Chapter Text
Wei Ying quickly wraps up the rest of his remaining projects, which leaves their days together lazy and quiet and sprawling.
A couple days after he’s finished, Wei Ying suggests they go down to the beach once the skies clear up from morning storms. Lan Zhan packs them a late lunch, cutting up sandwiches and fresh fruit and packing water bottles. It makes him feel like a child again, getting ready for school. Wei Ying flits around the house, muttering to himself and racking through his things that are now stored in various corners of various rooms. Wei Ying is the messiest person he’s ever met, but selfishly, Lan Zhan likes it. His house has never truly felt lived-in before. A little bit of chaos befits it.
It becomes evident, after Lan Zhan finishes packing their lunch, that Wei Ying had forgotten a swimsuit.
Wei Ying scratches his head and sighs, staring down at his strewn belongings. “The townhouse is pretty inland. I guess I just didn’t even think to bring one? Dumb, considering we’re literally on a beach.”
“Hmm,” Lan Zhan says, thinking through alternatives. “You could always —”
“ — swim without one, yeah,” Wei Ying agrees, the image of which immediately derails Lan Zhan’s train of thought.
He stares at Wei Ying. Wei Ying stares back.
“Was that not,” Wei Ying starts, then tries again. “This is a private beach —”
Lan Zhan fights the sudden need to clear his throat. “I have extra suits.”
“Or that,” Wei Ying says. “Way more reasonable deduction from that conversation, yeah.”
Lan Zhan leads Wei Ying to his bedroom and starts to pull out extra swim trunks from his drawers, laying them out on the bed. It quickly becomes clear that none of them will fit Wei Ying’s stature.
“It’s not my fault I’m smaller,” Wei Ying complains with a good-natured pout in Lan Zhan’s direction as he shuffles through his options.
“Mm,” Lan Zhan says noncommittally, like he hasn’t noticed. Like he hasn’t considered how easy it would be to pick Wei Ying up and throw him a short distance. Among other things. It’s at that moment that he remembers something, and he moves to his closet to rustle around until he surfaces with a dusty old pair of trunks, never worn.
“Oh, those actually might work,” Wei Ying says as he holds them up and stretches the waistband. “There’s no way these are your size. Why do you have them?”
“My father’s sister gave them to me for a birthday, a long time ago,” Lan Zhan says. “They never fit, but she passed away when I was still a teenager. I’ve never had the heart to get rid of them.”
This rediscovery, it turns out, is a colossal mistake for Lan Zhan’s peace of mind.
“They fit perfectly,” Wei Ying says as he trounces out of the bathroom. They do. Lan Zhan abruptly remembers why he’d never worn them, even as a lanky teen. They’d been way too short, nowhere near the mid-thigh style he prefers. On a grown man, they’re even shorter, a tight cling to Wei Ying’s ass and thighs and the shape of —
“You’re looking at me weird.” Wei Ying is staring at Lan Zhan, who snaps to attention at the callout. “Do they look funny?”
Funny is . . . not the correct word.
“They do fit,” Lan Zhan says, playing neutral.
Wei Ying rebunches his hair into a ponytail with a shrug. “It’s just the two of us, anyway. Ready?”
They make their way down to the beach, towels and sunscreen and a mini-cooler bundled up in their arms. Lan Zhan is thinking incessantly about the freckle he’d spotted on Wei Ying’s inner thigh the entire way down the path to the sand; he’s thinking about it the entire time he sets them up, laying out towels and the cooler.
He sprays on one layer of sunscreen, and then two, and then Wei Ying says, “Hey, I’ll get your back?”
Lan Zhan glances at him, and Wei Ying stares back with his hand shielded over his eyes like a viser. It’s only his toothy smile that’s visible. “You know, so your back doesn’t burn.”
Lan Zhan wordlessly hands off the sunscreen and turns his back to Wei Ying, who bounces into his space. Wei Ying is thorough, his hands working over every inch of Lan Zhan’s shoulders, upper arms, and lower back.
“Such a nice body,” Wei Ying murmurs as he works, almost as if to himself.
“Hm?” Lan Zhan asks over his shoulder, to make sure he’d heard right.
“Oh, nothing!” Wei Ying says. “Just, like. All the yoga is doing it for you. Haha.”
Lan Zhan turns with a gesture to return the favor, but Wei Ying skitters back and clutches the bottle close to his chest, shaking his head.
“I’ll tan without it first,” he says. To Lan Zhan’s disapproving glare, he adds, “Just for a little while! Then you can rub this stuff all over me.”
Lan Zhan wisely refrains from responding to that. After they’re set up, they lounge for about an hour or so, Wei Ying napping while Lan Zhan pages through a book. He usually reads at a decent pace, but he finds he can’t focus today. He reads the same paragraphs over and over, computing only a word at a time as the sentences run together meaninglessly. He’s unable to resist sneaking glances at Wei Ying, for no reason other than the simplest one, which is that he wants to look at him. Once Wei Ying’s shoulders start to redden, Lan Zhan pokes him to wake him up, and Wei Ying mumbles into the towel, “Fine, do it then,” then appears to fall back asleep.
Lan Zhan moves over to Wei Ying with sunscreen in hand. He catches sight of the moon-shaped birthmark on his shoulder, temporarily loses his head, and swings one leg over so that he’s kneeling over Wei Ying. His knees dig into the towel on either side of Wei Ying’s thighs. There’s the dark freckle at the nape of his neck, like Lan Zhan had noticed on their first meeting; the birthmark, other moles scattered across his skin. Lan Zhan applies a layer of sunscreen to his back even as Wei Ying flinches from the cold, working it into his skin like a masseuse lathering oil. Wei Ying makes muffled, approving sounds through his nose as Lan Zhan’s hands knead into his muscles, from the top of his shoulders to the base of his spine.
“You’re really good at that,” Wei Ying mumbles into the towel, his eyes still closed. “Lan Zhan, you should abandon fossil collection to give deep-tissue massages.”
“Hm,” Lan Zhan says in amusement. His hands drift to a stop at the waistband of Wei Ying’s undersized swim trunks. Wei Ying shifts his hips in a little wriggle.
“You can go lower,” he says in a casual voice. “I don’t mind.”
Lan Zhan hesitates, vacillating on his options. Thirst wins out, and he rolls down the waistband of Wei Ying’s trunks so that the very top of his ass is visible, the half-rounded swell just above where the cleft begins. Wei Ying makes a sound in his throat and moves his face out of profile, burying it in his forearms.
There have been times, over the weeks, when Lan Zhan has thought he’s imagined the chemistry between him and Wei Ying; has nearly chalked it up to wishful thinking, a one-sided burn. This is not one of those moments, as he kneads gratuitous sunscreen into the soft, buttery skin where Wei Ying’s ass begins and as Wei Ying makes — sounds.
“Mmmm, yeah,” Wei Ying moans under his breath. The sound goes directly to Lan Zhan’s cock. “That’s it.”
Fuck, Lan Zhan thinks. Just the one word. It encompasses a lot of things; a sentiment, a desired action. Lan Zhan digs his thumbs into the fleshy skin above Wei Ying’s ass, because — well, there’s an ample amount of it — and presses down. He might be imagining it, but Wei Ying seems to arch back into his touch, a deeper bend of his spine.
“Is that enough?” Lan Zhan asks in a low voice, because if he moves any further down, he’ll be. Well. Neither of them will be suitable for the outdoors, private beach notwithstanding.
“I think so.” Wei Ying sounds a little shrill, like he’s catching his breath after a dead sprint. “It feels like you got everything.”
Lan Zhan pulls the waistband back up with a snap, which earns him another noise from Wei Ying. Embarrassingly, Lan Zhan is halfway hard, just from the last few minutes. It’s like Wei Ying has a way of circumventing all of his rational defenses, the direct drip of a drug into his bloodstream.
Wei Ying keeps his face buried for some time, for long enough that Lan Zhan thinks he might have fallen back asleep. Lan Zhan returns to reading without an ounce of focus, willing his unruly body to behave, for once. This has been the constant game with Wei Ying since they’d met; wet dreams, cold showers, culled desire, repeat. He’s grown quite practiced at it.
“Lan Zhan,” Wei Ying says a few minutes later, a little whiny-sounding. Not asleep. Lan Zhan snaps his book closed to give him his full attention. Wei Ying peeks out from his arm to look at Lan Zhan.
“We should eat, don’t you think?” he says.
The question seems innocent enough. Lan Zhan nods, then drags the cooler over between them and begins to distribute rations. Wei Ying wolfs down the sandwich Lan Zhan had made, issuing heartfelt comments all the while about how good it tastes, but he hesitates at the fruit, rolling the orange slices between his fingers.
“Lan Zhan,” Wei Ying repeats, then turns to look at him again, from under his lashes.
“Mn.”
“You should feed me,” Wei Ying says.
He delivers it like a joke, light and airy, but there’s something in his gaze that draws Lan Zhan closer; that incites him to pick up one of the orange slices in his fingers without hesitation.
Wei Ying’s eyes widen a little, like he hadn’t actually expected Lan Zhan to take the bait, but as Lan Zhan moves over, he maneuvers onto his back, lying flat on the towel. He watches Lan Zhan approach with an expectant look, the corners of his lips upturned with delight.
“I didn’t really think you’d —” Wei Ying begins, and Lan Zhan catches his jaw gently with a hand to stop his talking.
