Chapter Text
Nightmares are not an uncommon occurrence for Lan Xichen. He misses the days when they were, longs frequently for a time when things were so much simpler. When the world still made sense. He hasn’t had that luxury in so long, though, that to wish for it feels too foolish and childish, even after a terror wakes him in the middle of the night.
His reactions to his nightmares vary. Most nights he struggles to open his eyes, to claw his way back to consciousness until he feels like his nails should be bloody with it. Sometimes his eyes snap right open and it’s jarring, going from the blood-soaked horrors of his worst memories straight into the soft, dappled moonlight that spills into the Hanshi. Very rarely does he make a noise, though it has happened in the past. A whimper, or a weak call for people who don’t exist anymore except in his memories.
Tonight he screams.
“What the fuck ?!” comes a bleary demand to his left and Lan Xichen is too busy shaking apart to realize how that can’t be possible.
“Shut up , da-ge,” another voice - this one on his right - whines and then lets out an oof as Lan Xichen clambers over the owner of the voice to stumble to his feet in the middle of the room, eyes wide and terrified as he looks in horror at his bed.
“Xichen?” Nie Mingjue asks, sitting up in his bed. Sleepy. Beautiful. Head still definitely attached.
It’s Lan Xichen’s turn to blurt, “What the fuck ?!”
Everything stills and Lan Xichen watches Meng Yao ( not Jin Guangyao, he looks too sweet and gentle to have been through the war yet, let alone found his father’s favor again) crack one wide, dark eye open to look at him from where his face is smashed into a pillow.
“Did er-ge just swear ?” he asks and then Lan Xichen hears Nie Mingjue snap,
“Oh shit, catch him!” as he launches himself from the bed to get his arms around him before he collapses into a heap on his own floor.
----
When he wakes for the second time that night, things are no less bewildering. He’s on the floor, a candle on the table has been lit, and Meng Yao is kneeling in front of him patting at his brow with a cool rag. He’s resting against something he quickly realizes is not an inanimate object but is instead a person, which means -
“Da-ge?” Meng Yao calls, looking over Lan Xichen’s head and yeah. That. He’s leaning against Nie Mingjue’s brick wall of a chest. “He’s awake.”
“Xichen?” Nie Mingjue’s voice is soft and concerned in his ear and Lan Xichen is far too confused and frightened to worry about dignity, so he closes his eyes and lets the tears his voice causes fall unrestrained.
“Er-ge!” Meng Yao gasps, voice tight with concern, and Lan Xichen hates himself for recoiling from the touch of the younger man’s fingertips to the back of his hand. He hates himself more for giving into it when he tries again.
“Let him cry, A-Yao,” Nie Mingjue murmurs and Lan Xichen sobs brokenly for so many things. For the history between the three of them, for his confusion now, for the knowledge that he’ll have to wake to the crushing pain and loneliness of reality as soon as this is over, for the fact that he can’t even enjoy this while he has it.
Nie Mingjue holds him. His arms are warm and solid around him and before long Lan Xichen is turning sideways to curl up and let the man hold him even more tightly to his chest. He begins to settle ever so slightly as Nie Mingjue curls protectively around him and he’s struck by the smell of him. Under the sandalwood of his own incense he can smell the earthiness of the herbs in Nie Mingjue’s soap, the faint hint of well-oiled leather that always clings to him, the warmth of his skin. In his recent years of desperately longing for this man, he’s never quite been able to properly remember him so viscerally. Right now, though, he’s quite certain that this particular hallucination is perfect in every way.
A small hand strokes softly through his hair and Lan Xichen opens his burning eyes to look at Meng Yao kneeling next to them, his concern naked on his face in a way his emotions almost never are. Or at least they haven’t been in a very long time, not even in private.
But that’s not true, is it? This Meng Yao is still soft around his edges. His eyes are shining with sympathetic tears that haven’t fallen, lips parted slightly as his worried gaze darts between Lan Xichen and Nie Mingjue above his head. This Meng Yao hasn’t retreated into himself yet. This Meng Yao still has a capacity for kindness, like when he was young and they had just met.
“I don’t understand,” Lan Xichen whispers and another look passes between his two companions.
“Tell us about your nightmare,” Meng Yao suggests with so much tenderness that - despite the maelstrom of confusing and conflicting feelings he still has about the man - he can’t help but reach out for him. Meng Yao comes to him easily and Lan Xichen watches with wide eyes as he holds himself easily over one of Nie Mingjue’s legs sprawled out on the floor, only for his eyes to flutter shut again as the man leans in and presses soft kisses to his cheek and forehead.
