Work Text:
Lan Zhan doesn’t mind his days in the office. True, he enjoys working quietly at home, instrumental music wafting from the speakers, incense burning by the open window while he shuffles about the house in his favorite loungewear and cardigan, Rue and Sage either chasing each other about the house or flopped down next to him wherever he settles. He likes that cozy, settled in feeling. But there is something nice about office days too. It can be oddly regulating, sitting at his desk with his color coordinated stationery, drinking tea from his thermos, eating packed lunch, working in a fixed location with his headphones on, alongside several other dozen copyeditors. His coworkers have learned that he doesn’t talk much, might not say a word all day, but they’ve grown fond of him, regardless. Part of that is due to the fact that they know he has a partner, and therefore a point of commonality with many of the others at the office.
“Zhan, you’re engaged now, aren’t you?”
Lan Zhan blinks in Emma’s general direction, nods.
“Oh, I didn’t know that!” Mia gasps. “Who asked who?”
“I asked Wei Ying.”
“When are you going to get married?” Mia stirs powdered creamer in her coffee. “Lucy and I married in winter. It was snowing. She wore a crown of holly instead of a veil…”
Lan Zhan smiles at the wistful expression on his coworker’s face. Mia and Lucy have been married nearly two years, but they’re still like newlyweds.
“Next autumn.”
(Wei Ying will wear red, and have a phoenix on his jacket, and Lan Zhan will wear green, and have a dragon. Everyone they love will be in one place. Lan Zhan will smile for some of the photos, easily, naturally. They are going to find a venue close enough that their siblings will not need to worry about putting their children in hotels. It will be another one of Lan Zhan’s secret dreams come to life, and one of Wei Ying’s as well.)
(Wei Ying had brought up marriage a few times, but always laughed it off, “Who would really want to marry me! What we have is enough.” Once, Jiang Cheng had all but threatened Lan Zhan that if he didn’t have plans of marrying his brother, he’d smother him in Yue’s dirty burp cloths. This had been a long while ago, when Wei Ying was still getting used to being wanted, but Lan Zhan took it to heart. Wei Ying will get his dream wedding, and so will Lan Zhan.)
“You better be careful,” Candy warns. She’s older, with box-dyed brown hair and a visible stripe of pure silver at the roots, and she smells of cigarettes. “It’s fun now, but before you know it, all you’re doing is laundry and taxes for the next fifty years.”
“Isn’t the phrase ‘death and taxes?’” Emma asks.
“‘Laundry and taxes’ is a movie reference,” Mia clarifies. “‘In another life, I would've really liked just doing laundry and taxes with you.’ Candy, that quote is meant to signify that with the right person, the mundanes of life would have been fulfilling.”
Candy lets out one of those condescending older White woman scoffs, the one that makes Lan Zhan wonder why he interacts with the general public.
“Well that’s nice for a movie, but real life is dull. You’ll be comfortable, probably, but sooner or later one of you will get bored, and that’s when it all goes south.” She shrugs, and a small puff of cigarette smell wafts off her fleece jacket. “But it’s better doing laundry and taxes with someone else than doing it by yourself.”
“Wei Ying and I have always done those things together,” Lan Zhan hedges. “And we do other things.”
Mia giggles. She is likely remembering a certain bruise on Lan Zhan’s throat week before last, courtesy of an encounter not with Wei Ying, but with a fussy Jin Ling.
(Lan Zhan loves all of his niblings, but Jin Ling, now three, struggles with emotional regulation in ways Lan Zhan has never witnessed before. Upon being told he could not pet Wei Ying’s running chainsaw, the toddler lunged for it anyway. Lan Zhan snatched him up before disaster could befall his young nephew, and received a rather nasty bite for his efforts. Still, the bite resulted in far less blood than the chainsaw would have. His coworkers did not believe him, or decided it was funny to pretend it was a lovebite anyway.)
(All of Lan Zhan’s lovebites are required to be out of view of the general public.)
Candy continues, “Sure, before the wedding. Just wait a few months. Once the paperwork is filed, they stop trying.”
She leaves with her gross break room coffee, and Mia immediately mouths ‘straight people problems’ at him.
“ Old, white straight people problems,” Emma amends in a whisper, before popping a container of what must be leftover lasagna in the microwave. “Don’t worry about it, Zhan. You and Ying are going to keep doing laundry and taxes and raising rabbits together, and it’s going to be awesome. He sends you flowers all the time! That’s not a man who’s going to get bored.”
