Work Text:
At first, Lan Zhan only imagined Wei Ying when he caught himself desiring to commit minor indiscretions. For instance, on the rare occasion going to sleep so early seemed an inconvenience, Lan Zhan imagined that Wei Ying would smirk. “Even you desire to commit indiscretions!” he would crow, as though identifying this desire in Lan Wangji were some crowning achievement. When Lan Zhan caught himself feeling disapproval of an elder, he could also catch himself imagining Wei Ying. “Even Lan Zhan disapproves of elders, when elders warrant it!” he might say, as though warranting disapproval also warranted celebration.
Eventually, imaginary Wei Ying pointed out that he was, himself, an indiscretion. “Hey,” he said, imaginarily, “you imagine me a lot. Don’t you know that time spent in fantasy is an indiscretion?”
“You are not a fantasy,” Lan Zhan thought at him, quite forcefully.
Wei Ying, Lan Zhan decided, would only smile, always looking like he knew more about Lan Zhan than Lan Zhan himself did. It was irritating.
*
The next day, after another frustrating conversation with an elder, Lan Zhan could not feel disapproval, because the elder was his uncle. “Wei Ying would disapprove,” Lan Zhan thought instead. Unfortunately, his imagination proceeded to produce exactly the form Wei Ying’s disapproval might take.
“Why is he so unrelenting?” Wei Ying would have said, with an undisciplined pout, since he took no care to compose respectful facial expression. “Doesn’t he know that compromise is reasonable, and ‘reason is to be sought after,’ and that leniency is a form of compassion, and ‘compassion is to be practiced with those less fortunate’?”
Of course, Wei Ying would say this shocking thing, thereby proving he not only knew all three thousand Lan precepts but also knew them well enough to twist them into his own purposes, as someone only as clever and annoying and creative as Wei Ying could. It was showy. And irritating.
Imaginary Wei Ying smiled in that knowing way that was still somehow infinitely gentle. “You’re still imagining me,” he said softly.
Startled, Lan Zhan stopped on the footbridge between his uncle’s house and his own, looking down into the water. “Stop it,” he thought.
Wei Ying stopped it, leaving only Lan Zhan reflected in the water, staring back at himself.
*
The next day, Lan Zhan desired to have no desire to commit indiscretions. He spent the morning practicing cultivation in its purest form, with the sword, and the afternoon in meditative study. Perhaps he was over-zealous, for Xichen appeared and asked how his day had been, and then said he thought Wangji looked like he needed rest, and then asked whether Wangji had ever considered writing any letters to anyone from the other clans he had met during the lectures. This felt like being laughed at. Why should Lan Zhan spend his time in such a frivolous pursuit, instead of pursuits that strengthened his spirit and improved his cultivation?
“Oh, you know, he was just looking out for you,” said imaginary Wei Ying, making a disappointed face because Lan Zhan was so uptight that he couldn’t even see how his own brother cared for him.
“Go away,” Lan Zhan thought at him, very hard.
“Ooh.” Imaginary Wei Ying sulked, but the real Wei Ying could never seem dispirited for long, and the imaginary version brightened even more quickly, as though struck by a sudden thought.
Lan Zhan already hated this thought. He knew what this thought was. It was his own thought.
“You could write to me!” Wei Ying would say, looking very pleased with himself, as though he had come up with it all on his own, as though he were completely original and not saying things everyone involved everyone already knew, as though he were not stealing thoughts from Lan Zhan’s brain because he lived inside of it.
“No,” thought Lan Zhan.
Wei Ying would pout. “Aww, why not? Don’t you want to write me a letter?”
“No,” thought Lan Zhan.
“Lan Xichen said you should.” Now Wei Ying would get another thought, turning mischievous, as though this thought too were not mined from Lan Zhan’s own consciousness. “Do you know,” Wei Ying would say brightly, “perhaps it was me Lan Xichen was thinking of? Perhaps he is under the mistaken impression that we are friends, that you would want to write me, that you have thought of me at all while I’ve been gone, that you miss me? Perhaps he wants to make you feel better.”
