Work Text:
"Wen Qing," says Wei Ying, falsely serious, "how do you ask someone out?"
Wen Qing narrows her eyes at him. She's sitting on the edge of her bed, applying and removing and reapplying red eyeliner in a cracked pocket mirror.
"Who," she says flatly.
"No-one! Aiya, so suspicious – I'm collecting data, online school wants a project on social differences between older and younger generations –"
"Bullshit."
Wei Ying sighs, affected and put-upon. "There really isn't anyone. I'm just curious."
Curious, and fourteen, and never been kissed.
It's not like he minds. It's not like he wants to just give his first kiss away to anyone who looks at him – but he wants to have a first kiss, someday.
"You don't," says Wen Qing. "We don't have time for that shit."
Wei Ying rolls over on his fold-out bed to pout at her. "You're so mean. I know you've kissed people."
"There's a difference between kissing someone and going out with someone," says Wen Qing, and snaps her pocket mirror shut. "One of those is fun and hot and the other is nice for about three days until they ask you to stay over and realise you actually weren't kidding about waking up at 4:30 every fucking day to train, and no, you won't make an exception to have disappointing sex with them on a weeknight."
"That," says Wei Ying with one finger raised in satisfaction, "is extremely specific."
Wen Qing pulls a face at him. "I don't date. It's a waste of time."
"Noted," says Wei Ying, and does not in fact note this.
He doesn't want to kiss someone just to kiss someone. He doesn't, actually, want to kiss someone at all – except that he does, and he's not sure where or when or how or why but it's there in the back of his mind, this idea of a kiss, he wants to kiss the idea of love and yes it's all part of being fourteen and melodramatic but it just feels so very real.
(He's not sure where or when or how or why but who –
– no, he's not sure who either.)
(He's felt this way since the start of this season, though.)
*
"Lan Zhan, will you help me stretch?" says Wei Ying, and –
– why does the warmth of Lan Zhan's hand against the tired-tight muscle of his calf feel familiar?
"Aiya, Lan Zhan," he says, facing out across the ice to catch his breath in the chill of it again, "you know I'm more flexible than that –"
Lan Zhan pushes his leg higher.
Wei Ying relaxes instinctively deeper into the satisfying burn of it, split apart at the hips as he locks his arms against the barrier and sinks back into Lan Zhan's firm hold, and his eyes flutter closed as he breathes out long and low and it's good, he's always enjoyed stretching but this is better, maybe Lan Zhan will –
Lan Zhan drops him.
Wei Ying barely hears the stiff do it yourself through the ringing in his ears as he slumps forward over the pristine Cloud Recesses Ice Arena barrier and lies draped there for a long minute, loose hands dangling down above the ice and breath coming just a little quicker than can really be excused.
His legs feel like limp overcooked noodles. This can be explained by the stretching.
What can't be explained by the stretching is the burning flush in his face or the hot-squirmy feeling deep below his stomach or the way he can still feel Lan Zhan's touch on his leg like the echoed imprint of a brand.
Wei Ying doesn't understand.
But the back of his mind is working on it, now.
*
Wei Ying: u can come here
Wei Ying: ive sorted everything
Wei Ying: baoshan sanren did a bunch of complicated paperwork and ive got my own place now too so u can stay w me until whenever
Wei Ying: bring a-ning too i used last seasons money on furniture so ive got like 2 sofa beds
Wei Ying: please come here
Wei Ying: please get out of there
Wen Qing: Will she take me
Wei Ying: she wants to see u skate first but yes
Wei Ying: she said yes about u to me already its a formality just come
Wen Qing: Thursday?
Wei Ying: literally whenever
Wen Qing: Ok
Clean-scented new sheets welcome Wei Ying with the crispness of probably should have been washed first before going on the bed but they smell nicer straight out of the packet anyway as he flops face-first onto his own bed with a shaky exhale of halfway-relief.
They're almost there.
They've almost done it.
Wei Ying: hey i got my own place!!!!
He doesn't expect a reply. It's past Lan Zhan's bedtime.
When his phone buzzes he startles so hard he almost falls off the bed, heart suddenly pounding in his chest and palms prickling with sweat for no discernible reason.
(Maybe it's Wen Qing again. Maybe something's gone wrong. Maybe it's not Wen Qing but about Wen Qing –)
Lan Zhan: Congratulations.
Wei Ying: !!!!!! why r u up?????
Lan Zhan: Music for next season.
Wei Ying: ooooo show me!!!!!
Lan Zhan: No.
Lan Zhan: Wait and find out.
Wei Ying: lan-er-gege!!!! mean!!!!!!!!!
Wei Ying scrolls idly back through their conversation thread as he waits for a reply that never comes. It's – nice, to read it all again like this. It feels clearer; blown free of the frantic haze of this season as he lies alone in his own apartment with the summer stretching out ahead of him and remembers how to breathe.
Remembers how to feel.
