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Wei Wuxian woke up with the distinct feeling that the previous night had been a vivid dream. The thunderstorm had given the entire experience a strange feeling, as if he had watched it in an old movie. Everything since he had woken up in the middle of that bedroom in Mo Manor had felt like a baffling dream. He lay in the bed with his eyes closed, waiting patiently to hear Yuan laughing, or Qing reprimanding him for sleeping in again, or even Cheng kicking down his door and shouting him awake. Anything to let him know that the confusing nightmare that had preceded and followed his death and resurrection had been just that: a nightmare. Nothing came, and so Wuxian opened his eyes and stared up at the ceiling. He was alone in the bed. That was not surprising: mornings when he woke up before Lan Zhan had always been rare things. The spot beside him retained the warmth of the body that had lain there, and Wuxian rolled over and pressed his face into the pillow.
“You fuddy-duddy,” he murmured. He could tell that Lan Zhan had not changed any of his hair products in the past sixteen years. The familiar scent calmed him, and he lay there for a long time. Finally, he peeled himself off of the bed and wandered over to the closet to find clothes that fit him. He was still skinnier than his boyfriend, but he managed to find a pair of jeans that weren’t too large in the waist. Lan Zhan’s cardigans all swallowed him up, which was something Wuxian had missed. He wandered over to make the bed and hesitated. There was a framed photograph sitting on the mostly bare bedside table. Wuxian sat down on the edge of the mattress and picked it up. They were sitting beside each other on the steps of the Demon-Subdue Palace in the Burial Mounds, hand in hand. Wuxian was leaning into Lan Zhan and beaming at the camera, and Lan Zhan was looking at him with a heartbreakingly soft smile. Wuxian sighed and brushed a fleck of dust from the glass. He remembered the day they had taken it vividly. It had been the last day he had seen Lan Zhan before everything went wrong…
… “Lan Zhan, why don’t you stay?” They were standing in the middle of the path to the road, not wanting to make the final trek up the slope. If they stood still enough, maybe the time would stop passing.
“Wei Ying…” Lan Zhan looked directly into his eyes and reached for his hands. Wuxian could see everything he needed to in his boyfriend’s eyes.
“I know, Lan Zhan. I know.” He squeezed both hands and smiled, slightly. “Maybe someday.”
“Someday.”
“Xian-gege!!” Yuan came hurtling down the path and crashed into Lan Zhan’s legs, clinging tightly to them. Wuxian would not be surprised if his hands left dirty handprints on the pale blue fabric of the jeans. “Zhan-ge, stay and eat with us!”
“A-Yuan, Lan Zhan has to go,” Wuxian said, gently extracting the toddler from his boyfriend’s legs. “Come on, let’s walk him up to the road.”
“Grandma said there’s going to be meat.” Yuan seized one of Wuxian’s sweatshirt ties and pouted at him. “Can’t he stay another week?” Wuxian couldn’t look at Lan Zhan. It hurt too much.
“He has things to deal with at home, a-Yuan. He’s already been here for a month.” Yuan frowned harder, but stopped whining. Wuxian reached his free hand out for Lan Zhan’s, and they walked slowly up to the edge of the packed dirt road. This part of the country was not travelled enough for asphalt roads. They hesitated again at the edge of the trees.
“I will come back,” Lan Zhan promised. “I will.”
“I know you will, Lan Zhan.” Wuxian put Yuan down and stepped closer to Lan Zhan, twining his arms around his neck and pressing his forehead against the other man’s. “I will be waiting for you. But don’t keep me waiting long.” Lan Zhan’s hands slipped onto his hips, and he leaned in for a gentle kiss. It was over too soon, and Lan Zhan was walking down the road back to Yiling. Wuxian watched him for a moment, then took Yuan’s hand and began walking back towards their settlement. He took one look back towards his boyfriend and noticed that Lan Zhan had stopped again.
“Is he going to come back, Xian-gege?”
