Archive of Our Own

In retrospect, Lan Zhan will not be able to say he was surprised that it happened because of a tweet. Disappointed? Certainly. Mildly annoyed? Yes. Especially irritated that it was that tweet? Absolutely.

That feeling comes later, though. Lan Zhan isn’t there yet, because for him, it hasn’t happened.

Back to the beginning, then.

✧✧✧

Wei Ying snorts, then laughs, then snort-laughs, all of it enthusiastic enough to shake the entire couch, including the end where Lan Zhan sits reading—up until the snort-laughing—his book and trying not to look at the long sprawl of Wei Ying’s legs across all the other cushions. Wei Ying is wearing a pair of shorts made out of a faded black sweatshirt fabric that come to his mid-thigh, so there’s a lot of bare leg on display that Lan Zhan’s libido finds much more interesting than the book. Wei Ying, for his part, has been fiddling with his phone, probably switching through five different social media apps in between playing match-three games, because his ADHD medication usually starts wearing off at about this point in the afternoon, which means his attention span becomes atrocious. Possibly because of this atrocious attention span, he has not noticed Lan Zhan’s gaze occasionally wandering to the tender inside of his thigh, where the hem of his shorts has ridden up to expose a gradient of slightly paler skin. Small favors.

Now, though, there is laughter that vibrates through Wei Ying’s entire body, and Lan Zhan pulls his eyes away from his book (where they should be) and from Wei Ying’s legs (where they shouldn’t be) up to his face (the jury is out on whether this is an appropriate place to look). Wei Ying’s face is scrunched up with laughter, mouth stretched wide into a sunrise-bright grin, so Lan Zhan decides that, regardless of whether faces are normally an appropriate place to look, he personally likes looking at Wei Ying’s face so much that he probably shouldn’t be allowed to do it.

Regardless, he is looking now, and when Wei Ying meets his gaze, Lan Zhan arches a single eyebrow.

“Lan Zhan,” Wei Ying starts, covering his mouth with one hand as though that has ever done anything to stifle his laughter when he really gets going. “It’s just—” He glances at his phone again and goes off into a new wave of mirth, tears beading at the corners of his eyes. Lan Zhan waits patiently through all of it, and Wei Ying finally wheezes himself relatively calm.

“Okay,” he says, wiggling upright and crowding into Lan Zhan’s space, close enough that Lan Zhan can smell his coconut shampoo. “Okay, so Huaisang had to pick something up from his brother and met him at your brother’s house, I guess? And, well…” Wei Ying bites the inside of his cheek, shoulders shaking with suppressed giggles, and shows Lan Zhan his phone screen.

@SingSongSang
luv 2 see a perfectly normal piece of home decor with no possible innuendos or misinterpretations

There is a photo embedded, focused on an unfamiliar throw pillow that Lan Zhan immediately recognizes is resting on his brother’s familiar couch. The throw pillow reads, in a combination of at least two and possibly three different fonts, “Happiness is sixteen hands between my legs.”

Oh, and nearly hidden behind the slogan—easily missable if all you rightly focus on is the text—is the pale silhouette of a horse.

Lan Zhan sighs.

“Does he know?” Wei Ying asks, pulling his phone back and swipe-typing something, probably in response to Nie Huaisang. “He has to know how it sounds, right?”

“I believe A’Huan would only see the intended message, not the innuendo,” Lan Zhan admits, wishing it was otherwise. Lan Zhan grew up around horses thanks to the equestrian club his uncle co-runs, knows how to ride English and Western style, can do some basic jumps, and has a healthy respect and affection for the equine population of the planet. He’ll go riding when the opportunity presents itself and insist on grooming the mount afterwards as a thank-you. He likes watching dressage competitions, and when he sees a particularly lovely horse, will stop to admire it. Lan Zhan thinks he has a fairly reasonable relationship with horses.

Lan Huan, though…

Lan Huan loves horses. Lan Huan is five years older, and even in Lan Zhan’s earliest memories, his brother was a Horse Girl (nongendered). Lan Huan lived and breathed horses as a boy, read every horse book he could get his hands on, and drew pictures of horses when he wasn’t out riding them. Lan Huan joined the board of the equestrian club as soon as Lan Qiren let him and now as an adult basically runs the place. He competes in dressage and show jumping. He owns five horses and does all of their grooming himself. He has a cable subscription specifically so that when the equestrian elements in the Summer Olympics come on, he can legally stream them. He has Olympic Horse Events watch parties. Lan Huan lives in the horse world with only very brief forays outside of it.

What this means in practice is that Lan Huan is the kind of person who would see a pillow with a barely-visible horse silhouette that says, in large letters, “Happiness is sixteen hands between my legs,” and only ever think of it in horse terms. Lan Zhan happens to know that Lan Huan prefers to ride horses that stand sixteen hands tall (depending on the breed and weight and a lot of other complicated factors that he will explain happily, at length, while Lan Zhan nods politely). Lan Huan was probably delighted to find such a specific pillow. Lan Huan certainly doesn’t understand that, to the vast majority of the population, “hands” as a unit of measurement only occasionally comes up while reading a certain kind of fantasy novel, and that those people would rightfully interpret his pillow as being a statement about actual human hands.

“Huaisang says he asked about it and Lan Huan gushed all about the store he bought it from and how many other great horse slogans they had, and the whole time Nie Mingjue looked like he wanted to die,” Wei Ying adds with relish. “Apparently Lan Huan wanted to buy it as a t-shirt at first.”

Lan Zhan shuts his eyes in exasperation. Lan Huan’s “Head Up and Heels Down,” shirt is confusing enough to the average person without being actively suggestive. (Every time Wei Ying sees it he proceeds to sing, “Heels down, head up, that’s the way we like to fuck!” under his breath, so the line for “actively suggestive” is… mutable.) He can’t imagine the kind of top stampede his extremely gay brother would cause by going out of the house in a t-shirt announcing, for all intents and purposes, his desire to be the star of an orgy. He tries very hard not to picture either the stampede or the orgy.

“Why would you even want sixteen hands between your legs, anyway?” Wei Ying asks the room at large, sounding genuinely curious. “What would they do? I feel like at a certain point there’s, like, diminishing returns, right?”

Ah. The mental image of Lan Huan’s Top Stampede has been replaced with a mental image that is both better and worse: Wei Ying as the centerpiece of a nine-person orgy.

