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At sunset on one of their hikes, Wei Wuxian takes a drag from his can of beer and draws Lan Wangji in for a kiss so astonishingly passionate that he ends up backing Lan Wangji against a nearby tree; not that Lan Wangji is complaining.
Instead, Lan Wangji complains about the taste. “Beer,” he says, shooting his husband a pointed look that, on any one else’s face, would signify scrunching one’s nose up in disgust.
“Mm,” Wei Wuxian says, as though agreeing, although he isn’t sorry at all. “Do you remember the poem I read at our wedding?”
Lan Wangji blinks. “Of course.”
“Do you remember…” Wei Wuxian tilts his head back in a satisfied sigh before leaning in to plant more kisses on both of Lan Wangji’s cheeks, reciting, “And what good does all the research of the Impressionists do them / when they never got the right person to––”
“––to stand near the tree when the sun sank,” Lan Wangji finishes solemnly. A smile tugs at his lips, and he reaches up to cup his husband’s hand, to make sure Wei Wuxian sees. And then –– yes, to show off –– he continues: “or for that matter Marino Marini when he didn’t pick the rider as carefully / as the horse / it seems they were all cheated of some marvelous experience / which is not going to go wasted on me which is why I’m telling you about it.”
"Wow, you’ve been holding out on me, Lan Zhan!” Wei Wuxian grins, eyes wide in delight exactly the way Lan Wangji wants him, and now all Lan Wangji wants is to kiss him again, which he does. “I can’t believe you know it that well,” Wei Wuxian murmurs.
"Remember everything about Wei Ying.”
“Ugh, rude! I’ll let that one slide because I, too, am in the middle of being romantic,” Wei Wuxian grumbles. “Now, where was I?”
“Wei Ying was saying that seeing his husband’s face in the golden evening light inspires him to recite poetry.”
Wei Wuxian’s jaw drops, his pretty mouth falling open; Lan Wangji decides to place his hand over Wei Wuxian’s that holds the beer can and guide it up to those petal lips. Still stunned, Wei Wuxian allows more beer to be tipped into his mouth; swallows, his cheeks flush. Then he blinks and pokes Lan Wangji in the chest, scowling. “I hate you.”
“Mn.”
"What do you have to say for yourself, Lan Wangji?” Wei Wuxian says in a faux hiss, but before Lan Wangji can even come up with something dry in response, Wei Wuxian pushes himself away, zips up his backpack, and starts bounding off on the hiking trail again. Lan Wangji isn’t sure if this is part of the ‘storming off in anger’ act, or if the sunset means that Wei Wuxian wants to get home before it gets too chilly, but he allows himself a small huff of exasperation before he peels himself away from the tree to follow.
When he catches up, he places a hand on the small of Wei Wuxian’s back, to let his husband know that he’s here. “This one begs forgiveness,” Lan Wangji deadpans. Then, because he knows Wei Wuxian still sometimes needs a lead-up, adds, “How can I make it up to you?”
“Lunch break tomorrow,” Wei Wuxian says immediately, prying Lan Wangji’s hand away from his back so that he can interlace their fingers. “I don’t care, I’m going to see the Early Pop show at the modern art museum.” Then that small smile that betrays his fear: “Will you come?”
Even after so many years together, it sends a thrill down Lan Wangji’s spine when his husband is able to ask for what he wants. He’s glad. So of course he says, “Mn,” and watches Wei Wuxian tuck his lips into his teeth to avoid smiling too hard.
***
When they finally get home, they’ve stolen so many kisses from each other that Lan Wangji tastes beer every time he licks his lips. He feels a bit light-headed, and he doesn’t know if it’s because, somehow, pathetically, he’s managed to get drunk off second-hand beer droplets mixed with spit, or if the dizziness is just from having spent the day with Wei Wuxian.
The latter feels like the more embarrassing situation, at first, but then Lan Wangji pushes down that instinct of shame; reminds himself that he’s married, now, and has walked out of those ten tortuous years he spent trying to suppress his crush on his best friend, feeling guilty about every Wei Wuxian-related skip in his heartbeat, of which there have been very many. He reminds himself that he can open his mouth and say, “Wei Ying, I feel drunk off you,” out loud, just like that, and make his husband turn beet red and whine about unfairness before dragging them both into the bedroom.
