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The slice of the knife through the flesh of the apple is rhythmic, satisfying. Wei Wuxian briefly wonders whether he should make an ASMR YouTube channel and slice various fruits with a big, obnoxious looking knife. No, that’s a stupid idea. He already has a range of half-forgotten hobbies scattered around the house, even spilling out into the garden in a variety of potted plants and his wildflower ‘meadow’ (the far corner of the garden that A-Yuan used to play in when he was small, the flowers and grasses as tall as him). He should really pick up the dizi again. Lan Zhan plays his guqin religiously every Sunday morning for three hours. If he gets back into practicing the dizi, and actually sticks to it this time, they could play together. It’d be cute.
“Baba?” A-Yuan inquiries when he comes into the kitchen and sees his father staring into space, the knife and apple forgotten in his hands.
Wei Wuxian blinks himself back into the room and smiles wide at his son. “A-Yuan,” he says softly. “When did you get home?”
“About five minutes ago. Did you not hear the door?”
“Obviously not. I was lost up here.” He taps his head with the handle of the knife. He turns back to the apple in front of him and quickly slices it. “Here,” he says, offering a small plate with apple slices on it to A-Yuan. They’re not shaped like bunnies anymore, but the gesture is still warming. “A healthy after school snack.”
A-Yuan takes the plate with a soft smile, and even though he is not biologically related to either of them, it hits Wei Wuxian that he’s a mix of his fathers: Lan Wangji’s soft smiles and his own ease at showing them. “A-Die has trained you well.”
Wei Wuxian gasps in mock horror, smile brightening up his face. “Since when did you get so cheeky, huh? Is this the start of your teenage angst? I don’t think I can deal with anymore! Keep making snarky comments and I’ll be fine – I’m used to snarky comments, Jiang Cheng is my brother, but please don’t be a teenager like I was. Ugh I was the most annoying little creature in the world. I thought your A-Die hated me. Well, I think he did to begin with. I don’t blame him. I was in need of a good slap round the face. I think he wanted to be the person to do that.”
A-Yuan has settled himself on one of the tall chairs around the kitchen island, munching on his apple slices. “A-Die hated you?”
“I thought so!” Wei Wuxian turns back to the cutting board and starts slicing another apple for when Lan Wangji comes home from work. “He says he didn’t, he could never hate me, but I think time has softened the memory of how goddamn annoying I was. So annoying, A-Yuan, you wouldn’t believe. I know I’m annoying now but at least I’m not actively trying to be annoying. When I was younger I did as much as I could to get into trouble and it worked. Don’t you do that though, please keep being our good boy, our best boy.” He ruffles A-Yuan’s hair who wiggles away from the touch. He’s thirteen now and having easy affection with your dad is so not cool.
A-Yuan finishes his apple slices and settles his chin in his hands to watch as his Baba finishes slicing the apple for his husband and merely takes the sticker off another before taking a huge bite out of it. “How did you and A-Die meet?” A-Yuan asks softly. “I know you went to school together and fell in love and now look at you, but there must be more to it than that.”
Wei Wuxian stops with a bite of apple caught in the pouch of his cheek. He looks like a hamster, frozen with wide eyes, and A-Yuan laughs at the image. “You want to know?” Wei Wuxian asks when he’s gained control of his mouth again.
“Yeah, of course.”
He’s thirteen and he’s beginning to learn that he can love more than just his parents and the bunnies and his PlayStation. He is learning that he can love someone of his choosing, that he can meet someone who is not his family, who he has yet to meet, and love them, and that kind of love is different, unique. His parents are in love with each other, but that love is different to how he feels about them, to how they feel about their siblings, or how they feel about him. He knows it’s different but he doesn’t know how.
Wei Wuxian puffs out his cheeks in a big sigh and leans back against the counter, contemplating his half eaten apple. “It’s a long story, I don’t even know where to start.”
x
He starts at the beginning, because where else would he start? He tells the story of being fifteen and seeing the cold, quiet, top of the class student and wanting to make him break. He has never really noticed Lan Wangji before, but on that particular day they have a class debate and debating with him is like sword fighting. It’s fast and daring and exhilarating. Lan Wangji frowns at his points, huffs, shakes his head. It’s the most emotive he’d ever been and Wei Wuxian needs it like air.
