The screeching parts and unoiled turns of him, the mechanical, scratched fittings of his body — Wei Ying, negotiating the steel of his spine bent, the rags of his hair, the riches of his touch, married into an union of ablutions. The ancestors would bless, but only loud violence seals the conjugal transgression of Wei Ying, clatter of limbs, splashes of suds and warmed water.

If Lan Wangji has learned little else in sixteen years, it has been this: the long, poured, trickling wait, the drop and drop adding to stream, a collection of incandescent moments. How to breathe in a world inhabited by tumults, by boomed voices and thundered intent. Wei Ying takes center stage now because, rubble decimated when he approaches, he never knew the lesser rows of waiting tables exist.

Alone, they sit like stone and ghosts, and Lan Wangji drawls out the moment — lets Wei Ying steep warm-hued like wulong in the glass gaiwan. Unbidden, Wangji reaches to hover his hand above Wei Ying's nearest, close enough to enjoy the wafting heat of another's wet-touched body, but retaining the final distance. Together.

"You bathe as dogs do." The final insult, honey-sweetened with the uprising corners of a traitor's smile, the line golden and peeling. He should yet congratulate: how often is Wei Ying stirred to grand gestures of grooming? Hands red-clean, much has been won today.