Lan Zhan opens his eyes immediately, which he knows is a mistake, because now he can see Wei Ying’s face again, which is scrunched up in a way that says, “I have found a terrible train of thought and I must now follow it until I arrive at the most absurd conclusion.” Lan Zhan has seen this look before, and it is always, always followed by activities that will haunt him until the end of his natural life, activities that Wei Ying always starts out by saying, “Okay, so, go with me, here.”

“Okay, so, go with me here, Lan Zhan,” Wei Ying says, thus truly sealing Lan Zhan’s doom, because he knows perfectly well that he will, in fact, go with Wei Ying wherever Wei Ying goes, including but not limited to: Taco Bell; the off-limits roof of the college library; horrible dive bars; slightly nicer bars that have actual mocktails; a literal swamp; a dumpster; the woods at night; and probably Hell, if it exists and the opportunity arose. He’s been in love with Wei Ying for years. Why wouldn’t he accept more comedic torture at his hands?

Instead of articulating any of that, Lan Zhan sets his nearly-forgotten book aside, says, “Mn,” and turns slightly toward Wei Ying on the couch, arm extended along the back of the cushions in a non-verbal, “Go on.”

“Sixteen hands,” Wei Ying says, gesturing with his own hands, like Lan Zhan might have forgotten what hands were. “Assuming the factory default configuration, that’s eight other people, yeah? So right away there’s a question of logistics, like, where are they all gonna stand?”

Lan Zhan should really end this conversation. No good will come of it. It’s going to be like the time Wei Ying, inspired by an article on the internet, showed up at Lan Zhan’s apartment in bike shorts and a tight tank top and demanded Lan Zhan take pictures of him attempting to find a way to enter a bathtub so his balls would be the last part in, “For science, Lan Zhan!” What followed was fifteen minutes of advanced yoga in and around Lan Zhan’s bathtub. Lan Zhan remembers, in excruciating detail, exactly how every muscle in Wei Ying’s body stood out under the skin as he flexed and stretched and, at one point, did a headstand. It was hellish, and he has absolutely no faith that today will lead to a better outcome.

“If you include your own hands, it would only be seven other people,” he points out, because he is gay and horny for his best friend and, as previously stated, willing to follow Wei Ying anywhere, including orgy hypotheticals.

“I’m not using my own hands,” Wei Ying says immediately.

“It would make the logistics easier,” Lan Zhan insists, trying not to think about what Wei Ying’s hands might be doing in the hypothetical hand-focused orgy scenario they’ve found themselves workshopping for reasons he will never be able to articulate. (Are his hands restrained? Lan Zhan thinks they might be restrained.)

“Is there much of a logistical difference between seven versus eight?” Wei Ying asks, getting his teeth into the argument now. “Like, first off, symmetry is easier with eight people, so eight is obviously superior.”

“Symmetry is important,” Lan Zhan agrees, adding some unwanted additional details to his mental image of Wei Ying’s hand-focused orgy.

“And if I’ve gone to the trouble of setting up a situation where I have sixteen hands between my legs, why the hell would I use my own hands? I can use my own hands all the time! Clearly I have, like, a vision.” Wei Ying waves expansively, sketching out his vision with gestures that communicate nothing. “I need all eight people, Lan Zhan.”

“All right.” Lan Zhan creates eight human-shaped mannequins and arranges them around his imaginary Wei Ying. “Eight people and you.”

“Right.” Wei Ying steeples his fingers in front of his mouth and frowns. “So like. What kind of furniture do we need for this?”

“I believe a large bed is the classic option,” Lan Zhan offers, trying to not to stare at Wei Ying’s mouth—he’s chewing on his lower lip now, as he tends to do when he thinks—and regretting several of his life choices.

Wei Ying shakes his head. “No way. Everyone would have to kneel or sit cross-legged and if you needed to adjust your position it’d be a nightmare. I think everyone has to be standing up.”

“Everyone but you?” Lan Zhan remembers what his life was like five minutes ago before they started having this conversation. It was nice. He misses it.

“I required sixteen hands between my legs for personal happiness, Lan Zhan,” Wei Ying says, very seriously. “What about that makes you think I’d want to be standing up? This is, like, advanced pillow princessing.”

Lan Zhan adds a couple of pillows to his mental image of Wei Ying, for imaginary comfort. “So if you are lying down, and everyone else is standing up…”

“Maybe a massage table situation?” Wei Ying squints into the middle distance. “Or one of those doctor’s chairs for when they need to look at your business?”

Lan Zhan blinks. “I believe most people who require gynecological care would not describe the chair with the stirrups as particularly sexy,” he says delicately. He once listened to Wen Qing and Luo Qingyang have a long and vociferous if slightly drunk discussion to that effect at one of the terrible dive bars Wei Ying dragged him to.

Wei Ying makes a face, possibly remembering that same discussion. “Okay, good point. Massage table, then.”

Lan Zhan nods. Why is this his life.

“Right.” Wei Ying nods back. “So.” He spreads his hands wide, thumping one into the back of the couch in this enthusiasm. “What the fuck is everyone doing, Lan Zhan?”

You, obviously, Lan Zhan thinks.

“Have we established where everyone is standing?” Lan Zhan asks out loud, because he hates having mental equilibrium, apparently.

“Good question,” Wei Ying says, like this is a normal conversation for two adult men who are not sexually involved to be having. “I think I’m laying down on a table with four people on either side?”

Lan Zhan adjusts his imaginary mannequins and nods.

“So I ask again: What is everyone doing? It just seems like there’s a limited number of hands that can be, uh.” Wei Ying gestures with both hands over his crotch, like someone directing a plane to the appropriate arrival gate. “Immediately involved?”

Lan Zhan would like to be immediately involved with Wei Ying’s crotch right now. “How many hands do you think would be immediately involved?” he asks evenly. “Perhaps we can assign other roles once those have been eliminated.” He is going to fling himself into traffic.

“Well,” Wei Ying starts, his voice going squeaky in the middle of the word and a distinct pinkness to his cheeks. “Well,” he says again, swallowing and wetting his lips. “Like… Four?”

Lan Zhan keeps his face carefully blank, as though his libido isn’t screaming in the back of his mind like a cat insisting it’s never been fed before, ever. “Is that all?”

“Yes?” Wei Ying’s voice is even squeakier and his face is even pinker. “How many do you think I’d need?”

