A knock at the door startled Wei Ying out of his work trance. His head snapped up and he blinked around. What day is it? Is A-jie supposed to come over? The knock rattled on the door again and he jumped to his feet, brushing his hair out of his face and picking his way across the crowded floor.
"COMING!" He called as he danced past a heap of odds and ends and banged painfully into the kitchen counter before tumbling into the door and flinging it open with an easy smile that froze on his lips when he laid eyes on the man standing at his door.
"Uh," he said rather intelligently, staring into the face of the most beautiful man he'd ever seen. Suddenly he was painfully aware of his stained gym shorts and torn t-shirt.
"My name is Lan Wangji, I'm from Cloud Recesses Home Organization Company."
"Uh, what? Who?" Wei Ying asked.
"My name is Lan Wangji," he repeated, a slight furrow to his brow. "I am from Cloud Recesses Home Organization Company."
"Cloud Recesses… Organization."
"Yes."
"I didn't hire a professional organizer."
The man frowned. "I was contacted by Jiang Yanli. She said you were interested in my services."
"Ah," he said, nodding in understanding. "Older sisters, am I right?" He joked, stepping aside and allowing Lan Zhan to enter the crowded apartment.
"Your older sister is Jiang Yanli?"
"Yeah, she's been on me to get my place cleaned up for a while, I guess she got tired of waiting."
"If you are not interested in my services-"
"Oh, no! No, no, no, no, no, it's best not to disobey older sisters, you know." He flashed his most charming smile at the man, and wondered at what point during this transaction it would be appropriate to ask him if he liked boys.
"I'm a bit of a tinkerer, so prepare yourself, it's a pretty bad mess."
"I can assure you I've seen worse."
"But have you, though?" He asked, wrinkling his nose as he led him through the space. To punctuate the sentence he opened the door to his workroom and basked in the man's barely concealed reaction. From the struggle in his eyes Wei Ying thought he maybe hadn't seen worse.
He wasn't a hoarder, no matter what Jiang Cheng said, he just liked to keep things around in case he needed them, and he left them all out and around the place so that he could easily see everything and reach what he needed!
"Pretty bad, huh?"
"I… have seen worse," Lan Zhan said at length. Wei Ying cackled.
"Well, in that case, I'd hate to see that person's house."
Lan Wangji let out a silent huff from his nose like he'd hated to see it to. "Mn." Wei Ying cackled. "I was told that the entire apartment was the project. Your sister told me money is no object."
"Ah, yeah, her husband is disgustingly rich."
"Well, then, traditionally, I take a walkthrough the space and take measurements and photos, I need you to sign a release saying that we are allowed to share before and after photos on our instagram, and we can talk about what in the space isn't working for you."
"Oh buddy my before pic will be so awful anything you do here is gonna make you look like magic, you're going to get mad business inquiries after this. But as for what isn't working for the space, you'd have to ask my older sister, since she's the one who has a problem with it. She says it's a fire hazard."
"It is a fire hazard," Lan Wangji helpfully supplied. "You can instead tell me how you use the space."
"Alright, well, why not start where we are, shall we? This is my workroom, I do most of my tinkering in here, although you could probably tell by the rest of the house that my work spreads around the apartment because I like to carry things with me and work on them everywhere. My desk is somewhere under that mess, and be careful where you step, most of this junk is still useful to me."
"The next space would be the living room, used mostly as a second office and a dining room. Then through here is the bedroom, ahaha," he chuckled nervously, cursing his idiot self for flushing as he showed an incredibly attractive man through his bedroom.
"How are the insides of your drawers?"
Lan Zhan reached for the drawer of his bedside table and Wei Ying fairly shrieked as he leapt forward and placed himself between Lan Zhan and the drawer.
"AHAHA! They're predictably terrible, but perhaps you should let me handle this one, eh? It has, uh, normal bedside table stuff inside there, not exactly things you want to mess with."
"I see, my apologies."
"Ah, my bathroom is equally as bad, let's go in there," he said, voice still to high pitched and loud, cringing at how he must look and sound like a madman.
"As you can see it's way overcrowded, the drawers are a mess, I always steal those tiny shampoos from hotels. They're everywhere. Also I have a hundred million eyeliner pencils, I use them like dry erase markers because I'm a gremlin," he said, gesturing painfully to the equations and rough blueprints he'd written on the mirror and inside of the shower.
"How about the kitchen?"
"Oh, well, it's a nightmare, but I don't cook much, so not too bad I guess?"
The kitchen was just as cluttered and disorganized, with yet more abandoned projects, but at least it was messy and not dirty. Mess Lan Zhan could deal with, but genuine filth he had a hard time swallowing.
"So, what's the verdict? Am I fixable?" Wei Wuxian asked, flashing Wangji a brilliant smile and leaning against the refrigerator. He hesitated for several seconds.
