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archangeldyke-all · 4 months

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Outlaw cowboy sevika who fell in love with a good woman or a woman she is partner in crimes with?

i'm done writing the big fic, so i can finally start doing requests again!! starting with this GENIUS idea tysm anon <333

men and minors dni

the parlor doors swing open, and a shadowy figure wanders into the tavern. behind the bar, you bite your lip, watching patrons scatter as the cloaked figure struts over to the bar, a jingle decorating every one of their footsteps as their spurs twirl on their boots.

they knock on the bar top to get your attention, like you haven't had your eyes trained on them since they strolled in. you grin.

"how can i help ya?" you ask, already reaching under the counter to pull out a glass and bottle of whiskey. you pour them a big glass and slide it across the bar, not moving your hand when they reach forward to grab it.

when your fingers meet, you gently brush yours against theirs, then slowly, slowly trail your fingers up their arm, before grabbing the rim of their hat and flicking it up.

there she is, you think as sevika's face is finally revealed to you. she's smiling just as wide as you are.

"got any vacancies?" she asks. you chuckle.

"fully booked, sorry miss." you tease. she snorts. "but maybe if you work for it i can arrange a place for you to sleep." you add on. sevika rolls her eyes as you grab two buckets and gesture for her to follow you. she does. she always does.

you wander out of the tavern and into the small side garden you tend to in your free time. shoving a bucket into her arms, you gesture at the well. she meanders over to it and begins pumping the spout until water comes spurting out. you watch in amusement as she gets sprayed and curses.

you walk through your rows of crops, harvesting a few ears of corn, a couple of potatoes, a handful of carrots.

your tavern/inn is located on the main street of a small shanty town in the middle of nowhere. the only people who travel through these parts are up to no good, so when you came to own the place after the previous owner died and left it in your name, you made a few policy changes.

for one thing, you don't ask questions. patrons can come in riddled with shrapnel and bleeding, their faces identical to the 'wanted' sketches that are plastered around town, and you simply turn a blind eye and serve them a hearty bowl of stew, fill 'em up with liquor, patch their wounds, and give them a bed. in exchange for your discretion, you've made plenty of shady friends, who often pay for their time spent in the tavern with stolen and smuggled goods like pretty jewelry, gold bars, or premium cuts of meats or cheeses.

the locals don't give you much trouble, too scared to piss off any of your friends, too happy with the imported rare goods they bring to town with them to complain about the occasional stand off or shootout.

you wander out of the garden, stopping by the small stables and greeting sevika's trusty mare shimmer. the horse whinnies at your appearance, tail swinging happily as you scratch her ears.

"hey, shimmer." you whisper to the horse. "here, baby." you say, hand feeding her a few carrots. "how much trouble'd she get you in this time?" you ask the horse. shimmer doesn't respond, too busy crunching on her treats.

behind you, sevika's hand wraps around your waist. you smile as she presses a kiss against your head.

"missed you." she mumbles against your temple. you laugh and gesture to the tavern.

"c'mon." you say. "i'll canoodle with you once these chores are done."

you and sevika spend the afternoon tending to the tavern. she distributes the water evenly among bedrooms, filling the wash bowls and pitchers patrons can use to hydrate and clean themselves.

you tend to the stew, chopping and stirring in your vegetables, adding a few pinches of dried garlic and onion powder to the bubbling pot of perpetual stew, stirring and tasting and adjusting until you're happy with how it tastes.

it's the slow season. travelers are rare in these parts, but even more so during the scalding hot summer. a few neighbors wander in for a quick drink, and the few patrons you have retire to their rooms once sevika's done refreshing them.

once the sun sets, the tavern is empty, except for you and sevika.

she's staring at you adoringly from across the bar, her chin propped up in her hand as she watches you sweep. you scoff at her expression.

"what kinda trouble'd you get yourself into this time, huh?" you ask. sevika chuckles.

"you didn't see it in the papers?" she asks.

"that train robbery?" you ask. sevika shrugs with a smile. you laugh. "you're gonna get caught up one of these days." you say as you begin wiping down the bar top. sevika rolls her eyes.

