Work Text:
When Xie Lian was sixteen, he had bought a pair of the ugliest pants in the world.
They were garishly pink, with light blue bears and neon yellow stars scattered all over. They hadn’t kept up with Xie Lian’s growth spurt at all, and now ended pathetically above his ankles. They kind of made Feng Xin’s eyes hurt if he stared directly at them.
Xie Lian had designated them as his movie night pants.
Mu Qing, the most fussy and annoying person Feng Xin had ever met, threw a giant tantrum upon hearing that. He had even threatened to never attend any of Xie Lian’s movie nights ever again so long as those pants were in the house, but of course he showed up at the next movie night (and every one after that) sulkily pretending that the pants did not exist.
Feng Xin, for the sake of pissing Mu Qing off, had told Xie Lian that he loved them. The way Xie Lian’s whole face had lit up was more than worth the snide comments that Mu Qing kept making to this day, the bastard.
For someone who had grown up surrounded by expensive ancient Chinese art, and Greek-style sculptures, and a home that looked like the Palace of Versailles, Xie Lian really did have the worst taste of anyone on planet Earth.
Case in point: Xie Lian’s total and utter investment in a movie whose most positive review was that it was indeed a movie.
“Why are we watching this?” Mu Qing complained, because he would probably die if he didn’t complain at least once every minute.
“Shh,” Xie Lian said, and stuffed a handful of popcorn into his mouth. A piece fell onto his lap, but he didn’t even notice. Feng Xin had checked out within the first five minutes of the movie, but he glanced back at the screen just to see. Yep, still shit.
“Stop bothering Xie Lian,” Feng Xin told Mu Qing. Both of them were squished up next to Xie Lian, despite the frankly obscene size of Xie Lian’s couch. Mu Qing had his toes curled up into the cuffs of Xie Lian’s ugly fuzzy pants, though he would probably rather cut off his own feet than acknowledge it. Mu Qing sent Feng Xin a poisonous glare from behind Xie Lian’s head.
‘Suck up,’ he mouthed. Feng Xin picked up a piece of popcorn (not the one in Xie Lian’s lap – Mu Qing didn’t deserve to have that on his face) and threw it at Mu Qing’s head.
“Stop fighting, you two,” Xie Lian said. “You know I can tell, right?”
Feng Xin and Mu Qing shot each other twin glares, but if there was anyone in the world who could get them to stop fighting, it was Xie Lian.
Mu Qing obediently dropped his head into Xie Lian’s shoulder like a cat asking for pets. Not to be outdone, Feng Xin shoved himself under Xie Lian’s arm, so he could lie directly on his chest.
“You two,” Xie Lian said helplessly, momentarily distracted from the movie.
“We’re not fighting,” Mu Qing said, his voice slightly muffled from Xie Lian’s shirt. He seemed like he was going to fall asleep on Xie Lian again.
Xie Lian sighed, but it was a fond sound, and he leaned back in an experienced motion to give them more room to sprawl out on his body. Both Feng Xin and Mu Qing did so immediately.
The movie kept playing, some melodramatic scene where two characters had to monologue on a rooftop. A curl of Xie Lian’s hair fell across Feng Xin’s face to rest on his cheek. Feng Xin could feel his eyes starting to slip closed.
Then Xie Lian stretched out his legs, and those hideous pants tightened around his thighs.
Feng Xin’s eyes snapped open. His eyes flicked over to Mu Qing, and found Mu Qing’s eyes were already as round as dinner plates, completely zoned into Xie Lian’s legs.
Well. Perhaps there were benefits to those hideous pants.