Chapter Text
Lan Wangji takes a deep breath, resisting the urge to wipe his clammy palms on his pants or to fidget. He doesn't fidget. Fidgeting is unnecessary. Attention-grabbing. It's better to be still, to keep his shoulders back and his eyes on the untouched cup of tea in front of him. As long as he's still and calm, no one will notice him sitting alone in the corner of the tea room Nie Huaisang recommended, which means no one will come try to talk to him, which means he won't have to possibly answer any questions about exactly why he's here in the first place.
Why is he here in the first place? He reviews the memory like a piece of microfiche, enlarging it to show the detail, as he has many times since the conversation two weeks ago that led to him being fifteen minutes early to a meeting with a stranger, pretending like he's going to drink what smells like an adequately brewed cup of oolong. He was at his brother's house, which is a normal place for him to go, sitting on a lawn chair with a can of sparkling water, a normal beverage for him to drink. Lan Huan was across the yard laughing at something Nie Mingjue had just said, looking as incandescently delighted with his husband as ever. Lan Wangji sipped at his sparkling water without tasting it, eyes catching on the scars peeking out from under the edges of Nie Mingjue's tank top when he lifted his arms just so. The scars were old. Faded. Lan Wangji knew they were there—had come over to bring food for Lan Huan during Nie Mingjue's recovery some ten years prior—but that day something about them... Itched.
“Why are you ogling my brother?” Nie Huaisang suddenly asked from behind Lan Wangji's left shoulder. This was a normal thing for them to do, which is why Lan Wangji carefully didn't startle. If he startled, Nie Huaisang would win. “Planning on starting a new career as a homewrecker?”
“I do not believe that is a career path,” Lan Wangji said, tearing his eyes away from Nie Mingjue to give Nie Huaisang a moderately polite nod. It was harder to look away than it should have been. Nie Mingjue was attractively muscular, of course, but he'd been attractively muscular since before the surgery, so there was no reason for him to be so uncomfortably eyecatching.
“If you work hard and believe in yourself, you can make anything a career path,” Nie Huaisang said knowingly, tossing themself into the lawn chair next to his and making grabby hands at his sparkling water. Lan Wangji instead retrieved another can from the lawn by his feet and handed that over, having prepared for this exact situation. Nie Huaisang squealed happily and popped the tab, settling in for what Lan Wangji recognized as an extended lounge. “I notice you didn't deny the ogling.”
“I am not ogling,” Lan Wangji said, embarrassed at being caught to an extent far more intense than made sense. “I was. Thinking.”
Nie Huaisang hummed, eyebrows raised over the edge of their water can. They were clearly expecting further clarification, and Lan Wangji genuinely didn't know how to offer it. Why would he feel such a strange pull to look at Nie Mingjue's scars? Why was there almost... Almost a kinship there, tugging behind Lan Wangji's breastbone? Why did he sometimes feel a similar thing when he looked at Nie Huaisang, something almost like yearning? He wasn't attracted to either of them—Lan Wangji knew what attraction felt like, and this wasn't it. Whatever it was made his skin itch, made his clothes feel ill-fitting and uncomfortable, made him hungry in a way no food would satisfy.
Lan Wangji still isn't sure why, when he opened his mouth, the question that came out was, “How did you know you were trans?” He still isn't entirely sure why he actually agreed when Nie Huaisang insisted he had to meet, “A friend, the perfect person for you to talk to about this since I know you won't actually open up to me. ” Lan Wangji doesn't like meeting people in general, but especially not without having someone there to facilitate the introduction, not to talk to them about—things. Questions. He shouldn't be here, actually. He's thirty-one years old. It's ridiculous to even have questions. Lan Wangji has a very comfortable life, with a decent job and pet rabbits and a brother who loves him. He doesn't need—
“Oh, am I late?”
The voice is musical, unmistakably feminine but deeper than he'd expect with that lilt. Lan Wangji looks up from his untouched tea to find a tall Chinese woman almost looming over his table, a sheepish smile on her face and her dark eyes dancing. Her hair is a long, glossy inkspill over one shoulder, the ends dyed a shockingly bright red that matches the studs in her ears and the distressed muscle tank she's wearing that makes her defined shoulders look incredible and leaves her tattooed arms bare to the world. The shirt isn't quite long enough to meet the waistband of her skinny jeans, and Lan Wangji catches a glimpse of a little trail of hair under her bellybutton before he viciously yanks his eyes back to her face.
She looks exactly like the description he got from Nie Huaisang, but Lan Wangji somehow wasn't expecting this. She is quite easily the most beautiful woman he's ever seen in his life, and for some reason that makes him want to cry.
“You are not late,” Lan Wangji forces himself to say, words coming even less easily to him than usual. “I am habitually early.” He also forces himself to stand, forces himself to extend a hand in greeting even though there's a pitched war raging inside of him, half of his body screaming at him to leave and the other half insisting he stay. “Lan Wangji.”
The woman's smile gets even brighter, and she shakes his hand with a firm, warm grip. “Wei Ying,” she says cheerfully, looking down slightly to meet his eyes. Oh. She's taller than him, even. Lan Wangji doesn't know what to do with that information. “I'm gonna go order, and then I'll be right back, okay?”
Lan Wangji nods, throat tight, and his eyes impolitely drop to the sway of her hips as she heads for the counter. It's a nice view. They're nice hips. Lan Wangji feels vaguely ill looking at them, and doesn't know why, and doesn't like it. He sits back down, contemplating his cooling cup of tea like it might contain one single answer, and that's where Wei Ying finds him a few minutes later, still twisted up and confused.