"you got no faith in me, darlin', it breaks my heart." she says. you laugh and turn off the oil lamps, before starting up the stairs. sevika follows behind you.

the second floor is where your patrons sleep, but you get the whole attic/third floor to yourself. it's a nice little studio space, two windows on either side, big enough to hold a double mattress and two sets of drawers, a few chests stuffed full with treasures and valuables sevika's brought back to you.

sevika sighs as she enters the space, hanging her hat and poncho up on two nails you'd slammed into the walls for her years ago, shoving off her boots and stripping down to her undergarments. you sit at your desk and watch her strip with scruitny, making sure she doesn't have any new wounds or scars. she washes herself down with a wet rag, sighing as the grime and dirt of her travels slowly washes away. once your sure she's not injured, you allow your gaze to become appreciative, taking in her muscular back and arms as they scrub her body down.

you rise from your seat and approach her, slinging your hands around her waist and tucking your chin over her shoulder. she sighs and leans back against you.

"three weeks is too long." you mumble against your lover. sevika hums.

"i know, darlin'." she says. you take the washcloth from her and begin to scrub her back for her, occasionally kneading and massaging at the knots and tension that riddles her muscles. she melts. "i missed you." she sighs. you kiss the nape of her neck.

"i missed you too. had me worried, you know." you mumble against her. she turns in your arms to wrap her own around your waist, gently swaying the two of you back and forth as she soaks in your features.

"i've been yours for how long?" she teases. you roll your eyes. "five years now?" she asks. you smile and nod. "and you're still worried about me? you know i always come back to you darlin'." she says. you sigh and roll your eyes. "gonna give yourself an ulcer at this rate." she teases. you chuckle.

"wouldn't have to worry if you stuck around." you say.

you and sevika have had this conversation a thousand times now. she's made more than enough in her time as a bandit for the two of you to live comfortably together until the end of time.

still, she always leaves. you don't blame her, before she met you sevika spent her entire life wandering the west, all alone, never staying in one place for longer than a week.

but then, one fateful night all those years ago, she stumbled into your tavern bloodied and battered, staring at you with a sparkle in her eyes as you patched her up. and since then, she's been circling back to you after each and every one of her jobs.

the longer she's had you, the more time she puts between her heists. you'll get her to stay eventually, you just have to be patient. but patience is hard when the love of your life has such a dangerous occupation.

sevika swoops in to kiss the frown off your lips. you sigh against her and wrap your arms around her shoulders as she slowly uncinches your corset and helps you out of your layers.

when you're both naked, you guide her to the bed, plastering yourself to her side as you continue to kiss her. tears well up in your eyes as you get your hand in her hair, and she notices, pulling away with a frown.

"'s wrong darlin'?" she asks. you hide your face against her shoulder.

"what if you die out there, sev? a hundred miles away all alone in the desert... nobody'd find you until you were just bones and dust. and i'd be here waitin' for you to come home for the rest of my life." you say, your voice wobbly. sevika wraps you up in her arms and sighs against you. you reach up to gently trace the scars littering her left cheek.

"fuckin' ruining the surprise." she grumbles against you. you blink.

"what surprise?" you ask. sevika rolls her eyes and darts forward to kiss your forehead.

"the train... it was a cargo train. one of the cars was headed to a bank, padded wall to wall with cash 'n gold. enough for a hundred people." she says. you gulp and blink at her, hesitant to assume lest you get your heart broken.

"so?" you ask. sevika chuckles.

"so, i'm retiring." she says simply. "fuck do i need to keep robbin' and lootin' for if i'm already filthy rich?" she asks. you blink at her, your heart swelling, tears falling down your cheeks as you soak in her words. "plus... i met a girl i'm hopin' to settle down with." she says, smiling shyly at you.

you let out a shaky breath then launch forward, pinning sevika to the bed as she laughs and gathers you in her arms.

"are you serious?" you ask against her. she chuckles and kisses your head.

"deadly." she responds. you melt against her, clinging to her like your life depends on it. "you think you might need a new employee here?" she asks. you snort against her.

"i can figure somethin' out." you say. "gotta work on your people skills, though." you tease her through your tears. sevika laughs and smacks your ass.