In the end, the teacher concludes the debate or it could have gone on for hours, the two of them toe to toe until it was dark out. She dismisses the class and Wei Wuxian runs over to him, determined to know more about this quiet, ridiculously intelligent boy.
“Lan Wangji,” Wei Wuxian says, grin so wide it cuts his face in two. “That was a pretty good debate. Pretty close actually.”
Lan Wangji looks up from packing his bag – one of those fancy across the body bags, unlike Wei Wuxian’s ratty old backpack with one of the straps nearly falling off – with the coldest boredom on this face. “Pretty close?”
“Yeah! I think we’re equally matched, wouldn’t you say? We could actually make a great team, if we were to agree on the same things.”
“A team?” It sounds so pathetic coming out of Lan Wangji’s mouth, like the thought of being teamed up with Wei Wuxian makes Lan Wangji want to gag.
Wei Wuxian can hear the dismissal in his voice, the obvious lack of desire to even speak to Wei Wuxian, let alone team up with him, so he leans forwards onto his hands on the edge of Lan Wangji’s desk and smiles even wider. Lan Wangji has finished packing up but for a fancy leather journal still on the desk in front of him. It must’ve been a gift for a birthday or something – it was too nice just to buy without a reason. Wei Wuxian takes it off the desk half to be annoying and half because it’s genuinely a very pretty journal and he wants to feel the soft leather in his hands. As he shifts it from hand to hand, something in the bottom corner catches the light –Lan Zhan engraved in gold.
“Lan Zhan,” Wei Wuxian reads under his breath.
Lan Wangji snatches the book off him and packs it away into his bag.
“Lan Zhan,” Wei Wuxian repeats softly. “Is that your name?”
“My name is Lan Wangji.” He refuses to look at Wei Wuxian but in tilting his head down to focus on the zip of his bag, the redness of his ears is noticeable.
Wei Wuxian realises that he doesn’t want to push him until he breaks, he wants to push him until he looks at him. “I have another name,” he says softly. “Wei Ying. I was adopted when I was younger. They changed it then. You can call me it if you’d like.”
Lan Wangji slowly looks up from his bag, eyes soft and lips parted. It sends something sparkling down Wei Wuxian’s arms. Lan Wangji had softened, ever so slightly, and it was beautiful. “My mother used to call me Lan Zhan.”
It isn’t permission to call him Lan Zhan but it’s something. It is something more than a wall of ice.
“Used?” Wei Wuxian asks, gently probing, probably too far.
“She died when I was young.”
“Oh.” Definitely too far. “I know what that’s like.”
Lan Wangji turns back to his bag, puts the strap over his shoulder. “I should go.”
“Yeah,” Wei Wuxian says, the bravado gone. “Of course.” And as Lan Wangji walks towards the classroom door, Wei Wuxian has the fast building fear that he is about to lose something important and blurts, “We should hang out. If you’d like. I promise I’m not always loud and annoying.”
Lan Wangji stops in the doorway, turns around and nods slightly. “Mn,” he says and then he’s gone.
x
They do actually hang out after that, although it takes push after push from Wei Wuxian.
Lan Zhan sit next to me. Lan Zhan come and play football with me. Lan Zhan watch this video, it’s hilarious. Lan Zhan help me with my homework. Lan Zhan come eat with us. Lan Zhan Lan Zhan Lan Zhan.
Years later Lan Wangji lays curled around a naked Wei Wuxian and says, “You were so annoying as a teenager.” Wei Wuxian laughs and murmurs in agreement. “But actually, you were not annoying at all.” Wei Wuxian looks up at him, sleepy against his chest. “I was attracted to you since I met you. Everything you did was so muchand I did not know how to deal with it.”
“What changed?”
Lan Wangji smiles to himself – his smiles are still soft, small things but they come easier now. “I finally accepted that I was in love with the chaos gremlin in my class rather than berating myself for liking someone so loud and obnoxious.”
“Hey!” Wei Wuxian digs his cold toes into Lan Wangji’s calves as punishment. “Well, I’m glad you accepted that, and me, and my chaos gremlin ways. I guess next time some homophobe tries to argue that love is a choice you can use me as an argument.” He puts on his best impression of Lan Wangji, deepening his voice until it goes scratchy and hurts. “Would I really be in love with this irritating loser if it was a choice?”
“You’re not a loser,” Lan Wangji assures quietly.
