Archive of Our Own ^beta

1.

Beijing Beta had a deeply tilted axis and an eccentric orbit, and the more populated southern hemisphere was halfway through a long, dark winter when Lu Bixing and his new friends were finally fit to land. It was sort of too bad; at least on the mech they'd had a view of Beijing Beta's home star whenever Lu Bixing felt like turning the mech to face it, but the settlement they were landing in wouldn't see any sunrise at all for another IU Standard Year.

"Local time is 2:04am, we should be good to descend in an hour," Lu Bixing reported as he entered the queue for the spaceport. "Ground temperature is minus ten. The good news is they don't really do diurnal cycles here, so we shouldn't have any trouble finding accommodations. Hey, Lin, what do you want to eat first when we land?"

Lin ignored him. He was wearing a shirt that Lu Bixing had bought to be fashionably oversized on himself. It was still a little large on Lin, but it was giving less 'sweaterpaws' and more 'stretched-out old pajamas.' He'd had Zhanlu cut his hair earlier and it was still mostly damp, with severe comb lines pressed into it, but the hair at the back of his neck was dry and curling against his collar. He looked sort of grimly cozy.

"I want fresh fruit," Lu Bixing said, turning in his seat to twiddle his thumbs at Lin. "But I don't know that they really do that sort of thing here with the seasons being what they are. I guess I'd settle for canned. You can just keep that shirt. And the trousers — uh, and the underwear and socks, you can just keep anything you've worn. And you'll need a jacket, and maybe a hat and scarf?" Lin would look cute in a beret, he thought, but he also thought that was probably pushing it. "Let's just go look through my closet."

Lin narrowed his eyes. "I stopped listening when you said fresh fruit," he admitted plainly. "You have food in your closet?"

"I have clothes in my closet," said Lu Bixing, as if to a child. "And you need to look normal instead of like a guy I found in space wrapped in a robot arm. Come on, let me dress you up! Paper doll Lin."

Lin grimaced at him, but he followed obediently enough when Lu Bixing trotted away, and he hunched on the edge of Lu Bixing's bunk while Lu Bixing rifled through drawers and hangers for acceptable garments. Lin refused to express a preference for any colors, textures, or cuts other than the extremely helpful 'normal,' but Lu Bixing had half a dozen brain cells to slap together, so he mostly stuck to dark neutrals. Lin tried to stop him after two shirts and one pair of trousers — "What else do I even need?" — which made Lu Bixing turn around three times and then sit down with his head in his hands for thirty seconds.

"I don't know why I saved you," he said. "You're killing me, Lin, you're really killing me."

"Okay, three sets of underwear," Lin said kindly.

"You're banished," Lu Bixing said. "Leave this room. This process will continue without you. Zhanlu, sweetie, you can stay," he added, and Zhanlu unpeeled himself from his master's arm and took his human form. Lin slithered away, presumably to go look out the window and plot new ways to ruin Lu Bixing's life.

"My thanks, Mister Lu," Zhanlu said, because he was a good and polite AI. Lu Bixing had no clue what he was doing hanging around with the likes of Lin. "If I may make a suggestion, that grey turtleneck is quite similar in color to Sir's eyes."

"You're a star," Lu Bixing told him seriously. 

Half an hour later, the two of them had selected ten shirts of varying weights and styles, four trousers that should mostly fit, an adequate supply of socks and non-sexy underwear for a non-repulsive man, two scarves, two pairs of gloves, a jacket and puffy winter coat, "— and: the pièces de résistance: real wool socks and a real felt hat."

"Okay," said Lin. "Thanks. I like the jacket."

"Nothing?" Lu Bixing said. "The socks are wool. The hat is wool. That hat is probably worth almost as much as this mech."

"That's bleak," Lin said absently, fiddling with the zipper of the jacket. "I'll pay you back."

"What? No," said Lu Bixing. "With what money? You aren't selling Zhanlu for parts. If you sell that hat I'll beat you up."

"I'll get a job," Lin said, as if jobs that paid you enough to buy a wool hat in the Eighth Galaxy just popped up like binary stars.

Lu Bixing gave up on him again. "Just try everything on and make sure it all fits okay. Sorry about the shoe situation." Lin had larger feet than he did; Lu Bixing liked an oversized trouser once in a while but did not go out of his way to buy too-large shoes. The deeply unstylish but customizably-sized mag boots that came with the mech were Lin's only option.

"The shoes are fine?" Lin said, and stood to tug his shirt off. Lu Bixing watched as he dispassionately tried on every garment one by one without stopping to pose or check himself in the mirror even once. His only real fit test was a set of high kicks and a deep squat in each pair of trousers, presumably to make sure the ass wouldn't rip if he, what, joined a dance team? Lin was truly a man of mystery. 

"Ten minutes before descent begins," Zhanlu informed them as Lin shrugged out of the puffy coat.

"Noted," Lu Bixing said. "Quick, try on the jacket and then we can pack this all up. … Wah, handsome, you're very handsome! So stylish, you look so good!"

Lin grunted. He did look good, unfortunately, even though he didn't deserve it. The jacket was a similar deep brown-black to Lin's hair, with the interesting soft texture of really high quality synth leather and a contrasting harsh detail of a shiny steel zipper down the front. It was very Lin-core. Lin shoved his hands in the jacket's deep pockets and came up with a half-smoked cigarette that was probably ten years old; he tossed it at Lu Bixing's head.

"You're supposed to say thank you!" Lu Bixing said, letting the cigarette bounce off him. It wasn't gross; that cigarette had almost certainly been his. "Look, Zhanlu, roleplay with me, tell me I'm handsome. Don't you think I'm handsome, Zhanlu?"

"Mister Lu's features are relatively symmetrical," Zhanlu said obediently, "which is a feature commonly though not universally considered handsome."

"Zhanlu," Lu Bixing complained, and Lin laughed at him outright.

"Six minutes," Zhanlu reminded them, and Lu Bixing forgot about how full of shit Lin was in favor of packing all his stuff away.

2.

Lin got a job.

He wasn't going to buy Lu Bixing a new wool hat any time soon, but it was a job, and it paid him enough to move out of the parked mech, which was more than Lu Bixing could say for himself. That was fine by him; he was perfectly comfortable in the mech and was happy to stay there for the comparatively small price of a rented bay and spend his remaining money on real food, rather than find some crummy apartment somewhere and keep eating nutrition bars.

He missed having company, though. He liked Lin a lot, and of course Zhanlu was a total hoot, in addition to his extremely convenient computational powers. It had been kind of nice living with both of them for months, even though they were stuck in the mech and Lu Bixing had almost killed Lin and also Lin was full of shit most of the time. But it had been nice.

Obviously, this meant that whenever Lu Bixing saw Lin around town now, he was compelled to go bother him. He had taken to squinting hard at the cabins of all the trash collectors he saw just in case it was Lin inside; every once in a while, like this morning, it was.