“Open,” he says. Wei Ying puffs out a breath through his mouth, a little sound of disbelief, and then he does, his eyes round on Lan Zhan. Lan Zhan slides the fruit between his teeth, and with his jaw still caught in Lan Zhan’s hand, Wei Ying closes his mouth around it. He chews. His eyes haven’t wavered from Lan Zhan for a second. The juice makes his mouth shiny, trailing from the corners of his lips.
“Good,” Lan Zhan says, and Wei Ying wheezes, a little helpless-sounding, “Oh fuck.”
Good. It’s out in the open, then, what they’re doing. What they both want. An acknowledgement of sorts, panting heavy between them. It fills Lan Zhan with a sudden relief. And a boldness he didn’t know he possessed. He picks up another slice. Wei Ying is already waiting for him, his lips parting.
“Not so fast,” Lan Zhan murmurs, a near-reproach. He sees Wei Ying’s hands clench on the towel, his fingers twisting in the fabric. “Open more.”
Wei Ying does, his eyes sliding half-shut like he’s falling asleep. Lan Zhan wants to eat him whole. Maybe he will — maybe it’s a possibility, after all, given what they’re doing, the way Wei Ying is responding to him, pliant and reactive.
Lan Zhan holds the orange wedge just above Wei Ying’s parted lips. He squeezes, juicing it into his open mouth. Wei Ying eagerly drinks it down, the knot of his throat bobbing as he swallows in fast, greedy gulps. When the wedge is spent, Lan Zhan makes to move his hand away, and Wei Ying grabs him by the wrist. His tongue darts out to lap the juice off of Lan Zhan’s fingers, his eyes closed like he’s sampling a dessert. He’s thorough, licking over the pads of Lan Zhan’s fingers and between the slats of his knuckles. All of Lan Zhan’s painstaking efforts earlier to kill his erection have been rendered entirely obsolete. He’s about two seconds from ripping Wei Ying’s tiny shorts off, nostalgia from a dead relative notwithstanding.
Wei Ying takes the crushed fruit between his teeth, chews, and swallows, his dark lashes fluttering. He knows exactly what he’s doing; perhaps has always known exactly what he does to Lan Zhan. The knowledge fills Lan Zhan with a breathless excitement as he reaches for another slice of fruit.
“Do you want it?” Lan Zhan asks, holding the fruit just out of reach.
Wei Ying nods fast. His cheeks are so flushed. “Y-yeah.”
“Do you really?” Lan Zhan says, meaning something else. A final confirmation.
“Yes,” Wei Ying whispers, and so Lan Zhan slots the fruit gently between his own teeth. It’s sweet and cool on the tip of his tongue. He leans down so their bare chests brush. He’s never been this close to Wei Ying; his skin feels feverish against Lan Zhan’s. He smells balmy from the sunscreen. Carefully, Lan Zhan inclines his head so that their noses nearly brush, and Wei Ying tilts up to meet him, his tongue sliding out to guide the fruit from Lan Zhan’s mouth. They’re close enough to kiss, maybe closer than kissing; the tip of Wei Ying’s tongue slips against Lan Zhan’s lower lip and then retreats, an accidental bump, but it’s enough to set Lan Zhan’s nerves on fire. The late afternoon sun is suddenly insufferable. The ocean temperatures this far north are frigid but tempting, just to douse the heat.
Lan Zhan is close enough that he can feel the flex of Wei Ying’s jaw as he chews; can smell the citrus on his breath. Their noses are still touching. Lan Zhan could kiss him and Wei Ying might kiss him back. Would probably kiss him back. Just now, Lan Zhan had been as clear in his asking as he knows how to be. Wei Ying had said yes, but Lan Zhan still isn’t certain what he’d agreed to.
Lan Zhan’s fingers are sticky, collecting grains of sand. Wei Ying is breathing hot into his mouth. He hasn’t retreated, but he hasn’t made a move to initiate either. As overpowering as the urge to kiss him is, a stronger desire suddenly slides into focus — to make him wait. To keep out of reach for just long enough that Wei Ying grows impatient and wild with it, until he cracks and asks for what he wants. Perhaps it would be cruel. Perhaps it’s part of some larger game they’re playing that Lan Zhan has only now learned the rules of; that Lan Zhan has just realized he can play well.
He eases up and away from Wei Ying, ignoring the confused sound that follows him, the small huff of disappointment. It does feel a little cruel, but a furtive glance to Wei Ying confirms it was the right move. Wei Ying is staring after him with huge eyes, his hair askew and his face nearly scarlet. He looks debauched. Yes, he can stand to wait for it, a little longer.
“Lan Zhan,” Wei Ying says with a note of frustration.
“What is it?” Lan Zhan says, keeping his voice even. If Wei Ying were to glance down for even a second, he would know exactly where they both stand; how hard Lan Zhan is, straining uncomfortably against the front of his swim trunks. How badly Lan Zhan is already losing this.
“You — ” Wei Ying huffs again and sulks, casting a moody look down the beach.
“Was there something more you wanted?” Lan Zhan says, levelly enough that Wei Ying can’t miss the gambit unless he’s trying to.
Sure enough, Wei Ying swings his head back around to stare at Lan Zhan in open-mouthed surprise. He looks a little betrayed, like he hadn’t expected something so underhanded from Lan Zhan.
Then his eyes narrow.
“Oh, you . . .” he says, with dawning comprehension. “Hmph.”
“More fruit?” Lan Zhan asks, deadpan.
Wei Ying considers him for a moment. He does it in a way that reminds Lan Zhan of that first stormy evening on his couch, when Wei Ying’s eyes had flashed red and unfamiliar; when he had suddenly been a stranger, an entirely new facet of being. Lan Zhan experiences a responding shiver of expectation. He has no doubt that Wei Ying will give it back as good as he’s got, now.
“Nah, I’m good on food,” Wei Ying says after another moment. He’s recovered remarkably well, his tone upbeat and breezy. “Just think I’ll tan for a bit longer.”
He casts Lan Zhan a sunny look and then rolls over onto his stomach, spreading his thighs slightly. It makes the curve of his ass obscene. Lan Zhan can see the exact place where the fabric —
“Mmm, maybe I should . . .” Wei Ying says contemplatively, and it nearly gives Lan Zhan a stroke when he rolls the waistband halfway down his ass, baring the top swell of his cheeks and most of his crack.
Lan Zhan is certainly going to lose this. He can’t even be upset about it. He gets up and takes a walk, pacing in an agitated circle while Wei Ying watches him from the same position with a slightly smug expression, his mouth curled up.
“What?” he says, guileless to the tormented look that Lan Zhan throws his way. “I’m just trying to catch some sun.”
“You’ll burn,” Lan Zhan says, staring at his ass.
Wei Ying stretches his arms out in front of him luxuriously. “Yeah.”
Lan Zhan edges closer, his resolve wavering. He’s already forgotten the point of why he hadn’t kissed Wei Ying earlier. He had been foolish to assume he had the fortitude for something like this, with Wei Ying’s power over him.
“It’s a shame,” Wei Ying sighs into the towel. His legs nudge open wider. “An entire beach, and not a single beautiful man to apply sunscreen in the places where I really need — ah!”
Lan Zhan’s patience for this ridiculous dance had snapped somewhere in the middle of Wei Ying’s sentence. He leans forward and does it again, what had derailed Wei Ying’s sentence the first time — snaps the waistband of his trunks against his ass, then drops to kneel over him.
“Lan Zhan,” Wei Ying says, squirming and wriggling his hips, “aha, you really shouldn’t, what will all the lifeguards ssssay —”
“Ridiculous,” Lan Zhan murmurs, fond. He lowers his hips against Wei Ying’s back so he can feel the exact effect he’s having. Wei Ying makes a sound like an animal and claws into the sand, his hips snapping back.
“For a second, I thought you didn’t,” Wei Ying gasps into the towel, his fingers digging into the ground. “Mmmm, I thought maybe you didn’t want —”
“How could I not,” Lan Zhan says. He presses his nose into Wei Ying’s sweat-damp hair; breathes, tries to remember his own body. Feverishly, he drags his mouth down the back of Wei Ying’s neck. “Look at you.”
His words seem to have a heady effect. Wei Ying whimpers and shoves himself back against Lan Zhan again, then he makes another sound when Lan Zhan’s cock grinds against the bare cleft of his ass. Lan Zhan bites the junction of his neck and shoulder and tastes salt, the chemical sheen of sunblock.
“It’s still light out,” Wei Ying says, like he’s just now recalled what propriety is. “We should at least — water? Maybe, hahhh, swim for a bit before we —”
“The water is freezing,” Lan Zhan reminds him as he runs a hand down Wei Ying’s side.
Wei Ying twitches at his touch. “Can’t we use our cores?”
They can. Lan Zhan considers this for a moment. As much as he’d like to fuck Wei Ying here, in the heat of the moment and the open sun, it probably isn’t ideal conditions. There’s a lot of sand. And no lubricant, aside from sunscreen. The water might cool his head a bit, calm him down from the frenzy he’s working himself into. Allow him to take his time, as he should.
With both hands, Lan Zhan takes Wei Ying by the hips and flips him over. Wei Ying makes a sound but goes willingly, his knees falling open. The swim trunks, scant as they are, hide nearly nothing; he’s as hard as Lan Zhan is. Wei Ying blushes more the longer Lan Zhan stares, although it could possibly be attributed to sunburn.
