Title: to lie down beneath this bowl of stars
Fandom: Guardian
words: ~2,400
Content notes: no spoilers, Shen Wei/Zhao Yunlan, motorcycles, romance, declarations

Summary: Zhao Yunlan goes slow, slower than he’d typically take these streets in the middle of the night, but he does in fact want to give Shen Wei a chance to get used to this -- the rumble of the bike engine, the rough hand of the wind, the almost-liquid blur of lights as they shoot past.

[Author’s note: I made it before the round ended! But this definitely hasn’t been beta-read, and I haven’t even given it the usual twice-over for obvious mistakes or using the same words three times in a paragraph. You've been warned.]


Zhao Yunlan can't sleep.

He turned the light off more than an hour ago, hoping that going through the motions of sleep would make it happen, but he feels more awake now than when he lay down. It happens sometimes, this itchy restlessness, amorphous but persistent. Sometimes, if he ignores it, it goes way on its own. Sometimes.

Thin bands of moonlight filter through the blinds and drift across the far wall.

He tries to think about other things. It was a nice evening, before this mood hit. Shen Wei had invited him to dinner again, this time without pretending that they were too deep in conversation to part in the hallway so it’s only polite to cook. They’d talked easily about food trends and fisheries before wandering off into comparative literature and ancient love poems.

Neither of them has said the word date, but there’s no way to mistake the adoration on Shen Wei’s face as he recited lines about a lover’s footprints in the dust. Their dinners are romantic, in the old-fashioned sense of the word, even if Shen Wei consistently retreats into courtesy and sends Zhao Yunlan home without even a kiss.

Zhao Yunlan doesn’t know why he does that; maybe it’s something in Dixing culture, no kissing before the fourteenth date. He trusts Shen Wei to tell him, sooner or later. In the meantime, it doesn’t matter. As long as Shen Wei’s door is always open to him, Zhao Yunlan doesn’t need a word for what they are to each other.

But it doesn’t distract him from the unsettled feeling at the base of his skull.

As a kid, he used to slip out into the night when this mood came on him, to run through dew-soaked grass and duck away from his neighbors’ windows. He’d find himself turning toward train yards and construction sites, especially the ones that worked til dawn. There was something reassuring about it, watching the lights of people who keep the city running while everyone else sleeps.

It’s one of the reasons he bought his first motorcycle once he was old enough. He could get farther away, faster, and still be home before the sun rose.

Zhao Yunlan finally gives up on sleeping for the moment. Clothes, jacket, helmet, keys... It’s only a few minutes before he can slip out the door, quietly, for old times’ sake even if he is old enough now that his comings and goings don’t have to be sneaky. There’s just something appropriate about silence in the way the building sleeps around him.

He is four steps down the hall when he hears the click of Shen Wei’s door opening. “Zhao Yunlan?”

Now it really does feel like sneaking, when he’s been caught doing it. The thought puts a rueful smile on his face when he turns around. “Shen Wei.”

Despite the late hour, Shen Wei is still dressed in the same casual clothes he’d worn to dinner. But his hair is rumpled and his eyes are slightly unfocused, as if he’d been dozing in a chair. It’s adorable. Zhao Yunlan has the sudden urge to wrap him up in pajamas and tuck him into bed.

“You're going out?”

“Yeah.” Zhao Yunlan shrugs, waving one hand idly at his apartment. “Couldn't sleep.”

“Ah.” Shen Wei’s gaze lingers on him, not quite heavy enough to be a stare, but more as if he can’t quite wake up enough to remember to blink.

“So, I--” Zhao Yunlan takes a half step back, intending to say goodnight and go.

Shen Wei sways forward like they're connected by a string. He doesn’t seem to notice.

It makes Zhao Yunlan wonder if Shen Wei does have some kind of... awareness of him. If Shen Wei wants to have him near when he's sleeping, enough to drag him out of bed if Zhao Yunlan gets too far away.

It’s cute. He can definitely work with that, in the long run -- though he’d rather have it from the same bed, so he can keep Shen Wei close, too.

Zhao Yunlan shakes his head at the way his thoughts are wandering. “Do you...?”

Shen Wei blinks, suddenly more present, like an image coming into focus. “Yes.” He steps into the hall, closing the door behind him.

