Archive of Our Own ^beta

They picked apartment 1301 in the Cloud Recesses because first and foremost, Wei Wuxian hated the whole concept of real estate. 

“I know finding a good place is important, but there’s so many and there’s always going to be problems with every apartment we find,” Wei Wuxian whined, clutching at Lan Wangji’s arm like the trophy wife he aspired to be one day. “The last one had cockroaches, and the one before that was twenty minutes from campus by bus, and the one before that didn’t even have a bathtub, so it’s not even like we could fuck in the bathroom. Like, shower sex, yes, but bathtub sex is superior. No bathtub is criminal, Lan Zhan.”

Outside, the humid summer clung to them, sticky and insistent and warm like a needy child. New York summers were singularly the worst types of summers that Wei Wuxian had ever experienced. Beijing summers, they were hot, burned the skin right off your feet stepping on the concrete, but that type of summer was dry. New York summers were heavy with the threat of looming rainfall that never seemed to drop. Even now the sunlight was glaring off a million reflective surfaces from the stupidly tall buildings. It made Wei Wuxian sweat like a greasy pig, and not even a cute pig at that. 

He didn't let go of Lan Wangji's arm, though. There were worse things in life than risking dehydration and heat stroke for the chance to cling to a hot man’s arm. Not to mention Lan Wangji was sweating, too. It was all subtle and elegant in an underwear model sort of way, but that was definitely a drop of sweat rolling down his temple and it counted. 

Wei Wuxian, of course, wanted to lick the sweat off. But they were strolling the streets on their never-ending search for a perfect apartment and he understood those kinds of things were frowned upon by general society. 

Lan Wangji wouldn’t care, the deviant. That was why Wei Wuxian was there. He was the more rational of the two, but no one understood that. Much to his tragic despair. 

“Are we agreed on that?” Wei Wuxian asked. “Bathtub sex—yes, no?”

“Yes,” said Lan Wangji, without hesitation. 

“Good boy, good boy.”

They’d been dating for two years. While Jiang Cheng railed at them because you can’t move in with your boyfriend before you get married, Wei Wuxian, Mom’s going to fucking flay you alive when she finds out, Wei Wuxian didn’t care. Housing deadlines were coming up. He needed somewhere to stay, and Lan Wangji needed somewhere to stay. Mutual need. Wei Wuxian looked at his incredibly hot boyfriend and thought, What the hell? Why not? 

It was no grand proposal. Wei Wuxian blurted out the idea in the cooling air after some very mindblowing sex, and Lan Wangji just said yes, as if it was that easy.

Hence the apartment searching. 

“Do you think the real estate agent or whoever will look at us weirdly if we both try to sit in the bathtub?” Wei Wuxian asked. “Just, you know, for mechanics. The spatial awareness of it all. It’d be such a shame if we got an apartment with a bathtub and we couldn’t even have sex in it. That’d be worse than having no bathtub at all.”

“...Hm."

“Yeah, I know you’re considering it, pretty boy. Consider it harder. Think about the sex. We’ll even finish smelling nice! We’d be clean! Not sweaty!” 

“Two rounds, then,” said Lan Wangji, deeply contemplative. 

“You are insatiable,” said Wei Wuxian, delighted as he always was when he discovered Lan Wangji's not-so-secret horniness. “It's so great. You're so great. So we’re sitting in the bathtub, right?”

“Yes."

“Excellent. Oh, and this next place is close to a Vietnamese restaurant with apparently some insane fucking noodles, so we can hit that up once we’re done. Wen Ning told me about all the Yelp reviews raving about their vegetarian broth. Not even like, a single fish bone, I checked. You’ll love it, Lan Zhan.”

There was no reply. This was not unusual by itself, but normally there was some sound of acknowledgement, a squeeze around his hand to let him suss out what Lan Wangji didn’t say. Absolute silence was unusual. 

“Lan Zhan?” Wei Wuxian asked. Still no response. He turned, frowning. “What do you—”

Wei Wuxian’s mouth closed with a sharp clack. 

Lan Wangji was looking at him. 

Steady as summer sun, and just as heated, he was looking at Wei Wuxian. 

Except it wasn’t fair to call it just looking, because Lan Wangji looked at him all the time. That was obvious. But this? This was a different hemisphere from looking, it was a totally different fucking galaxy. It was this soft expression that was a dozen gentle kisses in the gentle curve of his pink mouth, his half-lidded golden eyes like he was equal parts pleased, fond, in love, maybe horny. The last part was always a toss-up, but it didn’t change the fact that every time Lan Wangji gazed at him like that, it was fucking game over. 

Abandonment, cold, fear, all the worst things in the world—what did it matter if Lan Wangji was looking at him like that?

It was a fucking cheat, that expression. An instant end to all arguments. Coherency, period. That expression said Wei Wuxian could do anything he wanted, and Lan Wangji would be content to just stay by his side.

“Lan Zhan,” Wei Wuxian half-wailed, burying his face into Lan Wangji’s shoulder. Lan Wangji stopped walking, turned to face him so he could wrap his other arm around Wei Wuxian’s waist. It was an automatic instinct with Lan Wangji, to touch him like this. “Don’t look at me like that! You know I can’t bear it. My heart is very fragile, you know! I’m delicate! A blossoming flower!”

“I apologize,” said Lan Wangji, no change in inflection because his boyfriend was an unapologetic bitch. 

When Wei Wuxian peeked up at Lan Wangji’s face, it still held that soft look, so he returned to hiding his face in the gentian cotton of Lan Wangji’s button-up. It smelled like the sandalwood of his detergent and sunlight, because Lan Wangji was environmentally conscious and preferred to air-dry. 

Lan Wangji’s hand started stroking through his sweat-soaked hair. “I will be more careful next time,” he said. 

“You are a liar,” Wei Wuxian said. “But that’s okay. You can make it up to me. What’s the next apartment we’re looking at? Actually, it doesn’t matter. Let’s just choose that one. As long as it doesn’t have cockroaches, and it’s not far from campus, and it has a bathtub big enough that we can fuck in it, I’m okay. I’m tired of looking. It’s so hot. ”

“Whatever you want,” said Lan Wangji, and pressed a kiss to the top of his head.

**

Break-ups, as a general rule, suck ass. That’s just a given. Newton’s fourth law of motion.

For example: Chad. He was bookish, cute. Three months older and the classic English major, last year of undergrad. He was almost a hipster with his silken brown hair and the way he pushed up his glasses way too often, but when he laughed, it was a quiet, gentle sort of laugh that was completely at odds with what Wei Wuxian expected from a guy named Chad. Nie Huaisang described his aesthetic as “pirate chic, but the pirate from, like, The Princess Bride and not the Caribbean,” which, all in all, was pretty accurate. 

Chad was adorable. Chad was nice. 

On the fourth date Wei Wuxian wore his fuck-me jeans, the tight light-wash with the strategically placed back pockets that made his ass look fucking fantastic. They made out for maybe an hour in the back of Chad’s white 2004 Honda Accord in a parking garage four minutes from the movie theater where their date was supposed to be. Apparently Chad had abs. 

Two weeks later Wei Wuxian went to the bathroom at a local Indian restaurant and came back to Chad saying into the phone, “No, yeah. He talks a lot. It’s a little annoying. But you can’t have everything, I guess? I don’t know.”

So that was Chad. 

The second break-up was worse. Wei Wuxian went on something like a dozen dates with Chanmi, and she was quick-witted, she had a million pictures of her cute rabbits with the pinkest noses, she wore different earrings on every date and knife-sharp stilettos that she always complained about at the end of the night, but it was in this joking way that always told him she only half-meant it. She liked to look good, and that was something Wei Wuxian understood. 

Chanmi broke up with him over text two months in. The text read: hey idk if this is working anymore. had lots of fun tho xoxo 

Wei Wuxian called. He said, “Hey. Uh, what?”

“Hi,” Chanmi said, a little breathlessly into the phone. There was a pause, like someone was whispering to her. “Um, so. I got back with my boyfriend.”

A moment as Wei Wuxian processed that. Then it hit like a sucker punch to the throat. “Are you seriously.” He closed his eyes and inhaled through his nose. “Are you seriously getting dicked down by him right now?”

“Yup,” said Chanmi. A cut-off moan. “A-anyways, gotta go.”

Break-ups. 

Cue ironic jazz hands. 

“So, funny story, I got involved in a robbery like two weeks ago,” Wei Wuxian says to Lan Wangji, while he’s puttering around the kitchen looking for popcorn, because Lan Wangji’s an excellent listener and if he doesn’t tell anyone about this story, he might explode. And he rather likes their paint job. “I got held hostage for like, three minutes, which was super exciting. Well. I don’t know if you can call it being held hostage ‘cause the knife was super small and also the robbery was at a McDonald’s. Jiang Cheng told me it didn’t count because I didn’t die.” 

From the living room, Lan Wangji makes a little noise that’s somewhere between disbelieving and distressed. Lan Wangji’s laptop is queued up to play Bambi, so Wei Wuxian ignores it. 

Their two-bed apartment is cramped enough that all sound travels. Tissue walls; furious honking cars from the south-facing window or the quiet rustle of Lan Wangji’s blankets in the other room on sleepless nights. Nothing hides in this apartment. Some evenings Wei Wuxian will open the window and swing his feet out below the iron bars on the small veranda overlooking the other red-brick apartment buildings. 

He’ll breathe in: the smoke. The dirt of the sprawling plants in various glass bottles that Lan Wangji is attempting to cultivate into a small jungle. The watery rot of the dumpsters wafting up from five floors below. 

The smell is godawful but some nights are like New York, like cold steel and stale air that wraps around his lungs and freezes him to the bone, and there is not near enough comfort in this world to make it okay. 

So he inhales. Holds it. Exhales through his teeth. Does it now, when he turns and finds Lan Wangji looking at him. 

He spins back around to the cupboards. “Anyways,” Wei Wuxian manages to say, before he loses his train of thought. God. Lan fucking Wangji. “Shit, what was I saying?”

“Your date,” Lan Wangji reminds him.

“Right, right.” Get it the fuck together, Wei Wuxian. “So the guy holding me hostage was like, ‘Hey, if you don’t listen to what I say right now, I’m going to stab this guy’ and I was like, ‘Whoa, what the fuck’ because I don’t wanna get stabbed. That shit sucks. But my date was all, ‘Uh, it’s only like our first date’ and then he just shrugged at me like, hey, what can I do. So that sucked. Can you believe it? Worst date ever.”

“Were you injured?”

Lan Wangji’s concern is like fireworks on Fourth of July. He sees it coming, but it takes him by surprise every goddamn time. Wei Wuxian startles so bad he slams his knee into the stupid fucking kitchen island. “Ow, shit.” 

“Are you okay?”

“Fine,” Wei Wuxian says. He shakes it off. Just another day. “Also, no, yeah. I was fine. Knocked the guy out and saved the day heroically, as you do. Great day. Where'd you put the popcorn?”

Soft steps pad across the hardwood floor in reply. A shadow crosses over his head. 

When Wei Wuxian turns, he almost collides with Lan Wangji’s broad chest because one arm is caging him in against the counter and the other is reaching somewhere above him. Lan Wangji’s wearing one of his stupidly expensive button-up shirts that’s at least fifty-percent silk, since Lan Wangji is bougie as hell and his delicate skin likely gets rashes when he tries to wear normal stuff. Polyester, nylon. The works. 

But. God. That chest. 

Wei Wuxian blinks and tries to remember how to breathe.  

“Um,” he manages.

“Popcorn,” says Lan Wangji in explanation. 

Ah. 

It’s nothing so sexy as pinning him against the wall and furiously making out with him, no. Instead Lan Wangji is rummaging in the cupboard above him looking for trashy microwaveable snacks. Wei Wuxian’s grip tightens on the marble counter. 

One beat. Two, and Lan Wangji steps back enough to put a polite distance between them, a packet of popcorn in his hands. His expression is immovable. “Here you go.”

Wei Wuxian lets out a slow exhale. “Right,” he says, voice hoarse. “Thanks.” Then, because he can’t help himself, he reaches out to tug at the reddened lobe of Lan Wangji’s ears. “If you just wanted to get so close to me, you could’ve just said so, Lan Zhan.”

“Shameless.” From anyone else, it’s a scolding. From Lan Wangji, it’s patient and gentle, like he’s talking to one of their rabbits. 

Mozzarella, probably. Not Muffin. Mozzarella’s always been Lan Wangji’s favorite, that rascal. All white fur and long ears that flop when he hops around or squirms in Wei Wuxian’s grip. Mozzarella’s an avid Wei Wuxian hater, which, honestly, fair. 

“We should begin the movie,” Lan Wangji says. 

“Ah, so demanding. I’ll be there in a bit.”

Lan Wangji gives him a short nod and moves back to the living room. In the meantime, Wei Wuxian places the popcorn in the microwave, sets the timer, places his forehead on the cool metal of the stove. Then he breathes out, slow and steady.

For the most part, Wei Wuxian likes to think that he and Lan Wangji have settled back into normalcy after breaking up. They’re roommates, platonic soulmates, movie partners, and perusers of bad ethnic restaurants run by white people, so if he thinks about it, the whole ex-boyfriends thing is really the least of his concerns. 

Wen Qing’s told him time and time again how fucking weird it is that he’s still hanging out with Lan Wangji, coupled with pointed stabbing gestures of her knitting needles. But that’s just a Wen Qing thing as a whole. He’s not too worried. 

Sometimes, though, there are these… moments, where Lan Wangji will do something that'll make his heart react like they’re still dating. It’s the whole nine yards, the blushing school maiden act—warm face, warmer body, heartbeat throwing a goddamn football riot in his ribcage. It’s annoying, but it does make sense; they did date for two years. It’s muscle memory at this point. He’ll get over it with time. 

He just has to get used to it. 

Their couch in the living room is all ivory and suede, expensive as hell, but it’s the kind that nearly swallows a person whole with the amount of give in the cushions. This, among other things, is what Wei Wuxian thinks about when he clambers plops his feet in Lan Wangji’s lap. 

That it’s impossible to sit up properly in the couch anyway; that it’s exposure therapy; that ex-boyfriends can still be friends who touch each other casually. 

One beat.

Then a warm hand drifts down to Wei Wuxian’s ankle, the touch so light that it wouldn’t even disturb the surface of calm lakewater. 

“Breathe out, Lan Zhan,” Wei Wuxian says, thinking of the nights where he sits out alone in the cold. The tension doesn’t ease. Wei Wuxian digs his heel in, just enough for Lan Wangji to feel it. “Lan Zhan,” he says again.

A quiet exhale. The weight of Lan Wangji’s hand settles like a warm blanket. 

“Yes?” says Wei Wuxian, and Lan Wangji says, “Yes,” and they begin the movie, a little more settled than before.

**

One year after graduating from college with a shiny new pre-med degree in Biochemistry and Physics, Wei Wuxian is working three jobs. It’s fine, mostly. 

The first job is at a convenience store every weekday minus Friday from 10 PM to 3 AM, five hours of mindless inventory: razors, lighters, flavorless Maruchan chicken ramen for the white people or the ones without taste buds; travel packs of outrageously priced tissues, Marlboros, lottos, frozen food with enough MSG and preservatives that a diet consisting of just those prepackaged meals will send anyone spiraling into malnutrition and a minor coma. 

Wei Wuxian would know, pre-med and all. Four years of it.

The second job is at a coffee shop also every weekday minus Fridays. He starts at a shiny 7 AM to 3 PM, kicking up again at 6 PM to close at 9. The only thing the coffee shop's really got going for it is the fact that it's not corporate chain hell, but that doesn't change the absurdly high prices of what Wei Wuxian knows to be some incredibly mediocre, watered-down coffee. Dirt grinds; Columbia, his ass. Try fucking Folgers. 

A dash of cinnamon and a pod of fresh vanilla beans, toss in some cute latte art, seriously, look at how cute that bunny is, Instagram draws all over the goddamn borough, saying, look at this cute coffee shop! It's not Starbucks! It's got books! It has plants on the windowsill! It has a little fireplace and the most generic coffee shop playlist on Spotify!

The coffee shop isn't bad. His coworkers don't suck, and if they do suck, he figures, what the hell, they're just as sleep-deprived as he is, life could be worse. He wraps up every shift smelling like coffee grinds and vanilla, and on the bad days he'll go home smelling like shit and bleach from the hours he puts in after close cleaning out the god fucking filthy bathrooms, but that's fine, it's cool, it's a job and no one ever said you had to like your job. 

It's a living. It's a life.

The third job Wei Wuxian doesn't mind. It’s at the niche makeup brush store four blocks away, and he only has one coworker he has to deal with every Saturday and Sunday from noon to 8 PM because the manager is almost never there, and his coworker Sam as a general rule doesn’t care what the fuck he does. 

It also helps that Mianmian frequently visits him, too. She’s an egregious spender on makeup, a product of being some sort of influencer that he’s too scared to search up. He’s heard rumors of her destroying old makeup on some of her videos. Wei Wuxian’s not strong enough to watch that. 

“So you’re a coward,” said Mianmian once during his shift, chilling on a stool while he fluttered around the store organizing the displays. “It’s like, old makeup, Wei Wuxian.”

“You are a monster,” Wei Wuxian declared, before shooing her away so he could impress his manager enough with his dusting skills to the point that she would hire him as a makeup artist like Sam rather than a makeshift janitor. 

It didn’t work, of course, but he’s an optimistic guy. It’ll work out someday. 

All things considered, post-graduation life is… fine. It’s not exactly the big cash money future he was hoping for after four years of grueling pre-med, but applying for med school is a grueling process that takes months for most people. It’s a slow but steady progress towards financial stability and happiness. 

Roadblocks happen. He has three jobs and he pays rent on time. Life could be worse. 

But some days? 

Life isn’t great. Some days life is fucking awful, and he pulls double-shifts at the coffee shop because both of his coworkers got sick in the middle of full-blown summer, and he doesn’t get to take his midday nap so he’s running on three hours of sleep by the time he hits the night shift at the 7/11. And that’d be fine—roadblocks. Shit happens. 

Some days, though, he has to mop up vomit from three drunk assholes who come stumbling into the convenience store two minutes before closing, smearing their shit all over the ice cream windows and the door handles, ricocheting over the fucking aisles while they’re at it. Some days he goes home, crashes, does the whole fucking thing over again after three hours of restless sleep, and he gets his midday nap this time, but it’s interrupted by some asshole doing construction down the street because it’s New York and everything’s always under construction all the fucking time, and some days, he really, really needs a fucking drink. 

Lan Wangji is fine to drink with, of course, but more often he’ll give Wei Wuxian these concerned gazes and cut him off after seven shots which is nowhere enough to make him forget his problems. 

So. Jiang Cheng, stage left. Ever so faithful. 

me 

hey lets go for drinks tonight if ur free

ill pay

cain

did you kill someone

why are you paying

what do you want

me 

i am literally just trying to b nice 

but ok if u dont want the free drinks ill ask nie huaisang

cain

did i ever fucking say i don’t want drinks

are you bringing your boyfriend

me

u know he doesnt drink

cain

not like that’s stopped him before

me

haha

but no hes busy w grad stuff

cain

he’s literally always fucking busy with grad work the hell

eleven at caiyi right

me

u know me so well 

but no were going to nightless city 

cain

oh so you wanna get fucked up fucked up 

ok your funeral

The bar is crowded and deafening by the time Jiang Cheng arrives, which is perfect. The light is low, dim, unsteady enough that it should be hard to see Jiang Cheng’s face and vice versa. 

Forget brunches or dinners at A-Jie’s house in China during family reunions. He and Jiang Cheng should endeavor to hang out solely at bars, where alcohol is near and insobriety only a few steps away, and they don’t have to see each other’s faces completely.

In theory. 

And it would be all well and good, except that Wei Wuxian has forgotten that Jiang Cheng has the eyes of a sharpshooter. 

“God, you look fucking awful,” is the first thing his brother says when he slides onto the barstool, all casual comfort in his purple university hoodie and jeans. 

So there goes the low light plan.

While Caiyi is more of a classy bar with mood lighting and bartenders in tailored suits, Nightless City is a different monster altogether. It’s more of a pub than a bar, packed to full occupancy night after night with underage college students looking for cheap alcohol and bouncers who won’t turn away kids with faces still full of baby fat. Nightless City has a deal where if you buy a handle of hard liquor and drink all 750 milliliters within fifteen minutes, it comes at half-price. It’s a recipe for vomit and regret, but it’s cheap, and it works. 

Here it always smells like spilled beer and cigarette smoke. The second-hand nicotine catches in Wei Wuxian’s throat, the back of his teeth when he sips his bourbon from his weirdly sticky glass. 

“Thanks,” Wei Wuxian says, setting his glass down on the high table. This, too, is sticky, because it’s the Nightless City and the Nightless City is debauched and filthy, like the worst parts of the city wrapped up in one semi-legal bar. “I tried really hard to look fucking awful today. Glad my efforts showed.”

“Okay,” Jiang Cheng says slowly. “Obviously there’s something wrong with you. Or something you want. So I’m gonna order a drink first. Because I need to not be sober for this.”

Wei Wuxian waves him off. “Do what you want.”

“You’re paying.”

“I told you I would, didn’t I?”

“Oh, like how you said you wouldn’t snitch about my tattoo to A-Jie? Uh-huh.”

“It’s A-Jie, A-Cheng.”

Jiang Cheng just makes a noise. Very strong wet-cat vibes. “Fuck off.” A-Jie didn’t even react that badly to his lotus tattoo sleeve, so Wei Wuxian thinks it’s completely undeserved. 

The music of the bar, some abomination from the Top 40s that’s been on the charts for weeks, is so fucking loud that Wei Wuxian can barely hear himself think. It’s some overplayed and overdone remix dropping on all the wrong beats. It’s partially his perpetual headache, but the DJ really is that fucking bad. 

Maybe the Nightless City was a bad idea after all. 

After something like two minutes of Jiang Cheng blowing off all of Wei Wuxian’s incredibly persuasive attempts at finding out the latest gossip in his life, Jiang Cheng gets his alcohol. He drowns a shot of what looks to be rum or whiskey or bourbon, reaches for the next one, drowns that one before grabbing for the third shot. 

That’s maybe fifteen bucks down the gullet. Wei Wuxian stares at him. “Seriously?”

“You literally have no idea how fucking terrible you look, do you?” Jiang Cheng slaps his hand aside, slaps him twice as hard when Wei Wuxian gives him a retaliatory slap, and then hisses and squirms out of the way when Wei Wuxian lunges to hit him again. “Stop that, we have alcohol.”

With a begrudging glance at the shots lined up on the table, Wei Wuxian settles back into his seat.

“Alright,” Jiang Cheng announces thirty seconds later, when his eyes are beginning to glaze over. “What is it.”

“What is what?”

“You know. You.” 

Jiang Cheng gestures at all of Wei Wuxian’s apparently misery-soaked existence, which is a little rude considering he put a lot of effort in his appearance today just so Jiang Cheng couldn’t tell him he looks like shit. A dash of eyeliner, spots of concealer for his dark circles. 

He even put in earrings: a stud in his lobe and two tiny hoops on the helix. Stuck in a cartilage piercing for kicks, even. All gifts from Lan Wangji back when they were dating, of course, but Wei Wuxian isn’t thinking about that.

“What if there’s nothing going on, hm?” Wei Wuxian asks. “What if I just wanted to spend time with my favorite brother in the world?”

“Okay, now I know it’s really bad. What is it.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about. I am perfectly fine.”

“Oh yeah? Your job. Whatever it is you do.”

“I’m a slave to capitalism,” Wei Wuxian reminds Jiang Cheng for what must be the thousandth time, “and yeah. Fine. I had to clean up some asshole’s vomit yesterday, but that’s not new.”

“You know, you wouldn’t have to clean up so much vomit if you applied for med school already and became a doctor to put some use into your pre-med degree. Rabbits.”

“I’m pretty sure I’d be inducing the vomit if I was a doctor, which might be worse,” Wei Wuxian points out, and Jiang Cheng grimaces. “Anyways. They’re all alive. Surprisingly.”

“Fucking… I don’t know. Sleep schedule.”

Wei Wuxian waves it off. “Meh.”

“Then, shit, I don’t know. It’s not like there’s anything else that could be wrong with your life.”

Wei Wuxian blinks. “Not that there’s anything wrong, but isn’t there like, one big thing you’re forgetting?”

“What?” Jiang Cheng starts to tick off his fingers. “Job, pets, physical health. You have like three friends.”

“Hey.”

“Fine,” Jiang Cheng says, rolling his eyes. “Are all of your friends okay.”

“They’re perfect,” Wei Wuxian says, torn between feeling offended and disgruntled that Jiang Cheng even thought to ask this far. “But I was talking more along the lines of like… Relationship issues.”

“Oh, god.” Jiang Cheng blanches and reaches for another shot glass. “Shut up. You did not call me here to talk about how.” He gags. “No. Nope. I’m not talking about Lan Wangji with you.”

Now Wei Wuxian feels offended. “Why not?”

“Because whenever you do, you always fucking go on for hours. ‘Oh, Lan Zhan is so perfect, Lan Zhan solved global warming, Lan Zhan’s the hottest person I’ve ever seen, oh Lan Zhan, Lan Zhan, this and that.’ Fuck.” Jiang Cheng downs the last shot and lets out a little pah, like he’s an old grandmother who’s disapproving about her granddaughter’s spousal choices. “I’m not fucking doing it.”

“Well, fine,” says Wei Wuxian, sniffing. “Not that you would, because Lan Zhan and I broke up.”

“Oh, haha. Very funny. That was lame, even for you.”

“What? I’m serious.” Wei Wuxian slides his finger around the rim of the crystal glass, watches the way the glass gleams dully under the flickering lightbulb hanging over their table so he doesn’t have to look at Jiang Cheng’s face. “I mean it. We broke up in December, so… Almost six months ago?”

“What.”

“Yeah.”

“You’re fucking with me.”

“Nope.”

“How.”

“Um.” Wei Wuxian’s mind blanks out. “Mutual differences?”

“No. You’re lying. You and Lan Wangji broke up?” Jiang Cheng suddenly sounds furious. He’s even leaning into the table now, all up in Wei Wuxian’s space, uncaring of the strange stickiness that must be clinging to his elbows. It’s only a little intimidating. “How? Why? Is that why he hasn’t been coming to anything recently? And why you haven’t applied to med school yet? And why didn’t I hear about this? Did you tell A-Jie?”

“Lan Zhan genuinely is busy with grad stuff, just a lot less than you thought. And I’m working on my applications, like, a little, it’s a work in progress, alright? Three jobs keep me busy. As for A-Jie, she’s…” Wei Wuxian hesitates, thinks about how to phrase it. “A-Jie might be under the impression that Lan Zhan and I are still dating.”

“How.”

“Because Lan Zhan picked up my phone one day when I was sleeping, and next thing I know, I’m getting a text like, sorry I missed you but I’m glad you and him are still doing well!” He gives a helpless shrug. “You know how it is.”

“No,” Jiang Cheng hisses. “I do not know how it is. Seriously? One phone call? That’s all it took?”

“Not… exactly.”

“Wei Wuxian.”

“We’re still living together,” Wei Wuxian blurts in a rush, ignoring Jiang Cheng’s snarl of surprise, “and one time she Facetimed me and she saw the pictures of us kissing taped to our fridge and.” Wei Wuxian pokes at a suspiciously sticky spot that glows under the flickering light. “So she thinks we’re still dating.”

“Didn’t you say you broke up five months ago?”

“Yeah.”

“So why do you have a picture of you two kissing taped to your fridge?”

“Because we’re too broke for magnets,” Wei Wuxian explains, then considers that statement. “Well, I’m too broke for magnets. Lan Zhan probably refuses to buy them because he’s trying to have lofty ideas about the moral failings of materialism.”

“I didn’t mean the tape,” Jiang Cheng bites out. “I mean, why is there a picture of you two kissing on the fridge when you’ve already fucking broken up!”

“It’s a cute picture!” 

It is. Wei Wuxian doesn’t have many good photos of them because Lan Wangji is notoriously bad at being included in any photo that isn’t a paparazzi ambush, but in that one, the bluebell glow of the holiday lights brought out the subtle pink flush in Lan Wangji’s cheeks and ears and even the tip of his nose. There were little clumps of snow in his perfect high ponytail, not a strand of hair out of place. 

He was smiling into Wei Wuxian’s mouth, looking like he could live in this moment forever, and the photo was shaky at the edges because Wei Wuxian knew what Lan Wangji’s smiles felt like and how rare they were, but he still chose this one to tape to their fridge the day that they moved in together. 

For good reason. 

Wei Wuxian blinks back to the present, swallowing to push aside the faint ache in his throat. “Anyways,” he says. “It’s fine. He hasn’t said anything about it.”

Jiang Cheng looks like he’s itching to crawl out of his skin. “Does he know?”

“Know what?”

“That you’re still disgustingly in love with him.”

“No,” says Wei Wuxian, on reflex. When Jiang Cheng just narrows his eyes at him, Wei Wuxian picks up the shot glass, downs it, and slams it on the table. The bourbon stings his throat and his eyes. “By no, I mean, no, he doesn’t know because I’m not in love with him anymore. Obviously.”

“Oh my god,” says Jiang Cheng. Now that’s horror dawning on his face. It’s the same face he had when Wei Wuxian Facetimed him during A-Jie’s six hours of labor. “You’re in denial.”

“I’m not denying anything.”

“Oh my god,” Jiang Cheng says again. “I can’t believe you’re making me talk about your feelings. You know, when you offered me free alcohol, I thought to myself, ‘Hey, Wei Wuxian definitely wants something, but it’s free alcohol. I’ll be a good brother. It can’t be that bad.’ But if I knew that you—you lured me here to mope, I wouldn’t have fucking come. Wei Wuxian, what the fuck. I want another handle and you’re paying for that too.”

“Then why are we still talking?”

“Sometimes you say smart things,” says Jiang Cheng, and then they order a million more shots and the night becomes absolutely incomprehensible after that, which is just what Wei Wuxian wanted.

**

It is possible that Wei Wuxian miscalculated, though. Slightly. 

Jiang Cheng as a whole works as a great coping mechanism. Either he’s so filled with such chihuahua-like rage that it distracts Wei Wuxian enough to forget his problems and smother his brother in all the affection that Jiang Cheng loathes, or Jiang Cheng just yells at him to Not Do A Thing and Wei Wuxian, being a creature of spite and superiority, Does The Thing Anyway. 

Both options are excellent distractors. 

But the thing about hanging out with Jiang Cheng is that sometimes, he’ll delivers truth bombs like it’s no one’s fucking business. That’s probably a brother thing and Wei Wuxian should’ve expected it when he invited Jiang Cheng out in the first place, but Lan Wangji and Wen Ning are younger brothers. They don’t act like Jiang Cheng does. They certainly don’t insist over a period of several drunken hours that Wei Wuxian is still in love with his ex-boyfriend, force half-assed consolatory ice cream on him, and then abandon him to puke in the toilet for four minutes while the ice cream melts in his hands. 

A good brother, for example, would at least care that he fucking hates mint chocolate. 

“But it’s my favorite,” says Jiang Cheng when he staggers back into the living room, where Wei Wuxian is slumped against Jiang Cheng’s stiff grey couch.

“But I hate mint chocolate,” says Wei Wuxian. He tries to focus, but Jiang Cheng has two faces and Wei Wuxian doesn’t know which one to focus on. He decides on the left. The left is looking less ugly. “Mint chocolate fucking—that’s ass. You have no taste.”

“Well, if you don’t want it—“

“No, it’s mine now, get your own,” says Wei Wuxian, and then slobbers all over the top layer of ice cream just for kicks while Jiang Cheng makes valiant attempts at strangling him with nothing but the sleeves of his hoodie. 

Jiang Cheng’s a mixed bag. 

For two days Wei Wuxian tries to recover from the vestiges of a Nightless City-induced bender. On the first day Lan Wangji is supremely helpful, giving him the trademark bland Lan soup with vegetable-based broth and shit in the morning before he has to hit his shift at the coffee shop, and he even helps Wei Wuxian sit up while he makes Wei Wuxian drink a whole glass of water. 

On the second day Lan Wangji is less helpful. Namely: he’s at the library all day for his grad work, something involving classic Chinese poetry that Wei Wuxian doesn’t pretend to understand, and therefore Wei Wuxian is left to his own devices on his free day. 

It’s not a good plan. For one, it leaves Wei Wuxian alone with his thoughts. 

Like the fact that Jiang Cheng could be right. Jiang Cheng is wrong, obviously, but the thought that it is weird to be so close with your ex-boyfriend lingers in his mind. 

He tried to tell Jiang Cheng that he and Wen Qing were still fine even though they dated for like three months, and Jiang Cheng just snorted, saying, “Yeah, because Wen Qing’s a fucking lesbian and I’m not interested in anyone romantically. Of course we’re still fucking friends. Because we don’t touch each other. Because we’re not living together, and because we don’t have fucking pictures of us kissing taped to the fridge. Of course it’s not fucking weird.”

“Can you fucking drop the fridge picture already,” said Wei Wuxian, and Jiang Cheng said, “No, fuck you,” since he’s awful. 

So Wei Wuxian gets to thinking. And thinking. And thinking. By the time the front door swings open hours later, just in time for movie night, Wei Wuxian has plans. It’s excellent. It’s great. Best fucking idea ever. 

“I think you should go on a date,” Wei Wuxian blurts out, the moment Lan Wangji has his shiny Oxford foot inside the apartment. He freezes, but Wei Wuxian barrels on, “It’ll be nice. Change of pace. You haven’t been on any dates since we—since we broke up, right? You should. If you’re worried about bringing dates over or whatever, don’t. I’m very accepting. I’ll clear out and everything. Just say the word. Anyways, what’s the movie for today?”

Silence trickles by. Lan Wangji still has a pale hand wrapped around the door handle. He’s possibly not breathing. That’s not good.

“Lan Zhan,” Wei Wuxian says cautiously. “You okay?”

Movement comes back to Lan Wangji limb by limb apparently. First he removes his hand from the door. Then he shuts the door, sets his briefcase down on the hardwood, and faces Wei Wuxian with this sort of dazed expression. “I,” says Lan Wangji, and shudders a little, like he’s cold. But it’s right in the thick of humid summer, so that can’t be true. “What do you mean, dates?”

“What does any other person mean when they say dates? Dates, Lan Zhan. You know, romantic evenings with a person you hopefully find attractive. Or an old dude you’re catfishing for some money. Sugar daddies. No hate.”

“I don’t,” says Lan Wangji before stopping. His face is—blank. And Lan Wangji’s face is normally blank, that’s true, but this is different. It’s like he’s an empty slate.

“Um,” Wei Wuxian says, when Lan Wangji makes no move to say anything else. “You okay?”

“A date,” says Lan Wangji. 

“Yeah?” Wei Wuxian says. “Because I’ve been going on some. You know, Aaron, Chad. So you should too. So we can—distance. And live together. And still be cool. Yeah.”

“That.” Lan Wangji cuts himself off before he can finish, which is rare in itself, but then he inhales and closes his eyes, looking pained. “That is a bad idea.”

“You only think it’s a bad idea because I’m the only person you’ve ever dated.” Lan Wangji doesn’t move again, so he rolls his way out of their squishy couch and pads over to Lan Wangji, still standing by the doorway, and pokes him in the cheek. “How can you know if you don’t try, Lan Zhan? Plenty of fish in the sea.”

“I know.” 

“But you haven’t tried!”

“Wei Ying.”

