Work Text:
Wei Ying drew on condensation when he was in the shower. He had been unable to take hot enough showers for months after his skull had gone crack and his brain had gone splat, and he'd spent another few months learning to tolerate the heat when his autonomic nervous system tried to convince him that being boiled alive like a sexy lobster wasn't worth it. It was absolutely worth it, and now he could mostly handle hot showers, and he left drawings and random writing in the condensation on the walls and mirrors for his boyfriends to find later. He left them in the car, too, when the process of drawing while being driven didn't make him feel wonky.
He drew a funky little swirl on the side of the bathtub, hot water itself not being the mood today. He added to it: one dot, two dots, three dots. They made a swirl of their own, so he added a second real swirl, then upside-down triangles, and what might have been a pair of wings. It was definitely a pair of wings, so Wei Ying got to work for real, now, adding a tail and scales and whiskers, moving down the length of the bathtub and nudging Wen Ning out of the way to finish one of the paws.
"Careful," Wen Ning said quietly, to which Wei Ying returned a sound, and drew the second paw paying a little more attention to his surroundings. He added swirls for clouds above and an ocean below the dragon.
"That's you as a dragon," he said to Lan Zhan, who was inside the tub and couldn't see the dragon drawn in the condensation on its side.
Wei Ying frowned. "You can't see it."
"Wait!" He stood quickly and stumbled out for his phone to grab a photo. The fast movement caught up to him as soon as he stepped over the bathroom threshold, and he grabbed the doorway to stay standing as he got used to it.
"Phone," he said to himself, straightening. Everything felt a little less goopy now. "Phone, phone, phone, phone, phone..."
He tapped out the rhythm of the word on his fingers as he searched. It shouldn't have been difficult. They'd come home, had gone straight to the bathroom... There!
He walked to the couch and dug through the pile of coats—his, Wen Ning's, Lan Zhan's—until he felt something heavy. That would be the phone. He dug more, shaking the coat until it fell out, caught on the couch. That was what the case and screen protector were for. He took it, left the coats where they were, and changed his mind. He turned, took the coats, and on the way to the bathroom hung them up on some hooks.
With how quickly they'd come home, they hadn't had time to hang them. Wen Ning and Lan Zhan cared more about that than he did. He liked a clean home, but neatness was beyond him, so he didn't bother beyond things that would inconvenience his boyfriends.
"I hung up the coats," he said as he entered the bathroom. He sunk down onto the floor by the tub almost immediately to get used to the temperature change. Funny, he hadn't noticed it being this hot earlier.
"Alright?" Wen Ning asked. One of his hands was still in the tub resting on either Lan Zhan's shoulder or his chest, but the other was now stretched out toward Wei Ying in concern.
"All good," Wei Ying said. He shook his legs out to show just how alright he was, took another moment, and unlocked his phone. He rocked forward until he was sitting on his knees and stretched out the phone toward Lan Zhan. "Look—wait— "
He sat down, snapped a photo of the dragon, who was looking a bit worse for wear as the condensation around him started dripping, but who was still as handsome as in his prime, and stuck the phone in front of Lan Zhan's face. "That's you as a dragon."
Lan Zhan hummed. "Very handsome."
Wei Ying beamed and pecked a kiss somewhere onto Lan Zhan's face. "You are!"
He sat back down. Wen Ning was back now to washing Lan Zhan's hair, sat on a low stool and his chest and shoulders wet from helping with the rest of Lan Zhan's body earlier. Wei Ying let himself stare for a little bit, because Wen Ning was beautiful, and he thought about how good he was to hug, and started pouting at that because it was Lan Zhan's turn, not his, not that it was a bad thing, but what was he supposed to do, look at Wen Ning's chest and not want to be held to it?
"Come," Wen Ning said, snapping him out of it.
Wei Ying scrambled close, plastering himself to Wen Ning's side as he continued washing Lan Zhan's hair.
"You were yearning loudly," Lan Zhan said softly. Wei Ying didn't know if he was teasing or not. He sounded tired.
Wei Ying dropped one of his hands into the water until he found Lan Zhan's hand, and he took it and ran his fingers over Lan Zhan's knuckles and played with his fingers. Lan Zhan moved a little, sloshing water up to the sides of the tub but not letting any spill out. He stilled. Wen Ning continued with his hair. Wei Ying was pretty sure that the washing part was over, and that Wen Ning was just having fun. Lan Zhan probably knew.
He moved one of his feet a little, moving more water, let out a little sound and kept his eyes closed as Wei Ying detached himself from Wen Ning's side to kiss him. He wanted to kiss Lan Zhan until he stopped hurting, and hurt himself at the knowledge that it wasn't possible.
When Lan Zhan released some of the tension, Wei Ying stayed leaning over him in the tub for a little longer, before sitting back. Now, one hand in the water with Lan Zhan, his body plastered against Wen Ning's, he was free again to return to the dragon. It had almost disappeared, water dripping down, down, down. He ran his hand over it, erasing it and liking the feeling of the steady tile and cold water against the humid air. There were a few more parts of the tub that had fresh condensation, though, so Wei Ying got to work.
Lan Zhan didn't draw on condensation. He'd been raised not to, not in the car and not on mirrors and not in the shower. He let it be.
He'd tried to let it be earlier, when they'd been out walking, but hadn't lasted half an hour before he'd asked them to turn back, leaning on one side onto Wen Ning and relinquishing his cane to Wei Ying on the other side to lean on him instead.
Wei Ying drew flowers on the side of the tub, because the goal of their walk had been the park. They hadn't made it, and Lan Zhan was taking a bath to manage his pain, and Wei Ying made a note on his phone to order flowers later.
Wen Ning made a noise behind him—he'd seen the note, and now smiled and nodded and Wei Ying's heart was so full he thought it would burst and leak out of every orifice he had, flooding the bathroom and the apartment and the neighborhood and the entire world with his love. Good that Wen Ning had seen the note—he wouldn't let Wei Ying forget, because for all his workarounds and strategies his skull was a colander and his brain was noodle water. His thoughts were the overcooked noodles, far too mushy to be eaten. Thankfully Wen Ning and Lan Zhan liked those kinds of brain-noodles. Not real mushy noodles—they were both very particular about food textures, so it was only Wei Ying's noodle brain they accepted, flawed as it was.
Wen Ning wanted to draw on condensation. He started and stopped, feeling guilty over it, so Wei Ying drew for him. Bunnies and birds and butterflies—he was drawing now on the bottom of the full-length mirror, having crawled away in pursuit of the pictures. He looked back guiltily. In that moment, both Wen Ning and Lan Zhan were looking at him, Wen Ning with a hand on Lan Zhan's cheek and Lan Zhan with a smile as he watched the bunny meadow come to life.
Wei Ying smiled back at them and got back to work, his love coming to life on the foggy mirror, and though the picture would disappear his feelings never would.