Archive of Our Own

You made me feel like a harbour
And you made me feel like a fortress
This is the place where I felt
Like the world's tallest self-supporting tower

     - Concrete Heart, by Great Lake Swimmers

Wei Wuxian wakes up behind a dumpster.

Crammed in the little space between the metal side and a damp brick wall, disoriented, because while the cold and the wet are right, the smell is an outlier. He remembers snow and ice and freezing ditch-water seeping into the back of his jacket. He remembers the smell of cold, and pavement, blood and gasoline. He remembers pain. But apart from nearly whacking his head against the hook lift bar, and the stiffness of sleeping outside, his body is fine. He blinks, raises grimy fingers to rub at his eyes, and then he stares at his hands for a long moment. Slender, delicate, chipping black polish on almond-shaped nails.

"Not my hands," he whispers, soft, alto-high, a little raspy from sleep. Not his voice either. Okay then.

Untangled from his sleeping bag, he stands up in a side alley, the gristle-black asphalt illuminated by one outdoor light over a door pockmarked with rust. Snow has piled, ice clear at the edges, in the corners and on top of soggy cardboard and wilted cabbage leaves. It's lightly snowing now, the slow, big kind. The hushed kind, when the air is a little warm. He'd been protected from it by the open dumpster lid, slanting back towards the wall and making a tiny shelter. Smart.

It's lost in his praise of his urban camping skills that the rusty door swings open to emit a short Hispanic man with a fuzzy buzz cut, dressed in food-stained chef's whites. Or, a white t-shirt and a white apron tied around his waist. He tucks a pencil behind his ear and nods to Wei Wuxian with familiarity, pulling a slightly crushed box of Export A's from his back pocket. "Boss man's back tomorrow kid," he says, holding the pack out to Wei Wuxian. "Don't sleep here tomorrow, hey?"

"Yeah, sure," he agrees, waving off the offered cigarettes. Then blinks and adds, "How's business?"

It draws a heavy guffaw from the man, pulling his own cigarette and a lighter from the box. "Fucked if I know, man!" He tucks the cigarette between his lips and squints at Wei Wuxian. "Check back with me Wednesday, okay? Rosa's making tamales, pork for you."

"That's…" Wei Wuxian shakes his head. "That's really nice. Thank you."

"Aw, nothing. Nothing, man. I was hungry in this city too. You be careful tonight, extra cops downtown for the New Year."

"Sure, thanks."

The man waves him off, blowing smoke up towards the falling snow. Wei Wuxian ducks back behind the dumpster, folds up his sleeping bag, shoves it through the arms of the backpack he'd been using as a pillow, and rolls back out of his hiding spot. His tamale friend has gone back inside, finished his smoke break, so Wei Wuxian takes himself out of this cabbage-smelly alley and out into the world. It's not a street he recognizes, but Wei Wuxian had really only known the southwest like the back of his hand; the Beaches might as well have been Antarctica for those few times he'd ventured across Younge. But Fate's brought him to this street and given him different hands, it's clear his course of action is to go with the flow. Wei Wuxian turns in the direction opposite the slant of the snow, and heads out.

Two corners later he's realized he's on Ossington, heading south to the lake. Tucking his hands into his pockets against the cold turns up his wallet, and the one purple bill and a handful of quarters jangling around decides it, he slogs down to Bloor and straight to the golden arches on the corner, where polishing off a Big Mac Combo affords him the supreme luxury of the bathroom key. Wei Wuxian can't remember McDonalds selling anything but dredge water posing as coffee, but he balances his fairly decent cup on the metal ledge below the men's room mirror and stares.

It's not his face, though he's not sure what he expected at this point. He looks pretty haggard, the way all folks who've been on the street for awhile do, but whoever he was seemed to care a little; his face is tired, but he's also wearing thick, slightly smeared red eyeliner. Wei Wuxian is now the proud owner of full lips, big dark eyes, and delicate cheekbones. He's won them at the expense of a foot and a half of height, which is an unfortunate trade in his opinion. His big hands, scarred and calloused with that tilting third finger from a bad break, have been replaced by bird-like, flitting things; Wei Wuxian suspects his feet only look so big because his cracked boots are a few sizes too big, stuffed with extra socks. He pulls his toque off and a river of hair shakes itself free, long and black all the way to his shoulder blades. He'd known only one boy with hair this long in his entire life. Wei Wuxian had pulled on the thick braid of it the first day of highschool and got detention for the effort. He'd tried to grow his own out in apology and Yu-ayi took him to the barber herself, lecturing the entire way about how his looking unpresentable reflected badly on her.

"Well," Wei Wuxian says to his new reflection, "let's see who I am now."

The backpack has a few pairs of socks and underwear, some granola bars, an empty Nalgene. A battered copy of The Story of the Stone translated to English, a pencil case with a little bit of makeup in it, but not much in the way of identifiers. The wallet is a bit more helpful, an expired city library card, and a student ID from York with an overexposed photo. The front says Daniel Mo, but the back is signed in Hànzì.

"Mo Xuanyu," he reads, and then looks up at himself again in the mirror.

Someone bangs on the door, startling him out of his gazing. Wei Wuxian packs up his belongings and fills the Nalgene in the sink, and then heads back out into the night.

There's people tobogganing in Christie Pits, either too tipsy or too early in their night to be cold. Wei Wuxian's feet are freezing though, so he heads to the 24-coin laundry off Manning. He'd used to pile all their laundry into an old shopping cart and tuck a-Yuan into the front with his giant stuffed rabbit, Mr. Hop, and then pretend he was a race car all the way up Euclid. He'd initially walked this way in search of a phone; the bank of them outside of Christie Station are gone, which has given him a little more time to think. What's he supposed to do, after all? Ring up Wen Qing like "hey so, funny story!"? She'd probably hang up on him, and that's if she's home to answer the phone and not on shift tonight. It'd be an entire waste of a quarter, he probably should just go to the house instead. Wen Ning had always been reading those paperbacks with oil paintings of dragons and magic-wielding protagonists on the covers, he'd at least not slam the door in Wei Wuxian's new face.

There's a middle-aged white punk lady waiting for her bedsheets to dry who gives Wei Wuxian a nod, but otherwise the laundromat is empty. He sits in the corner with the rest of his coffee, cracks open the Cao Xueqin to show he's not going to be a disturbance, and tries not to be too obvious about stretching his boots towards the radiator. When his toes finally start to feel defrosted enough and his coffee's long gone, he does a few stretches to get rid of the lingering stiffness in his neck and shoulders his backpack again.

"You know, if you duct tape them, they won't leak," says his laundromat comrade, looking up from her copy of Now.

"Oh," he smiles down at his beat-up boots and then up at her. "Thanks!"  

"Walking Mobility gives out free shoes, if you… hey, are you okay?"  

