Work Text:
Wei Ying stumbles on the front step up to the house and catches herself before she faceplants into the door. It’s a small mercy, but she’ll take small mercies after the day she’s had. Lindsey called out again, and First Edition Eddie came in and wanted to know if they had any new first editions and wouldn’t fucking leave until Wei Ying went through every recent book intake to check, like he always fucking does, and then the toilet backed up like it seems to every third week and she had to clean that, and just…
Sometimes Wei Ying tells people she works at a used bookstore, and they say something like, “Oh, wow! That would be my dream job! You’re so lucky, getting to read books all day!” and she hasn’t yet committed a murder, but oh man, she’s thought about it. When she told Lan Zhan she’d been hired at the used bookstore, Lan Zhan looked at her for a long, tense moment and said, “My condolences,” which is why Lan Zhan is Wei Ying’s very favorite person.
(Lan Zhan is also Wei Ying’s very favorite person because she’s tall, stacked, beautiful, hilariously bitchy, thoughtful, kind-but-not-nice, secretly loves rabbits, and—oh yeah—Wei Ying’s been in love with her since college, but who’s keeping track of tiny details like that, anyway?)
(Wei Ying. Wei Ying is keeping track of tiny details like that. Obsessively.)
“Honey, I’m home!” she calls as she kicks her sneakers off in the entryway. It’s funny, right, because she’s doing her best Ricky Ricardo voice, and it’s also funny because she and Lan Zhan aren’t dating! They’re best friends and housemates! Not girlfriends! Hahaha! Hilarious.
“Welcome home,” Lan Zhan calls from the living room, refusing to acknowledge Wei Ying’s spot-on impression as she always does, because—as previously established—she’s delightfully bitchy. “Snack in the kitchen.”
“My wife is so good to me!” Wei Ying sing-songs (haha, it’s another funny joke, because they’re not married! And will never be married! In spite of Wei Ying’s best efforts and heartfelt dreams!), hanging her bag on the designated hook and ducking into the kitchen to fall upon the slices of apple and ridiculously sharp aged cheddar that Lan Zhan buys for her at the fancy cheese counter that has a wheel of parmesan that probably weighs as much as Wei Ying does. (Wei Ying is a horrible cheese gremlin and lucked out that the lactose doesn’t bother her. She pities poor Lan Zhan, who needs to take a pill every time she eats ice cream, but it also means all the fancy cheese in the house is a treat for Wei Ying and Wei Ying alone.)
“First Edition Eddie came in today,” she informs Lan Zhan between bites, running her hand under the hair at the nape of her neck and fanning it up and down to evaporate the sweat from the early summer weather outside.
“How many books before he left?” Lan Zhan only knows First Edition Eddie from Wei Ying’s work stories, but she hates him on Wei Ying’s behalf, as is right and good.
“Thirty-seven!” Wei Ying complains around a mouthful of a cheddar so sharp it’s full of tiny crunchy cheese crystals. “It’s not his record, but thirty-fucking-seven! That’s so many books, Lan Zhan!”
“One book is too many books for First Edition Eddie,” Lan Zhan says darkly, almost too quietly for Wei Ying to hear it in the kitchen. Wei Ying does hear it, though, and she snorts around the last slice of apple as she puts her plate in the dishwasher, because her ADHD instinct says the plate doesn’t exist once she’s done with it, but the work she’s put into being a good housemate to Lan Zhan says leaving it on the counter is a real dick move. “Not being a dick to Lan Zhan,” is one of Wei Ying’s highest priorities. It’s probably the top of Lazlo’s Hierarchy of Needs or whatever that thing with the vampire is called.
(Also, an insistent little voice in the back of Wei Ying’s head says, if we do our best to be a perfect housemate and friend to Lan Zhan, maybe Lan Zhan will suddenly decide she loves us back! Given that Wei Ying has been trying to be a perfect housemate and friend to Lan Zhan for literally years without Lan Zhan reciprocating her hidden feelings, she’s aware that the little voice is delusional. She’s also powerless to stop the little voice, so she just lets it continue to delusion all over the place. Letting the little voice internally delusion doesn’t break any of Wei Ying’s Rules For Being So Chill About Being In Love With Lan Zhan, anyway.)
(See, the thing is—the reason for all of Wei Ying’s Rules For Being So Chill About Being In Love With Lan Zhan—the reason she has Rules instead of just asking Lan Zhan out—is Wei Ying knows Lan Zhan isn’t into her. She knows this because she spent the entire first year of their acquaintance throwing herself at Lan Zhan at every single opportunity in ways that make her cringe to remember it. Wei Ying went conspicuously braless whenever they were going to see each other! She used cold weather or overzealous air conditioning as an excuse to crawl into Lan Zhan’s lap! She made constant fucking innuendos! She ate lollipops! Wei Ying doesn’t even like lollipops! And throughout this year-long campaign of horniness, Lan Zhan remained completely unaffected! Immune to Wei Ying’s charms and ass! By the time Wei Ying admitted defeat, she was also helplessly, hopelessly in love, and she doesn’t see signs of that changing anytime soon, thus: The Rules.)
Wei Ying’s next stop is the bedroom, where she strips out of her work clothes (the bookstore doesn’t have a uniform, but she tries to look vaguely professional, if only because it makes customers take her slightly more seriously than when she wears her “This Bitch Face Does Not Rest” tank top) and puts on her lounging clothes with relief. Lan Zhan is the one who turned her on to lounging clothes, actually—Lan Zhan gets home from work and does a full-on Mister Rogers transformation from a dapper, business-formal soft butch into a casual, comfortable, even softer butch, dress pants exchanged for well-fitted sweatpants, button-up shirts replaced with expensive sweaters. These are all completely separate from her actual pajamas—Lan Zhan has outside clothes, inside clothes, and sleeping clothes. Had you asked Wei Ying prior to cohabiting with Lan Zhan about this she probably would have said that was too many kinds of clothes, but the joke’s on her—it’s fucking awesome.
Wei Ying’s lounging clothes are nowhere near as nice as Lan Zhan’s, of course, but her black t-shirt is worn soft with many trips through the washing machine, and the red boxer briefs are thick enough that she’s been known to take the garbage out to the dumpster without bothering to put on real pants. (She’s been known to take the garbage out to the dumpster in her regular underwear, honestly—Wei Ying has a nice ass and no shame.)
“I don’t understand what he thinks he’s gonna find, anyway,” she complains to Lan Zhan on her way to the living room. “We get mostly trade paperbacks! I can’t even remember the last time someone dropped off a hardcover that wasn’t an outdated encyclopedia.”
“There was that Legend of Zelda artbook you brought home,” Lan Zhan reminds her. She’s splayed out across their couch with a book (not the Zelda artbook) in the kind of sprawl that Wei Ying still finds hilarious. Lan Zhan has perfect posture; she sits in armchairs and on park benches and on those bouncy yoga balls with an upright spine like she expects to be graded on it, and yet when you put fiction in her hands and give her access to a couch she suddenly becomes one of those cats who somehow manage to take up three-quarters of a king-size bed.
“Fair! The Legend of Zelda artbook was the last time someone dropped off a hardover that wasn’t an outdated encyclopedia,” Wei Ying says, letting the ramble hopefully cover the way her eyes always snap to Lan Zhan like magnets to a fridge. (Wei Ying is allowed to look at Lan Zhan for certain amounts of time and in certain ways as long as Lan Zhan doesn’t notice. This is one of her Rules.) Lan Zhan’s in pale blue terry shorts and a soft cream sweater today, her long, toned legs spread out for miles against the couch cushions. Her hair is a little rumpled, like she didn’t bother smoothing it out after she changed, and Wei Ying’s fingers itch to card through it. She knows how soft it is, because when Lan Zhan gets the fade cleaned up she graciously allows Wei Ying to run her hands against the nape of her neck to enjoy the prickly velvet of a fresh shave, and maybe sometimes Wei Ying’s hands keep moving up through the rest of it before she decides she’s done! Sue her! You’ll never prove anything in court!
(A Certain Amount Of Touching is also within the bounds of the Rules, which is one of the Rules that Wei Ying constantly skirts right up against breaking, again, not that she’s keeping obsessive track of it or anything.)
Wei Ying is probably staring a little, so she covers with a super smooth, “Hi, Xuebai! Hi, Tater Tot!” opening the hutch so she can give each of the rabbits a scratch. (Lan Zhan let her name one of them—two guesses which, and the first doesn’t count—and may still be regretting it to this day.) “Did you two have a good day?”
Xuebai nips at her fingers. Tater Tot shoves her head under Wei Ying’s hand, bullying Xuebai out of the way, and then starts licking Xuebai’s face. Wei Ying grins and pets their soft, soft ears. What sweet little weirdos.
“How was your day?” Lan Zhan asks, turning a page in her book with a smooth motion. “Other than dealing with First Edition Eddie.”
Wei Ying makes a long, “Uuuuuuuuunnnnnnnnngh,” sound, shutting the hutch and zombie-staggering over to the couch. “That’s how my day went.”
“Eloquent,” Lan Zhan comments drily.
“That’s me!” Wei Ying puts her hands on her hips and looks expectantly at Lan Zhan, who is still occupying literally the entire couch. Lan Zhan appears to see no issue with this, as evidenced by the way she settles a little deeper into the cushions, eyes on her book, body language languid like she’s not preventing Wei Ying—her housemate and very good friend and tragically not her girlfriend—from also accessing those cushions. This will not stand, obviously.