“We should get off the floor,” Nie Mingjue suggests a few minutes later when Meng Yao’s kisses have traveled down to his lips and Lan Xichen is doing his best not to move or breathe lest he shatter this illusion prematurely.
“Mm,” Meng Yao hums his agreement into the next gentle kiss he presses to Lan Xichen’s unresponsive lips. “Pick him up, da-ge, I think he’s in shock.”
Perhaps there’s some truth to that, Lan Xichen muses, because it feels like no time at all passes but he’s suddenly in his bed again sitting against the headboard and the two lost loves of his life are bracketing him on either side.
“A-Huan,” Nie Mingjue says softly into his shoulder as he kisses it and Lan Xichen shivers all over at the sound of his name on Nie Mingjue’s lips, the slight scratch of his mustache against his skin where the collar of his sleeping robe has fallen too wide and has begun to slip down his arm.
“You’re here,” Lan Xichen manages to croak as Meng Yao strokes a hand gently up and down his chest. “Both of you.”
“Where else would we be?” Meng Yao asks with a sweetly dimpled smile up at him and Lan Xichen’s expression twists into a mixture of pain and horror.
“Dead.” The whisper crackles in his throat and he sucks in a shuddering breath as both men go perfectly still.
“Give us your hands,” Nie Mingjue prompts after a long silence and helplessly he obliges, holding his shaking hands out to either side to be caught by his lovers and pressed to their chests.
He feels their hearts beating steadily and out of sync with each other’s. They’re both breathing slowly, ribs expanding and contracting under his palms. Meng Yao’s robe is silkier than Nie Mingjue’s, the fabric sheer enough that it feels like there’s almost nothing there. Nie Mingjue’s chest is warmer than Meng Yao’s, his entire body practically radiating heat like a furnace now that they’re all three pressed together in bed. Everything he can feel is evidence of their being alive, but after a moment of feeling it he can’t resist reaching out with a bit of qi to check their meridians. He chokes on his next breath to find them both practically glowing with the strength of their qi. In Nie Mingjue it’s to be expected, he was always a strong cultivator, but in Meng Yao it instantly sets him on edge and he withdraws his hand.
“Why is your core so strong?” he demands, a dozen unsavory reasons flashing through his mind as he shifts away, closer to Nie Mingjue’s chest. Meng Yao’s bewildered expression only serves to make him more suspicious and he must see that, but he still doesn’t throw on his perpetually polite mask of a smile. Why isn’t he on his guard?
“Why shouldn’t it be?” he asks and Lan Xichen catches a bit of hurt behind those wide, doe-like eyes - hurt that he doesn’t bother trying to hide (and why isn’t he hiding?! ). “You and da-ge have been helping me strengthen it.”
“A-Huan,” Nie Mingjue murmurs and Lan Xichen turns his head to look at him, Nie Mingjue’s eyes narrowed slightly in the shrewd, calculating way he looks when he’s trying to think through a puzzle. “Why are you so upset to see us? What happened?”
Lan Xichen takes a deep breath in and lets it out slowly, and then another, and another. As he does, Meng Yao climbs delicately into his lap to rest a hand on his chest, his other hand snagging his wrist to bring his hand up to his chest in return until their breaths are synchronized. Slowly their heartbeats match as well, but Meng Yao doesn’t let go of him until even the energy flowing through their meridians is doing so in tandem.
They’re still waiting for him to answer Nie Mingjue’s question. He knows that he should. He should tell them precisely why their existence in his room, in his bed, is everything he’s ever wanted from this life, and why it’s impossible. But...it’s so real , and only a fool would throw away such an opportunity to experience the deepest desires of their heart.
“Never mind,” he finally whispers, looking with awe between the two men who still hold his heart in their hands, even now. “Never mind why. Nothing happened beyond a simple nightmare. Just…” How can he even begin to ask for what he wants? His ears burn at the thought of having to articulate it, and he’s hoping either one of his bedmates will take the responsibility from him.
“Er-ge,” Meng Yao chides gently and Lan Xichen meets his eyes. “You’re confused, hm? Perhaps now isn’t the time.” He says it so gently that it’s impossible to be offended by the rejection.
