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Proper.
He mouthed the word along with the headmistress, already knowing that he was going to be punished.
Again.
Not even the glare of his adoptive mother on the other side of the room was able to stop his face from scrunching up into a pronounced moue. Not like he particularly cared for the opinion of a woman whose mission in life was to ensure that he hated his, but he still liked to put on a front for the adoptive parent that did care about his welfare.
Jiang Fengmian was leaning against the wall with an attentive look on his face as the headmistress droned on and on about propriety and decorum and all the other scholastic aptitude test related words that were inexplicably linked to omegas and how they should behave themselves. His pleasant mien was only unsettled when the word breeding past the headmistress’ mouth.
Wei Wuxian couldn’t stop himself from gagging. Yu Ziyuan shot him a withering look, the taut lines curved around her pinched mouth daring him to make more of a spectacle of himself. Wei Wuxian only rolled his eyes. He could already recite the lecture he would get once they arrived home. Jiang Fengmian should’ve left him on the streets. He clearly belongs there - look at him and his deviant miscreant ways. Blah blah blah. Whatever. He already had a plan in place to escape the moment he turned eighteen. He turned away from her with a huff and stared out the window.
There was no use in intercepting the headmistress once she was on a roll, just like there was no use countering whatever scathing dressing down Yu Ziyuan had planned for him afterwards. Sometimes he really did think he’d do better on the streets. At least there he wouldn’t be stifled at every turn. He’d just have to get himself some decent heat suppressants and scent blockers.
He tuned back in when silence fell over the room. He blinked at the three people suddenly staring at him.
“Present?” He smiled benignly at two thunderous faces and one, only sightly, judgmental frown.
“This is what I’m talking about,” the headmistress was off again, her face an unbecoming shade of red, “Always never ever paying any att-”
And he was off again, the clouds in the sky behind her much more enticing than her shrill voice and heaving bosom. Some insidious part of him sneered, beta. He tried to tamp down on it. She was many things, all perfectly good for sneering at, but her sex was not her fault. He fiddled with his mother’s ring, twirling it round and round, half in and half out of his own body with boredom.
Jiang Fengmian suddenly cleared his throat, making Wei Wuxian jump in his seat.
“Thank you headmistress, I do believe we have covered those points before,” he began with a bland smile direct at the red faced headmistress. “While I’m sure Wuxian will reflect on his actions - as he always does,” and here a point look at Wei Wuxian, “Was there a specific reason why both my wife and I have been called in?”
“Have you not heard what-”
“We have heard,” Jiang Fengmain interrupted gently. “What I’m not sure of is why being friendly with a fellow student is frowned upon so heavily at such an institution. Is Wuxian expected to just socialize with himself?”
“Well, certainly better than with an alpha,” the headmistress spluttered indignantly.
Beta, spat the ugly side of him again. Wei Wuxian sighed and knocked his head against the high back of his chair.
“Were they not only just taking their meals together in the library?” Jiang Fengmian asked with a furrow in his brow. “There was nothing untoward in their interaction from what I have gathered - was the librarian not stationed there?”
She huffed, glaring at Wei Wuxian, as if it was his fault that his adoptive father was speaking so much sense. “We have strict rules here concerning the conduct of our pupils.”
“And we are aware,” Jiang Fengmian countered with a wry smile.
“Yes, well.” The headmistress paused.
“And just what rules has Wuxian broken? From my memory of when Yanli was here, I don’t recall any that prohibited sharing food between friends,” Jiang Fengmian said.
“Well, she was a paragon of virtue compared to others,” and here she sniffed pointedly in the direction of Wei Wuxian.
The grim lines on Yu Ziyuan’s face softened a little. Wei Wuxian slouched a bit deeper in his seat.
“His misdemeanor?” Jiang Fengmian prompted.
The headmistress shifted in her seat, her mouth tight with some suppressed emotion.
All of them, snickered the terrible side of Wei Wuxian that would not shut up.
“Well, as it stands,” the headmistress bit out, “he hasn’t broken any.” The yet hung in the air menacingly. “But I decided to take this opportunity to remind all of us,” another glare at Wei Wuxian, “That we should not take things for granted and that we must stay vigilant in the face of such moral corruptness.”
Stay vigilant, Wei Wuxian mouthed to the floor, trying not to break his face with the smile that was threatening to spill out. Even Jiang Fengmian looked amused by her turn of phrase when Wei Wuxian sneaked a look up. Yu Ziyuan looked as unflappable as ever, though her earlier thunderous look was gone. No doubt he’ll still get a lecture when he gets home, though likely a variant of the usual rather than the more targeted street trash she occasionally hurled at him when he had done something truly heinous in her eyes. Like existing for too long, his all too active dark side supplied. He knocked his head against his chair again.
“Stay vigilant,” Jiang Fengmian repeated with a slight smile, “Of course we must.” He paused. “Is that all for today?”
