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So, the club was shitty and for once, for once , Wei Ying manages to leave when someone starts talking shit, instead of like, laying down on the gross faux-fancy staircase under the chandelier and refusing to move, or giving a girl head in the faux 1960s van in the beach-themed club basement, or punching anyone, or crying, which is like, growth. He ruefully acknowledges his own growth, ugh.
He opts out of the taxi rank just down the hill and walks, because fuck, it really is nicer out here. He’s still upset, he can feel all the upset like a mouthful of water with nowhere to go, but glad to be outside, under the sky. It's October and the sky looks like if you kissed it you would taste something, and it would run like dark india ink down your face. Wei Ying buys a pizza instead and scalds his mouth on it while he walks. The wind is cold on his cheeks. He gives the second half to the lady always on the corner between the pho place and the tourist bar, down by the river.
Before Wei Ying knows it he has swayed his tipsy, rueful, upset-mouthed self all the way to the little two-story collection of flats where Lan Zhan lives. Ah, autopilot. It's such a rush of relief to be out of the club, to be drunk in open air, but the biggest relief of all is to be suddenly ten steps from Lan Zhan's front door. His shoulders tremble with it.
Lan Zhan gave him a spare keycard to the building once to water his spider plants, which is why Lan Zhan is ridiculous. Wei Ying did kind of kill one plant, but he kept the keycard and front door key nervously squirreled away and Lan Zhan has never complained or asked for them back.
Wei Ying gets inside the building and up the echoing stairs. He leans on Lan Zhan’s front door while the lock welcomes the nervous key. When Wei Ying slips in he only opens the door just wide enough for his body, and after he tries to shut the door so so so softly. Then he locks it and puts it on the latch even though this takes him three tries, because it's important that Lan Zhan is safe. This is Lan Zhan’s flat and it is so nice and so safe and it should stay that way.
He manages to get his boots off, and with them go his socks. In this warm and quiet place Wei Ying finds that he is still a little off, still a little shaky from not punching anyone or crying in any stairwells. Lan Zhan's clean kitchen is making him feel better, and the soft nightlight in the hall is making him feel better, but he finally realizes that his hands are still shaking and he'll feel better if he can just — see Lan Zhan for a minute.
So Wei Ying tiptoes to the door at the end of the hall and — yeah, okay, when he opens it Lan Zhan is already sitting up and blinking in the light from the hall and saying, "Wei Ying?" like he's concerned but not like he's surprised, like it's okay to see his best friend Wei Ying in his flat in club clothes at eight minutes past two in the morning.
Wei Ying says, wide-eyed and exposed — but not really in a bad way, never that here — “Shh, I'm not supposed to wake you up.”
Lan Zhan makes a funny face. A lovely face. He looks so confused.
Two in the morning is not naturally kind. But this is a soft two in the morning. This feels like two in the morning done over easy, with a runny yoke, like someone remembered just how Wei Ying likes things to be. Like two is sorry for what the hours before it did, and would like to make up for it.
Lan Zhan rubs a hand over his mouth and asks if everything's alright. Wei Ying says that it is, that people just said some shit about him, and about his sister, and Lan Zhan says, "Do you want to stay up, or go to sleep?" and he really fucking means it, doesn't he? He's moving like he's going to get up, like he's going to go turn on the low lamp in the kitchen and make Wei Ying tea if he doesn't feel like going to sleep, like this is some indelible right of Wei Ying's: to have Lan Zhan awake and making him drink something warm when his hands are shaking for silly fucking reasons in the middle of the night, god.
Lan Zhan is just looking at him and won't stop and Wei Ying fidgets for a minute, but he's been given two options and that makes it easier. A or B, that's okay. That's Lan Zhan asking for things that Wei Ying can give.
So Wei Ying leans against the doorway and mumbles, “I wanna go to sleep, Lan Zhan.”
Everything sways all liquid-dark and nice, not spinning out of control anymore. The doorway knocks against his elbows but not harshly. And then there are hands on his elbows instead, keeping them from knocking on the doorway, and Lan Zhan is tugging him away from the hall, helping him into the room. Lan Zhan’s room, where everything is so still and quiet and okay.