"Hey!" he called, waving. "Lin!" The trash collector groaned to a stop and Lin threw it in park, but kept the headlights on to illuminate the fat snowflakes whirling down between them in the dark. Lin slid out and landed with a faint crunch on the packed snow; as Lu Bixing came closer, he realized Lin was wearing that jacket he'd given him, and for some reason the sight was immensely cheering. He wolf-whistled at him. "Nice jacket, I wonder where you got it?"

"Ha ha," said Lin, already pulling out his pack of smokes. "Some corny little goofball dumped it on me. Where did you get this thing? It's in good condition for being so old."

"Is it old?" Lu Bixing said, and accepted the cigarette and lighter offered to him. He sucked at the cigarette to start the cherry burning and said, "It was my dad's, or one of his friends'. I think it was a friend's, actually. I guess I thought it must be maybe forty years old."

"Forty? Try two hundred," said Lin, and Lu Bixing choked on a lungful of smoke. "Jackets like this were in style when my parents' generation was young."

Lu Bixing wheezed under Lin's completely unsympathetic gaze. "Two HUNDRED?" he managed. "I didn't think clothes could last that long."

"They can when they're made of good leather that's been taken care of. Quit that, you'll waste my cigarette," Lin added mildly. 

"Leather? Like real leather?" Lu Bixing held his cigarette in his mouth and pulled his gloves off, then grabbed two fistfuls of Lin's jacket. It was cold; it felt like it always had, soft and kind of skin-like. He'd worn it for a while in his twenties, he was familiar enough with it. But he'd thought it was just really high quality synth.

"Sure," Lin said. "The lining's been replaced a couple times, but the shell's okay. This thing is worth more than the socks and hat combined."

"Leather…" Lu Bixing repeated, rubbing the jacket between his fingers. "I wore real antique leather around for five years and my stupid dad didn't even tell me…" 

"He probably knew how vain you'd get," Lin said. "You can stop feeling me up now."

"Hmm," said Lu Bixing, and took his hands back. He fumbled his gloves back on. "How'd you know it was real?"

"Just experience. Leather isn't so rare everywhere in the universe, you know." Lin took another drag off his cigarette and blew it gently into Lu Bixing's face. "Some planets have real agriculture."

"Yeah, well. The lichen farms are doing their best here," Lu Bixing sighed. It took a long time to build viable soil, even with imported microbe-rich compost. "So you're from somewhere with agriculture, eh?" Lin ignored that. He was so stingy with information about himself. The only real thing Lu Bixing had learned about him so far was that he wasn't from the Eighth, which was obvious and therefore didn't count. "How goes trash collecting?"

"It's a job," said Lin. "How goes your school?"

"Oh," said Lu Bixing, "you know," and left it at that. Lin laughed quietly. He looked like a model or something, the way the red glow of the streetlights caught the planes of his face in the dark. Only extraordinarily good-looking people could lean against a trash collector and still look hot. Maybe that was his story; maybe he was a supermodel from the Fourth or Third Galaxy and he got tired of people telling him Now smize, darling, smize. He was good at smizing, though: another point in this theory's favor.

"Were you on your way somewhere or were you just stalking the streets for innocent garbagemen," Lin said eventually, and Lu Bixing's awareness snapped back to the world at large.

"Oh," he said, and then, already scrambling away into the darkness of the morning, "Oh, crap, yep, I have — yep, see ya later, Lin! Wish me luck!"

Lin said nothing, but after a couple strides Lu Bixing found his way illuminated from behind by the headlights of the trash collector.

3.

Five years and the complete obliteration of a planet later, Zhanlu and Lu Bixing were making a joint effort to force Lin to go take a nap. He had been sunk into the neural net for thirty-eight hours without pause, and his temperature kept fluctuating. "Sir," Zhanlu pleaded again, "You must rest to heal properly."

"The neural net is restful," Lin said. "It's meditative."

"Put your hands over your head right now," Lu Bixing told him. "I dare you."

Lin curled his lip in a rebellious little snarl and didn't try it. His back was still too torn up to move that way and he knew it. His eyes were bleary with exhaustion and probably dehydration. "I don't need full range of motion to pilot a mech."

"You don't need to pilot the mech, period," Lu Bixing told him. "I can take it for a couple hours. As soon as you're up again I'll give it back, but Lin, you have to sleep."

"Zhanlu, get this little punk out of here," Lin said, and swiveled the pilot seat back to face the window. "You can come back when you've decided to be normal."

Lu Bixing and Zhanlu exchanged a look. Zhanlu said, "Sir, I am permitted to override your orders under —"

Lin groaned. "My life is not in danger, you glorified rice cooker. I can't believe you're taking his side."

Zhanlu sniffed. "Mister Lu is much kinder than you are, you know."

Lu Bixing approached the pilot's seat and leaned over Lin's hunched shoulder. Lin scowled at him. "You should sit properly at least," Lu Bixing said, "your back will get sore," and he seized Lin's shoulder to pull him back against the seat. Lin gasped sharply in shocked pain and swore and aimed an open-hand swat at Lu Bixing's head that he easily batted away. He pinned Lin there against the seat for ten excruciating seconds before releasing him. "Lin, I don't even have a biochip in. You're a ragdoll right now, go to bed." Then on a whim he ran his hand through Lin's short hair and gave it a scrunch; it was unwashed, and his hand came away flecked with crusted blood. "Actually, take a shower first."

Lin was breathing hard, a sheen of sweat breaking across his forehead, and he was pale with shock and pain but had a growing flush from, presumably, sheer outrage. "Fine," he snapped when he was capable of speaking again. "If anything weird happens, wake me up immediately."

"Yeah, yeah," Lu Bixing said, covering up a belated thrill of embarrassment, and entered the neural net. Lin handed it off to him smoothly although not without a flash of indignant fury, tangible through the shared net, and stood stiffly. He had bled through the bandages across his shoulders, which was probably Lu Bixing's fault. "Zhanlu, make sure he changes those," Lu Bixing said. Lin rolled his eyes, and Lu Bixing gentled his voice: "We'll be fine. Let me take care of this, okay? Didn't I take good care of you back then?"

Lin pushed past him out of the cockpit. "Immediately," he repeated, and Lu Bixing watched as he stalked away.

Through the neural net Lu Bixing kept half an eye on him; he really did go straight to the room not occupied by the kids or Monoeyed Hawk. When he turned the shower on and started to shove his trousers off Lu Bixing turned his attention away, back into the void of space. After an hour Zhanlu's disembodied voice informed him that Lin was asleep; Lu Bixing checked via the neural net just in case Zhanlu was being forced to lie, and found Lin curled on his side in the center of the lower bunk, one hand fisted in the pillowcase. His ribs rose and fell slowly in sleep; he was bare except for fresh bandages and black boxer-briefs.

