Without a warning, Satoru dove in to kiss Kento over and over, letting their lips connect on repeat as a smile spread along alabaster feature, he wasn’t about to stop, something that was clear as lips wandered and kissed along sharp cheekbones before going back to their original spot. Satoru had decided that he needed to shower Kento in lover, something he wouldn’t stray from.
Wei Wuxian trails behind Lan Wangji. The pristine and reverent halls of the Lan residence form a stark contrast to the noisy and item riddled Jiang residence of his memory. The scrolls that line the walls and handcrafted ceramics that decorate the path combine with the silence to establish a tone like a museum. The kind of museum where breathing too loudly is considered blasphemy and asking if one can take a picture would be tantamount to sin.
Lan Wangji fits right in; Wei Wuxian feels as if he is about to be lectured for walking wrong. He chuckles to himself. So this is where Lan Zhan was raised.
He can just picture it: a tiny A-Zhan, who despite his young age looks every bit as uptight as he does now, sitting at a low table practicing his guqin. His clothes must have been spotless. Even then, he must have looked like polished jade only fresher and whiter.
He covers his mouth. Glancing around, he isn’t surprised not to find pictures on the walls, but he is disappointed he can’t confirm his hypothesis. He ponders if he had ever looked that sweet and innocent even as a child. Even now Lan Wangji looked of jade in his proper posture, his black hair is akin silk, and his skin is white as freshly fallen snow.
Meanwhile, Lan Wangji questions if he has a right to offer Wei Wuxian his room. Isn’t it selfish? Is he not taking advantage of Wei Wuxian?
Yet he can’t ask that without prompting Wei Wuxian’s curiosity. He can’t phrase the question without revealing his motivation for asking. He frowns. He is indeed selfish. What wolf would not want their moon’s scent to spread through their den. He closes his eyes and can’t inhale deeply.
He does anyway.
The salt tickles his throat. The refreshing, nature air winds itself through Lan Wangji’s core. He wonders how it will mingle with his own scent. He pictures as he did a decade of mountains and lakes forming the scent-scape of their home.
By the time he gains enough control to open his eyes, they already stand outside his room. He decides, I will sleep elsewhere.
He gestures.
Wei Wuxian quirks his head. His eyes widen. Tapping his chin, he hums with understanding. “Right, we couldn’t catch up over dinner. Your uncle is so fussy. No discussion? Is this a library?”
Lan Wangji blinks.
“You first.” He gestures as if this was his home not Lan Wangji’s.
He freezes. His ears yearn for more of his moon’s voice. But he has no right to Wei Wuxian’s time when he can’t even spend it without imposing on Wei Wuxian’s kindness. It isn’t Wei Wuxian’s fault. He can’t know how Lan Wangji longs for his scent and touch and lips.
“You are mistaken,” he says, pushing past. “You may rest here tonight.”
“What?” Wei Wuxian glances around for a camera because he couldn’t have heard right. There’s no way a residence like this doesn’t have guest rooms, that his presence would force Lan Wangji out of a bed.
He twirls. Grabbing Lan Wangji’s wrist, he asks, “Where are you going?”
Lan Wangji locks in place. The heat that diffuses from Wei Wuxian’s fingertips through Lan Wangji’s wrist sends his mind reeling. His skin dreams of more. His hands itch to grab and hold. His fingers to drink in the firmness of collar down toward his—
“Ah, is Lan Zhan getting a pillow? Are we having a sleepover?” Wei Wuxian nods to himself. He’s a little old for that but it’s been so long since he’s had a chance to talk to old friends. Sharing a room means he won’t have to stumble to a guest room bleary-eyed later.
Lan Wangji stares at Wei Wuxian. He wonders, How did Wei Ying come to that conclusion? I can barely hold myself from scent-marking him and he wants to share a bed?
He smiles back.
This is the scene that Lan Xichen walks in on. The question he has dies on the tip of his tongue. He doesn’t need the conflicted medley of his didi’s scent to tell him that Lan Wangji has absolutely not informed Wei Wuxian that they are mates. He understands the moment he sees Lan Wangji unable to move. Lan Wangji muscles locked in place as the intent to move them conflicts with his desire to remain near his soulmate.
He sighs.
“Xichen-ge,” Wei Wuxian chirps. “Hello. Are we standing in your way?”
Lan Wangji implores his xiong with his eyes. They widen with panic. He pleads for a way out.
“Wei-gongzi,” he says, recalling the words he just overheard. “No. I wanted to check that you had enough to share for the night. Lan Wangji told me how excited he was for the two of you to talk.”
