Chapter Text
“Hey, you need to leave.”
The man does not move. The man is face-down on a sticky table in the corner back booth, and has not moved in possibly the last hour, which would explain why Wei Ying has missed him up until now. It’s past two in the morning and Wei Ying has accidentally let this guy stay well past last call and the last fucking thing Wei Ying wants to have to deal with right now is rousting a drunk. He wants to walk home and shower the stale PBR smell out of his hair and go the fuck to sleep, and yet here he remains, in the shittiest gay dive bar in the city, and roust a drunk he must.
“Hey,” he says again, leaning over to poke the guy in the shoulder. “We’re closed, man. You can’t stay here.”
The man continues to not move, which is when Wei Ying starts getting worried. It’s uncommon for people to ignore his poking. It’s a trained bartender skill, and he’s really good at poking people awake and then getting out of the way before they can punch him. He pokes the guy again, to no response, and moves to a shoulder shake. “Hey,” he says, louder, “hey, hey, hey, hey.” That gets a response, namely, the man going from horizontal to sitting bolt upright in a single movement, like an animation that skipped the between frames. Wei Ying startles a little at the sudden change, and then again because this drunk is gorgeous, wow.
“Who are you?” he asks, mostly to himself, taking it all in. Drunk Man is Asian, with fashionably long bangs hanging over cheekbones that could cut glass, and he’s wearing a rumpled but expensive looking pale blue suit over a white dress shirt that’s seen better days. There’s a silver necklace with a blue stone in place of a tie and he’s wearing an actual physical watch that probably costs more than Wei Ying’s rent. “How did you end up here?” he asks, because this man absolutely does not belong in Wei Ying’s awful dive bar, not even a little.
Drunk Man does not answer. He’s upright, which is a relief (Wei Ying does not want to have to call an ambulance or deal with alcohol poisoning tonight, he wants to go home) but he’s staring blearily into the middle distance and swaying slightly. He looks very drunk. Fucking White Mike and his overpouring and overserving and then skipping out to leave his co-workers with the consequences. Wei Ying spends a minute cursing White Mike for all his bartending sins, sighs, reluctantly accepts that this is going to take a minute, and goes to get a glass of water.
“Hey,” he says--the word of the evening--as he slides into the booth across from Drunk Man, “you should drink this.” He pushes the glass across the table, and Drunk Man finally reacts, looking at Wei Ying and then the water. He frowns, shakes his head, and pushes the water back at Wei Ying, who pinches the bridge of his nose.
“You’ll thank me for it later,” he says, pushing the glass back over, like a reverse tug-of-war. Drunk Man pushes it back, handsome face going mullish and stubborn. Wei Ying slides it over again. “Drink.”
“No.” Oh! Language!
“So you can speak,” Wei Ying says. “Now we’re getting somewhere. Come on, just drink it.” He nudges the water a little closer and gives this beautiful drunk man his best doe eyes. “Drink it for me?”
Drunk Man shakes his head again, his mouth a tight line, his eyes unfocused. It’s almost funny, except Wei Ying is tired and cranky and in no mood to play, so it mostly just pisses him off.
“Why not?” Wei Ying snaps, exasperated. “Come on, man, I’ve been here since six, White Mike abandoned me at ten, I caught a couple fucking in the alley when I took out the trash and they looked at me like I was the rude one, I smell like stale beer and I want to go home. Drink your fucking water.”
Drunk Man blinks at him a few times, apparently processing that flood. “Water?” he asks, hesitantly, the mullish look fading into something confused and wary. “Just water?”
“Yeah,” Wei Ying says, some of his irritation draining away. He’s tired, but his brain works quickly, and he puts two and two together. “Did you think I was trying to trick you into drinking more?” Drunk Man avoids his gaze but nods, and Wei Ying’s remaining irritation turns immediately into righteous anger. “Did someone do that to you earlier?” Another nod, and Wei Ying is going to murder White Mike for ditching him tonight. He tries to keep an eye on the bar to avoid situations just like this, but there’s only so much he can do when someone leaves him to deal with the Friday night rush all on his own.
“It’s just water,” he says, trying to be soothing. “I’m trying to save you from the hangover that is definitely coming for you tomorrow. Here, it’s fine.” He takes a sip, realizes he could also actually use some water, and takes a second, longer sip. “It’s okay, see?” Wei Ying offers the cup to Drunk Man, who stares at him for a full minute in silence before finally taking the cup.
