Chapter Text
Wei Wuxian doesn’t remember much about last night. He remembers dropping A-Yuan off with Wen Qing, who is absolutely going to kill him if he doesn’t get to her place ASAP. He remembers taking the bus to Huaisang’s sprawling complex of a house, where he’d spent just over an hour being made up in black shadow and golden glitter and trading his tattered hoodie for a black, faux leather jacket that probably cost more than Wei Wuxian’s rent. It had been short on him, a separation of inches between the hem and the low rise of his jeans, but the cropped look worked, apparently, especially on the one man whose attention he never thought he’d catch.
What he doesn’t remember, however, is how he ended up in a bed that is decidedly not his own, wearing nothing but his favourite red briefs and a white oversized t-shirt (also definitely not his own). The room is bright, airy, and sparsely decorated, and as Wei Wuxian scrambles to put on his clothes—neatly folded, on the nightstand—a small pit begins to form in the bottom of his stomach.
Only his jacket remains, and he finds it hanging on a hook be the front door when he sneaks from the bedroom in stocking feet, quieter than he’s had to be since he left the Jiangs. A quick glance around the spacious, minimalist penthouse space tells him that its resident hasn’t yet noticed Wei Wuxian’s attempt at escape, and he locates his phone in his jacket pocket, ignoring sixteen text messages and three voicemails in favour of sending quick text to both Wen Qing and Jiang Cheng, letting them know he’s alive. Huaisang, he notices, hasn’t texted him at all, and he sends a pointed “what the actual fuck???” before shoving the phone in his back pocket and snatching his jacket off the hook.
“Wei Ying?”
Wei Wuxian freezes, one arm halfway into his jacket, and fixes a cheerful, apologetic smile to his face as he turns around. “Lan Zhan! I was just, uh...well, you know.”
He shrugs, sheepish, as he finishes putting on his borrowed jacket, and though the rest of Lan Zhan’s face remains impassive, his eyes narrow ever so slightly.
“I made breakfast,” he says, and for the first time, Wei Wuxian notices the white apron he’s wearing over a soft blue t-shirt and ivory linen pants.
“Oh! That’s really kind of you, but I really, really need to go.” His phone vibrates in his back pocket, and he holds it up, pointing at the unread notification count. “Rain check?”
Lan Zhan watches him jam his feet into his borrowed lace up boots, which last night, when he’d had Huaisang to help him, had seemed like a fantastic idea for the way they accentuated his calves and gave him an extra half inch of height. Now, though, the laces are an insurmountable obstacle as pain lances through the inside of his wrist, and he tightens and tucks them into the ankles instead. He doesn’t need to look up to know that Lan Zhan’s gaze is no doubt brimming with disdain at Wei Wuxian’s harried, clumsy escape, and with his own terrible decisions the night before. How drunk did they both have to be to end up in the same bed--
“Rain check,” Lan Zhan echoes, toneless, and Wei Wuxian forces himself to grin as he slips out the door.
“You got it! See you later?”
He doesn’t wait for a reply, already bolting for the elevator, and breathes a sigh of relief when he hears the apartment door click shut behind him. It seems like Lan Zhan is just as willing to put all of this behind him as he is.
It’s better this way, he tells himself, as the elevator doors open and Wei Wuxian hits the button for the lobby—how many floors does this building have? And of course there’s a concierge to glare at him as he run-walks out to the street, which is populated with pedestrians in business suits that, despite all being in a hurry, manage to take the time to make their disapproval at his unkempt, makeup smudged, hung over appearance abundantly clear.
His his head is pounding and his fingers are trembling as he calls a rideshare that he cannot afford, realizing suddenly that he has no idea where he is other than...downtown? Somewhere? So he lets the app do the work, pinning his location and sending a car straight to his exact spot. Once he’s situated in the back seat, he leans over and scrunches his nose at his ruined makeup and rat’s nest of a ponytail in the rearview mirror.
He makes quick work of his hair, raking his fingers through the mess and piling it into a bun that’ll keep it safely out of reach of a certain two and a half year old, and begs a tissue and a bottle of water from the driver to clean his face. Idly, he wonders how much of this black shadow is now imprinted into Lan Zhan’s pillows, and how horrified his host must have been to find a slew of mysterious, glitter encrusted stains in his perfect powder blue sheets..
