Work Text:
It was a pleasant, warm autumn day in the Cloud Recesses.
Over and over, the sun broke through the thatch of windblown grey cloud that gave the place its name and then had its face hidden again by the busy wind, lending a strange, cheerful sense of urgency to what would otherwise be an entirely serene scene. The disciples and servants in their various pale uniforms could be seen walking a little faster than usual in reaction, scudding along like little clouds themselves.
There was, despite the rule, absolutely some running done in the Cloud Recesses, even when Wei Wuxian was absent or behaving. But the sorts of Lans who were prone to lateness had generally perfected the technique of dashing along in sharp bursts in those places where nobody was likely to catch them at it; they didn’t run out in plain sight, regardless of the weather. Well, perhaps in an especially heavy rain.
Wei Wuxian himself was not running at present, but he was doing something equally against the spirit of the rules: conspicuous idling.
But, it was for a good reason! He was waiting!
He’d finished his noodling with talismans for the day and skipped his usual sword conditioning to place himself in front of the finely-appointed and centrally located Yashi, where the ranking members of Lan Sect—that was, most of the seniormost inner disciples and the available parts of the main family—had spent the hours since lunch closeted in some kind of serious meeting.
These kinds of meetings must be very awkward for Lan Zhan, given he’d fought a lot of these people for the sake of a raving Wei Wuxian over fifteen years ago. None of them would bring it up, that would be improper, but he couldn’t imagine they didn’t think about it. Especially now that he, Wei Wuxian, was around again!
Anyway, he would have considered it his duty to support his husband through such trials even if they hadn’t been his fault. But they were, a little bit, so of course he absolutely had to be here.
Sure enough, Lan Zhan emerged from the meeting looking significantly more unhappy than he usually did after having to sit through a lot of talk, if you knew what to look for. He softened a little when he saw his husband waiting, and Wei Wuxian fell in close at his side, both of them walking away from the building and off through the Cloud Recesses just a little too quickly to be considered sedate.
“Drama?” he asked, once they were far enough from the Yashi not to be overheard too easily by any old people who might be coming out as well. He grinned. “My fault again?”
Lan Zhan shook his head. “Not directly.”
Wei Wuxian had been joking. He hadn’t actually caused any trouble lately! He hadn’t thought the subject of the meeting would involve him at all! “Indirectly?”
“Just a little. Really mine.”
Wei Wuxian, staunchly: “I don’t believe it.”
“Nothing I regret.” Lan Zhan’s pace slowed a little, as they got away from the inner compound and its relative bustle, and onto the elegantly graded path that led eventually, after passing a number of other houses, to the jingshi.
“Since I have you, and no one knows when Brother will emerge from seclusion,” Lan Zhan didn’t say that Lan Xichen might die there like his father had, which incidentally was something Wei Wuxian had no intention of allowing to happen, “Uncle is being pressured to marry.”
Wei Wuxian could swear he felt his ears pop. “He—” Lan Qiren. Married. Lan Qiren. Marriage material? “He’s old! What? How old is he? Too old!”
“He is sixty-two.”
“What, really?” Wei Wuxian did some simple math, and re-did it several times. “That means he was, what, not even forty when I met him?” That was to say, barely older than Lan Zhan was currently, a fact he usually didn’t think about because his own age was such a muddle. “He already seemed old!”
Admittedly, at fifteen Wei Wuxian had considered most adults old. But Lan Qiren had seemed especially so. He’d actually been several years younger than Jiang Fengmian! Wei Wuxian would never have guessed.
He’d had white in his hair already, when Wei Wuxian returned from the dead. That was remarkable, in a cultivator of his skill. At only sixty.
“Uncle is like that. I am assured he was already an old man from childhood.” One of Lan Zhan’s adorable hidden smiles. Wei Wuxian thought he might actually like the ones that weren’t his own doing even better, because they were wholly Lan Zhan. “I was often told growing up I reminded people of him.”
“Well that’s nonsense, you don’t have old man energy at all.” He didn’t even look his actual age, which, again, Wei Wuxian appreciated. Cultivation!
“You have been an excellent influence in that regard,” said Lan Zhan, straight-faced.
When Wei Wuxian finished laughing, he said, “But no, really, are they seriously making your uncle get married?”
Lan Zhan hummed. “The clan cannot force him. But Uncle has a strong sense of duty, and he will not want to let the bloodline fail.”
Guilt seized Wei Wuxian. Lan Zhan had Sizhui, of course, but the adoption had been irregular and not formalized, and. Well. “You, uh. You do know I wouldn’t object if…”
“Wei Ying.” Lan Zhan made sure to look at him directly for emphasis, though the wry tilt had not quite left him. “My sense of duty is not quite that strong.”