“You are the one who needed sixteen hands between your legs in this scenario,” Lan Zhan reminds him. “State your reasoning.” He spares two, perhaps three brain cells to hope the jeans he’s wearing today do an adequate job concealing the state of his crotch; otherwise he’s going to have to figure out how to put a pillow on his lap without it being immediately obvious why it needs to be there.

Wei Ying huffs, glancing at Lan Zhan and then away to the ceiling. “Oh my god,” he complains quietly, covering his eyes with one hand. “How much fucking detail do you want, you monster?”

“This is your hypothetical,” Lan Zhan says, outwardly serene except for the hand he has white-knuckling the cushions on the back of the couch where Wei Ying can’t see. “We can stop discussing it whenever you choose to do so.”

“Fuck off,” Wei Ying says companionably, and he flings his hand away from his face to meet Lan Zhan’s gaze, expression suddenly defiant in a way that does not bode well for Lan Zhan’s future emotional composure. “Okay,” he says, swallowing visibly, “so there’s two hands for the ass—do not argue with me on this, more than that is ridiculous just in terms of having to navigate fucking, fucking wrists and shit—and then one hand for each ball.”

Lan Zhan makes a politely interested noise. (On the inside of his head, the cat who has never been fed is now yowling at the door because it sees another cat.) “So penetration is on the table?”

“No, I’m on the table,” Wei Ying says with an eyeroll that doesn’t do much to distract from his deepening blush. “Keep up, Lan Zhan.”

“Mn. Apologizes.” Lan Zhan adjusts his imaginary map of the hand-focused orgy, throwing a pixelated blur over the four hands and their assigned activities, because if he thinks too hard about that he’s definitely going to need to find a pillow. (If Wei Ying has assigned two hands to fingerfucking, then how many fingers can he take? Four? Six? This is a question Lan Zhan sometimes meditates on alone, at night, when he has three fingers knuckle-deep inside himself, which is the closest thing to an appropriate time to think about it that exists. Lan Zhan needs to stop thinking about it right now, with Wei Ying within touching distance.) The blur isn’t quite enough, though, because he feels compelled to add, “You seem to have ignored a key player.”

Wei Ying frowns at him and cocks his head. Lan Zhan allows his eyes to flick down to Wei Ying’s crotch and back up, quickly but pointedly. Wei Ying blinks twice, follows Lan Zhan’s gaze, and coughs in sudden realization.

“Oh!” he says, on a squeak. He clears his throat, cheeks immensely red now, and says, “Yeah, well, if I’m laying down, it’s not between my legs, is it? It’s—” He traces two fingers over his abdomen illustratively, which is how Lan Zhan learns that Wei Ying’s dick, when hard, apparently has a curve to Lan Zhan’s left—Wei Ying’s right—and the blur around the four hands in Lan Zhan’s head suddenly becomes much less helpful.

“It could be between your legs,” Lan Zhan says out loud, instead of demanding to see Wei Ying’s dick right then, so as to verify the curve for himself. “It would require a certain level of… manipulation.”

“What, like, sissyboy hand job stuff?” Wei Ying asks, giving Lan Zhan a terrible, wonderful insight into at least some of the porn Wei Ying has watched in the past. “Yeah, I guess, or if I was laying on my stomach and had it pointed down? But I think four is the useful limit either way, right, because if I’m on my stomach then we get into the question of whether the ass hands are technically between my legs or not, and if I’m on my back I don’t think there’s room to get it, like—” and he runs one hand down between his thighs in a—Lan Zhan takes a moment to wish there was a better way to describe this and comes up blank—taint-ward direction, spreading his knees for better access. “I’m sticking with four.”

Lan Zhan is either going to spontaneously combust or he’s going to light himself on fire. “All right,” he says through a dry throat. “Four.” Two of which are occupied with fingering Wei Ying’s ass. Lan Zhan is going to tear the couch cushions open if he doesn’t figure out how to unclench his hand sometime soon.

“Which leaves twelve hands unoccupied,” Wei Ying says, squirming around into a more comfortable position, head on the armrest and one knee drawn up against the back of the couch. “And brings us back to my original question: What is everyone doing? That just seems like a weird hand-to-leg ratio.”

Unbidden, Lan Zhan’s eyes drop to Wei Ying’s legs. They’re long and toned from the martial arts and running that Wei Ying uses as a way to help calm his constantly-moving mind, soft over the muscle with an appealingly squishy layer of fat because Wei Ying works out for function, not form, and his eating habits reflect that. Lan Zhan spends a lot of time thinking about the crease at the back of Wei Ying’s hamstring where it meets his ass, and how his thighs squish together when he leans against things with his hips cocked. If Lan Zhan had twelve hands, he would happily put them all over Wei Ying’s legs. He almost wishes he had twelve hands. His own two hands don’t seem like they’d be enough to convey his hunger for Wei Ying’s skin.

Lan Zhan very aggressively tamps down on that hunger as he tries to come up with something to say other than, “Let’s explore a more standardized hand-to-leg ratio. Together. Right now.”

“Do you think you would want your ankles restrained?” he asks, which is only very slightly better.

“Sure,” Wei Ying agrees, flopping his arm out for the fizzy water he forgot on the coffee table earlier and taking a long, lingering swallow, the knot in his throat working. “I mean,” he continues, holding the sweating can to his temple and trying to look casual about it, “it’s assigning some more roles, right? Getting some extra hands out of the way?”

“Mn.” Lan Zhan is definitely hard now, his erection very much in the way. He can feel his dick pulsing in the crease of his thigh, which he’s pretty sure is concealed by a fold in his jeans. He wants to glance down and check, but he doesn’t dare do anything that would potentially bring Wei Ying’s attention to the issue, so he’s just going to sit here with his arousal and pray. “Two hands per ankle?”

“I think so,” Wei Ying says, fidgeting his toes against the seam of the couch cushions. “I could escape if it was just one.”

Lan Zhan makes a sound of disbelief that he really didn’t mean to make and tries to turn it into a neutral hum. He fails miserably, and Wei Ying’s eyes snap to his face, a challenge rising in them that Lan Zhan already knows he’s going to meet regardless of the consequences.

“You think I can’t escape from one hand per ankle, Lan Zhan?” Wei Ying asks, pushing up onto his elbows. “In this house we don’t skip leg day. I could get out from one hand per ankle, easy.”