Wei Wuxian had been staring at the date on the left side of the paper in her hands. "Sorry, what day is it?"  

"Honey, it's Friday," she says gently. "Friday December thirty-first."  

"Yeah. Cool, um. Thanks. For the tip about the shoes." He forces his lips into a grin. "Happy new year."  

Outside, around the corner, he crouches on his heels in the snow. It's December 31st, and it's also about to be thirteen years to the last day Wei Wuxian remembers. He looks at the hands that don't belong to him and tries, firing all synapses, to figure out what the fuck is going on. Someone's mitten pats a glossy twenty across his palms. By the time he's looked up, they've already gone past, absorbed in a conversation on their phone.  

"Go with the flow," he laughs lowly to himself. Wei Wuxian closes his fingers around the money and gets to his feet. He could really, really use a drink.

There's some kind of show at Lee's Palace. There always is, on a Friday, but the Dance Cave is bustling too for New Years Eve. Wei Wuxian went to so many shows here with Wen Ning, their matching black high-top Chucks, discernable in the pile by the door only because Wei Wuxian's had red laces. Their uniform had been pretty standard back then, band t-shirt, black hoodie. Dickie's shorts even in February when the chances of frostbite were about a hundred percent, because the press of the crowd at an indoor show was so hot and sweaty. Wei Wuxian had stood at the back for approximately four shows in his life, two because he'd had a broken arm, one because someone had kicked him in the head in a mosh pit the night before, and one because Lan Zhan didn't like strangers touching him, and Wei Wuxian had taken a risk on a non-seated show because he knew Lan Zhan would like the way John K. Samson made poetry out of everyday life, and also the theremin. He'd been absolutely correct. Lan Zhan had enjoyed it so much he bought a poster and the EP at the merch table. They'd listened to it in the car as Lan Zhan drove him home, agreeing as Wei Wuxian made more and more highly improbable plans for the next show to take him to. Two days later Lan Zhan left to go back to Queen's for the school year. That had been the last time Wei Wuxian saw him.  

Thirteen years ago .  

Wei Wuxian shoulders his way past the smokers standing in the snowbank, hoping he has enough for cover and that they still sell those weak organic beers for $5. A nightclub is as good as any place to keep warm until 2am, and if New Years still works the same way he remembers, transit will be free all night and he can ride the Bloor Night bus for a few hours until things open up again. He just needs to get through tonight, and then he can start figuring out what's going on. He steps into the line to get in, and that, of course, is when someone up ahead starts shouting, someone gets knocked down, and a guy takes off running through the snow, clutching a small cobalt blue box purse with a broken strap that clearly doesn't match his outfit.  

"Stop!" someone shouts, and Wei Wuxian thinks, you got it , and steps directly into the man's path, so abruptly it knocks them both over. He'd forgotten, he's a foot and a half shorter now. He should have braced his feet more.  

"I don't think this belongs to you," he smiles winsomely, threading his hand into the cut end of the strap.  

There's a brief tussle on the ground, in which neither of them let go of the purse and Wei Wuxian gets a few good hits in, and then some giant Asian kid arrives and hauls Wei Wuxian to his feet just as the thief gets what looks like a box cutter out of his sleeve.  

"Oh shit," Wei Wuxian says, and shoves the kid away from him, out of harm's way, one hand still on the purse and the other unzipping his jacket so he can fling it, backpack and all, over the now armed and feeling apparently desperate purse-snatcher. It makes him let go of the bag, which is great, Wei Wuxian tosses it to his free hand, throws the rest of his jacket down, and then grabs the big kid's arm and runs back up the street with him. "You saw nothing, okay?" He tells the kid. "Forget that guy's face. Nothing's been lost, so you're all good."

The kid however, pulls Wei Wuxian up short in the middle of his heroically cool get-away, shakes his arm out of Wei Wuxian's grasp, and kneels on the wet sidewalk next to a building wall, where another boy is sitting hunched over with a big white toque pressed to his face.

"Sizhui," the tall kid pleads softly. "Is it bad Yuanzi?"

"I'm all right," says a soft voice, muffled through the wool.

They are speaking a dialect Wei Wuxian does not speak well, but knows unmistakably. All of Wei Wuxian's Mandarin was learned at the rec centre, but Lan Zhan had spoken it fluently, interchangeable with his English, despite the fact that at home with his brother and Uncle he spoke the sugary soft dialect from his hometown. Yu-ayi used to hold complicated conversations with Lan Zhan in the lobby when she came to pick them up from orchestra, shooting little barbs at all of them by praising his Mandarin proficiency in comparison to her own children. Lan Xichen always thanked her politely and ushered Lan Zhan away as quickly as possible. There had been a lot not to like about Lan Qiren, but the one time he'd come instead, he'd looked Yu-ayi dead in the face and said It is his first language , when she asked him to recommend Lan Zhan's tutor. Yanli had to step on Wei Wuxian's foot to keep him from laughing.

The tall kid gently coaxes Sizhui into letting him see his face; there's a shallow gash on his cheek, starting under his ear and ending at his jaw, and a deep scrape on his palm. But he frowns at the blood stained toque in his hands. "I ruined your hat, Jingyi," he says, sounding like he might cry about it.

Wei Wuxian crouches down on his heels and holds out the bag. The only phrases he knows are things like would you like some loquats and you are the worst person , so he reaches for his rec centre Mandarin instead.

"I think this is yours," he offers. "I know first aid, is it okay if I check you out?"

"Oh," Sizhui blinks big dark eyes at him. "Thank you."

Jingyi looks a little unsure about it, but Wei Wuxian thrusts the purse at him and starts examining the way Wen Qing had taught him so he'd be prepped for any playground mishaps or tumbles A-Yuan took. "Are you guys from Suzhou?" he asks, checking Sizhui's head with careful fingers.

"High Park," Jingyi snorts. "But we live downtown for school."

"Cool," Wei Wuxian says, fingers tracing a bump the size of a twoonie on the side of Sizhui's head. "What day is it?"

"Friday," Sizhui tells him with a little smile. "December 31st."

"It sure is," Wei Wuxian agrees, a little hysterical. He checks Sizhui's wrist for a sprain. "Are you hurt anywhere else?"

"No, thank you."

"Well, he's got a bump on his head and he'll probably have some cool bruises," Wei Wuxian tells Jingyi. "I don't think he'll need stitches but take him to the school clinic maybe if it starts bleeding again." He smiles at both of them. "Congratulations, you survived your first mugging."

"Great," Jingyi sighs.

"Thank you so much for your help," Sizhui tells him, and levers himself to his feet. Jingyi and Wei Wuxian stand up abruptly too, because Sizhui promptly falters, and grips Wei Wuxian's hoodie for support. "Oh," he whispers, a little dazed. "You don't have a jacket."

