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Lan Zhan doesn’t always need like this. But sometimes the weight of the world is a squirming thing that is uncomfortable to hold, and there are responsibilities that are joyous until they are not, until they become burdens that make his back ache. He doesn’t always need like this, but sometimes he does, and when he does, Wei Ying is always there.
Except that he is not. Wei Ying is out, because he is, of course, free to move as freely as he’d like about the Cloud Recesses. He is likely visiting the juniors, or visiting Wen Qionglin, or perhaps the rabbits in their meadow. There are an infinite number of possibilities for places and people that Wei Ying could visit. Lan Zhan wishes, greedily, that Wei Ying were here instead of there, though he would never take the freedom from him to choose.
He takes off his shoes, first, and then his first layer. It’s thin enough to be next-to-nothing, no weight at all, but somehow its removal is still something of a relief. He takes off the next faster - not fast enough to tug at the stitchwork, but close - and then the next, the next, the next, until he’s down to the thin robe that he keeps between his innermost layer and the world.
He doesn’t know what to do with it, for a long moment. He looks - feels - ridiculous, with his hair swept up in its heavy ornament that makes his temples ache and otherwise nearly-nude, standing with bare feet in the Jingshi. The air is oppressive, somehow, though Lan Zhan knows himself well enough to know it is simply a matter of his perception. The air is at it always is - cool, mountain-thin, sandalwood-scented. It is Lan Zhan who is different.
He kneels in his inner robe and with his hair still done in its elaborate style, unable to make a decision one way or the other on how he should proceed and ultimately deciding to do nothing at all. He can kneel for hours. Has - as punishment, as meditation. He is very good at kneeling.
Lan Zhan is facing the Jingshi door, which is how he knows when Wei Ying arrives the moment that he does so. He can hear him climb the steps, hear the slide of the door open and the soft little intake of breath when he sees Lan Zhan, even if Lan Zhan is not looking back at him.
“Ah,” Wei Ying says, and he sounds so good. He sounds so happy, so vibrant, all the time. Lan Zhan loves him, loves him, loves him, with every beat of his heart. He is so glad that Wei Ying is alive. “Ah, look how sweet you are for me, my Lan Zhan.”
Yes. He is Wei Ying’s. It’s so much easier to be Wei Ying’s Lan Zhan than it is to be anything else. And yet, there is something there that sits uncomfortably, as if he doesn’t quite belong to the sinking comfort of it, and he makes a tiny noise in the back of his throat.
“No?” Wei Ying asks, and steps close. Lan Zhan can see his shoes, his hem, and nothing else. Wei Ying starts undoing the knot of his hair, sliding the pins out of Lan Zhan’s hairpiece one-by-one, until the tension headache starts to ease.
Lan Zhan shrugs. It’s easier to motion than it is to speak, often. Always.
“Hhm,” Wei Ying says, “Let’s see what we can’t do about that, ah, er-gege?” Lan Zhan is very grateful that he speaks enough for the both of them. Wei Ying has a beautiful voice - even in this body, changed as it is, Wei Ying’s voice has always been one of Lan Zhan’s favorite parts of him. Of course, every part of Wei Ying is Lan Zhan’s favorite part of him.
The last pin comes out and Wei Ying unknots the headband that keeps the bulk of the hairstyle in place, wrapping it around his own wrist for safekeeping. This part Lan Zhan raises his eyes for, avaricious. He likes seeing Wei Ying marked with his things, wearing his colors, wearing his headband. He likes Wei Ying.
Lan Zhan’s hair tumbles free, spilling loose around his shoulders. He sighs. Wei Ying strokes his fingers through, once, soothing the ache in Lan Zhan’s temples, and then tugs harshly enough that Lan Zhan has to choke down a surprised gasp.
“Hm!” Wei Ying says, the way he does when he stumbles on particularly promising arrays in his own half-remembered notes, the way he does when he finds the chili oil that Lan Zhan’s hidden away in their upper cabinets, which Wei Ying can no longer comfortably reach.
Lan Zhan’s responsibilities may be heavy but Wei Ying is not. Lan Zhan sometimes wonders, guiltily, how Wei Ying’s original body would have fit into his life, into his home. If he would have fit so tidily into his arms, into his bed.
Wei Ying pulls his hair again, harder, and Lan Zhan’s eyelashes flutter, all of the thoughts going out of his head.
“I asked you a question,” He says, voice shading low and dangerous. Had he? Lan Zhan doesn’t remember.
“I apologize,” Lan Zhan has to fumble for the words. He hates speaking when he’s unsure.