“Hey.” Wei Ying pokes Lan Zhan’s knee and tries not to have too many feelings about all the bare skin on display. (Feelings are allowed as part of the Rules, but that doesn’t mean Wei Ying likes to actually feel them.) “I wanna sit down.”
“Do you,” Lan Zhan deadpans, turning another page and not looking up at Wei Ying at all.
“I do,” Wei Ying confirms, poking her knee again but harder this time. “I want to flop on the couch in my apartment and read webnovels on my phone and think about nothing, but there’s all this Lan Zhan in the way.”
“Hn.” Lan Zhan doesn’t move a muscle. If anything she gives the impression of getting heavier. “Sounds like a you problem.” She says it just as flatly as she’s said everything else, her face as impassive and unmoving as the side of a cliff, but Wei Ying watches her very closely at literally all times (see previous Rules) and she knows her tells. Lan Zhan’s ears are slightly pink, and her index finger twitches against the cover of her book. That means she’s in a mood today, the kind of mood that has previously led to them trying to make a multi-tiered wedding cake or re-organizing all their bathroom toiletries or (on one glorious occasion) moving the furniture out of the way in the living room so they could compete to see who could wrestle the other one’s socks off faster. (Lan Zhan was the tournament champion—barely—but Wei Ying won two out of their five matches before she got a cramp from laughing too hard, so she held her own.) Most people don’t know Lan Zhan has a secret gremlin side. Wei Ying is honored to get to see and indulge it.
Honored and sometimes annoyed, like, come on, Lan Zhan! Wei Ying paid for at least a quarter of that couch! She should be entitled to half a cushion without argument!
“You’re really not gonna move?” Wei Ying asks, mostly to give Lan Zhan one more chance to avoid whatever Wei Ying’s about to do. (What is she about to do? Genuinely not sure yet! Wei Ying’s more of a “figure it out as you go” kind of person. Planning? We don’t know her.)
“I fail to see any reason why I should,” Lan Zhan says calmly, but her eyes glitter and her index finger taps against her book again. Definitely in a mood. Well, Wei Ying has never seen a mood from Lan Zhan that she wasn’t willing to fling herself at body and soul, and she’s not about to stop today.
“I just want you to know that you brought this on yourself,” she says in her most serious voice, right before she climbs up on the couch to stand awkwardly on the cushions between Lan Zhan’s rudely sprawled legs. Ha! A victory!
Lan Zhan glances up from her book just long enough for Wei Ying to catch her utterly withering expression. “Hm.” She turns a page, the corner of her mouth ticking up so slightly Wei Ying might be imagining it. “Is that what you call flopping?”
“Well, fuck you, too,” Wei Ying says, trying to sound stern and not like she’s about to laugh. What a weird petty bitch! Wei Ying loves her so much! Also, challenge fucking accepted!
Wei Ying collapses to cross-legged with a bounce that shakes the whole couch, barely managing to do it without landing on Lan Zhan’s legs. (She does manage it, though, because she’s a genius.) She pauses long enough to evaluate her options and then flings herself basically into Lan Zhan’s lap, wiggling around and flailing annoyingly and actively taking up as much space as possible. When she’s done she has her head resting on Lan Zhan’s pelvis, arm wrapped around one of Lan Zhan’s thighs where it arcs over her shoulder, and legs draped over the arm of the couch. It’s very warm, and very secure, and extremely comfortable.
It is also easily more intimate than they’ve ever been before (not counting the sock wrestling), which probably breaks at least five Rules (Wei Ying will not be listing which ones), and Wei Ying can feel her heartbeat pounding nervously in her throat. Naturally, she doesn’t allow this to stop her from staying exactly where she is, skirting right up against the edges of Lan Zhan’s boundaries and her own carefully-maintained Rules, nor does she let it into her voice when she says, “Happy now?”
Lan Zhan hums dismissively. “Not your best work,” she says thoughtfully. “Needs more practice. Seven out of ten.”
“Seven?” Wei Ying scoffs, slapping Lan Zhan’s leg (warm, and muscular, and her leg hair is so soft—no, focus up, Wei Ying!) indignantly. “Seven? I made the couch sound like it was gonna collapse! I saw you flinch when you thought I was gonna sit on your leg! Seven?!”
“Mn.” Lan Zhan audibly turns a page. “Seven point five.”
Wei Ying cracks up laughing, one arm thrown over her face and the other still pleasantly hugging Lan Zhan’s thigh. “You are vicious,” she wheezes when she can speak again. “Does anyone else know you’re like this, or do you save it all up for me?”
Lan Zhan takes a moment to consider the question, the way she always does no matter how ridiculous a thing Wei Ying asks. “A’Huan may suspect it.”
“So you do save it all up for me,” Wei Ying says with deep satisfaction about Lan Zhan admitting she keeps some things just for Wei Ying and a horrible, irrational pang deep in her heart that Lan Zhan doesn’t keep everything just for Wei Ying. She pats Lan Zhan’s leg, trying very hard to ignore basically every emotion she’s currently having. “I’m honored to receive all your weird bitch energy, jiejie.”
Lan Zhan tugs on a piece of Wei Ying’s hair, not hard enough to hurt but hard enough that it a) is intended as a clear punishment, and b) tingles across her skin to make all the other hair on Wei Ying’s body stand on end. “You said you wanted to read a webnovel.”
“I might be reading right now,” Wei Ying points out, digging her phone out of the waistband of her boxer briefs. “I can read and talk at the same time, jiejie, my mouth is very talented.” Dear fucking hell and shit, her mouth is talented and also a betrayer.
Lan Zhan does not say anything, but she tugs on Wei Ying’s hair again, harder this time. Wei Ying can’t see her, but she can sense the skeptical/exasperated energy in the air and picture Lan Zhan’s tight, bored mouth and her pink ears. Wei Ying learned back when they first met that innuendo was the easiest way to get a rise out of Lan Zhan, and while she’s genuinely matured enough not to spend all her time trying to annoy Lan Zhan into looking at/dating her—turns out that treating someone kindly and mostly respecting their boundaries is a better basis for a friendship. Who knew?—Wei Ying is not yet mature enough to not love it when Lan Zhan gets the ear blushies, and may still employ innuendo in order to get it to happen. Pink ears are just cute, okay? It’s just also one of her Rules that she doesn't usually use single-fucking-entendres to make Lan Zhan ear-blush. There’s supposed to be a limit to these things.
“Fine,” Wei Ying huffs, trying to push Lan Zhan’s cute blushing ears out of her mind as she snuggles Lan Zhan’s thigh in what she hopes is a suitably annoying manner, “I’ll be quiet, we can read, whatever.”
“Mn.” Lan Zhan pats her head, which is the kind of thing that would make Wei Ying go absolutely nuclear coming from anyone else (she doesn’t care to be condescended to) and coming from Lan Zhan just makes her go melty. “Enjoy your book.”
“You, too,” Wei Ying says nonsensically, because now Lan Zhan’s just sort of petting her head? And doesn’t appear to want to stop? Like, fine with Wei Ying! It's very soothing! She doesn’t mind pretending to be one of the rabbits! It’s just… new. Like the aggressive level of cuddling that’s happening. She thinks she probably had a Rule about this.
Wei Ying gives it about three seconds of serious consideration, decides she won’t be able to figure anything out while her hair is being actively played with on account of how it’s making her dissolve into a puddle of relaxed goo, and opens up her webnovel. She wants to see how many more times this useless lesbian makes out with the hot lady ghost under the guise of “sharing spiritual energy” before she admits she’s in love. Given the wordcount of the story she bets it’ll be a while.
Wei Ying settles in to read, cradled warm and safe between Lan Zhan’s legs, Lan Zhan’s hand still petting through her hair, and she lets herself forget about the outside world with its broken toilets and First Edition Eddies and all its other assorted frustrations for a lovely little while.
✧✧✧
It’s warm and soft where Wei Ying is, a lazy heat flickering in her groin as something caresses over her body and hair, leaving her vaguely horny and definitely squirming. Is she in bed with someone? She can’t tell. The touches are too indistinct, her brain too foggy and sleepy to actually process the world around her. There might not even be a world around her, not anymore—she might be the only one that exists wherever this is. Wei Ying might float here forever, warm and relaxed and aroused—definitely aroused—except that it smells familiar here, too? Like sandalwood and jasmine.
Like home.
Wei Ying mumbles something and wiggles a little, several soft things around her slowly resolving into actual things she recognizes—the cushions of the couch under her back, an expanse of skin pressed against her cheek, the decidedly not-soft jut of what’s probably her phone wedged into her armpit. Why is her phone in her armpit? That’s not usually where she keeps it, though the ADHD brain makes choices even she doesn’t understand sometimes.
“Mmmph?” Wei Ying mumbles to the world at large. She’s not really expecting an answer, but she feels obligated to see if she can get one.
“You fell asleep,” Lan Zhan says, softly answering Wei Ying’s not-entirely-voiced question, and another sensation suddenly makes sense to Wei Ying. She must have been dreaming the sexy, slow-burn touches all over her body, but Lan Zhan’s still playing with her hair, nails scraping against her scalp occasionally and making her simultaneously shiver and melt. It’s… definitely not helping the lazy hornt situation Wei Ying has going on, but she still feels like all her limbs are made of lead, so she can’t quite make herself care.
