Archive of Our Own ^beta

The bus brakes abruptly and Lan Zhan stumbles back half a step even though he consistently braces for such things when on public transport. He collides with the man standing directly behind him, and the man's arm comes up immediately to grab his shoulder, steadying him.

"Apologies," he says to the man, who doesn't look bothered, even though Lan Zhan's pretty sure he'd stepped on his foot for a moment as he stumbled.

"That's okay, no problem." The man still has his hand on Lan Zhan's shoulder.

Lan Zhan shifts away the few inches he is able on this crowded bus and the man lets his hand fall. Lan Zhan returns his gaze to the window, watching the city whisking by. Usually he'd have pulled out his book to read, but the bus is so crowded, he has no space to do so.

"Everyone's out shopping before the big storm, huh?"

Lan Zhan glances at the man he'd collided with. It seems that he's speaking to Lan Zhan—he's gazing at him brightly, his mouth turned up in a grin. "Mn," Lan Zhan responds.

"It's cold out there already," says the man—who is wearing a jacket that is far too light for the bitter cold outside, with a red scarf wrapped around his neck and skinny jeans that have holes in the knees, which seems ill-advised given the weather. He shifts, adjusting the bag of groceries he's holding, swaying forward where he's clinging to the strap up above. "Think they're right about how much we're going to get?"

"Yes." Lan Zhan's favorite meteorologist is quite certain about the impending storm. "Eight inches minimum. Starting soon."

"Starting now, hey look!" The man peers out the window, a grin sliding across his face. "There it goes, time to strap in!"

He's correct—there are some flakes coming down, gently, a quiet start to what is going to be, by every account, a major storm.

The bus grinds to a halt at Lan Zhan's stop and Lan Zhan nods at his bus companion. "Stay safe," he says, turning to start to make his way through the shifting crowd.

"Ha, same stop," the man says cheerfully. When Lan Zhan turns his head a little, he sees the man squirming his way through the crowd to the door, as well. He must live in Lan Zhan's neighborhood. Lan Zhan wonders if he's new to it; he thinks he'd have noticed him if he'd seen him around. He's tall, nearly as tall as Lan Zhan himself, and he wears his hair longer than most—even pulled up into the high ponytail he's wearing, it tumbles down his back.

Ridiculous, Lan Zhan tells himself. It's a big city. He maybe can recognize his immediate neighbors, but he sees hundreds of people a day. Why would he notice this one man in particular?

He manages to make his way off the bus. In the few minutes it's been, the gentle drift of snowflakes coming down have intensified—not yet the burgeoning storm, but less gentle, the wind driving them down. Lan Zhan ducks his head against the snow as he makes his way down the block.

The wind has picked up, whistling past his ears as the snow hits his face and maybe that's why he doesn't notice the sounds behind him. He definitely doesn't expect the hit he takes from behind, someone colliding into him hard enough to send him to his knees on the sidewalk, dropping his bag even as he twists around to see what's going on, to defend himself, to put a stop to—

Something collides with him again, a body being flung against him, sending him careening back against the sidewalk, banging his head against the concrete hard enough that he sees stars and everything fades away into a distant cacophony of sounds and confusing images. He doesn't know how long it is until he's able to blink his eyes open and it takes him longer than it should to realize that the weight holding him down is the man from the bus, sprawled against him on the sidewalk, unconscious.

Lan Zhan can't piece it together. His head is spinning. He puts one hand up against his temple, which hurts in a distant sort of way. He can't move. There are people gathered around them, many of them yelling, it seems, but he can only hear it vaguely. He wonders if he's going to be sick.

"Hey!" It's a woman who is kneeling down beside them. "Hey, no, don't move, I called for an ambulance, you should stay right there."

"I'm—" Fine, is what he'd been going to say but that's not entirely true.

"Did—" It's the man sprawled across him, blinking his eyes open and pushing himself to sitting, despite the protestations of the woman. "Did he hurt her, is she okay—"

He's shifted off of Lan Zhan and Lan Zhan also pushes himself to sitting, which makes the woman next to them roll her eyes. "Idiots, you could have concussions," she says, but Lan Zhan isn't listening, he's watching the man from the bus, who is scrambling forward to where an older woman is standing, her purse clutched against her chest. She's surrounded by people who are offering her help, another cacophony of noise that Lan Zhan is having problems processing.

Maybe he does have a concussion.

"That young man right there saved me," the woman says, looking both bewildered and grateful. "He pushed that purse-snatcher away from me. Got right in his way, pushed him down, and got knocked over for his efforts." She's looking at the man, who is still on his knees on the sidewalk, the snow swirling around him. He's bleeding from a cut just over his eyebrow, pressing the back of his gloved hand against it. He looks nearly as confused as Lan Zhan feels.

"You're okay?" he's saying anxiously to the woman. "I tried to tackle that guy, I really did, I—"

"You saved me," the woman declares. "He saved me, he deserves a medal."

"No, it wasn't anything, I just wanted to be sure—" The man is pushing himself to his feet and gets about halfway up before he wavers. "Oh fuck," he says faintly, and Lan Zhan manages to move forward just in time to catch him as he collapses.

"I told you to stay sitting," the young woman who had called the ambulance says grimly.

There is, in fact, the distant sound of a siren coming closer, and Lan Zhan is profoundly grateful to hear it. The man from the bus is dead weight in his arms and the blood is pouring from the cut over his eye, his face deathly pale. Lan Zhan himself still feels dizzy and possibly like he might be ill, but he clutches the man to him. The snow swirls around them, making him more dizzy still, and everything feels half like a dream. The older woman that the man from the bus had rescued has moved closer, reaching down to press one hand against the man's cheek. "A true hero," she says softly. She looks at Lan Zhan. "What's his name?"

Lan Zhan looks down at the man's pale, slack face, and presses his own hand against the cut, trying to staunch the blood flow with his glove. "Wei Ying," he says without thinking about it.

The man stirs slightly in his arms, his eyes blinking open for a moment. "Oh," he says faintly. "It's you."

Lan Zhan stares down at him, the stranger in his arms, whose name is Wei Ying. Which is something Lan Zhan knows. How does he know that? How does—he can't—this isn't—

"It's okay," Wei Ying says, reaching up to pat vaguely at Lan Zhan's face. "It's all—" His eyes slip closed again and he's limp in Lan Zhan's arms.

The ambulance pulls up, the siren cutting into Lan Zhan's already aching head. He looks up at the elderly lady, but—she's gone. Swallowed up by the crowd. He's dizzy and still feels ill and looks at the emergency care worker as she rushes up to them. "I don't know him," he manages to say.

"That's okay, you don't have to," she says and it's nonsensical, that doesn't make sense, none of this makes sense. "But you do have to let go of him so I can check you both out, okay?"

"No," he says, reasonably. He's got Wei Ying held tightly in his arms.

The worker gives him a firm smile. "Okay, but you have to." She looks him over, tilting his head away from hers. "You got hit pretty badly," she says. "You have a big bump right here. We're gonna take care of you both. Just let my buddy here take a look at your friend, while I take care of you, okay?"

"Wei Ying," Lan Zhan says.

"Wei Ying," the worker says patiently, as she eases Wei Ying out of Lan Zhan's arms.

Lan Zhan feels suddenly, wrenchingly ill as they shift Wei Ying away and he looks up at the worker steadily. "I may pass out," he says and then, almost immediately, does.

Lan Zhan does have a concussion and the hospital won't discharge him on his own. He looks up as Lan Huan is led into the curtained exam room where Lan Zhan is sitting on the side of the hospital bed, waiting.

"I'm fine," he says, as Lan Huan hurries over to him, looking concerned.

"The bruise on your face says otherwise," Lan Huan points out.

Lan Zhan sighs, just a little. The medical care worker had been right: he has a big lump on the left side of his head, and his temple is bruised and tender. He'd managed to escape a black eye, at least, and he genuinely feels fine, pretty much. "It looks worse than it is," he says, ignoring the headache that refuses to go away. He'd had his head bashed against the sidewalk—of course he has a headache. The too-bright lights of the ER aren't helping matters. "Thank you for coming," he says.

Lan Huan shakes his head impatiently. "Of course," he says, moving forward to put his arm around Lan Zhan as he stands up.

"I'm fine," Lan Zhan says, even though the movement makes his stomach do an unhappy turn, and the throbbing in his temples intensifies.

"So you've said," Lan Huan says absently, looking up as a nurse bustles in, handing Lan Huan some paperwork like Lan Zhan isn't even there.

Lan Zhan doesn't glare at her. He just waits, stiffly, as she rattles off a list of rules. "Rest," she says firmly, looking first at Lan Zhan and then at Lan Huan. "You'll be staying with him? Good," she says, as Lan Huan nods solemnly. "He's got to rest, but you should keep checking on him. No caffeine, not a lot of screen time. Stay hydrated—no alcohol."

"Not a problem," Lan Huan murmurs.

Lan Zhan rarely drinks. He has no tolerance for alcohol, and no desire to build one. Resting sounds like the one thing he most desires right now. "Understood," he says to the nurse, when she's done reciting the rules. "Thank you."

Lan Huan starts to guide him out and, when Lan Zhan gives an impatient shrug of his shoulders to try to get him off, the nurse says, sternly, "Would you prefer a wheelchair?"

Lan Zhan stops trying to shrug his brother off. "I'm fine," he says. Again.

He allows Lan Huan to guide him out. His head is throbbing and he can't seem to stop reaching up to delicately trace his fingers over the lump on the side of his head. He'd woken up on a gurney in a curtained-off room, with everything that had happened coming into him in bits and pieces.

"They said you helped out that young man," Lan Huan says as he guides Lan Zhan down the corridor. "The one who stopped the purse-snatcher."

"I did not," Lan Zhan says. "He fell on me." Wei Ying, his brain supplies helpfully. He closes his eyes for a moment, taking a deep breath. It's the concussion, he tells himself. It's probably not even the man's name.

"It's lucky you were there for him," Lan Huan says gently, steering Lan Zhan forward. "He wasn't badly hurt, but he could have been."

"How do you know?" Lan Zhan asks stiffly.

"They told me," Lan Huan says in surprise. "The nurse who brought me in. The transport workers told them what happened. I'm very glad you were not badly hurt. They told me that the blood wasn't yours but still—it was alarming."

Lan Zhan realizes that his coat, his scarf, his shirt—they're all stained and stiff with dried blood, from Wei Ying's—from the man from the bus, from his head wound. It's so much blood. Head wounds do bleed excessively, he's aware of this, but still: it's a lot of blood.

"Did they tell you if he's—"

"Wei Ying!" It's an angry tone that carries from the room down the hall, a man's voice almost yelling the name that Lan Zhan had almost convinced himself he had made up. "Wei Ying, what the fuck? Do you think you're Batman or something? What are you now, a vigilante?"

"I could be Batman," Lan Zhan hears as he and his brother pace closer to the room where the yelling was coming from. "You don't know."

"You could be an idiot, is what you could be." The tone still sounds angry, too angry, particularly if the person being yelled at is the person who has lost so much blood that it's soaked into Lan Zhan's clothing. "Fuck, don't get up, you'll get the bleeding started again, what is wrong with you?"

Lan Zhan slows down as they pass the doorway to the room. The man—Wei Ying—is on a bed. His forehead has been stitched up, the black stitches stark against his pale skin. He's grinning up at the man who's yelling at him even as a nurse is preparing a bandage to go over the stitches.

"I'm fine," Wei Ying says cheerfully to the yelling man. "You're the one who's gonna have, like, an aneurysm or something, can you just..."

He trails off, his eyes darting to the doorway where Lan Zhan has come to a complete stop, staring in. He's vaguely aware his brother is looking at him curiously, but he can't drag his attention away from Wei Ying, who is staring at him as well. Oh, it's you, is the feeling clanging inside him, a sense of relief so strong his knees go weak with it.

What the fuck. What the fuck is that? He keeps staring, even as the angry yelling man wheels around, and now everyone is looking at Lan Zhan, but it feels vague, far away. Wei Ying's eyes on him are all that matters and that's ridiculous, isn't it? It's ridiculous.

"Who the fuck is that?" the angry man says, and suddenly all the noises of the hospital come back and Lan Zhan shakes his head and moves away quickly, dragging his brother down the hall.

"Was that him?" Lan Huan says, craning his head to look back. "Was that the man you helped? He's looking all right for what happened, isn't he?"

Don't look at him. He's not yours to look at. Lan Zhan doesn't say it out loud, but it's ringing inside his head in the rhythm of his headache, and the anger he feels over Lan Huan thinking that he could for even one moment look at Lan Zhan's—

Lan Zhan swallows tightly and keeps moving forward. He raises his hand again, running his fingers over the tender lump on his temple. "Let's go home," he says. "Please."

"I'm taking you back to our place." Lan Huan says it genially, but Lan Zhan knows his firm tone. "You should not be alone. Mingjue knows you're coming. You can stay in the guest room."

All Lan Zhan wants is to be alone in a dark room and forget everything that has happened today. If that dark room has to be his brother's guest room, so be it. He's too exhausted to argue, and his head hasn't stopped the rhythmic thumping that had started the second he'd pulled his eyes away from Wei Ying. "Fine," he says, and he knows he's being less than thankful, but he has nothing else. "Thank you," he forces himself to follow up.

"Of course," Lan Huan says, shaking off the thanks again. "You're my brother."

Lan Zhan closes his eyes for longer than a second, and lets Lan Huan lead him out of the emergency room.

Lan Zhan wakes once again from an uneasy sleep. He's been falling asleep quickly, and having vivid dreams, but awaking no less exhausted than he had been. It's the concussion. That's what Lan Huan says to him every time he peeks in to check on him, not letting him sleep for more than two hours at a stretch. "It will take time," Lan Huan says comfortingly, straightening the rumpled blanket on Lan Zhan's shoulder. "You must let yourself recover." He'd kept the light off when he came in, but even the light from the hallway through the cracked-open door makes Lan Zhan wince, makes his headache throb threateningly in his temples.

Lan Zhan pushes himself up to sitting. "What time is it?" He expects his voice to come out raw, unused, but he sounds like his normal self. That's good; at least he sounds normal even if he doesn't feel anything like it.

"Nearly midnight," Lan Huan says.

"You're still awake?" Lan Zhan blinks at his brother. Lan Huan always kept the same regular rhythm of the day that Lan Zhan does; it's how they both were raised and it's difficult to undo years of conditioning.

"I napped a bit," Lan Huan admits, giving Lan Zhan a smile. "I asked Mingjue to wake me. He's watching a movie."

Lan Zhan is grateful that his brother had not sent his boyfriend in to check on Lan Zhan. Lan Zhan likes Nie Mingjue but they have never gotten particularly close, in the time he's been dating Lan Huan. "The hospital said it was fine for me to sleep," he says.

"Of course," Lan Huan agrees. "Should I let you go back to it?"

Lan Zhan frowns. He's not sleepy. Exhausted, but not sleepy.

"Perhaps some ginger tea?" Lan Huan suggests.

They sip the steaming cups of tea together in the dimly-lit kitchen, the sound of the television a low buzz from the living room. "We could go sit with him," Lan Huan offers. "Mingjue won't mind."

Lan Zhan can't bear to think about even the small amount of socializing that would take. He doesn't have the energy.

Lan Huan takes another sip of tea. "Here is fine, too."

"Did they tell you his name?" Lan Zhan asks abruptly.

"Who?" Lan Huan blinks at him over the cup of tea.

"The man," Lan Zhan says. It feels important, to find out. "The one who saved the woman from the mugger."

"Wei Ying?" Lan Huan asks tentatively.

"Yes." Lan Zhan is relieved. "You know it, too."

"Well, yes." Lan Huan is studying him. "I overheard his—I'm assuming a family member of some sort, that argumentative young man who was with him in the hospital room. I heard him call him that, at quite some volume."

"Oh." Wei Ying. It's a pattern, a pulse, almost, thrumming through him. "That must have been how I knew it, as well."

That's a lie, he knows that's a lie. He'd known it from the moment on the sidewalk, with the man limp against him. Wei Ying. How had he known it?

"Do you know him?" Lan Huan asks.

"No. Of course not. Why?" Lan Zhan sips his tea without tasting it.

"I just wondered," Lan Huan says. "You seem concerned about him."

"He knocked me to the ground and gave me a concussion," Lan Zhan says. He knows he sounds odd—sour and strange. He feels sour and strange.

His brother opens his mouth and Lan Zhan swiftly adds, "In the process of assisting an elderly woman from being robbed. I did not say it was a problem."

"Of course." Lan Huan says, his tone careful, and Lan Zhan's fingers clench tightly around his teacup. Sometimes—not often, but occasionally—Lan Huan's inability to do much more than try to keep the peace is, in a word, infuriating.

"I have an early morning class," Lan Zhan says instead of starting an argument about Wei Ying. "I will be gone before you get up."

"Perhaps you could cancel?" Lan Huan offers, watching Lan Zhan over the rim of his teacup. "Given your injury."

"I can teach this class in my sleep." Lan Zhan does not snap when he says it. He keeps his tone even.

"Ah." Lan Huan nods, finishing his tea. "If you feel up to it, then."

"I will," Lan Zhan says. Calmly. "I do."

"Sleep well, then," Lan Huan says. "Please do text me when you leave, so I know you're all right."

"Of course." Lan Zhan loves his brother. He does. He just needs to be alone. "I shall."

Morning comes quickly, after a fitful night's sleep of dreams he cannot remember but cannot shake off, either. He gets up even before his usual 5AM, so he has time to go home and get changed. Lan Huan has laundered his shirt for him when they'd gotten home and it had dried quickly near the radiator. Lan Zhan tugs it on, feeling an incredibly odd notion of wishing Lan Huan hadn't done it, that the bloodstains on the shirt would have been some sort of proof of...he doesn't know what.

His coat and scarf will need to be dry-cleaned, but they are both dark fabric so at least he doesn't look like he's fleeing a crime scene as he slips out the door.

He makes it home just fine, eschewing the bus only due to the fact that it's a relatively swift walk home from his brother's place, even with the snow still falling from the night before. He's focused inward on the walk, distracted, possibly, by the uneven night's sleep, and it's not until he's in his apartment, having showered, and shaved, and is staring at himself in the steamy bathroom mirror, studying the darkening bruise on his temple, that it occurs to him that the snow is coming down heavily enough that it might be outside of his purview whether class is canceled or not.

A quick look at his phone confirms it—campus is closed for the day, due to the storm. He looks at himself in the mirror again and rests his hands on the counter, letting his head drop down. It's for the best. He's certain it's for the best. But he'd been counting on the teaching to distract him from the...he's not even sure what. The uneasy thrum that's running through his whole body, which is not in line with what he's heard about concussions. He'd expected it would make him slow, logy, but instead his whole body seems to be itchy with something he can't quite fathom.

He gets dressed with some care for comfort—soft grey sweatpants, a white t-shirt, layering it with his favorite oversized sweater. He'll allow himself a day of rest. He'll make some tea, he'll read his book, and then he'll feel better. He's sure of it.

It's not until he's slipping on his snow boots, shrugging into his warmest coat (not the blood-stained one, which awaits a trip to the drycleaners, folded neatly into a plastic bag), that he realizes what he's doing. He pauses with his hand on his keys, where they hang neatly on a hook beside the door. Then he grabs them, and leaves, locking the door firmly behind him.

He's in the lobby of his building, looking out at the swirling snow outside, before he lets himself pause again. This is stupid. He should go back upstairs. Make his tea. Read his book.

The cold air hits him hard as he pushes open the front door of the building, whisking the air right out of his lungs. Something about it feels good, makes him feel grounded, like he's making the right call, letting whatever it is drive him forward.

He's striding down the block, eating it up with his long steps, like he's late to a meeting, even though he has absolutely no idea where he's going. The snow is hitting his face with stinging intensity and coming down too fast for the various doormen clearing the sidewalks to keep up with. He knows he's still concussed; he knows he's supposed to be resting. But the idea of turning back, going home, feels so bad, so wrong, it can't possibly be better for him than...whatever this is.

He takes a turn, then another, weaving his way among the blocks. He's not that far away from his place but he knows he's never been on this street. Nothing is familiar, nothing even particularly stands out, just rows of faceless buildings, one stairway the same as the next.

He should go back. This is ridiculous. He's got snow in his hair, and his face is so cold it hurts, and he's slipping in the deepening snow on the sidewalk even in his boots.

He keeps moving forward. His heart is beating fast. His head hurts. His breath keeps getting caught in his chest, as the freezing wind cuts its way in. He can't see clearly through the snow and he swipes one hand over his eyes where snow is caught on his eyelashes, as he grasps the railing of the stairwell and launches himself up the steps of a building, taking them two at a time even as his boots slip perilously in the snow.

He flings open the door to the lobby and is met with the startled face of Wei Ying, who has one arm in a winter coat, struggling to get the other arm in, his mouth open as he freezes in the open doorway. He has a bandage over one eye, where the stitches are, and a huge bruise on his forehead, dark and alarming, particularly against his skin, far too pale.

"Lan Zhan..." he says, his voice coming out strange and breathless. He's still frozen there, one arm still searching for his coat behind his back. The wind is whipping in the snow around them, frigid and jarring, and Lan Zhan can't move, can't breathe, can't do anything for a handful of moments except stare at Wei Ying.

"How did you know my name?" he asks, but doesn't wait for an answer. "You shouldn't be out here. You shouldn't be out of bed at all. You're about to fall down."

"I'm not," Wei Ying says, but his face goes paler yet.

"You are," Lan Zhan says flatly. "Look at you." He can feel how much it's costing Wei Ying to stay standing and he grasps Wei Ying's arm as he wavers there in the doorway.

The cessation of pain the moment he touches Wei Ying is so sudden that he thinks he may be the one who is going to fall down. The throbbing in his temple fades abruptly and he sinks his fingers against Wei Ying's arm, holding on tightly and staring at him.

Wei Ying's staring back at him with his mouth open. "What did you do?" he asks weakly.