“Did they brew it wrong?” she asks, dropping into the seat across from him and having to scramble to keep her chocolate croissant on her plate as it slides precariously with the movement. Lan Wangji looks up from his tea, confused, and regrets looking at her immediately the same way he'd regret looking at the sun. “The tea,” she clarifies when he doesn't actually answer, setting down a mug of what looks like some kind of tea latte. “They'll rebrew it for you if they did it at the wrong temperature, you know.”
“It's fine,” Lan Wangji says, and takes a long pull to prove it. It is actually good tea, and it seems to wake him up beyond what the potential caffeine content could account for, the flavor pulling him back into himself.
“Glad you like it,” Wei Ying says, propping her elbows on the table and sipping at her own mug with every sign of enjoyment. “This is one of my favorite places, so if you hated it we'd be off to a pretty bad start, Lan Wangji.”
Lan Wangji reflexively suppresses the sting he always feels at hearing his name out loud and lets his eyes slip away to the rest of the room. “It's pleasant,” he says honestly. He can recognize and admit the objective proof about the establishment while still feeling like he doesn't belong in it. Why Nie Huaisang suggested he meet Wei Ying at a place where it seems like ninety percent of the clientele is some flavor of transfemme and/or lesbian is a mystery. He's an invader here. Surely everyone can sense that?
Wei Ying, naturally, looks right at home, looks comfortable in the room and in her skin, and Lan Wangji's palms are clammy again.
“They have a partnership with a good bakery, too,” Wei Ying says, setting down her mug so she can pick a chunk of flaking, golden-brown croissant off the edge and pop it into her mouth. “Highly recommend, even if they are a mess to eat.”
“Mn.” Lan Wangji takes another sip of his tea, trying to watch Wei Ying out of the corner of his eye without making it obvious. He's afraid if he looks at her head-on he won't be able to keep from staring at her large, elegant hands, won't be able to look away from the knot in her throat or breadth of her shoulders. He wants to stare at her for hours; he never wants to see her again. She makes the itch worse. He hates it. He should leave.
Lan Wangji stays where he is.
“Right,” Wei Ying says after a long moment of intensely awkward silence. She takes a long draw of her drink—Lan Wangji was right, he can't look away from the knot in her throat, especially when she swallows—and clinks it down to the table. “So.” Her eyes are open and sincere and pin him in place like a specimen bug. “Huaisang said you were maybe... Questioning some things.”
Lan Wangji opens his mouth. Nothing comes out. He closes it again and slowly nods, willing the churning in his stomach to settle down.
Wei Ying smiles at him so gently it aches, something in her expression that he doesn't want to accept. “Gender things? Specifically?”
Oh. This was a mistake. Lan Wangji is going to be sick. He sways in his chair, suddenly dizzy, and Wei Ying's eyes go wide.
“Hey, hey, hey, it's fine,” she whispers frantically, hands hovering uselessly in his direction. “They don't have to be questions about you! They can just be questions! Hypothetical, even! They don't even need to be about gender, I'll answer anything!” Her voice goes deeper, a little more monotone. “'Hey, Wei Ying, would you explain how to tell the difference between different common street trees in our city?'” Back in her own voice, she says, “Sure thing! So the first thing you want to look at is the bark texture.”
Lan Wangji learns several new things about crabapples while he wrestles himself back under control. He's fairly certain he will immediately forget them, but he appreciates the attempt. Wei Ying has progressed to a detailed explanation of different coniferous tree needle configurations by the time he no longer feels in danger of vomiting, which she breaks off when Lan Wangji regains the muscular control to take another sip of his regrettably lukewarm tea.
“Okay?” she asks quietly, that same familiar, painful expression on her face.
Lan Wangji nods, still a bit shaky. “Apologies.” This is humiliating. There is no reason for him to react this strongly to a simple conversation, regardless of who the conversation is with or what it might be about.
“No need to apologize,” she assures him, popping another piece of croissant into her mouth. “It's a lot. Or it can be a lot.” The corner of her mouth quirks up wryly. “Sometimes it's a lot because we're very concerned about the friend on whose behalf we're asking hypothetical questions, if that helps.”
Lan Wangji takes a deep breath, holds it, and lets it out slowly through his nose. He can see what Wei Ying is trying to do, and he appreciates it and loathes it at the same time. “Yes,” he says, more as a verbal spacer than anything, and then, “Why did Nie Huaisang think I should talk to you?”
His tone is much ruder than he meant it to be, his emotions off-balance and jumbled, but Wei Ying throws her head back and laughs brightly. The sound peals like bells, resonating like a perfectly in-tune note on a violin and curling Lan Wangji's toes inside his shoes. She doesn't seem to care that she draws attention, that eyes from across the shop come to land on her and take in her mirth. There's a freedom in all of her movements that Lan Wangji envies so deeply that it makes him want to hate her, and he hates himself for reacting that way.
“Do you doubt my qualifications, Lan Wangji?” she teases, leaning her elbow on the table as she sips from her cup. Her eyes twinkle, her smile wide enough to show slightly buck front teeth like a rabbit. “Do I need a degree in gender studies, or is my lived experience enough?”
“I apologize,” Lan Wangji starts, ill with embarrassment. “I didn't mean—”
“Ah, it's fine.” Wei Ying waves off his apology easily, smile softening. “I think Huaisang chose me because I'm shockingly easy to talk to, and when I transitioned I absolutely hyperfocused on research for like three years, so I know a lot.” She holds three fingers up to her temple. “I know more about transition than most doctors do, not that it's hard. Go on. Hit me with a question.”