Lan Zhan sees the next thirty seconds play out in his mind’s eye in excruciating detail, and there’s a tiny, rational voice in the back of his head screaming for him not to do it. That voice is drowned out by the horny cat yowling of his sex drive and the enthusiastic part of him that will always yes-and to Wei Ying’s improvisations and the furious part of him that hopes that if he shows Wei Ying the consequences of his actions, Lan Zhan won’t keep finding himself in these situations.

None of this is a particularly good explanation for why Lan Zhan rolls up onto his knees and snaps one hand around each of Wei Ying’s ankles, leaning forward to bring his body weight to bear as he pins them to the couch.

“Lan Zhan?” Wei Ying squeaks, red-faced and wide-eyed.

“You said you could escape,” Lan Zhan says with a calm he absolutely does not feel. “So escape.”

✧✧✧

Okay.

So.

Wei Ying might have miscalculated a little.

In his defense, he hadn’t thought a throwaway joke about a suggestive horse-themed pillow would turn into an extended discussion about orgy choreography, though he can’t say that he’s particularly surprised. He’s learned, over the years, that Lan Zhan is many things—hot, a little mean in the best way, hilariously funny, absolute boyfriend material, though tragically not a boyfriend for Wei Ying so far—but the thing that is most relevant at the moment is his skill at being the ultimate straight man.

(In a comedy context, obviously. Wei Ying knows Lan Zhan is very gay, and has known this since the incident with the gay porn lo these many years ago, which Wei Ying occasionally recalls in excruciating detail right before he falls asleep and shudders back awake with a whole-body cringe of regret and embarrassment. Past him was a real asshole sometimes.)

Lan Zhan’s deadpan willingness to go along with all of Wei Ying’s bullshit is great from, like, a collaborative creativity context, and from a “getting to have absurd fun with my best friend who I secretly have a huge crush on” context. They built a trebuchet together once! There’s a series of traffic circles that Wei Ying still forages white alpine strawberries from on his walk to work, thanks to a late-night bout of guerilla landscaping! Lan Zhan is always willing to film when Wei Ying decides he needs to try the latest weird viral video challenge, and some of those results still make him laugh until he cries.

Lan Zhan’s deadpan willingness to go along with all of Wei Ying’s bullshit is also a clear and present danger to Wei Ying’s heart and dick, because if Lan Zhan had just seemed slightly less cool with the direction of the conversation, Wei Ying wouldn’t be trying to hide a boner from his best friend on his best friend’s couch with his best friend’s hands tight around his ankles, pinning them in place and making the boner situation really, really urgent. He thinks his knees are still bent enough to leave a plausibly deniable level of slack around his crotchular region. He really, really hopes his knees are bent enough.

“So escape,” Lan Zhan just said, and Wei Ying’s brain has gone all sirens and screaming, but he really needs to do something very quickly, maybe right now, because at least Lan Zhan’s dark, intense look is focused on his face! He needs to keep it there! Wei Ying cannot allow Lan Zhan’s eyes to travel anywhere below the collarbone!

“Are your hands actually between my legs right now?” Wei Ying asks, because his mouth doesn’t feel the need to consult with the rest of him, probably since it’s made of betrayal and regrets.

Lan Zhan looks at his hands around Wei Ying’s ankles, hopefully not lingering anywhere on the way down. “Hm,” he says, giving the question way more thought than it probably deserves. It is a fair distinction to try to make, though—Lan Zhan’s thumbs and fingers overlap each other on the inside of Wei Ying’s ankles (wow, Lan Zhan’s hands are so big and warm) but the palms of his hands are on the outside. The rational part of Wei Ying doesn’t think that qualifies as having hands between his legs, and if they’re exploring this hypothetical, they should do it correctly.

Lan Zhan apparently agrees with Wei Ying’s definition of “between,” because he releases his grip just long enough to reverse his hands and pin Wei Ying again, this time with his thumbs pointing down toward Wei Ying’s feet. It’s an objectively awkward grip, and it means Lan Zhan has to loom over him in order to get the same kind of power in the pin, which obviously means that Wei Ying’s dick twitches, because Lan Zhan looming over him features in more than one of Wei Ying’s favorite jerkoff scenarios. Wei Ying offers up a silent, wild prayer to the world at large that the dick twitch is hidden, and also that his dick, in general, is hidden.

“Does this count as between?” Lan Zhan asks in his deep, intense voice, looking into Wei Ying’s eyes like he can see the silent dick prayer.

“I think so,” Wei Ying says, feeling his heartbeat pounding in his ears and giving serious thought to dumping the rest of his fizzy water directly over his head and/or crotch in an attempt to regain some cognitive functionality.

“Mn.” Lan Zhan squeezes, once, and Wei Ying’s brain goes AAAAAAAA. “Proceed.”

It takes longer than it should for Wei Ying to figure out what Lan Zhan means by that, but fortunately for him he’s still holding the can of fizzy water and can take a sip as a stalling tactic. “Fine,” he says, doing a reach to put the can back on the coffee table, where it will hopefully be safe, “but don’t blame me if I kick you in the face.”

Lan Zhan gives him a look that says, eloquently and wordlessly, “I do not believe you are capable of kicking me in the face, but in the event that it does happen, I will accept my own culpability.” (Wei Ying has heard people complain about Lan Zhan being impossible to read, and he doesn’t know what they’re talking about. You just need to know what to look for, Jiang Cheng!)

“You asked for this,” Wei Ying reminds him one more time, and then he engages his abs to press his torso more securely against the couch and writhes. 

What follows is the most ridiculous, horny, and ridiculously horny wrestling match Wei Ying has ever been part of. He kicks and squirms and does a lot of, like, pelvic thrusting stuff in the service of trying to throw Lan Zhan off, and Lan Zhan flows with the movements like water, if water kept squeezing Wei Ying’s ankles and huffing out little sounds of amusement and effort. Wei Ying manages to wiggle one foot free and shove at Lan Zhan’s shoulder, only to get his ankle grabbed and pinned again for his effort. He yanks Lan Zhan off-balance by suddenly dragging his knees up into a tuck, but Lan Zhan recovers and slams Wei Ying’s feet back into the cushions with a grunt that’s going to haunt Wei Ying’s horny dreams for the rest of his life. He twists and shoves and flails and it’s a near thing—Wei Ying really thinks he could have escaped if he was willing to injure Lan Zhan in the process, which he wasn’t—but they end up back at the beginning, Lan Zhan’s hands tight around Wei Ying’s ankles and both of them panting audibly for breath.