"Zhanlu, put a blanket over him, will you?"

"The temperature in Sir's room —"

"I know, just — just do it."

He turned back to the stars.

He had time for breakfast, morning lessons with the kids, lunch, afternoon lessons, and a nice healthy gossip session with his dad and Zhanlu before Lin came back. It was funny to think that Monoeyed Hawk and Zhanlu knew each other, had known each other even longer than Zhanlu had known Lin; Zhanlu couldn't talk much about old Lu Xin, but they had others in common and were happy to talk shit about old comrades for hours. Monoeyed Hawk was in the middle of some horrible story when Lu Bixing felt a nudge on the neural net: Lin asking to be let in. Lu Bixing ceded control and felt a gesture from Lin in response, as if his mind were a pool and Lin had skimmed his fingers along its surface in gratitude.

" … and so the emu was still on the loose — hey, kid, you okay?"

"What?" Lu Bixing blinked back into the room to find Monoeyed Hawk frowning at him.

"Blood flow to your facial capillaries just increased," Zhanlu told him. "Are you experiencing an allergic reaction?"

"What the hell does that mean?" Monoeyed Hawk demanded. "Allergies? He doesn't have any allergies."

"NoI'mgood," Lu Bixing said hastily, shooting Zhanlu a glare. Quit telling my dad about my capillaries!!! he thought viciously, and then Lin entered the room. He looked — not quite good, exactly, he was still holding himself carefully, but his hair was clean and he was freshly shaven, and he was wearing — "Hey, where'd you get a new shirt?"

"It's my mech," said Lin, continuing through the rec room to get to the cockpit. Lu Bixing scrambled up to follow him, leaving Monoeyed Hawk scoffing behind them. Lin turned to give him a once-over. "Have you just been — what are you wearing."

"Is this a verbal sext? Are you trying to sext me?"

"What?"

"That's how people sext in books," Lu Bixing told him, with all the experience of a man who had read a lot of bad porn. "They say what are you wearing and then the other person says something sexy like lingerie or nothing or whatever. Is that what you're trying to do?"

"Allow me to rephrase, Professor Lu," Lin sighed. "Why are you wearing what you're wearing. What happened to your pants? I saw the nanobots fixing your knee, but what's with the other leg?"

"Don't worry about it," Lu Bixing said. "There were things flying around, the base exploded, you know. Stuff happens. And it's not like any of us has a change of clothes." Every piece of clothing Lu Bixing owned and was not actively wearing had been incinerated. There were graver and more pressing issues. But the fact remained, forty-eight hours into their flight, that humans were still mammals that did things like sweat and bleed and cry huge, snotty, heaving sobs all over everything. There was a small laundry unit on board, but it was hard to launder everything when one did not have even a bathrobe to wear in the meantime, and Lu Bixing had ripped his own trousers like some sort of idiot who thought he'd have the full use of his closet. 

Lin grunted, throwing himself down into the pilot's seat. "You can take whatever from my clothes. They're in the first room on the left. … All of you," he added reluctantly. "I keep a week's worth of clothes in here. I guess the kids are probably getting pretty rank."

Lu Bixing leaned against the dash to face him, feeling genuinely touched. "Wah, you're really paying me back," he said. "Thanks, Lin. … Jingheng. Lin Jingheng."

Lin made a pained expression at him. "Don't fullname me. I said you should just call me Lin."

"Sure, sure," Lu Bixing agreed, bobbing his head idiotically.

"Get out of here," Lin told him. "Go put on some pants."

Lu Bixing got out of there and went to put on some pants. He collected his dad and the kids on the way, and everyone crowded into his and Lin's little room while he gutted the drawers that he'd assumed were empty. He came up with:

• seven extremely boring button-down shirts in various shades of white and grey
• four pairs of identical black trousers; one casual belt and one formal belt
• a matching black suit jacket
• two unopened six-packs of black boxer briefs
• five white tee shirts
• an unopened ten-pack of black socks
• a single black tie

and: 

• Lu Bixing's old leather jacket.

"I call one of the trousers," Lu Bixing said at once. "And a tee shirt. Lin, I didn't know you knew about those. And everybody gets two pairs of undies and a pair of socks. Zhanlu, would you please?"

Zhanlu's robot arm opened the packs and distributed the underclothes, and then he distributed the other clothes according to everyone's preference. 

"Sick jacket," Rickhead said, reaching out to touch the sleeve. "That's some fancy synth. Did Si — um, Commander Lin get this from the Black Hole? Dibs."

"Oh. That one isn't up for grabs," said Lin over the comms, and the kids all flinched guiltily.

Monoeyed Hawk squinted at it. "Hey," he said. "Don't I know that jacket?"

"Um," said Lu Bixing. Monoeyed Hawk turned a slow glare on him that made him feel like he was a teen who'd been caught sneaking out. But then he remembered his conversation with Lin from five years ago, and he said, "Hey, did you know that was real leather?"

"Yeah," said Monoeyed Hawk. "And you went and gave it away, did you!"

"WHOA," said Rickhead, and fondled the sleeve again. 

"Paws off," Lin said. Rickhead snatched his hand back. "Alright, you all have clothes now. Keep it moving."

The kids filed meekly out with their new garments. Monoeyed Hawk grabbed the jacket off its hanger in one hand and Lu Bixing's left arm in the other and said, "Look, you! I didn't give this to you so you could just give it away!" He shoved the jacket into Lu Bixing's chest. "This jacket belonged to Lu Xin, you know! It's an heirloom! It's for you, not for him!"

"I never said it wasn't his." Lu Bixing whipped his head around: Lin had appeared to slouch against the doorway. "Lu Xin, huh."

"I did give it to you," Lu Bixing said, in the interest of fairness. Then, realizing: "Hey, is that the keepsake you've been looking for?"

Lin gave him a long look, then gave another, colder look to Monoeyed Hawk. "No," he said eventually. "It's not."

For some reason that made Monoeyed Hawk give a wordless growl of disgust. "You — Go to your room," he snarled at Lu Bixing. "And put on some proper pants! You look like a hooligan!"

"But Dad," Lu Bixing said. "I'm in my room."

Monoeyed Hawk was evidently so appalled by this information that he released Lu Bixing, shoved past Lin, and left without another word.

They watched him go. Then Lin turned back and said, "Your room?"

"Yeah?" Lu Bixing said. "I wasn't gonna share a room with Dad, he snores. This room was free."

Lin grunted. He was visibly doing math in his head. After a moment he said, "I'm taking the bottom bunk."

Lu Bixing had also slept in the bottom bunk and was sort of planning on sleeping there again. Once he got tired enough to sleep, he was generally too tired to bother climbing into the top bunk. He said, "Sure," and didn't offer to take the top bunk. It wasn't like they were going to sleep at the same time anyway, Lin didn't even have to know.

