Chapter Text
When Lan Wangji was in his second year of high school, he visited Shanghai with the Guangzhou Ballet while they were touring their production of The Butterfly Lovers. The company manager had brought him along to dinner with a wealthy patron, to show off the youngest member of the company while extracting promises of future goodwill and appreciation measured in a monetary medium. Lan Wangji went, because he was used to this, and because he wasn’t close enough with anyone else in the cast to extricate himself from this dinner and invite himself into theirs.
“A ballet prodigy,” the company manager gushed to the patron at the entrance into the private dining room. “Rumor has it the Beijing Dance Academy already has its eye on him.”
Lan Wangji had smiled, a bland, vague thing, and kept his face blank throughout the meal. On occasion, he contributed stiff nods and short answers to any questions directed his way.
At the end of the meal, the patron, in a demonstration of his munificence, produced tickets for the three of them to see another show on tour at the Shanghai Culture Square Theater. “From England,” the patron said, like the show’s exotic origin was its main attraction. “I’ve been told it’s a new version of Swan Lake.”
Lan Wangji hadn’t expected to be dragged along to a show as well, but at least Swan Lake was one of the more tolerable ballets. They walked from the restaurant to the theater along busy Shanghai streets, the honking of horns and crisp ringing of bike bells rising through the warm air. It was not quite summer, but the press of the humid night air around them murmured of its coming.
As they ascended the shallow stairs, the pale white of the theater glowed in the lights around it. Lan Wangji blinked at the physical assault of air conditioning as soon as they passed the doors. Their seats were in the mezzanine, a box positioned all the way stage left but close enough that Lan Wangji felt like they were almost teetering over the stage itself. He mentally recategorized the patron from ‘rich’ to ‘filthy rich’ and settled into his seat in the row behind the company manager and the patron, who had their heads together about something Lan Wangji wasn’t sure he cared about.
It was, true to form, a production of Swan Lake.
It was unlike any production of Swan Lake Lan Wangji had ever seen, or ever been in.
It was a production of Swan Lake that would haunt Lan Wangji in the days after, even as he flourished a fan, whip-snapped his watersleeves in the remaining few evenings of The Butterfly Lovers. Before, he had amused himself studying the variations in the choreography between the male dancers and the female dancers in the company, the way the costuming obscured the differences between the two. Now, the sweeping movements and the assemblé battus all paled into pedestrian movement as he contemplated the unrestrained, unrepentant ferocity of the dancing he saw, the implicit danger and menace of Matthew Bourne’s swans, the beauty in the choreography of something fundamentally wild and untameable.
He held it in his mind, traced the sequences performed by the swans. He held it in his heart, enamored with the give and take, push and pull of the two lead dancers, the way they carried each other with care and solidity. He nearly gave his uncle an aneurysm by asking to enroll in more contemporary classes at his studio, but eventually convinced him that proficiency in contemporary technique could only help him with more classical modern repertory, like the production of Balanchine’s Serenade the company manager kept hinting at for next season.
His brother, ever perceptive, waylaid him one evening when he returned from rehearsal. Lan Xichen must have been in the middle of practicing violin when he heard the front door of the apartment open; he still had his bow clutched in one hand.
“Wangji,” Lan Xichen said, as Lan Wangji toed his shoes off just inside the door. “I haven’t heard from you since you got back from Shanghai. Did you have a good trip?”
“Mn.” Lan Wangji slipped past him and into his room, where he set down his rehearsal bag and went about returning its contents to their rightful places. He felt a little guilty about rebuffing Lan Xichen, but busyness went both ways. Lan Wangji knew that Lan Xichen had been rehearsing tirelessly for his own exams.
Not to be dissuaded, Lan Xichen followed Lan Wangji into his bedroom, considerately setting a glass of water down on Lan Wangji’s dresser. “Did you meet anyone new?” Lan Xichen asked with that particular smile.
Lan Wangji gives him a look. “The tour schedule is too busy for meeting someone new, xiongzhang.”
Lan Xichen shrugged it off. “Or see anything exciting? Shanghai’s different from how it is down here—it’s truly an international metropolis! Did you visit the Bund? See the Pearl Tower?”
Lan Wangji softened—even if Lan Xichen could be a bit nosy sometimes, he meant well. He always meant well. “Mn,” he said. They did walk down the Bund, though with the cloudy skies overhead and the haze of pollution scratching against the backs of their throats, they didn’t spend too much time at the Huangpu riverside. “Mediocre,” he pronounces, then considers it. “But we only saw it during the day.”
“Ah, that would be why,” Lan Xichen said. “It’s the lights at night that make it so dazzling in the photos.”
“And…” Lan Wangji hesitated for a moment, then decided—this was his brother, after all. “I saw a show.”
“Oh?”
“A show that…” Lan Wangji chose his words slowly, carefully, “I think I might like to be in, someday.”
A broad smile broke across Lan Xichen’s face. “That’s wonderful, Wangji! Please tell me the score is orchestral, I’d love to play it for you if I can.”
“Mn. Swan Lake .”
The smile on Lan Xichen’s face faded slightly. “Oh, that’s actually orchestral. I can’t play that many instruments, Wangji.”
Lan Wangji raised a single eyebrow.
“All right, all right,” Lan Xichen laughed. “Just for you, I’ll learn how to play every single instrument Tchaikovsky uses. Except maybe the cannon in the Overture of 1812,” he amended hastily. “I don’t think Uncle would take kindly to having one of those in the apartment.”
Lan Wangji stood and retrieved the glass of water Lan Xichen had brought, taking a few grateful gulps from it. He needed to bring a larger water bottle to rehearsal, or rather, more water bottles. “Thank you,” he said, knowing that Lan Xichen will hear the thank you for everything else beyond the glass of water. “I know xiongzhang has been busy rehearsing for his exams lately. I’m sure you have nothing to worry about.”
Lan Xichen smiled—not the broad grin he often broke into in laughing delight, but the small, private smile that the two of them shared. “Thank you, Wangji,” Lan Xichen said. “I will leave you to rest, then.”
------
The next summer, Lan Wangji attends the Bolshoi Ballet Academy to his uncle’s delight. He spends three months there under the sharp eyes of the ballet instructors, who mercilessly correct his technique, drill his petit allegro until his legs shake, and make clicking sounds with their tongues that he can’t decipher but all sound disapproving.
Despite the fact that they’re in the city of Moscow, he rarely ventures out with the other students, wary of his meager Russian and the strange foreignness of the other children who all seem to understand the ways of easy friendship that continue to elude him. The competition between young dancers could be vicious, he’d been warned by another member of the Guangzhou Ballet who’d gone years ago, so Lan Wangji remains silent for the most part, responding to the other boys with terse nods and short answers. The girls, he stays even farther away from—he’d heard the rumors of a bitter fight which had ended with broken glass in another girl’s pointe shoes.
