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Chapter Text

Lan Zhan understands that natural disasters are a fact of life. Tornadoes, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, tsunamis, blizzards, typhoons, that one time he dated a finance guy, and yes, hurricanes. However, the Facebook invite for “Milton and Margs” from the frat guy in his Library Administration class still has him baffled. The frat guy is even smart! He's got a shocking wealth of knowledge of William Morris’ influence on high fantasy that even Lan Zhan is envious of.

‘I’m disappointed in you, Kyle,’ he posts underneath the Facebook event page and promises his uncharacteristically frantic uncle that he will be departing soon before putting his phone away. Bichen and Wangji wiggle their noses from their carrier by the open front door.

“We will be fine,” he promises, reaching into the carrier to rub their little bunny heads. “It is only a fourteen hour drive.”

Only.

He’s just finished tossing his duffel, backpack, and overnight bag into the backseat when he sees his neighbor across the street. Unlike Lan Zhan’s house, which was recently rebuilt, his neighbor’s house is presumably only still standing because the termites are holding hands.

(Yes, he does feel bad living in a half-gentrified neighborhood, but in his uncle’s defense, the property value was very low when he bought it for him. The Seminole Heights Serial Killer dragged the area’s property value down with him. Lan Qiren has very little knowledge of gentrification to begin with, anyway.)

“Hey, Lan Zhan!” Wei Ying jogs across the street in shorts and flip-flops, no shirt. “Oooh, are you evacuating?”

“Yes. You should evacuate as well.” Lan Zhan does his best not to stare at bronze skin dotted with freckles and glistening in the humid warmth.

“Ha! No, I’m okay here.”

“You absolutely are not okay here.” Lan Zhan scowls. “Do you not understand that your house could be destroyed?”

“That’s my landlord’s problem.” Wei Ying shrugs. “Besides, where would I go? I don’t have anyone to stay with and I can’t take my babies with me to a shelter. I’m not leaving them behind.”

“Babies?” 

“Cats. I have two cats.” 

Lan Zhan’s eyes slide from his neighbor who is easily as beautiful as he is (presumably) broke, to his rabbits, and back. He's barely spoken to this man, aside from exchanging names when Wei Ying first moved in and trotted over to introduce himself. Wei Ying brought him a plate of sugar cookies that he couldn't eat because they had butter in them. He'd seemed friendly enough, but Lan Zhan hadn't been able to shake his suspicion of the unkempt man with the unkempt car and the unkempt house who always seems too friendly and too eager.

It occurs to Lan Zhan that maybe he is an enormous asshat. He sighs, staring at the patchy, sagging roof of Wei Ying’s house.

“You have one hour to pack your things and your cats and be ready to go.” Which is perhaps only one step up from being an enormous asshat, but baby steps are still steps.

“Excuse me?” Wei Ying stares.

“You will accompany me and my rabbits to my uncle’s house in Virginia.”

“Where in Virginia?”

“Manassas, not far outside of D.C.”

“Ooh! Can we go to the Smithsonian?”

“Sure, if you can be ready in one hour.”

Wei Ying’s eyes settle on Lan Zhan’s very nice Crosstrek (outfitted for camping) before drifting upwards to an overcast sky. It's not overcast from Milton- the calm before the storm has yet to arrive- but it's still rather foreboding. In their respective pockets, the national weather alert system blares and buzzes.

“Does seem pretty ominous, doesn’t it…”

“Mn.” Lan Zhan calmly silences the alarm. Wei Ying’s keeps buzzing. “One hour.”

“What are you gonna do?”

“I will have time to pack my library up in trash bags in case the windows blow out.”

“Well if you finish early and wanna come over and pack some of my books… Fuck it, one hour.”

Lan Zhan does indeed finish packing his books into double-layered trash bags. The finer ones, the expensive ones, the old ones, the favorite ones are then packed also into Rubbermaid storage bins and stacked into the top of closets and onto the kitchen counter. He does not make eye contact with his winter garments or camping supplies, left to fend for themselves in neat stacks in the living room. Those items are easier to replace and less precious to him.

Once he’s finally accepted that there’s nothing more he can do, he takes the rest of his roll of trashbags and heads across the street to help Wei Ying.

Wei Ying’s house (more like shack) smells musty and has suspicious black-green speckles in all the corners and ants crawling back and forth along an invisible highway across the floor and the swamp cooler is wheezing away, hanging by old duct tape from an algae-encrusted window. The very old shag carpeting is stained and torn and not finished properly at the edges and the kitchen linoleum is cracked and peeling and sharp enough to cut bare feet. 

It has to be illegal to charge Wei Ying money to live here. It just has to be.

It turns out also that Wei Ying owns practically nothing: an air mattress, a ragged cat tower, a scattering of mismatched kitchenware, a few outfits, and an extensive collection of science fiction and fantasy novels going back to the fifties and sixties. Lan Zhan even finds an impressive collection of vintage serials, all including entries from Isaac Asimov.

Lan Zhan is deeply, deeply jealous and big enough to admit it.

“Yeah, it’s uh. What it is.” 

“You have a beautiful collection.” Lan Zhan means this with every cell in his body.

“Thank you. It’s been… It’s my life, basically.”

“A good life.”

“A million of them.”

“Mn.” 

With that new understanding and kinship, Lan Zhan begins carefully excavating piles of books, placing them in trash bags according to what stack they were in since he can see some hint of organization or intent behind the different clusters. Once they’re bagged, he lifts them onto the kitchen counter. The pantry is half-full of what appear to be dehydrated or jarred vegetables, beans, lentils, some Spam, and a 50-pound bag of the cheapest rice San Wah Farmer’s Market has to offer. The kitchen cupboards don’t have doors, and display only a mismatched assortment of plastic plates, bowls, and cups, two ugly coffee mugs, and a pile of equally mismatched cutlery.

Wei Ying is shoving his only visibly valuable possession, a very expensive gaming laptop, into a backpack held together with duct tape. He has a rumpled, worn-out t-shirt on now, a faded Bass Pro Shop tee with Sasquatch holding up a largemouth bass captioned “Bassquatch”. His hair is damp, curling at the nape of his neck and around his cute ears like he might have showered before Lan Zhan came over.

Wei Ying dumps a scant collection of cat toys on top of his laptop and accoutrement, and stuffs a few threadbare outfits into the front compartment.

“Is that all you’re bringing?” Which is maybe not much better than ‘Is that all you have?’ but Lan Zhan has never been known for his social skills.

“Pretty much. Um. My cats are in the back room. I don’t have carriers for them, but they should be fine on their harnesses. They’ll probably find a place to sit and sit there until I take them out.”

“They sound well-trained.”

“They are! I didn’t always have a car-” Lan Zhan thinks it’s a stretch to call the rusty, lichen-encrusted ‘01 Corolla outside a car. “-so I trained them to be good on buses. It was a lifesaver before I found this place… That’s everything. Let’s grab the cats and… get out of here, I guess.”

“Mn.”

Wei Ying’s cats are identical to Lan Zhan, but Wei Ying can tell them apart. “This one is Suibian-” Lan Zhan’s respect for the man drops. “-and this is Chenqing.”

“You named one of your reported babies ‘Whatever’?”

“Yeah, haha! When I found Chenqing, she was a stray. So I’d put out food for her. And she was around a lot and always acting hungry, so I fed her more. It was weeks before I realized I was feeding two cats. When I finally spotted them together, they both started screaming for food. I threw my hands up and laughed -Whatever!- and it stuck. So I have Chenqing and Suibian, and they’re mine. I’m honestly glad I didn’t flub the naming too bad- I don’t know a lick of Mandarin.

“Say, what's in your trunk?”

“My solar panels.”

“Oooh, fancy! I can't wait till we're down in the 80s so I can turn my AC off for a while. I can help you reinstall your panels when we get back. I do some side work as a… ‘self taught’ electrician.”

Lan Zhan says nothing, wondering how someone with so little would spare so much for two stray animals or bother with his solar panels. The cats are as well behaved as Wei Ying promised, sniffing curiously at the rabbits before finding spaces to settle in - one on Lan Zhan’s packed duffle and one on the passenger side dashboard.

An hour later than he planned to be, traffic is heavy and slow on I-275, and people are going back and forth on whether to act neighborly or ghastly to one another. Which is still about 50% more neighborly than Floridians normally act toward each other on I-275.

And his car only has a quarter tank.

And Wei Ying keeps taking breaths through his mouth like he wants to talk before biting down on his tongue. Possibly literally. 

They endure in this manner - uncomfortable strangers who haven’t exchanged more than names and greetings and maybe the occasional checking-out - all the way to Dade City at a socially awkward crawl . By the time they manage to find an exit along their route, it’s just after 8pm.

“We will stop here for gasoline and food,” Lan Zhan decides.

“Okay!”

Lan Zhan sits in line for another half-hour of silence to fill up his tank, and then, because he’s not a complete dick like the person on the other side of his pump, pulls into a parking spot to go inside. 

As he expected, there is a severe limit of things he can eat. He stares at a snack item of Sabra hummus and pretzel chips and argues with his morals for about thirty seconds before giving up.

“We will have to go to the Publix down the road. I cannot eat anything here.”

“Sure. Just let me…” Wei Ying pulls a wadded up single and some coins from the pocket of his shorts, small coffee in hand. He’s frowning as he sorts through the change.

“Allow me,” Lan Zhan says, gently taking the coffee from him. 

Lan Zhan does not flinch at the angry flare in his evacuation companion’s eyes. He stubbornly scans the coffee and taps his phone to the receiver. “I am here. I can help. You can let me.”

“I can’t.”

“One day, when you can help someone in need, do so. Then, we will be even.” He returns Wei Ying’s coffee. “Pay it forward in the future. Okay?”

Wei Ying grinds his teeth - weirdly hot - and finally grumbles. “Fine. But don’t think I won’t do it!”

“Mn.”

Publix does have more options. He purchases a salad with quinoa, butternut squash, cranberries, and pepitas for way more money than is righteous, a charcuterie ("adult Lunchable") for Wei Ying, and a fruit salad to share, because he isn’t sure when Wei Ying last had a nutrient dense meal.

They eat in the car with the doors open, Chenqing and Suibian lying in the grass in one of the parking lot dividers. For the first time, it’s not awkward.

“So… vegetarian?”

“Mn. I have aversions to most meats, though I partake in white fish. I am allergic to dairy. It makes me very ill.”

“Right, I almost killed you with cookies when you first moved in. That’s rough, with such big restrictions.”

“It does tend to complicate an emergency 14-hour road trip.”

Wei Ying giggles, layering cheese and salami on a sea salt and olive oil cracker and stuffing the whole slab in his mouth. He looks… perkier, now that he has some food in him. 

“Thank you. For the food.”

“It is fine.” Lan Zhan savors a piece of squash. It’s one of his favorite foods. “I invited you to come with me.”

“Thank you for that too.”

“You are welcome.”

Lan Zhan wonders how his uncle will react to his unexpected guests. He forgot to call. When Lan Zhan told Lan Qiren he was forsaking his promising music career for library sciences, they argued from lunch until dinner and greeted each other with sharp glares and stony silence for days. When he came out as a trans man, Lan Qiren took 15 seconds to think about it, said ‘okay’, and they returned to drinking tea in silence. So really, it’s anyone’s guess what will happen when Lan Zhan shows up with a random vagrant and his two cats.

“Do you want to let the buns out?”

“Mn.” 

Lan Zhan clips Bichen and Wangji into their harnesses and leashes and lets them out to sit in the grass with Chenqing and Suibian. To his relief, the two pairs seem entirely unbothered by each other - cautious, but curious. It’s much better than the cats trying to eat his own beloved babies.

“What are their names?”

“Wangji and Bichen.”

“I don’t know what that means, but it sounds supremely dignified, as expected of Lan Zhan!”

Lan Zhan doesn’t know what to make of that, so says nothing.

Eventually, they run out of food to eat and load their pets back into the car, being very mature and not at all in evacuation traffic/Florida traffic Hell. They pass a sign with an obviously fake fetus on it that’s begging its non-existent mother not to kill it, followed by “Vote No on Number 4”. 

“I am so voting yes on Number 4,” Wei Ying mutters, sipping from his battered old Nalgene. “Partly because I hate that fucking sign.”

“Mn.”

“I bet I can spot more Cracker Barrel signs than you.”

“You’re on.”

Wei Ying giggles. “They should make little stamp booklets for every Cracker Barrel and you get a little stamp for each one you visit.”

“It would be a huge hit among RV travellers. You’d make a killing.”

“I’d rather do a drinking game, but alas that’s not feasible.”

“You’d be dead before we reach Georgia, anyway.”

Wei Ying actually laughs at that. It’s cute. He’s cute. His nose crinkles with his eyes - he has freckles on his eyelids. He has freckles on his eyelids. Fuck, that’s adorable. There has to be a rule about catching gay feelings for your evacuation buddy. Lan Zhan decides to invent his own just in case. 

‘Catching gay feelings for your evacuation buddy is forbidden.’

They try the emergency lane for about three minutes before deciding the slightly increased travel speed is not worth constantly having two tires on the rumble strip. It felt like Lan Zhan’s teeth were going to vibrate out of his skull.

All is well until about 9:30, at which point his circadian rhythm tells him it’s time to go to sleep. His eyes start itching and he drifts a little - very bad when the emergency lane is open.

“You okay?”

“I will need to sleep soon. I keep early hours.”

“Oh, take the next exit and we can switch.”

“Are you sure?”

“What, you worried about missing the Cracker Barrel signs? I learned to drive in a big-ass SUV and now I drive a junker that may or may not be registered. I can handle your nice, well-maintained car.”

“Your car has up-to-date tags.”

“Yes, for sure. Remember that if FHP comes for my ass, okay? I’m an innocent man. Falsely accused.”

“Mn.” 

Lan Zhan manages to get over just in time to make the exit, and pulls into a Pilot gas station. They fill up, stop by the restroom, and Lan Zhan buys Wei Ying another coffee. They make the switch, and he curls up in the passenger seat under a soft blue blanket made from layers of loose cotton weave. He's asleep in minutes just as the traffic begins to loosen up.

Chapter Text

Wei Ying, it turns out, has a very different attitude about long-distance road travel. He stops every two hours, almost on the dot, to fill up the tank with Lan Zhan’s card as per his request, refill his water bottle, stretch, and use the toilet. It’s a very different experience than road trips with Shufu as a child, which prioritized maximum efficiency. They’d all arrive at their destination with sore bodies, dry mouths, and full bladders. Wei Ying, however, drives with a sort of calm, cheerful ease despite the circumstances. He seems entirely unphased, unbothered, and unhurried, but also makes steady, efficient progress. He also doesn’t wake Lan Zhan at every stop. He lets him wake up on his own or not wake up at all. Lan Zhan appreciates that.

He hadn’t expected Wei Ying to be such a stalwart or friendly travel companion. He’d expected this whole exodus to be unbearably awkward.

Around 5 in the morning, he wakes up somewhere in northern Georgia, face to face with billboard saying “UNTO US A CHILD IS BORN AND THE GOVERNMENT SHALL BE UPON HIS SHOULDERS” with an image of Donald Trump superimposed over an American flag background. He groans and pulls the soft muslin blanket over his head.

“I know. I'd say it's a bad Photoshop job, but I'm pretty sure it was AI generated. I saw a roadside shrine to the bastard about 70 miles back.”

“Mn.” Lan Zhan's voice is raspy, and there's Georgia swamp in his nose like a lingering fart. “Good morning.” 

His throat is dry, and he’s pretty sure there’s goop in his eyes.

“Oh, yeah! ‘Morning.” Wei Ying also sounds a little hoarse. “We’re on I-75. Traffic eased up somewhere between Ocala and Jacksonville. We’re about 40 miles outside of South Carolina.”

“Mn. Good progress. Roadside propaganda notwithstanding.”

“What can we do about breakfast?”

“Hm?”

“Your food restrictions.”

“Ah.” Lan Zhan’s heart sinks. “American breakfast options.”

“Yeah, Americans put dairy on or in everything. I don’t know how many vegan smoothie options are en route.”

“We are in the semi-rural Deep South, so it is rather unlikely.”

“Dunkin’ or Starbucks is probably your best chance, sad to say.”

“A grocery store or gas station will have some kind of granola or protein bar.”

“Oh, true.”

Congee and eggs and hot tea sounds so nice, but Lan Zhan will grieve in silence. “Let’s try to find a Pilot. You like their coffee best.”

“You couldn’t possibly know that.”

“I have excellent observational skills.”

They find a Pilot, which has hot breakfast of dubious quality and drip coffee for Wei Ying, and some granola bars and orange juice for Lan Zhan.

“Hey.” Wei Ying shuffles over, looking sleepy. He holds out a styrofoam cup of hot water and a green tea bag. “Probably tastes like lawn clippings and dust, but it’s something?”

It is indeed something. “Thank you.”

Feeling rested, he takes over the drive for Wei Ying and bullies the man into taking his blanket. He curls up in the reclined passenger seat and doesn’t so much fall asleep as he does turn off for a while. They’ll probably be in Virginia before he wakes up, Lan Zhan figures.

The tea does rather taste like dusty lawn clippings, but it’s hot and Wei Ying thought of him enough to scrape together the $1.25 plus tax. It’s the sweetest thing anyone’s done for him since he left home.

And then he calls his uncle.

“Zhan, hello. Are you almost home?”

“We have arrived in North Carolina. We should be there around 2.”

“I reset the sun room for the rabbits and changed the sheets on your bed.”

“Thank you, Shufu… Shufu?”

“Hn?”

“I am bringing my neighbor with me. And his cats.”

“... I see.”

“I apologize for the imposition but he was not going to leave his pets and I do not believe his house would withstand the projected weather severity.”

“I understand. I will put fresh sheets on Huan’s bed. Will I need to acquire anything for his cats?”

“I don’t believe so. He appears to have them housetrained.”

“Like a dog?”

“Mn.”

“I’d pay to see that.” Shufu huffs. “I am glad you are not making such a long drive alone. Be safe.”

Which is as close to ‘I love you’ as Shufu has ever gotten. Lan Zhan hums an agreement and hangs up, as is their ritual whenever Shufu offers him emotional support. Their relationship seems distant to some (especially Westerners), but Zhan knows better. If he ever needed anything, from advice to a hug to bail money, he could call Lan Qiren and Lan Qiren would show up.

Wei Ying doesn’t wake up until they’re almost to Virginia, even though Lan Zhan adopts his practice of stopping every two hours or so to stretch and pee if needed. It makes the drive far, far more bearable. He brings the rabbits and cats out in turn, letting them do the same, offering them water and a bit of food. The whole time, his travel companion is contorted underneath Lan Zhan’s blanket.

He only stirs when Lan Zhan stops in Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina, a small town with two hotels under construction that smells oddly of sewage. The locals are unpleasant, not stopping for pedestrians and being generally unwelcoming.

“Let’s piss and get out of here,” Wei Ying croaks, sipping from his Nalgene.

“Mn. Before we get run over.”

Wei Ying offers to take over, but it’s only three more hours, and Zhan knows the way from here fairly well. Instead, he stops at a Wawa on the outskirts Manassas and buys Wei Ying one final road trip coffee, which he gratefully sips on for the next thirty minutes, bundled in Lan Zhan’s blanket.

“Do you have any warm clothes?”

“Uh… not really.”

“Mn. It will be chilly this week. I will find some clothes for you to have when we get to my home. You look to be about my brother’s size. We are nearly there.”

“You really don’t have to-!”

“If they are at Shufu’s house, then they are not in use, and it would be better for you to use them. They may need a wash before they’re properly wearable, though.”

“Okay. If you’re sure.”

“Mn. Also, I counted 8 Cracker Barrel signs.”

“Oh, I forgot to count.”

“I win.”

“Hm. Kind of a hollow victory. Rematch on the way back?”

“Yes.” 

Wei Ying chuckles into the last sip of his coffee, all shiny cheeks and soft lashes and tousled waves and so pretty it makes Lan Zhan’s heart flutter.

