Archive of Our Own

Wei Ying's muscles are knotted up. There's a crick gradually developing in his neck. He's been leaning his head against the window for the past three hours, half-watching the road, half-keeping an eye on the map app on his phone, but mostly observing Lan Zhan's big hands, gripping the steering wheel firmly at ten and two, steering the car through the muggy sunlight.

It's good to focus on Lan Zhan's hands. Essential, even. If Wei Ying is watching Lan Zhan's hands, then he's not getting distracted by the muscular lines of Lan Zhan's arms, or by the cut of Lan Zhan's jaw. Lan Zhan's hands are safe. Friendly. The least of Wei Ying's worries. A known entity.

Hands, lightly calloused. Strong. Gripping Wei Ying's arm firmly, guiding him into place. Checking the ropes, one finger wedged underneath, warm against Wei Ying's chest. A spark traveling the length of Wei Ying's body as the finger tugs at the knot centered on Wei Ying's chest, checking its hold. A quickening, reverberating through him as those hands stroke once, lightly, over the long surface of the rope—

Okay. So maybe Lan Zhan's hands aren't safe, either. But they're the least-offensive part of him. Better than Lan Zhan's penetrating, serious gaze, focused as intently on the road as it has ever focused on Wei Ying. Better than his soft lips. If Wei Ying were to focus on those he'd think about kissing them. How they must feel, how they must taste. How much he wants to find out. How he absolutely can't cross that boundary. When Wei Ying is carefully splitting his focus between his map app and Lan Zhan's hands, he absolutely, totally, for sure, honestly doesn't have any attention span left to ruminate on Lan Zhan's mouth, or on what the fuck he's going to do about the way he craves feeling it pressed against his skin.

Like. He's for sure going to have to end things. It's unfair to Lan Zhan — and to their arrangement — to crave more than what Lan Zhan is willing to give. Wei Ying needed a dom; Lan Zhan wanted a sub. They had agreed from the beginning that the arrangement would remain platonic. The gracious thing to do would be to bow out respectfully now that Wei Ying can no longer deny how much he burns for more. The longer he clings, the worse it will be when he does admit to Lan Zhan precisely why they cannot carry on.

But Wei Ying can't bring himself to let go.

"Let go," Lan Zhan says, stern and unyielding, but his fingers are gentle as they pry Wei Ying's grip open. "Let go, Wei Ying, you've been holding on so long. Let me check your hands." But Wei Ying can't release his grip on the sash. His arms burn from the strain; his palms ache. He's been contorted, holding position for as long as possible, careful not to fidget or budge. Releasing — giving in — feels wrong. Impossible. Painful, even.

He must whimper, because Lan Zhan recedes from his awareness for the barest of moments. Before he even has time to make a sound of disgruntlement, Lan Zhan has returned, and there's the heavy weight of a thick blanket settling around his shoulders, warming his muscles.

"How much farther?"

Wei Ying startles at the sound of Lan Zhan's voice. He redirects his attention to his phone, giving his head a quick shake to clear it of its frenzy of thought. "Three hours," he says. The words feel dry in his mouth — he never drinks enough water on road trips, wanting to minimize the number of stops — so he clears his throat. "Give or take."

Lan Zhan nods, glancing first at the dashboard and then sidelong at Wei Ying. "We'll need gas before then."

"I can pull up some options?" Wei Ying suggests, finger drifting to the edge of the screen to tap the search button.

As he does, though, the phone emits a piercing alarm. He jumps, wincing as his back cracks with the movement. Lan Zhan's hands flex on the wheel, and he glances over.

"Is everything alright?"

Wei Ying thumbs over to his jailbroken compass app, a program he's now spent years developing and fine-tuning, and jabs at the screen, activating the array signal.

Well. Here's a distraction, at least

"There's a Class Two yao," he says, taking in the compass readout. "Five miles away, or so."

Lan Zhan nods, pressing his lips together as he makes a quiet mn of acknowledgement. "What direction?"

"West," Wei Ying says, and then clarifies, because he's Lan Zhan's navigator for a reason: "Right. My side of the car." He toggles back to the map app. "Looks like there's an overlook with a parking lot coming up in about four miles. Same direction as the yao."

"Your talk is tomorrow." There's an apologetic tone to Lan Zan's voice as he switches to the right-hand lane.

"Yeah, but this is Class Two," Wei Ying says. He doesn't want to miss the talk — it's a huge deal, to be an invited speaker at a conference like this one, and a Class Two usually takes some time to handle, between finding it and figuring out its deal and addressing its needs. But, similarly, a Class Two must be dealt with as quickly as possible. "I'll text Mianmian and Agustin to let them know what's up."

Lan Zhan drums his fingers against the steering wheel once, chin jutting forward like he's trying to chew on reasonable alternatives, and then he nods again and relaxes.

They pull over at the stop, Lan Zhan parking right at its entrance so they have room for whatever work they might need to do. It's less an overlook and more an overgrown parking lot set back from the highway by a poorly-maintained exit slip that is bordered, on one side, by one of those makeshift shrines commemorating someone lost to an accident: homemade cross, deflated mylar balloons, a combination of wilting and plastic flowers.

The stop is surrounded by a copse of trees — thick-trunked magnolia; looming oak, some willowy birch and black gum saplings; plus an oak that strikes a discordant note in Wei Ying's mind because it looks more like it belongs along the Gulf coast, rather than the Atlantic — with what's probably a lake peeking through the thick foliage. From Wei Ying's angle, it looks like the lake is down a steep hill, maybe a cliff; there's a glare of light between two trees where the sunlight has hit the water below. Presumably, given its general existence, this used to be a place of beauty. Not anymore, though. Weeds have tumbled through the cracks in the asphalt where thick tree roots have pushed it up and rent it open. There's tension in the lines of Lan Zhan's face as his Prius bounces over one of the cracks and slows to a stop.

The advantage of knowing each other the way that they do — through friendship and play, but more importantly through work — is that they don't have to discuss a plan. Wei Ying knows exactly what Lan Zhan will do to case the area, and what he will expect of Wei Ying. So Wei Ying slouches out of the car the moment Lan Zhan puts it in park. He takes just a quick moment to stretch some of the kinks out of his back — it's important to be in fighting shape when you're dealing with a Class Two yao. His spine cracks, and he winces at how loud it sounds, then shakes it off and loads up the tracking array he's coded into his compass app. As he strides across the parking lot, watching the dials of his compass shiver and whirl while simultaneously trying to limber up further, he can hear Lan Zhan opening the trunk of the car and rummaging for his workbag. He wants to turn toward Lan Zhan and watch him work — the curve of his back as he leans over; the fall of his hair against his cheek. He doesn't give in to the distraction. He's no compass, defined by magnetic pull, however much he might feel like one around Lan Zhan. No, Wei Ying is a tool with greater applicability.

Now that Wei Ying is standing, attention sharper and more focused than it's been for hours, he can feel the exhaustion that's been building under his skin. He does his best to shake it off, ignoring the way that the syrupy-thick humidity of this swampy little enclave is settling into his bones. Sweat prickles at the small of his back. He can feel the heat of the broken asphalt radiating up toward his skin.

These, too, are distractions.

He continues circumnavigating the parking lot. His compass app is acting screwy. The array fades as he hits the corner of the lot where the needle had previously been pointing, and no amount of jabbing at the screen — with and without a jolt of spiritual energy — gets it back. He strides away from the dead spot, but the needle doesn't reactivate.

"Fuck," he says, force-quitting the app. There's no signal on his phone anymore, and when he reopens the compass app, nothing happens. Pressing the buttons to turn his phone off, and then back on, he calls, "Lan Zhan, do you have service here?"

Lan Zhan pokes his head out from behind his car's open trunk. There's the tiniest hint of a frown on his face. "I do not," he says.

"Well, shit," says Wei Ying. Restarting his phone hasn't helped. They have analog tools, but they've all been cleaned up and packaged nicely away for Wei Ying's invited address at the conference.

"You're having trouble," Lan Zhan says. A statement, not a question.

"I can't get the reading anymore." Wei Ying shoves his phone in his pocket, since it's clearly useless here. He stretches again. His back pops as he presses his shoulder blades together; a trickle of sweat forms and works its leisurely way down to the small of his back. He makes a face and tugs his shirt away from his waist, letting the warm air of this place hit his skin. "Lan Zhan, it's so hot here."

"Mn." Lan Zhan's face is pink from the heat. He's wearing cultivation clothes — the Lans have this whole thing about travel-appropriate wear that sounds totally insane to Wei Ying, who feels that the clothing most appropriate for travel is whatever you can be comfortable in for the hours you're trapped in a small car with your best friend slash future ex-dom. Or whoever. "Did your text go through?"

"My — oh." Wei Ying pulls his phone back out and thumbs open whatsapp. Two little checks append the message he sent in his Save The Ghost, Save The World group text. "Yeah. It went out before I lost service, at least."

"Good." Lan Zhan tilts his head, a gesture for Wei Ying to come over.

"We're going to have to do this the old fashioned way, huh?" Wei Ying asks. It really is beastly hot out. He grew up in the brackish bayous of southern Louisiana; he knows humidity. This heat feels different. He tugs a hairband off his wrist and pulls his hair up off his neck, working into a serviceable, if messy, half-bun.

That's better. He rolls his neck, back and forth, letting the air hit his damp neck. It doesn't dry it off, but it does feel cooler without his hair sticking to his skin.

Lan Zhan's utter lack-of-expression doesn't change in any measurable way, beyond his eyes flicking from Wei Ying's waist to his neck to his hands, and then back to the trunk of the car. The telltale evocative corner of his mouth doesn't even make its miniscule, minute show at tightening as he swallows whatever thought he may or may not be having. He still, somehow, exudes an aura of smug satisfaction.

The grumpy part of Wei Ying — the part that's been cramped in Lan Zhan's Prius for a truly mind-numbingly aggravating number of hours — harrumphs. Lan Zhan is such a traditionalist, even after all these years.

When Wei Ying first started tinkering with the app, Lan Zhan kept asking all these questions. Would this affect the security of his phone? What if the app malfunctioned? How exactly would it detect resentful energy? Would it be pre-loaded with existing arrays, or would one be able, or required, to design and add their own? Using what infrastructure? Would it be as reliable as talismans and cinnabar, which had been the gold standard for millennia? The subtext of all of this was, of course, Wei Ying, what's the point? There's no need to do this to your phone, which is a subpar instrument, and prone to malfunction.

And yet — for all that Lan Zhan utterly spurns just about every single one of Wei Ying's attempts to modernize the field — his face is calm. Serene. Lan Zhan historically hasn't been too good for I-told-you-sos, instead wielding them to rare but devastating effect. Wei Ying, itchy with the heat and the long hours cramped into a small car and this deviation from their plan so close to his big presentation, hankers for one now. He wants to rise to the bait and push back. Wants Lan Zhan to get stern with him as he grows tired of Wei Ying's argumentative insistence that modern technology has its uses. Wants Lan Zhan to grip his wrist so tight he can feel the bones in it crunch against each other from Lan Zhan's hold.

It's been a few weeks since their last scene. Wei Ying has been prevaricating, trying to make sure he can swallow down his growing feelings so that Lan Zhan won't be able to tell something is off when Wei Ying is under. Or, short of that, trying to convince himself he can break it off before things get worse.

Wei Ying watches Lan Zhan. Not for something he can grab onto immediately; now is not the time; he does realize that, despite the yearning underscoring all of his Lan Zhan-focused thoughts... but maybe for something he can dig into later. But all he sees, now that he's this close and letting himself actually look, is that Lan Zhan has clearly been affected by their time in the car, too. There are shadows, bruise-dark, building in the fragile hollows under his eyes. He's carrying himself carefully, like he, too, feels the strain of the day like a physical pressure.

Lan Zhan doesn't give Wei Ying anything to grab on to, to goad him into some kind of reaction. He just casts his weary gaze over Wei Ying for a long moment, dragging up the line of his body to where Wei Ying's hair is already starting to pull free from the hairband. Then he turns back to the trunk, visibly trying to stifle a yawn when he's facing away from Wei Ying.

Wei Ying's heart twinges with fondness, the way it always does when the inimitable Hanguang-jun reveals a particularly human quirk. He ignores it, like always, but lets the warmth of his fondness soften his grouchiness down, just a little.

"All right, Lan Zhan," he says, clearing his throat and with it, pushing his tumultuous thoughts away. He smiles at Lan Zhan. It's partially an involuntary response, pushing through his exhaustion and breaking free on his face. "It's funny how tiring just driving all day can be, huh? You feeling awake enough to find us a Class 2 Yao?"

The faint lines around Lan Zhan's eyes soften. He nods, serious, and then reaches deeper into the trunk and hauls his qiankun workbag to the front.

"Your dizi," he says, handing the carry-case to Wei Ying. He frees Bichen from the bag, too, holding the naked sword in one hand as he rummages for Wangji. "Do you need —"

" —the other tools?" Wei Ying asks. Even though he's set to present on mixed-method cultivation at the conference, naming his other toolset for what it is has always felt risky. He takes Chenqing out of its case and twirls it, feeling the soft, smooth wood under his fingertips. It feels light in his hands today, energetic. Ready to work. "Probably. Just in case."

Lan Zhan pulls the rattling pouch out of his bag. A spirit-lure flag has become entangled in the pouch handle; it pulls free and starts floating down as Lan Zhan hands it over. Their fingers brush as the soft-worked leather passes between their hands.

The spirit-lure flag hits the ground. There's a blinding flash, and a sudden absence of sound. The crickets and cicadas, which had been loud in the long grass and looming trees, chirp no more. No birds call overhead.

Through the thick loamy smell of wet earth and gently-decaying plants, a sharp stench arises. Something much like a strongly-incensed woodsmoke fills Wei Ying's lungs. He still can't see — specks of light float across his obscured vision — but he can feel Chenqing in one hand and his pouch of tools in the other, and Lan Zhan's fingers against his wrist.

As Wei Ying's vision slowly clears, he sees none of the things he can feel. There's just a little girl standing at the edge of the parking lot near the darkest thicket of trees. Her hair is twisted tightly back, the ends of her many braids held closed by beaded ties. Slowly, she turns to face him and, with a vacant stare, says: "Figure it out."

"So that was a faculty meeting," Wei Ying says. He feels... unclean, almost. Grimy and gross. The energy in that room was easily twice as noxious as the worst monster he's ever faced. "Are they all like that?"

Mianmian and Lan Zhan exchange glances. "Like what?" Lan Zhan asks.

"That was pretty mild, actually," Mianmian says, tone practically cautious. Coaxing, like Wei Ying is a small animal, prone to flights of fear. "Usually they're a lot worse."

"But the provost—"

"Yep," says Mianmian.

"And then Dr. Ngatiari—"

"Sure did."

"And Dr. Jin?"

"Was remarkably well-behaved today." Mianmian grins at him, eyes glinting in the late-afternoon light. "Last year he stormed out in the middle of a meeting because Tiffany — Dr. Braca — said she didn't like the idea of the university mandating everyone move to that syllabus management system he's been pushing for months."

"Surely there was more to it than that, to make him storm off," Wei Ying says, but Mianmian shrugs and Lan Zhan shakes his head.

"There wasn't," Lan Zhan says. With a slight quirk of one eyebrow, he adds, "I view these meetings as training exercises."

"Training exercises?"

"For dealing with particularly difficult cases," Lan Zhan clarifies, and Wei Ying laughs.

Mianmian, grinning along, pauses at a fork in the path. "I've got to go," she says, stretching her back as she speaks. "I have the babysitter for another hour, because I thought the meeting would go over the allotted time by so much longer, and I plan to take advantage of this opening in my schedule by spending forty-five minutes grocery shopping without my baby to juggle along with the bags. See you at the mandatory departmental luncheon tomorrow?"

"I'll be there," Wei Ying says, waving, as Lan Zhan gives Mianmian a side-hug goodbye. "Lan Zhan, do you have to run off, too?"

Lan Zhan blinks at him. "Not... necessarily," he says, carefully. "Why?"

"Oh, you know." Wei Ying shrugs. "We haven't really gotten a chance to catch up since I moved here. Thought it would be nice. It's been a long time since nerd camp."

Lan Zhan tilts his head, slightly, to the left. "Do you mean Baoshan Sanren's Summer Cultivation Academy?"

"Yeah, nerd camp," Wei Ying says.

"Wei Ying, I've seen you since then."

