Work Text:
Lan Wangji woke up the first time to a call from Wei Ying, tipsy and waiting at his front door. Wei Ying was halfway asleep by the time they made it to the kitchen, his eyeshadow smudged as he told Lan Wangji winding anecdotes about the party he’d come from. He swung his heels into the cupboards, sipped the water Lan Wangji brought him, and got himself very turned around relating a conversation he'd had with someone's little brother about the depiction of hackers in 90s media.
That was the sort of friends they were now, Lan Wangji had thought, clutching the idea possessively, that Wei Ying would rather stay at Lan Wangji’s house than take the subway all the way to his own. It was no inconvenience, Lan Wangji had told him, and had meant: please, Wei Ying, come over, stay.
Lan Wangji offered to take the couch, somewhat perfunctorily, and Wei Ying laughed and said ‘Lan Zhan! you wouldn’t make me sleep all by myself, would you?’
As it had seemed like a largely harmless indulgence, Lan Wangji allowed himself this small lapse in restraint.
Lan Wangji wakes up the second time to the grainy, blue light of early morning with Wei Ying clutched to his chest. He hadn’t fallen asleep that way. He’d fallen asleep on his back, a respectful distance from his straight best friend who he is terribly in love with, while Wei Ying grinned at him in the dark.
He has not maintained a safe distance. He is half hard and spooning Wei Ying, who is fast asleep in his arms. The first coherent thought he has is that Wei Ying is incredibly soft and warm. The second is, very clearly, oh no. He must disentangle himself. He must somehow extricate himself from Wei Ying without waking him and then, if he is being realistic, jerk off in the shower. He sighs against Wei Ying’s bedhead and wallows in a bright flash of misery.
Next to him, Wei Ying stirs. “What time is it?” he mumbles, horribly, miraculously, tugging Lan Wangji’s arm more tightly to his chest.
“Five,” Lan Wangji says, more awake than he’s ever been in his life. The heat hasn’t kicked on yet and Wei Ying is so warm under the covers with him. He keeps wriggling up closer to Lan Wangji like a caterpillar. Lan Wangji does not have any experience with being a straight man, but this can not be the kind of behavior they partake in. Surely he would have heard about it. “Go back to sleep,” he tells Wei Ying.
“You go back to sleep,” Wei Ying murmurs, and shoves his face further into Lan Wangji’s pillow. Lan Wangji would give absolutely anything for Wei Ying to stop moving.
Lan Wangji makes baleful eye contact with the rabbit nightlight that Wei Ying had gifted him for his birthday and attempts to salvage the situation. “It is time for me to get up,” he tries. His voice is coming out all wrong. He doesn’t sound firm. He sounds like he’s begging. He supposes it’s not a surprise that proximity to Wei Ying’s languid, sleep-warm body is what has finally broken him.
He’d been so careful, holding himself at the icy remove he maintains with everyone. Before Wei Ying, it had felt like a natural, comfortable distance. It’s started to feel as if it’s only his years of practice that keep him from drifting completely into Wei Ying’s space, as if it might be natural to let Wei Ying rest on his shoulder, or to place a hand on his lower back as he moves past him. He’s been bargaining with himself for months - he may allow Wei Ying to touch his arm but he may not touch him in return, he may fall asleep next to him but he may not reach out and brush his hair back from his face. There had been measures in place and still Wei Ying has ended up in his arms, an impossible calculus.
Wei Ying makes a grumpy noise and does not relinquish Lan Wangji’s arm. Lan Wangji takes a few calming breaths. He wonders if dropping into meditation might help. In a perfect world, maybe he could just fall back asleep and wake up not hard and not holding Wei Ying. He supposes that instead, he will just lay here, wide awake, his dick less than a centimeter from Wei Ying’s thighs, waiting to die.
Most of his friendship with Wei Ying has felt fairly analogous to this. They’d met at the community garden’s open work hours that summer, Lan Wangji mercilessly weeding the cabbages while Wei Ying ran around after a small boy who he confidently introduced as his son. A woman, following behind them at a more sedate pace, introduced herself as the child’s aunt and clarified, with some sarcasm, that Wei Ying’s actual title was ‘revered and treasured babysitter.’ Lan Wangji has spent the following two seasons falling perilously in love with him.
