By Wei Wuxian’s count, this is Jiang Yanli’s third birthday party. In Wei Wuxian’s opinion, this is the bare minimum number of birthday celebrations Jiang Yanli should be having. The first, which Wei Wuxian had weaseled his way into, had been drinks with the moms from Jin Ling’s playgroup. The second, which Wei Wuxian had not been invited to, had been dinner with the Jiangs. The third, is a chill boozy time with the Jiang siblings and anyone near enough by the transitive property to be invited ie. married to a Jiang sibling, Wei Wuxian lived with them for a little while in college, Wei Wuxian has been in love with them since age 16, they are Jin Zixuan’s only friend, and for some reason Nie Huaisang.
Unfortunately, that does mean that by dint of being Jiang Yanli’s Husband or Whatever, Jin Zixuan is in attendance. Wei Wuxian has admittedly come a long way on him. Wei Wuxian can respect that Jin Zixuan is in all ways devoted to his sister, despite the fact that last week he looked Wei Wuxian dead in the face and told him that Pediasure was ‘kind of good, actually.’
‘Isn’t that for children?’ Wei Wuxian had asked, trying to arrange his face into something that wasn’t abject horror. Jin Zixuan had shrugged gamely, said ‘I don’t know, a-Li bought it at the store. It’s good when I have to work late.” Wei Wuxian had only just resisted replying ‘don’t you think maybe she purchased that for your preschool-aged child? Why can’t you eat a granola bar like a normal person.’
For reasons that no one has been able to satisfactorily answer, Su Minshan, their former high school classmate, is also here. Wei Wuxian can only assume this is the unfortunate result of Jiang Yanli being too nice a person. Su Minshan’s attendance at Jiang Yanli’s birthday violates Wei Wuxian’s personal ’never attend a party at which a non-lesbian is wearing a polo shirt’ rule. Wei Wuxian finds him deplorable on a personal, professional, and intellectual level. He sucks so much sh*t.
If Su Minshan would just stick to being a little bitch and wearing a polo, perhaps Wei Wuxian could have given him an insulting nickname and forgiven him for existing. The real crux of the matter is that in addition to his various and sundry Su Minshan offenses, he also has no problem volunteering information about his heinous crush on Lan Wangji, Wei Wuxian’s best friend and, crucially —so so so crucially— also crush, as profane as it seems to put his crush on Lan Wangji (righteous, benevolent, award winning) in the same category as Su Minshan’s (wretched, frowned upon in all 195 countries and the moon).
Wei Wuxian had hoped that one of his hugely intimidating death glares would be enough to send Su Minshan packing. Unfortunately, Su Minshan has met him glare for glare until they’re scowling at each other from either side of Jiang Yanli’s honestly hideous West Elm couch. On account of the fact that Wei Wuxian had been given explicit instructions by Jiang Yanli not to 1. bring up to Jin Zixuan how much he hates their couch 2. mention the Whiffle Ball Incident of 2007 or 3. fight any of the party guests 3a. even as a joke, Wei Wuxian goes to go bother Lan Wangji instead of asking Su Minshan if he wants to try getting decked in the face.
Wei Wuxian squeezes himself onto the couch next to Lan Wangji, who, left to his own devices at the party, has started reading the coffee table books. Lan Wangji acknowledges his presence with a pleasant hum and shifts the book so that Wei Wuxian can see the Ana Mendieta photo he’s looking at. It’s one of the ones where she’s covered in blood, and it is sick.
“Sick,” Wei Wuxian says, then slings an arm around Lan Wangji, chill, friendly style. It’s objectively true that Wei Wuxian has always been horny for Lan Wangji. It’s like, 105% of the reason he’d initially talked to him, when they were fifteen and incapable of critical thinking skills. The problem was that even fifteen year old Lan Wangji had been so cool and smart and quietly bitchy and even tiny, stupid, Wei Wuxian had known a good thing when he saw it. So, no big deal! No problem! He’d just forced Lan Wangji to be his best friend for ten years and put all of his nasty Lan Wangji-related feelings in a box labeled ‘absolutely not and no’ and gone all Yzma on it.
The problem is that it’s getting worse. It’s a combination of things. The first could be traced back to two years ago, when Lan Wangji had decided that since he was an adult, he didn’t actually have to have the same haircut as every single seven year old. That meant that Lan Wangji had gone from being a stunning man with a stupid haircut to a stunning man with astonishingly beautiful hair that he sometimes put into a small, perfect ponytail. Wei Wuxian wants to tug on his ponytail so, so bad, and sometimes he does, and then has to internally scream for a while. Wei Wuxian is still coping with it. He is not coping with it well, but he is coping.
The second thing, was that the previous summer, Lan Wangji had decided to get into historical combat swordfighting and had gotten, as a result, weirdly kind of buff. Lan Wangji had been sexy enough when he was a qin-playing stick-boy nerd. Now Lan Wangji is buff and he owns a sword, both of which cater specifically to Wei Wuxian’s canonical kinks. Horrible!
The third thing had happened so recently that Wei Wuxian hasn’t acclimated to it at all. He is concerned that he is never going to acclimate to it and it is going to remain a permanent hazard in his treasured friendship with Lan Wangji. The third thing is a tattoo. Wei Wuxian has about seventeen (?) tattoos, five of which are stupid, two of which are jokes, and one of which was probably a mistake, but nothing could have prepared him for Lan Wangji saying, in his real and stupid voice ‘do you think I would look good with a tattoo?’ and Wei Wuxian, self-saboteur of all time, answering ‘Lan Zhan! Of course! You have to! What are you getting! Show me!’ instead of ‘for the good of the general populace and out of respect for Lan Qiren I forbid you from getting a tattoo, because it will cause a sex riot and moreover, every day it grows more difficult for me to resist politely requesting to defile you and this is not going to help matters.’
So now, insult to injury, Lan Wangji has a beautiful sword tattoo on the side of his bicep, which Wei Wuxian only has to see when Lan Wangji is lounging around in the soft, casual T-shirts he likes, which are a problem in and of themselves. Lan Wangji is wearing a white button up to this party, so the tattoo in question is covered, but Wei Wuxian knows it is there and it is taunting him.
It’s not that Wei Wuxian thinks that Lan Wangji would be opposed to f*cking Wei Wuxian into next century and then marrying him, it’s that there has to be some kind of delicacy about the maneuver. There’s a lot of pent up sexual tension on the line. There’s ten years of mutual judgment to consider. If he f*cks things up with Lan Wangji, who can he share loaded looks with when Jiang Cheng does something embarrassing at a family gathering? Who’s going to bring him snacks when he forgets them on outings? Who’s going to make him the best hangover eggs ever? The Wangxian Love Confession Extravaganza, when it happens, will have to be perfect. It will need to be an event whose romance and subtlety will be heralded far and wide as ‘very righteous,’ ‘super sexy,’ and ‘totally jealous-making.’
So yes, Wei Wuxian is eventually going to break the news to Lan Wangji that they are very in love and should be boyfriends. He’s just. He’s just waiting for the right moment. And if he’s been waiting for the right moment for a year now because he is absolutely f*cking terrified that he’s going to co*ck it up somehow, that’s between him and his six foot tall cut out of Zayn Malik. Everyone thinks Zayn is the strong silent type, but REALLY, once you get to know him, he’s adorable and funny and smiley and actually the best person in the whole wide world, no relation to the current issue at all.
“You having a stroke over there?” asks Wen Qing, which is when he realizes that while Lan Wangji quietly peruses an art book next to him, he has been looking at the coffee table like he’s trying to light it on fire with his mind.
“Not to my knowledge,” Wei Wuxian says, and then, because he is slightly beer, adds, “I’m just thinking about how f*cked up it is that I haven’t kissed Lan Zhan.” He very manfully does not cover Lan Wangji’s ears for this non-sequitur, which had seemed kind of blasé and funny as he was saying it and then very f*cking idiotic immediately afterwards.
Wen Qing is looking at him like he has more heads than he was previously aware of having. “What?”
“Oh, haha.” Wei Wuxian has absolutely put his foot in his mouth, but he thinks he can get it in further if he really tries. “I was just saying I think it’s so funny that we haven’t kissed. Like, I’m so beautiful and alluring, it seems dumb, right?”
“Don’t you guys…” Wen Qing looks like she does not want to be having whatever revelation she is having. “Are you f*cking with me?”
“No,” Wei Wuxian says. He can’t decide if he would pay $100 to hear what Wen Qing had trailed off before saying or if he would pay $100 to not hear it. He is fairly sure the thing she did not say is ‘f*ck,’ which is. Well. It’s totally fine, actually.
Wen Qing opens her mouth, closes it, does something with her eyebrows, takes a sip of her drink, then puts a hand on his shoulder and says, “how is it that I have kissed Lan Wangji and you haven’t?”
“QING-JIE,” Wei Wuxian says, clutching his awful craft beer to his chest. “Please, please tell me you are making your very first joke.”
“Wangji, is he f*cking with me?” Wen Qing says. “Why do I feel like he’s f*cking with me. If you’re not kissing him then how are you shutting him up?”
“Do not change the subject,” Wei Wuxian says, instead of deigning to be offended by the insinuation that he needs shutting up, which, if this evening is any indication, he does. He points threateningly first at Wen Qing and then at Lan Wangji, who looks like he is trying to teleport through sheer force of will.
“Lan Zhan, you do not have to answer that, I know you love the melodic tones of my voice.” Wen Qing makes a skeptical noise and sips her co*cktail. Wei Wuxian would sincerely love to know where she got a co*cktail, since he’s been drinking the horrible beers that Jin Zixuan thinks are delicious all evening. “When. Why? How! And most importantly, why wasn’t I invited?”
“Do I usually invite you to my hookups?” Wen Qing asks, looking like she can’t decide if she thinks this conversation is very amusing or makes her want to evacuate the mortal coil. This is kind of her resting face around him.
“HOOK UPS,” Wei Wuxian says, at what he knows is not the correct volume, then course corrects to a whisper. This can not be happening. How can his dream threesome have been so close and yet so terribly far. Wei Wuxian wants a date, a time, a location, and details. “Oh my god are you guys dating?”
Wen Qing smacks him upside the head. “No! Why are you such a moron? Your sister isn’t like this.”
“Jiang Cheng is,” Wei Wuxian says sourly, rubbing his head.
“It was two years ago. It only happened the one time,” Lan Wangji volunteers. He places a placating hand on Wei Wuxian’s thigh, which is the last place a placating hand should go, f*cking frankly.
Wei Wuxian can not possibly look at him and his surely be-pinked ears.
“Are you upset?” Lan Wangji asks gently. Wei Wuxian is having a hand-specific breakdown. How do Lan Wangji’s cuticles look so immaculate? What the f*ck is that about? Wei Wuxian’s cuticles look like they each individually had a run-in with a rat weidling a pocket knife.
“When I figure out what emotion I’m feeling you will be the first to know,” Wei Wuxian says, as evenly as can be expected for someone who has just learned that their very taciturn best friend that they desperately want to f*ck is a secret floozy.
Wei Wuxian briefly considers stealing Wen Qing’s co*cktail and downing it in one go, before remembering that he is not supposed to drink like that anymore, particularly not at Jiang Yanli’s birthday party, where she will give him an I’m Not Mad I’m Just Concerned look. It would be preferable to whatever is currently happening, but he is not allowed. They’ve already had like, two and a half deeply earnest conversations about it.
“You were having that weird doppelganger thing with Mo Xuanyu at the time,” Wen Qing says. “You were distracted.”
Wei Wuxian had enjoyed the novelty of that weird doppelganger thing, although it did mostly rely on the fact that they both had been really into red eyeshadow and wore exclusively black. Rumors of their similar appearance greatly exaggerated, mostly by them. People just hated to see two hot goths win.
“Okay, I’m sorry, just— How could this possibly have happened. I can not imagine propositioning either of you. Did you just stand silently next to each other for ten minutes, you turned to Lan Zhan and went ‘hey, want to bone?’ and then like, went to have the most serious sex of all time?”
“Basically,” Wen Qing says. Wei Wuxian has had it, up to f*cking here, with this whole evening. She gives him another look. “You guys really aren’t sleeping together? Even like, a little?”
Wei Wuxian avoids looking at Lan Wangji. If avoiding looking at Lan Wangji was a sport, he would be setting PRs left and right. Mostly because he’s never previously looked away from Lan Wangji for more than five seconds.
“We are not,” Lan Wangji offers. Wen Qing makes the same face she makes when Wei Wuxian texts her pictures of the combination of foods he’s brought for lunch. (He calls this recurring segment of their text conversations LUNCH REPORT!!!! and she thumbs-down reacts all messages he sends under this heading).
“I literally thought Lan Zhan was a never nude until one singular minute ago,” Wei Wuxian says, which is only kind of an exaggeration. He does have a weirdly specific fantasy where he’s completely naked in Lan Wangji’s lap while he’s fully dressed, and then he comes all over his beautifully pressed dress shirt, but that’s absolutely neither here nor there.
“I am,” Lan Wangji says. “I was born in a tuxedo.”
“Do not try to be funny right now,” Wei Wuxian says, rounding on him. “No jokes. You are in trouble.”
Lan Wangji gives him a skeptical look. Wei Wuxian loves his skeptical look.
“I can not believe this,” Wei Wuxian says. “You think I’ve kissed Lan Zhan? Our Lan Zhan? As if, what, everyone else here has? I would be shocked if anyone other than you has kissed Lan Zhan—“ he turns to Lan Zhan, who is making one of his panicked bunny expressions. “No offense, Lan Zhan, you’re obviously very kissable. I’m speaking of the fact that you are, at times, somewhat intimidating to the uninitiated and for that reason difficult to proposition.” He is aware he is causing a minor scene. In his defense, he has received some very shocking personal information.
“Literally what the f*ck are you guys talking about,” Jiang Cheng calls from the other sofa, where Jin Zixuan has been engaging him in what can only be a harrowing conversation on something awful like Beach Volleyball, The Stock Market, or Solitaire.
“Jiang Cheng, how many people at this party do you think have kissed Lan Zhan,” Wei Wuxian says, vaguely aware that the party is maybe, perhaps, a little too small for him to be doing this. It’s maybe not even a party and more of a get together. Jin Zixuan is still standing somewhat behind Jiang Cheng, looking like he’s rapidly losing health points.
Jiang Cheng glances over at Wen Qing like she’ll help him, but she shrugs and takes a long sip of her drink like she has nothing to do with what’s happening here.
“One?” Jiang Cheng ventures slowly, as if he’s not convinced there’s a correct answer.
“No!” Wei Wuxian slaps his palm against the hideous West Elm coffee table, then pauses. “Oh, actually, yes, I thought you were going to guess zero.”
Jiang Cheng looks like he’s deciding how annoyed he wants to be by this interaction. It’s not his most threatening look, because he’s holding his weed vape like a femme fatale in a noir movie and wearing absolutely the purplest athleisure outfit Wei Wuxian has ever seen. Not that Jiang Cheng lets the fact that he wears like 80% luxury athletic wear keep him from looking furious at anything and everything. “Do you guys…” he makes a face. “Is this a weird sex thing?”
“Is what a weird sex thing,” Wei Wuxian asks. Normally he likes the prospect of weird sex things more than he suspects he is going to like this.
Jiang Cheng hits his weed vape, adjusts his reclined position on the couch, and looks back and forth between them. He pulls the baby blanket that’s resting over the back of the couch down on top of him, presumably for emotional support. “Do you not kiss when you f*ck? Why are you so weird? Why would you do that?”
“We do not f*ck,” Wei Wuxian says. The placating hand that Lan Wangji has on Wei Wuxian’s thigh has some kind of episode, which Wei Wuxian does not appreciate. Lan Wangjis could do to keep all hands and feet inside the vehicle while Wei Wuxian is having a sexy, sexy meltdown. “We have not f*cked. We could f*ck, if we wanted to, but we have not.”
Jiang Cheng lets this sentence really hang in the air for a minute, looking pained. “Do you want to hit my weed vape?”
“NO,” Wei Wuxian says. He does not turn to Lan Wangji. “Does everyone think we’re sleeping together?”
“Yeah,” Jiang Cheng says. “Extremely yeah.”
“I’m still not convinced this isn’t a bit,” Wen Qing agrees.
“I would not joke about this!” Wei Wuxian says, very indignantly for someone who absolutely would do a bit about this in the event that he was actually f*cking Lan Wangji, which he is not. God he wishes he was f*cking Lan Wangji.
“You’re literally at his house like, over half the time,” Jiang Cheng says, like if he argues this Wei Wuxian will be like ‘oh, just kidding, we absolutely do f*ck, jokes on you Jiang Cheng.’ Again, he realizes these are highly reasonable reactions for everyone to be having. “Have you been sleeping on Lan Wangji’s couch for the last three years?”
“It’s a very comfortable couch! I have my own pillow!” Wei Wuxian says. It is. He suspects, and Lan Wangji will not confirm or deny this, that the very large and comfortable couch was purchased specifically for Wei Wuxian to sleep on. There is a silence, where Jiang Cheng makes the big frown emoji face.
Lan Wangji says, somewhat helplessly, “he will not let me take the couch, I have tried.”
Nie Huaisang, who is inexplicably wearing Gucci sunglasses and eggplant-colored Juicy Couture velour sweatpants that are too big on him, chooses this moment to climb over the back of the couch and sit on Jiang Cheng’s ankles. Jiang Cheng retaliates by sliding his feet free and then trying to kick Nie Huaisang in the leg. Nie Huaisang lets him get one good kick in before wordlessly holding out his hand and twiddling his fingers.
Jiang Cheng tries to put the vape into it, scowls when Nie Huaisang shakes his head, and then scowls further as he digs his wallet out of his back pocket with some difficulty and hands Nie Huaisang a twenty.
“Told ya,” Nie Huaisang says, and then grabs for Jiang Cheng’s vape.
“Huaisang, you have thirty seconds to come up with an explanation for what I just watched happen that isn’t betting on whether or not Lan Zhan and I are f*cking,” Wei Wuxian says, feeling even more betrayed by all of his best friends than when he went to space camp for one singular summer and they had dared to have fun without him.
“Oh, no, that’s exactly what that was,” Nie Huaisang says, sticking the twenty into his waistband and grinning over at him. “No hard feelings, though! The bet wasn’t that you’d never f*ck, just that you hadn’t f*cked yet. I just knew in my heart that if you and Lan Wangji were f*cking, your neck would look much more f*cked up than it does, since he’s kind of a freak.”
“What,” Wei Wuxian says. “Huaisang, what. How do you know that?”
“Ohhh come on, you know that.”
“Do I?”
“Don’t play dumb. I’m better at it than you are.”
Lan Wangji makes a noise next to him that’s mostly a gurgle. Wei Wuxian is feeling like he would also like to be making that noise, if only because he does have a suspicion that Lan Wangji is a freak, and it hurts his feelings every day. He has a very specific fantasy about it, wherein Lan Zhan ties him up, blindfolds him, and then makes him suck co*ck until he cries. It usually ends with Lan Zhan being all like ‘Wei Ying, you are incredibly hot and very good at sex,’ and then they high five.
“Well,” Wei Wuxian begins bravely. He pats the hand that Lan Wangji has on his thigh in a way that many people will, hopefully, be calling ‘very normal.’ “At least you haven’t kissed Lan Zhan.”
Nie Huaisang looks at him like he is a stupid little baby. “Wei Wuxian. Yes I have.”
Wei Wuxian really doesn’t know why he’s so f*cking surprised by this. “I hope you die, Huaisang,” he says, and then revises. “Why is this happening to me?”
“It was before you knew us,” Nie Huaisang says, injecting a wistful note into his voice. Wei Wuxian absolutely hates when he does this. “You know how our brothers are very married?”
“The Men's Wearhouse Polycule, I am familiar,” Wei Wuxian says. He’s deciding whether or not holding the hand Lan Wangji has on his thigh is going to make him feel better. It’s true that since it landed on his thigh, he’s devoted about 10-20% of his brain function to fretting over it, so he might as well hold it. If he has to talk with all of his horrible loved ones about why he is not f*cking Lan Wangji (cowardice, stupidity, lack of gall, apparently) he should do it holding his uncommonly beautiful hand.