A tiny part of him feels terrible about the betrayal that shines in Lan Wangji’s eyes. He rationalizes, Even if Wei-gongzi may reject him, if didi never tells him that they are fated, then he will never find happiness.
“He was just about to get them!” Wei Wuxian tugs Lan Wangji’s arm.
Gesturing, Lan Xichen offers, “I am heading this way. I’ll send some your way. You should catch up.”
“Great! Thanks!”
Wei Wuxian drags Lan Wangji, who can’t bring himself to properly be reluctant, into the room.
“Inside or outside?” Wei Wuxian asks, appraising the bed. It’s a little tight for two grown men but it isn’t like they will be packed like sardines. The bed isn’t a twin after all.
Staring at his bed and Wei Wuxian’s curious gaze, he swallows. Boyhood dreams of boxing Wei Wuxian in flit up his memory. Lan Wangji at last says, “You take the bed.”
“I can’t steal your bed.” He scratches his neck. “I’ll take the floor. I’m used to roughing it.”
“No.” What kind of mate would Lan Wangji be if he allowed that?
“No? Should I find a g—”
“Stay here.” His mouth moves before his brain. His instincts scream, Wei Ying is in our den. We have to keep him here.
Wei Wuxian steps back, giving Lan Wangji a once-over. Did he misunderstand? Lan Wangji has always been concise but did he misunderstand something. He repeats, “Inside or outside?”
Lan Wangji knows this is selfish but Wei Wuxian isn’t leaving him much choice. If he changes his word, that will create suspicion. He can endure a night though it will be a test of his will. He doubts he will sleep much. “Outside.”
“So! Anything interesting gossip?” Wei Wuxian flops down, making a mess of the neatly tucked sheets. The dark wash of his clothes contrast with the white of Lan Wangji’s sheets. He haphazardly spread limbs expose a few centimeters of belly.
Tearing his gaze away Wei Wuxian’s happy trail, he shakes his head. “The pack prohibits gossip.”
“The pack or Lan Qiren-laoshi,” he mutters but it makes sense. If you pry into other people’s business, they are bound to pry into yours. He asks, “Any interesting news? That doesn’t break your finicky rules does it?”
Lan Wangji thinks, turning over the last decade or so. His memory is filled with many events but he doubts most would interest Wei Wuxian. Events such as weddings, deaths, and births would have already reached Wei Wuxian’s ears.
Wei Wuxian smiles, leaning forward. Resting his weight on his knees, he says, “You don’t have to take it so seriously. Just say something.”
“You likely have more news than me.”
He stretches. His clothes crinkle. Flakes of brown and red drift off him. The color is a shock of color on the sheets.
A whiff of earth and copper scratch Lan Wangji’s nose. The scent is too old for him to place but that he suspects at all that it is blood makes his wolf pace. He instinctively steps forward.
“Sorry. Sorry.” He claps his hands together and bows. Suddenly it hits him, he rubs his nose. “Ah, Lan Zhan, can I borrow your clothes?”
Lan Wangji turns from stone to plasma. The words he hates claw his ears, followed by something his brain can’t quite process. He thinks, Wei Ying in my clothes, wrapped in my scent.
It isn’t as good as scent-marking him but it is the closest action Lan Wangji has any right to do. He blinks.
“Ah, if that’s weird I can just—” He wonders if Lan Wangji is myopic. The Lans have always been excessively neat but did he offend Lan Wangji by shedding cinnabar, blood, and paste onto his sheets.
“No. If you don’t mind it, I can lend them to you.” He walks over to his dresser. He removes two pairs of matching pajamas.
Wei Wuxian is somehow both surprised and underwhelmed. Of course Lan Wangji wears pajama sets instead of a random assortment of shorts, sweats, pants, and t-shirts. It fits Lan Wangji to a tee.
“We should shower.”
Together? Lan Wangji exclaims in his heart, but his face remains expressionless.
He glances over Lan Wangji. “What’s that look? Ah, are you a morning shower person?”
“But you just ran through the woods.” He wrinkles his nose. “Or does the transformation just magick away the dirt?”
Before he can begin to understand how Wei Wuxian reached that conclusion, a shallow knock at the door tells Lan Wangji how distracted he was. His ears should have noticed the footsteps long before the knock.
“Enter.”
“Father,” Lan Sizhui says, closing the door behind him. “Xi-bo sent me.”
He carries in two pillows. Crossing the room, he peers at Wei Wuxian. He questions, Why is bobo acting weird and father and granduncle?
