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Lan Wangji is worried about his brother, and he says as much to his uncle. Lan Qiren doesn’t see the problem. “So he does some art,” he says with a dismissive wave of his hand. “What’s wrong with that? If you think I’ll be upset with him because he’s an artist—”

“I know you wouldn’t be,” Lan Wangji promises, “but Brother is…drawing fanart.” Lan Qiren stares at him blankly and Lan Wangji struggles to figure out how to properly explain just how catastrophic this development is. “Brother doesn’t participate in fandom. He doesn’t know what fanart is.” How many times had Lan Xichen stumbled across some on the internet and mistaken it for official art? Countless, too countless. “I think he has a crush on Nie Huaisang.”

That is what finally gets Lan Qiren to sigh in disappointment. “Well,” he murmurs, “I’m not surprised. And there are worse people to have a crush on, anyway.”

It takes a moment for Lan Wangji to recognize the hidden barb. “Uncle, Wei Ying—”

“Shaved off my beard! In my sleep!” He gestures frantically at his face, upon which stubble has just started to grow back. “I look infantile!”

No, Lan Qiren looks like a perfectly respectable thirty-five-year-old. In fact, he looks better like this, but Lan Wangji will never admit that because he likes being able to live in his own house, thank you very much. (Wei Wuxian had no such qualms, of course. After that conversation, Lan Qiren had tolerated Wei Wuxian’s presence right up until Jiang Fengmian and Yu Ziyuan finally returned from their vacation, at which point Lan Qiren had Lan Xichen drive Wei Wuxian back to his house, and only after confirming Wei Wuxian’s safe return did he burst into a muttering rage. His uncle is like that, you see—paternal care first, grumpy old man instincts second.)

At Lan Qiren’s continued distress, Lan Wangji just soothes, “You look fine, Uncle. Your goatee will grow back soon.”

Lan Qiren sniffs. “It better, or that I and that boyfriend of yours have to have a talking to.”

He idly wonders if he could convince his uncle that he’d truly look better with some stubble and a mustache, but he doubts that will go anywhere. And so, with a forlorn sigh, he leaves the room.

Foiled again, it seems.

It started back when Lan Wangji and Nie Huaisang were in kindergarten, learning to read and write and share. Lan Wangji was a nearly perfect student, you see, only falling flat in one area: the aforementioned sharing.

Lan Xichen, three years his senior, had started to follow Nie Mingjue—one year Lan Xichen’s senior—around with stars in his eyes. And, well, Nie Mingjue was nice enough, but Lan Wangji never understood Lan Xichen’s fascination with him. But still, it set him on edge, because ever since he became close to Nie Mingjue, Lan Xichen also wanted to play with Nie Huaisang…but Nie Huaisang was Lan Wangji’s friend, not Lan Xichen’s! So he dutifully did his best to keep Nie Huaisang and Lan Xichen from crossing paths, and every time he did so, Lan Xichen always knew. He’d stare at him from across the playground, sometimes, accusations in his gaze.

Lan Wangji simply stared back, unimpressed.

But Lan Wangji was only six, and he could only hold his own against a nine-year-old for so long. With that in mind, he finally decided to approach Nie Mingjue.

“Huaisang and Brother can’t meet,” he’d said plainly.

Nie Mingjue, ten years old and much smarter than the average six-year-old, was suspicious. “Why can’t they meet? Did Huaisang do something?”

“No. But Huaisang is my friend.”

“And he’s my brother,” Nie Mingjue agreed. “What’s wrong with that?”

“You can be Huaisang’s brother,” Lan Wangji allowed, “but I’m his friend, so Brother can’t be his friend, too. It’s not fair.”

“Sharing is caring,” Nie Mingjue reminded.

Lan Wangji simply repeated, “It’s not fair.”

Nie Mingjue scoffed, turning away from him to continue bouncing his ball. “Well, I’m his brother so I get to decide who he’s friends with—and I say that he can be friends with Xichen. Maybe he shouldn’t be friends with you.”

Alarm immediately flooded Lan Wangji’s tiny frame. “You can’t do that!”

“Yes, I can!”