Questions no longer exist for Lan Wangji, especially any questions relating to transition or trans issues. He has nothing. The inside of his head is a wasteland. Freeze, seeing that Fight, Flight, and Fawn are all out of commission, takes over his body, fixing his eyes slightly to the left of Wei Ying's head and hoping she'll forget he's even there.
“What if I just hit the highlights?” Wei Ying asks after a moment, breezing past his non-reaction without acknowledging it, bless her and curse her. “You can transition any time you want,” she starts, counting her points off on her fingers as she does. “You don't need anyone's permission to transition but your own. It doesn't have to be permanent if you just want to try it out for a little while. It's never too late to transition. You can do whatever you want, whenever, forever.” She pauses there, index finger pressed to her opposite pinkie, and tries to catch his eye. “With me so far?”
Lan Wangji nods. He might break his mug from how tightly his hands clench around it. Everything she's said makes sense and are things he agrees with when they apply to other people, but... “How do you know?” he asks, his voice coming out a low rasp.
Wei Ying eats some more croissant, giving that some thought. “It's different for everyone,” she admits, wiping her fingers off on a napkin. “Some people always know, some people figure it out later, some people have one big epiphany, and for some people it's a slow trickle.” She leans forward, hair slithering over her shoulder as she tips her head conspiratorially. “Across the board, though?” A pause. (Lan Wangji thinks it's for dramatic effect.) “Cis people don't think about gender,” Wei Ying whispers, and Lan Wangji feels the words shiver into his bone marrow.
“They...” he starts with no idea where he's going, and then, “I...”
“I don't mean they don't think about it because they very carefully don't let themselves think about it, Lan Wangji,” Wei Ying continues, sanding away at something terrifying deep under his ribs. “I don't mean they don't think about it by never thinking about their body, or making sure they never look at themselves in the mirror for too long. I mean they don't have to think about their gender the same way they don't have to think about having bones: it's just there, and unless something goes very wrong, they don't think about it, because it's comfortable.”
There are a lot of things hovering at the edges of Lan Wangji's conscious thought that he very carefully keeps away from the rest of his mind, and he feels them crowding against the windows like a horde of zombies. He wonders briefly what it would be like to be comfortable, then balls that thought up and shoves it out the window to join the others.
“Oh!” Wei Ying sits back up, waving her opposite thumb in the air. “I forgot a big one: You don't have to hate how you are now to want to transition. You just have to think you might be happier as something else.” She frowns, eyes somewhere above his head and unfocused like she's reviewing mental notes. “Oh, and you'll always be hotter as a happy trans person than as a miserable cis person. If the dysphoria tries to tell you otherwise, it's lying.” A nod, like she's concluding a presentation, and then her eyes drop back to his. “Has any of that been helpful?”
“Helpful” isn't the word Lan Wangji would use. He's not sure what word he would use. He didn't want to have this conversation in the first place, and he feels perilously close to a total emotional collapse after perhaps five minutes of discussion. He wants to erase this entire interlude from his memory. He wants to listen to Wei Ying talk for the rest of the day. He wants to have a moment of quiet to—to process, and this is the impulse he seizes with both hands.
“Yes,” he says, his mouth strangely distant from his mind, or maybe his mind is strangely distant from his mouth. “Thank you.” He downs the rest of the cold tea in his mug and stands immediately. “I need to go.”
Wei Ying's eyebrows draw together. “Okay,” she says, concern now mixed with that familiar expression Lan Wangji is trying desperately not to recognize. “Yeah, whatever you need.” She pauses, pulling her lower lip between her teeth and revealing a mole under said lip that Lan Wangji regrets knowing about. “Hey, can I give you my number?” Her smile hurts his eyes. “In case you have any other questions.”
No. The answer is no. Lan Wangji doesn't have questions. He's never had questions. He certainly doesn't have any questions for someone this open and bright, for someone this secure in her own skin. They don't have anything in common. What questions could he possibly have for her?
The itch deep under his skin deepens to something intolerable, something he feels in the back of his teeth. It gets worse when he thinks about leaving. Desperate to ease it, he opens his phone to the contacts and hands it over.
Wei Ying perks up. Her fingers brush his when she takes his phone, and he clenches his hand into a fist while she types in her information.
“Seriously, any time,” she tells him, offering it back. “Any question. There's nothing you can ask that's too silly, too obvious, or too personal.”
Lan Wangji nods mechanically, carefully retrieving his phone without touching her warm skin again. “Thank you for your time,” he recites, like he's closing a customer service email, and then flees.
“Be well,” she calls after him, but Lan Wangji is already out the door. The relief is sweet. He's fine. This is okay. He met Nie Huaisang's friend. She was kind. It was an interesting interlude in his day, and it doesn't have be anything other than that. He makes it to his car and settles behind the wheel, taking deep breaths that don't do much to calm the churning in his stomach.
Understanding. That look on her face was understanding. Wei Ying looked at Lan Wangji, and she saw something she thought she understood.
Lan Wangji grimly balls up that thought, throws it out the window with the others, and drives home. It doesn't mean anything. It can't mean anything. Whatever Wei Ying thought she saw doesn't exist, so there's no point thinking about it. He's never going to see her again.
◆◆◆
Lan Wangji spends a week ignoring his phone and the new number burning a hole in it. He ignores the increasing number of things pressing at the edges of his awareness, ignores the feeling like he has a splinter wedged in the bottom of his foot that twinges when he steps wrong. It's nothing. There wasn't anything about him for Wei Ying to understand, so he has no reason to talk to her again.