“What?” he mumbles, sounding defensive. “ You try getting erotically handfed fruit.”
“Since then?” Lan Zhan asks, very pleased by this information.
“Since then?” Wei Ying mimics without rancor. “You’re such a menace.”
Lan Zhan helps him up and they move to the water together, picking their way through the rocky sand. It could be comical, the picture of them to an imaginary observer: two grown men shuffling down to the shoreline, shifting uncomfortably to accommodate the raging erections chafing against their swimsuits. Wei Ying yelps when the freezing water crashes into his ankles, and he skitters back to the safety of the sand, shaking his head vehemently.
“With your core, the temperature will be fine,” Lan Zhan reminds him.
Wei Ying complains and scuttles around for a few minutes more before he follows after Lan Zhan, and then they’re wading waist-deep into the water together, the gray waves foaming around their hips.
Once they’re far out enough from shore, it takes only a few minutes for Lan Zhan to discover that Wei Ying is a stronger swimmer than he is. Even against the current, he cuts through the water with ease, his strokes powerful and assured.
“You look so surprised,” Wei Ying calls over to Lan Zhan, then hacks and spits out a mouthful of water when a wave catches him unawares.
“You’re good,” Lan Zhan notes.
Wei Ying visibly preens at this. “Thanks. I was on swim team for forever. Fastest in my heat!”
Lan Zhan’s head does feel clearer now, thanks to the cold water. He’s at least capable of thinking rationally, now that he’s not hard anymore. There’s still a strange ache between his legs; a jittery frustration, an unanswered need. Lan Zhan has never intentionally or unintentionally tried edging himself before, but he thinks this might be what it feels like.
The sun starts to set after another hour, the sky gradually dimming and the glare off the water receding. They swim for long enough that the sky bruises to a deeper shade of dusk-blue. The tides shift, climbing higher onto the sandbar. Wei Ying darts in and out of his space to tease him, his hands on Lan Zhan’s shoulders and his chest before he flits out of reach again. It seems he’d been holding back on flirting, prior to today. What had transpired earlier still simmers between them. An anticipation. Lan Zhan catches a taste of it every time Wei Ying looks his way; the unguarded look in his face and the conspiratorial way he smiles at Lan Zhan, as if saying, Wait and see. The sheer relief Lan Zhan feels is as surprising as it is buoyant. It brings a lightness to their interactions, a giddiness. The uncertainty and the agony of wanting are over. There’s only inevitability now, a sweet and steady build to something more.
“Hey, Lan Zhan,” Wei Ying says, once the sun is mostly down. “Have you ever tried skinny-dipping?”
It’s returned, that electricity from earlier. It hadn’t left; had only been building up charge. It ticks like static in Lan Zhan’s fingers. Slowly, Lan Zhan shakes his head.
“Wanna try it?” Wei Ying asks. He paddles closer to Lan Zhan. “I haven’t done it in an ocean before, just lakes and ponds.”
Lan Zhan takes Wei Ying by the wrist to guide them both to shallower waters, where their feet can touch the ocean floor if they need to. He still hasn’t given Wei Ying an answer, an echo of that teasing from before.
“I can go first,” Wei Ying announces. His remaining patience for this game is evidently as low as Lan Zhan’s is. He sticks his tongue between his teeth and wriggles around for a bit, then resurfaces triumphantly with the tiny shorts crumpled wet in his hand. He drifts closer to Lan Zhan, enough so to nearly touch him. Lan Zhan doesn’t budge, his heart beating faster at Wei Ying’s approach.
Wei Ying waggles his eyebrows at him. “Your turn.”
Lan Zhan takes his time in responding, just to watch Wei Ying get worked up in his growing impatience. It’s very cute. It seems unconscionable that Lan Zhan hasn’t kissed him yet. He can no longer remember what his reasoning was; only knows that he needs to remedy it as quickly as possible.
Just when it seems like Wei Ying is about to burst, Lan Zhan takes mercy on him and follows his example, reaching down to loosen his drawstring and tug off his shorts. It takes some graceless maneuvering, but he finally joins Wei Ying in the nude, his trunks balled up in his hand. The sensation is strange; extremely novel. The sea temperature has been mediated, thanks to his core, but the sensation of water brushing against the most hidden parts of him is odd. Surprisingly more sensual than he’d imagined it would be.
He moves closer to Wei Ying, intending to grab him by the hips and reel him in, but Wei Ying dances out of his reach with a devious look on his face, backstroking away from him. The dusk has grown dim enough that Lan Zhan can’t make out any specific details of his body, other than the planes of his bare skin breaking the surface of the water.
A little ways away from him, Wei Ying stops, stretches his arms out, and floats on his back. Lan Zhan watches him from afar with an affection that feels too big for his body.
“This feels so weird,” Wei Ying says quietly, his voice carrying. A moment later, he clarifies, “It feels like being in a womb,” and then doesn’t say anything else. After another moment, Lan Zhan swims over to him, then joins him on his back. Wei Ying reaches out to link their hands so they float together like otters, bobbing with the waves.
“I can’t remember the last time I was this happy,” Wei Ying says after a very long silence. Lan Zhan nearly misses it, with the glick of the water hitting his ears, half-submerged. He cranes his head up to hear the rest. Wei Ying turns his head to look at him, the shadows of his face pronounced in the lengthening dusk.
“I don’t know if I’ve ever been happy,” Wei Ying says.
Lan Zhan squeezes his hand, almost involuntarily. Wei Ying squeezes back. He doesn’t let go.
“You know,” Wei Ying reflects after another moment. “I don’t know if it’s the water or what, but being out here like this, the other side is quiet.” He closes his eyes, tips his chin up, and sighs. “It’s nice.”
“I’m glad,” Lan Zhan says softly.
Wei Ying falls silent for another minute. Then: “I think it’s something about you. Whenever you touch me, everything goes quiet in my head.”
Their hands are still clasped together. Wei Ying’s fingers shift against Lan Zhan’s palm, a readjusting.
“Lan Zhan,” Wei Ying says into Lan Zhan’s silence. He swallows. “Earlier, on the beach. I thought you were going to kiss me.”
Lan Zhan breathes out slowly, feeling his body sink in the water as his chest decompresses. His heart starts to pound.
“I thought you might do it,” Wei Ying repeats, a little softer.
“I almost did,” Lan Zhan says.
Wei Ying doesn’t look at him, his eyes trained on the sky. “Why didn’t you?”
Lan Zhan doesn’t have a concrete answer to that. The moment, as hot and playful as it had been, hadn’t felt right, not for their first time. The wretched romantic in him had been waiting for something more like this. Moonlit, oceanic, an awakening.
Lan Zhan knows the answer — he thinks he does — but he asks anyway. “Did you want me to?”
The knob of Wei Ying’s throat slides up, then down. He whispers, “Yeah.”
The confirmation sends a hot jolt down Lan Zhan’s spine. Enough, he thinks suddenly. Enough with the weeks of waiting, the game, delayed gratification. He tugs on Wei Ying’s hand and lowers his feet to touch the ocean floor so that he’s standing upright. Wei Ying follows, their hands still connected.
For some time, facing each other in the waning light, they do nothing but drink each other in. The water knocks against their sides, splitting around their bodies. Wei Ying’s hair is dark with wet, the drier strands curling in wisps at his temples. Glittering droplets bead the peaks of his shoulders like the stars overhead. In the remaining light, Lan Zhan can see the bridge of his nose is a little sun-kissed from earlier.
Wei Ying sighs and plants a hand over his eyes. “No, now there’s too much anticipation. It has to be when I’m not expecting it or I’ll get all weird about it and — ”
That seems to be as good a cue as any for Lan Zhan to make amends for the wait. It’s a good first kiss, careful and a little sweet. Wei Ying’s mouth is unbearably soft, cold and a little brackish from the seawater. Wei Ying makes a small question-mark sound into Lan Zhan’s mouth, and then he’s kissing back, his arms looping around Lan Zhan’s neck. Finally, Lan Zhan thinks. His hands find Wei Ying’s waist under the water to pull him so their hips are flush. Wei Ying breaks the kiss to gasp a little against Lan Zhan’s mouth, but he doesn’t pull back; he deepens the kiss, his fingers curling into Lan Zhan’s shoulders and digging into the skin. Lan Zhan’s hand moves again, finds the small of Wei Ying’s back to push their hips together closer, to grind his hardening cock against Wei Ying’s bare hip. Wei Ying makes another one of those bitten-off, involuntary sounds.
Lan Zhan does pull back, then, to stare at him. Wei Ying’s eyes are still closed, his mouth dewy with spit and sea. Without opening his eyes, he dips his head to catch Lan Zhan’s thumb in his mouth. He rolls his tongue against it, a slow suck. It seems almost unimaginable that Lan Zhan can have him where he wants him, that Lan Zhan gets to kiss him and then try again.
“Lan Zhan,” Wei Ying murmurs, a little breathless as his eyes slide half-open. “It’s no fair that you’re so good at this, too. I keep thinking I’ll find a flaw with you.”
Lan Zhan rubs the pad of his thumb along the swell of Wei Ying’s bottom lip. Gravely, he says, “I did make you wait.”