“Hmrrrph?” Wei Ying mumbles in a slightly different tone, managing to locate one of her arms and lift it slightly. That’s all she has in the tank, so if Lan Zhan doesn’t understand, she’ll have to… She doesn’t know what. Her brain still isn’t working.
“This is fine,” Lan Zhan says in that same soft voice, low with an edge of a rumble to it. “You don’t have to move.”
“Mmmm,” Wei Ying says, patting something happily. It’s warm, whatever it is. She decides she likes touching it and leaves her hand there, and the warm thing twitches away from and then into her hand, like it was surprised by her choice but liked it. Is it… Wei Ying shifts around and squints one eye blurrilly at the thing, which mostly looks like an expanse of familiar bronzy pink. Wei Ying squints at it harder, unwilling to open her other eye even though it would obviously make this task easier. She knows this, whatever it is, knows the feel and the look of it—
Oh! It’s Lan Zhan’s leg! Because Wei Ying laid down on her to use her crotch as a pillow, and Lan Zhan petted her hair—is still petting her hair—and now Wei Ying’s cuddling her thigh like it’s a stuffed animal. Great! Question answered. Wei Ying shuts her eyes again. She feels like maybe she should say something that isn’t just a mumble—this is so nice, and she’s so comfortable, and Lan Zhan’s being so good that it makes the inside of Wei Ying’s chest fill up with a sparkling, indescribable joy, something suffusing her every breath and simmering out to her fingertips.
Anyway, she’s basically asleep and not fully in control of her actions, which later she will point to very emphatically as the explanation for why she whispers, “Thanks, jiejie,” and presses a little smooch to the inside of Lan Zhan’s bare thigh.
Three things proceed to happen nigh-simultaneously:
- Wei Ying snaps from mostly asleep to fully fucking awake as though sprinting directly into a brick wall, body going absolutely rigid;
- Lan Zhan gasps, her body going just as rigid and her hand tightening in Wei Ying’s hair so hard it hurts, which;
- Shivers all the way down Wei Ying’s spine and into the heat pooling between her legs, the slow simmer of it boiling over onto the coals in a wave of Horny(™) that leaves Wei Ying literally dizzy.
Wei Ying is going to die of embarrassment. Her heart is going to climb up out of her chest and into her throat and choke her to death with its pounding. It’s already happening! This is the end! Fuck! Fuck! The list of things she wants to do to Lan Zhan and very much under any circumstances can’t let herself do is long and has many, many entries, she has so many Rules, and right now the top one—highlighted in red and flashing like a gif that should come with a seizure warning—is “Don’t kiss Lan Zhan’s naked thigh!” And yet! Here they are!
It’s probably been at most two seconds since Wei Ying decided to utterly betray herself, but it feels like it’s been eight million years, and Lan Zhan still hasn’t said anything, and Wei Ying hasn’t said anything either, and she knows she needs to say something, needs to apologize just—so many times. She needs to do so much apologizing, and then she needs to get off Lan Zhan and go to her room and get off because there are—there are things happening down below, things she can smell, oh fuck, and any second now she will get her mouth in gear to do something that isn’t breaking all her Rules, isn’t sexually harassing her best friend and housemate with thigh kisses, but her brain is still all blank and buzzing and—
And Lan Zhan exhales shakily, the tension leaving her body in fits and starts that Wei Ying can feel under her shoulders and head and hand, and her grip on Wei Ying’s hair relaxes until it doesn’t hurt anymore. It’s still firm, though, like she wants to be able to keep Wei Ying in place, and she tugs so, so lightly at the same time that her thigh sways infinitesimally toward Wei Ying’s face.
She tugs Wei Ying toward her thigh. Not away.
Toward.
Definitely toward.
Well, fuck, Wei Ying thinks, face burning and her brain still mostly offline in panic. Physics take the wheel, I guess, and she breaks several more Rules to obey what she hopes desperately is Lan Zhan’s wordless request: She kisses Lan Zhan’s thigh again.
Lan Zhan’s breath catches in a very appealing way, and she—she actually fucking shivers, the sensation running through her body and into Wei Ying’s in all the places they’re pressed together. She does not pull away, or throw Wei Ying onto the floor, or tell her to stop being the world’s biggest pervert. Wei Ying’s pulse starts racing for a different reason, some of the panic fading under a surge of combined arousal and curiosity. Given that Wei Ying is the living embodiment of “curiosity killed the cat,” willing to go to deeply inadvisable lengths in order to feed said curiosity (the second part of that saying is “but satisfaction brought it back”! She’s just trying to live up to the idiom!) and also given that Wei Ying has been known to make incredibly bad choices while horny (that sex toy website didn’t have photos for scale, okay?!) this is quite possibly the worst combination of emotions when it comes to her self-regulation. It’s probably a bad idea to continue without talking about it, right? She should stop. They should talk about it.
On the other hand…
Lan Zhan hasn’t pushed her away.
Slowly, carefully, Wei Ying turns her head to face Lan Zhan’s thigh more directly, which also brings her mouth a few inches closer to the crease where it joins the rest of her body. She presses a kiss next to the hem of Lan Zhan’s terry shorts, mouth slightly open and wet. Lan Zhan feels so good, warm and soft and a little bit salty when Wei Ying flicks her tongue out to take a tiny, tiny taste.
“Ah!”
Oh. Oh, that was a moan. That was definitely a moan, and it definitely came from Lan Zhan, and it was definitely from Wei Ying licking her skin. Lan Zhan’s hand has unmistakably tightened in her hair, and she for sure shivered again and sort of rolled her hips? Which Wei Ying is acutely aware of, given that Lan Zhan’s crotch has been her pillow for lo these many minutes, and there’s a sort of humid sensation at the back of her neck, because—and Wei Ying has to take a moment to squeeze her eyes shut and try not to literally explode—she has now realized that the horny aroma she’s struggling with and embarrassed by? It’s not just her.
Well! Wei Ying is learning a lot of things this afternoon! So many things! Wow! Okay! She makes the active choice to unpack all of that later and decisively rolls over to her hands and knees, phone thunking somewhere into the cushions as she looms up between Lan Zhan’s spread legs. Lan Zhan’s hand stays in her hair the whole time, which is great, because if they don’t keep touching Wei Ying might die. In the bravest action of Wei Ying’s whole life she drags her gaze up to Lan Zhan’s face—if there’s any hesitancy or horror or disgust there she’ll apologize and then throw herself into the sea and reinstate all her Rules but harder this time, she absolutely will—and her breath catches.
Lan Zhan does not look hesitant, or horrified, or disgusted.
Lan Zhan looks wrecked.
Her ears are redder than Wei Ying has ever seen them, her mouth open and her lower lip shiny like she just licked it. She stares back at Wei Ying with wide, dark eyes, all rich and wanting, and the inside of Wei Ying’s head goes BRRRRRR.
Okay. Well. Well.
Seems like, uh. Seems like maybe Wei Ying doesn’t need to reinstate her Rules just yet, huh?
The hem of Lan Zhan’s sweater has ridden up at her hip, baring maybe an inch of skin above the waistband of her shorts. This seems like the perfect target for Wei Ying’s ongoing experiment in When Will Lan Zhan Actually End This Game Of Extremely Gay Chicken In Which We Are Now Embroiled (as well as her ongoing rulebreaking endeavors—rules were made to be broken, right?), and she keeps her eyes on Lan Zhan’s the entire time as she slowly leans down and presses her lips to it. Lan Zhan sighs under her, rolling up into the touch, and in so doing accidentally (maybe) makes her sweater ride a little higher. Wei Ying takes advantage of this newly bared inch of skin by kissing it, too. She wouldn’t want to make it feel left out, right?
Lan Zhan still hasn’t stopped her, for reasons Wei Ying cannot comprehend. Her hand keeps flexing in Wei Ying’s hair, not quite pulling the strands but adding tension in a way that’s making every nerve in Wei Ying’s body light up. She knew she liked having her hair played with, but damn.
Since Lan Zhan hasn’t stopped her and they’re apparently still playing the gayest game of Gay Chicken to ever exist in human history, Wei Ying dares to slip her thumb underneath the hem of Lan Zhan’s sweater and slowly slide it up her body, baring an expanse of soft skin and the squishy roll of Lan Zhan’s muffin top that Wei Ying knows from experience camoflauges an impressive set of abs. Her mouth follows the path of her thumb, careful kisses to the side of Lan Zhan’s stomach and her belly button and the place where her ribcage starts. Lan Zhan watches her the whole time, ears going so red the color creeps down onto her cheekbones, tongue occasionally flicking out over her lower lip in a flash of pink so erotic it makes Wei Ying a little lightheaded.
Wei Ying feels like, regardless of this Gay Chicken to the Death situation, that going straight for Lan Zhan’s tits would be a little much. That is definitely the kind of thing you need clear consent for, verbal or no, so when she hits just below bra-level she pauses to evaluate her options. Lan Zhan has her sleeve rolled up on the arm that isn’t currently occupied with holding on to Wei Ying’s hair, her whole naked forearm temptingly on display where it’s tossed above her head to rest against the couch. Yeah, perfect.