Work is captivating enough that he doesn't even have to try to ignore anything while he's there, letting himself sink deeply into several tricky coding problems with loose deadlines that simply hadn't been as pressing as the rest of his workload. His determined hyperfocus gets him through the day and subsequently through an incredible amount of his to-do list, but when he gets home it's like he steps wrong again, the splinter flaring in his awareness. BaoBao and Xiao-Bai aren't enough of a distraction, being generally well-behaved rabbits, and Lan Wangji goes for completely unnecessary runs, pushing himself until the adrenaline and endorphins wipe his mind clean of anything but the direct and physical. His body is a tool for movement, nothing else. This is how he's always been.
It's fine.
The post-run showers are the second-worst part of the day, leaving him alone with his thoughts no matter what music he puts on the bluetooth speaker in the bathroom. His showers are habitually efficient, not lingering over anything but the application of conditioner to his shoulder-length hair. They still drag on, every minute feeling like ten, the things he doesn't think about pressed bodily to the shower door like something out of a horror movie. Lan Wangji scrubs up and rinses off perfunctorily, pretending his discomfort with long showers stems from a concern for water conservation instead of anything more personal.
He catches sight of himself in the bathroom mirror as he's drying off and automatically averts his eyes to something more neutral, like the wall, or the toilet. Something that doesn't make him itch.
“...They never look at themselves in the mirror for too long,” Wei Ying's voice says in his memory, terribly kind and terribly gentle. Lan Wangji stiffens, the nonexistent splinter in his foot jabbing what feels like his entire nervous system and freezing his hands in the process of drying his right leg. It isn't... He's not...
He doesn't need to look at himself in the mirror very much. His hair goes in a low ponytail, and he can do his skincare routine by feel. What purpose would there be in staring at his reflection for longer than it takes to make sure his clothes for the day are neat and in good order? He's not avoiding anything.
He's still staring at the toilet.
Lan Wangji finishes drying off briskly, squares his shoulders, and turns to his reflection. The man in the mirror meets his gaze, and if there's a deeply suppressed, well-trained urge to flinch somewhere in his psyche, he tells himself he barely notices it. His body looks like it always looks: He looks like he always looks, broad-shouldered and toned from running and a yoga practice that involves a lot of handstands, cut cheekbones, a jawline men seem to enjoy, moderate amounts of body hair that don't bother him enough to do anything about. His posture is upright and straight, his face blank as usual, his hair falling around his shoulders in damp, messy strands. His dick... Exists. It's there. It's another part of him that men seem to enjoy. If it was on someone else, he thinks he'd like it quite a bit, but it's his, so his feelings about it are neutral.
There. It's his reflection. Lan Wangji can look at it for as long as he wants. It's just boring to do so. Who really likes staring at their reflection, anyway? It's normal to finish your mirror-related tasks as quickly as possible and then move on.
Lan Wangji attempts to move on, and the itch under his skin climbs all the way up into his skull to attack his brain. He watches his reflection as his posture shifts, his shoulders softening and curling in slightly, one of his hips cocking to add a curve to his spine. He lets his hand settle lightly on his hip, drawing more attention to the curve, and twists his torso so there's more of a contrast between the indent of his waist and the sway of his hip, tipping his head so his hair drapes further down over his shoulder. He meets his own eyes and for just an instant he sees someone else, someone softer, someone prettier—
Heart hammering, Lan Wangji rips himself away from the mirror and towels off his hair with shaking hands. The sharp jolt of something fades slowly, the splinter in his foot fighting to be acknowledged. Lan Wangji ignores it, ignores his reflection as he moisturizes his face and brushes his teeth, ignores the itch he can't physically scratch as he puts on a long-sleeved pajama shirt and pants, ignores the ever-increasing crowd just outside the boundaries of his mind. He gets into bed and prays his white noise machine will drown out everything else.
This is the worst part of the day, when Lan Wangji fails to fall asleep, entirely alone with things he doesn't think about. He tosses, and he turns, and when he eventually drops off, his dreams are uneasy.
◆◆◆
A week and a half after getting Wei Ying's number, Lan Wangji takes a long lunch break to meet his brother at the dumpling house they like. Their biweekly lunches have been a reliable touchstone since they both moved out of their uncle's house, a low-stress and low-effort way to remain connected to each other's lives. It's been over a decade now of shared meals every other week, and Lan Wangji has watched his brother navigate relationship heartbreak and euphoria, watched him grow and change and—after marrying Nie Mingjue—become achingly, wonderfully happy.
It was over one of these biweekly lunches that Lan Huan told him about Nie Mingjue's transition those many years ago. It was, in fact, in this very dumpling house, possibly in the same booth. (Lan Wangji is a creature of habit, and his brother willingly accommodates him.) The location is the only reason it's on his mind, the only reason Lan Wangji keeps circling back to it like tonguing a raspberry seed caught between his teeth. He listens to Lan Huan's stories about his elementary-school music students, enjoying his mushroom and cabbage jiaozi, and can't get it off his mind. It builds and builds, pushing against the back of his teeth, and for possibly the first time in his life Lan Wangji feels like if he doesn't speak he might start leaking at the seams.
“Ge,” he starts when Lan Huan breaks off his story to refill their tea, “how frequently do you think about your gender?”
Lan Huan's eyebrows almost hit his hairline, but he gamely gives it some consideration. He's always treated Lan Wangji's questions with respect and care, ever since they were small children, and Lan Wangji watches him sip his tea, secure in the knowledge that whatever his brother says, it will be the truth.
