Chapter Text
When Wei Ying woke up, he did so slowly, opening his eyes to feel the midday sun’s brightness shining on his face. And as he sat up, he noticed his white sheets and his room in the Academy’s dormitory.
He also saw Huan-ge sitting in a chair at the corner of his bed. The older alpha had the appearance of not having slept well in a long time, looking tired. There were small wrinkles more pronounced in the lines of his eyes and forehead. And he probably would have grown yet another gray hair if it weren’t for his golden core that balanced his keratin and collagen levels again.
Huan-ge. When had he returned? Had he done so upon hearing the first word of what had happened to Wei Ying?
His temple prickled slightly and he felt his vision ache, becoming momentarily unfocused.
What had happened? Wei Ying remembered being in Biling River. There, he had been fighting against a waterborne abyss with other disciples, having spent half a day fighting against it. He had saved Mr. Zhang’s daughter from drowning by a hair’s breadth… and then… Then…
The pain in his skull returned and Wei Ying squeezed his eyes shut, closing them tightly as he brought a hand to his temple.
“A-Ying! You’re awake!? Be careful, don’t move too much yet” Huan-ge´s placid ang gentle voice was suddenly heard very close to him, as he felt the alpha’s familiar and warm hands press on his torso slowly, wanting to make Wei Ying lie back on the bed. That seemed to awake Wei Ying’s sensorial memory.
Someone on top of him, giving him CPR. Large, warm, calloused hands in addition, like Huan-ge’s; the hands of a man who wielded a sword and worked himself endlessly to the bone, a man who played the guqin. Unbearable pain and cramps covering him. A burning up body like flames enveloping him and taking away his discomfort. Distant, grave, reverberating bear-like purrs. And…
The remnants of that discomfort reappeared in him at the memory. Wei Ying felt slightly sick again, dizzy and hot.
“How do you feel? Are you alright? Does anything hurt?” Huan-ge kept asking him lots of questions, moving slightly unrestrainedly over him, feeling parts of Wei Ying’s body and placing the back of his hand on Wei Ying’s forehead, checking the younger boy’s temperature. “You don’t seem to still be burning with fever, only slightly hot.”
“I-I’m fine,” he coughed suddenly, feeling another pain in his chest. His voice sounded hoarse, unaccustomed to being used after the rough experience of almost drowning. “I’m fine. Just… tired, a little dizzy. And thirsty”.
“Just that? Nothing else? You don’t need me to call Lan-Daifu?”
Wei Ying’s eyebrows furrowed, concentrating on his own organism in general. There was indeed a strange feeling behind his ribs and in his lower belly as well. Like a throbbing, a slight pressure and as if he were very sensitive there. It wasn’t painful. Just… Uncomfortable. Like something didn’t feel right.
And oh, his asshole was almost, very… imperceptibly strange. Should it be just because of the position he’d been holding all this time? Laid down or seated against something? And his hips? Did they hurt too? Just slightly as well. As for the stomach thing, would it be the remaining aftershocks of his… discomfort?
“...Strange” the omega mumbled still diminutively. He wasn’t breathing anymore with difficulty, but he had the feeling he hadn’t been talking since… well since the events. “Out of … myself”, he managed to continue, raspy.
Huan-ge smiled at him with a fondness in his golden-brown eyes. “That must be your heat’s after effect. Lan-Daifu said after checking you up that you were burning with fever and were… Well, in heat”.
Wei Ying was startled at these words, quickly raising his eyes to meet Huan-ge’s. (Oh, bad choice because he got dizzy again and that pain over his eyes and behind them had just gotten worse).”W-What?” he croaked.
Huan-ge thought about it for a moment, remembering that he had not explained everything to Wei Ying from the start. “Forgive me. i forgot to explain you everything in my… excitement at seeing you waking up”, Then it was the Lan flawless and upright first jade’s turn to frown slightly with confusion. “You were found wrapped in a black, wet blanked inside the stable of an abandoned merchant house, just a few feet from the bank of the river’s mouth. You were burning with fever and appeared to be in heat. When they tried to come over to help you… You… you didn’t seem like yourself. You hissed weakly, and tried to bite whoever’s hand tried to approach you. ‘You’re not him. Stop. Stay away’ you kept repeating over and over again those same words. ‘ You’re not him and Alpha’ that’s what you seemed to know at the moment. I came running from Lanyi when Lan Qianqiu sent me the news, but Shufu had to stay behind, attending to Sect leader Jin’s case”.
What? He wasn’t in himself? But Wei Ying… didn’t… didn’t remember any of that. It sounded familiar to him but at the same way not like him.
Strange.
Also, what happened to Jin Guangshan?
“What happened to Sect Leader Jin?”
“There were unusually high amounts of dark qi and poison on his organism and golden core. Someone would probably have tried a spell and potion over him to make sect leader Jin Guangshan leave the world earlier, but they have narrowly missed by some hairs.”
It wouldn’t be surprising, given the history that Jin Guangshan had. He was praised by several, just for his facade of having many subjects, wealth and being at the top of the metal and fuel production chain. As well as for his alpha nature. But the man was a pig. A insufferable, narcissistic coot, not much better than Wen Ruohan and his narcissistic monstrous mini tyrant Wens, or sect Leader Yao (A complete worthless idiot with only a leader title to back him of, if Wei Ying could openly state his opinion about the man). And even he couldn’t keep his dick to himself in his pants, without sticking it in any omega hole he could find, be it male or female.
“Do you think that was a jealous jilted illegitimate omega-whore slash lover itching for revenge?”