This is true. Ever since the office learned of his existence during the Appendicitis Incident, Wei Ying has made a point of reminding his coworkers that Lan Zhan is not only taken, but splendidly so.
(Lan Zhan rolls his eyes when Wei Ying asks him what color flowers he wants each week, and might make a comment about posturing, but each bouquet delights him. He enjoys regifting the vases to his niblings’ teachers, women’s shelters, or community thrift stores and food banks. He enjoys seeing the blooms on his desk, taking the flowers home to compost or return to his future husband to craft with. He treasures that Wei Ying, who has an astounding amount of trauma related to finances, spends money on Lan Zhan each week to buy him unnecessary flowers.)
But still. As he sits at his desk and reviews a gardening manual, the latest vase of gerbera daisies in his line of sight, Lan Zhan can’t help but feel a tiny seed of worry. He is not the most exciting person, after all. He surveys restaurant menus in advance before confirming his attendance. All of his clothes are whites, greys, and neutral colors. He does everything at the exact same time every day: exercise, shower, breakfast, reading or commuting, work, lunch, work, tidying or commuting, dinner, play, sex, skincare and aftercare, bed. On weekends, replace morning work with chores and afternoon work with play. Wash, rinse, tumble dry low, fold and put away until needed. Use unscented soap with no dyes. Linen and silk must be hung to dry. Lace and wools must be laid flat. Do not dry in direct sunlight.
(Lan Zhan handles the majority of the laundry. Wei Ying, brilliant as he is, cannot remember to sort through the washing except while under the influence of an anxiety-induced trauma response related to a vintage Burberry wool coat that met its end in a dryer surrounded by polyester socks and acrylic blend sweaters. Lan Zhan has no interest in getting help with laundry under such conditions. Wei Ying will happily fold everything Lan Zhan passes him, and that is enough.)
The point is… Lan Zhan is very much the type of person to get married and do laundry and taxes on the couch with the bunnies and a wine glass of cranberry juice while Wei Ying loads the dishwasher and be entirely, blissfully happy. That is essentially his dream, plus a few kids and the cats Wei Ying has mentioned at least four times since they adopted Rue and Sage.
Wei Ying is not the type of person to get married and do laundry and taxes. Aside from the fact that he is not either of their first choices to handle either of those tasks, Wei Ying craves spontaneity. He thrives following Lan Zhan’s routine like a bouncing puppy, but he needs variation within that routine to feel fulfilled. Hence he works two regular part-time jobs and fills his free time making and either gifting or selling whatever happens to appeal to him at the moment. He’s creative and wild and intelligent in completely different, more erratic ways than Lan Zhan.
It’s been eight years of steady romance and eleven years of love, and Wei Ying is not bored of him yet. That is how the common sense part of his brain, aided by the ring on his left hand, assures him.
(The ring is a 1940’s illusion ring, white gold with a single diamond in it. Wei Ying’s is also from the 40’s, nearly identical, same diamond size, but yellow gold, and with two extra, smaller diamonds embedded in the band. They are perfect, and beautiful, and old, and do not encourage the, as Wei Ying once put it three years ago in a completely unrelated conversation with someone Lan Zhan had never met and does not remember, 'artificially inflated shiny rock industry drenched in the blood of millions'.)
So, yes. The rational part of his brain is fully aware that the idea that Wei Ying will grow bored of him and spend the next fifty years in quietly detached domesticity with him is absurd. But only part of his brain is rational, even if that rational part of his brain is significantly larger than it was when he was fifteen, trying to explain away his young feelings. The rest of his brain is a brain of feelings, and that brain is precious, but less reasonable.
By the time he’s in their car to go home, Lan Zhan has managed to rotate the idea that he is too boring for Wei Ying multiple times, tossed it around like a twenty-sided die, bounced it around his cubicle like a rubber band ball, and still cannot quite seem to chuck it away entirely.
Everyone always said he was boring. Or freakishly tall. Or both. Even Wei Ying once loudly called him boring in a high school cafeteria, and then proceeded to follow him to their shared class, asking to see his Flower Knows blush compact and tugging on the ribbon at the end of his braid.
It’s not like he ever set out to be boring, but he’s a creature of extreme habit. If habits were a sport, he would be an Olympian.