When he woke up from a power nap sixteen hours later, someone had draped the jacket over him.

4.

It was true that Lin Jingheng was very shy, and it was true that he was so used to being alone and uninterested in anyone that he visibly did not really know what to do with himself now that Lu Bixing had coaxed him into something like a relationship. But Lu Bixing was increasingly convinced that another significant factor at play was that Lin Jingheng actually just really liked it when Lu Bixing pursued him: he liked to be flirted at, and sweet-talked, and made the subject of Lu Bixing's innuendos. So Lu Bixing took it as a challenge and not an insult, that Lin Jingheng didn't do a lot of pursuing himself. That just meant Lu Bixing had to work twice as hard, and Lu Bixing loved to work.

It also meant that he didn't build up any sort of immunity, so whenever Lin Jingheng got it into his head to flirt back, Lu Bixing was utterly vulnerable to him.

One afternoon towards the end of the rainy season, Lu Bixing resolved to go harass Lin Jingheng a little, maybe bug him into taking a smoke break together. He begged away from his engineers and ran through the cool late-season rain from the mech hangar to the complex where Lin Jingheng did most of his work.

He almost ran right past the alleyway without seeing him, but then he skidded to a halt and stumbled a couple meters back to confirm: yes, that was Lin Jingheng pressed against the building, hiding from the rain, a recently-lit cigarette already hanging from his lips. Lu Bixing perked up and called, "Hey handsome! You got a light?"

Lin Jingheng looked up and frowned. "Put a jacket on," he said, "You'll give yourself a cold, running around in the rain like that. What's up?" But he retrieved his pack of smokes from his jacket pocket and gave one to Lu Bixing as he approached. The alley was narrow enough, and the rain was windblown enough, that they were mostly dry there between the buildings.

Lu Bixing flicked rain from his hair, stuck the cigarette between his teeth, and said around it, "Nothing much. Just wanted to see you. Light it for me?"

Lin Jingheng's mouth quirked at the corners. He lifted his cigarette to his lips and sucked at it until the cherry glowed, then leaned down to touch the end of it to the end of Lu Bixing's cigarette. Lu Bixing could barely bring himself to breathe, distracted by Lin Jingheng's hollowed cheeks, his heavily lidded eyes.

After a moment Lin Jingheng leaned back, leaving Lu Bixing's cigarette and heart both smoldering fitfully. "Well, go on," he said gruffly. "Don't let it go out."

"Uh — right," Lu Bixing said, and sucked at his cigarette until the spark took. Lin Jingheng laughed quietly at him, and his laugh was full of smoke, which, infuriatingly, did not help quell the blush creeping up Lu Bixing's throat.

"What are you working on today," Lin Jingheng said after a minute or two of companionable smoking. "You're all covered in engine grease."

"Oh yeah," said Lu Bixing. He had sort of forgotten about that in his hurry to spend his smoke break with Lin Jingheng. "One of the mechs overheated and blew a bunch of circuitry, so I've been crawling around in its guts all morning with a blowtorch." He picked at one sleeve. "There's actually way more grease you can't see under my shirt, haha."

Lin Jingheng removed his cigarette from his mouth to repeat, "Under your shirt?"

"Yeah, I took it off inside the mech, it was hot in there."

Lin Jingheng put his cigarette back to his lips and gave him a slow, hot, up-and-down look, his eyelids heavy again. "Was it."

Lu Bixing's face heated spectacularly. He cleared his throat and said, somewhat creakily, "Why, Commander Lin, if you want to see you only have to ask."

Lin Jingheng raised his eyebrows. "What, right here?"

Lu Bixing considered it for about half a second. "Sure, yeah, what the hell, I'd take my shirt off for you right now if you asked. You want me to?" He stuck his cigarette between his teeth and gestured towards the top button of his shirt.

Lin Jingheng made an inarticulate sound and batted his hand down. "Lu Bixing!"

"Lin Jingheng! It's your fault for being so hot," Lu Bixing told him, gesturing at Lin Jingheng's general hotness with his cigarette. "What am I supposed to do?"

"Be decent," Lin Jingheng muttered. "Aren't you supposed to be some kind of role model?"

"I don't see any kids around," Lu Bixing said shamelessly, and braced himself in front of Lin Jingheng with one hand against the wall like a pinup.

Lin Jingheng sucked on his cigarette a final time, rolled his eyes, and threw the butt to the ground, where he ground it into ash under his heel. Then he cupped Lu Bixing's jaw in both hands and kissed him. Lu Bixing made a totally normal and non-embarrassing sound, the kind of sound any man might make, and Lin Jingheng kissed his mouth open —

— and breathed hot smoke directly into Lu Bixing's mouth, pooling on his tongue until he had the sense to breathe it in. He took everything Lin Jingheng had in his lungs, and then he mumbled on the exhale, "Oh my god," and then he pushed Lin Jingheng back against the wall to kiss him, open-mouthed and dizzy with appalled desire. His own cigarette dropped from his fingers to the wet ground somewhere beside them; he had better things to do with his hands, like sliding them inside Lin Jingheng's jacket to grab the warm curve of his side.

Lin Jingheng held his jaw to keep him close, and one hand was just beginning to slide into his hair when Zhanlu beeped an alert at them and said from Lin Jingheng's personal device, "Sirs may be interested to know that Monoeyed Hawk will pass by this alley in approximately twenty seconds," and they broke apart. One of them made a bereft sound; Lu Bixing hung for three precious seconds off of Lin Jingheng's jacket to catch his breath and scrape his brain cells back together.

Then he cleared his throat and stood up straight and patted Lin Jingheng's shoulder manfully, too flustered to look him in the eye after that. "Well, anyway," he said, and his voice came out smoke-rough. Kiss-rough. "I, uh… I should get going."

"Hey," said Lin Jingheng, and Lu Bixing turned around to see him shrugging out of his jacket. "Wear this. Don't give yourself a cold."

Lu Bixing took it and shrugged it on, and was enveloped in the cozy heat from Lin Jingheng's body. He gave the collar of the jacket a discreet sniff: tobacco, soap. "Thanks, Lin. I'll take care of it," he added with a quick smile.

Lin Jingheng chucked his chin. "Go. You can give it back this evening."

"Sure, sure," Lu Bixing agreed, "just — " He ducked back in and kissed Lin Jingheng once more, just on the corner of his mouth. "Okay! See you!"

"See ya," Lin Jingheng said, and Lu Bixing scrambled away.

… Right into his dad passing by. "Whoops! Oh! Hey Dad! Haha, what a coincidence — well, gotta go!"

"Bye?" said Monoeyed Hawk behind him, and then, distantly as Lu Bixing fled into the rain, "... Hey, Lin, why's your shirt all grimy?"

5.