Two years after his summer at the Bolshoi, he enrolls in Beijing Dance Academy, because it is expected of him. To his pleasant surprise, he finds that the environment is much richer than he’d expected. He ventures out of the ballet department as much as he can, hungrily absorbing movement styles from classical Chinese and ballroom, Yizu and Mongolian, contemporary and experimental. When an instructor expresses concern over the ‘dilution’ of his balletic lines, he doubles down on ballet as well, ensuring that his technique remains unimpeachable so that no one can question his exploration of other styles.
Multiple dance companies begin courting him once he enters his last year of school. There are the usual slew of ballet companies—the Guangzhou Ballet offers to elevate him immediately to principal, considering his long history of dancing with them. The Shanghai Ballet Company and the Central Ballet Troupe all send him formal offers. He gets invitations from Australia and Singapore. Even the Royal Ballet contacts him, and for a moment, he’s tempted.
He scandalizes the instructors of the ballet department when he turns them all down and signs on instead with Shanghai Dance Theatre. He had sought out the artistic director at one of the recruiting events, and didn’t need to feign his curiosity in the contemporary narrative choreographies they produced.
His uncle is predictably displeased, but his uncle would also have him become a corps dancer with the Central Ballet Troupe, so Lan Wangji responds laconically to the angry WeChat messages, placates him with promises to return to more traditional ballet after a year or two, and moves into a small apartment in Hongqiao. Even the ever-present thrum of planes taking off from the nearby airport cannot dampen the thrill that races down his spine at the prospect of living alone and independent and free to make his own choices for the first time in his life.
------
He meets someone for the first time.
A few months later, he finds that he never really knew them at all.
------
Lan Wangji has worked his way up to soloist with the Royal Ballet when he hears that Matthew Bourne’s Adventures in Motion Pictures, now rebranded New Adventures, is planning to revive the show he saw a decade ago in Shanghai’s Culture Square Theater.
He has spent most of his life performing and dancing in increasingly high-stakes environments—from regional ballet companies to his entrance exams into Beijing Dance Academy, and the auditions that formed the gateways from one production to the next—but he has never felt the jittery twist of nerves curling about the muscles of his body as keenly as he has now.
Ah, he thinks to himself, distantly. So this is what it feels like to want something so badly.
It’s become something of a tradition now, for productions of Matthew Bourne’s Swan Lake to recruit its Swans from the Royal Ballet. Adam Cooper was a principal with the Royal Ballet when he collaborated with Matthew Bourne to create the dual roles of the Swan and the Stranger; Matthew Ball had shot to the role of principal as well before being recruited for the role of the Swan. There was history there that Lan Wangji could lean on, and so, sitting at a cafe near Covent Garden one night after a show, he opens his laptop and begins to type.
------
He gets the part.
He flies to New York.
------
They invite him to sit in on the callbacks for the role of the Prince, so he leaves his brother’s apartment half an hour early and makes his way down to the rehearsal studio in Alphabet City, electing to walk from the nearest C train stop to savor the crispness of the autumn air. He rings the buzzer when he arrives, ascends the creaky stairs to the third floor, and nods to the artistic director before tucking himself into a discreet corner of the room.
Lan Wangji casts a quick eye over the hopefuls, evaluating them with a practiced glance. The remaining auditionees are more or less guaranteed to have the requisite physicality for the role, or the potential to quickly reach it. What today’s auditions were focused on, then, was each dancer’s ability to embody interiority, a depth of thought and feeling through movement that would be critical to portraying the Prince, the emotional anchor of the show.
A veteran member of the New Adventures company runs the audition, putting the dancers through their technical paces, then some segments of show choreography. By the end of the second hour, Lan Wangji has whittled the auditionees down to three in his own mind. The first looks vaguely familiar—Lan Wangji thinks he might have seen him in the New York City Ballet, or perhaps ABT. He definitely had a Lincoln Center face, at any rate. The man’s lines are powerful, technique executed with the exacting precision of perfection.
The second is all fluid grace and liquid muscularity, sinuous and whipcord-lean. Lan Wangji thinks he catches a hint of circus arts in the articulation of his feet, the sheer control granted by hours spent spinning in aerial silks, heels hooked around lyra hoops.
The third is… Lan Wangji isn’t sure what to make of the third. His movement style infuses the choreography with an almost casual, everyday kind of quality. Where all the other dancers fit their bodies into the mold of the choreography, the third dancer Lan Wangji has his eyes on seems to be in dialogue with it. At times, the way he performs the phrases seems playful and mischievous, pushing at the boundaries of what the movements technically are. Other times, he seems to invite the movement in, to move with and through the choreography in a deeply introspective manner.
Lan Wangji is surprised, after the auditions have ended and the dancers all filed out the door and down the creaky stairs, when the artistic director calls him over to the folding table where they’ve been frowning and taking notes for the past few hours. The New Adventures company member is retrieving his water bottle from his bag in the corner, and Nie Huaisang had left the room moments before, glancing meaningfully at his phone.
“What do you think?” the artistic director asks Lan Wangji, spreading out an array of five resumes before him. They’re all flipped over to the side with the headshots, and he quickly picks out the three dancers he had his eye on, still left in the final running.
“They’re all very good dancers,” Lan Wangji offers.
The artistic director gives him a look that asks him, politely, to dispense with the bullshit. “I might have the final say in this decision,” they say, “but you’re the one who will have to get up close and personal with the consequences of that call. It doesn’t hurt to let me know your thoughts.”
Lan Wangji lays his fingers on the first dancer’s headshot. “He could be a wonderful Swan.” The implication, hidden in his words—but we don’t need a Swan. He taps the photo of the second dancer. “And he would make an excellent Snake.”
At the artistic manager’s raised eyebrow, he clarifies. “BalletX. The Little Prince.”
The artistic manager nods. “I figured you didn’t mean the Wall Street type.”
Lan Wangji moves his fingers to the third dancer’s resume, toying with the corner of it. On a whim, he flips it over to see the name emblazoned across the top—Wei Wuxian.
He slides the resume towards the artistic director, moving it just slightly beyond the others. “I think this one,” Lan Wangji says, “could be a prince.”
------
One of the first things Lan Wangji’s new co-star says to him is, “Are you ready to inspire a new generation of dancers with our tragic gay romance?”
To which Lan Wangji responds, perhaps a bit more tersely than called for, “This show isn’t a gay love story.”
The previous things Wei Wuxian had said in the meeting were “good morning” and a self-introduction that managed to be playful within the requirements of something as simple as a self-introduction. There is the mischievousness that Lan Wangji recognizes from his movement style during auditions, though now it sharpens into something a little more defiant, something with teeth.