He arrives home exactly when he expected to, removes his satchel from the passenger seat, and punches in the code for the front door.
“Baby?”
“Mn.” He hangs his keys up on the hook by the door, checking that Wei Ying’s wallet, earbuds, and keys are also there. They are.
“Baby!” Slippered feet announce the swift approach of his fiancé, leaving Lan Zhan enough time to brace for impact, catching Wei Ying under his thighs as Wei Ying wraps his legs around Lan Zhan’s waist and his arms around Lan Zhan’s neck.
“Baby!” Wei Ying kisses him, four quick, soft kisses that have Lan Zhan leaning into them with a smile. “I missed you so much!”
“Mn.”
Like he heard everything - I missed you too. I’m glad to be home. I’m tired and want attention - Wei Ying presses their foreheads together, fingers in his hair behind his ears, thumbs brushing over his cheekbones.
“Love you, Baby.”
“Love you too.”
“Wanna get changed while I keep working on dinner? We’re having re gan mian.”
“With extra vegetables?”
“Yes, Baby. Of course with extra vegetables.” Wei Ying kisses him again, and the muscles in his legs begin to release, prompting Lan Zhan to let him go. “And tofu.”
Lan Zhan sits to remove his shoes, setting them in their place in the organizer by the door, and replaces them with his house slippers. Then he heads upstairs and changes into soft, linen weave cotton lounge pants and a loose cotton t-shirt. He slips an open robe on over that so he can enjoy the continued utility of pockets.
As he returns to the living area, Wei Ying is pouring green tea for them both, the floral aroma of jasmine petals blooming as Lan Zhan approaches.
“How was your day, Wei Ying?”
“Really productive! Jiang Cheng came over with Yue and sorted out that tax issue I was having. I filed both of ours and paid everything all at once. We did good, estimating how much we’d owe. The money we set aside was just enough. I think maybe for this year, we should try to put some extra in there for our own return of sorts.”
Wei Ying is grilling vegetables in a cast iron pan, seasoning them with a simple, soy-based sauce. He has a second pan of vegetables and pork grilling with a significantly spicier-looking sauce. There’s chopped zha cai, jiang dou, and clusters of fresh cilantro and scallions on a large wooden cutting board. Lan Zhan removes tea infusers from their mugs.
“Anyway, the taxes got done. We went and got lunch at that pho place I was telling you about. I treated Jiang Cheng and Yue since Jiang Cheng helped us out. Then, this afternoon, I finished up two foil pieces and went through my inbox. My entire inbox, Baby! I didn’t really feel like doing much work after that, so I started our grocery list for this weekend, cleaned, dusted, and vacuumed the living room, and finally spread that mulch we bought for the hydrangeas. After that, I took a shower so I wouldn’t stink up your nose when you got home, tidied the bathroom - Baby, why didn’t you tell me my stuff was spreading out again? - and got started on dinner. Then you came home!”
“A very busy day,” Lan Zhan acknowledges. “You must be tired.”
“A little, but it’s a good kind of tired. How about you, Baby? How was your day?”
“It was. Fine.”
Wei Ying frowns down at his spatula, plating their respective vegetables. He plates Lan Zhan’s first so it doesn’t get contaminated by chilis. “What happened?”
“Nothing really. An older coworker had some things to say about marriage that I didn’t care for. Other than that, it was my work, which I enjoy.”
“Hm.” Wei Ying tops their noodles with the zhai cai, jiang dou, chopped cilantro and scallions, and then adds a spoonful of chili crisp to his own. He places the bowls of noodles on their trays next to plates of vegetables and bowls of rice cooked with black and pinto beans and lentils, and the promised tofu sliced with a tangy, salty, savory sauce poured over top. Wei Ying’s portion also has the grilled pork mixed in with his vegetables.
Lan Zhan looks forward to eating the leftovers tomorrow.
(Lan Zhan has always been content to just eat a block of silken tofu with soy sauce and a bowl of rice. Wei Ying likes when meals are a full service. He enjoys the variety of textures and flavors. Wei Ying’s way is doubtless more nutritious, but more labor intensive. Hence, he makes a ton at once, and they eat leftovers for lunch or parts of other meals for a few days after. He’ll probably chop up these leftovers tomorrow and use them to make bao or vegan xiaolongbao.)
“I got the grants for my patent applications,” Wei Ying says, “One for the new alembic design and one for the Level Up Embroidery Kits.”
