Work Text:
Wei Ying technically met his soulmate when he was five years old.
It was a too-bright, frigid December morning in Gusu. Everyone was preparing for Dongzhi, but Wei Ying was running.
His stomach howled as he wove his way through the crowds of the morning market. Hot dumplings and soup and pastries taunted his senses, but he was too scared to stop and too scared to reach out. He kept glancing back over his shoulder expecting to hear his new guardian’s yelling, expecting the dogs.
Adults paid him little mind except to scold his rudeness as he pushed through the throngs. Away. He just needed to get away.
He rounded a corner and skidded to a stop when he spied the perfect hiding place.
His head whipped from side to side, but there was no sign of Su-Ayi. He ducked into the alley, hefting his backpack higher as he climbed behind the wooden crates.
The last thing he was expecting was another kid to already be hiding behind them.
…
Soulmates were rare these days. Most people went their whole lives without meeting that supposed fated person who would leave a soulmark on their skin.
Many couples shared long, happy lives without being soulmates. It wasn’t impossible.
Wei Ying traced his bicep, digging his nails into the edges of the dormant purple mark.
It would almost be easy to pretend it was a birthmark or a bruise. Almost, if it wasn’t shaped like small, distinctly-human teeth.
He sighed, dropping his hand and pulling another of his black hoodies on over his t-shirt. This one, fittingly, featured vampire fangs and said “Bite Me.”
Exiting the bathroom, he continued toweling off his wet hair as he followed the scent of braised meat and honey to the kitchen where his roommate was hard at work.
Lan Zhan didn’t notice him at first, so intent on dicing the scallion garnish and stirring the honey-garlic chicken. Wei Ying could tell by the ties at his waist that Lan Zhan was wearing the novelty apron he’d gifted him. He chuckled, remembering Lan Zhan’s deadpan reading of “I like big buns and I cannot lie.”
Classic.
“Wei Ying.” Lan Zhan turned. Wei Ying first looked at the cartoon rabbit on his chest before pulling his focus up to that perfect face. Lan Zhan’s eyes, as always, unerringly found Wei Ying’s. They were so warm— the darkest golden brown, like a warm hearth for Wei Ying to curl up beside.
He pushed down the perpetual ache in his chest and brought a smile to his face. It was never hard to find a smile for Lan Zhan. “Smells amazing! You’re spoiling me, Er-Gege.”
Lan Zhan’s ears reddened, and Wei Ying’s heart gave a little squeeze. “Wei Ying deserves to be spoiled.
“Want me to serve the rice?”
“Mn.”
They worked in silent tandem to finish the prep and plating. Lan Zhan served him a big portion of chicken, knowing he needed extra protein, especially going into winter. Gusu winters were cold as fuck compared to Yunmeng. Wei Ying had never really needed to own so many sets of thermals prior to University.
Sometimes, he wondered how he didn’t get frostbite when he lived in Gusu that one winter in foster home number four.
Sighing, he pushed the thought away. He and Lan Zhan made their way to the little dining nook of their apartment and dug in.
“Lan Zhan,” Wei Ying moaned. “This is so good.” He chewed another bite and sighed in bliss. “The caramelization of the sauce here? Amazing.”
Lan Zhan’s lips quirked as he chewed silently. Wei Ying smiled back, ignoring the way his soulmark ached.
…
Wei Ying poked his head around the wooden crates, looking at the little brown loafers on the kid in front of him. He was dressed like a mini adult, and his severe expression matched.
The boy looked about his age, but his cheeks were round like a mooncake, and his clothes looked warm. Wei Ying admired them, wondering if one day he might also have such warm clothes.
As it was, a gust of wind set off another round of shivering. His teeth started to chatter, but he had to ask, “What are you doing here?”
The boy gave a stubborn, sullen look, and Wei Ying tilted his head and crouched down. “Are you running away, too?”
The boy’s pout deepened, and he looked away.
Wei Ying shrugged. “Well, if you don’t mind, I’m gonna hide here for a bit.” He settled himself cross-legged inside one of the overturned crates and pulled his backpack into his lap as a pillow.
His heartbeat finally began to slow now that he was away from Su-Ayi’s belt and away from the dogs outside the apartment.
