Work Text:
Lan Zhan had a problem. He was heading into what was going to be an extremely busy day at work. Scratch that. Today was going to be the busiest day of the year for Lan Zhan. He had back to back meetings and numerous zoom catch ups. But today was also the day his son’s school had deemed it necessary to ask all parents to take their kid to work with them, and his seven-year-old adopted son A-Yuan stared up at him hopefully as he fixed his tie in the bathroom mirror.
“I won’t be any trouble; I’ll be as quiet as a mouse!”
Lan Zhan looked at his reflection and sighed. There was no way he could say no to those big brown eyes.
“Collect your things,’ he said with a sigh.
A-Yuan’s face lit up and he ran to his room to retrieve his Buzz Lightyear backpack. Lan Zhan took a deep breath and ran a hand through his jet black hair. It was going to be a very long day.
As Lan Zhan and A-Yuan drove away, the little boy shook with excitement. He was going to see where his father worked. He was going to get to see his dad’s office and where he ate his lunch and where he kept all his important work things. A-Yuan reminded himself that he had to be good. He remembered that daddy had told him he had a really busy day and he needed A-Yuan to be very, very well behaved. A-Yuan straightened up in his car seat. Today, he vowed he would be on his best behaviour.
**********
At 9am that same morning, Wei Ying was swinging around on his office chair at Lan Enterprises having started work an hour earlier than usual at his annoying brother’s request. He pressed a button on his keyboard and laughed as his brother once again emailed to say the document he was working on had disappeared. Wei Ying then pressed another button and received another email to say the document had thankfully reappeared. Wei Ying swung around two more times then made the document disappear for good and laughed so hard he cried at the list of expletives he received from Jiang Cheng in response to its sudden vanishing act. He replied to say that he would make retrieving his dear brother’s work his number one priority for the day, then continued swinging on his chair. That will teach him not to interfere with Wei Ying’s beauty sleep.
Wen Ning entered the room and smirked “Still torturing him I see,” he observed.
Wei Ying stopped swinging. “It's my form of stress relief, some people do yoga, I torment my long suffering brother.”
Wen Ning laughed. “And I fully support you. So, what’s on the agenda for today?”
Wei Ying turned to look at him excitedly. “Really hoping my beautiful crush has some technical difficulties with his meetings so I get to hang out between his legs again!”
Wen Ning laughed and shook his head.
“It’s the closest I’m going to get to a sex life these days!” Wei Ying complained.
“Why don’t you just ask him out?”
Wei Ying quirked his eyebrow up. “Really? You think hot shot exec Lan Zhan who probably makes more money in a month than I do in a year wants to go out with drab little IT tech Wei Ying? I don’t think so.”
“How do you know he doesn’t enjoy having you between his legs just as much as you enjoy being there?” Wen Ning offered.
Wei Ying looked thoughtful then shook his head. “Nah, isn’t he married?”
Wen Ning shrugged as he started typing. Wei Ying returned to pretending to fix his brother’s problem and then fired off an email to Lan Zhan instead.
FROM: [email protected]
Subject: Technical Issues
Good Morning Sir,
Just to say good luck with your meetings today. (I swiped a look at your calendar this morning in case you needed me for anything.)
Let me know if anything breaks and I’ll come running!
Kind Regards,
Wei Ying
Shit, he pressed send and then started to worry that the email sounded too desperate. He’d come running? Urgh… If Lan Zhan was married, he didn’t need some low level employee slobbering all over him. But he was just so…. tall, dark and handsome with a rarely seen crooked smile that made Wei Ying feel all warm inside. Whenever he ran his hand through his hair, Wei Ying had to squeeze his thighs together as his stomach clenched with need.
It had been twelve months since Wei Ying had had sex. Twelve long months. And that was just a disappointing ill-advised alcohol fuelled one-night stand who still emailed him romantic sonnets on the daily. Argh. He didn’t even write them, he just downloaded them and copied and pasted! Wei Ying thinks he should probably just block the idiot at this point…
A reply from Lan Zhan popped up on his screen and Wei Ying nearly fell off his chair as he rushed to click it open.
Wen Ning laughed from across the room. “Is that a message from your secret crush? Or did you just receive another free membership to the yogurt of the month club?”