Lan Zhan almost drops his chopsticks. “You did? Wei Ying, that is wonderful!”
“Yeah.” Wei Ying grins, a bit of cilantro stuck to his tooth. “The embroidery kits probably won’t make enough money to turn a profit off the patent, but I will at least be able to challenge dupes when they show up. The alembic, though… Lan Zhan, that’s going to be so good for us!”
Lan Zhan has no idea what the alembic’s significance is. Wei Ying explained it to him once, some complicated relationship between heat, pressure and tensile strength that Lan Zhan could not comprehend. What he does comprehend is that Wei Ying’s design is revolutionary, and various organizations are frothing at the mouth to get their hands on one.
So far, Wei Ying has made several other inventions, which he has freely and willingly shared with other glassblowers and organizations. The alembic is different. It’s Wei Ying’s baby. He wants to keep this one. If Wei Ying can get patent approval for his alembic, he can be the sole proprietor, protect his invention, and make a lot of money.
(Money isn’t everything, obviously, but part of Wei Ying is still living in a one-bedroom apartment with his boyfriend, brother, and infant niece, eating peanut butter ramen and visiting different food banks on different days of the week. They still have tens of thousands in federal and private student loan debt, a car they’ll be financing for another three years, and a mortgage. They get by very well, well enough to keep saving for their wedding, their niblings, and eventually their children, but he knows their debt weighs heavily on Wei Ying.)
Lan Zhan pulls Wei Ying’s hand to his lips, kissing along his scarred and tattooed knuckles. “Well done, Wei Ying. Will you need help with the application?”
“Nah, it’s pretty straightforward. If I need any help, I’ll bully A-Cheng into it.”
“Mn.”
Maybe he really is boring. Maybe all he’s good for is editing books and feeding cilantro to the rabbits under the table. Sage flops down on the rug, resting her head on the top of his foot. Maybe Wei Ying loves him because he’s easy to handle.
Except Lan Zhan isn’t easy to handle. He’s persnickety, vain, stubborn, judgemental. He requires certain foods and certain lights and certain temperatures and certain fibers and certain everything.
Is that enough to not be boring?
“Baby, are you sure you’re okay? You’re not yourself tonight.”
“I just missed you.” Which isn’t even wrong.
“Hm.” Wei Ying inspects him with the eyes of a scientist and artist both. “Alright.”
“Thank you for dinner. It was excellent.”
“Of course! I was thinking we’d turn it into bao for lunch tomorrow.”
“Hm, that sounds good.”
“I thought about doing these as bao and then making some dou bao or nai wong bao and freezing whatever we don’t eat tomorrow. Yue’s spending the night Friday and Saturday. She loves those things!”
“Mn. And so do you.” Lan Zhan smiles, munching on a slice of water chestnut, savoring the crisp bite. “That sounds good.”
“Al-right!” Wei Ying bounces in his seat, excited to spend the evening making an obscene number of bao. “Baby, will you sit at the bar and keep me company while I make them?”
“Mn.”
After cleaning up from dinner, Lan Zhan actually ends up on the kitchen floor, cuddling with Rue and Sage, reading a library book on his e-reader, and accepting the periodic handfed strawberry from his fiancé. Strawberries are already in season in the South, so they taste sweet and ripe and tart. Rue and Sage, more than comfortable in their home already, are shamelessly begging for berries, planting their front paws on his chest, noses twitching hungrily.
“Manners!” Lan Zhan scolds, his voice still soft.
Wei Ying laughs, and passes a few more slices down from where he’s watching dough bang around in the stand mixer. Lan Zhan lets the bunnies climb all over him, chasing after the treats, but only offers the fruit once they settle.
“Good girls,” he murmurs, once they’re loafed at attention. Then, he reveals the strawberry slices, watching them munch away and lick the berry juice from his palms.
“We spoil them too much.” Wei Ying checks the temperature of the custard, giving it a quick mix.
“Not too much.”
The rabbits are a bit spoiled. They get pieces of whatever safe vegetables or fruits they’re eating or cooking with, little arranged gourmet salads, toys and games and time in the yard, walks on their lunch breaks and weekends. They get carried upstairs to spend time with him and Wei Ying while they work in the newly bunny-proofed office. They have little runners rolled out all over the bottom floor so they won’t slip on the hardwood and tile. Rue and Sage are extremely well-cared-for.