"Ah, it's cool," Wei Wuxian shrugs.

Jingyi gets an arm around Sizhui and looks at Wei Wuxian with conflicted concern. "Yuanzi," he says, "I am going to call an Uber. And you, you're coming with us where it's warm."

  An Uber is apparently someone's car, which they are cool to drive you around in. Their driver does not seem overly cool about having Wei Wuxian in his backseat, but this isn't even remotely the weirdest thing to happen to him tonight, and the Sizhui kid still has a death grip on his hoodie, so Wei Wuxian climbs into the back of some dude's Toyota despite their mutual misgivings. In the car Jingyi goes through Sizhui's bag to locate his phone and wallet, but the keys he'd had clipped to the strap must have fallen off when it was cut.

"Does your dad still have your spare set?" Jingyi asks, unlocking Sizhui's phone by punching in the correct code.

"He's at that gala thing with Bobo," Sizhui groans.

"So? They are on his key ring, you know that." Jingyi sets Sizhui's phone to his ear and leans forwards to talk to the driver. Sizhui leans back against the seat and presses his wrist over his eyes, the picture of woe-begotten youth. Wei Wuxian's lips twitch a little.

"Is your dad going to lose it?"

"No." Sizhui sounds like he might be close to tears. "Worse. He's going to be so worried."

"That doesn't sound so bad," Wei Wuxian admits. "It's nice, right? That he cares about you."

Sizhui makes a tiny, broken bird sound. Jingyi, still talking to either the driver or to Sizhui's dad on the phone, reaches back and takes Sizhui's free hand, rubbing his thumb over Sizhui's knuckles. He keeps it up for the entire ride, and Wei Wuxian stares at their clasped hands, mesmerized.

The Uber drops them off at the Royal York hotel. Jingyi ushers them through the brass revolving door and into the gilded, chandelier-lit lobby with the confidence of someone wearing a white parka that cost a thousand dollars, and parks them on an antique sofa. Wei Wuxian is in no way dressed to be here, and the lobby staff are shooting them a few looks that suggest this particular sofa will be deep cleaned first thing tomorrow morning. Jingyi, oblivious, crouches over them and promises to be right back. "It's going to be okay, okay Yuanzi?" he soothes, and presses a kiss to the top of the other boy's head. "You'll stay with him, right?"

This last part is said to Wei Wuxian, who gives Jingyi a three-finger salute and a big smile. "Okay," Jingyi says, and then takes off running through the upscale lobby at an alarming speed.

"Whoa," Wei Wuxian laughs, while Sizhui watches after the other boy with a complicated little expression. Fondness, worry, something else Wei Wuxian can't place. He bites his chapped lip and says quietly "Is he your boyfriend?"

"No," Sizhui sighs, looking down at his hands. "No, but I…" He gives himself a shake. "We're friends. Childhood best friends."

"Ahhh, well." Wei Wuxian winks. "Your secret is safe with me."

Sizhui nods at him, but his weak smile breaks apart like tissue paper in a puddle; he starts to cry, still nodding, and Wei Wuxian, heedless of his dirty clothes and how he must smell, pulls him into a hug.

"Hey," he says softly, that tone he'd used to calm A-Yuan down. "You've had a really strange night, huh? It's okay. It's okay now." None of the phrases he knows in the Suzhou dialect would be at all useful, but he does know one song in it, a love song, or lullaby, Lan Zhan had been kind of cagey about it. Wei Wuxian sways Sizhui in his arms and sings it gently, like he'd done for A-Yuan after a nightmare. He gets almost the whole way through it before a firm hand plants itself forcefully on his shoulder and pulls him away from Sizhui, spinning him forwards and face to face with-

"Wangji," Lan Xichen says, frowning, standing behind Lan Zhan with Jingyi. His eyes rake over Wei Wuxian's appearance and a placating smile settles over his face. "You must be the young person Jingyi spoke of."

Wei Wuxian's mouth is completely dry, frozen in panic, because this Sizhui kid is a Lan , he's a Lan and his dad and uncle are-  

"Baba," Sizhui says tearfully, and then Lan Zhan - Lan Zhan! -- lets go of Wei Wuxian and kneels on the carpet  in front of him.

"I am here," he says, in his quiet, deep, perfect voice, and clasps Sizhui's hands.

"You're his dad," Wei Wuxian whispers, incredulous, and for some reason his eyes start to water.

Lans, as Wei Wuxian is well aware, are resourceful, and cool headed in a crisis. Lan Wangji sends Jingyi to the coat check, but Sizhui is very determined that he not spoil his father's night, and because he is the person who took a box cutter to the jaw, they all have to listen to him. He accepts his spare keys, asks, eyes awkwardly on the ground, if it's okay if Jingyi takes him home and stays with him, and promises to call in the morning. Lan Xichen orders them a car while Sizhui and Jingyi have a whispered exchange with Lan Wangji that has too many pointed looks in Wei Wuxian's direction for his liking. Once the boys are tucked into a town car, on their way back to the Annex, Lan Xichen turns to Wei Wuxian with the same placating, blandly pleasant smile on his face, and reaches into his left breast pocket to retrieve his wallet. Wei Wuxian feels his chin stick out as he bites down on his back teeth; he doesn't want money but he probably really needs money -- and then Lan Wangji calmly puts a staying hand on Lan Xichen's elbow.

"Brother," he says softly.

They proceed to have a silent conversation, which used to fascinate Wei Wuxian when they were younger. Everything at the Jiang household was conveyed at the highest volume for maximum retention rate. He watches them, two statuesque, beautiful men, one with dark eyes and a navy velvet blazer, the other in a cream coloured vicuña suit with a pale grey tweed coat draped over his arm, like they are some kind of GQ ad. There is a dirty smudge on the back of Lan Zhan's cuff, from where it had brushed against Wei Wuxian's shoulder when he'd grabbed it.

"Well," Lan Xichen smiles, "I suppose I'll get back in there before the clients notice we're gone. Wangji, I'll give your regards to Uncle."

He gives his brother's arm a squeeze and then he heads back across the lobby, and then Wei Wuxian is alone in a high-end Fairmont, unwashed and smudgy red eye-lined, being stared at by Lan Zhan's amber coloured, piercing eyes. Lan Zhan wears wire-framed glasses now, and that is doing nothing to reduce the potency of his stare.

"Ah, so," Wei Wuxian laughs, high pitched, scratching the back of his head, "Your son-"

"Wei Ying."  

Wei Wuxian has a different face, a different voice, a lost foot and half of height. He's a completely different person than who he should be. He's been dead, he thinks, for thirteen years. Lan Zhan has no right to look at some haggard street kid, and see right through him to the person hiding underneath. No right to stand there, in his perfect white suit, and be the lifeline Wei Wuxian has been needing since he woke up today. It's hopelessly familiar, and it's been apparently thirteen years, and nothing has changed.