“It is none of brother’s business,” thought Lan Zhan, who was slowly growing—once again—irritated.
“Lan Zhan,” Wei Ying would sing-song. “Lan Zhan, Lan Zhan. Perhaps you would like to write me. Have you thought of simply trying it to see?”
“You have not written to me!” Lan Zhan thought, by mistake.
Wei Ying would be very surprised that Lan Zhan had snapped at him, perhaps surprised at the idea of his writing any letters to Lan Wangji, perhaps surprised because he had already forgotten Lan Wangji existed. The fantasy stopped there, because Lan Zhan would never speak in such a manner. He would never even come close to implying that Wei Ying should have written to him, should have thought of him in this absentia, should have remembered him at all.
Had Wei Wuxian wanted to write, he would have written.
*
Lan Zhan was not tired. He readied himself for sleep at the appropriate hour.
“You’re not even tired,” Wei Ying would have said.
Lan Zhan ignored this thought.
“How is it useful to sleep when you’re not tired?” Wei Ying would ask. “Should we not ‘spend our time in useful pursuits’? These rules are contradictory.”
“You’re a just brat who can’t stand to follow rules,” Lan Zhan would think, but he would not say that. He would not even think it, because he would ignore Wei Ying. He was ignoring him imaginarily, even now, removing the ornaments from his hair, placing them on the table meant for such things.
“I think Lan Wangji is ignoring me.” Wei Ying would sound put out by this, but it would be a jest—a jest that was an invitation, an encouragement to participate both in condemnation of Lan Zhan’s conservatism but also Wei Ying’s attention-seeking. “I’m not attention-seeking,” Wei Ying would say.
Not fair. Because Wei Ying was imaginary, he could respond to Lan Zhan’s every thought, rather than what Lan Zhan would say in person.
“You wouldn’t say anything in person,” imaginary Wei Ying said, sounding put out again. “You would keep ignoring me.”
“With reason,” thought Lan Zhan firmly, folding over the cover on the bed.
“What reason?”
Lan Zhan ignored this thought. He got into bed.
“Come on, Lan Zhan, what reason?”
Lan Zhan’s eyes stayed open. He was afraid of what he might see if he closed them.
“You know, you should have a reason if you’re going to ignore someone. Otherwise, it isn’t polite, and politeness is a precept.” Lan Zhan saw Wei Ying anyway, the frequent smile having turned tender, as though Wei Ying knew his teasing to be difficult. It was difficult: the exact turn of that mouth, the brightness in those big dark eyes.
Lan Zhan turned over on his side, as though he could put his back to his own imagination.
Wei Ying was still there, turning pensive now, sincere. Wei Ying’s sincerity was dreadful. At least when he was making jokes, Lan Zhan could reproach him, but underneath a veil of whimsic drollery was someone relentlessly generous and empathetic. It was terrible. Wei Ying was terrible, with his hair and his eyes and his lips and his face and his voice and his entire existence. “Lan Zhan,” whispered this awful imaginary person, “why are you ignoring me?”
Lan Zhan flung himself onto his other side. “You can have anyone you want,” he thought fiercely. “Why would you select me to torment?”
For a moment, Lan Zhan’s mind was blessedly silent.
Then. “Anyone I want?” Wei Ying would ask.
Lan Zhan closed his eyes. “Please.”
For a moment, he succeeded in controlling his imagination.
“Ahhhh, but this is interesting,” said Wei Ying, drawing out the words. “Anyone I want? Anyone? Elaborate.”
Here was a thought, unbidden, that often plagued Lan Zhan’s consciousness: whether Wei Ying knew. Turning to lie on his back, Lan Zhan opened his eyes to stare at the ceiling, allowing himself contemplation of this, because it was better than contemplation of alternatives.