Those first couple days after Lin Jingheng moved in, Lu Bixing was secretly nervous that he might prove a little too annoying after all. Or that it wouldn't be a him thing, but that Lin Jingheng would just decide that he preferred living alone, because he had always lived alone and that's what he was used to.

But Lin Jingheng moved in with the same commitment with which he lived the rest of his life. He re-folded and rearranged the clothes Lu Bixing had moved over for him. He had a side of the sink, an end of the couch; his soap was in the shower, his rum in the kitchen. He had a side of the bed.

He had a hook on the coat rack, Lu Bixing realized on the first day of the second week, when he got home and automatically hung his coat next to Lin Jingheng's leather jacket. Lin Jingheng didn't even wear the jacket that often, he wore his uniform instead most days — but there it was, hanging first on the right.

"I'm home," Lu Bixing called absently, over the rush of affection and delight. On an impulse he took a picture of the jackets hanging there, and then on a separate, hornier impulse he slung Lin Jingheng's jacket over his shoulders like a cape.

"In the kitchen," Lin Jingheng called back.

The kitchen, eh. Lu Bixing wandered in and found Lin Jingheng at the counter with his back to him. He sidled up behind him and hooked his chin over his shoulder to see what he was looking at.

In front of them on the counter was a pile of probably a dozen different kinds of fruit.

Lu Bixing slid his arms around Lin Jingheng's waist and made himself comfortable. "I know what most of those are," he said. "But not all. What are you doing with them?"

"Looking at them," Lin Jingheng said unhelpfully. Then, reluctantly: "You like fruit. This is what the store had."

"... So you just thought you'd buy one of each?"

"You guys are paying me for some reason. What else am I supposed to do with that money?"

Lu Bixing tilted his head to look at the side of Lin Jingheng's face. Lin Jingheng met his gaze from the corner of his eye. Lu Bixing said, "I say, Commander Lin, do you have a crush on me or something?"

The corner of Lin Jingheng's mouth twitched. He said, "Or something."

Lu Bixing stared at him, then hid his face back behind Lin Jingheng's neck, utterly flustered. He felt Lin Jingheng's body shake against him as he laughed. "Shut up! Who are you!"

Lin Jingheng turned around in his arms, a clementine in one hand, a smile still kicking around the corners of his mouth. He gave Lu Bixing an obvious up-and-down look. "You look good in that. Peel this for me, would you?"

"You're so demanding," Lu Bixing told him, and held him tighter, leaning against his chest. "I can't, I'm occupied. You'll have to figure it out yourself." Lin Jingheng gave him a dry look. In a fit of inspiration Lu Bixing said, "I could walk you through it."

Lin Jingheng grunted. Lu Bixing rubbed his face against his collarbone. "Hold it in your right hand and find the stem," he started. "Uh huh. Now use the edge of your left thumbnail to dig into the skin and open it." There was a bright bloom of citrus. Lu Bixing tilted his forehead against Lin Jingheng's jaw. "Turn the clementine in your hand and slide your left thumb under the skin. Like that is good," he said. Lin Jingheng had very beautiful hands, angular and callused. "Don't let the seams get too close together or you'll break it…"

Lin Jingheng managed to peel the clementine successfully. Without prompting he picked off most of the pith, then handed the naked fruit to Lu Bixing, who finally unwound one arm from around him to take it. Lu Bixing thrust his thumb into the navel of the clementine to break it apart, then slid it between two segments to separate them.

The pressure of Lin Jingheng's jaw against his forehead increased slightly. Lu Bixing could hear his heartbeat. 

He took a segment between his fingers and brought it to Lin Jingheng's mouth, lifting his head slightly to aim correctly. Lin Jingheng opened his mouth obediently and took the fruit onto his tongue, and he caught and held Lu Bixing's gaze.

"I… uh…." said Lu Bixing.

Lin Jingheng held the clementine segment in his mouth for a long moment before chewing and swallowing. "It's good," he said.

He took a segment from the pile in Lu Bixing's hand and offered it to him. Lu Bixing's cheeks burned as he opened his mouth. When did this turn sexy!!!!!!!! Lin Jingheng's fingers brushed the inside of his lower lip. He remembered embarrassingly late to close his mouth and swallow. "Did you plan this," he croaked.

"No," Lin Jingheng said, his eyes fixed on Lu Bixing's mouth. "I just thought…"

Lu Bixing put the remaining clementine down blindly. He tipped his face up so there were just centimeters between them, watched the rapid minute movements of Lin Jingheng's half lidded eyes. Lin Jingheng's hand was still held between them; he moved slowly to cup Lu Bixing's jaw, rubbing his thumb along his cheek. His hand smelled like citrus.

When Lu Bixing closed the space between them, he tasted like citrus, too.

Lin Jingheng gave a quiet, helpless sigh through his nose. His mouth was soft and warm under Lu Bixing's lips, his hand intent against his jaw, and Lu Bixing pressed closer, let their lips move together, before subsiding. 

"Hi," he whispered into Lin Jingheng's mouth.

Lin Jingheng had closed his eyes to be kissed. He opened them a slit. "Hey," he whispered back, and slid both hands into Lu Bixing's hair.

Lu Bixing had still sort of been planning on pursuing some sort of conversation with him, but it turned out that having Lin Jingheng's hands in his hair was a secret off-switch for the parts of his brain responsible for doing things like thinking and talking. How curious. They surely couldn't let any of their enemies know about a weakness like that. 

Lu Bixing set his hands on Lin Jingheng's chest and leaned in bodily to press him against the counter. He could feel Lin Jingheng's heart beating in his chest; when he ducked his head to kiss the soft side of Lin Jingheng's throat, he felt it there too. Lin Jingheng shivered against him, and used his grip on Lu Bixing's hair to nudge him back up and into another kiss, his mouth opening readily when Lu Bixing licked the seam of his lips. Lu Bixing tilted his head this way and that, angling their mouths to kiss more deeply, taking turns sucking on each other's tongues.

Lin Jingheng broke the kiss to suck new, bruising kisses across Lu Bixing's jaw, under his ear, down his neck. He had to stoop to reach, and Lu Bixing spread his hands across the curve of his sloped shoulders, rucking up his loose white dress shirt. Lin Jingheng's mouth on him was hot and wet and a little ticklish, and it made Lu Bixing's scalp tingle and his mouth flood with saliva and his legs turn to goo. He made a completely embarrassing sound like Uuunnnhhh and let himself sink to his knees. Lin Jingheng went to catch him until he realized and said, "— oh. Oh. Bixing," and stroked his hair again.

Lu Bixing closed his eyes and pressed his forehead to Lin Jingheng's belt buckle. "Lin, can I…" he started, and trailed off, all of his attention fixed on the way Lin Jingheng's trousers were tented mere centimeters from his face. His hand drifted up to hook in his belt loop.