Wei Ying scowled at him. “Mind your own business!”
Wen Ning snorted and returned to his typing. Wei Ying read the reply. Lan Zhan thanked him and reassured him that everything seemed to be fine so far. Wei Ying’s eyes lingered on Lan Zhan’s electronic signature. It was a little flourish of art in an otherwise very formal format. Lan Zhan. Such a lovely name. No messy syllables. Just plain and simple. A lovely name to shout out in bed… Geez… twelve months was a rather long time. Lan Zhan finished his message by saying he would let Wei Ying know if he needed him. Wei Ying sighed and picked a red vine out of his pencil pot. He swung on his chair and thought about Lan Zhan.
He would let him know if he needed him.
Oh, how Wei Ying wished he would…
**********
Lan Zhan entered the office that morning with a very excited A-Yuan in tow. The little boy was waxing lyrical about how he had reached level 30 on robot wars and his best friend Poppy hadn’t even managed to get to level 20. Lan Zhan was doing his best to listen to him whilst attempting to unlock his office door carrying a briefcase, his laptop and A-Yuan’s backpack. Eventually he gained entry and A-Yuan looked around the room in amazement. He ran to the window to look down at the streets below.
“Everyone looks so small!” he cried.
Lan Zhan placed the bags down and came to stand beside him putting an arm along the boy’s shoulders.
“Yeah, imagine if the windows opened, we could probably kill someone with a spit wad.”
The little boy’s eyes widened at his dad’s words. “Wow,” he whispered, putting his head and hands up against the glass.
Lan Zhan straightened up. “Do you have your colouring?”
A-Yuan ran to his backpack and pulled out his colouring book and pencils.
Lan Zhan smiled. “Good boy.”
Lan Zhan turned on his computer and ignored the twenty something emails from Jiang Cheng complaining about some documents that kept going missing. The man was probably losing his marbles; this happened far too often for it to be a mere accident. He zoned in immediately on the email from Wei Ying the IT tech. Upon reading the man’s offer, he almost wished he would be the victim of some technical difficulties that day just so he could see that wonderful smile again. He squeezed his eyes tightly shut as he thought back to the week before, when he had ‘accidentally’ pulled a bunch of wires out of the back of his computer and shamelessly pretended he didn’t know where they went. Oh god, Wei Ying had scooted under his table so fast, his perfect ass had been shimmying just inches from his…
“Dad? Do you need a poo?”
Lan Zhan opened his eyes and frowned. “What?”
A-Yuan put down the red pencil he was holding. “You look like you need a poo and I thought I better tell you not to wait too long to go to the toilet or you might get sick.”
“Thanks son, I’ll keep that in mind,” Lan Zhan replied as his ears turned red. A-Yuan nodded seriously and returned to his colouring.The relative ease with which the morning had begun, tricked Lan Zhan into thinking that the day would also flow seamlessly but he was very much mistaken.
Jiang Cheng burst into his office ten times and forgot to use language befitting for a seven-year-old, every goddamn time. A-Yuan needed to drink more than a fish and that led to numerous bathroom breaks. He was also attracting a lot of female attention and while Lan Zhan was happy that the secretary pool were cooing and ahhing around his darling son, he also needed to get his reports finished by five and that was being severely hindered by having to answer the same questions about how old A-Yuan was and whether or not he enjoyed school.
In the end, Lan Zhan allowed a couple of the girls to take A-Yuan on a little tour around the rest of the office. He spent a blissfully quiet hour getting a lot of work done until the girls returned without A-Yuan. Seems they had stopped off on the ground floor to talk to the receptionist and when they turned around A-Yuan was gone. Lan Zhan felt sick. He phoned security and alerted them immediately. The two women sped off to continue their search and Lan Zhan headed off in a different direction. Logically, he knew his son was most likely fine. He couldn’t have left the building without the doorman noticing and he was most likely just sitting around somewhere waiting to be found. But the parent side of Lan Zhan was freaking the fuck out and imagining all sorts of scenarios he wished he had no knowledge of. As Lan Zhan ran around the building shouting his son’s name, he thought about all the times he had chosen work over his son and vowed to never do it again. He truly did love his little partner in crime. He loved him fiercely, and he wasn’t sure what he would do if something happened to him.