“Yes, they exchanged their vows in a Sweetgreen, honeymoon in a WeWork, it was very romantic,” Nie Huaisang says. “Basically, freshman year, da-ge was like ‘do you know Lan Huan’s gay brother’ and I was like ‘yes, he is not as hot as Lan Huan but still hot’ and then we got talked into going to homecoming together.”
“You came up to me the morning of and said ‘hi, I’m Nie Huaisang and we’re going to homecoming,’” Lan Wangji says. “I said, if my memory serves, ‘okay.’”
“You did!” Nie Huaisang says. “And then you made out with me during Fireball by Pitbull.”
“I had run out of the small talk questions I had brainstormed beforehand,” Lan Wangji says. Wei Wuxian can not tell if he’s joking. Teen Lan Wangji was really on some other sh*t.
“And then we dated for three months,” Nie Huaisang says.
“You WHAT,” Wei Wuxian says. He has finally grabbed Lan Wangji’s hand, and it’s not really helping, at all, actually. Lan Wangji has long fingers and they are distracting.
Nie Huaisang is utilizing various looks from his ‘who, me? Surely not!’ canon of expressions. It’s been so long since Nie Huaisang really laid into him that he’d forgotten that he’s the worst. Truly his bad for being a judgmental gay bitch who is friends with a bunch of other judgmental gay bitches. Reaping, sowing, etc etc. “We mostly just made out on the couch in my basem*nt and watched a lot of dramas. And then I broke up with him to go date my bad idea boyfriend.”
“You’re telling me you would still be dating Lan Wangji if not for Wen f*cking Xu?” Wei Wuxian asks. He absolutely can not believe any of this is happening.
“I would definitely not still be dating Lan Wangji,” Nie Huaisang says. “No offense Wangji, but I don’t think we exchanged more than like, twenty words tops the entire time, and they were all related to what kind of food we should order. That said, I definitely taught you how to kiss.”
“Mn,” Lan Wangji says, somewhat haughtily, as if he’d had nothing to do with this. “Do you still use too much teeth.”
Nie Huaisang flashes a grin that seems very fang-forward. “Ah! Yes I do.”
“I’ve heard enough!” Wei Wuxian says. Wei Wuxian can not believe that Jiang Yanli’s birthday party has been profaned like this. He wants six slices of cake and a lobotomy. “I have learned enough! You’re all the worst!” Wei Wuxian, bravely, turns to Lan Wangji. “Lan Zhan I can’t believe you dated Huaisang.”
“Shushu didn’t let us watch more than one hour of TV a day,” Lan Wangji says, face carefully blank like he has bodily tackled down whatever emotion he would like to be feeling. His ears are as red as Wei Wuxian has ever seen them. “I wanted to watch My Love From the Star.”
Wei Wuxian submits to his most base impulse and grabs Lan Wangji by his pink, pink ears and shakes him a little. “Who else have you kissed! What other secrets are you keeping from me ?”
“Are we talking about kissing Wangji?” asks Luo Qingyang from behind Wei Wuxian. She’s holding a bag of Salt and Vinegar chips so big that Jin Ling could probably fit inside it.
“No,” Wei Wuxian says, releasing one of Lan Wangji’s ears to point at her. Lan Wangji is being a very good sport about being held by the ears, which Wei Wuxian thinks is his penance for being a harlot. “No! Absolutely not. Mianmian, no. No no no no.”
“Oh come on,” Luo Qingyang says. “He’s hot! He has a tattoo!”
“I also have tattoos! Many tattoos!” Wei Wuxian protests. “I haven’t kissed fifty percent of my friends!”
“You have kissed fifty percent of your college photography department,” Jiang Cheng offers, and Wei Wuxian genuinely can’t tell if this is supposed to be an insult or a gesture of support.
“Explain,” Wei Wuxian says to Luo Qingyang, because he literally can not check to see what guilty-looking eyebrow twitch his favorite person in the world is doing.
Luo Qingyang, at least, has the decency to look a little embarrassed. “Do you remember your 23rd birthday party?”
“You kissed Lan Zhan on my birthday?” Wei Wuxian asks.
“Was that the one where you made me drive you to every fast food place in a five mile radius to get french fries to make french fry salad?” Nie Huaisang asks.
“No,” says Wen Qing. “It was when we went cosmic bowling and had to talk him down from rolling himself down the bowling lane.”
Wei Wuxian really thinks everyone is missing the point here. “I repeat: You Kissed Lan Zhan On My Birthday?!”
“Sangria Miamian shot her shot,” Luo Qingyang said, turning to Lan Wangji. “You were so polite about it too, I was like ‘Wangji, you’re so hot, can we kiss before I leave’ and you were like ‘if you would like to’ and then you stuck your tongue down my throat and called me my Uber.’”
“You guys are just ASKING to kiss him?” Wei Wuxian says. “I can’t f*cking believe this, I thought I was the slu*t in this partnership.”
Lan Wangji has covered his face with his hands as if he hopes the couch will consume him. “You are,” he mumbles, so Wei Wuxian smacks him.
“Aiya, Lan Zhan!” Wei Wuxian is absolutely never going to let anyone involved live this down. “I can not believe that the only people who haven’t kissed Lan Zhan are me and f*cking Jiang Cheng.”
Several things happen in quick succession. Lan Wangji makes a pained little noise, Wei Wuxian looks over at Jiang Cheng, Jiang Cheng makes the worst expression that Wei Wuxian has ever seen in his life, Luo Qingyang laughs, and Wen Qing says ‘I can not watch this’ and goes to grab her purse. She pulls out a fifth of vodka, a lime, a bottle of club soda, and a tiny little grocery store box of mint and begins making herself a mojito.
“Jiang CHENG!” Wei Wuxian says, much in the tone that Jiang Cheng usually says ‘WEI WUXIAN.’
“Okay, alright, calm down, we have not kissed,” Jiang Cheng says.
“That means nothing! You just accused me of doing a weird sex thing!” Wei Wuxian yells. He stands up, and then sits back down again. Jin Zixuan, who has long since fled to go stand next to jiejie, glances over in mild concern, as if Wei Wuxian is going to do something delinquent in nature to all of his expensive and badly-designed furniture.
“Oh, so you don’t do weird sex things?” Jiang Cheng scoffs, as if this is going to distract Wei Wuxian from whatever crime-against-Wei-Wuxian he and Lan Wangji have, against all odds, committed.
“Not with Lan Zhan!” Wei Wuxian says.
“Well, that much is obvious,” Jiang Cheng says archly, crossing his arms.
Wei Wuxian is thinking about suspending his ‘do not punch Jiang Cheng on jiejie’s birthday’ rule, when Lan Wangji wraps a hand around Wei Wuxian’s wrist as if he can sense how close this rule is to getting broken. Wei Wuxian is cursing how much time and effort he put into getting Lan Wangji comfortable with physical affection. If Lan Wangji continues to touch him while they have this garbage fire of a discussion, Wei Wuxian is going to throw all caution to the wind, torch all of his previous plans, and drag him off to the guest bathroom.
“Jiang Cheng if you don’t tell me exactly why you look like that, I'm going to tell everyone who you have a crush on,” Wei Wuxian says, and he will. Someone else should suffer like he has and it should be Jiang Cheng.
“Try it, bitch.” Jiang Cheng’s scowl becomes even scowlier. “I would love to know who you think I have a crush on.”
“Nie Huaisang,” Wei Wuxian says, and Jiang Cheng makes his most obnoxious expression.
“I mean, yeah, obviously,” Jiang Cheng says.
“I’m literally wearing the Juicy sweatpants. We’ve been sleeping together for like, the entire year,” Nie Huaisang says. He is wearing the Juicy sweatpants. Wei Wuxian has never hated everyone involved more.
“Oh my f*cking god,” Wei Wuxian says. He doesn’t know how he missed the Juicy sweatpants. They’re literally purple. Not only is he dumb, he is also stupid. “Are you dating?”
Nie Huaisang looks over at Jiang Cheng appraisingly. “You’re my boyfriend, right?”
Jiang Cheng looks mildly offended. “You’re wearing the Juicy sweatpants.”
“That was my understanding as well,” Nie Huaisang says, and leans over to kiss Jiang Cheng on the cheek, resettling mostly in his lap with an unbecomingly smug expression.
“Did any of you know about this?” Wei Wuxian asks the room at large. Everyone gives some kind of vague shrug combination, except for Lan Wangji, who is staring into the middle distance like he’s hoping he’ll lose the ability to discern object permanence.
“I just thought we’d stopped announcing these things,” Luo Qingyang says. “Like, to be chill adults about it.”
“When have we ever been chill adults about anything?” Wei Wuxian asks, which everyone acknowledges with another series of ‘fair enough’ themed shoulder movements.
“Are we ever going to find out when and why Lan Wangji and Jiang Wanyin touched tips or has that window of opportunity closed?” asks Wen Qing, who appears to have chugged her mojito. Wei Wuxian usually loves when she gets chaotic and is bereft to note that he genuinely has no idea if he’s horrified or pleased that she’s followed up on this. “Wangji, you look like you’re about to cave, just tell me.”
“Wei Ying was at space camp,” Lan Wangji says morosely. “I missed him.”
“You hooked up with my brother while I was at space camp because you missed me?” Wei Wuxian really dislikes how much what he has just said sounds like a Clue answer.
“We did not kiss,” Lan Wangji says gravely, which Wei Wuxian is hating.
“Stop saying that! That’s worse! You have to see how that’s worse!”
“If it makes you feel better, we have literally never spoken of it since and I think everyone involved immediately regretted it,” Jiang Cheng says.
“That is true,” Lan Wangji agrees.
“I can’t believe that this is the first thing you two have ever agreed on,” Wei Wuxian says. He is so, so pissed that his two most beloved people have done something so imminently make-fun-of-able and he can’t even figure out how to tease them about it, because of the everything else about it.
“Why are you complaining? Didn’t you lose your virginity at space camp to someone named Mousepad?” Jiang Cheng says, as if this is any kind of consolation for the horrors he has witnessed tonight.
“Her name was Mousetrap, to be clear, and that has no bearing on how much I need to complain about this,” Wei Wuxian says. “I can’t believe you’ve seen Lan Zhan’s dick and I haven’t.”
“Wei Ying, you have seen my dick,” Lan Wangji says, at a volume that suggests he would prefer that not everyone at the party heard this, an ultimately futile gesture. Why Lan Wangji thinks this is what he needs to feel better about the situation, he has no idea. It’s possible that Lan Wangji is coping with this just as badly as he is.
“WHEN,” Wei Wuxian asks.
“Last summer,” Lan Wangji says, in the same failed half-whisper. “We went swimming.”
“I wasn’t looking at your dick when we went skinny dipping,” Wei Wuxian hisses back. It had been a very intentional sanity-saving choice on his part, but he is regretting it more every day.
Lan Wangji looks like he’s debating whether or not offering to show Wei Wuxian his dick would make him feel better, which really, really needs to not happen if Wei Wuxian is going to regain anything like control over this situation.
“So what I am hearing—” Wei Wuxian begins. He is going to need so many f*cking McFlurries to recover from this and Lan Wangji will be purchasing All of them. “What I am hearing is that I took so many extracurriculars that you all had to start making out with my best friend.”
“In our defense, you did do a lot of extracurriculars,” Luo Qingyang says.
“I know how many I did! I didn’t sleep for six years and then had a mental breakdown!” Wei Wuxian says. Everyone is looking at him like they can’t decide if they’re allowed to laugh at him. Wei Wuxian turns to make direct eye contact with the most miserable of Lan Wangjis, placing a hand on each of his shoulders. “Lan Zhan, tell me the truth. Have you kissed all of our friends?”
Lan Wangji looks like what he really wants to do is close his eyes, but he is making eye contact nonetheless. He’s so handsome and embarrassed-looking that it is almost unmanageable. “It is possible.”
“Except for me.”
“Maybe,” Lan Wangji says. Wei Wuxian has only seen him look this guilty on one other occasion, and it was the singular time that he got drunk, stole a chicken, and then had to put it back where he found it the next morning with no one the wiser. How Lan Wangji had convinced Lan Xichen that Wei Wuxian just made really really accurate chicken noises that he could not, in the light of day, reproduce, Wei Wuxian has no idea. In retrospect, it was probably that Lan Xichen had seen his brother’s pitiful expression and decided it was better not to know.
“Have you kissed Wen Ning?” Wei Wuxian asks.
Lan Wangji does not answer, but does look tremendously sorry.
“Lan Zhan!”
“You know that we go hiking together,” Lan Wangji says.
“Is that a euphemism? Has that been a euphemism this whole time?!”
“Consider your answer carefully, Lan Wangji,” Wen Qing says, sitting in the corner with her mojito, wearing one of her Economy Class murder expressions and looking like she has intent to upgrade it to Business or even First at the slightest provocation. “A-Ning! Come here! No more hiding in the kitchen.”
“No!” Lan Wangji says urgently, then again to Wei Wuxian. “No, Wei Ying.”
“Wen Qionglin!” Wen Qing yells. “What are you doing with Lan Wangji?”
Wei Wuxian thinks she’s bringing a lot of aggression to this for someone who has literally slept with Lan Wangji and, it could be argued, kind of started this. Wen Ning, who has been hiding in the kitchen probably playing two dots on his phone, sticks his head through the doorway.
“Am I missing cake?”
“Worse,” Wei Wuxian says, because he is feeling immensely like the victim here. Lan Wangji definitely also the victim, but that’s his own fault. “How did you kiss Lan Zhan?”
“Oh!” Wen Ning looks distinctly less mortified than anyone else has thus far, except maybe Nie Huaisang, who is constitutionally unable to feel shame. Wei Wuxian can’t for the life of him figure out if that’s a good sign or not. “It was before I left for college. I asked him if I could, since I hadn’t had my first kiss yet.”
Wen Qing narrows her eyes, but seems mollified. She looks a little less like she’s about to whip out the butterfly knife Wei Wuxian knows she keeps in her giant purse, which is a relief. Whenever Wen Qing gets out her butterfly knife, it’s usually time to go home.“Wholesome. I’ll allow it.”
“You were very nice about it. It was a good first kiss,” Wen Ning says to Lan Wangji, who nods at this proclamation with the energy of someone receiving information about new medication from the pharmacist.
“I’ve kissed Lan Wangji,” comes a nasty, repugnant voice from the other side of the room. It is, of course, f*cking Su Minshan. Frankly, Wei Wuxian can’t believe it’s taken him this long to stick his lumpy dick into this conversation.
Once upon a time in senior year, Wei Wuxian had gotten very wine drunk and said something along the lines of “you know, Su She, I talk a lot of sh*t, but I think we could get along,” and Su Minshan had drawn his eyebrows together, looked at him, and said “you’re an incredibly obnoxious person, do you know that?” which was true, but like, rude.
“No,” Wei Wuxian says, and casts around for something to throw at Su Minshan in lieu of starting an international incident. “Aha no no no, you have not. Absolutely not! Won’t be hearing it. Will not be entertaining this.” He digs the pillow out from behind him and whips it across the room at Su Minshan, ignoring Jin Zixuan’s eyeroll when it misses and smacks the wall. Wei Wuxian is well within his rights to throw a pillow. In fact, he’s been tremendously reticent on the issue thus far.
“No,” Lan Wangji says. “The charity kissing booth does not count.”
This is the best news Wei Wuxian has gotten in like twenty minutes.
“How does it not count!” Su Minshan asks. Wei Wuxian doesn’t know how Su Minshan thinks he’s going to seduce Lan Wangji with this kind of attitude, but that’s neither here nor there. “You didn’t properly kiss Jiang Wanyin either.”
“Mn,” Lan Wangji acknowledges, then turns to Wei Wuxian. “May I.”
“Yes?” Wei Wuxian says, although he is not entirely sure what he’s agreeing to.
Lan Wangji kisses Wei Wuxian very quickly on the mouth. “Now everyone has kissed me. We will choose a new conversation topic.”
“Ah,” Wei Wuxian says. “Ah! Ahaha.” That had happened very fast. It was not, particularly, the romantic first kiss scene he had pictured for them, but Wei Wuxian does love being kissed and he does love the look on Su Minshan’s face. He looks like he wants to stamp his foot so, so bad and is just barely restraining himself from doing it.
Wei Wuxian touches his mouth with his fingers, realizes what a gay f*cking thing to do that is, and then sits on both of his hands. “Okay. Okay! We’ve all kissed Lan Zhan. Jiejie, what about you, would you like to kiss him before we serve the cake?”
Jiang Yanli smiles sweetly over at him. “We’ve both kissed Wangji,” she says, gesturing to Jin Zixuan, who is standing beside her looking like A. this is the first he’s hearing of this and B. that he thinks this conversation is the worst thing to ever happen in his home. Which is not even true, because one time Jiang Yanli and Jiang Cheng thought it would be funny to make 50s Housewife Jell-O food and did permanent damage to the walls in the process.
“Jiejie, if you and Jin Zixuan have had a threesome with Lan Zhan, I’m gonna steal your whole birthday cake,” Wei Wuxian says.
She laughs, which is, after everything, a blessing he is not taking for granted. “A-Xian, don’t be silly, we haven’t had a threesome with Lan Wangji. It was when he did the kissing booth.”
Wei Wuxian allows himself to feel comforted by this for one singular moment before he snags on one crucial part of that sentence. “I have to be honest, I really don’t like the way you constructed that sentence to imply that you have had a threesome. Really don’t like it, hate it in fact. Jiang Cheng? Are you hearing this?”
“Hating it,” agrees Jiang Cheng, who is still mostly underneath a baby blanket and Nie Huaisang, who he has apparently been banging on the low. Literally everyone in his friend group is on f*cking notice.
Jiang Yanli smiles innocently. She’s so good at making her innocent smiles really look innocent, but Wei Wuxian has been her brother way too long to believe her. “No teasing me on my birthday.”
“Noted,” Wei Wuxian says. Ever so briefly, he had entertained the notion of putting on a complaining production over this, but has decided not to because he honestly, genuinely does not want to know. He is no longer interested in being cursed with the burden of knowledge. In his next life he is coming back as a himbo. Dumb slu*t not really paying the dividends he’d thought it would. “Okay, well, strumpets, this has been a very informative evening.”
“Just ask him to kiss you,” Wen Qing says, before he can figure out where he’s going with this. “Don’t put me through any more of this. Do not monologue, I swear to god.”
“They’ve already kissed,” says Su Minshan, as if this terrible, terrible game has any actual rules. Even Wei Wuxian doesn’t understand the rules, and he’s the one who has been orchestrating this multi-level marketing scheme of suffering in the first place.
“It didn’t count,” Wei Wuxian says. If everyone and their f*cking mother can just come out and ask Lan Wangji to kiss them, there is absolutely no reason that Wei Wuxian can’t. Wei Wuxian can not believe he was so focused on hiding his Super Deluxe Mega Crush that he never noticed that many people who are much less in love with Lan Wangji and his tattoo are apparently successfully propositioning him left and right. “Lan Zhan, let’s kiss again.”
“Now?” Lan Wangji asks. He’s very pink and his lips are parted and he looks a little overwhelmed. Wei Wuxian has no idea if this is because Wei Wuxian has suggested that they kiss in the middle of a party or because he has just been mercilessly teased, but it’s an insanely appealing expression on him. Wei Wuxian wants to wreck him in a mutual fashion just so bad. Wei Wuxian had been right, at the beginning: it is so f*cking stupid that he hasn’t kissed Lan Zhan.
“If you want.” He reaches up to touch Lan Wangji’s very warm cheek. “Ah! You’re blushing so much. Come on, it can be quick, you know how I hate to be left out.”
Lan Wangji blinks at him a few times and opens his mouth a little more. It occurs to Wei Wuxian that maybe he should have coordinated this in such a way that it did not happen in front of all of their friends and loved ones. “Or we can have cake now and kiss later?” He brushes a strand of Lan Wangji’s hair back behind his ear. “We also don’t have to kiss, Lan Zhan, I’m just teasing you.”
