished he could go back, hold her gentle cold hands, and ask her how she cared so easily. Ask if he cared enough–or maybe cared too much.
After Wei Wuxian was sure that Lan Wangji was all tucked in and had a new cold towel on his forehead, he headed off to Cloud Recesses. The last of the classes were still running along, so Wei Wuxian was able to snoop around the empty halls uninterrupted. He wondered if he could make Jiang Yanli’s lotus root and pork rib soup without pork ribs. He wondered if something spicy in this rainy season will help Lan Wangji get better sooner. He wondered if Lan Sizhui still remembers Wen Qing’s voice–a sharp thing that cut until blood leaked, yet softened like a mother’s lullaby when she speaks to her family.
Wei Wuxian wished he still had them–these two women in his life who never stopped fighting and caring–and he wished he had learned more from them. Wished he had teased less and listened more. Maybe then he wouldn’t be so clueless as to what to cook for his husband. The kitchen looked unbreathable without the morning sun.
“I do hope you’re not planning on cooking dinner for the students,” a dry voice came from the door, snapping Wei Wuxian out of his daze. Lan Qiren.
“Lan-xiansheng,” Wei Wuxian said, trying to squeeze out the surprise in his voice. It failed. “I… what are you doing here?”
The old man didn’t respond, walking into the kitchen and instead, started rummaging around the cabinets. When he saw that Wei Wuxian was still around, he grumbled under his breath and tossed him some ginger, in which Wei Wuxian barely caught.
“Cut them up,” Lan Qiren said, going back to searching. “Don’t dice them.”
“Ah. Uh, okay,” Wei Wuxian said.
It was napa cabbage next. Then scallions. Then garlic and mushrooms and this other kind of mushroom Wei Wuxian had never seen–and frankly, thought was poisonous–and carrots. Wei Wuxian cut like he’d never held a knife before, his hands wobbly and sliced in uneven chunks; he had forgotten how scary a teacher’s glare could be. After that, it was to act as an errand boy: go get water, go get wood, go get whatever other mystery item Lan Qiren made him fetch.
When Lan Qiren finally got everything prepared and was about to cook, Wei Wuxian swallowed down his pride and weakly asked the old man if he could teach him.
“I uh…” Wei Wuxian trailed off under Lan Qiren’s gaze. He was fifteen again, a boy whose words held no weight or meaning. “I would like to know what Lan Zhan likes.”
Lan Qiren lips pursed when Wei Wuxian said ‘Lan Zhan,’ but then he sighed–a deep sigh that only came with age–before waving the nervous man over.
During Wei Wuxian’s first summer at Cloud Recesses, he was still a boy who had only ever known a world of beautiful kites and sun-warmed lotus lakes. A boy who bullied his brother and whined to his sister. A boy who escaped the adults in his life to flirt with pretty girls in the village and steal from fishermen, and when he came home a wounded animal, his shijie was always there to shield him from any attacks from Yu Ziyuan.
He could admit now, that after the failure of his first class at Cloud Recesses, he gave up trying, finding more amusement in teasing little Lan Wangji than Lan Qiren’s teachings. After all, what could he possibly learn from a man so horribly stubborn he couldn’t see an inch outside his narrow viewpoint?
Somehow, now, with Lan Qiren looking over his shoulder as he carefully measured spices and dropped them into the soup, he felt like he was making up for the summer of lackadaisical effort. There was still disappointment steeped deep in the old man’s voice, as if no matter how careful Wei Wuxian was, he would always add too much or too little, or stir too fast or too slow; however, Lan Qiren never pushed Wei Wuxian away or kicked him out.
“Madam Lan used to make this for Wangji when he got sick,” Lan Qiren said quietly.
Wei Wuxian stopped stirring, but quickly started again under Lan Qiren’s glare.
“Wangji… got sick often as a kid,” Lan Qiren started again. His voice was always different when he talked about his two nephews; love, Wei Wuxian realized, was a tune that followed a person’s name. “He becomes the pickiest little thing every time, refusing to eat anything I made. He worried Xichen sick. The only thing he’d eat was his mother’s cooking. She would make him this ginger soup every time.” Lan Qiren took the ladle from Wei Wuxian and tasted the soup, furrowing his brows before asking Wei Wuxian to add more salt. “After… After Madam Lan passed, it was almost impossible to get Wangji to eat anything, especially when he got sick. I had never tried Madam Lan’s cooking before, so it was just trial and error until Xichen and I made something Wangji would finally try.” Lan Qiren paused, his gaze reaching out the window. Then, quieter, “I was foolishly blinded by my ignorance, and took her presence on the boys for granted… It was only after her passing did I realize the absence I had to fill in: the role of a mother.” A slow chuckle. “What did I know about parenting? I was…”
“Utterly lost,” Wei Wuxian said with the same emptiness.