He’s fine...He’s fine….He’s fine….
he told himself over and over as he continued to search.
**********
Wei Ying was remotely turning the lights on and off in Jiang Cheng’s office and laughing at his fury when he heard a soft knock at the door. He frowned. No one came down to their floor. No one. And Wen Ning never knocked. Wei Ying opened the door and looked down to see a teary-eyed little boy looking up at him. His ears were a little too big for his head and his jet black hair hung to his shoulders. Wei Ying thought he was adorable.
“Hello!” he said, smiling broadly and crouching down to the boy’s level. “Are you lost?”
The little boy nodded.
“If you tell me who you belong to I’ll make sure you get back to them.”
The little boy shook his head jerkily. “No…I was supposed to be being a good boy and now I’ve really messed up and dad will be so mad…” he broke down into sobs again and Wei Ying enveloped him within his arms.
“It's okay, shhhhh, it's okay. Why don’t you just come inside, and we’ll just hang out for a few, do you like red vines?”
The little boy gave him a watery smile.
“I’ll take that as a yes,” Wei Ying said with a soft smile.
Wei Ying sat the little boy down at his desk and offered him his pencil pot full of candy. The boy pulled out a red vine and smiled shyly.
“What’s your name?” Wei Ying asked.
“A-A-Yuan,” he sniffed.
“That’s a nice name,” Wei Ying said gently. “Would you like to help me torture an evil doer?”
A-Yuan nodded.
“Okay, just keep clicking that button there and watch the screen.”
A-Yuan clicked the mouse and the lights once again went off in Jiang Cheng’s office. They heard him scream with frustration through the live feed camera. A-Yuan and Wei Ying laughed in unison. Wei Ying sneaked away while A-Yuan continued turning Jiang Cheng’s lights on and off. He picked up the phone and phoned security.
“Hey, can you let whoever lost their offspring know that he has found his way down to the depths of IT in the basement?”
Wei Ying smiled at A-Yuan as he helped himself to another red vine.
“Tell them to hurry up and come get him before he eats all my candy.”
**********
Lan Zhan had checked five floors and found no sign of A-Yuan. All the running around was making him sweat so he had discarded his suit jacket and tie on the third floor.
Just when he was starting to think all hope was lost, a security guard came running towards him. “Sir, an alert was just sent out, they couldn’t find you, so they tried to notify everyone at your level. He’s down in the basement in IT.”
Lan Zhan sighed with relief. “Thank You!” he cried as he sped off.
**********
Lan Zhan impatiently jogged in the elevator as it travelled down to the basement, the doors had barely opened before he shot out and followed the signs leading to the pokey IT office. He didn’t bother to knock on the door, before he flung it open and was greeted by the sight of Wei Ying with his son in his lap spinning around on an office chair and both squealing as if it was a roller coaster.
His son’s hands were flung up into the air and he had such a look of pure joy on his face, Lan Zhan almost wept with relief. A-Yuan was fine and by the looks of things he was having the time of his life. With Wei Ying. Wei Ying who had stopped spinning and was looking at him with a stunned expression spread across his beautiful face. He looked at Lan Zhan and then he looked at A-Yuan as if he had just solved an equation.
“Dad!” A-Yuan shouted, climbing down off Wei Ying’s lap and running to his father. Lan Zhan picked the little boy up with ease and held him close. He buried his head into his son’s shoulder and breathed in his familiar scent. The little lost piece of his heart slotted back into place.
“I’m so sorry, dad,” A-Yuan said in a tiny voice.
“It’s okay, son. You’re okay. That’s all that matters.” He kissed his son’s cheek and tickled him until he couldn’t breathe for laughing. Then Lan Zhan placed his son back onto his feet and allowed him to lead him towards Wei Ying.
“Wei Ying, this is my dad. He irons his underwear, which is weird, but he’s a really great cook!”
Wei Ying and Lan Zhan both laughed nervously in unison.
“Kids,” Lan Zhan said with an apologetic tone.
Wei Ying nodded in agreement. “He wouldn’t tell me who he belonged to. He was afraid he would get in trouble.”
Lan Zhan smiled as he ruffled A-Yuan’s hair. “Thank you so much for taking care of him.”