Lan Zhan doesn't waste any more time. He hustles Wei Ying back into the building, pushing his arm under Wei Ying's and holding him up as he stumbles along with him. He tells himself it's to help Wei Ying back to his apartment (14D floats into his brain as the two of them stagger into the elevator, half-slipping on the snow they'd tracked in with them), and it is, sort of, but he also can't bring himself to pull away. His head feels clear for the first time since he'd been flung to the sidewalk and he feels nearly drunk with how good it feels.

He props Wei Ying against the wall in the elevator and hits the button for 14. He still has one hand wrapped around Wei Ying's arm. Wei Ying, sagging back against the wall, still looks too pale, and his breath is coming too fast. Lan Zhan wants to press his face against the exposed skin of his neck, wants to breathe him in, wants—

Is he losing his mind? He takes a step back and makes himself unclench his fingers from around Wei Ying's arm.

"Don't!" Wei Ying sounds urgent, alarmed, and he grabs Lan Zhan's hand just before it slips away, wrapping their fingers together and holding on tight.

Lan Zhan's relief is overwhelming, the tension as he'd braced himself for the return of the pain released abruptly. It's the adrenaline, he thinks to himself absently, looking down at Wei Ying—Wei Ying, who still looks like he might fall down any moment. The adrenaline surge is what's causing this. That's all.

Still, he keeps his hand in Wei Ying's as the elevator dings and the doors slide open. He tugs Wei Ying off the wall and has a nearly overwhelming urge to tuck him under his arm, hold him as close as he can. He resists it, setting his jaw instead and pacing down the hallway. Wei Ying presses himself against Lan Zhan's arm, his hand soft and warm. "It's right—yeah," he says, a little faintly, as Lan Zhan stops in front of 14D and holds his hand out for Wei Ying's keys.

Wei Ying fumbles them out of his pocket and hands them to Lan Zhan, like this is normal, like this is an everyday thing, to meet a total stranger in your building lobby in the middle of a snowstorm and let him demand you take him up to your apartment.

Lan Zhan takes the ring of far too many keys (why does Wei Ying have this many keys, what could he possibly need this many keys for?) and selects the one to the apartment, sliding it into the lock and opening the door. "You really should lock the deadbolt when you leave, as well," he informs Wei Ying.

Wei Ying is staring down at the keys in Lan Zhan's hand. "How did you..." he starts, then shakes his head. "I don't feel that great. I think—I've got to sit down."

He doesn't look good—his eyes are wide and confused, his hair, down this time, a mess around his shoulders, damp from the snow, tangled from the wind. Lan Zhan tugs him inside, dropping the keys into the bowl on the table beside the door without looking. "Shoes," he directs, and props Wei Ying against the wall. Wei Ying toes out of his sneakers, kicking them aside. Had he been going out in a snowstorm in Converse? Does he even own winter boots?

Lan Zhan looks down at his own boots, neatly and firmly tied, and braces himself to let go of Wei Ying's hand so he can kneel down and take them off.

"Here," Wei Ying says quietly, even though Lan Zhan hadn't said anything, and slides his back down the wall. Lan Zhan kneels down, Wei Ying's knee pressing against his leg, a steady weight as Lan Zhan swiftly unlaces his boots.

They don't talk as Lan Zhan reaches out his hand to help Wei Ying back up. He slides Wei Ying's jacket off his arm, then takes off his own coat, Wei Ying fumbling to press one hand against Lan Zhan's side as he does so. It's a startlingly intimate touch, and Lan Zhan would, at any other time, shut it down with one freezing, withering look. But Wei Ying's fingers pressing against his hip feel...right. He doesn't shake him off.

"Here," he says, guiding Wei Ying to the couch in the living room.

Wei Ying's knees seem to suddenly give out as they get there, like he's only been holding himself together by a thread. He collapses down, his hand slipping away from Lan Zhan.

The throbbing in Lan Zhan's head returns with full intensity. It's so bad that, again, he feels as though he might be ill, his stomach turning over unpleasantly. He makes a quiet, pained sound—he can't help it, everything hurts—and his own legs turn unsteady. He sits down abruptly, next to Wei Ying, whose jaw is clenched tightly, the skin around his mouth tense and white. He presses his hand against Wei Ying's knee and both of them gasp, nearly at once, in a way that might be funny if it wasn't for the total relief of it.

"What the fuck," Wei Ying says, in nearly a whisper. "Lan Zhan. What the fuck."

"How," Lan Zhan grits out, trying not to press his whole side against Wei Ying, having to work to resist the urge to climb on top of him, press him back against the couch, cover him with his whole body, every part of them touching. He could bury his face against Wei Ying's neck like that, get to find out what he smells like, exactly, perhaps what he tastes like, against his tongue, he could—

Lan Zhan shakes his head, bites the inside of his cheek. Focus. "How do you know my name?" he manages to say, finally. "Who told you?"

Wei Ying's staring at him, his mouth open a little. "I don't know," he says. "Someone did. Maybe at the hospital? I saw you there." He leans forward, grasping Lan Zhan's hands with his own. "I saw you there," he says again, intensely. "Why did you leave?"

"I went home," Lan Zhan says, inanely. Why had he left? Wei Ying had been right there. "I have a concussion. I—"

"Your poor face," Wei Ying says softly. He loosens his hold, extracts one hand from Lan Zhan's grasp, brings it up to trace gently along the lump on Lan Zhan's temple. Lan Zhan's entire body relaxes, like that first moment you step into a hot shower, all the tension draining away so suddenly that he feels, for a moment, like he could cry.

He takes a breath, blinks rapidly. Wei Ying is studying his temple, his eyes flickering down to Lan Zhan's after a moment, coming into focus. "Who are you?" he asks, his voice full of confusion. "Lan Zhan. What's happening to us?"

Us. That warmth spreads throughout Lan Zhan's body again at that, another flare of satisfaction. It's startling, and it's strange, and all he can do is shake his head. "I don't know. I don't—"

"How did you find me?" Wei Ying interrupts. "How did you know where I live?"

All Lan Zhan can do is stare at him. He doesn't know. He doesn't know.

"My brother left," Wei Ying says abruptly. "He had work, they don't close for snow, the market is still open. He left and I was fine, no big deal, just a bump on the head. I have a hard head, Lan Zhan, you should know that about me, I was fine."

He seems to be arguing with Lan Zhan, despite Lan Zhan not disagreeing with him. Lan Zhan waits.

"He left and I was okay, it's not a big deal, but I had to—" He shakes his head and winces at the movement. Lan Zhan moves forward, gently pushing Wei Ying back so he's leaning back against the couch. Wei Ying allows it, not quite seeming to notice. "I had to find you."

"Find me?" Lan Zhan asks. His head doesn't hurt any more and he has no reason to feel dizzy but he does. He's cold, suddenly, it hitting him all at once, from being out in the driving snow, from forging his way over here to a building he doesn't know, to find a man he doesn't know, because...he had to. His hands are freezing, where they are no longer touching Wei Ying, because there is no reason to do so, to touch this man he does not know.

"You," Wei Ying says slowly, his head tilted back, resting against the couch. "I had to—but you found me. You found me first. How did you know I live here?" he demands abruptly. "Did you see me before yesterday? On the bus?" He sits up, ignoring Lan Zhan's frown as he tries to push him back. He's got dark circles under his eyes, stark against his skin. He should be in bed.

"I know I saw you, before," Wei Ying says, intently, taking Lan Zhan's hands into his own. Wei Ying's hands are warm, the heat of them against Lan Zhan's freezing skin nearly painful. Wei Ying rubs his fingers over Lan Zhan's, still looking up at him and talking rapidly, like he doesn't know he's doing it. "I noticed you. You're so tall." He grins a little. "And pretty," he adds. "I'd definitely noticed you before yesterday. Maybe you noticed me too and that's how you knew...where I lived?"

"I didn't," Lan Zhan says helplessly. He hadn't. He'd have remembered, if he'd seen Wei Ying before. He should pull his hands away from Wei Ying. It's shameless, this easy, intimate touch, the way Wei Ying's soft hands are clasping Lan Zhan's own. He cannot bring himself to pull away. He's not cold anymore, the warmth spreading throughout his body the same way it had when Wei Ying had touched the bruise on his face. "I don't know you."

Wei Ying. It reverberates throughout his body, like the chime of a bell from somewhere deep inside.

He shakes his head. "I don't know what's going on." He tries to say it in his firmest voice. "I had not planned to come here. I didn't know where...here was."

Wei Ying is staring at him quizzically. Lan Zhan is aware that he's not making very much sense. He's tired, all of a sudden. As tired as Wei Ying himself is. He can feel it, the exhaustion seeping over from Wei Ying, how he's struggling to keep his eyes open, even though everything that's happening right now is so strange, so inexplicable, so desperately needing to be solved.

"Well," Wei Ying says finally. "You're here now." There's an odd note of satisfaction in his voice. He seems to hear it too, at the same time as Lan Zhan, and he blinks slowly, tilting his head to one side. He looks a little bewildered. It softens his face, makes him look startlingly young. How old is he, Lan Zhan wonders?

"You're tired," Lan Zhan says. He yawns immediately afterwards and Wei Ying breaks into a grin.

"Projecting a little, are you?" he says, teasing, but he yawns too. He's still holding Lan Zhan's hands clasped in his own. "Okay, uh." He worries at his lip a little. "I think you need to stay," he says.

"Yes," Lan Zhan says, too quickly. "We should figure out what's going on," he adds. He thinks his ears are going red. He ignores that.

"Right." Wei Ying nods. "We've got to. This is too weird. Besides—" He glances out the window, where the snow is beating against it, the howling of the wind loud even inside the apartment. "I don't think you can go out in it, anytime soon."

"Probably wise not to." The sense of relief Lan Zhan feels at the weather keeping them together is disproportionate. Yes, they should figure that out, but surely it could be done via the phone. They don't need to be together to figure out the oddness of the things they...somehow know about each other. They don't. He tells himself that sternly.

"Okay, so, uh." Wei Ying glances around. "I guess—I think if we sleep, we might do a better job figuring out just what the actual fuck is going on."

"Agreed," Lan Zhan says, then he, too, realizes what Wei Ying is looking so strange about.

"You take the bed," Wei Ying says, just as Lan Zhan says, "The couch will suit fine."

"No, really, you should—you're so tired, you can just—oh, I gotta change the sheets, hang on, I—"

"Wei Ying." Lan Zhan nails the firm tone this time. "It's your bed. You are badly injured. Go sleep."

"I'm not badly injured." Wei Ying frowns. "It's just a little cut."

Lan Zhan flicks his eyes up to the bandage on Wei Ying's forehead. "Twelve stitches?"

Wei Ying frowns harder. "Fifteen," he admits sullenly. "Okay, fine, but it's only because changing the sheets is the absolute worst."

Lan Zhan has a quick image of a rumpled bed, a dark duvet cover with red stitching slung messily across it, Wei Ying sprawled underneath, the covers smelling of him, of clean sweat and the cherry shampoo he's used since high school and—

He blinks. He must be more tired than he thought, to be half-dreaming, sitting up on the couch.

"Okay, so, hang on, let me grab you a pillow, and I know I have a blanket here, give me a—oh." He's pushed himself off the couch but he stumbles to a stop after two steps, his face screwed up in pain. "What the fuck," he mutters.

Lan Zhan wants to get up and help him, see what's wrong, but the moment Wei Ying had moved away from him, releasing his hands, his knee no longer pressed against Lan Zhan's thigh, the whole world felt like it had shifted sideways. His temple throbs so hard that he has to swallow convulsively to keep from being sick.

"I just got up too fast," Wei Ying says, still a little unsteady as he makes his way across the room, disappearing down the hallway.

It takes perhaps five heartbeats for him to come back clutching a pillow and a blanket against his chest, but Lan Zhan's breath is caught in his throat, and he thinks he's possibly on the verge of a panic attack in that short span of time. He works to control his breathing, forcing himself to take deep, slow breaths. "Thank you," he manages, as Wei Ying moves closer. They're not even touching but knowing that Wei Ying is right there, knowing that they could, makes him better able to catch his breath.

"No problem," Wei Ying says. He's chewing on his lip again, staring down at Lan Zhan. He looks freaked out. He looks as freaked out as Lan Zhan feels. That also, strangely, makes Lan Zhan feel better. "Okay, uh, well, here." He pushes the pillow at Lan Zhan and as Lan Zhan takes it, he doesn't make an effort to let their hands touch. He doesn't, or at least he doesn't intend to, but they do, Wei Ying's hand pressing against his own, just for a second or two. It's enough that the pain in Lan Zhan's head ebbs, just enough that he's able to swallow, and lie back on the couch, tucking the pillow underneath his head.

"Great." Wei Ying's standing over him, lingering, even as he's half-turned towards the corridor where, one can only assume, the bedroom with the red-stitched duvet cover lies. "Okay, oh, right, here, I'll—"

It is absolutely ridiculous for Lan Zhan, a grown man, to be tucked in by this man he barely knows. Doesn't know. Doesn't know at all. But he allows it, he's not sure why, letting Wei Ying drape the blanket over him, his eyes watching Lan Zhan cautiously as he does it.

Lan Zhan can't watch, he cannot, not while he's lying there aching for even just a brush of Wei Ying's fingers against him. He shuts his eyes, works on steadying his breath, the thrumming in his temple offering up a rhythm.

"Okay. Yeah. Sleep." Wei Ying's quiet for a moment, but he doesn't move away, and then—Lan Zhan swallows the small sound that wants to come out as Wei Ying presses one hand against Lan Zhan's shoulder. It's gentle, but firm, and he holds it there, for long enough that every muscle in Lan Zhan's body relaxes. "Yeah," Wei Ying says, still touching him. "Sleep."

There is a sharp wrench as he finally pulls away, but it is, thankfully, no match for Lan Zhan's overarching exhaustion, and he slides into an uneasy sleep nearly immediately.

Lan Zhan wakes up confused, and cold, so cold, the snow still stinging his cheeks from the storm, the wind whipping it around him, he should get inside, he can't—

It takes him longer than a moment to shake off the dream, realizing that his blanket has slid to the floor next to the couch as he tossed and turned, and that he's somehow shrugged his way out of his sweater in his sleep. He's cold, shivering with it, blinking in the dimness of the room. Have they somehow slept until nightfall? But no, a glance at his phone shows it's only 11:15AM—the snow outside is being flung against the window in angry bursts of wind, blocking out the sun.

He struggles to his feet, grabbing his sweater off of the floor and shrugging into it. He picks up the blanket, as well, folding it in half and laying it over the back of the couch before he pads down the hall. He eases the door open quietly, not wanting to startle Wei Ying from sleep. He needn't have worried—Wei Ying is sprawled amidst the covers, face down, breathing deeply and occasionally twitching in his sleep.

The covers have slid off of his shoulders, as well, and Lan Zhan tugs them up carefully before sliding into bed next to him. Wei Ying makes a sleepy noise before turning over and snuggling up against Lan Zhan.

The room is cold but Wei Ying is so warm. Lan Zhan presses his face against the curve of Wei Ying's neck, breathing him in. He gives in to the impulse to open his mouth against his skin, the taste familiar against his tongue. He shifts closer, listening to the wind whipping by outside, no match for the soft, pleading sound Wei Ying makes as Lan Zhan runs his mouth down his shoulder, and—

What the fuck. What the fuck is he doing. What the— He pulls back so quickly he nearly falls out of bed, then wishes he had, in fact, fallen out of bed, out of Wei Ying's bed, where he should not be, he should not be.

Wei Ying makes a whining noise, reaching for him with his eyes still closed.

Lan Zhan realizes he's clutching the covers against his chest, staring down at Wei Ying. He's pulled them off of Wei Ying again and the room really is cold, there are goosebumps all down Wei Ying's arms where the sleeves of his t-shirt have ridden up, and he shivers, whining again grumpily and blinking his eyes open. "Come back," he says, his voice blurry with sleep. "Where'd you go, Lan Zhan? I'm so—oh fuck."

He sits up abruptly, eyes wide, hair a messy tangle over his face. He wraps his arms around himself, shivering, and he's staring at Lan Zhan with wide, confused eyes. "What happened?" he asks. "Why are we—what did we—" His fingers are reaching up to trace over the spot where Lan Zhan had pressed his mouth against his neck and he shivers.

"Apologies," Lan Zhan says. "I don't—I'm not sure—I did not intend to—" He's never this badly spoken. He knows what he wants to say and he says it. This rarely, if ever, happens to him. Was he sleepwalking? Is that what sleepwalking feels like? He hadn't felt asleep. He'd felt one hundred percent himself, a little distant, perhaps, but making what felt like, in the moment, perfectly reasonable decisions. It had felt right. It had felt familiar. "I think I'm losing my mind," he finishes softly.

Wei Ying still has his fingers pressed against his neck, looking at him in the dim light of the room. "What time is it?" he asks. "Is it—it's so dark. Fuck, what the fuck happened to my heat?"

He's ignoring the fact that Lan Zhan is in his bed, that Lan Zhan had crawled into his bed, unasked for, uninvited. That Lan Zhan remains in his bed, still, unable to move, apparently unable to do anything but stare at Wei Ying with the taste of his shoulder still in his mouth.

He wants to press his mouth there again.

He forces himself to unclench his fingers from the covers and lower them down from his chest. "I—" he starts, not at all knowing how the sentence will end, but Wei Ying is untangling himself from the covers and getting out of bed, talking all the while.

"The thermostat goes on the fritz when it gets too cold sometimes," he's saying, hopping up and down on one foot as he tries to extract the other one from the covers. "It's a really bad quality for a thermostat to have, I tell you what." He winces, bringing one hand up to press lightly against the bandage on his forehead.

Lan Zhan is wincing, as well, the lump in his temple giving that unpleasant, now-familiar throb, and he's out of bed without thinking about it, moving closer to Wei Ying. He stops, abruptly, his feet freezing against the floor, his hands aching to reach out. He curls them into fists instead, leaving them down by his side.

"Help me out with this?" Wei Ying says. He's struggling into a hoodie, reaching out with one hand as he does so, grabbing onto Lan Zhan's arm and hauling him down the hall with him.

The relief of the simple touch is overwhelming, and Lan Zhan gratefully follows him. They draw to a halt at a thermostat mounted on the wall in the hall and they both stare at it. Wei Ying taps on it with a frown, but the numbers don't change from where they are placidly displaying 12 degrees. "Well," Wei Ying says. "Fuck."

He looks hopefully over at Lan Zhan, but Lan Zhan shakes his head—he has no skills in the area of home repair.

Wei Ying has one bare foot tucked up behind his leg, shivering as he stares unhappily at the thermostat. "Okay, well," he says. "I'm gonna turn it way up, maybe...kick-start it into remembering what heat is. I know, I know," he says with a glance at Lan Zhan, "but it's worked before."

He starts tapping at the buttons on the thermostat again, seemingly unaware of the fact that his other hand is wrapped firmly around Lan Zhan's. He shrugs, frowning, when he's done with the thermostat and turns back to Lan Zhan. "Tea?" he says, squeezing his fingers around Lan Zhan's. "It will at least—oh." He's looking quizzically at where he's holding Lan Zhan's hand, his eyebrows drawn together. "I—sorry, I—"

He withdraws his hand from Lan Zhan's, and they both take equally sharp, startled breaths.

"Tea," Lan Zhan says in agreement. Tea might not solve their biggest problem, but it will at least be warm.

They end up on the couch, again, with as many blankets as Wei Ying can find. They're not curled up together, but Wei Ying has snaked his foot down the couch and is pressing it against Lan Zhan's thigh under the covers, both of them pretending that he isn't as he sips his tea. It's taking a great deal of Lan Zhan's energy to not put his hand over Wei Ying's foot and hold it closer still.

He's losing his mind. He is. He should call the doctor. Is this what a concussion does to you?

"I think," Wei Ying says slowly. "I think we need to talk about this."

Lan Zhan very much does not want to do that. "Yes," he says, reluctantly.

"Something happened." Wei Ying frowns against the lip of his teacup. "Something really weird happened." He looks over at Lan Zhan. "Do you live in a high-rise with fancy silver doors?" he asks.

Lan Zhan does. They've got a complicated filigree pattern, and it's part of what had drawn him to rent in that building in the first place. "I do," he says. His heart gives a weird series of thuds.

Wei Ying nods. "Near the park," he says.

"Yes." Lan Zhan looks at him. "Have you seen me?" It's possible. It's possible they've just...seen each other. Noticed each other, without...noticing they were noticing. His head aches a little, even with Wei Ying's foot pressed warmly against him. "We are on the same bus route."

"The same stop, even," Wei Ying says, but he shakes his head. "I told you, Lan Zhan—I would have remembered you."

Lan Zhan thinks he would have remembered Wei Ying, as well. He sighs a little, through his nose. "How?" he asks. "How do we—"

"Know these things about each other?" Wei Ying cuts in. "I don't know. I don't know. How did you know my name, Lan Zhan? That's insane, right? Have we gone...mutually insane?"

"Maybe," Lan Zhan says, his voice coming out tight with frustration. "It's more reasonable than the alternative."

"What's the alternative?" Wei Ying is clutching his teacup tightly in his hands. "Tell me, Lan Zhan. What's the fucking alternative?"

Nothing that makes sense. Nothing that even comes close to making the slightest bit of sense.

"One of us has to say it," Wei Ying says grimly.

"No, we don't." Lan Zhan cannot. He cannot.

Wei Ying stares at him for a moment, then he breaks into giggles, throwing his head back against the pillow behind him, wincing at the movement, then laughing harder. "When you're right, you're right," he says, gasping through his giggles. "I can't—this is too fucking weird."

Lan Zhan watches him laugh, and something about it melts the tension in his spine. It is, suddenly, a little bit funny: two strangers with head injuries, each trying desperately not to say that they know things about each other that are absolutely, intrinsically, impossible to know. He takes another sip of tea, allowing the amusement to slide across his face.