Now, Lan Wangji will never admit it, but what happened next was incredibly simple: he’d burst into tears and took off to the other side of the playground to crawl into his secret spot—the area beneath the slide. It was there that Nie Huaisang found him and demanded to know what was wrong.

“Your brother said we can’t be friends anymore,” Lan Wangji sobbed. “But I like you and I want to be your friend and I don’t want to play alone at recess!”

Nie Huaisang frowned severely. “My brother was being mean! I’ll always be your friend, Wangji!”

Lan Wangji turned the full force of his watery gaze onto his friend. “Promise?”

“Promise!”

And that was good enough for him.

“That song,” Lan Wangji says suddenly. “Nie Huaisang wrote it, right?”

Wei Wuxian looks up from his homework, momentarily bewildered, but then a beaming smile plasters itself across his face. “Yep! From his latest album! What was it…ah, Baxia!”

Ah, yes, that one. The name was Nie Mingjue’s idea, you see, because Nie Huaisang had dedicated the entire album to him and it was only fitting that he got to name it. Still, that isn’t important—no, something much more important springs into his mind and he immediately stands up from his work to walk over to Wei Wuxian’s side of the table. “I need your help.”

Wei Wuxian’s smile falters. “What?”

“Your help,” Lan Wangji repeats. “I need it.”

“Ah, right, what is it? What happened? Did someone do something to you? I’ll make them pay, I swear—”

“No!” Better to get Wei Wuxian’s mind of murder now than pay for the consequences later. “No one needs to pay, I just…am worried about my brother.”

Wei Wuxian’s eyes narrow. “Does he want to learn coding or something?” Then, his eyes widen. “Wait, is he hurt? Or does he, like, need drug money? Doesn’t he do weed or something? Damn, it’s always the nice one…”

“My brother,” Lan Wangji says firmly, “does not smoke weed.”

Wei Wuxian snorts, but immediately attempts to pass it off as a cough. “Right, sorry, I didn’t mean to imply that he did.”

A slight pause. Then, accusingly, “You know something.”

Wei Wuxian shrugs awkwardly. “I mean…he’s called Weed Boy for a reason, you know?”

Lan Wangji lets his eyes slip shut as he counts to ten. Deep breaths, Wangji, deep breaths. Eventually, he decides to ignore the last thirty seconds of the conversation and carry on. “My brother,” he says slowly, “is getting into fandom.” A pause. “Idol fandom.”

“Oh, that’s great!” At Lan Wangji’s blatant disapproval, he immediately goes, “I mean, that’s not great. That’s terrible. How has such a terrible travesty come to pass?”

Of course, Lan Wangji knows that Wei Wuxian is mocking him, and yet it’s those exact thoughts that are running through his head. He does his best to explain. “Our families were close in elementary school,” he offers. “We parted ways soon after…Brother has only recently found out that Nie Huaisang is an idol.” And oh what a day that had been. Lan Xichen had come running out of his room, phone out, frantically demanding to know whether the Twitter post was fake or not, and Lan Wangji—congee half-eaten—had confirmed that it was, in fact, a legitimate post. It was a picture of Nie Huaisang on stage, smiling brightly, making a little heart with his thumb and forefinger.

When Lan Xichen had realized that both Lan Wangji and Lan Qiren already knew…well, he was upset, to say the least. Lan Qiren, however, just stared at him blankly before saying, “You’re the one always on that phone of yours—we thought you already knew by now.” Which was true, and Lan Xichen went absolutely red with embarrassment before slinking back into his room, clutching his phone tight to his chest.

“So…” Wei Wuxian says once he finishes explaining, “this is, like, childhood friends to lovers? Also a fanboy AU?”

“What?” The moment Wei Wuxian’s words register in his head, he immediately spits, “No! Wei Ying—Nie Huaisang is an idol. My brother is a classical lit student. They are not going to become lovers.”

“They’re so going to become lovers. Maybe they need to have a one night stand, first—or get stuck in a room with only one bed.”

“Quiet,” Lan Wangji snaps. “They’re not going to date!”

Wei Wuxian frowns at him, then huffs, “I know you never learned how to share, Lan Zhan, but just let your brother have fun, would you?”