“And the fact that we’re about to spend three months learning some very intense pas de deux with each other indicates that this show is… what kind of story, exactly?” Wei Wuxian asks, a challenging light in his eyes.
Lan Wangji knows this show’s reputation, knows what sensationalist news articles had made of it back in 1995 and knows how it survives in popular culture. He’s read the literature written about Matthew Bourne’s Swan Lake, made a study of the complexities of this show, the dynamics of gender and eroticism, sexuality and performance. Matthew Bourne’s Swan Lake is far richer and more nuanced than its epithet of ‘the gay Swan Lake’ would imply.
Lan Wangji had expected better from Wei Wuxian. He’d thought he’d seen, in Wei Wuxian’s dancing—
Never mind. Lan Wangji has been wrong about that before.
“To call this show ’the gay Swan Lake’ is a misreading of it at best, and an insult to its complexity at worst,” Lan Wangji says. He is aware of a growing tension in the room, a held breath before the water breaches the edge of a dam, the destructive chaos of natural disaster. He does not want to get in a fight with his co-star before they’ve even started rehearsing, but he will not tolerate anyone who treats their work with less respect than it deserves.
Wei Wuxian, thankfully, is not as belligerent as he first appears; though the discussion they have remains unresolved by the end of the meeting, the man comes up to him afterwards and asks to continue the conversation, and Lan Wangji is more than happy to oblige. They do not rehearse together for the first month, anyway—Lan Wangji is to focus on swan choreography and movement study, and Wei Wuxian to learn the details of his royal tedium—and so they end up texting each other on the way to and from the rehearsal studios more often than they speak in person.
Lan Wangji sends Wei Wuxian the essays that he leans on to inform his understanding of the show, and Wei Wuxian responds thoughtfully, though his words are often couched in irreverence. They spend so much time dissecting the gender theory behind the presentation of the swans, both in the Petipa-Ivanov original and in Bourne’s re-interpretation, that even Lan Wangji feels a bit dizzy. Though, to be fair, that’s how he usually feels after reading Judith Butler.
Wei Wuxian, he discovers, has passionate feelings about more avant-garde styles when Lan Wangji sends over an excerpt from Dee Reynolds to test his reaction. Lan Wangji sits on the couch in the living room of his brother’s apartment, chin tucked into the loose collar of his turtleneck sweater, and completely fails to concentrate on his book as his phone lights up every few seconds.
He catches Wei Wuxian on occasion, entering the rehearsal building as he’s exiting, rushing to rehearsal just as he’s leaving it. In person, they rarely have time for more than a quick smile and an unanswered “how are you?” before they peel off towards different studios, but there’s no need to linger, to try and steal minutes from their schedules, because Lan Wangji knows that he can reach into his bag and pull out his phone at the end of rehearsal to see a dozen unread texts from Wei Wuxian waiting for him, constant, companionable.
------
Wei Wuxian: you said that you don’t consider this show to be a gay love story, but you also say that it’s queer
can you explain your reasoning behind that?
Lan Wangji: Have you read Kent Drummond’s essay on this show?
Wei Wuxian: who the what?
Lan Wangji: I will find it for you when I get home.
------
The thing about being part of the professional dance world for most of his adolescence and the entirety of his adult life is that Lan Wangji has become accustomed to being surrounded by exquisitely beautiful people, all the time—is even considered one himself, if interviewers and balletomanes are to be believed. Especially in the world of professional ballet, practically every person who sets foot on a mainstage has only slight variations on the same, long-limbed, muscle-bound form, delicately-turned wrists and glorious arches. From the audience’s perspective, mid-house in the orchestra, faces are more suggestions than detailed realities anyway, and the locus of beauty lies instead in the strength and elegance of movement, the precision and execution of technique. In a corps, embedded in formation with some of the best dancers in the world, performing the same choreography as everyone else around him, Lan Wangji can finally vanish in a crowd.
He can feel like he belongs somewhere, for once.
That isn’t to say that he’s grown immune to the attractiveness of physical charms; occasionally, his breath will stop in his throat at a powerfully-executed revoltade, or the grace of a port de bras. Sometimes all it takes is the limning of stage lighting along the edge of a movement he’s already seen a thousand times in rehearsal, and Lan Wangji falls in love with the beauty of dance all over again at the most unexpected moments.
But those moments are fleeting, vanishing—the flare of sparks in darkness, nothing more. He is a professional artist; he can appreciate the talent of his coworkers without wanting to get intimate with them.
Which is why, when the realization that he may be in love with his co-star hits him, it’s heavy, clumsy, unexpected. It’s like taking a pointe shoe to the head—an experience that he, regrettably, has suffered a few times—and it leaves him similarly poleaxed.
It happens when they’re rehearsing one of their duets in act two; Lan Wangji can’t tell if it’s a blessing or a curse that it doesn’t happen during one of their pas de deux rehearsals. There are eight other members of the swan corps present on either side of them, while Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian execute the same choreography as perfect mirror images of each other. They come together, move away, cross each other downstage again, and every time Lan Wangji looks back and meets Wei Wuxian’s eyes, the other man smiles at him.
It’s not fair. Wei Wuxian has been directed to look at Lan Wangji constantly; in this moment, the Prince is imitating the Swan, trying to learn and internalize the freedom in the choreography, so Wei Wuxian has reason to gaze at Lan Wangji at every moment possible. Every time one of their turns or a sauté passé brings them face-to-face, Lan Wangji is greeted with that smile—lips parted, just the barest hint of teeth, genuine joy and excitement of finally mastering the choreography lighting up Wei Wuxian’s face. Lan Wangji knows the feeling—knows the unparalleled thrill that comes from successfully internalizing new choreography, letting it flow out from the marrow of his being in perfect time to the music—and cannot begrudge Wei Wuxian his delight, but it is doing things to Lan Wangji.
When they break for water, Wei Wuxian comes by and bumps shoulders with Lan Wangji amiably. “I think that went really well,” Wei Wuxian says, blissfully ignorant of Lan Wangji’s internal meltdown.
“Mn,” Lan Wangji manages in reply, and turns to rifle through his bag. He flees the studio as soon as he can, and takes the fifteen-minute break to re-compose himself in the hallway.
He can handle this. He is an old hand at compartmentalization. He is a professional.
------
Wei Wuxian: that extended sequence in the beginning of act two where I dance with you and the other swans
that’s like
an extended courting sequence
Lan Wangji: You’re not wrong.
Wei Wuxian: the rest of your flock are LITERALLY our chaperones
I have to go through a whole song and dance before I can get you alone
Lan Wangji: Wei Ying.
Wei Wuxian: sorry not sorry
for ‘song and dance’
but that just begs the question
if I courted you properly in act two
why do your swans go crazy and kill you in act four?