"y'know..." she starts. you pick your head up from her shoulder to look at her, and she looks away, nervous. you kiss her lips and she sighs, her anxiety melting away under your touch. "i met a pastor while i was out wanderin'." she says. "said he wouldn't be opposed to marryin' two women if someone were to give his chapel some donation money." she whispers.

you study sevika for a moment as she anxiously nibbles on her lip. "you askin' me to marry you?" you ask. sevika shrugs.

"i mean... i've already given you hundreds of rings." she says. you smile.

"you have." you say. she smiles up at you.

"so?" she asks. "his chapel's a day's ride from here. figured we could go now during the slow season, make it a little vacation?" she asks. you grin and launch down to kiss her, and sevika sighs against your mouth.

"there's nothin' in this world that would make me happier, baby." you whisper against her lips. sevika grins.

"sure you won't mind bein' an outlaw's wife?" she asks. you laugh and smack her shoulder.

"a former outlaw." you correct her. she chuckles. "and no, i won't mind. 'specially when that outlaw's as handsome as you." you say. below you, sevika blushes.

"fuck off." she grunts. you laugh.

"that's no way to talk to your wife." you tease her. sevika grins.

"you're right. 'm sorry, darlin'."

taglist!

@lesbeaniegreenie @fyeahnix @sapphicsgirl @half-of-a-gay @ellabslut @thesevi0lentdelights @sexysapphicshopowner @shimtarofstupidity @love-sugarr @chuucanchuucan @222danielaa @badbye666

#cowboy sevikaaaaaa #in case ur wondering... she gives up her life of crime to become a rancher on the local cattle farm so she can still ride and wander #but now she can come home to her wife at the tavern every single night :)#sevika #sevika imagine #sevika arcane #sevika x reader #sevika x you #soft sevika #i'm so excited to be back to writing prompts i've missed this!!! eeeeek!!

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eleanorfenyxwrites · 9 months

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Outta Time

So @littlesmartart and I discovered that we both love Orville Peck, and I decided it might be nice to write Western Cowboy shit that isn't the Brokeback Mountain AU so here's this 😂 Inspired by Orville Peck's song 'Outta Time' from the album Bronco (Jess came up with the plot, I wrote it, and she's drawn art to go along with it for the visual that's directly inspired by the song [and that was all I had in mind for this before she came up with the plot lol]!)

--//--

It was, perhaps, foolishness on Meng Yao’s part to think that Huaisang was telling him nothing but the unvarnished truth when he’d invited him to head out West with him for a luxury vacation, set to last the entirety of their summer break.

“It’ll be like one of those fancy retreats silly rich people go on!” he’d insisted (as if he isn’t mind-bogglingly ridiculous and wealthier than Meng Yao could ever hope of being [considering he’s only just recently been forced to accept he’ll never see a single iota of his father’s support, emotionally or financially]). “Trust me!”

Mistake number 1 had been saying, “Alright A-Sang, I trust you.”

Mistake number 2 : being a man of his word.

Within a month of receiving Huaisang’s invitation, summer arrives with rolling peals of thunder heralding oppressive humidity and swarms of mosquitos. Meng Yao, a man of his word as stated, dutifully packs most of his belongings into a suitcase that weighs far less than the upper limit of the airline’s luggage weight restriction and navigates the pair of them through the airport with minimal stress, mainly thanks to not allowing Huaisang to be in charge of anything at all.

He chats with Huaisang on and off throughout their flight to keep himself distracted from the fact that he’s leaving behind everything he’s ever known to spend three months in the middle of bumfuck nowhere at his only friend’s brother's ranch, which Huaisang had only told him the full truth about yesterday, after it was already far too late to gracefully back out. Meng Yao’s promised luxury vacation destination is apparently in actuality a cattle ranch that Huaisang’s brother apparently runs mostly to keep himself in shape and avoid the stress of city life that had given him a heart attack at the ripe old age of 27 a few years back. (It is, by far, the weirdest ‘so I have this older brother’ story that Meng Yao has ever heard.)

“So this brother of yours –” Meng Yao finally caves and asks about an hour before final descent.

“Uh-huh?”

“He just…up and left New York. For Montana?”

“Yep,” Huaisang pops the ‘p’ and flicks to the next page in his magazine, unbothered, “After his heart attack he said he wanted to see some mountains and get some actual fresh air if he was just going to die soon anyway, it really dramatic and maudlin, which he never is, I was so proud. Only it turns out it was exactly what he needed to not die, so after a while he decided he would just stay out there for good. He bought the house and the land and some horses to give himself something to do besides stare at the sky all day, and then he was still kind of bored so he bought some cattle.”