This is something he has now; a feeling he’s allowed to get used to.
And he’s allowed to be greedy, and hungry, and clingy, because it’s true that they don’t get to see much of each other, these days. Lan Wangji’s got the steady career in publishing that’s been progressing well ever since his entry-level internship right after graduation; Wei Wuxian is the overworked, constantly exhausted one, the adjunct who considers himself lucky that he’s landed a job meant for five humans and one horse, because getting a full-time gig right out of a PhD is a dream, Lan-er-gege, it’s an opportunity to showcase one’s ability to function on two hours of sleep to teach undergrads for minimum wage all so that one can get heaped with even more responsibilities until eventually one manages to publish a book with illustrations one must pay for oneself, just to potentially land a job that could be a springboard to another job that could lead to a tenure-track job.
Lan Wangji thinks that Wei Wuxian would be a good editor, perhaps with a specialty in speculative fiction of the pulpy, alien-maidens-and-laser-fights variety, since it’s all he reads in his free time, and Lan Wangji would be glad to introduce his husband to his publishing network; but of course that isn’t what Wei Wuxian wants. He didn’t sacrifice his twenties getting a PhD in Art History just so he can not work himself to an early death. (He talks about early death a lot, and doesn’t seem bothered by Lan Wangji’s pinched expression. But that’s alright: Lan Wangji has a hidden note on his phone that details a five-year-plan to gradually incept the concept of therapy into Wei Wuxian’s mind, and hopefully by the time they’re at retirement age Wei Wuxian will have come up with far more productive and healthy coping mechanisms for his child- and teenagehood traumas.)
Lan Wangji allows Wei Wuxian to drown in caffeine and JSTOR printoffs, and in return Wei Wuxian doesn’t refuse the daily packed lunches and pretends he doesn’t know about the secret savings account Lan Wangji’s opened in his husband’s name where he pours an extra monthly portion of his quote-unquote stable salary. And because they each spend so much time indoors, on the rare occasions when Wei Wuxian lets himself take a whole day off, they take a train out of the city and go on a hike. Wei Wuxian runs around touching everything he sees like a golden retriever and Lan Wangji brings his DSLR to take photos of flowers, the sky, and his love. It’s all completely normal and domestic to them, to the point where Wei Wuxian calls it their “grandpa day trips”, but they’d brought Jiang Cheng along once and he’d turned all purple and yelled at them about propriety and PDA in the middle of their picnic lunch –– and also every time they come back after the hike they have slow, sweet sex, in the bed, with flickering candles and more than a few happy tears –– so maybe there’s a romantic atmosphere to these trips, sure. Lan Wangji is ready to admit this –– after all, they’d had their first kiss on a hike, almost three years ago –– but today is the first time that Wei Wuxian has gotten all lovey-dovey on his own accord.
And that’s a good thing, Lan Wangji thinks: that Wei Wuxian is letting himself be a sap for real. Being a sap is good. Perhaps he will now be more receptive to keeping the Live, laugh, love embroidery that Lan Wangji bought off Etsy on the kitchen wall when guests are over, instead of hurriedly stuffing the poor, battered thing behind the coffee machine anytime anyone so much as shuffles onto the elevator landing to their apartment.
Being a sap for real is a good thing.
Being properly invited to go to a museum with Wei Wuxian is an amazing thing.
Wei Wuxian says he hates seeing art with others, because they won’t let him go at his own pace and insist on asking him inane questions about what’s on display. Lan Wangji resolves to do his best to make himself invisible, as though he were not there at all. He will be on his best behavior.
That night, Wei Wuxian drifts off first, tired out from all his golden retriever activities, and Lan Wangji rubs his shoulder absent-mindedly and stares up at the ceiling and thinks of different ways to say “Mn,” tomorrow that will show he appreciates Wei Wuxian’s insights on art without being too overbearing. He manages to settle on a short one accompanied by slow nod, then joins his husband in sleep.
***
partly because of my love for you, partly because of your love for yoghurt
***
“Frank O’Hara was a curator at MOMA,” Wei Wuxian says as they step into the museum and both take a deep, relieved breath.