“A-Yuan, everyone has their own path to walk.” Wuxian watched Lan Zhan’s gray jacket through the branches. “Who cares about the broad, crowded avenue? I’ll stick to my single-log bridge til it’s dark!” He put on a casual, sing-song tone for the toddler, but the tiny hand in his was the only thing stopping him from running back to the road and dragging his Lan Zhan back with him…
Wuxian smiled and placed the photo back on the bedside table. What would Lan Zhan have done in the Burial Mounds? He could hardly imagine proper Hanguang Jun kneeling in the mud and planting turnips. And anyways, that would have been hard on his leg. Wuxian finished making the bed, smoothed the corners out, and walked out into the front room.
If he had wandered into this apartment without knowing who it belonged to, he would have immediately guessed Lan Zhan. There were three tall bookshelves packed with innumerable books, multiple framed pieces of classical art, and a guqin sitting prominently on a desk under the large windows that framed the far wall. The kitchen, which blended seamlessly into the living room, was immaculate and had labels written in neat calligraphy reminding visitors what utensils belonged where. Everything had a place, and when he walked over to the nearest bookshelf he discovered that the books were sorted according to genre and author. There were photographs on the shelves, and the first one Wuxian spotted was an old one. He had forgotten it existed. It was the first photo that had been taken of them. He picked it up and smiled at the teenage boys frozen behind the glass. Wuxian had his arm slung around Lan Zhan’s waist, and he was wearing a sweatshirt for the Yunmeng high school’s basketball team. Lan Zhan was wearing overalls cuffed above blue high-top sneakers and what Wuxian was fairly certain was a t-shirt with a rabbit on it. He looked extremely baffled by the concept of being photographed. They were standing somewhere in Yunmeng. Wuxian shook his head and smiled. It was the first picture they had ever taken together…
…. It was crowded in the Yunmeng marketplace, and Wuxian was filled with an irrepressible energy. His brother, his best friend, and the boy he was trying desperately to convince to be at least his friend were all in one place, and there were so many other people laughing and shopping and living. He kept stopping to stare at the stalls, and Cheng kept having to drag him along. Huaisang followed closely behind him, providing appropriately timed commentary on whatever product Wuxian was admiring. Lan Zhan trailed behind them, looking decidedly uncomfortable, and Wuxian tried to figure out a way to make him look less like he wanted to climb into a trash can and stay there forever.
“Lan Zhan! Look at these!” Wuxian backpedaled to gawk at a table of hair ornaments. Lan Zhan looked like he was about to walk away, but Wuxian shot out his hand and caught the other boy’s hand. He had been getting better at respecting Lan Zhan’s boundaries, but in the moment he forgot himself. When Wuxian looked up, Lan Zhan was staring at their entwined hands in surprise. “Oh, I’m sorry, I…” He started to drop his hand, but Lan Zhan tightened his hold. “Lan Zhan,” Wuxian said, smirking. “I knew you liked this.” Lan Zhan gave him a look that Wuxian couldn’t quite understand the emotion of. “Don’t you think these are pretty? I like this one.” He picked up a beautiful silver crescent moon-shaped ornament and presented it to Lan Zhan.
“Yes.”
“Aha, so it’s not boring!” Wuxian grinned at him. “It would match your formal clothes. And I’m sure it would bring out your eyes.” He wasn’t sure exactly what emotion crossed Lan Zhan’s face in that moment, but he was fairly certain the other boy was flustered. The hand in his tightened.
“Don’t need it,” Lan Zhan mumbled to the ground in a way that told Wuxian he did like it, and did want it.
“You always need nice things. Here.” Wuxian tugged his hand free and rummaged in his pockets for his wallet. He had just enough money for it, which was shocking. Cheng would be mad at him for spending all his money on something so trivial, but was a gift for Lan Zhan trivial? When he pressed it into his companion’s hands, a blush crept up Lan Zhan’s ears. “Here, actually, let me…” Wuxian took it back and carefully tucked it around Lan Zhan’s simple bun. It didn’t exactly match his overalls, but he looked handsome. Wuxian grinned at him and took his hand again. “Let’s go see what Huaisang and Cheng have gotten themselves into.” Lan Zhan followed after him, pulled along in his excitable wake…
Wuxian smiled down at his younger self and replaced the photo on the shelf in front of a row of ancient treatises on music. He wondered how many of them had come from Cloud Recesses and chuckled quietly at the idea that his Hanguang Jun would do something so radical as steal books. His laugh faded as he realized that Lan Zhan must have done something . When he had spoken to Zewu Jun at Mo Manor, the older man had been incredibly cagy about why Lan Zhan wasn’t with them, and why he was living in Cayi Town. What had Lan Zhan done? Or, rather, what had the Lan clan done that would make Lan Zhan defect?