“But I am irritating and annoying and loud and obnoxious.”
“Yes,” Lan Wangji says, before pressing a kiss into Wei Wuxian’s hair. “But I love that about you.”
“That’s gross,” Wei Wuxian says as he tilts his head up for kisses and forgets what he was talking about.
x
Two years after that eventful day in the classroom, they’re best friends. They’ve been building to being best friends for years – Wei Wuxian pushing and feeling Lan Wangji slowly soften a little more each time. Now though, Lan Wangji will finally admit that Wei Wuxian is his best friend and he would bite anyone who dare hurt him.
“I was a bitey kid,” Lan Wangji admits late one evening when his uncle finally let him stay over at friends’ houses. He’d never been to a sleepover before but had seen enough chickflicks to know that they’re supposed to lie in the darkness and offer each other their deepest truths.
Wei Wuxian laughs in this cut off way – like he wants to laugh loudly but knows he can’t and doesn’t know how to do it any other way. “I can’t imagine that.”
“My ge says I was a demon.”
“That’s what all older siblings say. My jiejie – who is the loveliest person ever, would never hurt a fly, loves me to the moon and back – still complains about Jiang Cheng when he was a baby. Fat and angry, he was. Not much has changed.” He chuckles to himself. “Of course, she didn’t know me as a baby. There’s no one alive who did.” He pauses. It’s so dark that Lan Wangji cannot make out anything. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make this sad.”
“It’s fine, Wei Ying. I have lots of sad things I want to talk about too.”
“You want to talk about them?”
“Yes – I just don’t think I have anyone who’d like to listen.”
“You have me,” Wei Wuxian says softly, rolling onto his side so they’re facing each other even though the darkness is so encompassing that they can see nothing. “I love hearing you talk. About anything. I want to be the person you go to when you’re sad.”
And oh, now that’s just it, isn’t it? He’s in love with his best friend.
He thinks it should be a horrific realisation, something that makes him want to scream and hide. Instead he feels a deep-rooted sense of sadness, his chest tight and squeezing even tighter. He’s in love with his best friend. He’s done some stupid things in his short seventeen years but god, falling for Lan Zhan, that’s the simplest and most stupid thing he’s ever done. He may as well rip his heart out here and now because who would want it? Definitely not Lan Zhan.
He panics slightly, backpedals like mad.
“Or you know, perhaps you could talk to Mianmian,” he says as calmly as he can.
“Why Mianmian?” The confusion is clear in Lan Wangji’s quiet voice.
“Because you like her, right? You like Mianmian.” Wei Wuxian’s head is spinning. He wishes Lan Wangji wasn’t staying the night – he’d like to cry but he can’t with him here. He can at least shut it up, shut it all up. “We should sleep, it’s late. I know you go to bed early.” There is a pause that’s so long and uncomfortable that Wei Wuxian feels guilt seep into his bones for making things so awkward. He’s never been good at controlling his emotions, especially not when it came to Lan Wangji. He doesn’t want Lan Wangji’s first experience of a sleepover being Wei Wuxian being weird so he laughs softly to himself and adds a quick, “Like a grandad.”
Lan Wangji makes a soft huffing sound, a tired laugh. “At least my bones do not crack when I bend down.”
“Shut up.” Wei Wuxian swats at him in the darkness and makes contact with his arm. They’re sharing a bed and that was fine until his epiphany but he pushes his awaiting breakdown away and squeezes his arm where he hit. “Goodnight, Lan Zhan.”
“Goodnight, Wei Ying. See you tomorrow.”
x
“When did you realise you were in love with me?” Wei Wuxian asks on their honeymoon, sat on the balcony of a beach house wearing a sheer pool robe with little underneath.
Lan Wangji looks up from pouring a glass of ice water for them each. “When I came out to you.”
“Oh,” Wei Wuxian says softly. They were seventeen, a few months after the first sleepover, still sharing that same bed. It was in the dark safety of Wei Wuxian’s bedroom that Lan Wangji had audibly swallowed and said he needed to tell him something.
“I’m gay,” Lan Wangji had said with such conviction. “I like boys.”
Wei Wuxian found his hand in the darkness and gripped it tight. “Only boys?”
He could hear the rustle of Lan Wangji nodding against the pillow. “Only boys.”