He’s just gotten this sentence out when Lan Wangji lunges forward, tackling Wei Wuxian back against the arm of the couch and pressing their mouths together. Lan Wangji has most of his tongue in Wei Wuxian’s mouth almost immediately. Wei Wuxian would not have put himself down as being extremely into that, but he is extremely into it.
He’s gripping Lan Wangji by the collar and trying to maneuver himself under Lan Wangji’s gorgeous body while not falling off the sofa. He keeps giving up on this because it requires more brain function than he has available, then remembers he wants to press his chest to Lan Wangji’s and tries again.
Lan Wangji is propping himself up with one hand while the other holds Wei Wuxian in place by his neck. Wei Wuxian doesn’t think anyone has ever held him by the neck before and it’s honestly very f*cked up how much he likes it. He has a sneaking suspicion that he would like anything Lan Wangji would want to do with him up to and including elaborate xianxia roleplay.
Lan Wangji is so beautiful and warm and close and Wei Wuxian loves him more than he’s ever loved anything, except maybe garlic. Wei Wuxian is vaguely aware that all of their friends are watching him get lightly ravaged. He’s aware of this, and yet it doesn’t seem like his problem at the moment. If this is his chance to lock down Lan Wangji via kiss, he needs to give it his all. It needs to be unforgettable. It needs to be so good that when they part, Lan Wangji will be like ‘Wei Ying, would you like to elope with me right now, immediately.’ It needs to be so good that on their honeymoon, after their elopement, Lan Wangji will be like ‘wow, Wei Ying, I kissed all of our friends and they all kissed way worse than you, the best kisser of all time.’
He’s making it work. He’s definitely having difficulty stringing together a thought that doesn’t involve how much he wishes Lan Wangji wasn’t wearing a shirt, but that’s fine. All non-Lan Wangji related thoughts have been powered down to essential functions only, like ‘remembering to breathe’ and ‘not braining himself on the coffee table.’
He’s letting Lan Wangji explore all four of his wisdom teeth when he’s hit by a very rude jet of water. He thinks that whatever is going on there, he can probably ignore it. Whoever is having a squirt gun fight during Jiang Yanli’s birthday party has nothing to do with him. He’s content to be both kissed and drenched like that scene in the Notebook, but Lan Zhan seems to disagree. As soon as he’s hit with the water, he releases Wei Wuxian’s mouth in order to level a glare at Jiang Cheng, who is pointing a spray bottle at them with a lot of ‘this town ain't big enough for the both of us’ energy.
“Jiang Cheng WHY do you have a spray bottle,” Wei Wuxian complains, and is sprayed in the temple for his trouble.
“It’s from my purse,” Wen Qing says, which should surprise him less, actually. “Wangji, I had no idea you’d been holding out on me like this. You didn’t lick my throat from the inside once.”
“It did not seem appropriate,” Lan Wangji replies, his voice somewhat less composed than it had been at the outset. Wei Wuxian is very honored that Lan Wangji had saved whatever truly transcendent thing he was doing with his tongue just for him.
“You know, I really feel like we had a long time to stop that from happening,” Nie Huaisang says thoughtfully. “Like in retrospect that was super, super preventable.”
“I think its nice,” Wen Ning says. Wei Wuxian doesn’t think he’s ever done something that Wen Ning didn’t think was ‘very cool’ or ‘really awesome’ so it’s not the ringing endorsem*nt it would be from anyone else. Considering Lan Wangji still has his hand on Wei Wuxian’s neck, nice seems like a bit of a stretch.
“No,” Wen Qing says gravely. “It’s not nice. You are never allowed to do that.”
“Wei Wuxian is also definitely not allowed to do that,” Jiang Cheng says, which is rich coming from both his younger sibling and, apparently, fellow Lan Wangji f*cker.
“Why don’t we do cake,” Jiang Yanli says, brandishing the cake server in a tone that seems to communicate both ‘I love you all very much’ and ‘its my birthday and we are picking a new party activity right now so help me god.’
Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian untangle themselves and Wei Wuxian tries very bravely to stand up, only to narrowly avoid crashing back down into Lan Wangji’s lap. It’s fine. Very fine and chill. He kissed his best friend, with tongue, at Jiang Yanli’s birthday party, a regular thing that doesn’t have to be weird.
As Jin Zixuan dutifully lights Jiang Yanli’s birthday candles, Wei Wuxian, with a rising urge to flee the premises, imagines calling his boss and being like ‘hey, NASA? It’s been super great but unfortunately I am retiring, effective immediately. I’ve received a once in a lifetime offer, the benefits are really competitive and it’s been a longtime dream of mine and unfortunately, as much as I’ve loved working here I need to go f*ck my best friend from right now until the sun explodes.’
While Jiang Yanli blows out her candles, he sneaks a glance over at Lan Wangji. He looks very, very kissed and is doing that thing where he fixes his gaze somewhere in the middle distance and plays a game Wei Wuxian calls ‘if I am very very still and quiet no one will notice me, a six foot tall man.’
Wei Wuxian loves poking him when he’s playing that game, but he thinks if Lan Wangji looks at him right now he’s going to melt into a puddle and have to be steam-cleaned out of Jiang Yanli’s carpeting.
Everything is probably fine. Wei Wuxian has absolutely done dumber things and they’ve turned out okay. It’s just all feeling a little high stakes, because he’s wanted to be Lan Wangji’s forever girl for like, the last ten years. But no big deal! No worries! In the event that Lan Wangji politely declines the exchange of emotional and sexual favors, Wei Wuxian will simply say ‘ha ha sike! Just kidding about the marriage and the anal’ and find a way to be shot into the sun.
It’s possible, nigh, even likely, that he’s having a panic attack about this. He is almost sure his palms aren’t always this sweaty. Normally, Lan Wangji notices when he’s kind of having a panic attack and distracts him by asking questions about like, whether he thinks the moons of Jupiter all get along or if they’re secretly enemies, until he stops feeling like his skin is made of ants. Unfortunately, Lan Wangji is currently staring at the wall like he’s silently reciting the Lan Family Code of Conduct, possibly backwards. Not really a proud moment for either of them.
Jiang Yanli hands him a piece of cake and seems to be trying to communicate something with him via jiejie telepathy that he is so, so far past being able to understand. He looks down at his cake and realizes that he can not figure out how to eat it and this, more than anything, indicates to him that he needs to make some kind of move.
He does not set down his cake, look anyone in the eye, pass go, or collect $200. He grabs Lan Wangji by the bicep, says “we’re going,” and then drags him into the nearest bathroom and shuts the door firmly behind them.
It’s not actually the least graceful exit he has ever made. Once, he had tried to steal a bunny for Lan Wangji, only to have it make a triumphant escape from his hoodie just as they’d nearly made it to freedom. This had been after the clerk had asked him what he had under his shirt that was moving and Wei Wuxian had said ‘I am with child. It’s an alien baby.’ Lan Wangji had then diffused the situation by purchasing two bunnies with his credit card. WHAT high school student had a credit card, was what Wei Wuxian wanted to know.
This is kind of like that, in that it does kind of feel like he’s smuggling a very tiny bunny inside of his shirt, except in this metaphor the bunny is the complex emotion he’s having. Wei Wuxian sets his slice of cake on the sink counter and looks up at his best friend, who is blank-faced and radiating probably the least chill vibes of all time. Lan Zhan looks like he’s trying to chew and swallow glass without Wei Wuxian finding out that he’s doing it. Wei Wuxian loves him so much it makes his stomach hurt.
“Hey,” Wei Wuxian starts. He has quite a bit he needs to say, but most of it is kind of a lot. He doesn’t think starting with ‘you definitely don’t know I’m in love with you, right?’ is the way to approach this. ‘I don’t want anyone else to have you but me, forever’ doesn’t give them a lot of room to negotiate from, particularly if Lan Wangji just wants to be friends. Just because Lan Wangji kissed him in front of all the people they know doesn’t mean he wants the same things Wei Wuxian does.
This isn’t what he’d planned at all. He’d thought. Well, he didn’t know. He’d thought there would be a moment where he’d look over and wouldn’t be terrified that he loved Lan Wangji in a worse, more reckless, all-consuming way than Lan Wangji loved him. He doesn’t want to be the only one.
Lan Wangji is blinking at him like he’s doing a morse code S.O.S. He may in fact be doing this. He’s holding a very small cake plate in one hand and looks like he could be coming directly from a gay business meeting. Wei Wuxian wants to do just unspeakable things with him.
“Wei Ying,” Lan Wangji says, like Wei Wuxian’s name is a speech he’s been carefully preparing, and it’s so incredibly f*cking over.
Wei Wuxian thinks he might have been the one to move first, but it’s mostly immaterial. They’re kissing, and then Lan Wangji has him against the sink in a very serious way. He gets one arm wrapped most of the way around Wei Wuxian’s waist, his other hand still holding his cake plate. Wei Wuxian, who very wisely set his cake plate down, is making quick work of all of Lan Wangji’s buttons. He finally gets them open only to remember that Lan Wangji wears undershirts, like some kind of pervert.
“You’re like a sexy onion,” Wei Wuxian says with relish, and Lan Wangji stops kissing up his jawline to give him a look of absolute bafflement. Wei Wuxian tugs fruitlessly on Lan Wangji’s undershirt. “Layers.”
Lan Wangji huffs a disgruntled breath through his nose and goes back to kissing Wei Wuxian’s neck. “This is okay?” he asks, and Wei Wuxian nods so vigorously he jostles Lan Wangji out of the way and has to tug him back in.
He knows this is not them having the conversation they need to be having but Wei Wuxian is only one man. Lan Wangji is definitely one inch shorter than him (Wei Wuxian lords it over his head much like he lords his slightly higher ACT math score and his bunnies’ clear preference for their goth father) but Wei Wuxian doesn’t think his additional height is really pulling its weight in terms of him getting the upper hand back from Lan Wangji. Lan Wangji has somehow slid his thigh between Wei Wuxian’s and has him pinned in place, nosing Wei Wuxian’s chin up.
“Ha ha,” Wei Wuxian begins. “You really— I am really not driving this car huh,” he says, as Lan Wangji uses his free hand to pull Wei Wuxian’s T shirt up over his stomach.
“You are not. Lift your arms,” Lan Wangji says, and Wei Wuxian’s brain supplies, in response: hurgleburgle. He lifts his arms.
“Wow Lan Zhan, you are easy, can’t believe all I had to do was drag you into a bathroom,” Wei Wuxian says, while Lan Wangji tugs his T shirt up over his head, mostly to distract from the fact that he, Wei Wuxian, is the easiest bitch on the planet for specifically this. Wei Wuxian is so relieved that he won’t have to live out the rest of his life on the International Space Station. It may not be not a multi-tiered powerpoint love confession, but at least Lan Wangji definitely wants to f*ck him. Small blessings on this bitch of an Earth.
“Mn,” Lan Wangji says, and goes back to sucking bruises onto his neck, somewhat stymied by the studded choker Wei Wuxian is wearing to spice up his otherwise very appropriate Jiejie’s Birthday Outfit. Wei Wuxian briefly considers trying to tug Lan Wangji’s shirt out from where it’s been tucked into his pants, but contents himself with holding Lan Wangji by his improbably svelte little waist.
“I mean this in the nicest possible way,” Wei Wuxian says, before he loses the ability to form sentences. “But you need to put the cake down and touch me with both hands. I need this to be a two handed activity.”
Lan Wangji looks down at the cake plate like it has somehow offended him, disentangles himself, and sets it very carefully on the floor. Then, he cups Wei Wuxian’s face in his hands, stroking the pad of his thumb across Wei Wuxian’s cheek. He’s so beautiful it’s almost insulting.
“Had you forgotten you were holding the cake,” Wei Wuxian asks, somewhat hoarsely, because Lan Wangji is now gazing into his eyes. He’s very near and he smells expensive. Lan Wangji has always smelled expensive, even when they were in high school and he wore exclusively khakis.
“I was distracted,” Lan Wangji says very seriously, and Wei Wuxian laughs, trying to shift himself further into Lan Wangji’s space. Wei Wuxian wants where his body ends to be indistinguishable from where Lan Wangji’s body begins, like a sexy ouroboros.
“Oh? By what?” Wei Wuxian says, affecting a breathy tone that no one he’s ever slept with has found properly irresistible.
“The inevitable heat death of the universe,” Lan Wangji says, and reaches behind him to unbuckle his choker with one hand.
“God, FINE,” Wei Wuxian says. “Please, please take off your shirt.”
“Hmph,” says Lan Wangji, setting the choker on the counter and fitting his palm against Wei Wuxian’s jaw. Wei Wuxian nudges his chin down into Lan Wangji’s palm, clocking the way Lan Wangji’s gaze goes sharp and interested. Got you, Wei Wuxian thinks, and looks up at him through his eyelashes.
Lan Wangji doesn’t give him more than one second to be smug before his mouth is back at Wei Wuxian’s neck, his mouth warm and wet over skin that suddenly feels incredibly sensitive. It’s one thing for Wei Wuxian to spend a good 60% of the time he spends touching himself thinking about getting railed by his best friend. It’s absolutely one thing. Having Lan Wangji actually press him tightly against the sink and grind their hips together, holding him firmly around the waist as if he’s something very dear, is another. It’s really a whole different thing. Wei Wuxian’s imagination has not done Lan Wangji justice.
“You’re so- wow Lan Zhan.” Wei Wuxian clutches Lan Wangji as close as he can as he bites down on Wei Wuxian’s neck, the pain a sharp, joyful spark all down his body. If he has to pull a Steve Jobs for the next two weeks so Lan Wangji can make a Yayoi Kusama painting of his neck that’s just fine. In fact, he’s looking forward to it. Who says business casual can’t involve hickeys. Who even made that dumb rule. “You’re so hot? You know that. Everyone knows that, apparently. Well let me tell you, I also know. I really, really know.”
He’s going to go to third base with Lan Wangji in Jiang Yanli’s downstairs bathroom. There’s no way around it. He really hadn’t thought this through when he dragged Lan Wangji in here. In his defense, he’d really intended this to be a conversation. He doesn’t know why he’d thought this was going to be a conversation, but he really had thought it. “You really like my neck, huh? Don’t even care about shutting me up.”
“I would not deprive you of a chance to run your mouth,” Lan Wangji says, sounding a little self-satisfied about it.
“Hngh, great point. Take off your shirt,” Wei Wuxian says, because if he’s going to lose this battle he’s going to lose it finding out if Lan Wangji has sensitive nipples.
He never does find out about the nipples, because there’s a knock on the door, a beat in which Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian make charged, panicked eye contact, and then the door is being opened and Jiang Cheng has stepped on Lan Wangji’s piece of birthday cake. This is absolutely the cause of Jiang Cheng’s first ‘NO,’ although his second, third, and fourth ‘NO’ probably have to do with everything else about the situation.
He comes to the yelled ‘WEI WUXIAN’ exactly on schedule. Lan Wangji, who Wei Wuxian absolutely can not make eye contact with, pulls his hips back and sends Wei Wuxian nearly toppling to the ground.
“Door unlocked!! On jiejie’s birthday!! After I told you not to!!” Jiang Cheng yells. Wei Wuxian hasn’t seen him this mad since Wei Wuxian accidentally put one of his Warhammer minis through the washing machine.
Wei Wuxian can sense that though Jiang Cheng is still yelling in sentence fragments, he’s working himself up to a tirade. There’s probably about five seconds left before Jiang Cheng powers up completely, so Wei Wuxian takes direct action. Unfortunately his direct action involves abandoning Lan Wangji in Jiang Yanli’s Paris-themed bathroom with Jiang Cheng, but he’s working on a time crunch and with limited options.
Wei Wuxian ducks under Jiang Cheng’s arm and runs full tilt down the hall. He glances back long enough to watch Jiang Cheng’s face turn a new color as he realizes that since he’s just stepped in cake, he can’t run after Wei Wuxian without ruining the carpet. Wei Wuxian can only hope Lan Zhan makes a similar daring escape before their enemy washes his foot off in the sink.
“Who puts cake on the FLOOR?” Wei Wuxian hears as he flies into the kitchen and skids to a halt next to Wen Qing, who has tracked his entrance with an expression of gentle disapproval. That’s the last of the commotion, so either Lan Wangji has found some way to shut Jiang Cheng up, Jiang Yanli has intervened, or Jiang Cheng has realized that he is violating rule 3. No fighting any of the party guests 3a. even as a joke.
“Very cool hickeys,” Wen Qing says, and hands him a T-shirt she’s procured from the endless recesses of her purse.
“Oh, thanks so much, they’re new,” Wei Wuxian says, and pulls the T-shirt over his head. It’s a black crop top that says ‘some bunny I love is trans.’ It leaves just the perfect amount of his stomach out and is definitely too slu*tty for this occasion, which there is, of course, simply nothing to be done about. “Cool shirt.”
“Right,” Wen Qing agrees. “I got it after your sister came out. You know, to be supportive.” She looks stricken. “Oh god, don’t tell her that, she’ll cry about it. I’ll feel so bad if she cries on her birthday.”
“I would never tell jiejie you were trying to do something nice,” Wei Wuxian says, and Wen Qing smacks him on the leg.
“You better not,” Wen Qing says, completely seriously. “Jin Zixuan is too afraid to talk to me and we’re not changing that.”
“It’s because of your eyeliner,” Wei Wuxian says. “Goths intimidate him.”
“We’re his natural predator,” Wen Qing says, even though she’s not really a goth. To be clear, Jin Zixuan has no concept of who is a goth and who is just a hot, intimidating woman who wears a lot of black. Wei Wuxian is not going to be the person that elucidates this for him. “Speaking of, are you guys married now?”
“Interesting segue, no we are not,” Wei Wuxian says. “Not for lack of trying.”
Wen Qing gives him a look that is too piercing by a power of five. “Did you two talk at all?”
“Of course we did! I said ‘hey’ and then he said ‘Wei Ying’ and then I said a bunch of dumb sh*t while he kissed my neck,” Wei Wuxian says. “What are you doing in here by yourself anyway?”
Wen Qing frowns and ignores his question. “What kind of dumb sh*t?”
“I called him a sexy onion,” Wei Wuxian says.
“Layers,” Wen Qing agrees, but doesn’t sound happy about it.
“It went fine, he definitely thinks I’m hot,” Wei Wuxian says, as flippantly as he possibly can. He can think of at least six people this would probably work on, but is concerned that Wen Qing isn’t one of them.
“If I try to be serious with you for one single second are you going to start doing your Wei Wuxian Emotional Avoidance Song and Dance,” Wen Qing asks. Wei Wuxian thinks she could probably stab him with most of what’s in her bag, which does complicate his answer.
“Uh—“ Wei Wuxian begins.
“You’re right, I don’t know why I even asked,” Wen Qing snaps.
“It’s not a song and dance, it’s much more like an interactive puppet show,” Wei Wuxian says. “Like a lil shadow puppet situation.”
“That’s exactly what I’m talking about,” Wen Qing says. “I know you’d rather do 9 hundred dumb, self-immolating bits than admit to Lan Wangji how you feel about him, but he loves you and he doesn’t know you love him because you have a doctorate in making your own feelings into a joke. I can not watch him stare at you from across a crowded room like this anymore. The moment is right now. Do not f*ck this up. Tell him.”
Wei Wuxian had absolutely committed to an emotional avoidance shadow puppet spectacular, one so elaborate and funny that even Wen Qing, enemy of laughter, would let him off the hook. Wen Qing has just beheaded the adorable little shadow puppet Wei Ying. It’s waving its arms up and down while a red ribbon of blood is spurting out of its little puppet neck.
“Like what?” Wei Wuxian asks finally, when he’s remembered how to speak even just one of the languages he knows.
“What do you mean like what?” Wen Qing says. She looks like she’s on high alert for him pulling bullsh*t, which does make him want to hide on top of the refrigerator like Nie Huaisang’s horrible little cat.
