#stuff tippy wrote

The book falls useless between Lan Wangji’s thighs. Poetry is forgotten. Lan Wangji stares.

As he talks to the girl, this beautiful boy glances around curiously at the bus around him. His eyes are dark, and they dart around as though trying to take in every detail at once. For a terrifying instant, those eyes land on him. But then they are gone again. Lan Wangji is glad. He doesn't want to disturb a bird in the wild.

Then, the boy’s gaze is on him again. And this time it stays, for two endless seconds. 

Thankfully, that glance, too, is short-lived, and he returns to looking at and chatting with the girl, who must—must!—be his girlfriend, although they don’t hold each other or lean in the way Lan Wangji has seen lovers do on campus. What girl wouldn’t want to be the girlfriend of this rare bird? Lan Wangji doesn’t know why this irritates him, but it does. He picks up the book where it lies limp and shuffles the pages, trying to find where he left off.

Movement in his peripheral vision. Lan Wangji looks up. The beautiful bird is getting out of his seat, speaking one last word to the girl, and—what?—is heading to the back of the bus where Lan Wangji sits. A flood of panic comes over Lan Wangji, like when he was at that violin recital at age 10 and his violin was hopelessly out of tune. Don’t let him notice me. Don’t let me be perceived.

No such luck. The boy stops right in front of Lan Wangji’s seat and locks eyes with him. “She’s cute, isn’t she?” he says.

He might well be speaking Arabic for all that Lan Wangji understands these words. “What?”

“Mianmian.” The boy hooks a thumb forward, toward his companion. “I saw you looking at her. She’s available, you know. If you like, you can come up and I’ll introduce you. She’s a sweetheart."

The boy thinks he was staring at his friend. This realization dawns on Lan Wangji slowly, a sluggish sunrise.  “No, thank you,” he says.

“Okay,” says the boy sunnily. “Thought I’d ask. Have a good one!”

And he turns with a flourish and heads back to his seat. 

The bus stops again, Lan Wangji’s jerked forward in his seat. The shock breaks him out of the daze he’d fallen into. The boy talked to him! Lan Wangji got to hear his voice! A lovely, musical tenor. His vowels were resonant and clear. Crisp consonants. He danced through the words as much as spoke them.

Delight soars through Lan Wangji, and then he attempts to remember what he said.

Lan Wangji was caught staring. Which couldn’t be helped because he was staring. Was, and still is, because his eyes have remained fixed, stubbornly, on this boy since the moment he turned his back. Lan Wangji is not used to having such little control over his body. But his eyes keep telling him this boy is a feast, and he must drink him in for as long as he can. After all, once the bus arrives at his stop, or theirs, he will likely never see him again.

Somehow this feels like impending doom.

The boy glances back at him once more in mid-conversation with Mianmian. Who is not the boy’s girlfriend, and that’s a relief. Lan Wangji is not entirely sure why. His brain is racing to catch up to his heart and his fascinated eyes.

Leaning in toward Mianmian, the boy says something that makes her laugh, and then he glances again toward the back of the bus and Lan Wangji. When their eyes meet, he offers a blinding smile. He says one more thing to Mianmian, and then he’s up again, making his way to Lan Wangji’s seat one more time.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to introduce you?” he says sunnily. “You’re staring pretty hard.” 

Lan Wangji is, but not at Mianmian. His eyes are full of this wild bird, so close, and his hands itch to reach out and move his hand across the collarbone that juts out from his loose T-shirt, just to see what his skin feels like there.

Oh. He wants to touch. That’s new. Lan Wangji doesn't think he’s ever felt such a strange urge before. His mind is still scrambling to find out what it means. 

“You know,” the boy says, “most people would find that creepy.”

Lan Wangji takes in a tense gulp of breath. He had been so enthralled, he hadn’t thought abut what the boy would think of his staring. He forces some words into his throat. “I was not—”

“Oh, I know you’re not,” the boy says. “I can tell. Mianmian thinks so too.” Had Mianmian also turned to look at him? Lan Wangji hadn’t noticed. “It’s really okay if you want to meet her. You look kind of nervous, but she’s good with it. Wei Ying, by the way.” And wonder of wonders, this boy holds out his hand for a handshake. 