"It will be a significant time investment, probably two weeks, and a large amount of product will need to be purchased but as your sister-"
"Is disgustingly rich?"
"Sure. It will be doable. I believe adding another desk to your workspace would benefit you greatly as you say you work on more than one project at once, several shelving units, utilizing clear bins so that you can see everything, all labeled, I believe will be the best for you."
"Clear bins huh? That sounds good, I like to see everything, which is part of the reason I throw it all on the floor," he smirked again.
Lan Zhan nodded. "If you have no further questions I will return to the office and begin drawing up plans and consulting with my team so that we will be ready to begin tomorrow."
"Yeah, sure, that sounds great, I'll show you out."
Once the door closed behind him Wei Ying launched himself onto the clothes piled couch and screamed into a throw pillow. He had just spent a full hour making a total fool of himself in front of the most beautiful man he'd ever seen and he'd have to be spending the next few weeks with him every day, just stewing in his humiliation. Splendid.
Lan Wangji leaned against the handrail in the elevator and exhaled for a count of eight. These next weeks would be… challenging. He pulled out his phone and texted his brother that he was on the way back to the office.
He would have to get his act together before he came back tomorrow. He'd been caught off guard by Wei Wuxian and his blinding smile when he'd first arrived, and nearly been bowled over by every following smile until he'd left. He hadn't been expecting the most beautiful man he'd ever seen to answer the door with a smile like that, but tomorrow he would be expecting it, and he would maintain his same professional distance that he always did.
How did it go? Read his brother's responding text. Lan Zhan gulped.
"I think it best that we save your workroom for last, since you have projects all over the apartment, we can place all of your work supplies in there as we find them so we will have a genuine idea of what you have to be organized." Lan Zhan said, determinedly not looking at the red eyeliner that Wei Ying had put on today. It was really threatening his professional distance.
"That sounds great to me!" Wei Ying said brightly.
"I brought the closet organizing product with me today, I thought it might be best to start with your bedroom."
"Ah, I was afraid you might say that, I knew I should have done the bedside table last night."
"Here," Lan Zhan said, passing over a plain cardboard box, trying not to flush thinking about what Wei Ying had in his bedside table. "I can wait outside while you pack away the… sensitive materials."
"Great idea," Wei Ying said quickly, darting into his bedroom and tossing everything he could think of into his box and dropping it into the shower and drawing the curtain.
"Okay, you can come in now, let's get started on this closet!"
Lan Zhan entered the room, determinedly not looking at either Wei Wuxian or for the box, but instead focused on picking his way across the floor without stepping on anything, which was, as it happened, a difficult task. One that Wei Wuxian didn't seem bothered with, standing as he was on a crumpled t shirt.
"What would you say is stopping you from hanging up clothes now?" Lan Zhan asked, falling comfortably into the familiar consultation style.
"Too much work."
"Would you get more use out of your closet if it was shelves to fold and store?"
"Ah, you can probably tell that I'm not big on folding either," he walked directly across the clothes strewn on the floor to the closet to pull a heap of rumpled clothes out of a drawer.
"I see. You have what appears to be a large overflow, once you edit down what you have it will be easier to maintain organization when all your clothes fit comfortably into the space."
"Ah, well, this part at least should be easy, right? I don't really get attached to clothes, but you'll have a hell of a time trying to get me to get rid of stuff when we get to the workroom." He chuckled at himself. "I've seen Tidying up, keep only what brings me joy, right?"
Lan Zhan nodded.
"Then you know the first step is to put everything into a pile."
"Got it!" Wei Ying said, leaning down and scooping the clothes on the floor into his arms and tossing them carelessly onto the bed.
Lan Zhan moved to the closet and began bringing over what actually had managed to make it onto a hanger and lay it delicately over the bed. There wasn't much. Next he began pulling the crumpled clothes out of the open drawers, pausing when his hand knocked into something solid. Frowning he reached in carefully, mindful, and grabbed onto the corner of what seemed to be a picture frame.
"I knew that had to be somewhere!" Wei Ying cried when he saw what Lan Zhan was holding. "Thanks, man!" He said, flashing another blinding smile as he took the frame to himself, smiling softly at the image of Wei Ying and two other people all wearing hanfu, the woman in the middle in crimson.
"My sister's wedding!" He said warmly, plopping down on the edge of the bed and gazing fondly at the photo. "Too bad she married such a prick, she looked so lovely."
The warm look on Wei Wuxian's face stirred something in Lan Wangji's chest, it reminded him of the looks his mother used to give him before she died. It made him feel like he was wrapped up in her arms, warm and safe and loved, and suddenly he was overwhelmed with the urge to be enveloped in a gaze like that again. His breath caught in his chest and he coughed into his elbow to cover, but when Wei Wuxian glanced up at him, that warmth still effusing his gaze, his breath came to a full stop.
"Do you have any siblings?" He asked softly.
