Let’s consider Lan Wangji learning to love touch thanks to Ah Yuan… We know he has never been comfortable with physical contact, but with time Ah Yuan starts to bring it out on him until it becomes another part of himself.
Like, the moment he took the child to gusu he kept him between his arms, with the excuse that the boy was scared, and lonely, and hurt, and so feverish he could die so he needed comfort… and yes, he had to go through his own punishment and heal his own wounds, but after much begging and pleading (and ater Lan Xichen insisted on his behalf), they allowed Ah Yuan to be, at least, in the same room as rich-gege, sometimes even within Lan Zhan’s arm reach, so he’d hold little Ah Yuan’s hand as he slept the pain on his back away.
And then, when he was secluded and hidden away to reflect on what he had done, Ah Yuan was kept secret with him. As he gained his mobility again and stopped feeling sick and disoriented 100% of the time, Lan Zhan recuperated some of his discipline, and forgot how to bring/ask for comfort. Therefore, he made a promise to start to learn how to do it.
In the beginning, when Ah Yuan cried and cried because he had hurt himself or because he missed his family, Lan Zhan would watch him silently, or sit next to him, rubbing his back as soothingly as he could. Ah Yuan would drop himself across his lap, or curl onto it, crying earnestly onto his chest. From then on, Lan Zhan would scoop him into his arms if the boy every cried. His hand learnt by itself to cup the back of the boy’s head, and that it’d bring a sense of protection to the little kid.
He made a promise to never let Ah Yuan feel unprotected again. No matter at what cost.
One time, Ah Yuan got a tiny cut on one of his fingers and came running to him, teary eyed and suffocated, holding the finger up as if it was burning.
“You have to heal it!” Ah Yuan pleaded, but Lan Wangji could only blink at him, without understanding. “You have to kiss it better!”
And Lan Wangji has never been able to deny this little boy anything, not since he rescued him from a premature death. He brought his little hand close to him and left a feather touch of his lips on the wound, even if the touch didn’t feel all that natural to him. Ah Yuan smiled, satisfied, and left to keep playing whichever game he had made up.
That time, Lan Wangji learnt that kisses had some sort of magic in them, and that they could heal.
Of course, Lan Zhan has to take care of the boy’s hygiene. They bathe in the river together, and Lan Wangji rediscovers, from a completely different point of view, what parents have to do for their kids, and at which times they have to function in their kid’s behalf. He comes to accept that intimacy and to sustract the uneasiness it’d bring into his chest if it were anyone else. Bodies are natural, in the end. There’s nothing gross or shameful in them. Maybe that’s the hardest part for him to learn.
Ah Yuan grows a bit, and his hair with him. That’s how Lan Zhan finds himself combing Ah Yuan’s knots off his mane, shushing the boy after an unintentionaly sharp tug, and smiling softly when the boy hums pleasedly.
It becomes a part of their routine, after that, to sit with the sunset’s light before them, combing Ah Yuan’s hair straight and listening to the sound of chirping birds and the trickling of the river nearby. At some point, Ah Yuan requests to do the same to rich-gege’s hair, so Lan Zhan lets his hair loose and closes his eyes, allowing the little boy to stand at his back and brush his already brushed hair until it’s as even as the surface of their dining table.
Some mornings, Ah Yuan would find seating space on Lan Zhan’s lap while he plays inquiry, and Lan Wangji would move Ah Yuan’s little fingers on the strings to ask Wei Ying’s spirit the same questions he’s been asking for months, to which they receive no answer. Every time, Ah Yuan would giggle and try to play by himself, or watch mesmerized as Lan Zhan did it himself. The wounds in Lan Zhan’s chest wouldn’t bleed so deliberately with Ah Yuan near him, listening without understanding to all he has to say.
When they were finally allowed to reunite with the rest of the sect, Lan Zhan had grown an habit of holding Ah Yuan’s hand as they walked up and down the mountains, or to help him up the stairs. He walked up to the main gates of cloud recess with Wen Yuan holding his hand. Before they stepped in, he told the little boy:
“From now on, your name will be Lan Yuan. Understood?”