"Yeah, but conferences and tiny little night-hunts don't count," says Wei Ying. "C'mon, that may have been a 'mild' meeting but it was still annoying as fuck, and it's a super different vibe than anything I had at my last job. Let me buy you a drink or something."

"I don't drink."

"Oh," says Wei Ying. "Right. That teetotalling lifestyle. I get it." (He doesn't.) "Tea is a drink. Or coffee? Hot chocolate. Whatever."

Lan Zhan looks at him. It's a searching look, Wei Ying thinks. It feels a little penetrating. He puts on his best winsome, wheedling expression in return, clasping his hands together for added effect.

Wei Ying wonders, briefly, why he's so increasingly adamant about Lan Zhan joining him for a drink. He has a stack of grading in his office already — turns out that following best practices of an early, easy paper so that students get detailed feedback on a low-point assignment at the start of the semester means that you end up with dozens of papers to wade carefully through by the second week of classes.

But then Lan Zhan blinks, as a ray of sun peeking through the leaves above them hits his face, and he's briefly illuminated. Wei Ying's breath catches in his throat at the sight. The years since they last spent considerable time together have not yet lined Lan Zhan's face. In fact, his flat expression feels more untroubled than it used to, per Wei Ying's (admittedly limited) memory — like he's settled into himself.

Back then, Wei Ying wanted nothing more than to pick apart the puzzle that was Lan Zhan's thorny exterior, convinced that underneath lay a kindred spirit. Lan Zhan had been even more exciting than the many mini-experiments Wei Ying loved playing around with, with his cultivation and the other ghost-managing traditions he stumbled across exploring the bayous near Lotus Pier. He had been significantly more interesting than the cultivation camp activities Wei Ying was supposed to be focusing on.

Lan Zhan still has that air about him: that getting close to him is like a scavenger hunt with an unpredictable but undoubtedly rewarding prize at the end of it.

Something about Wei Ying's expression must change as he chews on these thoughts, because Lan Zhan's face relaxes. "Very well," he says. "There is a place I think you will like nearby."

It turns out to be a cute little space that informally serves as a coffeeshop during the day and a bar every evening. It's on the cusp of its respective services, and Lan Zhan orders a tea. Wei Ying prevaricates for a moment — should he also get a tea, since Lan Zhan isn't drinking? What he really wants is a beer after the hell of that "mild" meeting.

He studies the menu at length, darting some glances to the taps to try and figure out what's on offer while trying to decide. Before he comes to a conclusion, though, he clocks Lan Zhan studying him. Wei Ying quirks a quizzical eyebrow at him.

"My friend will have a beer," Lan Zhan tells the barista/bartender. "What do you have that's fruit-forward and strong, but not too sweet? A local craft selection would be best."

The barista rattles off the name of something Wei Ying hasn't heard of, and Lan Zhan nods at her. "A sample of that, if you would be so kind."

It's Wei Ying's turn to stare at Lan Zhan. "Lan Zhan?"

"I'm afraid I don't know much about particular styles," Lan Zhan tells him, as the barista pulls a small pour of the beer and passes it over the counter to Wei Ying. "But the combination sounded like...you."

"Huh." There's a small little thrill running through Wei Ying. He actually tends to default to sours, but apart from that, Lan Zhan is spot-on in his assessment. Upon taste, the beer is pretty good, too. Lighter in taste than Wei Ying expected from its color, but good. He gives the barista a thumbs up; Lan Zhan's lips quirk, satisfied. "What if I had hated that combination?"

"Then I expect you would have clarified your preferences," says Lan Zhan.

"I guess," Wei Ying says. Lan Zhan's eyes are on him again. Wei Ying wants to see if Lan Zhan grows smug when he's right about things, so he jokes: "I would have totally kicked up a fuss. You know me. I like the attention."

Lan Zhan hums, and that little thrill shudders down Wei Ying's spine again. There's something about the way he's holding his head, cocked ever-so-slightly to the side, as he regards Wei Ying. Like Wei Ying is a puzzle that Lan Zhan is starting to figure out. Like the pieces are fitting together now.

There's a vibe. There's definitely a vibe. Wei Ying is sure of it. He's just not one hundred percent sure what the vibe in question is — or whether a sudden spate of wishful thinking is coloring his read of the situation. A little flustered, he tucks a loose strand of hair behind his ear. "Thanks for picking my drink for me," he says, pulling his wallet out of his pocket to pay.

Lan Zhan glances at him, intent and a little dismissive, then swipes his phone over the scanner before Wei Ying can work his debit card out of its pocket.

Wei Ying splutters. "I invited you! I should buy!"

"Hm," Lan Zhan hums. He locks his phone again with the click of a button, and slides it easily into his pocket. His face is totally serene, bordering fully expressionless. His body language is neutral. If anything, he's conveying an air of polite, disinterested confusion.

"So I should be buying your tea," Wei Ying explains. He's blathering, he's definitely blathering. A distraction from the sudden energy fizzling through his body. "Not the other way around."

Lan Zhan seems to consider this, and then discard it as a useless non-sequitur. Instead, he just tilts his head slightly, gesturing with his chin to indicate that they can step away from the register.

They wait for their drinks, out of the way of the throng of people queuing up to place their own orders. Wei Ying leans against the bar, elbow propped up on the counter, while Lan Zhan stands half a pace back, hands latched, casually, behind his back.

"You have no right," Wei Ying tells him, after a moment of anticipatory silence. "For your posture to be so good. What is that about?"

Lan Zhan flicks his eyes over Wei Ying, taking him in. "Yours could be better," he says. Wei Ying is pretty sure he's teasing? The vibe is still good. It doesn't feel like Lan Zhan is trying to murder him with his words. "With just a little effort."

"Oh yeah?" says Wei Ying. "Guess I'll never know."

"Ridiculous," Lan Zhan says, stepping closer to Wei Ying. Wei Ying's breath catches in his throat as Lan Zhan leans in, extending an arm...

...only to accept their drinks from the barista.

"We should sit," Lan Zhan says, moving back outside of Wei Ying's space, his tea cupped carefully in one hand while he holds Wei Ying's beer out toward him. Mildly. Calmly. Like he has no idea, the entirely un-collegial thoughts he's provoked in Wei Ying.

Wei Ying glances around the place as he takes his beer, fingers brushing against Lan Zhan's in the process. There are a couple of open tables: one in the center of the room, next to a boisterous throng of people; one tucked behind a column next to the counter; one tucked, all alone in a secluded corner, separate from the bustle at the center of the room.

He's about to nod toward the table closest to them — the one by the counter — when he realizes Lan Zhan is already working his way through the room toward the table in the corner. Something rears up in Wei Ying at this. He doesn't think Lan Zhan is the kind of guy who would utterly disregard the preferences of his friends or colleagues. And there had been that assessing way Lan Zhan had glanced at him as he passed over the beer...

Wei Ying shifts his weight, taking a sip from his beer to bring it down from brimmingly full to a more manageable level as he considers his options. Deliberately sitting at the table he'd planned on? Making a lot of noise about Lan Zhan's decisiveness? Following him quietly and sitting down without comment?

Lan Zhan turns, halfway across the room, and tilts his head questioningly. It's loud, and Lan Zhan is quiet. Wei Ying can't be sure whether Lan Zhan is saying his name or not, but between Lan Zhan's posture and his face, he's conveying the expectation of being followed.

Wei Ying purses his lips. He'll follow, for now, but perhaps there's something there. Body humming with his choice, Wei Ying makes his way after Lan Zhan.

As he walks, he does some quick mental calculations. He doesn't really know the local scene; he's been too busy getting used to the ins and outs of his new job to really gain a sense of where the good munches or parties are — especially ones that will allow him to maintain a distance between his work-life and his play-life. Before that, he was busy with the move. So this visceral reaction he's suddenly having to Lan Zhan could just be that he hasn't had a good scene in a couple of months. Or it could be his relief at the faculty meeting being over.

Or, alternatively, he could be sensing some degree of compatibility with Lan Zhan.

Well, Wei Ying thinks, sitting down across from Lan Zhan and regarding him quietly. It's not like he hasn't built his entire life around taking calculated risks based on educated guesses. It's likely not the best or most practical idea, seeing if Lan Zhan would be interested in dominating him, every so often. They're colleagues more than they are friends — for all that they have the history they do — and Wei Ying is new to the job. Maybe he should get his sea legs under him before he makes any big moves.

But on the other hand...

"So," Wei Ying says, taking a long draw of his beer. "You into BDSM, Lan Zhan?"

Lan Zhan chokes on his tea.

"It's just a vibe I get," Wei Ying clarifies, watching Lan Zhan closely as he coughs — partially to search for clues in his microexpressions; partially to see if he needs to jump up and pound Lan Zhan on the back. "From your—" he gestures now, indicating the whole of Lan Zhan. "Thought I'd ask, in case you can introduce me to the community. Um, if not, could you totally forget that I said anything, and not give me weird looks when we cross paths in the future?"

Lan Zhan's mouth works for a second before any sounds come out. "You seek... introductions?"

Okay. The question is promising. Like Wei Ying was, in fact, more on-base than off. "I haven't done a scene in so fucking long," Wei Ying says, with an overdramatic sigh. "I'd kill to have someone take me under hand for a bit. Maybe even tie me up. As friends, of course! You know, in a friendly sort of way."

There's a long, tense silence. Wei Ying tugs at his shirt collar, pulling it away from his neck, antsy with the intensity of Lan Zhan's stare, the strange light in his eyes.

And then, abruptly, the tension breaks. Lan Zhan blinks. "You want a platonic dom?" he asks. His face is still a little red, but it's starting to fade back into his normal tone and expression.

"Sure," says Wei Ying, catching and holding Lan Zhan's gaze. "Know anyone who might be interested?"

Lan Zhan takes a sip of tea and then sets his cup down on the table. He picks up his napkin and wipes his mouth, and then — as Wei Ying tries not to let his gaze drift down at all — licks his lips and then wipes his mouth again. He sets the napkin back down, too, and then he picks it up again and folds it into a tiny little square. The napkin tries to unfold when he places it next to his tea; he drums his fingers on top of it until it stays flat. If anything, his posture is straighter and more erect than ever. "I could do it," he says.

Sparks alight under Wei Ying's skin. "Yes," he says, with a wolfish grin. Internally, he pats himself on the back. Best case scenario. Nothing ventured, nothing fucking gained... and he didn't alienate Lan Zhan in the process.

As he leans forward to discuss particulars, he notices a child standing behind Lan Zhan's shoulder. Light seeps away, and darkness gathers at the side of his vision, cloaking the child.

No, he thinks, frowning, even as he hears a continuation of their conversation coming out of his mouth. That's wrong. There wasn't a child here before. But he can't form the words — not ones to bring the child to Lan Zhan's attention, or the ones to ask the child what they're doing here, in this moment, when he is almost certain that as of thirty seconds ago, the youngest person in this place was roughly nineteen, before.

Before.

This happened before. This faculty meeting, this conversation. They were three years ago now. He'd taken an insane chance to proposition Lan Zhan in a fit of stress, and it worked out.

Their first real scene had come two weeks later. Lan Zhan had made him hold an awkward, painful position and recite the mission of the Neidan department at the university, word for word, and start over with every error he made. After, Lan Zhan had gently massaged the kinks out of Wei Ying's muscles through the thin fabric of his soft clothes. Wei Ying had, to his memory, wanted to weep from relief: the structure, the strain to do as Lan Zhan asked, the way that Lan Zhan hadn't budged when Wei Ying wavered and pushed back. The slightest of smirks on Lan Zhan's face every time he doubled down, and the way it sent a reckless sort of energy racing through Wei Ying's entire body. Wei Ying hadn't known then — hadn't allowed himself to know — but that scene had already been the beginning of their inevitable end. He was already in too deep.

Why is he back here? Why is he in this moment, his body laughing and waggling its eyebrows at Lan Zhan as he teases that faculty meetings would be so much more tolerable if he were in a rope dress the whole time? Who is this little girl, staring balefully at him?"

"Figure it out," the girl says, stamping her foot hard enough that the beads at the ends of her braids clatter softly, cutting through the din of the cafe. She reaches out, and the world again goes dark around Wei Ying.

The space around Wei Ying is formless, sizeless, colorless. It is neither dark nor light. The act of blinking is the only thing that tells him whether his eyes are opened or closed.

"Lan Zhan?" he calls. The words ring in his ears, but they feel dampened somehow. He takes a step, and somehow knows that the void steps with him, so that his position is unchanged. He can feel nothing — there is no discernable temperature; his driving clothes are no longer biting in at his waist or damp with sweat. There is nothing. There is no one. "Lan Zhan?"

Pinpricks of color form at the edge of his field of vision, and he lunges for them, arms outstretched, and stumbles into —

The wind whips around Wei Ying, tossing his hair and his stupid camp-mandated traditional cultivation robes as he balances on his sword. He whoops as he rises with the mountain, thrilled with the swoop in his stomach and the air in his lungs.

It's taken him a week or two to adjust to the altitude in the Rockies. Baoshan Sanren's camp, tucked away on a mountainside that only cultivators — and the most determined of hikers — can readily reach, is a far cry from the Lotus School. He's used to the Mississippi River delta swamplands: close trees, standing water, a lot of people from different walks of life who have learned to live with the cultivators walking amongst them. Not these stark peaks and wide-open stretches of sky and lands teeming with everything but human life.

Camp is great. There are spirit-lures tucked away here and there, far from any trails hikers may travel, so that the counselors can train the campers in classical night-hunting. Wei Ying has absolutely fucking trounced Jin Zixuan in archery, like, five times already. (Also other people, but the joy of beating them is a little less exciting.) It's at the point where he's reached the top of the camp leaderboards. Only Jiang Cheng, Lan Zhan from the Cloud Recesses Cultivation Academy, and one of the Pacific Northwest Wens have even come close to his scores.

Also, for all that the Las Vegas Wens are kind of obnoxious, and everyone from Carp Island in New England except for Mianmian is totally insufferable, most of the campers are a ton of fun. Plus, even though the camp is ostensibly completely traditional, he's starting to piece together the way that local traditions have nudged different little evolutions in cultivation here and there... which totally maps on to some of the theories posited on his favorite cultivation Geocities pages. And that's just cool. He's been toying with the idea of asking one of the counselors if he can do a formal study on the variations. He just has to pick out who would be the least angry at the insinuation that the variations exist in the first place.

"Wei Ying!"

Wei Ying looks behind him, some of his hair flying into his mouth as he twists on his sword. "Hi Lan Zhan!" he says, grinning. Lan Zhan always looks so consistently grumpy. Wei Ying is legitimately impressed that a guy their age can look so dour even when riding a sword through the striking landscape around Cultivation Camp. It's gotta be some kind of commitment to the bit. There's no other possible explanation. "Gonna explore with me after all? Or, what, supervise me as I go?" Earlier, he had invited Lan Zhan along, only for Lan Zhan to huff, unconvincingly, about how unsupervised fights weren't allowed.

"No," says Lan Zhan. "Recreational flights are not allowed."

Wei Ying takes a significant glance down at where Lan Zhan's feet are planted firmly on the translucent blade of his fancy family heirloom of a sword. "Okaaaaaaay," he says, and urges Suibian to fly faster. "I'm gonna go up past the snow line."

"Going past the snow line is forbidden," Lan Zhan says, immediately. "The rocks are unstable."

"Yeah, but I can move fast," Wei Ying says. "And I've never played in snow before."

"Wei Ying..."

"Look, just because your uncle and brother are both counselors this year doesn't mean you have to be such a hard-ass about the rules," Wei Ying points out. "Come on, Lan Zhan, let's go have some fun!"

Lan Zhan glares at him, but as Wei Ying urges Suibian to move faster, Lan Zhan follows. Inwardly, Wei Ying cheers. He knew Lan Zhan was secretly cool! There's just something in his entire vibe that speaks to a guy just on the verge of learning to have fun. He's too fascinating not to be a secret badass.

The air up here is thinner even than in camp. Wei Ying ignores the encroaching headache he can feel building in his temples. His core is strong enough that it won't be the biggest of problems, especially once he loosens his hair, kept regulation-length for Lotus Pier but usually thrown back into a loose, low ponytail, from its camp-required guan.

"Look, Lan Zhan," he whoops. There's a little stream trickling from some of the snow (or is it a glacier? Wei Ying isn't sure). "Wanna check it out?"

