Work Text:
“Good Afternoon and welcome to the Peony Hotel. How may I assist you today?”
“Afternoon, Mindy,” Xue Yang says, after peering at the chirpy blonde's name tag. “I need two rooms with king size beds.”
“I’m sorry sir, all our rooms have two full size beds. How many are in your party?”
“Six…but what kind of hotel only has rooms with double beds?” Xue Yang asks, incredulously.
“Well the proprietor of this hotel is old fashioned. He styled each room after his own bedroom.”
What the fuck?
Mindy must see the look of confusion on Xue Yang’s face and continues talking. Xue Yang just isn’t sure she’s speaking a language he understands.
“Back in the day married couples slept in separate beds. Mr. Peony wanted travelers to have that option, even in this day and age.”
“You’re shitting me?”
By Mindy’s furrowed brows Xue Yang can tell she doesn’t appreciate the cursing.
“No sir, I’m not. Our rooms can easily accommodate three people, since each room has a sofa that converts to a bed. Seems much better than three people sharing one bed, doesn’t it?”
“No, it sounds terrible!”
“So is that a no to the room, sir?”
“It’s a big fat fuck no. Have a great day.”
Xue Yang leaves Mindy sputtering behind him as he sends off a text “No Go at the Peony Hotel” before walking out to find his husbands’. He gets a sad face emoji in return with the message “No Go at the Fire Hotel either”.
Fuck!
“This hotel is booked,” Xue Yang says to Xiao Xingchen and Song Lan when he finds them sitting on the bench by the front entrance.
“It’s booked?” Song Lan questions, taking a look at the nearly empty parking lot.
Xue Yang shrugs. “In a few hours this place will be filled with nuns. I shit you not. The Fire Hotel is booked too.”
“More nuns?” Xiao Xingchen asks.
“Clowns…” Xue Yang says with a perfectly straight face even though he’s snickering inside. “Let’s try the next one on the list.”
***
“Let me get this straight…three grown men WANT to share a bed?” the clearly perplexed woman asks Wei Ying.
“Clearly we aren’t straight,” Wei Ying jokes, with a wink. “Plus we're mates,” he adds with a tilt of his neck.
The woman gasps out an OH before giggling. “Ah, we don’t see too many triads around here. How does that work exactly?”
Wei Ying leans in to give her all the shameless details but stops as an arm wraps around his waist.
“Lan Zhan, this is Emmy. Sadly they don’t have any rooms left,” he says with a pout.
“I’m sorry for the inconvenience sir. There is a library conference going on this weekend.”
Wei Ying throws a discreet thumbs up towards Emmy. “Librarians, Lan Zhan! I bet they know how to party.”
A snort can be heard behind them. “Librarians? Seriously?”
“Jiang Cheng, don’t underestimate the librarians! Maybe we should stick around and say hello…” he’s clearly getting way into this lie.
“What the fuck, Wei Ying? Peony Hotel is overrun by nuns, Fire Hotel clowns, and now Lighthouse Hotel has librarians??!!”
“Don’t forget the furries,” Wei Ying announces after reading his text from Xue Yang.
“Furries? I can’t forget something I don’t know!”
“Walker Hotel has a furry convention. That sounds fun!” Until he remembers that dogs are also furry and then changes his mind. “Actually on second thought that sounds awful.”
“Call Xue Yang. We need to regroup,” Jiang Cheng says.
***
“Nuns, clowns, librarians, and furries…
“Oh MY!” Xue Yang shouts, laughing.
“Ridiculous,” Jiang Cheng scoffs. “This whole impromptu trip has been ridiculous! Who decides to drive cross country just because of a weird text sent from their daughter to our son?! Which we never would have seen if not for the hacker in the room. I can’t believe you installed a clone program on Ah Qing’s phone.”
“Like you wouldn’t have done the same to Jingyi and Yuan. Don’t be a hypocrite, Jiang Cheng,” Xue Yang grumbles.
“Ah Qing is smart. What if she does know, Chengmei?” Xiao Xingchen says. “We’ll be talking about invasion of privacy later.”
Xue Yang leans in to whisper in Xiao Xingchen’s ear, “Going to punish me, babe?”
“Hell yes,” Song Lan says, kissing Xue Yang’s cheek. Xue Yang shivers not only from the skin to skin contact but from Song Lan swearing and using his ‘You’re Getting Wrecked’ tone.
“That would explain a few things if she did know, now that I think about it,” Xue Yang says, with a thoughtful grimace. All the cat memes seemed kind of weird to send to her one friend when both of them are blind. Oh well, he enjoyed them.