Wei Wuxian grinned. “Well. Good!” Any way that could have been arranged would have been awful, although getting the Lan to list him unambiguously as Lan Zhan’s legal spouse in their records for the sake of getting an equally legal concubine in for children would be kind of funny.
And all versions where he got to help raise Lan Zhan’s baby would have their upsides.
Huh. Would he even be allowed to meet Lan Qiren’s kids? How long could the old goat seriously prevent it, without putting the children under house arrest?
“He’s so old,” Wei Wuxian repeated.
“Male cultivators may routinely continue to sire children into their nineties.”
“Why do you know that.” Why would anyone want to know that? Did the Lan curate old man fuck statistics? Had some elderly Lan actually said that with their mouth, during the serious meeting just now?
He couldn’t think of any examples in his lifetime. Jin Guangshan had been killed before he was seventy, or he’d probably be a proof case, yuck. For all he knew Wen Ruohan’s sons might be an example, but Wen Ruohan hadn’t been in any way routine.
“It is part of the historical record, Wei Ying.”
He supposed it was, if you were in the habit of stopping and calculating what year someone and their youngest child had each been born, as you skimmed through a boring annal or chronicle. Although Lan Zhan probably didn’t skim.
“Hrm,” said Wei Wuxian. “But he’s going to have to marry someone a lot younger.”
Any woman much more than half Lan Qiren’s age was taking rather a severe risk by having a baby, even if she was a capable cultivator, and since this was being arranged almost entirely for baby-having reasons, rather than the complicated list of goals most marriages balanced, they’d for sure want her to have more than one. Early twenties would be the target.
“It will be a very dutiful marriage,” Lan Zhan agreed. “Don’t worry,” he added. “Both Uncle and I will be involved in the process, and neither of us is willing to have anyone who does not wish to be here.”
Wei Wuxian nodded, not sure why Lan Zhan was telling him not to worry—of course he had compassion for anyone trapped in a loveless marriage, and he’d already been making vague plans to befriend whoever it was and keep her spirits up, and possibly drive Lan Qiren absolutely insane by being a bad influence on her. But it was Lan Zhan’s nightmare having an unwilling wife locked up in the Cloud Recesses, and Jiang Cheng’s bogeyman having a wife who hated you.
Wei Wuxian didn’t come in with a lot of specific anxieties of his own about marriage, probably because the odds of anyone arranging a marriage for him without his input had always been so low. There were a lot of benefits to not having an admirable lineage or any money!
…Lan Qiren wasn’t willing to have anyone who didn’t want to be here. Well, of lessons he could have learned from his brother’s self-destruction, that was a good one to include.
“How come your uncle isn’t married already?” Wei Wuxian asked.
It wasn’t a question he had ever thought about before. If you’d asked him before Zewu-jun unloaded about their parents’ disaster shitshow marriage situation, Wei Wuxian would have given even odds that Lan Qiren was a childless widower or that nobody wanted to marry his old lemon face.
Even though he’d known perfectly well that the eminently respectable acting head of a Great Sect would in fact have had families lining up to offer their daughters, if he’d been interested. Not the most accomplished daughters of the very best families, maybe, him being a second son and probably never half as good-looking or talented as Lan Zhan. But there were undoubtedly a lot of amazing ladies in Uncle’s generation he could easily have married forty years ago. If he’d wanted.
“I don’t know.”
In these three words, Lan Zhan also communicated that he had thought about it, probably a lot. Well, people used to compare him to Lan Qiren, which was still funny, so probably the question was personal to him for lots of reasons.
Lan Zhan ran his fingertips over the smooth wood of the railing as the path briefly became a bridge over one of the Cloud Recesses’ many brooks. An unusually overt grounding gesture for him, even if they seemed to be alone. Wei Wuxian caught the fingers of his other hand and squeezed.
Lan Zhan’s glance acknowledged the support, grateful. He slowed them to a halt, there in the middle of the bridge, alone but for the sound of wind and water, and the rippling sunlight. “Perhaps Father’s example dissuaded. Or he was too busy to think of it, at the proper age. Perhaps it risked the appearance of impropriety. Perhaps he was afraid to enter an arranged marriage, and later meet his fated person.”
This was a very long speech, for Lan Wangji. Wei Wuxian always paid close attention when his Lan Zhan spoke several sentences in a row like this, because it always meant he had been reflecting on the subject for a long time.
“Perhaps he met them and…they were unsuitable, or did not care for him, and he let them go.”
Oh, Lan Zhan. Wei Wuxian slid his grip up to Lan Zhan’s palm so their hands were linked together properly.