Well, he tries. Drunk Man is so drunk he almost knocks it over, and Wei Ying catches it with years of well-honed bartender instinct. “Oh, buddy,” he says, shaking off his newly-wet hand, “you’re pretty far gone, huh? Can I help you? Is that okay?”
“Help?” Drunk Man asks, the wariness back in his bleary eyes.
“Help you drink this,” Wei Ying explains. “So you don’t spill.”
Drunk Man has to think about that a little more before he nods again, and Wei Ying slides around the booth slowly, like he’s trying not to startle a cat. Drunk Man watches him come, and then watches him carefully guide Drunk Man’s hand around the cup, and then he carefully helps Drunk Man lift it. Drunk Man eyes him suspiciously for the first sip, until it clicks for him that it’s actually just water, and then he drinks with more enthusiasm.
“How did you end up here?” Wei Ying murmurs, more to himself than to Drunk Man, trying and failing not to notice how big Drunk Man’s hands are or how his throat flexes when he swallows. Wei Ying’s not a creeper, he’s not creeping, especially not on someone who needs help to drink fucking water, but he’s but a humble bisexual with functioning eyes and Drunk Man is very, very hot.
“Better?” he asks, when the cup is empty. Drunk Man blinks at him, water trailing down his chin, and nods. “Good,” Wei Ying says, finding a clean-ish cocktail napkin and dabbing at the droplets. “Do you think you can make it home?”
Drunk Man does not respond. Drunk Man, instead of responding, leans forward into Wei Ying’s personal space and drops his head on Wei Ying’s shoulder. He’s very warm, and his hair smells surprisingly good given how the rest of this guy’s night must have gone, and Wei Ying freezes with his hands hovering around the guy’s shoulders. If this was all a ruse for Drunk Guy to get handsy, so fucking help him…
“Nice,” Drunk Man says, into the crook of his neck, and does nothing else. Wei Ying slowly relaxes, allows himself to pat Drunk Man between the shoulder blades, and sighs.
“Okay,” he says. “Glad you think so.”
Drunk Man does not respond. Wei Ying wonders if he went back to sleep, and then takes a further moment to wonder why this always happens to him, why he’s always the one helping a heartbroken twink sober up after a terrible night out or sitting on the curb with a sobbing teenager with a fake ID while they wait for her parents to come pick her up. If only he was as shitty a person as White Mike, he could be home asleep right now and this beautiful man would be passed out in a gutter and probably mugged. Wei Ying looks down at the drunk man on his shoulder, thinks about leaving him to fend for himself, and sighs. Nope. Not on his watch.
“Do you have a phone?” he asks, resolved to the situation now. Drunk Man makes an affirmative sound and digs around in a pocket before he hands over a shiny new smartphone in a sleek protective case. There aren’t even any chips or cracks in the screen! What luxury! “Can you unlock it for me?” Wei Ying asks, aware that he might be pushing it, and Drunk Man holds Wei Ying’s wrist very firmly with one hand while he swipes in a passcode with the other. He has a little frown between his eyebrows, clearly concentrating on the task, and it’s so cute Wei Ying almost busts out laughing. “Thank you,” he says, when Drunk Man has willingly handed an eight hundred dollar device filled with his personal information to a complete stranger, and opens the contacts.
The first thing he learns is that Drunk Man is a very organized person, because each contact is helpfully labeled with full names and how he knows them. The second thing he learns is that Drunk Man is either very lonely or very aloof, because there are about ten people in this phone and seven of them are labeled “co-worker.” Wei Ying looks at “Lan Qiren (uncle)” and “Lan Huan (brother)” and then down at Drunk Man.
“Is your family name Lan?” he asks. Drunk Man Lan nods into his shoulder. “Well, then, Lan-gege, should I call your brother or your uncle to come take you home?”
“Brother,” Drunk Lan-something says, and Wei Ying swipes to call and hopes that Lan Huan (brother) actually answers his fucking phone. The gods are with him on this terrible Friday night/Saturday morning, because after about five rings the call connects.
“A’Zhan?” says a man’s sleep-rough voice, confused and worried, presumably belonging to Lan Huan.
“Sort of,” Wei Ying says, looking down at “A’Zhan,” who is still curled into his side and apparently happy to stay there. “I’m really sorry to call this late, but I have your brother.”
The line is silent for a moment. “Pardon?” comes the voice on the other end, sounding much more awake and twice as worried. Wei Ying replays what he just said and slaps his face with his free hand.