Wei Ying playfully flicks his tongue against Lan Zhan’s thumb. “Well, I have some ideas for how you can make it up to m — ”
The next kiss lasts for a long time. Long enough that the sky starts to blacken around them, save for the bright wedge of the moon; long enough that Lan Zhan’s mouth starts to go numb and a little swollen. Wei Ying is a good kisser, his tongue hot and deft in Lan Zhan’s mouth, attentive to even the quietest of sounds that Lan Zhan makes. Wei Ying is more vocal than Lan Zhan is, whimpering or gasping whenever Lan Zhan unexpectedly deepens the kiss or tries something new with his teeth and tongue.
With so much new skin bared, it’s easy for their hands to roam, warm touches sliding beneath the water. There’s a lot of Wei Ying to explore. Chest, navel, groin. Now that he has access, Lan Zhan is wholly incapable of not palming Wei Ying’ ass again and again, gripping and squeezing the soft flesh while Wei Ying pants against his mouth. Experimentally, Lan Zhan runs his other hand along the length of Wei Ying’s cock, an easy glide up and down in the loose circle of his hand; just feeling him out, not particularly trying to get him off. It’s smaller than his, but still a good size hard, the skin unbelievably soft. Wei Ying retaliates by returning the favor, feeling up Lan Zhan’s erection with his mouth parted and his eyes dazed, cast down between their bodies so he can watch the hidden movement of his own hand under the water. Just that fumbling touch, Wei Ying’s eyes on him, is almost enough to — but Wei Ying seems to sense he’s close and pulls off. He leans up to kiss him again and moves his hand to Lan Zhan’s chest. Lan Zhan’s fingers have long since pruned, the water dipping degrees toward freezing as he loses his concentration to Wei Ying. At some point, with their hands otherwise occupied, the ocean claims Lan Zhan’s swim trunks for its own, never to be seen again. The tides begin to pick up, chasing the moonrise. The waves sweep them closer to shore, even with their feet anchored in the sand.
“We should,” Lan Zhan says, thinking of hot showers and dry beds.
“Not yet,” Wei Ying says, then wraps his legs around Lan Zhan’s hips. He’s weightless in the water, so it’s effortless to pick him up like this. The new position makes it so that Wei Ying is higher than him; so that Wei Ying has to angle Lan Zhan’s head back to kiss him, one hand in his hair and the other on his shoulder, still gripping his balled-up swimsuit. It’s easy, in this position, to find Wei Ying’s ass again with both hands and to squeeze. Wei Ying gasps into his mouth and grinds his hips forward, the hot line of his cock pressing against Lan Zhan’s abs. He’s still fully hard, even with the water temperature. Lan Zhan grips him just like this, the kiss unbroken until he grows more curious, experimental. His fingers start to probe, searching blindly until they catch against the tight furl of Wei Ying’s hole. Wei Ying’s hips buck forward, clenching around Lan Zhan’s fingers with an ah! Encouraged and also very hard, Lan Zhan continues like this for a couple of minutes, massaging his fingers against that spot so that Wei Ying moans and jerks against him.
“Oh,” Wei Ying pants against Lan Zhan’s ear, “L-Lan Zhan, wait a minute, I’m g-going to —”
“Let’s go inside,” Lan Zhan says with a calmness he does not feel.
Wei Ying makes a tortured sound and buries his face in Lan Zhan’s shoulder.
“Lan Zhan,” he wails. “Are you trying to kill me?!”
“You won’t die,” Lan Zhan says reasonably. He removes his hands so that Wei Ying slithers off of him like a spoonful of grass jelly.
“Yes I am, you’re going to blue-ball me to death!” Wei Ying rails at him. “You do know that’s possible, right? I read a news article about it once, ‘Florida man dies from testicular hypertension’ — ”
Wei Ying is shivering with the cold as he rants, so Lan Zhan picks him up again despite the squawk of protest he receives for it.
“Lan Zhan,” Wei Ying grumbles at him, squirming in his arms, but Lan Zhan’s body heat calms his shivering as Lan Zhan carries them both through the water to shore. He picks his way carefully along the seabed so as to not step on anything sharp. He doesn’t bother to stop for their abandoned supplies, neglected somewhere on the darkened beach.
Wei Ying is still ranting at him a little even as Lan Zhan carries him up the path to the house.
“Are you done?” Lan Zhan says patiently once they reach the front door, not entirely able to keep the humor from his voice.
“No! I am not, as a matter of fact, done!” Wei Ying says. “You fingerblasted me in the ocean and then left me to die, so no, you’ve all but ensured that I’m not anywhere close to done — ”
“Go take a shower,” Lan Zhan says, then kisses him on the forehead and sets him down. “You’ll get sick.”
Wei Ying wobbles a little on his feet even as he clings to Lan Zhan, swaying in place. Ridiculously, they’re both still naked. Mostly hard. Shivering with cold. Sand is crusted all the way up to Lan Zhan’s shins from the walk up the beach. After some more grumbling, Wei Ying does as he’s bid, vocalizing his feelings on the matter all the way to the bathroom. Lan Zhan inconspicuously watches him go, admiring the view. He had indeed gotten sunburnt in some unfortunate places.
It seems strange, perhaps, to have done what they just did together and to shower separately, but it feels right to give Wei Ying a few minutes to himself. Things had escalated quickly, after all. It’s possible, with a moment alone, that Wei Ying might have second thoughts about . . . what might come after. What else they might do with their evening. Lan Zhan moves to the bathroom only once it’s clear that Wei Ying has vacated the premises in favor of Lan Zhan’s bedroom.
The hot shower water is blissful after the frigid ocean temperatures, almost painful as wet sand sluices down the drain. Lan Zhan’s mouth is still tingling from Wei Ying kissing and biting it. He can’t stop touching his fingers to his lips, replaying moments from the day with heat in his face. Lan Zhan isn’t often an impatient man, but he rinses off at record speed, thinking about Wei Ying waiting in his bedroom. He dries off, wraps a towel snugly around his waist, and goes to meet him.
He finds Wei Ying lounging on his bed, one of his legs sprawled to the side and a towel tied loosely around his waist as he messes around on his phone. He glances up when he realizes Lan Zhan’s presence. His eyes flicker up Lan Zhan’s torso then down, going wide. He nearly drops his phone on his face. “Oh, uh, hi.”
Lan Zhan crosses to him across the room, measured and slow.
“Sorry that I’m not dressed,” Wei Ying starts to ramble nervously at Lan Zhan’s approach. “I figured it was okay if —”
Lan Zhan presses him down into the mattress, capturing his mouth in one hungry stroke. Wei Ying says mm! into the kiss. His hands come up to hook on Lan Zhan’s shoulder blades, and then they wander, stroking up and down the length of Lan Zhan’s back. Beneath the towel, Wei Ying’s legs fall open, and Lan Zhan moves between them, pressing Wei Ying flat into the bed with his whole body.
Lan Zhan pulls back to stare, still close enough that Wei Ying is nearly cross-eyed. Wei Ying’s mouth is puffy from kisses, shiny with spit. The way he’s looking at Lan Zhan is dreamy, dark. Hungry. Without breaking eye contact, Wei Ying lets his mouth fall open, his tongue pushing out to sweep along his lower lip. The tip of it curls up toward Lan Zhan, a beckoning, a tease. Lan Zhan feels like the word devour, that hollow swallowing of syllables, ready to take.
On instinct, he pushes his thumb into the parted seam of Wei Ying’s mouth. Wei Ying hitches a sound around it but doesn’t resist, spit sliding down to Lan Zhan’s knuckle. Wei Ying hasn’t lost his focus on Lan Zhan, hazy-eyed and aware of Lan Zhan watching him; putting on a show. Lan Zhan pushes two more fingers into Wei Ying’s mouth, abruptly enough that Wei Ying gags and his tongue squirms against the pads of Lan Zhan’s fingers. It puts a flex in his jaw, his mouth rounded open, watching Lan Zhan with that same glassy intensity. The sounds are wet as Lan Zhan starts to fuck his fingers in and out. Wei Ying chokes around them, almost gags again as Lan Zhan shoves in to the bottom knuckle. His eyes tear up, then begin to stream, his lashes clumping together. He starts to whimper, drinking down the thrusts like Lan Zhan is giving him something he needs. Wei Ying is deep-throating his fingers and Lan Zhan can’t even pretend to be any less into it than he is. He can feel his own mouth is open, his breath harsh. The inside of Wei Ying’s mouth is silken, an easy slide, the sides of his teeth grazing Lan Zhan’s fingers. Once or twice, Wei Ying bites, not hard enough to hurt, but his teeth sink into the knuckle, his mouth closing around Lan Zhan’s fingers and sucking, his throat bobbing with his swallows. Performing, showing off, saying This is how I’d look, if I were —
Lan Zhan removes his fingers, ignoring Wei Ying’s small whine of protest. He doesn’t bother to wipe them on the sheets; just leans forward and recaptures Wei Ying’s mouth, his tongue charting the same path his fingers had taken. Wei Ying moans and Lan Zhan feels it in his throat.
After a few more minutes of kissing each other into lightheadedness, Wei Ying pulls away to catch his breath as Lan Zhan lowers his head to bite one of his nipples.
“Did you think about doing this?” Wei Ying gasps to the ceiling. “Lan Zhan, did you want to . . .”
“Mn,” Lan Zhan says into Wei Ying’s chest. “That day, at the cliffs.”