Manassas is beautiful. Lan Zhan feels his bones begin to settle as he drives into the hills, leaves already starting to drop, dark stone exposed, houses tucked between trees built to fit the landscape, dogs on long leads or loose, so quiet and beautiful.

“Wow. You grew up here? ”

“Mn.”

“It’s gorgeous.”

“It is.” Lan Zhan swallows his nerves. “There are some walking trails. I will show you. The Occoquan River is accessible too. We have a pair of kayaks. Additionally, you can drive or take a train into D.C. if you wish to see any of the museums. They are federally funded, and free to enter, but some, like the African American History Museum, require you to reserve at a specific time.”

“Wow. That sounds so cool.”

“Mn. It is one of my favorite parts of being here.”

“Not the Library of Congress?”

“I’ll confess I do have a distinct affection for call numbers. Far more inclusive than Dewey.”

Wei Ying giggles into the dregs of his Wawa coffee. Poor man. He won’t see coffee again for several days.

When they arrive, sore from sitting in the car and with cranky pets in tow, Shufu is waiting.

“Lunch is ready. Will you be needing two rooms?”

“Yes, Shufu,” Lan Zhan sighs. “We are not a couple.”

Wei Ying, bless him, just snickers and picks up some cat feces with a grocery bag from the Wawa, tossing it in the trash can on their way inside. Lan Zhan hauls Wangji and Bichen after him.

“So either you way oversold my virtues to your uncle or you have terrible taste in men,” Wei Ying whispers much too loudly.

Lan Zhan does not respond. He told his uncle nothing of Wei Ying’s many virtues. He has not dated a man in years.

Wei Ying seemed to take it as a challenge, chatting Lan Qiren’s ear off about his career over lunch. Apparently, Wei Ying has an associates degree in mortuary sciences and is in his second year of a three-year mortuary apprenticeship. He explains to Lan Qiren how he lost his parents in a home invasion when he was young and the mortician was the only person who didn’t scold him for smiling at the funeral.

“I didn’t want to cry. My parents would never have wanted me to cry. But everyone else wanted me to cry.” Wei Ying sips expensive oolong tea and doesn't complain that it isn't coffee. He's cheerfully munching away at mostly vegan charcuterie (there's honey). “I want to be that person, the kind who takes care of the dead and the people who miss them.”

Shufu’s scheming gaze slides Lan Zhan’s way for a moment and Lan Zhan glares from behind his own cup of green tea. 

“When my apprenticeship is over, the mortuary should hire me. That's what they've been saying, at least… Honestly I'm not sure I trust that.”

“Oh? Why not?”

“Ah, it's just a vibe. They've gone back on other things - raises and holidays off and such. I'm looking elsewhere, but it's hard to find work in Florida these days and moving is so costly… but whatever! I'll figure it out!”

“Hm. I hope you don’t have too much hardship when you return.”

“Yeah, me too. Helene wasn’t too bad for us. Our area didn’t have any flooding. But this one is… Well.”

The way people act and feel about hurricanes is so strange to Lan Zhan. It’s horrific and devastating, with so much destruction and guaranteed human casualties, but on the other hand, he’s worried about his books and his expensive teas and his favorite clothes he couldn’t take with him and he invited Wei Ying to come tour a few museums and go kayaking with him, like this is some kind of vacation instead of fleeing for their lives.

But he isn't sure what else to do except make the most of his time, so he settles his rabbits into the upstairs sunroom, takes a scalding hot shower, hair and all, and burrows into baggy sweatpants and an oversized hoodie with fuzzy grippy socks to complete the ensemble. Wei Ying catches him on his way out and immediately fusses over his messy wet hair, snatching the towel and drying and combing it properly.

“There's no point in having so much nice hair if you don't take care of it,” Wei Ying scolds, coaxing a knot apart with his spindly fingers. 

Lan Zhan glares at his smug-looking uncle peering in from the half-stairs. He is not trying to seduce his neighbor during a hurricane evacuation. But he doesn't protest as Wei Ying manhandles him back into the bathroom to oil and braid his hair.

A few years have passed since Lan Zhan has been in his childhood home. The house is three staggered stories, though the floors themselves are a bit small, built into the hillside with a good bit of forest right out back. The lower level is partially embedded into the slope of the hill. The stairs open onto what used to be a playroom, but now contains books and open space for yoga. His bedroom and Lan Huan's bedroom are to the right, as is the bathroom they shared. To the left is a single other room, which Shufu always used for work. At the far end of the playroom is the lower half of a new addition: a downstairs three seasons room that opens to the woods beyond. There is, of all things, a second TV and a leather chair among the many plants and stack of yoga mats. Lan Zhan closes the door so the animals won't eat any of the toxic plants. 

Back upstairs is the living room, with a small foyer by the front door and an L-shaped couch wedged into the small sitting area, with a fireplace, a coffee table, and another TV that wasn't there while Lan Zhan was growing up. The old bench is still by the front door, shoes neat and in rows, including a few pairs Lan Zhan abandoned years ago when he left for college.

Up the stairs again, above the playroom, is the large kitchen and island, with the open concept dining area to the left (taken up by a grande piano and several other instruments), the master bedroom to his right, and straight past is the upstairs solarium. The solarium has another, smaller dining table, a couch and matching chairs, and an unused bar. It opens out onto the deck with the electric fireplace. The deck in turn has stairs down to the ground. Their childhood playground is still there, he realizes, tucking his feet up on the solarium couch to keep his rabbits company while they settle in. 

His life jacket is probably still in the boat shed on the river. His shoes are still by the door. His childhood books are still in the playroom. His room is just as he left it.

He realizes, suddenly, acutely, that his uncle might be lonely and happy to have him home.

“Is it alright if I take a shower?” Wei Ying ducks his head around the door.

“Mn. I left out a set of my clothes for you, if you want something warm. Shufu appears to have washed everything we left here.”

“Aw, that's sweet of him.”

It's suspicious, Lan Zhan thinks, but he doesn't say so. If his uncle has chosen not to chase Wei Ying out of the house like he did many of Lan Zhan's previous, actual love interests, he will not complain.

“Please, make yourself comfortable. You are a welcome guest.”

“Thanks.”

Wei Ying, it seems, is physically incapable of making himself comfortable. He takes a shower in the admittedly neglected downstairs shower, then spends the next hour and a half cleaning out the shower head, adjusting the water valve, and clearing out the drain of years’ old hair piles from two very vain youths with very long hair. All the while cheerfully yapping about pipe maintenance as Shufu serves him spiced apple, cranberry, and hibiscus tea and Takes. Notes.

Lan Zhan feels like he's experiencing some kind of Hospitality Warfare.

But Wei Ying seems very happy to go upstairs and start slicing and roasting various different ingredients for stuffed acorn squash and an autumn pear and arugula salad.

“Oh!” Lan Zhan hears the man chirp. “I volunteer at a soup kitchen on Wednesdays when I don't work. There's a retired chef who works there and he taught me a lot about proper knife technique. You know, these are getting a bit dull. I'd be happy to sharpen them for you!”

“Oh, that's so kind. I would appreciate that, thank you.”

Incorrigible, both of them. He texts Huan about it, who responds with about sixty emojis and a dozen lamentations that he can't be there to watch. Lan Zhan has no idea why he thought he'd get any real help there.

I didn't know you were seeing anybody!

I'm not. He is my neighbor.

The vagrant one?

Yes.

*Image*

Hot!

Lan Zhan snorts, letting his brother's silly comment and incoming spam of ‘disrespectful’ comments and emojis bury the guilt he feels about his presumptions of Wei Ying. Instead of thinking about that can of beans, he trots up the stairs to see Wei Ying toasting pepitas with one hand and peeling the skins off some soaked chickpeas with the other.

“These are for a hummus schmear,” Wei Ying tells him. “The other half are for the stuffing. We're going to add some mushrooms. Laoshi?”

“We have some porcini and some cremini.”

“The porcini would be incredible for this, I think! What do you think, Lan Zhan?”

“Mn.” Lan Zhan peruses the recipe card. “Only parsley? I haven't eaten food this unseasoned since I was a boy.”

“Zhan was exceptionally picky as a young child. We feared for his health. The pediatrician thought he was ‘failure to thrive’ for a while.”

“Poor baby Lan Zhan! I was thinking about adding sage. Crispy sage for a garnish? Maybe a touch of cinnamon - no. No, that won’t work. Oh! Thyme! German if you have it, but English will do in a pinch.”

Lan Zhan recognizes directions when he hears them and fetches them mentioned ingredients as Lan Qiren watches Wei Ying brush the acorn squash with maple syrup and olive oil with one hand and crisp sage in a small cast iron skillet with the other. The man seems to have four arms with how fast he's moving.

It turns out to be kind of nice, lingering in the kitchen and sipping more of that apple and hibiscus tea. Wei Ying keeps up a running narrative of books he's read and speculation about other tweaks they could make to this recipe as he goes. Lan Qiren takes a moment to show off the silverware rack in the top of the dishwasher, soaking up the awe and attention from their guest, and scribble down reading recommendations. 

Wei Ying compliments the dishwasher, the herb garden, the solarium, and the handprint plates Lan Zhan and Huan made for a Father's Day gift in elementary school.

Lan Zhan smiles at the old plates hanging above the sink, carefully dusted and free of aerosolized grease. Every child at their elementary school had been forced to make one ‘to keep things fair’, even if they had no father to speak of. It had been a very sour point for the brothers, who could not even remember their father's face. But they always had Shufu. Even when he was strict and unyielding at the wrong times and frustrated by their stubbornness and agreeableness by turns and confused by their generation and their different values, Lan Qiren has always done his best for them.

Lan Qiren had called and demanded that he come up and shelter here in his childhood home. Lan Zhan is suddenly glad that stupid school forced them to make those stupid plates and that they gave them to Lan Qiren, who put them in a decorative place of honor in the kitchen fifteen years later.

He suddenly feels a strange homesickness for his childhood, for that feeling of falling into a bed that no longer feels like his bed and the soothing scent of a laundry detergent he no longer uses and the smell of a house he no longer lives in.

In front of him, Wei Ying fluoresces, caught like a moth in the porch light of Lan Zhan's past life. The crisp smell of freshly sliced apples and pie spices draws him back into the present, where Wei Ying has spontaneously decided to make a vegan apple cobbler with the leftover apples.

He's talking about pop music and fumbling one-handed with his phone to build a playlist of ‘peak tier’ pop songs for Lan Qiren to try, “because hating pop music is just another form of arts elitism and frankly it's dull. It's the music version of judging people for preferring romance novels or watching reality television. Peoples’ genre preferences are not indicative of their intellect, yanno?”

“I completely agree.”

“Is that why we were forbidden to read Twilight?” Lan Zhan quips, because his uncle is full of shit.

“No, you were forbidden to read Twilight because it’s awful and I didn't want to deal with Huan-er’s book series hyperfixations.”

That, Lan Zhan admits, is completely understandable. His brother has never been a normal amount of enthusiastic about anything ever in his life. While he generally loves and supports Huan in all of his brief but passionate hobbies and interests, he can't imagine spending his middle and possibly high school years sharing a wall with a Twihard. His brother's opinions on Taylor Lautner are completely unknown to him, and for that he is eternally grateful.

Still, he rolls his eyes for effect, which Wei Ying finds deeply amusing, like he knows Lan Zhan's motives very well. It makes his heart do an odd gallop in his chest, and he has to look away.

Dinner is delicious. Autumn salad, stuffed acorn squash, sourdough dinner rolls, and the apple cobbler with vegan ice cream for dessert. Wei Ying dodges praise like a seasoned professional, and when Lan Qiren firmly forbids him to handle the dishes because ‘A-Zhan did not help cook’, he instead goes behind the dishes and glass leftover containers with a clean rag and bottle of disinfectant, and then polishes the heirloom walnut table to a shine and oils and waxes the bamboo cutting board before sitting down to sharpen all of Lan Qiren’s knives.

Once the kitchen is gleaming, Lan Qiren ushers them all into the living room to watch reruns of Bones. He opens a bottle of wine of all things, and pours for himself and Wei Ying.

“Zhan, would you also like some?”

“I… Yes. Thank you.”

He distinctly remembers being forbidden from consuming any sort of mind-altering substance under threat of never leaving this exact house ever again. 

He sits there and sips very cautiously at the nice wine, and enjoys the idea of being a normal person with normal habits. He eats food with seasonings and drinks alcoholic drinks and watches television - and he feels like a beloved guest in the place he used to call home and everything is fine and he isn't left confused and oddly bereft by this person his uncle has become. He isn't bewildered or forlorn by what it feels like being in his uncle's house again for the first time in five years.

“Oh this episode is one of the funny ones,” Wei Ying tells him. He tucks his feet up, leaning into Lan Zhan's side, and that strange rawness increases. He thinks the sting in his skin might be longing.

Unable to really do anything else, Lan Zhan watches television and sips wine and soaks up Wei Ying's heat like a lizard on a heat rock and later, when he lays awake in his bed, he wonders why it has to be like this.

He stares at the ceiling of his childhood room and listens to the gentle hum of the dehumidifier and prods at the sore spot on his heart. Why does he suddenly feel so off-kilter? The hurricane? The way Lan Qiren is treating him like an adult and a guest? The easy way Wei Ying slots himself into his car, his childhood home, his family?

Eventually, he rolls over, pressing the arm Wei Ying leaned against into the warm patch on the mattress to conserve that heat, and falls into a light sleep.

Chapter Text

Lan Zhan is up earlier than Wei Ying, as is his uncle, which affords them a moment alone, sipping a high quality green tea in the sun room. Lan Qiren rubs Bichen's soft fur between her ears and feeds her strawberries until she looks like a little vampire.

“I still have your Bunnicula books downstairs.”

“Mn. I saw. The three seasons room is nice.”

“I mostly wanted a sunroom up here, but I can keep more plants this way, and the room downstairs is better insulated.”

“You watch TV and drink wine now.”

“I do.”

“Why?”

Lan Qiren sips his tea. “After you boys left, I had the desire to try new things. You two consumed so much of my life, and then that was gone. Perhaps I would have tried all these things sooner if I had not had you boys to look after.”

“You had to stop your own life for us,” Lan Zhan acknowledges. This is what he has been told by others his entire life, even if he’s never heard it directly from his uncle's mouth.

“Don't be silly, Zhan. You and your brother didn't stop my life. You were my life. But you've grown up now, and I need to find other things to fill my time.”

Lan Zhan thinks of the Father's Day plates hanging above the kitchen window. The ugly clay creations on the mantle. The rows of school and vacation photos on the walls. There's an inconsistency in his own photos, where he snuck through the house in the dead of night and stole all the ones that showed his developed breasts and hid them in a little box in the back of his armoire with his mother's engagement ring that was supposed to be his one day. Lan Qiren found other photos to go in those spaces, but he can tell every time he walks past that his history was carefully, even lovingly secreted away.

“Were you not listening last night? I explained all this to your A-Ying-”

“ Shufu-”

“He's very smart, you know. Very worldly. Perhaps you could fill some spaces in your life, hm? You've done much, much worse.”

“We had our first real conversation two days ago while preparing to evacuate a life-threatening natural disaster.”

“ You are a natural disaster.”

Which is such a ridiculous response to receive from his (formerly?) strict, grumpy uncle that he can't help but giggle a little.

“I do think I like him,” he confesses in a whisper. “I think he would treat me well… If he likes men.” If he likes trans men, which, Lan Zhan discovered quite cruelly once upon a time, is an entirely different thing from liking men.

“If he doesn't, I'll send him to a hotel and buy him an Amtrak ticket back to Florida.” Lan Qiren squeezes his shoulder, a show of affection Lan Zhan very rarely received in his childhood. “It is good to have you home, even for just a little while. I have missed you.”

“I missed you too, Shufu.”

“Mn. I will make you breakfast.” The aging man rocks to his feet on worn knees. “Oatmeal, scrambled eggs, sliced fruit, green tea?”

“Mn, we should use up the sourdough instead.”

“My sweet boy.” Lan Qiren leans over and kisses the top of his head. “Go fetch your new friend, and I will make us breakfast.”

Lan Zhan blinks after the man who raised him, his crown tingling with unfamiliar affection. But waking Wei Ying seems like a good idea. He shoos Bichen off his lap, padding over familiar hardwood floors and the ubiquitous 2000’s rugs still going strong if slightly discolored. The sound of the heating hissing up through the floors is like an old song, the overcast blue light from the living room skylights is like a first memory.

Down on the third floor, he finds Wei Ying stumbling out of the bathroom, yawning and shaking out his mullet. There is absolutely no reason, at all, for a mullet to look so pretty fresh out of bed. But the uneven locks are glossy and dark and they curl gently about his face and over his neck, parting at the back to expose the notch at the top of his spine like a whispered secret. They make Wei Ying look soft, all his sharper edges buffed out and his angular frame rounded. 

“Wei Ying.”

“Hi, good morning. Everything good?”

“Mn. Shufu is about to make breakfast.”

“Aw, that’s sweet of him. I don’t usually eat breakfast.”

“You will eat breakfast today. I insist.”

Wei Ying’s smile is more sweet than wild when he says, “Alright, Lan Zhan. I’ll come join you.”

To Lan Zhan’s astonishment, Lan Qiren is putting coffee into a coffee maker and turning it on.  

“Good morning, A-Ying. I brought up the coffee maker from the crawl space. I keep it here for when Huan visits with Mingjue.”

“Mingjue?”

“Ah, Mingjue is my Huan’s husband. I expect you have no issue with that?”

“Not at all!”

“Mn.” Lan Qiren turns the coffee maker on. “My nephews were not permitted to drink coffee while growing up. I feared it would affect their sleeping.”

“Probably for the best. Lan Zhan doesn't even drink black tea, from what I’ve seen.” Wei Ying sticks his nose right up to the brewing coffee, breathing in the aroma. “Oh, Laoshi. This is good stuff.”

“I’m glad you approve. What do you boys plan to do today?”

“I wish to take the walking trails and maybe go down to the river to drink tea,” Lan Zhan declares. “Wei Ying is welcome to join me if he wishes.”

“Oh, I absolutely wish! That sounds great!”

“Mn.” Lan Zhan cracks six eggs into a mixing bowl with spices and salt, shouldering his aging uncle out of the way as gently as possible. “Please slice up these tomatoes and the herbs.”

Wei Ying falls in beside him, slicing tomatoes in half and peeling garlic and shallots. He plucks a sprig from the basil tree in the sun room. He’s taken over breakfast before Lan Zhan can even think to prevent it.

“Garnish?” Lan Zhan asks, watching his neighbor drizzle olive oil in a cast iron pan and start roasting up the tomatoes skin side down until they start to crinkle and sear.

“Mhm! Might as well make the food look cute!” 

The man squeezes the garlic through a garlic press next to the mess of tomatoes once they’ve cooked down and adds a bit of smoked harissa paste and minced shallots. With one hand, he stirs the tomatoes with a wooden spatula. With the other, he fixes a cup of coffee with soy milk and maple syrup, humming all the while. Lan Zhan wonders if Wei Ying is capable of settling into a single task.

Probably not. He doesn’t ask, instead making omelets in a second pan and monitoring the sourdough bread slices toasting in the oven while Wei Ying cooks the tomatoes down further into a sauce, adds a small spoonful of miso, and slices the basil leaves into ribbons, adding some to the simmering pan and setting some aside in an ice bath.

Breakfast is as lovely as dinner was. Lan Zhan plates the omelets and Wei Ying tops them with the tomatoes and sprinkles basil on for garnish. The toast is brushed in herb-infused olive oil, perfectly crispy and aromatic. Lan Qiren sets a bowl of sliced pears on the table and tops off Wei Ying’s coffee and their tea.

“Normally, I add parmesan or mozzarella or even anchovy paste in here, but I didn’t want to risk Lan Zhan getting any and getting sick. I did add a smidge of miso, though.”

“It is wonderful, thank you.” Lan Qiren nods, dragging a slice of untoasted sourdough through the remaining tomatoes on his plate.

“My genuine pleasure. I don’t get to cook like this very often. I miss it.” Wei Ying sips his coffee.