"No," said Lin Jingheng, and Lu Bixing wrenched his face away to look up at him. The jacket slid from his shoulders onto the floor.

"No?" he repeated incredulously. 

Lin Jingheng stared down at him. His face grew steadily pinker. "Lu Bixing! I'm fucking with you. Yes you can blow me, you don't have to ask! What was I going to do, say no?"

"Evidently!" Lu Bixing wheezed hysterically. Lin Jingheng removed his hands from his hair to cover his own face. "I wasn't even really — I was asking to be sexy!"

Lin Jingheng slid down to sit on the floor with his legs spread around Lu Bixing's knees, his face still hidden in his hands. Lu Bixing actually got a little worried for a split second — this person was so easy to embarrass — until he realized that Lin Jingheng's shoulders were shaking with the laughter bubbling up out of him. "Lin!"

"Sorry — sorry," Lin Jingheng managed through gasping laughter. "Oh, come here." He grabbed Lu Bixing's hands and tugged him forward, fit his palm back against his jaw again to guide him in to smear a kiss across his cheek. "You're very sexy. I'm seduced, Professor."

Lu Bixing sighed and allowed himself to get smooched, trying and failing to stuff down his smile. He really threw his lot in with such a difficult person. He turned his face to catch Lin Jingheng's mouth in a real kiss, then said, "Let's try this again. Jingheng ah, I'd like to go down on you."

"Mmm," said Lin Jingheng, his eyes curved with mischief, "I'll have to think about it."

"Lin!!"

6.

Lu Bixing, who grew up in a region that had a hot dry season and a temperate rainy season, and then spent five years on Beijing Beta where seasons were three years long, and moreover was a dandy, had taken a particular pleasure in the idea of a truly seasonal wardrobe. Milky Way City was in a region of Qiming that had three whole distinct seasons that were neatly confined to a single solar year: a cool rainy spring, a hot dry summer, and a cold humid winter, a fact that really did almost make him swoon when he realized it. The sheer diversity of outfit potential was overwhelming.

It was early summer when —

— when —

— Lu Bixing went home alone. 

All the windows in the house were thrown open. It was balmy and comfortable, or it would have been if Lu Bixing were capable of feeling anything at all. For months he wore nothing but linen and cotton, until Mint tugged her sleeves over her hands and said, "Um, Headmaster… aren't you cold?" And he realized the seasons had turned without him.

"Oh," he said, plucking at his own short sleeves. "Yes. Haha. Silly me, I forgot to close the windows. And…" He cast about. What else did you need? "... Switch my summer clothes out."

Mint gave him a complicated look he pretended not to see. White cleared his throat and said, "Well, what are we here for! Rickhead, you go close all the windows. Let's go take a look at your closet."

Lu Bixing trailed after his three teenage wards as they stomped right into his bedroom. He didn't have the energy to be impressed by their gall. He sat down on his too-large bed and watched as Huang Jingshu, Mint, and White went to work pulling all his summer shirts off their hangers and laying them in a neat stack next to him. His light summer trousers were next, all his brushed linens and seersuckers and neosilks.

"Where do you keep your cold weather stuff? Under your bed?" White guessed.

"No," Lu Bixing said. "In the attic. Um, we have a trunk."

The five of them looked at each other in silence for a long beat before Lu Bixing realized belatedly that he probably had to show them where the trunk was. He heaved himself off the bed as if through water and led the way to the attic. It was empty except for that single trunk; they really didn't own much. He'd thought they'd have more time to acquire stuff.

Lu Bixing sat down sharply on the floor. "I'm fine," he said over the kids' startled exclamations. "Just… needed to sit. Uh, there should be trousers and… some sweaters, I think…"

Of course, most of the winter clothes he'd owned in the last five years had been incinerated along with everything else on Beijing Beta. But they'd arrived on Qiming during the cool season, so they'd had to stock up again. He'd made fun of Lin Jingheng for buying three of the same trousers.

Huang Jingshu and Rickhead carried the trunk down out of the attic, with White directing unhelpfully from behind. Mint turned to Lu Bixing and said quietly, "You don't have to help. We can probably figure out what's yours."

Lu Bixing nodded jerkily. "Right," he agreed. "It's, you know. All the interesting things."

Mint cracked a smile. "Right," she said. "You can go work in the living room and we'll let you know when we're done."

Lu Bixing nodded again and went obediently to the living room to work on Zhanlu. After a while he heard the kids stomping back up to the attic, and then dispersing throughout the house. The sound of a tap running; the white noise rush of a vacuum. He didn't have the energy for shame. He wanted to crawl into bed and sleep for five years; he wanted Zhanlu back so he didn't have to depend on kids to run his house; he wanted someone to snap him out of it and bully him back to normal. But all the people who were happy to snap at him were gone.

" — aster? Headmaster?"

"Hmm?" He looked up. He had been staring at the same line of code for… he didn't know how long. Mint was hovering awkwardly in the doorway. "Sorry. Hi. Do you need something?"

"We finished swapping all your clothes out," she said. "And the guys cleaned the bathroom and Jingshu and I cleaned your room. We thought we might send Rickhead out to pick up food? Do you want anything?"

"Uhhh," he said. He probably should eat. "Yes. Sure. Get me… whatever. I'll pay!" he added. "You guys get anything you want, I'll pay. I have Backup Prime Minister money."

"Okay. We were thinking falafel?"

"Sure. Yeah. Anything you want," he repeated, and finally stood up. His body hurt like maybe he had been bent over the console for a long time. "I'll go… put a sweater on," he decided, to make it seem like he had something approaching agency and ideas about the future. Mint gave him a little nod.

Upstairs was warm now, he noticed. One of the kids must have turned the heat on. One of the drawers of his bureau was filled with neatly folded sweaters and sweater vests: mostly acrylic and thick cotton, but one sweater was real alpaca wool, imported from a planet in the Seventh Galaxy — Lin Jingheng never gave him his socks or hat back, but he'd bought that sweater in a market somewhere and tucked it into Lu Bixing's things without mentioning it. That was almost a year ago by Qiming reckoning.

He grabbed one of the cotton ones and tugged it on. He noted idly that he didn't love the feeling of wearing a sweater over a short-sleeved shirt, and was preparing to ignore that distaste when he remembered that that was the sort of thing he should care about, and he wriggled out of the sweater and the shirt as well. Hanging in his closet were ten long-sleeved button-downs in neosilk and thick cotton and bamboo, three dark suit jackets, a heavy overcoat, a rack of scarves, and an antique leather jacket.

Technically it was his.

Lu Bixing couldn't stop himself from reaching out to touch it. He brought one sleeve to his face and rubbed it against his cheek, feeling how soft it was still. At the beginning of spring he'd sat down on the porch and rubbed leather conditioner into every inch of it while Lin Jingheng sat next to him and smoked and made rude jokes about lube. It smelled like conditioner still, and tobacco, and the soap they used, and Lin Jingheng's spicy aftershave; and below that was the simple animal smell of his body.