“Staring at me,” Wei Wuxian prompts.
Wen Qing huffs. “As if you don’t know how he looks at you.”
“I don’t!” Wei Wuxian says, helplessly. Maybe he does. Lan Wangji is always looking at him. Wei Wuxian can barely remember a time when he couldn’t read Lan Wangji like a book. He’s always vaguely surprised when others can’t. He knows the tiny face that Lan Wangji makes when one of his wayward teen coworkers at the library is doing something that worries him. He knows the little bit of tension in his mouth Lan Wangji gets when he doesn’t want to think whatever Wei Wuxian is doing is funny but still does. He knows how his eyes light up when he’s excited about something he found at the grocery store or the preoccupied eyebrow furrow when he’s been up late arguing on the internet and is still mad about it the next morning.
He doesn’t know what it would look like on Lan Wangji’s face for him to love Wei Wuxian as much as Wei Wuxian loves him. He has no idea. There’s no control group, nothing he could compare it to.
Jiang Cheng appears in the kitchen doorway, scrunchy-eyebrowed like he’s finally arranged his arguments on just exactly why Wei Wuxian kissing Lan Wangji in the bathroom is the worst thing to ever happen to him, but is cut off before he can even begin by Wen Qing imperiously holding her finger in the air. She gets a lot of imperiousness mileage for someone who is significantly shorter than most of her friend group.
“I am already yelling at him far more effectively than you will,” Wen Qing tells him, which is probably true.
“But—“ Jiang Cheng protests.
“No,” she repeats, and points back out the door.
“He made me step in cake!” Jiang Cheng all but wails, and Wen Qing points again, this time more firmly.
Jiang Cheng’s lip curls, looking like the part of himself that loves yelling is actively fighting with the part of him that knows that fighting with Wen Qing is a losing game. This goes on for a fascinating face journey of about five seconds, before he huffs and stalks back towards the living room.
“You’re welcome,” Wen Qing says, elbowing Wei Wuxian in the kidney.
“God, you’re brutal,” Wei Wuxian says, and she smiles at him, a little too kindly, like Jiang Yanli does when she’s breaking hard news.
“I know Lan Zhan likes me,” Wei Wuxian admits, after a few beats of pointed silence. “I do.”
“Then what,” Wen Qing says, sounding about five hundred years old. “Is the problem.”
“Well, I want— I, well see—ah—“ Wei Wuxian starts, falters, then pouts. “Qing-jie, don’t make me.”
“I’m not your sister, that’s not going to work on me,” Wen Qing says. “If you can’t even tell me, you’re not going to be able to tell him.”
“You’re more intimidating than he is,” Wei Wuxian says, even though she’s probably right. “He’s a big softie. Just a big ol’ teddy bear. You’re much scarier.”
“Flattery is not going to get you out of this,” Wen Qing says. “Why can’t you tell him?”
Wei Wuxian regrets, now more than ever, that he didn’t even escape the bathroom with his slice of birthday cake. It’s probably still on the sink, slowly losing its icing. He’s starting to feel like fleeing the bathroom was actually maybe a dumb thing to do. He should have grabbed Lan Zhan’s hand instead of leaving him in Jiang Cheng’s clutches. He hadn’t really been thinking. He’d sort of hoped Lan Wangji would come running after him, but he hadn’t, and now he’s here and cakeless in the kitchen being forced to talk about his feelings. No one suffers more than Wei Wuxian.
“I don’t know,” Wei Wuxian says, which is a lie.
“Don’t lie to me,” Wen Qing says.
Wei Wuxian gives her his best put-upon sigh. “Well, for one thing, I’m afraid we’re going to break up in a year when he finds out I’m kind of a f*cking nightmare to date.” He has an entire argument prepared: about how he keeps weird hours and works too much and is annoying, how he doesn’t really give a f*ck about tidying his house, sucks sh*t at saving money and drinks too much probably, and how after a while people get tired of that, and that’s fine, it’s totally okay, it’s just what happens.
“Do you seriously think Lan Wangji has any illusions about how you are?” Wen Qing asks, instead of saying he’s not a nightmare.
“Maybe,” Wei Wuxian says. No matter how many relationships Wei Wuxian falls in and out of, Lan Wangji is still there, sitting up past his bedtime until he’s the human personification of a yawn, taking him out for hotpot and putting endless things on Wei Wuxian’s plate. Wei Wuxian doesn’t know what would be left if Lan Wangji decided not to stay.
“And furthermore, and hear me out on this, what if the reason you’re a nightmare to date is because you’re very obviously in love with your best friend and have prioritized him over every single person you’ve ever dated for the entire time I’ve known you?” Wen Qing asks.
Wei Wuxian spends a good five seconds gaping like a fish. “Damn, okay, alright then.”
“Am I wrong?”
Wei Wuxian knows in his heart of hearts that she is not, which doesn’t really solve anything. “I can’t f*ck it up with him. I really can’t.”
“Okay,” Wen Qing says patiently. “What if you’re actually f*cking it up by never being honest about you feel?”
Wei Wuxian frowns, then, considering it, frowns deeper. “That’s not a thing.”
“You’d better hope it’s not,” she says, like she knows something he doesn’t. “I’m not saying it isn’t scary or complicated, but neither of you want to just be friends.”
“You say that with so much confidence,” Wei Wuxian says.
“Yes, because I’m not an idiot,” Wen Qing says. “Do you think it’s a coincidence that Lan Wangji hasn’t dated anyone for as long as you’ve known him?”
“Haaa,” Wei Wuxian says, wishing he was sitting on the floor suddenly. Having realizations about your best friend is much easier when your chin is resting on your knees, for provable science reasons. Mythbusters probably even has an episode on it.
“People have tried,” Wen Qing says. “He’s honestly not even really that nice about it.”
Wei Wuxian allows himself the luxury of burying his face in his hands as he remembers just how many stupid people he’s dated, the majority of which hadn’t really liked Lan Wangji. He supposes that was fair, considering that Lan Wangji had never made any effort to be more than blandly cordial to them and Wei Wuxian has never not been in love with him. “Oh god, I’m the worst.”
Wen Qing gives him a consoling pat on the shoulder. “That’s not tonight’s lesson.”
“What’s tonight’s lesson?” Wei Wuxian asks miserably.
“That I’m going to be so, so upset with you if you don’t try,” Wen Qing says.
“I hate tonight’s lesson,” Wei Wuxian says, sliding down onto the floor like he’s wanted to for a least a minute now. He needs to find Lan Wangji and he needs to eat at least one spoonful of lotus rib soup. Jiang Yanli had gone f*cking nuclear on the birthday food preparations and there are enough leftovers to feed a reasonably-sized summer camp. “Will you bring me a little soup.”
“No,” Wen Qing says, then glances down at him and seems to find him suitably pitiable. “Fine. But I’m literally never getting you anything else ever again.”
She clatters around the kitchen, fishing a bowl out of the dish rack and portioning him the tiniest serving of the best soup known to the mortal world.
“I’m sorry I’m not being fun,” Wei Wuxian says quietly.
“Do you think I’m friends with you because you’re fun?” Wen Qing asks, sitting down next to him and handing him the little bowl.
“Probably,” he says, forgoing the spoon and tipping the broth into his mouth. It does help, a little.
“I’m really not,” Wen Qing says, as if he’s some kind of idiot. “As much as I love fun.”
“That was a joke,” Wei Wuxian mumbles around the edge of the bowl, feeling weirdly touched by her very, very deceased deadpan.
“My very first one,” she tells him, and reaches over to pet his hair, just like she does with Wen Ning.
It’s a little better, after that. Lan Wangji still hasn’t come looking for him, which Wei Wuxian is trying desperately not to feel a way about. He doesn’t even know what the emotion would be and is not going to be investigating. In all fairness, he hasn’t sought out Lan Wangji either, because he’s doing the very important party activity of hiding in the kitchen with Wen Qing. After Wei Wuxian has finished his emotional emergency soup portion, Wen Ning joins them and Wei Wuxian ends up pouring tiny amounts of every soda in the fridge into shot glasses for him, since he doesn’t like carbonation and has never tried them.
Wei Wuxian is explaining, as the sodas begin the process of going flat in Jiang Yanli’s collection of wildly tacky souvenir shot glasses, that Pepsi is just co*ke with the volume turned down a little, when Jiang Yanli, the absolute madwoman, comes into the kitchen and tries to start doing the dishes during her own birthday party.
“Jiejie no! No no no,” Wei Wuxian says, abandoning his molecular gastronomy to throw himself between Jiang Yanli and the sink. “Why do you think you’re allowed to do dishes on your birthday? Where is your husband, does he know about this?”
“Is this you volunteering to do the dishes?” Jiang Yanli asks with infinite patience. Wei Wuxian concedes that though there are a lot of dishes, that’s no excuse for this kind of behavior.
“I’m volunteering Jin Zixuan. You go back out to your party,” Wei Wuxian says, trying to look as if perhaps he is older, wiser, and in a position to make administrative calls about this.
“It’s really important for me to get a start on the dishes,” Jiang Yanli says, something in her expression tilting slightly conspiratorial. “Which I’m so sad about, because a-Cheng has everyone in the living room playing Monopoly. He was talking about coming in here and finding you. I think he wants to do teams.”
“Ah! You wash and I’ll dry?” Wei Wuxian says, and pulls two towels from the towel drawer before Jiang Cheng can appear in the doorway again.
“I don’t think I’ve actually ever played Monopoly,” Wen Ning says, looking towards the living room with interest.
“That’s because it’s a terrible game and a thief of fun,” Wei Wuxian explains, as Jiang Yanli begins tackling the precarious tower of pans. It’s a bit of a delicate maneuver, because they’re stacked quite high.
“It’s not fun,” Wen Qing says, sliding into a seat by the kitchen island and picking up one of the lemons just chillin in the lemon bowl.
“But it’s a board game,” Wen Ning says, with a willful optimism that Wei Wuxian would not believe if he were not watching it in real time. “I’m going to go play.”
“He’s about to be Jiang Cheng’s favorite person,” Wei Wuxian says, as Wen Ning makes for the living room. “Right before he experiences his first meaningful disappointment.”
“He’s probably going to love it,” Wen Qing says, with the contemplative, long suffering airs of a divorced dad alone at happy hour. “You know, when we were little I was like, ‘I hope didi never loses his childlike sense of wonder’ and now it’s like, ‘Jiejie have you heard this song? It’s called Hey Ho by the Lumineers. Jiejie, do you want to go see the new Spiderman movie? Tony Stark is going to be in it.’ Do I think it’s great? Yes. Do I truly enjoy anything other than Gray’s Anatomy and those little eye masks that you chill in the fridge? No.”
“Have I mentioned that I’m so obsessed with you,” Wei Wuxian says.
“Like, every Tuesday,” Wen Qing says.
There’s a pleasant beat of silence where Jiang Yanli hands him a newly cleaned pan, before she asks “did you figure things out with Wangji?” without any preamble, like a sneak assassin.
“Of course,” Wei Wuxian says, once he is absolutely sure that he is not going to drop the pan he’s holding.
“You are such a liar,” Wen Qing says. “Don’t listen to him.”
Jiang Yanli looks completely unsurprised by this information, which Wei Wuxian feels a little offended by.
“I was taking it with a grain of salt,” Jiang Yanli says pleasantly, darting a smile back at Wen Qing. “I assumed if we were past the in-progress stage they’d have left already.”
“I’ve already been scolded about it,” Wei Wuxian complains. “At length!” He suspects there isn’t much he can do to keep from being scolded again, but it’s worth a shot.
“It was a five minute conversation tops, and you wouldn’t need scolding if you hadn’t literally sprinted away from him,” Wen Qing says. Wei Wuxian hates to admit that he sees the logic in this. “Or if you were talking to him instead of hiding in the kitchen. He’s probably playing Monopoly right now. Sad, Broken-Hearted Lan Wangji Monopoly.”
“Okay, you’re laying it on a little thick,” Wei Wuxian says, to cover up the way that he feels simultaneously heart-stoppingly tender and meaningfully bad about the idea of Lan Wangji sadly playing Monopoly about him. “That’s a very distressing image.”
“And a very real reality,” Wen Qing says soberly. She’s somehow making using a lemon as a stress ball look kind of stern.
“Did you talk to him?” Jiang Yanli asks him, and Wei Wuxian wishes he wasn’t drying dishes so he could put his head on a table like he wants to. At least he has something to do with his hands, which Jiang Yanli probably planned because she knows how he is.
“No,” Wei Wuxian says. They are not going to talk about ‘his’ ‘feelings’ this much on his birthday. He’s going to have a complete moratorium on everything that isn’t salacious gossip or effusive compliments. “We did not. I kissed him, I said the dumbest things anyone has ever said, and then Jiang Cheng came in and I freaked out and fled into the kitchen and he didn’t follow me.”
Jiang Yanli pauses in her washing to give him an expression of such sincere sympathy that it makes him want to cry. “Oh, a-Xian.”
“You two need to start loving me less, this is getting ridiculous,” Wei Wuxian says, then hears himself, and goes back to drying his stupid little plate. He dries it and dries it and doesn’t realize that Jiang Yanli is holding out a newly cleaned plate for him for what is definitely a little too long. “I just feel dumb, because apparently everyone thinks we’re together and I can’t even figure out how to even like, I don’t know, begin to have that conversation with him.”
“It’s not dumb,” Jiang Yanli says. Wei Wuxian doesn’t know how she manages to say things in that gentle tone without them sounding insincere. “You remember how Zixuan was, when he liked me. I didn’t realize he was funny until we’d been dating for months. Sometimes it’s hard to talk to someone when you like them a lot.”
Wei Wuxian takes a few moments to really process first how much he does not like being compared to Jin Zixuan and additionally how extremely unfunny he finds him. “So you’re saying that Jin Zixuan thinks I’m too sexy to talk to and that’s why he’s never funny around me?”
Jiang Yanli gives him one of her ‘you’re about to get yourself in trouble’ looks, a genre she’s only gotten better at since the arrival of Jin Ling. Wei Wuxian doesn’t love being on the receiving end of looks that Jiang Yanli also levels at her toddler, but he does concede that he actively deserved that one.
“Do you think—“ Wei Wuxian begins, very bravely in his opinion, “so you guys are 100% sure that he likes me as much as I like him?”
Wen Qing makes a choking noise. “How did we get back here? We were doing so well.”
“The only way you’re going to know that for sure is if you ask him,” Jiang Yanli says. “But this would be a very different conversation if I didn’t think he did.”
“Cool,” Wei Wuxian says. “That’s cool. Very cool, even.”
“I feel like I’m being punked,” Wen Qing says. “Are you getting that? The getting punked feeling? Like, most in love couple that has ever existed just never talked about it, convinced the other one thinks they’re bros, mutually pining on their horrible tandem bicycle of unresolved sexual tension?”
“Hey,” Wei Wuxian protests, quite weakly.
Jiang Yanli looks as if she is trying very hard not to laugh at him. “I admit to being shocked that you two aren’t sleeping together.”
“Literally had no idea that that man actually f*cked,” Wei Wuxian says, endeavoring not to sound disappointed by this and failing. “Like, he obviously has great erotic potential. But I thought, you know, untapped.”
Wei Wuxian is putting a lot of pieces together regarding a lot of different things. The first thing is this night’s project of revising his mental concept of Lan Wangji as a prude, largely formed during their junior year of high school, when he had made a dick joke in rather poor taste and Lan Wangji had ignored him for an entire day. The second thing is the fact that Lan Wangji has always responded to bits and jokes regarding Wei Wuxian’s sexual exploits with a sort of pointed disinterest that Wei Wuxian, using his prior evidence, had chalked up to his general prudery.
It’s a very simple sort of equation wherein if he does not assume that Lan Wangji is allergic to sex and/or waiting for the stern and serious man of his dreams to sweep him off his feet, it kind of seems like. Well it kind of seems like maybe Lan Wangji doesn’t want to hear about all of Wei Wuxian’s dumb hook ups because Lan Wangji wants to f*ck him and is a little jealous about it. Wei Wuxian is constructing a weirdly specific fantasy about it in real time.
“That’s puzzling, honestly,” Wen Qing says. “A-Li I’m about to say something gross about your brother, just be aware.” Jiang Yanli cheerfully pretends to cover her ears. “Because he looks at you literally every day like he wants to suck your soul out of your dick. He picks you up from stuff and it’s like, ah there’s Lan Wangji in his Volvo with the f*cking Bela Lugosi face again, surely they’re having really disgusting sex I don’t want to know anything about.”
“This is making me feel a lot better than the feelings talk, I have to be honest,” Wei Wuxian says, once he regains the ability to form sentences. “Hey, just out of curiosity, what kind of disgusting sex?”
“No,” Jiang Yanli says pleasantly, and hands him a pot to dry. “Not in my kitchen.”
“Oh my god are you guys doing shots in here? Did you get baijiu and you’re not even sharing? f*cked up.” Wei Wuxian turns around just in time to see Nie Huaisang knock back one of the shots he’d laid out on the island. “Huh. That’s Sprite, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” Wen Qing says.
“Why is kind of thing always happening to me,” Nie Huaisang complains, frowning despairingly at the shot glass.
“I’m always saying this,” Wei Wuxian agrees, even though he is almost always the architect of his own suffering. Wei Wuxian has started to identify ‘what could possibly go wrong’ as an indication that he needs to text the LWJ/WQ/WWX group chat, affectionately named ‘Disaster Prevention Advisory Board 🚫😩🚧😳⚠️.’ Wen Qing had named it, Wei Wuxian had added the emojis.
Nie Huaisang gives a long suffering sigh and slides into the chair next to Wen Qing. He scans the row of shot glasses, picks up one whose base is a block of cheese (possibly the cherry co*ke), and takes a dainty sip from it. “Wei Wuxian, can you go collect your boyfriend? He’s destroying mine at Monopoly and no amount of ‘wow gege you’re sooooo good at Monopoly, will you explain the rules to me again’ is going to bring us back from that if he loses.” Wei Wuxian opens his mouth to express how much he disapproves of literally every part of that sentence, but Nie Huaisang continues. “Also because Lan Wangji seems a little confused and sad, like, you know that meme, with the grandpa who makes all of those burgers and then only one of his grandkids comes to family dinner?”
“They’re not boyfriends,” Wen Qing says.
“They will be,” Jiang Yanli says. “A-Xian, plate.”
“I’ve really had just about enough of all of you,” Wei Wuxian says cheerfully, like a liar, as he accepts the plate from his sister. “None of you are getting invited to the wedding.”
“Oh, I don’t know, I think we could figure out if you were having a wedding,” Nie Huaisang says, as if this is pleasant small talk. “You share your location with a-Cheng, we would find you.”
“Chilling, thank you,” Wei Wuxian says.
“But seriously, you can’t let Lan Wangji win Monopoly,” Nie Huaisang says, reaching a plaintive hand out across the island towards him. “I was very serious about that. That’s a legitimate request from me to you.”
“Remind me again why you decided to date a man who gets this emotionally invested in Monopoly?” Wen Qing asks, and Nie Huaisang smiles in a pleasant way that sets off alarms in absolutely every part of Wei Wuxian’s brain.
Nie Huaisang seems to clock his fear. “Do you really want to know?”
Wen Qing shrugs. “Actually, no, I get it. I’d probably date Jiang Cheng.”
Nie Huaisang looks at her, calculating. “You probably could, if you wanted to.”
She looks less surprised than Wei Wuxian thinks she should. Wei Wuxian can practically see her mentally moving things around in her Google Calendar. “Huh. Good note.”
“If I ask you what you both see in him am I going to regret it for the rest of my life?” Wei Wuxian says, as Jiang Yanli laughs next to him.
“Probably,” Nie Huaisang says.
“Ugh.” Wei Wuxian frowns. “Ugh, I want to know though.” He looks to Jiang Yanli. “Do we want to know?”
“No,” Jiang Yanli says.
“Okay, yeah, I want to know,” Wei Wuxian says. “Tell me.”
