Chapter Text
Wei Ying waits a couple weeks, until playoffs are in full swing and Lan Zhan is at the height of his popularity. It’s easy to track their two-year winning streak to the star of the court, and if there was ever a time to embarrass himself—to permanently solidify Lan Zhan’s reputation as a prude—it would be now. All eyes on him. By extension, all eyes on them.
He begs Mianmian to put him in before half-time, which she bemusedly agrees to, and spends most of the second half watching Lan Zhan work. Obviously. Chin in hand, leaning over the edge of his seat, cheering enthusiastically whenever appropriate, all the good boyfriend stuff. When it’s two minutes to the buzzer, Wei Ying manages to catch Lan Zhan’s eye and throw him a wink.
Making a show of leaving the gym, he exits and heads straight for the locker room, body buzzing, jogging when he gets a little closer. The lights flicker on as he enters and takes off his shoes, going to put them in an empty locker before backtracking and setting them under the bench, right near the door. Noticeable, but a little hidden. After a moment of deliberation, he takes his hair down and stuffs the scrunchie into one of his shoes.
The floor is cool against his feet as he moves into the nearest shower stall, still a little damp. He winces. Something about water that was under someone else’s naked feet at some point is just very… not sexy.
Wei Ying turns and presses his back to the wall, just to one side of the faucet. Cloud Recesses Academy spares no expense on academics or extracurriculars, and the size of the locker rooms certainly reflects that. He puts his hands behind his back, the cool texture of the wall beneath his fingers having a nice, grounding effect on his psyche.
He’s the most shameless person he knows. It should be nothing at all to botch a sexy little surprise for Lan Zhan—to go wide-eyed and embarrassed-looking at the realization that his teammates know he couldn’t help himself. Wei Ying saw Lan Zhan, saw how well he was playing and thought the adrenaline from the game would force his reticent boyfriend into an act he couldn’t resist…
His head hits the back of the wall as he closes his eyes, waiting for the students in the gym to shower praises on Lan Zhan and the rest of the team for their win. He’s sure to hear the clamor of their footsteps in the hall, which should give him plenty of time to prepare—ah, fuck, should he be hard? The story he’s concocted runs through his head again, the desperation and need at the forefront of his mind. He does have time, and it’ll certainly sell the bit.
It’s just—Wei Ying has never tried to get hard on command. He wills away his boner if it pops up at an inopportune moment, and if he’s alone, he takes care of it. There’s never been much ceremony to that, nor has he seen the need to do it at a set time or anything. People do it all the time, to be sure! But they usually do it with a partner warming them up, right? Making them feel good?
His thoughts wander back to the first time he kissed Lan Zhan, his very first kiss. It had felt… heavy, as far as first kisses go, but Lan Zhan is such an intense person, he takes things so seriously. Of course he would be serious for Wei Ying’s first kiss—had Lan Zhan said it was his first too? He can’t remember now.
Wei Ying should not be thinking of Lan Zhan, anyway. That’s not going to get him hard.
The kissing part was nice, though. With his eyes closed, it could have been anyone, right? Anyone with Lan Zhan’s broad hands curled around his waist, Lan Zhan’s fingertips pressed into his thighs until it hurt, Lan Zhan’s teeth biting his lip red and bruised.
He gasps, echoing too loudly in the empty room, as his hand rises unbidden to a mark Lan Zhan left on his shoulder yesterday. Wei Ying presses the bruise and feels his cock twitch in his shorts, biting down another noise just in case.
The sound of many voices fills the outside hallway just as the door to the shower stall opens.
Lan Zhan barely hears the buzzer before he stops to talk to Coach, making a vague excuse and heading straight for the locker room. He needs to be fast—Wei Ying might already be off to who knows where, expecting Lan Zhan’s company even though Lan Zhan was too far away to see anything Wei Ying might have mouthed to him. He checks his phone, but there are no new messages.
He opens the door to the locker room and catches a flash of blue as he crosses to his locker, slowing his movement. Backtracking, Lan Zhan spots a familiar pair of shoes beneath the bench: Wei Ying’s shoes.
Wei Ying is in here? Why?
He almost calls his name, then stops. Foolish. What if Wei Ying simply avoided his own changing area, for whatever reason, and headed out early to do so? Maybe he brought a different pair and just forgot to grab these on his way out.
Curious as to what Wei Ying is doing now, Lan Zhan rushes to divest himself of his clothes and goes to throw his towel over the door of his preferred stall when he has a thought. A ridiculous thought, but one he entertains, if only because Wei Ying can be a little ridiculous at times.
Lan Zhan ducks his head down to look for feet.
Nothing in the first two, but when he reaches the third, he sees a set of painted toes tucked into the corner of the stall. Lan Zhan fights the urge to sigh.
He retrieves his towel and wraps it around his waist before going to confront Wei Ying. While he’s known for practical jokes, if there is a joke to be found, Lan Zhan has not yet uncovered it. Wei Ying cannot possibly know who might enter this stall. The thought of someone who isn’t Lan Zhan finding Wei Ying here, probably unclothed, and presenting themselves to him so easily—
Lan Zhan pulls open the stall just as he hears the sound of many pounding footsteps outside. He ignores the look of surprise on Wei Ying’s face for the moment—and his own relief at finding him still in his uniform—to lock the door behind him and figure out a plan.
Lacking options, he pulls Wei Ying forward and lifts him so he stands on Lan Zhan’s toes. This way, even if someone did look underneath the stall, they would only see Lan Zhan’s presence.
“Explain,” he breathes, resisting the urge to bite the shell of Wei Ying’s ear.
Noise explodes into the locker room as the rest of his team bursts through the door, talking and laughing, dissecting the game and good-naturedly teasing one another. Wei Ying’s fingers dig into his shoulders as he clings, turning to whisper in Lan Zhan’s ear in return.
“You weren’t supposed to be the one that found me!” he hisses.
These words roll through him with the force of a typhoon. He feels his grip tightening on Wei Ying without his control; in return, he receives a bite to the shoulder as Wei Ying attempts to muffle a pained noise at Lan Zhan’s handling.
“Who?” he asks, voice a little too loud. Lan Zhan has never been too loud, not once in his life—until today.
“What’d you say? Hey, you haven’t even turned that thing on! Thought you’d be out with your boy, not waiting around for us.”
Lan Zhan stiffens. Wei Ying’s eyes go wide.
“Worry about yourself,” he manages, raising his voice just enough to be heard over the streams of water throughout the room.
His teammate laughs. “You always say shit like that! Fine, alright, I’m minding my business.”
The rest of them start joking about Lan Zhan’s reticence, knowing they’ll be ignored, but there’s still the problem of the shower to address.
Wei Ying isn’t going to like this.
Lan Zhan backs Wei Ying into the corner and covers his mouth as he turns on the faucet. It blasts them with cool water, and he knows he made the right call covering Wei Ying’s mouth as he feels more than hears Wei Ying’s shocked yelp. It warms quickly, balancing out the discomfort of his towel growing heavier around his waist and the water soaking Wei Ying’s cheer uniform.
He’s positive Wei Ying can feel the thunderous beating of Lan Zhan’s heart through his palm. Wei Ying stops struggling after a few moments but his eyes remain defiant, drops of water catching in his eyelashes as he catches the edge of the spray.