“Sorry!” he says. “Not like--I didn’t kidnap him. This isn’t a ransom or anything, shit, no, I’m a bartender. My name is Wei Ying--hi!--and your brother is in my bar and we closed at two and he’s still here.”
“Lan Zhan’s in a bar?” Lan Huan (probably) asks, less worried now and more confused.
“Apparently?” Wei Ying says. “Handsome guy, nice cheekbones, wears blue and white?”
“That’s him,” Lan Huan confirms, and then, as though to someone else in the room, “A’Zhan’s in a bar, apparently.” His voice comes back to Wei Ying. “Is Lan Zhan all right?”
“He’s not injured,” Wei Ying says, “but he’s blitzed out of his mind drunk and currently using my shoulder as a pillow. Like, I don’t know if he can walk, you know? I asked him for his phone and he just gave it to me. He doesn’t even know me! What if I had nefarious purposes?”
“Do you have nefarious purposes?”
“No, but that’s exactly what a person with nefarious purposes would say,” Wei Ying points out. “Though if I had nefarious purposes I probably wouldn’t have called his brother, huh? Listen, he could barely manage to drink water. I don’t want to pour him into a cab like this, I don’t think it’s safe.”
“Ah,” Lan Huan says, maybe a little amused now. “This is… Unusual for Lan Zhan. He normally doesn’t drink.”
“Well, he made up for it tonight,” Wei Ying says. Lan Zhan, who normally doesn’t drink, has pulled up Wei Ying’s sleeve to expose his forearm and is gently tracing the lines of his lotus tattoos. It’s a little weird but mostly harmless, so Wei Ying allows it.
“He may have drank less than you are expecting,” Lan Huan says with a sigh. “Alcohol allergies run in our family, and I’m afraid he got the brunt of it. What bar?”
Wei Ying tells him, and Lan Huan goes silent for a bit, presumably mapping it out. Wei Ying hears another sigh and then, “I apologize, but I live across the city and it’s going to take me at least an hour to reach you. I hate to impose on your time, but would you be able to keep an eye on him until I get there?”
Wei Ying is never going to get to sleep. He’s had nightmares where he’s trapped in the bar and can’t leave until he pours one more round for everyone, and now they’ve come to life. “I can’t keep him in here,” he says, exhausted. “There’s a twenty-four hour diner down the block. I’ll see if I can get him down there and sober him up a little while we wait for you.”
“Thank you,” Lan Huan says, with such sincerity Wei Ying squirms a little. “May I have your number, so I can text you directly if I need to?”
Wei Ying gives it to him, and then offers the phone to Lan Zhan. “Hey,” he says, jostling his shoulder a little. “Your brother’s on the phone. Do you want to talk to him?”
Lan Zhan accepts the phone gracelessly and presses it to the ear that isn’t on Wei Ying’s shoulder. “Mn?” he says, then “Yes,” then “No,” then “Mn.” He listens for a bit, says one last “Mn,” and pushes the phone in Wei Ying’s direction.
“Hey?”
“Thank you again,” Lan Huan says, over the rustling of what’s probably clothing. “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
“See you when you get here,” Wei Ying tells him, and the line goes dead. Lan Zhan is still using his shoulder as a pillow, and Wei Ying somewhat reluctantly peels him away and gets him to lean back against the booth like a normal person. “I need to do a couple things and then we’re gonna go get something to eat, okay?” he says, tucking Lan Zhan’s phone safely into a suit pocket.
“Okay,” Lan Zhan says, and his gaze follows Wei Ying around the bar as he wipes a couple tables, locks the till, and puts the last cup in the dishwasher. It’s not creepy, weirdly--Wei Ying has had people stare at him before and he doesn’t like it, but with Lan Zhan it feels different. It’s like a cat that just wants to know what you’re doing but doesn’t want to interfere.
“Do you think you can walk?” he asks, holding out a hand to help Lan Zhan out of the booth if he needs it. Lan Zhan looks at his hand, and then up at his face again, and his face scrunches up a little.
“Wei Ying?” he asks.
“That’s me,” Wei Ying says. “I guess I introduced myself to your brother and not you, huh?” He gives Lan Zhan his best smile, not even forced, because Lan Zhan’s little scrunched up frown is really, really cute. “Wei Ying, bartender and aspiring tattoo artist. Nice to meet you.”
“Mn,” Lan Zhan says after a moment, like all his thoughts are on a slight time delay. “Lan Zhan.” He takes Wei Ying’s hand in a firm, warm hold and manages to lever himself upright, only to immediately take a step forward and trip over his own feet and directly into Wei Ying’s arms.