First, that Wei Ying was good-looking was obvious to anyone. Second, that Wei Ying was charming was obvious as well, particularly to Wei Ying, who flaunted it. But third—did he know how compelling he was; did he know how he looked when he smiled his simple smile, the best one, the private one that made a person feel as though he were the only person in the world; did he understand the trimness of his waist, the light, wild creativity of his swordwork, that he was quicker than everyone else, smarter than everyone else, aesthetically more lovely, spiritually more interesting and fascinating and exciting than anyone who had ever been—did he understand that?
He was shameless. He should.
Swallowing, Lan Zhan turned his head to the side. Though it was dark, he could make out the shape of the window in the wall. Despite Wei Ying’s perspicacity, which should have given him at least a clue, Lan Zhan thought Wei Ying didn’t know. He could not know. If Wei Ying had known, what he was, how he was, what he could do to people, he would have known that this was torture, that it was torture, that he was torturing Lan Zhan with his very existence.
“I can’t help my existence, you know,” said imaginary Wei Ying, seeming a little irked.
“He doesn’t know,” Lan Zhan thought, closing his eyes.
If he knew, women would follow him everywhere. Men too. No, they would not follow him, for Wei Ying would not need to go anywhere. They would come to him. He could sit—somewhere—upon a chair, upon a throne—
“A bed,” went Lan Zhan’s brain—
—and people would surround him, horde in around him, crowding him, wanting him, desiring him. Lan Zhan could see them, a throng of people, Wei Ying amidst them, marveling at the way that they flocked to him. He would treat it as a joke. He would wonder what he could make them do, since they wanted him so badly. He would wonder how far he could take this farce. He would smile, looking out at them, and test their willingness to please.
“Undress,” he would say.
Absolutely not.
Swinging his feet to the floor, Lan Zhan stood. The floor was cool, his feet bare. Lan Zhan walked to the washstand, slipped hands into clear water, splashed it over his face, which felt overheated. His face washed, he gathered his hair, lifting it, so that with his other hand he could dip a cloth into the water, then put it on his sticky neck, where a few strands of hair still clung.
This accomplished, Lan Zhan let go his hair, at last braving his face in the glass. He was flushed, but his eyes were the same. His mouth was the same. His face was the same, and imaginary Wei Ying was gone, as though banished from existence.
“You are better than this,” Lan Zhan thought at the glass.
Waiting for his unruly imagination to force through his self-control, Lan Zhan expected a laughing response. He expected Wei Ying, teasing him to indiscretion.
His own face stared back, perfectly bland, perfectly schooled.
Lan Zhan retrieved the cloth from his neck, folded it, and placed it beside the bowl. He turned back toward the bed, went to it, fold himself in. He closed his eyes.
“Undress,” imaginary Wei Ying said again.
He stood slightly above his admirers, as though on a dais of some sort. He was looking down on them and saying this as a joke—teasing, a little disbelieving, but willing to try anything once, especially if it was shocking, particularly if it was improper. “Come on, Lan Zhan,” he said, his tone wheedling. “If they really wanted me, don’t you think they would be stripping?”
The ache filled Lan Zhan like water into an empty cup, thrumming in his chest, throbbing between his legs. The water had done nothing to cool him down. His nightclothes chafing, he turned on his side again. He put his folded hands under his cheek. “They do want you,” Lan Zhan thought, helplessly hot and aching. “Everyone does.”
“But still.” Wei Ying sulked. “No one is getting naked. This is some fantasy, Lan Zhan. Even your mind is dull.”
The crowd began to undress.
Don’t, Lan Zhan thought, but even in his imagination, the thought was unvoiced, separate from the vulgarity of his brain, where Wei Ying was looking about him in startled surprise at an elbow slipping out of a sleeve, a knee out from under a skirt, a sash untied by fleet fingers.
“Ah?” Wei Ying kept looking around at all of this. “This is really much more than I expected you could produce. All of this really lives in your imagination?”
It’s not me, thought Lan Zhan. It’s you. They want you, everyone. They want you. I told you that they did.