Hair rumpled, no coat, and no question about where they’re going. Zhao Yunlan supposes he should be grateful Shen Wei is wearing shoes, but he can’t take him out on the bike like that.

“Ah. One moment.”

Zhao Yunlan fumbles for his keys and ducks back into his apartment without closing the door behind himself. The whole thing feels dreamlike, a soap bubble that could pop at any moment. He doesn’t want Shen Wei to disappear.

Thankfully, it hasn’t been so many months since the last time Da Qing rode with him, so he’s able to put his hands on what he needs fairly easily. Shen Wei raises an eyebrow when he comes back with his spare motorcycle jacket, but puts it on without comment.

Zhao Yunlan reaches out to straighten the edges of the jacket. If his hands trail unnecessarily down the line of leather over Shen Wei’s chest, it’s completely beyond his control.

Shen Wei stills under his hands, and Zhao Yunlan knows he’s standing too close. It’s a game they play a lot -- Zhao Yunlan stands too close, and Shen Wei doesn’t back up. But Shen Wei doesn’t reach out, either, even in this dreamlike state.

Zhao Yunlan takes a step back and reaches blindly for the helmets hung over the doorknob. “Shall we?”

The elevator ride to the garage is wordless more than silent, the hum of the machinery louder than it sounds in the day. Zhao Yunlan’s restlessness from earlier has shifted into a low thrum of excitement as he thinks about the two of them riding off into the night.

Even in ordinary times, he loves the rumble of the engine, and the way the air pushes back against him like water. The world feels so close without the barrier of a windshield in the way. He has no idea what the experience will be like for Shen Wei, Dixingren and Black-Cloaked Envoy, but he wants to find out.

“Have you ever done this before?” Zhao Yunlan straddles the seat of the bike, scooting forward enough to leave room for Shen Wei behind him.

Shen Wei stares at the empty space for a long moment before glancing up at Zhao Yunlan. “No.”

But he settles himself easily onto the seat, a polite distance between them. His knees press hot against the outside of Zhao Yunlan’s thighs, hands resting lightly on the jacket around Zhao Yunlan’s waist, but those are the only points of contact.

“Don’t be afraid to hold on tightly,” Zhao Yunlan tells him, tugging his helmet on. “I won’t break.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

“If you’re nervous, we can start slow,” he says, amused at his own double entendre.

Shen Wei huffs out a laugh, his breath warm on the back of Zhao Yunlan’s neck. “We can go faster than this.”

“Glad to hear it!” Zhao Yunlan turns the key, and the engine roars to life. “Ready?”

Zhao Yunlan takes them away from the center of the city, away from the apartment blocks and shops and ever-present traffic of downtown. He goes slow, slower than he’d typically take these streets in the middle of the night, but he does in fact want to give Shen Wei a chance to get used to this -- the rumble of the bike engine, the rough hand of the wind, the almost-liquid blur of lights as they shoot past.

Shen Wei is a little stiff at first, hands still primly at Zhao Yunlan’s sides. But he loosens up quickly, enough to find his balance on the bike and lean into the turns without being told.

He wonders if Shen Wei can feel the laugh that bubbles up, or if it’s lost in the wind whistling past.

He doesn’t think much about where they’re going until they reach the edge of town. They come up to an intersection Zhao Yunlan knows well from nights like these: one way leads back home, and the other down the river road where he can speed through the darkness.

He slows down, intending to ask the question, but Shen Wei is already leaning his weight to the right, ready to take the turn down the river. It’s what Zhao Yunlan wants to do, too, so he does it.

He lets the bike run fast, as fast as his reflexes will let him take the turns. Trees flicker past as gray shapes, barely visible in the headlights before disappearing behind them like ghosts. Somewhere to their left is the deep blackness of the river, but it’s lost in the shadows beyond the edge of the road.

Zhao Yunlan slows eventually, turning them off the highway and onto a thin gravel path. They bump their way up a hill, and park in small clearing. Below them, Zhao Yunlan can make out the soft yellow lights of a small industrial port.

The silence rushes in when he turns off the engine and takes off his helmet. All the night sounds are quiet in comparison, even the hum of machinery as distant cranes move containers from ship to shore.

Sometime during the ride, Shen Wei had closed the distance between them, and Zhao Yunlan takes a moment to appreciate the warmth of him. Neither of them moves to leave the bike.