A second later, he realizes there’s only one bed and there’s nothing to form a second bed with. Lan Sizhui would never describe Lan Wangji as distant but of all their pack he rarely sees Lan Wangji sharing skin contact with other pack members of his generation or older. If he hadn’t crawled into Lan Wangji’s bed as a child, he suspects he would be among those who consider his father cold. He notes this. Pieces of a puzzle line up in front of him and he’s short of full work.
He stops short of Lan Wangji who stares at his hands pointedly.
“Is something wrong?” He hands over the pillows.
Lan Wangji shakes his head. Nothing of Lan Sizhui’s scent or heart beat suggests ulterior motives. He wonders if xiong intentionally picked the only person in their pack who could not tell if he was hiding something. He pushes down his complaints and gives his thanks.
“Oh! A-Zhui can show me the bathroom.” Wei Wuxian hops up. Throwing his arm over Lan Sizhui’s neck, he gestures.
Lan Sizhui furrows his brow. “Is that father’s clothes?”
Waving them, Wei Wuxian jokes, “Hm… Did you want me to share a bed with your baba in the—”
“Wei Ying!” Lan Wangji scolds and tries to ignore the fantasy those words conjure up and how he itches to make them more than a reality.
Lan Sizhui flushes.
“My bad. My bad. Lead the way A-Zhui.” Wei Wuxian waves. “I’ll be back soon. So think up a good story.”
When both leave his sight, Lan Wangji finds a clear patch of wall. He flips onto his hands. Gravity forces all the blood that flowed south to return north. A part of him dreams of entering the shower after—
Keeping an ear out for Wei Wuxian, he recites the packs’ thousands of rules. He mustn’t impose himself on his moon. His mind still manages to wonder.
It conjures images of Wei Wuxian slick with water. Steam masks the parts of Lan Wangji never seen in detail. The happy trail he only glimpsed tempts him to picture what is lower.
He rocks. Shifting his weight to one arm, he increases the difficulty of his exercise. If shifting skins wouldn’t scare Wei Wuxian, he would pace his room. Even in wolf form, he knows that no part of him would dare leave this room when he knows his moon plans to return here.
He layers on the difficulty. He recalls the rules in a second tongue. He mustn’t allow his body another moment to consider how Wei Wuxian’s fresh scent will infuse his clothes or how Wei Wuxian will smell of the shampoo he uses. He lifts a foot from the wall.
Falcon and Winter Soldier but each episode has a segment that’s animated like a Tom and Jerry episode and those sequences are usually chase scenes but sometimes it’s just Bucky or Sam giving commentary while something chaotic goes on in the background.
About the time something explodes or breaks or somebody gets hit/with something it cuts from animated back to live action but eeeeeevery now and then the little animated version of the character will appear silently in a corner of the frame to react to whatever’s going on.
“No fun,” Wei Wuxian whines, staring at Lan Wangji’s sleeping profile. Exactly at nine, the little chatter he managed to coax out of Lan Wangji stopped. Poking the suspiciously smooth cheek, he is surprised to find it hot rather than the chilling touch of ice that Lan Wangji carved from.
Rolling to his side, he stares at the ceiling. Like how the Lan residence falls and rises at five and nine like clockwork, he can’t sleep a wink before one. If anyone asked, he would blame his career. After you can’t hunt what goes bump in the night without being awake at night.
Jiang Cheng would call bullshit on that if he heard this thought of Wei Wuxian’s. Long before either of them were allowed to train, Wei Wuxian already had his habit ingrained in his soul.
‘Who cares? It’s not like anyone does anything important before nine’ had always been Wei Wuxian’s reply. That was true — for university and adulthood but from k to 12…
“Wei Ying,” Jiang Cheng bellowed. Kicking the mattress, he slung Wei Wuxian’s pack over his shoulder. He stomped again punctuating his phrase. “Wake up.”
Wei Wuxian grumbled. Rubbing his side, he wrapped his blankets protectively around his organs and returned back into slumbers sweet and tempting embrace. Whoever set school to start before ten was a sadist.
Rolling his eyes, he grabbed the duvet with both hands and yanked. The tension built up from Wei Wuxian’s resistance was futile. He wretched the blanket, dragging Wei Wuxian out with it.
Thump.
The chill of the ground seeped into his bones but Wei Wuxian wiggled back into a warm spot for more rest.
“A-Cheng,” Jiang Yanli said from the door, “The driver is here and mom is…”
She didn’t need to say the rest of the warning. With a heavy sigh, he handed his and Wei Wuxian’s bags to Jiang Yanli. Tearing the blanket away, he tossed his older brother over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes.
The trio rushed down stairs before the Jiang family matriarch could lecture them into submission. In the back of the car, Jiang Cheng gestured for the driver to pull up the window. Jiang Yanli helpful passed over Wei Wuxian’s clothes.