“As if he needs another reason to hate me,” Wei Wuxian mutters, flashing the driver a lopsided smile when their eyes meet in the mirror. “Mornings, am I right?”
The driver arches an eyebrow. “It’s one in the afternoon.”
And Lan Zhan was making breakfast? Wei Wuxian slumps back in his seat. Weird, but not as weird as whatever sequence events led him to Lan Zhan’s apartment in the first place. He’s going to have to pester Huaisang for a recap later.
Wen Qing’s single floor bungalow is in the exact opposite end of the city, and only a few short blocks from Wei Wuxian’s own apartment. He jogs up the front walkway, losing his footing only once in his loose, untied boots, and is raising his hand to knock when the door opens to reveal an extremely pissed off Wen Qing.
“A-die!” A streak of bright red collides with Wei Wuxian’s legs, hugging his thighs, and Wei Wuxian swings the boy up into his arms for a hug and an exaggerated kiss to his flushed cheek.
“Hi, my little bun! Did you miss me?” He smooths A-Yuan’s dark hair back to look at him, unable to keep a real, genuine grin from blossoming across his features.
“Auntie Qing let me stay up late!”
“Did she, now?” Wei Wuxian glances at her over A-Yuan’s head, and she scowls right back, but keeps her tone light.
“He and A-Ning had a sleepover in the living room so that someone would forget that their b-u-n-n-y was m-i-s-s-i-n-g.”
Wei Wuxian winces. “I’m so sorry. We were in a rush and I didn’t find it in the car until we were almost at the club—”
“I don’t care,” Wen Qing interrupts, holding up a hand. “I’m glad you finally took a break and went out to have some fun. But next time, answer your messages. I had to call Jiang Cheng, who texted Huaisang to track your phone.”
A-Yuan shifts restlessly in his arms and reaches down the front of Wei Wuxian’s shirt to play with the chain around his neck. Absently, Wei Wuxian fishes out the end and drops the pair of keys into his hands to play with.
“It’s not my fault! Huaisang kept ordering shots, and you know tequila doesn’t mix well with my...medication...” he trails off, realizing he’s made a fatal mistake, and backtracks quickly. “I mean. Uh. I skipped my meds yesterday, so it wasn’t a big deal?”
“Wei Wuxian!” Wen Qing snaps, and A-Yuan looks up, eyes wide with worry.
“Is A-die in trouble?”
Wen Qing softens, ruffles the boy’s hair. “Your A-die is absolutely in trouble, kid. See, he’s really good at taking care of you, but not so much himself. So that means it’s my job to make sure he does.”
A-Yuan perks up, dropping the keys. “And mine!”
Wen Qing smiles, in spite of herself. “That’s right, A-Yuan. You make sure he gets his rest and his medicine, okay?”
“Okay!” He looks back up at Wei Wuxian, suddenly serious. “A-die, time to go home for medicine!”
Wei Wuxian resists the urge to make a face at Wen Qing, who’s folded her arms across her chest, all smug satisfaction. She knows he can’t say no to his own kid, and that although A-Yuan is too young to understand Wei Wuxian’s condition, he does understand that sometimes his A-die drops things, or has to take breaks when they’re out for walks, or can’t lift him up and carry him as he likes. And speaking of which, the hangover headache that he’s been ignoring since he woke up is resurfacing with a vengeance, as is the spike of pain that’s threading up his wrist.
“That,” he says, setting A-Yuan back down on the pavement and shoving his trembling hand into his jacket pocket, “is a great idea, little radish. Let’s go home and make A-die all better, hmm?”
Wen Qing passes him A-Yuan’s overnight backpack, and Wei Wuxian slings it onto his shoulder, wincing slightly as he does. “Thanks for taking him.”
“Yeah, whatever,” she grumbles. “Don’t forget your appointment on Monday.”
“I won’t.”
“And your prescription’s up to date?”
Wei Wuxian hesitates just a beat too long, wilting under her scrutiny. “I’ll get it renewed before I see you next.”
“You’d better. There’s some more over the counter pain medication and herbal tea in the front pocket of A-Yuan’s bag. Use it.”
Wei Wuxian laughs lightly. “Qing-jie, you’re the only person who could make having to take care of myself sound like a threat.”
