Rating:

Teen

Category:

M/M

Fandom:

MDZS/CQL

Relationship:

Lan Wangji/Wei Wuxian

Series:

Part of the might as well swim series

Tags:

finger kink, flirting, hand kink, hot tubs, modern au

Stats:

Posted on:

2021-01-03

Words:

3,943

It’s two weeks into summer vacation and Wei Ying is looking to get laid.

Luckily, Nie Huaisang’s invited him to his pool party. “A small get together,” he’d said, “for everyone from our high school class.” The Nies are rich, with a huge sprawling estate and bowling alleys and pools and saunas and everything—but so is basically every other family in the neighborhood. It’s a bit of a competition, a bit of a circlejerk, and Wei Ying’s never cared about the politics of it all.

But he cares today about the connections. And hopefully the connections to Wei Ying’s dick.

Like, okay, honestly? Maybe a pool party with a bunch of people you used to go to high school with isn’t the best place to get laid. But he’s been brimming with this energy and this horniness that even though he’s a virgin, he really wants to get off with someone else right now, someone that’s not just porn noises coming from his phone and his right hand. Plus he kind of wants to get it over with right away. So he doesn’t get performance anxiety for the person he’s with in the end.

So it’s to Nie Huaisang’s pool party he goes to, wearing a sheer black shirt and booty shorts. Metrosexuality is in right now, and Wei Ying feels good. He’s going to get laid, he knows it.

He arrives fashionably late, as one does, red sunglasses perched on top of his forehead. Nie Huaisang greets him with an excited, “Wei-xiong! It’s been too long!” and a tackle and a hug.

Wei Ying hugs him back. “You smell like alcohol,” he comments, grinning and crinkling his nose. “Why do you smell like alcohol?”

“I’ve been wondering the same thing.” Nie Mingjue, Huaisang’s older brother, appears at his side, eyebrows furrowed into a disapproving scowl.

Huaisang laughs. “Oh, da-ge, hi,” he says sheepishly. “I was just, uh, I may have been passing beers around.”

“Huaisang,” Nie Mingjue growls.

“You know what, I gotta go,” Huaisang says to Wei Ying. “I think I hear Wen Ning calling my name!” And ignoring his brother completely, he flees to somewhere else in the backyard.

Wei Ying giggles as Nie Mingjue stomps around the rest of the party, maybe to find the other alcohol perpetrators. He goes to the long snack table near the deck, absently grabbing a thing of juice and plucking a wasabi pea into his mouth. He and Huaisang were in similar friend groups at school, but there’s a lot of people he doesn’t recognize, too. It must be a joint pool party between both brothers. Especially with the way Nie Mingjue gives up on looking for any kids holding cans of beer and instead struts over to a group of people Wei Ying doesn’t recognize, people who look older, still shirtless. Wei Ying tilts his head in thought. There are a few girls there, but also guys, and he kind of recently discovered that he likes men as much as he likes women. Maybe…

He’s grabbing another handful of wasabi peas and wondering if he could hook up with any of these strangers when there’s suddenly a deep, familiar voice, saying, “Wei Ying.”

Wei Ying turns. “Lan Zhan!” he says, and is almost blown away by the boy he sees.

Because… well it hasn’t been that long, only a couple of years, and he’s pretty sure Lan Zhan actually doesn’t look that different from when he last saw him. But when Wei Ying thinks of Lan Zhan he usually thinks of when they were thirteen and partnered up for a school project and Lan Zhan got annoyed because Wei Ying wanted to spend all of the class time they were supposed to be working on it chattering endlessly about himself. Wei Ying had compromised and decided to ask Lan Zhan fun, invasive questions about him instead.

They still got a perfect score on the project in the end.

But this Lan Zhan in front of him is… a man. Not the thirteen-year-old kid with the straight bangs and impassive-turned-furious face in his mind’s eye. This Lan Zhan has a couple of centimeters on him, loose white hoodie over broad shoulders, and casual light blue swim shorts on, showing off his big, strong legs. His hair is falling loosely over his face, and his skin is a bit damp like he’s been swimming. His cheekbones are sharp and his jaw is pronounced, making him, overall, a hunk.

“Lan Zhan, it’s been too long!” Wei Ying ropes him into a hug—then immediately lets him go, wincing. “Oh, sorry, I forgot you don’t like touching.”

