acquainted with the edge

Posted originally on the Archive of Our Own at

http://archiveofourown.org/works/48379729.

Rating:
Explicit

Archive Warning:
No Archive Warnings Apply

Category:
M/M

Fandom:
陈情令 | The Untamed (TV), 魔道祖师 - 墨香铜臭 | Módào Zǔshī -
Mòxiāng Tóngxiù

Relationship:
Lán Zhàn | Lán Wàngjī/Wèi Yīng | Wèi Wúxiàn

Character:
Wèi Yīng | Wèi Wúxiàn, Lán Zhàn | Lán Wàngjī, Luó "Mián Mián"
Qīngyáng, some original bit characters

Additional Tags:
Alternate Universe - Modern with Magic, Alternate Universe - America,
Case Fic, Pining, Platonic BDSM, BDSM, Bratting, Face Slapping, Cock
Slapping, First Kiss, First Time, Summer Camp, Alternate Universe -
Academia, childhood friends to esteemed 'platonic' colleagues to lovers,
pining while not-fucking, Memories, Predicament Bondage, canon-
typical lubrication, light cock humiliation

Language:
English

Collections:
Raffle for Ukraine
Stats:
Published: 2023-07-05 Words: 26,500 Chapters: 1/1
 acquainted with the edge
by el_em_en_oh_pee

Summary

When Lan Zhan indicates a willingness to be Wei Ying's (platonic)

dom, Wei Ying jumps at the chance. But then Wei Ying catches
feelings. Really inappropriate feelings for someone who's supposed to
be his esteemed platonic colleague. Surely the detestably respectful
thing to do is to break it off rather than violate this clear boundary,
right?

But before Wei Ying can work up the fortitude to take that final,
terrible step, he and Lan Zhan get caught up in a surprise case. One
where talking to each other becomes significantly harder.

Notes

this fic was written for writtenbutnotread, who won it in the Raffle for
Ukraine. thank you so much for your donation and for your patience as
i took an extra uhhh ten months to finish this! i hope this take on
platonic BDSM in a modern diaspora setting fits at least some of what
you were hoping for <3

thank you also to: zes, as always, for the detailed beta and making the
end product significantly better. thanks also to ericacea, for the
secondary beta; astronicht, for talking through some of the Scenes with
me; and idrilka, for organizing the raffle and also being patient with
me blowing past so many deadlines.

this fic was a tough one to write! i have about eight different starts to it
languishing in my documents, each leading to a potentially very-
different outcome. i hope you all enjoy the version that i lay before you
today.
See the end of the work for more notes
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 by 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.
End Notes

i love comments of any length at any time so please drop a line if you
enjoyed this! even copying a sentence you liked means a lot. also, per
the pre-fic note about having a ton of different starts -- this means i
also have a ton of worldbuilding that didn't fit the tone of the final fic!
so if you want to chat backstory i am SO there.

title from sara bareilles' 'responsible'

i'm drdulosis on twitter and dulosis on tumblr and the federated

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