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Chapter Text

1931 (twentieth year of the Republic); Shanghai; evening

“I heard he was in prison in Japan,” Nie Huaisang says. He’s not being unkind on purpose; he just says things like that. “He has a tattoo from it.”

This earns him an eyebrow raise from his brother, who is reaching over the corner of their low table to pour more tea for the lady in the room. “Japan?” Nie Mingjue echoes. “You think he’s spent time abroad?”

“He’s very well-read, that’s true,” Qin Su says. She knocks lightly against the table to thank Nie Mingjue for the tea, and neither confirms nor denies the Japan rumor, even though she’s the one most likely to know.

“Maybe he dropped out of university and got involved with the underworld. Maybe his funds ran dry, and he became a forger of erotic art from the Netherlands,” Nie Huaisang continues, opening his fan and batting it shyly at himself, as though it’ll shield himself from the fact that he’s unashamedly saying baseless things about someone behind their back. The door to their private dining room isn’t even properly shut; Wei Wuxian could be back any second. This knowledge only seems to spur them on.

It makes Lan Wangji wonder what they say when he’s not around; but then again, they probably respect him too much to say anything at all. They may have been educated in philistine countries like America, but they still have manners. They simply don’t extend the same courtesy to errand boys of uncertain origin.

Lan Xichen is the only one who notices the way Lan Wangji’s fist is clenched at his side; Lan Xichen is the only one who ever notices anything about Lan Wangji at all. Even Qin Su looks delighted by the slightly illicit turn that their conversation has taken: the low, conspiratorial voices, the twinkle in Nie Huaisang’s eye that suggests he knows far more than he’s letting on.

Lan Xichen knows them all too well; he waits for Lan Wangji to turn his head incrementally and make eye contact, and then crinkles his lips just so, and offers a nod. “Friends,” Lan Xichen says diplomatically, “has the xiao’er poured wine into our cups instead of tea? Such uncharacteristic behavior. Would you talk so shamelessly in front of the Soong sisters?”

“Soong Ching-ling, yes, I would,” Nie Huaisang snickers. “Rosamond absolutely loves to talk shit. Did you know––”

“Oh, gross, Huaisang,” Qin Su giggles. With the way she’s acting, she might as well really be drunk. “I do not want to hear about the circumstances in which you might’ve met and ‘befriended’ Sun Yat-sen’s widow of all people.”

“Let me set the scene, Miss Qin. It’s a fresh autumn evening in Vladivostok––”

“Young Mistress, the bill has been taken care of.” Wei Wuxian stops at the door when he sees them: no doubt understanding, from the way Nie Huaisang is holding his fan and the embarrassed flush on Qin Su’s cheek, that the talk at the table is not for his ears. He clears his throat and takes a step back, so that he is clearly standing outside the threshold of the private room, then bows low, and waits for Qin Su to tell him what to do.

He’s avoiding Lan Wangji’s eyes.

It hurts, of course; they’d been getting along so well earlier. Lan Wangji wishes he could say something to him now, but his mind is blank and he can think of nothing except the way his own nails dig into his palm. At least Wei Wuxian hadn’t heard the way the others had been talking about him; he would’ve hated Lan Wangji for it, for Lan Wangji’s cowardice even if he hadn’t personally contributed to the gossip. Or maybe he did hear, and already hates them all. Or always has hated them all. So Lan Wangji doesn’t blame him for avoiding his gaze, and yet, selfishly, he wishes Wei Wuxian would give him just one more moment of his time.

“The night is still young,” Lan Xichen says, breaking the awkward, obvious silence that has settled in the room.

“Oh,” Qin Su says, suddenly stirring, blinking hard. “No, thank you. You boys go off and do whatever it is shaoyes do. I think I’ll… Wangji?”

It takes a slight nudge in the rib from Lan Xichen for Lan Wangji to finally tear himself away from Wei Wuxian. He gives Qin Su a curt nod. “Of course,” he says, trying and failing not to sound so apathetic. “Let me walk you home.”

He stands up and extends a hand to her. Her soft smile curves upwards, a private one she reserves for him. Only last week Lan Wangji had seen that smile and thought, She will make a fitting wife. Now he feels nothing.

By the time he’s able to look up again, Wei Wuxian has disappeared from the doorway. He’ll be downstairs, holding all of their jackets. Which is the way things are.

***

Two hours ago

The print isn’t framed. It’s just tacked onto the wall, slightly askew, with two mismatched pins: an affront to all of Lan Wangji’s sensibilities but it is particularly horrifying when it comes to this specific artwork. He knows he shouldn’t expect anything sophisticated, seeing as this exhibition is being run out of the storeroom of a bookstore and might be illegal, but still –– he wishes they’d treat this piece with some more of the respect it deserves.

Because it’s breathtaking. A masterpiece like Lan Wangji has never seen before, and that isn’t a figure of speech, either: he really hasn’t ever seen anything quite like this, certainly not here in Shanghai.

The angle is skewed, distorted, as though from the perspective of a lizard on the pavement. But Lan Wangji recognises the Western architecture of the banks and hotels this side of the Bund, and a scratchy, vulnerable-looking figure in the foreground, crouching by a blanket laid out on the floor that heaves with bundles of fruits. The passersby hurry along the street, paying no attention to the hawker, who radiates a quiet but fierce dignity. The print is on the heavily inked side, slightly gooey black color spilling out over the edges and making the lines wobbly, bloated; but Lan Wangji thinks it looks better this way –– more expressive, more raw. Angry, even –– and rightfully so.

The print next to it is clearly by the same artist. It demonstrates the same mastery over the carving blade. Instead of a street scene, this one depicts a lone peasant holding a scythe over his shoulder, back slightly hunched. The field in which he stands is hardly more than abstract scribble, just enough to delineate a location while keeping him isolated, as though floating; spotlighting his noble figure, the callouses on his outstretched hand. He seems to invite the viewer into his space. His eyes are determined. It shouldn’t make Lan Wangji feel anything other than dispassionate respect for the artist’s craft, and yet there’s something that tugs at his chest. Something that enthrals him.

It’s a little overwhelming. Lan Wangji certainly wasn’t planning to have a epiphany-adjacent experience when he’d agreed to let Nie Huaisang drag him to a “fun bachelor spot that isn’t a brothel or an opium den this time, I promise!” And yet here he is, now, mouth open, refusing to blink, rapt before a set of simple, anonymous woodcut prints. Probably making a fool of himself; there are no more than ten people at the exhibition and he and Nie Huaisang already stand out with their fine, silken clothing and rigid posture.

Speaking of –– Nie Huaisang is currently talking animatedly to someone while tugging lightly at Lan Wangji’s sleeve in a clear attempt to draw Lan Wangji into their conversation.

“––and you know what Lu Xun’s like, the slippery bastard,” Nie Huaisang is saying in a jovial tone. “Right, Ji-xiong?”

Lan Wangji blinks at him slowly. It used to be something he did without thinking, the blinking –– buying himself time while he arranged his thoughts into words –– but, in Paris, he’d discovered that it made people think him silently judgemental, in a mysterious and appealing way. He’d decided he didn’t mind having that impression, so now he does it more often, and it makes people like Nie Huaisang think that he doesn’t like them, which, for some reason, makes them like him more. Lan Wangji doesn’t understand it, but he can’t deny that it’s served him well.

Right now, Nie Huaisang is still looking at him with an open face, though his smile has slightly faltered. Nie Huaisang wants to talk about Lu Xun, who is allegedly still living in Shanghai but hasn’t been seen in months, not since the Kuomintang passed a new censorship law at the start of the year that essentially criminalised everything Lu Xun wants to write about –– but Lan Wangji doesn’t really have much to say about the man. Well, he does, but the only thing he wants to talk about at the moment is the set of prints he’s just been unceremoniously drawn away from. And so, even though he knows it’s rude, he turns to the person Nie Huaisang had been talking to, a mousy gentleman, and says, “I’d like to buy.”

“Ah,” the man says. He’s wearing round spectacles and a Western-style suit just like the two of them. Lan Wangji assumes him to be the owner of the bookstore, the one to have extended the exhibition invitation to Nie Huaisang.

“Ji-xiong,” Nie Huaisang cuts in, shielding his and Lan Wangji’s faces with his fan to indicate that they’re having a private conversation. “Nothing here is for sale.”