This thought, too, was muted, as though occurring on a separate plane from Wei Ying and his lusting admirers. Lan Zhan was only there to witness: the flash of thigh, the arch of a foot, a bare shoulder, the curve of buttocks as seen from the side.
“I’m impressed!” Wei Ying really did seem impressed, surveying this territory of flesh with that calculation for mischief only he could compute. Reaching out, his finger skimmed the slope of naked breast, as though to ascertain whether the bared skin was real.
It is not real, wished Lan Zhan, but it was already real in the realm of wishes, where unwishing did not make it so.
Wei Ying walked between the nude, shifting bodies with a wondering expression, as though admiring something grand Lan Zhan had built, occasionally reaching out to touch, to appreciate. His hand smoothed over a naked backside, slid over an uncovered belly, slipped between two round knees, then, with a quick, decisive motion, opened them, as though to see what was settled between the thighs and approving what he found there. Lan Zhan burned with shame, wanting to be those thighs because at least it would be an escape from what was between his own. At least he would be someone else, anyone else, and then he wouldn’t have to own this feeling.
You want this.
The thought came unbidden, not in Wei Ying’s voice, not even in Xichen’s, but in Lan Zhan’s own—an accusation, not an admission. You want this, but still not, I want this. You want this, he told himself.
At last, against every instinct and desire for control, he let himself have it.
A faceless person stepped in front of Wei Ying, reaching for his belt. “Ah,” said Wei Ying, stepping back, as though surprised, as though he did not know what these naked people were here for. The faceless person reached again for the belt and got a grip. “Ahh, well, really, are you certain?” Wei Ying said, while this person with very sure precision untied the belt and opened Wei Ying’s outer robe. “Lan Zhan, you were right,” quipped Wei Ying, over his shoulder. “I think they might want something from me! Do you have any idea what?”
This naked person was slighter than Wei Ying, a bit more delicate—Wen Qing, perhaps, cool and quite efficient, even though they didn’t have a face. They reached for Wei Ying’s next sash. “And you call me shameless,” Wei Ying went on, inexorable with wit, even as the figure ruthlessly undressed him. “Your imagination is bordering on scandalous. I think this person wants to—ah.”
The figure had disrobed him sufficiently enough that their hand could slip between folds of fabric and grip Wei Ying’s cock. Wei Ying looked at them in absolute surprise, and they slid to their knees. “Oh,” said Wei Ying, blinking, and then his robes were open, and the person was taking him into their mouth.
Never taken by surprise for very long, Wei Ying was quick to adjust to any situation, no matter how unprecedented. Also never one to reject enjoyment, one moment he was still, and the next his hand was buried in this person’s hair, and he was throwing his head back, exposing an expanse of neck. His eyes squinched shut as the person sucked him; his mouth did expressive things in the manner that had always caused Lan Zhan so much disquiet. That mouth and the way it moved were why he was here in the first place, curled up protectively against himself in bed, passively watching Wei Ying get sucked inside his brain, because Lan Zhan couldn’t stop his thoughts. His imagination owned him. That mouth owned him.
Lan Zhan was weak to it. Helpless.
He could barely bring himself to imagine Wei Ying’s cock, hidden by the head of this hungry, needy person swallowing it down and by the folds of Wei Ying’s own skirt. Instead Lan Zhan imagined Wei Ying’s face, the line of his neck, the pleasure in his tightly closed eyes, the eager grip of his hand in the other one’s hair, encouraging them. Wei Ying would encourage them as they swallowed down his cock. He was an enthusiastic participant in everything he did.
The person sucking him bore forward, so that Wei Ying stumbled back—onto a bed, so that he could have a head between his open legs, and someone else could join him. He would turn his head and see them, this other person, slender also, with a defined curve from breast to hip and curls between their legs. Wei Ying would see this and get curious, even though the first person was still sucking him. He was not easily distracted when he had decided on a course of action, but he was also open to a variety of options, letting his attention wander where it would—to the wet, dripping sex between the legs of another person who wanted him.