“Maybe once a year,” Lan Huan concludes, eyes slightly narrowed like he's having trouble remembering the specifics. Lan Wangji's stomach drops into his shoes. That rarely? “Actually, probably less than that,” Lan Huan continues, refocusing on the table and putting some cucumber salad on Lan Wangji's plate. “After A'Jue came out I gave it a lot of thought, just to make sure I wasn't going along with what society thought I should be.” He smiles and gives a little shrug, entirely unbothered. “I decided that I was happy as I was. Every once in a great while I make sure that's still the case, but I can't say that I even remember the last time I did.”
“Ah,” Lan Wangji says from outside of his own body. “Cis people don't think about their gender,” whispers Wei Ying's voice in the back of his mind, drowning out all other thought. He thought—surely once a year is an understatement? Lan Huan must think about it more frequently than that? Or avoid thinking about it, at least? Lan Wangji examines him closely for the polite smile and genial expression he gets when he's forced to lie, and finds nothing but cheerful honesty.
If he's telling the truth, then—
“It's an interesting question,” Lan Huan says after he swallows a bite of jiaozi. “What brought it up?” His gaze is interested; perceptive. Lan Wangji would like to melt into the floor. Maybe he'll find his stomach down there.
“Something I heard recently,” he says, forcing his shoulders to stay down and back when he wants to hunch forward in an attempt to hide away from the ever-louder thoughts crowding the doors and windows of his mind. “I also thought it was interesting.” This is not quite true, but he's at a loss for how else to describe something that seems to have lodged itself into his psyche like a burrowing tick.
Lan Huan considers him for a horrible moment. Lan Wangji lets none of his inner struggle show on his face and takes a sip of tea, desperately praying for his brother to move on. He cannot handle any follow-up questions. He can barely handle eating the rest of his lunch.
“How are the rabbits?” Lan Huan asks, leaning closer across the table in anticipation of photos.
“They are well,” Lan Wangji says, pulling out his phone with a bone-deep relief. The rabbits, at least, are something he feels comfortable talking about.
◆◆◆
On Friday night, with BaoBao and Xiao-Bai competing for space on his lap and the mental splinter in his foot screaming for attention, Lan Wangji stares at Wei Ying's contact in his phone for twenty full minutes. The screen goes to sleep multiple times. He wakes it back up each time, only to eventually watch it go black again.
It doesn't have to mean anything. Wei Ying is a friend of Nie Huaisang, and she seemed very gregarious. He can want to meet with a friend-of-a-friend more than once. The tea shop was also pleasant—he can want to return there again, as well. His brother always worries about his lack of friends, anyway. If Lan Wangji makes a new friend, Lan Huan will be delighted.
It takes him a further fifteen minutes to compose a text, and then another ten minutes after that to build up the courage to send it. The rabbits trade places on his lap approximately seven times during this process, and he barely notices.
Hello. This is Lan Wangji. We met at Nie Huaisang's suggestion two weeks ago. Would you be free for a further conversation?
Lan Wangji hates everything about this message, but as he was unable to come up with a better one, he forces himself to hit send and sets his phone aside. The splinter has stopped paining him so badly, but now all of his insides seem to be on a roller coaster that his outsides did not consent to. He wonders if he should make himself some ginger tea, but to do that he would have to disturb the rabbits. Petting their soft ears is the only thing keeping his heart rate at a reasonable level, so he resigns himself to the nervous nausea for the foreseeable future.
His text alert goes off almost immediately.
Oh! Lan Wangji! Hiiiiiiii
I can talk! Did you wanna text, or do a call, or meet in person again??
I can do texting now, or a call/meetup anytime Sunday, preferably about 1
Hope you've been doing okay!!
Lan Wangji blinks as the messages pop up on his screen in quick succession. He can hear them in Wei Ying's voice, see the image of her brilliant smile in his mind's eye, and he's not sure if that makes it worse or better than if he was texting into the void. He lets his vision go fuzzy as he considers her question.
Text would have the advantage of allowing him to hide any reactions he might have from her knowing gaze. It would also be immediate, which the itchy feeling under his skin wants. However, it would require him to put things into writing. Lan Wangji isn't sure what, if anything, he wants to ask. He's still not entirely sure why he's doing this, except that he's tried not to and it hasn't worked.
A phone call sounds excruciating. It's taken a non-zero amount of therapy for Lan Wangji to be able to have conversations with anything close to confidence and comfort. Phone calls with anyone other than his brother or uncle remain miserable. It's hard enough to interpret tone and expression in person—being unable to do it at all drives him toward an anxiety attack extremely quickly.
That leaves what is simultaneously the best and the worst option. Lan Wangji takes a deep breath as he types, the nausea increasing while the itch subsides.
In person, please. I will meet you at the same cafe at 1pm. Thank you.
◆◆◆
Lan Wangji waits at the same table in the same corner of the same cafe, the same cup of tea on the table in front of him. He's actually managed a few sips of it this time, less nauseated but no less nervous. The last time he was here he was gripped in a potent mixture of dread, denial, and the usual anxiety that comes with meeting someone new. Today it's different. The dread is lessened, he's terrifyingly close to letting go of the denial, and he's anxious, but not about the person he's meeting.
No, the anxiety is entirely about what Wei Ying represents, about the things she might say and the effect they might have on him. It's frightening, but something in Lan Wangji hungers for it so badly it makes him brave.
“Early again?”
Lan Wangji looks up into the full force of Wei Ying's smile and feels like his hair should be blown straight back from his face by a gale-force wind of self-confidence and quiet joy. Today she has her hair pulled back in a loose braid, strands of it falling around her face and softening her jawline. Her eyeliner is thick, her lipstick blood-red, her earrings dangly and multitudinous. She's wearing a sundress with a black floral print that leaves a frankly shocking amount of tattooed leg on display, to the point that Lan Wangji worries she might flash her underwear when she sits down. (Who is he worried for? Unclear.)