“I think I like boys too,” Wei Wuxian whispered. Realising he was in love with his best friend – his male best friend who was a man – had made him think a lot about his sexuality. He had stared at himself in the mirror until he didn’t recognise his own face and finally looked away having thought and thought and thought. “But not just boys. Girls. Others. I’m not fussy.”
The hitch in Lan Wangji’s breath was so loud in the dark quiet of the bedroom. “So you do not have any issues with me being gay?”
“I’m bi, Lan Zhan,” Wei Wuxian said with a chuckle. “I’d be a huge hypocrite if I did. And besides, you’re my best friend. You could kill a man and I would still love you.”
Wei Wuxian shifts on the balcony, wrapping his robe around him even though the sun is beaming down on them. “Why then? Why did coming out to me make you realise?”
Lan Wangji picks up the two glasses of water, stands and moves around the table to sit with Wei Wuxian on the sofa. He hands Wei Wuxian a glass and then wraps himself around him like he needs the physical contact to stop him from floating away. “It was a few things, I believe. First, you were so accepting. You made me feel so safe and secure, you always have, but in that moment I was baring my deepest truths to you and you took them in your hands and held them safe against your chest. You know that I do not warm to others easily, I do not feel safe with many people but I always felt safe with you. In that moment, I could imagine spending the rest of my life with you, feeling safe and loved and never wish for anything else.” He takes a sip of his water. When they first met, Lan Wangji didn’t speak unless necessary, but now they sit with limbs intertwined and he speaks freely. “Secondly, you also came out to me. I think I realised that I could have a chance with you after all. Well, perhaps not a chance, because I thought you would never like me for all of my quietness and monotony.”
“You are not monotonous,” Wei Wuxian says, cupping his face gently in his hand. “You’re the most interesting person I’ve ever met.”
Lan Wangji kisses him softly, their lips cold from the water. “I know that now. However, when I was younger, I believed that I was too boring for someone as bright and vibrant as you. I could trick myself into thinking that it did not matter because you were straight anyway but then you came out as bisexual and that was no longer an option. I realised that I wanted you. I wanted you to choose me. And finally, you said you loved me. You said you would still love me even if I killed a man. I knew it was platonic love, that between two friends, but we never said those words to each other before and I realised that I loved you, that I was in love with you.”
“And then you swallowed your feelings for nine months.”
Lan Wangji pulls back to look at him, bewildered. “You cannot talk.”
Wei Wuxian smiles wide, wiggles himself around until he’s straddling Lan Wangji and hugs him like that, chest to chest. “I just love you so much.”
“I love you too.”
x
Their feelings, mutual but secret, raise their head on Wei Wuxian’s eighteenth birthday. They’re at a Halloween party that Nie Huaisang’s older brother is hosting. That’s one of the few pros of sharing your birthday with a major holiday – Wei Wuxian has never had to plan a birthday party himself.
This party is pretty cool. Nie Mingjue has moved the furniture out the way to make a dance floor, turned off the lights and bulk bought fairy lights for the ambiance. In the kitchen there’s snacks and shot glasses and beer pong in the corner. It’s BYOB but everyone gets a hideously tasting jello shot on entry – and Wei Wuxian gets two because it’s his birthday and he can finally drink legally.
There’s lots of people he doesn’t know at the party – Nie Mingjue has a lot of friends from university here tonight – but he has the people he loves the most. Jiang Cheng, Nie Huaisang, the Wens, and of course Lan Wangji. The only person missing is his jiejie.
He’s tipsy enough to tell them how much he loves them by midnight, arms wrapped over Jiang Cheng and Nie Huaisang’s shoulders as he explains, with upmost urgency, how much they really mean to him.
“You’re like the best, you know,” he slurs. “I know I bully you both but that’s how I show you I care. I couldn’t just come out and say it.”
“Of course not,” Nie Huaisang mocks.
“No, he’s right actually,” Jiang Cheng says over Wei Wuxian’s head. “If he came right out and told me he loved me I think I would spontaneously combust on the spot.”
“See!” Wei Wuxian leans all his weight on Nie Huaisang. “I don’t know how to show love properly. I will bully you or just throw myself in front of a train for you. The only person I can look at and say I love you to is my jiejie, because she’s great and I wish she was here.” His eyes go distant and sad for a second. “I wish I knew how. I really wish I did.”
