Work Text:
It was the big night.
Wei Wuxian crept up to the curtain at the front of the stage so he could tug it slightly and see the crowd that had gathered outside. It shouldn’t have surprised him to see the seats all filled with people, but it did, and his heart jumped at the sight. All these people had come for them!
Knowing that Wen Qing was going to scold him for leaving the backstage area in the first place, he pulled the curtain further back and tried to look for the ones he had invited to the opening night, as well as someone else who he was desperate to see and who he hoped wouldn’t miss it more than anything. His own family not attending wouldn’t bother him too much, honestly speaking, but this one person… He would be there, he had to be.
“Wei Wuxian!” came a hiss from behind him.
Turning around he found exactly who he had been expecting to see: Wen Qing, their stage manager, shooting him a look with an underlying threat in it. He gave her an innocent smile in return and let the curtain fall back in place.
“I thought I said no messing around on the stage,” she scolded him silently, pulling him back to the wings.
“Ah, Qing-jie, I just wanted to take a peek,” he whined in response.
“Another peek and you’ll never stand on stage again,” Wen Qing warned him.
“You wouldn’t dare!” Wei Wuxian replied, “What would you do without your main actor?”
“You know as well as I do that I could substitute you just fine,” the stage manager told him, “So make sure you have all your props ready before I need to try adjusting your costume to fit into it.”
Wei Wuxian pulled his costume closer to himself with an exaggerated look of fear, as if protecting it from her. He opened his mouth to give her a snarky response when he noticed someone dressed in a costume similar to his (with the exception that this one was white while his was red and black) walking around the backstage area, not far from them.
“Lan Zhan!” he called out in their direction, and sure enough the person stopped in their tracks and turned around to reveal his co-star and (more importantly) boyfriend, Lan Wangji.
“Wen Qing says she’s going to kill me!” he called out to him, “You wouldn’t let her do that, would you?”
Lan Wangji was by his side in seconds, placing a hand on his shoulder. “No one will hurt Wei Ying,” he said.
“Exactly!” Wei Wuxian said smugly in Wen Qing’s direction, “No harm comes to me while Lan Zhan is around.”
“Wei Ying should try his best to stay out of trouble, though,” Lan Wangji added.
Wen Qing’s eyes glimmered with triumph at the same time as Wei Wuxian whined, “Lan Zhan! You’re supposed to take my side!”
“Just hold back for another hour and then you’ll be on stage,” the stage manager told him, “I have to go now, but I trust you to be in good hands. Don’t let me find you wandering around again.”
The actor pouted as she walked away and turned back to his boyfriend. “Lan Zhan, I feel betrayed,” he complained.
Unphased, Lan Wangji smiled at him softly and then turned his head in the direction of the stage and the sound of the waiting audience talking among themselves. His expression shifted back into its neutral state, but Wei Wuxian could see him craning his neck as if he was searching for a specific voice from within the crowd.
Well, not ‘as if’, that was exactly what he was doing.
Taking his boyfriend’s hands in his, Wei Wuxian tried to take his attention away from the people outside. “He’ll be here,” he told him, “I know he will.”
“Mn,” Lan Wangji hummed, but it sounded uncertain.
“He will !” Wei Wuxian insisted, “And he will be very proud of you, Lan Zhan.”
Wei Wuxian’s family had always accepted that he was a free spirit who would do whatever he wished without waiting for anyone’s agreement. They may not have all necessarily approved of it, but they knew better than to stop him. Lan Wangji’s family wasn’t like that, though. His family's approval meant a lot to him, and it had taken countless battles for his uncle to accept his decision to pursue acting as a career.
Even then, it had certainly never been mentioned that he would someday become one of the main actors in an LGBTQIA+ musical.
Wei Wuxian knew how much this performance meant to his boyfriend, and how much he had been looking forward to it, but he also knew how nervous he was at the prospect of his uncle not attending, or worse, attending the opening night performance and not shying away from expressing his disapproval afterwards, and he wished he could help ease his mind and worries.
“Hey, Lan Zhan,” he said. The man turned his gaze back to him, and Wei Wuxian brought his hands to his lips, kissing them lightly. “Remember what we said years ago?” he asked, “We don’t need anyone’s permission to love who we love, and none to love each other. Tonight we’re breaking another border. We don’t need anyone’s permission to follow our dreams either.”
Lan Wangji’s eyes softened and he gave Wei Wuxian a smile that made his heart melt. “Mn,” he replied, “Tonight we will travel to the top of the world, and no one can stop us.”