"An older brother, Xichen, he works with me."
"That's nice," Wei Wuxian chuckled at some private joke. "I love my younger brother more than anything, but I think we'd actually kill each other if we worked together."
"We haven't killed one another yet, but he can be very passive aggressive, at times," Lan Wangji allowed.
"Passive aggressive, what's that like?" Wei Wuxian asked, laughing. "My brother is flat out aggressive. Once I told him that he looked like a grape in his purple sweatshirt and he shoulder checked me into a koi pond."
"That is… aggressive." Wei Wuxian laughed even louder, warming the room around it, and the two of them shared an easy conversation about the difficulties of having siblings, and Wei Wuxian talked about sharing a room with his brother.
"Xichen, do you think we would have gotten along if we shared a room?" Wangji asked rather suddenly over dinner that night. Xichen stopped talking, evidently having been in the middle of a sentence with no idea that Wangji hadn't been listening.
"I think so," he said thoughtfully, accepting the subject change. "Why do you ask?"
"My current client, Wei Wuxian, he mentioned sharing a room with his brother as a child often devolved into physical violence between them. I wondered if it was average."
"Well, young boys can be aggressive, I guess, but you're always so respectful of the people around you, I can't imagine we would have had anything to argue about."
"Ah, thank you."
"But Mingue has described a number of -'bitch fights' as he called them- between himself and Huaisang. I can't imagine he ever hit Huaisang, but he's older and much bigger, it might be different between boys closer in age?"
"Perhaps," Wangji said thoughtfully.
"So this client," Xichen said, in a tone that immediately made Wangji regret bringing him up. "You've never talked about clients outside of work before."
Wangji took a bite of his food to avoid answering. This, Xichen apparently took as some sort of incrimination.
"So you do like him," Wangji looked up sharply, annoyed by the smug look of satisfaction Xichen was wearing. He wondered if there were any koi ponds nearby. "You should ask him out."
Wangji was stubbornly silent for the rest of dinner.
"I can't believe I'm doing this," Wei Wuxian told the brontosaurus on his refrigerator, masterfully drawn by Wen Yuan to have six legs and fire breath. A real design improvement, if Wei Wuxian said so himself. The brontosaurus made no comment, but gazed at him with his heavily judgemental and lopsided eye. "Don't you judge me, pal, I'm judging me enough for both of us."
Still, he couldn't help but feel that the fire breathing brontosaurus was judging him for sitting on the floor of his disorganized kitchen at one in the morning, eating string cheese and stalking the instagram of Gusu Home Organization Company for pictures of their employees, and hopefully a link to Lan Wangji's personal instagram. Finally, finally, he found a group picture of the team all standing shoulder to shoulder, Lan Wangji next to a man who looked very much like him, and he tapped on the photo, hissing in excitement when he was tagged.
He clicked the badge and was redirected finally to Lan Wangji's own page. He learned that his birth name was Lan Zhan, and that he had two rabbits, named snowball and midnight, and that he, tragically, did not post pictures of himself unless it was a group shot of… holy shit, was that Huaisang?
Wei Wuxian immediately dialed his best friend, not once sparing a thought to the hour, and was utterly unsurprised when Huaisang picked up after two rings.
"Wuxian? What's wrong, are you having another existential crisis?"
"No! Do you know Lan Wangji?"
"Huh? Yeah, his brother is dating Mingue."
"Wait, Xichen?" He felt like an idiot for not realising it sooner. "I didn't realize those were the same people?"
"Wuxian, sweetie, I love you, but you're going to need to start making sense in thirty seconds or I'm hanging up the phone."
"My sister hired Gusu Home Organization Company to do my apartment-"
"About fucking time."
"Shut up- and I was stalking Lan Wangji's instagram page and I saw a picture of you."
"Wait, what, there's a picture of me on Lan Wangji's instagram?" There was some rustling like maybe Huaisang was moving around to face his phone better. "Here let me pull it up, I don't see anything, how far down did you scroll? Stalker- ah, wait, there it is! Yeah, that was his birthday party last year. His brother threw it and invited my brother, and I got dragged along to help set up."
"So?"
"So, what?"
"So what's he like? Does he have a- person? A significant person?"
"I don't know, we don't really talk much."
"Does he like boys?"
"I don't know, I guess I can text Mingue, but this is weird."
"Wait, no, why are you texting Mingue, don't text him!"
"Too late. He didn't come home tonight, so he's probably with Xichen right now, dunno if they're awake though." Wei Wuxian groaned in agony.
The chiming of Mingue's phone woke him up and he groaned, unwrapping himself from around Xichen to roll over and grab his phone, squinting at the screen against the darkness.
"What the fuck," he grumbled, scrubbing his eyes to make sure he had read it right.
"What is it?" Xichen slurred, turning over and snuggling closer to him again.