“Wei-xiong,” Nie Huaisang mutters. “Is this about…?”
“It’s always about,” Jiang Cheng agrees. He’s never learnt how to completely remove that edge of annoyance from his voice but he says it quietly, like whispering will make him finally sound soft. “He’s always been about.”
“Yeah,” Wei Wuxian agrees and laughs softly to himself. It’s self-deprecating and the anger rises in Jiang Cheng, felt in the way his muscle clench in the arm slung around Wei Wuxian’s waist. “But he doesn’t like me like that. He couldn’t.”
“Why not?” Nie Huaisang asks softly, pulling Wei Wuxian closer to his side, the physical comfort melting some tension from his bones. “You’re great, Wei-xiong, you really are great.”
“But he’s… him.”
“He’s an idiot,” Jiang Cheng snaps. “If he doesn’t like you he’s an idiot. A pretty idiot but an idiot. And I will break his legs if he’s mean to you. Ever. Unless it’s like…” He winces. “Consensually.”
Nie Huaisang blushes, raises his fan to face to hide it.
The whole group decided to go as characters from Avatar: The Last Airbender and he’s Suki in full Kyoshi Warrior costume, fan included. Wen Ning is Toph because he looks small and unassuming but is mad strong if he needs to be. Wen Qing is Zuko because she’s fiery and bitchy but secretly very soft. Her and Jiang Cheng argued about it for a whole hour when they met a month earlier to discuss costumes.
“I should be Zuko!” Jiang Cheng reasoned. “I’m the angry one. Everyone knows I’m the angry one.”
“Oh sweetie,” Wen Qing retorts. “You really think you’re cool enough to be Zuko? Cute. Besides, you need to be Sokka if Wei Wuxian insists on being Katara.”
“But Sokka is funny and stupid. I’m not either.”
“You don’t mean to be either and yet, here I am laughing at your misfortune on a daily basis.”
Jiang Cheng sighs loudly. He finds arguing with Wen Qing like banging his head against a brick wall. “Fine. But if anything I’m more like Katara.”
“You wanna dress up as a girl?” Wei Wuxian asks with sparkling eyes from across the living room.
“No! I just meant that I am kind and mature and healing.”
“Where?” Wen Qing asks.
“Where?” Wei Wuxian repeats.
“Fine but you’re not very Katara either. You just want to dress up as a girl.”
Wei Wuxian shrugs. “Maybe.”
And maybe he liked it later, when he was able to force the role of Aang on Lan Wangji and ask, smiling widely, “Don’t forget that Aang and Katara get together in the end, ok?”
His Aang is over the other side of the room talking to Wen Qing, one side of her face immaculately painted into the red of a scar. When he met Lan Wangji outside his house to travel to the party together he was shocked at seeing him in colour. Lan Wangji wears various shades of white, cream, grey, even sometimes a hint of pale blue, so seeing him in orange is like seeing the sunset for the first time. He looks magnificent in a deep amber knee-length robe tied with a yellow sash. He’s not bald – even after Wei Wuxian bugged him to shave his head for weeks, or even just wear a bald cap, come on Lan Zhan, it’d be hilarious. His hair is pulled back into a bun, leaving his face uncovered, the blue arrow painted on his forehead as an obvious indicator of his character.
Mianmian had done his and Wen Qing’s make up because, even though she couldn’t make the party, she was the most talented artist out of their friends. Wei Wuxian thinks of Mianmian having Lan Wangji sat, perfectly straight and still in front of her, carefully painting an arrow on his head. He isn’t jealous of Mianmian anymore – she’s a lesbian, Lan Wangji is gay – but how he wished he could brush stray baby hairs off his forehead, hold him still with a hand at the base of his neck and breathe him in as he paints strokes into his skin.
To do that he has to take that first step.
“I’m gonna talk to him,” he says to Nie Huaisang and Jiang Cheng, untangling himself from their embrace.
“Don’t do anything stupid,” Jiang Cheng warns but his eyes are showing the thrill, the hope, his voice is trying to hide.
“Go get him, tiger!” Nie Huaisang says with an encouraging smack on the ass with his fan.
Wei Wuxian straightens his hair loops and walks across the room, obnoxiously leaning against Wen Qing when he gets there. “Hey you two. Whatcha talking about? How to defeat Fire Lord Ozai.”
Wen Qing looks at him, bored. “Hilarious.”