“Okay,” Wei Ying says between gasps, internally screaming at his dick to stand down and being soundly ignored, “Okay, so.”

“I believe we can state that, while one hand per ankle is technically acceptable, two hands per ankle would be better if the goal is total restraint,” Lan Zhan says, hair falling into his eyes and the hollow of his throat glistening in a very lickable way.

“Yeah,” Wei Ying agrees, embarrassingly breathy. “I mean, it’s not like all eight of them are gonna be as strong as you.” This is a lie, as Wei Ying has one hundred percent been picturing eight Lan Zhans surrounding him at the massage table hand orgy, but he’s sure not planning on saying that out loud now or ever. Wei Ying clears his throat. When did his mouth get so dry? “So that’s four more hands with jobs.”

“Eight left to assign.” Lan Zhan maybe hasn’t blinked in like a full minute. He’s also still holding on to Wei Ying’s ankles. Wei Ying wonders briefly if he should point out either of these facts and decides not to.

“Four per leg.” Wei Ying takes a deep breath. This doesn’t particularly help, so he takes another. “Right.” Focus, Wei Ying! “I’m out of ideas.”

Lan Zhan does a subtle eyebrow thing to indicate his surprise.

“I know!” Wei Ying says, flinging his hands up helplessly. “It’s just—they’re just my legs, Lan Zhan! All I got is four hands kinda petting the inside of each—” He gestures between the hem of his shorts and his ankles, which he remembers too late is probably exactly what he doesn’t want to do, as Lan Zhan’s eyes follow the movement like a cat tracking a laser pointer. Wei Ying sends up another silent prayer for effective dick camouflage.

“Is leg-petting not an assignment?” Lan Zhan asks in a voice that seems way more even than Wei Ying’s, though he’s definitely still got a cat-about-to-pounce vibe about him that Wei Ying is trying desperately to ignore and that his dick would like to see more of, actually.

“I guess?” Wei Ying manages, voice cracking in the middle when one of Lan Zhan’s hands tightens around his ankle almost absentmindedly. “It just seems like a cop-out? Is gentle leg-petting bringing that much to the party when we’ve already got—uh—everything else going on?” Wei Ying does his best to mentally skip over the “everything else,” because thinking about two of Lan Zhan’s hands fingering him to within an inch of his life while two more massage his balls was bad enough before he actually had Lan Zhan’s literal human hands bruising his ankles into submission.

“I think you may be underestimating the value of contrasting sensations,” Lan Zhan says, very logically. Is he staring at Wei Ying’s mouth? Why would he be staring at Wei Ying’s mouth?

“Am I?” Wei Ying didn’t quite mean that to come out of his mouth like a challenge, but whoo boy, it sure came out of his mouth like a challenge. Lan Zhan never backs down from a challenge, which is probably why he lets go of one of Wei Ying’s ankles to press his hand to the inside of Wei Ying’s other calf, the one that’s still pinned down. His dark, inescapable gaze stays on Wei Ying’s face while he slowly glides that hand upward, scruffing against the grain of Wei Ying’s leg hair on a path to his knee.

Just that is enough to raise all the hair on the rest of Wei Ying’s body and force a gasp into his lungs, but then Lan Zhan makes it over the knee—stopping to trace a circle over the kneecap with his thumb, and when the fuck did Wei Ying’s kneecaps get so sensitive?—and his hand hits Wei Ying’s inner thigh, and all the air Wei Ying just inhaled comes out as a, “Haaahahaaaaaaaah,” his hips twitching upward into empty air and his cock pulsing.

Yeah.

That…

That was a sex sound.

That was absolutely, unmistakably a sex sound that Wei Ying just made, because his very hot best friend petted the inside of his leg and that single touch was literally better than some actual sex Wei Ying has had in the past. (At least the disaster hookups made for funny stories!) Wei Ying, feeling both trapped and horny, looks up at Lan Zhan’s face in something like terror—he was really trying to keep it together! He was!—hoping against hope that Lan Zhan somehow maybe didn’t notice? He can laugh this off, maybe, and then escape and rub one out in Lan Zhan’s bathroom and go back to pretending not to want to climb his best friend like a tree! He just needs to know how much damage he did first.

It takes Wei Ying a moment to focus—see the mind-bending levels of horniness he’s currently experiencing—and when he does he can’t really make sense of what he’s seeing. Lan Zhan has definitely noticed the sex sound, if the redness of his ears are anything to go by, but he doesn’t seem embarrassed in any way. He’s looking at Wei Ying in such a way, and Wei Ying thinks he likes it but he also doesn’t know what it means.

Lan Zhan exhales slowly, an uneven stuttering of breath, and he doesn’t look away or blink as he runs his hand higher, up until his fingers brush the hem of Wei Ying’s shorts. They dip under the fabric by maybe half a centimeter, enough to make it clear it was definitely done on purpose.

Wei Ying shivers from the crown of his head down to his toes, makes another, “Haaaaannhhh,” sound, and lets his legs fall open wider at the same time that he drops his head back, arching his neck. He doesn’t even mean to! It’s entirely instinct! Horny, horny instinct!

“I think I’ve changed my mind about the leg petting,” Wei Ying says, trying to drag himself back under some semblance of control. “I think the leg petting is good, actually.”

“Mn.” Lan Zhan nods, tongue flicking out to wet his lower lip in a shocking flash of pink. “Four hands per leg?” He hasn’t moved either hand, fingers just barely under the hem of Wei Ying’s shorts and burning like a brand.

“Yeah, sure,” Wei Ying says, mentally begging Lan Zhan to just shove his hand the rest of the way up his shorts and grab his dick, so he can hump his palm maybe three times and come way too quickly. “I already said I was out of ideas.”

Lan Zhan nods again. He doesn’t otherwise move. Wei Ying is about to go apeshit. Wei Ying has never come entirely untouched before, but he thinks he might earn that achievement in about thirty more seconds if Lan Zhan keeps looking at him like that. He can’t—fuck, fuck—he absolutely can’t hold himself back from hitching his hips up, desperate for friction that doesn’t exist. Lan Zhan’s hand spasms on his thigh, the fingertips digging into the meat of it for a mindblowing instant that forces his hips into another pathetic, useless grind against nothing.