"Absolutely not," Lan Zhan says, still following as Wei Ying aims for the juncture of the rocks, snow, and stream.

"Hey," Wei Ying says, carefully touching down. Lan Zhan's warnings of loose rocks aren't going to dissuade him, but he's not going to ignore them, either. "These are pretty different from the Appalachian mountains, right?"

"They are," Lan Zhan says, landing lightly across the trickle of water from Wei Ying. "Cloud Recesses is on a forested peak."

"It's fitting that a sect of old traditionalists is in some of the oldest mountains in the world," Wei Ying says. "Do you think that affects your cultivation at all? The age of your surroundings?"

"No," says Lan Zhan, a little sharply.

"Oh, don't start, Lan Zhan, I know better than to pick that particular scab with you." Wei Ying says it earnestly, sheathing Suibian as he does. The air is so crisp up here! He inhales deeply, feeling the bite of its chill in his throat. "I was just wondering, because back home in Lotus Pier, like, some of it feels old but there's a real sense of impermanence? People have put so much effort into stopping the river from changing course the way it wants to." He laughs. "Attempt the impossible, right? And there's a lot of different death traditions in the delta, too! Cultivators aren't the only ones dealing with ghosts." He clocks the look on Lan Zhan's face at that — a slight tensing of his muscles — and decides to drop it. "I definitely think it affects the way we cultivate. Our history in the area, and the other people who live there."

"Night hunts vary with environmental surroundings," Lan Zhan agrees, after a long-drawn out moment where he seems to go through a series of mystifying thoughts. Wei Ying badly wants to be able to read Lan Zhan. Well! If Lan Qiren is so offended that Wei Ying dared to ask about comparing cultivation to traditions he'd learned about from a Vodou manbo in New Orleans last winter, effectively shutting down one potential thread of research in the camp archives, perhaps he can study Lan Zhan instead.

"Yeah, like we get tons of water ghosts near Lotus Pier, cuz of all the bayous and floods, but I'd be shocked if there were any around here," Wei Ying says. He kicks at the little stream trickling from the snow and then, daringly, reaches out to touch the snow itself. It's cold! It's cold and it looks a little dirty. He grabs a handful, laughing as his fingertips redden.

"This vast torrent of water notwithstanding," Lan Zhan says.

Wei Ying laughs harder. "Oh, you're a funny guy, aren't you?" he says.

Lan Zhan purses his lips, eyes tracking the way that Wei Ying is handling the snow. "We get a lot of yao," he says. "Mostly from local animals. Deer. Copperheads. Pit bulls. Not many water ghosts." He tilts his head. "Once, there was a bear."

"Just a bear, or a bear yao?" Wei Ying asks. Snow is wild. It's colder than he expected it to be, but it's also quick to melt. Rivulets are running through his fingers already, dripping down his wrist and chilling his arm.

Lan Zhan considers this. "There have been several bears," he allows. "But only one bear yao."

"That must have been so fun to — did you liberate it?" Wei Ying asks. "Or did you have to go further?"

Lan Zhan gives him a look. Wei Ying decides it's a quizzical one. See, he's learning Lan Zhan's facial expressions already! "Fun."

"Yeah, fun, Lan Zhan," says Wei Ying. "Having a good time."

"Night-hunting is a necessity."

"Yeah, a fun one," Wei Ying says. "Like this one time near Lotus Pier, this swamp tree absorbed tons of resentful energy and basically became a monster. And me and Jiang Cheng were sent to handle it! We had to get really creative with liberating it. It was very fun."

That hunt, actually, had been how Wei Ying met his manbo friend — she had been the one to put in the call to Lotus Pier, since she 'knew what to do with a person, but not this fucking thing.'

Lan Zhan's mouth tightens, the faintest of lines appearing between his eyebrows. "You liberated the swamp tree," he says. "Is this why you assume I would simply liberate the bear yao?"

"Also because of all those stupid rules your uncle keeps trying to teach us," Wei Ying says. "Even though this isn't Cloud Recesses." He shrugs. "I figured someone like you would follow the proper order of things."

There's a relaxing in Lan Zhan's face, even though he still looks perplexed. Or maybe it's thoughtful. His mouth is now — slack, maybe? Wei Ying can't look away, for some reason.

But Wei Ying's fingertips are starting to go numb from the cold of his snowball, and after another few minutes of watching, the look of consternation isn't fading from Lan Zhan's face. So he decides to give Lan Zhan a lesson in fun: he tosses the snow at Lan Zhan's face.

They both watch as it splatters, wetly, against Lan Zhan's shoulder and slides slowly down over his chest.

Then:

"Wei YING," Lan Zhan yells, starting forward, brandishing his antique heirloom sword in one hand. So Wei Ying scampers backward. He's careful of the rocky outcrops, but not of his ratty shoelaces: he steps on one and his whole body jerks. He pinwheels his arms, calling for Suibian, but it's not enough to stay aloft. He starts to fall backward — toward snow, hopefully, not a big boulder —

Only for his arm to wrench, painfully, as Lan Zhan grips his wrist and pulls him back onto his feet.

"Ow," Wei Ying says, shaking his arm out once Lan Zhan releases it. It may hurt, but at least Lan Zhan's grip has warmed him a little, after holding all that snow. He wraps his hand around his wrist, pressing into the spots that Lan Zhan grabbed, and smiles. "Thanks, Lan Zhan."

Lan Zhan just glares at him. "We shouldn't be here."

"You don't want to touch the top of the mountain?" Wei Ying asks. It's not so far away — the flight should only take a few minutes. "We've come so far, Lan Zhan."

"You said you wanted to play in the snow," Lan Zhan says. He glances down at the spot where Wei Ying hit him with his snowball, which does look a little grimier than the rest of his robes, now. "You've played in the snow."

"I'll race you," Wei Ying offers, leaping onto Suibian.

He beats Lan Zhan by ten seconds, putting his whole core into flying fast. But Lan Zhan flies back to camp faster than Wei Ying, and by the time Wei Ying touches down, right on the outskirts where he's learned the counselors tend to ignore, Lan Zhan is already confessing their transgression to his uncle.

They're slammed with three nights of kitchen party for going out of bounds. "Better than bathroom duty, right?" Wei Ying whispers to Lan Zhan as he starts scrubbing out the big wok. He'd been given that by Wen Ruohan, for 'showing off' in the archery skills test, and Lan Zhan had been there too. Lan Zhan was there because — actually, Wei Ying wasn't sure. Probably Lan Zhan just put himself on rotation for all of the chores.

Lan Zhan ignores him, instead spraying down the countertops. His mouth is parted with concentration, red from the illicit congee Wei Ying had thrown together as a snack, since they'd missed dinner with their little field trip.

"Did you like the congee, Lan Zhan?" Wei Ying asks, more to fill the space between them with noise than anything. It had been his first time cooking on his own, rather than helping Jiang Yanli out by ferrying ingredients from the fridge and the pantry to her corner of the kitchen back home. He's pretty sure he did it right. The flavor was good, even though the rice was a little crunchy.

"It was," Lan Zhan says, and pauses, selecting his words. "Bold."

"Yeah," Wei Ying says, sighing happily. "The food here is so bland, you know? I guess it has to be with this many different campers. I bet those Jin assholes wouldn't know flavor if it punched them in the mouth. So it's nice to have something properly seasoned, right?"

Lan Zhan is quiet for a long moment. As he leans forward to scrub at a stain on the counter next to the fridge, his hair falls in front of his space. Wei Ying feels a little weird — a little bereft — with Lan Zhan's red lips so obscured. It's really odd! He doesn't usually pay attention to these things.

Something settles in him as Lan Zhan straightens up again, turning to face Wei Ying, mouth now set, determined, in his face. "Right," he says. "Thank you for dinner, Wei Ying."

So the next two nights, even though they get regular camp dinner with everyone else, Wei Ying cooks a little pot of spicy congee for the two of them and watches, proudly, as Lan Zhan eats his share. It's better by the third night: the rice is the proper texture, and he's figured out how to really bring the spice out to the forefront by frying the chilis instead of just boiling them.

If only Lan Zhan weren't so resistant to talking about the evolution of cultivation methods! Wei Ying is pretty sure Lan Zhan is one of the smartest guys he knows, but he consistently refuses to engage in Wei Ying's intuitive leaps to trying out methods from other historic traditions of dealing with the dead and the mythological.

"It's not appropriate," he just says, every time Wei Ying tries a new angle. "It's not orthodox."

"That doesn't mean it can't be better," Wei Ying whines, scrubbing at a place where the rice burned onto the bottom of his congee pot. But Lan Zhan's spine has gone rigid again. He's holding himself carefully as he carefully pours the bowl of potato scraps from dinner into the compost bin. It's a posture that Wei Ying is familiar with — some of his instructors at Lotus Pier adopt it when he pushes too far, too. It means: Danger! Hard line! Do not cross!

Even though Wei Ying wants to press the issue, he knows better, so he drops the thread of conversation. But he doesn't want Lan Zhan to shut down entirely — he needs to goad him into a new topic, keep the fun going. So Wei Ying, ever the respectful young man, sprays Lan Zhan with the faucet hose.

When Lan Zhan whirls, gaze furious, to snap at Wei Ying to stop and then, later, to box Wei Ying against the sink and try to stare him into submission, Wei Ying notices the girl in the doorway.

"Lan Zhan, do you see that girl?" he asks.

"Are you trying to distract me?" Lan Zhan demands, and then he's staring past Wei Ying, looking very much like he can see through the kitchen wall. But Wei Ying can't turn around to check; he's focused on the child in front of him.

She's wearing jelly sandals, cut-off jean shorts, and a green-striped shirt. Her braids glint in the harsh fluorescent light of the camp kitchen. As she frowns, shadows lengthen around her.

"Hey, you shouldn't be here," Wei Ying says. It sounds like his voice is layered on top of itself? On one level, he's aware that this girl shouldn't be here, because this is a camp for teenage cultivators, and she is clearly neither a teenager nor a cultivator. On another, he's aware that she shouldn't be here because she was never at Baoshan Sanren's Summer Cultivation Academy. Not as the child of a counselor, not as an errant tourist.

She's wearing a necklace on a cheap chain. Wei Ying can't make out what's on it, but it does remind him of the Best Friends Forever necklaces he got out of the gumball machine at the sticky rural bar Jiang Fengmian stopped at when he was first driving Wei Ying to Lotus Pier.

Whatever became of that necklace? Wei Ying gave half of it to Jiang Cheng shortly after meeting him. He still had it tucked away somewhere by the start of camp, but it's been lost in the ensuing years.

Ensuing years.

Ensuing years?

He feels too old for his body, like he's cramped inside a smaller and younger version of himself.

"Figure it out," the girl says, as Wei Ying tries ineffectually to stretch into a more familiar frame. Her voice rings loud, nearly tinny, in the yawning void starting to stretch around her. The edges of the kitchen have disappeared entirely.

"This part didn't happen," Wei Ying says. Lan Zhan yelled at him and tried, ineffectually, to intimidate him a little, and Wei Ying teased him right back, and they ended up spending an extra hour in the kitchen to clean up the mess they made arguing/playing/fighting about it. There was no girl. There was no void.

Before he can ask what the girl means, the world around him flattens, and folds.

The void again.

Wei Ying has never given thought to being trapped inside a giant vat of flavorless colorless translucent jelly, barely able to move, with the texture around him creepily unchanging, but it's the only analogy he can draw for how he feels — suspended, almost, and not in a sexy fun way. He's completely encapsulated. At least he can breathe.

Why summer camp? Who is the girl? How is getting in trouble for flying to the top of a mountain connected to faculty meetings? Is it something about his cultivation? He first started really making connections to different disciplines at that camp, after all, and it was his different threads of dealing with the supernatural that got him his dual-appointment position at the university.

Those prickles of colorful light start gathering around him again, but this time there's multiple patches of them, distorted through the jelly-void surrounding him. He lunges toward a patchwork of purples-and-greens, before catching sight of one that's picked out in different shades of blue.

He extends a hand toward it, fingers outstretched. His ring finger brushes against one of the soft blue lights.

Then comes the almighty yank.

The ropes bite into Wei Ying's skin.

This is new, being tied up without his shirt on, but it feels like an inevitable progression in their scenes. He likes the marks the rope leaves, and the rough feel of the hemp on his skin. He likes, too, the feeling that Lan Zhan has to catch him in order to tie him down — wiggling to escape until the moment that the last knot is tied and Lan Zhan is hooking the end of the rope to whatever external thing he's chosen for the given session.

Today, the ropes are criss-crossed over Wei Ying's chest, knotted at his sternum and against his sides, and then looped back around his wrists. When he'd struggled, pulling away from Lan Zhan and nearly faceplanting on the floor with the strength of his efforts, Lan Zhan had quickly fashioned the loose end of rope trailing from Wei Ying's right wrist into a hobble, looping it around Wei Ying's ankles tightly enough that Wei Ying has to hold his body at a slight arch to alleviate the pressure of the binds.

Today, also, Lan Zhan is holding the other free end of the rope. It's slack, ending in a handle that Lan Zhan is grasping only loosely, but the length is still short enough that if Wei Ying tries to move away, Lan Zhan will be able to yank him back into place.

It's nice. It feels so good. Wei Ying really has to focus to maintain the hold that will lead to the fewest post-play aches, enough that his brain barely has space for all of the other pressing matters crowding his mind (cultivation license renewal exam, concerns with a new grad student's progress, creating better Applied Cultivation Theory practical examination scenarios given the limitations on risk exposure for enrolled students, preparing abstract submissions for various conferences, the very daunting email from the office of the President of the Society for the Training of Post-Mortem Interventions he has yet to open, and so on). It's been easier to let work concerns drift away during these sessions ever since Lan Zhan instituted the no-talking-about-work-when-we-play rule. It's a good rule. Wei Ying is often tempted to flout it — it would be so nice to have Lan Zhan wrangle him into changing the subject — but he never does. Even though they, delightfully, generally agree on work-related matters, he likes having a space where their relationship isn't strictly a professional one.

They've been playing with predicament bondage lately — Wei Ying in increasingly-precarious positions, forced to hold one pose (once Lan Zhan has wrestled him into place and he's stopped trying to wriggle free) unless he wants the shock of pain that comes from moving. It's new, for Wei Ying, and he's been pleasantly surprised to discover that he loves it. With his past partners, when bondage was incorporated into their play, it was usually in the form of being handcuffed to the bed or, on one notable occasion, wearing a rope dress under his clothes. Nothing more intense than that.

Then again, with his past partners, there was a sexual component to the scenes. Usually, the scenes were spicing up sex, rather than the focus of the relationship. That's obviously not the case here.

Strangely, it feels more baring than sex, when Lan Zhan figures out something else that will make Wei Ying feel even better, just from bullying him into a different manipulation of his limbs, or whatever. Wei Ying wants to chase the feeling most of the time: the thrill of being understood on such a fundamental level. Sometimes he wants to hide from it: the fear of perception gone sour.

Today, he inhales deeply, just to feel the ropes bite tighter against his expanding chest, and focuses on not letting his stance waver.

"Good," Lan Zhan murmurs. Wei Ying can feel the rope between them jostle a little; can hear the whisper of fabric as Lan Zhan shifts position. Quietly — so quietly — he adds, "Beautiful."

Pride suffuses Wei Ying. The growing burn in his muscles subsides a little, briefly, and he smiles.

The weird thing is — Lan Zhan has tied him up at least a dozen different times in a dozen different ways, but this time, Wei Ying can still feel the ghost of Lan Zhan's fingertips as they brushed the skin of his chest when he laid the rope down and checked its tension. Perhaps it was that Lan Zhan was repeatedly touching Wei Ying's bare skin, rather than his usual soft play clothes.

Just as Wei Ying is getting used to the awkward way he has to hold his body, Lan Zhan tugs on the rope, eliminating the slack in it and forcing Wei Ying to arch his back more to accommodate its pull. It's a harsh change, an exhilarating one, and he finds himself drawing on his qi to help hold the position while offsetting the strain.

"No cheating," Lan Zhan says, immediately, tugging again.

"I'm not cheating, I'm cultivating," counters Wei Ying, but he takes a deep breath and focuses again on relaxing into the hold instead of trying to maintain it with anything but brute determination.

It burns, but it's a good hurt. Wei Ying is going to feel this in his abs, shoulders, and the fronts of his thighs tomorrow. It'll be good — a reminder that he could hold this position, muscles quaking with the effort, for as long as Lan Zhan requires.