Wei Wuxian cracked half a eye, sparing only enough consciousness to sit upright. His brain swam with lingering dreams. Jiang Cheng’s shouts rang in his ears.
He remained awake just long enough to see his jie cover her eyes as Jiang Cheng ripped his shirt off. He mumbled, “Be gentle. No wonder no girl wants you.”
“Oi!” he smacked the seat beside Wei Wuxian’s head. With begrudgingly practiced hands, he dressed Wei Wuxian in the back of a car as their jie coaxed him to be kinder.
Wei Wuxian always woke part way through the second period with a sparse breakfast hidden in his desk. Whispering his appreciation to his perpetual deskmate, brother, and best friend, he snuck in a meal behind his textbooks.
That was their morning routine til the day Jiang Yanli headed for university then it repeated with just two until university.
Wei Wuxian smiles. Rubbing his face, he wonders if Jiang Cheng remembers their past this fondly. His mouth flattens out.
Rolling over, he thinks, How strange. I would have never imagined going to sleep beside Lan Zhan.
It wasn’t as if he tried. Every time he invited Lan Wangji to hang out during their college days, if the event lasted overnight, he was always politely declined. Well, he was eventually politely declined. Originally…
“Lan Wangji!” he shouted down the hall.Cupping his hands over his mouth, he shot off. “Lan-ge! Ji-ge! Lan Zhan!”
The fellow first year froze. He turned ever so slowly. His voice carried like the hint of frost in a winter morning’s breeze.“Excessive noise is prohibited within the dorms.”
Bouncing over, he complained, “What? You didn’t respond when I called you.”
Lan Wangji’s expression could not be called angry rather his aura was like a cold front. It sent most people indoors and towards fire. Yet Wei Wuxian could never help himself and always ran towards the frosty teen.
“Anyway, now that I have Lan Zhan’s attention, Jiang Cheng, Nie Huaisang, and some of us are going heading to a resort for the break.” As he spoke, he crept closer and closer to Lan Wangji. Slinging his arm over Lan Wangji’s neck, he continued, “Come with us! We have two rooms, four beds. We’ll stay two nights and play for three days.”
Wei Wuxian fumbled in the air. The absence of a body to rest his weight on put him off balance. Righting himself, he stared at Lan Wangji walking away.
His figure slowed. Shaking his head ever so slightly, he rejected Wei Wuxian reluctantly as if his manners kept from being as standoffish as he wished. He marched off immediately after.
Wei Wuxian chuckled into his sleeve. That was perhaps the nicest reaction he gained from Lan Wangji in the month that they knew each other. At this rate, they should be good friends by the time next semester ends.
Twisting, he stretches out like a cat that hasn’t played enough. He flexes muscles, trying to rid himself of his excessive energy. He drums on his thigh, pondering what he can do while Lan Wangji sleeps.
“Stay still,” Lan Wangji orders. The words rise from his lips with strange clarity for a man who is still asleep as if the pack’s rules have ceased to just be guiding principles but rather have been written into his very being.
Poking the ice-like cheek, Wei Wuxian taunts, “How will you punish me if I don’t?”
To make a point, Wei Wuxian shifts. He throws his leg over Lan Wangji’s, punches his arm toward the wall, and pokes the supple cheek again.
Smack.
Lan Wangji’s hand is a snare and Wei Wuxian’s is the prey that landed in it. He tugs Wei Wuxian closer, pinning the misbehaving limbs under his own.
The world spins. Wei Wuxian’s brain flashes with confusion. The world moves too quickly for even reflex to kick in. He finds himself atop Lan Wangji who has readjusted so that he is back to his proper sleeping posture except rather than resting his arms at his sides, his arms lock Wei Wuxian in place.
“Lan Zhan. When were you so domineering?” he asks. He wiggles and squirms but every movement just encourages Lan Wangji to hold him more tightly. After several minutes of pointless struggling, he whines, “How can you have a good dream after being so cruel?”
He freezes when he notices his words seem to be true.
Lan Wangji’s expression is carved like a doll’s from his phoenix eyes, to his straight bridge, to the slight curve of his lips that is absent when he is awake. The delicateness of his features remind Wei Wuxian of porcelain yet it is set against sharp cheeks and a strong jaw that create an overall effect that is hard to describe. It hovers between pretty and handsome in a way that would make models envious.
You'd be number one if you smiled more, Wei Wuxian thinks. In their group of young masters, it was only Lan Wangji’s cold demeanor that kept from number one. He adds, You wouldn’t look like you’re always in mourning.