Wei Ying beamed. “It was my pleasure.”
A-Yuan nudged his father’s leg and Lan Zhan crouched down so his son could whisper something in his ear. Then he stood back up and faced Wei Ying.
“Ahhhh, A-Yuan wants me to invite you for dinner, to say thank you and he also says I owe you a packet of red vines?”
Wei Ying laughed. “That’s not necessary, honestly, anyone would do the same thing.”
“But he didn’t find anyone, he found you,” Lan Zhan said in a low voice.
Wei Ying swallowed hard. Geez. It was difficult to say no but the last thing he wanted to do was sit opposite his office crush and his beautiful, perfect wife and their adorable son and be reminded how bloody alone he was. He opened his mouth to refuse when Wen Ning suddenly burst into the office. He looked around worriedly, then plastered a smile on his face when he spotted the trio in the centre of the room.
“Oh good, you found him! Errrhh, can I have a word with you please, Wei Ying?”
Wei Ying frowned but headed for the door and walked out into the hallway after Wen Ning. Wen Ning dragged him down the corridor.
“Wen Ning What the hell is going on!” Wei Ying complained.
His friend panted hard. “I just found out…so I came to find you as soon as I could…”
Wei Ying scrunched up his forehead. “Wen Ning, you’re not making any sense...”
“He’s not married!” Wen Ning hissed.
Wei Ying blinked. “What?”
“He’s not married!”
“But A-Yuan..”
“He’s adopted.”
“Oh,” Wei Ying replied.
“Oh? Is that all you have to say? He’s single! Handsome, rich and with the bonus of an adorable son that comes as part of the deal!”
Wei Ying bit his lip. It was tempting. Could this possibly be the family he had always wanted? Had fate played a hand in bringing them all together that day so they could make each other complete?
“He just asked me to have dinner with them, I thought his wife would be in attendance, so I was just about to decline when you barged in…”
“Get in there and accept!” Wen Ning said, pushing Wei Ying towards the door. Wei Ying laughed as he turned the handle. He reopened the door to find A-Yuan explaining how to flick the lights on and off in Jiang Cheng’s office to Lan Zhan. Wei Ying blushed and quickly closed down the programme.
“Just a bit of fun!” he said with a nervous look.
Lan Zhan smirked. “Can I assume you are also behind your brother’s great document disappearing mystery?”
Wei Ying looked guilty. “Maybe…”
A small smile played on Lan Zhan’s lips. “Well now I have two reasons to invite you to dinner. So, what do you say?”
“Yes, my answer is yes,” Wei Ying said as he glanced at A-Yuan, who beamed up at him.
“Excellent,” Lan Zhan said with a warm look in his eyes.
**********
Dad the potatoes are burning,” A-Yuan said without looking up from his Nintendo switch.
Lan Zhan growled and turned down the heat. “You could help,” he stressed.
“I’m seven.” A-Yuan said with an incredulous look. Then the doorbell rang, and his face lit up.
“He’s here!” A-Yuan jumped down off the stool and ran to the door. Lan Zhan hung over his vegetables and took some steadying breaths.
Okay. This is fine. He came. That’s good. You can do this. Yes, you haven’t had a date for ten years… but it's just like riding a bike… hopefully…
“I’m going to show Wei Ying my room!” he heard A-Yuan shout followed by the pitter patter of footsteps going up the stairs. Lan Zhan concentrated on cooking. This was something he could do and do well. He was only briefly distracted by Wei Ying’s gentle laughter floating down the stairs that made his heart jolt in his chest. Only when he was certain everything was absolutely perfect did he move to the bottom of the stairs and call up that dinner was ready. Then there he was on the landing, beaming down at him. He was wearing a white t-shirt and tight black jeans. His dark hair was tied up in a loose ponytail. To Lan Zhan, he was perfect. He held A-Yuan’s hand as he walked down the stairs.
“Hi,” Wei Ying said standing on the bottom step, putting himself nearer Lan Zhan’s eye level.
“Hi,” he replied, wondering if that squeaky quality was going to be present in his voice all evening.
A-Yuan ran past them to the dinner table. “Dad! This is the fancy china. That’s not to be used unless the queen comes, you said!”
Wei Ying laughed and walked towards him. “I think we shouldn’t use plates at all,” he said.