“We can’t say for sure, until we have conclusive proof,” Huan-ge says. However, in his eyes shines the fact that he thinks the exact same. Although, he doesn’t externalize those kinds of negative words about others much with such… Wei Ying’s openness and fluid language.
“What matters though, is that you’re okay. Back home. safe” the older Lan continued with a smile as he gently squeezed Wei Ying’s hands in his. The omega smiled back at him, returning the gesture with his other hand. But internally, he was still confused and mortified.
A million questions piled up in Wei Ying’s mind like a flock of birds taking flight. Who had been that person that had saved him, taking him to a presumed cave? Who were they to Wei Ying and why did he called them “Alpha”? Why had Wei Ying’s heat struck with such familiarity? Why had his omega accepted the stranger? Why was he feeling so weird lately? Why he could only remember what had happened before, fragments of the “during” but nothing from the “after” until now that he had woke up? What was this strange and unusual feeling in his guts?
But he felt like he couldn’t voice this to Huan-ge.
‘Hey, Huan-ge, there was a stranger with me who did and made me feel things. But they also saved me, do you know if they’re real or not? Are they who I called “Him” and “Alpha”? Did you see them?’
Wei Ying would surely look like someone still sick with fever and delirious if he said this. Huan-ge would smile at him, but as he left the room, Wei Ying’s pretty sure he would call out distressed to Daifu, thinking that Wei Ying had gone crazy or something. So, no… He eliminated the possibility of asking that right now, despite how much he knew he could trust in Huan-ge. Maybe it really would have just been a dream, a figment of Wei Ying’s own fantasies or imagination.
“For how long was I unconscious?” Was what he could ask instead. He had to know first for himself if this stranger who had taken care of him (and who had probably made his omega react that way) was real or not before asking more about him to his brother. He didn’t want to put anymore pressure and confusion on him than Lan Huan was already experiencing right now, after all.
The alpha’s frown deepened more. “You were unresponsive, feverish and shaking so much with heat symptoms for four days. We thought it was something really serious. Daifu then… he explained to us that the imbalance of your heat appearing too early for the second time in the year could be due to the stressful crisis situations you had been going through lately. And that your fever was due to your own system trying to defend itself against the cold and hypothermia.”
Four days!? He had vanished from the face of earth and consciousness falling in an undisturbed slumber for four fucking days!? And being out of his mind?
“What about the other disciples who came with us to Biling River? Lan Yue, Lan Zhuyan, the other guys? Mr. Zhang and his family?” Wei Ying’s mind was reeling, a small apprehension bubbling up behind his ribs, as he motioned to a seating position again on the bed, wanting to get out. To go and verify for himself that everything was fine. Or so motherfucking wrong—
“They’re all fine, Wei Ying. And so are you. That’s all that matters” Was what Huan-ge replied, pressing him once more, gently, to lay back again on the bed and tugging him in. He then stroked with his calloused thumb Wei Ying’s cheek, looking at the omega with an understanding and doting mother’s patience and affection.
However, Wei Ying — Wei Ying couldn’t help but feel this somewhat strange. Huan-gege didn’t skip too many explanations to things. He wasn’t as cryptic and blunt as Zhan-gefe. He had been speaking well until this exact same moment. Weirdly, as if he — as if he had ran out of things to say? To explain? It was also the first time the older alpha called him that: Wei Ying. It was always “A-Ying”, “Yingying”, “A-Xian” or Wei Wuxian” in front of others. Never Wei Ying.
(That was one of the first many times Wei Ying would begin to suspect something strange about the man. However diminutive it was. But, he had paid it no mind at that moment, at first).
“Rest, you still have energy to recover. I have already talked to Lan Mingzhou as well, so for the time being, you can also rest from your academic activities until further notice. I must part, but I will be on the lookout and help as soon and how I can if you need me”. He tucked Wei Ying in, depositing a kiss on his temple. Then stood up and walked to the door of the omega’s quarter’s. “We will talk more when I get back and you’re feeling better” he said as a farewell and then closed the door behind his back.
Wei Ying’s heart skipped a beat, still seeming unable to calm down, in its unbridled race inside his chest. What the hell was going on!!?? Everything felt strange, different. But not in a hugely alarming amount. Just off… and everything else didn’t seat well about himself? How was it that Wei Ying had been behaving as Huan-ge had told him moments ago?
He knew that his first and only previous head (which he had registers and memory of) had been hellish. Yes. And he tended to become a bit aggressive and picky. But to do so unlike himself blabbering stuff like “you’re not him” or “Alpha” … Well that was not Wei Ying!! It was so out of character for him and feeling bad besides? That had to be— had to be—No it wasn’t adding up.
He had put his head in a person’s neck, he had felt their firm chest. He had felt warm, firm, calloused hands taking care of him. Freeing him from pain and discomfort. Touching him on the neck, the torso. On his thighs. His loins’ lower parts. The skin memories prevailed, right? Even if — if he’d forgotten the rest?
Had he been forcibly made to forget thinking all of that had been a dream, figments of his imagination? Had it been convenient he forgot because of the things he had done and experienced during his “induced heat”?
With these questions and so many more, he pulled the sheets away from his body. Making sure that he no longer heard any noises in the halls and that Huan-ge had indeed left, he placed both feet on his quarter’s. The cobblestones were still cold. As he looked around, bearing his surroundings, he realized that everything was still in its place from that morning when he had left on an urge due to the drill. No one else had been here or moved anything. He thought at least not until now.
When he tried to get up, he did so with difficulty. Then his lower loins and belly protested at the same time.
Wei Ying winced a little. He shifted his hims some more, circling them, and yes, there it was again. That feeling of hypersensitivity, pressure and… Strangeness. Almost an emptiness-like feeling that wouldn’t subside.