That’s when he’d first thought of kissing Wei Ying in images, a bodied thing. Truthfully, he’d wanted Wei Ying the moment he opened the front door, that first solar-flare smile.
“Oh!” Wei Ying says breathlessly. “Oh, since then, really? I’m the slow one, huh?”
“You caught up fast,” Lan Zhan concedes.
“I am a quick learner,” Wei Ying says, a suggestive lilt to his voice. Lan Zhan rolls them over in a tangle of limbs, reversing their positions.
The towel is still tied firmly around Wei Ying’s waist, even as he lies on top of Lan Zhan between his parted legs. They kiss again for a long time like this, steam from their shower-warm skin causing them both to flush. Lan Zhan’s erection is one long ache, left on edge for hours as he has been. His tender cock chafes against the friction of the towel. He can feel the press of Wei Ying’s answering hardness as he grinds his hips down in shallow, mindless circles against Lan Zhan’s. Wei Ying makes small, blissed-out sounds into Lan Zhan’s mouth as their tongues swirl together, a dance of give and take.
Without breaking the kiss, Lan Zhan slips a hand down Wei Ying’s bare back until he rests his hand over the shape of Wei Ying’s ass through the towel, testing the waters. Immediately, Wei Ying pushes back into his hand with another one of those sounds. It’s encouraging enough that Lan Zhan pulls away for a moment to reach over and fumble around his bedside table. Wei Ying watches with dark, glazed eyes, which widen a little when Lan Zhan unearths a small bottle of lube from the drawer. The pink in his cheeks quickly spreads to the rest of his face.
“Okay?” Lan Zhan asks, and Wei Ying says in a creaking voice, “Mm-hm,” and shifts his hips. Lan Zhan uncaps the bottle with a snick, then soaks his fingers as Wei Ying watches, their breaths picking up together. Once he’s satisfied with the amount, Lan Zhan leans up to kiss Wei Ying again. Wei Ying presses down into it eagerly, then starts to gasp through his nose as both of Lan Zhan’s hands drop down; as they slip beneath the towel to grip both cheeks in hand and squeeze, like he’d done before in the water. Lan Zhan is so overheated that he feels like he’s going to combust, and he can’t tell if it’s him or Wei Ying or both of them; they’re panting into each other’s mouths now, too distracted to focus on kissing. Carefully, still under the towel, he grips one of Wei Ying’s cheeks to spread him open, and with the other hand, he rubs a lube-slick finger against the rim of Wei Ying’s hole. Wei Ying whimpers and buries his hot face into Lan Zhan’s neck, arching his ass into Lan Zhan’s touch.
“Good?” Lan Zhan asks, open-mouthed against Wei Ying’s temple. Wei Ying nods, his face still hidden, his breathing labored. Lan Zhan presses a finger in, shallow at first, then a deeper push as Wei Ying opens to him. He’s tight with either nerves or inexperience. Wei Ying pants into his neck, grinding his erection against Lan Zhan’s in maddening little thrusts. Lan Zhan pushes two middle fingers in, up to the second knuckle, and Wei Ying full-body jerks and moans, high-pitched in his throat. Lan Zhan is hard enough that it had started to hurt a while ago, an uncomfortable tightness in his balls that sparks into pleasure whenever Wei Ying rubs against him.
“Have you ever played with yourself here?” Lan Zhan murmurs as he pumps his middle fingers in and out. Gasping, Wei Ying shakes his head, his face still buried in Lan Zhan’s neck. “Do you want to come like this?”
Wei Ying shakes his head again, even though his hips don’t stop moving, clenching around Lan Zhan’s fingers as if he wants to.
“Tell me,” Lan Zhan says.
“I want,” Wei Ying whispers, then says hhhhah and burrows his face deeper into Lan Zhan’s neck.
“Tell me,” Lan Zhan repeats, as he kneads the fat of Wei Ying’s asscheek hard enough to bruise.
Wei Ying takes a deep breath, then mumbles, “Want you inside,” into Lan Zhan’s neck.
“I am inside you,” Lan Zhan says, because Wei Ying is irresistible to tease like this, blushy and embarrassed like Lan Zhan has never seen him.
Wei Ying gives an aggrieved huff and whines, “Lan Zhan.”
“Tell me what you want,” Lan Zhan says softly. He bites Wei Ying’s earlobe. It tastes like Lan Zhan’s shampoo, like leftover sea-salt.
Wei Ying falls silent for a moment, although his body doesn’t stop moving, working itself against Lan Zhan’s. It seems like maybe he’s mustering up the nerve to ask.
“Do I have to say it,” Wei Ying whispers a moment later, then rubs his nose against Lan Zhan’s shoulder.
“You do,” Lan Zhan says, and gives a cruel little splay of his fingers inside of Wei Ying. Wei Ying hisses like a displeased cat, shoving himself back onto Lan Zhan’s hand.
“Fine,” Wei Ying says, muffled, “I —”
“Look at me,” Lan Zhan says. He sets his teeth into Wei Ying’s jaw, trying to guide his face up with his mouth while his hands are occupied.
“You — !!” Wei Ying protests, then huffs again and pokes his head up to glare at Lan Zhan. His whole face is red, the flush descending to the tops of his shoulders. Lan Zhan’s heart skips a beat at the sight of him, his breath catching in his throat.
Wei Ying continues, incensed, “You’re really going to make me ask for it? Fine: Lan Zhan, er-gege, I’m begging you to pleeeease put your enormous cock inside m — hey!”
Lan Zhan had bodily flipped them before Wei Ying could finish his sentence. With his hands free now, he tugs the towel off Wei Ying’s waist, the knot easily coming loose. The flush spreads to Wei Ying’s chest when Lan Zhan follows suit, leaving them both bare.
“Oh,” Wei Ying says, staring at Lan Zhan’s nakedness with a dumbstruck expression. “You’re —”
With both hands on Wei Ying’s waist, Lan Zhan easily twists him onto his stomach, ignoring Wei Ying’s startled yelp. He drapes himself against Wei Ying’s back, his hands tightening on Wei Ying’s hips. Lan Zhan starts at the nape of his neck, biting kisses there like he’s imagined since that day out on the cliffs. There are many places on Wei Ying’s body he’s taken note of these past weeks, places he’d bookmarked for later. He lowers his head to fit his top teeth to the crescent-shaped birthmark on Wei Ying’s shoulder. He feels frenzied. He feels drunk. He feels like a starving man set loose upon a buffet. He brushes his mouth over the dents over Wei Ying’s sacrum, the skin salted and warm against his lips. He grips Wei Ying’s ass and squeezes, pinches, bullies the flesh there until the skin reddens.
“L-Lan Zhan,” Wei Ying whimpers from somewhere above him. “Y-you —”
“Shh,” Lan Zhan says as he pulls away. “No backtalk.”
“What am I supposed to do with my mouth if I can’t —” Wei Ying begins to complain, and then he gasps as Lan Zhan tugs him up from the bed by the hips, pulling him into his lap with a light thump against Lan Zhan’s chest. He’s small enough compared to Lan Zhan that he’s easy to manhandle. Lan Zhan guides Wei Ying’s hips up, nudging his legs open so they hang over the outsides of Lan Zhan’s thighs.
“Can you take it like this,” Lan Zhan says, because despite Wei Ying’s flustered air up until now, he’s still uncertain of Wei Ying’s level of experience.
Wei Ying makes an indignant sound and says over his shoulder, “I can take anything you —” then abruptly shuts up when Lan Zhan moves him by the waist again, lifting him so that the head of Lan Zhan’s cock aligns with his entrance.
“Oh,” Wei Ying says when he feels it. He shudders and digs his fingers into Lan Zhan’s thighs. “Oh, fuck — ”
Lan Zhan takes that as cue to nudge his way inside, pushing just past the rim. The fit is almost impossibly tight, a vice grip around his cock. Wei Ying spasms around him as his hands scrabble for purchase on Lan Zhan’s thighs, his breathing high-pitched and a little hysterical as he tries to adjust.
“Shhh,” Lan Zhan whispers to calm him down, kissing the bridge of Wei Ying’s shoulder; behind his ear, the side of his neck.
“I’m fine, I’m fine,” Wei Ying says, then as if to prove it, he stubbornly shoves his hips down, his thighs nearly meeting the tops of Lan Zhan’s. The motion almost takes Lan Zhan all the way in. Lan Zhan is immediately overwhelmed, more so than anything he’s ever experienced. This is the closest he’s ever been to Wei Ying, in every sense; to any other person. He latches his teeth into Wei Ying’s shoulder, grounding himself so he won’t finish too soon.
“See, told you,” Wei Ying breathes, and then he’s bottoming out, gravity pulling him down all the way onto Lan Zhan’s lap. For a moment, they catch their breaths, shaking against each other. Lan Zhan lets Wei Ying adjust to his size, running his hands through the sweat on the underside of Wei Ying’s thighs. He brings one hand up to circle around Wei Ying’s cock, stiff against his belly, which earns him a whine. Another inspired detail suddenly comes back to him from that day at the cliffs: telling Wei Ying well done, Wei Ying’s answering blush.
“Good,” he murmurs into Wei Ying’s ear. “You take me well.”