“Perhaps it was simply nothing he ever wanted,” Lan Zhan said into the brook. “I always hoped that.”
But now, even that option was less of a comfort. Wei Wuxian squeezed his hand again. Of course Lan Zhan cared about Lan Qiren’s happiness, even though Lan Qiren had been such an asshole about his. Lan Zhan was a kind person, and that was how it was, with family. Even when you were mad at them you didn’t want them to suffer.
Even Wei Wuxian hoped Jiang Cheng someday managed to get over his marriage allergy! Unlike with Lan Qiren, he did know Jiang Cheng had at one point fully intended on marriage, even if he hadn’t exactly looked forward to it. It could do him good!
Maybe Wei Wuxian should look over Lan Zhan’s shoulder while they were shopping for Lan Qiren, and see if there was anyone he could redirect toward Jiang Cheng. If he found a good prospect, he could take her aside and give her tips on not making Sandu Shengshou freak out about the entire concept of matrimony. Even after so long apart and the severance of everything that had once bound them, Wei Wuxian was still one of the people who knew him best.
And if Jiang Cheng had alienated every professional matchmaker out there, clearly he needed a volunteer amateur to step in!
Table that for the future. “Are you worried about him, Lan Zhan?”
“Uncle…” Lan Zhan sighed, gently squeezed Wei Wuxian’s and, and started walking again. Wei Wuxian agreed, it would be better to get home, where they could be more shameless and let their hair down. “Uncle will be fine.”
“Was he upset? Like, really upset?” Lan Qiren didn’t have a particularly serene disposition at the best of times, no matter how much he liked to lecture that one should. But presumably Lan Zhan could tell, from long exposure, when his distress was serious.
“Mm.”
“Oh no, that sucks.”
Lan Zhan’s head-tilt said amusement, fond. “You do not have to pretend to care.”
“I do care! That hurts, Lan Zhan. I’m part of this family, right?” Wei Wuxian swung their linked hands and pouted.
“Mn.” Lan Zhan made a devastatingly soft expression that Wei Wuxian almost felt bad about, even though he did care, because also he felt that any distress Lan Qiren was experiencing about this turn of events was exactly what he deserved, and therefore funny. For every single time he’d made Lan Zhan sad, just for the sake of ideas like duty and the rules.
But still. He was in this family now, so he did care. And in a way, Lan Qiren taking one for the team like this would be taking the heat off Lan Wangji, which deserved some appreciation even if that wasn't why he was doing it.
Wei Wuxian mulled over the whole thing as they drew near the jingshi.
“Lan Zhan, do you really think your uncle was such a bitch about us because he—” he gestured vaguely. “Passed up his chance, at some point, so he could do his duty or whatever?”
“Mn,” said Lan Zhan with a slight nod, indicating he was definitely entertaining that possibility, although not wholly convinced of it.
“…but that means this is going to make him even worse!” Uncle’s self-righteousness would go straight off the charts if this was his second round of self-sacrifice on this same altar. It was probably going to make him worse regardless, actually.
Lan Zhan made a little sigh-shaped motion, with a little hitch in it to show he was, despite his low mood, still enjoying Wei Wuxian being Wei Wuxian at him, “I hope…not if he’s happy.”
“Oh. So we’ve got to get him a good one.”
Lan Zhan gave Wei Wuxian a Look.
“I mean, we would anyway! Because unhappy marriages are depressing, and he’s your uncle and you love him, and the whole Sect will be affected by a new high-ranking member. But also for our own personal benefit, as well as the future of the Lan Clan and Lan Qiren’s well-being, and so on.”
Wei Wuxian let go of Lan Zhan’s hand to clap both of his own together, and then open their front door.
Lan Qiren’s well-being! The obvious, easy, normal thing was to find him someone nice and patient and unassuming, who would be easy to be married to and look after him a normal amount, and run his household smoothly and invisibly, and raise the children to disciple age with a minimum of fuss. But would that make him happy?
Specifically, happy enough that he wouldn’t be in a position or have motivation to use his own marriage to give Lan Zhan grief about being selfish in his?
Wouldn’t Lan Qiren be better off with someone he could actually talk to, and who had opinions about his work, and wanted to reorganize the library, or something like that? So they could happily bicker for months about a small detail, because the spirit of the ‘don’t argue with your family because it doesn’t matter who wins’ rule was upheld as long as no one got really mad about it? Too much harmony was boring. Lan Qiren was a disagreeable old goat on purpose, you couldn’t fool Wei Wuxian!
Definitely! That was definitely better!
New agenda items: successfully matchmake Lan Qiren with a girl who would actually enjoy being married to him, befriend her, corrupt their babies from the cradle.
Wei Wuxian was a dutiful in-law.