Wei Ying slings one leg over Lan Zhan’s hip so she can actually reach her goal (how dare Lan Zhan be so tall and hot) and does an awkward crawl-lean. This, she cannot help but notice, puts her boobs basically right in Lan Zhan’s face. Given that Wei Ying a) knows Lan Zhan is a lesbian and b) considers herself to have pretty nice boobs, she just sends “You’re welcome!” vibes in Lan Zhan’s direction and kisses the inside of Lan Zhan’s wrist. Lan Zhan’s hand flexes like something out of a Regency romance, and it would take a stronger woman than Wei Ying to resist kissing the muscle at the base of her thumb, and then her wrist again, and then down the line of her forearm to her elbow. She places each kiss with great care and consideration, as though they’ll mark Lan Zhan’s smooth skin like a tattoo, the slow tension of the whole situation ratcheting higher and higher every time her mouth meets Lan Zhan’s warmth.
Wei Ying wants to lose it; she is so close to losing it she thinks she deserves a medal for not having lost it yet, but since she hasn’t lost it she presses one last kiss to the inside crook of Lan Zhan’s elbow and then, having run out of bare skin and also ending up basically cheek-to-temple with Lan Zhan, surveys her options. Lan Zhan’s hair smells like the expensive sandalwood and jasmine shampoo that Wei Ying can’t afford, and she presses her nose into it and inhales the way she always wants to and very rarely does. (There are—were—Rules about appropriate sniffing.) Underneath the shampoo smell there’s just Lan Zhan, salt and skin and delicious.
Lan Zhan sighs and tips her head a little, giving Wei Ying slightly less access to her hair but more access to her forehead. Does Lan Zhan want face kisses? Is this Lan Zhan trying to escalate the game of Gay Chicken? The joke’s on her, because Wei Ying is immensely competitive and she showed up to this game of Gay Chicken intending to fucking win.
Lan Zhan’s temple is warm under her tingling lips; the corner of her eyebrow twitches when Wei Ying kisses there. Her ear is practically scalding, so hot Wei Ying feels like she should come away with a burn. (There’s a burn, all right, but it’s centered in between Wei Ying’s legs and pulsing with every heartbeat.) She kisses Lan Zhan’s cheekbone, lingering there with another deep inhale, then kisses the side of Lan Zhan’s nose. Lan Zhan has still not stopped her, has barely moved other than the continued fidgeting with Wei Ying’s hair, and the rest of the world has gone fuzzy and indistinct. There’s only this slow inevitability building between them, Wei Ying slowly shedding rules like shackles. Wei Ying simultaneously can’t believe it’s happening and finds herself mildly surprised it’s taken this long.
Wei Ying’s competitive spirit fails her when she reaches Lan Zhan’s mouth, hovering scant inches away, so close she can feel Lan Zhan’s harsh exhales on her skin. Lan Zhan’s eyes closed sometime during the face kisses, and her long lashes flutter once, twice before she meets Wei Ying’s gaze again. Normally she has little gold flecks in her dark irises, which Wei Ying knows because she looks at Lan Zhan very intently basically all the time. Right now there’s no gold. Hell, there’s barely a ring of dark brown around the edges. Lan Zhan’s pupils are so dilated it looks like she just came back from the eye doctor, and it’s all because of Wei Ying? Wild.
God, Wei Ying wants to kiss her. She’s aware that she has been kissing her, but those kisses were what they were (Wei Ying will not be answering questions about what those kisses were at this time, thank you) and this is—this is something else, Lan Zhan’s mouth open and panting and so, so close. She could do it. She could just lean down and taste Lan Zhan’s lips, and then she’d know what it was like, but she can’t seem to make herself move. Lan Zhan hasn’t stopped her, but suddenly that isn’t enough. Wei Ying wants Lan Zhan to want her. She wants her to be an active part of this, not just passive and receptive to whatever fever dream Wei Ying chose to act out today. Is Wei Ying about to lose Gay Chicken? Unclear, but she knows she needs to… something.
“Lan Zhan,” she whispers, daring to break the silence, voice shaking. She wets her lips unconsciously, giving herself a second to try and figure out what the fuck she’s going to say next. She never gets a chance, actually, because Lan Zhan’s eyes drop to her mouth, she makes a punched-out noise, and then she hauls Wei Ying down by the hair and kisses her like she needs it to live. In spite of this being the obvious conclusion to their current activities, Wei Ying finds it so surprising her arms give out and she bodily collapses in a flail of limbs.
Sexy, she thinks ruefully, lower lip stinging where she smacked it against Lan Zhan’s teeth in the landing, and then those same teeth dig into that same lip in a bite that obliterates every single one of Wei Ying’s thoughts. She makes an embarrassing horny sound that is objectively Too Fucking Loud and tips her head to deepen the kiss, her tongue chasing Lan Zhan’s in a hot, wet slide.
One of her hands has ended up in Lan Zhan’s hair while the other is under the hem of the sweater and spread as far around Lan Zhan’s ribcage as it can get, because her hands have their own priorities and don’t need input from her brain. Great job, hands! The ribcage hand slides up Lan Zhan’s torso until it reaches the band of her practical cotton bra, and then over the band, and then Wei Ying hesitates minutely before deciding she has to win Gay Chicken somehow and cups the heavy swell of Lan Zhan’s truly wonderful tit. It’s hot against her palm, the bra slightly dampened from sweat, and she swipes her thumb across it on a nipple-seeking mission, finds the hard nub she’s looking for, and draws a circle around it.
Lan Zhan fucking growls, her hand tightening in Wei Ying’s hair to keep her trapped in place while her other hand abruptly lands on Wei Ying’s ass to drag her closer. There’s a sudden firm pressure between Wei Ying’s legs that sends fire up her spine directly from her pussy, and she arches into it and moans, confused and bewilderingly turned on. She squeezes her thighs together and rolls her hips, both because she might pass out if she doesn’t get more friction on her clit and also as an investigative technique, and remembers that in order to kiss Lan Zhan’s wrist she had to straddle one of Lan Zhan’s hips. That choice is now paying out in dividends, because the thing in between her legs is Lan Zhan’s muscled, bare thigh, and Lan Zhan’s hand on her ass is encouraging her to ride it and in the process act out one of Wei Ying’s regular masturbatory fantasies. Wei Ying isn’t sure at this point which one of them is winning Gay Chicken, but she thinks that if she grinds on Lan Zhan’s thigh until she comes, that’ll definitely count in her favor.
Lan Zhan, apparently no longer satisfied with only attacking Wei Ying’s mouth, starts bite-kissing her way over her jaw and down her neck, which is possibly the hottest thing Wei Ying has ever experienced. She expresses this by making, “Ah! Ah!” sounds with each exhale and humping Lan Zhan’s thigh with a rhythm that is already verging on frantic. Lan Zhan reaches the neckline of her shirt and fucking licks underneath it, a hot stripe on Wei Ying’s collarbone, and sticky summer heat crawls across Wei Ying’s skin, abruptly stifling.
“Off,” she demands, too breathy for it to be an order, making the ultimate sacrifice by taking her hand off Lan Zhan’s perfect titty so she can yank her black t-shirt over her head and throw it across the room. “Off, off, off,” she continues, reduced to single syllables in her horniness and pawing insistently at Lan Zhan’s sweater.
Lan Zhan does a full sit-up, taking Wei Ying with her (hello, Lan Zhan’s abs!), whips her sweater off so fast the breeze ruffles Wei Ying’s hair, and cruelly leaves her bralette on as she curls forward to suck Wei Ying’s nipple into her mouth, because Wei Ying (unlike some people) took off her bra as soon as she got home and is now allowing full access to her boobs, because she’s generous. Wei Ying, still tragically denied full access to Lan Zhan’s boobs, whines piteously. Immediately after that she whines hornily, because Lan Zhan is apparently planning to win Extremely Gay Chicken via titty-sucking alone, and every sinful thing she does with her tongue throbs in Wei Ying’s clit. She has her whole body weight bearing her down into Lan Zhan’s thigh now, which means the next time she grinds she feels it in her fucking teeth. Lan Zhan gets a hand on Wei Ying’s other breast to pinch her nipple and the feeling arcs through her body like lightning, a feedback loop between her pussy and the base of her skull and both tits that has Wei Ying’s hands clutching desperately at Lan Zhan’s hair, mouth open on every audible, whining breath.
“Fuck,” she whimpers, clenching up, thighs trembling and heat twisting tight in her belly. “Fuck, Lan Zhan, I—”
“Mnnn,” Lan Zhan hums, glancing up from her station at Wei Ying’s boob. Her hands feel like they’re everywhere, kneading her ass, caressing her thigh, groping the breast her mouth isn’t currently occupied with, every touch ratcheting up the tension in Wei Ying’s body. Her eyes are half-lidded, all black, her mouth red when she pulls slowly away until Wei Ying’s nipple slips out of her mouth with an embarrassingly audible pop. “Do it,” she orders in a harsh whisper that Wei Ying feels tug in her guts like a fishhook, right before she bites Wei Ying’s tit.