He wandered down the bookshelf and paused at two pictures sitting side-by-side. The first one was of him and Lan Zhan dancing on the steps of the Jin clan’s banquet hall. Wuxian had stormed out of the banquet after making a scene over Jin Guangshan’s attempt to restore his son’s and Wuxian’s elder sister’s broken engagement, and Lan Zhan had come with him. They were seventeen, but their formal attire made them seem more sophisticated–closer to the adults that they were pretending to be. Yanli had taken the picture without them noticing, and she had captured them mid-twirl. The picture next to it was of Lan Zhan and Yuan. It must have been taken only a handful of years after Wuxian had died: Yuan looked to be around six, and Lan Zhan looked exactly the same as he had sixteen years previously. They were sitting in what Wuxian recognized as Lan Zhan’s room in Cloud Recesses. Lan Zhan’s face was frozen into a stiff expression, but Yuan was leaning forward and grinning at the camera. A tight feeling began to rise in Wuxian’s chest, and a memory of another moment from the banquet wandered back into his mind…
... The stone of the roof was cold against Wuxian’s back, but he did not mind. The small amount of warmth from Lan Zhan pressed up against him was enough. Somewhere else in the complex, people were shouting, and pounding electronic music throbbed through the air, but on the roof those things didn’t matter.
“I’m glad we left,” Wuxian murmured, pressing his head into the crook of Lan Zhan’s shoulder and staring up at the stars. “I’m tired of all this Jin bullshit.”
“Mmm.” Lan Zhan shifted his arm so that he could stroke Wuxian’s hair.
“Trying to get Shijie to agree to marrying that peacock ? What the fuck was that about??” Lan Zhan didn’t have an answer for him, but Wuxian didn’t need one. “At least no one is over here, and no one can stop us from being up here. What are they going to say to Hanguang Jun? You can’t tell Hanguang Jun to get off of a roof.” Wuxian shook his head. “I hope Shijie told Cheng where I went. He’ll be mad I ran off, but if you ran off too he can’t be too terribly mad.” He knew Lan Zhan was laughing at him, but he ignored his boyfriend’s mocking. “How do we always end up here? Sitting on roofs? The first time I met you was on a roof, and then there was that time in the Unclean Realm, and now here we are again.”
“You are the one who gets on the roof first.”
“But you join me.” Wuxian grinned up at him, and Lan Zhan frowned down at him. His frown melted into a goofy expression of surprise the moment Wuxian poked him in the nose. Wuxian cackled and rolled back over, flopping his free arm across the roof. The sounds of partying rose in sudden volume. “If they come over here, I swear, I’m going to try and see if these wicked tricks can do what everyone thinks they can,” Wuxian grumbled.
“Wei Ying. Don’t joke like that.”
“I’m sorry, Lan Zhan.” Wuxian looked up at him. “I promise I’m taking it seriously.” Lan Zhan smiled slightly and pressed his head against Wuxian. They settled back against the slope of the roof, watching the stars. The sounds of the partiers faded away, and for a moment Wuxian could almost believe that they were normal teenagers on a stargazing date. There was nothing more to worry about in the world then whether he was going to kiss Lan Zhan. He sighed. “I wish we could do this for the rest of our lives.”
“Lie on this roof?”
“Yeah, I guess. Be together. Watch the stars. I want to have this for as long as possible.” Lan Zhan did not say anything, but snuggled closer to Wuxian and tightened his hold on his hand. Wuxian sat up and looked directly into his boyfriend’s eyes. “Lan Zhan, I know things are crazy right now, and I know how it looks like things are about to go, but I swear to you, I will stay right here by your side for the rest of time. I am not going to go anywhere.” He was too young to be making such promises, but he was at the age where such promises seemed like they were essential to make. Lan Zhan sat up and studied his face. “I promise you that,” Wuxian said. “I will stay with you forever. Nothing is going to change that, and nothing can take me away from you. Not all the clans in the world, not anything.”