Raising his sleeping inner robes, he noticed that he had no sleeping trousers or underwear underneath. He was in zeroes, completely naked and exposed from the torso down. But there didn’t seem to be anything significantly wrong with him at first glance? Would his discomfort then indeed have been internal?
His hole was throbbing now, as it was its turn to protest. That startled him. What the fuck was going on?
When Wei Ying felt it, prodding, caressing, he didn’t feel anything out of the ordinary either. It was all plucked, sensitive, yet slightly irritated skin but nothing more. There were many reasons why one could chafe down there and feel general discomfort. Definitely, would it just be because maybe he had taken his pants off in his heat-dazze, trying to relieve some uneasiness (As they had sait it was) and in response the hay, or grass, dust or something else his ass had been exposed to had caused his sensitive hole to chafe?
The more he was startled, confused and at loss, whoever, he at first didn’t register till later that something liquid came back down his hole, between his thighs and onto his legs.
Wei Ying jolted visibly this time. It was thin, wet and slightly warm.
‘Oh, no!! Oh, no, no, no. Blood!? It can’t be, can it?’ his mind sprang immediately into a panicked frenzy. Had anything unwanted happened to him? That was why he was allegedly dripping blood? Was it blood? How did someone, a male specifically, knew if they were penetrated or not? His eyes ran back between his crotch, at his hands and… Oh.
Oh. Lord, his heart had almost leapt out of his mouth with dread. It was just his stupid slick.
He was just going crazy, right? Or was it just the after effects of his heat and too-close to death stress that were screwing with his mind, as Huan-ge had alleged? Yeah, maybe that was it. He shouldn’t worry too much. Hah, haha! He was Lan Clan’s first disciple. He couldn’t be scared witless of his own new omega body doing stuff in the face of stressful situations! No sir.
He didn’t walk funny when he went to the bathroom, nor did he seem to be uncoordinated while doing so. That meant that maybe really nothing unwanted had gone up there nor he had been given any kind of strange, intoxicating substance while out of himself. Which was, cool.
When he took off his robes after having asked for a tub and a bath to be drawn in, he didn’t seem to notice unusual things on his skin either. There was nothing out of place.
He took a bath, trying to calm himself, and wash the dirt off his body or the water, or the remnants of his “heat” at all, because he felt dirty.
Wei Ying slid into the tub, feeling the ridges of the bath as he sighed when the warm water covered him. He realized then how sore and still somewhat cold he had been before, compared to now. His tense, sore muscles obliged at the warm water, relaxing slightly. He leaned his head over the bathttub’s edge, sinking in the rest of his body until the tips of his toes merged again, and closed his eyes. He took in the peace, quiet and stillness around him. The afternoon sun was shining, falling on him, and reflecting from the small mosaiced window and into the walls before him. The sunlight still shone over him, but it was less rude compared to how it had greeted Wei Ying, dazzling and blinding as he had opened his eyes that same mid-morning.
He wiggled his toes feeling the water into his skin pores, on every part of himself, slightly soothing his groaning muscles. All the while he took deep breaths, over and over again. Until he finally felt his slight anxiety in the back of his ribs calm down and until he was sure that everything was okay. He would be back to routine before long. And he would put this aside to eventually forget about it.
He had finished washing himself, feeling now more like a human and less like a caked up in moss, and wet soil pup (ufff, he couldn’t believe he was saying that. He chilled a little internally), the wanted full with soap shrubs and the bath sponge he had recently used wet, resting at the tub’s edge while still dripping. He reached out to grave the white fluffy towel hanging just inches away from him. Stepped out of the tub, paddled into his other floor towel and dried his body as he walked back to his quarters, crossing the privacy screen.
These were Wei Ying’s own headquarters. He didn’t share. And the Lans were respectful enough to knock on his door before he called them in. There was more than enough time given to Wei Ying to get dressed again and make himself decent if necessary.
However Wei Ying hadn’t been prepared to receive any visitors right there, standing in the middle of his rooms.
“Holy cow!” Wei Ying shouted, jolting and jumping like six feet in the air and then standing completely still. His hands flew instinctively to tightly grasp the towel around his body and the other to cover as he could his chest, all while he caught the silhouette through his peripheral vision.
The person had ended up fully entering through the door, (Without knocking, besides!?) carrying something.
Oh… Was it just Huan-ge? With a… steaming cup?
“Huan-ge!” Wei Ying moaned with a pout “You almost scared me to death!” He clutched a hand to his chest for more dramatics, while tying the towel tightly single handedly with his other hand, around his mid-ches. He double-checked then that nothing unbecoming was showing on himself. “Please knock on the door! What would you do if I were completely naked?! I thought… I thought you were a thief or a bad man!”
“I’m sorry”, the alpha said with his gentle smile, hiding the small laugh behind his eyes and at the corner of his lips. “I knocked on the door a few times. But apparently you didn’t listen. I thought I’d leave this for you” he said, raising the small cardboard colored square package on his right hand and the steaming cup on his other.
”I thought you already had left” commented Wei Ying while he approached to accept what Lan Huan had in his hands. These turned to be a liquid-tonic like and a sachet with some kind of herbs perhaps?
“I met Lan Daifu on my way to the stairs. He asked me to give this to you. It’s a tonic” Huan-ge explained, “It will help you counteract any remaining symptoms or discomfort you might experience. Take it daily, every morning and night for a week.”