“No.” Lan Zhan swallows. “I do not mind.”

“Well then,” Wei Ying says, and smirks. “If you say so.” And he tackles Lan Zhan in the biggest, most obnoxious hug he’s ever given anyone in his life.

Lan Zhan, for his part, doesn’t protest—he even reciprocates to an extent, hands on Wei Ying’s waist. “How are you?” he says, when Wei Ying finally lets him go. And it sounds like a genuine question, too, not one of those things people say just to make conversation.

“I’m doing great,” Wei Ying says. The wasabi peas are still in his palm; he pops all of them into his mouth. “Just got here, really, so I haven’t had a chance to dip my toes in the water yet.”

Lan Zhan casts his gaze over the yard, the pool, the jacuzzi, the hot tub. “Would you like to join me in the hot tub?” he asks.

Wei Ying perks up. “I’d be delighted.”

*

Wei Ying sticks a toe into the water then yelps. “That’s hotter than I thought it’d be,” he says with a laugh.

Beside him, Lan Zhan’s already sunken into the tub. He’d taken off his hoodie, revealing a large pale expanse of toned chest and what looks to be an eight-pack. Wei Ying tried to convince himself that he wasn’t looking too hard, but he can’t help himself. You can’t just put something like that, art like that in front of Wei Ying and expect him not to stare. It’s like bringing him to the Great Wall of China then going, okay, now don’t look at it.

Lan Zhan’s much closer to him than the Great Wall of China, though, because even in the Nie’s five-foot-long hot tub, it feels like he and Lan Zhan are pressed thigh to thigh. The most that they’re touching is maybe a brush of their feet beneath the water as he settles down, and yet being with Lan Zhan now feels like there’s no air in the room. Or, rather, in the hot tub.

“Comfortable?” Lan Zhan asks.

“Totally,” Wei Ying answers immediately. Though it’s not wholly untrue—the hot water feels good against his skin, seeping into his bones. “Aahhhh, this hot tub is great actually. Lan Zhan has the best ideas.”

“Mn.” Lan Zhan turns his face, ears red.

“So,” Wei Ying says, from where he’s lying down. Lan Zhan is staring valiantly at his face. “How have you been, Lan Zhan? Getting all 100s? Got your job? Got yourself a girlfriend?”

“No,” Lan Zhan says.

“No to which one? The grades? The girlfriend? All three?”

Lan Zhan doesn’t answer; he’s turned his face away again.

“Lan Zhaaaan.” Wei Ying pokes Lan Zhan’s toe with his own under the water. He feels Lan Zhan jolt—feels it, doesn’t see it, even though he’s watching Lan Zhan like a hawk now. “Which one is it? Tell me!”

Lan Zhan says, “Guess.”

“Guess?” Wei Ying squawks with laughter. “Does Lan Zhan play guessing games now? Okay, okay, fine, you got me Lan Zhan. I’ll guess.”

He thinks out loud. “Hmm… It’s probably not the job one, because companies would be stupid to turn you down. They’re probably begging to hire you. And then the grades… We were both valedictorians, so don’t tell me you’ve slacked off in your academics!”

Lan Zhan’s impassive face gives away nothing.

“So that leaves the girlfriend… but I can hardly believe that one too,” Wei Ying says with a pout. “How could you not have a girlfriend? Look at you! I mean, I know you didn’t have a girlfriend in high school, but that was high school. Don’t tell me girls haven’t asked you out.”

“No,” Lan Zhan says, then stops and seems to consider something. “They have.”

“But you don’t have a girlfriend?” Wei Ying guesses.

Lan Zhan shakes his head.

It hits Wei Ying like a stroke of inspiration. “Wait! Do you have a boyfriend?”

This isn’t a conversation he’d ever imagined he’d have with Lan Zhan, when he was a teenager. He’d been convinced for most of the time they’d known each other, when they were younger, that Lan Zhan was boring and just funny to irritate. Only in the last year of high school when they were made valedictorians together and spent a bit more time together in the way that newly maturing young adults sometimes do when they realize that high school doesn’t matter, did Wei Ying realize there was a bit more under Lan Zhan’s frosty, pretentious exterior. Beneath that was learning that Lan Zhan liked rising to Wei Ying’s bait as pissed as he might seem otherwise. They spent a lot of time in the student council break room sniping at each other for the smallest things, Wei Ying giddy about it all.