“Oh!” Wei Ying says, bracing himself and helping Lan Zhan get his feet back where they’re supposed to be. “Okay, wow, yeah, you can’t go home like this.” Between the two of them they get Lan Zhan’s arm over Wei Ying’s shoulders and Wei Ying’s around Lan Zhan’s waist. Getting to the door is a challenge. Getting through it is a further challenge, but they prevail, and Wei Ying gets it locked up. Fortunately it’s a straight shot down to the diner, because Lan Zhan’s a little taller and broader than Wei Ying is, and he corners like an eighteen wheeler. Wei Ying doesn’t want to know what it would be like to try and steer him through a crowd. Getting him through the door to the diner is hard enough.
“Hey, Angie!” he calls to the solid Black woman behind the counter who’s been running the night shift since before he started working at the bar. “How’s your night been?”
Angie looks him over and snorts. “Better than yours,” she says, running a hand over her gray-streaked dreads and patting the neat bun they’re in tonight. “Who’s the handsome one?”
“Angie!” Wei Ying whines, mock-offended as he maneuvers Lan Zhan into a red vinyl booth. “Are you saying I’m not handsome? I thought we had something together.”
“Oh, sugar, I’m not saying you’re not handsome,” Angie says, “I’m just saying you brought in a tall drink of water with you tonight.” She leans her elbows on the counter and bats her eyelashes, the crows-feet at the corners of her brown eyes crinkling up as she smiles. “What’s his story?”
“Very drunk. Abandoned. I’m on babysitting duty,” Wei Ying says, attempting to leave the booth so he can sit on the opposite side, like a normal person, which is apparently the cue for Lan Zhan to turn into an octopus and pull him back down. “Hey,” he says, trying and failing to gently extricate his arm and the hem of his shirt from Lan Zhan’s grasp. “It’s fine. I’m not leaving, I’m just gonna sit over there.”
“No,” Lan Zhan says, pouting. He tugs Wei Ying down again insistently. “Here.”
Wei Ying wants to laugh again, because Lan Zhan’s pout is blurry and unfocused and adorable. “Okay,” he says, “fine, fine, I’ll sit here.”
“Mn,” Lan Zhan says, and as soon as Wei Ying settles he wiggles in and puts his head on Wei Ying’s shoulder. Wei Ying makes long-suffering eye contact with Angie, who laughs so hard she starts coughing.
“Oh, sugar,” she says, patting her chest when she’s calmed down, “you’ve got your work cut out for you. Two coffees?”
“Coffee?” Wei Ying asks Lan Zhan. He gets a head shake and an almost inaudible grumble. “Tea?” That gets a nod. “Coffee for me and tea for him, apparently,” Wei Ying says to Angie, and then to Lan Zhan, “You know diner tea is terrible, right?”
Lan Zhan says nothing, and Wei Ying sighs and manages to get them a menu without dislodging him. Angie drops off their drinks, and Wei Ying gets Lan Zhan’s Lipton steeping in the weird glass tea beaker that diners always use for some fucking reason.
“What looks good?” he asks, holding the menu under Lan Zhan’s nose. Lan Zhan pushes it away, back to being a stubborn little fuck, and turns his head so his face is hidden in Wei Ying’s shirt. “Hey,” Wei Ying says, “you gotta eat something. Come on, I’ll help you pick.” Lan Zhan says nothing, and Wei Ying raises his eyes to the ceiling to beg the sky for mercy. “Are you mad? Did I make you mad?”
“Mn,” Lan Zhan grumbles, and then, “Not a baby.”
Wei Ying blinks down at him for a second, bewildered, and then it hits and he actually does laugh. Lan Zhan flinches and pushes off of him, turning to the window in a drunk huff. “Hey, no, no,” Wei Ying says, patting his back. “It was a joke when I told Angie I was babysitting. I know you’re not a baby, okay? Come on, pick out something to eat.”
Lan Zhan half turns to him, eyes narrowed. “Not a baby,” he repeats, with deep gravitas, and Wei Ying suppresses his laughter so hard he almost gets a cramp.
“Nope,” he agrees, solemnly. “No babies here, just a tall handsome man who should look at this menu with me.” He waves it again and after another moment of suspicious glaring Lan Zhan nods and leans in, too quickly, almost knocking their heads together. Victory!