------
Lan Wangji makes sure to work through all the possible alternatives to the conclusion that he is in love with his co-star. Sometimes, emotional bleed occurs between dancers who play characters involved in a romance with each other, so Lan Wangji goes home, away from Wei Wuxian and that damned smile of his, and meditates for a long while after he showers and puts away his things. Methodically, he empties his mind of thoughts and worries until he feels grounded again. His muscles groan in protest as he unwinds himself from his seat on the floor, but, floating in a comfortable, empty state, he doesn’t particularly mind the discomfort.
His phone buzzes; when he checks it, he sees that it’s a slew of texts from Wei Wuxian, and he can’t help the surge of warmth and fondness at the sight.
Oh.
Well then.
Avoiding thoughts about Wei Wuxian appears to be ineffective, so Lan Wangji spends his commute to their next rehearsal after their day off considering the merits of Wei Wuxian, and whether or not Lan Wangji’s feelings could be attributed solely to the competence kink that all performers inevitably develop, sooner or later.
Wei Wuxian was an exemplary dancer—Lan Wangji knew that about him before he even knew his name—but as Lan Wangji gets off the subway, he’s considering an alarmingly long list of non-dance-related things he’s apparently noticed about Wei Wuxian, from his unfailing kindness to his lively humor to his sharp insight; the pure, unrestrained joy on his face at the achievements of others; the passion of his beliefs and convictions. The depth of careful thought hidden behind a glib exterior. The unlikely comfort Lan Wangji found in responding to his texts.
And now, Lan Wangji discovers as he arrives at the theater, Wei Wuxian is apparently also the type of person who spends his day off baking treats for the entire cast, crew, and staff of a production. When Wei Wuxian hands him a bag of bunny-shaped cookies, Lan Wangji meets his clear-eyed gaze in the mirror and thinks, quite distinctly to himself, I am in love with Wei Wuxian.
“Wei Ying,” he says out loud instead. “Thank you.”
------
Nie Huaisang: hey, Lan Wangji
I know I don’t usually text you, but this has got to be one of the weirdest notes I’ve ever had to give
so I didn’t want to put it in the company-wide rehearsal report
Lan Wangji: That is fine. What is the note?
Nie Huaisang: it’s
oh my god I can’t believe I’m about to type this
but AD says that you need to… smile less in act two?
I cannot believe that I just told you to smile less
oh no da-ge came over to check why I was making faces at my phone and read it over my shoulder
Lan Wangji: No worries.
Xiongzhang just snorted at his phone. Your brother moves quickly.
Nie Huaisang: only to text your brother
god knows he doesn’t respond that fast to MY texts
Lan Wangji: You know that I respect your brother very much.
But there is a limit to how much I wish to know about their relationship.
Nie Huaisang: you helped me get them together
Lan Wangji: And that is where my involvement ends.
Nie Huaisang: hmmm
Lan Wangji: What does that mean?
Nie Huaisang: nothing!
definitely nothing
Lan Wangji: …
Nie Huaisang: you wound me, Wangji-xiong
Lan Wangji: Please cease and desist.
------
Wei Wuxian: does it bother you when I sit in on your rehearsals?
Lan Wangji: Not at all.
Wei Wuxian: excellent. I’m going to keep doing that, then
you’re welcome to sit in on mine, too, if you want
but absolutely zero pressure
Lan Wangji: I may. It will be good to understand the other dimensions of the show.
------
The two times the Prince gets to dance on his own in the show—not as the obedient partner for a duet, or as a figurehead hailed by courtiers—occur at the lowest moments of his life. The first time, the Prince is drunk and messy, unmoored by betrayal and wracked with loneliness, reaching and seeking and searching for something more in the narrow alleyway outside a bar.
Scott Ambler, when he originated the choreography, lent it a tragicomic air—a little wobbly, as if still drunk from his escapades in the Swank Bar, an edge of painful awkwardness to his movements. On Dominic North, the choreography of the Prince’s solo became the ungainly flight of a cygnet with no tutelage—arms windmilling desperately, dashing himself against the ground again and again as he struggled to figure out how to fly on his own.
On Wei Wuxian, the choreography becomes a dance of pure need—a railing against the limitations of his life, his position, his body. In every extension, in every line and curve of his body, in the sheer ferocity of his turns, the speeds at which he crashes to the ground, Wei Wuxian wants, and it’s almost painful to watch.
When Lan Wangji tries to pinpoint exactly when he fell in love with Wei Wuxian, he thinks it might have been the first time he saw Wei Wuxian rehearsing the Prince’s solo and the way it had punched the air out of his lungs. Wei Wuxian had been working alone in the fishbowl studio—the one with a viewing balcony on the second floor behind a glass wall—and Lan Wangji just passing by on his way out the building. Tchaikovsky’s score was muffled through the glass, but he could hear just enough of the doleful melody to recognize exactly which moment it belonged to.
In that moment, Lan Wangji felt hollowed out, gutted, because how else could he describe the feeling of seeing all the rawness of his nameless emotions, excavated and displayed in the movements of someone else’s body? How else could he describe the feeling of seeing and being seen, being embodied and understood by someone else so clearly?
Because he sees the traces of their conversations in Wei Wuxian’s movement, the vulnerability and wanting and the not-knowing and the hoping. He sees himself, ten years ago, in all his fears and desires.
His knuckles have gone white from how tightly he’s gripping the railing. Below, Wei Wuxian pauses, frowning, as he reworks the sequence leading into the pirouettes, testing the weight shifts between each movement. Lan Wangji peels his fingers off the ridged wood, barre-like in its texture and shape, and walks away, his breaths coming shaky in his chest.
------
The first time Lan Wangji brings Wei Wuxian home, Wei Wuxian is so exhausted that he flops onto Lan Xichen’s couch almost immediately and mumbles something into the cushions.
“Pardon?” Lan Wangji asks, flicking on the light in the hallway.
Wei Wuxian turns his head so he’s no longer talking into the couch. “I said, I’m really glad you turned out the way you did.”
Lan Wangji freezes. He doesn’t think anyone has said that to him before, not even his brother. Wei Wuxian doesn’t seem to notice.
“How do you mean?” Lan Wangji says, careful to keep his voice even.
“Really nice,” Wei Wuxian says, gesturing vaguely with his left hand before letting it drop back over the edge of the couch onto the ground. “I was worried you were going to turn out to be a homophobic asshole like Sergei Polunin or something.”
