#a concept

and the crux of it all is that you are a good driver. plenty of people have said so. but it's the vice-grip he has on your oh shit handle that makes you question everything.

"you okay, frankie? you look a little tense."

you take your eyes from the road for a second just in time to see the muscle flex in his jaw.

"m'okay, kid. just keep those pretty eyes of yours on the road, yeah?"

you chance another glance at him but he's already watching you, and he's about to give you shit– when your vehicle lurches after merely grazing a curb.

the silence in the car is deafening until you clear your throat and murmur, "well who put that there?"

he just grumbles something to the effect of, "god, I'd hate to be you when you go in for your next alignment."

"my alignment will be fine, frank. that's the first curb i've hit–

"today?" he interjects.

your eye-roll is the cause of his gruff laughter, and it makes you smile in spite of yourself.

"i'll just hit a couple more curbs and it'll align itself right back to normal."

"pfft," he snorts. "not sure that's how it works, kid."

"we'll see about that."

the crater-like pothole you forget to avoid on the way home renders the rest of the ride agonizingly silent.

- wei wuxian tours lan wangji around and introduces him to everyone aka parading and bragging about his cool friend

- lan wangji gets roped into outings with wei wuxian's shidis and he mostly just quietly observes unless wei wuxian talks to him. the other boys feel a bit too intimidated to talk to him. lan wangji admittedly feels a bit jealous seeing the ease of banter and interactions between wei wuxian and his shidis but he just swallows it down and tries not to do anything impolite since he's a guest. it gets shoved to the back of his head eventually anyway as he gets used to the company of everyone (plus, wei wuxian spends most of his stay with just him which he's secretly quite happy about)

- wei wuxian also introduces him to all the girls who had previously told him about how jealous they were that he gets to spend time with lan wangji. the yunmeng girls arent at all intimidated by lan wangji. the rising jealousy inside lwj upon seeing wei wuxian flirt with the girls is quickly replaced by shock as the girls start playfully shoving at each other trying to talk to him or giving him gifts of fruits or flowers or small trinkets, all the while giggling together. wei wuxian was laughing on the side but then someone puts a flower by lan wangji's ear and he starts feeling weird so he decides it's time to save lan wangji.

- wei wuxian brings lan wangji to the lotus lake and tricks him into stealing lotus pods. he starts feeling kinda guilty so he tries to stop him but then lwj himself becomes insistent. the old man who owns the lotus lake comes so he starts trying to block him from seeing lan wangji but he fails at this. the old man catches lan wangji picking lotus pods and wei wuxian is panicking so he starts babbling trying to defend lan wangji but then lan wangji greets the old man and shortly converses politely with him and the old man waves at him to continue and walks away, a small smile on his face. wei wuxian and his shidis are all flabbergasted into silence. his shidis erupt into teasing wei wuxian about how the old man just hates him. getting swept up in the moment, someone starts teasing lwj too about being sneaky. they realize what they said and everyone gets quiet. the shidi who teased lwj starts apologizing but lwj huffs a laugh and nods, holds out his basket of lotus pods for everyone and says "here" and they all return to chattering away happily and eating lotus seeds

- lan wangji volunteers to help jiang yanli cook cause he wants to learn how to make lotus pork rib soup, jiang yanli teases her younger brothers about replacing them with lan er-gongzi because he helps her cook and they both whine about it

- yu ziyuan makes a pointed remark over dinner about how the jiang disciples could learn a thing or two from lan wangji. to which lan wangji responds by vouching for both wei wuxian and jiang cheng's skills after having seen them firsthand when they helped deal with the waterborne abyss at biling lake. wei wuxian and jiang cheng are both stunned. jiang yanli tries not to smile. yu ziyuan passive aggressively remarks that lan qiren indeed raises such Well-mannered disciples. everyone returns to eating in silence. jiang fengmian talks to lan wangji afterwards and apologizes for his wife's words

- wei wuxian and lan wangji mostly spend their time together. jiang cheng actually hung out with them a bit at first but it made him cringe so hard seeing wei wuxian acting all cutesy and giggly with lan wangji so he's decided to save himself from death by cringe. he busies himself with other tasks and hangs out with their other shidis instead

- sometimes, lan wangji joins sword training. he spars with wei wuxian once. no one else wanted to spar with him after that

- one time, lan wangji brings out his guqin to the pavilion to play. he's so immersed in his playing and used to being left alone when he does even when he's playing outdoors at the cloud recesses that he didn't realize a small crowd of people of all ages had formed around him until he looked up. as he's processing what's happening, wei wuxian sits in front of him smiling with his dizi in hand and asks if they can play a song together

- eventually, everyone clocks that something seems to be going on between wei wuxian and lan wangji. no one talks about it, some bets may or may not have started being made.

- lan wangji leaves to return to gusu, promising to write and to visit often. wei wuxian promises likewise brushing lan wangji's hair behind his ear and straightening his forehead ribbon before he departs.

and then suddenly they hit you with "there's something i have to tell you" and it's that this entire time that y'all have been friends or whatever you were they've actually just wanted you to reciprocate feelings that they have for you but like you don't and you have to tell them that you don't not really knowing what that'll do to whatever your relationship was like beforehand? and honestly since they've just told you this you're not even really sure if whatever that relationship was was even real at all or if that was just how you were seeing it and they were just being nice to you because they wanted something from you that you never even wanted and never gave any impression that you wanted?