“What sort of foods do you like to eat? If your homes are unlivable, you will both be expected to return here until you can find new living arrangements.”

“Uh…” Wei Ying blinks wildly. “I-I eat whatever I can get from the food pantry a lot. Mostly random shelf stable foods and other odds and ends. Steamed eggs. Lots of rice. Congee and noodles and tofu and stuff… I grow lots of vegetables and beans in my yard. Not many fruits because they’re a little harder to get hold of. When I have tomatoes and onions, I make daal.”

“Daal?” Lan Qiren asks.

“Yeah. It’s Indian red lentils. The recipe I use adds onions and tomatoes. It’s really good for how minimal it is. Got me through some rough times. It’s kind of a comfort meal, I guess.”

“You should make it tomorrow night, then. My Huan and his husband will be visiting, as will my neighbors. I will give you my card to purchase the ingredients, of course, and you may pick a dessert.”

“Um. Sure, I can do that.” Wei Ying is visibly startled. “Will they like it?”

“They will eat most anything, and know to expect vegetarian or pescatarian food when Zhan is here. You seem functionally vegetarian. Am I right?”

Blushing, Wei Ying nods.

“Then you had better be taking B12 vitamins. You only get B12 from meat, and it is a vital nutrient. Especially since you are still growing.”

“I’m twenty-two.”

“Definitely still growing, as you well know. You will pick up a B12 vitamin and a multivitamin while you are at the store. I expect to see them when you return. Zhan will help you pick.”

“O-Okay?” 

Wei Ying glances sideways at Lan Zhan, who has no answers. He confessed to a crush , a very minor one at this juncture, and now his uncle is trying to adopt his neighbor like a stray kitten. To be fair, Wei Ying does seem very flighty and a little skittish. Gratitude is consistently deflected without fail and kindness is accepted in an anxious, blushing daze. It would be cute if it didn’t come from such a sad place.

His neighbor’s insecurities make his heart ache. He wants to take Wei Ying home and keep him and feed him and make sure he never hurts for anything ever again.

This is a totally normal and healthy thing to want.

Lan Zhan forgot how expensive food is up here. Wegmans is similar to Publix (also getting rather audacious in his opinion), but without the friendly employees and even more inflated prices.

“Lan Zhan, seven dollars for a bag of apples?! What the hell are they smoking?!” Wei Ying hisses. “This is outrageous!”

“Mn. Food costs more here.”

“Yeah, like significantly more! These are the same fucking apples I can get at Walmart for four bucks!”

“Then go to Walmart,” a random shopper sneers, shouldering Wei Ying out of the way to get a bag of red delicious apples - objectively the worst apple varietal, so obviously being in the Wegmans tax bracket doesn't mean one can afford good taste.

Go to Hell, Lan Zhan thinks, gently tugging Wei Ying over to the plum tomatoes.

“Okay so there are gonna be… three, five, seven of us?”

“Mn. Possibly eight, if my younger brother-in-law comes.”

“I’ll triple the recipe. My impression of Nie Mingjue is that he’s the size of a barn and eats like it, so we better make sure there’s enough.” Accurate. “And I found a recipe for a vegan chocolate mousse with avocados, so we can do that for dessert. We should round it out with kachumber and maybe saag - no paneer because you’ll die. For appetizers, a hummus spread and cheese charcuterie followed by onion bhajis with a vegan raita? How does all that sound?”

“I know what almost none of those things are,” Lan Zhan admits.

“I’m a touch familiar with Indian food. I can grow a lot of the ingredients, or substitutes for the ingredients, and it’s easy to make vegetarian or vegan. And it tastes delicious!”

“I will defer to your wisdom… How does avocado chocolate mousse fit into this?”

“Oh, I don’t know any Indian desserts that don't have dairy, and this looked tasty and safe for you to eat.” Wei Ying shrugs, rifling through some avocados to find the ripest ones.

“You know you don’t have to plan a three course meal for us, right? My uncle is… I don’t know exactly, but you can tell him no.”

“Sure, but I like cooking! And… You’ve been very kind, hosting me. It’s the least I can do.”

“You don’t owe us for our hospitality-”

“You’ve made that clear. Just… let me do this, okay? It’ll make me feel like less of a leech.”

If Lan Zhan ever finds out who impressed upon Wei Ying that he’s only as welcome as he is useful, it’s on sight. But saying that probably won’t make Wei Ying feel any more at ease. So instead he settles on an adjacent topic.

“You like cooking?”

“Yeah, actually. It’s kind of a treat when I get to actually cook something instead of just throwing some stuff together. And food is… community. Culture. Identity.” Wei Ying sorts through a selection of Hungarian, marconi, poblano, and serrano peppers. “You don’t like spicy, right?”

“I’ve found I’m more sensitive to capsaicin than most people. One serrano in a meal this large should be fine, and milder peppers do not bother me.”

“Got it!” Wei Ying dutifully selects an assortment of peppers, working to get flavor without spice. “I lost my parents when I was a toddler and grew up in foster care. Never got to stay anywhere too long - I was a general pain in the ass and have severe ADHD so most people got tired of me pretty quick. But the different families I was with all had their own recipes they loved, and when I got old enough to help in the kitchen they started letting me keep recipes I liked when I left.

“I never really got to have a cultural identity of my own. I know I’m Chinese, but I don’t know anything else about my heritage or culture except the half-assed multicultural crap they teach in public schools. And microaggressions and racism, I guess. I’m alone… A cultural tourist, maybe? Culinary tourist? I dunno. I just try to find ways and things that make me happy, even if I don’t have a wider identity to experience them with.”

That sounds desperately lonely to Lan Zhan. Western cuisine holds charm for him and his immediate family, but his clan’s Buddhist values have always given him a trellis on which to grow as a person, even if he and apparently his uncle have decided to cover the ground a bit more. He can see how, without an identity, Wei Ying became so curious and hungry for the world and the many secrets it holds, but also so directionless and alone.

“What about you?”

“My family is very old, and most of my clan are back in southern Shandong province. We are Confucianists by tradition, and I ascribe to this as well, for the most part. My uncle moved here for work some years ago, and ended up staying to raise me and my brother after our father left and our mother passed. I am his son in many ways.”

Wei Ying hums, apparently not having much to say, but also not bothering with pointless platitudes. Lan Zhan finds he doesn’t mind, instead pushing the cart and following his scatter-brained companion around the grocery store. It takes Wei Ying twice as long to get everything he needs, but Lan Zhan doesn’t mind. He’s oddly content to follow the man around and listen once his chatter picks back up again, which means he doesn't notice when Lan Zhan selects two vitamin supplements for him and drops them in the cart.

“-and anyway nobody’s watching it and I won’t ever forgive anyone because it was awesome! Ecological horror and lesbians! It’s perfect!” Wei Ying gasps. “Lan Zhan! We should get stuff for dinner for tonight, too!”

“Mn.”

Wei Ying zooms off back to the produce section, snatches up sweet potatoes and cilantro, and then finally drags them to the register. Lan Zhan follows, scanning items and directing Wei Ying’s bagging, then swipes his card before the other man can see the cost. There’s nothing shady about it, he just doesn’t want Wei Ying to feel bad. As it is, he feels bad for forcing his diet so consistently on someone who definitely mentioned pork belly at least twice in the last half hour.

When they arrive home, Wei Ying sorts all of the groceries until Lan Qiren wrangles him into a chair for lunch, serving him a generous helping of frittata with extra roasted vegetables and potatoes and homemade blackberry iced tea. 

That afternoon, Lan Zhan takes him on one of the walking trails with the cats in tow. It’s the very beginning of Autumn, the leaves just barely starting to change, and the air is cool and moist. Wei Ying is snuggled deep in one of Lan Zhan's old hoodies, smiling as he kicks up a few stray leaves and yaps about some wife-mistress beat down at one of the funerals he worked on. The ‘tea was piping hot’, apparently.

“Neither knew about the other. They were spitting mad. But then later, I saw them weeping on each other! I heard through the grapevine - Facebook - that apparently they’re married now. Isn’t that crazy!”

“It makes me wish I believed in the afterlife,” Lan Zhan chuckles. 

“Right?! God, I hope that old man’s ghost was watching.” Wei Ying grins at him, beautiful and vibrant and untethered by blood or bonds. 

What a wonderful, lonely kind of freedom.

“Oh, hey. Look who it is!”

“Hi!” Wei Ying stops, face worked up into his usual friendly smile.

Oh, fuck. Lan Zhan stares ice daggers at the handsome man tromping obnoxiously up the trail wearing what appears to be entirely Patagonia outdoor wear. 

“Hello, Matthew. How’s your mom?” Which gives Lan Zhan the singular satisfaction of watching his garbage ex-boyfriend’s face twitch briefly before reverting to his patented politely smug smile.

“I wouldn’t know these days, would I?” His voice is wretchedly pleasant, and frankly Lan Zhan couldn’t say why he ever dated this sleaze. “How’s your brother? You really do look just like him, now. Except the smile, of course. He knew how to smile for me.”

“Yes, that happens sometimes when people are related.” He will not give Matthew any satisfaction. He will not gouge out Matthew’s eyeballs with his fingernails.

“Lan Zhan smiles,” Wei Ying butts in. “He smiles a lot.”

“Not that I’ve seen,” Matthew’s grin turns a little more greasy, leaning in like he and Wei Ying are sharing some kind of inside joke. “I bet he makes you work for it, doesn’t he?”

Lan Zhan glances down, watching Suibian yowl and paw at his leg to be picked up.

“Not really.” Wei Ying shrugs, face much more reserved now. He seems to have caught on. “Perhaps I’m more highly evolved.”

“You should ask Lan Zhan about evolution. And transformation. Last time he and I met… well he was a very different creature.”

“Matthew, did you want something, or are you just here to annoy me?” Lan Zhan scoops Suibian up into his arms and cradles her like a baby, scritching behind her ear.

“Oh, we’re just sharing. That’s all. I like sharing. I’m very good at it.” Matthew leans toward Wei Ying again. “Lan Zhan doesn’t like sharing, especially not with me.”

Lan Zhan does not say anything. He does not dump Matthew ass over tits down the hillside. 

“Again,” and this time Wei Ying has a distinct warning in his  tone, “I think you might have a skill issue, because I don’t have that problem.”

“Wow, tough crowd! You know, I’m being very nice here. The least you and your new boyfriend could do is show me the same courtesy.”

“No.” Lan Zhan turns on his heel, heading off in the direction he and Wei Ying were originally going. Suibian purrs in his arms, content to be spoiled like the little princess she is.

“Sorry, Lan Zhan says we’re done here.” Wei Ying scuffs his foot on the trail path. “Um. Bye, I guess. It was interesting meeting you.”

“Now hang on just a second. Do you even know what he did-”

“Nope, and I don't care! Let's go, Lan Zhan!” Wei Ying grins at him, pressing a hand between his shoulders to push him further up the steep trail and away from a wheezing Matthew.

“Hey, come on. These shoes are-”

Lan Zhan doesn’t laugh, but it’s a near, hysterical thing. Matthew, fuck him, tries to stomp after them, but slips and falls on the leaf litter in his boots, eats dirt, and starts inspecting the state of his pants, which is how pretty much everything concludes with him. In Lan Zhan’s arms, Subian seems perfectly content to hitch a ride like a spoiled little baby, nuzzling into his hand. What a sweet cat. She might be his favorite, between her and her more traditionally cat-like sister.

“I apologize for that,” he says once they’re further down the trail.

“No worries, but um. What the hell? That guy seems like a major creepshow.”

“We dated briefly summer before I left for college.”

“Gross, I’m sorry.” 

“He cheated on me with my brother.”

“Dude what the fuck?”

“Indeed. My brother did not know, as they had not been introduced. He was distraught.”

“Fuck.” Wei Ying stops by the river, drops down on a large snag. Lan Zhan perches beside him, a few inches away.

“Mn.” Lan Zhan sighs, clenching and unclenching his stomach so he doesn't start hyperventilating. “If he had cheated on me with anyone else, I would not have cared. I would have ‘packed it in’, as you say, and moved on. But my brother is the sweetest, gentlest person I've ever known, and he was inconsolable. And…”

“And?”

“I had determined, by then, that I identified as a man, but I was still living as a woman.”

A long stretch of harrowing silence.

“Oh, fuck. ” Wei Ying blows sharply through his cheeks. “What did you do?” 

Lan Zhan gulps down the lump of anxiety in his throat.

“I told on him to his mom.”

“No!” A delighted smile breaks over Wei Ying’s face like the dawn.

“Mn. And his grandma. They liked me better than him anyhow.”

Wei Ying cackles. “How was it?”

“They were vicious. It was awesome.” Matthew’s sham of a smile appears in his mind again. “... His mom was especially sad. She thought I was good for him. She thought I would be the daughter she never had.”

“Lan Zhan, I can’t believe you snitched to his mom!” Wei Ying is bent over, gasping while he wipes tears from his eyes. It’s almost like he didn’t even hear what Lan Zhan said. Like he isn’t bothered at all. “Oh my god, Lan Zhan! That’s so awesome!”

“It was not my shining moment. I wanted him to feel the humiliation I felt.”

“Dude, he cheated on you with your brother.”

“Mn. I find I am very protective of my loved ones. Matthew was dead to me the moment I learned of his infidelity.” He stuffs his hands in his jacket pockets. “But Huan had been crying for days. I couldn’t let it go. I don't normally experience that type of anger. It was very vindictive.”

“Aiyah, we all do bad things sometimes. I hope you and your brother are close again?”

“Mn. We never stopped being close. He was blameless, and I was only angry for him, never with him.”

“You Lans… You're all very intense, aren't you?” Wei Ying murmurs thoughtfully. They both look out over the same stretch of the Occoquan River and admire the sun glittering on the tannic water. Wei Ying pours them tea from a thermos into a pair of classic enamelware camping mugs. “Wow, that’s pretty.”

“Mn… We are intense people, but Huan differently so. He's more passive aggressive and relentless, while my uncle and I tend to be more decisive and forceful. We're all very stubborn, however. Immovable.”

“Hm. You never change your mind?”

“Not usually.” Lan Zhan watches Wei Ying scuff the heels of his battered Chucks in the dirt. It makes Lan Zhan smile, that restlessness in the man’s bones. There's so much life in his smile as he grinds his ass against the log and stares directly into the sun. “What about you? Did you ever…”

Did you also have an impossibly dysphoric cheating scandal?

“Oh. You mean did I ever have some kind of traumatic queer experience?”

“Or nontraumatic.”

“Hm. Well, I am bisexual. But there wasn’t much of a ‘coming out’. Sophomore year, high school. There was this pair of fraternal twins. Brother and sister, like clones except for gender. I mean it was spooky how similar they were. And they were beautiful. Probably still are. And I was this scrawny foster kid with a very Chinese name and virtually no Chinese identity who’s never been to the same school for more than a year. I’d seen a lot of things, and experienced a lot of things but - I dunno, insert long essay about comphet here, I guess.

“Anyway, beautiful twins. So I did the normal thing and convinced myself that I didn’t like boys, it was just because he looked like his sister. Totally normal, didn’t mean anything. In fact, I decided I could prove it to myself by looking at other boys and obviously I wouldn’t feel anything because they didn’t have a sister who looked exactly like them.

“Spoiler alert: It wasn’t just the twin.

“But the folks I was with… They were really nice to me. They let me have my own room, and stay late after school in the science lab, and have friends over, and eat snacks. But I knew they wouldn’t be nice if I started kissing boys, so I kind of kept it a secret, and started getting paranoid that they’d find out, and then I started having anxiety attacks and nightmares that were also sometimes wet dreams - that was super weird and bad - and it all just kind of was really bad for a few years.”

“What happened?” Lan Zhan asks.

“Oh, I turned 18. The foster family I was staying with - a different one, by then - let me keep living there until I graduated and went to college - October baby - and then I was on my own. Free to kiss whoever I wanted, so I just did that. No ‘coming out’ required. And it was messy for a while, and I made some very bad choices, but I think I turned out alright.”

“Mn.”

Wei Ying rests his head on Lan Zhan’s shoulder. “You know what the best part is?”

“What?”

“Years later, those nice folks I stayed with? They found me on Facebook. Right after my post about a Pride Parade I went to. They weren’t even bothered. They’d changed. Grown. And so had I. I talk with them every now and then. They send me money on my birthday. They donate to the Trevor Project in June. They still foster kids.

“Isn’t that so awesome? They weren’t the people I needed for me, but they are those people for others now. That makes me so happy, Lan Zhan. There’s so much good in the world, in people.”

Lan Zhan has noticed Wei Ying many times, noticed how beautiful he is, but also noticed how run down his house is, how shitty his car is, how he plays music loudly in the unmowed front yard, and always seems to be doing something that would be considered extremely inappropriate here in his childhood neighborhood. 

It makes him feel a little sick, replaying all of his snap judgements about those less privileged than himself. It's the environment and culture he was raised in, but he can't help but think that his uncle would be ashamed of him if he knew.

He wishes he’d noticed how lovely Wei Ying is. How smart and clever and how he knows how to do so many things Lan Zhan has always paid someone else to do for him because he simply couldn't be bothered. Wei Ying is intelligent and curious and reads like an addict and never assumes anyone is a bad person or takes anyone in bad faith until they prove it to him beyond a reasonable doubt.

And he is so kind. He keeps his pushy, persnickety uncle company and insists upon helping around the house and cooks delicious food and wants to be involved in everything they're doing instead of being treated like an honored guest-

Lan Zhan really, really likes him. Could probably fall for him as easily as slipping on damp autumn leaves. 

Instead of saying any of that, he ignores the increasing rawness on his skin from the earlier encounter, sips oolong tea with his crush, and listens to the flow of the river. The sun is warm on a cool day, and the air smells clean and rich. Every time he breathes, his breath catches on some thorn inside him, but he breathes anyway.

When they return to the house, he heads downstairs without a word to nap in his childhood bed, Wangji and Bichen bouncing after him and snuggling up to his curled form. He presses the button on his old heating pad, letting it warm up the blankets and his heart. Despite all the aches, he manages to slip into a light sleep, hiding from the world for just a little while.

When he wakes up a few hours later, there’s a bowl of raspberries next to a glass of water. There’s a little note under the glass: Get some rest. Everything is okay. There’s a doodle of a stick figure, with a speech bubble saying ‘Gender? I barely know her!’ which makes him smile.

His watch says it’s around 7, so it should be about dinner time. The raspberries get his blood sugar going again, and he hand-feeds some to Bichen and Wangji. “Your uncles are going to be here tomorrow,” he murmurs, nuzzling into Bichen’s soft grey fur. “You two will be absolutely ruined with treats.”

The bunnies follow him back upstairs, one on either side of him until they bump into Wei Ying’s cats, and they all devolve into a claws-free tumble of playtime mischief. Any self-respecting nineteenth century naturalist would be appalled by this turn of events. 

“Lan Zhan! Are you feeling better?”

“Mn. Thank you for the snack.”

“You’re welcome! Are you… okay? That was a lot, earlier.”

“Mn. As far as I know, I am fine.”

“Good.” Wei Ying looks up from where he’s chopping cilantro and “accidentally” dropping some for the bunnies. “You’re safe with me, Lan Zhan. I’d never do anything that could hurt you.”

Lan Zhan’s breathing immediately comes easier. He nods, swallowing around the calcification of old hurts in his throat. Wei Ying smiles, leans in to kiss his cheek.

“And fuck that guy, he sucks.”

“He does,” Lan Zhan whispers, chuckling. “He’s the worst.”

“He would wear polo shirts on purpose.”

“He does.”

“Gross.”

“It’s awful.”

Wei Ying laughs out loud, a high, free, wild sort of laugh. “Hey, do you want a hug?”

“...Yes, please.”

Wei Ying gently pulls him in, arms snaking up from his waist to press against his shoulders. His body is thin, lean, and so warm even through a borrowed sweater. His shoulders are broad enough that Lan Zhan can rest his forehead against his neck.

It's nice. It's so nice. He hasn't been hugged like this in… a very long time. He can feel tension easing out of his body.

