Wei WuXian leaned back against a tree, bit down on a piece of hay, and watched his older children playing in the cooling sunshine. In the last few months, since the burning of Koi Tower, both Liu and XiaoShu had grown enough to need entirely new sets of clothing, and now it looked like their trouser hems would need to be let down. Again. They were growing like weeds like all children should. A'Yuan, Jin Ling, and a bunch of their friends had traveled to Sanctuary for the Autumn festival, and all of them were playing some sort of touch and run game that involved a lot of screaming and laughing.
He looked down at the infant lying in his arms and smiled, almost dizzy with love. The week before he had traveled to LanLing City to buy out the contract for Liu's mother only to find that the woman had died in childbirth leaving behind this infant, not so affectionately known to her brothel sisters and madam as 'that brat'. Instead of buying the woman, he bought Liu's brother and a nanny goat. Upon his return to Sanctuary, Lan Zhan had simply sighed and wondered aloud about whether or not they were ready to care for an infant. Wei WuXian, however, was entranced with this young one. From his strong grip, to his toes curling when pressure was applied to his soles, to his peeing as soon as his bottom was uncovered, to his gas burp smiles…. "You need a name, little one," he cooed. A particularly loud shriek made the brat shiver in his sleep and he smacked his lips a few times, releasing a large volume of drool. "Silly child." The father wiped the drool with a cloth he had learned the hard way to carry, and turned his attention back to the playing children.
Liu was now up on OuYang ZiZhen's shoulders while XiaoShu rode A'Yuan's. The two younger ones now had stick-swords and were slashing away at the 'enemy'. Jin Ling apparently thought it was unfair that his opponents had 'horses' and he didn't, so he hopped up onto Lan JingYi's back and pretended that he too had a horse.
"Ow! You little fiend!" Wei WuXian yelled out. "Stop biting!" The infant had started rooting for milk and somehow had managed to find his nipple through his robes and was biting it. A soft chuckle had him looking up to see his husband standing half in the sun, half in shade, one hand folded behind his back. "You won't find this funny tonight," Wei WuXian grumbled, rubbing at his abused chest. "This hurts! How do women stand it?"
Lan WangJi ignored the rhetorical question. "It won't stop me, either," the other promised, sending a wave of heat and lust through Wei WuXian's body. Lan WangJi reached down to take the child and gave him a finger to gnaw on. "Let's go get you some milk. Give your poor Baba a break." As he strolled towards their manor, Wei WuXian thought he heard, "Those nipples belong to me. I'm the only one allowed to bite them, do you understand?"
Wei WuXian scrambled up and after his husband. "Are the lanterns ready? Liu says she wants to make one all on her own for tonight…." Receiving an mm for a response, Wei WuXian grinned. "Hey Lan Zhan! Do you remember the lantern we made? Shall I make another one tonight with a rabbit on it?" Lan WangJi's response was only a slight pinking of the tips of his ears.
In the kitchen, Wei WuXian snagged an apple, took a large bite, and then took back the infant so Lan WangJi could heat up the milk. There was a Sanctuary-wide order that the Yiling Patriarch was not allowed to prepare any food. He wasn't even allowed to use a knife to chop vegetables, and the spice boxes were all locked with an anti-WuXian spell. It had been slightly humiliating having several thousand people laughing at his poor cooking skills at first…. The upside, though, was that he just had to casually mention that he might go make something to eat before someone offered him food. One of the first people they hired for the manor was a housekeeper/cook, and it turned out that she was extremely territorial about her kitchen. She reluctantly allowed Lan WangJi the use of a pot to heat milk for the infant only because the child ate every few hours and she enjoyed her sleep.
Cook bustled in, shooing Lan WangJi away from her stove, and glaring at Wei WuXian in a reminder to not touch anything. He gave her his most innocent look, which was spoiled by another chunk of apple puffing his cheek out. "You need a wet nurse," she admonished them. "And then you need a concubine or two so you can stop bringing home strays…." Wei WuXian choked on his apple and Lan WangJi's ears turned a bright red. "Although this one is rather cute…." The child blew a raspberry in acknowledgement and started rooting for Wei WuXian's nipple again.
"Oh no, you don't," Wei WuXian scolded and moved the baby so it was peering over his shoulder. The child's head bobbled a bit before falling down. Wei WuXian watched, entranced, as his son brought a fist up towards his face, examined it for a moment, and then started chewing on a finger. "Oh look! Lan Zhan! Look! He figured out how to suck his finger!"
"That's a bad habit to start," Cook scolded, and pulled the finger away to the baby's vocal displeasure. She poured the barely warmed milk into a bladder and shooed the men out of her kitchen.