Lan Zhan wonders again who he was waiting for.
If not for that little detail, the rest of the scene feels like something from a dream. It might be something he’s dreamed of recently, ever since Wei Ying joined the cheerleading team. His eyes move helplessly downward, to the wet fabric clinging to Wei Ying’s chest, nearly transparent against his still-fading summer tan.
His nipples are pebbling beneath the fabric.
Lan Zhan’s towel is soaking by now. Wei Ying takes a desperate breath through his nose, struggling a little, clearly wanting Lan Zhan to take his hand from his mouth, but he can’t.
If he sees Wei Ying’s lips right now, he knows his control will fracture.
Eyes narrowing, Wei Ying opens his mouth, trying to sink his teeth into the center of Lan Zhan’s palm. He can’t open his mouth wide enough to get the proper position, teeth scraping against his skin ineffectually. Lan Zhan closes his eyes for a moment. His ears are burning. Wei Ying’s small mouth stretched wide, trying to get Lan Zhan inside—
“Don’t,” he whispers, pressing close so the sound won’t carry past the shower stall. His other hand tightens on Wei Ying’s waist, pressing him as far back into the wall as he can, all too aware of the folds of his skirt over the swell of his ass and the way he keeps arching forward to try and squirm away. There’s barely any space between them. Barely anywhere for him to hide what it does to him, to see Wei Ying so debauched.
Wei Ying’s eyes flick downward, where that evidence is clear beneath the towel around his waist, dripping water onto his toes, so heavy he can feel it beginning to slip slowly from his body.
He cannot catch it and hold Wei Ying still at the same time.
Wei Ying realizes this at the same time as he does, making a desperate play for freedom, thrashing in his grip. Lan Zhan decides in an instant: he braces his forearm against Wei Ying’s bare stomach, crushing him into the wall of the shower, hand tight enough over his mouth that he can see his fingers digging impressions into Wei Ying’s cheek.
The towel slaps wetly against the floor. Both of them hold their breath, waiting to see if Lan Zhan’s teammates will notice as they finish their own showers.
Wei Ying’s gaze drops and holds. Around them, life goes on, but Lan Zhan cannot possibly consider it. The world has narrowed to Wei Ying and his round eyes, staring down at his cock where it curves against his stomach.
Muffled words eke out around his hand, and he knows the absurdity of their situation has distracted Wei Ying from any concerns for modesty. He cannot force Wei Ying to close his eyes, but he can physically turn him, taking his hand briefly from Wei Ying’s mouth to make him face the wall.
“Lan Zhan,” he breathes. He’s trying to be quiet, but it’s such a wanton sound, the way Wei Ying breathes his name.
He presses Wei Ying harder into the wall. “Quiet.”
The fastest of his teammates have begun to filter out of the locker room, but he knows a few will take their time. If Wei Ying and himself are caught in a compromising position here, it will be much, much worse than the simple rumor spread by Wen Chao. They could receive severe punishment. Wei Ying could be expelled.
He opens his mouth again to speak. Lan Zhan has never met someone so interested in talking when it goes so wholly against their best interests.
Lan Zhan puts his hand over Wei Ying’s mouth again. “Shut up,” he grits out against the back of Wei Ying’s ear, a quarter of his thoughts still devoted to his jealousy and the remainder mostly focused on how the head of his cock is pressed against the small of Wei Ying’s back.
Mercifully, Wei Ying quiets, his mouth shut against Lan Zhan’s palm. The two of them stand there for a few long moments, unable to tell how much time has passed, listening as the bustle around them goes quieter and the rest of the showers turn off.
Close, now. They’re so close.
Wei Ying shifts, obviously trying to deal with the discomfort of having Lan Zhan pressed up against him like this. A rush of guilt nearly overwhelms him—to Wei Ying, none of this is real, and he has not expressed interest in being up close and personal with Lan Zhan’s cock thus far—but when he goes to move his hand from Wei Ying’s stomach and use that to hold him against the wall instead, Wei Ying catches his wrist, stopping him from moving.
He squirms again. The wet fabric of the skirt clings to the cleft of his ass; when he shifts his body, Lan Zhan’s cock slides inside of it, the only barrier between himself and Wei Ying’s hole two layers of incredibly thin fabric. Stretchy, but he could probably tear it if he had to. He does most of his meditation standing on his hands. He can handle a skirt and shorts.
“You sure you’re alright in there?”
One of his straggling teammates knocks on the door; Lan Zhan couldn’t name them right now if he wanted to. Wei Ying gasps against his palm and twitches his hips back again, this time almost deliberately, like he’s riling Lan Zhan up on purpose. “Fine,” he manages, heart racing. He’s surprised at how normal he sounds, when inside his body is a rage and hunger so deep he can barely contain it.
Thankfully, Lan Zhan’s taciturn nature means he doesn’t get any more questions, only a couple thumps on the door, seemingly in solidarity. Wei Ying rises onto his tip toes. Lan Zhan feels his tongue poke out from his lips.
The door slams shut behind the last of the stragglers. Lan Zhan slides his hand down from Wei Ying’s mouth, settling on his neck. Neither of them move.
“Wow.” Wei Ying exhales the word with a stutter of manic laughter at the end. “Wow, Lan Zhan, that was, that wasn’t what I expected at all—”
“What did you expect?”
Wei Ying shifts like he might try to leave now that the coast is clear, but Lan Zhan holds him steady. He tells himself it is so Wei Ying will answer his questions. When he tightens his hand on Wei Ying’s throat, he gasps, and his hips twitch back onto Lan Zhan’s cock. Lan Zhan does it again just to replicate the response, and to hear Wei Ying’s sweet gasp.
“I just, I thought that if I made a scene here, then everyone would tell, so I…”
Lan Zhan feels like a man possessed. His hand nearly spans Wei Ying’s stomach. He dips his pinky beneath the waistband of Wei Ying’s skirt. “Wanted to be caught?” Lan Zhan finishes for him.
“Yeah,” Wei Ying gasps, pushing out from the wall, pressing back against Lan Zhan.
The right thing to do is to shut the water off, find Wei Ying something to wear, and drive him home. There’s no risk of being caught now; the worst crime they can be accused of is being in the locker room at the same time.
Wei Ying rises onto his tip toes again. His skirt has ridden up around his waist, the thin spandex shorts beneath exposing the hint of a rounded curve. Lan Zhan stares, torn between watching Wei Ying scrabble at the wall in some feeble attempt to run away and the wet slide as he falls back toward Lan Zhan.
“Stop moving,” he grits out.
“Stop,” Wei Ying mimics, a hitch in his breath when he squirms too hard and Lan Zhan’s cock brushes the exposed section of his ass, “stop being—shouldn’t we get out of here, there’s no one out there, right? So can we just—”
Lan Zhan moves his hand from Wei Ying’s stomach to squeeze at his hip, tight enough to bruise. “Just?”
When he does not stop squeezing, Wei Ying makes a high noise at the back of his throat, leaning further into the corner and panting when Lan Zhan lets go. “Just what?” he asks again, a dangerous tilt to his voice he can’t quite control.
“Lan Zhan, I—I’m not—”
“If you want to leave, ask.” He takes a chance, pulling Wei Ying close, pressing him back against Lan Zhan’s body, pleased and unsure how to feel about the pleasure when Wei Ying shakes in his grasp. “If you want something else, ask for it.”