Naturally. As one does.

“And now he’s…a cattle rancher. From New York City.”

Huaisang laughs and finally looks up from his magazine to smile at Meng Yao like ‘oh you sweet little thing’ in the way Meng Yao kind of hates, but Huaisang does it to everyone so he can’t really take too much offense.

“Yes, Yaoyao, you’ll understand when you meet him! Da-ge’s never really been a city guy, not like us. It suits him much better to be out here, especially since his best friend moved out here to help him out. Xichen-ge treats it like a meditation retreat but with a lot more mucking out stalls. He says even that part’s therapeutic, but I’m just going to take his word on that one, ‘cause ew.”

“Uh-huh.”

Huaisang leaves him to consider just what the hell he’s gotten himself into for the rest of the flight, and then they’re navigating their way (ridiculously easily) through the rinky-dink airport hardly bigger than a parking garage, the sky beyond the terminal windows blue blue blue where it stretches on forever in every direction.

“Da-ge!”

Meng Yao barely manages to snag Huaisang’s duffel when his friend flings it off his shoulder to go sprinting across the 3-carousel baggage claim, the fastest Meng Yao has ever seen him move. It’s a distinct relief that Meng Yao can use juggling their bags as an excuse to approach at a much more respectable pace; he needs the extra time to truly digest what he’s seeing.

Huaisang, as a former-model-turned-fasion-designer who happily calls himself a fruit at every opportunity, is one of the daintiest men Meng Yao has ever met. He’d even go so far as to call him a dandy, if pressed, and fully supports his friend’s decision to call himself every ‘emasculating’ label under the sun with obvious relish. He can’t deny that at least some of his confusion as to his best friend’s mysterious older brother’s chosen lifestyle stemmed from picturing someone like Huaisang, if perhaps a little taller.

He’s not confused anymore.

The man who catches Huaisang midair and swings him in a circle before setting him back on his feet would never be asked to grace the runways of New York — not because he isn’t beautiful enough to make Meng Yao’s fingers twitch for his camera to capture the way the sun cuts across his weather-tanned face, but because no one has ever heard of a fashion model who was roughly 6’7” and perhaps 300 pounds of solid, clearly functional muscle.

Huaisang’s brother towers over everyone else in the building that Meng Yao can see (and he can see most of them, re: rinky-dink airport in the middle of bumfuck Montana), and when he looks over the heads of the few people between Meng Yao and the exit their eyes lock instantly.

“A-Sang, be nicer to your friend,” Meng Yao can hear from here, a bass rumble that Does Things to his chest. “Go get your bag, don’t make your guest carry your shit or he’ll think I never taught you decent manners. Go on.”

Huaisang flutters back over and takes his bag with an unapologetic grin. Meng Yao finishes taking the ten-odd steps necessary for the brother to stick his hand out with a wry little smirk and say, “Hey, I’m Mingjue.”

“Meng Yao,” he replies and slides his hand into Mingjue’s dry, work-calloused palm.

“Welcome to big sky country, A-Yao,” Mingjue replies with a widening smile, a flash of straight white teeth and a dimple hiding under his mustache, and Meng Yao regrets to say that he’s thoroughly fucked.

–//–

The land unfolds around them as they drive down straight roads at an almost leisurely pace through miles and miles of…nothing.

Not nothing, Meng Yao supposes, but long gone are the corridors of towering skyscrapers, the lingering miasma of so many people living together in tight quarters, everyone building up up up to stack ever-more people into the same few square miles. Meng Yao understands, suddenly, why Mingjue had come here and stayed. He doesn’t think he has it in him to eschew all the conveniences of New York City for the open country, but someone like Mingjue seems like the type to appreciate having the space to…expand. To be bigger than life and have the room to do it in. He certainly feels larger than life at the moment as he details for Huaisang all the comings and goings on the ranch since he’d last visited, as he talks about the horses and his cattle and the monsoon rains they’d apparently only just missed that had finally turned everything summer-green.