“Lan Zhan, don’t be such a—” Wei Wuxian cuts himself off once he sees the amount of fury that is in Lan Wangji’s eyes. But that’s not right. Not fury. Vehemence? Determination? 

Wei Wuxian can’t tell. 

“Well,” he says after a moment, tentative. “Don’t you think it would help? Isn’t this—awkward for you?”

“Is it awkward for you?”

“That’s not an answer.”

“You didn’t answer, either,” Lan Wangji says, the stubborn bastard. 

“It’s not—not awkward?” At that, Lan Wangji’s face tightens, and he has to scramble to amend, “I mean, I like it, okay? I like being around you. I just—being around you and being with you are two different things, Lan Zhan, and I feel like we’re doing the latter, you know? So. We can’t. It’d be better if. You know?”

“Do you want me to go on a date?” 

It’s a stupid question. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll help you get ready, and you’ll be the most eligible bachelor in this side of New York, or maybe the continental United States—”

“Wei Ying,” Lan Wangji interrupts. Wei Wuxian’s mouth snaps shut. “Answer me.”

“Would it matter?”

“Yes.”

That’s what does it. The lack of hesitation. Not even a second to think before he responded, as if Wei Wuxian’s opinion as an ex-boyfriend really matters that much. 

Like Wei Wuxian is the only thing holding him back.

“Then,” Wei Wuxian says, “yeah, of course I do. I’ll—I’ll even help you find a date, okay? Someone you like so much you’ll force me to listen to you ramble on about them for hours. Someone who makes you so happy that you won’t even know what to do with yourself. You trust me, right?”

Lan Wangji just looks at him for a long moment. “It is your turn to pick a movie, Wei Ying,” he says quietly, before picking up his briefcase and brushing past Wei Wuxian to his room. 

**

Saturday means two things for Wei Wuxian: Mianmian, and a twelve-hour shift at Brush By, the niche makeup brush store tucked away between two small alleys. It’s the type of store that looks like a poor front for a money laundering business, with windows that never seem to be fully clean of the car-exhaust smoke and dust that lingers perpetually in the city. 

Brush By can hold fifteen customers, max, in its small frames, but that’s what makes it such a draw. The hidden gem, with its black bookshelves adapted into makeshift display cases, the rows of palettes lined up for testing the brushes at the vanities. 

Enter Mianmian, pastel, flowy-fabric glory.

“So I heard you and Lan Wangji broke up.”

Wei Wuxian nearly drops the handful of makeup brushes he was cataloguing and whirls around to face Mianmian. “What?” he demands.  

Mianmian just looks back at him, managing a gaze that’s somewhere between bored and viciously delighted, which shouldn’t even be possible. He squints at her, but it’s kind of hard, given the way her peach-pink eyeshadow is furiously glittering at him. 

“How do you know that?” he asks. “I haven’t told you. I think.” 

He squints harder, trying to think back, but genuinely the sleep deprivation and the day naps make it hard to remember events from over a week ago. It’s been five months since the break-up. Therefore inconclusive. 

“I haven’t told you,” Wei Wuxian says again, slower, trying to feel out her vibes. Her vibes are also inconclusive. “Right?”

“Wow,” she says, “you’re a mess.” 

“Old news.”

“Yeah, and so is the fact that you and Lan Wangji apparently broke up. After all I’ve been through, you won’t even tell me what happened?”

“After what you’ve been through?”

“Three years of knowing you throughout university,” Mianmian reminds him. A disgusted wrinkle forms on her face. Her foundation must be the good shit. It doesn’t even form permanent lines. “And that means the pining. Sophomore year. The alcohol. I cleaned up your vomit. You crashed in my room for three nights, Wei Wuxian, and that was when I had plans to finally peg a man for once!”

“As you should,” he says graciously. 

She does bring up a fair point. He recalls a low point in sophomore year when Lan Wangji left him to study abroad to Japan for two months, and Wei Wuxian couldn’t even text him because Lan Wangji was too technologically incompetent to realize a need for a different international data plan. 

It was awful. He had to send handwritten letters like a bereft maiden during wartime. He bought stamps. 

But then again. Mianmian did clean up his vomit. And he interrupted her plans to peg a man.

“Perhaps you have a point,” Wei Wuxian admits. He sets down the brushes on the glass counter beside the cash register and shrugs. “Well, it’s not like it was a big deal. Happened five months ago, we’re still living together, and it’s all cool. Mutual break-up. How’d you hear about it?”

“Heard it from Jiang Cheng. Who else?”

“What?”

For a good few seconds, he tries to reconcile the idea of Jiang Cheng and Mianmian meeting long enough for Jiang Cheng to impart this piece of gossip. 

He can’t. It’s like imagining two trains crash headlong into each other. Maybe lots of incoherent screaming and fire, which Mianmian is unspeakably fond of. Also terror as a whole. Their meeting would’ve made national headlines. Wei Wuxian’s executive nervous system shuts down.

Mianmian watches him in predatorlike delight for a few seconds before she takes pity on him. “He vagued you on Twitter.”

“He…” Wei Wuxian’s mind shorts out for a second time. “He what?”

“It was like, sixteen tweets long.” A dismissive handwave that does little to acknowledge the fact that she is inverting the carefully organized chaos of Wei Wuxian’s entire fucking world. “All caps. Tasteful memes of someone choking out Kermit the Frog.”

“But… why.”

“I’m thinking that despite his blood pressure, his life is too stable for any drama, and your sister’s literally perfect, so that leaves you. It’s like watching Gossip Girl in real life, minus the inter-friend group incest.”

“And he does love teen dramas,” Wei Wuxian agrees, heavy with resignation. “Okay. Cool. Well, that’s all I have for you.”

Mianmian levels a look at him that could shrivel a weaker man into old age. “Hm,” she says, but she doesn’t press. Instead she turns her hawk gaze onto the makeup brushes with a sniff that rivals an age-old empress. “I heard the new foundation brush came in. Show me the goods, Wei Wuxian.”

“As my lady commands,” Wei Wuxian teases, and does exactly that.

Apparently Mianmian’s visit opens the floodgates for similar conversations. Five months and nothing, but one conversation with Mianmian and Jiang Cheng’s aggrieved Twitter thread is all it takes for everyone to bombard him with texts and demands for outings so that Wei Wuxian can spill all the details. 

Two days after Mianmian’s visit, he has to deal with Nie Huaisang’s constant whining through cocktails and late lunch at a pretentious outdoors gazebo with flower fences and assorted houseplants that are wilting in the unrelenting sun. It’s ninety degrees. Wei Wuxian is sweating through his jeans and black tank top, which is absolutely not the right type of attire for this restaurant given that Nie Huaisang is wearing, like, a cute green bowtie. Either way. 

What makes it worse is Nie Huaisang’s pitiful fan waving routine as he says shit like, “I can’t believe you didn’t tell me! I got you together! I was invested in it! And I have to hear it secondhand from Jiang Cheng?” 

Nie Huaisang drags out a sigh for maybe thirty seconds. Wei Wuxian’s a little impressed despite himself. 

“Wei Wuxian,” Nie Huaisang says, once he’s expelled all the air from his lungs. “You sadden me. Really, this is too much. I put money into your relationship, and this is what I get?”

“You put what into it,” Wei Wuxian says over his piña colada, because it’s the first time he’s ever heard of this. And then his brain registers the fact that apparently two people have now heard the news from his crotechty brother, and he has to realign his perspective of Jiang Cheng from a furious, rage-ridden brother to a furious, rage-ridden gossiper.

It doesn’t bode well for his stress levels. He feels his soul depart from his body. “The Twitter thread?” he asks weakly.

“Of course it was the Twitter thread!” Nie Huaisang wails. “Why didn’t you tell me!”

“I did tell you! Kind of. Remember Chad?”

“What about Chad?”

“Well, I dated Chad for like, two weeks.”

“I thought he was your friend,” Nie Huaisang moans. Another lackluster fan wave. “Chad. Wei Wuxian. No. You went for Chad after Lan Wangji?”

“Chad was fun!” A little. Nie Huaisang does make an excellent point that Chad was a severe downgrade after the perfection that is his roommate slash ex-boyfriend. 

“Wei Wuxian,” Nie Huaisang sighs, clucking his tongue. “Chad or not, you still didn’t tell me about the breakup. The juicy details! The gossip! You know I love gossip.”

“Dude, I love you, but you’re like, one of the last people I would tell about the break-up after it happened.”

“What sins have I committed for you to treat me this way? I’m supportive. I listen. I’m an excellent listener.”

That’s true, but—

“Would you or would you not,” Wei Wuxian says, “insist that we go on a ‘trip’ to ‘discover ourselves’ and make me bleach my hair in an outrageous color that would’ve gotten me disowned for a ‘drastic change’ to ‘cut away the toxicity in my life?’” 

“Yeah, but—“

“Nie Huaisang. I wouldn’t have been sober for days. I would’ve found myself in fucking Las Vegas with sixteen strippers or Amsterdam with twenty-nine strippers and absolutely no idea how I got there.”

“That’s supportive,” Nie Huaisang insists, the little gremlin. “You would’ve enjoyed it. I would’ve made sure you enjoyed it!”

“I know this,” says Wei Wuxian, with all the heavy resignation of a man who has lost his entire country, “and I love you. Let’s move on.”

Nie Huaisang’s far from the last of it. He gets pictures of kittens and rabbits for three straight days from A-Jie, with meaningful texts like i’m always here if you want to talk!! or i would love to make your favorite soup if you want to visit china this summer a-xian!! or, even worse, a-xian let’s catch up :)

That smiley face haunts his dreams sometimes.

Even Jin Zixuan is no exception. One day Wei Wuxian is going about his lunch break at the coffee shop in peace when his phone buzzes with a text.

peacock son of a bitch

So why did lan wangji break up with you

me

oh my god 

why do u CARE

peacock son of a bitch

Are you going to tell me or not

me 

obviously not wtf fuck off

also it was MUTUAL ASSHOLE

peacock son of abitch

doubt dot png

me

u know ur supposed to send the actual picture right!!!!!

Which then spurs more messages from A-Jie telling him that she understands, but anger isn’t a good conduit for releasing stress, and you should really talk to me, a-xian i miss you. More sad faces. He feels so guilty that sometimes he wakes up during his midday naps on the couch in a cold sweat. 

Of course, that could be the lack of curtains and the glaring sunlight that streams through the windows but he likes to think it’s A-Jie induced. 

The only people who don’t ask are the Wens—Wen Qing because she doesn’t care about mortal affairs beneath her notice, and Wen Ning because he’s too timid to ask, even if he is burning with curiosity.

The impromptu interrogations get to the point that Wei Wuxian has to bury his face into Lan Wangji’s lap for some much needed therapy after a six-hour shift at the coffee shop, where Madam Yu called him no less than eight times. She even left voicemails. 

He sets Lan Wangji’s hand on his hair and makes him pet it while he tries to keep his spirit within his body. 

“She called me to be angry for losing the best son-in-law she’ll ever get,” Wei Wuxian moans. “That’s so unfair. How is that on me? Jiang Cheng is going to be a spinster for the rest of his life, and the other alternative is Jin Zixuan, which, like, okay, it’s fucking Jin Zixuan. But that’s not my fault.” There’s a huff of amusement from Lan Wangji, and Wei Wuxian takes a moment to delight in it before he settles back into his despair. “She reamed me, Lan Zhan. It was like fifteen minutes total. I felt like a poor C-drama heroine being chased out by her rich mother-in-law. How will you take responsibility for this?”

“Hmm,” says Lan Wangji, with great and endless consideration. “Perhaps we can consult the rabbits.”

“You’re a genius, Lan Zhan,” Wei Wuxian says. “Of course Mozzarella and Muffin are going to have excellent advice for this obstacle.”

“They are wise,” says Lan Wangji, because he’s a big dork. “Let’s go.”

When they had moved in a year ago, they had plans to get a TV across the couch like any normal human being. It was going to be great, all sixty inches of delicious, HD flatscreen, with remotes that were motion-activated and everything. 

And then Wei Wuxian got Mozzarella and Muffin out of a half-baked whim after seeing Lan Wangji pine after bunnies for weeks. They’d been together for almost two years at that point. 

It wasn't supposed to be any sort of gift for a special day. It was just that he’d been watching Lan Wangji follow bunny Instagrams with an Instagram account that he acquired for the specific purpose of looking at bunnies—and Wei Wuxian’s own hot photos, of course—and when Lan Wangji was stressed, he played the guqin and watched bunny videos, and when he was really tired but snacky, he’d munch on carrot sticks looking like the saddest motherfucker on the planet. 

Lan Wangji really, really fucking adored bunnies and had no plan to do anything about it. And Wei Wuxian? He really, really fucking adored Lan Wangji. 

Not too long after, he came home with baby Mozzarella and Muffin kicking in his arms and he explained, “I birthed them myself, so we have to take care of them now.”

Lan Wangji just stared at him, quietly stunned and all sorts of adoring, and in this incredibly sexy voice that told Wei Wuxian he was thinking of nothing but blowing him against the front door, possibly while he held the bunnies, Lan Wangji said, “Of course. We need a home for them as well.”

So Wei Wuxian got his dick sucked, and it was great, and in the post-orgasmic glow he was imagining that the bunny homes would be a normal thing, like a cage, some shredded paper, or whatever it was that bunnies liked. Bits of fresh grass stolen from Central Park, the works. 

Instead, Lan Wangji came home the next day from the pet store version of Ikea with this huge, dollhouse-like monstrosity. It was the size of a fucking dresser with a ramp that separated the hutch into two floors, a tiled roof, little bunny-sized windows and doors, and Lan Wangji declared, “This will be the home for our children.”

“Wait, our children?” said Wei Wuxian, and then, “Wait, home?” and then, “Where the hell are we gonna put that?”

“Are you attached to the TV?” Lan Wangji asked. He was still using that sexy voice, but it was in this inflection that promised excellent wall sex and bathtub sex and and kitchen island sex while they were at it, with plenty of hair petting, quiet humming of Lan Wangji’s half-composed song until Wei Wuxian nodded off to sleep. That sexy voice was of course promising sex, but it was also promising unending adoration and affection in the morning, lots of spooning even though they both had a mountain of coursework to get through. 

This sexy voice was promising procrastination, more importantly. There was nothing in this world that Wei Wuxian found hotter than Lan Wangji’s delinquency, so it was with great and heavy resignation that he heaved a despairing sigh and said, “No, I’m not attached to the TV. Lan Zhan, must you negotiate with me in this way?”

“Yes,” said Lan Wangji, and they got to business on every horizontal surface of the apartment, as well as the vertical, for kicks. 

The TV was a bust. In its place went the rabbit hutch.

But it turns out Lan Wangji is right as usual. A quiet evening with the morbidly obese bunnies does wonders for Wei Wuxian’s mood. They lift the bunnies out of their hutch, open up the windows to let the evening breeze flutter in. 

He spends a good five minutes chasing them around the apartment, only stopping when Lan Wangji gives him a faintly disappointed look, and settles with their two kids hopping in impatient circles around and over his legs. 

“Ah, this is the life,” Wei Wuxian sighs. He rubs the space between Mozzarella’s fuzzy white ears until the little rabbit is twitching his nose in distaste, kicking at his palm to flee to Lan Wangji’s side. He pouts. “Lan Zhan, your children don’t love me. Mozzarella hates me.”

Lan Wangji just hums. He looks so soft cradling Mozzarella in his arms, like the blurred edges of an old photograph. Wei Wuxian watches as he scratches at Mozzarella’s head with a light touch, a far cry from Wei Wuxian’s own vigorous rubs. He wants to be upset at the way Lan Wangji has blatantly stolen Mozzarella’s affections from him, but—he can’t. 

They’ve always been Lan Wangji’s, even if Wei Wuxian was the one to gift them to him in the first place. 

“You really love those bunnies, don’t you,” Wei Wuxian says.

Lan Wangji lifts his eyes. “I do.”

He doesn’t look away, and Wei Wuxian is caught in his gaze, feeling—

—feeling—  

“Love them, that is,” Lan Wangji continues in a murmur. “Do you?”

Wei Wuxian finds that his mouth has gone dry. “Ah, Lan Zhan,” he says, with a voice stripped raw. “Asking questions you already know the answer to, you cunning man.”

“Hmm,” says Lan Wangji, but his face curves up into a tiny smile, and Wei Wuxian has to grab Muffin and hold him to his chest for moral support. 

**

Three minutes before Wei Wuxian kissed Lan Wangji for the first time, he was watching Lan Wangji shuffle his pretty notes with his pretty hands in the library. 

Pretty notes like Lan Wangji's didn't belong in the library. Gusu was dreary and all sepia-toned like an old prairie film on a crackling reel. Books collected dust in the towering stacks that made the shadows grow longer under the uncertain fluorescent lights. 

The fourth floor of the university library was quiet, dead. All the students called it the basement, because it felt like the basement of a very old house where things were left to rot, never mind it was on the top floor of the building.

More importantly it was quiet, which was why they were studying there in the first place. It was Lan Wangji’s favorite spot for that reason, and Wei Wuxian went because, well, Lan Wangji was there. 

His notes were so fucking pretty. Tasteful spots of muted pastels for highlighter, a neat script that didn’t sprawl across the lines, each stroke perfect and smooth. These notes managed to be beautiful even on the fucking fourth floor. That was something. 

And then there was Lan Wangji himself. 

Lan Wangji: curled up in an uncomfortable plastic chair in the dead of winter, on the forgotten floor of a library where the heating had the personality of two-year-old liable for temper tantrums. The tips of his fingers were moon-pale from cold, the collar of his soft-knit ivory turtleneck pulled up to the edges of his jaw, silken hair slipping over one shoulder like a black waterfall. 

No one looked good in the fucking library. The fluorescent lighting washed everyone out and made people look sickly. Exaggerated all the dark circles and the sleepless nights from cramming. This was a fact. 

But Lan Wangji yawned once, and two seconds later his ears turned pink like the very act of being caught sleepy was mortifying, and Wei Wuxian breathed out. Then Lan Wangji was looking at him, and Lan Wangji was—

“I think,” Wei Wuxian said, barely hearing himself speak, “that I’m in love with you.”

Lan Wangji went still. It was art with him. Watching ripples in a lake settle on a cloudless summer day. 

“What?” he said.

Wei Wuxian nodded. “Yeah,” he decided. “I’m in love with you, I’m pretty sure. I’ve never been in love with anyone else, but I think this is how it works. Feel my heartbeat, Lan Zhan.” And then Wei Wuxian tugged the pencil out of Lan Wangji’s fingers and took his cold hand and pressed it against his chest, where his heart was a winter sun soaking warmth right into the bone, melting the cold away. Blinding. “See?”

“Oh,” said Lan Wangji. “I see.”

“Mm-hmm.” Wei Wuxian let his hand drop back to the table, but Lan Wangji didn’t move. His palm was still pressed to Wei Wuxian’s chest, fingers curling into the black cotton of his overworn hoodie. “Lan Zhan?”

“Mm,” said Lan Wangji.

“You can let go now,” said Wei Wuxian. 

“No,” said Lan Wangji, “I don’t think I will,” and he leaned forward, mouth as pretty pink as his ears. 

**

Wei Wuxian tries to help Lan Wangji get ready for his date. Really, he does. 

He asks his coworker Josh, or Matt, or Luke, whatever his name is, to take over the closing shift for him. Miracle of miracles, Josh-Matt-Luke agrees. Wei Wuxian has to take Josh-Matt-Luke’s shift from 3 PM to 6 PM the next Monday in exchange, meaning he’ll have to work a straight fourteen hours because his manager doesn’t care too much about breaking labor laws, but that’s fine, Wei Wuxian has it handled. 

Small prices to pay to send your ex-boyfriend on his first date with a new fling.

At 5 PM, Wei Wuxian banishes Lan Wangji to the living room to sip some tea and watch the rabbits flop around on the quicksand furniture that they call their couch, while he delves into Lan Wangji’s closet to find the most date-ready clothes. The problem, of course, is that Lan Wangji’s entire wardrobe is already date-ready. 

Unlike Wei Wuxian’s bedroom, Lan Wangji’s room is meant for use as an actual bedroom rather than a home office. His closet is built into the walls, with a little overhead light presenting the veritable army of pressed slacks, button-ups of silk and linen and soft cotton. Color-coded, obviously: the ivories in the far left, the beiges, summer-sky blues, pale sunset pinks, the rare touches of workplace-appropriate browns and blacks. 

Wei Wuxian doesn’t even need to peruse for thirty seconds before the perfect outfit is already assembled before him—a loose, cloud linen shirt with the sleeves rolled up to bring out Lan Wangji’s delicious forearms, matched with navy slacks that emphasizes the powerful curve of Lan Wangji’s thighs. Approximately zero brain cells used. He tries not to feel a little bit cheated.

He finds Lan Wangji sitting straight-backed in the Devouring Couch by some miracle of God, Muffin curled into a little black ball in Lan Wangji’s lap. Lan Wangji blinks up at him at the same time Muffin does. Wei Wuxian restrains the urge to coo. 

“Are you done?” is the first thing Lan Wangji asks him.

Wei Wuxian pouts. “Do you want me to be done?” 

A beat, coupled with a thoughtful stroke across Muffin’s spine. “Do you want to be done?”

“Can you just answer one question?” 

Lan Wangji hums and goes back to ignoring him in favor of Muffin, who might be dozing away on that fantastic lap. Wei Wuxian gets it, he does; those thighs are the most comfortable pillows on this side of the country. 

But Wei Wuxian is on a mission and he’s not about to have one fat rabbit fuck it up for him just through the sheer act of being cute. So he picks up Muffin from Lan Wangji’s lap and dumps him to the floor. 

A protesting noise. 

“Yeah, yeah,” says Wei Wuxian, before he drags Lan Wangji to his bedroom. 

Wei Wuxian’s bedroom—formerly Lan Wangji’s home office—is best defined as minimalistic. It’s not minimalistic the same way Lan Wangji’s bedroom is, where all of his secretly hoarded items are stashed behind tasteful drawers or loose floorboards. Instead, Wei Wuxian’s minimalistic is… intricate. 

He's of the mind that furniture is largely useless, so he makes up for his lack of a proper wardrobe with two coat racks on wheels where his clothes have been artfully draped in looming stacks over the rack, pants crumpled carelessly on the floor. All two of his gifted eyeshadow palettes are strewn over the desk—leftovers from Lan Wangji’s office that they were both too lazy to move. 

His mattress also lies squarely in the eye of the hurricane, which is what Lan Wangji seems to be focusing on. 

“I thought you said you bought a bedframe,” says Lan Wangji, frowning. 

The frown is a little unwarranted. It’s not even that messy at the moment. His blankets are made. Kind of. They’re crumpled over his mattress, but it’s on the mattress, which counts. 

“Wei Ying,” says Lan Wangji, reprimanding. 

“Oh, don’t be such a mother hen.” Wei Wuxian pushes Lan Wangji toward the desk, where a hand mirror has been propped up between two medical textbooks that Wei Wuxian hasn’t looked at in months. “Sit, sit.” 

Still frowning at the mattress, Lan Wangji sits.

In theory the makeover goes well. 

But the thing about Lan Wangji’s hair is that it’s the kind of Asian hair that never holds a hairstyle for long, slipping out of Wei Wuxian’s white scrunchie like luxurious satin. A loose bun becomes loose hair; a half-updo becomes a sad lump at the base of Lan Wangji’s neck; a braid becomes a rapidly fraying rope along Lan Wangji’s spine. 

“Hm,” says Wei Wuxian.

“You do not have to do this,” Lan Wangji points out. 

“Shh.”

In practice the makeover ends with Lan Wangji patiently brushing out the tangles that Wei Wuxian creates. He doesn’t wince when Wei Wuxian tugs out various accessories along with a few strands of hair, but that’s mostly because Lan Wangji has the pain tolerance of a goddamn MMA fighter. 

Either way the sight of Lan Wangji’s hair stuck in the hairpins crushes his spirit a little, and it ends with Lan Wangji braiding his hair himself in a neat side plait that doesn’t fucking budge. 

“That’s colossally unfair,” Wei Wuxian whines. He tugs at the scrunchie, but this, too, doesn’t move. The whole thing’s been magicked into stone. 

“Are you going to do makeup, then?” Lan Wangji asks. 

He knows Wei Wuxian so well. “Of course I’m doing your makeup,” Wei Wuxian sniffs. “Look at me, sweetheart.”

So: makeup. 

Here’s the thing. Wei Wuxian knows makeup. He’s got makeup. Killer wings, eye looks for any occasion, tailored to fit the person’s skin tone and outfit to the goddamn stitches. He’s got years of experience under his belt, from dressing up Nie Huaisang moments before he gets laid and helping A-Jie prepare for her dates with her peacock son of a bitch husband. 

Of course A-Jie is perfect as she is, naturally, but he still worked with perfection and managed to not make her look worse than before. So anything and everything, he’s got it in the bag. 

Then he encounters another problem. 

“How do you not have any pores,” Wei Wuxian moans, darting around Lan Wangji, armed with his now-useless makeup brushes. He’s moving Lan Wangji’s chin this way and that, but every angle is so fucking good and catches the dim glow of Wei Wuxian’s fairy lights in all the right places, and that’s so unfair. 

Lan Wangji puts up with it with good grace, apparently content to be an immobile doll for the time being. 

“Lan Zhan. Drop your skincare routine, what the fuck. And don't say you don’t have one, I know you do, ‘cause I made you get one.” 

“Your routine is effective,” is all Lan Wangji says, calm. 

“Of course it is! I’m a genius! But that doesn't explain why you don’t have any goddamned pores!” Wei Wuxian places his makeup brushes on the counter, resisting the urge to slam them down because they are his babies no matter how frustrated he is, and lets out a low hiss. “Lan Zhan, I can’t do anything to you. You have no dark circles. Your eyebrows are perfect. Your cheekbones are fucking—chiseled, okay, that’s not right.” 

Wei Wuxian can’t help himself from swiping his thumb across those cheekbones, just once—he’s held that perfect bone structure before, hell, even kissed it and admired it for endless hours, but this time it just feels different. 

Looking at Lan Wangji objectively, it doesn’t escape Wei Wuxian’s notice that Lan Wangji is, like, really fucking hot. And pretty. And handsome. And beautiful, and every other synonym under the sun. 

“Really, Lan Zhan,” Wei Wuxian chides, sighing. “Have you no sense of decency? How are the rest of us supposed to compete when you look so handsome?”

Lan Wangji blinks. “Compete where?”

“Oh, Lan Zhan. What to do with you? I feel like I’m setting you free into a sea of wolves.” He releases another forlorn sigh. “Your virtue! You’ll come back debauched by the end of the night!”

“I will do no such thing.”

“Don’t promise anything you can’t ensure,” Wei Wuxian says, tossing him a wink. It kinda kills something inside him to do it, but he manages it and a teasing smile at that. “Alright, then. You’ve passed my rigorous beautifying check. Go off into the world and unleash your worldly desires.”

“Wei Ying.”

“Oh, don’t talk to me like that, you know I’m only joking.” 

A strange feeling wells up in him as he watches Lan Wangji slip on a pair of black loafers. He wonders if this is what Lan Wangji feels, watching Wei Wuxian leave night after night for his own dates. 

“If you need anything,” Wei Wuxian blurts, before Lan Wangji can open the door. Lan Wangji stills, but he forces himself to keep going, keep his voice calm. “Tell me. Anything you need, okay?”

A pause. 

“I will be back,” Lan Wangji says, and then he walks out of the door and into the night. 

**

For the rest of the evening, Wei Wuxian distracts himself through Youtube sinkholes. He catches up on the latest beauty guru drama, because there’s always something brewing in that community. When that gets boring, he watches video analyses of movies he barely remembers. All of them are incredibly well-narrated, and what can he say; he likes feeling like an intellectual sometimes. 

But the Youtube sinkhole can only sustain him for so long. He leaves his room to terrorize the bunnies, and then he remembers that bunnies can actually die from acute stress, so he stops and sulks back to his room. He tries to clean. He gives up cleaning. He even opens his personal statement and stares blankly at the half-assed paragraphs for a good half hour before he tabs away. 

It’s not a good day for working, he reasons. The vibes are all wrong. Maybe a spirit is lurking in his apartment tonight.

He wastes another half hour by fiddling around with his makeup, and that goes pretty well. Makeup’s always been therapeutic for him even back in undergrad; this time is no exception. He’s in the middle of blurring out the red tint on his bottom lip as a final touch before he thinks about thumbing lip tint on someone else’s lips, and then he thinks, What the fuck am I doing?  

After that the whole mood is ruined. 

He shoves the makeup back into his drawer, wiping off the remnants of the tint on a tissue. More time passes. He wanders back to the couch and fucks around on Youtube again. He closes Youtube. He opens up Netflix but can’t decide on what to watch or rewatch. He closes Netflix. Then he starts calling people. 

His first reaction is to call Lan Wangji, and his thumb is hovering over Lan Wangji’s name when he realizes that Lan Wangji is on a goddamn date and it’s not cool to disturb your ex-boyfriend’s date while he tries to get laid, or whatever it is Lan Wangji does on a date with a stranger. 

So that option is closed. 

His next call goes to Jiang Cheng.

“What do you want,” says Jiang Cheng when he picks up. Three rings. Wei Wuxian is a little touched. 

“Can’t I just call my favorite brother?” Wei Wuxian asks. When suspicious silence greets him, he sighs and explains, “I’m bored.”

“Go bother Lan Wangji, then.”

“I can’t do that.”

“It’s not past nine, is it?”

“No, but Lan Zhan is—” Here his voice cracks curiously, and he has to clear his throat a few times. “He’s on a date. So I can’t bother him.”

More silence greets that answer. It's long and suffocating, like three layers of thick blankets making him sweat. 

“Wow,” says Jiang Cheng after a minute, and he sounds—not angry for once. It’s a weird tone on him. Like shock or something. “Wow. Seriously?”

“Yeah?”

“Whose grand plan was this? If it was Lan Wangji’s, and you’re still going to live with him after he pulled this douchebag stunt on y—”

“It was my idea,” Wei Wuxian snaps, more than a little offended. “Don’t say anything about Lan Zhan. He’s going because it was my idea, and I have great ideas. In fact, Lan Zhan going on a date with someone else is a fantastic idea! And also Lan Zhan’s the nicest person ever, so you be quiet.”

More silence. 

“You’re kinda fucked up, huh,” says Jiang Cheng. What’s startling is the way he says it; it’s not any sort of furious mutter or a sigh of resignation because Jiang Cheng’s spirit is fused with the soul of a ninety-year-old war veteran, but something… bland. “I mean, I knew that before. But Jesus fucking Christ, Wei Wuxian. I’m not going to call the ambulance for you if you get an aneurysm and die.”

“Why would I get an aneurysm?”

“Wow,” says Jiang Cheng again. “Okay. No. Bye.”

And that’s the end of that conversation. He cycles through several different phone calls with Nie Huaisang, Wen Qing, Wen Ning, and even Mianmian in that exact order, and for some reason all of the phone calls end up just like his conversation with Jiang Cheng. 

At first it starts out okay. Then they get weird.

“What do you mean, Lan Wangji’s on a date,” says Nie Huaisang, a little hysterically.  

“Are you okay?” asks Wen Ning. 

“Are you crying? Can you take a picture? I’ve never seen you cry,” says Mianmian, the vicious beast. 

Wen Qing’s conversation is by far the shortest. He makes it through, “Lan Zhan is on a date,” because apparently everyone’s reaction to his boredom is to ask him why he’s not bothering Lan Wangji instead, and then Wen Qing just says something like, “I literally do not have the EQ to help you with this,” before she hangs up. 

So. He needs new friends. 

When Lan Wangji returns from his date, Wei Wuxian doesn’t know what he expects. In the first place Lan Wangji isn’t really an outgoing sort of guy, so in hindsight the idea of him going out on dates with someone he hasn’t known for over a year is a weird concept all by itself. Wei Wuxian doesn’t expect discomfort from Lan Wangji post-date exactly, but… 

Not this. Not the relaxed slope of his shoulders, the stress that he wears like a weight vanished entirely. 

Ice climbs into Wei Wuxian’s heart. 

“Lan Zhan,” Wei Wuxian manages to say, shutting his laptop and placing it on the coffee table. He hadn’t been paying attention to it anyway. “Good date?”

A pause. If it weren’t for the way Wei Wuxian pays attention to Lan Wangji like a sunflower to sun, maybe he wouldn’t have noticed it, but. Lan Wangji stiffens at Wei Wuxian’s voice. Just a little. 

“It went well,” Lan Wangji says finally. “Thank you.”

And that’s—ah. 

“Right,” says Wei Wuxian weakly. “Then I’ll—I’ll see you tomorrow, Lan Zhan. Since it’s late.”

“Mn.” The ice is strangling now, a chokehold on his throat only eased by Lan Wangji saying, “See you tomorrow, Wei Ying.”

**

Wei Wuxian spends the entire shift the next day straddling the nebulous line between feeling hungover and drunk: head pulsing, mouth dry, lights too fucking bright. He maybe has a hysterical giggling fit when a customer asks for blueberry scones. 

The thing is that Lan Wangji’s slacks on his date night, the ones he picked out, were all blueberry-toned. Not navy. 

Navy was deep and dark and sexy, and Wei Wuxian sent Lan Wangji out on his date night wearing blueberry pants, and it wasn’t supposed to be hot. Blueberry pants weren’t fucking attractive. Obviously. 

But it kind of was, a little, because it was Lan Wangji who was wearing it and Lan Wangji was always hot and considerate and deeply good. He looked good in everything he wore. 

The man wore loose linen pants during summer once and they were billowing in the wind and it should’ve looked fucking ridiculous, but this was junior year Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji was so insufferably hot, and all Wei Wuxian wanted to do was have his boyfriend spread him out over the nearest flat surface, or vertical, he didn’t really care, and have his wicked way with him.

That was junior year, though. 

Now, this is a year after graduation, and Lan Wangji is going on dates looking happy, and Wei Wuxian is working three dead-end jobs, making up a shift where four customers have already yelled at him, one of whom wanted scones, and Wei Wuxian’s so tired he spills three cups of coffee by the second hour, and if he’s being honest, if he’s being really fucking honest, he just wants—

“Are you okay?” his coworker asks, when she finds Wei Wuxian staring at the coffee beans in the back. Wei Wuxian probably remembers her name on a normal day, but he’s so goddamn tired. 

“I’m fine,” he says. He tries to suppress his laughter to little effect. “It’s cool. I’m cool. Scones. Do you know where the scones are?”

“We don’t serve scones,” his coworker says. 

“Right, of course,” Wei Wuxian says; of course they don’t fucking serve scones. Why ask, then? Scones are never for goddamn sale. Goddamn. 

The only bright spot in Wei Wuxian’s life in light of all this is the fact his coworker at the makeup brush stop gets mono. Well, it’s not good for her technically, but it’s good for him, because his manager is too lazy to search for another makeup artist. 

“So you’re just going to be testing out the brushes on customers if they ask for a demonstration,” Sue explains, waving a hand at the variety of palettes scattered across the counter. “Let them know how to use it, how to best apply it, what products go well with each brush. You’ve seen Sam do it enough times, so I think you’ll get the hang of it just fine.”

“Yeah, I got it,” Wei Wuxian says, which is a lie.