“Wow, I knew you'd be a good hugger.” Wei Ying settled further against him too. “You're a beast under this t-shirt, aren't you?”

“Yes.” It's true. T has done some incredible things to his musculature.

“Damn. Wish I weren't such a noodle, but then you wouldn't be able to squish me so tight. This is great.”  Wei Ying rubs his back. “Are you sure you're okay? That wasn't the way that should have happened.”

“I… will be.” Lan Zhan sighs. “It's not the first time.”

“Oh, honey. I'm so sorry.” Wei Ying strokes his hair, holding him closer. He doesn't say anything else, and that's best. Lan Zhan stands there, lets himself be held. How is it possible that this feels like such a safe place, the crook of Wei Ying's neck, the scent of skin and cheap 3-in-1?

Eventually, they break apart, if only because the sweet potatoes will burn and the smell will ruin the moment. Still, Wei Ying gives him one more squeeze and another kiss to the cheek before rescuing their dinner.

Dinner is once again fantastic. Wei Ying makes savory sweet potato tacos with vegetarian refried beans seasoned with cumin and nutritional yeast, avocado, pickled red onions, and cabbage wrapped in homemade corn flour tortillas and topped with a vegan cilantro-garlic-lime aioli. He serves up the avocado mousse for dessert, topped with black cherries.

“I have a new plan for tomorrow's dessert,” he explains around a mouthful of a shockingly edible and even delightful vegan dessert. “And I thought you could use some chocolate.”

He's right.

Later, they're digesting in the chilly sunroom with their pets, snuggled up in separate blankets, feet tucked up, accepting non-dairy hot cocoa from Lan Qiren, reading books.

“I'm gonna feed you so well tomorrow that you won't be able to move,” Wei Ying murmurs, turning the page of a borrowed copy of Braiding Sweetgrass, which makes him quite suddenly very sexy.

“Promises, promises,” Lan Zhan murmurs, ignoring his body's increasing nagging. He briefly regrets leaving his vibrator back in Florida before politely telling his libido to fuck off. Okay, maybe not politely.

“Laoshi is very excited to have you and your brother in the same place at the same time. He was talking about you two all afternoon.”

“Mn.”

“I'm excited to meet your brother.”

“He is a sweetheart,” Lan Zhan allows. “But he can also be a passive aggressive bitch. There is no telling until he arrives. Please do not take it personally.”

“Why do I feel like I'm the wrench?”

“You are.”

Wei Ying closes the book. “Why?”

“He will presume…” Lan Zhan gulps. Huan will notice the unspoken thing in the room. He will notice Wei Ying playing house with Shufu and Lan Zhan tracking his light like a sunflower all the damn day. “He will presume that we are sleeping together.”

“Ah. Right.” They sit in silence for a bit. Then, “Actually, why aren't we sleeping together?”

“I fear… Anything we do here will be unsustainable. Or temporary.”

“Oh. Right.” Wei Ying studies the book cover. “I guess that makes sense.”

“I would regret it if this were all we had. I have too many regrets already.”

“Like what?” Wei Ying twists on his end of the couch to face him, hot cocoa sloshing dangerously in his mug.

“Hm… Not visiting more often. My choices in men. The snap judgements I make about people. The way I handled my gender dysphoria when I was younger. That I cannot think as kindly as I behave-”

“Lan Zhan.” The interruption is an act of pure mercy, Wei Ying staying his thoughts by lacing their hands tightly together. “Lan Zhan. You should be kinder to yourself.”

“I have made too many mistakes.”

“So you don't wanna fuck your neighbor in your childhood home. I get that. You wish your life had been different, that you had been different. I get that too. But we are really young, Lan Zhan. And we're gonna live a long time.” 

“I suppose so.”

Wei Ying sets aside his cocoa. “Sweetheart, it is your first time being alive. Give yourself a little grace, hm?”

“I wish I was a braver type of person.”

“You are the bravest type of person, Lan Zhan. I like you very much.”

“I like you too.”

He does. Lan Zhan likes Wei Ying so much it's giving him whiplash. He settles into Wei Ying's side and lets Wei Ying kiss his forehead.

“When we get home… I can’t take you to dinner, but I can cook you food and make out with you in the back of the public library.”

Lan Zhan smiles. “That sounds very nice. I will read to you about William Morris.”

“I love William Morris.”

“His designs are like windows.”

“Windows?”

“Mn.”

“I feel what you mean.”

“Robin Kimmerer’s new book comes out next month. I requested the library purchase it.”

“I have the book on pre-order. We can read it together.” Lan Zhan breathes in deep, cozy and warm and full of an aching longing. “I will make us a picnic. We will go sit at the park.”

“The one with the pond?”

“Mn. And the hiking trails.”

It crystalizes in Lan Zhan's mind, this imagined date, lying on a quilt by the lake, eating sandwiches and reading Serviceberry to each other and resisting the urge to tell the American beautyberries they love them. Maybe they will bring their pets… They'll definitely bring their pets. And after their date, they will go back to Lan Zhan's house and cook dinner together and watch re-runs of Star Trek and then they'll go to Lan Zhan's bedroom and-

He sits up, gently removing the rabbits from his lap. 

“You okay? I thought we were having a moment there.”

“Mn. I am fine. It is late, and I should get to bed.”

“Oh, yeah. Early riser.” Wei Ying gets up too, stretching. “Goodnight, Lan Zhan. I hope you sleep well.”

Lan Zhan does not berate himself, despite the nervous electricity buzzing under his skin, for being weirdly horny and supremely flaky. He's honestly just grateful Wei Ying isn't already done with him. He strips to his boxer briefs, turns on his heating pad, and does a short yoga routine to get ready for bed. He feels so restless, like his body isn't big enough for him, even after extended time in savasana. It's another restless night just him and the chill of the bottom floor.

Chapter Text

Huan and the Nies arrive the next morning, while Wei Ying is cleaning up from breakfast (avocado sourdough toast with eggs and pico de gallo) and Shufu is trying to sneak the rabbits leftover pieces of fruit. They’ll be fat by the time it’s safe to go home.

“We’re home!”

“Ah, Huan. Mingjue. Huaisang. Welcome. We are cleaning up from breakfast.”

“Wei Ying is cleaning up. You are ruining my pets.”

“I also fed them bell pepper and spinach.”

Lan Zhan rolls his eyes as he’s pulled into his brother’s arms. His brother smells like jasmine flowers. He’s warm and strong and so very sweet, smiling so bright and wide and delighted to see him. 

“A-Zhan, didi. How are you?”

“Very well, given the circumstances. Missed you, ge.”

“I missed you too! We will have to sit down and talk before we part ways again.”

“Mn. How long are you staying?”

“A few days,” Mingjue drawls, which is more just his voice. Most of the time he’s very stoic and even soft-spoken, just deep and gravelly with a Southern accent that definitely did not rewire Lan Zhan’s brain when he was seventeen. “It’s good to see you, Zhan.”

The mountain of a man embraces him too, his lengthening stubble tickling Lan Zhan’s ear. He’s missed his brothers so much.

“Wow, everybody gets a Zhan-ge hug but me?”

“Hello, Huaisang.”

The younger man squeals, tackling Lan Zhan in yet another hug, scrawny arms around his neck. Lan Zhan squeezes his waist in a tight cinch until he squeaks.

“How have you been, ge?! Are you liking Florida?”

“Less right now. Generally speaking it is alright.”

There is another round of greetings for Shufu, who graces them all with a rare smile and a popsicle for Huaisang when he complains about his blood sugar. And then…

“Oh, I’m sorry.” Lan Huan’s smile is immediately frigid, guarded. Here we go again. “Who are you?”

“I’m Wei Ying. Lan Zhan invited me to evacuate with him when he found out I had nowhere to go.”

“I see. I’m glad you’ve made yourself comfortable.”

Wei Ying glances down at his borrowed grey sweats ( Jesus ) and his own tight ribbed tank top ( Christ) , and blushes. He glances at Lan Zhan for help, but Shufu steps in first. 

“A-Ying didn’t have any warm clothes to bring with him. I washed some of your old things for him. Since they’ve been untouched for some years, it shouldn’t be an issue, should it?”

Huan blinks at Shufu in surprise. “Of course not. It’s good to meet you, Wei Ying.”

“... Likewise.” Wei Ying finishes wiping off the counter. “I’m going to take the cats outside for a while.”

“Mn. I will come with you-”

“No! No, don’t. I’ll be fine. Stay and catch up with your family.”

“If you’re sure…” 

Lan Zhan watches as Wei Ying scurries past his brothers, calling for his cats, who meet him by the door, obviously excited to go outside and lay in the sun.

He glares at his older brother once they’re gone.

“You didn’t have to scare him, ge.”

“Shufu told me you brought someone with you.”

Lan Zhan starts the tea kettle, weighing out tea leaves and dispersing them among a set of cups. He prepares one for Wei Ying as well. “Wei Ying is a good person.”

“And he’s an excellent cook,” Shufu provides, shamelessly feeding Wangji and Bichen another strawberry.

“You are abusing his skills, Shufu… But at least you’re nice to him.” He lances his elder brother with another glare as he spoons tea leaves into the diffuser. 

“Fine, I’m sorry. I’ll be nice to your potential new beau.”

“Ew, how old are you? 500?” Huaisang wrinkles his nose.

“You’re the one with a chain for your glasses.”

“Grandma-core is in fashion.” The younger man shrugs, sucking obnoxiously on his popsicle. “Zhan-ge, do you have plans for today?”

“I am not sure yet. Wei Ying wishes to see the Natural History Museum.”

“That’s adorable. You should take him.” Huaisang smiles, an evil, plotting, thin little smile. “I’ll dress y’all up.”

Lan Zhan isn’t sure that’s a good idea. Wei Ying definitely over-committed with the plans for dinner. But he also can’t resist the allure of taking Wei Ying to a museum to listen to him talk about meteorites and be slightly underwhelmed by the Hope Diamond.

“I think I will take him tomorrow.”

“Perfect, I’ll go downstairs and root through the boxes from Huan’s alt phase for something for him to wear, and through your things to find something for you to wear. You’ll both be so cute. Even those shitty D.C. muckety-mucks will be cooing over you guys.”

“Mn.” Lan Zhan doubts that very much, but he’ll let his brother-in-law have his fun. “Just stay out of any boxes with a red X on them.”

“What if I get a reallllllly strong vibe from the boxes with a red X?”

“Then you’d better be ready to stake your welcome in this house on that outfit,” Shufu growls.

“I stake my life on every outfit I make, that’s literally my income. Zhan-ge, you’ll look so pretty and fuckable when I’m done with you, I promise.”

“Please don’t talk about or allude to my sex life in front of Shufu or Xiongzhang. But thank you.”

“Oh but I'm fine?” Mingjue mumbles.

The tea finishes brewing, and Lan Zhan pours two mugs to bring outside. He sits on the porch with Wei Ying and blows on his steaming tea. 

“I apologize for Huan.”

“You weren’t kidding about him.”

“No.”

“He loves you very much.”

“He does.”

They sit quietly for a long time, listening to the crows. The leaves are turning, and the sky is clean and blue. The cats are frolicking in the leaves, unleashed. The garden is a little less well-kept than he remembers, and the driveway needs a good sweeping. 

“How do you feel about some yard work?” Lan Zhan asks.

“I feel great about some yard work! Let’s finish our tea and… Hm. We should pull the weeds and trim the bushes before sweeping the driveway. We can put it all into compost if you have it, or just bag everything up.”

“Mn, we do have a compost pile. We could put some fresh mulch down in the beds. We should take care of the back porch and the deck, too.”

“We should! And anything else you can think of. This place is a lot for one person to take care of, especially someone older.”

“Mn.”

They end up shirtless, sweaty despite the cool air of early autumn, weeding and trimming and sweeping and raking and washing the cars and touching up paint and even replacing a few pieces of siding. Wei Ying is very handy and checks the oil and windshield washer fluid levels in Shufu’s car and Lan Zhan’s - something Lan Zhan, to his embarrassment, does not know how to do.

“Next time you need your oil changed or your tires rotated, let me know. I’ll show you how.”

Wei Ying grins at him, and lets his eyes wander over Lan Zhan's entire torso, bypassing his scars as nothing more than a small piece of topography.

Lan Qiren comes out somewhere between cleaning up the garden and raking the other side of the front yard to feed them spring rolls with peanut sauce and glasses of cold brew jasmine tea with honey, lightly chilled.

Wei Ying washes his hands off from the garden hose before shoving half a spring roll in his mouth, thanking Lan Qiren profusely.

“Mphf. What am I gonna do when we get home? I remember what I’m missing now.” Wei Ying sighs, licking a drop of peanut sauce off his hand.

Lan Zhan wants very much to volunteer to feed him, but knows that won’t be welcome. He promises himself he will find a way to make sure Wei Ying eats. At least invite him over a few times a week… maybe he’ll eat more fish.

They only head inside after they’ve run out of things to do, sometime in the late afternoon. Huan and Mingjue are on the couch, cuddled up together. Huan is drinking white wine and Mingjue is drinking coffee. Huaisang bounds up the stairs from the lower floor, holding one of the forbidden boxes. 

“Zhan-ge! Can I steal these and repurpose the fabric?”

“If you must.”

“You will look so hot, I promise!”

“If you say so…” Lan Zhan doesn’t disbelieve his brother-in-law. Huaisang has a very good eye and a lot of skill. Still, he can’t help but be a bit of a pain when it comes to his old clothes. “Wei Ying, you go shower. I will wait for you.”

“Yeah, thanks. I should probably start dinner, and Laoshi’s fancy neighbors will be here soon.”

“Mn.”

The cool air in the house makes Lan Zhan's sweat chill him, so he pulls his dirty shirt back on. He can’t be bothered to answer his older brothers’ questions, so he pads up to check on Bichen and Wangji, and play with them for a while.

Lan Qiren is reading at the kitchen island, brows crinkled slightly behind his glasses. Lan Zhan makes a note to remind him to see the optometrist this year.

“Zhan, hello. Our neighbors will be here soon. Where is A-Ying?”

“He is washing up downstairs, then I think he will start on dinner. I will go after him.”

“Mn.” Lan Qiren pushes a glass of water in front of him. “He’s a good boy.”

“Yes, I know.” Lan Zhan sips his water. “I don’t want to talk about this anymore right now.”

“You were keen to defend him earlier.”

“I do not want Huan to assume he is like other men I have invited to this house.”

“If he has not already learned his error, he will soon enough.”

“Mn.”

Wei Ying is indeed charming and friendly to Huan despite the chilly introduction. Huan tells him about his work as an architect, about how he’s currently working with a landbank to convert an abandoned shopping mall into a community center.

“That’s so cool! Victor Gruen would be so happy.”

Huan’s eyes sparkle as he leans over the counter. “It has a parking garage. A beautiful, wonderful parking garage. With new, working elevators. Easily accessible for disabled people, and we’re working on campus transportation now.”

“That sounds so wonderful,” Wei Ying sighs. “I’d just like to live in a building that isn’t encrusted with mold.”

“I beg your pardon?” Huan asks, pouring Wei Ying a sweet white wine.

“Yeah… My current dwelling is in, um, ‘questionable’ condition. Which is probably why Lan Zhan more informed me I was coming with him instead of inviting me to tag along.”

“That sounds like him,” Huan chuckles. “My didi is a very stubborn person.”

“So I’ve noticed.” Wei Ying shuttles a large charcuterie board with cheese, fruit and vegetables, crackers, and a flight of homemade hummus varieties over to the sun room coffee table, where the neighbors, an older Chinese gay couple named Xie Lian and Hua Cheng are lounging. Or rather, Xie Lian is lounging while Hua Cheng pours him a high-quality, mid-shelf red wine and gazes at him with stars in his eyes. 

Lan Zhan is definitely not jealous.

Nie Mingjue passes Wei Ying a cup of coffee, treated with Knob Creek (smokey maple) bourbon, maple syrup, and half n’ half.

“Oh, you’re a saint!” the slim man sighs, wrapping his lips around the steaming mug. “Blessed hero of a man. Please fuck me up.”

Nie Mingjue snorts, offers the bourbon, and upon a nod, tops off the coffee with more.

“That cannot possibly taste good,” Lan Zhan mutters.

“Here, gege. Try it.”

Wei Ying’s smile is so welcome and genuine. Lan Zhan catches a whiff of the steam, and it burns his nose. It burns his throat too, and he must make a very funny face because Wei Ying bursts out laughing.

“I think you should stick to wine, Lan Zhan.”

“I agree. That was awful.”

“Ignore them, Lan Zhan.” Hua Cheng hand-feeds his husband a cracker topped with smoked gouda and some honey. “They’re barbarians. Come sit. Eat something.”

It’s a surprisingly lively atmosphere. Xie Lian breeds peony varietals for discerning clients, but he used to be a homeless backpacker and travelled all over the Asian and European continents. Hua Cheng has invested in various businesses, both local and abroad: everything from pharmaceuticals to mortuaries to affordable housing to bars. He says he specializes in life and death alike. In his free time, he practices sculpture. Xie Lian is a champion martial artist specializing in Meihuaquan style. Hua Cheng is an expert in Qingping swordsmanship. In their fifties and sixties, (Hua Cheng is about 10 years younger), both have lived diverse and adventurous lives, and are always fun to talk to.

Huaisang starts chattering to the older men about fashion. Xie Lian brings up his brief and impromptu modelling career in France forty-five years ago. Hua Cheng offers up a brief history of punk jackets. Lan Zhan sips his wine, nibbles at the snacks, and listens, feet tucked up on a lounger. Onion bhajis and vegan raita make their appearance. They’re incredible. Wei Ying shouts the occasional comment from the serving window in the kitchen. Huan, slightly warmed up to Wei Ying, is content to sit next to Mingjue on the other couch and quip back. Shufu sits next to Lan Zhan, tapping his fingers against his legs, listening to the chatter. He seems… content.

Lan Zhan wonders if it comes with age. He wonders if he’ll ever be as settled into his body as the people around him. Will he ever feel comfortable talking about his own passions in a room full of people ready to judge his acumen? Will he ever feel unbothered enough to lounge about while another man hand-feeds him and serves him endless praise? Could he ever step into the center of a social circle, offer himself up, and be unafraid?

Wei Ying darts in, snatches up an onion bhaji, and runs back into the kitchen to tend to the saag and daal. Lan Zhan is fairly certain he’s making roti, too. Wei Ying doesn’t apologize for anything. He doesn't hesitate, doubt his words or knowledge. He’s shameless and hungry and yearning and always reaching.

They eat dinner there in the sunroom, jammed around a table made for 6. Finally able to properly join the chatter, Wei Ying shares how he ended up at the Lan house, what he does for work, how his internship is going, and how “It’s no trouble really. I’m happy to be useful and I’m not used to having unlimited internet access, so I wouldn’t know what to do with all this freetime anyway.”

“It was a lot of trouble, and we are very grateful,” Lan Zhan insists, pouring out a glass of wine for Wei Ying. Wei Ying smiles at him, tearing off a piece of roti one-handed and scooping up a mouthful of saag. He seems satisfied with how everything turned out, eating with his hands. He shows Lan Zhan how to pick up the food with his fingers and use his thumb to push the food into his mouth. He's clumsy and awkward, but Wei Ying only giggles and repositions his hands.

It's shameless flirting, but his brother and Mingjue are tipsy and clingy, Uncle is focused on not getting caught eating a 6th roti, and Hua Cheng and Xie Lian have been shameless as long as he's known them, so at least he's in good company with no room to talk.

Huaisang, on the other hand watches them with supreme interest. Lan Zhan pointedly doesn’t look at him. His younger brother needs no encouragement.

Wei Ying's hands are coarse and dry, fingernails bitten to the quick, rough with hangnails and scabs. But they're still so beautiful. His hands are smaller than Lan Zhan's, fine-boned but strong, freckled and brown. They're hands to work with, to eat with, to dig with. To build with.

Lan Zhan wants so badly to kiss these hands and hold them. Wei Ying smiles at him, voice reaching him like he's several feet under water, and Lan Zhan wonders exactly what kind of regrets he's really and truly afraid of.