“Uhhhhh.”
He knows, with at least some accuracy, that Wei Ying would much rather be told what he wants than decide for himself. Just yesterday, he rambled on about how nice it would be if he really did like men, because they could go into changing rooms together, and isn’t there something kinda romantic about peeing shoulder to shoulder with your soulmate?
If he wants to be told, Lan Zhan decides, he must ask for that much on his own.
“Like…” Wei Ying asks, turning to look at Lan Zhan from under his eyelashes, “Like what?”
That’s not asking, Lan Zhan reminds himself.
Wei Ying arches his back.
It will do.
His hand is already loose around Wei Ying’s neck; it’s easy to tilt his face up for a kiss, to bite his lip until he moans, to hold him in place at the throat and slide the other beneath his shorts, peeling them from his skin centimeter by centimeter. Wei Ying gasps into his mouth and swallows water, coughing and spluttering as his hair plasters to his neck beneath the stream.
The shorts hit the ground at his ankles. Lan Zhan tugs the skirt down so that it’s firmly in place.
Wei Ying turns away from the showerhead, presumably not to swallow water again, and feels behind him, grasping at random parts of Lan Zhan’s torso. “Lan Zhan?” His throat bobs when he swallows, tiny droplets of water glistening on his skin. “I don’t—”
He licks the water from Wei Ying’s skin, sucking hard when he reaches his jawline, wanting to see the reddened skin bloom under the spray.
“—hhhhaaa, okay, uhh, oh!”
Lan Zhan’s world has narrowed to a singular focus. There is nothing to think of but Wei Ying’s skin warming under his mouth, between his teeth, beneath his hands. With his remaining piece of coherence, he cups Wei Ying’s cock in hand and traps it beneath the fabric of the skirt. It is pleasing to know how easily he can hold Wei Ying in place.
“You have chosen to stay,” Lan Zhan reminds him, nosing at the delicate nape of his neck. “So don’t move.”
He lifts the fabric of the skirt at the back until it no longer covers Wei Ying’s ass, baring the sweet curve that has tormented him for years. It’s almost unthinkable to have it in his hands, to dig his finger and thumb into the fat of one cheek and listen to Wei Ying yelp.
Lan Zhan wishes, insanely, that he had more hands. A hand to hold Wei Ying in place, a hand to bare his hole, a hand to slap it with his cock and watch it twitch. Wei Ying is already so sensitive, just from one hand on one cheek; he would be greedy for it, eager for something inside, something to squeeze and whine around.
He’s thought a lot about this.
With only one hand at his disposal, he rucks the skirt up higher and feeds his cock between Wei Ying’s thighs, muffling a low grunt by sucking a new bruise into Wei Ying’s shoulder. The water covers everything, slicking his way forward until the head of his cock bumps the knuckles of the hand still holding Wei Ying. He doesn’t move that hand, doesn’t jerk him off; if Wei Ying wants to move, he can do that himself.
“Lan Zhan!” His cry is panicked but he tightens his thighs, rolling his hips back and making a hitching sound in the back of his throat when Lan Zhan thrusts again, the sticky head of his cock tagging the base of Wei Ying’s before retreating into the silky warmth between his thighs. The next time he snaps his hips, Wei Ying moans outright, though the sound is miserable and confused. Lan Zhan pulses, quickly abandoning all hope of rhythm as he fucks into that tight heat.
Wei Ying can barely speak but continues to try, words punctuated by the harsh slap of their skin and the high, reluctant noises he seems unable to help producing. “I don’t—ah!—don’t think, don’t, this isn’t supposed to, ohhhh, Lan Zhan, how can, how can you do that? How does it feel—”
He starts to move, subtly, hips twitching forward like he just can’t help himself. In abortive fits and starts, Wei Ying grinds his dick against Lan Zhan’s palm, little unhs and mms permeating the air as he moves in tandem with Lan Zhan, letting his hips push Wei Ying’s forward and increasing the friction.
The thought that Wei Ying is actually letting himself enjoy this—becoming an active participant—is enough to send him over the edge.
He comes, first into Wei Ying’s skirt and then—feeling inspired or possibly crazed—he pulls back and slides his cock over Wei Ying’s hole, soaking his ass and dipping the head of his cock just barely inside. Wei Ying yells and scrabbles at the wall, jerking back onto Lan Zhan’s cockhead as he comes as well, further ruining his skirt and moaning as though in pain.
Lan Zhan knows it’s not pain; it’s what comes when the pleasure is so overwhelming as to confuse the senses. It’s what he feels in this moment, with Wei Ying twitching from the aftershocks of an orgasm and held steady in Lan Zhan’s arms. His legs shake a little.
The water slowly washes away most of his come, but the thought of some staying inside Wei Ying all night pleases him more than he has any right to.
Wei Ying is pliant but oddly quiet as Lan Zhan washes him off. He ends up using the skirt as a rag for now. When he goes for a dry towel, he returns to find Wei Ying still motionless under the spray of the water, head downcast. Doubt creeps in at the corners.
“Would you like to shut the water off?” Maybe Wei Ying will do better with a little bit more control. He straightens and turns, drops of water catching on his eyelashes.
“Oh, yeah. Right!” He reaches for the faucet and continues to drip at the center of the stall. Lan Zhan’s heart squeezes.
He steps forward and throws the towel over the door to the stall. “Raise your arms?” he asks, making sure it’s a question. Wei Ying obeys without complaint, arms above his head, blinking slowly at Lan Zhan as he strips him of his remaining uniform piece. He tosses it with the shorts and skirt, then grabs the towel and methodically dries Wei Ying’s body, patting down his long hair so it won’t frizz.
“You’re really great,” Wei Ying mumbles. “You know?”
Lan Zhan hums. Especially now, he cannot say he entirely agrees, but the sentiment is reassuring.
Next, he bundles Wei Ying into the clothes he was going to wear home. His grey sweatpants mostly fit Wei Ying, though they’re tight enough on his ass to make his mouth water, and the white t-shirt does nothing to hide the bruises already darkening all over Wei Ying’s neck.
“What’re you gonna wear?”
“These.” Lan Zhan pulls out a pair of uniform basketball shorts—one of his spares. “It is a short drive home.”
“My home?”
“Mine.”
“But Lan-laoshi—“
“Left after the game. He will be gone three days for an academic conference.”
“Oh.”
It’s short work to discard his sopping towel in the bin with other used ones as they talk; Wei Ying’s uniform he wrings out as best he can and wraps in a dry towel so it won’t mold the inside of his duffel on the drive home. It’s chilly to walk around without a shirt outdoors, but his car is parked near the school’s entrance, as usual.
Wei Ying nearly walking into a wall of lockers because he’s staring at Lan Zhan’s nipples is almost enough to lift his spirits entirely.
Lan Zhan’s clothes are warm. His sweatpants are still soft on the inside, not nearly as run ragged as any of Wei Ying’s. The shirt smells like his sandalwood cologne. Lately, Wei Ying steals his sweaters so often his room has started to smell like sandalwood, just enough that he has to spray his lotus blossom perfume just to focus instead of trying to come up with Lan Zhan’s responses to every sentence of his essay as he writes it.