Lan Wangji frowns. “Then why are we here? You said you were a patron.”

“Well, I am…” Nie Huaisang cocks his head and thinks for a moment, as though deciding whether Lan Wangji is trustworthy; Lan Wangji doesn’t miss the look Nie Huaisang shoots at the mousy man. “I take an interest in the overall activities of the group of which some of the artists may or may not be involved, or are engaging with, on an offhand, non-professional basis…”

Which makes no sense, of course. Lan Wangji frowns harder, and directs his gaze at the mousy man, who gives a hurried bow. “This one will pass on your interest to the relevant parties, good sir, and I am sure that they will be greatly honored.”

Lan Wangji nods. “Alright. I understand if the prints on show have already been sold. They are of an excellent quality, and any discerning eye would take advantage. In that case, I’d like to become a patron, the same kind as Nie Huaisang.”

The mousy man’s eyebrows shoot up to his hairline, but he quickly pulls his face together. “Well, that is certainly good news, Mr…”

“You don’t need to know his name, do you?” Nie Huaisang says. He makes a shooing motion and the mousy man takes his leave, and then Nie Huaisang’s grip on Lan Wangji’s sleeve tightens. He steers them back toward a wall so that it looks like they’re completely engrossed in the art in front of them –– these are prints by a different artist and far less interesting than the ones Lan Wangji had been looking at earlier –– then Nie Huaisang huddles up to him and whispers, “Ji-xiong, I appreciate your enthusiasm but I must say that the Sixteen Art Society… I can’t tell you too much about it. Not even I know more than the basics that someone on a peripheral position might need to grasp. Some of the issues are rather sensitive.”

“I gathered that,” Lan Wangji replies drily. Nie Huaisang and the mousy man haven’t exactly been acting natural.

“And… you don’t mind that?”

Nie Huaisang is playing some kind of game to reel Lan Wangji in; probably a tactic that will make him end up shelling out more funds than he originally wouldn’t have. If it really worried Nie Huaisang to involve Lan Wangji, he would never have brought him here, of course. Lan Wangji tells him this, then adds, “I trust you know my aversion to drugs, and would not ask me to fund opium-related… endeavors.”

“Oh,” Nie Huaisang breathes. “Yes. I mean, there are no drugs involved here, so yeah. Don’t worry about that.” Then he hesitates.

Finally, Lan Wangji says, “You do not have to tell me about this Sixteen Art Society if you do not wish to. I am sure you and that… gentleman have your reasons.” Although he already suspects Sixteen refers to the sixteenth year of the Republic, 1927, a not insignificant year for politics in Shanghai, which already gives him a slew of hints. “I must admit that I simply would like to meet one of the artists, and am hoping that my patronage will curry favor.”

Nie Huaisang scratches his chin. “Hmm. I’m sure that could eventually be arranged, but Ji-xiong… Hold on. Which artist is it that you want to meet?”

Lan Wangji nods back in the direction of the hawker, the peasant.

“Good eye,” Nie Huaisang says, peering over and nodding. “I’m told that artist took part in the woodcut class with Uchiyama Kakichi that old Lu Xun organised earlier this year, and you can really tell that he’s had that first-hand training. There’s a Japanese flavor to the perspective, isn’t there? Ah! Not that I’m implying Ji-xiong is an enthusiast of sensual ukiyo-e… Although if you were, that would be truly delightful, we could compare notes…”

Despite all the extra words Nie Huaisang throws in in an attempt to distract him, it starts to click. “You’re in touch with Lu Xun,” Lan Wangji says, zeroing in on what’s important. He doesn’t ask it as a question.

“I’m a fan of his work. Who isn’t?”

Lan Wangji narrows his eyes. “The KMT isn’t.” The KMT isn’t a fan of most cultural figures that have expressed left-leaning views, and the party has become increasingly obvious about their disapproval in recent years. Uncle isn’t a Marxist, but by virtue of his May Fourth social circles, even he has to be careful.

“Right…” Nie Huaisang’s fanning starts to get faster, and although he and Lan Wangji have only reconnected recently, he remembers enough about his boys’ school classmate to know that this means one of two things –– either the person they’re talking about is someone Nie Huaisang has fucked, or… Well, actually, it’s only ever meant that. But of course Nie Huaisang hasn’t fucked Lu Xun.

Has he?

The man is in his fifties, and a former personal acquaintance of Uncle’s. Surely not. Surely the furious fanning just means that Nie Huaisang is sitting on some other, equally salacious secret. Something that relates just as strongly to the print artist that Lan Wangji is trying to track down as it does to what Chiang Kai-shek is up to in the temporary capital the KMT has set up in Nanjing.

“Oh!” Nie Huaisang squeaks, startling Lan Wangji out of his train of thought. His eye darts away from Lan Wangji’s withering gaze. “Look at that, it’s the Qin household’s errand boy.” He raises his fan and waves somewhere behind Lan Wangji’s shoulder.

“Mr. Nie,” the errand boy says, and Nie Huaisang pats Lan Wangji’s shoulder, reminding him not to be rude.

When Lan Wangji turns, the errand boy is in the middle of rising from a bow with his hands clasped in greeting in front of his face. Lan Wangji has the time to register a black cotton changshan and a sweep of cropped hair, and then the errand boy looks up and flashes a fatal smile and Lan Wangji blurts out, “Wei Ying?”

***

Last week

The ship feels like a coffin, even though Lan Wangji is standing by the railing taking great big gulps of fresh air and feeling the wind buffet through his hair as they pull away from Hong Kong’s docks. He knows it’s only psychological –– it’s probably because the ship he took to get from Lisbon to here had been so enormous that now anything else feels tight, suffocating, constraining. And also because this particular ship is taking him to a destination and a life that he isn’t sure he wants –– but he can’t afford to think this way.

It’s not as though he can get off the ship, disappear into the crowds of Mong Kok, leave the Lan name behind. In Paris, even as recent as three months ago, he and the other Chinese students would sometimes fantasise together about the lives they’d lead if they weren’t duty-bound to return. Always ridiculous, swashbuckling situations, the kind that they knew they’d never have a chance to experience. The horrid smell of absinthe in the air. At the time, Lan Wangji had been so sick of the pretentious company he kept. It had been a relief when the letter from Uncle had arrived congratulating him for the successful defence of his thesis and inviting him to come home to be married. He’d immediately written back with his consent, barely glancing over the specifics of the match, trusting his Uncle would have made the best decision in any case.

Now he wonders whether everything might be happening too fast. The Hong Kong skyline looks nothing like home and he’s never even properly visited the city, and yet looking at it from this distance makes him feel an acute sense of nostalgia.

He decides to return to his cabin and read one of the books he packed with him, a small volume that Xu Beihong-laoshi had recommended to him in one of his recent letters. But he hasn’t even left the deck when he feels someone touch his elbow and say, in English, “Mr. Lan.”

Lan Wangji isn’t expecting to be meeting anyone on this ship, so at first he thinks someone has mistaken him for Lan Xichen, who often does business with the English here. But then he realises that he’s looking at an impossibly familiar face –– a face that he recognises from photographs appended in Uncle’s letters, always accompanied by lists of accomplishments and florid words of admiration from the matchmaker. So he sees the woman and knows that she has recently finished her undergraduate studies in History at Wellesley, that her mother is a scholar of the classical tradition and her father is a businessman, and that she is to keep him company for the rest of his life.

“Miss Qin,” Lan Wangji replies in Mandarin. (Why learn English when French and German are right there?) “What a pleasure it is to see you here. I must have missed the letter informing me that you would be in Hong Kong. I would have met you at the port otherwise.”

Qin Su smiles shyly, and Lan Wangji dimly registers that she is definitely what people would consider beautiful, in that willowy, New Woman way. She wears her hair short and heavily gelled, like a flapper. “It was a surprise. I happened to be visiting a school friend and heard from Xichen that you would be on this ship, so I decided to meet you here.” She tugs her fur coat tighter across her shoulders. She looks cold, so Lan Wangji invites her down to the first-class restaurant for an early lunch.