Lan Wangji’s brain, already running like molasses, shudders to a halt entirely. He gets to touch?

“Lan—” What is his name? Lan Wangji has momentarily forgotten. “Lan Zhan.” His hand slips into Wei Ying’s and this is the most perfect second of his life.

Wei Ying is warm. 

Which is to say, he’s real.

This boy who had appeared to Lan Wangji like a bird, like some otherworldly creature, has a warm body and a name. Wei Ying. 

Wei Ying’s gaze flutters down to the book in Lan Wangji’s hand. “Are you a student?”  he asks. “Mianmian and I are at Gusu. The campus is really nice, but the grading’s strict. I’m surprised they even let me in.”

Lan Wangji’s heart is racing. Now that Wei Ying is a real person, Lan Wangji had better act normal around him. “I, too.” he says. “Gusu.” He could have strung that together a bit more artfully. 

Wei Ying leans against the pole to steady himself as he gazes at Lan Wangji. “Oh, really?  Sweet. Maybe we’ll see you in classes one of these days.”

If Lan Wangji had Wei Ying in his class, he might never hear a word the professor says. “Perhaps.”

“What are you studying? What is that? Poetry?” Wei Ying leans forward to take a look at the book. “I freaking love poetry. Especially the dirty kind.” He laughs, and Lan Wangji catches his breath at the beautiful sound of it. “Are you a literature major?”

“No,” Lan Wangji says, and his brain is awake now, thank God, even though every half-second his heart skips several beats. “I’m in the music program.”

“Oh, wow!” Wei Ying’s eyes widen. “Wow, I’m so jealous. I’m in social sciences. Mianmian, too. Some of the classes are so awfully boring. But that’s what you’ve gotta do to be a social worker. I’m gonna help people for a living.”

Wei Ying has warm skin, and a name, and a purpose. Lan Wangji has never before had the urge to just reach up and pull a man into his lap before, but it would be so nice if he could. 

“Well, I better get back to Mianmian. This bus ride is so long. Why is West Campus housing like in the next town over? Argh. See you, Lan Zhan!”

And then Wei Ying is scampering back to his seat just in time to reclaim it before another patron can take it away.

With his brain fully working again, Lan Wangji takes a moment to summarize what’s happened. Physically, he knows this is attraction. He’s attracted to Wei Ying. It feels, though, like so much more than that. He can’t find a word that encompasses the enormity of how he’s felt ever since Wei Ying got on the bus. He knows it’s not love, because love is something you build and that comes with time, but crush feels like an inadequate word for this much emotion. 

He may not have a word for what he feels, but he knows what he wants. He wants to follow Wei Ying off the bus. Into his boring social science classes. Into the quad, where Lan Wangji wants to layer his body over Wei Ying’s and kiss him in the grass. He wants to feel Wei Ying’s weight on him, and sleep beside him, and have him there every day when Lan Wangji wakes up. This boy with whom he’s exchanged maybe a few dozen words. This much wanting is not a crush. Whatever it is, it has completely swallowed him up.

As he watches, still helpless to look away, Wei Ying chats with Mianmian. They both look back toward him quite a bit. And then Mianmian says something, tilting her head, that makes Wei Ying stop and sit there with his mouth hanging open. He looks at Lan Wangji. He looks at Mianmian. The two talk for another minute. 

A familiar building catches Lan Wangji’s eye as the bus passes it. Oh no. Lan Wangji’s stop is coming up. Pretty soon he’ll have to take his eyes off Wei Ying and exit, and while he may meet him again on campus, he may not. Ever. It’s too tragic for Lan Wangji to stand. He clenches a fist around his poetry book.

He’s so busy contemplating the sorrow of this moment that he almost misses the fact that Wei Ying is heading back to talk to him again. Wei Ying’s cheeks are slightly rosy, and he’s all the more appealing for it.

“Hey, uh, Lan Zhan,” he says, “Mianmian thinks maybe you weren’t staring at her. You were staring at me.” His cheeks flush all the more. “Is that … is that true?”

Heat rises to Lan Wangji’s own face in answer. Without thinking to, he nods.