It’s raining today, so they had to scrap their original plan of getting something from a food truck and eating on the short walk from Wei Wuxian’s cupboard-sized office at the university to the museum. Having forgone their usual bento box for this very lunch-break date, Wei Wuxian’s backup plan was to simply go hungry, and it had taken some cajoling to get him to agree to grab a sandwich at the museum café after they finish seeing the Early Pop show. (But museum cafés are so expensive! Wei Wuxian whined, to which Lan Wangji replied, You can’t put a value on an experience, and Wei Wuxian groaned.)
Now that they’re safely indoors, Lan Wangji reaches over to tuck a stray strand of hair behind Wei Wuxian’s ear and says, “Mn,” just like he’d practiced.
“So he really knew what he was talking about, when he wrote Having a coke with you.”
“Mn.”
Doing something mundane with you is better than looking at all the art in the world.
Idly, Lan Wangji wonders if Wei Wuxian really believes that. Obviously he wouldn’t be hurt if that wasn’t the case, since it would be absurd –– really it’s apples and pears, between Wei Wuxian’s dream career and his best-friend-turned-husband. Clearly, he can have both, so why would he have to choose? He would never have to choose. And if, one day, he really did –– if, say, Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg in their primes appeared to Wei Wuxian one day and invited him to join them in a throuple and all make art together and drink wine out of each other’s mouths, and he instantly decided to throw his wedding band off a bridge and run off into the sunset with them –– then, Lan Wangji supposes, he would be fine with that. He would have to be. He only wants Wei Wuxian to be happy.
But Lan Wangji also wonders if Wei Wuxian knows that he isn’t jealous of art as a general concept and phenomenon. Because Wei Wuxian is holding his hand so tightly that it’s starting to go numb, and, as they weave into the exhibition and inspect the wall text of the first gallery together, it does not seem like Wei Wuxian plans to let go of Lan Wangji’s steadily dead fingers.
Wei Wuxian has spoken multiple times of how much he hates being tied to someone else while visiting a museum; surely he’d prefer for the two of them to separate and reunite at the café after thirty to forty-five minutes. Is he worried that this would offend Lan Wangji? Is he ruining his precious opportunity to take in an exhibition that he hasn’t had the time to see for weeks just to placate his husband? Is he worried that, as soon as he lets go of Lan Wangji’s hand, Lan Wangji is going to run off to the gift shop and buy him the expensive exhibition catalogue as well as at least five postcards and a tote bag? (Well, that last part is absolutely true. But still.)
Lan Wangji tugs at his own hand experimentally, a silent request for Wei Wuxian to let go, which goes unheeded. Wei Wuxian is staring at the wall text with a frown, but there’s only two paragraphs of socio-political context on there and surely Wei Wuxian doesn’t need to take that long to read it.
The usual trick when Wei Wuxian has something on his mind is to stay ever silent (“Mn.”) and wait for Wei Wuxian to speak when he feels comfortable, but right now they have very limited time before Wei Wuxian’s afternoon seminar and Lan Wangji doesn’t want Wei Wuxian to miss out on a chance to see the art he’d come here to see. So he leans in closer and says, “Wei Ying, let’s split up.”
And, okay, maybe he could’ve phrased that better, because Wei Wuxian’s eyes widen in shock and he squeezes Lan Wangji’s hand even harder (if that was possible) and splutters, “Wait, what?” before coming to his senses. “Oh, right. You mean the exhibition.”
“Obviously I am not breaking up with you.”
“Right, yeah, I knew that. Sorry, I was just… reading the wall text.”
“Is everything alright?” And because Lan Wangji sees something flash across his husband’s eyes, he takes Wei Wuxian’s other hand as well and says, “Wei Ying.”
Wei Wuxian winces and shuffles them away from the wall text, to somewhere where they won’t be blocking any other visitors, then sighs and does what he does best –– deflect. Instead of telling Lan Wangji how he feels, he responds to the sentence that had begun this conversation and says, “Yeah, sure, let’s split up.”
But doesn’t let go of either of Lan Wangji’s hands.
“You seem… nervous,” Lan Wangji says. “I know that you do not like to see exhibits with others. I am perfectly happy to do the tour on my own.”
“Ah… I don’t know. This is our first time going to a museum together. Ever. Isn’t that kind of crazy?”
Lan Wangji tilts his head. “We have been to galleries.”