“For today.” The headmistress nodded her head imperiously.
Yu Ziyuan’s back straightened even more, gaze now distinctly displeased. The red faced toad who ran the school only wilted a little in face of such distaste from her social superior.
“Good.” Jiang Fengmian stood up and nodded for his family to follow him. “Then I will bid you a good day madam.”
The headmistress nodded stiffly.
“Must you provoke her so?”
Jiang Yanli’s hands were soft in his hair, the brush in her hand wielded so carefully, he felt none of the knots falling apart in the tangled mess that was his hair.
“Did I really provoke her? Or does she insist on being offended by every action taken by my corporal body?” Wei Wuxian countered, fiddling with the trinkets on his bedside table.
They were sat on his bed, his loving shijie ever so diligent in her sisterly duties, and him, ever so diligently taking advantage of his status as the younger, the baby of the family, and letting her figure out the knotted tangle that his hair had transformed into in her absence.
“Won’t you at least tell me who you were consorting with? You’ve given her such a frown and I don’t want to see it for another two weeks.”
Wei Wuxian peaked at her from the corner of his eye. “Does it matter? She hates every friend I’ve ever had who wasn’t you or Jiang Cheng.”
Jiang Yanli sighed, a soft breath of air that carried no judgment but was an argument on its own. Exasperation from the only mother he’d ever known. His mouth twisted down of its own volition, his hands breaking the threads that made up the bracelet on his hand, and his mouth - his traitorous mouth: “Lan Wangji.”
Her hands stilled. A sharp, small, “Oh.” Softly, so soft like everything else she did, she set the brush aside and pulled him into her arms, tucking him under her chin like he was still five and desperately in need of a soft place to land. “And how are we feeling about this?” was her sole offering while rubbing his back.
“Terribly,” he grumbled. Terrible as the first time he realized it for what it was and the disruption it brought to his plans. Terrible as the day he promised himself it would make no difference. Terrible as the many times he did not stick to that promise.
“Oh darling,” his beloved shijie soothed. But there was a distinctly amused slant to her mouth.
He blew a raspberry at her. “I’m not taking constructive criticism at this moment, do not remind me of how old I am again.”
“Of course,” she agreed with a solemn nod. Her shoulders still shook with silent laughter.
Wei Wuxian sat in her embrace sullenly.
“But for what it’s worth, I think he’s a lovely boy,” Jiang Yanli murmured into his hair before she pushed him upright so she could continue fixing his hair.
“He’s a boring old fart masquerading as an adolescent.”
“Is he a nice boring old fart?”
Wei Wuxian squinted at his sister. “Progressive,” was all that he allowed out of his mouth.
“Good,” his sister hummed.
Progressive was one way of describing Lan Wangji. Another would be incredibly passive and oddly neoteric. For a Lan, he was nothing like what Wei Wuxian had thought he’d be.
The Lans were old money. The kind that the news and the paparazzi never talked about, the kind that just stood in the wings with all their power and might while the state and its people pretended to run a country that was firmly under the thumb of a few select families.
In fact, Lan Wangji was so unremarkably like what Wei Wuxian had thought a Lan would be like that he hadn’t even realized who he was the first time they had met. New blood, he had thought. Such diligence and principle had no place in the first circles. When had anyone ever heard of the rich and powerful be anything but disreputable and louche.
And then Lan Wangji had introduced himself formally with a bow - a bow - like they were living in the ancient times, and inquired after Wei Wuxian like no one else, no not like no one else - like no alpha, had done since he’d presented.
Wei Wuxian had been so surprised by the actual attempt at a proper conversation, he’d accidentally blurted out what he was thinking. “You’re awfully strange for an alpha,” had crossed his lips before his brain caught up and started calculating the dangers of jumping out of the window versus the anger of a displeased alpha.
Lan Wangji had only tilted his head to the side and hummed. He made no more attempts at conversation so Wei Wuxian had filled in the silence by answering Lan Wangji’s first question.
“I’m currently planning to run away from home.”
That only induced a raised brow and a succinct, “How?”
Wei Wuxian had inhaled in surprise and felt a distinctly warm feeling pervade his senses. Oh, he had a lot of how’s.
Jiang Yanli didn’t push him for more. She only finished up with his hair and reminded him that dinner was at six before biding him adieu with a sly twinkle in her eye that was more than unsettling.
Wei Wuxian dropped back on his bed now that he had the whole of it to himself. Jiang Yanli had braided his hair so that it was out of the way but also flat enough to comfortably lay on it. And so he did. Lay on it and roll around in his bed. Bored. He sighed at the ceiling.
He was always at loose ends these days. Get to school, get into trouble, get a lecture, get home, get another lecture, get some sleep - and repeat. He eyed his moleskin - the grubby one with the beaten up leather that held all his plans, practical and not, and all his drawings. His fingers reached for it before the thought was fully formed in his head. An itch in his hands to do something before the ennui of it all bowled him over.