Their first conversation goes excellently, and Lan Wangji retreats to his cabin in the late afternoon feeling almost optimistic about marrying a woman. Qin Su is knowledgeable about a vast array of topics, and it was not her fault that she ended up in America (she would have preferred France, too, she says, but her parents had been concerned about the debauchery there). Like Lan Wangji, she takes an interest in architecture and agrees that there’s a dearth of research on the architecture of China. They’d both be interested in doing some travelling, perhaps co-authoring the first book on the subject. She took an archaeology module at Wellesley and knows her way around a dig, which is more than Lan Wangji himself can offer.

She enjoys jazz and the theatre, and would like to host weekly salons, but Lan Wangji would be allowed to excuse himself from them at least three-quarters of the time, which is an excellent compromise. She likes to spend money on nice clothes and has a soft spot for a specific tailor in Singapore, and Lan Wangji rarely ever buys anything other than books, so that also works out.

Additionally, there’s a good chance she’s also gay, which makes things much easier for everyone. He’ll need to figure out a way to bring up the topic without offending her in case he’s wrong, though. Perhaps the first port of call is to find another woman and see how they get on. Maybe Lan Xichen will know a woman?

He sits by the desk and opens a book –– not the one he’d been planning to read, but a novel that has been his favorite since his teenage years and that he rereads when he needs something to anchor his mind to. Beneath him, the ship rocks lightly amidst the waves, lulling him into a more relaxed state, one in which the gnawing, unsettled anxiety in his chest seems, for just an hour, to go away.

***

Now

The Qin townhouse is a relatively new mansion that stands tall and proud in the New French Concession, one of the handful of homes inhabited by wealthy Chinese families. It’s the kind of location that people like Nie Mingjue turn up their noses at, because it means that the Qins aren’t old-dynasty landlords with their own estates on plots of land not owned by foreign governments; but the Lans have always been magnanimous about social mobility, and it had not been an issue for Uncle when he’d been making the match. Besides, the Qins’ forefathers are from Shanxi and they keep a property in Ying County, where the thousand-year-old Fogong Pagoda stands; Lan Wangji and Qin Su had decided to begin their architectural studies from there, hoping to write a treatise on the dougong, interlocking wooden brackets joining planks of wood that meant the structure was built, and continues to stand, without a single metal nail.

Or at least, that had been the plan they’d formulated over tea, back on the ship from Hong Kong. Now, Lan Wangji isn’t sure if that what he even wants anymore. Not when Wei Wuxian is walking right next to him, arms gesticulating as he tells some story from the Qin kitchens. The fabric on their sleeves brush together every once in a while and Lan Wangji has to hide the way his breath hitches, the way his heartbeat starts to pound in his neck and chest and legs.

He shouldn’t feel this way –– not after so long –– not when Wei Wuxian has clearly moved on, likely wants nothing to do with him, especially with the vast distance between their social standing now –– and yet Lan Wangji can’t help looking at Wei Wuxian, the way the soft glint of the streetlamps glides across his cheekbones and the way the fringe of his hair gets into his eyes when he throws his head back to laugh at something Qin Su has said.

They’ve been standing by the front door to the Qin townhouse for a while now, the other two having emerged from their conversation and winding down with small talk. Finally, Qin Su looks over at Lan Wangji and nods; he bows to her, promises to pay a visit to the drawing room tomorrow, and watches her disappear into the foyer, a servant coming out to greet her and relieve her of her coat.

The doors are pushed shut with a click, followed by the loud grind of the bolts being locked. Until the only sound in the street is the distant revving of an automobile, and the tangible silence that has settled between Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian.

“Well,” Wei Wuxian says suddenly. “I’d better be going.”

Lan Wangji frowns. “Do you… not board with the Qins?”

“Oh, no,” Wei Wuxian replies with a snort, as though it were a preposterous suggestion. “I’m only really a part-timer. I actually live upstairs from that bookstore.”

“I see.”

Wei Wuxian gives him a smile; it’s really nothing more than an upward pull at each corner of his mouth. “It was nice seeing you again, Lan Zhan. Congratulations on your engagement.”

Lan Wangji’s heart sinks down to his stomach, where the acid flays it until it is a twitching, shrunken thing. His body feels lost, and he doesn’t trust himself to speak, so instead he bows again, forcing his back to bend as deeply as it can. When he rises, Wei Wuxian has a faraway look in his eye.

“I’ll see you around?” Wei Wuxian says softly. “I only work mornings, though.”

Wei Wuxian turns to leave the way they came, and before he can regret it, because there’s really not much he can do at this point that he could regret, Lan Wangji takes a step forward and says, “Wei Ying, what do you know about the Sixteen Art Society?”

Wei Wuxian stares.

“I’m trying to get in touch with one of the artists from the exhibition,” Lan Wangji continues, not even sure what he’s saying at this point; all he’s really aware of is that somehow he’s managed to make Wei Wuxian stay, even for a few more minutes. “Since we met up with you there, I was wondering whether you might be able to help. Do you know… I just want to buy some prints. I’m happy to offer financial support.”

“Ah, all you shaoyes know is to throw your money around,” Wei Wuxian sneers, though he puts a hand on his hip in the way he used to when they’d been younger, neighbors hanging around on the streets on summer evenings, and he’d been pretending to tell Lan Wangji off for being a stick in the mud. He wags a finger in an exaggerated manner and says, “Now, now, what would Lan-xiansheng say about his dear nephew consorting with political undesirables?”

Lan Wangji raises an eyebrow, thinks fondly back to the ways Wei Wuxian used to try to provoke him; reminds himself that he’s better at thinking on his feet, these days. Just as with Nie Huaisang, it’s important to pay attention to the information Wei Wuxian attempts to bury into the rest of his teasing speech.

He levels his gaze at Wei Wuxian and says, “Is that what the Sixteen Art Society is? Political undesirables?”

“Depends on who’s doing the desiring.”

“And who would that be?”

Wei Wuxian smirks.

Lan Wangji waits a while, letting Wei Wuxian ponder the shift in mood between them. They’re still standing by the Qins’ front door, which perhaps isn’t the best place to be talking about such things, although the fact that the French own this neighborhood affords them a certain amount of discretion from censors and spies.

So Lan Wangji takes a risk: he clasps his hands behind his back, and begins to walk. He walks in the opposite direction of where the bookstore had been, deeper into the French Concession, and he isn’t sure where he’s going, but he hopes Wei Wuxian will follow. If Wei Wuxian is still as insatiably curious as he’d been as a scrappy teenager; if he still thinks Lan Wangji a mystery waiting to be unravelled.

Sure enough, Lan Wangji hears footsteps behind him, and then, “Lan-er-gege.”

His ears can’t help but flare at the ridiculous old nickname. “Mn,” he says.

“The Lan estate is in the other direction.”

“I know.”

There’s a pause, and then Wei Wuxian loops an arm around Lan Wangji’s elbow, bringing himself impossibly close, letting his weight fall against Lan Wangji’s side. Lan Wangji feels like he’s been set on fire, but decades of Uncle’s training in etiquette allow him to keep a straight face.

“Where are you going, er-gege? Are you going to find your brother and the Nies? They went off to play poker with the Americans.”

“I don’t know,” Lan Wangji says truthfully. “Perhaps I’ll take a walk.”

Wei Wuxian stops, and tugs at Lan Wangji’s arm until he stops too. He turns and looks into Wei Wuxian’s face, so open, so kind and genuine, even here and now when they barely even know each other anymore. When there’s a gulf between them. Wei Wuxian bites his lip and grins and says, “Want to see something fun?”

Lan Wangji nods.

Wei Wuxian steers them back to the bookstore in silence. The things they want to talk about aren’t fit for public contexts, and anything else feels frivolous. Lan Wangji lets his other hand shake with terror, the hand that Wei Wuxian can’t see. He doesn’t know what’s going to happen when they get to Wei Wuxian’s home, but whatever it is, however long it lasts, even if they never speak again after tonight –– it will have been worth it.

When they get to the bookstore, there’s the dim light of one or two candles emanating from within the shop, and a few blurred shadows. Murmurs. Wei Wuxian doesn’t comment on it, and immediately unlocks a door that will lead them to the accommodation upstairs, so Lan Wangji says nothing either. Except, as soon as the street door has shut, plunging them into darkness, Wei Wuxian’s hand finds his and he slots them together and whispers, all in one breath, “So you don’t run into a wall. Hold on tight, er-gege. Oh and, you know Qin Su is a lesbian, right?”