Wei Ying clocks it immediately, sighing even as he giggles and slouches further down the couch. "Okay," he says. "Okay, we can do this. We can figure this out."

"Mn," Lan Zhan says. "Are you certain?"

Wei Ying laughs again, high and bright. He's turned on the lamps in the living room and the light in here is warm against the grey of the storm outside, making Wei Ying's skin look golden. He's no longer pale, his cheeks flushed—with cold or with laughter, or a mix of both. Lan Zhan traces his fingers across the top of Wei Ying's foot where it's pressed against him, under the blankets, keeping his touch firm so as not to tickle. Wei Ying sighs and wiggles his toes against Lan Zhan's leg, shifting to bring his other foot closer, wriggling it until Lan Zhan allows him to slip it beneath his thigh.

"We can figure this out," Wei Ying says, taking another sip of his tea. "It's got to be something that—who knows, who the fuck knows, but the world is a big place, we can't be the only ones who have had, uh, something like this happen. The answer is out there. We just need to find someone who can help. We'll find them. We'll ask someone. Who's the smartest person you know?" he demands, pointing at Lan Zhan.

Lan Zhan looks at him. "You," he says. Wei Ying's mouth falls open, and Lan Zhan can only stare at him. He knows he sounds out of his mind. He thinks he maybe is out of his mind. But he also knows—he knows—that Wei Ying is by far the most intelligent person he's ever met. "You are," he says again, slowly. "You are an unconventional thinker. Your approach is, perhaps, considered unorthodox, but the way your mind works is...extraordinary. Truly extraordinary."

Wei Ying is still staring at him with his mouth open. He'd pulled his hair into a messy ponytail bound with a red elastic as he'd made them tea, and it curls over his shoulder in waves. His eyes are wide and dark and despite the tea he's drinking, Lan Zhan still feels as though he can taste him on his tongue.

"I'm not," Wei Ying says finally. "I mean, okay, whatever, I've got my ways to go at things, I can figure stuff out, I'm okay at it, but just because my brain works in freakish ways—"

"Unconventional," Lan Zhan corrects.

"Sure," Wei Ying says after a beat. "Jiang Cheng calls it bizarre but unconventional is close, I guess, and anyway, you can't know that. You can't."

"But I do." Wei Ying is right: he can't know that. But. He does. Lan Zhan squeezes his hand around Wei Ying's foot.

They both look down at the blanket at the same time. Lan Zhan guiltily jerks his hand out from under the covers, at the same time that Wei Ying sits up abruptly, pulling his foot out from under Lan Zhan's leg. He keeps the toes of his other one pressed against him, still, that tenuous connection enough to keep Lan Zhan's head from hurting.

"I know I cannot know this about you," Lan Zhan says, looking down at his hands, clasped tightly in his lap to keep them from making inadvertent advances. "But I do." He does, he knows it as well as he knows his own name, how Wei Ying's intelligence is nearly unsurpassed, despite his unruly appearance and his dismissive nature. He knows this.

"Well." Wei Ying frowns, tapping the side of his nose. "You might think that, but I have absolutely zero clue about what's going on here. Zero. Brain empty. No thoughts. We've never met before, I have no way of knowing anything about you, but I know you. I know you live in a building with a pretty goddamn fancy silver door. I know you want a pet bunny more than anything else in the world. I know that you think that I'm smart because you are one of the smartest people in the world yourself, so you kind of think—smugly, I might add," he says, pointing at Lan Zhan. "—that if you think I'm smart, then I must be some kind of genius." He blows his breath out on an exasperated sigh. "The only thing I can think of is that we're, what, soulmates?"

"Ridiculous," Lan Zhan mutters, even as his heart gives a weird series of thuds. He's not even told his brother about his dream of adopting a rabbit at some point in the future. He sets his teacup down carefully on the coffee table.

"I know," Wei Ying says. "I know that. That is what I am saying. This is the weirdest thing that's ever happened to me and I've had a lot of strange stuff happen in my life. Maybe that's it." He snaps his fingers, looking intrigued. "We don't need someone smart, we need someone strange."

Wei Ying is, perhaps, also one of the stranger people Lan Zhan has ever met, but he keeps his mouth shut this time. "Do you know someone?" he asks. The word soulmates is still rolling around in his brain, in his chest. He wants to shape his mouth around the word.

"I really fucking do." Wei Ying is grabbing his phone and texting rapidly.

Lan Zhan closes his eyes, taking long breaths in, and out. He traces his fingers gently over the tender spot on his temple. Soulmates thrums inside him to the rhythm of his breath.

"You okay?" There's a small clatter as Wei Ying sets his phone back down on the coffee table and Lan Zhan can't help his wince. "Sorry," Wei Ying says, and there's a rustle of blankets as he shifts closer. "I'm sorry. Jeez, you're really fucked up, that bruise is so dark." He rests his fingers gently on the side of Lan Zhan's face, tilting it, apparently so he can study the bruise.

Lan Zhan opens his eyes and Wei Ying is very close to him, his fingers soft and warm against Lan Zhan's skin. The chill of the room has fallen away but Lan Zhan still shivers as Wei Ying moves his fingers gently. His gaze flickers from Lan Zhan's temple to his eyes. "Did they give you anything?" he asks, his tone too soft for such a simple question. "For the pain? How bad does it hurt? I think I have some aspirin, at least, I should have thought—"

Wei Ying's bandage, the one covering the cut above his eye, has loosened over the course of the day, the edges curling up. Lan Zhan reaches up and tugs it off carefully, not touching the skin, revealing the line of neat, yet garish stitches, the skin vivid and bruised around it. "I don't know why I did that," he says softly.

"It's okay," Wei Ying says back in the same hushed tone. "It doesn't hurt."

"It looks like it hurts." Lan Zhan wishes he could trace his fingers over it, has a flash of an image of the stitches dissolving underneath his touch, the lurid cut knitting itself back together as his fingers ease over it.

"It doesn't," Wei Ying says. "Not when you're—" He stops, and swallows. He's still touching Lan Zhan's face, Lan Zhan's head tilted slightly to the side. Their knees are pressed together, tangled amidst the blankets on the couch, and it's only then that Lan Zhan realizes he has one hand resting on Wei YIng's thigh. He hasn't noticed. He keeps doing this, and not noticing, and that's—that's—

"Not crazy," Wei Ying murmurs, like Lan Zhan had said something out loud. "It's not, I know it feels like it might be but it also feels—"

Lan Zhan sucks in a breath and pulls back abruptly. He drags his gaze to the window behind Wei Ying. "The storm's over," he says. His hand isn't on Wei Ying's thigh anymore. That's good. He untangles himself from the covers and gets up as Wei Ying glances over his shoulder at the window. The snow is no longer beating against it, and Lan Zhan realizes he's not heard the wind wailing outside for quite some time. The sun has come out and the gleam of it through the window is so bright as to be almost blinding, the room glowing with it. How had they not noticed that? How had they not noticed anything but— "We should do something," Lan Zhan says. "About this. About—" He gestures between the two of them.

Wei Ying, still caught up amidst the blankets on the couch, has his head tilted back to look up at Lan Zhan. The stitches are still lurid against his skin. They really need to clean the cut again, and put a bandage back on, Lan Zhan thinks helplessly. "Okay," Wei Ying says. "You're right. We should."

Lan Zhan stares down at him for a moment too long, the idea of them emerging from the odd cocoon of Wei Ying's home feeling impossibly terrible. But. "Who is your strangest friend?" he asks. "The one you just texted."

"Nie Huaisang," Wei Ying says.

Lan Zhan shuts his eyes against the gentle throbbing in his head. "Of course it is," he says, mostly to himself.

"What the fuck," Wei Ying demands, floundering his way through the knee-deep snow. He has said some permutation of the same thing perhaps half a dozen times in the past twenty minutes. "How. How do you know Nie Huaisang? How is that possible?"

"I told you," Lan Zhan says, catching Wei Ying's arm as he almost goes down, struggling through the snow. The drifts filling the city sidewalks are soft, at least, easy to fight their way through, the storm having changed to big, soft flakes, apparently, at some point in the morning. "His brother—"

"—is banging your brother, I know that, you told me that. I say again: what the fuck." Wei Ying keeps clutching Lan Zhan's arm after he's steadied himself and Lan Zhan allows it, can't summon the ability to shake him off.

"That's the connection," Lan Zhan says. "That explains this, maybe."

Wei Ying looks at him, his expression incredulous. His nose is red with cold, and the new, neat bandage on his forehead hides one eyebrow, but Lan Zhan still gets the gist of Wei Ying's disbelief.

"I haven't seen Nie Mingjue since high school," Wei Ying says flatly. "And even then he was some sort of untouchable legend. He rode a motorcycle. He had a leather jacket. He did not—and does not—travel in the same circles as Nie Huaisang, I promise you that."

"Perhaps via social media, you've seen a picture," Lan Zhan ventures. "I've been told my brother and I look much alike."

"You think Nie Mingjue has social media?" Wei Ying's making wide eyes at him.

"...no," Lan Zhan admits. "Perhaps not. But you have to allow for the fact that, given that we have someone in common—" Nie Mingjue's strange—that much, Wei Ying is correct about—unpredictable, often untraceable little brother. "—we must have crossed paths. Before now. One way, or another."

"Maybe." Wei Ying keeps pushing forward through the snow grimly. His fingers are pressing in against Lan Zhan's elbow and even though layers of gloves and coat and clothes, Lan Zhan imagines he can feel the warmth of them. "Maybe. It's not impossible that maybe Nie Huaisang said your name to me, at some point, though the idea of him talking about his brother's sexy boyfriend's brother seems to be a few degrees away from Nie Huaisang's interest level. But maybe, I'll allow it."

"Mystery solved, then," Lan Zhan says. He sets his jaw against the way that lie swirls around inside him.

"Listen." Wei Ying is panting a little, from pushing his way through the deep drifts. He digs his heels in, dragging Lan Zhan to a stop on the sidewalk. Despite Lan Zhan's winter boots, he's still damp up to his thighs, the snow seeping in, his skin freezing even though he's sweating under his coat. "Listen to me," Wei Ying says, his tone demanding. "Maybe I knew your name. Maybe I even saw a picture of you, somewhere on the internet. Maybe I even saw you on the bus before, and then somehow, impossibly, improbably, at best, forgot. Like I'd ever be able to forget you," he mutters, almost an aside. "But even allowing for that, you honestly think it explains...this?"

Lan Zhan makes a soft, strangled sound in his throat as Wei Ying tears off one of his gloves and presses his hand against the side of Lan Zhan's face. Lan Zhan's whole body is flooded with warmth, down to his toes, and he sways forward on the sidewalk, in the sea of snow surrounding them, and can't help making that sound again—soft, needy, wanting.

"Yeah," Wei Ying says, looking at him, his face close, his eyes dark, his own throat working as he swallows back a sound of his own. "I don't think so."

Wei Ying leads them to Nie Huaisang's place. Lan Zhan doesn't actually know Nie Huaisang—he's heard Nie Mingjue talk about him, of course, and he's, perhaps, met him in passing when he'd come to borrow money from Nie Mingjue, but Wei Ying is not incorrect that Nie Mingjue's little brother does not travel in the same circles as him.

The building Wei Ying has brought them to is startlingly nice and Lan Zhan rapidly reassesses the level of wealthy that Nie Mingjue is. It's not that he hadn't known that Nie Mingue comes from a family with nearly as much hereditary wealth as Lan Zhan's own. He'd just not thought about it too closely, not until Wei Ying is leading them through the huge, seemingly deliberately dim and intimidating lobby, giving a cheerful wave to the man at the front desk who clearly knows him, giving Wei Ying a nod and reaching for the telephone on the desk.

The elevator doors slide silently open before them, revealing a looming elevator twice the size of the one in Lan Zhan's building. "It used to be a factory," Wei Ying says cheerfully, as Lan Zhan follows him on. "Before Huaisang's brother bought it for him."

Bought it for him. "This is Nie Huaisang's building," Lan Zhan says.

"A technicality." Wei Ying waves his hand around. "Mingjue also hired all the staff for it, including an accountant to pay the bills."

"I see." Lan Zhan watches as Wei Ying leans back against the back wall of the elevator without pressing any buttons.

Wei Ying grins at him. "The front desk guy will do it," he says. "This is a full service operation."

The elevator lurches to a start and Lan Zhan gets the same impression that he did from the cavernous lobby: that it's a deliberate mechanism to instill a sense of unease. It makes its ponderous way up, creaking and slightly swaying around them. "It does that," Wei Ying says, as though his words are comforting. "This is going to take a while, Huaisang is allllll the way at the top."

Of course he is. Lan Zhan moves to lean against the wall next to Wei Ying. They'd dropped hands when they'd entered the building and the ache between them when that happens seems to have gone from a concentrated throbbing in Lan Zhan's temple to more of an all-encompassing feeling of something being wrong—his body hurts, or maybe it's his skin, or something under his skin, the sort of deep seated ache like at the start of a bad cold or—

Wei Ying is holding himself tightly next to him, his whole body like a coiled spring. His hands are still hanging loosely down the sides of his body and if you didn't know him, you wouldn't think he's so tense as to be on the verge of falling apart, but Lan Zhan can feel it radiating off of him like spikes.

The elevator shudders to a stop after what seems like too short a time and Wei Ying shakes his head, looking up at where the numbers are above the door, an old-fashioned mechanism, not electronic, the numbers sliding up as the elevator moves. The numbers have drawn to a stop now, halfway between 11 and 12. Wei Ying glances over at Lan Zhan. "It does this, too," he says quietly.

Lan Zhan nods and does not look at Wei Ying. The sound of Wei Ying breathing is a steadying thing in the loaded silence of the elevator. Lan Zhan counts the breaths, in and out, focusing on that instead of on—

"I—" Wei Ying starts, just as the elevator lurches again and groans to a start. "Lan Zhan, I—"

Lan Zhan can't look at him. He can't. Wei Ying is right there and Lan Zhan can feel the tension in his body, the heat radiating off of him, even before Wei Ying turns, pivots towards Lan Zhan, one of his hands creeping over the front of Lan Zhan's coat, undoing his buttons, not quickly, but Lan Zhan can't seem to do anything about it. He can only fix his gaze up at the slowly moving numbers over the door, even as Wei Ying's hand slides under his coat, pushing it aside.

"Lan Zhan," Wei Ying says. His voice is unsteady, trembling a little, as though he's cold, but as his fingers inch their way under Lan Zhan's sweater, pushing it aside, they're warm—fiery spots of head against him through the thin layer of his t-shirt.

Lan Zhan tries to keep looking up, tries to ignore this, but his gaze is dragged inexorably down to where Wei Ying is looking at him. He's right in front of him, not pressed up against him but close, so close. The only place they're touching is where Wei Ying's fingers are pressed against his side through his t-shirt and Lan Zhan thinks that if Wei Ying were to shift that aside, touch him skin to skin, he might—

Wei Ying breathes, in and out, and Lan Zhan counts the breaths. "Wei Ying," he starts, but it breaks off as Wei Ying, still looking at him silently, slides his fingers underneath Lan Zhan's t-shirt.

They are unbearably hot, scorchingly hot, impossibly so, and Lan Zhan flips them, has Wei Ying pinned up against the wall with his hands and his hips before his brain has any chance of catching up with his body.

Wei Ying makes a frantic sound in his throat that makes Lan Zhan want to growl. Wei Ying's hand is now wrapped around his side, skin against skin, and Lan Zhan is coming undone, his blood thrumming through his body, Wei Ying pushing against him, not like he's trying to get away but like he's testing to prove that Lan Zhan will not let him go.

"Fuck," Wei Ying says, it coming out low and needy. "Yeah, this—please, this is what—you have to—" He lets his head fall back against the wall and Lan Zhan has the taste of him flooding his mouth even before he presses it against WeI Ying's neck. He's surrounded by the smell, the taste, the feel of Wei Ying, and Wei Ying's leg has come up to wrap around his thigh, dragging him in closer.

Lan Zhan moves, pressing his nose behind Wei Ying's ear, breathing him in there, as well, then letting his mouth slide over his jawline, as Wei Ying makes quiet, yearning noises in his throat, no words but a demand nonetheless.

"Please," reverberates between them and Lan Zhan's not sure which of them is saying it, or if it's not either of them, if it's just the energy that is begging for—

The clanging ding of the doors opening nearly jars Lan Zhan out of his skin. It sends him stumbling backwards, his breath coming hard, his heart pounding in his chest.

Wei Ying is reaching out for him, still leaning against the back wall of the elevator. His mouth is open, his face flushed, his hair pushed back on one side where Lan Zhan had buried his face against his skin. He's got a vague, confused expression on his face, like he's not quite sure what's going on.

"We're here," Lan Zhan says. His voice comes out rough but steady, and he's grateful for that. His side, where Wei Ying is no longer touching him, feels frigid, exposed, even as he tugs the layers back over it.

"Right," Wei Ying says dazedly. He drags one hand over his face, shaking his head. "Right, we're here, let's, uh." He pushes himself off the wall and makes his way off the elevator, Lan Zhan following him. "Let's see if Nie Huaisang can...help."

"Okay, you're going to have to run that by me again." Nie Huaisang is shuffling around his startlingly well-appointed apartment, which apparently takes up the whole top floor of the building. "What did the little old lady do to you, exactly?"

"No, that's not—" Wei Ying blows out his breath in frustration. "That lady didn't do anything, that was just when it all started, that was, like—what's the word for the thing that isn't involved in a chemical reaction?" he demands, looking at Lan Zhan.

"A catalyst," Nie Huaisang says absently. He glances over his shoulder at them. "Or something like that? I think? What do I know. But listen, you say it like a catalyst isn't intrinsically involved in making something happen."

"It's not!" Wei Ying says. "By definition, it's outside of the process, it doesn't actually have anything to do with it, and anyway, pay attention, the little old lady doesn't matter here, that's not what we came here for help with."

"Hmm," Nie Huaisang says doubtfully. He's wandered into the kitchen, Lan Zhan and Wei Ying trailing behind him. "Okay, you definitely know better than me. Do you want a beer? What time is it?" He cranes his head to look at the clock in the kitchen even as he's opening up the gleaming stainless steel refrigerator. "Doesn't matter, it's five o'clock somewhere and we're operating under snowstorm rules."

He pulls out three bottles and then starts rummaging around in a drawer. "Lan Zhan, you don't know me very well, but I know your brother and I know you Lans don't drink that much. But with even what little I've been able to glean from your very sketchy story, I think you need one."

Lan Zhan...can't disagree. He doesn't drink, or at least so rarely as to not count at all, but if it will do anything at all to take off this edge of...he's not even sure what, then he'll take it.

"Ah, here it is!" Nie Huaisang wields the bottle opener over his head for a moment, glancing at the two of them.

It's not until that moment that Lan Zhan realizes that somehow his hand is tangled up with Wei Ying's and he drops it like it's scorched him. Wei Ying takes three swift steps away from where he's practically pressed against Lan Zhan's shoulder, then a quick step closer, like he's being tugged by an invisible string. Nie Huaisang hums quietly to himself as he opens the three bottles and turns, beaming, to pass them out.

"Come on, let's go sit on comfortable furniture." Nie Huaisang gestures them towards the living room. "I'm just gonna bring this bad boy along just in case." He tucks the rest of the beers under his arm, snagging the opener as well, and leads them out of the kitchen.

Lan Zhan had expected giant furniture, leather, maybe, with big profiles, taking over the room. something about the lobby and elevator situation making him think this whole place would feel like a factory. But the furniture here is also well-appointed and laid out nicely, a low-profile sectional couch with an abundance of throw-pillows, a large ottoman in front of it, neat trays set out on it to create surfaces.

Lan Zhan is aware of Nie Huaisang watching them and he waits until Wei Ying sits down before moving to choose a seat at the other end of the couch.

"Ooo-kay," Nie Huaisang says, moving to sit on the outstretched portion of the sectional, setting in with his legs tucked up underneath him, facing the two of them. "You know that the tension between you two is practically visible to the human eye, right?"

Lan Zhan keeps his expression as close to bored as he can make it and takes a sip of the beer that's sweating in his hand. He doesn't make a face at the taste of it, but he does set the bottle down on one of the trays, arranging it neatly with the label facing him. One sip might be enough.

"Tell me," Nie Huaisang says, his eyes going back and forth between the two of them curiously. "Tell me again about what's going on."

Wei Ying sighs and he sounds miserable. Lan Zhan can't look at him, should not look at him, but the moment he thinks it, his eyes are drawn to him and, oh, Nie Huaisang is right. Wei Ying is at the other end of the couch, pressed up against the arm of it, but he's leaning forward like he's literally being tugged towards Lan Zhan. His face is drawn again, pale, no longer flushed deeply the way he had been on the elevator after Lan Zhan had pressed him back against the wall and—

"You have got to stop doing that," Nie Huaisang says, but he looks more interested than displeased.

"What?" Wei Ying says, taking another long sip of his beer. "We're not doing anything."

"Pining," Nie Huaisang says flatly.

Lan Zhan's chest is aching, and his head is starting to hurt again. He reaches for the beer on the tray and takes another sip.

"Shut up, we're not," Wei Ying mutters, then takes a deep breath. "Okay, so we were on a bus, right?"

"No." Nie Huaisang shakes his head impatiently. "I know about the bus. I know about the lady. Skip that part. Get to the good stuff."

Lan Zhan feels it when Wei Ying looks over at him. Like, feels it, a nearly physical tug between them. He swallows the sound that wants to come out of his throat with another small sip of beer.

"Uh." Wei Ying shakes his head like he's trying to clear it. "It was—okay. So, I don't remember much from right after but—"

"I knew his name." Lan Zhan is staring down at his beer bottle, like the answers might be tucked inside it. He remembers everything. He remembers Wei Ying's name reverberating inside him like a secret he's been instructed to keep.

"And I knew him." Wei Ying's voice sounds almost hollow. Lan Zhan can't look at him. "Which is, you know. Weird."