The sketch that formed under his hands was a familiar one. Another set of hands. Broader with long, tapered fingers and all of it ink stained in some manner. Wei Wuxian lingered over the shading, smudging with his pinky here and there to create depth, the charcoal comforting in its mess. He looked at his drawing with a critical eye, tried to imagine what it would look like in the hands of another. Would they be appalled by his dedication to a body that wasn’t his?
He scoffed and shook his head. Of course they would. An omega was not a lusty thing. An omega was not supposed to be a lusty thing. He rolled over onto his notebook, burying his head in his pillows. Wei Wuxian breathed and counted to ten, on the verge of sleep if not for the synapses lighting up in his brain, insisting that his recipient was nothing like other people and they might even be pleased by the offering. He wriggled in place, annoyed but not surprised by his wandering thoughts.
It was hard to hold himself together, hard to hold his thoughts together. Sometimes it was a tight string, all the little notes and fragments lined up perfectly for him to write exactly one sentence down before they scattered like ashes in the wind. He would have a thought, a plan - and then gone, leaving just a discomfort so pronounced it made him physically ill.
But it wasn’t a disease or an illness, or even a wasting. Wei Wuxian just needed focus. And never did he have more of it than when he was in the presence of a certain pair of hands.
Wei Wuxian pushed himself upright again, grabbing for his phone, restraints around his impulses completely gone.
Lan Zhan
?
I’m bored
What would you like to do?
Wei Wuxian bit his lip. Die seemed a bit melodramatic, yet anything else seemed too needy. Too desperate. He pulled up Wen Ning.
wyd
helping at the clinc
why?
l’ennui
come volunteer!
house arrest
again? what happened
I’m not allowed to eat lunch in the library anymore
:CCC
Yeah.
I’m sure you can see him at other times
Wei Wuxian wrinkled his nose at the suggestion behind Wen Ning’s words.
Please Do Not
o.k.
Thank You For Your Support
you’re welc
I’m going back to work, text me when you r ready to Face The Facts
Wei Wuxian rolled onto his back, switching back to Lan Wangji.
cannot do anything, in trouble
facetime?
I can show you the rabbits.
Wei Wuxian perked up.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!yes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
He quickly peered in the mirror to check he didn’t look too rumpled before jumping back into bed and waiting for his call to ring through. The white clad figure on the other end of the call was as poised as ever, if not more so than usual, despite the piles of fluff on his lap. They were two separate piles of fluff, one so black it blended in with the black of Lan Wangji’s trousers, and the other so white it left tuffs of all too identifiable fur on said trousers.
“They’ve gotten bigger,” Wei Wuxian tried not to coo at his phone. He tampered down on his natural inclination to be happy in as demonstrative a manner as possible. That seemed too much for his current sentence.
“They have,” came Lan Wangji’s quiet agreement. He held them up for Wei Wuxian to see.
The bunnies wriggled in his grip, their soft fur blurred at the edges.
Wei Wuxian slumped against his pillows, head propped up by his hand. “You should bring them over,” he said while pushing his face up against the screen. “I want to squish them.”
Lan Wangji’s brow rose a fraction. “Would that be wise?”
Wei Wuxian blew an all too grown up raspberry at his phone. “Teenagers aren’t supposed to be wise.”
“They will run if you try to flatten them,” Lan Wangji pointed out in a placid tone.
Wei Wuxian sighed dramatically and sank down into his pillows. “You are no fun.”
Lan Wangji only hummed and put the rabbits back down into his lap, his dexterous fingers combing through their soft fur.
It was hard to stay on task and not focus on those fingers. In fact he was so focused on how those fingers were moving at a great pace that he missed what Lan Wangji had said completely. He’d only realized something when he saw that Lan Wangji had tilted his head the way he did when he was waiting for something.
He shook himself. “What did you say?”
“What did the headmistress want to talk to you about this afternoon?”
“Oh,” he slumped back down, “The usual.”
Lan Wangji’s brow raised in question.
“She doesn’t trust me to not start whoring myself off while still in school.”
The frown that twisted Lan Wangji’s mouth was expected. The agitated way he shifted in his seat was not. “She should not-”
Wei Wuxian shook his head. “Don’t bother. She’s hated me since I stepped through the gates.”
The steady gaze Lan Wangji had directed at him was anything but acquiescence. The frown on his face persisted.
“It’s fine,” Wei Wuxian offered, “It’s only another year before I’m out of here.”
Lan Wangji, when he finally smoothed out his face into his usual calm, only said, “Discrimination is illegal.”
“Yeah.” Wei Wuxian buried himself deeper in his pillows. “I know.”
There was a pause then, a contemplative air taking over Lan Wangji. Wei Wuxian fidgeted.
“Show me the rabbits again,” he demanded in lieu of nothing.
Lan Wangji obediently moved his phone until the pair were front and center.