Chapter Text
“How is this allowed?” Lan Zhan asks as Wei Ying unlocks the swimming pool's front gate for him. He can already smell the chlorine in the water and the sunblock on Wei Ying's skin. A little over an hour ago he'd received a text containing instructions to be at the pool just after closing time, and to bring his swim trunks. He left early enough to stop and buy a pair on the way.
"The managers like me," Wei Ying explains with a shrug, big smile on his face. He closes the gate behind them with a clang. Lan Zhan's still unsure how exactly Wei Ying managed to charm, bribe, or blackmail his boss into allowing his boyfriend's private swimming lessons, but he's not ungrateful for it. Wei Ying takes him by the hand, walking backwards as he leads him across sun-warmed concrete. "Also I promised I'd remember to lock everything up, we'd be out of here in an hour, and that we wouldn't get up to any funny business in the pool."
The late-setting sun makes the underwater lights look brighter, undisturbed water glowing blue-green from beneath. The place has an odd atmosphere when devoid of people, not that Lan Zhan has spent much time at pools. He remembers his mother taking him and Lan Huan swimming once or twice, but little Lan Zhan ignored the water and its splashing, shrieking people in favor of sitting beside his mother and reading his chapter books.
Wei Ying guides him to the middle of the pool, the ground beneath their feet marked 5 FT - NO DIVING.
"Ready?" he asks, practically bouncing with excitement. At teaching Lan Zhan or simply the idea of swimming, Lan Zhan does not know. Probably both. He nods.
Wei Ying pulls his shirt— a white lifeguard's tee rendered sleeveless by a pair of scissors— over his head, tossing it aside. His arms are tanned browner than the rest of him, the borders of hidden and exposed skin made clearly visible. Lan Zhan would like to trace his finger along the after-image of his neckline. He realizes with a thrill that Wei Ying would probably let him.
A splash of cold water hits Lan Zhan's legs as Wei Ying throws himself into the pool. The surface ripples and Lan Zhan tracks the blurred shape of him beneath it until he pops up, further away than expected, with another splash and a gasp for air. His long hair is slicked back until it reaches the water's surface, where it begins to float around his shoulders. He's grinning wide despite his shivering.
"Come on!" he calls, arms outstretched and hands grabbing at the air in Lan Zhan's direction. Wei Ying has taken to this motion any time Lan Zhan is not close enough for his liking, often with an exaggerated pout of displeasure. He even did so in the few days of school left between the start of their relationship and the end of junior year, grasping for him from opposite sides of a classroom or hallway to the clear confusion of their classmates. That confusion only grew when distant, quiet, cute-but-weird Lan Zhan stepped willingly into his reach.
Lan Zhan toes off his shoes and discards his own t-shirt next to Wei Ying's. He sits on the edge of the pool, letting his feet drop into the water first before the rest of him slides in after them. It's colder than he anticipated, a sharp contrast to the warm air surrounding them. The water laps at his shoulders as Lan Zhan finds he can stand normally at this depth with no trouble. Trying to walk is a different story.
Wei Ying saves him the effort, swimming right up to him. "It's nice, right?"
Lan Zhan is acutely aware that neither one of them has a shirt on and is trying not to be weird about it, even as Wei Ying sets himself standing and wraps sun-soaked arms around his neck. He settles his hands on the bare skin of his waist in turn.
"Is this swimming?" he asks. He looks pointedly at the water around them, where they are doing what he would describe as Standing But Wet. "Am I swimming now?"
Wei Ying looses one arm to flick a few droplets of water at him for his sarcasm, laughing as he does so. "Right, I guess I promised you lessons, didn't I?" He pushes off of Lan Zhan's chest and drifts a few feet away. "Okay, let's start with treading water."
”Okay,” Lan Zhan agrees, awaiting instruction. Were this a class in school, this is where he would be poising a carefully-selected pen over his notebook.
"It's pretty simple. First of all, you gotta relax. Just pick your feet up and think buoyant thoughts.” Lan Zhan consciously allows his spine to curve and his knees to bend, handing the water his weight to hold. It rises nearly up to his chin as his arms automatically lift from his sides. Wei Ying smiles at him. "Good job! I can already tell you’re gonna ace the pop quiz I’ll be giving you later. Okay, now, see what I'm doing? Kick your feet and move your arms back and forth in front of your chest."
Lan Zhan watches the refracted image of Wei Ying's body pushing and pulling water around him. The movements are almost lazy, only expending as much energy as he needs to keep himself afloat. Lan Zhan does as instructed and copies.
Wei Ying is right. This is nice. Lan Zhan takes well to the simple, repetitive motion of his limbs holding him suspended (though not quite with Wei Ying's level of ease). It feels a bit like the moment of hitting his stride during a sprint. Unlike running, this has the added bonus of water lapping gently where it’s edges meet his and Wei Ying watching him with a contented smirk on his face.
Lan Zhan is glad for the empty pool. Not only because is happy whenever the two of them get to be alone together, but because he’d feel strange and awkward learning this new skill in front of others, their noises and movement distracting and the feeling of being observed ever-present. He suspects Wei Ying knows that. He’s orchestrated this time for them to be here alone. Up to his neck in cold water, Lan Zhan feels cared for.
"Now this, I would say, counts as swimming. Technically. You're not going anywhere but you're most certainly moving around in water,” Wei Ying declares. "Do you like it? Are you having fun?"