Lan Qiren nodded stiffly.
The two finished, plating the soup and wrapped it together nicely to bring to Lan Wangji. The walk there was silent, but not the suffocating type that followed Wei Wuxian throughout his childhood whenever he was near Yu Ziyuan, or sometimes even Jiang Fengmian. Wei Wuxian wondered how many times Lan Qiren had to pick up Lan Wangji from the doorsteps of Jingshi when Lan Wangji was a kid, still waiting for his mother to open the door; if sorrow carried a weight, like a heavy stone on the heart; if he could miss someone he didn’t ever truly know.
Lan Qiren did not enter the Jingshi. He gave Wei Wuxian one final nod before turning around and–
“How–” Wei Wuxian called out, his voice caught midway when Lan Qiren turned around. “How did you do it? I…” I never learned shijie’s lotus root and pork rib soup; I never learned how Wen Qing keeps calm even when everything around her crashes like uncontrollable waves; I never thought I had to. “When… they–when she passed, how did you…” learn what they never taught?
“You don’t,” Lan Qiren said, voice soft. “You will never do things the same way they did, simply because you are not them. Wangji will never taste the soup that Madam Lan made, but he will taste the soup you made, and maybe that’s all we can do. We walk for those who used to walk with us–a burden of living. But–” the doors of Jingshi opened, and Lan Wangji slowly peeked out, blankets still wrapped around him. Lan Qiren smiled at his sleepy nephew; a small crease folding around his eyes. “–I think it’s a burden worth carrying, is it not?”
“Uncle.” Lan Wangji’s voice was hoarse, a hint of question.
“Wangji.” Lan Qiren nodded. “I have cancelled all of your classes today and tomorrow. Rest and get better soon.” The old man left, his hands folded behind his back, taking something heavy in the air with him.
“Hey.” Wei Wuxian took Lan Wangji’s face in his free hand when Lan Qiren had walked far enough to not hear. “Are you feeling better?”
“Not tired anymore,” Lan Wangji said, nuzzling into Wei Wuxian’s hand. His face was still warm, but less so.
“Then I hope you’re hungry.” Wei Wuxian smiled weakly, holding up the wrapped bowl tied to his other hand. “I, uh… heard you like ginger soup?”
Lan Wangji’s eyes widened, hands coming to hold the bowl as a familiar smell escaped it and filled the Jingshi.
“You…” Lan Wangji carefully unwrapped and opened the bowl of soup. Wei Wuxian watched as Lan Wangji sharply breathed in, clenched his jaws, and let out a shaky breath.
“You have no idea how hard it was to not add spices,” Wei Wuxian joked, trying to lighten the mood. “But I think your uncle would’ve definitely killed me on the spot if–”
“Mn,” Lan Wangji said, and Wei Wuxian looked away, giving him space when Lan Wangji reached up and wiped his face with his sleeves. “Wei Ying, thank you.”
“Of course, I told you to let this wife take–”
“No. Wei Ying. Thank you.” Lan Wangji rested his forehead against Wei Wuxian’s. His voice was still stuffy, his nose pink. “Thank you so much.”
Wei Wuxian let out a breathy laugh.
“C’mon,” he said, pressing a kiss on the corner of Lan Wangji’s lips. He pulled them into the Jingshi. “Let’s eat this before it gets cold.”
--
(Years ago, a young girl wiped away the tears running down her brother’s soft face, amused as he cried and whined to the heavens above. It was a small scrape, just above the knee, when the boy had run too fast, trying to catch a bird.
“A-jie,” the little boy said, the title of sister still hasn't burnt off his tongue yet. “A-jie, can you make me that soup–uh… the, the pork one.”
“The lotus root and pork rib soup?” The girl hid her smile behind her sleeves.
“Yeah! That!”
They shared a private laugh, her hands ruffling his already messy hair.
“Of course, A-Xian.”)