Wei Wuxian had missed Lan Zhan for months after that concert, but he'd put off all responses to emails and texts, because he knew it was the right thing to do. He lets the smile fall from his face, replaced with a blinking confusion.

"Is that… sorry is that his name?" Wei Wuxian bows, eyes down to an elder. "Mr. Wei, my name is Mo Xuanyu."

"Mo Xuanyu," Lan Zhan repeats flatly.  

Wei Wuxian nods. "I was in line for a club - someone gave me twenty dollars when I was sitting on the curb, and I thought, I'll keep warm there, so I was waiting and then some guy I guess stole your son's bag and knocked him down. It's… downtown is not usually that rough but it is New Years Eve and those boys were dressed pretty nice. You should talk to him about that, maybe, but anyways, I just grabbed the guy and then I just wanted to keep that tall kid from getting stabbed. I didn't ask them to bring me here or have any motives, I just wanted to help. So you don't have to-"

"Mo Xuanyu," Lan Zhan cuts in again.

Wei Wuxian has never seen Lan Wangji interrupt someone before. He blinks up at him, stopped short, and gets pierced again by those amber eyes. Lan Zhan is glaring at him like Wei Wuxian just used the gas hose to inflate the lab frog they were supposed to be dissecting in grade eleven biology and got formaldehyde all over his school uniform. Not Wei Wuxian's finest prank hour.

"Ahhhh look, Mr. Wei," he pleads, which makes Lan Zhan huff in frustration and turn his face to the side. The patented You Are Not Qualified To Speak Nonsense To Me look, so familiar and dear that Wei Wuxian's heart does a somersault and he nearly drops the charade right then. But turning his face forces Lan Zhan into eye contact with one of the lobby staff, a young blonde woman in a crisp white shirt and black bowtie, who is carrying a large tray of champagne flutes.

"More champagne, Mr. Lan?" she asks.

"He doesn't," Wei Wuxian starts, and then clamps his teeth shut before he can really out himself. Stepping between Lan Zhan and someone proffering alcohol is just such second nature to him. Ever since that first house party when one glass of Yanli's Summer Berry Wild Vines had resulted in Wei Wuxian needing to convince Lan Zhan that jumping off the roof and into the Jiang's pool was a bad idea, and the night spent tucking him into Wei Wuxian's own bed after holding his hair back while he threw up. Lan Zhan had been hugely embarrassed in the morning, but Wei Wuxian had just smiled and said Sorry for making you drink, I think being straight-edge is cool, Lan Zhan and then spent the rest of high school pressing a Canada Dry camouflaged with a purple Jiang & Associates 1992 Staff BBQ beer cozy into his hand at every party.

The Lan Wangji of now though plucks two flutes up from the proffered tray and throws one back immediately, leaving Wei Wuxian gaping at the long line of his throat. He sets the now empty glass back on the tray and goes back to glaring at Wei Wuxian. When did you start drinking , he wants to ask, but he just stares at Lan Zhan and tries to think of the easiest way to get out of here. Making a run for it is probably going to get him tackled by the doorman, but if he can just get outside, back into the swirling snow, he can probably make it across the street and into Union station. Transit is free tonight, he won't even have to hop the turnstile, he can just get on the subway and ride it until 1:30am and try to figure something out.

Lan Zhan sighs and takes out his phone, typing at it with one thumb while he takes slow, even drinks from his second glass of champagne. When he's done using it, he tucks it back into his jacket pocket, downs the rest of his drink, and starts pulling on his coat.

"So, um," Wei Wuxian says. "I'll just get going, sorry for the trouble Mr. -"

Lan Zhan's big hand closes very tightly around his wrist. "My name is Lan Wangji," he says calmly, and starts towing Wei Wuxian towards the doors. "My son is very concerned that you have lost your belongings in helping him this evening. I have called a car and will take you home with me."

"What?" Wei Wuxian panics. "Wait. Wait! This is insane, are you kidnapping me?!" He tries to dig his heels in but he's so slight and small now, and Lan Zhan had always been strong.

"I am offering you a warm place to sleep," Lan Zhan replies, ignoring the frantic flailing Wei Wuxian is doing and the odd looks people are starting to give them in the lobby. "You may shout if you wish. I think, however, it would be better not to have police involved.

"Holy shit," Wei Wuxian yells. "What the fuck dude, this is crazy, you're crazy, this is totally fucked up!"

Lan Zhan turns to look at him, face cool and impassive and his eyes glinting behind his glasses. Wei Wuxian immediately stops yelling, his heart thudding in his throat. "Are you a pervert," he whispers. He looks Lan Zhan dead in the face and he hates it, but he has one last card to get himself out of here. Lan Zhan's deepest secret and the meanest crack he can pry open. "Some kind of twisted freak? Taking me home because I can't fight back? Does your wife-"

"Wei Ying."

He tries to twist his arm out of Lan Zhan's grip, and Lan Zhan just sighs, pulls him out the door, and into the waiting car outside.

Lan Zhan falls asleep in the car, and then abruptly jerks awake fifteen minutes later, eyes glazed over, and announces he needs to be sick. Their driver smoothly pulls over so he can empty the contents of his stomach out onto the sidewalk, informs Lan Zhan there is bottled water in the side console, and then slides back into traffic to carry on getting them to their destination. A consummate professional, he makes sure Wei Wuxian has gotten Lan Zhan into the lobby of his building before driving off, so Wei Wuxian can't even shove Lan Zhan into a snowbank and make a run for it. In the elevator, Lan Zhan turns his hooded, glazed over drunken gaze to Wei Wuxian and slides the death grip he's maintained on Wei Wuxian's wrist down to a softer clasp of his fingers. He stumbles, trying to walk down the hall, and Wei Wuxian thinks Fuck it with a heavy internal sigh and slings Lan Wangji's arm over his shoulders. He can make sure Lan Zhan gets into his apartment okay, and then he can disappear into the night or whatever.

He lets Lan Zhan lean on him to take off his shoes, and then helps him remove his coat. Lan Zhan slips out of his jacket while Wei Wuxian is hanging up his coat; he's wearing a thin white cashmere sweater, and one of his mom's silk scarves tucked into the neck. Wei Wuxian knows it's his favourite one, the palest eggshell blue with huge white peonies that he wore when he thought his day was going to be bad and he wanted the comfort of it against the nape of his neck. Days when he had to see his father, days when he had to give a presentation in class, the day he visited Wei Wuxian unannounced, having pried his new address out of Nie Huisang, and anticipated a fight.

"Hey," Wei Wuxian says gently. Standing in his socks in the darkened entryway of his apartment, Lan Zhan looks soft and vulnerable, with his vacant stare and the edges of his lips turned down. He'd thought today was going to be a bad day.