Lan Wangji is far too well-raised to say Um, and yet he says, “Um.”

Before he can figure out what to say in proper response, Wei Wuxian starts pulling him up the stairs. He does so slowly, in hesitant steps, to make sure Lan Wangji doesn’t trip, and though Lan Wangji can’t see anything around them he can hear Wei Wuxian’s breaths loud and clear, hovering right by his ear; he can even feel the heat of Wei Wuxian’s mouth, and it makes Lan Wangji feel queasy, uncertain, off-balance. He concentrates on not stumbling.

After what feels like an eternity they’ve reached the top and Wei Wuxian has unlocked the door that leads to his small room and is bundling them inside. He makes Lan Wangji stand in a corner while he fumbles with a match, and then a lantern is casting its glow onto a bed, a desk, a shelf stuffed overfull with cloth bundles and sheets of paper and knick-knacks.

It’s such an ordinary room, one that reminds Lan Wangji of his lodging house from his first year in Paris, before a friend of his Uncle’s had allowed him to rent their apartment in the 13^th Arrondissement. The mornings he spent meditating on the hard wooden grounds, the creaking sounds of the pipes when others used the bath, the utter mundanity of it all. And yet this room belongs to Wei Wuxian: he rests in this bed after a long day at the Qins’, flips through these books at this low desk, does his ablutions using this ceramic bowl that sits by this bookshelf with this towel hanging over it. How many other people has he invited into this space of his? Is Lan Wangji special, or does this mean nothing?

“I do know,” Lan Wangji says finally. “That Miss Qin likes women.”

Wei Wuxian looks up from the mess he’s fiddling with at the desk. “And you’re still getting married? You’re that in love with her?”

“I am… also gay,” Lan Wangji says slowly.

“Oh.” Wei Wuxian looks… stricken. Then he quickly arranges his face and says, “That’s great. That’s not a bad thing at all, obviously. Good for you.”

Thank you? “Sorry. I thought Wei Ying knew.”

Wei Wuxian seems about to say something, but then breaks eye contact and moves away, looking for something amidst the stacks of papers piled against the wall. “Oh, here it is,” he announces, extracting a cardboard folio from somewhere and batting at the dust on it with his sleeve. Lan Wangji bites back a Don’t sully your clothes with dust, a line that would’ve been natural back when they were young, when the Jiangs would send Wei Wuxian to spend his days in the Lans’ library so that he’d be out of the Jiangs’ way; but this is not what their relationship is now. Lan Wangji has no idea what their relationship is now. For once the anxiety makes him feel giddy, as though he’s walking on air, instead of tying him to the ground and making it feel as though he were wading through mud. For once it’s exhilarating, to be terrified.

Wei Wuxian beckons him over and he obeys. He takes off the outer jacket of his suit and drapes it against the back of a wooden chair piled high with clothing and undoes the buttons on his sleeves so that he can roll them up to just beneath his elbows. He hears Wei Wuxian suck in a breath, but when Lan Wangji looks at him, Wei Wuxian is facing away again.

“Is this the kind of stuff you’re looking for, Lan Zhan?” Wei Wuxian takes out a sheet of paper from the folio and holds it up to the lantern light so that Lan Wangji can see. It’s a woodcut print, a still life study that depicts a bowl of lychees on a table. It wasn’t displayed at the exhibition, but there’s still something familiar in the strokes, the dynamism of the artist’s blade against the rough grain of the wood.

“This is the same artist as the one who made the prints of the hawker and the peasant,” Lan Wangji says. He’s not a connoisseur by any means, but he knows in his gut that he’s right.

Wei Wuxian chews his lip, and offers no further information. Very well; Lan Wangji decides not to try and ask about what else the folio might contain. Where it might come from.

With their hands hovering by the lantern, Lan Wangji notices that the pads of Wei Wuxian’s fingers have little scars on them, as though nicked by small, thin blades.

“I think it’s noble, what these artists are doing,” Lan Wangji ends up saying tentatively, his voice far steadier in contrast to his hands, still shaking a little behind his back. “Depicting the plight of oppressed peoples, utilising art for important ends.” He looks up at Wei Wuxian and smiles; Wei Wuxian’s eyes widen with awe.

“You don’t think it…” Wei Wuxian begins, then trails off.

“No, I don’t,” Lan Wangji replies, even though he isn’t entirely sure what Wei Wuxian had been about to say.

He thinks about the formal letters between him and Xu Beihong-laoshi, which originally began as part of an initiative putting Chinese students in France in touch with those who had come before them. Most of the things Lan Wangji knows about art have come from Xu-laoshi: things about realism, about the best way to communicate to larger groups of people, and what it means to China that Western-style public exhibitions have become a prominent trend here. What could be brought over to be shown. About Courbet and Repin.

Xu-laoshi famously hates modernism, but Lan Wangji didn’t spend years picking up men in Montparnasse not to have been exposed to the full extent of the avant-garde. He’s read manifestos in small-circulation newspapers and he’s dozed off at cafés to the sound of people arguing about color and form. There had even been someone who’d thought psychoanalysing himself would be good pillowtalk. All this to say –– he knows what it means, for people to be learning how to make prints like these in secret, displaying them illicitly, no name attached to any of them except that of an underground art society founded in the same year that the KMT purged every communist in Shanghai. Lan Wangji remembers Uncle’s handwriting, vibrating with rage, when he’d written to describe the declaration of martial law, the guns drawn in the streets.

And Lan Wangji wonders where Wei Wuxian was –– where he’s been all these years ever since the Jiangs died and he disappeared into the countryside, yes, of course, but also, specifically, where Wei Wuxian was on the 12^th of April 1927. Had he already moved back to Shanghai by then? Had he been a trade unionist? Had he only survived through luck? Had he already met the bookstore owner and his reading group downstairs? –– Or is Wei Wuxian almost as new to this as Lan Wangji himself?

In spring of 1927, Lan Wangji hooked up with a German art dealer who had a print tacked up on the wall by his bed. It was a morbid print, depicting a group of women huddled together in fear, their large, distorted hands protecting one another, so close that their bodies melded into one thick block. There was a child peeking his head out from beneath someone’s arm. (As an aside: art responding to the Great War is depressing as fuck. You don’t see Chinese guys sent to serve in the Labor Corps making twisted paintings about their traumas; they either died right there, or went home and continued to farm.) All in all, it had been an unpleasant hookup, in part because Lan Wangji had had to look at the Kollwitz print the whole time, in part because it had been his first year in Paris and he hadn’t yet known how to get what he wanted from these encounters. The next morning the art dealer had made porridge as thick and repulsive as the block of bodies in the print. He must’ve done it on purpose, somehow.

The room has been painfully silent for some time now. When Wei Wuxian finally breaks, clearing his throat and most likely getting ready to change the subject, Lan Wangji runs a finger down the cheap white page of the print and says, “Most Chinese people are more familiar with prints in the indigenous nianhua style. Flat perspective instead of a ‘window into the world’ composition. Bright colors. Isolated elements.” He looks up and meets Wei Wuxian’s gaze, hopes his eyes say more than his mouth ever really can. “Nie Huaisang mentioned a class with a Japanese print master. Sōsaku-hanga is not averse to color, but everything in the exhibition was in black-and-white only. Perhaps the Sixteen Art Society can only afford black ink. I am happy to facilitate the acquisition of more materials.”

Wei Wuxian swallows. “They wouldn’t say no to that.” He reaches into the folio and takes out another print: an ear of corn, strewn across a table. There’s enough empty space around the main component of the picture for the rest of the woodblock to have been used for calligraphy practice, though, from this angle, Lan Wangji can’t read what the crooked characters say. “You’re right about legibility. It’s a concern.”

“A concern for whom?”

“Ah, who knows?” Wei Wuxian smiles wanly. “I’m just a part-timer.” Then he straightens up, places his palms on the wooden chair by the desk and rocks the chair back and forth, contemplating something, or just zoning out; it’s been a long day for him, probably.

“Wei Ying,” Lan Wangji says. What are we doing? Why have you brought me here, exactly –– to show me art and then refuse to admit who made them? Who am I to you? What do you want from me? What do you not want from me?

“I’m being a terrible host,” is Wei Wuxian’s reply to that. “Please, sit down.”