Realizing that he isn’t going to get any sympathy here—not even from his boyfriend? The betrayal!—he grumbles before sitting back in his chair, forcing himself to finish going through his math work.

He must pass this test…and he must not let his brother fall in love with Nie Huaisang!

Nie Huaisang is actually the one who contacts Lan Wangji first. It’s been several years since they parted, Nie Huaisang moving with his brother in the third grade, and so when Lan Wangji gets a message on Twitter, he almost doesn’t recognize the name—but then, all of a sudden, it clicks. Nie Huaisang, his best friend from elementary school, the one he spent an entire week crying for after he had to move away.

The message was a simple one: “Wangji?”

Lan Wangji replied, “Huaisang?” and they reconnected like they’d never parted in the first place.

They were both fourteen and Nie Huaisang was not yet an idol—no, he was still a child actor, doing astounding performances in critically-acclaimed movies. Lan Wangji, meanwhile, was a straight-A student showing enough promise to potentially skip a grade (something that Nie Huaisang had, thankfully, talked him out of—if he had skipped, he never would have met Wei Wuxian, and that would have been a terrible life, indeed). They discussed both of their successes passively at most and spent the rest of their time chatting amicably about one book or another.

And then, the day came. It took a few years, of course—several, actually, through which they kept regular contact, but eventually, Lan Xichen found out about Nie Huaisang, and his obsession was downright unnerving.

Lan Wangji put Nie Huaisang on speaker as he scrubbed down his dishes. “I think he was writing fanfiction,” Lan Wangji said in the general direction of his phone. “Actual, real-person fanfiction about you. How can you tell me that you’re not concerned?”

“I’m flattered, actually,” Nie Huaisang said. “I mean—fanfiction? About me? As someone who is avid in fandom, I’ve got to say, this is a dream come true.”

“You read real-person fic?”

“…Maybe.”

Lan Wangji sighed. “It’s fine, it’s just—isn’t it weird? Why would my brother write fanfiction about you? You’re a good singer, but fanfiction-worthy?” Due to his inattention, he nearly splashed himself in the face while washing the spoon.

“Wangji, are you saying I’m not cool enough for fourteen-year-olds to secretly write erotica about?” There was a small pause, after which Nie Huaisang said, “Ah, I regretted that the moment I said it. Ignore that, carry on.”

Lan Wangji did, indeed, ignore it. “I’m your friend,” Lan Wangji said. “I’m just…uncomfortable with my brother writing fanfiction about you.”

“If it helps, it’s not anything creepy, it’s just me and him eating ice cream together.”

Another short pause. Then, slowly, “Huaisang, did you read my brother’s real-person self-insert fanfiction about you?”

There was an exaggerated cough on the other end before Nie Huaisang said, “Oh, look at the time! I’ve got to go, sorry!” And the line went dead.

Lan Wangji was left to simply stare morosely down at his dirty spoons.

Lan Wangji admits—this is low, even for him…but he really doesn’t know who else to go to. Wen Qing is too terrifying, neither Wen Ning nor Jiang Yanli is the kind to be overly concerned about their siblings’ crushes, and he is not close to any other siblings. Thus, Jiang Cheng is his last line of defense. One problem: he despises Jiang Cheng, and the feeling is wholly mutual.

As Wei Wuxian’s boyfriend, one would think that contacting Jiang Cheng would be easy, but no—Wei Wuxian apologetically explains that Jiang Cheng made him swear to never hand any of his contact info over to Lan Wangji, ever. It complicates things a tad bit, sure, but he can still work with it. Instead, he extracts Jiang Yanli’s number, and she feels no qualms about handing Lan Wangji both Jiang Cheng’s current phone number and address.

It takes him twenty minutes but, eventually, Lan Wangji manages to knock on Jiang Cheng’s front door. It opens, Jiang Cheng’s tired face coming into view for all of two seconds before the man realizes who Lan Wangji is and slams the door shut in his face. Lan Wangji follows his usual routine, closing his eyes and counting to ten.