Or something like that. It doesn’t happen a lot, obviously. It’s not crossing any lines.
It’s late enough that there’s no cars on the road, which would normally be excellent fodder for teasing Lan Zhan about his driving, but something feels… off. The nebulous portion of his day just before this nibbles at the corners of his thoughts. Think of me, it cajoles, like a little demon in the back of his head, think about it! Aren’t you curious? Don’t you think it’s weird you let him—
“What are we doing?” Wei Ying asks, desperate to distract himself from the warmth he feels inside—a little phantom stickiness, a little bit of it real. “Tonight, I mean.”
The pause between question and answer is lengthy enough that Wei Ying pulls his knee up to his chest. He knows it’s gonna be a weird night when Lan Zhan doesn’t even chastise him for putting his shoes on the white leather.
“I’ll wash your uniform.” That’s not really an answer, but being fair to Lan Zhan, it’s not like Wei Ying had plans. It’s Friday night. On a normal Saturday morning he would take a walk with Jiang Yanli, but tomorrow is the day Yu Ziyuan moves in to get the house ready and he promised to remove himself as much as possible from that equation to prevent further strife.
Lan Zhan’s place sounds great.
It’s instinct to settle his hands on Lan Zhan’s shoulders as they head inside—clinging as he usually does—but the warmth of his skin beneath Wei Ying’s palms kickstarts his pulse, a frantic racing in his heart that has him tightening his grip. He should pull back, of course. Not even Lan Qiren is here for such a display.
Lan Zhan doesn’t give him time to overthink it, settling Wei Ying at the dining room table and taking what appears to be scallion pancakes out of the freezer to thaw. Presumably he goes to put Wei Ying’s uniform in the washer after that; on the way out, he pats the top of Wei Ying’s head, which Wei Ying probably isn’t supposed to enjoy half as much as he does.
Supposed to, supposed to. Wei Ying spends a lot of time doing things he’s not supposed to do.
He knows Lan Zhan’s eyes were telling him to stay put, but he gets up and walks around anyway, a restless itch beneath his skin. Wei Ying stares at the paintings on the walls, noting for the first time that they’re surprising in their composition. If asked, he would have expected elegant nature scenes or still-lifes—maybe the hint of an impressionist or two—but as he turns into the hall he sees a surprising amount of vibrant color and daring shapes, a stark contrast to the white on the walls.
If Lan Qiren decorated this house, he really has more layers than Wei Ying thought.
There’s a gentle thud as a cabinet in the kitchen closes. Wei Ying ignores it in favor of heading for the sitting room to rifle through the Lan public-facing book collection. He thumbs through Cinema and Desire for a bit before he gets bored, settling it halfway back into its place before a smile alights on his face and he puts it at the end of the shelf instead, throwing the entire organizational system into disarray. This seems to soothe the buzzing in his bones a bit, so he continues, tongue poking out between his teeth as he moves a massive tome with faded letters on the spine from the bottom shelf to the middle, taking out three books and placing them out of order on the bottom to replace it, their size entirely out of place.
Lan Zhan finds him twelve books in.
Bent over the second lowest shelf, Wei Ying hears his footsteps stop in the threshold and slides his legs outward so he can look up at Lan Zhan from between them. He looks funny upside down; at least he’s less distracting in a red sweatshirt, so Wei Ying is no longer confronted with the urge to see if he can move his pecs independently and if he would do so on command. Wow, Lan Zhan’s ears are so red!
“Dinner,” he says, almost too abrupt. It reminds Wei Ying of the way he used to be, back when Lan Zhan hated him. He walks back out before Wei Ying can tease him about anything.
The scallion pancakes are good. Lan Zhan doesn’t scold him for the books, only asks, “How many?” To which Wei Ying responds, “shouldn’t you know? This is your house! You should have every book memorized, how disgraceful.” When Lan Zhan doesn’t even sigh, Wei Ying steps on his toes under the table.
A harsh exhale. Wei Ying lights up.
“No speaking during meals,” Lan Zhan eventually chastises. Something about his stoic face and insistence on utter boredom while chewing fills Wei Ying’s stomach and chest with buoyant warmth.
Ah, he can’t stand it. He looks at the scallions and at the ceiling and at the few strands of hair falling across Lan Zhan’s forehead, unable to help himself. There’s just nothing that’s ever going to be as interesting as Lan Zhan. His leg bounces while he waits for Lan Zhan to finish, but it’s only a minute before Lan Zhan catches his foot between both of his own, holding it down, keeping Wei Ying in place.
He ignores the way his face heats. Maybe he always feels a little fevered during meals; it’s probably all the chili oil he just inhaled, getting to him at long last.
After dinner, Lan Zhan soaps the dishes and Wei Ying rinses. They’ve done this a couple times before; it always amazes him that they never bump elbows or otherwise get in each other’s way. Even Jiang Yanli doesn’t move so effortlessly around him. When they’re done, Wei Ying dries his freezing hands and presses them to the back of Lan Zhan’s neck, grinning when he can’t help jumping just a little.
Lan Zhan dips his hands beneath his shirt and holds him at the hips, making Wei Ying wriggle and yell.
“Upstairs,” he says when Wei Ying escapes his grasp.
“I’m going!”
He takes the stairs two at a time, letting Lan Zhan follow at a sedate pace and racing to jump to the center of Lan Zhan’s bed. This turns out to be a trick, as Lan Zhan merely nods and grabs a book from the desk, laying it out in Wei Ying’s lap.
“Finish your reading.”
“Lan Zhan, was this all a ploy? Did you do all that just so you could get me home and make me study before the morning my homework’s due?” Wei Ying feels his face heating as he speaks; this is the closest he’s come to acknowledging what happened between them earlier, but he can’t help it, he’s in Lan Zhan’s bed and he can see his stupid, perfect knees. What else is he supposed to think about?
Lan Zhan’s eyes are so dark. It must be the angle of the shadows in the room. He’s so tall he blocks the light fixture, anyway. “Yes.”
He throws his head back onto the pillow and laughs at Lan Zhan’s immediate retreat.
Wei Ying actually does try to settle in and read, hoping the sandalwood scent on the sheets will calm him. Lan Zhan is such an easy study partner; it would make sense if studying was easier in his space, too. After a few minutes, however, the sentences all get blurry. Wei Ying tosses the textbook aside and rolls over, burying his face in the pillow and groaning.
How can he be meant to live like this? With all this buzzing and aching and nothing to do with it all?
He hugs the sad, lifeless pillow. Perhaps he could drool on it, but that’s only fun if Lan Zhan’s watching him in horror as he does it. He pushes the textbook off the bed, but the thump is cushioned by Lan Zhan’s fancy little rug, so he doubts it was audible wherever it is he ran off to. Wei Ying rolls over onto his back, squeezing his eyes shut.
He’s going to have to do something. Something with a capital ‘S’ on it. S-O-M-E-T-H-I-N-G.
Awful.
Wei Ying leaves the room, padding around the upstairs hall until he reaches the balcony, where Lan Zhan is hanging his uniform to dry. It looks so innocent, now, hung up on a line, just another skirt, never been—
“Lan Zhan?”
“You are not studying.” He finishes hanging, which makes sense considering how few items he washed. What was he doing the rest of the time? Avoiding Wei Ying, not wanting to be around him after—well, after?