Lan Zhan rises and approaches Wei Ying, looping his end of the rope around his hand several times so the tension remains consistent. When he's close enough that Wei Ying can feel the heat of Lan Zhan's body against his back, Lan Zhan leans forward, wrapping his fist around Wei Ying's ponytail and tugging sharply. This surprises Wei Ying and, despite himself, he lets out a quiet noise of shock.

Lan Zhan hums. "Next time," he says, voice low, "I will tie one end of the rope to your hair."

Heat rushes through Wei Ying at the thought of that. "And the rest?" he asks. His voice cracks on the word 'rest.' He doesn't have the presence of mind to feel embarrassed about it. He's reached the point where he feels a little like he's flying, his body trapped and contorted so that his mind can finally relax. Lan Zhan has control over the situation, and so Wei Ying gets a brief respite from the careful control he keeps over his own actions and choices.

"You'll see."

Wei Ying slants his eyes to the corner of the room. Lan Zhan has recently installed a suspension frame in the room. He claims he uses it to work out, and when Wei Ying tried to call his bluff, Lan Zhan demonstrated a truly jaw-dropping series of aerial exercises. They have not used it in a scene yet.

Lan Zhan follows his gaze. "Perhaps," he says. He tugs Wei Ying's ponytail again, this time pulling it upward, coaxing Wei Ying to lift his head in a way that increases the stretch of his arms, of his shoulders. He whimpers, quietly, and then again, more loudly, when Lan Zhan makes a noise so soft that Wei Ying only catches it because of how attuned he is to every signal Lan Zhan gives.

So much of Wei Ying's body is engaged in holding steady that it takes him a moment to realize that he's growing hard, the fabric of his briefs tightening against the tender, heated skin of his dick.

This isn't supposed to happen, he thinks, startled. In response, the instinct of a prey animal caught in a trap bubbles up sharply inside him, and he twitches too much, too fast, trying to hide it from Lan Zhan. But in moving, he wrenches his arm and lists to the side, hair yanking from Lan Zhan's grip with the force of his jerk.

By the time Lan Zhan has dropped everything to catch and right Wei Ying, he has clearly noticed Wei Ying's cock, unflaggingly straining at the front of his shorts. He makes another sound — one of surprise, perhaps? — and quickly kneels down in front of Wei Ying, one hand heavy on each of Wei Ying's shoulders.

"I'm going to untie you," Lan Zhan says.

This really isn't supposed to happen, Wei Ying thinks. Now that his dick has gotten involved, surely Lan Zhan won't want to dom him anymore — he offered to platonically dom Wei Ying, not to involve his stupid dick in their relationship. And then Wei Ying will have to try and find someone else, which will suck.

He's tried one other dom since taking this job, a mortician named Daryll who he met at a munch one town over, back when he was still trying to let Lan Zhan have an out on this arrangement, in case he only offered to dom Wei Ying out of politeness. But it hadn't worked. Bratting had felt wrong with the other guy — less like Wei Ying was being tamed, more like he was being tolerated. Wei Ying hadn't been able to trust in the dom and let go of his carefully-wrested control enough to really get into the scene.

And so Wei Ying told himself Lan Zhan wouldn't offer unless he really meant it. He let himself really believe that Lan Zhan wanted nothing more from their relationship but to platonically dom him on a regular basis.

Lan Zhan never agreed to anything else, never offered another alternative. Wei Ying never asked, because he didn't want to risk what they had. And now here he is, inadvertently introducing another variable into their association.

He's spiraling. He needs to stop, so that he can salvage the situation. He lets Lan Zhan's touch ground him: his big hands, cupping carefully over Wei Ying's shoulders, warming the muscles there before slowly — always maintaining physical contact with one of Wei Ying's arms — scooting around behind Wei Ying so that he can untie his feet.

Wei Ying focuses on his breath and his qi, cycling his energy through his meridians, one pass with every knot Lan Zhan unties. It's not quite dual cultivation — there's no exchange of energy — but it's the closest he's come since he last slept with another cultivator. He's found that keeping in rhythm with Lan Zhan's movements is good for coming down from a scene, letting him relax his muscles and refocus on his surroundings.

As always, the last knots Lan Zhan unties are those around Wei Ying's wrists. He cups his hands around the rope, kneading into the center of Wei Ying's wrist joint with his thumbs, working the rope looser with every press, until he finally, finally unpicks the last hitch and it slithers to the floor. Lan Zhan lets his hands linger for a moment more, and then he's helping Wei Ying up and over to the guest room bed.

There's a cup of warm water on the bedside table. Lan Zhan holds it up to Wei Ying's mouth and Wei Ying drinks obediently, one, two, three swallows, letting his qi sing back into his core.

"Good," Lan Zhan says again. He wipes a water droplet away from Wei Ying's jaw with his thumb, and then sets the cup aside.

Wei Ying is still hard. He reaches off to the side, scrounging without really looking, until his hand brushes against his t-shirt, which he pulls on quickly, tugging it so that the hem kind of folds over his cock. "Good scene," he says, hoarsely.

"Yes," Lan Zhan says. He's not taking his eyes off Wei Ying's face. Wei Ying can't decide if this is polite or damning. "You were."

Wei Ying fidgets. He should just — bite the bullet. Get it over with. If he starts the conversation, he can set the tone.

"It's normal, you know," he says, twisting his hands in the hem of his shirt, careful to make sure it doesn't rise higher on his lap with his movements. "For me to get hard during these scenes. It doesn't mean, like... it doesn't have to mean..."

"Mn," says Lan Zhan. "I see."

There's a strange light in his eye, a strange look on his face. Wei Ying can't fully make out what he's thinking, what he's feeling. Lan Zhan has always been fairly inscrutable, even to someone who can read him like Wei Ying can.

Then Lan Zhan blinks. The look goes away. He gives Wei Ying a different look. It's mild — all of Lan Zhan's facial expressions are mild — but it's still one that sends unholy terror coursing down Wei Ying's spine.

"You... see?"

"Yes, I have had subs before who have also gotten hard doing this. I understand. That's fine." Then Lan Zhan pauses, and says, "Would you like me to make fun of your hard cock in scenes that involve light humiliation?"

Fire chases the terror running down Wei Ying's spine. "Ummmmmm...."

"Ah," says Lan Zhan. "So that's how it is." He tilts his head, finally looking deliberately down at Wei Ying's lap. His lips are slightly parted while he takes a slow breath. Wei Ying can't look away. "Can't even control yourself when you're all tied up. You still have to make a scene."

Wei Ying shifts in his seat. "I tried," he says. His mouth feels dry. He licks his lips.

"Did you?" Lan Zhan asks. "Or did you just think that you'd be able to hide how little you were trying?"

"Are you going to tell me how small and insignificant my dick is?" Wei Ying asks. He wants to reach for the water, give his hands something to do besides tug at his shirt so close to the focus of Lan Zhan's attention, but he feels as caught in Lan Zhan's gaze as he did in Lan Zhan's ropes.

"Would you like me to?" Lan Zhan asks. His lips quirk as he raises his gaze once more to Wei Ying's eyes.

Suddenly — consumingly — Wei Ying wants to kiss him. It's possible that he wants to kiss Lan Zhan more than he's ever wanted anything in his life. Lan Zhan is so unflappable in scenes, even when Wei Ying is at his brattiest. Maybe if Wei Ying leaned in and bit that smirk off his soft-looking lips, Lan Zhan would finally be thrown off and have to adapt.

Lan Zhan's brow furrows slightly. Wei Ying wants to smooth it out. With his fingertips, with his mouth, with soft words. Anything. It doesn't matter.

"Wei Ying?"

Oh, right. Lan Zhan had asked a question. About — hm. What was it? Oh yes. The way in which Wei Ying preferred to be lightly humiliated about his cock. Fuck, Lan Zhan is so good.

"Dealer's choice," Wei Ying manages. He forces a grin on his face, to give his lips something to do that's not kissing Lan Zhan, and then he forces himself to flop backward on the bed so that there's some distance between the two of them. He can't kiss Lan Zhan. That would be way worse than getting a hard on from Lan Zhan pulling his hair, or whatever.

Somehow, he manages to navigate the conclusion of the scene and a late-night snack with Lan Zhan. Somehow, he manages to navigate getting back home — though he definitely takes Suibian instead of the bus, even though unsanctioned sword flights are illegal in urban centers and a transit pass is therefore part of his total compensation package. Somehow, he manages to get inside and lock his apartment door before he's shoving his hand down his pants. His erection has gone down, but it perks up again quickly once he has his cock in his hand.

He hadn't been lying. It is normal for him to get hard when he's playing. Just because it's the first time he knows, for sure, that he's had an erection during an active scene with Lan Zhan doesn't mean it's the first time he's gotten worked up thinking about what they've done together. He's no stranger to getting home and rubbing one out that same evening — a release of essence to cap off the physical and mental release of the scene.

It is the first time he's been this desperate after a scene, though. It's also the first time that he has allowed himself to think about Lan Zhan's (large) guiding hand, wrapped around his wrist, his hair, his rope. Putting him into place and keeping him there. His eyes, dark and unfathomable; his voice, the softness belying the steel underneath as he tells Wei Ying how he wants him.

Wei Ying works his hand over his cock fast and rough, sliding his thumb over the damp head of it, foreskin shifting with inchoate force he uses as he fumbles to press briefly against his slit.

Sometimes, when Lan Zhan is really focused, his upper teeth will press lightly into his lower lip. Never enough for his teeth to actually show, but the indent is visible. Sometimes after a scene, Lan Zhan's perfect hair will be in slight disarray, with a strand or two sticking sweatily to his carefully-shaven nape. Sometimes, when he's shoving Wei Ying to the ground, his gaze will be so tender.

Sometimes —

Wei Ying's balls tighten, and he's coming even before he's really aware that he's getting close. Come splatters over the back of his hand and onto his shirt. He's pretty sure a little falls to the floor. Whatever.

His vision starts to darken around the edges. Gooseflesh ripples over his arms. He's panting, exhausted, overwhelmed. Deep within, a primal memory — or sense of déjà vu, or maybe foreboding — surges, and he screws his eyes shut.

"Please don't show up," he calls. "You don't need to see this. I know, I know. Figure it out, right? Figure what out?"

Somehow, he knows what comes next: Talking about his cock, rather than talking around it, will make Wei Ying more comfortable with the fact that he's getting rock hard every time Lan Zhan puts him under, but their scenes will still feel fraught every time it happens. Because it is fraught! It's really fraught! Increasingly, he'll feel like he's taking more than he deserves, and that he's taking advantage of the situation as he grows more and more attracted and attached to Lan Zhan.

But that can't be the mystery. He already knows he's head over heels. He already knows he's taking more than Lan Zhan realizes he's giving.

"I hope you're not here," he tells the ghost girl. He assumes she can hear him, and chooses to assume that she is not bearing witness to the actual memories she's thrusting him into. He can't hear the clatter of the beads in her hair, at least; a small mercy. Perhaps she's letting him guide himself for once. "Just put me in whatever the next lesson is, okay?"

The void has changed in some ineffable way.

Firstly, Wei Ying can still feel the arousal coursing through him from that first furtive wank thinking about Lan Zhan. It crackles under his skin and he shifts, fidgeting with the shock of it all.

Secondly, as he engages in a movement that would translating to stumbling forward one step, were he in the real world, he realizes: he's not alone in the void.

He's not entirely sure how he knows this. The entirety of his sensory experience is still contained entirely within his own body. But he has no doubt that Lan Zhan exists alongside him in this void. Maybe twenty inches away, maybe twenty yards. It's unclear how distances work here, if they even exist at all. Maybe Lan Zhan is superimposed on his own body.

"Lan Zhan?" he calls. He also broadcasts the thought of Lan Zhan's name very strongly with his mind, in case that might make any kind of difference.

He can't hear an answer, but he feels a ripple of void over his skin.

"Lan Zhan!" he calls, pushing toward the source of the ripple.

The ripple condenses into the telltale prickle of colorful lights that precedes another memory. Beyond the sudden illumination, Wei Ying can make out Lan Zhan's face. His eyes are wide; his mouth is moving. Wei Ying can't hear anything, but he's pretty sure Lan Zhan is calling his name.

He reaches out, and—

"Hey," says Lan Zhan. When Wei Ying doesn't look up from his laptop, Lan Zhan nudges his foot. "Wei Ying."

"One sec," Wei Ying says. He's so tired, in that bone-deep frazzled way he gets every spring break. If he had the time for it, he'd spend the entire week asleep, but unfortunately, work has been piling up since their December break and his mental to-do list has approximately three hundred things on it. "I'm almost done with this form."

Lan Zhan gets up. Wei Ying ignores him, instead massaging his temples briefly with one hand as he cross-references the university field trip checklist that he has pulled up in a minimized window. That is, until —

"What do you think the risk level is?" he calls. His situational awareness is on high alert at all times, even when he's locked in on an all-consuming task, so he's aware of Lan Zhan's relative location even though he's not actively paying attention. Without waiting for a response, he types in, Moderate. Students will be facing a Class Three ghost under strict supervision of course instructors (Ying Wei, Assistant Professor of Cultivation and Postmortem Intervention, and Zhan Lan, Associate Professor of Cultivation) and graduate TAs (Drew Landau, Yuan Wen, and Amelia Chen). A little quieter — since he can hear Lan Zhan approaching again — he adds, "Also, do you think I should add Agustin or Mianmian to the list? They're on the IRB, so—oh, thanks!"

Lan Zhan is proffering a plate — sliced apple and pretzel sticks. Wei Ying takes one of each and shoves them into his mouth, crunching loud enough that he can only just make out Lan Zhan saying, "I don't think that's necessary."

"Cool," Wei Ying says. He stretches, wincing slightly as his back pops. "Don't even worry, Lan Zhan, we'll get field trip approval by the time classes start up again next week."

"I'm not worried," Lan Zhan says. He sits back down and pulls a pile of papers in front of him. Co-teaching this class is the first time since Wei Ying was in college that he's seen a student turn anything in in physical form, but Lan Zhan likes hard copies. Weirdo. Every time Wei Ying makes a joke about how he would think someone like Lan Zhan would want to save the trees, Lan Zhan ignores him outside of underlining some sentence with a particularly pointed sort of gravitas.

Five minutes later, Wei Ying pushes the laptop back and stands up, wiggling a little to shake his muscles loose. "Do you want me to email this to you, or do you just want to read through it on my laptop?" he asks. "I can take over on the papers."

"You grade too harshly," Lan Zhan says, with a shake of his head.

"I grade by the rubric we've established!"

"They're learning," Lan Zhan says. "It's about progress, not perfection. They must have room to grow."

"That's not how we were taught," Wei Ying says.

"No," says Lan Zhan. "It isn't." He tilts his head to the side. "Pass me your laptop."

Wei Ying pushes it over. While Lan Zhan skims the form, it's Wei Ying's turn to get up. He goes into Lan Zhan's sumptuous kitchen and picks the kettle up, swirling it a little to check the water level. Satisfied that there's enough, he puts it back and flicks it on, rummaging through the cupboards for Lan Zhan's tea stuff.

"You're requesting campus vans?" Lan Zhan calls, as Wei Ying sets mugs out and, after a moment of prevaricating, goes for the ease of the teabags instead of the really nice stuff that he knows Lan Zhan keeps in the back.

"Yeah," Wei Ying calls back. "Not everyone can ride a sword. Ames can drive the third one, she's been licensed by the university."

Lan Zhan hums his response and leans back in to peer at the computer screen.

As the kettle heats, Wei Ying allows himself a moment to just — watch him. Increasingly, he's begun to realize that he can really only look at Lan Zhan obliquely, not head-on. He takes Lan Zhan in in tiny chunks: his hands, warm around Wei Ying's wrists as he checks the tightness of the ropes; his shoulder, curving into his neck three rows down and one seat over in faculty meetings; his hair, flicking out lightly behind him as he turns on his heel in the class they've been co-teaching all semester to go write something on the board. More than that and Wei Ying starts to feel overwhelmed, some indescribable and undefinable emotion clawing its way up his throat.

Here, in Lan Zhan's homey breakfast nook, the late-morning light buttery as it falls through the window and onto the table that they've set up their work, Wei Ying is already overwhelmed. So looking at Lan Zhan — really looking at him — can't make it any worse.