"Thanks for the offer. I mean it, it's really nice of you. But I should get going. You and your son don’t owe me anything."

Lan Zhan looks so sad. He holds out his hand and says "Help."

"Aish, this man," Wei Wuxian sighs. "What's wrong?"

Lan Zhan holds out his hand a little further, insistent, and Wei Wuxian sighs again and takes it. A costly mistake that results in getting pulled deeper into Lan Zhan's apartment, squawking protests about how he's still wearing his shoes that Lan Zhan ignores. He leads Wei Wuxian down the hallway to the bedroom at the end. Then he shoves at Wei Wuxian's shoulder until he loses his balance and sits on the edge of the bed. Then he climbs on after him.

"What the hell!" Wei Wuxian screams. "I was joking earlier, Lan Zhan!"  

Lan Zhan's face splits into the most gorgeous smile Wei Wuxian has ever seen. "Wei Ying," he says triumphantly.  

"I don't know who that is," he tries weakly, and Lan Zhan claps his hand over Wei Wuxian's mouth.  

"Stay," he says sharply, his eyes suddenly clear and blazing. He glares at Wei Wuxian for a long moment, and then finally he flops down and plants his head in Wei Wuxian's lap, arms around his waist and hands grasping the back of his hoodie. "Please, Wei Ying," he adds, so small and so sad, that Wei Wuxian has to glare up at the ceiling to keep himself from crying.  

"What the fuck is happening," he asks the room at large. Lan Zhan does not answer; he's fallen back asleep, a dead weight in Wei Wuxian's lap. On the bedside table next to him, the cool electric blue letters of Lan Zhan's digital alarm clock flick from 11:59pm to 12:00am. Wei Wuxian holds his breath for a moment, but nothing happens.  

The truth was this. That Wei Wuxian had woken thirteen years into a future that wasn’t his, behind a dumpster in a body that wasn’t his, an emaciated street kid with ratty long hair and too much eyeliner. And more improbably, fate decided that so long as he was here, he might as well be here , his dirty boots on soft white carpet, his scrawny backside perched on a feather down duvet. Lan Zhan’s jade-perfect cheek smushed into the rough denim of his jeans, his long, taper-candle fingers clutched in the flimsy fabric of his hoodie.  

Stay , Lan Zhan said, shockingly fierce and coherent for someone so drunk. Lan Zhan, swallowing wine at the types of events he’d hated even before, Lan Zhan, vomiting on the sidewalk. Lan Zhan, beautiful and sad and alone in his icy ivory tower, curled into his lap, asleep, seeking.

“No one to mess you up anymore, huh,” he whispers. Wei Wuxian gently tugs Lan Zhan’s glasses from his face, combs his fingers through his silky hair, warm, where it meets his scalp. Blinks his watery eyes and smiles. “Aiyo, er-gege, did you ever burn paper money for me?”

Eventually, Lan Zhan’s grip loosens. Too wired on adrenaline and caffeine to sleep, Wei Wuxian slips out of the bedroom, leaving Lan Zhan swaddled up like a burrito in his marshmallow of a duvet. In the entryway he divests himself of the boots, hangs his hoodie over the back of a kitchen chair. Gathers his dirty hair back with a rubber band that he steals from the collection dangling on a plastic hook stuck to the refrigerator. In Lan Zhan’s fridge there is a half-full Brita filter and stacks of lock-top containers, each one carefully labelled with the date and its contents in penmanship that he recognizes as Lan Xichen’s. In the pantry there is a box of peanut butter flavoured protein bars and endless towers of Korean-brand microwaveable rice. Two canisters of tea. A small bottle of baiju. An even smaller bottle of hot sauce.

Under the sink he locates baking soda and distilled vinegar; Wei Wuxian washes his face and hands and the back of his neck with dish soap, dries off with a tea towel that comes away thankfully unsmudged. He then sets about treating each gritty footprint he's left in the dense white pile, erasing the hint of his presence with the same attention to detail Yu-ayi had beaten into him over her own carpets. He hums under his breath to avoid the looping of his ever-running thoughts, which are trying to puzzle out not only what the hell is going on but also why Lan Zhan lives alone on the opposite side of the city. Why his fridge needs someone to stock it. Why he would drink himself so vulnerable. The apartment walls go from black to grey to the colour of a slowly ripening peach while he works, without giving him any answers.

“Wei Ying?

Hunched on the floor, hands pruney from scrubbing, he freezes, then jerks himself around with hopefully no noticeable affectation. Lan Zhan is standing in his bedroom doorway, sleep rumpled, blinking owlishly behind his glasses. He's thirty-five now, or will be, in a few weeks. The impossible glamour of his youth has settled into the strikingly handsome architecture only found on Oscar winning actors and news anchors who come from old money. There are faint creases in the corners of his mouth and eyes. Someone's been eliciting emotions on his immovable face. Someone's been making him smile the smile Wei Wuxian had to die and come back to life to see.

“What?” Wei Wuxian’s mouth is dry. He giggles in hysteria and drops his sponge. “Who?”

They stare at each other for a long moment. Finally, Lan Zhan says "Mo Xuanyu, would you like something to eat?"

"Oh…" Wei Wuxian's stomach feels like it's been trying to eat itself, but he grins and shakes his head. "I'll just get going. I'm sure you have stuff to do."

"It is no trouble to prepare food for an additional person." Lan Zhan frowns.

"Ah, I've made enough of a mess." Wei Wuxian gets to his feet and checks for any other footprints. There are probably some in Lan Zhan's bedroom, but he doesn't want to go in there again. "Thanks though!"

"You have made no mess," Lan Zhan says firmly. "I understand if you do not wish to stay. But many services and businesses will be closed today. You may stay here. You are welcome."

  "I, uh…" Wei Wuxian looks around helplessly at Lan Zhan's neat and pale-toned open concept apartment.

"If you wish to take a shower, my son's spare clothes should fit you. If you wish to sleep, the sheets in Sizhui's room are clean. Both rooms have an inside lock, if that will help you to feel more comfortable."

Wei Wuxian laughs in near defeat. "Do you do this a lot? Abduct and then take care of people?"

Lan Zhan's small smile is sad in response. "Not nearly enough."

The shower and the soft clothes and the banana pancakes Lan Zhan takes out of the freezer make him feel sleep-heavy. He sits on Lan Zhan's sofa and looks out the balcony doors at the glittering, half-frozen lake below, waiting for his clothes to finish their cycle in the laundry, while Lan Zhan does the dishes. Wei Wuxian plans to finally make an escape the minute his clothes are dry. He watches the lake, listens to the sloshing rhythm of the washing machine, and then jerks alert, curled in the corner of the sofa, irrationally panicked over almost having tumbled into sleep.