Wei Ying slams her eyes shut, lightheaded from a lack of air, too drawn-up and desperate to even inhale properly as she grinds once more against Lan Zhan’s thigh and snaps like a rubber band under too much pressure. It’s a bewilderingly strong orgasm, ripping through her body with no regard for her dignity or her physical composure or the fact that she still has underwear and boxer briefs on. She arches into it, shuddering, moaning absolute nonsense between ragged gasps that just barely keep her from blacking out. She distantly realizes that Lan Zhan has both hands on her hips now and is actively making her keep grinding, which is probably why she can’t seem to stop coming.
“Fuck,” Wei Ying sighs, head flopping forward bonelessly as she finally starts coming down, all sex-drunk and silly from the endorphins running through her body. “Wow, okay.”
Rhythmic movement registers to her through the haze, oddly familiar? Lan Zhan gasps against her shoulder, and suddenly everything makes sense: Wei Ying, in pussy-having horny solidarity, managed to get her knee in between Lan Zhan’s thighs while she was riding Lan Zhan’s thigh, and now Lan Zhan is grinding off against her leg, her hot breath washing over Wei Ying’s skin and her shoulders shaking with urgency. Yes. Yes. That is exactly what Lan Zhan should be doing. She deserves her own mind-blowing orgasm after the one she gave Wei Ying, and Wei Ying should tell her so.
“Yeah, that’s it,” Wei Ying says eloquently, her tongue still thick in her mouth. She flops her hands clumsily down Lan Zhan’s back and finds the closure of her bralette. It only takes her three tries to get the damn thing unhooked, which is basically a one-shot no-scope when you take into account how useless all of Wei Ying’s limbs are at the moment. “Yeah, just let me…” she continues, getting both hands under the bra in the front to palm the heavy fall of her tits. Lan Zhan seems uninterested in letting go of Wei Ying in order to take the damn bra off, and while it continues to be rude, Wei Ying is willing to work with that.
Lan Zhan shudders when Wei Ying finds her nipples, both of them pebbling up under her thumbs. She’s still not capable of grace or dexterity, but she manages to roll them against the edge of her pointer fingers, tugging and tweaking and listening for what makes Lan Zhan react the most. The answer appears to be “all of it.” Lan Zhan either has incredibly sensitive nipples (lucky her), or she’s close enough to the edge that everything feels good (also lucky her). She keeps mouthing at Wei Ying’s shoulder in between breaths, not quite kisses but not not kisses, the long line of her neck gleaming with sweat. Wei Ying wants to lick it.
Wei Ying realizes a second later that she can lick it and immediately does so. Lan Zhan tastes like salt and and sex and a flavor that Wei Ying’s brain unhelpfully can only categorize as “woman,” which she finds vaguely annoying because it makes her feel like she’s in a romance novel cliche. She pushes that annoyance aside in favor of kissing all the way up to Lan Zhan’s ear and biting the lobe gently to say hello before leaving a line of bites on her way back down to where Lan Zhan’s neck meets Lan Zhan’s shoulder and really dig her teeth in there.
“Mmm,” Lan Zhan says into Wei Ying’s collarbone, shaking fingers clamped onto Wei Ying’s hips hard enough that she hopes there are bruises. There’s a little moan catching on the end of all her exhales now, and sweat prickling against Wei Ying’s hands on her breasts. Wei Ying mouths under her ear at the soft, sensitive skin and gives both of her nipples another tug, urging Lan Zhan on wordlessly. She has to be close. Wei Ying’s never had sex with Lan Zhan before (alas), but she’s had sex with other people, and she knows the signs.
“Come on,” she whispers, lip catching on the edge of Lan Zhan’s jaw. “Let go, jiejie, I have you.”
Lan Zhan’s orgasm hits her in a wave that starts at her head and shivers down her body, her skin practically rippling under Wei Ying’s touch as it goes. Wei Ying wishes she could see Lan Zhan’s face properly, but she keeps her forehead pressed into the crook of Wei Ying’s neck, so she can only catch flashes—a glance at her mouth, open and panting; the corner of her eye squeezed shut with tension; the red, red curve of her ear. Wei Ying does her best to memorize all of it, the salt-sandalwood smell in the air, the heat of Lan Zhan’s skin, the wonderful weight of her tits when Wei Ying hefts them, and the beautiful little sounds Lan Zhan makes. She comes quietly but not silently, moaning into Wei Ying’s neck like she’s telling a secret.
It’s the most beautiful thing Wei Ying has ever experienced.
She wants to experience it again immediately.
Unfortunately, Lan Zhan has gone mostly limp, so she’s probably not ready for an immediate round two. That’s fine! Wei Ying can be patient, probably, all previous evidence to the contrary notwithstanding. She gets her hands on Lan Zhan’s back, petting up and down the muscular length of her spine and occasionally scritching into the hair at the nape of her neck. Lan Zhan hums happily not unlike a cat purring and starts idly kneading Wei Ying’s ass in her hands, also not unlike a cat that is also a pervert. (Or something.)
“You didn’t even take your bra off,” Wei Ying complains idly, lips brushing Lan Zhan’s temple.
Lan Zhan huffs a laugh and kisses Wei Ying’s neck. “I apologize,” she says in a sex-rough voice. “I had other priorities.” She squeezes Wei Ying’s ass on “priorities,” just to make it obvious, because she’s a fucking gremlin. Wei Ying yelps and squirms, grinding against Lan Zhan’s thigh in the process and sending a crackle of arousal through her guts. Lan Zhan makes an interested sound and squeezes again, which makes Wei Ying squirm again, and the post-orgasm lazy energy of the room immediately flips over into pre-orgasm tension.
Fuck yeah! Round two of the most impossible thing to ever happen that is somehow still happening! Wei Ying cheers internally. Externally she says, “Well, you’ll just have to make it up to me somehow,” and shoves on Lan Zhan’s shoulders, trying to get her to lay down.
“Will I?” Lan Zhan asks, not budging an inch.
“Obviously,” Wei Ying says, really leaning in now and cackling in triumph when Lan Zhan goes over backward to land with a floomp on the cushions. “You’re gonna make it up to me by letting me suck on your titties.”
Lan Zhan blinks at her twice, cheeks pink and mouth red and kiss-swollen. “That is me making it up to you?”
“Yes!” Wei Ying says, flinging her arms up. “I will accept nothing less! Now take off your fucking bra!”
Lan Zhan does, thank god, and Wei Ying takes a moment to appreciate the view in a way she’s never been able to before. She’s spent a perfectly reasonable amount of time imagining what Lan Zhan’s tits would look like (that is, she’s been obsessing over the idea for literally years, in defiance of all her Rules), and she needs to take a moment to adjust her mental image to match the reality.
Lan Zhan’s nipples are darker than Wei Ying had thought they'd be, a rich reddish brown; her breasts proportioned differently without the structure of a bra. Lan Zhan works out enough that Wei Ying had always imagined her boobs would reflect the musculature of the rest of her body, the sculpted curves of her shoulders and thighs. In real life they’re soft and squishy, gravity drawing them down and back until they almost disappear into her armpits, the darker tiger-stripes of her stretch marks betraying how hard puberty must have hit her. Wei Ying bets that if Lan Zhan was standing up she could hold a pencil under each boob. Probably more than one! She wonders if she can convince Lan Zhan to run that experiment with her later, and immediately after wondering that yanks her brain violently away from the idea of later or any kind of thoughts about the future. She’s living in the present moment, mindfully, and she’s going to mindfully get her mouth on Lan Zhan’s tits and not think about anything else.
“You are so hot, jiejie,” Wei Ying complains, shuffling down the couch and doing an awkward thing with her leg so she’s kneeling between Lan Zhan’s thighs instead of straddling one. (She doesn’t want to get distracted and also she thinks she might start chafing if she rides Lan Zhan’s thigh any longer. Clit chafing is generally to be avoided, in Wei Ying’s opinion.) “Who told you you could be this hot?”
“I wasn’t aware I needed permission,” Lan Zhan says drily, watching Wei Ying through half-lidded eyes.
“Well, keep it in mind,” Wei Ying tells her, kissing along her collarbones and down her chest. “Next time you decide to get hotter check with me first.”
Lan Zhan snorts in a very subtle and refined way. Wei Ying grins into her sternum, delighted as always to get any reaction at all, and tries to decide if there’s a respectful way to motorboat someone. Probably there isn’t, so she gathers up a tit in each hand and attempts to smother herself between them, rubbing her face into the soft curves, because she’s the perverted cat now. Under her Lan Zhan chuckles, her hands coming up to card through Wei Ying’s hair and pet her back. Wei Ying lets herself really savor it for a bit, trying to infuse her entire body with the essence of Lan Zhan as she mouths over her stretch marks, smushing her face into Lan Zhan’s generous, squishy underboob, and then she goes in for her actual goal and licks a nipple.
Lan Zhan jolts, her hands tightening in Wei Ying’s hair. Wei Ying smirks to herself and sets to her self-appointed task with a light heart and a heavy clit. She confirms the sensitivity of Lan Zhan’s nipples in short order now that she’s playing with them separate from any other stimulation. She has Lan Zhan writhing, panting open-mouthed and pawing at Wei Ying’s head and shoulders. Can Lan Zhan come from nipple stimulation alone? God, Wei Ying would love to find out, but the anxious voice in the back of her mind that won’t stop screaming that this might be her only chance spurs her on to kiss down Lan Zhan’s stomach and pause with her mouth on the happy trail above Lan Zhan’s shorts. She looks up the line of Lan Zhan’s body with raised eyebrows, hooking her index fingers under Lan Zhan’s waistband and waiting for an answer.