Wei Ying accepted the envelope and the cup in both hands, turning to set them down on his small coffee table. Turning back to Huan-ge, he saw the alpha adjusting Shouyue and Liebing around his waist. Wei Ying, always so observant and clever, flickered his eyes down to the hem of the alpha’s robes, thinking it was a pity that Han-ge had come in a rush after hearing the news about him being an incompetent ass and almost having drowned himself in the cold Biling River. He had been here for the omegas awakening, but now he had to leave again. He noticed that Huan-ge’s always neat and spotless wrinkle-free outer robes were dirty and slightly torn. There were tiny particle stains in addition, something dusty and sizzling, almost glowing charcoal-like n the natural afternoon light
“Huan-ge, what happened to your robes, why are they dirty and torn? You can’t go out to see Sect Leader Jin like that. It’s not a good image for you” Wei Ying called, stopping rubbing his damp head with a towel as he was already rummaging through one of his drawers for his sewing kit.
From all the new stuff Wei Ying had to learn, omega related, at least he liked sewing and was good at it.
Huan-ge looked down to where Wei Ying had previously been looking, taking in the precary state of his own clothes. “Oh. this. I admit in my rush to depart it was kinda wet and muddy on the stairs and I slipped. How clumsy of me”, he rubbed the back of his head, timidly.
Wei Ying snorted, as he searched through his sewing kid for the needle he needed. He had all kinds of lengths, diameters, and for all kinds of uses. There was also plenty of different threads and yearns in all the colors, sizes and tastes (perhaps several were just an impulse buy he had made once while dalling through Suzhou and feeling like sewing to cope with stress). After prickling his finger in his frenzied search twice for the right needle, he pulled it back, saying “Auch” one last time, but finally took what he wanted.
“Take off your robes right now. I’ll mend it” he ordered, rising back from his half-squatting position, with the towel miraculously still tightly tied around his torso or without falling off.
Lan Huan smiled at him looking him over from head to toe with amusement. “I have to go now, A-Ying. Besides, are you planning to take off my robes to mend them with thread and needle while you’re still naked and in the towel yourself?
“Yeah, what’s the matter?” Wei Ying asked, blinking owlishly at him, “We are both men. We grew up together, you’re my bro. Huan-ge, I’ve seen your everything several times. Is fine! That part of me being naked before was a joke! You know I wouldn’t care!”
Huan-ge’s breathing seems to slightly, almost imperceptibly, falter. “Yes, A-Ying. But we are grown now. Things are…” He clears his throat, averting his gaze as he pulls his wide sleeve towards his mouth. “... Different now. Gender and biology wise”.
“Oh, please!” Wei Ying chirped cheerfully, not paying it much mind, with a hand gesture. “I’m still your little A-Ying like in the old times! It’s not like I’ve completely transformed into a woman and have grown breasts overnight!” He held out his hands expectantly towards the man, blithely ignoring (or unknowing at all of) Huan-ge’s grimace at the word “breasts” and at the way the older man’ countenance, which was already clear as jade, turned pale as lime.
(Wei Ying, oh Wei Ying. Male omegas also develop small breasts as they grow up. How come you haven’t yet paid attention to something so obvious and important about your own biology?)
… And Wei Ying himself began to undress the first Lan Jiade from his robes, without giving him a chance to say or do anything else.
The senior alpha sighed with resignation. Who was he to refuse something to his little Wei Ying if he was stubborn enough and would have the last word until the end anyway?
{***}
“It’s done!” Wei Ying exclaimed, smiling as he finished the last suture and lifted his needle. And he had managed it in less than ten minutes to boot, good for him! That was a new record. “Now, as for the stain”, He commented, twisting himself a little to magically pull out his talisman qiankun pouch. He pulled out a dry-cleaning one and patted it over the stained and charred parts in dust and something like black glitter. These disappeared, though they took a while, resisting at first.
Huan-ge smiled seeing the result as the omega spread his outer robe in front of him.
“It turned out very well, Wei Ying. Thank you very much” he replied, head bowing in thanks as he reached out to take the robe from Wei Ying’s fingers, noting with too much affection and appreciation (perhaps) the place where it had been cleaned and mended.
‘Again, Huan-ge has called me that again. Why didn’t he do it before?’ Wei Ying thought, handing the outer robe to his alpha senior. The moment the alpha took the robe, however, their fingers brushed against each other and Wei Ying felt something strange: an electric current moving through his body, all the way to his core.
Huan-ge seemed to notice this too by the way he withdrew his hand quickly, almost as if he were the one receiving strange, charred energy dischrges and not Wei Ying himself, taking his hanfu’s other robe with him. “Pardon me” he said with his usual gentle smile.
“No, no problem,” Wei Ying replied, returning his bow automatically. “Have a good trip, Huan-ge!” He walked him to the door and waved his hand in farewell, dismissing the older man. “See you soon in a few days.”
“Yes, see you soon”, Huan-ge replied to finally leave.
Wei Ying closed the door, locked it, as he had not yet finished changing and leaned his back against it, sliding down to the floor. He sighed What the hell was going on!? Why were things that once were normal for him suddenly making him make strange, uneasy, vibrant?
‘What is wrong with me!? I really need to calm down. Maybe it’s nothing’ Wei Ying kept repeating himself over and over again as he put on his light layer of bed robes.
Yes, he knew it was still barely another three hours until hai, but he was very tired. And he honestly thought he could sleep a little longer now that he needed it. You know, catch up on few hours of sleep after having not slept or slept poorly at all before? He didn’t have any other important and urgent activities to tend to right now.