She tilts her chin up, defiant. “Because it is. Now get out of here. You both look exhausted.”
~
Wei Wuxian’s apartment is a mess. This is really no different from usual, except now, with the pain in his wrist and his fingers going numb as he fumbles with a resealable bag containing his Tylenol 3s, he takes one look at the stack of dishes in the kitchen, the clothing and toys strewn about the living room, all it does it add to his pounding hangover headache.
“A-die!”
He looks down to find A-Yuan tugging at his pant leg, eyes welling with unshed tears. “Where’s Oatmeal?”
Oatmeal, is of course, the missing stuffed rabbit, last seen in the back seat of Huaisang’s older brother’s SUV. “Oatmeal’s just uh, in the laundry! He wanted to be nice and clean for when you got home!”
A-Yuan relaxes at that, but doesn’t release Wei Wuxian’s leg as he fumbles for his phone, balanced precariously on the edge of the bathroom sink, and uses his left hand to scroll to Huaisang’s latest message.
Have fun last night? ;)
Wei Wuxian rolls his eyes, already typing back a quick message begging for the lost bunny.
“When is he coming back?” A-Yuan’s voice is tinged with the tiniest of whines, but the tears are gone. Now he’s just impatient, which means he’ll be much easier to distract.
Wei Wuxian kneels down to card numb fingers, through A-Yuan’s hair, thumb stroking his cheek. “Oatmeal is going to be back before you know it, I promise. In the meantime, what about all your other friends on the sofa? They’ve been so lonely without you!”
A-Yuan blinks at this, realization dawning, and, emboldened, Wei Wuxian continues. “Let’s bring them to your room then, ah? You can give them all their own special spot, but make sure to save one for Oatmeal!”
A-Yuan nods once more, finally releasing Wei Wuxian’s pant leg. “Okay!”
He darts off back to the living room, and Wei Wuxian sighs as he glances back down at his phone. Crisis averted, for now.
Wei-xioooong, I’m so tired. Can’t it wait?
...Or not. No excuses. Bring the bunny ASAP. If I don’t get any sleep tonight, I’ll make sure you don’t either.
He’s not usually so serious in text, but everything hurts, and he’s losing patience, and if A-Yuan has a breakdown tonight over this bunny, so will he.
There’s a long pause, ellipsis popping up and disappearing periodically as Huaisang types.
Ugh, fine. You know, you’re way more fun when you’re drunk. I bet Wangji-xiong thought so too (smirk emoji)
Wei Wuxian passes a hand over his face with a groan. He is absolutely never going to live this night down.
Forty minutes later, Wei Wuxian is showered, dressed in loose fitting track pants and a clean black t-shirt, his hair up in a new blow dried and brushed bun. A-Yuan had helped with that part, because Wei Wuxian hasn’t quite regained feeling in his right hand, and because his radish loves brushing Wei Wuxian’s endless mane of hair right from root to tip. The hyperfixation with Tangled might be getting a little out of hand, but hey, at least it’s useful.
A-Yuan has also very graciously finished clearing the couch of all stuffed creatures, and when Huaisang arrives, he immediately drops Oatmeal into the impatient toddler’s arms before flopping down on the cushions next to Wei Wuxian with a grin.
“Tell me everything. How did it go last night?”
Wei Wuxian eyes him sideways, gaze shifting as A-Yuan runs off to his room, presumably to reunite Oatmeal with his friends. “I don’t remember.”
Huaisang sits up a little at that. “You don’t remember anything?”
A small shake of his head. “I remember doing shots with you, and running into Lan Zhan, but I have no idea what I said or did to get him to take me home with him. I mean come on, he hates me!”
“Yeah and he knows it, now,” Huaisang mutters, and Wei Wuxian’s stomach drops.
“What do you mean? What did I do?”
“I don’t know!” Huaisang’s hands come up defensively as Wei Wuxian swivels to face him, tucking his legs up under him. “I don’t know what you said, except you told me you were going to go over there and let him know exactly how he ruined your life! I saw you arguing with him, but the music was so loud, and this really cute guy was offering to buy me another drink—”
“Huaisang!”
“I don’t know!” he repeats helplessly, and Wei Wuxian rubs at the bridge of his nose, eyes squeezing shut.