“You mustn’t sleep here.”
Wei Ying blinked up at his circumstantial companion. “Why not?”
“It is too cold for one to remain outside.”
“So what are you doing here?”
The kids clammed up again. Wei Ying leaned closer, but the other boy shifted away, looking affronted.
“I’m Wei Ying,” he said, offering a hand and a glowing smile. Grownups seemed to shake hands a lot in movies, so he figured that this boy might like that.
He was mistaken. The boy in blue and white simply stared at Wei Ying’s ratty gloves like they were covered in snot.
Deflating, Wei Ying curled back up around his backpack. It was getting threadbare now, but Baba wasn’t around to patch the seams anymore. Still, Wei Ying wouldn’t let anyone take it from him.
His stomach growled miserably, and the cold bit through his too-thin jacket and sweater. He would take a little nap and then find food. He was a big boy. He could live on his own without any more aunties and uncles and moving. He refused to go back again.
…
After dinner, Wei Ying and Lan Zhan sat on the couch together watching the new romance movie Lan Zhan’s brother was in.
Lan Huan was a rising star in the romance genre, which absolutely fit his personality. Wei Ying adored the guy and his love for love. He really gave each performance his all, no matter what kind of nonsense the script threw at him.
Lan Zhan and Wei Ying watched everything he was in, always making a night of it and then video-calling Huan-Ge afterward to share their thoughts and favorite lines.
This particular film was a historical romance about fated soulmates, of course. The romance genre really harped on soulmates, which, like, Wei Ying got it, but sometimes it’d be nice to show people living happy fulfilled lives without their soulmates, okay?
Onscreen, Huan-Ge, playing an imperial general, was escorting the emperor’s youngest daughter to her arranged wedding. The actress was beautiful and dainty, her hanfu swirling like cherry petals as they fled from the bandits.
Their soulmarks, rather poetically, bloomed when General Xiao pulled the princess out of the way of an arrow that he (somehow, with little regard for trajectory) heroically took to the shoulder in her place. She, in turn clasped his opposite arm to steady herself and cry out in shock.
Their gazes met, and the music swelled as their new soulmarks wrapped the pair in light.
Wei Ying shoveled another handful of spicy peanuts into his mouth. “Damn. Your brother really has such good on-screen chemistry with her!”
Lan Zhan hummed. “He is an excellent actor.”
“For sure. For a gay guy, he’s really selling it!“
Lan Zhan’s little huff of amusement made Wei Ying turn to grin at him.
“Do you ever think Mingjue-Ge gets jealous about how many people get to kiss his husband?”
“No need for jealousy. Work is work, and love is love. They both know where Ge’s heart lies.”
“Good point.” His thoughts turned to the soulmarks spread across the hands of the two men. Each of them had a sweet, innocent mark on their palms that had bloomed when Lan Huan pulled Nie Mingjue to his feet in gym class in high school.
Their soulmarks were nothing like the teeth immortalized in Wei Ying’s skin.
The drama onscreen continued. The princess stared deeply into the general’s eyes as the world narrowed to just them, never mind the bandits shooting at them in the first place.
Wei Ying tried to swallow the lump in his throat. He failed.
“Soulmarks are bullshit. Have you thought about that?” he interrupted. “I mean they’re so arbitrary! What if you just bumped into your soulmate in crosswalk traffic? How would you even find them again? Would the glow be strong enough to notice then?”
Lan Zhan paused the film mid-rant, and Wei Ying knew he was being watched. He also knew that he couldn’t bear to see whatever he would find in Lan Zhan’s eyes.
“Wei Ying…”
Lan Zhan knew that somewhere out there, Wei Ying had a soulmate waiting. The fates decided that there was someone out there who was meant for him. Someone who was not and could never be Lan Zhan, because Lan Zhan had no soulmark, and Wei Ying did, and this equation didn’t have a solution that Wei Ying could bear.
His eyes burned, and he bundled himself into a ball of blankets and angst.
Three years ago, when he chose to go to university in Gusu, he came hoping to find his soulmate.
Instead, he found Lan Zhan, and his life was better and worse for it.