"It's all right," Lan Zhan says calmly, still in the galley-style kitchen, separated from Wei Wuxian by the physical barrier of the island and the back of his sofa. "Sizhui's room is first on the right, if you'd be more comfortable there."

"No," he gasps and then he laughs weakly, face tipped up to the ceiling. How to explain that he's not sure, if he falls asleep, if he'll wake up here again? But if that's all he was allowed, one waking day, to help Lan Zhan's son and maybe save Sizhui's boyfriend from getting knifed, then, that's worth it, he supposes. "I mean, sorry. Can I chat with you?"

Lan Zhan makes an affirming hum noise. "I will make tea."

"Yay, caffeine," he laughs. "What do you do, Mr. Lan, besides attend fancy parties and host complete strangers?"

"I do not go to many parties," Lan Zhan admits. "I am a music teacher."

Wei Wuxian's mouth opens in shock; Lan Zhan had been an exceptionally talented musician, First cello at school and he'd also played both piano and guqin. Talented, but still expected to follow his brother to Queen's, and then into the family law practice. "Really?" he blinks, and then adds "I mean, that's cool!"

"Mn."

"What instruments do you play?"

"Piano, cello," Lan Zhan says, reaching down two cups from a cupboard and setting them down on the counter. He puts one of his canisters of tea next to them and adds "I also play the flute."

"O-ohh?" Wei Wuixan stutters a little, trying not to be even more shocked. They'd had several arguments, that first year of highschool, about winds versus strings, and which was better, or harder to play.

"Not well," Lan Zhan admits, as the electric kettle clicks off. "I have not practiced it as long as the others." And then, because he seemingly wants to give Wei Wuxian a heart attack, he adds "I am more known, I suppose, for my synth albums."

"Your… synthesizer albums?"

Lan Zhan nods towards the record player, sitting atop a hutch that is suspiciously record storage sized. There is a small stack of albums leaning behind the player, the front one decorated with an abstract watercolour of a deep lake and tall, pine-covered hills. "You may play one, if you wish. Or any of my other records."

Lan Zhan had owned a few records when they were kids, all of them purchased on trips downtown with Wei Wuxian to Soundscapes, and kept in Wei Wuxian's room with his own records because Lan Qiren forbade listening to music in the home that wasn't being produced by its inhabitants. They'd arrived at the Wen's in the back of Yanli's little hatchback, Wei Wuxian's music collection one of the few things she was able to box up and sneak to him, because Yu-ayi didn't want Jiang Cheng listening to "that sort of garbage". Wei Wuxian tried to give Lan Zhan's records back, and Lan Zhan had reminded him he didn't have a record player and that he could just come over and listen to them now that he knew where Wei Wuxian was staying. Very underhanded, but Wei Wuxian nevertheless kept them in a special light blue milk crate for him, a rare colour spotted at the back of a bodega and liberated to a better life of holding Lan Zhan's possessions.

The record Wei Wuxian chooses is the second from the back behind the record player, a thick and creamy matte-white double album with a red ribbon printed glossy across it, wrapping around the cover and into the sleeves. It has no title or track list, but the music it makes is soft and bright, a little romantic. Kinda sexy , Wei Wuxian thinks, embarrassed, and sits down on the floor to check out what's inside the hutch. Lan Zhan sets their teas on the coffee table and then he sits gracefully at one end of it, elbow resting against it and watching Wei Wuxian from a respectable distance.

"I know how to hold them," Wei Wuxian promises over his shoulder with a smile. "Don't worry, I won't scratch your records, gege."

"No need," Lan Zhan says softly.

It's an eclectic collection, everything from classical to grunge, jazz to mando-pop, afrobeat to experimental Japanese metal. There's a thread running through them all, Canadian indies tucked between international artists. Behind a Soreng Santi compilation he finds Katie Stelmanis, a classically trained singer and pianist Wei Wuxian had taken Lan Zhan to see at the Annette Street Library. It had been early enough in the evening that they'd also taken A-Yuan, one of his little hands in each of their own, until the music started and he stood up on his chair to see. That had been a good night, A-Yuan rapt between them, listening to the piano and the big voice fill a space usually kept hush-quiet. Tucked asleep on Lan Zhan's lap on the streetcar ride home, in the soft spring air that always felt close to rain, Lan Zhan humming his lullaby love song, and looking out the window at the old Victorian buildings flashing by.

A-Yuan is probably almost an adult no w . He'd be the same age I was, when-

The albums are kept in meticulous alphabetical, then chronological order, but Wei Wuxian makes it all the way to Z, slides open the last section of the hutch, closest to where Lan Zhan is sipping his tea, and discovers a set of records all neatly encased in plastic protective sleeves.  

"Ah!" He rubs his hands together with a little laugh. "This must be the real goods! Are you a collector, Mr. Lan?"

"Mn," Lan Zhan says noncommittally into his tea.

Wei Wuxian pulls out the first one, and it's… a beat-up copy of Rancid's …And Out Come the Wolves . The second is Dillinger Escape Plan's Miss Machine , crushed a little in the corner from the time it spent lost beneath Wei Wuxian's teenaged bed. Most damning of all, the third is A Chipmunk Christmas, given to him by his parents and also the only possession Wei Wuxian had come to the Jiang household with, still masking-taped together from being torn in half by one of his foster siblings.

"Weird collection," Wei Wuxian laughs, squishing his eyes tight to keep the tears in. When he opens them Lan Zhan is nudging his tea closer, ignoring whatever episode he's clearly having.

"Before it's cold," he says, and gets up to put Wei Wuxian's clothes in the dryer.

Wei Wuxian lies back on the thick, soft white rug and closes his eyes, letting Lan Zhan's album wash over him. The best way, in his opinion, to listen to new music. He'd used to dash up the stairs to his room in the Jiang's house every Tuesday, clutching the new records that had arrived in the mail. Pretending to study when he was really sprawled out on his floor, massive headphones on, listening and watching the sky outside his bedroom window. There's a thread running through the sounds of Lan Zhan's music, fluttering just out of his grasp like the tail of a red ribbon in the wind. There's something beautiful but not hopeful about it, like butterflies preserved under glass, a pin through their bodies. He lies on his back and allows the tears out, and he hears Lan Zhan's elegant tread approaching, feels it in the floor under his back and the beat of his heart.

"Was I a good memory, Lan Zhan?" he whispers, voice a little reedy from crying. Banana pancakes had been the first meal they'd ever shared, and Lan Zhan had made them each time Wei Wuxian, locked out by Yu-ayi and having awoken him via a handful of gravel thrown at his window, crashed on the floor of his room.  

Lan Zhan sits down beside him, near enough to feel his warmth, but not touching. Like he always had been, warm and present, asking for nothing in return.