Please please please please, she prays to no one in particular for the long, lingering eternity (probably two seconds) it takes Lan Zhan to realize she’s stopped moving and look down to find out why. Their eyes meet with an energy that almost crackles in the air, and Lan Zhan’s ribcage rises and falls with a huge, slow breath before she nods.
Wei Ying takes a huge, slow breath herself, trying to calm her racing heart and trembling hands with mixed success, because Lan Zhan is about to be naked, and Wei Ying is gonna get to see it, holy fucking shit! She steadies herself and gets a better grip on Lan Zhan’s shorts, slipping her fingers under the waistband of her underwear, too, and Lan Zhan helpfully lifts her hips so Wei Ying can peel them off. There’s a lot of clumsy leg things that need to happen (Wei Ying probably shouldn’t have started this process whilst in between Lan Zhan’s thighs, lesson learned) but together they prevail.
Okay, yep! Lan Zhan is naked! And Wei Ying is Looking! Disrespectfully! She’s paler through the chest and belly than on her arms and legs but with no visible tan lines, probably because she’s better about sunblock than Wei Ying will ever be, the black triangle of hair between her legs standing out starkly against the skin of her lower abdomen and thighs. She has her hands resting above her head against the arm of the couch, all lithe muscles and corded power, and Wei Ying hornily notes that her armpit hair and pubic hair are trimmed to the same reasonable half-inch or so. Her brain helpfully plays an image of Lan Zhan in the shower using a body hair trimmer to achieve that goal, skin flushed and glistening as hot water pours over her, then shakes herself and re-focuses.
Wei Ying resumes her previous position, mouth pressed to Lan Zhan’s treasure trail, hands curled around Lan Zhan’s thighs and kneading at the squishy layer of padding over her muscles. With the shorts off Wei Ying can really smell her arousal, musky-salty and rich, and she takes the time to savor it as she kisses Lan Zhan’s inner thighs and the crease of her leg, so, so close to the end goal. It’s not that she’s shy about pussy-eating or worried she won’t know how to do it—Wei Ying knows how to suck a clit or a dick, thank you very much—it’s that this is Lan Zhan, and Wei Ying wants to make it the best she’s ever had so hopefully maybe Lan Zhan will want to do it again.
Fuck! She’s thinking again! Unacceptable. Wei Ying does the only thing she can do to distract herself: She pulls away to get the lay of the land, drinking in the sight of Lan Zhan’s gorgeous, flushed cunt, and then she dives in tongue-first. Head empty, mouth full. That’s how Wei Ying’s gonna live.
Lan Zhan tastes as good as she smells, all salty-sour musk and sex. She’s swollen and plush under Wei Ying’s tongue, wet but not dripping. She probably doesn’t soak through her underwear when she comes. Lucky her! (Things are distinctly sticky between Wei Ying’s legs, which she’s steadfastly ignoring.) Maybe she doesn’t get wet enough to take a toy without outside help, but that’s why horny geniuses invented lube. Also, in the short term, Wei Ying is definitely drooling enough to make up for any shortage of natural lubrication on Lan Zhan’s part. She swallows roughly, moans, and licks her way up to Lan Zhan’s clit.
Wei Ying knows she has it right when Lan Zhan’s hands land in her hair and grab on. She smirks internally and stays where she is, alternating between drawing slow circles around the thick jut of Lan Zhan’s clit and sucking on it gently. Lan Zhan is responsive, sensitive, jerking away when Wei Ying goes too hard and rocking up into her face when she gets it right. She gets wetter, too, the taste of her thicker until it’s all Wei Ying knows. She’s never tasted anything before, and she’ll never taste anything again, just Lan Zhan’s cunt against her tongue. She’ll learn to live here, to live on this. She’s pretty sure she can do it. She’s at least willing to try.
Lan Zhan goes tense under her again, her thighs shaking and sweating against Wei Ying’s hands. She’s moving a lot now, more than Wei Ying would be able to stop if she was trying to pin her down, hips grinding into Wei Ying’s mouth and hands tight in Wei Ying’s hair to keep her in place. Wei Ying goes pliant and obedient, mouth open, tongue out, letting Lan Zhan do what she wants and take what she needs. Her reward for this good behavior? Lan Zhan shuddering, making a beautifully guttural sound, and coming on her face, all of which Wei Ying tries to desperately memorize in case this is the only time she gets to experience it. (Shut up, brain!) Wei Ying sucks and swallows and licks, trying to draw it out as much as possible while Lan Zhan jerks through it in spasms, and only stops when Lan Zhan physically yanks her away by the hair.
Lan Zhan collapses, panting, and Wei Ying swallows with a gasp and sets her cheek on Lan Zhan’s thigh, also panting. She’s sticky from the nose-down, heartbeat in her throat and temples and throbbing in her cunt. She needs to get off again, preferably as soon as possible, but Lan Zhan seems pretty fucked out, so Wei Ying clenches her legs together and squirms a little, hoping for enough pressure to at least take the edge off. She thinks maybe if she lets go of one of Lan Zhan’s thighs (alas) she could get that hand into her underwear and take care of things on her own if Lan Zhan doesn’t have the energy. It’s not going to take much, not with the taste of Lan Zhan lingering on her tongue and her current excellent view.
Of course, no sooner has Wei Ying decided upon a course of action than Lan Zhan throws a wrench into the works, this time by regaining the muscle control to tug on Wei Ying’s hair and drag her up until Lan Zhan can kiss her, wet and messy and desperate, free hand sliding under the waistband of Wei Ying’s boxer briefs and underwear to palm her bare ass.
“Off,” she orders, giving Wei Ying’s ass a hard squeeze, which is fucking rich coming from the woman who left her bra on for the first round of orgasms. Wei Ying magnanimously doesn’t point this out, instead choosing to strip naked as quickly as she physically can and settle in the straddle across Lan Zhan’s waist that she seems to want.
“I get—” she starts, thinking she should probably warn Lan Zhan before she drips all over her, and her voice cuts off into a squeak when Lan Zhan’s hand slips between her legs.
“Wet,” Lan Zhan comments, and oh, is she ever; she is soaked. Lan Zhan pulls her hand away to rub her thumb speculatively over her glistening fingers. Wei Ying blushes even redder and covers her face.
“It’s so messy,” she complains, “I’m sorry, I can’t—fuuuuuuuuuck—”
“Seems like you can,” Lan Zhan says conversationally, pumping her two middle fingers into and then back out of Wei Ying’s pussy with an embarrassingly squishy sound. The sensation fires through Wei Ying’s body, cunt to scalp and back again, and Wei Ying clenches down instinctively and braces her hands on Lan Zhan’s shoulders for balance.
“Was that a pun?” she gasps, striving to seem at least somewhat in control of herself and not ten seconds of clitoral stimulation away from a bone-shattering orgasm. “Did you just acknowledge a pun during sex?”
Lan Zhan ignores this very valid line of inquiry in favor of increasing the pace at which she’s fingerfucking Wei Ying, which is honestly fair. Wei Ying decides that she should also be focusing on that, and she lets her hips roll into the movements of Lan Zhan’s hand, the stretch of her fingers and their steady, wonderful pressure filling her up. She’s pant-moaning maybe thirty seconds in, body shaking, and when Lan Zhan presses her thumb to Wei Ying’s clit it’s all fucking over. Wei Ying ruts against Lan Zhan’s fingers with tiny, frantic movements until the tension finally crescendos and rolls over her like a water balloon exploding, which is an apt metaphor because Wei Ying doesn’t squirt, exactly, but there’s a definite gushing thing that happens. She’ll probably be embarrassed about that later, when she’s done swearing and panting and whimpering and making a lot of pathetic sounds that she’ll also be embarrassed about later.
She can’t quite collapse in her current position (she’d crush Lan Zhan’s hand, which wouldn’t be comfortable for either of them) so she slumps forward, ass-up, and lets her head thunk into Lan Zhan’s shoulder. Lan Zhan hums in approval and moves like she’s thinking about taking her fingers out, which: no. Wei Ying whines and clenches, flopping one of her hands to Lan Zhan’s forearm to pin her in place. Lan Zhan huffs and leaves her hand where it is, petting Wei Ying’s sweat-damp spine with the other, and Wei Ying shivers through an orgasm aftershock, practically purring. This is perfect. Everything is perfect. Wei Ying doesn’t want to move, so she simply won’t.
The march of time is cruel, and in this case it shows its cruelty in that Wei Ying does actually have to move. Her neck hurts from being turned to the side, and the weird arched-back pose she’s in is probably very sexy to look at but is not going to agree with her tomorrow if she stays in it for much longer, so she reluctantly pushes more upright. Lan Zhan takes the hint and slides gently out of Wei Ying, inspiring another really just excessive issue of leakage that Wei Ying feels slide down her thigh. Like… Wei Ying has never been mad about being able to handle penetration really easily, but does her body have to produce so much fucking juice? F in the chat for her underwear, wherever it ended up. It probably went splort when it hit the ground.