“Hm?” He blinks at the beautiful man.

“Do you think your babies would mind if I crashed up here tonight?”

“ I would mind. It is too cold. You and I can share tonight.”

“Oh, no. Lan Zhan, I've imposed enough. I couldn't-”

“It is not an imposition. You will be cold, and my room is warm. There is plenty of space.” He decides to dangle a carrot. “I put a heating pad under my blanket while I do my evening yoga.”

Lan Zhan is going to ruin himself for this man.

“Well, that does sound nice… Alright, gege. You win. A few more nights in a nice bed won't ruin me.”

“Mn.” Lan Zhan scoops up some fragrant rice and daal. “Good choice.”

He briefly makes eye contact with Hua Cheng, whose lone russet eye glints at him. Conversation moves on, Nie Mingjue talking about his knitting. Wei Ying latches on with excitement - apparently he thrifts yarn every now and then and has been making a blanket for himself. It might be gone now - Milton crawling its way over their little street as they sit here and eat food and drink wine. 

“A-Ying, how do you feel about s'mores?”

“Oh, I feel wonderful about s'mores, Laoshi. Even weird vegan s'mores.”

“They are surprisingly good, just like the vegan chocolate.” Lan Qiren gets to his feet. “Perhaps you and Mingjue can start a bonfire outside on the lawn while the rest of us clean up from dinner.”

“Sounds good! Mingjue-ge, are we good to go?”

“Yeah, one sec.” The giant man downs the last of his coffee (if one can call it that) and gets to his feet, stretching hugely until his back pops. “Alright let's go.”

“Whoo!”

Hua Cheng and Xie Lian relocate to the charcuterie, and Huaisang slips off downstairs to continue raiding the crawlspace. 

“You really like him that much?” Huan asks, collecting cutlery onto one of the plates while Lan Zhan stacks the bowls.

“Hm?”

“Zhan, you invited him into your room. Into your bed.”

“I didn't not mean it as-”

“Yes, you did.” Huan smirks at him over the table. “You absolutely did.”

He did. 24 hours ago, he declined the same invitation he issued minutes ago. If he were in Wei Ying’s shoes, he'd be so fed up with his own bullshit. He kind of is fed up with his own bullshit, actually.

“I like him very much. I hope-” Lan Zhan stares at the bowls in his hands. “I hope he is not disappointed with me. I hope this connection is not lost when we return home.”

“It might be, if you don't work for it.” Huan leads the way into the kitchen. “You have to try for these things, A-Zhan. Actively. Wanting love and romance isn't enough. You have to communicate that want, in action and words.

“Poor Mingjue was so nervous on our first date that he spilled an entire bottle of wine on my silk kurta. I wasn’t even upset! But Mingjue… he had this silly idea that I was too good for him, and decided he’d ruined his chances. If I hadn’t run after him and demanded a second date, I would have missed out on the love of my life.”

“So… when we go home, if I continue to spend time with him, go places and do activities with him…”

“Then he will probably continue to spend time with you.” Lan Huan slots the cutlery into the silverware rack in the dishwasher. “If you want to be more than two people who spend time together, tell him. Be explicitly honest about what you want.”

“Would it not be awkward?”

“Probably. But you can do this, Zhan.” Huan smiles, dark brown eyes warm and loving and every bit the big brother Lan Zhan has always needed. Mingjue was right - nobody is good enough for Huan. “You're an amazing person, and any man would be deeply fortunate to have your heart.”

“Mn. I'm just not confident that anyone wants it. Or… the rest of me.”

“Oh, A-Zhan-”

“Please, don't. Don't. I know you will always affirm me and my identity, but there comes a point that I must learn to accept myself, myself. I’m just… not there yet.”

“Right.” Huan sighs, nods. “You’re right. I wish you had it a little easier, that's all.”

“You do make it easier, ge.”

And it's true. Huan helped Lan Zhan tie his first tie, pick clothes for his first interview, retrain his mannerisms, learn a new speaking cadence. Huan, and Mingjue too, are his models, his archetypes, the young men who helped him grow into a young man himself.

He isn't sure he would have survived the harrows of his transition without his brother. One day, when he has the words, when he fully knows himself and his place in the world - one day , Lan Zhan will tell his brother exactly how vital his presence was during those early months, that first year.

But for now, his work isn't done, he still has growing to do, and longings to fulfill. He has to go eat s'mores with his crush. And, he’s heard whispers, save room for mango sticky rice, the dessert Wei Ying actually planned and made for them.

It ends up that they eat Wei Ying’s mango sticky rice while roasting vegan marshmallows for vegan s’mores - mostly vegan. The homemade graham crackers are sweetened with honey. Wei Ying suggests a sunflower sesame sourdough and a vegan sweet potato chowder for dinner tomorrow, and puts his head together with Huan to ponder over a recipe.

“Corn?”

“Oh most definitely.”

“Hm. A-Zhan needs more protein.”

“Smoothies for dessert? We can use silken tofu for texture.”

“Mn, he’d like that. So would I, actually, that sounds so much better than protein powder. I can’t believe I never thought of that.”

“Protein powder is expensive. Tofu costs like 2 bucks. More like 4 up here, but still.”

“Have you been to an H-Mart before?”

“No, but let me show you pictures of the Lotte Mart that just opened across town.”

“Oohh, let me see!”

Lan Zhan glares at his brother, watching him suck up to Wei Ying without any sense of shame. He supposed it’s better than him being a frigid bitch, though.

Shufu disappears into the house and returns with a giant thermos of fresh ginger tea with turmeric, orange, cinnamon, and clove. Wei Ying hums, sipping at a steaming mug as he asks Xie Lian about his peonies and chats with Hua Cheng about his sub-par apprenticeship experience. The one-eyed man frowns as Wei Ying whispers something in a grim tone. Lan Zhan only catches ‘during a potential business opportunity’, but judging from the rather sharp look on Hua Cheng’s face, it’s nothing good. At one point, he passes over a business card, and if that isn’t an overture from an angel of death, Lan Zhan doesn’t know what is.

Lan Zhan sits back in his camp chair and watches Wei Ying integrate himself into his very small social circle. He’s jealous. He’s so jealous. He could never chat with his neighbors like this, no matter how interesting they are. He doesn’t even know if he’s ever carried a conversation with Mingjue, his own brother-in-law.

“I dunno, I feel like genre fiction is just as valuable as contemporary or classic literature. Academics feel that because it exists in a world or scenario that we don’t exist in, that it’s somehow less valuable or influential or important. I think it’s just classism disguised as intellectualism. There are so many questions we can ask, aspects of our humanity we can explore, outside of Memoirs of My Fifty-Year-Old Dick and the College Student We Cheat On My Wife With.”

“I don’t think you’ve quite encompassed contemporary literature,” Lan Zhan cuts in while everyone laughs. “But I also think you would enjoy Klara and The Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro.”

“Ooh, I’ll check the library!... Ack, there’s a four month waiting list. Ah, well. Something to surprise myself with later.”

“Mn. What will you read in the meantime?” Lan Zhan asks, leaning over to look at Wei Ying’s Libby app.

“Oh some vampire hunter trash. It’s… Well, it’s not fantastic but I want to see how it ends. After that a Victorian era sapphic romance. Best friends to lovers. And after that, I dunno. None of my holds are ready yet, so I need to look for something.”

“Hm. I’m sure I could find you something good.” Lan Zhan offers his hand. “Or would you like an illegal web novel translation instead?”

“Hm. Is it gay?”

“Yes, and also a shockingly affectionate look at queer experiences and escapism.”

“I’m in. Make my day, gege.”

No nickname in the history of nicknames has ever been so affirming or welcome, Lan Zhan is certain. He wants to burrow into that endearment, wear it as a sweater, build a nest out of it.

Again, completely normal and healthy things to want. He opens a tab collection on Wei Ying’s phone, each with a danmei or baihe that he thinks his new… something might like. 

“Chrysanthemum Garden?”

Lan Zhan sighs. “I promise I’m not offering you weird porn.”

“No, no. It’s fine. I have complete faith in the merits of Chrysanthemum Garden’s collection of literature,” Wei Ying snickers.

“This one may or may not include fishpreg.”

“But is it good?”

“The last chapter makes it great.”

“Ooh, intriguing! I’m in.”

Lan Zhan laughs, just a small sound through his nose, skipping in the back of his throat. Wei Ying tips their heads together, leaning over his old phone and scrolling through his LibraryThing and GoodReads and Fable by turn. Wei Ying’s reading tastes are as adventurous as everything else about him - old and new, across multiple different cultural intersections. Fantasy, romance, science fiction, some historical, and very little contemporary, but a few shine through, mostly memoirs of immigrants or of diasporic families or people from regions of conflict. There’s even a fair bit of young adult literature. 

“This looks cute,” he comments, pointing to a graphic novel about a young Vietnamese-American boy going on a silent meditation retreat and identifying with his Buddhist roots.

“It was cute. I thought about converting to Buddhism, but I think I’m too hungry, you know? I want too much and too big. I think I just wanted some kind of connection.”

“Mn.” Lan Zhan has never felt connected to much in his life.

“Ever the wallflower in the corner, our Zhan,” Huan says right on time, saying something to Xie Lian. “Always has been. There was this one boy in high school who would not leave him alone. At one point, A-Zhan just interrupted him mid-overture and said ‘You are not qualified to speak to me.’ I about died laughing.”

“That kid had nothing to say. I didn’t care to listen to him yap about the same three anime he believed are the bastion of artistic integrity. He’s probably still yapping about them.” Lan Zhan sips another mug of ginger tea, sniffing to put a bit of his snotty academic bitchiness into it to make Wei Ying laugh.

He cackles, kicking his feet and getting dirt into the holes in the bottoms of his thrifted Chucks. He is the most beautiful thing Lan Zhan has ever seen. Wei Ying could yap about the same three whatevers for the rest of time and be qualified to speak to him. Sing to him. Do whatever he wants to him. 

Instead of voicing any of that, he settles back and scrolls through his reading history, carefully documented over multiple apps, and using Wei Ying’s own to psychologically profile him. He starts putting together a list of books he thinks Wei Ying might enjoy, sorting them by basic genre. Wei Ying jostles his chair over until they brush shoulders and roasts vegan marshmallows, completely unconcerned with Lan Zhan spotting the smutty Merlin fanfiction open in his Chrome tabs. There’s something about that level of trust that makes Lan Zhan’s heart ache - and makes him want to see Wei Ying invade all of his space and take up room in every corner of his life. He wants to see Wei Ying curled up reading smut on his living room couch.

He texts his brother.

‘Do you really think I have a chance with Wei Ying?’

‘He’s practically in your lap. You have every chance in the world.’

The evening winds down, and Hua Cheng and Xie Lian weave off through the woods in the direction of their modern-style house up the hill. Wei Ying jumps to his feet, helping put out the campfire and pick up the roasting sticks to scrub the ashed marshmallow off of them. Lan Qiren puts the remaining desserts away. Mingjue and Huan put away the camp chairs and table. Huaisang is sitting in a pile of old clothes in the four seasons room, where he’s been most of the day. He’s folded in a leather chair in front of the noisy television, hunched over what appears to be a pale blue silk jacquard jumpsuit. When did Lan Zhan ever have that? It's cute.

Oh well.

He stumbles back into the shower to wash the campfire smell off of himself, dresses in the bathroom, and almost collides headfirst with Wei Ying in the hall.

“Sorry! Sorry, Lan Zhan!” 

“It is fine. Are you having a wash?”

“Yeah, just a quick one. I figure you don’t want fried onions and campfire smell all over your nice sheets.”

“Mn.”

While Wei Ying showers, Lan Zhan is accosted by Huiasang. He ignores Huaisang, moving through his evening yoga routine, stretching out his body from head to toe after a day of manual labor. He's not overly familiar with yard or home maintenance, and felt awkward and uncoordinated. He's grateful Wei Ying didn't bring it up.

“You’re being weird,” Huaisang finally says, rummaging through an old box of Huan’s fashion jewelry from his teenage alt phase.

“I noticed.” Lan Zhan breathes through an excruciatingly delicious IT band stretch.

“What the hell, ge?”

“I don’t know.”

“Would it really be so bad to date a nice guy?”

“No.”

“Then just tell him you want him to bounce on it and be done with it already.”

“That’s crass, Huaisang.”

“I’m just saying. He’d let you.”

“I know. Thank you, Huaisang.” Lan Zhan opens up into a side straddle, curling loosely over his right leg.

“Wait, you know? How?”

“We talked about it.” Lan Zhan feels suddenly very smug about this. “I told him maybe when we get back, if we keep seeing each other. He’s fine with that.”

“Huh. Weirdly mature and forthcoming of you.”

“Are we done here? I have a paper I should be writing.” He switches to the other side.

“Yeah, fine. Good luck with your future sex, I guess. And good luck sticking to that after I dress him up for you tomorrow. I don’t want to hear about how you defiled the train system or anything.”

Lan Zhan says nothing to that, finishes his stretches, and gets to work on a research paper due Saturday. He’s certain the professor won’t care if it’s late, but he’d still have to catch up later, so he slogs his way through copyright and fair use case law and explores ways to protect digital libraries and how they can be covered by fair use. It’s very dry, but actually useful. He understands that Libby doesn’t have limited digital copies to create artificial scarcity, but to protect themselves from copyright lawsuits. He understands why AO3 is so adamant about not linking ko-fis or patreons. He understands how precarious digital collection is, and how the Internet Archive might have endangered the process. 

“Having fun?” Wei Ying is dressed only in worn boxers, hair dried and fluffy.

“Mn. A little. Writing a paper.”

“That’s fun?”

“I care about the subject, so yes.”

“Oh, that makes sense!”

“Mn.” Lan Zhan sets his laptop aside on the nightstand. “Wei Ying.”

“Yeah?”

“....” Lan Zhan thinks about what Huaisang said. About discussing sex being mature and forthcoming of him. He wants to be that person, to be mature and forthcoming in his relationships. He wants to trust.

“Take your time, gege. We’ve got all night.”

Wei Ying climbs into bed next to him. It’s a queen, so there isn’t a ton of space. Lan Zhan can feel Wei Ying’s body heat next to him. He’s already finished Braiding Sweetgrass and seems to have moved on to Get A Life Chloe Brown , thumbing his way through at a quick pace.

He’s so pretty, sitting in the warm lamplight of Lan Zhan’s room, dark eyes and soft, mouth plush and relaxed. He’s still in just boxers. He chuckles at the pages, slightly crooked teeth flashing in the light. He wonders if Wei Ying never had braces or if he, like Lan Zhan, found retainers unbearable. He wonders if Wei Ying bites his nails from stress or if it’s boredom. He wonders if Wei Ying has always been this thin, and what might happen if he continued to eat well. He wonders if Wei Ying has always been so wonderful, or if he had to learn.

He looks at Wei Ying, and he wonders.

“Wei Ying-” and he regrets it almost immediately.

“Hm? What is it, Lan Zhan?” Wei Ying folds the book, turning to him. His old, cracked phone slides around on the blanket. 

“When we go home, I would like for us to continue seeing each other. As more than friends. I hope this will be agreeable to you, but please do not force yourself.”

“You think I’d say no?”

“I am unsure.”

“You silly man! I’ve been plotting how to charm you this whole time! I wanted to seduce you the day we met, you know. Unfortunately I nearly poisoned you with shortbread.”

“Not your fault.”

“Maybe not, but I still felt bad.” Wei Ying slides down in the sheets.

“I apologize for being a flaky weirdo.”

“Sweetheart, you are not a flaky weirdo.”

“Debatable.”

“Make it up to me, then.”

“How?”

“You could kiss me. Give me a little taste of what I’ve been missing.” Wei Ying grins, book still grasped in his lap. His body language seems playful, bouncy and bright. But there’s something… vulnerable, as Lan Zhan searches his face.

“You may kiss me if you wish.” And, because he’s so mature and forthcoming, “I would enjoy that.” 

And Wei Ying is kissing him on his mouth. His lips are chapped and taste like toothpaste, making for an odd combination of cold and warm. Lan Zhan sighs into the press of lips, catching Wei Ying around the waist and pulling them flush together. 

Kissing Wei Ying is as wonderful as Lan Zhan had hoped it would be, and his hopes had been very high. Those spindly fingers press into his neck, thumbs brushing up over his jaw. When Lan Zhan’s fingers press into his back, one of Wei Ying’s hands catches the back of his neck and the other hooks around to draw him closer.

Lan Zhan sighs, pressing their foreheads together as they come up for air.

“Do you know how long I’ve wished I could do that?” Wei Ying sighs, breath warm over Lan Zhan’s cheek. His eyes flutter closed at the little gust, pressing impossibly closer. It’s been so long since he allowed himself to want, allowed himself to feel safe entering the physical space of another man. But it’s Wei Ying. He’s so sweet and beautiful and alive, and his heart is the size of Mount Everest and he bounces around like a miniature sun.

“Why didn’t you?”

“Lan Zhan… I saw how you looked at me. Like I was a problem. ‘There goes the neighborhood’ and all that.” Wei Ying laughs, a hollow, aching thing, and Lan Zhan flinches from his heart to his toes.

“It was wrong of me. I was wrong.” Lan Zhan pulls the man impossibly closer. “Forgive me.”

“Aiyah, Lan Zhan. Of course I forgive you. How could I not?”

“You say, ‘You’re a judgemental dickhead and I don’t like you and I won’t forgive you.’ And I say, ‘Yes, I understand. I am very sad to have ruined my chances,’ and try to move on.”

“Well, lucky for you, I do forgive you.”

“Truly?”

“Mhm. I forgive you enough to kiss you, don’t I?”

“Mn.” 

Wei Ying kisses him again. They’re almost the same size. Lan Zhan is maybe two or three inches taller. They fit together well- Lan Zhan is built broad and powerful. Wei Ying is slender and wiry. Neither of them are delicate.

“Ah, Lan Zhan,” Wei Ying murmurs when next they break apart. “I really want to sleep with you. Can I sleep with you?”

“I would like to… I hope-” He takes a deep breath. “I am not confident that I am desirable to you. I have not dated a man before, as a man.”

A long pause- “Oh! Lan Zhan, I genuinely do not care about your anatomy. You’re really hot and really awesome and I really do like you.”

“Please do not force yourself.” Not because he thinks Wei Ying would lie, but just because he’s tired. His heart is tired.

“I assure you I am not forcing myself. But it’s up to you, gege. We can cuddle, or I can crash on the floor and we can forget the whole thing. Whatever you want, sweetheart.”

Lan Zhan wants to hear Wei Ying call him sweetheart everyday for the rest of his life. He must do something with his face about it because Wei Ying makes a soft little cooing noise and pulls him into a hug, and Lan Zhan promptly starts shaking. This isn’t sexy at all, of course, but Wei Ying, because he is the actual sweetheart between them, doesn’t seem to mind at all.

“Oh, honey… It’s okay.” Wei Ying only holds him closer, inviting him to burrow into the crook of his neck - an invitation Lan Zhan readily accepts. “I’ll treat you so good, Lan Zhan. Just give me a chance, huh?”

Lan Zhan nods, settling deeper into the cuddle.

“Oh, this is nice. It’s been ages since I got a good cuddle. We should sleep like this, gege.”

“Mn.” 

Lan Zhan nestles against Wei Ying, working until their bodies are settled in a comfortable tangle. Wei Ying smells nice, and his body is so warm. When Wei Ying twists to turn off the lamp, Lan Zhan’s head settles on his thin chest. Wei Ying settles back into the pillows and kisses his forehead. It makes Lan Zhan’s heart hurt.

“You’ve been pretty lonely, huh, gege?”

Oh, his heart aches.

Wei Ying holds him tighter, gentle, warm pressure that works the knot out of his chest. He sighs. If anyone understands loneliness, it's Wei Ying.

“I am in very good hands.”

“Yeah… It gets better though. You'll see. Sometimes, to find people, you gotta like, Know A Guy if that makes sense.”

It does not, but Lan Zhan doesn't say so.

Their shared heat warms the blankets, their skin.