The friendship Wei Ying has given him is far more than he could have hoped for. Lan Wangji has been so careful, keeping his eyes off of Wei Ying’s body, keeping his mouth shut. It’s just that Wei Ying moves into any space Lan Wangji makes for him - spends hours at his house, stops by late, giggly and still drunk, brings him takeout and remembers when Lan Wangji tells him about a show he wants to see. It’s as if— Well, it’s a bit as if Wei Ying, who is straight and maybe the best friend he’s ever had, is his boyfriend.
The blue of dawn is turning slowly into the earliest part of golden hour. Wei Ying makes a soft, sleepy noise, his hand curling its way into Lan Wangji’s. Letting Wei Ying into his bed was a mistake. Letting him whip his shirt off into a corner and strip down to his boxers even more so. Lan Wangji could turn his palm and place it flat on Wei Ying’s sternum, pull him even closer, slide his hand down Wei Ying’s stomach. The skin would be soft and warm all the way down.
He wants permission to sweep Wei Ying’s long, untidy braid over his shoulder and mouth across the back of his neck. It must be sensitive. Sometimes Wei Ying comes back from parties with hickeys from his jaw downward and a sparkle in his eye, and yet there he’ll be, perched on Lan Wangji’s countertop like he wants Lan Wangji to do something about it.
He realizes that he’s been running his thumb back and forth over Wei Ying’s knuckle. He stops, trying not to touch anything, as trapped as his hand is. He puts a solid inch of space between his body and Wei Ying’s. He wants to— well, he wants to run his hands over Wei Ying until he makes the kinds of noises Lan Wangji just knows he’ll make.
Wei Ying murmurs his disapproval and squirms closer to him, pressing himself back against Lan Wangji’s cock in the process. Lan Wangji’s breath hitches and he almost misses the quiet ghost of a whine that leaves Wei Ying’s lips.
“Wei Ying—“ Lan Wangji begins, shifting his hips away, unsure if it’s going to turn into an apology or a confession.
Before he can figure out how to begin either of them, Wei Ying makes an unhappy little murmur, chasing Lan Wangji’s body again with his own. Lan Wangji, caught between Wei Ying and the edge of the bed, has no choice but to fall off or allow Wei Ying to do this. He does briefly consider falling off.
“Wei Ying,” Lan Wangji says, as close as his flat inflection ever gets to a question, and receives another soft noise in response. He can only think of one possible explanation for this. “Wei Ying, are you asleep.”
Wei Ying makes an affirmative noise. Lan Wangji sags with relief. It is simply a bodily response. Simply a normal, animal response to closeness that he does not— Wei Ying chooses this moment, as if he’s read the depths of Lan Wangji’s mind, to press Lan Wangji’s hand very deliberately against his chest.
“C’mere,” Wei Ying mumbles, faintly disapproving, as if Lan Wangji’s greatest wrong this morning is trying to separate them.
Lan Wangji realizes he’s been holding his breath and takes a few steadying inhales. He does not know what he’s supposed to be doing. He props himself up on his elbow and looks down at Wei Ying, who has his eyes closed and his mouth the smallest bit open. His cheeks are flushed pink with sleep. His makeup is smudged from the night before, face framed by curling wisps of hair that have escaped his braid. Lan Wangji has never seen anything more beautiful in his life.
With Lan Wangji’s hand pressed against his bare chest, he looks drowsy and perfectly content. Lan Wangji supposes that if Wei Ying wants to sleep until noon clutching Lan Wangji’s arm, Lan Wangji is the last person to stand in the way of that. Lan Wangji will just have to lie here and smell the delicate floral of Wei Ying’s shampoo and hope that he can somehow will his body to forget how aroused it is.
They lie like that for a long minute, Lan Wangji tucked under the covers and watching the light change, trying not to think about slipping his fingers between Wei Ying’s parted lips. It’s a very peaceful torture, Lan Wangji thinks, just as Wei Ying starts wriggling again, changing positions ever so slightly, then curling back against Lan Wangji, all of which amounts to him grinding his ass against Lan Wangji’s cock.
Lan Wangji does not think he’s ever been this hard in his life. That is probably not true, but it feels true. It would not be so bad if Wei Ying wasn’t so warm, or if the fact that he's constantly in motion wasn’t one of Lan Wangji’s favorite things about him. It’s taking every ounce of his hard-won restraint not to nudge Wei Ying over onto his stomach and press him into the mattress until he comes. Lan Wangji closes his eyes, which just makes him more aware of all the places he’s touching Wei Ying’s body. Unbidden, he rocks back against Wei Ying, who makes a brief, high little nose. Lan Wangji stills, an apology on his lips.
