Work Text:
When Lan Wangji walked back into his bedroom, it was still there, gaping like a disconcertingly toothy scream.
“-ngji…Wangji?”
“Mm.”
After a skeptical pause, his older brother’s somewhat tinny, curious voice crackled through the old cell, “…Wangji, is something wrong?”
Wangji fixed his wall with a stern glower, willing its jagged edges and powdered plaster to coalesce into an answer that he might reasonably present to his brother. The wall was, predictably, neither impressed nor coerced by his efforts, so after a somewhat uncomfortably long pause, he grudgingly decided, “No.” Wrong was not quite the right word for the last few minutes, technically.
Somehow, Xichen heard that unspoken caveat from thousands of miles away and asked, almost pointedly, “So, what’s happening that’s not ‘wrong’, exactly?”
That was easier to answer.
“There’s a hole.” And it was distracting. Retreating to the living room couch in a stretch of pinched silence, Wangji tried to find words to precisely articulate the bizarre interruption to his nighttime routine and the strange, skittering sensation it left across his skin. He’d phoned despite knowing his brother was possibly still on-call, adjusting to the new time zone, and serving an understaffed, overflowing hospital camp, but Xichen had still picked up. And now that he could hear his older brother’s steady, comforting voice on the other end of the line, Wangji wasn’t sure what to say. Or how to say it. His usual tried-and-try method of stewing in his brother’s comforting presence until the words came out on their own was somewhat stunted by the distance. So, a bit stilted, he forced himself to try again, “There’s a hole in my bedroom wall.”
“Are you ok?!”
The question was immediate, urgent with an undercurrent of alarm, and Wangji’s spine straightened out of sheer habit as he immediately reassured, “Yes, I was not injured or responsible.”
The subsequent pause lapsed long enough that his brother seemed to realize this was the extent of the bad news, and the next question came out noticeably more amused, “Wangji…how did you get a hole in your wall?”
Wangji blinked at his closed bedroom door, eyes narrowing a fraction. That was another question he wasn’t really quite sure how to answer.
Despite the distance, Xichen seemed to parse his reticence from the other end of the line and prompted, almost unbearably gently, “Why don’t you tell me what happened from the beginning?”
Wangji nodded, breathed out, and carefully lined up each word, “I was in the bathroom, preparing to sleep, when I heard a loud noise.” Xichen hummed an encouraging sound under his breath. “I walked into my bedroom, and there was the hole. And…there was…” Words faltered, fusing his tongue to the roof of his mouth. Embarrassment seized in his throat, and there was no way to say this without sounding absurd, so he spit out the only words that really captured the overarching sentiment, “…a Wei Ying.”
“…A what?”
“…Wei Ying,” Wangji repeated. And then, a little more sensibly, he elaborated, “The new neighbor’s name is Wei Ying.”
“…Wait, this hole is big enough for person to come through?! Wangji, that’s-“
“No. Just his head.”
There was a pregnant pause. “…So, let me make sure I understand - you found someone’s head in a hole in your bedroom wall tonight?”
“10 minutes ago,” Wangji confirmed. There was a muffled flutter of sound crackling through the cell’s old speakers. Wangji suspected – based on the empirical evidence of prior experience – that it was laughter and added, a bit huffily, “I did not invite him in.” He’d thought about it for a baffled, disoriented second, before mortification set in.
The huffed sound got a bit louder. “I see…well, was he hot?”
Wangji could feel his ears burn as he jerked the phone back to stare at it in mute betrayal. He was absolutely sure that was laughter now. And since he was never entirely sure that his brother couldn’t somehow see him through his stupid phone, he gave it a chastising glare, just in case.
Ignoring what was obviously not a real question, Wangji tried to redirect them to the first issue at hand, on the off-chance his brother had somehow forgotten, “He was in my wall.”
At that, Xichen laughed without even a token attempt at muffling his amusement, “Well, next time, tell him he doesn’t have to put a hole in your wall to come over.” Wangji felt his entire face heat and unceremoniously hung up. It was a rare spike of impulse that he instantly regretted.
After all, the hole was the least of his problems.
Sometimes, Xichen thought he was funny. And this led to some very…unexpected experiences, typically in the 1-3 days immediately after his older brother’s periodic departures abroad. Wangji suspected Xichen did this to make his absence less palpable, and while his antics were undeniably effective in that regard, Wangji was often at a loss on what to do with his brother’s odd gifts.