“Hot, good taste, follows instructions, actually reads the wash symbols on clothing tags,” Wen Qing offers, looking to Nie Huaisang for confirmation. He nods. It’s honestly much less f*cked up/blatantly vulgar than Wei Wuxian would have expected, which he appreciates.
“Why won’t you date me? I’m literally all of those things,” Wei Wuxian asks. He makes the executive decision not to bring up that Wen Qing has apparently slept with his betrothed as further evidence that they should also be sleeping together. He’s pretty sure it would just circle back to Wen Qing telling him that he could also be sleeping with Lan Wangji if he wasn’t such a little bitch.
Wen Qing glares at him. “You do not follow instructions.”
“Well you can’t have everything!” Wei Wuxian says, even though he absolutely does not read wash symbols either.
“Speaking of, didn’t Huaisang literally just tell you to go sabotage a Monopoly game?” Wen Qing says. Jiang Yanli has given up on washing dishes to completely dissolve into giggles, which is not very Jiang Siblings Solidarity of her. He supposes it’s not very Jiang Siblings Solidarity of him to be so surprised by the fact that people want to date his brother, but he’s also seen Jiang Cheng get attacked by a goose like, three separate times.
“Every day I am hassled and harangued by my loved ones!” Wei Wuxian says, grabbing Jiang Yanli around the waist and pulling her into a hug, which just makes her laugh harder. “Okay, well, wish me luck. Happy Birthday jiejie I love you the most — If I don’t see you tomorrow assume it’s gone badly and I’ve run off to join the circus.”
“It’s going to be fine, please don’t join the circus,” Jiang Yanli says, ducking in to kiss him on the cheek. She’s holding her arms a bit like a t-rex to avoid getting soap on him, which he appreciates. “Text me later no matter what he says.”
“When we are married you will be the first to know,” Wei Wuxian says, returning her cheek kiss and blowing Nie Huaisang and Wen Qing their own. Wen Qing mimes catching the kiss in mid air and then crushing it in her fist, which cheers him immeasurably because he knows she’s being a little silly against her natural inclinations just to try and make him feel better.
Wei Wuxian escapes the emotional-discussion-gauntlet feeling not particularly brave, but sure that if he tries to text any of them without even trying to confess his feelings to Lan Wangji, Wen Qing is going to threaten him with improper use of her acupuncture needles.
He knows that now is the moment. He’s spent the last year and a half, and frankly long before that, assuming that there would be a moment, and it’s here, it sucks. Jiejie is right, even if he hates her examples. It’s so f*cking hard to talk to someone when you really like them, even when you kind of know you’re being dumb about it.
Wei Wuxian steps into the living room to find two things that he was summarily unprepared for. The first, is that Lan Wangji is wearing Wei Wuxian’s spiked, leather choker around his neck. The second is that Lan Wangji seems to be holding court at the Monopoly game. He has his hand laid flat on the table and has listed slightly forward, which, for him, is a wild amount of gesticulation. Wei Wuxian, who had planned a daring Monopoly rescue, stops short.
“The DDC is a profoundly flawed system built by a pathetic man,” Lan Wangji is saying, Jin Zixuan and Wen Ning nodding along as if they’re following all of this very intently. Jiang Cheng is looking like this is the most words he’s even seen Lan Wangji string together and doesn’t know what to do about it. Luo Qingyang looks like she’s about to start snapping like she’s at a poetry slam. Su Minshan, to Wei Wuxian’s immense relief, seems to have left.
“The desire to scapegoat the DDC, as offensive and antiquated as it is, keeps us from conversations about how the process of categorization itself is inextricable from our cultural beliefs and biases. It is unconscionable that we, as humanities scholars, should fall into the same trap of ‘objectivity’ that plagues the sciences when it comes to something as crucial as the organizational structure the modern library is built on. It’s uncomplicated to criticize Melvil Dewey, but much harder for us, particularly those of us in the library sciences who consider ourselves leftists, to divest—“ It is at this point that Lan Wangji notices Wei Wuxian, standing in the doorway with both hands clamped over his mouth.
“Lan Zhan, please don’t let me stop you from ripping Melvil Dewey a new asshole,” Wei Wuxian says from between his fingers. He loves when Lan Wangji gets mad about library stuff. He’s so right and smart. Everyone always assumes Lan Wangji is going to be the rule-following hard-ass librarian, when he’s really the skate fast, eat ass, read books, and unionize your workplace librarian.
Lan Wangji does have the presence of mind to look lightly mortified, although whether that has to do with the fact that he has been caught monologuing or that the last time they saw each other was when they were kissing remains to be seen. “Did you…” he seems to not quite know where he wants to take this sentence. “Would you like to play on my team?”
Wei Wuxian is seized with the desire to say something very silly like ‘yes, baby, for the rest of our lives,’ and has to reign himself alllll the way back in. “I wanted to know if you were ready to go home, but no rush,” he says instead, which is still a sentence packed with fifteen double meanings. He watches as Lan Wangji, and everyone else at the Monopoly game, parse all of them.
“Yes,” Lan Wangji says without hesitation, then looks over at Jin Zixuan. “I will send you a very good article and a podcast. Wen Ning, would you like all of my properties?”
“That’s against the rules,” Jiang Cheng says, somewhat triumphantly, as if he can’t quite help himself. Lan Wangji blinks at him in a way that’s somehow scathing. “It is!” Jiang Cheng shuffles around in the box until he pulls out the rules with no small amount of flair.
“If a player wishes to leave the game all assets are turned in to the bank. The bank then auctions off any properties. Under no circ*mstances can a quitting player give over their assets to another player,” Jiang Cheng reads, and Lan Wangji gives him a disbelieving little eyebrow twitch.
“Yeah Mr. Monopoly,” Luo Qingyang says. “You tell ‘em.”
Lan Wangji shrugs elegantly and hands his properties and Monopoly money over to Jiang Cheng, who is, of course, the banker. As Lan Wangji begins putting on his fancy boots, Wei Wuxian processes for the second time that not only is Lan Wangji wearing his choker, but that it looks absolutely unseemly on him. Wei Wuxian wants to hook his finger under it and haul him around. Wei Wuxian doesn’t know if it makes him feel better or worse about the conversation they’re about to have that he literally can not take his eyes off of Lan Wangji — his fancy boots, his neck, his hands, the rest.
“Wei Wuxian!” Jiang Cheng says, just as he’s started to feel hopeful about their likelihood of escaping this party without further mortifications.
“Yes?” Wei Wuxian asks, pausing in the tying of his own boots, which are significantly less fancy than Lan Zhan’s.
Jiang Cheng makes eye contact, points at him, and does a three-part scowl that Wei Wuxian translates to: It’s not that I approve of this and I will never forgive you for making me see you two kiss, but I do treasure your happiness and if you don’t stop being an idiot I will dump cheerios into your bed. Good luck, you got this, please never ever f*ck in our shared home, I love you, also I think you’re a f*cking clown.
“Didi, I’m touched,” Wei Wuxian says, as Jiang Cheng flips him off and Lan Wangji looks between them with a microexpression of absolute bafflement. This brings him up to a grand total of three (3) Lan-Wangji-related shovel talks, which means that it really is time for him to get this over with.
They say their goodbyes and he follows Lan Wangji out into the cool, spring evening, a light patter of rain turning the pavement dark and reflective. They’re alone so suddenly, the noise of the party dropping away as soon as the door latches. It leaves them in the quiet nighttime together, just the click of Lan Wangji’s boots on the pavement and the jingle of his keys as he leads them across the neat lawn. Wei Wuxian follows him, rubbing his hands across his arms, half from the chill and half from nerves.
“Are you cold?” Lan Wangji asks and, when Wei Wuxian shrugs, holds an arm out for him to tuck himself into Lan Wangji’s side. It’s an awkward way to walk, pressed against each other, but it makes something nervous in Wei Wuxian’s heart turns three circles and settle, humming.
“Can we go to McDonalds,” Wei Wuxian asks. “I want a McFlurry.”
“Mn,” Lan Wangji says, like he had already assumed as much.
Just say it, Wei Wuxian thinks. Just tell him. Now is your moment. Open your mouth.
He does not say it. He doesn’t know where to start. They get in the car and Wei Wuxian turns on both of their seat warmers and then wiggles around in the passenger seat. Lan Wangji is fussy about boots on his leather upholstery, but Wei Wuxian can make a pretzel-like sitting position work without boots meeting seat. The radio is playing Lan Wangji’s favorite classical music station, WBTR, which he contends is better than WLMP, because its curation feels ‘more personal.’ Wei Wuxian processes, not for the first time, that he’s delighted by every single one of Lan Wangji’s hilariously specific, deeply-held idiosyncrasies.
Once, Wei Wuxian had mentioned that he was pretty sure he liked Chopin and Lan Wangji had asked him six unintelligible follow up questions and then made him a playlist of classical bangers that Wei Wuxian plays at work when he can’t focus. Wei Wuxian had asked Lan Wangji if he wanted to get an AUX cord for his car instead of listening to the radio all the time and Lan Wangji had genuinely sneered. Wei Wuxian had teased that Lan Wangji had the music taste of a 90 year old man and Lan Wangji had, while driving, said “Siri, play Yo Perreo Sola by Bad Bunny on Spotify” and let it play in its entirety while Wei Wuxian absolutely f*cking perished. When Wei Wuxian had told Wen Qing about this, she’d said “just because Lan Wangji spits in your mouth doesn’t mean I’m going to believe everything you tell me about him” and Wei Wuxian had screamed a little in her living room.
“You are quiet,” Lan Wangji says, as he pulls out of the tree-lined neighborhood. He’s almost too beautiful to look at under the streetlights in the rain, all the light splitting and refracting through the droplets. It reminds Wei Wuxian too much of when they were teenagers, before it even seemed like Lan Wangji had really come around on him, when they would drive around at night and Wei Wuxian would try and convince Lan Wangji that he was fun and shiny enough to be kept.
“Do you remember when we were 17 and we’d go for drives? And you’d buy me all of those donuts? And I’d swear up and down I was going to pay you back, but I never did, and you just kept buying them for me anyway?” Wei Wuxian says. This in some ways a love confession.
“Yes,” Lan Wangji says, his face carefully neutral. He’s looked that way since he got his shoes on. “I remember.”
There’s a long silence, punctuated only by the regular click of the turn signal and the patter of rain on the windows. The only thing Wei Wuxian can think to bring up are stupid memories, like by deploying enough of them he could convince Lan Wangji to love him back the way Wei Wuxian loves him: so much it feels like a hook behind his guts.
Wei Wuxian is thinking about one of the first times he’d slept over at the Lan house. They’d been on the couch in the basem*nt watching some documentary with a long section on sea turtles. Wei Wuxian was providing commentary on the little wiggle journeys of all the baby turtles when he’d looked over and realized that Lan Wangji was crying, his posture still impeccable, the blanket clutched in his fists. Lan Wangji had nodded at the turtles on the screen and said, very manfully, “they are so small. And so smart already. They know exactly where they need to go,” and Wei Wuxian had thought, with alarming clarity “oh no, I’m in love with you.”
“Does it bother you?” Lan Wangji says, his eyes fixed on the road. “That I—“ He sighs, adjusts his grip on the steering wheel, and does not continue the thought.
Wei Wuxian swallows the blasé little retort he wants to come out with. It does bother him a little, but not really for anything Lan Wangji has done. He’s upset that he hadn’t known, that Lan Wangji hadn’t told him, that he’d never asked.
“No,” Wei Wuxian says. He spins his signet ring around his thumb, the little lotus emblem sliding out of sight and then back again. “But I am a little jealous,” he adds, laughing a little afterward as if this is a joke he’s told.
Lan Wangji hums in a way that feels deliberately vague, turning out of the neighborhood. There’s almost no one out driving, but Lan Wangji won’t even glance over at him. Wei Wuxian hates when Lan Wangji avoids his gaze. It makes him feel sixteen again.
“You have also kissed all of our friends,” Lan Wangji says, just when Wei Wuxian has started to scrape the very bottom of the barrel on trying to find something non-stupid to say.
“When?” Wei Wuxian asks. This does seem plausible. In fact, it seems a hell of a lot more plausible than Lan Wangji kissing all of their friends.
“That party Luo Qingyang had after you’d completed your finals,” Lan Wangji says. “Freshman year summer.”
Wei Wuxian does kind of remember kissing people at that party, but he can’t call up the exact circ*mstances under which that would have happened. What he remembers most vividly is doing extremely vigorous and elaborate slapshots with Jiang Cheng and him complaining about his TMJ for the rest of the week. He’s also fairly sure he recalls a game of salad bowl in which one of the cards had been ‘Jiang Cheng’s butthole.’ Not really a banner night for Jiang Cheng.
“I kissed everyone?” Wei Wuxian checks.
Lan Wangji nods. “You stood on a chair and demanded that everyone kiss you because it was your birthday.”
“But my birthday is in October,” Wei Wuxian says.
“You were wearing a pink sash that said ‘Birthday Princess.’ Whether it was your birthday or not seemed largely immaterial.”
“Oh. That seems right,” Wei Wuxian says. He thinks he still has that sash. “But we didn’t kiss?”
Lan Wangji shakes his head. “I…” Something in his posture is communicating profound mortification. “I left before you noticed me.”
“Lan Zhan!” Wei Wuxian says, unsure if his feelings need to be hurt about this. “Didn’t you want to kiss me?”
Lan Wangji is white-knuckling the steering wheel. “Mn,” he says, looking as if he knows this is not, in fact, an answer.
Wei Wuxian does not love the sound of that. “Did you want to kiss me this time?”
There’s a long silence, which Wei Wuxian is determined, just determined, not to fill. On his finger, the ring spins and spins. Finally, Lan Wangji speaks. “You know the answer to this.”
“I don’t,” Wei Wuxian says. “How would I know?” The rest tumbles out. “I thought— I don’t know! It seemed like there was something between us, maybe, but you never acted like you were actually interested in, you know, in anyone, and then suddenly it turns out you’ve kissed literally everyone but me and then you stick your tongue down my throat - twice - and I… well, I don’t know what I’m supposed to think about that!”
In his pocket, his phone buzzes three times in quick succession. His phone could do to read the room.
In the silence that follows, Lan Wangji takes the turn into the McDonalds parking lot and maneuvers the car up to the speaker. He rolls down the window and finally turns to look at Wei Wuxian. He still has that blank expression on his face, the one he wears when he is actively smothering whatever he’s feeling. “What kind of McFlurry do you want.”
“Are you in love with me or not?” Wei Wuxian asks, and then in the ensuing second of blind panic, the McDonald’s employee asks them what they’d like to order. Lan Wangji does not answer either question, just blinks at him for long enough that a crackly “hello?” comes through the speaker.
Lan Wangji turns and orders an Oreo McFlurry without consulting him and then pulls up to the next window. Wei Wuxian is suddenly very aware of the fact that Volvos, unlike your average small plane, do not have a seat eject button that will throw you out of range of an exploding vehicle. This is a bummer.
“I am,” Lan Wangji says, once the car has come to a stop again. He’s staring very fixedly at his own hands on the steering wheel. Wei Wuxian’s phone buzzes again in his pocket. “In love with you.”
“Oh,” Wei Wuxian says. “Well.”
“We don’t need to speak of it,” Lan Wangji says. He looks— he looks sad. Wei Wuxian has one singular moment to really process that the Wangxian Love Confession Extravaganza is A. going terribly and B. Honest to god happening in a McDonalds drive through. f*ck him, f*ck his life, etc etc.
“Oh no, we’re definitely going to talk about it,” Wei Wuxian says, which comes out so much like a threat that Lan Wangji looks over at him with ill-disguised panic. It’s a horrible expression for him. It makes him look so young and good and Wei Wuxian feels like such a f*cking idiot. “Lan Zhan, I want to marry you.”
Wei Wuxian had not known so much astonishment could make its way onto Lan Wangji’s face at all, much less so quickly. “…you do?”
“Yes!” Wei Wuxian says. “Yes, oh my god, yes I do. f*ck! I was not going to come out the gate with that. Can we? Aha, can I do that again, I’m sorry, I know that’s— Ah! We’re not even dating! Oh my god.”
Wei Wuxian makes eye contact with the teenaged McDonald’s employee holding his McFlurry with polite disinterest and gets both the abundant sense that they are not paid enough to care about this and the comforting impression that this is not the worst thing this teen has seen happen in this drive through. Lan Wangji, who is looking at Wei Wuxian with an insane expression on his face, has not noticed this exchange at all. Wei Wuxian leans in to grab the McFlurry, a movement that Lan Wangji completely misinterprets, and suddenly they are kissing.
Lan Wangji is far, far too good at kissing. He has soft lips and an eagerness to him, something encouraging in the way he urges Wei Wuxian’s mouth open. Wei Wuxian’s hand, which had been bravely going for his McFlurry, finds Lan Wangji’s warm shoulder instead. Their fourth kiss, his brain supplies helpfully. The angle is not particularly easy, what with the being in the car of it all, but he really doesn’t care. He’d kiss Lan Wangji in far worse places. He would kiss Lan Wangji literally in an Applebee’s. He would kiss him in line at the DMV on a Saturday morning.
Lan Wangji has one big hand on Wei Wuxian’s jaw and the other on his forearm. So that’s good. That’s definitely a good sign. Wei Wuxian had entered with the nuclear option and Lan Wangji is holding him very gently about it.
Wei Wuxian registers somewhat sluggishly that maybe you’re not supposed to kiss in the McDonald’s Drive Through. It doesn’t seem like quite a good enough reason for him to stop kissing Lan Wangji, but he is vaguely aware of it.
“Hey. Hey, you can’t make out here,” the McDonald’s employee says tiredly, and Wei Wuxian’s desire to absolutely never stop kissing his dearest friend is abruptly overridden by his infinitesimally larger desire to never, ever inconvenience a service worker.
Wei Wuxian unglues himself from Lan Wangji and begins to dig around in his wallet for his credit card, which seems to be behind a loyalty card for a boba place that has been out of business for at least five years, his Costco card, and two half-filled punch cards for the feminist sex store. By the time he triumphantly fishes out his credit card, Lan Wangji is paying for his McFlurry.
“Lan Zhan!” Wei Wuxian complains. “You always do this! I literally make more money than you!”
“Yes,” confirms Lan Wangji, handing him his dessert. He looks a bit pleased with himself. It’s very endearing.
“Fine,” Wei Wuxian says, taking a sullen bite. “Okay, we need to talk about this.”
“Mn,” Lan Wangji agrees, which, hilarious.
Lan Wangji puts the window back up and pulls into one of the parking spots, inclining his head to indicate that Wei Wuxian should speak.
“Ugh,” Wei Wuxian says. Outside, a rat scampers across the top of a dumpster and out of sight. Very relatable vibes from the garbage-dwelling rat friend. “Ugh. Can’t you start? Why do I have to start?”
“I believe I did start,” Lan Wangji says mildly. He’s removed his hands from the steering wheel and has them resting in his lap. It’s been ten years of friendship and Wei Wuxian still hasn’t teased him out of sitting like a model for a medical brochure about the benefits of good posture. Wei Wuxian, of course, being a helpful ‘walking advertisem*nt for scoliosis’ counterpoint. “I asked you three separate prompting questions about how you were feeling.”
“But do they really count as questions if you delivered them in a deadpan?” Wei Wuxian wheedles.
“They do,” Lan Wangji says. He’s started to look a little wrongfooted, which is all wrong, because Wei Wuxian is the one who likes him way, way too much.
Wei Wuxian’s palms feel so sweaty. He tries to discreetly wipe them on his pants. “Lan Zhan, you know, I’ll do whatever you want to do. Like, anything. Whatever you want, I probably also want. Just like, if that wasn’t clear.”
A tiny furrow has appeared in Lan Wangji’s brow. He doesn’t look any less upset, which means that he’s going to wait until Wei Wuxian’s feeble attempts at emotional honesty materialize into an actual coherent thought. Wei Wuxian gives in and wipes his palms fully on his black jeans, looking away from Lan Wangji’s unhappy eyebrow furrow.