Somewhere along the way, his searching began to play second fiddle to playing duets with Lan Zhan, to hot cups of tea and study sessions in the campus library, to the tangible man already beside him.
Lan Zhan placed a hand on his ankle, and Wei Ying stared at it, soaking up Lan Zhan’s warmth through his sock. “Wei Ying, your soulmate—“
“I don’t want to talk about him!” he said, too sharp, too strong, too angry. He couldn’t bear hearing Lan Zhan talk about the mythical man who was ruining his life.
Lan Zhan’s fingers flexed around the ankle, and he took an audible breath. “Wei Ying, will you look at me?”
Lan Zhan leaned over, almost kneeling at Wei Ying’s feet.
He shook his head.
“Wei Ying, please.”
He sighed, lifting his chin and meeting Lan Zhan’s worried eyes.
Wei Ying was not stupid. He wasn’t blind to the way Lan Zhan looked at him. He wasn’t blind to his own feelings.
Without input from his brain, his fingers found the soft knit of Lan Zhan’s sweater. His breath shuddered. “Lan Zhan, we shouldn’t do this,” he whispered into the breath between their lips.
One knee slipped between his, and Wei Ying gasped.
“Why not?”
Wei Ying bit back tears. “Lan Zhan, I can’t have you.”
“You can,” Lan Zhan murmured, moving Wei Ying’s hand to rest over the rabbit-quick beat of his heart. “It is yours, Wei Ying. I am yours,” he said, his voice low and desperate and beautiful.
Wei Ying shook his head slowly. “Lan Zhan, Lan Zhan. You are too good for me. Too good to waste your time on me.” The first tear fell, and then he couldn’t stop the second and the third. “You deserve more than I can give you.”
“I do not care,” he replied, his bangs doing little to hide his resolute, wanting expression. “If, one day, you meet your soulmate again and you choose him, I will not regret any time we spend together.”
“I can’t risk breaking your heart, Lan Zhan,” Wei Ying said, running his fingertips across Lan Zhan’s jawline.
Lan Zhan turned, kissing his fingertips. “Haven’t you, already?”
Wei Ying felt a punched-out noise leave his throat. “Lan Zhan.”
“I love you, Wei Ying,” he confessed, his face soft and desperate and apprehensive.
“That’s not fair,” Wei Ying whined. “You know how I feel about you.”
“Say it.”
“I can’t. Lan Zhan. Please, don’t ask me for this.”
Lan Zhan gave him a mulish look, and Wei Ying exclaimed, “I’m trying to protect you!”
“I do not need you to protect me from you, Wei Ying. Do you love me?”
“Lan Zhan—“
“Do you?”
“That isn’t fair.”
“Do you love me, Wei Ying?” Lan Zhan’s gaze offered him nowhere to hide. No way to lie.
“I love you,” he whispered. “Of course I love you, Lan Zhan. How could I not?” Wei Ying let his fingertips wipe at the stray tear that fell down Lan Zhan’s cheek. His skin was so soft, so warm, so real.
The confession broke across Lan Zhan’s face like a dawn cresting over mountaintops. He was practically glowing as he looked down at Wei Ying with eyes so full of affection that Wei Ying ached.
Lan Zhan was here. Lan Zhan loved him. Lan Zhan didn’t care about the proof that Wei Ying had another fated to be the person he loved most.
He truly was too good.
Wei Ying shivered as Lan Zhan kissed the meat of his palm, the pad of each finger, the inside of his wrist. “Will you let me love you, Wei Ying?”
Wei Ying’s heart felt like it was being torn apart as he let go of the barriers he had built. After a breath, he nodded.
Lan Zhan crossed the space between their lips. His kiss was not fierce the way Wei Ying expected. Instead, he was slow, and gentle, and guiding. Their heads tilted, and Wei Ying’s hand slid into the feathery layers of Lan Zhan’s silky black hair.
His heart slammed into his ribcage with all the ferocity of a wolf, howling for everything that Lan Zhan was willing to give him.
Their lips parted, just for a breath as Lan Zhan scooped Wei Ying up just enough to lay him flat on the plush sofa. Wei Ying pulled the scrunchie from his hair, not missing the way Lan Zhan’s hunger seemed to grow in magnitude as his hair splayed across the couch in a splash of midnight.