“So what, I disappeared with Lan Zhan and you tracked my phone to his apartment? Which, by the way, I did not give you permission to do?”
“But aren’t you glad I did? You just said you were blackout drunk! What if someone else had picked you up instead?” Huaisang waves his own phone, as if to illustrate his point. “Wen Qing told me to keep an eye on you, so I did. Kind of. Anyway, you survived, so it’s fine!”
“Oh my god.”
“You’re fine!”
“Oh my god.” Wei Wuxian is up on his feet now, pacing the narrow space between the couch and the coffee table. “What did I say to him? What did he say to me? I don’t even know if we had sex, and if we did, then...oh my God.” He freezes midstep, pivots to face Huaisang. “What if he was my first?”
“Okay, just calm down—”
“What if I just lost my virginity to a man who straight up hates me?”
“Well first of all, he doesn’t hate you,” Huaisang says, matter of fact. “And second, if you don’t remember, it doesn’t count!”
“What do you mean it doesn’t—you know what? I don’t even care. I’m never going to see him again because we live in two completely different worlds and it’s going to stay that way.”
“A-die?”
“Yes, baby?” Wei Wuxian’s tone shifts instantly from anxious to indulging as soon as A-Yuan creeps out into the room, Oatmeal tucked into the crook of his elbow. The rabbit is almost as big as he his, feet nearly grazing the floor.
“I’m thirsty,” he says, and Wei Wuxian’s shoulders drop, hands falling to his sides.
“Yeah. Okay. That, I can deal with.”
~
To begin with, Wei Wuxian had never been to school before. At an impressionable, under-socialized nine years old, he had interacted with a grand total of five adults – Yu-furen, Uncle Jiang, two doctors, and a nurse. He had never once met another child; his experience with others his age began and ended with being shown photos of a boy his age and told that this was who he was for. His purpose, Yu-furen explained, was to keep theother sallow, glaring boy alive, to submit to tests and needles and life confined to a sparse white hospital room while the other child grew and flourished in the outside world.
To Wei Wuxian, Outside was a fiction, a fantasy. His entire understanding of anything Outside was cobbled together from cartoons and primetime sitcoms and, in his mind, entirely unattainable. That is, until the day Jiang Fengmian opened the door and offered his hand to him with a warm smile and an offer of a home.
Any fantasies Wei Wuxian might have had of a sitcom family or cartoon capers were instantly dashed by Yu-furen’s permanent, thin-lipped scowl, and so he kept to himself, making himself as small and invisible as possible whenever she was near. After all, she had two other children far more deserving of attention: Jiang Yanli, pretty and poised to enter an arranged marriage and bring honor and prestige to the family, and Jiang Cheng, or, as Wei Wuxian knew him, the Other Boy.
And so, when Wei Wuxian began attending school at age nine, he didn’t know what to expect, how to behave, why the other kids his age shied away from him when he acted the way Yu-furen wanted him to. But he was always a quick learner, and he made sure to latch onto Jiang Cheng, following in his shadow, never overstepping but slowly learning what qualities garnered a positive response. He learned to joke, and laugh, and play, and how to tease and taunt and pretend to be far less serious than he was. It amused his classmates, but tired his teachers, who couldn’t understand how a boy constantly up to such ridiculous antics could still maintain grades only slightly below his brother’s.
He was always careful, of course, never to surpass Jiang Cheng, and never to draw attention to himself in ways that might displease Yu-furen. That meant that on paper, he was a model, if average student, never quite living up to his potential. In person, though? That was an entirely different story. He would do pretty much anything, from shoving straws into his nose to freeing the class pet hamster, if it made Jiang Cheng and the other boys laugh. It didn’t matter if he ended up in clapping chalkboard erasers during recess, or eating lunch indoors on sunny days while everyone else went out to play. It only mattered that for one, fleeting moment, all eyes were on him, and he could pretend that he was real, that he mattered beyond what he was worth to Jiang Cheng and his family.
On the first day of their first year of high school, Wei Wuxian sat directly behind Lan Zhan, silent and stiff and features smooth as stone, and tapped on his shoulder.
“Lan Wangji,” he called, and a pair of honey gold eyes slid to the side, lashes lowered. “That’s your name, right? I’m Wei Wuxian! Wei Ying, if you like.”