"Huaisang wants to know if your brother likes boys?"
"What?"
"Huaisang wants to know-"
"No, I heard you, but, why?" Mingue shrugged.
"He does, but I think he has a crush on this new client of his, I don't know that Huaisang has a chance."
"Hm, Wangji Isn't really his usual type. Maybe he was asking for a friend. He's so weird."
"He says that he does!" Huaisang said after a short pause and Wei Wuxian let his heart soar, "but that his brother thinks he has a crush on his current client."
"Oh," Wei Wuxian said, trying not to be too disappointed.
"What do you mean, oh? Aren't you his current client, idiot? Doesn't that mean he has a crush on you?"
"Wait! I am his current client! Oh no, wait, what if he has another client! What if there's another client out there with his heart!"
"I don't think that that's how his company works, but why don't you just ask, or something."
"Oh my God, Huaisang, I can't just ask."
"Then answer the door naked and see if he ravishes you or something, I don't know, go to sleep."
"Huaisang you're no help!"
"Excuse you, I just found out in ten seconds both that Lan Wangji likes boys, and there is a very real possibility that he likes you. The only way I could be more helpful is if I dm'd him nudes from your instagram."
"You're terrible!"
"Keep in mind that I know your instagram password, Wux-" Wei Wuxian hung up on him, then changed his instagram password for good measure.
"Don't you think you should arrange them like this?" Wei Wuxian asked, leaning heavily into Lan Wangji's space to move around the spices in the cabinet that Lan Wangji was trying to organize.
"What would be your reasoning?"
"Well, this one looks cooler next to this one, and both of these are the same color so they can't be next to one another and-"
Lan Wangji wasn't listening, he was too busy staring at the beauty mark under Wei Wuxian's lip, imagining taking it between his teeth, when he was suddenly caught off guard by that face turning to face him, now only several inches away. His eyes lifted from Wei Wuxian's lips to his eyes, which had been outlined in red eyeliner today.
"Are you listening to me?" Wei Wuxian asked, smirking, and Lan Wangji froze.
"Uh," he said intelligently.
"Ah, Lan Zhan, it seems like I'm not the only person with attention issues today, huh?" The sound of his birth name from Wei Wuxian's mouth rang in his ears, so loudly that he barely heard himself reply.
"Apparently not, Wei Ying."
"I'm just saying! I think that a living room isn't complete without a few towering piles of stuff! It's like a conversation piece! 'Hey Wei Wuxian, what's the thing piled up under that other thing?' 'I don't know, Jiang Cheng, you'll have to be more specific!'"
Lan Zhan shook his head, suppressing a smile with some difficulty.
"You should keep all of your towering piles of things out of public areas. You wouldn't want A-Yuan to be crushed."
"That's not fair! You've been using my beloved nephew against me ever since you saw his brontosaurus."
"And I will continue to do so," Lan Zhan said smugly.
"UGH! You're so impossible!" Wei Ying leaned once again heavily into his space, wrapping around his arm and gazing up at him with wide baby-doll eyes that definitely started to chip away at his resolve to do this job properly.
Organizing Wei Ying's home had become something of a battle of wills between them. One he was convinced that Wei Ying was taking just as much enjoyment from as he was or he never would have been so strict. With other clients it was totally up to themselves what items they were and were not comfortable getting rid of, and he would never pressure or second guess, but Wei Ying seemed inwardly delighted when Lan Zhan put his foot down. It would spark a one sided nonsensical argument about the values of the thing that would sometimes last an hour. After three days of this, Lan Zhan realized that Wei Ying often didn't care about the object at all, and was just aiming to get a rise out of him, and the wailing and clinging was just part of the desired effect of the fight.
So he did what any rational and self respecting home organizer would do, he leaned into it. And if he was staying later and later in the name of 'finishing up' when the day had been wasted having nonsensical arguments, well that was no ones business but his own.
Lan Zhan looked up from the shelf he was trying to assemble, eyes drawn once more to the man folded up in a pile of what looked to be trash but was nonetheless being given the very careful and intense contemplation one would expect to be afforded to priceless artifacts. The now familiar desire to be caught in the center of all that attention overcame him with a flash of heat. He forced his gaze back onto the task at hand. Wei Ying is a client. It would be inappropriate to make a move and make him uncomfortable in his own home. His eyes flicked back to the other man without his permission.
It was going to be a long day.
Not that there hadn't been several of those lately. Wei Ying had seemed to set himself out on a mission to fluster him, regularly crashing their bodies together and invading his space, flirting and batting his red lined eyelashes. Focus had become a struggle. Had been a struggle since the first time Wei Ying flung open the door with that messy ponytail, torn shirt, and grease smudge on his face.
"About how often do you have clients that aren't capable of getting rid of anything, at all, ever?" Wei Ying asked, looking faintly distressed at his ever growing 'to keep' pile. He'd somehow gotten another grease smudge on the side of his nose.