Lan Wangji drops his bag in his room before coming back, leaning against the wall. Wei Wuxian takes a look at his face and immediately bursts out laughing. “Right? You can’t be a homophobe in the dance world, there’s too many of us queer folk out here.” Wei Wuxian shifts himself around until he’s lying on his side, looking at Lan Wangji, and oh, Lan Wangji is in trouble. “I’m glad we’re in agreement about Sergei.” He heaves a gusty sigh. “If only he weren’t so stupidly talented, it would be easier to hate him.”
Lan Wangji isn’t sure what expression his face is making, but Wei Wuxian doesn’t seem to find it suspect. He offers a noncommittal hum in response.
Wei Wuxian shoots upright like he’s suddenly remembered that he left the stove on before rehearsal, though if that were true, there would be no saving Inwood from the conflagration at this point. “Not,” Wei Wuxian says hastily, “that you aren’t also stupidly talented. In fact, I think you’re much better than him, Lan er-gege.”
Wei Wuxian looks so painfully earnest, gazing at him with big, imploring eyes that beseech him to understand. “Mn,” Lan Wangji says, ears burning. Wei Wuxian has no idea what Lan er-gege in his voice is doing to Lan Wangji. “Wei Ying. You should wash up and get some rest.”
“Oh.” Wei Wuxian nods, and the movement threatens to tip him over. “Yes. I should. I’ll go do that.”
Lan Wangji gestures down the hall to indicate where the bathroom is, then vanishes into his own bedroom. He makes himself concentrate on the process of unpacking his bag, trying his best to ignore the sound of Wei Wuxian humming tunelessly in the next room over.
------
“Oh my god,” Wei Wuxian says the first time they rehearse act two, hands flying to his mouth.
Everyone stops mid-motion, Lan Jingyi sliding on his socks. He really shouldn’t still be wearing socks at this point in the rehearsal process, but no one could look at the blisters on the bottom of his feet and bear to tell him otherwise.
“What’s wrong?” Lan Wangji asks, dropping back to neutral.
“You’re flocking,” Wei Wuxian says, like it’s the most important thing in the world.
Lan Wangji blinks. They’ve just assembled the triangular formation behind the Swan, a show of force and order in the face of the Prince’s curiosity. The choreography had the rest of the swans repeating Lan Wangji’s movements a few counts after he performed them.
“Flocking,” Wei Wuxian says again, gesturing with both of his hands as if that explained anything. “You know, the improv technique?”
Lan Wangji does know the improvisation technique, and fixes Wei Wuxian with a glare to let him know exactly what he thinks of that pun.
------
Lan Wangji: I’ve been thinking of act four.
Wei Wuxian: oooh, coming for my emotions bright and early today, are you?
Lan Wangji: I can text later if you’d like.
Wei Wuxian: don’t you dare
what about act four?
Lan Wangji: The swans, lowercase, represent the Prince’s demons, correct?
Wei Wuxian: we decided that last week, yes
everything he wants to be but cannot become
sometimes it inspires him, most times it haunts him
Lan Wangji: I think I’ve figured out how to rationalize your lift in act two with the rest of act four.
Wei Wuxian: oh, the weird Jesus lift thing?
I figured it was foreshadowing for the (yikes) ECT bit
Lan Wangji: I mean, yes, that too.
But the swans have always been hostile to you, even in act two.
Wei Wuxian: well I am a filthy human courting their ethereal and stainless leader
Lan Wangji: Not ethereal.
Demonic.
Which is why the swans turn on me at the end of act four.
Wei Wuxian: huh?
oh.
OH MY GOD I GET IT
because you’re the only one of the Prince’s demons that wants to protect him instead of destroy him
Lan Wangji: Exactly.
Wei Wuxian: holy shit
let me just
lie on the floor for a bit oh my god
warn a man before you drop something like this on him
Lan Wangji: I did say that I could text later.
At least lie on a rug.
Wei Wuxian: excuse you I have a perfectly loving relationship with the floor
we’re old friends
it’s always there to catch me when I fall
Lan Wangji: Wei Ying.
Wei Wuxian: I’m not the least bit sorry for that
------
“Oh wow,” Wei Wuxian says as they sit on the bed while the designers talk in the house. Tonight, they’re working on cueing through the end of the show, and something about the theater’s new intelligent units are messing with the color palettes, so lighting, costumes, and make-up are all debating what needs to change. The performers lounge around on stage, waiting for Nie Huaisang’s voice to come over the god mic and let them know where they’ll be needed next.
Wei Wuxian pokes at the three long gashes on Lan Wangji’s shoulder. “These look pretty gnarly,” Wei Wuxian says.
Lan Wangji glances at him over his shoulder; Wei Wuxian is sitting cross-legged, comfortable in the Prince’s silk pajamas. “Gnarly,” Lan Wangji repeats.
“Yeah,” Wei Wuxian says. “I mean, I know this is make-up, but it looks pretty bad. Which means it looks good, I guess.”
The Swan enters partway through act four with a series of gashes raked across his shoulder and ribs, a physical manifestation of the mental wounds the Prince sustains at the beginning of the act. Imprisoned and hospitalized after his breakdown, the Prince is subjected to a grotesque parody of the elaborate morning rituals in act one, undergoes a questionably-portrayed medical procedure, and is helped back to his bedroom, a shell of his former self.
“Does it bother you?” Lan Wangji asks.
Wei Wuxian blinks. “Huh? No, it’s fine, I’m not afraid of a little stage blood. Did I ever tell you I was in a Vampire Cowboys production once? One of the craziest shows I’ve been in, but so much fun. And fake blood, everywhere. I think we got it on the lights.”
Lan Wangji winces in sympathy—he can’t imagine that went over well with their master electrician—but Wei Wuxian doesn’t seem inclined to go into more detail, eyes unfocusing as he drifts into his thoughts. Technical rehearsals are always grueling, partially for their long hours, partially because they’ve already undergone months of intense physical rehearsal and have been running on little more than faith and fumes for a while now. Lan Wangji, long ago, had learned to navigate his way into a state of zen to cope with the frustrations of cue-to-cue, which was, most of the time, the quintessence of hurry-up-and-wait.
Wei Wuxian, however, seems more despondent than tired; he’s pulled his knees up to his chest, for all the world like the forlorn Prince, abandoned, alone.
“What’s wrong?” he asks Wei Wuxian.
Wei Wuxian lifts his chin from his knees. “Hm? Oh, nothing. I’m just thinking.”
Lan Wangji dares to give Wei Wuxian a gentle nudge with his elbow, and Wei Wuxian visibly starts. Wei Wuxian stares at the offending elbow, then looks up at Lan Wangji.
Lan Wangji almost never initiates physical contact outside of their rehearsals. Even that night, when Wei Wuxian had taken the subway back down to 81st Street, Wei Wuxian had made painstakingly sure that Lan Wangji consented to every hug.