What he's feeling, he doesn't exactly know.
Prickling in the back of his mind is a suspicion he's been too busy to look directly into for a while.
He picks up his phone again.
Wei Ying: how did u know u were gay
Wei Ying: do NOT tell ur jie i asked u this
Wen Ning: when I was 11 I had a crush on a boy
Wen Ning: you get one week to tell her yourself before I do
Wei Ying: NO forget i asked oh my god
Wei Ying: but also what does a crush feel like
Wen Ning: have you never had a crush on someone?
Wei Ying: i dont KNOW this is the POINT
Wen Ning: hmm
Wen Ning: you want to hang out with them all the time, but it feels different from when you want to hang out with friends
Wei Ying: different how
Wen Ning: like it makes you feel excited to think about
Wen Ning: a nervous kind of excited maybe? caterpillars in your stomach?
Wen Ning: that might just be me though
Wei Ying: pretty sure its butterflies
Wen Ning: it feels like caterpillars
Wen Ning: anyway if you have a crush on someone you also want to kiss them
Wen Ning: if you imagine kissing them the caterpillars get worse
Wei Ying rolls over to stare up at the ceiling.
He imagines kissing – a random boy. Picks a face from last season's junior worlds and imagines what those lips might feel like pressed softly against his own.
It's fine? Nothing particularly exciting, if he's honest.
He tries the same mental experiment with a random girl from the same event.
It's also fine; in pretty much exactly the same way. Wei Ying tucks away this information to be examined later, or possibly never.
He doesn't imagine anything else.
*
Crisp, clear air floods Wei Ying's senses as he glides across the flawless surface of the Cloud Recesses ice.
He's only doing field moves; boring, as everything else under Lan Qiren's supervision. Smooth, easy turns and edges flow naturally from his skates – it's instinct, no longer requiring thought or conscious direction.
Across the ice, Lan Zhan is watching him.
Wei Ying blinks.
"Aiya, Lan Zhan, you know I'm more flexible than that," he says, clinging to the barrier as Lan Zhan holds him there – and Lan Zhan pushes his leg higher with inescapable surety, and this time Wei Ying hears the sound that leaves his lips as he sinks back into the stretch and his face flushes hot with something unnameable.
Lan Zhan drops his leg. Lan Zhan –
– takes him by the waist and spins him, presses him back against the boards, and why do those hands settled firm above his hips feel so familiar?
He barely has time to wonder.
Warm lips claim his. Soft, then all at once hot and near-forceful – Lan Zhan kisses him, and Wei Ying feels himself go weak and pliant as his own lips part, as Lan Zhan's tongue makes space for itself in the kiss and it's so strange, almost a violation of his mouth, and he's dizzy and overwhelmed and he's never in his life wanted anything more than he wants it to keep happening –
– Wei Ying wakes with a shuddering gasp amidst sweat-damp sheets, and barely has time to wake up all the way before his hips jerk against the mattress of their own accord and he tips over the edge in possibly the most embarrassing manner he's ever reached it.
He lies there, panting in the dark, and makes it a full five minutes without thinking about anything at all.
That's long enough for the most vivid parts of whatever the hell just happened to at least begin to recede. Long enough that when he releases his mind from forcible blankness it doesn't fly back there all at once and straightaway (only creeps back inescapably in the background of the thread he's actually trying to follow, until before he knows it he's half-hard again despite himself).
Okay, Wei Ying thinks, ever so slightly hysterically. That's probably not the kind of thing that happens to a straight person.
It's three in the fucking morning. Wei Ying needs a very cold shower.
*
Baoshan Sanren checks in with them every evening for the first month. She alternates whose phone she calls. If they don't answer, there's no consequence or panicked alarm – but she doesn't give in. Calmly persistent, just like on the ice – after an hour or so of no response, she'll try again.
Wei Ying thinks –
– and it's a ridiculous suspicion really, because what skating coach would do this –
– but still, somehow, if she couldn't reach them all night, Wei Ying thinks she might actually show up to check on them before the morning.
Baoshan Sanren cares – and not in the sharp-edged way that hurts to receive.
It's strange.
Wei Ying feels safe.
Wei Ying feels safe, and apparently this is why for the past six nights he has had inexplicable and deeply unpleasant panic attacks each time he tries to go to sleep in his own bed – he supposes he can thank Wen Qing's therapist for the explanation, but that doesn't make it any less annoying.
Lying on his living room sofa in the dark, scrolling back through his text message thread with Lan Zhan for no particular reason other than some deeply unconscious part of his mind finds it inexplicably soothing, the lingering shakiness of Wei Ying's hands is perhaps enough to explain what happens next.
He realises what he's done on the first ring.
Lan Zhan picks up on the second.
"Wei Ying?"
Wei Ying gapes at his phone, mentally smacks himself in the face, and pulls himself together just enough to answer.