Cute.
"It is not uncommon for people to have issues of attachment to their belongings."
Wei Ying gave a bitter chuckle. "Attachment issues, huh?" There was a dark look on his face that Lan Wangji didn't attempt to pry into, despite the strong urge too. It wasn't his place, they were still strangers, no matter how badly Lan Zhan wanted to close that gap.
"It helps some people to consider it as a trade: would you rather have the utem or the space? No one can have both."
"The item or the space, huh? Thanks, Lan Zhan, I'll give that a shot."
Wei Ying looked back down to the pile of things in front of him, kneading his lower lip between his teeth. Wangji gulped at the sight, eyes lingering longer than was appropriate. Eventually he managed to tear his gaze away and turned back to his shelf only to realize, much to his own embarrassment, that he'd assembled half of the thing upside down, and he would have to take the unit apart and start again.
A long day again.
Wei Ying kept glancing up at Lan Zhan, chewing on his bottom lip. Of course he's looked like an utter disaster when the most beautiful man he'd ever seen had turned up unannounced at his house, but at least in the following days he'd looked halfway decent. (He'd been too embarrassed to go 'full slut' as Huaisang had called it.) But he'd put on a shirt in a color his sister always said made him look very handsome and put on some of his red eyeliner, and Lan Zhan's ears had turned pink when he'd saw him, which seemed a good sign.
And if that didn't tell him what he needed to know, Lan Zhan had been putting his shelf together upside down, and didn't notice for glancing back to look at him when he thought Wei Ying couldn't see. But still, he wanted to do a good job decluttering his space, because he didn't think someone like Lan Zhan would want to spend time in his apartment if it was a horrible mess.
The problem was, even with Lan Zhan's tip about having either the item or the space, he'd still rather have both, and he'd always been one to attempt the impossible. Which was why, despite him giving his very best effort, his to keep pile kept getting bigger and bigger and his garbage pile was still the same three broken objects he kept thinking about rescuing and keeping anyway. Surely Lan Zhan's other clients weren't this terrible at the 'edit' phase of the process.
"Lan Zhan, do you have any more magical tips? I'm starting to think I'll never be able to get rid of anything! Can't you help me?" He moaned, sprawling dramatically out over the floor. Lan Zhan looked over to where he was clearly still trying to rectify his shelving construction error from earlier.
"You're still going through the active pile section, perhaps you'll have better luck once you move on to abandoned projects?"
Wei Ying pouted, he'd wanted Lan Zhan to come over and argue with him and play for a while, but he seemed determined to finish his shelf first. "I hope so," he said, slouching over dramatically. Lan Zhan flashed what was almost a smile at him, sending tingles all the way down to his toes.
An hour later shelves were assembled and had been placed carefully in their designated spaces. The two desks that Lan Zhan had ordered were on their way. Lan Zhan and Wei Ying sat with their legs crossed, facing one another with a pile of assorted odds and ends in between them. Lan Zhan held a broken screw driver between them, wearing the stern expression that Wei Ying adored.
"I use that to pry things open!"
"It's broken."
"Because I use it to pry things open!"
"Throw it out."
"But what if I need it again?"
"Name one thing you could use it for."
Wei Ying hesitated. "Back scratcher?"
"We're throwing it away."
"No! Lan Zhan!" Wei Ying whined, throwing himself forward and clinging to his wrist. "What if I need to unscrew a really weird shaped screw? Or fight off an intruder with it? All of my things you're making me throw away, you're so mean, look at them, they're crying!"
"They do not possess tear ducts," Lan Zhan said, his flat tone clashing with the warm look he was giving Wei Ying.
Wei Ying threw his head back and laughed, exposing the long line of his throat. He had to force back the temptation to bite him there and only realizing that he was staring when Wei Ying let out a nervous giggle and called out his name.
"Ah, yes, good," he said nonsensically, hoping that Wei Ying didn't notice his bright red ears. He picked up a long u shaped strip of metal.
"That's the metal track to a dresser drawer, all the little balls that make it go fell out."
"Do you know where they are?"
"No." Lan Zhan threw it into the garbage pile. "Hey, hey, hey! Easy there! What if I need a piece of metal shaped just like that?" Wei Ying asked, picking the thing back up.
"Name one ongoing project you have that this would work for." When Wei Ying hesitated he took the piece back and replaced it in the garbage pile. Wei Ying reached out to grab it again and their hands collided, jolting both of them.
"Ah, sorry," Wei Ying said, closing his fingers deliberately around Lan Zhan's wrist, batting his eyelashes at him.
"It's fine," Lan Zhan said, eyes flicking down, not so subtly to his mouth.
Wei Ying took in a deep bracing breath, and there were five consecutive seconds where Lan Zhan thought he was going to lean in to kiss him, but a pounding on the door startled both of them out of their skin.