Wei Ying just stares at him for a moment, a taste of Lan Wangji’s own medicine, and he deserves it, he’s made this Wei Ying so uncomfortable. He should have had better control of himself. He should never have--

“Give me your hand,” Wei Ying says. And then, when Lan Wangji doesn’t move, he repeats it.

Lan Wangji holds out his hand, not sure what to expect.

Wei Ying grabs him by the wrist, pulls out a ball-point pen, and scrawls a phone number across Lan Wangji’s palm.

“Call me,” he says with a smile.

And he runs to the front of the bus, Mianmian rising and following behind him, as they reach Lan Wangji’s stop.

Lan Wangji is too stunned to move and misses the stop entirely.

That’s okay, though. He can always walk from the next stop. It’s not so far. The only thing he regrets is being unable to follow Wei Ying further. He has his number, though. And he has time. 

Oh, this is much better than Bitty was expecting. “Well, that’s good!” he says. “That’s progress. You two should try to be friends.”

“No, no.” Dex’s cheeks are a faint pink. “I don’t mean as a friend.” He lowers his voice again as though he didn’t just check to see if they were alone. “I mean I might like him like him.”

Bitty has learned that at Samwell, any expectations one might have of others’ sexual orientations should be chucked out a window upon arrival. He didn’t see this one coming, but maybe neither did Dex. “Oh, okay! That’s good too, I guess. So … was there something you wanted to ask me about it?”

“I don’t know.” Dex’s hand, resting on the table, tightens. “I don’t know. Maybe I just wanted to say it out loud to somebody. I don’t know.”

He looks like he’s going to say I don’t know a dozen times, so Bitty decides to direct the conversation. “Well, how did you figure this out?”

The hand on the table clenches into a fist. “It’s so frustrating! I just happened to pass by one day and he was just sitting there, under a tree, reading. It was sunset and something about the light—I don’t know! All of a sudden he looked hot. Why is this happening to me? What crime did I commit in a past life?”

Bitty hasn’t told the team about him and Jack yet. He feels a swell of pity for Dex, who is not responding to this liking-someone thing the way Bitty really feels he should. “Now, now,” he chides, “Liking someone should feel good! Try not to stress. Try to … enjoy it? If you can.” 

The timer for the muffins goes off then, and Bitty turns to the oven to check on their progress. Behind him, he can practically hear the gears of Dex’s mind turning, grinding over and over trying to process the idea. At last Dex grumbles, “Sounds fake.”  A moment of silence, and then— “But I’ll try. Just, Bitty?”

“Mm-hm?” 

“Whatever you do, don’t tell him.”

----

Two days later, Bitty enters the kitchen to discover Nursey there, running his fingers through his hair so obsessively it’s getting unkempt and frizzy. He does not look at all like his usual “chill” self. “Something bothering you, Nursey?” Bitty asks as he pulls some ingredients from the cupboard. 

“No,” answers Nursey immediately. Followed by “Yeah. Kind of.”

“You want to talk about it?”

“No,” he says again. “Maybe. Yes.”

Bitty pours out a measure of flour into a glass bowl. “Well, go ahead!”

“It’s about Poindexter.”

A sense of deja vu stills Bitty for a minute. He opens the sugar canister. “What about him? Did something happen?”

“No. Um…”

Bitty can’t help but smile. “I’m starting to have trouble believing you when you say no.”

“N… uh.” Nursey frizzes up his hair again. “Yeah. So. We’re in the showers after practice this morning, right?  And I’m not, like, looking at him. I just kind of glance over and you know, it’s Dex, right? He looks like Dex. Not super ripped, but his shoulders are just.. Anyway, I’m still not looking, but he’s got his eyes closed and he’s smiling a little like he’s got some kind of a secret and…”

Nursey trails off. Bitty waits a beat, then asks tentatively, “...and you want to write a poem about him now?”

“No! Stop making me say no when I don’t mean it.” Nursey leans forward and bangs his frizzy head on the table. “Anyway. He just looked hot. Like, even his dumb ears looked hot.”

He looks at Bitty as if pleading for the next words to come from him. Bitty, meanwhile, is trying very hard to keep from laughing. “So, in other words…” he begins.

“NO!” It’s the loudest no yet. “I’m gonna say it myself.” 