“Come here,” Wei Ying murmured, winding his arms around Lan Zhan’s neck and pulling him back down where he belonged.
His legs bracketed Lan Zhan’s hips as one strong arm slipped under his waist, crushing his chest against the planes of Lan Zhan’s torso. Pilates and genetics had been very kind to him.
Lan Zhan tasted like coconut lip balm, and Wei Ying’s chapped lips seemed to absorb some of their softness as their mouths chased each other in a dance.
When Wei Ying finally surfaced for air, his head was spinning, and his pajama pants were failing to hide just how much Lan Zhan had aroused him.
Lan Zhan gave him a small, pointed smirk.
“What?” Wei Ying glowered, tapping Lan Zhan’s nose. “No need to look so smug about it. That was my first kiss, let alone my first time being pinned down like that.”
Lan Zhan’s expression faltered. “Your first?”
He crossed his arms and glanced at the screensaver that had kicked on sometime after they paused the movie. “Well of course it was. It’s not like I kissed anyone growing up with… y’know,” he said, rubbing his left arm.
With darkening eyes, Lan Zhan pressed him down, shocking the air from his lungs. “He is not here. You are not yet his.”
Wei Ying could hear how much Lan Zhan wanted to erase the yet from that statement. They were setting themselves up for heartbreak. They were flying too close to the sun.
But, like Icarus, Wei Ying looked upon his sun. For this man, he knew he was willing to burn. Willing to fall. Willing to break.
Lan Zhan seemed to agree.
The next kiss was demanding. Lan Zhan licked into his mouth, his mouth still honey-sweet and heady.
Their hips rolled together, and Wei Ying moaned. He hooked his ankles behind Lan Zhan’s back and arched up into him.
Their clothed erections rubbed together, and Lan Zhan’s breath stuttered into Wei Ying’s mouth.
Another arch. Another moan.
Suddenly, the layers between them felt like too much. He needed Lan Zhan’s skin against his, and he needed it now.
As if sensing his thoughts, Lan Zhan slid one hand under Wei Ying’s hoodie, under the t-shirt beneath it, until he was tracing Wei Ying’s stomach, up his ribs, grazing one nipple. Wei Ying whined in his throat and pulled Lan Zhan’s tongue deeper into his mouth in appreciation.
Their lips parted, still joined by a string of saliva. It felt filthy and exhilarating as Lan Zhan kissed his way down Wei Ying’s throat and pushed up the fabric until he could suck one taut brown nipple into his mouth.
Wei Ying almost screamed. “Oh, fuck!” He clung to Lan Zhan’s shoulders and crushed him closer. “Lan Zhan!”
He could almost feel Lan Zhan’s smug satisfaction as his mouth and fingers made him writhe.
“Er-Gege, fuck— ooh… right there. Yes, yes. Just like that.” Praise and encouragement spilled from his lips like the babbling of a brook. Thoughtless and earnest and needy.
Lan Zhan yanked the shirt and hoodie up, over Wei Ying’s head, tossing them in a heap on the floor, which was almost as shocking as the way he bit down on Wei Ying’s nipple.
“Ow!” Wei Ying sucked in a breath. “Lan Zhan, can’t you be more gentle?”
Lan Zhan met his eye. “No,” he said, leaning down slowly and repeating the offense on the other side.
Wei Ying yelped, but he could feel a damp spot in his boxers rapidly becoming apparent. Masochism unlocked, he supposed.
He laughed, taking Lan Zhan’s face in both hands and kissing him hard. “You’re so mean,” he said fondly.
Lan Zhan didn’t seem to mind the way his cheeks were being squished, though it made him look adorable. “You like it when I’m mean.”
Wei Ying sat up and kissed him again. “I like everything you do.”
He worked his own nimble fingers beneath Lan Zhan’s soft shirt, tracing the hard planes of his stomach and abs before tugging the garment up. He held eye contact as he folded the shirt slowly, watching Lan Zhan’s patience wear thin.
He turned to set the folded shirt on the coffee table and found himself being tackled back onto the couch.
“Lan Zhan!” he yelped, laughing. “What a beast you are, huh?” He reached up for Lan Zhan, but froze when Lan Zhan wrapped his hand his bicep.