Wei Wuxian sits on the chair. Lan Wangji looks around, sees the second chair full of clothing and with his own jacket draped onto it. He strides over to the bed and sits on the edge. It creaks.

They’re close enough that if they stretched out their legs they’d be able to hook their ankles together.

Downstairs, the murmurs get louder, for just a moment. Someone pushes open the bookstore’s door and the figures that had been assembled now stream out, one by one, in silence. Soon, they’re gone, back to their homes, to hide their politically dissident literature in the kitchen floorboards.

Wei Wuxian clears his throat again. “I might have some wine. Would you like some?”

“No, thank you.”

“Alright.” Wei Wuxian doesn’t move to pour a cup for himself. Instead he stretches his leg out, wiggles his foot in his canvas shoe with the trodden sole. Hums nonsensically for a while, as though he were waiting in line at the butcher’s and not –– not here, doing this. “You know,” he suddenly says, “you’ve changed a lot, Lan Zhan.”

“Have I?” Lan Wangji replies. He shuffles back on the bed until he can lean against the wall. It creaks again. “Wei Ying hasn’t.”

A bark of laughter, just a little too loud. “Still annoying?”

“Still beautiful.”

Wei Wuxian’s eyes snap up to stare at Lan Wangji in horror. He blinks a few times, in quick succession, and then the shock seems to subside; his face settles into something softer. He opens his mouth to make a quip; shuts it again. Looks down into his lap and picks at some invisible thread on his changshan.

At some point during all this Lan Wangji has stopped breathing. He waits and waits and waits and feels like he’s going to faint. His fists are bunched at his sides and clutching at the thin bedding. He’s squeezed his eyes shut and is idly watching the light dance across his eyelids, like fireworks.

He wants to chicken out, wants to backtrack, wants to bare his teeth and say, What do you mean, changed? How have I changed? Remember when –– and let Wei Wuxian pick up the rest, spin tales from the humid afternoons and crisp evenings they used to spend together when they’d been too young to understand what it meant when being with someone made you want to throw up but being without them made you want to throw up even more. Before the Jiangs died; before they’d had to reckon with the world outside of their neighborhood.

He wants to say, Never mind, and walk out the door and marry Qin Su and climb roofs in Shanxi while wearing a floppy hat and avoid jazz salons and become a professor and visit America and think about stopping in the middle of the road every time he crosses one, every time an automobile veers too close. He wants to get down on his knees and beg. He wants to say, Please.

The bed creaks.

Lan Wangji opens his eyes, sees Wei Wuxian’s face hovering in front of his, slides his eyes shut again. Even though he knew the kiss was going to come, it still feels like a tidal wave, crashing into his shins and knocking him into the sea. Like swallowing sand and a lungful of salt water. Like drowning. He feels Wei Wuxian’s lips against his and Wei Wuxian’s hand pinching his chin and Wei Wuxian’s nose digging into his cheek and he thinks he never needs to breathe again.

***

One hour ago

They’ve been sitting at the low dining table in the private room of Lan Xichen’s favorite restaurant for at least half an hour before Xichen himself shows up, with Nie Mingjue in tow. Qin Su is right behind them, which isn’t completely surprising considering that everyone and their parents know each other, but still –– it’s a little odd. Perhaps the two parties simply arrived at the restaurant at the same time.

When he sees them approach the half-open door, Wei Wuxian scrabbles up quickly from his seat, swallowing the last of his sunflower seeds, and goes to greet the newcomers. “Young Mistress,” he says, ducking his head low as he stretches out an arm, into which Qin Su places her light cardigan and her purse.

“Thank you, A-Xian,” Qin Su says warmly, and irritation flares in Lan Wangji’s chest, to hear someone who doesn’t even know Wei Wuxian call him a name like that. What gives her the right? Well, actually –– she’s his employer.

“No need for thanks, Young Mistress,” Wei Wuxian replies, sounding somehow genuine. He nods to Lan Xichen and Nie Mingjue, and takes their jackets too, and then disappears downstairs.

Lan Wangji is surprised at himself, at how angry he feels, at the tightness in his throat. It had been alright up until now: after that first startled moment of recognition at the bookstore, Wei Wuxian had explained to Nie Huaisang that he knew Lan Wangji from when they’d been neighbors, and Nie Huaisang had only raised his eyebrow a little at the newfound knowledge that Wei Wuxian had once been wealthy enough to live on the same street as the Lans.

It had become immediately apparent that Nie Huaisang and Wei Wuxian were on good terms, whether Nie Huaisang made it a habit to befriend the servants of other families’ households (unlikely, although not impossible) or whether they were connected to each other via the mysterious, suspicious Sixteen Art Society as well as some of Nie Huaisang’s other activities that he prefers for his dage not to know (far more likely).

No sooner had the three exchanged a few pleasantries did Nie Huaisang invite Wei Wuxian to join them for dinner with his employer, Qin Su, and Wei Wuxian had only declined twice before finally giving in. They’d ambled their way here and gotten some tea and light snacks to chew on, and Nie Huaisang had rattled off an order for dinner, only to be brought in once the others joined them. While waiting, Wei Wuxian had slipped right back into the way he’d been before, all those years ago, teasing and prodding, and Lan Wangji had been relieved –– to know that things could be easy, that he had a role to play in this too. Because it had been a performance, really, for Nie Huaisang’s sake but also for the two of them. Pretending that they didn’t owe anything to each other; because they didn’t, really, even though it felt like they did, like something precious and indescribable had been happening between them before life had cut it short. Nie Huaisang falling into his role easily, too, but eyeing Lan Wangji in a way that suggested he’d be asking subtle, pointed questions for many months to come.

All worth it, everything worth it, to be able to hear the peals of laughter coming out of Wei Wuxian’s perfect mouth, to let Wei Wuxian reach over every once in a while to pat Lan Wangji’s shoulder or, once, near the start, ruffle his hair.

But now that the others are here the spell has been broken, and Lan Wangji feels betrayed, even though he knows it’s no one’s fault, really, just––

Lan Xichen takes his seat next to Lan Wangji where Wei Wuxian had just been sitting and, before he can say a word in greeting, Lan Wangji says, “Xiongzhang, you did not tell me that Wei Ying worked for the Qins.”

“Wei Ying?” Lan Xichen echoes, brows furrowing minutely.

Can he really not remember? Wei Wuxian had spent so many days making a ruckus in the Lans’ library, and, when they’d been children, there had been more than a few times when Lan Xichen had had to go out to call Lan Wangji home for dinner and seen Wei Wuxian hanging off his arm, the two boys covered in mud from some adventure. And when Wei Wuxian had left, Lan Wangji had been distraught, had moped around for weeks until Uncle and Lan Xichen had decided to send him to the boarding school where he would eventually meet, and be forced to befriend, Nie Huaisang. Lan Wangji had always assumed that it had been his heartbreak that had caused him to be sent away. But here Lan Xichen is now, expression completely blank upon mention of–– of––

“A-Xian,” Lan Wangji clarifies through gritted teeth.

“Oh. Do we know him? He always did look a bit familiar, but I figured…”

Lan Wangji opens his mouth to explain, but realises that there is no way for him to make Lan Xichen understand just who Wei Wuxian is. So instead he turns to Qin Su, who has sat down by his other side and whom he has rudely ignored since her arrival anyway, and mutters, “Lovely to see you, Miss Qin.”

If Qin Su somehow knows Lan Wangji well enough after just a week to be able to tell that something’s off, she doesn’t say anything about it. She just nods, and pats his hand. In any case, now that everyone’s arrived, the waitstaff waste no time in bringing in steaming dishes from the kitchen, all sorts of delicacies; of course Nie Huaisang has ordered a little bit of everyone’s favorites, and even Lan Wangji’s stomach grumbles and he has to admit that he spent many years missing good Chinese food while in France.

Wei Wuxian returns, and hesitates briefly at the door before Nie Huaisang invites him back to the table. He slides in between Nie Huaisang and Nie Mingjue, right across from Lan Wangji, and their eyes lock.