“I feel bad for Huan and Mingjue. Their room is freezing. ”

“You were cold?” Lan Zhan finds Wei Ying’s phone amidst the blankets and passes it to him.

“A little.” Wei Ying sets his phone down on the nightstand next to Lan Zhan’s, and Lan Zhan tries not to have feelings about that.

“You didn't say anything.”

“It was really fine. I just dragged Suibian and Chenqing under the blankets with me.”

At the sound of their names, the lean black cats hop onto the bed. Chenqing, ever so polite, settles down by their feet so she can be offended if they so much as wiggle. Suibian however, walks over Wei Ying so she can settle into the little valley between their cuddled bodies.

“No sense of personal space,” Wei Ying whispers, grinning in the golden light of the outside lamp bleeding through the window.

Lan Zhan rubs Suibian’s head, listening to her purr. “So pleased with herself.”

Wei Ying giggles. “Be more like your sister, ya goof! See how dignified she is? Proper cat, my Chenqing.”

“Shhh, they're both perfect.”

“Yeah… I just - it was probably a bad idea for me to have pets, but I'm a weak sucker. They get their shots and they're spayed and they have good food to eat… and they go outside like a dog because cat litter is expensive. Also it's kind of a cool party trick.”

“Will things be… easier for you? Once you're done with your apprenticeship?”

“You mean will I have more money to eat and live in a building?”

“Mn.”

“Maybe, if they keep me on. But I don't think they will.”

“No?”

“They're pissed I left during a potential rise in business.”

“Business being… hurricane casualties.”

“Yeah.” Wei Ying huffs, scratching Suibian’s forehead. “So, might get fired from my apprenticeship anyway, but I don't really wanna work for people like that… But it's not like I can just quit a paid apprenticeship . Those are really hard to get, and then I'd have to find a new place to apprentice with and I might have to just start over which would suck but if I don't finish my apprenticeship then I don't get to be a mortician and I really want to be a mortician and can you please make me shut up because-”

Lan Zhan kisses him, as gently as he can. “You are a wonderful person, and very talented. You will be great wherever you go.”

“I know you're trying to make me feel better, but I also don't know how I'm gonna live when this falls through.”

“Come back up here and keep Shufu company. Take him for walks or whatever.”

“Senior Activities Coordinator but it's just for the uncle of the guy I'm seeing.” Wei Ying snickers. 

“You would be good at that.” Lan Zhan yawns. “You are good at so many things.”

“Yeah… I'll be okay. I always am, sooner or later.”

“Mn.”

“What about you?”

“I will be a librarian. I want to do public librarianship, but my advisor says I am better-suited to archivism. Less… outside my own sphere, she said.”

“Hm, I see what she's saying, but if you want to go outside your own sphere then you can do that. Public libraries are full of poor and unhoused people, and people in need. But it's also full of posh people and parents trying to drag their kids away from the iPad for a little while. It's a place for everybody.”

“I want to be everybody.”

“You are, sweetheart. Do you have time to learn?”

“Mn. I am focusing on my core classes, so I will have time later to explore a specific career path.”

“Well I am a loyal patron of my public library. We can go and I'll introduce you to Sha’rae. She's my favorite. We knit together sometimes.”

“Mn. I hope she is alright.”

“Yeah, me too. I have a ton of people to check on.”

“You have a lot of friends?”

“Yeah! It's more like a network of Broke People With Tradable Skills and we don't all like all of us, but that's not the point. If I need my lawn mowed, then I'll tell Kevin, and Kevin will ask me to pressure-wash his driveway. If Kevin needs something printed, he'll offer to mow Martha's lawn for her. That sort of thing. But we know each other, or know someone who knows each other. Does that make sense?”

“Mn. It sounds… nice. When I need something, I have to do it myself or pay someone to do it.”

“I mean, that's also an option, and we definitely also pass around the same $20 as life goes. But it's nice to do things for others and have others do things for you.

“I bet you'd be a good person to add to our group. You know how to read legalese and do writing stuff, don't you?”

“Mn. In undergrad, I worked in the writing center assisting students with papers and documents.”

“Oh you are so joining the BTS movement.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Brokes with Tradeable Skills.”

“Ah. I am not broke.”

“That's okay. We'll overlook it for now.”

Lan Zhan snorts. “I wonder how hard it is to become a notary.”

“Sha’rae is a notary. She can help you. You actually do have to Know A Guy, for that.”

“Mn.”

It sounds… nice. Connected. A way to wiggle himself into Wei Ying’s life and make himself a home there. He pets Suibian, listens to Wei Ying's slowing breaths.

“I'm taking you to the museum tomorrow,” he whispers, as the outside lights turn off.

“You can take me wherever you want, Gege.”

Which they both know isn't really true, but almost feels like it could be. Lan Zhan sighs, tucks his arm under the blankets and around Wei Ying’s waist, and sleep takes him at record speed for once.

Chapter Text

Lan Zhan wakes up in a truly novel position: the big spoon. Wei Ying is tucked up against him, the curve of his spine pressed to Lan Zhan’s chest. His slender, brown hand clutches Lan Zhan’s own larger hand to his chest. His legs are woven with Lan Zhan’s legs. His breathing matches Lan Zhan’s breathing.

Wei Ying smells good, like sleep and cheap soap. His skin is warm and smooth, moisturized by the Florida humidity he spends most of his time in. His hair is soft, the fine, loose curls glossy and wild. Lan Zhan registers the buzzing of his arm where Wei Ying’s head is restricting the blood flow while he pines over the knob of Wei Ying’s neck. 

He curls tighter, the lines of their bodies slotting together like a made pair, and he wishes.

“‘Mornin’,” Wei Ying slurs.

“Apologies. I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“Hmrph.” Wei Ying shifts, but makes no effort to get up.

Lan Zhan nuzzles against the junction of Wei Ying’s shoulders and spine, breathing in the scent of skin. It’s so warm here, so quiet. He doesn’t remember ever feeling like this before, even on the few rare occasions he woke up with someone else. He lies there, and he breathes, and Wei Ying breathes too, and it’s perfect.

It’s easy to be here, pale morning light leaking through the curtains, the cats stretched along his back and sitting on his hip, the soft coziness of his childhood bed. He thinks he could lie here forever.

He doesn’t get the chance to try, because his brother knocks on the door, telling them to come up for breakfast.

“Seems we slept late,” Wei Ying croaks, reaching for his old Nalgene. “You definitely did.”

“I had a good incentive.” Lan Zhan accepts the offered Nalgene. It would be silly to fuss about sharing water now, after they had their tongues in each other’s mouths.

“Yeah?” Wei Ying rubs goop out of his eye. There are creases on his side from the sheets and pillow, and hair stuck to his red cheek where he was lying on Lan Zhan’s throbbing arm. He’s perfect. He’s the most lovely thing Lan Zhan ever saw.

“Mn.” 

“You’re so cute, Lan Zhan. And a great cuddler, wow. I’ve never slept so good.”

“I am happy to assist you.”

Wei Ying giggles, falling to rest his head against Lan Zhan’s shoulder.

“We should go upstairs before one of them comes down to hoot at us.”

“We didn’t even do anything.”

“Like that would stop them.” 

Wei Ying grumbles, flopping back down into the pillows. Not a morning person at all. It’s unbearably cute. Leaving Wei Ying to drag himself out of bed, Lan Zhan stretches and shakes his limbs, uses the bathroom, closes the three seasons room doors, and climbs upstairs to let Wangji and Bichen out of the sunroom.

Shufu made congee, salty and savory, with mushrooms and baby bok choy grilled with scallions and eggs fried in sesame oil. He pours a cup of oolong tea out for Lan Zhan as he approaches, breathing in the comforting aroma of garlic and ginger.

“Smells good,” he murmurs, voice still hoarse from sleep.

“Lan Zhan?” Wei Ying stumbles up the stairs in sweats and the bassquatch tee, yawning. “Woah, what smells so good?”

“Congee.” Lan Qiren raises an eyebrow. “You’ve eaten congee before, surely?”

“Hm. Maybe when I was real little. I dunno.”

“Well, come get some. And don’t you dare ignore the vegetables, you need the folate.”

“Yes, Laoshi.” Wei Ying blearily accepts a mug of coffee from Mingjue, slurping at it and whining when he burns his tongue. “Ugh, gimme a minute. Still coming back online.”

By the time he stumbles out to the dining table in the sunroom, bowl of congee in one hand and coffee in the other, he’s mostly awake. He lets the cats out before he sits down.

“Won’t they run off?”

“Nah, they’ll come back and yowl at the door in a couple minutes. They’ll be good- damn, that’s delicious.” 

Wei Ying slurps up a second spoonful of his congee, groaning. Mingjue passes him a jar of chili crisp and Lan Zhan watches Wei Ying add a hefty spoonful to his breakfast until it’s the color of a deep sunrise. 

“Oh my god, I want to eat this every day.”

“I will send the recipe home with you,” Lan Qiren promises. “You should cook it for Zhan sometimes. It’s his favorite.”

“I will.” Wei Ying shoves a piece of bok choy into his mouth, sighing at the gentle crunch.

He’s on his fourth bite when the cats indeed return to yowl at the door.

“Wow, you really do have them trained like dogs,” Huaisang muses. “That’s fascinating.”

“It works.” Wei Ying lets the cats in, watching them flop down with the rabbits. “That’s still strange.”

“Yeah, wouldn’t they eat the rabbits?”

“Nah, the rabbits aren’t really afraid of ‘em and are kinda big, so I don’t think they’ve registered that maybe they could if they wanted to. I try to keep ‘em inside back home, but it gets real hot in the house.”

Breakfast continues with light chatting, coffee and good food slowly bringing Wei Ying back to life. Lan Zhan wonders if maybe he’s tired after all of yesterday, but doesn’t want to ask and put him on the spot.

“Let me take you to the museum today,” he offers again instead, loading the dishwasher while Wei Ying stirs his second cup of coffee. He wants something, wants to work for it, make it, shape it with his hands.

“Yeah? For real?”

“Mn.”

“Like a date?”

“Yes, please.”

“Yeah, okay!” The smile Wei Ying gives him is still a touch sleepy, but sunny and warm.

“Are you tired? We can go later.”

“I’m good. I just usually don’t sleep that hard. You’re very nice to cuddle with, Lan Zhan.”

“Good to know.” Lan Zhan pours himself a fresh cup of tea, inhaling the sweet, rich steam.

For a moment, Wei Ying just blinks at him, then whines and puts his head down on the bar. “Lan Zha-a-an, you can’t just say these things! You’ll make my heart burst!”

“Apologies. I will take better care of your heart.”

Wei Ying splutters at him, blushing. “What the hell did I do to you?”

“You make me happy.”

Wei Ying’s forehead acquaints itself with the bar again. It’s actually very fun, realizing he can fluster Wei Ying. He wishes it wasn’t just Being Sincere and Nice that does it, but it’s not like Lan Zhan has room to talk. He’s smitten over the fact that Wei Ying isn’t actually asking him for anything.

They’re both hopeless, but at least they’re hopeless together.

“We should get ready to go. The traffic will be heavy, and we’ll want to eat outside of the museum.”

“We’re eating out?”

“I will pack for us. I don’t eat museum food. It’s like if a middle school cafeteria were run by Ebeneezer Scrooge.”

“Gross.”

“Indeed. Finding places I can eat is difficult, anyway.”

Lan Zhan doesn’t blink when he finds an outfit laid out for him on his bed, though he does sigh loudly. It’s not even bad. Nie Huaisang dismantled the jacquard jumpsuit, pulling some kind of witchcraft to turn them into a fresh pair of wide-leg pants and pairing it with a loose white silk shirt with billowy sleeves. The shoes, mercifully, are good-quality mules.

“Aren’t we… walking around? In like, a downtown type of deal?”

“D.C. is very clean.”

“Not soaked in urine and infested with rats?”

“It is most definitely still infested with rats, but not soaked in urine.”

“Wild!”

Wei Ying is to be dressed more casually: distressed black jeans and a slouchy red sweater with one of those stretchy chokers every girl had in 5th grade - and that Lan Huan had in 10th. 

“The choker is a bit much. Do you think Huan-ge would miss this sweater?” 

“I never saw Huan wear that sweater. He probably had to sneak it out. Shufu would never let him leave the house with a bare shoulder like that.” Lan Zhan huffs. “We look like tourists.”

“I look like a middle school girl’s alt phase. You look too good for me.”

“Disagree.”

“Yeah… the domestic gothcore slut look works for me, huh?”

It does.

He should thank Huaisang, actually. He doesn’t remember owning these clothes, but the blouse and pants look nice on him, and they’re comfortable. Wei Ying also looks comfortable. The shoulder of the sweater slips down, showing off the strap of the thin black tank top underneath and an expanse of shining brown skin.

His brother is not getting that sweater back.

“Are these really your brother’s old clothes?”

“Mn. He had a well-documented emo phase.”

“Eyeliner?”

“To excess.”

Wei Ying’s cackle is like music, like air, as he tugs Lan Zhan into the bathroom. This leads to yet another novel experience, watching as Wei Ying gently unbraids and combs out all Lan Zhan’s hair.

“So pretty. C-Drama hair for real.”

Lan Zhan does think his hair is pretty. It’s long, long enough that he has to shift to avoid sitting on it, and it’s thick and dark as ink. He’s always been a bit vain about it. When he was a child, all his classmates wanted to touch it, and the girls wanted to practice styling on it. When he transitioned, people would ask him when he planned to cut it.

Like he could ever do something like that.

Wei Ying gently pulls half of his hair up and back, twisting it into a full-size bun and securing it with a French pin.

“Do you want me to do something with the rest? Or do you want to leave it?”

“Leave it. It will be too heavy to pin it all up. I’ll get a headache.”

Wei Ying hums, gently fingering the soft locks. “It feels so nice.”

“Mn.”

Wei Ying does not offer his own hair the same courtesy, running wet hands through it until it curls back into formation and calling himself done. One day, Lan Zhan is going to introduce this man to a conditioner.

The drive is nice, once Lan Zhan manages to extricate them from smug family members. Traffic is already wretched despite the early hour, but Wei Ying shows him some of his favorite songs and chatters over the music, and the hills are beginning to take on autumn color.

Even parking in the garage isn’t terrible, and Lan Zhan indulges Wei Ying in acquiring a reloadable transit card instead of just paying for the round trip through the app.

“Souvenir!!!”

“You know they have a gift shop, right?”

“ Free souvenir! What am I gonna do, pay $25 for a copy of The Light Eaters or something? $40 for a t-shirt? Forget it! I want a transit card!”

Wei Ying skips down the sidewalk to wait for the train, waving his ‘free’ souvenir around like a trophy. It’s embarrassingly adorable, even as snooty D.C. folks give him odd looks and tourists stare in bewilderment. Lan Zhan doesn’t care.

Wei Ying is giddy all through the train ride, ooh-ing and ah-ing over the intercom announcements and admiring the brick tunnels as they go.

“It’s so clean!” he gasps. “Lan Zhan, it’s so cool!”

“Mn.” He sends a vicious glare to a girl in the dark academia-esque D.C. fashion, and she looks away with a roll of her eyes.

Upon their exit, Wei Ying takes his arm, clinging to him as he gasps at random bits of architecture and signs about exhibits. 

“You weren’t kidding about the cleanliness,” Wei Ying murmurs, staring at the clean sidewalk. “There aren’t even any gum stains!”

“Mn.”

“Wow. It’s just- Wow, Lan Zhan… It’s a whole different world here.”

The museum is crowded, noisy, and full of parents with young children, groups of smelly middle school children, and very few lone adults.

“Don’t we need to like, make a ‘donation’ or get a badge or something?”

“No. We can just walk in.”

“Just… walk in?”

“Mn.”

“That’s crazy.”

“It’s the way it should be.”

“Got me there.”

The museum is huge, and even if they didn’t have anything else to do today, they wouldn't be able to see everything. Lan Zhan didn’t even bother to try and see the African American History Museum. That’s easily a 2-3 day event. He’ll bring Wei Ying back another time for that. In the meantime, Wei Ying is trying to chat with a group of other adults around their age, but they’re not buying.

“Wei Ying.”

“Lan Zhan! This is-” But they’re already gone. “Oh. Huh, that’s weird.”

“What’s weird?”

“Nothing. Nevermind.”

Wei Ying is quiet for a long moment, looking a little lost.

It’s true. People here are aloof and privileged and they don’t have the hospitality or social eagerness that many in the South do. Wei Ying is social and friendly by nature. It only makes sense that he feels off-kilter.

“Don’t let it get to you. It’s nothing personal,” Lan Zhan promises. “People are just different here.”

“Right. Yeah.” Wei Ying takes his arm, obviously a little put off, that enthusiasm more subdued.

Lan Zhan thinks of the trio of D.C. natives, the girl on the train, the woman in the grocery store. He thinks of them, and of Wei Ying, and of himself. He is one of these people- aloof, smug, concerned more with the individual than the people around them. Wei Ying doesn’t fit here. He doesn’t belong. The soft, warm bubble of Lan Zhan’s childhood home is very different from the polished sidewalks and manicured lawns and invisible-but-definitely-prevalent rats.

“What would you like to see first?” he asks, hoping to tug his date back out of that turtle shell.

“You pick.”

Lan Zhan picks the ‘What does it mean to be human?’ exhibit, which covers human evolution. Wei Ying whispers over the exhibits, explaining the evolution of human digestion and musculature so well that one tourist asks if he is an anthropologist.

“No,” Wei Ying shrugs. “I'm a mortician. It’s kind of the same thing though, a little bit.”

The tourist looks a bit unnerved by this answer, and tugs his young child away.

“I’m surprised there isn’t more about the Denisovans,” Lan Zhan whispers.

“Oh, well we don’t actually know if the Denisovans are really a thing. All we’ve got are a few tiny bits- not enough to know for sure. We know more about Homo naledi , even though people never talk about them.”

“What do you know about them?” Lan Zhan asks, watching Wei Ying stare at a bust of a neanderthal woman who has matted long hair.

“They buried their dead.”

Lan Zhan will not get emotional about funerals that took place over 150,000 years ago. He will not.

“Hey, why do these hack artists always make prehistoric women with ratty-ass matted hair? It’s so rude. Like, maybe they braided their hair. Maybe they kept it long. Maybe they used the teeth of animals to cut it. In parts of the Amazon, indigenous people cut their hair with piranha jaws.”

“I don’t know. We should complain to the director. Justice for Lucy.”

“Lucy was an australopithecus, baby.”

“Fine. Let’s name her then.” Lan Zhan gazes at the head bust of the ancient prehistoric woman. “Louise.”

“Louise.”

“Mn. It suits her.”

“Don’t worry, Louise. We’ll handle this.” Wei Ying smothers his laughter into Lan Zhan’s arm.

Once they make their way out of the hall, Wei Ying tugs him through the prehistoric and modern oceans exhibits, mourning the fact that trilobites no longer exist and bristling like a cranky cat as a woman next to him starts whispering to her children about how Megalodon could still exist.

“That’s literally not true,” Wei Ying hisses. “ Megalodon teeth are all fossilized, and we know they lived in similar ways to great whites! We would know if they still existed! They’d team up with the orcas to destroy billionaires’ yachts!”

“I know.” Lan Zhan pats his hand, trying not to show his amusement.

“It’s just as likely that the Easter Bunny exists as Megalodon!”

“There are children present,” Lan Zhan scolds from behind a growing smile. Wei Ying just pouts.

“Yeah, I know…” Wei Ying sighs, snuggling closer. “Are you having fun?”

“Mn.”

“Wanna go see that big rock?”

“Sure.”

The rocks and minerals hall is always fun for Lan Zhan: full of interesting shapes and colors that glitter in the precise lighting. Middle school kids stinky with puberty and their harried teachers swarm around an enormous amethyst that invites people to touch and people fight to get a photo of the different gemstones without a glare.

The Hope Diamond is actually a little more impressive than he remembers it being when he was a child. A large, deep blue stone set with white diamonds, the Hope Diamond itself glitters darkly in the spotlight as it rotates over and over. There's something about it that truly does seem sinister and mysterious, even ignoring the vague history of the gemstone detailed on the wall.