Wei WuXian settled himself on a couch and started feeding the baby. "You need a name, little one. XiaoShu thinks we should call you JinYu because you look like a fish when you're hungry."
Lan WangJi frowned at the name. "We're not naming our son JinYu. But.… Do you think we should hire a wet nurse? Or at least a nanny? He seems to be doing fine with the goat's milk…. But your work is suffering…."
"My work is going along quite smoothly. My students are having fun trying to build a device to store and port hot water for bathing. To be honest, I'm more interested in using the end product than designing it, really…."
"I don't understand."
"They're thinking of some sort of large tank that is constantly being heated. And then pipes run the hot water into a tub. It eliminates having to use the kitchen to heat bath water and spilling buckets along the way." Wei WuXian smiled down at the child who was supporting the bladder with two fists as he drank. "I think we could hire a nanny for Baobei…."
Cook hmmphed from the corner of the room where she was dusting. "Just get yourselves some concubines, and solve all of your problems. Children need a mother. Master Lan tries hard, but a man simply cannot do what a woman can. You say the word, and I'll pick out some nice sweet girls who won't get in those harem fights."
Wei WuXian spluttered, laughing. "See Lan Zhan! Even she thinks you're the wife!"
"Of course he's the wife!" Cook agreed. Lan Zhan pointedly looked at his husband feeding their child and snorted. "Master Wei is extremely involved in raising your children, Master Lan…. As all good fathers should be. It's not what you do that makes me say you're the wife; it's how you look at each other…. Master Wei looks at you as if you are the center of his world. but Master Lan… you look at him as if he is the entire world…."
Lan WangJi gave Cook a steady look, which apparently reminded her of urgent duties elsewhere. Wei WuXian took the bladder away from the suddenly fussy baby and expertly brought him up to his shoulder, patting his back for a burp. The child whined for a bit as the gas bubble refused to move. Then with a loud noise out both ends of his body, the child simultaneously spit up and voided his bowels. "You need to unlearn his habit," Wei WuXian scolded softly. "One does not shit while eating. That's bad manners." Lan WangJi laughed at his husband and handed over the cloths to change the child he had already prepared.
Changed into clean, dry clothes, the baby resumed drinking his milk. But now his eyes were drooping, and he resorted to chewing on the bladder more than sucking it. Wei WuXian snuggled the sleepy body closer, and sighed. He felt enormously guilty. After not even half a year of marriage, they already had four children. He had all the love a man could ever want, and yet…. Is it so bad to want more? He looked over at Lan WangJi reading on the other end of the couch. I wish I was a woman for you…. So I could give you a child of your own…. A child of our own…. He loved their children, more than he had ever thought was possible to love another person. And yet…. In the deepest part of his mind, even before he brought back the baby, he had started praying when Lan Zhan's seed burst into his body…. Prayed that somehow the seed would take root, that magically he would develop a woman's body so he could carry their children. Baobei's limbs jerked wildly: a signal that he was asleep. Wei WuXian put the child to bed in one of the many cots set in rooms for that exact purpose, and then went to look out the window at the older children still playing. I could take a concubine. But can I do that to him? Can I lie with a woman just so I can have a child of my blood? Can I demand he lie with a woman just so I can have his child? Can I face him after betraying our love with another person? Just return to his bed with my seed still sticky between her thighs and her scent on my skin? Can I ask a woman we will never love the way she deserves to be loved to bear us children? Is it fair to her to ask her to be no more than a walking womb? Take away her chance to have a happy marriage? A mental picture of that unknown woman, her belly rounded with his child, had his chest aching with want. His hand pressed against his lower abdomen, pushing against the emptiness within. Stop being so selfish, Wei Ying. He looked back at his husband. You already have everything you should want. Stop wishing for what you cannot have.
At dusk at the pond, Lan WangJi knelt next to XiaoShu, guiding his hand on the brush as they wrote 'happy and healthy' on his lantern. Wei WuXian was with Liu, drawing a galloping horse onto her lantern. A'Yuan and Jin Ling and the OuYang siblings were together, smiling and laughing at the designs on their lanterns. Lan XiChen and Li MeiLi sat in a chair cooing over the baby; ZeWu-Jun was still unable to walk despite having been treated by healers from almost every Clan. (Wen Qing had stated repeatedly that the paralysis was temporary and that he would eventually walk again, and she reminded them over and over that 'eventually' was not synonymous with 'soon'.) All over Sanctuary, students and disciples were making lanterns, and some were already lit and floating in the sky.