“Wei Ying,” Lan Zhan began, then trailed off as if he had lost the words he had wanted to say. “I will, too. I will stay with you.” He reached over and took Wuxian’s other hand. “No matter what.” They smiled at each other, giddy with the feeling of love and being loved. Wuxian leaned across the space between them and kissed Lan Zhan, softly. In that moment, he knew for certain that he was really, truely, in love with Lan Zhan…
A stray tear trickled its way down Wuxian’s cheek, and he smiled sadly at the confident teenagers frozen in time in front of him. He would have kept that promise, if only the world hadn’t come crashing down around him. Maybe he should have given up the flute the moment Lan Zhan had asked him to. If he had done that, maybe things wouldn’t have gone the way they did. Maybe he wouldn’t have hurled himself over the cliff and left Lan Zhan alone with a child who had never been his responsibility in the first place. Maybe Lan Zhan wouldn’t have defected. Maybe…
“Wei Ying?” Wuxian started and turned to see Lan Zhan standing just behind him, a worried expression on his face. There was a cane tucked under his arm, and a grocery bag was hanging from his shoulder. He set the bag down and stepped stiffly over to take Wuxian’s hand.
“I’m okay, Lan Zhan. I’m just...remembering.” Lan Zhan nodded and stepped closer to him, squeezing his hand. “There’s so much I missed. I wasn’t here to support you, or a-Yuan, through anything.” Lan Zhan considered this, then looked at the pictures Wuxian had been staring at. “I promised you I wouldn’t leave you, and then I did,” Wuxian continued. “I’m sorry.”
“It was not your fault.” Lan Zhan reached a hand up and cradled his face. “We...we got by. And now you are here, and we can make up the time.”
“Can we?” Lan Zhan nodded slowly and smiled. “Lan Zhan, it’s been sixteen years.”
“We have a lifetime to make up for that.” Lan Zhan pulled him closer and pressed their foreheads together. It was not clear which of them began it, but soon their arms were wrapped around each other and they were kissing so hard, as if they really could make up for every single missed kiss and embrace and tear and murmur. They had kissed like this the previous night, had found every little inch of skin and hollow and curve that had gone un-caressed, but what was a single night to make up for thousands missed? Wuxian had to learn to be gentle to Lan Zhan’s back, which had been seriously injured in a way that Lan Zhan had not explained to him, but he had always had careful hands for picking lotus seeds from their pods and playing flute and holding toddlers’ hands. They would have clutched at each other for the rest of the day if Yuan hadn’t dropped his grocery bags down with a meaningful thump.
“A-Yuan, I thought you were at class!” Wuxian exclaimed, stepping away from Lan Zhan and feeling distinctly embarrassed.
“Baba called in sick for me,” Yuan explained. It was hard for Wuxian to connect the mature university student in his jean jacket with the little toddler who had run around in mud-stained jeans and clung to Wuxian’s legs, but he was trying. “I need to finish my essay, anyway. But...I don’t know if I want to finish it now.” Wuxian picked up Lan Zhan’s abandoned grocery bag and carried it over to the counter. He began to help Yuan sort the produce.
“You never told me what your essay was about,” Lan Zhan observed, coming over to join them. Yuan busied himself with putting things in the fridge.
“A-Yuan,” Wuxian called, folding his arms and frowning at his son’s back. “Are you going to answer your father?”
“It’s about why Wei Wuxian dying was a good thing,” Yuan told the vegetable drawer.
“So that’s what they’re teaching kids these days,” Wuxian said, shaking his head. “It’s a modern cultivation history course, isn’t it? Down at the university? Typical.” Lan Zhan’s eyebrows had slanted down just slightly, and Wuxian guessed that he was plotting a scene to cause. “Anyways, I’m starving. A-Yuan, let me get at the fridge, and I’ll make some breakfast. Lan Zhan, you are going to sit down and rest for once in your life.” Lan Zhan made a protesting face, but Wuxian frowned at him and steered him towards one of the chairs.
It is a fall afternoon, and two men are sitting on a public park bench holding hands. They are not talking; they do not have to talk to each other to understand what needs to be said. A group of children just out of school sprint past them, laughing and chattering about how they are about to go fly kites, and one of the men looks at the other and smiles. They will deal with the complicated parts of life later. For now, it is just them and the park and the rest of their lives laid out in front of them.