“Pull up the text, Xue Yang,” Wei Ying says.
To: Chickenbutt (Jingyi)
One line means negative, two lines means positive. Didn’t you read the instructions!
To: Sunglasses (Ah Qing)
Don’t be mean, I did! It doesn’t look like lines.
To: Chickenbutt (Jingyi)
What does it look like?
To: Sunglasses (Ah Qing)
Squiggles
“Jingyi was acting squirrely the last time we talked. I know he’s stressed about his exams, but are we to be grandfathers?” Wei Ying says, squeezing Lan Zhan’s arm.
“I’ll break his legs! He’s too young to think about having kids,” Jiang Cheng shouts.
“You were younger than him when you had him, baobei,” Wei Ying points out.
“We were properly mated and married. Jingyi isn’t even dating anyone that we know of. It would be out of character for our romantic son who’s waiting for his true mate. He would have told us if he’d found his true mate.”
“It could have been a one night stand.” Xue Yang suggests, with an evil chuckle.
“That’s not helpful, Chengmei,” Xiao Xingchen scolds.
“You wouldn’t find this funny if we were suspecting Ah Qing of being pregnant,” Jiang Cheng growls.
“Didn’t we just establish that my daughter is smart,” Xue Yang snaps back.
“And my son isn’t?” Jiang Cheng bristles.
“Wanyin,” Lan Zhan says softly.
All the anger bleeds out of Jiang Cheng as he leans into his husband. “If we hadn’t taught them how to properly block our link when they wanted to we wouldn’t be speculating right now.”
“Auntie Baoshen teaches all the prepubescent boys once they learn that their dick isn't just for peeing,” Wei Ying says with a laugh.
“I’m glad I have girls,” Xue Yang mutters.
Jiang Cheng ignores him. “It’s late and I’d like to get some sleep before we head out in the morning. We need to find a hotel!”
“Excuse me, I didn’t mean to overhear but if you are in need of a hotel room there are plenty available across the street at the Lighthouse Hotel,” an older man sitting near them says.
“No there isn’t,” Jiang Cheng says. “It’s booked for the library conference.”
“Uh, I think you’re mistaken. I just booked a room online and it stated there were ten more rooms available,” he says holding up his phone.
“What the fuck? Wei Wuxian! Didn’t you say the online reservation system was down?”
Wei Ying hides behind Lan Zhan. “It was…earlier. I didn’t check if it had come back up.”
“Is there even a conference?” Jiang Cheng asks.
“Uhhhh….no,” Wei Ying says, sheepishly.
“What about the nuns, clowns, and furries?!”
Xue Yang and Wei Ying make it a point to not look at each other.
“No to them too,” Wei Ying says.
“Wei Ying,” Lan Zhan says quietly.
“Lan Zhannnn,” Wei Ying whines. “I can’t sleep without you and Jiang Cheng snuggled up next to me. None of these hotels had a king size bed. I think we need to write a review on how these hotels discriminate against non-traditional matings!”
“Chengmei! We’ve been running around looking for a hotel because they didn’t have a big enough bed?” Xiao Xingchen asks.
“I can’t sleep without being snuggled up to you either,” Xue Yang pouts, batting his eyelashes.
“Divas. We’re married to divas,” Jiang Cheng grumbles. “Let’s go.”
Jiang Cheng leads their group across the street and into the Hotel stalking over to the desk.
“Two rooms.”
“Oh, I’m sorry sir…”
“Emmy their on to us my dear. We’ll take whatever rooms you have available,” Wei Ying says, shaking his head sadly. “Thank you for playing along with me.”
“I see. I have two rooms on the fourth floor with two queen size beds. Here are your room keys and breakfast is from 6am-9am in the morning. We hope you enjoy your stay at the Lighthouse Hotel.”
“We should fit on a queen,” Wei Ying thinks out loud as they get off the elevator and walk towards their room. Once inside Wei Ying jumps on the bed closest to the door testing how firm or soft it is. “Seems comfortable enough.”
Jiang Cheng rolls his eyes at his husband's antics and sends a fond smile Lan Zhan’s way. Lan Zhan goes to stand by the bed Wei Ying is on while Jiang Cheng goes over to the other bed. Wei Ying cries out in surprise as the bed begins moving on its own. Opening his eyes he sees Lan Zhan pushing the bed he’s on towards the bed Jiang Cheng is pushing. When the beds meet in the middle Wei Ying lets out a quiet laugh.
“I’m married to geniuses!”