She is absolutely, without question, still the most beautiful woman he's ever seen in his life, and this time he doesn't force himself to look away immediately. This time he lets the hook sink in behind his sternum and tug in her direction.
“As I said last time, I am habitually early,” Lan Wangji says before the silence gets awkward. His tongue is thick and clumsy in his mouth, so he pushes the chocolate croissant in front of him across the table to the other chair and gestures at it.
“For me?” Wei Ying tips her head, looking momentarily flustered. “You didn't have to.”
“You are taking time out of your day for me,” Lan Wangji insists. “I apologize for not knowing your drink order.”
Wei Ying presses her lips together, suppressing some emotion he doesn't quite parse. “I am definitely never telling you my drink order until I figure out how to get here ahead of you, because I get the feeling you will never let me return the favor.”
That is shockingly accurate. Before Lan Wangji can argue, Wei Ying adds, “Do not buy me another croissant while my back is turned,” and heads for the counter. Lan Wangji tries to figure out how he would do such a thing when he would have to go to the counter to purchase the croissant, and Wei Ying is currently at the counter. Oh, perhaps if she goes to the restroom?
Lan Wangji only realizes when Wei Ying returns that she probably didn't mean it literally, but at least pondering stealth pastry purchases meant he was able to distract himself from the question of why he's meeting her in the first place, so he's only moderately ill at ease instead of moments from vomiting and continues to be capable of sipping his actually very pleasant tea.
“Okay, so,” she says, sliding into her chair with a speed and abruptness that leaves him impressed that she didn't spill her drink. “Do you want to do small talk first, or do you want to get straight to the point?” Red lips smirk above the rim of her cup. “As straight as I do anything, anyway, which isn't very.”
Lan Wangji has to take a breath to recover from the impact of that smirk, and in doing so realizes he knows literally nothing about Wei Ying other than her name, that they're both friends with Nie Huaisang, and that she's apparently the person to talk to about transitioning. “I would welcome anything you wanted to tell me about yourself,” he recites from the file in his mind where he's carefully memorized polite conversational questions, most of which seem to have abandoned him in this hour of need.
“So formal!” Wei Ying says, not unkindly. She washes down a bit of croissant with a sip of what looks like some new kind of tea latte (ah, he also knows she likes chocolate croissants and complicated tea lattes) and drums her fingertips on the table. “All right, the short version: I'm adopted, I have an older sister and a younger brother, I went to college for business and made a hard left turn into an art degree instead, I'm a tattoo artist now, and I have a cat named Suibian and a collection of houseplants I try to keep her from eating.” Her hands spread in a “there you go” motion, her smile open and comfortable. “Oh, and I'm trans and love talking about it. Questions?”
Yes, but perhaps not about what she expects. “Do you have pictures of your cat?” Lan Wangji asks, both because he's learned it's an excellent way to socialize with very little effort on his part and because he loves seeing pictures of people's pets. Belatedly he remembers it's polite to reciprocate, and he retrieves his phone. “I have two rabbits, BaoBao and Xiao-Bai.”
Wei Ying's eyes go very round and she covers her mouth with one hand. “Oh, I have been blessed,” she stage-whispers, phone already unlocked in her free hand. “How big are your bunnies? Are they fluffy? Do their ears point up, or are they the floppy kind?”
“Lops,” Lan Wangji corrects reflexively, then internally winces. He has also learned most people don't like being immediately corrected on minor points of fact by a new acquaintance, and generally tries not to do it.
“Lops,” Wei Ying breathes, eyes practically sparkling, so apparently she doesn't mind. “Please tell me everything about your bunnies.”
Lan Wangji navigates to his camera roll and answers Wei Ying's many, many questions while he swipes through the photos. As ninety percent of his camera roll is dedicated to the rabbits, this carries them through several minutes, and then Wei Ying returns the favor with a variety of photos of a truly ridiculous black cat whose little vampire fangs poke out in every shot. Suibian looks like a disassembled pile of limbs in at least half the pictures. She's very cute, and Lan Wangji tells Wei Ying as much.
“Thank you,” Wei Ying half-coos, eyes on a photo of Suibian crammed into a box far too small for her. “It's nice to meet people who appreciate my little trash goblin as much as I do.” At Lan Wangji's strange look she clarifies, “I literally found her in a dumpster; that's not an insult.”
Ah. Lan Wangji is given to understand that happens much more frequently with cats than it does with rabbits. Before he can say anything else, though, Wei Ying sits up straight (mostly) and turns her phone face-down on the table. “As much as I can and will talk about Suibian all day, though, I don't get the feeling you asked me to meet up to share pet photos.” A sip of her latte, curious eyes meeting his. “Love the pet photos, to be clear, but...”
Lan Wangji sets his hands flat on his thighs under the table and takes a deep breath, the itch under his skin heightened to an active buzz. Yes. The reason he's here. “I asked my brother how frequently he thinks about his gender,” he says after a pause to assemble the sentence in his head, still unwilling to look the things outside the window of his mind head-on.
Wei Ying's eyebrows go up, her elbows propped on the table to hold her cup in front of her. “Ah,” she says knowingly. “What did he say?”
Lan Wangji takes a sip of tea that does nothing to wet his suddenly dry mouth. “He thinks about it perhaps once a year, if that.” Thump thump thump goes Lan Wangji's heart in his chest and his throat and his ears. “His husband is a trans man, which is the only reason he thinks about it at all.”