And this one was stranger than most. What on earth was he supposed to do with the very eccentric-looking Roomba that was aggressively cleaning his apartment? Where had it come from? And why was it so fast? Perhaps most importantly, how was he supposed to turn it off? Wasn’t it supposed to come with a machine-bed or, at least, a sturdy carboard box that he could ducktape closed?
And then, of course, there was the other thing. But he might actually combust if he had to articulate that with words…
By six minutes to nine, Wangji had only just gotten the mirrorverse Roomba successfully cornered in a nest of towels. Even surrounded by insurmountable mountains of thick, pale fabric, the nightmare machine continued to twitch silently, shooting indignant spurts of water in seemingly random directions. He wasn’t sure how much confidence to put in his googling skills, but a quick search had confirmed that the eye-searingly red and purple water gun attached to the top was not, in fact, standard issue.
This was deceptively useless information.
And, now that the Roomba was restricted to brooding in the corner, he was left to decipher the baffling interactions between his two (potentially traumatized?) bunnies and his new (malicious?) machine.
Before he’d managed to contain the chaos, the Roomba had spent several minutes besieging his bunny castle, waking both his babies with some truly, inexplicably insistent attention. To their credit, both rabbits reacted quite calmly to the armed invasion, languidly blinking at the Roomba as it manically circled their home to suck up slivers of hay. Perhaps even more bizarrely, the bunnies had seemed weirdly taken with their predatory, little guest, hopping along after the machine as it committed a cleaning spree that could only be described as “terrifyingly enthusiastic.”
Wangji had not taken nearly as kindly to the aggressive attention.
He’d been dumbstruck for several precious seconds, watching the scene unfold in that surreal space often reserved for excruciatingly bad reality TV. And then he was off like a shot, lunging for the malformed water gun in increasingly desperate attempts to capture the Roomba.
It did not go well.
Until this evening, he had not realized how far overboard he might have gone with the bunny playground he’d been deliberately expanding across the living room floor in his brother’s absence. How the Roomba was maneuverable enough to speedrun this maze, Wangji couldn’t begin to guess. But, he quickly learned that trying to catch a malformed disk in a maze of both painfully sturdy and dangerously delicate pet toys constituted a unique form of hell. Particularly when it came with periodic bursts of water to the face.
This was all so far outside the contained, pristine serenity that he’d grown up with. There was a predictability to the rules he’d internalized, a balance to his body and thoughts, and this eclectic chaos turned everything on its head. It was surreal and strange, and by the time he had it somewhat under control, he expected to feel put-off and vaguely irritated.
Instead, standing protectively between the cornered Roomba and the caged rabbits, Wangji just felt confused. Caught off guard. A little wrong-footed. Understandably alert.
And, peculiarly, very alive.
That last one was an odd sensation, a foreign current that skittered across his skin like something electric. Like stretching after a deep meditation. There was an indescribable edge to the unexpected chaos, and he wasn’t entirely sure he liked it. So, he went with the tried-and-true strategy of ignoring it until it went away.
Picking his way back to the castle-like enclosure, Wangji opened the latched gate to get his babies away from where they were inquisitively nosing at the mesh closest to the towel blockade. Gentle fingers carded through their silky fluff, but after a moment of snuggling his fingertips, both rabbits launched a playful game of Escape, with a side-quest of Explore The Forbidden Towels.
Wangji did not approve of this adventure.
The Roomba had seemed a little vicious. Just because it hadn’t managed to squirt anything more than a drop or two in the last minute didn’t mean that it had come around. Maybe it was just biding its time. It was technology, and that was more than enough reason to be instinctively suspicious. For all his brother’s jokes about machines being tools like any other, Xichen wasn’t the one here to watch a Roomba romance his rabbits. So, Wangji felt entitled to his suspicions.
As the responsible adult, it clearly fell to him to do something, so he began patiently lifting and carrying first one and then the other of his bunnies back towards the enclosure. They seemed content to snuggle into his palms and nose at his fingertips, but the second he set either down, they took immediate interest in the towel mountains and bounced off at the first opportunity.
At two minutes to nine, and after half a dozen attempts to convince them that their home really was more interesting than the Valley of Roomba, Wangji finally sat back on his heels. He was still a little out of breath and more than a bit out of his depth. And, despite his best efforts, he was starting to feel a little…bad for separating them.
He still didn’t trust the Roomba. Obviously.
But, it was no longer fighting the towel blockade, and its twitching had taken on a distinctly defeated look. Could machines twitch miserably?