“If you would have just told us from the start we could have prevented wasting several hours out of our evening, Wuxian. Plus we’re shifters, we could have just snuggled on one bed in our animal forms,” Jiang Cheng scolds, laying down next to him.
“Baobei, it’s never a waste of time being with my mates. I prefer sleeping as myself, not Suibian. This trip might be last minute and I do miss our girls, but I’m happy to be here with you and Lan Zhan.”
“I’m happy to,” Lan Zhan agrees.
“Same, but speaking of our daughters, let's give them a call, shall we,” Jiang Cheng says.
Wei Ying already has his phone out.
Meanwhile in the room next door the beds have been rearranged similarly and a phone call was made to their daughters.
***
“Baba! Dad! Papa! What are you doing here?” Jingyi exclaims. He answered the knock on the door expecting a pizza delivery, not his and Ah Qing’s dads.
“Surprise! How is my little duckling?” Wei Ying cries, giving Jingyi a big hug.
“Dad, I’m fine. Is everything okay? We weren’t expecting you until next month,” Jingyi says, maneuvering him and Wei Ying out of the doorway to make room for the rest to come into the house. “Where’s Xiaolin and Suyin?”
“At home. We didn’t want to take them out of school,” Wei Ying says.
“This trip wasn’t planned,” Jiang Cheng adds.
“Where’s the pizza…shit!” Ah Qing swears. She doesn’t need to see to know her fathers are in the house. She can sense their presence. “Baba! You really did clone my phone, You could have just called.”
Jingyi looks at Ah Qing in confusion. “Clone your phone? What are you talking about?”
“Baba saw your text and blabbed it to Uncle Ying!”
“I did not blab. I merely shared it, brat!” Xue Yang says, giving his daughter a hug. “I’ve missed you.”
“I’ve missed you too,” she whispers. Song Lan and Xiao Xingchen join the hug, making her sniffle. She is happy to see them. “Where’s Dong Mei and Lian?”
“With your Uncle Ning and Uncle Xuanyu. I’m sorry that Baba's been spying on you,” Xiao Xingchen says.
Ah Qing shrugs. “I suspected so I don’t text anything I don’t want you guys to know. I didn’t really think about how my conversation with Jingyi could be misinterpreted.”
“What text?” Jingyi yells, as Lan Yuan and Jin Ling came thudding down the stairs.
“Baba!”
“Uncles!”
“They think you knocked someone up,” Ah Qing snickers.
“WHAT! Why would my dads think that?” And then he remembers the text conversation. Shit!
Yuan laughs first, followed by Ling, and then Ah Qing.
“It’s not funny! Baba’s going to break my legs,” Jingyi wails.
“Fuck me,” Jiang Cheng sighs, sitting down on Lan Zhan’s lap. “I thought you’d me mated and married before making me a grandfather, but I’ll get over it.”
“No one in this room is pregnant!”
“I would hope not since you’re basically related to everyone in this room!” Jiang Cheng yells. “Unless you and Ah Qing have something more to tell us?”
“Uncle Cheng, that's gross,” Ah Qing gags. “Jingyi’s like a brother and I’m not interested in men.”
“Let me rephrase, no one here is pregnant or has impregnated anyone! Blow Pop is pregnant,” Jingyi yells.
“Blow Pop, your pet bunny? I didn’t think males could reproduce?” Xiao Xingchen says.
“They can’t. We thought we got two boys but turns out that Blow Pop is female and Tootsie Roll is male,” Yuan explains.
“We are going to be grandfather’s!” Wei Ying exclaims.
“OH MY GOD, you did a pregnancy test on a bunny!” Xue Yang busts out laughing. The type of laughing that has him rolling on the ground and tears leaking out his eyes. “How…did…you get it…to pee…on the stick?”
“We vowed to never talk about it,” Jin Ling says with a shudder.
“The veterinarian explained that pregnancy tests would not work on non shifter animals. The blood test confirmed that Blow Pop is expecting,” Jingyi grumbles. “I can’t believe you drove over 1,000 miles instead of just calling.”
“Our ducklings don’t seem to have time for us when we call. You can’t avoid a conversation when we are right in front of you,” Wei Ying says.
“Sorry, Dad. School and work keeps us busy. Yuan and I promise to do better.”
“Yeah, Dad, we’ll do better,” Yuan promises. “We’ll all be home in a few months after graduation.”
“I know, sweetheart. We just miss you.”
“Group hug!”
A few hours later:
“The Glow Hotel only has rooms with double beds…”
“NNNOOOOOOO!!!!!”