Wei Ying sits back on her heels, which means she ends up straddling Lan Zhan’s hips, which means she puts her bare ass on Lan Zhan’s naked skin, and it suddenly slams into her like a car driving straight through the wall: She had sex with Lan Zhan. Lan Zhan had sex with her. They had sex. Every single worry that Wei Ying pushed away for later comes roaring back with a vengeance, because it’s fucking Later, and Wei Ying gets to reap the consequences that she sowed.
“I—” she starts, no idea where she’s going from there.
“Hm?” Lan Zhan looks up from ogling Wei Ying’s tits, pupils still dilated and ears still red. Her hair is rumpled, and the blush of her ears spreads all the way onto her face and the base of her neck. Her mouth looks bruised and swollen, her nipples dark and abused. She runs her wet hand (and it is shiny with Wei Ying’s generous lubrication) through the drips Wei Ying left on her stomach. She looks like a fucking mess, like Wei Ying destroyed her, and Wei Ying’s heart drops into her guts at the same time that her hopeful, useless cunt gives another clench. Lan Zhan is—Wei Ying made Lan Zhan a mess, and she can’t—what the fuck has she done—what are they going to do now?
“Wei Ying?” Lan Zhan asks cautiously while Wei Ying sits there panicking, rigid with terror. “Are you—”
“I have to—bathroom!” Wei Ying announces, lunging off Lan Zhan’s lap and almost faceplanting into the coffee table. “I’ll—I’ll just—” and she practically sprints out of the living room, not stopping until she’s safely locked in the hall bath, buck naked and breathing hard.
Okay. Okay, okay, okay, okay. Wei Ying just threw all her literal years of caution and self-control to the wind in order to fuck Lan Zhan, her best friend, with whom she’s been in love for the same number of literal years that she’s been keeping all her feelings under lock and key. They fucked. Wei Ying ate her out. Wei Ying came on her. This is a disaster.
Wei Ying almost slides down the door to sit in a pathetic heap on the floor, but she’s still naked and putting her wet pussy on the tile is undignified and unhygienic enough that she forces her legs to carry her to the toilet so she can sit down in the correct and expected place to sit in a bathroom for your nervous breakdown. She rests her elbows on her knees and buries her face in her hands to muffle the horrible, pained noise she makes. She had Rules! She had so many Rules! And she broke almost all of them in one afternoon, because she ruins everything, and now she’s ruined this, too.
Wei Ying sits on the toilet long enough that one of her legs starts falling asleep (it’s always the same leg—something must be weird about this toilet seat) and the skin on the lower half of her face goes dry and itchy, because—oh yeah—she sucked Lan Zhan’s clit, and she’s still covered in her pussy juice. She should probably do something about both of those things, huh? And then she should find some clothes, followed by (preferably) climbing out the window to flee into the woods, but actually (worst option) going and seeing how badly she destroyed the best thing in her life. Fun.
Maybe, Wei Ying negotiates with herself as she pees and wipes half-dried slick off her thighs, maybe Lan Zhan won’t see this as a huge thing! Wei Ying managed to get through it without confessing her undying devotion, right? Lan Zhan doesn’t need to know it was anything more than mutual stress relief. It’s not like either of them has been dating a lot lately. They were just pent up and they needed to help each other out with multiple orgasms, like good friends are known to do! Wei Ying fixates on this idea so thoroughly as she washes her hands and rinses her face that she almost starts to believe it, and she makes the dash to her room without running into Lan Zhan in the hall, which gives her even more time to self-delude.
By the time Wei Ying’s dressed in loose pants and an old, worn-out t-shirt (she doesn’t dare put on shorts, in case the shorts were somehow a catalyst) she’s just about convinced herself that it’ll be fine! She’ll go make a joke to Lan Zhan about how much they both needed that, and Lan Zhan will huff wryly and then ask what Wei Ying wants for dinner, and they’ll make tacos or stir-fry or curry or whatever else Wei Ying wants, and Wei Ying will just live the rest of her life deeply in love with Lan Zhan, haunted by the knowledge of what she tastes like, and with about fifteen million more Rules. That’s fine! It will be fine! Wei Ying is fine!
Wei Ying pokes her head around the doorway into the living room, a bad joke ready to go on her tongue, and finds Lan Zhan sitting on the couch, head down and shoulders pulled in, hands clasped tightly together and resting on her knees. She’s also fully dressed in gray sweatpants and a white tank undershirt, which means Wei Ying can see how tense she’s holding herself, the anxiety written into the lines of her muscles. Wei Ying’s discarded clothing is neatly folded and waiting on the end of the coffee table next to her forgotten phone, which is just—so Lan Zhan, and also somehow the worst thing Wei Ying has ever seen. The joke she was about to make turns to ash in her mouth, tongue suddenly dry, and Wei Ying has to swallow twice before she can whisper, “Lan Zhan?”
Lan Zhan’s head snaps up, eyes locking on Wei Ying’s immediately. There’s a split second of complete and utter anguish in her expression before it smooths out like ripples in a pond, the deliberately calm blankness that she wears in public and at work when she doesn’t want anyone to know how she’s really feeling. Wei Ying hasn’t seen it directed at her in years, not since back when they first met, back when Wei Ying’s best strategy for making friends was “being super fucking annoying and flirting all the time.” Lan Zhan… Lan Zhan doesn’t want Wei Ying knowing what she’s thinking right now, and it lands like a slap, a wall rising up between them brick by brick.
“Wei Ying,” Lan Zhan says, a depth of emotion in the tones that somehow leaves Wei Ying with nothing to go on. Lan Zhan’s hands flex together, knuckles whitening, and she sits up straight, back to her usual perfect posture like it’ll protect her from something.
“Hey,” Wei Ying says into the miserable silence, sidling into the living room and leaning against the wall. They’re about as far from each other as it’s possible to be in this room, a mocking counterpoint to how close they were barely twenty minutes earlier. This, Wei Ying reflects, is emphatically not fine. This is why she had Rules.
Lan Zhan swallows visibly, her face still carefully blank. “How are you?”
“Fine,” Wei Ying lies, as though Lan Zhan isn’t slowly ripping her heart out of her chest. This is not the way someone behaves if they enjoyed having sex with you and want to have it again. “Totally… Yeah. Cool.”
Lan Zhan nods like she doesn’t believe Wei Ying at all, which is probably fair since Wei Ying is lying through her teeth. “Good,” she says quietly. She rubs her hands together and folds them tightly again, that anguish flickering through her eyes for a split second. She takes a deep breath and says, “I need to apologize.”
Please don’t, Wei Ying begs internally.
Outwardly she nods, because if she opens her mouth she’ll start screaming.
“I shouldn’t have done that,” Lan Zhan says after another deep breath. “I apologize for my inappropriate behavior.” She sounds miserable, which is not the way Wei Ying wants people to feel after having sex with her. That said, Wei Ying also feels miserable, so at least there’s some solidarity.
“It’s okay,” Wei Ying creaks when the silence has gone on long enough that speaking seems like the marginally less awful option.
“I would understand if you want to leave,” Lan Zhan says to somewhere around Wei Ying’s knees, “but it won’t happen again.”
Oh! Great! Cool! Goodbye, Wei Ying’s heart! It was a nice run of having it where it’s supposed to be anatomically, but now it’s on the floor and bleeding everywhere. Probably stomped on, too! This is going so well!
“Yeah,” Wei Ying manages to get out, staying upright and not sobbing through sheer force of will. “That’s fine. I get it.” She forces a laugh, and it comes out vicious and bitter. “I’m not exactly girlfriend material, right?”
Lan Zhan’s brow creases, marring her perfect blank expression. “What?”
“It’s not like you’re the first person to figure that out,” Wei Ying goes on, unable to stop her mouth now that it’s started. “You’re in pretty good company, haha!”
Lan Zhan frowns harder. “Wei Ying—”
“I mean, I totally get it!” Wei Ying says wildly, blinking hard against the sting of tears in her eyes. “I’m loud and a huge mess and I work a shitty job and I never remember to take my clothes out of the dryer when they’re done! It’s a miracle I manage to trick people into dating me short-term, right?”
Lan Zhan’s really frowning now, from what Wei Ying can tell through the blur. “Wei Ying—” she tries again.
“So yeah, it’s cool!” Wei Ying’s mouth says without her permission, charging ahead at full speed. She’s not going to be a dick to Lan Zhan, she’s not, she’s not. That’s still rule number one, so she’s going to accept this rejection as magnanimously as possible and then go cry in her room for the foreseeable future. “I don’t expect anything from you or anything. I know you were never interested, like, who’d want to date me anyway?”
“I would,” Lan Zhan says, shoving to her feet and watching her so intensely Wei Ying feels it on her skin like a sunburn.
Wei Ying snaps her mouth shut on some other self-deprecation and takes a shuddering breath, lightheaded. “What?”
“I would date you,” Lan Zhan says, each word carefully enunciated. “If that was something you wanted.”
Wei Ying gapes at her, feeling tears track down her cheeks. “If that was something I wanted?” she squeaks. “Was me going down on you not fucking clear enough?”
Lan Zhan swallows and sways a step closer, hands fisted at her sides. “You ran away,” she says, tentative and heartbroken. “I thought—I thought you regretted it.” She swallows again, eyes shiny with the depths of her emotions. “I thought I’d pressured you.”