Getting up from his seat, Nursey juts out his chin and looks pointedly at a spot just behind Bitty on the kitchen all. “Anyway. I thought. Thought maybe I like him. There, I said it. Got it off my chest. Chill. Thanks, Bits. Whatever you do, don’t tell him about this. Chill. Bye.” 

And before Bitty can say another word, Nursey is gone like the proverbial wind.

----

Dex corners him outside the locker room and hisses. “Bitty. Did you see his takeaway at the end of the first period there? What am I supposed to do? He keeps on being hot.”

It takes a moment to realize Dex is talking about Nursey. “Well…”

“Agh. So frustrating!” Dex punches a wall. “Don’t tell him anything, OK?” And he’s stalking down the hall and gone.

----

Nursey sidles up to him in the dining hall. “Yo, Bits, did you see Dex during that charity skate? How he was with that little girl? Man, I’m telling you, he was so stupid cute. The way he smiled at her… anyway. Don’t tell him I said anything.”

----

Dex, the day after a kegster. “Bitty, I can’t seem to get rid of this stupid crush. The taddies got so drunk last night and Nursey like deposits them on the couch and then takes each one of them home last night on his back. Like fucking Superman.”

Bitty consults his severely lacking comic book knowledge. “Does Superman take home drunk college students?”

“Like SUPERMAN,” Dex repeats. “How am I supposed to stop liking him? He can’t do anything normally. Shit, it’s like, hard to breathe around him sometimes. I’m gonna give myself an asthma attack.”

“Maybe,” Bitty ventures, “you should..”

“Anyway. Thanks for listening. Don’t tell him.”

----

Nursey, pulling Bitty aside after team breakfast. “Bitty, I am so fucked! I am so motherfucking fucked!”

“Dex?” 

“You’re goddamn right, Dex! After the game yesterday he told me my forecheck was ‘pretty fantastic.’ He used those words! My heart was beating like a million miles an hour! But also I had just been on the ice for over a minute. Still! How do I stop liking him more every time I see him?”

Bitty tries not to sigh. “Maybe you should think about…”

“Okay. Okay.” Nursey pushes out three breaths like he’s a woman in labor. “It’s good. I’m good. Just needed to say that. Thanks, Bitty. Don’t tell him.”

----

When Dex enters the Haus kitchen next, he sees Nursey sitting there and points at him like he’s picking a suspect out of a lineup. “What’s he doing here?”

Bitty slaps a wooden spoon against his open palm. “Listen, you two,” he declares. “I am not going to say a thing. I’m going to leave this kitchen and the two of you are going to have a conversation and say what’s on your minds. Got it?” He smiles. “Okay, good luck!”

And he marches out of the kitchen and toward the front door. As he goes, he overhears:

“Bitty, how can you do this to me?”

“Bitty, you traitor—”

“Wait. Wait, what have you been saying to him?”

“Me? What have you been telling him?”

“Uh.”

“Um.”

“Shit.”

-------

“What’s wrong.” Lan Zhan asks again—no, it isn’t an ask. It’s a demand. Wei Ying has to say something. He opens his mouth with no idea what’s about to come out.

“What are we even doing?” is what he hears, in his own voice, sounding a bit too plaintive. “What is this?”

Lan Zhan answers as Lan Zhan always does: straightforwardly. “You called it Netflix and chill.”

Wei Ying has to laugh a little, a bitter sound. “I did, didn’t I?” he says. “What an idiot I am. Lan Zhan, you know what that means, right?”

“I looked it up.”

“So you get that it means that we’re just fooling around. We’re not. You know. Boyfriends or anything.”

He nods. “I am aware.”

“And that’s okay with you?”

Lan Zhan doesn’t pause. It’s not a pause. But it’s the barest whisper of a shadow of a pause. “I am okay with whatever Wei Ying wants,” he says.

Can he infer some hope in that not-quite-a-pause? A part of Wei Ying’s brain wants to go there. But whenever he thinks he’s ready to say something, his mind rebels. You’re not good for him and you know that. He deserves so much better.

Wei Ying doesn’t have low self-esteem, as a rule. But right now he just wants to shrink down into the couch cushions and stay lodged there forever, like months-old gum. 

