Work Text:
Wei Ying ran a hand through Wen Ning's hair, getting rid of energy so he didn't move his legs and dislodge his boyfriend, whose face was buried in the pillow near his hip. Wen Ning's hair was loose and soft, and as he felt it, carefully, not pulling, he ran a finger along the edge of Wen Ning's ear until he finally rested his hand on Wen Ning's back. There, running his fingers over the soft fabric of his long-sleeved shirt, Wei Ying returned to work.
He was writing on his tablet, a birthday present that allowed him to draw and work from bed without straining his eyes at paper, which swam more frequently in front of his eyes, and also to erase his mistakes or make notes not on the drawing itself. He adjusted its lighting to just slightly brighter than a piece of paper, which caused naggging and endless concern for his eyes, as if they didn't threaten to fall out of his head if even a little irritated by any uncomfortable light. Bright enough for him to see, dim enough to not send him spiraling into a migraine or seizure—the former much more common than the latter, and a pretty good deal in Wei Ying's opinion. And he got to draw and write and play games if he got bored.
He was using it now not to draw but to sketch out the math behind a new idea, but when his brain stopped thinking along the line he was trying to form, he zoomed in on the sides of the canvas and doodled.
Years ago, when he'd been fourteen, Wei Ying had spent an entire science class standing in the corner of the room, punished for doodling. Trees, tornadoes, dragons, eyes, just enough to keep himself present in the boring lesson. No matter how he'd argued that it helped him focus, that he'd finished the assignment, that he had the highest grade in the class, the teacher hadn't listened, hadn't understood that he'd been telling the truth.
That had been before he'd met Wen Ning and Lan Zhan. Before—
He didn't remember the teacher's name anymore, or the number of her classroom. Most of his memories came and went, details and broad strokes remaining but the connective images gone. When he was reminded of them, the facts made sense, but Wei Ying couldn't hold onto them on his own. The frustration at this particular teacher—the classroom had had blue walls, which he stared at after being forbidden to draw, and he missed lesson after lesson in memorizing the patterns in the paint, but what school had he even been in?—remained.
Distracted from his project, Wei Ying pet Wen Ning's hair again, the ends of the strands around his shoulder blades. He needed a haircut soon — he made a note on the screen and added a drawing of a little bird, not because Wen Ning reminded him of a bird but because the last time they'd gone out for haircuts there had been a swarm of pigeons on the sidewalk next to a jewelry store with a bird-related name. It had made him laugh. He'd taken a photo. And the haircuts had been good, and the salon accessible, so returning made sense.
Wen Ning moved closer to him, his nose nudging against Wei Ying's hip until Wei Ying bit his lip and moved—gently, so as not to jostle Wen Ning, who was sleeping and tired and had earplugs in to sleep better, who wrinkled his nose but lifted his head and put his cheek on Wei Ying's hip, shifting his body to lie more on his side, the arm that had been causally thrown over Wei Ying's lap now hugging his left thigh with not inconsiderable strength.
Wei Ying spared a thought for the magnificence that were Wen Ning's arms, and bent his right knee to rest his tablet against it. He played a balancing act with the stylus and tablet for a minute, then split his attention and played with Wen Ning's hair once more. Soft. He brushed some out of his face so it wouldn't irritate his eyes, then returned his hand to Wen Ning's back and the soft sleeping shirt.
With his other hand, just in case, he saved the project he was working on. Then he got back to work. He'd heard too many horror stories of people losing months of work because they didn't save correctly or forgot to back things up—he'd been witness to one moment like that earlier in the year, and always felt smug for being thorough with his saving. He knew what losing things felt like, thought most of his happened in his brain. If he forgot to write down a thought? Lost. Lost for good. That wasn't new, and it wasn't even really frustrating, and it happened so rarely because he knew he wouldn't remember, so he was in the habit of writing everything down, and he had lists and lists of reminders in his phone and on sticky notes all around the apartment and every single one of his workspaces, and making all of the workarounds and adaptations into habits and routines had worked miracles, but sometimes—
It was best to be safe. He'd been working on autopilot and somewhere along the line his sketching and equations had turned into Wen Ning. Alright, then. Wei Ying moved to a different part of the canvas, saved again, and allowed his hand to take him where it wanted to, guided by his eyes and heart: the slopes of Wen Ning's back and shoulders, his legs, the soft waves of his hair, the soft snuffling sound he let out against Wei Ying's hip—he couldn't draw that, but he separately drew Wen Ning's face, the imprint of a fabric crease on his cheek and forehead, his eyelashes, his lips, and he drew out separately again the length of his body, the way one of his legs tangled in the blanket, the outline of his foot against the end of the bed.
He'd print out the document later. Large-scale. He'd go somewhere and send in the file and he'd come home with a rolled-up tube of Wen Ning sketches, and if he'd forget to delete the equations his brain would be open for anyone to see, his initial focus disappearing into admiration.
He saved the file again and started a new picture, but mostly now he returned to playing with Wen Ning's hair. He slid down from the headboard until Wen Ning's head was resting more against his stomach than his hip, slowly so as not to wake him, and his own eyes began to close. He angled the tablet on his leg, still drawing, so that when he inevitably fell asleep it would fall onto the bed and not onto Wen Ning.
He allowed himself a moment of pride for thinking ahead, at the same time as Wen Ning hugged his leg more tightly—he took that as a reward as well, smiling because it wasn't, because Wen Ning was just moving in his sleep, perhaps moving between dreams, perhaps preparing to change positions.
Wei Ying bent and pressed a light kiss to the top of his head, and straightened with a smile even as he spit out a few strands of hair.