{***}
A sound woke him up in the middle of the night. Or maybe, a strange anxiety feeling. For someone or something. Wei Ying opened his eyes. Then he realized he was sweaty and felt sticky, with the sheets on his bed clinging to his skin. He was very hot. He sat up in bed, his body and eyelids rusty with sleep. He tried to look around himself, amidst the darkness. There was only a little bit of moonlight coming through his windows, facing the front of his bed, over his foot. They were closed, though. How strange, Wei Ying always left one of the double screen panels open to let the air flow. And he was pretty sure he had done that again this time.
On shaky legs (unexplainably), he fumbled and staggered through the almost absolute darkness to open it. And when he looked through it, at first glance there seemed to be nothing out of place. The red paper candlelights glowed brightly, illuminating the paths and gardens below. Indeed, there were no disciples to be seen ousie among the main roads at this time of the night, after curfew. Wei Ying thought that from the position the moon was currently in, it should be between zi and chou shi ((Midnight - three am)).
But the omega still felt an unexplainable uneasiness that wouldn’t go away. The hairs on his neck were standing on end still. A feeling that something was not right with himself or in general, like a knot in the pit of his stomach. Evenmore, he feIt as if he could sense someone else's' presence inside the room, which seemed irrational and stupid…
Tap.
Wei Ying turned rapidly to the source of the noise. Oh it was the small night mountain breeze blowing in right? The same that could have pushed one of the sauce tree outside of his window’s branches to hit the panel.
That must totally be it. Wei Ying knew with all the protection wards, the night patrols and the jade tokens, no intruder could easily come in, outwitting all the Academy’s tight vigilance.
Returning to bed after having thought to himself it was just once again his mind playing tricks to him and nothing more, he lay back down, closing his eyes in an attempt to go back to sleep. Then he felt it. Not a minute after having laid down and having closed his eyes, a horrible, searing pain in his lower belly had assaulted. It was scalding hot, like if he were being burnt with hot iron. Also it felt miserable, he could feel something moving inside himself. His innards were uncomfortably rearranging. He felt as if a giant iron fist squeezed his belly and lungs from the inside. it felt like a horrible cramping he head experienced in his heat, but not at the same time. This was a more global, generalized, diffuse pain and more insistent, also of greater intensity.
‘Oh, shit, Oh my god. Am I going to die? What’s this. I was pretty sure I had taken the tonic Huan-ge had given me before.’ Wei Ying cursed under his breath, gasping as he writhed, heaved and grew small over his own body, hands running through his tummy. Everything suddenly felt a confusing blur to Wei Ying. All he knew next was that he had ran to his nightstand, with sights of taking the tonic again in hope of diminishing this hellish symptoms. he fumbled with his hands on the top of the table on a frenzy, knocking up stuff here and there as he had so little vision left and gulped down another small cup of the tonic.
The taste was bitter. It tasted like medicine, practically. (Duh, medicine was bitter and didn’t taste good, everyone knew that). But there was a hint of something also sweet and spicy on the medicinal drink. Vanilla and chili peppers. Wei Ying could be sure of that. However, he coughed and contracted more over his belly from the pain, discomfort, movements and cramps assaulting him at the same time, making him nauseous. He lifted his hands against his mouth and lay like a ball on himself. Hoping that the symptoms would pass later. Hoping that the next moring he would wake up and return to normal. Hoping that, even if he felt like he was going to die, it would turn out to be no big deal.
Everything was confusing and fuzzy, feeling like misery and pain, when suddenly he felt into slumber (ignoring the pair of glowing golden eyes that appeared then, as the stranger re emerged from their hiding spot and opened their eyes).
He didn’t know at what point in the night he had fallen asleep, but that night he dreamed of someone from his past, whom he hadn't seen in a long time. He dreamed of Zhan-gege. Or more specifically still, of the memories he had of his Zhan-gege.
First, he dreamed of the first time he had met Lan Zhan, Huan-gege and Shufu.
Wei Ying was still a six year old, with the care in the world to subsist one more night in the cold streets. He remembered young Lan Zhan, no more than fourteen years old, still with baby fat full cheeks but a grainy, blurry face. Just a scribble to cover it. However, he remembered the energy emanating from him, something like torment, for the loss of a loved one. It had been the second young master Lan who had saved little Wei Ying from a hungry pack of dogs.
It was one of the coldest days in late fall, around November, in Yinchuan. It was so horribly cold that it made even small Wei Ying’s snot freeze whenever he sneezed. Wei Ying had stolen a bunch of dragon fruits from an oxcart, while fluffing them on the hem of his tattered clothes, cradling them to his chest. Those fruits had been destined to be his breakfast that day, as part of his provisions to survive.
Until a pack of hungry dogs spotted him. Coincidentally, those furry beasts had been scavenging for scraps of food and sobbers in the same cart. Some even sniffed the bright and appetizing fruit. When they saw him, they started chasing him. Wei Ying fled madly on his dash, trying to maintain his integrity and body first and foremost intact.
Wei Ying had run down what appeared to be several streets, until he came upon a figure dressed in white. Elegant, pristine, straight. It would have looked like a heavenly mirage.
Face and fingers still sticky from stuffing the sweet, sour fruit into his face, having had no room for anything. He was also carrying about four leftovers from the bundle he had stolen from earlier, while the rest had fallen mid way. What a shame!!
Hearing the furious barking and seeing the lightning bolts of fur running closer and closer and coming into view around the corner, Wei Ying had hidden behind the figure of the older young master. The dogs circled the young Lan while Wei Ying tried keeping him between himself and the beasts.
Everything else about it seemed kind of fuzzy and hazy.
But one thing that Wei Ying saw in that dream and could say was that he saw Lan Zhan at that time with admiration. With reverence shining in his wide silver eyes at the sight of his idol, his hero. And then, Wei Ying had never wanted to be separated from him, following the older youth everywhere like a duckling.