There’s warmth on his cheek. Lan Zhan’s hand is there. He’s turning Wei Ying’s face upward, not letting him hide in the comfort of his chest. Wei Ying is trapped, staring at him, those golden eyes burning into his own. His heart is pounding, and he’s acutely aware of every plane and angle on Lan Zhan’s face. Something about it loosens his tongue.

“Suppose I wanted--” he starts.

At the same time, Lan Zhan says, “Is this what--”

Silence. Any other time, Wei Ying would laugh, declare a jinx, tell Lan Zhan he owes him a dollar. Now, he can’t. The spark of courage that had momentarily opened his lips has died out.

Thank God, Lan Zhan is willing to go on. “Is this what you want?” he asks. “Do you want something else?”

His thumb rubs a slow caress into Wei Ying’s cheek. IT’s just enough encouragement, just enough to lift a glittering piece of hope into his chest.

“Yeah,” he says, “I don’t know. I was just thinking. What-- what if we tried being a thing?”

He expects Lan Zhan to repeat a thing? with a blank expression. But Lan Zhan stays silent, thumb going still on Wei Ying’s cheek. His whole body has actually gone still; Wei Ying’s not sure if he’s breathing.

Agh, the tension! Wei Ying regrets saying a thing. “Ah, but I’d be no good at that sort of thing,” he declares, painting a grin onto his face. “Forget it, forget I said anyth—”

The scent of Lan Zhan surrounds him. Lan Zhan is holding him, both arms thrown around him trembling. Lan Zhan buries his head in Wei Ying’s shoulder. “I would like it,” he says, sound vibrating into Wei Ying’s bare skin, “very much, if we could be a thing.”

They have touched so, so much since this whole thing began, but nothing has been more intimate than this embrace. Happiness is bursting like a sunrise through Wei Ying, an effervescent emotion that’s extending to the tips of his toes and up through to the top of his head. How could he have doubted he wanted this? He wants it so much. He wants to be with Lan Zhan. He always has. The knowledge blooms through him like heat, spilling everywhere.

But… but! “Why?”

He’s pushed into Lan Zhan’s chest so firmly the word almost doesn’t make it out. But he doesn’t understand. He has to know. “Why?”

Lan Zhan’s embrace loosens, and he pulls back enough that they can look at each other. “Why do you ask why?” Lan Zhan says, and he really looks as though he has no idea. 

“Because … because .. because look at me, Lan Zhan.”

“I am looking.”

Okay, yes, he is, but it’s a rhetorical look-at-me. “Stop that. You know what I mean.”

“I don’t.”  He’s having fun interrupting, isn’t he? Damn it. If only that weren’t so cute of him.

Still. Enough of that. “Well if you’d let me say something—” and for once, Lan Zhan does. “Look, what I mean is, look at me! I’m not even a good friend to you. Why would you want me to be a boyfriend?”

This time, Lan Zhan really doesn’t seem to understand. “Wei Ying is the best friend,” he says, unironically, without a single shred of doubt in his voice. 

It makes Wei Ying feel like an absolute heel.

“How?” he bursts out. “I don’t even remember your birthday. I do nothing but talk about myself. I don’t ever ask you any questions about your life. How could you possibly want to be with me? I’m the literal worst.” He buries his head in Lan Zhan’s shoulder, which is also the worst possible thing to do, because it’s just using Lan Zhan again after he’s just confessed that he uses Lan Zhan.

Above him, Lan Zhan’s voice is soft. “Do you remember when I was sick, sophomore year?”

Wei Ying pulls away, blindsided. “What?”

Is Lan Zhan smiling, just a little? “Do you remember?” he repeats.

Wei Ying wracks his brain for the memory. Yeah, that’s right. Lan Zhan got sick, so Wei Ying headed off campus to his apartment and climbed up the fire escape to sneak into his room. And then he—

He flushes. “Yeah, I remember. I made you eat that super spicy soup, and you nearly choked on it. I made everything worse.”

“You came over to take care of me,” says Lan Zhan.

“Yeah, and I sucked at it!”

“You came over,” Lan Zhan says again slower, “to take care of me.”

Okay. So yeah, he did, he can’t deny that. But it takes more than one bowl of soup and too much sriracha to be a good friend. “All right,” he mumbles, pouting a little. “That was one time.” 