“It’s actually really cool, for a gigantic blood diamond. Like that thing came out of the Earth,” Wei Ying whispers. “Earth made that from heat and some scraps lying around like a billion years ago. Pretty badass, right?”

“Mn.”

It actually is badass when he thinks of it like that, instead of just a big rock that’s passed through the hands of many greedy people. 

After another swarm of children elbow their way toward the display case, Lan Zhan leads Wei Ying downstairs to the crowded cafeteria. He buys him a slightly acrid-smelling coffee for too much money and some disappointing tea for himself, and settles down to unpack their lunch.

“I apologize for not taking you out to lunch,” Lan Zhan says, raising his voice to be heard over the din. “With my dietary restrictions, I do not trust most places to provide food that is safe for me to eat.”

Wei Ying squeezes his hand. “It's fine, Lan Zhan. I promise it's fine.”

Their packed lunch is probably better than the cafeteria food, anyway, judging by a very sad-looking vegetarian burger a man across the way is chewing on.

Lan Qiren packed for them: rice, stir-fried vegetables and tofu, and four jiandui, two filled with lotus paste and two filled with red bean paste.

“Laoshi made this?”

“Mn. He has way too much time on his hands, clearly.” Not that he's complaining, biting one of the jiandui in half to reveal sweet, nutty, dark red bean paste. His uncle very, very rarely let them have treats as children. Some of Lan Zhan's favorite memories are Huan and Mingjue picking him up from school to go get fruit tea or sorbet or to pick out mochi and candy at H-Mart.

He'd hover behind Mingjue and watch him walk and stand and speak and try his best to mirror him.

“You're very deep in thought over that little donut hole, Lan Zhan.”

“Jiandui. They're called jiandui.”

“Jiandui,” Wei Ying whispers more slowly. His tones are slightly off, but it's still a beautiful thing to hear. “They're delicious.”

“I will ask Shufu to send you home with the recipe.”

“I'm not a foster kid anymore, Lan Zhan.” It's said without malice, but tentative, a flinch.

“You have left an imprint on our family nonetheless.” Lan Zhan pushes a piece of tofu over to him. “We are happy to share what we have with you, the same way you have shared with us.”

Wei Ying nods, slow and thoughtful. He gazes around at the cafeteria: children and families, tourists in their colors, locals in their dark shades and tweeds and penny loafers.

“You know, last night, when we were together in your bed, I thought about what it might be like to live in a place like this. So beautiful and clean and proper… I don't fit here, Lan Zhan. I'm not that kind of person.”

“I know.” Lan Zhan passes the other half of the last jiandui over. “You're too good for these… what does Huaisang keep calling them?”

“Muckety-mucks?”

“Mn. Those.” Lan Zhan sighs. “We should go home tomorrow. See what's left.”

“Yeah.” Wei Ying takes his hand over the table. “If we get there, and we're homeless or-or whatever, we're going to take care of each other, okay? I didn't come all this way and start falling for you just so that we could leave each other to our own devices the moment we pull in your driveway.”

“Mn. Agreed.”

“It's been fun here, but I'm ready to dip if you are.”

“No butterfly pavilion?”

“No thanks, I'll take you to my old fosters’ place in Ocala. They own a ranch and it's chock full of bugs in their natural habitat. And the gardens at the Natural History Museum in Gainesville are better.”

“I'll be the judge of that.” 

Lan Zhan gets up from his seat, still holding Wei Ying's hand. He thinks of this place, an old building full of ancient things, built on ancient land, with its massive library and pristine sidewalks and boulevards and excessive landscaped lawns. He spent every weekend of his childhood at museums, libraries, gardens, and children's events. Lan Qiren built them a wondrous life of knowledge and curiosity here. But it’s a very small part of the world, and Lan Zhan doesn’t fit in it anymore.

They end up walking for a while down the Mall past the sculpture gardens, past food trucks and the loneliest stray napkin of all time, which pedestrians pass until Wei Ying stomps on it with his boot and tosses it in the nearby trash can, turning before they can cross to the National Gallery of Art.

Wei Ying releases his hand, sliding up to take his arm again. “This is nice. We should do stuff like this when we go back.”

“Mn. There are many parks in the area, and the Riverwalk.”

“University Campuses.”

“Botanical gardens.”

“And they’re green all year round.”

Lan Zhan snorts, and they carry on, circling their little section of the mall before heading back to the Metro station. They sit together on the train, and Wei Ying giggles when the intercom announces ‘Foggy Bottom’, and it’s so… evolutionary, somehow. Lan Zhan knows that he’s never going to live in Manassas, Virginia again, but he knows he can’t stay in Florida either.

“If I leave Florida when I finish school, would you consider coming with me?” he asks, tipping his head against Wei Ying’s.

“Where would you want to go?”

“Not sure. The Midwest somewhere, maybe. Or New England. Somewhere.”

“Sure, if we like, fall in love or whatever. Yeah. I'd probably go with you. I can live anywhere.”

“Would you want to?”

“I don't know. It depends on if you're someone I want to start over with.”

“Hm.” Lan Zhan tips his head to rest against Wei Ying’s, breathing in the scent of his cheap shampoo. “I hope I can be.”

“I hope so too, gege.” Wei Ying’s calloused thumb brushes over Lan Zhan's skin where their hands are laced between them. “Just keep being you, and I have a good feeling about us.”

Us.

They reach their stop, still linked until they get back to Lan Zhan's car.

“Thanks for letting me drag you out here.”

“You did not drag me. We drove.”

Wei Ying laughs into his shoulder, and it sounds a little sad, like some kind of magic has worn off.

I'm not going anywhere. I'll prove it to you.

“Shufu said you're forbidden to cook dinner tonight.”

“That's sweet of him. I hope he makes bread. He said he'd give me some starter.”

“Mn. That will be good.”

Lan Zhan helps Wei Ying into the car before climbing in himself. He lets Wei Ying pick the music, and they crawl through traffic listening to Mega Mango's small discography before switching to MOTHICA. 

“You know something?” Wei Ying says, turning down the radio just a bit.

“What?”

“This is still better than Tampa traffic.”

“They can’t possibly fix 275 fast enough.”

“You think they’re fixing it? I thought they were trying to make it worse.”

Lan Zhan snorts. It’s definitely hard to tell. “They narrowed the exit for Ashley Drive and Jefferson down to one lane.”

“And I resent them for that. I went downtown to renew my license and I was late because of it. I had to wait three hours for an opening, and only because I cried for the clerk.”

“You cried?”

“I’m very cute, Lan Zhan. My puppy eyes can accomplish anything. I’d already been driving with it expired for two months, I just didn’t want to have to come back another day.”

“I’m amazed you didn’t get caught.”

“I’m a very good driver, by necessity.”

“Ah, that’s all it takes?”

“If you’re lucky, and I was.” Wei Wuxian grins, proud of his not getting caught. “That’s just how it is sometimes, Lan Zhan. SNAP, food pantries, farming- I’m so glad to live in that shitty house now. I have room to grow food. I eat mostly for free.”

“How did you get your seeds?”

“Oh, you can buy seeds and plants with SNAP as long as they can be used to grow food.”

“I thought it was just food.”

“Mostly, yeah… Lost SNAP last year when I went full-time at my apprenticeship. That sucked. Now I work sidejobs for different folks.”

“I’ll pay you to put my solar panels back up.”

“You silly fool. I’d have done it for free, but now~” Wei Ying waggles his eyebrows, grinning wide.

“I am betrayed.”

“What if I told you I’ll climb on your roof shirtless and impress you with my electrical skills and brute strength?”

“Assuming my camping chair is intact and still in my house, I’ll sit outside and watch.”

“If you oggle, you gotta pay extra.”

“I’ll cook you dinner.”

“What? No way! I’ve been working hard to establish that as my thing!”

“We will cook dinner together and watch a movie.”

“Deal!” Wei Ying leans over the console, kissing his cheek. Lan Zhan’s ears burn.

Back home, Wei Ying wiggles out of his borrowed boots and trots upstairs to say hi to Shufu, though not before giving Lan Zhan another kiss.

Lan Zhan slips downstairs to change into something more suitable to loafing about the house, but catches a bit of conversation on his way back up.

“-a starter home. But when my brother left the boys with me, I decided to stay. They could grow up quietly here, and they needed that.”

“You really raised them all by yourself?”

“Yes. Not as well as I could have, but fortunately they turned out wonderfully anyway.”

“Well that doesn’t happen by accident, Laoshi. I’m sure you did better than you think.”

“I’m glad you think so. Please put the dutch oven in the oven and preheat to 425 degrees.”

Lan Zhan considers going upstairs, but decides against it. Shufu can give whatever heart-to-shovel talk he wants, and Lan Zhan will count on Wei Ying to be normal about it. Instead, he sits on the living room floor with Bichen and Wangji while his brother lounges behind him.

“You can sit on the couch. Mingjue and Huaisang are at the store.”

“Mn.” Lan Zhan runs a hand down Wangji’s back. “We are going home tomorrow.”

“You won’t stay longer?”

“It is best we go soon. We will need to ascertain the condition of our homes.”

“If you’re sure. I was hoping to have more time with you.” Huan pulls the pin from Lan Zhan’s hair, massaging his scalp. “It’s a rare treat to have everyone together like this.”

“Mn.”

“Wei Ying fits in well.”

“...”

“You should keep him around.”

“I plan to.”

“Good.”

Lan Zhan climbs up onto the couch and lays his head in his brother’s lap. It’s one of those things he used to do as a young child and never grew out of. It doesn't feel strange or childish or feminine to him. Being close with his brother feels natural, like breathing.

Huan drops a piece of popcorn in his mouth, and that feels natural too.

“I got kicked out of the kitchen, as promised.” Wei Ying lifts Lan Zhan’s legs and flops down on the couch, pulling them back into his lap. Lan Zhan hums at the delight this exerts on his spine. He hisses when Wei Ying shoves his needle-y little fingers directly into the arch of his foot, working out a knot with vicious precision.

“Ouch, gege. You walk on these?”

“They’re the only pair I have.”

Wei Ying laughs, but doesn’t ease up. Lan Zhan breathes through half an episode of Schitt’s Creek before the pain eases and bliss sets in, only for Wei Ying to switch to the other foot a few minutes later.

By the time the onslaught has abated, the house smells like sourdough bread. Wei Ying is still slouched on the couch, thumb brushing over Lan Zhan’s calf. Lan Huan is still playing with his hair. David Rose is learning what a ‘write off’ is. Wangji hops up onto the couch and wiggles in between Lan Zhan and the back of the couch while Bichen flops down on his chest.

Mingjue and Huaisang arrive home, hauling bags of groceries. They deposit the bags in the kitchen and come back with bottles of moringa lavender and berry hibiscus kombucha, pouring glasses as requested. Lan Zhan sits up to make room for Mingjue to wedge himself into the corner of the couch and steal his brother for a while.

“Why am I always on the floor,” Huaisang whines.

“‘Cuz you’re the baby,” Mingjue drawls, lips brushing against Huan’s temple.

Normally, Lan Zhan is happy to take the floor, enjoys floor time with his currently displaced bunnies, but this time, he cuddles up to Wei Ying, smirking at his dramatic younger brother.

“You betray me like this?! After everything I’ve done for you, Zhan-ge?”

“Your sacrifices are duly noted. If you stop whining, Bichen might sit in your lap.”

“Traitorrrrrr. Come here, Bichen! Come sit in your uncle’s lap!”

Bichen regards Huaisang’s grabby hands and whining tone and chooses to sit with her sister on a low-set heating pad.

“The princesses have spoken. Sorry Huaisang,” Wei Ying laughs, his arm slipping around Lan Zhan’s shoulders.

Huaisang sighs, sitting up against the couch on the floor, and lets Huan brush tangles out of his short brown hair.

It costs Lan Zhan nothing, not even dignity, to settle into that gentle hold. Into this space with his siblings, tucked against his future in an embrace, watching silly television. He’s never been so at home in a place that isn’t home.

As Lan Qiren sits on the ottoman for a little while, watching with them, Lan Zhan tips his head to rest on Wei Ying’s shoulder. Wei Ying tugs a blanket off the back of the couch, draping it over their laps. Bichen hops back up onto the couch, sprawling over both of them. It’s everything he’s ever wished for, even if only for a few minutes.

Dinner is wonderful, if a little more quiet. Mushroom and leek risotto, seasoned with garlic and parsley and miso and a dash of tahini, served with lightly seasoned basa. Wei Ying grins with delight at the fish, squeezing a lemon over top of his bowl.

Lan Zhan rarely eats meat, but when he does, it is white fish. He doesn’t particularly care for the texture of meat, and finds the vagaries of the meat industry objectionable. But his uncle eats fish once a week under the orders of his physician, and Lan Zhan is content to join his uncle in the consumption of fish every now and then.

The risotto is delicious, creamy and salty and savory, a touch nutty, brightened by the lemon juice. The basa is everything it should be: inoffensive, soft, delicate, and mild. Lan Qiren serves the rest of the chardonnay used to make the risotto, slightly chilled. For dessert, Lan Qiren presents coconut ice cream with cardamom, incongruous with dinner but apparently something he’d made earlier on a whim.

“Are you sure you want to leave tomorrow?” Shufu asks. “You are both welcome to stay longer.”

“Mn. We don’t know what our circumstances are. Power is still down.”

“Exactly,” Shufu says. “You could both be homeless, for all you know.”

Wei Ying seems to shrink next to him.

“We will be fine, Shufu. Either way, we need to go back.”

“Very well. You will not be going empty handed, I will tell you that.”

“Of course, Shufu.” Lan Zhan smiles. “Thank you.”

Lan Qiren nods. “I’m sure that between the five of you, I don’t need to worry about cleaning up.”

Lan Zhan watches as Lan Qiren scoops Suibian up off the floor and carries her downstairs to the living room. Huaisang trots after him, giving some crap line about how he helped with the grocery shopping. Mingjue doesn’t even bother to yell at him, instead helping Huan put the leftovers away. Lan Zhan rinses the dishes and passes them to Wei Ying to load in the dishwasher. They tackle the larger pots and pans together, Lan Zhan scrubbing and Wei Ying drying and putting away.

As they make their way down to the living room, Lan Zhan can’t help but marvel at how easy it is to slip into a new routine, and new way to be. Tonight, Shufu turns on some music, and they sit and read.

“Oh, noooo!” Wei Ying giggles. “The moody dickhead fairy prince is actually a sad little meow meow! I can’t believe this twist!”

Lan Zhan leans over to see what Wei Ying is reading. “I could never have predicted this. Who would have imagined that the hot bully would also be so sad and misunderstood. Certainly not I.”

“I’m shocked!” Wei Ying drapes himself over Lan Zhan’s lap where they’re seated in front of the crackling fireplace. “Shocked, Lan Zhan! Completely bamboozled!”

“What do you think of Jude?” Lan Zhan asks, carding his fingers through Wei Ying’s unfairly soft curls.

“She thinks and acts like a teenager. So… not skilled in the Making Good Decisions Department. She kinda needs her ass beat. But you know, I think she’s interesting. She’s very much a human socialized by fae. She thinks a lot like them, relates and understands them more than humans. But she’s also super traumatized and obviously dissociating a lot. I find her… relatable.”

Lan Zhan smiles. “We can bring the books back with us. You can read them in the car.”

“Oh, I can just-”

“They’re not being read here. And we can always bring them back.” That is very much not going to happen, but so what? Wei Ying deserves to have more books. 

Wei Ying gives him a shy smile before returning to the book. Lan Zhan stares into the fire, fingers still running through Wei Ying’s locks. They’ll be all disturbed and frizzy, but he can’t help it. Shufu passes him two marshmallows on a roaster, which he accepts in silence. It really is quiet among them today, like the very house is mourning their leaving.

Like the roots of the foundation know it’s time to say goodbye.

Once the marshmallows have been slow-roasted to a dark and blistered brown, Lan Zhan plucks up a graham cracker with a piece of chocolate that has been warming at the fire’s edge. He scrapes a marshmallow off and passes the confection down to Wei Ying, who sits up to eat it. He groans with delight, a marshmallow mustache scattered with graham cracker crumbs on his upper lip. It’s adorable.

“Shufu,” Huan begins, “Please tell me you don’t eat and drink like this every day.”

“Of course not, don’t be absurd.” Shufu indulges Huaisang in a set of marshmallows. “When you boys aren’t here eating me out of house and home, I’m far more moderate in my eating habits.”

Huan’s eyes glint with humor. “I seem to remember you forbidding sweets, alcohol, boys, and pets among a million other things, and now you have all four of those things in the living room.”

“Huan-er, you brought all four of those things into this house the moment you thought I wasn’t looking. The list of things I allowed you to get away with is longer than the list of things I didn’t. For example, the sweater A-Ying is wearing right now. You kept it under the left passenger seat of the old Explorer.”

Huan gapes. Lan Zhan smirks. Wei Ying giggles, flopping back down into Lan Zhan’s lap, sticky finger in his mouth. 

Lan Zhan watches, enraptured. In his teenage years, he'd never dared be close like this with a boy. There was always something in him that warned those boys were not going to stay. Part of that was the dishonest life Lan Zhan had still been clinging to, and another part of that was simply that none of those boys had been the right kind of person. They were all stiff, aloof, professional- everything he'd valued most about himself at the time. He never would have chosen someone like Wei Ying: fun, energetic, curious, enthusiastic.

He’s barely chosen him now, really.

He ruminates on this, on the tentative, tenuous promises between them. 

Eventually, everyone is sleepy, and reluctant goodnights are shared. Wei Ying disappears into the bathroom to brush his teeth. Lan Zhan skips his yoga, changes into fresh boxer briefs, flannel pajama pants and a white cotton tee. It’s very basic man clothes, but they’re comfortable.

He's reopened his Kindle, slowly working his way through The Bone Season . He's promised himself to dedicate time to Samantha Shannon. Among the Burning Flowers comes out in less than a year, and he's not read her first series at all. He's kind of endeared while reading the prologue, which gives very strong ‘baby’s first in medias res’ vibes. It's amazing how fast her writing improved in the six years between this and Priory of the Orange Tree . He feels an odd sense of pride, years later and for a woman he will likely never know. Being a reader is, he imagines, just Like This.

“Hey.” Wei Ying’s hair is tousled where Lan Zhan was playing with it. He's wearing no shirt, a borrowed pair of flannel pajamas pants in a blue and grey plaid, a bit big on his thin frame, hanging low on his hips.

He looks delicious.

“You think your family is going to let us leave?”

“Hm. I suppose I don't really have to go back. My courses are online. I could just stay.”

“You could.” Wei Ying slips into the room, passing over a mug of green tea before wiggling in between the blankets, turning on the heating pad to battle the chill of the half-buried bottom floor. “I could find my own way back okay. I'd figure it out.”

He's smiling, soft and warm, a little cracked around the edges, and Lan Zhan knows he'd do it. He'd hitch-hike or backpack back to Florida, vanish into the hills and highways, and send Lan Zhan a selfie from a Buc-ee’s bathroom stall somewhere in South Carolina with his cats on his shoulders.

“But…” Lan Zhan sets his Kindle aside, frowning. “I've come to realize that this isn't the place for me, anymore. This house, this neighborhood. I don't belong anymore. I don't know if I ever have. I don't know if I belong anywhere.”

“Everyone belongs somewhere, Lan Zhan.”

“I'm not. Like you. I don't make friends easily. I don't find places to belong wherever I am.”

“That sounds very sad,” Wei Ying acknowledges. “But you know… it's not so bad, knowing that a place isn't your home. It just means you're on an adventure. I mean, I've been on an adventure almost my entire life, and look where I am right now. Here, with you. Isn't that something? Isn't that wonderful?”

Wei Ying gently rests his head on Lan Zhan's shoulder, smiling into his shirt. It is wonderful. It is so wonderful and Lan Zhan wants to keep this so badly it hurts and howls somewhere deep inside.