"Your new desks."
"Right!" Wei Ying said, cheeks flushing adorably as he got to his feet, hurrying out of the room.
The two of them went together to open the door and direct the movers through the newly organized apartment. They thanked them for their help and showed them politely out before returning to the workroom.
"Are you sure about these desks, Lan Zhan? Just, drawer towers with a countertop placed on top?"
"Mn, my vanity is the same, I use it to store all my makeup and hair supplies in a desk like this."
"Really, can I see?" Wei Ying asked, pressing in close.
"Here." Lan Zhan pulled up his camera roll and scrolled past several pictures of his rabbits to show Wei Ying the pictures he'd taken of his vanity for instagram. Wei Ying grinned as he looked, but his quiet chuckle made Lan Zhan think he hadn't been asking to see a picture. Still, he scrolled through the picture to show how he'd labelled the drawers.
"You have an entire drawer for scrunchies?" He asked, looking at him in amusement.
"Mn. I get gifted them a lot. They are better for your hair."
"You do have very nice hair, Lan Zhan," he reached up and ran his fingers through Lan Zhan's ponytail.
"Thank you," Lan Zhan murmured, reaching out and twirling a finger in Wei Ying's tangled hair.
"Your hair is nice too."
"Not as nice as yours."
"It would be if you brushed it."
Wei Ying threw his head back and laughed again, and this time Lan Zhan didn't pretend not to be staring when Wei Ying looked back at him.
"Well, let's get to work putting these things together, huh?" Wei Ying said. "If you say this will work, I believe you."
The desks came together quickly. Lan Zhan apparently bought this unit for clients all the time, which made him the expert on this un-pronouncable-swedish-name-unit. They carefully arranged them in the corner of the room so they sat in an L shape and Wei Ying stood back to admire their work.
"I think I'm convinced, they really do look nice, but you know what?" He leaned forward, murmuring directly into Lan Zhan's ear, "I bet they'd look even better with me spread out on top of them." The words were barely out of his mouth before Lan Zhan's lips were crashing against his.
Ah, finally, he thought as he was pushed backward into the newly assembled desk. Several minutes later Wei Ying found himself on his back, laid out across the desk with his shirt hiked up where Lan Zhan had been searching for as much skin as he could find. Lan Zhan was bent over him, looking as ruined as Wei Ying felt, wearing a self satisfied smirk.
"You're right, it does look better like this."
Wei Ying howled with laughter, rolling around underneath him, grasping Lan Zhan's forearm for balance.
"Ah, Lan Zhan, do you make out with all your clients? To motivate them to do their organizing? Because, really, it's very effective. I'm suddenly in the mood to organize my Lucky Charms by marshmallow shape."
"I threw out your Lucky Charms, they were five years expired," Lan Zhan said, pressing a kiss to Wei Ying's neck. "And Wei Ying is the only client I kiss."
"Oh, I see, I'm special, am I?"
"Yes, Wei Ying is very special," he said seriously.
Wei Ying flushed bright red and wailed miserably. "Ah, Lan Zhan, you can't just say stuff like that! You have to warn me first!"
Lan Zhan straightened and took a step back, heel hitting the edge of a cardboard box as he attempted to pull Wei Ying into an upright position. He looked out over the packaging strewn room and smiled. The packaging that his desk had come in was neatly stacked and folded out of the way, ready to be disposed of, but Wei Ying's half of the room looked like a tornado had touched down. He chuckled to himself, maintaining order might be very hard for Wei Ying, but for the first time he was beginning to think he'd actually be back once his employment here was over.
"Ah, Lan Zhan," Wei Ying said, following his gaze, "I'm not very good at this whole staying organized thing yet."
"That's alright, I can help."
"And what about when you're gone, hm? You'll have to come back and keep me in line."
"I'll make sure to."
Wei Ying's grin turned suddenly nervous, and he turned his face down slightly and peered up at Lan Zhan through his eyelashes. "Do you want to stay for dinner? Or go out somewhere?"
Lan Zhan hesitated long enough to go through his mental schedule to make sure he wouldn't be missing any prior commitments by agreeing.
"Yes, I would love that."
"Great! I can cook for you in my newly organized kitchen!"
"I'll help."
"Help me cook, or help me not ruin the system you worked so hard to set up?"
"Both," Wei Ying cackled again, sitting up finally and wrapping his limbs around Lan Zhan like a starfish.
"We should clean up this mess first," Lan Zhan murmured into his hair. Wei Ying groaned.
"I don't know, Lan Zhan, I kinda love this look, don't you?" He asked, gesturing broadly to the mess of the room.
"You'll trip and impale yourself on the broken screwdriver you think I don't know you kept."
"Hey! I was so sneaky about that!"
"Not sneaky."