Lan Zhan, after some significant consideration, orders sourdough blueberry pancakes with a side of scrambled eggs. Wei Ying gets the biscuits and gravy, because this diner does proper Southern sausage gravy and good biscuits, and then he also gets a raspberry cheesecake milkshake, because it really has been a long fucking night and he’s willing to take the lactose pills if it means he can self-soothe by drinking about four servings of ice cream. There’s almost no one else in the diner this late/early, just Jeremy-from-the-alley napping in one of the far back booths, because Angie keeps an eye on the neighborhood and doesn’t treat the houseless like criminals just because they don’t have anywhere to go. Now that he’s surmounted the obstacle of “ordering food from a menu” and the following obstacle of “drinking half a cup of shitty tea,” Lan Zhan has Wei Ying’s forearm on the table again, back to tracing the outlines of the tattoos. The slow, steady sweeps of his fingertips are soothing, and Wei Ying watches him do it with something like fondness.
“You like my tattoos?” he asks eventually, when Lan Zhan has traced them all the way from his wrist up to his elbow and down again. It’s an unnecessary question, probably, but Wei Ying has never been great with silence.
“Mn,” Lan Zhan says, finger stilling on one purple petal. “Pretty.”
“Thanks,” Wei Ying says, smiling down at him a little helplessly. “I like them, too. Do you have any tattoos?”
Lan Zhan nods, which is a bit of a surprise. Wei Ying was expecting the answer to be no, because Lan Zhan seems pretty buttoned up, but he also wears a necklace instead of a tie and has little silver hoops in his ears, so that’ll show him for making assumptions. Lan Zhan levers himself upright and--oh fuck--goes for his waistband, so presumably the tattoo is somewhere under that expensive blue suit, and not appropriate for display in a diner.
“No, no,” Wei Ying says, catching Lan Zhan’s wrists, “you don’t need to show me, that’s fine, I’m sure it’s very pretty.” Lan Zhan’s face creases up, maybe sad? Wei Ying gets the impression that when he’s sober he’s pretty stone-faced, because even drunk off his ass all his expressions are barely there. “What if you tell me about your tattoo instead?” he tries. “I’ll see if I can draw it and you can tell me if I get it right.”
It takes a minute for Lan Zhan to process that, but he nods and stops trying to undress, which was what Wei Ying was going for. Thank fucking hell that Wei Ying has experience babysitting A’Yuan, because Lan Zhan may not be a baby but he’s definitely allowing himself to be distracted like a four-year-old. “Great,” he says, digging his mini sketchbook and the brush-tip pen he always carries out of his back pocket. “Tell me about it?”
By the time their food arrives, Wei Ying has gathered that Lan Zhan’s tattoo involves stars, clouds, rabbits, the moon, and night. Wei Ying’s doodle of a rabbit curled up asleep as a little moon-loaf on a star blanket apparently isn’t anywhere close to correct, but Lan Zhan has stolen the sketchbook regardless and has both hands pressing it into the table, hunched over so he can scrutinize it up-close.
“Is it good?” Wei Ying asks, chin on his hand, elbow on the table. Lan Zhan nods, not looking up even as Angie puts down his pancakes, and Wei Ying shares a sidelong grin with her. “You can keep it, if you want,” he offers, patting at Lan Zhan’s shoulder until he sits back up, because there are pancakes now, come on.
“Really?” Lan Zhan asks, looking at Wei Ying in pure wonder. Wei Ying smothers a smile and nods.
“Sure,” he says, retrieving the sketchbook and carefully tearing out the page. “All yours, buddy,” he says, holding it out, “but you have to put it away so it doesn’t get messy while you eat, okay?”
Lan Zhan nods, very seriously, and tucks the drawing into his inner jacket pocket with a level of care and attention normally only seen by people trying to defuse bombs. “Thank you,” he says, too-sincere, his eye contact bleary but intense enough that Wei Ying blushes.
“Eat your pancakes,” Wei Ying says, flustered, and downs the rest of his coffee.
Lan Zhan, thank god, is not so far gone that he needs to be hand-fed. Wei Ying isn’t sure if he’d really survive the night if he had to “Here comes the airplane!” pancakes into the most attractive drunk he’s ever seen. Instead he’s free to douse his biscuits with a liberal amount of habanero hot sauce and lose himself in the dual glory of carbs and blended ice cream. Apparently Lan Zhan has the same idea, because when Wei Ying looks up from the remnants of his first biscuit it’s to find Lan Zhan enjoying Wei Ying’s raspberry cheesecake milkshake without a care in the world.
