It feels too personal somehow to ask what exactly your husband does had done on the anniversary of your death. There is a gap filled with too many empty memories overflowing.
Wei Wuxian wonders if this is a chasm that needs to be crossed, whether grief is something that needs to be brought in again when they have just barely managed this fragile sense of contentment and normality. He contemplates, skirts around the question while they eat the remains of their meal in an uncharacteristic yet not quite uncomfortable quietness.
When they finish, Lan Wangji stands and sets the trays down in the outer room of the jingshi to be later picked up by an assigned disciple.
In the meantime, Wei Wuxian busies himself with bittersweet nostalgia, sinking himself deep into a remembrance of times prior to his downfall before the unexpected tragedy of Jin Zixuan's death or perhaps even, before the Sunshot Campaign, when all was still bright and the worst issue that he and Lan Wangji had between them was the disguised pornography mischievously tucked into the false pages of some Buddhist text during an afternoon stay in the Gusu Lan sect's library.
And then Lan Wangji returns with a slight frown, one that Wei Wuxian is now able to read as apprehension.
"Wei Ying," he calls, offering his hand.
Wei Wuxian takes it, feels the steady warmth of it as he silently follows Lan Wangji to wherever it is that the other wants to take him to not that they go far.
Lan Wangji takes him to the back of the jingshi and opens a cabinet; and there lays an assortment of nonsensical memorabilia: a tattered red ribbon, a box of carefully pressed flowers, library scrawls filled with careless but artistic brushwork of the fields, and a sweet jar of Emperor's Smile.
A small earthen pot of dirt where prayers are lit rests on the corner.
Wei Wuxian stares numbly at the sight, feels himself choke over the sudden lump in his throat.
"I-is this an altar? For me?"
In those thirteen years when he was gone, he was sure he had never thought to listen to those calling out to him, convinced that the world of the living had wanted nothing to do with him, except to curse his soul into oblivion.
"But this is—this is..." With an almost alarming sense of desperation, he continues,
"Did you light me incense, Lan Zhan? "
"Yes," Lan Wangji says, and the truth of it resounds throughout the room.
Wei Wuxian cannot help the strangled whine that leaves him.
"I... Thirteen years, you really mourned me? You paid respects to me?"
"Yes."
Wei Wuxian lifts a hand, runs a hesitant finger over the ribbon.
"Where did you get this?"
"Xuanwu."
"When we fought the xuanwu?"
"Mm."
"You stole my ribbon?" Wei Wuxian asks quietly, the incredulous note in his voice made soft.
"It fell off my leg. You would not stop moving," Lan Wangji says.
Wei Wuxian falls silent for a moment.
"I remember that. Your hand on my head. It wasn't a dream, then?"
A long exhale. "No."
Blinking back the wetness in his eyes, he takes a moment to compose himself, letting out a blinding grin.
"Lan Zhan. Good Lan Zhan. How cruel you were to lie to me!"
"Not good," Lan Wangji refutes, ignoring the last bit.
"Very good! You are so good to me, Lan Er-Gege!"
"Not good," Lan Wangji insists.
"I did not burn the money," he confesses, appearing as if he was extremely troubled by the oversight.
"What?" Wei Wuxian croaks, watching as Lan Wangji reaches into his robes to pull out a thick wad of red and gold paper. Wei Wuxian stares at it blankly for a second before he remembers: the disciples mourning A-Qing in Yi City, himself reprimanding them to stop burning paper money in front of someone's residence, only for them to unknowingly accuse him of having no mourners.
"The money," Lan Wangji says, almost helplessly, lips quirking when he makes Wei Wuxian laugh with enough force to leave him bending over, the tears he had held back finally escaping, streaming down his face. Lan Wangji holds him upright and tenderly thumbs away the salt on his cheeks.
"Why do you have that?!" Wei Wuxian exclaims, voice hoarse as he howls in apparent disbelief.
"Lan Zhan, Lan Zhan, I'm alive. You can't burn me any now!"
"We will burn them because you are alive."
The last traces of mirth have yet to leave him, the corners of his lips still fondly raised. Wei Wuxian looks up at the man who holds his heart, who had waited for it for a very long time, steadfast in unrelenting devotion.
"What a waste of a fortune," he reprimands gently.
"Do not mourn the living, Lan Zhan."
Lan Wangji shakes his head.
"No, not for you."
Understanding lights Wei Wuxian's already reddened eyes. They grow brighter.
"For Mo Xuanyu."
"Yes," Lan Wangji says, nodding.
"Mo Xuanyu for reviving you." He wraps an arm around Wei Wuxian's waist, brings him even closer.
"And for Jiang Fengmian and Yu Ziyuan for raising you. Jiang Yanli for caring for you."
Wei Wuxian stills, closing his eyes as he leans forward and buries his face against his husband's chest. He feels the comforting sensation of a hand gently carding through his hair.
"Cangse Sanren and Wei Changze for bearing you."
Wrapping his arms around Lan Wangji, Wei Wuxian embraces him as tight as he can manage. These are the people who have brought him here. Here, to his present self, where Lan Zhan is, in the place where he once so resolutely tried to avoid for fear of judgment and renouncement.
"For your parents as well," Wei Wuxian murmurs, glancing up.
Lan Wangji says nothing, but the brightness of his eyes is more than telling. Wei Wuxian thinks of the scars on Lan Wangji's back, of how this man had once been a six-year old boy made to wait for a mother who would never again answer her door.
Again, Wei Wuxian thinks of how much they have lost, and he thinks of how much they have gained. And then there are all these things that fall in between that are neither so good nor so bad but have nonetheless brought them to this present where they are. Some moments aren't quite as bright as the others there is a shidi, who only half-forgives him, and a nephew who he has orphaned. Lan Wangji, too, has a brother who grieves. But they are here, holding each other together.
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A/n: Perhaps the strangeness of the day is not so much strangeness as it is the beginning of an acceptance that perhaps things are finally falling into the places where they are meant to be.