Wei Ying doesn’t say anything in return, tracing the line of Lan Zhan’s cheekbone and jaw with his knuckles, and Lan Zhan misses his voice with an ache he would deny.
“Stand for me,” Wei Ying says after a long moment, offering Lan Zhan his hands to help himself up. He can do it himself, but he uses Wei Ying’s support nonetheless, greedy. “Let’s get you out of all this, hm?”
They finish undressing Lan Zhan together, stripping off his inner robe and then the thin shirt and pants, until he’s entirely bare. If he were less controlled, he would shiver - the Jingshi is cool by design, and even with all the doors closed, it’s not warm.
“Hands and knees for me,” Wei Ying says, gesturing at a patch on the ground. He sounds distant, tonally, and Lan Zhan aches for him.
“Wei Ying,” He says, helpless, and Wei Ying hushes him.
“I know, I know. You’ll have to be patient.”
Lan Zhan does as he’s told, lowering himself to the floor first to kneel and then to shift his weight to his hands. He could do this for hours, too, though it’s not so natural a position as simply kneeling. He breathes in, out. In.
Wei Ying is doing something across the room. Lacking other things to focus on makes Lan Zhan very aware of where Wei Ying is, what he’s doing. There’s a clink of porcelain, the hiss of water heating rapidly. A patter of water hitting something. A cup?
Wei Ying comes back and rests something, warm but not hot, between Lan Zhan’s shoulder blades. All of his breath goes out in a big, hard rush, like a gasp in reverse.
“Hold still,” Wei Ying says absently, and his steps circle Lan Zhan. “Don’t spill.”
Lan Zhan won’t. He is very good at holding still and being silent. He wants to shiver, though, at the sensation of Wei Ying’s eyes on his body.
Wei Ying moves silently, when he wants to, and when he touches Lan Zhan’s hip next, it’s a surprise that almost makes him jerk. Only being pinned by orders and the threat of pain keep him still, this time.
“Ah, you’re being so good for me, Lan Zhan,” Wei Ying says fondly. He sounds so warm. Lan Zhan loves his voice desperately, loves him to distraction. “I should have known this would be no challenge in particular to my er-gege. But you’re getting hard for me, aren’t you? Knowing that I’m pleased.”
He is. He hadn’t noticed, too focused on the stillness and the tremble of his muscles - how full had Wei Ying left the teacup, he wonders, how much would it take to spill - in his held-taut position.
Wei Ying hits Lan Zhan with the flat of his hand, wrapping around his thigh, and Lan Zhan bites back a noise. He has to press into Wei Ying’s palm to keep himself from rocking with it.
“Yes,” Lan Zhan says, so low it’s barely a word.
“Yes what?” Wei Ying asks, idle and curious, and trails his fingers up Lan Zhan’s cock this time. His thighs are trembling. He can hold this pose for hours unless those hours are also occupied by Wei Ying, and then, it turns out, it is significantly more difficult.
“Yes,” Lan Zhan says, and shifts just the tiniest amount. He wonders if it’s his imagination, or if he feels the sting of too-hot slide down his spine. “Yes, I’m hard.”
“For me,” Wei Ying says, satisfied, and walks away again. Lan Zhan doesn’t whimper, but he curls his fingers into the floor of the Jingshi like it has some support to offer him.
Yes, Lan Zhan doesn’t say again, but he is, and it is. His knees are starting to ache on the floor, the heels of his hands where he’s supporting most of his weight starting to feel a little bit tender. It’s easy except that it’s all he can focus on, because he refuses to be anything less than entirely present with Wei Ying.
Wei Ying settles somewhere, and Lan Zhan strains to hear the way that he moves, the way he bends. He knows that he has not been abandoned, but -
“I think,” Wei Ying says, and Lan Zhan can hear the way that he slumps a little in the seat. “First, I’d want to fuck you.”
Lan Zhan shivers out a sigh, holding his shoulders perfectly still. Wei Ying’s voice is low and intent, like he’s hanging off of Lan Zhan’s reactions.
“I’d want to make you come-dumb,” Wei Ying says, “So you can’t even remember your name. I want to see you cry my name like it’s all you know. My name and ‘please’, if I’m being generous.”
“Wei Ying -” Lan Zhan says, helpless to stop himself, and twitches when Wei Ying laughs.
“You’re doing so well for me, so strong. You’re making me so happy by doing this, even though I know you’d like to touch. You’d like to be touched. But I don’t want that right now. If I could make you come without touching you, I’d do that, because I want to see you lose yourself entirely to me.”
Lan Zhan could, he thinks, if Wei Ying told him to. He can feel his cock dripping between his knees, so hard it’s tight to his belly. He thinks he could come like this, if that were what Wei Ying wanted.