“We can give him what he wants, A-Yao,” Nie Mingjue argues back, his lips once again tracing delicate patterns over his shoulder. “It might be what he needs to shake off whatever’s going on. Is that what you meant, Xichen?”
“Yes,” he replies, relief suffusing his voice and hiding his lie admirably.
These men can’t possibly be here, he knows, so there’s no confusion for him to ‘shake off’ by being with them. But until this vision or hallucination or dream breaks he knows that he wants to feel them, to remember them in their best ways. He needs them so viscerally it’s making his bones ache.
“Alright. You’re alright, we’ve got you,” Nie Mingjue soothes as he starts running his broad hands everywhere and Meng Yao reaches forward to divest him of his sleeping robe first. He watches with wild, hungry eyes as Meng Yao coaxes Nie Mingjue into undressing him next with flutters of his eyelashes and gentle pouting that would seduce a much harder heart than Nie Mingjue’s.
He’s beautiful in the light of the single candle on the table across the room, the little flame still flickering gently and melding with enough moonlight pouring in through the windows to let Lan Xichen see his lovers clearly.
Meng Yao is as he always has been - soft, rounded features and a slight figure just begging to be held. His hands are graceful, delicate little things that pluck and pull until Nie Mingjue’s robe is gone as well, revealing a body that is very different from Meng Yao’s, hard and chiseled as it is from the strenuous exercise of his saber training every day when he’s not attending to sect matters. The pair of them together is a sight so beautiful Lan Xichen suddenly wonders if he’s finally died of his broken heart and this is the reward he’s receiving to make up for his years of anguish.
He watches Meng Yao lean sideways and Lan Xichen is quick to curl his hands around those slim hips to hold him steady on his lap as Nie Mingjue meets him halfway for a kiss that looks searingly intense. He feels the shudder that shakes through Meng Yao’s body, hears the purring approval rumbling low in Nie Mingjue’s chest and he feels dizzy with how quickly blood floods away from his head in response.
“Greedy,” Meng Yao teases as he breaks the kiss with a smirk, his kiss-reddened lips swollen already, shiny and tempting in the warm candlelight. “We’re supposed to be taking care of er-ge, remember?”
Everything becomes hazy after that, shot through with brief moments of clarity.
The simmering heat of Meng Yao’s gaze. The press of Nie Mingjue against his side as the man mouths at his neck. His own hands desperately grabbing, searching, until both of them are occupied by one of the hands of his lovers and he can calm down again, content to simply hold onto the men he’s lost. Their hands on him as they lay him down on his side, Nie Mingjue behind him and Meng Yao facing him.
They lose themselves for a period of time Lan Xichen doesn’t bother to measure and he floats hazily along. Their kisses vary between slow, lazy, tender things and the kind of passionate hunger that could bring the world to its knees. He kisses them both, they kiss each other, their free hands explore his body and he wants and wants and wants .
“I’ve got you,” Nie Mingjue eventually murmurs in his ear. He’s been saying things randomly as they all worked each other up into the breathless passion they’re currently sharing, but none of it has really registered past the hazy pleasure muting Lan Xichen’s thoughts. “Relax, love, you’re still good from earlier,” he adds, and Lan Xichen doesn’t understand until there’s something hard, hot, and thick pressing up against him and he can’t help but cry out into Meng Yao’s filthy kisses - all teeth and tongue - as his body accepts the intrusion easily.
“He’s still wet?” Meng Yao parts from his lips long enough to ask and Nie Mingjue grunts an affirmative from behind him.
“Oil and our come, I just checked,” he replies, sounding strained, and Lan Xichen knows that he sounds as such because he’s currently pushing himself further in with a controlled, agonizingly steady thrust.
“Oh er-ge, that’s so good ,” Meng Yao praises into his gasping mouth and Lan Xichen shudders. “You cleaned us up but didn’t do anything for yourself, hm? Knew we’d want to have you again?” Lan Xichen has no idea what they’re talking about but Nie Mingjue is fully seated inside him now and Meng Yao is stroking his hair and his face and telling him he’s good , so it seems best not to question it. Instead he nods and earns himself another coo of praise and a sharp bite to his bottom lip that has him whimpering as his hips stutter forward, only for him to be rather thoroughly reminded that he’s currently full of Nie Mingjue’s cock.
“ Nng . Don’t fucking do that to him when I’m trying to keep myself under control, A-Yao,” Nie Mingjue grumps, the effect lessened slightly by the way he’s breathing too hard and his free hand is groping at Lan Xichen’s bare thigh hard enough to leave red dots and lines in the wake of his fingertips pressing in and dragging across his skin.