Those golden eyes slid right back to face front, but Wei Wuxian was undeterred. “Lan Wangji!”
No response.
“Wangji-xiong? Lan er-gege? Lan Zhan!”
Lan Zhan’s head had snapped around, those golden eyes molten and furious, and oh, he was much prettier close up than from outside before class, when Nie Huaisang had pointed him out as the frigid little brother of his da-ge’s best friend.
“Ay, don’t be mad! I’m only trying to get your attention.”
“Why.” Flat, inflectionless, cold. Wei Wuxian merely grinned.
“So we can be friends, of course! If I’m going to be sitting behind you this entire year, we might as well get to know each other! What if we get partnered for a project or something?”
“That will not happen.”
“So sure of yourself, aren’t you—hey!”
Jiang Cheng yanked him back by the collar, forcing him back into his seat. “Sit down and shut up. Class is starting, and he’s the last person you want to piss off.”
Wei Wuxian’s grin turned sly at that. “Sounds like a challenge.”
“It is the opposite of a challenge. Leave him alone. He doesn’t want anything to do with you, or anyone else, for that matter.”
Wei Wuxian only shrugged. “I can change that. Everyone likes me.”
“Everyone likes watching you act like an untamed idiot. There’s a difference.”
That was probably true, but Wei Wuxian didn’t mind. He’d learned long ago that any attention was better than none at all. The laughter, the punishment, all of it made him feel like he was wanted, like if he contorted himself into a caricature of someone real good and likeable, he might actually have a chance at a future.
But when it came to Lan Zhan, Wei Wuxian didn’t want to be good. Lan Wangji didn’t respond to good. He responded quite vehemently to loud and obnoxious, and to his utter despair, Wei Wuxian was extremely talented at both of those things.
“Sit. Properly,” he hissed, shoving Wei Wuxian’s leg off of the edge of his chair just as Wei Wuxian’s toe brushed his thigh, and Wei Wuxian complied, sitting with exaggerated primness in his own seat across from him. This was their fourth detention session together; Lan Zhan, of course, was the overseer, never in trouble but always finding it when it came to Wei Wuxian.
“You know,” Wei Wuxian mused, doodling idly on a notebook page meant for several lines of I will not disrupt class with frogs while Lan Wangji attempted, once more, to ignore him behind the pages of a history textbook. “If you wanted to spend this much time together, all you had to do was ask. We could be getting boba or playing House of the Dead at the arcade instead of sitting here in this boring, empty classroom.”
“Finish your lines.”
“I did!” He flipped back three pages, turns the notebook to face Lan Zhan. “See? One hundred lines. I would have told you sooner, but I thought you were enjoying hanging out.”
Lan Zhan’s mouth hardened into a thin line. “If you are finished, then leave. Do not continue to waste my time.”
“Why, do you have somewhere to be?” Wei Wuxian tapped his pen to his lips. “It’s not like you have any friends, except for me.”
“We are not friends.”
“Ah, Lan Zhan, you’re going to hurt my feelings! You know, I used to be like you. Unbelievable, right? I used to be shy and reserved, and no one ever talked to me. But you know what I realized?”
“You are starved for attention?”
Wei Wuxian laughed. “Yes! See? You get it! We’re the same!”
“We are not.”
“We are a little.”
Lan Zhan glanced up at him for a moment, expression unreadable, before returning to his textbook. “Ridiculous.”
And so it went, Wei Wuxian constantly getting into trouble, Lan Zhan constantly catching him and tossing him in detention, giving him more lines and longer punishments until, one day, halfway through senior year, Wei Wuxian disappeared altogether. Jiang Cheng had regressed; he needed a stem cell transplant, and he needed it now. And Wei Wuxian? Well, he knew what he was meant for, so he went without a fuss. He gave, as he always had, and Yu-furen took, and took, and even when the doctors warned her of the possibility of permanent consequences, she took some more.
A few weeks later, Jiang Cheng returned to school, hale and healthy and ignorant to the choices made by his mother and the part that Wei Wuxian played in his recovery. Wei Wuxian, meanwhile, remained conspicuously absent until about a month before graduation, his illness written off as the resurgence of a chronic condition from his youth. Upon his return, armed with a cane and several prescription pain medications, he was informed that he’d failed two classes and would not be able to graduate.