“Hey!” Wei Ying says, offended. That was his milkshake! Lan Zhan blinks at him a couple of times, apparently not seeing the issue, and then releases the straw from his mouth and turns the milkshake around until said straw is pointing at Wei Ying. “Is this a date?” Wei Ying asks, exasperated. “Are we sharing a milkshake down at the five and dime? Am I supposed to wear your letterman jacket?”
Lan Zhan does not respond, but he does nudge the milkshake closer. Wei Ying gives up, grabs the frosty glass, and promptly gives himself a brain freeze. Lan Zhan nods, like this was his goal all along, and pats Wei Ying’s forearm unsteadily. Wei Ying’s heart does a little pitter-patter thing, which he ignores in favor of returning his attention to his second biscuit. Ridiculous. Lan Zhan is so drunk he gave his phone to a stranger. This doesn’t mean anything.
Angie comes back to pick up their empty plates a bit later, asking Wei Ying with a practiced eyebrow motion if they want anything else while she refills their water glasses. He shakes his head, trying not to disturb Lan Zhan, who’s back to using Wei Ying’s shoulder as a pillow and petting his forearm. He’s not even tracing the tattoos anymore, he’s just running his fingers up and down it, occasionally skating them over the back of Wei Ying’s hand. It’s making it a little bit awkward for Wei Ying to keep sketching, but he’s nothing if not diligent.
“Is this your tattoo?” he asks, showing Lan Zhan the doodle of a rabbit slam-dunking the moon through a basketball hoop.
“No,” Lan Zhan says, like he has for the last three sketches, and expectantly holds out his hand for the page. Wei Ying hands it over, watches it disappear into Lan Zhan’s suit, and starts drawing again. He doesn’t bother trying to make it the tattoo this time, just lets his mind and his pen wander, outlining the shape of a sharp jaw and the fall of black bangs. “What do you think?” he asks when it’s done, adding an earring. “Is it a good likeness?”
Lan Zhan’s hand freezes on Wei Ying’s wrist, squeezing it in what seems like an unconscious movement. “Me?” he asks, and he sounds fucking awed by Wei Ying’s shitty little pen portrait.
“That’s what I was going for, yeah,” Wei Ying says, tugging the page out and carefully picking off the bits where it didn’t tear at the perforations. “It’s not great, so you don’t have to take it if you don’t want to.”
Lan Zhan fucking snatches the page out of Wei Ying’s hand and cradles it to his chest protectively like Wei Ying might try to steal it. “No,” he says firmly, and puts it into his breast pocket while watching Wei Ying’s hands closely, in case of possible page-theft. When the page is safe and he seems satisfied that Wei Ying isn’t going to try and take it back, Lan Zhan taps on the sketchbook. “You?” he half asks, half orders, and Wei Ying takes a sleepy, biscuit-nap-longing-fueled moment to translate that.
“You want me to draw myself?” he asks.
Lan Zhan nods and taps the page again. “You,” he insists, and he’s so serious about it that Wei Ying gives in and draws a self-portrait. He’s done it enough that he hardly has to think about it--crosshatching for the undercut, dots for the piercings in his eyebrow and nose, the mole under his lip. It looks like him and also not at all like him, in the way stylized drawings always do, and just for fun he signs and dates it.
“Good?” he asks, letting Lan Zhan have an unobstructed view. Lan Zhan’s face goes slowly delighted, like a surprised sloth, and he fucking beams at Wei Ying’s three-minute effort, which is to say his face changes in maybe four very tiny ways that nevertheless give the impression of beaming.
“Yes,” he says, reaching out a reverent finger to rest it on the inked curve of the drawing’s lower lip. “Good.” He turns that beaming face on Wei Ying, studies him very carefully, and adds, “Pretty.”
Wei Ying blushes down to his collarbones. “Uh,” he squeaks, “Thanks?” He finds his water glass and chugs it, trying to find his composure in amongst the ice. “I’m glad you like it,” he manages, flustered and tired and really too full of biscuits and ice cream to be able to handle any part of this. “Did you want this one, too?”
Lan Zhan nods and holds his hands out like a noble warrior waiting to have a sword bestowed upon him or some shit like that. Wei Ying carefully tears out the self-portrait and hands it over, wondering how much weirder this night will get, and puts his card at the end of the table for Angie to run. Lan Zhan cuddles back up to his side, very devoted to the shoulder-pillow lifestyle, and wraps both his arms around Wei Ying’s, thumb sweeping in slow circles over the center of one of the purple lotuses. It’s fine. Everything’s fine. Wei Ying shuts his eyes and lets himself drift a bit, because he trusts Angie to keep an eye out for them, and he’s tired.
