After Wei Wuxian had finished getting reacquainted with the world and settled down into his new married life at Cloud Recesses a new problem arose: Official business days for the Chief Cultivator with guests.
They were always hard for both of them, for different reasons.
For Lan Zhan there were intricate - and heavy - ornaments held by countless pins to make him appear taller and light-colored robes - thankfully no longer only in white - which were skillfully tailored to make a slender body appear broader than it actually was.
The result was impressive and fitting for the Chief Cultivator. Impressions were everything, as even Lan Zhan had been forced to concede eventually.
It also was exhausting and painful to wear the whole regalia for a full day and often deep into the night, while having to listen to the absolute useless and annoying palaver of various sect leaders.
Wei Wuxian saw it at his duty to relieve his husband's burdens on those days to the best of his abilities; even if it was hard.
His first duty was to stay away to keep the tensions at a minimum, his second was to take care of Lan Zhan in the aftermath of the metaphorical bloodbath.
Both were self-appointed duties - Lan Zhan would love to have him it his side, Wei Wuxian knew, but he had acquired a certain amount of self-preservation instinct and… no. Just no. Not even for the love of his two lives.
(Maybe next time, he'd told himself, already knowing that he would cave. Lan Zhan had left dignity far behind today and his look of pure desperation broke Wei Wuxian's heart. Tomorrow he would stick to his side and they'd deal with the inevitable fallout together.)
He tried to make up for his stubborn refusal to join anything remotely official by being a perfect little servant on those days.
Something that proved to be harder than expected.
It wasn't hard to extract the pins and let Lan Zhan's hair down, to brush it out and try to get rid of the tension that had accumulated in his shoulders. It was easy to slowly and carefully unwrap him from his many layers to finally find the true man behind the carefully constructed façade and lead him towards the waiting bath.
What was hard was to stay mostly silent for the whole ritual, to keep his tendency to babble about everything and anyone under control for a few hours. For Lan Zhan he would take a vow of eternal silence he could never keep but he could at least try to reign himself in.
Lan Zhan had to listen to far too much stupidity during official business days, Wei Wuxian was determined to give the poor man's ears some rest.
"Wei Ying."
It was only a whisper but full of love and a host of other emotions.
Wei Wuxian looked up from his task of braiding Lan Zhan's hair for sleep with a smile and met his eyes in the mirror.
"Lan Zhan," he said carefully. He was trying, damn it, but it was hard to keep his mouth shut! He wanted to ask Lan Zhan about his day, tell about his own - carefully kept away from the conference to spare Lan Zhan's reputation as well as his own nerves, not those of the guests - and this self-appointed keep silent thing was against his very nature.
"Wei Ying," Lan Zhan repeated with a small smile, "tell me about your day."
Make me think about something else, Wei Wuxian heard, followed by an epiphany of colossal proportions: I missed you voice, Lan Zhan really meant.
Oh. Oh.
"Didn't you already hear enough nonsense today?" he asked, giving Lan Zhan one last chance of saving the peace of the late-night hour.
"Too much nonsense, not enough of what I actually wanted to hear," came the answer. Quiet but sure and even kind of hopeful.
And with that all bets were off.
Only afterwards did Wei Wuxian realize that the last of the tension in Lan Zhan's body had only melted away after he'd started recounting his day and all the juicy gossip he'd acquired from the disciples and retinue of their elevated guests.