That night, Lan Wangji had felt particularly breakable—a combination of exhaustion, stress, and the sheer emotional content of the show—but Wei Wuxian had caught him by his rough edges and laid him down gently, stayed close by overnight, and accompanied him, laughing and cheerful, through the morning as they got ready for rehearsal together.
Sometimes, the depth of his own wants scared Lan Wangji.
A small smile surfaces on Wei Wuxian’s face, just a slight twist at the corner of his mouth, and he unfolds himself, shifting closer to Lan Wangji until their legs are touching, dangling off the edge of the sloped bed.
“What were you thinking about?” Lan Wangji prompts gently, and can feel Wei Wuxian heave a sigh next to him.
“Oh, you know, death,” Wei Wuxian says, voice light. “Act four really is something.”
Lan Wangji considers this. “Mine, or yours?”
Wei Wuxian laughs, a soundless, humorless thing. “Yours, actually. I was just thinking about how in act four, the Swan appears in response to the Prince’s emotional anguish. It’s like he’s been summoned.”
Lan Wangji tilts his head. The Swan does spend the first few moments of his entrance seeking an escape from the room, before he turns and finds the Prince with his hand outstretched. “Mn,” he hums, noncommittal.
“And the Swan dies, trying to protect the Prince,” Wei Wuxian continues, and Lan Wangji follows his words to its unspoken conclusion.
The Prince, then, to a certain extent, is responsible for the death of the Swan.
“Wei Ying,” Lan Wangji says. “You are forgetting.”
“Hm? Forgetting what?”
“The Swan is one of the Prince’s demons, too,” Lan Wangji says.
Wei Wuxian lets out a noisy breath. “Yes, I remember sending a text along those lines.”
Lan Wangji turns to fix Wei Wuxian with a look. He is missing the point. “The Swan is a manifestation of the Prince’s desires and hopes.”
Wei Wuxian squints at him. “Is this your ‘figment of the imagination’ theory again—”
“So of course it makes sense for the Swan to come for him in act four,” Lan Wangji says, cutting off Wei Wuxian, “because he is the manifestation of the Prince’s wish for someone to protect him.”
Wei Wuxian blinks. “Okay?” he says, drawing out the first syllable.
“And,” Lan Wangji continues, “because the Swan is a projection of the Prince’s desires and hopes, the Swan is never really a separate entity from the Prince at all.” Lan Wangji forestalls Wei Wuxian with a lifted finger. His voice takes on the cadence of his uncle moving into the third and final point of an argument. “Which then makes the Swan a manifestation of the Prince’s will to live.”
Of course the Prince shatters for the final time when the Swan is overcome by the Prince’s other demons, pecked to death and vanished in a bit of stage magic. The Swan’s death and the Prince’s death are the same occurrence, only staggered a few moments in time. Likewise, their ascension—the young Prince cradled in the Swan’s arms—is the same, too.
Wei Wuxian’s lips part as the realization hits him, and it takes all of Lan Wangji’s self-control not to drop his gaze down to Wei Wuxian’s mouth. “Oh,” Wei Wuxian says, voice small. “Well, when you put it like that.”
“Wei Ying,” Lan Wangji says, and he chooses his words carefully. “There is no need to take on guilt that is not yours.”
Lan Wangji doesn’t know what hurts Wei Wuxian carries, what events Wei Wuxian has lived through to make him so resilient in the face of adversity, so selfless and giving in an industry accustomed to taking, and taking, and taking. Wei Wuxian in motion can traverse vast tracts of joy and sorrow, hurt and tenderness; Wei Wuxian in motion is twice the dancer Lan Wangji will ever be.
He wonders if Wei Wuxian knows that.
“Hey, lovebirds,” Nie Huaisang’s voice croons over the god mic, and the two of them startle away from each other.
“I bet he’s been waiting all week to use that,” Wei Wuxian mutters, and Lan Wangji huffs a laugh in agreement.
Lan Wangji keeps an eye on Wei Wuxian for the rest of cue-to-cue, but the shadow that had fallen momentarily over him seems to have vanished.
------
Act three belongs to Lan Wangji—he does not appear at all in the first act, and the second he shares with the other swans. He and Wei Wuxian race on and offstage together in the elaborate, joyous courtship between the Swan and the Prince.
As the Stranger, however, Lan Wangji dominates act three—he makes his entrance amid a fanfare of instrumentation, sauntering into the scene on the balcony railing before interrupting the royal ball. The Stranger is the Black Swan of Matthew Bourne’s Swan Lake—seductive, alluring, mysterious. His long overcoat flares out as he strides in, the white scarf about his neck just a hint of the Swan the Prince sees in him.
The Stranger goes immediately for the Queen, and when she presents the back of a gloved hand for him to kiss, he licks a long stripe up towards her shoulder.
The leather pants are horribly hot, especially for the intensity of his choreography, but it is a small price to pay for his art, Lan Wangji muses as he slowly draws a riding crop from his belt, tracing circles in the air with it. The Queen, and all the onlookers, jump a bit when he slams it down on the table.
The Stranger is all raw sexuality and menace, the Prince’s most secret dreams dragged out into public and twisted into a nightmare. Lan Wangji lifts what feels like every single woman in the company as the Stranger seduces his way through the gathered princesses and eventually the Queen before the lights snap into a dreamspace and Wei Wuxian spins into his arms. The violins croon, deceptively languid and unhurried in the background. Their shadows whirl and shift, exaggerated, against the towering walls of the set.
This duet is nothing like the gentle sweetness of their pas de deux in act two. Where the Swan and the Prince were cautious, questioning, exploring the boundaries of touch and support and permission and trust, the Stranger reels the Prince in, only to fling him away dismissively and extend a hand in invitation once more. The Stranger is demanding, every movement a challenge—keep up if you can, expressed through unexpected direction shifts and reckless weightsharing.
Every time Lan Wangji throws away Wei Wuxian’s hand in callous rejection, Wei Wuxian comes back, eyes wide and trusting.
He is an unmitigated evil in this scene, Lan Wangji has to remind himself. The Stranger’s role is to break the Prince’s control, to shatter the pieces of his fragile psyche, to ruin every good thing the Prince had found for himself in act two.
The Stranger dips his thumb in ash, and smears a dark line down the center of his forehead, a mockery of the Swan’s dark make-up. At the Prince’s horrified expression, Lan Wangji slides into the Swan’s choreography, though this time the movement is all sneering contempt, the graceful flourishes now hackneyed and ridiculous on a figure that is wholly lithe, leather-bound human.
The Stranger grabs the Prince by the back of his neck, possessive, threatening, and still, the Prince reaches out a tentative hand, pressing against the Stranger’s chest, asking, still hoping—are you my Swan, somewhere in there?