“No.” He feels a pout coming on and loses the battle with it. “I’m not reading that. Not tonight.”
Lan Zhan raises the line and shuts the door, but doesn’t turn to face Wei Ying.
“You want to misbehave.”
Wei Ying is so glad Lan Zhan didn’t turn around. He’s so glad Lan Zhan can’t see his face, even though he has no idea what expression he’s making. He knows it would say more than he means to. The desire to tease Lan Zhan is present as ever, but when he goes to try, the words get stuck in his throat.
“Would it be bad?” he asks, unable to see a flame without touching it. “Would that be bad?”
When Lan Zhan offers no response, Wei Ying reaches out, tugging at the inside of his elbow. He’s stiff as a board. “Lan Zhan, would it be so bad?”
Finally, he turns. Wei Ying isn’t sure if he regrets that or not. Lan Zhan’s eyes are even darker out here, with the sun set and the lights so low. Wei Ying can only spot a thin ring of gold as Lan Zhan stares him down.
“No.” In spite of the long pause, in spite of the burning Wei Ying feels in the back of his eyes, Lan Zhan sounds so sure. He’s always sure, all the time. He’s so, he’s, he’s just so much. He’s so close that Wei Ying nearly steps on his toes.
“I like it,” Lan Zhan says.
Wei Ying cups Lan Zhan’s face in his hands and kisses him.
He’s motionless for a moment. Wei Ying would be scared if he couldn’t feel how fast Lan Zhan’s heart races as he slides his hand down over his chest. He’s never kissed anyone before, not on his own. Not just because he wanted to. It’s like Lan Zhan has his mouth trained and now he only knows how to kiss one person, only wants to kiss one person, only thinks about kissing one person, doesn’t know how to stop think about kissing—
Lan Zhan comes to life in his arms, cutting through all rational thought as he backs Wei Ying against the wall and mauls him. Really, he would complain about the mauling and the violence, but something must be broken in his brain, his thoughts must be disconnected from his body—all he can do is muffle noises against Lan Zhan’s tongue and dig his nails into the fabric of his sweatshirt when Lan Zhan’s thigh presses between his legs. He’s so forward, aggressive, tugging Wei Ying’s head to the side with his teeth and latching onto a new, unblemished portion of skin, sucking so hard Wei Ying is surprised his mouth isn’t bloody when he pulls away.
“What’re you gonna do,” Wei Ying breathes, grinding down on Lan Zhan’s thigh and trapping a moan behind his teeth, “make me a whole necklace?”
He receives a bite on his lip for that, throbbing pain that shoots straight to his cock, which already feels a little sticky in Lan Zhan’s sweats and hey, wow, that’s embarrassing.
“If you don’t stop talking,” Lan Zhan murmurs into a new spot, an artist finding a particularly tasteful part of canvas.
Wei Ying tips his head back until it thunks against the wall and takes this as a personal challenge.
“If you don’t want me to, ah! If you want me to shut up, you should make me, Lan Zhan, please, not there, I ca—ant, not there!!”
Lan Zhan very deliberately forces himself to stop cupping Wei Ying’s ass and squeezing, fingers sliding over his hole through the soft, warm fabric and pulling Wei Ying higher onto his thigh. That’s fine, but then Lan Zhan stops biting his neck as well—the total opposite of what Wei Ying wanted.
“You promised, why did you stop? If I kept talking you said you would, come on, Lan Zhan, can you, can you just…” He trails off at the end of his thought, eyes squeezed shut as Lan Zhan does not listen to him, rubbing more deliberately over his hole instead. His mouth falls open of its own accord.
Lan Zhan brushes the thumb of his other hand gently over Wei Ying’s neck, selecting a bruise through no criteria Wei Ying can discern and exerting slow, steady pressure. “You say not there,” he murmurs, “but Wei Ying is sensitive.” Two fingers are still pressed up against him. Lan Zhan can probably feel him—twitch. Wei Ying buries his face in Lan Zhan’s shoulder. “Are you sure?”
Of course he isn’t sure. He’s not sure of anything right now, splayed like some common slut on Lan Zhan’s thigh, letting a b—letting Lan Zhan mark him as his own personal playground with his teeth. It’s the least sure thing he’s ever done, and one time he jumped off the roof into a pool just because Jiang Cheng said he’d probably die and Wei Ying thought he wouldn’t.
“Maybe,” Wei Ying allows, mumbling around Lan Zhan’s sweatshirt in a way he finds terribly magnanimous, “a little. But you have to be careful!” He turns his face up to Lan Zhan’s, blinking up at him, surprised to find his eyes are a little wet. Maybe that burning earlier meant something after all. “I’ve never… and no one’s ever, so—”
Lan Zhan takes his hand off Wei Ying’s throat with urgency, which is not ideal until he realizes it’s to strip his sweatshirt over the back of his head, tossing it to the floor. Wei Ying had no idea he found Lan Zhan cluttering the hallway so very attractive. Maybe everything Lan Zhan does is the most attractive way anyone’s ever done it.
Then he sinks to his knees, and Wei Ying discovers there are other, hotter things it’s possible for a person to do.
“Take off my shirt.” Lan Zhan’s eyes are like, entirely pupil. He’s an alien. A hot alien predator who is going to eat Wei Ying alive the instant he shows weakness.
He takes the shirt off.
At the same time, he feels Lan Zhan hook his fingers under the sweats and tug them down from his hips. It’s terribly efficient—so in character. If he hadn’t heard the words directly from Lan Zhan’s lips, he wouldn’t think he was a virgin at all. There’s so much confidence in his hands as he grasps Wei Ying’s thigh and moves it over his shoulder, his other hand steadying Wei Ying at the hip, like he isn’t even impressed with Wei Ying’s balance. Rude!
“I have great balance, you know,” Wei Ying reminds him. “I don’t need help.”
Lan Zhan squeezes his hip and lets go, assessing him as his gaze climbs back up to Wei Ying’s face. There’s something amused in his eyes, but his ears are blushing fiercely, so Wei Ying still wins.
Then Lan Zhan slides a hand under his thigh, like he’s going to raise it higher. “Put your hands above your head.”
“Why?”
“Wei Ying.” Lan Zhan’s voice is so low, it’s almost a strain to hear it. It’s unbearable. Wei Ying feels his blush spreading all the way to his chest.
“Okay, okay!” He puts his hands above his head, feeling a little silly and a little proud of the way his leg doesn’t wobble. He does have great balance. “Now what?”
“Don’t fall,” Lan Zhan says before ducking between Wei Ying’s legs.
Wei Ying takes a startled breath and almost grabs Lan Zhan’s shoulder when he bypasses his dick entirely, ducking his head lower and—
“Wha—haaaa, I said—just a little!! That, that’s, Lan Zhan, no,” but his body won’t listen, arching up and out as Lan Zhan slides his tongue where he shouldn’t and doesn’t stop. His elbows throb with the force of how hard he throws his arms back, determined not to lose even when he wants nothing more than to push Lan Zhan away because this is way too much.