"I don't know why I'm here," Wei Wuxian sobs, crying harder. "I don't know how you recognized me or what's happening and I'm scared to fall asleep, because I want to stay." He reaches out blind, finds Lan Zhan's ankle, and clutches it for dear life. "I want to stay ."

"I will tell you everything you've missed," Lan Zhan promises, sounding out of breath. Wei Wuxian opens his watery eyes and finds Lan Zhan is crying too. He makes a distressed sound and squeezes Lan Zhan's ankle harder. "Everything, so that if…" he sets his hand over Wei Wuxian's on his foot and closes his eyes, swallowing hard.

"What happened to me?" A small, scared plea.

"I do not know." Lan Zhan lies down on the carpet next to him, so both of their tears can roll into his rug. "The police report was unclear."

"Police report," Wei Wuxian spits. "Of course. Gay, punk and Asian? Of course."

"Mn." Lan Zhan turns his head to look at him, so Wei Wuxian turns his head too. He looks into Wei Wuxian's eyes with a deep, remembered pain for a long moment, music drifting around them. When the record stops he closes his own eyes again and says "The funeral was… difficult."  

"You don't have to." Wei Wuxian reaches for his hand and threads their fingers together. "Hey. Gege, we can skip that part."

Lan Zhan opens his eyes and shakes his head. "I dropped out of school."

"What!?"

A tiny smile, at the corners of his lips. "For the remainder of the year."

"Lan Zhan… !?"

"It was the advice of my head of faculty, and my student grief counsellor. I stayed with my brother in the city, a neutral place. And I visited often, with the Wens. I knew you would… I thought you'd want…"  

"I would, Lan Zhan," he reassures. "I do. Are they… Do you still talk to them?"

"I do. Wen Popo passed away several years ago." Lan Zhan gives his hand a squeeze, but Wei Wuxian nods. He doesn't know how he knows, but he knows that.

"Wen Ning lives in Champlain now," Lan Zhan continues. "He worked for a time as a roadie for a punk tour, and then one of the bands decided to start a microbrewery. He does their marketing and also manages the farmers collective."

"Whoa, that's… pretty rad."

"I believe he is very happy there. Wen Qing has a clinic in Ottawa."

"So they've both left," Wei Wuxian says quietly. "I was going to call them last night. But I couldn't find a phone booth."

"Those are very extinct now," Lan Zhan admits. "Cellular technology has progressed quite a bit."

"Like, in a cool way?"

"Yes," Lan Zhan's mouth shimmers with mirth, his warm eyes aglow. "In a sci-fi way."

"I knew it!" Wei Wuxian whoops. "Sizhui's phone didn't even have buttons ."

"Sizhui," Lan Zhan says. He presses his lips together, the way he did when he had to explain uncomfortable things. "I would like to show you something."

"Okay." Wei Wuxian lets himself be tugged to his feet. "But, keep in mind, gege, that nothing you can show me is weirder than the past sixteen hours have been."

Lan Zhan leads him by the hand to the first door on the right. He looks at Wei Wuxian for a moment, in the hallway, and then he takes a deep breath and opens the door. It looks like any other semi-abandoned teenager bedroom, a desk with a cork board over it, a slightly empty bookshelf, a twin bed, neatly made, with a nightstand beside it. Tucked under the drawer of the nightstand, in the open cubby beneath, is a worn and well loved stuffed rabbit. White, with floppy ears, and a pink embroidered nose, one of the eyes a little crooked from being sewn back on after a mishap at the High Park petting zoo.

"Mr. Hop?" Wei Wuxian looks at Lan Zhan urgently, suddenly feeling hot all over. "Lan Zhan?"

Lan Zhan leads him over to the desk, where the corkboard is decorated primarily with paper print-outs of photographs. Sizhui with friends, with Lan Qiren at his graduation. Younger Lan Zhans, with a steadily growing boy. A-Yuan, a little older, sitting in front of a birthday cake shaped like a frog, a beaming Yanli leaning in and squishing their smiling cheeks together. Wen Ning, crammed into a kiddie pool with A-Yuan, a boy who must be Jingyi, and three other little kids who all have Jin Zixuan's square face and Yanli's big doe eyes. Jiang Cheng, Wen Qing, Jingyi and Sizhui, proudly showing off a giant snowman. A photo of Lunar New Year, all the kids and all the Lans, the Wens, the Nie brothers and Jiang siblings crowded around a table groaning with food. There is one sole glossy actual photograph: Wei Wuxian and A-Yuan, sitting together on a plastic dragon climber in a random park Lan Zhan had found that summer and driven them to.

"I dropped out of school," Lan Zhan repeats. "It was only supposed to be for the rest of the year. But as hard as it was for me, when you… It was harder for him."

Wei Wuxian feels his legs give out almost absently. He thinks, Oh sure, as Lan Zhan catches him around the shoulders and steers him to the edge of Sizhui's bed, sits him there and kneels in front of him.

"I legally adopted A-Yuan," Lan Zhan tells him. "My family is traditional, they wanted a new name. Wen Popo and I chose it together."

"I don't want to fall asleep here," Wei Wuxian says, numb. "I don't want to not come back and make you deal with explaining--"

"Wei Ying." It's a plea, shocking from Lan Zhan, who never begged or wheedled, not even when Wei Wuxian had been at his self-destructive worst. "I stopped speaking when you died."

"Like when you lost your mom," he whispers.

"This year has been… easier and harder. Time makes things softer. But Sizhui moved out in September; he is the same age now, as you were. It's foolish, but I have felt worried. I have been losing my words again, the closer we came to the end of the year."

"The silk scarf." Wei Wuxian feels dazed, fizzy at the edges. Lan Zhan takes both of his hands in his own, face afraid.

"I don't know if I am at fault for this. I said some very bargaining things to you on your birthday this year. I asked you to watch over him, like always, but. I have never done so before, but I asked you also, to watch over me."

"Did you burn paper money for me?"  

Lan Zhan glares at him, the audacity of such a question. "I had wine last night, with dinner to make the evening more bearable. I thought I hallucinated you. I wanted the day to be over, more than over. But when I woke up you were here." His lips twitch. "Cleaning my carpet."

Wei Wuxian looks down at his new slender hands, completely encased in Lan Zhan's long, musician fingers, and sighs.

"Do you remember, Lan Zhan, that night we had prom?"

"I remember."

Nie Huisang had invited Wei Wuxian, grade twelve drop-out and community fuck-up, as his date. A month prior some of the lacrosse team had beat Nie Huisang up for wearing a rainbow tie pin to school, and Wei Wuxian figured if he had the reputation, he might as well use it. So he went, and it went okay until it abruptly stopped being okay, and the student council tried to evict him from the evening after the salad course on the grounds that he didn't go to their school. Jin Zixuan, who had brought alumnus and girlfriend Yanli, had stood up for him. Lan Zhan, Class Treasurer, Head Boy and Valedictorian, had stood up for him. Things started getting heated, and Wei Wuxian decided preventing fights was one thing, letting one happen was another. He offered to go gracefully, and asked Yanli and Zixuan to bring Nie Huisang home at the end of the night. And then, because they were his ride away from the country club on a golf course in the middle of nowhere, he started walking home along a 20-class highway. Lan Zhan caught up with him after thirty minutes, just when Wei Wuxian's borrowed dress shoes were starting to pinch his toes. He had Wei Wuxian's skate shoes in the back of his white Prius.