“You what?” Wei Ying cannot believe what she’s hearing. “I—I fucking kissed your leg out of fucking nowhere and then decided to just keep kissing on you until you stopped me, and you think you were pressuring me?” She flings her hands up. “Either one of us could have stopped playing Gay Chicken at literally any time and—you might note—I didn’t!”
“Why didn’t you?” Lan Zhan may not have blinked in the last five minutes. Wei Ying can’t stop blinking on account of the crying, so maybe it evens out.
“Because I didn’t want to!” Wei Ying basically yells, though she undercuts the seriousness of it by sniffling. “Because I thought I’d died and ascended to heaven, Lan Zhan!”
“You wanted to,” Lan Zhan repeats, tongue flicking out to wet her lips. “You wanted… me?”
“So much,” Wei Ying admits around a sob. “What, do you usually have multiple orgasms with people who don’t want you?”
Lan Zhan takes two long steps and ends up right in front of Wei Ying, lifting a hand to thumb a tear away from her cheek. “I’ve never had an orgasm with someone I really wanted,” she says, low and rough. “Not until Wei Ying.”
What? What? Wei Ying finds her mouth and engages it enough to say, “What?”
“I wanted—want—you, too,” Lan Zhan says, her hand cupping Wei Ying’s cheekbone. “That’s why I didn’t stop.”
“Oh,” Wei Ying says blankly. “Cool?” Her brain decides at this moment to serve up a replay of something Lan Zhan said earlier, and Wei Ying looks up at her with new eyes and a horrible cramp of hope in her heart. “You said you’d date me. If I wanted.”
Lan Zhan nods, her face soft and hopeful and still fucking terrified.
“So… You want to date me?” Wei Ying asks, leaning in to Lan Zhan’s touch, hands coming up to encircle her wrist and make sure she doesn’t take it away.
Lan Zhan nods again, some of the terror turning into fondness.
“And do you wanna date me just for the sex, or…” Okay, Wei Ying is going to trade her voice to a sea witch, not for a pair of legs, but just so it stops fucking her over all the time!
“The sex was very good,” Lan Zhan says with that same soft, hopeful, fond, terrified expression, “but I do not want to date you just for that.”
Something has to be wrong with Wei Ying’s lungs, since she seems to be having a lot of trouble breathing, and something else has to be wrong with her brain, since she doesn’t care that she’s having trouble breathing. “So do you, uh,” she whispers, making eye contact with Lan Zhan’s nose because that’s a much less scary option. “Do you like me or something?”
Lan Zhan smiles a tiny bit, her whole face transforming. “Or something,” she agrees, her thumb sweeping over Wei Ying’s cheekbone.
“Cool,” Wei Ying says, slumping into Lan Zhan’s embrace, abruptly exhausted. “Maybe you could, like, say it with words?” she mumbles, lips brushing Lan Zhan’s collarbone. “Since the, uh, the not-talking didn’t seem great. For us.”
Lan Zhan hums and kisses her ear. Out of the corner of her eye Wei Ying can see Lan Zhan’s pulse beating in the thin skin at the base of her neck, and whoo boy, it is going fast. There’s a comfort in that, one that she holds tightly to as Lan Zhan inhales and says (slowly, deliberately), “Wei Ying. I love you.”
Wei Ying squeaks, burying her red face further into Lan Zhan’s neck, arms tight around Lan Zhan’s waist. “Cool,” she says again, high-pitched. “That’s super great!” AAAAAAAAAH! says the inside of Wei Ying’s head. “I, uh. Me too.” Wei Ying squeezes her eyes shut and inhales Lan Zhan, sandalwood and jasmine and salt and still a lingering hint of sex. Wow, turns out that years of keeping this under wraps makes it super hard to say out loud! Who could have guessed? Wei Ying flexes her fingers against Lan Zhan’s back, takes a deep breath, and admits, “I—um. I love you, too.”
Lan Zhan hums again, fingers working into the still-tangled mass of Wei Ying’s hair. “Good,” she says steadily, like Wei Ying can’t feel her galloping heartbeat where their ribcages are pressed together. They stand like that for a moment, drinking in the contact and relief, and Lan Zhan asks, “Are you going to hide in my neck all day?”
“Mmmmmaybe,” Wei Ying says to Lan Zhan’s pulse point. “I like it in here, jiejie.”
“Hm.” Lan Zhan scritches her scalp a little. “That is your choice, but it does make it harder for me to kiss you.”
Wei Ying laughs wetly, a cage cracked open inside her heart and spilling its contents everywhere. “So logical, jiejie,” she teases, allowing Lan Zhan to tilt her head up and capture her mouth. The kiss is sweet and slow and slightly salty (Wei Ying might still be crying). If the earlier kisses were desperate clinging, this kiss is a long, lingering hug, secure in the knowledge that there will be more. It’s not a goodbye; it’s a homecoming, a warm meal on a cold day.
They break apart, and oh, Lan Zhan is smiling, one that scrunches up the corners of her eyes and shows the barest hint of teeth. She’s smiling at Wei Ying. Wei Ying is the one that made her smile like that, and she can’t hold herself back from grinning so big her cheeks hurt.
“Ah, jiejie,” she says, giddy with triumph and joy, “you really love me?”
“Mn.” Lan Zhan kisses the tip of her nose. “For a long time.”
“Me too,” Wei Ying says, “for so fucking long, Lan Zhan.”
Lan Zhan’s face does something complicated, carefully picking out a knot in Wei Ying’s hair without even being able to see it. “Why didn’t you…”
“Say something?” Wei Ying laughs and shakes her head, getting her hands underneath the hem of Lan Zhan’s tank top to press against her low back. “I spent the entire first year I knew you trying to seduce you and got nowhere. I very reasonably assumed you weren’t into me.”
Lan Zhan blinks at her, poleaxed. “You… You were trying to seduce me?”
“Yeah!” Wei Ying says, like it’s obvious, because it was so obvious. “You thought I wasn’t wearing bras as a political statement?”
“You still don’t wear bras very often,” Lan Zhan points out, ears flushing red.
Wei Ying opens her mouth to argue that point, can’t, and tries again with, “I sat in your lap, like, all the time.”
Lan Zhan stares at her like she’s running calculus behind her eyes. “You said you were cold,” she says faintly.
Wei Ying gapes at her. “You believed me? Did you also believe the theater boys who talked about how much they loved giving shoulder rubs?”
Lan Zhan snaps into a glare. “That was an obvious ruse,” she says sharply, and then she hears what her mouth said, and her face goes resigned.
“Yeah!” Wei Ying can’t figure out what she’s feeling, but she’s feeling a lot of it. “And I used obvious ruses on you for literally a year and got nothing from you from stone-faced glares! Which, I will point out, you continue to give me on a regular basis! How was I supposed to know you liked me back?”
Lan Zhan gives her a flat look. “I don’t only give you glares,” she points out pedantically. “I also buy cheese for you that I can’t eat, Wei Ying.”
Wei Ying cackles, head thrown back and her body shaking with it. “Were you trying to ask me out with cheese?” she wheezes incredulously.
“No,” Lan Zhan says very seriously. “I was trying to lure you in and make you love me by showing what a good partner I would be.” She pauses, considers, and adds, “Using cheese.” Another beat. “Among other things.”
Wei Ying is in love, holy shit. “Well, it worked,” she says, slipping her pinkie fingers under the waistband of Lan Zhan’s sweats. “If you wanted a girlfriend easily lured by cheese, you got one.”
Lan Zhan’s mouth goes soft, her eyes wide and wet. “Girlfriend,” she whispers, right before she kisses Wei Ying again, tongue hot and lips gentle and every part of it so ardent that Wei Ying’s toes curl. Girlfriends? They’re girlfriends now. Great. Great. Lan Zhan’s stuck with her, with her volume and disorganization and mess, every single part, and you know what? That sounds like a Lan Zhan problem!
“Wow,” Wei Ying says when they come up for air, still pressed as close as two people can be, “that was some game of Ultimate Gay Chicken.”
“Was?” Lan Zhan asks archly.
Wei Ying frowns. “Yeah?”
Lan Zhan brushes her hair behind her ear, eyes glittering, because she’s about to be a horrible little gremlin. “A game of Gay Chicken—”
“Ultimate Gay Chicken,” Wei Ying insists.
“—only ends when one person admits defeat and an unwillingness to continue the gay behavior,” Lan Zhan lectures, thumb skimming under Wei Ying’s jawline. “I’m still continuing my gay behavior. You?”
“Oh, yeah,” Wei Ying says, tamping down a giggle. “I’m in it to win it, jiejie.”
Lan Zhan nods, satisfied. “Then we are still playing Gay Chicken—”
“Ultimate Gay Chicken,” Wei Ying breaks in, sliding her hands further into Lan Zhan’s sweats to squeeze her ass.
“—Ultimate Gay Chicken,” Lan Zhan corrects smoothly, petting down the side of Wei Ying’s neck. “And I don’t intend to stop.”
“Hm,” Wei Ying says, pretending to be thoughtful. “Sounds like we might be playing for the rest of our lives, then. Are you prepared for that?”
Lan Zhan nods, her hand sweeping back up into Wei Ying’s hair where she makes a fist and gently tugs. “I will accept nothing less.”
“Good,” Wei Ying says, and kisses the smile off Lan Zhan’s face, and the one after that, and the one after that.