Except… weirdly, it doesn’t turn out to be a lie at all. The first day goes well. Then the second day goes well. The third day Wei Wuxian is waiting for it to all blow up in his face when he inevitably stabs a brush into a customer’s eye and they sue the hell out of their little shop, but it doesn’t happen. Each customer leaves satisfied with the demonstrations, and even the ones who view his work from the sidelines end up buying the brushes anyway. 

“Nice work,” says his manager to him three weeks down the line, and Wei Wuxian can’t help but let out a slow grin. 

Lan Wangji continues to go on his dates that he doesn’t tell Wei Wuxian about. And almost every day, Wei Wuxian gets yelled at by customers in the coffee shop who think he doesn’t make their drinks fast enough, and alright, that’s fair, it’s true. During the night shifts, the drunk assholes continue to come in, every third day spewing vomit that he has to clean up. 

Jiang Cheng keeps sending him texts reminding him about application deadlines to med school despite being months away. And Madam Yu—well, Madam Yu’s in China, so her calls are easily avoidable. Kind of. Same shit, every time: have you studied? Have you worked on your application? Are you being productive?

But Muffin likes him well enough when he returns from the nightshift, and he doesn’t mind the fact that Wei Wuxian disturbs his sleep to cuddle on the floor, smelling like sweat and general misery. Muffin likes him, unlike that unfilial bastard Mozzarella. 

Mianmian also visits him and lets him experiment with outrageous looks that somehow turn out fine and make him look good in front of Sue on the days that she does come in, and sometimes Mianmian is so impressed that she doesn’t ask him if he’s getting enough sleep, or if he’s happy, or if he’s okay.

On the days she does, though. Well.

“Of course I’m okay. You think anyone who’s not okay would look this good?” Wei Wuxian says, and Mianmian just narrows her eyes at him because she’s a judgemental bitch and he adores her. 

Some days, Wei Wuxian will return from Brush By and there’ll be eyeshadow smeared on his fingers, lipstick smudged on the pad of his thumb, and his hands won’t know how to hold anything but a makeup brush. But those days are so fucking good that sometimes, it won’t matter that Lan Wangji is going on the dates or that his personal statement hasn’t seen the light of day in fucking weeks, or that Madam Yu’s calls and Jiang Cheng’s texts are piling up unanswered.

It doesn’t matter. None of it. 

It’s balance. Bad things, good things. All things in moderation. 

**

In December, Wei Wuxian had only ever told Wen Qing about the break-up, and that was because he knew she was the only one in their friend group who wouldn’t ask questions. What he told Wen Qing on the second day of moping at her apartment was this: it was an easy break-up. Possibly the easiest break-up he ever had, although he wouldn’t know that until a few weeks later, because Lan Wangji was the first person he’d ever dated. 

And it was true, in a way. The whole conversation took two minutes. 

Wei Wuxian said, “I think we should break up.” 

Lan Wangji looked at him. Lan Wangji was always looking at him, but his gaze was far and removed in that way Wei Wuxian had gotten accustomed to over time, without realizing. Before they were always on the same page, but more and more it felt like they weren’t even on the same shelf anymore, much less the same book. Lan Wangji. Perfect like unblemished jade, and just as unreadable. 

“If that is what you want,” said Lan Wangji.

Wei Wuxian didn’t let himself think it through. If he thought it through then he’d start doubting. He’d had enough of doubt. 

“It is,” said Wei Wuxian. 

**

“Are you going out tonight?”

For all the years that Wei Wuxian has known him, Lan Wangji’s voice has always been a quiet but impactful thing, like a resounding pluck of violin strings in silence. Wei Wuxian turns to find him leaning against the doorway to Wei Wuxian’s room, already dressed for bed. All silken white that shifts in the orange glow of Wei Wuxian’s fairy lights and endless lamps. The only sign that it’s even his sleep clothes is the fact that the top-most button at his throat has been left undone.

“Yeah,” Wei Wuxian says, tearing his gaze away to turn back to the mirror. He finishes off his eyeliner with a flick of the wrist, applies two light coats of mascara. “You know me, Lan Zhan, life of the party. Nie Huaisang’s throwing it.”

“You’re going for his jungle juice.”

“Of course I’m going for his jungle juice. He makes it taste like fruit punch and he gives me the ex-roommate discount, which means I get to down as many cups as I want for free.”

A pause. Wei Wuxian finds Lan Wangji’s gaze in the mirror, already locked onto his face.

“Be careful,” Lan Wangji says finally. “Text me when you are on your way back.”

It’s already eight-fifty. Lan Wangji’s pushing it, staying up this late. Even their movie nights are a bit of an oxymoron since it always starts at 6 PM during dinner, what with Lan Wangji’s absurd sleep schedule. 

“You’ll be asleep by then, you know?” Wei Wuxian asks.

“Mm.”

It’s not an answer or a reply. Just a general acknowledgement that Lan Wangji has heard his argument and found it irrelevant. Fondness blooms warm in Wei Wuxian’s chest, like he’s swallowed a cup of hot tea that Lan Wangji always makes in the mornings. 

“You are such a huge bitch sometimes,” Wei Wuxian says, half-sighing. “No one else knows that about you. Perfect Lan Zhan, PhD candidate, volunteer for every cause under the sun, and the biggest bitch alive. I feel like that’s so unfair. Even when I tell them, they won’t believe me. Isn’t that just ridiculous?”

Another hum of acknowledgement. This one is a flatter sound, all I’m only making my presence known so you can understand that I have heard your complaints and found them unworthy of my time.

Wei Wuxian bites down on his smile as he rummages through his drawers for other accessories. He’s not looking to get laid tonight, but he also wouldn’t reject it if any offers came. Nie Huaisang’s playlist at his house parties always involve the sluttiest songs on the charts, all heavy bass and crooning voices to encourage the local asshole to grind on Wei Wuxian unasked and uninvited.  

But, well. If he’s going to be grinded on, then he might as well look good doing it. He finds a red choker to match the belt on his dark jeans—not his fuck-me ones, but very close—and holds it out to Lan Wangji.

“Put it on for me?” he asks.

Lan Wangji nods. He steps into the room, skillfully maneuvering his way around the piles of clothes strewn about his bedroom, and takes the choker. He brushes aside a few strands of loose hair that’s fallen out from his ponytail. It’s barely a touch. More of a passing glance of his thumb at most. It still makes Wei Wuxian shiver.

“Sorry,” Lan Wangji murmurs.

Wei Wuxian swallows and fixates his eyes on his desk so he won’t have to look at the mirror. “It’s fine,” he says.

The silence is dense, a pressure almost as heavy as the weight of Lan Wangji’s gaze on his neck. Wei Wuxian’s nails bite into his palms. 

He’s changed his mind. He’s going to get railed tonight, he has to. After a certain number of cups of Nie Huaisang’s jungle juice, everyone starts to look the same, and it’ll be enough to get the pressure off for a little while longer, and that’s. Fine.

A final click of the choker. 

“Finished,” Lan Wangji says. His voice is rough, probably because it’s way past his bedtime by now. “Please remember to text me if you are on your way back or sleeping at a friend’s place. If you need a ride—”

“Yes, yes, I know, I’ll call an Uber and I’ll be very safe. It’s not my first rodeo, Lan Zhan. And I’m not driving anyway.”

Lan Wangji shakes his head. “No. I will pick you up.”

“But it’s Friday. You have research stuff tomorrow.”

“You have work tomorrow as well,” Lan Wangji says, in a pointed manner that tells Wei Wuxian he doesn’t approve of his partying choices. “Call if you need anything.”

Wei Wuxian doesn’t tell him that out of all the numbers in his contact list, Lan Wangji’s is the only one he has memorized drunk and blind. 

“You should sleep,” he says instead. The exhaustion is already present in Lan Wangji’s half-lidded eyes, the relaxed lines of his mouth. “It’ll be fine, and I’ll try to be quiet coming back in, okay?”

“Okay,” says Lan Wangji. He trails him out of the bedroom and to the doorway of their apartment, where Wei Wuxian shoves his feet into his I Will Stomp You To Death With My Hooves boots, as Nie Huaisang has named them. Lan Wangji’s mouth twitches, likely because he recognizes the shoes. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Wei Ying.”

“See you tomorrow, Lan Zhan.”

Out of all the places in New York City, Wei Wuxian can't think of a better place to throw a party than Nie Huaisang's penthouse. A part of him thinks it's a grace of nepotism that he has so many rich friends. Like Lan Wangji for one, with his old trust fund baby money somewhere from an ethical Chinese corporation involving, like, education and shit. There's Jiang Cheng, another example of old family money from stocks in overseas trade or whatever. 

Jiang Cheng and Lan Wangji don't make a point of flaunting their money exactly. Jiang Cheng's indulgences lie in the odd video game splurges and the motorcycle he's definitely considering buying, if Wei Wuxian knows anything about his brother. And with Lan Wangji, money just isn't a factor to consider. He buys ten dollar ties from Taobao as easily as he buys Mandarin-collared cotton shirts with a $500 price tag from Armani.

By the good graces of nepotism, therefore, Wei Wuxian benefits.

Nie Huaisang, on the other hand.

Nie Huaisang is another story entirely; his money comes from possibly shady dealings with a clan from the Chinese triad for all Wei Wuxian knows. Nie Huaisang doesn't talk about it which is suspicious enough, given that he talks about everything—his latest discovery in adult films, streams of consciousness on his thoughts about a trashy C-drama, the best one-night stand he’d ever had and all the details surrounding it. Foreplay to orgasm. 

The lack of explanation for where his money comes from, though, doesn't stop him from showing off his money. Not in a oh haha look I'm so rich douchebag Jin Zixuan kind of way, just a I like to wear sixteen rings from pure silver and that gem you see in my dangling earring? It's 24k diamond, etc etc. 

His penthouse is no different. It doesn't go out of its way to be ostentatious, but the elevator that takes Wei Wuxian up to the penthouse makes his ears pop every goddamn time, and there’s a security guard who bows at him at the doors to the penthouse because Nie Huaisang's brother is apparently a protective bastard with possible connections to a clan in the Chinese triad. 

In the foyer—an actual foyer—a chandelier that could be made entirely from diamonds sways gently from the wind that comes with the floor-to-ceiling windows of the skyline. To Wei Wuxian’s left, a winding staircase with fucking mahogany banisters lead up to Nie Huaisang’s bedroom. 

Nie Huaisang’s bedroom is an oxymoron because he likes to sleep on the veranda risking death from tall places. He’s just like that. 

So. Nie Huaisang. 

The first thirty minutes of Nie Huaisang’s party, as all parties are liable to be, are boring. People trickle in two or three at a time, and because Wei Wuxian is criminally early, he has to help Nie Huaisang stir the juice in the cooler, set up the stereo and the weird neon-lights in the living room, and block off the entire upstairs section for any assholes who think about making out in the guest rooms, Nie Huaisang’s not-bedroom, or the other two bathrooms.

“Of course you’re an exception,” Nie Huaisang tells him with a grin as they wrap leftover Halloween streamers all over the stairs. Wei Wuxian snorts. “What? I’m sure you would get no shortage of offers tonight.”

“I know I’m beautiful, but do you have to make me sound like some kind of hooker?”

Nie Huaisang reaches over to pluck at Wei Wuxian’s mesh shirt. “Are you denying it? Don’t think I missed your eyeliner, Wei Wuxian. It’s especially… How do I say it…”

“Gorgeous,” Wei Wuxian says loudly, “because I, like any other vain man in the prime of his youth, enjoy looking pretty. Also you don’t have room to speak. I saw you sneak condoms in your pocket earlier.”

“Well, it’s not like I was trying to be subtle.” Nie Huaisang pauses. “Do you want any? Nothing like having superior sex to help you get over someone, you know.”

“How about I just tell you if I’m about to have a quickie with a stranger in the bathroom, huh?”

“I would hope you don’t have a quickie in the bathroom,” says Nie Huaisang, concerned. “Especially when there’s a perfectly acceptable guestroom to your left. Self-care, Wei Wuxian.”

By the time it hits eleven, the party’s in full swing. Nie Huaisang’s parties are something of a legend to everyone on this side of New York. After three years of hosting the biggest house parties on campus, Wei Wuxian’s heard every rumor under the sun about them, including such gems like:

1. Wen Chao hosting an orgy in the coat closet during sophomore year. There were three girls with him, one of whom was apparently a paid prostitute with the biggest rack anyone had ever seen. Some people said her boobs were big enough to have swallowed her ribcage, while others claimed that she was flatter than an ironing board. Mixed reviews. Regardless, Wen Chao only got caught because—and this was a unanimous agreement—he moaned like a tortured goat during orgasm.
2. Wen Qing shotgunning in senior year. While this wouldn’t be a big deal, it was a huge story because no one had ever seen Wen Qing outside of her TA duties, always dressed to the nines in a clean lab coat and the slickest pantsuits that politicians wishedthey could afford. She challenged six Chads to a contest and came out the other end, easily first place; the rumor said she had no gag reflex. Some asshole tried to proposition her once she won, so she grabbed the nearest girl, said something along the lines of, “Hey, do you wanna make out with me,” and kneed the dude in the solar plexus as they made out right in front of him. She left the party with the mystery girl before anyone realized what had happened.

So. Nie Huaisang’s parties. While graduating from undergrad has changed who comes to the parties, it hasn’t changed the content of the parties themselves. Wei Wuxian’s pretty sure that everyone around his age range who lives in the boroughs is milling around the penthouse already, armed with cups of Nie Huaisang’s jungle juice. 

Unlike them, however, Wei Wuxian’s on his fourth cup. Whatever Nie Huaisang uses to make it, it’s potent. The floor is already swooping like a rocking boat as he stumbles across the room to the main hub of the party in the living room.

After that, time slips and blurs. He vaguely recalls an endless stream of music with a million EDM tracks that have identical drops and deafening bass that he feels in his throat. All parties start to feel the same after a while. People grabbing at his hips and grinding on him, hot and lazy. Warm breaths on his neck that smell of alcohol, weed, sickly sweet juice. 

Someone slips their hand into his hair. Mouths at his jaw, pulls at his ponytail, tugs at the clasp of his choker—

Awareness crashes down on him. Wei Wuxian shoves the guy away, slapping the offending hand from his choker. “No,” he bites out. The guy is blinking, looking like he’s torn between being offended and confused. “I mean, I’ll—I’ll fucking make out with you, but don’t touch my neck.” His hair is all loose around his shoulders now, and his choker is slack in his fingers. He clutches at it for a moment, breathing in deep, before he shoves it in his pocket. “That good with you?”

“Um,” the guy says. His mouth opens, closes. “Uh, yeah.”

“Cool.” Wei Wuxian reaches for a stray cup that’s been abandoned on the marble floor and downs the rest of it. “Alright, let’s go.”

They stumble out of the living room and into the cool night air on the veranda, where the faint lights of the city let him take a good look at the guy for the first time. He’s not ugly. In the low light he could even be called attractive, with a straight nose and high cheekbones. But the eyes are too light, too unfocused, drifting from his mouth to his collarbones to the wide expanse of flesh peeking through his mesh shirt. Wei Wuxian shivers.

“I’m,” the guy says, “uh. Liam.”

“And I don’t care,” Wei Wuxian says. “Are we gonna make out or what, Liam?”

“Yeah, okay,” says Liam, and then they’re kissing. 

From the start Wei Wuxian knows it’s all wrong. Liam’s probably new to this whole party scene. Maybe someone who got a little gutsy from the alcohol, found himself way out of his depth and committed to it because he didn’t want to back out. The khakis and the white sneakers he’s wearing attests to that much, at least. No one wears white to a party. Liam kisses like the most of his experience comes from a bit of porn he watched before he backed out. It’s messy and rough, all tongue and enthusiasm, like kissing a dog.

Wei Wuxian breaks away. “Okay,” he says. “Not like that. Just—chill, okay?”

“Um,” says Liam.

The second time is better. Wei Wuxian doesn’t know if it was his words that did it or a sudden loss of confidence or what, but he’s less pushy. Minimal tongue. Slow and open-mouthed, kisses slipping into something less insistent, more relaxed. 

But it’s too passive this time. Nothing’s happening. No spark of heat in his gut, no half-gasped breaths against his mouth, not even a desire to feel up Liam’s biceps.

Wei Wuxian bears with it for a few minutes. In the meantime Liam’s hands start wandering: stroking his back, his neck, thumbing at the spot right under his jaw. Wei Wuxian sighs against Liam’s lips, and apparently Liam takes it as an excuse to deepen the kiss more, break apart to mouth at the side of his neck. Wei Wuxian opens his eyes to stare at the sky.

The night is calm and still, only broken up by the faint reverberations of the music inside, the chatter of the people filtering out into the air.

Someone laughs, quiet and soft, somewhere over at the other end of the veranda.

A sting on his neck jolts him out of his thoughts, and he jerks away, slapping a hand over his neck. “Hey,” Wei Wuxian says. He presses on the hickey—cause, fuck, yeah that’s definitely gonna be one—and stares. “What the hell.”

Liam is blinking at him, a little wide-eyed. “Was that too rough?”

“I mean.” Wei Wuxian lets out a breath, shakes his head, then stops when the world starts spinning a little too fast. “You were fine. But I gotta—go. It’s late. Drink water.”

“But I,” Liam is saying, but Wei Wuxian doesn’t stick around to hear the rest, already staggering back into the penthouse.

Halfway into a semi-familiar hallway, he abruptly stumbles and leans against the walls, before sliding down to the sticky floor. His pants will get wet with—whatever the fuck this is. Alcohol, juice, pee, blood. He doesn’t fucking care.

Maybe it’s the exhaustion or the leftover alcohol making one last rally in his veins, but his head feels so cloudy. He feels sick, in that gut-deep sort of way, like everything he’s eaten in the last twenty-four hours is lurching into his throat. Wei Wuxian’s an old hand at this. He bites down on his knuckles and breathes. 

In and out through the nose. Bathroom’s probably occupied for the next thirty minutes, if precedence says anything. 

And despite what Nie Huaisang says, he doesn’t want to use the upstairs bathrooms either. He doesn’t want to be here anymore, period. 

His fingers are calling Lan Wangji before he can think. The line rings, background sound to the deafening chatter and the droning of the bass in his bones. Wei Wuxian loves parties like any other young man, but there’s something about this one. He doesn’t know what it is. He’s forgotten what they were like, in the five months that he hasn’t been. 

He buries his head in his knees. 

“—ing,” a familiar voice is saying, tinny in his ear. “Wei Ying?”

“Hi,” Wei Wuxian mumbles. “Sorry, I’m just—this sucks. I want to go home. I want to see you. I'm sorry. I mean, 'm not sorry for missing you, but. You know. Have I said I'm sorry yet?”

“I will be there soon,” says Lan Wangji. 

He doesn’t remember much of the conversation after that. He just knows that at some point, he jolts awake when someone trips over him, their boots smashing into his thigh. Wei Wuxian makes a small noise that goes unnoticed. 

“Sorry, shit, sorry, you good,” says the guy. It takes him, like, thirty seconds to get through the words, all weed-slow. “You okay?”

Wei Wuxian waves him off. “Yeah,” he says. He forces himself to stand back up, using the wall as a crutch, and turns to head back to the veranda. There’s too many people, and it’s too loud, and too—something.

The night air is a relief when he steps back outside. He makes it three steps before his knees fail him, and he half-slumps, half-collapses right there on Nie Huaisang’s veranda, leaning his head against the bars. For once the summer evening is chilly. The cold wind bites into him, sinks its claws into his flesh and deeper still into his bones, but his exhaustion is taking point. All the sounds and sensations fall away as he dozes. 

More time slips. Then—a hand is cupping his jaw, hot against his skin. Guqin-callouses in the right places. He nuzzles it and presses a fleeting kiss against the wrist. 

“Wei Ying,” says Lan Wangji. “Wei Ying, you’re cold. How long have you been outside?”

“Dunno,” Wei Wuxian mutters. The hand retreats, and Wei Wuxian chases after the warmth, whining, but then there are arms wrapping around his shoulders, along with the weight of Lan Wangji’s expensive coat, ever a constant even in June. 

He knows it has to be Lan Wangji’s, because there’s nothing in this world that can replicate the way Lan Wangji smells, like coming home after a long vacation. Like love. Warm and sweet. Wei Wuxian tugs the coat closer to himself and forces his eyes to open. 

Lan Wangji is kneeling in front of him, eyebrows knitted, mouth a tight line of worry. Wei Wuxian reaches out, unable to help himself. He strokes the bottom lip until Lan Wangji’s pretty mouth parts and the worry has faded. He hums, pleased. 

“Better,” Wei Wuxian whispers. He doesn’t take his thumb off Lan Wangji’s lip. Just lets it rest there, for a moment. “Thanks for picking me up, Lan Zhan.”

“You called,” says Lan Wangji against his thumb, like that’s any sort of decent explanation. He gathers Wei Wuxian in his arms and pulls, until Wei Wuxian is standing, leaning against him. “We should go home.”

“Yes,” Wei Wuxian says. “Home.”

The car ride home falls away into pieces. He remembers being tucked into Lan Wangji’s luxurious car even though he can walk and secure his seatbelt just fine, and the pulsing warmth of Lan Wangji’s heater turned up high until the blood tingles in his cheeks and the tips of his fingers and ears. Seat-warmers, too; Lan Wangji, bourgeoisie as he is. 

The apartment door clicks as it unlocks. Then Lan Wangji’s gentle hands are tugging his boots off, guiding him to Wei Wuxian’s room, fire-yellow with his fairy lights. 

“Up,” says Lan Wangji, and Wei Wuxian lifts his arms obediently, lets Lan Wangji strip the disgusting mesh shirt off him, replace it with the warm, soft hoodie he sleeps in. Wei Wuxian watches him fold the shirt and place it on his chair.

Suddenly a thumb presses against his neck, just the bit of pressure. Enough to feel the bruise on his skin.

“From today?” Lan Wangji asks. 

“Mm.” He blinks, tries to remember the question. “Yeah. I fucking hated it.”

A pause. “Did you—“

“Don't have to worry. I guess I started it.”

Another pause. “Why did you hate it?”

Wasn’t you, Wei Wuxian almost says, but he’s not too drunk to realize how bad of an idea that would be. Instead he exhales, almost a sigh, and lets himself tip forward until his head is pressed into Lan Wangji’s shoulder. “Wanna sleep,” he says instead. “I’m cold.”

“Okay,” says Lan Wangji. Something about his voice is achingly gentle. “Sleep.”

“Stay with me?” There’s no response. Wei Wuxian tries not to deflate visibly at that, choosing to flop into his bed and bury his face into one of the million pillows scattered across his blankets. “Or. Don’t. Thanks, Lan Zhan.”

“Would it help you?”

“Hm?”

“If I—” A hitching breath. “If I stayed.”

Wei Wuxian peeks out from the safety of his pillow to smile at him, sleepy and numb as it is. “What a foolish question from Lan-er-gege. Don’t you know that Wei Ying likes to be cuddled and kept warm? I’m like a baby, you know. Spoiled.”

There’s a huff of laughter, and then Lan Wangji is sliding into bed with him, tucking the blankets more securely around his body. Once Lan Wangji has him wrapped like the world’s tightest burrito, he makes a self-satisfied noise and settles on the pillow next to him. 

Wei Wuxian considers the distance for a moment. It’s not… unreasonable. Lan Wangji is a healthy half-pillow’s distance, but the problem remains that their heads aren’t even using the same pillow in the first place.

He wiggles as close as he can with his burrito-body, only sighing when he worms up to Lan Wangji’s side. Instinctively, Lan Wangji nudges an arm under his head, settling Wei Wuxian on his chest. 

It’s a seamless process. Takes only a few seconds, and abruptly Lan Wangji is freezing beneath him.

Wei Wuxian hums. “What is it?”

A beat. “Is this okay?”

“I think you should refer to my previous question, Lan Zhan. Wei Ying is very tired from going to mediocre parties.” He yawns, as if to punctuate his statement. “I don’t think I like going to them anymore.”

“Why go today, then?”

Lan Wangji seems to be in a chatty mood today. Wei Wuxian pushes aside his exhaustion long enough to reply, because there’s nothing more that Wei Wuxian loves than to indulge him. He blinks and cranes his head up to look at him. “Because parties used to make me happy,” he says. “They don’t anymore, but I like being happy. And life sucks a little right now. Not a lot. Just. Just a little. I’ll get over it.”

“Oh,” says Lan Wangji.

 “Are you happy, Lan Zhan?” Wei Wuxian asks. 

Silence. It stretches for so long that Wei Wuxian is slipping into sleep, something murky and heavy pressing on the edges of his mind, before he hears Lan Wangji murmur a reply that he doesn’t catch. He drags himself back up to the surface with great effort. 

“What’d you say?” he mumbles. 

A hand at his temple, brushing away loose hairs. Wei Wuxian melts into the touch. 

“I said you should sleep,” Lan Wangji says. “It is late.”

“Oh,” Wei Wuxian says. “Okay. See you tomorrow, Lan Zhan.”

“See you tomorrow, Wei Ying.”

 **

Kissing Lan Wangji for the second time, it was a goddamn revelation. There they were: two boys. Streets of New York at night, waiting for the campus bus outside the library to rattle by and deliver them to their dorms. They were shivering like children on a sugar high in their winter parkas, but Lan Wangji still stood straight-backed. Tall. Ears frostbitten red with cold.

Every part of Lan Wangji was so beautiful that it ached a little just looking at him. It was an odd feeling. Wei Wuxian wanted to ask: In any of the poems you studied, has there ever been one that described this sort of terror? Like some sort of liminal space, fear stretched so far it brushed against the edges of yawning desire. What was that called? The dread you feel when you’re so goddamn happy it can’t be real, what is that called? Some poet, surely, Lan Zhan. Jesus fucking Christ. 

Look at me, pretty boy. Look right here.

Lan Wangji's face tilted towards him. Somehow he could always sense the weight of Wei Wuxian’s eyes on him. 

Now they were two boys, looking at each other.

"Are we doing this?" Wei Wuxian asked. A slow blink in response. It could've been a yes or a no. "Lan Zhan," he said, "I really want to, but you know, if you don't want to, or you wanna talk about it later in the morning when we're not so goddamn tired. Or. Or?" There was always an or. He exhaled and watched the shape of his breath before it dissipated. "Or you can tell me to fuck off. I'll be okay with it, I promise."

“No.” Emphatic, stubborn. “No. Is that what you want?”

“Obviously I want you,” Wei Wuxian said. “Don’t you see that? Never wanted anything more than I want you, Lan Zhan. Silly boy.”

Lan Wangji blinked at him again. Wei Wuxian could feel the flutter of his eyelashes against his own skin when Lan Wangji pulled him into the second kiss, long and searing and hot. 

“Yes,” said Lan Wangji, once they pulled apart. 

“Yes?”

One nod. “Yes. With you, yes.”

Right there on the steps of the bus station, Wei Wuxian kissed Lan Wangji for the third time, the fourth time, the fifth, sixth, seventh, until he lost count. 

Fuck the poets, he decided. This was real. 

**

Wei Wuxian comes awake in snatches. First there’s the horrible dryness in his mouth, like he’s gone three rounds with the Sahara Desert and lost. Then there’s the warm heat of the sun, not quite sunrise but not quite noon either, burning orange behind his eyelids. At some point during the night he’d stripped off his hoodie and left the shirt underneath on, but it’s still uncomfortably warm.

He whines, turns to bury himself in his pillow, and sleep engulfs him in its loose embrace for a little while longer.

In his dream, someone is humming a familiar song that has no title, one he’s only seen on piles of neat composition paper beside books of ancient Chinese poetry. He’s stroking Wei Wuxian’s hair. Pressing little kisses to the top of his head. 

“Lan Zhan,” Wei Wuxian sighs, and the movement stops. 

He doesn’t know why, but something is telling him to open his eyes so he does. 

Realization crashes over him.

“Hello,” says Lan Wangji. His voice is hoarse, probably because he just woke up, but other than that it betrays none of the absolute panic shrieking through Wei Wuxian’s own veins right now. He blinks slowly, like a cat in sun. “Did you sleep well?”

“Sure did,” says Wei Wuxian. “And. And you?”

“Yes,” says Lan Wangji. 

His hand is still stroking through Wei Wuxian’s hair, his other arm curled loosely around Wei Wuxian’s waist as if they wake up like this every morning. Wei Wuxian tries to rack his brain for any other time they’ve done this since they’ve broken up, but no. Unless he has somehow slipped into a coma for the past thirteen years where his body was inhabited by a wayward spirit with an intense desire to cuddle, he has no explanation for this. 

Maybe it’s just a Lan Wangji thing. Or maybe he’s overthinking this. Best friends cuddle all the time. He used to cuddle with Lan Wangji like no other before they even dated, and that was fine. 

Just guys being dudes, he thinks, a little hysterically. Excellent. 

When Lan Wangji makes no sign of moving, Wei Wuxian clears his throat and forces his gaze to the ceiling. “So, um. Breakfast?”

“Yes,” says Lan Wangji. “I will go make some.”

“Cool,” says Wei Wuxian. Neither of them move. “And I will. Bathroom.”

“Okay,” says Lan Wangji. 

Somehow they manage to get to their respective goals. Wei Wuxian doesn’t remember exactly how. He’s sure it involves a lot of awkwardness, but he’s too busy looking at the tangle of blankets around their legs and chanting this is fine this is fine this is fine in his head to notice it. 

He goes about his business in a half-daze. Brushes his teeth, washes his face, all that jazz, and it isn’t until he’s rubbing toner all over his face that he sees himself in the mirror and says, “Fuck.”

He’s wearing Lan Wangji’s shirt.

Here’s the thing. Wei Wuxian likes to be comfortable when he’s sleeping. While Lan Wangji’s comfort pajamas are all embroidered and shit, Wei Wuxian’s a simple guy. He’s fine with a soft, worn piece of oversized clothing and boxers, and then it’s lights fucking out for him. It’s just that most of his sleep clothes happen to be Lan Wangji’s, pieces that he’d never returned after they had broken up. 

The one he’s wearing is a blue university shirt, the kind they give out at the beginning of the year for freshmen. When Wei Wuxian saw how oversized the shirt was, he’d laughed for ages. 

Flustered, Lan Wangji said, “It was the last one. They only had the extra-larges left,” because he was a big dork who didn’t care about things like free clothes and didn’t understand how much the university would foist their merch on their students. His ears went all pink, then. “I have no reason to wear it.”

“Are you saying I can wear it, then?” Wei Wuxian cooed. He pressed little kisses to Lan Wangji’s chest, right over his heart, before inching his way up to his neck, his jaw. “You should just say you want me to wear your shirts and nothing else, Lan Zhan. It’s good to be honest about your desires.”

“Shameless,” Lan Wangji said, but he didn’t deny it, either. 

Wei Wuxian thumbs at the hems of the shirt now. He has a shirt just like it, of course, but Lan Wangji’s happens to be… bigger. More comfortable. Softer on the skin. It’s still as comically oversized as it was the first time he wore it, and even as he adjusts the shirt, it slips down one shoulder. He generally always has it layered under the hoodie, which means. There was no goddamn way Lan Wangji noticed it. 

Or… Maybe he did? 

It’s not like Wei Wuxian was trying to hide the fact that he was wearing the shirt when they stumbled away from Wei Wuxian’s mattress. Wei Wuxian certainly didn’t have the sanity to even attempt hiding it earlier, but Lan Wangji’s a composed guy. He would’ve noticed that Wei Wuxian was wearing one of his shirts, observant as he is. 

Scratch that earlier idea. He definitely saw. 

But Lan Wangji never said anything about it on his way to the kitchen, so surely—it should be fine, right? He’s the type of guy who has no trouble saying what he thinks. 

And friends borrow each other’s clothes all the time. Wei Wuxian’s pretty sure he has Nie Huaisang’s hoodie from high school stored away under his mountain of clothes somewhere. It’d be ridiculous if he changed into other pajamas just to have breakfast. 

Just guys being dudes, Wei Wuxian repeats to himself, as he walks out to the kitchen. No problem. 

With that in mind.

“What’s for breakfast?” he asks, immediately moving to hook his chin over Lan Wangji’s shoulder. He peers down at the stove and finds a half-cooked omelette still frying on the pan, with vegetables and… other healthy ingredients. 

“Ooh,” he says. “Protein! Excellent. Add some chili flakes, Lan Zhan, if you’d be a dear. Don’t be shy.”

“Too much spice is unhealthy for you.” He still reaches for the chili flakes and adds a generous dusting anyway, and Wei Wuxian beams. It’s official. Lan Wangji is his favorite person. “Is that enough?” Lan Wangji asks.

“Hmm,” says Wei Wuxian. “No, a little more. A little more. Come on, Lan Zhan, who do you think I am? More. I want it to be red.”

When the omelette is done frying, Lan Wangji clicks off the stove and gives a little half-shrug to dislodge Wei Wuxian from his shoulder before turning. 

“We should set the,” he says, and stops. His eyes don’t go wide, but his lips part, and Wei Wuxian swears his pupils dilate. Or maybe that’s just because he turned away from the kitchen window. Then all thoughts of that sails straight out the window when Lan Wangji says, voice hoarse, “Wei Ying.”

Wei Wuxian laughs. Bleats. It’s some sort of nervous sound. “Uh, hi. Breakfast?”

“Wei Ying,” says Lan Wangji again. It seems to be the only thing he can say. This one doesn’t have any sort of particular tone imbued in it, just… blankness. Nothingness. 

He doesn’t say anything else. 

That means Wei Wuxian has to take charge of this conversation, like an adult. God. He hates being an adult. 

“Uh,” says Wei Wuxian first. Very unhelpful. “I don’t suppose we could just… forget about this.”

Mutely, Lan Wangji shakes his head. 

“Great,” says Wei Wuxian. He thinks about a reasonable way to explain this, then soon realizes there is no logical way to explain. He should’ve changed when he had the chance, what the fuck. “Uh, so. There is. An explanation for this. And that explanation is that. I like to be comfortable.”

“Comfortable,” Lan Wangji echoes.

“Yes,” says Wei Wuxian. He’s decided that the less detail, the better. It’s gonna be great. “I like to be comfortable. Big shirts are comfortable. Obviously.”

“Obviously,” Lan Wangji repeats.

“Yes,” says Wei Wuxian. “So.” He claps his hands. “Breakfast?”

Lan Wangji is still staring at him. Wei Wuxian knows that the shirt is once again slipping off his shoulder like he’s some exposed maiden, but it’s not like he can move to pull it up right now. The expression on Lan Wangji’s face is the same one he had before he was about to punch out Su She in junior year. That expression does not bode well for Wei Wuxian at all. So he doesn’t move, much like a cornered prey animal. 

“Lan Zhan,” Wei Wuxian tries again, and this time Lan Wangji’s eyes snap to his face, something frayed and wild at the edges of his expression. “Breakfast?”

“Ah,” says Lan Wangji. He blinks, as if to wake himself from a trance, and nods once. “Yes. Breakfast.”

After, when they’ve settled into the usual silence of eating, Wei Wuxian sets down his fork. Lan Wangji has seemed to get himself out of whatever that mood was earlier, which means now is the best time to ask, if any. 

“Lan Zhan,” he says. Lan Wangji makes a curious sound in response. “Do you… mind?”

Another sound. 

“Me wearing your shirt,” Wei Wuxian clarifies. It’s the first time Wei Wuxian has even acknowledged the existence of the fact that this is Very Clearly Not His Shirt, and Lan Wangji’s head snaps up, startled. Wei Wuxian exhales through his teeth. “Like, is that… Cool with you. Do you care? If you don’t, then, like, awesome, but if you do, just tell me and I’ll wash it a million times before I return it to you, or you can chuck it in the dumpster for all I care. Although if you’re gonna chuck it in the dumpster, I’d just much rather prefer you let me fish it out after. Because clothes. And sustainability. Yeah.”