“Hilarious, intelligent, sexy,” Wei Wuxian says, “I’m full of talent.”
“You’re full of shit,” Wen Qing says as she walks past him to check on her brother looking lost in a corner. It leaves Wei Wuxian alone with Lan Wangji.
“Ahhh, Lan Zhan,” Wei Wuxian croons, cuddling up to his side. “How is my Aang, my love?” Lan Wangji looks at him with his straight face, blank eyes. Wei Wuxian grins. “I’m just in character. Katara really loves Aang, you know?”
“I preferred Zutara,” Lan Wangji says, looking over to where Wen Qing was helping Wen Ning make conversation with some of Nie Mingjue’s university friends.
Wei Wuxian gasps dramatically and clutches his hands to his chest as if hurt. He’s got this stupid little smile on his face that he can’t tamper down no matter how much he tries. Lan Wangji is just so funny. “You’d really let Zuko have me? Would you not fight for your love?”
Lan Wangji looks at him for a long moment, his eyes deep and searching as his gaze sweeps over Wei Wuxian’s face. Whatever he finds there it strengthens something in him. His eyes become piercing almost as he takes Wei Wuxian by the wrist and drags him across the party.
He pulls them into an empty cloakroom, the three walls covered in coats and bags and scarves, and closes the door. He doesn’t do anything then, doesn’t say why he brought them there, doesn’t even move, just stands in front of Wei Wuxian and looks at him. There’s the sharp corner of a leather satchel poking into Wei Wuxian’s lower back and the fuzz of a fur hood tickling the back of his neck but he can’t think of anything past how Lan Wangji is looking at him. It’s almost predatory.
“Lan Zhan,” he says softly. “Why are we in a cupboard?”
Lan Wangji blinks slowly, breathes deeply so that his chest is full before releasing. “I wanted to talk properly. I could not hear you very well out there.”
The music was loud and the chatter of the other guests louder to be heard over the top of it. They’d only managed to hear each other before because Wei Wuxian had almost plastered himself against his side. “What did you want to talk about, Lan Zhan? It must be something more important than Zutara if you brought me all the way here to hear my properly.”
“Anything you say is important.”
Wei Wuxian has to bite his lip from smiling, knowing that if he did, it would give him away. A smile so full of light it practically oozed love. “You charmer, Lan Zhan! I’m surprised you haven’t pulled a cute guy into here to have your way with him.”
Lan Wangji looks at his lips for the slightest moment. “I would not do that. I would like to save my first kiss for someone special.”
“You haven’t been kissed!” Wei Wuxian says and it’s like he’s shocked into movement. He steps forwards slightly, into Lan Wangji’s space. “I would have totally said you’d have been kissed. You’re like… you, Lan Zhan. You’re telling me no one has wanted to kiss you before.”
“No one has wanted to kiss me who I have wanted to kiss back,” Lan Wangji says, still in the midst of Wei Wuxian’s motion. “And if I did, you would be the first to know.”
“Of course, of course! Best friends tell each other everything.”
The words seem to touch something in Wei Wuxian, something deep and buried, the treasure box of things he has not told Lan Zhan, wrapped in silk and sealed with wax. He looks up at Lan Wangji, tall and solid and so beautiful.
“I haven’t been kissed either. Well, once this girl in nursery kissed me but it was bad and without my consent and I was like two years old so it doesn’t count.” He’s losing his train of thought. He shakes himself slightly, focuses. “I guess I’d just like to know what it’s like. To be kissed. People say they see fireworks and all that crap but like putting your mouth against someone else’s, is it really that good?” He looks up at Lan Wangji, makes his eyes soft and lets his mouth fall open. “Maybe we should try it? You and me.”
Lan Wangji can’t seem to look away from where a slight bit of wetness has gathered in the corner of Wei Wuxian’s lips. “Maybe,” he repeats before taking two steps forwards, caging Wei Wuxian in against the coats and kissing him.
It’s not fireworks. It’s a warm wet mouth against his, a tongue running across his teeth, hands cupping the back of his head. It makes him feel connected – like he can trace a perfect path from the lines of his fingers, around the intricate mechanisms of his heart, down to the pressure in the ball of his foot. It makes him feel breathless and alive and thrumming with something he’s only ever felt with himself late at night when everyone else is asleep.