"My knight on a white horse," he grins softly, feeling it pull lopsided. "You took me to Wendy's."

"You wanted a frostie," Lan Zhan shrugs. "Their baked potatoes are… acceptable."

"Good enough for you to come out over," Wei Wuxian laughs. "All I did was ask you if your date was going to be upset."

"I am out to everyone; things are different, now, Wei Ying."

"Ah, I made and sent you all those ridiculous mix tapes, you know? All year while you were at Queens. I used to think, if Lan Zhan looks at me, if he just spares me a glance once, I'll… and then you came home that summer and you were looking." He slips a hand from Lan Zhan's grasp and sets his fingers, carefully, under Lan Zhan's eye. "Looking like this. And I kind of wanted that so much. So much I got scared. I'm sorry."

"Don't apologize," Lan Zhan murmurs. "There is no need, between us."  

"You could have done a lot better than me. You can."  

"No."  

"What could I have given you, huh? Apart from the gay punk thing, I had like, six part time jobs back then."  

Lan Zhan looks away, a milder version of his patented disapproval. You Are Qualified to Speak to Me But Your Words are Disappointing, perhaps. "Almost everything I have," he says quietly, "you gave me. A son. An accepting family. A career of my choosing."

"Well it went the best it could have gone then!" He gives Lan Zhan his brightest smile. "That's… that's good! That's great, I think I can let myself sleep, in that case."

"Wei Ying…"

"Don't let me fall asleep in his bed, huh? Come on, I can't do that to either of you. I'll lie down on the sofa if you promise to throw me down the ravine after. Aim for behind Su She's house."

Lan Zhan glares at him, reticent.

"Lan Zhan," he laughs. "Come on. If I fall asleep; I'll be okay if you promise me."

Lan Zhan presses Wei Wuxian's hand to his face with a small, desperate noise. "Lie down in my bed," he offers. "Let me hold you."

Wei Wuxian heaves a big sigh. "Sing me to sleep, then."

"All right."

Wei Wuxian's body is smaller, built perfectly, it seems to slot into bed beside Lan Zhan and fit into the bends and curves of his body. It's warm, so warm, safe and soft in the white bed in Lan Zhan's white room, like a little rabbit's den. Lan Zhan cradles his head on the plush inside of his arm, puts his big hand on Wei Wuxian's hip. He'd turned the record player off, but he has a small speaker in his room, playing soothing instrumental music as he tangles their ankles together, strokes his fingers through Wei Wuxian's hair.

"Rest," he says calmly, at odds with the frantic beat of his heart next to Wei Wuxian's ear. "I will be here."

He is the bravest, silliest man, Wei Wuxian's Lan Zhan. Fondness flushes through him, a foamy wave on the lakeshore. He tilts his face up, and Lan Zhan tilts his down, and then their lips meet in a careful, gentle press.

"I love you," Wei Wuxian murmurs into his chin. "Okay? I loved you."

"Thank you," Lan Zhan breathes, pressing another kiss to Wei Wuxian's mouth. And then another, and another. Beautiful kisses, warm and easy, like they've been doing this for thirteen years. Like they had a long night of New Years celebrating, too much now, for their advanced age, and have lain down to nap until their son calls to check in. Like Wei Wuxian is tired and they will have all the time in the world for more, later.  

"Tell Sizhui I love him too. Tell him to talk to that Jingyi of his. Tell him not to wait, like his Xian-gege did." He yawns, huge, kisses Lan Zhan's jaw and then his cheek. "And if… if Mo Xuanyu comes back, promise me you'll help him. He seems like a good kid. Get him to take you back to the place I woke up, the Tamale Man and Rosa will be worried about him."

"I will." A wet promise, not quite a sob. Lan Zhan kisses his forehead, tightens his embrace. "I am going to sing now, try to sleep."

He's stubbornly determined to try and fight it, to have this little room of filtered, snow-reflected light, Lan Zhan, warm next to him, for as long as possible. Music fills the air, breathed soft into his ear, thrumming through Lan Zhan's body against him, an intimate concert. Wei Wuxian thinks about the poster he'd design for this show, how he'd try to capture the feeling. Maybe birds, low over the sunlit harbour everyone forgets about. Maybe the cityscape of boxy concrete and hundred-year brick, painted over with decades of living, the backdrop touched by many and how it can still be a shelter for something personal and small. Maybe two boys, heads leaned together, resting on each other on the Yonge-Line and worn out after a day at Pride but hopeful, so hopeful. Maybe just Lan Zhan's face, looking down, because he only ever looked directly at Wei Ying. Maybe with this longer hair, maybe with the dandelion A-Yuan had put behind his ear and the gentle way he'd looked, promising to leave it there. Wei Wuxian thinks about how he'd draw it, form each delicate curve of Lan Zhan's face, bring him to life on paper. He doesn't know when he tips from thinking to dreaming, but he falls asleep just the same.

In the late afternoon dark, Lan Zhan's face is blank, protected. Unsure of the person in his bed. He's laid, perfectly still, for six hours, only moving to briefly speak to Sizhui on the phone. And he stays still, like a prey animal, like if he doesn't move, nothing else can, and he can remain in ignorance either way for the rest of his life.

Mo Xuanyu had very large, liquid-dark eyes, which brim with tears shortly after blinking open. "Hi," croaks his soft voice, scratchy with sleep. "It's still me, Lan Zhan."

"Wei Ying?"

"I think," Wei Wuxian sobs quietly, smiling in disbelief, relief, hope, gratitude, flooded with so many emotions all at once. "You get to keep me. I think I get to start over."

He'll feel unworthy and guilty later, but for now, he gets to enjoy it. For now, Lan Zhan gets to roll this new, small and slight body under the good weight of his own, and crush Wei Wuxian with his embrace.

There will be lots to sort out; thirteen years of absence, the logistics of picking up and inhabiting a life that has been lived while you yourself are dead. Who to tell and who to keep in the dark, what to do with two pasts and only one future. But there is a future, and one in which there is love. Wei Wuxian will take it one day at a time, and on the second day of his new life he takes Lan Zhan's face in his hands like the precious thing it has always been, determined to never let it go.

"Happy New Year Lan Zhan," he whispers, and leans up to start giving him kisses. He has a lot of them, stored up, and waiting to be let out.