("I'm going to the island," Wei Ying had joked, a month ago, when Lan Zhan asked what his spring break plans were.

"Which one?"

"The kitchen island! You know how much work we have with this new class of ours, Lan Zhan."

Lan Zhan had tilted his head to one side. "If you ever need a vacation from your vacation, you may also work at my house."

And Wei Ying, who always wants more of Lan Zhan, even though between their play and their professorial duties he's seeing him more often than ever before, had agreed.)

Lan Zhan looks soft. It's chilly here, in early March, and Lan Zhan is wearing a sweater and pants that, were he any other man, Wei Ying would assume initially came from a pajama set. Their wide hems reach the floor, but his fluffy blue socks still peep out in the front, where he's crossed his ankles over each other. An earring twinkles in his ear, and his hair is still braided loosely back from their workout (sparring, spiritual weapons only, talismans forbidden, in Lan Zhan's basement when Wei Ying first arrived). The braid is tied off with a red-and-black checkered scrunchie that Wei Ying is pretty sure he left behind last time they had a scene. His tongue is peeping out of the corner of his mouth, and there is a single line etched into that perfect forehead of his.

Oh, he's so cute when he concentrates, Wei Ying thinks, and then blinks a moment, surprised at himself.

The sudden roar of the kettle as it comes to a boil startles Wei Ying, and he jumps, wresting his gaze away from the dark smudge that is Lan Zhan's eyelashes against his cheek and turning so that he can pour the water into both of their mugs.

As Wei Ying sets one of the mugs down in front of Lan Zhan and Lan Zhan murmurs his thanks, it occurs to him just how domestic this is. That sense of overwhelm that Wei Ying has been fighting so often lately rises up in his throat. It burns like acid there before sinking back down into his chest.

He feels fiercely, though briefly, hollowed out, and breathless with it.

Lan Zhan, of course, doesn't realize that anything's amiss. "The proposal looks good," he says, passing the computer back over once Wei Ying has staggered back down into his chair. "You can go ahead and submit it. We should track down a few extra night-hunts, too, just in case."

Wei Ying clears his throat. It feels dry. He takes a scalding sip of the tea, so that at least he can have a new problem to focus on. "Yeah," he says, and clears his throat again. "One of my grad students has been tinkering with the coding of my talisman app. I'd like to get them all back into the field again to test it out."

Lan Zhan makes a noise that Wei Ying can only describe as falling partway between a snort and a cough. "The traditional methods are still used for a reason."

"Yeah?" Wei Ying says. "I got this job by being an innovator, Lan Zhan, I'm not going to stop now." He wiggles his eyebrows at Lan Zhan, trying to force himself into feeling more normal about this extremely everyday situation he's found himself in. It kind of works? Maybe? "Who knows, maybe next time we get to co-teach Applied Advanced Cultivation Theory, we'll even let students start designing talismans of their own for the app! Though I guess we can't really require that they all have, like, Androids..."

"Anything could happen," Lan Zhan says, tone scathingly dry. Ahhh, Wei Ying likes him so much.

"Devastating," he tells Lan Zhan, dramatically clutching a hand over his heart. It feels, increasingly, like the only way to deal with his surfeit of emotion is to play into it and turn it into a joke. "Eviscerating! That's me put in my place, Lan Zhan."

There's a very pregnant pause which lasts just long enough for Wei Ying to conclude that he has overstepped.

"I haven't," Lan Zhan says, his voice suddenly tinged with the low rumble it gets when they're both deep in a scene. Something inside Wei Ying instantly relaxes. "But I could."

Wei Ying is only torn for a brief moment. He really does have so much work to do, but maybe a scene is the solution to all of the energy and emotion coursing through his body? Every other little thing he's done today has ramped it up. Surely subbing is the inevitable conclusion.

Deliberately, he cocks his head to the side and stretches a leg out, invading Lan Zhan's space with it. "I'd like to see you try, Lan-laoshi," he says.

Lan Zhan clears his throat once, briefly. His posture changes, near-imperceptibly. He casts a dismissive look at Wei Ying's foot. "Kneel."

"Make me."

Lan Zhan hums. "I have faith that you will find it in yourself to listen to my simple requests," he says. "There is no need, for example, for me to retrieve the restraints from upstairs."

"You'd have to catch me to put them on," Wei Ying says, and then a flash of inspiration strikes him. "An old stick-in-the-mud traditionalist like you would never use a talisman app to activate Binding for something like this."

Lan Zhan peers at him for a long moment, lips slightly parted. Wei Ying doesn't think he's startled by the suggestion — that's not the expression at hand — but he can't read enough off of Lan Zhan in this moment to reliably interpret how he'll respond.

Then Lan Zhan stirs into action. His movements, objectively, are languid; his intention is clearly telegraphed with each shift of his body.

He leans forward and, after the faintest of hesitations, grabs a fistful of Wei Ying's shirt, at the center of Wei Ying's chest. It's a loose shirt, a soft pullover flannel— Wei Ying, too, is dressed for comfort on this day at the cusp of late winter and early spring. When Lan Zhan yanks, Wei Ying follows easily, shifting into the grip so that when he hits the ground, it's not too hard. The breathlessness he feels does not come from the impact. No, it's all Lan Zhan.

"You will kneel," Lan Zhan says, deceptively mild. He releases his hold on Wei Ying but his fingers still hover, loosely brushing at where his pull has distorted the fabric of Wei Ying's shirt. "I have work to do. How can I do my work if you're moving around and distracting me? I need you to be quiet and still for me so I can focus."

Wei Ying's spine straightens at that. "Why would you do your work when you could just play with me?" he asks, making sure to infuse his tone with a bit of a whine.

"Playing with you sounds like a reward," Lan Zhan muses. "You have not yet shown me that you deserve one."

"I can be good," Wei Ying pouts, desultory. "You want me to kneel? I can kneel."

"Talking is not doing," Lan Zhan observes. "If you cannot help but be a distraction, perhaps I should put you in time-out."

They both know that this is an empty threat. Being left alone, ignored and isolated, is one of Wei Ying's hard limits. But Lan Zhan has a way of making his threats feel threatening, even when Wei Ying knows that the follow-through will ultimately be tolerable.

Wei Ying kneels.

"Good," Lan Zhan says. Wei Ying can hear the shuffle of paper above him, and then Lan Zhan pushes his chair back from the table, legs scraping against the floor with the movement. "Here, please."

He's pointing at a spot by his feet. It's not fully under the table, but it's close enough that Wei Ying will have to contort himself if he wants to avoid knocking his head against the support beam. He scooches forward, angling his head and neck downward so that he's focusing on his knees and the heavy wood of the table rests lightly against his shoulder.

Lan Zhan reaches down and feels Wei Ying's position. Wei Ying can feel him work one thick finger between Wei Ying and the edge of the table, like he's testing the space there. The touch burns, warming Wei Ying through his shirt, and he has to work hard to avoid jerking away from Lan Zhan's hand and into the side of the table's nearest leg.

"Are you comfortable?" he asks.

"No," Wei Ying says. He can hold this pose for some time, but eventually the burn from hunching over like this will grow painful and unsustainable. He wonders if Lan Zhan will allow him to move before the ache really sets in, or if Lan Zhan will keep him there until he's shaking from the effort of holding his position.

Lan Zhan considers this. "Hold it for as long as you are able," he decides. "Tell me when you can't bear it anymore."

So Wei Ying holds steady while Lan Zhan scratches notes on whatever paper he's currently grading. Wei Ying can hear each individual stroke of his pen, the closeness of the table amplifying the sound more than the wood muffles it. The floor is cool, chilled by the table's proximity to a poorly-insulated window, but the heat emanating from Lan Zhan's legs counterbalances it, and Wei Ying does not grow cold. As he focuses on stillness, the world swims around him, growing slowly more distant and hazy until all he is aware of is his body, cramped and curled, and the consuming proximity of Lan Zhan.

Eventually, he finds himself leaning in toward Lan Zhan's heat, seeking more of it, wanting to be enveloped by it. He's growing aware that Lan Zhan smells like — something. Frankly, Wei Ying isn't sure what. It's not a strong smell; not something Wei Ying is aware of at all hours of every day he and Lan Zhan are in close proximity. Which says a lot! Wei Ying is hyperattuned to everything Lan Zhan exudes on a regular basis.

He sniffs, trying to place the scent, swaying closer to Lan Zhan as he does so. Kind of woody and warm, with what Wei Ying thinks is a deep musk underlying it. There's a veneer of a smell that just reads as "clean" to Wei Ying surrounding it — like Lan Zhan uses a lightly-scented soap that's only coming through because Wei Ying is so close to a little bit that Lan Zhan didn't completely wash off.

He leans even closer, sniffing again, partly because doing so stretches out the part at the nape of his neck that's starting to ache from being hunched over for so long. His jeans rasp together, a barely perceptible sound, but Lan Zhan still clears his throat. "Stop fidgeting," he says, sternly.

On instinct, to demonstrate his resistance to the command, Wei Ying twists his head lightly and bites the inseam of Lan Zhan's pants, right above the knee. He huffs, too, a sharp exhale to illustrate exactly how much he wants to go along with Lan Zhan's requests right now. He's been steady for so long!! Surely he deserves to move, to play, to express the emotions still building up inside of him! And Lan Zhan's knee is right there, his legs spread to accommodate Wei Ying kneeling in front of him, his thick, muscular thighs tense under the soft fabric of his pants. Wei Ying wants to feel them, wants Lan Zhan to tighten them around his head so that all he can hear is the blood pumping through Lan Zhan's veins.

(This, he realizes, is a little outside of the purview of the platonic play they've established. But it's not that far off! It's normal to want your colleague to slowly shut you off from each of your senses until all you're taking in is the way he's encompassing you, when your colleague is a man like Lan Zhan!)

"Wei Ying," Lan Zhan says, an edge of warning in his voice.

Wei Ying wants to chase that edge. He chews on the inseam, tugging it away from Lan Zhan's skin and letting it get wet in his mouth. Lan Zhan won't be able to ignore it. He'll be forced to respond, and then — and then —

Lan Zhan stills.

Then he's jamming his thumb into the hinge of Wei Ying's jaw, forcing him to open his mouth. He pushes his chair back, and it scrapes over the floor again. It's a nice floor, wood; there will definitely be scratches on it if he keeps this up.

Wei Ying sways with the sudden lack of Lan Zhan's supporting thigh, and starts to pitch forward, but Lan Zhan catches him, pushing him up by the shoulder.

Wei Ying twists his head and grins up at Lan Zhan. Some hair, trailing from his messy ponytail, gets in his mouth, and he tries, ineffectually, to spit it out until Lan Zhan is forced to drag his thumb just under Wei Ying's lower lip, tugging the last few strands free in one swipe.

They stare at each other.

"I said to tell me when you couldn't hold position anymore," Lan Zhan says, quietly.

"I could," Wei Ying argues. He drops forward a little, resting on all fours for the extra support and the stretch it gives his aching spine. "I just didn't want to."

"That wasn't an option."

Wei Ying pouts up at Lan Zhan. Lifting his neck up instead of dropping it down feels so good, and so he presses into the feeling the same way he'd push his thumb into a bruise. "Lan Zhan, you were ignoring me," he whines. "For way, way, too long."

"I am a busy man," Lan Zhan says. His voice is practically a whisper now, and a frisson of anticipation coils down Wei Ying's spine at the sound of it. Lan Zhan always gets progressively, particularly serious and kinky the quieter and milder he sounds. "You are asking too much of my time. You couldn't be still for just a little longer?"

"Sounds boring."

Lan Zhan slaps him.

It's not a hard hit, but it is loud. And new. They'd agreed on mild impact play if a scene lent itself to including some, but until now, it's remained a strictly theoretical component of their BDSM.

They stare at each other for a long moment. Wei Ying, cheek tingling, is shocked into quiescence. Lan Zhan's cheeks and the tips of his ears grow pink as he stares down at Wei Ying, mouth parted. Slowly, oh so slowly, he brings the same hand back to Wei Ying's cheek.

The touch feels almost like a whisper, at first, the heat of Lan Zhan's hand cupping over the heat on Wei Ying's cheek but barely touching. Wei Ying licks his lips, ignoring the way his tongue almost, nearly — but not quite — brushes against the palm of Lan Zhan's hand. Lan Zhan's face swims in his vision, and he blinks, barely even processing the fact that Lan Zhan is sinking to the floor, kneeling in front of Wei Ying, maintaining that consistent lack-of-pressure in his touch the entire time. Distantly, Wei Ying recognizes this as a deliberate act of kindness on Lan Zhan's part. He's always touching Wei Ying during scenes, especially when Wei Ying needs to be grounded, or when Wei Ying, for some reason or another, can't look around to track where Lan Zhan is with his eyes. Wei Ying never asked for it, not really, but he appreciates that Lan Zhan does it.

I should tell him, he thinks, but something about that slap has put him in a place beyond things like producing words and making sense, so instead, he leans into Lan Zhan's touch, pushing his cheek against Lan Zhan's hand in much the same way Wen Qing's cat used to demand scratches back in college.

Lan Zhan's big thumb strokes the skin at the edge of Wei Ying's eye. The pad of his thumb is calloused from all of his experiments with musical cultivation and sword training, but his touch is heartbreakingly soft and gentle. "Wei Ying," he says, voice cracking.

Wei Ying's mouth works. He licks his lips again, and swallows. Lan Zhan, he doesn't say, but he presses against Lan Zhan's hand even harder, tilting his head slightly so that when he blinks, his eyelashes flutter against the heel of Lan Zhan's thumb. He wants Lan Zhan to put his fingers in his mouth. He wants to be stifled by it, suffocated by it, soothed by it. He parts his lips, hopefully, mouthing at the base of Lan Zhan's palm. Lan Zhan's expression is cracked-open, eyes hungry and concerned in equal measure, but he doesn't seem to understand that Wei Ying is angling for something in particular, so Wei Ying smiles up at him. He goes willingly when Lan Zhan shuffles to his side and loops a strong arm around his chest, tugging him down so that his head is in Lan Zhan's lap.

Contrary to Wei Ying's memory, the room grows cold as Lan Zhan starts to stroke his fingers through Wei Ying's hair. He finds it within himself to speak, so much more quickly than he did on that actual day. "Lan Zhan," he murmurs, from a place far outside his own body.

"Hm?"

"That girl is going to show up again." His tongue feels too big for his mouth. His spirit feels too big for his body.

Lan Zhan's body shifts under his head. His sweater brushes briefly over Wei Ying's cheek as his hand settles on Wei Ying's neck. "She is," he agrees, in a tone he only ever uses on night hunts.

"What exactly are we supposed to figure out?" Wei Ying asks. On one plane of existence, Lan Zhan is still guiding him through the come-down. In his memory, he can feel the ghost of Lan Zhan's breath on his ear as he murmurs a hundred little disjointed observations about their surroundings, slowly bringing Wei Ying back up and into himself. It's overlaid by the nervous weight of Lan Zhan's fingers twitching in his hair, back ramrod straight as he guides Wei Ying's attention to the girl slowly coalescing in the new shadows hovering under the sunlight in the room.

"I don't know," Lan Zhan says. "I suspect—"

But Wei Ying doesn't hear what Lan Zhan suspects, because the girl opens her mouth, stomps her foot, and screams.

"That was the moment I fell in love with him," Wei Ying says, harshly, to the unhearing void. He wants to scratch at the void, to bite at it, to twist it up inside the same way he feels, even though the void doesn't listen and doesn't respond. "Is this what you wanted me to figure out? I know that already, okay? I've known it forever!"

He doesn't say 'checkmate, void,' but it's honestly a close call.

And then, like an egg cracking into a bowl or the first fragile rays of the sun cutting through the cypress swamps around Lotus Pier, the void... shifts, in some undefinable way. It seems — lighter, somehow. Not in a way that conveys any particular interest in this admission, though he can't help but wonder if this change is in response to it. It's just... he can make out Lan Zhan's presence more easily. Because it's clear Lan Zhan is in there with him. The pinpricks of light haven't even started to form yet, but Wei Ying can feel Lan Zhan at his side.

He's not certain if he's touching Lan Zhan or not. His sensations, again, seem to end with the surface of his skin. But he knows Lan Zhan is there. There's no question about it. There's no—

"Wei Ying?"