He hooks his leg harder around Lan Zhan’s shoulders to keep himself upright, biting down on his lip to muffle the sound he wants to make. How can Lan Zhan do something like that? How can he kiss him like that, open and wet, until his toes curl against the hardwood floor and the naked skin of Lan Zhan’s back and he wants to put his whole fist in his mouth just to bite down on something. His dick is leaking so much precome he can feel it sticking to his stomach, tacky and base, obvious enough to light him on fire, and still, Lan Zhan won’t even slow down.
Lan Zhan is a liar, he has to have done this before. He swipes the soft plane of his tongue over Wei Ying’s skin but avoids his hole, turning his head to the side and biting Wei Ying on the ass when he rolls his hips forward and tries to get him inside. It’s just—it’s just crazy, that he could feel like this, isn’t the sensitive spot supposed to be inside him?
And this can’t be fun for Lan Zhan, can it? It must be tiring, the way he has to hold Wei Ying up with one hand on his thigh and the other at his hip, correcting him when he wobbles and gets unsteady. It has nothing to do with his abilities and everything to do with Lan Zhan’s filthy tongue driving him insane, strong and awful and so good he’s going to die—
He pulls away, ignoring Wei Ying’s desperate, frustrated noise, as well as his head thumping painfully against the wall. “Balance,” Lan Zhan reminds him, hot breath fanning out across every place his mouth just touched.
“You’re evil,” Wei Ying gasps. Lan Zhan presses a wet, open-mouthed kiss into his hole and fucks his tongue inside.
He can’t balance—can’t control a single muscle, let alone the amount it takes to be coordinated and stay still with one foot over someone’s shoulder. His toes keep curling. He has to hold onto one wrist with the other hand and dig his nails into the skin just to keep from pulling Lan Zhan’s hair.
“Lan Zhan,” he cries, voice breaking, “Lan Zhan, I can’t, I really can’t, please, please!”
He’s fucking down onto Lan Zhan’s mouth at this point, unable to help himself, only kept from crushing him by the hand Lan Zhan keeps under his thigh. He takes his hand from Wei Ying’s hip and for a moment, Wei Ying thinks this is it, he’s really going to let him fall, he’s going to let Wei Ying embarrass himself right here in the hallway of his childhood home, just like that, but then—
A harsh slap rings in his ears, the outside of his thigh stinging. His entire body seizes up. Lan Zhan does it again and the whole world goes dark as Wei Ying shouts and comes all over his own chest, shuddering so hard the helpless sounds he makes are stuttering, too. His teeth practically chatter.
He can’t focus on anything for a few moments, still overcome with the aftershocks. Wei Ying feels like he has no skeleton anymore. When he rediscovers his senses, Lan Zhan has him in a bridal carry and they’re almost back to his room. Wei Ying squirms a little at the discomfort of come covering his chest and stomach.
“Lan Zhan,” he asks, voice hoarse, “where did you learn that?”
“Thought about it,” Lan Zhan replies. “Wei Ying. More?”
He feels his mouth setting into a stubborn frown. “What, you think I can’t go again? I could do that like, four more times, and I didn’t even fall! I told you I was good.”
As he makes his case, Lan Zhan sets him down on the bed and takes off his shorts before crawling over him like some big hunting cat. Wei Ying’s dick twitches a little painfully against his thigh.
“Mn.” Lan Zhan leans in and kisses him, eyes open. It takes Wei Ying a second to realize the strange taste in his mouth is himself on Lan Zhan’s tongue. He flushes all the way down his neck; Lan Zhan pulls back and thumbs over his lower lip. “Wei Ying was good.”
He licks his lips, wondering if it’s self-centered to think tasting himself on Lan Zhan is kind of sexy. “Do I get a reward?”
Lan Zhan leans down and kisses his earlobe, tugging on it very gently with his teeth, almost deceptively innocent. “What would you like?”
Ah, he opened himself up for that one. Admitting he wants something would be saying out loud how much he likes it, how good he feels; it would give voice to the silent half of the answer that says, I don’t think it could feel this good with anyone else. The terrifying part.
Wei Ying digs his nails into Lan Zhan’s back. “The thing, in the shower…”
Lan Zhan reaches down to slide the head of his cock between Wei Ying’s thighs. “This?”
He arches up into Lan Zhan’s touch, biting his lip. “Yeah,” he gasps, “and at the end, you…”
Lan Zhan freezes in place. “Yes.”
“Yeah?” Wei Ying avoids eye contact but spreads his legs, propping himself open and giving Lan Zhan more than enough room. He wraps his hand around Wei Ying’s neck—another positive from earlier—and his ears are so red Wei Ying could probably cook an egg on them.
Lan Zhan looks at him with such intensity. “You want me to get you wet.” Ah. The reason for the—blushing. Wow.
“Lan Zhan,” he blurts out, rolling his hips up in clear and obvious invitation to do just that, “I had no idea you had such a vulgar mouth.”
The mouth in question pushes forward to kiss him with an urgency that burns in Wei Ying’s blood, too. Lan Zhan kisses like he wants to eat him; Wei Ying realizes he wants to be eaten. Lan Zhan pushes his thighs up against his chest, hooking Wei Ying’s legs over his shoulders—both, this time—and sliding his cock over Wei Ying’s ass.
Wei Ying wriggles closer, neck arching and a wet hitch in his next gasping breath.
“Are you gonna go inside? Last time you barely did, and I really, I really—Lan Zhan, will you?” The head of Lan Zhan’s cock catches on his rim as he lines up and thrusts properly. Wei Ying makes a punched-out noise at the back of his throat. “I don’t think that’ll make me wet enough, you might have to, what if I’m too small? I’m too small and I can’t—”
“Shut up,” Lan Zhan presses into his mouth, sounding desperate and cutting Wei Ying’s words with his tongue.
It doesn’t last. Wei Ying can’t breathe, he pulls away to gasp, but he can’t stop talking, either. “—if I can’t, can’t take you, gege, Zhan-ge, ah!”
As he’d been speaking, Lan Zhan’s pace had reached a frenzied crescendo. Wei Ying can no longer remember the words he wants to use as Lan Zhan’s teeth sink into his thigh, as he feels the first splash of warmth onto his skin, the next over and inside him, making him as soft and wet as he’d imagined when he asked for this.
Wei Ying thought he’d need a few minutes to recollect himself, that Lan Zhan would probably finger his come inside while he waited to get hard again, but even as his thrusts slow down, he never gets any softer. He shakes slightly as he runs the head of his cock over Wei Ying’s hole, slapping it a couple times—right there, where he’s so weak and sensitive.
“Lan Zhan,” he gasps.
In return, Lan Zhan hums. “Are you wet enough?”
“Y-yeah, yes, I am, I am.”
“Show me.”
Wei Ying lifts his hips to try and slide the head inside, but Lan Zhan avoids him. He really is going to have to show him, Wei Ying realizes when Lan Zhan falls onto his back in bed next to him. He has one hand resting on his thigh, as if to say here is your seat, Wei Ying.
Thighs trembling, Wei Ying sits in his lap.
Their cocks rub together, causing a low moan for Wei Ying and for Lan Zhan’s hands to tighten hard at Wei Ying’s waist. Wei Ying lifts up into a shaky kneel and reaches down to line himself up.