“But I’ve been on medical leave!” he protested. “Yu-furen spoke with the school for both Jiang Cheng and I! Can’t I make up the assignments?”
The principal had shaken her head, gaze sympathetic. “Unfortunately, you’ve missed too many classes. There is not enough time before graduation to make up all of your tests and assignments. And your project partner has long since informed your teachers of your lack of participation and extended absences, requesting that your name be removed from any credit.”
Wei Wuxian’s jaw quite literally dropped. “He what?”
~
Wei Wuxian does not get his prescription renewed on Monday. He does make it to his acupuncture appointment with Wen Qing, during which he tactfully avoids any mention of his disability cheque going entirely towards this week’s groceries, winter boots for A-Yuan, and day care three days a week because that’s all he can afford and he needs to get job hunting before the students snap up all the part time seasonal work. At the end of their session, she shoves a pair of orange prescription bottles into his open backpack and sends him on his way.
“Thanks, Qing-jie,” he says sheepishly, and she merely shoves him out the door, ruffling A-Yuan’s hair as he trails behind. Wen Ning has given him a couple of homemade ginger cookies to go – “One for each hand,” he’d insisted, just as Wen-popo always had, and A-Yuan offers one up to Wei Wuxian, which he lets A-Yuan stick between his teeth while he zips his bag.
They’re waiting for the light to change across from his apartment building when his phone buzzes in his hoodie pocket, and he fishes it out, closing his eyes with a brief, centering exhale before he answers.
“A-Cheng! To what do I owe the pleasure of this call?”
“Don’t ‘A-Cheng’ me.” Wei Wuxian can hear the scowl in his brother’s voice, and he resists the urge to roll his eyes in return. “You haven’t answered my texts all weekend.”
The light changes to green, and A-Yuan takes Wei Wuxian’s hand, leading him across the road. “Yeah, because I’ve been busy sending out job applications to every business within a 5 mile radius that might hire a single parent high school dropout.”
“Maybe if you weren’t such a walking disaster, you could hold onto a job for more than five minutes.”
“Or maybe if my last job had an actual union and a diverse hiring policy—”
A sigh, heavy and resigned. “Look, I didn’t call to pick a fight.”
“Since when?”
Jiang Cheng ignores him. “I called because I found you a job. I’m texting you the details. Be there eight a.m sharp tomorrow.”
Wei Wuxian winces, then quickly replaces it with a reassuring smile when A-Yuan glances up at him, questioning “Tomorrow? Jiang Cheng, I don’t have day care on Tuesdays—”
“Jie’s dropping by early tomorrow to pick the kid up for you, so no excuses. And wear something nice. It’s an office downtown.”
“I have exactly one nice outfit, so if they decide to keep me after today I’m coming over to raid your closet.”
“They better keep you, after the hell I went through to get you this job.” His tone is laced with a not so subtle threat, which, in Wei Wuxian’s opinion, isn’t all that different from his normal voice. “Don’t you dare screw this up, or it’ll reflect badly on me. I’m giving them an employee in good faith because I need to keep their business, understand?”
“And you picked me?”
“Wei Wuxian!”
“Okay, okay! I’ll go and I’ll be a model employee and they’ll shower praise on you for giving them the best possible—what’s the position?”
“Executive assistant to the vice president.”
“Are you fucking joking?”
“You’ll do fine! You’re a people pleaser!”
Wei Wuxian puts him on speaker and hands the phone to A-Yuan, who dutifully holds it up for him to hear while he fishes his keys out from beneath two layers of t-shirt and hoodie and tugs the chain up and over his high ponytail.
“Is that your way of saying I crave validation?”
“If you’re going to disregard your personal welfare, you might as well get paid for it.”
Well, he’s not wrong, Wei Wuxian admits to himself, remaining a step behind A-Yuan while the boys climbs the steps, zigzagging a path up and stretching his little legs as far as they’ll go to avoid the one with the mysterious stain that appeared last week. It’ll be good for both him and A-Yuan to have a little structure in their lives, and the job has to pay well enough for day care and at least some of his medical expenses. All he has to do is pretend to be much more competent and refined that he actually is, and keep his hands from shaking in front of the boss. Easy.