“Okay,” Wei Wuxian. “Okay, sorry. I don’t want to ruin this, I’m sorry.”
“You do not need to apologize,” Lan Wangji says.
“I do!” Wei Wuxian says. “I’m hurting your feelings, I do.”
“You are not,” Lan Wangji says, like a liar. Lan Family Code of Conduct vis a vis lying apparently does not include telling wild untruths about your own emotions. Which tracks, actually.
“You’d be better at lying if you practiced it more,” Wei Wuxian says, then sighs. He’s done it now. “Ahh, okay. I’m sorry, this is going horribly. What I meant to say is that I really like you, I want to be your boyfriend, and I want you to kiss me again. It’s fine if you don’t feel that way too, obviously, no pressure.”
“Mn. Okay,” Lan Wangji says, taking a long, blinking, moment between each sentence. “I agree. We can start now.” He leans across the center console to brush Wei Wuxian’s hair out of his face and kiss his very flushed cheek. Wei Wuxian feels that he should have built up some kind of tolerance to Lan Wangji’s mouth at this point, but he feels the kiss all the way down to his toes anyway.
“No! Hey, we’re not done, that’s not-“
Lan Wangji noses against his cheek and kisses his temple, then down to his neck again.
“Lan Zhan!”
Lan Wangji blinks up at him with another eyebrow furrow, not dissimilar to the ones his bunnies give him when he tells them they aren’t allowed to chew on charging cords. Wei Wuxian supposes he’s the charging cord in this metaphor.
“Okay, alright! I’m getting in the back seat,” Wei Wuxian says, handing Lan Wangji his McFlurry, unbuckling his seatbelt, and clambering into the back. “I can not think when you’re this close to me.”
There’s a touch and go moment in the middle where he gets a little bit stuck, but he does finally manage to settle himself in the back. Lan Wangji is still sitting primly in the front, but looking very much like he is one word away from crawling after him and pulling Wei Wuxian into his lap.
“No,” Wei Wuxian says, very firmly. Lan Wangji’s expectant and politely horny expression falls a little bit, and they have a wordless exchange about whether or not they actually need to be having more conversation at this particular moment. Wei Wuxian wins, but it’s a close thing.
Wei Wuxian desperately tries to arrange his thoughts. He’s having a lot of issues forming a sentence for someone who joined MENSA at age fourteen. “So you— you also— Okay, how! When! If you’re in love with me how come you kissed all of our friends but not me?”
“You never asked,” Lan Wangji says, very reasonably.
“Of course I didn’t ask!” Wei Wuxian says. “Why didn’t you say anything?”
Lan Wangji blinks in a tremendously skeptical way that communicates ‘yes, because I’m the one who says things in this partnership’ with perfect clarity.
“Well I wasn’t going to say anything until I knew for sure,” Wei Wuxian hedges. “You— I— Lan Zhan, come on, I’ve been in love with you pretty much the whole time. For years. I just thought you didn’t— Well, more recently, I thought you kind of did, but not— ah! I don’t know.”
Lan Wangji blinks at him in a way that telegraphs absolute astonishment. It’s an expression that on many other people would communicate slight surprise. “You— for years?”
“Yes!” Wei Wuxian says.
“You were always seeing someone else,” Lan Wangji says.
“Because I didn’t think I could have you,” Wei Wuxian says. “Oh, that sounds depressing. It wasn’t like that, it was like, you’re my best friend, you know?”
“Wei Ying, if I had known…” Lan Wangji looks like he’s going to pieces a little bit, in a very staid and controlled kind of way. He looks how he always used to in high school, when he was feeling something too much and had to stutter around it in case it overtook him.
“Ahhh Lan Zhan, no, no, I never told you, I specifically kept it from you, it’s not your fault,” Wei Wuxian says, reaching out for his hand. Lan Wangji allows his hand to be taken, his expression almost desperate, like he’s afraid if he lets Wei Wuxian out of his sight he’s going to disappear into the night never to be seen again.
Wei Wuxian wants him to look how he had when they were kissing, his eyes soft and his mouth warm and slack. “Hey, hey. Don’t look like that,” Wei Wuxian says, squeezing Lan Wangji’s hand. “How was I supposed to guess that your type was, you know, loudmouths with substance abuse issues who don’t know how to operate a mop? Of course I didn’t say anything. I assumed you’d want to date people who match their blacks and like the same weird organic peanut butter you do.”
Lan Wangji frowns at him, but it’s one of his garden variety frowns, one of the good ones.
“What,” Wei Wuxian prompts. “Have you been secretly dating the founder of MaraNatha peanut butter?”
“You know how to operate a mop,” Lan Wangji says instead.
“Wait,” Wei Wuxian says, something about this clicking into place. “Wait, am I actually your type?”
Lan Wangji pointedly does not say anything to this.
“Oh my god,” Wei Wuxian says. “Have you secretly dated like, Wei Wuxian Lite? Diet Wei Wuxian? Oh my god. Am I Diet Wei Wuxian? Are you dating like, Cherry Wei Wuxian and here I am, Wei Wuxian Zero—“
“I am not dating other Wei Wuxians,” Lan Wangji interrupts, but he looks markedly less distressed, which had been most of the point.
“Wait! Wait,” Wei Wuxian says, something dawning on him. “Lan Zhan, do you f*ck?”
“I have had sex before, yes,” Lan Wangji says, with extreme reluctance.
“Nooooo,” Wei Wuxian says. Wei Wuxian is having a mastroshka doll of nesting revelations about Lan Wangji’s sexual preferences. “Oh my god, no, you do. You DO! And you never even told me—“
“When, exactly, would it have been relevant,” Lan Wangji interrupts (interrupts! and does not deny!), looking as dignified as a man ever has while sitting halfway twisted around in the front seat of a sedan.
Wei Wuxian ignores this hopeful little attempt to derail this conversation. “Are you on the apps? I would know if you were on the apps, I would have superliked you. Oh, are you on Hinge? I don’t even know how that one works. Is your profile like ‘Anticapitalist Rabbit Dad seeks lifelong miscreant?’ ‘Hot Librarian ISO romantic hikes and going to bed at 9PM (Not in a Sex Way)?’”
Lan Wangji has cleared his face of expression entirely, his most guilty expression of all. “I think you are confusing Hinge with Lex.”
“Lan Zhan,” Wei Wuxian says. “Please, please, please show me your profile. Please show me. I need to see it. I have to know.”
“You do not,” Lan Wangji says, which just makes Wei Wuxian want to see it more.
“Lan Zhan, I do, I really do. I’ll show you mine,” Wei Wuxian says, and then grins.
“I helped you make your Tinder profile, this is not a fair trade,” Lan Wangji says.
“In many ways, it’s actually a long overdue trade, because I didn’t know you were holding out on me,” Wei Wuxian retorts. They had made his Tinder together, an afternoon that had been, in retrospect, perhaps a bit sexually charged. It had been a lot of Wei Wuxian being like ‘which of these photos says come on my face but also I could build a robot out of two paperclips, a battery, and the contents of my tote bag’ and Lan Wangji, very coolly being like ‘the second one.’ It’s not even fair, because Wei Wuxian doesn’t even really use the apps, he just likes to match with people and brag to Huaisang about how many people superlike him.
“Fine,” Lan Wangji says, with the inflection ‘it’s your funeral.’ It makes Wei Wuxian think he is getting outmaneuvered, which he can’t figure out, because he’d been the one to orchestrate this particular bit.
Before he can sufficiently prepare, Lan Wangji has unleashed his Grindr profile on him. It’s a sunlit mirror selfie of Lan Wangji in only a pair of tidy gray sweatpants, his thumb hooked into the elastic. The effect is somewhere between Hot Kickboxing Instructor and Reprobate f*ckboy. Wei Wuxian can see the entire outline of his co*ck. Wei Wuxian can also see his collar bones, his nipples, and the defined curve of both of his hipbones. Wei Wuxian can see his tattoo. Wei Wuxian has opened his mouth to say something, but what comes out is a wheeze. It’s then that he notices the bio, which reads LWJ 25 you do have to be good.
Wei Wuxian does not experience thoughts so much as he goes full blue screen of death and then begins to make dial up noises. He says the first thing that comes to mind, which is “Lan Zhan, I can not believe you brought Mary Oliver into this.”
Lan Zhan, who is still holding his phone, looks completely unbothered by Wei Wuxian’s minor meltdown. No, that’s not quite it. He looks, only just perceptibly, smug. “I initially considered Li Bai, but could not find a translation I thought preserved the original spirit of the work.”
“Is it okay if I cry? I think I need to cry,” Wei Wuxian says.
“If you feel you must,” Lan Wangji says.
Wei Wuxian doesn’t cry, but he does put his face in his hands and has a very quick scream, which does make him feel better. He glances back up at Lan Wangji, who is giving him an expectant look. “We’re going to have sex later, right?”
“That was my impression, yes,” Lan Wangji says, looking slightly relieved.
It had seemed so plausible that Lan Wangji, despite having dick-reckoning vibes, would be waiting for some like, aquaponics farmer to give him true love’s first kiss. Knowing what he does about the actual situation, Wei Wuxian watches it all come together in his Lan Wangji Thought Simulator: what do you do if you have incredibly horny energy, suffer no fools, don’t enjoy small talk, and are essentially dating your dipsh*t best friend who you are in love with. Obviously it’s f*ck randoms.
“Wow,” Wei Wuxian says. He feels kind of sweaty. He doesn’t think he’s normally this sweaty a person. “So uh, when were you going to tell me about this?”
Lan Wangji locks his phone, removing the lewd from Wei Wuxian’s immediate field of vision. The benefits of this are negligible, because it is seared onto the back of Wei Wuxian’s eyelids. “I had not planned to tell you,” Lan Wangji says. “I did not think I could bear to hear you tease me about it, if you did not want me.”
“Oh god,” Wei Wuxian says, picturing a situation in which Wei Wuxian had stumbled across this information without previously having had Lan Wangji’s tongue in his mouth. “No, yeah, it would have made me insanely jealous and I would have been a total nightmare about it.”
“Mn,” Lan Wangji agrees. “So you are jealous.”
“I won’t be,” Wei Wuxian says, turning on his best and most charming ‘fishing for compliments smile.’ “If you were really pining for me this whole time.”
“Pining,” Lan Wangji repeats skeptically, because he has registered Wei Wuxian’s fishing for compliments grin and prefers to deploy his compliments when Wei Wuxian is caught off guard and most likely to respond by whining and wailing and being overcome.
“Yeah, Lan Zhan, pining,” Wei Wuxian says, warming to it. “I want to know how long, I need details. Oooh, was it when I won that archery tournament? That was very sexy of me. Was it when we went skinny dipping and you saw my plump, gorgeous ass live in living color for the first time and knew you could not rest until you bedded me?”
Lan Wangji is doing that dour little lip twitch he does when he is trying his level best not to be amused by something Wei Wuxian is doing. “No.”
“You’re not going to make me guess, are you? That would be cruel. What if I never got it? What if I wasted away never knowing which of my wiles ensnared you?”
“Wei Ying,” Lan Wangji warns. He used to be so much easier to goad, Wei Wuxian is sure.
“Lan Zhan,” Wei Wuxian wheedles. He does actually want to know. Wei Wuxian has as good as copped to the fact that he’s wanted Lan Wangji since pretty much the moment their AP Chemistry teacher paired them together, mistakenly thinking that serious, studious Lan Wangji would be able to corral him. Day three of their partnership, Lan Wangji had stopped Wei Wuxian from drumming on the table by snatching his pencil and breaking it in half with one hand. It had been awesome. “I’ve been pining for years, Lan Zhan. Years! I saw you cry during that turtle documentary and have been waiting for you to wife me since.”
“Turtle documentary?” Lan Wangji prompts.
“Not important!” Wei Wuxian says. “Did you just find out? Was it tonight? Oh my god, did you kiss me and realize that we were, you know, fated in the stars—“
“Ridiculous,” Lan Wangji says, just like old times. Wei Wuxian hopes he brings back ‘shameless’ next. “I have wanted to sleep with you for longer than we have been friends.”
Wei Wuxian finds himself struck speechless for a good five to ten seconds. “You’re lying,” he finally manages, and Lan Wangji only has to raise his eyebrows almost imperceptibly to communicate ‘we both know that I do not lie.’
It says a lot about the kind of evening that Wei Wuxian has had that this does not instantly send him into a meltdown. “And you really kept that on the low for years, huh? Lan Zhan, I am easy. You know I’m easy. All you had to do was even suggest that you wanted me and I would have instantly put out. I would have called in sick from work just to f*ck you.”
Lan Wangji is looking guilty again. Wei Wuxian wishes he was in a better position to appreciate it. “I did not want to do it if it didn’t mean the same thing to you as it did to me.”
Wei Wuxian can’t believe he was spared Horrible Sad Lan Wangji Monopoly just to be laid low by this. “And tonight?”
Lan Wangji breaks his gaze to stare into the middle distance, which just means he’s going to say something insanely depressing. “A moment of weakness — I saw… an opportunity. I thought… I could convince you.”
“I really, really did not need convincing,” Wei Wuxian says. “I’ve been working up to telling you how I felt for like, two years now.”
“I feel very foolish,” Lan Wangji admits.
“It’s definitely going to be funny later,” Wei Wuxian says, reaching out for his hand. Lan Wangji gives it up easily, squeezing Wei Wuxian’s hand in a way that makes his heart squish. “Like, probably in a week. Jiang Cheng is definitely going to think it’s funny. I think even jiejie is going to think it’s funny.”
“Xichen has been having serious conversations about it with me for ten years,” Lan Wangji says. “He has been obstinate in his conviction that you are interested. He is going to be,” Lan Wangji takes a very long moment to sigh. “Insufferable.”
It’s the idea of Lan Xichen mounting a multi-year campaign to convince Lan Wangji that Wei Wuxian does, in fact, want to f*ck him, that finally propels him into giggles. He nearly spills his McFlurry.
“God, I can’t believe you actually want to date me,” Wei Wuxian says. It’s insane that Lan Zhan has just been waiting patiently for him to quit f*cking around and agree to co-parent bunnies together forever and ever. Unfortunately, everything about this is hilarious. “Jokes on you, Lan Zhan. I’ll have you know I’m very difficult! Many people have insinuated that I’m not as fun to date as one might assume. There are tons of drawbacks. You know I’m banned from the Domino’s, right? And that I’ve like, threatened people with a knife before?”
“You are referring to the boys who were hurting Wen Ning?” Lan Wangji prompts, not thrown at all by this information.
Wei Wuxian nods seriously. “It was not cute, Lan Zhan. Sometimes I forget I’m six feet tall and kinda know how to make a knife look scary. They didn’t forget, but like, I do.”
Lan Wangji just gives him another tranquil nod. Wei Wuxian is rapidly revising his understanding of what exactly it is that Lan Wangji likes about him. “Wen Qing told me. It seemed to me that you had found a way to communicate with them in their own particular brutal vernacular.”
“That is a gorgeous way to put that I threatened to feed Wen Chao his fingers and he fully believed I would,” Wei Wuxian says. It had been, he will admit, very satisfying.
“I assume you would not make needless threats,” Lan Wangji says. Maybe Wei Wuxian is the one who needs reminding that Lan Wangji is the eat ass, skate fast, read books and unionize your workplace librarian.
Lan Wangji is looking at him consideringly. Wei Wuxian and his degree in Lan Wangji studies can identify this as a fairly dangerous expression on him. This is how he usually looks before he just randomly picks Wei Wuxian up or shows him a bunny video he knows is going to send Wei Wuxian to space.
“Did you really want to know?” Lan Wangji asks, in a flat, uninterested way that makes Wei Wuxian think he should probably say no for his own mental safety.
“Yes,” Wei Wuxian says, taking an overzealous bite of his McFlurry and then needing to press his tongue to the roof of his mouth so he stops having a brain freeze. “Know wha?”
“When I knew that I wanted to sleep with you,” Lan Wangji says.
“Oh, yes yes yes, please tell me,” Wei Wuxian says. He knows enough about himself to know that it’s probably going to make him want to scream and knows enough about Lan Wangji to know that it’s probably going to be something completely inexplicable and absolutely hilarious, like a time Wei Wuxian shelved a library book correctly or fell off his skateboard in a parking lot.
“It was in Mr. Cape’s class,” Lan Wangji begins, which is non-sequitur enough.
“Oh f*ck that guy,” Wei Wuxian interrupts. “Sorry, sorry, continue.”
“Indeed,” Lan Wangji agrees. “It was the day we were debating whether gay people should be legally allowed to marry.”
“Oh god,” Wei Wuxian says. Going to school in the oughts really a f*cking trip. “That was the day I got sent to the principal’s office.”
Lan Wangji nods placidly. Wei Wuxian can suddenly see exactly where this is going and he loves it so, so much.
“Lan Zhan, I don’t even think we’d talked to each other then,” Wei Wuxian says, trying and failing not to sound delighted. “I wasn’t even sure if you were in that class.”
“I sat two seats behind you,” Lan Wangji says, with a slight grimace. “The seats were assigned. You were constantly in motion and incredibly distracting. I hated you. Immensely.”
“I bet you did,” Wei Wuxian replies. Mr. C had been the advisor for the Young Republicans Club and had a framed portrait of George Washington over his desk. He ate Jelly Beans because they had famously been Ronald Reagan’s favorite candy. Wei Wuxian had taken one step into that classroom and made it his personal business to ruin that man’s life.
“I did not enjoy those debates,” Lan Wangji says. “But I hated that one in particular, because I was not out, and was afraid to out myself by mounting any kind of argument. Kyle Scanlon had just completed an inarticulate and profoundly hom*ophobic rant and you stood up and—“ Lan Wangji looks, briefly, at a loss for words. “You demolished that man, Wei Ying. You took his argument apart point by point. You’d taken notes. You never took notes.”
“I sometimes took notes,” Wei Wuxian protests weakly, and accepts the quelling look Lan Wangji sends him. It is possible he did not particularly usually take notes.
“And after you finished disputing each of his points, you said—“ Lan Wangji does not complete this sentence. He does not have to.
“How my dick taste, Kyle,” Wei Wuxian finishes solemnly.
“And then you were sent to the principal’s office,” Lan Wangji says.
“And then I was sent to the principal’s office,” Wei Wuxian confirms, almost reverently. It had been a high point in his career of artful misbehavior. Yu-ayi had chewed him out for getting in trouble, and then, after grounding him and taking his phone away had said ‘that boy is a waste of time, just like his mother,’ which was possibly the most she had ever openly supported him. He’s fairly sure it was because Yu-ayi was PTA foes with Mrs. Scanlon, but he took the W where he could. “You thought I was a bad boy, huh? You liked that I was a little delinquent?”
Lan Wangji does his equivalent of rolling his eyes, and then comes out with “you were clever, loud and beautiful. It was.” He presses his lips together. “A problem.”
“Oh my god,” Wei Wuxian says, rather faintly.
Lan Wangji nods somberly.
“Wow,” Wei Wuxian says. “This is a lot to process.” Wei Wuxian absolutely had not known for sure that Lan Wangji was gay back then. Wei Wuxian probably wouldn’t have known that he himself was gay back then, except for the fact that he was assigned gay at high school for being a bit naturally flouncy and friends with a lot of girls. “I thought you hated my guts freshman year. And I thought you were maybe straight until. Well, okay, honestly I had my suspicions, but I didn’t know for absolute certain until you pierced your ear in college and I said ‘which one is the gay ear’ and you said ‘hopefully this one.’ Do you remember that? I had to fake tonsillitis and go home just to freak out about it.”
“Senior year,” Lan Wangji starts, and then stops. “I did think, senior year, that we were going to…”
“Ah,” Wei Wuxian says. He had also thought they were maybe going to, and then Wei Wuxian had gone to ye olde mental hospital for thine very owne psychotic hallucinations and things had gone a little sideways for a while. “And then I was like bye everyone, I’m crazy, see you on the flip flop.”
“So to speak,” Lan Wangji confirms.
“Ugh,” Wei Wuxian says. “You sure you want to date me? It’s seeming like I’m kind of stupid.”