"How did you end up together, after?" Nie Huaisang finishes his beer in several long swallows and leans forward, reaching for another one.

"We found each other," Wei Ying says. "He—I woke up and I needed—"

"I knew him, too," Lan Zhan says. He's interrupting again, and it's rude, and he knows that, but he can't seem to stop. "I knew him, and I knew where he lived, and I went there, and he was..."

"I was coming out," Wei Ying finishes for him. He doesn't sound hollow anymore, he sounds almost dreamy. "I was coming out, and he was there."

Lan Zhan puts his beer down again. It's not even halfway done but his head already feels too heavy to hold up and he rests it against the back of the couch, his gaze drawn, inexorably, to Wei Ying.

Wei Ying is watching him, too. He's not pressed back against the corner of the couch anymore. He's leaning forward, and he's talking to Nie Huaisang, but his eyes are fixed on Lan Zhan. "He was there," Wei Ying says again. "And everything felt—" He shakes his head, his fingers coming up to gently touch the bandage over his eye. "My head had been hurting so bad, but the second I saw him, it kind of...faded." He's quiet for a moment, fiddling with the label of the empty bottle he's still holding. "And when he, uh."

Nie Huaisang is nodding encouragingly, and he reaches out, snags another bottle from the tray, holding it out towards Wei Ying.

Wei Ying nods his thanks and shifts closer to take it. "We sort of figured out that if we were touching, things felt...better."

"Better how?" Nie Huaisang nudges the bottle opener towards Wei Ying, but Lan Zhan is close enough to reach out and take the bottle out of Wei Ying's hand. Their fingers brush against each other and Lan Zhan thinks that, this time, he doesn't quite manage to swallow the sound that comes out of his throat. Wei Ying watches as Lan Zhan twists the cap off for him and then holds the bottle out to him silently.

"Just, uh." Wei Ying takes the bottle back, moving a little closer. Now he's on the cushion next to Lan Zhan, and Lan Zhan imagines he can feel the heat of him even from here. "Like. You know when you get a tattoo? And how when it's happening, when they're inking you, the pain is all there is, and how the second the needle stops, the pain stops?" Wei Ying's eyes are flickering back and forth between Lan Zhan and Nie Huaisang and Lan Zhan feels another burst of that irrational anger that he'd felt back in the hospital. Wei Ying's attention should be on him alone. Lan Zhan contemplates putting one hand on Wei Ying's thigh to remind him of that. He knows he shouldn't do that, but he cannot quite remember why.

He wonders about Wei Ying's tattoo. Where does he have it? The moment the thought comes, he has a hazy, blurred flash of dark ink against the smooth skin of Wei Ying's shoulder.

He takes another sip of beer.

"Anyway," Wei Ying finishes. "It was like that. That total cessation of pain. All at once."

Lan Zhan can see Nie Huaisang nodding intently out of the corner of his eye. "Well, fuck," he says, sounding intrigued. "That's—I don't know what that is. I have to tell you guys, I've never heard of anything like that. Like...this."

"Like what?" Wei Ying says it vaguely, no longer looking at Nie Huaisang.

Good, Lan Zhan thinks fiercely.

"Like...fuck, look at you guys." Nie Huaisang says it loud enough that both of them jump a little.

Lan Zhan realizes his hand has, in fact, found its way to Wei Ying's thigh, and is curled around it possessively. Wei Ying has, somehow, shifted close enough that his knees are pressed up against Lan Zhan and he's leaning in, their faces close together, nearly close enough to—

"Okay, so you guys know this is weird, right?" Nie Huaisang sounds amused.

"That's why we came to you." Wei Ying seems to make an effort to sit back, but he doesn't shift away, he just takes a breath—Lan Zhan watches his chest move with it—and lifts his beer to his mouth again. "We need help."

"I can't help," Nie Huaisang sounds almost offended at the implication that he could. "You know me, Wei Ying, I don't know anything. I never know anything. That's a very important thing to know about me."

"But if you could," Wei Ying says, and it sounds like a well-worn response, like this is something common between them. "If you did. Know something."

"I'm curious about something," Nie Huaisang says, looking between the two of them. "Are you sure it's even a thing? Like, maybe it's just you being...weird."

Wei Ying's staring at Nie Huaisang. He's irked. Lan Zhan can tell, though he's not entirely sure how. "I brought Lan Zhan here because you are the weirdest person I know," he says flatly.

"Thank you," Nie Huaisang says with a nod. "I appreciate that. But okay, sorry, can you guys just try something? For me?"

Wei Ying looks over at Lan Zhan, who lowers his head in a nod. He's willing to try pretty much anything at this point.

"So, okay. You—" Nie Huaisang points at Wei Ying. "Go over there." He gestures at the other end of the living room, where there are floor-to-ceiling windows that look out over the city.

Wei Ying looks over at the window. He nods, but he's not getting up.

Nie Huaisang looks at him patiently.

"Right," Wei Ying says, finally pushing himself to standing. "I'll, uh—over there."

He moves away from the couch and Lan Zhan stands up almost without noticing it, not quite swaying forward in Wei Ying's direction. Is he drunk? He might be drunk.

"Uh-uh, my friend." Nie Huaisang leans forward a little. "I want you to give this a little bit of space. I just want to see if it maybe helps. To, like, give each other some breathing room."

Lan Zhan doesn't want breathing room. Wei Ying is on the other side of the apartment, too far away already. Lan Zhan's head hurts again. His stomach is uneasy. He—

"Just a little bit," Nie Huaisang says encouragingly. "Can you try, hmm. C'mere."

He gets up, herding Lan Zhan towards the door. Lan Zhan thinks this should not be difficult. It shouldn't. He stumbles a little as he lets Nie Huaisang lead him towards the door. "I've got you," Nie Huaisang says, comfortingly. He takes Lan Zhan's arm, but Lan Zhan tugs himself away. "Right, right," Nie Huaisang murmurs. "Lans. Lightweights, and touch-adverse. Sort of. Usually. I guess you both have exceptions."

Lan Zhan knows he must be talking about his brother. And. Nie Huaisang's brother. "Lan Huan," he manages, around the ache in his head, "enjoys a drink. Or two."

"He also enjoys being thrown around by my brother," Nie Huaisang says, making a slightly tortured face. "They're not subtle about it."

"Please stop talking," Lan Zhan says, as politely as he is able.

"Yeah, that's probably fair," Nie Huaisang says agreeably. "Okay, so, here." He opens the front door to his apartment and gestures to the hall.

Lan Zhan swings around, turning to stare at Wei Ying. Wei Ying is near the window, one hand braced against the wall. His eyes look wide, even from here, this far away.

"Just for a minute," Nie Huaisang says. He sounds stern. Lan Zhan's head hurts too much to process it, a lancing pain over his eye, sharp instead of throbbing.

No. He wants to say no. He wants—

"Just to see." Nie Huaisang nudges at him until Lan Zhan's standing in the hallway, and then Nie Huaisang is shutting the door between them, between Lan Zhan and Wei Ying. It's a huge door and the sound of it closing reverberates through Lan Zhan's skull, and then Lan Zhan is alone in the hallway, his head hurting, his mouth dry.

His ears ring with how quiet it is out here. He feels drunk, not in a good way. He feels like he's being wrenched open. He raises one hand, pressing his palm against his forehead, the stitches rough against his skin where—

He stops, and swallows. Lifts his hand and traces his fingers along the unmarred skin over his eye. He doesn't have a cut, or stitches, or—

He swallows again. His head still hurts, the sharp, focused pain where he has no cut, no bruise, nothing there but the ache. He presses his hands against the cool metal of the door, like doing that will bring him closer, somehow. His heart is beating rabbit-fast, and he rests his forehead against the door, rolling it back and forth as he swallows the sounds that want to come out. When he closes his eyes, he can see the lights of the city reflecting through the window, and the glass is cool against his skin.

He stumbles forward when the door opens, his breath coming out on a gasp. Wei Ying is already making his way across the room, colliding into furniture in his rush to get to where Lan Zhan is. Lan Zhan doesn't have time to think or to speak or do anything at all before Wei Ying is crashing into him, clutching at his shoulders, his breath coming in heaving gasps, like he's been running, or fighting. Lan Zhan finds he has his own hands clenching against whatever part of Wei Ying he can reach. It's like when he'd found Wei Ying in the doorway of his apartment building, the snow swirling around them both, that feeling of setting things to rights coursing through him the moment they touch.

"Well," Nie Huaisang says, "that was a lot."

Lan Zhan doesn't feel drunk anymore. He feels like the alcohol has been burned out of him. He wants to glare at Nie Huaisang but he can't drag his eyes away from where Wei Ying is staring up at him, his pupils blown. He's shaking a little, or maybe that's Lan Zhan himself. He can't tell. His knees feel weak and Wei Ying says, "Let's sit down before we fall down."

Lan Zhan allows himself to be led back to the couch.

Nie Huaisang sits forward, setting his beer bottle down on the tray with a decisive thump. "You've been fighting it," he says.

Both of them look over at him. They're pressed together on the couch, shoulder to shoulder. It's taking Lan Zhan everything he has not to drag Wei Ying into his lap.

"Whatever this is," Nie Huaisang explains, gesturing at the two of them again. "You keep pulling against it. That's why I wanted to see what would happen if you tested the limits of it. I thought maybe enough distance would—but nope." He shakes his head. "That was painful to watch—I can't imagine how painful it must have been to actually do it."

Lan Zhan is tired. He's so tired. His head aches, which seems unfair, since Wei Ying is so close, but nowhere near close enough. Nothing is making any sense.

"Yeah," Wei Ying says, sounding nearly as exhausted as Lan Zhan feels. "You're...not wrong."

"Have you tried not doing that?" Nie Huaisang looks back and forth between them.

"I don't even know him," Wei Ying protests. "We're strangers. We can't—we can't do that."

Lan Zhan, his head resting against the back of the couch again, lets his eyes slide shut. He knows he should be agreeing with Wei Ying, but Wei Ying is wrong.

Nie Huaisang hums dubiously. "I'm not entirely certain that you have a choice."

"Okay," Wei Ying says.

Lan Zhan opens his eyes, watching as Wei Ying scrubs his hands over his face. "Okay, good talk, I have to—we should go. Right?" He tilts his head to look at Lan Zhan and Lan Zhan is taken with another nearly overwhelming urge to haul Wei Ying into his lap.

"Right," he says. It's getting worse. Wei Ying is right here and it's getting worse, even though they're touching, pressed up against each other.

Wei Ying gets up and Lan Zhan follows, no longer caring that it's strange that they should tangle their fingers together like someone is trying to tug them apart. "We'll...let you know," Wei Ying says to Nie Huaisang, sounding exhausted. "How it all—you know."

Nie Huaisang trails them to the door. "Yes, please," he says. "You'll work it out."

"Right." Wei Ying is winding his scarf around his neck. "Sure, no problem."

They're quiet in the elevator ride down. The ache in Lan Zhan's head has receded but he still closes his eyes against the overhead lights as they slowly descend. He matches his breathing to Wei Ying's, a steady in and out that feels like meditating.

The city is dark when they emerge. They stand together outside the looming edifice of Nie Huaisang's building, the air freezing their breath into clouds. Wei Ying pulls his phone out of his pocket and glances down at it, then grimaces. "Fuck," he mutters. "Jiang Cheng is—I've got to go home." He looks at Lan Zhan. "Should we—do we—"

"It was extremely uncomfortable," Lan Zhan says, "being apart during the...experiment at Nie Huaisang's."

"Will you come with me?" Wei Ying asks quietly. "Please?"

Lan Zhan nods. Nie Huaisang was correct: he's not entirely certain he has a choice in the matter.

Wei Ying's apartment feels closer than it had when they'd made their way over here. Much of the snow has been cleared but the flakes are coming down heavily again, like they're making up for lost time. When they get to Wei Ying's door, Lan Zhan has the strange feeling of coming home—a relief, a respite. He's tired, despite the odd nap of this morning. His head isn't hurting right now, but he feels shaky, and it's taking a not inconsiderable amount of energy to not lean against Wei Ying's back as he unlocks the door.

"Hey, I'm home!" Wei Ying calls, tossing his keys into the bowl next to the door.

"Where the fuck have you been?"

It's a bellow from the kitchen and Lan Zhan winces. Jiang Cheng. The angry, yelling man from the hospital. He'd not quite prepared himself.

"I thought you were dead." The man emerges from the kitchen, glaring as he wipes his hands off on a towel.

"He's not actually angry," Wei Ying explains as he bends down to take his shoes off. "It's an expression of love."

Lan Zhan grasps his elbow, steadying him.

"It's an expression of where the fuck were you and who the fuck is this?" Jiang Cheng has transferred his glare to Lan Zhan for an uncomfortable handful of seconds.

Lan Zhan stares back at him cooly, not releasing Wei Ying's arm even when he stands up.

Jiang Cheng's gaze drops to where they are touching. "Wei Ying," he says, a note of warning in his voice.

"Shut up," Wei Ying says cheerfully. "This is Lan Zhan. You remember him from the hospital. "I'm starving. Are you cooking? What's that smell? It's delicious. My stomach is consuming itself. I think we forgot to eat. Fuck, Lan Zhan, we completely forgot to eat." He's nudging a pair of guest slippers towards Lan Zhan as he chatters, and Lan Zhan has to let go of his arm to get his boots off. He braces himself against the ache that's sure to come, but here in the closeness of Wei Ying's apartment, full of golden light and—Wei Ying is correct—delicious smells, the ache doesn't come.

"It's jie's soup," Jiang Cheng says, a note of impatience in his voice. "She sent it over for you. She wanted to come herself, to make sure you're okay, but I wouldn't let her, not in this."

"She's, like, fourteen months pregnant," Wei Ying says over his shoulder to Lan Zhan as Jiang Cheng leads them grumpily to the kitchen. "She's huge. She's amazing. I can't believe she sent us soup."

"Two kinds," Jiang Cheng says, at the stove now, stirring two pots at once, glaring down at them. "The pork and lotus root, obviously, and the vegetarian dumpling."

"Oh man, she must have been really worried." Wei Ying comes up behind Jiang Cheng, leaning over to inhale the scent of the soups.

"She was, and you're an asshole," Jiang Cheng snaps, reaching up to get bowls from the cabinet near the stove. "Where the hell did you disappear to? You have a head injury. I was about to go see if you had fallen into a snowbank."

"I was fine," Wei Ying says, sounding cheerful. He steps back to lean against the kitchen island. "I told you I was fine. And anyway, I was with Lan Zhan."

He gestures at Lan Zhan, and Lan Zhan has a sudden, intense urge to push him back against the counter where he's leaning, perhaps even lift him up by his hips, sit him there on the counter and step in between his legs, breathe him in the way Wei Ying had breathed in the scent of the soup.

"You are not fine," Jiang Cheng says. "And do I remember Lan Zhan from the hospital?" He mimics Wei Ying's reasonable tone, glaring over his shoulder at them. His gaze lingers on Lan Zhan for a moment too long and Lan Zhan feels his ears get hot, like Jiang Cheng can somehow see on his face what he'd been thinking about Wei Ying.

"You do." Wei Ying grins over at Lan Zhan, and his gaze lingers, as well, the grin falling off as he bites his lip. Lan Zhan sees his fingers tighten against the counter behind him. "Uh. He—"

Jiang Cheng has turned completely around, soup bowls in his hands, staring at them both. "What the fuck is wrong with both of you? What is—wait, you know what? I don't care. I really don't. You both have head injuries, you both look like shit, shut up and eat jiejie's soup."

Lan Zhan would very much like to argue with Jiang Cheng on any number of counts, but the soup really does smell good and he finds he's genuinely shaking with hunger.

"He's vegetarian, so he's gonna miss out on the pork and lotus root," Wei Ying says, grabbing the bowls out of Jiang Cheng's hands. "She does a vegetarian version, you'd love it," he says in an aside to Lan Zhan, as he starts spooning out the soup. He turns to hand the bowl to Lan Zhan, and there's a moment where they make eye contact. Lan Zhan has not eaten in front of Wei Ying. He'd never told him that he's vegetarian.

Wei Ying pauses, their hands both resting on the soup bowl. "Well," he says, laughing a little shakily. "Least weird thing to happen to us today."

"What?" Jiang Cheng is staring. "What the fuck is—"

"Nothing," Wei Ying says. "I'm going to have two bowls. A bowl of each. One right after the other and no one can stop me."

Dinner is a somewhat tense affair, though the soup is as delicious as Wei Ying had said it would be. Lan Zhan eats silently, but Wei Ying and Jiang Cheng bicker throughout the meal. It should be irritating but something about the comfortable rhythm of it is a little soothing, in an odd way.

"You went out, in a snowstorm, with a head injury." Jiang Cheng is pointing at Wei Ying's head with his soup spoon.

"Only a little bit," Wei Ying lies, not pausing eating.

"You didn't answer your phone for five hours." Jiang Cheng glares first at Wei Ying, then at Lan Zhan. "I thought you were dead. Instead you were with this guy. Who is this guy?"

"I told you," Wei Ying says impatiently. "Lan Zhan. Lan Zhan is a music teacher. He lives a few blocks over. He's the one who helped me after, you know." He gestures up at his forehead.

"Why." Jiang Cheng grits out. "I don't get it. Why did you go out? Why to him?"

"He's my—" Wei Ying breaks off, shoveling a spoonful of soup into his mouth.

Now both Jiang Cheng and Lan Zhan are staring at him.

"Your what?" Jiang Cheng demands. "Who even is he, I never heard of this guy before yesterday, and now suddenly—"

"Ha," Wei Ying breaks in, finishing his soup with a slurp and standing up with the bowl in his hand. "So you do remember him from the hospital." He makes a triumphant sound and grabs Lan Zhan's empty bowl as well before he disappears into the kitchen.

Lan Zhan exchanges a look of bewilderment with Jiang Cheng for half a moment before he remembers that he strongly dislikes how this man speaks to Wei Ying and makes his gaze cold, instead.

Jiang Cheng growls a little to himself and resumes eating his soup.

"Okay," Wei Ying says, clapping his hands as he comes back into the room. "We're going to go do some research. Bye, Jiang Cheng." He tugs Lan Zhan to his feet.

"Research?" Jiang Cheng sputters. "What the fuck do you mean, research?"

"Bye, Jiang Cheng," Wei Ying says again and Lan Zhan will admit that he does somewhat enjoy the expression of baffled anger on Jiang Cheng's face as he lets Wei Ying herd him out of the room.

"Research?" Lan Zhan says, as Wei Ying ushers him into his bedroom ahead of him and shuts the door behind them. There's a small burst of heat that unfurls in his stomach as he looks at the bed, rumpled and undone, just as it had been earlier when he had crawled in with Wei Ying, when they had—

"Research," Wei Ying says firmly. He tugs the duvet back up, smoothing it out. "Come here." He clambers onto the bed, reaching down beside him to fish out a laptop from the floor beside him.

Lan Zhan wrinkles his nose a little at the idea of getting onto the bed with outside clothes on but there is little choice. He takes a breath and sits down beside Wei Ying, crossing his legs underneath himself neatly.

"Okay, so." Wei Ying is typing away on the laptop, surprisingly fast. "We can't be the only ones something like this has happened to. There is nothing new under the sun. The internet knows all."

Lan Zhan has his doubts about that but he dutifully looks over Wei Ying's shoulder at the screen.

"Okay, well." Wei Ying is chewing on his lip as he scrolls swiftly. "There's pretty much always some niche porn culture that's super into whatever you're searching for, so just ignore all of that, but. Okay. Sheesh, wow, okay, head injuries are not that sexy, people, let's focus up. Ah, okay, here, let's try..." He's opening up tab after tab from his Baidu hunt. Lan Zhan watches him instead of the screen. He's focused, his dark eyes serious as he scrolls, his forehead scrunched up a little. His hair is down again, messy waves around his shoulders. His lip is caught between his teeth again, and Lan Zhan wonders what his mouth tastes like. Is it the same rich flavor as the skin of his neck, the way it had been when Lan Zhan had curled up against him, pressed him against the bed and buried his face in his neck, and—

"All right, I think we have everything we need to, uh." Wei Ying turns to Lan Zhan and there is a moment of startled heat between them, Lan Zhan's heart beating unsteadily, his mouth dry, his hands itching to—

"Research," he makes himself say, ignoring how hoarse his voice comes out. He moves his gaze to the screen, not seeing anything at all, too overly aware of the rhythm of Wei Ying's breath beside him.

"Right." Wei Ying clears his throat, his hands still poised, motionless, over the keyboard. "That's what we're doing. Right. Okay. I—"

Lan Zhan keeps looking at the screen, his hands fisted on his knees, so he won't... "There," he says, lifting his chin at the computer. "What does it say about post-traumatic brain injuries?"

"Uh." Wei Ying seems to have to make an effort to wrench his attention back to the screen. "Yeah, but I don't think you and I have brain injuries, we just took a knock to the head, this is just a scratch." He gestures up at his own forehead and, again, Lan Zhan has an almost overwhelming urge to trace his fingers over it.

"The human brain is an unpredictable organ," Lan Zhan says. He's losing his mind. It's the head wound. The brain injury. Something. "There is a long history of unsolvable mysteries associated with head trauma."

"Well." Wei Ying clicks around a few tabs. "That's true. It is. Only nothing seems to line up with what's going on here. With us."

"There has to be something." Lan Zhan is glad that his voice comes out steady, belying none of the desperation he's feeling.

"Don't get me wrong, there's a lot." Wei Ying is squinting at the screen.

Lan Zhan wants to press his mouth against the small wrinkles at the corner of his eyes. He takes a deep breath, in and out.

"This guy said he could talk to birds after his second—no, third—concussion," Wei Ying says, scrolling. "And this guy says he could taste colors after a car accident where he got banged around. But that's a thing anyway."

"Synesthesia," Lan Zhan says.