One of the best and worst things about Lan Wangji is the way he rarely interrupts anyone. He waits until Wei Wuxian has finished his rambling nonsense before he sets aside his chopsticks. “Wei Ying,” he says. He has a strange expression on his face when he says it, one of the faces that Wei Wuxian can’t read. “I do not mind.”

“Oh,” says Wei Wuxian. “Cool. So you don’t… You don’t care?”

Lan Wangji just blinks at him, placid. 

“Because if you don’t, I’m gonna keep wearing it,” Wei Wuxian continues. It comes out awfully like a threat. “If you don’t like it, you need to tell me these things, Lan Zhan.”

“No,” says Lan Wangji, and doesn’t elaborate. He picks up his chopsticks again to resume eating.

“No?” Wei Wuxian asks. “What does that—Lan Zhan. Don’t ignore me. Lan Zhan.”

“Eat.”

“I am getting you back for this,” Wei Wuxian promises, but the omelette really is fucking delicious, so he picks up his fork and continues eating, resentful. Sometimes living with Lan Wangji is a trial. A test from a higher power daily. Motherfucker.

**

For the first two weeks after sleeping with Lan Wangji, Wei Wuxian tries to adjust to sleeping alone again, to no avail. He piles on the blankets to emulate human warmth. He puts on ambient noises. He goes to sleep cuddling three pillows. 

Even then it’s not enough, because in the morning all his pillows end up discarded on the floor after a night of fitful tossing and turning. Not to mention the way the sounds just distract him, and the blankets make him wake up sweaty and disoriented. 

It’s not that Wei Wuxian isn’t used to sleeping alone. He is. He’s had near eighteen years of sleeping alone, and the one night that he’s spent sleeping with Lan Wangji after their break-up shouldn’t be able to change that.

Except… It does. 

Every night Wei Wuxian goes to sleep in a room that’s a little too quiet, a little too cold. There’s no warm body to curl up next to, and even if there is, it’s not the right body. Too soft, too hard, too long, too short, too clingy, and not clingy enough. 

Wei Wuxian trudges home in the morning dissatisfied and miserable and always too fucking tired, the exhaustion clinging to his body like an extra weight on his shoulders. 

He dozes off at the night shift more often than not. Once he misses his stop after the barista job and has to walk back six blocks to his apartment, and then he can’t even nap to get rid of the headache pulsing at his temples because sleep won’t come to him. 

It’s fucking stupid. There’s no reason why he should be this torn up by it, but he is and that’s the worst fucking part.

In the meantime Lan Wangji keeps having his dates with his mystery person, or persons, plural. He goes out around dinnertime every week or so, always dressed to the nines, and offers a short, “I will be back,” like Wei Wuxian will be worried that he won’t return. Which is somewhat true, but Wei Wuxian doesn’t mention that. He also doesn’t ask about the dates either. 

Lan Wangji, of course, doesn’t offer any information. 

Wei Wuxian’s lack of sleep all comes to a head during movie night on Friday. They’re set up in their usual spots on the couch, but this time, Wei Wuxian’s too tired to think about maintaining the careful distance that they’ve come to keep recently. 

The blankets are cozy and warm, the pillows are perfectly placed, and tonight’s movie is some Hallmark romcom with no action at all, which means the movie’s all hushed and soft and intimate. 

And… and Lan Wangji is right there, curled up so handsome beside him, shoulder looking nice and comfortable. He smells good, and he’s right there. 

Between one blink and the next, Wei Wuxian falls asleep. 

It’s the best sleep he’s gotten in ages. When he wakes up, the sunlight is streaming through the curtains and his neck hurts something awful since he’s not a teenager anymore, but he’s warm and snug in his pile of blankets. He feels… well-rested, surprisingly. 

A familiar hand is blocking the brunt of the sunlight over his eyes. Wei Wuxian blinks, slow. “Lan Zhan?”

The hand falters, then drops. “Good morning,” says Lan Wangji. It’s quiet, but his voice rumbles all throughout his chest, and that’s when Wei Wuxian realizes that sometime during the night, he’s cuddled up to Lan Wangji on their quicksand couch. 

“What—what happened? Why’re we on the couch?” He rubs at his eyes before pushing himself up to a proper sitting position, so he’s not crushing Lan Wangji. “Did I fall asleep during the movie?”

“Yes,” Lan Wangi says. A pause. “You seemed tired. I did not wish to wake you.”

“You big softie, Lan Zhan, you totally should’ve woken me up. Do you even have blood circulating in your arm right now?”

“...Yes.” 

“You are a liar, and an incredibly bad one, so it is very fortunate that I’m so fond of you,” Wei Wuxian informs him. Then he rolls his eyes. “Seriously, Lan Zhan? Just wake me up next time. It’s not a big deal.”

“You haven’t been sleeping well recently. You looked comfortable.”

“Well,” Wei Wuxian says, “you’re warm. So.”

“Are you cold at night? We can turn the air conditioner off.”

“The air conditioning isn’t the problem, it’s—” Wei Wuxian bites himself off before he can continue. He waves it off. “Never mind. Breakfast?”

“Hmm,” says Lan Wangji. 

For someone who doesn’t speak much at all, he does an excellent job of conveying his suspicion in a monotone hum. 

Wei Wuxian manages to hold off for another three nights. The memory of Lan Wangji’s body pressed up beside his is enough to tide him over, and he clings to that memory like a threadbare blanket, thinking: I was held. I was warm. 

But the memory fades, as all things do, and Wei Wuxian is a weak man, he just wants some sleep. He knows it's awful, and manipulative, and probably six kinds of fucked up to ask Lan Wangji to sleep with him again. There's not a single person he knows who snuggles up to their ex-boyfriend the way he does, with all the lack of clear boundaries and good distance that he was the one who tried to keep. Except every time he goes to bed, he lies awake in his dark room on his stiff mattress, thinking about how cold summers can be, listening to the equally restless sounds of the rustling blankets just next door.

Wei Wuxian's no idiot. He knows insomnia when he sees it, and it's like looking in a mirror when he sees Lan Wangji around the apartment, just as sleepless.

So. 

A week later, Wei Wuxian finds himself standing in the doorway to Lan Wangji’s bedroom. Spotless floor, bed hotel-made, the two houseplants in the corner freshly watered.

“There are mice,” Wei Wuxian says, by way of explanation. 

Lan Wangji, halfway through buttoning his pajama shirt, stops to stare at him. Wei Wuxian steels himself, then raises his eyes to meet Lan Wangji’s gaze. He’s the most shameless motherfucker on this planet. He’s got it. Fuck yeah. 

“Mice,” says Lan Wangji, disbelieving.

Wei Wuxian nods. “Mice,” he confirms. “In my bed. They’re loud and squeaky. So I need to sleep in your bed tonight. For mice-related issues.”

“I… see,” says Lan Wangji. He finishes buttoning his shirt and hesitates, before he makes his way to his bed. “Then we shall share.”

“Perfect,” says Wei Wuxian, and scrambles to crawl into the luxurious thousand-thread count of Lan Wangji’s sheets so he doesn’t have to think about how odd it is to share a bed with his ex-boyfriend. It’s just guys being dudes. Just best friends being pals. Lan Wangji being an excellent companion and protecting his virtue from the non-existent mice in his bed. “Thanks, Lan Zhan.” 

For the rest of the week, Wei Wuxian finds himself at Lan Wangji’s door with a new excuse on his tongue. 

On Tuesday, it’s because the window is haunted, Lan Zhan, do you want me to be kidnapped by aliens and die, is that what you want? I’ll haunt you and you’ll regret not letting me share your very expensive blankets. 

On Wednesday, his curtains have mysteriously been shredded, and like any young man, he fears his army of stalkers coming to his window to gaze at his sleeping face, never mind the fact that they’re on the thirteenth floor. 

On Thursday, there are dogs. 

“Dogs,” says Lan Wangji, clearly waiting for a follow-up explanation.

Wei Wuxian doesn’t give him one. “Yup, dogs. Scooch over, Lan Zhan. I’m terrified. I need a comforting presence.”

On Sunday, Lan Wangji’s door swings open before he can knock with Lan Wangji waiting for him, face impassive. 

“Ah,” Wei Wuxian says. He knows that expression. It’s a rare one, but it’s usually the one that tells him Wei Wuxian won’t get what he wants. The last time he’d seen it, they’d broken up. “I’ll just… Deal with the. Dust bunnies by myself, shall I? Sorry for the bother, Lan Zhan.”

“Wei Ying,” Lan Wangji says. A soft exhale. “Come in.”

“What?”

“It is time to sleep,” is all Lan Wangji says, before his footsteps recede. There’s the rustle of blankets. Another pause. “Wei Ying.”

“Oh,” says Wei Wuxian. 

He can’t make himself tear his gaze away from Lan Wangji, who is sitting upright on the bed, hands folded into his lap, hair loose and combed neatly to one side. There’s a stray strand about to fall from his ear. In the orange light of his bedside lamp, Lan Wangji looks like the Lan Wangji that Wei Wuxian had five months ago. 

He swallows, takes a small step forward. “You… you’re okay with it? You don’t want to hear about my story for today?”

“You seem to sleep better,” says Lan Wangji. “If it helps you, then you don’t need to ask or make up excuses. I am here for you.”

“Oh,” says Wei Wuxian again. His voice cracks embarrassingly on the syllable. “That’s—that’s okay with you?”

A short nod. Wei Wuxian stalls for a second, searching for any hint of a lie on his face, signs of discomfort, but there’s nothing. Lan Wangji is just looking back at him, solid and steady like he always has been. 

“Okay,” says Wei Wuxian finally. He can’t seem to make his voice rise any higher than a faint whisper. He ignores it in favor of padding into Lan Wangji’s bed, tucking himself against Lan Wangji’s side. They’ve done this for an entire week so far, but it feels different now that Wei Wuxian can’t hide under the veneer of drunkenness or a series of increasingly unbelievable excuses. 

Now, it’s just the two of them in the dark once Lan Wangji clicks the lamp off. The warmth of Lan Wangji’s body seeping into Wei Wuxian, the comforting weight of his arm draped around Wei Wuxian’s waist, the sound of his strong heartbeats under Wei Wuxian’s ear. 

Wei Wuxian idly taps out the rhythm of it against Lan Wangji’s collarbone. “Your heart is racing,” he whispers. His voice sounds deafening in the dark. “Are you okay, Lan Zhan? Really okay with this?”

“Yes,” says Lan Wangji. 

“You’d tell me if you weren’t, right?” There’s no answer. Wei Wuxian stops his hand in favor of pushing himself up to an elbow, one palm braced against the broad expanse of Lan Wangji’s chest. His eyes haven’t adjusted to the dark fully yet, but as always he finds Lan Wangji’s eyes first, gazing at him.

Tell me it helps you too, he wants to say, but the words stick in his throat. Instead what comes out is, “Lan Zhan?”

“Go to sleep,” Lan Wangji just says.

He tugs Wei Wuxian down with a gentle but firm touch, guiding him back to the bed. Within moments his slender fingers are brushing out the knots in Wei Wuxian’s hair, pulling his ribbon loose to free his hair from his ponytail. A sigh escapes his lips, unbidden, and he sinks into the familiarity of the touch. 

“See you tomorrow, Wei Ying,” Lan Wangji murmurs. 

“We’re talking about this in the morning,” Wei Wuxian says, and they both know it’s barely a threat. They never seem to continue their conversations in the morning. Lan Wangji hums, low and soothing, and Wei Wuxian lets his eyes close. “See you tomorrow, Lan Zhan.”

**

In January, Wei Wuxian caught Lan Wangji looking at him while they were cleaning up after dinner. His gaze was a warm blanket drawn tight around him for all the heat that flooded into his body. 

None of this was new, of course. It just couldn't be familiar anymore.

"Ah, Lan Zhan," Wei Wuxian said, voice half-teasing and half-hoarse, "if you look at me like that, what am I supposed to do?"

Immediately he knew it was the wrong thing to say. All the windows slamming shut, shutters snapping closed. Even in Lan Wangji's expressionlessness, he looked—

"Wei Ying," Lan Wangji said. Furious. Wretched.

Straddling the line between ex-boyfriends, best friends, roommates, lovers who forgot they weren't lovers in the exhausted mornings; slipping into the wrong bed out of habit, insomnia from the cold spaces beside him, tiptoeing in a home they made together. Trying to tame an animal that only knew instinct: how long could they go on?

"I think we both know that this is still a little weird," Wei Wuxian blurted. Lan Wangji grew stiffer still, like he really was transforming into jade. "I think it’s always going to be a little weird, and that’s fine, because you’re always going to be my best friend whatever happens. You know that, right? There’s no way I’m ever going to cut you out of my life. And—” Wei Wuxian’s voice broke, but he cleared his throat and blinked a few times. “And I hope that you won’t do the same to me. Ah, but I can’t really blame you if you d—”

“No,” Lan Wangji said roughly. “Not that.”

"Okay," said Wei Wuxian. "Okay. We're okay, then? Yes?"

A breath in. A breath out. 

"Yes," said Lan Wangji.

Eventually it eased. Day by day, it became easier to breathe around the fact that Lan Wangji wasn’t his anymore, that Wei Wuxian had no right to keep him. 

Winter went. Spring came, and with it, like the unfurling petals of a flower, the frost melting away into dew at dawn: Lan Wangji. There and steady. 

**

me

so what does it mean if u nd ur ex bf r sleeping together but w/o the sex its literally just sleeping in a bed together u know very minimal touching but lots of cuddling

also u r encouraging him to go on dates bc moving on is imp but also like 

u have bad ideas and this may be one of them

also hes still a super good fucking cuddler and this morning u woke up and he had ……

…….. 

u know

 a morning greeting

 and all u wanted to do was suck his dick

what do u do then

hypothetically

im asking for a friend

cain

you’re disowned

me

u dont have the authority to do that

cain

I’M TELLING MOM TO DISOWN YOU

WE ALL KNOW I’M HER FAVORITE KID ANYWAY

me

and i have the power of a jie and god on my side 

jiang cheng

ANSWER ME 

THIS IS IMPORTANT

cain

FUCK OFF

god

i can’t believe i’m saying this but 

i feel bad for lan wangji

me 

what 

why 

its cool 

platonic cuddles can happen

cain

literally you gave a powerpoint presentation about how hot lan wangji was not even a year ago

it was like 24 slides long 

also you literally just said you wanted to suck his dick

me 

it was actually like 35 slides thank u

and it was all part of my great seducing lan zhan plan and it WORKED 

anyways 

u can have a healthy appreciation for someones attractiveness and have it b platonic!!!!

u can want to suck someones dick platonically!!!!!

cain

do you even 

ugh

if you won’t even fucking listen to me then why ask

me

i feel the need to bother u at least four times a day

cain

choke and die

me 

u first <3

cain 

also apply for med school already what are you doing

me

oh i gotta go i need to go find my phone

cain

YOU ARE ON YOUR FUCKING PHONE

**

The thing is, Wei Wuxian doesn’t need Jiang Cheng’s opinion to know that he shouldn’t be sharing a bed with his ex-boyfriend to get to sleep every night. Never mind that Lan Wangji is an excellent cuddler, but it’s just weird. Especially given that not even two weeks ago, Wei Wuxian had made Lan Wangji go out on his first date to create distance. That’s gotta be all sorts of mixed signals. 

But at the same time, he doesn’t want to stop. Sleeping with Lan Wangji is nice. He never complains when Wei Wuxian creeps into his bed at godawful hours of the night. Granted, he’s not entirely awake when Wei Wuxian sneaks into his bed, but he does make this sleepy satisfied noise that does things to Wei Wuxian’s heart, and he almost always wraps his arms around Wei Wuxian even deep within sleep, and every morning Wei Wuxian will wake up to the sound of a steady heartbeat beneath his ear, a quiet song hummed under his breath. 

Wei Wuxian can’t even lie to himself anymore. He’s taking every single opportunity to touch Lan Wangji, and while he might not be too sure of why he’s doing it other than the fact that Lan Wangji is available and still the most comfortable person he knows, it doesn’t change the fact that it’s not good to do it with your ex-boyfriend without establishing some clear boundaries and ground rules first.

Plus the Lan Wangji’s dates. In hindsight, maybe the dates were a horrible idea after all. 

It takes Wei Wuxian approximately a week to gather his courage and the vestiges of his shamelessness, march up to Lan Wangji moments before they’re supposed to slide into bed, and demand, “What do you think about this?”

Lan Wangji’s far too accustomed to Wei Wuxian’s change in moods. He must be, because he just folds his hands in his lap on the bed and considers the question carefully. “Think about what?” he asks.

“This! Us! Sleeping with you! You’re still going on dates and stuff! Is that even—are your dates even—” He can’t finish the sentence. Instead he flails. “You know? Kick me out whenever you want to, decide it’s not cool, I’ll survive. You’re not doing this just because you, like, feel bad for me or anything right?”

Lan Wangji’s already shaking his head before he finishes. “No,” he says, firm. Wei Wuxian can’t help but breathe a sigh of relief at that. “Never because I feel bad for you. I do it because I want to.”

“And… your dates?”

A pause. “They are,” says Lan Wangji, “of no concern.”

Wei Wuxian narrows his eyes. “Of no concern to me specifically or no concern as a whole?”

“As a whole.” Abruptly he looks pained, and his hands have tightened into fists in his lap, like he’s holding himself back from escaping this conversation entirely. 

It’s fair. Lan Wangji’s strengths have never involved his conversation skills, and Wei Wuxian’s fatal flaw lies in the way he’s cripplingly bad at talking about the stuff that actually matters. 

“The dates are of no concern,” Lan Wangji just says again. A bob of his throat as he swallows. “I am not going on them anymore.”

“You… Huh.” Wei Wuxian’s mind whites out a little. “Since. When?”

Lan Wangji doesn’t respond. 

“Right,” says Wei Wuxian. “Uh, yeah, okay, cool, don’t tell me then. Um. I’m not going on any dates, either. Not since—since we.” A vague gesture at the air between the two of them. “You know.”

“Alright,” says Lan Wangji. There might be slightly less tension in his face now, but Wei Wuxian can’t tell if that’s because of the sudden exhaustion from this conversation, the late hour, or another reason altogether. He lifts the blankets. “Today as well?”

“I,” Wei Wuxian says, a little strangled. Something about that image. God. “Uh. Yeah.”

A short nod. “Then come to bed, Wei Ying,” says Lan Wangji. His ears may be turning red. Wei Wuxian can’t tell. It’s criminal that the lighting is so low. “We should sleep.”

“You always have fantastic ideas,” says Wei Wuxian, before he climbs into bed and locks this conversation away into the deep, far corners of his mind. 

**

“You know,” says Mianmian one day while he’s carefully tracing her upper waterline with a brush coated in gel eyeliner, “you’re pretty good at this.”

It’s really a miracle he doesn’t stab her eye out with how hard he spasms. “What,” Wei Wuxian says. 

“You know,” says Mianmian again, eyeing the makeup brush in his hand warily, which is unfair since she’s the one who sprung this on him in the first place, “you’re good at makeup. Like just as a thing. I don’t know why you’re a janitor in the first place.”

“Well, I’m not a janitor now.”

“I mean, you could do this for a living.”

Wei Wuxian stares at her. “No, I couldn’t.”

“Yeah, you could. I literally do this for a living. Take my word for it.”

He squints at her, but that classic sleep deprivation is kicking in again, and staring for too long in one spot is making him go a little light-headed, so he settles for placing the gel brush on the counter along the rest of the palettes. “I think you’re biased, but that’s maybe the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me, so I’ll take it. Close your eyes, I’m gonna apply some shimmers.”

She does. Even that doesn’t stop her from radiating exasperation like a furnace.

“Wei Wuxian,” Mianmian says, while he dabs the gold glimmer on her eyelid. “You should talk to your manager about making this a permanent position for you before your coworker gets back, I’m serious.”

“That’s a snake move.”

“It’s called a financially smart move, are you kidding? You get paid minimum wage for cleaning and—whatever it is you do, and your coworker gets paid for work that you could do a million times better. I came here when she was working before, I know what she can do. And it’s not much.”

“Now that’s just the internalized misogyny speaking,” Wei Wuxian teases. He wipes his thumb on a tissue and hums. “Okay, open.” 

When Mianmian opens her eyes, he has to indulge in a sigh of deep satisfaction. The burnt brown at the outer corners transition into liquid gold at the center, with bits of gleaming silver shining on her bottom waterline that transforms the whole look into something straight out of a Tiffany & Co. Of course it’s the excellent eyeshadow palette that worked, but he also made sure not to go too heavy on the gold so that the focal point would be the honey-brown of her eyes, sweet and pretty. 

He hands her a hand mirror with a flourish. “If you’ll take a look, my lady.”

She takes the mirror and blinks, shifting her head this way and that. The delicate placement of the shadow on her lid, along with the tasteful highlight on the curves of her cheekbones, gives her face a gold-brushed look. Midas-touched. 

“You’re this good and you won’t even consider applying,” Mianmian sighs. “You suck. You suck a lot. Not even in a dick-sucking way, just your general existence. What the fuck, Wei Wuxian.”

“Hey,” Wei Wuxian protests. “Is it so unbelievable to think I’m okay with the janitor thing? It’s just a temporary position until I. You know. Get a real job.”

“Yeah, and how’s that going?”

This conversation is beginning to take a turn into startingly familiar Jiang Cheng territory, but this is Mianmian. He shrugs. “Well, I’m working on my application for med school. Kind of. It’s a work in progress.”

“And you won’t consider getting a better-paying job while you ‘kind of’ work on the biggest application of your life?”

It’s not that he hasn’t considered it, it’s just… Not an option worth looking into. He’ll become a doctor one day. What’s the point in scrounging up a bit of effort for a better-paying job that he’ll quit in a few months?

Reading the expression on his face, Mianmian stares, incredulous. “Have you honestly never thought about it?” she asks.

“Well,” says Wei Wuxian. 

Here’s the thing. 

Of course he’s thought about it. Growing up was complicated. It was hazy memories of his parents, and then the streets, a police station, an orphanage, the streets, three foster homes who loved him but not enough to keep him, the orphanage again, another foster home and this one, they promised, would be the one; they’d help; they’d fix your life, Wei Wuxian, and then three months later he was back again. Then the Jiangs, at thirteen. 

For a long time, he kept thinking, When I grow up, they’ll keep me. Didn’t stop him from being abandoned at four, six, eight, ten, twelve, every even year like clockwork. No matter how old he got, he wasn’t kept. So it changed. By thirteen he was thinking, When I’m useful, they’ll keep me. 

What’s more useful than a doctor?

Pre-med sucked. Genuinely. But Wei Wuxian was smart, and he liked the challenge, enjoyed the late nights of cramming, drilling terms and ideas into his head along with all the other suffering students. Being pre-med was practically a cult. All the inside jokes, the mutual suffering. He met Wen Ning and Wen Qing in pre-med. Nie Huaisang, too, before he switched to business, as if that was any fucking better. 

He put in four years for pre-med, and he might’ve hated every fucking bit of it from the first semester to the eighth, but the Jiangs put in nine years and counting for him. Wei Wuxian would put in four years for undergrad; another four for med school; five to seven for residency, and by that point, he’d be useful. 

So. Doctors. He already has the first degree. What other option does he have? What does it matter what he wants?

Makeup, it’s a hobby. Like Lan Wangji’s gardening or Nie Huaisang’s parties. Fuck if he can make a living out of that. 

“Yeah,” Wei Wuxian says finally. “I’ve thought about it. But what can I say, Mianmian, a sexy brain like mine craves the twenty-hour shifts that’s involved in becoming a neurosurgeon, you know?”

“You’re insane,” Mianmian says, but she rolls her eyes and lets it go, and Wei Wuxian exhales.

**

me

weve lost another one to marriage lads

is everyone free on friday to pour one out

gretchen wieners

Omg who 

me

u know song lan and xiao xingchen from p chem in like junior year

gretchen wieners

NO SHUT UP

REALLY??

WHERE

WHEN

HOW

me

i saw it on facebook it was so sad 

nie huaisang listen to me

they were like cutting the cake holding hands and shit

gretchen wieners

NOOOOOOOOOOOO THATS SO CUTE

Youre so right tho 

Gather up single lads its time to be sad

cain

i’m not fucking sad

gretchen wieners

And you dont see it thats the sad part 

:(

Wen Qing

If someone is paying, then I’ll come.

cain

why would someone pay for you

Wen Qing

Misogyny.

gretchen wieners

The lady has a point

Gather up lads and ladies*

me

its ok lan zhan said hell pay

cain

why the hell is lan wangji paying

gretchen wieners

Why is lan wangji paying??????

Wen Qing

Why is Lan Wangji paying?

me

sometimes u guys r like one hivemind and its horrifyingly delightful

anyways hes paying bc hes rich and i dont think he likes the fact that hes bourgeoisie

cain

doubt

i’m shocked you even know how to spell bourgeoisie

me

u r so rude and for what

im telling a jie

cain

she’ll side with me because you’re a nightmare

me 

no she wont

cain

yes she will

gretchen wieners 

Okay so what are we breaking lan wangjis bank here?? 

me

no she wont

cain

yes she will

gretchen wieners

Are we talking olive garden or a steakhouse??

Guys

me 

no she wont

also lan zhan said whatever is fine

Wen Qing.

Steakhouse. If the man doesn’t want to be bougie anymore, that’s his decision.

cain

yes she will

gretchen wieners

Brutal!! We love to see it!!

Then that steakhouse on 5th??

me 

lan zhans vegetarian

preferably not a steakhouse

also no she wont

serotoning

There’s a good French restaurant I’ve heard about on Yelp!!

It’s on the corner of 24th and 6th but the reviews are good!! Lots of vegetarian options

gretchen wieners

Does it serve caviar 

me 

does it have those moons

the stars

whatever they’re called

cain

does it serve fucking bread and shit

yes she will

serotoning 

It has 3 Michelin stars if that’s what you’re talking about??

I don’t know about the rest but I assume so… It’s an expensive restaurant

me

SOUNDS PERFECT

to wen nings mysterious french restaurant at seven on friday then

also no she WONT

HAH

[image attached]

[image attached]

cain

i’m going to kill you

gretchen wieners

popcorneating.gif

**

On Saturday, Lan Wangji doesn’t force him into a suit, but he does give Wei Wuxian deeply disappointed gazes when Wei Wuxian walks out in a pair of ripped jeans and a tank top. This means he has to go back and change into something he would wear when meeting Madam Yu. 

After five minutes of panicked perusing through the mound of clothes draped on his coat racks, Wei Wuxian decides on a wine-red number that he'd gotten back in sophomore year, when they'd started dating and he realized that Lan Wangji enjoyed spending an exorbitant amount of money on their dates because he had no concept of numbers in an economical sense. 

It's a nice little suit, embroidered with delicate rose stitching on the shoulders and the end of the blazer's sleeves, swirling patterns like a crimson whirlpool etched into the silken shirt. It’s a little tight around the shoulders now and the pants aren’t long enough to conceal his ankles, but ankles are a trend and he’s working with it. He pairs the whole look with a cute red ribbon trailing at the ends of his ponytail and a smudge of deep red eyeshadow at the outer corners of his eyes for an extra touch. 

When he leaves the room, Lan Wangji is waiting by the hutch, fingers dipping into the rabbits’ space to pet them despite the immaculate white three-piece he has on. It’s not a wedding suit, what with the shirt underneath that ripples blue like shallow water, but it’s awfully close enough that Wei Wuxian has to take a moment to lean against the wall and breathe for a second. 

He takes the opportunity to shamelessly ogle too, because he’s human, and Lan Wangji is right there looking fucking. Like That.

“Well, hello,” Wei Wuxian croons, and the tips of Lan Wangji’s ears go red as he turns, blinks, and blinks again. He’s too far to see if Lan Wangji’s pupils dilate, but his expression certainly transforms into something a little dazed and distantly satisfied, so Wei Wuxian is content. “Ready to go?”

Nothing. 

“Lan Zhan?” he prompts.

“...Yes,” says Lan Wangji, and they head off. 

While they look fantastic, Wei Wuxian didn’t account for how fucking awful suits are, just as a general concept. 

“I’m itchy,” Wei Wuxian whines for the thousandth time as they get out of the car. He scratches furiously at his shirt collar, where his infernal narrow red tie cuts into his neck and may be cutting off his oxygen supply to his brain entirely. “Lan Zhan. I hate suits. Why’d you make me wear one?”

“I did not make you do anything,” says Lan Wangji, the filthy liar. 

They step into the restaurant, and immediately Wei Wuxian is greeted with opulence that could rival Jin Zixuan’s entire existence. 

As promised, Wen Ning’s French restaurant is absurdly expensive from the get-go. It’s got a chandelier, for one. The path to the hostess—a hostess—is lined with red carpet with gold trim, and there’s not even mud on it. The floor is made of marble so clean that Wei Wuxian can see his reflection and also Lan Wangji’s, but that’s not the point. 

There’s white tablecloths on tables when he peers over the defensive wall of real plants. A row of paintings are hanging on the elegant ivory walls, and from somewhere at the back of the restaurant among the quiet chatter of the patrons, Wei Wuxian catches hints of piano. 

“We should eat the rich,” Wei Wuxian murmurs, reverent. “Of course we should eat the rich. But we should keep the restaurants that feed the rich.”

Lan Wangji makes a small noise of amusement. “How will you pay?”

“Well, I’m still figuring that out. But I’m thinking we can keep one rich person and have them pay for everything, like a sugar daddy.” He turns to bat his eyelashes at Lan Wangji and clings to his arm for good measure, coy. “Lan-er-gege, Lan-er-gege, have I ever told you that being rich is so attractive? Scummy, but attractive. I’ll have to keep you alive in the class revolution with your virtues in mind.”

“Ridiculous,” Lan Wangji murmurs, but there’s a softness around his eyes that makes Wei Wuxian beam. 

“Long time no see, Lan Wangji,” Nie Huaisang’s voice comes behind them. 

Wei Wuxian doesn’t leap away because he has nothing to hide. He just—detangles himself with haste. When he turns, there’s a knowing glint in Nie Huaisang’s eyes and a mischief written all over the vigorous waggle of his eyebrows. 

“Well,” says Nie Huaisang, fake-contemplative, because most everything Nie Huaisang does is fake, “technically I did see you at the party a few weeks ago. But you left so quickly with Wei Wuxian here that I didn’t have time to say hi.”

“No,” Wei Wuxian mouths at him, right as Lan Wangji says, “It is good to see you again.”

“I’m sure it is,” Nie Huaisang croons, which makes no goddamn sense, but Lan Wangji is the type of person who seems to care about manners on the surface, so he makes no comment. 

He does give Wei Wuxian a curious side-eye but there’s no way Wei Wuxian can explain this when he doesn’t know what Nie Huaisang is thinking either. 

So he just gives a helpless shrug. 

“How have you been?” Nie Huaisang asks. “Any troubles these past few months?”

Lan Wangji narrows his eyes.

There’s a strange tension taut in the air like a rubber band on the verge of snapping, only interrupted by the hostess saying, “Right this way,” as she leads them to a large table with wine glasses and three sets of cutlery and shit. Wei Wuxian flicks his gaze back and forth between Nie Huaisang and Lan Wangji, squinting. He imagines this would be the atmosphere of a meeting with the in-laws or a high-stakes poker game, rather than an easy icebreaker. 

Judging by Lan Wangji’s stiffening expression, it doesn’t seem like he’s winning either. 

Hm. That won’t do. 

Wei Wuxian reaches over under the table and grabs his hand, giving a comforting squeeze. Lan Wangji’s eyes roam over to him. Wei Wuxian tries to throw in what’s hopefully a reassuring smile. 

Finally Lan Wangji looks away and says, “There have been no events that you should concern yourself over.” A squeeze back. Wei Wuxian hums and proceeds to destroy the elaborate construction of the napkin on his plate by fiddling with the corners one-handed. 

“Oh, don’t say that,” says Nie Huaisang. “What’s happened in your life recently? Really, I’m curious.”

Wei Wuxian slips out his phone and sends an emergency text to Wen Ning, still one-handed.

me

come fast theres smth weird happening 

serotoning

What’s happening??

“It appears as if you want a specific answer from me that I cannot give you,” says Lan Wangji.

me 

i dont KNOW ITS WEIRD 

IM PANICKING A LITTLE

“Nothing so sneaky,” says Nie Huaisang, giving himself a delicate wave of his fan. “Simple curiosity over your well-being, of course.”

“Of course,” says Lan Wangji flatly.

me

WEN NING PLEASE

Wen Ning does not come. Wen Ning does not reply to his emergency texts. Wen Ning has abandoned Wei Wuxian to rot in a metaphorical cage fight between two of his best friends over something that remains completely unspoken. 

He sends out emergency texts to the whole squad, to no avail. Wen Qing doesn’t reply because her replies come through like message bottles in the ocean at best, and Jiang Cheng doesn’t reply because he’s the most unfilial brother that exists in this wretched Earth. Not unfilial. Un-fraternal? Whatever. 

He resorts to kicking Nie Huaisang in the shin. Nie Huaisang falters for a second, shooting Wei Wuxian a deeply wounded expression. Then he goes on, “Our brothers have been getting close lately. Were you aware?”

“Their relationship is not new,” says Lan Wangji. 

Nie Huaisang’s eyes crinkle in a smile that’s unseen behind his fan. Shivers. The last time Nie Huaisang made that face, he got Wen Chao to drop out of school in two hours. No one knows how. No one knows why. Wei Wuxian has never received an answer for any of the questions. But that face is a face of a man who is setting a trap. 

“Their relationship is not new,” Nie Huaisang agrees, ignoring Wei Wuxian’s desperate Lan Zhan —”but your dates were, right? I heard you stopped going on them recently. Even though they must’ve been so much fun.”

“Lan Zhan,” Wei Wuxian says, louder.

Lan Wangji goes predator-still. “What are you implying?”

“Does anyone want some bread!” Wei Wuxian cries, on the cusp of hysteria. “Or tablecloth! There’s no bread, ahaha, but the tablecloth looks appetizing, doesn’t it? Oh, is that Jiang Cheng I see! A-Cheng!”

“Shut up,” Jiang Cheng says once he’s within earshot, smacking away Wei Wuxian’s frantic tugs into the chair beside him. “What are you doing?”

“The question is what were you doing,” Wei Wuxian hisses, more than a little agitated. “I was going to have a stroke! I got four years of my lifespan cut off while you weren’t here! Where were you!”

“Parking,” Jiang Cheng says, bewildered. Clearly he’s caught onto the fact that this isn’t Wei Wuxian’s pretend panic, but actual panic, like knee-sweat and crook-of-elbow-sweat and I’m-about-to-leave-my-husband-at-the-altar panic. “The fuck are you talking about?”

Wei Wuxian gestures as discreetly as he can towards Lan Wangji’s and Nie Huaisang’s silent stare-off. 

Nie Huaisang is smiling. Lan Wangji is not. 

“Oh,” says Jiang Cheng. Then he shrugs. “Sucks for you, I guess.”

“You are the fucking worst. You know you’re killing me. You’re killing your brother, A-Cheng.”

The Wens arrive in short order, Wen Ning in a cute little grey suit with a bowtie, and Wen Qing in a deep red cocktail dress with a slit up her thigh that makes her look like a Bond girl who could be actual Bond. 