“Who said you had to stay in control?” Meng Yao retorts sweetly and Lan Xichen is momentarily floored by listening to their bantering while they’re all three naked and in the middle of having sex. “I think er-ge would love it if you let yourself go. Wouldn’t you?”
Lan Xichen, mind clouded by the touch of so much bare skin, the presence of his two impossible lovers, the emotions of being wrapped up in the middle of them and handled like he’s something precious, can only nod and beg a soft, “Please,” into Meng Yao’s smiling lips.
The quiet of the Hanshi quickly devolves into the sounds of two very vocal men and a quiet third finding ways to pleasure each other. Everything goes blank and hazy again for Lan Xichen as he tries to focus on Nie Mingjue inside of him, behind him, engulfing him entirely in the heat of his body as Meng Yao presses against his front to kiss and touch him with abandon. He manages to resurface when his cock - hard and neglected so far - is suddenly wrapped in soft, wet heat and he forces his eyes open to look down and find that Meng Yao is no longer kissing him but is instead taking him in his mouth like he was born to do so.
“ Fuck A-Yao,” Nie Mingjue grunts into Lan Xichen’s hair, and Meng Yao’s answering hum buzzes under his skin and makes him gasp and clutch at his slender shoulders. Meng Yao hitches Lan Xichen’s leg up around his ribs and holds it in place under his arm, his hand creeping up the back of his thigh until he’s pressing a finger inside him alongside Nie Mingjue’s length. They both cry out in response and Nie Mingjue starts thrusting harder, the angle of it somehow even deeper with the shift in Lan Xichen’s position and he finally lets go of himself entirely.
He’s still not as vocal as his partners but soon enough every exhale becomes a whine or a moan. He’s a mess as Nie Mingjue’s arms wrap securely around his chest to hold him still as he fucks into him. The harsh snapping of his hips is erratic and unpredictable, making Meng Yao’s rhythmic sucking on his cock an incredible contrast that has him squirming and whimpering.
And then without warning Meng Yao curls his finger to squeeze around the shaft of Nie Mingjue’s cock just under the head and press his knuckles against Lan Xichen’s walls and his vision goes white.
He hardly recognizes the wrecked and ragged cry that echoes through the space as coming from his own throat, but Meng Yao is occupied with swallowing every drop of his come and Nie Mingjue is swearing into the sweat-damp skin of his neck as he grinds his hips against the curve of his ass with sharp, short motions and fucks him through his own orgasm, so the cry must be his. It chokes off into a gasp and then a whimper as Nie Mingjue pulls out of him and he shudders hard enough to shake the bed as the feeling of sudden emptiness leaves him desperately wishing to be filled again.
“Easy,” Meng Yao murmurs against his softening cock as he replaces the single digit still inside him with three, filling him again enough for him to relax.
“A-Yao?” Nie Mingjue mumbles from where he’s collapsed onto his back behind him and Lan Xichen cracks one eye open just in time to see Meng Yao smirk in self-satisfaction and then giggle .
“You look tired, da-ge, are you alright?” he demures, the perfect picture of sympathy and innocence.
“Shut up, you little demon,” he replies with no heat, but Lan Xichen makes a weak noise of protest anyways, on principle. “Your turn. He feels so good,” he sighs and Lan Xichen isn’t lucid enough to follow what he means.
Lan Xichen’s mind stays deliciously blank as he lets himself be turned and manhandled until he’s laying on Nie Mingjue’s chest, his legs spread and all of his weight resting on the larger man as something - oh. He groans with sudden understanding as Meng Yao, kneeling behind him in between his and Nie Mingjue’s spread legs, slides his own neglected erection right inside him and he turns his head to bury his face in Nie Mingjue’s neck.
“Gods, he doesn’t even need oil,” Meng Yao groans and Lan Xichen can feel it, how wet and sticky he is between his cheeks and thighs, and he shivers as he realizes that Meng Yao is thrusting into him with nothing but Mingjue’s come to ease his way.
“Told you,” Nie Mingjue rumbles underneath him, sounding half asleep already. But his hands are rubbing up and down his back in an easy rhythm, so he’s at least awake enough to participate, and Lan Xichen goes absolutely boneless.