Meng Yao sits on the bench seat of Mingjue’s beat up old pickup truck and watches the sparse scattering of fluffy white clouds drift over more sky than he’s ever seen in his life and he gets it.

He hasn’t gotten nearly enough of his fill of marveling (subtly) over the view by the time they pull off the road onto a dirt road that Huaisang tells him is actually Mingjue’s driveway, but he contents himself with the knowledge that they’re here for three months, he’ll have plenty of time to appreciate the view later. They rattle over a few metal grates Mingjue explains are cattle guards to keep the animals from escaping the ranch should they manage to break out of their pastures, and Meng Yao isn’t a child so he doesn’t exclaim about how fucking huge the cattle are some distance away from the road where they’re grazing (but he certainly rethinks his half-baked desire to see them up close anytime soon).

“Home sweet home,” Mingjue announces when they reach the end of the lane after another mile or two and opens his door with a creak. Meng Yao leans forward to look up at the house through his lashes and must not be able to control his expression as much as he’d prefer as Huaisang chuckles at him a little, nudging him in the side with his pointy little elbow.

“Told you it was nice,” he chirps and slides across the seat to get out on the driver’s side. “Da-ge be careful!” he trills, his nervous fretting muffled as he scurries around to the bed of the truck. Meng Yao doesn’t pay attention to their bickering or the scuffle of hard-soled boots on dirt, though his attention is snagged at least a bit by the sound of Mingjue laughing at whatever he’s just done to make Huaisang whine at him.

The house is beautiful, is the thing. Somehow he hadn’t thought that it would be, perhaps owing to how many times he’s listened to Huaisang complain about his brother’s lack of taste for anything even remotely fashionable. He should really stop assuming things about Mingjue, he supposes, considering he’s currently scored 0 for 2, and he hates to lose.

He gets out of the car, finally, to better appreciate white-washed wood paneling just beginning to show hints of weathering, blue shutters clearly freshly painted the same shade of the sky overhead with the front door painted to match. There are rocking chairs on the wraparound porch, clearly well-loved if the flattened, sun-faded cushions on them are anything to judge by, positioned to face west. He has a sudden mental image of Mingjue sitting out here in the evenings to watch the sunset over the mountains looming in the distance and has to shake himself all over once (discreetly) to keep from sticking himself in the chair next to him in this little pastoral fantasy. That’s just making it weird.

“You want the grand tour or you wanna settle in?” Mingjue asks; Meng Yao doesn’t jump to find himself standing next to his host he hadn’t heard approaching, but he does feel suddenly…shy in a way he’s definitely not used to. He tilts his head enough to squint up at Mingjue, the sun too bright in his eyes, and finds to his dismay that he’s still just as handsome as he’d been an hour ago.

“I want you to give him the tour!” Huaisang calls from where he’s petting a horse (an actual horse, but are they supposed to be that tall??) that’s come up to the fence at the other end of the front yard, such as it is, to duck down and nose at Huaisang like an old friend.

“I don’t care what you want, you little brat,” Mingjue calls back. “And don’t you dare give that beast whatever candy you’ve got in your pockets, do you know how long it took to train him out of biting people who didn’t give him any after you left?!”

Meng Yao hides a smile behind his hand and finds himself mostly glad that there’s someone else around now to be the recipient of Huaisang’s incessant whining when he’s really putting on a performance. He clears his throat a little and schools his expression back towards pleasant neutrality when Mingjue looks down at him again, clearly unwilling to entertain his brother’s antics a moment longer than necessary.

“I think I’d like to settle in first,” he allows himself to say, and is perhaps mildly startled when Mingjue doesn’t question it, when he simply nods and lets Meng Yao be that tiny bit selfish.

“Come on in then, your room’s upstairs.”

Meng Yao follows Mingjue inside out of the sun and finds himself surrounded by an eclectic mix of antiques and modern minimalism; framed photos and bric-a-brac piled up in out-of-the-way corners of sleek monochrome shelves hemmed in on every side by enormous, dense furniture of the sort that reminds him of a time at least half a century ago, if not longer. The result is antiquated in a charming way with enough touches of modernity that he doesn’t think Mingjue is necessarily out of touch, just pragmatic about his home. If something old will still do, why replace it? It’s a mentality Meng Yao can appreciate, and he finds himself smiling a little again as he trails behind Mingjue up the stairs and down the short hallway to the room in the back corner.