Wei Ying’s cock jerks in his hand, hardening further as he tries to arch away from Lan Zhan’s touch. For a moment, he seems as if he’s about to unseat himself from Lan Zhan’s cock entirely, but his knees give out in the attempt, and he sinks back down onto Lan Zhan’s lap, gasping. Briefly, Lan Zhan entertains the thought of keeping him here, pinned open on his cock until he’s delirious and begging, but that experimentation can be for another time. Wei Ying needs something from him tonight; it’s evident in the desperate hitching of his hips, the tiny noises he makes as he squirms on Lan Zhan’s cock. Lan Zhan gives Wei Ying’s length a last stroke and twist before he repositions his hands on Wei Ying’s hips.
“Ready?” he says, and Wei Ying breathes, “Yeah, yeah,” and Lan Zhan lifts him easily to the tip of his cock. He drops him back down in a single, unstoppable slide. Wei Ying shouts loud enough to shake the roof, then starts up a litany of moaning as Lan Zhan starts to bounce him in shallow-deep thrusts. Wei Ying’s head falls back against Lan Zhan’s shoulder as Lan Zhan begins to fuck him in earnest, his mouth panting and open, his eyes shut with either pleasure or pain. Lan Zhan sucks a bruise into the side of his neck, Wei Ying’s pulse frantic against his mouth.
“Like it like this?” Lan Zhan asks, driving his hips up in rough snaps.
“Yeah, unh, unh, yeah,” Wei Ying chants back, each word in time with the thrusts. “Oh — my — god —”
With both of his hands occupied on the heavy lifting, Lan Zhan cranes his neck to snag Wei Ying’s chin in his teeth, yanking his face sideways like a dog with a toy. Wei Ying gets the memo, crashing his mouth against Lan Zhan’s in a messy smear of a kiss, his head still angled back. Wei Ying’s mouth is open around his panting and moaning, so it’s mostly tongue, an imprecise wet slide as he rides. Lan Zhan sinks his teeth into Wei Ying’s lower lip and latches on.
“Feels good?” he asks around Wei Ying’s lip, just to hear him say it; just to watch him try to speak beyond coherence.
“Good,” Wei Ying agrees between his pants, speaking into Lan Zhan’s mouth. “You?”
Good seems nearly insulting in its inadequacy. Lan Zhan has a colorful and extensive imagination, but even he hadn’t been prepared for anything like this; how good another body can feel, or his own. How dark and carnal his desires, a deep undersea. That he can be buried to the root inside Wei Ying and still want more more more, a hunger like a wolf’s snapping teeth. His desires don’t stop now that one is filled. If Lan Zhan’s hands were free, he would push his fingers into Wei Ying’s mouth until he gagged and choked on them, press down against his tongue until he could barely breathe; would play with Wei Ying’s cock, the hot silken length of it, from root to tip; would pinch and twist Wei Ying’s nipples until they bruised. He doesn’t have enough hands or enough time.
In lieu of those things, Lan Zhan drives into Wei Ying harder, as hard as he can at this angle. Wei Ying has started to shake, trembling from the exertion of keeping his weight aloft; perhaps also from pleasure as Lan Zhan continues to fuck into him deep, angling for his prostate. Between the shower water and sweat and lube and precome, they’ve already made a mess of the sheets. They’re about to ruin them more, Lan Zhan thinks as Wei Ying starts to vocally unravel, his body going limp against Lan Zhan’s. Lan Zhan’s shoulders and arms have started to shake, burning with the repeated motion of deadlifting Wei Ying’s body weight.
“Can you ride?” Lan Zhan murmurs once it’s clear Wei Ying is close. Wei Ying shakes his head, then reconsiders and nods, repositioning his knees to support his weight. “Good.”
“Lan Zhan,” Wei Ying gasps, circling his hips. It isn’t until now, with Wei Ying on the verge of coming, that Lan Zhan realizes how close he is himself; how easily he could tumble over the edge, at just a thought.
Wei Ying tries a few weak bounces on his own, shaking like a leaf against Lan Zhan. His thighs nearly give out with the effort.
“Not enough,” he whispers, shaking his head again, “I can’t —”
“You can,” Lan Zhan says, and then wraps his hand around Wei Ying’s cock, the way he’d imagined earlier. Wei Ying pitches forward into Lan Zhan’s grip, then he moans and clenches again, a tight fluttering of his inner walls. Shameless, how much he needs this. Lan Zhan could never be tired of it.
Wei Ying still hasn't come yet, even though he's clearly on the knife's edge of it, trembling with small, dry sobs as he clenches around Lan Zhan. Is he deliberately holding back for something? Lan Zhan remembers, suddenly, when they’d been in the water, Wei Ying skittering back with nerves, Wei Ying saying, Now there’s too much anticipation — He waits until Wei Ying has relaxed a little, unsuspecting, then punches his hips forward in a hard drive, jacking Wei Ying’s cock fast as he does.
“Oh god, oh fuck —” Wei Ying says before his head snaps back, his back arching. Lan Zhan feels him come rather than sees it, a jerk of Wei Ying’s cock in his hand and then a wet spill over his knuckles, a shuddering clench around his cock again and again. It shouldn’t come as such a visceral shock to feel it this way, but it puts Lan Zhan immediately on the edge, and before Wei Ying is finished, he shoves him forward into the mattress, raising his hips up before he drives into him again. Wei Ying goes boneless underneath him, his head buried in his arms as his shoulders move with the last of Lan Zhan’s thrusts. He moans softly when Lan Zhan spills deep inside of him, although Lan Zhan barely hears it through the whitewater roar in his ears. His orgasm is twice as long as any other in his life. Possibly even longer, his body unraveling hours’ and weeks’ worth of buildup. When he regains time and sense, Wei Ying is still twitching from the aftershocks beneath him, his body trembling. Lan Zhan’s hips won’t stop moving, a lazy swivel forward as he empties himself inside Wei Ying, the pulses of his cock gradually slowing.
He’d been too rough, is Lan Zhan’s first clear thought through the lingering haze. He’d lost control. Had Wei Ying . . .
Lan Zhan runs a hand down Wei Ying’s flank, rests it on the crease of his hip. “Are you alright?”
Wei Ying gives a tiny nod, his face still hidden in his arms. Does he not want to look at Lan Zhan? He’s uncharacteristically quiet.
A sudden chill creeps through him. “Wei Ying.”
There's another small silence, and then —
“Ah, Lan Zhan, you just fucked me t’good,” Wei Ying mumbles. His voice is totally shot. “Words . . . hard.”
Lan Zhan relaxes. Gingerly, he pulls out of Wei Ying and presses the length of his body against Wei Ying’s back, mouthing kisses along his neck. Wei Ying sighs and reaches one hand up to cup the back of Lan Zhan’s head, his fingers tangling in Lan Zhan’s hair. Lan Zhan shifts their positions, maneuvering onto his side and pulling Wei Ying against his front. It allows Lan Zhan to wrap his arms tightly around him, to stroke one hand along the plane of Wei Ying’s stomach. They’re both a mess, Wei Ying especially; Lan Zhan will need to move soon, to clean them both up before the situation worsens.
“Lan Zhan, you dangerous, bad man,” Wei Ying whispers. “What am I supposed to do with you, ah?”
Emboldened, Lan Zhan replies, “We could try that again, to start,” and Wei Ying laughs. It shakes through him, contagious enough that Lan Zhan feels himself smile, small and hidden.
"Mmmm, wow," Wei Ying says dreamily. "I'm going to feel that for days."
"Good," Lan Zhan says, meaning it, and Wei Ying laughs again, and then for a moment they both fall quiet, still catching their breaths.
“Ah, Lan Zhan,” Wei Ying mumbles, then turns his head into the pillow so his voice muffles. “Lan Zhan, Lan Zhan, I like you to death. Is it totally obvious?”
Lan Zhan thinks back over these weeks of uncertainty, rolled into one long ache. “No,” he whispers, because it hasn’t been. Obvious, that is.
Wei Ying rubs his nose into the pillow and tightens his hands on top of Lan Zhan’s, sighs. “It’s all so cliché. Falling for someone I had a crush on as a teenager and all.”
“Crush?” Lan Zhan echoes, still disbelieving, still trying to catch up.
“Yeah,” Wei Ying says with a yawn. “Didn’t I say so? I mean, I resented you because you were my natural enemy and all that, but there was one time I saw a picture of you at some — mmm, I dunno, cultivation family conference we were all forced to go to. Can’t remember where. Someone from your family was there, bragging on you and your brother. He passed a picture around from his wallet. I thought you — well, I thought you looked mean, mostly. But you were the prettiest boy I’d ever seen. I couldn’t stop thinking about it afterward.” Wei Ying laughs softly. “You know I didn’t even think about boys before that?”
“Wei Ying,” Lan Zhan says, quiet in his shock. For a moment, he can envision it, the two of them meeting as teenagers. He can’t predict how his younger self would have initially reacted to someone like Wei Ying, but he knows well the foregone conclusion: smitten.
“Like I said,” Wei Ying mutters into the pillow, sounding sheepish. “Totally cliché, huh? When I showed up here, Huaisang had told me your name and your family background, and I thought surely it wasn’t — surely it couldn’t be — and then it was. Tian ah, I thought I was going to drop dead on your doorstep, you were so gorgeous in person.”
Lan Zhan can feel how hard his heart is beating against Wei Ying’s back as he talks.
“I told myself,” Wei Ying says in chiding tones, “I told myself I couldn’t go catching any feelings about you. I was here on business! Ah, that lasted a couple of days. Maybe.”