Zhao Yunlan wonders what this place looks like to Shen Wei. If there are places Shen Wei goes to feel connected to the world, and what that would even mean for someone from Dixing.

They sit in silence for a long time.

“This is beautiful.” Shen Wei’s voice is soft, hardly ruffling the quiet around them.

“It is.” More so because he’s sharing it, Zhao Yunlan thinks. Greatly daring, he wraps his hands around Shen Wei’s at his waist.

There’s a pause. Zhao Yunlan can practically measure it in the breaths Shen Wei doesn’t let out, before Shen Wei rests his cheek against the top of Zhao Yunlan’s shoulder.

“Ah.” He can’t help making a noise. It isn’t the first time Shen Wei has touched him deliberately, but it’s possibly the least deniable touch between them.

And Shen Wei shifts away immediately.

Zhao Yunlan wants to kick himself. That is not what he meant, at all.

“No, come back.” He tugs sharply on Shen Wei’s hands, all he can reach without turning around, and he’s half-convinced that this is only happening because Shen Wei knows Zhao Yunlan can’t see him.

Another pause, longer this time. “I don’t want to trespass,” Shen Wei says finally, as if Zhao Yunlan has not been inviting him all this time.

“Then let me give you permission.” Zhao Yunlan tugs again, more insistently. “There! Problem solved.”

Shen Wei slides back against him, slowly, tentatively, and Zhao Yunlan hardly breathes until Shen Wei’s face has tipped fully back onto his shoulder.

“It isn’t that simple,” Shen Wei says, but he says it from Zhao Yunlan’s shoulder, his arms inching forward enough to make it a real embrace.

“It is if we agree that it is.” From some angles, at least. Their lives aren’t easy, and there will always be obstacles between them. But however difficult the world may be, his feelings for Shen Wei are the simplest, truest thing he knows.

The night frogs sing quietly under the thin silver moon, hardly louder than the beating of Zhao Yunlan’s heart. He can feel Shen Wei breathe as if he plans to speak, stop himself, and try again. Zhao Yunlan waits through it, wanting to give him space for whatever difficult thing he’s been holding aside.

“I want you to be mine.”

The words are measured, serious, in a tone more suitable to announcing an insoluble problem than a declaration of love.

Zhao Yunlan’s heart still leaps with joy. “What a coincidence! I want you to be mine.”

Shen Wei’s arms around him suddenly seem unmovable, solid stone and not flesh. “I’m not human.”

That was definitely a warning, and Zhao Yunlan considers what to say next. “You’re worried that I don’t know what I’m agreeing to?”

“You don’t.”

He wants to argue, but it’s simple fact. How could he possibly know? Shen Wei can hardly tell him everything, can’t be certain even of what Zhao Yunlan doesn’t know.

But it hardly matters.

“I know that I won’t change my mind.” Zhao Yunlan takes a deep breath, fighting the urge to make light of it. His voice comes out raw with it. “You’re it for me, Shen Wei. If you don’t feel the same way, you should say so.”

The arms around him tighten. “Are you sure?”

“Are you?” Zhao Yunlan laughs sharply, more from tension that humor. “Hei Pao Daren and a human, what a scandal. Especially a shameless upstart like me.”

Shen Wei huffs out a laugh of his own, equally sharp. “I’ve been yours from the day we met.”

Zhao Yunlan weighs those words, buries them somewhere next to Shen Wei’s always. He isn’t surprised, somehow, that Shen Wei finds a way to make his own declaration more romantic. “My apologies for being slow.”

Shen Wei chuckles, and Zhao Yunlan finally relaxes. Whatever terrible thing Shen Wei was afraid of, doesn’t seem to have come to pass.

“Shen Wei.” Zhao Yunlan considers his next words. He’s been waiting so long, letting Shen Wei set the pace of their relationship. But they’re hardly in the same place they were before, are they? “Can I kiss you now?”

As first kisses go, it’s awkward. Zhao Yunlan half-turns on the seat, has to reach over his own shoulder. But Shen Wei’s hands are warm and sure, and his lips find Zhao Yunlan as if they were meant to.

Something warm and bright settles in Zhao Yunlan’s heart, gentle as the stars shimmering above.