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likeshipsonthesea · 4 years

Text

withdrawal

wangxian modern quarantine au! warning for quarantine and covid references

Lan Wangji doesn’t touch other people.

He doesn’t remember when, exactly, this started being true. Sometime after Mother died, but before he left for boarding school. Xichen enjoyed touch, would ruffle Wangji’s hair, nudge their feet together under the dinner table, but when he left for school, Uncle never so much as pat Wangji’s shoulder. Lan Wangji doesn’t fault Uncle for his own aversion to affection, but he assumes it must have contributed to his current relationship to touching in some way.

The point is, Lan Wangji doesn’t like touching other people, and yet, by the third month of quarantine, he is craving it.

It’s ridiculous. It isn’t as if quarantine has drastically changed the amount of tangible affection he receives on a weekly basis -- before lock down started, the most touching he had to endure was from Wei Ying, which was as inconsistent as it was devastating. A tipsy Wei Ying leaning into his chest, a brush of fingers as they exchanged utensils before a meal, a brief press of Wei Ying’s smiling cheek into Wangji’s shoulder when he said something that made Wei Ying laugh.

These moments were important, at least to Wangji, but by no means frequently occurring enough to warrant an addiction and subsequent withdrawal, and yet Wangji sits in his apartment, meditating, trying to clear his mind, and all he can think about is hugging Wei Ying.

The third month of quarantine is spent, in addition to adjusting to online interactions for work and school, daydreaming about touching Wei Ying. And not even in an untoward way! He daydreams about sitting next to him on the couch, or letting Wei Ying use his thigh as a pillow, or -- Heavens help him -- holding hands.

On the fourth month, Wei Ying texts him with several emojis and the words no pressure bc i know u don’t wanna risk ur uncle’s health, but would u be down for a totally properly socially distanced dinner tomorrow night????

Lan Wangji, for one of the first times in his life, is grateful for texting, if only for the fact that he can’t say yes as desperately fast as he would’ve in person.

Dinner happens on the balcony of Wei Ying’s small apartment, his tiny plastic porch table filled with take-out. They sit on either end of the balcony, a little less than two meters between them. Wei Ying talks with his mouth full and gestures so vigorously with his utensils that spicy red sauce goes flying across the table. Lan Wangji drinks it all in like a drowning man might gasp in air.

“--and Uncle must be faking his Zoom incompetency at his point, there’s no way anyone could be that bad at it. I think he just pretends so Madam Yu has to set everything up, which of course frustrates her to no end, and then Jiang Cheng tries to help and gets so red in the face that he looks like a slightly pixelated tomato. So every call starts off on a bad note, but that’s alright because then shijie puts Jin Ling on the screen and we all shut up and look at how cute he is--”

Lan Wangji is accustomed to the weight of his own feelings for Wei Ying, and it isn’t as if he hasn’t spoken with Wei Ying at all since quarantine started, but it’s just so good to have Wei Ying in front of him, laughing and talking and moving and here. Lan Wangji wants to touch him so badly his skin aches.

He knows why he shouldn’t. The virus, of course -- he still sees Uncle regularly and Wei Ying is hoping to visit his sister and her newborn son this weekend, Wei Ying picked up the food for them, Lan Wangji walked over, the possibility of either of them having contracted it is low but not zero -- but more than that, even, is that Lan Wangji has no idea how to ask.

“Wei Ying,” he tries to visualize the words, “Wei Ying, may I hug you?”

Wei Ying would probably blink, scrunch up his nose in that way he does when attacking a particularly difficult problem set for his courses. He’d probably shrug, agree, confused, or, worse, suspect Lan Wangji’s intentions are impure and suffer through it awkwardly. It isn’t unusual for friends to ask for hugs, but Lan Wangji asking for a hug? Unheard of.

If Wangji hadn’t spent the past three months wishing to see Wei Ying in person, he would probably be so distracted by his thoughts of touching that he wouldn’t hear a single word Wei Ying says. Fortunately, his obsessive touching thoughts aren’t enough to draw his attention away from Wei Ying’s happy rambling, and so he manages to get through the meal without giving himself a coronary.

When it’s been at least an hour since either of them have touched a bite of food and the sky has gone so dark that they can hardly see one another across the table, Wei Ying says, “Ah, I guess I’d better let you leave.”

Lan Wangji doesn’t ask to stay, but it’s a near thing. They put their masks back on and Wangji helps clean up, despite Wei Ying’s protests, and when everything is away and Lan Wangji has his leftovers in a plastic bag, Wei Ying walks him the four steps to the front door and his eyes squint above his mask.

“Thanks for coming,” he says, rocking on his feet. “I know you’re trying to keep your uncle safe and stuff, but I really missed you.”

Lan Wangji’s chest clenches as he stops breathing for a moment. He wants to tell Wei Ying how desperately he’s been missed as well but all he says is, “Mn.”

Wei Ying’s eyes squint tighter. “We should do this again. Soon.”

Lan Wangji manages to nod.

Wei Ying nods back, and this is it. This is the moment where Lan Wangji should turn and leave and look forward to their next meal together, try to figure out on his walk how to reasonably quantify “soon,” arrive home to a plethora of indecipherable emojis on his phone from Wei Ying to smile at, alone in his apartment.

The thought of that, though, of standing alone in his apartment with only an inadequate proxy of Wei Ying’s presence to accompany him, has Lan Wangji saying, “Wei Ying.”

Wei Ying’s eyebrows go up, expectant.

Lan Wangji swallows around his suddenly dry mouth. He should leave. He shouldn’t give himself away like this, but oh -- oh, how he wants to. “Wei Ying, may I -- hug you?”

Wei Ying blinks, once, twice, and then his eyes squint thinner than they have all night. “Of course!” he says, and steps right in, arms coming up around Lan Wangji’s shoulders. It takes Wangji a moment to coordinate his own hands, one occupied by the leftovers, but he raises his free hand and presses it into the center of Wei Ying’s back, holding him close.

He’s warm and firm and right there, his chin settling perfectly on Lan Wangji’s shoulder, his hands pressed into Lan Wangji’s neck and shoulder blade. His thin t-shirt is soft and worn, his hair messy, fly-aways tickling Lan Wangji’s cheek. He smells familiar and cozy and Lan Wangji can’t help the way he presses his face in closer, wanting to get more of the scent only to remember he’s wearing a face mask.

Wei Ying doesn’t ask him why, doesn’t question it or tease Wangji, even when the hug goes on longer than Wangji thinks regular hugs do (he doesn’t have much experience in the area). When they finally disconnect, Wei Ying stays only half a meter away, closer than they’ve been the whole night. His eyes are still smiling. He says, “Thank you,” nonsensically and Lan Wangji only nods.

He does leave, after that, as much as he would like to curl up on Wei Ying’s second-hand couch and snuggle (Heavens, what’s become of him?). But the sense memory of Wei Ying, close, warm, smiling, gets him through the next week, until they have dinner again, and he doesn’t even have to ask before Wei Ying is opening his arms.

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