Closing his eyes for a steadying breath, Lan Wangji took a few seconds to just feel the exhaustion and breathe it out. He was two weeks out from his Master Recital, spending every waking moment on campus, and he hadn’t been able to lavish quite as much attention on his bunnies as usual. It wasn’t atypical for them to act out a bit or be a little weird in the pursuit of attention during finals. This was all, relatively, normal. (For a given definition of normal that was, in no way, at all, reflective of his actual life before the last 30 minutes, but who was counting? Certainly not Xichen, who was too far away to never let him live this down.)
Really, he just needed to put the rabbits to bed whether they wanted to sleep or not, get a good night’s sleep himself, and sort the nightmare machine out in the morning. Surely someone in one of tomorrow’s rehearsals could tell him how to disarm a Roomba. Or at least turn it off.
Armed with this plan, Wangji opened his eyes, pushing to his feet only to freeze mid-step.
There – cozy, safe, and satisfied enough to be snuffling sleepily – were his little darlings, cuddled up in a content puddle of black and white fluff.
In the nest of towels.
On top of the Roomba.
Wangji didn’t quite gawk, but this was the second time in nearly 30 minutes that he’d come unsettlingly close.
Rationally, he supposed that the Roomba was probably quite warm. He wasn’t sure how long it had been wreaking havoc before making a dash for his ankles in the kitchen, but it’d presumably been on long enough to be generating heat. And it was, admittedly, much less threatening now that it was vibrating near-silently under a pile of black and white fur.
Still.
Who thought it was a good idea to sleep on the stuff of nightmares?
His rabbits, apparently.
Clearly, he had to rescue them from themselves.
And that went about as well as one might have expected.
In the end, for maze-running skills, it was bunnies: 9; Roomba: 4; Wangji 1; and pet toys: -5.
9pm was never his finest hour.
Two minutes past nine, he gave up and put all three in the bunny castle for the night, secured in a nest of their best towels. He was too tired for this; he’d just have to figure out what to do with all of them in the morning. He was sure, somehow, that this must be his brother’s fault. It had to be some kind of latent joke to keep Wangji on his toes while Xichen was off terrorizing Doctors Without Borders. In the spirit of petty exhaustion, Wangji took a grainy picture on his old phone and emailed it to his brother with a very pointed, ‘This is your fault.’
Finally, he surveyed his handiwork: both bunnies were fast asleep, contentedly curled into each other’s warm fluff on top of a faintly vibrating, carefully cornered Roomba. It was probably the oddest thing he’d had in his apartment in a while.
Well, it was the oddest thing he’d had in his apartment in the last 32 minutes.
Bzzzzzzzzzt.
Wangji startled at the doorbell’s invasive pulse of static, suspiciously side-eyeing the door. It was after nine. That was past bedtime. And he wasn’t expecting anyone.
But his bedroom wall had a hole in it, and he still hadn’t figured out what to do about that. Or how to process the jittery bundle of emotion that came with The Encounter. So, he padded over to the door, cracked it open, and found himself face-to-face with a very familiar grin.
“Hi!”
Lan Wangji froze, instantly overwhelmed by the explosive enthusiasm and struck absolutely mute by the proximity of a stunning, thousand-watt smile. The glow of that expression was bright as sunlight and twice as warm, immediately rekindling the strange electric sensation that crackled across his skin earlier. Somehow the look was just as arresting in his hallway as it had been in his wall, and that was so deeply unfair.
“Uh, I’m your neighbor – in 8b!”
“Wei Ying.” The name popped out of Wangji’s mouth, unsolicited. It was pretty much the only thing he had retained from their earlier encounter.
Wei Ying brightened even further, “Yeah, that’s me!”
Distantly, Wangji felt himself nod, once. Stupidly. He felt wildly unprepared for this interaction, but each cognitive attempt to escape seemed to short-circuit under the uncompromising onslaught of that brilliant smile.
“So, uh, I’m really sorry about earlier, Mr., uh…“
Disoriented, Wangji delivered the first two syllables that came to mind, “Lan Zhan.” It took him two whole, dazed seconds to realize which name he’d offered and another split-second to register that he’d just spilled more about his upbringing and traditional family then any stranger needed to know.
However, before he could correct himself, Wei Ying was already repeating the name back, syllables disarmingly sweet on his tongue, “Lan Zhan.”
Right.
Yes, that was his name.
Heat flooded his ears, and Wangji decided, right there, that he’d rather swallow the correction and take it to his grave. Xichen was never going to let him live this down. No one called him Lan Zhan.
“Lan Zhan, I really am so sorry about the Roomba!”