“Please,” Wei Ying murmurs, his eyes still closed, then a slurred collection of syllables that must be Lan Wangji’s name. “Please, please.”
Lan Wangji processes this as quickly as he can, which is long enough for Wei Ying’s brow to acquire an unhappy furrow. He makes an another attempt at rolling against Lan Wangji and says, quiet and sounding profoundly offended, “C’mon, please.”
It is immediately clear that Wei Ying has not been asleep at all.
Lan Wangji, who has been dangerously close to both the end of his restraint and the edge of the bed, nudges Wei Ying back towards the center. Wei Ying resists this for a moment, like he thinks he’s being pushed away, and only permits it when Lan Wangji, all instinct, shushes him and noses against his cheek.
“What do you want,” Lan Wangji murmurs, relenting to press himself as close to Wei Ying as possible, lips at his temple and hand still splayed across his chest. Wei Ying, mouth open and panting, just nods vigorously.
Lan Wangji maps his hand across Wei Ying’s chest, feeling across his ribs, dipping low to run his knuckles across Wei Ying’s stomach, stopping where his hair begins. Wei Ying catches his own bottom lip between his teeth, just this touch pulling a litany of noises from him he seems unable to control.
Wei Ying is so responsive it’s impossible not to tease him. Lan Wangji fits one hand over Wei Ying’s hip, tugging him in snug and rolling their hips together, not touching Wei Ying in any way that matters. Wei Ying tries to move so he can shift his hips against the mattress and Lan Wangji restrains him, encouraged by the plaintive sound he makes at being held back.
“Good,” Lan Wangji praises, without thinking, then again when it makes Wei Ying’s hips jerk against his hold.
Lan Wangji kisses his cheek, then down to his jaw, his hand drawing down to hold Wei Ying’s thigh. Wei Ying hasn’t closed his mouth since Lan Wangji started touching him. Lan Wangji hadn’t thought, and he had thought about it, that Wei Ying would be this sweet for it.
Lan Wangji sucks on his neck, reaching to slide two fingers in Wei Ying’s mouth, held firm against the flat of his tongue. Wei Ying makes a broken noise around them, trying to slide a leg back between Lan Wangji’s and pull them somehow closer, even pressed together as they are.
Wei Ying sucks on his fingers with a single-minded intensity, a crease in his brow like he’s still being denied something. He’s so eager, as if Lan Wangji is going to take them away if he doesn’t do a good enough job. Somewhere in the drowsy arousal, Lan Wangji is having an entire moment about having thought this man was straight. He’s certainly something.
“Anything you want, Wei Ying,” Lan Wangji murmurs, letting Wei Ying choke himself on his fingers and grind back against him. He looks lost in it, still sleep-soft and needy. Lan Wangji slides his fingers out of Wei Ying’s mouth, a loss Wei Ying valiantly protests. Lan Wangji ignores him, sliding his hand back down to run a damp finger over his nipples, pinching them for the way it makes his body jerk. Lan Wangji thinks he could spend all morning figuring out how his body responds, ghosting his knuckles across Wei Ying’s skin just to watch him shiver.
“Will you—“ Wei Ying starts, then seems to lose the thread, head buried in the pillow.
“Mn,” Lan Wangji prompts, hand skirting across his ribs again, his stomach.
Wei Ying is visibly trying to collect himself, so Lan Wangji pinches the soft skin on the inside of his thighs so he squirms instead, making a punched out little noise. Lan Wangji is curious, in a purely academic sense, how much teasing it would take to make him cry.
Lan Wangji pins Wei Ying still with an arm braced over his chest. “Ask,” he prompts. He feels the frantic, frustrated noise this pulls from Wei Ying in his cock.
“Touch me,” Wei Ying manages, sounding deeply insulted that Lan Wangji has dared to tease him for even this long. It makes something fond and pleased stir in Lan Wangji’s chest, that it takes so little to have Wei Ying pliant in his arms.
“I am,” Lan Wangji says, keeping Wei Ying braced so Lan Wangji can grind against him.