Then the dream advanced a little forward on the future. Young Lan Zhan now had turned fifteen years old. There was significantly less baby fat on his cheeks. The notorious changes on his body screamed now evidently “alpha in development”. That silky black hair curtain bangs were also significantly longer. That rich, pleasant, baritone that made the little boy’s heart pound was still going through puberty’s various effects, still breaking slightly here and there, getting deeper, graver. Wei Ying, having turned seven, was still too small for his age. But thank goodness, now he didn't have any other care in the world other than playing before entering the official lessons. He had climbed through the Jingshi’s window’s will and was happily listening to the young Zhan-gege practicing on his guqin.
“A-Zhan is very good at playing guqin!” little Wei Ying said, waving his short, plumb legs, with his mouth full of loquat. Huan-gege would go to Suzhou from time to time to run some errands, and when he returned, he would bring back a small basket full of loquats for Wei Ying and Zhan-gege to share. Wei Ying was happy eating the round, orange-golden fruit, feeling the refreshing and sour taste exploding on his tongue. Zhan-gege was not a big fan of eating them. But he still shared them with him because it made A-Ying happy.
“Mn. Thanks to A-Ying who is always my audience”, the young man had replied, nodding.
“A-Ying will always be your number one fan”, the little boy told him, smiling with all his teeth.
Then the dream changed forward again. This time Wei Ying dreamed when they were both a little older and it had become a habit for him to visit Zhan-gege more frequently than not. This time, it was almost winter, it was colder. And Wei Ying was happily perched on the Jingshis’s floor reading the music sheet of one of several Zhan-gege’s cultivation manuals he had, kicking his feet in the air.
“A-Ying, don’t you get bored of accompanying me here all the time?” Zhan-gege had asked him suddenly, out of nowhere. “There are… more interesting things outside, you can have different pursuits”.
He already had less baby fat, looking more like a refined young alpha. His scent had solidified, and the sandalwood of his skin with its pine mixture was fresh and more prominent in the room, in contrast to the incense and the magnolias in the atmosphere.
Lan Zhan also wasn't wearing the same old Clan robes now. These he wore were simple, plain white and gray robes. He also didn’t wear his usual guan in his hair anymore. Nor the Clan’s head ribbon or the family cloud emblem embroidered on any of his clothing.
“Mmnn” Wei Ying had given it a thought for a brief moment. Then keeping the ambience he simply shrugged, turning the page. “No. I’d rather spend time with my Zhan-gege. I really, really like him so much”, he had commented as if it was nothing, like a measly mundane talk about the weather.
Whichever strange reaction Lan Zhan might or not have made to accompany his silence for a moment, he then continued with “ I like Wei Ying too. But shufu… He won’t be happy to know you’ve skipped Cai-Xiansheng’s calligraphy classes. And he wouldn’t like even more the fact that your’re here with me”. His voice was filled with fond exasperation and some hesitation. When had Zhan-gge hesitated before? He also didn't seem very happy to have Wei Ying in his vicinity lately, unlike before.
“I already knew the lesson Cai-Xiansheng was going to teach today. And besides, Shufu can punish me and berate me later if he wants, but he knows this is good for your health now? Isn’t it? Some company is important too for physical and mental recovery!! I can’t believe nobody, even Shufu or Huan-ge visits you! So sad, so boring. And I also like you a lot , like I previously stated!!” Wei Ying beamed. He then closed the book and finally looked at Lan Zhan, perched on his mat in front of his guqin. “I don’t care about any of ‘leave Lan Zhan alone in seclusion while he’s in recovery’. I like Lan Zhan and I WANT my Zhan-gege’s company. I need you like the air I breathe. It’s that simple” Wei Ying said, looking at him with naked adoration, affection and praise in his expression. He always sounded so confident, so genuine and crude. That was Wei Ying.
If he couldn’t show his enthusiasm and rampant love over something, adoring it, and letting others look at him however they wanted (since he didn’t give a fuck because They didn’t understand his love for something), then did Wei Ying really loved something? No.
He was speaking from his feelings’ sincerity as well. Even if he couldn’t openly say out loud ‘Lan Zhan, oh Lan Zhan. If only I wasn’t a beta. If only you didn’t have to choose another omega partner and we could both stay together forever.’
They hung out more, and Wei Ying couldn’t quite remember what else they had been talking about, but they were in that space carved just for the two of them, like in their little world. They existed in harmony there. Flowing calmly like Yin and Yang. And when one remained silent ( unusually Wei Ying, who rarely ever ran out of stuff to say, and always Zhan-gege) , well, the silence between the two was also pleasant. They accompanied each other this way and it was often simply enough and comforting for them.
“What would Wei Ying like to do in the future?” Lan Zhan asked him eventually.
“Oh, well. You already know. Stay at home, help with the youngest’s education. Get my certification. Travel the world and go on various night hunts, while promoting my inventions. And of course, staying with my pretty Zhan-gege forever”.
His experience in any place or plane of existence wouldn’t be complete without Lan Zhan in it. Call him an idiot, call him a hopeless dreamer, but Lan Zhan made everything more colorful and happy for him. More safe and worthy.
“And you, A-Zhan? If you didn’t have to be here for a long time, sick or have to marry a good omega from a nice family one day?”
The older alpha’s response had been immediate. And Wei Ying was sure that there was the same longing, devotion and tenderness that he felt swelling in his heart whenever he saw, heard or sensed the alpha. “Hm. Also staying close to Wei Ying, traveling and going to night hunts with him. Everything to make Wei Ying happy”.
“Oh, A-Zhan! We would be together forever. That makes me very happy! Don’t you think?”