So the sensations don't end inside his self, now. Or maybe they do? He hears Lan Zhan in his mind more than he does with his ears. "Lan Zhan?" he calls. He thinks it, too, strongly, in the direction it feels like Lan Zhan is standing/hovering/existing. "Were you just—"

"In my kitchen," Lan Zhan says. "Last spring break."

"Me, too." Wei Ying wants to lean into Lan Zhan's touch again, but he can't feel him. Not physically. The void could probably support him, he supposes, but it's not the same. It's not the same as Lan Zhan holding him. It's not — "We have to figure this out. I feel like I'm only getting half the story."

"I agree," says Lan Zhan. "Look, there are more lights. Maybe one more will clarify everything?"

"Maybe," Wei Ying says, a little doubtfully. "Lan Zhan, try not to forget it's a memory, hey? We can talk through it?"

"I only find myself separating from the memories in the final moments," Lan Zhan confesses.

"Yeah, same. But maybe if we concentrate really hard..."

"In any event," Lan Zhan says, "I hope to sense you back here afterwards."

"Agreed," Wei Ying says, and reaches for the lights.

"Drink some water, Wei Ying," Lan Zhan says, filling a glass from the countertop filter and passing it over. "What have you had to eat today?"

"You know," Wei Ying says, setting the glass down without drinking from it. He snaps the hairband on his wrist, shifting his weight to his other foot and tossing his head so that his hair falls away from his face. "I don't actually want, like, someone to dominate me into taking care of myself. I can adult just fine! I've made it this far and look at me!"

He gestures, aware that his ratty basketball shorts and over-worn Graverobbing Society t-shirt from his college days aren't making the best argument in his favor. But Lan Zhan tracks his gesture, gaze dark as it passes over Wei Ying's body. "You do seem to be in one piece," he agrees.

"And aging like a fine ham," Wei Ying says, slapping himself on the ass, and then immediately wincing. He's not supposed to flirt with Lan Zhan. He's just supposed to sub for him. He clears his throat.

"So when you've had platonic doms in the past," Lan Zhan says. "What sort of tone has that taken?"

"Well," Wei Ying says, twitching a little. "I've never actually done platonic BDSM before, as it turns out? I just thought —"

You offered, he thinks, and I would have said yes to anything you were willing to give.

"—it seemed appropriate." He shrugs. "I'm a huge brat and I like being wrestled into submission. Yes to restraints, no to whips. I assume that the platonic version of that would include, you know, remaining clothed and without sexy touching."

"Sexy touching," Lan Zhan echoes, one eyebrow marginally raised.

"Like, don't grab my dick and use your grip on it to get me to concede," Wei Ying says.

In truth, he says it a little sadly. That's one of his favorite ways to be tamed into compliance.

There's a pause. Then, Lan Zhan says, "That seems easy enough. I enjoy brat taming, and while I don't consider myself primarily a rigger, I've worked with it before."

"Is there anything else you like?" Wei Ying asks. He has to couch his tone so that he doesn't sound over-eager, even though he's pretty sure he'd do just about anything to keep Lan Zhan interested. "I don't want to be the only person getting something out of this."

"You said no whips," Lan Zhan says. "What about other forms of impact play?"

"Oh, anything with your hands is fine, if the scene calls for it," Wei Ying says. "It's not my favorite, but I do like getting all marked up and feeling it the next day."

"I typically play in my spare bedroom," Lan Zhan says. "Is that too intimate for a platonic arrangement?"

"No, that seems reasonable," Wei Ying says. "Just because it's platonic doesn't mean it should be in public."

"So you don't want me to order for you at the campus coffee shop," Lan Zhan says. "Did you dislike when I chose your beer for you last week?"

Wei Ying feels a flush of warmth at the memory. "No, I liked that," he says. "That was okay. I like when you can make a game of it, you know? Like, sure, it's important to take things like bondage seriously so there's no lasting damage, but mostly it should be fun."

"So you sub in order to have fun?"

"Sure, yeah," Wei Ying says. Mostly he subs in order to be able to let go, just a little, to be forced into a position where he feels comfortable briefly ceding control. But fun is also important to him. A thought occurs to him. "Do you remember that conference we both went to? Back in grad school?"

"It was the first time I'd heard from you since the start of college," Lan Zhan says, nodding. "I was so surprised to see you."

"I tried to get you to have a drink at the hotel bar," Wei Ying says, smiling at the memory. "And you got so mad."

"I thought you remembered that I didn't drink."

"I mean, I knew you didn't drink when you were like fourteen," Wei Ying says. "But you were twenty-four! Things change!" He grins. "Not me annoying you into yelling at me about my choices, though. That didn't change."

Lan Zhan had pointedly ordered nonalcoholic drinks for Wei Ying every time they ended up having a meal together: hot tea, a Shirley Temple, even a glass of fucking chocolate milk, even though Lan Zhan knew Wei Ying was lactose intolerant and didn't have much of a sweet tooth, besides. In turn, Wei Ying had tried to get Lan Zhan to have so much as a single sip of his wine, even once, until one evening, Lan Zhan had gripped Wei Ying's wrist and dug his thumbnail into the tender meat between his bones. Stop it, he had hissed, eyes sparking with fury.

In truth, Wei Ying had gone back to his hotel room early that night, jerking off quickly and guiltily in the shower just in case Jiang Cheng got back from his evening mixer early. But admitting as much doesn't feel very strongly in the spirit of a platonic arrangement, so he just says, "I liked all of that very much."

The look Lan Zhan gives him is initially unreadable, but then his lips quirk into what Wei Ying interprets as a smirk. "I can work with that," he says.

Wei Ying takes a sip of his water. "So," he says. "Your kitchen is super cute. Want to give me the tour of everything else? Give me a taste of what I can expect?"

So Lan Zhan leads him through his house and up the stairs. His guest bedroom is cute, if a little plain. From the closet, he drags a giant Rubbermaid bin. "These are the toys I have on hand," he tells Wei Ying. "We should discuss your rope preferences though."

Wei Ying stares into the bin. He's pretty sure he spies a dildo in the corner — the box looks familiar. Ignoring the brief flash of regret that he won't get to try it out, he grins up at Lan Zhan. "Sturdy, malleable, and a little rough," he says. "Hemp is good. Jute, too, if you find I deserve to really feel it. I don't like nylon."

"Handcuffs?"

"I've been cuffed to a bed and edged before and it was fine," Wei Ying says, and then winces, inwardly. Right. Platonic. "I like the... flexibility of rope more."

"May I try something?" Lan Zhan asks. "Not a full scene. Just... taking the temperature, so to speak."

"Yeah!" Wei Ying says, and watches as Lan Zhan draws a bundle of rope from below something he's pretty sure is intended for waxplay.

Lan Zhan unwinds the length of rope, holding it up against Wei Ying's arm and squinting critically. "Do you tend to switch between bratting and being a bunny, or—"

"I'm always a brat," Wei Ying admits. "Sometimes a bunny as well."

"Good," Lan Zhan says. "This is not a scene, so no need to engage in either. I will be tying a sleeve on one arm to test your preferred tension, that's all." When Wei Ying opens his mouth to speak, Lan Zhan flicks his eyes up to meet Wei Ying's gaze. "That was not a challenge."

And yet Wei Ying feels challenged. If this were a typical assignation — such as a scene with his ex— he'd dart forward and try and kiss Lan Zhan into distraction, and then goad him into chasing him around the room a little. He'd wriggle to try and escape while Lan Zhan was tying the knots, and in doing so, force him to increase the tension of the rope in the process of getting him to hold still. If Lan Zhan asked him to stand in a certain way, he'd go for a blowjob instead, so that Lan Zhan would pull him back by the hair and maybe throw him onto the bed and say if you're going to break my rules, Wei Ying, at least make it a blowjob worth breaking them for.

But this is new and different, and Lan Zhan is too important to risk it.

You should have risked it, Wei Ying tells his past self, which is how he realizes that he's caught, once more, in a memory.

"Lan Zhan, are you here too?" he asks, more with his mind than his mouth, even as the Lan Zhan of his memory starts wrapping rope around Wei Ying's left wrist.

"Wei Ying," Lan Zhan replies. It's a Lan Zhan superimposed on the Lan Zhan Wei Ying is looking at: his mouth doesn't move, but Wei Ying can hear his voice as clearly here as he did in the void before. He sounds equally relieved and nervous. "You're here. Do you have any clarity?"

"These memories," Wei Ying says. "They're all... inflection points." He doesn't glance up at Lan Zhan — in his memory, he's staring at his wrist as Lan Zhan checks the tension of the knot with one finger and crosses the ropes over his forearm. He's wearing a t-shirt. He remembers loving the bite of the cotton — Lan Zhan had only had cotton on hand, that first day — against his bare skin. The way it had caught his arm hair on the second knot and ripped it out a little had lingered in his mind far longer than the flash of pain itself did. He wishes he could see Lan Zhan's face. His Lan Zhan, not the one in his memory.

"Before we could talk," Lan Zhan says. "What did you remember?"

"Um," Wei Ying says. "That first faculty meeting. Camp? When we flew to the peak? And when I, um. The first time I got. You know. Hard."

"Those were my memories, too," Lan Zhan says. "More or less." And then he says "Oh," and breaks off. In Wei Ying's memory, Lan Zhan has reached his elbow. He's stroking the soft skin there gently with his fingertips as Wei Ying says something and laughs. Wei Ying's veins are singing with the touch — of Lan Zhan, and of the rope Lan Zhan is winding around him. It's ticklish, the rope, as Lan Zhan tucks it against the tender crook of his arm, and Wei Ying squirms, laughing harder. He glances up at Lan Zhan through the hair falling across his face. Lan Zhan's expression is focused but soft, almost like he's caressing Wei Ying with his eyes.

"I don't know what kind of thing we're supposed to figure out in all this," Wei Ying says. "But I was thinking about kissing you when we did this. I think I probably thought about kissing you in each of these memories."

Lan Zhan's breath catches, both in Wei Ying's memory and in whatever inner ear he's using to communicate with now!Lan Zhan. "You thought about kissing me?"

"I'm sorry," says Wei Ying. "I know that wasn't the arrangement. If it makes you feel weird—"

"No — no," Lan Zhan says, quickly. "It's okay. I, um. See where I'm tying the rope now? Around your bicep? I wanted to kiss your arm before I laid each knot over it."

"Do you think that's the thing we're supposed to figure out?" Wei Ying asks. "You wanting to put that mouth of yours all over my poor nubile body?"

He gets the sense that, if he could see the Lan Zhan he's talking to, Lan Zhan would either be glaring or rolling his eyes at him.

"I guess we'll find out," Lan Zhan says. "If we go back into the void."

But Wei Ying isn't sure if they do or not. There's a brief pressure, and a fleeting moment of weightlessness, and then lights bloom underneath his eyelids.

Wei Ying gives his speech to an eager crowd. It's a touchstone of the conference, second only to the presidential address. He tells them of his history: growing up in Lotus Pier, and what this meant for his connection to other traditions. How his interest in cross-disciplinary haunting work in New Orleans closed many doors for him when he was applying to college... and opened a few, too. Of making a name for himself by trying to innovate new blended approaches that drew on strength from beyond just the way he was trained, and how he likes to integrate that into his teaching, as well. Of the specific night-hunt report that landed him this invitation, working with Lan Zhan in their pilot Advanced Applied Cultivation Theory class. They had followed reports of a Class-Three Ghost and found a mythological beast instead. Not one from Chinese lore, but a quintessentially North American Skadegamutc.

Even with Wei Ying's interdisciplinary perspective, he had been underprepared to handle something like this — especially for a creature indigenous to areas he rarely visited. Luckily, he'd had a time in his youth when he'd traveled the country, trying to qualify for his rogue cultivation license and getting an oral history of supernatural management traditions in the process, so he knew a guy and together, they were able to triangulate a solution. How Baoshan Sanren was half-right: in creating her cultivation camp, she had intended, in part, to get the youth of multiple different historical sects to learn to work flexibly together to address challenges. This, Wei Ying argues, is a good start. The next step is to work outside of cultivation. A fusion of different traditions will benefit all. To illustrate his point, he demonstrates his talisman app and shows some of the new work he's been doing to create talismans and arrays that incorporate other perspectives into their design.

There is the predictable uproar when he finishes. He gets the usual distribution of genuine questions and comments phrased as questions from the audience. While some of the people who disagree with his conclusions sound like they're just resistant to hard work and change, others make compelling arguments. He exchanges contact information with several experts in their respective fields.

When everything is over, Lan Zhan finds him. They sit on some benches outside the main conference hall and watch attendees shuffle between symposia.

"That was a good talk," Lan Zhan says.

"Even the part where I said we were underprepared for our field trip and didn't appropriately vet the situation before wading in?"

"We were underprepared," Lan Zhan says. He pauses. "As I recall, there was a series of... distractions... leading up to the field trip. On the surface it seemed fine."

Wei Ying's mind flashes back to that three-week period where, every time they sat down together to hammer out specifics for the field trips for that class, they'd ended up playing instead. He'd felt feverish with it: the heady knowledge that he wanted more than Lan Zhan wanted to give, so he'd take what he could before it ended. This, of course, was before he started to pull back, trying to figure out how to make a clean break in their play and convert their relationship back to one that was strictly collegial.

Sudden, acrid guilt courses through him. So Lan Zhan wanted to kiss him once, in one of the memories. So what? It doesn't mean anything, just that Wei Ying wants Lan Zhan more than Lan Zhan wants Wei Ying. "I can't do this anymore," he says.

"I thought the talk was very well-received," Lan Zhan says, surprised.

"No, not that," Wei Ying says. He gestures between the two of them. "This. It's too much. Lan Zhan, you have to know that you're my best friend. But—"

Lan Zhan's face abruptly shutters before Wei Ying can get the rest of his words (It's unkind to both of us if I continue this under cover of half-truths). "I see," he says, voice suddenly clipped. "My apologies." And before Wei Ying can clarify, or explain why it's too much, Lan Zhan is striding away, at a fast enough directionless clip that he knocks over a standee listing the major invited speeches of the conference as he goes.

Wei Ying frowns. Something feels strange. Why would he — after all that marathon down memory lane — follow through with his plan to break things off with Lan Zhan? And if Lan Zhan was happy about Wei Ying taking the honorable out, why would he run off like that? Surely that wasn't the message. Surely that —

"Has this happened yet?" he asks. "Is this happening? Did we even make it to the conference?"

The standee lies flat on the ground. Lan Zhan's back is growing smaller and smaller as he jogs away.

"Tell me the truth," Wei Ying shouts.

"That's not my job," the little girl says.

She's sitting cross-legged on the bench beside Wei Ying. The beads at the ends of her braids clatter as she twists her head to look at him.

"Are you dead?" Wei Ying asks her. "Is that how you've caught me?"

She tilts her head. Her jelly sandals, Wei Ying realizes, are pink. There's a hole in one sleeve of her t-shirt.

"Oh no," Wei Ying says. "Do you realize that you're a ghost?"

"I'm not a ghost," she says, sing-song.

"And I'm not really here," Wei Ying replies.

"No," she agrees. "You're not." She tilts her head the other way. "What are you going to do about it?"

"What did you do with Lan Zhan?"

"What did you do with him?" The girl crosses her arms. There's a cheap plastic wrist-watch on her left arm. It's shaped like a frog. The bright yellow of the band is a vivid counterpoint to her dark skin. "He wandered off when I got here." She frowns at Wei Ying now, in a way that makes him feel flayed open. "You broke up with him, huh? Is that the truth?"

"This isn't really happening," Wei Ying says. "So no."

She swings her legs. Her feet don't reach the floor. "'Kay," she says. "Better tell him that, then, Mr. Wei."

She pokes him in the middle of his forehead, and the world around him goes dark.

The void feels demonstrably different: less an absence of sensation, and more a thick, cloying dark. His eyes are open, and he still can't see, but it feels different than the initial forced interiority of the void. Tendrils grasp Wei Ying's shoulders and as he yanks free, the stench of rotting wood and sticky asphalt flood his nose. His chest is tight. His throat aches.

The parking lot, he thinks, and coughs until what he assumes must be void-gunk comes out of his lungs. He's got Chenqing in his hand again. But he can't sense the demonic energy that rose up before he was launched into the first memory. Or anything else in the world, for that matter — none of the other tools Lan Zhan had been handing him when they got trapped in their memories, and none of his surroundings. Is this an in-between void?