“Alright,” Wei Wuxian concedes, taking the phone from A-Yuan and bringing it back to his ear. “I’ll do it.”
~
“You have got to be fucking joking.”
Behind the minimalist white desk in the center of the equally minimalist but expansive office, Lan Zhan’s eyes narrow.
“Coarse language is not permitted.”
Wei Wuxian purses his lips, turns away and walks a few steps before pivoting and returning to his spot a few feet from the desk. “Why am I here?”
“I require an assistant. My brother brokered a deal with yours.” He explains this slowly, as though speaking to a child. “I assumed you were aware of the arrangement.”
“In what world would I agree to work with you?”
Lan Zhan’s expression doesn’t change, but his eyes almost appear to darken, and Wei Wuxian catches the smallest twitch at the corner of his mouth, indicating his displeasure.
“I mean, you don’t even like me. Why did you agree to take me on?” He rakes a hand through his hair, smoothed back and tamed into a low braided bun. Sorry, Jiang Cheng, he thinks, glancing down at his secondhand loafers and black slacks he’d had to steam in the shower late last night. All this effort, and I’m about to be fired less than three minutes in.
“It is as I said. My brother made a deal on my behalf.”
“So what, you’re being forced to keep me?”
“No.”
“Okay, well then why don’t you—” He stops just before the words put me out of my misery leave his lips, remembering his depressingly destitute refrigerator and the fact that he doesn’t have a winter coat, full time day care, or enough painkillers to last him more than a couple of weeks.
“—let me brew some tea, and we can discuss my qualifications,” he finishes lamely, earning him a slightly quirked eyebrow. “Jasmine white, loose leaf?”
The eyebrow arches higher, but its owner nods. “Mn.”
Wei Wuxian glances around the room, eyes landing on the coffee and tea bar atop an unadorned white cabinet, because of course you’d put your hot beverages on an easily stain-able surface, why wouldn’t you?
Sure enough, there’s the jasmine white tea that Lan Zhan has favoured since high school, the one that he used to brew every time Wei Wuxian came over to work on projects after school. They’d been paired together often enough that Wei Wuxian suspected it was just their teachers’ ploy to force him to focus and remain out of trouble.
It never worked, but it’s the thought that counts.
“So,” he says, back to Lan Zhan as he checks the water levels in the kettle and measures fresh tea leaves from their tin. There’s only a tiny tremor in his right hand today, but it’s one he’d like to keep to himself. “Were you actually sent a copy of my resume, or did Jiang Cheng just glare at your brother until he agreed to take me on?”
There is a pause, and Wei Wuxian glances back just in time to catch a small tick in his jaw. “I received your resume. Though it is your writing samples that interested me.”
“Why? I’m just an assistant, right? Phone calls, paper pushing, making tea...”
“...Writing emails, editing proposals, scheduling meetings...”
“Alright, you’ve made your point,” Wei Wuxian concedes. “So. Like what you see?”
He turns with two cups of tea, filled exactly to that little gold line on the inside that tells him where to pour without spilling (okay, he spilled a couple of drops, but Lan Zhan doesn’t need to know that) just in time to catch those stained glass eyes raking down his body, then back up to his own bemused stare, entirely unrepentant for his brazenness.
“Yes. I do.”
To his credit, Wei Wuxian manages to get both cups to the desk without spilling another drop, despite the aggravation in his right wrist and Lan Zhan’s eyes still on him, watching his every move.
“Okay,” he concedes, sitting down across from his new boss. “Lets make one thing perfectly clear. Me sleeping with you once does not give you license to...exert your authority over me in the workplace. Assistant means assistant in the office only, if you get my drift.”
Lan Zhan blinks, startled. “Wei Ying. I would never. And we have not slept together.”
“Listen, if you want to just move on and pretend the other night never happened, that’s perfectly fine with me.”
“But we didn’t—”
Wei Wuxian holds up a hand to stop him. “It’s fine, really. I just don’t want there to be any misunderstandings about our...relationship. This needs to remain strictly professional, or I’m out the door. Got it?”
A pause, then a slow nod. “Yes. Of course. My apologies.”
The tension releases from his shoulders, and he flexes his fingers, the pain dulling to a quiet, manageable ache. “Okay. Great! So tell me more about this position then. What exactly am I doing here?”
Seriously. What am I doing here??