"Right," Wei Ying nods absently. He's turned away from the laptop and is looking at Lan Zhan. "It's all about one person having weird stuff happening to them. There's not a lot about this sort of...thing. Between two people. Who happen to have had simultaneous head injuries."

"What sort of a thing?" Lan Zhan asks. It feels dangerous, to say it out loud. They've been talking about it all day, going in circles around it, but here, in Wei Ying's bed, with the scent of Wei Ying surrounding him and making him feel tipsier than he ever had on Nie Huaisang's couch...

"This." Wei Ying reaches out and wraps his hand around Lan Zhan's. They both release their breath at the same time, the tension dissipating immediately. "This is the thing that I can't..."

"Can't what?" Lan Zhan needs to get up, needs to get out of this bed, out of this apartment.

Wei Ying seems to feel that, shoving the laptop to the foot of the bed and turning so he's facing Lan Zhan, wrapping their other hands together, as well. "This is the thing I can't understand," he says softly. "I touch you and everything feels—better, and weirder, at the same time." He lets out a quiet huff of laughter. "You feel it, too. I know that—I know that—because I'm touching you, and I feel it, how you know."

Lan Zhan wants to shut his eyes, avoid Wei Ying's intense gaze, lie and say that he doesn't, he doesn't feel or know anything at all, but the feedback loop between them is undeniable. He can feel it, how Wei Ying is as bewildered as Lan Zhan is, but how he is absolutely certain that whatever this thing is between them, it's real. It's—

"Like closing a circuit," Lan Zhan says reluctantly.

"Yes." Wei Ying leans in closer. "That's it." He squeezes Lan Zhan's fingers and Lan Zhan holds himself very still, pretends that a shiver doesn't run down his spine.

It's useless—Wei Ying's eyes dart up to his. He feels it, too, same as if it had run down his own spine.

"This is so weird," Wei Ying says. "It can't just be us, can it? What do we do about it? How can we—"

Lan Zhan's hands are caught in Wei Ying's, their legs pressed together, and they're leaning in towards each other like children telling secrets during a sleepover. Lan Zhan is surrounded by Wei Ying's scent, here in his room, another impossible thing that is still true, how he knows what Wei Ying smells like—like the crisp outside air, the slight tinge of salty sweat, and so familiar, making Lan Zhan's heart beat in the rhythm of mine mine mine.

Wei Ying's mouth is open a little bit and his breath is coming fast as his eyes lock on Lan Zhan's. "That's—" he starts. "Oh fuck. Lan Zhan, that's—"

"I have to go." Lan Zhan wrenches his hands away and if he has to take in a short, sharp breath at the way that sends a shot of pain through him, that's his own business. Or should be. Wei Ying is looking up at him with a pained expression, and he's—it hurts him, too. "I have to go," Lan Zhan says again, nearly falling as he untangles himself from Wei Ying's bed, every part of him wanting to do nothing more than climb back in, push Wei Ying backwards, crawl on top of him and press his face against his neck. Smell him there, taste him there, hold him down and keep him close and— "I have work," Lan Zhan says desperately. He looks in the mirror over Wei Ying's dresser. He looks nowhere as out of his mind as he feels. His hair is still somehow relatively neat after the day they've had but he still focuses on his own face in the mirror and works it into a neat braid, swiftly, and it's calming, the familiar, repetitive motion.

"You're going to leave?" Wei Ying sounds a little like he's swallowing down panic.

Lan Zhan meets his eyes in the mirror, Wei Ying up on his knees on the bed, looking at Lan Zhan. Lan Zhan can feel it, too, the edge of panic in Wei Ying's chest, in how hard his fists are clenched, his nails digging in against his palms. "I have to," he says. He has to. He has to, or he's going to... And Wei Ying will know, possibly, probably already knows. Will know more the longer Lan Zhan lingers here and—

"We haven't tried hard enough," he says, keeping his tone smooth and even. "It could be a symptom of being in too close conjunction to each other." Perhaps something like pheromones. An autonomic response. "If we remove the cause, perhaps the symptoms will also dissipate."

"The cause?" Wei Ying is clambering off the bed as he speaks. "You mean us. It's us, Lan Zhan. We're the fucking cause. You can't undo us."

"Distance," Lan Zhan says. Desperation is rising in his chest but he still sounds calm. It's good, he thinks, in some corner of his brain, that he still has this ability to compartmentalize. He's good at it. He's had some practice. "We haven't tried distance. Not really. Not enough. We have to— I have work. You do, as well. I'm going home. We go back to our lives. Whatever this is will, perhaps, fade."

"With distance." Wei Ying is standing beside him now, radiating dubiousness.

Lan Zhan's head hurts already, a steady pulse of pain over his eye, and—that's Wei Ying. That's Wei Ying's pain, the intense slash of it, in the stitched-together skin of his forehead, and Lan Zhan needs to get out of here. Immediately.

"Yes," he says, turning resolutely away.

"We can try." Wei Ying sounds grim but Lan Zhan can't look back at him. If he looks back, he will never make it through the door. "It didn't work back at Nie Huaisang's, though."

Lan Zhan is already on the move, flinging open the door of Wei Ying's bedroom, and heading resolutely down the hall. "It will be fine," he says. His voice comes out slightly less steady this time. "We didn't give it enough time."

"Yeah, you've said that." Wei Ying is following him. "Are you sure you're okay?"

"Yes." Lan Zhan gets his boots on, shrugs into his coat, keeping his gaze away from Wei Ying. He opens the front door to the apartment and Wei Ying catches it with one hand, holds it so that Lan Zhan can't slip through.

"I don't even have your phone number." Wei Ying's voice sounds grim, still like he's swallowing down a rising panic. "You can't fucking leave without at least—"

"Wei Ying." Lan Zhan doesn't want to look, does not intend to, but his gaze is drawn to Wei Ying's without his volition. Wei Ying's eyes are dark, almost dangerous, and if he couldn't feel every single emotion churning through Wei Ying's body right now, he'd almost think Wei Ying was angry. "You know you can find me."

"I—" Wei Ying starts, but Lan Zhan wrenches the door out of his hand easily and leaves, tugging it shut behind him with too-loud a bang.

"What the fuck," he hears Jiang Cheng yell as he heads down the hall. He ignores it, and ignores the throbbing in his head, doubled now, his temple beating with every breath he takes, his forehead aching as he strides forward. Every step away from Wei Ying's door makes him feel as though he could be sick at any moment, but he doesn't stop until he's through the lobby and onto the street, halfway down the block before he has to bend forward, brace his hands on his thighs, and breathe in and out tightly to stop from passing out or throwing up. It takes a long series of moments, perhaps minutes even, before he is able to straighten up, and focus his eyes, and continue on his way home.

"Laoshi, what if I do it like this, is that so bad?"

Lan Zhan keeps his gaze steady as he looks at Jingyi, whose fingers are doing something truly terrible on the piano. The notes aren't discordant but they are also not correct and it's taking every part of Lan Zhan's not-inconsiderable patience after years of teaching to keep the wince off of his face.

"It is." That's Sizhui and if he's Lan Zhan's favorite student, he'd never let that show, either. "It is and you know it is, Jingyi. Just play it like it's supposed to be played. I know you know it, you're just being a—" Sizhui cuts himself off, glancing at Lan Zhan and flushing. "You're just being difficult on purpose."

"I am," Jingyi says cheerfully. "You love it."

"I do not," Sizhui says, looking appalled.

"Neither do I," Lan Zhan informs him. "Play it correctly."

"But how will I get creative, Hanguang-jun? If I only ever do it the right way?" Jingyi asks plaintively, gazing up at him with his hands still poised over the—wrong—piano keys.

Lan Zhan closes his eyes for longer than a blink at Jingyi's use of the silly nickname the students have come up with for him. Usually, he just ignores it—it's a fond nickname and he knows arguing against it would just make them more determined to use it. "This is not a composition class," he says, when he knows he can keep his tone even and calm. "Save your creativity for when it will be of benefit."

"Okay, well, you know, boring," Jingyi says, cheerfully enough, and then skillfully plays the section he'd been working on, each note perfect.

There's more to be said here—Lan Zhan knows he should speak to the fact that one's interpretation of the notes is the thing that lends creativity to the music, how you can play the correct notes but still imbue the music with one's own unique method of playing it, but his head hurts and he's so tired feels like he could fall asleep on his feet, and anyway, his original goal of having Jingyi play the song correctly has been achieved so he's not a total failure as a teacher, though nor is he doing particularly well at it.

He gives Jingyi a grave nod when Jingyi hops up from the piano, allowing Sizhui to slide into his spot.

"Laoshi," Sizhui says, with a cautious look at Lan Zhan. "I'll play the same thing, and I'll do it the right way, but you'll hear how I can make it different, without changing a single note."

Lan Zhan merely nods at Sizhui as well, trying to keep the profound gratefulness off of his face as he does so.

Sizhui plays beautifully, as he always does, but the music still clangs around in Lan Zhan's head and he wants nothing more than to sit down, perhaps in a corner, and bury his head against his knees.

He doesn't, of course. He's a professional.

He had gone home last night, to his chilly apartment, neat, precise, quiet. The quiet had clanged around inside him, too—there was none of the peace he'd been hoping for the whole way home. With each step, he'd told himself that this was the one that would take him far enough away from Wei Ying that whatever strange connection there was between them would dissipate, fade away. Like this thing between them was somehow like the radius of a wifi network and if he could only get far enough away, the connection would drop.

It had not happened.

He'd gotten ready for bed mechanically and slept fitfully, falling in and out of the same dream over and over again, where he was making his way down slick and unsteady stairways that led to nowhere, chasing something that was always disappearing just around the corner.

He finally woke up for good thirty minutes before his alarm was set to go off and had rolled up, sitting on the edge of the bed, scrubbing his hands over his face, and wondering at the sheer obviousness of his own subconscious.

Regardless, he had been determined to have a normal workday. He'd managed his morning classes, he'd completed a set of grading, and he had tamped down the awareness of and yearning for Wei Ying, his whole body continually aware of the distance between them, his body feeling like it wanted to turn in the direction of Wei Ying's apartment like a compass, like even facing the right way in his stark classroom would somehow bring them closer together.

It had taken him well over half the day to become aware of the fact that Wei Ying's apartment is, in fact, northeast of the school at which Lan Zhan teaches. It makes him pause, minutely, halfway through instructing one of his first-years in proper finger technique. He'd continued on mechanically, but he'd been aware of the instinct he's having to push away all day, to turn toward the northeast corner of the room, something tugging at him like a fish on a line.

He swallows down a sigh and does not allow himself to press his hand against his head. Wei Ying must have gone to work today, as well. He wonders what Wei Ying does for a living. He's surprised, a bit, in an exhausted way, that he somehow doesn't know the answer to that question.

This final class finally wraps up and his students make their boisterous way out of the classroom, Sizhui casting a quick, worried look over his shoulder at Lan Zhan as he goes. Lan Zhan stands for a moment in the middle of his classroom, one hand tucked behind his back in his usual stance, then slowly makes his way over to the desk in the corner and drops down into his chair. He thinks, for a moment, of resting his head on the smooth surface, which is ludicrous.

He does it anyway. It's cool against his skin and for a moment, the pain in his skull slides away somewhat. He tilts his forehead against the surface of the desk.

He's facing the northeast corner of the room. His headache comes back full throttle.

"Lan Zhan?"

He jerks his head up and the room wavers around him for a second. "Ge," he says. He sounds...not great. He clears his throat and tries again. "Are you also done for the day?"

His brother, leaning in the doorway of the classroom, looks concerned. "Somewhat less done than you are, it seems," he says. "You look terrible."

"Thank you," Lan Zhan says, sighing.

"I texted you yesterday," his brother says, pushing off the door and moving closer. "I wanted to check on you after—" He gestures at his own temple.

"I was fine," Lan Zhan says. "I apologize for not responding. It was a—" How to describe it? "—long day."

Lan Huan studies him. "You should have been resting," he says mildly. "You probably still should be resting."

Lan Zhan looks up at him, not arguing. He's too tired to argue. He's too tired to do anything much at all.

"Come on." Lan Huan rests one hand on Lan Zhan's shoulder. "You're coming home with me. Mingjue will feed us. I'll make that tea you like."

"No need," Lan Zhan says. He should get up, pack up his papers. Put on his scarf, his coat. Every step feels deeply overwhelming.

"Yes, well." Lan Huan is looking down at him with that patient smile that Lan Zhan has no ability to argue against in the best of times. "I certainly would not want to force you."

Lan Zhan looks at him for a beat, then pushes himself to his feet, steadying himself on his desk for a moment. "Dinner," he says, "sounds good."

Lan Huan beams at him. "Ah, well, if you'd like to, Mingjue will be so pleased."

Lan Huan's apartment is cozy, and warm, and the dinner Mingue presents them with is hearty and good. Lan Zhan knows he's quiet even afterwards, going through the motions more than anything else. He doesn't feel tired, not exactly, it's more like...he feels undone, like a spring that's been stretched too far.

"That's one hell of a bruise." Nie Mingjue is leaning back in his chair, studying him. They have finished eating and Lan Huan is in the kitchen putting the kettle on. "You don't look so great."

Lan Zhan looks at him tiredly. "I don't feel so great," he says, unable to be anything but honest.

"A whack to the side of the head will do that to you," Nie Mingjue says. "How's the other guy doing, the one that was helping that lady?"

"Wei Ying," Lan Zhan says, and it's like he can taste it in his mouth, like the name itself has a flavor. "I don't know."

Nie Mingjue eyes him quizzically. "Didn't you guys—" he starts.

The doorbell rings and Lan Zhan physically startles, his heart jumping in his chest. Saved by the literal bell, it seems.

"You want me to get that, babe?" Nie Mingjue calls out to Lan Huan.

"I'm here," Lan Huan says, emerging from the kitchen, wiping his hands on a towel. He opens the door.

Lan Zhan can't see the door from where he's sitting, can only hear his brother say, "Oh," in a surprised tone, but he's on his feet before he can think about it. Three quick steps take him around the corner. Wei Ying. He's in the doorway, breathless and disheveled, hair in a messy ponytail, his cheeks pink, his eyes wide. They get wider when he spots Lan Zhan and they both let out an embarrassingly similar breath of relief.

"Lan Zhan," Wei Ying says, stumbling forward through the doorway. Lan Huan steps back, gesturing him in and watching curiously as he all but collapses into Lan Zhan's arms.

Lan Zhan, his arms wrapped around Wei Ying, holding on like someone's going to take him away from him, refuses to make eye contact with his brother.

This close, he can almost taste the scent of Wei Ying, and he's missed that, missed being able to have that. Wei Ying's fingers are digging in against his arms, clinging to him, and when he says, "Lan Zhan," again, it comes out tight, like it's something he's been holding onto deep inside his chest.

"Wei Ying," Lan Zhan says, trying to keep his tone even. It doesn't work. He's aware of Nie Mingjue over his shoulder, and when he turns his head, he catches Nie Mingjue exchanging a curious look with Lan Huan.

Lan Zhan makes the executive decision to ignore that, as well.

"Brother," he says, "may I have a moment with Wei Ying?"

"Of course," Lan Huan says smoothly, but Lan Zhan sees him make eye contact with Nie Mingjue again. "We'll just—"

"No need," Lan Zhan says. He needs to unwrap himself from Wei Ying. He knows this. He can't quite make himself. "We'll speak in the guest room."

"Of course," Lan Huan says again, and his gaze is far too curious as he watches Wei Ying take a slow, shaky step away from Lan Zhan, just enough that they can walk without stumbling over each other.

"Sorry to barge in," Wei Ying says to Lan Huan. He grins, but it lacks its usual sparkle. "I wasn't even sure I was going to find him here."

"No problem," Lan Huan murmurs. "Please, make yourself at home."

Lan Zhan lets himself rest his hand on Wei Ying's back, guiding him to the guest room. He can feel Lan Huan having a silent conversation with Nie Mingjue behind his back. There will be questions when they return, he is certain. Polite, from Lan Huan. Pointed, from Nie Mingjue.

When Lan Zhan closes the door carefully behind them, it's like a string snaps. He's dragging Wei Ying close immediately and Wei Ying falls into his arms with a quiet sound in his throat. They stand there in the middle of the room, clinging to each other, and Lan Zhan feels like he can take a deep breath for the first time since he'd left Wei Ying's apartment the night before.

"All day," Wei Ying is muttering against his neck. "All day, I couldn't stop, I couldn't stop thinking about you. I couldn't stop feeling you. It hurt. It fucking hurt." He pulls his head back to look up at Lan Zhan, giving a shaky laugh. "And don't lie to me, you felt it too, I know you felt it too. I know it." The last part comes out sharp. "I don't know how I know it but I do."

"How did you find me?" Lan Zhan asks. He can't release Wei Ying. His heart is still beating with frantic relief in his chest, "How did you—"

"I don't know that either." Wei Ying presses his face against Lan Zhan's neck, breathing him in, and that feels right, feels good, feels just exactly like what Lan Zhan needs. "The whole day, I felt like I was being tugged at. It was making me crazy. I couldn't think. I couldn't work. I thought I was going to be sick, it felt so—"

Lan Zhan is drawing him in closer and it's suddenly not close enough. He tugs Wei Ying to sit on the end of the guest bed, the two of them tangled together. "It felt terrible," Lan Zhan says in quiet agreement.

"Yeah." Wei Ying blows out a shaky breath. "It fucking sucked. It doesn't get better with distance. Guess we know that now."

"Or time," Lan Zhan says.

"Nope," Wei Ying says. "It got worse. It got—it got so much worse. God. God, Lan Zhan. I couldn't breathe. The whole way here, even as I got closer—and I knew I was getting closer, I could feel it, but I still wasn't sure, I didn't know where I was or what I was doing, just that I wasn't pulling against it anymore, I was letting it pull me in. But I couldn't be sure, and everything hurt, and when I got here, it wasn't your building. I had no idea where I was, I had to dodge the doorman, I snuck up behind some family, it was ridiculous, like real comedy material, but then." He stops, swallows. He's watching Lan Zhan, his eyes dark and huge. "Then I knocked on this door and I thought—I hoped—but it wasn't you. Man, you and your brother look alike, you know that?"

Lan Zhan does.

"But it wasn't you," Wei Ying continues, sounding almost like they're having an argument about it. "And my head hurt so bad, and I couldn't feel my hands, and then—"

"And then." Lan Zhan can't catch his breath. He feels like he's been running a race. He's shot through with adrenaline and Wei Ying is pressed up against his side, not close enough.

"Then you were there, and I was—"

"Here," Lan Zhan says. "You're here, you're—" He takes a breath and releases the last of the tension he's holding, lets it go. Stops tugging against it, and he's dragging Wei Ying into his lap immediately, like that connection between them was only waiting for him to give in.

Wei Ying is making small sounds as he clambers onto Lan Zhan and that's it, oh, that's it, that's exactly it. Wei Ying's weight is on him, anchoring him, and his hands are in Lan Zhan's hair and his scent is all around him and all Lan Zhan can do is drag him down into a kiss.

It's—a stunning thing. Nearly literally so. He's crushing Wei Ying against him and he's making small noises too, as they kiss. It's like they're devouring each other and it's the best he's felt all day, the best he's felt in his life, he thinks. Wei Ying is talking—Wei Ying is always talking—saying, "Yes, oh, yes," against his mouth, without ever pulling away. He's angling his head, surging against him.

It's an overwhelming feedback loop. The relief of being as close as he can get to Wei Ying is almost too much as it is, but rolling through that is Wei Ying's relief, Wei Ying's cessation of pain, how now that they've allowed themselves this, it's a spark of pure joy zipping back and forth between the two of them.

Lan Zhan leans into it, kissing Wei Ying and feeling it out and, oh. Wei Ying likes Lan Zhan's hands digging into his back, wants more, wants more. Lan Zhan can feel it, that need, that want, and he moves, lifting Wei Ying off just to push him onto his back on the bed, and rolling on top of him, pinning him down.

They both moan at that, too loud, the bright spark between them feeling like it's lighting up the room. Lan Zhan's brain is whirling, the feeling coursing through him sheer relief at being able to touch, and wanting—-needing—more.

"Yeah," Wei Ying gasps, hooking one foot over the back of Lan Zhan's thigh. "Oh, fuck, just—stay. Stay. Stay."

Lan Zhan never wants to be anywhere else. He's overwhelmed with what feels like fourteen different kinds of aching need. He wants to press his face against Wei Ying's neck and—in the next moment, thought becomes action, and he does it, his face buried against Wei Ying's skin, breathing him in, while Wei Ying pants beneath him.

"It's good," Wei Ying says, nearly slurring the words."It's good, it's good, I can smell you, taste you, I can—you can—fuck, we have to—"

Lan Zhan wants to pin Wei Ying down harder, wants to keep him here, as close as he can get. So close, so good, but it tips over in the next moment to not nearly close enough. He wants more than this. He needs it. He wants to be closer, they could be closer, they could be—

"Yes," Wei Ying says, his breath hot against Lan Zhan's ear. "I want that, I want that, you want that, let's do that, why aren't we doing that?"

Lan Zhan doesn't know. Lan Zhan is, in fact, on the very edge of making that happen, when Wei Ying digs his teeth into Lan Zhan's shoulder through his shirt, and Lan Zhan can't help the choked, desperate noise that comes out of his throat and—

They are in his brother's guest room.

His brother and his brother's boyfriend are right outside, in their spacious but still fairly close-quartered city apartment. Merely being together in the guest room with the door closed for this long is beyond the bounds of propriety. The fact that Lan Zhan's leg is slotted between Wei Ying's thighs and his mouth is still pressed against Wei Ying's skin is—beyond that. Far beyond that.

Wei Ying is still lost in the fever of it—Lan Zhan can feel it, can feel how it's thrumming through him, how he's thinking only of how he wants more, how he wants Lan Zhan as close to him as he can get, how he's imagining it, longing for it, the feel of Lan Zhan sliding inside him and—

Lan Zhan extracts himself from Wei Ying carefully. It...hurts. He rolls off of him, Wei Ying making small, wounded noises as he does so, grasping at him, trying to keep him close. "We can't," Lan Zhan says.