He doesn’t even reach five before Jiang Cheng finally opens the door again, snatching up his elbow and dragging him inside with nary a greeting in sight. It’s only after Lan Wangji manages to steady himself on the wall, door slamming shut behind him, that Jiang Cheng demands, “Is Wei Wuxian all right? I swear if you let something happen to him, I’ll—”

“Wei Ying is okay,” Lan Wangji assures quickly. Best to get these things out of the way first. “I came here because I need help.”

“Oh, okay. I’m not going to help you. Now, get out.”

“No, wait, please,” Lan Wangji says, grabbing hold of Jiang Cheng’s arm. Jiang Cheng stares at the place where their arms connect in such open disgust that Lan Wangji instinctively removes his arm. Luckily, Jiang Cheng actually stays put. “Thank you, I just need to ask you something.”

“If I answer,” Jiang Cheng says, “then will you leave?”

“Of course.” It’s not like Lan Wangji wants to be here, either.

“Okay, spill.”

“How did you deal with finding out that Wei Ying liked me?”

Jiang Cheng snorts. “I got him drunk and tried to convince him that you were a dog-lover. That bastard decided to try and go after you, anyway.”

Well, that is…alarming, among other things, but Lan Wangji must admit that he has the distinct urge to get his brother drunk and convince him that Nie Huaisang murders babies, if it’ll get Lan Xichen to stop liking Nie Huaisang. “Did you try anything else?”

“Does it matter?” Jiang Cheng asks. “As you can probably tell, none of them worked.”

Fair enough. Lan Wangji needs a fool-proof plan, a guaranteed way to put an end to this once and for all—to finally, decisively be Nie Huaisang’s friend. “Help me get my brother to stop loving Nie Huaisang.”

Jiang Cheng chokes. “As in, the idol? Lan Wangji, aren’t celebrity crushes a thing? Wei Wuxian had too many to count, and Nie Huaisang was only one of them—” oh Lord, oh God, repress, repress!— “so just, like, wait for a while.”

“It’s not a crush,” Lan Wangji insists. “He’s in love.”

“Is there a difference?”

“Yes,” Lan Wangji snaps, indignant. “He’s in love and I need to get him out of love.”

“Why? Is there some scandal about Nie Huaisang that I don’t know about?”

“No, Nie Huaisang is very kind! But…my brother can’t like him.”

“Well, it certainly seems like he can,” Jiang Cheng says, rolling his eyes before finally collapsing onto his couch. “Take it from someone who has had to watch two of his siblings fall in love with assholes—there’s nothing you can do about this. Just go with the flow and occasionally get drunk.” He pauses. “Or high, I guess, if that floats your boat.”

“What—why would I get high?”

“Isn’t Lan Xichen—”

“Stop,” Lan Wangji says tightly. “Just…stop.” Perhaps he needs to have a conversation with his brother. Wait. Perhaps he’s going about this all wrong, perhaps direct confrontation is the best way to go. “Jiang Cheng, you’re actually useful for something,” he marvels.

Jiang Cheng’s face goes deep red. “Get the fuck out of my house!”

Lan Wangji does so gladly, determination set in his features. He knows what he has to do.

He decides that the living room is as good a place as any to discuss it, and the fact that Lan Xichen is already there certainly helps. He doesn’t waste time with any preamble either, simply walking up to his brother and declaring, “I think you’re obsessed with Huaisang.”

Lan Xichen stares at him blankly before slowly sighing and pausing his phone. He doesn’t seem irritated or concerned—in fact, he seems somewhat amused. “Really?” he asks. “And what makes you think that?”

“You draw fanart,” Lan Wangji says bluntly. “And write fanfiction. You’ve never done that before…and you never stop talking about him. I am concerned.”

“Why are you concerned?”

“You can’t like Nie Huaisang.”

“Why?”

Lan Wangji frowns, desperately racking his brain for a good reason. “He’s a celebrity,” Lan Wangji eventually says. “There’s no point.”

“People love celebrities all the time,” Lan Xichen points out. “Why, weren’t Song Lan and Xiao Xingchen your first two crushes?”

Immediately, Lan Wangji’s face heats up. “I was a teenager,” he mutters. “You’re twenty-five.”

“Love is not defined by age, Wangji,” Lan Xichen says easily. Afterward, he hastily amends, “Ah—it is restricted by age of consent, of course, but you get what I mean.”