Lu Bixing remembered being eight years old, ten years old, fifteen years old. Having nothing but time and curiosity. He'd spent so much fucking time reading: first anything they gave him, and then anything he could break into. Books in languages he didn't speak anymore, languages no one really spoke anymore, at least not on Cayley.

He remembered: The stars are not wanted now; put out every one, Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun, Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood; For nothing now can ever come to any good.

He grabbed a shirt and sweater at random, then, clothed, looked around. There was an empty garment bag on the floor of the closet. Lu Bixing picked it up and tucked the jacket into it neatly, zipping it up with care, and then he brought it up to the attic and tucked it away in the trunk full of Lin Jingheng's winter clothes, which also smelled like him. Then he went downstairs and was normal with the kids, and picked politely at his falafel, and packed up his leftovers to eat later when he was really hungry, and bustled the kids out the door at an appropriate time.

Then he went back upstairs and laid on the cool tile floor of the newly cleaned bathroom, and he sobbed so hard for so long he threw up.

"Bixing?"

"Hm?" Say my name again.

"Do you still have my old leather jacket?"

Oh. "Yeah, it's in the attic. — I'll go get it for you, you stay there."

Lin Jingheng made some grumbly noises of protest — "Hey, I don't need it right now, come back —" but Lu Bixing knew if he didn't go get the jacket right now, Lin Jingheng would get to it first later, and then he'd see the state of the attic and he might have some questions for Lu Bixing that he might not like the answers for. So he disentangled himself from the intensely casual way he'd thrown his feet over Lin Jingheng's lap and ran upstairs to shove his way through the attic to that trunk he hadn't touched in sixteen years. The trunk was covered in dust, but the clothes inside were clean, and the jacket was inside a garment bag anyway. He retrieved it and tumbled back downstairs.

"I'll hang it up for you, okay? On your hook," he added, a tiny thrill of real giddiness working its way dandelion-like through the rubble of his heart.

Lin Jingheng gave him a sort of patiently bewildered look. "Thanks?"

The giddiness left as swiftly as it came, withered by Lin Jingheng's patience as much as his bewilderment. Lu Bixing went to hang the jacket up and thunked his forehead into it, feeling stupid and ruined. Seventeen years ago he couldn't look at Lin Jingheng without wanting to crush him into bed and kiss him silly; now his desire was so complicated by heartbreak and repression that he couldn't remember how to want anything real. His ability to fantasize had shrunk and twisted like thermoplastic until all he know how to want was insane shit like I wish I could wrap you in a blanket and take you to a planet with only you and me and I could sink my teeth into you and not let go and no one would need anything from either of us ever again.

But Lin Jingheng had already spent ten years on a planet by himself. And everyone needed everything they had to give. 

"Bixing? You okay?"

Lu Bixing jumped: Lin Jingheng had come up silently behind him. He turned around, scrubbing his face into a normal expression. "I'm good!" he said. "I just — haha, I haven't seen this thing in a while."

Lin Jingheng reached past him to touch the jacket. "Yeah," he said, "me neither." After a beat, he reached up and ruffled Lu Bixing's hair. "Thanks for digging it out for me, Professor."

Lu Bixing cleared his throat. "No problem."

Lin Jingheng gave him a searching look, then hooked his fingers under Lu Bixing's chin to tilt his face up and draw him into a kiss. Lu Bixing accepted it and kissed back the exact right amount to communicate affection and desire without seeming like a total desperate freak, but maybe he came across that way anyway: Lin Jingheng still looked a little concerned when they parted, and he said, "Hey, come lie down on top of me and explain what happened with New New New York in the fifth Independent Year. I don't think I really get all the dynamics here." He gestured with his personal device, which he'd been using to catch up on everything that had happened.

Lu Bixing coughed. "On top of you?" he echoed.

"Yeah, you don't want me going anywhere, right?" Lin Jingheng said as if it were easy, and led the way back to the couch. He lay down and got comfortable, then did a little beckoning motion. "Come here."

Lu Bixing let himself be coaxed into settling down on top of him, feeling completely transparent and not sure whether he liked it or not, and feeling bad about feeling unsure. They squirmed around until all their limbs were at least temporarily comfortable. Lin Jingheng gave a long sigh of satisfaction and seized him bodily with all four limbs, squeezing him like a huge snake for a second before releasing him. "That's better," he said. "Okay. New New New York."

Lu Bixing felt his face heat despite himself. He cleared his throat and turned on Teacher Mode. "Right. So New New New York is mostly an ad-hoc refinement center for helium and hydrogen, because there's that gas giant Bufo right there within a day's travel…"

Lin Jingheng made no move to escape from underneath Lu Bixing, and Lu Bixing did actually quite like him where he was, so even after the explanation ended they stayed there tangled up together, quietly reading from their separate personal devices.

Lin Jingheng went back to work as the Marshall of the Eighth Galaxy only days later.

Lu Bixing went back to work too; but all the ministers and advisors frowned him out of the office barely past 3, and the engineers frowned him out at 4, and the interns gave him huge sad eyes in the break room until he packed up his lunchbox and fled at 4:23, wondering what he did to deserve a literal galactic government full of people who were overly invested in his emotional health. Like, he grew up in a test tube. He could handle some intense days at work.

He made his way to the elevated train out of the city and shouldered his way into the middle of the car, surrounded by other people's grandmothers and brothers and cousins, their sisters and coworkers and husbands and nieces. As summer turned to humid winter, the citizenry of Milky Way City had started breaking out their cool weather clothing, and the train was a patchwork of hoods and hats, vinyls and waxed cottons. There was a dark-haired man at one end of the car wearing a dark jacket that made Lu Bixing do a double-take even after all those years, expectation replaced almost instantly by disappointment —

And then that instinctive disappointment was swallowed whole by realization: it was Lin Jingheng leaning against the window, his attention on his personal device.

Don't start crying in a train car, you dummy, Lu Bixing told himself, already shoving his way over. "Sorry. Sorry. Excuse me," he repeated mindlessly. "Lin. Lin!"

Lin Jingheng looked up, his pinched expression of concentration clearing. He shoved his personal device into his trouser pocket and angled his body towards Lu Bixing. "Hey you," he said as Lu Bixing drew close. "Fancy meeting you here."

"Hey," Lu Bixing said. He couldn't stop looking at him. "They sent me home early."

"Me too," said Lin Jingheng. "As if I can't take an eight-hour work day. I eat eight-hour work days for breakfast."

Lu Bixing laughed. "You know, I was thinking the same thing. I once," he started, and then he stopped because he remembered that Lin Jingheng probably wouldn't be thrilled to hear how many days in a row he once stayed up. (Twenty-three. It was twenty-three days.)