He twists to look at Lan Zhan over his shoulder, perhaps to gauge his reaction in his silence.
“So underhanded of me,” Wei Ying says softly. “Tricking Lan Zhan into bed with me like this. What will he think of me now, for my selfish motives?”
Lan Zhan pulls Wei Ying tighter against him, biting kisses along the bridges of his shoulders.
“You’re all I’ve thought about,” Lan Zhan murmurs into his skin. “Every second since you came.”
“Oh — ” Wei Ying chokes.
“You are everything I want,” Lan Zhan is reckless in his honesty, a wild creature set loose. “I have never wanted anyone the way I want you.”
“Lan Zhan,” Wei Ying squeaks, his eyes going wide in his face. “I — you can’t really —”
“I have thought of only this for weeks,” Lan Zhan presses on. “What will Wei Ying think of me now, for my selfish motives?”
Wei Ying burrows into Lan Zhan’s chest, clinging onto him. Lan Zhan gently strokes a hand up the length of his back, then closes his eyes and rests his cheek against the top of Wei Ying’s head. Rain has started to fall outside, a hush through the cracked window.
“Well,” Wei Ying says, his voice already starting to drift as he curls in closer to Lan Zhan. “I’m really glad we’re both such selfish people.”
◈ ◈ ◈
When Lan Zhan wakes the next morning, the bed next to him is empty, the sheets crinkled and cool.
From years of habit, it takes him a moment to remember why this isn’t right. When the previous day’s events flood back to him, he sits bolt upright, the blankets pooling around his bare waist. With no shortage of panic, he touches the imprint of where Wei Ying had slept next to him. Cold, long so. The spot has been vacant for a while. After he’d woken up next to Lan Zhan, had Wei Ying decided — had last night been —
Second to the initial panic and the whirl of questions, Lan Zhan registers the smell of something burning. He goes out into the kitchen to investigate.
He finds Wei Ying at the stove, scraping at something in a pan with a frown on his face. He’s wearing one of Lan Zhan’s oversized sleep-shirts, which drapes halfway down his thigh, and his pants are missing. The sight of him immediately clears out the dread that had started to form like ice crystals in Lan Zhan’s chest, melting into warmth.
Dark smoke curls off the pan as Wei Ying scrapes vigorously at the bottom of it with a spatula, muttering under his breath with the air of a scientist driven to madness. Lan Zhan moves up silently behind him, enough so that he doesn’t notice, and twines his arms around Wei Ying’s waist. Wei Ying gives a little jump of surprise like a spooked rabbit. Then he relaxes, leaning back against Lan Zhan’s body.
“Hi,” Wei Ying says. “Did you sleep okay?”
“Mn. You?”
“Really well, actually,” Wei Ying replies, then flips the charred mess onto its other side. Lan Zhan watches with interest as a flush climbs up the back of Wei Ying’s neck. “You really . . . wore me out, haha.”
“What are you making?” Lan Zhan asks, setting his chin on Wei Ying’s shoulder to watch.
Wei Ying heaves an aggrieved sigh. “It was supposed to be an omelette. It technically is still an omelette, biologically speaking. I guess you can say it’s . . . well-done?”
As sweet as the gesture is, Lan Zhan has no patience for breakfast at the moment. He pulls Wei Ying closer against his body so that Wei Ying can feel his stirring interest, already half-hard against the small of his back.
“Oho,” Wei Ying says when he feels it. “Eggs make Lan Zhan this excited, hmm?”
Lan Zhan doesn’t answer. He moves the hand on Wei Ying’s belly lower, dipping under the waistband of his boxers into a pocket of Wei Ying’s body heat. Wei Ying’s breath skips as Lan Zhan cups his cock, still soft, in his hand, then angles lower to cradle his balls in his palm.
“Soooo rude,” Wei Ying mumbles. The back of his neck is redder than before, his cock already starting to fill out in Lan Zhan’s hand. “So shameless, Lan Zhan, when here I am, tirelessly providing for us — ”
Not unkindly, Lan Zhan reaches around with his other hand to click off the stove. Wei Ying braces his hands against the handle of the oven, dropping the spatula with a clatter. Lan Zhan bites the back of his neck; breathes against the shell of Wei Ying’s ear as he slowly works him up to full hardness. It’s hot to feel him this way, the physical evidence of Wei Ying going from soft to aroused in his hand. Wei Ying is mostly dry, so Lan Zhan is gentle with his strokes, squeezing and fondling for pressure. Wei Ying rocks his hips into Lan Zhan’s touch with deep, stuttering breaths through his nose, grinding his ass back against Lan Zhan’s lap for friction. At the first blurt of precome from the head of his cock, Lan Zhan gathers it with a thumb and uses it to wet the rest of his shaft.
“S-so insatiable, Lan Zhan, ah,” Wei Ying mumbles with an involuntary little jerk of his hips.
“For you,” Lan Zhan agrees, because Wei Ying is truly the only person he can imagine being so forward with.
At the words, he feels Wei Ying harden in his hand, much wetter than before. The head of his cock has started to steadily drip. A little clinically, Lan Zhan slides his other hand down the back of Wei Ying’s waistband, then slips two fingers between his cheeks in a light probe. Still loose from last night, surprisingly wet; he must have applied something this morning, either for the pain or in preparation. Wei Ying gasps and whines at the treatment, his head dropping between his shoulders.
“L-Lan Zhan,” Wei Ying stammers, “you can’t treat your house-guests this way, the neighbors will talk — ”
They don’t make it to the bedroom. They reach the back door to the deck, stumbling and kissing, before Lan Zhan loses his patience, pushing Wei Ying against the glass door and shoving down his underwear so that it pools around his ankles. Lan Zhan crowds them both against the glass, his hands overlying Wei Ying’s in a tight crush. The beach is private; their chances of being spotted are zero, but the semi-public pretense of it is in itself heady. Liberating.
For a couple minutes, he does nothing except tease Wei Ying on the edge, sliding his cock back and forth between Wei Ying’s cheeks and leaving trails of his own precome. He finally gives in to Wei Ying’s pitiful begging once he starts to tremble from the strain of his position against the door. Wei Ying is clearly still raw from yesterday, but he’s loose and slick enough to take Lan Zhan without much resistance. He hisses in either pain or sensitivity when Lan Zhan slides inside of him and seats his hips properly on his cock. “Lan Zhan — ”
Lan Zhan tangles his fingers in Wei Ying’s hair and yanks his head back, putting a deeper bend in his spine. Wei Ying swears, scrabbling for purchase on the glass. The angle is enough, with Lan Zhan’s hand anchored on his hip, that he’s nearly pushed onto tiptoe. Like this, his cheek is squished against the screen door, his breath fanning in rapid pants against the glass.
“Fuck,” Wei Ying moans, wriggling to adjust the angle. “L-Lan Zhan, yeah, that’s, that’s —”
Lan Zhan fucks him just like this, quick and dirty. His thrusts are hard enough that Wei Ying’s cock bounces against the screen door, leaving tacky smears on the glass. When Wei Ying comes, only moments later, it puts the door in ruins. Finally, an actual excuse to clean it, Lan Zhan thinks with a deep satisfaction as he spills deep inside Wei Ying. When they’re both still catching their breath, Lan Zhan spots a gull watching them from the deck, its head cocked in their direction.
“Pervert,” Wei Ying mumbles when he sees it.
Wei Ying is sore enough after that round that Lan Zhan guides him through a few yoga poses on the deck, helping to stretch out the muscles in his lower back and his hip flexors and his thighs. Wei Ying is surprisingly limber, so their focus lasts only about five minutes before they’re distracted again. They kiss on the warm deck boards, as sloppy and exploratory as teenagers, with Lan Zhan rocking against where Wei Ying is still dripping wet, both of them making a mess of the wood.
“Can you come like this,” Wei Ying murmurs into Lan Zhan’s sweat-damp hair, where he has both hands tangled, “yeah, good boy, that’s it, come on —” and in a helpless rush, Lan Zhan does, not even close to inside of him.
At this point, the gull politely exeunts to give them privacy.
◈ ◈ ◈
The next week that transpires is one of the happier ones of Lan Zhan’s life, at least in his working memory. His daily rituals remain much unchanged — morning, afternoon, evening in perfect sequence — but Wei Ying is by his side now, infusing each of them with color and laughter and endless new perspectives. His presence seems to sing through the whole house like a canary flitting from room to room. The house seems to breathe easier with Wei Ying’s extended stay, its rooms brighter and the windows filled with sun.
“You sound different,” Lan Huan tells him one morning on the phone, to the three words that Lan Zhan says.
He is different. And not. Fundamentally, he’s unchanged; the same person he was before. Very little could change that. But he finds that being in love makes him more himself — a person at peace that he hasn’t known since his mother died. A person looking ahead, rather than behind.
Later in the week, on their usual foraging day, the two of them pack for a longer hike along the beach, loading up packs with snacks and water and sunscreen. Lan Zhan has a place in mind that he wants to take Wei Ying; it’s quite a far trip on foot, and Lan Zhan has only been there once. He has no idea if the site is still standing. But it’s worth a try.