He nods. Wei Ying smiles just before he dives, swims a circle around him, and pops up again to kiss his nose, dripping water across his face all while Lan Zhan continues to tread water. He looks happy despite the red of his chlorine-irritated eyes. Shouldn't he know to wear goggles? Never one to hold still for long, Wei Ying disappears below the surface yet again. Lan Zhan's eyes follow the bright red of his shorts and the varied tones of his skin set against the backdrop of blue. The shape of him seems to zigzag around the walls of the pool, hands and feet propelling off of the hard concrete for speed, seemingly without the need for air.
Lan Zhan stands up and levers himself onto the ledge of the pool to better watch him. He lets his legs dangle in the water. His wet skin turns the breeze that hits him unexpectedly cold, raising goosebumps on his arms as if it isn't June.
Just as he begins to worry, Wei Ying reemerges with a loud splash. He breathes in a deep gulp of oxygen and wipes the water from his eyes, looking around until he finds where Lan Zhan is sitting. At the risk of flattering himself, Lan Zhan could swear it's to make sure he was watching.
Wei Ying swims over, head kept above water, and folds his arms up on the dry concrete next to Lan Zhan's knee. He is still catching his breath. Lan Zhan gets to watch his half-submerged ribcage expand and contract with it.
"You tired?" Wei Ying asks.
"Just taking a break." He unsticks a wayward lock of hair from Wei Ying's forehead and lays it to follow backwards sweep of the rest of his hair. It feels alien and exciting to be able to touch him so casually and to even want to in the first place. He instinctively tempers the sweetness with a huffed, "Show-off."
Wei Ying grins, seeing straight through the admonishment. "Jiang Cheng used to say I was so good at swimming because I'm secretly part fish. He also said that’s why I stink, but that was when we were younger. He’s definitely stepped up his insult game since then.”
“You don’t stink,” Lan Zhan feels compelled to tell him. Well, he kind of does sometimes, after he’s been sitting and sweating up in his lifeguard's chair all day, but Lan Zhan secretly likes it. He keeps this to himself, diverting to something equally true and far less embarrassing. “I look forward to going to your meets when school starts.”
He does not know much about competitive swimming but he's eager to learn. He hopes to be there in support of Wei Ying each time that he competes. It feels like a very boyfriend thing to do, which excites Lan Zhan because he is, in fact, a boyfriend now. And he's excited for Wei Ying to come to his track meets in turn. He has a feeling he'll run faster with Wei Ying watching. He's taken to fantasizing about it on his morning jogs, another fact he does not intend to tell anyone.
"Oh," Wei Ying laughs, a little awkward. He dips his head to collect the wet mass of his hair and rearrange it over one shoulder. "I'm not on the swim team anymore. I quit, like, halfway through last year."
"Oh," Lan Zhan echoes, hoping his naturally flat inflection hides his surprise. "Why?" Wei Ying had worn the team's t-shirt on what Lan Zhan now recognizes as their first date to the pier, nearly a month ago. He has his medals displayed in his bedroom, next to the pride flag that that set Lan Zhan alight with a hope he quickly tamped down the first time he visited.
"It just felt like another thing to do on top of school and everything, you know?" Wei Ying shrugs. "So I quit, and now I can just swim for fun when I feel like it. And you and I won't have sporting events on the same day so I won't have to get up to DCOM shenanigans to go to both."
"DCOM?" Lan Zhan questions.
"Disney Channel Original Movie, baby, try to keep up." He takes Lan Zhan's hand again, pushing himself off of the side of the pool and drifting only a far as the length of their tethered arms allows. "Anyway, come back in. Aren't you cold up there?"
The water is colder, Lan Zhan could argue, but it is also where Wei Ying is. He lowers himself back in. He readjusts to the temperature of the water and to the strange twinge of disappointment that he won't get to silently cheer for his boyfriend. But if Wei Ying is happier without the swim team then that is far more important than Lan Zhan's fleeting daydream. It just means he gets to watch him swim when they're alone, when the only person Wei Ying means to impress is him.
"Do you wanna try treading in deeper water?" Wei Ying asks.
Lan Zhan hesitates on instinct, staying standing even as their arms are pulled taut again.
"Hey, I've got you. I am a lifeguard, you know. I guard lives, like, all day," Wei Ying coaxes, giving Lan Zhan's hand a squeeze beneath the water. His eyes take on that smiling curve that almost always precedes a bad joke. "And I'm certified in mouth-to-mouth, so just let me know if you need resuscitating." He winks, somehow putting his whole face into the motion and still looking so handsome.
Lan Zhan nods. Not his customary tilt of acknowledgment but an eager bobbing of his head, readily accepting an offer.
A lopsided smile blooms across Wei Ying's face. "Oh, are you drowning?"
"Yes," Lan Zhan answers, standing with his head and shoulders out of the water, all but the ends of his hair completely dry. In the deadpan that never fails to make his boyfriend laugh, he adds, "I am drowning so much."
Wei Ying does laugh, loud in the empty space around them, bouncing off the water as if it wants to make sure Lan Zhan heard him. He takes hold of Lan Zhan's arms and reels himself in, sliding weightless into his space to kiss him. Lan Zhan hopes— through the giddy buzz he feels whenever they get to do this— that it is not included in Wei Ying's manager's definition of 'funny business'.
Eyes closed, Lan Zhan is not expecting Wei Ying to pinch his nose mid-kiss and blow a lungful of air straight into his mouth. He's laughing before Lan Zhan can even pull away in surprise. "Consider yourself resuscitated, babe!"
"You're ridiculous," Lan Zhan informs him, fondness dripping from him like chlorinated water.
"That's me," Wei Ying agrees. He leads him further towards the deep end by both hands. "Come on, come swim with me."
Lan Zhan lifts his feet off the concrete and lets himself be pulled.