A nudge against the back of his head had him looking over his shoulder to see Wei Ying grinning down at him. A corner of his mouth twitched upwards in appreciation of the sight: Wei Ying, highlighted by the pinks and oranges of the twilight sky, was even more beautiful than he normally was. "Father, you dropped this," Liu spoke softly. Burning with love and desire, Lan WangJi looked down at his daughter only to see his forehead ribbon draped across her hand. He froze, half in hope and half in agony, when Liu reached up to inexpertly tie the ribbon around his head. "There," she congratulated herself, "all fixed." When this did not change the look on Lan WangJi's face, she reminded him, "You said I can only…."
"My Liu'Er. My daughter, my very dearest daughter." he interrupted, grabbing an end of the ribbon and tickling her face with it. "You are my daughter and I am your father. Forever and ever, now." Pulling the giggling child into his arms, he breathed, "Thank you." Whether he was thanking Liu for the amazing gift of her love and trust, or Wei Ying for arranging this, or the gods, he didn't know.
XiaoShu had started calling him Father not long after they arrived in Sanctuary. But Liu had resisted. She would occasionally test it out; sometimes he thought she was using it as a way for him to reject her. Each time Wie Ying counseled patience, reminding him that it would take time for Liu to accept that she had a home with them. Liu wiggled out of his grasp and ran to get her lantern. On one side was Wei WuXian's horse, and on the opposite side, in her chicken-scratch handwriting, it read 'Liu loves Father, Baba, DaGe, Sandi and Sidi forever'. Lan WangJi lit the lantern and together, father and daughter lifted it high until it grew light enough for the air to carry their wishes to the heavens.
As Sect leader, taking an afternoon off to watch his family meant that, after setting off the lanterns, he had to attend to the duties he had neglected. Between reading reports, grading juniors' papers, discussing discipline issues with Headmaster Hua and putting Liu and XiaoShu to bed, it was already long past Wei WuXian's one o'clock bedtime by the time he blew out the candles and headed upstairs to bed. With the amount of people guaranteed to be traipsing in and out of the manor on official business, Wei WuXian had suggested having a two storied building, and their private room on the upper floor. Lan WangJi kept his steps light, even as his heart sank. The sight that greeted him was almost exactly what he expected to find. Baobei, lying in the circle of one of Wei Ying's arms, had managed to kick off his blankets, and was alternating between examining and 'talking' to the foot he had captured and trying to eat it. Wei Ying was already asleep with his other hand pressed to his lower abdomen. The sight had Lan WangJi swallowing desperately, holding back sobs.
Not long after coming to live in Sanctuary, Lan WangJi noticed Wei Ying's smiles occasionally becoming more brittle. When asked what was wrong, he'd just shake it off, deny there was anything bothering him. Gradually, Lan Zhan noticed the brittle smiles were usually accompanied by his hand pressing his belly. Alarmed that there was something physically wrong with his husband, he checked the other's pulse nightly. And even invited Wen Qing for a visit, asking her to quietly check that Wei Ying's golden core was all right. Reassured that there was nothing physically wrong with his husband, Lan Zhan still worried about the reasons behind the fake smiles. Until one day, he happened upon a newlywed couple… and the wife was rubbing her slightly swollen belly.
He couldn't breathe. Could barely think. Sudden nausea had him falling to his knees, retching into the grass, tears streaming down his face. Wei Ying! Not yet. Please! Let me have you for a year before I have to share you. His mind screamed louder than his voice ever could. He would give everything, sacrifice anything, to keep his love happy…. He had just hoped this day would never come. How could he possibly prepare for the day he'd send his love off to someone else's bed? Panicking, he made up a lie about needing to see his brother, and instead spent days searching the forbidden section of the Cloud Recesses library. But, as expected, there was no spell, no surgery, that would give a womb to a man.
He had hoped, foolishly hoped, that bringing Liu's brother home would have tempered Wei Ying's desire for his own child. Instead, it seemed to have increased the yearning….
He hated her already: this faceless, nameless woman who would be chosen to give Wei Ying children of his own. He hated that she would know the joy of Wei Ying's kisses, be caressed with his hands, be pleasured by his body. That she would use her body to give him pleasure…. The pleasure men were only supposed to share with women. And knowing his husband as he did, there was no way Wei Ying could lie with a woman he did not care about…. He hated her even more for forcing him to share Wei Ying's love.
A sob forced its way out of his chest, distracting Baobei from his foot and partially waking Wei Ying. "Lan Zhan?" the sleepy man called. "Let's call him Qiu in honor of today."