Wei Ying, stopping them in the middle of the awkward room-crossing dance, says, “Wait, wait I gotta take off my jeans.”
Lan Zhan pauses.
“It’s hygienic ,” Wei Ying insists.
Lan Zhan makes a little martyred noise but steadies Wei Ying with a firm hand on Wei Ying’s waist. He has to let go again right away, though, to help Wei Ying tug his trousers down, because they’re very tight and Wei Ying is having trouble.
“I’ll wear the miniskirt next time, with the shiny leggings,” Wei Ying mumbles, head lolling on Lan Zhan’s shoulder. “Those are so so much easier, Lan Zhan.”
Lan Zhan makes a little noise. It could be agreement.
It's totally chill to have your best friend help undress you, Wei Ying thinks, softly philosophical with his jeans around his ankles. Even when his body glitter is getting on Lan Zhan’s sleep shirt, even when he steps out of his jeans and Lan Zhan touches the side of his face just once in a way that is definitely not intense at all and then tugs Wei Ying down with him under the very lush, deliciously heavy duvet. It is nice and cool on Wei Ying’s bare legs.
They are both under the duvet together. They’ve left the door cracked, the nightlight in the hall spilling in gently, a little lighthouse warning of no storms at all.
Wei Ying, very sleepy, very drunk, says, “No Lan Zhan, I cannot be the little spoon.”
“Hm,” Lan Zhan says, shifting.
Wei Ying burrows further under the duvet, under the blanket that Lan Zhan is also under; what a good thing that is. To be under the same blanket as Lan Zhan. Wei Ying says firmly, “I will cry if I get to be the little spoon.”
This gets an inquisitive noise, like Lan Zhan will be concerned if Wei Ying indicates that this is a concerning issue. It is not. Wei Ying is just explaining.
Wei Ying says, “I’m saving my little spoon for marriage.”
A silence. Wei Ying says, “Lan Zhan, are you respecting this?” He slaps the mattress a little for emphasis.
Lan Zhan murmurs, soft and warm next to him, “If you want to be the big spoon, that is fine.”
Oh good, Lan Zhan does get it. But nothing is happening.
Lan Zhan says, “Wei Ying, this means you will have to take the initiative.”
Wei Ying squints, which is not very effective. He is in the mostly-dark under the duvet, where Lan Zhan is. These pillows smell like Lan Zhan when he has just washed his hair. Precious, that is a precious thing.
“Wha?” he says.
“OH,” he says.
He rolls over to face Lan Zhan, who has rolled onto his side facing away, just his face turned back to peer over his shoulder at Wei Ying. A patient little spoon.
Wei Ying scoots closer and Lan Zhan tucks his head back against the pillow. Wei Ying throws a leg over Lan Zhan’s legs because his feet are already a little cold and because that seems like the least challenging part. Only then does he dare to tuck his chest up against Lan Zhan’s back, to place a hand on the sweet curve of Lan Zhan’s ribs. They stay like that for a moment, while Wei Ying feels the way Lan Zhan is breathing, gentle and quick. Then he moves his hand down to Lan Zhan’s soft belly. Tries to figure out what to do with his left arm, the one tucked under his body, and ends up folding it beneath him, resting his head on his hand.
He discovers that he likes the way he can hide his face in the back of Lan Zhan’s neck. Lan Zhan sleeps with his hair down, but he seems to have tucked it over one shoulder so it won’t get all over Wei Ying’s face.
They lay like that. It feels nice. Wei Ying remembers to pop his head up long enough to check: “Am I doing it right?”
Lan Zhan says, a little choked, “...Good job.”
“ Thank you,” says Wei Ying, burying his face back into the arch of Lan Zhan’s neck. He mushes his nose on Lan Zhan's spine but it doesn't hurt, just feels close. He thinks that he’ll pass out right away, but Wei Ying ends up laying there for a good long while. He tries to be a good big spoon; he tries to be a warm and quiet place. It’s not so scary. It’s not so bad.