Lan Zhan stepped back from the desk, scooping his hands under Wei Ying's ass to carry him across the room and sit him down in the middle of his trash nest. Wei Ying cackled the whole way, which granted Lan Zhan a wonderful shot of Wei Ying glowing with laughter, sitting in the center of his trash nest, looking positively ethereal. He snapped several pictures and would pick the best to be his phone wallpaper later, but for now he would help Wei Ying clean up all his trash so they could get a head start on putting things away, and then get dinner together.
And if the next morning he was able to get an extra early head start before Wei Ying woke up because he'd slept there, well, there were some things his brother didn't need to know.
"Oh wow," Wei Ying said, entering the workroom around nine thirty, holding the plate of breakfast that Lan Zhan had left out for him in his hands. "You got a lot done on your own."
"Mn, work faster alone."
"Huh? You mean I've actually been impeding your work all week?" He asked, plopping down beside Lan Zhan, tearing apart a strip of bacon with his teeth.
"I was under the impression you were doing that on purpose." Wei Ying threw his head back and laughed.
"Okay, maybe, but I just wanted you to stay longer! Can You blame me?"
"I also wanted to spend as much time as possible with you." He leaned in for a kiss as Wei Ying flushed bright red again.
"Lan Zhan!" He wailed. Lan Zhan ignored his wails and kissed him again before going back to placing all of Wei Ying's tinkering supplies in the little clear acrylic containers he had brought with him.
"I waited to start on your desk so you could tell me what you use the most, those things should be in the top drawers."
"Ah, Lan Zhan, you're so smart! That's what I like about you!"
"I like everything about Wei Ying."
"LAN ZHAN!"
Lan Zhan reached over and caressed Wei Ying's cheek gently before once more returning to his work.
"Ah, I was against the whole organization thing at first, but now I think I'll really like it. I'll have to thank A-jie, for going behind my back and hiring the sexiest man in the city to organize my house." It was Lan Zhan's turn to flush brightly, though thankfully it was confined to his ears, but he lost all hope when Wei Ying leaned over and nipped at one of them.
"It's so cute how you blush in your ears."
Lan Zhan reached over and shoved a piece of toast into his mouth to shut him up.
"I can't wait to invite A-jie over to show off all your hard work before I totally destroy it!"
"Wei Ying worked hard too, and I will help him maintain the system for you."
"Ah, you really don't have to do that, if I fuck it up then that's on me, I'm sure you get tired of organizing things and don't want to do it on your off time."
"I like doing things for you."
Wei Ying flushed a faint pink. "I can tell, the breakfast in bed was a nice touch."
"I'm glad you enjoyed it. I can make you breakfast in bed whenever you want."
"Careful what offers you lay down, Lan Wangji, I may just take you up on them."
"I hope you do."
"I mean it, I'll call you at like three in the morning asking for eggs and bacon."
"I'll come," Lan Zhan said, so simply that Wei Ying wailed again, burying his face in Lan Zhan's neck.
"You, you're so- you! You're just so good! God, how'd I get this lucky, you're too good for me," he mumbled into Lan Zhan's collar bone.
"Not too good," Lan Zhan insisted, gently setting Wei Ying's breakfast to the side and wrapping his arms around him.
"Ah, A-Jie, you're early!" Wei Wuxian said nervously, leaning against the doorframe and bringing a hand up to hide the hickey he'd been in the middle of covering with foundation when she knocked on the door. He looked past her to Jiang Cheng and the Peacock and cursed himself for not starting to get ready when Lan Zhan had told him too.
A-jie's all seeing eyes travelled from his face to his hand and she quirked an amused eyebrow at him. He dropped his hand, flushing slightly.
"Sorry, I didn't think it would be a problem. I could come back later?"
"No, it's fine, don't worry! I was just getting ready, is all!"
"Idiot," Jiang Cheng said by way of greeting, pushing past him into the apartment to take his shoes off. "Don't let us stop you from putting more foundation on that hickey."
"Um, come on in, everyone," he stepped to the side and allowed his sister and her terrible husband into his apartment.
"Oh, wow, A-Xian, it already looks so much better in here!"
"Wait till you see the rest of the space, Lan Zhan is a real miracle worker! Ahaha, speaking of, there's someone I'd like you guys to meet." He lead them out of the entry way and into the apartment, ignoring Jin Zixuan's and Jiang Cheng's muttered swears as they passed through the living room and into the kitchen where Lan Zhan was wearing his only apron. Thanks to Wei Ying answering the door he'd had a few extra seconds to emotionally prepare himself for meeting his boyfriends family half an hour before he'd expected.
"Jin Yanli, we have correspond before," eh said, moving his rice off the heat and approaching to politely bow to both his siblings (and the dumb peacock.)
"Yes, and I can already tell that it was money well spent, but I think perhaps A-Xian got a bit more from the deal than we'd been expecting."