Lan Yuan took his thumb out of his mouth and nodded. Lan Qiren frowned when he spotted father and son, hand in hand, walking into their sect, into their home, breaking a few hundred unwritten rules (and others that were written too, but Lan Wangji had paid debt for all those already).
By becoming a Lan, Lan Wangji had to give the boy his forehead ribbon, which’s meaning and symbolism he explained superficially, for Ah Yuan wasn’t old enough to fully understand. Still, he tied the headband around his head, carefully, telling him he couldn’t take it off from now on, and that only he and his family could touch it. Lan Yuan nodded, understanding. Lan Zhan’s fingertips touched the boy’s cheek momentarily, offering him a smile.
Those gestures and touches started to come natural to him with time, but with time Lan Yuan growed, and as he aged he was told he couldn’t t act like a little kid anymore, that there’s things he could and couldn’t do, love he could require and comfort he had to bring to himself. However, when he’s eight, he starts to get nightmares, and although he doesn’t want to ask Lan Wangji for help or wake him up in the middle of the night for some silly reason, he still curls at the edge of Lan Wangji’s bed (he sleeps in the jingshi with him until he’s around fourteen, when he joins in the other disciples’ dormitories) and leaves before the man wakes up, hiding back in his own bed.
It’s like this how Lan Zhan finds him one night: sitting by the bed with his head buried between his arms, a hand curled on his bedsheets. He draws him off the floor and into the bed with him. Lan Yuan is so sleepy that he doesn’t have the energy to excuse himself, or to complain that he’s a big boy and doesn’t need to, and nuzzles close to Lan Wangji’s warm body instead, sighing happily as the man embraces him with an arm.
Lan Wangji discovers there’s no specific age to stop needing your loved ones, or to ask for their love. He also learns that if he holds Lan Yuan really close, nothing bad can happen to him. Not in any existing way.
By the time Lan Yuan becomes Lan Sizhui, most of the gestures Lan Wangji learnt to be able to love him right have been left forgotten in their past. However, he can still encourage the now teenager with a squeeze on the shoulder, or by pressing a light hand at the bottom of his back.
He learns that there’s no need for touches to show affection, because there’s a thousand different ways to let Ah Yuan know he cares about him. He brings him gifts from his trips, leaving them by Ah Yuan’s table in the dormitories, the way he always dreamt he’d do to Wei Ying, at some point or another. While they eat, he puts more and more food in Ah Yuan’s bowl so he grows stronger, so he’s never sick or feeble again. Whenever Ah Yuan asks for a lesson of inquiry or to accompany him to feed their rabbits, Lan Wangji Mns, even if the boy is supposed to be somehere else. Sometimes, he’d ask for Lan Sizhui’s presence and he’d walk them to watch the sunset together, for no other reason than to enjoy each other’s company.
And it all pays off, really.
It pays off because Lan Sizhui trusts Hanguang-Jun with everything he has. When he needs help, he asks for it. When he doesn’t know the answer to a problem, he goes and learns from Lan Wangji’s wisdom. When he feels conflicted, he knows that Lan Wangji will listen to him, and help to all of his extent.
It pays off because Ah Yuan doesn’t cry anymore. Not in the way he did when he pleaded for his uncle, his aunt, the family that wasn’t going to be back. It pays off because he has the sweetest, purest of smiles, because there’s something soft and tender on his expression that has been crafted on him with pure, unadulterated love.
It pays off in Lan Wangji’s heart, too. And when he finds Wei Ying again, it’s already easy for him to give him gifts, to grab his hand, to brush the hair off his face, to smile his way, to say yes, yes, I trust you, I love you, I’m never leaving you. And he thinks that, maybe, if he had learnt how to love long before, Wei Ying would have never died.
Maybe he would have been able to save Wei Ying like he had saved Ah Yuan, and like Ah Yuan had saved him.
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