“Oh, what’s this?” he would say, and reach for it. A hand would guide his hand between these legs that wanted him, ached for him, placing his fingers on the slippery folds of labia. Wei Ying frowned. “This angle isn’t right.”
It’s a fantasy, Lan Zhan thought at him, annoyed that Wei Ying was being difficult, even now that Lan Zhan had succumbed to him entirely.
Ignoring him, Wei Ying pushed away the head between his legs, moving away from that person entirely, getting off the bed, pulling the person who lay on it toward him. “Like this, Lan Zhan,” said Wei Ying, and then he was fucking them, cock sinking into pussy, the person on the bed with their legs splayed and loving it. “Mm,” said Wei Ying, humming as he fucked them. “This really is so wet. Your sexual fantasies are so thorough, Lan Zhan. You really think of details.”
I know, Lan Zhan thought, still muted. Staring into an impossible distance, he lay on his bed, watching Wei Ying fuck inside his brain, the snap of slender hips, the excellent grip of hands on thighs. He looked like an expert, like someone who fucked for a living, someone who should fuck all the time, someone who could win prizes for fucking.
“It’s just instinct, you know,” said Wei Ying, and arched his neck to look behind him in surprise as someone else came up to him. “Oh,” he said, then looked up, for this next person was taller than he, a little broader—like one of Xichen’s friends, Nie Mingjue, or someone like that. “Well,” said Wei Ying. “You know I like variety—”
Gripping the shoulders of Wei Ying’s remaining robe, this other person jerked it from him, interrupting Wei Ying mid-thought, mid-fuck, pulling him out of the person on the bed, pulling off the remainder of his clothes. Then they pushed him down onto the bed face first, with a powerful grip lifting Wei Ying’s hips so that his rump was in the air.
Then a cock was fucking Wei Ying, and because this was a fantasy, Wei Ying moaned in pleasure, as though already slick and ready for it. If Wei Ying had known how he could have anyone he wanted, maybe he would be always slick and ready for it, knowing how anyone who saw him would want to fuck him, and knowing it was always best to be prepared.
“Oh—Lan Zhan—yes,” Wei Ying panted, between the thrusts of the figure behind him, slamming hips into Wei Ying’s eager ass, which was taking it, taking it. “I’m always—so—ah—well—prepared.”
In bed, Lan Zhan brought his knees up toward his chest, as though to block his cock, which was full of blood. Curled into a ball, he wished this wasn’t happening any more.
“Ah,” Wei Ying said, looking around, “but where did . . .” His big dark eyes searched curiously even as the figure fucked him from behind, Wei Ying’s hair gone tangled and messy, blotches of blushes on his expressive skin. “Where did I put that?” he asked, then found what he was looking for—the person he’d been fucking on the bed, pussy still dripping wet between two thighs. “‘One should never let a worthwhile thing waste,’” Wei Ying quoted, then put his head between the legs, his mouth against the vulva, burying his face in pussy as someone fucked him from behind.
These are the sorts of things you imagine, Lan Zhan told himself.
These are the things you want.
Another figure got on the bed with Wei Ying, this one with long limbs and a long cock and long hair, waiting to be noticed as Wei Ying feasted on pussy and was fucked by cock, but Wei Ying noticed almost everything—quick to discern, quick to understand, quick to decide. His hand reached out without even lifting his face from the hot wet sex of the person he was eating out, wrapping around this other person’s cock and stroking it, again and again while he continued to eat pussy. Then, at last, with very little ceremony, he lifted his face, smeared wet with saliva and with sex, and turned his head to take the cock he held into his mouth.
For a while Lan Zhan just thought about it, Wei Ying sucking cock while being fucked, filled everywhere possible. This was more than enough to overwhelm Lan Zhan; it should be at least enough to keep Wei Ying’s voracious appetites satisfied, but of course, it wasn’t. Wei Ying’s gaze lifted over cock to look up through dark lashes, sliding his mouth off. “Don’t worry, Lan Zhan,” he murmured, lips brushing against the cockhead. “You’ve given me a lot to work with here.”