Wei Ying's whole face crumples for just a second, a picture of despair, before he firms up his jaw like Lan Zhan is going to tell him they have to try again to wrench each other apart, try harder this time, make it work, overcome this.

"Not here," Lan Zhan adds firmly. He's made sure he's still touching Wei Ying, his hand wrapped around his forearm. It's not enough. It's not even close to enough, but it staves off the worst of the pain, and the connection courses between them.

"Not here," Wei Ying echoes, staring at him from where he's still lying, disheveled, on the bed. The penny seems to finally drop and he pushes himself up to sitting, looking at Lan Zhan eagerly. "Right. Got it. Not here. Let's get the fuck out of here. Where even is this? I was in a fugue state coming here."

Lan Zhan lets his hand slide down until he's grasping Wei Ying's own, and he tugs him to his feet. "I'll call a car. Come home with me."

"Of course," Wei Ying says distractedly. He's trying to pull himself together, smoothing back his hair, tugging his clothes back into place, all without releasing Lan Zhan's hand. "Let's go. Let's go. Let's go before I—well."

Lan Zhan gets a flash of a very vivid image of just what, exactly, Wei Ying wants to do. "Let's go," he agrees, firmly, and draws Wei Ying out the door.

Lan Huan and Nie Mingjue both watch with barely-concealed amusement as Lan Zhan makes their excuses and drags Wei Ying out the door. Lan Zhan cannot bring himself to care. He knows that Lan Huan is eyeing the way they are—still—holding hands, and he can see the half-smile on his face, and he absolutely sees the way Nie Mingjue nudges Lan Huan's shoulder in a spectacularly unsubtle way, and he does not care. Nothing is important other than getting Wei Ying home.

The car comes quickly, despite the snow that's starting once again to fall, and even though he knows it takes a long time, inching through snowy city traffic, it goes by in a blur. They're too close up against each other in the backseat but it's enough, for now. The thread between them feels stronger, less tenuous, even though all they're doing is holding hands, their fingers looped together tightly, pressing up against each other shoulder to thigh. The snow comes down harder, and harder still, as the ride goes on, and that adds to the dreamlike feeling of the ride, like they've stepped out of time, the snow coursing down outside the windows, a winterscape that erases the city they're trundling through.

The mood shifts in the car, and even though Lan Zhan is aching for Wei Ying—still, even though he's close, he feels too far away—he feels more settled. Like the path they're on is the correct one. He feels certain of that and—Wei Ying feels it, too. It's a hum, almost, reverberating between them.

The car pulls up down the block from Lan Zhan's apartment, traffic having ground to stop ahead of them. The two of them get out and make their way down the block. Wei Ying stays close beside Lan Zhan, their shoulders brushing as they walk. They're both coated with snow by the time they get to Lan Zhan's building and he watches as Wei Ying studies the filigreed doors, glancing over at Lan Zhan and nodding, confirming their familiarity.

It's fine. It's just another in the series of strange things that have happened to them all day.

Upstairs, Wei Ying draws to a stop at Lan Zhan's door, knowing it as well as Lan Zhan had known his. They make eye contact again and Wei Ying shrugs. Inside, they're quiet as they toe off their shoes, strip off their coats. There's still that shift between them, that feeling of...not exactly anticipation but of waiting. "You're freezing," Lan Zhan says and Wei Ying nods, his cheeks pink with cold, his fingers tucked under his arms. "Come here."

Wei Ying follows him to his bedroom. Lan Zhan flips on his bedside lamp, stares down at his neatly-made bed, tries to remember making it—was it only this morning? It was, but it feels like a lifetime ago, like this is a stranger's room, like the person he was when he'd smoothed down the covers this morning is someone who doesn't exist anymore.

"It's nice," Wei Ying says. He's looking around the room, staying close to Lan Zhan. "I like it. You keep it so neat. You saw my room, all the—-piles and clutter. I'm cluttery." He looks at Lan Zhan. "I'm kind of a mess."

Lan Zhan shakes his head. "You are not." He pulls out some sweatpants and a t-shirt, turns to the closet and finds a soft cardigan.

"I really am." Wei Ying accepts the stack of clothing from Lan Zhan and stands there clutching it, shivering in the middle of Lan Zhan's room. "You should know that about me."

I know everything about you. Lan Zhan has to swallow that down to keep it inside. "You're freezing," he says again, instead, and nods at the bathroom just across from his room. "Towels are in the cabinet."

Wei Ying opens his mouth, then shuts it again. "Okay."

Lan Zhan putters around his room as Wei Ying showers. He's in another room but close enough that Lan Zhan doesn't feel more than a twinge at the distance. He'd been cold too but he's warmer now, and he takes off his sweater, looking out the window at the storm that's still building back up again, like it had to take a break before coming back at full force.

The bathroom door opens and Wei Ying emerges, his cheeks flushed with warmth now instead of cold. He's in Lan Zhan's clothes, slightly too big for him, the sleeves of his borrowed cardigan falling halfway down his hands. He's clutching his damp clothes in his hands and he looks uncertain. "Thanks for letting me have the first shower," he says. "Do you want to—" He gestures behind him.

Lan Zhan shakes his head. He feels warm all over. "I think he was right," he says. Nie Huaisang.

Wei Ying looks at him for a long moment. "I don't know," he says. He moves to put the clothes he's holding on the chair by Lan Zhan's dresser. "I don't think I know anything much at all." He looks at Lan Zhan. "But it felt right. Back at your brother's place. Didn't it?"

"It did," Lan Zhan says, and pauses. It had. It had felt more than right. Something happened in the car ride over that made it feel more uncertain. Made him feel more uncertain. He wants to get back to where it had been at his brother's place. He wants that, the two of them on the same page, the same trajectory. "What if we try it?"

Wei Ying is silent for a long moment. "Try what?" he says finally. He's watching Lan Zhan, his eyes huge and dark. He knows exactly what Lan Zhan means, but he wants Lan Zhan to say it. Lan Zhan can feel that emanating off of him.

"That. The other way," Lan Zhan responds. His heart is beating fast, a flutter in his chest. "When we tried to keep apart, it hurt. It was wrong."

Wei Ying shudders a little, and Lan Zhan feels it down his spine. "The other way," Wei Ying says softly. "It felt right."

"It did." Lan Zhan moves forward, closer to Wei Ying. "We can't keep fighting it," he says. "So let's stop."

"So like before—" Wei Ying clears his throat. "We just follow our instincts."

"Like we did at my brother's place." Lan Zhan is very close to him now but not yet touching. He can feel the tension between them now, the effort it's taking to keep them apart, like a tangible thing. "What would you do right now," he asks, "if you stopped trying to..."

"This." Wei Ying steps in, pressing his face against Lan Zhan's shoulder. Lan Zhan's arms come around him without him thinking about it, holding him in close. He smells like Lan Zhan's body wash, and his hair is damp against Lan Zhan's cheek. Wei Ying's breath comes out in a soft sigh and Lan Zhan...he can feel his whole body relax. His own, or Wei Ying's—he's not certain. Perhaps both. He thinks he's right: maybe this thing between them is something they've made too much of. Pulling against it was the problem all along.

"Maybe," Wei Ying murmurs, as though agreeing.

Lan Zhan has said none of that out loud. He pushes that thought aside, avoiding it, letting himself get lost in the feel of Wei Ying's breaths up against him, of the softness of his hair against his cheek.

This is enough. It is enough, and the relief is as profound as before, the tension melting away immediately. He breathes again, in and out, the scent of the sandalwood body wash, familiar and easy, washing over him. He nudges his face against Wei Ying's cheek and, when Wei Ying pulls back the slightest amount, to look at him, there's that slightly sickening tug again, a throbbing in his temple.

"Ow," Wei Ying whispers, his eyebrows drawn down in a wince. "What the fuck. We're—this is as close as we were—"

His face is tilted up to look at Lan Zhan and his mouth is open slightly. Lan Zhan feels dizzy, feels his heart beating in time to Wei Ying's. The tug between them is stronger still and he's remembering the taste of Wei Ying's skin on his tongue.

"I want—closer," Wei Ying says, in nearly a whisper.

They had been closer, back at his brother's place. Lan Zhan wants that. "Closer," Lan Zhan says in agreement, and tilts his mouth down and presses it against Wei Ying's.

Wei Ying makes a startled sound against his lips and Lan Zhan swallows it down. Again, it's like closing a circuit, the energy between them enough to light up the room. Wei Ying's mouth opens against his and when Lan Zhan slides his tongue inside, it only gets better. Wei Ying's body is scorching hot up against him, and he's meeting him in the middle of the kiss. Lan Zhan is even more dizzy, lost in it, in this feedback loop that is, again, impossible. Perfect. He draws Wei Ying closer, and he can feel that, too, the shift, the pressure of it, a thrum between them that's confusing and something he wants to chase.

Wei Ying is the one to pull back, but it doesn't hurt this time, it's like the energy is stringing them together. "You feel that," Wei Ying says, his voice rough and breathless. "I know you do." He's looking up at Lan Zhan with huge eyes, his mouth wet now, with kissing. "I can feel you, I can feel—"

"I can, too," Lan Zhan says. "I can feel you, I can feel what it's like when I—" There aren't words for this, or at least none that Lan Zhan can make himself say out loud.

Wei Ying leans in, captures Lan Zhan's mouth with his own. Lan Zhan groans, or maybe that's the sound Wei Ying makes. He's not sure, but it's not important, it's not even the least bit important. Like the last kiss, it feels right, like a puzzle piece slotting into place, like a key turning in a lock, like they've been coming at this all wrong for this whole time and now that they've gotten it right—

"Yes," he says against Wei Ying's lips, moments before Wei Ying says, "Please," and it takes nothing, really, to turn and sit them both down on the bed. The bed is right there and that's perfect, too. He pushed Wei Ying backwards, follows him down. "You were right," he says against Wei Ying's lips. "This is—"

"I know," Wei Ying says, shifting against him. "I'm right, I'm always right, you should always listen to me, Lan Zhan, I'm the smartest person you know, you said it, I'm—" He falls into the kissing again and he's joking, Lan Zhan can feel that too, how it zips around in Wei Ying's chest, but it's true, it's true.

When Lan Zhan hauls Wei Ying closer, letting his hands stroke down Wei Ying's sides, exactly the way Wei Ying wants them to, Wei Ying makes a sound into Lan Zhan's mouth and pushes his hips forward.

Lan Zhan's body lights up, holding Wei Ying closer. He's hard. They both are. This should feel strange—Lan Zhan doesn't do this, he doesn't do this, not with strangers, but it feels right, every part of this feels right.

"Yeah," Wei Ying says. "It does, oh, oh fuck, please, you have to—we have to—" He's pushing forward, kissing him frantically, like he needs it, like they both need it. Nothing hurts, not one thing, other than how Lan Zhan is desperate for more.

"Yeah." Wei Ying pushes Lan Zhan back and Lan Zhan can't help the whine that comes out. "I know, hang on, I'm just—" Wei Ying pushes off the cardigan, hauls the t-shirt over his head, and yes, that's what they need. Lan Zhan's sitting up before he can process it, his hands on Wei Ying's back, his mouth on Wei Ying's collarbone. The taste courses through him and when he sucks the skin there into his mouth, Wei Ying keens, and Lan Zhan feels it, feels the tug, the zing, how it shoots through Wei Ying's body.

"Yes, yeah, more," Wei Ying is panting, scrabbling at Lan Zhan's clothes. "Please, we've got to—please, I want more, you have to give me—"

Lan Zhan pulls back a minute amount, pulls his shirt off, flinging it away. The room had felt chilly when they'd first gotten here but now it feels warm, the air between them scorching. He pushes Wei Ying further back on the bed and Wei Ying likes that, likes the feel of it, Lan Zhan can feel what it does to him, as Lan Zhan manhandles him to where he wants him.

"Yeah," Wei Ying says hoarsely, as Lan Zhan tucks his fingers into the waist of his jogging pants. Lan Zhan wants it all, wants it immediately, but every single move creates that ongoing curious feedback loop and even just this, even just the backs of his fingers brushing against the soft skin of Wei Ying's stomach, the dark trail of hair leading down, feels...so good. Too good to rush.

"I want—" Lan Zhan says, at the same time that Wei Ying says, "You can..."

Wei Ying breathes out a soft giggle, his hands clenched against Lan Zhan's shoulders. There's no distance between them, not anymore, and whatever this is, whatever is stringing them together, seems to be assuaged by what they're doing. There's no pain, there's no throb, there is just a thrumming need to keep doing this.

Lan Zhan nudges his fingers further into the waist of Wei Ying's pants, breathing to the rhythm of Wei Ying's short, tight breaths. Wei Ying is hard, his cock pressing up obscenely against the jogging pants. Lan Zhan lets his gaze flick up and down, from Wei Ying's face back down to where Lan Zhan's fingers are so close, the tips of them just brushing against the head of his cock.

"Fff-fuck." Wei Ying is having a hard time getting the word out. His head is thrown back, his throat exposed and Lan Zhan wants to lick it, wants to, actually, bite it, but there are more important things at the very moment. He nudges Wei Ying's pants down further, tracing his fingers back and forth over his skin, the head of Wei Ying's cock against the back of his hand, Wei Ying's fingers still tight against his shoulders.

Nothing about this feels weird anymore, nothing feels wrong. Wei Ying isn't a stranger, isn't anything even close to a stranger. Lan Zhan could find him anywhere, could scan a busy Beijing street and pick him out of the crowd, could get onto a crowded city bus and zero in on him. He knows him, through and through. He knows him.

"Yes," Wei Ying says, not just an exhortation this time, but an agreement. "You do, you do."

It's not strange. It's right. Lan Zhan moves down, letting both hands slide into the sides of Wei Ying's pants and drawing them down his hips. Wei Ying's cock—hard, wet at the tip, slim and long and beautiful—curves up against his stomach. Wei Ying wants it in Lan Zhan's mouth. Lan Zhan wants that too, wants to taste it, wants to swallow it.

Instead, he shifts his mouth to the side, allows himself to taste Wei Ying's hip, tracing his tongue over the jut it. Wei Ying groans, his hips shifting up. Lan Zhan runs his tongue down the line of where Wei Ying's leg meets his body, along the wiry hair there, tasting sweat, rich and pungent. Wei Ying's cock is close, brushing his cheek, and he can feel how much Wei Ying wants it, feels the clench of it inside him, how Wei Ying wants, and wants.

He's not a stranger. Lan Zhan can give this to him.

When he takes Wei Ying's cock into his mouth, Wei Ying's head comes off the bed, and he gasps, loudly. Lan Zhan lets that sound, that feeling, curl up inside him, as he memorizes the taste of Wei Ying against his tongue. He doesn't rush this part, either, allowing himself to get the head as wet as he wants it, letting his tongue trace curiously over the slit there, drinking in the sound of Wei Ying drawing in harsh breaths above him on the bed.

"Yeah," Wei Ying is chanting. "Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's—that's good, that's so good, you're so good, Lan Zhan."

Lan Zhan takes him in then, deep, and that sends a jolt of heat through him, and suddenly—suddenly, he's done with slow. He wants to devour Wei Ying. He grabs Wei Ying's leg, hitches it up over his shoulder, and the gasp that Wei Ying gives at that unravels something in Lan Zhan's stomach. He holds him there, bends him back, takes him in deep and unrelenting, sucking hard. The taste of him is glorious and Lan Zhan wants more, wants to suck him like this until Wei Ying spills in his mouth, letting Lan Zhan have it all.

The way Wei Ying is writhing above him makes Lan Zhan aware that it wouldn't take very long at all.

But he's also got an awareness of something, just a thread of it, and he wants Wei Ying to wait. Wants to hold Wei Ying on the edge, keep him trembling there, make him hold on, wet and needy and wanting.

He pulls off of Wei Ying, feeling a pang of loss as he allows Wei Ying to slide out of his mouth, even as a line of saliva still connects them. He looks up at Wei Ying's face, staring down at him, and oh. Oh, it's not what he wants, it's what Wei Ying wants. It's all one and the same, coursing through him. He revels in that, liking it so much a shot of heat goes through him. He knows. He knows exactly what Wei Ying wants, what Wei Ying needs. There's no guessing here, there's no need for hesitation, no need for wondering.

"Please," Wei Ying says, sounding tight, desperate. "Please, I'm so close, let me—"

"No," Lan Zhan responds, simply, and Wei Ying's face does something that twists beautifully in Lan Zhan's chest.

"You—" Wei Ying says, his eyes wide and bright. "You're so mean, you're so mean..."

"You like it," Lan Zhan says—again, a simple fact—and turns Wei Ying over with one firm move.

The way Wei Ying moans as Lan Zhan flips him over is something Lan Zhan tucks away to remember for a long, long time. Wei Ying is grasping for purchase against the bed, as Lan Zhan takes his time reaching for the bedside table, extracting the bottle of lube from it. "You," Wei Ying groans, "You don't...know, you don't, you—"

"Hmm," Lan Zhan says, and presses two slick fingers inside him.

Wei Ying gasps, whining, but he can take it. Lan Zhan can feel it: he likes the stretch. Lan Zhan fingers him open, not taking his time, watching as Wei Ying's back bows up off the bed, damp with sweat. He can see the outline of the tattoo on his shoulder—he'd been right, of course he'd been right. It's black outline, an intricate sort of stylized gordian knot. He wants to taste it. A distant part of him wants to see Wei Ying's face, but this is enough, he can feel how much Wei Ying wants this, how the twist and turn of Lan Zhan's fingers are making him crazy for it, for whatever Lan Zhan will give him.

When Lan Zhan draws his fingers out, Wei Ying whimpers. It's a good sound. Wei Ying is pushing himself unsteadily to his knees, pressing back against Lan Zhan, like he's ready for it, like it wants it to happen just like that.

Lan Zhan grasps Wei Ying's hips and he feels more than hears the groan that reverberates through him. Wei Ying wants, and he wants, and he wants, and Lan Zhan is going to hold him here, on this edge, not give it to him, not yet. That's part of Wei Ying's wanting and it feels exciting, to know that.

Lan Zhan grasps his own cock, and leans forward, about to press it against Wei Ying's hole, just enough to—

The thought hits them both at the same time, an unpleasant reality cutting through this haze of desire. Lan Zhan freezes, cock still in his hand, and glances at the bedside table again, where the condoms are.

Wei Ying is looking over his shoulder at Lan Zhan, his eyes wide, and pleading. "Please," he says, quietly this time. "I need you. I need you. I want—without anything in between. I swear I'm—" He cuts himself off, still looking at Lan Zhan, because Lan Zhan does know, he knows this is the truth. It's fundamentally not a smart idea, but he does know Wei Ying is safe, just as he knows he himself is. And he also knows that however silly it may sound, that Wei Ying is right: the idea of even that thin barrier between them when they're so close to this feels wrong.

He gives Wei Ying a long look, Wei Ying still looking back at him over his shoulder, and then he moves, pressing his cock up against his hole.

Wei Ying moans in relief, and tries to push back against him, but Lan Zhan digs the fingers of his other hand against his hip and does not allow it. He circles the head of his cock against Wei Ying's hole slowly, feeling how it's slick with lube at the same time as he's feeling how badly Wei Ying wants it, how his whole body is ready to open up to Lan Zhan. He wants Lan Zhan to shove inside him, to take him, and he also wants—this. The anticipation of it. This liminal moment that stretches out between them, Lan Zhan hard and wanting it himself, dipping in just the smallest amount, a tiny thrust forward against Wei Ying's hole, before pulling back. Wei Ying whimpers again and oh, Lan Zhan does so very much like that sound. He gives another tiny thrust, sees Wei Ying's hands clench into fists against the bedcovers, and that feels good, too, feels right, feels grounding.

"Please." Wei Ying's head has dropped down, his back bowed. "Please, now, please, you're so—" He shakes his head, his whole body tense and needing it. His back is coated with sweat and Lan Zhan can feel how his cock is aching between his legs, how hard Wei Ying is, how he needs something, anything.

Lan Zhan gives him another inch.

Wei Ying gasps, trying to shove back onto Lan Zhan's cock, and Lan Zhan's in deep enough that he can let go of it, and anchor both hands, now, on Wei Ying's hips, digging in with his fingers and holding him in place.

The feeling that goes through him is almost overwhelming. The shot of desire, the way he gets even harder—they both do—how Wei Ying's hands are clenched so tightly against the covers they almost ache— Fuck. Fuck. He wants to push all the way in, wants to take Wei Ying fully, wants to fuck him through the mattress. He wants to fuck him until he can't hold back anymore, until Lan Zhan gets to hear every sweet sound he's biting back now, until he can turn the quiet whimpers and exhortations for more into shouts. He wants to hear Wei Ying crying out with it. He wants—

"Fuck," Wei Ying grates out. He turns his head unsteadily against the bed, looking back at Lan Zhan over his shoulder again. His eyes are huge and dark and his mouth is open with wonder. "Fuck, Lan Zhan, you—that's— Do it. Do it, I want that, too, I want that. I want that. I want—ah!"

He cries out as Lan Zhan slides all the way in. He hadn't quite meant to, he'd been going to tease Wei Ying, give it to him inch by inch, but this is good, too, this is, perhaps, better. He's all the way inside Wei Ying, all the way, and Wei Ying is making whimpering sounds underneath him, still trying to thrust back against him. Lan Zhan won't let him. Lan Zhan will give Wei Ying exactly what he wants, which is this: to be held poised on the precipice, wanting it. Waiting for it. Lan Zhan's hands are clenched tightly on Wei Ying's hips, holding him in place, but holding himself in place, too, his cock throbbing inside Wei Ying. He wants to move, he wants to fuck, but this moment, with Wei Ying panting underneath him, is so good. He lingers here, controlling his breath, looking at where his fingers are digging in against Wei Ying's hips, the way the skin has gone white underneath the pressure. He feels a distant hope that he may leave bruises behind.