“Here you go,” Mingjue says and slings both Meng Yao’s and Huaisang’s bags off his shoulder, which is precisely when Meng Yao realizes he’d been carrying their luggage in one hand like it weighs nothing. He notices it, allows himself two seconds to admire it, and promptly tucks that little tidbit away for future consideration. Later.

“I’ll be around, just holler if you need anything. I’m sure A-Sang will be in to bother you once he’s finished saying hi to the herd, I’ll let you enjoy the quiet while you’ve got it.”

“Thanks, Mingjue,” Meng Yao says with a smile, and it might be a moment of wishful thinking, or just his imagination, but he swears he sees Mingjue’s gaze drop to his mouth for a beat too long before the man nods and retreats. Meng Yao has no way to know if the flush on the back of Mingjue’s neck is from the sun or, maybe, something else.

–//–

Huaisang does come inside eventually, and though he has his own unpacking to do Meng Yao isn’t surprised at all when his friend comes to his room first to flop onto his bed and promptly make himself at home to start bugging him.

(He wouldn’t want or expect anything different.)

As Meng Yao hangs up shirts and trousers with far more care than they probably need, Huaisang regales him with stories from other trips to the ranch and a quick run-down of the personalities of the horses Mingjue keeps, both his own and some he boards for others who can’t keep their own animals for whatever reason. Meng Yao makes enough leading, noncommittal noises to keep his friend chattering as he settles in, though the chatter becomes decidedly less pleasant as far as background noise goes when Huaisang starts talking about getting Meng Yao to socialize.

Within moments it’s clear he already has a plan on how to do so, because of course he does, and of course it’s some stranger’s houseparty where Meng Yao will know absolutely no one at all.

“Absolutely not, Huaisang,” he says tartly, but of course Huaisang only takes that as an invitation to persuade him.

“This isn’t like parties back home, A-Yao, I promise!” he wheedles. Meng Yao just goes on unpacking his meager belongings into the antique dresser in the corner of his room that holds a window overlooking the equipment-littered space between the back porch and the horse barn, and he very pointedly does not rise to Huaisang’s bait. He’s still not immune to his best friend’s cajoling and they both know it, but he feels the need to deny him a little longer for the sake of his pride, if nothing else.

“Nothing here is like home, Huaisang, your argument is invalid,” he replies blithely and debates the merit of hanging his undershirts in the too-big closet with the rest of his clothes, rather than folding them up into a too-big drawer where they’ll just look sad on their own.

“Okay point taken, but seriously! You’ll have a nice time, it’ll be chill, I swear. Xichen-ge is coming, and he never goes anywhere things will get out of hand!”

A party tempting enough to interest Huaisang is typically guaranteed to be anything but ‘chill’, he doesn’t point out, but…well. Meng Yao had just said it himself — nothing here so far is like what they’ve come from, maybe Huaisang’s different here too. Maybe a party’s really not such a bad idea. And if it is, Mingjue, having already overheard Huaisang mentioning the party on his way past Meng Yao’s room with a load of clean laundry in his arms, has already made it very clear that he’s happy to either loan them his truck for the night or else drive them himself. Considering Meng Yao has no interest in drinking so much he wouldn’t be able to drive (because he, unlike his best friend, is a very functional city gay who can drive, thank you very much) it’s a guaranteed exit strategy, should he feel the need to escape.

Meng Yao ignores Huaisang’s pleading eyes for a few moments longer simply for the fun of it as he slides his undershirts onto clattering plastic hangers, and only smiles once his back is turned as Huaisang shouts his delight when Meng Yao sighs, “Well…I guess I’ve got nowhere better to go.”

–//–

This time, Huaisang did tell him the unvarnished truth.

It’s clear from the moment they pull up in the warm violet twilight that this party is nothing like the ones they frequent back home. It’s in someone’s actual house, for one, which he supposes isn’t too strange when not being hosted in a city made entirely of apartments and highrises, but the house itself is in the middle of a giant patch of…nothing. It’s just a house on a dirt lot full of pickup trucks in various stages of rusting, with lights strung everywhere possible on the wraparound porch (except that it’s not really a porch so much as it is a prefabricated metal roof over part of the patch of dirt and sparse grass ‘yard’). He’s pretty sure he even sees a barn lit up the same way some few hundred feet behind the house, but he can’t get a good look at it from here and decides to put it out of his mind.