Lan Zhan doesn’t miss a beat. “Does Wei Ying remember when I missed the last train?”

That was this year. Last month. The subway doesn’t run all night, and Lan Zhan was in the computer lab perfecting his project. 

He goes on. “You told me to come over, and you slept on the floor.”

Lan Zhan’s getting at something, Wei Ying knows, but he’s wrong. “Yeah, well, you didn’t have a place to stay. What else was I supposed to do?”

“You slept on the floor.”

“I’m good at sleeping in weird places. You’re not. Of course I would let you have the bed. Lan Zhan, would you cut it out? Okay, so I was passably nice to you a couple of times. It doesn’t change the fact that most of the time, I’m kind of a crappy friend.”

Lan Zhan puts a hand on the crown of his head as though admonishing him. “You are not.”

“So, what, you’re okay with me going on about myself all day? And talking so much you can’t get a word in edgewise? And bragging about—”

Pat, pat, goes the hand on his head. “Yes.”

“Why?” Wei Ying catches his gaze. 

The tenderness in Lan Zhan’s eyes bring him to a complete standstill.  He sucks in a breath and holds it. 

Lan Zhan’s hand drifts down from the top of his head to his hairline, his ear, his cheek. “Because I love you,” he says.

Because I love you. 

No drama, no pain, no longing. Just a simple fact. Spoken as evenly as if it were the sky is blue.

Lan Zhan loves him. Simple as that.

The happiness, that euphoria that Wei Ying had tried his best to subdue earlier, comes roaring back like thunder in his ears. He can’t hold it back now, and the emotion puts a grin onto his face that he can’t suppress. His eyes are watering. The tears he can hold back; the smile he absolutely can’t. He throws his arms around Lan Zhan’s shoulders, presses his face into his neck. “Lan Zhan,” he says, “Lan Zhan, Lan Zhan, are you for real? Do you mean it?”

Lan Zhan’s lips brush his skin. “Yes.”

“You love me? Like, like you’re in love with me?”

“Yes.”

“You were in love with me this whole time? Like, while we were Netflix and chilling?”

Lan Zhan’s hand rests on his upper back stroking back and forth there in a wonderful wave of warmth. “Yes.”

“And…” oh, there comes the despair again, but Wei Ying can’t sustain it this time, can’t possibly make himself miserable when he’s so damn happy. “And I said we weren’t boyfriends, and you were okay with that too, because you loved me?”

“Yes.” Lan Zhan kisses his cheek, his chin. Wei Ying leans back and Lan Zhan captures his mouth in one brief, hot kiss that means everything. “Will Wei Ying please be my boyfriend?”

Wei Ying might very well explode with happiness. 

“Yes,” he says, and kisses Lan Zhan’s mouth again. “Yes, yes, yes,” a kiss with each yes, Lan Zhan’s lips pursing against his, the heat starting to rise between them again. “Lan Zhan, I love you too—I didn’t know it—but I do—and I do.” Lan Zhan ravishes him in a kiss so deep and searing that Wei Ying thinks he’ll break apart. Lan Zhan’s tongue in his mouth is so sweet and strange, that big muscle licking into him in a way that sends excitement spiraling into his core. He’s hard again, he wants Lan Zhan to lay him down and do whatever to him, but his heart is also singing with a kind of magic that makes everything seem fuzzy and sweet. If this is love, he might die of it.

“Lan Zhan,” he whispers, over and over, half of his words blunted with kisses. He tries to wriggle away, but Lan Zhan’s holding him tightly. At last he has to take both palms and push against Lan Zhan’s chest to break them apart. “Lan Zhan, will you give me ten minutes?”

Those gorgeous, talented lips of his are slow in relaxing. “Ten minutes for what?” he asks, the words coming out between labored breaths.

“I am going to get dressed,” Wei Ying says, “and I am going to go out, and I am going to get the stuff we need, and then I am going to come back here and get undressed again and you are going to fu—” He stops himself. “You are going to make love to me. Okay with you?”

Lan Zhan pauses. Then he smiles in a way that can only be called beatific.

It’s a stunningly beautiful smile. Wei Ying wants to snap a photo and frame it and put it on his bedside table to look at every day.