“What?” A-Yuan asked.
Wei Ying looked down at him with a serious expression. “I don’t think we should use plates at all. I think we should eat out of a big trough like pigs do!”
Then he started snorting like a pig and tickling A-Yuan until he laughed hysterically.
Lan Zhan looked at them both and that was it. He was a goner. His infatuation with Wei Ying turned into an all-consuming need and he knew he could never let him go.
The dinner went just as he had planned and for once his son didn’t argue back when he was told it was time for bed, he just smiled sweetly, kissed Wei Ying on the cheek and skipped up the stairs to brush his teeth. As Lan Zhan tucked him in for the night, A-Yuan took hold of his dad’s hand and squeezed it tightly.
“Dad, you need to ask Wei Ying to come to dinner again tomorrow night, and then the next night and then the next night and then the next one!”
Lan Zhan didn’t know what to say, it was what he wanted too, but how could he promise he could make it happen? He didn’t know how Wei Ying felt about him yet.
Instead Lan Zhan leaned down and kissed his son’s forehead. “I’ll do my best,” he told him earnestly and A-Yuan nodded and snuggled down into bed. Lan Zhan returned to the living room where Wei Ying was just finishing off his glass of wine. He turned on the sofa to smile at Lan Zhan as he sat down beside him.
“Thank you so much for dinner,” he said with a grin.
Lan Zhan nodded. “It was my pleasure. You’re a hit with A-Yuan. I think he wants to keep you.”
As he sipped his tea, Lan Zhan expected to hear laughter or nervous denial from Wei Ying in response to his comment, but when he turned to look at him, the soft expression on his face and his gentle reply almost floored him.
“I want to keep him too. I want to keep both of you.”
Lan Zhan didn’t know what to say. He figured throwing himself at him might be somewhat intimidating. Should he laugh? Should he cry? Should he declare his undying love? He took too long to decide, and Wei Ying put his glass down on the coffee table and stood up.
“I’m so sorry, I think I misunderstood. I thought this was a date. Now I see maybe it was just a nice gesture. I’m so embarrassed, could we just forget about all of this?”
“No!” Lan Zhan cried out as he stood, suddenly all his thoughts came tumbling out in a desperate attempt to make Wei Ying stay. “I’m sorry, I just didn’t know how to respond. I’m completely out of practise and I don’t want to come on too strong, but I’ve liked you for such a long time and I don’t know why I never said anything. I like you so much I make up technical problems just so I can see your lovely face. I built my home computer from scratch; I know everything there is to know but I would do anything to get to spend time with you. And this was absolutely 100% a date, even though my son was present the whole time. I shamelessly used him as an excuse to get you here. You didn’t misconstrue anything.”
Wei Ying smiled and came towards him. He slipped his hands onto Lan Zhan’s hips. “So, when you had me on my knees checking out your hardware the other day, that was all a ruse?”
Lan Zhan swallowed hard as Wei Ying’s nimble fingers gripped his sides. “I know it was low, and I’m so sorry.”
Wei Ying smirked up at him. “You do realise I’m the head of the I.T department?”
Lan Zhan frowned. “I didn’t realise…”
“That’s because I don’t really like titles, but my point is I could have sent anyone up to your office to plug those wires back in. But I didn’t. I came. Because I like seeing you too. You’re the best part of my day, Lan Zhan.”
Lan Zhan tried to remember if anyone had ever said anything to him that came remotely close to the wonderful compliment Wei Ying had just freely offered. He came up empty so he cupped Wei Ying’s cheeks and pressed his lips to his. Wei Ying sighed into his mouth and tugged him closer.
Lan Zhan mused that this was the kind of kiss they wrote about in story books. The kind of kiss that could wake a sleeping princess, turn a frog back into a prince or bring a broken man back to life. That’s all there was that night. Just a kiss. They agreed to take it slow. Get to know each other better and spend more time together with A-Yuan. That promise lasted exactly two weeks before Wei Ying had practically moved in and A-Yuan was already telling everyone about his amazing new dad who could hack power grids and always had red vines in his pocket. Wei Ying was ecstatic. He had the family he had always dreamed of and everyday was sweet and wonderful and filled with happiness and love.
**********