“Let me know if you end up needing the truck,” Mingjue says over the sound of twanging guitar coming from someone’s massive speakers as they hop down (well he steps down out of the truck like he’s just crossing a threshold; Meng Yao and Huaisang are too vertically challenged to get down out of the thing without at least a little hop). “I’m gonna head in to grab a beer, you two want anything?”

“We’re good, da-ge!” Huaisang chirps, already eyeing up a cluster of guys all dressed nearly identically in tight jeans and threadbare flannels with the sleeves cut off and the resulting gaping holes fraying artlessly, with the main differentiating factor between them being if they’re wearing cowboy hats or baseball caps. Meng Yao glances between his options — Huaisang’s all-too-familiar thirsting over extremely lackluster men who don’t deserve him and Mingjue’s retreating figure carving a path through the crowd — and decides to take his chances with the latter, though he hangs back a little to give Mingjue space.

The house, when he steps inside, at least smells pretty much like what he’s used to at parties. Too many competing colognes and perfumes, the sticky sweetness of alcohol, and the haze of cigarette smoke are almost comforting like this, even as he promptly gets lost amongst the sprawling, dimly-lit rooms crowded with strangers nursing beers or chatting (read: feeling) each other up in dim corners. He finds a staircase in the middle of the house and uses it to orient himself as he wanders in several clockwise circles until he’s mapped out the living room, the den, the kitchen where he snags a beer from the 6’5” cowboy (he’s assuming he’s a cowboy based on the hat and the whole ‘house party on a farm in Montana’ thing) standing at the keg, the door to the back ‘porch’ that’s about as porch-like as the one out front, and an overcrowded room that seems to serve no purpose but to be a place to play beer pong.

He’s just circled his way back to the front door near the stairs once again when he finds his path blocked by someone turned away from him; someone broad and tall and wearing pale blue, which just seems like a mistake when any moment could end in spilled beer and flustered mopping up with a crumpled handful of napkins, perhaps even the removal of said shirt to get it in the upstairs bathroom sink to soak out the stain before it sets —

Alright so it’s been a while and a man has needs, especially when surrounded by ridiculously tall beefcakes on every side. Sue him.

Rather than spilling his shitty beer on this guy to see if he can get him to take his shirt off, Meng Yao clears his throat and taps the guy on his waist once, just the lightest touch of two fingers to body-warmed cotton, and the guy turns smoothly, an apology already on his lips.

“Oh, excuse me,” he says, hardly audible over the music jangling from the beer pong room. Meng Yao tilts his head back a bit — and then a bit more — to meet the guy’s gaze and he’s startled to find he’s also Asian. It takes him roughly three seconds to put two-and-two together when the guy smiles at him like he knows him and ducks down to talk a little closer. Meng Yao makes a conscious decision to stay very still to let him do it.

“Might you be Meng Yao?” he asks and Meng Yao can only nod dumbly. “Mingjue sent me to find you, would you like to come sit with us? Da-ge’s great for commandeering the couch at these things.”

Sitting down sounds great, Meng Yao thinks, especially when the crowd shifts enough for him to catch sight of the ratty old sofa in the living room to find Mingjue currently occupying it alone, manspread more than far enough to make it clear that no one else is sitting on that couch unless he invites them (and he doesn’t look like he’s in a particularly inviting mood).

“Are you sure?” Meng Yao asks, wary, but the man (who must be Mingjue’s best friend, Xichen) just smiles at him again and tips his head in that direction, gesturing vaguely with one of his bottles of beer as if for emphasis.

“Of course! Come on, you’ve had a long day of traveling and I wanted to apologize for not being able to meet you at the house this afternoon. Just sit with us for a while, we’ll introduce you around later if you want us to.”