A nod. Wei Ying's eyes are very soft, and that horrible, gentle understanding is written all over her face. “I see.” A breath. “What about you?”
Lan Wangji inhales as though struck, pressing his hands into his thighs harder, trying to ground himself. “I don't think about it,” he whispers. It's not a lie. It's also not the truth.
Sympathy mixes with the understanding in Wei Ying's eyes, and the corner of her mouth curls up ruefully. “How frequently do you not think about it?” she asks with careful emphasis.
He's not sure if his flinch is visible or just in his mind. He stares at the tattoo of a lotus on Wei Ying's shoulder, lets something into his thoughts and onto his tongue, the truth of it sour and biting.
“I don't remember a time it wasn't there,” he admits, not quite brave enough to say it any other way. The words hang in the air between them and for the first time in years—decades, even—Lan Wangji doesn't itch. It's a terrifying relief.
Wei Ying exhales audibly through pursed lips, almost a whistle. “Yeah, I hear that.” She mimes a wave. “'Same hat,' as they say on the internet.”
Lan Wangji is still reeling with the power of letting out even a tiny amount of the pressure in the back of his brain, which must be why he asks, “How often do you think about it?”
Wei Ying leans back in her chair, slinging an arm casually over it as she does. “Boy, great question! Still more than the average cis person, but in my defense I haven't has as much time to feel comfortable in my body, and I also have a whole regimen of medications and chores to keep me comfortable in my body, so the thinking about it hasn't really gone away, exactly.”
Lan Wangji nods, unaccountably disappointed by this answer, even though he supposes it makes sense. If the point isn't to make the not-thoughts go away, then... “Are you?” he asks urgently. Wei Ying cocks her head, and he clarifies, “Comfortable?”
Wei Ying smiles, a slow, wondrous thing that brightens the room. “I am,” she says like she's still marveling at it. “Not just that, Lan Wangji, I'm happy. I look at myself in the mirror, and I like doing it. I love the woman I see in there, I'm so happy for her, and she's me, and...” She shakes her head, blinking hard against wet eyes. “It was the best thing I ever did.”
The hook behind Lan Wangji's sternum yanks, a sharp, yearning pain that radiates through his entire body. He wants; he hungers; he's starved for something, anything even close to the feeling Wei Ying describes. Hot on the heels of the wanting comes a wave of envy so vicious it shocks him: Why does she get to feel that way? What did she do to deserve it? He wrestles down that reaction, refusing to allow it any space or validity. It's not a question of deserving. No one waved a wand and gave Wei Ying that happiness; she went out and grabbed it for herself.
Maybe... Maybe Lan Wangji can...
“How do you know if you're uncomfortable because of that?” Lan Wangji asks, because he has to be sure, he has to know. Wei Ying raises her eyebrows and gestures him to explain further, and he curls his nails into his thighs through his pants. “I am. I am autistic. And queer. What if that's why I'm uncomfortable?”
Wei Ying delicately bites her lower lip, somehow missing the lipstick when she does it. “Well, not to stereotype or anything, but in my experience the Venn diagram overlap between people who are autistic and queer and people who turn out to be trans is... Maybe not quite a circle, but it's, like...” She makes two circles with her hands and sets one very closely over the other.
Oh. Lan Wangji does not have similar experience, but he believes she's telling the truth. The itch is back under his skin, but it's different this time, less painful and more anticipatory.
“Also, forgive me if this is an overstep, but you seem...” Wei Ying considers her words, fiddling with one of her dangly earrings. “Like you've done some work on the autism, am I right?”
Lan Wangji nods. There was the mandatory occupational therapy when he was a child, and then the therapy he's undergone as an adult to try to mitigate the lingering trauma from the occupational therapy based on a more up-to-date understanding of autism. His triggers are no longer a mystery, and he has the language to communicate his issues when they come up rather than devolving directly into a meltdown. There are still a lot of social conventions that bewilder him, but he navigates them with the help of a lot of memorized scripts. He is, he realizes now, comfortable with his autism. He can't remember the last time it truly bothered him, but if that's true, then...
“And the queer thing, well, I'm obviously not going to say we live in a perfectly accepting society,” Wei Ying continues airily, her sharp eyes reading his face in stark contrast to the tone of her voice, “but you said your brother's married to a trans man?” At Lan Wangji's nod, she says, “So how does the rest of the family feel about that?”
“There is only my uncle, who raised us,” Lan Wangji says very quietly. “Some cousins.” He presses his lips together. “At least one of my cousins is a married lesbian.”
Wei Ying nods. “Your uncle?”
Lan Wangji swallows. “He is supportive.” Not vocally, of course, but in a hundred small demonstrations. After Lan Huan came out a small rainbow flag appeared on the wall in Lan Qiren's home office, followed by a trans pride flag when Nie Mingjue transitioned. Lan Qiren has never been to Pride, but he buys high quality sunscreen and makes a point of presenting it to them in June for, “Your outdoor events this month.” He occasionally asks Lan Wangji questions that clearly mean, “When are you going to find a nice young man like your brother did?” even if it's never exactly in those words. He has certainly been nervous about the reactions of his family, but never afraid.
“What if I'm wrong?” he asks, running down the list of questions that crawl into his head when he's trying to sleep. “What if I try this and the problem is something else?”
Wei Ying shrugs, deeply unconcerned. “Then you'll have eliminated a possible source of discomfort in your life and can move on with a better understanding of yourself.” Lan Wangji blinks at her, deeply shocked by this response, and she smiles. “I think more cis people should take the time to interrogate their gender, Lan Wangji. I think it would be good for them. There's no shame in trying things out and seeing if they work for you! It's the same as trying out an art class, or polyamory.” Her nose scrunches up. “I can now confidently say polyamory is not for me. That was a disaster.”
