Wen Ying cups Lan Zhan's sweet face in her hands and kisses her. 

Oh.

Lan Zhan kisses her back, desperately. Wen Ying’s hands are so warm. She’s so warm.

Wen Ying has been wanting this so much for so long and she is perfectly capable of breathing through her nose if she wants to. 

She's never done this before and she doesn't think Lan Zhan has either but she doesn't care if it's unpracticed and messy, it's so good. 

If nothing interrupts she is going to kiss Lan Zhan for a long time. Her hands slide down Lan Zhan's face and back until Wen Ying's arms are around her neck. 

At one point Lan Zhan has to stop kissing to whisper "I love you," because she hasn't said it yet and she very badly needs to.

Then they can go back to kissing.

When she says that Wen Ying makes a sort of gasping sob noise and presses in closer, threads one of her hands into Lan Zhan's hair. 

That feels really nice. She loves her, she loves her, she loves her so so so much.

She tries to reach for Wen Ying's hair, too, to cup her face; forgets about the chains again.

Wen Ying makes a frustrated noise at the manacle clanking and pulls back, fishing out a key. 

"Sorry, I probably should have mentioned sooner I had this--I meant it about being able to let you escape--" 

She unlocks the chains and then carefully inspects each wrist for signs of chafing, pressing soft kisses to each one. 

Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee. Her wrists are extremely chafed, but Lan Zhan doesn't care. "I love you," she says again. "I have always loved you."

And now her hands can go in Wen Ying's hair where they belong.

Oh, oh, yes, good, very good. 

Eventually, though, she pulls away again. 

"I love you. I really really love you. But if I don't see to your injuries very very soon Qing-jie is going to scold me so much." 

Nod.

"I apologize for losing my trust in you."

"I'm surnamed Wen and they burned the Cloud Recesses. I wasn't ever expecting to get it back."

"I should not have listened to Wen Chao."

"--Wait, what did Wen Chao say? What did he do, did he--if he--I was not kidding when I told him I'd break bones if he touched you--"

"No," she says quickly, taking Wen Ying's hand and squeezing it lightly. "No. He... said that he would not touch his cousin's toys. That you had planned for me to be given to you by Wen Ruohan when Cloud Recesses fell."

"Oh. Well that was supremely gross of him." Handsqueeze. "I'm glad he took my threats seriously, though. And I'm sorry you heard about them from him, like that." 

"I -- 

was distressed. But, glad. That you wanted me." Her ears warm.

"I want you. But not like this. Only if--only if you would choose me back. I love you, I hate it when bad things happen to you, and I am going to do my very best to take Wen Xu alive when I kill Wen Ruohan because you deserve to kill him." 

She kisses her cheek. "I would always choose you."

"Aaaaah, Lan Zhan, you're the best." 

A cheeksmooch of her own and then she is DEFINITELY going to attend to Lan Zhan's injuries. Anything that's currently open can be cleaned, everything she brought healing herbs for can get herbed and bandaged, WOW OKAY BROKEN LEG SHE IS GOING TO--okay she is not going to murder Wen Xu, Lan Zhan deserves to be the one to kill Wen Xu, but she can break his leg, maybe, see how he likes it. Anyway she can splint that. And the chafed wrists can have more kisses and a balm and more bandages. 

"Will you be in trouble for doing this?"

"Nope. If anyone tries giving me trouble over it I'll just say you can't tell anyone anything if you get an infection and die."

“I will not tell them anything.”

"Yeah, but they don't know that. If they run out of reasons to keep you alive I can fall back on 'she's pretty and I want her.' Now, if I let you escape and didn't cover my tracks well enough, then I would be in trouble."

She shakes her head. “I will not escape.”

"At least until Wen Chao forgets what a hostage is again," she sighs.