But still—despite this, Lan Zhan had always seemed untouchable to the female student body. Wei Ying hadn’t factored in the idea that he could be gay.

So it’s a disappointment when Lan Zhan purses his lips and says, “No.”

“What!” Wei Ying straightens up in the hot tub and shakes his head. “I can’t believe it. You’re single? Please tell me boys have asked you out too.”

Lan Zhan seems to be struggling.

“Yes,” he says finally.

“Aha! Desired by men and women,” Wei Ying says smugly. “I’m jealous, though, Lan Zhan.”

Lan Zhan’s eyebrows fly up. “Jealous of what?”

“That you’re so desired and yet you choose to be single.” Wei Ying sinks back into the hot tub, in mock despair. “What a privileged life you must live.”

Lan Zhan looks him up and down. But he’s definitely not checking him out—Lan Zhan doesn’t do that.

“Wei Ying is quite desirable, too,” he says.

“Ah, Lan Zhan.” The blush that creeps up Wei Ying’s cheeks is totally involuntary, and also excruciatingly embarrassing. “You flatter me. But I’m single too. You know, I just came to Nie Huaisang’s pool party to get laid?”

He regrets it as soon as the words fly out of his mouth—Lan Zhan doesn’t need to hear that!

Lan Zhan’s mouth tightens. “Oh.”

“Not like! You know,” Wei Ying blabbers. “I thought I would—I thought what I wore was pretty provocative, but now you got me into the hot tub so I can’t show off.”

Lan Zhan mumbles something that sounds like, “Good,” under his breath.

Wei Ying tilts his head, scoots towards Lan Zhan on the plastic bench. “What was that?”

Lan Zhan meets his eyes. “What you were wearing was provocative,” he says.

“So you agree.” Wei Ying huffs. “I could be getting laid now if it wasn’t for you.”

“You may leave the hot tub anytime you wish,” Lan Zhan says.

“Now you’re just tricking me into staying here longer with you.” Wei Ying crosses his arms. “Well it won’t work!”

But he stays in the hot tub. They’re only a couple of feet apart now, and Lan Zhan is watching him warily, like he’s afraid what Wei Ying might do.

Wei Ying peeks over at him, then giggles. “I’m joking,” he says, and elbows Lan Zhan. “I like spending time with Lan Zhan! It’s a good thing no one wants to come into this tub with us.”

“I believe they are playing a drinking game.” Lan Zhan looks pointedly over at the crowd.

It does seem, in fact, that Huaisang has managed not only to deter his brother from searching for the illicitly procured alcohol, and instead has egged his brother into a game of beer pong against two other guys who are laughing from the other side of the ping-pong table. All three of them are shirtless while the rest of the party is cheering them on. Huaisang waves his new can of beer and yells, “Go da-ge!” and Mingjue shouts, “Where did you get that?” Then one of the guys he’s playing with chucks the ping-pong ball at his cheek and he growls and tries to throw it back. The guy ducks and it bounces on the concrete. Mingjue shouts again.

Lan Zhan makes a small noise beside Wei Ying. “It looks like I will have to drive me and my brother back home,” he says.

“Oh,” Wei Ying says. He looks closer at one of the guys playing against Mingjue—not the one who’d thrown the ping pong ball, but the other one, a bit taller and almost as bulky as Mingjue. He does have a similar likeness to Lan Zhan. “That’s your brother?”

“Mn.” Lan Zhan nods.

“You have such a fun-loving brother,” Wei Ying says thoughtfully. “Who would’ve guessed? But! I think I like Lan Zhan best, though.”

Lan Zhan does not look at him. His ears are red again.

“Seriously, I still can’t believe you’re single,” Wei Ying continues. “With boys and girls asking you out, and you turning them down… You’re breaking so many hearts! Does that mean you have someone you like, though?”

Aha. Lan Zhan gets a look on his face, like a deer caught in headlights.

Wei Ying grins. “You do! You do, you have someone that you like,” he says, and shakes Lan Zhan’s bare arm excitedly. “Who is it? Tell me, Lan Zhan, please?”

“You,” Lan Zhan says, “can guess.”

“Oh my god, this again.” But Wei Ying laughs—Lan Zhan being full of surprises is another one of the reasons he likes Lan Zhan so much. “Okay, um. Is it a boy or a girl?”