Wei Ying groans against the covers. Ah. He wants that, too.

Lan Zhan holds himself there a moment longer, until it nearly hurts, this need to move, to do it, to take Wei Ying as hard and as fast as they both so desperately desire. When he releases himself, it's wild almost immediately. He fucks Wei Ying, and eats up the sounds Wei YIng makes, the ringing cries of relief, the way Wei Ying is nearly incoherent but how it's all mixed up with him saying yes and yes and yes.

He fucks Wei Ying harder, and he'd thought, before, when he was making them both wait, that he was as far inside Wei Ying as he could get, but this is more, this is deeper. Wei Ying's body opens up to him and he knows that he, himself, is making sounds, as well, deep groans as he bottoms out. He feels like he could stay hard forever, could fuck Wei Ying like this forever, the two of them connected, the rhythm of it almost like meditation, like something he could get lost in.

"I'm—" Wei Ying's back is bowed, his head pressed against the bed, his hips held up only by Lan Zhan's grip on him. "I'm—I'm so—I need—" He can barely say the words, each thrust of Lan Zhan inside him driving groans out of his throat. He needs to come. He needs to come so badly it almost hurts, and he's close, he's so close, but he can't, Lan Zhan can feels how he needs more, how he needs—

"Touch yourself," he orders.

"I can't, I—" Wei Ying whimpers at Lan Zhan's next thrust. "I'm too—" He's arguing, whining, but he's moving his hand, struggling to maintain purchase against the bed, until he finally wraps it around himself, and oh. Oh, that's—Lan Zhan can feel it, feel how it's exactly what Wei Ying needed, this stroking, his cock slick with pre-come. How every thrust Lan Zhan gives drives Wei Ying's cock through his own hand, and how he's going to come, he's going to, he's so close, he's right there, he's—

Lan Zhan fucks him through it, Wei Ying's orgasm ringing through them both. It's almost too much, it is too much, and in the next moment, Lan Zhan tips over into his own, slamming deep inside Wei Ying and, he thinks, crying out as he comes. The world whites out around him—he can't see, or hear, everything narrowed to his endless orgasm inside of Wei Ying, even as Wei Ying is still surging into his own hand, spilling over his own fingers.

Lan Zhan doesn't know how long it takes them to come back from it. When he manages to open his eyes, they have both collapsed down on the bed. He doesn't remember that happening. He's got one hand still clenched against one of Wei Ying's hips and when he shifts, his cock slides out of Wei Ying. He can't stop the mournful sound he makes at that, and he feels Wei Ying huff out a breath of laughter against the bed, even as he shifts to push back against Lan Zhan, both of them ignoring the mess in between them.

"Fuck." Wei Ying takes a deep breath, then another. "That was—fuck."

"It was," Lan Zhan says in agreement. It was. It was—he doesn't have the words for it. He's not sure there are words for what has just happened between them.

"Lan Zhan." Wei Ying wriggles in his arms—Lan Zhan doesn't remember wrapping himself around Wei Ying, but he has. "Lan Zhan." Wei Ying turns over to face him, somewhat of a struggle, since neither of them seems to want to move back more than an inch. "Lan Zhan, it doesn't hurt anymore. Nothing hurts. We're—" He shakes his head, looking up at Lan Zhan. His hair is a mess. His cheeks are flushed. He's beautiful. He's extremely beautiful. "We're—"

There don't seem to be words for this, either.

"You and me, this is—something more than—I don't know." Wei Ying shakes his head again. Lan Zhan wants to kiss him. Lan Zhan wants to press him back against the bed and kiss him again, slowly, take his time. Maybe taste every inch of him. "I know today has been fucked up—everything's been fucked up since it happened—but this didn't feel fucked up." He reaches up to trace his fingers gently over the healing bruise on Lan Zhan's temple.

"It didn't." They're wrapped up in each other, their hearts beating together. Everything between them is messy, sticky and probably going to get a little gross in not too long, but for right now— "It feels right. This feels right."

"Is that insane?" Wei Ying asks quietly, looking at him. Wei Ying has long eyelashes, and the corners of his eyes crinkle when he gets concerned. Lan Zhan wants to kiss him. It feels like a very long time since he last kissed him. "It is insane," Wei Ying says decisively, the corner of his mouth turning up in a grin. "Look at you. You just fucked me through the mattress and now you're looking at me like—that, like you want to eat me alive."

Lan Zhan blinks at him slowly. He does. He does want to do that.

"Fuck," Wei Ying breathes. His hand is tight over Lan Zhan's hip. Lan Zhan thinks he could get hard again, possibly just from that. "Fuck, are you—are you like this all the time? You are," he continues, before Lan Zhan can say anything. "You really are, all tucked in behind that staid exterior, all put together and looking ridiculously intimidating, even when you're just riding a city bus." His grin gets wider. "I told you, I did notice you, I noticed you before any of, well." He gives an expressive shrug, encompassing before we both lost our mutual minds. "I'd seen you on the bus before. I told you—you draw the eye, Lan Zhan. You're tall, taller even than me and I'm no shrimp."

Wei Ying is shifting back a little, so he can study Lan Zhan, and Lan Zhan has to exert no small amount of effort to keep himself from tugging him back in.

"And you always look so serious." Wei Ying's eyes are bright and he looks like he's trying to tamp down a smile, and not doing a particularly good job at it. "All day," he says softly. "So serious. And all this time—not just today, but pretty much every day, huh? Lan Zhan, Lan Zhan. Tucked behind all that is all this—just waiting for an outlet."

Just waiting for you. Lan Zhan doesn't say it. He swallows it down.

Still, Wei Ying's eyes go wide and startled. He bites his lip and reaches up to wrap a piece of Lan Zhan's hair around his finger. "I made a mess out of you," he says, his tone light, his eyes on the twirl of hair around his finger. "You're not so put together anymore."

Lan Zhan can feel Wei Ying's heart beating. He feels, in some way, like he can feel the blood coursing through his veins. Can feel the sweat drying on his skin, can feel the ache of where Lan Zhan had been when Wei Ying shifts a little on the bed.

"We should shower," he says, instead of any of that. "Would you like to go first?"

Wei Ying releases the spiral of Lan Zhan's hair slowly. Lan Zhan watches him.

"Or," Lan Zhan says, keeping his tone grave, "we could shower together."

Wei Ying's face lights up, as Lan Zhan had known it would. Wei Ying wants that, in equal measure to Lan Zhan's own want. The hot water and steam surrounding them, the two of them tucked into the shower together, close, close, close.

"Good thought." Wei Ying purses his lips thoughtfully. "Water conservation. That's what you're thinking, right? You can't fool me, I know all."

It's supposed to be a joke, but it's not. Wei Ying does. He knows it all, he can feel it all, and the words fall flat as he gazes up at Lan Zhan. Lan Zhan waits for the tightness in his chest, the way he's been fighting this all day, but it doesn't come. It doesn't feel strange—or at least, not as terrifyingly strange—as it had before. That Wei Ying knows the things Lan Zhan can't bring himself to say. That he knows what Lan Zhan wants and—Lan Zhan can feel this too—wants to give it to him.

"Not," Lan Zhan says, letting his fingers trace over the soft skin of Wei Ying's hip, "exactly."

Wei Ying giggles, loud and bright, his gaze startled. He'd expected that, too, expected that Lan Zhan would try to pull it back, tamp it down, be put off by just how very much Wei Ying knows. This is better. This is much, much better. "Well," he says, "you're full of surprises, then. How about you show me?" He's watching Lan Zhan, his lip caught in his teeth for a moment. "Show me what you want."

Lan Zhan pushes him onto his back, rolls on top of him, kisses him. His mouth tastes as sweet and as right as he remembers. Wei Ying is grinning under him, giggling even as he tries to wrap his legs around him, hold him there.

"Oh, yeah?" Wei Ying says against his lips. "This?"

"This," Lan Zhan says, trying to match the decisive tone Wei Ying had used earlier. He kisses him one more time, then—one more time after that. "But also this."

He rolls off of him and pushes himself to his feet in one smooth move. Wei Ying makes a protesting sound, but Lan Zhan reaches down, wraps his hands in Wei Ying's and hauls him to his feet. "We're disgusting," he informs Wei Ying.

"I like it," Wei Ying whines, stubbornly, as Lan Zhan drags him towards the bathroom. "And you like it, too," he adds.

Lan Zhan pauses as they get through the door. He looks at Wei Ying. Wei Ying's thighs are sticky with Lan Zhan's come, and his ass is sore in a way that Wei Ying is enjoying. He smells like sex, and he smells like Lan Zhan.

"You do," Wei Ying says softly, nearly a whisper, his eyes dark. "You like it...so much."

Lan Zhan doesn't say anything. He keeps his eyes on Wei Ying as he reaches into the shower and flips the water on, hot.

"Fuck." Wei Ying gives himself a shake, pushing his messy hair out of his face. "Are we going to survive this? Am I going to survive you?"

"Wei Ying," Lan Zhan says. "Get in the shower."

"I—okay," Wei Ying says, his gaze flashing, hot. "Yes. Let's—yes."

They shower. Lan Zhan cleans them both thoroughly, Wei Ying pliant in his hands, allowing Lan Zhan to soap him up and scrub him down. Afterwards, he maneuvers Wei Ying to lean back against the wall, and goes down on his knees, taking Wei Ying—already half-hard again—in his mouth. He sucks him off, long and leisurely, like they have all the time in the world, like Lan Zhan's new full-time job is finding out exactly what Wei Ying likes, finding out what gets him to the edge, finding out how best to keep him there—because Wei Ying likes that. He likes being denied what he so badly wants, he likes being kept there, teetering on the edge, not being allowed to go over.

He likes Lan Zhan being the one to keep him there.

Lan Zhan is nearly overcome with how much Wei Ying is into it—it's not just the noises he's making, though those are a part of it too—needy, almost wounded, begging for it, his hands tight in Lan Zhan's hair, like he's holding on for dear life, like he couldn't let go if he tried. Lan Zhan finds himself hard, as well, caught up in the rhythm of need Wei Ying is exuding, desperate himself, feeling like he's teetering on the same edge, unable to get there, unable to go over, nothing to touch him, to ground him, just Wei Ying's grip in his hair and the hard porcelain under his knees keeping him tethered.

Wei Ying comes in his mouth only when Lan Zhan lets him, when Lan Zhan finally gives him the rhythm he needs, gives him, also, his finger, sliding inside him, where he's hot and still slick. Wei Ying's cries echo off of the tiles, and Lan Zhan tucks that sound away like a favorite piece of music.

Lan Zhan comes there on his knees in the shower, the hot water beating down on him, the steam surrounding them. He watches Wei Ying as hev wraps one hand around himself and come in barely a handful of strokes.

There's the smallest moment of hesitation when they get back to the room, Wei Ying looking over at Lan Zhan and opening his mouth for a moment. He's about to ask if he should, maybe, go home, but all Lan Zhan needs to do is hold his gaze and Wei Ying shuts his mouth, a small smile playing over his lips before he lets the towel drop from his waist and climbs under the covers.

Lan Zhan picks up the towel and hangs it and his own neatly on the hooks on the back of the door. The only light that's on is the bedside lamp, and he shuts that off as he gets into his bed next to Wei Ying. He's not shared his bed with anyone before—he's had sexual partners, of course he has, but he's not ever brought anyone home, he's never wanted to.

"Never?" Wei Ying mumbles sleepily against the pillow. He's curled up on his side, facing away from Lan Zhan, and he makes a soft sound when Lan Zhan wraps his hand over Wei Ying's hip and draws him close.

Lan Zhan doesn't respond but Wei Ying says, "How?" around a yawn, like he has. "How have you never—you're so—" He stops talking, but Lan Zhan feels it reverberate inside him, how Wei Ying, here in his bed next to him, feels safe and warm and loved.

He feels, too, the way Wei Ying tenses up in the next moment—feels it literally this time, his whole body going stiff where he's tucked up against the curve of Lan Zhan's body, his fingers stopping tracing over Lan Zhan's hand where it's resting against Wei Ying's belly.

Lan Zhan tucks his face against Wei Ying's neck, and lets himself breathe him in, long and deep. He strokes his hand slowly over Wei Ying's belly, until he feels Wei Ying relax again in increments against him, until Wei Ying's fingers start tracing over the back of his hand again. He doesn't say anything, but he lets that feeling roll through them both, a feedback loop, not jarring, the rhythm of it feeling right, like the beat of their hearts.

Wei Ying sighs softly, sleepily, against the pillow, shifting back so he's as close to Lan Zhan as it's possible to get. Lan Zhan presses a kiss against the curve of his shoulder, then lets his lips drift over to the tattoo, imagining he can feel it as he traces over it with his tongue. He presses a kiss there, as well, then keeps his lips there, breathing in and out. He can feel it when Wei Ying slips into sleep, can feel it before Wei Ying's body fully relaxes against his. It's an odd, surreal feeling, that of someone sliding inexorably into sleep, and it takes a bit of effort not to be dragged into it himself.

He stays awake, counting Wei Ying's breaths in a meditative way. The snow has slowed and he watches as it drifts down against his window, where he'd forgotten to draw down the shades. The flakes are huge and stark against the dark of the night sky, and he imagines that they are falling in the rhythm of Wei Ying's breath. He's mesmerized by it and, in the next moment, falls asleep himself.

"This is it," Wei Ying declares, stumbling down the street beside Lan Zhan, the snow on the sidewalk catching under his feet. "This is the thing, this is how we figure it out. This plan is going to work. Today's our day, Lan Zhan, I can feel it."

His arm is wrapped in Lan Zhan's, and Lan Zhan isn't sure if Wei Ying is holding onto him or if it's the other way around. It's easy to tell himself they're holding onto each other to keep from tumbling down in the slippery snow, but they both know that's not true. And they know the other one knows that.

And they are both ignoring it, resolutely.

"We get on the bus," Lan Zhan says, keeping his tone neutral.

Wei Ying shoots him a look, rolling his eyes. "Okay, I didn't say it was a complicated plan. We retrace our steps. We go back to where it all started."

"It didn't start on the bus," Lan Zhan objects, but something about that feels not entirely accurate even as the words leave his lips.

Wei Ying gives him another look. "It did, though," he says. It started when I saw you.

Lan Zhan blinks.

It's been an odd morning. He guesses every morning since that day on the bus has been odd, and getting odder.

He'd woken up with the dawn, per usual. That had been the only usual thing that had happened. He'd rolled onto his back as he'd slept, and Wei Ying was up against him, on his stomach, one arm flung over Lan Zhan's chest, his head buried against Lan Zhan's arm. He'd been heavily asleep and the blankets had slipped down his shoulders. The feel of him against Lan Zhan, and the warmth of his breath against his shoulder had sent a surge of pure want through Lan Zhan, so intense that it had jolted Wei Ying awake.

He'd opened his eyes for a moment, blinked blearily up at Lan Zhan, a hazy smile on his face, before his eyes had slid closed again, and he'd fallen back asleep in the next moment.

Lan Zhan had lain there on his back, taking a deep, steadying breath, and then another, before carefully extracting himself from Wei Ying and getting out of bed.

He'd expected it to hurt, to no longer be touching him, but there was this feel of connection between them, that same sort of tug drawing them together, like what they had done, what they had allowed themselves to do last night, had knitted them even more closely together, the connection between them snug and there, even with the physical space between them.

Lan Zhan had tested it, carefully, making his way to the bathroom, but the tug between them was an easy hum this time, not a painful, desperate thing. He was aware of Wei Ying, in a visceral way, but it felt grounding, this time. Like it was a certainty that he'd be drawn back to him, and would not fight it.

He hadn't fought it. He'd brushed his teeth, studying himself in the mirror. He'd looked just the same, no different than the night before. He'd washed his face, and moisturized, and the whole time, he'd had that awareness of Wei Ying, asleep, deeply dreaming, in the next room. Comforting, instead of jarring.

Extremely odd, in its own way.

Now, they're following Wei Ying's plan, sketchy as it may be. "We go back to where it started," Wei Ying says again, insistently, the same thing he'd say as he'd sat on Lan Zhan's kitchen counter while Lan Zhan had made them both breakfast. "Something happened there—it all started there. You know I'm right."

Lan Zhan had not looked up from where he was pouring each of them a cup of tea. It was impossible to argue with Wei Ying when Wei Ying knew...everything.

"Smartest guy you know, right?" Wei Ying had said smugly, swinging his feet.

Lan Zhan had just silently handed him his cup of tea.

So here they are. About to get on this bus—the same bus number they had been on the day it happened. "But it was afterwards," Lan Zhan says quietly, watching as the bus maneuvers its way towards them down the messy street, the city having not yet fully cleaned up after the double snowstorm. "It was after the bus that we—that something happened."

"It started on the bus." Wei Ying is watching the bus approach as well, not looking at Lan Zhan. "I'm sure of it."

Wei Ying is sure of it, Lan Zhan can feel it. Lan Zhan himself is uneasy, and uncertain. They need to figure this out, of course they do, but his whole body wants to walk away from here, drag Wei Ying away from the bus, away from figuring this out. Bundle him back into his apartment and not pursue a solution. He—

Wei Ying's gaze turns to him sharply, even as the bus pulls up in front of them. "We don't—Lan Zhan, this doesn't have to—"

"We do," Lan Zhan says, pulling away from Wei Ying and stepping onto the bus. He scans the barcode on his app. His head aches, sudden and sharp, and he has to pause in the aisle to breathe for a moment.

"It's okay," Wei Ying says softly behind him. His hand lands on Lan Zhan's back, urging him down the aisle. The pain in Lan Zhan's head recedes enough that Lan Zhan can move, making his way towards the rear of the bus.

"This is where we were," Wei Ying says, drawing him to a stop. They're near the rear door. It's a Saturday and the bus is nowhere near as crowded as it had been - was it only three days ago? That seems impossible.

"You were hanging on there." Wei Ying points to the bar up above. "Cool as a cucumber, not even swaying more than a little bit, like you weren't careening down the street in this metal death bucket like the rest of us."

"It's a perfectly serviceable city bus," Lan Zhan points out. "They're required to follow traffic ordinances like anyone else." His head still hurts—it's happening in waves, ebbing and flowing as Wei Ying sways with the movement of the bus, swaying away from Lan Zhan again and again. It makes him want to litigate everything Wei Ying is saying, reasonable or not.

"There's required to and there's actually obeying," Wei Ying says. The bus swings sharply—but not dangerously—around a corner. Wei Ying gives Lan Zhan a raised eyebrow, and Lan Zhan ignores it, turning his throbbing head to look out the window at the winterscape whisking by outside.

"It's not the same route," he says, keeping his eyes fixed on the window.

"What?" Wei Ying sways into him and Lan Zhan has to swallow in order to not wrap his arm around him, keep him there, close against him.

"We're going in the opposite direction," Lan Zhan says. His voice is coming out normal, like there is no turmoil going on inside. "We got on close to where we ended up. Last time."

"Yeah, well, that's okay." Wei Ying leans forward to peer out the window as well, where it's getting fogged up from people's breaths. His shoulder presses against Lan Zhan as he does it and Lan Zhan breathes, in and out, as Wei Ying stays there, in contact. "I don't think it's so much the route that's important, or at least not the where on the route, it's the—"

"Look who it is!"

The voice from behind them is loud, boisterous, sounding warm and pleased and Lan Zhan knows, even before he turns around, who he will see.

"The heroes of the day!" It is—because of course it is—the woman that Wei Ying had rescued from the purse-snatcher just a short three days ago. Because of course Wei Ying was right. Wei Ying is, in point of fact, as has been pointed out to him again and again by the man himself, the smartest person he knows. Even when he can't possibly know the outcome, Wei Ying has instincts, has that innate feature of not needing to know the whole story to make the intuitive leaps that lead him to the crux of the matter.

The woman is leaning up, giving Wei Ying a warm hug. Wei Ying sways away from him as she does so and Lan Zhan swallows against the pain that flows through him.

"Oh, sorry!" The woman says, beaming up at Lan Zhan. She's as small as he'd remembered, wisened, with gray hair up in a wispy bun. She gives Wei Ying a nudge until he steps closer to Lan Zhan, pressed against him again. "There you go," she says, like they're having a conversation, like any single part of this makes sense.

"I—didn't do anything," Lan Zhan says helplessly. Heroes, she had said. That only applies to Wei Ying.

"Of course you did." She's scoffing at him, still beaming. "You caught hold of him, didn't you?"

"When I fell," Wei Ying says. He's holding onto the handle of the bus seat in front of him, looking first down at the lady, then up at Lan Zhan. "He did."

"He did." She sounds pleased, like something's been sorted out, and she pats Wei Ying on the cheek, looking up at him fondly. "You're both decent boys. I knew it when I saw you."

"When?" Wei Ying asks, some urgency in his voice. "When did you see us? What did you do? I think you—please, with all respect, with nothing but respect, what did you—"

"I told you," the old lady says, her grin turning slightly sly. "I told you already. Now," she says, peering out the foggy window. "I think that's my stop coming up. You two boys take care. Don't worry about a thing, it was just a small push. Should be easing up any time now. Don't let it scare you. You know better. I know you know better."

"Wait—" Lan Zhan says, at the same time as Wei Ying says, "What?"

The bus skids to a stop, throwing the both of them backwards, saved from falling only by Lan Zhan's grip on the bar above him. Wei Ying crashes against his chest, the two of them swaying halfway into the thankfully empty seat next to them. By the time they regain their balance, it's to see the old lady disappearing through the front door of the bus, the door closing behind her with a whoosh, and the driver immediately turning the bus right back into traffic, ignoring the screech of tires and car horns as he does so.

Perhaps Wei Ying is correct about the lack of caution amongst city bus drivers.