For the first time in years Lan Wangji gets a good look at Wei Wuxian’s eyes, the grey that Lan Wangji has always associated with violent summer storms. Right now Wei Wuxian’s gaze is placid, and lingers on Lan Wangji for a few precious beats before it glides away again, focused on Wei Wuxian’s plate, his chopsticks, his teacup. It’s clear having a servant at the table isn’t a common occurrence for the group, but Wei Wuxian’s presence doesn’t disrupt the atmosphere, either. This part is definitely because Wei Wuxian is just excessively charming as a person, and highly intelligent, and knows how to turn anything to his advantage. Lan Wangji feels proud of Wei Wuxian for this, and then chastises himself. Wei Wuxian is not his to take pride in. At least not like this.

The conversation has turned to politics; it seems that Lan Xichen trusts the waitstaff at this restaurant not only with his own life, but that of his brother and friends, too. Lan Wangji lets the others’ dialogue float over him. There’s an easy amicability in the room that Lan Wangji hasn’t gotten a hang of yet, having only recently returned. When he next allows himself to sneak a glance at Wei Wuxian across the table, he sees that Wei Wuxian has been looking at him, too; the slightest blush creeps across his cheeks and then recedes just as quickly.

Lan Wangji drops a chopstick. He mutters an apology, though no one pays attention. No one, that is, except Wei Wuxian, who gives him an exaggerated wink and swiftly turns to Nie Mingjue and says, “Do you know who the first person was to translate the Communist Manifesto into Chinese?”

Although he’s perfectly in line with the topic of conversation, everyone stops momentarily to look at Wei Wuxian. “You tell me,” Nie Mingjue replies cheerfully after the beat, though he lifts his teacup to his lips and exchanges a glance with Nie Huaisang over it.

“Her name is He-Yin Zhen,” Wei Wuxian says, equally smooth. Turns to Qin Su: “Young Mistress, if I may permit myself, I highly recommend her essay entitled ‘On the Revenge of Women’. It’s hard to get a hold of but I have a friend of a friend who can supply you the issue of Tianyi magazine that it’s from. Really interesting stuff. Makes you want to get violent.”

Qin Su laughs. “Sounds right up my alley.”

“Very interesting,” Lan Xichen muses. “I have never come across this name before.”

“Her husband died about ten years ago and no one’s ever heard of her since. She just fully disappeared. Some people think she died, and others think she became a nun. But I think she’s still around. Who knows? Maybe she’s selling fish at the market, just biding her time for the revolution to come.”

How brazenly Wei Wuxian speaks. As though asking for the sky to come crashing down on him, just so that he can prove he won’t be crushed.

“Ah, but my friend, and esteemed dage, of course,” Nie Huaisang interjects, pointing with his folded fan at Wei Wuxian and Nie Mingjue in turn, “the real question is, why does it matter who translated the Communist Manifesto? Should we be putting so much stock in a couple of Germans who have never been to China, who could not possibly understand the uniqueness of our circumstances? Discuss.”

“Naturally Westernisation is the only path to progress,” Nie Mingjue says.

“But Nie-xiansheng, respectfully, should we not seek a synthesis?” Wei Wuxian replies. “We may selectively appropriate whatever suits us from the West, such as, ah, mass literacy, but do away with less desirable tendencies, like imperialism. Right, Lan Zhan?”

“Mn,” Lan Wangji says. He does agree, but he’s never been the type to jump into debates like these.

Nie Mingjue huffs. “It is precisely such weakness and compromise that led to the decline of the Qing in the first place. Look at how they did it in Japan. They just made a decision and stuck to it. They Westernised. And now they’re ready to invade Manchuria anytime they want. I swear it’s going to happen by the end of this year.”

Lan Xichen’s eyes glitter. “Mingjue, you sound just like our uncle.”

“I was there on May Fourth, Xichen.”

“Still, Mingjue, a lot can change in ten years,” Qin Su offers.

“Indeed!” Nie Huaisang says. “A precocious young girl can bloom into an accomplished and beautiful woman such as yourself, Miss Qin.” Nie Huaisang elbows Qin Su and the two fall into a fit of giggles; their friendship stretches back many years, it seems.

“Ah, look at that. Wangji, you should have been the one to offer Miss Qin such a compliment!”

Involuntarily, blood rushes to Lan Wangji’s ears at Lan Xichen’s comment. He knows Lan Xichen is just teasing, just keeping the atmosphere light, but he finds himself feeling both a twinge of annoyance at the very concept of him being so shameless, and a sense of guilt, at the fact that he keeps forgetting Qin Su is even in the room to begin with. How is he meant to remember her, when Wei Wuxian is in front of him, mouth tinged red by the fragrant spice of the dish Nie Huaisang ordered especially with him in mind?

The lips in question draw themselves into a line, faltering, and then wider, into a smile. “Lan Zhan!” Wei Wuxian exclaims. “Does this mean what I think it means? Are you and Young Mistress…?”

Lan Wangji nods. He doesn’t trust himself to speak at the moment; he lowers his head to face his bowl, brings a bite of rice into his mouth for good measure.

“Well, congratulations!”

Wei Wuxian shoves his teacup into Lan Wangji’s face, doesn’t let up until Lan Wangji clinks it with his own. Wei Wuxian does the same with Qin Su, whose eyes are crinkled with mirth, and then the three of them drink. Lan Wangji feels the hot tea tip back into his throat, its aftertaste sour and stinging, like bile.

***

Now

“I… haven’t done this in a while,” Lan Wangji admits. He had, in fact, had too many close calls with Frenchmen who didn’t wash their balls early on in his Paris years, but he thinks he can remember the principle of it.

“Oh, that’s–– Lan Zhan!” Whatever it was Wei Wuxian was going to say is cut off when Lan Wangji dips his head and swallows him down as far as he can.

Wei Wuxian smells earthy, and real, with a faint lingering taste of soap; his weight presses heavily against Lan Wangji’s tongue, and Lan Wangji suddenly knows why so many people love sucking cock so much. He wants to take him further, wants to feel Wei Wuxian’s cock ram against the back of his throat until tears leak out of his eyes, but that’ll have to be another day. Today he’s far too impatient.

Lan Wangji pulls off and strokes Wei Wuxian with his fist while pressing wet, mouthy kisses to the tip, sticking his tongue out to lap at the bead of precome there. He looks up at Wei Wuxian, who’s got his eyes tightly shut and his hand clasped over his mouth. His hand stills, and he leans his cheek against the inside of Wei Wuxian’s thigh. “Is everything alright?” He’d hoped he’d be good at it, but perhaps…

“No, no, don’t stop,” Wei Wuxian says. “I just… this is kind of crazy.”

“Mn,” Lan Wangji replies, though he’s not sure what Wei Wuxian means. One of Wei Wuxian’s hands snakes down to cradle his jawline, rubs lightly at the tip of his ear where it feels burning hot. It’s an impossibly tender act, but Lan Wangji resists the urge to try and decode what it might mean in this moment; what Wei Wuxian might be trying to say. Instead he grabs hold of Wei Wuxian’s wrist and moves the hand into his hair. “You can… If you want,” Lan Wangji says. Then: “I want to hear you.”

“Oh, okay. Right.”

“Okay,” Lan Wangji replies awkwardly, then decides he might as well get back into it.

True to Lan Wangji’s request, Wei Wuxian lets out a breathy moan when he sucks him down again, a wanton sound that makes Lan Wangji’s toes curl. He wraps his lips carefully around his teeth and bobs his head, producing slick noises that mix in with Wei Wuxian’s gasps.

He could definitely get used to this, he thinks as he swirls his tongue around Wei Wuxian’s shaft and hums to show that he’s enjoying this too –– and he is, he’s so hard that it hurts and he really wishes he’d worn a changshan today instead of these tight Western trousers.

When Wei Wuxian’s hand in his hair finally tightens and he pulls, Lan Wangji can’t help but moan, and his hips jerk against the mattress as his cock aches for relief. Wei Wuxian is squirming beneath him even as Lan Wangji uses his spare hand to try and hold him down.

“Fuck, Lan Zhan, Lan-er-gege, you feel so good,” Wei Wuxian moans. He’s been talking his mouth off his whole time, but only now does Lan Wangji have the awareness to pay attention. Wei Wuxian’s voice sounds strained, as though he’s already close.

Lan Wangji pulls off again and pants hard to catch his breath, watching the way Wei Wuxian’s red, swollen cock jerks even from that. He’s so sensitive that Lan Wangji can trick himself into thinking it’s just for him.

“What do you want?” he asks hoarsely.