They do God’s work of dismantling what is the friend group equivalent of a nuclear bomb with post-haste. Wen Ning gives a meek, reassuring smile to Lan Wangji, whose tension seeps out of him in the same way it does around small children and animals and Wen Ning. 

Wen Qing, on the other hand, just takes one look at Nie Huaisang’s smile before she swats him upside the head. “Knock it off. He’s paying.”

“I wasn’t doing anything,” Nie Huaisang protests, rubbing his head. “I deserved none of that. Also, I was trying to help, you know!”

“Be silenced,” Wei Wuxian hisses at him. He waves at Lan Wangji’s distraught expression. Well, it’s not really distraught, but the space between his brows is creased more than normal, and that’s the look of devastation on anyone else. “Look at him. You took a perfectly good man and did. Something.”

“Wei Ying,” says Lan Wangji with the faintest note of exasperation. “It is fine.”

“It isn’t fine!” To emphasize his point, he squeezes Lan Wangji’s hand, where Lan Wangji is still gripping his fingers with a death grip. He lowers his voice to a whisper. “My knuckles are creaking, Lan Zhan, what the hell was that?”

“Nothing,” says Lan Wangji. When Wei Wuxian continues to squint at him, Lan Wangji loosens his grip and amends, “Nothing you should concern yourself over.”

Wei Wuxian squints harder. “Now I’m getting why that was suspicious to Nie Huaisang. I’m onto you, pretty boy.”

“Hm,” says Lan Wangji. “We should order.”

The food is as delightfully fucking pretentious as the rumors of a 3-Michelin star restaurant found on Yelp promises. There’s something on the menu that’s apparently been deconstructed, which Wen Qing devours with all the voraciousness of a starved beast. Wen Ning gets a lobster. Wei Wuxian gets something that wiggles on his plate. Nie Huaisang receives a whole bowl of caviar and the tiniest little spoon he’s ever seen, it’s fit for A-Ling’s hands or something. Lan Wangji even orders a vegetarian meal that doesn’t make him want to crawl out of his skin, because it’s made from people who know how to season and prepare tofu properly.

Jiang Cheng… Jiang Cheng frowns less. Overall it’s fantastic. 

Then Jiang Cheng sets down his bowl of deconstructed French onion soup or whatever, and that’s when the disaster begins. 

The thing that people don’t fully understand about Jiang Cheng is that while he might be the baby of the family, he is entirely Madam Yu’s son. A-Jie? All Uncle Jiang’s. Benign smiles, an acute understanding of the importance of diplomacy, with the divine ability to defuse tensions faster than a tranquilizer to the neck. 

Jiang Cheng, on the other hand, is all Madam Yu’s: her spine, her temper, her zero tolerance for bullshit, especially when Wei Wuxian is involved.

And where Lan Wangji is, Wei Wuxian is too, unfortunately. 

“So how has your grad work been,” says Jiang Cheng. 

Lan Wangji also sets his spoon down with a bitchy clink, the Lan equivalent to suckerpunching someone in the nose and spitting on their prone body while they’re at it. 

“Fine,” Lan Wangji says. 

Oh, god. Incomplete sentences. Wei Wuxian is going to die tonight.

“I’m going to die tonight,” he tells Wen Ning.

“I don’t think you are,” says Wen Ning, ever the appeaser, and then he takes a second glance at the two metaphorical alligators all but duking it out on the floor and visibly retracts his statement. “Well, you may be maimed? Only a little.”

“Great,” says Wei Wuxian.

Jiang Cheng doesn’t have Nie Huaisang’s delicacy. Nie Huaisang’s method of interrogation—because Wei Wuxian is rapidly realizing that that whole weird conversation was an interrogation after all—is the clean cut of a surgical knife. 

Jiang Cheng’s delicacy is… Well. Jiang Cheng. One time when they were twelve, Wei Wuxian wrestled him to the floor and snatched his 3DS to play Cooking Mama, and the next day Jiang Cheng signed up for judo. 

“So,” Jiang Cheng says, eyes intent and vicious, “grad work, huh?”

Lan Wangji doesn’t react at the question. It's dawning on Wei Wuxian that in terms of threat level, Jiang Cheng is apparently on a lower tier than Nie Huaisang, which really has him wondering at how fucked up Lan Wangji's sense of priorities are. There is the fact that he doesn't procrastinate, though. Ever. Even back when they were dating Lan Wangji made him wait until he was done with his assignments to have mindblowing desk sex or whatever.

"Yes," says Lan Wangji. "What about it?"

"It's funny how your grad work keeps you so busy that you couldn't even come see u—"

“Cut the shit,” Wen Qing interrupts. She takes a calm sip of tea, which is a power move if he’s ever seen one because of the way it makes everyone hold still until she sets her cup down. “You two broke up.”

Silence. Lan Wangji goes stiff again. 

Wei Wuxian hurries to say, “Don’t make it sound like such a tragedy, Wen Qing." Her eyes swivel to him, gaze as piercing as a million knives. He tries not to shrink and mostly succeeds. “I mean, it was fine! We’re cool. We’re chilling. Right, Lan Zhan?”

“Mn,” says Lan Wangji. 

“I’d say you’re doing more than just chilling,” Nie Huaisang murmurs under his breath, below that traitorous fan. Wei Wuxian meets his gaze and mimes breaking it in two. Nie Huaisang shuts it with a snap. 

“So you're fine,” Wen Qing says to Lan Wangji. She doesn’t phrase it like a question.

“Yes.”

“And we have no reason to worry.”

“Yes.”

“Well,” Wen Qing decides. “Then that settles that. I want dessert, too, Lan Wangji.”

“Mm.”

Jiang Cheng is seething in his seat, but that’s probably due to the way he won’t be able to start a fistfight with Lan Wangji like he’s always dreamed ever since he got destroyed in drunken Mario Kart 8 during their junior year. Ah, well. 

“Very brotherly of you to start a fight in my honor,” Wei Wuxian croons. He tries to pat Jiang Cheng’s head, but Jiang Cheng just swats his hand away. “I knew I raised you well, A-Cheng.”

“It wasn’t in your honor,” Jiang Cheng bites out. “Maybe I just wanted to give him shit for—” 

He cuts off. Normally Wei Wuxian can guess at the possibilities, but this one is up in the air. It could really be for Mario Kart, or the fact that Jiang Cheng hates liars with a fervor, or that deep, deep, deep down inside, Jiang Cheng has a heart of squishy goo and he considers Lan Wangji a friend. Or. A non-enemy. 

“You’re so cute,” Wei Wuxian coos, ignoring Jiang Cheng’s rapidly darkening expression. “So cute! Come here so I can give you so many kisses.”

“Get the fuck away from me.”

The discussion moves onto more benign topics after that. Then again, any conversation in their friend group is cause for a nuclear explosion, given that Nie Huaisang is there with his busybody nose and Jiang Cheng with his temper. 

The only people who seem to be safe from the fallout are the Wens. Wen Qing operates mostly on a strict lone-wolf basis; her and Lan Wangji’s conversations are really more a series of cautious gazes and multifaceted blinks. Wen Ning, on the other hand. 

When Wen Ning and Lan Wangji start talking about animals or whatever, they exude such pure serotonin that Wei Wuxian sighs and props his chin into his palm like a lovelorn maiden. 

“You look stupid,” Jiang Cheng tells him.

“Look at them,” Wei Wuxian murmurs, too content to think about putting Jiang Cheng in his proper place, i.e. eternally humiliated befitting of his status as a younger brother. “Doesn’t it just make you so happy looking at them? This is like cat therapy. It’s like taking a warm bath. Look at them, A-Cheng.”

Jiang Cheng looks begrudgingly. A beat. “I guess,” he says. He grits it out, really. One day Jiang Cheng is going to have high blood pressure and die, and Wei Wuxian will have to tell his body I told you so with great grief. 

Dinner wraps up in short order. Wei Wuxian reaches for the bill to take a tiny peek, like the tiniest of peeks, like a lint-sized peek, but then Lan Wangji’s hand wraps around his own, stopping him in his tracks. 

“Do you really want to know?” he asks. 

“How many digits?”

Lan Wangji doesn’t reply. 

“Maybe not,” Wei Wuxian decides, before he latches onto Lan Wangji’s arm like a vicious jellyfish. “Lan Zhaaan,” he says, “it’s so nice of you to look out for your beloved proletariat.”

“Hm.” A pause as Lan Wangji considers this. “Would you not be a bourgeoisie by association, if I pay for everything in your stead?”

“That is so rude. How dare you imply I’m rich.” 

“My apologies,” Lan Wangji says, expression unchanging, the rude asshole.

When they all say their goodbyes, Nie Huaisang pulls him into a hug. That’s not odd in and of itself, but what is weird is the way he hisses into Wei Wuxian’s ear, “Check your phone later, Wei Wuxian.”

Wei Wuxian tries to tug away. It works a little, but Nie Huaisang is holding onto his neck with all the force that his skinny little arms contain. “What? Why?”

“Just check it,” Nie Huaisang whispers furiously. Then he pulls back and slaps on an innocuous smile that does nothing to assuage Wei Wuxian’s suspicions, because that smile is dangerous. He pats Wei Wuxian on the shoulder. “I’ll see you and Lan Wangji around! Drive safe!”

Wei Wuxian is only a little concerned that Nie Huaisang may have slashed their tires. 

On the ride back to their apartment, he tries to think of all the things he’s done to piss off Nie Huaisang lately. There was that time he nearly gave Nie Huaisang food poisoning on his birthday, but that was only a temporary hospital stay and Nie Huaisang said he enjoyed the experience of such a disastrous twenty-first, anyway. Other than that, Wei Wuxian’s memory is shit, so that’s a bust. 

Eventually he caves and turns on his phone. There’s two texts from Nie Huaisang.

gretchen wieners

Ex-boyfriends you said huh??????

[image attached]

Considering Nie Huaisang was sitting across from them, it's impressive that he managed to sneak a shot of Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian. It's not even the least bit blurry. In the photo, Wei Wuxian is leaning into Lan Wangji, or—they're leaning into each other, more like, as they tend to do on their movie nights. Lan Wangji is handing him a bottle of chili oil that he'd specifically requested from the waiter earlier, and Wei Wuxian was. 

Well, he was fucking delighted. Chili oil hand-delivered by Lan Wangji, what more could he ask for?

Wei Wuxian tries, but he doesn’t find anything strange about the image. It’s just him and Lan Wangji at dinner. Nothing so unusual. 

Or maybe Nie Huaisang is referencing the way he had to reach across Lan Wangji’s body to grab the chili oil, since they were still holding hands? Except they held hands all the time, and that wasn’t really weird. Plus Lan Wangji needed comfort, especially after suffering the fifth degree from Nie Huaisang with mind tricks. 

Or was it that Lan Wangji was looking at him? It wasn’t even in some particularly odd or intense way, it was just the way Lan Wangji always looked at him, gentle and a little bit exasperated, like, you’re going to ruin the flavor of your food, Wei Ying, but maybe to Nie Huaisang, who never maintained eye contact with anybody for long in a distinct Medusa sort of way, that would be odd. 

Hm.

Wei Wuxian studies the picture until it’s burned into his eyelids and Lan Wangji has parked into the apartment garage, but he still can’t find anything. 

“Wei Ying, what are you looking at?” 

“Ah, just a picture Nie Huaisang sent me. Do you see anything weird about this?” He shows the picture to Lan Wangji. Even after several moments, Lan Wangji shakes his head. Wei Wuxian goes back to studying the picture, frowning. “Yeah, me too. Huh.”

me

we r ex bfs???? 

also whyd u take a random pic of us

gretchen wieners

Oh wow

Wow

Okay 

This is going to be super funny or super sad later but im an optimist at heart so ill have faith

Good night :)

Well, if that’s not ominous.

“Nie Huaisang’s acing really fucking weird and cryptic,” says Wei Wuxian as they enter their apartment, “but that’s not anything new. You know what that whole conversation at the start of dinner was about?”

Lan Wangji ignores him in favor of speed-walking over to the bunnies’ hutch. He takes them out, uncaring of all the rabbit fur they’re shedding on his delicious suit. Wei Wuxian recognizes the haste from the times he returns from Lan Qiren’s monthly family dinners, which is more of a thinly veiled interrogation on all the inner workings of his nephews’ lives. It must’ve been a trying dinner if he’s that desperate for bunny affection. 

Mozzarella and Muffin, as always totally enamored with Lan Wangji, snuggle into his arms. 

Wei Wuxian watches them, more than a little amused by the way Lan Wangji hefts both of the bunnies to the kitchen where he sets them down to roam on the island while he searches for bits of bunny-sized lettuce.

“I have some idea,” Lan Wangji says eventually, after he’s settled into bunny-nirvana. He’s feeding the kids little iceberg strips, and Wei Wuxian tries not to visibly melt too much. “Nie Huaisang has always been… protective. The conversation went better than I expected.”

Wei Wuxian laughs. “Lan Zhan, your standards are so low. It was already weird. Did you expect some kind of court-martial? I thought you already had their undying affection just for paying, you know! Nie Huaisang’s a snake.”

“Not that.”

Wei Wuxian waits for an elaboration, but none comes. “What’d’you mean?”

No reply. 

In fact, Lan Wangji isn’t even looking at him. 

Wei Wuxian frowns. “Lan Zhan?”

“We broke up,” is the only explanation Lan Wangji offers him. 

Wei Wuxian tries to parse this out. The inside of Lan Wangji’s mind is a great and noble labyrinth on the best of days, and today doesn’t seem to be shaping up to be a good one, never mind a best one. It’s clouded all with fog, really.

So they broke up. What about it? They’ve been broken up for five months, and they’ve been managing fine, so…

Then it clicks.

“What, did you think it would be like, a divorce? ” says Wei Wuxian, incredulous. “You get the rabbits and I get the friends? Is that how you think it worked?”

Lan Wangji’s jaw tightens as he looks away, which is answer enough. Wei Wuxian can’t do anything but stare. This ridiculous man. Four years they’ve all known each other, and he thought it would be that easy? That a break-up—and an amicable break-up at that—would be enough to destroy all of this? To make the people who cared about him disappear? 

As if anyone could ever stop loving Lan Wangji. Like it’s a fucking switch to turn on and off. 

“For someone so smart, Lan Zhan,” Wei Wuxian says finally, blood pounding in his ears, “you can be so dumb.” 

Lan Wangji’s pride is a stubborn but silent thing, immovable as a wall. His already perfect posture straightens even further, shoulders set back. “You met them first,” he tells Wei Wuxian quietly, gaze unflinching. “You introduced me to them.”

“That doesn’t mean they would take sides. Or that I’d even ask them to! That’s the last thing I would want! Lan Zhan, are you serious right now?”

“They are your friends,” Lan Wangji insists. “I would not blame them if they believed they needed to—”

“To what?” Wei Wuxian demands. “Defend my honor?”

“Didn’t they?”

“What?”

“During the dinner. They asked questions about our—” His jaw sets. “Our relationship status.”

“Because they’re both our friends? And they’re worried. Even Jiang Cheng wasn’t trying to start shit because he was defending my honor or anything, I think it’s just him being Jiang Cheng. Or trying to get revenge for that one time you beat his ass in Mario Kart. Or him being mad that I made him suffer through drinking with me when you weren’t there to stop me. Or for lying to him about grad stuff, even though you didn’t lie and it was kinda true and I lied for you.” He waves a hand. “Whatever. Jiang Cheng does what he wants.”

“Nie Huaisang?”

Well, Wei Wuxian doesn’t have an explanation for that. He shrugs, helpless. “Nie Huaisang listens to the whims of the lunar phases? I don’t know. Whatever it is, I promise they weren’t trying to, like, turn against you because you left me heartbroken.”

“Were you?” 

“Was I what?”

Lan Wangji’s expression is pained. He’s almost about to tell Lan Wangji to forget it, but then Lan Wangji bites out, “Heartbroken. Were you?”

“Ah,” says Wei Wuxian. He’s barely hearing himself speak. “Ah, Lan Zhan. Don’t you know?”

**

When they broke up, Lan Wangji was the first one to leave the apartment. Small mercies. He took his pretty navy coat and his set of keys with the little matching rabbit keychains that Wei Wuxian had picked up from a zoo date they had, maybe six months back. 

Wei Wuxian couldn't see his face when he looked at the rabbit keychain. But it didn't matter. Lan Wangji left not soon after, and Wei Wuxian was left inside the apartment that they nurtured into a home.

He didn't move for ten minutes. He started pulling at a fraying thread on the buttons of their leather couch, and thought about their movie nights. He thought about making out with Lan Wangji on this couch while the food burned; about slow, sweet sex; about sleeping together here and waking up in the morning with the black leather glued to their skin.

As it turned out, six months was still enough time to make an apartment into a home. When they moved in, the walls were spotless, a fresh new paint job for the tenants, gutted without any furniture.

 Six months later they had a bargain coffee table they'd built together from Ikea, a leather couch only approved from hours of extensive testing in furniture stores. They had stools at the island, just tall enough for the tip of Wei Wuxian's toes to brush against the hardwood. What else? They had chili oil that was a permanent fixture on that little island. Nicks where Wei Wuxian got too impatient with new packages and scraped the island with the kitchen knife. 

On every flat surface there was a plant or a bouquet of delicate flowers in a glass bottle, labels messily ripped off by Wei Wuxian's teeth or nails. But Lan Wangji liked it that way. It made it look nice, he said.

There were no curtains; they both enjoyed the sunlight streaming into the apartment, warming them to the bone. Pictures, obviously, all over the apartment: taped to the wall beside the fixture on the front door where they hung their matching keys, or a gallery of Polaroids fluttering in the breeze by the window. 

The two of them in every picture: cheeks pressed together, full-blown grins and half-smiles, kisses to the forehead, the nose, the reddened ears, mouth. 

Pictures even in the kitchen. “Looking at you while cooking makes the food taste better, Wei Ying,” Lan Wangji had explained, ever the chronic bullshitter, and Wei Wuxian laughed and said, “Well, if it makes the food taste better.” 

Right over the sink, another over the stove beside the spaghetti sauce stains and oil splatters. A blatant fire hazard if Wei Wuxian had ever seen one, but they were in love, and it was cute, so what?

Thirty minutes after Lan Wangji left the apartment, Wei Wuxian went around the house and tore down every fucking picture he could find. The gallery of Polaroids was the hardest; the Polaroids were small enough that it made him keep looking at the photos, wondering what they showed, and every time he looked, he recognized the moment they took it. Each memory was a kick to the gut. 

He went to the kitchen and took down the photos there too. Went to their bedroom, shoved the stack of pictures under his makeup box that wasn’t really a makeup box at all because it only held two eyeshadow palettes, both of which were a gift from Lan Wangji. 

“You should enjoy the things you like,” Lan Wangji said, by way of explanation. Stubborn. Good. His Lan Wangji, always so fucking good.

Wei Wuxian didn’t destroy the palettes, but by god was he close. 

Instead he went to their closet and ripped every piece of his clothing from the hangers, clothes that were stripped and kicked to the floor, draped over the rack. He took the clothes and the makeup box before he realized there was no other room to put them, and then he laughed a little, and then he laughed a lot, and finally he tossed the whole bunch into a closet full of cleaning supplies. 

Then he called Wen Qing. 

Wen Qing found him an hour later with two empty bottles of wine—picked up for their anniversary two weeks ago, ha-fucking-ha. He was staring at the picture of them kissing on the fridge. Somehow he missed a photo. But in this Lan Wangji was smiling, and he seemed so goddamn happy, and so did Wei Wuxian. 

“Do you want me to take it down?” Wen Qing asked, and Wei Wuxian said, “Just get me the fuck out of here.”

Wen Qing was great. Wen Qing was excellent. She didn't ask any questions, because she never really cared all that much about what Wei Wuxian did anyway, as long as he didn’t get himself killed by not looking both ways in the street. 

She left him in the car while she found the mound of clothes in the cleaning closet, tossed it in the backseat stuffed inside his school bag, along with his keys and another bottle of wine that she scrounged up somewhere, because she really was such a good fucking person.

They were two minutes down the block when Wei Wuxian jolted up and said, “Fuck, the rabbits,” and Wen Qing said, “Fuck the rabbits,” and Wei Wuxian laughed a little harder, drunk with it, and Wen Qing said, “Okay, fine, I’ll call A-Ning.”

So he crashed at her house, the entire winter break, all three weeks. To rephrase: he allowed himself three weeks. 

For three weeks, Wei Wuxian curled himself under a mountain of blankets on an unfamiliar spare mattress that smelled nothing like Lan Wangji, miserable and exhausted, absolutely sick with it. 

On the second day Wen Qing had come in, paced at the edges of the room, shoved no less than three different tubs of ice cream on him, all the wrong types, but that was why he loved her. Her love was nothing so smothering.

“I can beat him up,” she said, muttering the words into his greasy hair. “I could. No one would see me coming. Other people like you, you know. Lan Wangji’s just blind.”

She misunderstood. Doubting Lan Wangji’s love for him was never part of the problem. 

“I want him back,” Wei Wuxian said. 

“Don’t be stupid,” Wen Qing said. “Do you want me to threaten him for you? I can give him soup and poison it. Mild laxatives. Very temporary. It’ll even be good for him, since you insist on being a good person.”

“No,” Wei Wuxian said. “It was my fault. He's perfect, okay, but I—it's fine. Let’s just stay like this, alright?”

When Wei Wuxian returned on Sunday, the last day of break, he returned to an empty apartment. The rabbits weren’t there. The photos weren’t either. Even his fucking keys looked lonely without Lan Wangji’s beside it, and wasn’t that fucking something? 

It was like the apartment had been gutted, except the worst part was that nothing was really missing that he didn’t know about; Lan Wangji was just gone. And in Lan Wangji’s absence, the apartment was dusty. The plants were dying, water gone sickly yellow. When he took off his socks and walked around the halls, his feet were fucking freezing. Heater was off.

Wei Wuxian slept on the couch for two days. The bed smelled like Lan Wangji. He couldn’t fucking do it. 

At some point during the third night back, way past 9 PM, Wei Wuxian jerked awake to a familiar sound of the keys at the door. 

Lan Wangji’s expression was blank. Eyes red-rimmed. Something in Wei Wuxian crumbled at that face, and the next thing he knew, they were hugging for what had to be minutes, Lan Wangji’s nose pressed into his hair, Wei Wuxian’s face tucked into his neck. 

“We might not be dating anymore,” Wei Wuxian said into Lan Wangji’s skin, “but let’s not do that again.”

When Lan Wangji spoke, his voice was hoarse and raw. “Do what again?”

Wei Wuxian didn’t know. He stayed silent for a moment, trying to think of the words, before he finally settled on, “Fight. I don’t like fighting with you, Lan Zhan. It sucks.”

“...Okay,” said Lan Wangji. There was something heavy and resigned in his voice. “Let’s not fight again.”

“I missed you, Lan Zhan,” Wei Wuxian said. 

It was instinctive, saying it. He wasn’t sure if he regretted saying it or not, but Lan Wangji said, “I missed you too,” and it seemed like the instinct hadn’t disappeared with him, either. 

They left the picture on the fridge. Neither of them wanted to be the one to take it down. 

**

“I wouldn’t know,” Lan Wangji says now. Beside him, Muffin nudges at his hand, but he doesn’t move. “How was I supposed to know if you didn’t tell me?”

That doesn’t seem fair. “It’s not like you told me you were heartbroken, either,” Wei Wuxian says. 

A flinch. 

“I mean, you’re not the best at communicating,” Wei Wuxian goes on, trying to take the sting out of his words by lowering his voice to something gentler. “I knew that. Know that. But I thought, hey, as long as I can understand him, what does it matter? But it does. Sometimes I can’t read you and you still won’t tell me what you’re thinking. And you’re always so good, you know? I thought that even if you did have a problem, you just wouldn’t tell me, or you’d stick with me anyway. Most of the time I could figure it out, but some days I was too tired to try. Especially—” His throat closes off. He has to swallow to clear it. “Especially back then. It was hard.”

“I know it was hard,” Lan Wangji says, barely a murmur. “You would not tell me what was wrong.”

“I just didn’t want to talk about—” The future. Graduation. The ever-so tenuous thread between them that Wei Wuxian tried to hold onto like a lifeline, up until he realized it was turning into a noose. Everything, really. It was all landmines after a certain point. 

“About what?” Lan Wangji asks, when Wei Wuxian doesn’t continue. 

“Everything,” Wei Wuxian says helplessly. “But that wasn’t—it wasn’t like it was your fault. Why are we talking about this now? We’ve already broken up.”

Lan Wangji searches his face. Wei Wuxian doesn’t know what he’s looking for, so he lowers his gaze to watch Mozzarella nibble at a piece of abandoned lettuce. It’s easier. Call him a coward.

“I see,” says Lan Wangji. 

“This isn’t a fight,” Wei Wuxian says. He walks across the entryway and to the kitchen, reaches for Lan Wangji’s hands across the island, and thank the fucking Lord, Lan Wangji doesn’t pull away, just lets him be pulled into Wei Wuxian’s touch. “This isn’t a fight, right? We’re not fighting. We’re just talking. We’re listening now. We’re okay.”

For a long moment Lan Wangji says nothing. He just closes his eyes, expression shuttering. Utter blankness. Then he opens his eyes and pulls his hands from Wei Wuxian’s, ever so gentle. 

“We should sleep,” Lan Wangji says quietly. 

One step, two. Wei Wuxian is watching Lan Wangji walk away from him again. 

“See you tomorrow,” he blurts, before he can stop himself. A pause in Lan Wangji’s stride. He repeats it again, a little desperate. “I mean, I’ll come sleep with you again tonight if that’s okay, but. See you tomorrow. Right?”

The length of a heartbeat is surprisingly long. It echoes in his ears, and then without looking back Lan Wangji says, “See you tomorrow, Wei Ying.”

**

So life goes on. The night shift at the convenience store is still as awful as ever, the morning rush at the coffee shop induces a headache that’s only absolved by copious amounts of midday drinking and Advil, and he and Lan Wangji are… Weird. It’s an odd tension that Wei Wuxian doesn’t know how to describe. Even when they broke up it wasn’t anything like this, all strained and forced quiet. 

In the mornings, he wakes up to find Lan Wangji already slipped out of bed, the sheets cold beside him. And at nights, Lan Wangji doesn’t say a word to him besides the usual, “See you tomorrow,” before he holds himself to the far end of the bed, arms stiff by his sides even when Wei Wuxian is pressed up against him. 

It’s the kind of specific Lan Wangji-induced misery that he hadn’t known was possible to replicate. But here they are. 

He tries talking to A-Jie about it in the vaguest terms he can because he’s not trying to worry her or anything, but he only makes it through, “So I have a friend who has a problem with his roommate, hypothetically,” before she says, “Oh, is this about Lan Wangji?” 

So he tells her the unbridled truth. Then she sits in silence. 

Then she says, “Oh, A-Xian.” 

“Okay, never mind,” Wei Wuxian says hastily. “It’s nothing. This is a hypothetical problem. Everything is okay.”

“If everything was okay, would you really be calling me?”

Harsh. But true. 

“Any advice for your poor Xianxian?” 

“You could talk to him,” says A-Jie gently. She’s a functional person like that. “Try to get on the same page as him, maybe?”

“That sounds like a recipe for disaster.”

“A-Xian.”

“What? It’s true.”

“You should come to China, then,” says A-Jie with a rare decisiveness, and the impracticality of her idea is so funny that it makes him laugh for a few minutes. 

Wei Wuxian doesn’t take A-Jie’s advice, because the thing that got them into this situation in the first place was the conversation, and he’s not looking forward to having it worsen just by the fault of his big fucking mouth. 

Not to mention A-Jie is actually a person. Her advice is tempered by the good graces of not being a disaster; therefore, it’s invalid. 

Movie night comes and goes. The conversation is stilted at best if there is any, and when the movie is done, Lan Wangji just gives him a short nod and a, “See you tomorrow, Wei Ying,” and leaves before Wei Wuxian even has the chance to say it back. And that’s just the fucking pits. By the time he gathers enough of his senses to follow Lan Wangji to his bedroom, he finds Lan Wangji already deep asleep, or at least faking it. 

For a moment he just stands there, looking at Lan Wangji: his closed eyes, quiet breaths, stiff jaw. 

He slips out of the room. He doesn’t return to sleep with Lan Wangji the next day, or the next.

The insomnia returns. It’s summer, but it’s starting to feel like December and January and February all over again: the wintery frost, the endless expanse of wasteland between them, uncrossable. 

**

In June, Wei Wuxian loses the makeup job at Brush By.

Well, it's not particularly accurate to say he loses it when he never had it in the first place. It's just that Sam returns, fully recovered from mono after a month, and Wei Wuxian returns to the tame janitorial job who does inventory on the odd weekend.

And that's... fine. Genuinely. Wei Wuxian never expected to keep the job in the first place. 

It doesn’t stop Mianmian from storming in one Saturday afternoon while Sam is on break, demanding, “What do you mean you’re not working the makeup counter anymore, Wei Wuxian?”

He hasn’t slept properly for the past week with the constant shifts and the restless midday naps that aren’t really naps when he spends three hours staring at the ceiling, reliving his and Lan Wangji’s last real conversation. It’s been almost two weeks since he and Lan Wangji have talked for real, and it’s kind of killing him a lot. Even when Mianmian stares daggers into him, Wei Wuxian’s too tired to do anything other than blink at her, slow. 

“What do you mean?” Wei Wuxian asks. He suppresses a yawn and squints harder at the numbers on the inventory logs, trying to make them make sense. When that doesn’t work, he sets his pen down and rubs his eyes. “It wasn’t my job in the first place, you know that. I’m just the janitor. Or whatever. Demonstrating the brushes was a temporary gig.”

“And you’re okay with that?” A scoff. “Have a backbone, Wei Wuxian, what the hell!”

“My backbone is probably warped from scoliosis and bad posture. What more do you want it to endure?”

“Wei Wuxian!”

Her rage is adorable. It’s a lot like Jiang Cheng’s, in this venomous pit viper sort of way. 

“Mianmian,” Wei Wuxian says. “Seriously. It’s not a big deal. I mean, it wasn’t like I loved the job anyways, and it was a temporary thing. I don’t know why you’re so upset over it. Aren’t I supposed to be the one who’s mad?”

“You never get mad about anything, so obviously it’s my job to get mad for you. And Wen Qing’s.” A thoughtful pause. “And your brother’s, come to think of it.”

The image of all three of them in a room brings shivers down Wei Wuxian’s lack of spine. “That… explains a lot, actually. Huh.” 

“That’s all you’re going to say?” Mianmian demands. “Aren’t you mad? You were good. You were so fucking good at it, and she can’t do half the shit you did! I told you this before, but did you listen? No.”

“Mianmian.”

In response, Mianmian whips out her phone, where she scrolls through pictures of what he recognizes to be his work. She lingers on the vermillion look that she adored from a few weeks ago and shoves it in his face. The eyeliner along her waterline was hard, but it was the kind of look that would’ve been bogged down by a heavy liner, and Mianmian had the type of eyes that just looked smaller with thick eyeliner, anyway. 

The eyeshadow, of course, was his favorite part: a gorgeous crimson along the outer corners, transitioning into pure white by the inner, with strategic spots of glimmering petal-pink shadows in the center of the lid to make the whole look pop. It was a delicate balance between too heavy and not enough. 

Mianmian’s only request was, “I want to be pretty enough that girls will want to hold my hand, but strong enough that the men will beg me to peg them.”

“What is with you and pegging,” Wei Wuxian said, before he got to work. And the look was good; not his best, but good enough, considering it wasn’t his job. 

“This,” Mianmian says now, “this is good. My whole goddamn job is makeup, and I can’t do eyeshadow like you do. You’re creative. Every look is different. You use all the shadows that no one even thinks about using, and you make it work! Coral is not my color. You know what you did three weeks ago? You made it my color. That’s not even mentioning how you do it with barely any sleep! I know you just take naps every day! And you’re saying all of that is, what, a hobby?”

“Well, it’s certainly not my job,” Wei Wuxian says, a little amused despite himself. “I’m not interested in starting a Youtube channel like you, Mianmian. Not everyone has your fiery personality.”

“Forget Youtube,” Mianmian snaps. “Make it your job. Become a makeup artist. What are you doing, working like this? You were happy when you were demonstrating the makeup, don’t lie to me. I know you were.”

At this, Wei Wuxian laughs. “Does it matter?”

She reels back, stunned. 

“Oh, don’t look at me like that,” Wei Wuxian says, because that’s something like deep worry all over her face, like she’s two seconds from calling the firing squad to put him out of his misery. “It’s not that deep.”

“What is it, then?”

“Just, you know. It’s temporary. I’m gonna find something better and then I’ll quit.”

“And then you’ll be happy?” 

“I mean, probably.”

“That’s not an answer,” Mianmian bites out. 

“Again,” says Wei Wuxian, “not everyone can be like you, Mianmian. Living their dreams and all. Some people, you know.”

“That explains nothing.”

God. Explaining things is so exhausting. “I promise it makes sense in my head.”

“Explain it out loud, then.”

“You’re not going to let this go, are you?”

In answer, Mianmian leans back and taps her heel against the floor. 

“Christ,” Wei Wuxian mutters, and then, “Okay, fine. Just. It’s like this, right? Say I quit my job. I work with my zero experience and complete bullshit resume, throw away my pre-med degree, and hope that by some miracle someone stupid enough hires me. What then? I tell Uncle Jiang and Madam Yu, ‘Oh, thanks for putting me through college for four years, but I’m gonna throw all that away because I’m doing makeup now?’ Come on.”

“So one conversation is what’s stopping you from being happy?” Mianmian snorts, derisive. “I never pegged you as a coward, Wei Wuxian.”

Irritation flares inside him, hot and ugly. “It’s not just the Jiangs, okay? It’s everything. I go back home, make rent somehow even though I quit all three of my jobs. Yeah, okay. And then I just never go to med school, never think about being anything else but a disappointment, but that’s okay, because being a makeup artist will make me happy? Mianmian.” He sighs and tries to focus on the inventory again. “Get real.”

“It could be—”

“It really couldn’t,” Wei Wuxian interrupts, because the awful truth is, he has thought about it. On the nights when he was putting himself through pre-med, looking at his row of shitty grades in the last two semesters, all the overdue assignments that he didn’t care about turning in; when he hurled his textbook into the wall one drunken night, and Lan Wangji burst into the room, startled, sleep-rumpled, stopping him from taking a lighter to the whole goddamn thing; when he was curled up in Lan Wangji’s arms, exhausted and miserable and awful, listening to the steady beats of it like it was a fucking lifeline, thinking, I don’t want this, I don’t want this, I don’t fucking want this. 

When he was thinking about all of that, he dragged himself out of the despair because he always arrived at the same conclusion: it wasn’t realistic to become anything else. 

Even if he wanted something else, anything else, what did it matter? Happiness wouldn’t make him useful. Happiness wouldn’t make him needed.

Four years of a degree he threw his entire soul into, only to toss it aside for some half-baked dream? Get fucking real, Wei Wuxian. 

“I love you, Mianmian, but I’m going to be a doctor.” Pushing out the words every time feels like prying out his own ribcage from his body. But Wei Wuxian does it, because it’s true; he’s going to be a doctor. He’s going to have a real job, and he’s going to make money, and finally he’ll be okay, if not happy. He’ll make other people happy. That’s all that matters. “I don’t want to talk about this again, okay? It’s settled.”