“Mn. Together. Forever”.
{***}
Back to the present again
Lan Zhan doesn’t wait any longer, he seems to be in a hurry, he seems to be on the verge of delirium.
He lowers his head and feasts, tasting Wei Ying. He licks the omega’s back, slides a hand over his milky white thighs, feeling the supple skin there. He growls at the visible hands and hickeys there. Then he stops, retreating himself from over Wei Ying’s body momentarily, but without letting go of his hips, getting his face with the level of the omega’s…
Oh, no.
Oh. No…
“Lan Zhan—” He begins to speak with half a thought about wanting to distract the alpha from doing whatever he’s trying to do still forming on his mind, but nothing else can occur to him. (And his tone sounds mortifyingly high-pitched, breathless and broken. What is this? He doesn’t talk like this. Wei Ying doesn’t sound like this). He feels as if his own body were a shaking newborn fawn, uncontrollably and clumsy over its limbs. His voice sounds broken and unsure, full of fear while he breathes heavily. The horrors he had seen and even experienced firsthand are embedded in his retines like after-shock stuck images rudely and without consent there, with pins. These gut-wrenching memories claw at Wei Ying’s insides, present, very vivid.
But why the hell does Wei Ying aside from feeling scared and rendered immovable he… doesn’t sort of hate it like he had hated the idea previously with the other alpha bastards?
Why, there’s this anticipation growing more and more on his guts, making him wanna buzz out of his skin even more, want to climb the alpha as a tree, or have Lan Zhan stick his big … Inside—?
“Lan Zhan— W-wait! Lan Zhan, I don’t— He tries to dissuade the alpha, extending a trembling arm over his back, trying to reach Lan Zhans one hand, scalding hot, still pinning him by the waist.
Clearly this is a fight now. Both, his conscious, rational mind and his inner omega. They’re on a ring, deciding who wins.
Wei Ying doesn’t sound or feel like his usual self. (He’s pretty… Pretty sure now that he understand the phrase ‘Cycles change people. They make them horny and unrecognizable, messy versions of themselves’. Holly shit he’s going to die if there’s not any sort of action, isn’t he? And he’s so hot uff).
His voice, unsteady, sounds on the verge of delirium, craziness and despair. It sounds pathetic and higher-pitched. He’s still blabbering between words when Lan Zhan’s wet and hot tongue licks the skin around his rim vigorously, while he kneads Wei Ying’s thighs with his other hand. Biting, sucking and scraping his teeth, eager to erase those marks. Because Lan Zhan doesn’t like when others put their filthy hands on what’s his.
Wei Ying’s head is reeling. He coughs, feeling the strong sandalwood and pine smell clogg his senses, making him feel a lot and to little at the same time. The stress he has been experiencing till this point must be too much and his heat cycle mus be messing with his hormones and feelings a lot, because some stray tears fall down from his face and into the grass bed underneath him. That must be the only reason why while receiving all this from Lan Zhan, Wei Ying must be feeling it at the same time and the intensity that would leave someone believing they were going to die either from exhaustion or dehydration. And why, why can’t he focus? Why is the furious, and ridiculously long tongue again making him reel and scream?
What the fuck is wrong with his body!?
What is Lan Zhan doing to him? Why can’t Wei ying stop shaking, why can’t he think straight? Why is he afraid and apprehensive, but unable to move, even though Lan Zhan has not given him any explicit order to stay sill? Why…? Why is Lan Zhan on top of him, too naked besides? And why Wei Ying doesn’t seem to despise what he’s doing to him unlike how he had loathed it when Jin Zixun or Wen Xu had been trying to force themselves on him earlier?
Wei Ying moans, grunts and groans softly, pathetically in protest as he feels those hands sliding up to his thighs, touching them gently, while those lips continue to advance along his rim, between his thighs, and then up, marking, grazing, licking, kissing and biting one by one Wei Ying’s vertebrae of his back. He trembles, his hips canting and knees buckling, unable to stop from mewling.
Wei Ying is suddenly, forcefully manhandled to sit in front of the very naked Lan Zhan. His head keeps spinning and his vision becomes blurred with overstimulation, hot tears as the alpha kisses the tender skin on his neck, his collarbones, with those same lips, teeth and tongue.
God, they’re barely doing anything different from that alphas from before and Wei Ying is already at the verge of losing it!! Whatever it means!!
No, It’s not good. Not good at all!!! Why can’t he no longer have control over his body like he wants it?
Lan Zhan, unbeknownst to Wei Ying’s own jumble of confused, scared and aroused thoughts, continues his ministrations, roughly. Desperately, without consideration or without taking his time. He slurps and continues licking a long strip from Wei Ying’s sternum to his collarbone depression, like he wanted to taste a chicken tender!? Oh heavens above, Wei Ying goes more crazy with every bit of it.
And the more Lan Zhan touches with his mouth and hands, the more Wei Ying grows hotter, desperate and wetter. So quickly.
The itch and discomfort under his skin from earlier seem to be tended to and massaged, soothing gently. Subsiding. Lan Zhan is the wild fire and Wei Ying is fry reed. And he’s catching fire. Lan Zhan is that one helping hand Wei Ying didn’t know he needed until, until…
Lan Zhan now has started to rub his hips against Wei Ying’s flank and that’s when he feels it…
Wei Ying’s eyes fly comically open, widening in their sockets. That big thing, with ridges and barbs, with smooth and hot snake-like texture. That larger-than alpha average size that reaches from Wei Ying’s buttocks to the lower part of his belly and were his kidneys would be…
No, this can’t be. This alpha can’t be human.
This is not his Lan Zhan!!!