Lan Zhan wouldn’t have it any other way.
(Sometimes, he still can’t quite believe he finally has his bunnies. He wanted them so badly for so long, but never truly expected to have them. He adores Rue and Sage so much. Wei Ying adores them too, and that makes it all even better.)
Rue starts climbing Wei Ying’s legs, asking for uppies. Whether this is related to Rue’s desire to be carried or simply to her hunger for strawberries is unclear, but Wei Ying lifts her anyway once she sits nicely, holding her against his chest like a baby, rubbing the spots behind her ears.
“Yeah, you want Papa to hold you? Are you my sweet baby girl? Huh?” Wei Ying kisses Rue’s soft little head, carrying her in one arm while he hauls a triple batch of dough to the oven and sets it inside to proof.
(Lan Zhan had his doubts about the very fancy oven Wei Ying picked for them, but he has to admit the grill top and proofing function are more than worth it. Lan Zhan has eaten some truly incredible bread in the last year, including a garlic and rosemary sourdough that he thinks of often and fondly, and a focaccia they made caprese sandwiches with the other night for dinner.)
Wei Ying rummages through the fridge and pulls out a glass container of red bean filling.
“When did we make that?”
“I made some on Monday and brought some bao in for my apprentices. Some of them are taking exams already, and I thought it would cheer them up.”
“You are so kind.”
Lan Zhan is sure that he’s got some sodden, sappy, adoring look on his face, but he doesn’t care. His Wei Ying has spent so much of his life feeling unloved and uncared for, and has always done his best to meet that coldness with kindness. The boy who hadn’t felt safe and welcome since he was a baby bought an awkward, unhappy teenage Lan Zhan bunny erasers and Sanrio hair clips. The man who built himself a safe and welcoming life with his own two hands brings dou bao to his apprentices.
(Lan Zhan has never been very good at crying. He rarely cried as a baby, quiet and ‘easy’. This is common in autistic infants. As he grew, his tears grew even fewer between. Even when he wants to cry, he can’t. The feelings get trapped somewhere in his chest, an aching pressure that never reaches his eyes. Now, gazing at the warm, indomitable light that his future husband sheds freely, he comes close.)
Wei Ying sits down on the kitchen floor next to him, setting Rue in his lap, and rests his head on Lan Zhan’s shoulder.
“I’ve been thinking,” Wei Ying starts. “We have Yue this weekend, but what if we took next weekend for just us?”
Next weekend, Lan Zhan realizes, is A-Ling’s weekend. “He only bit me once. I’m not upset about it.”
“It’s not that. We’d just push the kids back a week. Take LingLing the week after, and A-Yuan next, and so forth.” Wei Ying slips his arm through Lan Zhan’s, his other hand petting Rue while they wait for the dough to finish proofing. “I just thought it might be nice to take a weekend for ourselves. We haven’t done that in a couple months now.”
“Do you want to go somewhere?” Lan Zhan offers.
“Sure, where would you like to go?”
Lan Zhan has no idea. Wei Ying will wait for him, so Lan Zhan takes a minute to think about it. “Seeing a movie might be nice.”
“Yeah, that does sound nice. We can go to the one with the fancy seats where we have room to cuddle. Dinner too?”
“Mn. Where?”
“Hm… There’s always that taco place with the vegetarian trio. You love that. Or the sandwich cafe. They have that grilled peach and brie panini, remember?”
“Mnnn…”
Lan Zhan definitely remembers that panini with extreme fondness. That cafe has a roasted veggie, mozzarella, and fresh pesto panini he’s been meaning to go back for, and an exceptional juice bar. He remembers the vegetarian taco trio, too: chipotle seitan, adobo jackfruit, and oyster mushroom tacos al pastor. The oyster mushroom tacos al pastor were so excellent, he and Wei Ying spent an entire weekend recreating the recipe. That restaurant also has a sweet potato taco, but his own are better.
Wei Ying giggles, tilting his head to kiss Lan Zhan’s shoulder. “We can decide day of. Whichever you’re in the mood for.”
“Mn. What else?”
“Hm… I don’t know. I’d be happy just to loaf about the house and fold laundry with you, to be honest.”
“Wouldn’t you be bored?”
Lan Zhan deliberately keeps himself from tensing, focusing on Sage in his lap.