"Lan Zhan! Ah – I'm sorry, it's late, I didn't mean to call you! My finger slipped on the screen, I know it's past your bedtime –"
"Wei Ying," says Lan Zhan, again. His voice is low, a little rough – with sleep, maybe, and Wei Ying feels flushed all over with guilt. "Are you all right?"
"Nnh," says Wei Ying eloquently, and mentally shakes himself like a salad spinner with a broken handle. "I – yes! I'm fine, Lan Zhan, I'm so sorry to have woken you – and I mean it, I swear I didn't call on purpose to bother you, you know I save all my bothering for daytime hours – actually what happens if you don't get your regular sleep anyway, do you turn into a pumpkin? Aiya, that would make it hard to skate –"
The sudden buzz of his phone in his hand is really more startling than it should be.
Lan Zhan has sent him a text message. While on a live, still-connected phone call.
It's – a youtube link?
"Lan Zhan," says Wei Ying curiously, "what's this?"
"To answer your question," replies Lan Zhan opaquely, and then, "You may find it. Calming."
"Calming–?! Lan Zhan, I don't need – I'm fine." Wei Ying laughs – and really, even to his own ears it's a little off, a little too high and wild, but he's never going to admit that.
"I'm going to hang up now," Wei Ying says magnanimously, "because it's past your bedtime and I want to see what your music is so I can pick something better."
"Ridiculous," says Lan Zhan in that low, sleep-rough voice, and Wei Ying's face feels hot all over.
"Good night," he says, aiming for decisive and missing, and hangs up.
The link leads to a cello and piano duet of something called après un rêve.
It's – Wei Ying wants to say boring. He really, really wants to.
He can't. It's beautiful. It reaches inside and tugs at something deep in the tight-held underneath of Wei Ying's heart, loosens and unravels it just a little way, just enough to catch his breath as he imagines Lan Zhan, skating to this in front of the silent thousands that await them both.
Their first senior season is coming.
Wei Ying falls asleep with the soft strains of a love song drifting around him in the dark.
*
Lan Zhan: Shufu has proposed a move.
Wei Ying: ?????
Lan Zhan: Cloud Recesses ice quality has deteriorated rapidly since last summer.
Wei Ying: wait what?? why???
Lan Zhan: Management believes the compressors require replacement.
Wei Ying: oh shit lan zhan
Wei Ying: like the whole things? not just some parts??
Lan Zhan: Yes.
Wei Ying: :((((
Lan Zhan: It is fine.
Wei Ying: why do u have to move though? are they not going to do the repairs??
Lan Zhan: The process will be disruptive and extensive. Other building maintenance is also required.
Wei Ying: yeah thats not ideal mid-season
Wei Ying: where will u go??
Lan Zhan: Immortal Peak Arena.
Wei Ying: LAN ZHAN
Wei Ying: !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
*
That's where it happens, in the end.
Not under the bright intensity of competition, as their third senior season begins with Wei Ying's first world record and a grand prix series of shared hotel rooms and shared warm-ups and shared podiums (because the ISU hasn't yet quite realised they should probably be kept apart during qualifying events) – not under the spotlight of an exhibition skate of white crystals and trailing gauze that leaves Wei Ying stunned and breathless and almost missing his own cue –
– not anywhere else but home.
It's three days before they leave for Four Continents. Wei Ying is freshly eighteen.
It's Tuesday morning, and Wei Ying oversleeps and misses his alarm and doesn't arrive until 6:01am, and as he slips through the twin doors to the balcony Lan Zhan's already been here for fourteen minutes.
Wet-shining ice stretches vast and empty beneath the wide air of the balcony's height; mist-shrouded at the furthest end with early morning stillness yet to be disturbed – and Wei Ying pauses, one foot caught in the door to silence the bang of its closure.
To preserve the quiet, and –
– if he admits it, to keep himself secret just a fragment of a moment longer.
Lan Zhan hasn't seen him.
Lan Zhan drifts across the ice; feather-light, ethereal. Long curving edges and precise turns leave clean traces on freshly shining pure-white. One hand lifts loose and effortless above his head; trails downwards with the curve of his movement – palm-up, fingertips outstretched as though reaching for something, pulling forward across the ice as his free leg lifts in counterpoint as a stunningly graceful spiral, and Wei Ying –
– Wei Ying, poised at the outer edge of the vast, hushed quiet of his home, feels all his breath leave him at once.
There's no music. There's no sound at all save the crisp, steady whisper of Lan Zhan's blades against the ice.
– oh, thinks Wei Ying, and the door falls finally shut behind him as everything else drops away.
It echoes in the silence, and Lan Zhan turns to look.
Oh, thinks Wei Ying again, as something around the edges of Lan Zhan's gaze goes ever so slightly soft before he turns away once more, and Wei Ying is helpless to do anything but continue to watch.
(This is where it happens, and how, and when.)
Oh, thinks Wei Ying, and blinks gathering warmth from his eyes.
Lan Zhan.
I'm in love with you.