“Against both my better judgment and counsel of my friends and family, I am in love with you and would like to be your boyfriend,” Lan Wangji says, in the self-serious way that means he’s both taking the piss and 100% means it.
“This is great,” Wei Wuxian says. “Aaah, what a good night. This is better than the time jiejie shotgunned a PBR.” Wei Wuxian catalogues Lan Wangji’s perplexed eyebrow tic and clarifies: “She was visiting Jiang Cheng and me at college and we got carried away.”
“Of course,” Lan Wangji allows.
“What now?” Wei Wuxian says. “Should we like, set boundaries? Express needs?”
Lan Wangji nods placidly, and Wei Wuxian gets the distinct sense that he’s being humored. “What are your boundaries.”
“Uhhhh,” Wei Wuxian says, around a mouthful of ice cream. “Well, honestly. Hmmm. No, huh, I don’t really have any. Do you have any?”
Lan Wangji seems to dither on this point for a moment. “I would like to be exclusive, if you are interested in that.”
“Oh ho,” Wei Wuxian says. Yes the f*ck he would be interested in that. Be nice, he thinks, and then chooses violence. “You don’t want to share me, gege? Want to keep me all to yourself?”
Lan Wangji is giving him a look like ‘if you care about having this discussion right now you better stop trying to tempt me into shutting you up with my dick.’ It’s a great look. Wei Wuxian suddenly doesn’t give a single f*ck about this discussion. They can have it later, after Wei Wuxian has gotten railed, possibly in the backseat of Lan Wangji’s car.
“I’m not sure you’d be up for it,” Wei Wuxian says, leaning forward. He only resists twirling a strand of hair around his finger because it seems like overkill. “I demand a lot, you know. I wouldn’t want to wear you out trying to keep me satisfied.”
Lan Wangji has never looked less impressed, which Wei Wuxian just knows is a horny expression for him.
“You think you could ruin me for anyone else?” Wei Wuxian says, taking another mouthful of ice cream and sucking on the weird plastic spoon in a way he hopes is highly erotic. “You know, if we’re exclusive, you could f*ck me raw whenever you wanted. I could be naked in your bed when you get home, waiting for you with a plug in.”
Lan Wangji gives him a long, appraising look, before facing forward and turning the car back on. “Put your seatbelt on.”
“Lan Zhan!” Wei Wuxian protests. “What are you—“
“Seatbelt. I will not ask a third time,” Lan Wangji repeats, putting the car in reverse and backing out of the parking space. “I am expressing needs. I have been told it’s very important in discussions.”
“What about my needs?” Wei Wuxian asks, buckling his seatbelt with a fair amount of attitude. “Get back here and take my virginity, you coward.”
Lan Wangji ignores this blatant grab for his attention, flicking his turn signal on. “I have been trying to for at least twenty minutes now. Touch yourself, please. I’d like you hard when we get home.”
Wei Wuxian chokes on his ice cream and then has to spend the next minute and a half coughing. Once he’s processed the first half of the sentence, he has a very contained meltdown about Lan Wangji saying ‘home’ as if they both live there, together. “Lan Zhan! Who taught you to talk like this!”
“You,” Lan Wangji says, adjusting the rearview mirror so he can better see Wei Wuxian in it. “Has anyone ever told you that you do not take direction well.”
Wei Wuxian has absolutely never in his life had someone respond to his teasing by being like ‘ok, sure.’ “Oh you mean - you really meant it? You mean right now?”
“If you’re not busy,’” Lan Wangji says. He’s using his bitchy voice.
Wei Wuxian makes a punctured balloon noise. He’s elated that he was so, so right about Lan Wangji being kind of a freak. “And where am I supposed to put my McFlurry?” he hedges, somewhat weakly.
“I presume you are capable of touching yourself with one hand,” Lan Wangji says, as if none of this is of consequence to him, even though Wei Wuxian can see him driving a bold and salacious nine miles over the speed limit. “Unless you’re too much of a pillow princess to manage even this simple task.”
Wei Wuxian decides that it’s actually fine if this is how he dies: dick in one hand, McFlurry in the other. “I can not f*cking believe that you’re like this,” Wei Wuxian says, and palms himself through his jeans. Lan Wangji just hums in acknowledgement, looking incredibly satisfied.
Wei Wuxian gets hard astonishingly quickly. He’s realizing that his multi-year campaign to try and fluster Lan Wangji has made him the only person in the entire world who is immune to Wei Wuxian’s whole thing.
Worse still, he has a very good look at Lan Wangji’s cheek from here - soft-looking and slightly flushed. He desperately wants to drag the head of his co*ck across it on the way to Lan Wangji’s mouth. The thought nearly pulls a whimper out of him.
Swallowed as it is, Lan Wangji notices it. “You may be loud, if you would like,” he says, as casual as anything.
Wei Wuxian makes a noise then, his breath catching in his chest when they pull up to a red light and Lan Wangji glances up at him in the rearview mirror, just one split second of his attention.
“Do you normally touch yourself through your jeans,” Lan Wangji asks, once he’s returned his eyes to the road.
“Not normally, no,” Wei Wuxian manages. He doesn’t normally touch himself in the backseat of Lan Wangji’s car either, but there’s apparently a first time for everything.
“Then why are you doing so now,” Lan Wangji says.
“You want me to— Seriously? You’re serious.” Wei Wuxian glances out the window at the car waiting next to them at the red light, then back at Lan Wangji. His ears are very pink, but he still looks astonishingly serene, all things considered. “What if someone sees?”
“You seemed very confident earlier that I would not be able to handle you for someone acting so shy now,” Lan Wangji says.
“Well I didn’t know you were going to be like this,” Wei Wuxian protests, but he does what he’s told and gets his co*ck out. His weirdly specific fantasies hadn’t properly accounted for the fact that Lan Wangji is a ruthless overachiever and something of a sad*st. He doesn’t know how he’d failed to take the sadism into account. It’s probably because in many other ways, Lan Wangji is a very nice young man, who is patient with like, babies and small animals. It occurs to Wei Wuxian, with an erotic sense of foreboding, that he is neither a baby nor a small animal.
Despite having specifically requested it, Lan Wangji is mostly ignoring the fact that Wei Wuxian has his dick out in the backseat. Wei Wuxian wriggles and tilts his head back, letting his legs fall open, then checks to see if Lan Wangji is looking, which he is not. Wei Wuxian knows from experience that simply requesting that Lan Wangji look at him is not the way to go about this. He moves his hand a little faster over his co*ck, putting on a performance of little breathy noises and choked-off moans, fixing his eyes on the mirror to catch Lan Wangji when he sneaks a glance back.
What he’s intending to do is attract Lan Wangji’s attention, but what he’s actually doing is working himself up. Effecting a little show of wantonness usually gets him results much faster than this. He feels flushed and melty at the edges, slightly humiliated by how into it he’s getting and all the more into it for the sharp tug of the humiliation.
At a red light that seems to take forever to arrive, Lan Wangji cuts him a cool, appraising look that communicates to Wei Wuxian that Lan Wangji knows he’s being loud on purpose and that it’s not going to work, even a little bit. It’s not quite a disdainful look, but it’s relative enough that it actually does draw a whimper out of him.
Wei Wuxian experiences a vivid highlight reel of all the times he’s been privy to Lan Wangji’s expression of disdain, most recently in the recounting of a book recommendation from the coworker whose book opinions he thinks are trash. It’s a profoundly appealing look on him.
“Hey can I—“ Wei Wuxian starts. “Can I come? I think—“
“No,” Lan Wangji says, sounding, if anything, slightly disappointed in him for asking. Which is so rude, because it’s his fault that Wei Wuxian is so turned on he thinks he might cry.
“But I asked!” Wei Wuxian says, making eye contact with the ceiling in hopes of distracting himself from how close he is. This has all escalated very quickly. It can’t have been more than ten minutes. He needs to get it together.
“Mn,” Lan Wangji acknowledges, which is still a no.
“Okay,” Wei Wuxian squeaks, and takes a fortifying breath. He can feel, deep within himself, the desperate, writhing desire to beg. He wants to whine and cry and have Lan Wangji put his big hand over Wei Wuxian’s mouth and tell him exactly where he can be and when. The feeling has him by the throat, leaving him breathless and at a loose end, so far from Lan Wangji even in the warm enclosure of the car.
“Wei Ying,” Lan Wangji says. “We are almost home. If you can not wait now, you will wait longer later.”
Wei Wuxian gnaws on his bottom lip. He can wait. If Lan Zhan wants him to, he can. He can’t keep his eyes off of Lan Wangji or his hands still, even though he’s not allowed to actually tease himself over the edge. He touches himself so leisurely that it barely helps, listening to the murmur of classical music and watching Lan Wangji’s hands on the steering wheel, waiting for Lan Wangji to glance appraisingly back at him.
He’s still wearing Wei Wuxian’s spiked collar, which Wei Wuxian thinks he should be allowed to keep. Wei Wuxian has clearly not been doing it justice. Lan Wangji should wear it to work and mystify all of the elderly patrons. Wei Wuxian has never been so captivated by the back of someone’s neck — the place where his crisp dress shirt bumps up against the buckle of the collar, the downy hairs that have escaped his ponytail. He’s so put together that it’s even more satisfying when he gets rumpled. Once, Lan Wangji had come in out of the rain soaking wet and frustrated by it and Wei Wuxian had respectfully jerked off about it for like 3 weeks straight.
Lan Wangji brings the car to a complete stop, puts an arm behind the passenger side headrest, and twists in his seat so he can give Wei Wuxian a once over. He keeps his face indifferent for what feels like too long, before giving Wei Wuxian a quick, approving nod and then executing a painfully competent parallel parking job.
Wei Wuxian feels a little hazy as Lan Wangji turns off the car and gets out, presumably to finally come take Wei Wuxian’s virginity in the backseat. Wei Wuxian sucks in a few uneven breaths and tries to gather himself, a task that he’s finding himself not entirely equal to. It takes longer than it should for him to realize that Lan Wangji is waiting for him to follow instead of coming into the back to ravish him.
Wei Wuxian has never felt less in charge of his own body. f*cking Lan Zhan. What a weird, sexy man. Wei Wuxian removes his hand from his co*ck and takes a few centering breaths. It’s probably better that their first time isn’t going to take place entirely in the back of a sedan. There are things beds have that sedans don’t, like leg room and pillows. Plus, if he can get his limbs to work long enough to get himself into Lan Wangji’s aggressively tidy apartment, he can probably make Lan Wangji take his shirt off.
Lan Wangji taps a knuckle on the window, his face impassive. Wei Wuxian gives him a pleading look, trying to communicate as succinctly as he can that he’s a little overwhelmed and can’t really figure out what he’s supposed to do with his half-melted McFlurry. Lan Wangji acknowledges this with a nod, before disappearing around the back of the car, which is not what Wei Wuxian had been hoping for at all.
Wei Wuxian is weighing the pros and cons of either A. calling Lan Wangji and demanding he come back and take responsibility or B. just jerking off by himself in the backseat, sexy consequences be damned, when Lan Wangji opens the door and slides in next to him. Expression carefully neutral, Lan Wangji takes Wei Wuxian’s McFlurry and places it in a cupholder, proffering a large black hoodie that Wei Wuxian recognizes as his own.
“You’re mean,” Wei Wuxian says reverently, reaching for Lan Wangji and immediately getting his wrist caught for his trouble.
Lan Wangji nods pleasantly, then leans in to kiss Wei Wuxian’s cheek, his tongue darting out to taste the flushed skin. “If I let go of your wrist, will you be good?”
Wei Wuxian, tilting his head back to give Lan Wangji better access to his neck, gives this question the careful consideration it deserves. “What will you do if I’m not?”
“It is not optional,” Lan Wangji says, settling Wei Wuxian’s hand back down by his thighs.
“Okay,” Wei Wuxian says stupidly, letting Lan Wangji brush kisses against his cheek and gripping the inside of his thigh for dear life. Lan Wangji spends a few pleasant, foggy minutes mouthing down his neck, one hand clasped in a proprietary way on Wei Wuxian’s hip.
Lan Wangji eventually pulls back to tuck a strand of Wei Wuxian’s hair back behind his ear, then kisses his cheek again. “I did not expect you to be this easy,” Lan Wangji says, holding out the hoodie for him.
“Well that’s on you,” Wei Wuxian says. He gets the hoodie on with a fair amount of dignity for someone who feels as if his bones have been replaced with gummy worms. He tucks himself back into his boxers, pulls the hoodie down over himself and lifts his hips up enough to get his jeans as on as they’re going to get. The overall effect is somehow appealingly demeaning and he hopes that Lan Wangji appreciates it. Judging by the intent, somewhat predatory way that Lan Wangji is watching him, Wei Wuxian feels that he probably does.
Lan Wangji has hands on him as soon as he’s managed to get himself situated, wrapping his hand around the back of Wei Wuxian’s head and tugging experimentally on his ponytail. Wei Wuxian makes a guttural noise he is not proud of and chokes out “you should cut that out if you want to get me inside.”
“You were getting too coherent,” Lan Wangji says, but mercifully brings his hands back to Wei Wuxian’s elbows.
They get up to the apartment, but the mechanics of it are somewhat lost on Wei Wuxian. He’s cognizant of stumbling into Lan Wangji’s arms as he gets out of the car, being very thoroughly kissed against the car door, and then trailing Lan Wangji up the walk. There’s brief reprieve as they get themselves inside the apartment and then Wei Wuxian catches Lan Wangji’s gaze and he’s beside himself with giggles in the entryway, too giddy to untie his own shoes.
Lan Wangji removes his coat, Wei Wuxian’s collar, and then his own boots, limned by the orange light coming in through the picture windows. He treats Wei Wuxian to the smallest quirk of his beautiful lips. It’s the best.
“Ah, Lan Zhan, will you untie my boots for me?” Wei Wuxian says, collapsing against the wall next to the coat hooks. He blinks mournfully at Lan Wangji. “I can’t do it. I really can’t.”
Lan Wangji’s expression tilts ever so slightly unimpressed as he drops his keys in the key bowl. He would be doing an unimpeachable impression of unflappability if he hadn’t also forgotten to turn on the hall light.
“I’ll be good if you do,” Wei Wuxian says, like a liar. “You won’t even believe it’s me I’ll be so good.”
“Will you?” Lan Wangji asks, giving him a considering look.
“Yes,” Wei Wuxian promises. Lan Wangji knows better than to believe him when he says things like this, so it doesn’t even really count as a lie.
“Mn,” Lan Wangji says, and then drops to one knee and makes quick work of Wei Wuxian’s laces.
“f*ck,” Wei Wuxian says. Lan Wangji looks very pretty on his knees. It’s a devastating angle for him.
Lan Wangji gets his boots untied as promised, and then leans in to press his forehead against Wei Wuxian’s thigh, just breathing. Wei Wuxian reaches down to fit his hand over the crown of his head, holding him there. “Look at you.”
Lan Wangji nudges his head up into Wei Wuxian’s touch, an impossible sweetness, then goes up on his knees so his mouth is at Wei Wuxian’s stomach, big hands rucking up his hoodie and holding him steady.
“Oh god, Lan Zhan, are you going to—“ Wei Wuxian murmurs, as Lan Wangji presses kisses just above his waistband, teasing him.
“You will wait,” Lan Wangji murmurs against his skin, neither letting up nor going further. Wei Wuxian can feel himself leaking in his boxers, a desperate ache that Lan Wangji’s warm mouth is only making worse. “Take off your shirt.”
Wei Wuxian nearly gets himself stuck in his eagerness to comply. He means to be putting up more of a fuss, but he can’t think of any good reason to be a brat about Lan Wangji requesting he get more naked. “Now you,” Wei Wuxian says, and Lan Wangji huffs a breath in a way that would be a laugh from anyone else.
“Lan Zhan,” Wei Wuxian whines. Lan Wangji ignores him, pulling back to shift Wei Wuxian’s jeans back down his thighs and fitting his palm over Wei Wuxian’s erection, gaze fixed on Wei Wuxian’s face as he does. It’s a negligible amount of pressure, particularly with a layer of fabric between them. Lan Wangji doesn’t seem to be trying to get him off so much as reminding him how hard he is. “Lan Zhan, come on, please.”
Lan Wangji looks pleased first by this request and then by Wei Wuxian’s entreating hip movements for more touch. “Impatient,” he says, somewhere between a chastisem*nt and a compliment.
“Yes,” Wei Wuxian agrees, running his thumb across Lan Wangji’s hairline, smoothing back the few soft hairs that have escaped. “I am, you got me.”
Lan Wangji makes a contented nose, looking unbearably satisfied by all of this. His gaze is heavy on Wei Wuxian’s face, watching the way his expression moves as he’s touched. He’s always liked the weight of his eyes on him, Lan Wangji’s regard so much like a tether.
“Lan Zhan, are you going to suck me off in your doorway,” Wei Wuxian asks, hitching his hips forward into Lan Wangji’s hand. “I won’t be able to be normal about this entryway ever again if you suck my dick here. You’ll have me over for like, I don’t know, movie night, and I’ll need to have a whole horny crisis about it every time.”
Lan Wangji listens to this very soberly. “Would it help if I promised to suck your dick in the other rooms as well. So the entryway would not pose such a difficulty.”
“I— well— That’s,” Wei Wuxian says. “Does that mean you’re going to suck me off in your entryway?”
“Not at present,” Lan Wangji says, his hand movements never tipping past a constant and deliberate tease. Wei Wuxian has never been so aware of how much Lan Wangji makes being both thorough and patient into an art form.
“You can’t tease me all night,” Wei Wuxian says, and he means it to be a declarative statement but it comes out a little more desperately than he means it to.
“I could,” Lan Wangji says, shifting his thumb very deliberately over the sensitive place on the underside of Wei Wuxian’s co*ck. “I’ve thought about it.”
“Oh,” Wei Wuxian says. “You have?”
“Mn.”
“What else do you think about?” Wei Wuxian asks, letting his hand drift so his knuckles brush Lan Wangji’s cheek, at the place where his blush starts. It’s making him crazy that Lan Wangji has such a filthy mouth and his ears are just as pink as they’d been the first day Wei Wuxian had ever teased him.
For a moment, Wei Wuxian doesn’t think Lan Wangji is going to respond at all, and then Lan Wangji has stood up to kiss him. It’s a deep, lingering kiss, Lan Wangji’s mouth open and insistent against his own, pulling Wei Wuxian in with a hand around the back of his neck.
There’s something helpless in his gaze when Lan Wangji pulls back, his mouth spit-slick and beautiful. When he speaks, it seems to be with difficulty. “Everything,” he says. “I think about everything, Wei Ying.”
“Oh,” Wei Wuxian says, startled into speaking. “You love me.”
Lan Wangji ducks his head in a very contained, earnest nod.
“Oh,” Wei Wuxian says, softer, as it really hits him.
Lan Wangji nods again, the most serious man Wei Wuxian has ever known.
“Come here,” Wei Wuxian says, grabbing for him and pressing them together, sighing deep when Lan Wangji folds into him. “Sweetheart, come here.”
The next kiss is messier, like whatever control Lan Wangji had held over the situation is fraying through. His hands are on Wei Wuxian’s hips and then at his neck, his shoulders. Wei Wuxian has one arm around Lan Wangji’s waist and the other up in his hair, pulling the elastic out of his ponytail so his hair falls at his cheekbones. They’re grinding against each other and Wei Wuxian can feel how hard Lan Wangji is, how much he’s wanted. Lan Wangji grabs Wei Wuxian by the base of his ponytail and pulls, chasing the moan this draws out of him with his mouth.
Wei Wuxian holds Lan Wangji’s body flush to his and tries to get off against his thigh, too overwhelmed to do anything but cling to him. He makes a wordless, desperate noise when Lan Wangji pulls away from him, and another when Lan Wangji flips him around and presses his chest to the wall. The wall is cool against his chest and the palms of his hands, catching his breath as Lan Wangji presses him to it, his body warm and sure.