“Ah… I don’t know?” Wei Wuxian sounds slightly hysterical. “Whatever you want to do. Literally anything.”

Lan Wangji’s heart is pounding in his ears. He’s never felt this way before –– all his previous encounters had been quick, confident affairs in the dark, conversing with their bodies and not words, his partners assuming him not to be fluent in their language anyway. To the point where he actually doesn’t even know what people call––

“Do you have… lubrication?” Lan Wangji ends up saying, one hand gripping Wei Wuxian’s cock, deathly terrified that this interlude is going to make Wei Wuxian’s erection flag and then he won’t want to keep going anymore. He leans in to mouth at Wei Wuxian’s balls, grazing his teeth ever so lightly against the soft skin there, and hears Wei Wuxian let out a groan.

Wei Wuxian fumbles blindly at his bedside table as though he can’t bear to sit up and move away from Lan Wangji even for a moment. He tosses Lan Wangji a jar of oil and watches, mouth open wide, as Lan Wangji twists it open and dips his fingers inside. “I want you inside me, er-gege. Want you to finger me open and fuck me until I come on your cock.”

Lan Wangji blinks, barely able to register the filth that’s coming out of Wei Wuxian’s mouth. “Is that okay?” He hadn’t really thought –– that had been on the table.

“What? Of course it’s okay. I mean, is that okay with you?”

“Yes, okay,” Lan Wangji parrots, his mind spinning. There’s a slight frown of confusion on Wei Wuxian’s brow so Lan Wangji takes him in his mouth again to distract him while he brings an oiled finger to toy with Wei Wuxian’s balls before moving backward, to brush against the dry, puckered texture of his rim.

When he eases in, Wei Wuxian gasps and brings a leg to hitch over Lan Wangji’s shoulder. Both of his hands have moved into Lan Wangji’s hair and he tugs, hard and relentless, urging Lan Wangji on. With the way his thighs are shaking and the drag of his dull nails against Lan Wangji’s scalp, he’s being such a nuisance that it’s impossible to suck him off and finger him at the same time, so Lan Wangji pushes himself up on an elbow and crawls over to devour Wei Wuxian’s mouth instead.

Even though they’ve kissed enough times in the past few moments for Lan Wangji to have lost count, it feels no less transcendental. Wei Wuxian’s lips are so soft, and every time Lan Wangji nips at them or slides his tongue into his mouth he makes a high-pitched keening noise that makes Lan Wangji think he’s going to explode.

When Wei Wuxian arches back and bares his gorgeous neck, Lan Wangji can’t help but leave a trail of kisses down to his collarbone, where he sucks a purple bruise that blooms. He starts to understand what Wei Wuxian had meant earlier –– maybe they’re both going crazy. Lan Wangji is acting purely by instinct now, his mind drifting in pleasure as he scissors Wei Wuxian open.

“Yes, just like that, Lan Zhan,” Wei Wuxian pleads when Lan Wangji presses against that spot inside him. Lan Wangji does it again, and Wei Wuxian seems to choke on air, scrabbling at Lan Wangji’s biceps as he lifts up to rock against his fingers. “Can’t wait to feel you inside me, don’t stop, never stop, I’ve wanted this for so long you have no idea, Lan-er-gege,” Wei Wuxian pants, and then pouts when Lan Wangji freezes and extracts his hand.

“You have?” Lan Wangji asked.

“Of course I have. Have you seen yourself, Lan Zhan?” Wei Wuxian’s eyes soften and he ropes Lan Wangji in for a slow, sweet kiss. “You were my first crush,” he whispers against Lan Wangji’s lips, their eyelashes fluttering together. “Well, you still are.”

Lan Wangji whimpers.

“Whoa!” Wei Wuxian says, a delighted grin spreading across his face. “Do that again.”

“No,” Lan Wangji replies, shooting him a glare, which seems to make him equally happy. He kisses Lan Wangji again.

Lan Wangji unbuckles his belt, frees his straining erection, and drips more oil onto it. The cool feeling helps stave off some of his arousal, and he lets Wei Wuxian reach out to run a finger along his hard cock. They both shiver, and then Wei Wuxian catches his eye and laughs.

“Come here,” he says, gripping Lan Wangji’s hips and guiding him to kneel between his legs. It feels odd, for Lan Wangji to be almost fully dressed for this, but Wei Wuxian has a flush across his chest and neck that’s climbing to his face and he’s pulling Lan Wangji toward him using his tie, the material causing the collar of his shirt to chafe slightly against his skin, and it feels unreal. Lan Wangji wishes his tie were tighter so that he could feel even more acutely the way Wei Wuxian is drawing him in, the control Wei Wuxian has over him right now. When Lan Wangji slides his cock into Wei Wuxian’s loose and ready hole, Wei Wuxian screams.

“Are you alright?” Lan Wangji asks, concerned both about Wei Wuxian’s wellbeing and about the fact that others might have heard the scream and come to ask about it. He wants to pull away but Wei Wuxian has locked his arms around his shoulders and his hugging him tightly, chest to chest; Lan Wangji can feel Wei Wuxian’s hard and leaking cock jut against his stomach, a wet patch blooming.

“Oh, I’m more than alright. Lan-er-gege, move.”

Lan Wangji moves, snapping his hips to grind deeper inside Wei Wuxian for a few strokes before drawing out until only the tip of his cock holds Wei Wuxian open. Wei Wuxian crosses his ankles behind Lan Wangji’s back and draws him in with another long moan, and Lan Wangji has to bite the inside of his cheek to stop himself from coming right there. It feels so good inside Wei Wuxian, he’s so tight, almost as if he’s a––

“Have you,” Lan Wangji gasps as he pumps in, over and over again. “You’ve done this before, right?”

“Huh?” It seems to take Wei Wuxian some time to realise that Lan Wangji had asked a real question, which –– fair. Lan Wangji isn’t sure why he’d said that out loud, but now he can’t take it back. Wei Wuxian emits a groan, then says, “What, of course I have. Sorry, Lan-er-gege, would you have preferred if––“

“No. Wei Ying is perfect.”

A lazy smile spreads across Wei Wuxian’s face. “Good.”

A series of different sentences go through Lan Wangji’s head, and he’s not sure –– he doesn’t know what Wei Wuxian wants to hear him say. In the end, delirious from confusion and anxiety and euphoria, he settles on saying nothing at all, to focus on thrusting his cock into Wei Wuxian’s tight heat, on the obscenely loud sounds of the bed creaking in protest under their collective weight, the wet slaps of skin on skin. The hazy glow of the lantern on Wei Wuxian’s skin, marred here and there with hickeys.

Lan Wangji thinks he’s in love; thinks he has been, for years and years now.

All of a sudden he’s hearing himself say, “So Wei Ying just lets any stranger off the street fuck him in his bed. Wei Ying is this easy for anyone,” and he is mortified, but again, he’s said it now, and it’s not like he can just –– stop this.

“Holy shit,” he hears Wei Wuxian say, which might be a good thing. Lan Wangji grunts and pulls out, eliciting a whine from Wei Wuxian that he forces himself to ignore in favor of flipping Wei Wuxian onto his stomach. He puts his hands on Wei Wuxian’s hips and lines himself up and slides back home, rougher and faster this time, feeling a fresh wave of sweat pour down his back as he fucks into Wei Wuxian’s hole. Broken, strangled, nonsensical syllables coming out of that red, kiss-bitten mouth.

Lan Wangji thinks he is truly losing his mind. He would never have imagined his first time speaking during sex turning out to be like this, much less with Wei Wuxian of all people. When he imagined fucking Wei Wuxian he’d always thought it would be slow and sweet, angelic, even; the complete opposite to the anonymous kind of fucking he’s done.

Yet here he is, one hand gripping the meat of Wei Wuxian’s thigh and the other between his shoulder blades pushing him face-down into the mattress, watching himself piston in and out of Wei Wuxian’s puffy hole, feeling Wei Wuxian squeeze around his cock. Next time, if there is a next time, he will have to do this properly. He hasn’t even –– he didn’t even pay for dinner, Wei Wuxian had been the one to pay, using Qin Su’s money. For some reason Lan Wangji gets the urge to apologise for this mishap, but thankfully he does not.

Lan Wangji leans forward to mouth at the back of Wei Wuxian’s neck, his jawline, the spot behind his ear.