This is how Lan Huan finds them, probably less than five minutes later, but also it might have been another hour, because Wei Ying dozed a little and ended up in that nonsense almost-dream floaty place. He drags himself out of it when the door opens and scrubs his face with his free hand, squinting at a tall man with nice cheekbones and a great chin as he approaches their booth.
“Wei Ying?” asks the man with the voice from the phone, eyes flicking back and forth as he takes in what has to be a pretty weird tableau.
“Tha’s me,” Wei Ying slurs through a yawn. He wonders for a brief, sleep-deprived moment if the Lan uncle is as hot as his nephews, because these genetics had to come from somewhere, and shakes himself more coherent. “Lan Huan?” he asks, just to confirm.
“Pleased to meet you in person,” Lan Huan says, extending a hand, and Wei Ying shakes it. Good handshake, firm without being a dick-measuring contest, and he drove an hour to come pick up his drunk brother. Wei Ying likes him already.
“I really am sorry I woke you up so late,” he says, taking in that Lan Huan is wearing a jacket over what are clearly pajamas. Just because Wei Ying is frequently awake at horrible hours doesn’t mean he thinks anyone else should be.
“I’m glad you did,” Lan Huan says, way too earnestly, because apparently sincerity is something that runs in their family along with pretty faces, Wei Ying guesses. “I’m also glad that Lan Zhan ended up with you and not someone else,” he adds, and his eyes track over to his brother. Lan Huan’s mouth does a thing like he’s trying not to laugh and he adds, eyes sparkling, “He seems… comfortable.”
Wei Ying looks down at Lan Zhan, who’s still happily hugging his arm, and smiles. “Yeah,” he says, “once he realized I wasn’t trying to get him drunker he turned into a cuddler.” He frowns as that rattles something loose in his foggy brain, looking back up at Lan Huan. “I don’t know how much he had or what his allergy is like, but he’s been really out of it the whole time. He thought I was trying to trick him into more drinking, and I think someone got him like this deliberately and dumped him at my bar? I got some water and tea and a full plate of diner pancakes into him, but you should probably make him drink at least another glass when you get him home. I don’t know--do you know if there’s anyone in his life who’d try to pull that shit deliberately? Was he on a date?”
Lan Huan listens patiently, eyebrows climbing his forehead, and at the last question he frowns. “He didn’t tell me about a date,” he says thoughtfully. “He’s dressed for work, so my guess is one of his co-workers decided to play a ‘prank.’” He rolls his eyes expressively, and Wei Ying can practically hear the air-quotes on “prank.”
“Ah,” Wei Ying says, “the kind of prank where they take advantage of someone’s disability? That kind of prank?”
“I suspect so,” Lan Huan sighs. “It’s not an uncommon reaction when people find out about the allergy. Sometimes they just can’t believe it until they see it for themselves.”
“Fuck those people,” Wei Ying blurts, fighting the instinct to curl more protectively around Lan Zhan, or maybe pull him into his lap entirely.
“Indeed,” Lan Huan agrees. They share a moment of mutual enmity, presumably imagining suitable punishments for whoever did this, and Lan Huan comes back to himself with a shake of his head. “At any rate, I’m glad he had you. I’ll get him out of your hair now.”
Wei Ying nods and ducks his head to peer at Lan Zhan, who may actually be asleep at this point. “Lan Zhan,” he says gently, shaking his arm a bit. “Hey, Lan Zhan, your brother’s here.”
Lan Zhan yawns, nose scrunching up like a kitten, and it’s so cute that Wei Ying is consumed with a nearly irresistible desire to lean down and bite it. Whoa there, nope nope nope, Wei Ying resists mightily, because Lan Zhan is drunk and can’t consent and also his brother is right there.
“Brother?” Lan Zhan asks Wei Ying’s neck, just to reinforce the presence of Lan Huan, who would definitely have words if Wei Ying tried to bite Lan Zhan’s nose, probably starting with, “Hey, what the fuck?” followed by, “Stop assaulting my brother!”
“Yep!” Wei Ying bounces his shoulder a little, successfully annoying Lan Zhan into sitting up so his head stops getting its own personal earthquake. “He’s gonna take you home, okay?”