The day’s weather is kind to them. A thin, uniform layer of cloud mutes the worst of the midday sun, and the early summer heat allays the worst of the chill off the waves as they pick their way along the coast. Gulls circle above them with long, strident cries, sometimes picking fights in the sand. Wei Ying stays close to Lan Zhan’s side as they hike. Every so often, when Lan Zhan sneaks a glance over to Wei Ying, he finds Wei Ying already staring back at him, just as covertly. Each one of these exchanges earns Lan Zhan a delighted smile in return, so he keeps doing it until Wei Ying reaches out and links their pointer fingers together as they walk.
“I haven’t been drinking,” Wei Ying says amiably after a long, comfortable silence. When Lan Zhan looks over at him again, Wei Ying’s face is tilted up into the wind, his eyes closed with a content expression.
“I noticed,” Lan Zhan says, because he has. Since they’ve started sleeping together, Wei Ying has slept easily through the nights, usually long and hard into the late morning.
“I haven’t needed to,” Wei Ying continues.
“Oh?”
Wei Ying opens his eyes to return Lan Zhan’s curious gaze. “It’s like what I said in the water, that night. I really think it’s because of you.”
Lan Zhan considers this, then asks, “Because of my family’s spirit-calming ceremony?”
“Maybe,” Wei Ying says. “But I think it’s more that . . . being with you makes me calm. Grounded.” He narrows his eyes in thought. “I think when I’m unhappy, it attracts them more. Whether they’re either trying to help, or they’re feeding on it. I spent a lot of time growing up, and until recently, feeling like I was alone at the bottom of a very deep pit. But with you, I . . . I . . . I feel . . .”
“Stay,” Lan Zhan says, before the thought has even finished forming. He stops in his tracks, and Wei Ying follows suit, turning to stare at him.
“What?” Wei Ying says.
The wind is high; the tides and the gulls are loud. Lan Zhan has a chance to take it back, to paint it over.
“You should stay,” he says again.
Wei Ying gives him a quizzical little smile. “I am staying, at least until the end of July —”
“For longer,” Lan Zhan says. He can scarcely believe his own boldness. His heart feels like a battering ram against the walls of his chest. “Don’t move away.”
He is expecting Wei Ying’s usual deflections, skittish laughter and I couldn’t possibly and don’t be ridiculous, Lan Zhan ah. He’s maybe even expecting rejection embedded in logic, something like My lease, I already and My assignments and My siblings, they’ll expect —
Wei Ying doesn’t say any of those things. He stares back at Lan Zhan with an expression that’s difficult to read, the wind whipping his hair around his face.
“Do you mean it?” Wei Ying says, softly enough to break a heart.
“Yes,” Lan Zhan says. He echoes: “I mean it.”
Wei Ying blinks at him and says nothing for a long time. An uncounted number of seconds pass, just like this; silence between them, and nature unobservant to it. Then — Lan Zhan thinks he sees the corner of Wei Ying’s mouth tick before he moves toward Lan Zhan, slipping his hands onto Lan Zhan’s shoulders.
Wei Ying leans up on his toes to press his lips by Lan Zhan’s ear.
“How’s this,” he says, dropping each enunciated word like a coin. “I'll stay here. If. You can catch me.”
All somber pretenses dropped, Wei Ying darts away from Lan Zhan down the beach, shedding his pack as he goes. Lan Zhan is momentarily dumbfounded enough to do nothing but stare after him. Then he drops his own pack and gives chase.
Wei Ying, the cheater, already has some ground on him, but Lan Zhan has spent years jogging up and down these beaches. He’s nothing if not proficient in running on sand, his calf muscles equipped for the strain. Wei Ying has him beat on swimming, but Lan Zhan’s stride is longer, and it’s only a few minutes before he catches up to Wei Ying, almost into the waves. He snags him around the waist, smiling at Wei Ying’s answering yelp. For a second, they rock into each other, their feet stumbling in tandem as they regain their balance. Lan Zhan buries his face into the hood of Wei Ying’s sweatshirt and closes his eyes, tightening his arms around his middle.
“Caught you,” he murmurs into the back of Wei Ying’s neck.
Wei Ying leans back against his chest, giggling breathlessly. “Yeah, you caught me, you caught me, gege, I’m a helpless little dingxiang fish in your net.”
Lan Zhan presses his teeth to a tendon on Wei Ying’s neck in a gentle bite. His arms are still tight around Wei Ying’s waist like he might try to get away again.
Wei Ying twists in Lan Zhan’s grip and drapes his arms over the back of his neck. He’s still out of breath. “Hey. Of course I'll stay. I just like it when you play with me.”
“Mm,” Lan Zhan concedes, and drops a kiss on the corner of his mouth. “I did have to work for it.”
“You won’t ever have to again,” Wei Ying assures him. “I’m very easy.”
Lan Zhan kisses him properly now, his hand sliding to the small of his back. With his height over Wei Ying, it’s a half-dip, Wei Ying bending easily to accommodate him with a pleased little sigh. He feels Wei Ying’s mouth curve up in a smile as he kisses back, his arms tightening around Lan Zhan’s neck. It’s possible they’d stay out here all day like this, the hike forgotten, except a few moments later, a particularly vigorous wave brings frigid water crashing into their legs, which prompts a fit from Wei Ying when it soaks their socks and shoes.
Lan Zhan directs him back toward their abandoned belongings, and they continue the hike again, Wei Ying’s arm looped in his. They can walk the beach like this every day now, Lan Zhan finds himself thinking, if they so choose. They can walk until there’s no more coast left to see.
Finally, after about another mile, they reach their destination. Wei Ying falls silent as they approach, absorbing the view with an unusual silence.
It’s an abandoned lighthouse. The white paint along the sides is chipped with wear, the glass panes of the lantern room shattered in star-shaped bursts. It’s long since fallen into disrepair, beyond even preservationist efforts, but it sits here relatively undisturbed, away from public beaches, left to the natural decay of the weather and the water.
Wei Ying drops Lan Zhan’s arm to investigate, darting ahead while Lan Zhan makes his way more slowly from behind. When Lan Zhan catches up, the lighthouse looms over them and casts them both into shadow. Its silence feels settled, patient; an eeriness that it’s steadily grown into like a slow-creeping ivy.
“Wo-ow,” Wei Ying says with a whistle as he sizes it up. “Lan Zhan, be honest: Have you brought me all this way to murder me and dump my body?”
Lan Zhan lightly pinches his side and moves toward the opposite side of the tower, keeping his eyes trained up. The crown is dark, even in the sun; has long been so. No one’s lit this lamp for a long time. For a moment, a slide through time in his mind’s eye, Lan Zhan can imagine it: a storm at night, the intermittent sweep of a beacon and the shouts of manual labor, fuel and sweat and fire. Perhaps this is the type of thing that Wei Ying sees, all of the places he steps foot into.
“It must be at least a hundred years old,” Lan Zhan says when Wei Ying joins his side again.
Wei Ying nods.
“167,” he says with a thoughtless conviction. “First owner’s name was Roger. Natural causes. Then it passed to his son, Roger Jr., and his wife Marie. Mary, maybe. Unnatural causes. Both of them.”
Lan Zhan doesn’t press him for any further details. He’s accustomed, by now, to the odd blankness in Wei Ying’s face when he channels, traveling somewhere that Lan Zhan cannot follow.
After another few moments of silence, Lan Zhan nudges Wei Ying and quietly asks, “Alright?”
Wei Ying blinks as though waking from a trance, then turns toward Lan Zhan with a chipper expression. “Of course! Why wouldn’t I be?”
With the station’s state of disrepair, it’s too hazardous to explore inside, so Lan Zhan leads them both to a rocky outcrop a few hundred feet away, keeping the lighthouse in eyeline. Foaming waves spit up into the gaps between the rocks, clapping like thunder. They settle on the rocks together, huddling for warmth against the windchill. Wei Ying leans against Lan Zhan, resting his cheek on Lan Zhan’s shoulder.
“You know I’ve always really liked lighthouses?” Wei Ying says. “Like, really liked them.”
“Is that so?”
“Yeah,” Wei Ying says with a nod. “Kind of always thought it would be neat to be a lighthouse keeper, in another life. Too much work for me, though. Hah, can you imagine how dead bored I’d be?”
Lan Zhan hums fondly at the mental image: Wei Ying scampering around in the top of a lighthouse, nautically costumed and eager and ruddy with sweat.
“But,” Wei Ying says, “beyond just thinking they’re cool. I think I’ve always just liked their meaning.”
Lan Zhan is silent, waiting for him to continue.
“You know — that you can be sailing alone, out in the dark or in a storm,” Wei Ying says, his gaze on the sea. “Totally lost. And then, out of nowhere.” He makes an unfurling motion with his hand. “There it is: the irrefutable proof that another person exists. That somewhere out there, miles away, there’s someone else waiting. Keeping a lamp on to guide you back.”
Wei Ying goes quiet again. So does Lan Zhan. He slips his hand into Wei Ying’s, twining their fingers together.
Wei Ying tilts his head to look at Lan Zhan. There’s a break in the clouds, now. Fresh light touches the lines of his face to gold.
“Do you know what I mean?” Wei Ying says.
Staring back at Wei Ying, Lan Zhan can suddenly see it, like the breach of something mythic from the blue, a fleeting shimmer of wonder: the shape of a new life, theirs. Mornings and evenings, laughter and shared meals and the sea. Days like this, and on and on. His hand tightens in Wei Ying’s, a promise.
“Mn,” he says. “I do.”
◈ ◈ ◈