"Lan Zhan?" he shouts, reaching with his mind as well. There's a muffled response, but it feels distant. So maybe he plays a find-me song on the dizi. But what?

The little girl springs to his mind. He doesn't know her name. He doesn't know if she's even real. But maybe she'd like a camp song? There was one Lan Zhan used to sing, twenty years ago when they first met. None of the other campers knew it, but that other guy — Su something? — from Cloud Recesses always used to glare at Lan Zhan every time it came up, so maybe it was a little Lan ditty. Sometimes it still gets caught in Wei Ying's head, a little jingle that used to bring him comfort on days when life felt particularly hard during his erstwhile youth.

He fits the dizi to his lips and plays.

Some time later, the gloom around Wei Ying settles into shapes. It's less pinpricks of colored lights, more outlines of deeper shadows. He changes the trill of his song, transposing the key and funneling his intention into his breath.

Distantly, he can hear the familiar strains of a guqin. Wangji, he thinks, and launches himself in the direction of the sound.

Moments later, he's stumbling directly into Lan Zhan's chest. Lan Zhan stops playing immediately, hands coming up to steady Wei Ying and keep them both from knocking over. "Steady," Lan Zhan says, and then: "Nice song."

"One of your favorites, right?" Wei Ying asks. His voice is as hushed as Lan Zhan's: noises louder than those coming from their spiritual tools feel ill-advised. "I remember it from camp."

"Oh, did your camp memory focus on that?" Lan Zhan asks.

"No," Wei Ying says, as something shifts in the dark. He whips Chenqing back up to his lips and plays an imperious series of notes. The movement stills. Not moving the dizi away from his lips, he murmurs, "What have the ghosts been telling you?"

"There's no ghost," Lan Zhan says. "There's a memory of a person, but not one close or strong enough to reply."

"Cool, great, love a mystery," Wei Ying says. "So, we suppress?"

"Unless circumstances demand otherwise," Lan Zhan agrees. He shuffles, the familiar sounds of his movements telling Wei Ying when he stows Wangji and calls Bichen to his hand. "Ready?"

"Always," Wei Ying says. "But one sec." He kneels down, reaching to touch whatever ground he might be able to reach in this endless dark. His hand closes around something gritty, and he pulls a fistful of it up. "Borrow your sword?"

"Of course," Lan Zhan says. He shifts, and says, "I'm holding it out between us. I think."

Wei Ying reaches forward with his other hand. The back of his knuckles brush against the flat of the blade. Carefully, but with all due haste, he draws the tip of his ring finger across the sharp edge of it. When the blood wells up, he flattens the hand full of stuff, taking care not to spill too much onto the ground, and sketches a quick sigil into the muck. Light flares from his palm, the grit he's collected shining brightly from the improvised talisman marks.

He can see Lan Zhan's face finally: worried, focused. There's a smudge of dirt on Lan Zhan's nose. Wei Ying wants, desperately, to wipe it away.

Instead, he flings his fistful of light outward. The particles scatter, landing here and there. Separate, the light coming from them is too dim to make out details, but it still gives him a sense of the lay of the land.

The source of their concern seems to be roots, writhing in the ground, covered in a dripping sort of liquid.

The girl is there, too, the beads in her hair gleaming in precisely the same shade as the light particles scattered around this dark, cavernous space. Is she part of the root system? Lan Zhan said he couldn't reach any ghosts.

"Hey Lan Zhan," Wei Ying says, eyeing the girl, who is standing still against the big taproot of the system, but paying more attention to the roiling lateral roots. "We never did finish that lesson plan for resentful plants, did we?"

Lan Zhan gives him a look, eyes shadowed. Then the corner of his mouth twists. "Better late than never," he says, and springs into action.

It's an easier fight than Wei Ying expects, from something that managed to capture two strong, talented cultivators for so long. The sinuous roots move with purpose and direction, but not with force and, shockingly, the girl calls out warnings every time one comes close to landing a strike. Wei Ying uses Binding to capture them and slow them down so that Lan Zhan can try and pinpoint the source of their power. Bichen glints in the scattered half-light, dancing around the roots, scoring dozens of tiny cuts that ooze sap and resin.

It's also easy to tell when the tide of the fight turns. The world around them grows more real, more recognizable. The colorful shining bead-lights at the end of the girl's braids fade first; then, the rest of her form melts into the dirt and the root hairs littering the space. Bones crunch underfoot as Wei Ying plays Chenqing, commanding the roots to dance away from Lan Zhan so that he can land another hit, but when he looks down, they're not the bones of a person — at a glance, it seems like squirrels and songbirds have been the life-forces this creature has been feeding on.

The bones do distract him, though, enough that one of the big, thick taproots lands a hit on his arm. He shrieks, but does not drop Chenqing. Lan Zhan, looking over, gets lashed across the forehead with one of the narrower, more whip-like lateral root extensions.

This, it turns out, is the creature's last stand. Lan Zhan tosses Bichen to Wei Ying so that he can strike a percussive chord on Wangji, and Wei Ying thrusts the blade deep into the taproot of the tree. After an endless, shuddering moment, it falls quiescent.

The girl is nowhere to be seen, but Wei Ying can hear her voice, distant and fading, as she says, "Took you long enough." As he passes Bichen back to Lan Zhan, trying to catch his breath, the world around him melts back into void.

This time, instead of the twinkling spread of colored lights, there's a clear fissure cutting through the oppressive nothingness. Through it, Wei Ying can see Lan Zhan's Prius, sitting in the gathering dusk.

He shakes himself once, shoving Chenqing into the waistband of his pants, and crawls through the hole.

When Wei Ying emerges from the void, Lan Zhan is all the way across the parking lot. It looks different: the asphalt has been rent and broken into chunks, uneven, unsafe. It looks more like gravel than anything. Huge roots lay across it, bulky but quiescent. Wei Ying doesn't have a perfect memory of how this place looked when they first arrived, but it seems like the magnolia trees are closer to the former lot than they used to be, and the weird oak is nowhere to be seen.

There's a small cut above Lan Zhan's brow, and he's clearly wiped roughly at a trickle of congealing blood; it's smeared across his temple. He's staring at the little roadside shrine next to the car. Somehow, Wei Ying forgot to look more closely at it when he was casing the parking lot.

"There's a note," Lan Zhan says, quietly. "’In loving memory of my sister Mayra.' It hasn't even been rained on; it must be pretty fresh. The cross is older, though. The writing has faded."

The little shrine is teeming with energy, but it's starting to subside and drain into the earth. "So the tree was a yao," Wei Ying says. "Mayra's sibling must have put a lot of energy into keeping this maintained. I bet it leeched right into the groundwater."

Lan Zhan nods. Wei Ying glances at him, sidelong. Lan Zhan's hands are latched behind his back, and he's staring resolutely ahead. Not quite at the shrine, but not quite beyond it, either.

"You said there weren't any dead people here," Wei Ying adds.

"No ghosts that I could speak to," Lan Zhan agrees. "But then, bodies can be relocated. It's possible a memory of the girl manifested due to this. A memory-guide for memories."

"Huh," Wei Ying says. He makes a mental note to add roadside shrines to his research agenda; somehow, he hadn't considered them as a spiritually-meaningful regional variation of deathcare. "I suppose it's good we're the ones who got caught in that void, instead of people that yao could have killed. It was strong enough from just the local wildlife." He scratches his head. How does the girl fit in? "Do you think the girl was here to protect her brother from the yao?"

"It's possible," Lan Zhan says. He strokes a chord on Wangji. Nothing responds; the notes just hang between them for a moment before melting into the breeze just starting to cut through the thick, humid air.

There's just one other thing that doesn't make sense to Wei Ying: why the memories of their relationship? What does that have to do with a tree-yao formed from the care of a little girl's grieving sibling? What does that particular revelation have to do with this fight? And is a truth he's already accepted really the mystery he was asked to confront?

Perhaps, Wei Ying thinks, since the energy in the shrine came entirely from memories, the resulting yao hunted by capturing beings within their own. This would explain the girl's role in yanking him out of each memory he traveled through, if indeed she was there to protect her brother from the monster he inadvertently created from his love.

Something has been lodged in Wei Ying's mind since he remembered his first in-scene erection. He's been worrying at it, prodding at it, wiggling it around, much like someone might prod at a popcorn kernel stuck in your gum. Sometimes, he's decided, the most parsimonious explanation for a set of data points can still be the most incredible one.

"Did you also see the last memory?" Wei Ying asks. "The future one. The fake one?"

Lan Zhan is quiet for a long moment. Then he nods to himself and turns and faces Wei Ying. His expression is easy to read: resolute, resigned. "Do you really want to end things?"

"No," Wei Ying says. He shifts his weight to one leg and then twists in place. If Lan Zhan is going to look directly at him, he's going to do him the service of looking directly back. "I mean, I was going to." He checks the time. "Like, three hours ago, I was thinking about doing it after we got back from the conference. But that was before..."

"Before?"

"I got this sense, somewhere around the, I don't know. Fifth? Memory," Wei Ying says. "I thought it was impossible, but — Lan Zhan. Do you love me?"

Lan Zhan's mouth works. "Wei Ying, I—"

Wei Ying waits for him to finish. When no more words seem imminently forthcoming, he clears his throat. "I wasn't lying in that fake memory," he says. "You are my best friend." He takes a trembling breath. "And I've been so unfair to both of us, Lan Zhan. I haven't wanted platonic BDSM with you in forever." He swallows. "Actually, I don't think I ever wanted it with you."

Unlike in the false memory, Lan Zhan waits. His face is carefully expressionless, and he's watching Wei Ying like a hawk. "You've been enjoying yourself, though," he says, slowly.

"I've been loving it," Wei Ying says, quickly. "You're a very good dom, Lan Zhan. I think we're very compatible. Don't get me wrong, I didn't — don't — want the BDSM to stop."

"I agree," Lan Zhan says. His expressionless expression is growing more complicated by the second. "So... why?"

"I thought I wanted more than you were willing to offer," Wei Ying says. "I was going to do the right thing. It felt wrong, you know. I've been loving our scenes, but Lan Zhan, I've also been loving you."

Something clatters to the ground. Wei Ying glances — Bichen??! But that's an heirloom sword! Lan Zhan can't just —

His thought is cut off by Lan Zhan crashing their mouths together.

Wei Ying has spent so long thinking about kissing Lan Zhan: imagining the feeling of his lips, and how they might slide against his own. Imagining the taste of his mouth, and whether Lan Zhan will bite or soothe or both.

Never in all his imagination did he think that kissing Lan Zhan would be this bad. But Lan Zhan is pressed against him, unyielding, lips hard. He's clutching Wei Ying's shoulders in a vise-like grip, but it's an unsteady grip. Wei Ying knows Lan Zhan knows how to hold him so he can't get away. If Wei Ying twisted correctly right now, he's pretty sure he'd break Lan Zhan's fingers.

Nothing to it, he thinks. One bad kiss isn't enough to scare him off. So he pulls back — Lan Zhan presses forward before finally letting him retreat —, tilts his head, and wraps his arms around Lan Zhan's neck.

Their second kiss is worlds better. Lan Zhan is trembling as Wei Ying presses a kiss to the corner of his mouth, soft and dry. He twists his head, ever-so-slightly, and their lips slot together in a smooth slide. Wei Ying's stomach turns over at the feeling, the same way it did the first time he flew on Suibian. He sighs into the kiss, breath puffing from his nose onto Lan Zhan's cheek, and Lan Zhan's hands flex at his shoulders.

And then Lan Zhan is dropping one hand to Wei Ying's waist, pulling them flush together. Wei Ying goes easily. He has the presence of mind to plant his feet so that he doesn't topple over and drag Lan Zhan with him, and then he's losing himself in the push and pull of the kiss. His heart is thudding in his chest, each beat hollowing him out and spreading his swelling anticipation through his body.

It's not really a gentle kiss. There's too much built up between them for it to be soft. But it's slow to grow: just lips on lips for what feels like an eternity, working carefully but with intent. Lan Zhan parts his a few minutes in, capturing Wei Ying's lower lip in his mouth. He sucks, but doesn't pull; still, the feeling goes straight through Wei Ying.

"Gonna make fun of my dick today?" Wei Ying asks, words mashed against Lan Zhan's mouth, because he can feel it, heavy between his legs and growing heavier still.

"I'll make fun of your dick every day," Lan Zhan says, gravely, and then he's biting Wei Ying's mouth, tugging sharply with his teeth, sucking hard enough that the sudden flare of pain goes straight to Wei Ying's cock, too.

"You should take a look at it," Wei Ying suggests, shoving his hips against Lan Zhan's thigh so he can get a feel for how affected Wei Ying is. "Get some new material to add to your repertoire."

Lan Zhan breaks away from him. His eyes are wild; his lips are dark with use. He glances around the parking lot. "Car," he says. "Go. Backseat. Undress."

"Okay, caveman," Wei Ying says. He doesn't move though, just presses another kiss to Lan Zhan. This time, he targets Lan Zhan's ear, tugging at his lobe with his teeth, careful to avoid Lan Zhan's earring. When Lan Zhan makes a disgruntled noise, Wei Ying moves to his neck, sucking hard. Lan Zhan tastes good: like the sweat of battle overlaying that light, woody soap of his and good, clean dirt.

Lan Zhan shifts under Wei Ying's mouth, Wei Ying's hands. "I said go," he says, tugging away.

He's using that voice of his. Since he's allowed now, Wei Ying reaches down, shoving his hand in his pants so he can pinch the tip of his dick, sharp and hard, to try to get it to calm down just a little. He doesn't want this to be over before it begins.

Chenqing shifts in his waistband. Oh. Shit. Right.

"Maybe," Wei Ying says, canting his hip to one side and tilting his head. "Shouldn't we put our stuff away first?"

Lan Zhan honest-to-goodness growls at that, but he clicks his trunk open, and they spend three harried minutes haphazardly stowing their supplies.

"One sec," Wei Ying says, as Lan Zhan goes to close the trunk again. He reaches to grab the first aid kit from his bag. “Let me take care of your forehead, first.”

“You have no sense of urgency,” Lan Zhan bites out. “I have a robust core.” But he does perch on the little ledge separating his trunk from his bumper and lets Wei Ying straddle his lap, first aid kit in hand. Wei Ying dumps some bottled water scrounged from the flat in the back of Lan Zhan’s trunk onto a clean sock and carefully wipes his forehead clean. As he strokes the sock down and around the curve of Lan Zhan’s jaw, Lan Zhan brings his hands up to Wei Ying’s waist, holding him steady and firm against his lap.

Wei Ying has to take a moment at that to let his breath even out. He's so hard that even the light friction of his travel pants against his cock is making his head spin, and it doesn't help that Lan Zhan is looking at him, head tilted up, his extremely biteable lips softly parted. There's a tiny wisp of baby hair stuck to his forehead from the water Wei Ying used to clean his cut.

Fuck, Wei Ying loves him. Hands shaking, he squeezes antibiotic ointment out of its little packet directly onto the cut, and covers it with one of the Spongebob Squarepants bandaids he'd refilled the kit with.

"There," he says, smoothing the edges of the bandaid down with gentle thumbs and then pressing a kiss to the center of its pad. "All better."

"Can I," Lan Zhan says, fingers digging into Wei Ying's waist. "Fuck you now?"

"Yes, please fuck me already," Wei Ying says. He does a little wriggle, trying to get close enough to push their dicks together through their clothes, but the edge of the car's trunk isn't well-suited for such a move. "What's taking you so long?"

Lan Zhan gives him such a dirty look that Wei Ying can't help but laugh, loud and brash and happy. The look softens, and Lan Zhan smiles, a little rueful. "How do you want it?" he asks.

"Your dick, my hole?" Wei Ying suggests. "The standard approach, I thi—"

He breaks off as Lan Zhan covers his mouth with one big hand. "I mean," Lan Zhan says, leaning in and whispering like he's telling Wei Ying a secret. "Do you want to just fuck, or do you want a scene?"

Wei Ying considers it.

Then he sucks hard against Lan Zhan's palm, enough that he can get his teeth around some skin and bite down sharply. Lan Zhan yanks his hand away, and Wei Ying grins at him.

"Play with me a little, er-ge," he says. "I've wanted it so long!"

Lan Zhan looks at him, long and considering, then nods. His other hand still heavy on Wei Ying's waist, he says, "I thought I told you to undress and get in the backseat."