“Wei Ying,” he says, mainly just to hear Wei Wuxian’s name in his mouth, and punctuates it with a kiss, and hopes it is enough. “Was that okay? Earlier.” From this angle, Wei Wuxian’s shoulder blades dig into his chest every time Lan Wangji rams into him, making Lan Wangji feel winded. Or maybe it’s just Wei Wuxian in general.

“Lan Zhan, you’re so –– Yes, that was very okay. Next time you should –– Ah,” Wei Wuxian is cut off by a particularly well-angled thrust. “Do it again,” Wei Wuxian slurs, and Lan Wangji isn’t sure if he means to hit his prostrate again or to say –– those things, again, so he does both; he places his elbows to either side of Wei Wuxian’s head and ruts into him again and again, aiming for that same angle, while he tells Wei Wuxian how good and tight he is for him, asks him if he enjoys being filled by Lan Wangji’s big cock, if it’s better than any other cock he’s taken. Telling him that after Lan Wangji comes he’s going to be so wet and sloppy that Lan Wangji will be able to slide right into him a second time.

Lan Wangji does not understand where this is coming from. There is no country to which he could flee to get away from this version of himself he’s unleashed.

And the whole time, Wei Wuxian is arching is back and taking everything Lan Wangji gives him, clenching around Lan Wangji’s cock as though he needs it to survive. He is so perfect; he is unbelievable; Lan Wangji wonders if he will be allowed to tell Wei Wuxian, one day (tomorrow maybe, or is that too early), that he is in love with him. With the noises he makes, writhing under him. With his plush ass, pliant and willing.

Then, when Lan Wangji sinks his teeth into the side of Wei Wuxian’s throat, he hears Wei Wuxian keen and say, “I’m gonna –– I’m ––“

“Good,” Lan Wangji gasps, feeding Wei Wuxian’s own words back to him.

Wei Wuxian is reaching down to touch himself and Lan Wangji puts his palm against the back of Wei Wuxian’s hand and feels the one, two tugs Wei Wuxian gives to his aching, neglected cock, and then Wei Wuxian is coming all over their fingers, the mattress, his own stomach.

When Wei Wuxian comes down from his high, his body melts away beneath Lan Wangji, limp as a rag doll, but he doesn’t let Lan Wangji stop or pull out, even as he starts to moan from the overstimulation. So Lan Wangji hitches them up so that Wei Wuxian is sitting in his lap, his back to Lan Wangji’s chest, and only has to bounce him on his cock for a dozen more strokes before Lan Wangji is coming, too, his head dizzy and his ears ringing from how hard he comes, how perfect and warm it feels inside Wei Wuxian, the smell of sweat and sex and ink.

The two of them stay like that, panting hard, Lan Wangji encircling Wei Wuxian’s chest with his arms and softening inside him and unable to breathe. He will never be able to breathe properly as long as he’s in the same room as Wei Wuxian. He hopes they’ll never be apart again, that he’ll never have to breathe again. He can’t believe that when they’d been walking here Lan Wangji had managed to delude himself into believing that he could have just this, just this evening, just a chat and a catch-up, that he’d be able to let Wei Wuxian go, afterward.

After some time, Wei Wuxian starts to fidget, and only with that does Lan Wangji realise that he’s still half-wearing his trousers; they’re bunched around his thighs and knees and his belt has mostly slipped out, its buckle caught somewhere between their naked bodies, a discomfort that’ll arise later, when they fully return to themselves. Lan Wangji pulls out and lays Wei Wuxian back onto the disgusting bed, takes off his wrecked tie and shirt and uses those to clean them perfunctorily. Then he sits at the edge of the bed, drawing circles on Wei Wuxian’s thigh, unsure if he’ll be asked to leave. Avoiding actually looking at Wei Wuxian, especially not between his legs, where surely Lan Wangji’s come is dribbling out and onto the sheets.

“You know,” Wei Wuxian says suddenly, voice hoarse, “I saw you the other day, coming out of the Qins’. When I first came back to Shanghai I was sad that I didn’t run into you but then I heard that you were abroad. I was excited to meet you again when you returned, but I met Lan Xichen and he didn’t recognise me at all. When I saw you at the Qins’, you didn’t see me; I was all the way down a corridor and you weren’t facing me. But I wondered if you had seen me, and had just forgotten.”

For a moment, there is no sound except that of Wei Wuxian’s heavy breathing.

“Ah. Forget I said that.”

Lan Wangji leans over, brings a hand to cup Wei Wuxian’s face and thumb away the tear that’s gathered at the corner of his eye. “Never,” he says, landing a soft kiss on Wei Wuxian’s cheek, and another kiss on the other. “I have never forgotten anything about Wei Ying. I never will.”

Wei Wuxian wrinkles his nose in disgust. “That’s embarrassing, Lan Zhan. I like you so much. If you keep saying things like that I’ll make you call off your––“ And then he clamps his mouth shut.

“Mn, I want to,” Lan Wangji replies, pressing his lips to Wei Wuxian’s chastely. “Anything for Wei Ying.”

“Just glad you didn’t forget me,” Wei Wuxian mumbles.

“How could I?” And instead of waiting for a response, Lan Wangji takes his soft cock into his mouth again, and hears Wei Wuxian let out a satisfied sigh.

***

The next morning

“We are disgusting,” is the first thing Wei Wuxian says when he finally wakes up and finds himself entwined around Lan Wangji’s limbs. Lan Wangji woke up first, not long ago, but has not moved, nor had a thought; all he’s done is stare at the ceiling and feel the rise and fall of Wei Wuxian’s chest. Allowing himself to feel contentment at the same time as fear; giving himself permission.

“Bath,” Lan Wangji replies, kissing Wei Wuxian’s temple. “My house.”

“I have to be at the Qins’. I’m probably late.” But Wei Wuxian burrows deeper into Lan Wangji’s embrace, nuzzles against Lan Wangji’s neck.

“Quit that job,” Lan Wangji says. It’s like last night, he’s saying things without understanding what they really mean or how he could have such sentences fully formed in his head; but saying them anyway, and feeling a thrill run down his spine as he does so.

“And do what?” Wei Wuxian replies, snorting dismissively.

“Be with me. Make your art.”

A pause. “Sounds boring.” No acknowledgment of the fact that Wei Wuxian is the print artist; well. There’s plenty of time to talk about that, in the future.

“Okay.” Lan Wangji thinks, then says, “We could run away and join the Red Army.”

“What? Lan Zhan, communism is illegal. How could you suggest such a thing? How could you imply that I would have such scandalous and inappropriate tendencies? How could you lower yourself to this, Lan-shaoye?” Then, when Lan Wangji doesn’t deign that with a response, Wei Wuxian scratches absent-mindedly at Lan Wangji’s arm and says, “Besides, neither of us would be useful in battle at all. Let’s stay in Shanghai. It’s where we met.”

“Both times,” Lan Wangji says.

“Both times.”

Wei Wuxian dozes off soon again after that, and doesn’t try to show up to work at the Qin townhouse. Lan Wangji promised to pay a visit to Qin Su today anyway. After another fuck, slow and sweet just as Lan Wangji had originally imagined, they will finally trudge to the local bathhouse and take that bath as innocuously as they possibly can, avoiding other visitors’ glances at the slightly too-small clothes of Wei Wuxian that Lan Wangji is wearing. When they meet Qin Su in her drawing room, she will nod and converse and invite them to meet her at the jazz club after dinner, and when they arrive, she will refer to the singer on stage as the girl she’s fucking this week. Lan Wangji will choke on his tea and Wei Wuxian will laugh.

For now, though, the pale dawn sunlight streams into the room, softened by the paper window and turns Wei Wuxian’s skin golden. Lan Wangji reaches out to tuck a strand of hair behind Wei Wuxian’s ear, and Wei Wuxian catches his wrist, and winds their fingers together. There’s a healing gash on Wei Wuxian’s palm, from the woodcut blade. Lan Wangji kisses it. They don’t know this, but it will never really heal; and, as the decades pass, every time Lan Wangji looks at that thin pink crescent on Wei Wuxian’s hand, he will remember this day in the twentieth year of the Republic; the day his life began again.

Chapter Text

incredible amazing perfect brilliant art by juliette!!! find her on twitter and instagram.