He lets Nie Mingjue hold him and touch him as Meng Yao makes love to him. He spreads his legs further when Nie Mingjue reaches down to dig his fingers into the meat of his ass and hold his cheeks apart to let Meng Yao watch his own cock disappearing inside him over and over again. He stays still and quiet when after a while Meng Yao leans down to kiss Nie Mingjue over his head, their lips meeting and parting wetly as his thrusts become more erratic and then he’s spilling inside him as well and a pleased moan punches out of Lan Xichen’s chest at the feeling.
Most importantly, he lets himself consider that this could truly be his life.
It feels too real to be a fantasy.
His chest is uncomfortably sweaty against Nie Mingjue, the human furnace. Meng Yao’s elbow is pressing against his ribs a little too firmly as he continues to kiss Nie Mingjue above his head as his cock softens inside him. Lan Xichen feels weak and satisfied in a way even his best dreams have never been able to fully capture. It truly feels like he just had sex with two men who love him and know him, and as much as he has wished for that more times than he could be bothered to count, he has no actual experience of such an act to conjure up such a realistic dream.
“I think er-ge fell asleep again,” Meng Yao whispers into Nie Mingjue’s lips above his head and he feels the man nod softly.
“I think so too. We should clean him up, he’s filthy.” Nie Mingjue’s murmur rumbles against his chest and Lan Xichen keeps his breath slow and even, thoroughly unwilling to even try to participate in the effort of cleaning up, or bother correcting their assumption that he’s asleep. He feels Meng Yao pull away and then pull out and he can’t stop the whine that elicits. Nie Mingjue is quick to kiss his forehead.
“Shh. Sleep,” he shushes with a stroke of his hand down his back and Lan Xichen doesn’t move, keeps his breathing steady, and Nie Mingjue sighs in obvious relief above his head.
“Do you think he’s alright?” Meng Yao whispers as the bed dips again and Lan Xichen feels a warm, wet cloth wiping gently between his legs where he can feel something thick and sticky leaking slowly from his body. He would normally be embarrassed to be cleaned in such a way (to even need to be cleaned in such a way, honestly), but at the moment he can’t be bothered to care. “He was so scared. I don’t think I’ve ever heard him scream like that.”
“I don’t know,” Nie Mingjue breathes, as bluntly honest as ever, and Lan Xichen’s heart clenches in his chest with how much he loves him. How much he’s missed him. “We’ll have to ask him about it in the morning. Or ask Wangji to come talk to him. Maybe it’s something he can help with.”
“You think maybe it was something from their childhood?”
Mingjue’s huff of a sigh in response jostles Lan Xichen a little and he nuzzles Nie Mingjue’s neck to try to calm him so he’ll stay still. The room stays quiet until he settles again and then Mingjue replies even more quietly than before.
“I don’t know A-Yao, but I’m not about to wake him up and ask. He almost hyperventilated trying to explain it to us earlier. We can figure it out in the morning.”
Meng Yao sighs but says nothing else as he continues to steadily wipe him clean until he no longer feels sticky. His breath hitches when a single, slender finger slides inside him with more friction than he’s felt all night long, but it’s gone again quickly. “Okay he’s clean,” he murmurs and Lan Xichen hears him drop the rag on the floor next to the bed. “Want to keep holding him?” he asks next and Lan Xichen really is nearly asleep now so he doesn’t bother to question what any alternatives could be.
“Both of us should,” Nie Mingjue replies and then he’s turning so slowly and carefully that it’s clear he’s trying not to wake him. Meng Yao catches him easily in his slender arms as his weight shifts off of Nie Mingjue’s chest and he sags backwards into Meng Yao's.
“Oof. He’s so heavy when he’s asleep,” Meng Yao grouses with a kiss to his shoulder and Nie Mingjue’s chuckle has something warm flickering in the hollow place that’s been steadily growing behind Lan Xichen's ribs for years.
“You both are. Now hush, I’m tired and you know he’ll still try to wake us up at five,” he replies as he slings an arm over both Lan Xichen’s waist and Meng Yao’s behind him.
“Mm. Goodnight da-ge,” Meng Yao murmurs against the spot on Lan Xichen’s shoulder that he’d kissed, and Nie Mingjue returns the soft goodnight with his lips pressed into Lan Xichen’s hair.
Before he drifts off he takes a moment to bask in the feeling of it and do his best to commit every detail to memory. He knows he’ll agonize over it for years, most likely, but to be held and loved one last time by these men, to hear them loving each other, will be worth the pain.