Except apparently Wei Ying, who was going to be imminently responsible for spontaneous human combustion if he kept this up.
Wait, what? Wangji’s head tilted fractionally to the side, half-sure he’d just hallucinated the word “Roomba” into Wei Ying’s exuberant cadence.
“And the wall!” Wei Ying burst, as if this cleared up anything.
Wangji blinked.
Remarkably undaunted by lack of verbal response, Wei Ying grinned and launched into a spill of sentences, “Right, uh, I’m getting my masters in robotics, and so when my sister got me a Roomba, because, well, cleaning isn’t really my strong suite, and she’s an angel like that – she’s seriously the best, I’m so lucky – but anyway, I had this class project on remanufacturing and active compliance which generated so many more questions than it answered. So, obviously research had to be done, and I needed a test subject.”
Wangji blinked at this rapid-fire deluge of words. He was a little distracted by the mischievous gleam of bright grey eyes (and deeply suspicious of any “research” or “test subjects” produced with that particular smile), but he thought he was following reasonably well until the words suddenly stopped.
That hadn’t been a question, right?
There was clearly some inference Wangji was meant to take from this information, but he was a little preoccupied with…taking everything in. And trying to keep his attention from dropping anywhere inappropriate.
Somehow, Wei Ying still wasn’t deterred by the silence and continued after a beat, “So, the Roomba was kinda the obvious choice. And I might have gotten a little carried away because, the next thing I knew, I was doing a speed-run through this obstacle course and –“ Here he shot a hand up between them, fingers splaying out like an explosion – “it just kinda…went through your wall.”
Briefly distracted by tragically pretty fingers flexing for what Wangji could only imagine was meant to be dramatic effect, it took a second for the full weight of that statement to sink in. But, when it did, one thing became abundantly, painfully clear: the armed Roomba in his rabbit enclosure was not his brother’s prank. He felt the tips of his ears warm right back up as he let out a very deliberate, “Ah. I have your Roomba.”
“I, uh, yes, well, that’s the upshot I suppose. Uh, alongside an apology, which I definitely owe you: I’m so, so sorry. I really didn’t mean to!”
“No apology necessary. It was an accident.” He was grateful Wei Ying didn’t mention the bit about…well, he’d just gotten out of the shower and his first instinct was that the bunnies must have gotten into something. It had seemed critical, at the time, to get to them as quickly as possible. And, well, grabbing the handtowel had been something of an unfortunate compromise between speed and habit. He hadn’t exactly expected to find a face staring back at him from his bedroom wall.
But maybe Wei Ying hadn’t noticed.
“-and also, nice to meet you!”
Wangji blinked, ripped out of a rare burst of optimism by that effervescent smile. Nice? He supposed it…was, kinda nice, wasn’t it? He felt something soft pull at a corner of his mouth before he could quite stop it, “It’s nice to meet you too.” Wei Ying just stared, caught on what seemed like a rare moment of motionless silence, and they both blinked at each other for several long seconds before Wangji remembered himself, stepping aside to wave his neighbor in, “You must want your Roomba back.”
“Oh. Uh, ok. I mean, yes.” Wei Ying muttered something under his breath that wasn’t quite audible, but he seemed extremely willing to follow Wangji deeper into the apartment, so Wangji didn’t ask.
Stepping into the living room, the warmth in his ears began creeping down his neck as he realized he was now going to have to explain – probably with words, to an upsettingly gorgeous stranger – why his neighbor’s robotics experiment was sleeping with his bunnies. In a castle. In the middle of his living room.
Fuck.
He didn’t even know where to begin. Who put a Roomba in a rabbit enclosure? Wei Ying was going to think he was insane, and then he’d stop smiling, and he’d certainly never come back. And he didn’t even have a plausible justification that wasn’t equally uncanny. Who was incompetent enough to let their rabbits get seduced by Roombas? Was that even normal? He’d read every book in the neighborhood library on the care and keeping of rabbits, and not a single one had mentioned the dangers of attraction to malicious inanimate objects. So, he couldn’t even start with references or citations. How the hell was he supposed to explain this?!
Before he could quite work himself up to a full-fledged panic, Wei Ying cooed an adorable noise and sprinted for the bunny enclosure. “You have BUNNIES!” The words erupted on a squeak of glee that broke the silence at a disconcerting decibel, dragging Wangji several strides forward on sheer protective impulse.