“But those are different. That’s, like, contemporary art, and we always take Nie Huaisang so that we can make loud comments about how derivative the work is. And you can never enjoy yourself because you have to hold my coat and wine.”
“I enjoy the art.”
That makes Wei Wuxian’s lips quirk up a little –– it’s likely that he’s also recalling that time Lan Wangji had liked a woodcut and asked the gallery owner about the price, and then had actually laughed out loud when he’d heard the number, thinking it was a joke. Nie Huaisang had dropped his fan to the ground.
“Wei Ying, you have wanted to see this show for a while. I do not want to ruin it.”
“No,” Wei Wuxian says a little too forcefully, causing one or two visitors to turn around and look at them. He bites his lip and adds, “No, it’s kind of… the opposite? I’d quite like you to stay with me. Is that okay? I know it’s weird.”
“It is not.”
“It’s just… Could we, like, chat? Could you tell me what you think?”
Lan Wangji’s first instinct is to reply, My thoughts will not be as interesting as those of this expert, but remembers that it’s precisely the kind of thing Wei Wuxian hates hearing, so instead he nods and says, “Mn.”
Score! Lan Wangji is slightly surprised that that worked so well. Wei Wuxian seems to relax, his shoulders falling back. He lets go of his death grip on Lan Wangji’s hands and loops their arms together instead, then even –– amazingly –– says, “I’m in the mood for a BLT after this.”
It is the fourth best day in the history of time, right after the day Wei Wuxian confessed, their wedding day, and the day they met.
***
Five minutes later, Lan Wangji is panicking. He is definitely overthinking things. Wei Wuxian says he wanted Lan Wangji’s thoughts, by which he means authentic, honest, unfiltered, layman’s thoughts. He isn’t asking for anything intellectual or informed –– in fact he’d probably be quite surprised if Lan Wangji suddenly started analysing the political effectiveness of Robert Frank’s photography –– but Lan Wangji still can’t help but worry that he’ll say something wrong that the other visitors will overhear and embarrass Wei Wuxian. Both in general, for Wei Wuxian to have such a dull husband, but also maybe someone will recognise him as university faculty and be really taken aback by the dullness of the husband. Perhaps it would ruin Wei Wuxian’s academic reputation. People would come up to him at a conference and say, Aren’t we all glad you didn’t bring the dull husband? Wei Wuxian will be forced to file for divorce in order to save face, and Lan Wangji would have to be glad that he could make this sacrifice for his love.
Wei Wuxian leads them to a painting of the American flag, and Lan Wangji glances at the label for some kind of hint. The label just says, Flag. Lan Wangji’s mind is blank, pure white with not a single speck of dust, no stray thought whatsoever. The only word in his blank, blank mind is flag, and oh my god he’s going to have a heart attack and die.
No, no, they’re too young for Lan Wangji to die. If he were to die now, Wei Wuxian would definitely have the chance to meet and marry someone else. That cannot happen. Focus, Wangji. Focus on the flag. Flag.
Wei Wuxian is saying something. Focus on that first. Maybe there will be a hint.
“You know, I was reading this article by Maria Loh right before I left to come here, about originality and repetition in seventeenth-century Venice. It’s not really my favorite topic so it takes me a while to get into all the intricacies that she discusses. But I think it’s really effective how she argues that these things we think are inherent to modernism, like irony and playing with appropriation, were actually integral to discourse at the time. And it’s definitely making me look at Jasper Johns in a different light. The modernist canon is obviously obsessed with this narrative of progress defined, paradoxically, by rupture –– each rupture an innovation that builds upon what came before it, bringing the story of art to this inexorable climax of abstraction –– but even this sense of intertextuality, of recognition, that Johns has with the flag is something that Loh says would have been present among viewers of, like, Titian.”
Wei Wuxian pauses and looks up expectantly at Lan Wangji.
Uhhhh…
“Mn,” Lan Wangji says.
“Er-gege!” Wei Wuxian admonishes, elbowing Lan Wangji. “Ignore everything I said. What do you think of this painting? Look at the texture. Tell me what you think. Please?”
Lan Wangji clears his throat, then says, “The texture makes me uncomfortable. It is… repulsive.” Then holds his breath, terrified that he will be asked a follow-up question, one that includes the word paradoxically again.