"You once what," Lin Jingheng said suspiciously.

"Um, never mind. Don't worry about it. Hey, what should we do for dinner? Is there anything you want to eat?"

"I'll eat you," Lin Jingheng muttered, and Lu Bixing choked on nothing. " — Hey! I meant," but Lu Bixing was laughing too hard to let him finish. He grabbed Lin Jingheng's jacket and hung onto it, hiding his face in the collar.

"Okay!" he gasped through his laughter. "Sure! Oh my god, Lin — in public!"

"Shut up, you pervert," Lin Jingheng complained, but he pulled Lu Bixing into a rough one-armed hug anyway. Lu Bixing tipped his head to rest on his shoulder and slung an arm under his jacket to hold Lin Jingheng's waist, and it turned out that the ministers and engineers and interns may have been right after all: he was suddenly terribly sleepy. Lin Jingheng held him upright all the way home.

8.

"Baby?"

"Hm?"

"I know the answer is no, but I live in hope: I've got some stuff to take to the tailor's, do you have anything you want tailored?" Lin Jingheng was silent in the other room for a minute. Lu Bixing folded a pair of trousers he needed the waist let out of. "Maybe you need some tighter shirts," he called down the hall hopefully.

"Ha ha." The sound of Lin Jingheng moving around. He shuffled into the bedroom. "Actually, the lining on our old jacket is getting pretty threadbare, if you want to get it replaced." He handed the jacket to Lu Bixing to inspect.

Lu Bixing took it from him and grabbed his hand to thumb his wedding ring. "Sure, sure. I'll get it done in neosilk. You care what color?"

Lin Jingheng let him play with his hand. "No," he said. "Get whatever you like." He caught Lu Bixing's hand and brought it to his mouth to kiss his knuckles.

Then he tried to turn and leave, so Lu Bixing yanked him back and pulled him down into a kiss. Stupid idiot thought he could just kiss a man's knuckles and leave without facing the consequences! Lin Jingheng was so funny: he could dish it but he certainly couldn't take it. He melted into the kiss, his mouth opening readily to sip at Lu Bixing's tongue. Lu Bixing let him have it, leaning into him and angling his head to deepen their kiss, and Lin Jingheng slid an arm around his waist to keep him close. He made a little sound into Lu Bixing's mouth that made him want to push him down onto the bed and kiss more noises out of him. 

Somewhat dizzily, Lu Bixing broke away and managed, "I have an appointment. With the tailor."

Lin Jingheng ducked his head to press slow, molten kisses under his jaw. "Okay." 

"Why are you so mean to me," Lu Bixing complained, slinging his arms over Lin Jingheng's shoulders so he could hang all his weight off him. He nuzzled into Lin Jingheng's hair and sighed, "My irresponsible gangster husband wants me to be late, does he! And poorly dressed! Lin Jingheng, you're really such a terrible influence."

The hum Lin Jingheng gave in agreement buzzed against his skin. "Uh huh. When do you have to leave?"

"I, uh…" Lin Jingheng sank his fingers into Lu Bixing's hair. Lu Bixing struggled to remember how time worked. "Uuhhhhhh…" 

"You kissed me first," Lin Jingheng reminded him. "You started it."

"That's true," Lu Bixing managed.

Lin Jingheng lifted his mouth from Lu Bixing's jaw to bring their faces close together, his grey eyes heavily lidded. "Maybe you oughta take responsibility, Minister Lu," he said.

"You used to get embarrassed so easily," Lu Bixing said helplessly, already pushing him back towards the bed. "You were so coy."

"You've created a monster," Lin Jingheng agreed, and pulled him down with him.

Three hours later Lu Bixing burst into the tailor's, his mouth full of apologies and the lingering taste of Lin Jingheng. "Sorry! Sorry! So sorry, Ms Valdes, I'm so late! I uh — I got caught up. In. Something."

Ms Valdes tsked at him through the pins in her mouth. "Aren't you some kind of official so-and-so? You've got to take responsibility, young man."

"Hahahahahahahahahahahaha," Lu Bixing said nervously. "Um, anyway, do you still have time for me? I can come back… well, not tomorrow. Probably not this week at all actually. Maybe…" He thought quickly through his schedule. "Uh, in two months."

"Today is fine," Ms Valdes said. "What have you got for me today, Xiao Lu?"

Lu Bixing presented her with his garment bag. "Trousers to be let out, a suit coat with a tear in it, a new shirt to tailor to my measurements, and an old jacket where the lining's falling apart. The shell is real leather though," he added proudly.

Ms Valdes took everything from him and looked it all over. She hadn't started to look particularly old yet, but the way she talked to him made him suspect she was probably at least two hundred, maybe pushing three, and she had lived on Qiming her entire life. She had only the faintest clue of anything that had happened in any galaxy at all in the last twenty years. Lu Bixing was obsessed with her.

"Leather, huh," she said, rubbing the jacket between her fingers. "A gift from your man at home?"

Lu Bixing cleared his throat. "It was actually sort of a gift for my man at home, if you can believe it."

Ms Valdes grunted skeptically. She didn't seem to think Lu Bixing had the sort of job that could pay for such a thing, despite the fact that he had spent a not-insignificant amount of his own money at her establishment every couple months for over ten years. He guessed he just didn't give off breadwinner vibes. At least, to be fair, he really hadn't actually bought that jacket, so she was technically right about that. "You go pick out a fabric and I'll see what I can do."

Lu Bixing made a noise of assent and went to look at her fabric swatches. Lin Jingheng had said he could do whatever, but after all it was more his jacket than Lu Bixing's, so Lu Bixing wanted to pick out something he would like. He picked out a book that promised to be full of medium weight neosilk twills and sat down on the floor to look through it.

Half an hour later he had five swatches tagged for further examination, and was considering a sixth when Ms Valdes said, "Hey, Xiao Lu, is this thing an heirloom? It has your name on the inside."

"Is it —? I guess so. It does? Where?" He heaved himself up off the floor to go look.

Ms Valdes brandished the gutted jacket across her work table for him to look at. "Look here, under the lining there's an old tag — this must be very old, the ink is almost faded out."

Lu Bixing peered at the scrap of cotton tag she indicated. It was sewn into the seam where the collar met the yoke, and someone had written on it in permanent marker.

"Oh," said Lu Bixing. "Um, yes. It was my father's."

"Hm. Do you want to keep that?"

Lu Bixing thought about it. "You know, Ms Valdes, I think I have an idea about that."

When the jacket made its way back to Lin Jingheng two weeks later, it had a fresh new lining in a deep oxblood red with a faint pattern of trees woven into the twill. Sewn into the lining of the inside pocket where Lin Jingheng kept his smokes was a centuries-old tag, the handwriting carefully picked out in new embroidery: PROPERTY OF LU.