Lan Zhan does not answer. Probably because he’s smart like Wei Ying and knows that however he answers, it’ll narrow down all of Wei Ying’s possible guesses by approximately half.

Wei Ying whines, “You can’t just tell me to guess and then not answer!”

“Boy,” Lan Zhan replies.

“Ooh.” For some reason it’s not a surprise, although Wei Ying had kind of been hoping otherwise, because Lan Zhan liking a girl would just be—safer, for some reason. But a boy, and Wei Ying’s a boy, and it makes him feel…

He ignores the vinegar under his tongue.

“A boy,” Wei Ying says, and taps his chin thoughtfully. “A boy. Is it Nie Huaisang?”

Lan Zhan shakes his head.

“Nie Mingjue?” Wei Ying grins. “I can see that, your brother’s hot older friend, coming over all the time…”

“It is not Nie Mingjue,” Lan Zhan says.

“Okay, okay.” Wei Ying giggles. Lan Zhan and Nie Mingjue would look good together, but he feels kind of relieved. Who could compete with that?

“Is it someone that I know?” Wei Ying checks.

Lan Zhan seems reluctant when he nods.

“But I know a lot of people! Hmm.” Wei Ying thinks more, accidentally scooting closer. Their thighs are touching under the water now. It’s a bit of a distraction, but if he moves away, then it’ll draw attention to it. Or maybe Lan Zhan will think that he doesn’t want to be so close to him, which is not true.

He goes back to the matter at hand. “Is it Mo Xuanyu?”

“No.”

“Is it Wen Ning?”

Lan Zhan slides his gaze over to the pool where everyone’s now gathered, Wen Ning curled up on the steps by Nie Huaisang’s feet.

“No.”

“Is it Jiang Cheng?” Wei Ying asks, making a face.

Minutely, Lan Zhan also scrunches his nose. “No.”

“Oh, good, I would’ve caused a riot if it was,” Wei Ying says. “But I should’ve known better, Lan Zhan has taste. I mean, Jiang Cheng’s fine, I guess, if you like Jiang Chengs.”

Lan Zhan says, “I was under the impression he was your best friend.”

“He is!” Wei Ying says. “You know, in that sense that you’ve known your best friend since you were practically a baby so the idea of—well.” He wants to say the idea of anyone liking Jiang Cheng is weird but it’s not, really, because Wen Qing had liked Jiang Cheng in high school and Wei Ying had tried to hook them up. They go to the same university and are in the same focus of study now, and even are at the same internship—which both of them had told Wei Ying about, and Wei Ying had not told the other. It’s part of why Jiang Cheng hasn’t come back for summer break.

He wonders if Wen Qing still has that crush on him.

But it doesn’t matter, because Lan Zhan doesn’t like Jiang Cheng, and that’s all that matters. “You should just tell me, Lan Zhan,” he whines. “Why don’t you just tell me?”

“Because,” Lan Zhan says, then pauses. “It is a surprise.”

A laugh bubbles out of Wei Ying’s throat. “What does that even mean?”

“It means it is a surprise,” Lan Zhan says again, and Wei Ying laughs and laughs.

*

The afternoon gives way to evening, oranges and indigos smattering across the sky. Some people have left the party for other engagements; Nie Huaisang blasts bad pop music on a radio while his brother turns on the pool lights and the fairy lights, dotting the backyard in more stars under the dark sky. Food had been brought out, passed around, like a reverse potluck.

Wei Ying and Lan Zhan are still in the hot tub.

“I feel like a prune,” Wei Ying says.

Lan Zhan says, “Mn,”

It’s been long enough that it feels natural for Wei Ying to just reach under the water and grab Lan Zhan’s hand. He pulls it out. “You don’t even have wrinkles on your fingers!” he says. “What kind of creature are you, Lan Zhan? Are you even human?”

“No,” Lan Zhan intones.

Wei Ying laughs. “You have nice fingers, though,” he says, and spreads them apart. “I remember you used to play guqin and piano in school! Do you still play?”

Lan Zhan nods. “I am studying music composition,” he replies.

“Oh, of course, how perfect for you.” Wei Ying runs his fingers over the long length of Lan Zhan’s, the knuckles, the pads.