That member is firm, would definitely split Wei Ying in two if it ever entered him. It’s girth feels ginormous, it’s longitud is large and feels so hard. It has a scalding hot, burning temperature as if it were a fucking oven radiating heat. And suddenly, the hands over Wei Ying’s skin transform. They get bigger, rougher. There are ten cold and razor-sharp points prickling ang grazing his skin, just short of drawing blood.
“Mine, Wei Ying… mine” This inhumane Lan Zhan’s voice purrs, deep and gutural. He seems almost barely able to speak with all the ferality and dark excitement loaded in his insides.
This voice… The same voice from before when the other alphas were chasing Wei Ying like a cat mouse game. The one that had told him he would be knotted up and fucked if they caught Wei Ying. The same voice that had told him to fight, these matched his Lan Zhan, but they were this creature’s all along!?
A new wave of dread grabs Wei Ying by the scruff of the neck, squeezing him tightly until almost chocking him. The irrational, animalistic fear of an animal prey about to be devoured grows inside him again. Apprehension filling his every part of his body, the omega turns slowly over his shoulder to look at ‘Lan Zhan’ with wide eyes. With the clarity of the full moon above them in the clearing, Wei Ying can see ‘Lan Zhan’ well.
Two large antlers have emerged from the top of the alpha’s head, tinted in a dar cobalt blue iridescent color, sandy at the bases but as they extend toward the starless sky, they turn completely black. His lips are curled back over his mouth to reveal large, sharp dragon fangs. Part of ‘Lan Zhan’s’ cheeks, torso and those huge, strong forearms are covered in incandescent, dark grayish shiny scales that glow also blue silverish under the moon. A long serpentine-like black tail with dark blue mane extends behind the man, wiggling slightly by the excitement and adrenaline that the previous chase had brought to him (And perhaps also the fact of finally having his mate where he wanted them). And those eyes, those eyes with narrow, slit pupils, look at Wei Ying with a special, naked, focused attention. They shine incandescently like molten gold, inhumanly. Not as pale or dull or barely human like before. No, they shine like a dragon’s.
This creature is Lan Zhan and at the same it is not Wei Ying’s Lan Zhan.
‘A dragon? A fucking dragon!? No, no, no, this can’t be real. Dragons have been extinct for thousands of years!’
“ Lan Zha n — I-is that you ?” Wei Ying whispered shakily in a voice barely above a whisper. The truth was still something so difficult to grasp, and he was at loss of what else to say.
Because it wasn’t very common to find yourself on the worst night of your life, to realize that your boyhood crush, the one and only person you had ever admired, having thought was dead, was alive. And not only that. It was a fucking mythological creature, one that existed only in legends and fairy tales nowadays!
Looking at those bright and inhumane eyes, Wei Ying couldn’t help but feel chills as they looked at him darkly, with something deep. Something filled with… With…
What Wei Ying hadn’t been able to explain before about how Lan Zhan had been grazing him right now, in comparison with how he used to barely show any base interest in his direction, is that the word finally appeared in his mind, clarifying his doubts.
It was want. The carnal desire of wanting to claim Wei Ying as his is dark and evident in the half-dragon Lan Zhan’s eyes.
For the first time ever, clearly, under the moonlight’s glow over the small clearing, Wei Ying sees those eyes looking at him with complete attention and awareness and desire on his everything. Wei Ying can’t help but wonder, in a small moment of clarity and confusion, if this is how Lan Zhan had been staring at him all this time? When Wei Ying had countered these signals, mistaking them only by the base polite interest? Or when, what’s more, he couldn’t even properly catalog how the man had been looking at him?
He then briefly remembered the description of a dragon alpha’s eyes while seeing an omega in several literary works. How many had read;
(...) “It looked at them with pupils slith and darkened in desire and lust. Desire to consume it all, acclaim, make them theirs alone…”
(...) “Dragons mate from time to time, and they choose a only mate for a lifetime, they’re possessive, dangerous and powerful creatures, capable of burning the world down for the loved ones if asked. And capable of doing anything to have them”
(...) “Usually one of the higher-level creatures in the mysticism, Dragons can change their appearance, be it full humans, hybrids, dragons or other creatures as they seem fit”.
Novels. Historical texts. Short fantasy anthologies. They all had seemed to depict alpha dragons before in a similar way.
A shiver runs through Wei Ying’s spine in response and — to his growing mortification — he begins to feel another gush of fresh slick slide down his thighs, outside his own body control.
“ Wei Ying” .
Oh. Wei Ying felt that gutural, inhuman voice doing things to his stomach, making his core shudder. He squealed at the way his name sounded, at how his inner omega salivated in delight because of this.
When an idea occurred to him —
Only creatures as powerful as dragons — and even more if they cultivated— could control other magical beings of lower levels. Only dragons could breathe and produce fire as in the legends. Only dragons would go to such lengths as to ensure their most prized possessions, and their fated mates were only theirs. Only dragons were greedy, powerful creatures wanting everything for their own.
“The Biling Lake. Th-the well timed attack on Suzhou. W-Was it you?” Wei Ying asked, fearing the obvious answer. Although, he already knew it in his insides. His omega responded and vibrated the same way he they had done with that stranger. Stranger. Lan Zhan. Lan Zhan’s face suddenly appeared, matching with all of this, inside his memories.
Oh, Lan Zhan. His precious Zhan-gege, the paragon of fairness, uprightness, and impeccable Lan Clan’s chivalry. The role model Wei Ying had wanted to follow and grow into since he was little…. That Lan Zhan had done something like that? Why?!
“Smart boy. It was me. Because you’re mine”.