“Perhaps,” Lan Zhan says, voice a low, dangerous thing, “we’ve been thinking too literally.”

“Yeah?” Wei Ying manages, his tongue thick in his mouth and his heart racing. He thinks he should get an award for saying a whole actual word.

“It’s possible for someone to have their hands between your legs without actually touching you while still being involved.” How the fuck is Lan Zhan’s voice so even? Lan Zhan shifts his knees on the couch a little, probably looking for a more comfortable position, and Wei Ying glances down automatically, is Lan Zhan even affected—

Oh.

Oh.

Yeah, that’s—that’s a bulge between Lan Zhan’s legs, there, straining against the zipper of his jeans. Cool. Cool. Cool cool cool cool cool.

“How do you mean?” Wei Ying asks, because there was a theory just presented to him and he will acknowledge it even while struggling to drag his eyes away from Lan Zhan’s dick where it’s hard under his pants. He manages to look back at Lan Zhan’s face and instantly regrets it, because Lan Zhan definitely caught him looking, whoops!

“Someone might rest their hands on the surface between your legs,” Lan Zhan says in a low, even tone, suiting actions to words and settling both hands on the couch cushion, slightly jostling Wei Ying’s ass with the movement. It brings him closer, the loom more immediate and present. They’re no longer touching but they could be, and that knowledge burns.

“They might,” Wei Ying says, trying to keep his voice anywhere close to as cool as Lan Zhan’s is and aware it mostly sounds wrecked. “Why would they do that?” (“What is happening?” would maybe be a better question, but Wei Ying doesn’t want to ask it in case the answer is, “A mistake.”)

“For balance,” Lan Zhan says, very much closer now.

“Balance?” Wei Ying says, barely more than a croak.

“Mn.” Lan Zhan nods, unblinking, roasting Wei Ying alive with his eyes. “For…” He doesn’t break eye contact as he lowers his shoulders, back arched, and lets his breath ghost over the ridge of Wei Ying’s cock through his shorts. He hovers there, waiting for—something, probably to be told no, which Wei Ying is absolutely not going to do, and when he doesn’t get it he—holy fuck—nuzzles into the crease of Wei Ying’s thigh, cheek pressed to the hot, aching line of Wei Ying’s dick.

Wei Ying snaps. He does half a sit up and tangles both his hands into Lan Zhan’s hair, dragging him up and curling forward to smash their mouths together. Lan Zhan groans deep in his throat and surges into the kiss, crawling over Wei Ying until he can pin him back down to the couch with the long, warm weight of his body. As part of this process, one of his large, muscular thighs ends up firmly wedged between Wei Ying’s legs, which is great all around but his dick is especially excited about the newfound friction. Wei Ying makes a sound into Lan Zhan’s mouth that he hopes indicates his approval as eloquently as possible while also trying to lick Lan Zhan’s molars. It goes something like, “Uuuuuunnghf,” and it makes Lan Zhan suck on his tongue, so Wei Ying thinks he got his point across.

“Fuck,” Wei Ying says urgently when they come up for air, obediently tilting his head as Lan Zhan licks along the line of his jaw to his ear. “Okay, yeah, this is happening?”

“It is,” Lan Zhan confirms in a low rumble that makes Wei Ying’s scalp prickle, and then his teeth sink into Wei Ying’s earlobe and Wei Ying humps his thigh, a low, wavering sound escaping his throat. Lan Zhan’s mouth is fucking scorching against his neck and the weight of him on Wei Ying’s cock is both inescapable and unignorable, so Wei Ying grinds on him again, panting for air.

“Good,” he manages, unable to stop rolling his hips against Lan Zhan’s leg and basically resigned to humping him until he comes in his shorts like a horny teenager. “That’s so fucking great, actually,” he continues, getting his hands out of Lan Zhan’s hair and yanking the hem of his henley up far enough that he can snake his sneaky hands under it. “It should definitely keep happening, like, a lot.”

Lan Zhan hums an agreement and shoves up to a kneel, tragically taking his hot, sexy body out of reach of Wei Ying’s greedy little raccoon hands. Fortunately it’s because he wants his arms free to take off his shirt, which Wei Ying learns when Lan Zhan does just that, leaving acres of bronze skin and toned muscle on display for Wei Ying’s equally greedy non-raccoon eyes. There are pecs and nipples and abs and a little squish of muffin top and a happy trail that Wei Ying wants to get his mouth on urgently, and he’s already reaching out for a good grope when Lan Zhan starts pawing at the hem of Wei Ying’s t-shirt, easily avoiding his grasp. Lan Zhan is so right, actually, and Wei Ying does another awkward half-sit-up to yank his shirt off. Lan Zhan apparently very much wants to help with this process, which only results in flailing and Wei Ying getting his head stuck in the shirt momentarily. Together there’s nothing they can’t accomplish, though, and once Wei Ying’s head has been sprung from shirt jail Lan Zhan’s on him immediately, one hand in Wei Ying’s hair, one curling around his hip, his mouth biting along Wei Ying’s collarbone. Wei Ying feels like he’s about to get eaten alive, and he’s very into it.

Lan Zhan’s back is just as muscular as his front, which Wei Ying was expecting logically, but now his hands get to be all over it, which is a different kind of knowledge and one he’s planning to learn in great detail. He knows Lan Zhan is built—like, he works out with Lan Zhan sometimes and they hug occasionally and he definitely flings himself bodily into Lan Zhan’s arms when he’s drunk and demands to be carried around—but he’s also always acutely been aware that all those touches are stolen, and he really tried not to let himself linger on the strong lines of Lan Zhan’s chest or how good he always smells, because there’s no point torturing yourself over what you can’t have, right?

Well, Wei Ying gets to have it now, and he’s fucking lingering. He runs his hands all over Lan Zhan’s back, tracing the curve of his spine and the broad planes of muscle, pets the dip at his low back, and tries to get his hands under his waistband to grope his ass.

“Your pants are too tight,” he complains when said waistband foils his plans, though he softens the complaint by nipping at Lan Zhan’s flushed-red ear, conveniently accessible to Wei Ying’s mouth while Lan Zhan mauls his neck. Lan Zhan grunts something between his teeth (which are latched onto Wei Ying’s jugular in a threateningly sexy way) and fumbles a hand between them. A moment later the waistband loosens, and Wei Ying realizes that Lan Zhan just undid his fly entirely one-handed, which is a weirdly hot skill to demonstrate, and he expresses his appreciation of said skill demo by grinding against Lan Zhan’s thigh in a long, slow circle that lights up all the nerves in his spine.