And Lan Wangji does, but he can only double down now. “There’s no point in liking a celebrity!”

“It’s not like I have much of a choice, Wangji. The heart wants what the heart wants.”

“Wei Ying’s heart wants to eat rabbit meat,” Lan Wangji argues. “Not all things the heart wants are good.”

“Wei Wuxian wants to brutally devour small, fluffy animals. I want to be in a relationship with a fellow human being. I think there is a difference, Wangji.” Even as the argument continues, Lan Xichen seems completely unruffled, whereas Lan Wangji is getting increasingly frustrated by the second.

“You’ve always been like this,” he accuses. “You always wanted to be with Nie Huaisang. Why are you like this?”

“Why are you always trying to keep him away from me?”

“Because he’s my friend!” Lan Wangji says. “Not yours!”

“People can have more than one friend, Wangji,” Lan Xichen says dryly. “Do you really want to forsake A-Sang to only being close to one person? And besides—just because he’s dating me doesn’t mean that he’ll stop being your friend.”

“He won’t spend as much time with me,” Lan Wangji protests.

“That doesn’t make you any less of his friend. And, besides—you have other friends, don’t you? Isn’t it hypocritical to hold A-Sang to a standard that you don’t hold yourself to?”

Lan Wangji lingers in his own silence as he finally admits to himself that perhaps he’s been a bit selfish. But…Nie Huaisang was his first friend. For an entire year after Nie Huaisang had moved away, Lan Wangji had been all alone. He hadn’t met Wei Wuxian until the fifth grade when he weaseled his way into Lan Wangji’s heart. Now that he finally has Nie Huaisang back…how can he just let him go?

“You’re not,” Lan Xichen promises. “You’re holding on just as strong as ever—but you’re letting A-Sang have the room he needs, too.”

And finally, finally, Lan Wangji relents. “I’m sorry, brother,” he says, and he manages to be at peace for all of ten seconds before something suddenly occurs to him. Head snapping up, he demands, “‘A-Sang’?”

It is at that moment that someone unlocks the door and steps inside. Lan Wangji knows that it is not him or his brother, since they are both in the living room, and he knows it is not his uncle, whose muffled voice is still singing off-tune from the shower down the hall, and so he immediately assumes that it’s the only other person who has a key to this house: Wei Wuxian. But no, the man who walks in most certainly is not Wei Wuxian.

He’s much shorter than Lan Wangji, clothes a bit larger and puffier to account for the recent cold snap. His hair is tied up into a neat bun and his eyes are a warm amber and there are faint hits on lipstick on his lips. The face is one that Lan Wangji will never forget. “Huaisang?”

Nie Huaisang blinks. “Oh. Oh no, this was supposed to be a surprise for you.” He looks down helplessly at the wrapped gift in his hands, before attempting a half-hearted, “Surprise!”

Lan Wangji is certainly surprised. “You came?”

“A-Huan asked me to come surprise you,” Nie Huaisang says sadly. Lan Xichen, too, seems put-out. “I must have gotten mixed up because of the time zones…”

“Wait, wait, ‘A-Huan’? What?” Lan Wangji demands. He feels like he’s right on the edge of something unfathomably terrible, and he doesn’t want to tip over, but he’s so desperately curious.

Nie Huaisang smiles. “Oh, oh, that’s the other surprise—A-Huan and I are dating!”

Lan Wangji stares. Then, slowly, he sits on the sofa, puts his face in his hands, and tries to keep it together. Sure, he consciously realized that he shouldn’t hoard Nie Huaisang, but this is too quick! Too much!

A single peak out of his fingers reveals Lan Xichen and Nie Huaisang pressing a quick kiss to each other on the lips, and he feels like he’s going to die…Maybe Jiang Cheng was onto something about getting high, after all. He’ll think about it later.

For now, he just lets himself be and watches as Lan Xichen and Nie Huaisang smile sweetly at each other. Ah, he recognizes that—it’s the same way he and Wei Wuxian smile at each other in pictures. It’s a smile of happiness and love and satisfaction. It is a smile worth having.

So, finally, Lan Wangji admits: perhaps this is a good thing, after all.