That statement raises a bevy of questions that Lan Wangji immediately resolves not to ask. “Is it not appropriative?” he asks instead. Perhaps she didn't understand his concern the first time.
“Not if you're doing it in the spirit of legitimate personal inquiry instead of... I dunno, wearing it as a costume while actively hating trans and queer people?” Wei Ying sketches in the air with her hands, leaning closer. “Like, my jiejie went gluten-free for a month while she was trying to figure out why her guts hated her all the time. It didn't help, so she knew it wasn't the gluten, and could go back to eating as many noodles as she wanted. Was she stealing celiac valor?”
Lan Wangji frowns. “That seems like a significant difference in scale,” he points out somewhat hesitantly.
“Yeah, sure, but the point stands,” Wei Ying says around a mouthful of croissant. “A lot of trans people start out experimenting and then keep experimenting after they transition to figure out what makes them feel right. There's no designated end point or whatever. We're people. People grow and change. It's what we do.” She holds out one arm and waggles it. “I didn't have most of these tattoos ten years ago. I get to keep changing my body however I want, whenever I want, and if I decide in ten years I want to cover up one of these, that's a choice I get to make. It doesn't mean I made a mistake getting the original tattoo, it just means I'm not the same person I was when I got it.” Wei Ying pauses long enough to wink. “Also, I never got any band logos or Harry Potter tattoos, so I made good choices there.”
One of Wei Ying's tattoos appears to be a hamster wearing a fried egg as a cape. Lan Wangji refrains from judging whether such a tattoo was a good choice, but he can definitely agree that neither fried eggs nor hamsters are likely to publicly announce attitudes that would make tattoos of them distasteful.
Tattoos aside, he can see the truth of what she's saying. Hasn't he tried out multiple more social forms of exercise before realizing he was more comfortable with solo work than class work? Wasn't it a relief when he stopped trying to make himself enjoy yoga classes with other people and switched to practicing on his own?
Lan Wangji is becoming terrifyingly aware that the walls in his mind are thinning, the layers of reflexive denial he's reinforced them with peeling away. He doesn't know what's going to happen when they fail.
He's starting to think he wants it, though.
“I'm thirty-one,” he says to the table, playing what he can't help thinking of as his trump card in a voice barely above a whisper. “Isn't that... Isn't that too late?” Surely he's locked into himself now. Surely if he was... He would have figured it out earlier. Whatever it is he might want—and Lan Wangji still isn't looking at that head on—he won't be able to get anything but a sad facsimile of it if he starts now.
“Hey. Lan Wangji.” Wei Ying's voice is gentle but firm. “Look at me.”
He reluctantly lifts his eyes to her, not because he doesn't like looking at her, but because he doesn't know if he wants her to be able to see the naked, mournful yearning he's sure drips from every pore in his body. She's beautiful, and it hurts so much.
“I'm thirty-five,” Wei Ying says seriously, leaning across the table toward him and radiating absolute sincerity. “I started HRT when I was thirty.”
Lan Wangji stares at her, shocked, not even breathing. She...? No. That can't be right. She's so...
“I swear,” she says, three fingers next to her head. “I've had bottom surgery, but the rest of this?” Wei Ying waves at herself, grinning. “All hormones. I grew these tits myself, Lan Wangji. My jawline got softer on its own. I lost half a shoe size! My ass was already great, but it's unstoppable now!”
Lan Wangji drags his eyes away from her tits, which he suddenly finds himself inappropriately obsessed with. Thankfully he can't see her ass or he'd have a truly unseemly reaction. “You were thirty?” he asks, desperate for it to true but still struggling to believe it.
Wei Ying nods. “And even if you were older than thirty-one... It's literally never too late to start being the person you want to be.” She smiles softly, an invitation and a welcome home. “It's never too late to choose to be happy, don't you think?”
Oh. Oh. The walls come tumbling down, dissolving into mist, and Lan Wangji's mind floods with things he's kept at bay for years, things he's wanted and tiny hurts and a deep, all-consuming hunger way down underneath everything else that's finally tasted sustenance for the first time in his life. He covers his face and turns to the wall, overcome with the rush, and some of the flood leaks out his eyes.
Wei Ying gives him the privacy to get himself back under control, which takes longer than he'd like to admit. He supposes that, given it's at least twenty years of backlash, recovering to the point of coherency in under twenty minutes is pretty reasonable. It doesn't mean he has to like it.
When he thinks he can speak without immediately crying or screaming he cautiously turns back to the table. Meeting Wei Ying's eyes makes something surge inside his rib cage, but he's almost used to that now. She gently nudges his tea in his direction, and Lan Wangji takes a long, slow sip. It's no longer the correct temperature, but he doesn't care. The rest of the cafe has ceased to exist, his attention narrowed down to the woman on the other side of the table; his guide; his new friend; his savior.
“You okay?” she asks, like she really has nothing she'd rather be doing than shepherding him through an overdue realization.
Lan Wangji nods. He might be better than he's ever been in his life. It's only...
“I don't know where to start,” he admits helplessly.
Wei Ying smiles and extends a hand across the table to him, palm-up. “I think I can help with that, if you want.”
Lan Wangji doesn't touch strangers outside of sex. He's never liked touching strangers. He barely tolerates physical contact from his family.
He puts his hand in Wei Ying's without even a moment of hesitation. “Please.”
Wei Ying smiles like a sunrise.
For the first time, Lan Wangji smiles back.