He also shows his appreciation by cramming his hands down the back of Lan Zhan’s pants and underwear and groping the fuck out of the ass that has starred in a non-zero number of his spank bank scenarios for the last several years. Lan Zhan moans and arches into it, thrusting his now barely-restrained dick into Wei Ying’s hip and in the process flexing every muscle in his glutes, which Wei Ying gets to experience via grabbing.

Absolutely an A+ experience, would grab again, five stars, Wei Ying thinks a little wildly, distantly aware that he’s making an absolute mess of precome in his underwear and both unable and unwilling to do anything about it, assuming Lan Zhan would even let him try to do anything about it. Given that Lan Zhan has curled down far enough to lick one of Wei Ying’s nipples and has a hand on Wei Ying’s bare thigh to encourage him to wrap it around his hip, Wei Ying feels pretty comfortable assuming that Lan Zhan is unwilling to alter their current arrangement. Wei Ying is absolutely not complaining! Instead of complaining, he’s making sounds like, “Ah!” and “Uuungh,” and “Fuck,” and “Lan Zhan, Lan Zhan.”

At the last of these, Lan Zhan makes a noise somewhere between a hum and a growl, the hand on Wei Ying’s leg sliding up under his shorts to cup his ass and drag Wei Ying closer. As Wei Ying’s cock is already pretty firmly pressed to Lan Zhan’s thigh, this is really great for Wei Ying, and he eloquently communicates as much by choking on his next inhale and digging his fingernails into Lan Zhan’s glutes in a wordless request for more. Lan Zhan provides more by doing it again, his hot mouth scorching a path across Wei Ying’s chest to his other nipple, and everything descends into desperate, whining, pants-on fucking. This is the best dry humping of Wei Ying’s entire life! He didn’t even know dry-humping could be this good!

Wei Ying gets one hand out of Lan Zhan’s pants and tangles it into his hair, keeping his diabolical mouth exactly where it is, and leaves the other hand exactly where it is. (If he has his way, he’ll never stop touching Lan Zhan’s ass ever again.) Their activities have hit the literal definition of “hot and heavy,” Lan Zhan’s weight pinning him down, the heat rolling off him making sweat prickle at Wei Ying’s temples and the small of his back and the creases of his knees. It’s almost uncomfortable, but the discomfort is the last thing on Wei Ying’s mind as he rubs brainlessly off on Lan Zhan’s thigh, clenching up from ass to ears, a tight hot ball of arousal sparking deep in his belly.

“Fuck,” he says between open-mouthed, hyperventialiting gasps, “oh—oh—Lan Zhan, don’t—I’m, don’t—”

Lan Zhan surges up and kisses the broken words out of his mouth, big and strong and everywhere, and Wei Ying chokes something incoherent as the sparking thing in his belly catches fire and he comes. It’s wet and messy and everywhere in his shorts, he can feel it pooling, holy shit, but that’s a very distant concern in the face of the shaking wracking his whole body and how he swears he can literally feel his brain producing sex endorphins, like someone’s having a water balloon fight in his endocrine system or however that works. It is easily the best orgasm he’s had in living memory, and he can’t even bother trying to be embarrassed about humping his best friend’s leg like a badly behaved housepet.

“Wow, okay,” he says, blinking hard to try and get his eyes to focus. It takes him a second to realize that Lan Zhan isn’t blurry because Wei Ying came his 20/20 vision out his dick, he’s blurry because he’s so fucking close, his forehead pressed to Wei Ying’s and his lower lip caught between his teeth and his eyes so, so intense. For a bit there Wei Ying can’t figure out why Lan Zhan would look like that, and it clicks that Lan Zhan definitely watched Wei Ying’s O-face like, up close and in high definition, and now he looks like he wants to watch it again in slow-mo with different camera angles. It’s deeply flattering and also makes the insides of Wei Ying’s stomach go squirmy and embarrassed, so he immediately tries to deflect with a ridiculous eyebrow wiggle and a, “Like what you see?”

“Yes,” Lan Zhan says, with no hesitation or dishonestly. He leans down to kiss the corner of Wei Ying’s mouth so tenderly it makes Wei Ying almost want to cry and adds, “You’re very beautiful.”

That is absolutely too much for Wei Ying to handle when he’s all sappy and post-orgasm, and he writhes a little like he might try to escape, which rubs his hip up against Lan Zhan’s still very-much-present erection, and fortunately Lan Zhan’s reaction to this is to shudder and attack Wei Ying’s mouth with intent. He pushes up to a higher kneel, still kissing Wei Ying like they might both die if he doesn’t, and fumbles between them with one hand. When the fumbling stops it’s replaced with a rhythmic wet sound, and if Wei Ying was running on all cylinders it wouldn’t have taken him like fifteen full seconds to realize what that meant.

“Oh, yeah,” he says with enthusiasm, detaching from Lan Zhan’s mouth with a different, less rhythmic wet sound. “Fuck, yeah, Lan Zhan, shit.”

Lan Zhan’s cock is flushed dark with arousal, wet with precome, the thick head appearing and disappearing into his fist as he jerks himself off. Wei Ying’s dick gives a little kick at the sight—it’s a really nice cock, okay, and more importantly it’s Lan Zhan’s—which (after his brain comes back online for thoughts other than “Lan Zhan dick pretty,”) gives Wei Ying a fucking genius idea.

“On me,” he orders, taking his hand out of the back of Lan Zhan’s pants in service of a noble, horny goal. “Come on me, Lan Zhan,” he continues, shoving his shorts and underwear down, his wet, half-hard dick glued to his lower abs in a way that will need addressing later but certainly not right now.

“Wei Ying,” Lan Zhan groans, mouth slack, tongue pink against his kiss-bruised lips. “Wei Ying, I—”

“Come on my dick,” Wei Ying demands, getting one hand into Lan Zhan’s hair again and the other one on his pec, rolling a nipple between his fingers. “Come right on my fucking dick, baby, I want it.”