“They’re sleeping.” It wasn’t quite a hiss, but only because the curt insistence of the syllables landed somewhere between flustered and furious. In his hurry to prevent any further outbursts, he’d charged right into Wei Ying’s space, ready to physically drag him away if necessary. And instead of backing up like a normal human encountering Wangji’s icy presence, Wei Ying just ducked his head, murmured a mollifyingly distracted apology, and twisted closer to get a better look at the bunnies.
He was practically right up against Wangji’s shoulder, entirely undaunted and craning his neck to admire the rabbits. There was a dangerously mischievous gleam in those bright grey eyes, and Wangji suddenly felt way too close for comfort. That look did strange things to his stomach. And to the hairs at the back of his neck.
And if he didn’t figure out how to operate his legs and get a little bit of distance, he was going to do something very stupid.
“Lan Zhan, they’re so cuuuuute,” Wei Ying murmured, turning just enough to look up at him for a second or two through long, dark lashes. Wangji felt all his senses stutter to a stop as his heart tripped over itself in his chest. He immediately clung to his level-best impression of a glacial mountain, desperately ignoring the accompanying volcanic core. And thankfully, his neighbor’s enthusiasm almost instantly jumped back to the bunnies, “Look at them – so fluffy, and all curled up, and cozy, and…”
Lan Wangji had excellent hearing. Admittedly, it was selective hearing, sometimes. But, usually, he got to select when it worked.
Apparently, that wasn’t the case with Wei Ying. One second, he was perfectly aware that his neighbor was praising his bunnies, and the next, he was entirely sidetracked by the play of emotion across his face. Wei Ying had such expressive features.
And the most distressingly pretty mouth.
Of course, that should have been no excuse for staring. And certainly no excuse for losing the thread of the conversation so thoroughly that he just blinked at Wei Ying.
“Uh, Lan Zhan…” Wangji blinked, ears burning as Wei Ying blinked back. “This may be an odd question, but…is that my Roomba, under your bunnies?”
Caught entirely off guard by the discrepancy between his own train of thought and the station they’d just drawn up to, Wangji could not have explained what possessed him to answer the way he did. Maybe it was laughter in Wei Ying’s warm voice, or the incredulous widening of those bright, mesmerizing eyes. Or maybe it was just that proximity seemed to utterly obliterate his brain to mouth filter. Regardless, he found himself opening his mouth and retorting, “The bunnies liked it.” Wei Ying stared, lips parting on some word that never formed, and Wangji continued, a bit defensively, “They wouldn’t sleep without it.”
There was no better way to, somewhat sanely, encapsulate the saga of bunny-Roomba courting rituals, and Wangji was somewhat seriously considering taking the whole thing to his grave.
However, in a moment that was equal parts mortifying and relieving, Wei Ying’s surprise morphed into an understanding, incandescent grin that seemed to translate to his entire body. “Lan Zhan,” he breathed, voice flush with this playful, teasing warmth that seemed designed to cause cardiac arrest, “…how honorable of you to step in for true love.”
Rooted to the spot, Wangji could do little more than stare as the words settled over his shoulders, overly familiar and oddly welcoming. The words were just far enough away to allow plausible deniability, a safety net against the riot under his ribs. But, despite years of habit and carefully cultivated caution, he wasn’t sure he wanted the safety. Or the distance. Or the deniability.
Unfortunately, his brother was the politic one. Wangji had never mastered the art of layering language to talk about one subject while addressing something else. So, instead of attempting to tangle words and loose implications, he gave Wei Ying a considering, measuring look and then nodded. Just once. As deliberate and intentional as Wei Ying’s tone was blithe and good-humored.
Above the casual curl of a wide, carefree smile, grey eyes sharpened. It was just a fraction of a shift, something so small that Wangji might not have noticed if he hadn’t been this close and this focused. Even after the evidence of that split-second slid under a bright twinkle and mischievous grin, the prickle of its weight undercut the lighthearted jesting, “It must have been a romance for the ages - walls were broken down, language barriers surpassed, and societal taboos discarded.”
Amber eyes traced the impish slant to that pretty mouth and slid up to meet an almost probing degree of intensity in grey eyes. The words were both statement and inquiry. Where the words were straightforward enough to signpost a way out of this conversation, Wei Ying’s body language was an unfolding question as he swayed closer.
Tilting his head to meet thinly veiled curiosity, Wangji hummed a low, thoughtful sound, shifting his weight to better face Wei Ying. Part of him desperately wanted to just issue blanket acceptance of whatever this was, but it was firmly overruled by the part of him that knew he was terrible with people and could very easily be reading everything wrong. This paralysis caught in his throat, and that quiet, considering hum was the only offer he could make.
