Stepping Back (ADOPTED - ShonuaSDK)

Comfort

Wei Ying slammed the door closed and jumped on his husband who had sat down on the floor as soon as they had come to the Jingshi. He wiped away Lan Zhan's tears with his trembling hands and kissed him long and soft. It was not a kiss of passion like always but a kiss of comfort and love. It was a kiss meant to sooth and tell the one how much the other loves him. Wei Ying breaks apart from the kiss and slowly peppers Lan Zhan's face with feather light kisses, soothing Lan Zhan's fury and pain.

"Hug me?" Lan Zhan asked stopping him from pulling away. Wei Ying's eyes were openly honest, loving and glistening with unshed tears. He laughs.

"When did that become something you have to ask for my sweet?" Wei Ying asks mildly affronted, cuddling up to his husband's chest. White robed arms automatically surrounded him letting him smell the familiar comforting scent of sandalwood. Lan Zhan breathed in the sweet scent of roses wafting up from his partner. Five years ago Lan Zhan discovered that after Wei Ying's pregnancy a distinctly sweet scent of roses had also added to his normal scent of freesia. It was just an addiction earlier but now it had become an obsession as well for Lan Zhan to smell him.

"I know. I just wanted to."

Lan Zhan remembered Wei Ying telling him how much he loved the sandalwood scent that always covered him and took a loud sniff causing Wei Ying to laugh out again in a watery way. He suddenly realized that Wei Ying had been crying quietly.

"Wei Ying?"

"M-mn?" he sniffled and his heart wrenched.

"What is it Xingan?" He felt the temperature of the man in his arms go up and huffed out a laugh. Even after ten years, he still hasn't lost his embarrassment at the pet name.

"N-nothing." More sniffles.

"Then why do you cry?"

"....."

"Answer me, love."

"It's just..... I know you love me and..... I should have gotten used to it but.... I still couldn't. It still hurts knowing what he said was true. I mean his daughter is beautiful and very talented. It's also true that you could have done so much better than me.... I just wonder....." Lan Zhan tightened his embrace, angry at the wretched man that made his beloved cry. Then he frowned.

"Xingan what do you mean you should have gotten used to it?" Wei Ying stiffened. Lan Zhan partially pulled away to look him in the eye but he averted his gaze. Tears still dripped in abundance from the perfectly shaped face on to Lan Zhan's clothes.

"I want you to answer me Wei Ying."

".....sorry" Lan Zhan stifled a sigh. And then he smirked. After all, if ten years of marriage taught him anything, it would be on how to get Wei Ying to open up.

"Wei Ying, please love, who told you things like this? What did they tell you? Why wouldn't you  tell me?" He made his voice sound hurt on purpose and the results were immediate. Wei Ying sprang back in to his embrace with the agility of a cat but still stared at the floor guiltily. The tears hadn't stopped yet, Lan Zhan noted painfully. 

"I'm sorry. I just didn't want to trouble you." Lan Zhan stroked his head, waiting for him to go on.

"Many people tell me that I don't deserve you, that I am a curse that you had the misfortune of marrying, that I will never be worthy of you....." He faded off sobbing painfully and all Lan Zhan could do was to whisper and coo at him gently. Finally when the sobs receded he sang their song to him with all the love he could saturate into the song until Wei Ying went in to sleep in his arms for the second time since they came.

Lan Zhan yearned to ask everything about what the unknown cultivators did to him but he suppressed himself. He can't ask when Wei Ying is still unable to sleep at night, plagued by nightmares and has become more prone than ever to explode in to waterworks or to shut himself away. Not yet. Until he is ready Lan Zhan won't push.