Lan Zhan makes an, “Uuuunf,” sound that makes Wei Ying wonder just how fast he can be ready to go again and curves forward, a great tremor rolling through his body. He gives his cock two more squelchy jerks and then gasps, a hot splash of come painting Wei Ying from his belly button down to his balls. He keeps going, face screwed up into the most beautiful thing Wei Ying has ever seen, intense pleasure breaking through his usual reserve, and he apparently also really wanted to come on Wei Ying’s dick because by the time he’s done twitching, the mess is fucking impressive. Wei Ying gets just enough time to appreciate the filthy picture Lan Zhan made out of him before Lan Zhan collapses over him like a weighted blanket with a skeleton in it, which would theoretically be a terrible weighted blanket but great when it’s Lan Zhan.

“Wow,” Wei Ying says to the ceiling, still trying to catch his breath.

“Mn,” Lan Zhan agrees into his neck, where he’s tucked his face and is offering up little open-mouthed kisses in between pants. He starts to bring up a hand to pet Wei Ying’s arm, realizes as he does so that it’s the hand that’s covered in come, and makes a displeased noise.

“I got it,” Wei Ying says, looking around for his shirt, which turns out to still be looped over one elbow and apparently has been since he took it off. He snorts and pulls it the rest of the way off his arm, wipes off Lan Zhan’s hand, and drops it on the floor.

“Thank you,” Lan Zhan says to the spot right below his ear, using his newly-clean hand to pet up Wei Ying’s side and arm, then down to the leg still wrapped around Lan Zhan’s hip. Wei Ying scratches his scalp in return. It’s nice. It’s a really, really nice post-orgasm cuddle, and he basks in it a little, or maybe a lot. There’s a very deep part of him that points out maybe he should be panicking about having finally had sex with Lan Zhan, but this is way too good of a cuddle to allow for panic, so Wei Ying ignores it, just like he’s ignoring the little voice warning him that every moment they remain in this cuddle raises the chances of them getting glued together in a very uncomfortable way. That’s a problem for future them.

“I can’t believe we didn’t even get our pants off,” he says a few minutes later, now having progressed to petting Lan Zhan’s entire back like an overlarge housecat.

“It escalated quickly.” Lan Zhan says this to the divot between Wei Ying’s collarbones, because he’s secretly a neck-obsessed dracula or something.

“Was that, like, literally years of pent-up sexual tension for you, too?” Wei Ying asks conversationally, drawing nonsense little shapes on Lan Zhan’s shoulder blades. “‘Cause I don’t know about you, but I was Ready To Go.” He grins, impish. Oh, he shouldn’t say it, but he can’t not. “I was hot to trot, even.”

Lan Zhan sighs in a very put-upon matter, which only encourages Wei Ying to add, “You could say I had unbridled enthusiasm for it.”

Lan Zhan groans, burying his face more deeply into the crook of Wei Ying’s neck. “Please stop reminding me that this started because my brother makes terrible home decor purchases.”

“I think you know that I am physically and emotionally incapable of obeying that request,” Wei Ying tells him honestly, tugging on the short hairs at the nape of his neck. “Answer the question.”

Lan Zhan pushes up to one elbow, ears still pink, eyes still dark, his flushed lips quirking up in a tiny smile. “Yes,” he says simply, giving Wei Ying the most devastatingly soft look of all time, the kind of look he gives when he sees pictures of bunnies, but hornier. It is a look, Wei Ying realizes, that Lan Zhan often gives him, but as soon as Wei Ying glimpses it it goes away, so he’s never noticed it before.

“Aw, fuck,” he says, something soft and bright blooming inside his heart. “Lan Zhan, do you like me or something?”

“And,” Lan Zhan says, leaning down to kiss him gently. “I like you and something.”

“What’s the something?” Wei Ying asks, because he can’t not.

“Mn.” Lan Zhan kisses him again. “Stick around and find out.”

“I mean, obviously,” Wei Ying huffs, all the genuine emotions making him panic a little, “but you came on literally all of my clothes, so you’re gonna have to lend me something to wear.”

Lan Zhan considers that, thumb brushing circles on the jut of Wei Ying’s bare hip. “Or I could wash your clothes and return them to you when they’re clean.”

Very polite of him. There’s just one problem. “What am I gonna wear while you’re washing my clothes?”

“Nothing,” Lan Zhan says promptly.

“Okaaaay.” Wei Ying nods along, faux-solemn. “And what will you be wearing?”

“Also nothing,” Lan Zhan says seriously. “We will be in my bed. Possibly the shower.”

“Oh.” Wei Ying blinks, trying to smother his smile. “Careful, there, gege. Make me offers like that and I might never leave.”

“Good,” Lan Zhan says, and kisses him. It’s a thorough kiss, sweet and deep and all-consuming, almost enough to make Wei Ying’s brain stop thinking about a hundred things at once.

Almost.

“You know,” Wei Ying says when they come up for air, “after all the hypotheticals we came up with, your hands weren’t actually between my legs for most of that.”

“Is that a complaint?” Lan Zhan asks with an arched brow, yes-anding along with Wei Ying’s bullshit immediately. God, Wei Ying loves him.

“More of an observation.” Wei Ying considers a moment. “Maybe also a request.”

“I will take it under consideration,” Lan Zhan says, speaking the words against Wei Ying’s lips, and then they don’t say much else after that.

✧✧✧

It’s been two months since Wei Ying moved in, and Lan Zhan is still delighted by having him in his space all of the time. There are so many things to learn about him as a boyfriend that he didn’t know about him as a friend, and they’re in love, and they get to put their hands all over each other whenever they want. It’s wonderful. Every day is a surprise.

Some of the surprises are better than others.

“Do you like it?” Wei Ying asks, leaning on the back of the couch with an innocent smile. “I thought it really brought the room together.”

The “it” in question is a throw pillow that says in at least two and possibly three different fonts, “Happiness is Lan Zhan between my legs,” over a faint silhouette that Lan Zhan thinks is supposed to be his face in profile.

It’s the worst thing he’s ever seen.

“You are absurd,” he tells Wei Ying, rounding the couch to pull him into his arms. “I love you. We need to store the pillow in the bedroom so no one else sees it.”

“Love you too, gege,” Wei Ying says, grinning with his lower lip caught between his teeth. “Wanna take the pillow to the bedroom right now?”

Lan Zhan does.

✧✧✧

(The pillow turns out to be the perfect size to tuck under Wei Ying’s hips as a sex bolster, actually, so it really could have been worse.)

✧✧✧

(They never, never tell Lan Huan the true story of how they got together.)