Lan Zhan didn’t let him look away as he kissed his way up Wei Ying’s arm. He pressed kisses from his wrist to the crook of his elbow.
Wei Ying’s breath caught as he neared the soulmark. It felt like a brand, and it burned with every kiss.
Unbidden, tears filled Wei Ying’s eyes. He didn’t have a name for the man he was supposed to love. He didn’t know to whom he was sorry, because soulmate or not, he couldn’t imagine loving anyone more than he loved Lan Zhan. He couldn’t imagine handing his heart to anyone else.
“Do not think of him,” Lan Zhan whispered, begged, commanded.
A tear slipped down Wei Ying’s cheek, but he still didn’t look away as Lan Zhan leaned down, fitting his teeth over the soulmark.
The last thing Wei Ying expected was for the room to suddenly flare golden.
“What the—!”
He and Lan Zhan startled apart, and for a second, Wei Ying almost braced for divine punishment or an electrical fire.
But no.
The glowing, dimmer now, wasn’t from the lights or any immortal. It was coming from his soulmark.
He stared at his bicep, absolutely bewildered. “Um…?”
He looked up at Lan Zhan who looked equally confused.
“Hey, Lan Zhan?”
“Yes, Wei Ying?”
“Is my arm fucking glowing?”
“…Yes. Yes, I believe it is.”
Wei Ying poked his arm as the glowing began to fade. “I thought it was only supposed to glow if your soulmate—“ He broke off looking up at his roommate.
“Lan Zhan. You don’t have a soulmark.” It wasn’t a question.
“Not that I’ve ever seen,” Lan Zhan said, his voice sounding far away as his eyes stayed on the soulmark as it faded from golden back to purple.
“But you are my soulmate.”
Lan Zhan finally looked up, his expression cracked open and beautiful. “That appears to be the case.”
“But how?” Wei Ying cried, on the edge of hysteria.
…
It was snowing now in the alley. Wei Ying woke up shivering.
When he blinked the frost from his lashes, the other kid was crouching in front of him. “Eat,” he said, shoving a bag toward Wei Ying.
Wei Ying blinked, accepting the plain paper bag and feeling something begin to warm his cold fingertips through the paper and his threadbare gloves. He peered inside and was greeted by the savory aroma of a perfectly steamed bao. It was a bigger than his hands.
“This is for me?”
“Mn.”
He grinned. “Thank you!”
The other boy blushed and looked away with a haughty air.
Wei Ying devoured his giant bao as the other boy sat a few feet away, watching.
After he had licked his fingers clean, Wei Ying settled back against his crate. “So what are you doing out here? Surely you’re not also hiding from Auntie Su.”
The boy shook his head.
“So what is it? Are you lost? I can help you!”
He shook his head again.
“Are you hurt?”
Another shake.
Wei Ying tipped closer out of curiosity. “Did something happen to your parents, too?”
The boy’s head snapped up, his eyes wide.
“Oh. That one, huh. Don’t worry, I know—!”
And then next thing he knew, the boy had his teeth wrapped sinking into Wei Ying’s arm. The thin layers of Wei Ying’s hand-me-down clothes did little to protect him from the sharp determination of his teeth.
“Ow!” Wei Ying screamed, smacking the boy away as they both flailed in the snow-dusted alley. “What are you, a dog?”
The boy pulled away and towered over Wei Ying, seeming to almost glow in his anger.
They locked eyes for a minute as Wei Ying clutched his burning arm.
“You’re the worst,” the kid spat, turning on his heel and stomping away.
Wei Ying caught his breath and then scrambled to his feet, dashing back to the mouth of the alley.
He stood on his toes, but the crowd was too tall and the market was packed like a tin of fish.
He searched high and low, but he never found the other boy. Instead, Jiang-Shushu found him and, a few weeks of bureaucracy later, brought him home to Yunmeng.
It was only when his new jiejie saw his arm that Wei Ying learned that the other boy had left more than a bruise behind.
…
“Tell me again,” Lan Zhan said as they sat together, shirtless, on the well-worn couch, “how did you meet your soulmate? Spare no detail.”