It was his best attempt at an invitation.
Say more. Please.
“Lan Zhan,” Wei Ying chided, catching his sleeve between two errant fingers, “they’re clearly very attached!” Wangji raised a mock-skeptical brow that sparked a flash of delight across Wei Ying’s animated features. His neighbor tugged insistently on his sleeve to punctuate his words, “This kind of boundary-breaking love should be celebrated, Lan Zhan. It’s important!”
Wangji agreed. Inescapably and absolutely important.
So, with a kind of boldness he’d never previously tried to exercise, Wangji let a hand close over Wei Ying’s, trapping it against the crook of his elbow.
Wei Ying faltered, words tripping to a spluttered halt as he seemed to entirely lose track of his argument. It was absurdly cute.
Wangji didn’t quite smile, but he felt an unusual softening around his mouth and eyes, and when Wei Ying looked up from their hands, his mischief melted into an awed sort of stare. Lips parted, eyes wide, cheeks flushed. He was unfairly, unspeakably gorgeous.
“Coffee,” Wei Ying blurted, voice cracked and abrupt. Wangji raised a brow and Wei Ying’s hand twisted to twine fingers as he clarified on an unsteady breath, “Let’s celebrate with coffee. Together.”
Ah, he wasn’t reading it wrong then.
The relief was a palpable weight against the tension, all electric anticipation across his skin, and the magnetic pull of Wei Ying’s smile answered the question well before Wangji’s solemn, decisive nod.
“Yes! Tomorrow, ok? You look kinda, I mean, it’s not that you don’t look-“ Wei Ying caught himself. Or, well, he caught his mouth. He wasn’t quite able to curtail the extremely articulate, lingering once-over that said – in sixteen-foot, neon, flashing signage – that he really appreciated the view. And then he sputtered and jerked his head up, red as the bit of ribbon in his hair, and apparently at least passingly familiar with the concept of shame.
Or maybe it was just shame’s distant third-cousin, twice-removed, because his recovery was unnervingly quick.
After maybe a second or two, the embarrassment gave way to a heart-stoppingly doe-eyed stare from beneath dark lashes, and Wangji’s hand clenched, instinctively tightening. If it’d been behind his back, where it belonged, this wouldn’t have been an problem. But, wrapped around Wei Ying’s hand, the effect of that look was incredibly obvious, and Wei Ying’s smile took on a distinctly, dangerously mischievous curl.
Which was both incredibly hot and also set every alarm ringing in Wangji’s head.
At this point, it was practically a matter of self-preservation. Lan Wangji was not equipped to handle Wei Ying hitting on him, or otherwise being adorably wide-eyed, wicked, and sweet all at once. His heart could not take it. Not after 9pm (maybe not ever – he might just die a little every time Wei Ying looked at him like this). So, he did the only sensible thing.
He kissed him.
It was supposed to be short, just a shy brush of lips to short-circuit whatever trouble had been about to start. But, Wei Ying’s lips were so soft, opening on the sweetest little gasp of a surprised sound, and Wangji forgot to pull away. Instead, he followed the warmth, licking into his mouth and chasing the delighted, needy little sounds Wei Ying spilled into the kiss. He mapped the eager, hungry heat of that mouth, grip fumbling and tightening on Wei Ying’s hip at that first scrape of teeth. The sensation melted down Lan Wangji’s spine, molten enough to drag a low sound from the back of his throat, and Wei Ying practically purred, eyes blown and dark.
It took a small eternity to remember any of the self-restraint embedded in childhood, and even then, they only separated by fractions of a degree at a time. All stray kisses and shared breath, lips kiss-reddened and temptingly wet.
Dazedly, like it was something they’d decided last year and not in the last few minutes, Wangji murmured, “Coffee.” Coffee first. Date first. If this wasn’t going to work out, Wangji did not think he could survive the memory of having had it all just once.
“Yeah, yeah – ok,” Wei Ying agreed, nodding as the brightest smile stole across his gorgeous, clever mouth. “Lan Zhan, I think we might need to keep that hole in the wall.” At the instigation of a raised brow, he added, “It feels so cruel to separate them after all this.”
Wangji felt the corner of his lips curl but kept his tone immaculately level and meticulously serious, “Wei Ying’s Roomba is welcome to visit whenever it wants.”
An adorable pout pushed Wei Ying’s bottom lip out, “Only the Roomba? What about Wei Ying?”
Without even a breath of hesitation, Wangji replied, “Wei Ying is welcome every day.”