The Stranger drags the Prince halfway across the stage, forces his arm behind his back, choreography more stage combat than ballet now. Even though they’d talked this out beforehand, rehearsed it countless times, it still pierces Lan Wangji’s heart how easily Wei Wuxian melts in his hands, lets himself be manhandled and moved.
Act three belongs to the Stranger, and he uses it to snap the Prince’s fraying sanity like a heartstring on the edge of a blade.
------
“You look at me in such a way,” Lan Wangji says to Wei Wuxian in the wings at the tail end of intermission on the third night after opening, the night before everything and nothing changes. He can hear the murmur of the audience filing back to their seats, feel the low burn of heat from the barrels of the sidelights hung on the dance towers flanking either side of the stage.
Wei Wuxian glances at him, the barest hint of a raised eyebrow. They’re dressed for the royal ball in act three, Wei Wuxian in his dark coat and ascot, Lan Wangji in his white scarf and all-black ensemble. This isn’t the first time they’ll perform this; nor is it the last time, and they’re settling into something that might be called comfortable if it weren’t so physically demanding. “When?” Wei Wuxian asks.
“Act four,” Lan Wangji says. He has to say this now, because both of them are too exhausted, physically and emotionally, by the end of the show for him to string words together in a semblance of a question. “At the end, when we’re both—” He raises his right arm, lets a wing-like ripple move through it, knowing that Wei Wuxian will recognize the moment. “The audience can’t see your face then.”
Wei Wuxian mirrors him slightly, a small wave traveling from his left shoulder to his fingertips. He tilts his head. “What about it?”
“You look at me in such a way,” Lan Wangji says, again, and Wei Wuxian, blessedly, seems to understand the question.
“Of course,” Wei Wuxian says. “Of course I look at you like that, Lan Zhan. You’re my Swan."
------
Act four does not belong to either of them—the Prince fights his demons, and loses. The Swan dies, trying to protect him from the flock it once led.
They sit on the floor in the rehearsal studio under the watchful eye of the artistic director to talk about how they want to play it.
The overall beats of the scene remain the same—the Prince, confined to his bedroom after his public breakdown in act three, dreams a nightmare of swans.
“I like what Dominic North did with his solo after the nightmare scene,” Wei Wuxian says, demonstrating one of the royal flourishes he does so often in act one. “There’s a moment where he frantically tries to re-enact his daily rituals from the beginning of the show, and I want to keep that.”
The artistic director nods. “I agree.”
“I was also thinking,” Wei Wuxian begins, then bites his lip, which absolutely does not make Lan Wangji’s thoughts screech to a halt. “Ambler and North both play the moment kind of comically, which I get, since everything else is a bit of a downer from here on out, but I want to lean into the tragedy of the moment. They always look a bit like—” Wei Wuxian suddenly levers himself to his feet and walks about the studio, demonstrating. His shoulders hunch, steps scuffing along the floor, and just like that, Wei Wuxian has completely shifted his physicality.
“They always look like they’re fretting, in a very frantic way. And the way the Prince loses control of his body—” He swipes his hands through the air, movements jerky. “—always looks like he’s swatting imaginary flies?” Wei Wuxian’s voice lilts up at the end, making it a question as he returns to the floor beside Lan Wangji. “Loss of physical autonomy is like, a major theme in this show,” Wei Wuxian finishes, “and I think it should be portrayed with gravity rather than humor.”
The artistic director looks thoughtful. “You make a compelling point,” they say. “Let’s go with that for the moment, and change it if necessary when we see it together with the rest of act four.”
Lan Wangji spots Wei Wuxian’s small smile—a quick, close-lipped thing, directed more inwards than outwards, which he recognizes as Wei Wuxian’s smile of satisfied relief. Lan Wangji has noticed that it tends to appear when Wei Wuxian makes casual suggestions about moments that he cared about more than he wanted to let on.
“As for the matter of your deaths,” the artistic director says, steepling their fingers, and Nie Huaisang snorts quietly from the corner where he’s installed with a small table and his ever-present laptop. “I presume you have thoughts?”
“Winsor-North on all counts except one,” Lan Wangji says. “When the swans drag him onto the bed for the first time.”
The artistic director makes a note. “What about that moment?”
“When Cooper performs it, two of the swans are actively holding him back by his arms,” Lan Wangji says. “I think, dramatically, it makes more sense.”
Wei Wuxian nods, eyes distant, like he’s replaying the 1995 version in his mind. “It’s also a helluva lot more raw,” he offers.
The artistic director checks their notes. “They cut that for the 2012 version because they were worried there might be some shoulder strain if anyone got carried away,” they say.
Lan Wangji considers it. There certainly is the possibility of injury, and the moment is an intense one. “If we rehearse it properly,” Lan Wangji says, “and perhaps incorporate it into fight call.”
“We’ll keep an eye on it,” the artistic director says.
------
The fourth act:
The Swan is disgorged from the Prince’s bed, chest heaving, ribs bleeding in sympathy for the Prince’s mental suffering. Skittish, wary, he searches for an escape from the bedroom and shies away from the Prince’s outstretched hand.
When the swans return, Lan Wangji shoves Wei Wuxian behind him and tries to fend them off, but they are separated.
The Swan rushes the flock, chasing them away from the Prince, who is curled up on the floor. He nudges the Prince’s body twice, three times, and when there is still no response, he opens his mouth in a wail of silent anguish.
The Prince wakes up, and the two of them share one last tuck-cradle embrace in an echo of their duet in act two.
The swans return, a hissing horde arrayed on the bed, and this time, the two of them are not so lucky.
Using the Prince as bait, the swans manage to drag Lan Wangji to the bed and pin him there. Across the vast expanse between the two of them, Prince and Swan writhe in the same mirrored death throes before Lan Wangji is hidden behind a wall of white feathers—just as quickly, the hands turn into help as the rest of the swan corps props open the trap door in the bed for him to vanish into, leaving Wei Wuxian alone and bereft onstage.
In the final moments of the show, Lan Wangji returns to where he began it—behind a scrim over the headboard of the bed, carrying the young Prince in his arms. Between the two of them, they are the manifestation of everything the Prince wished he could have become, everything he had lost. Below him, the Queen rushes to the body of her son, too late to offer him the care and love he had begged from her in the past.
Logistically, Lan Wangji does not see Wei Wuxian perform the final moments of the show, the utter fragmentation of the Prince and his overwhelming grief, but when they meet each other backstage for curtain call, there are always fresh tear tracks running down Wei Wuxian’s face.
Tonight, on this night when everything and nothing changes, Lan Wangji reaches out and wipes them away gently for him. He doesn’t know what has changed on this night, but something has, and Wei Wuxian, as always, leans into his touch.
Tonight, when they run out to greet their standing ovation, Wei Wuxian grabs Lan Wangji’s hand fiercely, and does not let go.