"Hey, wait, just—wait." Wei Ying is frantically pressing the signal to request a stop, but they are blocks out from the next stop and something tells Lan Zhan that the old lady will be long gone. Perhaps long gone even if they had managed to follow her off the bus. "We've got to—come on, Lan Zhan." He's grabbing hold of Lan Zhan's hand and dragging him through the bus, swerving around fellow passengers and waving to try to get the bus driver's attention.

Lan Zhan allows himself to be dragged, going over the words the woman had spoken. She'd given them little enough to work with, but it seemed clear that—

"Here you go!" The bus driver sounds cheerful enough as he pulls over at the next stop, for all that he'd been resolutely ignoring Wei Ying's pleas for attention. "As requested."

"Thanks," Wei Ying says flatly, and drags Lan Zhan off the bus after him.

The sun has come out fully, glowing off of the snow, making the light nearly overwhelmingly rich. Wei Ying is hurrying down the sidewalk, back in the direction the bus had come from.

"Wei Ying," Lan Zhan says. Wei Ying's fingers are wrapped around Lan Zhan's, as he tugs him down the sidewalk.

"It's just a few blocks back," Wei Ying says, panting slightly as he hurries down the street. "She knows what she did, she should at least explain it, we can find out—"

"Wei Ying." Lan Zhan says it louder this time, his heart pounding in his chest. It's not from hurrying—he's easily keeping up with Wei Ying. He's— "Wei Ying, stop."

"Uh-uh, no, come on, we got this, we're—"

Lan Zhan stops.

Wei Ying's grip slips away from him, and it takes Wei Ying half a dozen steps to realize. He wheels around on the sidewalk, eyes wide, his mouth open, one hand raised halfway to his forehead, before he freezes. "Uh," he says.

"It's gone." Lan Zhan is surprised at the effort it takes to keep his tone even.

"Lan Zhan." Wei Ying takes two steps back towards him.

"You can feel it," Lan Zhan says stiffly. "Right?" He knows Wei Ying can feel it. Or, rather, he knows that Wei Ying can't feel it. It had slipped away without any sort of a wrench, without any sort of twinge, even. There one minute—the galvanizing draw of Wei Ying, the constant, thrumming awareness of him, the feedback loop of what Wei Ying was thinking, feeling—and gone the next.

He'd let himself get used to it, somewhere along the way. He's not sure when. He only knows now that it had been a mistake. That he should have tried harder, held back more, done something, anything, because now that it was gone...

"Hey." Wei Ying takes another step towards him, and Lan Zhan takes a step away without thinking about it. Like that will make any sort of a difference right now. Like a step alone is anything compared to the gulf between them. At least it doesn't hurt anymore, he thinks dully.

"Hey," Wei Ying says again, reaching for his arm. Lan Zhan lets him take it, looks at him. "Listen to me," Wei Ying says, urgently. "This is—it's just—this doesn't—" He falters and Lan Zhan wishes he wouldn't. Wishes Wei Ying did know what to say, did know what to do.

But there isn't anything. They both know that. The old lady had been right, that it wouldn't be too much longer. That bond that they had spent so much time fighting against wasn't there anymore. "It's over," he says, keeping his voice even. "Whatever it was, you were right. Finding her...fixed it."

"That's not..." Wei Ying trails off. He looks shocked. Miserable. Lan Zhan is distantly impressed by how Wei Ying allows every emotion to be seen on his face, so readily. Lan Zhan has worked hard to learn how to tamp all of his down. Wei Ying's expressions seem like an ability to admire.

"It's gone." Lan Zhan takes a step back again, and then another. There's not that nearly-physical tug he's felt each time he's moved away from Wei Ying. It's...dissolved. There's nothing there. "We're fine."

"Lan Zhan," Wei Ying says. He sounds desperate. Lan Zhan wonders what he's thinking.

"Thank you," Lan Zhan says carefully, "for finding out what the solution was." He tells himself, sternly, that he means it.

Wei Ying opens his mouth and closes it again.

"You'll be able to get home from here?" Lan Zhan is unsure how long they'd ridden the bus, but it's not a terribly long route. They can't be that far.

"Yeah, I—yeah." Wei Ying's shoulders slump slightly. Under his coat, he's wearing a cardigan that belongs to Lan Zhan, that Lan Zhan had bundled him into before they'd gone out. It's a sky-blue color, an unusual one for Wei Ying. It makes his skin glow. Lan Zhan thinks about this morning, Wei Ying's lips red from kissing.

"Thank you," Lan Zhan says again. Wei Ying feels very far away from him on the sidewalk.

"Okay," is all Wei Ying says. "I'm—I'm going to stay out for a while."

That's fair. Lan Zhan had kept Wei Ying cooped up in his apartment for far too long. Lan Zhan nods and turns away. He'll walk home. The air is bracing, sharp in his lungs as he takes a deep breath. It will be good for him. He walks away from Wei Ying.

It doesn't hurt.

His apartment feels barren when he lets himself in. It had been full of life, when Wei Ying had been here. Full of confusion and concern, as well, of course, but. He stands in the doorway of his kitchen, thinks about Wei Ying swinging his legs as he'd sat on Lan Zhan's counter.

He turns away abruptly, and heads to his room.

He'd known this part would be difficult, he had known that, but when he sees the bed, left deliberately unmade, it stops him in his tracks.

"Leave it," he'd said, when Wei Ying had reached to tug up the duvet. "It needs washing."

He'd thought, then, that Wei Ying would be with him when he came back. Had he had so little faith in Wei Ying's problem-solving abilities? He knows better now.

He undoes the duvet cover, tugs it off, and strips the sheet from the mattress. He means to put them in the washer immediately, but he falters, tired, suddenly. Exhausted. He stands there with the bundle of sheets and covers in his arms and has to resist the urge to bury his face against them. See if they still smell like Wei Ying. See if they still smell like them, mixed up together.

He straightens his back and puts the bundle in his laundry basket. He'll wash them tomorrow. They'll dry swiftly in the cold air of the balcony.

He remakes the bed with his extra sheets, the back-up duvet cover that he seldom uses. The bed, put to rights, looks once again like it's never been the location of the activities that took place there last night, and again this morning. It looks just like Lan Zhan's bedroom has always looked. He stands there in the middle of the room and listens to his own heart beat inside his chest. It sounds hollow. He feels hollow.

He shakes his head. He's fine. Nothing is different. The last three days have been exceedingly strange, is all. It's affected his rhythm but he'll reset himself. It's Saturday. He has a great deal of preparation to do for the coming week. Meal planning, grocery shopping. The laundry he has planned for tomorrow. And the snow day on Thursday affected his curriculum—only one day, but he should look at the lesson plan for next week and revise it to make up that time.

He settles on his couch with his laptop and his class materials. It's an indulgence to do it—sitting at his small table by the kitchen would be more favorable for the task, but he's tired, and allows himself this small comfort. He works diligently, waiting for the moment of getting lost in the task, as so often happens, the peace that comes with that. That peace evades him—he finishes his revised lesson plan swiftly enough, but finds himself staring at a piece of music for too long, not quite seeing it, the notes seeming like they're swirling on the page in front of him.

He closes his eyes and lets his head rest against the couch. The hollow feeling is still there, his chest feeling empty. He's overtired, perhaps. He'd been up too late last night, much later than his steady and certain nine pm bedtime.

A flash of memory, Wei Ying's back bowed beneath him, damp with sweat. Wei Ying's hip under his hand, as Lan Zhan had turned him over this morning, Wei Ying going willingly, his thighs falling open around Lan Zhan. The feeling of it, how Wei Ying had—

Lan Zhan sits up on the couch abruptly. He has a whole week of classes to plan for. He focuses on it ruthlessly, keeping his thoughts firmly on the rhythm of the lesson, reviewing what they had done last week, making notes on the thoughts he has regarding which students need particular guidance. He keeps his eyes on his notes—careful, precise—and tightens his jaw to keep any distractions at bay.

It takes longer than it should to complete, despite his stern attention to the matter at hand. The sunlight has already shifted to afternoon by the time he stacks everything neatly, closing his laptop, and putting all of his papers into his bag for Monday.

He gets up and works to maintain his focus. He goes to the kitchen, makes note of what he needs to pick up at the grocery store. Jots down a meal plan for the week and stares at it when he's done, his hands braced on the kitchen counter. A normal week. He'll teach, he'll come home, he'll cook. He'll go to sleep at his normal time, and wake up rested, and it will all start again. His hands feel nearly numb against the counter and he finds himself looking down at them curiously, like they belong to somebody else. He shuts his eyes, breathes in and out, counting to ten slowly, then again.

When he opens his eyes and carefully folds his shopping list, he doesn't look over his shoulder, at the counter where Wei Ying had perched, his eyes sparking, his heels drumming restlessly against the lower cabinets. He just tucks the list into his pocket and goes to the store.

The store is overly lit and too loud, the raucous array of people stocking up after the storm overwhelming. He sets his jaw again and regains his focus, making his way up and down the aisles and gathering what he needs. He loses himself at check-out—the cashier has long hair up in a sweeping ponytail, and Lan Zhan finds himself zoning out on where it curls down over his shoulder, the dark waves of it, caught up in the memory of—

"That's everything for you today?" The cashier flashes him a grin, and Lan Zhan jerks his eyes up to the cashier's face, wondering for a distant moment if he's being flirted with. The cashier leans forward a little against the counter, his grin going wider, and Lan Zhan shuts his eyes for longer than a second.

"Yes," he says, and the word comes out stony.

The grin disappears and the cashier gives a shrug, giving Lan Zhan his total and watching him curiously as he pays.

Lan Zhan ignores it, gathering up his bags and heading out. The temperature outside has dipped as the afternoon has darkened and the wind cuts the breath out of his chest, steals the focus from his brain. He's caught up in the image of Wei Ying's hair, falling messy and damp over his shoulders, in the memory of Wei Ying wrapping a strand of Lan Zhan's hair around one finger, and tugging him close.

There's a yawning, painful feeling that comes with it, an ache that's nothing like the tug he'd felt when the two of them—when they had been—

He stumbles to a stop on the sidewalk, and someone bumps into him almost immediately. He mutters an apology, and forces himself to start moving forward again, the handles of the bags cutting into his hands. He breathes in time to the rhythm of his steps on the sidewalk, counting them as he goes.

At home, he puts the groceries away. Makes himself an early dinner. He eats it at the small table, alone, his stomach allowing him maybe three bites before he loses all appetite.

He cleans up, setting the kitchen to rights. He's achingly tired, and it's almost a blessing, his brain moving slowly, the smallest task taking his full focus.

He showers, standing there under the hot stream of water, letting it pour down over him, for a long time before he's able to shake himself and scrub himself clean.

He goes to bed immediately afterwards, early even for him, so exhausted he feels shaky. He climbs into bed naked, the sheets clean and smooth against his skin, and buries his face against pillows that smell like his detergent and nothing else.

He falls asleep, and he does not dream.

When he wakes, it's later than usual, the tilt of the sun through the windows showing him he's slept too long. It's only six am, and it's Sunday, but it still gives him an unpleasant jolt that sticks with him as he goes through his morning routine. Tea. Breakfast. He starts the laundry, as planned, and stands in the kitchen for a moment, listening to the rhythm of the water in the washer. The kitchen feels closed-off, too small, and he takes a breath, shaking his head.

The living room is no better. The sun is still glowing off of the snow outside on the balcony, creating a nearly-unearthly glow of golden light throughout the room. It should make the room feel cozy. Lan Zhan sits on the couch, watching the motes of dust dance through the intense sunlight. It takes him longer than it should to realize that he's tracing his fingers over his temple. He frowns when he does realize, and presses down hard.

It doesn't hurt. There's not even a twinge. He tries to remember if the bruise had still been there when he'd looked in the mirror this morning.

He gets up abruptly. His skin feels too tight and he's too aware of his own breathing. He wants—he just wants—

It's a curious feeling, almost like he's watching from outside himself, as he makes his way to the door. He shoves his boots on, slings his coat around his shoulders, grabs his keys. It all feels a little bit distant, like if he allows himself to think about what it is he's doing, he'd—

He shuts the door firmly behind him, turns the key in the lock.

Outside, the golden glow of the sun is even more intense. The chill in the air has picked up, but he doesn't mind it—he's warm, so warm, his blood pumping in his veins.

His feet find the route, like he's being drawn there. He reaches for that invisible string, knowing he won't find it. He doesn't, but the beating of his heart is like a drum in his chest, and it—it doesn't matter, because there is Wei Ying's apartment building. Older than Lan Zhan's, no fancy filigree, and a front door that doesn't always latch—Lan Zhan doesn't need anything tying him to Wei Ying to remember everything he'd learned.

He gives the door a firm push and it gives. Good. Good. He makes certain it's firmly closed behind him.

He can't stand the time it would take to wait for the elevators, and takes the stairs up to Wei Ying's apartment two at a time. He tears open the buttons on his coat as he goes, so warm that he's sweating lightly. He doesn't slow down when he gets to Wei Ying's floor, eats up the corridor with long strides until he's in front of Wei Ying's door, raising his hand to knock.

It opens before he can. And there is Wei Ying, his eyes wide. He's still wearing Lan Zhan's cardigan, too wide for him in the shoulders, so he's enveloped in it.

"Wei Ying," Lan Zhan says. He's breathless. He's been running. Has he been running? "How did you know?"

Wei Ying's face melts into a smile, then into a grin, so wide and real that his eyes nearly disappear beneath the curve of his cheeks. "I didn't," he says. "I didn't, I just—I just wanted—" He's laughing now, full of giddy relief, and Lan Zhan knows that, not because he can feel it, but because—he knows Wei Ying. Not fully, not entirely, but he knows him enough.

"I know you," he says, because he has no way of holding anything back.

"Yeah, you do," Wei Ying says, his face alight with giggles.

He's still laughing when Lan Zhan gathers him into his arms, presses his mouth against his, kisses him with everything he has.

"Yeah," Wei Ying saying, still half-laughing into the kiss. "Yeah, Lan Zhan, yeah, please, come here, come here, come here."

Lan Zhan lets himself be dragged into the apartment, still kissing, still clutching at Wei Ying, stumbling against the pile of shoes near the door, neither of them able to let go of each other. Wei Ying tastes like everything Lan Zhan remembered, like salt and heat and like him. He's surrounded by Wei Ying's scent and he drags his mouth away from Wei Ying's, ignoring Wei Ying's protests, and buries his face in his shoulder, nosing into the neck of the cardigan, where it smells like the both of them, Wei Ying wrapped up in Lan Zhan's scent.

Wei Ying giggles, high and bright, then gasps as Lan Zhan tastes him there, pressing his tongue against his skin.

"I was waiting," Wei Ying says. "I was waiting for you. I didn't know, but I hoped—"

"I didn't know if you would even be here." Lan Zhan has to pull away to say it and it aches, not in the way it had before, but in the way where he just wants more. "I walked away from you on the street. I thought you might not—" Might not want me. Or, in some strange part of his brain, that maybe he'd still be out there, where Lan Zhan had left him.

"I"m here," Wei Ying says. He's got his fingers on Lan Zhan's cheeks, holding him close, as if there is a single chance that Lan Zhan would pull away. "I've been here. I didn't know what else to do. I stood there, after you left, for so long that I couldn't feel my fingers. I didn't know what else to do. There wasn't—there wasn't anything I wanted, other than—"

"You," Lan Zhan finishes for him.

"You," Wei Ying says in agreement. "I was making Jiang Cheng crazy." He's speaking slowly, distractedly, his eyes flickering over Lan Zhan's face like he's trying to memorize him. "I couldn't settle. I kept pacing. He left, he couldn't take me." He stops, swallows. "Lan Zhan..."

It should feel insane, Lan Zhan thinks distantly, even as he's backing Wei Ying up against the wall right there in the entryway. They've known each other for a handful of days. This is over the top, beyond the realm of possibility, but his heart beats in the rhythm of Wei Ying's. He kisses Wei Ying up against the wall until they're both breathless, until Wei Ying is whining against his mouth.

"Please." It's Lan Zhan who's saying it now, over and over again. "Please, I want—please."

And— "Yes," Wei Ying breathes, pushing forward off the wall. "Yes, yes."

In Wei Ying's bedroom, Wei Ying pulls him into bed, kissing him, and kissing him. They fumble each other's clothes aside, just enough, and rock against each other, close, and warm. They'll have time for more later, time for Lan Zhan to sink inside Wei Ying, for them to fuck long and hard, but for now, this is enough. This is perfect.

Wei Ying comes with his cock up against Lan Zhan's hip, gasping into Lan Zhan's mouth, letting him swallow the sounds. He shakes all the way through it, like he's going to fall apart, clutching at Lan Zhan's shoulders as he trembles in his arms. Lan Zhan is frantically hard, but he waits, holding Wei Ying, watching his face, memorizing everything.

"You," Wei Ying says, slowly, thickly, when he's finally done, when he can blink his eyes open again, pupils blown, mouth open and red. "Now you, now—"

Lan Zhan rolls him over, presses him down against the bed, and shoves up against him, Wei Ying's skin where he's pushed his pants down, rucked his shirt up, is warm and damp with sweat. Lan Zhan watches him through this, too, watches as Wei Ying, his eyelids heavy, a smile curving on his lips, urges Lan Zhan to do it, to come, please, come, I want to see it, I want to see.

Lan Zhan does, in the next moment, spilling over Wei Ying's hip, his thigh, messy and glorious.

They stay like that afterwards, curled together, come cooling on their skin, clothes rucked up. It should be uncomfortable, and it will be soon, but for right now, all Lan Zhan wants is right here in his arms.

Wei Ying shifts, and sighs, and presses a kiss against Lan Zhan's jaw. "You came back," he says. "I'm so glad you came back."

Lan Zhan watches his eyelashes as they brush against Wei Ying's skin when he closes his eyes, nudging his nose against the underside of his jaw, breathing him in.

"I did," Lan Zhan says. "I should never have left. I thought—"

Wei Ying tilts his head back, gazing at him thoughtfully, waiting.

Lan Zhan's hand is on Wei Ying's hip and he traces over the curve of it with his fingers. "I thought it was over," he says. He had. The thing between them, tying them together, it had been gone. He'd thought— "I thought that whatever had happened, whatever had come undone, that it meant that you and I were—over."

Wei Ying hums a little, a wrinkle between his eyebrows. "And I thought you wanted it that way." He curls up closer to Lan Zhan, hooking his ankle over Lan Zhan's foot. "You seemed relieved."

"Did I?" That seems unlikely. Lan Zhan, on that street corner, too far away from Wei Ying, had felt like he was going to be ill from the very thought of it.

"Well." Wei Ying's mouth gets that familiar curve as he lets himself grin. "You looked stern. I couldn't feel you anymore. I didn't know." He leans in again, presses the words against the skin of Lan Zhan's throat. "I didn't know."

"What happened?" Lan Zhan asks. The question has been rolling around inside him, pushed aside, but still there. "What do you think actually happened? It was that woman, wasn't it?" It had to have been.

"Mm." Wei Ying sounds sleepy. "It was." He says it around a yawn. "She said it."

"Said what?" Lan Zhan has been thinking about it, and thinking about it. It seems impossible, ridiculous. He doesn't believe in things like...curses, or spells, or—

"You caught hold of me." Wei Ying presses a sleepy kiss against Lan Zhan's shoulder.

"I caught you," Lan Zhan says carefully. "I caught you when you fell." He remembers it, he thinks he'll never stop remembering it, the moment Wei Ying collided with him on the sidewalk, the full force of him knocking Lan Zhan backward.

"That, too," Wei Ying murmurs. He's watching Lan Zhan, but his eyelids keep sliding shut for longer than a blink. "But I don't think that's what she meant."

"What, then?" Lan Zhan asks. "What did she mean?"

"She said it." Wei Ying shifts against him. "She gave us a small push." He yawns again. "Don't let it scare you, she said." He tilts his face up, a small smile playing across his lips. "I'm glad you didn't let it scare you, Lan Zhan."

A small push. Lan Zhan thinks about it, as he watches Wei Ying's eyes fall shut. Was that what it was? Some sort of...love magic? That doesn't feel quite right. It's more like—like he was meant for this. Like he was meant for Wei Ying. Like the universe would have done this, regardless—spun them together, again and again. Slower, perhaps, more drawn out, but—Wei Ying had noticed him on the bus. He'd said it. Would he have seen him again? Been more bold, made an advance? Perhaps.

Wei Ying knows Nie Huaisang—Lan Zhan's brother's boyfriend's brother. That, too, seems implausible, that they would move in the same circles yet never brush up against each other. Or at least—

"Not yet," Wei Ying murmurs, half asleep against Lan Zhan's chest.

Lan Zhan blinks down at him. Does he still—can he still— But no, Wei Ying is just clutching at Lan Zhan's arm, determinedly. "Just a few more minutes."

Lan Zhan strokes Wei Ying's arm, watching his face as he breathes slowly, in and out. He's lost the bandage on his forehead somewhere along the way, and the cut is nearly healed, no longer red and angry. The line of dark stitches there will need to come out soon, leaving Wei Ying ummarred, whole.

They'll need to get up soon. Shower. Lan Zhan's jeans are caught uncomfortably around his thighs, and everything between them has become sticky, a bit unpleasant. He'll give Wei Ying another few minutes, to doze in Lan Zhan's arms. Then they'll get up, together. Shower, clean each other up, close under the hot water, the haze of steam. They'll order food, and eat, and he'll make Wei Ying curl up with him on the couch afterwards, and ask him all the things he wants to know about him. They'll get to do that, get to know each other, bit by bit. They get to have that, here and now, because, perhaps, of that...small push.

Lan Zhan matches his breaths to Wei Ying's and thinks, for a moment, about that woman from the bus, sending a small breath of thanks out into the universe, for her. He brushes his lips against Wei Ying's forehead, just next to the neat line of stitches. Wei Ying murmurs sleepily against his chest, and Lan Zhan can't help the smile that slides across his face. "A luck spell," he says softly to himself. "Perhaps."

Perhaps.