But Wei Wuxian seems perfectly satisfied with that, and moves to the center of this gallery room, where there’s a glass display case that most of the other visitors don’t seem too interested in. Peering in, Lan Wangji sees a series of books laid open, pages and pages of eclectic drawings accompanied by text.
Text, he can do –– text is what he knows. He does his best to forget about Flag (although part of his mind panics that Wei Wuxian might ask about it again later, as a pop quiz) and admires the different illustrations’ dynamic styles and how they complement and even sometimes interact with the text that they share the spaces of the pages with.
It takes a moment for Lan Wangji to realise that these are all copies of the same book, laid out so that viewers can see many pages at once, which is a bit embarrassing –– but the label is in the far part of the glass case and he’d never looked. He does this now, in case the bored-looking docent in the corner of the gallery next to Flag notices how much of a fraud Lan Wangji is and has them kicked out, and sees that this is a 1967 edition of In Memory of My Feelings by Frank O’Hara.
“Frank O’Hara,” Lan Wangji says, idiotically, and hopes that Wei Wuxian will take that and roll with it, relieving him of the need to express ‘thoughts’.
“The page I like isn’t here,” Wei Wuxian says. He digs his phone out of his pocket and looks something up, then passes Lan Wangji the screen: there’s no poetry here; instead it’s a sketch of a fork, a knife, and a spoon laid out on some scribbled gray rectangle, like a placemat. “Jasper Johns,” Wei Wuxian says, leaning closer so that he can look at the screen, too.
Really, the only thing that Lan Wangji really knows about Jasper Johns is that he was gay. He likes to keep a mental list of all the people who are gay, because it’s nice to know. When he knows a writer or artist or musician is queer, it automatically makes him like the stuff they make more, which is maybe bad, but he doesn’t care. It’s what he deserves. All this to say that –– yes, while he is inclined to enjoy the art of Jasper Johns, he finds himself genuinely drawn to this picture.
There’s a visceral quality to the scribbles, the layering of the pencil or pen over and over to create this web of energetic marks, and yet the image is a lithograph, meaning that it itself was made all in one go, without any layering. It’s flat, but it has a history of more.
“Reminds me of placemats in family-friendly restaurants,” Lan Wangji mutters. “For kids. Made of paper. You could draw on them to pass the time.”
Wei Wuxian lets out an amused breath. “Did little Zhan-er ever doodle on the placemats?”
“Uncle did not allow it.”
All Wei Wuxian does to that is nod slowly and wiggle closer to Lan Wangji until he’s basically rubbing up against Lan Wangji’s side like a cat. Wei Wuxian’s version of the practiced Mn. Then he says, “Did you ever get so bored that you’d just, like, start filling something in? Like in Math class when you had square notebooks, and you’d just start coloring in the squares. You could do patterns and stuff. But that urge… to just go and color in the squares. It’s weird, right? What does that impulse come from.”
Lan Wangji gives this some thought, then says, “Humans need stimulation. The things we do inevitably become creative. It is who we are.”
“Okay. What else?”
Lan Wangji reads the label, which describes In Memory of My Feelings as being a project set up after O’Hara’s death, published by MOMA to commemorate him, with drawings donated by his friends and acquaintances. He looks back at the Johns and says, “It is a sad picture. But I cannot tell if I am sad because of the picture, or because I know that it was made in mourning.”
And it’s so weird that they’re in the middle of the museum of modern art, in a room full of Jasper Johnses, and the picture they’re really looking at is on Wei Wuxian’s phone on the museum’s website because the curators had not chosen to display it here. And yet Lan Wangji would probably not have been shown this particular picture if they were not in the middle of the museum. It’s dizzying, the nestling of frames. Like how he felt last evening, with the beer on his lips; light-headed, drunk on you.
“Wow. Yeah, that’s interesting, right? I guess it’s kind of both, even though technically you’re meant to feel bad if you’re being informed by the label and not, like, feeling authentically,” Wei Wuxian muses.
“I feel that way about some queer artists,” Lan Wangji admits, before he loses his nerve. He sees Wei Wuxian look at him with an eyebrow raised, and adds, “I know that Johns was queer, and so his art feels… queer to me. Not in terms of content. But the strength of the feeling… An affinity.”