Wei Ying huffs, grabbing Lan Wangji’s hand and bringing it down to his cock. Lan Wangji thinks he’s really not going to be allowed to do that, but he can’t bring himself to refuse him when he can feel how damp he’s made the front of his boxers, how he whimpers when Lan Wangji palms him.
“So worked up,” Lan Wangji observes, pleased by the offended whine this pulls from Wei Ying. “Am I wrong?”
Wei Ying shakes his head, eyes squeezed tight. Now that Lan Wangji has a hand wrapped around his cock, he wont stop moving, arching his back and reaching to clutch Lan Wangji’s thigh. He sounds like he’s really making an attempt to be quiet, which is adorable, so Lan Wangji pushes his boxers down his thighs and takes him in hand again, gratified by the way Wei Ying shudders.
“M’close,” he murmurs, and Lan Wangji kisses his shoulder, stroking him.
“I know,” Lan Wangji says, taking note of the way that this makes Wei Ying squirm. He’s doing so much to get himself pushed up against Lan Wangji, tipping his head back to rest it on his shoulder. His cock is slick and hot in Lan Wangji’s hand, his mouth open and panting.
“Are you this easy for everyone,” Lan Wangji prompts, just to hear Wei Ying try and respond.
“No,” Wei Ying protests, trying to shift his hips into Lan Wangji’s touch. “Sleepy.” He tilts his head so his warm cheek is pressed against Lan Wangji’s. It’s in contrast to how sharp he usually is, so quick and deft you don’t realize he’s gotten you wrapped around his finger until it’s too late to do anything about it. This is like that, in its own way. Or it would be, if Lan Wangji hadn’t seen him one day in a garden and instantly known he was going to re-arrange his entire life around being Wei Ying’s. “And I like you.”
Lan Wangji’s hand stills, which makes Wei Ying still against him in turn, and Lan Wangji takes a deep breath and presses their cheeks together. He blinks and tries to be sure he hasn’t misheard. “I feel the same.”
“You do?” Wei Ying asks, sounding very surprised for someone who has their dick in Lan Wangji’s hand.
“Mn,” Lan Wangji confirms, and then gentles Wei Ying onto his stomach.
Somehow, he is still trying to talk. “That’s— that’s good I— I hoped— Lan Zhan—“ Wei Ying goes over easily, but it still takes a bit of maneuvering to get him how Lan Wangji wants him: hips tilted up and knees spread so Lan Wangji can kneel behind him, curled over Wei Ying’s back to kiss the back of his neck.
Wei Ying shudders when Lan Wangji gets his hand on him, clutching the sheets and trying to chase the touch with his hips. He loses all composure as Lan Wangji jerks him off, every exhale accompanied by a whine. It takes barely any time at all. “Ah— ah, Lan Zhan, are you— are you gonna fuck me?”
Lan Wangji doesn’t let himself get too distracted by this - at least in part because he knows that Wei Ying has never done it like that and doesn’t think he has the stamina required to walk him through it at this particular juncture.
“Would you like that,” Lan Wangji asks.
“Yeah, please, yeah,” Wei Ying says, burrowing his head against the pillow, trying to shift into him. “Would you— ah—faster? Please.”
Lan Wangji ignores him, one hand firm on Wei Ying’s hips to keep him in place. So much of fucking Wei Ying is keeping him where Lan Wangji wants him. Lan Wangji can think of at least three compelling solutions to this problem. “How would you like to do it?”
Wei Ying goes briefly quiet, his eyes squeezed shut. “I don’t… I’ve never… I— however you want.”
Good answer, Lan Wangji thinks, and presses an open-mouthed kiss between Wei Ying’s shoulder blades.
“I could take you like this,” Lan Wangji says, thrusting against him so Wei Wuxian can feel how he would be moved, how his body might be used. He’s so permissive in Lan Wangji’s arms, small noises falling from his mouth with every stroke of Lan Wangji’s hand. You wouldn’t be able to kiss him from this angle, though, Lan Wangji thinks. Lan Wangji realizes with a satisfied flicker of amusement that he still hasn’t kissed him on the mouth at all. Hadn’t even needed to.
“I would like you in my lap,” Lan Wangji confesses against the knobs of his spine. I want to kiss you while you come. Is it obvious that I’m in love with you.
“Ah,” Wei Ying says. “That’s—yeah, yeah Lan Zhan.”