So Wei Ying did, trying to scrounge up every grain to detail that remained in his sieve of a memory.
“That was me,” Lan Zhan whispered, breathless. “Mother had just been hospitalized, and Shufu told me that Father wasn’t coming home, so I ran. I hid.” Lan Zhan sat back on his heels, his posture far too perfect for the couch and their revelations.
“But why don’t you have a soulmark?” Wei Ying demanded. “I know I must have touched you at some point that day.”
Lan Zhan narrowed his eyes in consideration. “Sit beside the couch here.”
Wei Ying obeyed, shivering a little because it was cold and he was, in fact, still half-naked (and maybe half hard).
Lan Zhan sat beside him, and the body heat helped a little. He dipped his head and nipped at Wei Ying’s arm, bathing the room in gold again.
Wei Ying laughed. “Trying to reenact our first meeting, Er-Gege?” He patted Lan Zhan’s head, and then the golden light flared into white.
Wei Ying stared at his hand and then at Lan Zhan’s glowing head. He looked at his soulmate and cracked up.
“Are you kidding me?”he wheezed, patting Lan Zhan’s head gleefully. “Your soulmark is from when I smacked five-year-old you away?”
He pushed up to his knees, and Lan Zhan sat still as Wei Ying parted his thick hair to reveal a small, hand-shaped mark.
All at once, it sank in.
Wei Ying dropped back to the couch as his mind felt like it was simultaneously keeping pace with a jet plane and also floating like a jellyfish. “Oh my god, we’re soulmates,” he whispered.
He grabbed both of Lan Zhan’s arms, looking at him urgently. “Lan Zhan,” he whisper-shouted, “Lan Zhan, we’re soulmates!”
Lan Zhan’s smile wasn’t a small, hidden thing. It was big and wide and crooked and so perfect that Wei Ying couldn’t be blamed for leaning over to kiss it.
Tears spilled down Lan Zhan’s cheeks, too as they clung to each other. “Yes,” Lan Zhan murmured in awe. “Yes, Wei Ying, we are soulmates.”
Wei Ying peppered kisses across Lan Zhan’s cheeks. His ribcage wasn’t big enough to contain the feeling in his chest, so it poured out through his lips and his eyes and his touch. “You were right here all along. Right by my side.”
“Where I will always be,” Lan Zhan promised kissing Wei Ying’s forehead.
Still laughing, Wei Ying tipped forward into Lan Zhan’s arms, burying his face in the scent of sandalwood and home.
For a long moment, they just sat like that, two parts of a whole, two men in love.
But Wei Ying had never been known to sit still for long.
“Hey, Gege,” he murmured, nipping at one pretty pink earlobe. “Do you still want to take some of my other firsts tonight?”
Lan Zhan’s breath stuttered, and Wei Ying knew his own expression was smug.
Without answering, Lan Zhan stood and scooped Wei Ying into his arms.
“Whoa!” He flailed, wrapping his arms around Lan Zhan’s shoulders. He giggled helplessly as Lan Zhan carried him towards his tidy bedroom.
“So strong! Are you going to wreck me, Lan Zhan? Take my virginity?” he teased, running a fingertip along Lan Zhan’s cheekbone.
Lan Zhan shivered. “Mark your words.”
Wei Ying only snuggled closer. “Consider them marked.”
…
Wei Ying was eighteen when he moved back to Gusu for university. He’d told Jiang Cheng that he was here for the engineering program, but they both knew who he was hoping to find in Caiyi.
He hefted the bulging cardboard box on his hip as he nudged the dorm room door open with his hip. It was a small room. Two beds, two desks, two dressers, two tiny closets, and one beautiful man.
Wei Ying adjusted his grip on the box and smiled. “Hi there! I’m Wei Ying. You must be Lan Zhan, right?”
The gorgeous student looked up at him with eyes that seemed to almost glow in the sunset coming in through their window.
“Hello,” he said, voice deep and warm.
Something in the universe seemed to click into place as Lan Zhan took the box from his arms. “Please, allow me to help you.”
Wei Ying’s fingertips tingled as he tucked them behind his back. “Thank you.”
“No need for thanks,” Lan Zhan said.
And the rest was history.