“Why do you— why—“ Wei Wuxian begins, faltering as Lan Wangji kisses up his neck and brings his hands up to wrap around Wei Wuxian’s wrists, pinning him completely.
“Mn,” Lan Wangji prompts, rolling his hips, which isn’t helping Wei Wuxian articulate himself at all.
“You’re wearing so many clothes,” Wei Wuxian manages to finish, which just makes Lan Wangji do his nearly silent huff of a laugh again. “Will you please touch me.”
“I will,” Lan Wangji says, rocking his stiff co*ck against Wei Wuxian’s ass and biting down hard on the meat of his shoulder. Wei Wuxian presses back into him, trying to tug his hands free and feeling a heady rush at the realization that he can’t, even if he’d wanted to.
Despite being absolutely positive it’s not going to get him what he wants, Wei Wuxian begs. It’s mostly Lan Zhan’s name and the word please and all it gets him is a ragged exhale and what will be a deep bruise at the place his shoulder meets his neck.
Once Wei Wuxian has been completely turned into a non-newtonian fluid, Lan Wangji releases him from the wall to unbutton his shirt. Wei Wuxian turns to watch in glassy-eyed fascination as Lan Wangji sets it on his perfectly clean countertop, then removes his undershirt as well. He does that stupid hot guy thing where he takes it off by pulling it off in one swift motion from the back of the collar, which is so f*cking rude, because it’s a douchey move and he makes it look kind of orderly and efficient. Wei Wuxian is literally crying blood about it.
Lan Wangji lets him observe this immaculate striptease and then, before Wei Wuxian can so much as press a palm to one of his perfect pectorals, turns and walks in the direction of his bedroom. He tosses “come on,” over his shoulder. Wei Wuxian catches a glimpse of his tattoo.
“Why do we keep moving,” Wei Wuxian complains with feeling, only tripping over his own feet once as he trails Lan Wangji to the bedroom. Perhaps because they’re coasting on about ten years of unresolved sexual tension, Wei Wuxian can count the number of times he’s been in Lan Wangji’s bedroom on one hand. It’s as pristine as the rest of his house, done in soft blues and the occasional downy gray, his mother’s dark wood vanity and dresser set up against the wall. It smells like Lan Zhan and the fancy incense he likes. Wei Wuxian is absolutely thrilled that he’s finally in Lan Wangji’s tasteful, formerly forbidden bedroom so that they can f*ck. It has a ‘final boss battle’ kind of vibe about it.
“This is our last location,” Lan Wangji says, sitting Wei Wuxian down at the edge of the bed and tapping his thigh.“Take these off. Your underwear as well.”
Wei Wuxian does pride himself on being a brat. He thinks he is fairly good at it and that many people enjoy it and that furthermore, it makes him feel nasty and cute. He opens his mouth to try and mount some kind of performance of affront or disobedience, lifting his hand to, who knows, use it in some way. Lan Wangji watches him deliberate on this with a cool-eyed interest, one hand held behind his back as he waits.
“Now,” Lan Wangji prompts, when Wei Wuxian has spent too long deliberating.
“And if I don’t?” Wei Wuxian asks. “Will you make me?”
Lan Wangji undoes his belt, holding Wei Wuxian’s gaze as he does. “It is up to you whether or not you’d like to come tonight.”
Wei Wuxian holds his gaze and reaches for his own co*ck, feeling it like a bright rush of victory as Lan Wangji grabs him by the ponytail and wrenches his head back. The pain pulls everything tight in him, a blissful beat of tension until Lan Wangji lets him go. It takes him a few long seconds to swim back up into his mind, his co*ck aching between his legs and his hands briefly unfamiliar to him.
Lan Wangji looks both very stern and like he’s trying to hide how pleased he is with this reaction. “You will recall I do not ask for things a third time.”
Wei Wuxian opens his mouth, perhaps to beg, and Lan Wangji pulls on his hair again so that the only thing that comes out of Wei Wuxian’s mouth is a weak moan. Lan Wangji finally releases him, stepping back one careful step and kneeling at Wei Wuxian’s feet. Wei Wuxian realizes with astonishing clarity that he has no idea if Lan Wangji is bluffing about not letting him come. At some later date, perhaps, he would like to find out.
Lan Wangji watches with ill-concealed tenderness and amusem*nt as Wei Wuxian struggles to get out of his very tight jeans from a sitting position.
“Quit looking so smug,” Wei Wuxian complains, finally extricating his ankle and whipping his jeans out of the way. “Look at you, you’re so pleased with yourself. You’re going to be unbearable after this aren’t you?”
Lan Wangji nods. He waits patiently for Wei Wuxian to settle back on the bed to his satisfaction, then moves between Wei Wuxian’s legs and takes his co*ck into his mouth. Wei Wuxian immediately revises his earlier opinion. Lan Wangji can be as smug and unbearable as he wants as long as he sucks Wei Wuxian to completion. He looks so good in the low light, his eyes half-lidded and mouth soft and open. He sets a leisurely pace, a hand resting on Wei Wuxian’s thigh and his tongue making slow circles across the head.
Wei Wuxian is so wound up it would sincerely not matter to him whether Lan Wangji had any kind of technique at all, which is why it takes him so long to figure out that Lan Wangji is very subtly edging him. He’ll take him deep and hollow out his cheeks and then, as soon as Wei Wuxian thinks he might be close, pull off to kiss the crease of his thigh or lick slowly up his shaft.
“It’s like—” Wei Wuxian tries, squeezing the wrist Lan Wangji has resting on his thigh. “It’s like you, ah, enjoy torturing me.”
Lan Wangji hums his affirmative around Wei Wuxian’s co*ck.
Wei Wuxian very seriously considers grabbing Lan Wangji by the back of the neck and trying to hold him in place so he stops pulling off to suck against Wei Wuxian’s inner thighs. Given the rest of the night’s events, he thinks he probably shouldn’t play stupid games if he doesn’t want to win stupid prizes. “Lan Zhan, Lan Zhan, my love, you can’t do this to me, you can’t.”
Lan Wangji nips at Wei Wuxian’s thigh in acknowledgement and then wraps his free hand firmly around Wei Wuxian’s co*ck, still slick with his own spit. This time, Wei Wuxian tries to trap Lan Wangji using his knees. Lan Wangji just catches his thighs and spreads his legs further, giving him a skeptical look. It’s possible that by giving Lan Wangji a hard time, Wei Wuxian is just prolonging his agonies.
“Lan Zhan, gege, please,” Wei Wuxian whines, sinking back on his elbows on the bed. He presses up into Lan Wangji’s hand with a broken hitch of breath. “Ah, you’re killing me, you’re so mean.”
Lan Wangji ignores this completely, giving Wei Wuxian’s co*ck two slow strokes, which Wei Wuxian desperately tries to chase with his hips. If Lan Wangji would just—
“Desperate,” Lan Wangji admonishes, going down on him again. Wei Wuxian lets his head tip back and quits fighting him on it. If Lan Wangji wants to play with his co*ck until he forgets his name, birthday, and social security number, Wei Wuxian both can not and will not stop him.
Lan Wangji works him up to the brink three more times, waiting him out with an unmoving hand wrapped around the base of his co*ck and a soft mouth pressed to his stomach, his ribs, the inside of his thigh. Lan Wangji’s mouth and hands are so gentle and deliberate. He murmurs praise to him each time, mostly his name said like an endearment.
Wei Wuxian feels wound so tight he’s not sure if he’s going to come or burst into tears, dimly aware of sweat gathering in the small of his back, his hands tangled in the duvet. He’s being too loud, he can hear himself being too loud, unable to close his mouth or keep himself from whimpering. He’d asked, he’s being given it, and he’ll take it as slowly or as quickly as Lan Zhan wants to give it to him. He’ll get off whether he does anything about it or not, snared on that certainty, the torture of waiting for it some kind of relief.
When he does finally come, it feels like finally going all the way underwater on a hot day, everything gone liquid and quiet within him. It takes him ages to catch his breath, each aftershock its own small abyss. He feels half-drunk and delighted by the whole thing, in no hurry to do anything but collapse flat against the bed and wriggle awareness back into his limbs. He’s aware of Lan Wangji moving next to him, the dip of the bed as Lan Wangji lays down at his side, his hand brushing Wei Wuxian’s hair out of his face, cupping his jaw.
Wei Wuxian nudges into his touch, trying to trap Lan Wangji’s hand between his chin and shoulder. He only opens his eyes when he realizes Lan Wangji has taken his hand away, glancing over to find him completely naked and jerking himself off, his co*ck big and pretty in his fist. Wei Wuxian reaches for it, articulating this motion with a needy sound that seems to go through Lan Wangji like a physical thing.
Lan Wangji guides Wei Wuxian’s hand to his co*ck, shifting their bodies closer together so Wei Wuxian can jerk him off. Wei Wuxian buries his face in Lan Wangji’s neck as Lan Wangji shudders under the touch. It’s nice, touching him, listening to the way Lan Wangji’s breathing changes when Wei Wuxian’s grip gets a bit firm, how he lists towards Wei Wuxian like he can’t help himself.
Lan Wangji goes completely quiet when he comes, so still underneath Wei Wuxian’s hand and shaking a little when he’s done. He pulls Wei Wuxian into his chest with a hand on his lower back, tucking his face into his hair. Wei Wuxian spends a good five minutes trying to squirm as close to Lan Wangji as he possibly can, feeling momentarily satisfied with where he’s ended up, and then trying again for a better, closer position. It’s only after about the third re-arrangement that he regains feeling in his legs and becomes fully cognizant of the fact that they’re both hanging a bit off the bed.
“Lan Zhan,” Wei Wuxian mumbles. “That was really good.”
“Mn,” Lan Wangji says, smugly.
“I can’t believe this whole time I thought you were just a very sexy virgin,” Wei Wuxian says, patting him lovingly on the shoulder.
“Ridiculous,” Lan Wangji says.
“Yeah, yeah, you showed me,” Wei Wuxian says. “Ah Lan Zhan, you know, do you know the guy— I think he was French. He released all of those orbees into his bathroom and destroyed like, the whole town? They were just finding orbees everywhere after that? Just like— just annihilated the infrastructure? That’s how I feel about you, right now, I think, with the orbees.”
Lan Wangji pulls back to blink down at him. “This is a good thing?” he says, in such an immaculate, skeptical deadpan that Wei Wuxian is positive he’s being made fun of.
Wei Wuxian can not believe that he spent so long not actively kissing this man. He rectifies this again, thoroughly. He has a lot of kissing to make up for, and Lan Wangji is such a good kisser.
Eventually, Wei Wuxian gets sick of having his feet hanging off the edge of the bed and extricates himself, scooting up to take advantage of Lan Wangji’s very soft pillow collection. It’s really the perfect vantage point from which to watch Lan Wangji walk around the room.
“Lan Zhan,” Wei Wuxian says, getting under Lan Wangji’s covers, which are vastly superior to his own Target children’s section space sheets in quality and vastly inferior in design. “Should we go on a date?”
Lan Wangji, who is spot-cleaning come off of his bedspread with spit and a tissue, raises an eyebrow, as if to indicate ‘what, right now?’ It is a novelty Wei Wuxian is really trying to appreciate.
“You already have plans to come over three nights this week,” Lan Wangji says, then pauses to give him a conspiratorial look. “Would you also like to go to the rabbit petting place this weekend. As our first date.”
“Keep your voice down, Bichen and Vantablack can’t know we see other rabbits,” Wei Wuxian says. He f*cking loves the bunny petting place. It’s called Snugglebunny and he thinks it’s very funny to pretend to forget the name and force Lan Wangji to say ‘Snugglebunny’ in his very serious voice. Lan Wangji does not think this bit is funny.
“I will not say it,” Lan Wangji says, and leaves the bedroom while Wei Wuxian shouts down the hall about how he wants to look up the hours and make them an appointment but he just can’t remember what it’s called, does Lan Zhan remember what it’s called, can he please help his poor boyfriend remember, his memory is so, so bad.
Lan Wangji returns with a glass of water and Wei Wuxian’s phone, which he’d left in his jacket pocket.
“You are receiving messages,” Lan Wangji says, joining Wei Wuxian under the covers. Wei Wuxian accepts the glass of water, opens up his phone, and asserts himself immediately back into Lan Wangji’s space.
Tucked into Lan Wangji’s side while he frowns at his Twitter timeline, Wei Wuxian opens his messages. They are as follows:
JIEJIE 💖💖💖💖💖💖:
11:42 XIANXIAN
YOU FORGOT TO TAKE LEFTOVERS ☹️😢😢😢😢
☹️!!!!!!!
12:00
[photo of three stacked takeout boxes]
come over tomorrow! I packed them up for you! 💜💜
tell Wangji I have a box for him as well
Huaisang 😈🥂💓:
11:45 hey
u should spit on the dick he likes it sloppy 💦💦
11:46 don’t say I told u. thats it good luck love uuu
Wen Q💉ng:
11:50 don’t be a puss*
12:35 let me know if you need anything
even if its stupid
love you
Jiang Cheng 🤡:
12:50 yo u left ur keys jsyk
if u need to be let in dont make it after two im tired
i can not believe ur not f*cking lan wangji
obviously i dont approve
but low key whats wrong with you
12:53 if you’d read that book I gave you about communication and emotional honesty this would not be happening
u can still borrow it if u want
12:55 ughhhhhh ok if it goes bad i will come let you in even its after two
do NOT sleep in the bushes again
12:56 but ugggghhhhh u know
Wei Wuxian briefly considers sending a mass text that just reads ‘special announcement: we frucked’ but thinks only Nie Huaisang would find it funny. He settles for sending jiejie “my BOYFRIEND and I will come by for leftovers tomorrow!!!!! 🥰🥰🥰 ” sending Nie Huaisang “thank you for your wisdom dick-laoshi” and sending Wen Qing “touchdown confirmed, wei ying is safely on the surface of mars 😎 love u.” He sends Jiang Cheng “now we’ve both touched Lan Zhan’s dick” and receives “I am blocking you” back in record time.
Lan Wangji has given up on browsing twitter to play with Wei Wuxian’s hair, which means that Wei Wuxian is also done with his phone for the night. There’s a little ticker tape going in his brain broadcasting ‘Lan Wangji Is Your Boyfriend’ on repeat. It’s all very exciting.
What’s nice about it, is that Wei Wuxian loves going home from parties with Lan Wangji anyway. He loves being given his requisite glass of water and borrowing Lan Wangji’s sweatpants and curling up on his improbably big couch and watching How It’s Made and listening to the bunnies snuffle around in their hutch until he falls asleep, knowing Lan Wangji is asleep one room over. He likes how Lan Wangji is actually not a morning person, he just starts his morning so early that by the time any sane person gets up he’s gotten dressed and had his tea and is doing a gorgeous job of passing as one. It’s like, yeah, this is what it’s all about, probably.
He narrates some of this out loud to Lan Wangji, who has removed his scrunchie and has repositioned them so that he can work the tangles out of Wei Wuxian’s hair.
“I am a morning person,” Lan Wangji says, then, “the best part of the morning is the quiet.”
“That feels very pointed,” Wei Wuxian says, and receives a kiss to the top of his head in reply. “Someone claiming that they love their loud and obnoxious boyfriend might consider their words next time they claim to like quiet.”
“You are fishing for compliments,” Lan Wangji says placidly, his fingers sure and gentle on Wei Wuxian’s head.
“Oh, that’s a crime now? Now that we’re dating I’m not allowed to fish for compliments? Even though I am very beautiful and so easy to compliment?” Wei Wuxian asks.
“May I braid your hair,” Lan Wangji asks, instead of dignifying this with a response.
Wei Wuxian nearly yanks his own hair out whipping around to look at him. “First of all, yes you may. Second of all, since when do you know how to braid?”
Lan Wangji’s face does something soft and miniscule. “Muqin taught me.”
Wei Wuxian has a sudden, crisp recollection of some of the old pictures Lan Wangji has shown him of his mother, in which she has a single, long braid falling over her shoulder. The thought of her teaching a tiny Lan Zhan how to braid hair is almost too much to contemplate.
“Ohhhhh no, Lan Zhan, that’s too sweet, that’s really too much,” Wei Wuxian says, as Lan Wangji works out the last of his tangles and gathers his hair up to begin braiding it. He resists the urge to lean back into Lan Wangji’s arms because he knows this will mess up the braid. “How old were you?”
“I don’t remember,” Lan Wangji says, dividing his hair into thirds. His hands are very gentle. “Very young. I would braid her hair some nights before she went to bed. It made me feel very grown up, to be asked.”
“That’s so sweet,” Wei Wuxian says, feeling the familiar tug of Lan Wangji pulling the first few sections of hair into the braid. He thinks he could probably talk Lan Wangji into doing this every night and that he probably wouldn’t even have to wheedle for it. “You’re so good, too good, the best, what did I do to deserve you, huh?”
Lan Wangji hums behind him like he’s giving this question careful consideration. He is quiet for just a beat too long. “You wanted to be my best friend. No one had ever wanted to be my best friend before.”
Wei Wuxian would have thought that at some point he would develop immunity to Lan Wangji dropping insane sh*t like this on him without warning, but they’re like ten years running and he’s still struck speechless. “Don’t be silly, of course I wanted to be your best friend, Lan Zhan, not— no one? No, Lan Zhan.”
“You know this,” Lan Wangji says, like it’s no particularly big thing. “I was very lonely after we moved here.”
Wei Wuxian had known this, but it makes him sad to think about. His first reaction to Lan Wangji - small, controlled, stuck up Lan Wangji - had been an adoration so complete that he’d devoted himself to nothing but begging for his attention until Lan Wangji had broken down and became his best friend. He knows this is not how most people responded to teen Lan Wangji, particularly in the horrible wilds of the American Public School system, but he largely attributes this to them being f*cking stupid.
There had a been a conversation, the fall of their senior year, where Wei Wuxian had told Lan Wangji that he was a real champ for putting up with him all these years, and Lan Wangji had looked at him, struck, and said “I like being with you more than I like being alone. I would not be here if I did not.” Wei Wuxian had wanted to do something then, a something that was so large and momentous that it could not possibly have been named, but he’d had a lot of UV Blue and his palms were very sweaty and so he’d mostly just gaped like a fish and said something likely incomprehensible and the moment passed.
“I know,” Wei Wuxian says. “But I like you so much I forget.”
“I know,” Lan Wangji says, and ties his braid off with his scrunchie. This important task completed, he tucks himself back under the covers and pulls Wei Wuxian down with him, making him the little spoon. It is done with all the efficiency Wei Wuxian has come to expect from him. Wei Wuxian pats the back of his head, feeling the neat braid that Lan Wangji has put there. It’s just as nice as the ones jiejie sometimes does for him.
“Are you still going to make me sleep on the couch, Lan Zhan?” Wei Wuxian asks, tugging the covers up to his chin, his name breaking around a yawn. “Even though we’re boyfriends?”
“That will not be necessary,” Lan Wangji says, arm tight around Wei Wuxian’s middle. “I will take the couch.”
“We could switch off,” Wei Wuxian offers.
“To be equitable,” Lan Wangji agrees.
“You’re going to go sleep on the couch right now?”
“In a moment,” Lan Wangji says.
“Great,” Wei Wuxian says. “Take your time. No rush.”
“Thank you,” Lan Wangji says.
“And I’ll sleep there the next night.”
“Mn.”
Wei Wuxian turns back over in Lan Wangji’s arms so he can look at his perfect face. “Hey Lan Zhan.”
“Mn.”
Wei Wuxian slings an arm around Lan Wangji’s waist, pulling them closer still. “So since you’ve kissed all of our friends, you have to tell me who the best kisser is.” He grins in a way he hopes communicates that there is a correct response.
Lan Wangji ponders this with all the gravitas it deserves. “The answer is obvious.” Wei Wuxian agrees completely. He’s just settling in to gloat when Lan Wangji completes his thought, giving Wei Wuxian a deadly serious, very drowsy look. “I am the best kisser.”
All things considered, Wei Wuxian doesn’t feel that he’s in a position to argue.