He turns back to the counter and begins counting the brushes again. Where was he? 

The numbers. Always the fucking numbers. Sixteen brushes, maybe. Or eighteen? He can’t remember. He’s so tired.  

Shit.

“Wei Wuxian,” Mianmian says finally.  

“What?”

A long pause, and then Mianmian says, “I came to tell you there’s a beauty convention on Saturday in three weeks. Everyone who’s anyone in the beauty community’s gonna be there. They’re always looking for interns, you know. People who want to get into the industry. Magazine editors, small independent movie studios, big gurus looking for assistants, whatever. It doesn’t matter if you have a resume or not. No exams, applications, anything. I have a plus-one.”

At that last sentence, Wei Wuxian lets out a slow breath through his teeth. In and out, Wei Wuxian, in and fucking out. “Okay,” he says. One beat, two. Let it the fuck go. “Have fun. Nie Huaisang’s into that stuff too, I’m pretty sure.”

“I’m not going to ask fucking Nie Huaisang—” She cuts herself off with an audible sigh. “Fine. You know what? Fine. Text me when you get into med school or become a doctor or get out of this temporary thing, Wei Wuxian, I’ll be sure to buy you drinks.”

She leaves without another word, and Wei Wuxian drops his pen onto the counter, closing his eyes. The world is spinning. Numbers aren’t making any fucking sense. 

Goddamn, he thinks, and then says it out loud, just to feel it harsh and cold between his teeth: “Goddamn.”

**

In November of senior year, Wei Wuxian had four overdue lab reports on Thanksgiving break. He had all the data, scrawled in between the margins of his syllabus, used napkins, notebook paper splattered with ramen soup and three-week-old coffee stains. The numbers were runny under the yellowing spots like someone fucking pissed all over the paper, but it was still legible. 

They were all there in his head, running together in an overflowing ocean: exams and lab reports reading 55, 60, 83, 72, 54 without the curve and maybe an 88 with, and all the numbers were telling him it wasn’t good enough, needed to be higher. So the next time it was 70, 74, 68, 57, 60 without the curve and what the fuck ever with, and Madam Yu said, “This isn’t your best,” and Wei Wuxian said, “No, it’s not, I’m sorry, I’ll do better,” and the library stayed open from 6 AM to 4 AM and the two hours in between he camped outside on the steps because who the hell would stop him? 

Except someone would. At 5 AM Lan Wangji would drag him the nine blocks back to their warm apartment, concern all over his perfect face, and Wei Wuxian would get twenty minutes snatches of restless sleep on the couch before he headed out again, then it was red fucking marks all over his exams that couldn’t be goddamn quantified. 

In November the numbers were all there. He thought of them every night curled up in Lan Wangji’s arms. 

In November Lan Wangji's GRE results for graduate school had already come in. More numbers that registered vaguely in Wei Wuxian's coffee-addled mind. 99th percentile, of course; 168 verbal reasoning, 169 quantitative reasoning, a perfect fucking 170, full marks for analytical writing. 

And there was Lan Wangji, all ten of his fingers cradling Wei Wuxian’s face, warm to the touch, an open flame that Wei Wuxian kept passing through just so he could feel the sting. Lan Wangji’s two eyes, steady and golden and beseeching, and he was saying, "What's wrong? Wei Ying."

“Nothing's fucking wrong,” Wei Wuxian said. In November he was already drowning, not enough goddamn air. He inhaled, let it out. Again. Breathe again. "Sorry. Let's get Thai on our way back, okay?"

In December Wei Wuxian forgot their second anniversary. He came back home at 4:02 AM to Lan Wangji sleeping at the kitchen island, head pillowed in his arms, goosebumps from the windows they were never able to fully close. 

There were six dishes sheltered under saran wrap. Home-cooked. Spiced to furious red perfection. Every single one of his favorite foods, spread out like an all-you-can-eat gourmet for no fucking money at all, and Wei Wuxian had nothing to give his perfect boyfriend because he fucking forgot their anniversary, like the six lab reports he still hadn’t turned in. 

He tried to pick Lan Wangji up and carry him to their bedroom, but he hadn’t eaten in sixteen hours, maybe eighteen, and he hit his head collapsing against the island, and Lan Wangji woke up and said, “Wei Ying,” and Wei Wuxian laughed it off, ha-ha-ha, what was I thinking, trying to carry you back? Let’s go to sleep, Lan Zhan. 

**

After his conversation with Mianmian, the days pass by in a haze. He’s not sure how he manages to drag himself out of his mattress every morning and scrounge up enough functionality to make it to work every day on time, but somehow he manages it. It doesn’t change how jittery and restless he feels all the time, like he’s drowned sixteen cups of triple-shot espresso in a minute. 

Still, he’s making money. He’s got enough saved for next month’s rent and application fees, but more than that he has enough put away that he looks at his bank account and deeply contemplates buying an apology present for Lan Wangji. They haven’t talked for what feels like ages now, even longer than Mianmian’s radio silence, and it’s… pretty fucking awful, to say the least. 

He’s in the middle of finding midday snack food for the bunnies on Tuesday when he knocks over a pile of mail and assorted papers on the island in his sleep-deprived haze, sending them scattering all over the fucking floor. Both his and Lan Wangji’s shit. 

“Fuck,” says Wei Wuxian. He stares at the mail and genuinely has a second where he thinks about drinking himself into a coma before he shakes his head, slaps his cheeks, and gets to picking up the papers. 

It’s easy to figure out which ones are his and which ones are Lan Wangji’s. His shit is mostly junk mail with the occasional sticky notes about vague reminders he can barely parse out, what with his awful handwriting and half-formed thoughts, while Lan Wangji’s stuff is all clean and organized; no chili oil splatters, all official business like bills and clean calligraphy about poetry dissertations and—

Apartment listings. 

Wei Wuxian’s breath freezes in his lungs. 

One bedroom apartment, up for lease in July, not three weeks away. No bathtub. 

For some reason, the no bathtub portion is what Wei Wuxian fixates on. He stares at it until the pictures and the words are blurring, and then carefully, with unshaking fingers, he sets the advertisement down at the top of Lan Wangji’s stack and takes out his phone. 

“I don’t think I’m coming into work today,” Wei Wuxian tells his manager, and hangs up before he can yell at Wei Wuxian about last-minute shift changes. 

Why did they continue to live together, really?

For all that Wei Wuxian has bullshitted to Jiang Cheng about the wonders of living with an ex-boyfriend, he knows that in reality, it was never that simple. 

They broke up two days into winter break, and their lease ended in July. Either of them could’ve sublet. But Lan Wangji was far from a bad roommate, and they already knew each other’s little ticks and habits, like Lan Wangji’s penchant for cleaning the apartment so hard that things disappeared, and Wei Wuxian’s perpetual inability to clean up crumbs and do laundry in a timely manner. 

It was easy. That’s the short truth of it. 

They’d gone to the Atlantic two weeks before senior year officially started. For three days, Wei Wuxian reveled in the fact that Lan Wangji was always there—him and the pale slopes of his shoulders, the wide expanse of his back, all that skin readily available for touch. On the last day, they spent the day in the water, them and a million other milling tourists on the shoreline, but for a few hours the world had narrowed down to just them. There was the sunset burning gold all over Lan Wangji’s perfect face, the water lapping at their feet and the tips of their entwined fingers, like gentle kisses. 

Lan Wangji didn’t like swimming, but he enjoyed floating on the water, relaxed and buoyed by the balance of his unending tranquility and the strength in his body. Floating for Wei Wuxian was a different creature entirely; it was peaceful in some ways, but in others he felt like it would only be seconds before the water crashed over his head, dragging him under. 

Living with Lan Wangji was just like that. It was easy if he relaxed and let himself breathe. But he’d never been able to forget that the water was always there, waiting.

The long answer is this: Wei Wuxian didn’t want to change anything. He wanted Lan Wangji in any fucking capacity possible, and it was the most selfish goddamned thing he’d ever done, but when Lan Wangji never suggested moving out, he didn’t bring it up either. That was the water, see. That one day he’d come home, and Lan Wangji wouldn’t be there, and he’d be alone: these four walls gutted all over again, a home no longer made a home. 

He was terrified some days that this would be the last night that he would hear Lan Wangji’s soft footsteps pad down the hall, or the last time he would see Lan Wangji’s sleep-rumpled clothes in the morning, or that today, he thought every single fucking day, would be the last time he would see Lan Wangji at sunset and sunrise and be able to say, “See you tomorrow, Lan Zhan,” the same way most people said, “I love you.”

It was a tightrope, he knew. That was the thing about tightropes and nooses and lifelines: sometimes you just had to hang on and hope you didn’t slip.

**

me

hey r u busy today 

serotoning

I have a few assignments to get done but they should be pretty quick!! I just want to get them done before the weekend. Is anything going on??

me

i mean 

no not rly

if u have assignments

[new yorker voice] fugetaboutit

serotoning

Wei Wuxian.

me 

dont use ur threatening periods on me

ur busy!! 

cant be the one to distract u from ur studies!!! 

not to mention wen qing wld kill me!!!

serotoning

You aren’t a distraction. You’re my friend!!!

Even if it’s nothing, it feels like I haven’t seen you in a while. We should talk!!

And if there is something wrong, please talk to me 

:(

me

wen ning u cant DO THAT TO ME THE SAD FACES R CHEATING 

U KNOW WHAT THEY DO TO ME

serotoning

:((

:(((

me

im serious its actually not that big im just

making a big deal out of it

serotoning

I’m sure I would agree with you if you told me!!

But only tell me if you want to!!

me

u r so not subtle 

serotoning

:((((

me

UGH

fine ok

 so like

heres the thing 

i think lan zhans gonna move out

serotoning

What????????

me

yeah i found an apartment listing 

they werent like 

ads

and our lease is up in july 

so

serotoning

And you two haven’t talked about it????

me 

kinda hard to talk when weve barely seen each other in the past two weeks

i think he might be avoiding me 

and it kinda like

sucks

a lot

idk

lol

serotoning 

Oh

Come by in an hour

I’ll have ice cream

me 

light of my life 

fire of my platonic loins

 serotonin wen ning 

u r the fucking best and i adore u 

serotoning

<3

me

<3

**

In December Lan Wangji was dropping by the library every night. Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays, and they hadn’t had their movie nights for a month, and they hadn’t had actual good sex for maybe two weeks, and Lan Wangji was tugging at his hands and kissing him on the cheek so gentle and he was saying, “Come back with me, Wei Ying.” 

Wei Wuxian said, “No, I’ll just wrap this up, and I’ll go home, okay? This time, I promise.” The next day Lan Wangji said, “Come back with me, Wei Ying,” and Wei Wuxian said, “I’m a little busy, alright?” and the next day Lan Wangji begged, “Come back with me, Wei Ying,” and Wei Wuxian—

And the next day, the next, and the fucking next—

In December Wei Wuxian scraped by with a bunch of Cs in all seven of his classes, just on the verge of failing, and meanwhile Lan Wangji came home sleepless but quietly pleased, radiating contentment like sunrise within his bones. All rows of straight As, of course, the perfect son, 4.0. 

More numbers. 2.8 GPA, and Madam Yu’s visit all the way from goddamn China, demanding him to explain his grades, do you even want to be a doctor? Are you even trying? Why are we even paying for you if you come up with grades like these? And Wei Wuxian blurting, I’m trying, I am, it was just hard, and next semester I’ll have my shit together for real, and Madam Yu told him to get the hell out, and for three weeks Wei Wuxian talked to his siblings through email because Madam Yu cut his phone bill and rent money. 

He was twenty-fucking-one. What the hell was he doing, having his adoptive parents still pay for his shit? Having his boyfriend pick up the slack on the rent? 

What the hell was he doing?

In December Wei Wuxian got a job at the convenience store. Three days later he picked up another one at the coffee shop thirty-two blocks away, all thirty-two blocks that he walked because using Lan Wangji’s car was too needy, even for him. 

He got another one at Brush By that stole his Saturdays and every day he collapsed into bed smelling of sweat and shit and cheap coffee grinds, makeup smeared on his fingers and wedged under his nails, and Lan Wangji said, “Please let me help you,” and Wei Wuxian said, “I don’t want your fucking help, Lan Zhan, I got it, okay?” 

Lan Wangji said, “Wei Ying, please.” Again and again. 

And Wei Wuxian’s lungs were filling with water. He looked at Lan Wangji, and maybe Lan Wangji was looking back, but he couldn’t breathe out. The weight of Lan Wangji’s love was so heavy it was suffocating. It was too fucking good for him. 

“Stop it,” said Wei Wuxian, the day winter break started. Lan Wangji was staring at him, and Wei Wuxian didn’t want to look, he didn’t want to think, he didn’t know what the hell he wanted, and everything was piling up inside him like mounds of ash, wretched and dead and awful, and he said, “I said I’m okay. You don’t need to fucking help me, Lan Zhan, get lost.”

In December—

**

“Please tell me you have Spiced Mango Lemon Fiesta,” is the first thing Wei Wuxian says when Wen Ning’s door swings open. 

In response, Wen Ning lifts a hefty tub of glaringly red ice cream, and Wei Wuxian says, “Oh, thank fucking God.”

Wen Ning’s apartment contains the type of clutter that Wei Wuxian imagines he’d be able to replicate if he had more possessions. As it is, the sum of his possessions can fit in maybe three boxes, so he can’t quite copy the homey sense of anarchy that seems to reign in Wen Ning’s apartment. 

His space is all carpet, none of the sleek floors or monochrome furniture straight out of an Ikea catalogue. Instead, bean bags in assorted states of wear and tear are scattered around the living room, and Wei Wuxian flops into one immediately. Wen Ning’s apartment, really, is just like him: warm and comfortable and smelling vaguely of sweet fruit. Peaches or something. 

Wei Wuxian makes grabby hands for the ice cream tub. “My treat, if you could, good sir.”

With a fond smile like Wei Wuxian is a small non-canine animal in no way frightening whatsoever, he deposits the tub of ice cream and a spoon in Wei Wuxian's hands before dropping into a bean bag beside him, immediately curling into the smallest ball possible. 

"So," Wen Ning starts, once Wei Wuxian has sufficiently filled his mouth with the ice cream, "Lan Wangji?"

"Ugh," says Wei Wuxian in response. It's partially the ice cream, the sleep deprivation, and the idea of Mianmian roaming out in the world somewhere thirsty for his blood, but also: Lan Wangji. "Yeah. I think I'm gonna ignore it until it becomes a problem, and then ignore it harder once it does. Foolproof plan."

"How often has that worked for you?"

"Ouch."

Wen Ning gives a helpless shrug. "I don't think you would come talk to me if it was a problem that you could ignore. It’s very rare for you to tell anyone about your problems, Wei Wuxian."

"What? No." When Wen Ning just stares at him with this intense sadness, blinking at him like Bambi after her mother was shot, Wei Wuxian frowns and tries to self-reflect. “I don’t do that. Do I? Like, maybe I don’t tell people, but I, you know, handwave it or conquer all my issues very sexily.”

“Do you remember in sophomore year—”

“Nope,” Wei Wuxian declares loudly, blocking out his ears. “I don’t remember a thing about sophomore year because sophomore year didn’t happen to me.”

Wen Ning leans over and very gently rips his hands from his ears. “In sophomore year,” Wen Ning continues with this soft voice at all sorts of odds with the way he’s holding Wei Wuxian hostage, “Lan Wangji studied abroad for three months. Do you remember that?”

“Do you mean, do I remember being a wilting maiden for the better part of fall semester?”

“You did buy stamps,” Wen Ning acknowledges graciously, and Wei Wuxian beams because finally someone understands the pains he had to go through to understand overseas mailing systems. “But that’s what I mean. Sophomore year, everyone was really worried about you. You were drinking a lot—”

“I was a young lad, unaware of his limits—”

“—and getting into fights with classmates—”

“I mean, fair, but my lab partner was an asshole—”

“—and sometimes, it was like you were punishing yourself by trying to have the worst time possible,” Wen Ning says, and Wei Wuxian’s mouth closes with an audible clack. Wen Ning releases Wei Wuxian’s wrists and sits back on his bean bag, this time criss-cross. “You didn’t tell us anything, but it didn’t stop us from being worried about you, you know. I think your brother thought you would drop out of school entirely because you hated being pre-med so much.”

“I wouldn’t,” Wei Wuxian starts to protest, but then he remembers that on the day that he was puking in Mianmian’s room, he really did think that he would drop out. Between the acidity of the bile pressing against his throat and the tears stinging his eyes, he was clutching at Mianmian’s arms with a grip that turned her skin bone-white, thinking, If I keep going, I’m going to die. I hate this, I hate this, I fucking hate this. 

And somehow he didn’t. 

Somehow he kept going.

“It got better when Lan Wangji started writing you back,” Wen Ning says. “You seemed—happier. If not okay.”

“Happy,” Wei Wuxian echoes. 

That word. Always coming back up, like the water. 

“I want to help you,” Wen Ning says, when Wei Wuxian doesn't say anything else. “But I don’t know how. I don’t know what you want when you don’t tell me.”

“That.” Suddenly Wei Wuxian feels like he’s speaking through cotton, six layers of blankets stacked over his face. He tries to laugh, but it comes out weak and strained. “It’s funny, ‘cause when we broke up, Lan Zhan told me that too. He said he didn’t know what I wanted, and I—” 

God, sophomore year was one thing, but this is another. He starts breathing in, but he can’t stop, can’t exhale either. His whole chest is shuddering, fissures of ice snapping. “I told him to get lost,” Wei Wuxian says. 

Silence greets him, and it's all sorts of terrible, because it's the distinct kind of silence that comes with Wen Ning's special brand of non-judgement. It's not what he deserves. He deserves to be strung up on the telephone poles and laid out to dry like a fermented fish, because he knew exactly what he was doing when he told Lan Wangji to get lost.

Maybe it was for Lan Wangji's own good, but it doesn't change the truth. He held Lan Wangji's heart in his own two hands and snapped it clean in half. Handed the pieces back to him, and three weeks later, moved back into the apartment like nothing was wrong.

"Yeah," says Wen Ning after a moment. "I know."

Wei Wuxian drags his way out of the self-pitying haze with great effort. "Know what?"

"Know that you told him to get lost," Wen Ning says softly. 

Wei Wuxian stays quiet as he processes this. For some reason, the revelation doesn't shock him as much as it should. Wen Ning's always been a stealth Nie Huaisang, except he doesn't deal in gossip and secrets so much as linger in the corners where he can watch the events unfold as a surreptitious bystander. "Wen Qing?" Wei Wuxian guesses.

But Wen Ning is shaking his head. What?

"If not Wen Qing—"

"Do you remember," Wen Ning blurts, like the truth is clawing its way out of his throat, "do you remember telling Jie about the bunnies? How she asked me to take care of them while she took care of you?"

If Wei Wuxian's being completely honest, he doesn't remember much about that day at all, with the blackouts and the repression and the haze of despair that surrounded him whenever he so much as looked at Lan Wangji, there and perfect. "Maybe?"

"Well," says Wen Ning, "I went to your apartment. I didn't ask any questions because Jie didn't tell me, and if she didn't tell me, it was because—you know, it wasn't her secret to tell. But I found Lan Wangji in the apartment. He was—"

Wen Ning cuts off, but Wei Wuxian can imagine it, as if Wen Ning has implanted the image into his brain: Lan Wangji curled up against the brick wall by the rabbit hutch, clutching Mozzarella and Muffin close to him, burying his face into their soft fur. He would've been shaking, silent. His grief always manifested like that, like if he made a single sound to acknowledge its presence, it would tear him into pieces. Lan Wangji's bad days were few and far in between, but Wei Wuxian knew the shape of them anyway. It was always so simple. Taking solace in either Wei Wuxian or those morbidly obese bunnies, and.

Well, Wei Wuxian was gone.

Wei Wuxian left him, to be more accurate.

“Oh," he says, feeling like someone has slid a knife between his ribs.

“Yeah.”

“And you two…” 

"We talked," Wen Ning admits. He's fiddling with his fingers in the bean bag, twisting them into anxious knots. "Or I talked for a bit, and eventually he told me that—"

"That I broke up with him," Wei Wuxian says, a part of him knowing this story already, "and that he agreed."

A soft exhale. "Yeah."

God, it's like he's living through the break-up all over again. The first time, he let Lan Wangji go because he deserved better. And the second time, and the third time, and all the times after that, when Wei Wuxian was pressuring him to go on dates and slipping out of his bed in the mornings as if he was ashamed of it, telling people left and right that it was mutual when maybe it wasn't mutual at all—what the fuck was it all for?

“I lied. I know I did but how the hell was I supposed to say,” Wei Wuxian says, half-gasping the words, “that I let the Lan Zhan go because I was dragging him down? He's so good and perfect and, and good, and I was me, and I was fucking him up, I know I was. And I—how could I tell people that he didn't want me enough to argue, and he didn't love me back, and that I was just there, distracting him from all the things he had to focus on? What the fuck was I supposed to do? It was bad, I know it was, I just, I don't know, I've never known what to do, not with my fucking life or this or Lan Zhan, ever, and I was fucking it up, it was all going so bad—"

"Wei Wuxian," says Wen Ning, concerned.

"And if he wants to move out, what can I do? Like, Jesus fucking Christ, who’s gonna take the bunnies? Mozzarella’s his, but Muffin—and the pictures—and the fridge—” 

“Wei Wuxian,” says Wen Ning, louder. 

“—I don’t want to take down the picture,” Wei Wuxian says, “I don’t, I want to see him every single fucking day and say see you tomorrow and hear it back, and I—I want—something—”

“You should breathe,” says Wen Ning, and he presses Wei Wuxian’s hand to Wen Ning’s steady heartbeat under his chest, and Wei Wuxian chokes out a laugh, says, “Okay, yeah, yeah,” and he starts taking in these huge gulping breaths that hurt his throat, but Wen Ning’s heartbeat is strong and sure, and Wei Wuxian tries to pay attention to them, match his breaths. One, two, three. One at a time, it’s how he’s always gone on. One at a time. And Wen Ning says, “You’re okay,” and Wei Wuxian laughs, maybe a little more real this time, and he manages to wheeze, “Oh, am I,” and Wen Ning amends, “Okay, maybe not right now, but you will be,” and that’s when the water recedes. It draws back, slowly. 

The ice on his limbs cracks, falls away. 

“Well,” says Wen Ning when Wei Wuxian slumps against him in the bean bag, “that was something.”

Every part of him feels exhausted. “Yeah, I didn’t see it coming, either. At least I didn’t cry. That would’ve been embarrassing. Sorry.”

“It’s so strange that you apologize for things like this and not for giving Nie Huaisang food poisoning,” Wen Ning comments, and this time Wei Wuxian manages a real laugh. “Cry if you want to. There’s nothing wrong with that. Do you feel better now?”

“I think I could use some ice cream,” says Wei Wuxian instead of answering that landmine. He gets his ice cream, but it’s all watery and soupy now after his whole Whatever That Was. He stares at it with great despair. “Oh, come on.”

“We can freeze it again?”

“But it takes time."

In response, Wen Ning just blinks and nods, solemn. “It does take time,” he says. “But that’s the case for every good thing.”

Holy fucking shit. “Are you giving me life lessons through ice cream metaphors?”

“Are they working?”

Wei Wuxian scowls, or he at least tries because scowling at Wen Ning is like scowling upon sunshines and rainbows and fat bunnies and also he’s tired as fuck, and then he just sighs. “Maybe. You know you can tell me anything, A-Ning, I can take it. You don’t need to use obscure metaphors to give me a life lesson, I’ll listen to you.”

“Well,” says Wen Ning contemplatively, “in that case, I think you tend to sabotage yourself and your happiness by letting good things happen to you, rather than actively pursuing it.”

Wow. The disrespect. “Never mind, I want the obscure ice cream metaphors.”

“But you said,” Wen Ning protests, and Wei Wuxian says, “Yeah, I know what I said, I lied, it’s what I do,” and Wen Ning just smiles at him like he’s adorable, which is unfair because Wen Ning’s the adorable one here if anything, and Wei Wuxian is like, this mildly pleasant sack of turnips at best. 

For a long moment they sit in the silence as Wei Wuxian stirs his soupy, depressing ice cream. But stirring his soupy ice cream just makes him think about Wen Ning’s absurdly pointed metaphor, and then to Jiang Cheng, all those weeks ago, asking if he was still in love with Lan Wangji. God. Everyone’s reading him like a book.

“Okay,” says Wei Wuxian after a while. “Consider this. What if I locked up my feelings inside and then, one day, I disappeared.”

“Not died?”

“No, dying is unromantic. Disappearing has, you know, like an air of mystery. A bit of flair.”

“Hmm,” says Wen Ning. 

This is the thing that Wei Wuxian loves about Wen Ning; even if Wei Wuxian spews the most stupid shit, he never rolls his eyes or dismisses it like the majority of their friend group are liable to do. Instead, he thinks on it and contemplates it, like Wei Wuxian is fucking Plato positing phisolophical theories. 

“I think that you’ve tried that and it didn’t work,” Wen Ning says finally. “So it would be a bad idea.”

“When did you become so mean to me? I command you to stop hanging out with Wen Qing. She’s a terrible influence on you.”

“She’s my sister,” Wen Ning protests.

“Bah.”

“I also think,” says Wen Ning, because his attempts at changing the conversation are guerilla warfare at best, “that this conversation would be easier if you said what you meant. I want to help.”

Wei Wuxian lets out a long, drawn-out groan. “Wen Niiiiiiiing. You can’t use emotions against me. That’s not fair. You’re not playing fair. I’m trying to be cool and sexy and non-emotive and you’re not letting me, that’s not very cool bro-behavior of you.”

“The last time you were non-emotive, you broke up with Lan Wangji,” Wen Ning points out. Then he just looks at Wei Wuxian with a stare that would be pointed on anyone else, but on Wen Ning it’s all doe-eyed and pleading and deeply sad, like Wei Wuxian is really crushing Wen Ning’s heart by being so reluctant to talk. 

But—December. What a fucking time, huh. Wen Ning is right. December was a mess of numbers and emotions and questions he didn’t want to think about, piling up on him like weights that made it hard to get out of bed every morning. Are you happy? Can I help? When will you come home? Can you let me help you? Can you fuck off? Are you trying your hardest? When will you turn in your assignments? Do you even want to be a doctor? What do you want to do? Graduation is coming up in half a year, are you ready? Does it matter? Are you happy? Are you happy? Are you happy?

Lan Wangji, stiff, ice cracking over his face like heartbreak: If that’s what you want. Like Wei Wuxian ever knew what he wanted. 

…But that’s not the entire truth, either. He did know, at least a little. Just one thing. 

“I want a lot of things I can’t have,” Wei Wuxian says finally. “And if we’re really, you know—self-reading and all—not thinking about it is a good way to be. Okay with it. I guess. If I talk about it, what good does it do? Doesn’t change anything.”

“Does it change things to not talk about them?” Wen Ning asks, and Wei Wuxian… doesn’t have an answer for that. “It’s okay,” says Wen Ning, calm and soothing. “Tell me about them. Even three is fine.”

And slowly, haltingly, Wei Wuxian does. 

He wants Mozzarella to love him as much as he loves Lan Wangji, first of all. 

He wants to take a million pictures of Lan Wangji, good ones, where he’s smiling and handsome and all sorts of lovely. He wants to keep sleeping in the same bed with Lan Wangji because it’s warm and comforting and every morning he wakes up to the sensation of Lan Wangji’s lips pressed to the nape of his neck, like it’s an instinctive reaction for him to touch Wei Wuxian like that, even in sleep. 

He wants to try. He wants Lan Wangji to be happy. He wants to stop going out on dates with people he barely tolerates and stop going to mediocre parties that do nothing for him and never make out with people he forgets the next day, except for the bruises they leave on his skin. He wants to go back in time and he wants to change his major. He wants to quit all of his jobs. He wants to get a full night’s sleep. He wants to talk to Mianmian again. He wants to hold Lan Wangji’s hand so fucking bad when they curl up on the couch on their movie nights; he wants Lan Wangji to hold him; he wants Lan Wangji to stay and say see you tomorrow and maybe kiss him when Wei Wuxian returns home. He wants—

“You can’t go back in time,” is the first thing Wen Ning tells him after Wei Wuxian stops, because no matter how nice he is, he’s always going to be Wen Qing’s brother. Then he smiles in that classic Wen Ning way, the kind of smile that reminds him of kindergarten teachers and therapists with soothing couches and aromatherapy. “But the other stuff sounds—doable.”

“Mozzarella,” Wei Wuxian protests.

“I think you should talk to Lan Wangji about that,” says Wen Ning. 

And that brings up a whole different host of problems. Something in Wei Wuxian’s expression must speak of absolute despair, because Wen Ning actually reaches out to smoosh Wei Wuxian’s cheeks in his hands. “Tell him,” Wen Ning says, his gentle tone at odds with the way he’s literally holding Wei Wuxian’s face hostage. “Everything you told me. He—he deserves to know, right?”

“Like right now?” Wei Wuxian mumbles, incredulous. 

“Maybe not right now,” Wen Ning amends. “But—eventually? I think. He’s been taking care of you, that’s—that’s why A-Jie never gave him a shovel talk. She thought she should give you one, actually. I almost agree with her, you know.”

“You never told me that.”

Wen Ning gives a helpless shrug and releases Wei Wuxian’s face. “You didn’t ask?” 

“A-Ning. You’ve been lying to me!”

“But you never asked!” Wen Ning catches the shiteating grin on Wei Wuxian’s face and sighs, lips curving up in a tiny smile of his own. “The other things, though… I think you can be happy.”

“Ah?” It’s like he’s been hit in the head with a sledgehammer, and he lets out a weak laugh. “Am I not happy?”

“Are you?”

Isn’t that a question. “I don’t… Know? How do you even know if you’re happy, anyway? That just seems—” Wei Wuxian cuts himself off and waves a hand. “You know.”

“Well,” says Wen Ning, “the better question is, what do you want to do?”

**

Wen Ning’s question remains in Wei Wuxian’s head long after he leaves Wen Ning’s apartment. He kicks off his shoes, tosses his jacket on his clothing rack, and migrates back to the living room to curl up in the corner of the couch, thinking. There’s a loose thread on the couch; makes sense, since they did get it the day that they moved in. It’s gone through a lot, like this apartment. Like Lan Wangji and himself. 

Sitting on the couch is no good. He’s too restless, too jittery in his skin, like he wants to run and run and never fucking come back, except acting on that decision the last time didn’t work out. December and all. 

Instead he goes to the rabbits, where Mozzarella and Muffin are as fat as ever, nosing at each other’s ears on the second floor of their hutch. Easy access. He reaches down to pick Muffin up; he’s always been Wei Wuxian’s favorite. 

“Hey, you,” Wei Wuxian says to Muffin, sitting them both down on the hardwood. Muffin’s nose twitches. “Are you happy? Do you like being so fat that you can crush people in their sleep? Is this the life you want?” 

Muffin blinks at him, gaze dark and maybe a little sleepy.

“How do you really know,” Wei Wuxian goes on, “if you’re happy? Is it just having everything you need? Is it more? Isn’t it impossible to get everything you want, anyway? There’s nothing so perfect as that. And when you do have everything you want, you’ll want more and you’ll get greedy, or you’ll lose it all. That’s just how it works. Sometimes you gotta be okay with having nothing.” He scratches at Muffin’s back with his index. “Moral failings of materialism and all that. Lan Zhan sucks at it.”

After a second of consideration, he stands back up, picks Mozzarella out of the cage, and sets him down on the floor too, right beside Muffin. Two of a kind. 

Come to think of it, Muffin had seemed lonely until he went back to get Mozzarella too, like two minutes after. And it was so simple. To give them what they wanted. 

“Of course a rabbit’s life isn’t as complicated as a human’s,” Wei Wuxian murmurs. “You guys have it easy. Not thinking about anything but your next meal. I should just roast you while Lan Zhan’s gone.”

They hop around him, unconcerned. 

“Does it matter all that much if I’m not happy?” They don’t respond, but that’s why he picked them as his confidantes; they can’t judge him for his bad decisions or give him disappointed gazes like Wen Ning or Lan Wangji that make him rethink his entire process. “Being happy is just, you know. A pipe dream. Sometimes it happens to people. Sometimes it doesn’t. Cubicle workers and shit, you know?”

But there’s no denying the fact that once upon a time, he had been happy. He’d been so happy it was like little champagne bubbles floating in his stomach and head and chest, something so light and easy. So fragile. Easy to burst. 

Happiness was last year: searching for apartments with Lan Wangji; holding his hand and knowing he could do it freely; pressing quick, ambush kisses to his cheek, just to see the flush in Lan Wangji’s ears and the stubborn, competitive glint in his eyes when he lunged to do it right back. It was those movie nights. It was breathing into the night and laying his mouth right over the butterfly-pulse in the hollow of Lan Wangji’s throat, feeling the echoes ripple through him. 

Happiness was summer, before everything went to shit. Happiness was all the years before that, and happiness was Lan Wangji, all contained in the body of a man so perfect that by the end he was like a dream that had to end. 

Small steps. It wasn’t something impossible. A kiss in the library. Two rabbits, one after another. Testing out makeup on the weekends and a paycheck that he didn’t have to carve out his own soul to get. The truth. Not med school, not the shitty jobs. Not Lan Wangji in this uncertain, nebulous form that he made. 

The goddamn truth. 

He stares at the rabbits, struck still. “Fuck,” Wei Wuxian says. “I think I want to be better. Not just better. Okay. Good. God fuck.”

**

First he makes a list. People to talk to, subjects to tackle. Prime on the list is Madam Yu, Jiang Cheng, and Mianmian. He’s not looking forward to it. 

But first and foremost: Lan Wangji. As always.

**

me

lan zhan can we talk

nothing bad i just

u havent been around and

i really miss u

sweetheart 

Yes.

I’ve missed you too.

**

When Wei Wuxian imagined this conversation between him and Lan Wangji, he thought it’d be all cool and mature, very adultlike. They'd be sitting on the stools of the island, facing each other or maybe not, with a cup of like... espresso in their hands, because that was cool and mature and adultlike. It'd be a little awkward, but they'd get through it just fine, and at the end of it, Lan Wangji might not say, "I'm not moving out," or "I want to stay with you," but he would say, "See you tomorrow.” 

Just one assurance that even after all of this, Lan Wangji would still stay in his life. 

Instead, what happens is this: the door clicks open at 6 PM, when the sun is glowing orange all throughout their apartment. Wei Wuxian nearly drops Muffin with how badly he startles. He snaps his head up so fast that it cramps his neck in the worst parts, so he actually drops Muffin this time and he says, “Ow, shit, ow,” and there’s Lan Wangji rushing to the couch, putting a warm hand on his neck, saying, “Are you alright?”

“Yeah, I’m okay. Just a cramp.” The hand retreats, and Wei Wuxian looks up despite the twinge in his neck. Finds Lan Wangji’s face. “Oh, sweetheart,” he breathes.

All thoughts of mature conversation flee his head at the sight of Lan Wangji in front of him, looking dead on his feet. 

An exhausted Lan Wangji is a rare sight. Even in undergrad, Wei Wuxian only had a few fleeting glimpses of the stressed lines of Lan Wangji's mouth during finals week, his shoulders slumped a few imperceptible degrees than normal.

The Lan Wangji who is scooping up Muffin in front of him is far beyond that. When he sits on the couch, he doesn't sit straight-backed against all gravitational odds or poise himself like a statue of jade brought to life. It's not that Lan Wangji is ever inhuman per se, but he always tends to hold himself with this elegance, the sleek lines of him graceful and sharp.