They take their bows together.
------
Wei Wuxian is thrumming with energy tonight in their dressing room, vibrant, electric as he putters about, collecting bits of chaos and putting them back in their places before the next night’s whirlwind comes through again. Lan Wangji thinks about Wei Wuxian at intermission, eyes wide and luminous with some kind of knowledge that he promised to share with Lan Wangji after the show.
They haven’t been texting as much, now that the direction and choreography have settled, now that they’re halfway through their run at City Center, and Lan Wangji finds that he misses texting Wei Wuxian on his subway ride home, through the half-hour past his usual bedtime he had allowed himself to make sure that Wei Wuxian had gotten safely back to his apartment in Inwood.
“Lan Zhan, ah, Lan Zhan,” Wei Wuxian says, tugging on Lan Wangji’s sleeve when the two of them have cleaned up their dressing room tables. “Walk me to the subway station?”
“Mn,” Lan Wangji agrees, because he’s helpless to do otherwise.
They are floating in the comfortable post-show haze, knowing that they get to come back in tomorrow evening and do it all again. For now, neither of them have to worry about finding their next contract, or auditions, or travelling; for now, they can just be happy, basking in the love they share for the art they’ve chosen and the show they’re performing together.
They duck out the stage door, and Wei Wuxian immediately yelps and buries his face into his scarf at the cold. The wintry chill means that the air is clear tonight, a few stars visible in the night sky even in the eternal carnival glow of New York City. Wordlessly, Lan Wangji follows as Wei Wuxian strikes north.
When they reach the northeastern corner of Columbus Circle, Wei Wuxian hesitates at the crosswalk. “Actually,” he says, “can we walk along Central Park for a bit?”
Lan Wangji nods; his brother’s apartment is only twenty blocks north, anyway, and he could easily walk home from the theater if he wanted to.
They walk in companionable silence for a bit, the static of cars rushing down Central Park West to their left, the low murmur of wind through the trees on their right. The air is cold enough that they both have their hands tucked into their coat pockets. Wei Wuxian keeps drifting towards him, absentminded, until they bump shoulders.
“You said you wanted to tell me something after the show,” Lan Wangji says eventually. “You said to make sure that you didn’t forget.”
Wei Wuxian is quiet for a moment. “I did say that, didn’t I?”
“Mn.”
“Now I’m thinking that maybe I shouldn’t.” Wei Wuxian tips his head back and scuffs his shoes against the sidewalk a little. “Maintaining professionalism, and all that.”
Lan Wangji’s breath catches in his throat, but he stays silent, giving Wei Wuxian the time he needs to work through it.
“I realized something during this run,” Wei Wuxian says. “And I know, I know—this run, of all runs? What’s special about this run? Nothing. It should have been opening night, or closing night, or something to make it really—” he makes a vague gesture with his hand before shoving it back in his pocket. “Y’know. Dramatically appropriate or something.”
They pause obediently at the crosswalk at 62nd Street, despite the fact that there are no cars waiting at the light in any direction, and Lan Wangji turns to look at Wei Wuxian under the streetlights.
Wei Wuxian is objectively beautiful, but Lan Wangji’s heart seizes at all the little parts of him that make him real, make him alive, make him here, right now, next to Lan Wangji. The smear of eye shadow he must have missed earlier. The tiny mole under his lip. The slight droopiness of his left eye, the soft baby hairs that stick to his forehead, mussed from sweat and exertion.
The light turns, and they continue walking. Wei Wuxian opens his mouth, then closes it, then opens it again before letting out a groan of frustration. “Oh, this seemed so much simpler in my head,” Wei Wuxian says. “I thought—wait, why are we turning?”
The crosswalk light had changed in front of them, and Lan Wangji takes the opportunity to pull Wei Wuxian across the street, heading west on 64th. Ahead, the lights of Lincoln Center Plaza glow warmly.
When they’re standing by the fountain, between Koch Theatre and Geffen Hall, Lan Wangji drops his bag unceremoniously on the ground before meeting Wei Wuxian’s eyes and moving into a deep plié, left leg coming up behind him in an arabesque. He pulls the arabesque into a crisp passé with a turn, moving at half-speed to let Wei Wuxian recognize the choreography of their act two pas de deux.
Wei Wuxian blinks at him before huffing a laugh, breath fogging in the night air. “Okay,” he says, almost to himself. “Okay.”
They move together in languid synchronicity, shoes grinding gravel against stone, no music except for the burbling of the fountain and the melody they can hear in their hearts. They abbreviate the lifts, using the moments to lean into each other’s bodies instead, and when Wei Wuxian slips—choreographed—he catches himself on Lan Wangji’s neck.
In the show, Wei Wuxian wraps his arms around Lan Wangji’s shoulders, tucking his knees against Lan Wangji’s back while Lan Wangji spins them slowly downstage right. Now, the two of them simply straighten up, their faces inches away from each other, Wei Wuxian’s forearms propped on Lan Wangji’s shoulders.
“Hey,” Wei Wuxian breathes. “Lan Zhan. Hi.”
“Mn,” Lan Wangji says. “I’m here.”
Wei Wuxian lets out a shaky breath, and tips his forehead against Lan Wangji’s. “It would not do to make out in front of the Philharmonic,” he says, voice barely more than a whisper. “Isn’t your brother playing tonight?”
“He is,” Lan Wangji says. “But they are playing Mahler tonight.”
Wei Wuxian quirks an eyebrow at him, a dizzying effect this close.
“He won’t get out for another half-hour at least,” Lan Wangji clarifies.
“Lan Zhan!” Wei Wuxian says, mock-scandalized. “We’re still in public!” But Wei Wuxian doesn’t move away, and neither does Lan Wangji, so they continue standing there, arms wrapped around each other.
“I love you,” Lan Wangji says into the silence, because it feels right. Said out loud, it’s small, simple, barely noteworthy. It was merely another constant of the world, like the faint starlight overhead, the chill creeping in their collars, the warmth of Wei Wuxian’s hands on the back of his neck.
“Lan Zhan,” Wei Wuxian says, very seriously. “I’m gonna kiss you now, if that’s okay.”
It’s more than okay.
It’s beauty, it’s love, it’s motion and synchronicity; it’s freedom, it’s flight, and the absence of tragedy.
“Lan Zhan,” Wei Wuxian whispers when they break apart, after they’ve taken a moment to catch their breath.
“Mn?” Lan Wangji hums, more vibration than sound.
“I was right in the end.”
Lan Wangji tilts his head, just a little, and Wei Wuxian laughs softly at the movement, their foreheads still pressed together.
“This show is a gay love story,” Wei Wuxian says, and Lan Wangji has no choice but to kiss him again to wipe that smug smile off his face.