"Okay," Lan Zhan agreed, trying to sound normal. Apparently, he failed since Wei Ying asked what was wrong without even opening his eyes. "Go back to sleep," Lan Zhan suggested, picking up Qiu. He quickly rewrapped the baby in his blankets and placed him in his bed before stripping off his robes and joining his husband. He held himself as still as possible, trying to hide that his heart was breaking.
"Lan Zhan, why are you crying?"
"I'm not."
"Liar." Wei Ying wiped away a fresh tear winding its way down his lover's face.
Lan Zhan rolled out of bed to kneel on the floor, head bowed in penance. "I'm a failure as a husband. I have utterly failed as your wife. I… I know what's been bothering you these last months…. I've looked for ways to give it to you…. But I can't. I don't know how to. I can't." His body started shaking.
Wei Ying leaned over, trying to pull his husband back into bed. "Come here," he ordered as the other cried 'I can't' over and over. "I don't know what you can't give me, but I hope I am not so selfish and childish as to be upset at you when I don't get everything I think I might want."
Lan WangJi remained on his knees. "There are only two times when I wished that I was a woman."
"What?"
Lan WangJi ignored the question. "When I first knew that I was in love with you, I prayed to become a woman so you could fall in love with me. I thought it impossible for you to love me as a man, but if I were to become a woman…. I thought I might have a chance at winning you…." His head sank further, utterly ashamed, to rest on the bed, muffling his voice. "When I last went to Cloud Recesses it was to look for a spell to do that. To make me at least partly a woman."
"Lan Zhan..."
"I want to give you a child, Wei Ying! I do! I would gladly carve out my own guts to put a womb in there to carry your child! But I can't. I can't." His voice trailed off. "Even worse, I tell myself that I should give you to a woman to have her carry your child, but I can't do that either. I can't share you. I'm too selfish…. I know you want a child of your blood, but I can't! I'm so sorry." Wei Ying slid out of bed to hold his crying love tight. Lan Zhan swiped at his wet cheeks, turned to rest his head on Wei Ying's shoulder and continued. "I used to hear stories about wives and concubines fighting, and always thought it was a power struggle. Now…. How do other wives do it? How do they watch their husbands go off to fuck another woman? Watch that other woman grow fat with his children? I… I hate her."
"Who?"
"She isn't even here, and I hate her already. I hate that she can give you the one thing I cannot. I hate myself for being so insecure and selfish.
"As much as I love coming into your body, I hate that I am a man right now. I don't know how to share, A'Xian…. I don't know how to share you with her…. I don't know if I have the strength to send you to her bed and not…."
Wei Ying burst into hysterical laughter, until he was almost in tears himself. Lan Zhan just glared at him. "Lan Zhan! My love. You've wished you were a woman? So have I! So I could carry your child. My sadness over the last few weeks is as much due to my failures as your wife as it is my desire for a child of my blood. Yes, I want a child. Our child." He pressed Lan Zhan's hand to his abdomen. "This here…. This is where your child should be growing already. It's empty and barren and that hurts." He left out his thoughts on a concubine; Lan Zhan's jealousy over that non-existent woman was already high enough. Fever filled his blood. "Lan Zhan… I need you. Fill me. Please. Give me your body… your love…. I am so empty…."
Lan Zhan barely hesitated before literally ripping their shirts off and throwing the tattered material to the floor. "I can't be gentle, my love." Their trousers followed the shirts and Wei Ying found himself thrown onto the bed so that his torso was on it and his wide-spread legs hanging to the floor.
"Don't be gentle!" he begged and then yelled as two dry fingers stabbed in and out of his ass. "Fuck! Oil! Please!"
"You said, 'don't be gentle," Lan Zhan argued, fumbling for the much used bottle.
"I didn't agree to do it raw, either. Fuck!" A much larger object, thankfully lubricated, replaced Lan Zhan's fingers. "Oh… shit, yes," the younger man babbled. It hurt, but even the pain of being stretched felt so good. "There! Right there!" Lan Zhan repeatedly hit that little spot inside his body, causing waves of ecstasy to ripple up and down his entire body.
"Mine," growled a harsh voice behind him.
"Yours," Wei Ying agreed until the waves of pleasure crashed down on them both, leaving them trembling and boneless.
Wei Ying felt his husband's semen dripping down his legs and felt the emptiness returning. Against his back, he felt shudders and hot liquid dripping down. Their joined hands cupped his barren abdomen while the two men cried.
A/N JinYu means goldfish. DaGe means oldest brother, Sandi means third younger brother, and Sidi is fourth younger brother. Qiu is part of the word for autumn.