Now, Lan Wangji is listing into the cushions. The tension is visibly melting as he gives Muffin a stroke across the back and scratches at the space between his ears with a hand on the cusp of trembling. His exhaustion is tightly held to himself, only spilling out with the sleepless bruises under his eyes, the strands slipping from his ponytail. It’s hard to look at. The way he’s pulling the stitches of himself taut and tight. 

"Lan Zhan," says Wei Wuxian, throat aching. "Lan Zhan, look at me."

With tired eyes, Lan Wangji blinks at him. 

“Lan Zhan,” says Wei Wuxian. He slips off the couch to kneel in front of Lan Wangji, reaches out to touch Lan Wangji’s hands for a moment before his fingers settle on Muffin’s back. “What do you need? Blankets? Water? No, fuck water, you need like, sixteen cups of nice tea. Hot chocolate with marshmallows. Or do you want soup? I can make soup. It’ll be the blandest fucking soup you want, okay, it’ll be all beige and soupy and I won’t even put in any pepper. I’ll hold back on all the spices. In fact, I won’t even touch the spice cabinet. Serotonin is stored in the soup, you know? I respect that. Whatever it is, you tell me and I’ll go zooming, I’ll break the sound barrier, I swear.”

“Wei Ying,” says Lan Wangji with this hoarse voice that cracks like sun-dried earth, “there is no need to worry. I am okay.”

“Uh-huh. Sure. Then I’ll just pamper you for absolutely no reason at all, okay?”

“Wei Ying,” says Lan Wangji again, but this time more exasperated, a little amused despite himself. “Everything is okay.”

“So if I called your brother right here and now, he’d tell me the same thing?” Silence. Wei Wuxian tries to search Lan Wangji’s face for any hint of expression, but now it’s been wiped clean, telling him, You’re not going to get anything. Not from me. And that’s— “Lan Zhan,” Wei Wuxian says, “if you really don’t want to tell me what’s going on, that’s okay. Just tell me how to help you. Whatever you need. I want to be here for you too, okay?”

Lan Wangji’s jaw twitches with how hard he seems to be clenching every muscle in his body. Slowly he pulls his hands from Muffin’s back to fold them in his lap, knuckles going white. 

“You would not tell me, either,” he says quietly.

Christ.

Talk about a sledgehammer to the throat.

The worst part is that Lan Wangji says it with this soft voice. No blame or anything. But that’s how Wei Wuxian knows exactly what he’s talking about. 

Well, it’s a good thing Wei Wuxian’s pretty expert at blaming himself. 

“Yeah, that was ass,” says Wei Wuxian, clearing his throat. “I mean, kind of hypocritical of me to say, but if you’re trying to use my past behavior as some reason not to tell me what’s going on, that’s cool, but you should know that the last time I told you nothing, I broke up with you and then spent my last winter break as a student being miserable and also eating my way through the better part of Wen Qing’s secret stash of candied goods. It was like ninety Snickers bars or something. I think it helps her temper.”

More silence. That’s okay. Wei Wuxian can work with it.

“I talked to Wen Ning today,” he goes on. “I had a lot of—emotional breakthroughs, epiphanies, whatever you’d call it. It was amazing and also fucking awful. He gave me life lessons through ice cream metaphors and then I couldn’t even eat the ice cream, it was the worst, and he was all, ‘Well you don’t have to leave now, you can wait for it to freeze again, good things take time, blah blah blah,’ but there was something I really wanted to do so I had to leave my ice cream behind, Lan-er-gege, please understand my woes.”

A carefully controlled exhale. A few seconds pass. And then: “What did you want to do?”

There he is. 

Wei Wuxian smiles and lifts Lan Wangji’s hands out of his lap to kiss the ends of his fingers. “Dumb question,” he says, to Lan Wangji’s sudden inhale. “I wanted to see you, of course. Are you fishing for answers you already know because you want me to admit how much I like you? How shameless, Lan Zhan.”

“Wei Ying.” It might be the dying sunlight, but even with all his exhaustion Lan Wangji is so goddamn gorgeous. Absorbing the sunburnt gold like a moon full to bursting. “You—”

“Me,” Wei Wuxian agrees. He props his chin on Lan Wangji’s knees and then thinks about it. He plops Muffin on the other side of the couch before clambering into Lan Wangji’s lap, his rightful place, without that pesky rabbit. He holds Lan Wangji’s face in his hands, precious. “It’s just me,” he says. When Lan Wangji stares at him with this—gutted expression, like he’s being flayed open, Wei Wuxian lets out a nervous laugh and lets his hands drop back down. “Ah, of course, if you want to kick me out of your lap—I’m very heavy, I didn’t even ask—how rude of me, I’ll just—”

“No.” Suddenly there are hands around his waist, Lan Wangji’s hands secure and right. “Stay.”

“Okay,” Wei Wuxian says, abruptly breathless. “I’ll stay.”

There’s a short hum of approval before Lan Wangji tips forward into his shoulder, and this time the tension that seeps out is both audible and visible, his quiet sigh paired with all the muscles going loose, one at a time. First the shoulders, then the arms, a looser grip around Wei Wuxian’s hips. His breaths, easier to come. Thighs beneath Wei Wuxian not as stiff. 

“My uncle was in the hospital,” Lan Wangji says after a moment, “up until today.”

Well, there’s nothing like a one of my few living relatives has been hospitalized talk to snap him out of the sappy emotions. 

“Is he okay now?” Wei Wuxian asks. Then he thinks about it, that maybe that’s not the question he wants to ask. “Are you okay?”

“My uncle is doing better. His blood pressure was too high because he was stressed. The doctors kept him at the hospital to monitor him and optimize his medicine, but he was released today, and my brother is staying with him to make sure he recovers fully. Wen Qing also informed me that he would be fine. I am okay.” A pause. “Now.”

“Then we’re okay, sweetheart,” Wei Wuxian says, pulling his fingers through Lan Wangji’s silken hair. “Or, well, if we’re not okay now, we might be. Probably. I don’t know. I’m terrible at this reassuring stuff, I don’t know if you noticed.”

“Wei Ying is good,” comes Lan Wangji’s muffled voice, small and indignant.

Wei Wuxian snorts. “Yeah, okay.”

“You are,” Lan Wangji insists, pulling back so they can see each other’s faces. “You take care of people.”

“What? No, I don’t. Not like you, Lan Zhan, you’re pro at this.”

“You do.”

“I don’t think giving Nie Huaisang food poisoning on his birthday counts.”

“You make efforts to connect with them,” Lan Wangji says, instead of refuting that. Wei Wuxian begins to smile, but then Lan Wangji goes on, “You figure out ways to spend time with them despite clashing schedules. You listen to them if they have any troubles, and if they ever need your assistance, you don’t hesitate to offer it to them. Your presence is enough. It is enough to know that you try.” A deep breath, likely because Lan Wangji isn’t used to speaking this much at once. “You deserve an A+ for effort, Wei Ying, and more.”

“Well,” says Wei Wuxian after a moment, “you sure know how to make a guy blush, Lan Zhan.”

“I am serious.” 

“Aiya, Lan Zhan, you’re always so serious, so sincere in everything you say. But that’s—you’re biased. You’re just saying that because you love me so much.” 

He only means to toss out that last sentence out as a way to get the topic dropped entirely, but Lan Wangji doesn’t so much as blink. “Does that invalidate my opinion?” he asks.

That’s. 

That’s beside the point. Wei Wuxian shakes it off. “You can’t honestly tell me that you were okay with me being—” A vague hand gesture at himself. “Me. Lan Zhan, I forgot our anniversaries like the two times we had them, and I’d give you so many presents you hated, and you’d cook dinners and take care of chores when I was dying from exams and lab reports. The best I ever gave you was, what? A few drawings? Shaky photographs? Burnt food? I mean, okay, I’m trying this new thing where I’m not so hard on myself, but come on. ” 

Throughout all of this, Lan Wangji’s expression doesn’t so much as shift once. His gaze is as steady and calm as ever. 

“Lan Zhan,” he says helplessly.

“Is it so bad?” Lan Wangji asks, because Lan Wangji has always been able to read him like one of his favorite books, well-worn, every line memorized. He knows what fear looks like on Wei Wuxian. “You were enough. You are, still.”

“Lan Zhan,” Wei Wuxian says, and stops. What else can he say to that? 

“You wrote me letters,” says Lan Wangji, “while I studied abroad. You ensured we spent time together and that our relationship didn’t suffer even though we were both busy. At every restaurant we visited, there was always a vegetarian menu. You told me every day you”—His breath hitches—”loved me. If not in words, then in actions. If not in actions, then in words. Wei Ying. I am more than okay with you. All of you. I should have told you I appreciated it more. Been more honest.”

Wei Wuxian’s next breath comes out in a rattling death wheeze. He tries to keep it cool in the follow-up inhale, but instead he just ends up choking on air, and he has to sit there, hacking his lungs out as Lan Wangji pats his back in what he probably thinks is a comforting manner. 

“Oh,” says Wei Wuxian, when he finally regains control over his airways. “That’s—I mean, really sweet of you to say, but like. You shouldn’t pin the blame on yourself when I broke up with you, because I had no idea what I was fucking doing and I thought it was a sure thing that I’d drag you down with me one day.” 

“...What?” 

Wei Wuxian lets out a nervous laugh. “Are you gonna make me say it again? It was very hard the first time, Lan Zhan, don’t make me say it again, it sucked.”

“No, I.” A noise that might be Lan Wangi having an aneurysm. “I heard you the first time.”

“Okay, cool.”

There’s a silence, long enough that it begins to make Wei Wuxian squirm and drum his fingers on Lan Wangji’s biceps before Lan Wangji finally says, “Is that why we broke up?”

“Why else did you think we broke up?” Then he considers that question and winces. “Actually, never mind, I don’t want to know.”

“I don’t know,” says Lan Wangji. When all Wei Wuxian does is stare at him, Lan Wangji’s jaw clenches. “I don’t know why we broke up. I assumed you were dissatisfied with our relationship. Forcing you to stay would have only made you unhappy.”

“But,” says Wei Wuxian, “what if I didn’t think it through? If I regretted it and—you know.”

Lan Wangji is looking at him. “I assumed you would say so,” he says, quiet. He’s making that same face that he did in January, when the new semester started and he found Wei Wuxian lying on the couch, just as sleepless and miserable as he was. Like he was an open injury and a balm all at the same time. 

Wei Wuxian’s eyes are abruptly hot, stinging with tears. He blinks them back, to little effect. “You idiot,” he chokes out. He buries his face into Lan Wangji’s shoulder, lets go of his hand to wrap his arms around Lan Wangji’s waist. “You’re the worst. You should know that I trust you more than anyone, Lan Zhan. That was stupid.”

“Mm,” Lan Wangji agrees.

“And I was stupid,” Wei Wuxian continues. “You should’ve just said, ‘Wei Ying, I think your head is shoved up so far your ass you think that you live in a world where you believe self-pity is okay and that not telling Lan Zhan anything is a good decision, which it isn’t, and also you’re pathetic. Please remove your head and talk to me, or I will punch you in the face.’”

An emphatic noise of disapproval.

“‘I will look all sad and pitiful and gaze at you longingly until you feel bad,’” Wei Wuxian revises, and there’s a steadier note of agreement. Wei Wuxian huffs a laugh into Lan Wangji’s shirt. “Okay? Do that next time. Word for word.”

“I will remember,” says Lan Wangji solemnly, the big nerd. 

"I'm sorry," Wei Wuxian mumbles into Lan Wangji's shoulder, and there's another disagreeing noise, but Wei Wuxian shakes his head a little because he needs to say this, or it'll fester inside him like another untreated wound, left to rot. It'll kill him from the inside until he says it. "I'm needy and I don't have a sense of boundaries and for the past half year, I've been yanking you around like I'm some big celebrity with commitment issues, and I shouldn't have, because you deserve better. So much better. You always have."

"I just want you," Lan Wangji says, pressing a kiss into Wei Wuxian's hair that makes his eyes go hot. "That is all I ever wanted."

"Well," Wei Wuxian manages to say, "good. Because all I ever wanted was you too. And I was so stupid for not seeing that."

Lan Wangji makes no attempts to speak after that and neither does Wei Wuxian, but it’s not a bad silence. Just sort of calm and muted, like they’ve fought their way through a hurricane and into the eye of the storm, letting the weight of everything unspoken hang in the air for another day. 

They sit there until the only light in the apartment are the flashes of the cars passing by and the streetlamps lighting up orange one at a time, flickering to life. Wei Wuxian shifts, because no matter how strong Lan Wangji is, he must be cutting off all his blood circulation by now, but then Lan Wangji makes this mrh of protest and Wei Wuxian huffs, settling back down. 

“You are so needy,” Wei Wuxian says, grinning. “But that’s okay. I like that about you, you know.”

“Wei Ying.”

“What? It’s true.” He winds a strand of Lan Wangji’s hair around his index finger, then pulls it loose. “I’ve come to the realization that there are, like, a lot of things I want. And that not all of them are unattainable. So if this all seems sudden to you, I’m only a little sorry, but you also asked me to stay, so you brought this upon yourself if anything.”

“Hmm.”

“And it’s weird, right,” Wei Wuxian continues, “because I don’t know what I want to do a lot of the time, but when it comes to you it’s so easy to know. But maybe that’s not weird. I don’t know. How are you doing, Lan Zhan?”

A moment where Lan Wangji pulls back to look at him, soft and sweet and achingly handsome, and then he says, “I am good.”

Wei Wuxian gets it. For once, it might just be that: good. No holds barred.

**

He tries not to think about how Lan Wangji didn’t mention the apartment listings. 

At the end of the night, Lan Wangji told him, “See you tomorrow,” and he held Wei Wuxian’s hand and gave him this tiny smile before he went off to his bedroom, looking—good. Perfect. There are some things in this world that Wei Wuxian can’t control, that he can’t have, and the fact that Lan Wangji is giving him this still, the promise of another tomorrow even if they won’t be living together again—

Settle, Wei Wuxian tells himself. It’ll be okay. 

**

Second on the agenda is Mianmian. 

It takes him two days to muster up every ounce of courage to talk to her. Two days, three bottles of wine, and the weight of Lan Wangji’s steady gaze pinning him to a standstill to call her, but he does it, and he might have four strokes while the phone rings. 

When Mianmian picks up, Wei Wuxian doesn’t wait for her to speak before he’s blurting out, “Okay, so if your friend—not your friend, I mean, my friend, hypothetically—if this friend hated his fucking job, like hated all of them so fucking much it was like pulling out teeth and he didn’t want to do it anymore, but he found this other thing that people said he was really good at and maybe something he could make into a career? Maybe? Would that be a thing? That you could help with?”

A long pause. 

“Is this your attempt at networking?” Mianmian asks finally. “‘Cause if so, you’re doing a terrible job.”

“It’s not me,” Wei Wuxian lies, and it’s thick like tar in his throat. The guilt, too. The exhaustion. He’s just tired of lying, as a whole. Longer silence. He reconsiders. “Okay, yeah, it’s me. Can you help? I’m not asking for a job, maybe some internship, or like a plus one to those beauty conventions you always go to that you mentioned, if that hasn’t passed, something to bless me with the good graces of nepotism, you know—”

“Wei Wuxian,” Mianmian interrupts. Wei Wuxian’s mouth shuts with a sharp clack. “This Saturday, starts at 1 PM, and if you’re late, I’m going to filet you. Bring your own equipment: brushes, palettes, whatever. There’s booths where you can set up. You don’t have a booth, but luckily I do, and luckily you’re going to pay for my dinner for the next year whenever I ask.”

“I am?” Wei Wuxian asks, and then hastily amends, “I am. I am. I mean, you’re super rich and bourgeoisie, but I am.”

“Okay,” Mianmian says. “Dress nice.”

“Holy shit,” he says to Lan Wangji once she hangs up. He blinks to find Lan Wangji giving the kids little bits of lettuce with these solemn eyes, and his heart swells so much he thinks he could actually die from it, but he can’t stop grinning like a lunatic. “Lan Zhan. She said yes.”

“She is a good friend,” says Lan Wangji, and ends the conversation by dumping Mozzarella into his arms as some sort of stress-relief. It works, much to his dismay.

The third on the agenda to Get His Life In Order might be the biggest and most terrifying. Namely: terror taking a human form in Jiang Cheng. 

He waits until Lan Wangji is out of the apartment to do it, because he knows that some things he has to deal with himself, and also he’s not totally looking forward to that sexy glower Lan Wangji pastes on his face whenever he and Jiang Cheng argue with threats of fratricide, as normal brothers do. He picks up his phone, contemplates hurling it down thirteen floors, and then settles on the floor by the hutch. 

“I’m going to die,” Wei Wuxian tells the sleeping bunnies, before he scrapes up the last of his courage and dials Jiang Cheng. 

“What,” says Jiang Cheng, on the fourth ring. 

“Okay, so,” Wei Wuxian starts.

“Oh, god.”

“No, it’s fine, no one’s dying, alright?”

“Is anything on fire?”

“Wh—no?”

“Is anyone maimed?”

“No!”

“Are you in jail?” Jiang Cheng demands, horror creeping into his voice. It’d be touching if the horror wasn’t based on his absolute lack of faith in Wei Wuxian’s ability to keep himself alive and maintain his status as a free man. “I told you before, I’m not going to bail you out—” 

“Literally I have done nothing to deserve this,” Wei Wuxian informs him. He scratches at the hardwood idly for a lack of anything better to do. Since the bunnies are asleep. Cue sigh. “Before you keep going, yes, everyone’s fine, I’m fine, and I am only calling my most dearest brother because I have something important to ask, okay, not related to any sort of crime or physical injury at all, alright?”

“Sounds fake,” says Jiang Cheng, now with deep suspicion. He imagines that Jiang Cheng is pacing the floor of his apartment like an agitated father sending his daughter out on her first date, because Jiang Cheng is just that type of guy. “Okay, what is it, if everything’s supposedly okay?”

Ah.

Well, maybe Wei Wuxian shouldn’t have phrased it like that.

“Before you kill me,” Wei Wuxian begins, to Jiang Cheng’s long groan of Herculean despair, like he’s a fucking actor in a B-rated drama, “I need you to know I put actual thought into this for once. Alright? I had, like, a crisis about it. Lots of thinking.”

“Ugh,” says Jiang Cheng. “Is this about you not wanting to be a doctor?”

Wei Wuxian freezes. The world freezes. The bunnies are already still but they might freeze too.

“‘Cause, like, okay, do what you want, just know you’re going to be broke for the rest of your life,” Jiang Cheng goes on, ignorant to Wei Wuxian’s internal monologue of what the fuck what the fuck what the fuck. “Also Mom might actually disown you, but good for you, A-Jie’s been lobbying this agenda for the past three years.”

“...What.”

“Yeah, I don’t know. She’s calling it ‘A-Xian’s Great Wall of Happiness’ or something, and I’m only supporting it because she has this bulletin board, you know, A-Jie and her bulletin boards—”

“Yeah,” says Wei Wuxian, thinking about their childhood home where A-Jie’s room really was four corkboard walls and a shitton of brightly colored thumbtacks.

“—and it freaks Jin Zixuan out to see your face in any room, so. It’s pretty good. She’s got note cards highlighted and all.”

“No,” Wei Wuxian says, half-delighted and horrified. “She doesn’t.”

“She does. So whatever your new career’s gonna be, you better make it good. She’s been thinking about the financial implications of you being a trophy wife. Trophy husband. Whatever.”

“So everyone knew about my own crisis except me?”

“Obviously,” says Jiang Cheng, the spiteful little beast. “But you’re the one who’s gonna break it to Mom. Since Dad won’t care as long as you’re like, happy and shit.”

This whole conversation has been five minutes of Wei Wuxian consistently being taken-off balance. He hasn’t even had any wine, so it’s not fair that the floor beneath him is spinning. He leans back on the hutch, stunned. “Wait,” he says, trying to piece this together. “So let me get this straight. Bi. Whatever.”

“Lame.”

“Shut up. You’re telling me you’re—” He inhales, exhales. The water is—maybe nowhere to be found. What the hell. “Okay with it? With me not being a doctor?”

“Since when have you cared about other people’s opinions?” Jiang Cheng demands, and Wei Wuxian makes a objecting sound, but then his ruthless brother charges on, “You didn’t care what people thought that time you brought Mianmian over in high school without asking Mom’s permission, and then Dad found you two on your bed watching cat videos and he thought you were fucking and you had to bribe him in, like, being a good student for two weeks to not tell Mom before you gave that up ‘cause you didn’t care. And you didn’t care that other time when you dyed your hair blonde for like a week, literally the worst decision of your fucking life—”

“Hey.”

“No, you’re right, that wasn’t the worst decision of your life, that was the entirety of sophomore year when Lan Wangji left,” Jiang Cheng says, and Wei Wuxian gives up, flops on the floor to stare at the ceiling as his soul leaves his body, since apparently this conversation has now turned into a nice brotherly roasting session. “Anyways. I could go on. Point is you never cared. Why the hell do you care now?”

“Because this stuff matters,” Wei Wuxian protests. “I care about stuff that matters.”

“Uh-huh. Which is why you broke up with Lan Wangji?”

“I—hey.”

“Do what you want,” says Jiang Cheng, with a delicate sniff. “No one can stop you when you really want to do something, anyway.”

That’s… oddly touching. “A- Cheng,” Wei Wuxian says, moved. 

“No,” Jiang Cheng tells him, and then hangs up without so much as another word.

Well.

That went much better than he thought.

A few hours later, Wei Wuxian is halfway to sleep in Lan Wangji's lap when he has a thought, snapping him out of the dazed daydreaming of domesticity. "Oh my god," he says.

Lan Wangji stops stroking Wei Wuxian's hair. "What is it?"

"Jiang Cheng's a snake."

An expectant pause.

"No, wait," Wei Wuxian says, and then he scrambles for his phone.

me

WAIT

IF U KNEW I DIDNT WANT TO BE A DOCTOR WHY DID U KEEP ASKING ABT MED SCHOOL

Jiang Cheng’s reply comes instantly, like he’s been waiting for this. 

cain

do you really want to know

me

???

YES??

cain

mostly i wanted to see how much you were into like

self-flagellation

it was a lot more than i thought

a-jie’s considering finding you a therapist

and so is wen qing 

and mianmian

and wen ning for that matter

me 

is this

r u vagueing me on twitter again

cain

no

me

u r such a liar

cain

fuck off

make sure to tell mom 

and send me screenshots of her reactions

me

be quiet

cain

no

me

u suck

cain

u suck more

“See,” Wei Wuxian says, shoving his phone into Lan Wangji’s startled face. “See! He’s a snake!”

Lan Wangji takes a moment to read over the texts before he gives a small nod. “Snake,” he agrees, and then gives a little smile when Wei Wuxian starts shaking with laughter. 

**

So Saturday with Mianmian comes. Saturday goes. He doesn’t remember much of it. It’s a blur of dazzling clothes and model figures and a fine tremor in his hand after hours of doing makeup continuously, but he’s ambidextrous, he makes it work, and at the end of it, there’s a business card, there’s an offer from a fashion magazine even though he has no relevant resume or experience, and it’s all goddamn nepotism. 

But Mianmian says, “Well, it was partial skill, too,” and he goes home and he drops his makeup kit on the floor and meets Lan Wangji’s worried eyes and says, “I think I have a gig at some small fashion magazine? Something next Friday at a shoot to test out my skills in person? I don’t know? It’s been a little hectic. Hold me, Lan Zhan, I’m very confused right now.”

“Mn,” Lan Wangji agrees, and holds out his arms. 

When Wei Wuxian steps into Lan Wangji’s embrace, something in him eases, slots into place like magnets clicking together. 

**

The first time, when was it? The library, of course. The first kiss happened at the library. The confession happened at the library. 

Everything made sense in the library because Wei Wuxian was reading the sentences that led to the natural conclusion. Every sentence ending in a period, or an em dash, an obvious truth: he was in love with Lan Wangji.

But no, that wasn't the first time. So when was it? First semester of sophomore year, maybe. Three whole months of Lan Wangji only through Facetime and long-distance texts, a three-hour time difference with Lan Wangji trapped in California, and it worked, it was fine, but there wasn't quite anything in the world that matched up to the sensation of Lan Wangji's warm and sturdy body pressed up against his, feeling Lan Wangji's heartbeat pulse against his own when they hugged. 

And Wei Wuxian had that for three weeks, and Lan Wangji went to Japan for another three months, and he returned in December somehow even prettier and more handsome than Wei Wuxian remembered, like this entire time Wei Wuxian only recalled the sketched lines of him rather than the finished painting. 

So that was sophomore year, first semester. Looking at Lan Wangji, and Lan Wangji, always, looking back.

Except it wasn't quite then, was it? 

Go back. Rewind the tape. 

A Facetime call, maybe, sometime in July. New York heat sticking his shirt to his skin, his spine. When he got up he had to peel his thighs from the chair. It was that kind of godawful summer. 

Mid-afternoon Lan Wangji was the one to call him for once, and Wei Wuxian didn't think about concealing his ruddy heat-cheeks or wiping the sweat rolling down his temple, and then he caught himself in the camera once he accepted the call and groaned, whining, "My god, Lan Zhan, why would you let me see you if I was looking this bad? I look like I had a heat stroke and died. I'm a corpse. You're calling a corpse, Lan Zhan.” 

With the world’s tiniest and most precious smile Lan Wangji said, "To me, you are Wei Ying," and that was—

But that wasn't right, either. 

Further. 

Further. 

Last day of final exams. Four hours of grueling Molecular Biology in a lecture hall that always smelled like a musty basement, carbon molecules bouncing all around his head. He couldn't wait to get the fuck out of there. 

Wei Wuxian was dragging his three suitcases behind him because the sum of everything he owned fit inside exactly three suitcases; moral failings of materialism, and all that. 

Basic truths. If you don't have food you starve. If you savor it you starve. If you keep something, eventually you will lose it, or it'll be stolen, or you'll destroy it yourself. Expect impermanency, always. Fun lessons from being an orphan for thirteen years. In this way dorm life suited him extremely well. It was in and out within eight months, going back for three, doing it all over again the next year. 

“I will help you with your luggage,” said Lan Wangji, when Wei Wuxian audibly struggled to get the luggage through the hall. Wei Wuxian opened his mouth to wheeze out a protest, but Lan Wangji insisted, “I will help you with your luggage, Wei Ying.” 

Who was Wei Wuxian to refuse? Stubborn asshole. 

Of course it wasn’t then, though. Who falls in love with stubborn people? Not Wei Wuxian. Wei Wuxian had taste. He was sneaking pure Tito’s into the dorm hall under his jacket on the third day of Welcome Week in freshman year, winking at every other student who had their doors cracked and knew exactly what he was doing, and Lan Wangji was the only one to stop him in the middle of the hall, narrow his eyes, and demand, “What are you doing?” 

“I’m cradling my baby, of course,” said Wei Wuxian, gesturing to the alcohol hidden in his hoodie. He winked, delighted in the red of Lan Wangji’s ears that could’ve been from fury or inescapable attraction. Jury was still out. “What about you? I heard about you, you know. Three days and you’re already famous for being that person who goes to sleep at 9 PM. Or was that just a rumor, Lan Zhan?”

“Alcohol is forbidden in the residential halls,” Lan Wangji said. 

Wei Wuxian already loved the way he said that: alcohol is forbidden. It was all sexy, in that hot professor sort of way. Lan Wangji would make an excellent hot professor one day, with his silk button-ups and blouses and shiny Oxfords, the aura of pristine professionalism. They were freshmen; who the fuck was he trying to impress? 

“Don’t be like that,” Wei Wuxian said. “I’ll give you some if you forget about all this, free of charge. How about it?”

And Lan Wangji, obviously, said no. Lan Wangji told him to piss off. Lan Wangji was looking at him, and that was the first time—but was it really? 

Does it matter? How do you know when you begin to thaw? How can you feel the first cracks of ice breaking away from your skin, exposing you to sunlight, real and true? How can you tell?

Dumb fucking question. You don’t. It’s freefall. Sometimes you never know until you hit bottom. Wei Wuxian, he’s always been pretty good about falling. Four years now, and not once has he stopped. Look at that, Lan Zhan. 

Would you look at that.

**

Truthfully, Wei Wuxian forgets that he’s in love with Lan Wangji. It’s not like he’s cheating on Lan Wangji by making out with random strangers on the street or anything, just that Wei Wuxian kind of. Forgets to tell him. The thing is, he’s been in love with Lan Wangji for so goddamn long that it’s really just a perpetual reality for him. Like, oh, I’m hungry. Oh, I need to pay rent. Oh, I’m in love with Lan Wangji. 

It’s not really a surprise. It doesn’t even take his breath away anymore when he looks at Lan Wangji. Instead this love has settled like the warmth of a campfire into his bones, something so slow and gradual until he can’t tell when he stopped feeling cold in the first place. So he doesn’t remember to tell Lan Wangji. Big surprise. 

“Lan Zhan,” Wei Wuxian croons one day, draping himself all over Lan Wangji’s shoulders like a boneless cat in the kitchen, “how would you like to do your favorite person in the world a favor?”

Wei Wuxian knows he’s probably stretching it, but to his surprise, Lan Wangji doesn’t refute the fact that Wei Wuxian has appointed himself as Lan Wangji’s favorite person. 

Instead, he hums but doesn’t otherwise look up from his book set on the island, all full of abstract Chinese poetry that Wei Wuxian doesn’t pretend to understand. “What is it?” Lan Wangji says.

Wei Wuxian beams. “Well, you know how I got another gig as a makeup artist?”

“Mm.”

“W-e-e-e-e-e-ll,” Wei Wuxian says, “they said they’re short on a model for the magazine. Initially they were going to throw me out to the wolves, but you know I have stage fright”—At this, Lan Wangji shoots him a dubious glance that Wei Wuxian valiantly ignores—”so I declined, much to their collective despair. But I didn’t want to crush their dreams of bringing in a hot guy, so I said I knew this very handsome man who doesn’t walk like he has a broken leg and in fact has the most perfect posture I’ve ever seen and also happens to be the hottest person I’ve ever seen, and they demanded to see, so of course I showed them a picture—”

“Wei Ying,” says Lan Wangji, likely reading Wei Wuxian’s plans to talk circles around the subject until Lan Wangji is too confused to disagree because he’s an academic like that. He waits until Wei Wuxian has been sufficiently stared into submission, and then says, “What is the favor?”

“Be a model for one day,” Wei Wuxian blurts. Lan Wangji opens his mouth, probably to decline, but he continues in a rush, “I’m very desperate and I know this is a lot to ask, but it won’t even take that long, maybe like three hours tops, and it’ll just be some headshots, maybe some half-body shots or whatever they call them. Torso shots? Torso and head shots? I don’t know. I won’t even let any stylists manhandle you into wearing something you don’t want to wear, although what you already have is probably good enough, and it’ll be so quick and painle—”

“Wei Ying,” interrupts Lan Wangji again, and wow, he’s really fucking this up, isn’t he, “breathe.”

Wei Wuxian sucks in a breath not unlike a wheezing fish. 

“Good,” says Lan Wangji, because he has low standards. He waits until Wei Wuxian’s breathing has settled before he says, “There is no need to panic. I will do it.”

Well, that answer undoes all of his breathing work, because Wei Wuxian stops taking in air entirely. “Wait,” he squeaks, “really?”

A somber nod. “Really.”

“You are my favorite person,” Wei Wuxian declares, and darts in to kiss him on the cheek because he really can’t help it. “Okay, I’m gonna go call the managers then. No take backs!”

“No,” says Lan Wangji, faint. 

So then the day of the shoot comes, and honestly it goes just fine. It’s indoors at a small photography studio setup with couches and ornate armchairs designed to make people sexy, which means Wei Wuxian doesn’t have to worry about suffering early death via heat stroke. 

He flutters around like an agitated Tinkerbell, sneaking in to reject any of the atrocious clothes hanging on the rack, fiddling with Lan Wangji’s perfect hair, brushing the slightest bit of blush over his cheeks, highlight on the tip of his nose. 

The only hiccup comes when Wei Wuxian turns around with lipstick smeared on his finger and finds Lan Wangji staring at him, eyes wide. All the words die in his throat. 

Instead, what comes out is a strangled, “Um. Your. I. Lipstick?”

Lan Wangji does not point out his lack of professionalism. Lan Wangji blinks and parts his lips obediently. And Wei Wuxian has to be very calm and dab lipstick all over Lan Wangji’s pretty, soft mouth that he hasn’t touched in months now and pretend that he’s not more turned on than he’s ever been in his entire fucking life, and everything is fucking fine. 

“Okay,” says Wei Wuxian, hoarse, when he pulls back. “Just, um. Smack your lips once?” He demonstrates. Lan Wangji does so, with a small pop of his lips. Wei Wuxian’s mouth goes dry. “Um,” he chokes out. “Okay, you’re good.”

It’s all smooth cruising from there. Of course everything Lan Wangji wears is absolutely drool-worthy, and Wei Wuxian has to gulp down several bracing cups of pretentious sparkling water that seems to be a staple everywhere in New York as he watches Lan Wangji’s shoulders stretch obscenely in his silk shirt, and. His collarbones are showing. Okay. Cool. Not to mention how his ass is perfect in those dark slacks. Wei Wuxian could worship that ass. He’s pretty sure that it would be a cult following. 

Wei Wuxian makes it a personal objective to feel him up between shoots. “I’m just fixing your buttons, you know,” he says, shamelessly letting his hands skirt across Lan Wangji’s chest, where there are no buttons. “I have to do my job correctly. You understand, Lan Zhan.”

“Wei Ying,” says Lan Wangji, but there’s a little curve to his lips like he finds even this helplessly adorable. As he should! 

Wei Wuxian hums. “What?”

“You guys are so cute,” says one of the editors with a dreamy sigh. Wei Wuxian’s not entirely sure what her name is. It’s either Lina or Dina or Rina, but he’s also heard someone call her Gina once. Either way, she’s cooing over them in a way only thirty-year-old white ladies can, and smiling at them. “I wish I had a boyfriend like yours, Wuxian.”

Two simultaneous things happen after Lina-Dina-Rina-Gina says this—

One: Startling, Lan Wangji says, “Actually, we are—”

Two: Wei Wuxian has a realization. This is not a particularly new realization, similar to the oh shit I’m still in love with Lan Wangji and I don’t think I ever stopped epiphany. It’s quite old, like reading an old favorite book to find all the pages dogeared in the same places, or the words of your favorite line finishing themselves without having to read the entire sentence. It’s something ingrained in him. 

A rediscovery more than a realization, really, that throughout these six months, they’ve been broken up. Wei Wuxian has kissed different people, danced with different people, went on a million half-assed dates with different people, and the entire time he was thinking of how it would be so much better if it was with Lan Wangji instead. They were broken up. 

But they still went on trashy not-dates together in weird ethnic restaurants in their pajamas, shared beds together on several occasions, lived together, laughed together, did fucking everything together besides the fucking, knowing the entire time that he still loved Lan Wangji and that Lan Wangji, undoubtedly, still loved him back. And that. 

That was just dating, isn’t it? Dating without a name. Dating under the pretense of a break-up. Wei Wuxian wouldn’t trade these past months for anything, because it’s allowed him to move past the issues that they had previously, and maybe Wei Wuxian would’ve gotten over them regardless of the breakup, but it doesn’t change the fact that they were still together, in every sense of the word. Every “hey” from a friend followed by a “where’s Lan Wangji?” as if it was a given that wherever he was, Lan Wangji would be there too. And he was. Every time. 