Wei Ying watched with sympathy as Lan Zhan's ears turned an endearing pink and he nodded. A-jie didn't often tease, but when she did she had the power to utterly decimate you with a single sentence.
"Things turned out differently than I was expecting as well."
"Nice to meet you," Jiang Cheng said, regarding Lan Zhan with the utmost suspicion.
"You as well. Wei Ying has told me much about you."
"Well at the least you weren't a waste of A-jie's money."
"Jiang Cheng," Wei Ying scolded, "Lan Zhan has been very helpful! And Mean! He made me get rid of so much good stuff!"
"So much trash," Lan Zhan corrected, taking his fried rice off the heat and dumping it into a serving bowl.
"I think I like him already," Jiang Cheng said, but I'll believe it when I see it."
"The amount I paid you we could have just bought him a new apartment to put his shit in," The peacock said, having the nerve to wrap an arm around his sister like he had any right. Sure he was her husband and had paid for Wei Ying's apartment to be organized, but still.
"A significant amount of product was purchased for the apartment."
"Well, what are you waiting for? Take us on the tour, I want to see what I paid for," Jin Zixuan said, and Wei Ying had to remind himself he was on a strict punching ban since the wedding.
"Well, let's just start here, then." Wei Wuxian opened a few of the cabinets and drawers to show off the clear acrylic bins everything was tucked neatly into.
"It looks so amazing so far! I'm so proud of you, A-Xian!"
"It was mostly Lan Zhan," Wei Ying admitted after he had finished preening under her praise.
"Not true," Lan Zhan said, wrapping his arms around Wei Ying's waist and pressing a kiss to his temple. Yanli grinned at them as Jiang Cheng made a sound of disgust. "Wei Ying was a great help."
"He's only saying that to make a good impression on my siblings."
"Well it's working," she said. "Can we see the rest of the apartment?"
"Of course, come on!" Wei Ying led the way, dragging Lan Zhan gently by the hand as he showed off his newly inhabitable spaces, regaling what a crucible it was having to get rid of so many things and how much of a bully Lan Zhan was. His moaning was undercut a bit by the fact that he didn't release Lan Zhan's hand a single time during the tour, at times gesturing wildly with their linked hands and jerking around a perfectly content Lan Zhan.
"And look! You can see the floor of my bedroom! And the bed! And my clothes are on the hangers!"
"It's all very nice, A-Xian!"
"And now the grand finale! The workroom!"
Wei Ying barreled through the apartment and threw the door open grandly, hurrying in so he could watch their reactions to the very impressive transformation.
"Oh my goodness! It looks incredible! I was so worried about you being trapped in here one day underneath all that tra- stuff," Yanli said, leaning in close to read Lan Zhan's perfect calligraphy labels on the storage containers.
"He'll never be able to maintain this," Jiang Cheng said, which meant he was impressed.
"That's alright, I will help."
Jin Zixuan glanced over at the two of them briefly, noting the way they stood, arms wrapped one another, and nodded once, to himself, before turning back to observe the little labels Lan Zhan had made.
An unfamiliar ding sounded through the apartment and it took Lan Zhan starting and gently exclaiming about his dinner before Wei Ying realized it had been the oven. Wow, I really need to cook more.
"Isn't there some kind of rule against dating clients?" Jiang Cheng asked once he was gone.
"He's a home organizer, not a therapist of doctor or something, I don't think HIPPA or anyone really cares about who he dates."
"We're very happy for you," Yanli said, coming forward to take his hands. "Both for the clean apartment and the boyfriend."
"Thank you so much, Yanli, I'm so lucky you hired the sexiest man alive to clean my apartment."
A-jie giggled guiltily. "Well, if I happened to see a picture of him on the company website before making my decision, that can be our little secret."
Wei Ying roared with laughter as Jin Zixuan and Jiang Cheng gave Yanli incredulous looks.
"Lan Zhan! Lan Zhaann!" Wei Ying crooned, sneaking up behind him, both hands tucked behind his back to hide his present.
"Yes, Wei Ying."
"I got you something to celebrate the successful meeting of the families on both sides!"
"Did you?" Lan Zhan asked, eyes flicking down to Wei Ying's hidden hands. "You didn't have too."
"I know, but I wanted to! Do you want to see it?" Lan Zhan nodded, complying easily when Wei Ying told him to close his eyes. "Okay, open them!" Wei Ying roared with laughter when he saw the exasperated tilt to Lan Zhan's mouth when he saw Wei Ying's gift- the fucked up screwdriver afixed inside a white shadow box.
"Get it! Because we were playing with this the first day we ever kissed! So I saved it as a memento!"
Lan Zhan softened briefly, taking the shadowbox and setting it gently on the counter before pushing Wei Ying not-so-gently onto the counter.
Several hours later Wei Ying alternated between laughing and rolling his eyes as Lan Zhan very seriously hung the fucked up screwdriver above Wei Ying's headboard.