He doesn’t know if what he’s just thrown out makes any kind of sense, but there’s a familiar glimmer of mischief mixed with fondness in Wei Wuxian’s eye, and Lan Wangji is at least glad that he was able to put that there.
“So what Lan-er-gege is saying is that only a queer person could’ve made such a moving work?” Wei Wuxian teases.
Involuntarily, Lan Wangji feels his ears start to heat up. “Of course not––“ he begins, but then he stops. “Maybe.”
That makes Wei Wuxian cackle. He moves his free hand up to Lan Wangji’s chest and says, “You know what, I think so. I think only queer people have such things as feelings. What do you think?” He taps his fingers against Lan Wangji’s chest, a light, skittish rhythm. Almost to himself, he adds, “Lan-er-gege has a big heart with lots and lots of feelings.”
Lan Wangji leans into that palm. He wants to say, Only for Wei Ying. But perhaps that’s a bit too sappy. Instead he says, “Can I tell you a secret,” ending his sentence in a full stop instead of a question mark.
“Oh?” Wei Wuxian replies. “I thought there were no secrets between us. I am scandalised already. What is this secret? Pray tell.”
“I do have lots of feelings,” Lan Wangji says. The blush is crawling from his ears to his cheeks. How does Wei Wuxian act so shameless every day? “But they are only for one person.”
When Wei Wuxian catches on, he blinks slowly in amazement. “And who is that?”
Lan Wangji leans in just a little closer, drags his gaze across Wei Wuxian’s long eyelashes that had haunted him for so long. Wei Wuxian’s face is open in anticipation, and Lan Wangji parts his lips, and says, “Jiang Wanyin.”
A horrified gasp, and then the palm against Lan Wangji’s chest turns into a fist that punches Lan Wangji in the arm. “Lan Zhan! I can’t believe this!” Wei Wuxian crows, slightly too loud again but not even caring. “Betrayed! By my own husband!”
“Glad Wei Ying now knows the truth,” Lan Wangji replies, letting his eyes crinkle.
Wei Ying points at the Johns on his phone screen again. “Look,” he says, “I’m the fork, all by myself on the other end of the picture. The knife is you, running off with Jiang Cheng.”
Lan Wangji nods. “I see. What do the black squiggles reprsent?”
“The black–– Those are bad vibes! I’m sending you guys bad vibes! For wrecking my home!”
“Mn.”
***
They breeze through the rest of the exhibition in relative silence, since the main other artist Wei Wuxian wanted to hear Lan Wangji’s ‘thoughts’ on was Claes Oldenburg, but when they’d gotten into the gallery that had been set up to resemble the original storefront installation for The Store, there was a couple making out right in front of the cake display.
There doesn’t end up being enough time for Lan Wangji to sneak off to the gift shop, but Wei Wuxian does let him buy him the BLT along with a cup of coffee and one of those overpriced brownies that come in wax paper. The café’s too full at this hour so they walk back out onto the street and stand right next to the doorway, where the eaves will protect them from the rain. Wei Wuxian is rambling about Maria Loh again –– “The way she wields primary sources, I’m so jealous, Lan Zhan! I want to meet her!” –– and long gone are the days when Lan Wangji had his uncle’s rules so ingrained into him that he’d tell Wei Wuxian off for talking not only during a meal, but with his mouth full. In fact, these days he can’t get enough of Wei Wuxian talking –– a few months ago Wei Wuxian had had a particularly vivid dream and had talked in his sleep and Lan Wangji had listened just as attentively, his heart thundering in his chest with sheer adoration.
No sooner after finishing the last dregs of his coffee does Wei Wuxian check his watch and realise that he’s running late. He plants a breadcrumb-laden kiss onto Lan Wangji’s jaw before tearing off down the street, and when Lan Wangji’s sure that his husband has rounded the corner, he ducks back into the museum and heads for the gift shop.
It’s when he’s in line to pay for the exhibition catalogue that he sees a small rack of postcards with images that aren’t along the big postcard display –– and there it is, the Johns placemat. Lan Wangji buys that with a stamp and leans against a wall to write a simple message that he addresses to Wei Wuxian’s university office. On his way out of the museum, he sees a post box and tosses the postcard in; maybe it’ll arrive by tomorrow, or the day after. Wei Wuxian will smile.
Bet Maria Loh couldn’t give him that.