I really am wet, he thinks as the head slides in with very little resistance. Lan Zhan came so much. Only it was messy and imperfect, and he can only slide down a little before he has to back off and rub the head over the surrounding area, gathering more wetness at the tip and pushing back in. He thinks he has to be halfway this time; there’s a burst of heat inside him that suggests Lan Zhan is dripping precome inside. His mouth hangs open slightly, gaze focused on Wei Ying’s—nipples?
“Luh, Lan Zhan, what do—”
He yowls, a sound he didn’t know humans could make, when Lan Zhan moves one hand up to his nipple. Wei Ying knew he chafed easily and everything, but he didn’t know he would be so sensitive, here and there and everywhere, like Lan Zhan’s hands have a direct line to his dick no matter where they hit.
The way he curls up in Lan Zhan’s lap makes him sit faster than he’s ready for, a whimper choked from him as Lan Zhan bottoms out. He’s too full, he can’t breathe, it’s too much, it’s too much too soon, he’s so, so full.
“Shhh,” Lan Zhan says, tweaking his nipple again. Wei Ying pulls up and slides down with a moan half-miserable, half-pleasured. He can do this. He gasps for air, almost too full to breathe at all, but he has just enough not to shut up.
“Can’t, ge,” he says, hands tight on his shoulders. “How would you know how deep you are if I didn’t, uhh, tell you? Too deep, it’s too much, go slower, it’s my first time—”
“Wei Ying, if you don’t stop talking—”
“Do you think if I don’t, the neighbors will hear, or if I could go faster I might scream, Lan Zhan?”
Lan Zhan pulls Wei Ying off his cock. The noise that pours from him is unhinged, despondent and hungry in equal measure, but it doesn’t last long. Lan Zhan only throws him onto his front and fucks him from behind.
It’s not as fast, but it’s harder, forcing him a little ways up the bed before he jostles back down as Lan Zhan pulls out, until just the head is inside, and then fucks in harder. Wei Ying tries to scramble onto his hands and knees but can’t coordinate. All he can do is push his ass up toward Lan Zhan and hope he doesn’t pass out. It’s so overwhelming, being taken apart like this. It’s so impossible.
“Too much, too much, Lan Zhan, is it wet enough? Are you gonna come inside me for real? That feels the best, right? You’re getting faster, fuck, ah—”
It’s stupid and cliche, but he comes when he feels the pulse of Lan Zhan coming inside him, held deep, fingers digging deep into the fat of his inner thigh. He knows he speaks with Lan Zhan after that. It’s probably all nonsense, because he can’t remember it the second it happens. At some point he jolts when Lan Zhan touches a warm cloth to his oversensitive nipples, but it feels nice to be clean. It feels nice to be held like this, to feel steady breaths rise and fall beneath him, to hear Lan Zhan’s heartbeat slow beneath his cheek.
Wei Ying isn’t sure why he expects Lan Zhan to be there when he wakes up. He stretches out, seeking his warmth, but all he finds are cold sheets.
He sits up, yawning and taking in his surroundings. No sign of Lan Zhan. He yawns two more times as he rifles through Lan Zhan’s drawers for something to wear, feeling a shameful little thrill as he puts on Lan Zhan’s underwear. He grabs basketball shorts and last season’s jersey with butterflies in his stomach, putting them in and heading outside—it’s not like anyone else will be home.
As he reaches the stairs, he sees a post-it note on the wall.
Team breakfast. I couldn’t miss it. Anything in the kitchen is yours.
Oh. So Lan Zhan is… gone-gone. For a while.
If he wanted to, he could have woken Wei Ying up. He would have grumbled, but he would’ve been able to look Lan Zhan in the eyes and figure out if he regrets last night. Making a fake relationship real is scary. Wei Ying should know.
He goes to the kitchen, but the butterflies in his stomach are turning over and over, uncomfortable and sickening. He can’t eat here. Wei Ying leaves the kitchen and paces. Waking him up or not was a big decision; it was a sign.
A sign he doesn’t want to talk to Wei Ying? A sign to make himself scarce? The note said, anything in the kitchen is yours, not, stay a while. Like.
He only lasts another fifteen minutes or so before he goes to the balcony to grab his uniform. He almost puts it on to walk home. It’s certainly dry. Only the thought of stealing Lan Zhan’s clothes appeals to him; it’s not like Lan Zhan will be back any time soon to notice and stop him.
So Wei Ying doesn’t change his clothes when he leaves. He hugs his uniform to his chest and walks home.
When Lan Zhan comes back, Wei Ying is gone. He stands at the kitchen counter for what feels like a very long time.
Wei Ying almost forgets that the Wen siblings are coming over Sunday. He doesn’t even clean his room. He spends hours and hours lying diagonally on his bed, staring at the ceiling and watching the sunlight streaming from the window change angles. It’s only Wen Ning’s “on my way!” chat that lets him know he’s about to have company.
Plans made to celebrate the moderate success of his plan feel ridiculous in the current climate.
He brushes his hair and tidies the sitting room. They’re kind enough not to bring up his lack of focus for the first couple of hours. In return, Wei Ying does his best to be present through the malaise he’s felt since he woke up in Lan Zhan’s bed alone.
“Wei Ying,” Wen Qing says, sitting him down with her hands on his shoulders, “you’re so distracted that you’re a distraction. You’re covered in hickies.”
“I was worried for a second,” Wen Ning admits. Wei Ying’s face heats, but he smiles and thickens his face.
“About what?” he asks, playing dumb.
“That it wouldn’t become real.” Wen Ning and Wen Qing both know that this plan is a way to cover his ass rather than anything serious. He’s surprised Wen Ning would forget something like that.
“It’s not.”
Wen Qing scoffs. “The hickies, Wei Ying.”
He shrugs. “Yeah, but. I don’t know.” He swallows harder than he means to. “No one said anything.”
“You were totally quiet the entire time. You.”
“No! But that was sex stuff. I don’t know what was feelings. I don’t know what he thought was feelings. Oh, no.”
Wen Ning comes to sit next to him. “Oh no sounds right.”
“What did you want him to think?” Wen Qing asks.
“I wanted him to have as many feelings as me!”
“And does he?”
Lan Zhan can’t possibly. Wouldn’t he have stayed? He would have woken Wei Ying so he could see it in his eyes. Even though he doesn’t usually say much, he would have said something, because this is a really important thing to say.
Only Wei Ying didn’t say it either. He left.
What if Lan Zhan wanted him to stay? Maybe that’s what the terrible feeling hanging over him is.
“Oh, no,” Wei Ying says, looking between the siblings.
“Do you need to leave?” Wen Ning asks.
“Yeah.” He stands up and pats Wen Ning absently on the hand before heading for the door. “Yeah, be back later, okay?”
“Don’t forget your phone!” Wen Qing walks it out to him, annoyance rolling off her in waves. Fondness, too, of course.
Wei Ying starts the walk back to Lan Zhan’s house.
A day after Wei Ying left, Lan Zhan returns from the grocery store to find Wei Ying back on his doorstep.
He sits with his legs splayed outward, though he quickly pulls them tight against his chest when he sees Lan Zhan. After a moment his cheeks go pink and he jumps to his feet, stepping forward a bit to meet Lan Zhan halfway.
“Need help with that?”
“The door.” He murmurs the code when they reach it, so Wei Ying can let them both inside. Lan Zhan carries all the groceries inside and puts them away. He tries to be as fast as possible, but he can feel Wei Ying getting restless as he watches and waits.