Then he was pushing the person with the long cock and long hair down, turning them over, pulling away from the cock that was fucking him so that he could fuck this ass that presented itself. Positioning himself, he eased inside. “Oh,” he said, eyes widening in surprise. “Already so wet. It’s so willing, isn’t it? You got them all ready for me.”
They would want to, thought Lan Zhan. They would want to be ready for you, willing and wet and aching for it. Everyone around him would just be hoping to capture his interest, hoping he would touch them, and when Wei Ying slid inside every one of them would sigh, wishing it were them, wishing to be penetrated by him.
“I can do more,” Wei Ying assured him. “Do you think this is all I can handle? Bring back that one that . . .” He gestured vaguely behind him as he fucked. “Bring in another one back there, to do that to me. I liked it inside me.”
Lan Zhan brought it back, the figure to fuck him from behind, a cock to go inside Wei Ying as he put his own cock in someone else. “Good, Lan Zhan, we’re getting close now.” Wei Ying almost cooed. “Now give me that—bring back that one I was eating, between the legs, that pussy. It tasted good.”
Lan Zhan brought that back too, though the positioning was awkward, with Wei Ying fucking someone now. “Oh, I don’t mind,” Wei Ying said carelessly, yanking on a calf, throwing it over the other person he was fucking so that he could position pussy right where he wanted to put his face. “I make things work,” he added, leaning in to eat it out. “Now this is good,” he added, his face muffled by cunt.
Is that finally enough, Lan Zhan thought, agonized by the depth of all this filth, yet unable to stop watching.
“Awww, what do you mean?” Lifting his mouth away from the pussy, Wei Ying seemed honestly confused. “I’m just getting comfortable.” Pulling out of the person he was fucking, he pushed the people aside and lay back, naked and spread. “Someone could sit right here,” he said, gesturing toward his glistening cock.
Someone did, someone with a wet, willing pussy, someone who straddled him and took him down in one go. “Ahh, yes, that is so clever,” said Wei Ying, resting his hands on this someone’s hips. “But now my mouth is empty, and I want to put my tongue inside something hot.” He pouted, and someone else was there, straddling his face, holding their ass open for him to fuck his tongue inside.
You really are so perverted, Wei Ying thought at Lan Zhan.
It’s your fault, Lan Zhan thought back. It’s your fault; it’s your fault; it’s you.
This didn’t seem about reaching climax. Indeed, not a single peak was in sight when Wei Ying pushed the person off his cock, the ass out of his face. “I thought I saw . . .” he began, looking around. “Yes, that one. I want to fuck that one.” It was the bigger figure, the Nie Mingjue figure, or maybe someone else sort of like that. Wei Ying did not seem very discriminating or to care particularly; he bent this figure over on the bed and began to fuck them, and it just went on and on that way, because Wei Ying liked everything. He wanted everything. He was interested in everything, and he could have them all. Every single one of them.
“Is that so?” Wei Ying asked, perhaps taking a break for a little bit. Perhaps there had been climaxes; he was smeared with streaks of secretions but also some splashes that were unmistakably come—his own or someone else’s, impossible to say. Lan Zhan had stopped paying attention, the flashes of flesh and fucking like a tsunami he was trying to forget in the back of his brain. Through it all, he could hear when Wei Ying moaned, when he got what he wanted, his sounds of pleasure always exceptionally loud.
“I said, is that so?” Wei Ying asked again. He looked so sated that he looked drugged, splayed out lazily amidst all the people he had fucked. “Could I really fuck every single one?”
Yes, Lan Zhan thought dully. You just did.
“Oh.” Wei Ying gave him his private little smile. “Not everyone.”
No, thought Lan Zhan, suddenly understanding where this was going.