Draining the last of his tea, Lan Zhan sets his mug and Kindle aside on the nightstand, sliding down the bed to rest his head on Wei Ying's shoulder. Wei Ying lays his cheek on top of his head, pressing a kiss to his crown.

His cheek is soft against Lan Zhan's head, and Lan Zhan finds that the space beneath his pointy chin is a very nice place to hide when feeling overwhelmed. So he tucks himself there, breathing in the scent of Wei Ying's skin, and lets all the rawness of the day leak out of his eyes.

Find home with me, he wishes.

This whole trip has been an adventure. He’s both refreshed and exhausted somehow. He feels clarity and uncertainty.

“Wei Ying?”

“Hm?” The slim man presses the cold tip of his nose to the soft spot beneath Lan Zhan's ear.

“I really like you, Wei Ying.”

“I really like you too.” But it sounds less excited than Lan Zhan would hope for.

“But?”

“I worry about the imbalance between us. What that would feel like and look like when we go back to our regular lives. I basically let you spirit me away on a vacation because it was either that or possibly death . I am really poor. Like, really poor. And you are…”

“A beloved and bespoilt trust fund baby?”

“Yeah.” Wei Ying sighs. “I'm too proud to let you just buy my life for me. And what if we break up? What would I do? I'd have nothing. ”

“Those are valid concerns.”

“But I also recognize that being with you could make me very happy… Do you think you could let me struggle and hurt as I have been, knowing me now?”

Lan Zhan sighs. “No.”

“Yeah.”

“Your house is not safe to live in. I saw the mold. You could move into my spare room until you find yourself more firmly on your feet. I could charge you rent. We could divide chores and expenses and labor. That would benefit me, as well. Having a second person to manage the load of being alive. You would not be charity, then. More like a roommate that I could, perhaps, occasionally take on dates.”

“And kiss?”

“In myriad places and locations.” Lan Zhan smiles and waits for Wei Ying to stop giggling into his hair, nose pressed into his scalp. “Would that be acceptable, do you think?”

“.... It would help me get some savings together. Fuck, my house did not survive Milton. Oh man, I'd be in some serious shit if I was there right now.”

“Mn. And your babies would be there too.”

“They do get along with the rabbits… What if we do break up?”

“I will be devastated and unable to bear living in that little house without you. I will leave, and you can pay rent to Shufu.”

“Oh God he'd ruin my life!”

“No he won't. It would make me sad if he ruined your life. I would give him the ‘sad little A-Zhan face’ and he would behave.”

“I knew there was a face!” Wei Ying pushes himself up onto his elbow, leaning over him with a grin. “You sneaky man!”

“Mn. Of course. You will not be immune.”

“No, I imagine not.” Wei Ying searches his face. “It might hurt my pride and break my heart, but I really want to try with you.”

“If it makes you feel any better, I don't like sharing my space and I'm annoyingly particular about where I put all my things.”

“Ooh, so we're both gonna get super annoyed with each other. Let's do it.”

“ That's what convinces you?”

“That and I wanna see what our book collection looks like when it's all together.”

“Mn. Good point.” Lan Zhan cuddles closer. “I bet we'll have to do double rows on the shelves.”

“Oooh. Fiction by author last name, and I assume you want to use LOC call numbers for our nonfiction?”

“It would be my preference, if that is agreeable to you.”

“It certainly is. Do you know the call numbers off the top of your head?”

“Not entirely, but I have them mostly memorized. I have Dewey memorized too, so I can criticize it properly.”

“Fuck that's so hot.”

Lan Zhan huffs out a short laugh and lets Wei Ying kiss him. His fingers weave into those soft curls, shifting onto his back and pulling Wei Ying with him. Wei Ying hums, smiling into his mouth, those spindly, calloused fingers so gentle against his cheek, pushing hair back away from his face. He tastes like toothpaste, smells like chocolate and cinnamon. He feels like the pull of a warm tide.

When Wei Ying pulls away, he's smiling, breath coming short and a little fast against Lan Zhan's temple.

“You’re so handsome, Lan Zhan. So beautiful. So smart. I'm afraid I want too much.”

“You could never,” Lan Zhan murmurs, eyes fixed on Wei Ying's plush, chapped lips. 

He turns his head to kiss Wei Ying's warm palm, nose brushing against his skin. Wei Ying kisses his forehead. As they settle into the mattress, Wei Ying yawns, and Lan Zhan hears his jaw crack. It's oddly charming, some deeply human thing. Lan Zhan stretches his legs out until they tremble with the tension, then lets them fall limp. 

The cats climb up as he turns off the lamp, settling themselves into the curves of their curled bodies. Lan Zhan is going to have this. He's going to earn it. He's going to dig deep into himself and carve out of space and plant this moment there like a seed. He's going to nurture it with sunlight and vegetable gardens and embraces in the light of the oven overhead and hot tea on hot mornings and skin sticky with humidity and the sound of blooming azaleas in the wind.

Chapter Text

Shufu fusses over them through breakfast (congee again, to everyone’s delight), through two hours of final laundry (and folding), packing up their pets (and an unbelievably scattered toy collection), their books (they came with none, and now-!), their odds and ends (also multiplied while he wasn’t looking). Lan Zhan frowns as he peers into the crowded back seat of his car, noting two extra duffel bags and a pile of blankets in the backseat.

“Shufu, what is all that?”

“Make sure A-Ying takes them, won't you?”

“I will.”

Back in the house, Wei Ying is rolling up a threadbare tee and stuffing it in his backpack. Lan Zhan glances at the duct tape holding it together, the laptop still tucked inside. Wei Ying glares at the backpack, then at a stack of old paperbacks- the books Lan Zhan told him to bring back with them.

“We can put them on the floor. Don't worry about it.”

“Oh, but I don't want to put your books on the floor! That's not right!”

“Books are made to be handled. And sometimes mishandled. Really don't worry about it.”

“If you're sure.” Wei Ying looks up, biting his lip. “It's really okay for me to bring them?”

“Mn.”

“You know, I saw Laoshi trying to sneak your old clothes into your car.”

“Yes.” Lan Zhan sits next to him on the stairs leading up to the kitchen. “They're for you.”

“Ha.” It's an odd, sardonic sound, and it feels wrong how easily it seems to fit coming out of his mouth. “I wish he wouldn't. I've been a guest this whole time. I don't want to be charity too.”

“You can't preach about how much we all need to take care of each other, and then dig your heels in when someone tries to take care of you.”

Wei Ying starts whining about how unfair it is for him to speak such truths, so Lan Zhan leans over and kisses him on the mouth just long enough to get him quiet again. When he pulls away, Wei Ying’s dark eyes are wide, cheeks pink beneath his tanned brown skin. 

“I-”

“... Will accept the clothes, and the blankets, and whatever else Shufu has decided to pawn off on you because he keeps forgetting to take it to the thrift store. And you will smile and say thank you and like it.”

He kisses Wei Ying’s nose and slips down into the bottom of the house, checking the bathroom to make sure they got everything.

When he gets to his old room, Huan is sitting on the bed, looking around.

“Remember when we first came here?”

“Not really,” Lan Zhan admits.

“It was so late it was early. Father opened the house, brought us downstairs, to what used to be a guest bedroom. He tucked us into bed… and he left.”

Lan Zhan sits back. He doesn't remember the part where his father left. He only vaguely remembers waking up with his brother, confused, unsure where they were, wandering the house in search of their father. He distinctly remembers them scaring the living daylights out of their uncle, who in turn scared the living daylights out of them.

“I remember… feeling adrift.”

And what a familiar feeling it is. On impulse, Lan Zhan opens his old cedar armoire, weathered wood carved with vines and flowers and insects.

Inside, a little musty and limp, are the remnants of his former life. Soft, floaty skirts and dresses, a red qipao, a few silk blouses, a set of black heels, a jewelry box, and a battered old cigar box that, when he arrived in this house, had contained all the little baubles and accessories his mother had garnished him with back when he was her ‘little girl'.

He pulls out the box, sitting crosslegged on the old carpet, and lifts the lid. It creaks, and the barely-still-there scent of tobacco brings him back. Little plastic hair bands and thin elastics with plastic baubles shaped like cherries and snap barrettes that sparkled with glitter- all smelling sweetly of tobacco.

The little hair accessories are gone now. Instead, the cigar box is full of old photographs.

“Didi? What are you looking at?”

“Old things.”

Lan Zhan lifts up the last photograph anyone took of him in women's clothes: a beautiful blue silk cheongsam, with a silver comb holding up half his hair. In the one just behind that one, he's wearing his high school graduation gown and cap, the collar of the cheongsam peering over the navy blue polyester. He looks so unfamiliar to himself. His eyes are dull, his skin colorless, standing demure and obedient for the camera.

Lan Huan slips off the bed to kneel next to him, smiling down at the pictures.  “Hm. I didn't realize how unhappy you were. You seem so much more alive now.”

“The unhappiness came slowly. It is not your fault.”

Lan Zhan thumbs his way through the photos. Graduation, holidays, vacations, yearly photos at JCPenney, outings and school competitions, all secreted away.

“Where did all of these come from?”

“I stole them,” Lan Zhan admits, bypassing one of him in a bikini. “Shufu replaced them with others later.”

“I thought you destroyed those ones.”

“No. It felt wrong.”

Shufu took every photo of him and Huan that exists in this house. Every last one. He couldn't bear to look at these photos, but he couldn't bear to destroy that love, either.

Beneath the photos, sliding around in the dust at the bottom of the cigar box, is a single Polaroid of their mother and father. They're smiling. Huan sits in their father's lap, and a baby Lan Zhan stares out seriously from his place in their mother's arms. 

Their faces are like strangers to him. His father is reserved but serene like moonlight, and his mother smiles bright as the sun. If it weren't for his own tiny face staring out at him, these two people wouldn't mean anything to him at all.

Beneath the old Polaroid is a small engagement ring, just a modest gold band with a single solitaire diamond. He picks it up. It's too small for his finger. It doesn't even go halfway.

“What is that?” Huan asks, staring at the small stone. 

“Mother's ring. Shufu gave it to me. It was meant to be mine one day, but he gave it to me in case I wanted to give it to someone else.”

“And… What are you doing with it?”

“I'm not sure. I just wanted to see it.”

“Maybe you'll use it one day.”

“Hm. Maybe.” Lan Zhan puts the ring back in the box, settles the photographs, and slides it back into recesses of the armoire. “But for now, I'll just take this.”

Lan Zhan pulls out the silk blouse and jacquard overalls from yesterday, folding them carefully.

“I'll have them dry cleaned when we get home.”

“I really wish you would stay longer. We’ve missed you.” Lan Huan sighs. “Come visit us. I think you would like Minneapolis.”

“Mn, I will.”

“Bring Wei Ying.”

“Of course.” Lan Zhan looks up at his brother. “I think I intend to keep him.”

“Good.” Huan smiles, that warm, doting Big Brother Smile that rankled in his adolescence but now makes him want to burrow inside his brother and build a nest there. But if he does that impossible thing, he’ll lose his chances at doing the other impossible thing: keeping Wei Ying.

Lan Zhan hands the silk to his brother and drags his blue muslin blanket off his childhood bed. He folds it from corner to corner, edge to edge. After a moment’s hesitation, he lays the folded blanket back on the end of the bed. He leaves it there, leading his brother out of the room and closing the door. A promise to return.

Wei Ying is still sitting on the stairs, petting his cats. He grins when he sees them.

“Ready to go?”

Lan Zhan smiles. “Mn.”

Huaisang tackles him on the way to the car. “Come visit again soon! Soon er this time, okay?”

“Okay.” It’s easy to promise this. He hugs his younger brother back. “Apply yourself to something.”

“Yeah, yeah. I’m gonna sew pretty things and flash my toes on Twitch while playing video games and make more money than you ever will, Mr. Librarian.”

Painfully true.

“If you don’t come visit,” Mingjue rumbles, dragging Huaisang away to snag a hug of his own, crushing Lan Zhan in a steel embrace, “I’ll fly down there and drag you back. Don’t think I won’t.”

“Would never,” Lan Zhan mumbles into Mingjue’s huge shoulder. “I’ll come for Christmas.”

“You better.” When Mingjue draws away, he settles a hand the size of a spade on top of his head like he’s still a little boy, and Lan Zhan resists the instinct to duck his head and lean in like a little kitten.

Before Mingjue has even removed his hand, Huan’s on him, stuffing the silks back into his arms and squeezing the life out of him, stroking his hair, and he really does feel like a little kitten. Is he… a spoiled baby brother?

Whatever, it gives him leave to tuck his face into his brother’s collarbone for a moment, breathing in the scent of jasmine. 

“Keep being you,” Huan whispers. Huaisang gags and calls him an old sap, but Lan Zhan just hums an affirmative before pulling away.

“Drive safe,” Shufu tells him, words short and more stern than Lan Zhan’s heard since he arrived. “Switch regularly. And here.” He shoves a cooler into Lan Zhan’s arms. “Food, so you don’t starve.”

“Thank you, Shufu.” Lan Zhan gently tucks the silks into the pocket on the back of the driver’s seat and sets the cooler within reach. “I will come home for winter break, if that is alright.”

“It is. And you’d better bring this one with you.” Lan Qiren pats Lan Zhan’s head, and then Wei Ying’s cheek. 

Wei Ying beams, cheeks glowing pink. Lan Zhan’s heart threatens to gallop away from him at the sight of it. Wei Ying says his own cheerful goodbyes, full of thanks and promises to keep in touch and agreements to try to come up with Lan Zhan if he can.

It takes forever, but eventually, Lan Zhan, Wei Ying, Bichen, Wangji, Chenqing, and Suibian are all in the much fuller car, driving away. His heart aches a little at the sight of his family in the rearview mirror, waving. His silly, weak, foolish heart threatens to burst when Wei Ying takes his hand, one foot propped irreverently on the seat, The Cruel Prince fallen open on his knee. The sunlight weaves his curls into golden lace and the dappled leaves dance over and around the freckles on his brown skin. When he turns to Lan Zhan, his sun-bleached eyelashes flutter, showing all those freckles on the lids.

I’m going to keep you forever.

Chapter Text

Lan Zhan makes good on his promises.

The darkness woke him just past the Florida border, I-75 virtually abandoned, no streetlights, a black night. The ghostly silhouettes of white farmhouses with Antebellum columns and little flocks of trailers loomed out of the gloom. The shadows of fallen and torn and tangled trees lunged at them as they passed, briefly illuminated by headlights.

Even as they creeped through Tampa, through Ybor, winding their way along, the city was dark and empty save emergency vehicles parked in hotel and Walmart lots. Without power to keep their lives moving, the county of 1.5 million people was quiet as a haunting.

They lay in Lan Zhan's bed, listening to the insects and their breathing, not touching as the heat slowly crept in despite all the open windows and made its home up against the ceiling. Their pets sprawled across the tile floor in the kitchen. Their bags lay abandoned in the living room. And for only the night, nothing mattered but rest and becoming.

As Wei Ying had feared, his house was ruined. The roof fell in like wet paper. Lan Zhan helped him pull away crumpled shingles, wet insulation, and termite tunnel-ridden rafters to recover surviving jars of dried vegetables, herbs, salts, beans, and rice, the bagged up books that might have survived, and a box of seeds that he'd thought to wrap in an entire roll of saran wrap. 

He lost his job. Not because he was fired but because after Milton, the mortuary no longer existed. It had been washed away. They found out via text message, the last one they'd receive or send until the power eventually returned. Wei Ying barely blinked, face grim but resigned. He simply bent down to double knot the Docs he'd borrowed from Huan, picked up a multi-tool kit and a machete from somewhere in the rubble of his home, and got to work.

Lan Zhan had the pleasure of watching Wei Ying reconnect his solar panels, chop fallen trees with his machete, and use the jars of dried vegetables, rice, beans, and cans of Spam in his pantry to make a magnificent stew for the entire street. The woman next door made congri and enough platanos to feed several dozen people. Another neighbor brought armfuls of oranges, lemons, limes. Someone else provided water and sugar to turn them into citrusade. Lan Zhan followed Wei Ying around the neighborhood, checking on young families, old men in Republican shirts, college students, anyone and everyone he knew. It was… Well, it was extremely hot. 

They never did set up the guest room. After two months, Lan Zhan suspects it won’t happen. 

It certainly won’t be happening now, with the two of them taking up the last inch of space in Lan Qiren’s home for the holiday. Huan and the Nie brothers are already here. After a flurry of hugs and greetings, Wei Ying drops his duffel down on Lan Zhan’s bed, huffing out a panting breath. 

“Wow, they’re so much!”

“Mn.” Lan Zhan lifts his muslin blanket to his nose. It smells like his childhood detergent. A promise kept. “They will be even more, later.”

He can still feel the warm press of a dozen hugs and teases and chides against his skin. His heart swells with it.

Wei Ying grins, checking his email on his cracked phone. He never once stopped, not even when Lan Zhan felt overwhelmed by all the destruction around them. He does odds and ends now, until they return, at which point he’s starting training to be a PI. He hasn't given up on being a mortician, but he needs to wait until the mortuary’s fate is set in stone. In the meantime, he’s got a gig through a friend to start helping people file their taxes come the new year, works part-time as a social media manager for a local fashion business, and types captions for television shows and movies in his spare time. Lan Zhan loves to sit and watch whatever he’s captioning, joining him on the couch or in their bed until they’re stiff and sore.

Lan Zhan just loves him.

The days slide coolly together. Tea and walks and the African American History Museum and bonfires and kayaking and Wei Ying getting high with Hua Cheng and Xie Lian and spending an hour curled up in Lan Zhan’s lap giggling until his stomach is sore. They cook good food and Shufu fusses over them and the leeks Wei Ying managed to rescue from his ruined yard lay fat and green and aromatic on the counter. Their pets chase each other up and down the stairs and Shufu feeds the bunnies too many apple slices and the cats too many bits of dried squid. 

It’s lovely.

In their fashion since Huan started college, they exchange Christmas gifts and red envelopes on December 25 instead of waiting for New Year. Wei Ying passes everyone thrifted gifts and red envelopes full of dried herbs or seeds. Lan Zhan smiles into his red paper envelope stuffed with lavender, chamomile, and lemon balm. He kisses his love’s temple.

“I’ll make tea for us later,” he promises. 

Wei Ying only smiles. He’s all smiles, bright and surprised and alight at lovely gifts: a bloodred jacquard coat decorated with poppies from Huaisang, a drawing tablet from Huan, a bottle of homemade dandelion wine from Mingjue, and an e-reader from Lan Zhan. He’s sitting in a nest of brightly colored paper, a bow stuck in his hair, and Lan Zhan loves him so much he could die.

Only one person is left.

“Merry Christmas,” Lan Qiren gruffs, passing over a package wrapped in red paper. Wei Ying blinks at it. “And happy very early New Year.”

The box has weight to it, transferred from Shufu to Wei Ying like a small treasure. Lan Zhan can tell immediately that it’s not something his uncle picked up at a Walmart.

“I- Another one?”

“Of course. You are a part of this family, are you not?”

Wei Ying’s throat clicks as he unwraps the folded paper, revealing an old, worn wooden box, freshly varnished, the bronze placard and guards newly polished. The little placards on the top and front say ‘Recipes’ in English.

“I-” Wei Ying’s eyes glitter dangerously, and Lan Zhan scoots across the floor to slip a hand around his shoulders.

“Open it,” Lan Qiren coaxes.

Wei Ying does, finding a packet of fresh recipe cards still wrapped in thin cellophane, and a stack of unwrapped cards separated by tabs. Thin, brown fingers rifle through the paper cards, finding careful, neat handwriting in English on one side and Mandarin on the other.

“Zhan’s favorite recipes growing up, and a few of my favorites from our hometown in China. I believe it’s time for your collection to find a permanent home.”

Lan Zhan has never loved his uncle as much as he does right now, watching his sweetheart cuddle the hefty wooden box of recipes. 

“Thank you. I- ” Wei Ying sniffles. “Thank you so much.”

It goes next to the seed box on the kitchen counter where it belongs. Where it will belong in every place Lan Zhan ever lives for the rest of his life.