"How can I?" Wei Ying asks. "You've got me trapped here, Lan Zhan. See? I'm stuck." He cants his hips forward again, seeking some kind of friction, but Lan Zhan's grip is too strong.

"You can get up any time," Lan Zhan says. "You wouldn't want anyone driving past right now to see you like this, would you?"

"Maybe I would," Wei Ying says, and watches Lan Zhan's eyes widen, briefly, as he processes the implication there. But then Lan Zhan shakes his head slightly.

"Not today," he says. "I would want to prepare a better space. Go."

When Wei Ying doesn't get up, Lan Zhan frowns at him and then shoves his unoccupied hand down the front of Wei Ying's pants. Wei Ying leans back, so that Lan Zhan can have easier access to his dick, but Lan Zhan bypasses it and tucks his fingers carefully around Wei Ying's balls.

Then he squeezes, lightly. "I asked you to do something for me," he says, mildly, in that way he talks when he's about to get particularly cruel.

The next few minutes play out in Wei Ying's mind. He could continue playing dumb, getting both of them worked up, but he wouldn't put it past Lan Zhan to tighten his grip. This, he thinks, is a threat. The thrill of the threat lances through him. He relishes in the warmth of anticipation for a moment — long enough that Lan Zhan's hand tightens infinitesimally around him.

This spurs Wei Ying into action. He stands up, and Lan Zhan lets him go, easy.

The doors of the car are unlocked. Wei Ying climbs in the back, wrestling to get his clothes off and tossed into the front seat, out of the way. He wrenches his shoulder and bumps his arm against the headrest of the driver's seat, in the exact same place the root got him, but it doesn't slow him down. By the time he's toeing his socks off, Lan Zhan has shut the trunk and is standing at the door, shirtless with his belt and flies open, watching Wei Ying. His dick is pushing out through the open gap of his boxers, and when Wei Ying squints through the dim light from the roof in the front seat, he's pretty sure he can see a flash of skin.

"Your cock is adequate," Lan Zhan says, tossing his own shirt into the front seat, too, and casting a heated glance to where Wei Ying's dick is curved, hard, dark, and wet at the tip, against his thigh. Wei Ying has been careful not to touch it, because he is worried about coming too fast, but he really, really wants to. It twitches under Lan Zhan's attention. "If a little overeager."

"I'll show you overeager," Wei Ying says, inanely, but before he can say anything else, Lan Zhan is crawling into the backseat and backing Wei Ying up against the opposite door.

There's a brief scuffle while Lan Zhan fumbles around, pushing at the front seat headrest, arranging their bodies. Wei Ying watches, mystified and turned on, while Lan Zhan grabs his wrist, hard and rough enough that he can feel his bones shift under the grip.

"Hold this," Lan Zhan says, bringing Wei Ying's hand to the headrests's metal support slider. "Don't let go."

"Gonna tie me to it, Lan Zhan?" Wei Ying asks, curling his fingers around it and gripping tight. "Could use your belt if you wanted."

Lan Zhan wets his lips. "I want to," he says. "Next time. I have to check the angles."

"So fastidious," Wei Ying teases, secretly touched. "Don't you want to hurt your Wei Ying?"

"Yes," Lan Zhan breathes, and then he's pressing another aggressive kiss to Wei Ying's mouth, biting into it, tugging his lips until Wei Ying yelps with it.

Wei Ying presses forward as Lan Zhan pulls back, trying to follow his mouth, but then there's a click and a sudden jerk.

"You buckled me in?!" Wei Ying asks, staring down at where the seatbelt cuts across his torso, curved under his body and holding him back.

"Got you," Lan Zhan says, and dips his head.

He bites Wei Ying's nipple, brief and hard, and Wei Ying starts squirming. The seatbelt digs into his side, holding him roughly steady as Lan Zhan trails his teeth down Wei Ying's quivering abdomen, through the hair that grows thickly up toward Wei Ying's belly button, and then nestles them carefully against the base of Wei Ying's dick.

"Gonna bite it or suck it?" Wei Ying asks, abruptly holding himself very still.

"Which do you deserve?" Lan Zhan asks, and then takes Wei Ying into his mouth.

Wei Ying comes immediately.

Lan Zhan jerks back, surprised. "Your cock really is overeager," he observes, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

"Like you could last longer," Wei Ying says. "Lan Zhan, surely you've been as pent up as I have?"

He's reaching. He's definitely reaching. He wants to know if Lan Zhan has been jerking off after their scenes, too. But Lan Zhan doesn't say anything about it. He just shoves his pants and boxers down around his knees, his cock bobbing free, and then kneels up as much as the space in the backseat allows. His head is hunched over at the roof. As he looms over Wei Ying, one arm pressed against the back of the seat bench so he can hold himself up, he gives his dick one slow stroke..

"Wow," Wei Ying says, staring at it. "You're big."

"And in control of myself," Lan Zhan says, sharp enough that Wei Ying squirms with it, embarrassed and delighted. "Stop moving, Wei Ying."

He reaches forward and grabs Wei Ying by the arm, gripping tight to try and still Wei Ying. His thumb digs into the spot that the root hit Wei Ying, and Wei Ying yelps.

"Be careful of the bruise!" he says, when Lan Zhan makes a questioning noise.

Now, Lan Zhan snorts. "You like poking bruises," he says, dismissively, and squeezes harder.

Wei Ying stills, staring up at Lan Zhan, eyes wide and mouth parted. "Okay, Lan Zhan," he says. "I'm listening."

"How much preparation do you require?"

Wei Ying glances down at the girth of Lan Zhan's cock. Realistically, at least a little. But Lan Zhan is right: he does like to poke bruises.

"I meditate daily," he says, instead.

Suddenly, Lan Zhan grins, feral and intent. "That's what I was hoping you would say."

He produces a condom and a tiny bottle of lube from — somewhere; Wei Ying will have to remember to tease him about it later. He rips the packet open hisses as he grips his cock to ease it on.

That won't do.

"Lan Zhan," Wei Ying whines, shifting a little against the seat, wincing as the seatbelt cuts into his belly. "I'm on birth control. I don't need a condom."

"You—" Lan Zhan says, blinking at Wei Ying, eyes dark, for a protracted moment. His mouth works. His gaze shifts, darting lower, until it's fully concentrated on Wei Ying's cock, on his ass.

"Yeah," Wei Ying says. "I started it because, uh. Prom night?"

"Prom night," Lan Zhan repeats. He sounds more amused now. "Are you a blushing virgin?"

"I can be," Wei Ying says. "If that's what you want."

Lan Zhan leans over and kisses him again, dropping the condom onto the floor of the car as he does. "We're both strong cultivators," he says, mostly against Wei Ying's mouth.

"We're both strong cultivators," Wei Ying agrees. He tries to push up against the seatbelt, get some friction against Lan Zhan, but Lan Zhan is pinning him to the seat of the car so thoroughly that he can't. That doesn't stop him from trying again, though. "Take pity on this poor virgin, Lan Zhan. I'm so wet already I probably don't even need the lube."

"If you're a virgin," Lan Zhan says, "Then I will decide what to use. I know best."

He pulls back then, leaving Wei Ying's chest cold in his wake, and opens the little thing of lube. When he squirts the lube into his hand and slicks it over his cock, he bites his lip, hard.

It's the little things, really. Nice to know that Lan Zhan is feeling as affected as Wei Ying is.

Because Wei Ying is so affected, enough that he immediately drops his meager attempts at roleplay. Even with the orgasm that took him by surprise, his very nerves are tingling. The spiritual energy in his body feels almost frenzied, but he doesn't have the attention or focus to be able to cultivate it now. He can picture telling Lan Zhan he needs to take responsibility, some time in the future when Wei Ying once more has the wherewithal to joke and pout and tease, and goad Lan Zhan into some meditative sparring so he can get a handle on his qi, but now is not the time for that. In defiance of any refractory period he's had for the past ten years at least, his dick is already at a half-chub again.

Lan Zhan regards him for a moment and then hitches Wei Ying's hips up with slippery fingers. He squirts a little more lube onto his finger and, without warning, shoves it into Wei Ying's hole.

He clearly has no intention of working Wei Ying open, and that alone is enough for Wei Ying to squirm against the cut of the seatbelt again. It's rubbing against his nipple and under his arm in a way that will start to chafe if he gets even a little bit sweaty, and the thought of that — of those kinds of lingering marks — has his dick standing to even greater attention.

Lan Zhan smears the lube around the rim of Wei Ying's hole, getting him wet enough for Wei Ying's cultivation to take over the rest, but not opening him up any further. Still, when he withdraws his finger, Wei Ying clenches around air, bereft.

He doesn't have to wait long, though. Lan Zhan lines himself up, the thick blunt head of his cock pressed hard against Wei Ying's hole.

And then he holds still, not pushing in, body held back just far enough that, between the seatbelt and Wei Ying's grip on the headrest, he can't easily shove himself down further. "Lan Zhan?" he asks, though his words are as much a mrrp? sound as they are an actual name.

Lan Zhan is staring down at him. "I love you too," he says. His muscles are bulging — he's propping himself up again, one hand on the backs of the seats, one hand holding his cock in place. "Did I tell you that already?"

Wei Ying's heart twinges. "Lan Zhan," he breathes, licking his lips. He's going to say something more — another declaration, perhaps, or an appeal to Lan Zhan's horny side — but then, Lan Zhan pushes in.

Wei Ying had expected speed. He thought Lan Zhan would surely want to get inside him quickly, maybe even too quickly, enough that he'd be feeling the sting of Lan Zhan's penetration for the entire conference. But this is a slow movement, an inexorable force, gradually working Wei Ying wider and wider open as Lan Zhan slides in, inch by endless inch. Wei Ying has to put all his focus into relaxing into the relentless press of Lan Zhan's cock against his walls, not even clenching down a little bit. His breath runs ragged with the effort, sweat prickling across his body. He lets his head loll against his outstretched arm, tightening his grip on the headrest, and tries to steady his exhales. Lan Zhan is so big, and Wei Ying feels so full. This is a different kind of ache, a delicious one, and it spreads through Wei Ying's entire body.

By the time Lan Zhan bottoms out, they're both panting. Lan Zhan shoves his face down against Wei Ying's arm, nudging Wei Ying's head up with his nose until he can capture Wei Ying's mouth in a wet, openmouthed kiss.

They breathe together. Lan Zhan's tongue, stroking past Wei Ying's lips, is a gentle counterpoint to his absolute heft stretching Wei Ying wide open.

You can move, Wei Ying decides, after another endless moment, but he can't talk when his mouth is so occupied, so instead he rolls his hips up pointedly. His cock has softened a little with the intrusion, but it perks up — as overstimulating as touch is after he comes — when it brushes against Lan Zhan's belly.

"Okay?" Lan Zhan asks, pressing his forehead against Wei Ying's.

"Okay," Wei Ying mumbles, straining for another kiss.

And then Lan Zhan is fucking him. The pace he sets is steady, smooth, and slow enough that Wei Ying can feel the entire slide of his cock through him. He clenches without meaning to as Lan Zhan pulls halfway out, and the resulting frisson of pleasure/pain has him moaning into Lan Zhan's mouth.

It feels like an eternity, but realistically, Lan Zhan only lasts about ten thrusts before he's slowing down even further, shifting his weight as he pulls back so he can grip the base of his dick. "I have to—"

"Not so in control of yourself now, Lan Zhan?" Wei Ying asks. He works his free hand over the seatbelt, carefully getting a grip on his dick and thumbing over its wet head.

"I'm sorry."

"No need for 'sorry,'" Wei Ying says. He pinches the head of his cock. It's still a little sensitive, but the sharpness of the touch feels good. Grounding. Arousing. "Just fuck me."

Lan Zhan grips Wei Ying's wrist tightly, pulling it away from his cock. "Hm," he says, and instead of fucking into him the way Wei Ying wants, he gives him a long, leisurely glance, belied only by the frenzied hitching of his breath and the way he's biting his own lip hard enough that the flesh of it is pale around his teeth. Wei Ying whines, straining against Lan Zhan's hold.

Lan Zhan backhands Wei Ying's cock, aiming so that his knucles bite into the sensitive shaft of it. Wei Ying shouts, arousal and energy coursing through him, the pain/pleasure of it all shocking him into another level of arousal. His mouth works, wordlessly — all that comes out is a long, deep groan.

Smugly, satisfied, Lan Zhan fucks deeper into Wei Ying in one rough thrust, and then speeds up, letting the bulk of his weight fall against Wei Ying. He bites Wei Ying's neck, teeth latching into the juncture just a few inches above Wei Ying's collarbone, hard enough that Wei Ying wonders, briefly, if Lan Zhan is going to break skin.

It feels good. All these little pinpricks across Wei Ying's body — the ache in his back from the drive; the bruises from the fight, the places where Lan Zhan is pinning him down with his commands and seatbelt and teeth and cock, the weight of Wei Ying's cock and balls — light up, fiery arousal racing between them. His head swirls with it. He feels like he can't catch his breath. He wants to be consumed by Lan Zhan, to be used by Lan Zhan, to please Lan Zhan.

He'd thought, stupidly, that maybe the wanting would satiated by fucking Lan Zhan, but instead, the cavernous need is growing inside Wei Ying. Desperate with it, he ruts up against Lan Zhan, taking each rolling thrust and chasing more.

All too soon, Lan Zhan is stiffening. He grunts with his orgasm, a primal noise from deep within his chest.

"Come for me," he says, in his most commanding of tones, and slumps down against Wei Ying.

And Wei Ying can't help but obey.

Wei Ying is pretty sure they both doze off, after that. Night has fully fallen by the time Lan Zhan extricates himself, sweat and Wei Ying's dry come sticking them together a little unpleasantly. Lan Zhan gathers the lube bottle and puts it in the little trash bin he keeps in the footwell of his backseat and then climbs out to pull his pants back up.

Wei Ying stirs. He's let go of the headrest but his hand aches with the tension of gripping it so tightly for so long, so he flexes it a few times as he unbuckles the seatbelt and sits up. When he prods his skin, he can feel some welts from where it dug in. He smiles. Good.

Getting dressed is more difficult than undressing, partly because the stiffness of the day is setting in. "At least I'm committed to comfortable travel clothes, huh?" he jokes to Lan Zhan as he climbs out of the car and leans against the side.

Lan Zhan is standing a few paces away, watching Wei Ying. He ignores the dig. "I meant it, you know," he says.

"What part?" Wei Ying asks. "That my dick is adequate?"

In the light of the moon, Wei Ying can see Lan Zhan's hand flex. "That too," he says.

Wei Ying walks over and slips his hand in Lan Zhan's. His sore one: Lan Zhan's warmth is soothing. "So," he says. "You into sexy and romantic BDSM too, Lan Zhan?"

"I could be convinced," Lan Zhan says, and kisses him. "This is nice."

"Us?"

"Kissing you," Lan Zhan says. "I've wanted to do it since that day on the mountain."

"When we were kids?" Wei Ying asks. He's worn out, tiredness taking hold bone-deep, but this still sends a thrill through him.

There's a ghost of a smile on Lan Zhan's face. "I ate that disgusting congee of yours, somewhat to impress you but mostly to cope," he says. "It didn't help. You kept looking at my mouth."

Wei Ying is dumbfounded. Words are welling up inside of him, a frenzied froth of things that have been left unsaid that he wants to say right now, immediately. He has no idea what will come out first, only that something must. To buy time, he kisses Lan Zhan again, deeply, intent, trying to communicate with his tongue in a different way.

The blinding swipe of headlights and a sharp honk interrupt both the kiss and the words roiling through Wei Ying's entire body, though. Gravel crunches under wheels. The car pulling into the overlook jolts into park, and then the windows roll down.

Mianmian leans out the drivers-side window as Agustin peers at them from the passenger seat. "Got your bat-signal, boys," she says, her voice rich with amusement. "Looks like you, uh, handled things here though?"

"Yeah," Wei Ying says, laughing. "Took some time but I think we handled the yao."

Mianmian gives them a long once-over. "If you leave now," she says, "You can probably still make your talk. Agustin and I can do any final clean-up."

"I love you, thank you," Wei Ying says.

Lan Zhan elbows him. "You're using that word very freely," he says. His tone is smug, though, and he's relaxed at Wei Ying's side, totally unconcerned about Mianmian catching them kissing.

Wei Ying laughs again. "I got a lot of love to go around," he says, and slings his arm around Lan Zhan's waist, squeezing him tight.