“I’m greedy, you know?” Wei Ying says conversationally. Lan Zhan can picture his long, beautiful fingers twirling Chenqing. “I’d take everything I could have of you, Lan Zhan.”
Lan Zhan rocks, just the tiniest bit, and tea slips out of the cup and onto the saucer, and from the saucer onto his back to trickle backwards down his ribs. He whines, high in the back of his throat, and trembles to hold himself more still. His shoulders are starting to ache.
“Ah-ah, Lan Zhan, be careful. Be good for me, won’t you, gege?”
Lan Zhan dips his head in the tiniest nod, as careful as he can.
“My good boy,” Wei Ying says warmly, and laughs again, low and rich, when Lan Zhan twitches towards him desperately. It relieves some of the strain on his shoulders, shifting, but adds more to his thighs. “You’re doing too well. This is too easy for you, isn’t it, my Lan Zhan? You’re too naturally talented, I’m afraid, you’re going to have to save some for the rest of us.”
He stands and crosses the room, petting at the corner of Lan Zhan’s mouth, and then lifts the teacup from in-between Lan Zhan’s shoulder blades. After a moment, there’s a bump of porcelain to Lan Zhan’s lower lip. He sips the green tea that he’s offered.
“Can you stand for me, er-gege?”
Lan Zhan considers this and shakes his head. He doesn’t know how to move his joints anymore. His movement belongs to Wei Ying, his words belong to Wei Ying, his breath for Wei Ying.
Wei Ying coos and pets down the line of Lan Zhan’s throat, where there’s a drop of tea sliding down to meet his collarbone, and helps to pull him to his feet so he can put him on his back onto the bed. The normal blankets have been stripped. Lan Zhan shudders, full body.
“Like this,” Wei Ying says, soft and fond, and places Lan Zhan’s wrists to either side of his head. He kisses the centers of each of Lan Zhan’s palms, and Lan Zhan curls his fingers around them. To keep them safe. “Perfect.”
He swings himself off the bed, leaving Lan Zhan alone with his thoughts, all of which are comprised of I hope he comes back soon. Wei Ying has a funny way of stealing Lan Zhan’s entire upper processing center for his own, when he decides that he’d like it.
Wei Ying puts two wide cylinders flat onto Lan Zhan’s palms, right over top the kisses, and directs him to curl his fingers around those as well. Lan Zhan stares up at him. Wei Ying looks focused in a way he rarely does, like he’s faced with a particularly satisfying problem that he wants to take apart and understand. It’s heady to be the focus of so much attention.
“Don’t move,” Wei Ying says, and smiles when he sees Lan Zhan’s eyes flick uncomprehendingly from his face to his fingers. “Shh. The old-fashioned way.” Wei Ying lights a match and touches it to either candle wick. Lan Zhan keeps his hands and his fingers perfectly, incredibly still. The light reflects off of Wei Ying’s cheekbones and make him look like he’s made of gold, like he’s ascended.
Wei Ying puts the match out by putting the head of it on his tongue and laughing at the sting, then kisses the taste of sulfur into Lan Zhan’s mouth instead. He kisses Lan Zhan lush and hot, like he doesn’t have anything better to do, and Lan Zhan finds himself straining up for the catch and slide of it even when it makes the tension of his wrists wobble. It’s more stable when he has them slightly off the bed - more reliant on the firm muscle of his arm rather than the soft support of their mattress - but it makes his forearms ache at the strange twist of the position.
“Wei Ying,” Lan Zhan gasps around Wei Ying’s tongue, and Wei Ying laughs and licks the corner of his mouth, says yes, just like that.
He reaches behind himself for Lan Zhan’s cock and eases onto it in a long, easy slide. He’s wet, wet, wet, not as open as he would be if Lan Zhan had done it for him, but so wet it doesn’t matter. Like he’d fingered oil into himself, pushing it as deep as it could go. Like he’d upended a bottle to make the slide slicker than anything.
Lan Zhan twists his hips and Wei Ying digs his fingernails into his chest, reminds him to keep still even as he rocks his hips in jerky little motions to take Lan Zhan’s cock deeper, deeper, deeper.
“You are -” He cuts himself off with a swallow that Lan Zhan watches greedily. Wei Ying’s voice has gone hoarse with wanting. Lan Zhan’s wrists tremble again, and a bead of hot wax slides down the candle to rest in the cup of his palm. It makes his hips jump up, and Wei Ying rides the jolt of it with a high moan. “So big, er-gege, so big. You’re really too much.”