Lan Wangji closes his eyes, laying his forehead against Wei Ying’s back and breathing in the sweaty, morning smell of him. There are a few more golden minutes of this: Wei Ying reduced to whimpers underneath him, their bodies held close and half under the covers, his own desire a clear, perfectly-sustained note.
Wei Ying finally goes to pieces, a sob falling from his lips as he shakes, reaching to pull Lan Wangji’s hand away when he becomes too sensitive. Wei Ying slumps down onto the bed, a contented smile curling across his face. He seems completely unbothered by lying in the mess he’s created. Lan Wangji is delighted with him.
“On your back, please,” Lan Wangji says, realizing only as he does that Wei Ying is too fucked-out to listen to him. “Come here, like this,” Lan Wangji says, and turns him over, Wei Ying going easily when he’s nudged. Lan Wangji pushes his boxers down his thighs and gets a hand on himself, finally, so close to orgasm it will barely be more than perfunctory.
Wei Ying is blinking up at him, head lolled back against the pillow, an appealing flush all down his neck. He looks wrecked, Lan Wangji observes, just from that. Think of how he’d look if you actually took your time with him, covered him with marks, used his mouth.
Fuck, Lan Wangji thinks, and comes across Wei Ying’s chest.
He admires the novelty of Wei Ying sprawled in his bed, before pulling his boxers back up and leaning down to kiss him, properly and for the first time. Wei Ying submits to it, reaching up to stroke a hand over Lan Wangji’s cheek. It takes Lan Wangji off guard how much it shatters something inside him, to be touched as sweetly as that. Wei Ying is drawing his long, beautiful fingers down Lan Wangji’s cheek and Lan Wangji will stay here, make an infinite room out of this feeling, if Wei Ying will just keep doing that forever.
Lan Wangji nudges Wei Ying’s mouth open, kissing him deeply in the early dawn light. There’s very little learning curve to kissing him. Wei Ying matches whatever pace and intensity Lan Wangji sets, making little pleased noises into his mouth. Wei Ying eventually moves his hand to Lan Wangji’s back and Lan Wangji forgoes kissing him to burying his face in Wei Ying’s neck, letting their bodies fit together. His only minor regret, as he feels his own release damp against his chest, is not having finished in Wei Ying’s mouth.
Lan Wangji’s morning routine is constructed in such a way that he has more than enough time to make both a serious breakfast, have two cups of coffee, stretch, and start a crossword before he has to go into the archives. If he is slightly less ambitious about his breakfast plans and willing to put the crossword off until lunch, he can reliably budget enough time to have sex with Wei Ying before he has to go into work. The sticking point will be whether or not he can convince Wei Ying to sleep over and wake up between the hours of five and six to have sex with him every day for the foreseeable future. He is prepared to make some very compelling arguments.
“What are you thinking about?” Wei Ying asks, sounding drowsy again.
“Work,” Lan Wangji says, pressing a kiss to his cheek. “Go back to sleep. I will wake you with coffee before I have to leave.”
Wei Ying makes an agreeable hmph and attempts the physically impossible task of squirming closer to him. “Real boyfriend shit.”
“I always bring you coffee in the mornings,” Lan Wangji says, untangling himself from Wei Ying, who enacts a performance of clinging onto him for as long as he can possibly manage. Lan Wangji is somewhat taken aback by how much he enjoys being inconvenienced in his manner. He stands next to the bed, reaching back down to brush some of Wei Ying’s loose hair back from his face. “But yes, as your boyfriend, if you’d like.”
“I would like,” Wei Ying leans into his touch with a self-satisfied smile, tugging the covers up over his shoulders. “I can’t believe I put out on the first date.”
“Before the first date,” Lan Wangji says. “But I will not hold it against you.”
“We’ve had plenty of dates, if you think about it,” Wei Ying yawns, snuggling deeper into Lan Wangji’s bed. “And you know, you could hold — hmm… you could hold against me… against… ah, no, I can’t make that work.”
“Sleep on it,” Lan Wangji tells him, smoothing a hand over the top of his head as his eyes fall closed again.
On his way out to the kitchen, Lan Wangji allows himself the luxury of lingering in the doorway to watch Wei Ying nestled under the covers, just his dear little face and his sleep-mussed hair visible. Then, smiling in his way, he goes to put coffee on.