Lan Zhan takes a moment to focus (mostly) on Wei Ying’s face, and then he slowly turns his head to regard his brother. His face goes warm with recognition, still almost in slow motion, and he reaches a hand out for Lan Huan and almost knocks over Wei Ying’s water glass. “Brother,” he says, half-falling into Wei Ying’s lap.
“A’Zhan,” Lan Huan says, catching Lan Zhan’s hand and helping Wei Ying haul him out of the booth. “I’m glad to see you. Come on, let’s take you home.”
“Home,” Lan Zhan agrees, and between Wei Ying and Lan Huan they get him upright and out to the car without incident.
“This is way easier with you, by the way,” Wei Ying tells Lan Huan as he opens the passenger-side door. “He’s like trying to steer the Titanic.”
“I’m glad you didn’t hit any icebergs,” Lan Huan replies smoothly. Wei Ying laughs into the brisk night air and plops Lan Zhan down on the seat as gently as he can. It’s all going really well, right up until Lan Zhan realizes Wei Ying isn’t also getting in the car, and then he transforms back into octopus form, both hands locked around Wei Ying’s wrist and refusing to let go.
“Home,” he says stubbornly, trying to pull Wei Ying down into the car. Wei Ying, for his part, has braced against the exterior, because even when drunk off his ass it turns out Lan Zhan is strong.
“You’re going home, buddy,” he says, a little helplessly, patting Lan Zhan’s hand with his free one. “Your brother’s taking you home.”
“Home,” Lan Zhan insists, pulling on Wei Ying’s arm, and Wei Ying looks to Lan Huan for a little fuckin' help, maybe?
“Wei Ying’s home is here,” Lan Huan says, crouching next to the open car door, hands on his brother’s knees in a bid to get his attention. “We can’t take him with us, A’Zhan, or he wouldn’t be able to go to his home.”
Lan Zhan has to take a full thirty seconds to process that, and then he looks up at Wei Ying with pleading eyes. “Tomorrow?” he asks, almost begs, and he looks like he might be about to fucking cry and wow, Wei Ying really wants to kiss him and he absolutely is not gonna.
“Sure,” he says, making a wild stab at the right answer. “You can come see me tomorrow, but right now you have to let your brother take you home. Okay?”
Lan Zhan takes another thirty seconds or so to give that the consideration it deserves. “Okay,” he says, and reluctantly releases Wei Ying’s arm, but apparently just so he can grab his hand and squeeze it, eyes searching Wei Ying’s face. “Tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow,” Wei Ying promises, pushing aside any expectation that it’ll ever fucking happen. He squeezes Lan Zhan’s hand reassuringly and lies, “I’ll look for you at the bar tomorrow, all right?”
Lan Zhan must find whatever he was searching for, because he nods unsteadily and drops Wei Ying’s hand. “Tomorrow,” he says, with extreme gravitas, and finally, finally allows Lan Huan to buckle him in and shut the door. Then, and only then, does Lan Huan cover his face and laugh silently into his hands. It sets Wei Ying off, too, and they lean against the car and wheeze together for a wild few minutes.
“I take it he’s not normally like this,” Wei Ying says, when he can breathe again.
“No,” Lan Huan says, wiping his eyes. “Lan Zhan tends to be… reserved. He’s taken a real shining to you.”
“Ah, well,” Wei Ying says, shrugging off the idea of this being anything special, “he’s very drunk.” He stands and stretches, back popping like a firecracker. “You get him home safe, okay? And listen.” He gives Lan Huan a very serious look. “I understand the older brother impulse, and I support it for the most part, but someone basically poisoned him tonight, so try not to roast him too much.”
“I promise I will roast him the appropriate amount,” Lan Huan says, eyes glittering as they walk around to the driver’s side of the car. “I really can’t thank you enough,” he says, grabbing Wei Ying’s hand and pressing something into it as they shake. “This was very kind of you. You get home safe as well, all right?” He’s in the car with the door shut before Wei Ying can fully react to the fact that there’s now a crisp hundred dollar bill in his hand, and the car pulls away from the curb before he can decide to do anything about said hundred dollar bill.
“Hey,” Wei Ying protests to the empty night. No one responds but a rat rustling in a dumpster, and he shakes his head and ducks into the diner to make sure he got his card back from Angie. His apartment is a fifteen minute walk, and his shower takes five minutes if he brushes his teeth at the same time, and Wei Ying collapses into his bed with wet hair at approximately four in the morning, tired and full of carbs and maybe just a little bit lonely.
What a weird night, he thinks, and immediately passes out.