“Okay.” Wei Ying stretched, displaying his naked body in an exaggerated twist. “So, I could not fuck everyone.”
Yes, thought Lan Zhan, because this part was fact.
“No.” Wei Ying kept his smile. It was kind and sweet. “Not everyone.”
Everyone, Lan Zhan thought, very firmly.
“If you don’t want to come in here, you don’t have to come in here.” Wei Ying twisted amongst the bodies again. “It’s okay, Lan Zhan. Just don’t say I can fuck everyone, when there’s at least one other person I can’t fuck.”
He meant, of course, that he couldn’t fuck Lan Zhan.
Then Lan Zhan was there, walking amidst all the nameless, faceless figures, there to fuck Wei Ying. Some of them were now fucking each other, since they couldn’t have him, since he was on this break, lying indolent and naked like an emperor among them. Something like a pathway led to the dais, where there lay the bed, but the pathway was full of people sleeping and fucking, and Lan Zhan had to maneuver around them to continue forward.
Watching him with curious bright eyes, Wei Ying rolled over, onto his belly, putting his elbow on the bed and his cheek on his fist to watch Lan Zhan’s approach. “You don’t look like ‘everyone,’” Wei Ying remarked, just observing.
This was mostly likely because Lan Zhan was fully clothed. “I am everyone,” he said, removing his hair ornament first, slipping it into his sleeve. Then he was unlacing his belt, removing his outer robe—a procedure that caused Wei Ying to pull back to get a fuller picture, licking his lips as he watched Lan Zhan undress.
“Very nice,” Wei Ying said, his tone idle.
Lan Zhan removed the last of his clothing, laying it neatly to the side. He straightened, naked, facing Wei Ying, then took off his ribbon, letting it fall to the floor. Now Lan Zhan was just like every single one of these others, desperate for Wei Ying. Unable to resist.
“What am I meant to do?” asked Wei Ying.
“Have me,” said Lan Zhan.
“Ohh.” Wei Ying made a face, pretending as though he were considering, but were presented with a difficulty or two. “What if I’m a little tired? After all of that.” First he gestured vaguely at the people he had fucked, then he faked a yawn.
“You flirt with everyone,” Lan Zhan told him. “You act like you want everyone. You could have anyone. Have me.”
“Oh, Lan Zhan.” Wei Ying faked surprise again. “You really want to be one of them?”
“Yes,” said Lan Zhan said.
“Hm.” Wei Ying again seemed to be considering this. “But what if I forget you afterwards? I have so many admirers, you know. So many people who want me. What if you’re nothing for me but—ah.” He gave Lan Zhan an embarrassed little smile. “One hair among nine cows?”
Lan Zhan climbed into the bed. “I don’t care.”
Wei Ying gave him a slightly different smile. This one was sympathetic. “You want me that much, don’t you.”
“Yes.” Lan Zhan opened his legs. “I’ll take you any way that I can get you.”
Wei Ying leaned over him, his hand at last touching—touching Lan Zhan’s bare thigh. Lan Zhan’s breath caught. His eyes opened. Wei Ying was above him, lips red and eyes bright and hair falling down to either side of Lan Zhan’s face. “That’s good, Lan Zhan,” Wei Ying whispered, settling between Lan Zhan’s thighs. “I’m glad to hear you’re not so dull after all.”
Lan Zhan squeezed his eyes closed, waiting to feel it, waiting to dream it, waiting for—for anything, for this fantasy to finally happen to him, instead of everyone else, for it to finally be worth the torment of submission to it. He waited and he waited and he waited—for a single touch, a brush of lips, the feel of a hand against his cock, anything.
Lan Zhan would have come undone.
Nothing happened.
He waited for Wei Ying to say something—anything—a comment on this failure, but in the final surrender to his imagination, Lan Zhan had at last defeated it.
He opened his eyes. Alone in his room. Alone in his bed, curled up to ward against his imagination, nothing to show of his shame but all the guilt of having allowed himself to fantasize.
*