Lan Wangji pulls away to look at him, to appreciate his red lips and to wipe the spit off Wei Wuxian’s bottom lip with the pad of his thumb. “I understand why people spend so much time kissing.” He dives back in, presses Wei Wuxian into the soft materials and harsh zippers of the coats, and kisses any complaints from his mouth. Wei Wuxian lets his hands wander, cupping Lan Wangji’s strong jaw, feeling the muscles in his back, holding onto his arms like he needs it for stability.
The cloakroom door opens and there stands one of Nie Mingjue’s university friends with a girl hanging off her arm. “Sorry!” she says. “I didn’t know this was occupied. Cute couples costume!”
She shuts the door again and they’re stood staring at each other, still wrapped up in one another, the coats a protective arc around them.
Lan Wangji takes a step back.
“Lan Zhan!” Wei Wuxian shouts, way too loud in the confines of the small room. He has this horrible sinking feeling that he needs to do something right now. He thinks that this is a pivotal moment – like so many years ago when he reached out and asked Lan Wangji to be his friend. He made the correct choice then and he wants to do it now.
Lan Wangji stops and looks at him, something complicated happening in his eyes, like he’s trying so hard to push the emotion down.
“Lan Zhan, please don’t go yet. We need to talk. I want to talk.” He reaches forwards and grabs Lan Wangji’s hand like that will force him to stay, like Lan Wangji couldn’t just pull himself out of his grip easily, missing in his panic that Lan Wangji had only stepped away once and wasn’t making any moves to leave.
“Then talk,” Lan Wangji says softly, his hand wrapping around Wei Wuxian’s.
Wei Wuxian looks at him for a long moment, panic seizing him into silence. He does not know how to reach inside himself and grab onto the root of this all-encompassing thing that he has only been able to contain with sheer willpower for so many years, how to let it out safely, without destroying the bond between them.
He stops. Takes a breath.
“I didn’t just want to kiss you because I wanted to know what it was like. I want to kiss you every day because I just feel like it, or because I want to feel safe, or because I want to make you feel good. I want to kiss you good morning and good night and kiss you when you drop me off home after a date and as a thank you for cooking me an extra portion of lunch or for helping me to understand sheet music. I want to kiss you and be the only person who gets to kiss you. And if you don’t, that’s ok, that’s fine, I’ll-“
“Wei Ying.” Lan Wangji has taken a step closer to him, the slightest little smile on his lips. He raises a hand to stroke gently down Wei Wuxian’s cheek. He looks so sure, it’s unnerving. “I have loved you for so many years that it has become a part of me. It’s a beautiful ache that will not go away, no matter if I wished it to. I want to kiss you always, for whatever reason or for no reason at all.”
Wei Wuxian doesn’t bother suppressing a smile, lets it shine and spill all his love out onto his face. He tucks his cheek into Lan Wangji’s palm, kisses the skin there. “I love you more than I know how to say. I have so many words but none of them are enough.”
“We can find them, together.”
“Or find other ways to show it,” Wei Wuxian says with a wink and a nip to the meat of Lan Wangji’s thumb.
They spend the rest of the party making out in the cloakroom and when they come out later, Wei Wuxian’s hair loops are wonky and Lan Wangji has only half an arrow left, but they come out as one.
x
“So you played tonsil tennis with A-Die in a wardrobe and the rest is history?” A-Yuan is grimacing but his eyes are soft and warm.
“I mean,” Wei Wuxian says, “it wasn’t always easy. There was a lot of stuff we had to fight through to get there but we got through it together. There probably will be more stuff we have to deal with but the three of us will do it together. We’re a family, that’s what we do.”
Lan Wangji chooses this moment to open the front door and appear a moment later having taken his shoes and coat off. He always looks so good in a suit, Wei Wuxian has to restrain himself.
“And here he is, my Aang,” Wei Wuxian croons, “who ravished me in a cloakroom at Nie Mingjue’s Halloween party.”
“Baba!” A-Yuan complains.
Lan Wangji looks at him, confused.
“He asked about it! He wanted to know the origins of our love.”
“Not in that much detail!”
“Just you wait till you find out how you were made.”
Lan Wangji’s admonishing “Wei Ying” is overshadowed by A-Yuan’s wail of “Baba!”
Wei Wuxian cuddles up to Lan Wangji and grins at his son.