So when Lan Wangji speaks, Wei Wuxian leaps to cover his mouth and says, “Yeah, sure are. We’re definitely dating, super in love, just one moment please,” before he drags Lan Wangji to the corner of the studio and turns to him, frantic. “Lan Zhan, can I have a word with you? Later? At home? Because you still have a shoot but also this is important and I’m kind of still in love with you and we never talked about the apartment listings but I want to live with you possibly forever and I don’t think I ever told you that but I’m realizing I never told you a lot of things that are actually super important?” He sucks in a desperate breath before he lets his gaze roam all over Lan Wangji’s shocked face, desperate. “Is that cool with you? If we talk?”

Lan Wangji is staring at him. “You told her,” he says, hoarse, “that we are dating.”

“Well.” Wei Wuxian lets out a nervous laugh. “We kind of are, aren’t we? You should’ve told me how stupid I was being, making out with other people when you were right there. Even Jiang Cheng gave me shit over it.”

“Wei Ying,” Lan Wangji says. His throat bobs as he swallows, and Wei Wuxian kind of wants to bite at the skin over it, and that’s not really a new thing either, and wow, Wei Wuxian should’ve really fucking thought harder about this a few months ago. “Why did you—”

“AHHH,” says Wei Wuxian. “Later! I said later! I promised you later, and this time we’re going to talk, we’re going to talk so hard that you’ll get hives and we won’t forget, I promise, I pinkie swear”—He loops his pinkie around Lan Wangji’s, to demonstrate—”and we’ll. We’ll be on the same page again, okay? Hopefully. Maybe. I haven’t asked you if you’re okay with this.”

He freezes then, because god, he hasn’t. Lan Wangji is still staring at him, speechless, and maybe that’s not the good sort of speechless like he initially thought, but a bad sort of speechless, the kind you get when you drink anchovy extract mistaking it for coke. 

“Are,” Wei Wuxian says, maybe squeaking out the word, “are you okay with it? That I—that I told her that we were dating?”

At this, Lan Wangji’s face melts back into his usual brand of half-exasperation, half-fondness that he always seems to have when he’s around Wei Wuxian. “Do you think I wouldn’t be okay with it?”

“You know, I’d really appreciate it if you would answer one of my questions for once instead of asking me a question back.”

Lan Wangji heaves a sigh. Well, not really, it’s more a harsher exhale than normal, and then he’s pressing his forehead against Wei Wuxian’s. “Yes,” he says, and Wei Wuxian’s breath halts in his throat. “I am okay with it.”

“Just okay?” Wei Wuxian whispers. He’s an unbearable attention whore, what about it.

A huff of amusement against his lips, almost like a kiss. “Better than okay,” says Lan Wangji. He pulls back before Wei Wuxian can ask what the fuck that means, and then reaches out to touch Wei Wuxian’s cheek, like he’s unable to help himself. Wei Wuxian leans into it. “Later, we will talk about this.”

“Later,” Wei Wuxian promises.

**

Later comes both slower and faster than he expects. It seems like the shoot drags on for hours—not that Wei Wuxian particularly minds, because that just means all the more time for Wei Wuxian to openly salivate over Lan Wangji’s rolled-up sleeves and exchange heated glances with him during makeup retouches. 

On one notable occasion, Wei Wuxian says, “Close your eyes, I wanna apply a little more eyeshadow for this outfit change,” and Lan Wangji says, “Is that all?” and Wei Wuxian has to sink down to the floor and breathe into his knees for a little while, with Lan Wangji patiently stroking his head the entire time, like he isn’t the cause of Wei Wuxian’s sudden stroke. 

“I know I said later,” Wei Wuxian wheezes, “but you are making it incredibly fucking hard to not make it a now.”

“Hmm,” says Lan Wangji, sounding completely unrepentant. 

Lan Wangji then goes on to nail every shot, adding impeccable modeling to his long list of impressive skills, and that’s just fucking excellent. It’s almost weird how much Wei Wuxian doesn’t care anymore. 

Half a year ago he wasn’t jealous exactly, but seeing Lan Wangji excel at most everything he does effortlessly did make him feel something that wasn’t pride, like ugly insecurity—or, on the odd occasion, jealousy. Now it’s just… warm. Happy. He sits back against the wall, unable to keep from smiling every time Lan Wangji meets his eyes, far from the gaze of the camera. 

Wei Wuxian extracts several possibly illegal promises from the photographer’s assistant to send the pictures to him for my personal purposes, don’t look so alarmed, he’s my boyfriend, isn’t he amazing, and there’s no denying the thrill of delight that dances down his spine when he realizes he gets to say that again. 

When they arrive back at their apartment, they’re holding hands again like it’s their first time dating all over again, but this time it’s undoubtedly different. The first time his hands were all stiff with cold, too fascinated with tracing out the unfamiliar lines in Lan Wangji’s palm, testing out the grip of his fingers entwined between his own. 

Now, though. Now Wei Wuxian knows this hand drunk and blind and half-asleep. He leads them to the couch, sits them down, and thinks about what to say for several minutes as he toys with the fingers on Lan Wangji’s hand. And this, too, is familiar. This apartment, this hand, this warmth, and everything about Lan Wangji—nothing about it has changed within the past half year under his nose. 

Well, maybe that’s not true.

“So,” Wei Wuxian starts, “we should talk.”

A short nod.

“I’d suggest making out and ignoring all our problems, but that didn’t really work the first time and I doubt it’s going to work again. So we are. Going to talk. And it’ll be good. And we will make out after. Yes?” 

Another nod.

“Excellent,” says Wei Wuxian, and kisses the back of Lan Wangji’s hand before he can stop himself, smiling. “Good boy, good boy. Okay. We’re. Well. First thing on the list. Um.” 

While Wei Wuxian racks his brain for the mountain of things that they should discuss, first and foremost the nebulous living situation come July, Lan Wangji stays quiet. There’s a moment where he purses his lips, body going stiff in a non-sexy way, like he’s trying to force himself to say something that he doesn’t want to say. It’s a rare expression. 

Wei Wuxian squints at him. “What is it?” he asks. “I know that face, Lan Zhan, it’s better to rip the band-aid off now.”

More silence. 

“About the dates that I went on,” Lan Wangji finally begins, “I’m sorry.”

“Sorry for… what? I told you to go on them.”

“No,” says Lan Wangji. Pause. “I didn’t go on them at all.”

Wei Wuxian blinks. He tries to process that. And then tries again, because the words still don’t make sense. On the third attempt he gets it, and he reels back so hard he feels something in his neck pop. “Wait, what?”

“I’m sorry I misled you—”

“No, I don’t care about that, but—what?” Wei Wuxian stares at him, trying to read his face for answers, but there’s only extreme discomfort. “What do you mean, you didn’t go? Where’d you go for like, the three hours? You seemed so happy when you came back!”

At this, Lan Wangji averts his eyes and lets his hand slip from Wei Wuxian’s waist to dig into the armrest of the couch. “I,” he says, with this tiny, small voice, “went to my brother’s house. We would talk.”

“Your brother’s house.”

“Yes.”

“You went to your brother’s house dressed up like you were going on a date and you would talk.”

“...Yes. Sometimes I would go to Wen Qing's as well, if my brother was busy.”

“I." Wen Qing? The Wen Qing with the knitting needles, and the stabby needles, and the stiletto heels that might just be knives in disguise? That fucking Wen Qing? "And you would. Talk about. What?”

If possible, Lan Wangji averts his eyes harder. Oh, god. That’s so cute. “Wei Ying,” Lan Wangji says, pained. 

Wei Wuxian waits for a follow-up, but then he realizes that’s it, that Lan Wangji went to his non-dates to his brother’s house—and Wen! Qing's! House!—to talk about him. It’s so stupid and cute that Wei Wuxian might feel himself tear up a little. 

“Lan Zhan,” he says, voice creaking like an old chair, “ah, sweetheart, look at you, my heart’s gonna burst.” Another realization dawns on him. “Wait, is this what Nie Huaisang was—you know? The snake behavior? Was he talking to you about your non-dates that one time we all grabbed dinner together?”

“Mm.”

“Oh my god.” At this point Lan Wangji is looking so mortified it’s actually a little pitiful to look at him, so Wei Wuxian decides to be merciful and sigh. “Well, if we’re confessing embarrassing things here. You should know. That I, um. Chad—you remember Chad—I told you I dumped him because he said I talked too much. But that was a lie.”

“What?”

He can’t bring himself to look at Lan Wangji’s face anymore. “I was okay with that,” Wei Wuxian confesses, “you know, with him thinking I was annoying, ‘cause yeah, okay, real. And I brought him to our apartment when you weren’t there, and. He saw the picture on the fridge. He told me to take them down if I was going to date someone else. I told him I wouldn’t, and then he broke up with me.” God, this is so fucking embarrassing. “And there was—there was. Shit. I don’t know. Some guy. He looked like you from the back and we went to get coffee, and he was so boring, he just liked hearing himself speak."

"You're not serious," Lan Wangji says, disbelieving, but Wei Wuxian shakes his head.

“I am," he says, "one-hundred percent. Like after them, there was, um, Ellie.” He scrubs a hand over his face. “She was—she had eyes like yours, all brown and pretty, but it wasn’t—it wasn’t you. And every time I hung out with her, I just kept thinking how it wasn’t you, and then she said we should just be friends when I was so obviously hung up over someone else, but I didn’t even tell her. She just—” Wei Wuxian inhales. “She just knew.”

“Wei Ying,” Lan Wangji says again, sounding winded.

“And I dated Chanmi because she had bunnies and she made me laugh, and I never really did ever since I—I broke up with you.” Now he’s laughing to himself, because it’s ridiculous. It’s absolutely fucking ridiculous that he’s known all of this for months now, and he’s done nothing about it. Because the truth was there: Jiang Cheng saw it painted all over his face, and so did probably every single one of their friends—not to mention Wei Wuxian himself. Every time he looked in the goddamn mirror.

Three days ago he found himself in the mirror and barely recognized himself. The person staring back at him had flushed cheeks, the leftovers of a smile fast-evaporating on his face, and the same earrings that Lan Wangji had gifted him two years ago for his birthday. It was like every part of his body was telling him, You haven’t forgotten him. You won’t. You’ll be in love with him every day for the rest of your life, and the best you’ll ever get is getting used to it. Maybe you’ll want to love him a little less when it gets too much, but it won’t; you’re used to that. You don’t know how to not love him.

“Wei Ying.” His name wraps around Lan Zhan’s tongue like a first kiss, like a hand stroking through his hair on the cold nights. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because I.” Wei Wuxian laughs again to himself. It’s all so stupid now, in hindsight. “Because I thought you deserved better than me.”

“You were scared,” Lan Wangji says, quietly.

“I was scared,” Wei Wuxian agrees. “And I’m not anymore. Well, I am. But I’m tired of being scared. I just want to be with you.”

When Lan Wangji doesn’t speak again, Wei Wuxian braces himself before raising his head. Lan Wangji is already gazing at him. Eyes a little wild, mouth parted. Wei Wuxian wants to kiss that mouth like he wants the rest of Lan Wangji.

“Lan Zhan,” Wei Wuxian says. “If you want me too.”

But Lan Wangji’s shaking his head, and Wei Wuxian’s heart is sinking right into the floor, and he says, “Oh,” but then Lan Wangji is saying, “Not an if.” He stares at Wei Wuxian and leans forward, as if to emphasize his statement. Wei Wuxian’s breath stops in his throat.

“Not an if,” he says again, softer. “With you, never an if.”

“Oh,” Wei Wuxian says, choked. “Okay. Cool. Do you want to live together again next year? ‘Cause I know you were looking at the apartment listings, but I really want to live with you again. And date officially. And maybe make out now?”

The lines of Lan Wangji’s mouth curve in his rare smiles. “Yes,” he says. His hand is coming up to cradle Wei Wuxian’s cheek in his palm, and Wei Wuxian leans into the touch, sighs and sinks into it. It’s like coming home, this touch. “The apartment listings were never for me, but my brother. I want to live with you. Want to date you. Want to kiss you. Wei Ying.”

“Yes,” Wei Wuxian repeats, feeling wrecked already. “Whatever you want. Yes, do it, I’m right here.”

“Mark your words,” Lan Wangji murmurs.

Lan Wangji kisses him like it’s their first and last and every kiss in between. Six months has not been enough time to change the way Lan Wangji kisses. It’s all single-minded focus and unrelenting concentration, the way he approaches everything in life. Lan Wangji’s mouth is warm and honey-sweet under his, so fucking addicting that he laughs, delighting in the huff of amusement he gets in return.

A strong arm wraps around his waist to pull him flush against Lan Wangji. Every point of contact between them burns, like sparks of desire lighting up and down his body, like the festival street lights in winter, bright oranges and warm golds, little sunsets bursting within him. It radiates from Lan Wangji’s wide palm splayed across the small of Wei Wuxian’s back, the devouring press of Lan Wangji’s mouth against his, the slender fingers that work into his hair to pull his hair loose. And it’s the right hand this time. The ones he has memorized down to the faint lines in his palm. The one that’s loved him and held him and let him go.

At that last thought Wei Wuxian loops his arms around Lan Wangji’s neck. He needs to touch Lan Wangji again. Let him know this, that he’s not going away; not again. I’m yours, he says with a nip of Lan Wangji’s bottom lip, a pleased hum into his mouth. Lan Wangji groans. The kisses turn harder, more desperate. I’m staying, he thinks. I’m yours, I’m yours.

“Whatever you want,” Wei Wuxian says, when they finally break apart, breathless. He presses their foreheads together and smiles, so fucking happy he could burst with it. Like the only thing that’s keeping him whole is the weight of Lan Wangji’s hands around his hips. “Okay? Anything you want, it’s yours.”

“And if I want you,” says Lan Wangji. His mouth is red, and so are his cheeks. He looks like everything Wei Wuxian has ever wanted.

“Yes,” says Wei Wuxian. “Of course. I said anything, didn’t I? Every time I said see you tomorrow, I was saying I love you, you know. The entire time. Even if I tried not to think about it."

Lan Wangji kisses him, deep and good and breathless, and then he presses his forehead against Wei Wuxian's and he says, "Me too."

**

All things considered, the announcement to the rest of their friends goes well. He messages the group chat and asks everyone to meet up for drinks at nine in the Nightless City. 

Predictably, the group chat blows up.

cain

are you actually dying this time what is up with you and the nightless city

gretchen wieners

Are u paying??? Please pay i have no money

Wen Qing

I’m busy.

serotoning

Is everything alright??

You don’t have to invite us over for drinks to let us know if anything is wrong!!

me

everythings fine lol 

@ wq i invoke the jin guangshan so u need to come

cain

no fucking WAY you can

i call bs 

Wen Qing

You know what invoking that means.

me

ofc i do im the one who made the rule in the first place

who do u think i am

cain

you’re going to get arrested because you’re too stupid to admit you’re broke

i won’t fucking bail you out then

gretchen wieners

Omg 

Omg omgomg ogmogm

Wen Qing

So you’re paying for everyone? The entire night? All the drinks? Unlimited?

me

it hurts my wallet to say it but

gretchen wieners

Omg 

me

yes

unlimited

all the rich bourbon u assholes want

i just got paid for my latest makeup gig and im absolutely planning on being irresponsible w my first taste of joyful money

god

Wen Qing

I’m going to drink the entirety of your future kid’s college tuition, then. I hope you’re fucking ready.

serotoning

Oh no

cain

i’m going to leave you to rot and no one will bail you out in jail

gretchen wieners

This is so exciting 

me

wld it kill u all to be a little less threatening

To Mianmian who’s out of the country on some influencer business, and to A-Jie, who’s saddled with the mixed bag of blessings and curses that is motherhood, he lets them know the new relationship status individually. Neither of them respond, but that’s okay. They’ll see it in the morning, and Wei Wuxian will be too hungover to pick up, and the duty will fall to Lan Wangji, who will answer the phone in his sexy morning voice to confirm the news. 

Lan Wangji frowns at this last piece of his plan when he relays it while they’re lazing around on the couch, bunnies bumping into their ankles every so often. Or Wei Wuxian is lazing on their quicksand couch. Lan Wangji, he’s got the whole straight-back routine going on while he strokes at Wei Wuxian’s hair, the other hand resting on Wei Wuxian’s hip.

“I do not have a morning voice,” Lan Wangji says.

“You do,” Wei Wuxian reassures him. “It’s very sexy. Very hot. If a voice could fuck me into tears and utter incoherency, it would be your morning voice.”

“Hm,” says Lan Wangji, with great feeling. It’s emphasized further by the instinctive twitch of his fingers on Wei Wuxian’s hip, like he’s exerted extreme effort into not feeling up Wei Wuxian at this very moment.

Wei Wuxian thinks it’s a wasted effort, if anything. They’re at home. Who will care? 

Wei Wuxian slides Lan Wangji’s hand up his shirt. “Go wild,” he says, patting Lan Wangji’s cheek affectionately, and lets himself be ravished in delight as Lan Wangji does exactly that for the next few hours. 

As it turns out, for all that Wei Wuxian has shrouded the reason for this spontaneous gathering in mystery, the actual reveal itself is anticlimactic. They arrive ten minutes late to the bar because Lan Wangji is insatiable and doesn’t understand the definition of a quickie, so it’s with a proudly mottled neck full of hickies and Lan Wangji’s hand entwined in his own that Wei Wuxian enters the bar. 

Nie Huaisang is the first one to spot them with his hawk eyes. “I KNEW IT,” he screeches. It manages to be loud enough to carry across the bar, not that anyone cares in the general debauchery that is the Nightless City, but it’s enough to get everyone else’s attention swinging across to them as Nie Huaisang breaks into a shiteating grin. “I knew it! And you said you were over him!”

“I never said I was over him,” Wei Wuxian protests, because it’s true. He only implied it strongly. “Anyways, tada!” He waves with the hand holding Lan Wangji’s, and they do a little shared hand shimmy at the table. “This is my news. So drinks!”

“Six months,” Jiang Cheng moans. His face is smashed against the table. It’s worrying, since all the tables at the Nightless City are always sticky for whatever godforsaken reason, but then again, Jiang Cheng once swallowed a whole pack of Sharpies and survived, so. “And for what? For nothing. I suffered for nothing.”

“You were excellent emotional support, A-Cheng!”

“Shut up,” Jiang Cheng groans. “I don’t want to talk to you. Do me a favor and flush your entire existence in the toilet.”

“I’d rather make out with Lan Zhan, thanks.”

There’s a muffled shriek of rage, but Wei Wuxian’s too busy pressing a kiss to Lan Wangji’s reddened ear to care. When he turns back, everyone sans Jiang Cheng is staring at them with various expressions ranging from disgust to a sort of petrified wonder. 

“Wow,” Wen Qing says flatly. “Somehow it’s worse than before. Lan Wangji, you're sure you want this?”

"Hey."

“I didn’t think you guys could be worse than before, but yeah. Yeah,” says Nie Huaisang.

“I think it’s sweet,” says Wen Ning, because he’s an angel and can do no wrong. Then he turns his wide-eyed gaze on the both of them, leaning forward earnestly in a way that only Wen Ning can. "I appreciate you two. You guys are my dearest friends.”

Wei Wuxian coos, but for some reason, Lan Wangji tenses. 

“Thank you,” he says cautiously.

“Please don’t give me a reason to make me not appreciate you. It would make me so sad.”

Wei Wuxian squints. He squints harder when Lan Wangji’s grip on his hand tightens enough for all the blood to drain out his fingers. 

“Um,” he says. “Lan Zhan? You okay?”

“I think he is giving us a shovel talk,” says Lan Wangji. 

“What?” Wei Wuxian scoffs. “No. Wen Ning is an angel. No. Also you can't give a shovel talk to two people in the same relationship, you have to choose.”

“But one time I got in a bar fight to defend your honor?” A pause, and then, "I don't want to choose. I think it'd be nice if you two stayed together forever, and then we never had to talk about this again."

"A bar fight," Wei Wuxian says, still stuck on this. Wen Ning. A bar fight. It's like trying to do intense quantum physics in his head.

“Oh, yeah,” says Nie Huaisang, because they are awful and none of them love him enough to defend him from the harsh truths of this world. “But that was with Su She. Dude had it coming. Broken nose and all.”

“That was you?” Lan Wangji says. Now he sounds a little impressed, and Wei Wuxian isn’t having it. He waves at the bartender for a round of drinks. 

“I know you wanted to do it, but.” Wen Ning shrugs. Somehow it still comes out meek. Like a baby mouse. “I was closer.”

“I see,” says Lan Wangji.

“Alright,” Wei Wuxian declares not at all hysterically. “How about a game?”

They argue about the game of choice for a number of minutes, which diverts the topic successfully. Wen Qing wants King’s Cup because she’s a monster who enjoys the Six is for Dicks card way too much as the only girl with no obligation to drink. Jiang Cheng just demands to get sloshed. Nie Huaisang, ever the schemer, suggests Never Have I Ever.

“I know you’re up to something,” says Wei Wuxian, watching with narrowed eyes as Nie Huaisang distributes the drinks, “but I don’t know what.”

“Who, me?”

At first the game begins normally. Lan Wangji abstains from the alcohol portion because he’s a one-shot wonder, but he does pour himself a shot of apple cider vinegar in a show of solidarity.

Nie Huaisang’s up first and sweeps everyone with, “Never have I ever bottomed,” which must be a lie, but there’s this twinkle in his eye that says he really has never bottomed, and Wei Wuxian has to make drastic adjustments in his world view, no big deal. 

Wen Ning makes an admirable effort with his, “Never have I ever been the oldest in my friend group.” 

Wen Qing’s retaliation: “Never have I ever been Wen Ning.” 

It’s good to see that tyranny is well and alive in all sibling relationships. 

Jiang Cheng tries, “Never have I ever enjoyed these games.” Nie Huaisang makes him take the shot once he shows evidence of a smiling Jiang Cheng during a drunk Uno game. 

Wei Wuxian is benign. He shrugs. “Never have I ever eaten a bee.”

“Fuck you, Wei Wuxian, that was one time!”

“And it was glorious, A-Cheng. Best moment of my life.”

Lan Wangji knocks everyone out of the park with, “Never have I ever eaten meat,” which is just colossally unfair. After everyone’s gotten significantly sloshed, minus Lan Wangji who has done barely anything because he has the spirit of an old cat and has yet to lower more than a finger, the real game begins. 

Namely: the targeting.

“Never have I ever,” begins Jiang Cheng in that venomous voice that only spiteful younger brothers possess, “broken up with someone who I was convinced was the love of my life, moped about it for half a year, continued to live with him and pined over him while dating subpar people who only reminded me of him because, oh yeah, I wasn’t over a man who dresses like Captain America on a good day, while bemoaning this weird relationship to everyone I know while still not giving the full details to anyone at all and making it a goddamn trainwreck to watch, and also the person I pined over in question is Lan Wangji, who's like, objectively a better person than me. The hypothetical me, I mean. Never have I ever done that.”

Silence ensues. Nie Huaisang lets out a cough that may be a thinly veiled cackle.

“If you want to say something to me,” Wei Wuxian starts.

“Oh, I have a few things.” 

“Delightful,” Nie Huaisang says, snapping his fan shut. “Wei Wuxian, I believe it’s your turn!”

“Well,” says Wei Wuxian, shooting Jiang Cheng a spiteful glare that Jiang Cheng returns. “Let’s see. Never have I ever vagued anyone on Twitter.”

Wei Wuxian watches in vicious satisfaction as the shots go all around. Jiang Cheng takes his first with a grimace that is in no way from the vodka, and so does Wen Qing and Nie Huaisang. 

“You have vagued someone, though,” says Nie Huaisang, when they’re all done. “Remember sophomore year? Take the shot for those three months you pined over Lan Wangji so hard.”

“Can everyone just stop mentioning sophomore year? Can we just not do that anymore? Forever?” Wei Wuxian downs his shot before sighing, leaning into Lan Wangji. “Okay, Lan Zhan. Your turn.”

When Lan Wangji doesn’t move or otherwise react, Wei Wuxian blinks up at him, sitting back upright. He pokes at Lan Wangji’s muscled arm. No reaction. He’s just staring at a full shot of vodka in front of him with a mix of severe concentration and deep despair. 

“Uh,” Wei Wuxian says. “Lan Zhan? You okay there?”

One moment Lan Wangji is sitting still. The next, he’s grasping the glass and throwing it back like a fucking pro. His throat bobs once. He settles the shot glass on the table with a delicate clink as if it’s some sort of tea ceremony.

Wei Wuxian’s an old hand at this. One beat. Two, three, and then his head tips forward, slow enough for Wei Wuxian to catch him and sit him back securely in the chair, head tucked into Wei Wuxian’s shoulder.

“Okay,” says Wen Qing in the silence. “What the fuck just happened?”

“I thought you said he didn’t drink anymore!” Jiang Cheng hisses. 

“I didn’t think he drank anymore either! How was I supposed to know!”

A noise from his left. Wei Wuxian turns to Nie Huaisang, who is—vibrating in his chair. 

“Dude,” says Wei Wuxian.

“Dude,” says Nie Huaisang back. “You know what this means?”

Wei Wuxian doesn’t know what anything means, other than the fact that his boyfriend has just gotten himself sloshed for no reason at all. “No?”

“Lan Wangji,” Nie Huaisang says with grave importance, “has vagued someone on Twitter.”

“No,” says Wei Wuxian.

“No fucking way,” says Jiang Cheng.

“Why would he?” says Wen Qing.

“That doesn’t… sound like him,” says Wen Ning.

Nie Huaisang gestures at the unconscious Lan Wangji with his fan. “Alright, then we’ll wait for him to wake up before we ask. You’ll see I’m right. I’m always right, you know.”

Wei Wuxian is realizing with dawning horror that this is true. There are times when Nie Huaisang is wrong, of course, like his belief that Wei Wuxian could successfully walk across ice in a cast and crutches without breaking further bones, but as a general rule Nie Huaisang tends to be more right than the average person. Even Wen Qing, which shouldn’t be possible, because Wen Qing’s mind is built like a walking library. 

It takes a few minutes for Lan Wangji to wake up. First he makes a little grumpy noise against Wei Wuxian’s neck and nuzzles it, while Wei Wuxian tries not to have a stroke. Then he presses a sleepy kiss to Wei Wuxian’s jaw, while again, Wei Wuxian tries not to have a stroke, and then he sits up, blinks, and stares at Wei Wuxian with the carefully unfocused gaze of the absolutely hammered. 

“Wei Ying,” says Lan Wangji. It’s his morning voice. Wow. Wei Wuxian’s going to have a stroke, isn’t he? “Hello.”

Wei Wuxian breaks out into a helpless smile. He can’t resist it. “Hi,” he says back. “You okay?”

Lan Wangji nods. “Mm.” A pause. “Missed you.”

Wei Wuxian suppresses the urge to laugh. “I’m right here, what are you going around and missing me for?”

“I wasn’t going around,” Lan Wangji insists. “I just missed you.”

“God, okay, that’s enough of that,” Jiang Cheng snaps. “Lan Wangji, did you ever vague someone on Twitter?”

Lan Wangji doesn’t break his gaze from Wei Wuxian’s face to look at Jiang Cheng, because sober Lan Wangji is a bitch, but drunk Lan Wangji is just that much more so. “Yes,” he says. 

“I told you guys so,” Nie Huaisang announces. “What did I say? Say it with me, kids. ‘Nie Huaisang is always right.’”

“Why?” Wei Wuxian demands. “I didn’t even know you have a Twitter. I can’t believe you’ve never told me this! I’m so hurt, Lan Zhan. You have to tell me every detail.”

“I don’t,” says Lan Wangji. “I discussed my feelings about you once but I thought it was wrong to talk about you behind your back. I deleted both the tweet and my account immediately after.”

Now Wei Wuxian’s interested. “What did you say?”

“It is not important.”

“It is very important. I want word for word detail. What was the tweet, Lan Zhan.”

A flush climbs into Lan Wangji’s ears, and then seeps down into his cheeks. Oh, god. Forget the stroke. Wei Wuxian’s going to die. This is so cute. What the fuck.

“‘He is so beautiful,’” Lan Wangji recites dutifully, “‘and two minutes ago he asked me if I liked Mianmian. What am I supposed to do. I don’t like Mianmian.’”

“Oh, sweetheart,” Wei Wuxian says, among the howls of both delighted laughter and shrieks of secondhand embarrassment. “You’re so cute. What am I going to do with you?”

“Never leave,” says Lan Wangji earnestly. “Stay here. With me.”

“Well, of course,” says Wei Wuxian, smiling, and kisses him just because he can. “Where else would I want to be? Silly man.”

**

Two months later, Wei Wuxian is digging through Lan Wangji’s closet for the most comfortable sweater he owns when an idea occurs to him. 

“Lan Zhan,” he says, “I think we should get married.”

“Yes,” says Lan Wangji, who is sitting on the bed behind him. Not so much as a beat of hesitation. Wei Wuxian turns and finds that Lan Wangji hasn’t even lowered his book to reply, which is just ridiculous. Wei Wuxian pins him with an incredulous stare, until the silence stretches long enough that it forces Lan Wangji to look up and blink, placid. “What is it?”

“You just said yes,” Wei Wuxian says, slow, just in case Lan Wangji didn’t hear him properly the first time, “to marrying me. I literally just proposed to you. Sort of. The actual proposal will be all big and grand and highly public and also embarrassing, like there’ll be skywriters and rose paths and maybe a serenade. But that’s not the point! You just said yes!”

Lan Wangji’s brows crinkle in confusion. “Did you not want me to say yes?”

“Of course I wanted you to say yes, but with a little thought, Lan Zhan! You didn’t even think about it!”

That finally makes Lan Wangji set his book down in his lap. Wei Wuxian huffs, a little exasperated despite himself. A conversation about marriage and spending the rest of their lives together and this is what makes Lan Wangji put his book down? 

“Some riveting book you got there, Lan Zhan,” Wei Wuxian says pointedly. 

Lan Wangji doesn’t roll his eyes, because he is infinitely a better man than Wei Wuxian deserves. Instead, he looks at Wei Wuxian calmly. “Wei Ying,” he says. “Come here.”

“So demanding,” Wei Wuxian complains, but they both know it’s really a token protest. He drops the sweater in the closet before scrambling into the bed, climbing into his boyfriend’s lap immediately. Lan Wangji’s hands settle at his hips, as they are prone to do anytime Wei Wuxian is within any sort of reasonable touching distance. He pecks Lan Wangji on the temple, the nose, and then the mouth just because he can before he pulls back, smiling. “What is it?”

No answer. Lan Wangji simply reels him back in for another kiss. This one’s longer, fiercer, all nipping teeth and hot tongue and little jolts making Wei Wuxian’s toes curl. He lets out a quiet groan into Lan Wangji’s mouth. No matter how many fucking times they do this, it’ll never get old. Lan Wangji’s such a good fucking kisser, what the fuck. In the aftermath Wei Wuxian is so dazed that he misses the fact that Lan Wangji’s mouth is moving to speak. 

An expectant silence. Wei Wuxian shakes off the post-kiss daze to middling success. “What?”

A quiet huff, and then a sweeter kiss against his mouth, before it moves down to his jaw, the pulsepoint of his neck. “I said,” Lan Wangji murmurs, “that I have thought about it. Extensively.”

Wei Wuxian’s brain cells are slow on the uptake today. “Thought about—what?”

“Marriage,” Lan Wangji says. He bites on the skin over Wei Wuxian’s collarbone because he’s a bitey little monster, and pulls back. His pupils are dilated and his ears are red. Wei Wuxian should not find that as hopelessly endearing as he does. “To you. I have considered it at length. I do not need to think about it again.”

“I mean, you probably should,” Wei Wuxian says. “I’m a very messy person. I snore and you sleep like someone on melatonin who has an immunity to melatonin. I’m also a blanket hog. I have a horrible sleep schedule. I can cook but everything I cook is too spicy for you. And I don’t know how to budget. And one day I want more bunnies because they make you so happy, but the hutch isn’t big enough. Your bunnies are really too big, Lan Zhan, Mozzarella is going to jump one day and be crushed by the weight of his own fat.”

“Our bunnies,” Lan Wangji corrects. He always has been extraordinarily good at ignoring facts he finds unpleasant. “We can get more.”

“But our future bunnies will be homeless.”

“We will keep them in two different hutches.”

Wei Wuxian wants to laugh, or cry, or maybe both. “Do you know how big our apartment is, Lan Zhan? The hutch we have is huge. It’s taking up half the living room as it is. We’ll need another—apartment to house more bunnies.”

“Then we will have two apartments,” says Lan Wangji, with his characteristic unflappable tranquility. He kisses Wei Wuxian on the cheek, like the incorrigible sap he is, and presses his forehead to Wei Wuxian’s, letting him listen to the way their quiet breaths sync up. “Wei Ying. What is really bothering you?”

Wei Wuxian’s maybe on the verge of hysteria. “What isn’t bothering you, Lan Zhan? How are you so calm? I mean, I know I suggested it, but are you really okay with it? What if I—you know, mess this up again? I nearly fucked us up forever. Who’s to say you wouldn’t go out of your mind within the first year and divorce me immediately? Like, sure, I’m a catch, but I’m more of a catch you fuck and date and maybe feed breakfast to once in a while, like an endearing cactus.”

“Do you have sex with cactuses?” Lan Wangji asks, sounding genuinely curious. Wei Wuxian laughs. He doesn’t see so much as feel Lan Wangji’s smile, the sheer contentment radiating from him like warmth from a crackling fireplace. “Wei Ying,” he says. “Let’s get married.”

“What, no skywriters?” Wei Wuxian jokes. If he doesn’t joke he’ll start to cry, and then this night will be a snotty disaster, and he can’t have that. But Lan Wangji is giving him little kisses on the forehead, each of his eyelids, his temple, his cheeks, the tip of his nose, and one soft kiss at his mouth, and now Wei Wuxian really does want to cry. He buries his face in Lan Wangji’s neck. “Lan Zhan. You can’t do that to me. I told you to give me some warning, remember?”

“My apologies,” says Lan Wangji. He doesn’t even make an attempt to sound sorry. Instead he’s all smug. Self-satisfied bastard. “Wei Ying. Yes?”

“I want a ring,” says Wei Wuxian, muffled into Lan Wangji’s shirt. “Stupidly big. If I punch Jin Zixuan with it on then I want all his teeth to fall out. That sort of big.”

“I understand.” A kiss to the top of his head. “I will get a ring. Wei Ying.”

“Yes,” Wei Wuxian says, hearing the unspoken question, and he has to blink the tears away. It’s a happy occasion. “I asked first, didn’t I?”

“So you did. What will you do about it?”

“For one, I am going to romance you so hard. It’ll be such a big proposal that you’ll be embarrassed for once. You’ll shrivel into your skin like a little lizard. The world’s cutest lizard.”

“I look forward to it,” says Lan Wangji. Then he’s smiling, for real, and Wei Wuxian has to kiss him just to feel it on his lips. He can’t not. It’s good. It’s excellent. It’s maybe the best kiss they’ve ever had, and when they break apart, Lan Wangji is still smiling and saying, almost as if to just taste the word on his lips, “Fiancé.”

“Fiancé,” Wei Wuxian says back, feeling the happiness in him unfurl like an endless ocean, like a promise that he’ll keep forever. “Hi.”