“Why would I be bored? I have you, and our girls, and a house full of things we love to do. We can watch Nirvana in Fire again while I paint your nails, or we can practice beading and listen to new music. Go for a walk. Have a picnic in the backyard. Have a spa day. Do an actual full scene instead of just ninja sex while the kid sleeps. Cook something with five hundred ingredients or leave a soup to simmer all day. Nitpick paint colors for the mural I’m putting over the stairs.
“How could I be bored with all that?” Wei Ying looks up at him. “Would you be bored, Baby? We can definitely do something else if you’d rather.”
Lan Zhan definitely would cry, if his body knew how. “No. I could never be bored. Not with you.”
“Can’t be bored with you either, Baby.”
He wiggles out of Wei Ying’s arm, wrapping his own around Wei Ying’s shoulders, tipping their heads together. In the glow of the oven overhead light and the inside light illuminating the rising bao dough, Lan Zhan feels his heart settle.
So maybe, to the untrained eye, he is still boring. Maybe his generally blank face and stiff words do deter a lot of people. But really, he doesn’t need those people. He has brothers, sisters, niblings, friends, Shufu. Rue and Sage. Yue’s dog, Char Siu. Wei Ying’s gaggle of apprentices. A beautiful home. A handful of manuscripts even Wei Ying doesn’t know much about yet.
A wedding, two autumns from now.
“Have you heard of ‘laundry and taxes’ before?” he asks, rubbing his cheek against the top of Wei Ying’s head.
“Yeah. It’s from a movie. Yanli-jie and I went to see it when it was in theaters. She spent half of the film angry-crying or just regular crying. It was a really good movie.” The oven makes one of those little clicks as it adjusts to maintain temperature. “Why?”
“I am. Glad. That I get to do laundry and taxes with you.”
“Aw-w, Baby. Laundry and taxes is awesome with you. Every day for forever, sweetheart. Whatever we want.”
The dough in the oven has finally started spilling over the top of the mixing bowl. They will need to get up soon.
Whatever we want.
“I want to help make the bao before we go upstairs,” he says.
“Oh good. I was starting to dread making all these things.” Wei Ying giggles, that sheepish blush spreading over his golden cheekbones. It makes Lan Zhan’s heart ache.
Lan Zhan preps tiered steamers on two of the burners, then dons a pair of gloves, grabs an ice cream scoop, and starts making balls of sticky sweet custard. Wei Ying has chopped the leftover noodles, vegetables, pork, and tofu into mince. They roll out thirty-six pieces of dough. While Wei Ying fills and shapes them, Lan Zhan pokes a tooth pick of food color into the top of each one: yellow for custard, red for bean, green for veggie, and purple for pork.
(They learned to do this after Lan Zhan ate some of Wei Ying’s pork dumplings. They had not been back together long at that point, so Lan Zhan ate it to be cooperative and make Wei Ying happy. He had not ever eaten pork that he can remember, and his digestive tract felt the same way. It made him very sick. Wei Ying was equal parts worried and mad at him. Ever since, they mark all products with meat, including meat broth or blood.)
“I just realized our mistake,” Wei Ying mumbles, watching Lan Zhan set the last bao on a flattened cupcake liner. “I want to eat one.”
“We will eat some tomorrow for lunch. You will live.”
“But at what cost.”
Lan Zhan doesn’t respond, hearing the smile in his fiancé's voice. Together, they load the bao into the bamboo steamers and turn the burners on. They snack on more strawberries. They put Rue and Sage to bed in the sunroom. They kiss in the middle of the kitchen until it gets heated, until Lan Zhan is wet and Wei Ying is hard. The timer goes off. They turn off the burners.
He takes Wei Ying’s hand and tugs him softly upstairs. In a little bit, when the bao are cool, they will clean up and stumble back downstairs to pack them away into the fridge and freezer. Wei Ying will prep the rice maker for congee for tomorrow’s breakfast. Lan Zhan will check on Rue and Sage, make sure they don’t need anything.
They’ll go back to their bed, nestle like a matched pair under the blankets. Wei Ying will whisper his plans for tomorrow into the inches between their bodies. Lan Zhan will make a note to remind him in the morning.
He’ll go about his routine the same way he does every day, weaving in and around and about Wei Ying, and he’ll tell Wei Ying about his manuscripts. He’ll bask in the glow of their shared home and shared life, and he won’t worry about laundry or taxes at all.
They’ll get it done, one way or another.