Meng Yao finds it a pretty tough proposition to say no to so he just nods again and gestures with his own beer (in a stereotypical red Solo cup he’d been amused to receive) for Xichen to lead the way. It isn’t so far that Meng Yao worries about losing him in the crowd, really, but he doesn’t let that stop him from hooking an index finger through the center back belt loop on Xichen’s skin-tight jeans, ‘just in case’. Xichen simply smiles at him over his shoulder as they pass through the nearly-black front hallway and into the scarcely-brighter living room, red Christmas lights around the ceiling and the overhead bulb in the kitchen through the other doorway the only lighting for the entire room.

“Hey, there you are,” Mingjue says as they approach, and though he swings one knee closer to straight in front of himself to manspread a little less he leaves his arm slung casually along the top of the back cushions, reaching up with his free hand to snag the beer Xichen had brought for him and taking a swig of it as Xichen joins him.

On the opposite end of the couch.

Meng Yao hides behind a sip of his own flat beer quickly warming to room temperature as he contemplates the small (small) space between them and, between one disappointing sip and the next, decides he’s feeling reckless enough after a long day of new things and the freedom of traveling so many miles from home that he’s just going to go for it, and fuck the consequences.

Xichen slings his arm over the rest of the back of the couch, fingertips brushing lightly against Mingjue’s elbow where they overlap. Meng Yao sits down right in between them, settles in, and pointedly ignores the way the tired old couch springs squeak in protest of their combined weight and how he seems to pull the other two in like a magnet. It’s like gravity, centers of balance shifting and leaning inwards into his orbit, the pair of them bracketing him on either side, parentheses made of denim and muscle and smiling mouths that he pretends not to notice creeping closer as they keep finding excuses to lean in closer over the course of the next few minutes, not at all subtle. They drift in, in, in to talk to him over the music until they’re both practically kissing him on the cheeks just to be heard as they chat about nothing much at all.

Meng Yao finishes his beer and lets Xichen take the empty cup from him to set aside, and when he leans back in even closer than a moment before, Meng Yao offers him a coy little smile of the sort that’s weakened tougher men than Xichen seems to be and drops his newly-freed hand on his knee, mirroring the caress on Mingjue’s knee with his free hand on the other side.

It would be more than accurate to say that Xichen melts like butter — melts so obviously, in fact, that Mingjue laughs at him, hides it in Meng Yao’s shoulder, and seems to need no further excuse to just set up camp there so he can start nuzzling the tip of his nose into the crook of Meng Yao’s neck until he’s shivering pleasantly and feeling very much like the cat that got the cream.

Huaisang was right — this has never happened to him in New York, but he’s perfectly happy that it’s happening to him now.

–//–

Nie Huaisang isn’t the type to say ‘I told you so’ in so many words, mostly because he doesn’t actually say what he’s really thinking in the first place.

But if he were the type, he’d be saying it right now to anyone who would listen as he sips at a beer some jumped-up bull rider pressed into his hand with enough flustered used-to-be-definitely-absolutely-straight-but-now-he’s-confused flirting that Huaisang had given him an extra kiss or three to apologize for giving him a little sexuality crisis.

Maybe it’s weird for him to be so pleased to see his brother and his brother’s live-in-something tag teaming Huaisang’s own best friend, but, well. Meng Yao works way too hard for very little in return, and Huaisang thinks he deserves nice things. He’s certainly not immune to the ample charms of his brother’s farmer/rancher neighbors at least for a hazy summer, and he’d known that Meng Yao wouldn’t be able to resist either no matter how many fuck-off-I’m-totally-independent vibes he gives off when they’re back home.

Naturally if Meng Yao weren’t interested in sex Huaisang would leave him alone about it, but since he’s not he’d known perfectly well that there would be no resisting not one but two handsome men who could throw him over their shoulders as easily as they do bales of hay or sheep that need shearing. So, to that effect — the scene in front of him. Huaisang watches just long enough to see Xichen turn Meng Yao’s face to his with a gentle finger under his chin to coax him in for a kiss where they’re snuggled up all three together on the couch and then makes his escape to find his own fun for the night.

It’s already looking like it’s going to be quite the summer, and Huaisang basks in the pleasure of a plan well-executed with no one the wiser.

#the untamed fanfic #3zun #Modern AU #Orville Peck Cinematic Universe #officially the name of this universe (because there will definitely be more) lol #3zun but make them cattle ranchers because why not #Nie Mingjue #Meng Yao #Lan Xichen #Nie Huaisang

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