Lan Zhan grits out a moan. His mind doesn’t know how to separate the tasks into their boxes, doesn’t know how to decide what’s most important. He wants to fuck Wei Ying, wants to hold still, wants to be good. Distantly, wants to be a better brother. A better mentor. He wants to be better -
“So good, my Lan Zhan,” Wei Ying breathes, and seats himself completely on Lan Zhan’s hips, plush ass resting on Lan Zhan’s hip bones. “So perfect for me, so strong. You’re trembling all over, did you know, like an autumn leaf, oh - oh - “
He grinds, greedy, and it jostles Lan Zhan’s body. He has to pull his wrists off the bed to keep the candles still, and that makes his shoulders ache. Wei Ying is taking what he wants of him, making him useful. Lan Zhan is - good. Lan Zhan is being good.
“Fuck,” Wei Ying grits out, and drags his nails down Lan Zhan’s chest, claws them into his ribs. Lan Zhan jolts again, helpless, and it makes Wei Ying yelp when his cock catches just a little deeper. “Oh, fuck, fuck me - yes, good boy, just there -”
He sounds incredible. Lan Zhan watches him, and one of Wei Ying’s hands comes up to thumb wetness from beneath one of his eyes. He’s crying, he realizes, but he doesn’t know when or how or why, exactly, except that he loves, he loves, he loves.
“I’m going to - Lan Zhan, you’re going to - mm! - make me come, yes -”
Lan Zhan is not an active participant. He’s only distantly aware of his own body, beyond the tremble and the strain of his arms, the agony-sharp pleasure of Wei Ying riding him.
“Wei Ying,” He says, helpless, “Please, Wei Ying, please.” He doesn’t know what he’s asking for, but he knows that Wei Ying will give it to him.
“Yes, yes, yes,” Wei Ying whimpers and comes across Lan Zhan’s belly, going so tight that he can’t even squirm anymore. Lan Zhan’s trembling so hard that he splashes wax on his wrist, collects it in the cup of his palm, and barely even feels it.
Wei Ying leans in and blows out the candles, tenderly as a kiss, and takes them from Lan Zhan’s nerveless fingers to set them aside. He smooths the already-dried wax off of Lan Zhan’s palm and drops a kiss to the center of it, like an apology, and then settles himself more firmly astride Lan Zhan’s cock.
“Like this, gege,” He says, breath hitching just a little bit when Lan Zhan arches up to meet him. He must be oversensitive. Lan Zhan doesn’t - can’t - care, doesn’t have the presence of mind for it. He ruts up into Wei Ying, chases the sharp little ah-ah-ah!s that sound so good in his mouth.
“Oh fuck,” Wei Ying whines, and curls over Lan Zhan’s body. Lan Zhan, sore as he is, flips them and hitches Wei Ying’s leg over his shoulder so he can shove into his body, willing and open and wet for him. “Fuck, yes, good boy, good boy, this is just what you needed - fuck, you’re big, gently -”
Lan Zhan can’t do gently and Wei Ying doesn’t actually want it like that, for all that he whines. Lan Zhan chases his own orgasm selfishly, and Wei Ying is simply too sensitive to keep from being brought along for the ride.
“Fuuuuck , gege, er-gege, my Lan Zhan, you’re going to break me, slower - fuck, just like that, you’re going to make me come again, oh - oh - ”
The noise that Wei Ying makes when he comes again is high and sweet and it’s that, almost more than the clutch of his body, that tips Lan Zhan over the edge. He buries his face in Wei Ying’s throat and presses his teeth to his jumping pulse. He comes pressed as deeply as he can be, into Wei Ying, shivering like he’s falling apart.
Wei Ying strokes his hair, curling around one of his fingers absently. “Mm, my Lan Zhan,” He sounds so pleased with himself, “What are you thinking of?”
Lan Zhan, who is mostly convinced that he’s never had a single coherent thought in his entire life, makes a vague questioning noise, and Wei Ying laughs.
“We’ll need to get up,” He says, and strokes his fingers down Lan Zhan’s spine instead. “We both need a bath.”
Lan Zhan bites him, petulant, and Wei Ying yelps. “You beast,” He says, outraged. “You’ll have to take responsibility now.” Responsibility, he says. As if Lan Zhan hasn’t put come in all the places that there are to put it, as if Lan Zhan hasn’t already made Wei Ying his husband thrice over. He puts a hand over his ribbon, still curled around Wei Ying’s wrist.
“Will,” Lan Zhan slurs. He’s out of words. He doesn’t know how Wei Ying is still talking. “Later.”
Wei Ying laughs, soft, and says, “Later.”
Lan Zhan falls asleep with his mouth on Wei Ying’s pulse, where it flutters and then settles into something steady and calm.