Finally, everything that needs doing is done. There’s nothing left to do with his hands; all Lan Zhan can do is stare. All Wei Ying does is stare back.
“How do you feel?” Wei Ying asks.
Lan Zhan doesn’t know what that question means. Emotionally? Physically? About Wei Ying, or about life in general? “How do you?”
Crossed arms follow his question. “Like I really want to know how you feel before I tell you.”
“About…”
“Me? I don’t know if you—because if it isn’t exactly the same, I just—”
Wei Ying’s phone rings, which is odd; Lan Zhan has never seen it off silent. His eyes go bright and wide.
“That’s jiejie. That’s jiejie!”
He answers, totally distracted from their earlier conversation. He hears one half of the conversation, something about someone being early, and then the hospital. Lan Zhan doesn’t need time to connect the dots.
“Your sister went into labor,” he says as Wei Ying hangs up.
He nods, throat bobbing. “Lan Zhan—”
“I can drive you.”
“Thank you. Thank you, let’s go.”
Mostly, Jin Ling’s birth is a lot of waiting and pacing.
Lan Zhan stays the whole time, no matter how many times Wei Ying tells him to go home, that it’s late, that he has to go to school in the morning. He’s always “fine” if Wei Ying asks, that or a little look that amounts to the same answer. Eventually he has to concede defeat.
Jiang Yanli apparently waited until the last possible second to actually tell anyone she was about to give birth, but Yu Ziyuan knew something was off, so it wasn’t too bad. She’d given a stiff nod to Lan Zhan and a pleasant greeting when they walked in before telling Wei Ying to fix his hair and stalking off to ask if there’d been any change in Jiang Yanli or Jin Ling’s condition.
Jin Zixuan looks mostly terrified and a little lost. Lan Zhan fixes Wei Ying’s hair—just like that, not needing to be asked—then walks over to Jin Zixuan.
Lan Zhan says something to him that’s too quiet for Wei Ying to hear. It seems to help.
This is Wei Ying’s family. This is Lan Zhan with his family, like he’s always been there, fitting into a spot Wei Ying didn’t see was open and available until right now. It makes him a little dizzy, and then Jiang Cheng calls so he can’t think about it anymore, and maybe that’s for the best.
When he finally gets off the video call with Jiang Cheng, Lan Zhan is sitting in a waiting room chair that’s a little too small for him. His head leans back against the wall. When Wei Ying puts his hands on the wall, on either side of his head, and leans close, Lan Zhan doesn’t stir.
He checks his phone: it’s after 22:00. Lan Zhan must be really tired.
Wei Ying falls into the seat next to him mostly sideways, staring at the long column of Lan Zhan’s throat, the definition of his jaw, the length of his fingers in his lap, the soft curl of his eyelashes against cheeks that never blush.
He pokes the one closest to him. Lan Zhan doesn’t jerk awake, not like Jiang Cheng would, but he opens his eyes. After a moment of blinking, he sits up and turns to face Wei Ying.
“Sorry,” he whispers. Lan Zhan can decide what it’s for.
He frowns. “There’s no need.”
“But I—”
“Wei Ying.” Lan Zhan swallows hard. Wei Ying is surprised he can see how nervous Lan Zhan is. He’s gotten to know him so well. “I want no grudges or debts between us.”
It’s not exactly a statement brimming with emotion. “In what… sense?” Wei Ying’s heart hovers somewhere in his throat.
Lan Zhan opens his mouth to answer, but Yu Ziyuan bursts in to gather them up. Wei Ying gives Lan Zhan a helpless look as he’s herded in with the rest of the family, but he doesn’t seem bothered. He stands as far back as he can as they crowd in around Jiang Yanli, clamoring for a glimpse of Jin Ling.
Wei Ying is dead last in terms of holding him—only when Yu Ziyuan goes to discuss when Jiang Yanli will be released and what’s best for her and Jin Ling’s care in the coming weeks—but he doesn’t mind. Peering over Jin Zixuan’s shoulder isn’t so bad; Jin Ling is perfect. Perfectly ugly and wrinkled, perfectly mad at the world, definitely his parents’ kid. Jin Zixuan reminds him to be careful with Jin Ling’s head about five times as he transfers him into Wei Ying’s arms.
He’s so, so tiny. So red. He has hair!
“Lan Zhan,” Jiang Yanli calls. Wei Ying only knows he’s moved up toward the bed by the light scent of sandalwood growing closer. “Thank you for staying with A-Xuan and A-Ying.” She sounds so tired, but pleased, too. “Do you want to hold him?”
When Wei Ying looks up, he sees curiosity in Lan Zhan’s eyes, along with a tiny nod. Wei Ying adjusts his hold on Jin Ling. “Ready?” he whispers. “I wouldn’t relinquish my favorite nephew to just anyone, you know.”
Lan Zhan’s expression warms even further. “I know.”
Wei Ying nestles Jin Ling in Lan Zhan’s arms. As he adjusts, he makes those tiny, whimpery baby noises, reaching up and patting Lan Zhan’s chest.
He just fits. Lan Zhan just fits, here, in the middle of his mess of a family, holding Jin Ling, looking at him like he’s ready to spoil him silly. He’s not even Lan Zhan’s nephew!
But he could be. Someday, at some point. This is what real boyfriends do. They take you to the hospital when you need it and they sit with you if they can, and they hold your baby nephew and they treat him like family.
The thought of doing this with anyone else makes Wei Ying want to run.
But not when it’s Lan Zhan.
“Lan Zhan,” he whispers, urgency pushing words from his lips one after the other, “Lan Zhan, did you want me to stay?”
He looks up from Jin Ling, but doesn’t answer.
“I wanted to,” he murmurs. “Lan Zhan, I like you so much.”
“Like me?” Lan Zhan clarifies, eyes wide. The very tips of his ears are pink. Wei Ying wants to kiss them so bad.
“You cannot be serious,” Jin Zixuan says, not even pretending to mutter.
“A-Xuan,” Jiang Yanli hisses.
“The most,” Wei Ying promises. “I like you, I love you, I think about you all the time, you’re gonna be Jin Ling’s favorite uncle—after me, of course.”
Lan Zhan has not moved since Wei Ying started speaking. Jin Zixuan says something under his breath, but Wei Ying doesn’t care. He reaches up to brush his thumb over Lan Zhan’s cheek. “Lan Zhan?”
His touch breathes life into Lan Zhan again, who leans down to gingerly hand Jin Ling back to Jiang Yanli. Once she has him, Lan Zhan turns and kisses Wei Ying, just like that, not even bothering to tug him into a separate room, right in front of Wei Ying’s jie. Shameless!
“I like you,” Lan Zhan repeats into his mouth. “I love you.”
Wei Ying laughs. “Yes. Now say you’re gonna be Jin Ling’s second favorite uncle.”
Lan Zhan doesn’t say anything, but he does pull Wei Ying close, pressing his face into Wei Ying’s neck. A neck still covered in fading bruises. Huh. Maybe that’s what Yu Ziyuan was hung up on, and the hair was just a cover?
“Stay,” Lan Zhan says into his ear before pulling back far enough to kiss him again.
As if he could possibly get rid of Wei Ying now.
