Work Text:
Lan Zhan was feeling distinctly out of his element.
It had all started a few weeks ago, when Wei Ying had found out that his husband had never been ice skating before. He had immediately declared this situation unacceptable and had called his siblings and organised a family ice skating afternoon to remedy that.
“A-Yuan is old enough to learn to skate anyways, it’s gonna be great Lan Zhan!”, he had said.
Currently Lan Zhan was seriously doubting that statement, holding on for dear life while his husband pulled him over the frozen lake at breakneck speed.
“Slow down Wei Ying” he would have called out, if he weren’t so certain he would let out a very undignified scream once he opened his mouth. It wasn’t so much that he doubted Wei Ying’s skating abilities, his husband seemed quite confident in what he was doing, but it was Lan Zhan’s first time on the ice and then there were all the other people whose abilities Wei Ying couldn’t know. So yes, Lan Zhan really, really wanted his husband to slow down.
Thankfully Yanli, the most sensible Jiang sibling, had grabbed A-Yuan taken him to one corner of the ice where she was now teaching him, and her own son how to skate at a much more reasonable pace.
Jiang Chen, who had seemed a bit unenthusiastic at first about being dragged out in the cold on his day off, seemed to be in much better spirits now, gleefully chasing his sister’s husband over the lake.
Finally, Wei Ying slowed down and came to a halt. He turned to Lan Zhan and said, sheepishly: “I got a bit overexcited, I’m sorry Lan-er-gege. I’ll teach you properly now, ok?”
And, true to his word, he did, gently pulling and pushing Lan Zhan over the ice at a much more reasonable pace, correcting his posture, whispering instructions into Lan Zhan’s ear and all the while never letting go of his hands.
And if Lan Zhan held onto Wei Ying’s hand extra tight, not because he needed it, but simply because he wanted to, well, there was no shame in wanting to hold his husband’s hand, was there?
After a while Wei Ying came to a stop again and turned to face Lan Zhan, loosely looping his hands around his husband’s waist.
“You know what I think Lan Zhan? I think you got the hang of this a while ago. I also think that you’ve been pretending not to, so you could continue clinging on to me.”
“Mn.”, Lan Zhan nodded; it was the truth after all.
“My, my, Lan Zhan, how utterly shameless!”, Wei Ying crowed in delight. “You know you can just ask to cuddle, no pretences needed, we’re married after all.”
“I always want to hold Wei Ying’s hand. And I like being close when you’re sharing something you’re excited about, you light up in the most beautiful way.”
“Lan-er-gege!!”, Wei Ying whined and buried his bright red face in Lan Zhan’s neck, pushing his scarf out of the way so he could nose a the warm skin there. The coldness of the contact had very little to do with the shiver that went down Lan Zhan’s back.
“You can’t just say things like that!”, Wei Ying continued, voice muffled, “my poor heart can’t take the sweetness, have some mercy on me!”
Before he could continue teasing Lan Zhan a sweet voice rang across the ice:
“Dad, look, dad, look, look! I can skate now!”, A-Yuan called out as he wobbled towards them on his skates, Yanli never far behind him, ready to catch him should he fall. He looked adorable, all bundled up in his winter coat, wearing the hat with the bunny ears and matching bunny patterned mittens Xichen had given him, nose red from the frosty air and laughing in delight. When he reached them, without falling once, Wei Ying swept him up into a hug and enthusiastically peppered his face with kisses.
“Look at you, my little bean, you’re doing so well! Ahhhhh, I’m so proud of you, you’ll be ready for the Olympics in no time!”
A-Yuan let his father fuss over him for a minute longer before he started squirming to be put down again, eager to continue skating. His dad’s took one of his hands each and they continued skating slow laps around the ice like this until Yanli called everyone together for a hot chocolate break.
They sat down on the sleds they had pulled to boys to the lake on earlier, warming their hands on the cups of cocoa and Yanli passed around some homemade biscuits.
“Ah, this is nice, isn’t it?”, Wei Ying said, dropping his head onto Lan Zhan’s shoulder, careful not to jostle their son who was perched on his husband’s lap. “Ice skating, hot chocolate, my family around me, happy and healthy, I really couldn’t ask for more. The only thing that would make this more perfect would be if your brother and Wen Ning and Wen Qing could join us.”
After Jin Ling and A-Yuan had finished their hot chocolate Wei Ying took the two eager boys to teach them how to make snow angels.
Jiang Chen and Jin Zixuan took this opportunity of Wei Ying laying on the ground and defenceless to pelt him with snowballs. To absolutely no one’s surprise this soon turned into an all out snowball war, everyone against everyone, each man on their own. (Well, Lan Zhan may or may not have sneakily helped Wei Ying just a bit, but this too came as no surprise to anyone.)
Once the sun started to set and the boys had tired themselves out playing on the ice and in the snow they packed up and headed home.
Walking back, the snow glinting red and orange and pink in the setting winter sun, A-Yuan sound asleep in his arm and Wei Ying holding on to his other arm, Lan Zhan couldn’t but agree with his husband’s earlier statement:
This really had been a perfect day.