This is… weird and definitely not what normal friends do, especially not sort of friends you haven’t seen in a couple of years. But Lan Zhan hasn’t told him to stop, so it must be fine.

Lan Zhan is watching their hands, too. “Wei Ying,” he says, maybe a warning tone in his voice.

It makes Wei Ying kind of want to—do more, act out. “You have really nice hands, Lan Zhan,” he says. “Like, really big hands. I think if you had a boyfriend you could do him really well with these fingers, you know? Or just show them to him. Who could resist these hands? They’re so big, they can probably wrap around anyone’s waist.” He presses them apart again. He kind of wants to stick them in his mouth, but he knows that will definitely be too much.

“Can they?” he asks. “Do you know if your hands are big enough to wrap around the waist of the boy you like?”

“Would you like to find out?” Lan Zhan asks.

“I—what?”

Wei Ying raises his head, looks up. He’d been so focused on distracting himself with Lan Zhan’s hands that he hadn’t realized that Lan Zhan’s eyes have now turned dark, darker than before in the low light of the backyard. They’re hungry, and predatory, and—and looking directly at Wei Ying.

Wei Ying laughs nervously. “Lan Zhan, what are you talking about?”

Lan Zhan takes his hands out from between Wei Ying’s palms, and slips them lower. Against Wei Ying’s body.

“What do you think I mean?”

His fingers are so close to Wei Ying’s waist. Ghosting against his rib cage. So close to pressing in, digging in, leaving bruises.

Actually, Wei Ying’s pretty sure he will get laid tonight.

“Lan Zhan,” he says quietly. “The boy you like… is it me?”

In response, Lan Zhan closes the gap between them. What had been so far apart—well, five feet initially, only centimeters now—is closed into none as their mouths meet into a deep, harsh kiss. Wei Ying can feel the heat of Lan Zhan’s breath between them, in his mouth as Lan Zhan grips his body beneath the water, dragging him closer, skin against skin in the low rumbles of the hot tub. The bubbles beneath their feet, against their knees as Wei Ying parts his lips again, feels Lan Zhan meanly bite his lower lip, exhale between another kiss, the bridge of his nose against Wei Ying’s own, short nails scraping along Wei Ying’s stomach—

Then there’s a noise, a small putt-putt beneath them, and…

The bubbles stop.

Actually, the entire hot tub stops.

The water around them is clear and still and they can see the lower halves of their body clear under the moonlight. Wei Ying is gratified to see that he isn’t the only one who’s become hard at just a mere kiss, and by the sizable bulge under Lan Zhan’s shorts, he has a feeling he’s going to have a very eventful night.

But they’re stopped from their kissing when there’s a squawk behind them. Nie Huaisang is marching towards them, still a little tipsy, robe over his shoulders, waving his hands dramatically.

“You guys!” he accuses. “You—I’ve been okay with leaving you two here all day, but did you just break my hot tub?”

“We didn’t!” Wei Ying protests. “It was a total coincidence, we just started kissing—”

“Don’t lie to me, I can see your boner from Mars,” Nie Huaisang says.

“You’re not on Mars, Huaisang,” Wei Ying says. “How drunk are you?”

“Not drunk enough.” Nie Huaisang bends down near the concrete around the hot tub as if he can hear the pipes through the ground. Then he peers into the hot tub, then shrieks dramatically and covers his eyes. “Really not drunk enough! I didn’t need to see that.”

“Then don’t look,” Lan Zhan tells him.

Nie Huaisang stands back up and huffs. “I can’t believe you two,” he says, crossing his arms and looking very pointedly at their faces. “Your flirting actually broke my hot tub.”

“It didn’t,” Wei Ying tries to say.

But Lan Zhan curls his arm around Wei Ying’s body. “It did,” he agrees.

And he actually sounds kind of smug.

“You guys,” Nie Huaisang says long-sufferingly.

But Wei Ying doesn’t care about that. He giggles against Lan Zhan’s neck and peeks up at him. It’s a bit like seeing Lan Zhan for the first time—this Lan Zhan who likes him, of all the people he’s turned down—and seeing him all over again, the boy Wei Ying loudly introduced himself to when he was nine and declared that he was going to be his friend, no matter what it took.

“Wanna get out of here?” Wei Ying asks him.

Lan Zhan threads their hands together and begins to pull them up. His small smile is brighter than the night sky above them. “Wherever you want to go.”